Dutch Uncle

by Marilyn Durham

  ‘Check you out with who this time?’

  ‘Delia. She’d know what happened yesterday.’

  ‘Delia can say anything she damn well pleases. That don’t make it so. No, this all seems to fit too neat. Everybody who knows anything about that bag just happens to be dead, except you and Delia.’

  ‘Becker, what good is it going to do me to lie to you, in the spot I’m in? I’m not going anywhere, am I? That bag is put away in some hiding place of Urraca’s, and she’s dead. I’m as good as dead. If you want to drag Delia out here and kill her, too, you’ll do it. But you’ll be stuck.’

  Becker was silent for so long that Jake had trouble keeping still himself. He began to hope his snare was going to work.

  ‘What’s that other kid’s name?’ Becker asked then.

  ‘Paco. But he doesn’t know any more about it than I do.’

  ‘It’s interesting you should put it that way. Paco,’ he mused. ‘Paco. I’ll be damned. I never gave him any study before. He’s my kid, ain’t he? Sure he is. Why, he’s even named after me! Paco, why, that’s like a nickname for Francisco, and that’s the same thing as Francis, ain’t it?’

  He laughed in delight at the discovery. Jake felt like a Judas for mentioning the boy. There was no hope of keeping Becker from following through on the thought he had obviously begun. Anything he said would make things worse.

  ‘By damn, Jake, you just did us both a big favor, bringin’ him to mind. Hey now! Why wouldn’t old Paco know somethin’ about his sister’s little hidey-holes? Don’t they play together?’

  ‘He doesn’t know. Don’t you think I asked him when it first disappeared? He helped to look, but we couldn’t find anything. That’s the truth, Becker.’

  ‘Well, maybe he’d look again for his daddy. How about that? He ought to be glad to see me, wouldn’t you think? I’m the only folks he’s got left now.’

  ‘He thinks you’re dead.’

  ‘Does he? Then he ought to be double tickled when I show up. A boy needs a daddy to show him the way to go, ain’t that right? To buy him some new boots and stick candy? That little booger — you know, I never have laid eyes on him? Does he look anything like me?’

  ‘No. I guess he looks like his mother,’ Jake muttered tonelessly. Christ! Why couldn’t he have kept his mouth shut? The last thing he wanted was to make Paco the goat for him, no matter what Becker did.

  ‘Well, I guess that figures. What comes off the tarbrush don’t wash away easy.’

  ‘Let the kid alone,’ Jake said. ‘He’s had a bad enough time in his life without adding you to it. If he is your kid you ought to think about that. Even if you could make him find that bag, the chances are somebody else like Ramey is already looking for you. If he finds you he’s apt to shoot you on the spot to make things easier for himself. Or hang you to the nearest tree and let Paco watch. That’s a hell of a treat to give your own flesh and blood!’

  ‘You kind of like old Paco, don’t you?’ Jate didn’t answer. ‘He like you, too? I bet he does, or you wouldn’t like him, right?’ He seemed to wait for Jake to say something else damning.

  ‘You know, old man, you could be right about me and that boy,’ he said softly. ‘A boy might not cotton to havin’ a jailbird for a daddy. He might not want to help out kinfoiks he’s never seen. Little boys can be right stubborn. I was myself.’ He paused again. ‘It might be that he wouldn’t do half as much for his daddy as he would for you. He was just bein’ muley with you the other time; not wanting to give away the little girl’s secrets. But if I was to bring him out here to see you now — and you asked him again — he’d think on it more serious. What do you think?’

  ‘Get me out of this goddamned hole and take me back to town! I’ll find that lousy bag of money for you! Make up any story you like about finding me beat up and robbed and I won’t deny it. I give you my word. You can stick to me night and day until it’s found, then lock me up in the jail or bring me back here when you’ve got it.’

  ‘That’s a pretty big offer,’ Becker said solemnly.

  ‘Well, what do you say?’

  ‘I say you sure as hell must like that kid a lot better than I thought.’ He chuckled at Jake’s silence. ‘Yes, sir. A kid couldn’t help but want to do what he could to please a man that thinks so much of him.’

  22

  After Becker had drawn up the ladder and left him again, Jake lost all sense of time. The pain of his ankle had grown steadily worse as it swelled in his boot, until it blotted out everything else. He broke into an icy sweat trying to pry the boot off with his other foot. It wouldn’t budge, and he was on the point of nausea when he remembered the knife in his vest pocket.

  He took it out gingerly, trying not to move his upper arms doing so. It was new and therefore difficult to open. Twice he fumbled and dropped it in the dark, and spent an agonizing time searching for it, to the detriment of his temper and his collarbone.

  When he finally got it open, and his foot propped up on his other knee to slash at, he was shaking with exhaustion. As he sawed and jabbed at the tight boot with his manacled hands he repeatedly struck himself with the knife tip. The additional hurt scarcely impinged on the agony of his swollen, throbbing foot by then. He was half ready to amputate if he couldn’t get the boot loose.

  He cut it down to the top of his foot, grabbed the front of it, and ripped it toward the toe. It came away enough that he could push it the rest of the way off with his other foot.

  After that he did nothing for a long time but sit with his legs stretched out, panting and sweating. When he tried later he found he could move the foot a little, so there was a chance it wasn’t broken, after all, but only badly sprained. He wondered what difference that made now.

  It was like the water. There wasn’t much more of it, and he was dry mouthed from the struggle. He might just as well have drained the canteen at once and had one short spell of comparative ease before the end. But he didn’t. He held himself down to one mouthful and kept the little that still tinkled in the can for later.

  There was a lot of later. He slept and waked, slept and waked again, without knowing how long the periods were. They could have been minutes or hours. The darkness became like a living thing that had swallowed him alive and kept him in its maw to digest at leisure.

  His sense of direction grew confused and twisted. At one time, half asleep, he thought he was up high somewhere instead of in a pit, and all he had to do was crawl to the shaft hole, roll himself over the edge, and drop through it. The fall would kill him, he knew, but he would be out of the dark.

  He tried to do it, wriggling along on his good side, shuddering with the effort, until he came to the place where the ladder had been; where the hole ought to be. When he rolled over on his back to rest and saw the little square of light above him instead, he could only lie there and stare at it stupidly, fighting down the feeling that he must be stuck up on the ceiling like a fly.

  He slept there for a time and woke to find the quality of the light from the hole unchanged. It was still daylight, but whether of the same day he couldn’t guess.

  He knew he was delirious when he began to think Ramey wasn’t dead. He knew it was his own breathing he heard in the dark, made a little more hollow and resonant by the empty stillness. Yet the idea persisted and grew that there was someone besides himself there, breathing at almost the same rhythm. He changed his speed and even held his breath to convince himself this was nonsense, but nothing shook the illusion until he heard himself whisper, ‘Ramey?’ with such a timid quaver that the very terror in the sound broke the idea’s hold on him.

  He lay laughing helplessly at his fear, and at the damned mess he had got himself into, and even at the ludicrous way he was going to die — not of drink, or a sore loser’s bullet, or the ills of the aged and useless, but simply of neglect; the very thing he had courted all his life. He felt better for the laughter and went back to sleep under the unreachable but comforting escape hole.

  He
dreamed about Carrie again. She didn’t come to accuse him this time, but pressed herself to him as she had done before, worrying about being naked in broad daylight. It was a serene and sunny daylight, and they were in a comfortable bed somewhere. Once more he made her give up thoughts of dressing for a time and let him love her again. He wanted her so much, and she was full of that awkward, shy hunger that had made him want her before. But he couldn’t have her. The dream wavered, blurred, and began to repeat itself impotently as he tried to force it on. She faded like some sweet reluctant succubus, and left him awake and hurting from the memory.

  He saw that the light from the world above him was much dimmer. Darkness was an abomination, but still he was glad to see the difference. Something had changed. Time was working again. He rolled over and began to work his way back to where Becker had left him, because he felt that if the man was going to return at all he’d come soon.

  As he crawled across the floor he tried to measure the distance from where the ladder would come down to where he would be propped against the wall. It wasn’t far; no more than four or five ordinary steps, if he could take them. His ankle felt much better out of the boot, and even his shoulder was numb now unless he moved it. His left arm and hand were numb, too, and felt swollen. But the rest of him ached like a rotten tooth from the cold.

  He sat against the wall and waited, half awake, until he heard scuffling noises overhead; then he let his head fall like Ramey’s, eyes closed. Under his right hand, open and hidden, was Paco’s jackknife.

  The ladder slid over the edge and hit the floor with a crack. He heard Becker talking to someone in a wheedling voice. Someone answered: Paco. He didn’t seem to want to come to the edge of the hole. Smart kid. Becker argued some more, his voice taking on the whine of reproach.

  ‘All right, stay up here, then, if that’s the kind of baby you are. I’m goin’ down to where Jake is. If you don’t want to come down and help him it’s all fine with me. But it’s gonna be dark soon, and them wolves and coyotes’ll be out for their supper. Bawlin’ and cryin’ won’t keep them off you, no, sir.’

  He started down the ladder, and when he had come five or six rungs he called out in a loud voice. ‘Jake? You still here? I brought your little pal out here to see you, but he don’t think enough of you to put his head in the door and say, “How are you?” ’

  Jake didn’t speak, but Paco, taking the bait, leaned down and sobbed fearfully. ‘Chake? Chake!’ and Becker caught him and pulled him in, choking off the boy’s alarmed cry with the strength of his grip on him. The ladder groaned as Becker wrestled him around so that, coming a few steps farther down, he could swing him out by the arm and let him drop. He didn’t fall far enough to hurt himself, but the shriek that burst out of him shook Jake.

  ‘Paco!’

  Paco sobbed in relief. ‘Tío! I can’t see you!’

  ‘Over here.’ Paco scrambled to him in an excess of joy, considering the occasion. Jake made an attempt to fend him off his own injuries and only made things worse for himself. He cried out uncontrollably as Paco fell on him and flung his arms around him.

  ‘That damn bandido said you was hurt and he was helping you! I bet be did it himself, huh, tío? Where you hurt, Chake?’

  Jake, when he could get his breath, tried to move Paco’s weight off him. He pushed the jackknife down between his legs to hide it. ‘Ease up, kid. Oh, God.’

  Paco began to cry vocally. ‘What’s the matter with you, Chake?’

  ‘I broke my shoulder, sort of— Don’t pull on me.’

  The boy began to pat Jake’s arm as he would have comforted a beleaguered dog.

  Becker scratched a match on the wall and held it up to look at them. ‘Ain’t that a picture! Glad to see us, Jake? I just bet you are. I brought us some food and more water, and’ — he produced it from a pocket ‘a candle stub. A present from Angelina. That’s where I found your little pal.’

  He lit it and set it in a spot of its own wax on the edge of the unwheeled ore wagon he used again as a seat. It was heavy enough not to rock when he sat on it.

  ‘Now, here we all are, comfy and snug. Little Pack-o and his Uncle Jake and me. Uncle’s got a little favor he wants you to do for him, Paco, so he can get out of here. You ready to tell him what it is, Jake?’ But Paco had seen Ramey in the wavering light and yelled, grabbing at Jake.

  ‘That’s nothin’ to be scared of. It’s just George,’ said Becker. ‘You ain’t scared of old George, with me and Uncle Jake here to protect you, are you?’

  ‘That’s the bandido that stayed with Mama once and made her cry. Hey, did you kill him, tío?’ He took courage from the sight of a dead enemy to lean forward and yell at the corpse. ‘You damn bastard! I’m glad my tío killed you!’

  Becker burst into a spasm of laughter at that. ‘Hey, he’s a chip off the old block after all, you know it?’

  Jake questioned him silently, and Becker shook his head, still grinning. He hadn’t told Paco who he was. When he finished chuckling, and Paco was glaring at him like a bear cub from the safer side of Jake, Becker said again, ‘You want to tell your boy what he has to do to get you out of here?’

  Jake didn’t answer at once, and Becker said with growing temper, ‘Listen here, cardsharp. I been mighty easy with you up to now. You might think you’re hurtin’, but if you give it some study you’ll see you could be a lot worse off. Right? And now you ain’t the only one, if you know what I mean. So if you’ve got anything to say to that kid, get it said, or him and me will take a little trip off together and I might bring you back a souvenir you wouldn’t like to see.’

  ‘It’ll be the same thing when you’re through with him, won’t it?’

  ‘No sirree! You both act right and do your part, and I won’t lay a hand on either of you. Word of honor!’

  ‘How do I know what that’s worth?’

  ‘Why, the same way I know what yours is worth when you tell me how that bag disappeared before you got it open. We’ll just have to see. Like in showdown poker. Now, I’ve got the high hand here, but you get one more card and it better be a good one.’

  ‘Paco,’ Jake said softly, ‘you know your mama’s traveling bag that Urraca was playing with? This man wants it. Do you think you can find where she hid it?’

  ‘That’s my mama’s bag. It ain’t his!’

  ‘It is his, and he wants it back. Now think.’

  Paco thought. ‘Maybe under Gebhardt’s, maybe under Tía Carrie’s. Hey, Chake, maybe she put it down in the silver mine we dug!’

  ‘If he takes you back to town, can you get a candle from Angelina and look there?’

  ‘If you want me to.’

  ‘And don’t make any noise, you understand? Don’t let anybody know you’re out there.’ He looked at Becker. ‘That’s impossible. He’s missing, and they’ll be looking for him.’

  ‘You just leave all the worry to me. By the time we start lookin’ everybody’ll be in the bed asleep. And if they ain’t they’ll wish they had been.’ He got up. ‘Okay, Paco, we got a two-hour ride back to town. Then we can rest up until it’s late enough that nobody’ll see us. We’ll sneak in there like a pair of Apache Injuns and find that old bag that my pappy give me when I left my happy home. It’s the last thing he ever did for me, when he give me that old bag of his. You wouldn’t want to keep me from having a keepsake like that, would you?’

  ‘How did my mama get it if it’s yours, bandido?’

  ‘Get up off your tail, kid, and don’t talk smart to me!’

  ‘What about you, tío?’

  ‘I’ll be all right until you get back.’

  ‘Sure he will, Paco. When we find that old bag we’ll put a note on the jail door telling anybody who wants to know where he is.’ He grabbed Paco by the waist and boosted him up the ladder.

  ‘I’ll tell Tío Clem when we find it,’ Paco promised Jake. Becker patted him on the rump.

  ‘Sure you will. Get on up there.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ sai
d Jake. Becker paused, three feet up the ladder. ‘You gave me your word you wouldn’t hurt the kid. What are you going to do with him if he finds what you want?’

  ‘Why, I told you. Nothing. I might even give him a little joy ride down to Mexico with me. You can’t tell, we might learn to hit it off yet.’

  Jake took a slow breath, listening for Paco. He heard the light feet slide on the stone lip of the shaft.

  ‘What if he can’t find it?’ The sound was fading. Paco was going down the slope to where the horses must be tethered.

  ‘If he don’t find it I’m going to bring him back here and peel him in front of your eyes. Or maybe I’ll peel you in front of him, depending on who I think is lying to me the most. Now you just sit back and pray he knows where to look.’

  ‘All right, you win,’ Jake sighed. ‘You bluffed me out. Come back down here and forget about him. You’d be wasting your time.’

  Becker descended one rung of the ladder, staring at him.

  ‘What are you tryin’ to pull with that “bluffed me out” stuff? You’re tryin’ a bluff right now, ain’t you? It’s wrote all over you.’

  ‘No bluff. I’ve got the money on me. I was bluffing you before, but you’re such a dumb bastard you fell for it. You’re such a dumb sonofabitch you didn’t even think to search me for it. come on over here and see! It’s in a belt around my waist. You could have had it last night without all this trouble if you had any brains. But you were too busy trying to throw a scare into me and shooting off your big mouth to think of it.’

  Becker’s foot touched ground again, cautiously. He took Jake’s gun out of his belt and leveled it at him.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to pull off, but if you so much as blink your eyes while I’m searchin’ you I’ll blow your damn head off.’

  He advanced on Jake and pulled his vest and shirt open roughly. ‘Well, I’ll be goddamned,’ he breathed. ‘You sure had me fooled. Why did you wait till now to give in?’ He unstrapped the belt and pulled it free, then laid it over his knee while he opened first one flap, then another. ‘Sonofagun, there it is.’ He looked at Jake, pleased but puzzled. ‘What do you want for this? To have me shoot you now, instead of leaving you here?’