Power in the Blood

by Greg Matthews

  It was everything Sophie Stunce loathed, this policing of the town, and it was clear to her, looking into Dugan’s dark yet cold eyes, that he, not Grover, should be in sole charge of such work.

  “Is it your intention to become marshal yourself someday, Mr. Dugan?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  Mrs. Stunce decided she would assist Dugan to replace her husband. Once out of law work, Grover would never return, not even if the office fell vacant again; Sophie would see to that.

  “You have a very determined air about you, Mr. Dugan. I believe you’ll do very well.”

  “I believe you’re right.”

  Sophie chose to ignore the possibility that she was being mocked. Despising the man would not serve her plans.

  “I won’t wait for Mr. Stunce. Please tell him I dropped by.”

  “He’ll see the basket and make that conclusion anyway, ma’am, even if I’m not here.”

  “Good day to you.”

  “And you, ma’am.”

  She slammed the door behind her. Clay wondered if he’d met an enemy or a friend. Either way, it didn’t matter. Somehow he felt impervious to all influences working upon him, for or against. The job he held was exactly right for Clay Dugan. He didn’t know why he felt it was so, assumed in a lazy fashion it was evidence of destiny at work, or some such. His sense of invulnerability, whatever its source, would serve him well in Keyhoe. There were bad men in town, inferior persons who sooner or later would step over the line and challenge him, if only to see if his ugliness masked a devil or a poor, tortured soul. He would show them which. It worried Clay not at all that he anticipated his first professional kill with serenity and certitude. If his life had any higher purpose than the one that naturally felt right, Clay couldn’t see it, and had no use for it. He practiced loading and unloading his gun until Grover Stunce returned. Clay was very fast, his huge thumbs capable of cocking both hammers simultaneously.

  11

  On the first day, he ate and drank as he pleased. On the second day, he was more prudent, recalling the fate of the Kindreds. From the moment he saw his first dawn away from the mission, Drew had felt himself charged with a newfound sense of freedom. He wished he could have taken Nail in His Feet and Bleeding Heart of Jesus along with him, but they were probably better off with Smart Crow Making Mischief, who would knock the Christian stuffing out of them lickety-split, Drew bet.

  He was on his own, and would make the best of it. He was again in the wilderness without a gun, but this time felt there was no danger. The ruts of the road were clear, obviously used every now and then; he might even be overtaken by some travelers who would allow him to join them. For the moment, though, he preferred to be alone. The twins had dogged his steps at San Bartolomeo, doing Father Zamudio’s spy work. It was better to be as he was.

  The third dawning found him less sure he had made the correct decision in simply walking away from the mission, instead of waiting for a passerby to invite him along. The road was less frequented by traffic than he had thought; maybe the ruts stayed looking fresh because there was never any rain to wash them away. He might keep going for days and still never hear the sound of hooves or wheels. It was an unsettling notion, and Drew didn’t want to lose his brave face so soon. He still had food and water left—the second goatskin was about half full—but he couldn’t deny that by the evening of the following day he would be in trouble. Until then, he would march on without a backward glance.

  The fourth day passed slowly. The path wound among eroding hills speckled with low brush and cactus. The band of Drew’s hat, formerly dark with sweat, began drying out. The water was gone, his supply of tortilla bread now a sack of crumbs, difficult to swallow without spit. He was covered from the crown of his hat to his shuffling boots with a fine dusting of alkali; the backs of his hands were gray with it, and his face; his eyes were redly rimmed, fiercely squinted against the omnipresent brightness. He wondered, for the first time, if he might die. It had not seemed a real possibility when he had Morgan for company, however demented he had been, but Drew’s solitary state made it more probable, somehow.

  That evening, lying by the side of the road as the sun set, he wanted to cry for himself, but was too dry for tears. He had not thought to steal matches from the mission, and so had no comfort or warmth from a fire; he had also neglected to steal a blanket. Each morning found him waking stiffer than the morning before from cold nights without covering. Drew decided that next time he stole, it would be with considerable forethought. If a crime was to take place, it should be well planned, a thing to be remembered later with pride. He kept the idea with him as something to entertain himself with in the deepening twilight.

  Before the Kindreds left Illinois, the newspapers had been filled with reports of the James brothers and their exploits as robbers of banks and trains. Morgan and Sylvie had expressed contempt for such rogues, and Drew had imitated their attitude, but now Morgan and Sylvie were dead, killed by their belief in something they held dear, so it was natural for Drew to set aside his earlier condemnation of Frank and Jesse and their gang, and see such desperadoes in a new light. It was only a game, this sudden acceptance of robbery as a legitimate exercise in boldness and intellect, but Drew toyed with it for a long time, wishing himself an associate of the Missouri men, a prime contributor to their next escapade. He would carry many guns and make off with lots of cash. It was an exciting fantasy, and it kept him awake long after the coyotes began to howl. It must be a great thrill, Drew rationalized, to see your name in the newspapers, and have such poor fools as Morgan and Sylvie tut-tut over the adventures detailed in black and white for all the world to read.

  The fifth day was brutal. Drew convinced himself it was not necessary to continue carrying the sack with its remaining morsels of food, yet he had no clear recollection of having dropped it by the wayside. He stumbled west by south, toward the place without a name Bleeding Heart of Jesus and Nail in His Feet had told him of. Had they lied, those holy Apaches, or simply been misinformed? Their talk of a place along the road would very likely be the death of him. Drew would never have started out in that direction had they not told him of the place. It wasn’t fair that he might die because of a genuine belief in something that was not there.

  He should have corroborated the existence of the place with Father Zamudio, but that would have alerted the priest to Drew’s plans for escape. If he died, it would be just too bad. He would laugh a very dry laugh, since he couldn’t cry, in the moments preceding his death. Drew was very proud of his ability to consider things in this enlightened manner. He felt old and wise, even as his head threatened to separate from his neck with dehydration.

  When he came in sight of an adobe dwelling that afternoon, he did not accept it as real. Not content merely to snatch him away from the world, death was teasing him with false hopes of survival. It was too cruel. He sat down in the road, as he had done several times already that day, and waited for the dwelling to fade from view in a ripple of heat haze. He would continue on, one tortured step at a time, after the mirage had disappeared. It was a contest of sorts, to see which would give in first, the boy or the apparition.

  It was a perfectly ordinary house of mud brick, tempting the observer, with its mundane appearance, into believing it really was there. That belief would be turned mockingly aside if the place was approached, so Drew wasn’t going to fall for it. His dignity and his physical weakness kept him in the middle of the road, and it was there he passed out, his eyes filled with the approaching figure of a woman as she moved from the deep shadow of the doorway toward him. He refused to believe, even as he heard the approaching slap of her sandals in the dust.

  Drew’s impressions of returning to the world were similar to his first moments inside the San Bartolomeo mission. There was a woman sitting nearby, a Mexican or an Indian woman, he wasn’t sure, and he was in a bed, a very uncomfortable bed with a thin and scratchy mattress that rustled at the least movement. A man’s head came in
to view behind the woman, a face with a high forehead and sweeping mustaches.

  “You all right now, boy?”

  These words came from somewhere beneath the mustaches. Drew asked himself what he might say in reply. He wished to be truthful, but was not sure what the answer should be, so he said nothing. Both man and woman faded from sight, growing smaller as he watched, until they were tiny, remote as figures in a tintype.

  His second awakening came an indeterminate period of time later. The man was there alone, and he said to Drew, “More water, boy?” Drew could not recall having had any in the first place, but he nodded, unwilling to deny himself a chance for more. It occurred to him, as he felt tepid liquid poured into his open mouth, that the things surrounding him were real. I won’t die now, he told himself, and slipped away again into welcoming darkness.

  “Boy! Wake up there, boy!”

  Drew woke up. He felt weak, able to move little more than his eyes. The man was back, his thick mustaches inches from Drew’s face. Drew could smell tobacco on his breath.

  “You need to be getting on your feet. Lying in bed, that’s how you stay sick. Get up now.”

  Drew was hauled upright. He wore only his shirt. The man helped him step inside his pants, and tied his bootlaces. Drew’s hat was placed on his head. “Outside now,” he was told, and he headed for the brightness of the doorway.

  In the dusty yard he halted, struck blind by sunlight pouring from a furnace wide as the sky. The man caught him as Drew slumped against a wall, then steered him to a split-log bench on the shady side of the house. The man fetched a dipper of water and made Drew drink all of it.

  “What’s your name, son?”

  Drew really couldn’t recall for a moment; was it Drew Dugan, Drew Kindred, or John Bones? His brain seemed incapable of the simplest function. “Drew,” he said finally.

  “Yancy Berdell.”

  The man extended his hand. Drew pumped it weakly. Berdell said, “Care to tell me how come you’re where you are, in the shape you’re in?”

  Drew considered various lies and half-truths, and fell back on what he felt was becoming for him a tradition of caution. “I don’t remember.”

  “The sun’ll do that to a man, wipe his mind clean as a dinner plate. It’ll come back to you, though, unless you got knocked on the head. Did that happen to you?”

  “No.”

  “So you remember that much.”

  “There’s no bump,” Drew said, “that’s how I know.”

  Yancy Berdell was grinning. Drew could tell the man saw right through him. “Mind your business,” Drew told him.

  Berdell’s smile widened. “You know,” he said, “just about everybody’s got a secret or three tucked way back in their head. Me, I’ve got a bunch, all squirming around back there like a nest of rattlers. Most of them aren’t for sharing, that’s a fact, but I tell you what I’ll do, Mr. Drew No-name, and that’s share a secret with you, if you’ll share one with me. I’ll even go first, how about that? Are you game, boy?”

  Drew nodded warily.

  “Step along behind me,” Berdell said, and began walking away. Following him, Drew saw the woman emerge from brush nearby, and formed the impression she had been attending to a call of nature back there. She watched them both until man and boy were beyond sight of the house.

  Yancy Berdell stopped and pointed to a long mound of earth between two low piñon pines. “Take a guess,” he invited.

  “It’s a grave.”

  “Yessir, it is. Care to say who might be in it?”

  “George Washington,” said Drew, and Yancy laughed.

  “Not correct. Huntzucker’s the name of the deceased, known hereabouts as Hump, on account of spinal deformity. The lady you saw back there’s his wife, name of Maria. Now then, Drew boy, how’d he die?”

  “I don’t know. The sky fell on him.”

  “One step away from his sickbed, and the boy shows humor. Wrong again. I shot him is how.”

  “You shot him?”

  “You heard right.”

  “Why?”

  “He made an attempt on my life, just because I paid attention to his lady wife. This was an ugly man, so he got jealous, being that I’m tolerable handsome. Pulled a gun on me from behind, but he missed. Then it was my turn, and I did not disgrace the Berdell name. Dug the hole myself, to make amends. Look at this.”

  He showed Drew two blistered palms. Drew looked again at the mound, unsure what attitude to strike. He liked this Yancy Berdell, and there appeared to have been justification for the deed. Yancy seemed quite unashamed, and Drew admired that.

  “Let me tell you, the widow did not grieve, not for a minute. I believe I did the lady a favor—at least she tips me the glad eye—so I’m not about to waste my time feeling low over the death of some back-shooter.”

  It all sounded reasonable to Drew. He looked at Yancy, and Yancy’s face told him it was Drew’s turn to share a secret, so he told of Sylvie and Morgan and Smart Crow and the mission. When he was done, he hoped Yancy would approve of every decision Drew had taken, and it appeared he did.

  “Interesting,” was his verdict. He produced a cigar. “Do you indulge?” Drew shook his head. Yancy struck a match on his boot and puffed with obvious delight.

  “So you’re all alone in a sea of strangers, all thanks be to God. Religion’s a peculiar thing. It can fill you up or drain you dry. I see before me a young man painfully dried right down to the bone. Listen here: you haven’t done a damned thing wrong, not one. I like your spunk, and I don’t lie. Now I’m saying to you, what next? Where does Drew No-name go from this desolate spot?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What man does? We take what comes, and avoid what misery we can—you take my meaning? From pillar to post, that’s been my path, and I’m no slave to shame. I’ll step right up on Judgment Day along with the rest and take what’s coming, if anything is.”

  These sounded like brave words to Drew. He liked the way Yancy talked.

  They strolled back to the adobe house, which, Drew now saw, was located at a crossroads. The place was not so much a dwelling as it was a trading post or store. The front room, which he’d stumbled through without really noticing anything about it, was in fact lined with shelves of trade goods. There was another person there as well, a Mexican; Drew must have blundered right past him earlier without even seeing the man.

  “One of Hump Huntzucker’s customers,” Yancy explained. “He’s been happy these last few days. He owed Hump money, and he knows the widow won’t ever be able to collect off him. He thinks I’m a great and wonderful fellow for wiping out his debt. Buenos días, Julio.”

  “Buenos días, señor.”

  “The full extent of my Spanish,” admitted Yancy. “With the widow Huntzucker I speak only the language of love, you understand?”

  Drew did. The widow was staring at Yancy Berdell with an intensity that would have made Drew nervous had he been its recipient. He assumed it was the look of love. He had never noticed Sylvie looking at Morgan that way. Yancy made him aware, with his breezy ways, that the world was half female, and even the married ones apparently had no qualms about falling in love with men passing by. The whole business suggested great excitement and intrigue to a virgin like Drew.

  “Siesta time,” Yancy said.

  “I know. They did it at the mission.”

  “Then you know to find a shady place and nap.”

  Yancy left him standing by the plank counter supporting Julio’s drink, and walked by the widow, who turned and followed. Drew felt abandoned, he wasn’t sure why. Julio stared at him blearily and spoke a few words in Spanish. Drew smiled and nodded awkwardly in response. Julio beckoned him nearer and pointed to a barrel seat beside his own.

  Drew sat. There was a bowl of lemons in front of him, a paring knife, a salt shaker and a bottle of pale liquor. He watched Julio perform the tequila ritual. Julio wanted him to join in, so Drew obliged. The stuff was foul, like drinking turpe
ntine, he thought. Drew ate an entire lemon to scour the taste from his mouth. Julio found that very funny. Drew went outside to fetch another dipper of water from the well nearby, and on his way back heard the unmistakable sounds of intercourse from a window shuttered against the heat. He rejoined Julio, and became aware of the same sounds indoors. Julio could hear it too; he made several obscene gestures with his hand, and laughed. Drew didn’t want to be near him anymore, nor within hearing of the widow’s cries.

  Outside was a crudely timbered corral, with two horses and a mule standing disconsolately by an empty manger. Drew found some hay in the stable loft and threw it down for the animals. Eventually they wandered over and began chewing listlessly, whisking flies from themselves with tail and mane. He watched them for a while from the loft, then lay down among the remaining hay and slept.

  In the evening Yancy drank a fair amount of tequila and played cards with a man named Ogden who happened by late in the afternoon. He came from the east, along the road Drew had traveled on foot. Drew personally attended to his horse, at Yancy’s request, then stood around while the men played. He didn’t know the game they became so engrossed in, or any other game; cards had been forbidden in the Kindred home, called “the devil’s pasteboards” by Morgan. Drew ate lemons while he watched, and nibbled stale tortilla.

  “Hear about the commotion yet?” asked Ogden.

  “What commotion’s that?” said Yancy.

  “Back along the road a piece, this mission place. Some Indian come in and carved up the priests. Blood all over, I seen it myself. They reckon Apaches done it. That’s the one word I could understand—Apache! Apache! Place had nothin’ but Indians in it anyway, and the two dead Mexes. I disbelieve it, though. Apaches would’ve killed more’n just two, and stole the women besides. Whole place was just tame mission Indians. They never knew what to do about it, just weeping and wailing and tearing their hair, and it happened a couple days before, already. Like chickens with their heads off, every last one. It was never Apaches done it, though. They would’ve killed more’n just two.”