Written in Blood

by John Wilson

  The mad look hasn’t left Ed’s eyes as he tells me this. I’m scared, but there’s nothing I can do but wait for him to go on with his story. Eventually he does.

  “Through the fifties and sixties I moved around, scalping when there was money in it, rustling cattle up Lincoln County way, shooting buffalo for the army, robbing any travelers I fell in with, and always making sure that everyone knew it was Roberto Ramirez doing this. Problem was, I was free to do anything I wanted during the days, but the nights were bad. In my dreams Alfonso kept urging me to fulfill my oath. I even went out to California to try and find the real Roberto. I had no luck, although I did find a man who’d been his partner in the goldfields. The man said he’d moved on, following the gold.”

  The scalp hangs by his side, and his gaze drops to the floor. I am confused as to why Ed is telling me this. “Did you ever catch up with your brother?” I ask.

  Ed’s head snaps round as if I have hit him. His eyes stare at me coldly. “My story’s not done yet and there’s something I haven’t told you. Something you need to know to understand the end.”

  Ed’s gaze drifts away, and I think I am going to have to wait through another of his long silences, but he keeps talking, although his voice drops to near a whisper.

  “When my brother went to California, I took his name, but he changed his as well. I don’t know whether it was because he was ashamed of Ramirez or because Mexicans weren’t looked on too kindly in the goldfields. In any case, he took his mother’s name. Roberto Ramirez became Bob Doolen.”

  15

  The real Roberto Ramirez was my father. The cruel Don Alfonso Ramirez was my grandfather. The tragic Maeve Doolen was my grandmother. Ed is my uncle. My mouth hangs open in shock as I absorb the implications of what I have been told.

  “What do you mean?” I ask stupidly.

  “Just what I say.”

  “But what…?” I begin asking a question and then tail off, not knowing what to ask. A thought strikes me as I run through what this all means. “Were you waiting for me on the road when we first met?”

  Ed smiles. “Smart kid. There’s not many lone travelers your age passing through Yuma, and you were easy to follow.”

  “How did you know I’d be passing through?”

  Ed’s smile broadens. “I still keep contacts here in Casas Grandes. Your letter to Don Alfonso Ramirez got to me. I was going to reply, but your second letter saying you were coming down arrived before I could. It was a simple matter to work out about when you’d arrive and sit and wait in Yuma. You even look a bit like your father, and after five minutes’ talk, I was certain.”

  “But why didn’t you say who you were, who I was? Why did you set up the ambush and rob me?”

  “I reckon old habits die hard, and I weren’t looking for a family reunion. I just wanted to see what you looked like. I stopped the Kid from killing you, and if you’d just gone on your way after that, like I suggested, none of this would’ve happened.”

  “I couldn’t. I had to find out what it all meant.”

  Ed nods. “I should’ve known that. Stubbornness is a Ramirez trait, I guess.”

  The mention of the Ramirez name reminds me of why I am here. “Where’s my father?”

  “Well now. That’s the final piece of the story. After I looked unsuccessfully for Roberto—Bob, I reckon we should call him now—in California, I gave up. Decided I would just have to live with my nightmares and make the best of it. I come back to Arizona Territory and made do. War came along and that provided some opportunities for the likes of me. Then, winter of sixty-seven, I was having a drink in a bar in Tucson and who should waltz in but Bob’s old mining buddy from California. Recognizes me right off and comes over. Says he can tell me things if I buy him a drink, so I buy him a drink.

  “Seems this man had drifted up to the Cariboo in British Columbia, following all the other fools who look for gold. Didn’t find no gold, but who should he bump into in a stopping house in Yale but his old partner Bob Doolen. Fella told me Bob was settled there, all nice and cozy with a good wife and strapping son. That’d be you, I reckon.

  “I tried to forget about the whole thing, but I couldn’t. Alfonso wouldn’t let me, and I had no excuse once I knew where he was. I thought about going up there, but then I had an idea. I wrote to Bob Doolen up in Yale as if I was Alfonso Ramirez. Said his bullet hadn’t killed me, that I was an old man now who saw the error of his ways and wanted to resolve things before I died.”

  Ed stops and laughs harshly. The more cultured persona of the storyteller is slipping, the harsh mask of the brutal road agent and scalp hunter replacing it. “Seems like I’ve been all of my family at one time or another. Anyways, the fool fell for it. Wrote straight back saying he was hotfooting it down to see the old man. Just like I done with you, I went out to Yuma and waited. Sure enough, he comes through and I follow him for a couple of days while I decide what I’m going to do.

  “My first scheme was to bushwhack him. Easy enough on this trail, but it weren’t right. Not after all I’d gone through. I needed more, so I went into his camp one night. We sat and talked around the fire. He didn’t recognize me at first, but the more I talked, the more I could see him beginning to wonder.

  “Eventually I came clean, told him the whole story. You know what the idiot did then? He says he was glad I’d done it. Says family’s important and he was glad that we’d met up at last. He even comes around the fire to shake my hand.”

  Ed is staring into the distance over my left shoulder as if he’s seeing the ten-year-old scene again. I can barely breathe. Everything I have done, every story I have heard, has been building to this moment.

  “What happened?” I whisper hoarsely.

  Ed’s gaze flicks back to the present and my face.

  “I shot him,” he says matter-of-factly. “Didn’t kill him right away; it took a second shot for that. He didn’t even have a gun with him. Buried his body up on one of those ridges outside Tucson.”

  Ed’s calm tone of voice and simple telling is more shocking than if he had screamed what had happened at me or broken down in tears. My father is dead, killed by this man before me, his own brother and my uncle.

  A wave of rage sweeps over me, and I spur Coronado at Ed. The move takes him by surprise and our two horses clash violently. He struggles to control his mount, but my hands are tied. As Coronado rears and bucks, my rolled blanket is torn off the saddle and I fall, landing heavily on the stone floor. All the wind is knocked from me and I lie helpless, gasping painfully for breath. Ed regains control of his horse and stares down at me.

  “At least you fought back,” he says. “Maybe you’re not as weak as your father. I’m sorry that you have to die, but I did give you a chance. And I can’t be always looking over my shoulder to see if you might’ve decided on revenge. I should do it myself, but I did promise Slim that he could have you, so I guess this is goodbye.”

  Without another word, Ed turns his horse and trots through the doorway. Coronado stands undecided for a moment and then follows them out. Almost immediately, Slim’s shape appears. He’s carrying a huge wide-bladed knife in his right hand.

  “Howdy,” he says companionably as he steps forward.

  Gasping for air, I scramble backward toward the fireplace.

  “Ain’t no place to go,” Slim says. “You’re mine now, and I aim to have me some fun.”

  In two strides, Slim is beside me and delivers a vicious kick to my ribs. He hits the still painful spot where the Kid kicked me, and I scream as shafts of pain course through me.

  Slim places one knee painfully on my stomach and grabs my hair with his left hand, hauling my head up. “Now I’ve gotta decide how I’m gonna do this,” he says with a smile. “You got pretty hair, so I’m wondering if ’n I might just want to scalp you first. I’m told it don’t hurt too much.”

  At first I think the shadow behind Slim is Ed come back to watch.

  “Or I could take your eyes out first. I’v
e heard it said that, if you pop them out careful, the eyeball hangs by a kind of thread but you can still see. Reckon I could pop one out, and you could look back on yourself. That’d be something not everyone—”

  The knife slashes deeply across Slim’s throat opening a gaping red wound. A look of surprise crosses the man’s features and a jet of bright blood spurts from his neck. The blood feels warm on my face.

  Slim drops his knife with a clatter and grabs at his neck. It does no good; the blood keeps coming. He gives a bubbling cough and falls to one side. I draw in a large breath and wince at the pain in my ribs.

  Nah-kee-tats-an is standing over me, a bloody knife in one hand and a rifle over his shoulder.

  “How did you get here?” I gasp.

  Nah-kee-tats-an points toward the doorway that Ed said led to the kitchen and then places his finger to his lips. With one swift cut he slices through the ropes binding my hands. As I sit up and try to massage my wrists with my numb hands, he wipes his knife on his breeches and replaces it in the scabbard at his waist. Then he removes the rifle from his shoulder and leans over until his mouth is beside my ear. “Do you have a weapon?” he asks.

  I glance over at my blanket lying on the other side of Slim’s still-twitching body. In it are my pistol and the scatter gun. I nod. “I will shoot from the window through there.” Nah-kee-tats-an gestures toward the kitchen. “Kill anyone who comes through that door.” He nods at the main entrance and slips away.

  Slim is still now, his blue eyes open but looking at nothing. There is a surprisingly large pool of dark blood around his head.

  “Slim,” I hear Ed’s voice from outside. “You gonna take all day? We need to make some miles.”

  Startled out of my shock by the sound, I scramble over Slim and claw at the bedroll. My fingers are sore and stiff as the blood fights its way back into them, but I manage to spread it out. Lying there are the scatter gun and the box containing my father’s revolver. I try to undo the catch on the revolver box, but my fingers won’t work properly. I hear the crash of a rifle shot from the next room, closely followed by a yell outside.

  “What the hell?” I hear Ed shout and then the sound of feet running toward the door. I hear boots clatter on the stone porch, and there’s a dark figure blocking the doorway. In one movement, I drop the box, grab the scatter gun, swing it up, cock the hammers and pull both triggers, praying that it’s loaded.

  The explosion deafens me and the kick of the gun knocks me over backward. Both barrels were loaded and the blast catches the figure square in the chest, hurling him backward onto the porch.

  In a moment of unearthly silence, I watch the man’s boots in the doorway kick a couple of times through the drifting gun smoke. Then the first bullet embeds itself in the back wall of the room, bringing down a shower of plaster fragments. Scooping up the revolver box in front of me, I scramble over and sit with my back to the wall between the doorway and the window. A hail of bullets fly through the openings, sending showers of plaster down all around. Trying to stay calm, I work on opening the box. Finally, the lid flies up and I grab the revolver.

  I have four loaded chambers left from the time I shot the Kid. I doubt that, even if I have the time, my stiff fingers could load the other two. I make a quick calculation. There were five of them to begin with. Slim’s dead and so’s the man in the doorway. If I assume that Nah-kee-tats-an’s shot counted, then that leaves two. Is one of them Ed? Yes, I heard his voice after Nah-kee-tats-an’s shot.

  I roll to one side and chance a quick glance out the corner of the window opening. I catch a glimpse of Ed aiming his Colt from behind a stone water trough. A shot comes from the kitchen, splashing water from the trough, but Ed doesn’t flinch. There are horses milling about in confusion and the body of the man Nah-kee-tats-an shot lying to one side. There’s one missing. I duck back down hurriedly as Ed fires.

  “Ain’t no need for this,” Ed shouts at me. “Can you hear me, Jim?”

  I stay silent.

  “I admit to making a mistake sending Slim in,” Ed continues after a while. “I acted too hurriedly, didn’t think things through. I must be getting old.

  “We’re family, Jim. Ain’t no way we should be trying to kill one another. I got a proposition. You come on out and you and me’ll just ride away from here. Leave the past behind and head on up to Lincoln County. I hear there’s good work to be had there. We’ll be partners. How about that?”

  Again I stay silent.

  “Of course, we can’t let that savage in there with you live, so you just put a bullet in him and walk on out here and we’ll ride off. His scalp and the others I got will fetch a pretty penny and give us some traveling money. What d’you say?”

  I look up to see Nah-kee-tats-an standing in the kitchen doorway. He’s holding his rifle across his body and staring hard at me. He can’t possibly think I’m going to do what Ed asks.

  With lightning speed, Nah-kee-tats-an raises his rifle. “No,” I yell and throw myself to one side. That’s what saves my life, not from Nah-kee-tats-an’s shot but from the bullet that comes from the opposite end of the room. I hear it crash into the wall beside me. I half roll and come up, pointing the revolver at the new threat, but there’s no need. Ed’s missing companion is kneeling in the opposite doorway, a pistol in his right hand pointing harmlessly at the ground and his left hand clawing ineffectually at the hole in his chest. As I watch, Nah-kee-tats-an fires again. The man’s head jerks up and he collapses forward.

  At first I think the next gunshot is the dead man’s pistol going off as he falls, but it comes from behind me. I turn and bring my revolver up.

  Nah-kee-tats-an is sitting in the kitchen doorway with his rifle lying across his lap and a spreading red stain on his chest. Ed is in the room, a smoking gun in his hand. He turns to look at me.

  “Just us now,” he says with a smile.

  I hold the cocked revolver pointing squarely at his chest.

  “No need for that,” he says quietly. “I meant what I said about us being partners. There’s been enough killing. Let’s you and me stop it now.”

  He’s right. There has been enough killing, not just here but through all the stories I’ve been told over the past days. Every tale I’ve been told has been filled with death: Perdido, the English hunter, Santiago’s father, Maeve Doolen, Alfonso Ramirez, Nah-kee-tats-an’s ambushed companions, and my father. I have come to this land to learn a story that is written in blood.

  I look past Ed to see Nah-kee-tats-an sitting in the kitchen doorway. He’s badly wounded, there is blood all down his right side, but he’s still alive. His dark eyes are alert and fixed on me. He nods slowly.

  I feel a rush of joy that he is alive. There has been too much death. Suddenly, my revolver feels incredibly heavy. My hand begins to sag. As it does, Ed’s gun begins to come up.

  “No!” I say, struggling to keep my revolver on Ed. “Please stop.” My revolver’s wavering.

  “Come on now,” Ed says gently as he continues to raise his gun, “you ain’t gonna shoot me. We’re family.

  I saved your life on the trail outside Tucson.”

  I grimace in confusion. Ed also put my life in danger, but can I kill him in cold blood? Suddenly, the image of my father leaps into my head. He’s standing smiling at me. He’s dressed for traveling and he’s carrying a leather satchel over his shoulder.

  You look after your Mom while I’m gone, he says and his smile broadens. I’ll have plenty more stories for you when I see you again. Remember the old sea captain in the book that never gave up looking for that whale, and keep practicing with that old revolver. He winks at me and reaches forward to tousle my hair.

  I feel anger building in me. My father never got the chance to tell me any more stories. Ed killed him.

  I did what I was supposed to do. “I followed the clues you left,” I say out loud. “Just like Ahab in Moby Dick. I kept going until I found out the whole story. It led me here.”

  “What?” Ed
asks. His gun is rising with almost hypnotic slowness. I close my eyes and pull the trigger. Without looking, I cock the hammer and fire again, and again, and again. The fifth time there’s nothing but a loud click. I let the revolver drop and open my eyes.

  Ed is standing, his back against the doorjamb, watching me. His gun hangs limply by his side and he has a puzzled look on his face. Already, the front of his shirt is soaked in blood. His forehead wrinkles into a frown.

  “We’re family,” he says. He tries to say more, but the blood gurgling up into his throat prevents him. Without taking his eyes off me, Ed slowly slides down the wall, leaving a bright red smear on the plaster. When he is sitting, he makes a final, feeble effort to raise his gun, but he’s too weak. He shakes his head helplessly and slumps to the floor. By the time I crawl over to him, my uncle’s dead.

  16

  Nah-kee-tats-an has lost a lot of blood, but his wound is clean. Ed’s bullet doesn’t appear to have broken any bones or hit anything vital. I’m relieved to see that there is an exit wound in my friend’s back. I didn’t want to have to go digging for a bullet.

  I set up a rough camp in the kitchen. There’s an old rusted stove there, and I manage to get a fire going with broken bits of wood from the collapsed roof. I heat some water, clean his wound and wrap it up as best I can. I’m relieved to see the bleeding slow down.

  When I’ve got Nah-kee-tats-an settled as comfortably as I can manage, I go outside in the gathering dark to find Coronado waiting patiently. My ribs hurt dreadfully, but I manage to catch a couple of other horses as well and take the bedrolls from them so we have something to sleep on.

  The next morning I drag the bodies away. Animals have been at some of them, but I don’t have the strength to bury them in the hard ground. I simply pile them into a storeroom that still has a door on it. I find Alfonso Ramirez’s scalp by the fireplace where Ed must have dropped it when I charged him. I throw it into the storeroom with the others. Then I ride into town.