Andromeda Gun

by John Boyd

  Ian’s pounding awakened the sheriff, who came into the office hitching his galluses. He took a leather-bound Bible out of his desk and a tin star.

  “Hold up your right hand… You swear to uphold the laws of Shoshone Flats? Say, ‘I do.’ ”

  “I do.”

  “This is your’n,” Faust said, tossing the star across to Ian. “Pin it on and go over to Abe Bernbaum’s to get measured for a suit. I got to go down to Bain’s. He got in a shipment of beer late Saturday. It’s got that skunky smell, but it’s beer.”

  Feeling he should show an interest in his job, Ian asked, “What’s the crime situation around here, sheriff?”

  “I ain’t made an arrest in six weeks. Biggest trouble comes from stray Indians getting drunk and pilfering from clotheslines , stealing pigs, and such. Them Indians just don’t grasp property rights. But they won’t be giving us trouble much longer. Government’s rounding them up and sticking them on a reservation southeast of here. Mormons don’t give us no trouble. They don’t smoke, drink, or cuss. Some say it’s their religion. I say it’s because they got so many young ’uns they can’t afford to smoke and drink and don’t have time to cuss.

  “If some Gentile steps on their toes, the Mormons don’t bother us. They go straight to the Gentile. Got their own law enforcement, Bryce Peyton and his Avenging Angels. You already got trouble with Bryce over Billy, but Billy’s the worst of a passel of Peyton’s children, so the old man might let you off with just a horsewhipping. Course, now you’re a lawman, he might want to set an example and string you up. A Gentile lawman would make a better example than a Gentile clodbuster.

  “Most of my trouble, next to Indians, comes from young Gentile galoots getting drunk and getting into fights. Last week Jackie Cannon kicked Hal Murad in the mouth during a fight at Bain’s saloon. Hal lost six teeth and been eating soup ever since. Good thing Jackie’s a farmer. If he’d been wearing a cowpoke’s pointed boots, Hal would have lost his eyeteeth.

  “Don’t never arrest anybody in Bain’s place. It’s bad for his business, and he’s the biggest taxpayer in town. Besides, he gives me free beer.

  “Reckon that just about covers the crime situation. I’ll mosey on over to the barroom and get my breakfast beer. Would ask you along, but I know you done took the pledge.”

  “What do you want done around the jailhouse, sheriff?”

  “Just keep the place swept out and the wanted posters filed. Ain’t many set duties. Once a month, we ride shotgun for the Territorial Stage Lines from Wind River to here when the stage is hauling the payroll for the Old Hickory Mine, up near Jackson City. The Jackson City deputy picks it up here and rides it on in. Since our run lasts from sunset to breakfast, the stage line pays us fifty cents for the night’s work.”

  Ian became alert at the mention of a payroll. “When’s our next run?”

  “About three weeks or a little longer.” Faust glanced at a wall calendar. “Next run’s November third.”

  The being inside stored the information as Ian asked, “After I get measured, can I borrow your nag to ride up to Hendricks’ horse ranch? The mayor said I could pick up a horse.”

  “Sure, son. But you don’t need to bring my horse back. Long as you’re taking over the riding duties, I’ll be handling the administrative work, and there’s no place around here I want to go to that I can’t walk. What horse are you getting?”

  “The one Hendricks calls Midnight.”

  “Well,” the sheriff said, scratching the stubble on his chin, “if you’re riding Midnight, might be a good idea not to get measured up for that suit. No use wasting Abe’s time, and the clothes you got on are good enough to get buried in… Well, I’ll be seeing you, deputy, but I don’t think you’ll be seeing me.”

  Faust was sidling toward the door as he bade Ian farewell. Outside, he made a casual beeline toward Bain’s saloon.

  Ignoring the high sheriff’s advice, Ian closed the jailhouse and walked five buildings down the boardwalk to Abe Bernbaum’s tailor shop. He almost felt compassion when he entered to find the little man with the big head sitting on his heels atop a high stool, bent under his load of care, sewing a seam in a cloth he had stretched over his widespread knees.

  At Ian’s entrance, Abe did not move his body but swiveled his head and turned his face to his visitor. His eyes held no welcome for a potential customer, and only sadness was in his low-pitched voice. “So, Mr. McCloud, you are the new deputy? To you, who are about to die, greetings.”

  “Faust sent me over to get measured for my official suit.”

  “Black, the color of death. Always I am sewing black.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ian said, trying to fall in with the mood of the tailor. “I intend to wear it to a lot of funerals.”

  “Yes,” the tailor agreed, “there will be many funerals when the Avenging Angels sweep down on Shoshone Flats.”

  “At least six, Mr. Bernbaum”—Ian tried to cheer the man—“which ought to give you a lot of business making shrouds.”

  “No”—Mr. Bernbaum looked dolefully at Ian, his pushing and pulling fingers never missing a stitch—“for Abraham Bernbaum will be numbered with the Gentile dead.”

  “But Brother Winchester told me you were a Hebrew.”

  “To the Gentiles I am a Hebrew. To the Mormons I am a Gentile. Either way, Abraham Bernbaum loses.”

  His fingers had reached the end of the seam and they stopped. Bernbaum laid the cloth aside reverently, but gazed down on it with reproach, saying, “Always, you are black.”

  Straightening his legs, the tailor swung to the floor, pulling a tape measure from his pocket. Suddenly he was all briskness and business. Eyeing Ian’s legs, he snapped out a length of the tape and said, “Stand flatfooted, feet six inches apart, and look straight ahead.”

  Ian complied, and the tailor bent to his task humming “Eli, Eli” as he worked.

  “Take off your gun belt,” he said, rising, “but keep your pistol in your hand. If Bryce Peyton passes the door, shoot him.”

  “What does he look like?” Ian asked, as the tailor measured his waist.

  “A dybbuk in blue jeans, but he wears a black coat and hat on official business. Always, he smiles. Before and after, he smiles… Inhale! Exhale! Such expansion… That is all. May your life be long—at least six months—and your children many.”

  “Why the time limit on my life?”

  “Two dollars a month is deducted from your salary until the suit is paid for, and the suit costs twelve dollars. If you die before, I have only salvage rights. It is my contract.”

  “You ever lose on them contracts?”

  “On the last three deputies, I lost eight dollars. Of course, I make a little on their cerement. Not much, but it is a living.”

  “When will my suit be ready?”

  “Not until after the saints ride. If you are killed before I deliver, I can sell the suit as new and charge extra for the alterations.”

  Feeling a sudden urge to ingratiate himself with the little man, Ian said, “I was sort of hoping I could get it early Tuesday morning, to be laid out in, so if I don’t get it by Tuesday it won’t make much difference when… Mr. Winchester tells me you might know what the Angel Gabriel’s name means in Hebrew.”

  “ ‘Gabriel’ means ‘messenger of God,’ but whether it’s Hebrew or Arabic I don’t know. Gabriel is an angel to Muhammadans, Jews, and Christians.”

  “Would the meaning come from the name or the name from the meaning?”

  “Such an intelligent question. I must think.”

  Ian himself was slightly amazed at his question. It was not the sort of question he usually asked.

  “Ah, the name would come from its meaning,” Bernbaum finally said, “for that is the way of language. The meaning of a thing comes first… Think well on angels, young man. It is written, man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward. His days are swifter than the weaver’s shuttle and are spent without hope.”

  Standing i
n front of Mr. Bernbaum, listening to his voice, made Ian feel like the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, but it occurred to him that a man so expert at passing out bad news would make a natural-born justice of the peace.

  “I thank you, Mr. Bernbaum, but cheer up. Maybe I can throw some business your way tomorrow. Maybe saints like to be buried in white, and six shrouds for six saints will give you a lot of white cloth to sew on.”

  Bernbaum did not smile, but his mien lightened with a lesser sadness. He raised his right hand in farewell as he hopped back onto the stool and intoned, “Ave atque vale.”

  “So long,” Ian said as he walked out.

  He liked the little man because Bernbaum made him feel happy in comparison, but it was high falutin of Abe to wish him good-bye in Hebrew.

  Riding the sheriff’s nag north on the Jackson Hole pike, Ian forced the horse to canter by applying spurs every ten yards, but it took him better than an hour to ride the ten miles to Hendricks’ spread. When he pulled up before the ranch house, Hendricks came around the corner from the corrals in the rear. The man was bleeding slightly from a cut over his eye incurred in his morning’s bronc-busting chores, but he was much more erect than he had been yesterday.

  When Ian remarked on his uprightness, Hendricks explained, “This morning I got throwed backwards up against a corral bar. Kinda straightened out my hump.”

  Ian explained the disposition of the sheriff’s horse, and Hendricks nodded. “I’ll just plant the nag back into the same hole I dug it out of… You ready for Midnight, son?”

  “Yes, sir. If Midnight’s ready for me.”

  “Midnight’s always ready. But ma and me were fixing to have a bite. Want to come in and join us for your last dinner?”

  “Long as it’s not chicken,” Ian said.

  “Stew beef and corn pone,” Hendricks said. “Chicken ain’t heavy enough to hold a man down. Every ounce helps when you ride Midnight.”

  Ian might have enjoyed the meal more if Mrs. Hendricks’ before-dinner grace had been shorter. Informed of Ian’s purpose in coming to the ranch, Mrs. Hendricks prayed for his survival briefly and spent more time asking for mercy on his soul if he were tramped under the hooves of the stallion. Despite her quavering invocations in his behalf, Ian had the strong feeling that she was pulling for the horse.

  After dinner, Hendricks led Ian back to the corrals, explaining, “Had to build a special pen for Midnight, one fourteen feet high. He can clear twelve feet from a standing start.”

  Between the plankings, Ian could glimpse the stallion, and the peek was unsettling. It would have taken a better mathematician than Ian to estimate how many hands high the beast stood, but it was the biggest, blackest brute Ian had ever seen. When they climbed the top bar and looked down, he was awed. “So that’s the pinwheeler?”

  Tossing its head and snorting, the stallion paced a restless circle inside the fence. At times it paused to paw the ground as if checking to find the hardest spots.

  “Has this horse ever been rode?” Ian asked.

  “Not yet,” Hendricks said. “I hired a saddle tramp to break him for a hundred dollars, but the horse throwed him and tromped him to death. Brought in an expert from Cheyenne who was willing to break him for three hundred dollars. The bronc-buster could ride. Horse couldn’t throw him, so it pinwheeled and crushed him flatter’n a pancake. I calculate the horse saved me four hundred dollars. Then I tried him, but he throwed me, too.”

  “Why didn’t he stomp you to death?”

  “I was lucky. He throwed me plumb out of the corral. Cleared the fourteen-foot fence by seven feet. Landed on my right shoulder. Didn’t hurt me much, but really smashed my shoulder… You still willing to try the horse, boy?”

  “That’s what I come for.”

  “You can back out. Take the sheriff’s horse if he don’t want it.”

  “I’d rather get the dying over with quick. Riding the sheriff’s horse back to town, I might get caught by winter and die in a blizzard. I’ll ride the black.”

  “Got any last requests?”

  “Right now, I’d like about six brood mares, in season, in there with him,” Ian said slowly, “but seeing as that ain’t likely, just get me a saddle with an eight-inch nail drove about three inches through the cantle and a quirt with a loaded handle.”

  “Brother Ian, you don’t want to get that horse riled by pricking it with no nail. It’s mad, right now. It might get angry, and that horse’s got spirit.”

  “My last request, Mr. Hendricks, bring me my nail and my saddle.”

  As Ian hammered the nail through the rear lip of the saddle, leaving five inches extending above the leather, Hendricks lassoed the brute and tugged it, head first, into the saddling chute. When Ian cinched the saddle with all of his strength, the point of the nail protruding through the cantle touched lightly the back of the horse.

  Hendricks had wrestled on the bridle and bit while Ian finished the saddling, and, champing at the bit, the horse stood finally accoutred for a combat it was eager to begin.

  Hendricks handed Ian a lead-loaded quirt and said, “I sure hope I ain’t lost my touch when it comes to matching man and beast, because this horse is a killer. If I’ve failed, Brother Ian, I’ll be seeing you later in front of that radiant throne Brother Winchester preaches about, if they provide us with blinders up there.”

  “There’s a tailor down in Shoshone Flats I’d like you to meet,” Ian remarked as he swung from the top rail onto the saddle. “You and him got a lot in common.”

  Ian’s weight in the saddle caused the nail to prick the beast, which lunged into the front of the chute with such force it knocked itself backwards. Yet it still had presence of mind enough to kick backwards at Hendricks who had jumped down to swing open the chute gate. Groggy, it shook its head before it reared and swirled into the arena, giving Ian just enough time to set his boot heels in the stirrups.

  With the confidence of the unbeaten, the stallion leaped straight up, its hooves clearing the ground by four feet, and it twisted to the right as it fell back to the ground. From skull to tailbone, Ian felt the jolt in each joint of his spine when the horse landed, and to the jolt was added the agony of the clockwise torque the beast gained from its right-hand twist. But Ian’s spine held, and he flailed the horse’s head in vicious chops, some above the right eye, some above the left, with the loaded end of the quirt.

  Again the horse soared and twisted, this time to the left, at the apogee of its orbit, giving a counterclockwise twist to its landing jolt. Again Ian’s spine held. He continued to flail the brute above its eyes.

  Midnight did not take kindly to the punishment. Lowering farther on its haunches, on the third leap the stallion tried for and reached a new altitude record for horses, but the altitude was sought for another purpose. Midnight gained the height to give himself time to lock his knee joints for a stiff-legged, four-point landing, with none of the shock absorbed by its own legs. Ian had time to lean forward and brace his stomach muscles for the impact, but the shock drove his chin into the saddle horn. His jawbone held. He retained consciousness even though his teeth ached and his ears rang.

  Midnight had tested the rider with a few opening sashays. Now the stallion began to buck. It leaped and arched its back with the snap of a whip crack. Since this was a no-holds-barred contest and not a rodeo demonstration, Ian grabbed the saddle horn and hung on, praying the belly cinch would hold.

  The cinch held, but the arch pricked the horse’s back against the nail point, and Midnight got angry. When Ian, his eyes focused dead ahead, felt the muscles of the horse bunching beneath him for a supreme effort, he sensed what was coming and tensed his own leg muscles.

  Midnight exploded.

  This leap would have cleared the top bar of the corral on the horizontal. Still keeping his eyes level, Ian saw the horizon tilt downward, saw the clouds rushing toward him, and he knew: Midnight was pinwheeling. In its murderous yet crafty fury, the horse intended to fall on its rider and crush the ma
n beneath it like a gnat under a sledgehammer. As the stallion soared upwards and slowly cartwheeled backwards, Ian flung himself from the saddle and stood aside, crouched, waiting for the great beast to plummet to earth.

  Midnight did not fall on its rider. Instead, the horse landed with an earthshaking “whomp” on an eight-inch nail.

  Neighing its agony, the beast scrambled to his haunches, blood streaming into its eyes, its forelegs slashing blindly for its unseen tormentor, but its tormentor was back in the saddle. Knowing he rode a horse which would never pinwheel again, Ian drove the lesson home, still further, by pounding the nail’s head with the butt of the quirt.

  The next thirty minutes of bucking grew progressively weaker. The horse was blinded by its own blood. The saddle was cinched firmly to its belly and nailed to its backbone. As Midnight’s efforts eased off, Ian changed ends with the quirt, whipping the horse’s rump. In the last stages, he used only spurs.

  Finally the bucking died into an exhausted quivering, and Midnight, mastered at last, stood beneath him merely shaking. To impress the beast with his magnanimity, Ian gently pried the nail from its spine and leaned forward to stroke and pat its neck.

  Midnight whinnied in gratitude.

  So, after winning the first fall, Ian took the decision, and Hendricks opened the corral gate, shaking his head with admiration. But Midnight, gentled only for Ian, still had character. As it trotted through the gate, the horse lunged and bit Hendricks on the lump of his right shoulder.

  “Didn’t I tell you, McCloud,” the horse breeder shrieked in pain and pride, “that horse has spirit!”

  Spirit and endurance, Ian found, even as he cantered down the lane toward the pike. Tired from its breaking in, the stallion set no new marks for a furlong, but it moved with a gigantic stride. As it galloped on the run into town, Midnight set a pace for the entire ten miles only one horse in the world could have beaten—Colonel Jasper Blicket’s giant gray, Traveler II.

  Not only did these beings inflict pain on members of their own species, G-7 observed, they used cruelty as a policy with brutes more powerful than they; but the laughter of Hendricks when bitten by the horse suggested that they might take pleasure or pride in the pain they withstood. As a policy, G-7 had to accept Ian’s cruelty toward the horse on the basis of results obtained. All the tremendous chemicoelectrical energy of the horse, which moments before had been directed toward the destruction of its rider, now flowed joyously to serve the man’s ends. To the extent that G-7 could experience confusion, it was confused.