I stand up slow. “Would you care to explain that remark?”
“I didn’t mean nothing by it.”
“You sure of that?”
“Real sure, Mr. Washburn. I’m sorry!”
“Get out of here,” I say, and the kid scrams fast.
I go over to the bar. Curly has the whiskey bottle out, but I wave it away and he draws me a beer. “Curly,” I say, “I know they can’t help being young, but isn’t there something they can do about being so stupid?”
“I reckon not, Mr. Washburn,” Curly says.
We are silent for a few moments. Then Curly says, “Natchez Parker sent word he’d like to see you.”
“All right,” I tell him.
Dissolve to: a ranch on the edge of the desert. In the chuck-house, the Chinese cook is sharpening his knives. Bud Farrell, one of the hands, is sitting on a crate peeling potatoes. He is singing as he works, his long horse face bent over the spuds. The cook, oblivious to him, looks out the window, says, “Rider comes.”
Bud Farrell gets up, looks, scratches his hayseed head, looks again: “That’s something more than just a rider; you heathen Chinee. That’s Mister Washburn, sure as God made little green apples!”
Bud Farrell gets up, walks to the front of the main house, calls. “Hey, Mr. Parker! Mr. Washburn is riding up here!”
Washburn and Parker are sitting together at a small wooden table over steaming mugs of coffee in Natchez Parker’s sitting room. Parker is a huge mustachioed man sitting in a straight-back wooden chair, an Indian blanket over his withered legs. He is paralyzed from the waist down because of an old bullet crease in the spine.
“Well, Washburn,” says Parker, “I heard about you and Little Joe Potter, just like everyone else in the Territory. Ought to be one hell of a meeting. Wish I could see it.”
I say, “I wouldn’t mind seeing it myself.”
“Where is it going to take place?”
“In hell, I guess.”
Parker leans forward. “What does that mean?”
“It means that I’m not meeting Little Joe. I’m riding for Brimstone, and then straight on, away from Little Joe and the whole damned West.”
Parker leans forward and vigorously rubs his shock of gray hair. His big face puckers together like he had bitten into a rotten apple.
“You’re running?” he asks.
“That’s it,” I say.
The old man grimaces, hawks, spits on the floor. He says, “I never thought to hear you of all people say a thing like that. I never thought to see you go against the values you’ve always lived by.”
“Natchez, those were never my values. They came ready-made with the role. Now I’m through with the role, and I’m turning in the values too.”
The old man chewed that over for a while. Then he said, “What in hell is the matter with you? Got too much to live for all of a sudden? Or just gone yellow?”
“Call it what you like,” I tell him. “I came by to tell you. I owe you that.”
“Well, wasn’t that nice of you?” says Parker. “You owed me something and it was on your way anyhow, so you figured the least you could do was come by and tell me you was running away from a jumped-up baby gunslinger with one fight under his belt.”
“Get off my back.”
“Tom,” he says, “listen to me.”
I look up. Parker is the only man in the Territory who ever calls me by my first name. He doesn’t do it often.
“Now look,” he says, “I am not one for fancy speeches. But you simply can’t run away like this, Tom. Not on account of anything but yourself. You’ve got to live with yourself, no matter where you go.”
“I’ll manage that just fine,” I tell him.
Parker shakes his head. “Damn it all, what do you think this thing is all about? They let us dress up in fancy clothes and strut our stuff like we owned the whole damned world. They pay us plenty just to be men. But there’s a price for that. We gotta keep on being men. Not just when it’s easy, like at the beginning. We gotta stay men right straight through to the end, no matter what the end is. We don’t just act these parts, Tom; we live them, we stake our lives on them, we are these parts. Christ, anybody can dress up in a cowboy outfit and swagger down Main Street. But not everyone can wear a gun and use it.”
I say, “That’s a beautiful speech, Parker, and you’re such a pro that you’ve blown this scene. Get back in character and let’s get on with it.”
“Goddamn you,” Parker says, “I don’t give a damn for the scene or The Movie or any of it. I’m talking to you straight now, Tom Washburn. We’ve been closer than kin ever since you came into the Territory, a frightened tanglefoot kid who made a place for himself on sheer guts. I’m not going to let you run away now.”
“I’m finishing this coffee,” I tell him, “and riding on.”
Natchez suddenly twists in his chair, grabs a handful of my shirt and pulls my face close to his. In his other hand I see a knife.
“Get out your knife, Tom. I’d rather kill you myself than let you ride away a coward.”
Parker’s face is close to mine, glaring at me, the old man’s breath sour in my face. I brace my left foot on the floor, plant my right foot on the edge of Parker’s chair and push hard. Parker’s chair topples over and I see the look of shock on the old man’s face as he falls to the floor. I draw my gun and take aim between his eyes.
“Christ, Tom,” he says.
I thumb back the hammer. “You stupid old bastard,” I say, “what do you think this is, some kind of game? You’ve gotten sorta heavy-handed and long-winded ever since that bullet creased your spine. You think there are special rules, and you know all about them. But there aren’t any rules. You don’t tell me what to do and I don’t tell you. You’re a crippled old man, but if you pick a fight with me I’m going to fight my own way, not yours, and I’m going to put you down any way I can.”
I take up slack on the trigger. Old Parker’s eyes bulge, his mouth starts trembling, he tries to control himself but he can’t. He screams, not loud, but high-pitched, like a frightened girl.
I thumb down the hammer and put my gun away. “Okay,” I say, “maybe now you can wake up and remember how it really is.”
I lift him up and slide the chair under him. “Sorry it’s gotta be this way, Natchez. I’m going now.”
I stop at the door and look back. Parker is grinning at me. “Glad to see you’re feeling better, Tom. I should have remembered that you got nerves. All of the good ones have nerves. But you’ll be fine at the showdown.”
“You old idiot, there’s not going to be any showdown. I told you before, I’m riding out of here.”
“Good luck, Tom. Give ‘em hell!”
“Idiot!” I get out of there.
A horseman crosses a high ridge and lets his horse pick its own way down the other side to the desert floor. There is a soft hiss of wind, glitter of mica, sand gathered into long wavering windrows.
The noon sun beats down as the rider passes through gigantic rock formations carved by the wind into fantastic shapes. At evening, the rider dismounts and inspects his horse’s hooves. He whistles tunelessly to himself, pours water from his canteen into his derby, waters his horse, puts the hat back on and drinks sparingly himself. He hobbles the horse and makes camp on the desert. He sits by a little fire and watches the swollen desert sun go down. He is a tall, lean man, with a battered derby on his head and a horn-handled .44 strapped down on his right leg.
Brimstone: a desolate mining settlement on the northeastern edge of the Territory. Rising above the town is the natural rock formation of Devil’s Highway—a broad, gently sloping rock bridge. The far end, out of sight from here, is firmly anchored just outside The Set, two hundred yards and 150 years away.
I come in on a limping horse. There aren’t many people around, but I do spot one familiar face: it’s that damned freckle-faced kid. He must have ridden pretty hard to get here before me. I pass him by without a word.
I sit
my horse for a while and admire the Devil’s Highway. Five minutes’ ride to the other side and I’ll be out of the West for good, finished with it all, the good times and the bad, the fear and the laughter, the long slow days and the dull, dangerous nights. In a few hours I’ll be with Consuela, I’ll be reading the newspapers and watching TV...
Now I’m going to put down one last shot of redeye and then sashay out of here.
I pull up my horse at the saloon. A few more people are on the street now, watching me. I walk into the saloon.
There is one man drinking alone at the bar. He’s short and stocky, wearing a black leather vest and a Mountain Man’s buffalo hat. He turns; he carries one unholstered gun high in his belt. I never saw him before, but I know who he is.
“Howdy, Mr. Washburn,” he says.
“Howdy, Little Joe,” I reply.
He holds the bottle out questioningly. I nod. He reaches behind the bar, finds another shot glass, fills it up for me. We sip quietly.
After a while I say, “Hope you didn’t have too much trouble finding me.”
“Not too much,” Little Joe says. He’s older than I had expected, nearly thirty. He’s got a tough, craggy face, high cheekbones, a black handlebar mustache. He sips his drink, then says to me, very gently, “Mr. Washburn, I heard a rumor which I don’t believe. The rumor said that you was leaving this Territory in sort of a hurry.”
“That’s right,” I tell him.
“The rumor also said that you wasn’t planning to stay around long enough to give me the time of day.”
“That’s also true, Little Joe. I didn’t figure I had no time for you. But here you are anyhow.”
“Indeed I am,” Little Joe says. He rubs down the ends of his mustache and pulls hard at his nose. “Frankly, Mr. Washburn, I simply can’t believe that you’re not planning to waltz around with me. I know all about you, Mr. Washburn, and I just can’t believe that.”
“Better believe it, Joe,” I say to him. “I’m finishing this drink, and then I’m walking out this door and getting on my horse and riding over Devil’s Highway.”
Little Joe tugs at his nose again, frowns, pushes back his hat. “I never thought to hear this.”
“I never thought to say it.”
“You’re really not going to face me?”
I finish my drink and set the shot glass down on the bar. Take care of yourself, Little Joe.” I start toward the door.
Little Joe says, “There’s just one last thing.”
I turn. Little Joe is standing away from the bar, both hands visible. “I can’t force you into a showdown, Mr. Washburn. But I did make a little bet concerning that derby of yours. “
“So I heard.”
“And so, although it pains me more than you can know, I’ll have to have it.”
I stand, facing him, not answering.
Little Joe says, “Look, Washburn, no sense you just standing there glaring at me. Give me the hat or make your play.”
I take off the derby. I smooth it on my sleeve, then sail it to him. He picks it up, never taking his eyes from me. He says, “Well, I’ll be.”
“Take care of yourself, Little Joe.” I walk out of the saloon.
A crowd has assembled opposite the saloon. They wait and watch, talking in hushed voices. The saloon doors swing and a tall thin bareheaded man comes through. He is beginning to bald. He carries a .44 strapped down on his right leg, and he looks like he knows how to use it. But the fact is, he hasn’t used it.
Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, Washburn unties his horse, mounts it, and sets it at a walk toward the bridge.
The saloon doors swing again. A short, stocky hard-faced man comes through, holding a battered derby. He watches the horseman ride away.
Washburn spurs his horse, which hesitates a moment, then mounts the stone bridge. It takes constant urging to keep the horse going, picking its way across the sloping pebble-clad surface, to the center. Here Washburn stops the horse, or allows it to stop. He sits at the highest point of the bridge’s curve, astride the joint between two worlds, but looking at neither. He reaches up to tug at his hat’s brim and is mildly surprised to find himself bareheaded. He scratches his forehead lazily, a man with all the time in the world. Then he turns his horse around and starts back down the bridge to Brimstone.
The crowd watches as Washburn rides toward them. They are motionless, silent. Then, realizing what is about to happen, they scatter for the shelter of wagons, duck down behind water troughs, crouch behind grain sacks.
Only Little Joe Potter remains in the dusty street. He watches while Washburn dismounts, shoos his horse out of the line of fire, walks slowly toward him.
Little Joe calls out, “Hey, Washburn! Come back for your hat?”
Washburn grins, shakes his head. “No, Little Joe, I came back because it’s our dance.”
They both laugh, it is all some ridiculous joke. Then, suddenly, both men draw. The heavy bark of their ,44s crashes through the town. Smoke and dust obscure the fighters.
The smoke blows away. Both men are still standing. Little Joe’s gun is pointed down. He twirls it, and watches it fall from his hand. Then he collapses.
Washburn holsters his gun, walks over to Little Joe, kneels, lifts his head out of the dirt.
“Goddamn,” Little Joe says, “that was one short dance, huh, Washburn?”
“Too short,” Washburn says. “Joe, I’m sorry...”
But Little Joe doesn’t hear this. His eyes have gone blank and unfocused, his body is limp. Blood trickles out of two holes in his chest, blood stains the dust from the large exit wounds in his back.
Washburn gets to his feet, finds his derby in the dust, wipes it off, puts it on. He walks over to his horse. People are coming out now, there is a buzz of conversation. Washburn sets one foot in the stirrup, begins to mount.
At that moment a wavering, high-pitched voice calls out, “Okay, Washburn, draw!”
Washburn’s face contorts as he whirls, trying to get his gun hand clear, trying to spin out of the line of fire. Even in that cramped and impossible posture he manages to get the .44 drawn, spins to see the freckle-faced kid ten yards away with gun drawn and aimed, firing.
Sunlight explodes in Washburn’s head, he hears his horse scream, he is falling through the dusty floors of the world, falling as the bullets thud into him with a sound like a butcher’s cleaver swung fiat against a side of beef. The world is coming apart, the picture-making machine is smashed, his eyes are a broken lens that reflect the sudden destruction of the world. A red light flashes a final warning and the world goes to black.
The viewer, audience and actor, looks for a while at the darkened screen, stirs in his easy chair, rubs his chin. He seems to be in some distress. Then, at last, he belches, and reaches out and turns off the screen.
WHAT IS LIFE?
Mortonson relates that while he was out strolling in the foothills of the Himalayas one day, a tremendous voice that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere said to him, “Hey, you.”
“Me?” Mortonson asked.
“Yes, you,” the voice boomed. “Can you tell me, what is life?”
Mortonson stood, frozen in midstride, pouring perspiration, aware that he was having a genuine mystical experience, and that a lot was going to depend on how he answered The Question.
“I’m going to need a moment or two for this one,” he said.
“Don’t take too long,” said the voice, reverberating hugely from all sides.
Mortonson sat down on a rock and considered the situation. The god or demon who had asked the question surely knew that Mortonson—a mere mortal and not too fantastic a specimen at that—hadn’t the faintest idea of what life was. So his answer should perhaps reveal his understanding of his own mortal limitations, but also show his awareness that it was somehow appropriate for the god or demon to ask this question of a potentially divine creature like Man, here represented by Mortonson with his stooped shoulders, sunburned nose,
orange rucksack, and crumpled pack of Marlboros. On the other hand, maybe the implication of the question was that Mortonson himself really did know what life was and could spontaneously state in a few well-chosen words. But it was already a bit late for spontaneous wisdom.
“I’ll be right with you,” Mortonson said.
“Okay,” said the tremendous voice, booming off the mountains and rolling through the valleys.
It was really a drag to be put on the line like this spiritually. And it wasn’t fair. After all, Mortonson hadn’t come to Nepal as a pilgrim, he was only there on a thirty-day excursion. He was simply a young American with a sunburned nose chainsmoking Marlboros on a hillside in Nepal where he had come through a combination of restlessness and an unexpected birthday gift of five hundred dollars from his parents. So what could you infer from that, context-wise? Raw American Encounters Immemorial Eastern Wisdom and Fails Miserably To Get With It. A bummer!
Nobody likes to be put on the spot like that. It’s embarrassing and potentially ego-damaging to have this vast otherworldly voice come at you with what has to be a trick question. How do you handle it? Avoid the trap, expose the double-bind, reveal your knowledge of the Metagame by playing it in a spirit of frivolity! Tell the voice: Life is a voice asking a man what life is! And then roar with cosmic laughter.
But to bring that off you need to be sure that the voice understands the levels of your answer. What if it says, “Yeah, that’s what’s happening, but what is life?” And you’re left standing there with ectoplasmic egg on your face as that cosmic laughter is directed at you—great gusty heroic laughter at your pomposity, your complacency, your arrogance at even attempting to answer the Unanswerable.
“How’s it coming?” the voice asked.
“I’m still working on it,” Mortonson said.
Obviously, this was one of those spiritual quickies, and Mortonson was still stalling around, and hadn’t even gotten around yet to considering what in hell life was. Quickly he reviewed some possibilities: Life is a warm puppy. Life is asymmetry. Life is Chance. Life is Chaos shot through with Fatality (remember that one). Life is just a bowl of cherries. Life is birdcall and windsong (nice). Life is what you make it. Life is Cosmic Dance. Life is a Movie. Life is matter become curious (did Victor Hugo say that?). Life is whatever the hell you want to call it.
The Robot Who Looked Like Me Page 12