Guns of the Waste Land: Departure: Volumes 1-2

by Leverett Butts

  “The Comanch and Pache got their feathers ruffled because we sent the Aticota out this a-way when we run out of room for ’em back east. The Aticota was upset because they couldn’t stay where they was, but them people wasn’t cut out for civilization, so we all figured they’d be happier out here where they could live in the open with all the other heathen and worship the dirt together.

  “But there just ain’t no pleasing some folks, seems like. And once we moved out thissaway, we thought maybe we could be a calming influence on ’em, but it wasn’t to be. Seemed like always one or the other groups of red bastards was kicking up dust and threatening to drive us out. If it wasn’t the Comanch, it was the Paches. The Aticota was generally peaceful, but even they’d get a wild hair ever once in a while and go on a tearing rampage. Nothing we couldn’t generally handle, you know.

  “Now, Ardiss, he’d spent a great deal of his youth out among them Aticota, so he generally knew how to pacify them. Them others, the Comanch and Paches, they didn’t respect nothing but a good thumping, and Ardiss generally knew how to pacify them, too.

  “There came a time, though, when all them savages decided to try to run us all out at once and joined forces.

  “Your Pa and me, we rode with Ardiss through all his fights with the Indians. Musta fought damn near twelve, thirteen battles with him. Lessee, there was the one in that glen near the Grande. That one was Ardiss’ first real battle after he come back from among the savages. His daddy, Ol’ Luther, he got hisself kilt there. Got hisself crushed under a rockfall when he was scouting ahead. It was Ardiss found him.

  “Don’t nobody know how he come to get himself stuck under them rocks. Maybe his clomping around caused an avalanche, maybe a redskin pushed ’em down on him. But when Ardiss come up on his daddy and tried to dig him out, one of them red devils tried to stove his skull in while he was bent over. All Ardiss had time to do was pull his daddy’s guns from under the rock pile quick enough to spin around and shoot that Comanch bastard with both barrels.

  “Well, after he told that tale, wasn’t a one of us wouldn’t follow him through hell.

  “After that, he fought a bunch out by the Pecos, at least four times. Me and your daddy along with him every step of the way. He won most of them, and he never lost the rest too bad, so we felt like we were really accomplishing something out there in the badlands. Bringing peace and order and whatnot.

  “One time, though, when we were fighting, I forget if it was up on the Red River or out in them oak woods near Fort Joye, we had a draw when the tribes decided it was sowing time and they just up and left the field one night. Jim, he was all for setting off after them, but Ardiss wouldn’t have it.”

  I had to stop the old man here. “I thought you said my Pa wasn’t one for killing unless he had to.” over the bucket again and give me a look. “He wasn’t,” he said. “He argued that it didn’t make no sense to stop now. He figured getting ‘em done now would save having to kill ’em all later. And most of us held with him, but Ardiss said it wouldn’t be honorable to pursue ’em, and doing so would make their sons that much more ornery when they came of age without their fathers, uncles, and grandfathers if they’d been killed from behind. Since Ardiss was in charge, we followed his lead and let them devils go.

  “Sure enough, they come back the next year out near the fort again. That was when your daddy killed them three Indians with one shot and lost what little taste for killing he had. Oh, he’d still do it when it needed doing. We fought several times after that. Out near the Alamo, down near the Big Spring, about where it empties into the Colorado, up on Bush Mountain.

  “And in between all these big battles we was always fighting skirmishes hither and yon. Redskins can’t just tip their hat to you when you pass, they got to try and scalp you or fill you full of arrows. They ain’t civilized like us.”

  IV.

  “What the holy fuck are you doing, boy?”

  The voice came from behind me, and I jumped like I’d been shot. I dropped the broom I’d been leaning on, and it hit the floor so hard, the crack of its handle on the bare boards made me jump again. Caleb stood there in the doorway, both arms hanging on the batwing doors. With the morning light behind him, I couldn’t see nothing but his outline. He looked like the shadow of some hellspawn demon or some Injun monster come for my soul.

  In my surprise, I may have loosed my bladder a little, but nothing you’d notice right off.

  “Am I paying you to lollygag around and waste time with drunkards, boy?” Caleb moved on into the saloon clumping his booted heels as he walked.

  “Now don’t go yelling at the boy,” the old man said. “I’m the one got him distracted talking about his Pa.”

  “If I want your fucking input, Agathon Vann,” Caleb clenched his teeth and glared at the old man, “I’ll send you a goddamned invitation, and you ain’t worth the postage.”

  Since I was kind of an afterthought now, I quietly picked up my broom and headed to the back room for the bucket of sawdust.

  “Why you want to tell that kid about his Pa for?” I heard Caleb all the way in the back on account of he never could do anything quietlike. Even his whisper could be heard across a gambling hall at midnight, and he wasn’t whispering.

  “I figure everybody needs to know about where they come from,” Agathon mumbled as I came back in the main room and started scattering sawdust on the floor.

  “Where he come from?” Caleb let out a laugh, but it didn’t sound nothing like he was amused. Really kind of the opposite. “That fool knows all he needs to about where he come from.”

  I kept strewing sawdust and looking down, but I could feel Caleb sneering at me, and it made me feel like tobacco juice. “Do you want to know about your Pa, kid?”

  “Yessir,” I said, still not meeting his eyes. “It’s why I come here.”

  Caleb chuckled again. “Let me tell you something, kid.” I slowly raised my eyes to his. He stared at me in a weird way, like he was enjoying being mean and sad about it all at once. “You don’t ever want to know the truth, and that’s the God’s-honest fucking truth.” He coughed into his hand and then snorted like a bull. “It don’t ever fucking measure up to what you expect of it. Not once, not ever. The truth is a half-priced doxie. After midnight, she looks like a rosy-cheeked angel straight from the pearly gates. Come daybreak, she ain’t nothing but a toothless whore with age spots.”

  I didn’t quite follow what he was saying so I just grunted noncommittally.

  “Your daddy,” Caleb continued slowly, shaking his head. “That cocksucker was yellower than Chink railroad worker. He was a nigger-loving son-of a cock-starved bitch that would rather run off and tend sheep in a desert than help honest folk keep the red-skinned heathens under control. It pains me to say it,” I couldn’t tell whether it pained him all that much, “but the best thing ever happened to you and your ma was your daddy getting scalped and left to rot.”

  Chapter Eleven – Caleb

  I.

  “The little shitwit cold-cocked me!” Caleb sat on Doc Todd’s examining table as the doctor chewed his lip and sucked on his mustaches while poking and prodding the left side of Caleb’s face which had swollen considerably and was turning an interesting shade of purple. “Can you believe it?”

  “Does that hurt?” Todd pressed his thumb just below Caleb’s eye where a bump had risen that threatened to force his eye closed for the duration.

  Caleb yelped.

  “Would you describe that as more of a sharp pain,” Todd leaned his head to his left, contrasting Caleb’s unswollen side with his injuries, “or a dull pain?”

  “What the fuck is the difference, Doc?” Caleb pulled his head back to avoid Todd’s pressing his thumb under his good eye. “I’d describe the pain as somewhat akin to a goddamned horse-trampling. Who knew the fucking cunt had that kind of power in him.”

  Todd seemed to pay Caleb no mind as he moved around behind the examination table to examine the back of his patient�
��s head. “Did you hit your head when you fell?”

  “I may have, Doc. I don’t remember.”

  Todd leaned over Caleb’s right shoulder so he could look his patient in the eye without changing his position. “Did you black out?”

  “Well, I either blacked out, or that little fuck is a goddamned sorcerer. He was gone from the building when I sat up and looked around. Nobody left but that useless drunk Agathon.”

  “I wouldn’t call Vann useless,” Todd once again addressed the back of Caleb’s head and began running his fingers through his patient’s scalp, feeling for bumps or inappropriate soft spots, “He did, after all, come get me and helped me get you up. Not to mention you practically used the poor man as a crutch to lean on during the walk over here.”

  “For which, he will almost certainly expect a reward,” Caleb glared at Todd’s reflection in the examination room’s mirror in front of him. “He’ll be wanting free whiskey for the next month, mark my words.”

  “For God’s sake, brother,” The door to the examination room opened suddenly revealing Ardiss standing on the threshold, leaning against the doorjamb, “do you make it a habit of picking fights you cannot win against my stablehands?”

  “Don’t start on me, Ardiss,” Caleb’s voice carried with it a whining, weary quality whenever he felt he had to justify himself to his foster-brother. “I told you that boy was trouble. Do you believe me now?”

  “What did you do to provoke him?”

  “Oh that’s fucking rich, that is. And what makes you think I did anything to provoke the whoreson?”

  “I have met you, Caleb.”

  “If you don’t sit still while I’m poking and prodding back here,” Todd said from behind Caleb, “You are liable to find you have more to worry about than understandably agitated youths.”

  “Stay out of this, Doc.” Caleb grimaced as the doctor reached around to steady his head and grabbed the bruised spot.

  “You haven’t answered my question, Caleb,” Ardiss came into the examination room, sliding Todd’s desk chair over with his foot, then straddling it backwards resting his arms across the back. “Why did the boy hit you?”

  “Because he’s a halfwitted crazy fuckwit, Ardiss, plain and simple. Goddammit, Doc, can you stop jerking me around like a fucking chicken, or at least grab my other cheek?” Todd grunted but kept his hand over Caleb’s bruise. “The kid wanted to know about his old man. I told him. That’s it.”

  “You told him?” Ardiss ran a hand through his graying and thinning hair then scratched idly at his beard. “You best be glad he stopped at punching..”

  Doc Todd released Caleb’s head and folded his instruments back into his medical bag. “I believe you will survive,” he reported. “My advice is to go have a good lie down with a slab of beef over the eye.”

  “I would also avoid talking to teenaged boys for the next few days as well.”

  “Go fuck yourself, Ardiss.” Caleb grabbed his coat from the rack in the corner and pulled it on. Patting his foster brother’s shoulder and giving it an affectionate squeeze as he passed through the door.

  “You heard the doc,” Caleb called as he stepped onto the boardwalk outside the office, “I’m done for the day. Get Devere or someone to tend the fucking bar and close up tonight.”

  II.

  Caleb’s house sat behind Ardiss’ with a hard-packed dirt road separating the two properties. Caleb had chosen this lot when Ardiss first took over as sheriff, because, as the primary manager of Ardiss’ affairs and Celia’s silent partner in the Gilded Lily, the site allowed him easy access to both the Caring Lion and the cathouse. Being behind Ardiss’ house, also made visits with his brother easier. While he had designed a particularly cozy porch when building his house complete with a swing on one end and a small breakfast nook in the other, Caleb rarely used it. He often found himself in a brown study when sitting on his porch with nothing to look at but Ardiss’ well-house, garden, and rear entrance.

  Tonight, however, Caleb brewed himself some strong coffee and brought it, as well as a bottle of whiskey he’d taken from the Lion on his way from Todd’s, out to the breakfast nook and sat glowering at his brother’s lot.

  What did I do to provoke him, he asks me. Caleb sips the coffee down and then tops it off with the whiskey, glaring at the back of Ardiss’ house the while. “Because I’ve met you,” he says. And I don’t hear the doc do a thing to naysay him. Caleb sips the coffee down again and then tops it off with the whiskey again. The story of my goddamned life. Caleb Ecton: Fortune’s Fucking Fool, that’s me.

  It had been this way for years. Ever since Ardiss was lost and presumed killed by Indians. That he was actually captured, adopted, and made their goddamned prince made no difference. Even when he was returned, Caleb’s parents, especially his father, blamed Caleb for his plight.

  “It was supposed to be your cattle drive,” Hector Ecton would often tell his son, “Yet you left it to an untrained boy, so you could what? Drink? Chase tail? Both?”

  To this, Caleb could say nothing. He had, after all, given in to his younger brother’s pleading and let him go on the drive in his place. And yes, he had spent the free time in the arms of a trollop and embracing a bottle.

  “You would, father,” he would say when this accusation wore on him, “that it had been me slaughtered by Indians?”

  Hector would shake his head slowly, though in answer or disgust was anyone’s guess. “You are a disappointment to me, son,” he’d say. “Try at least not to be one to yourself.”

  When Ardiss returned from among the savages, half clothed in leathers with feathers in his hair, Caleb had hoped for a reprieve from his father’s disappointment, but it was not to be. Even on his death bed, a year after Ardiss had taken the reins of the sheriff and was slowly but surely bringing peace to the region, even then, Hector could not let his son forget his most grievous lack of judgment.

  “Don’t let the boy die,” he told his son. “You failed him once; don’t do it again. You are all he has.”

  For all the good it does him, Caleb thought again topping his coffee with whiskey. By now the mug was mostly coffee-flavored liquor, but really, Caleb preferred that. I told him that kid was trouble, but he doesn’t listen. I told him Gary Wayne was headstrong and impetuous, but he didn’t listen then either, and now look at him. Hell, I told him there was something not right about the way Lancaster and Guernica made goo-goo eyes at each other. He didn’t want to hear it.

  And now where are we? Our best fighters are fighting each other over some beaner split-tail while the goddamned dirt worshippers are almost certainly up to something. Maybe not the Aticota, if Red Marten is any fucking indication, but the Commanch and Apache cocksuckers for certain.

  Sip. Pour.

  But does Ardiss give two shits in a whirlwind about any of that? Hell no. He just wants to know what I did to deserve a pummeling by that simple-minded son of a bitch. Didn’t do a goddamned thing but tell the little shit the truth. His father lost his nerve and quit fighting Indians. Turned yellow plain and simple.

  III.

  Ardiss and his Riders had been harried through the Waste Lands for days. What had started as a simple operation to drive a war party of Comanche and Apache braves from the grazing lands outside Bretton had quickly become a travesty of poor strategy and bad decisions. Caleb hated to admit it, but this was one time his brother had reached above his bend and dropped them all in a bad box.

  It was a plan Ardiss had used before. The tribes generally sent war parties out to Harry Drovers and stagecoaches in the late summer or fall. Ardiss would generally engage the Indians just enough to drive them off, then herd them further and further away from not only the town but their own lands. This way, by the time the party turned around, their supplies were dwindling, and their mounts were too tired to return straight to Bretton. By the time they arrived in their own lands, like as not, the weather was generally turning too cold to make another pass at the town unfeasible until sp
ring or early summer.

  The Indians always fought well until it became obvious that Ardiss and his men, while smaller in number, were far better armed. With their rifles, the Riders could stay as far back as three hundred feet and pick off the warriors. They need never get close enough for hand-to-hand combat, or “tomahawk-to-head” as Jim Murratt put it. Indeed, with this advantage, the Riders could easily have killed every warrior in the party had Ardiss allowed it. However, Ardiss only allowed his men to kill or maim just enough of the warriors to get the rest moving again.

  Caleb never really understood all the trouble Ardiss took. Seemed to him it'd be easier to just kill the dirt-worshipping heathens and be done with it, but Ardiss always had a soft-spot for them fuckers, damned if Caleb knew why.

  “Was me,” he complained to Agathon Vann, Jim Murratt, and Mark Cornwallis one night by the firelight when they were making their way back after driving the Indians almost to the Red River, “I'd not show any mercy to them sons-a-bitches what stole me and kept me prisoner for years. But Ardiss is too good for his own good if you ask me. Always has been.”

  “We do it,” Ardiss said patiently, walking into the ring of light, “because we will one day have to live in peace with these ‘savages.’ Indiscriminately killing them now will not change that fate, only prolong its coming to pass.”

  “Not if we killed all the godless cocksuckers,” Caleb muttered.

  This tactic had generally worked well for the last year or so since their last skirmish in Big Spring in fact. Several of the Riders, those who weren’t like Caleb itching to simply slaughter all the Indians and be done with it, had begun to think peace with the Red Man was almost within reach since such war parties were coming less and less frequently.