by Paul Bagdon
Lucas came in from the back, stomping his boots and slapping his hands together.
“The horses are good,” he said. “We got nuff hay for a couple-three days.” He stomped his boots a few more times to get some sensation in his feet. “I tell you, Pound, this storm for sure calls for…”
He stopped speaking when he saw we had a guest.
“…calls for a friendly beverage—maybe two—no?” The man with no name finished Lucas’s sentence.
“Right.” Lucas grinned and held out his hand to the stranger to shake. The other man ignored it.
“Ain’t what you’d call real social-like, are you?”
“No.”
“You got a name?”
“Jake’ll do for now.”
“That drink still sound good, Jake?”
Jake nodded as Don came in the front door. “I walked as far as the mercantile. It an’ all the other stores are closed up tight. The saloons are up and runnin’ an’ doin’ lots of business—most all of it to Powers’s men, ‘cause they don’t pay for drinks or women.”
“This Powers—he’s the one we’re after?” Jake asked.
“An’ his collection of shitheels, too, o’course,” Lucas added. To Don, he said, “This fella here is Jake. He’s come to give us a hand.”
Lucas pulled open the deep drawer of the rolltop and took out a clear, unlabeled bottle.
Jake grimaced. “ ‘Shine the best you boys can do?” He looked and sounded like he was asking if we always put cowshit in our oatmeal.
“Taste it,” I said.
Jake took the bottle, plucked the cork, sniffed the whiskey, then took a drink of it. His face lit up with a large smile. “Jesus,” he said. He reached his hand out to shake with Lucas. He also shook with me and with Don.
“You boys is OK,” he said. “I know this didn’t come from no general store or gin mill. It’s as sweet as a virgin’s teat.”
Lucas took a step closer to Jake. “I been purely admirin’ your coat,” he said. “What critter’d you skin her off of? Looks like a bear, but that color…”
“He was a grizzly, OK,” Jake said. “But you boys know what an albino is?
“Sure,” I said.
“Yeah,” Don said, “of course.”
“It’s a town somewheres in New Mexico, ain’t it? I can’t say I been there, but I know what it is,” Lucas said.
To his credit, Jake didn’t laugh. “You’re thinkin’ of Albuquerque, Lucas. Easy mistake to make. But, see, an albino is an animal that’s pure white, an’ more likely’n not, has pink eyes. Anyways, this here coat isn’t from a full albino—his coloring got a little screwed up when he was still in his mama.”
“How’d you take him?” I asked. “He musta been big.”
“He stood an honest seven feet, he did, an’ he was as ornery as a sack fulla rattlers. I didn’t want to shoot him an’ put a hole or two in his pelt. So I got up on his back and slashed his throat. You’d be right surprised how much blood there is in a big bear.”
“A albriono,” Lucas mused. “Was his blood white, too?”
“It’s ‘albino,’ an’ no, his blood was as red as your’n an’ mine.”
For some moments, no one said anything. Jake hadn’t yet relinquished the bottle. He took another good hit and passed the booze to Don. “Awful fine whiskey,” he said.
Don didn’t seem to have much to say. He wore a wrinkled-brow, worriedlike face damned near every time I saw him. I couldn’t figure him out.
Jake turned to me. “Look,” he said, “these two gents are right in the middle of this shit with Powers an’ gettin’ you a pardon, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “They are. I’ve told them—and I didn’t make any promises or twist any arms.
“Well, then,” Jake said, “you boys are pards, right?”
“Yeah,” Lucas answered.
“Kinda,” Don said.
“No,” I said. “We work together an’ we cover each other’s backs, but we’re not pards. Zeb Stone was the last partner I ever care to have.”
“Why?” Jake asked. “Robbin’ banks is risky. I knew ol’ Zeb an’ that crazy family of his, an’ I know Zeb Stone feared nothin’ an’ no one. You think Zeb was surprised when he got shot up at that bank? Hell no! It’s the business he was in. He’s the one who chose it. He’d want you to have a partner.”
Jake was rattling me a bit. “Let’s let it go for now,” I said.
“Fair nuff,” he said. “Just now I’m wonderin’ if you boys could spare me another little taste of that fine, fine whiskey?”
Late that night I overheard a brief conversation between Don and Lucas.
“Pa can handle it for crissake,” Lucas said. “It ain’t like the bottoms are gonna burn through. Damn, you worry like a woman, Don—but I reckon it’s up to you to decide where you need to be. Don’t make us no never mind. A man, he does what he’s gotta do.”
I knew that something was coming up between Don and me, and I had a real strong suspicion what it was.
The storm continued past the point where it became tedious and monotonous—then it kept on going. Any storm I ever lived through had one constant, one thing that always happened: the wind that was driving it abated. This sonofabitch wind, however, screamed the second and third day like a scalded cat, and the snow continued to come in horizontally.
Lucas, Don, and I saw to our horses—smashing the ice in their troth so they could drink, making certain their standing area was mucked out, and checking them to make sure they weren’t chewing on each other. Horses get bored just as men do, and a relief to boredom in both men and horses was fighting. There were no problems in the shelter thus far, however.
Jake made it down to the livery every ten or twelve hours to check on his horse. He did it by moving along the street, tight to the buildings, feeling doors and windows to orient himself. The livery was way the hell out at the end of the street, but he made it out and back every time. On one of his trips he brought back a deck of playing cards from his saddlebag.
I’d rather have a tooth pulled than play poker—or any card game—but I enjoyed watching.
Don, Lucas, and Jake played. Lucas was the aggressive one—he’d heavy-bet a hand that a three-year-old would have folded. Don was conservative in his playing—he’d ditch a hand unless he was fairly certain he could win with it. Jake was yet more reckless than Lucas, but he won more hands than his opponents did.
We were drinking bar whiskey—the supply Lucas had brought back from his home was long gone. It was crypt-quiet in the office, except for the slap of cards. Outside the storm continued, but we didn’t really hear it, any more than a man who lives on a lake hears the constant waves.
I was just about dozing off on the floor not far from the stove when Lucas stood and swept the cards and cash from the desktop and bellowed, “I seen what you just done, you sonofabitch! You’re cheatin’!”
Jake was incredulous. “Why, sure I am. Ain’t you boys?”
I got to my feet in a hurry. I didn’t need two of my men pounding the piss outta each other.
“You don’t cheat against friends,” Lucas said.
Jake smiled. “I cheat against everybody—every goddamn body—‘cause if I didn’t, I might lose.”
I moved closer to stand in front of Lucas. His hands weren’t clenched into fists and that, I thought, was a good sign.
Jake said, “I don’t want none of that money on the floor. You boys split it. I was jus’ playin’ for fun, is all.”
“I might have killed you,” Lucas said.
Jake grinned. “Sure,” he laughed. “Right when hogs start to nest in trees. Lemme show you boys somethin’,” he said, as he shoved his chair back. He took a .45 from a shoulder holster under his bear coat.
“That ain’t nothin’…” Lucas began.
“Hush now.” Jake made a quick, short motion with his right hand—a flick type of thing—and a long, narrow-bladed knife appeared in his hand. He threw it at a Wan
ted poster on the far wall, pinning the criminal directly between the eyes. Jake moved his left hand and an over-and-under Derringer magically rested comfortably in his palm. “I killed me a deer once with this baby,” he said. “The recoil on the sumbitch would knock down a fat bull buffalo, but it sure does the job.” He placed the Derringer on the desktop along with the other weapons he’d drawn. He pulled a short, double-edged throwing knife from his right boot and another from his left and put them on the desk.
“Damn,” Lucas said. “The man’s a walkin’ arsenal.” To Jake, he said, “Can I have a look-see at that little over-an’-under? I ain’t doubtin’ your say-so, but I never seen a Derringer that could stop a chipmunk. I’d like to take her outside, squeeze a shot off.”
Jake’s grin became broader. “I figured the sheriff here”—he nodded at me—“would be the one to see if I was lyin’ ‘bout that gun.”
“Makes no difference to me what that pistol can or can’t do,” I lied.
In truth I was just about to ask to take it outside when Lucas spoke up.
Jake took the Derringer from the desk and handed it to Lucas.
Lucas hadn’t gotten a good look at the piece until it was in his hand. He whistled a long note. “Lookit the bore on this goddamn thing! A fella could damn near fire a twelve-pound cannonball through either barrel.”
“Watch yer ass,” Jake suggested. “There ain’t no safety on it. The pull is heavy, but still…”
Lucas nodded. “I’ll watch her,” he said.
He didn’t bother with his heavy coat or mittens or any other outdoor clothing. He walked out the door and pulled it shut behind him. Nothing happened for maybe two minutes. It seemed like the wind had gotten suddenly stronger and more intense for that bit of time, but that was probably because we were listening so hard.
There were two terribly loud explosions so close together they sounded almost like a single report. In a moment, Lucas shoved the door open and re-entered the office. His shirt and pants in front were snowless, but his shoulders, back, and pants in back were encrusted with white. He’d been literally knocked on his ass.
“How much you want for her?” Lucas said.
“Ain’t for sale.”
“Gimme the name of the gunsmith who made ‘er for ya, then.”
“He’s dead,” Jake said, holding his hand out for the Derringer.
Lucas handed the gun over reluctantly.
Jake reloaded the pistol with .44-50 brass-jacketed cartridges, the same round the Sharps buffalo gun fired. “I’ll tell you what,” Jake said, “should I get killed in what we’re doin’ here, you can have her. Fair nuff?”
“Hot damn!” Luas exclaimed. “I purely ‘preciate that! Hot damn,” he repeated.
If Lucas had been a lesser man, I might have suspected him of planting a slug in Jake’s head when our battles with Powers got intense, but he wasn’t a lesser man. Jake must have known that, or he wouldn’t have made the offer he put in front of Lucas.
The storm kind of slunk away like a whipped dog—tail between its legs, all its fight gone—and disappeared, all in the course of a single night. We checked on our horses, which were showing signs of acute boredom.
Don’s horse had begun cribbing, a strange habit extremely bored horses invented. A cribbing horse will lock his front teeth into the top plank of a stall and rock slightly, his teeth gripping tight. They’ll do this for hours at a time. There’s at least a couple of problems cribbing causes. For one thing, they make the stall plank look like hell, with a half-moon shape maybe two or three inches deep every so often along its length. Second, and much more important since planks are cheap, is the fact that the damned fools will swallow the splinters they chew free, and those splinters can pierce the horses’ throat or gut, and then the owner is left with a thousand pounds or so of dead horse to haul out of a stall and plant somewhere.
The morning of the night the storm ended Don took his horse down to the livery and turned him out into the five- or six-acre pasture there. Of course it was all covered with better’n a couple of feet of snow, but the horse had some space to flounder around and buck and kick and burn off some energy. Later that day, I took my buckskin down there, too. He was as edgy as a nun in a cathouse, and he charged out into the drifts as soon as I set him free.
The next day was almost fifty degrees, which meant that all that snow began to melt. Main Street in Gila Bend—such as it was—became a sea of mud and clay, almost impassable on horseback and completely impassable to freight wagons hauling to the mercantile essentials, such as barrels of beer, and supplies, such as ammunition, smoking tobacco, whiskey, lamp fuel, and so forth.
We left our horses in the stable pasture—they weren’t much good as riding stock, and they enjoyed being out and rolling in the mud, digging their shoulders in, and grunting like sows. The blacksmith at the livery was doing a hell of a business. Mud and clay sucks off shoes just as a leech sucks blood. Anyone stupid enough to attempt to ride any distance deserved the smith’s jacked up prices. He tried to charge Jake two dollars to reset a shoe. Jake told the smith he’d bring a shoe to white hot in the forge and then stick it up the blacksmith’s ass. The smith did the reset for his usual price of fifty cents.
The third day, while the snow was still melting, a couple of men walked into town. They looked like bad news for no particular reason. They were dressed like saddle tramps, probably smelled like tubs of shit, and simply slogged along down the street. Still, there was a chill around them—an aura of violence.
I’d been standing at the office window, watching the two men. Don was sitting over in the corner. Jake, half drunk and playing his harmonica with all the skill of a goddamn chimpanzee, sat behind my desk. I called him to the window.
“You know them?” I asked.
“Of course I know them,” Jake said. “You couldn’t find a crazier pair of partners anywhere in the West—they’re both loony. Big Nose—the one who’s a bit taller—has taken over fifty scalps, mostly from white men, white women, and white babies. Hairy Dog—the other one—is a hell of a shot with either a pistol or rifle. He’s some ugly—he has a dog face and more hair to him than a good beaver pelt. Injuns don’t usually grow much hair—but ol’ Dog, he’s like a goddamn bear rug.”
“Do they speak English?”
“Why sure, Pound. They talk damned near as good as me. They might slide in a bit of Injun-ish every so often, but that ain’t no never mind. It ain’t the words as well as the order they put them in. Ya know?”
“What the hell do they want in Gila Bend?”
Jake laughed. “You ain’t quite figured this out, Pound. These two loons got the telegram. They’re part of us now, like their style or not.”
“Ahh, shit,” I said. “How am I supposed to control these two screwups?”
“Well, you can’t. You try to an’ one or the other will kill you.” He paused there for a long moment. “Uhh, one other thing, Pound. Sometimes they eat the heart and the liver of their victims, but those are usually warriors beat in a battle. I ain’t heard of them doin’ it recently, but I thought you’d like to know.”
“Sweet Jesus,” I said, almost to myself.
I turned from the window, mad. “I didn’t sign on for crazies like these two. Hell, I’m inclined to take them down right now with one of our .30-30s and forget ‘bout the sonsabitches.”
“They’re comin’ this way,” Jake said. “If you’re gonna try a play, you’d best do it now. If you ain’t, shut the hell up an’ ‘member what I told you.”
I crossed over to the rifle cabinet and pulled out a .30-30. It wasn’t loaded, but I filled it and jacked a round into the firing chamber.
The Indians pushed open the door and stepped inside. I noticed that they immediately spread apart, making themselves two targets instead of one. Big Nose said, “You lookin’ to die with that toy in your hands?” He let his right hand drop quite casually to his side, then raised a cutoff 12-gauge from beneath his coat. The weapon was on
a nicely constructed swivel. “You figure you’re goin’ to screw with us, pale man?”
“I’ll tell you what I figure: There’s two men with me here. Maybe I’ll get a shot off into one of you and maybe not. But these two boys will kill you right where you stand.”
Hairy Dog’s solemn face broke into a huge smile, and he moved to embrace Jake. “Why damn me to hell!” he all but shouted. “Jake, it’s a gift from the gods to meet up with you again.”
Jake and the Indian hugged, slapping each other on the back. “You ‘member,” Hairy Dog said, “when you’n me shot our way outta that jail in Durango?”
“Oh, yeah I do,” Jake said. “Your crazy sumbitch partner got us a couple of chopped-down 10 gauges. Jesus! That first round I fired damn near busted my wrist.”
“That Marshall, he was handy,” the Indian said. “You done right in dropping him first. But you white men, you got no strength. You moaned and carried on for a couple of days about your hand. ‘Course that was the one you pleasured your ownself with.”
“I hear you Injuns screw lots of goats—an’ the goats walk away thinkin’ they’ve been bit by a mosquito.”
They laughed and embraced again. “Big Nose,” Jake said over Hairy Dog’s shoulder, “you’re lookin’ right good for an ol’ man.”
“Just old enough to kick your scrawny ass, white boy.”
Jake stepped away from Hairy Dog. “I got two friends here,” he said to the Indians. He pointed at me. “This here’s the sheriff. His name is Pound. And this feller’s name is Don,” he said, nodding at Don. “They’re both good men, an’ you can trust ‘em with your life.”
Indians aren’t real big on shaking hands, and neither approached Don or me.
“Who is the enemy in this town?” Hairy Dog asked.
“Fellow named Billy Powers,” I said. “He’s taken over Gila Bend. I get a full pardon if I take back the city.”
Hairy Dog grunted. “What do we get?”
“A thousand each.”
“Cash money?”
“Cash money.”
“How many men has this Billy Powers? Are they good fighters?”
“About forty, give or take a few. Some are gunmen, but most are screwups from the war—drunks, killers, and so forth.”