by Tim Bryant
“God rot it!” the Reverend said.
I was still laughing in spite of myself. Seconds later, my laughter got caught in my throat. There, filing up the stairs ahead of Gentleman Jack was a man I recognized as Pete from Wichita Falls. Ahead of him and clutching onto the dirty paw of Simeon Payne, in a blue cotton dress I couldn’t recall ever seeing before, was Greer Lusk Liquorish. My Greer, her belly now noticeably full of our child. She was looking down at the stairs as if she was afraid she might miss one, and, when she finally topped out, skillfully managed to scan her surroundings without ever looking me directly in the eye.
“Greer.”
I’d had dreams before where I was calling out to somebody. Maybe they were in a burning house or about to ride into a snake pit, and I was trying to get their attention.
“Greer!”
What came out of my lungs as something of a holler withered in the air and hung there, never getting to the ears of its intended subject. Reverend Caliber elbowed me in the ribs.
“Jack’s trying to rattle you, son,” he said. “You go off and do something stupid, you’ll look exactly like the hothead he says you are.”
It’s a damn good thing I didn’t have any gun on me, because I would have drawn it, and I would have killed, starting with the bastard Jack Delaney.
Standing there doing nothing did something interesting to me. I could feel something break inside like a rope between my head and my stomach. It reminded me of the time I’d been beaten by a group of soldiers in the District for taking their money in a game of billiards. I could almost hear it untangling and pulling apart, and I could sure enough feel every inch of it. I had never had to stand and face the music as a grown man, yet here I was, being asked to face it and dance and try to keep a smile on my face.
Funny enough, it set me free. Not free like Reverend Caliber’s bible talked about getting set free. Not free like Texas was a free state, and not like Jack Delaney had been born a slave but now he was free. I mean I was finally free to see myself as I really was, and that made me free to see Jack and Simeon Payne and all those faces in the street as they were too.
I just couldn’t see Greer.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I have three different witnesses here who will tell you in their own words about the man on trial today. The first is Mr. Simeon Payne, who was the only person who survived to tell the story of what happened on the cattle drive from Mobeetie to Fort Worth. He will tell you what happened when the drive pulled into Wichita Falls. He will tell you what happened when the drive finally fell apart in the desert between that city and this one.”
Simeon Payne stepped up next to Jack like he was about to take a bow for the role he was playing. He was dressed to the nines, and I could tell he hadn’t ridden into town in that getup. It was a little too clean. It made me wonder if Jack hadn’t taken him, Pete and Greer all shopping.
“This next young man is Pete Doon from Wichita Falls, who will tell you what happened when the man standing on trial came riding into town and made a devil’s bargain with the townspeople.”
Pete looked me square in the eye, and, even when I looked away, I could feel his gaze. I didn’t know this man well enough for him to be saying anything about me. I had never even known his whole name until that moment. Doon? I think that was what he said.
“And this beautiful young lady is the unfortunate wife of Wilkie John Liquorman or Liquor-whateverhisnameis,” Jack said. “She is also, as you can plainly see, the expectant mother of this man’s offspring. Although I can assure you that, if justice is truly served here today, which I believe it shall be, we will also be giving this lady the new beginning she so richly deserves.”
And with that, the trial recommenced. I didn’t care what happened at that point. I was ready to get it all over with. If that was the way Gentleman Jack wanted to play, he was indeed about to see something that nobody saw coming.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I lost all spirit to keep going when Jacobo died on the outskirts of Wichita Falls. Nonetheless, I agreed to take a small herd of cattle into town and sell it for supplies that would keep us going and maybe allow us to reform the drive. If we could get to Fort Worth and regroup, adding a few more experienced men to the team, we could still make Kansas City and leave with enough money to make it worth the trip. I would still have enough to return to Mobeetie and buy a ranch. Then I could raise horses and maybe some cattle, and, if there was another drive, I could hire someone else to do that work while I stayed home with Greer and the baby.
I wound up taking fifty-eight head of cattle into Wichita Falls that afternoon. I say into. I never actually got past the entrance to the town. A welcome wagon was parked there waiting for me, and they didn’t exactly have their arms open.
“We’re not allowing no outside cattle in,” said a man who introduced himself only as Pete. “We’ve had some of ’em come down with Spanish fever, and, to tell the truth, we really don’t need anybody coming in unless you’re an animal doctor.”
I told him that I wasn’t a doctor of any kind, but that we had some sick people just a few miles northwest, and we could use a doctor ourselves.
“I have fifty-eight head of cattle here,” I said. “If I could trade them on some supplies and some medicine, we won’t cause you any grief. We’d sure be obliged.”
Pete wasn’t having none of it and was about to turn me away, cattle and all, but one of his companions stopped it.
“Those cattle ain’t got no fever?” he said.
I told him they didn’t. I didn’t mention the other thirty head we’d put down. All I wanted was to get some solid food and something for stomach problems and push on toward Fort Worth. I had no yearning to see any more of Wichita Falls.
The men discussed the fact that, due to them losing so much of their cattle to the Spanish Fever, they could sure use some new ones to replace them, and, after some mully grubbing back and forth, they offered to take them off my hands for thirty dollars, a supply of water, two bottles of quinine and a little laudanum. I didn’t have any room to negotiate. I took the deal and rode out, wishing them well. I was thankful for the quinine, as I was beginning to feel less than outstanding myself, and I stopped halfway back to camp to take a swig, just to make sure I got me a taste before the bottles went around. A little farther on, I stopped and took an equal nip from the laudanum, just to even things out.
We decided to move on around the town and stop for the night on the south side. That way, when we woke up the next morning, we would have maybe three days ahead of us before arriving in Fort Worth. Even then, that distance was beginning to look like a sea, and when I lay down to sleep that night, the ship was rolling on wave after wave of sand. I would grab the dirt in both hands trying to keep myself steady and keep both eyes fixed on the moon.
It was a long night filled with staring at the sky and then dreaming of staring at the sky. I kept hearing Jacobo calling me, but when I looked around, it would end up being William Gee or Ira Lee. That seemed even worse. As far away as the ship full of sand seemed to take me, I still knew, somewhere inside, that Ira Lee was getting worse and worse. I finally vomited over the side of the boat and passed out. Waking up to Ira Lee splashing my face with water, I discovered that William Gee had died in the night. Leon Thaw looked at me strangely all that morning, and I started to ask what was on his mind, but, when I looked around as we were breaking camp, I had a dim recollection of the waves that had tossed me about the sand, and of the ship that was now just a memory, a wreck along the trail. I decided to say nothing.
We buried William Gee along with about twenty more head of cattle that had either perished or were too far gone to be of any value to anyone. On the other hand, I felt better than I had in a day or two. I looked for the quinine and found it bone dry, but there was still some laudanum, so I took a dose and gave a taste to Roman. I’d heard of people giving it to their animals, and something from the night’s dreams had concerned me for his health. Had he been on the ship w
ith me? I couldn’t remember, and I didn’t like the thought of him not being there. I’d purposefully kept him as far as I could from any of the cows that seemed to have the fever, but it seemed to be spreading. I made up my mind to split from whatever was left of the drive as soon as we got to Fort Worth. I wanted to see Greer.
“Wilkie John, I’m not sure I’m gonna make it to Fort Worth,” Ira Lee said.
We had never been close, but I couldn’t envision a world without him out there somewhere, calling me to come and join him. I didn’t like the notion of him calling me from the grave.
“I don’t wanna hear that, Ira Lee.”
Simeon Payne was pulling the livestock together for another long day under the summer sun. He didn’t seem to be showing any effects from the fever. He was too mean to die, I decided.
“I want you to take me back to San Antonio,” he said. “I want mama to know I died on my feet, trying to get somewhere and not laying in a bed waiting for the end.”
I wasn’t so sure it would make mama any difference. I couldn’t understand why he cared what she thought anyway. He hadn’t been home in years. And either way, he would be dead. I suggested I tell her he went to Dodge City instead. Seemed to me like maybe the nearest thing to a real heaven for folks like me and Ira Lee.
“Maybe you’re right, little brother,” he said.
Later that day, when we’d gone maybe fifteen miles, he stopped, climbed down from his horse and took a long drink of water. That time he told me just to shoot his horse and bury them together wherever he fell. And that’s what I promised I’d do.
We rode on for a couple more days. We rode so long that we slipped past Fort Worth to the west and wound up in Comanche. Ira Lee was riding up front with the bell cow, all the way to the end, and for the last few miles, I watched him teeter to one side and then the other. I had given him the last of the laudanum that morning, and I was concerned that he might fall asleep on the trail. I called out to him a time or two, and he righted himself, only to start tottering to the other side a mile later. The second time, he fell right over. I watched him go in slow motion, but there was nothing I could do but call out his name. It seemed to die there in the air along with him.
Ira Lee fell and hit his head. I don’t know for sure if he died on his horse and fell off or if he fell asleep and then died when he hit his head. There was a lot of blood, but he never blinked or flinched or said another word.
His last words had been about an hour before when he looked back at me and said, “You still following, little brother?”
I hadn’t answered. I had only followed along. Now, it seemed like it was up to me to lead the bell cow. When I looked at her, I wasn’t sure how much farther any of us could go.
“I think we’re going in the wrong direction,” Leon Thaw said.
This was after we’d shot Ira Lee’s mustang and buried them in the sand. I wanted to put up some kind of marker to tell anybody else who followed that a decent man had gone down there. I had no supplies to do such a thing, and I quickly discovered I lacked the energy as well.
“We’ve been going in the wrong direction ever since we left Mobeetie,” I said.
It had become a quest to stay alive, a matter of survival, finding our way out of that ocean-sized death trap. From there on, it was every man for himself. Just as it had always been, just as it was meant to be.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“What we see is not always reality,” Gentleman Jack said. “One day I saw a magician at work right here in this town, in a small theater. I was maybe as far from him as I am from you people right down front. He took a pack of normal playing cards. I know they were normal playing cards because he let me shuffle them.”
I felt a raindrop on my arm. I looked up to make sure it wasn’t a bird flying over and saw a scattering of rainclouds moving in from the west.
“This magician placed that pack of cards into a hat,” he said. “The hat wasn’t all that different from the one I’m wearing now.”
I’d never seen him in any other hat. It was seldom that I saw him take it off.
“Well, he waved his hand around over that hat, and, lo and behold, when he stuck his hand back into it, he pulled out a rope. He pulled and pulled and that little stage began to be filled with rope. A hundred yards of it. Maybe two hundred. Now the key to the whole thing, if I can believe what I’m being led to believe, lies in that moment when he was waving his hand. Not because waving your hand causes a perfectly good pack of cards to turn into more rope than you could ever use.”
He stopped and let his words sink in for a moment.
“When the magician is waving his hand, you’ve got to look close at what his other hand is doing.”
At that point, a cowboy off to the left of the stage decided he’d heard enough of this line of thinking.
“If you want to ruin the magic trick!”
Gentleman Jack wasn’t pleased.
“The difference between you and me, my friend, I know there’s no such thing as magic,” he said. “Now that might not seem like such a big difference. Maybe you truly want to believe this magician turned that deck of cards into half a mile of rope. That right?”
The men standing with the fellow in question liked his sudden importance.
“Damn straight he does,” one of them said.
I had to admit, Jack was a wonder to behold, especially while he was focused on someone other than myself for a few minutes.
“There’s where I have total control over him,” he said. “If your friend chooses to believe in a magic that doesn’t exist, he’s handed control of the situation over to me.”
He turned back to the man.
“I can use your belief in something that doesn’t exist to manipulate you.”
I’m not sure any of them had any idea what Jack was saying. I didn’t know what his point was either, but it soon became clear enough.
“This man—John Liquorman, Wilkie John Liquorish—wants you to look at him and see something other than reality. You see a kid, somebody too young and innocent to have left such a bloody trail behind him, you’ve fallen for the trick.”
Reverend Caliber was ready this time, and he found enough of a pause to jump into the conversation.
“Mr. Delaney brings up an excellent point,” he said. “But let me ask you to consider this. The magician has one objective: to make you think he’s doing one thing, while he’s doing another. Now, look here. My client, Wilkie John, is standing here and telling you what happened. He’s told you about the Indian friend who was scalped by his own people for being a servant and helping to bring people together. He’s told you about this young Scottish lass who stole his heart and, from the looks of things, broke it into pieces. He’s not trying to fool anybody. I would suggest that every time Mr. Delaney waves his hand at my client, it’s Mr. Delaney who’s trying to produce a rope where there isn’t one. Keep an eye on him and don’t be fooled by what he’s doing.”
I thought the line about the rope was particularly good, and so did a few people out in the street. Fort Worth had a mix of Confederate sympathizers who were angry about the way things had shaken out and settlers who hadn’t ever thought slavery belonged in Texas, and both audiences responded equally to any mention of justice and a rope. Before Gentleman Jack had come to town and, with the High Sheriff’s assistance, built the great contraption we were standing on, there had been several trees and more rope than you could measure out. Hangings had been a weekly occurrence, often with less of a trial than I was being afforded. Now, there was the lure of the new, of the proper, but, from where I stood, it didn’t look much different. Reverend Caliber had just put any vigilantes in the crowd on notice.
“I don’t just have rope,” Jack said. “I also have the law on my side.”
He walked right up to the lip of the stage.
“If I took a poll right now, how many of you fine citizens would vote that this young man has killed enough? How many of you think he should pay w
ith his life, this very day?”
Not everybody raised their hand. I can tell you that. I tried to take some solace there, but there wasn’t much to be found. A good sixty percent had their hands in the air. I looked at the Reverend, who seemed, at the moment, like a preacher in danger of losing his flock.
“Let’s hear the rest of the story,” he said. “Great people of history have often been killed due to their juries and their judges not knowing the full story. Think of Joan of Arc.”
It’s doubtful many people there had any idea who Joan of Arc was.
“Think of our lord and savior, Jesus Christ.”
The same man who had spoken out earlier about believing in magic raised an objection.
“This little pipsqueak ain’t our lord and savior, preacher man.”
I could feel the people becoming more hostile, and it wasn’t the preacher they were taking issue with. There would be no ropes for his pious neck on this day.
“Oh, but have you not read, my brother,” Caliber said, “for the lord said, ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.’”
Never before or since have I loved the Lord so much. There was such a ruckus through the crowd—and then a groundswell of applause—that the preacher, in his excitement, shouted “Hallelujah!” and I thought we might just be victorious.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I left Meridian with nothing but Roman and Ira Lee’s .44 Colt. Simeon watched silently as I dug a grave for Ira Lee and his horse, then announced to me and Leon Thaw that he was turning back.
“Y’all can keep going if you want to,” he said. “I got just enough learning to turn around when I see the gates of hell itself.”
I scanned the horizon for a sign. If I was looking at hell, I also had a sense that our salvation lay ahead of us, in Fort Worth, and not all the way back in Mobeetie. As much as I missed Greer, I don’t think I would have survived the trip back. And, if I did, I didn’t want her to see the kind of shape I’d be in.