by James Wade
“You might as well have.”
“Well, I didn’t. Fact is, I don’t think nobody’s evil. I don’t think there’s such a thing that even exists. The way I figure it, there’s people, some of ’em better than others, some of ’em worse, and every one of ’em has to make a whole bunch of choices, and then in the end it’s someone else gets to say whether them choices were good or bad.”
“So you reckon I made a bunch of bad choices?” he asked.
“I sure as shit wouldn’t call ’em good.”
“You talk to the old man last night?”
I nodded.
“And?” my brother asked.
“And thanks to you, we’re Lobos now.”
“It’s good to have family, Caleb. Have people to look out for us.”
I shook my head and took another pull and tossed the flask back onto his bedroll.
“How could I forget: family is family, right?”
* * *
Shelby spent two days riding in a wagon with the redheaded doctor. We headed southeast toward the Mexican border and I marveled at the efficiency of the Lobos. Scouts rode ahead to make camp and keep lookout for the law or the army, a cook manned his own wagon full of supplies, and old ranch hands rounded up any stray horses or cattle we encountered along the way.
Grimes rode a chestnut-colored palomino mare that looked to be some line of Tennessee walking horse. He pulled alongside me and the Missouri early on the second day and asked how I was settling in and I told him fine, I guessed. He asked if my horse had a name and I said no and nothing more.
“Bad luck to ride a horse without a name,” he said.
“What’s her name?” I asked, and he stroked the neck of his horse.
“Doesn’t have one,” he said, laughing. “I don’t believe in luck.”
I smiled despite myself, and he reined up and waited for one of the wagons and I rode on near the heart of the column and wondered what I was doing and who these people were. I was already an outlaw, whether I wanted the title or not, but this seemed like more of a militia than a group of bandits and I couldn’t help think maybe Grimes wasn’t the sort of evil I’d imagined him to be. Still, Sophia was scared of something, and I reminded myself that’s why I’d come back in the first place.
She rode a brown Morgan with a yellow mane and sat as natural a saddle as I’d ever seen. With Grimes falling back to check on the wagons and Tom nowhere in sight, I pulled even with her and tipped my hat.
“Howdy,” I said and smiled, and she burned a hole through me with her eyes before opening her mouth.
“You are the dumbest cowboy I ever met,” she said, and it was the first time I’d truly heard her speak and her accent was Spanish and though her words were not kind, they played in the air like music and I drank them in.
“You might be right about that,” I told her and smiled again despite her icy stare. “It was you I come back for, you know.”
“You should stay away from me. And tonight, after we make camp, you should ride far from here and never come back and hope he doesn’t chase you.”
“Who, Grimes?” I asked. “He’s a little on the radical side, and there’s definitely something spooky about the man. But so far he’s treated me pretty good, all things considered.”
“He wants to collect you, to make you part of his army of the wounded. He takes these broken things and tells them they are wonderful and they love him for it and he hypnotizes them with his words and soon they do everything he says. He holds their souls in his hands and watches them turn dark.”
“You think I’m here for him? Like I said, I came back for you.”
“The dumbest cowboy,” she said.
“Alright then,” I nodded my head and looked out toward the east, where the horizon still swooned from the sun’s kiss. “Let’s you and me go. We’ll leave tonight and we’ll ride until we can’t ride no more. How’s that?”
“He will always find me. I belong to him now, and he doesn’t like when things are taken away.”
“I imagine I wouldn’t want my daughter running off, neither.”
The girl’s face grew even fiercer and she hissed at me, “I am not his daughter.
“My mother was his woman, yes—another one of his broken toys who worshipped him like a god—but I was already ten years old when he found us. He wanted my mother for his own, but my father—my true father—would not let him have her. My father, Hector Francisco Montez, shot Grimes through his heart, but he did not die. The devil has his soul and he breathed life back into him and Grimes returned with his men, but even then my father outwitted them and escaped into the river near our village.”
“And Grimes took you and your momma?”
“Yes, he took us to his camp and made my mother his.”
“But didn’t she hate him, for running off her husband like that?”
“It is like I said: he can control a person in ways you do not understand. Not yet.”
“Well, it don’t seem like he can control you.”
“Because I have no soul for him to wrap his fingers around,” she said and turned away from me and stared across the desert plain and further, to where the mountains sprung from the river and blockaded the Mexican border.
“That makes two of us,” I told her.
“You have a soul, dumb cowboy. And it is going to get you killed.”
Sophia’s eyes darted left, and I turned to see Tom riding along beside me.
“Howdy, big fella,” I said.
“Howdy,” he replied stone-faced, then rode on past us.
“I don’t care what you think of me,” I said, turning the Missouri away from the girl. “You want to run, let’s go. You want to stay, then here I am. I ain’t gonna let anything happen to you one way or the other. That’s a promise.”
A promise I wasn’t sure I could keep. A promise I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to make. But there was something about Sophia that called to me and I wanted desperately to answer.
* * *
That night, Tom pulled back the flap of my tent and I figured he may have been there to kill me but I didn’t move, instead I just stared up at him and gave a sort of half wave.
“Grimes,” he said, and I figured by now I knew the routine.
“You and me are gonna tussle one of these days—you know that, right?” I asked him as we walked.
Tom didn’t smile, and I was beginning to think no one here did until Grimes greeted me outside his tent and reminded me that wasn’t true.
“Caleb,” he said and he sounded thrilled to see me and somehow it always felt like he meant it and I kept Sophia’s words in mind as he took my hand. “Come on, let’s take a little ride.”
“We both coming back?” I asked, and he laughed heartily and slapped my back and I felt pulled between opposing forces.
We untied our horses and mounted up. I followed Grimes down a game trail that led out of the desert valley and into the foothills of the Sierra Santiago. He stopped his horse and me behind him and the two of us dismounted into the dark night.
“I know what happened back in Longpine,” he said.
“Yessir, I reckon it’s there on the poster.”
“No, I mean I know what really happened. Shelby told me everything. Even said it was all his fault and you didn’t hardly have a thing to do with it.”
“You been talking to my brother?”
“Well, yes, isn’t that what you wanted? To help him. To make him a better man.”
I was quiet.
“I know it’s weighing on you, what happened to that boy. And that’s good, Caleb. It’s a good thing. If you weren’t twisted up over it then what kind of person would you be?”
We walked in silence for a while after that, leading the horses through bear grass and winterfat and there was a coldness to the nigh
t and the temperature with it.
“I don’t want you talking to my brother no more, Mr. Grimes,” I said, finally.
“As you wish,” he replied. “And unlike you, I’ll keep my word.”
“Sophia,” I said and he nodded and again I was quiet.
“Aw, don’t get all flustered. Hell, who am I to say who you can and can’t talk to? In fact, I been doing some thinking. You two are about the same age—probably the youngest in camp—it makes sense for y’all to spend time together. I guess I was just being overprotective.”
“She’s not your daughter,” I said and closed my eyes at the stupidity of my own damn mouth.
“No, not by blood, that’s true. But I loved her mother, and I’m all she’s got to look after her now, whether she wants to believe it or not.”
“She ain’t got no other family to take her in?”
“Her no-good pap is probably up in Austin somewheres, drinking and gambling. But he’s a lowlife, and even if she don’t remember it that way, he did terrible things to that girl’s momma. I saved them, and I would’ve killed that son of a bitch if he weren’t so cowardly as to run when he saw me coming.”
“Is it true he shot you?”
Grimes nodded, “Yeah, that old bandito drew down on me when I was unarmed. Shot me in the damn chest. I figured that was the end for me, but somehow the bullet came out clean and if there’s a hole in my heart, it hasn’t stopped it from beating yet. But we ain’t out here to talk about me, son. I wanna know about you. I wanna make sure you’re alright with all this.”
“All this?” I asked.
“It’s true, me and the boys believe in everything we’re doing, but that don’t make it legal. And riding with us makes you a part of it, and after talking to your brother, which I won’t do again without your permission, it sounds like you might not be the type.”
“And if I’m not?”
“Well, then I’ll give you a blanket and some food and wish you well. Of course, I’d half expect to see you crawling into camp again, like last time you were supposed to ride off into the great beyond.”
“I’ll tell you straight, Mr. Grimes, I don’t know what type I am. And with all due respect, I don’t know what type you are, neither. Things are really mixed up in my head and they have been since my momma died. My brother damn near raised me on his own, but I know, in my heart I know, he ain’t worth the air he breathes. But to say that, what the hell kind of brother does that make me?”
Grimes stopped and put his arms around me and his embrace was warm and familiar and before I could stop myself my head was on his shoulder and I was trying to hide the tears.
“Listen to me, Caleb. You take the time you need to sort things. You can ride with us as long as you want and you can leave when you want. You understand?”
I nodded and wiped at my eyes with the sleeve of my shirt.
“Now, with your blessing, I’d like to keep talking to Shelby. See if I can’t help him get his priorities right. Would that be alright with you?”
“Yeah, I reckon it would.”
“Come on,” he said, swinging up into the saddle. “Let’s run these horses wide open on the way back.”
“That don’t seem too smart,” I replied. “Wrong step in the dark and they’re liable to come up lame.”
“Aw, hell, son, you just gotta trust ’em.”
* * *
The next morning I took coffee to Sophia and she eyed both me and the cup suspiciously. I felt Tom’s stare on us from across the camp and I slipped him my middle finger behind my back. Sophia’s hair was up in a bun and a few strands fell down and outlined her face.
“You again,” she offered without much warmth, but it didn’t deter me from giving a hearty “good morning” to which she rolled her eyes.
“Listen, you may not be real happy ’bout your current lot in life, but that don’t mean we can’t have a pleasant morning together drinking this here coffee. Now I done beat up on my own brother, risked my neck, and become an outlaw—all just to see you.”
“Nobody asked you to do these things.”
“Naw, but you did kiss me. And that might not have meant much to you, but it damn sure meant something to me.”
“Out there, you were different.”
“You didn’t know me. Hell, you don’t know me now.”
“I know you were scared. I saw it in your eyes. I saw the same storm that fills my dreams. I could feel your fear as you felt mine.
“You think I’m not scared now?”
“I think Grimes is sliding his poison into you. I think you like it here, even if you won’t admit it to yourself. I know that feeling. I know what it is like to weigh the choices. In this life, we have only the choices we make and I have made mine. I will run again, and this time I will not let some stupid cowboy stop me.”
“Fine then, you run whenever you feel set, but until then I’m gonna bring you coffee and pester the living shit out of you.”
For the first time I’d seen, Sophia let a smile creep across her face.
“That will only make me run sooner.”
* * *
And so it went, the closest to a routine I’d had in some time saw me spend the mornings sitting with Sophia, trying to make her laugh. I passed the noon hour playing cards with Marcus, Jimmy, and a fast-healing Shelby. My brother was embracing the outlaw life with gusto, bragging to the others about the gunslingers he’d served or the women he’d bedded. His stories were mostly exaggerations, if not outright lies, but to my surprise the men in camp listened intently and laughed when appropriate or gave him satisfying nods. I suspected Grimes had told them to take it easy on Shelby and in a way I appreciated it.
Most evenings I was summoned and it got to where Tom would just stick his head in my tent and I’d be ready for our walk. Grimes talked to me about his days in the army and asked me how I got to be so good with horses. I told him I didn’t know I was, but he assured me I had a gift and I wanted to believe him.
One night I entered his tent and found him counting out stacks of paper bills by the dozens.
“That’s more money than I’ve ever seen in my life,” I said.
“Well, don’t get a hard-on, you’ll scare away the girls,” he answered without looking up.
“My entire life,” I repeated.
“It’s not stolen, if that’s what you’re thinking. We have a particular investor. He sees that we’re well provisioned.”
“An investor?”
“The whole of this world answers to something or somebody. The Lobos are no different. Revolutions cost money. So does whiskey.”
* * *
“You’re enjoying these talks with Grimes,” Sophia said one morning and it wasn’t a question.
“I don’t know that I’d say I’m enjoying anything,” I replied, “except maybe your company.”
“Stupid cowboy,” she said. “You are becoming his.”
“Well, at least somebody around here finds me interesting.”
She rolled her eyes.
“You will only know when you see it, and by then it will be too late.”
“Fair enough, but what if you’re wrong? What if Grimes loved your momma, and what if he just wants the best for you? Hell, what if he wants the best for all of us?”
“Do not speak of my mother when you know nothing, Caleb. He did not love her. He killed her. And he will kill me too.”
“I thought a fever took your momma?”
“A fever he gave to her.”
“What you mean like a curse?” I said, and a laugh betrayed my attempt at a somber delivery.
“Laugh now, vaquero. You will see.”
“I just don’t see how come, if he’s all the things you say, he’d even want me talking to you.”
It was only when I saw the look on Sophia’
s face that I realized what she thought. There was some anger and sadness, quick flashes, then she hardened up and sealed off like the day we’d first come across one another.
“Aw, hell, I don’t mean it like that. I want to be talking to you, you know that. I just mean he said he’s alright with it. It don’t seem to make sense. He’s gotta know you’re telling me all these things, right?”
She glared at me with a mix of pity and impatience.
“And he also knows you would defend him,” she said. “And that if I loved you, keeping you here would mean keeping me too.”
“Love me? Shit, Sophia, I wear myself out trying to get you to even talk to me most mornings.”
“Stupid cowboy,” she said and she turned to go and I let her.
Sophia didn’t speak to me the rest of the day, and she took her coffee with the young doctor the following morning. Whether she meant to make me jealous or not, it damn sure worked. So, as it were, I was full of piss and vinegar when we rode into Perry Springs and all hell broke loose.
20
The gun was heavy in Randall’s hand, as it should be in any hand, and heavy with the weight of decision and consequence and the destruction to come. It was, he thought, a machine constructed to kill and spill the blood of nations and become a commodity for the powerful, and another tool with which to control the weak and later the same tool that would make the weak believe they have power when in truth they have none. Only a gun, heavy in their hand.
Randall’s gun was polished steel with gold plates clasped to the handle—added weight, added worth, he’d been told. He missed his first three shots and his ears rang with the embarrassment and his face grew as hot as the gun itself and Charlotte offered no words of encouragement or advice.
“Again,” she said, and again he fired.
They’d eaten the last of the tinned fruit that morning with beans charred over the fire in a clay fry pan. They warmed tortillas in the pan and it was hot enough from its first encounter with the fire that it did not need another to toast the thin saucers of wheat flour while they soaked up the remaining juices from the beans before them. Charlotte gathered the empty fruit cans, taking the last one out of Tad’s hands as he attempted in vain to scrape a final meaningful bite from the bare tin.