by James Wade
Randall’s sleepy eyes were slow in adjusting and when they did his mind was still a fog and it was all he could do to look in the same direction as the others and when he did he saw nothing. He and Charlotte and Tad watched the western horizon with intent but the sun had yet to touch the far side of the world, the things in it still forsaken to darkness. The small boy seemed unaware of any happening and stood brushing the horses in his underwear and boots.
They had crossed the plains and flats and forests beyond the Organ Mountains and had seen no trouble, and Randall in his life had laid eyes upon very little of the world’s wickedness and these things together made him blind. A man who has found fortune the once will attempt to see it again in every prospect, just as a man who has felt sorrow will brace for it at every changing of the winds.
“I don’t see anything,” Randall said and it was true all around.
“They’re out there,” Tad replied, and Randall closed his eyes and felt his son tug at his sleeve.
“They’re out there, Father,” he heard Harry’s words replay in his mind, “in the barn with the horses.”
When he opened his eyes again he saw the first of the riders as they began one by one to emerge onto the far plain as if some portal had swallowed them up and dropped them here without a single horse breaking stride.
Randall extended his spyglass and confirmed the uneasiness of the boy.
“Banditos,” he said aloud at the same moment he thought it and barely was the word spoken that Charlotte was beside him with the long rifle.
“How many,” she asked, not looking up from her loading.
“Eight. Ten, maybe.”
“You reckon they might not of seen us?” Tad asked, scared but hopeful.
The riders in the distance began to fire their pistols into the air and let loose high-pitched yells and crows.
“They seen us,” Charlotte said, raising her rifle.
* * *
By full sunup the gun smoke was drifting east toward the light, and Randall lay on his back and tried to look at the stars but found only a swirling dawn of pale blues and pinks and he muttered to himself memories of long ago and moments before.
“Quiet now,” Charlotte said and turned her head to one side and inspected him and he saw the orphan boy still brushing the horses.
“I don’t know why,” he said and he wasn’t sure what he meant but he said it again. “I don’t know why.”
“It’s alright. You’re alright,” Charlotte said, and he might have believed her if not for the fire in his stomach.
He looked down and regretted it and was dizzy.
“Tad,” he said and she nodded.
“He’s fine. He’s over yonder spilling up the breakfast he ain’t even had yet. He done good though.”
“I’m sorry,” Randall said and he closed his eyes.
* * *
The pines near the ranch followed the slope of the ridge and it seemed every other tree had its branches turned up or down and to look through the limbs it was like lattice work and from it came the short green needles of spring, each bunch pointed upward in offering to the sun or the sky or nothing at all. The deer migration was ever the spectacle and the gray beasts called timber ghosts in the winter were now brown and their antlers velvet and Randall’s grandfather took his hand and pointed at one of the bucks moving through the high wood.
“It’s a rebirth, boy,” he said in a gruff whisper, leaning down to where his face was near Randall’s. “Every year. They shed and grow and shed again. Changing, but never changing. Do you understand?”
Young Randall shook his head.
“The Indians out here, they got their ways. White folk, we got ours. Something has to give, you see. It’ll be the ones who can change, who can evolve—that’s who’ll rule these lands. The rest will just be velvet on the ground.”
* * *
Randall opened his eyes and must have still been dreaming, he decided. The young Indian man hovering above him blocked out the sun so that it seemed the outer edges of the man’s body were radiating with some magic glow to hold in his spirit.
“You drink deep now,” Charlotte told him and held a bottle to his lips and he swallowed and his throat immediately set fire and the pain in his gut was overwhelming and he longed to close his eyes again but knew if he did it may well be for good, or at least forever.
“Can you dig it out?” he heard Charlotte ask, and the man answered in a language unknown to Randall and Charlotte in turn spoke the same tongue and Randall felt his sanity slipping.
There was black and then sky and then Tad over him wearing a concerned face.
“You don’t want that Indian coming close to you with a knife, you just let me know and I’ll kill him like I did them banditos.”
More black and then agony so great it forced open his eyes and he cried out and Charlotte and Tad held him down as the Indian dug for the bullet.
“Alive!” Randall screamed and the adrenaline for a moment felt soothing and so he continued screaming.
“Alive!”
The Indian held up the bullet and judged it under the sun as if to ensure he’d taken out the right one. He held the knife over a flame and the blade turned to steel fire and he pressed it against Randall’s stomach and this time it was too much and Randall fell back onto the cold ground and screamed no more.
“Alive,” the small boy said and pointed at Randall.
23
“Come on, sit down, son.” Grimes motioned to an empty chair in the Perry Springs Saloon. “You play any cards?”
“Nossir, but I’ve set around with some boys.”
“Good, you ought not start. Put you in a bad spot with worse people, playing cards.”
“Yessir.”
“Come on, sit down.”
“Yessir.”
Jimmy dealt the cards, five a man, and the room was silent as the players studied their fates and weighed their choices.
“Now see, you watch old Marcus there, son. He’ll ask for four cards. Don’t matter what he’s got. Hell he’ll put back a host of aces if he’s got ’em. You watch him.”
“Four cards,” Marcus said and grinned, and Grimes slapped the table with his palm.
“I always think there’s something better out there,” Marcus said, “I reckon I’m just a dreamer.”
“A dreamer who catches more damn cards than a magician,” Jimmy said.
The betting made its way around the table and stopped on a man they called Rigs and Rigs stared at his cards and at the pile of money and back at his cards.
“Fold,” he said and moved to stand from his chair, but Grimes slapped the table again and this time with a closed fist.
“You sit right there,” he said, and even the lanterns seemed to darken with the mood.
“Sir?”
“You heard me. Sit down and play your damn hand.”
“But, Mr. Grimes, I folded.” Rigs laughed nervously and looked around at the other men for some sort of reinforcement.
“Yeah, I saw what you did. But that ain’t honest is it?”
“Sir?”
“Goddamnit, boy, you sit down and play those cards.”
“Mr. Grimes, I’m sorry, but—”
“But nothing. Sit or I’ll tell the boys out back to dig a bigger hole, you understand me?”
“Yessir.”
Rigs sat and picked up his cards and matched the bet on the table.
“You don’t want to raise it up?” Grimes asked, fire in his eyes.
“Sir?”
“I know you can hear me. What I asked was, Don’t you want to raise it up?”
“Nossir, I’m just calling.”
“I see what you’re doing.”
“C’mon now, Lawrence, let the man play the way he wants,” Marcus said.
“Seems like there’s worse things,” I replied. “At least he ain’t losing at chess.”
At that, Grimes erupted in laughter and the table followed and even Rigs allowed himself a nervous grin.
“Well, alright,” Grimes said, still smiling. “Let’s see ’em.”
The cards were laid and Jimmy with a pair of jacks lit a cigar and shook his head. Marcus’s four new cards held two queens to go with the one he’d kept. He winked at me.
Grimes had yet to show and he stared at Rigs and nodded and Rigs took a breath and laid his cards and they read nine to king in order and the table was silent again.
“You scared to beat me at poker, boy?”
“Nossir, I just wasn’t sure I had the best hand.”
“You wasn’t sure?”
“Nossir.”
“That’s mighty cautious of you.”
“I guess so.”
“You guess so.”
“Yessir.”
“Easy, fellas,” Jimmy said. “It’s getting late. Why don’t we go on and call it a night?”
Grimes leaned back in his chair.
“Yeah, I imagine you’re right, Jimmy. It is late.”
Rigs closed his eyes and let out a long breath and it turned out to be his last. Grimes cleared leather, fired a single shot and tucked away the pistol in a motion so fluid it made the running of a river seem cumbersome and unnatural.
I flinched at the sound and watched Rigs slide from his chair, the bullet lodged somewhere in his brain. The other men at the table looked down and were silent.
For a while we sat and no one spoke or moved, and Tom at hearing the shot had come and stood in the doorway and looked down at the body and then walked away again, satisfied. The sound of shovels came through the open air of the swinging doors and we all listened and to each of us they played a different tune. Somewhere in the hills far beyond the town a coyote howled and when his cry was not returned he howled again. The blood flowed from Rigs and dripped from his face onto the floorboards and pooled and soaked and grew dark. His eyes were still closed in relief.
“I’m gonna go check on Tom and them boys, then hit the hay,” Marcus said, rising.
“I’m turning in, too,” Jimmy agreed.
“Fair enough, boys, fair enough,” Grimes said and he leaned forward but before he could stand my hand shot forward and grabbed his forearm.
All three men paused and looked at me.
“What did you have?” I asked, letting his arm go.
Grimes flipped his cards and showed us five spades, his flush beating Rigs’s straight.
Marcus shook his head and he and Jimmy made for the door.
I stayed seated and Grimes the same.
“I’m not stupid, Caleb,” he said, and I gave him a quizzical look. “I know you’re still weighing all this, and I know that was a little show you put on earlier. But seeing as how you saved my life, I’m not going to lose my patience with you. So let’s talk.”
“Them people didn’t deserve to die,” I told him.
“No, son, they didn’t. But they had to. Do you understand?”
“Nossir, I can say it certain that I do not.”
“The world is full of wolves and sheep and when the sheep are killed the wolves are blamed. But why? Why are the sheep not at fault? Man stood on two legs and walked from a cave with club in hand. We conquered fire and beasts and sickness. We are meant to be wolves, and if the sheep of this world cannot evolve, what worry is that of mine?”
“That’s a mighty bent way of looking at it.”
Grimes hiccuped a laugh.
“It is, you’re right. I get drunk and angry and the weight of a sinful world presses heavy on my heart. But these people, Caleb, they’re rotten. They make slaves of their brothers and sisters, steal land that isn’t theirs, destroy the earth with pen and paper and malice and war and . . .”
His words trailed off and he stared into his glass of whiskey and gave it a swirl and watched the dark brown liquid circle itself along the sides.
“Seems to me you’re doing the same,” I told him. “Making slaves. Taking what isn’t yours.”
He stilled his glass and looked up at me thoughtfully.
“Then look closer, child, and see the world we are creating,” he said. “The wagons you prepared with Marcus will take the women we left alive. You can’t start anew without children. But understand the killing is not for sport. I drink on nights like this one because I cannot face myself and what I’ve done.”
“Then why do it?” I asked.
“The early stages of any civilization are the most important. We need supplies. More than we can steal,” he said. “I’ve made a business agreement with a powerful man who can give us those things. Money, food, even protection from the government to a certain degree. But he asks for blood in return, and blood I will give him.”
“What man? Why does he want people dead?” I asked, understanding things less the more I sat and listened.
Grimes ignored my questions. He narrowed his face and the lines upon it grew pronounced and he leaned toward me and I could see he was proper drunk.
“Let me tell you something, son, and come close now so that you might hear it and know it to be true. God is what you make of Him. Do you understand? God is what you make of Him because this world is what you make of it and this world is God. I will make things the way they ought to be, and I know it’s all of it right and just. I know it, because it comes from within me. It was put there by God.”
“How do you know?”
“When you’re but an infant, you scream and cry until your mother’s breast is at your mouth. Why?” Grimes asked. “Is this something you’ve seen and learned and grown accustomed to? No. It is a hunger inside of you which is not learned but necessary. The evil things in this world were taught and over time we learned them all too well. But what can be trained can be retrained and so we will be the ones. We will be the first.”
I nodded, uncertain. “And you reckon God has chosen you?”
“Not me, not you, not any one of these men or women,” he slurred his words and waved his hand out at the empty saloon.
“Then who?”
“All of us, Caleb. All those here and not here, alive and dead. God has chosen man because we once chose Him. When the first men dreamed, they awoke and told the others what they had seen and all agreed it was surely God who had put these images in their mind. This was the purest form of the relationship between men and God because we did not presume to know His will. There were no books, no priests, no men to conjure images they knew nothing of. I strive to be like these first men, Caleb, I crave it. I have practiced the abandonment of all I know, which is both impossible and enlightening and I have felt God move inside of me as a child kicks in the womb. I have cast aside the teachings of men who grew greater than God, greater than the world. These men led us all, past and present and future, away from that first encounter with God.”
I shook my head.
“Folks hear a man talk like that, they call him mad,” I said.
Grimes hammered his fist down on the table and his eyes went black and I felt the earth still, as if it were waiting for something to pass before turning again.
“Not mad,” he said. “Extreme, yes. But not mad. There is no subtlety here, Caleb. From the mountains that spring up from nothing to the rivers which are dry in the afternoon and flooded by nightfall.”
He stood and stumbled toward the door. A sideways dance with himself and the world outside of him.
“Look around,” he said, again waving his hands. “This is a country of extremes. The moderate man will nev
er succeed. Nor will the moderate God. Nature to its very core will only respect radicalism and the extreme actions born of it. A moderate wind cannot bend a tree, nor can a moderate wolf run down an antelope. Moderation is for the weak. It is good only as a tool for evil men to control populations. Peace without fighting is a mirage, a fantasy that has never been. Always we will fight, but it is up to us to choose what for.”
The doors swung open and he disappeared into the night and I was left sitting, alone and near shaking. From the street came his voice and with it a question.
“What will you fight for, Caleb?”
24
Randall had frozen when the banditos were on them. Charlotte had taken four with the long rifle and three more with her pistols. The boy hesitated but then began firing wildly and had shot one man from his horse, and shot the horse too, she believed. The band of robbers had not expected a fight. They rode up firing their guns in the air, and by the time she was picking them off with the rifle they were struggling to reload their weapons. Randall had all the time in the world to shoot, but he never did. She yelled at him, but he did not hear her or likely anything else, she thought. He had never seen such a thing, of this she was quite certain. It’s one thing to shoot cans and this was another thing and she pitied him. She’d finished off the last of the cutthroats and the boy was whooping and hollering and the small child was jumping up and down near the spooked horses and screaming, “Pumpkin!”
Randall had not moved and when she looked into his eyes they were gray and his face pale and only then did he fall, or perhaps more accurately he stumbled into a sitting position on the ground and put his hands to his stomach and felt the blood.
Once the smoke cleared Tad grew quiet and then she heard him throwing up in the brush and she looked at Randall’s wound and applied pressure best she could. He would die without help and it was help she did not know how to give.
“We have to go,” she told the two boys, and they helped her lift Randall onto the front of her saddle near the horn and she rode behind him and they set out to look for help. In the end, help found them.
A young Indian rode down from the hills and there in the middle of the desert west of Guadalupe Pass he made a fire and started to work.