skeletons

by Glendon Swarthout

  I rose from the rock, slipped the Smith & Wesson deftly from its holster, stretched my cherubic features into a sneer, raised my right arm, closed my left hand around my right wrist, aimed at an adjacent cactus, shut my eyes, pulled the trigger three times.

  BANG.

  BANG.

  BANG.

  Too cool to inspect the cactus, I replaced the weapon, spat, stepped to the car, slid in. And thus, on a sunny afternoon in May, his trusty five-gun at his gut, the bandages of old battles itchy on his chest, a lone rider hit the trail again for the taut and lawless town of Harding, New Mexico. CEREBRALLY.

  Where the first thing I did was drive up and down Gold Street in the Silver Wraith. Slowly. The way, in 1910, Buell Wood must have walked it. To let ‘em know Jimmie Butters was back by God. And on the prod.

  And the next thing, checked into the Ramada Inn. And there behind the desk was Miss Diddle, chewing her cud. “Back again, Mr. Butters?”

  The price of fame.

  “Yes indeedy, my dear. I assume you have room for me at the inn?”

  “Sure have. How about 112?”

  “Not,” I said, “on your adolescent ass.”

  And the next thing, after unpacking and settling into 114, drove down Gold Street again, parked, entered the offices of the local weekly, the Harding Graphic. To be greeted, from behind a counter, by Miss Diddle’s twin. “May I help you?”

  “Yes you may. How long has, this newspaper been publishing?”

  “Since 1891.”

  “Fine. Presumably you have files of your editions since then.”

  “Sure have.”

  “Fine. Then you have copies for the years 1910 and 1916.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Oh what?”

  “The trials,” she said.

  “That’s right, the trials.”

  “Well, we have the papers, but not the trial stories.”

  “Not the trial stories.”

  “No, sir.”

  She moved her gum from one dimpled cheek to the other. Conscious of perspiration under the band, I removed my homburg. “Why in hell not?” I inquired.

  “They’re missing,” she said.

  “I don’t believe you,” I said.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “May I see for myself?”

  “Do you have to?”

  “I have to.”

  She gave her bosom a high-school heave, went into a back room, returned with two bound volumes, watched me while I began to turn pages. “Buell Wood’s trial was in May, the Mexicans’ was in March,” she said.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  To the sounds of job printing I turned pages. Six pages in the 1910, before and during and subsequent to the trial in May, had been neatly razored from the volume. I tried the 1916. Eight pages, in editions before and during and subsequent to the trial in March, had been excised by the same method.

  “Goddammit,” I said. “Who did this?”

  “How should I know?”

  “This is no way to run a newspaper. Goddammit, everything should have been microfilmed long ago, and care taken to protect, goddammit.” I slammed my hat on my head. “How did you know they were missing?”

  She was close to tears. So was I. “Because two or three weeks ago a man came in and asked to see them and I helped him and we found out they—”

  “A man with a beard.”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh hell!” I said, flounced out the door and down the street to a hardware store, flounced in, and addressed a clerk.

  “I wish to buy a shovel.”

  Yes, I went out again to La Casa de la Justicia. Don’t ask me why. Probably because I couldn’t think of anything else to do. No trial transcripts, no newspaper coverage. Someone, singular or plural, at some time since 1916, had been determined to remove or razor every written or printed vestige of those two episodes in Harding’s history.

  But this time I went down there in broad daylight. Armed. And besides that, followed. For soon after I turned under the “LOS ESQUELETOS” sign and onto Pingo Chavez’ ranch road, I spotted in the rear-view mirror a nondescript sedan on my tail, half a mile behind. It had no insignia, no lights on top. The driver was alone, probably in plainclothes. I was getting, to my relief, the Border Patrol protection Hank Snackenberg had promised. And a little to my annoyance. If I were going to be an idiot again, I preferred to do it in private. I met no other car, no moving van bullied me off the road. Several miles ahead, from a fold at the base of mountains, smoke plumed—undoubtedly Chavez’ ranch house. Where tire tracks led through greasewood and mesquite I turned off, traced them toward a rise, stopped, cut the engine, removed my homburg, coat, and tie, rolled up my sleeves, got out, walked up the rise.

  La Casa de la Justicia. In the rock and mortar pedestal the flame still burned. Shovel in hand, I stood before the four graves, each with its white wooden cross and name. “Juan Sanchez.” “Jesús Alvarez.” “Taurino Garcia.” “Luis Obedo.” There was no sign that the grave of Garcia had been disturbed. The hole I had dug the night before last had been filled, the excess earth shaped into a mound identical to the others. I did the eeny-meeny-miny-mo again, skipping Garcia, who was third from the left, and it came out the first grave, that of Juan Sanchez.

  I had a last look round. There were big boulders nearby, toward the mountains. To the south, an expanse of space to the border, a mile away, and beyond. To the west, a half mile down the sand road on which my blood had dried by now, the sedan was parked.

  I dug in.

  I dug swiftly, through the mound and two feet down, then worked up toward the cross.

  Stopped halfway.

  I’d hoped to find something.

  Expected to find nothing.

  Found nothing.

  I stepped out of the hole, walked back to the Rolls, stowed the shovel in the boot, donned tie, coat, and hat, drove back to the sand road. The SIU sedan preceded me to the highway, turned toward Harding, drove like a bat out of hell, disappeared, then pulled in behind me again when I had passed. Then, after a mile or two, a County Sheriff’s Department patrol car pulled out behind him. It hadn’t taken long for Pingo to learn I was back in town, and to put a tail on me.

  One-two-three we entered town. A goddamned parade.

  That night I got drunk.

  I peeled the dressings from my chest, showered, repaired to the Ramada bar, sat there for several hours eschewing food and toying with V.O. Mists with twists.

  One of my two days in Harding was already down the tube. Should I phone Snackenberg and tell him I had made a ghoulish fool of myself again? Should I phone Tyler at the Paso del Norte and tell her to get herself another turkey?

  “Hey, ol’buddy.”

  To the bartender.

  “Yes sir?”

  “Who’s the town character?”

  “That’s easy. Millie Mills.”

  “Millie Mills?”

  “Lived here all her life, knows everything about everybody. She’s the town librarian.”

  “Librarian!”

  “That’s right.”

  LIBRARIANS.

  Let me lift up mine eyes unto the hills, O Lord, and thank Thee for Miss Millicent Mills.

  So praying I opened the door, entered the Harding Public Library.

  It was two small houses, connected, at the intersection of Quartz and Tin Streets. Inside, center, was a table with a large card: “BOOKS BY B. JAMES BUTTERS.” And there they were, a dozen of them, including seven of the Frisbys—I counted.

  I went round the table, between free-standing cases, past the card catalogue, toward the rear of the house. It was ten past ten in the morning, ten minutes past opening, and I seemed to have the library to myself. But there she was.

  Seated at a desk. Very old. Very small. Pink hair I swear. And eyeglasses with large-lens frames of purple plastic shaped like butterflies.

  “Butters!” she said. “We’re honored!”

  “Miss
Mills,” I said, and bowed. “Thank you.”

  “Wow!” she said. “That rig!”

  “It’s supposed to be dignified.”

  “You look like a ladies-wear drummer in the old days. But I get damned tired of denim.”

  “Why do you have my books on display?”

  She winked. “Everybody knows you’re in town, the parents talk, the kids hear. As soon as you leave I’ll put ‘em on circulation and I’ll have youngsters standing in line.

  Besides, they’re first-rate—you have a hell of an imagination, Butters.” She smiled. “That feisty fly of yours, Frisby —I can’t even swat one any more. Where’s he off to next?”

  “Africa.”

  “Dandy. Well, pull up a chair. And don’t let me forget— I want you to sign those books.”

  I laid my hat on her desk, pulled up a chair. “How long have you been librarian, Miss Mills?”

  When she smiled, her eyes smiled, too, and her sharp little face softened, and she displayed, like books, a good set of her own teeth. “The last man who called me Miss Mills asked me to marry him. That was forty years ago. I said no.”

  “Are you sorry?”

  “Am not. He turned out to be a toper. How long have I been librarian? Ever since we opened—only one the town’s ever had. They’re giving me a banquet next fall— fifty-five years on the job. Fifty-five years.”

  “That’s amazing. Will you ever retire?”

  “Will not. They just send me out for rebinding now and again and I’m good as new. I worked my first day here in 1922. I was twenty-six. Do your arithmetic, Butters.”

  I’m lousy at it.”

  “I’m eighty-one.”

  “I’d never have known.”

  “Yes you would. It’s my hair tint. I tell the girl at the beauty parlor every time—copper, copper—but damn her, she gets it pink. Titty pink at that.” She bent forward confidentially, folded arthritic hands under her chin. A gold band circled one finger. “I can prove my age. In 1910 I was fourteen years old, and one day I hid by the ticket window at the Crystal Theatre, the moving picture house, and watched Buell Wood walk down Gold Street with guns in his hands after Tigh Gooding and the Pennington brothers. My, he was a handsome man. But that day–Blaise Gilmore said he was walking thunder. He shot one of them—I forget which—in the street and the other two in the Ford agency. When he came out, and found Tigh wasn’t dead—I think it was Tigh—he shot him again, in the head. Then he crossed the street and looked at the body of his dead wife. Then he carried his baby back down the street. It was all over in minutes. Minutes, mind you. And I had wet my bloomers.”

  She had lowered her voice. I had never listened to anyone so intently in my life.

  “I remember another day. In 1916. I was twenty, and fresh out of teachers’ college. I waited from three o’clock in the morning to get into the courthouse and have a seat for the trial of the Villistas. I remember Charles Vaught— the old judge, he was the prosecutor then—and Buell Wood—he defended—and how they hated each other. You could hear them building the gallows outside, the sawing and hammering. It took the jury so long. They found the Villistas not guilty, and the rage in that room was so strong you could smell it. And I remember that night, the crowd of men out in front of the courthouse. Some of them with guns. And how they lined the autos up and turned on the headlights. Those were rip-roaring times, Butters—they’ll never come again, never. Dammit.”

  I could scarcely speak. “You know why I’m here. In Harding.”

  “Sure do. That’s why I’m rambling on. Why didn’t you come to me sooner?”

  I shook my head.

  “You should have, boy.”

  I nodded.

  “I’m a living library,” she said.

  She was colossal. She was ninety pounds of pure, colossal luck. We sat looking at each other. It seemed to me that in the stillness of that small-town library I could hear the shelved books chorus congratulations.

  “Did you ever hear of a writer named Crossworth?” I controlled my voice. “Philip Crossworth.”

  “Whodunits. He sat in your chair, four years ago.”

  “Max Sansom?”

  “I didn’t offer him a chair.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “Scarcely gave them the time of day.”

  “Why?”

  “Didn’t approve. Instinct. Books were only a living to them.”

  “You approve me.”

  “You love books. I can tell in a minute. And you’re not going for blood and guts and book clubs—you write for children, bless you. I have a story hour twice a week, Wednesdays after school and Saturday mornings. It’s wonderful, reading to them, acting stories out—oh, their eyes, their big round eyes. Don’t you ever read to them, Butters?”

  “Yes I do. Often.”

  “Bully for you.”

  “Millie, may I ask you some questions?”

  “About the living or the dead?”

  “Does it make a difference?”

  “You bet. I won’t talk about the living—that’s gossip. Judge Vaught or Helene—Helene was one of my closest friends, poor thing. Tyler I never knew.”

  “Fair enough. The dead.”

  “Shoot.” She made herself comfortable, glanced at the watch on a chain pinned to her sweater. “We’ve got half an hour. The ladies start coming in around eleven, after they’ve done their housework. For the books they won’t let their daughters read.”

  “What do you guess happened to Buell Wood?”

  “I haven’t a clue.”

  “What about Philip Crossworth?”

  “Ditto.”

  “And the four Villistas?”

  “That’s easy. They were run down and killed, that night. And a few years back, buried down near the border. They call it La Casa de—”

  “No. I’ve been there, twice. I dug up two of the four graves, and there’s nothing in them.”

  She frowned. “I’ll be damned.”

  “What’s your theory about Sansom?”

  “Theory? He was hit by a car.”

  “No again. They opened his coffin when it got to New York. It was full of sand.”

  “My stars!” She stared at me. “Sand?”

  “All I’ve done here in Harding is follow in Crossworth’s and Sansom’s footsteps and tie myself into knots,” I said. “For instance, the transcripts of both trials are missing.”

  “Oh, I knew that.”

  “You did?”

  “I ankled over to the courthouse once myself, long ago. They’ve been vamoosed for years.”

  “Not only that, the newspaper accounts are gone. I stopped in at the Graphic yesterday.”

  “Oh.”

  “Someone’s razored the pages.”

  “Oh. I know who did that.”

  “Who?”

  Millicent Mills studied me through her butterflies, opened a desk drawer, took out a pint of Jack Daniel’s, uncapped it. “Care for a snort?”

  “No thank you.”

  “I don’t tipple,” she said. “Not usually. Unless I’m excited. I’m excited.”

  “You are?”

  “I’ll say. Look who’s here!”

  I observed with interest as she tilted the bottle, fired one down, recapped, put the bottle away as respectfully as she might have a fan or a brooch or her best white gloves.

  “I did,” she said.

  “Did what?”

  “Razored those pages. Nigh on to fifty years ago.”

  “Why?”

  “To use.”

  “How?”

  “Well,” she said. She was embarrassed, almost maidenly. “Well, it sounds silly now, but when I was young I wanted to write.”

  “Oh no,” I said. “You, too?”

  “Yup. I thought those two trials would make a hell of a novel. I intended to fill it with gore and sex and all sorts of spine-tingling stuff. It would make me bags of money and take me away from Harding to New York and Paris and Timbuctoo
. Edith Wharton. Willa Cather. Champagne. Caviar. Whoopdedoo. So I went in to the Graphic and while the girl was out back took a safety razor blade and cut the pages out and put them under my coat. There —that’s my true confession. You’re the only one I ever told.”

  “You never wrote it.”

  “Nope. The longer I was librarian, Butters, the more I revered books. The longer I lived here, the more I took to the place, and the people, and their boys and girls. I’ve seen three generations grow up.”

  “So you were the one.”

  “Yes.”

  Again I could scarcely speak. My throat was constricted, my tongue thick.

  THE PAGES.

  I had to stand, lean, put both hands on her desk. If Miss Millicent Mills possessed the KEY, the first DOOR into the past, perhaps into the present, would finally open wide. For Tyler Vaught. And for me.

  “The-the pages,” I said.

  “Would you like to see them?”

  They stand at the windows of the courtroom on the second floor of Harding Courthouse: Judge Cox, Sheriff Gilmore, Buell Wood, Captain Carpenter, Word, Van-Dellen, Dr. Shelley, Turnbow, the other jurors, the bailiff, who is one of Gilmore’s deputies, and Charles Vaught. They peer down into the dark at the crowd assembling, more than a hundred men, many of them armed. Judge Cox is the first to leave the windows. Returning to the bench, he spreads his black robe, sits down, notices the four Mexicans in the dock, men found not guilty.

  “Bailiff, take them downstairs and lock them up,” he directs. The jail is in the basement.

  The bailiff does so.

  “Oh yes,” adds the judge. “And the jury. You’re dismissed. And if you value your hides, gentlemen, you’d better leave the building the back way.”

  Exeunt the jury.

  Now they are five: the judge, the sheriff, Wood, Captain Carpenter, and Charles Vaught, the county prosecutor.

  “Dammit, Buell,” says the judge. “If you just hadn’t used the word lynching’ in your plea, this—” He reaches into his mouth, loosens his upper plate, rubs a gum, replaces the denture. “Blaise, do they mean business down there?”

  Gilmore is still at a window. “It’s no church potluck.”

  “How many deputies have you downstairs?”