by Pete Dexter
The crating Bill had removed lay in a pile nearby, as tall as the kiln itself.
Bill said, "What do you think about that metal? You want to take it out, and lay him on the grating?" Charley didn't have an opinion on it one way or the other. "In the paper," Bill said, "did they have the baron on a sheet of tin or was it open fire?"
Charley put his head inside the kiln. It was as hollow and dark as bad dreams in there. "It didn't say," he said. Charley pulled his head out. "The problem with the grating," he said, "is if you wanted to keep the ashes separate from the wood. Without the tin, ashes is ashes, and we'd be guessing which was which."
Bill thought it over. "If it was me," he said, "I'd want the tin. You might need time for the soul to ascend from the remains. I think they probably used the tin with old Baron Van Palm . . ."
The tin slid out of the oven like a shelf. They laid it on the ground and put the Chinese on top of it. Bill straightened the clothes and did what he could to get the arms to lie at the sides. They tied the feet together to make it look neater.
Charley started the fire. He used dried pine branches and the crate the kiln had come in as kindling, and then went back for the Chinese's own firewood for the rest, walking straight across the field now he wasn't moving bodies. There were two flues in the top of the kiln that controlled the heat. Charley set them wide open, and when he looked in through the eye-hole twenty minutes later, the kiln had begun to glow.
The Chinese lay on the ground with his feet tied together.
"I do wish I'd brought along a bottle of pink," Bill said. They waited another ten minutes, neither of them talking. Then Bill said, "You think it's time?"
Charley looked into the eye-hole again, and the insides of the kiln were orange-red, he could see every detail of the seams. "If we're going to do it," he said.
Charley opened the top door, and the heat backed them both away. They picked up the piece of tin with the Chinese on it. Bill took the end with the head. "You're going to thank us," he said to the Chinese, "when we meet on the other side."
The Chinese wasn't heavy, but the tin was. "You think we ought to say some words over him first?" Bill said.
Charley said, "I think we ought to put him in the oven or put him down."
They put him in. Neither one of them was much for false starts once events were in motion. The tin fit into a groove in each side of the oven, and they slid it in and closed the door.
The heat of the kiln watered Charley's eyes, and he and Bill stood there for the first minute after the door was closed, looking at each other. Then Bill opened the eye-hole and stared inside.
"What's he doing?" Charley said.
Bill moved away from the hole and Charley looked in. The Chinese's clothes were on fire, and his hair. Little fires that started and then went out. His skin turned dark, and blistered, but he didn't catch fire himself.
Charley closed the eye-hole and moved away from the kiln. It felt like the heat had wrinkled his face. He and Bill sat on a log. "Sometime I'd like to know," Charley said, "what he did, that they would treat him like that."
Bill shook his head. "The doc explained it, but I don't think the celestials tell him the truth. To them, everybody's a foreigner." They sat quietly for a few minutes. There were popping noises inside the kiln. Bill said, "If they'd hung him, that's at least admitting he was there."
Charley went back to the oven. It felt hotter than it had. The Chinese was still intact. The edges of his ears were burned, and there was fluid from his eyes that bubbled on his cheeks but didn't seem to evaporate. And the feet were pink. "How's he doing?" Bill said.
Charley scratched his neck. "It's a time for patience," he said.
"This has got an empty feel," Bill said after a while. "It might not be a fair test, on account of the circumstances. That isn't an ordinary man in there, even an ordinary celestial. He was nobody so long, maybe the point's lost in the send-off now." Charley stared at him. Bill said, "How long could you go like that, nobody would admit you were there, before you began to wonder yourself?"
"He must have known when he was hungry," Charley said. "He built a lean-to, he must of looked at that and seen somebody did it." Bill went to the kiln now and looked inside.
"I'm talking about his spirit," Bill said. "This one, maybe his spirit was already departed, and we're sitting out here wasting our time."
"Either way, this is where we are," Charley said.
It got darker, and then the air turned cold, like it had the night they went to the play. Charley thought of Mrs. Langrishe dry, and he thought of her wet. He couldn't make up his mind which way he liked her best. Lightning broke overhead, then thunder.
The first drops of rain fell on the kiln. Frying noises. Bill and Charley stayed where they were. "What I meant," Bill said after a while, "was there's a part of you that anchors to what common people think. There's a body of opinion that you can't get away from, even if you lived by yourself twelve months a year."
Charley adjusted his hat so the rain would run off the front of the brim, and not down his back. "What's being famous," Bill said, "but somebody's opinion? It's the same as love. That doesn't make it false. If there is love in this world, then there are opinions, and one is as good as the other."
The rain on the kiln was smoking now. Bill was still working something out. "When the Chinese took away their opinions of this boy, they took away the biggest part, and he might not have been strong enough to keep his spirit by himself. It might have already left."
Charley looked in the kiln again. The lightning was hitting up in the hills. "I think it's going to take longer than the baron," he said.
"You see what I'm saying to you?" Bill said.
Charley nodded. "That you been loved," he said.
They sat in the rain and waited. After a while Bill said, "We could sit this out in town."
It started to hail just as they got to the door of nuttall and Mann's Number 10. It looked to Charley like a hundred people inside. They went to the bar and Bill ordered a gin and bitters. Like magic, Pink Buford's bulldog was standing at his feet, and a minute later Captain Jack Crawford was there too.
Captain Jack was with Brick Pomeroy, the horse man from Belle Fourche. Brick had caught up with his Mex in Crook City and shot him in the street. Captain Jack told the story and bought drinks for Bill and Brick Pomeroy. Charley bought his own, a nice brown shot of whiskey from the United States of America. There was a professor at the piano, and every kind of whore known to man, except a clean one.
Charley thought of Mrs. Langrishe, fresh out of her bath. He thought of the way her hand had felt when she took his arm. Captain Jack was discussing dead moose again. Charley had stepped away from the milk-drinker, but he heard him just the same. The man's voice carried like a bad taste in food. Presently Captain Jack stepped around Bill and addressed Charley.
"Bill and me are ready to hunt," he said. "Take a few horses up into the Hills and kill some moose. I know a place where they've never been bothered, they'll walk right up and nuzzle your ear."
Charley looked around like he'd just woke up in the middle of the Red Desert. "The Indians never hunted them," Captain Jack said, "sacred ground." He smiled when he said that, and some of the tourists laughed. "Of course, that never kept them from spilling white men's blood."
"What about the Minutemen?" Charley said. "Who's to keep this settlement safe from the blood-spillers if you're up in the hills killing moose?"
"Two days, and we'll be back," Captain Jack said. Charley looked him over, happy-mouthed and innocent. All in all, Charley would rather have gone moose-hunting with the Ute that shot him in the leg. "Wild Bill says you are the best hunter in Colorado," Captain Jack said.
Bill shrugged and reached for another glass of pink gin. There was a line of them waiting for him now as long as his forearm, and Charley knew he would drink them all with no visible effect. "You don't need the best hunter in Colorado to shoot moose that kiss you in the ear," Charley said.
"There's grizzly up there too," Captain Jack said, like that was free dessert.
Charley covered his eyes and tried to picture scrambling up a tree in front of Captain Jack Crawford, armed. "It isn't a good time of year to be encountering grizzly," he said. "A she-rip with cubs, the Indians'll be kinder to your body."
Captain Jack turned back to Bill, who had finished the gin in his hand and was reaching for another. "I predicted he wouldn't want to go," he said. The hail was coming heavier now, and with the noise of it on the roof, Charley could barely hear them.
Bill looked at Captain Jack, then back at Charley. "A hunt might not be so bad," he said. "The exercise relieves the shakes in your blood."
"We always hunted alone," Charley said.
"Just us and Jack," Bill said. "Jack's hunted moose with Custer ..."
Charley saw that Bill was asking him for something now, and he'd never told Bill no in his life. He said, "I suppose I could use some fresh air," and it was settled.
Captain Jack called the bartender over and bought Charley a shot of brown whiskey. He stationed himself on one side of Charley, Bill was on the other, and offered his glass of milk for Bill to toast. That left Charley in the middle, and he didn't have any choice but to join them. "To the moose," Captain Jack said.
Bill touched the glasses and killed another gin and bitters. "To ear-kissers everywhere," Charley said.
The storm lasted. Bill won fifteen dollars playing poker and drank free all night after shooting a beer glass off Pink Buford's bulldog's head. When things quieted, Captain Jack told the story again of Brick Pomeroy catching up with the greaser in Crook City. "Shot him four times, right, partner? Four?"
Brick Pomeroy was drinking pink gin too. He said four was the right number, but he wasn't anxious to tell it again. "I ain't even sure the greaser ought to be dead," he said.
Captain Jack bought him a drink and got himself another milk. "Modesty is a rare virtue in this country," he said, "and a welcome one."
They stayed at Nuttall and Mann's until the storm quit. Until Bill was half asleep and Charley was so drunk he'd begun to see what Bill liked about Captain Jack Crawford. He didn't know what time it was, but somewhere late in the night Charley noticed the sound of the wind and rain was gone. He walked outside and the hailstones had melted.
"If we're truly going to hunt moose tomorrow," he said to Bill, "we ought to close our eyes a while first." Bill never said a word. He just got up off his chair and walked back to camp. They went single file, Bill, Charley, and Pink Buford's bulldog. Bill climbed into his bedroll without taking off his boots. The dog curled up into his chin. One of them began to snore, and then the other. Charley couldn't tell which snore belonged to which party.
Charley took off his guns and boots and clothes, and washed. The creek was ice cold from the storm. He put his face a few inches above the water and rinsed it again and again, cupping the water in his hands. He did that until his cheeks went numb. Then he quit, and it felt like needle points all over his cheeks, and the life began to come back.
He brushed out his bedding in the small tent he was sleeping in now, with the boy in the wagon. Thinking of the boy, he looked in to make sure he was covered. It was darker in there than outside, reminding him of the kiln, and it took Charley's eyes a minute to adjust. Then he saw the boy, lying open-eyed in the dark, staring at him. His head was cradled in the armpit of Calamity Jane Can-nary, who was sound asleep, and looked happier than Charley had ever seen her before.
It was a few minutes after daybreak when captain jack came for them. He was wearing two guns on his belt, and had packed a Springfield needle rifle and a scattergun in his saddle. He was wearing more ammunition than a Mexican.
The sound of the horses woke Charley up, but Bill was already awake, sitting on the stump he favored, rubbing himself with mercury. If Captain Jack noticed Bill had silver skin, he didn't say so.
They went from Charley's camp to the north end of town to pick up two of his mules. It wasn't until they were in the grazing field that Charley remembered the celestial they'd left in the kiln. He got off his horse and handed the reins to Captain Jack. "You wait here," he said. "Bill and I got something to talk over."
Bill looked at Charley a minute, then got off his horse too. They walked off in the direction of the mules, and the kiln, which was black and undeniable in the corner of the clearing. Behind them, Captain Jack was in a hurry to get on with the moose-killing. "We don't need pack animals, boys," he said.
Charley turned around and said, "Are these creatures of yours friendly enough to accompany us back so we can shoot them here?"
He and Bill walked the rest of the way without a word. The ground was soaked, and their moccasins made wet noises as they went. The mules were tethered about a hundred feet from the kiln, and when they got to the animals Charley allowed himself a look back at Captain Jack. "How could we forget the celestial?" Bill said, no more than a whisper.
"It was the drinking," Charley said.
Bill nodded. "I wish to hell I had something in my hand right now," he said. Charley untied two of the mules, Bill stood looking at the kiln. He said, "I never forgot something of this nature in my life."
They walked the last hundred feet to the kiln and Charley opened it. First the top door, then the bottom. He stared inside for what seemed like a long time, then he closed the doors in the same order he'd opened them. He took one of the mules from Bill and started back toward the other end of the clearing, where Captain Jack was waiting.
"Somebody's watching," Bill said.
Charley didn't argue or ask who. He fell in next to Bill and walked. "You know where they are?" he said, into his shirt.
Bill looked straight ahead. "No, just that they're there."
"Who is it?"
"I don't know," Bill said.
Before they got to Captain Jack, Charley said, "The kiln's empty."
Bill said, "There has to be ashes." Charley said, "No there doesn't."
They followed the wagon trail south into the hills, keeping to one side or the other, more to stay out of the mud than to hide from Indians. At noon they left the trail and went east. "An Indian showed me this place," Captain Jack said. "I expect he's gone bad too, like the rest." He looked around at the Hills. "I wouldn't mind running into a redskin or two today," he said.
Bill hadn't spoken since they left the clearing and the kiln. They came to a flooded creek and followed it south most of the afternoon. When they stopped, Bill walked off into the bushes for half an hour.
Captain Jack got off his horse and pointed south. "About a mile down, it widens," he said to Charley, "just a few hundred yards. The water gets deep, and there's a little island out in the middle of it, all by itself. That's where the moose are."
"You didn't say anything about an island," Charley said. It was a queer thing for a man who spent so much of his life in water, but Charley couldn't swim a stroke. He thought his body sank because it had inner heaviness.
Captain Jack smiled. "I got a canoe," he said. "The same redskin showed me this place sold me his canoe."
The word canoe set off a panic in Charley. "If you wanted," Captain Jack was saying, "you could pick them off from this side with the Springfield, and then paddle over and pick them up. They'll come right to the edge of the island to see what we are."
"Some sport," Charley said. "Canoes, moose that come to watch you shoot them . . ." Captain Jack smiled in a certain way, and Charley thought he was probably composing an epic poem on it right now.
Captain Jack was looking in the direction of the bushes. "What's keeping Bill?" he said.
"He'll be along," Charley said.
Captain Jack shook his head. "He hasn't appeared well," he said. "All morning long I've wondered was he sick." Charley looked at him but didn't answer. Captain Jack said, "Sometimes when you
look at Bill he looks right, and sometimes he doesn't. But he never complains a word." The way he put it, that was a question.
Charley held silent.
"I always thought he'd be different," Captain Jack said. "From the stories, I thought he'd be wild."
There was some movement in the bushes now, Bill coming back. "When the time comes," Charley said, "he's wild enough."
Bill's mood had improved now that he'd passed water, and Captain Jack felt the difference and engaged him in conversation. Charley rode behind them, attached to the mules, and the water, thinking of canoes. More than most, Charley hated to be helpless.
They rode through a stand of evergreens so thick that the trees seemed to change color inside. Everything in there turned dark. Charley heard Bill's voice up ahead, steady and calm; nobody would have guessed he'd just gone stone blind.
When they came out of the trees Charley saw the island. The creek widened to maybe seventy yards, and the island was two thirds of the way across. The water was dark, no white in it at all, and he wondered what act of nature had occurred there to cause deep water this high in the Hills.
Charley tended to think more about how things got the way they were when he was in the mountains than he did when he was in the flats. He believed the world had once been bigger than it was now, and that in the squeezing down, parts of it had been forced up, between God's fingers. And God had left it like that, left the testing places for those that needed testing.
Captain Jack got off his horse and tied her to a sapling. Bill leaned in the saddle and dropped a line of spit to the ground. "It's right down here," Captain Jack said. He'd hidden the canoe under some branches fifty feet from the water, where it wouldn't wash away in a flood. The branches were arranged in such a way that you'd have to be blind not to notice something was hid there. The canoe was stub-nosed and narrow, not really a canoe at all. It was fastened together with nails and rawhide and baling wire. It looked exactly like half a dozen Indians had built it all at one time, without checking to see what each other were doing. The Sioux were not a great nation of boat-builders.