by Paul Bagdon
“Three bottles,” Jane said. “We will go to a table where we can see the door. Bring bucket of beer, too.”
Gentle Jane faced Will for a long moment. “I see hatred and flame in your eyes, Will. That is good. We will make blood flow. No?”
“We’ll do that, Gentle Jane.”
“Only way is sneak attacks—like the snake after the mouse. If the three of us charge together—even at night—we will be killed.”
“Yeah. Austin an’ me been doin’ it that way. Seems to be working good.”
“How many you kill so far?”
“I dunno—eight, ten.”
Jane spit on the floor. “Shit. I kill that many for you my first night. Still, for a couple of white eyes, you not done too bad.” Jane took a long drink. “You are fast with your gun?”
“Yeah,” Will said. “I am.”
“Fast is good. Accurate is more important. How accurate are you, Will Lewis?”
Austin answered for Will. “This boy can shoot the short hairs offa a hog’s back without touchin’ the pork.”
“Is good. If Austin say so, is true.” Gentle Jane thought about that for a bit. “I am faster and more accurate with my knife than you are with your .45,” he said as if he were stating a known and accepted fact.
Austin was on his feet. “C’mon, Jane—ain’t no reason for this horseshit. We’re all three of us goin’ to ride together, no? If you an’ Will get into it, there’ll—”
Gentle Jane laughed. “I am not talking about fighting—I am talking about a contest, is all. No blood flows in a contest, and no one dies. Is fun, is all.”
Austin sat back down.
“Here is the contest I am thinking,” Jane said. “The picture there, the puta, over the bar. Let Austin start us and we see who puts a knife or a slug into her—how do you say?—bally button first. Is simple contest.”
“Where would you draw your knife from?” Will asked.
“From my holster, just like you pull your pistol. Is fair. Is good.”
“You can’t win,” Will said. “No goddamn way.”
“Jane,” Austin said, “Will’s right. You can’t win. An’ I’m scared when you lose it’ll piss you off an’ you start goin’ . . .”
Jane laughed. “No. No. Is a fun contest. I would have no anger if Will is more faster than I am.”
“Bullshit,” Austin mumbled.
“We will stand,” Gentle Jane said. Both men stepped in front of the table. Will touched the grips of his Colt, lifted the weapon a bit, and let it go. Jane went through essentially the same ritual with the knife sheathed on his right holster.
“We are ready,” Jane grinned. “On three, my brother Austin?”
“Sure. On three.”
“Will,” he said, barely louder than a whisper, “don’t win, fa crissakes. I mean it.”
“Count,” Will said.
Austin nodded, his face showing his trepidation.
“One . . .
“Two . . .
“Three!”
Jane’s hand seemed to barely move before his knife was in the air, crossing the fifteen feet to the nude. Will, on the other hand, didn’t seem to hurry, although his pistol suddenly appeared in his hand. He fired once.
Jane’s knife, barely two feet from its target, seemed to have been struck by lightning. The blade, bent into a useless U, clattered to the floor. The grip sailed a few feet away before it dropped.
“Madre de Jesús,” Jane said.
Austin seated, hand under the table, drew his .45.
“You are as fast and as accurate as I have ever seen,” Jane said.
“I got lucky.”
“There is no luck with weapons. Only skill.” He held out his right hand to Will. “I shake hands with very few men. I will shake with you.”
Will took Jane’s hand. The two men grinned at one another. “Is good contest, no?”
Will nodded. “Now we drink like brothers.”
“And Austin—holster that pistol before I rip your hand off and stick that .45 up your ass.”
Chapter Five
The three men sat at the table, drinking and talking. Austin and Gentle Jane had many memories of long rides, bloody battles, whores, and horses to rehash and, perhaps, to embellish slightly. Will tapped away at his bottle of whiskey but concentrated on scribing arcs on the wet wood of the table in front of him with the bottom of his schooner, having next to nothing to add to the conversation. Austin’s and Will’s bottles were a third gone when Gentle Jane’s was empty and he went to the bar for another. Will noticed that there wasn’t the slightest stagger or weave to his stride—it was as if he’d just downed a bottle of sarsaparilla rather than West Texas rotgut.
“It is not good alcohol,” Jane said, sitting down. “But even bad alcohol is better than none at all.”
“I’ve noticed that you speak very well—clearly and without cussin’, Jane,” Will said. “How did that come to be?”
Gentle Jane downed a double shot before answering. “Many years ago,” he said, “the army came and took me away from my parents and carried me to a missionary school. They cut my hair off and they beat me for speaking in Arapahoe, which is the tribe with whom I lived. The missionaries told us of their God and struck us if we refused to pray to him. They said our gods—the earth, the sky, the water, the wind—were foolish and sinful and to pray to them would damn us to the missionaries’ hell, a lake of fire in which we’d burn eternally. To think of holding a girl, to envision her privates and how they’d feel, look, and taste, was also a grave and mortal sin, punishable in the lake of fire. Even thinking of these things—without doing them—was another mortal sin.”
“But you learned to speak as you do, no? You—”
“I decided I’d need to speak proper English but I refused to write or read their letters. I suffered many beatings from the missionaries—particularly Brother Thomas. Brother Thomas was a cruel pig. One night I took the ice pick from the kitchen and went to his room. He was sleeping. I touched the point to his eyelid and he came awake. ‘Do I need to write in your letters to tell you what will happen now?’ I asked him. He started to sit up. I drove the ice pick through his eye and inside his head. He fell back on his cot. I had a barlow pocket knife in my pocket—which was, of course, forbidden. I took my first ear that night. I was eleven years old. I stole a horse from the stable and went on my way, the ear strung on a piece of latigo around my neck.”
He sucked at his bottle. “I returned to the Arapahoes but they did not want me. They said I was not an Indian, nor was I a Mexican. I was a mongrel. They brought me to the tribe when I was an infant. I do not know what happened to my actual parents. They were probably tortured and killed.
“I learned to love weapons and practiced hours upon hours in using them. I stole here and there to have weapons made—like my shotgun. I learned to draw as fast as a snake’s tongue flicks toward an enemy, and I armed myself with knives and other instruments of death. I killed seven men in Tombstone, and I took an ear from each. There were many others in many towns.”
“Why did you fight these men?”
“Killing is what I do. My medicine demands that I kill. I do not seek prey, but when men challenge me I kill them and take their ears. This is what the gods want from me, and this is what I do.”
“How many have you killed?”
“It makes no matter. I do what I do.”
Will leaned back in his chair, not realizing he’d been moving closer and closer to Gentle Jane. Will took a snort from his bottle and then pushed it aside, the whiskey rising back into his throat. He swallowed hard.
“Why the name Gentle Jane?”
“You white eyes speak lies constantly. The treaties—the grants of land that were already ours, the cholera blankets, the tainted beef, Wounded Knee—all of that made me want to lie to you even about my name, lie until it came time to fight. When it came time to fight I no longer lied. My hands and my weapons and my medicine speak for me.”
“But Jane—why are you with us?”
“I have said this but you haven’t listened. White men rarely listen, rarely understand. Austin is my brother. I will fight to the death at his side. I will tell you this: One Dog will die, as will his men.”
“One Dog will die by my hand, Jane. No other. You must understand that.”
“How intelligent are you?” Jane asked.
“I’ve had a .45 pointed at you since we sat down at this table.”
Jane grinned, showing white teeth. “And my shotgun has been quite ready to blow you in half if need be. All I need do is touch a trigger.”
“Me too, Jane—and I’d split your head before you fired.”
“Maybe.”
“For sure.”
“Say, boys,” Austin interjected rapidly. “What is this horseshit? Ain’t we s’posed to be brothers? This is pure crazy. C’mon. Put up the iron.”
Will’s eyes and those of Jane were locked, not in a threatening fashion, but in a cautious one—and an exploratory one. Both wanted to delve into the other man’s mind, to see what danger he may present, to see what made him who he was.
“C’mon, dammit,” Austin said. “Let’s settle down here. You had your contest. I don’t know what even started all this.”
Jane barely showed his teeth in a smile or grin and moved his cut-down from under the table to on top of it, the dual barrels pointing at the wall. Will brought his pistol up and placed it between a collection of empty beer mugs.
“I read men through their eyes, Will,” Gentle Jane said. “That’s where the true window is. I will fight for you.”
“I know a bit about men myself,” Will said. “I gotta say you’re pure crazy, Jane, but I want you with me and I want you to trust me. Can we do that?”
Jane picked up his bottle and took a long snort. He handed it to Will. Will had had enough booze—what he wanted was sleep. He sucked at the bottle and handed it to Austin. He too drank.
“I will say that now we can trust one another,” Jane said. “Will we be partners? I think not. Will we be brothers? Never. But I will fight with you and Austin and we will crush One Dog the way a boot crushes a cockroach. Is this not true?”
“It’s true.”
“You will pay me money?”
“Yes.”
Will pushed his chair back rather clumsily, picked his pistol off the table, and dropped it into his holster. “I’m drunker’n a hoot owl jus’ now an’ I need some sleep. If you boys want to go on drinkin’, that’s up to you.” He dragged a golden eagle out of his pocket and dropped it on the table. “This is on me. Give the ’tender some coin—the poor sumbitch has been hidin’ behind the bar forever. Tomorrow morning we can make some plans.”
“Plans?” Jane spit after he said the word. “You know where One Dog is, no?”
“Prolly right outside of town,” Will said.
“Is good. We attack him in the morning, just before the sun greets the sky. It is my understanding that these men smoke ganja and drink heavily, that they abuse the sacramental mushrooms. Their fighting skills—if they have any—will be dulled in the morning. That is the time to strike.”
“Makes good sense,” Austin said.
“It does, it truly does,” Will said. “We saddle in the dark and we swing around the town until we find their camp. It’s a good plan, Jane.”
“We’ll shoot their asses off,” Austin said.
“Thass . . . that’s the whole idea. I gotta sleep. I’m drunk. I’m tired. I’ll see you boys in a few hours.” Will stumbled toward the staircase.
“White men cannot absorb liquor,” Jane observed.
“Bullshit. I’m white an’ I can drink long after you fall under the table, Jane.”
“We shall see.”
When Will came down the stairs, Gentle Jane was seated where he’d been the night before, with a schooner of beer in front of him. Austin was sprawled next to a tipped chair, a puddle of vomit his pillow on the floor.
Will nudged Austin with his boot. His eyes slowly opened. “Damn,” he said.
“Can you ride?”
“ ’Course I can ride. I was jus’ takin’ a little nap.” He began to gag and heaved again onto the floor. “There,” he said, “I got rid of all that shit. Let’s saddle up.”
“Jane—you OK?”
“Of course. I’ve already saddled my pony. He awaits me.”
“Pony? He’s as big as—”
“He’s my pony.”
“Right.”
Will watched carefully as Austin saddled his horse. Amazingly enough, his hands were steady and his eyes clear.
There was a bit of a tussle when Jane’s horse wanted to lead and Slick didn’t like that at all. The two postured and snorted and snaked their heads out to get a bite of hide, but neither reared into an actual fight.
“Idjits,” Will said.
“Stop here—let them discuss it,” Jane said. They drew rein. The horses sniffed and backed and snorted and pawed the ground. Slick bucked a couple times, but he stayed out of Jane’s horse’s range.
“Smart animal,” Jane said. “He knows that my pony would tear him apart. He needs to show his manhood, but he’s too bright to fight. I will be a few strides in front of your good horse.” He tapped his heels against his horse’s sides and they set off, Slick ten feet behind the huge animal.
“You done the right thing,” Will said quietly to his horse, stroking his neck. “If there’s no possible way to win a fight, you gotta back off.”
Austin was pasty-faced and a bit trembly now, but he was as good as his word, and he rode without a complaint. He positioned himself a couple of yards to Will’s left, his horse attempting to hold back from Jane’s animal.
The plan was simple; it had been set in place the night before. Find One Dog and his hostiles and crush as many of them as possible.
“It is no plan,” Gentle Jane had said, “and often no plan works most effectively. We ride to their last camp and find them there, or riding toward us. It makes no difference. We kill, and then we run back to town.”
They’d been in the saddle for well over an hour when Jane held up his arm to signal a halt and reined in.
“What?” Will asked. “Why . . . ?”
“Listen more; talk less,” Jane answered. He stood in his stirrups, eyes closed, face wrinkled in concentration. “They come,” he finally said. “Many horses, running hard. They will soon be here.”
“Shit,” Austin said. “We got no cover.”
“We need no cover. We spread in a line and when they’re close, we attack.”
“Attack? Even with the losers they left with their stock, there’s got to be twenty or more of them.”
Jane spat to the side. “They’ve run their horses too hard. The animals will not maneuver as well as ours. The men will have blood in their eyes and will make stupid mistakes in their rush to wipe us out. Listen for my war whoop and disengage and run for the town. Is all understood?”
“Yeah. I hope you know what you’re doing, Jane,” Will said.
“I know battle. This time, Will, we have no time for HW—we go in and get out.”
Will nodded.
The three men spread out about ten yards apart, Jane a dozen yards ahead of the other two. Austin and Will’s horses were antsy, dancing a bit, as the thrumming of the galloping enemies came closer. Jane’s horse stood alert, ears forward, but perfectly still.
The prairie floor was still damp with dew; the outlaws raised no cloud of dust. But the pounding of hooves became louder, more insistent.
Jane drew a bowie knife from somewhere within his clothing and grasped the blade in his teeth. He wrapped his reins around his saddle horn. His right hand held his eight-gauge, his left a Colt .45.
Will knotted his reins, counting on knee pressure and the urging of his heels to put Slick where he wanted him. His clutched his rifle in his left hand and his Colt in his right.
Austin too knotted his reins. He held a p
istol in each hand and a long-bladed knife in his teeth.
The renegades came into view suddenly, as if they’d sprung from the earth. They were riding directly into the sun and the various brass buttons and medals of the mishmash of Confederate and Union jackets reflected the sun sharply, as did the barrels of their rifles and the heads of the spears a few carried.
As they came closer, there was an unearthly silence beyond the thunder of hooves. The outlaws—even the Indians among them—held the war cries that generally led them into battle.
They closed in a ragged line, the chests of their horses white with frothy sweat. Some of the Indians, Will saw, had painted their faces and chests with war paint.
They were fifty yards out—and then twenty-five. Jane sat calmly on his horse, contemplatively, as if he were watching a particularly beautiful sunset. Slick and Austin’s horse were anything but calm, their eyes wide, desperately wanting to flee from the wave of men and horses rushing toward them.
The outlaws were fifteen yards away and gunfire erupted from their line. Jane banged his heels against his horse’s sides and the huge animal was almost immediately into a hard gallop, moving far faster than one could expect such a massive animal to move. Austin and Will followed, returning fire, choosing targets and taking them down, not wasting a shot.
The ponderous boom of Jane’s shotgun rolled across the prairie. Two outlaws had made the mistake of riding together, and both went down as bloody masses. The shotgun bellowed again and a man, headless, rode on a few feet before toppling from his horse.
One Dog sat a tall pinto, waving his rifle and hollering orders, attempting to distribute his troops to stop the onslaught of the three men. Will swung into a swarm of outlaws and dropped a pair of them, bringing Slick into a scrambling turn. For the briefest part of a second, his eyes and those of One Dog met—and that was all it took. Both men knew immediately that only one of them would live much longer.
The barrel of Austin’s rifle sizzled as a drop of renegade blood splashed onto it. He triggered another round but it misfired, the metal of the mechanism overly expanded by the heat of such rapid fire. He threw the rifle aside, cursing, and went to work with his Colt.