The Drop Edge of Yonder

by Rudolph Wurlitzer

  He sighed, then reached over and pressed a thumb into Plug's neck until he passed out.

  He waited for the prisoners to quiet down before he spoke again.

  "Are we bustin' out?" Zebulon asked. "Or cookin' or what?"

  "First soup." Lu nodded towards Plug, who had opened his eyes. "Then Plug fly coop. Then outlaw man, Chinaman, everybody fly coop. Not now Later. Now nothing. Very difficult, nothing."

  Plug sat up on his bunk. "If you ever put your paw on me again, I'll cut it off and use it for live bait."

  Lu looked across the rows of sleeping prisoners, thinking it over.

  "Good idea."

  He floated back to his bunk as silently and ghostly as he had first appeared.

  "Don't say nothin' to nobody about nothin'," Plug said to Zebulon. "And stay the hell away from me until the soup boils over on the stove. I jumped too soon. That damn Chinee gave me the wrong signal."

  He turned over on his side and went back to sleep.

  hree days later, as if she, too, were involved in Lu's plan, Large Marge busted out, or more accurately, went berserk. She was working at the Warden's house, a job she'd had for over a year, when Abigail, the Warden's wife, yelled at her to separate the white from the colored laundry and to fold each article of clothing - not to just shove them into a drawer, but to pile them neatly, socks and underwear next to jerseys and shirts; if Large Marge was not up to this simple task, she could be replaced.

  "Fair enough," Large Marge said. She picked up the ironing board and clobbered Abigail over the head, knocking out two of her front teeth. After rampaging through the house and breaking several windows and a Chippendale table, she was finally captured swinging in the hammock by the river, finishing off a bottle of the Warden's hundred-year-old Spanish brandy.

  The following evening, true to form, the prisoners were lined up at attention, the Warden standing above them on the poop deck. In the lineup of prisoners, Lu and Plug had managed to position themselves on either side of Zebulon.

  "Soup's boiling," Plug whispered. "Now it's my turn to take care of that cold-hearted bastard."

  Before Large Marge could be lowered over the side, Lu suddenly lurched backward and collapsed. Banging his hands on the deck, he screamed in Chinese for justice, salvation, and a oneway ticket to Shanghai until two guards wrestled him below.

  "It's all set," Plug said. "Now all he's got to do is slip his chains and pull the cork."

  Large Marge's huge bulk was lowered inch by groaning inch over the side. Halfway to the water, the plug Lu removed below began letting in a torrent of water, causing the prison hulk to groan and creak, then slowly list to starboard. The ropes binding Large Marge gave way, and with a loud yell she plummeted straight down, landing in the middle of a dory that was tied up against the ship's stern.

  From then on, everything happened at once.

  Zebulon held onto the railing as Bent slid past him, his mouth open in a silent scream, his peg leg at a right angle. Prisoners followed him over the side, a few sinking beneath the water while others hauled themselves into the dory or swam to shore. Plug climbed up a ladder to the poop deck and, waving a butcher knife, rushed towards the Warden, only to have the Warden shoot him in the leg. Plug kept on anyway. He grabbed the Warden around the waist, locking them together in a violent dance until Plug's leg gave out and he rolled across the deck into the river.

  "Die now or stir soup," Lu said, appearing beside Zebulon. He was completely naked, his body skeletal enough to push a finger through.

  They turned as the Warden ran towards them, his pistol raised. Before he could fire, Lu grabbed Zebulon by the hand and pulled him into the river.

  uien es?" a voice inside him asked.

  Who was he, and where was he going? And who was there to save him? He wasn't in a ditch, he knew that much. And he wasn't sinking. His hands were reaching out, asking to be saved.

  It was Lu, dragging him out of the river and into a stand of sycamore trees, where Hatchet Jack stood waiting with three horses.

  They saw Bent leaning against the trunk of a cottonwood tree, his rifle pointing at them.

  Before he could pull the trigger, Hatchet Jack fired his pistol.

  "Well, what do you know?" Bent looked down at the hole in his shoulder. "I'm dead meat "

  He looked up at Zebulon. "One small favor, Zeb. A pay back for the drinks and smokes.... Tell 'em you kilt me straight up. You against me. Not some fuckin' half-breed no-account horse-thief shootin' me lyin' down.... That way I'll be part of somethin' big, maybe a song or two."

  As they rode off along the shore, Large Marge stumbled out of the river, her wet clothing hanging from her bulk in shreds, her hair matted with mud.

  "Room for one more?" she asked, hauling herself up behind Lu and wrapping her arms around his neck.

  When they reached the Warden's house, the second story was on fire. Highlighted against the flames, prisoners ran in and out of the front door, throwing household goods into a carriage and over the backs of horses. More prisoners were fighting on the lawn over Abigail's jewelry and the Warden's collection of esoteric objects, including Syrian vases, antique French clocks, German hunting rifles, Peruvian and Mexican jewelry, and dozens of English pocket watches arranged in felt-covered boxes.

  On the lawn, Hatchet Jack tried on one of the Warden's linen suits, then a high-collared London shirt and Spanish leather vest with pearl buttons. Lu chose a silk blouse and a boy's sailor outfit while Large Marge struggled into a full-dress military uniform.

  After Zebulon changed into one of the Warden's creamcolored linen suits, he pushed past them into the burning house.

  The Warden's office was full of smoke, and flames were spreading over the couch and floor. He pulled out the desk drawers until he found the Warden's small golden bowl, Lakota Sioux rattle, and fossilized walrus penis.

  As he staggered out of the house, he tripped over the front steps. Above him, crouched on the sill of an upstairs window, the Warden's wife, Abigail, pressed her son against her breast. For a moment their eyes met before she turned towards the prison hulk, where the Warden was pacing back and forth on the bridge, waiting to be rescued by an approaching rowboat.

  "Jump!" Zebulon yelled to Abigail. "I'll catch you."

  As she picked up her son and inched her way forward, the floor collapsed and they disappeared.

  EBULON, LU, HATCHET JACK, AND LARGE MARGE GALLOPED along the south fork of the American River, guiding their horses in and out of the water to minimize their tracks. Where the river was shallow, they rode across and rode back again.

  By late evening they'd found an abandoned hunter's shack within a grove of cypress trees. Too exhausted to speak, they collapsed inside, their odd clothing making them look like runaways from a traveling theater or lunatic asylum. Newspapers had been nailed on the walls for insulation, with headlines announcing highlights of an era: "Mexican War Ends"; "Zachary Taylor President"; "California 31st State"; "San Francisco Burns"; "Gold Discovered In Sonoma!"; "Biggest Strike Ever!!!!"; "Confederate Troops Capture Independence, Missouri!"

  Hatchet Jack stepped outside, lying flat on the ground to listen for pursuing horses. Satisfied that no one was on their trail, he produced a bottle of tequila from his saddlebag, took a long pull, and went back inside. He handed the bottle to Zebulon, who drank and handed it to Lu, who did the same and handed it to Large Marge, who took a slug and passed out, the Chinaman curled up against her thigh.

  "You been nothin' but trouble ever since that cantina in Panchito," Hatchet Jack said to Zebulon. "If I was you, and I ain't, thank god, and I'll always be grateful, I'd point my muzzle to another trail. That woman, Delilah, is demonized. Take it from me. I been travelin' lately through her partic'lar valley, and nothin' is like it seems. She's up the river at Sutter's Fort. The same place where they first discovered the gold. Now it's all gone to ruin and I could care less."

  "Did she get you to spring me?" Zebulon asked.

  Hatchet Jack shook his
head. "If it was up to her, you'd still be in the calaboose. That Mex healer-dealer, Plaxico, he told me to break you out. You might remember. You saw him at that pueblo we went to with your Ma. The same one I been learnin' the spirit business with in Mexico. He said my job is to work the graveyard shift and rescue the dead, or those that don't know they're dead. Startin' with you. You ask me, a bad job all the way around."

  "I don't want to know about it," Zebulon said.

  Hatchet Jack slugged back some tequila. "I don't blame you.

  He tossed the bottle to Zebulon. "I'm off to the diggin's. Heard there's a strike up in Placerville. And don't give me no yessir, nossir, depending. Now that I've sprung you, our case is closed. You can ride where you want to."

  He spat out the door. "I ran into your Pa again. He's still the same crazy old coon. Came down with a bad case of gold fever in Virginia City. Made another big strike, then lost it all to some cheap low-bellied bone-stripper. Now he's down to eatin' rocks. Can you believe, I offered him another horse, and this one was prime stock. He still wouldn't take it. Some things don't never add up. I should have left you in that stinkin' arroyo."

  "I thought you did," Zebulon said.

  Hatchet Jack laughed. "Too late to get into that. Go ahead. Ride up to Sutter's Fort and rope the witch in, and good luck to you. If we're lucky we'll never meet up again."

  When Zebulon woke the next morning, Hatchet Jack was gone, along with Lu.

  Large Marge was sitting on a log, rubbing the raw welts crisscrossing her shoulders and neck, a result of her near drowning.

  "Don't talk," she warned. "I don't know where they took off to and I don't give a damn."

  ARGE MARGE AND ZEBULON DRIFTED ACROSS THE Sacramento Valley towards Sutter's Fort. The only signs of life were an occasional herd of deer, and once, a startled bear gazing at them from the middle of a berry patch. Entire farms were deserted, vineyards and orchards neglected, fences broken. All that was left of once-golden wheat fields had been grazed over by stray cattle and sheep.

  When a line of riders appeared in the far distance, moving in and out of rain squalls and shafts of milky light, they galloped in the opposite direction, ending up at a deserted farmhouse sheltered by a mournful stand of half-dead oak trees. Leading their horses through the front door, they squeezed into a narrow low-ceilinged room, thick with dust and straw from a collapsed roof. The dirt floor was covered with mice and weasel droppings, the cupboard empty except for a leftover slice of bread covered with blue mold.

  "We'll pad our bellies, then rest up," Large Marge said, then walked outside. A few minutes later she returned holding a headless chicken.

  Not wanting to advertise their presence with a line of chimney smoke, she plucked and cooked the chicken in a deep pit.

  "I've had my run-ins with old man Sutter," she said, tearing into the half-cooked meat. "Rolled him biscuits, made dough for him, burned his grease, wet his whistle - you name it. I cooked for him one winter when no one else would. Pleasured him when he was too roostered to know I wasn't one of them San Francisco whores. Anyway you cut it, I comforted him better'n anyone had a right to."

  She threw the chicken bones over her shoulder, wiping her lips on a sleeve of the Warden's jacket.

  "Tell you what, Mister Shook. You go on alone to Sutter's, unless you prefer to head up to Oregon, just the two of us. I'm talkin' partners, not esposa, although that could change. We'd be a team. But count me out with Suttter. He's used up. Overrun and plowed under. A thousand Argonauts up there squattin' on his land, I guarantee you. A stampede. Time is money. That's what you'll hear up there.... Used to be the man had himself an empire, the biggest and best stretch of land from the Sierras to the Pacific: fruit trees, pastures like billiard tables, a thousand head of horses. The man would trade with anyone - Ruskies, Spanish, Mormons, all kinds of pilgrims. Gave 'em what they wanted and took what he needed. The biggest sawmill in California. Biggest parades. Biggest barbecues. Biggest fandangos. Slickest women. Made his Injuns wear uniforms and start a marchin' band. He was the biggest cock-a-doodle-doo from Mexico to the North Pole. Now look at him. You don't want to know"

  She stood up. "So how about it, Mister Shook? Are you ready to stretch a blanket with me and plow a furrow all the way up to Oregon?"

  Zebulon shook his head. "I'm on my own trail."

  "Well of course you are," she said, more relieved than disappointed. "A famous outlaw like you. Not to mention that foreign whore you're stuck on, the one that everyone is flapped up about."

  She mounted her horse. "Don't give me that look. People talk. I been around the dark side of the barn long enough to know when a man is pulled by his whizzle string."

  "Call it any way you want," he said.

  She thought it over. "I'll ride with you to Sutter's because maybe I owe you, having sprung me from that prison hulk. But then you're on your own."

  They rode on until they topped a rise and Large Marge reined in her horse. Her arms crossed, she gazed at Sutter's Fort silhouetted against the granite peaks of the Sierras like a destroyed Crusader's castle.

  "There's no way I'm haulin' my freight to that pile of stone. I don't care what we have goin' between us."

  She dismounted and lay back in the tall grass, staring at a parade of black clouds drifting across the sky. "I'll take my preciosa carcass over to Sonoma. There's a saloonkeeper there who owes me favors, enough for a ticket back to where I used to be."

  She looked over at him: "If you was smart, you'd ride with me. Sonoma's a pretty little town. On a boom right now"

  When he didn't answer she mounted up.

  "It's your loss, Mister Shook. Somethin' has gone to your head, maybe bein' hunted for and talked about so much. But I know better. I know who you are and who you ain't. And you ain't weaselshit. No matter what that wild witch might say or the lies that newspaper feller's always writin' about you."

  After a snort and wave, she rode off towards Sonoma.

  He hadn't gone more than a few miles when she galloped up beside him. "I remembered what it is about that saloon in Sonoma. The oily bastard that runs it is most likely six feet under feeding worms. Or if he ain't, he should be. Not only that, but it's me that owes him, and I ain't in no mood to settle up. Not with the way things are goin'. Maybe it's time for Sutter. It's not like he don't owe me a stake after all I done for him."

  A mile later she changed her mind again, deciding on Hangtown, where an ex-lover had a brother who ran a feed store. "I can start something big up there. If not with him, someone. Hitch myself to some pilgrim or store-bought fiatlander, and if that rides south I'll turn into a shanty queen. Experience counts, Mister Shook. Twenty dollars a poke, plus extras. Hangtown is a favorable place. No one will recognize this old sow among all them busted bushwhackers and down-and-outers. I don't know what I was thinkin' about, throwin' in with you. 'Specially now that you have a fancy price on your head."

  With another shout and wave, she galloped away.

  Zebulon was relieved. He preferred to be alone. It was a condition that he had longed for ever since his days on The Rhinelander: to know that his feet were once again planted on the earth; to stare into his own campfire, or, if his mood shifted, ride back to Colorado or Mexico or some place off the map. He was finished with people and their wants, who says what, who's going where and why. It was enough to survive. The chasing and finding was for others. The problem was.... But the thought evaded him.

  He rode past an Indian's severed head displayed on a stake beneath a faded sign:

  BAD HOMBRES AND DOINS NOT TOLERATED PAST THIS POINT.

  In the fading light, dozens of ghostly figures were floating around campfires in front of the Fort. "Like soldiers from a defeated army," the Count had said. He remembered Delilah on the steps of the Vera Cruz hotel, staring at him as if he was a ghost. Save me, her eyes had implored. And if you know what cgood for you, stay away.

  mile from the fort, he joined a weary procession of Pennsylvania Quakers - the men walk
ing beside half-dead oxen, the women sitting on battered Conestoga wagons, their heads bowed under bonnets, their shoulders covered with thick shawls. They had started their journey over two-hundred strong, and now they were reduced to less than fifty, having been decimated by Indian raids, a Platte River flood, and bouts of cholera and dysentery.

  What was left of the fort's iron-studded gate lay on the ground, most of it having been used for firewood. The stench of sewage and rotting food made it almost impossible to breathe. In front of them, a sprawling cluster of shelters and tents had been thrown together from whatever was at hand: old blankets, pants and shirts, wagon slats, broken tables and chairs, and the usual strips of torn, mildewed canvas. The fort's three-foot-thick adobe walls were riddled with bullet holes. On the crumbling bastions, a row of dismantled cannons pointed blown-up muzzles towards an empty sky. Everything else was in motion: cursing women, banging dinner pots, howling dogs, tents raised and dismantled, wagons repaired, mules braying, horses and oxen unyoked and fed.

  Further inside the compound, half-naked Indians, all that remained of Sutter's farmhands, knelt in front of a long wooden trough shoving feed and cornmeal into their mouths. On either side of them, drunken men rolled in the dirt, wrestling and slashing at each other with bowie knives and tomahawks. A gunshot was followed by a woman's scream and maniacal laughter. A naked man ran out of a barn waving a frying pan only to be clubbed to the ground by a Peruvian miner. A horse bucked out of a barn. Mormons sang hymns and shouted praises to the Lord, ignoring three prospectors dancing on top of a busted wagon, braying at the full moon.

  Zebulon stopped at the edge of a crowd, where a one-armed man in an English top hat held up a shiny new shovel. "Only five of these fine beauties left! Never been used. Pure metal from Vulcan's forge. Can't dig for gold without a shovel, gentlemen. Thirty dollars! Do I hear more? It's good business, gentlemen. Forty to the handsome gent sitting underneath the wagon! You know what it takes to get a box of shovels overland or by sea? Fifty! Do I hear fifty? Who knows when one of these shovels will come this way again. Maybe a month! Maybe six! Maybe never! No shovel, no gold. No gold, and I guarantee it's a long way back to Tiperary. There! At the rear. Fifty dollars. Sold!"