Devil's Brand

by Len Levinson

  “It’s like you said before: it’s best to know so you can be prepared.”

  “You cannot be prepared for death, cowboy. When it comes, it comes like an eagle out of the night, grasping you suddenly and carrying you away.”

  “What does it say?”

  “It says . .. You are going ... To die young.”

  Stone sat silently as the Gypsy’s curse sank into him. Was she a swindler, or did she know what she was talking about?

  “Do not worry,” she said. “There is nothing you can do about it, and who knows, maybe you are right and I am only a swindler. Shall I go on?”

  “When will I die?”

  “Your palm does not carry a date. It only says you will die when you are young.”

  “What’s young?”

  She shrugged. “What’s young to you? It’s your palm, not mine. How old would you be, if you didn’t know how old you were?”

  “What else do you see?”

  She held his palm in her cold bony fingers and brought her slanted rheumy eyes closer. “You will love well, but not wisely. You will travel far. Someday you will have great wealth. You will suffer much.” She took a deep breath, as if she’d just undergone a great exertion, and leaned back in her chair. “You haven’t touched your tea.”

  He raised the cup and sipped the hot liquid, which tickled as it rolled over his tongue. It had a citrus flavor, and he gulped it down.

  The crystal ball radiated pulsations of light that reflected in Madam Lazonga’s eyes. “The spirits are calling me,” she intoned mysteriously, bending over the gleaming orb. “I see a woman with golden hair, who loves you very much.”

  “Where is she?” Stone asked.

  “In the setting sun. And I see another woman, who is dead. She is your mother, and she too loves you very much. How lucky you are, to be loved like this.”

  “The woman with the golden hair—I’d like to know more about her.”

  “You are going on a long journey, and you will have many difficulties, but it is your destiny, and you cannot avoid it. I see you afterward in a big city, much bigger than this, and the woman with the golden hair is there with you.”

  Stone stared at her. “Are you sure?”

  She undulated her hands before the crystal ball and brought her eyes closer to it. “I see a black master crossing your path. Beware of him, but one day he will cheat the Gypsy’s curse. And last of all I see an old friend who will lead you on a second journey to a far-off land.”

  She paused and blinked. A naked little girl with gold earrings waddled into the room, sucking her thumb. “I want to go to bed, Granma. When you tuck me in?”

  Madam Lazonga said something in a strange foreign language to the child, then turned to Stone. “That is all, cowboy. You want to know more, you come back some other time.”

  “Tell me more about the woman with golden hair?”

  “You will see her someday, according to the crystal ball. There is nothing to worry about. Good night.”

  She leaned forward and blew out the candles, plunging the room into darkness.

  Chapter Four

  Stumbling back to the Last Chance Saloon, Stone thought about the Gypsy’s curse, and could swear there was something strange in the tea she’d given him.

  He saw balloons and confetti, but there was no parade. His burnished spurs jangled, but he didn’t feel his boots touch the ground. He floated through the doors of the Last Chance Saloon, and saw the usual bunch of killers, thieves, pickpockets, gamblers, and saints dumped into one combination saloon, casino, and whorehouse.

  Stone made his way to the bar, his eyes half-closed, and all he wanted was another glass of whiskey. He only had a few coins left in his jeans, but he had a horse and a job, so he stepped to the bar, placed one foot on the rail, and said, “Bartender!”

  A different bartender was on duty, a heavyset, middle-aged American wearing a dirty apron. “Whiskey?”

  Stone nodded, and the bartender poured. Stone thought about the top floor of the Barlowe House at two in the morning, and the delights that awaited him there. Then he remembered Marie, and took out her picture. “It was good while it lasted,” he said to her, “but all good things come to an end.” Again he contemplated throwing it into the nearest spittoon, and again dropped it back into his shirt pocket.

  He lit a cigarette, sipped whiskey, and it was like a hundred other nights in a hundred other saloons. The lamps made a sheen on his cheeks, and his hair was mussed. He couldn’t remember what happened to his old Confederate cavalry hat, and there was something important he had to do, but he couldn’t remember what.

  “Señor, can I buy you a drink?”

  Stone turned and saw Don Emilio Maldonado standing next to him, his wide sombrero low over his eye.

  “I never turn down a free drink,” Stone said.

  “Nor do I.” Don Emilio called the bartender, who instantly stopped what he was doing and came running toward them over the slats behind the bar.

  “Double whiskeys, for my friend and me.”

  The bartender poured the brew, and Don Emilio looked up at Stone, a faint smile on his face. “I have heard you apologized for your rude behavior to the other bartender, and it takes a real hombre to do that. If you are ever down in the brush country, ask for me, and I will offer you my hospitality, as one caballero to another, yes?”

  “Like I said, I never turn down a free drink.”

  “What is your name?”

  “John Stone.”

  “Juan Piedra. That is what it would be in Spanish. What are you doing in San Antonio?”

  “Not a goddamn thing.”

  “Need a job?”

  “I’ve got a job.”

  “If you ever come to the brush country, you can work for me. It is a hard life, but a hombre can feel like a hombre. We will drink mescal, and I will tell you of the women I’ve loved, and the men I’ve killed, and you will tell me of the women you’ve loved, and the men you’ve killed.” Don Emilio raised his glass, drained it, and slammed it down on the bar. “Hasta luego, gringo.”

  Don Emilio walked toward two tables surrounded by Mexican vaqueros drinking, laughing, and playing cards.

  Stone looked into his fresh glass of whiskey and thought: One moment a man’s going to blow you away, and the next moment he buys you a whiskey. He raised the glass carefully, slurped off an inch, then sucked air between his clenched teeth and placed the glass on the bar again.

  He was hungry, and didn’t have the price of a meal. Maybe he should’ve borrowed a few dollars from Don Emilio, while that hombre was in a good mood. Then suddenly he realized what he was supposed to do. He was supposed to feed and water Tomahawk. The poor animal was probably starving to death, while he was drinking whiskey, chasing dancing girls, and getting into trouble.

  Stone’s head did another pirouette, he leaned his elbows on the bar. It was getting late, and he thought he’d just go off with Tomahawk to a grassy watering spot, and fall asleep with all the other prairie dogs.

  He lifted the glass to his lips again, and somebody behind him said, “There he is!”

  Stone turned around and saw the two bodyguards from the Barlowe House. He looked at them, and his demons urged him on. They’d jumped him in the hallway, punched him around, and prevented him from being alone with the fair Veronika.

  “We been lookin’ fer you,” said red shirt.

  “I haven’t been hiding,” Stone replied.

  The two bodyguards looked at each other, turned down the corners of their mouths, and charged.

  Stone lunged when they came close, throwing a straight right through the smoke at the nose of plaid shirt, and plaid shirt raised his arms to block the punch, while red shirt slammed Stone in the kidney with a left hook.

  It felt like a knife, but Stone was in the middle of a fight and had to keep on until he dropped. Red shirt raised his fist for a shot at Stone’s face, but Stone danced to the side, distancing himself from the punch, and cut loose with a vic
ious left jab to the mouth of plaid shirt, connecting, stopping him cold, but meanwhile red shirt rushed forward, diving toward Stone, hoping to tackle and bring him down.

  Stone timed him coming in and kicked him in the face, and red shirt went flying backward, crashing into a table. Meanwhile, plaid shirt recovered from the punch in the mouth, and hurled a right cross toward Stone’s head, but Stone leaned to the side, and the punch whistled harmlessly by his ear.

  Stone stepped forward, got inside, and hooked plaid shirt’s body with a left, right, and left, then went upstairs and landed a blow that made plaid shirt’s head snap to the side. Plaid shirt fell on his back, just as red shirt arose from the floor. He stood and faced Stone, both men breathing through open mouths.

  Stone was afraid red shirt didn’t want to fight anymore, and that wasn’t what Stone wanted. The wildness and madness were on him now, his life was a mess, nothing he did turned out right, he didn’t have long to live, and he wanted to kick the shit out of somebody.

  The man in the red shirt didn’t disappoint him. A bottle sat on a nearby table, and he snatched it, backhanding it against the edge of the table, and glass and whiskey flew in all directions. He held the bottle’s jagged edge in the air and took a step forward.

  “Are you sure that’s the way you want it?” Stone asked.

  Red shirt got lower and advanced toward Stone, light from the lamps glinting off the cruel points of the broken bottle, and that was his answer. Stone bent over and pulled his knife out of his boot. It had a ten-inch blade, and was a gift from an Apache named Lobo, one of the best knife fighters Stone had ever seen.

  Stone held the knife blade up, waved it back and forth like a head of a cobra, and said, “Come on!”

  Red shirt’s mouth was set in a grim line, while drinkers, gamblers, and whores stepped back out of the way. The Last Chance Saloon had become silent as a church during the meditation hour. Meanwhile, plaid shirt lifted himself from the floor and watched, his right hand near his gun. Stone saw the crowd gather around them, and knew everybody wanted to see blood. Among them he saw the big sombreros of Don Emilio Maldonado and his vaqueros, but nobody intervened.

  Stone’s old soldierly fighting spirit came back, and he held the knife tightly in his fist, stepping toward the man in the red shirt, knowing one of them was going to die.

  They circled each other in front of the bar, every eye on them, and the gamblers took bets, with the odds five to three in favor of Stone’s opponent, because everybody knew him, a local gun for hire, whereas Stone was just another saddle tramp, and he looked bleary-eyed, half in the bag.

  Red shirt’s teeth were yellowed by tobacco, and he made a twisted smile as he crouched lower, beckoning with his left hand.

  “Whatcha waitin’ fer, cowboy?” He asked. “Let’s do it.”

  Stone feinted a thrust at red shirt’s gut, and red shirt lowered his defense, which was just what Stone wanted. Stone raised his knife and slashed out at red shirt’s face, but red shirt raised his bottle in the nick of time, there was a clash, and steel cut through glass, spraying shards into the air.

  Both combatants took a quick step backward, but there was no damage except the broken bottle demolished in red shirt’s hand.

  Red shirt dropped the broken bottle, reached behind him, and yanked a knife out of its scabbard attached to his belt. It was a Tennessee toothpick, with a slim, double-sided eight-inch blade, razor-sharp on both sides, as deadly a weapon as a man could carry.

  They circled each other again, crouching low, holding their knives in front of them, blades up, then switched directions and circled the other way. Stone measured his opponent, looking for an opening, he only needed that inch that could spell the difference between another glass of whiskey or eternity in a dank, cold grave.

  He saw it and went in for the kill, streaking the point of his blade toward his opponent’s heart, but red shirt chopped down with the blade of his Tennessee toothpick and sliced open Stone’s forearm.

  Stone jumped back quickly, his arm on fire, and readied himself for the follow-up charge. He didn’t have to wait long. With a victorious shout, red shirt leapt forward, back-slashing at Stone’s face, but Stone ducked under the blow and jabbed his knife upward into red shirt’s soft underbelly.

  There was no resistance, and Stone’s ten inches of Apache steel went in all the way to the hilt. The man in the red shirt gasped, and blood welled out of his mouth. He looked at Stone quizzically, as if he suddenly discovered that the world was a different place from what he’d thought, and then his knees buckled and he dropped to the floor at Stone’s feet.

  Stone looked down at him for a moment, and knew he’d never get up again. Then he turned toward the man in the plaid shirt, whose hand still hovered above his six-gun.

  “Well?” Stone asked, holding the bloody Apache knife in his right hand, while his left hand moved closer to the Colt in the holster on that side.

  Plaid shirt hesitated. “I’m willin’ to walk away if you are,” he said.

  “I got no place to walk,” Stone replied, his fingers an inch above the handle of his Colt.

  “Too bad for you,” plaid shirt said.

  Plaid shirt shuffled away, his spurs jangling with every step, and Stone could drill him easily, but southern gentlemen didn’t shoot people in the back.

  Stone turned toward the bar, reached for his glass of whiskey, and took a swig. Behind him was a commotion, as men carried the dead body outside. He wrapped his bandanna around his cut forearm, and then something behind the bar caught his eye: his old Confederate cavalry hat hanging near a row of whiskey bottles beneath the wide mirror.

  “Bartender—could you pass me my hat, please?”

  The bartender handed it to him and said, “You look like you could use a drink on the house.”

  Stone looked at himself in the mirror as he placed his old Confederate cavalry officer’s hat on his head, slanting it low over his eyes. For a moment he could see himself in Wade Hampton’s headquarters with all the other troop commanders, receiving the order of battle for tomorrow morning, but then he saw cowboy hats and sombreros all around him, and knew he was just another drunk, hoping someone would stand him the next round. Something in back of his mind told him he had a task to perform, and he was trying to figure out what it was when someone touched him on the shoulder.

  Stone turned and saw a young preacher with a pimply face and a button nose looking at him sternly. “You just killed a man, and I tell you solemnly that your soul will roast in hell until the end of time, unless you pray to the Lord God for forgiveness! You should’ve turned the other cheek!”

  “If I turned the other cheek, he would’ve shot me in the back.”

  The preacher stared at him. “The blood on your hands can be washed away, but the stain in your heart will always be there unless you repent.”

  Stone felt the whiskey heat his blood. He looked at the black-suited preacher man and saw a buzzard staring back at him. “Move on, preacher man. I got no time for you.”

  The preacher stared back into Stone’s ice-blue eyes. “It’s not too late to repent, for the Lord is good, His ways are just, and His mercy is everlasting. You must turn from killing, drinking, and whoring, and follow the path of the Lord, or you’ll burn forever in the flames of Hell.”

  Stone saw an immense conflagration envelop him. The flames licked his body for a few moments, and he felt the furnace, then they disappeared, and Stone stood at the bar in the Last Chance Saloon. The preacher pointed his finger at Stone’s face.

  “You know what I say is true,” he said. “You’ll find my church on Elm Street, and my name is Brother Ezra. I will pray with you whenever you want, day or night, at your convenience.”

  Brother Ezra walked away, and Stone turned back to his whiskey. Brother Ezra had evoked his religious training in that small white church back in South Carolina, where it had been drummed into his head every Sunday that a man should do justice, honor truth, and walk humbly with his God
.

  He’d been flippant with the preacher, but believed everything the preacher had told him: killing was wicked, blasphemy worse, and whiskey could kill a man.

  He knew he should get down on his knees and pray to the Lord God for forgiveness, and then go out and change his ways, but he’d been educated in the profession of arms, and then hurled into a war where it had been his sworn duty to kill as many Yankees as possible.

  Now everything was mixed up in his mind, and Marie was gone forever, the Gypsy said he hadn’t long to live, and he had nothing to live for anyway, but there was something he had to do, and couldn’t remember what it was.

  Somebody smacked him so hard on the shoulder he nearly lost his balance. Hanging on to the bar for support, he saw Calvin Blakemore and Luke Duvall, both smoking big cigars and wearing wide smiles. They appeared to be at the heights of drunken jubilation, and Duvall’s shirt pocket sprouted a handful of cigars.

  “We been lookin’ all over for you,” Blakemore said. “Where you been?”

  “Where’d you steal the cigars?”

  Blakemore aimed his thumb at Duvall. “This crimp, who’s been livin’ in a cave for three years, has won eighty dollars at monte!”

  Both of them were drunk, and Duvall dug his hand into his pocket, pulled out a handful of coins, and dropped them onto the bar. “Drink up!” He hollered.

  “Do you think you could lend me the price of a meal?” Stone asked hopefully.

  “I’m hungry too,” Duvall roared. “Let’s git somethin’ ter eat!”

  “Best grit in town is at Pancho’s,” Blakemore said, grinning crazily, “and they give you the most!”

  “What’re we waiting for?” Duvall roared. He grabbed Stone by his red bandanna and pulled him toward the swinging doors.

  Stone tripped, regained his footing, and followed Duvall and Blakemore outside to the street, where a group of men sat on their horses, passing a bottle around. The moonlight and street lamps shone on them, as Stone, Blakemore, and Duvall placed their arms around each other’s shoulders and marched down the sidewalk, heading toward Pancho’s singing at the tops of their lungs: