by Len Levinson
“You’re a liar!”
“Am I? Then where the hell you think yer high yeller slaves come from? Let me tell you, Massa John—you had lots of brothers and sisters out there in the fields, and they didn’t come from heaven, they came out’n yer daddy’s pecker!”
Stone hit him with everything he had, but Ephraim dodged to the side at the last moment. Stone’s fist smashed into the wall, the skin on his knuckles burst apart, and he let out a terrible scream. Ephraim hit him with a right hook to the kidney, and a left hook to his other kidney, and when Stone lowered his elbows for protection, Ephraim hooked him to the side of his head.
Stone went reeling backward, fell over the rail, and landed head first in the gutter. Ephraim stood over him. “I wanted to do that all my life!” He said. “And God, did it feel good!”
Stone dragged himself to his feet. Gone were the fatigue and drunken wooziness, because nothing in the world is as purifying as a solid left hook to the brainpan. He stood, looked at Ephraim, and Ephraim fixed his two eyes on him.
“Never figured you was much, under that sickly white skin,” Ephraim said. “Do me a favor, Massa John, and punch me again, so I’ll have the excuse to take another inch off n yer hide.”
Stone raised his fists and advanced. He’d been caught off guard, that’s all. Many times in his life he’d picked himself up off the floor and gone on to kick the shit out of the man who’d put him down, and it looked as though this was going to be that kind of fight.
Stone closed the distance between him and Ephraim, leaned to the left, leaned to the right, and let fly a probing left jab, to see what Ephraim would do with it, but Ephraim slipped it easily and moved inside to work Stone’s body again. Stone took one short step to the left, simultaneously launching an uppercut, because Ephraim had been holding his head low.
His fist connected with the point of Ephraim’s chin, and Ephraim’s head snapped up. Then Stone fired his own kidney shot, and air spewed out of Ephraim’s mouth, but he stood his ground, punched Stone in the stomach once, twice, three times, and then it felt as if ten bales of cotton landed on Ephraim, as Stone landed a chopping right to his temple.
Ephraim raised his fist to protect that side of his head, and took a step back to clear his head, but Stone stayed close, feinted a left hook, looked for an angle, found it, and fired a right hook that struck Ephraim on his wide nostrils.
Blood spurted out, and Stone thought he had his man. He lunged in for the kill, but was too eager, and off balance, and Ephraim saw his chance, stepping to the side and dancing away. Stone found himself facing the open sidewalk.
Ephraim wiped the blood from his nose, and his eyes were ablaze with anger.
“What you run for?” Stone asked, and this time the ridicule was in his voice. “Can’t stand up to a white man?”
“I’ve hated you all my life, Massa John, and that little blond gal you used to go with, the one who used to wear all the pretty dresses, we got together one night and—”
Stone screamed bloody blue murder, and both of them came together on the sidewalk, throwing punches from all angles, smacking each other in their faces, winging shots at each other’s torsos, and half the punches were wild. Neither would back up or move to the side. Blind rage had taken over, and they were trying to beat each other to death.
Stone felt his nose crack and his lower lip burst open. The two o’clock express from Atlanta crashed into his left ear, but he never faltered as he hurled punch after punch at Ephraim, and Ephraim’s left eye was a purple plum, completely closed, blood pouring from his mouth and nose.
They hurled and received shots that would’ve taken out other men, and Stone knew victory would go to the one who dug in his heels and held out longest. He regretted all the booze he’d drunk, and all the wear and tear he’d put on his body, because he simply could not lose to this man.
A blow hit Stone in the middle of his chest, and he couldn’t breathe. He covered, took a step back, and saw it was the best move he could make. Ephraim rushed forward blindly, and he was wide open.
A vicious jab to the mouth stopped Ephraim cold in his tracks, and a right cross sent him sprawling back into the wall. Instead of falling, as Stone thought he would, Ephraim bounced off the wall and came back at him with a straight right, but Stone ducked under it, darted to the side, and pounded him on the nose again.
Ephraim dropped flat on his face and lay still for a few moments, then opened his one good eye and looked up at Stone who said, “I ought to kill you.”
“For what I said about that lil’ blond gal?” Ephraim replied, his face streaked with blood. “What if I told you she loved everything I gave her, and even begged—yes begged—this darky for more!”
Stone kicked Ephraim’s head, and Ephraim grabbed his ankle, twisting hard. Stone lost his balance and fell to the boardwalk, receiving several splinters into his hand on the way down, and Ephraim was on him in an instant, whacking, jabbing, bashing, and kicking. They rolled over and around, trying to kill each other with their bare hands. Their faces were inches apart, and they could smell each other’s bodies and breath, as they rolled off the sidewalk into the muck and horseshit in the street.
A window opened above them. “What the hell’s going on down there!”
Stone and Ephraim looked up and saw an old woman wearing a nightcap, holding a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun in her hands.
“You boys do that someplace else!” She hollered. “I got to get up in the mornin’.”
A door opened in the next house, and a young barefoot man stepped onto the sidewalk, peering at Stone and Ephraim.
“Is that a white man and a nigra fightin’ over there?”
Ephraim bolted down the nearest alley. Stone raised himself and brushed the muck off his clothes. Negro men had been lynched in Texas for far less than daring to fight with a white man.
The young man walked toward him. “What was that all about?”
“Drinking too much,” Stone replied.
The woman in the second-story window shouted: “Goddamned cowboys—all they want to do is fight!”
She slammed the window, leaving Stone with the young man gazing at Stone’s mangled face. “Maybe you should see a doctor.”
“Don’t believe in ’em,” Stone replied, walking away.
His legs were unsteady and he was punch-drunk as he made his way toward the Last Chance Saloon. His ears were ringing, and he’d taken some terrible shots. Stopping at the curb, he spit a mouthful of blood into the gutter.
It was the first time he’d ever gone at it with a Negro, and was surprised by how well Ephraim had done, but the fight wasn’t over yet. They’d get it on again some other time, where there’d be no one to stop them.
Stone ground his teeth together, recalling what Ephraim said about Marie. It was a lie, calculated to piss him off, because Marie would never look twice at any other man, never mind a Negro slave.
Or would she? Stone knew there were depths to that little blonde he’d never fathomed, her strange smiles, the wicked things she’d say and do in the heat of love—where had she learned them? Sometimes he’d had his doubts about Marie, but then he shook his head and laughed, because she’d been rebellious, but not rebellious enough to risk her reputation and that of her family for a few fleeting moments with a common field slave.
Stone had been told from the day he was born that Negroes weren’t as good as white men. Ephraim’s remark was a defilement of white women, but Stone knew, from bitter experience, how capricious Cupid could be. Anything could happen between the sheets, and he had to admit to himself that he’d seen saucy Negro slave girls in tight dresses who’d evoked in him the deepest sentiments of lust.
The part about his father, he refused to consider. It simply couldn’t be. Not his father, although he’d had many friends whose fathers had bedded their slave women, and people said Thomas Jefferson kept a slave girl.
Stone looked down the street to the Last Chance Saloon, and saw only three h
orses tied to the rail. His heart went out to poor Tomahawk, alone and unfed for so long, the unfortunate hard-working animal, who’d never let him down, who did whatever was asked of him, whereas Stone neglected him every day, treating him like a thing that had no needs.
Stone quickened his pace, and something hurt his posterior. He reached his hand around, and found his pants soaking wet. The pint of whiskey had broken, soaking whiskey into the cloth, cutting his skin. He stopped, leaned against a doorpost, and carefully picked glass out of his back pocket, but cut his finger and thumb before he finished, and there still were a few pieces he couldn’t get out.
He stumbled down the street toward the Last Chance Saloon, and looked a wreck, his clothes torn, and blood all over his face, dripping from his finger and thumb. Approaching the front of the saloon, he saw Tomahawk standing between the other horses.
Tomahawk gazed at him without reproach. He’d been through this before, and it did no good. The man reached into his pocket, came out with some coins, and staggered into the saloon.
Stone thought he might as well have one last drink for the road. It would use up his remaining money, but that was all-right, because tomorrow he’d start a new slate at the Triangle Spur, and begin his study of the Texas cattle industry.
He bellied up to the bar, tossed his coins upon it, and said, “Whiskey!”
The bartender, dozing next to the cash box, opened his eyes and poured whiskey into a glass. Stone paid him and carried the whiskey to a table where he could sit with his back to the wall and his face to the door.
He didn’t have any difficulty finding such a table, because most of the tables were empty. It was nearly three o’clock in the morning on a weekday night, and everybody had to work the next day, including Stone, and he knew it was going to be murder in the morning at the Triangle Spur.
I’ve got to get serious about life, he said to himself. I’m killing myself with drinking and fooling around. I’m liable to wind up one of those old drunks I see in the gutter of every town I’ve ever been in. I used to be an officer, for Christ’s sake. Wade Hampton himself asked for my opinions at staff meetings. I have abilities and intelligence, when I’m sober. I’ve got to dry out and be a man again.
A man in a plaid shirt stumbled and tripped through the swinging doors, nearly falling on his face, and Stone stiffened in his chair. It was one of the bodyguards he’d encountered at Veronika’s dressing room earlier in the evening.
The man in the plaid shirt staggered toward the bar, leaned against it, and hollered at the top of his lungs: “Bartender— I’m a-looking fer a man about this tall”—he held his hand at Stone’s height—“built thick in the chest and sportin’ two Colts – you seen him around?”
“That him over there?” The bartender asked, pointing at Stone.
The man in the plaid shirt spun around, reaching for his six-gun, and Stone already was on his feet, drawing both his Colts, pulling the triggers.
His first barrage demolished two bottles of whiskey behind the bar, and then plaid shirt fired, his bullet smacking into the wall three feet from Stone’s left ear.
Stone fired another volley, sending a spittoon flying into the air, covering the bartender with slop, cigar butts, tobacco juice, and an old rag. His other bullets provided ventilation for the mirror behind the bar.
Plaid shirt took careful aim, and his bullet punctured the floorboard near Stone’s left toe. Stone tried to settle down and pick his shots, although it wasn’t easy to settle down when bullets were flying around.
He triggered his Colts, and plaid shirt’s hat flew off his head, but plaid shirt held his gun with both hands and fired a careful shot at Stone’s heart. An olla jar, hanging from the ceiling, exploded into bits above Stone’s head.
The bartender laughed. “I never seen two worse shots in my life! You cowboys couldn’t hit a bull’s ass with a banjo!”
The absurdity of the situation struck Stone, and he giggled in spite of himself. His knees wobbled from side to side, his arms were like overcooked macaroni, and he no longer could aim his guns effectively.
But the man in the plaid shirt had his legs spread apart and sighted down the barrel of his gun once more, while Stone’s body was wracked with uncontrollable perverse mirth. Stone closed his eyes and waited for the bullet that would send him to that big ranch in the sky when he heard: click!
Plaid shirt’s gun had jammed, and he lost his temper, throwing it at the floor. It exploded on contact, and a bullet whizzed into the wall next to a drunk passed out on his table who didn’t budge an inch.
Now plaid shirt’s sense of humor took hold of him, and he dropped to his knees, hugging his sides, howling with laughter.
Tears rolled down the bartender’s face as he filled three glasses of whiskey in the middle of the bar. “Shootin’ that bad deserves the special booby prize, but since we ain’t got one, how’s about drinks on the house!”
Stone holstered his guns and moved unsteadily toward the free whiskey. The man in the plaid shirt joined him, and they raised their glasses in the air.
“Here’s to the two worst gunfighters I’ve ever seen!” The bartender roared.
They drained their glasses dry.
“You gents sure are fun!” Said the bartender. “Let’s have one more once!”
He filled the glasses again, and they guzzled the liquid down. The bartender walked away, carrying the bottle back to its assigned spot, next to his Smith & Wesson.
Stone and the man in the plaid shirt looked at each other and realized they were drunken violent sons of bitches, and not much could be done about it.
“Sorry I knifed your friend,” Stone said, “but you know how it is.”
Plaid shirt nodded. “He weren’t my friend, and once he cheated me at cards, but you weren’t smart when you went to that lady’s room, because she’s another man’s woman, and he ain’t nobody to fool with. I’m talkin about Count Von Falkenheim, who owns the Diamond D.”
Stone recalled the man with the strange, crooked, upturned mustache who’d answered Veronika’s door. “Fuck him if he can’t take a joke.”
“He fired me,” plaid shirt said, “and it was the best job I ever had. Din’t have to ride no range, din’t have to punch no cattle, all I had to do is sit around and proteck that woman from cowboys like you who think you can git some of what she’s sittin’ on.”
“Almost did,” Stone said. “What’s your name?”
“Haliday.”
Stone placed his bloody hand on Haliday’s shoulder. “How’d you like to go to Kansas?”
“What’s there I can’t get cheaper in Texas?”
“The Triangle Spur is sendin’ their herd up the trail. I’m going, and you can too.”
Haliday made a rough motion with his hand. “I wouldn’t go anywheres with them cowboys. Their ramrod’s a drunk, the segundo is off his rocker, and nobody else knows anything about cattle except an eighteen-year-old kid who don’t smoke, drink, swear, or do anything wrong. My friend, you don’t go up the trail with a bunch of dumb galoots like that.”
“I am,” Stone said, “and they got an awfully good cook.”
“Boss lady’s purty too. Don’t know what she sees in that old loudmouth, though.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Old enough to be her father, for chrissakes. Can you picture them in bed together? It’s enough to make a man puke.”
“Love doesn’t make sense, Haliday. Haven’t you ever been in love?”
“A long time ago. Me and two of my friends ran across this gal in the woods, and she was a little tetched in the head, so we just sweet-talked her a little, and pretty soon she gave us what we wanted.”
Stone felt a wave of fatigue break over him like an ocean wave. He pushed himself away from the bar and said, “Not feeling so good. Got to lie down. Talk to you some other time.”
Stone wheeled and shuffled toward the door, a stain of blood on the back of his pants where the glass had cut his haunc
h. He pushed open the doors and stepped onto the sidewalk, looking directly into the face of Tomahawk, who gazed at him mournfully, with an expression that seemed to say: When are you going home, pal?
“You poor son of a bitch,” Stone said, patting Tomahawk’s forehead. “You deserve better than me, but I do the best I can. Let’s go to the prairie, where a man’s a man and a horse is a horse.”
Stone climbed onto the saddle and pulled the reins around gently. Tomahawk headed out of town, his head bobbing up and down, and Stone wrapped both hands around the pommel, so he wouldn’t fall off. He drooped in the saddle, as deep fatigue came over him.
He felt as if he didn’t have an ounce of strength left in his body, and his mind functioned with only the smallest glimmer of consciousness. He hurt all over, thanks to Ephraim, but Ephraim would be feeling pain too. It wouldn’t be over until one of them was lying on the ground and the other wasn’t.
In Stone’s drowsiness, Ephraim was a bad dream drifting through his mind. Who could’ve imagined one day a man’s slave would return to give him grief? Stone thought back to the days of Albemarle, magnolia trees lining the paths, the parties, dancing, great feasts. At night he slept on a big feather mattress, and never worked a day in his life until he went to West Point.
He saw himself marching across the plain at West Point, in the ranks with the cadets, saluting with his sword the commandant. He’d never realized it at the time, but they’d been the best days of his life.
Then came the war, bombs bursting around him, incredible carnage, screams of men, blood flowing in rivulets on the battlefield. They’d shot him and sliced him, done everything they could to him, and he had survived, but for what?
Something was moving on the prairie, and Stone leaned toward it, his eyes nearly closed. It was Veronika beckoning to him out of the night, dancing lewdly on the grassy swales, shaking, wiggling, snapping her fingers over her head, and she was completely naked.
He reached toward her, and at that moment everything hit him at once. His system was overloaded with alcohol and excesses of all kinds, and he blacked out, leaning over perilously, falling out of the saddle.