A Congregation of Jackals

by S. Craig Zahler

  “I am. On Sunday.”

  “If I got married they wouldn’t allow me to say them vows in no blue dress.”

  Beatrice pitied the girl—who she doubted could even read—and replied equitably, “Purity may be a state of mind as well as stricture for the body. If you want to wear blue on your day, you should.”

  Viola scratched the tip of her button nose and nodded; she looked over at the tailor and asked, “Did you fix up my garters yet?”

  “I believe so. But you’d better try them on in front of me so that we may both be sure.”

  Beatrice left the tailor, carrying her paper-wrapped wedding dress in both arms as if it were a boneless child. She placed the ceremonial gown in her room, upon the bed, looked at it for a moment and then walked downstairs, where her father and Deputy Goodstead were finishing their coffees.

  “Goodstead wanted you to know that if James runs out on you, he’ll be right there to take his place.”

  Beatrice looked at the blank-faced Texan and said, “Thank you.”

  Goodstead nodded politely, his face inscrutable.

  Her father nudged him and said in a loud whisper, “Go on fella, it’s your last chance to win her love. Show her that Texans don’t at all know when to quit.”

  Goodstead dunked a corner of toast into his coffee, put it into the horizontal aperture that was his mouth, chewed, swallowed and said, “I know the vows. Just in case.”

  Her father laughed, clapped a hand on his back and said, “That’s the way to smear mud on yourself.”

  Beatrice remembered the many times that Goodstead had tried to court her. He was fairly nice looking, and despite his perpetually blank visage, not unintelligent, but he was so dull that he stayed on duty even on his days off because he had so little else of interest in his life. (Unlike Jim, who was always building things, studying the Bible or fussing over his pets.)

  She asked, “Have you learned anything more about that Frenchman who cut up Jim’s coydog?”

  Her father said, “Nope. He hasn’t been back since we ran him out of town.”

  “We’re not positive it was him that did that,” Goodstead added.

  “He did it,” her father said.

  Goodstead remarked, “You make swift convictions, T.W. Maybe you should move on up to judge. I’ll be sheriff.”

  “What would Judge Higgins do?”

  “Become my deputy.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “I’d be a pretty compelling sheriff.”

  “Good-bye,” Beatrice said, kissing her father on the cheek and nodding at Goodstead. She knew they could keep nonsensical talk like that turning for hours, and she had things to do.

  “I don’t even get a handshake?”

  Beatrice extended her right hand and the Texan took it and shook it.

  He said, “Give my regards to that old man you are about to marry. Say it loud, so he can hear.”

  When the bride-to-be was two hundred yards from James Lingham’s property line, she heard the sound of his hammer pounding nails and knew exactly where he would be. She adjusted the basket on her arm, circumnavigated his house and crept upon the laboring carpenter. Jesus and Joseph saw her approach, but did not bother to remark upon it to their owner, which she wondered if she should find comforting or insulting.

  “Mary’s mausoleum is coming along nicely,” she said.

  “Thanks Bea,” Jim replied. He set his hammer down beside the little building he had toiled over for the last three days, in which he would soon deposit Mary’s body. At night, while they had discussed details of the wedding, he had whittled sticks into miniature pillars and carved wood to resemble blocks of stone.

  The giant man stood from his work stool, walked over to her, blotted out the sky and kissed her on the mouth; she was not sure if the salt she tasted on his lips was from sweat or tears.

  “It looks just like a Grecian temple,” she said, though was still unsure why he had chosen a Greek motif as the basis of his coydog’s mausoleum.

  “It’s pretty close.”

  “Let’s go over the vows again.”

  “I got it perfect last time.”

  “You got the words out, but you faltered a bit in a few places.”

  “You went and changed the vows, is why. I know the regular stuff everyone says, but you went and got fancy.”

  “Once more.” She paused and looked deeply into his eyes. “Please.”

  “I can’t never say no to you when you ask it like that.” He clapped his hands together, arched his back and let out a terrific sigh. Her giant leaned over, curled his left arm across her shoulders and his right arm around the backs of her knees and scooped her up from the ground; her boots lifted into the air as her head dropped down. She was suspended in his arms as if in a hammock. He leaned down and kissed her on the lips.

  “Let’s go an’ get pretend married again.”

  She felt like a dizzy child as the huge man carried her across the grass toward the house they would soon share.

  Beatrice and Jim, holding hands, sat across from each other at the kitchen table; the titan was stiff and anxious.

  “You do not need to be nervous,” she said.

  Jim cleared his throat and remarked, “I feel like maybe He’s listening. To see if we’re good enough to give His blessing to. Or maybe He’s getting sick of us saying His name for practice and won’t bother with the actual weddin’.”

  “James Lingham!” She only said his name like that when he was on a bad path.

  He shut his mouth.

  “Shall we?”

  He nodded.

  Beatrice closed her eyes, tilted her head forward in obeisance and said, “I, Beatrice Roberta Jeffries, daughter of Theodore William Jeffries and Lucinda Millington Jeffries, stand before the Lord, my family and friends on this, the twelfth day of August, eighteen eighty-eight, to join the man opposite me, James Jacob Lingham, in holy matrimony. To this one man, I pledge myself fully and unswervingly: my heart, my soul and my body are his. I ask that the Lord sanctify this pledge and accept us into His bosom for all eternity so that we may shine together in His glory in heaven.”

  Beatrice opened her eyes and saw that Jim was no longer looking at her; he was staring through the window. If he was watching those damn coydogs, she was not going to be very happy.

  She turned her head from him and looked through the glass. Three men walked up the hill, directly toward the house. They were far off, but she could see that all of them had luggage—two carried a quite sizable trunk between them. She looked back at Jim and for a second saw a face she did not at all recognize. There was a little anger there, which she almost never saw, and more than a hint of dread.

  “Who are they?”

  “It’s those fellows I invited. The ones I used to ride beeves with.”

  “You do not seem pleased to see them.”

  “I hated being a cowpuncher.”

  She glanced back through the window and watched the men draw nearer. The two bearing the trunk looked similar, though one was heavy and had a red beard while the other was very strong and sun weathered and wore a mustache. The third man walked beside the heavy one and was extraordinarily good-looking, though too feminine and swarthy for her particular tastes. Perhaps he was an Italian or a Greek or a Jew.

  “They do not appear to be very happy.”

  “They’re probably tired. They came across the whole country to get here.” Jim’s quick response made Beatrice uncomfortable. He was answering a question to which he did not know the answer, which was contrary to his normal way of simply waiting to learn the truth. He was agitated, for certain.

  “Why are they each wearing two guns?”

  Jim’s eyes did not leave the approaching trio when he responded, “They don’t know what to expect out here in the West.”

  “One gun per person is usually enough for a wedding.”

  Jim did not laugh. He stood up from the table and glanced at her, though she could tell that
he did not at all see her, so distant were his thoughts.

  “Let me introduce you to the fellas.”

  She stood up, put her arm through his, walked alongside him up the hall, traversed the porch, descended the steps and walked on the grass toward the visitors, using three strides to match his two. To Beatrice, Jim’s past was a remote and diaphanous thing, something in which he ostensibly had no current interest. She knew that his father and brothers were mean (not one had accepted or even replied to the wedding invitations she sent out, which said plenty), and that he had been a pugilist and a cowboy and afterward had spent a lot of years alone with dogs before he finally came to Trailspur. That was almost all of the history he had shared; it seemed largely unpleasant and she had not attempted to prise more from his lips (despite her natural curiosity). These three men were the only people from his former life that she had ever even seen.

  Jim raised his right hand in salutation. The strong one waved back. The heavy one nodded. The handsome one looked at her in a way that was not entirely appropriate.

  “Welcome to Trailspur,” Jim said.

  “Thank you,” the handsome one said. The others nodded.

  “I’d like to introduce you to my fiancée. This is Beatrice. Beatrice, that’s Oswell, his brother Godfrey, and that one is Dicky,” he said, pointing as he spoke. “These are the fellows I rode beeves with.”

  Oswell shook her hand; Godfrey shook her hand; Dicky, holding two suitcases, bowed his head.

  “Let’s get it inside,” Oswell said to Jim. There was something behind those words she did not like.

  “That’s a good idea,” her titan replied.

  “Pardon me ma’am,” Dicky said. Beatrice looked at him. “How many people are waiting for us inside that house?”

  Beatrice was confused by the question.

  “Nobody is inside,” she said.

  “You are positive?” Dicky asked, a pleasant grin on his face. She nodded that she was.

  “Ain’t nobody in there,” Jim said brusquely.

  Dicky eyed the house momentarily, looked back to Jim and said, “Lingham. Would you please carry this bag? My right hand would appreciate some freedom.”

  Jim took a suitcase from Dicky; the Easterner stretched his finely manicured fingers and then rested the meat of his palm upon the revolver handle jutting from his right hip; the gesture alarmed Beatrice.

  “Do not worry, my dear. My hand just likes sitting there.”

  “You must be exhausted from your journey. Please, follow me inside,” Beatrice said, and turned toward the house. She led the four men up the three steps, across the porch and through the slatted door into the front hallway. Dicky continued past her and examined the main living area; he turned back and exchanged a look with the brothers that was too fast to interpret.

  “Where should we set our stuff down?” Oswell asked Beatrice.

  Did they intend to stay here through the wedding? she wondered with some apprehension. Had Jim not told them that guests in from far-off places were recommended to Halcyon Hotel? She considered herself a hospitable woman, but she would not abide these men in her home on her wedding night—that time belonged to her and Jim alone.

  “You should place your luggage over there,” she said, pointing beside the sofa and puzzling at the situation.

  Before she could ask for the visitors’ itinerary, Jim turned to her and said, “I’m gonna show ’em the property. Could you fix up something to eat?”

  “Would you gentlemen like steaks with onions, biscuits and some sugar parsnips?”

  “I certainly would,” Godfrey said.

  “Don’t trouble yourself overly, ma’am. I know from experience how hectic it gets before a wedding—especially for the bride,” Oswell said deferentially.

  It was not at all surprising to Beatrice that the most polite one was married, though he did not wear a ring for some reason.

  She said, “Why did your wife not accompany you?”

  There was a momentary hesitation before he said, “She doesn’t sit trains very well. And we got kids too.”

  Beatrice nodded, accepting—if not fully believing—his excuse.

  “We’ll be back in an hour,” Jim said; he leaned over and kissed her.

  “That’s fine.”

  The men turned away from her and filed out of the house, oddly silent and joyless, for reunited friends. Their eight boots made the wood creak like old trees in a heavy wind.

  Jim closed the slatted door and from outside said, “Throw the bolt, Bea.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Invitations

  Lingham had done very well for himself by catching that sharp, pretty woman, Dicky thought as the Tall Boxer Gang descended three steps from the porch onto the grass. She was at least fifteen years his junior (her hair and face still retained the gloss of youth), and she was obviously a lot smarter than Jim, but likely his quiet ways and life experience evened out that discrepancy to some extent.

  Oswell said, “She’s pretty. And nice.”

  “I got lucky,” the tall man said and then pointed to the side of the house; the quartet moved in that direction in silence. Two brindled dogs came running out of the woods, their snouts and paws so dirty they looked covered in fudge.

  “Jesus! Joseph! What filth you been diggin’ in?”

  “Did you actually name them Jesus and Joseph?” Dicky asked.

  “I did.”

  “How does the Lord feel about that honor?”

  “I say those names with love in my heart every single day. I think He appreciates it.”

  “Any of the neighbors have a Judas? Watch out for that one.”

  “Shut up,” Oswell barked.

  They continued around the house and deeper into the property; the dogs trotted obediently beside Lingham.

  Godfrey remarked, “They look like coyotes.”

  “They’re coydogs. Half coyote and half dog. Their mothers are coyotes. If it’s the other way around, where the dog is the mother, they call ’em dogotes.”

  “You are making this up,” Dicky said.

  Godfrey scratched Jesus on the top of its head and the coydog rolled out its long pink tongue. Lingham looked at his house, which was now more than fifty yards away, and reached into the back left pocket of his denims. He withdrew a folded note and handed it to Oswell.

  The rancher unfolded the paper as he walked, read its contents and handed it to Dicky. The New Yorker read the handwritten script.

  I’m coming to your wedding. I will be settling accounts with you and those you rode with, and will take innocent lives if they are not present or if you cancel the ceremony. I will see you all in church on 12 August.

  Quinlan

  Dicky felt a chill prickle his nape; he handed the paper to Godfrey.

  Oswell asked, “When did you get that note?”

  “Three weeks ago. I reached into my pocket one night and it was there. I can’t figure how he tracked me down—he never knew our full names or anything.”

  “He probably figured out that we were the Tall Boxer Gang, even though we never told him,” Godfrey theorized. “So he knew that your name was James and that at one time you were a pugilist. Some towns keep records on matches—he might’ve gotten it from those.”

  “But how did he find me up here?”

  “How many wedding invitations and announcements did you send out?” Dicky asked.

  “Near two hundred.”

  The New Yorker bit back the insult that came to his lips.

  Godfrey nodded and said, “People like to talk about weddings, so figure each person who was invited told another ten or twenty folks. In a short while, two or three thousand people all across the country knew your name and where you lived. Quinlan probably had a reward out for information on you and eventually someone who heard about the wedding collected that reward.”

  Lingham did not say anything for several strides; he just looked at his feet and his coydogs.

  Quietly, he admitted, “
I thought he was dead. I wasn’t thinkin’ about him and . . . and back then no more. I got a woman who—” Lingham’s voice cracked and he stopped. His big hands and his lower lip trembled; his wan eyes coruscated in the late day sun.

  Oswell walked over to Lingham, put his left hand on the big man’s back and patted him a couple of times as if he were a huge child with something caught in his throat. Dicky and Godfrey paused, surveying the landscape.

  “I thought he was dead,” Lingham repeated.

  “We all did,” Oswell replied.

  “We all hoped,” Dicky corrected.

  “Doesn’t really matter much how it happened,” Oswell said. “He’s comin’ and we know why.” They resumed walking away from the house, toward the woods. “Any other things happen since then we should know about?”

  “One of my coydogs—Mary—was taken and . . . she was carved up. Three of her legs were amputated, done like in surgery so she’d survive, and then she got dumped on my property with just the one leg kicking out, howling in agony. Had to put her down.”

  Dicky felt the muscles in his neck and shoulders tighten; the violence was no longer a distant thing.

  “Beatrice’s father ran some small Frenchman out of town the next mornin’—the fella was drawing nasty things and treated his horse badly. Her father thinks the little guy cut up Mary for certain.”

  “Probably works for Quinlan,” Godfrey said.

  Dicky asked, “Who is Beatrice’s father?”

  “He’s the sheriff.”

  Dicky and Godfrey exchanged another look of concern; the New Yorker said, “And I thought naming the dog Jesus was a foolhardy move.”

  “I’ve been a good Christian for a long time now.”

  “A long time is not the same as always.”

  The four men reached the coppice and entered it, walking upon a trail that wound between cottonwoods and maples.

  Dicky watched medallions of golden sunlight flit across hats and shoulders and asked, “Where are you taking us?”

  “A place I like to go when I want to be alone and think.”

  “I got one of those at my ranch, in a dell nearby,” Oswell remarked.