A Congregation of Jackals

by S. Craig Zahler

  “This is the one where you save me. It is entitled, ‘Theodore William Jeffries, My Father, My Other Savior.’ ”

  Her father grinned at the title, entered the den and said, “I’m sure you exaggerate things.” He shuffled toward her, his slippers scuffing the wood. His hair was fully white; his face was drawn, far thinner than it was a year ago.

  “There is no need to exaggerate,” she said.

  “I can’t read about it,” he said. “Don’t make me.” He looked nervous.

  “I shall not.” She put the New York Observing Eye down.

  There was a knock on the door. Beatrice folded up the Chronicler and began to rise from her seat.

  “Let me get it. It’s just Goodstead.” He turned toward the door and, leaning on the cane in his left hand, moved slowly toward it.

  Prior to the tragedy, the blank-faced Texan would have simply walked in and joined whatever conversation or meal the Jeffries were having, but now they kept the door locked . . . as did most people in Trailspur. She could not remember whether she or her father had first employed the bolt.

  The fifty-eight-year-old man shuffled toward the door; the bottoms of his slippers scuffed the wood like sandpaper. The scraping sound grew louder in Beatrice’s ears; her heart began to race. She swallowed dryly.

  Her father stopped, undid the bolt and pulled the handle; the door groaned horribly upon its hinges. He peered outside, blue light ghastly upon his old face.

  “Father? Who is there . . . ?”

  “It’s your mother.”

  Beatrice felt a terrible fear blossom within her and asked, “What do you mean? My mother died when I was born.”

  “She’s coming.” Her father peered into the blue dusk, squinted, nodded his head and added, “And I’m pretty sure I see James walking up the hill too.”

  Beatrice realized she was dreaming and woke up. She opened her eyes, but all she could see were the golden curls of her own hair, brilliantly lit by the sun. Something cold and hard slid across the top of her head, following the contour of her skull. She was jostled to the left and then forward and knew that she was in a stagecoach. Beatrice attempted to wipe the hair from her face, but her arms did not move—they were tied behind her back. She was shivering.

  The cold hard thing scraped across her scalp again. The top of her head felt cool and damp. Her golden hair fell away from her eyes and upon her bare legs. She looked at the curly blonde locks in her lap and saw that she had been stripped nude.

  Alphonse walked directly in front of her, a straight razor in his left hand. She tried to scream, but the cloth stuffed into her mouth strangled the cry.

  On the stagecoach bench behind the little Frenchman sat the Indian with the wolf-skin vest; the native held a blood-soaked rag to his neck. Beside him sat one of the twins; his prickly beard was sticky, agleam with blood; his respirations were wet. To the right of the wheezing man sat Quinlan, his mottled face pale and dusty. She did not know who drove the stagecoach, but saw three black boots through the slat in the front wall.

  Beatrice looked to her left and saw Tara on the bench beside her. The woman was completely nude; her hands were bound behind her back; her head had been shaved bald. All of the woman’s long red hair had been bundled together and shoved into her mouth, from where it depended like a horse’s tail. A purple bruise shone upon her right cheek; her burst lips were caked with blood; a line of crimson ran from the side of her right breast, down her torso and right hip, onto the leather bench. The woman was awake, yet silent and immobile; she stared forward, hollow with shock.

  Tears filled Beatrice’s eyes.

  The Frenchman set the razor to the side of her head; she jerked away from the hard, cold steel.

  “If you move you get cut.”

  Beatrice held as still as she could, barely able to inhale enough air through her nostrils to fill her lungs. The Frenchman set the razor to the right side of her head and dragged the blade forward; the metal sizzled through the thousands of fine blonde strands that sprouted there. The newly exposed skin atop her right ear tingled. He slid the razor across the other side of her head; she felt her freed hair fall upon her left shoulder and thigh.

  Alphonse set the razor to her nape and slid it parallel to her tendons; the stagecoach lurched; he hastily withdrew the blade. The vehicle stabilized; he applied the razor again and slid it up her neck to the rear of her skull. The myriad minute clicks of the shearing crawled along her spine. Her skin became gooseflesh.

  The Frenchman collected her shorn curls with his free hand and set them with the remainder of her hair, previously arranged in a neat row on the bench to her right.

  He placed a hand upon her head and rubbed her bare scalp as if it were a globe. His small eyes surveyed the skin for errant hairs.

  “She looks ready,” the Indian said, adjusting the bloody rag he held to his neck.

  “Oui.”

  The stagecoach lurched. Quinlan grunted and then grimaced.

  Alphonse looked at the Irishman and asked, “Want me to examine?”

  Quinlan nodded. Alphonse folded his straight razor, slid it into his burgundy vest pocket and turned away from Beatrice. Her bare head tingled; she began to shiver.

  The Indian slid down the bench, closer to the gurgling twin. The Frenchman sat in the nascent space, beside his boss. Quinlan extended his left arm; Alphonse carefully undid a buckle at the bottom of the gauntlet’s cuff. When it snapped open, the Irishman gritted his teeth, pained.

  “You want me do this later?” the Frenchman asked.

  “No. Keep going.”

  Alphonse unfastened the second buckle. It snapped like a firecracker.

  “Dammit,” Quinlan said.

  “I take off?”

  The Irishman nodded. Alphonse put both of his small hands on the large bronze gauntlet and pulled. Quinlan gritted his teeth. The segmented metal glove slid off to reveal a long slender hand, white as milk and covered with scars; none of the fingertips had fingernails. The pinky and ring fingers dangled limply, swaying with the vacillations of the stagecoach.

  Quinlan looked at Beatrice and said, “Your groom gave me this. And other things I won’t show you.” She had no response.

  “Make fist,” Alphonse said to him.

  “It hurts,” the Irishman replied. Sweat beaded upon his mottled forehead and scarred scalp.

  “Make fist.”

  Quinlan’s thumb and index and middle fingers closed; the loose ring and pinky fingers twitched but did not close.

  “They are disconnect. Tendons.” Alphonse said. “I fix when we are safe.”

  “I know.”

  The Frenchman slowly and gently slid the gauntlet back onto Quinlan’s hand. The Irishman gritted his teeth, but said nothing.

  Alphonse snapped the gauntlet buckles; the boss exhaled a tremulous breath, his mottled face flushed with red and purple pain.

  “I have morphine,” the Frenchman said.

  “I can’t risk being cloudy.”

  “I give small dose. You do not need to suffer.”

  “No.”

  The Frenchman, concern in his eyes, nodded.

  Quinlan said, “Merci beaucoup.”

  “De rien.” The little man grinned and added, “Accent getting better.”

  Alphonse turned away from his boss, collected Beatrice’s hair from the bench, wrapped a lock around the bundle to secure it, pulled the cloth from her mouth and shoved the ersatz horsetail inside. It tasted like dust and sweat.

  In surprisingly fluent English, the Indian said, “They look quite pretty like that. As if they were totems of some variety.”

  Alphonse admired Beatrice and then Tara.

  He nodded in approbation of his own work and said, “Oui. And they will look more pretty with crowns of nails.”

  Beatrice began to choke on her own hair; her body convulsed, but she had no food to expel. She gagged and slammed the back of her bald head into the panel behind her.

  The Frenchman grabbed
her neck and sat her upright, irritation in the gray pebbles that were his eyes.

  “Do not bruise,” Alphonse said. He opened a valise and withdrew a hammer and a four-inch long nail.

  Beatrice’s vision narrowed; she toppled forward and blacked out.

  Mary, Jesus and Joseph ran across Jim’s lawn, up to Beatrice. They put their filthy paws on the blue dress she wore. She swatted at them and scolded them until they sat obediently around her in a circle. Her wedding gown was ruined.

  Despite her irritation, she scratched the coydogs’ long snouts and patted their heads; they panted past dangling tongues and woofed amicably.

  Beatrice looked over at the A-frame house her fiancé was building. Jim knelt upon the roof, silhouetted against the sky. He set the tip of a nail to a shingle and, with his favorite hammer, gently tapped the iron into the wood.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  The Backsides of Horses

  The white stallion rumbled beneath Oswell; its hooves slammed to the grass and rebounded only a moment after contact. Wind blew against the rancher’s throbbing, fractured jaw and into the lacerations he had gained during the explosion, but the pains were distant annoyances. When he compared himself to the agonized, gory mess from New York who rode the horse beside him, his wounds seemed bearable.

  The horses thundered forward; a grass tapestry peppered with elongated stones rolled by beneath them. For a moment, Oswell felt as if the hooves of these five animals spun the planet, so strong and determined were their steely strides.

  “They were headed due east, right at the mountains,” Sheriff Jeffries yelled over the tattoo of hooves. “They’ll need to turn south—they can’t get a stagecoach or that cripple through nineteen miles of mountains.”

  Oswell looked at the position of the late day sun and saw that they were riding southeast, diagonal to their quarry.

  He said, “We’re going to cut them off?”

  “We are. The longer they ride due east, the farther ahead we’ll be.”

  “Couldn’t they go north when they get to the mountains?” Smiler asked.

  “They shouldn’t. The range continues all the way up and eventually gets to water they couldn’t ford. If they go that way, we’ll follow them and get them pinned.”

  Goodstead asked, “What’s the plan?”

  The sheriff looked at Oswell and said, “How do you think this is going to go?”

  The rancher had an idea what Quinlan would do, though did not look forward to verbalizing it; he said, “He will try to get you to throw down. He will try to cow you. He will do things to the women to make you go soft.”

  The lawman’s face was hard; he said, “Continue.”

  “He might try to barter for me and Dicky, but he’s not going to give up Beatrice. Maybe the other one.”

  “Tara,” Goodstead said, his contempt for Oswell clear even in just two syllables.

  “He might offer Tara in exchange for Dicky and me, though the main thing will be getting us to throw down our guns so he is in control.”

  “But he won’t give my girl back in a trade?”

  “No matter what he tells you, he won’t. Bein’ the sheriff’s daughter, she’s too valuable.”

  “That’s what I figured.”

  The sheriff and Oswell looked over at Dicky; the New Yorker pulled a blood-soaked rag from his mouth, bits of it sticking to his tongue, lips and inner cheeks. He sipped, swished and spat out the liquid from a flask of whiskey; his face reddened with pain and his eyes sparkled. He shoved a plaid handkerchief into his mouth.

  The lawman said, “Richard. Does that sound like how it’s gonna go?”

  The New Yorker nodded his head; blood dripped from two holes in his left cheek.

  The terrain beneath the horses became damp; the beasts’ hooves slapped into the mud and flung dark pudding in their wake.

  The sheriff asked Oswell, “What do you suggest?”

  “Make as if you want to barter or discuss a deal. When we get close enough, we just have it out. He won’t expect you to draw with the women there, so you’ll get the advantage of surprise.”

  The sheriff pondered the rancher’s plan; mud flew pell-mell into the air.

  Goodstead said, “There’s gotta be a better plan. Somethin’ better than just pullin’ guns with Beatrice and Tara in the middle of it.” The deputy thought for a moment. “There’s gotta be a way to trick him.”

  Oswell replied, “Quinlain’s been tricking people for more than thirty years, and here he is, still doing it. He won’t expect us to open a gunfight when he’s got hostages. That’s the only advantage we’ve got.”

  The weight on the sheriff’s shoulders was almost visible to Oswell. The five steeds rampaged across the wet sucking earth; they flung black debris at the blue sky.

  The rancher reluctantly added, “It’s best to look at it like the women are already gone and this is the one chance you have to bring them back.”

  “You rotten bastard,” Goodstead said to Oswell. He reined his horse over to the rancher’s and raised the butt of his rifle.

  “Goodstead! Ease off,” the sheriff said. “Danford is right.”

  Sheriff Jeffries chewed unsavory thoughts for a moment and said, “I need a minute. Let me figure out the assignments.”

  Goodstead rode his steed directly in front of Oswell; the horse’s rear right hoof flung a clump of mud that splattered upon the rancher’s neck. The deputy guided his black mare beside its sibling, atop which sat the sheriff.

  The sun behind Oswell’s left shoulder told him that it was after three o’clock. Ahead of him, the blue and gray mountains climbed into the sky; he needed to tilt his head back in order to see their peaks.

  The rancher tightened the buckle on the holster the deputy had given him and withdrew one of the six-shooters that came with it. The pistol was a newer make, a double-action device that would allow him to fire more quickly, without fanning the hammer. He swung the cylinder wide and saw that it was fully loaded; he closed and holstered the weapon. When he looked forward, he saw that both Goodstead and Smiler were watching him, their hands on their guns.

  The rancher looked to his right, saw Dicky sway and asked, “You going to be able to stay in that saddle?”

  The New Yorker nodded and then tightened the leather strap that held a stained kerchief over the hole Arthur’s bullet had rent in his left shoulder.

  “You’ve got some sisters in Connecticut, right?” Oswell asked.

  Dicky nodded.

  “We gotta put Quinlan down no matter what.”

  Dicky nodded.

  “We’re going to do a crisscross,” the sheriff said, his voice clear over the wet slapping of hooves. The posse looked at him. He continued, “That twin is fast. The only reason I got a bullet in him was because I shot him in the back. Richard is fast and Richard killed his brother, and he and the twin have bad history. It seems like the twin will draw on Richard.”

  “He will,” Oswell said.

  “One dollar on the twin,” Goodstead remarked.

  “The deputy is right—the twin will probably kill Richard. Smiler?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You go for the twin. He certainly won’t be gunnin’ for you and you can put him down while he’s puttin’ holes into Mr. Sterling.”

  “I’ll kill that twin,” the old marshal said.

  “Richard, you go for the little fellow, the Frenchman. That gun he has is small caliber and if you are killed before you can get a shot off—which seems probable—I’d rather have the little guy left standing than anyone else.”

  Dicky nodded.

  “Goodstead gets the Indian.”

  The deputy said, “I’ll get the savage and that Frenchman Mr. Sterling didn’t get to kill.”

  “Good. I presume Quinlan will go for Oswell?”

  “He will,” the rancher said.

  “That means I’m goin’ for Quinlan myself,” the sheriff stated.

  “Just be sure to put him down,” O
swell admonished.

  “I will. You go for whoever else is there. Somebody was driving that stagecoach, so we know there is at least one more fellow.”

  “I’ll get whoever is left.”

  The horses galloped onto dry terrain.

  Sheriff Jeffries raised his voice to surmount the clacking of hooves on rocks; he said, “We aren’t goin’ to have time to adjust the plan, so stick to it. If your assigned man isn’t there, go for Quinlan first and the twin second. If they have twenty extra men who joined up with them, stick to your assigned man, put him down and then go for the rest.

  “The code is, ‘We just want to talk.’ When I say that, you draw and put your man down.”

  The hooves kicked rocks pell-mell; the wake of the running horses sounded like hail.

  “Goodstead, give out binoculars. Everyone look northeast. Watch for dust, birds taking flight, birds circling, reflections, anything irregular.”

  “Gimme the telescope,” Smiler said.

  “Goodstead gets the telescope—he’s got the youngest eyes,” the sheriff said.

  The deputy reined his horse beside Smiler’s and opened his saddlebag. He extricated a pair of binoculars and handed them over to the marshal.

  “Thanks, Deputy.”

  Goodstead slowed his mare and summarily slid in between Oswell and Dicky’s galloping beasts. The Texan reached into his bag, pulled out a pair of binoculars and struck them against the sundered left side of the rancher’s face; Oswell’s inner ear rang and flared with pain.

  “Sorry,” Goodstead said.

  The rancher silently took the binoculars from the Texan.

  Dicky reached his right hand out for a pair of binoculars. Goodstead spat in his face; the saliva sat in the New Yorker’s closed right eye like a giant coagulant tear.

  “Didn’t see a spittoon out here,” the deputy said.

  Smiler laughed, a creaky cachinnation that needed oil. The Texan handed the binoculars to Dicky and spurred his horse up alongside the sheriff’s. The New Yorker wiped the expectoration from his eye, blinked a couple of times and looked through the lenses.

  Oswell pivoted in his saddle, faced northeast and raised his binoculars to his face. The blue and gray mountains seemed like a giant relief etched in the sky by the lowering sun. The rancher saw nothing but empty plains between himself and the ridge.