He raised his hand, almost slapped her.
She could not decide why he did not.
A great sigh escaped him. “Goddamn me for giving you my heart,” he said. His eyes filled with poison as he spoke, and she wished that he would have slapped her instead.
“Get back to the bedroom,” he ordered. “Our bedroom. Get into that white dress. The one I had made special. Under the bed, in a pink box, you’ll find some little white booties to go with it. They’ve got pearls on ’em. I ordered ’em special from Chicago, from an outfit makes baby booties and such for rich folks. Get into those, too.”
She only stared at him.
“I know you understand me,” he said, marching down the hallway, tossing the carpetbag into a room with a doorway so small it might as well not have been there at all.
The white goblin turned a corner.
All that remained was the sound of his footsteps.
The creak of the front door.
A door he did not have to slam.
Midas stood on the porch, staring up at the sky
The heavens had gone all angry with the sunset, violet sky warring with black-fisted clouds that hooked and uppercutted against the wind, the sun sinking down slow and easy and kind of timid, like it was plumb worn out and didn’t have much of a notion to do anything about it.
At his feet were buckets of beer and whiskey bottles by the dozen. To his side stood a player piano from a whorehouse in Fiddler proper, borrowed especially for the grand occasion. Overhead, paper lanterns swayed from the eaves of the Gerlach homestead. The lanterns glowed just as red as red could be, painted with Chi-nee characters that symbolized happiness and love, and not just your everyday garden-variety happiness and love, but happiness and love of the eternal variety.
Midas spit over the rail, into the dust.
Fifty feet straight on waited several rows of long tables covered over with red-and-white checkerboard tableclothes, each one set with china plates and real silver utensils, each one ready with more buckets of beer and whiskey bottles by the dozen. Beyond the tables was a cooking pit, dug down but not too deep, heaped with good oak that had long since burned down to a serious bed of coals. Midas’ men had borrowed a couple of jailhouse doors from the sheriff’s lockup in Fiddler, and with these they had covered over the pit. Several dead hogs kept company with a couple dead cows and a few dead lambs there on the bars, each carcass roasting to black perfection. The smell was all blood and iron, and it made Midas’ head swim.
“Boss? You okay? Can you hear me, boss?”
Midas blinked several times, glancing down. The buck bounty man stood at the foot of the porch steps, still smiling as proud as proud could be even though a half-dozen guns were aimed at his nappy head.
Midas grinned himself, figuring that this stranger must have had one hell of a smoke wagon hanging between his legs to be kicking up the sand at this late date.
“What you want us to do with this here nigger, Mr. Gerlach?”
The grin went soft on Midas’ face. He actually started to shake, because somehow he knew that this uppity grinnin’ buck was responsible for ruining everything.
Sure. That was the way it was. The buck had been the burr under his saddle, all along. It was the buck’s fault that the Chinaman’s daughter had been disobedient. That had to be it… there was nothing in the Chinaman’s letters to explain it otherwise. The buck must have put ideas into her poor little head, convincing her to steal from her husband-to-be.
Yeah. The buck had hatched the whole scheme.
And that wasn’t the only damage he’d done. It was the stranger’s fault that Midas’ own men were now staring at him with snickering little grins branded on their faces, just as it was the stranger’s fault that Midas Gerlach was standing before them, shaking like a sissified gent. Standing there on his own front porch, on his wedding day, his big ol’ puppy-dog of a heart breaking with the knowledge that the bloom was off the fucking rose.
Forever more. Amen.
Without warning, Midas erupted. A torrent of words gushed over his lips. He shouted about blood and honor and true love and outre oriental practices, and he couldn’t seem to put a cork in it. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t rein in a single syllable. He took great solace in the fact that a gun was in his hand, for he was certain that he was going to use it in just a minute or maybe less, and then he would surely shut up. But there were some things that needed saying before he sent this buck straight to hell.
Innumerable things. And Midas was saying each and every one of them, though his brain didn’t have one damn thing to do with it. The words were bubbling up direct from his guts, and he couldn’t control them any more than a holy roller can control himself when he’s caught up in the spirit and chattering in tongues. The words were jumping and leapfrogging and somersaulting right on out of Midas’ mouth — each and every one of them racing hellbent for the ears of his audience — but at the same time they were filling him up, too, filling him so full that he was sure to bust if he didn’t pretty quickly cock the hammer and let fly with an avalanche of lead.
Midas looked away, just for a second, just to catch his breath.
And there she was. A real vision. Standing in the doorway, all white like the pearly gates of God’s own heaven. The Chinaman’s daughter was wearing the wedding gown Midas had bought for her, waiting there beneath the red paper lanterns that glowed with promised happiness and love of the eternal variety.
She wore pearl booties on her pretty little feet — those delicate booties that had come all the way from Chicago — the booties Midas had hidden under his stinking bed like a well-kept promise.
The Chinaman’s daughter held out one dainty hand to him, her beautiful fingers painted red by glowing lantern-light. There was no way around it. Midas’ cursed heart sang with joy. His anger melted at the sight of her, for he’d been imagining this moment just this way since the arrival of the Chinaman’s first letter.
Midas stumbled toward her like some big stupid kid, and suddenly it was as if he were floating on air, as if his big clumsy Monitor and Merrimac gunboat feet weren’t touching the ground at all.
Red Bailey called out, “What about the nigger’s boots?”
“Forget ’em,” Midas said, taking the hand of his Chi-nee princess.
“What about the nigger proper, then? You want us to kill what’s left of him? Or you want us to save him for you?”
Midas didn’t give one good goddamn what his gun-dogs did, and he told them so.
For a time he imagined that he was back in that church Down South, the one with the black Jesus. It seemed in his reverie that Jesus lay on the pew next to his, and it was a hot day, August hot —
No. Worse than that. Brimstone hot. Hell hot. That’s what it was.
Jesus wasn’t holding up too well. He’d been born in a land of deserts, but He couldn’t take this. Whimpering like a babe in arms, He was. Why, Stack was pure embarrassed for the old boy. He wanted to tell Him to muscle up and bear it, the way He’d borne that crown of thorns while nailed up there on the church wall through the long years of Stack’s childhood, but he was so dry he figured he’d have to be primed before he could spit, let alone talk.
So Stack just lay there in the heat, taking it himself.
Just like Daddy had promised he’d do one day, and the fact that his daddy was long dead and buried didn’t keep the old man from reminding him. “See,” he said, whispering in his son’s ear, “told you how you’d end up, didn’t I? Told you it’d be the pit for you, you with your evil ways. You at the gate now, ain’t cha, boy? Take a look, see what’s on the other side.”
Stack wanted a look, a good long one. He’d heard about this place for a long, long time. He’d had the fear of it beat into him ever since he could remember. And now that he was here he wanted to see if all the fear had been worth it, if the short time he’d stood on two legs like a man was indeed cause for eternal punishment. He wanted to find out if the stark realit
y of his final destination would have made it easier to bow and scrape. He wanted to know if such knowledge would have made it easier to spend his life in lame servitude of one kind or another, in shame, apologizing for his very birth.
“Go ahead, boy,” his daddy said. “Look through the gate.”
He got one eye open. Sweet Jesus, he could see the fires. Feel them, too. One cheek pressed against the very bars that formed the gate, and that cheek was sizzling like bacon on a hot griddle.
“I warned you, boy. Didn’t I warn you? But you wouldn’t listen. Not one word did you hear. If you’d led the right life. If you’d been meek, like a lamb, you’d have been right, and the Lord would be forgivin’ you about right now, and you’d be enterin’ His Kingdom on your knees, the way He intended.”
“Easy on him, preacher,” Jesus said. “We forgive, Me and Mine. Your boy wasn’t a bad one. He wasn’t evil. He just never wanted to crawl, is all. And now that he’s done… Well, when you’re done, you’re done straight through. And then there’s no turning back.”
Even the preacher knew better than to talk back to Jesus. The preacher’s son was thankful for that little miracle, especially seeing as how Jesus had been kind enough to accompany him to the gates of hell.
Stack figured he should thank the Good Lord’s boy for that. He pushed away from the bars, turned toward the place His voice had come from.
A pig stared back at him with blind eyes, head charred, a well-cooked apple sizzling in its mouth. The pig did not utter a single word, and Stack had the strong suspicion that it wasn’t just the apple that kept the dead hog from talking.
The porker was ready for the knife and fork. Lying above coals that were a long way from brimstone but burned hell-hot nonetheless. Lying there on a scorcher of a grill with a few lambs which had no doubt come to the fire real meek and mild, a bunch of other hogs, a couple cows, and one really stupid bastard for company.
And then came the laughter. “Stick a fork in the nigger and see if he’s done.”
The gun-dog who held the fork obliged. He jabbed Stack’s shoulder, giving the big fork a generous twist. There were only two tines, each one just short of two inches in length, but they bit and sliced like the devil’s own pitchfork. Stack nearly passed out as pain stampeded his senses.
“It’s like they say, bucko,” the holder of the fork opined. “When you’re done, you’re done straight through. And it appears that you still got mucho momentos to go ’fore you’re cooked up good and proper, amigo.”
The men’s laughter mixed right in there with the pain. Stack grimaced. He’d stared through the gates of hell, lain on those gates with the other dead animals, the stupid creatures that went through life meek and mild, but nothing burned him quite the way the hyena laughter of these two fools did.
That was when he knew, for sure and for certain, with no questions at all. He was done, all right. Done, once and for all.
He was done crawling. And for damn sure he was done suffering the grief of bastards like these.
The man with the fork knelt over him, grinning, still giving it the twist. Bobcat-quick, Stack reached up and snatched a fistful of the man’s shirt, surprising him and tumbling him forward across Stack’s own chest, so that the man landed on the grill between half a cow and a generous hunk of lamb.
The other gun-dog might have pulled his Colt in that short instant, but he had to drop the half-empty whiskey bottle he was holding before he could go for the weapon. Stack was off the grill just that fast. An instant later the big fork was buried in the pistolero’s guts.
And then Stack had a pistol.
In the time it would take an exceptionally thirsty man to down a shot of whiskey, Stack had emptied the weapon.
That left him with a choice of six more just like the first.
He jammed a couple into his belt, snatched up another, and moved into the night.
Lead flew hot and heavy.
When it was over, Stackalee stood alone.
Midas hid, all alone in the dark.
He’d seen it all through the bedroom window. Seen his gun-dogs mowed down like they were an army of bovine retards. Blind bovine retards. And then he’d turned to the Chinaman’s daughter, and she’d looked at him with that little bitty bit of a smile on her face, her eyes seeming to say, Now he’ll come for you, and hearing a gal talk through her eyes, and realizing that the words those eyes had spoken were without a doubt the God’s honest truth, well, that had scared Midas worse than anything.
It was quiet now. Finally. That was good, because it meant things were most likely over. But it could be bad, too, because if things weren’t over he would have to stay hidden awhile longer.
And that meant Midas had to stay very quiet. That was a hard thing to do, especially since there was something down in his gut that was busy tickling him. He tried to ignore it, but every minute or two he just naturally had to let a little giggle bubble over his lips.
Like now. He giggled and spit like a babe in arms. Had to bite his lip real hard to cut it off.
The tickling thing didn’t satisfy easy, though. It scrabbled around in Midas’ belly, rippling over his ribs, but he couldn’t allow himself to give in to it. He closed his eyes and covered his mouth with his hands. He had to stop giggling, because if the gunslinger was still out there…
God. Midas knew that he had to steer clear of that man if he wanted to live. The bastard had more lives that a cat. And the things that man had done, the things he’d lived through. He wasn’t like any man Midas had ever heard about. Not outside of a yellowback novel, anyhow.
Just wait it out, Midas thought. It’s not so bad, waiting in the darkness. It’s almost peaceful. Not cowardly at all. Just biding your time — which is only the smart thing to do, after all. Waiting. All alone. In the darkness. In —
The door swung open on squeaky hinges. From above, a sliver of moonlight slashed Midas’ face.
Quickly, he ducked out of sight.
Above, floorboards groaned as the stranger positioned himself.
Midas wanted to move, but he couldn’t.
The bounty man coughed a couple times. Sniffed once, then settled down to business.
A hot yellow stream washed Midas Gerlach’s face, but Midas did not squirm or cry out from his hiding place in the virgin shit shaft. He did not make a move or a sound until he heard the stranger step away, until the outhouse door slammed closed above him and the echoes of the stranger’s horrible boot heels rang in the distance. Then and only then did torrents of laughter spill from Midas Gerlach’s lips.
Midas hushed up soon enough, suddenly afraid that he’d laughed prematurely. But the stranger didn’t return, so he couldn’t have heard…
Midas nodded vigorously. That had to be the way it was. He was safe now. Still, Midas kept his eyes closed. He listened intently, and it wasn’t long before he heard music coming from the player piano he’d borrowed from that Fiddler whorehouse.
It stood all alone out there in the night, beneath red lanterns that glowed with promises of happiness and love of the eternal variety, playing to an audience of dead men.
Midas shivered.
It’s not so bad down here in the ground, waiting in the darkness. It’s almost peaceful. Not cowardly at all. It’s only the smart thing to do, after all.
Waiting… all alone… in the darkness.
Midas lay down on the floor of the new shit shaft and curled himself into a ball. He thought of his grandpa and his grandma, of the night so long ago when Grandma had sliced off Grandpa’s willie and tossed it down the old shit shaft. He thought of that little hunk of meat nestled down there under all that crap, just waiting, year after year, without a single complaint.
Midas Gerlach fell asleep in the hard earth of Fiddler, California, knowing for sure and for certain that patience, indeed, was a virtue.
When it was over, music came. Lie could not imagine where it came from, for Father’s terror in fanged boots had entered the goblin’s house shortly
after the music began, and most everyone else was dead.
Lie had been waiting for the dark man to come. Her eyes took him in, head to toe. The blood, the burns, all of him. Still, he looked good, better than before. The spark that she had glimpsed in his razor-edged glance now seemed to have settled into his eyes for good, and he seemed strangely content.
This pleased her.
She knew that he could not understand what had happened this night, or how he had survived it. Many questions were locked behind his eyes. It seemed obvious that he thought the answers to his questions were locked behind her unspeaking lips.
But this was not so. And even if it were so, Lie could no more answer his questions than ask her own. As her father often said, she had the voice of a flower. And a flower could speak not a single word.
She picked up the carpetbag. He collected fistfuls of gold coins. He dropped them into the toy palace and hoisted it onto his good shoulder. Together, they left the white goblin’s house.
She knew he would not understand what she had to do. On the porch, she stopped and opened the carpetbag, removing a wad of paper money and a box of lucifers.
She lit a match and set the wad of bills aflame. She did this for luck — a custom learned in Father’s gambling hall. She did not expect her dark man to understand such things.
But some things did not require an explanation. The dark man seemed to understand all too well. He turned to a strange wooden box which stood on the front porch. A row of black and white teeth danced on a lone shelf on this box, teeth pressed by invisible fingers. Sprightly music spilled from the box’s heart. Strange magic Lie could not understand.
The dark man smashed several whiskey bottles over the box, then collected the burning bills from the place Lie had dropped them. He fed the dying flames with a larger wad of money, and with these he set the magic box aflame.
Lie took off the white dress the goblin had forced upon her, shed too the horrible little booties with their dangling pearls. These she tossed into the fire.
The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists Page 38