They didn’t discuss the plan that they had conceived until they were actually before the general store. It seemed obvious. Inside the store, they asked if the shopkeeper knew the boy’s stepfather by name and description. The shopkeeper looked between the two men. He squinted in such a way that his eyebrows creased together and joined in one thick black line.
Course I do. Count him as one of my regulars.
The Scot nodded, and the Mexican brought forth a drawstring purse. He held it up for the man to see, then emptied it on the countertop. Gold coins, a few silver, several crumpled banknotes. He told the man the money’s worth and his intention. The two men went shopping. In the next half-hour they picked out a new plow with riggings, a wide, multipurpose woodstove, china plates and cutlery, a bolt of gingham and a wall clock, feed for the horses and, on a notion of the Scot’s, panes of glass for windows that did not yet exist. They requested that the goods be delivered within the week, and did so in public hearing, so that the small crowd that had gathered might serve as witnesses. They had the man swear to carry out the deal exactly as requested and made it known that if for any reason, he didn’t like the nature of this transaction, they would find somebody who did.
The shopkeeper told them to smooth their hackles over: I’m happier than a pig in shit. He said he liked the colored man well enough himself and would see that everything was carried out to their satisfaction. Only question he had was just what made them folks so popular these days?
The Scot asked him what he meant.
Well, damned if you’re not the second posse of cowboys through here on the day. Two other fellas came through this morning, asking directions out to their place.
The Scot looked at his companion, but the Mexican had already spun for the door.
THE CLOUDS STAYED HEAVY IN THE SKY as dusk approached, but Hiram doubted they’d actually let loose before the next morning. He and Ben hitched the mule to the wagon and rode off to the Mitchells’ with an offering of corn, payment that had never been requested but that was well deserved for services of friendship throughout the summer. Eliza made them swear to be back for suppertime, and the two joked that no such swearing was necessary. They’d be back.
The mood was light in the soddy. Eliza baked cornbread and prepared a stew thick with chicken and onion. Solomon sat across from Gabriel at the table. The man trimmed his nails with a pair of scissors and explained to the boy the state of the farm as he saw it and the profits that might be seen in the coming weeks. All told, their future looked promising, and despite his earlier reluctance over the gold, Solomon seemed content with their decision. Gabriel found this more of a relief than he could have imagined. Without realizing it, he fell into an easy flow of conversation with the man. Eliza didn’t turn from her cooking, but she did pause and listen for a while, her face more at ease than it had been in many months.
They heard the horses first: the clop of their hooves against the packed earth in front of the house, a high-pitched whinny, and then a silence different from the one that had preceded it. Gabriel looked at his mother and then at Solomon. A moment passed between them, and that was all they had. The door nearly came off its hinges with the pressure of the man’s kick. The first thing the boy saw was the man’s boot, and then his silhouette framed against the evening sky, and then he was inside. Marshall, followed by the black angel on his shoulder. It took the man a moment to take in the room, and in this time Solomon flew toward the rifle above the window, Eliza stood and gripped Gabriel by the elbow, and the boy faced them head on. All motion stopped there, however, as Marshall’s hands rose up, long-barreled forty-fours pointed at both man and boy. Caleb’s rifle made one sweeping scan that seemed to leave all vulnerable.
“Well,” Marshall said, “if this ain’t cozy. Nigger, go head and touch that. See if I don’t make your boy a bastard and your wife a whore.”
Solomon’s arm was extended toward the rifle, but he held it steady. His fingers trembled, his eyes shifted from man to man, and his lips were pressed so tightly together that it looked painful. He didn’t lower his hand; neither did he complete the motion.
“Look, you heard me, didn’t you? I wouldn’t hesitate, but before you go and do something stupid, I’ll just tell you I’m here on business. Simple as that. Business between me and the boy. Once completed, we’ll be on our way. Think about that fore you ruin your family’s life.”
In the space of these few sentences, Gabriel had heard and remembered all that was Marshall. The explosion of profanity, so quickly followed by his reasonable voice, his smooth cadence and confident eyes and that smile, which tickled one side of his lips and then the other as he spoke. Gabriel turned to speak to Solomon, but the man had already lowered his arm. The boy wanted to cry out, but again the room was in motion.
Caleb slipped from behind Marshall and in two strides covered the distance between him and Solomon. He hit Solomon hard with the flat of his rifle’s stock, snapping the man’s head to one side and leaving him dazed. Gabriel moved toward Caleb, but Marshall caught his foot and sent him sprawling. He rose in an instant, but by then Marshall had his arms around Eliza, one pistoled hand tight against her breast, the other aimed pointblank at her cheek. Solomon fell below Caleb’s weight.
Marshall smiled and for the first time addressed himself to Gabriel. He spoke slowly and courteously. “Left us for dead, didn’t you? Well, I can’t blame you. Things were getting a bit out of hand. But should have had more faith, my boy, should have had more faith.”
Caleb finished binding Solomon. He threw him facedown on the floor, bound his legs and hands together, and pulled them taut, so that he lay like a cradle against the matting. This done, Caleb proceeded to do the same to Gabriel, then to tie up Eliza.
Marshall talked throughout, telling of what had befallen himself and Caleb after they’d entered the river. He spoke not as one wielding a gun and binding prisoners but as an old companion to a friend who had, sadly, let him down. He told of his swim in the Colorado, the nights spent sharing a horse and sneaking across the desert, the mule that he had had to ride and the lawman who had found humor in this and so sealed his fate in this life. He said the whole affair had made for a pathetic show—“Nothing to be proud of, I’ll tell you that much.” He speculated that Gabriel had fared much better, on a stout horse like the dun mare, what with a little armory and a load of something special to boot.
Caleb’s fingers were as hard as wood. They were bony and long, yet so powerful that they cinched Gabriel’s wrists together in the grip of one hand. The man carried lengths of rope draped around his neck, as a tailor would a tape measure. And he went about his work with a similar crispness, snapping a few coils of the rope around the boy’s wrists, passing one piece over and under the other, then twisting the knot and threading the rope back through. Gabriel could feel the man’s breath on him, so close were their faces, and just as Caleb drew the knot taut, he met the boy’s gaze. His eyes were as jaundiced and coal-black as ever, but for once they looked at the boy with an expression he could read.
Gabriel slammed his eyes shut, for the man’s eyes projected a version of the future that threatened to crowd out all semblance of sanity. It was not that the boy had read Caleb’s thoughts. Rather, it seemed that the man had thrust them upon the boy, using an almost physical force to push against his eyelids and try to enter his being. Images clamored before him like spirits calling to be made flesh. They were so close, so strong. They were nearly everything, but Gabriel fought them off, knowing he had to think more clearly than ever before. The look in Caleb’s eyes had told him that completely. The end was written there, and it would be a very bad end. It would be unthinkable, unless he could find a way. He must find a way. He opened his eyes again.
Caleb had stepped away and turned his attention to Eliza. Marshall had been rolling a cigarette as he spoke. He didn’t light it, just rolled it between his fingers. He sat down with his legs spread wide. “Now what do you reckon? Should we have ourselves a littl
e something to eat, or should we get right to business?” he said. The room answered with silence. Marshall looked at Caleb, smiled, and shrugged. “They ain’t got much to say, do they?” He looked over the table, working his mouth casually, a bit like an elderly man might with his dentures. He pulled off a chunk of bread, dipped it in the stew, and lifted it, dripping, to his mouth.
Eliza was tied to a chair beside the table. Caleb pushed it to the side and sat just before her. He folded back her dress, exposing the naked flesh of her legs. Solomon craned his head to see, muttering a curse, but Caleb kept his full attention on the woman’s face. He ran one thin finger up her inner thigh. He went just so far, lifted his finger away, and touched it to the other thigh. He did this mechanically, slowly, looking only into the woman’s eyes and never wavering in his gaze.
Speaking through a full mouth, Marshall complimented Eliza on her cooking. “That’s a fine, fine meal. You know, this kind of thing half puts me in the mind to find myself a wife. That might be just the thing I need. Course, a woman’s expensive. My kind of woman, anyway.” He glanced at Caleb as if he’d just remembered him. “What’s going on here?” he asked, cracking a smile that said he knew the answer well enough. He stood up and looked over Caleb’s shoulder, taking in the view. “Nice. Altogether a nice piece, for a colored. You’d like a little poke, wouldn’t you? That’s what you’re thinking about. You see the look on ole Caleb’s face?” He turned to Gabriel. “See that look? That’s a man thinking about getting himself up to some unholy, barbaric doings. The kind of stuff Clemmins used to get up to. Makes me wish we had the time for it.”
Marshall sat back down and crossed his legs. “But alas, time is not a thing to waste. And ya know, I may look a wealthy man, but I’ve nothing but my good name and misappropriated horse. That and a couple of guns. Couldn’t hardly go courting, could I? And that’s what’s brought me to you people. Your boy here rode off with a fair chunk of my property. A horse I loved like a . . . well, like a horse. My guns and ammo and a little something else. I don’t suppose he told you about that little extra something, did he?”
“We buried it,” Gabriel said.
Marshall had directed his question to Eliza, but he turned and looked at Gabriel. “You don’t say? You buried it?”
The boy nodded.
“You sure, now? I won’t be sore if you bought yourself something sweet along the way. Just make sure you’re not lying to me.”
“I’m not. It’s just outside a ways.”
Marshall pulled Gabriel up by his shoulder. “Come on. I’ll leave you folks in Caleb’s hands.” He shoved Gabriel toward the door.
Eliza met her son’s eyes. It was just a second of connection, a brief glance that asked him a whole host of questions. But then the boy was gone, the questions left unanswered.
MARSHALL UNTIED THE BOY’S HANDS and had him walk a few paces before him, carrying the spade. Gabriel led him to the spot beside the creek, the same spot he’d dug up and filled in that same morning. Marshall inspected the ground with suspicious eyes until he got his fingers into a crease in the turf and pulled up the flap as smoothly as one would a rug. He gestured to the boy to work.
With each stroke it seemed the spade dug farther into the soil than Gabriel would have liked. His muscles shoved the tool into the earth but recoiled as the iron blade bit. It was a strange motion, made even more awkward by the fact that Marshall sat watching him. Gabriel tried to ignore him, digging as if alone in the world and on a mission of his own accord. But he couldn’t help glancing at the man.
Marshall rested an elbow on one knee, drawing quietly on his cigarette and watching Gabriel dig. When he exhaled smoke, he tended to look off to the horizon, his eyes exploring it for only the length of the breath, then coming back to the boy. As casual as he seemed, Gabriel didn’t for a moment forget the pistol that he held cradled between his legs. He occasionally took his hand from it, to touch his hat brim or smooth over the coarse hair of his unshaven face. Each time he did this, Gabriel’s heart quickened. His mind surged. How quickly could he cover the three paces to the man? Could he drive the spade point first into his neck? Could he swing it up and smash the back of it across his face? Would he get an extra second if the man was looking into the distance?
Marshall chuckled, and Gabriel realized that he’d been staring at the gun and his digging had slowed. He bent to the work again.
“Don’t you wish?” Marshall said. “You’d like to kill me, wouldn’t you? Boy, you are a piece of work. I did a better job on you than I knew. You know what I said that first day I saw you and the other one? I said, ‘Hell, this here boy’s greener than a blade of bluegrass.’ That’s exactly what I said. But I saw you had the potential. You had an anger I thought I might could redirect in a more useful direction, if you know what I mean. You can’t say I was all wrong, either. You did turn out to be a doublecrossing, thieving little chigger. Cept you stole from the wrong person. That, and you turned out to be a self-righteous son of a bitch to boot. I couldn’t’ve predicted all that. You got brains a dimwit like Dallas or Rollins never even thought of, you know that? My personal opinion is that you shouldn’t’ve used them brains to buck me. Most white folks think a boy like you is nothing but a hairless gorilla. You could’ve used that. Could’ve had the last laugh on all of them.” He shook his head and spat. “Well, fuck it. What am I wasting my words for? You done fucked yourself, Archangel. Fucked yourself and your whole damn family.” The man got up and stretched his legs.
Gabriel dug on, averting his eyes so completely from Marshall that he wasn’t actually looking at his work. He could barely control the chill that passed through his body when the shovel hit the trunk. He paused despite himself, and Marshall smiled.
“That’s the sound I was waiting for. Go on.”
Gabriel uncovered the top, brushed it off with his fingers, and worked the edges free of dirt. He used the shovel to pry the box loose, rocking it with his weight, and finally managed to get his fingers around either side of it and hoist it out. He fell to the side as he did so, and the weight landed hard on the soil next to him. Again Gabriel’s head reeled with fear, but the box made nothing more than an innocuous shifting sound. Marshall didn’t seem to notice.
“Okay, get up. Boy, you don’t how lucky you are. I’ve half a mind to call off my grudge and ride out of here unbloodied.” He knelt down and touched the lid of the box, finding its latch and tugging it with his fingers. “Yessir, but that’s only half my mind. Other half’s a different matter. Where the hell’s the key for this thing?”
“Inside.”
A flicker of annoyance passed over the man’s face. “We best go get it then,” he said, motioning with the gun, and Gabriel fell into step before him, crate in hand.
Gabriel’s boots swished through the grass. Behind him, Marshall’s spurs produced a slight jingling with each step. The boy tried to block out the sounds and plan what he would do next. He had set this in motion, and now he’d have to see it through. If he could just get the guns in his hands . . . He’d have to try to get the key himself, to open the box himself and hope that he’d have the chance to do what came next. There was no other way now.
Marshall started talking as they headed back along the cornfield, saying something about the strange behavior of people with a gun pointed at them, but Gabriel suddenly ceased listening. His eyes shot up at some inclination of their own, and there he saw the first ripple of movement coming over the hill. It was Hiram and Ben returning in the wagon. He wasn’t sure whether Marshall saw them, but the sight sent his mind reeling. It seemed that with this development, all notion of a plan was gone. He wanted to rise on the balls of his feet and shout for them to flee. He wished he could drop the box right there and have the revolvers in his hand. He would shoot this time. He would shoot with everything he had. He could—
Marshall clucked his tongue. “If that ain’t a hassle. Who’s that?”
Gabriel didn’t answer.
Marshall s
hoved him on the shoulder. “Who is it? They family?”
Gabriel listened to himself speak but barely felt that he was creating the words.
“That’s just dandy. Don’t get any ideas, Archangel. You know who you’re dealing with, don’t you? You know you only live as long as I say.” With that, Marshall urged the boy forward. “Keep it casual.”
They walked on, and the wagon rolled in. Gabriel tried to focus once more, to calm his mind and bring it back. He couldn’t signal to them. He knew that much. If he did, and if they somehow understood the signal and fled for help, they’d find the others dead on their return.
They closed to within two hundred yards. Before long, the squeaking of the wagon’s wheels carried over the distance. Hiram and Ben exchanged glances. They said something to each other, but they kept coming.
Marshall and Gabriel passed in front of the barn and moved across the trampled earth toward the house. “Just don’t do nothing stupid,” Marshall said. “Let them come on in.”
A hundred yards. The wheels moved slowly, wobbling. Gabriel could just make out the features of Hiram’s and Ben’s faces. He stared for a long moment and tried to pull Ben’s eyes to him. What he might say or how, he didn’t know, but he must make the contact. He did, and whether he had a message to convey or not, Ben read something there. He turned, spoke to Hiram, and reached for something behind him.
This was enough for Marshall. He lifted one of his pistols and fired. The shot missed Hiram but passed close enough that he cocked his head and listened to the bullet’s passage. He yanked the reins and turned toward Ben. In the time this took, Marshall backhanded Gabriel across the face, sending him sprawling and loosing the box from his hands. The man was on the boy in a moment. He pushed his face into the ground and planted the weight of his knee against Gabriel’s forearm and pressed the barrel of one of the pistols against the back of his hand.
Marshall resumed shooting with his free hand. This time Hiram fell back. He tried to get off the wagon, clutching his side as he did, then changed his mind and urged the horse to speed up. He yelled something to Ben, who jumped from the wagon and ran, rifle in hand. Marshall fired the pistol, hitting Hiram once more and leaving him sprawled across the seat of the moving wagon.
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