The Best of Subterranean

by William Schafer

  A moment later, he was out of sight, and I turned my attentions back to the big fella.

  I loaded again and raised up this time, on one knee, and shouldered the rifle and took a long deep breath, and fired. This one plopped into the dead horse. After that, I lay down behind Cramp’s horse with my head barely up, and watched. The big man didn’t move until the day wore down and it got near dark. He got up then and took off at a run in the other direction. I could have let him go, because it was a hard shot, it being dark and all with just some moonlight, but I was kind of worked up, them tryin’ to kill me and all, so I raised up, and aimed, and fired, and got him. He went down like a three hundred pound sack of shit.

  “Asshole,” I said.

  * * *

  I wasn’t sure how to go from there, or where I was goin’, ’less it was that town I told Cramp about, but one thing was certain, Cramp wouldn’t be going with me, least not alive. He was colder than a wedge and stiff as horse dick at breedin’ time.

  When I felt wasn’t no one circlin’ in on me, I got up and walked out a pace, carrying my Winchester with me, leavin’ the Sharps, but bringin’ the loads with me, lest they surprise me, come back, get hold of his rifle and pick me off from a distance.

  I walked in the direction I’d seen one of the horses go, and when it was good and dark, I seen his shape outlined by the moon. I was able to cluck to him and get him to come over, not mentionin’ to him I’d killed two of his kind on this day.

  I rode him back to where Cramp lay, got my saddle out from under my horse, and swapped it onto the horse I’d rustled up. I got hold of Cramp and threw him over the horse. He was so stiff, he rocked there for a moment and nearly fell off. I climbed on board with the Winchester back in the boot, and the Sharps, now loaded, across my lap, and started in the direction of the town I knew was supposed to be out there, a place called Hide and Horns, if memory served me. I hadn’t never been there, but I’d been told about it. Before most of the buffalo was killed out in the area, it had been a place for selling hides and horns and bones for fertilizer.

  As I rode along, I didn’t let myself get too sure of things. I kept my eyes open and my ears perked.

  So far, I hadn’t torn open any of my cuts, and I determined they had healed up good. I guess there was some things goin’ my way.

  * * *

  Hide and Horns, out there in the moonlight, looked like a place you went to shit, not a place you went to live. But there was folks there and the street was full of them, and a lot of them looked drunk. Thing was, I was still wearin’ my army jacket from when I was in with the Buffalo Soldiers, and this bein’ the panhandle of Texas, that blue jacket was bound to cause some former rebel to come unhitched and want to kill him a nigger. I had not removed it because of pride, but now as I neared Hide and Horns my pride was growing smaller and my feelin’s about not gettin’ skinned for an incident of birth was growin’ larger.

  I decided to ride around the street, out back of the town with my dead companion, and see what was on the far side, which is where I figured the colored would be collected, if there was any. I rode around there, taking it long and slow, and when I got to the other end, there was some shacks and a lot of tents there. No coloreds to be seen, but there was four or five Chinamen and some China girls outside next to a big fire and a boiling pot of laundry, which one of them, a young China girl was movin’ around with a board. Beyond her, I could see the town proper, lit up with lanterns and such, and drunk cowboys crossin’ and wanderin’ around in the street like they really had some place to go.

  I got off my horse and led it toward the China folk, Cramp rockin’ back and forth, and when I got up close to the pot, the girl, who turned out to be a woman, only small, and beautiful in the firelight, looked at me like I’d come from hell to borrow a cup of sugar. A Chinaman walked out into the firelight with an axe. He was pretty big for a Chinaman. He said, “Do for you?”

  “Not if you’re plannin’ on choppin’ on me.”

  He shook his head and his pigtail slapped from side to side. “Do for you?”

  “I got a fella here needs a place in the dirt.”

  The Chinaman, maybe not sure what I meant, or just wanting to satisfy his own curiosity, came over and took hold of Cramp’s boot and pulled on it, said, “Dead nigger.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “he won’t be havin’ dinner. But, I’d like some. I got Yankee dollars.”

  “How much dollars?”

  “Enough.”

  “Pussy?”

  “Beg your pardon.”

  “Sell pussy. You want?”

  “Oh.”

  I looked around. Four of the China girls had bunched up near one of the larger tents, and they were looking at me, smiling. Two of them were right smart lookin’, one was so ugly she could chase a bobcat up a tree, and there was one pretty good looker with her leg cut off at the knee. She had a wooden leg strapped on and had a crutch under her arm, and from what I could make out in the firelight, she appeared to be missin’ a tooth on the far right side.

  “Half a woman,” the Chinaman said pointing at the wooden leg gal, “she cheaper.”

  “Actually, she’s more than half,” I said. “Way more.”

  “She five penny.”

  “Well, they are all as lovely as the next,” I said, tryin’ not to look at the ugly one lest I get struck by lightnin’ for lyin’, “but I’m gonna pass. I’m hungry.”

  I looked at the other one, at the wash pot. The Chinaman, figurin’ I might be sizin’ her up for a mattress, said: “Daughter, not sale.”

  “Okay,” I said. “About that food?”

  “Chop suey?” he said. “Cheap.”

  “What?”

  “Chop suey,” he said again.

  “That’ll work. Whatever that is.”

  “Bury dead nigger?”

  “He ain’t in no hurry,” I said. “I’ll tend to the horse and eat before I bury him.”

  As I was starting to remove my saddle from the horse, the Chinaman walked by the China girls, and reached out and cuffed the cripple, knocking her down. He said something in China talk. I went over and grabbed his shoulder and shoved him back, and wagged a finger at him. “Hey,” I said. “Ain’t no call to slap a woman around.”

  The Chinaman still had the axe in one hand, and he eyed me and clenched the axe a little tighter. “She go to work.”

  “All right,” I said. “Give her time. And lighten up on that axe, or you’ll wake up with it up your ass.”

  I reached down and picked up the crutch she had dropped, then I reached down and pulled her up and put the crutch under her arm. She smiled that missing tooth smile. She looked pretty damn good, even if she could suck a pea through that hole in her chompers with the rest of her teeth clenched.

  “Chop suey,” the Chinaman said to the cripple, and she limped away into a tent on her crutch.

  * * *

  What Chop suey was, was warm and delicious, though right then it might have seemed better than it really was cause I was hungry enough to eat the ass out of a dead mule and suck blood out of a chicken’s eye.

  I sat on my ass on the dirt floor under a tent roof and ate up and kept an eye on my Chinaman, as he had never let go of that there axe, and he had a way of lookin’ at me that made me nervous. I had pulled Cramp off the horse and stretched him out on some hay that was off to the side of the tents, next to a cheap corral which was mostly dirt, wind, a frame of wood, and a spot of tarp. I unsaddled the horse and brought it some hay and water, and had a China boy curry him down. I paid for the service, and then I went in and ate.

  The four whores didn’t depart. They sat nearby and looked at me and giggled. The Chinaman said, “They want see black come off.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  “They think you, dead nigger, painted. They not know things.”

  “Tell one of them they can rub my skin, see if it comes off.”

  The Chinaman told them somethin’ in Chinese talk, and one of
the girls, who now that I was closer, looked pretty young to me, came over and rubbed on my arm.

  “No come off,” she said.

  “Not so far,” I said.

  “Let see dick,” she said.

  “Now what?”

  “Let see dick.”

  “She want know it’s black,” the Chinaman said.

  “She can take my word on that one, and maybe later I can show it to her in private.”

  “That be two bits,” the Chinaman said.

  “For the woman?”

  He nodded. “Two bits.”

  I looked at the China girl, said, “What’s your name?”

  “Sally,” she said.

  “Really?”

  “Sally,” she said.

  “They all Sally,” the Chinaman said, holding the axe a little too comfortably. “You can call Polly or whatever, you buy pussy.”

  “I’ll think that over. First things first, where’s the graveyard?”

  The Chinaman pointed. “Back of town, that side. No niggers.”

  “He’s dead. What does it matter?”

  “No nigger. No Chinaman.”

  “Well, that puts a hitch in my drawers,” I said. “Promised him I’d bury him somewhere wasn’t lonesome.”

  “Bury in pig pen, but deep. Not deep. Pigs will eat him.”

  “No, I had something different in mind. Like a graveyard.”

  “White fellas, not like. Shoot black dick off.”

  “That wouldn’t be good.”

  I got up and went outside and walked over to Cramp. He wasn’t lookin’ too good. Startin’ to bloat. I got my knife and slipped it under his ribs and jabbed hard and let some of the bloat out, which was as bad air as you ever smelled. I stood over to the side while he deflated a mite.

  The Chinaman had followed me out, still carrying his axe. He said, “Damn. Dead nigger smell plenty bad.”

  “Dead anything smells plenty bad… You think maybe you could put that axe down? You’re makin’ me a nervous.”

  “Chinaman like axe.”

  “I see that.”

  The girls had come out now.

  I saddled up my horse and put poor old Cramp over the saddle again. He had loosened up some, and his head and legs hung down in a sad kind of way. I had his sombrero on the saddle horn, and I got on the horse and said, “I need to borrow a shovel and a lantern.”

  “Two bits,” the big Chinaman said.

  “I said borrow.”

  “Two bits.”

  “Shit.” I dug in my pocket for two bits and gave it to him, and the onelegged whore, moving pretty good for a wooden leg and a crutch, carried the shovel and unlit lantern over to me. I reached down from the horse and took it, rode in the direction the Chinaman said the graveyard was.

  * * *

  The graveyard was on a hill to the east side of the town, and I rode over there and got off the horse and lit the lantern, held it out with one hand and led the horse with the other. There was some stone markers, but mostly they was wood, and some of them was near rotted away or eaten away by bugs.

  I looked until I found a place that was bare, tied up the horse to one of the wooden markers, put the lantern next to my burying spot, got the shovel off the saddle, and started to dig.

  I had gotten about two feet into the ground, and about two feet wide, ready to make it six feet long, when I heard a noise and turned to see lights. Folks were comin’ up the hill, and they were led by the Chinaman, still carrying his axe. The others were white folks, and they didn’t look happy. Now and again, I’d like to run up against just one happy white folk.

  I stuck the shovel in the dirt, left the lantern where it was, walked over and stood by my horse, cause that’s where my Winchester was. I tried not to look like a man that liked being near his Winchester, but being near it gave me comfort, and of course, I had my revolver with me. It had five shots in a six-shot chamber, which is the way I carry it most of the time, lest I shoot my foot off pullin’ it loose from its holster. But five shots wasn’t enough for eight men, which there was, countin’ the Chinaman with his axe. A couple of them were carrying shotguns, and one had a rifle. The rest had pistols on them.

  When they were about twenty feet from me, they stopped walking. The Chinaman said, “I tell him. No niggers. No Chinaman.”

  “You scoundrel,” I said, “you rented me the shovel and the lantern.”

  “Make money. Not say bury nigger.”

  “The chink here,” one of the shotgun totin’ white men said, stepping forward a step, “is right. No niggers in Christian soil.”

  “What if he’s a Christian?”

  “He’s still a nigger. So are you.”

  I was wondering how fast I could get on my horse before they rushed me. I said, “Chinaman, what problem was this of yours?”

  “My town.”

  I thought, you asshole. Just a half hour ago you were trying to sell me pussy, sold me food and feed for my horse, and rented me a shovel and a lantern. His problem was simple, I had stopped him from slapping his property around, and now that he had my money, he was getting even. Or, from my way of lookin’ at it, more than even.

  “All right, gentleman,” I said. “I’ll take my dead man and go.”

  “That there jacket,” one of the men said, and my heart sank, “that’s a Yankee soldier jacket.”

  “I was in the army, not the war,” I said. “I didn’t shoot at no Southerners.”

  “You still got on a Yankee jacket.”

  “I was chasin’ Indians,” I said, figurin’ most of them wouldn’t care for Indians either, and that might put me on their side a bit.

  “You and them ain’t got a whole lot of difference, except you can pick cotton and sing a spiritual.”

  “That ought to be a mark in my favor,” I said.

  They didn’t think that was funny, and it didn’t do any endearing. “Shootin’ a nigger ain’t half the fun as lynchin’ one,” one of the charming townspeople said.

  I pulled my revolver quick like and shot the closest man carryin’ a shotgun, shot him right between the eyes, and then I turned and shot the other shot-gunner in the side of the head, and just to make me happy, I shot the Chinaman in the chest. Bullets whizzed around me, but them fellas was already backin’ down the hill. I’d learned a long time ago, you can’t outshoot eight determined and brave people fair, but you can outshoot eight cowards if you get right at it and don’t stop. You can’t hesitate. You got to be, as I learned in the army, willin’.

  I ran to the edge of the hill and popped off my last shot, and now shots were comin’ back up the hill at me at a more regular pace. I grabbed my horse and took off, leavin’ Cramps lyin’ there. I rode on up through the cemetery and topped it out and rode down the other side as bullets whizzed around me. I got to a clearin’ and gave the horse a clear path, and it could really run. I had caught me a good one back there on the prairie, and it covered ground like a high wind. I looked back and seen that there were some lanterns waggin’ back there, and then I heard horses comin’, and I bent low over my pony and said, “Run, you bastard,” and run he did.

  We went like that, full out for a long time, and I knew if I didn’t stop, the horse was gonna keel over, so I pulled up in a stand of wood and got off of him and let him blow a little. I put my hand on his heaving side and came away with it covered in salt from sweat. I heard the sound of their horses, and I hoped they didn’t have no tracker amongst them, and if they did, I tried to figure that the night was on my side. Course, it would stand to reason they’d want to look in the only area where a man might hide, this little patch of woods.

  I led the horse deeper in the trees, and then I led him up a little rise, which was one of the few I’d seen in this part of the country, outside of the cemetery. The trees wasn’t like those in East Texas where I’d come from.

  They were bony lookin’ and there was just this little patch standing. I got the Sharps and the Winchester off the horse and took my sad
dlebag off of it, and throwed it over my shoulder. I led the horse down amongst the thickest part of the trees and looped the reins over a limb and went back to where I could see good and lay down with the Sharps. I opened the saddlebag and felt around in there for a load and opened the breech on the Sharps and slid in a round and took a deep breath and waited. They came riding up, pausing at the patch of trees, having a pretty good guess I was in there.

  They was in range, though they didn’t know it, not figurin’ on me havin’ the Sharps, and they was clutched up good. A bunch had joined them from the town, and I counted twelve. Not a very smart twelve, way they was jammed up like that, but twelve nonetheless, and there wasn’t no surprise goin’ now. They had me treed like a possum.

  After a moment, I seen one horse separate from the others, and the rider on it was sitting straight up in the saddle, stiff. He come on out away from the others and there didn’t seem to be a thing cautious or worried about him.

  As he closed in, I took a bead on him, and in the moonlight, as he neared, I noted he was a colored fella, and I figured they had grabbed some swamper in town and brought him with them, thinkin’ he’d talk me into givin’ myself up, which he couldn’t. I knew how it would end if they got their hands on me, and me puttin’ a bullet in my own head was better than that. Then I seen somethin’ else. It was Cramps. He was tied up on his horse, a stick or somethin’ worked into the back of the saddle, and he was bound up good so he wouldn’t fall off. He had his sombrero perched on his head.

  I lowered the rifle and seen that the crowd of horses behind Cramp was spreadin’ out a bit. I was about to put a bead on one of them, when a white man rode out and said, “You don’t come back, nigger. Stay out of our town, hear? We’re gonna give you this one so you don’t come back.” Well, now, I got to admit, I wasn’t plannin’ on goin’ back for Cramps no how. I had tried to do my good deed and it hadn’t worked out, so I figured the smartest thing I could do was wish him the best and ride like hell.