by Aaron Latham
• • •
Rain-drenched, Goodnight and Black Dub rode into a small clearing commanded by a dugout. Now the one-eyed man could see the bubbling pot, and he could feel his mouth go watery. The two riders swung down from their mounts and a dark figure appeared in the open doorway of the dugout. He blotted out the light.
“Who the hell are you?” shouted the dugout dweller. “And whaddaya want?”
“Shelter if you’ve got any to spare,” Goodnight replied, “on a cold and rainy night.”
“And I s’pose you’re hungry, too,” grumbled the dark figure. “Never met a stranger who waddn’t hungry.”
“Something does smell good,” Goodnight said, attempting a light tone.
“You’re a grasshopper, aincha?”
“What? No, my name’s Jimmy Goodnight.”
“Yeah, but you’re still a damn grasshopper. You got no food, and you come lookin’ for some poor ant to mooch off of. Well, this here ant’s damn tired a feedin’ you hippitty hops.”
“Please, mister,” said Black Dub. “Cain’t we just sleep under your roof. It’s powerful wet out chere. We don’t hafta eat nothin’ if you don’t want.”
The industrious ant smiled for the first time, showing yellow teeth. “Who’re you?”
“His name’s Black Dub Martin. And like I say, I’m Goodnight. Glad to know ya.”
“I can see he’s black. Mebbe I just got one eye left, but I can tell black from white.”
“You’ve just got one eye?” Squinting in the darkness, Goodnight made out an eye patch. “Me, too. I just got one eye. I been lookin’ at the world through a knothole ever since I was knee-high to a—uhm, grasshopper.”
“That don’t exactly make us brothers,” said the one-eyed ant, “no matter what you think.”
“I s’pose not.”
The ant was using his good eye to study the giant black man, looking him up and down, impressed. It was almost as if he were trying to decide whether to buy him.
“Well, come on in,” the hardworking ant said to Goodnight. “I like your friend or else I’d leave you out in the rain. No skin off my ass.”
“Thanks.”
The dark figure turned and burrowed back into his dugout. Goodnight and Black Dub followed him inside.
By the light of the fireplace, Goodnight got his first good look at his host. He was extremely short without being a midget or a leprechaun. He stood less than five feet, but his barrel body looked strong. He had a full beard that had gone white, and his still-brown hair was thinning on top. And now Goodnight could plainly see the eye patch that he had missed in the dark.
“We live in a dugout, too,” Goodnight said, “but it’s not as nice as yours.” He was trying to ingratiate himself. “Thanks for takin’ us in.”
“We told you our names,” said Black Dub. “Who’re you?”
“Well, behind my back, folks calls me the Ole One-Eyed King,” said their host. “To my face, they calls me Abbo King. That’s short fer Albert. Satisfied?”
“Uh-huh,” said the black giant, looking down at the short man in front of him.
“Well, siddown, I’ll git the grub,” said the Ole One-Eyed King. “Thass what you come fer, ain’t it?”
“We come for shelter, but we’ll gladly accept a meal,” said Goodnight. “Thank you.”
“Thass what I thought.”
Goodnight and Black Dub took seats on a split-log bench. They pulled it up close to a split-log table. Using a rag, the One-Eyed King lifted a boiling pot out of the fireplace. He carried it steaming to the splintery table and set it in front of Goodnight and Black Dub.
“I don’t got no dishes,” said the One-Eyed King. “Hope you don’t mind if we all pick outa the same pot.”
“Course not,” said Goodnight.
Black Dub shook his head.
“Dig in,” said the One-Eyed King.
The host speared a square morsel of meat with his big-bladed bowie knife. Goodnight followed suit by thrusting his pocket knife into the brew and coming out with a pyramid-shaped piece of flesh. Then Black Dub stabbed a trapezoid with his long skinning knife. They all chewed.
“It’s good,” said Goodnight, “but I don’t recognize the flavor. What is it?”
The One-Eyed King hesitated and then said: “It’s badger meat. How you like it?”
“You eat badgers?” asked Black Dub. “That ain’t—”
“I’m glad you like it,” said the One-Eyed King. “Sometime you git tired a deer meat or bear meat or even squirrel meat. You want change. Like now.”
“Don’t taste much like how I figured badger would,” said Black Dub.
“You callin’ me a liar?”
“Course he ain’t,” said Goodnight.
“Good badger,” said Black Dub.
They ate in silence for a while.
“What brung you to these parts?” asked the One-Eyed King. “Less I’m bein’ too nosey.”
“We’re trailin’ some men,” Goodnight said.
“Who’s that?”
“Man named Gudanuf. Him and some boys that call theirselves the Robbers’ Roost gang. Ever heard of ’em?”
“Course. I ain’t ignorant.”
“You wouldn’t know how to find ’em, would you?”
“I hear tell they hold up at Robbers’ Roost.”
“I know, but where’s that?”
“I dunno. They’s bad folks to git mixed up with.”
They returned to eating in silence.
“Whass this?” asked Black Dub. He held a curved piece of meat on the end of his skinning knife. It looked like a link of sausage, but it had bones inside it.
“Looks sorta like a finger?” Goodnight said.
“Thass what I thought,” said Black Dub.
“It’s the badger’s tail,” said the One-Eyed King. “They ain’t got much of a tail, but it’s worth eatin’. Sweet.”
“Mebbe you’d like it,” said the giant. “Here.”
He pointed his knife at the powerfully built little man, who plucked the morsel off the sharp point with his fingers. Then he popped it into his mouth.
“Mmmm, thanks.”
Then he spit out the linked bones. He smiled at his guests. Black Dub’s generosity seemed to have warmed his personality.
Goodnight speared something in the stew pot and held it up.
“I got another one! How many tails has this badger got?”
“I killed two of ’em. They was married or somethin’. Try it, you’ll like it a lot.”
19
Goodnight tried not to close his eye all night: a one-eyed man trying to keep an eye on another one-eyed man. He wasn’t particularly satisfied with the tale of two badger tails, but he wasn’t sure what to think. Those tails did look a lot like fingers, but he couldn’t make himself believe that they really were. It was impossible.
Goodnight and Black Dub lay rolled in their bedrolls in front of the hearth, where embers still glowed. The One-Eyed King slept on a mattress of corn husks nearby. Every time he turned over, the husks rattled. The racket they made helped Goodnight stay awake.
But sometime between two and three in the morning, Goodnight’s eye closed and didn’t open again. He dreamed of cannibals. They tied him to a spit and were about to roast him alive when he woke up wet all over. He looked around and found everything peaceful. Black Dub was snoring softly. The One-Eyed King turned on his corn husks,rattle, rattle.
Goodnight renewed his promise to himself to stay awake, but Black Dub momentarily stopped snoring and the One-Eyed King stopped rolling. In this silence, he fell asleep again.
Rattle, rattle, rattle.
The louder-than-usual corn-husk–rattling roused Goodnight briefly. He half-opened his eye, silently swore at his host for disturbing his sleep, turned over and closed his eye again. He dozed.
Then Goodnight’s good eye fluttered open again. He wasn’t sure what had roused him, but he saw the One-Eyed King kneeling over Black Dub with his
broad-bladed bowie knife in his hand. He seemed to be looking for the best place to plunge it in.
Rolling, Goodnight unwound himself from his bedroll, and in the same motion he grabbed his ax, which was never far from him. He rolled up onto his feet like a lynx.
“Git back!” Goodnight shouted.
The One-Eyed King looked up startled. He saw an ax poised to decapitate him.
“What?” said the King.
“Git away from him!” ordered Goodnight.
“What?” asked Black Dub, rousing. “Whass goin’ on?”
“He’s got a knife.”
Black Dub reached up, grasped King’s wrist, and,crack, broke it. The bowie knife fell to the packed-earth floor.
“Owww!” screamed the little man.
“What you want I should do with him?” asked the giant.
“Hold him,” said Goodnight. “I’ll git a rope.”
“Don’t hang me! I took you in. I give you a roof over your head.”
“I didn’t say nothin’ about hangin’. We’re just gonna tie you up for now. Keep you outa mischief.”
“Aw, thanks.”
“We’ll wait’ll mornin’ to hang you.”
“Now, why you wanna do that?”
“’Cause I think you eat people. Them wasn’t badger tails in the stew pot. Them was fingers.”
“No, that ain’t so.”
“I didn’t wanna believe it. Fact is, I didn’t believe it till I saw you ready to butcher us in our sleep. Were you gonna skin us and hang us up by our heels?”
“Not you! I’d never eat a white man.”
“Shut up!”
“Really, I just eats darkies and Meskins and Injuns. Swear to God.”
Goodnight hit the Ole One-Eyed King in the mouth with the blunt side of his ax. Broken teeth fell from his face like hail from the sky.
“You mean that badger meat was man meat?” asked Black Dub.
“’Fraid so,” said Goodnight.
The black giant retched and then threw up on his prisoner. Then he looked embarrassed.
“Awww,” complained the Cannibal King.
“Less kill him right now,” said Black Dub, taking hold of the maneater’s neck.
“No, we better wait for daylight,” Goodnight said. “I still cain’t git over thinkin’ there’s somethin’ wrong with killin’ somebody when it’s dark.”
“How come?” asked Black Dub.
“It’s a Human taboo. I mean Comanche. It’s a Comanche taboo.”
“Oh.”
They rolled the Ole One-Eyed King in his bearskin cover so only his head stuck out. Goodnight fetched rope from his saddle, and they bound him like a sausage in this casing. Leaving him on the dirt floor, the victors crawled onto his corn-husk mattress, which complained vociferously at the weight. Soon they were both asleep again.
The Ole One-Eyed King continued to roll this way and that in the night, but his restlessness did not disturb the sleepers. The packed earth did not let out a single crackle.
20
Early the next morning, as the light was just reaching this mountain valley, they placed the Ole One-Eyed King on the back of Black Dub’s mule. Then they maneuvered mule and rider beneath a pine tree. Goodnight took his time tying an almost perfect hangman’s noose. He fitted it around the King’s neck.
“Got anything to say before you go?” asked Goodnight.
Black Dub raised his hand to slap his mule’s ass.
“Wait!” yelled the One-Eyed King. “I kin take you to that there Robbers’ Roost. Really, I kin. I sell ’em meat in the winter. They’re grasshoppers like you two. Never think about tomorrow. Never. So if’n you really wanta catch up with them guys? I mean, if’n you kills me, what—”
“Shut up!” said Goodnight. “You done said yore last words on this here earth.”
Black Dub slapped his mule’s ass. It bolted forward, leaving the One-Eyed King dancing in the air to fast music.
“Grab him!” yelled Goodnight.
Black Dub grabbed the Ole One-Eyed King and held him up so he wouldn’t choke to death.
“You sure?” asked Black Dub.
“Less see what he really knows.”
Black Dub lifted the choking man high enough to relieve the pressure on his throat. The Cannibal King coughed.
“Don’t kill me,” he sputtered. “I kin guide you. I’ll show ya! Lemme.”
“You better,” said Goodnight. “How far is it?”
“Three days’ ride. Mebbe four.”
“I’ll give you two days to find it. If we ain’t there by then, you ain’t gonna be King no more. Your name’s gonna be Nobody. Nobody Atall. You hear?”
• • •
They rode in an ascending row, as if they had been arranged by height. Riding bareback, King was first in line on his own emaciated donkey. Then came Goodnight on Red and Black Dub on his mule named Abraham Lincoln. The cannibal still had the noose around his neck. Goodnight held the other end of the rope.
“How’d you git into the people-eatin’ bizness anyhow?” Black Dub called out.
“Don’t bother me,” King mumbled through broken teeth.
“You better answer him,” Goodnight advised, “less’n you want the other wrist broke and maybe an ankle besides.”
“Both ankles,” said Black Dub.
They rode in a hostile silence.
“Started the first winter we was up here,” King said at last. “We didn’t know what to expect. My partner and me. Man by the name of Prince. Funny, huh. Anyhow, we was starvin’ in the middle of a big snow blow. Really starvin’. You ain’t got no idea how hungry a man can git. I figured just one of us was gonna make it to spring, so I decided it was gonna be me. Nothin’ personal. Just math. I lived on him for weeks. Just a little at a time. After a while, you kinda git to like the taste, you know.”
“What color was he?” yelled Black Dub.
“White, whaddaya think? I wouldn’t partner up with no—”
“But you said you don’t eat no white folks.”
“He was the last one. I knowed it was wrong. I really suffered over it. So’s I up and promised God from now on I’d only eat them there black and brown races.”
Goodnight pulled on the noose rope so hard that it jerked King backward off the donkey’s back.
“Don’t kill him before we gits there,” said Black Dub. “Calm down.”
That night, they camped in a small clearing surrounded by pointed trees. They didn’t make a fire because they didn’t have anything to cook. Besides, they didn’t want to advertise their presence in these mountains. All they had to eat were dried strips of venison that they had confiscated from the dugout. They made sure it was venison. Supper didn’t take long. Then Goodnight and Black Dub rolled King in his bearskin again and tied him like a sausage. The noose was still around his neck. They left the prisoner on hard ground while they heaped up pine needles for their own beds. King didn’t have a pillow. His captors used their saddles.
Goodnight again dreamed of cannibals. He tossed and turned during the dream, but the pine needles were quiet beneath his restlessness. He always woke up just before they started to cook him.
The next morning, Goodnight missed the coffee that had drowned along with the pack mule. He rolled up his bedding, brushing off pine needles as he went. He wondered what kind of coffee could be made out of ground pine nuts.
“Mornin’, Bossman,” said Black Dub. “Mornin’, Piece a Shit.”
“Mornin’,” Goodnight said.
“Untie me,” King said. “The rope’s too tight. I couldn’t sleep atall all night.”
“Good,” Goodnight said. “Remember, you only got one more day to find what we’re alookin’ for. If we ain’t found nothin’ by sundown, you ain’t gonna have no trouble sleepin’ ’cause that’s all you’re gonna be doin’ from now on out.”
“Then loosen this damn rope and less git goin’.”
“When we git around to it.”
&nb
sp; “Besides, I gotta pee.”
“Pee in your bed for all I care.”
Goodnight and Black Dub took their time saddling their mounts. They tied their bedrolls on behind the saddles. Then they untied and unrolled the prisoner, and they smelled urine.
“Nice work,” said Goodnight.
“I done told you I had to go,” said King. “Do I hafta keep wearin’ this here necktie?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Goodnight thought a moment and then tied a knot in the rope just above the noose. Now it would be much harder to remove. Then he tied a second knot.
“Thanks,” said King.
“You’re welcome,” said Goodnight.
They all climbed on their mounts—the horse named Red, the mule named Abraham Lincoln, the donkey named Prince—and set off in search of Robbers’ Roost. They wound up and they wound down. They rode through dense forests and they picked their way across rocky slopes. They didn’t stop at noon for lunch, but Goodnight distributed dried venison as they rode.
“We gittin’ closer?” asked Goodnight.
“It ain’t much more,” said King.
“How much longer?”
“I ain’t sure.”
How much longer?”
“Not far.”
“You said that miles back.”
“Not far atall. Honest.”
“Yeah, sure. Can you feel your neck already gittin’ longer?”
“Why you gotta talk like that?”
“Shut up.”
Winding down a steep canyon, they came to a river. It wasn’t too wide, but it was swift. It looked cold and deep. Goodnight shivered involuntarily in anticipation.
“I s’pose we gotta cross that thing.”
“Yeah, sorry, it’s not far after that. Honest.”
“Lead the way.”
“That ain’t gonna work. Prince here always balks at water. He won’t lead off ’cause he’s ascared.”
“What?”
“If’n y’all go first, you kin lead him behind.”
“Okay, I’ll lead, then you, then Black Dub.”
“No, if we ain’t last, Prince just ain’t gonna go atall. You’ll see. Honest.”