Code of the West

by Aaron Latham

  “I reckon you’re Katie Russell, huh?” Goodnight said. “From the Exchange Hotel?”

  At last, she nodded slightly. “Come on,” she said.

  As he stepped forward, Goodnight saw the chain. One end of it was wrapped around her neck and fastened with a heavy lock. The other end was secured by a second lock to a ring built into the fireplace. The heavy chain appeared to be about twelve feet long. Goodnight’s stomach hurt as he knelt in front of the Russells’ daughter. He reached out to touch the chain to see if it was real, as if touching was believing, but she misinterpreted his move and recoiled.

  “I won’t hurt you,” Goodnight said again. Withdrawing his hand, he looked back over his shoulder. “Tin Soldier, can you git this here thing unlocked?”

  The cowboy with the tin hat stepped forward and knelt beside his boss. He stared at the lock and chain for what seemed to be a long time.

  “No,” Tin Soldier said at last, “I don’t do locks.”

  “Too Short, git my ax,” Goodnight said, “if’n you don’t mind.”

  Hearing the cowboy heading for the door, Goodnight walked on his knees over to the fireplace. He wanted to study how securely the ring was attached. A cleat, which held the ring, fitted between two large stones. It was mortared in place. He tried to move the cleat, but it wouldn’t wiggle at all. He ran his finger along the seam between the rocks. The mortar didn’t flake. This wasn’t going to be easy. He kept wondering what was taking Too Short so long to fetch his ax. Then he remembered that his horse and ax weren’t just outside the door—as he had been imagining—but rather were over the crest of a nearby hill.

  “Just be patient,” Goodnight said to the young woman but also to himself. “We’ll git you loose in a minute.”

  Then he heard hoofbeats outside. Too Short must have run all the way to Red and then ridden him back to the rock house. He came in still breathing hard.

  “Here y’are,” Too Short said.

  Goodnight raised up and took the ax. Then he stood like a baseball player ready to bat. He took a couple of practice swings measuring the distance to the cleat.

  “Better close your eyes, Miss Katie,” Goodnight said.

  He waited until she did so. Then, using the blunt end of the ax, he took a good swing at the ring and cleat. Pieces of mortar flew, but the cleat didn’t seem to budge. The ring just jingled a merry tune as if mocking him. He swung again. A mortar fragment stung his cheek just below his good eye, which made him a little nervous. He would feel like a big idiot if he ended up blinding himself. He would have liked to close his eye when he swung the ax again, but he was afraid he would miss the “ball” and look ridiculous in front of his men.

  Goodnight decided to change sides. He moved over and took a couple more practice swings. He felt somewhat awkward working from this side of the ring. He hoped his men wouldn’t laugh if he swung like a girl. They didn’t. And this time the cleat moved slightly. He could see that he was making progress. He swung again and the cleat moved again. He struck again. Then he bent down and tried to pull out the loosened cleat with his hand. Now it wiggled, but it wouldn’t let go.

  Goodnight changed sides again. Now he felt like a more coordinated batter. Larger chunks of mortar flew. The floor was now littered with grey dust and shards. He struck again. The cleat moved more than ever. He cocked his ax and swung as hard as he could. The mighty blow reverberated up the ax handle to his hands. He dropped the ax. He couldn’t help it.

  Bending over to pick it up, Goodnight reached out and gave the ring another yank. It gave up and came out. It had suffered enough. He smiled at finally succeeding and still having one good eye.

  “You can open your eyes now, miss,” Goodnight said. “Less git outa this damn gloomy place.”

  Katie stood up slowly, still pressing herself into the corner. Goodnight held the other end of her chain. He felt as if he had her on a leash. Hurriedly, he coiled the chain as if it had been a lariat and handed it to her. She took it with a frown.

  “Come on,” Goodnight said. “Less git some fresh air.”

  He led the way and the cowboys followed, but she remained where she was. It felt good to be outside in the light, but it made him squint. He didn’t mind.

  “It’s a lot nicer out here, ma’am,” Goodnight called. “Honest.”

  He waited but she didn’t appear.

  “They’re out there,” she called at last.

  “They won’t hurt you no more,” he promised. “They cain’t. Their hurtin’ days is about over.”

  “But they’re still out there. I don’t wanta see ’em.”

  Goodnight shrugged and walked back into the smelly darkness. He was momentarily blinded, but his eye soon adjusted. Katie hadn’t moved. She remained by the fireplace as if she were still chained.

  “You’re safe, miss,” Goodnight said. “You really are. You don’t wanta stay in this stinkin’ place no longer. Do you?”

  “I cain’t come out,” she said softly.

  “Why not? You ain’t chained up no longer.”

  “It ain’t that.”

  “What is it then?”

  “I don’t wanta be looked at.”

  “Why not? I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t wanta say.”

  “Oh.”

  He wondered what they had done to her. Well, he was pretty sure he knew what games they had practiced on her, but he didn’t suppose what they had done would show. Surely she was changed inside but not outside.

  “Okay, take your time,” Goodnight said. “We got a few chores to do outside anyhow. Come on out when you’re good and ready. Okay?”

  He turned to go. He had to get out of there.

  “Wait,” she said in a small voice.

  He stopped and turned back around. He waited. She seemed to be on the verge of saying something, but she was in no hurry.

  “I don’t wanta go out,” she finally said in the smallest of voices, “because, well, you’ll see through my dress.”

  “What’s wrong with your dress?” he asked.

  “It ain’t the dress.” She hesitated. “It’s what ain’t under the dress.”

  Goodnight didn’t know what to say. He was a little embarrassed. He just waited for her to explain if she was of a mind to. He tried to make his face look sympathetic.

  “They done took away my underwear. This here’s a summer dress. It ain’t thick. You’ll see right through me.”

  Goodnight started to promise her that they wouldn’t look, but he didn’t want to lie to the girl. They might not exactly mean to, but they would eventually glance her way. He looked around the gloom for some solution to her problem. He noticed a bed near her which he hadn’t paid much attention to before. It was the only bed in the room. The gang slept somewhere else in the house. This was her bed which was within reach of her chain. Staring at the bed, he imagined what had happened to her on it.

  “Well, wrap up in a blanket,” Goodnight said, gesturing toward a pile of twisted bedding.

  “No!” she cried. “I ain’t never gonna touch them things ag’in.”

  “That’s all right. You don’t hafta. We’ll think a somethin’ else.”

  But what? He didn’t have any idea. He searched the room again, but he didn’t see anything useful. So he pretended that he was outside looking around. Now he “saw” something.

  “How about one a ours?” Goodnight said. “I mean, we got bedrolls. Would that be all right, huh?”

  She considered the proposal carefully.

  “I guess that’s all right,” she said. Then after a moment’s pause, she added, “Thanks.”

  Goodnight was happy to have an excuse to get out of the dark room where he had found his sister and lost her all over again. The cowboys looked at him curiously, but he offered no explanation. He just went up to Red, untied his bedroll from the back of the saddle, and carried it inside. The cowboys’ looks were more curious than ever.

  Entering the mean room once again, Goodnight saw
Katie exactly where he had left her in the corner. She was free and yet a prisoner still. He unrolled his bedroll as he walked up to her. It was a single patchwork quilt that his Aunt Orlena had given him as he was leaving her home for good. He handed it to Katie, who took it with her right hand while her left still held the coiled chain.

  “Here,” she said handing him the chain.

  Then she used both hands to wrap the blanket around her shoulders. The movement reminded Goodnight of the way the Humans loved to wrap themselves in buffalo robes. He smiled seeing the woolly animals in his imagination.

  “Less go,” Goodnight said.

  “Just a minute,” said Katie.

  He had the feeling that she was never going to leave this terrible place. And if she wouldn’t, he couldn’t. What was wrong now?

  “I wanta tell you somethin’,” she said. “I couldn’t say it in fronta all them other men. But mebbe I kin tell you.”

  Goodnight nodded.

  “Then we’ll go out,” she said.

  He nodded and tried to smile sympathetically in the dark. He just hoped it wasn’t going to be a long story.

  “They done branded me.”

  Goodnight felt a pain throb behind his empty eye socket. Again he noticed that his hands felt strange, as if they didn’t belong to him, as if they were a giant’s hands. And they were shaking. He hated the outlaws because of what they had done to their poor captive. He hated them even more because he knew they would have done the same to Revelie if they had had a chance.

  “I’m sorry,” Goodnight said, sounding like Loving.

  “I’m glad I told,” Katie said. “I didn’t know if’n I ever would. Just have this secret thing.” She thought a moment. “I feel better now.”

  “Good,” he said because he didn’t know what else to say.

  “It’s right here.” She pointed to her right buttock. “It says ‘RR.’” She started crying. “I was afraid mebbe it’d show through my dress.” She cried harder. “I feel like ever’body kin see it even when I know they cain’t.”

  37

  Goodnight sniffed the air and smelled the rusty-nail odor of a branding iron getting hotter and hotter. The scent brought back pleasant memories of calf-branding at the Home Ranch. He recalled that the male calves not only got branded but also castrated. These outlaws deserved such treatment much more than those little longhorns. This notion appealed to him. It wasn’t quite as simple as an eye for an eye, but it was similar. It had a balance to it.

  The five surviving outlaws, sprawled helplessly on the ground, smelled the heating iron, too. He hadn’t told them that he meant to brand them all, but they had guessed his intentions. They had protested, begged, and wheedled, but he hadn’t changed his mind, and eventually they had shut up. The branding iron in the fire was their own, which had been found in the rock house. This one wasn’t a running iron but had the two largeRs spelled out in metal at the end of a three-foot-long rod. Wait until he told them that branding wasn’t all he was going to do. Then they would really have something to cry and moan about.

  Goodnight glanced over at Katie, who sat by herself on the rock pile behind which outlaws had taken cover not long ago. The cowboys seemed to sense that she didn’t need crowding at the moment. They allowed her her privacy. She was toying with her chain that was still locked around her neck. She had been freed from her captivity, but its horrors still had a grip on her. Goodnight knew a thing or two about not being able to free yourself from the past no matter how hard you tried.

  “Reckon it’s hot enough?” asked Tin Soldier, who knew something about working with hot metal.

  Goodnight walked over and stared down into the fire. The “RR” glowed bright red. Then he realized his face was hot, but was it from the heat of the flames or from the anger that still burned within him? With a gloved hand, he reached down and pulled the branding iron out of the fire. Carrying the “RR” over to the nearest outlaw, he held it an inch from the prisoner’s distorted face. The man had a white scar on his cheek that seemed to whiten as his face reddened with fear.

  “That hot enough for you?” Goodnight asked.

  “You’re a savage!” cried the outlaw.

  “Pull down his pants,” Goodnight said as he returned the branding iron to the fire to keep it warm. “We’ll brand his butt. Then we’re gonna turn this here bull into a damn steer. See how he likes that. Huh?”

  “No, no, please, no!” the outlaw begged. “Don’t!” He squirmed on the ground as if in pain. “You cain’t! No! No! No!”

  Goodnight saw his cowboys staring at him. He hadn’t told them about the branding of Katie, not wanting to embarrass her, so his men were surprised at the viciousness of his anger. It wasn’t like him.

  “You heard me,” Goodnight said. “Go on.”

  Now his men moved, all but Loving, who just stood there holding his wounded arm. The boys might be surprised, but they were nonetheless willing. They set upon the scar-faced outlaw as if he were a roped calf. Too Short, Simon, and Tin Soldier held him while Black Dub, the strongest, went to work shucking him out of his trousers. It was an awkward job because the outlaw’s hands were still tied to his feet behind his back. In spite of being hog-tied, the outlaw put up a surprisingly good fight. He bucked worse than a calf, perhaps because he understood more clearly than a calf what was about to happen to him, but Black Dub eventually won the tug-of-war. The pants didn’t come off—they couldn’t, thanks to the ropes—but they were pulled down below the outlaw’s knees.

  “No! Stop!” he kept screaming. “Don’t!”

  “Turn him on his stomach,” Goodnight ordered. “I’m gonna brand his hindquarters.”

  The boys rolled him onto his belly and held him there. He continued to buck and blubber. Goodnight retrieved the branding iron from the fire. The handle felt hot even through his glove. He enjoyed this small discomfort.

  “This is gonna be fun,” he said. As he carried the hot iron to the outlaw, Goodnight felt a smile stretch his face. He was looking forward to the man’s pain. “Now if’n I was you,” Goodnight said, “I wouldn’t squirm too much. You hear? ’Cause if’n you do, this here poker’s just gonna slip and slide all over your butt. And instead a havin’ a nice neat brand, it’s just gonna be a big smear.”

  The outlaw made sounds that weren’t really words. He even sounded a little like a frightened calf.

  “Hold him tight,” Goodnight said.

  Raising the red-hot iron over the exposed ass, Goodnight took careful aim. Then in one quick motion he rammed it down onto the white flesh and held it there. He heard a hiss and saw smoke rise.

  “Now be still,” he said.

  Then Goodnight saw the fire and smelled flesh burning. The hairs on the outlaw’s ass had burst into flames. The rancher had seen calf fur blaze up during branding, so perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was. It had never occurred to him that a man could have enough hair on his ass to catch fire. The sight and the smell made him feel sick. He dropped the branding iron—which fell sideways, blurring the brand—and staggered backward. The fire burned itself out. Goodnight turned away and threw up.

  “Just hang ’em,” Goodnight said. “Go on. Take ’em all down to the river and hang ’em from a cottonwood tree.” He fought back nausea. “Hurry up.”

  It seemed to him that his cowboys looked relieved. Black Dub grabbed two outlaws by their ankles and started carrying them like a couple of buckets down to the cottonwoods that grew by the river. Simon and Tin Soldier picked up another between them and followed after Black Dub. Too Short tied a lariat to the knees of one badman, then moved over and tied it to the knees of another. Then he jumped on Red and started dragging the two to their doom. After resting for a moment, Goodnight followed them. Then he remembered something, stopped, and turned.

  “You wanta come?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, and rattled the chain in her hands.

  Goodnight nodded and then resumed his journey to the riverbank. As h
e walked along, he felt ashamed of himself for what he had intended to do. He never wanted to feel this feeling again. He promised himself that he wouldn’t. But he knew that if he was going to keep this promise to himself, then this country was going to have to change. And if it was to change, he was probably going to have to be the one to change it. He wanted something beyond an eye for an eye, a brand for a brand, a wound for a wound, blood for blood. He wanted rules. He wanted boundaries. He wanted justice if that wasn’t too much to ask. He wanted it almost as much as he wanted Revelie. Actually, his two wants were connected because he couldn’t expect her to live in such a wild and savage land.

  They hanged the five outlaws from a single sturdy branch of a crooked cottonwood tree. Black Dub pulled them up until their dancing feet were at about eye level.

  38

  Goodnight would have liked to camp out beside the rock house and wait for Gudanuf to return. But he was afraid to. He wasn’t afraid of the outlaw. He was afraid for his best friend. He wanted to get Loving to a doctor as soon as possible. Goodnight considered leaving a couple of his cowboys behind to lie in wait for Gudanuf, but he finally decided not to. Who knew what kind of force the outlaw leader would return with? He might overwhelm a couple of honest men. They would either all stay or they would all go. Since they couldn’t all stay, they all rode away from Robbers’ Roost together.

  Looking back, Goodnight admired the thick smoke rising high into the air, but the rock walls would still remain after the fire burned itself out. Goodnight again felt the frustration of a job left half-finished. After all his effort, the walls and Gudanuf himself would be left standing. He clenched his fists into tight knots—his mind felt knotted, too—as he rode along.

  When they reached the tree where Roy was still tied upside down, they cut him down. The outlaw was furious because they had given him the worst headache of his life, but relieved because he had been afraid they would leave him there to die. He was also scared because they might be planning to hang him right side up this time.