Retribution Road

by Antonin Varenne

  The next morning, his flasks full of water from the Rio Grande, he got back on the road. He rode steadily and spent two nights near springs that the inhabitants of Alamosa had told him about. Each evening, he wrote to Alexandra Desmond, describing his journey to her, the silent desert and his bath in the river, the increasingly disturbing presence of Penders, the distance he kept stretching every day between himself and Reunion. On the third day, he reached the main track, with its convoys of carts heading towards the gold of Pikes Peak. Late that afternoon, he arrived in Pueblo, a crossing point between the northern road and the path to Santa Fe, joining the Oregon path in Independence, on the Missouri river. Though grandiloquently calling itself a “town”, Pueblo consisted merely of a few huts, all of them shops this time.

  The real activity took place around these buildings. Dozens of carts and tents were gathered, with hundreds of pioneers walking in a cramped space filled with bulls, mules, horses and cows. People traded, sold and haggled over everything, from nails to foals to information. Guides offered their services, and so did women. There were country brothels next to open-air masses and baptisms, and preachers bellowing to be heard over the din. Blacksmiths hammered horseshoes and wheel hoops. Old women sold stews, baked bread and read palms. You could hear twenty different languages being spoken. At every third tent and every second cart, someone – on a plank and two crates – was selling alcohol.

  Walden’s ears were pinned back. Bowman crossed the camp towards the centre of town, looking for a stable, and then for the saloon. The bar was packed to the rafters and he doubted he would discover any information at all here. He elbowed his way to the counter and ordered a drink. The atmosphere was festive and violent. Some of the pioneers had brought their children with them, and they watched with wide, worried eyes as the head of their family got drunk. A female singer hollered in a corner while a pianist attacked an out-of-tune keyboard with half its keys missing. Mugs of beer were passed over people’s heads. Men rolled around on the ground.

  The saloon’s landlord, standing on a chair behind the bar, banged a hammer against a cracked bell.

  “Next round’s on the house!”

  The announcement was met with hurrahs. Hats, thrown into the air, landed on chandeliers or fell on other people’s heads.

  Bowman was given a free whiskey, like everyone else. After the landlord’s round, the drinkers, presumably thinking they had saved themselves some money, started ordering more and more drinks. They paid for four or five and handed them around to total strangers. The saloon’s customers were united by a fierce joy and a determination to celebrate. A man put a drink in front of Bowman, and they clinked glasses.

  “What are we drinking to?”

  “Haven’t you heard?”

  Bowman downed his whiskey.

  “What’s happened?”

  The man, speaking in a strong Irish accent, turned to the crowd and shouted, laughing: “He doesn’t know!”

  No-one paid any attention to him and he moved closer to Bowman to yell in his ear.

  “They got ’em! Them fucking redskins! The lads from St Vrain got their hands on ’em! Three ropes for them sons of bitches!”

  “The Indians revolted?”

  The Irishman stared at him seriously, his eyes crossed in a drunken stupor.

  “A revolt? What the hell are you talking about, lad? It’s the three Indians from the track. They found ’em and they’re gonna make ’em wear the hemp tie.”

  “The Indians from the track?”

  “Fucking hell, where have you been? You didn’t know that Indians have been attacking pioneers?”

  A sudden crush separated the man from Bowman. He yelled something else, but a scrum of Irishmen had dragged him over to a table, where they were singing. Bowman had heard only a few words of his last sentence. He shoved his way through the crowd, grabbed the man by the shoulder and turned him round, shouting at him over the drunken chorus: “What did you say?”

  The man stopped singing.

  “Bloody hell, go have a drink! Let me sing!”

  Bowman picked him up by his lapels and carried him over to the counter.

  “What did you say about the Indians?”

  “Give me a drink!”

  Bowman ordered three whiskies and lined them up in front of the Irishman.

  “Tell me.”

  He downed the first one.

  “The Comanches who were attacking pioneers to rob them, they’re for it!” And he drew his fingers across his throat.

  “What did you say, before?”

  “That them bastards are gonna get what’s coming to ’em, after what they did to all those poor men!”

  Another glass vanished.

  “What did they do?”

  “Torture, lad! The horrible things they did, corpses all the way to Mexico. Apparently, they killed about twenty white men! For weeks, everyone on this track has been scared shitless! Well, not anymore!” And again he drew his fingers across his throat.

  He downed his third glass, thanked Bowman with a bow and told him that everything would be all right now, that there was no need to worry anymore, that the gold of Pikes Peak awaited them and that he was going back to sing with his mates.

  “The hanging. Where does it take place?”

  “Bent’s Fort, on the Independence track. Hell, we’ll all be going to see that!”

  The Irishmen were singing something about a road leading to Liverpool, passing through Dublin, waving shillelaghs above their heads. At the other end of the room, some Englishmen had also begun to sing, trying to make more noise than the Irish. A brawl was taking shape.

  Bowman shoved and elbowed his way out of the pub as nostalgic songs were belted out with ever greater fury. Outside he caught his breath, hands on his knees, then stood up and ran over to the stable to pick up Walden. He crossed the pioneers’ camp, stopping to ask for directions to Bent’s Fort from four men who were playing cards.

  “It’s on the other side of town. It’s not complicated, there are only two tracks. Take the eastern one.”

  “Sixty miles.”

  “The hanging’s not till tomorrow afternoon. There’s no need to rush off!”

  Bowman galloped away. He bypassed the town, the tents and the carts, making a circle around campfires and finding the crossroads where the two tracks met, before taking the eastern one and setting off into the night. A half-moon shone from the sky. He rode on. One minute longer might have finished off his horse, but Bowman arrived in Bent’s Fort in the early morning and Walden was still standing.

  As in Pueblo, there was a camp of carts around the fort. Bowman passed between the just-waking immigrants and a crowd of travellers who looked slightly different. Some were curious onlookers already in town for the hanging, and there were also a number of tradesmen there to sell their products, drinks and food, plus gun salesmen, funfair attractions, magicians and games of chance. Hucksters, red-eyed from last night’s drinking session, chased nosy children from coloured tents. Whores washed out their mouths in buckets. Men lay on the ground, snoring, dressed in dusty clothes, with bottles in their pockets. As he approached the fort, Bowman heard the sound of hammering. Bent was not a town, not even a village, simply a large, traditional fort, built in earth and brick, with three-foot-thick walls and arrow slits. There were one-storey buildings, ochre-brown, that acted as big inns designed especially for war and commerce. Stable, warehouses and offices, houses for the employees. Above the main door, a sign was hung: Bent and St Vrain Trading Company.

  In the middle of the large courtyard, a team of carpenters were putting up the gallows, big enough to hang three men at the same time. The wood was not new: clearly, the gallows was not used every day, so it had to be assembled for the next day’s execution.

  Bowman went over to the stable. An old Indian man took Walden’s reins.

  “Tired. Good horse. Two dollars. Lots of people for hanging.”

  Bowman dismounted, untied the holster containing t
he Henry and put the strap over his shoulder. Outside the only door of a small building, three men armed with rifles and revolvers stood guard. Bowman walked towards them.

  “Who’s in charge here?”

  “Don’t stay there, sir. Move along.”

  “I’m just looking for whoever’s in charge.”

  “In charge?”

  “The sheriff, the judge. Whoever’s responsible for all that.”

  Bowman pointed at the gallows.

  “There’s no sheriff here, just the manager. He’s in the office.”

  “The manager?”

  “Of the company. He’s in charge of everything here. Now move along.”

  Bowman walked away, glancing back at the door. Thick oak, with a small, barred opening at its centre.

  Some men were coming and going through the open door to an office. Bowman mingled with them and waited for his turn to pass before a man sitting behind a table. He was reading lists, signing papers, giving orders, checking and writing down figures in notebooks.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “Are you the manager?”

  “He won’t be long. Are you looking for work?”

  “No. Where is he?”

  “If you want to see him, wait here. Next!”

  Bowman went back out and waited in the shade of a wall, observing the gallows and the door guarded by the three armed employees. Other guards were posted at the main entrance and checked everyone coming through, pushing away children and gawkers who were gathering to see the gibbet. They let a man past on a little cart. On the carriage’s canvas covering, the man’s name and profession were painted: Charles Bennet, photographer. Bowman watched him walk around the courtyard in search of the best viewpoint, then unload his equipment from the cart. He assembled a little stage in front of the gallows, put a tripod on top of it, and lastly his photographic chamber. He peered into the lens, moving the camera around until he was satisfied by the composition of the picture, then marked the position of the tripod in chalk before dismantling it.

  The guards at the entrance let another man pass on a horse. He was well-dressed and armed and he did not respond to their salute. This man, who Bowman presumed was the manager, stopped in front of the cell to take a look inside, exchanging a few words with the guards, and then continued towards the office.

  Bowman stood up and walked over to meet him. He had been fooled by the man’s height and stockiness; up close, he realised that the manager was older than he had thought, maybe sixty years old.

  “Can I speak to you?”

  The manager did not stop.

  “If you’re looking for work, talk to the foreman.”

  Bowman followed him.

  “It’s not for work. It’s about the Indians you’re going to hang.”

  The man stopped and looked at Bowman.

  “Who let you in? Who are you?”

  “Arthur Bowman.”

  “I don’t know who you are and I don’t have time for this. If you’re selling furs, talk to the . . .”

  “I’m not selling anything, but I have to speak to you.”

  “Sorry, not now.”

  “The Indians didn’t kill the pioneers.”

  The manager stopped again.

  “What?”

  “In Las Cruces, they hanged a negro, saying it was him. It’s not the Indians.”

  The manager thought this over for a moment.

  “I wasn’t aware of that.”

  *

  John Randell’s office was a little haven of luxury and calm in the middle of the fort. A rug on the floor, hunting trophies. On the wall above the table were photographs, showing Randell standing next to two men in dark suits: Bent and St Vrain, the directors of the trading company. Another of him, alone in a pine forest, with his foot on the belly of an impressively large bear. The portrait of a woman sitting on a sofa, a baby in her arms. Another of a young army officer standing to attention, probably his father.

  Bowman held his rifle by the barrel, standing in front of the solid wood desk.

  “Bowman, people talk a lot of horseshit about these murders, and it doesn’t surprise me that a black ended up on the gallows. Everyone was frightened and the rumours were getting ridiculous all along the road. The less people know, the more they imagine. You seem pretty sure of yourself, but I have to tell you you’re not the first man to turn up here with a new theory. I couldn’t even tell you all the stuff I’ve heard in the last few weeks. And I’ll spare you the apparitions of the Devil on the Santa Fe track. But this time we have proof. I’m sorry about that man they hanged in Las Cruces, but I know how to keep a cool head and I would not send these men to their deaths unless I was certain about what I was doing. Why do you say it wasn’t them?”

  Bowman stayed calm because Randell was calm too. He addressed him as if he were delivering a report to an officer: “The man who killed people on the track, he started in England. His name is Erik Penders and he was under my command when I was a sergeant in the India Company. He killed a man in London, another closer to Dallas, called Kramer, and a third, Rogers, in Las Cruces. I didn’t see the last two, only the one in London. But I know that he killed them in the same way and I also know where he learned to do that because I was with him at the time. When we were soldiers in Burma. I’ve already seen the negro hanged. I know it’s not your three Indians either.”

  Randell lit a pipe and blew the smoke towards the ceiling of his office.

  “Bowman, I don’t have much time, but I do want to explain this to you. Despite what you say, you’re misinformed. People say they’ve killed about twenty men. I don’t know about that, but there are at least two others than the ones you mentioned. One in Mexico, a few months back. I wasn’t down there, but the testimony comes from a man I know and trust, a partner in our company. And another, which happened less than a week ago, a bit further along the Independence track.”

  Bowman wavered, trying to organise his thoughts.

  “But you didn’t know about the murder in Dallas. So you don’t know everything either.”

  Randell continued in the same serious tone of voice:

  “How long is it since you slept, Bowman? Please, sit down.”

  Bowman pulled a chair in front of the desk.

  “What happened a week ago?”

  “Fedor Petrovitch . . . I had him here in this office just a few days before, sitting exactly where you are sitting now. Petrovitch was an inventor who was looking for financial partners to launch a new method of gold-panning that used cyanide. He came to speak to me, to ask if Bent and St Vrain were interested. My employers do not want to invest in gold mining. That is what I told him.”

  Randell lowered his head and stuffed the tobacco into the chamber of his pipe.

  “It was the Comanches. The last warriors of a tribe who refused to give up their arms and join the New Mexico reserves. The Indian Affairs office already knew about them. They were roaming the road for nearly a year, regularly crossing the Mexican border. Their group was reduced, along with their resources, as the tribes were brought into the reserves. I am not an enemy of the Indians, Bowman, and the success of this company is due in no small part to the trade we have carried out with them. I have gotten to know them. I know they are not the savages that people claim they are, and that they cannot bear hopelessness. Their constitution is no better at resisting alcohol. Those men are capable of going to war for months and living like animals in caves if they know they will be reunited afterwards with their land and their children. But if you take that away from them, they are already dead and they might do anything. How would you behave, Bowman, in a world that destroyed your own world?”

  Bowman could feel pins and needles in his hands, dizziness, his dry tongue swelling in his mouth. He took Brewster’s flask from his pocket and swallowed a few drops so he could carry on without collapsing. Randell watched him do it, smiling at the thought that it must be alcohol, and went on: “Our company has been in charge of maintai
ning a semblance of order in this place, and will go on doing that until the government has representatives here. Ceran St Vrain, who co-founded this company with Bent, fought with his men alongside the army and personally subdued the revolts in New Mexico. But, like me, he is no warmonger. We believe it is our responsibility to deal with this task. The three warriors who are going to be hanged tried to attack a company convoy. But they were drunk and there weren’t enough of them. They were taken prisoner and brought here. One of them was riding Petrovitch’s horse. We found other things belonging to him in their possession. And his scalp. We questioned them and they ended up confessing the whereabouts of his body. I sent a team there and they brought it back here. Fedor Petrovitch is buried in Bent’s Fort. I saw his remains, Bowman, and I can find no other way of telling you this: it was the corpse of a world without hope.”

  The manager of Bent’s Fort smiled bravely at the man sitting across from him.

  “Once again, I am saddened by the news you brought me, Bowman, of an innocent man executed for these men’s crimes. I am sickened by this circus and all those gawkers who’ve come to watch the execution, but unfortunately I have no doubt about their guilt.”

  Bowman felt the symptoms of his fit calm down, though at the same time he had to struggle to control his senses as they came under the influence of the hemp.

  “It was the same thing in Rio Rancho. The negro just found the dead man’s things.”

  Randell shook his head wearily.

  “There is no doubt.”

  “But the Englishman I’m looking for . . . Wasn’t he here?”

  “The soldier you mentioned? Apart from an absurd day like this one, the fort is a quiet place with very few visitors we don’t know. My family is English, and even though I never lived there, I have a particular amity for your countrymen. The only British man I have met recently was just before the murder, but he wasn’t a soldier. Quite the contrary. He was a preacher, a very friendly man, who stayed with us for a few days. I thought about him when we buried Petrovitch. Perhaps he would have found the words that I couldn’t.”