Where the Rock Splits the Sky

by Philip Webb

  Only now does the pain surge through my wrist, but I do not think it’s broken, or I would not even be able to flex it.

  I steady my Colt and cock it again.

  “Back up.” I put as much gruff in the words as I can, and I try to damp down the terror in my heart.

  He straightens, raising both hands. But he doesn’t let go of his gun.

  “Drop the piece, and back up.”

  “Whatever you find in this stagecoach,” he growls. “It won’t save you. Or your friends.”

  “I said to drop the gun. And if you say another word, I’ll shoot you anyhow.”

  I bring Cisco close in. Even I can’t miss from here.

  He dangles his gun by the trigger guard and lets it fall.

  I reach in with my bad hand and pinch out his other pistol from its holster, casting it behind me.

  The passengers inside the carriage are silent now.

  I can sense him going through his options, weighing up what I will do now, whether I’m capable of pulling the trigger.

  He says, “We know where you’re headed. Canyon de Chelly. Spider Rock.”

  Well, I did warn him. And I’ve got to do something. So I line up the Colt with the top of his hat and fire. The Stetson flies off in tatters and his horse gives a mighty start. For good measure, I jab its rump with my spurs and he’s off. I reckon it’s a good thirty yards before he gets the horse even half under control, but then he doesn’t look back, just hightails north across the desert.

  I turn to see Kelly and Luis checking on the other three riders — either laid out cold or dead, I can’t tell which.

  “Nice one, Megan,” says Kelly. “How we gonna win this war when you keep saving their asses?” But there’s a hint of respect in her voice, too. Because between us, we have faced them down, and survived intact.

  The driver and the rifleman must be hunkered down on the far side of the Mavis. The horses have broken their traces and are wandering out in the scrub.

  “Stand down,” I cry. “The outlaws are scattered.” I don’t know what else to say and now that the immediate danger has passed, I begin to shake uncontrollably.

  A head pokes up behind the carriage roof. “Identify yourself!”

  I swing down from Cisco and rip the neckerchief clear.

  “Goddamn it, Hogart!” cries a voice almost beside itself with rage. “Is that a girl?”

  “There’s not a moment to lose!” I call out. “We will not harm you, but we must search this stagecoach. Then we will be on our way.”

  Nobody moves.

  Kelly cocks her rifle. “You heard the lady. Move your butts.”

  “Goddamn it all to hell — is that another girl?”

  In an angry singsong voice, Kelly says, “Yep, two girls and we’ve both got guns with real bullets in ’em and we’ve had a real bad couple of days. Oh, and my buddy Luis — he’s nearly as dangerous as a girl. So let’s cut the crap and hustle it along here.”

  The coach driver lets forth a cascade of blasphemies that would curl the toes of Lucifer himself. He pauses only to spit black chaw juice from the wad of tobacco that rests in one bulging cheek.

  “Since when in this godforsaken land did girls knee-high to a chipmunk start holding up mail routes?”

  I paraphrase, for this man’s words cannot be repeated in polite company.

  “We’re not holding anything up.” I look at my companions and gesture for them to take down their bandit masks. “There is something in the stagecoach … Something that belongs to me.”

  The other man, Hogart, the one who rode shotgun with the driver, delivers a look of sneering contempt. “Well, if it ain’t a holdup, thank Mother Mary.”

  Then he saunters over to the body of the nearest bandit and pumps a round in his head to make sure.

  “Hey!” I cry. “Put your gun down!”

  Hogart eyes me with cold disgust. “Quit yer bellyachin’ — they’da killed every last one of us. Law of the Zone.” He raises his voice for the driver, all the while glaring at me. “Fetch up them horses, Colson! One of ’em bad boys got away and I ain’t keen for them takin’ a second bite of the cherry. This here’s the Jethro Gang — dead or alive, the justice of the peace ain’t choosy.”

  He begins to rifle through the dead bandit’s possessions.

  Colson, the driver, pipes up. “Hey, I want my share of pickings!”

  “If you don’t get them horses hitched up and righting this wagon, I’ll testify you ran it off trail without due reason. We had ’em licked ’til you lost your nerve.”

  The driver glares at me, but you can tell he’s kowtowed. He stomps off to retrieve his horses, spitting profanities and jets of dark saliva.

  “Y’all just break outta the freak farm?” cries Kelly. She fires her rifle in the air. “Seeing as playin’ nice ain’t working out real good, let’s start all over.”

  “So it is a holdup anyhow,” Hogart mocks. “Well, Lord have mercy.”

  He pauses over another slumped outlaw and guns him between the eyes. As three, we level our guns at Hogart when he strides over to the last hapless bandit.

  “Pull that trigger one more time,” warns Kelly. “And I’ll send you straight to hell.”

  “Make your mind up, sweetheart. Either it’s a stickup or it ain’t.”

  Kelly looks at me in disbelief. This man is either insane or drunk or pitifully stupid. Perhaps he is all three.

  “’Cause if it is a stickup, I’m handing you over to the sheriff’s office just as soon as we make Truth.”

  I look at the revolting specimen that is the Mavis Pilgrim gun for hire.

  “Under whose authority?” I demand.

  “Under the authority of Presidio County law. I deputize for the sheriff on any and every stagecoach leg that takes in Zone territory.” He heaves up a lungful of phlegm and shoots it into the dust. “Hell, I don’t need no authority. Not for no busybody kids who ain’t got no federal permit to be here.”

  I am at a loss. This man is a lunatic. He looks at the chambers of his gun and frowns, then starts to pick bullets out of his belt to reload.

  “What we’ve got here is a citizen’s arrest,” he warns. “Damage of company property, delay of the county mail service … hell, who’s to say you ain’t in cahoots with them Jethro boys? Holdin’ up the Pilgrim. I’d be in my rights to shoot all three of you if you was thinking of resisting arrest.”

  What? Trust us to pick a stagecoach manned by a belligerent oaf. But he is certainly cold-blooded enough to shoot us if he believes in his tin-pot jurisdiction. He seems in no hurry at all to load the gun, even taking time to blow dust from the barrel.

  “That is a preposterous charge,” I bluster. “Made by a man ignorant in the extreme. If it wasn’t for us, you’d be meat for the buzzards.”

  “Well, let’s see now. Riding full pelt at a registered stagecoach.” He glances at Kelly. “With real guns and real bullets.” He gestures at said stagecoach lying in pieces.

  It is at that precise moment that Kelly sees red. It has been brewing, but Hogart has steadfastly refused to see it coming.

  “Kelly …”

  He is droning on about the state of company property when Kelly lines her rifle up with the man’s toe cap and fires. In the shock before pain, he stares at Kelly and faints.

  “Alright!” she shouts at the upturned stagecoach. “This is a robbery. Sorry for the inconvenience ’n’ all but if you don’t line up out here at the count of five, then I’m gonna get all trigger-happy on your asses. One, two …”

  When I look over at Colson, the driver, he has unhitched one of the horses and is galloping back toward the road.

  The occupants of the Mavis Pilgrim emerge, disoriented and in silence. There is a man I know to be a priest from Alpine who is no doubt on a mission in the Zone to save souls. By his dejected demeanor and cracked spectacles, I’m guessing his haul for the Lord has been a disappointing one. Two women clutch each other and cast wild glances at us and the wr
eckage of the Mavis. Their saloon petticoats and coiffed hair mark them out as entertainers, of ill repute I daresay, on their way to Truth or Consequences. What they’ll find there is anyone’s guess. Consequences probably. The final passenger has a fringed jacket in the style of a frontiersman, steel-tipped collars in his shirt, and a wide-brimmed hat. They are the clothes of a tourist — a man who pays for a taste of the Zone but stays in safe guesthouses and exaggerates his exploits in a journal. I have seen many such travelers in Marfa, who gawp at the Deadline checkpoint and consider themselves adventurers for reaching a place where their portable telephones cease to operate.

  I feel as though I am on the wrong track. None of these people looks like regular travelers into the Zone. How can they possibly be holding a clue, wittingly or unwittingly, to my father’s whereabouts? I glance at the others to cover me as I begin to ransack through the scattered trunks and bags.

  There is a meek protest from the tourist, but he holds his tongue when Kelly tells him to. His lack of courage is curiously at odds with his frontiersman jacket.

  The contents of the luggage are ordinary enough: underwear, spare clothes, Zone papers. I have no idea what I’m looking for.

  “Is maybe in the carriage, Megan,” suggests Luis. “The map say Mavis Pilgrim. Passenger come, passenger go.”

  “Yeah, look for something hidden inside, under the seats or whatever,” says Kelly.

  “Who are you?” asks the fake frontiersman timidly.

  “The Bridgwater Posse,” drawls Kelly in irritation. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Bridgwater? You’re M-Megan,” he stutters at me. “Virgil Bridgwater’s girl.”

  I stare at him. “What do you know of my pa?”

  He tries to smile. “I’m a writer — well, a journalist, really.” He holds out a shaking hand that I do not take. “Gallop. Joshua Gallop. Sort of a pen name actually. Look at my papers. That’s my profession. It says right there. I write about the Zone. Well, I’d like to go farther than Truth but it’s far too dangerous, you see. So I talk to the inhabitants there, find out their stories. Then I — I head back to Hope on the stagecoach and out of the Zone so I can wire it all back east. It’s terribly popular, tales of derring-do and the like. People can’t get enough of it — adventures from the wild frontier et cetera et cetera. I take this route whenever it runs …”

  “Goddamn it, Gallop. Megan’s daddy — cut to the chase, huh?”

  “Oh yes, of course.” He mops his brow even though it is too cold for perspiration. “Well, I suppose it’s really rather bad news, you could say. You see, Virgil Bridgwater is d-dead.”

  I stare at him in a daze, unable to speak, unable to think.

  Gallop gabbles on, anxious to fill the silence. “An old Native American tracker told me about a month ago at the T&C saloon — one that partnered up with your father on several expeditions, a man called Yiska, I believe. To tell you the truth, I rather dismissed his account at first. He was somewhat incoherent, spoke in riddles mostly. Nonetheless, all the saloon regulars paid him a great deal of respect. Yiska showed me a map — hand-drawn, a little worse for wear. Said he knew of the grave up at a cemetery in Canyon de Chelly, near a place called … Dear me, what was the name of it?”

  “Spider Rock,” answers Kelly in a dead voice.

  Gallop looks briefly delighted. “Yes, that’s it. Spider Rock.” Something like belated sorrow enters his face as he turns to me. “Please accept my c-condolences on your loss.”

  I look into the middle distance. At nothing but featureless land. And I crumple inside.

  Voices are raised around me.

  I hear but I don’t listen.

  I am thinking of an untended grave somewhere far away in the lee of a canyon wall.

  I have been fooling myself. I have been reading the Zone all wrong. My pa is dead.

  Kelly is shouting at the other passengers to leave. There is weeping from the entertainer women. They clutch at the silk and velvet frocks that limp across the land, scattered to the wind. The priest has taken to praying. Kelly yells at them that outlaws from another planet will return soon and that they will be frozen to death or worse if they don’t take the remaining three horses and head out of the Zone. Joshua Gallop complains that he cannot ride. Kelly bellows that he’d better learn “real quick.” Hogart has regained consciousness but stays silent. Disarmed and crippled, he lies propped up against the wreckage of the Mavis, seemingly resigned to his fate.

  Luis speaks to me softly, in Spanish. “Megan, we must leave. Jethro will be back for the whereabouts of the grave.”

  The whereabouts of the grave. All this time I have been working my way toward what? The plain fact of my father’s death. It seems unreservedly cruel, even for the Zone.

  Luis takes my hand. “If your father draw this map, then he is alive, no?”

  A simple deduction. How would a dead man be able to direct you to his own grave, unless he had returned from the dead?

  “The map can’t be from him,” I reply. “Yiska must have drawn it. He must have come to Marfa, to tell my aunt.”

  “But she said Senor Bridgwater is alive.”

  “There was no signature on that map. If it were truly from him, why would he not write to me? It would have been easy.”

  “It was made in a hurry. Perhaps he could not. To put his mark on it makes the map precious, dangerous …”

  So many questions unanswered.

  What is not in doubt is that we have uncovered the intended clue. This is not coincidence. Whoever made the map knew of Gallop, of his frequent trips via this stagecoach, and knew that Gallop was a wealth of knowledge about the Zone, about Virgil Bridgwater.

  The secret of the Zone, the secret of our salvation, whatever it might be, still lies in that grave. With or without the bones of my poor father. It is only this that makes me rise at last on legs that have no strength.

  With Luis, I round up the three stray team horses. There is no reasoning with the passengers of the ill-fated Mavis, so we practically saddle them at gunpoint, like sacks of provisions. The women wail as their horse bears them in aimless fashion in the general direction of Hope. The priest flops like a straw scarecrow on his steed. Only the Lord’s Prayer and Luis’s knots keep him from a tumble. Hogart won’t be goaded or cajoled. He stares at us and the final horse in an impassive way as if his last spark of reason has departed for the wilderness.

  We ride in silence back into the Sacramento Mountains. I have never seen such fertile country. The ground is lush, running with creeks and rich with grasses. Dismounting, I let poor Cisco rest and stock up. Everywhere is wet, and soft with soaked mosses. Sharp showers fall through pines as we climb higher to Cloudcroft. Toffee-colored cicadas cling to every scrap of bark, scratching a chorus that drowns out the rain.

  The town of Cloudcroft is derelict and moldering — log cabins collapsing in on themselves and clogged with ferns. We proceed cautiously, guns at the ready, but there are no signs of Jethro’s gang.

  We share a can of beans on the hoof, and in a break of the clouds, I spot the White Sands in Tularosa Valley twenty-five miles away, like a bright vein of silver before the shadow of the San Andres Mountains.

  “Where the sheriff he say to ride, eh, Megan?” remarks Luis. “White Sands. Some tracker there …”

  “Devon Marshall.”

  White Sands has not figured in my plans, but Zone plans rarely come to pass. And our diversion to Carlsbad makes the place difficult to avoid now. If we are to reach our ultimate destination at Canyon de Chelly, White Sands is our next port of call.

  “He lives there — the desert?” asks Luis.

  I shrug. “I have not heard of trackers ever making a home.” I think of my pa as I say this. “At least not in the Zone.”

  “We gonna look him up, this Marshall?” says Kelly. “I mean, he could be handy to have on board.”

  “The Visitor at Brokeoff mentioned White Sands also, for all those traveling north,” I reply. “A bottl
eneck in the Zone perhaps? He talked of land rivers, though I have not heard of them. They are not marked on my map.”

  “Something new?” suggests Kelly.

  “The Zone is always changing.”

  I pick up the pace, eager to make distance while my Zone quivers are quiet. “Bottlenecks are dangerous because every traveler must gather there. But maybe we do not have a choice.”

  We follow 82 west but come to an unmarked tunnel at the edge of the mountains. I am reluctant to be enclosed in such a place, but finding an alternative way down to the desert flats will take precious time. The dark is forbidding and filled with wind echoes. But our minds are made up when the rain turns to fat flakes of snow — it is too cold to tarry in these mountains. The horses do not like the tunnel, but no harm comes to us, and when we emerge at last into clear light, it is as though we have passed through into another world, so drastic is the change in climate.

  The air is powder dry. Shimmering desert stretches out before us. The old towns of La Luz and Alamogordo are scoured of life and seem destined to be buried under a blanket of sand. Car showroom signs poke from the drifts like tomb markers.

  There is an air of perpetual restlessness about the land here and I raise my guard. We cross the runway at Holloman Air Force Base — a graveyard of fighter jets upended by unknown forces.

  Since the flight from Carlsbad, we have been riding the whole night and most of the day and we are exhausted by the time we reach the first drifts of white gypsum. The grit hisses around the horses’ hooves, gusting up into our faces, but it is a magical, impossible place. Great fin-shaped ridges like ocean breakers climb into the air, casting violet shadows and throwing tails of dust from their overhangs.

  Perhaps it is the whipping of the wind that blinds us to the true nature of White Sands. Cisco senses it first — the way his legs sink and are carried. It is not just the surface that is unstable, it is the entire procession of dunes. The whole desert is moving gently in vast slow-motion ripples.

  I cry out to the others but somehow the sensation is not alarming.