Colonel Rutherford's Colt

by Lucius Shepard

  She deliberated for more than an hour before deciding that the idea was a gift from the Serpent Himself, the Prince of Betrayals. Not that God was incapable of such a gift. Had He not given her over to the ministrations of an unctuous, murderous devil . . . and for no meet purpose? But this idea had scales, fangs, and a flexible spine that permitted it to coil up in her heart and nest—it was the Devil’s tongue inside her, moving her to act, and though she feared for her soul, she had lost the necessary resolve to resist the Serpent’s incessant stimulation. She plucked her silver pen from its holder and began to write, telling Aaron how Luis had died, embellishing the tale with every possible flourish, and when she had done with that, she inscribed the following line:

  . . . As to the greater substance of your letter, dear cousin, and I speak here of your newly confessed emotion, it both shames and delights me to tell you that I, too, have a confession to make, one long overdue, of feelings kept in secret, unexpressed, yet still vital to my heart’s progress . . .

  She filled three pages with her lie, confabulating a history of yearning and frustration, feeling shame in the act, yet exulting in its commission. When she finished, she felt oddly aloof and uncaring, as if by taking this step she had taken herself beyond the reach of conscience. She knew that, ultimately, guilt would find her again, but she had sealed a bargain with a power compared to which guilt was a mere shadow.

  . . . In October, as is his habit each year, Hawes will travel with a manservant to the mountains of Matanzas where he keeps a lodge, and there, in a frenzy of bloodletting, will gun down every wild pig in the vicinity, an act that to my mind seems verging on self-slaughter. He will be gone ten days, longer if the sport is good. Would it be importune of me to ask that you visit Havana during this time, so I might then sway whatever doubts you harbor of me by the most persuasive of my means . . . ?

  * * *

  On Monday, Rita manned the tables most of the day. Jimmy was in a state, sitting in a folding chair with his back turned to the show, legs stretched out, unmoving and unspeaking, as if rigor had set in. He stirred himself once to deal with a gun question from a customer, and at noon he ambled off to fetch her a sandwich and returned an hour and a half later with a corn dog and vague answers as to where he had been. She was used to him being worthless from time to time, and she wasn’t that concerned. Between the Colt and the Beretta and, fingers crossed, the Thompson, by tonight they would be in better shape than they’d been in for a long while. And then there was Yakima coming up—they always did well in Yakima, and she loved going to McGallagher’s and getting the dick of every white boy in the place twirling like a propeller on a toy plane, luring them away from their pale, flabby female counterparts.

  The crowd was thin but all business. The long-haired kids dreaming of death were off partying, as were the souvenir-hunters and the NRA moms and pops. Dealers were shaving their profit margins, big checks were changing hands, smiles everywhere. Around three-thirty, a guy from the armory offices brought her a fax from Professor Alex Howle, offering eleven thousand for the Colt and the shakily authenticated but intriguing pistol he had displayed interest in when he had seen them in Spokane—he could wire cash if they wished. Rita had no clue which pistol he meant. She crumpled up an empty styrofoam cup and tossed it at Jimmy’s head. Not a twitch. “Jimmy!” she said, turning the name into a flinty grunt. “Fucking wake up!” He drew in his legs, scrunched about in the chair, said, “Huh?”

  “I need you. Clear your fucking head!”

  He scraped his chair around a quarter-turn, managing it sluggishly. Then another quarter-turn, so he was facing the aisle. She passed him the fax. He studied the paper for longer than necessary.

  “Any day now,” Rita said.

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding. “I mean, I was wanting more for the pistol—here he’s getting it for ’bout two-thirds what I figured on. But it’s cash money, and we won’t have to pay taxes on none of it.”

  “What pistol he’s talking ’bout?”

  “Nineteen-thirty-two Smith and Wesson. The Klan gun.”

  “It don’t have to be we getting eight-five for the Colt. We could shave that down a little. Loretta would still come out fine.”

  “Naw,” he said, staring her down. “That wouldn’t be fine.”

  Fuck you, she thought. You and your little white-ass chicken.

  “I’m gonna go fax the professor,” she said. “Then I’m gonna take a shower, get me some food, and party. You can handle the last hour.”

  His face showed he was readying a complaint.

  “You got time to work on the damn story after closing,” she said. “Don’t pack nothing. I’ll take care of it in the morning.” She stood and wedged herself out between tables. “You better call Borchard. Tell him whatever you gonna.”

  “Already talked to him.”

  “Yeah, but you didn’t have this fax when you did.”

  “Don’t matter. He said he wanted me to come see him after his meeting one way or another.” He hesitated. “Guess I can just call him, though.”

  “You go on up and see the man. He might have something interesting to say.”

  Jimmy fiddled with the corner of a leaflet someone had left on the table. “Where you gonna be?”

  From the faded quality of his voice, she realized he was about to go drifting again. They’d be lucky if somebody didn’t steal them blind. But she was suddenly fed up with faxes and money and guns and dipshits in need of home protection.

  “You gonna hafta find me tonight,” she said, “ ’cause I plan to get myself lost.”

  He looked so forlorn, she relented a bit.

  “I ain’t guaranteeing nothing,” she said. “But I’ll be starting out at Gainer’s.”

  * * *

  A band name of Mister Right was laying waste to Gainer’s, a roadhouse ten minutes from Issaquah, shaking dust down from the ceiling of that chunk of pale blue cement block with neon Red Hook displays in the windows and everything from pick-ups to SUVs to a brand-new Mercedes in the jammed-up lot. By the time Rita arrived, just past ten, a drizzle was pocking the dusty lanes between the parked cars, and half-a-dozen fools too drunk to get in were pushing and shoving and falling down laughing out front of the door. They sobered some when they saw Rita step out of her cab. She knew she looked good, wearing her black mesh see-thru blouse over a black bra, and she acted like she knew it, rolling her hips to the monstrous 4/4 leaking from the inside. She didn’t know yet what part she would play, but nonetheless she was starting to get a feeling for the role. One of the fools, a hairless baby bear with a shaved head and a purple Huskies jersey, grabbed at her ass, but she danced out of reach and tossed him a mocking look as she passed into the noise and darkness.

  She worked her way through the crowd at the bar, pushed up against the rail of the waitress station by shifting bodies. She could just make out the heads of the band above the crowd on the dance floor, hot white stage lights behind them. The dancing was for shit. People lumbering, lurching about like cave folk round a gutted elk. Boys in Dockers and polo shirts shaking their fists; girls in short tight dresses making fishlike motions with their hips. Her eyes began to adjust to the dimness. Glowing wreaths of cigarette smoke floated in the air. There were tables at the center and back of the place; sticking out from the walls were little counters, each one ranged by four or five stools. Men groping compliant women. Women leaning their heads together and laughing hysterically, saying shit like, “Do you believe it?” and calling each other “girlfriend.” Womanless men sharking among the tables or trying to look blasé as they sat nursing a beer. She remembered a line from an old story of Jimmy’s: “ . . . a zooful of brown passions.” That’s what Gainer’s was tonight. Nothing much could happen there. A fistfight, a break-up, some meaningless hook-ups, a carload of drunks crashing on the way home. Rita figured to tune the intensity a notch higher.

  Mister Right crunched into a heavy groove rendition of an old Massive Attack song, and Rita danced along
with it, holding onto the rail, lowering her head and letting her hair curtain her face, doing a step that was ninety-percent ass-shaking and the rest sliding her feet as if she were tired and hanging onto a slow-moving treadmill. A bedraggled-looking waitress elbowed her way up to the station, scribbled an order on her tray. “Hey!” Rita shouted. The waitress offered her an ear and Rita passed her a twenty and shouted again, “Double shot Cuervo Gold and a draft!” When the drinks came she threw down half the tequila and had a swallow of beer. A guy at the bar was scoping her, but she didn’t want him. She sipped her beer, eyes roaming the room. Close to the edge of the dance floor, one of the counters was empty; the stools that had ringed it appropriated by the seven people gathered about the adjoining counter. Four women, three men. Twenty-somethings. Promising, she thought. She weaved her way through the tables, holding the drinks above her shoulders to avoid spillage, and when she reached the empty counter, she made it her home and leaned against the wall. Three of the twenty-something women were sitting with their backs to her. Two brunettes sandwiching a blond with a double-wide butt. The brunette farthest away sneaked a glance at Rita. She was coarsely pretty, shiny hair pulled back from her face, a blood-red, too-full mouth, and make-up caking the acne blemishes on her cheeks. She had on a skintight hoochie dress, and as she talked she used her body freely, throwing up her arms, shimmying her breasts and her shoulders, putting on a show. But there was a hint of tight-ass in the eyes. Rita tagged her as a blow-job queen. BJ.

  She fended off a lone wolf, stood moving with the music, and then started eye-fucking the guy at the end of the adjoining counter. A lanky sandy-haired guy with the open, handsome face of young Corporate America. His long muscles weren’t a product of gym work. Must have played some ball. Worn jeans and a black T-shirt without advertisement. He looked to Rita like he came from money—money dressed plain when it was out slumming. He smiled at her, revealing perfect capped teeth, and his eyes seemed to empty out. My brother, Rita thought. She looked away, as if offended. Then she smiled, too. BJ caught his arm, drew him into a shouted conversation, but he kept on checking out Rita, and after the band took a break, the juke box kicking in at a lower volume, he called out, “Wanta join us?”

  Rita shrugged, mouthed Okay, sidled over. The sandy-haired guy surrendered his stool to her. “Walter!” he said, tapping his chest.

  “Lisa!” She said it so they all could hear. The fourth woman was another brunette, small and doll-like, who was holding the hand of an equally small curly-haired man. They had their own world going, exchanging secrets, in diminutive union against the tall. The third guy was heavier and shorter than Walter, his hair lighter, Germanic stock, wearing gray slacks, a red golf shirt without a crest or an alligator or any such bullshit on the pocket. His watch was platinum, ultrathin. Rita concluded that he and Walter were out trolling together, they’d run into the doll couple, and maybe the doll woman knew BJ and the blond, whose name turned out to be Janine. She looked like money, too. A collegiate-type plaid blouse and skirt, but a very expensive gold bracelet. She would have been a hottie if she dropped thirty pounds and slacked off on the cocaine. The skin above her sinuses was islanded with inflamed blotches. Seated next to her against the wall: Dee, short for Denise. Very pale; hair down her back; probably the youngest. Dressed in jeans and a UCAL Golden Bears T-shirt that fit like a nightgown. Rita’s first impression was that she was a mouse, but she came to realize that Dee was white-girl exotic. Enormous dark eyes, a dainty nose, a mouth that was sculpture. A face as carefully bred as an Afghan’s, all clever angles and artful hollows. She wore no make-up and rarely spoke.

  Their conversation eddied around Rita. It consisted of gossip and boasts and sexual innuendo, fleshed out with a litany of catch phrases. BJ asked Rita what she did, and Rita said, “I’m an actress.” Except for Dee, who displayed pointed interest, their reaction was a studied neutrality. “I do Native American parts,” Rita added. Smiles and nods. Now they understood.

  “You filming around here?” Walter asked.

  She shook her head. “I’m not working. Just running around visiting friends in the area.” She grinned. “I’m on a whirlwind tour. But I’m doing a picture in Canada with Liam Neeson next month.”

  “Yeah? What’s it called?” This from Walter’s Teutonic friend.

  “They gone through a half-dozen titles. When I got the script, it just said ‘Bigfoot Script’ on the cover.”

  “It’s about Bigfoot?” Janine was amused. Dee gazed at Rita with transparent envy.

  “It ain’t as dumb as it sounds.” Rita rebuked herself for the “ain’t,” but nobody seemed to notice. “It’s an eco-thriller. Liam plays a scientist. Everybody thinks he’s a nut. He believes Bigfoot exists, spends all his time in the wilderness hunting for sign. Eventually he finds them and starts livin’ with them. Like that woman over in Africa.”

  “Goodall,” Janine said authoritatively.

  “Whatever. Anyway, Liam tries to prevent ’em from bein’ captured. It’s got a huge budget. You should see the make-up for the bigfeet. Incredible! And they signed Charlize Theron as the love interest.”

  “You’re not the love interest?” Walter asked.

  “Sweet thing!” She patted his cheek. “No, I play a wise Indian woman who knows the secrets of the forest. I sacrifice myself to help Liam in the third act.” She winked at them. “But I come back as a ghost in the end.”

  She snagged a passing waitress, handed her a credit card. “Run a tab on this, will ya?” She glanced at others. “Tequila okay?”

  Tequila it was.

  They were all impressed. Usually they were the dispensers of largesse. They respected its uses.

  It was easy after that. The band came back onstage and Rita enticed her new best friends into a drinking game. The doll people begged off, said they had to drive. But the others played along. Walter never lost, but drank a couple of shots to be polite. He smiled frequently—the expression transformed his face into a mask hiding a sickly glare. Dee lost once. After draining her glass, she looked at Rita and screwed up her face and grinned. All her looks had begun going Rita’s way. Walter’s friend, Janine, and BJ lost with regularity, but it was Janine who showed the effects. She became sloppy affectionate, hugging BJ and Dee . . . Dee more often. The two women had a distinct dynamic. Whenever Dee spoke, Janine looked fondly, dotingly at her, as if proud of a child for reciting her lines, and Dee would refuse to acknowledge her look. Until, that is, Janine got sick. Everyone ministered to her then, and finally BJ hustled her outside for some air.

  The band launched a mid-tempo rocker—Walter asked Rita if she cared to dance. She hauled him down by the neck, shouted in his ear: “I’m saving you for later!” He pulled back and smiled his serial-killer smile. Rita downed a shot, slipped off the stool. She invited Dee to dance by beckoning with both hands, swaying her hips. Dee was startled, pleased, but she waved to signal, No. Rita frowned and mouthed C’mon, beckoning again. Okay. Dee hopped off her stool, proving to be taller than Rita. She took Rita’s hand. The doll people were shocked.

  They found room to dance near the stage, directly beneath Mister Right’s bassist, a sleepy-eyed Chicano guy with a soul patch. The music gloved Rita, squeezed her like a kitten in its fist. All the pressure built up over the past days flowed out of her, convulsing her hips, shaking her breasts. Dee danced the same as most of the white girls, her hands holding the thick waist of an invisible partner, hips working off the down beat. Rita wanted to loosen her up. She danced closer and rested her hands on Dee’s hips. The girl’s eyes widened, but she went with it. Rita guided her, eventually got her moving less like a hinged stick. Nearby couples stared then looked away. Lesbians were cool. Weird, but cool. Political correctness a jingle in their heads. The band segued into a salsa rhythm, probably a sop to the bass player. A conga drummer had joined them, coming out from the wings—he was a bitch, a genuine music monster, pulling beats from the skin with his bandaged fingers, speedy gunfire riffs. Rita showed
Dee what to do, and this was the music the girl had needed. Her body responded with shoulders, butt, hips twisting, making that baggy shirt move as if a live crazy woman was inside it. Her hair fanned out behind her like a black peacock’s tail. Rita kept a hand on her, held her tight so their breasts nudged, then not quite releasing her, fingertips touching, letting her solo. Then more tightly, linking her hands behind the girl’s ass, doing a grind against her thigh. Their faces inches apart. Dee was locked in on her, flushed, and Rita felt her yielding, resistance an energy discharging from her waist. The music was a bubble around them, trapping them at its silent heart. Rita airbrushed a kiss onto that wide, dreamy mouth, just a pass of the lips, a spray of sensation. Dee’s lips parted, and Rita took the cue, tongue-fucked her a little, a quick taste. She drew back and they did it with their eyes, Dee going all cherry soulful and sweet. When the music ended, she jumped up and down and applauded. “Want some coke?” she shouted to Rita. “Come on!” She skipped backwards in front of Rita on the way to the ladies john, laughing at everything. Two of the stalls were already booked, giggles and whispers rising over the doors. They shut themselves into a third, leaned against opposite walls. Rita watched her finger out a vial from her jeans pocket, a tiny spoon attached to the inside of the cap. They each did four hits. The coke fuel-injected Rita’s heart, tripped her into serious mode. She thought she might actually want to do Dee. Not because she was beautiful, but because she had a wildness in her, a thing wanting to get out. It had flashed out of her on the dance floor, erratic, a pure light channeled crazily through a fractured diamond. Rita remembered how it was when her own thing had been set free. Glory days. Nights of divine madness.