Whiskey When We're Dry

by John Larison

  The Governor’s hand seized my shoulder. “Tell me, son, all you have done in your life. Tell me of your people. Northerners, I could tell by your manner alone. But I want to know where you have been and where you plan to go. Well, don’t keep me waiting.”

  On my plate was a great proportion of beef loin with a rich red gravy overtop and I held my fork at the ready. The smell had my mouth leaking. “I been a hand my whole life.”

  “Cattle?”

  “Yessir. To hell with sheep.”

  The Governor smirked. “Indeed. Though I fear we may all be running them and their shepherds one day soon. But you shoot for money?”

  “Been making coin by wagers lately, sir. Traveling west since the spring thaw.”

  “Looking for land, no doubt. You aim to be a homesteader like everyone else of your position?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “What do you want from this life then? Tell me it is not gold.”

  I shrugged. “I have no interest in swinging a pick or rolling a pan, sir.”

  “A wise mind then. There was a time, but now gold is a cluttered business. So what then? Land? Riches? Women? You have ambition beyond the immediate. I can spot intention within a man. Have you heard the talk of dams? It seems your generation will stopper this nation’s largest rivers with barriers of rock and build fertile valleys in the hottest of deserts. That sounds like the making of a land rush to me. The wise man is making acquisitions as we jabber.”

  “Someday I hope to return to my family spread and—”

  “Now let me ask you,” he leaned over his plateful of food and clasped his hands. “Do you prefer the fifty-four Sharps or this newer forty-five? I have been told by my hunters that the forty-five is too diminished for heavy game, but the men in my militia prefer this newer weapon because of its merciful weight. Do you have thoughts about accuracy?”

  I had never fired the newer forty-five but I had seen its shells, and I knew what Pa had taught Noah about lead. “I will always prefer the smaller round flying faster for accuracy work, especially in the field. The flatter trajectory will aid yardage estimates. The trouble is knockdown power. I suspect the forty-five still offers plenty for targets of man size.”

  “Yes, yes, well.” He took a sip of his red wine. I could see I hadn’t said nothing he didn’t already know.

  I finally put the fork to the meat.

  “What are your thoughts on barrel length?”

  I held my bite aloft. “My experience on the matter is limited and Pa taught me not to overspeak.”

  He smiled. “Your father offers sage counsel. Not all do.”

  I opened my jaws to consume the meat.

  “Do you have any schooling?” Constance asked me.

  I lowered the bite and my mouth watered its objections. Constance’s hair was brown and rich and she looked upon me with blue eyes. She was small in stature but large in them eyes. Her gaze would not move on before it was ready. I felt small within it.

  “Let the man eat,” the Governor said.

  “What about the marks on your cheek?” Constance asked.

  The Governor pointed with his chin. “Forgive my daughter, but I must admit I too am curious. Though, dear, it is less than ladylike to inquire so directly after a man’s wounds.”

  “How did you procure such branding?” she asked, her eyes unwavering.

  “To look on it is worse than to wear it.”

  “I think it lends your face a mysterious quality,” she said. “Is your family east or west?”

  “My kin has passed on,” I said. The liquor allowed the statement to emerge without its bite. So like a child who continues to poke at the numbness to confirm what he already knows I added, “My ma died in childbirth and my pa fell from a horse last autumn.”

  Constance reached at once for her wine. But she didn’t lift it from its place.

  The senator turned from his conversation with an elderly woman beside him and said, “What have I missed?”

  I took my bite. It was the finest roast I had ever devoured in my life. It was the first of many that summer. I would also consume a great deal of the Governor’s liquor. He was a man who believed in meat and spirits each day for health.

  The Governor was still thinking weaponry. “We must put a Winchester in your hands. Imagine the midrange accuracy of the Sharps with the speed of a revolver.” He hit me across the back and I gagged on my meat. “Maybe you are wondering why I was so happy to lose today.”

  He didn’t wait for my reply.

  “Drummond has been my best man for some years now. And I say you beat him handily given the disadvantages you faced. The unfamiliar games and that rusty sidearm. That was the state’s congressional delegation you so entertained.”

  This conversation caught the attention of Senator Scott. He raised a finger to the old woman beside him and interjected, “I found this young man on the streets.”

  “Your driver said he mistook your carriage for mine.” The Governor’s eyes remained on Scott’s.

  The Senator put a finger to his collar and chuckled. “Yes, well.”

  The Governor’s attentions returned to me. “I am happy to see you beat Drummond because Drummond has made me good money over the years. This spring, however, his shooting has slipped. His vision, I believe. He is aged, not aged for labors of the mind, but aged for a man in his line of work. Shooters, in my experience, peak at thirty-two. How old are you, Mr. Straight?”

  I felt compelled to lie upward. “Near twenty-one.”

  “Exactly.” The Governor smiled. “I trust Drummond entirely in matters of strategy, he is a cunning architect of combat. His mind goes calm when the bullets come at him, but I have watched him lose too many shooting wagers of late to count on his pistol when real money is on the line.”

  “Drummond is the Governor’s preferred shooter,” Senator Scott added for my benefit.

  “I’m confident Mr. Straight is savvy enough to piece that together on his own, Reggie, but we appreciate the sound of your voice.” The Governor took the fork from my hand and set it beside my plate. He said, “You mentioned you would like to enter my employ.”

  “Yes, very much, sir.”

  “Your arrival is serendipitous for a number of reasons. As you may know, we have a wedding approaching. I could use another skilled gun around.” He lifted his napkin and wiped his lips even though he hadn’t taken a bite of his dinner. He tossed the napkin beside his plate and leaned back in his chair. “I would like you to come to stay here and practice your shooting at my expense. I will supply you with a pair of balanced pistols to replace that thing you used today, as well as a Winchester straight from manufacture. I have ours built with custom modifications. I will of course cover all expenses you incur and you will have room and board. At the end of a week, we will revisit the issue of your long-term employment.”

  I considered what he was proposing. “I have a mare,” I said.

  “Of course. She will have a stall in our stable and all the feed she needs. I have a boy who will tend to her.” He smelled his wine but it didn’t have his attention. “If I like what I see, you will accompany me across this territory, as I complete my official charge. We will find ourselves often in the company of other dignified men who also have their own shooter. They will look at your age and your”—the Governor gestured with his pinkie at my body—“smaller than typical stature and assume you to be incompetent. They will bet large against you. When you win I will ride home triumphant. We will be victors together. There is no pleasure more savory. Would you like that?”

  Constance watched me over the rim of her wineglass. “Father enjoys winning more than his health.”

  “Winning is the only story worth telling, dear.” The Governor leaned toward my ear, “Of course you are concerned with compensation. We will discuss that at the end of the provisional pe
riod. Now is the moment to express your gratitude.”

  “Sir, I ain’t a trick shooter. My mind is set on settling an old debt with a certain felon, Noah Harney.”

  At the sound of the name the Governor cringed as if in pain. He drank down his wine.

  “I hope to join your militia and ride out after him. I must find him, on oath to family.”

  The Governor sat back. His gaze became hot. He roared, “A thousand men have been unable to find him! You are talented with a firearm, but, son, you can’t also have a preternatural talent for tracking. That bastard will knock you from your horse at five hundred yards and your talent will leak into the dirt.”

  “He couldn’t hit a barn at that distance.” I shot from the hip, emboldened by my drink. “He don’t got no skill for the rifle, never has. I know Harney, see. He and I come up in the same county. We roughed some as youths, though he was years my senior. He turned to vice about the time I turned to learning the pistol.”

  The Governor had gone to ice before me. I noticed the silence. All conversations had turned our way.

  “We parted on sorry terms, Harney and me. See, there was a skirmish. My father was struck in the face in his own house. The blow left him diminished in capacities. He never full recovered. Now Pa is dead and I am to be his agent of revenge.”

  Senator Scott said, “Why would you risk your future on that felon?”

  “I will take the reward money and I will return to my family spread and buy out our debts. For my kin, only land in the free and clear qualifies as a future. Mine is people who prefer working their own dirt.”

  The Governor pushed back from the table. He still had not touched his food. But now he wiped his lips and excused himself. The men rose as he departed.

  He was gone a breath before conversations bloomed anew and glasses was raised toward Will’s decanter.

  “You should never mention that name around Father,” Constance said. “That criminal has taken a great deal of—”

  The senator took it upon himself to finish her thought. “He is a thief and a bugger and he has disrespected many prominent men of the West.”

  “Especially Father,” Constance said.

  “What is Harney’s claim with the Governor?” I asked.

  Again Constance began to answer but Senator Scott finished. “His claim lies with all men who have earned their money. As you will learn, ours is a land of givers and takers. The great Governor is a giver of the highest order and that makes him a target of the most loathsome takers. It is that simple.”

  There was a voice beside me. “Sir?”

  I looked to find Charles awaiting my attention. He was three times my age and yet had called me “sir.”

  “The Governor asks for a moment.”

  I rose and followed Charles and his gray woolen hair down the hallway and up the stairs and looked out the glass windows as we walked. The evening light was just now leaving the rock promontories and I was overtaken with the thrill of being inside and outside all at once. I was still new to the luxuries of glass, and the effects of whiskey.

  He opened the door to a private office and directed me to enter. The Governor was standing before a window big as a wall. Above the mantel was a great elk stag and beside it a pair of deer with symmetrical horns well past their ears. I had seen such critters in the wilds but never before affixed to a wall. I wondered how they did not rot. On the floor was the hide of a magnificent grizzly. It looked to be at least ten feet long. I had to step on it to cross the room.

  “Is there anything else, sir?”

  “No, thank you, Charles. That is all.”

  The door closed. I was alone with the state’s most powerful man. A clock ticked the seconds.

  “I am but a servant to the people,” the Governor spoke to the glass. His eyes held either the mountains beyond or his own reflection, I could not tell which. “I have devoted my life to turning rock and timber and grass into employment so that hardy men can support good women and this great land may be populated with righteous, decent, hardworking people. My calling has been to turn wilderness into America.”

  He lit a cigar and returned his gaze to the glass. “Mine has been a campaign against evil itself, which prefers to see this land go fallow and populated with an order of slothful people, Mexicans likely.”

  He turned sharp to me. “Am I right to see color in your skin? I am not a bigot, Mr. Straight, only a realist. A pinto will never achieve what a buckskin can, no fault of his own.”

  I knew the answer this man sought.

  “This land was not always like you see, Straight. I left the States in forty-eight to wade the ungovernable West and arrived in California to rumors of gold. It was a fortunate moment. But everything else after I have labored tirelessly for. I have come into nothing by charm alone. Candidly, I am the reason we now live in a state. I am the reason the territory did not pick sides in the war. I am the reason this town below exists at all.” His voice was nearing a shout. He turned his cigar.

  “The name you mention . . . He would turn this place back to the barbarians, to the savages, to the Spaniards. He is . . . He is . . .” The Governor put a hand to the glass to steady himself. His breath was slow to catch up. “My physician advises I do not. . . . Let us speak of another matter. If only until my breath returns.”

  “Sir, my honor lies in avenging my pa. I have ridden many weeks to arrive at your feet. I offer you private knowledge of this man. Who else has grown up with him?”

  “You have not soldiered. Have you seen death? Have you caused it?”

  I saw myself in the glass. “I have killed a man.”

  “Tell me of it then, if it is true.”

  The liquor bolstered my reply. “He was attacking me and I was without a weapon. I put a stick through his face. I didn’t think about doing it. But I did it. His legs burned in the fire.”

  The Governor turned the cigar in his mouth and maintained his gaze on me. He was looking for my lie. “Is there a warrant that follows you?”

  “I am followed by other troubles but no warrants, sir. The killing was within my rights as a man. It transpired without witness.”

  “The killing affects you.”

  “Some, but that bastard is beyond my sympathies.”

  “Yes, good, sympathy is a most disadvantaging quality.”

  “Pa’s humiliation weighs heaviest on my soul, sir. He was never the same man after Harney. His debts fall on me to repay, and as I see it, so do his reprisals.”

  “Losing your father,” the Governor said to the window, “that is when a man is born.”

  “Yessir.”

  “I lost mine to cholera in forty-seven.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, sir.”

  “It is a long time past. And it was his death that sent me west, so I must assume there to be some order to the Lord’s will.”

  “The Lord intends me as your agent,” I said. “I know this in my soul, sir. The Lord has sent me to you for use as you see fit. It is on me to convey my talents in honesty so you may know how best to govern them.”

  He studied me. “Your talents would be wasted with the militia. They are a club and you are a lance. But I understand you. It is admiration of your father that drives you forward. I can think of no quality more deserving, more American, than that one.”

  “Yessir.”

  “I have an intuition about you, Straight. I have been made rich by trusting my intuitions.” He stepped to this desk and poured two whiskeys from the crystal flute. “Forget the militia. Join me now as a full guardsman. You work for me through this coming winter, and when the moment is right, we will put you on the hunt.” He handed me one of the whiskeys.

  I held it aloft but did not sip. “I aim to find him before autumn, sir.”

  His drink went to mist. “Before autumn! And then what? Take Mexico by spring?
”

  “I will bring him to justice.”

  He laughed. “Yes. To justice.”

  “You find me humorous.”

  “No, son. I do not. I am sorry if I have given that impression.” He looked at the whiskey in my hand. “I have offered you a position as a guardsman and you throw it back at me. Do you know how many men approach this house each day wanting to clean my halls? My guards are salaried and they are taken into this family. You live in this house. You eat this food. When you are sick, you are visited by my doctor and I pay his bill. Do you understand what I am offering?”

  My mind was busy turning over the words “taken into this family.” “Yessir.”

  “My guardsmen start at four dollars a day. In addition, when you shoot a wager you’ll receive a percentage of any winnings we procure. Do you see? I will build you into a proper citizen if you can keep yourself from running off and dying. Will you still turn me down?” He rang a bell that had been sitting on his desk.

  “No, sir. I appreciate this opportunity, sir. I have only a minor request.”

  The door opened and Charles entered. “This way, Mr. Straight.”

  The Governor raised a finger toward Charles. “A request. I will try not to be offended.”

  “If you do apprehend Harney while I’m in your employment, I want to see him. Can you promise me that?”

  The Governor took his cigar in his teeth. He studied me and smiled. “You carry the rocks of a bull. Yes, Straight. I can’t promise he’ll be living, but if I see him, you will see him. I can promise you only that much.” He held up his whiskey. “Are we agreed then?”

  I touched mine to his and we both took them down.

  * * *

  —

  Will waited while I changed out of the dinner wools. Once I was again dressed in my dusty old clothes, Will led me into the lowest reaches of the house, where I was to bunk with Greenie, the next youngest guardsman at twenty-five. I’d seen Greenie before, at the gate my first day of waiting. He was a few inches taller than me. He had a freckled face and appeared younger than his years. His name fit. “Howdy,” I said.