Whiskey When We're Dry

by John Larison

Youn shrugged. “Chinese no see those days.”

  “Used to be a man knew what he was talking about,” I said.

  Annette laughed, the first time I seen warmth on her face.

  Noah nodded toward the building. “I’ll do the talking.”

  We pushed through the front door of the saloon and found a man sleeping facedown on a table and another sprawled on the floor where he landed when his chair tipped. We stepped over that one and made our way toward the barkeep, who left a steaming towel on the counter and lifted an old scattergun. “We ain’t open. Not for the likes of you.”

  “Business ain’t with you, Rudy. Where’s your master?”

  The barkeep cocked his scattergun. He couldn’t stop blinking. “I ain’t asking twice, Mr. Harney.”

  Youn and Annette took to opposite walls. Annette held her pistol. I kept my post beside my brother.

  It should’ve been concern I felt then, or some similar affliction. I was looking eye to eye with a big-bore scattergun. But all I felt was speed, as if I was atop a tall horse on a downhill run. The morning light was golden through them windows and my brother was an arm’s reach away, and in this world he wrote the rules.

  The scattergun come up to Rudy’s shoulder and glared its hollow eyes on me. “You think this is funny?”

  Noah stepped between the weapon and me. “Now, Rudy. You got two barrels there and four gunmen. You do all right with arithmetic in school or should I break this down for you?”

  Rudy just blinked.

  “See.” Noah held up his fingers. “Four gunmen minus two barrels equals two gunmen and no barrels. What happens then, you reckon?”

  “I know my arithmetic. I got through the fifth grade.” There was an edge of pride to the statement.

  “Where’s your master?”

  Rudy adjusted his grip on the steel. “Boss ain’t here.”

  “Now we both know that’s bullshit, Rudy. Your master is in back. What I mean to ask is could you kindly fetch him for me?”

  “He ain’t my master.”

  “Then why you whisper that fact?”

  We heard a pistol cock and looked to Annette. She was leveled on Rudy. She said, “I’ll kill him now. He ain’t of no use to us.”

  “That ain’t no justification for killing, Net. Didn’t you get your fill the other night? My partner here is like a fat man for killing.”

  The scattergun moved from us to her, then back.

  “Rudy will do the right thing,” Noah said. “He has a wife and daughter up Two Color Creek. Don’t you, Rudy?” Noah pulled his plug and stuck it in one of the barrels of the scattergun.

  There come a creaking sound from the back and Youn looked out the window. In a voice as calm as dawn he said, “There he go.”

  We got to the door in time to see the man and his chestnut go tearing up the road. “See,” Noah said, “if’n you’d stayed out back like I said . . . Now can we give chase before he gets far enough gone to make this an all-day doing? I promised the woman we’d be back for supper.”

  * * *

  —

  We rode at a dead sprint and Ingrid did her best to keep up with those bigger horses but after a mile she was some distance behind. She wasn’t as young as she once was. “Come on, girl. A little more.”

  We arrived to the edge of the pines and there was the rider’s dust halfway across the plains and between here and there was my brother’s crew, gaining. They would have the man soon enough.

  Two miles on Noah held up. When Ingrid got to him, he nodded toward our man, who was then limping toward a pile of rocks. In the prairie before us was his wailing horse.

  “Poor critter,” Noah said. His hands was balanced on the horn, the reins in two fingers. “Must’ve stepped in a rodent hole. Went down hard.”

  A bullet cut through the air over our heads and then a half moment later come the sound of its discharge. Two more come by closer yet. The horses sidestepped but we didn’t bother taking cover. The man was firing from a great distance with his six-gun. The Lord would have to hate you for you to die so random.

  “What’s that?” Noah said as another went by. “Four?”

  “Five,” Annette counted. She pointed a finger toward the heavens. “And that there is six.”

  We took off at a full run toward the pile of rocks, four horses bearing down on a man as he fumbled with his casings. At a hundred yards I saw the golden gleam of fresh shells. At twenty-five he cocked the pistol and took aim. We split and his shot missed and then Youn leapt from his horse onto him. The two went rolling down the sand and then Youn was up and pounding on the man’s face. Annette swung down and lifted the man’s pistol and tucked it in her belt. She buried her knee into his neck and Youn bent his arm around until he squealed like a slick pig.

  “Tie him up.” Noah spat from his saddle.

  I recognized him at once from a wanted poster. Even with the blood and snot pouring from his punched nose, there wasn’t no mistaking this man was Dizzy Donohue, $250 reward. His hair was still salt and pepper, his moustache still night black. He was one of many the Governor wanted hanged.

  Annette set Dizzy in the sunny side of the rocks without his hat. Behind us and in his eyes loomed the red-hot sun.

  Off on the trail Dizzy’s horse cried with pain. It was trying to stand and failing. Ingrid pranced about with her tail out and then spun to face the sorry creature. She answered its cries.

  Dizzy paid his animal no mind. He was cursing about being woke and chased at such an early hour, and for what?

  I walked to the horse and saw her leg snapped midshank. A badger hole in the road is what done it. It was a gruesome wound and there would be no recovery. I wasted not a moment in ending her misery.

  I holstered my pistol and returned to Ingrid. She watched me with wide eyes and as I drew near she backed away. It was the first time she ever done that. I put my hand to her neck and she froze. “It’s just me, girl.”

  Noah pulled his hat from his head and wiped the sweat from his brow. “The calendar says autumn, but I’ll tell you what.”

  Dizzy was panting. Sweat stained his nightclothes.

  Noah was studying his own fingernails now. “You wake up in these cool mornings and think you’ll need the long johns but then by midmorning it’s damn near July again.”

  The older man sighed and looked to the dirt. “So this is it for me, then. Dead in my underclothes. After everything.” His voice was nasal on account of the broken nose.

  “It don’t have to go that way,” Noah said. He drew his knife and put it to his fingernail and cut free the excess. “Last week your boys hit a wagon as it crossed Thimble Creek. You got a recollection?”

  He shrugged. “My boys hit a lot of wagons.”

  “I guess that’s part of my confusion,” Noah said. “A private wagon never carries nothing worth stealing, not no more. Why rob families when all the money in this country is in but ten pockets?”

  Dizzy was squinting into the light. “So they was friends of yours? The drivers of this wagon?”

  “Yes, in fact they was. Good folks. And that’s the other part of my confusion. Why kill honest men when you don’t have to?”

  “Witnesses. The marshals always want witnesses.” Dizzy shrugged. “I guess in a manner of thinking, that makes the killing the marshals’ fault, don’t it?”

  “Well, let’s test that logic in this particular circumstance, why don’t we.” Noah put his knife away. “Dizzy, what are you exactly, in this situation?”

  He looked about our eyes. “I don’t see your point.”

  Noah smiled. “Maybe you is as dumb as you look.”

  “A witness?”

  “There you go.”

  “Okay,” Dizzy said. “I learned my lesson. I’m reformed. No more killing witnesses.”

  “If only it was that easy.�
�� Noah shrugged. “But a man will always return to his familiar drink, won’t he?”

  “I promise,” Dizzy said. “I won’t go killing folks without better cause. And I won’t rob from family wagons no more. You done showed me the light on this issue. I been rehabituated.”

  “That’s a big word, Dizzy. But we’re just starting here. You can take your rehabituated arse out of this county. No more pines. Not for you or your boys. You clear this county and don’t let me see you in them trees again. If I do, it’s war. You want to war with the Wild Bunch? You want Noah Harney hunting you in your sleep?”

  Dizzy squinted into the light. “Whoa, now, whoa. There ain’t no reason to get apocalyptical. Them pines is where I keep my retail operations. Folks enjoy the shade and the pleasant breezes and such. You don’t intend I move entire whorehouses into the prairie where the only people is shepherds and off-reservation reds?”

  Noah tipped his hat back. He winked at me. “And since we’re on the subject, I do take some issue with your use of child whores. Why you got them girls when there’s no shortage of proper widows looking for employment?”

  “Matter of customers is all. A business these days got to have an edge.”

  “Those girls don’t leave with you. The Lord wants them free.”

  Dizzy grew fiery all at once. “Goddamn you to hell, Harney! You ain’t got no sense of right.”

  Noah said, “Maybe you’d prefer to sell the whole farm. My partner here is a willing buyer.”

  Annette drew her pistol. She cocked it and drove the barrel into Dizzy’s temple.

  “Damn you, you Mexican shitbag! We should’ve wiped out your kind when we had the chance. You just a two-bit pistol player, Harney. The Lord don’t know you from a pile of whiskey shit.”

  Noah smiled. “Come now, Dizzy. We’re all countrymen here. No reason we can’t still be friendly and what have you. So long as you keep out of them pines.”

  “I think I should kill him,” Annette said.

  “I know you do,” Noah responded. “But then his boys would only replace him, and we’d still have all the same problems. So Dizzy? Can I trust you to lead your boys to a new county? If you say yes, you live another day. That’s charity at work, right there. That’s the Lord’s spirit.”

  “Fine,” Dizzy cursed. “Business been slowing anyhow.”

  Noah nodded, and Youn holstered his gun, drew his knife, and cut the rope from Dizzy’s wrists.

  “Bless you, Dizzy Donohue,” Noah said. “May Jesus show you a brighter path while you still got time.”

  * * *

  —

  We returned to the bar where it had begun and this time hitched our horses to the post out front like proper patrons. Annette and Youn went in to drink. I went to follow them but then Noah called to me. We went to the whorehouse next door.

  The matron was surprised to see two gentlemen, as she called us, at such an early hour.

  Noah pulled a wad of cash from his pocket and placed it in her hands.

  “My, my,” she said. “That is a heavy roll of money. What kind of party you planning, mister?”

  “That’s your traveling money. Dizzy is done here. I’m your new boss and that there is a parting gift.”

  Her smile was gone. “Now wait a minute.”

  Noah stepped past her. He hollered up them stairs. “Rise and shine, girls! Step out onto the landing and into your new day!” To the matron he said, “Tell them to do it.”

  “I will not!” The matron clenched her jaw.

  Noah took back the cash quick as lightning and drew his pistol with the other hand. I will admit I was impressed with his speed.

  “Now you’re plain fired. Get. Go on.”

  “You’re that Harney.”

  He cocked the pistol. “And this here device airs out heathen flesh.”

  She looked on the barrel. “Can I pack a bag?”

  He put the pistol back in its place. “By all means, ma’am.”

  The doors was open now and little faces peeked out. Noah called, “This business is closed and your lady fired and this is your one chance to come with us to a place of food and plenty. No more whoring. There’s mommas where we go.”

  Once the first emerged the rest did too. Nine in total. They come down the stairs in their little dresses with their little hair done up in little braids and such. There wasn’t a one of them girls over fourteen.

  * * *

  —

  That afternoon Jane and the other women tended to the new girls and found them families willing to take them on. Susie, the youngest of the girls, looked to be about ten. She hadn’t said a word other than to tell us her name, but she had followed me out into the meadow where Ingrid was grazing. Ingrid trotted close and Susie touched her neck. Ingrid put her nose to Susie’s hair and nibbled. Susie giggled. Then Ingrid lowered her face so Susie might rub her brow. I ain’t never seen such a quick connection between a horse and girl as that one.

  “She trusts you. You been around plenty of horses.”

  “Seen plenty. Never touched one. Only menfolk get to ride horses.”

  I plucked some grass and put it before Ingrid and she bent her neck to nibble it. As she done so, I helped Susie swing a leg over Ingrid’s neck. It was as we used to when it was just us, and Ingrid remembered. She lifted her head and little Susie slid over her mane and to her back. Susie laughed. At the familiar weight, Ingrid’s eyes mellowed to a half blink.

  Jane emerged from the door and called Noah out too. They stood by the stone house and watched as Susie rode Ingrid bareback around the meadow. I called instructions and the little girl listened to none of them, but she kept her fists balled in Ingrid’s mane and her knees locked tight and she wore a smile as bright as June sunshine. Ingrid too trotted with the lightness of old summer. She kept her head high and her tail out, and I could see she was proud of carrying that little girl. A horse can miss home too.

  I turned and there was Annette beside me. “Ain’t nothing more natural than a girl on a pony.”

  “You right on that score.”

  She reached a hand inside her jacket. Out come a bottle of whiskey.

  “Well, then,” I said, taking down my first gulp in days. It was wetter and better than I remembered. “So you ain’t all gravel.”

  She shrugged and took a pull for her own self. “Mostly.”

  Annette was her own critter. She smelled of sweat and horse and her hat was tipped back and dust clung to her wet temples. I will admit my pulse quickened at her sudden proximity. That morning I wondered if we might come to blows, but here she was now sharing her whiskey.

  I returned the favor with my tobacco pouch. Annette took a three-finger pinch and chewed the mess and tucked it in her cheek.

  I saw Jane resting her head on Noah’s chest and his arms wrapped tight around her and the both of the them watching Susie ride circles about that meadow.

  “Where you get the liquor?” I asked.

  “Stole it. You ever make it your own self?”

  “No, but I like that notion. You?”

  “Some. Not me but some fools I know. Don’t taste, but it’ll make you blind.”

  “Blind is good.”

  Annette didn’t laugh. She spat a black stream upon the grass. “Thanks for the ’baccy.”

  * * *

  —

  That evening Constance was looking about the meadow. Her hair was fresh brushed and she wore a new dress, this one a standard wifely affair. Even in that humble cotton, she looked royal to my eye. When she saw me, she walked straight to where I was enjoying a large plug. I knew what she was coming to ask.

  I told her most everything I knew, that Drummond and Greenie had been ordered by her father to deliver Will to the train depot. But I left out Will’s busted knee and the clubs heavy with lead. I told her it was Agent Thorvald who do
ne it.

  I was surprised when Constance took this news without a tear. I do believe the version I offered was less troubling than the horrors she had been imagining all this time.

  “What happened to his body?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

  “They put it on the train.”

  A long while passed and I offered what I had, my chaw, but she didn’t notice.

  She said out of the blue, “He came to live at our house when we were eleven. Both of us. Our birthdays are the same day. That has to be a sign, right? I remember everything. They came by train and Father sent a carriage for them at the station. It was Will’s first carriage ride. They wore the clothing of servants, but they had been without employment so long their seams were tearing and their knees threadbare. I saw them then only as Father did. I did not understand how Will’s people had suffered. I did not understand that he too had hopes beyond the walls of Father’s house. I believed what my father taught me, I believed Will only to be grateful for employment and for our charitable offering of it. He was tall even then and I found it challenging to remove my eyes from his dark face. He scared me a little with his darkness, I will admit. Yet I know for certain Will was more scared of my whiteness than I was of his blackness, and for better reason.

  “But we were the only two children on the estate. It was only a matter of time before we took to each other. Will loved to drive the carriage for pretend, and I was his favorite passenger, and sometimes we would play for hours before remembering our places.

  “We began to play tricks on Charles. Hiding something necessary or replacing something valuable with something earthen. Once,” she smiled, “I dressed in Will’s tails and he in my gown. I talked in his tone and he mimicked mine. We paraded before my mirror as if we were a couple. I loved him even then.”

  She turned to me. “Have you ever loved?”

  “Ain’t had the chance, reckon.”

  “Love is outside the bounds of chance.” Her hair was loose, and she tucked a lock behind her ear.

  It was Greenie I thought of then. For wasn’t it love I felt for him? Yes, but not love like what I saw now in Constance’s eyes.