The Last Ride of German Freddie

by Walter Jon Williams

  So why, when I perceive these Cowboys in their huge sombreros, their gaudy kerchiefs and doeskin trousers, do I see instead the old Romans in their ringing bronze?

  From such as these did Romulus spring! For who was Romulus?—a tyrant, a bandit, a man who harbored runaways and stole the cattle—and the daughters—of his neighbors. Yet he was noble, yet a hero, yet he spawned a great Empire. History trembles before his memory.

  And now the Romans have come again! Riding into Tombstone with their rifles in the scabbards!

  All the old Roman virtues I see among them. They are frank, truthful, loyal, and above all healthy. They hold the lives of men—their own included—in contempt. Nothing is more refreshing and wholesome than this lack of pity, this disdain for the so-called civilized virtues. They are from the American South, of course, that defeated country now sunk in ruin and oppression. They are too young to have fought in the Civil War, but not so young they did not see its horrors. This exposure to life's cruelties, when they were still at a tender age, must have hardened them against pieties and hypocrisies of the world. Not for them the mad egotism of the ascetic, the persistent morbidity—the sickness—of the civilized man. These heroes abandoned their defeated country and came west—west, where the new Rome will be born!

  If only they can be brought to treasure their virtues as I do. But they treat themselves as carelessly as they treat everything. They possess all virtues but one: the will to power. They have it in themselves to dominate, to rule—not through these petty maneuverings at the polls with which Brocius is so unwisely intoxicated, but through themselves, their desires, their guns ... They can create an empire here, and must, if their virtues are to survive. It is not enough to avoid the law, avoid civilization—they must wish to destroy the inverted virtues that oppose them.

  Who shall win? Tottering, hypnotized, sunken Civilization, or this new Rome? Ridiculous, when we consider numbers, when we consider mere guns and iron. Yet what was Romulus?—a bandit, crouched on his Palatine Hill. Yet nothing could stand in his way. His will was greater than that of the whole rotten world.

  And—as these classical allusions seem irresistible—what are we to make of the appearance of Helen of Troy? Who better to signal the end of an empire? Familiar with Goethe's superior work, I forgot that Helen does not speak in Marlowe's Faustus, she simply parades along and inspires poetry. But when she looked at our good German metaphysician, that eye of hers spoke mischief that had nothing to do with verse—and the actor knew it, for he stammered. Such a sexual being as this Helen was not envisioned by the good British Marlowe, whom we are led to believe did not with women.

  I do not see such a girl cleaving to Behan for long—his blood is too thin for the likes of her.

  And when she tires of him—beware, Behan! Beware, Faustus! Beware, Troy!

  *

  Freddie met Sheriff Behan's girl at the victory party following the election. Brocius' election strategy had borne fruit, of a sort—but Johnny Behan was rotten fruit, Freddie thought, and would fall to the ground ere long.

  The Occidental Saloon with filled with celebration and a hundred drunken Cowboys. Even Wyatt Earp turned up, glooming in his black coat and drooping mustaches, still secure in the illusion that Behan would hire him as a deputy; but at the sight of the company his face wrinkled as if he'd just bit on a lemon, and he did not stay long.

  Amid all this roistering inebriation, Freddie saw Behan's girl perched on the long bar, surrounded by a crowd of men and kicking her heels in the air in a white froth of petticoats. Freddie was surprised—he had rarely in his life met a woman who would enter a saloon, let alone behave so freely in one, and among a crowd of rowdy drunks. Behan—a natty Irishman in a derby—stood nearby and accepted congratulations and bumper after bumper of the finest French champagne.

  Freddie offered Behan his perfunctory congratulations, then made his way to the bar where he saw John Ringo crouched protectively around a half-empty bottle of whisky. “I have drunk deep of the Pierian,” Ringo said, “and drunk disgustingly. Will you join me?”

  “No,.” said Freddie, and ordered soda water. The noise of the room battered at his nerves. He would not stay long—he would go to another saloon, perhaps, and find a game of cards.

  Ringo's melancholy eyes roamed the room. “Freddie, you do not look overjoyed,.” he said.

  Freddie looked at his drink. “Men selling their freedom to become citizens,” he snarled. “And they call it a victory.” He looked toward Behan, felt his lips curl. “Victory makes stupid,.” he said. “I learned that in Germany, in 1870.”

  “Why so gloomy, boys?.” cried a woman's voice in a surprising New York accent. “Don't you know it's a party?.” Behan's girl leaned toward them, half-lying across the polished mahogany bar. She was younger than Freddie had expected—not yet twenty, he thought.

  Ringo brightened a little—he liked the ladies. “Have you met German Freddie, Josie?” he said. “Freddie here doesn't like elections”

  Josie laughed and waved her glass of champagne. “I don't know that we had a real election, Freddie,” she called. “Think of it as being more like a great big felony.”

  Cowboy voices roared with laughter. Freddie found himself smiling behind his bushy mustache. Ringo, suddenly merry, grabbed Freddie's arm and hauled him toward Josie.

  “Freddie here used to be a Professor of Philosophy back in Germany,” Ringo said. “He was told to come West for his health.” Ringo looked at Freddie in a kind of amazement. “Can you picture that?”

  Freddie—who had come West to die—said merely, “Philology. Switzerland,.” and sipped his soda water.

  “You should have him tell you about how we're all Supermen,” Ringo said.

  Freddie stiffened. “You are not Supermen,” he said.

  “You're the Superman, then,” Ringo said, swaying. The drunken raillery smoothed the sad lines of his eyes.

  “I am the Superman's prophet,” Freddie said with careful dignity. “And the Superman will be among your children, I think—he will come from America.”

  “I suppose I'd better get busy and have some children, then, Ringo said.

  Josie watched this byplay with interest. Her hair was raven black, Freddie saw, and worn long, streaming down her shoulders. Her nose was proudly arched. Her eyes were large and brown and heavy-lidded—the heavy lids gave her a sultry look. She leaned toward Freddie.

  “Tell me some philology,” she said.

  He looked up at her. “You are the first American I have met who knows the word.”

  “I know a lot of words.” With a laugh she pressed his wrist—it was all Freddie could do not to jump a foot at the unexpected touch. Instead he looked at her sternly.

  “Do you know the Latin word bonus?” he demanded.

  She shook her head. “It doesn't mean something extra?”

  “In English, yes. In Latin, bonus means ‘good.’ Good as opposed to bad. But my question—the important question to a philologist—“ He gave a nervous shrug of his shoulders. “The question is what the Romans meant by ‘good,’ you see? Because bonus is derived from duonus, or duen-lum, and from duen-lum is also derived duellum, thence bellum. Which means war.”

  Josie followed this with interest. “So war was good, to a Roman?”

  Freddie shook his head. “Not quite. It was the warlike man, the bringer of strife, that was good, as we see also from bellus, which is clearly derived from bellum and means handsome—another way of saying good. You understand?”

  He could see thoughts working their way across her face. She was drunk, of course, and that slowed things down. “So the Romans—the Roman warriors—thought of themselves as good? By definition, good?”

  Freddie nodded. “All the aristocrats did—all aristocrats, all conquerors. The aristocratic political party in ancient Rome called themselves the boni—the good. They assumed their own values were universal virtues, that all goodness was embedded in themselves—and that the values which were not th
eirs were debased. Look at the words they use to describe the opposite of their bonus—plebeian, common, base. Even in English—'debased' means made common.” He warmed to the subject, English words spilling out past his thick German tongue. “And in Greece the rulers of Megara used esthlos to describe themselves—'the true,' the real, as opposed to the ordinary, which for them did not have a real existence.” He laughed. “To believe that you are the only real thing. That is an ego speaking! That is a ruler—very much like the Brahmins, who believe their egos are immortal but that all other reality is illusion ...”

  He paused, words frozen in his mouth, as he saw the identical, quizzical expression in the faces of both Ringo and Josie. They must think I'm crazy, he thought. He took a sip of soda water to relieve his nervousness. “Well,” he said. “That is some philological thought for you.”

  “Don't stop,” said Josie. “This is the most interesting thing I've heard all night.”

  Freddie only shook his head.

  And suddenly there was gunfire, Freddie's nerves leaping with each thunderclap as he ducked beneath the level of the bar, his hand reaching for the pistol which, of course, he had left in his little room.

  Ceiling lathes came spilling down, and there was a burst of coarse laughter. Freddie saw Curly Bill Brocius standing amid a grey cloud of gunsmoke. Unlike Freddie, Brocius had disregarded the town ordnance forbidding firearms in saloons or other public places, and in an excess of bonhomie had fanned his modified revolver at the ceiling.

  Freddie slowly rose to his feet. His heart lurched in his chest, and a kind of sickness rose in his throat. He had to hold onto the bar for support.

  Josie sat perfectly erect on the mahogany surface, face flushed, eyes wide and glittering, lips parted in frozen surprise. Then she shook her head and slipped to the floor amid a silken waterfall of skirts. She looked up at Freddie, then gave a sudden gay laugh. “These men of strife, these boni,” she said, “are getting a little too good for my taste. Will you take me home, sir?”

  “I—” Freddie felt heat rise beneath his collar. Gunsmoke stung his nostrils. “But Mr. Behan—?”

  She cast a look over her shoulder at the new sheriff. “He won't want to leave his friends,” she said. “And besides, I'd prefer an escort who's sober.”

  Freddie looked at Ringo for help, but Ringo was too drunk to walk ten feet without falling, and Freddie knew his abstemious habits had him trapped.

  “Yes, miss,” he said. “We shall walk, then.”

  He led Josie from the roistering crowd and walked with her down dusty Allen Street. Her arm in his felt very strange, like a half-forgotten memory. He wondered how long it had been since he had a woman on his arm—seven or eight years, probably, and the woman his sister.

  In the darkness he sensed her looking up at him. “What's your last name, Freddie?” she asked.

  “Nietzsche.”

  “Gesundheit!” she cried.

  Freddie smiled in silence. She was not the first American to have made that joke.

  “Don't you drink, Freddie?” Josie asked. “Is it against your principles?”

  “It makes me ill,” Freddie said. “I have to watch my diet, also.”

  “Johnny said you came West for your health.”

  It was phrased like a statement, but Freddie knew it was a question. He did not mind the intrusion: he had no secrets. “I volunteered for the war,” he said, and at her look, clarified, “the war with France. I caught diphtheria and some kind of dysentery—typhus or cholera. I did not make a good recovery, and I could not work.” He did not mention the other problems, the nervous complaints, the sudden attacks of migraine, the cold, sick dread of dying as his father had died, mad and screaming.

  “We turn here,” Josie said. They turned left on Fifth Street. On the far side of the street was the Oriental Saloon, where Wyatt Earp earned his living dealing faro. Freddie glanced at the windows, saw Earp himself bathed in yellow light, standing, smoking a cigar and engaged in conversation with Holliday. To judge by his look, the topic was a grim one.

  “Look!” Freddie said in sudden scorn. “In that black coat of his, Earp looks like the Angel of Death come to claim his consumptive friend.”

  The light of the saloon gleamed on Josie's smile. “Wyatt Earp's a handsome man, don't you think?”

  “I think he is too gloomy.”

  She turned to him. “You're the gloomy one.”

  He nodded as they paced along. “Yes,” he admitted. “That is just.”

  “You are a sneeze,” she said. “He is a belch.”

  Freddie smiled to himself as they crossed Fremont Street. “I will tell him this, when I see him next.”

  “Tell me about the Superman.”

  Freddie shook his head. “Not now.”

  “But you will tell me some other time?”

  “If you wish.” Politely, doubting he would speak a word to her after this night.

  “Here's our house.” It was a small place that she shared with Behan, frame, unpainted, like the rest of the town thrown up overnight.

  “I will bid you good-night, then,” he said formally.

  She turned to face him, lifted her face toward his. “You can come in, if you like,” she said. “Johnny won't be back for hours.”

  He looked into her eyes and saw Troy there, on fire in the night.

  “Good-night, miss,” he said, and touching his hat he turned away.

  *

  She is a Jewess! Freddie wrote in his journals. Run away from her family of good German bourgeois Jews—no doubt of the most insufferable type—to become, here in Tombstone, a goddess among the barbarians.

  Or so Brocius tells us. He says her name is Josephine Marcus, sometimes called Sadie.

  I believe I understand this Helen now. She has sprung from the strangest people in all history, they who have endured a thousand persecutions, and so become wise-cunning. The world has tried with great energy to make the Jews base, by confining them to occupations that the world despises, and by depriving them of any hope of honor. Yet they themselves have never ceased to believe in their own high calling; and they are honored by the dignity with which they face their tormentors.

  And how should we think them base? From the Jews sprang the most powerful book in history, the most effective moral law, Spinoza the most sublime philosopher, and Christ the last Christian. When Europe was sunk in barbarism, it was the Jewish philosophers who preserved for us the genius of the ancients.

  Yet all people must have their self-respect, and self-respect demands that one repay both good and bad. Without the ability to occasionally revenge themselves upon their despisers, they could scarcely have held up their heads. The usury of which the Jews are accused is the least of it; it was the subtle, twisted, deceitful Jewish revolution in morals that truly destroyed the ancients—that took the natural, healthy joy of freedom, life, and power, that twisted and inverted that joy, that planted this fatal sickness among their enemies. Thus was the Jewish vengeance upon Rome.

  And this is the tradition that our Helen has inherited. Her very existence here is a vengeance upon all that have tormented her people from the beginning of time. She is beautiful, she is gay ... and what does she care if Troy burns? Or Rome? Or Tombstone?

  *

  When next Freddie encountered Josie, he was vomiting in the dust of Toughnut Street.

  He had felt the migraine coming on earlier, but he was playing against a table of drunken stockmen who were celebrating the sale of their beeves and who were losing their money almost as fast as they could shove it across the table. Freddie was determined to fight on as long as the cards fell his way.

  By the time he left the Occidental he was nearly blind with pain. The clink of the winnings in his pocket sounded in his ears like bronze bells. The Arizona sun flamed on his skull. He staggered two blocks—people turned their eyes from him, as if he were drunk—and then collapsed as the cramp seized his stomach. People hurried away from him as he emptied the contents
of his stomach into the dust. The spasms wracked him long after he had nothing left to vomit.

  Freddie heard footsteps, then felt the firm touch of a hand on his arm. “Freddie? Shall I get a doctor?”

  Humiliation burned in his face. He had no wish that his helplessness should even be acknowledged—he could face those people who hurried away, there could be a pretense that they had seen nothing, but he couldn't bear that another person should see him in his weakness.

  “It is normal,” he gasped. “Migraine. I have medicine in my room.”

  “Can you get up? I'll help you.”

  He wiped his face with his handkerchief, and then her hand steadied him as he groped his way to his feet. His spectacles were hanging from one ear, and he adjusted them. It didn't help—his vision had narrowed to the point where it seemed he was looking at the world through the wrong end of a telescope. He shuffled down Toughnut toward his room—he rented the back room of a house belonging to a mining engineer and his family, and paid the wife extra for meals that would not torment his digestion. He groped for the door, pushed it open, and stumbled toward the bed. He swiped off the pyramid of books that lay on the blanket and threw himself onto the mattress. A whirlwind spun through his head.

  “Thank you,” he muttered. “Please go now.”

  “Where is your medicine?”

  He gestured vaguely to the wooden box by his wash basin. “There. Just bring me the box.”

  He heard her boot-heels booming like pistol-shots on the wooden floor, and fought down another attack of nausea. He heard her open the velvet-padded box and scrutinize the contents. “Chloral hydrate!” she said. “Veronal! Do you take this all the time?”