Gunpoint

by Giles Tippette

  I said, “Looks ready to run.”

  Wilson pushed away from the fence. “You can bet so is Bank Money. We better get in. I reckon them girls have about got supper ready.”

  * * *

  We had quisado, which is a kind of Mexican stew that is pretty spicy, along with mashed-up avocados with lime juice, and fried rice and beans. The girls could have been sisters or cousins, but they were still as alike as two peas in a pod. Evita, Wilson’s girl, was maybe a little older. I figured her to be around twenty or twenty-one, though it was difficult to tell with Spanish females because they matured faster than Anglo stock, as some folks called it. Lupita appeared to be about two years younger. But they were both a treat for the eyes with shining black hair and pretty faces and figures that would put a swelling in your pants just looking at them. They wore kind of loose, low-cut blouses of some soft material, and when one or the other of them bent over, a man could see their young, erect breasts. I tell you, it was a chore for me to keep on thinking pure thoughts.

  Wilson didn’t tell me where he’d got Evita and I didn’t ask him. I didn’t know if she lived with him regular or just visited from time to time. But one thing for certain, neither girl acted like a puta, a whore. These girls were from good families, knew enough English to get along, and had plenty of manners. I was just content to look at them and listen to them laugh—hell, they laughed at everything—and enjoy being waited on by such good-looking women and have a good time. Where they came from was none of my business.

  Wilson didn’t have any whiskey, just brandy. But after a couple of drinks it didn’t much matter. In fact I decided, before the evening was over, that I was getting damned partial to brandy. But before the evening was over I was partial to just about damn near everything.

  After supper Wilson and I sat out in the evening air eating watermelon. The night was pleasantly cool after the heat of the day. In the distance I could hear the yowl of a coyote, and closer, the soft sound of the grass swishing in the light wind. One of the horses in the barn neighed, causing another one to answer. I said, “You got a nice place here. Gambling must be paying pretty well.”

  “Well, I was a little different than your average robber. I laid a little something aside against hard times. Had a kind of wife then, and she was good about such things. We were always going to give up the outlaw business and get lost up in the Dakotas or some such place.” He put his watermelon down on the floor beside his chair and lit a cigarillo. “She didn’t want to live in Mexico.”

  “What happened?”

  He shrugged. “We didn’t quit in time. She got killed by a stray bullet when some marshals were trying to smoke me out I wasn’t even in the house at the time.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged again. “There’s a price for everything.”

  “What do you mean she was kind of your wife?”

  “We never had the words said over us, but she was a wife to me just the same. I got her out of a whorehouse in Galveston.”

  He blew out a breath of cigarillo smoke. It looked blue against the light night sky. “Listen, why don’t you stay here tonight? You’ll be drunk pretty soon and you don’t want to be going to all the trouble of going back across the river. Besides, if you spend the night we can run the black against the roan. That would at least give us some idea how he’s coming along.”

  I got out a cigarillo myself and lit it. I frowned. “What about Lupita?”

  “Either way,” he said.

  “I meant what I said. Ain’t nothing I’d rather do right now than cut me off a piece of that little girl, but I just can’t.”

  “Hell, don’t worry about it. I got another bedroom here. Well, it ain’t exactly a bedroom, but it’s got a bunk bed in it. Ain’t even room enough for two people in it.”

  “I don’t want to hurt Lupita’s feelings. You know what I mean?” I was aware I was already starting to get a little drunk. That damn brandy would sneak up on you. Wasn’t as honest as whiskey. It was too mellow, too smooth. Hell, you didn’t even know you were drinking much of anything until it was too late. “I mean, what about Lupita?”

  “Hell, don’t worry about it. I’ll talk to her. Let’s go inside and have a drink. Girls ought to have everything cleaned up in the kitchen. Maybe we can get them to dance for us. They’re both professionals, you know. Dancers, I mean.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Next morning I didn’t remember going to bed, but I figured I’d remember getting up for the rest of my life. I come to without any clothes on, sleeping about half on and half off the little bunkhouse cot. I’d somehow managed to get my head up underneath the frame at the top of the bed, and I nearly lost an ear getting it out. After that I set about pulling on a pair of jeans. It was near as hard a job as I’d ever had in my life. When I’d got them on in some fashion, I staggered out into the sitting room not bothering with a shirt or boots or anything else. Wilson was sitting on the floor, his back against the front wall, dressed about the same as me. The only difference was that he had one sock on.

  I slumped down in a chair. My mouth was parched. Wilson looked at me. He was sipping at a glass of something. I said, “I got to have some water.” It come out a croak, my mouth was so dry.

  About then Lupita came out of the kitchen carrying a big glass of something kind of amber-colored. She looked every bit as pretty, but I was in no mood to appreciate it. She said, “Usted tiene mucho crudo. ”

  I said, “Yes, I’ve got a hell of a hangover. I need some water.”

  She was holding the glass out. “What’s that?” I asked.

  Wilson said, “Drink it.”

  I took it and raised it to my lips. The smell of brandy hit me right in the nose and I pushed it out at arm’s length.

  “Drink it!” Wilson said. “It’s the only thing that will save your life.”

  I did as I was told. I took the glass and drank off a third of it. I waited, cautiously, wondering if it was going to stay down. When it appeared it was I took a couple more gulps. It didn’t taste bad at all, kind of like lemonade with some other stuff in it. Now I started sipping, like Wilson was doing with his own glass.

  After a time I began to feel better. Lupita was standing right in front of my chair watching me. I looked up at her trying to remember what all had happened the night before. Here it was morning and she was still here. I wondered where she’d slept.

  Gradually the pain in my head was easing up and I began to feel as if I was going to live. My stomach wasn’t near as queasy as it had been, and I thought there was just a chance I might see another five minutes without throwing up.

  We sat there, sipping at the concoction, me in a big leather chair, Wilson slumped on the floor. I finally said, “What’s in this stuff?”

  Wilson shook his head, slowly and carefully. “Don’t know,” he said. “Evita mixes it up. Works. All I know.”

  “Tastes a little like greasy lemonade. Without any sugar.”

  “Yeah. Got lemons in it. Got a little brandy. Or whatever it was bit you the night before. Then a bunch of herbs and shit. And some kind of cactus squeezings. Aloe something. What makes it oily.”

  A few minutes later I said, “I ain’t staying at your house anymore. Man could die here.”

  But truth be told, it had done me good to get drunk and let loose. For weeks I’d been wound tight as bailing wire, my nerves right up to the edge of being stretched as far as they could be. I’d been too worried. A man with responsibilities has to worry, but I’d been worrying so much I hadn’t been thinking as well as I ought.

  I said, “How’d I get to bed?”

  Wilson said, “How the hell do I know? I don’t even know how I got to bed.”

  “Did you tell me those girls were dancers?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “I dunno. Just never met no dancers before. Where they dance?”

  “In a big thing they call a cabaret. I think it’s kind of like a cantina, only more high-class.”

&nbs
p; “They one of them around here?” I couldn’t imagine such a thing in a poor village like Villa Acuna.

  “In Monterrey.”

  “Hell, Monterrey is a hundred miles away. What are they doing here?”

  “Goddammit, you must be feeling a lot better than I am all the talking you’re doing.” He raised his voice and said, “Evita!” and winced. When she came he held out his glass. She took it and then motioned for me to finish mine. I did, and she brought us each a second of the same.

  “They dance last night?”

  Wilson was still hanging his head. “Hell, ask them. I don’t know.”

  Lupita said, “Yes, Senor Williams. We danced for you. Several times. We kicked up the dresses, the skirts? Is that right in English?”

  “Kicked up your heels,” I said.

  “No,” Wilson said, still looking down at the floor. “They kicked up their dresses. I remember that.”

  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t much care for where the talk was headed. Besides, I was starting to feel better. I didn’t know if it was the cactus juice or the lemonade or the brandy, but whatever was in the glass was bringing me around.

  After a while Wilson began to rally, and we went into the kitchen and sat around a little table and ate chili and eggs. After that we felt well enough to get dressed. We walked out into the cool of the early day. Wilson said, “I ain’t got another light saddle to put on the roan colt. You’ll just have to use your regular saddle.”

  “It ought to give us some idea,” I said.

  We saddled and bridled the horses ourselves. All of Wilson’s hired help were off doing something else. We led the horses outside and then swung aboard. Wilson led the way across the pasture to the road we’d come out of town on the night before. We pulled up at the edge. It was good and flat and straight. Wilson said, “I got what I figure is a mile measured off, but do we want to run that far?”

  I shook my head. “We know the black has got endurance. What we’re interested in is his speed. Besides, I don’t want to run the colt hard for a solid mile. Let’s just start them and see how it goes.”

  We spent fifteen or twenty minutes slowly warming the horses up, walking them up and down the road and then putting them in a slow lope, or a canter for the Thoroughbred, and finally in a short, slow gallop. After that we let them have a blow until they were breathing easily. The sun was starting to warm up the country and both horses were sweating lightly. Wilson said, “You about ready?”

  “Let’s give it a try.”

  “Give me the best race you can for as long as you think it’s all right for the colt. Don’t push him.”

  “I ain’t going to push him. I told you that.”

  We lined up side by side on the road. Both horses started acting like they knew they were about to be in a race, though I didn’t know where the colt got the idea since the only races he’d ever been in were at the fairgrounds. But both of them were kind of dancing around, sawing their heads up and down. Wilson said, “You ready?”

  “Yeah.” I leaned forward on the colt and took a rein in each hand. I’d seen that was the way the jockeys out at the fairgrounds did it, sort of plow-reining their mounts. And leaning forward, they held the reins much closer down their length than you would if you were sitting upright.

  Wilson said, “Go!”

  The colt burst away under me, seeming to be almost in a dead run within a few strides. But even so the black was off the mark equally as fast. But I was surprised at how well the colt was running. For what I estimated to be a quarter of a mile or a little more the colt was matching strides with the black, even sticking his nose out in front for a brief second or two. But then that long, flowing stride of the black began to tell and Wilson gradually began to pull away. Little by little I slowed the colt. That was no mean feat in itself because he still wanted to run and he didn’t like that other horse getting away from him. I watched Wilson going on down the road. The black just seemed to flow along, eating up the road without seeming to have to put out much effort. I got the roan stopped, and then stood there in the road and watched Wilson, now about a half a mile away, slowing the black and turning him to come back to us.

  You could see the black was still full of run. He came down the road in a sort of dancing, sideways canter. Finally Wilson pulled him down to a walk and came up to us and stopped. I said, “You going to work him anymore this morning?”

  He shook his head. “Naw, this was just a test. I’m going to give him a pretty good gallop this afternoon, but we’ll let him go back to the barn and cool off.”

  We turned off the road and started through the pasture to the barn. After a while I said, “Well?”

  Wilson said thoughtfully, “We know that colt of yours is fast. At least coming off the mark.”

  “And the black stayed with him.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And then the black pulled away.”

  “Yeah. Once he hit his racing stride he got faster. And faster.”

  “What do you think?”

  He studied on the question a moment and then he said, “I think if I’d had this horse for a getaway horse when I was robbing banks and other places they kept money, I would have never got shot.”

  “How do you mark him against Bank Money?”

  He shook his head. “If he was ready I’d bet my ranch on this horse. If he’s ready.”

  We took both horses back in the barn, unsaddled them, took off their bridles, and fed them some grain. They’d cooled out enough on the walk back so that it wasn’t necessary to rub them down. I figured I ought to be getting back to Del Rio, but Wilson thought I ought to stay for lunch. He said, “I need another pair of ears to take the load off mine the way them girls chatter. All that talk they make just plumb fills up a room. Ain’t enough room left to change your shirt.”

  “Them girls are from a cabaret show in Monterrey? Dancers?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What are they doing here?”

  We were just about to the house. Wilson stepped up on the rock floor of the porch. “I won them.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. He was about to reach for the door and I grabbed his arm. “You won them?”

  He stood there holding the door half open. “Yeah. I was playing red dog with the fellow that owned the show the girls were dancing in. He run out of money so he throwed Evita into the pot. I won her. Then I won Lupita.”

  “Uh huh,” I said. “And you just stopped at the two?”

  “No, he stopped. He couldn’t afford to lose any more girls or he wouldn’t have been able to put the show on.”

  “So you won them. For life?”

  He gave me an amazed look. “Have you gone loco? You can’t win somebody for life. Just a month. They get their same salary, only they just dance for me.” He gave me another look. “Let’s get inside and close this door before every fly in Mexico gets in the house.” He shook his head. “For life! Wait’ll I tell them girls.”

  Wilson Young was a strange, unusual man. I reckoned he made a mighty good friend. I felt like we were becoming friends, though I didn’t think either one of us was the kind to be in a hurry. I knew I’d a hell of a lot rather have him for a friend than an enemy.

  I also did not think that Norris would appreciate his sense of humor.

  When I got back to the hotel in Del Rio I found a telegram. It was from Norris. He wanted confirmation that I wanted $32,000 wired to the bank in Del Rio. It was already near two o’clock according to the clock on the wall behind the hotel desk. I walked out to the street cursing a blue streak. It took time to wire money and there wasn’t a hell of a lot left. Damn, Norris! I thought. Damn his careful ways!

  But then I realized he was right. Thirty-two thousand dollars was an awful lot of money just to whiz off on the basis of one telegram. If it had been done in mistake, if the telegraph people had got the amount wrong and Norris hadn’t checked and had sent it anyway, I’d of had him for breakfast. And he knew it.

  I mad
e it down to the depot and got off another wire to Norris. In it I said the first telegram had been correct and that it was urgent that he get the money wired off right away. I also told him I expected to wind up my business in a few more days and then I would be coming home.

  As I walked back to the hotel I found myself wishing the race was the next day. I was so tired of being gone, it was difficult for me to remember how tired of the ranch and all its demands I’d been.

  And, God, it seemed like I’d been separated from Nora for a year. If I ever got home I was going to keep her in bed for a week.

  That got me to thinking about the night before at Wilson’s house. Had those girls danced? Had they been kicking up their skirts? And how had I managed to get undressed? I didn’t remember undressing myself. I must have, though. Wilson damn sure wouldn’t have done it, even if he hadn’t been as drunk as I was. He’d of done me the same as I’d of done him—thrown me at the bed and hoped I landed right side up. I had the guilty feeling that the girls had undressed me, but I kept my mind off that, wouldn’t let myself think about it, not after I’d been thinking about Nora.

  * * *

  Wilson came in the next morning and we had breakfast. He’d come over to settle his reckoning with the hotel and give up his room. He’d only been staying in Del Rio over the days surrounding the Fourth of July in hopes that the horse racing would have brought in some big gamblers and he might have gotten a few of them in a worthwhile poker game. He said, “And then I had to go and get mixed in with you and end up in a dollar-limit poker game. Cost me a lot of money.”

  He’d worked the black out at dawn and looked in pretty good shape, so I figured the girls hadn’t danced for him the night before. I said, “Get to bed early, did you?”

  He just gave me a slow smile and asked what time my appointment with Flood was. I told him ten o’clock, but that I intended to go to the bank early to tend to some other business. I asked him if he was going to be around.