The Cost of Dying

by Peter Brandvold

  He gazed at Prophet, apparently waiting for recognition of his handle to show in Lou’s eyes. When no sign of recognition came, the little man turned to Colter, who stared back at him with the skin above the bridge of his nose furled dubiously.

  “Jack!” the little man said, throwing his hands out as though to indicate his own diminutive, bizarre-looking self. “Baja Jack! Why, everybody’s heard of Baja Jack!” He paused. “Why, the bean-eaters down here run like frightened children when they hear the name!”

  “We’re new down here,” Colter lied. At least, Prophet wasn’t new down here. But Lou had never heard of Baja Jack, either.

  “Oh, is that so? Hmmm.” The strange little dwarfish man known as Baja Jack scrutinized Colter’s head, since that’s all there was to look at aboveground. He pointed at Colter’s cheek as though he were the first one to come across the Sapinero brand on the redhead’s face. “Say, that’s a nasty tattoo you got there, Red!”

  “Thank you.”

  “Say, Baja Jack?” Prophet said.

  Baja Jack whipped around with a startled grunt. “Huh?”

  “I don’t s’pose you’d see fit to dig us out of here, would ya?” Prophet gave an obsequious grin. “Seein’ as how we’re fellow gringos an’ all.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” Jack said. “I see no reason to rush into things. You rush into things in Mexico, you often find yourself just where you two done found yourselves, and worse!” He gave one of his odd, snorting laughs at that. “Why did Sergeant Casal and them other rurale vermin bury you in the first place?”

  Prophet saw no reason to lie. Especially since it looked as though Baja Jack didn’t favor rurales any more than Prophet himself did. “We killed several others, including Lieutenant Ruiz, back along the trail a piece.”

  “Oh? Really?” Baja Jack fingered the stringy, greasy goat whiskers hanging from his chin. He had more whiskers hanging above his thin upper lip, and they were just as stringy and greasy as those on his chin. “Ruiz, eh? Well, wouldn’t you know Oscar Ruiz was a damn good friend of mine, you two sons of low-down dirty swine sons of putas!”

  Baja Jack fairly roared those last words, bent forward at the waist, his face swelling up and turning as red as a Mexican sunset. He grabbed the Colt .44 from the holster on his left hip, held it barrel-up, and, glaring down at Lou, clicked the hammer back.

  Prophet’s heart thudded. All hope in him died. Yep, this was his final resting place, all right. Right here near where that javelina was getting cooked down to black ashes.

  “Good goin’, Lou,” Colter castigated him.

  “Ah hell,” Prophet said with a sigh.

  He lowered his gaze to the blood-splashed sand in front of his face, awaiting the bullet. He winced, anticipating the .44’s roar though he probably wouldn’t hear it. He’d probably be dead by the time the report reached his ears.

  Snorting laughter sounded.

  Prophet rolled his eyes up to see Baja Jack’s shoulders jerking as, still holding the cocked pistol barrel-up in his right hand, his odd, snorting guffaws bubbled up out of his lumpy chest, beneath the two cartridge bandoliers crisscrossed over his buckskin tunic. His raptorial features were crumpled like wadded-up parchment, and tears dribbled down his cheeks.

  “Don’t you realize I’m just joshin’ with you fellers?” Baja Jack threw his head back and gave a croaking, rasping yell at the sky, throwing both his stubby arms up and firing a slug into the sun glaring down at him. Lowering his arms, he turned to Lou again and said, “I always did hate that snake Ruiz, and Casal even more. In my book, there ain’t no such thing as a good rurale lessen it’s a dead rurale!”

  Baja Jack holstered his pistol and waved toward the men sitting their horses behind him. Continuing to chuckle at his joke, which he’d taken such open delight in, as though it were the best prank he’d ever come up with, he yelled, “Dig ’em out, boys!” He repeated the order in fluent Spanish, ostensibly for those Mexicans in his gang who did not understand English.

  Prophet was almost giddy with the prospect of being freed from his earthy confinement. Still, he eyed Baja Jack warily. He wasn’t sure if he and Colter hadn’t leaped from the frying pan into one more fire.

  A half-dozen men grabbed the folding camp shovels of the dead rurales and three each set to work digging away the sand from around Lou and Colter. Prophet watched each shovelful as it was scooped up and tossed away. Each shovelful of sand was a stay of execution.

  When he could work his arms free of the ground, he clawed at the sand. Baja Jack’s men continued digging around him until he could, with deep grunts of exertion, pull each of his legs free of the sucking ground. He clawed as though out of quicksand away from the hole. So did Colter until they both lay side by side, breathing hard.

  Prophet glanced at the sand-caked redhead. “Next time you see me headin’ to Mexico, you might want to try a different direction.”

  “Duly noted.”

  Chapter 26

  Prophet looked up from where he lay on the ground now as opposed to inside of it.

  Baja Jack and his men had gathered around Lou and Colter’s fire. They’d broken out their knives and were cutting meat from the charred javelina and eating hungrily, letting the juices dribble down their chins and onto their tunics, jackets, and vests, wiping their hands on their leggings.

  Jack himself held a big, charred knuckle in one hand and, chewing, eyed Lou and Colter with his customary, cross-eyed amusement tainted with a discomfiting insanity.

  “Feel good, now, partners? You feel better now, to be free of the earth? The earth—she can wait, huh, until you are much older men? The earth—she feels better when we’re old and used up. Then, she’s not so unwelcome.”

  Jack’s shoulders jerked as he laughed and continued to chew the knuckle like a hungry cur. “That’s no place for a younger man. Come on over here and enjoy some pig. Casal was worthless in most regards, but he could cook a javelina—I’ll give him that. Damn good stuff! Come on. Have some. Just cut off the charred parts!”

  Prophet heaved himself to his feet. He felt suddenly very light but the sand still clung to him, as though death, that black specter, was reluctant to let him go. Old Scratch thought he’d called Lou’s note due at last, and he was about to get some fresh help on the shovel line.

  Lou wriggled around, swinging his arms and kicking his legs, dislodging the remaining sand. He walked over to a rock, sat down, rested his right foot on his left knee, and pried off his boot. “Can’t tell you how much I appreciate the help, Jack.”

  Baja Jack chuckled as he continued feeding, his men standing close around the fire, chopping at the wild pig with their knives. Their horses stood around the perimeter of the fire, reins dangling to the ground. Idly, Prophet wondered where Mean and Ugly was. The horse had probably run off when the shooting had erupted. He was likely close. Lou didn’t see Colter’s coyote dun, either.

  “It is my pleasure, amigo, to rescue two of my fellow Anglos from such a bitter end. The Mexicans—they do have a sense of humor, though, don’t they?”

  “I wasn’t laughing,” Colter said with a weary sigh. He was also sitting on a rock, prying his boots off and dumping out the sand. He kept grumbling, and Lou knew his wounds were grieving him though he was trying to suppress the pain. But, then, Lou was doing the same with all of his own sundry physical grievances.

  Prophet peeled a sandy sock off his left foot and shook it out. “You been down here awhile—eh, Jack?”

  “A while?” Jack laughed again, snorting as he continued chewing the knuckle. “Yeah, I been down here most of my life. My dear old pa was an Englishman, don’t ya know?” He grinned, showing that missing tooth and the remaining, crooked, brown one. “Do I look English to you?”

  “Not a bit,” Prophet admitted. Most Englishmen were pale. Jack was nearly as dark as the charred javelina he was feeding on.

  Jack finished off the knuckle then tossed the bone into the brush lining the arroyo. Using his big bowie knif
e he hacked off a large chunk of javelina and tossed it to Prophet, who caught it against his chest then switched it from hand to hand, chuffing against the heat.

  “Be careful,” Jack warned. “It’s hot!”

  Laughing, he hacked off another chunk of meat and tossed it to Colter. “Careful, Red—”

  “Yeah, I know,” Colter said, juggling the meat like a hot potato. “It’s hot.”

  Again, Jack laughed before hacking off another chunk of meat for himself. He waddled over—and there was no more fitting term for the way the thick, little, buzzard-faced man moved—to a rock near Prophet and sat down on it. His men were now lounging around the fire, sipping coffee from steaming tin cups.

  “Yessir,” the little man said, taking another bite of meat and chewing it tenderly with his rotten teeth, “my dear old pa was an Englishman. Edward Phillip Rynn-Douglas Jr. A dapper little man with short hair and big gentleman’s mustaches, waxed an’ all! Had him a walking stick topped with a silver horse. He was also an adventurer, Pa was.

  “Came from a rich family, but he didn’t get along with me dear old Gramps back in Newcastle, don’t ya know. He was a reader, Pa was . . . and by way of reading he got the adventure bug. Had gold and silver . . . El Dorado and the gold of Montezuma . . . on his brain. So he turned freebooter and hopped a steamer and came West . . . to good ole Mexico. Found just enough gold and silver to stay here, prospecting.

  “Romanced a purty li’l gal—my dear ole mum. She was purty, all right. I reckon that’s where I get my own good looks. Hah!”

  Baja Jack had a good long laugh at that, shaking his head at the sad irony.

  “Injun gal, my ma. From the Cocopa tribe. Purty people, mostly.” Jack shook his head again, sadly. “Anyway, my ma died and Pa got rich and took me to live in Phoenix, where he started up a precious-metals geology trade. Hell, I lived my first twelve years runnin’ wild with him right here in Baja. I didn’t want to live in no damn city . . . eatin’ off china plates and goin’ to school! I misbehaved so Pa sent me to Mexico City to straighten me out. He wanted to make a priest out of me. Hah!

  “He figured that’s all I was fit for, me bein’ scrawny and ugly as a spiny-tailed iguana. Who knows? Maybe it was the best thing. I didn’t think so at the time. Besides, them other kids—them sky-pilots-to-be—they beat holy hell out of me! I was just like Pa, anyways—I wanted gold and silver and purty, smoky-eyed women. Hell, I wanted adventure!”

  John Brian Rynn-Douglas held his stubby, crooked little arms out to both sides, throwing his head back as though offering himself to the sky. “So here I am . . . these fifty long years now. ¡Aquí estoy! Here I am!”

  Colter swallowed a bite of meat and said, “What do you do down here, Jack? Still looking for gold and purty women?”

  “Nah, I’ve had my fill of gold and purty women. I led the outlaw life when I was younger. Killed many men, ravaged women, stole a lot of money. I reckon I softened in my old age. Lost the blood thirst. Now I’m a farmer.”

  “A farmer?” Prophet asked with an incredulous chuff.

  “Sure, a farmer. A campesino. A humble man of the land. Now I tend my plants, drink tequila, read books, and write poetry by candlelight after dark and my chores are finished for the day.” Jack frowned at Prophet before shunting his curious gaze to Colter. “Say . . . what’re you two doin’ down here? You’re a mite off the beaten path, if you don’t mind me sayin’. There ain’t no gold in these rocks, and the señoritas—well, they’re on either shore.”

  Prophet glanced at Colter. The redhead arched a dubious brow.

  Lou was wondering if he should relay his intention to kill Ciaran Yeats to Baja Jack. Why not? He doubted Jack had any liking for the crazy gringo major running off his leash in the land Jack obviously considered his home.

  “I’ll tell you what we’re doing down here, Jack. Then maybe you can tell me where we can find the hombre we aim to do it to.” Prophet ate the last of the javelina meat and wiped his hands on his trousers. He swallowed and said, “We’re down here to—”

  “Ahh,” Jack interrupted, looking off over Lou’s left shoulder. “There are my beauties now! I was wondering where they were. They probably ran off when the shooting started but leave it to old Pepe to keep a close eye on my precious boys and girls . . . and of course the precious cargo on their backs!”

  Prophet turned to see a withered old gray-haired man dressed in the ragged garb of a campesino including striped poncho and frayed straw sombrero riding a mule between two rock outcroppings to the east. The man was trailing four—no, five—burros on lead lines. The asses wore packsaddles and bulging panniers.

  “Hello, my pretty ones!” Jack called, grinning like a proud father. He proceeded to call out the names of each burro in turn—Rosalia, Joaquin, Piedad, Anselmo, and Escorpión. “I call this one Scorpion,” said Jack, sandwiching the head of a spotted dun burro in his hands and giving it a brusque but loving pat, “because while he has the gentlest of eyes, he has a wicked temper. No, no, this one you do not cross, and you do not turn your back on him, amigos!”

  That cackling laugh . . .

  Jack had to rise up on the toes of his boots to plant a kiss on the docile-looking burro’s head, between its jackass ears. The burro gave a friendly whicker then stomped a hind foot at a blackfly.

  Jack beckoned to Lou and Colter. “Come, come and see the fruits of my labor, gentlemen. This is my latest enterprise, and oh, what a lucrative one it is!”

  Prophet heaved himself to his feet. He was feeling better now after the javelina had padded out his belly, though his head still owned a dull ache no doubt owing to the tainted scorpion juice he’d been given by Señor Anaya in La Bachata.

  Jack beckoned again, smiling like a proud groom about to sneak a forbidden peek at his bride. He walked over to the pannier strapped to the aparejo on Escorpión’s left side. He unbuckled the pannier’s straps, opened the flap, and dipped his hand inside. Smiling dreamily, he pulled out his hand and sniffed.

  The dreamy expression grew until his eyes drifted up until they were nearly out of sight in their deep, wizened sockets. “Ahhhh!”

  He held the hand out to Prophet and Colter. The man’s small, dark hand held what appeared to be a pile of dried weeds and pinelike buds. Prophet recognized it even before he sniffed it. Ganja. Cush. Locoweed. Marijuana. The Orientals he’d known in Tombstone called it the magic dragon or dream spice. The substance was plentiful in some parts of the West. Lou had seen an entire storeroom of the stuff drying from the rafters in a parlor house in Dodge City.

  He’d enjoyed a few puffs but hadn’t liked it much. It smelled like skunkweed to him and made him fall asleep and dream crazy. Under the locoweed’s influence, it had taken him nearly a half hour to pull a single boot off. After he’d finally gotten both boots off, with the help of a kind doxie, it took him another half hour to remember how to make love to a woman. Even worse, it made him laugh like a cork-headed moron.

  Give Prophet a bottle of medium-grade tequila any day over the giggle weed.

  “This is what you farm?” Lou asked skeptically.

  Baja Jack nodded. He sniffed the weed again then returned it very carefully to the pannier. “Oh yes. A wonderful crop it is, too. It makes one nearly as happy to grow as to smoke.” He glanced at the men lounging around the fire. “Ain’t that right, amigos?” He repeated the question in Spanish.

  The men’s replies ran the spectrum from knowing grins to affirmative laughter. They’d sated themselves on the pig and were now lying back, some snoozing, some drinking coffee, one strumming a small mandolin and singing softly, two playing poker, while the dead rurales remained in their own blood pools.

  Baja Jack’s men were a strange, ragged lot—most of them Mexican with a few Anglos. Even the Anglos appeared Mexican, though, as was often the case when an Anglo stayed down here long enough. They might have blue eyes and ginger beards, but there was an aloofness in their bearings that made them seem almost more Mexican than American.
Or, at the very least, a strange hybrid of both that became its own separate race.

  That was evident in Baja Jack himself, who couldn’t look more Mexican, with a good bit of Baja Indio thrown in, but who acted and sounded americano. That he was also a little touched was obvious. Maybe that came from such a mixed heritage, from wandering from one place to another and then from living so long down here in Baja, a strange land, for sure.

  Or maybe he was woolly-headed on his own weed.

  “Where are you goin’ with the locoweed, Baja Jack?” Colter asked.

  Jack grinned as he secured the pannier’s straps. “My men and I are taking our crop to market.” He smiled again and poked his sombrero brim back off his bulbous forehead. “We have a customer. A very rich man who enjoys our special crop very much. His life depends on it, in fact.”

  Lou felt his lower jaw drop.

  Colter looked at him. His own jaw was sagging.

  Prophet licked his lips, cleared his throat. “Who, uh . . . who is this fella, Baja Jack?”

  Jack shrugged a shoulder. “I see no reason not to say. Most in Baja have heard of him and his, uh, somewhat strange ways—at least judging by most men’s standards. Most men have heard of him but few have seen him . . . or seen him and lived to tell about it.”

  That cackling, crowlike laugh again. “He is the Mad American Major himself—Ciaran Yeats of Baluarte Santiago!”

  Colter whipped an astonished gaze at Prophet, whose heart kicked like a mule in his chest.

  When Baja Jack sobered, he looked at Lou and Colter and arched a speculative brow. “Say, why don’t you amigos throw in with us on the trail to Baluarte Santiago?” He grinned seedily. “Yeats throws a hell of a party!”

  Chapter 27

  “¡El país de Dios!” said Baja Jack about forty-five minutes later as his men, his precious cargo, Lou Prophet, and Colter Farrow were all riding the trail toward Ciaran Yeats. “God’s country. Wouldn’t you say, amigos?”