Wraiths of the Broken Land (4 page)

Alexzander and his four friends went to the pass wherein they would ambush the Texican messengers. Within an abandoned savage dugout, the quintet hid and waited. Two weeks later, the Texican messengers came through the defile—a group of thirty pale gringos.

(The balladeer strummed frantic triplets; the crowd of thirty-one people was still and silent.)

Although they were outnumbered six-to-one, Alexzander’s detachment, armed with old pistols and knives, engaged the enemy. Half of the pale Texicans were slain in the battle, and four of the Mexicans fell dead to the soil that was rightfully theirs. Alexzander was stabbed in the stomach and shot through the left leg. (Humberto plucked his guitarrita violently and paused. Unaccompanied by his instrument, he spoke.) The mission was a failure.

(The balladeer plucked a slow and careful minor key melody.)

Alexzander rose up to his hands and knees and crawled toward the hacienda. He was cold, and he was thirsty, but he did not relent.

(The slow and careful minor key melody was repeated.)

Alexzander reached the hacienda and crawled across the grass, toward the barn wherein he hoped to rendezvous with his beloved, Gabrielle. Night fell as he proceeded, slowly and in great agony, but the Mexican was inexorable.

At dawn, Alexzander entered the barn. He crawled across the hay, past cows with ruptured udders and bloody goats that had devoured their own kind. Gabrielle called out his name, descended from her hiding place and hastened to his side.

(Humberto played the melody that was their love.)

Shortly after they had conceived the baby that would grow up to write and sing this song, Alexzander died in Gabrielle’s arms.

(The audience below the gallows applauded and called out accolades while the final chord decayed.)

“Gracias,” said Humberto. “Gracias.”

Through this ballad, Alexzander lived, and Mexicans knew his name and thought upon the many honorable sacrifices that had been made over five decades earlier by the true people of the land against the pale Texicans. The performer warmed when he saw two octogenarians wipe moisture from their rugose cheeks.

“Bonita cantando,” complimented a weathered septuagenarian who gripped the elongated necks of two dead black hens with her bronze fist.

Gold and silver pesos clinked and buried the blue-felt lining of the guitar case that Humberto had earlier placed at the foot of the gallows. To his benefactors, the balladeer said, “Gracias. Amigos, gracias.”

The size of the crowd was not substantial enough to produce a significant pecuniary sum, but Humberto was not overly concerned. The riders from America would soon allay his financial troubles.

Chapter V
Gringa Madre

The man who smelled like fish guts pinched the woman’s nostrils shut and clapped the palm of his other hand over her mouth. His bare belly dragged north and south along her stomach like a hirsute slug, trailing sour perspiration. In between her legs, fire burned.

The woman bucked in an effort to urge the man who smelled like fish guts toward a hasty climax, certain that once he spilled his fluids, he would release her, apologize and become remorseful. (This was not the first time he had suffocated her.) The man watched her bitten breasts sway and mumbled the word, “Madre.” The woman, a gringa who was ten years his junior, knew that this was the Spanish word for ‘Mother.’

A full minute without air passed.

The pain in-between the woman’s legs sharpened, and the sores upon her back shrieked. Within her abused shell, she suffocated. Her heart pounded out while the man pounded in.

Although she did not relish the life that she now had, the woman did not want to die beneath a fetid wretch who would not notice her expiration until the temperature of her body matched that of the chill subterranean room. Her death should have more meaning than that.

“Gringa madre.”

The woman’s entire body pulsated in time with her desperate heart, and her oxygen-starved lungs burned.

“Madre.” The man’s breath quickened, and his oily belly squeaked across her abdomen, vacillating north and south.

The woman felt her heart pound within her throat.

“Gringa madre.” The hairy belly squeaked.

The woman lost the power of sight and slapped the man’s face as hard as she could.

Hot fluid streamed inside of her.

The hands that clasped her nose and mouth withdrew.

She gasped. Cold air rushed into her burning lungs. After two huge breaths, the woman’s eyesight returned, blurry and with flashing orbs.

“Sorry,” said the man who smelled like fish guts.

The woman began to cough.

“No germs.” Concerned for his safety, the man extracted his diminishing member and rose from the bed.

“Goddamn.” The woman pressed her bruised thighs together.

The man pulled on his red trousers, tied a rope belt around his waist, slid his feet into two leather-and-wood sandals, walked over to a cubbyhole, reached inside, rummaged amongst his possessions, extricated a flat bottle and brought it over to the woman. “Bebes.” He set the vessel upon her stomach. “Good drink.”

The woman examined the wooden flask, which was engraved with the word or name ‘Coco,’ removed its stopper and drank. The liquor tasted like fruity lantern oil, but she consumed it, eager to diminish everything.

After her fourth draught, she pulled a damp sheet over her sore extremities and looked at Coco’s ugly face. “No sofocarse.” (She did not know how to say, ‘It’s nice to meet you,’ in Spanish, but she knew how to say, ‘Don’t suffocate.’)

“Sorry.” Upon the far corner of the wooden bed, Coco tilted his lumpy head forward and stared at his terrible toes, which looked like root vegetables arranged in two groups of five. His face was heavy with remorse.

The woman saw an opportunity.

“I am going to tell the big jefe that you did sofocarse to me.” (A dead whore had even less value than a coyote carcass, and thus asphyxiation was a forbidden diversion.)

The lumpy head swiveled toward the woman. “It was accident.” The root vegetables in his sandals stirred anxiously. “I tol’ you I am sorry.” He swallowed dryly. “No tell Gris.”

“If I tell Gris you did sofocarse, he will not let you come to the big fiesta. And no more gringa madre for you ever again.”

Employing whatever cogitating vapors were trapped within his skull, Coco contemplated his predicament. “I only play. I never never hurt the gringa madre for real—I was playing.”

“Do something for me and I won’t tell Gris what you did.”

“What you wanting?” asked Coco. “I cannot get you escape from here.”

“I want information. I want to know if somebody’s still alive.”

“Who?”

“The blonde woman they brought here with me.”

“What is her name?” inquired Coco.

“Yvette.”

“Ella es tu hermanita?”

“Si,” Dolores responded, “she’s my little sister.”

Chapter VI
Unsafe and Safe Ventures

Wearing his yellow riding outfit, Nathaniel Stromler rode his tan mare along the central avenue of Leesville, toward the blacksmith’s forge where he was to meet his future employers. A homogeneous blanket of gray clouds covered the vault, diffused the sun and threw the world into a drear limbo from which no person could divine the time of day. Underneath the effulgent slate, the gentleman and his horse failed to cast shadows.

A crucifix that was only slightly darker than its dull surroundings glided across ashen sky, toward the avenue. Presently, Nathaniel, a novice birdwatcher, determined that it was some type of hawk.

A thin black line sprouted from the creature’s neck. Silently, the aviator plummeted from the sky and landed upon the avenue. A short man with dark skin, shoulder-length grayish-black hair, blue denim clothing, a strange bow and a lopsided gait walked toward the felled hawk.

Nathaniel neared the archer, and a third individual, a portly fellow with a green suit and a crescent of white hair surrounding his otherwise bald pate, emerged from a nearby storefront and clapped. “You sure can use that thing good,” enthused the elder. “Can I fiddle with it for a moment?”

The archer, who was a native in his fifties, shook his head, a tacit refusal. He slung the strange bow over his bare left shoulder and knelt beside the bird carcass.

The portly elder inquired, “You intend to make yourself some hawk stew? Maybe some hawk tacos?” He ruminated momentarily. “Hawk a vin?”

“I’ll eat its eyes and mind.”

A disingenuous smile did not disguise the portly man’s disquiet.

The native plucked out his arrow, slid it inside a groove upon the back of his vest and picked up the bird by its talons. The head of the animal dangled, and crimson beads dribbled from the holes in its neck. Without another word, the native departed into an alleyway with his prize.

Nathaniel glanced at the beads of blood that sat upon the dirt avenue like a game of red marbles, wiped chill sweat from his forehead and tried not to think about his fiancé, alone and crying in the baby’s room of the Footman’s house.

Riding east along the avenue, the gentleman passed Harding’s Notable Chandler, Pocket Watches & Knick-Knacks, Dame Gertrude’s Dress Shoppe, Chemist Stuff, Baked Goods, Leesville’s Butcher and We’ve Got Some Guns. Ambitious dust was escorted from porches by the hissing bristles of thick brooms.

Nathaniel neared a motley assemblage, the cynosure of which was a large wagon that had a tattered green canopy, which had been mended with a pair of yellow long drawers. Two tan, five foot nine-inch fellows, who wore damp beige clothes and had curly brown hair, flung blankets upon the bare backs of horses that were tied in front of the blacksmith’s forge. Stretched out upon the crossbar were four other blankets that a pudgy gray-haired negro, wearing a maroon suit, beat with a fire-hardened walking stick.

It immediately occurred to Nathaniel that these were poor men to whom four hundred and fifty dollars would mean a great deal. He gently tugged upon the reins of his tan mare, and slowed the animal’s gait.

The brothers adjusted the cloths that draped the animals’ spines, and the negro whacked a blanket. Without looking up from his work, the older sibling maneuvered so that his torso was on the other side of his horse, hidden from Nathaniel, and hitched his right shoulder. The younger brother, whose red eyes betrayed that he had either a fever or terrible hangover, paused, leaned upon his horse and perspired. The negro had disappeared.

Nathaniel assumed that the shielded sibling held a gun behind the body of the mustang, and he stopped his tan mare. “Good morning.”

Eyeballing the gentleman’s hips and valise, the older brother nodded.

“I never carry any weapons,” announced Nathaniel. A loud whack startled him. He looked to his right and saw that the negro had returned with his stick.

“Doesn’t seem like he’s got one stashed away.” The colored man sneezed out a damp distillation of the dust he had wrought.

“Nope.” The older sibling relaxed his right shoulder and looked up at the mounted gentleman. “Are you Nathaniel Stromler?”

“I am. Are you Brent Plugford or John Lawrence Plugford?”

“Brent.” The fellow strode around his horse and toward the gentleman, openly appraising him. “Where’s your fancy dress at?” His Texas accent was heavy.

“In my valise.”

“Show me them garments.” Brent’s damp boots squeaked. “I want to see.”

The brusque demands irked Nathaniel, and he decided to respond in kind. “Show me the stipend with which you intend to pay me.”

Brent paused just beyond the nostrils of the gentleman’s tan mare. “My pa’s got the money in his wallet.”

“Are you speaking of John Lawrence Plugford?”

“I am.”

“Perhaps I should speak to him directly.” This was not uttered as a question.

“Best to leave Pa in his quietude,” recommended the younger sibling. “He’s…he’s bereft.”

Brent worked through some inner sadness and said to the gentleman, “You’ll deal with me.” His voice was harder than it had been a moment ago.

Although Nathaniel would not leave Leesville until he was certain that these poor rubes could pay him, he wanted to diffuse the burgeoning tension before it turned into a squabble. “I shall show you the garments that I selected.”

“Okay,” said Brent.

The gentleman climbed from his saddle, landed upon the avenue, took his mare’s reins, walked the beast beneath the overhang of the blacksmith’s forge, pulled the lines around a post, claimed the green linen valise from the saddle nook, set it upon a bench, undid its four gold buckles, slid the straps, opened the top and popped the six buttons that secured the inner lining.

“It’s like he’s undressing a prude,” opined the younger bother.

“Stevie,” chastised Brent.

From the dark interior of the valise, Nathaniel raised the black, long-tailed tuxedo jacket.

Brent ran his fingertips along the fabric. “Okay. The other one got some color? Mex’cans like things colorful.”

At that moment, Nathaniel knew that he was going to be required to ride across the border, which he had hoped would not be the case. After replacing the first garment, he raised the double-breasted royal blue jacket.

Brent took the fine coat in his hands and inspected it as if it were the pelt of an Oriental animal. “This one here’s better.”

“You should go show it to Long Clay and ask what he thinks,” advised Stevie.

Ignoring his brother’s suggestion, Brent returned the garment to its owner and disappeared into the dark interior of the blacksmith’s forge. Stevie and the negro resumed their respective tasks—flinging and whacking blankets.

Nathaniel set the jacket inside his valise and withdrew the Spanish novel.

A tall narrow man with an unpleasant triangular face, which was delineated by a long narrow nose, three vertical scars and a slender gray mustache, emerged from the forge, carrying a heavy bundle upon his left shoulder. His hat, shirt and trousers were black, and his eyes were bright blue. He glanced at the gentleman from a superior altitude (it was uncommon for Nathaniel—who was six foot two—to look up at anyone) and walked past him without a word. The ponderous burden upon the fellow’s left shoulder clanked metallically with each stride.

Nathaniel knew instantly that this man was Long Clay. The fellow’s height matched the nickname, and it was clear that he was not the type of person who desired children or remained near accidental gets, and thus was not the siblings’ father. The two long black pistols that jutted from his hips and his cold demeanor informed the world that he was a gunfighter and possibly a practitioner of less lawful trades.