Wraiths of the Broken Land (5 page)

Before he agreed to travel with this type of man, Nathaniel would need certain assurances.

Long Clay set his bundle inside the wagon canopy, beside a large black trunk. The wind moaned and sounded eerily like a miserable human being.

Footsteps shook the slats beneath Nathaniel’s boots, and he turned back to face the doorway. A huge older man, wearing an untamed beard and gray overalls, emerged from the forge, followed by Brent.

“Pa. This here’s Nathaniel Stromler. The gentleman who wired us.”

Eyes that did not seem attached to anything rational stared out at the gentleman from a craggy canvas of inebriation, grief and hatred. In the leather holster that depended from John Lawrence Plugford’s waist sat a wide gauge sawed-off shotgun that had been covered with black paint.

“Good morning,” Nathaniel said to the bestial face.

The patriarch stared.

Brent pointed to the book in the gentleman’s left hand. “What’s that?”

“A Spanish novel entitled,
La Playa de Sangre
.”

“You can read and understand it?”

“I can. Choose any passage, and I shall translate it for you.”

“I believe you and wouldn’t know if you were lyin’ anyhow.”

Brent extricated a weathered wallet from the breast pocket of his father’s gray overalls and handed it over to Nathaniel. “Count ‘em, so you know it certain true.”

John Lawrence Plugford stared.

The thickness of the wallet told Nathaniel that it contained the promised amount, but he counted out the many, many small bills as he had been instructed. The bank notes were not freshly withdrawn from a bank, and the gentleman surmised that the variegated sum had been earned over a lengthy period of time and squirreled away.

“The amount that you have promised lies therein.” Nathaniel handed the wallet back to Brent. “I will require half of my payment before our departure.”

The older brother reached into the wallet, withdrew half of the notes and thrust them forward.

Nathaniel was surprised by how willing the man was to give so much money to a stranger, and he deliberated on the motley bills and their owners. To take the proffered stack of crisp and wrinkled and bright and discolored notes was to agree to be in their employ.

“Take it.” Brent shook the bills.

John Lawrence Plugford stared terribly.

“Before I accept any wages,” Nathaniel announced, “I must enquire after the details of the job for which I am being hired.”

Without uttering a word, John Lawrence Plugford stormed off toward the wagon.

Brent glanced at his father and returned his gaze to the gentleman. “You’re goin’ to reconnoiter for us. Do some investigatin’.”

Dissatisfied by the vague explanation, Nathaniel asked, “Could you please be more specific?”

“I’ll handle him.” The tall narrow man strode upon sharp black boots toward the forge.

Brent, Stevie and the negro were still.

Long Clay walked directly at Nathaniel, stopped when half of a yard of air hung between their faces and stared down coolly. “You won’t be asked to do anything unlawful.” He radiated the smells of cinders, oil and iron.

Nathaniel drummed his fingers upon the book, found his strong baritone voice and employed it when he inquired, “Shall I have any part in facilitating unlawful acts?”

“That’s our business,” responded Long Clay.

“I would simply like to know to what end my—”

“You work for us or you don’t,” stated the gunfighter. “We don’t answer to you.”

Long Clay turned away and strode toward a tall black mare.

In a voice that was too quiet for anybody but Nathaniel to hear, Brent said, “We’re tryin’ to find my sisters. They were taken. Kidnapped.” Tears glimmered at the bottom of the man’s brown eyes. “We’re good honest folks—I’m just a cowboy foreman—but—” He strained to keep his composure. “We’re all gonna do what’s required to get them back. That’s why Long Clay come with us.”

The gentleman believed the cowboy.

Atop the black mare, Long Clay called out, “Don’t gab about our business.” His words were hard.

Brent extended the advance toward Nathaniel, and the motley bills trembled. “Please.”

Nathaniel took the wage. “I shall return after I have deposited this sum.” He put the bills inside his shirt pocket, replaced the book, tied the valise, took the mare’s reins and climbed into the saddle.

By the time Nathaniel returned from depositing his advance into one of the ten small safes located within The Reputable Bank of Leesville, the gray sky had brightened minutely. The Plugfords and Long Clay were astride their horses, and the negro was seated upon a padded bench at the front of the wagon, holding a long-handled whip with which he could coax his brace of four mismatched steeds. Two healthy palfreys that wore finely-decorated women’s sidesaddles were attached to lines that the huge patriarch held in a tightly clenched fist.

The quietude that had settled upon the assemblage was not peaceful, but ominous.

Nathaniel guided his horse toward the wagon that was situated at the rear of the small caravan.

Long Clay snapped tack, and his black mare started forward. The Plugfords and the negro followed the gunfighter, as did Nathaniel.

The caravan rode west along the avenue.

The portly, gray-haired negro placed the ball of his long-handled whip inside a nook, slid across the wagon bench toward Nathaniel and extended a chubby hand, but the fabric of his right sleeve tugged against his chest and he withdrew the appendage. “Nuisance.” The negro undid his top jacket button and extended his hand once more. “My name’s Patch Up.” He sounded like a Floridian.

Nathaniel took his hand (which was the only one proffered by any member of the caravan) and shook it. “I am pleased to meet you. My name is Nathaniel Stromler.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Stromler.”

They shared a dip in the road and released each other.

“Very often,” Patch Up stated, “folks who ride with me come back heavier than when they left.”

“You are a skilled cook?”

“Your belly won’t want to give up my provender.”

Long Clay guided his horse off of the central avenue and onto a southerly street, and the others followed. The open terrain beyond the last buildings was a vast orange swath as homogeneous and blank as the gray sky.

“Do you have a favorite comestible item that you’d like for the cook to add to his menu?” inquired Patch Up, magniloquently employing third person.

“I am quite partial to grouse and pheasant.”

“Fricasseed or pan fried?”

“You don’t got no grouse or no pheasant,” Stevie grumbled from his spotted colt on the far side of the wagon.

“Not yet. But Deep Lakes got us that hawk.”

Stevie spit his opinion of such meat onto the road.

Nathaniel recalled the archer whom he had seen earlier that morning. “Did you purchase that bird from a native with a limp and a strange bow?”

“Deep Lakes didn’t sell it to us,” replied Patch Up. “He eats the parts he wants and gives us the rest.”

“Is that fellow traveling with us?”

“Near us.” Patch Up turned the light side of his hand up, as if he intended to catch a falling raindrop, and motioned expansively. “In our perimeters.”

The eyes of the siblings flickered to Nathaniel’s face, which likely betrayed some concern at the idea of traveling with a native who ate the brain and eyes of a hawk.

“He’s hunted up grouse before,” Patch Up added, “but prefers animals that breathe the high up air and get bigger views.”

Nathaniel remarked, “Oh?” because he could not think of anything intelligent to say regarding this information.

“He ain’t the kind of Indian you need to worry ‘bout,” clarified Brent.

“I shall not,” replied the gentleman, worried.

The horses cantered, and the town of Leesville retreated. Winds that howled like a miserable man chilled the beads of sweat that clung to Nathaniel’s brow, nape and mustache.

Long Clay coaxed his horse to a brisk canter, and the other riders matched his pace. The buildings at the southern edge of the town shrank.

“And if you need anything mended,” Patch Up resumed, as if he and Nathaniel were in the middle of a conversation, “I can do that too.”

“Thank you.”

“Shirts, pants, shoes, lacerations, broken bones, dangling scalps—I’ve fixed them all.”

Chapter VII
Saddled

Brent Plugford was impressed that the dandy had been able to return Long Clay’s stare, back in Leesville. Nathaniel Stromler had been a little frightened, but it was clear that he had nerves, even facing a gunfighter who could cow any man in existence.

Beneath an ambivalent gray sky, the briskly cantering horses traversed open plains and entered terrain that begat avoidable creosote bushes and unavoidable stalks of purple three awn and black grama. The foliage harassed the beasts’ legs and the riders’ leather chaps, but did not break open any hides or substantially slow the caravan. Patch Up had a tough time steering his vehicle through the arid vegetation, and every few minutes Brent heard the word “Nuisance” muttered or shouted—the volume of the exclamation determined by how strongly the landscape and the wagon wheels disagreed.

The cowboy pulled right upon his reins, guided his brindled mustang in a loop around the rear of the caravan and urged his animal alongside the dandy’s tan mare. Brent glanced at Long Clay and saw only the back of the tall narrow man. This lack of attention from the gunfighter meant that it was now acceptable to speak more candidly with Nathaniel Stromler.

Without preamble, Brent said, “We got a letter from a man named Ojos.”

“Ojos means eyes,” the dandy remarked, “and is not often given as a name.”

The possibility that Ojos was fictitious had been discussed by the Plugfords, but they were desperate and had no other information upon which to act. Brent said, “It’s the name he proffered, anyhow.”

The dandy was quiet.

“In his letter, he wrote, ‘I have identified two rich Mexican gentlemen who know one or both of your missing sisters.’” Brent had read the missive more than fifty times.

“How does Ojos know these men?” asked Nathaniel.

“Ain’t sure. I s’pose he’ll tell us at the rendezvous.” Uttered aloud, the information that he possessed sounded quite insubstantial. “Never spoke to him yet—they don’t got no wire in that town. He told us where he could be found most nights and we’re goin’ there to meet him.”

A field of high black grama harassed the legs of the cantering horses; several beasts complained, yet they all continued apace. The tallest stalks slapped against Brent’s chaps, crackling like a campfire.

The dandy inquired, “Do you think it is possible that the man who calls himself Ojos simply intends to extort money from your family?”

“Of course it’s possible!” exploded Brent. “Don’t you think we’d thought of that!?!” He suddenly hated the arrogant Yank.

Nathaniel was silent.

“You think we all got wooden heads!?!” shouted Brent.

The dandy declined to answer the cowboy and instead adjusted the strap of his yellow hat.

The horses’ hooves rumbled, and Brent calmed himself. “That letter—it’s all we got. In months and months of postin’ and sendin’ notices all over everywhere, it’s all we heard.”

“I understand,” the dandy remarked, “and would do exactly the same thing if I were in your position.”

Before the abductions, Brent had been a well-regarded cowboy foreman, a good, honest and thoughtful boss. For years he had fairly employed oldsters, youths, negroes, Indians, Mexicans and even Yanks who had fought on the wrong side during the War for Southern Independence, but this dreadful business with his sisters was changing him. Now, a poorly chosen word or a patronizing question brought him directly to the precipice beyond which laid only violent action.

Brent looked at the dandy and saw that the man was patiently waiting for him to continue. “Ojos said a rich gentleman who spoke good Spanish could get a talk with them Mex’cans who’ve seen my sisters.”

“I am not rich.”

“You’ll have whatever pesos you need to play the part.”

“I see.” The dandy ruminated.

(Long Clay had earlier remarked that it would not be difficult to acquire Mexican dollars, and Brent had an idea how this sum was to be earned.)

The dandy asked, “I am to meet with these two Mexican gentlemen and ask after your sisters?”

Brent nodded. “Once we know for certain where they are, you can ride off. Or if you’d rather, you can ride back with us once we’ve got ‘em safe.”

“Throughout this business, I shall employ an alias.”

“That’s fine.”

Nathaniel Stromler extricated a thorny bramble that had attached itself to his chaps, cast it aside and delicately inquired, “And if this proves to be a ruse…if Ojos has lied to you or if these Mexican gentlemen are unhelpful…?”

“Then you can ride off and keep your advance for time spent. Fair?”

“Very fair,” said Nathaniel. “But I do hope that I can help you locate your sisters.”

As the horses sped past creosote bushes, an errant limb snatched against Brent’s chaps and left behind a pointy lavender-green leaf.

“Are we going to stop and eat in the near future?” asked Nathaniel.

“We’ve got to be at Nueva Vida by nightfall if we want to meet Ojos today.”

“How far away is Nueva Vida?”

“We keep at this pace for the whole day without stoppin’,” Brent said, “and we’ll get there.” The dandy was not pleased by this information, but to his credit, he did not complain. “Patch Up boilt some ‘tatoes last night and we got jerked beef if you want it. None of us is hungry.”

The blank sky smoldered somewhere between gray and black.

Shortly after the caravan traversed an open mesa, its fast progress was impeded by a vast swath of obstreperous creosotes. The dusty horses were forced to slacken their pace and wend the obstacles.

John Lawrence Plugford guided his white stallion beside the pair of cantering palfreys that were reserved for the girls, withdrew a silken rag from his overalls and wiped grit from the empty sidesaddles. He dusted the leather with such tenderness that Brent, watching, felt tears in his eyes and had to look away before he broke. It was clear to him that his father would be wholly destroyed if the girls were not safely recovered—already the huge man was a bestial being whose mind was daily devoured by the jaws of horrible contemplations.

The cowboy wiped his eyes and glanced over at Stevie, about whom he had serious concerns as well. For almost a full decade, Brent had ridden with cattle outfits, and he knew the difference between good fellows and bad fellows and good fellows who did bad things accidentally and bad fellows who did good things deceivingly. This terrible tableau in which the Plugfords were embroiled was exactly the sort of event that could turn Stevie—who already liked to drink too much and cause trouble (and call it fun)—into the sort of man who drank his way into brawls and gunfights and did not live to become twenty-two.

The lives of Brent’s sisters, father and brother were at the precipice.

Beneath the rumbling of hooves and the crackling of purple three awn was an erratic noise, barely audible, that was the captive, the man in the trunk, sobbing. The dandy glanced at the wagon for a moment, but doubted his ears.

The sky became a dark gray slate, a feverish limbo untouched by any celestial body. Weary but apace, the horses galloped from a plain of wild vegetation onto a trail articulated by the hooves and wheels of those who dwelled in the region. The ruts intimated to Brent that Nueva Vida was not far off.