Dead Man’s Hand (45 page)

A minute later, there was only me and another character present, waiting on the deputy
to say something else. He looked us over and shook his head. “You gentlemen are signing
up?”

“Yes,” said the other, and so I said, “Yes.”

“Follow me,” said the deputy. He started walking, and then he stopped, turned to me,
and said, “How old are you, boy?”

“Twenty,” I told him.

“You got a gun?”

“Yeah,” I said. “A LeMat.”

“I ain’t gonna ask you where you got that from,” he said with a smile. “Can you ride?”

I told him I’d spent a year working on a farm in western Indiana and learned to ride
passing fair. It was true.

“Good enough,” he said.

He went on, and we followed him to the saloon where he took us into a back room. The
owner of the place, a small man with a missing left ear and long hair in the back
but none on top, came in and asked the deputy what he wanted.

“Fetch me a bottle and three glasses, Billy,” he said, “and bring each of these gentlemen
a plate of that fine horse turd stew you’re famous for.” The deputy laughed.

“Fuck you,” said Billy and laughed as well. He left and the deputy took to rolling
a cigarette, which gave me time to look across the table at my new colleague.

“Name’s Franklin,” I said to the heavyset man. He wore a blue and white checkered
suit of clothes, white shirt and spatz, a bowler that sat on his big ol’ head like
a pill box on a melon. He wore a pair of wire rim specs, pushed low down the bridge
of his nose. “Fat Bob,” he said. We looked to the deputy, who by then had his cigarette
going and through a cloud a smoke he told us he was Deputy Stephen S. Gordon.

“I been instructed by the honorable Sheriff Fountain to deputize you gentlemen for
a government posse with the mission of apprehending George Slatten, a.k.a. Bastard
George, in connection with the commission of murder in the first degree and the heinous
act of cannibalism. You will be given four dollars a day, to be paid in full upon
the capture of the guilty party. If we return without him, you will be paid two dollars
a day. Anyone who shoots him dead will receive a bonus from me personally of an extra
dollar. Gentlemen, I’ll make it clear now, I aim to kill the Bastard. We’re gonna
gun this dog down and get back here as soon as possible with the body. You with me?”

We nodded.

“Good, then meet me at the stable at dusk and we’ll saddle up and head out. Be prepared
to be gone for about four days, I figure. Any supplies you might need, ammunition,
a blanket, whatever, head on over to Malprop’s store across the street. The governor
of the Territory, Mr. David Meriwether, personally wants this dog done away with,
and he’s willing to pay the bill. He’s got some relation to Miss Gates, I believe
I’ve heard. So stock up, within reason. We’ll travel tonight into the Jornada. I hope
you like the heat.”

That said, the door opened and a fetching young woman, wearing a loose shirt and a
pair of britches, no less, carried in plates of grub and a bottle of whiskey. We ate
while the deputy drank. The plate of stew saved my life, but it very well could’ve
been horse shit. When we were done chomping and slurping, the deputy poured us each
a shot of whiskey and we drank to the death of Bastard George.

That afternoon, at the general store, I put a new pair of boots and socks on the governor’s
tab. I didn’t need ammunition. I’d saved up enough over the past two years to kill
Bastard George about twenty times over. Luckily, I’d never had to actually shoot at
anyone, but I waved the thing around a lot like I might. The old fella behind the
counter, Mr. Malprop, asked me if I was part of the posse that was going after Bastard
George. I nodded.

“You best get a bigger hat, wide brim to cover more of your face.”

I owned only the sailor’s cap I presently wore on my head.

“You’re going out into the Jornada,” he said, squinted, and laughed.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Jornada Del Muerto,” he said. “The Trail of Death. A hundred miles of brimstone up
the Camino Real.”

“It gets hotter than this?” I asked.

“Lordy, boy. After the devil’s been out there, he goes to Hell to cool off. Might
be a hundred and thirty up there today. And that ain’t even mentioning the Mescaleros.”

“Mescaleros? You mean Apache?” I said.

“They’ll kill ya, if the summer sun don’t fry you first.”

“I heard they take scalps.”

“The Apache?” he said. “No. The Mexicans were taking Indian scalps to collect the
bounty for a while. Not sure that’s still going on.”

So a wider-brimmed hat it was, white, as not to take in the sunlight. I stowed my
cap in my bag, and, now fed and gainfully employed, I strolled over to the stable
where they found me a spot to lay down on the hay in the barn till Deputy Gordon came
at sunset to lead us out.

I tossed and turned and sweated through the noon-day heat so that when I was finally
nudged awake by a boot, the straw was soaked. I came up out of a dream of being run
down by Apache in the burning desert and thanked the deputy for saving me. He grunted.
Along beside him was another man.

Gordon said, “This is Sandro. He’s our tracker.”

I nodded to the new man, but he gave no sign of recognition. He was thin and wiry
and very still, but I got the sense he could be fast as a snake if he wanted to be.
The instant I thought that, he smiled as if he knew I had. Trimmed mustache and a
prodigious head of black hair. Dark eyes. I’d never met one, but I figured Sandro
must be a Mexican. His guns had ivory handles.

While I was sleeping, the deputy had a horse chosen and outfitted for me. It was a
mustang, brown and white, with a white mane. Tied on was a bedroll and a string of
eight canteens. “Climb aboard, Franklin,” said Gordon. I removed the LeMat from my
satchel and stowed it in the waist of my drawers. Stepping up into the stirrup, I
lifted myself onto the saddle. The deputy got on his horse, a sleek Arabian that was
loaded up with supplies. Sandro also rode a mustang, gray, smaller than mine.

We passed through the stable doors as the sun was setting. There in the yard outside
sat Fat Bob on an American Saddlebred. Something didn’t seem right about a man in
a checkered suit on a horse, but it was clear he’d ridden before. He held the reins
in front of him like an old woman clutching a purse closed, and he sat straight-backed
as he could.

Once our mounts all stood in close together, the deputy said, “No one drinks water
unless I tell them to. Understand? If anything happens to me out on the trail, Sandro
is in charge.” We nodded. “Let’s move out,” said Gordon. The Mexican gave his horse
a verbal command and the creature took off down the dirt byway that was the main street.
I followed him. Fat Bob was behind me and Gordon brought up the rear. Folks who saw
us making our way out of town pointed and laughed as we went by.

Las Cruces faded behind us into twilight. There was a line of orange behind the distant
mountain range, and the fresh night was becoming considerably cooler, offering relief.
Before the night finally settled itself upon the land, I looked out into the distance
and saw nothing but dry flatness—creosote bushes here and there, some pepper grass.

We rode for a couple of hours, nobody speaking, the horses remaining an equal distance
apart. I was beginning to get a little sore as I’d not rode a horse in some time.
Most I rode was the stage from St. Louis. So when Gordon raced past me and told me
to hold up, I was thankful for the chance to get down for a spell. He allowed us to
drink from one of the eight canteens we each carried. “Two shots is it,” he said.
Turning to Sandro, who’d just ridden up and slipped sideways off his horse, the deputy
asked, “You got a bead on him?”

The Mexican nodded.

“How do you see anything in the dark?” I asked.

“The moon will soon be in the sky,” he said.

Before getting back on his horse, Fat Bob pulled a pint bottle from his pocket, uncorked
it and took a swig. “Any of you gentlemen care to join me?” he asked.

I reached for the bottle, but Gordon held my arm. “That’ll dry you out quick,” he
said to me. He looked up at Bob and said, “You’re gonna turn into a little ball of
dust, Fat Man, if you keep drinking that whiskey.”

“I need to lose a few pounds, Deputy. You keep an eye on the boy. I’ve been on these
jaunts before, don’t you know.”

Gordon shrugged, mounted his horse, and we began again.

Slowly the moon came up, creamy white and big as a platter. It cast a glow across
the landscape. Bits of mineral in the busted rock strewn along the ground sparkled
with its light. The weather dropped cooler still, and I had a slight shiver, but not
enough to fetch my coat. We rode on through the night. There was a point where I suddenly
woke up and caught myself from tipping off the horse. I immediately peered ahead to
make sure that Sandro was still in front of me. He was, the clouds of dust from his
horse’s hooves visible in the moonlight. We rode through dawn and kept going until
the sun was well up in the sky.

The Mexican led us to a large outcropping of rock about twice the size of the saloon
in town. It had an overhanging ledge. He dismounted, took his horse by the reins and
guided it into the shadows under the rock face. I did as he did. The heat of the day
had already become nearly unbearable, but under that ledge it was still cool from
the night. We sat down with our backs against the rock and waited for Fat Bob and
the deputy. They came along soon enough, and we were all together like insects under
a rock.

The sun showed its power and you could smell the landscape roasting. Waves of heat
rose rippling in the distance. I’d heard about mirages. Gordon gave us all the order
to drink and we did. We had to give the horses some of our supply. “Tonight, we’ll
reach the Pool of the Little Dog and we can water them for a few minutes there, but
we’ll have to start out late afternoon, so rest up.” He unpacked some dried beef and
biscuit for us. The deputy gave the order to drink our fill, within reason. We did.
And then we just settled back, kept as still as could be, and sweated. The coolness
I’d noticed under the rock overhang was gone within an hour of our arrival.

The deputy rolled a cigarette; Sandro closed his eyes and went to sleep; and Fat Bob,
who never removed that little hat, took a small book out of his inner jacket pocket,
pushed the specs an inch up the bridge of his nose, and commenced reading, moving
his lips and whispering. I was curious to find out what book it was, but I kept quiet.
I don’t really know how much time passed, but somewhere in there, Gordon piped up
and said to Bob, “You’re a hired gun, ain’t you? I heard of you before. You killed
every member of the Falan gang.”

Fat Bob never took his eyes off the page. A small smile formed amidst his jowls, which
were bunched up atop his tight collar. “That would be a fact, Deputy,” he said.

“Did somebody hire you to hunt down Bastard George?”

“That’s right,” said Bob, and turned the page.

“Who?” asked the deputy.

“You.”

“You ain’t here at the behest of no one else?”

“I’m a free agent. My best days are behind me. I’m just a fat man trying to scrape
by.”

“How many did you kill?” I asked.

“Mind your manners, sonny,” said Fat Bob.

“Franklin,” said the deputy, “if you want a long life, I’d suggest you not ask a gunman
how many people he killed.”

I thought Sandro was sleeping, but with eyes still closed, he laughed.

“My apologies,” I said to Fat Bob. He reached up and touched the tip of his hat, and
we went back to quietly baking.

We rode out in the late afternoon. The sun was unforgiving, and those few hours before
dusk lasted forever. When night finally came and with it the cool breeze, I realized
just how jumbled my thoughts had been. When the moon came up, it seemed to ease my
confusion and leave me with a clear head. About an hour after dark, we came to the
Pool of the Little Dog and let the horses have their fill. We didn’t light a fire
so as not to be spotted by Mescaleros. Gordon rolled me a cigarette, and I smoked
with him and Sandro.

“I thought he’d head north into the white sands,” said the Mexican, “but he’s changed
direction and is running east to the San Andres.”

“He might have a hideout in the foothills, but shit, I don’t want to be chasing the
wretch that far. We gotta catch him and kill him in the next couple days,” said Gordon.

The shadow of Fat Bob moved among our circle. He was puffing on a pipe, sending smoke
rings out into the moonlight. “What do you know about George Slatten?” he asked.

“Not much,” said Gordon. “He shows up in town every couple months. Usually starts
some kind of trouble. We’ve had him in the lockup a few times—mostly raging drunk
or fighting. He bit Bill’s ear off in a brawl. I had a feeling I’d have to kill him
sooner or later.”

“And you are saying he ate this young woman, Miss Gates?”

The deputy nodded. “It was a sight chilled me straight through.”

“What do you mean when you say he ‘ate’ her? I need particulars. Did he cook her?”

The deputy said, “Nope. He just ate right into her with his teeth. The Doc said she
was still alive when he started. Went for the soft parts—stomach, cheeks, rear end,
you get my drift. He probably whacked her on the head with something and just started
chewing.”

“
Hijo de perra
,” said Sandro and tossed the butt of his cigarette. “I heard he crawled out of an
abandoned mine when he was a baby. A gold mine out here dug by the Conquistadores.”

“Who put him in there?” I asked.

Sandro shrugged. “When he crawled out, that’s the first time he was ever seen. Like
he was born way back in the mine somewhere.”

“Did they find the mother?” asked Gordon.

“She was down there fucking
El Diablo
,” said Sandro. There was a moment of silence in which I got a chill, and then the
Mexican burst out laughing. “
Gringos
.” He shook his head as he walked toward his horse.