There Is No Otherwise (3 page)

These men didn't belong. Either they were fools or cowards or neither, and that was what JP was afraid of.

The man was looking at the girl on JP's knee.

‘Fun's over, baby. Let's go.’

She didn't move.

The man kicked over a chair. ‘Vamos,’ he shouted.

The girl made to go but JP held her. ‘Hold on,’ he said. ‘Do you know these men?’

The man spat. ‘I aint gonna say this but one more time.’

JP saw it in the man's eye — what wasn't cowboy nor soldier nor thief but some other thing.

He let go of the girl and she ran over to join the others. He looked over at Modine and Arliss. There wasn't much they could do pinned by the forty‐five. The bartender was gone god knows where. JP thought of the wife and child up the stairs. None of the other men had drawn yet. There was still time now to do something and very soon that time would be passed and there would be no coming back to it.

The man said to JP, ‘you like playing with other men's things?’

JP had always known that sooner or later there would be some man that put a gun to his head. The only thing to do when that time came was tell the son of a bitch to pull the trigger. He still had the cigarette in his mouth and he drew on it and exhaled and as he did he crossed some transition inside his soul that separated the boy from man. It was as invisible as the line between Texas and New Mexico.

He said to the fat man, ‘you only got one chance to listen to me cause either way there aint gonna be another. You can turn around and leave right now and this is over.’

The fat man sneered. His companions laughed. ‘Fine last words,’ he said. Then he put his hand in his pocket and JP figured here was a gun coming but the man drew a long knife with a thin blade and no guard. It was more like a spike than a knife.

What JP did, and he did it faster than any man might, was reach up and crush the light bulb above him in his hand and at the same time rise and throw forward the table into the sudden darkness. The table blindsided the man and in the same motion JP was running toward him. He heard the gun go off several times and in the darkness each shot was a flash of light that strobed the room. No other gun fired and JP was fairly certain M1911 cartridges held just seven rounds.

He rushed forward blindly and he hoped Modine and Arliss were doing something similar.

He hit the fat man like a freight train and felt the leather of the duster against his face. The two crashed backward and when they landed JP was on top. He hit the man with his fists again and again until he felt the cold bite of the blade up in his ribs. He knew it was coming and he moved instinctively. He grabbed the wrist of the fat man's knife hand, pulled it out, twisted it, and forced it back into the fat man's own fleshy abdomen. JP felt the man's body tense as the blade moved into him. He put all his weight on it, forcing the knife in so that even the hilt was lost in the man's belly. The man grew limp. He gurgled. JP backed off and got up.

Lights came on behind the bar.

JP looked around. The girls were still against the wall, staring, terrified. Arliss and Modine were in various states of struggle with the other three men. The one who'd had the gun no longer had it.

The lights had been put on by the bartender, who was standing behind the bar with a sawed‐off shotgun rigid against his hip.

Everyone looked at the fat man. He was struggling weakly on the ground, the knife somewhere inside him. He was going to die. JP looked up at Arliss and Modine. They looked back at him with a look he'd never seen before.

Arliss said, ‘let's go.’

‘Wait,’ JP said. He turned to the bartender. ‘Did you plan this?’

The bartender had the shotgun in JP's direction. ‘Qué?’ he said.

‘Llamó a estos hombres?’

The bartender said nothing.

‘Let's go,’ Arliss said again.

JP looked at the bartender, and at the little girl who so recently had been on his knee, making him think on his life differently. Then he looked at the fat man expiring on the ground, and turned to leave.

*

M
ODINE DROVE. ARLISS HAD
the Winchester on his lap. JP was between them, slouched against Arliss.

Arliss said, ‘how's that wound, JP?’

‘It's ok.’

‘Keep pressure on it.’

‘I am.’

They passed back through the towns of Mesquite and Vado. No one spoke. JP watched the lights of the oncoming cars burn toward them like meteors. Arliss pressed in the lighter.

JP said, ‘light me one.’

Arliss lit three cigarettes and said, ‘what did I tell you about the anticipation, Modine?’

‘Yeah,’ Modine said.

JP said, ‘anyone behind us?’

‘Nothing. You relax.’

‘I caint.’

They drove on a while, passed a motel on the edge of Vado. JP said, ‘still no one?’

‘JP, if someone's coming, I'll tell you.’

JP nodded. He looked at Modine. ‘Take the Anthony Gap.’

‘The Anthony what?’

‘Just watch for the 404.’

Arliss said, ‘JP, I thought you never been out of the state.’

‘I had the sense to look at a map.’

They found the 404 just before Anthony and tore eastward along it through the Franklin Mountains for ten miles and came out the other side at Chaparral.

JP said to Modine, ‘still nothing?’

Modine looked in the rearview mirror. ‘Nothing.’

They drove on. Cows lined the fence along the side of the road. There were hundreds of them, all ranked up, all watching them pass. The headlights lit them one by one like they were searching for some cow in particular.

JP said, ‘they'll track us down if they want to.’

‘Maybe,’ Modine said.

The road turned south toward El Paso.

‘God damn these sumbitch cows,’ JP said.

‘What are they looking at?’

‘Damned if I know.’

JP said, ‘there's a dream I have like this. I'm in a field and all the cows turn and stare at me. And you two are in it staring at me too.’

‘That aint a dream, boy, that's today.’

They crossed the state line and JP crossed himself. They drove along the east edge of the Castner firing range. According to the old man it had originally been the property of the Las Norias Cattle Company. When they passed Fort Bliss Modine slowed to the speed limit.

Before they left the highway he pulled over. They had rounded a long bend and he pulled over to the side and turned off the lights. Arliss opened the window to listen. The Winchester was still on his lap.

‘Kill the engine, Modine.’

They waited about ten minutes and nothing passed.

‘I'd say that's all clear,’ Modine said.

‘JP?’ Arliss said.

‘All clear.’

‘Let's go then.’

*

I
T WAS ABOUT MIDNIGHT
when they got to the ranch. The moon was full in the sky and it was haloed by a ring of blue like the iris round a pupil. The old man was sitting on the porch smoking his pipe, waiting for them. He rocked back and forth gently in his chair.

JP had his hand over the wound. Modine helped him out of the truck and over to the house. Arliss walked next to them with the rifle.

The old man looked them over and shook his head. ‘Found some trouble, did you?’

Modine said, ‘trouble found us.’

‘I'd say it did.’

There was a long pause when nobody said anything. The air was still. For once the night was silent. JP looked at the old man. He didn't have a bottle. He was sober — clear and cool as the night sky. It was almost as if he was his old self.

JP broke the silence carefully. ‘Ethel's dead aint she.’

The old man nodded. ‘She is and there aint no otherwise.’

The boys stood there at the foot of the porch. Arliss took his hat off and Modine did the same. JP didn't have a hat. The old man motioned to the blood on JP's shirt.

‘It aint nothing.’

The old man came down the steps and helped JP up onto the porch.

‘Let's get this seen to,’ he said.

‘It aint nothing.’

Arliss and Modine stayed out on the porch and JP followed the old man into the house. He had a well‐used first aid box in the kitchen and he took it from its shelf and pulled out some gauze.

‘Wipe it with this.’

JP took his hand off the wound to see what he was dealing with. The blood had matted to the shirt and the bleeding had stopped. When he pulled the shirt from it though it started back up.

‘Take that off.’

He unbuttoned the shirt.

‘It aint deep.’

‘Bone stopped it.’

The old man dabbed the gauze with alcohol and cleaned the wound. Then he put fresh gauze over it and wrapped it tight with a bandage round the body.

‘How'd you get this?’

‘A man come at me with a knife.’

‘I shouldn't have let you go.’

‘I wish you hadn't.’

‘How's the other guy?’

‘I got the better of him.’

‘Did you?’

JP said nothing. Then he said, ‘I don't know.’

The old man stood up. He said, ‘I'm going to the police station in El Paso to report Ethel's death in the morning.’

JP wanted to say something respectful but he wasn't sure what was customary. The old man was too big and the words that could be said were too small. He had been married longer than JP's own father had lived. He looked at the old man and the old man looked back at him and there was reassurance and promise in their eyes that they could not have articulated otherwise and they both knew it.

The old man patted JP on the arm.

‘I'll come with you in the morning,’ JP said. ‘I've got some business of my own.’

* * * * *