Hell Snake

by Bernard Schaffer

  Connor leaned against the wagon next to Odell and said, “You think they’ll let us eat before we leave? It smells amazing, whatever they’re cooking.”

  “That all depends on the trail boss,” Odell said. He cocked his head at Mirta and said, “Well, ma’am? It’s your call. You want to eat before we roll out, or just get going now?”

  Mirta ignored the confused look on Connor’s face as she peered at the house. She put her hand under her chin. “We’ll eat and stay the night,” she said. “First thing tomorrow, I want you both up and ready to go. We’ll leave before anyone else wakes up so there’s no delay.”

  Connor’s eyes widened and Odell squeezed his grandson’s arm to keep the boy from speaking. “Yes, ma’am,” Odell said. “That sounds fine. Let’s go get some grub, then.”

  Mirta started toward the house and Odell fell in behind her. Connor hurried to catch up to his grandfather and said, “So, wait? What’s happening?” Connor’s voice rose with excitement. “Did I hear that right? She’s coming back with us?”

  “Steady now,” Odell told him. “Let’s not scare her off and make her change her mind.”

  * * *

  * * *

  That night, Mirta collected her things from her bedroom so that Camila and her husband could sleep there. Camila was sitting in front of the mirror putting up her hair and said, “Why does your bed smell?”

  “It doesn’t smell,” Mirta said. “I put on a new blanket before you came.”

  “It smells like it was washed in a filthy river.”

  “We used the same wash bin we’ve always used,” Mirta said.

  “In Chicago, we get all of our linens laundered by the Chinamen,” Camila said.

  “Perhaps you should go back there, then,” Mirta said. She opened up one of her dresser drawers and rummaged through it.

  “Perhaps you should learn the difference between clean linens and a horse blanket,” Camila said.

  Mirta closed the drawer and opened another and kept searching.

  “If you came to Chicago, you’d have to learn an entirely new way of behaving. No one in decent society would allow someone who dresses like you to attend a servants’ dinner, let alone a ball.”

  “It’s good that I have no interest in decent society, then,” Mirta said.

  “You know nothing because you are a foolish country girl who’s never seen the real world.” Camila leaned forward and pulled the skin of her cheeks upward, then downward. “This wretched heat is drying out my face. Look at me. Between this house and the way your bed smells, my poor husband will think he’s married nothing but a filthy peasant.”

  Mirta turned toward her. “Last week, I stabbed a giant in the back to stop him from throwing the most famous outlaw in the country off a porch roof.”

  “Oh, Mirta.” Camila sighed. She inspected her teeth and rubbed them with the tip of her finger. “Father loved you most of all, I think. I’m glad he isn’t here to see what a liar you’ve become in your desperate need for attention.”

  Mirta closed the drawer and decided there was nothing she needed from the room more than she needed to leave the room. She grabbed the bag with her clothes in it and went out into the hallway. Her mother’s room was at the end of the hall and the door was only partway closed. Mirta knocked.

  “Espera uno minuto,” Alma said from within. When the door finally opened, the older woman’s eyes were red from crying.

  “Mama,” Mirta said. It hurt her to see the woman crying. She touched Alma on the shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Alma said. “It is time for bed. We all need rest.”

  “First, there is something I want to tell you,” Mirta said. “Tomorrow I am going.”

  “I already know,” Alma said.

  Mirta’s head jerked up. “You do?”

  “I thought it was you who did not know. Who told you?”

  “No one,” Mirta said. “I decided it for myself.”

  “Bueno,” Alma said. She put her hand on Mirta’s cheek and caressed it. “That is muy bueno. You will learn much from your sister in Chicago.”

  “Chicago?”

  “Si,” Alma said. “Tomorrow I will make you all a big breakfast and then you can begin your new life with Camila and her husband in their home. But you must work hard and keep your mouth shut, Mirta. Camila will expect you to earn your keep. You will clean their house and you will go to school, and someday you will meet a doctor who drives a carro lujoso for yourself.”

  “A carro lujoso,” Mirta whispered. “I see.”

  “Get some sleep. Tomorrow your life begins,” Alma said.

  “I know, Mama,” Mirta said.

  Alma closed the door and Mirta stood in the hallway looking at it. Under the door, she could see the lantern go out and listened to her mother climb into bed.

  * * *

  * * *

  Mirta hurried from the back door of the house to reach the barn. She pulled the doors open as quietly as she could and saw Camila’s carro lujoso parked inside.

  “Mr. Hank? Connor? Are you in here?” she called out.

  “Up here,” Odell replied.

  Mirta looked up and saw both of them peering over the edge of the hayloft. “Why are you up there?”

  “That doctor insisted on parking his car where we were going to sleep,” Connor said.

  “Is the wagon fixed and ready to travel?” Mirta asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Odell said. “We’ll be ready to leave at first light.”

  “I want to leave now,” Mirta said. “We can make camp once we are far enough away. Unless you’d both rather sleep in a filthy barn.”

  Connor smiled and said, “We’re ready.”

  “Good,” Mirta said.

  She dropped her bag and walked to the corner of the barn to grab the shovel, then went through the barn’s back doors toward the pasture, where the family’s two cows were standing under the moonlight, staring at her. Mirta searched the ground until she found a large pile of fresh manure and scooped it up with the shovel. She found another, then scooped that up too, until the shovel was full and heavy.

  Mirta carried the shovel back into the barn, careful not to spill anything. Odell and Connor were both standing in front of the Landaulet and she told them to get clear. She raised the shovel and dumped the manure on the front and back seats. She dragged the back of the shovel through the manure to smear it across all that soft burgundy leather, and when she was done, she carried the shovel back across the barn and leaned it against the wall.

  Connor and Odell were both staring, dumbstruck, at the car’s interior.

  “I think it looks better this way, don’t you?” Mirta asked. She picked up her bag and said, “Let’s ride.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Mirta drove the wagon while Connor Sinclair sat next to her with his arms folded across his chest. Hank Odell followed behind them on horseback. He was adept at riding one-handed. He held the reins with his left hand and wrapped them around the stump of his right. It looked awkward but it worked, and the old man never had trouble keeping up.

  They kept their weapons hidden in the back of the wagon, under a thick wool blanket. There was the big lever-action Spencer rifle that Jesse Sinclair had loaned them, along with Mirta’s bow and quiver of arrows. As they rode, Connor twisted and grabbed the blanket out of the back. He draped it over his legs and tucked it around his waist, then folded his arms back across his chest.

  “Are you sick?” Mirta asked.

  “No,” Connor said.

  “Why are you cold? There is no wind.”

  “It’s just a little chilly for me, is all,” Connor said.

  “Your grandfather is an old man and he is not cold.”

  “He’s got a heavy coat,” Connor said.

  “You have a coat.”
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  “Mine’s not as heavy.”

  “It’s heavier than mine,” Mirta said.

  “Well, you’re tougher than I am, I guess.”

  “And so is a one-armed old man,” she added.

  “That’s not fair,” Connor said. “He spent all those years sleeping outdoors with his gang. It made his blood thicker or something.”

  “I see,” Mirta said. “You slept indoors in a soft bed, being waited on by servants, so your blood is thin.”

  Connor looked at her. “Can I ask you a question? Why are you always so mean to me?”

  “I’m not mean to you,” Mirta said. “If you want to see mean, I can show you.”

  “See? That’s what I’m talking about. What did I ever do to you, anyway? All I’ve done since we met is try and be nice to you and help you. I came down here to help you with your father, didn’t I?”

  “Help my father?” Mirta asked. “You mean, after you got him killed?”

  “You think I got him killed?” Conner cried. “How do you figure?”

  “You are the fool who got himself captured by Nelson Granger. You are the coward who chose to be a prisoner rather than fight.”

  “Is that right?” Connor said. “Well, shows what you know.”

  “Please, tell me all the things I don’t know,” she said. “Tell me how you were so brave and bold sitting there in a bathrobe by the fire while my father and his friend gave their lives to save you.”

  “It’s not that easy,” Connor said.

  “To admit you are a coward?” she said. “I’m sure that is not easy. Tell me, did you just surrender to Granger or did he at least have to buy you a nice meal first?”

  “You have a sharp tongue on you, that’s for certain,” Connor said. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You aren’t the only one who lost a father. Mine died too, before you ever became involved. I was worried Granger was going to kill my mother next. So when he said we could meet up and talk things over like gentlemen, I thought it was for the best. Little did I know he’d already paid off all the men who were supposed to be protecting our ranch while I was away. I wasn’t afraid to fight. I was just mistaken in thinking Granger would be true to his word.”

  “Then I am wrong,” Mirta said. “You are not a coward.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You are a fool, and that is worse,” Mirta said. “And because you are a fool, my father and your grandfather are both dead.”

  “So you’d rather I’d be dead along with them, is that it?”

  “I’d rather you were a man,” Mirta said.

  “I am a man,” Connor said.

  “You are a spoiled child who comes from money and property and people who work for you. Of course a man like Granger broke his word to you. He knew there would be no consequences for doing so. Of course the men who worked for you betrayed you. Why would anyone follow you? You sat there and let everyone else do your fighting for you. Even your mother had to pick up a gun to come rescue you! She was willing to die to protect you and all you did was sit there, because you are nothing but a scared little boy. Not a man,” she said. “And now you are cold.”

  Turning away, Connor pulled the blanket up higher and didn’t respond.

  * * *

  * * *

  They rode toward the western mountains and the wind grew colder. “Let’s find a place to camp soon,” Odell called out.

  “Agreed,” Mirta said. She scanned the landscape for somewhere they could build a fire. In the distance, deer leapt from between the trees, trying to get away from them.

  Connor Sinclair picked the Spencer up from the back of the wagon and checked the breach to make sure there was a bullet in it. When he saw that there was, he raised it to his shoulder and peered down the sights.

  The deer were at least a hundred feet away and the wagon was still moving. “What are you doing?” Mirta asked.

  “We’ll need to eat, won’t we?” Connor cocked back the rifle’s hammer with his thumb.

  “We’re too far away and it’s too dark for you to make the shot,” Mirta said.

  “You hungry, Grandpa Hank?” Connor asked over his shoulder.

  “I could eat,” Odell said.

  “Stop it,” Mirta said. “The deer are running. All you’ll do is scare them off.”

  “You know I like your venison stew, Grandpa Hank,” Connor said.

  “I could go for some of that, myself,” Odell said.

  “You’re just wasting bullets,” Mirta said. “Put the gun—”

  The rifle barked and lit up the wagon and the darkness around it in a brief burst of flame.

  Mirta stopped the wagon as Connor ejected the spent shell casing and lowered the hammer back down to make the rifle safe. Ahead of them, a large buck squirmed on the grass and mewled. It tried to get up once, then fell again, then tried to get up again, and fell back down and did not move again.

  “Excellent shot!” Odell said. “We’ll have ourselves a stew now, for certain.”

  “Reckon I didn’t spend all my time being waited on by servants,” Connor said. He turned and set the rifle back down in the rear of the wagon, but Mirta stopped him.

  “Do not set it back without reloading it,” she said. “There is nothing more useless than an empty gun.”

  Connor raised the blanket and looked for the box of bullets but saw nothing. “Did you bring any extra bullets?” he asked. “I think we’re out.”

  Mirta’s jaw flexed in anger and she said, “I take it back. There is one thing more useless than an empty gun.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Mirta watched Hank Odell stir the stew and felt her stomach rumble. They’d used the last of the potatoes and onions and she’d found carrots and mushrooms nearby. They had a bag of salt that Miss Rena had placed inside the wagon when they’d left Edna’s Prayer, and Odell had opted to use what was left of it for the stew.

  “Get the bread too,” Odell told her. “We might as well eat our fill. We’ll arrive at Boldfield tomorrow and be able to restock whatever we want. There’s a general store there with everything you can imagine.” Mirta fetched bread from the wagon and brought it over to the fire. Odell reached for a piece and dunked it in the broth, then ate it with a smile. Mirta did the same and wiped the bottom of her lip so as not to miss any. It was delicious.

  She tore off another piece and held it toward Connor Sinclair. He was seated in front of the fire with a blanket wrapped over his shoulders, looking at the flames. He frowned at the bread and said, “No thanks.”

  “You should eat some,” Odell said. “This stew won’t be ready for a while yet.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Connor said. He pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders. “Either of you cold? It’s freezing out here.”

  Odell looked at Mirta, who shrugged. “Actually, I think it’s kind of nice,” Odell said. “But then I’ve been sitting in front of this fire for a while.”

  Mirta leaned over and tried to put her hand against Connor’s forehead to feel if he was feverish, but he pulled away. “Stop that. I’m fine.”

  “Then eat the bread,” she said.

  “Actually, I think I just need to get a little shut-eye. I feel exhausted.”

  “Must be all this living outdoors instead of your nice soft bed,” Mirta said. “I suppose it wears you out having to do everything for yourself instead of ordering the servants to do it for you.”

  She smirked at him and waited for him to say something snide. Instead, Connor lay down on the ground and curled up inside the blanket. “That must be it,” he said.

  “We’ll wake you when the stew is done,” Odell said. “Go ahead and shut your eyes, son.”

  Connor remained curled up for the rest of the night, even after they told him the stew was ready, and in the end they
decided to let him be.

  * * *

  * * *

  The next morning, Connor stayed asleep as the other two awakened and began to break down their camp. Mirta made no pretense of letting him sleep while they worked. She kicked him in the leg as she stepped over him and called him a pretender when he didn’t react.

  Hank Odell ran an old rag around the inside of the cooking pot to clean it and said, “I don’t think he’s playing. He look pale to you?”

  “You all look pale to me,” Mirta said.

  Odell went to his grandson and put his hand on the side of Connor’s face. He frowned and said, “He’s burning up.”

  “He just doesn’t want to work,” Mirta said.

  “I don’t think that’s it,” Odell said. He shook Connor’s shoulder and said, “Connor? Wake up for a minute.”

  Connor’s eyes fluttered and drew open to thin slits. He groaned as he rolled over to face Odell. He pulled the blanket up higher around his neck.

  “You feeling all right, son?”

  Connor saw Mirta standing nearby with her arms full of their blankets and cooking supplies. “I’m fine,” he said weakly.

  “You don’t look fine.”

  Connor’s teeth began to chatter and his entire body was racked with shivering until he drew his arms in tight and forced himself to be still. He ripped the blanket off and stood up. His hair was damp with sweat and the lightest touch of wind against it was enough to make him start shivering again. He scooped his blanket up and carried it over to the wagon. “Why didn’t you two wake me up so I could help you pack?” he asked.

  “We tried to,” Mirta said. She carried her items over to the back of the wagon and dumped them inside. “It must be nice to sleep while other people work.”

  Sweat ran down the center of his back that felt like needles being stabbed into his skin but he forced himself to move past her to collect the rest of the things. “Don’t blame me you grew up having to eat beetles and pig’s ears,” he said.