by Tom Lin
They arrived in Unionville shortly after sunrise, the indigo rinsing from the landscape as the new day asserted itself. At a small tavern on the outskirts of the town the ringmaster paid for rooms, breakfast.
Ming did not eat. He sat cross-legged on the floor of his room and made his preparations. First the revolver. It was a hardy little Remington that had seen mud and rain and blood and powder. For a little while he simply held the gun in his hand, marveling at it. He read the worn inscription on the barrel. Patented Sept. 14, 1858. Labor of mills and lathes. Silas Root had bought it for him for twenty dollars from a Union deserter who rode into Sacramento with the gun and little else in his pockets. Much more reliable than the fickle Walker Colt he’d been using until then. That damn thing was heavy enough to kill a man just by dropping it on his head. To say nothing of firing it. You could take a man’s head clean off at five yards, skull and all, nothing left of him but a dull ringing in the ears. It was far too powerful for its own good—the Walker had blown itself to bits on a job and left glossy burns all over the back of Ming’s hand. Gritting his teeth through the pain he’d finished the bastard off left-handed, clumsily working at him with his blade, his gun hand balled up in a fist by his chest, bleeding all over the floor. He set the Remington down now and inspected the taut scars the Walker Colt had left across his knuckles that day. Silas had given him a foul-smelling poultice to smear on the burns, saying it would keep his hand from going to black and rotting off entire. He was right. Ming clenched his hand tightly. Still hurt to make a fist. He picked up his Remington once more. Now this was an iron. This was a weapon he knew intimately. It had saved his life and taken many others. A good gun.
Ming released the loading lever, slid the cylinder release pin forward, and caught the cylinder as it fell from the gun. He dipped a corner of a rag in kerosene and wiped the chambers clean until they shone. The light was coming in slantwise through the high window. In slow methodical movements he took the gun apart down to the last screw. The smaller pieces he soaked in kerosene in a shallow tin. The larger pieces he wiped clean. When he was finished he fit the gun back together, cylinder and all, and holstered it. He stood and practiced drawing it a few times. Old familiar motion. Ming sat back down and loaded each chamber with care, pressing each ball firmly in with the loading lever. Tiny lead shavings drifted to the floor. When he was done he fitted brass firing caps to each nipple and then held the gun to his ear, turning the cylinder through each of his six shots, listening for metal striking metal. Only the sound of a well-oiled mechanism turning through its detents. The gun was ready.
He holstered it and drew his railroad spike. He worked as though driven by a spring, his hands moving through the same points in space each time, drawing the tip of the spike across the whetstone. Each time he sharpened it the spike grew fractionally shorter. He reckoned the weapon was maybe five and three-quarters, five and a half inches long now. The taper he had set on the side crept up near where he held it. He wondered if he ought to bind the top portion in rawhide for a better grip, though it was anybody’s guess where he might find rawhide in this wretched town.
The spike shone in the light, silvery where he’d worked its rough iron surface to a polish. He weighted it in his hands, flipped it once in the air and caught it again.
It is a joy when a man trusts in his tools.
He lay down on the bare wood floor and closed his eyes to rest. When many hours later he awoke twilight was gathering outside the windows and the prophet had joined him in the room, sitting motionless beside him. Ming asked him if Dixon’s time had come and the old man averred that it had. Then he asked him if he might fight free. To this the prophet had no reply. Ming watched his ancient face for a long while, thought about asking his question a second time, but he knew he would receive no answer. Briefly he considered holding the tip of his rail spike under the prophet’s nostrils to check if he was even still breathing. Then he rose and thanked the old man.
As Ming was headed down the stairs to leave he heard a flurry of footsteps behind him.
“Wait!” sounded a voice in his head. It was Hunter, holding Ming’s hat aloft in one hand. He caught up to Ming and pressed the hat to his chest. Ming took his hat back, put it on, tousled the boy’s hair. He thanked Hunter and left. Outside he found a cool summer night, still and quiet.
Ming was ready.
37
He got word that the sheriff was taking his supper at a saloon on the east side of town. Drawing his hat down close over his eyes he entered.
The bartender greeted him and glanced at the gun on his hip. “No weapons in here,” he said. “Leave the iron with me.”
“I won’t be long,” Ming said.
“I don’t give a damn,” the bartender said. “No weapons. No exceptions.”
Ming strode up to the bar and placed a five-dollar bill on the counter. He slid it across to the bartender. “I won’t be long. Won’t you look past this indiscretion?”
The bartender eyed the money and studied Ming, trying to make out his shaded features more clearly. “Fine,” he said at last. “At least take off your hat so folks can see who you are.”
“Aye,” Ming said, and removed his hat as he turned away. He kept his head low in the hope no one would recognize his face.
The saloon was dim and dusty. At the far end he found the sheriff nursing a glass of whiskey at his own table.
“Dixon,” Ming said in a low voice.
The man at the table looked up. “Can I help you, boy?” he grumbled.
“I reckon so,” Ming said, and sat down across from the sheriff.
Charlie Dixon eyed him warily. “Ain’t you far from home, John?”
“John ain’t my name, Dixon.” Ming drew his gun and set it on the table.
Dixon stared at the gun for a moment, then glanced up at Ming with growing suspicion. His gaze was unsteady, faltering. Ming surmised the drink in his hand was far from his first.
“You ain’t sposed to have that in here,” the sheriff said. Keeping his eyes on the gun he swirled the whiskey in his glass and tipped the rest of it into his throat. Now he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and settled more comfortably into his seat. “Tell you what, Chinaman,” he said. “I’ll make like I ain’t seen it if you fetch me another drink.” His words were rounded at their edges, almost slurred. He was perhaps only a few more drinks away from falling out of his seat. The man had let his guard down.
“You ain’t sposed to have that badge,” Ming said, nodding at the brass star pinned to his lapel. “I reckon the fine people of Unionville would tear it right off your shirt if they knew what you done.”
Dixon leaned forward, scrubbing his face with his hands, working himself sober. He studied Ming’s face. “Boy, who the hell are you?” he growled.
“Come on now,” Ming chided.
Suddenly the sheriff blanched and something like fear crossed his face. “It ain’t possible,” he whispered. “Silas Root’s dog. They hanged you in Winnemucca weeks ago.”
“Warn’t me they strung up,” Ming said, a smile creeping across his face. “Hello again, Dixon.”
The sheriff’s eyes flashed to Ming’s gun on the table.
“I advise against reaching for my gun,” Ming said.
The sheriff bolted for it anyway and in a flash Ming drew his rail spike and brought it down in a vicious arc through the sheriff’s hand, pinning it to the table a few inches short of his gun. The sheriff roared.
“I gave fair warning, Dixon.” Ming’s voice was easy and relaxed. People were running out of the bar now. The red-faced sheriff writhed in his seat, blinking frantically against the pain.
The bartender reached under the counter and pulled out a shotgun. “Sheriff!” he hollered. “What should I do?”
“I got it on good authority I ain’t dying today,” Ming told Dixon. A bluff, but the sheriff didn’t know that.
“Shoot him!” Dixon bellowed.
The bartender fired and the blast
went wide, the buckshot gouging the wood-paneled wall.
Ming’s smile morphed into a fiendish grin. “Told you,” he said, and then picked up his gun, drew a bead, and shot the bartender square in the throat.
The shotgun slipped from the man’s hands and clattered to the floor. He stumbled backward and collapsed, his hands sweeping up to where he’d been struck as though he thought he might yet survive if only he scooped the blood and sinew back into his excavated neck.
Ming grasped his railroad spike and worked it free from table and hand as the sheriff screamed once more. “You done me wrong, Dixon,” Ming said above the din.
“Go to hell, Chinaman,” the sheriff spat, cradling his gored hand. He panted for a moment and then lunged.
Ming leapt out of his seat and slipped the sheriff’s grasp and plunged his railroad spike into the man’s back as he went spilling across the table.
What he wouldn’t give for the old man’s guidance right now.
He snatched a fistful of Dixon’s shirt and dragged him onto the ground, then pulled the spike out of the sheriff’s back and wiped it on his trousers. “Come a long way from Sacramento, ain’t you?” Ming rounded the table and with his boot he rolled Dixon over onto his back before planting his foot on the man’s chest. The sheriff was gasping. Blood ran from the hole in his back and pooled by his shoulders.
“You bastards,” Ming growled. “You damn sonsofbitches. Ain’t you know I’d always come back for her?”
The veins in Dixon’s neck bulged and his furious eyes flared wide. Ming ground the heel of his boot into the sheriff’s chest and the man groaned, black blood leaking from the corners of his mouth.
“Ain’t you know she’d wait for me?”
The sheriff stopped struggling a moment, his clouded eyes slow to focus. A mad smile spread across his bloodied face. And now from his lips came a thin and wet hacking, rhythmic and gurgling. Little droplets of blood dusted the tip of Ming’s boot still planted on his chest. The sheriff was laughing.
A white-hot rage descended on Ming. “The hell you laughing for?” he roared.
Still the sheriff laughed. His eyes were wild and creased at the corners with mirth. Ming struck him hard across the face with the butt of his spike, etching a jagged cut on his cheek. Blood began running down to his ears but his laughing did not cease.
“You ain’t heard,” the sheriff wheezed, blood flowing freely now from his nose and mouth. Even through the blood the mad smile of his tobacco-yellowed teeth was undiminished. “You poor bastard, you ain’t heard.”
Without taking his eyes from the sheriff Ming reached back and plunged the spike deep into his thigh. The man screamed and he clawed at Ming’s boot. “What ain’t I heard?” Ming spat.
The sheriff’s legs were kicking more feebly all the time—he was in his death agony—but though his eyes were bright with pain he was grinning. “Your woman is Ada Porter now,” the sheriff crowed.
“How long,” Ming said, his voice low and cold.
“How long? he says,” the sheriff mocked. He coughed twice, deep and wet, spraying blood into the air and misting Ming’s boot again. “Soon as we shipped you off. Shit, her and Gideon”—he coughed some more—“had a kid together a while back.” His grin grew still more fiendish. “She ain’t never loved you, you goddamn fool. Chinese—sonofabitch—” The sheriff’s words were clipped and thin, his breath leaking away faster than he could catch it. With what remained of it he began to laugh again and as he did blood filled his mouth thick and black as oil rising from a new-tapped well.
Ming stared down at the man pinned under his boot. “Is that so.”
The sheriff’s eyes shone with glee and with an agonizing effort he gathered the blood in his mouth and spat. “Save yourself some heartache, Chinaman,” he managed.
Ming lifted his boot from the sheriff’s chest and the man rolled over onto his side and coughed another spray of blood, clutching his pierced hand to his chest, moaning softly. Ming bent down and pulled his spike free from the sheriff’s thigh and wiped it clean on the man’s shirt. Then he walked over to the table and picked up his gun and raked the hammer back. The sheriff’s eyes were bright and joyous and cruel and flatly he stared across the bloodied floorboards unblinking and unafraid.
“Well, I’m awful sorry to hear that news,” Ming said, and shot the sheriff through the ears.
It was silent in the saloon but for a fading ringing in Ming’s head. The other patrons were no doubt running to find help.
Ada Porter. A child.
He wondered what hells they could have put his lovely girl through to break her so. No doubt she had fought them like all creation. And a child, too. A groundswell of rage coursed through him. Well, a body does what it must to survive. He shook his head as if to clear the thought and scrubbed his face with his shirtsleeves. After a moment he rose and looked down at the dead sheriff. Blood bloomed from the hole in the man’s ear, but the profile of his face remained curiously intact, haughty even in death.
“Hold fast,” Ming murmured, partly to himself and partly to the silence.
He knew she would run to meet him when he at last returned, and he would tell her how terribly sorry he was to have been gone so long. But what of the child? Could he possibly raise it as his own? Would she leave it behind? That was more likely. The thoughts turned and turned in his mind, his gun still warm in his hand. By and by he realized he was still standing in the empty saloon astride the crumpled body of the dead sheriff. There would be time to plan and time to dream. For the moment there remained the task at hand.
He holstered his gun and bent down to search the sheriff’s pockets. A handful of bits. A few folded arrest warrants, including one for Ming. A few loose bullets. Ming pocketed the money and the bullets and tossed the warrants into the fire at the hearth. Then he left.
Back at the tavern where the others were resting and where they had not yet spent so much as a night Ming rallied the members of the magic show and bade them hurry.
The ringmaster smiled when he saw Ming and handed him a small rag. “Get that blood off those boots,” he said. He turned to the stagehands and gestured to the coach. “Onwards and upwards, gentlemen. Onwards and upwards.”
38
South now along the arid range, with an alkali basin alongside them. Unionville diminished to a gray haze on the black horizon behind them. Like a party of lonesome shadows they traveled through the darkness for hours, waiting for the moon to rise. The surefooted horses cantered through snares of sagebrush and rockfalls, the men following after in their dim hoofprints, the stagecoach sounding for all the world like it would come to pieces right there on the trail.
By the time the moon had risen over the lip of the world they were already rounding the horn of the range and the mountains broke into their constituent parts of blasted rock and glassy boulder. In the cold light Ming steadied his notebook against the horn of his saddle and scratched out the name of Charles Dixon. It was too dark yet to make out the names remaining on his list but there was no need. He had them by heart: Jeremiah Kelly. Abel Porter. Gideon Porter.
And then he would take her in his arms again, and she would leave behind the child of that hated marriage, and they would at last be free of their wretched pasts. And yet as he imagined his triumphant return he felt her slipping out of his grasp. He tried to imagine kissing her, tilting her head back by her chin, but the features of her face were dim and clouded, and his thoughts grew stiff and foolish. When he tried to picture the child he realized he could picture nothing at all.
He was interrupted from these unsettled thoughts by the ringmaster, who wondered aloud what lay beneath them. Unhesitating the prophet answered that innumerable veins of ore crossed and uncrossed through the dirt below, gold and silver, copper too, riches men could only dream of. At this the ringmaster smiled and drove his cane into the ground, staked a claim half in jest.
To the southwest lay Lovelock. The Humboldt snaked beside it. Even from this distanc
e the abundant marshland was visible: three miles of verdant grass and endless water, a splendor of life sparkling on the dry land. The moon hung low to the western horizon, the sky lightening in preparation for morning. It was time to make camp. Notah built a smoking fire with young clutches of sagebrush and greasewood and around its faltering light they sat and ate a supper of biscuits and salt beef. The others laid out their bedrolls and drew their hats down over their eyes to delay being woken by the sun as long as they might. Ming was not tired. He sat on his bedroll and watched the sun come up over the east red and vast, crenellated in the shimmering air. The birds were singing. He lay back and closed his eyes.
He did not realize he had fallen asleep until he was woken by a violent fit of coughing that did not cease or lessen. It was the ringmaster. He lay curled on his side, his fist jammed up against his mouth, body racked by barely suppressed coughs.
Ming stood and went to his side. No one else was awake. “You all right?” he whispered. He stooped low and shook the ringmaster’s shoulder. “You all right?” he repeated.
The ringmaster nodded fiercely, then opened his mouth to speak and began coughing again, his eyes bulging with the exertion. It was a rattling, shaking cough, thick with spittle. The ringmaster shook his head and swallowed hard. He took a few deep, shuddering breaths, one broad hand splayed on his chest, his eyes blank and brimming with tears. He unclenched his fist and looked up at Ming. Little red-eyed spots of bloody phlegm speckled his hand. A faint broken smile unsettled his face.
“Consumption,” the ringmaster said at last. “I have consumption.”
He wiped his fist clean on his shirt and rolled onto his back, panting. He stared up at the dawn sky and took a while catching his breath. Ming sat down beside him. The ringmaster leaned up on his elbows, patted his bedroll for his canteen. He uncorked it and drank, then rattled off a few more coughs and cleared his throat. Aftershocks. There was blood again on his hand. He wiped it off on his shirt.
