by Merl Fluin
TJ rubbed her eyes as she entered the barroom haze. She stood in the doorframe, scanning the room, then stepped up to the bar and asked one of the twins for a whisky. Handing her the drink, Little Dove or False Uncle leaned across the bar, put her head close to TJ’s, and pointed with a finger across the room.
“The guy with his back to us, standing at the dice table.”
She kept her eyes on TJ’s face as TJ turned to look at a man whose colourful tattoos shone through the gloom. A swirling shell unrolled from the middle of his back, and a perfect sunflower head blossomed on each shoulder blade. Lavender smoke rose from the black-paper cigarette between his fingers. He watched the table before him intently, keeping his body motionless.
“Go ahead, honey,” Little Dove or False Uncle said, “he won’t bite.” Somewhere in the room a glass smashed.
TJ crossed the room and stood by the man’s elbow. The table was a whirl of shot glasses, dice, coins and numbers. On it also lay a leather pouch, tightly closed, with a six-gun and a small knife beside it. The hand holding the cigarette had six fingers.
His eyes were on the dice. They rolled down the baize table and came to a stop: three fours. As he reached out to pick up a bundle of money, a woman standing across from him grabbed his wrist. Her hands were red and raw.
“You win a lot,” the woman said.
“They ain’t my dice,” he replied.
The loser caught the croupier’s eye and made a gesture with her arms.
The croupier smiled with her mouth and shrugged, rocking on her heels. “You play at your own risk, ma’am.”
The man’s right hand rested lightly on the table now, a couple of inches from the gun.
TJ jerked a step backwards. She bumped into Little Dove or False Uncle, who was sweeping glass from the floor behind her, and then stumbled forwards into the man’s elbow.
He turned towards her. His eyes were green and his lips very red. “Careful, little lady,” he said in a careless tone.
The red-handed woman gave a nickering laugh. “Now I get it. I seen her, in and out of the place upstairs all the time. Your shill, I suppose.” She spat on the floor. “Eleven Twenty-Three.”
TJ opened her mouth and closed it again. The man moved his neck and shoulders. “Ma’am, you are mistaken, at least as far as I’m concerned. This lady and I are unacquainted, but I assure you for my part that I am not a member of that tribe.”
The woman was already gathering her clothes from the floor, huffing and cursing. “Thieves and freaks,” she said venomously as she headed for the door.
“I am so sorry,” TJ told the man, planting her feet. “Can I buy you a drink?”
“The apology is unnecessary, but the drink would be a pleasure.” He gathered up his money and things from the table and stowed everything in the leather pouch, apart from the gun. That he slipped into the holster hanging from the double belt around his waist. Fern fronds curled at his hips.
He led the way back to the bar. TJ ordered whisky for both of them. When the drinks had been served she held out a hand and said, “My name is TJ Breckenridge.”
“Cantos Can.”
“Yes. I already knew your name. I’d like to talk to you. I need some help, and Little Dove and False Uncle recommended your services.”
“Both or either?” He winked at whichever of them had just served them their whisky. The three of them smiled at each other. “Perhaps we should sit down, Ms Breckenridge, and discuss what troubles you.”
“Actually, I’d prefer it if we had that conversation outside. It’s, um, confidential.” TJ glanced towards the barroom doorway and the staircase beyond.
“Certainly,” said Cantos mildly, without following her gaze. “But let’s first enjoy these drinks you bought us.”
They found a small table and sat down. There was silence between them as they sipped. Then Cantos asked, “Forgive a boy’s curiosity, but was the lady correct? Are you an Eleven Twenty-Three?”
TJ shook her head. “No. She’s seen me around the place because I have a friend up there, is all.” TJ was one of the few people in the barroom still clothed; sweat twinkled in her beard and stuck her blouse to the flesh between her shoulders.
“That must make you quite the rarity. I’ve heard that tribe prefer to stick to their own.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“Neither would I. But I figured that was kind of the point.”
Cantos sat perfectly still. TJ shifted in her chair. “Well, if we’re getting preliminaries out of the way, let me ask you one. Didn’t I see you playing cup and balls in the street a couple of days ago?”
He laughed, showing his teeth. “Guilty as charged. Yes, ma’am, you did. I live by my wits, you might say, and when Lady Luck hides, grifting provides. I hope you don’t disapprove of a little light connery.”
Now TJ laughed. “I’m a circus rider,” she offered by way of explanation.
“A kinker!”
“You know the lingo?”
“I have plied many trades in my time, and I’ve taken a spell or two in the occasional horse opera when money was wanting.”
“Let me guess, as a picture gallery!” His grin remained fixed, but his forehead creased. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to get personal,” TJ said, putting her glass down on the table.
“Not at all. I can do a little juggling and a few tricks of that sort. I have clever hands.” He waggled his eleven fingers.
She offered to buy him another drink.
A couple of hours later they were still in their seats, TJ lounging back in her chair. Most of her clothes were heaped about her ankles. Her grey silk sling was dark with whisky and perspiration. Pausing between anecdotes, Cantos asked: “What you do to your arm?”
TJ pulled her torso upright. “That kind of has to do with what I wanted to talk to you about.” She studied the shot glasses on the table. “But I’ve probably drunk too much.” She grinned, and he grinned back. “Mr Can –”
“Cantos.”
“Cantos, do you have a place to stay for the night?”
“Ms Breckenridge –”.
“TJ.”
“TJ, I may be a degenerate, but I am not a gigolo.”
TJ leant back. “I’ve offended you again.”
He gulped his whisky and shook his head. “I believe that Little Dove and False Uncle have made arrangements for me tonight,” he said.
“Either or both?”
“Either or both.” He giggled. “TJ, I believe we should call it a night and discuss our business in the sober light of day.”
“Nightcap?”
“One for the road,” he agreed, signalling to whoever was behind the bar. “And where are you staying the night?” he asked after their drinks had arrived. The bar was still noisy and crowded, but they were sitting close together and he spoke quietly.
“My wagon near the big top.”
“Not upstairs with your friend?”
She lifted her glass from the table and frowned at it.
***
She was finishing breakfast on the steps of her wagon when he arrived late the next morning. He was in green trousers and a blue and red jacket. A wide-brimmed hat shaded his golden hair, and the leather pouch and holstered six-gun hung from the double belt at his waist.
He turned down her offer of coffee, inclining his head in the direction of the open desert beyond the big top. “Let’s go talk,” he said.
Stowing her coffee cup inside the wagon, she followed him away.
They walked together without talking. The sun was dazzlingly high. Cactus spears, taller than either of them, thrust stringy flesh upwards towards the birds. The air was still. The occasional flap of wings could be heard from above, but no sound carried from the circus or the town, both of which they left far behind.
They reached a thicket of thorny vegetation that hugged low to the ground. Beyond it lay a great expanse of nothing but shimmer and mute colour.
“I’ve never
been out this far before,” said TJ, shielding her eyes.
“It’s a good hideout spot.”
He threaded his way to the inside of the thicket, TJ following, until he reached a clearing large enough to sit down. She knelt beside him.
“Now you can tell me this confidential story of yours and ask whatever it is you want to ask,” he said.
She told him about the night Cowhead went missing. She included the part about Damsol lending her money for a new horse, but she did not go into detail about her circus act, and she did not mention Mei-Lin. Cantos let her talk without interruption.
When she had finished he said, “You seem mighty fond of that horse.”
“She’s a special horse.”
“Why? She do things other horses can’t?”
“Yes, she’s very smart. And I spent a lot of time training her up for – for my act.”
“And where did she come from, this smart horse? Can’t you just go back to the same dealer and buy another one like her?”
“There are no others like her.”
Cantos nodded. “All right, TJ. I’ll help you find your special horse. A hundred and thirty-seven dollars flat, whether it takes a day or a year to find her.”
“That’s a lot of money if it only takes a day.”
“If it only takes a day it’ll be because I’ve done some fine detective work and probably had some dangerous gunplay with rustlers. But it won’t only take a day, and you’ll have to come with me. Otherwise I might go to a sight of trouble and still come back with the wrong damned horse.”
She bargained him down to a hundred dollars plus ammo expenses. “Sure you can get the money?” he asked.
She got up and dusted herself off. “Yeah. And once I’ve got it, I’ll have to come with you.”
5.
They walked back into town. Mei-Lin was waiting on the porch at the Slits. Blanking Cantos, she grabbed TJ’s good elbow and steered her down the street.
“What are you doing with that man?” Her voice was hoarse.
“I’ve hired him to help me find Cowhead.”
“Don’t you dare tell that stranger my business.”
“I didn’t even mention your name,” said TJ. “I thought you’d be pleased. We’re going to find your girl and bring her back.”
“Go on your own.”
“On my own? I wouldn’t know where to start!”
“And what does he know that you and I don’t?”
“He knows about tracking animals, and finding runaways. And he knows about thieves and gamblers, because he runs with them and knows their ways. I talked to him last night. I got him a bit drunk and sussed him out. He moves in shady circles, and that’s all to our advantage.”
“Let me get this straight, you’re hiring him because he’s a thief?”
“He’s not a thief. Or at least I don’t think so. But the point is, I’m going with him, and I can watch him so he doesn’t swindle us. He wants to earn the money I’ve promised him, and I’ll be there to make sure he does earn it.”
“Don’t you dare go with that man. I want you to find Cowhead, not go blabbing things to strangers.”
“I haven’t blabbed a goddam thing. You take me for an idiot?” They were both red in the face and breathing hard. “You think everything is about you and your secrets! What about me? You think I want to be in hock to Damsol for another two years, stuck in her shitty little dog and pony show in this shitty town?”
“So the reason you want to find Cowhead is so that you can take her away?”
“I don’t hear you offering to go find her and keep her yourself!”
Mei-Lin recoiled. “Promise me you won’t do it this way.”
“I’ll do it whatever goddam way I see fit.”
She snatched TJ’s right hand in her left and put their thumbs side by side. The eyes in the backs of both thumbs were closed. Mei-Lin’s own eyes filled with tears.
“Please, TJ. You don’t know what you’re getting into. That man is dead.”
6.
It was a couple of hours before dawn. A huge moon plunged towards the horizon. The darkness of the rocks and sand rose roaring past it and expanded into the infinite emptiness above.
Cantos sat a black mare by the edge of the scrub patch. TJ rode to him on a black pony. He held out his six-fingered hand. She placed a roll of dollar bills in his palm.
“One hundred,” she said.
He counted it, then put it away in the leather pouch that hung from his double belt. “No going back, then.”
“You’d better know how to cover our tracks. Once she wakes up it’ll take Damsol about ten seconds to realise I’ve taken off with the money.”
“Did you bribe the horse dealer to keep quiet?”
“No point. If she’ll take one bribe she’ll take two.” TJ eyed Cantos’s money pouch.
“I’m not going to sell you out, TJ,” he said. His green eyes burned in the starlight. From beneath the brim of his hat, tendrils of hair wafted in the rising darkness like plant fronds carried on a stream.
“Then let’s get going. The further we are away from here the better. You know which way?”
“Not entirely. But direction is something we can find a little later. Our priorities for the next few hours are distance, speed and invisibility. How long have you been awake now?”
“Yeah, I followed your instructions. I haven’t slept since our last rendezvous.”
“All right. That’s only forty hours, but it’s a start.”
“So when do I sleep? Do we ride at night and rest in the daytime, is that the plan?”
“Not while you’re with me, little huckleberry.” He grinned. “The plan is that we don’t sleep at all.”
The mare started up at a trot, facing moonset. TJ’s pony trotted alongside. They rode into the night, a promise of dawn at their backs.
They broke into a canter. The pony’s hooves glided over rocks that were lumped and twisted into shapes of human hands and feet, heads and bones. TJ’s face was as still and set as a mask. Her hair hung in a red-ribboned braid down the length of her spine. The bottom knot banged against her short blue riding skirt in time to the pony’s hooves. Her head was bare, but her hands were gloved. Cantos beside her sat easy in the saddle, the gun shining on the belt beside his money pouch.
When the sun brimmed over the horizon behind them, they stopped. Cantos dismounted and offered her a drink of water from his canteen; remaining mounted, she declined. He made a loose movement with his shoulders, rolled and lit a black-papered cigarette, then turned around.
“Something’s up,” he commented, nodding his head towards the east.
TJ twisted in the saddle. A single black plume ascended beneath the disc of the sun.
“No smoke without fire,” he said, dropping his spent match onto the ground. A black crested bird with red eyes landed on the horn of the black mare’s saddle and made a sound like crackling wood. “Spells trouble for somebody.” TJ made no reply. “Having trouble keeping your eyes open?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Know how to fly?”
“What?”
“Try. Try it now. Fly.”
“Don’t mock me.”
“I’m not mocking you. Never mind. I’ll ask you again later.”
He climbed back into the saddle and they cantered onwards. The yellow dawn turned to blue, rolling up and stretching itself over their heads until it spanned the whole sky and hit the horizon before them.
***
