This Scorched Earth

by William Gear

  She stared at him with those large and dark eyes. “Toda la noche. Sí.”

  “She’s blond, my sister. You’re dark. Now, I know a fella shouldn’t oughta be having sin-filled dreams about his sister. If’n I wasn’t already damned and possessed by the devil, he’d blast me to hell just for the dreams. So tonight, I’m gonna get it out of my system. Cure myself. ¿Comprende?”

  “No, Señor Billy.”

  He didn’t understand the rest of what she said, the Spanish words coming much too fast.

  He eased the white cotton blouse from her shoulders, letting it fall onto the dirt floor. She stood uncertainly before him, her hands at her sides, fingers working as if kneading tortilla dough.

  Billy kicked off his boots, unbuckled his belt, and dropped his drawers. After skinning out of his shirt, he remembered to remove his hat. Some idle thought reminded him that given the dirt floor, he’d be smart to check his outfit for scorpions before he put them on again in the morning.

  The bed was barely big enough for two, the mattress feeling like nothing more than straw sewed into ticking. She seemed to be waiting patiently for instructions.

  “You come. That’s right. Climb up here.”

  He positioned her in the lamplight. Tried to imagine Sarah’s blond hair turning black. Her pale skin browning, her teats shrinking down into the size of Margarita’s small round breasts.

  It didn’t work.

  Reaching up, he took her hands and pulled her down on top of him. Trying to imagine she was Sarah.

  Only when he closed his eyes—let his imagination run free—did the feel of her hair on his skin, her body against his, begin to match the dream.

  He could feel his cock hardening against her, and she settled firmly onto him; her breasts, becoming Sarah’s breasts, flattened against his chest.

  Her hand slipped down, grabbing him and tightening.

  He gasped at the strength in her grip.

  “Yes,” he said through a groan.

  She shifted, rose, and settled onto him.

  “Sarah?” he whispered, the dream image so vivid in his brain.

  Then he opened his eyes, and saw only a skinny, brown, black-haired girl, her gaze dull and unfocused as she rocked her hips back and forth.

  “You’re supposed to kill her,” Billy told her. “Damn it, girl. You gotta be her. Don’t you see? I’m killing a devil’s dream. I’m trying to save my soul. A man who dreams of his sister in a carnal way? He’s damned!”

  Misunderstanding his words, she rocked back and forth with more vigor, thrusting her chest out, small breasts bouncing.

  “Goddamn it!” Billy reached up, grabbed her by the neck and closed his eyes.

  And in that instant, she was Sarah. Her panicked blue eyes were looking into his. Locks of her golden hair were falling around his shoulders as he thrust up, driving himself into her.

  Sarah was bucking, struggling to break free as he tightened his grip.

  “You’re a demon,” he hissed. “You’re not my sister. She wouldn’t do this to me. She’d never tempt me this way. But it ends tonight, you Satan-spawned bitch.”

  He thrust up into her again as she clawed to break free, the blue eyes beginning to burn red. And then Sarah laughed in his face, loud peals of it, mocking him, belittling his rage. Something hot kindled in his belly—a spear of devil-fire inside him that rose into his penis and mixed with the smoldering demon that radiated from Sarah’s evil womb.

  His loins exploded. He gasped, sucking great breaths of air. He wasn’t prepared for the intensity—as if great throbbing waves burst from his cock, shot up his spine and down his legs.

  He seemed to hang in midair, all of his body electric.

  Slowly he came to. Sagged flat. A weight was pressing limply down onto his still tingling body.

  “Damn,” he said between sucking breaths.

  Had he done it? Had he killed the demon?

  He blinked at the mass of black hair tickling his face. Not blond. Not the Sarah demon. Margarita. The little Mexican whore. She’d done it. Helped free him from the nightmare demon.

  He chuckled, saying, “By damn, girl. I’ll give you a twenty-dollar gold piece extra. Maybe two, given how good that was. I never popped my cork like that before.”

  She remained limp as he relaxed his hands from around her throat.

  “Come on, girl. Let me catch my wind, and we’ll see if we can’t ride that bronco again.”

  He reached down and slapped her skinny round ass.

  “What the hell?”

  When he shoved her to the side, she flopped loosely against the wall, arms akimbo, one of her legs like deadweight across his thigh.

  “Hey, Margarita! Wake up!”

  Through the tangle of her black hair, he could see her eyes, half-lidded and dull, gleaming in the lamplight. The girl’s tongue protruded between her lips, giving her a foolish expression. On her bare throat he could see the bruises, her skin broken where his nails had cut deep.

  “Hey!” He jerked her up, propped her flopping head, and slapped her hard across the face. “Wake up, damn it!”

  He slapped her harder.

  The eyes remained half-lidded, pupils wide. No change of expression.

  He let her go, watched her sag onto the rumpled bedding.

  “Dear God in heaven,” he whispered as he swung his feet to the dirt floor. “What the hell did she do to me?”

  He studied the dead girl, her limbs still tangled, her small breasts flaccid, the round curve of her hip dropping to such a thin waist.

  Shit. I killed her.

  But what to do? Danny was next door, dipping his pizzle in the sister. The mustachioed pimp would be around in the morning, looking for his whore.

  I could just walk in, kill every living soul in the place.

  And that would have half the law in the territory riled enough to come looking.

  Cursing himself under his breath, Billy dressed, checked his Remington, and slipped to the door. Dark as the night was, he had an idea.

  Back at the bed, he fought with Margarita’s limp arms and legs as he slipped the skirt back up over her hips and buttoned it. Then he pulled the blouse around her shoulders and got her arms through the sleeves.

  The next couple of hours were some of the longest waiting he’d ever endured.

  Finally, long after midnight, he led his horse around, tossed the dead girl over Locomotive’s withers, and stopped at Danny’s jacal just long enough to knock.

  “Who’s there?” Danny asked groggily.

  “Me an’ Margarita. We’re headed for Santa Fe. Says she’s never been to the city and wants to see the fandango. I’ll meet you there in a couple of weeks. Look for me at La Fonda on the square.”

  “Are you outta yor mind?”

  “I’m taking a couple of weeks by myself with a woman, Danny. Never done that afore. Hell, stay and screw this one for a while if you like. She’s cheap. Don’t you rile me by following along and trying to track me down. See you in two weeks.”

  Then he was in the saddle, spurring Locomotive north along the Rio Grande trail. Come morning he could turn up into the Magdalena Mountains and find an arroyo to leave the dead girl in, or stuff stones into her dress and blouse and sink her in the river.

  “What the hell possessed you, Billy?” he kept asking himself.

  Had to be the devil, just dragging him down deeper and deeper.

  73

  September 4, 1866

  Butler crouched behind Doc, elevating the lamp so that it shone onto the woman’s privates. He’d been amazed at the variety of shapes that the female vulva came in, and had blushed once when Corporal Pettigrew wanted to discuss it. The cramped room was also illuminated by a single, small window that looked out over the trash-filled alley.

  “I need the Sims’ speculum, please,” Doc told him.

  Butler reached to the open medical case and retrieved the device, one that Philip had just managed to obtain—at great expense—from back E
ast. Just working the duck-billed device had filled his brother with delight.

  “Gina, I’m sorry, this is going to be uncomfortable.”

  “Christ, Doc, it ain’t the first uncomfortable thing ever shoved in down there,” she told him.

  Butler watched the woman tense as Philip slowly inserted the speculum. As Doc had said the first time he laid eyes on the device, it beat the living hell out of his old bent-up serving spoon.

  “Could you raise the light a little higher, Butler?” Doc asked as he spread the woman’s privates and began his examination. Butler extended the lamp over Doc’s shoulder.

  “Don’t burn my ear,” Doc countered.

  “Y’all’d think he didn’t trust the cap’n’s steady hand,” Pettigrew muttered.

  “I’m paying attention,” Butler told the men who crowded around the room’s confines.

  The woman, who called herself Gina, reclined on her back, legs spread wide, her hands gripping the wooden headboard over her head. She might have been in her early twenties, but exhaustion and weary acceptance lay behind her light brown eyes. Her cinnamon-colored hair had been tightly curled, and she wore a white cotton pullover, now wadded up above her hips.

  After peering inside her, Doc said, “I don’t see any sign of disease. No discharge or odor. But you say you feel a fullness down here?”

  “Like a slight ache, Doc,” Gina told him. “Sort of like something’s built up. Kind of a pressure.”

  “Been working a lot?”

  “Eight johnnies last night. Five or six during the day. I been pulling more’n my share.”

  “New, aren’t you?”

  “Come in last week. Phillipa has been selling me as strange. Reckon at this rate, I’ll pay her back what it cost to bring me here in another week. Or would have if she hadn’t lost the place. No telling about the new owner.”

  “Tell me if you feel any pain or tenderness.”

  Butler watched Doc press his fingers here and there into her abdomen above her pubis.

  “What’s he a-doin’?” Billy Templeton wondered, bending over the bed and squinting.

  “Checking for lumps or other trouble. Get back, Private. Don’t make a pest of yourself. The rest of you men, don’t be obnoxious.”

  “He really is crazy like they say, ain’t he?” Gina remarked. She shifted her head, uncertain brown eyes fixing on Butler.

  “It’s called the fatigue. Happened a lot to soldiers in the war. Butler’s case is severe,” Doc explained as he straightened and reached for his bag. “Have you been feeling nervous, out of sorts? Jittery?”

  “Ain’t been sleeping, Doc. Seems like I can’t ’thout I take a swig of laudanum.”

  “I’d say it’s the hysteria. Probably brought on by the stress of relocating and working in a new place. How long has it been since you’ve had a release?”

  “What’s a release? I pee and shit fine.”

  “That delightful tingling down in your privates after good sex. What we call a paroxysm.”

  “Been a while, Doc. You’re the first as has ever asked.”

  “Why’s he worried about that?” Jimmy Peterson wondered where he hovered near the door.

  Butler explained. “That spasm of the female organs releases the pressures inside a woman. Supposed to be most pleasant.”

  Gina shot him a wary glance. “Who’s he talking to?”

  “People he imagines in his head.” Doc settled on the bed beside her. “You’ve never been treated for hysteria?”

  “No, sir.”

  “But you’ve heard about it. Probably from the other girls.”

  She nodded.

  Doc told her, “When I was in medical school I read a report by a doctor named George Taylor who claimed that one out of four women suffers from hysteria at some point or another.” Reaching between her legs he began to massage her. “It used to be called the ‘Widow’s disease,’ and was thought to be the result of sexual relations being cut off.”

  Gina laughed. “As many johnnys as I’ve drained the last couple of days, that ain’t me.”

  “But like a widow you haven’t released the tension that builds up in the female loins, either.” Doc paused. “And don’t ask me how it works, Gina. There’s a lot about medicine we just don’t know yet.”

  “Corporal, step back, please. Don’t crowd, the room’s already small enough.” Butler glared at Pettigrew.

  Gina swiveled her head, staring uneasily around the room.

  “Don’t worry about Butler,” Doc told her. “He’s harmless. And his imaginary soldiers are even more harmless than he is.”

  She chuckled, closing her legs and almost trapping Doc’s hand.

  “Just lie back and relax,” Doc told her. “Clear your mind and think of something pleasant.”

  “You sure I shouldn’t be charging your brother, Doc? Generally someone’s paying when a man watches me get my cunny rubbed.”

  “Might not be a bad idea,” Doc told her with a grin. “Given all the men he says he’s got locked inside that head of his, you’d make a fortune.”

  “Ah, now!” Corporal Pettigrew groaned and shook his head.

  “It’s all right, Miss Gina,” Butler said, waving the men back. “We’re like surgical assistants. We’re all learning to be medical men now that the war’s over.”

  “Butler,” Doc told him, “you could help by packing up my case and remaining silent while Gina concentrates on healing herself.”

  Butler placed a finger to his lips to silence the men, and slipped around Frank Thompson to replace Doc’s instruments.

  Tightening the case straps, he crouched on the floor and considered everything they still had to do. This was the last of the girls in Phillipa’s parlor house. Doc had had to douse one with mercury when he’d discovered a discharge and prescribed a vinegar douche for another with pernicious odor.

  “We all getting practiced at woman’s medicine,” Kershaw said behind his ear.

  “All the better for you to take care of your wife when you get home, Sergeant,” he whispered, hoping Kershaw could hear.

  On the bed, Gina finally gasped and tensed, her hips rising as Doc’s stimulation brought on the paroxysm. When she’d relaxed, Doc stood.

  “Feeling better?” he asked as he turned to wash his hands in the small porcelain basin.

  “Been a while,” she told him.

  “The sensation of pressure should be gone.” Doc gave her a reassuring smile as Gina pulled her gown down. “If it isn’t, send word and I’ll come back. If it’s bad, and I’m not around, you can conjure your own relief. Or have one of the girls do it for you.”

  “You mean…” She blinked. “Ain’t that sinful? Agin’ the Bible or something?”

  “Not if it’s for medical needs,” Doc told her. “If it was sinful, God wouldn’t have designed a woman’s system the way He did when He made Eve from Adam’s rib.”

  Doc met Butler’s eyes and led the way out into the hallway with its sconce lamps, thick Persian rug, and varnished-pine wainscoting.

  “The men are still fascinated,” Butler told him. “We’ve learned so much. A man never gives much thought to how different women are from men.”

  “Are they, Butler? How many times have we heard the story that a young man who bottles up his semen and does not find relief will go crazy?”

  “You think that’s what happened to me?” Butler blinked. “Are you making fun of the fact that I’ve never lain with a woman, Philip?”

  Doc stopped short at the head of the stairs. “I wasn’t aware that you’d never … And no, I’m not making fun of you.”

  “C’est merde! Reckon he gonna be thinking on dat something fierce now, Cap’n,” Kershaw whispered behind his ear. “Doc dun got a twist in his tail when it come to driving us outta yor head.”

  Carrying Doc’s case, Butler followed his brother down the creaking stairs and into the foyer. Bill Phillips, the “professor” who played the piano and saw to keeping order for Phillipa, beck
oned him into the parlor.

  Phillipa, a buxom woman in her late thirties, sat behind the parlor table, her cash box before her. She studied Doc and Butler with pale blue eyes that seemed to have lost their fire. She wore a taffeta dress that matched her eyes and accented her curled blond locks.

  “Any problems, Doc?”

  Butler watched his brother seat himself across from the woman. Doc just had a fluid way about him, an ease of movement, as though he were a man for whom the world had no more surprises.

  Doc said, “Keep an eye on Amy. I dosed her for the clap. And I treated the new girl, Gina, for hysteria. I suspect that’s all she needed, but if she complains about pressure in the next few days, I might need to relieve her again.”

  Phillipa nodded, lowering her head so that her double chins appeared. “Not my concern anymore. Not after tomorrow. I’m on the street.”

  “The girls said something about it. What happened?”

  She gave him a humorless and wide-lipped grin that exposed the missing premolars in her jaws. “A woman like me shouldn’t gamble. That’s how I met Big Ed in the first place. He staked me to build this place. Fanciest house in Denver when it went up. Paid him off two years later. And what happens? I’m in the free and clear for less’n a year, and I wager it on a sure thing. A goddamned horse race. Oh, it was a sure thing, all right. Clear up to the moment my horse, two lengths ahead, snaps his right foreleg in two. Tossed the rider down the track for fifty yards.”

  “If we’re talking about the same race,” Doc told her, “I set the rider’s broken bones.”

  Phillipa waved around at her fancy parlor with its cut-glass lamps, marble fireplace, and elegant piano. “Difficult come, but sure easy go. Maybe I can start over again. Get another stake from Big Ed.”

  “And if you can’t?” Butler asked offhandedly.

  Phillipa fixed him with her faded blue eyes. “Well, crazy man, there’s always the whore’s slow demise. For as long as the fine clothes last, I can set up in a crib. But at my age, it’s gonna have to be dark if I’m going to lure the johnnies in. And after that runs its course, there’s always the street. Walking up on a drunk and riding his johnson in the alley for two bits a go.”