“I apologize if I’ve upset you,” said Humberto.
The cowboy smoldered, unable to speak.
“Why did you write a song about them?” inquired the gentleman.
“Their story moved me. Even though gringo Texicans killed my father and stole land that rightfully belongs to Mejico, I thought of these innocent and beautiful women and I was…” Humberto shook his head. “I sympathized—I have two daughters myself—and I became angry with the world, a place where beauty is stolen and abused rather than appreciated.” He thought of his gorgeous cousin Elena, who had vanished twenty years ago and was presumed dead. To the cowboy, the balladeer said, “Your sisters are not the only women that have disappeared in this country.”
The cowboy gave an empathetic nod.
A flung blade pierced the right eye of the blue chalk bear.
Humberto glanced at the drunken knife-thrower and returned his attention to the gringos. “My heart was heavy when I wrote the ballad. In English, the title means, ‘That Which Cannot Be Stolen.’” The singer pointed to his guitarrita case. “I have a special guitar with four strings, which I play in bars like this one and on the street. I played the song, ‘That Which Cannot Be Stolen,” many times.
“Near the end of the ballad, there is a verse that describes one of the missing women in—”
“How did you know what she looked like?” inquired the gentleman.
“There were pictures on the reward poster.”
“Go on,” said the cowboy.
“Near the end of the ballad,” Humberto repeated, “there is a verse that describes one of the missing women in great detail. After I paint her portrait, I call out her name.” With ripping vibrato, Humberto sang, “Yvette!”
Tears rolled down the cowboy’s face.
“Afterwards, I sing the final verse. I describe the other woman in great detail and call out her name.” Humberto sang, “Dolores!”
The cowboy wiped away tears with the brim of his hat.
“I performed this song many times—in cities and in towns and twice inside locomotives. People were very moved by it.” (Humberto decided not to inform the gringos that the ballad was one of his most lucrative compositions.) “A few weeks ago, I came home to Nueva Vida.
“Eleven days ago, I performed ‘That Which Cannot Be Stolen’ in our town square, and when I sang out the names of the women, two men in the audience reacted very strongly. They paled. Their eyes became moist. They were frightened. And I was absolutely certain that they knew one or both of the women in the song.”
“Who are they?” The cowboy’s words fell like a blunt axe.
Humberto hesitated for a moment. “You must promise that the gentleman will speak to them in a civilized manner. They are—”
“Don’t put any goddamn terms to me,” spat the cowboy. “I paid you for this information.” He pointed at the grouch bag.
“It is quite possible that these men are unaware of your sisters’ plight.”
“You don’t know that at all.”
“You are correct,” Humberto admitted, “I do not know how they know your sisters. But these two men are important and have done many good things for this town. You must promise that you will not hurt or kill them.”
“We’ll do what we need to do,” said the cowboy, darkly.
Humberto closed the grouch bag and slid it across the tiled table. “You may reclaim your gold and go back to America.”
Hatred shone clear and bright upon the cowboy’s face.
Humberto drank from his glass of wine.
After the cowboy had calmed himself, he asked, “What if these good hombres of yours ain’t so good?”
“If either of these gentlemen are hurt or killed, I will relay the names John Lawrence Plugford and Brent Plugford to many bad Mejicanos.” Humberto let his threat sit in the air for a moment. “And if I should accidentally cut off my own head or carelessly stab myself twenty-nine times in the liver, there are other talkative people who will dispense this information to the banditos.”
“You’ve told others ‘bout our rendezvous?” The cowboy had a hard look in his eyes.
“Not yet—but I will if I feel unsafe when I leave this meeting or if you harm the Mexican gentlemen in any way.”
“Hell.” Brent snorted through his nostrils like a horse. “You’re a clever Mex’can.”
“One of many millions.”
The cowboy considered his options.
“As for the hombres who have imprisoned your sisters…” Humberto shrugged his shoulders. The execution of men who kidnapped and abused women did not trouble the balladeer.
The cowboy slid the grouch bag across the tiled table. “We’ll leave off these two that you’re connectin’ us with. My word’s good.”
“Bueno.” Although Humberto did not like the cowboy, he trusted him. “I know a place where these two gentlemen gamble and have drinks—a nice establishment.” The performer looked at the tall blonde gringo and said, “You will go there.”
“Why did you not speak to them yourself?” inquired the gentleman.
“I do not wish to become directly involved.” Humberto did not want to be involved at all, but his conscience had compelled him to say something and his family could use the money. “Gamble with one of these men and buy him some drinks. When he is relaxed, tell him the type of woman that you are looking for. He will tell you where to go. ¿Comprendes?”
“I understand.” The gentleman seemed doubtful.
“Es muy facil,” confirmed Humberto.
“You think my sisters are bein’ kept in town?” asked the cowboy.
“I know of no brothel in Nueva Vida that would do this sort of thing, but perhaps there is a hidden place, a prison beneath a home. Or perhaps they are in another town or in a cave somewhere in the mountains.”
The gentleman paled.
“You’re paid to work a full week,” the cowboy said to his companion.
“I am aware of that.”
Brent looked at Humberto. “You ever hear of a Spaniard named Gris? Got one eye?”
“I have not.”
“Okay.” The cowboy seemed disappointed. “Now tell us about these Mex’can gentleman.”
Chapter IX
Empty Skulls
Nathaniel Stromler walked past the checkered blanket that dangled in the front doorway and into the night. The air outside the bar was far cooler than what was trapped inside, and the chilled sweat upon the gentleman’s brow and nape wrought horripulations that matched the texture of his anxious guts.
Brent exited, shoved his pistol back into its home and pulled the blanket across the portal. He touched the brim of his hat, which was a signal to the unseen man in the alleyway on the opposite side of the road, and whispered, “Don’t look over.”
“I shall not.”
The cowboy’s hand landed upon the gentleman’s right shoulder and urged him forward. Nathaniel walked past a barbacao shack, two groping lovers, a burro that was tethered to half of a rusty anchor, four ziggurats of bricks that were to become a building and two whining terrier puppies marooned in an unmonitored baby carriage. The duo crossed the street, circumnavigated an open half-trailer (within which laid four people who the gentleman hoped were asleep rather than decomposing) and turned east, toward the outskirts of Nueva Vida.
Behind a house, a dark shape detached itself from the shadows and disappeared into an alleyway. Nathaniel felt a lambent spark climb his spine.
“Keep walking.” Brent placed the meat of his right palm upon his gun grip.
Nathaniel’s pulse quickened.
Walking abreast, the two men passed several houses, a score of interconnected shacks and a tiny wagon loaded with yucca leaves and hacked-up cactus limbs. The town grew sparse.
Brent asked, “You think you can get these gentlemen to divulge?”
“I will do everything that I can to learn—”
A perpendicular shadow appeared beside the cowboy. Nathaniel’s stomach sank. Presently, he recognized that the darkness was Long Clay.
“You can find the camp from here?” Brent asked Nathaniel.
“I believe so.”
The gunfighter and the cowboy disappeared behind a house.
“Damnation.”
Nathaniel applied his monogrammed silk handkerchief to his damp forehead and looked northeast, across the plain toward the tangled coppice in which the Plugford crew was positioned. The woods were a hirsute black growth upon the dark gray land, and within them the camp was completely obscured.
The abandoned gentleman replaced his handkerchief and walked. His loafers wobbled upon hidden stones and unseen roots, and he considered the deeds that his companions might commit to acquire the pesos that he needed to convincingly playact the role of a wealthy whoremonger. Nathaniel did not think that Brent was a dark man, but the cowboy—in his desperation—submitted to Long Clay, a charcoal jackal with a thousand sharp teeth in his stomach. Once again, the gentleman contemplated abandoning the Plugfords, although he knew that he would not. He wanted to keep his word, earn his full wage and aid the women. The avenue of egress was more than two hundred miles behind him.
Nathaniel entered the woods.
Within the forested region, the world was bifurcate. The spiky obstacles that rose up from the earth were jet black, and the sand, the sky and the gentleman’s outstretched hands were dark gray.
Cautiously, Nathaniel walked along an elusive footpath, which was demarcated by flat stones, and around him, the woods grew denser. Opaque night began to overpower that which was dark gray and discernible. Time sped up or slowed down.
He stumbled over a root and flung his arms wide. A yucca needle pricked his right palm, and he retracted his hand. The gentleman looked at his injury and saw a droplet of night traverse his dark gray palm.
“Damnation.”
Nathaniel wiped black blood upon the trunk of a tree, strode three paces and ducked below a low-hanging branch that attempted to choke him.
“Damna—”
Two metallic clicks emanated from the mound of blackness directly in front of the gentleman. He froze.
“Who’s there?’ asked the dark pile.
“Nathaniel Stromler stands before you.”
“I was hoping for something a bit tastier.” There was a vertical glimmer within the darkness—light upon a gun barrel. “Is Brent there with you?”
Nathaniel recognized the speaker as Patch Up. “Brent is not with me. He has gone off on an errand with Long Clay.”
“I suppose that’s why you didn’t employ the special signal.”
“I was unaware that there was any such signal.”
Several leaves rustled and a twig broke.
“Why’re you over this way?” inquired Patch Up.
“I am returning from Nueva Vida.”
“Is the town on wheels?”
“Pardon?”
“You’re walking south.”
The night concealed Nathaniel’s embarrassment. “These damnable woods have…they have discomfited me.” A hand landed upon the gentleman’s shoulder and startled him. He turned and was barely able to discern the gray hair and sleepy eyes of the pudgy negro who stood right beside him.
“If you could navigate dark woods all by yourself,” Patch Up stated, “you wouldn’t be our dandy.”
Nathaniel chose not to respond to the remark.
“Good news.”
“That would be an anomaly.”
“I’m roasting up a grouse—your highly-preferred favorite.”
Nathaniel’s anxieties had trumped his hunger for the last two hours, but his stomach reacted immediately to the news with a noise that an elderly and infirm housecat might make. “That is splendid information. I am famished.”
“Let’s chow.”
Patch Up led Nathaniel down a declivity, through a trampled creosote patch limned by firelight and into a clearing. Beside the sunken campfire squatted the sinewy native who had killed the hawk earlier that morning. The longhaired man was clothed in jeans and a vest, and his hands were splattered with wet blood that dripped onto heated stones, sizzled and filled the air with the smell of copper. Firelight shone upon the waxen, reddish-purple skin that covered his right arm, and the man’s eyes, fixated on the blaze, glowed like jewels.
“That’s Deep Lakes,” Patch Up informed Nathaniel.
“I recall him from this morning.”
Very aware of his royal blue fancy dress at that moment, the gentleman strode beside the campfire and to the native said, “Greetings.”
“Good evening to you, Mr. Stromler.” Deep Lakes sounded like an educated man from the Northeast.
The gentleman was about to endeavor more conversation when he noticed the carcasses. At the foot of the native laid a dead bobcat and an armored, beaded, gray capsule-shaped creature that Nathaniel did not recognize from life experience, but instead from an illustrative plate in the first volume of his encyclopedia as an armadillo. The light from the fire shone inside the animals’ cracked-open skulls.
Deep Lakes raised one of his dripping hands, put a pinkish-gray clump of matter into his mouth and swallowed it whole. Blood dripped onto the stones and sizzled. Sickened by the sight and the cloying odor, Nathaniel looked away.
Patch Up walked over to the far side of the campfire, wrapped his hands with damp rags, leaned down, grabbed the thick end of a long iron stake and raised an impaled, plucked and salted grouse from the hearth coals. Half of the bird had been cooked, and the remainder was completely raw.
The negro wrinkled his mouth and looked back to the area where the horses were hobbled. “Stevie!”
The crooked-nosed twenty-one-year-old emerged from behind the wagon. “What?” He was bare-chested and held something shiny in his right hand.
“Did you turn Mr. Stromler’s grouse like I asked?” Patch Up whispered to Nathaniel, “He didn’t.”
“I did,” proclaimed Stevie.
“Then exactly half of this bird is fireproof?”
“Go roast.” Stevie swatted the air and raised the shiny object to his mouth.
Patch Up looked at Nathaniel. “He’s in the flask.”
“I am more than content to eat the cooked half of that grouse,” remarked the gentleman.
“Let me give it some symmetry.” Patch Up leaned the spit beside the hearth and from his left coat pocket withdrew a metal cylinder that was surmounted by a brass crank. “Got eleven spices in here. And special salt.” He ground the peppermill, and multicolored motes clung to the bird’s skin.
“Bravo,” said Nathaniel.
“Hey!” shouted Stevie. “The dandy’s back!” He gestured with his flask and drank, as if he had just concluded a toast.
From the darkness behind the wagon emerged a broad lumbering shape that Nathaniel mistook for a bear until he recognized it as John Lawrence Plugford. The powerfully-built patriarch strode past his son (who hastily secreted his liquor flask), directly toward the campfire.
Suppressing trepidations, Nathaniel said, “Good evening, Mr. Plugford.”
Two red lights gleamed beneath John Lawrence Plugford’s heavy brow.
“Would you like some of this grouse?” inquired Patch Up.
The patriarch shook his leonine head, arrived at the campfire and focused his terrible eyes upon the gentleman. “What happened?” The voice that emerged from the tangled silver and brown beard was a funereal rasp.
“Brent and I spoke with Ojos—the man who sent you the letter.”
John Lawrence Plugford nodded. His ey
es were like gun barrels.
“Ojos gave us the names of the two gentleman who saw your daughters, and—”
“What’re their names?” John Lawrence Plugford reached into the chest pocket of his gray overalls, withdrew a fountain pen and unscrewed its cap with huge fingers that made the writing implement look no larger than a lollipop stick. The steel tip glared with reflected firelight.
The bestial man gazed at the gentleman.
Nathaniel hesitated.
“Don’t make Pa ask twice,” Stevie advised from behind his father’s shoulder.
Nathaniel said, “The men are Manuel Menendez and Juan Bonito.”
Upon the back of his left hand, John Lawrence Plugford wrote.
Manwell M
The tip clogged and scratched his skin. The colossal man sucked upon the steel, spat, shook the fountain pen and continued to write.
inindez. Wan Boneeto.
John Lawrence Plugford slid the cap onto his fountain pen, screwed it down, turned his back to the fire and walked toward the darkness.
Concerned that the wrathful man was going to hunt down the two Mexicans directly, Nathaniel said, “Sir.”
The patriarch continued into the shadows.
“Mr. Plugford, sir.”
“J.L.” shouted Patch Up. “Wait a moment.”
The huge man halted, but did not turn around.
To his substantial back, Nathaniel said, “Those two men are not to be harmed. They are the contacts with whom I am to meet, and they will tell me where to find your daughters.”
The fire dimmed and the camp darkened. John Lawrence Plugford was silent.
“Your son guaranteed that Manuel Menendez and Juan Bonito would not be harmed,” clarified Nathaniel. “He gave Ojos his word.”
From the other side of the massive shoulders issued a quiet and crackling inquiry. “How do these two men know my angels?”
Stevie, Deep Lakes and Patch Up looked at Nathaniel.
The gentleman did not doubt that a poorly-worded answer would bring about violence. “I am not certain how these men came to know your daughters.”
Wraiths of the Broken Land Page 6
