Dolores looked through the window and down at the twilit celebration that occurred upon the festooned porch of the Plugford ranch. Sixty guests attended the wedding celebration, including a score of folks who had traveled all the way from San Francisco to watch Yvette change her last name to Upfield. Patch Up, wearing a tuxedo and a top hat, and Stevie, wearing a gray suit that was a little too small for him, argued beside the new phonograph that was to depart with the newlyweds, but their words and the sounds of the gay throng were muted by the thick pane of glass.
John Lawrence Plugford took Dolores’s right hand. “You’re still young and beautiful, and you got spark like your mother. A lady like you don’t need to worry about findin’ a man—only which one’s good enough for her.”
The compliment only grew the cancan dancer’s melancholy. “I wanted to marry Aaron.”
John Lawrence Plugford shook his head. “You’ll find somebody better than him.”
“I ain’t so sure.”
“You will. I’ve got perspective, and I know it definite certain.” The patriarch kissed his daughter’s hand. “You’ll find yours. And he’ll be better than Aaron Alders.”
“I never told you the real reason why he ended it with me,” confessed Dolores. “It had nothin’ at all to do with me.”
John Lawrence Plugford’s face stiffened. “Who’d it have to do with?”
Aaron Alders had an uncle in northern Florida who had heard some very disconcerting rumors about John Lawrence Plugford. These crumbs of information were conveyed to Dolores’s fiancé, and the oil man had inquired after their veracity. The cancan dancer was unable to lie to her betrothed, and he took the news very badly. “I still love you,” said Aaron, tears shining his eyes, “but I cannot—in good conscience—legally connect my family to yours.” After a long and heavy silence, the oil man added, “I know it’s not your fault…but it’s a fact and my uncle will raise an objection to my parents if I don’t break things off.” Too destroyed to get angry, Dolores nodded her head and asked the man to leave. She had never told anybody (excepting Brent) the real reason that the engagement had ended, and two years later she found that she still loved Aaron.
“Who’d it have to do with?” John Lawrence Plugford asked for the second time. The huge man looked intensely uncomfortable.
“Aaron found himself another woman. A secretary at one of his wells.” Although she was usually candid with her father, Dolores could not bear to tell him that he was the cause of her great disappointment.
John Lawrence Plugford looked relieved. “I know it hurts, but it’s better that you found out how he was before you two got married. You want your husband to be devoted steadfast. A man who thinks your smile is the most important thing in the world.” His eyes sparkled, and he squeezed his daughter’s hand.
The cancan dancer swung her boots back and forth. “Thanks.”
“Lets get down there and have us a waltz.” The huge man rose from his chair.
“I wanna be alone for a bit.”
“Nope.” John Lawrence Plugford leaned over and scooped his daughter up into his arms. “Moving and music will change your humors.”
The room spun around Dolores’s head, and a smile crept onto her face, despite herself. Once the revolutions stopped, she saw Brent, standing in her doorway. Presently, Patch Up appeared, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief.
Brent looked at Dolores. “You okay?”
“I’m okay. Your tuxedo’s nice—I didn’t see it good at the church.”
“I borrowed it from Isaac Isaacs. And he should mind what he leaves in the pockets.” Her brother grimaced.
The patriarch announced, “We’re comin’ down to waltz.”
“I’ll warn people,” said Patch Up.
“I know two waltzes.”
“Gigantic and huger.”
“Daddy. Put me down—I can walk.”
The floor rose, and the soles of Dolores’s beige boots sank into the brown carpet. John Lawrence Plugford extended his right elbow.
Arm in arm, Father and daughter walked out of the room, across the second floor hallway, down the stairwell upon which Stevie had broken his right arm when he was seven, eight and twelve years old, through the oaken dining room wherein hung a portrait of the petite matriarch (rendered in the year eighteen seventy-five) and a singed painting of the Florida plantation, across the turquoise tiles of the kitchen, through the back entrance and onto the porch where the recently-married couple and their guests celebrated holy matrimony.
Dolores was cheered by the fresh air, the sounds of the throng and the music that emanated from the flower of the phonograph.
“Stevie!” shouted Patch Up.
“What?” The nineteen-year-old’s lips were stained purplish-red with wine.
“Put on a waltz!”
“Which one?”
“‘His Waves Shall Carry Us Home!’”
Stevie pulled the needle from the wax cylinder, and music was sucked from the air. The dancers awkwardly aborted their steps and threw unhappy looks at the youngest Plugford.
“Wait ‘til the song’s finished done,” said Brent.
The chastened young man returned the needle to the groove from which it had been taken, and the music resumed, abruptly alive like a sleeper startled awake. After a few lurching steps, the dancers reclaimed their pulse. The phonograph attendant raised his glass of wine and drank.
John Lawrence Plugford walked Dolores around the guests, toward the eastern veranda, where the newlyweds stood and conversed with an older couple from Wyoming. Yvette’s sky blue wedding gown modestly displayed her figure, which had become lush and womanly in recent years, and her blonde hair was arranged in an artful swirl that looked like liquid sunlight. Her face was joyful. Samuel C. Upfield IV’s opalescent tuxedo scintillated, and his twilit eyes glowed as if they were made of gold.
When the older couple from Wyoming noted the approaching relations, they excused themselves from the newlyweds with a kiss and a handshake.
John Lawrence Plugford ducked his head underneath a blue and white festoon. “Mr. and Mrs. Upfield.”
Samuel and Yvette turned into the sun and glowed.
“You look real good together.” Dolores had her reservations about Samuel C. Upfield IV, but she could not deny how much he adored Yvette. “A real pretty couple.”
Twilight coruscated within the bride’s smiling eyes. “Thank you.”
“That yellow dress and you have a wonderful partnership,” Samuel remarked to Dolores over a glass of twilit gin. “My friend David has twice complimented the synergy.”
The music reached its cadence and, before its final chord had naturally decayed, vanished.
“The man has an interest,” clarified Yvette.
Dolores did not find the fawning banker from San Francisco at all appealing and had openly avoided his solicitations. “I’ve been apprised.”
Concerned looks were exchanged between Yvette and Samuel.
“Today is ‘bout you two gettin’ together,” remarked Dolores. “And making real long speeches with lots of words that nobody knows.” This later remark was addressed to the groom.
“Sesquipedalians draw from the supernal lexicon.”
A slow waltz emerged from the flower of the phonograph.
John Lawrence Plugford’s shadow covered over his daughters. “Let’s have us a dance.”
“That is an exceedingly splendid idea.” Samuel set his drink upon the banister that was once favored by the rotund tabby cat Pineapple, took Yvette’s gloved hands and walked her toward the center of the porch. John Lawrence Plugford and Dolores followed after the newlyweds.
“Daddy,” said Yvette.
“Angel?”
“This one’s in a five-four time signature. It’s c
omplicated.”
“J.L. practiced with the record,” Patch Up said as he escorted the mulatto seamstress Jessica Jones into the dance area.
Yvette was surprised. “Daddy practiced dance steps?”
“Once the phonograph stopped laughing.”
The patriarch frowned at his best friend.
Stevie pulled Rosemary Finley into the dance area, and Brent, holding the rugose right hand of the widow Mrs. Walters, followed after his younger brother. Overhead wheeled two birds that blazed with golden twilight.
John Lawrence Plugford took Dolores’s hands and positioned his feet as if a boxing match were about to begin. His lips silently counted, ‘one, two, three; one, two; one, two, three; one, two,’ and on the third downbeat, the house, porch, guests and twilit ranch scrolled across his huge shoulders.
Right hand upraised, Dolores matched her father’s deft footwork, twirling for three and two-beat durations. “You can do it good.”
“Thanks.” John Lawrence Plugford smiled. “And you’re a better dancer than Patch Up.”
“Bigot,” said the negro.
The patriarch alternated the direction in which he twirled his daughter and fluidly guided her alongside his sons and their partners.
Brent looked away from his widow and appraised his father’s footwork. “You’ve got it all the way correct.”
“This ain’t easy natural to a man like me,” John Lawrence Plugford remarked, “but I learned how, and take real pleasure in doin’ it proper.”
Dolores knew that this comment was about more than just dancing.
Darkness expanded.
“Doloressssss.”
Darkness thickened. The face of John Lawrence Plugford wailed and coughed up blood. Fluid dripped from his wrinkled eyes.
Darkness receded.
“Doloressssss.”
Sitting upon Patch Up’s stool with her face pressed to the wall, Dolores awakened. The molten potbelly stove was dark, and the fort was cold and dim. She lifted her head.
“They’re riding toward us,” said Long Clay. “Put your gun in the slit.”
“Okay.” The redheaded woman glanced at her father and Patch Up, both of whom had been alive in her dream only ten seconds earlier. They were still and filled with chill night.
“Let’s get this goddamn Gris for permanent,” Stevie remarked from the far side of the south wall.
Dolores raised her rifle, pointed the barrel outside and looked at the moonless night. “I can’t see hardly anything.”
Long Clay exhaled through his nose and aimed his telescopic rifle. “Neither can they.”
Chapter V
The New Constellations
Brent Plugford watched a broad shadow emerge from the southern woodlands. Even with the powerful magnification of his spyglass, it was impossible for him to discern how many riders comprised the opposition, although it was clear that they rode at a full gallop, directly toward the fort.
“You don’t like what we did to your amigo, do you?” taunted Stevie. “Don’t like what we done to his tamale.”
The dark mass poured across grasslands that were slick with dew.
Brent asked, “How does Deep Lakes fit into this plan?”
“He improvises.”
“Okay.”
Three stars that were muzzle flashes twinkled within the charging horde and shone light like a photographer’s powder flash. Brent saw approximately fifty riders as well as several horse-drawn vehicles.
“Looks like nearly three score men are comin’.”
The announcement poisoned the air.
“Goddamn.”
Dolores swiveled upon her stool. “Brent?”
“Yeah?”
“When…when I was a whore in Catacumbas, I thought about…about ending it every day. You’ve got no idea of how bad it really was—‘specially after I was crippled.” The redheaded woman turned back to her opening and gazed out at the dark world. “But I didn’t kill myself…‘cause…well…it ain’t easy, and ‘cause I thought maybe you all would rescue me someday like you did. But if Gris got me again…I wouldn’t even have that small hope.” She paused, and the silence that filled the fort was heavier than the world. “I can’t go back there. I can’t. Never.”
Unable to respond to his sister’s terrible request, Brent stared through his spyglass at the charging enemy, who were three-and-a-half miles distant.
“They won’t get you,” Stevie said, “I won’t let ‘em.”
“Brent,” Dolores prompted, “you know what I’m askin’ you to do.”
“I know and I’ll do it,” agreed the cowboy, shuddering.
“Thank you.”
Stevie looked over. “Brent?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry for sayin’ that stuff ‘bout you. Please don’t be angry with me.”
“It’s okay. This’s a hard time for every Plugford.”
The riders careered onto the pale weedy terrain and became sharp silhouettes. Galloping horses elongated and shortened twice per second, and vehicles vibrated upon invisible wooden wheels. The tattoo of hooves sounded like distant rain.
“If we survive,” Stevie asked, “could I maybe come cowboy with you in your outfit? I ain’t gonna run the ranch without Pa and Patch Up there with me.”
“We gotta make sure Dolores and Yvette are situated good.”
“After they’re settled, can I come?”
Brent did not believe he would live to see any of these imagined scenarios, but he did not want to diminish his brother’s hopes. “Okay. I’ll hire you.”
“Thanks. I’ll work hard and behave, and I promise I won’t drink.”
Less than two miles south of the fort, horses and wagons sped across the terrain.
“Okay.”
Long Clay squeezed his trigger, and light cracked. At the vanguard of the charging crew, a brown horse bucked. Even though the riders hunched forward in their saddles, their backs remained exposed because of the incline. The gunfighter flung his bolt, and a spinning shell clinked upon the stone.
“That’s still well over a mile,” remarked Stevie.
Long Clay adjusted his aim and fired. A man fell from a black colt to the ground, where his linear form was trampled until it became circular.
After a stentorian cry, the riders poked white holes into the night. Bullets hit the terrain far below the trench or climbed uselessly into the air.
Stevie fired.
“Save it,” Brent said, “they’re not in range of our guns yet.”
Long Clay fired his telescopic rifle. A sombrero took flight, and a hatless rider tumbled into the dirt. Again, the gunfighter fired. A man grabbed his neck, fell from his saddle and struck the ground, where his head was kicked, cracked and crushed by hooves.
The riders extended their hands and conjured crackling white constellations. Plumes of dirt blossomed at the foot of the incline, and wild bullets whistled toward the sky.
Long Clay fired. A red dot burst upon the white neck of a horse, and the beast veered wildly, spilling its rider. The gunfighter emptied the chamber, loaded a new round and fired. A fallen man was trampled by a brace of horses and had his legs shorn at the knees by wagon wheels.
The opposition extended elongated arms and conjured crackling constellations. Dirt blossomed and wild rounds whistled.
Long Clay pulled the cartridge from the bottom of his rifle, slotted a fully-loaded replacement, drew a bullet into the chamber and fired. A man’s hand turned into a red flower.
Half of a mile separated the charging crew from the fort.
“Start firing,” ordered the gunfighter.
Brent set down his spyglass, raised his rifle, monitored the galloping opposition, pointed his barrel a
t its center and squeezed his trigger. White fire flashed before his eyes. A fleck that was too small to be a person dropped from the equine tide. Presently, Stevie and Dolores sent rounds.
Across the vanguard of the advancing horde, gunfire flashed.
Brent leaned back from the opening. Bullets struck brick or whistled into the sky or clicked against the mountain wall. From the ceiling of the fort, old dust sifted down.
The cowboy flung his trigger guard forward, and the spent shell clinked against the wall and floor. He leaned to the slit, aimed at the vanguard, and fired. The round whistled. A rider yelled, tumbled from his horse and was dismembered by hooves.
Thirty guns flashed.
Brent put his back to the stone wall, as did his siblings and the gunfighter. Bullets hissed overhead and cracked against the facade.
One of the captives shrieked, “¡No dispares, no dispares!”
The inverted Midwesterner yelled out, “We’re still alive! Don’t shoot us!”
“¡Ayudame, por favor, ayudame!” pleaded another inverted hostage.
The distant riders yelled and cursed.
“¡Diablos!”
“¡Animales!”
“¡Bárbaros!”
Although he did not know Spanish, Brent felt that he fully comprehended these imprecations. Presently, he heard the sound of crackling tinder that was Long Clay’s ugly laugh.
Brent returned to the slit, aimed at the vanguard and fired. Atop the roof of a turquoise stagecoach, a rifle flashed. A bullet cracked into the stone directly beside the cowboy’s opening.
“Hell.” Brent leaned back from the opening and announced, “They’ve got a marksman.” His heart was pounding. “Atop the turquoise stagecoach.”
“I’ll get him.” Stevie pointed his rifle through the adjacent slit, fired, flung his trigger guard and aimed.
Brent slammed into his brother and knocked him west. A shot whistled through the slit and impacted the door of the prisoner’s cell. The siblings struck the west wall, and their rifles clattered upon the floor.
Wraiths of the Broken Land Page 28
