DEDICATION
For Christine, Honora, & Violet Ashwell
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
West of the Known
Adela
Accidental
The Diplomat’s Daughter
The Peculiar Narrative of the Remarkable Particulars in the Life of Orrinda Thomas
James III
Snake Doctors
The Mourners
Recognition
That We May All Be One Sheepfolde, or, O Saeculum Corruptissimum
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
West of the Known
My brother was the first man to come for me. The first man I saw in the raw, profuse with liquor, outside a brothel in New Mexico Territory. He was the first I know to make a promise then follow on through. There is nothing to forgive. For in the high violence of joy, is there not often a desire to swear devotion? But what then? When is it ever brung off to the letter? When they come for our blood, we will not end, but go on in an unworldly fever.
I come here to collect, my brother said from the porch. If there was more I did not hear it for Uncle Bill and Aunt Josie stepped out and closed the door. I was in the kitchen canning tomatoes, standing over a row of mason jars, hands dripping a wa’try red when in stepped a man inside a long buckskin coat.
I’m your brother, Jackson, the man smiled, holding out his hand.
I did not know him. And he did not in particular look like me.
I’m Lavenia, I said, frantic to find an apron to wipe upon.
I know who you are, he said.
I put my hands up.
Dudn’t matter, he said, and the red water dripped down his wrist, We’re kin.
With the sun behind him, he stood in shadow. Like the white rider of the Four Horsemen come to conquest, and I would’ve cut my heart out for him then.
Jackson walked to the stove and handed me down an apron from a hook, saying, I reckon we got the same eye color. But your shape’s your ma’s.
I couldn’t not go. Uncle Bill and Aunt Josie saw me fed but were never cherishing. I did not dread them as I did their son, Cy.
What comes in the dark?
Stars.
Cooler air.
Dogs’ bark.
Cy.
Always I heard his step before the door and I knew when it was not the walking by kind. I would not move from the moment my cousin came in, till the moment he went out, from when he took down my nightdress, till I returned to myself to find how poorly the cream bow at my neck had been tied.
In the morning, when Cy was about to ride into town and I was feeding the chickens, we might joke and talk, or try. I had known Cy all my remembered life. We had that tapestry of family to draw upon.
The night Jackson came for me, I heard Cy’s step. My carpetbag, which I had yet to fill, fell from my hands. Hush said the air, like a hand in the dark coming for your mouth. Cy came in and went to my bedroom window, fists in his pockets, watching the ox in the field knock about with its bell. Drunk. Not certain how, since no one at dinner had any spirits but Jackson, who’d brought his own bottle and tucked in like it was his last meal.
You gonna go with him, huhn? Cy spoke through his teeth, a miner having once broken his jaw.
He is my brother, I said.
Half-brother, Cy said, turning toward me.
He’s older’n me so I guess I best listen, I said, suddenly dreadfully frightened that somehow they would not let me leave.
Jackson an me’re the same age. Both born in ’50. You remember when he lived here? It was you and Jackson and your ma.
I don’t remember Ma and I don’t remember Jackson, I said.
It were a real to-do: your pa joining up to be a Reb, leaving us his kids and squaw. She was a fine thing tho. That Indian gal. They lost you know . . . Cy sat me down on the bed by my wrist. . . . The Rebs. His hands pinching the tops of my arms, he laid me back. You know what kind of man Jackson is? I heard Cy ask. He was a damned horse thief. Old John Cochran only let him go cause of my pa.
You done? Jackson leaned in the doorway, whittling a stick into a stake.
I jumped up. I’m sorry I’m just getting started, I said, kneeling to pick up the carpetbag.
Get a wiggle on, girl, Jackson said, coming in.
Cy walked out, knocking Jackson’s shoulder as he passed.
Jackson smiled. Hey now, I don’t wanna put a spoke in your wheel, but how you think you’re gonna load all that on one horse?
I’m sorry. Is it too much? I whispered and stopped.
Why are you whispering? he asked.
I don’t want them to think we’re in here doing sumthin bad, I said and lifted open the trunk at the bottom of my bed.
Look here, Jackson said, You’re gonna come live with me and my best pal, Colt Wallace, in New Mexico Territory. And Sal Adams, if we can locate the bastard, so pack as little as you can.
Jackson made like he was gonna sit on the bed, but instead picked my bustle up off the quilt. I got no notion how you women wear these things, he said.
I don’t need to bring that, I said.
You know, Lavenia, you weren’t afraid of nuthin. When I was here you was a game little kid. He spun the bustle up and caught it.
I disremember, I said.
He looked at me, the tip of his knife on his bottom lip, then went back to whittling. When I’m with you, I won’t let no one hurt you. You know that? he called back as he walked toward the kitchen.
Jackson threw me up on the horse, saying, Stay here till I come back. An don’t get down for nuthin. Promise me.
Yessir. I promise, I said, shooing a mosquito from my neck, I swear on my mother’s grave.
Don’t do that, he said.
Why? I asked.
Cause she weren’t a Christian.
Wait.
What?
Nuthin.
The dark of the Texas plain was a solid thing, surrounding, collecting on my face like blued dust. The plain and I waited in the stretched still till we heard the first gunshot, yes, then a lopsided shouting fell out the back of the house. The chickens disbanded. A general caterwauling collapsed into one dragged weeping that leaked off into the dogs the stars and the cool.
Jackson opened the door and the horse shifted under me.
Please, I asked, What did you do?
Jackson tossed the bloody stake into the scrub and holstered his pistol. I killed that white-livered son of a bitch, he said, jerking my horse alongside his.
And the others? I asked.
You know they knew, don’t ya? Aunt Josie and Uncle Bill. He let go and pulled up ahead, They knew about Cy. Now you know sumthin, too, he said.
Through the dark I followed him.
A few mornings after, we rode into a town consisting of a general store, two saloons, and a livery. We harnessed the horses round the back of one of the saloons. Jackson dug a key out from under a barrel and we took the side door. He went behind the empty bar and set down two scratched glasses.
You used to be more chipper, he said. Don’t be sore. An eye for an eye is in the Bible.
There’s a lot of things in the Bible. Thou shalt not kill, for one, I said, sitting up on a stool.
Waal, the Bible is a complicated creature, he said, smiling. And you and I’re living in Old Testament times. He poured me a double rye. I can’t warn a trespasser with no sugar tongue. I have to make it so he don’t come back and you don’t go bout that cordially, minding your manners. No ma’am, I
have to avenge the harm done upon me. But I can tell you that I don’t kill wantonly.
And I don’t drink liquor, I said, pushing the glass back across the wood still wet from the night.
Truth is, he clinked my glass, I shouldn’t have left you. When I run away I mean. It’s jest being you was a girl, and so little, a baby almost, I figured Bill an Josie’d take to you like you was their own, especially after your ma and our pa went and died. But those folks didn’t do right. They didn’t do right at all. We can agree on that, can’t we?
I don’t know I guess we can, I said and a rat run under my feet.
Those folks, they weren’t expecting me to come back. But no one’s gonna hurt you when I’m around—that there is a promise.
I picked up my glass. We’d run out of food on the trail the morning before and as we broke camp, Jackson’d made me a cigarette for breakfast.
But I didn’t know what you were fixing to do, I said, running my tongue over the taste of ash in my mouth.
You didn’t? Let me look about me for that Bible cause I’d like you to swear on it.
Can you even read?
Enough. Cain’t spell tho. He refilled my glass, Look, it ain’t your fault this world is no place for women.
But us women are in it, I said.
Have another, he said. Don’t dwell.
A bare-armed woman appeared in a ribboned shift, breasts henned up; she went into Jackson and said Spanish things. He smiled, giving her a squeeze, Go on then, he said to me. Go with Rosa, she’ll take care a you. Imma go get a shave and a haircut. Should I get my mustache waxed and curled?
I laughed despite myself. The whore held out her hand, Come with me, Labinya.
Upstairs, she poured water in a washstand. Some slipped over the side and spilled onto the floor; she smiled then helped me take off my clothes heavy with stain. Her nose had been broken and she was missing two top teeth on either side. I stood there while the whore washed me like a baby. I wondered if this was something she did to men, lingering on their leafless parts for money.
On the bed, divested, I could not care what next would befall me. There was no sheet only a blanket; I covered my head with the itch of it and cried. I cried cause as sure as Hell was hot I was glad Cy was gone, cause I could not understand why when first Jackson took my hand I had known he was not good but bad, and I knew that right then I was good but would be bad in the days to come, which were forever early and there as soon as you closed your eyes.
The whore was still in the room. But when I grew quiet, the door shut, and I could not hear her step, for the whore was not wearing shoes.
Since I was between hay and grass, my brother dressed me as a boy. It only needed a bandanna. I’s tall for my age and all long lines so it was my lack of Adam’s apple he had to hide if I was gonna work with him and not for the cathouse, since my face was comely enough tho never pleased him, it looking too much like my mother’s (he said and I did not know).
In the back of the saloon, the bandanna Jackson was tying bit the hair at the nape of my neck. Lord, I think you grew an inch these last few months, Jackson said then turned my chin to him. Why’re you making that face?
Cause it pulls, I said, playing with my scabbard. Jackson had gotten me a whole outfit: a six-shooter, belt and cartridges.
Waal, why didn’t you say so? Needs to be shorter, he whipped the bandanna off, Hey Rosa, gimme them scissors again. What d’ya mean no por favor? She said you got pretty hair, Lav. Rosa, why don’t you make yourself useful and get us some coffee from the hotel—Arbuckle if they got it—and have that barkeep pour me another whiskey on your way out. Lavenia, I am gonna cut it all off if that is all right with you.
I shrugged as Colt Wallace of the white-blond hair who could speak Dutch and play the fiddle came into the saloon with Sal Adams who always wore a big black hat and had told me when he taught me three-card monte that his father had one lung and ate only turnips.
Hey boys, you ready for a hog-killing time tomorrow? Sit down here, honey. See Rosa, Lavenia don’t mind! Jackson shouted to the whore who was going out into the night and across the street in her trinkets and paint.
Jackson, said Colt, dragging a chair to our table away from the games of chance. What are you doing to the fair Lavenia Bell?
Keeping her from launching into a life of shame, an helping her into one of profit, Jackson said, and my black hair fell down around me. Sal, gimme her hat. Lavenia, stand up. Go on. There. She looks more like a boy now, don’t she?
Sal smiled and said, A boy with a woman’s heart.
Colt gave an old-fashioned Comanche yell, then said, Sure she looks like a boy cause she’s flat as an ironing—
Jackson had both hands round Colt’s throat. The table tipped and Sal stepped in the middle of them, steadying it. Fall back, Jackson, Sal said. Colt misspoke. Didn’t you? You understand, Colt, how such words might offend?
Choking, Colt tried to nod.
Please don’t, Jackson! I ain’t hurt none by it. Truly, I said. Listen, I don’t even want breasts.
Why not? Jackson turned to look at me.
I don’t know—guess they’d get in the way of shootin?
Jackson laughed and let him loose.
Sure Sal, coughed Colt. I mean, I didn’t mean nothing by it, Jackie. I meant to say they’ll think Lav’s a boy long as they don’t look at her in the eyes.
What the hell you mean by that? Jackson asked, rounding on Colt again.
He means she’s got long eyelashes, Sal said, taking our drinks from one of the whores.
Shoot Jackie, ain’t we friends? Here, Colt toasted, To good whiskey and bad women!
It was a day’s ride. Sal stayed to guard the town square and watch for any vigilant citizens with guns, while Colt and I went with Jackson into the bank, the heft of worry in my bowels. There was only one customer inside, a round man in spectacles, who Colt thrust into and said, Hands up, with his loud flush of a laugh, as Jackson and I slid over the counter, six-shooters out, shouting for the two bank tellers to get down on their knees.
Open up that vault, said Jackson.
We can’t do that, sir, the older teller said. Only the bank manager has the key. And he’s not here today.
Get the goddamn money. This whole town knows you got a key.
Sir, I would if I could but—
You think I got time for this? Jackson hammered the older teller in the face with his pistol, and the man thrashed over, cupping his nose. Jackson straddled him as he lay on the ground, saying, Now you open that vault right quick.
The older teller blinked up at him through bloody hands, I won’t do that. I refuse to be . . .
Jackson thumped the older teller’s head with the butt of his right pistol and that older teller began to leak his brain. There was a sting in my nose as I watched him drip into the carpet. Until then, I had no notion that blood was child-book red. Jackson turned to the younger teller, who looked frantic at me.
Son, you wanna live? Jackson asked.
I willed him to nod.
Gesturing to me, Jackson said, Give this boy here all the bonds, paper currency and coin in these bags.
Hurry it up back there! hollered Colt, forcing the customer to his knees and peeking out the front door, Sumthin’s up! Sal’s bringin the horses!
Me and the younger teller, Jackson’s pistol cocked on him, stuffed the burlap sacks as Jackson climbed backward through the bank window. That’s enough. Now get on your knees, he said.
As I tossed Jackson the first sack, the young teller rose up and grabbed me from behind, snatching my gun, waving it at us, shouting, You cowardly bushwackers, attacking an unarmed man! You’re a whore herder—this girl is a girl!
Jackson shot the young teller in the chest, dove through the window and got back my gun. He slapped it into my stomach. Shoot him, he said.
Who? No, I pushed the gun away.
Hey! Colt shouted, What in hell is goin on? They’re gonna have heard them shots!
I looked to the young teller rearing in his blood. Please Jackson, don’t make me do that, I said.
Put him out of his misery, honey. He’s gonna die either way.
I raised the gun then just as quick lowered it. I cain’t, I said.
You’re with us, ain’t ya? Jackson was standing behind me, the warm of his hand went on the meat of my back, After all Lavenia, you just done told that boy my name.
Colt’s gun sounded twice from the front.
And so I shot the young teller dead through the eye and out of that bank we rode into the bright forever.
Alone, jest us two, in what I had by then guessed was her actual room, tho it had none of the marks of the individual, the whore put the whiskey between my fingers.
Èl no debería haber hecho esto, she said, locking the door and loosening my bandanna.
Leave it, I stared in her mirror. Make me drunk, I said. I want the bitter of that oh-be-joyful.
Drink. She put the glass to my lips, then took it back and topped it off, asking, How old you?
Fifteen. Sixteen in June, I said. The whiskey tore a line down my stomach to let the hot in. Wait. If you can speak English, then why don’t you?
She shrugged, handing me back a full glass, Is more easy for men to think the other.
And I ain’t a man, I said.
She nodded. Why you brother dress you like one?
So when we ride no man messes with me and I don’t mess with my bustle. Is it hard being a—a soiled dove? I drank. It’s awful hard on one being a gunslinger.
She smiled with her missing teeth, took off my coat and shirt then sat down inside the bell of her ruffled skirt. My husband die when I you age, she said. I make good money this place.
Money . . . I repeated, and took the whiskey off her bureau where it sat next to a knife and a small bottle of Best Turkey Laudanum. I got money now I guess, I said and laid a few dollars down. If you don’t mind, I said and droppered laudanum into my whiskey, I hope this will stupefy me. I drank it and flopped back on the bed.
Where you mama?
Dead. When I was three. My pa’s sister raised me. Aunt Josie.
The Man Who Shot Out My Eye Is Dead Page 1
