Dead Man's Saddle

by Mike Kearby

  He reloads the musket methodically as his mother continues screaming. He knows James will be close by. He briefly points the weapon at the whore screaming from the bed. "Pow," he laughs, mimicking gunfire. "Pow, pow, pow!"

  He hates her.

  He loves her.

  His mother throws her arms in front of her face. "No, Wes!" she shrieks. "Don't… please. Oh God, what have you done?"

  Not yet, Ma, he mouths with a finger to his lips and then turns to face to the open door.

  He loves her.

  He hates her.

  He is going to show her just how much.

  And then James stands there, angrier than he's ever seen him. "What have you done now, you crazy little bastard?" James hollers and moves for him.

  He hesitates momentarily. This time he won't tolerate any slaps from James. "I knew you'd come running, Pa," he volunteers and tauntingly twists the pistol from side to side. "Where's your gun at?" he grins.

  His father's face drops and goes white. White as a summer cloud.

  He feels giddy. His grin, as wide as the Rio Bravo, spreads ear to ear. He raises his eyebrows to pose the question. "Do you know, Pa?" The pistol barrel bucks and explodes in fire and acrid smoke.

  His father cries, falling, "No, son."

  "Who's the bastard now?" he asks as his father sinks to the floor and then turns back toward the bed. In his hand, rests a long, flat-bladed knife that James uses to butcher hogs.

  His mother kicks and flails at him through the bed covers.

  "Easy, Ma," he says, calmly and grabs her by the hair. "You know this is what is bound to happen to whores."

  Her screaming blinds him.

  He hates her.

  He loves her.

  She has to understand that.

  "Wes?"

  Cauble rubbed the corner of his eye in small concentric circles. Somewhere in the distance, maybe above him, a voice sounded.

  "Wes?"

  "What!" Cauble blurted out, frustrated and angry.

  "Wes?"

  Cauble turned with hard, cold, dark eyes. "What?" he hissed through clenched teeth. Winston Brand stood off to his right. "Whataya want?"

  "We camping here tonight?"

  Wes circled his mouth with a thumb and forefinger, thinking and staring at Brand. After some time, he relaxed his jaw and said, "Yeah."

  They camped on a high patch of ground south of Arroyo de la Soledad. The deputies drank bitter coffee laced with rotgut and chewed on dried beef next to a sufficient fire as a solemn Cauble stared north.

  "Coffee, Wes?" Bark Turner, asked.

  Cauble didn't answer, instead he extended a hand toward the voice.

  The deputy placed a hammered tin cup in his boss's palm.

  Cauble ignored the deputy and pulled the cup to his lips. Still engrossed with the half-breed, he took a long drink while his mind twisted with unrelenting images of the horrific tortures of which he would subject the boy Miguel and the man Carrigan.

  "Beef?"

  Cauble turned, his face reddened by the fire and snarled, "What gives that half-breed the right to come into our country and mess up my business?"

  The camp remained silent except for the crackle of burning mesquite.

  "That lousy half-breed Mex," Cauble cursed and flung his tin cup across the fire, causing the deputies to duck. "And to rub it in just a little bit more, he steals my woman."

  The deputies eagerly pushed tin cups of coffee to their mouths fully cognizant and unwilling to engage Cauble in his present state of mind.

  "We are the law!" Cauble uttered curtly, a sudden martinet of the Republic. "This half-breed assassin has to be done in."

  The deputies nodded their agreement.

  "He's killed two deputies of the law and kidnapped a white woman."

  More nods.

  "His father was a cattle thief!" Cauble shouted, enraged. "Where else would a Mex like him have gotten the money to buy all those cattle?"

  Bark Turner shivered at the outburst and added more whiskey to his coffee.

  "And his mother tried to kill me."

  "They deserved what they got that's a fact," Brand interjected.

  Cauble wheeled menacingly at the deputy. "What did you say?" he asked, cold.

  All eyes focused on Brand.

  The deputy averted his eyes away from Cauble and shrugged apologetic. "I didn't mean nothing by it, Wes," he offered.

  "Well they did deserve it!" Cauble snarled and then glared at Brand. "But I don't need you telling me so!"

  "I'm said I'm sorry, Wes," Brand offered in a hushed voice.

  "Not another word!" Cauble snarled and bore his gaze obsessively into the fire, thinking, retrieving, and capturing the past.

  "Let me get this straight, son, you're telling me that this Mexican fella here stabbed your mama?"

  He looks straight into the lawman's eyes and nods yes. The sheriff is one of his ma's callers. He holds his anger for he needs the man now.

  "And then, your daddy arrives and shoots the Mex."

  Another nod.

  "Your daddy thinks the Mex is dead and drops his gun on the bed while he checks on your Ma."

  Yes, again.

  "And that's when the Mex reaches over, grabs the gun, and shoots your daddy."

  Once more nod.

  "You're daddy groans and struggles for the doorway."

  "Yes. Poor, papa."

  "Ok, son, I think that's about it. You have relatives near by?"

  He nods another lie.

  "Well, you best get out to see them and let them know what happened here."

  A final nod.

  "We'll hold your mama and daddy's bodies until your kin come back."

  He walks for the door, plays the grieved…head lowered, one hand rubbing his eye. He never looks back, for he is unremorseful, unrepentant, and never going to return.

  23.

  Arroyo de la Soledad, Texas,

  October 1848

  A house with a wrap-around porch.

  Carrigan stood in front of the giant oak with a loop of rope encircling his neck and shoulder. The morning sun, still low in the sky, warmed his back. Moving quickly, he shinnied up the mammoth tree like a seasoned acrobat.

  Peafowl and chicken in the yard.

  Time was against him now, sped up by his oneirism of a quiet life and all the accompanying niceties Susannah's musings promised. The days of his mother baking bread and his father running cattle, the idyllic life found only in one's dreams.

  Awright, Deputy Miguel de Anza, are you ready to report for work?

  Carrigan shivered at the voice. Stay focused, damned you! He lectured himself.

  What I need for you to do is take this rope and climb that tree with it.

  Concentrate!

  Can you do that, deputy?

  Sure, I've climbed that tree lots of times before.

  Good. Get going and I'll tell you what to do with the rope once you're up there.

  Reaching the five branches, deadly reminders of his father's end, he removed the rotted rope and with a pained expression began to string the line exactly as he had been instructed that September day a lifetime ago.

  A quiet life with Susannah and Justus.

  No matter how much he indulged the fantasy, inside, a voice always reminded him that this woolgathering was nothing more than castles in the air.

  You'll never see any of those things.

  He finished the last weave, gave a quick tug on his handiwork, and gazed with some concern toward the cabin before scrambling down the oak, forlorn and godforsaken…thinking, resigned to his fate and much aware of his future. The irony of the moment caused him to chuckle. "Call it quits now, leave with Susannah, and you're just another murderer with two notches on your belt. Follow through with this thing to the end and you're just another murderer with six notches on your belt." He glanced back at the cabin and pinched his lower lip, pondering his predicament. After two minutes of consideration, he sighed his understand
ing, "Appears either way, you're just another outlaw and murderer." Taking one last glance at his handiwork, he brushed his hands against one another, resigned to the cards thrown on the table. You're just as cursed as Cauble and his henchmen, he agonized, then remembering his benefactor, shrugged, thinking. Así es la vida.

  A day's ride away, Wes Cauble and his deputies broke camp with little conversation. The normally boisterous brigade, now numbering four, rode out in earnest, yet there was a lingering hesitancy as to the undertaking ahead. Even with Cauble's plan, this was a difficult task, and each knew more than one of them might not ride out again. Floyd and June were dead proof of that, both dusted through and through, brave men reduced to cold flesh and upturned eyes.

  Cauble rode behind the others wondering how Floyd and June were caught so unaware. Maybe this Carrigan was that fast. Maybe a higher authority did mete out retribution to keep the world in balance. Maybe justice was coming for him. A flash of a shiver turned his shoulders. "No," he murmured aloud through gritted teeth. "It was a point of good luck for the breed, that's all."

  The others looked back, wondering if their boss was about to go off into one of his episodes.

  Winston Brand glanced over at Bark Turner and sighed, "He's making me nervous."

  See what you've gone and done! Cauble arched suddenly in the saddle. "You've made me go and kill you, Ma," he muttered beneath his breath. "Made me kill you dead."

  "Keep to your own business, Winston," Turner cautioned.

  "We shouldn't have ever killed that boy's mama," Brand lamented.

  Turner exhaled softly and glanced back at Cauble. "What's done is done. It's a little late to be worrying about 'should-have' and 'shouldn't-have' right now."

  Brand shuddered and rolled his tongue around his mouth. "Com'on Bark, you know it was wrong, and Wes will have us all killed because of it."

  Turner rolled his eyes at Brand and whispered, "Let it be, Winston, when the time comes, Wes will be more than up to the task of killing the half-breed."

  Brand shot a quick glance back over his shoulder. "I hope you're right, Bark, 'cuz right now all I see is a half-crazed, mad man talking to his self."

  24.

  Arroyo de la Soledad, Texas,

  November 1836

  The men, mounted on fine Andalusian descendents, vaqueros by appearance, bandits by manner, encircled a sedate Miguel.

  "Hey boy!" one of the men called out.

  Miguel gazed up with little spark.

  The man rubbed several days' growth of raven black whiskers. "Why are you out here alone in the middle of nowhere?"

  Miguel gazed at the man in silence, not afraid, just voiceless at his choosing.

  The man glanced around with a shrug. "This boy might need some manners," he offered.

  The bandits exploded in laughter.

  "Maybe," the man continued, "His momma and papa threw him away because he could not learn his manners."

  The laughter rang louder.

  The man twisted his mouth into a mock frown. "Is that right, boy? Did your momma and papa throw you away?"

  Miguel stared hard at the man and then his fellow vaqueros. "No, they're both dead," he said flatly.

  The man leaned forward over his horse's shoulder. "Dead," he repeated and turned toward each of his men, his face a canvas of surprise.

  Miguel nodded once.

  The man turned back, his brow narrowed. He gazed into the boy's eyes. What he saw made him straighten in the saddle. Behind the youthful facade dwelled a man filled with anger. "Where?" he asked.

  Miguel turned at the waist and pointed across the Arroyo de la Soledad.

  The man looked across the river. "Who killed them, boy?"

  "Six men…with badges," Miguel replied and then extended his own badge.

  The laughter stopped.

  The man rubbed his chin whiskers harder. His eyes darkened, grim. "You're telling me the truth?"

  Miguel twisted his head slightly, glaring. He was unafraid of the man and he could see that the man knew that.

  The man motioned for the boy to come closer. "How long ago?"

  Miguel stood firmly in place. "One month, I think," he whispered in a sorrow-stained voice, "maybe more. Who could really know?"

  "Com'on, boy," the man gestured at Miguel. "Show me."

  Miguel shook his head no. "I do not wish to go there again," he choked. "Not after one month or more."

  The man withdrew his hand, and motioned at the far bank. "Go see," he nodded at two of his men, and then glowered back at Miguel. "You better be telling the truth, muchacho," he snarled.

  The bandits returned thirty-minutes later dour and grim. One of the men rode up to the leader and spoke quietly in his ear. The man nodded and after a minute, looked back at Miguel. "What did these men who killed your mamma and papa look like?"

  "Like any other men," Miguel pouted, only…"

  "Only what, muchacho?"

  "Only some of these men had been here before."

  The leader tugged at his earlobe. "To do what? Did they know your papa?"

  "No. They killed a band of Tonkawa camped near the river…men and women."

  The leader nodded with a frown. "Maybe these killers don't like men who don't have white skin," he said. "I have known such men before. I have even killed such men before."

  Miguel shrugged. "Maybe," he said and then added, "The big man made me climb a tree and string a rope through its branches."

  The leader rested both hands on the saddle horn and exhaled calmly.

  Miguel looked up, emotionless. He figured the bandit knew what he was going to say next. "They hung papa in that tree on that rope."

  The man looked at his riders. "They hung this boy's father in front of him."

  A dull murmur drifted among the bandits.

  "These are very bad men, no?"

  The murmur grew larger.

  "And then one of the men shot Mama in the back."

  The leader half-closed his eyes and rubbed the stubble under his chin with his thumb. "So muchacho, do you seek a remedy for these men who murdered your family?"

  Miguel lifted his chin slowly. "I think so."

  The man tightened his lips momentarily and then exhaled, "But how, you are just a child?"

  Miguel's fists clenched. "Not so much anymore," he uttered.

  The man smiled softly, understanding.

  "And not if you teach me to be a man much like yourself."

  25.

  Outside Camargo, Mexico,

  July 1840

  Miguel gazed uneasy at the gruesome sight before him.

  "You see how it is muchacho," the man who had rescued him, said in a low, softened voice. "These men stole a Texas man's cattle," hissed the bandit.

  Miguel turned toward his benefactor. "And the woman?"

  "Ah, the woman, yes, they also stole the Texas man's woman, and it is for that they are hanged."

  The man's eyes belied his quiet tone. Unable to hold the man's regard, Miguel turned his focus back on the hanging bodies. "Why hang the woman too?"

  The benefactor shrugged. "Nobody wants a woman who has been with Mexican bandits, muchacho."

  "So these two men raped her?"

  The benefactor smiled at the boy's naïve speculation. "Of course they raped her. They are bandits after all."

  "So her husband must rescue her, and then kill her for the misfortune of being kidnapped and raped?"

  The benefactor tugged at his ear lobe. "Soiled doves, they call them, I think."

  Miguel winced. "I don't understand."

  "You don't need to understand, muchacho, you need only remember the lesson."

  Miguel turned and shook his head quickly. "The lesson?"

  The benefactor pointed at the hanging woman. "Si," he said in exasperation, "the lesson! If you are a thief, then be a thief. Steal horses and cattle and pigs. Steal silver and gold and jewelry."

  Miguel ran his tongue over his lower lip. "I still don't…"


  The benefactor raised a hand to stop the boy. "The lesson is this, muchacho…do not allow a woman to come into your business. The female always stirs trouble when she mixes with a man's business. A woman will always reorient a man's thinking."

  Miguel frowned but issued a quick nod.

  "A woman in such an arrangement will always get a man killed."

  Miguel's eyes said, I understand.

  "Always, muchacho, never forget the lesson," the benefactor sighed with a slow shake of his head, then suddenly angry, asked, "but like this? All the Texans have done is call for our retribution. What other choice do we have as men?"

  Miguel held his tongue and silently nodded his understanding. All three hanged corpses had wooden placards draped around their necks. They read bandit, cow thief, and whore. Each man's mouth held his bit rig. The reins were pulled back and tied at the back of the thieves' heads sending them into the afterlife with a permanent, grisly, smile. Miguel turned back to the benefactor. "What will we do, now?"

  The bandit looked at the young orphan for a long time allowing his hardness to soften. "Right now, muchacho, we will bury these men. Their mothers and wives and daughters do not deserve to see them so."

  "And the woman?"

  The benefactor shrugged. "It is not my woman. If her man does not care to bury her, why should I?"

  Miguel glanced away once more, unable to look at either the three corpses or his benefactor any longer. "And after?" he asked.

  The benefactor's expression, visibly blank, was vacant of all emotion. "And after, we ride on and do what we do."

  Miguel frowned, fuddled by the bandit's words. "And that's it? What about the retribution you just spoke of?"

  The bandit reached for Miguel and turned the boy's chin, forcefully, toward him. "Don't be too quick for your revenge, muchacho," he whispered and dug his thumb and forefinger deep into his apprentice's cheeks.

  Miguel squirmed in pain.

  "Revenge, like good whiskey, must be allowed time to ferment. Good things come to those who have patience."