Ride The Pink Horse

by Dorothy B. Hughes

  He hadn’t imagined the drum. It was right there in the Plaza. A big Indian was thumping it. The dancers were falling in beside him, arms linked, following his slow side snuffing step around the square. All the dancers were joining in the circle. Without knowing, Sailor knew this was the end. Without raising his eyes to see the bandsmen putting away their instruments, without seeing the Mariachi becoming silent shadows in the night. He knew the finality. And panic was gray dust in his throat.

  Pancho? Where was Pancho? His friend. His guardian angel. His feet shuffled in the endless linked circle edging to drum thud around the Plaza. Watching the couples fade out of the circle, and he couldn’t stop them, neither he nor they could hold back the end of Fiesta; watching the bonfire on the corner flicker lower. He could run but where? Pila was gone. Pancho was gone. Everyone gone. Everyone but Mac.

  The circle was thinning, when it reached the corner again, it was small. It broke in front of the museum. Fiesta didn’t end in fireworks, it faded away. His hands clenched to keep from reaching out to someone, anyone for help. Before all were gone and the Plaza empty, empty but for him alone there.

  Desperately he looked towards Tio Vivo, as if by will he could force it to swing and tinkle. He breathed again. Pancho was there.

  He ran across the street into the park, running until he was stopped short by the palings. It wasn’t Pancho. It was a fat man but it wasn’t Pancho. Not one of four men was Pancho. Dark faces, battered hats, worn jeans but not Pancho. Not even Onofre or Ignacio. The four men were taking down the merry-go-round. They knew how; they knew where to lay the pink horse, the brown, where the fence should be stacked.

  Sailor said, “Where’s Pancho?”

  They didn’t pay any attention to him. He might not have been there.

  “Where’s Pancho?” He wanted to yell it into their deaf ears, into their blank faces. “Where’s Pancho?” But he mustn’t raise his voice. The Plaza was too silent. Fiesta was over, the only sound was the sound of men working, and faintly, far away up on the hill, the plaint, “Adios, mi amigo . . .”

  He grabbed the skinny fellow who passed with an armload of red palings.

  “Where’s Pancho?” he demanded. Blank eyes looked into his.

  Sailor said in angry desperation, “Don’t any of you know what I’m talking about? The guy who owns the merry-go-round? Pancho, Don José? The big fellow. My friend. Mi amigo. Where is he?”

  They didn’t know. They jabbered Spanish at each other. They gestured, they were vehement. Then they turned empty faces to Sailor. They shrugged. “Yo no se.”

  The horses looked like dead things lying on the ground. Pancho would return any minute now, return to put his big brown paw on the neck of the pink horse, to reassure the little horse that tomorrow he would gallop again.

  Sailor’s head darted at a shadow coming across the La Fonda corner. His breathing was noiseless but heavy. His hand gripped his pocket. It wasn’t Mac. Hurry, hurry . . . He ought to be running, not standing here. The Sen should have been found by now. But maybe the swells on the hill hadn’t stopped dancing to look for the Sen. Pancho would come. Pancho must come.

  The four men were leaving. He stood in their path. “Where are you going? Where’s Pancho? Where’s Pancho?”

  They shook their heads. They babbled, “Yo no se,” but they didn’t stop moving. They were shadows disappearing into the deeper shadow of the Plaza. Going away, gone, leaving him here alone. Alone.

  He started to plunge after them. The voice halted him. The quiet voice from behind him, in the black soundless shadows behind him. “Going somewhere, Sailor?”

  He didn’t move. He stood like a tree while Mac came up beside him.

  “I wouldn’t,” Mac said.

  He might have meant Sailor’s finger pressing the trigger of the gun in his pocket. He might have meant not to run. Whatever he meant, Sailor’s hand came out of his pocket limply. ‘You couldn’t get away,” Mac said.

  Mac was always so sure and so right. Mac could be wrong but he was right. There had been no escape from this, from the very beginning no escape. From the day in the pool hall. Sailor couldn’t get away.

  Sailor said slowly, “I didn’t mean to kill him. He was going to kill me. It was self defense.”

  Mac offered a cigarette to Sailor. Sailor took it; he struck the match for both. Mac sat down on a stack of red palings. Mac, so sure of himself, so sure Sailor wouldn’t shoot or bolt. He said, “I know.”

  Sailor didn’t believe him. But Mac’s face was plain as truth was plain. He had been there, unseen, silent as a shadow. He had watched it happen.

  There was a bitterness on Mac’s tongue. “I didn’t want you to kill him. I tried to tell you.” The bitterness was iron. “I wanted him to stand trial. I wanted him to pay.” He looked up at Sailor. “It’s too late for our talk now.”

  Sailor sat down beside Mac. He began to curse the Sen, out of the rage and self pity eating him.

  Mac said, sort of wondering, “And you stuck with him despite that. Knowing what he was like.”

  “No,” Sailor said. “I was through. I was getting out. You know I was getting out, Mac.”

  “Why didn’t you get out? What were you waiting for?” And then Mac remembered without being told. “The payoff.”

  “He owed it to me,” Sailor said stubbornly. He’d never collect a dime. He’d be working for Ziggy. Doing the dirty work for Ziggy just like he’d worked for the Sen. Or working for a mug in Chicago, not a gentleman like the Sen. If a smart mouthpiece got him out of this. It wouldn’t be Ziggy. Ziggy had got away; he wouldn’t come back. Some mug would get him a mouthpiece then he’d be sold down the river to the mug. He wanted to cry.

  A guy up from the Chicago streets didn’t cry. He’d get out of this. “It was self defense,” he said. “You know it was, Mac.” Mac was his only witness. Mac would have to testify for him.

  “Yes, it was self defense,” Mac agreed. “It won’t always be self defense, Sailor. There’ll be a time when it won’t be self defense.”

  “If I get out of this,” Sailor vowed.

  “You won’t change.” He shook his head. The bobbles danced on his black Spanish hat. His voice didn’t dance.

  “I can go straight,” Sailor insisted. “I was going straight.”

  ‘You don’t want to go straight. You turned your back on the right way a long time ago. You chose the wrong way, the easy way. You can’t do wrong and not pay for it.” He was matter of fact. “Sure, you could tum around and go back, but it’s a long way back and the going would be tough. Twice as tough as it would have been if you’d taken the right turn a long time ago. Too tough for you. You couldn’t take it.”

  Sailor set his chin. “I’ve taken plenty. I’m not soft. I could take it.”

  The silence was heavy. “You don’t know how tough it would be. You don’t know how tough it is to be good.” Mac put his cigarette on the ground. Carefully he stepped on the color of fire. “I could be wrong,” he said. “I could be wrong all around. Maybe you didn’t go bad because that’s the way you are inside. Maybe you want to be good. Maybe you just never knew how. I’ve always wanted to help you, Sailor. I’ve tried. Because but for the grace of God, there go I.” He stood up. “I’ll try it again. If that’s the way you want it. If you don’t, God help you. If you don’t, you can’t get away from what’s coming to you.” His eyes were sad on Sailor’s face. “You can’t get away.”

  That was the end of Mac’s sermon. He was the cop again. “You can have one of my beds tonight. Tomorrow we’ll start back. I’ve fixed it with the locals. I had a warrant for Senator Douglass’ arrest. They think you were helping me out.”

  Sailor got to his feet, slowly, listening to words, words that were like dream words, like in a bad dream.

  “It won’t go hard on you. He pulled the gun first. If it weren’t for your record . . .” His voice was kind. “When you get out, I’ll be there. If you want my help, I’ll be there.”

  If
the organization were working he’d get off quick. But there wasn’t an organization any more. There wasn’t a Sen. He was alone.

  He’d get off easy. Maybe four or five years. And after he came out of the rotten pen, Mac would find him a job, maybe paying twenty-five bucks a week. He’d brush his teeth and go to church on Sundays and report to Mac once a week and say thank you Mac for helping me be a sucker.

  He could do it if he wanted to. He wasn’t soft; he could do it. He didn’t want to. It wasn’t good enough for him.

  Beyond the mountains was freedom. So near, just beyond the horizon line. He could hitch a ride, heist a car if he had to, be over the border by morning. With the gun it would be easy. He could make it. Once over the border they’d have a hard time getting him back. He could call Ziggy from Juarez to write him dough. Ziggy needed him as bad as he needed Ziggy. They would make a sweet thing out of a partnership in Mexico; Ziggy, the brain; Sailor, the trigger man. If he had to, he’d be a trigger man. They’d be big shots in no time, white Palm Beach suits and the best hotel suites and the dames hanging around their necks. That was better than stir or grubbing in a factory all your life. Mac was nuts.

  The wind blew cold across the dark Plaza.

  “Come on,” Mac said. He yawned. “Bed’s going to feel good tonight.”

  Sailor said, “No.”

  Mac’s eyes jumped to his face. Cop eyes that quick, colorless, hard as flint. Sailor’s hand tightened on his gun. “Listen, Sailor—” He started to move in. Sailor said, “No.” He shot McIntyre.

  And he ran. Fled down the street, away from the sound that had shattered the dark of the night the silence of the deserted Plaza. There were no echoing shots; Mac didn’t carry a gun. He hadn’t wanted to do it. Mac was a good man. But Mac was a copper.

  Sailor was weeping as he ran, weeping for Mac. No sound stirred behind him, there was no sound in the night but his running steps, his tears. Somewhere in the silence Pancho prayed for him, not knowing he prayed for the damned. Or Pancho slept with tequila sweet on his lips. Pancho who would have helped him. Who could not help him now. It was too late.

  He ran on, into open country this quickly; plunging into the wastes of endless land and sky, stretching forever, for eternity, to the far-off barrier of the mountains. The night was cold, colder than before. All he had to do was keep moving, keep moving on and on until he reached the mountains. On the other side was freedom. Escape from this dread dream.

  You can’t get away. It couldn’t be Mac he heard pitying, Mac was dead. You can’t get away.

  Blindly he stumbled on.