by Jory Sherman
He wanted to turn his horse and run away because it seemed to him he was riding into an unknown situation, a place where death waited, and he was too young to die and didn’t know how to kill a man or if he could even throw down on a man and shoot him and what it would feel like if he did and if he’d be proud or sad or sick to his stomach or just numb and empty inside, and then there was the Swede’s dead face floating up in his head and he felt his throat constrict as if Swenson had his hands around his neck and was shaking and choking him like a chicken. God, I don’t want to die and I don’t want nobody to die, just let this ride end with nobody out there, Cullers long gone and Hoxie with him. How much is a couple of horses worth, anyway? and I keep forgetting about Jerry Winfield and his dead face. Oh God, just let it end, all of it, end quick and let the sun come out and dry me off and burn the eyes out of my head that keep seeing dead men’s faces and me about to die just like them, Jesus.
Anson’s horse came to a sudden halt and almost threw him out of the saddle. He looked to his side and no longer saw Peebo, but he heard his voice shouting. “Anson, look out, boy.”
Anson saw the horse lying just ahead, and way off he heard hoofbeats pounding and Peebo was two hundred yards away. Then he saw the rifle barrel and it rose in the air and there was a man behind it, holding it and leveling it at him and nothing but empty ground between them and his horse standing stock-still and quivering all over so that his wet sleek hide shook and rippled like water in a pond.
In that lucid particle of an instant where a man faces a life-and-death decision, Anson saw that Peebo was not going to ride down the man with the rifle. And the rifle was coming to bear on him. In another fraction of that same instant, Anson brought his rifle to his hip and cocked the hammer, thumbed down the frizzen so that it was tight next to the pan. He turned his horse in what seemed to him like a slow crawl and headed it straight at the man with the rifle and charged like some chivalrous knight jousting with a mortal enemy. He got so close he could see the man’s face, see his eyes widen, and the horse ate up the distance between them.
With one hand holding the reins tight, Anson veered the horse at the last minute so that his rifle was pointed straight at the man’s chest. He squeezed the trigger and heard the sparks ignite the powder in the pan. The rifle bucked as the powder in the ignition chamber exploded, and he felt a sharp pain in his forearm as it took the brunt of the powerful recoil. A cloud of white smoke blossomed from the barrel of his rifle and blotted out the man standing not three yards away.
The horse charged past the puff of smoke and Anson could smell the acrid aroma of burnt black powder. Behind him, he heard a rifle crack and ducked as if expecting a ball to come whizzing at his back. Then he realized that the man with the rifle must have fired as he fell. Anson reined up the horse and put him into a tight 180-degree turn.
The white smoke wafted away like a gauzy fog and Anson saw the man lying on his back, staring up at the sky. He didn’t know if the man was dead or alive, but Peebo was the first to reach him and Anson never saw a man get down from a saddle so fast. Peebo seemed to be in two places at once, first in the saddle and then standing over the fallen man with the muzzle of his rifle nestled up under the man’s chin.
“That was one hell of a shot, Anson,” Peebo said. “Right square in the brisket.”
“I—is he dead?”
“He may not be all the way dead, but he ain’t breathin’ none.”
Anson halted his horse over the body of the man he had shot. He looked down at him as if from a great height, feeling dizzy all of a sudden.
“It—it’s Hoxie, ain’t it?” Anson said.
“Him or his twin, I reckon.” Peebo took his rifle away from the dead man’s chin.
Anson looked at Hoxie’s eyes. They were fixed on a point in space, but they seemed to be staring straight at Anson. Hoxie’s eyes didn’t move, seemed to be frozen solid on something beyond the earth. There was a hole in his chest and more blood than Anson had ever seen on a man before. His upper torso was bathed in blood. His right hand still gripped the trigger and a tiny plume of smoke seeped from the muzzle. Anson closed his eyes for a moment. It seemed to him he was swaying in the saddle and might fall off his horse at any moment.
“He’s really dead?” Anson said when he opened his eyes.
Peebo nudged the man’s side with his boot. “He’s already turning stiff.”
A moment or two later, which seemed like hours to Anson, his father rode up, his face lit with the splash-light of surprise.
“You got him, eh, Peebo? That’s Hoxie you shot.”
Anson felt a tug of resentment when he heard his father’s words. Did he think that Peebo was the only one who could have shot Hoxie? Why did he jump to such a conclusion? It was almost as if he, Anson, did not exist. He felt his neck and face go hot with the anger building up inside him.
“That’s Hoxie all right, Martin. But I damned sure didn’t shoot him.”
“I heard two shots,” Martin said.
“Yep. First one come from your son’s rifle, and the second one was from Hoxie’s gun, what you call a dead man’s trigger. All Hoxie shot was a hole in the sky as he was fallin’. Anson there put out his lights.”
“Anson?” Martin looked at his son, the surprise on his face shifting to a look of bewilderment.
Anson didn’t say anything. He felt the anger in him subside and his face felt cool again.
“He rode straight at Hoxie before I could get here,” Peebo said. “Shot him from his horse at a gallop, from no more’n five yards away. And Hoxie had the boy in his sights. It could’ve gone either way.”
“Anson,” Martin said, “you really surprise me.”
Still Anson said nothing, but he began to feel a sense of pride swell up inside him.
“It was a close call,” Peebo said, as if he sensed there was something thick and dark between father and son. “Your boy done real fine.” He stood over the dead man as if the body were game for the table, boasting of the hunter’s prowess.
“I’ll be damned,” Martin said. “I’m real proud of you, son.”
“Aw,” Anson said.
“No, I mean it. I’m right proud of you.”
“For killing a man?” Anson said, a challenge in his voice.
“It was him or you,” Martin said.
“I—it just happened,” Anson said. “I didn’t really mean to kill him. It’s just that the ball hit him right.”
“Well, it was a good shot and you deserve credit,” Martin said.
“I don’t want none,” Anson said and turned his horse away from the dead man.
“Now, what the hell’s eatin’ him?” Martin asked.
“He’s just got a little buck fever, that’s all,” Peebo said. “He’ll get over the shakes once he gets off by himself. He’s a brave boy.”
Anson wheeled his horse in a tight turn and rode right up on Peebo, looked down at him. “Listen here, Peebo,” Anson said, “that’s the third time today I’ve heard you call me boy. I’m no boy no more and you better quit callin’ me that or I’ll damned sure give you a larrupin’, you hear?”
“Sorry,” Peebo said quickly. “I didn’t mean no harm.”
“Well, I ain’t no boy,” Anson said.
“No, I reckon you sure as hell aren’t.”
Martin said nothing, but he looked at his son as if he had never seen him before. He lifted his hat and scratched the back of his head.
Anson stopped glaring at Peebo and swung his gaze to meet his father’s stare. “And that goes for you, too, Dad.”
With that, Anson reined his horse into a turn and rode away from the dead man, stopped, and calmly began to reload his rifle, never looking at Peebo or his father.
That was when his hands started shaking. He spilled more powder than he poured down the muzzle of his rifle. He took a deep breath and held it a long time, trying to regain control of his senses and his palsied hands. He didn’t know if he was shaking because he was angr
y at Peebo and his father or because he had just killed a man. Maybe both, he decided. He let the air out of his lungs and took in another deep breath. He looked down at his hands. They were still trembling slightly.
He closed his eyes, hoping Peebo and his father were not looking at him. He did not feel very much a man at that moment. He was scared inside, but he didn’t know what he was scared of. Hoxie was on his mind. It had all happened so quickly, he didn’t know exactly how he had managed to shoot Hoxie dead. He didn’t mean to, or did he? He damned sure aimed his rifle at him and pulled the trigger. But now it was different. He was different. Something had happened to him at that moment that he could not understand or explain to himself.
Anson felt as if he had stepped across some imaginary line. One minute he was just riding along, following Peebo’s orders, and the next he was on his own with a man’s life in his hands. It was as if he had walked into a room and the floor had fallen out from under him. And then he was no longer in that room, but down in a cave somewhere underneath with the wind blowing through the empty room, blowing through his mind like some keening death wind.
And now he felt empty inside, as if something had gone out of him, had been taken away from him. But he didn’t know what it was. Just a gnawing emptiness that made him feel all hollow. He opened his eyes and looked up at the sky. It was the same, pure blue and serene and calm and steady.
He thought of something Juanito had told him: All things are one; sky, earth, sea, air, the beings in the whole world, the universe, are all one. If a man is afraid or worried, all he need do is look to the sky, lift up his eyes, Juanito had said, and feel the eternal peace that is in all things. Get to your center, Juanito had said, that secret place inside you where you are pure spirit and invisible. No one can see your soul, your spirit, and it is always calm. Go there, Juanito had said, and you will find your way back from whatever dangerous place you find yourself in. To your center. To the place where the spirit that is in all things dwells.
Anson looked up at the sky and felt himself being drawn up into it. He let himself go and wondered where his center was and if he could find it and if what Juanito had said was really so or just some crazy Argentine jungle stuff. But his hands stopped trembling and he felt a calmness inside. He began to breathe easily as he poured powder down the barrel. He placed a patch and ball a top the muzzle and rammed them down partway with the short starter, then pulled his wiping stick and seated the ball firmly. He tapped the stock just below the lock and then primed the pan with the fine powder. When he finished, he turned his horse to see if his father and Peebo were looking at him.
They were not.
The two men were piling brush and stones and dirt over the body of Hoxie.
Anson smiled. Everything was back to normal.
Maybe Juanito wasn’t crazy after all. Maybe he knew things that other men had never even imagined.
32
CAROLINE GRIPPED THE bedpost until her knuckles drained of blood. Sweat oiled her forehead and face and the bedsheets were damp with her perspiration. She gasped for breath and swung her legs to the side of the bed. Then, she groaned as she tried to sit up. Her belly was swollen even more than it had been when Martin, Anson and Juanito had left for the Gulf Coast to sell the Mary E. It seemed to her that she would never be able to bear such a baby to term.
She heard noises from another part of the house and when she groaned again, she heard a knock on her bedroom door.
“Who is it?” she gasped.
“It is Luisa.”
“Come in.”
“Is the Señora well?” Luisa Buenjoven asked as she opened the door.
“The goddamned Señora is not well. Where is Carla?”
“She has gone to town. To Baronsville. She buys the flour and the coffee. She thought you would sleep through the afternoon.”
“Help me get out of bed, Luisa. The baby has been kicking me to death all afternoon.”
“Too soon, too soon,” crooned Luisa, as she stepped carefully into the room.
“I’m sick,” Caroline said, as if to confirm her suspicions, as well as to elicit sympathy. “Get the chamberpot from under the bed.”
“The Señora is going to vomit?”
“Stop calling me that. My name is Caroline. And Caroline is going to vomit if you don’t drag out that pot.”
Quickly, Luisa, who was but eighteen, bent down and pulled the chamberpot from under the bed. She held it gingerly over Caroline’s lap. Caroline scooted forward, still gripping the bedpost and leaned over the porcelain pan. She waited for the telltale contractions of her stomach.
“Was it something the, something your grace ate for lunch?”
“I don’t know. I feel awful. My stomach feels like it’s full of grease.” She knew Luisa wouldn’t understand half of what was said in English, but Caroline had been speaking Spanish ever since Martin had left and she was tired of the language. Carla could at least understand her, if she spoke English, but Carla did not speak it very well. It was sometimes exasperating, trying to communicate.
“Do you want me to get you some salts?” Luisa asked. She still held the bedpan just above Caroline’s lap. “Some unguents?”
“Ugh,” Caroline said. She had no idea what was in the various pastes and oils and purgatives Carla had been giving her, but her stomach rebelled at the very idea of any substance introduced into it by this young Mexican girl. One time she had been on the chamberpot for a week from something Carla had dosed her with one night when she had been feeling terribly ill.
“Here, give me the chamberpot,” Caroline said in Spanish, snatching it from Luisa’s hands. “Let me die alone.”
“I have fear, Señora. Do not talk of dying this way.”
“Go away, Luisa. Por favor.”
“Yes, of course.”
Luisa left the room and Caroline sat there with the chamberpot in her hands. She looked down at it. So clean, so white, so empty. A shame to disturb its porcelain beauty. But, she stuck her finger down her throat and bent over. She retched, but nothing came up. Only a little gastric gas, she thought, and then remembered that she’d had only tea and toast for breakfast and nothing for lunch. The tea had been a gift from Ken Richman who had come to see her recently. But, she had been asleep. He had left some groceries for her, tea, fruit from the tropics. Ken was always able to bring them delicacies that were out of reach for most people in that part of the country.
Caroline threw the chamberpot on the bed and forced herself to touch the floor with her bare feet. She felt so stuffed, so full of the baby that it was almost suffocating. Perhaps if she moved around she would feel better. She waddled to the wardrobe and opened it. She picked out a housecoat that she’d had to let out three times in recent months, adding material ingeniously so that it looked as if the stripes of colored cloth had been planned. The coat also made her look slightly slimmer.
She put it on and then bent down slowly to slide out a pair of slippers one of the Mexicans, Carlos, had made for her. He had called them huaraches, and they were sandals made of woven leather attached to smooth leather soles. They were very comfortable. She slipped her swollen feet into them. Carlos had made them so the leather could expand as her feet got larger from all the fluids she retained. She couldn’t look at her ankles anymore. They were almost nonexistent, anyway, just little lumps in her skin and veiny, besides. Ugly, like the rest of her.
She stepped to the dressing table and picked up a kerchief and dipped it into the bowl of water. She washed her face free of perspiration, then dabbed herself dry with another kerchief from the stack she had placed there. She dried between her breasts and touched up her hair as she looked in the mirror. She hated to look at her face anymore. She looked so haggard lately. The work was so hard.
Two days before, some of the cattle had gotten out of the pasture near the house, broken through the fence Martin and Juanito had built of mesquite and timbers hauled in from Houston. The big longhorn, led by a rangy bull named Tont
o, had trampled her garden and knocked down some young fruit trees. She and Carla, after cutting Tonto out of the herd and penning him in the barn, had finally gotten the cattle back in the pasture and mended the fence, but it had been dark before they finished. The next day, she and Carla had taken Tonto to a corral where he could not get out. She could still hear his mournful bellowing that had lasted for two long nights.
It had been one thing after another since Martin had left. The Mexican women had complained when they had run out of dried corn and Caroline had had to send Carlos to town to buy more from the mercantile. Then, they had run out of flour and again, she’d had to send Carlos into Baronsville in the wagon for flour and salt. She had berated the women for waiting until they were all out of staples before coming to her. And it had rained and rained and the wind had blown some of the shutters off the house and one of the adobes was washed away in a flash flood and a family had become homeless. She had put them up in the barn until another casita could be built for them.
She sighed as she remembered all these things and wondered when Martin would be back and when they would have money again. She had not heard from her parents in weeks and worried about them. But, she had not written, either, so she realized she could not fault them for their neglect in corresponding with her.
She got up from the dressing table and put a fresh kerchief inside her sleeve. She turned away from the mirror, shaking her head at the image she was leaving behind.
She heard the noise of footsteps in another part of the house as she waddled toward the door.
“That damned Luisa,” she said. “What is she doing? Playing with the children in my house?”
Then, she heard voices, too low to understand. She walked out of her bedroom, curious now, and started for the front room where the noises were coming from, her sandals making soft sliding sounds as she shuffled on the hardwood flooring.
Two people were speaking in rapid Spanish. It sounded like quarreling to Caroline, but she could not hear the words plainly. She was already out of breath and had not reached the front room yet.
