Smonk

by Tom Franklin

  Not law, not law, not law…

  Red Man! the Negro called.

  Everyone stopped saying “Not law” and looked at the tall Indian.

  Ambrose jabbed his finger up in Red Man’s face. Didn’t you say ye Injun family and other ones like it ’d keep as keepsakes the clothes of—yer own words here—of “massacred white mens and womens and childrens”?

  Yes, Red Man said. Why? Then his face sagged. Oh shit, he said.

  Mister Walton done tole you bout cussing, Ambrose said, and without a moment’s hesitation the stocky second-in-command drew his long-barreled revolver and shot the Indian in the forehead. Red Man stood for a moment, cross-eyed, then fell straight back, his bow toppling after. A plug of his head splashed in the water barrel.

  Oh, Walton said. I may faint.

  Yet the deflecting tactic worked, and as the blood pooled about the dead Indian’s neck the remaining deputies forgot about Walton’s backward-spelled name and the plot to murder him and, to a man, except Red Man, went back to their reading lesson, though visibly distracted.

  That nigger better not kill me, a deputy said.

  Nice work, Walton whispered to his second, once it was clear the danger had passed.

  Ambrose eyed the men as they bent over their work. Can I shoot me a white ’n next?

  Certainly not, said the leader. But you can “cover” yon captain so that he complies with my order.

  Right, boss. Ambrose crossed to the steering platform and jammed his revolver in the man’s ribs. Nigger with a gun, he whispered. Only thing missing is a reason.

  There, called Walton, pointing to a small peninsula overhung with trees, jutting out into the river at a bend. Bank us there!

  Kiss now, boys! the captain shouted. Here comes the end!

  They exploded onto land. Ambrose flew overboard. Timbers splintered like gunshots. Bleating livestock flew past. The heavily packed mule crashed braying into the river, pulling a pair of horses with it. The men on the ship were too busy to watch, scrambling out of the way of sliding ponies and airborne barrels.

  Walton used the forward momentum to his advantage, however, and, arms akimbo, pirouetted from the deck and grabbed a lowhanging limb. Those ballet lessons had done a bit of good, after all.

  From the tree, he called out instructions. Deputies staggered about rubbing their heads, removing splinters. Two were swimming for the other side of the river. Deserters. If he could’ve spared the manpower, Walton would have sent after them. Meanwhile, a soggy Ambrose dragged ashore picking leeches off his arms and neck. The horses and pack mule at the bottom of the river were dead.

  Look here, Ambrose said. Red Man lay in a heap where he’d been catapulted from the ship.

  Walton watched his lieutenant kick him over. Underneath were small foot tracks.

  Yep. It’s him, said Ambrose. The pre-vert we’re after. I’d know that sign anywheres. Reckon he come out the river barefoot, then took off.

  They looked at Red Man’s body, birdcalls piercing the human silence like bright arrows.

  That, deputies, Walton said at length, is dedication. To discover “sign” even after death. Perhaps you oughtn’t been so “trigger-happy,” Deputy Ambrose.

  But Mister Walton—

  No excuses, please. Your pay is hereby docked.

  Ambrose grumbled under his breath as Walton assembled the men for an inspirational talk on Red Man’s service to his country. By now all the horses were ready save the ones dead in the river—for which the Christian Deputies observed a moment of silence—and leaving two eager volunteers to bury their fallen comrade, Walton and his men mounted up and were off.

  Within an hour they’d spotted dozens of buzzards circling in the sky. At the edge of a parched cornfield they gazed upon four dead men, a gory scene which Walton characterized in his logbook as a “carnage of Old Testament vicissitudes (sp?).”

  The crows had given way to buzzards, slick reeking ungainly flesheaters, summoned by death like family members called home. The large sneering birds were everywhere, tubercular frowns pasted in the sky, leaning malignant growths of tumor in the limbs of trees.

  The deputies dismounted in unison as they’d been instructed and drew their revolvers and aimed them all about, some men kneeling, one on his belly, as the drill called for. Walton came forward proudly, stepping over the prone man. Excuse me. He crossed the ground and knelt beside the jaw-shot veteran. The leader removed his glove then slid his goggles onto his forehead and pinched his nose shut at the horror, studying the body. Where was its member? Ill at the sight, he looked about and inspected the other three men, dispatched by precise shots. Their members, while all taken out of their pants, remained intact. Walton gagged. The buzzards had been having a “fiesta.” The dead men’s eyes had been picked out and were grotesque purple festers now.

  The leader belched and turned away. What do you make of this, Deputy Ambrose? Anybody see the missing, er, part?

  Naw, said the Negro, but I’m gone fuss less bout these here goggle-ma-jigs.

  Walton belched again and replaced his own eyewear. Fan out, he said, his voice nasal.

  The deputies unclenched their stances and pretended to look. Two began to vomit from the odor. Walton himself had begun gagging again. Another fellow was whistling, hands pocketed, walking backward toward the river.

  Shew, said Ambrose. Stink don’t it. He peered inside the blind. No pecker to report, Mister Walton, but they was here all right. Our pre-vert amongst em, look. Here’s his tracks. They was waiting on something, looks like. Or somebody. You can see where they guns was laid. Here and here and here and here and here. And here and here. Here. Stink so bad from they farts you can smell the rabbit they’d eat for supper.

  Walton clapped his hands. Guns, Deputy Ambrose. That’s it! Guerilla warriors is what we have. Which explains the uniforms of these dead. Perhaps left over from the War, lo all these years later. “Sore” losers, these guerillas. Mis-perceived as heroes. Men unwilling to march out of the past. Praise God, we might just get a shot at testing our mettle in actual battle.

  Battle? cried Loon.

  Let me tell you what else I suspect, Deputy Ambrose. I suspect that somebody in their own party shot them. A traitor!

  You mean didn’t the pre-vert we after kill em, don’t ye?

  Listen. The reason I suspect a traitor, is that whoever killed these fellows could have never attacked head on. This place is a bunker.

  A what?

  Walton half-smiled. “Bunker.” I’m circulating it as a new word here in the Southland. It’s a secret club I and several of my old college chums originated. As social experiments, we coin new words and use them with authority. See if they catch on.

  Ambrose pushed his goggles up on his forehead. You can’t be doing that.

  Oh, I can’t, can’t I?

  You gots to be a lingrist or something. A senator. The word gots to be around a long time. Work its way into convocations. Official. Folks got to agree.

  So why can’t you and I agree? I’m practically an aristocrat, nearly a blueblood, and in addition to that a northerner. In other words entitled. You’re a darky but one who can read. You’re fairly well mannered, except for your propensity for profanity. I propose that you and I name the word and use it, Deputy Ambrose! “Bunker!” Such a stout word, I predict it catches on, especially if you’ll employ it among your dusky pals when you return home on leave.

  Ambrose thought about it. Why not. So that crow blind yonder’s a bunker, and the pre-vert we’re chasing killed them fellers?

  Walton blinked. Exactly.

  The men had begun howling with laughter; a deputy had been caught masturbating in the blind.

  Walton called a meeting and informed the men that this deputy would now have the nickname “Onan.” He described the Biblical masturbator, which caused a few sniggers among the troops.

  Self-abuse, the Philadelphian admonished, is no laughing matter. Onan, your pay is hereby docked.

  The m
en grew solemn.

  Their leader clasped his hands behind his back and began to study the brown-stained grass for traces of further evidence. In the last few weeks, he had been trying to create descriptive nicknames for each deputy in hopes that it would bring them closer together and help him, Walton, tell the fellows apart. “Loon” and “Red Man” had caught on quickly and tipped him that these aliases must be psychologically and/or physically descriptive; if they were mildly insulting as well, the humorous aspect further aided the men’s memories. The head deputy imagined that his subordinates bandied secret nicknames for him as well. “Sarge.” “His Majesty.” He wondered if they had conversations about him. They must. Aside from alcohol, tobacco, gambling, whores and a taste for mindless violence, what else did they have in common but Phail Walton? Often at night, as they bivouacked under the stars, he pretended to sleep, even committing counterfeit snores so that he might hear what they said about him. He’d recruited them from everywhere. Bums, mostly. Drunks. Criminals. Men “on the lam.” While they suffered in steadfastness, loyalty, courage and obedience, they were cheap and easy to replace.

  Look here, Ambrose called. Tracks go this a way. Peers like he made off with one of these fellers’ horses. Stole the guns and this one’s boots. Look how little his feet is. Like girl feet.

  Add thievery to the list, Walton said. Mount up!

  Shouldn’t we bury these fellows here? Loon asked.

  Shall I describe a certain pervert? Walton said. We’re in pursuit? Besides, I think our last two grave-digging volunteers have joined their fellow deserters. I’m onto that “scam” and we’re fast losing men.

  But it ain’t Christian, Loon persisted. I was brung up to bury folks. My daddy was a gravedigger and my granddaddy before him was too and my great-granddaddy and all my uncles and so forth was. My brothers was and one tomboy sister a bull-dyke. We all gravediggers is what I’m saying. We dig good ditches and privies, too. So I’m jest making a point. You got a man with a talent, me, it’s a dang shame not to let him exercise his God-give gifts. What you think there, there, you, nigger—what’s ye name agin?

  Ooh, Mister Walton, Ambrose sneered, I agrees with the white fellers. He glared at them, one by one. Loon with his missing ear. Onan stepping from the bunker, smoking a cigarette. An as-yetun-nicknamed deputy picking his teeth and on down the line.

  Why don’t we jest ignore the heat and spend a hour digging giant holes to stick these dead strangers in? the second-in-command snided. And then why don’t we climb in this here smelly-ass bunker and sang a few hymns, too? Recite some Bible scriptures? Sang Christmas carols?

  The deputies were shamed.

  Walton gave his dark-skinned lieutenant a fond, thankful look, and the two men smiled at one another with unabashed collegiality.

  Mount up, Walton called, but everybody had already.

  5 THE MOB

  EVENING AT LAST IN OLD TEXAS. THE PARCHED OAKS LINING THE street. The dry throats of whippoorwills. The ladies of the town in their mourning color numbly lugging pails of water uphill from the well to fight fires arisen from cinders that combust upon landing like flies raised from hell. One elderly woman collapses in the street and, spilling her water, begins to wail. A younger woman takes up the buckets and totters back down to the bottom where buzzards hop off and where, flat under a bristle of scrub brush across the tracks, a wild cat ragged in its coat of dust waits, dying of thirst, twitching with the ray bees.

  The judge, meanwhile, was hiding in the cluttered back room of the town clerk’s office stuffing a valise with confidential records in case he had to blackmail his way out of this brouhaha. The clerk, and Justice of the Peace Elmer Tate, and Hobbs the undertaker and a passel of business-owners, all killed, were to be memorialized in a ceremony the following Monday, and the judge expected to be asked by their widows to say a few words about each man. He was in a slight panic because he didn’t know any of them. He was always drunk on his stops here which had winnowed from bimonthly to once or twice a year. He usually passed sentence without remembering from one case to the next what he’d said. Most of the time he couldn’t even find the tiny office they provided him.

  He looked up to see the bailiff watching him from the door. A Winchester rifle in one hand.

  Oh, said the judge. He shut the bag and buckled it.

  I don’t give a good got-dern what yer stealing, the bailiff said. Such cares is for the living, which I no longer count myself among. Did ye want to see me before I left?

  I did, yes. Are ye shot?

  Naw. The bailiff raised his shirt and revealed the purple anus of his wound. Stobbed a tad but it ain’t the first time.

  You might want to get that looked at, the judge said. Or the rest of us ’ll stop counting ye among the living too.

  The doc’s dead. Shot thew his thoat, among other places. And I’ve had worse than this anyway. The pain ’ll remind me of Smonk’s treachery.

  I could write ye a statement to similar effect. In the meantime, go on lower ye tunic. I get the picture. He opened a pocket of his valise and removed a flask. Cheers, he said and drank and dabbed his lips with a handkerchief and took a seat on one side of a small writing table and waited for the bailiff to roll a stool across and sit opposite him, laying his cap between them.

  What’s that in ye jaw? the judge asked. Hard candy?

  Naw.

  My ulcer’s griping. A rock of candy ’ll help sometimes. But that’s neither here ner there because my ulcer ain’t gone git no better until we do something about this Smonk dilemma. Cause now that you done shot them gun-killers instead of arresting em for questions, it’s no way to link Smonk to em. Is it.

  I reckon not.

  You reckon right. Legally, anyhow. He cleared his throat. Now. I’m willing to take into account that you was protecting the town and won’t file no charges of obstructing justice ner murder on ye.

  Preciate it.

  However. I’d like ye to listen real careful to a letter I got. He un-crinkled a piece of paper so oft-clutched in his sweaty palms it was thin as tissue. I’ll skip the personal references and things I deem beyond ye and jest read the particulars. To save time. He cleared his throat again. To the attention of Judge et cetera et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Ah. Here. “It is of Urgency that You come preside in the E. O. Smonk Trial. No Town has ever suffered more than Ours bedeviled and beset upon as We have been by this Devil or Homunculus or What Ever He claims to be He lives several Miles outside Town in a large Manson He comes to Town Saturday Nights and wrecks Havoc on our Citizens beating them with his Fist at Night when good People ought to be in Bed getting ready for their Day of Labor. In a bold Gesture We Citizens of Old Texas have brought criminal Charges against Mr. Smonk. Mr. Smonk claims He will attend the Trial only if a Judge of the State Circuit is brought to mediate the Matters. No One Man or Group of Men will go to his Land and arrest Him. He is armed with Weapons from the United States Army,” et cetera, et cetera.

  The part he didn’t read further said: “Since We are on your Circuit, We find it curious that you have not visited our Village in more than one Year. What might the Governor think.”

  Signed, the judge finished, Justice of the Peace and Beat Supervisor and U.S. Postmaster M. Elmer Tate. Owner of the Tate Hotel.

  He folded the letter away. After that alarming news, he said, I began to use my copious influence and asked around about our Mister Smonk, and listen what I found out. Jest listen. Apparently it’s been years old E.O.’s done slipped around the law, hither and yon all over the goddamn country. Years I said. Rumors mostly. Accounts as far west as Nevada and as far south as Mexico north up to Dakota. Man that always gets what he wants. One way another. Threats of violence and actual violence. Lawyers when he can use em cheap, gunmen if he can’t. Bribes, extortion, name it. Blackmail. No crime ner coercion small ner large enough, with no loyalty ner fealty to country ner king. But impossible to nab. What do ye think of that, bailiff?

  What?

  That he
disappears at will and is gone for a year then turns up someplace else. That nobody knows where he come from ner what he is. He was likely born out west where the law’s jest now setting its teeth. Such an abomination as Smonk is would of never been allowed to carry on so far here in the Confederacy. He paused and took a long drink and continued. The part I don’t understand is that for some reason not given in this letter, he’s chose my quadrant of the goddamn county for a base of operation in these his waning years.

  The bailiff shifted in his chair.

  You okay there? Please leave the room if ye need to pass gas.

  I’m hunkydory. Can ye get to the point?

  The goddamn point is we could of strang him up—fount him guilty, is what I’m saying—but instead this town of fools tries to lynch him unbeknownst to me and of course he escapes. Old Texas! What in the hell was yall thinking anyway? Leaving all ye guns on a sideboard? Not a single goddamn dead-eye sniper hid anywheres?

  The women had guns. They was hid.

  The women.

  We figured he’d of smelt something if we done anything different like. Out of the ordinary.

  Well, he might of at that. What I hear he’s had his share of experiences walking into and out of courthouse doors and he’s got an extry sense about him. How come nobody informed me of the plot?

  The bailiff looked out a window.

  Well?

  Don’t nobody trust ye.

  There’s a fine hidy-do, ain’t it. God almighty damn. At least with Smonk a body knows where he stands.

  The bailiff worked his jaw. Best take care not to sound like ye admire the bastard too much.

  Who wouldn’t admire the gall of a fellow brings a machine gun and a peck of hired killers to his own goddamn trial? Who wouldn’t admire a fellow never leaves a trail of evidence? That’s got this far in the world and galled so many folks and killed twice that number and cheated the rest, all without being blowed to itty bitty pieces or hanged by his goddamn neck or succumbing to one of the countless infirmities he seems to collect like a goddamn hobby, hell yeah I admire the son-of-a-bitch.