Devil's Brand

by Len Levinson

  “No.”

  “It’s the sort’ve thing you either learn—or it kills you.” The segundo laughed. “Hey—you’re the feller what had supper with the boss lady, ay?”

  “That’s right.”

  Braswell winked. “Pretty little filly, ain’t she?”

  “I’ll guess they’re all pretty when you spend most of your life with cattle.”

  “Shore like to git her out on the prairie one of these nights.” Braswell balled up his fists, closed his eyes, and shook his hips lewdly. “I’d show her what a real man can do.”

  “Where’s the real man?” Asked Moose Roykins.

  A string bean of a man picked up a guitar and sang:

  “Listen to me, waddies

  and I’ll tell you a tale

  ’bout whiskey and whores

  on the old Chisholm Trail …”

  Stone thought he’d better check Tomahawk, then get his saddlebags. He wanted to go to bed early, so he could rise at dawn and ride to Duvall’s cave.

  He stood in the moonlight and rolled a cigarette. It had been pretty much like a barracks in the bunkhouse, and Braswell was the sergeant. The only difference was that Stone had never slept in the barracks with the men. He’d gone home at night to the Bachelor Officers’ Quarters, and enjoyed the company of gentlemen such as himself.

  That had been before the war, when all had been spit and polish. Then the shooting started, and he found himself spending most of the next five years on the ground with his men, and they turned out to be more interesting, in their own way, than gentlemen.

  He passed the main house, and lights shone through its second-floor windows. He thought of Cassandra and Colonel Whiteside in bed, and it made him wince.

  He entered the barn and found Tomahawk in his stall. Tomahawk looked at him dolefully and hoped he wouldn’t have to carry Stone around all night.

  “Hello, old boy, how they treating you? Get enough to eat?”

  Stone looked in the trough, saw hay and oats mixed with molasses. The stall was clean, and Tomahawk seemed strangely subdued. Maybe it was the molasses, because he usually didn’t get that rare delicacy. Maybe it had upset his stomach.

  “See you tomorrow morning, fellow,” Stone said, patting Tomahawk’s nose, then he turned away, heading for the door, and Tomahawk breathed a sigh of relief.

  Stone rolled a cigarette. The day was coming to an end, his dream was over, and it was time for a new dream. I’ll be a cattle king.

  Something moved to his right behind the stalls. Stone dropped his cigarette paper and tobacco and pulled out both Colts, cocked them, and prepared to fire.

  Ephraim, the Negro cook, stepped out of the shadows. “Hello, Massa John, don’t you reckernize me?”

  “Have we met?” Stone asked.

  “We ain’t never been introduced before today, but I knows you, Massa John.”

  Stone examined Ephraim’s strong African features. “Afraid I don’t remember.”

  “Guess you had other thangs on yer mind, since you was up there on the porch with yer friends, drinkin’ mint julep, and I was down in the fields, with my mother and my brother, pickin’ yer father’s fuckin’ cotton!”

  Ephraim said the last word with such vehemence that he startled Stone, and Stone took a step back. Stone recalled those sultry afternoons on the back porch, discussing the great questions of the day with his friends, and before him the fields were covered with slaves, and one of them had been Ephraim.

  Stone looked him in the eye. “That’s over and done with, but if you want to do something, make your move.”

  Ephraim smirked. “It must hurt, havin’ to deal with a man who was once yer property, who you think ain’t as good as you, ain’t that right, Massa John?”

  “Maybe.”

  Ephraim suddenly dropped into a fighting stance; he looked like a panther in the moonlight. “You want to tussle, Massa John?”

  “Up to you.”

  “How did you like the war, Massa John?”

  “About as much as I like you.”

  “I used to see you in yer uniform, and you looked real fine, Massa John, all the pretty gals hangin’ around you. I used to wish I was you, and sometimes I asked God why I couldn’t’ve been borned in yer boots, and you in mine, so’s I could have all the fun with the pretty girls, and you could see what hell was like on yer hands and knees in the fields.”

  Stone had known a slave’s life was hard, and was aware of the Abolitionist and moral arguments. Like Robert E. Lee and many other southerners, he hadn’t believed much in slavery, but fought to save the South from the Yankee invader.

  Stone looked at him evenly. “If you think you can make everything right by fighting me, do it. Otherwise get out of my way.”

  Ephraim didn’t budge. “I’d kick yer sickly white ass all over this barn, but then they’d lynch me, and I’m too young to die. I’m a-gonna handle you another way, Massa John. I’m the cook on this cattle drive, and whatever you eat will pass through these two big nigra hands.” Ephraim held them up so Stone could see the palms. “If I was you, I’d go over to the Diamond D right now, and forget this spread.”

  Stone pointed both his guns at Ephraim. “If I ever taste anything funny in my food, I’m coming after you, and you won’t be the first man I’ve killed.”

  Ephraim smiled bitterly. “You’re real brave, with all the laws and sheriffs and judges behind you, but someday we’re gonna be alone, and the time’s gonna be right, and maybe den we’ll git it on, you and me.”

  “Just say when,” Stone said.

  Ephraim winked. “You know, they say a cook can make or break a man on a cattle drive.”

  Ephraim hunched himself over and pretended to be an old Negro slave shuffling out of the barn. When he reached the exit, he raised himself to his normal posture and crossed the yard, swinging his arms like a confident free man in full possession of his powers. Stone knew if he ever got into it with Ephraim, it’d be a gruesome bloody fight to the death.

  Stone adjusted the saddlebags on his shoulder, rolled a cigarette, and strolled out of the barn. The lamp still glowed in the second-floor window, and again Stone thought of Whiteside and Cassandra in bed. Stone wondered why, no matter what he did, things got worse. It was as though he was jinxed, but if he left the Triangle Spur now, Ephraim would think he’d been afraid.

  If I could get through five years of war, I can get through this cattle drive. If the food’s lousy, it was lousy in the army too, and it didn’t kill me.

  He entered the bunkhouse, and a few cowboys drank whiskey at the table, their faces golden in the light of the lamp. Stone walked to the rear of the bunkhouse, and saw the segundo lying on his bunk, his arms wrapped around his dog, and both were sleeping.

  Stone found an empty bunk in a dark corner and threw his bedroll upon it. He dropped onto the bunk and closed his eyes, thinking about Ephraim, Cassandra, Marie, and Whiteside. Maybe I should’ve moved into that cave, he thought as he drifted away.

  Chapter Three

  Luke Duvall sat on a buffalo robe in the middle of his cave, weaving a rope out of rawhide. “You give a man a meal,” he said, “and you talk with him awhile, and you never see the end of him.”

  Stone stood at the entrance to the cave, a pint of whiskey in his hand. “Thought I owed you a drink for taking me in out of the rain, and besides, I’ve come to make you an offer.”

  “If I had a wallet, I’d hide it about now, but since I don’t, I guess I don’t got nothin’ to worry about. Pull up a piece of the floor and sit yer ass down. Until you came along, nothing ever crawled into this cave except a badger and a polecat, but now I guess I you’re gonna hound me till my dyin’ day, and I don’t even owe you no money.”

  Stone uncorked the bottle, and it was half full. His eyes were glassy and his face was red. He drank some of the whiskey and passed the bottle to Duvall.

  “One won’t kill you.”

  “It never ends with one, and you know it.” Duvall stroked
his beard as he examined Stone. “Let me guess. The woman you was supposed to marry didn’t even reckernize you, and when you told her who you was, she told you to take a fly in’ fuck at the moon.”

  “It wasn’t the same woman.”

  “Don’t blame it on me. Told you a man couldn’t be sure. Anyways, I figgered you’d end up back here. Took one look at you and said to myself: That man’s gonna wind up in a cave, but I didn’t realize it’d be my cave.”

  “You’ve got it wrong—I’m going up the trail to Abilene, and you’re coming with me!”

  Duvall shook his head emphatically. “I ain’t leavin’ my mountain stronghold.”

  “You call this rathole a mountain stronghold? You ought to be ashamed of yourself, hiding from the world like this. Let’s go to Kansas, for crying out loud, and if we’re lucky, maybe the Comanches’ll kill us.”

  “Good point,” Duvall said, raising his forefinger. “If we go out on that there cattle drive, there’s the strong possibility we’ll stop somebody’s arrow or bullet, and all our worries will be over.”

  Stone leaned toward him. “They need cowboys at the Triangle Spur, and the boss himself told me they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel. That means men like us can get hired. We can learn the cattle business, Duvall, and who knows, maybe if we’re really unlucky, and make it all the way to Abilene, we can go to one of those fancy whorehouses. It won’t be love— but it’ll do until love comes along, and who knows if love exists anyway, do you?”

  “I know that likker has gone to yer damn fool head.” Duvall pushed the bottle away. “Got to keep my mind clear.”

  “For what? You’re like a man in a coffin, you might as well be dead. So what if they tried to lynch you in Georgia? Better men than you have been lynched. Hell, once even I nearly got lynched. Have a drink, for Christ’s sake. You’ve forgotten how to have fun.”

  “I don’t see where there’s any fun in a bottle.”

  “I rode all the way out here for nothing,” Stone said with disgust. “You’re a dried-up old fart, and I shouldn’t’ve wasted my time. I could be in a saloon in San Antone right now, watching the girls dance, instead of sitting with you in this stinking damned hole in the wall. Give me my bottle! I wouldn’t trust a man who wouldn’t drink with me!”

  Stone reached for the bottle, but Duvall pulled it out of his reach and tossed it over his shoulder. Stone watched in stark horror as the bottle sailed across the cave and smashed against the wall next to an Indian painting of a girl riding a wild raging bull.

  “I know who you are!” Duvall said, staring fixedly at Stone. “You’re the devil, here to tempt me with the pleasures of the flesh!”

  “I’m not the devil,” Stone replied, “and you sure as hell aren’t Jesus. You owe me a goddamned bottle of whiskey.” Stone jumped to his feet, yanked out his guns, and aimed them at Duvall. “On your horse!”

  “Now just a goddamned minute!”

  “Get moving, or you’ll really need a coffin!”

  Duvall shook his head sadly. “Try to hide from the world, and one of the bastards will always find you. There’s no gittin’ away from ’em. Lord, where did I go wrong?”

  Stone was reeling drunk in the middle of the cave, brandishing both his Colts. “You owe me a bottle of whiskey, and you’re going to pay me back, you hairy old muskrat!”

  “I ain’t got no money!”

  “You’ll work for it as a dish washer, or a floor sweeper, or you’ll be the galoot who empties the cuspidors!” Then suddenly Stone realized he had both guns out and was raving like a maniac. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Haven’t been right since I saw that Whiteside woman.”

  Duvall reached over, pulled his shotgun from underneath a buffalo robe, and lay the shotgun on his lap. “You pull them guns again, you’ll find yerself in a war worse than the last one you was in.”

  “I just want to get you out of this cave. It’s not a natural life. I thought we could go to Abilene together and forget the women who’ve ruined us. We could start over again, become ranchers together.”

  “We ain’t got no money, and I ain’t leavin’ this cave.”

  “You mean to say you don’t want to see dancing girls, and you won’t have a drink with me?”

  “You got it.”

  “Sorry I bothered you. You can rot in hell, for all I care.”

  Stone got to his feet and walked unsteadily out of the cave. Tomahawk stood underneath the ledge, wondering where the fool wanted to go next. Stone tightened the cinch, and heard a footfall behind him.

  It was Duvall emerging from the cave, his skin pale as snow in the sunlight. “Wait for me.”

  “What for?”

  Duvall looked down at his boots like a naughty little boy. “Might be fun to see some dancin’ girls. Gits lonely here sometimes.”

  Duvall left to get his horse, and Stone had the mad urge to return to the cave and lick the whiskey off the wall. He realized he’d been thinking and behaving erratically ever since he found out Cassandra Whiteside wasn’t Marie, and he’d have to get hold of himself. If I keep on like this, I’ll end up dead.

  Duvall returned with his horse, a mustang he’d caught and broken himself, and the mustang looked forlornly at Tomahawk, his eyes saying: They got you too, huh?

  Duvall hesitated. “I don’t know if I’m doin’ the right thing.”

  “Don’t think about it,” Stone said. “Just get on your horse and follow me.”

  “Sometimes when I drink, I gits a little crazy.”

  “We all do.”

  Duvall looked confused and defeated as he hoisted himself atop his saddle. “Lead the way,” he said to Stone.

  Stone touched his spurs to Tomahawk’s withers, and the big black horse began the long walk toward the famous fabled streets of San Antone.

  It was afternoon at the Triangle Spur Ranch, and Cassandra was bent over her desk. She managed the ranch administratively, and there were so many records to keep, bills to pay, letters to write, arrangements to make.

  When Truscott went up the trail, he’d have a letter of credit good anywhere, and that required a substantial deposit, but the Triangle Spur was low on funds. Cassandra had put her entire inheritance into the operation, and if they didn’t earn a decent profit on the drive, she’d be wiped out.

  Gideon didn’t know anything about ranching, but you couldn’t expect a man of his caliber to pollute his mind with everyday commerce. He was a visionary, and his noble profile belonged on a coin or a statue. He would’ve been a great president or senator, but his seigneurial spirit had no space for the double-dealing and deception required by smoky back-room politics.

  She’d met him at a church service, and he’d been modest at first; you’d never know he was a war hero. She’d been put off by his age, but gradually became drawn to that fine aristocratic profile, his proud spirit. And now they were married, forging a new future for themselves on the frontier, if they didn’t go broke first.

  She heard footsteps in the hallway, and moments later the colonel entered, dropping onto the sofa, lying his head back, and stretching out with a groan.

  “What’s wrong?” She asked.

  “Feel sick,” he said. “That John Stone fellow did it to me. He can’t help being what he is, but he lacks that magic spark, know what I mean? No, you probably don’t, because you’ve never lived at the front, with shells crashing around you and bullets flying through the air thick as mosquitoes on the bayou. The man fought for something decent and fine. He tasted glory and even was introduced to General Jackson, but now it means nothing to him. All he wants to do is raise cattle. Some people have no imagination. They’re numb in their souls, Cassandra, more like animals than men. What are you doing?”

  “The books.”

  “You spend so much time with them. How are we doing?”

  “Not so well.”

  “Don’t you have a relative who could help out?”

  “Afraid not.”

  “We’ll make do. How did
I ever end up in this godforsaken Texas?”

  “It was your idea to come here, but I’m sure everything will turn out just as we planned, once we get the herd to Abilene. Then we’ll have a big celebration, just the both of us, all right?”

  Whiteside’s eyes brightened. “Nothing like a big town, is there, Cassandra? Do you remember New Orleans?”

  She recalled the hotel room where they’d spent days and nights drinking champagne and making love. Lying her pencil on the desk, she arose from her chair and knelt before him, resting her cheek on his lap.

  “Not now, dear,” he said, pushing her away, I’m not feeling well. I hope John Stone doesn’t accept my invitation and come knocking on my door one of these nights. I find him insufferable. If he ever comes looking for me, tell him I’m out, will you?”

  John Stone had sobered up by the time they hit San Antone, and Duvall had the eyes of a terrified squirrel as they rode down the city’s main street, full of carriages, wagons, men on horseback, dogs, children, and even a goat tied to the rear of a covered wagon parked in front of the Last Chance Saloon.

  “Looks like a good place to start,” Stone said.

  He angled Tomahawk’s head to the curb, and Tomahawk knew from long experience what his afternoon was going to be: hang out with the other horses in front of the saloon, wait for his boss to return unsteady and unsure, and they’d wander off into the prairie for a night under the stars.

  Stone climbed down from the saddle and threw the reins over the rail. He loosened the cinch and patted Tomahawk’s thick black mane. “Take it easy, and I’ll be back in a while. Don’t bite anybody, and don’t stomp any kids.”

  Duvall sat on his horse, his lips quivering with fear. The sidewalk was crowded with cowboys, businessmen, gamblers, Mexicans wearing wide sombreros, whores, and he saw a wanted poster nailed on a wall.

  Stone grabbed his shirt and dragged him to the ground. “Be a man,” he said. “It’s only a goddamned saloon.”

  “I ain’t been in one in three years.”

  “I’d be ashamed to admit it, if I were you. It’s a sad commentary.”