by Leif Enger
“Do you still believe that?” I inquired.
Siringo didn’t reply. He rolled onto his back; he breathed noisily; maybe he examined the heavens. If you are tempted to interpret his silence as self-doubt, I say don’t do it! Charles Siringo had no doubts of his own; for the sakes of Glendon and Hood Roberts, don’t lend him the benefit of yours.
10
I woke before Siringo to a moon just up and nearly full. There he lay like bones in blankets and beyond him the hobbled horses asleep on their sprung hips. I’d have slept longer but was stiff from cold and hoisted up with a groan. At this Siringo woke coughing, coughed himself to an elbow and spat the wicked day to life.
The tracker Ericsson had himself left a comprehensible track. By sunup even I had begun to discern where his horse had trotted, where it walked, and where his small dog transited the horse’s path—staying behind always, like the well-behaved animal it proved to be. Time to time Ericsson dismounted to stoop back and forth and crouch on his toes, reading faint prints upon the dust. At first I could see very little sign except in my imagination but mile by mile it became more distinct until I found myself able to pick it out on the earth and animate it in my mind. As the day warmed, we warmed to the man we followed. “See how he tends his dog,” Siringo remarked, as we wound through a patch of spiny low cacti.
“How do you mean? I don’t see the dog’s prints at all here.”
“Right, he’s carrying the little chap,” Siringo said.
“How far ahead?”
Siringo didn’t answer but less than an hour he reined up in a place where the earth sank and softened and blue-green moss appeared on the stones.
“Do you smell that?” he said.
“No.”
We moved ahead at a quicker pace. The smell he had mentioned came to me first as a mere sense of reassurance. Only eventually did I recognize it as pipe tobacco. Name a more heartening aroma! Thus Ericsson became in my mind a painstaking man who smoked a pipe, as Glendon did, and was generous to his animals. I felt somehow as though we were in Ericsson’s steady hands and so am all the sorrier to report that upon crossing the little stream known as the Antelope we emerged onto a rocky shelf to discover Ericsson lying tipped over beside his embers and his apprehensive spaniel pacing to and fro before him.
Siringo eased down off his horse and said a few words to the spaniel. The tracker lay on his side with his legs tucked up as if sleeping cold. He had not thrashed about. There was an oval cavity like a winey thumbprint next to his left eye. Ericsson had set about breakfast with a tidy camp table, which was a flat board fastened to an iron pike stuck in the earth—a clever arrangement with biscuits still on the table and a little jam pot and a white stoneware cup of pekoe tea.
“Well, now he’s serious,” said Charles Siringo. “Yes, he is.” With that he pulled the clasp knife from his pocket and stooped about the campsite poking it here and there, muttering “Now he means it,” poking the blade in the cold ashes and through a sheaf of booklets and papers I had not previously noticed lying on the ground. Among them was a small bound atlas and Siringo turned a few of its pages with the knife.
You would think I’d remember this more clearly. Ericsson’s face, for example, or the look of his hands—you come on a man shot dead at his breakfast and oughtn’t the scene write in blood ink on your memory? Yet what I chiefly recall are how my belt-buckle chafed when I slid off the horse, or how the spaniel wouldn’t come to my hand until I offered him a biscuit from Ericsson’s table. The biscuit crumbled in my fingers so I fed it to the dog piece by piece after which he went and lay down putting his chin in the crook of Ericsson’s dead old arm.
“His horse has departed in the company of two other animals,” Siringo said. He stood at some distance, reading the ground. “Two horses. Or a horse and a mule.”
I said, “I need to go home,” a useless statement to which Siringo didn’t rise. “I’m going home, Siringo. This is enough.”
“Poor Becket. Is this business troubling to you?”
“It would be troubling to anyone with a shred of soul left.”
Siringo took his time walking back. Looking in my face he said, “We knew little of Ericsson besides that he was a decent man. That is his tragedy. If he had been more careful we might be having coffee with him now. I am not hypocrite enough to pretend his death matters to me. On the other hand, it does add some dash to your Hood Roberts. It gives him more value. You understand that.”
I said, “You don’t know Hood Roberts. You are only adding him to your tale of yourself.”
This piqued Siringo. “So you know the reckless boy, and his work here bothers you. What do you imagine you know of him?” He reached for the reins of his gelding.
“What are you doing? Shouldn’t we bury this man?” But Siringo was already aboard, setting forth after the fugitives. I followed suit and whistled for the dog. When he refused to come I climbed back down and retrieved the little fellow and set him in my coat where he propped himself as if from long practice. That spaniel was a patient rider and didn’t whine for the next several hours as we followed the track in its southerly course. Now with three horses, or two and a mule, the trail was easy to follow, and I came up and rode next to Charles Siringo and asked where he guessed they would be.
“In some tilty farmhouse, I suppose,” he mused. “Do you know, they always find some idiot farmhouse to hole up in.”
“Hole up? But aren’t we close to Mexico?”
“Mexico. Oh—you mean if he gets across that border, he has gotten away.”
“Away from you, anyway.”
He regarded me with amusement for some moments. “Becket, do you actually know anything at all?”
I believe it was an honest question.
He said, “Do you know even one thing that is true?”
11
The trail led more or less straight to Columbus, which we entered at the supper hour. It did not look like the doomed village it was. We smelled meat and squash and, unmistakably, corn on the cob and saw the lively fires of the U.S. Army camp to the west. A light breeze was turning the town’s considerable number of windmills, and we met a creaking wagonload of boys returning from a foray down to the Rio Casas across the Mexican line. The boys wore the weary glee of successful disobedience and were laughing at everything they saw. My memory of Columbus is, of all things, musical—through its screen doors I heard no fewer than three pianos being played with varying degrees of success. Also one woman sat on a porch moving her hands across a harp taller than herself, the first harp I ever saw.
The grocery was closed but Siringo took out his revolver and beat the door with such resolve that the grocer himself, plump and compliant, looked out the window above the store and came down to sell us whatever it would take. While he tallied up our bread and bacon and coffee, Siringo asked whether a young white boy had come through with a Mexican girl.
“Are you the boy’s granddad?”
“I am no such thing. What did they buy from you?”
“Six fresh eggs and two slices of nice pink ham.”
“The boy loves breakfast,” Siringo noted to me.
“A good-looking lad, I thought so at the time,” said the grocer. “Would you like some of the ham? I have a little left.”
“No. Did the boy talk to you?”
“What kind of talk?”
“Any kind.”
“Not as I recall. Maybe you gentlemen would care for a tin of peaches; these are refreshing after a taxing day.”
Siringo said, “You seem not to grasp what’s transpiring here. I am in pursuit of a bona fide desperado whose trail is gory despite his cupid appearance. If the boy said a word to you beyond yessir, then out with it; otherwise shut up and let a man work.”
The grocer was taken aback. I felt bad for him—he’d only spoken in that yielding way lonely people do, and here was this tall rawhide standing over him and brooking no twaddle. Frowning at Siringo, he said, “There’s a place on a l
ittle tannin creek just to the south, belongs to Michael Raban who fought for Stonewall Jackson. Mike ain’t around much, but he leaves the place open. Travelers come through they often stay there.”
“We’ll take a look,” said Siringo.
12
And so it came down to a farmhouse. As it so often does! Remember Dan Champion, valiant of the Johnson County War, who crouched in that hovel until they lit it on fire then shot him forty times when he ran out? We rode down the dirt trail toward Mexico and sure enough came to a grove of trees in which we saw the shine of a tin roof and heard the creek rattling. It looked deserted from a distance and we doubted whether this was the Raban property; then we heard the strange bray of a mule and “Hold up,” said Siringo.
We got off our mounts and tied them in the brush and Siringo got out his annoying manacles and stuck them on my wrists. I judge he was gone half an hour before he returned, up on his toes for quiet and a little out of breath.
“Well, we found them,” he said. “The animals are in a lean-to by the creek. There’s a well on the other side with an elevated tank. Look, there is the windmill.”
“What’ll we do?”
“We could wait them out, or we could go down there and walk right in.” Siringo smiled. “They got music playing.”
“Music?”
“A cylinder recording of some kind. It’s pretty music. Could be they’re dancing in there. You suppose they’re dancing, Becket?”
He let me out of the cuffs and leaving the horses tethered we moved up through willows to a shallow rise. Peeking over the top I was surprised how near the cabin was. And how civilized, with its trimmed square corners and its door painted blue. Sure enough we could hear a faint symphonic orchestra. We could smell ham frying. Ericsson’s dog pranced a bit because of the ham until Siringo took a length of cord and tied him to a willow trunk.
“Hood’s stubborn, you know,” said I.
He reflected on this. “I expect he is.”
“What if he fights?”
“What if he does?”
“What about Alazon?”
He said, “I won’t shoot a girl, unless it seems to me that I have to.”
“How long will we wait?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Suppose you fall asleep,” I said, recalling how he’d slept all day long sometimes when we were driving.
“I can sleep or I can not sleep.” He seemed to shift a gear and said, “Becket, what do you think that I am?”
I shook my head but he persisted.
“The question is not rhetorical. What do you say that I am?”
“Well, you are liable to sleep like anyone else after a long day. That is no particular weakness. I would say that you are human like everyone else.”
Siringo replied, “I was human, but now I think I am changing.” He made this dread and puzzling statement with an air of hushed merriment. “I have been noticing it for days. Perhaps I am only part human now.”
Noting what I suppose was my hesitant expression he added, “It’s a change for the better. I can sleep or not as I will. I feel no anger. I am not thirsty. Hot and cold have no purchase on me.”
I replied, “You are describing death.”
He frowned. “I should have known you would think something morbid. Well, get comfortable, Becket.”
So I settled in. Plainly Siringo meant to wait the sun down, sleep a little—or not, as he willed—probably taking Hood in the morning when he came out the door. I had no plan to thwart him, no scheme at all.
We hear much about moments of decision, but often you don’t know they have happened until later and there you stand in your cooling skin.
Siringo coughed, trying to keep it quiet lest Hood be alerted; he smothered the cough in his arm. He didn’t notice when I took his old Colt from its holster. He didn’t notice until his coughing fit had passed. When he saw me holding the revolver something warmed in his eyes, and “Becket,” said he, “I thank you for holding that for me; I’ll take it back now.”
“No, sir.”
“Come on. Ante up. Do you think it’s my only gun?” he asked, when I still refused.
I didn’t want to shoot Siringo. Now that the old Colt was in my fist, it didn’t seem possible to me. Even a pretend willingness to shoot him seemed out of my grasp; therefore I pointed the revolver straight up and fired in order to warn Hood. It was my first firing of a true Western pistola and its kick was not as troublesome as expected. I fired the revolver until it clicked empty, Siringo watching me balefully as though I were dead already.
First, all song and dance ceased from the cabin.
Second, Siringo with an expression of extreme aggravation rose over me and got hold of the gun and swung the barrel down hard on my collarbone. I went down writhing, while we heard frantic scrapes in the cabin that turned out to be window shutters sliding into place.
“Now, look, he aims to wait us out,” complained Siringo. “Now it’s a blasted all-night event. Moreover, someone else is likely to arrive.” No doubt he anticipated the despised Rangers. Hood Roberts had become a prize, after all.
“You broke my shoulder,” I gasped, for it seemed I could feel the astonished collarbone rubbing against itself.
“Well, there ain’t nothing for it,” he said. “We had a chance to take them in flagrante. You spoiled the surprise, and now you have to wait hurt.”
The good part is I didn’t faint. Soon I remembered how to breathe, how to bear resentment.
“I thought you felt no anger,” I told Siringo, which made him laugh so hard he leaned forward and gave my poor shoulder a comradely slap—I must’ve gone pale, for he gave me still another slap, laughing all the harder.
13
From our slight hill in the cover of willows we had a good view of the cabin. If Hood came out the front he was finished; out the side window lay fifty yards of open ground to cross; if he tried to escape from the rear we would see him before he reached the creek. Swelling large with confidence Siringo called out, “Hood Roberts!”
“Yes, sir, who is asking?” came Hood’s voice.
“Charles Siringo of the Pinkerton Agency.”
“Hello, Mr. Siringo.”
Despite all that had happened, he only sounded like himself. Like a boy speaking respectfully to his elders.
Siringo said, “Hood, things do not look good for you. I am offering you safe passage, followed by fair trial in the murders of the tracker Ericsson, the actor Ern Swilling, and Mr. Felix Fly.”
There was a pause before Hood called, “Who’s Felix Fly?”
“The brave fellow who perished in the fire you set back in Spigot.”
Again Hood said nothing for a while, then: “It got away from me, Mr. Siringo. I didn’t mean for it to burn so.”
“You’re calling it an accident?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I am comfortable with that. You are free to make your case at trial. If you will come out now, you’ll not be harmed.”
“I’d rather not, Mr. Siringo. If you don’t mind,” he added.
“Is the girl in there with you, Hood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You think highly of her, correct?”
Again a silence. I can guess why—it’s because Alazon was right there. That’s the way Hood was; he might wax like smitten Shakespeare to me or Glendon, but he was far too shy to say such things in front of the girl herself.
Siringo called out sternly, “Do you care for her!”
“Well—sure I do.”
“In that case you should send her out at least, son. You see it’s shortly going to rain down six kinds of Hell on that little love nest. She ain’t culpable for your crimes.”
There was a scuffling from the cabin and Hood called, “Can we have a little time to talk about this?”
“Go ahead,” said Siringo.
We had now a rest of perhaps a quarter of an hour. We heard nothing from the cabin; short of breath, I tried to eas
e my shoulder by lying flat on my back; Siringo took a deck of cards from his pocket and played a hand of solitaire.
“Mr. Siringo?” Hood called at last.
“Yes.”
“She won’t come out. I ast her and she won’t leave.”
Siringo sighed. He called, “Hood, if that girl’s really in there have her sing out. I got to know whether she’s truly inside with you.”
He reasoned of course that Hood might well be alone in there and would believe himself safer if we thought the girl with him. Almost immediately, however, the door opened and Alazon stepped out of the cabin. Insolent as a raven! A whirl of her dress and she vanished back inside.
It put Siringo in a temper. It jarred him that a pretty young girl thought so highly of this accidental outlaw as to stay with him in such hopeless circumstances.
We waited a long while. Siringo said, “Becket, we can’t wait for dark. They’ll slip off if we do.”
This fretting was so unlike his usual sangfroid that I allowed myself the pleasure of a snide remark. “You seem out of sorts for a man with six kinds of Hell at his beck and call.”
He replied, “I am thinking, that’s all. The thing would be to burn them out, but I guess you’re unwilling to help.” Nonetheless he stooped away through the willows to return minutes later with an oilcloth packet from his saddlebags. Gauging our daylight he unstrung the loaf-size parcel and began a brisk inspection of its contents, chiefly waxed tubes of gunpowder but also bundled heavy matches and stiff gray strings of various lengths which could only be fuses. He fiddled and made small gratified noises: plainly, the stuff made him happy.
I said, “You have carried these things all this way?”
“I learned a few tactics from those anarchist boys in Haymarket. Never snub an education, Becket.” He uncapped a paperboard tube, sniffed it, rolled a pinch in his fingers. “I was concerned about the integrity of the powder after that wet business at the Hundred and One, but nope—it seems to be fine.”
