Wimmera Gold

by Peter Corris

  The bartender beamed and said he would've ordered a round on the house if he'd been the owner of the place.

  'Let's have another one anyway,' Kite said. 'I'll slope down to the stage depot and get Mr Perry settled in. You, sir,' he said to the man who had first mentioned the fighting soldier. 'Be glad to learn your name.'

  'Ambrose Todd, Major. Pleased to make your acquaintance.'

  Kite took his money from the bar and drew Todd aside as the drinks were being poured. 'Mr Todd, I'd be obliged if you would approach Sergeant … ?'

  'Mills.'

  'Sergeant Mills and Major Rawlins on my behalf and interest them in this contest of skill. I'm willing to guarantee you a fee of 10 per cent of the purse in return for your good offices if you can arrange for the match to take place within two days.'

  'Major, you have yourself a deal.'

  Perry was duly installed in Ma Godfrey's establishment while Kite and Ambrose Todd energetically set about arranging and promoting the fight. Perry urged Kite to find him a gossip, as he had done before, but Kite neglected this duty in favour of meetings with Major Rawlins, watching Tom Mills spar in the barracks gymnasium and drinking and talking with Todd and the other Fort Stockton sportsmen. Perry and Kite had arrived on a Monday and the fight was set to take place on the following Wednesday afternoon on the grass inside the barracks.

  On Tuesday night Kite went to the boarding house to find Perry reading and smoking a cigar. 'What in hell you doing, John?' the major fumed. 'I've seen this Mills and let me tell you he can fight. You should be out training, not lazing around smoking.'

  'Have you found someone for me to talk to?'

  'No, dammit, I've been too busy fixing to make us some real money. That other business can wait till the fight's over, surely.'

  Perry turned the page of his newspaper and did not reply.

  'I've brought a newspaper man to talk to you. He's outside.'

  'Send him away. I don't want to talk to anyone about boxing. I told you why I was here, Major. As far as I'm concerned the fight just bought me some time in this town. And precious little good it's done me. I'm like a prisoner in this place—the only way I could move around in town would be in dungarees with shit on my boots.'

  'You stubborn …'

  Perry balanced the cigar on the edge of the plate he was using as an ashtray and rose to his feet. 'Black what?'

  'John, John, what's happening here? Look, tell me the name of this feller you're looking for and I'll ask around myself.'

  Perry sat down. 'His name's Wesley Lincoln. He calls himself Tom Shelby sometimes.'

  Kite nodded and tugged at the ends of his moustache as he did when he was in the throes of a thought. 'Seems to me I've seen that name somewhere. Real lately—today maybe. I can't remember.'

  'Try, Major. It's very important.'

  Kite tugged hard and then released the moustache and snapped his fingers.

  'In the billiard hall. That's it! The name was chalked up as the winner of a match. I've struck up an acquaintance with the guy who runs the place. Englishman by the name of Travers. You'd like him, John. He … '

  'Never mind. Get from him everything he knows about this Lincoln. Especially if he's in town now. Understand? I mean at once, Major. Now!'

  Kite fought down the resentment at being ordered about. At least Perry was looking and sounding like a fighter again instead of a gentleman of leisure. 'Okay, John, sure I can do that. And you'll talk to this newspaper feller, right?'

  Perry laughed. 'Right, Major. I'll talk his ears off.'

  About 500 men attended the fight, refereed by Major Lucas Rawlins. Kite acted as Perry's second and Sergeant Mills was attended by a corporal from his platoon. Mills was a nuggety specimen with bow legs and short arms. His tactics were simple—rush in close, land as many body blows as possible, attempt to throw his opponent and fall on top of him. His only defence was a thick forearm held in front of his face and a crouch which brought the top of his head lower than Perry's shoulder. Perry, not a true heavyweight, had been used to fighting men as big or bigger than himself, and he found the soldier's style difficult. The first round ended when Mills landed solidly on Perry's ribs and almost managed to throw him. Perry took another crack on the ribs and went down.

  'I hope you haven't bet everything on me, Major,' Perry said in the rest period. 'This fellow could be tricky.'

  'I told you he was tough.'

  'You didn't tell me he fought like a bear.'

  Kite sponged his man off, gave him a drink and said nothing. He was gratified that the information he'd relayed to him in the morning hadn't diverted Perry from the business at hand. He had no doubt that Perry could beat the soldier and he congratulated himself on the arrangements he'd made with Major Rawlins. All spectators had to surrender their weapons before being allowed to group around the roped square. Only a small number of officers were armed, and before calling the fighters up to the mark, Rawlins had informed the audience that the fight would be stopped in the event of any disturbance. Everyone knew what that meant.

  'I wouldn't worry too much, Major Kite,' Rawlins had confided. 'Sergeant Mills is not a popular man.'

  'He's more popular than any coloured man that licks the tripes out of him.'

  'I don't anticipate that, to be truthful. And if it does happen we'll handle it.'

  After four more rounds Perry was in control. He had found the range and was confident enough of his footing on the slick grass to pepper Mills with sharp punches as he rushed and to step aside and land again as the soldier blundered past. Perry knocked his man down with crisp jolts and ended the fourth round by standing his ground, blocking a roundhouse swing, and landing an uppercut that lifted Mills from his crouch and dropped him to his knees.

  Kite was ready to declare the fight over but, remarkably, Mills shook off the effects of the blow, walked back to his corner and sat stolidly waiting for the next session. Perry flexed his right hand.

  'Man's got a head like a rock and his wind's good. This could be a long affair and I've got other business to attend to.'

  'Tap him on the button,' Kite said.

  'I tried that. It's hard the way he keeps his chin in.'

  'Close his peepers, then.'

  'I hate to do that to a man. He's a good honest fighter.'

  Kite shook his head and watched Perry spring into the middle of the ring with his left extended and his defensive right firmly in place. Mills crouched, rushed and struck Perry inches below the navel. Perry gasped in agony and went down.

  'Foul!' Kite cried. 'That's a foul.'

  Perry struggled up and reeled back to his corner. Rawlins deemed the blow an accident. 'Your man slipped into it, Major.'

  The crowd roared its approval at the ruling.

  'John,' Kite muttered as he wiped Perry's face. 'They're going to cheat us.'

  Perry's grin was ghastly. 'Remember what I told you about Cribb and Molyneaux. Molyneaux knocked Cribb out and they said he was clutching bullets in his fists. By the time he proved he wasn't, Cribb was up again and ready. We'll see, Major. It could have been an accident.'

  In the next round Mills attempted to land the foul blow again but Perry was ready for it and swayed aside. A change came over the fight from that moment. Perry's punches became harder and more deliberate. Within a few minutes he had raised welts under both Mills' eyes and the flesh was puffing up threatening to close them. Perry allowed the soldier to claim him and they wrestled briefly. The crowd yelled, thinking that Mills had gained an advantage.

  'Give it up, Sergeant, you haven't got a hope,' Perry said as Mills attempted to raise his knee in the clinch.

  'Fuck you, nigger.'

  Perry shook Mills off, stepped back and measured the distance. He landed a series of punches that reduced Mills' vision to a dim blur. The soldier blundered about the ring, swinging at nothing.

  Perry looked at the referee. 'Major? He cannot defend himself.'

  'He's on his feet, isn't he?'

&nb
sp; Perry walked to his corner, took Kite's sponge and threw it into the centre of the square. He squatted, signifying that he had finished fighting, and the uproar that followed was only controlled by several of the officers firing their pistols in the air.

  On going to the boarding house that night, after settling bets and enjoying hours of discussion with Todd, Rawlins and others, Kite discovered that Perry had left. The massive proprietress, Ma Godfrey, handed him a note.

  Dear Major Kite,

  Time to part, Major. I want you to know that, in my judgment, you are one of the most honourable men I have encountered in a lifetime of wandering and falling among strangers. I wish to thank you for the assistance you have given me to reach this point in the quest which brought me to America.

  I know you will be disappointed of your hope that we might have carried on to the championship, but, as you are aware, I have always considered that an unlikely outcome to our enterprise. As you saw, Rawlins was prepared to allow Mills to foul me until I could not continue—as the stakes mounted this experience would have been repeated and intensified. It will be a great many years before a coloured man buckles on a championship belt.

  May I make a request of you on the strength of what I presume to think of as our friendship? I have been forced to leave behind some of my possessions. I would be grateful if you would forward them, along with any money that may be owed me, to Miss Sarah Braun, care of Pastor JohannesBlenkiron, Wilding, Colony of Victoria, Australia.

  Another request. Please do not attempt to follow me even though you know my destination. The business at hand is private and personal and I wish no one else to be involved. I would gladly meet with you again, Major—in New Orleans, San Francisco or New York, but not, I must insist, in Texas.

  If you should meet up with Jem Mace, give him my regards and tell him I never lost faith in the straight left. If you plan to continue in the same line of business, my advice is to hunt out the son of the man we travelled with in the coach—fighting blood there if ever I saw it.

  My very best wishes for your good fortune and prosperity.

  Kite, who had downed a considerable number of drinks in his post-fight consultations, found his eyes filling with tears as he read the letter and Perry's firm, sprawling signature.

  'That's a man,' he said. 'When did he go?'

  Ma Godfrey, who had been standing by ready to cope with any trouble, shrugged. 'Not so long back. Talked a while to Luis Mendoza and hired himself a mule I do believe. That letter say what to do with his trappings?'

  Kite nodded. 'I'll take care of them. Where are they?'

  The boarding house proprietress showed Kite Perry's trunk and a bundle of books tied with string. The Major noted the absence of the long leather gun case. He opened the trunk and was unsurprised to see that it did not contain Perry's gunbelt or Colt .45.

  39

  Wesley Lincoln thought he had prepared himself for his first sight of Snakehole and its environs but he was wrong. As the buggy mounted the last rise in the road and ploughed through a thick layer of dust he recognised certain features—a gnarled and blackened desert oak that had been hit by lightning more than once, a bare hillock littered with glittering quartz fragments that the boys of the town used to throw at each other, a long narrow saltlick stretching away to the south which had been a favourite spot for coyote and prairie dog hunters. All familiar, but dried up, burned-looking, as if fierce flames had stripped away any excess of shape and colour and left only the bare bones.

  He urged the horse forward and jogged down the road past leaning fences, collapsed gates and buildings choked by tumbleweed and grown-over with prickle bush. Lincoln had seen ghost towns before—places that had died when a mine was exhausted or a cattle trail had swung away or the desert sand had crept forward and covered pasture and filled in wells. Snakehole had a similar look but the resulting desolation was worse. Nothing grew in the garden plots that had surrounded the houses, the trees were withered and shrunken and every building appeared to have been wind-blasted, stripped of paint and all character.

  The main street, narrow and dog-legged, was shimmering under the high sun, appearing to move as the white dust reflected the harsh light. No recent wheel tracks or hoof marks. The stores were blank-faced and the boardwalk had collapsed in places, providing traps for tumble-weed and long-dead leaves. Lincoln registered the stepping stones of his boyhood—Collins' general store where he'd stolen rock candy; Brewster's gunsmithy where he'd seen the fire-power of a Colt .45 demonstrated on two-inch boards. Lou Jenkins' barber shop where he'd learned to talk dirty and the Silver Load saloon where he'd first drunk whiskey that wasn't his father's moonshine and first put his hand on naked female flesh.

  Lincoln halted in the middle of the street. The front door of the bank was solid-looking behind a metal screen but no other structure had endured as well. Horse troughs were filled with dust and several stores had been fire-gutted. Lucille Bannon's whorehouse, where he had been taken for a drunken, rape-minded Apache, was a crumbling ruin. The balcony sagged down towards the front steps which had been smashed and prised up, presumably for firewood. The cottonwood tree that the lynching rope had been slung over was bare and craggy. Not a single pane of glass in the building was intact and much of the roof was open to the sky. Lincoln made a silent promise to burn the house down before he left.

  'Couldn't have done a better job on the pesky place myself,' Lincoln said as he drove towards the crossroads where churches stood on three corners. He was alert for signs of life, but nothing moved in the street other than a skinny yellow dog that crept out and sniffed at the horse's droppings before slinking away behind a rusted water tank. Lincoln climbed down from the buggy. He was stiff and sore from sitting on the badly sprung buggy for several hours and his first steps were slow and awkward. He tethered the horse outside the church on the southernmost corner of the crossroads. He checked the action of his pistol, reholstered it and felt the comforting weight of $4000 in the money belt around his waist.

  His hand was on fire and he took a pull on a bottle containing a mixture of laudanum and brandy. The drink steadied him and he corked the bottle and put it in his jacket pocket. The horse whinnied and Lincoln spun around. The yellow dog was trying to jump up on the buggy, attracted by the smell of Lincoln's provisions. Lincoln's hand moved quickly, drawing the Colt, cocking and firing in one smooth motion. The dog yelped once and fell dead, shot cleanly through the head. Lincoln steadied the frightened horse as the reverberation from the shot sent a flock of scrawny brown birds fluttering from the roof of one of the derelict churches.

  Lincoln turned and looked along the length of the street. Nothing moved. 'No one home,' he said. The remark struck him as funny and he burst into laughter, further alarming the horse.

  'Steady, boy, steady. Tend to you soon. Just got to drop in on my old Pa here now.'

  He fed the horse a lump of sugar and dragged the carcass of the dog away from the buggy. Then he adjusted his hat and walked up the overgrown path beside the church. Snakehole's One True Church of the American South had never been much of a structure, hastily knocked together from raw timber and sitting on too few stumps set too far apart. Now it sagged in all directions at once, and weeds had grown up and through gaps where the clapboards had shrunk and parted. The back door leading to the living quarters was hanging by one rusted hinge. Lincoln wrenched it open and the door fell free so that he had to step quickly to avoid it falling on him.

  'Shit,' he said and realised it was the first time he'd ever sworn this close to where his father lived and drank and wielded his leather belt.

  Mice scampered as he stepped up and into the room. The area smelt as if it had once been totally soaked in urine and then allowed to dry out. Lincoln's footsteps stirred up the layer of foul-smelling dust and he sneezed violently and swore again. He was in the main room of the house where his parents had cooked and eaten and spent most of their time. The old iron stove was rusted and there was only one chair drawn up to t
he pine table. His father's easy chair which had stood in the corner and the dresser had gone. A few cracked enamel bowls were covered in a greenish dust. Lincoln wanted to turn and leave but he forced himself to push open the door that led to his old bedroom and that of his parents.

  His room was bare—just walls and the couple of shelves he had built to hold things like an armadillo skull and a rattler's tail and some Apache arrowheads. Lincoln felt himself shaking and he leant against the door jamb for support. The post moved and dust spilled from above, showering down onto his hat. Lincoln stepped back and took out his bottle. This was all proving harder than he'd thought.

  He moved down towards his parents' room. The door was open but the light was dimmer and he judged that the window had been boarded up. Lincoln allowed his eyes to adjust to the gloom and then peered in. At least there was still a bed in the room. He saw the iron bedstead and the lowboy. But something was strange—a shadow hung over the pillow. At first he thought it was a coat hanging on the wall, then he saw that the shadow had substance.

  'Oh, no. Jesus, no.'

  Lincoln strode into the room, picked up a stool and smashed out several of the boards from the window. When the light flooded in he saw that the body of a half-clothed man was hanging from a rope tied to a ceiling beam well to one side of the bed. The head, lolling at a crooked angle, was nothing but bones and teeth and the exposed hands, legs and feet had similarly been stripped of all flesh. The corpse wore a shirt and vest, hung up on the bones like clothes on a scarecrow, but the trousers had fallen into a heap below the skeleton.

  It was easy to see what had happened. A tall man had placed a rope around his neck and stepped off the bed to swing far enough away so that his feet could not have gained a purchase on the bedstead or the wall. The tarred rope was a strong one that could be relied upon not to break. Rats had swarmed down the rope, which they were unable to chew on account of the tar, and eaten every morsel of flesh and hair from the body. The head was eyeless and tongueless and the pants had fallen down after the meat had been eaten away.