Glanton spat and eyed the man. No hay whiskey, he said.
Silence fell. The Apaches looked from one to the other. They looked at the saddle wallets and canteens and gourds. Cómo? said Mangas.
No hay whiskey, said Glanton.
Mangas let go the rough hide headstall of the horse. His men watched him. He looked toward the walled town and he looked at the judge. No whiskey? he said.
No whiskey.
His among the clouded faces seemed unperturbed. He looked over the Americans, their gear. In truth they did not look like men who might have whiskey they hadnt drunk. The judge and Glanton sat their mounts and offered nothing further in the way of parley.
Hay whiskey en Tucson, said Mangas.
Sin duda, said the judge. Y soldados también. He put forward his horse, his rifle in one hand and the reins in the other. Glanton moved. The horse behind him shifted into motion. Then Glanton stopped.
Tiene oro? he said.
Sí.
Cuánto.
Bastante.
Glanton looked at the judge then at Mangas again. Bueno, he said. Tres días. Aquí. Un barril de whiskey.
Un barril?
Un barril. He nudged the pony and the Apaches gave way and Glanton and the judge and those who followed rode single file toward the gates of the squalid mud town that sat burning in the winter sunrise on the plain.
The lieutenant in charge of the little garrison was named Couts. He had been to the coast with Major Graham’s command and returned here four days ago to find the town under an informal investment by the Apaches. They were drunk on tiswin they’d brewed and there had been shooting in the night two nights running and an incessant clamor for whiskey. The garrison had a twelvepound demiculverin loaded with musketballs mounted on the revetment and Couts expected the savages would withdraw when they could get nothing more to drink. He was very formal and he addressed Glanton as Captain. None of the tattered partisans had even dismounted. They looked about at the bleak and ruinous town. A blindfolded burro tethered to a pole was turning a pugmill, circling endlessly, the wooden millshaft creaking in its blocks. Chickens and smaller birds were scratching at the base of the mill. The pole was a good four feet off the ground yet the birds ducked or squatted each time it passed overhead. In the dust of the plaza lay a number of men apparently asleep. White, indian, Mexican. Some covered with blankets and some not. At the far end of the square there was a public whippingpost that was dark about its base where dogs had pissed on it. The lieutenant followed their gaze. Glanton pushed back his hat and looked down from his horse.
Where in this pukehole can a man get a drink? he said.
It was the first word any of them had spoken. Couts looked them over. Haggard and haunted and blacked by the sun. The lines and pores of their skin deeply grimed with gunblack where they’d washed the bores of their weapons. Even the horses looked alien to any he’d ever seen, decked as they were in human hair and teeth and skin. Save for their guns and buckles and a few pieces of metal in the harness of the animals there was nothing about these arrivals to suggest even the discovery of the wheel.
There are several places, said the lieutenant. None open yet though, I’m afraid.
They’re fixin to get that way, said Glanton. He nudged the horse forward. He did not speak again and none of the others had spoken at all. As they crossed the plaza a few vagrants raised their heads up out of their blankets and looked after them.
The bar they entered was a square mud room and the proprietor set about serving them in his underwear. They sat on a bench at a wooden table in the gloom drinking sullenly.
Where you all from? said the proprietor.
Glanton and the judge went out to see if they could recruit any men from the rabble reposing in the dust of the square. Some of them were sitting, squinting in the sun. A man with a bowieknife was offering to cut blades with anyone at a wager to see who had the better steel. The judge went among them with his smile.
Captain what all you got in them saddlegrips?
Glanton turned. He and the judge carried their valises across their shoulders. The man who’d spoken was propped against a post with one knee drawn up to support his elbow.
These bags? said Glanton.
Them bags.
These here bags are full of gold and silver, said Glanton, for they were.
The idler grinned and spat.
That’s why he’s a wantin to go to Californy, said another. Account of he’s done got a satchel full of gold now.
The judge smiled benignly at the wastrels. You’re liable to take a chill out here, he said. Who’s for the gold fields now.
One man rose and took a few steps away and began to piss in the street.
Maybe the wild man’ll go with ye, called another. Him and Cloyce’ll make ye good hands.
They been tryin to go for long enough.
Glanton and the judge sought them out. A rude tent thrown up out of an old tarp. A sign that said: See The Wild Man Two Bits. They passed behind a wagonsheet where within a crude cage of paloverde poles crouched a naked imbecile. The floor of the cage was littered with filth and trodden food and flies clambered about everywhere. The idiot was small and misshapen and his face was smeared with feces and he sat peering at them with dull hostility silently chewing a turd.
The owner came from the rear shaking his head at them. Aint nobody allowed in here. We aint open.
Glanton looked about the wretched enclosure. The tent smelled of oil and smoke and excrement. The judge squatted to study the imbecile.
Is that thing yours? Glanton said.
Yes. Yes he is.
Glanton spat. Man told us you was wantin to go to Californy.
Well, said the owner. Yes, that’s right. That is right.
What do you figure to do with that thing?
Take him with me.
How you aim to haul him?
Got a pony and cart. To haul him in.
You got any money?
The judge raised up. This is Captain Glanton, he said. He’s leading an expedition to California. He’s willing to take a few passengers under the protection of his company provided they can find themselves adequately.
Well now yes. Got some money. How much money are we talking about?
How much have you got? said Glanton.
Well. Adequate, I would say. I’d say adequate in money.
Glanton studied the man. I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you, he said. Are you wantin to go to Californy or are you just mouth?
California, said the owner. By all means.
I’ll carry ye for a hundred dollars, paid in advance.
The man’s eyes shifted from Glanton to the judge and back. I like some of having that much, he said.
We’ll be here a couple of days, said Glanton. You find us some more fares and we’ll adjust your tariff accordingly.
The captain will treat you right, said the judge. You can be assured of that.
Yessir, said the owner.
As they passed out by the cage Glanton turned to look at the idiot again. You let women see that thing? he said.
I dont know, said the owner. There’s none ever asked.
By noon the company had moved on to an eatinghouse. There were three or four men inside when they entered and they got up and left. There was a mud oven in the lot behind the building and the bed of a wrecked wagon with a few pots and a kettle on it. An old woman in a gray shawl was cutting up beefribs with an axe while two dogs sat watching. A tall thin man in a bloodstained apron entered the room from the rear and looked them over. He leaned and placed both hands on the table before them.
Gentlemen, he said, we dont mind servin people of color. Glad to do it. But we ast for em to set over here at this other table here. Right over here.
He stepped back and held out one hand in a strange gesture of hospice. His guests looked at one another.
What in the hell is he talkin about?
Just right over here, said the man.
>
Toadvine looked down the table to where Jackson sat. Several looked toward Glanton. His hands were at rest on the board in front of him and his head was slightly bent like a man at grace. The judge sat smiling, his arms crossed. They were all slightly drunk.
He thinks we’re niggers.
They sat in silence. The old woman in the court had commenced wailing some dolorous air and the man was standing with his hand outheld. Piled just within the door were the satchels and holsters and arms of the company.
Glanton raised his head. He looked at the man.
What’s your name? he said.
Name’s Owens. I own this place.
Mr Owens, if you was anything at all other than a goddamn fool you could take one look at these here men and know for a stone fact they aint a one of em goin to get up from where they’re at to go set somewheres else.
Well I caint serve you.
You suit yourself about that. Ask her what she’s got, Tommy.
Harlan was sitting at the end of the table and he leaned out and called to the old woman at her pots and asked her in spanish what she had to eat.
She looked toward the house. Huesos, she said.
Huesos, said Harlan.
Tell her to bring em, Tommy.
She wont bring you nothin without I tell her to. I own this place.
Harlan was calling out the open door.
I know for a fact that man yonder’s a nigger, said Owens.
Jackson looked up at him.
Brown turned toward the owner.
Have you got a gun? he said.
A gun?
A gun. Have you got a gun.
Not on me I aint.
Brown pulled a small fiveshot Colt from his belt and pitched it to him. He caught it and stood holding it uncertainly.
You got one now. Now shoot the nigger.
Wait a goddamn minute, said Owens.
Shoot him, said Brown.
Jackson had risen and he pulled one of the big pistols from his belt. Owens pointed the pistol at him. You put that down, he said.
You better forget about givin orders and shoot the son of a bitch.
Put it down. Goddamn, man. Tell him to put it down.
Shoot him.
He cocked the pistol.
Jackson fired. He simply passed his left hand over the top of the revolver he was holding in a gesture brief as a flintspark and tripped the hammer. The big pistol jumped and a double handful of Owens’s brains went out the back of his skull and plopped in the floor behind him. He sank without a sound and lay crumpled up with his face in the floor and one eye open and the blood welling up out of the destruction at the back of his head. Jackson sat down. Brown rose and retrieved his pistol and let the hammer back down and put it in his belt. Most terrible nigger I ever seen, he said. Find some plates, Charlie. I doubt the old lady is out there any more.
They were drinking in a cantina not a hundred feet from this scene when the lieutenant and a half dozen armed troopers entered the premises. The cantina was a single room and there was a hole in the ceiling where a trunk of sunlight fell through onto the mud floor and figures crossing the room steered with care past the edge of this column of light as if it might be hot to the touch. They were a hardbit denizenry and they shambled to the bar and back in their rags and skins like cavefolk exchanging at some nameless trade. The lieutenant circled this reeking solarium and stood before Glanton.
Captain, we’re going to have to take whoever’s responsible for the death of Mr Owens into custody.
Glanton looked up. Who’s Mr Owens? he said.
Mr Owens is the gentleman who ran the eatinghouse down here. He’s been shot to death.
Sorry to hear it, said Glanton. Set down.
Couts ignored the invitation. Captain, you dont aim to deny that one of your men shot him do you?
I aim exactly that, said Glanton.
Captain, it wont hold water.
The judge emerged from the darkness. Evening, Lieutenant, he said. Are these men the witnesses?
Couts looked at his corporal. No, he said. They aint witnesses. Hell, Captain. You all were seen to enter the premises and seen to leave after the shot was fired. Are you going to deny that you and your men took your dinner there?
Deny ever goddamned word of it, said Glanton.
Well by god I believe I can prove that you ate there.
Kindly address your remarks to me, Lieutenant, said the judge. I represent Captain Glanton in all legal matters. I think you should know first of all that the captain does not propose to be called a liar and I would think twice before I involved myself with him in an affair of honor. Secondly I have been with him all day and I can assure you that neither he nor any of his men have ever set foot in the premises to which you allude.
The lieutenant seemed stunned at the baldness of these disclaimers. He looked from the judge to Glanton and back again. I will be damned, he said. Then he turned and pushed past the men and quit the place.
Glanton tilted his chair and leaned his back to the wall. They’d recruited two men from among the town’s indigents, an unpromising pair that sat gawking at the end of the bench with their hats in their hands. Glanton’s dark eye passed over them and alighted on the owner of the imbecile who sat alone across the room watching him.
You a drinkin man? said Glanton.
How’s that?
Glanton exhaled slowly through his nose.
Yes, said the owner. Yes I am.
There was a common wooden pail on the table before Glanton with a tin dipper in it and it was about a third full of wagon-yard whiskey drawn off from a cask at the bar. Glanton nodded toward it.
I aint a carryin it to ye.
The owner rose and picked up his cup and came across to the table. He took up the dipper and poured his cup and set the dipper back in the bucket. He gestured slightly with the cup and raised and drained it.
Much obliged.
Where’s your ape at?
The man looked at the judge. He looked at Glanton again.
I dont take him out much.
Where’d you get that thing at?
He was left to me. Mama died. There was nobody to take him to raise. They shipped him to me. Joplin Missouri. Just put him in a box and shipped him. Took five weeks. Didnt bother him a bit. I opened up the box and there he set.
Get ye another drink there.
He took up the dipper and filled his cup again.
Big as life. Never hurt him a bit. I had him a hair suit made but he ate it.
Aint everbody in this town seen the son of a bitch?
Yes. Yes they have. I need to get to California. I may charge four bits out there.
You may get tarred and feathered out there.
I’ve been that. State of Arkansas. Claimed I’d given him something. Drugged him. They took him off and waited for him to get better but of course he didnt do it. They had a special preacher come and pray over him. Finally I got him back. I could have been somebody in this world wasnt for him.
Do I understand you correctly, said the judge, that the imbecile is your brother?
Yessir, said the man. That’s the truth of the matter.
The judge reached and took hold of the man’s head in his hands and began to explore its contours. The man’s eyes darted about and he held onto the judge’s wrists. The judge had his entire head in his grip like an immense and dangerous faith healer. The man was standing tiptoe as if to better accommodate him in his investigations and when the judge let go of him he took a step back and looked at Glanton with eyes that were white in the gloom. The recruits at the end of the bench sat watching with their jaws down and the judge narrowed an eye at the man and studied him and then reached and gripped him again, holding him by the forehead while he prodded along the back of his skull with the ball of his thumb. When the judge put him down the man stepped back and fell over the bench and the recruits commenced to bob up and down and to wheeze and croak. The owner of the idiot looked about th
e tawdry grogshop, passing up each face as if it did not quite suffice. He picked himself up and moved past the end of the bench. When he was halfway across the room the judge called out to him.
Has he always been like that? said the judge.
Yessir. He was born that way.
He turned to go. Glanton emptied his cup and set it before him and looked up. Were you? he said. But the owner pushed open the door and vanished in the blinding light without.
The lieutenant came again in the evening. He and the judge sat together and the judge went over points of law with him. The lieutenant nodded, his lips pursed. The judge translated for him latin terms of jurisprudence. He cited cases civil and martial. He quoted Coke and Blackstone, Anaximander, Thales.
In the morning there was new trouble. A young Mexican girl had been abducted. Parts of her clothes were found torn and bloodied under the north wall, over which she could only have been thrown. In the desert were drag marks. A shoe. The father of the child knelt clutching a bloodstained rag to his chest and none could persuade him to rise and none to leave. That night fires were lit in the streets and a beef killed and Glanton and his men were host to a motley collection of citizens and soldiers and reduced indians or tontos as their brothers outside the gates would name them. A keg of whiskey was broached and soon men were reeling aimlessly through the smoke. A merchant of that town brought forth a litter of dogs one of whom had six legs and another two and a third with four eyes in its head. He offered these for sale to Glanton and Glanton warned the man away and threatened to shoot them.
The beef was stripped to the bones and the bones themselves carried off and vigas were dragged from the ruined buildings and piled onto the blaze. By now many of Glanton’s men were naked and lurching about and the judge soon had them dancing while he fiddled on a crude instrument he’d commandeered and the filthy hides of which they’d divested themselves smoked and stank and blackened in the flames and the red sparks rose like the souls of the small life they’d harbored.
By midnight the citizens had cleared out and there were armed and naked men pounding on doors demanding drink and women. In the early morning hours when the fires had burned to heaps of coals and a few sparks scampered in the wind down the cold clay streets feral dogs trotted around the cookfire snatching out the blackened scraps of meat and men lay huddled naked in the doorways clutching their elbows and snoring in the cold.
Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West (Vintage International) Page 24
