The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones

by Charles Neider

  He was a strange-looking bird too, in addition to being one. He had a body like the letter I—that was all there was to him: a long loose body with a gooseneck and a big adam’s apple and when he laughed it was not a good laugh but a series of coughs and honks. And that wasn’t all, either. Every time he would laugh—which was seldom—his small mouth would open like a widening hole and show his square yellow teeth, but mostly you would notice his gums, because his mouth was built up and down and stretched up and down under his nose when he laughed. And then there would come out those coughs and snickers and hiccups and honks, and you would wonder what he was really thinking about, and what sort of juice he had inside of him, and how come some fellow hadn’t shot him full of holes long since. I didn’t know him too well in those days but I met him in one place or another after the Kid’s death and heard about all I wanted to hear about him. He claimed to be only twentythree at the time the Kid was killed but he looked about ten years older. His hair was gray on the sides of his head and his eyes were gaunt and dark-rimmed, with scaly-looking lids. He talked in a high voice like a whine and I just didn’t care for the man.

  *

  Later that afternoon when Longworth rode into town Webb told him what Brazil had heard. Dad put little stock in it.

  “Still,” he said, “Whitey ought to know. He’s an old friend of the Kid’s. Maybe Harvey did give us a bum steer. Maybe we ran onto the Kid that night. No harm in snooping around. How about that?”

  “It’s all right by me,” said Webb.

  “Well Andy if it’s all right by you we’ll just do this little thing.”

  “You’re a great little kidder aren’t you Dad?”

  “Hell boy I was born with a joke in my mouth,” said Dad.

  And so that night Longworth, Webb and José Carlyle rode out of Salinas in the direction of Santa Cruz to throw people off their scent, then turned south across the hills and headed for the Punta. It was about eleven o’clock when they reached the Punta. They picketed their horses in a grove of pines near the plaza, then hid out behind an old wall and watched the plaza to see if the Kid was stirring about. But in about a half hour they gave it up and sneaked up to the cypress head to see what they could find up there. They hid out there, watching, but saw and heard nothing. They did not know that the Kid had a place up there and were not even sure that he was very friendly with Hijinio. They went up there because it was the only other settlement on the Punta. Longworth whispered that it was his opinion they were on a cold trail and that he had thought so all along. He proposed they leave the Punta at once and without letting anyone know they had been there in search of the Kid. Then he said, “But wait. I’ll just drop in on Gonzales and see what he knows.” And he went into Hijinio’s room, leaving the two deputies squatting on the porch under the long portico, and began to rouse Gonzales gently, putting his hand over Gonzales’ mouth.

  Meanwhile I was sleeping, half drunk, in my own place, unaware of any danger, and the Kid got up, restless and hungry, woke Nika and told her he wanted something to eat. She said there was a fresh-killed yearling over by the barn, which Jesús Garcia had killed that evening. You could not hear their voices very far because of the noise of the water in the cove. And so he got a long knife and, pulling on his trousers and getting hold of his forty-four, went out in his stockinged feet to cut himself a chunk of meat.

  If they had only talked louder and waked me. Or if he had only come and pushed my shoulder as he often did. For then I might have gone with him or I might have gone to fetch the meat for him, seeing as how he was only half awake, still very drowsy from loving that Nika. If I had gone they would not have killed me, or if they had tried to I would have maybe killed one or more of them. But that would be a different story and everybody knows it didn’t turn out that way. The Kid always used to say that if a bullet has your number on it there is nothing you can do to dodge it, and he was going out now to meet his bullet and there I was asleep, and me his compadre too.

  There was this bright moonlight outside and to appreciate how bright it was you have to know how it can be out there on the Punta in a full moon, the light falling on the trails and on the pine and cedar and cypress tags and hanging on the Spaniard’s beard and flashing up from the ocean and flashing on the gnarled cypress trunks and arms and fingers and lighting up the air so to speak and bringing the cries and barks and grunts of the seawolves onto the land with it and casting the deep shadows. You’d think that with that light the Kid would have seen enough to protect himself but the thing was I think that it kind of blinded him, making that head seem like a dream. It was on nights like that, the natives used to say, that it was best to kill a man, but I think it would have been all right for him if he hadn’t just loved that damned Nika and gotten up from sleep hungry and gone off in his stockinged feet for a chunk of meat.

  He carried the knife in his right hand, where his sixshooter ought to have been, and the gun in his left. He took the trail which went past Hijinio’s to the barn and when he was halfway there he spotted the two dark figures squatting on the porch, looking as if they were whittling something. That stopped him, for he wondered who these fellows were, sitting there this time of night on Hijinio’s porch. Going to the barn would put his back to them. Returning to his place would do the same. He could have gone off into the brush but he was too tired to think of that. He could have hailed them but since they hadn’t seen him he didn’t want to do that. And so he decided to go into Hijinio’s place, covering them with the forty-four. He didn’t want to get caught out in the open like that. Once he was inside Hijinio’s he could make them come and get him, if that was what they wanted, and once inside there he could find out from Hijinio who these fellows were, sitting on his porch.

  He didn’t want to hurt Hijinio or his friends but if these fellows were out to kill him and if Hijinio knew about it and was friendly to them and let them sit out there on his porch, in the moonlight, partly in shadow, looking as if they were whittling something, then he would kill Hijinio first and get that over with and then he would give his attention to the two fellows. For that was the kind of hombre the Kid was, very businesslike and liking to keep everything neat where his life and death were concerned.

  It was Webb who saw him first. The figure he saw was not what he had in mind for the Kid. He had never seen the Kid and he thought this was a sheepherder from the hills who was currently staying with Gonzales. He saw a slight but lithe man approaching him, a rather youthful man, bare-headed, in stockinged feet, naked to the hips, close-cropped on the head, one hand fumbling with the buttons of his trousers while it carried something which flashed in the moonlight, the other holding what looked like a long knife. Hoping to get some information from him, Webb stood up and hailed him softly, upon which the Kid thrust out his right arm and Webb saw that he was covered. José Carlyle immediately straightened up but, being behind Webb, did not get a good look at the Kid. But José Carlyle also had never seen him.

  If either of the deputies had realized he was facing the Kid’s forty-four he might have flinched and then, perhaps, the Kid would have shot and thus saved himself. But they did not flinch and the Kid held his fire, although he had them well covered.

  “Take it easy hombre we’re not going to hurt you,” Webb said softly, stepping forward.

  “Quién es?” whispered the Kid, meaning “Who is it?” And he backed away. “Quién es?”

  Again Webb stepped forward and it’s a mystery why the Kid didn’t shoot him. But he probably thought Webb was a friend of Hijinio’s or maybe even a relative.

  “Quién es?” he whispered again, and backed into the doorway of Hijinio’s room, where he paused, his body concealed by the thick wall. Peering out at Webb, he asked again, “Quién es?”

  By this time Webb was beginning to feel a fluttering inside his stomach and he froze, not wishing to push his luck any further. José Carlyle froze with him. And then the Kid darted into the adobe, where Longworth was squatting in the dark beside the
head of Hijinio’s bed, having been talking in whispers with Hijinio, whom he had awakened.

  Nobody was more surprised than Longworth by what happened next. He had heard a voice saying “Quién es?” several times and then a figure, with the moonlight behind it, sprang into the room, bare-headed and apparently bare-footed, and came over to the bed, almost touching him but not seeing him crouching there, and whispered,

  “Hijinio! Who are those fellows outside?”

  Hijinio didn’t answer and the Kid said again, “Hijinio! Who are they?”

  And then Longworth, who had thought for a moment that it might be Hijinio’s brother-in-law, Ignacio Romero, knew by the voice that it was the Kid and he slowly made a move to reach for his gun, trying to look very small and dark there in the corner beside the bed.

  The Kid felt something moving there and covered the crouching figure with his gun, retreating rapidly across the room and crying, “Quién es? Quién es?” as if it was the devil himself.

  And then Longworth drew and fired and threw his body to the left and fired again from close to the floor, lighting up the room, and sprang up and ran outside and pressed himself against the wall at the side of the door, looking pale in the moonlight.

  The Kid probably never knew what hit him. Coming out of the moonlight into that dark room, he was aware only of darkness and of his own danger and of how tired he was and of how tired of loving he was and of how he would have to leave that country he liked, the heads, meadows, coves, beaches, fog, hills, sun, ocean, seawolves, trees, and of how he would have to get himself down to old Mex. And then the red flame sprang at him and the forty-five ball crashed into his chest and it was as though a tree had hit him trunk first and then he heard the roar like the roar of the sea and found himself face down on the dirt floor, wondering how he had got there, and he was gasping and gurgling, and he said faintly, “Mother. Help me. I’m strangling.”

  *

  When the Kid darted into Hijinio’s adobe and Webb felt the fluttering inside his stomach Webb did not know what to do. He peered into the doorway but could make out nothing. Then he saw the flames and staggered back out of the way, shoving against José Carlyle and bruising José’s left side. He thought he had heard three shots but Dad’s second shot had gone wild and ricocheted off a wall. José Carlyle grunted and flattened himself against the house. Both men drew their guns and waited, wondering if Dad was dead.

  Then Dad rushed out. They heard groans and gasps and gurgling inside and then the sounds stopped. Webb moved toward the door, sixshooter ready, then Hijinio, running from his bed with the bedclothes dragging after him, crashed into him and Webb threw down on him and would have shot him if Dad hadn’t knocked the gun down and cried, “Don’t! It’s Gonzales!”

  By this time Dad was away from the wall, but still pale and breathing hard, and they all stood away from the doorway and listened. But there was no sound inside.

  “That was the Kid that came in onto me,” whispered Dad. “I think I got him.”

  Webb, remembering the half-naked figure that looked like a sheepherder and that had spoken Spanish, said, “Dad I think you’ve shot the wrong man.”

  “I wouldn’t mistake his voice,” said Longworth. “I’d know his voice.”

  “I hope so,” Webb said.

  And there was I, asleep when all this happened. When I heard the shots I jumped up, grabbed my gun from under my pillow and ran into the Kid’s place. Nika lay naked on the bed. I ran out and ran towards Hijinio’s in my pants and bare feet (I had been sleeping in my pants), but when I saw them standing out there I knew I could not kill them all before they killed me, and anyhow I was still half asleep and half drunk and I was not sure what had happened or who those men were, for the moonlight was playing tricks, and so I ran back into the Kid’s place and stood staring at Nika.

  She must have been twenty-three at the time but her body was still good, tight and brown, with the black hair, and her breasts not bad, although they were getting hangy. I went up to her and touched her shoulder but she was drunk and hard asleep. I smelled the rotgut she had been drinking and saw the sweat of sleep between her breasts and I thought, “Jesus I’d like to give you a tumble baby” and then went back to my place and sat down and tried to think this thing out.

  Meanwhile nobody had any hankering to go inside Hijinio’s place to see who was in there and if he was dead.

  “What do you think Gonzales? Is it the Kid?” whispered José Carlyle.

  “It’s the Kid,” said Hijinio.

  “What did I tell you?” whispered Longworth.

  Dad had some sulphur matches. He lit one and threw it inside the adobe, craning for a look, but it sputtered and went out. He lit a couple of others and threw them in but they went out before he or the others could get a good look.

  “It could have been him or me,” whispered Longworth, “but this is my night.”

  “The night’s not over yet,” said Hijinio.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Nothing. What you think I mean?”

  “Well if you mean nothing get us a light.”

  “You kidding?”

  Dad jabbed his forty-five into Hijinio’s side, making Hijinio double up. “You son of a bitch get us a light.”

  “Dad—” Hijinio began.

  Dad cocked his gun, his lips drawing back in a snarl.

  “I’ll get it,” said Hijinio and he walked down toward his mother’s room at the end of the portico.

  “Take it easy Dad,” said Webb.

  Dad threw down on him and said, “You want to get yours too?”

  Webb looked hard at him and said, “One of these days someone’s going to give it to you Longworth.”

  “You call me Dad you son of a bitch.”

  “Easy boys,” said José Carlyle.

  Hijinio returned with a candle, which, without a glance at Longworth, he lit and placed on the window sill of his room. Peering in, they saw a figure lying stretched out on the floor face down. They went in, covering it with their guns. Longworth bent down and rolled the body over, then stood up and said softly, “Boys the Kid is dead.”

  There was a sixshooter in the Kid’s right hand and a long knife lying beside his left. Longworth’s ball had struck him just above the heart, a good shot. It had left a neat hole where it had entered, with only a trickle of blood, but had torn a large hole in his back.

  “Damned good shot,” said Webb.

  “Lucky,” said Dad.

  “No.”

  “I guess I talked out of turn. Sorry.”

  “That’s all right,” said Webb.

  Hijinio stood near the bed. Dad went over to him and stuck out his hand but Hijinio wouldn’t shake. Dad sat down on the bed with a sigh and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. Then he went to study the body again.

  At this point Francesca ran in, knelt over the body, then suddenly faced Longworth and cried, “You pisspot you! You shot him in the dark!”

  Dad made a wry face and said nothing. They went outside, leaving Francesca with the body.

  “How many shots did you fire?” asked Webb.

  “Two,” said Dad.

  “In that case the Kid must have fired. I heard three.”

  They examined the Kid’s gun, which Dad had brought out, and found that it contained five cartridges and one shell, the hammer resting on the shell. But the shell looked as if it had been fired some time before, and when they looked around for its bullet mark later they couldn’t find it in the room.

  At this point I walked up, without my gun. I went into the room and stared at the body. Francesca paid no attention to me. She just knelt there, weeping. I went outside.

  “Who did it?” I asked.

  “I did,” said Dad. “It was him or me. He walked in onto me.”

  “You shot him in the dark.”

  “What would you have done in my place?”

  “I’m not in your place. Remember?”

  “Who’s this bird?” asked
Webb.

  “Doc Baker.”

  “Oh so you’re the tough boy,” said Webb. “Should we take him in?”

  “No,” said Dad. “We can always get him if we want him.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Any time you want me just send me your calling card.”

  “That’s just what I mean,” said Dad.

  I started to leave.

  “Where you going?” Webb said.

  I spat between his feet and turned my back on him and walked away.

  Well Kid, I thought, you can have yourself a long rest now. And then I thought, As for you Doc, you’d better think of shoving off tomorrow. Montana, Arizona, anywhere. You need a fresh start.

  I went to the Kid’s adobe. Nika lay just as I had left her, on her back. I thought, It’s a funny thing. He’s just got through being with her and now he’s in Hijinio’s place, with those fellows hanging around.

  “Nika,” I said.

  She opened her eyes.

  “He’s dead,” I said.

  I saw that she knew.

  “What are you going to do about it?” she asked quietly.

  “Aren’t you surprised?” I said.

  “What are you going to do about it?” she asked.

  “There’s not a damned thing I can do,” I said. I wondered how she knew. Somebody must have told her.

  She said nothing. She just lay there naked in the heat.

  “Nika,’ I said. “You ought to cover yourself.”

  She closed her eyes and tears came from under the lids but she made no sound and her face did not seem to move.

  “It’s a hell of a thing,” I said.

  I wanted to get out of that room or else to get on the bed with her and forget that night’s business and the crazy moonlight outside.

  “You just stand there,” she said.