Bad to the Bone

by Len Levinson

  “It's true,” he replied in a barely audible voice. “I am the most despicable man who ever lived.”

  “I practically worshipped you,” she continued, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I thought I had a wonderful father who loved my mother, but it was a lie. How could you do this to us?”

  He couldn't look her in the eye. “You mother was a saint, but I never claimed to be a priest. Your mother was—”

  She wouldn't let him finish. “Don't you dare say another word about my mother! One day you'll have to answer for this, but I swear—I will never speak with you again!”

  She opened the door violently. A group of servants had gathered in the corridor, listening to the battle royale. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “Have you no work to do?”

  She pushed them imperiously out of her way as she headed toward the stairs that led to her husband's chambers. Don Carlos has been part of the silent conspiracy against me, and I wouldn't be surprised if he has a fat little peasant woman in a filthy little hut somewhere, and that's why he's never home. These lying cheating damned men—you can't trust any of them, and when they tell you they love you, that's when you've got to watch them the closest.

  The cantina was dark, smoky, and filled with vaque-ros, and everyone looked at Duane Braddock as he neared the bar, his black hat slanted low over his eyes. “A bottle of mescal,” he said to the man in the apron.

  “Sí, Señor.”

  The bottle appeared, and Duane spun around suddenly to make sure no bounty hunter was aiming a shotgun at the center of his back. He flipped a few coins on the bar, tucked the bottle beneath his arm, and watched everybody's hands as he headed for the door.

  The clear night air smacked him in the face. He wondered where to go with the bottle, because he didn't want to get drunk alone in his room. He stopped in the lee of a hut, pulled the cork, and took a swig. It went down like velvet, warmed his belly, and enlivened his mind. What's wrong with me? he asked himself. I hid in church to seduce a married woman who was in mourning, and if that's not enough, I'm becoming a drunkard like all the other banditos and vaqueros.

  He shrugged sadly as he recalled the innocent young acolyte singing in the monastery choir. I used to be a decent God-fearing Catholic, but now I've committed every sin in the book, and if that's not enough, I'm chasing a married woman.

  He came to the edge of town, where an endless expanse of cactus slept in the moonlight. Maybe I should go to confession, because Christ said that he loved repentant sinners. I'm ready to get down on my knees and beg his forgiveness, but first I'd better have one last shot. He stopped, tossed back his head, and took another swallow.

  Don Carlos sat on his balcony, smoked a cigarillo, and gazed at the desert sprawled before him. The death and funeral of his mother-in-law kept him from important business matters, and he wondered how many more days he'd have to stay at the Vásquez hacienda.

  The end of the cigarillo glowed cherry red, while in the village someone strummed a mournful guitar. If Don Patricio died, Don Carlos would inherit the Vasquez holdings, and become one of the wealthiest landowners in Mexico.

  Don Carlos wanted to sire a dynasty that would live forever, but unfortunately his wife had not yet conceived. Sometimes he thought about marrying a more fertile woman, but he loved Doña Consuelo, in his haughty caudillo way. Perhaps in a few years I'll leave her, he speculated, although he knew that he could never give up his sweet little Doña Consuelo.

  He was startled by the door bursting open behind him. “But Doña Señora—” said one of the Carlos's bodyguards.

  “Out of my way!”

  Don Carlos arose from his chair as his wife stormed into the parlor, face blotched with emotion, hair wild in all directions, a mad glimmer in her eyes. She came to a stop in front of him, crossed her arms, and said, “I know everything.”

  He couldn't help smiling, because she looked like an angry little girl. “About what?”

  “My father and the woman in town.”

  Don Carlos was amazed that she knew. “I hope you're not going to say anything.”

  “I told my father that he's a pig, but God will have to forgive him, not me. This might come as a shock to you, my dear husband, but I don't like it when people lie to me. We're husband and wife, yet you never saw fit to tell me the truth.”

  “What good would it do?”

  “Do you have a woman in town too?”

  “You're all the woman I can manage, Doña Consuelo, and I'm perfectly happy with you.”

  “I'm sure my father said the same words to my mother, and it appears that I have a half-brother too. I no longer respect my father, and want to leave this place at once.”

  “But darling—it would be a terrible insult to your father.”

  “My father has insulted my mother and me, and deserves to be insulted back.”

  “But Doña Consuelo—a man has his needs.”

  “What are these needs that everybody keeps talking about? If my mother didn't want to sleep with him, and I don't blame her, now that I think about it, he should've remained faithful to the marriage anyway, and to me.”

  He smiled wryly. “Is it your vanity that's hurt, and this has nothing to do with your mother?”

  Doña Consuelo was taken aback by the charge. “It has everything to do with my mother. What are you suggesting?”

  “You're meddling in your parents’ marriage, which is none of your business, and evidently you've been making a public spectacle of yourself. Perhaps you'd better lie down and get some rest. You're becoming overwrought.”

  “My father is a traitor, and all you fine gentlemen lie constantly, although it's always the woman's fault. How soon can we leave this place?”

  “Twenty-four hours. Anything less would be indecent.”

  “Was it decent for my father to break my mother's heart?”

  “I suspect it's your heart that you're worried about, my dear.”

  She backhanded him across the face so suddenly, he didn't even see it coming. He took a step backwards, as his face smarted. “Stay away from me,” she replied, as she rushed toward the door. “I want to be alone.”

  Duane staggered across the desert, holding the half-empty bottle in his right hand, hat on the back of his head. What is a man except a hank of hair, a few pints of blood, and his Colt .44? he asked himself.

  The Milky Way blazed across the sky, and he spotted the Cassiopeia constellation, the Lady in the Chair. Why do women drive men loco? Duane asked himself. Why don't we all get married and have babies as God commanded us, instead of behaving like a bunch of yard dogs?

  He shook his head in dismay. Only a depraved individual would attempt the seduction of a married woman in church. I baited the hook with sincerity, but all I wanted was to take off her clothes.

  He felt mortified, sickened, and disgusted with himself. I should ride to the monastery, apologize to the abbot, confess my sins, and live the holy life again. If I continue in my present direction, I'll spend eternity in hell.

  He stopped, gasped, and dropped to his knees. Yes, that's it, he decided. It's back to the monastery for me, but I can't let this mescal go to waste. He raised the bottle, kissed its lips, and took another healthy swallow. The desert whizzed around him like a cactus carousel, as he raised his eyes to the incandescent heavens.

  “Forgive me, oh God, for I have sinned,” he whispered. “I feel lost, I'm choking on my sins, and do you think you could possibly give me a sign, to tell me what to do?”

  Hozen the Apache crouched behind a jumble of paddle cactus, holding his knife in his right hand, the calves of his legs poised to attack the white eyes who knelt twenty paces away. It was a stroke of good fortune, for Hozen had come to the village to steal a rifle, but instead the white eyes had come to him like a gift from Yusn, the Great Spirit.

  It appeared that the white eyes was drunk, as Hozen noted the pistol, holster, and gunbelt full of ammunition. The clothes would fit, and perhaps even the boots, not to mention
the hat. Hozen had no money to buy such articles, because Apaches had no general stores or armament factories. If a warrior wanted a gun, he had to steal it.

  The white eyes pitched onto his face, evidently out cold. It's almost too easy, thought Hozen, as he dropped onto his stomach. Then he crawled forward with his knife in his teeth, on his evening shopping tour.

  The former seminarian wasn't unconscious; he lay in mild religious ecstasy, sniffing the aroma of the earth as his mind reeled through the caverns of time. A great civilization lived here once, he told himself, but it was swallowed by the Spanish Conquest. And one day perhaps the United States of America will be gone, although it's hard to imagine. Yet the Toltecs, Olmecs, Aztecs, and Mayans thought their cultures would endure forever too.

  His finely-tuned ears heard a knee scraping gently against a clump of grama grass. He turned, and his eyes widened at the sight of an Apache warrior leaping toward him, knife aimed at his gizzard!

  Duane grabbed the Apache's wrist with his left hand, then punched him solidly in the mouth with his right. The blow caught the Apache coming in and snapped his head back, but he recovered quickly, and struggled to ram the knife into Duane's heart, as Duane grasped the Apache's throat.

  The Apache wrapped his free fingers around Duane's arm, flung himself backwards, somersaulted, and kicked into the air. Duane was thrown off him, landed on his back, and hopped to his feet. The Apache was charging again. Duane reached for his Colt, thumbed back the hammer, and pulled the trigger.

  Click. It was a misfire, and the Apache slashed his blade at Duane's nose. Duane leaned backward, then brought the gun up and crashed it into the Apache's face, laying flesh open to the bone. The Apache lost consciousness as Duane pulled the trigger of the next cartridge. Click. Two in a row, an almost unheard-of calamity, and all Duane could do was pass it to his left hand for use as a club, while he yanked his own Apache knife from its scabbard.

  Meanwhile, Hozen found himself in more of a fight than he'd anticipated. He jumped to his feet and wondered whether to run, but then noted the pistol, clothes, and boots, and his eyes glimmered with greed. He believed that any Apache could defeat any white eyes on any day of the week, so he took a deep breath, gripped his knife tightly, and charged once more.

  Duane dodged to the side as he aimed the point of his knife toward the Apache's throat. The Apache feinted to the left, feinted to the right, and then lunged forward, streaking his sharp point toward Duane's midsection. Duane pivoted, ripped his knife across the Apache's wrist, severing countless tendons, and then, on the backswing, slit the Apache's jugular.

  Duane landed a few feet away as the Apache stood confused in the moonlight, his throat gushing blood. He seemed not to know what had hit him; then his eyes became glazed, and he crashed to the ground. Duane gulped air, trying to recover his equilibrium, for the attack had been sudden, silent, and during an intense moment of prayer.

  Duane knelt beside the dead Apache and rolled him onto his back. The Apache had gone to the happy hunting grounds, an expression of astonishment on his face. Duane worried that all his cartridges were defective, then heard a sound, dropped silently onto his belly, and cocked the hammer, hoping the next cartridge was a winner. He took aim at a figure approaching through the thicket, but no Apache would make such noise.

  It was a woman wearing a shawl, and she looked like an apparition in the moonlight. He didn't want to scare her, but she was wandering aimlessly more or less toward him. A ray of moonlight fell onto her face, and it was Doña Consuelo de Rebozo.

  Duane didn't know whether to jump for joy or curse his bad fortune. I've tried to get away from her, nearly got killed by this Apache, and now here she is again. Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil. She appeared to be sleepwalking, or in one of those strange moods that women sometimes have.

  “Doña Consuelo—are you all right?” he asked gently.

  Her face froze into a mask of trepidation. “Who's there?”

  “Duane Braddock.”

  “My God!” She touched her hand to her heart. “What are you doing here?”

  “Just taking a walk, but it's not a very safe place, I've just found out.” He aimed his revolver at the dead Apache. “You shouldn't be here without your bodyguards.”

  Her cheeks were ivory in the pale light, while her eyes glowed like burning coals. Her black hair framed her face, while her shawl made her look like the Madonna of Guadalupe. “What's wrong with him?”

  “Lead poisoning.”

  She stared at Duane for a few moments, then gazed at the dead Apache. It was the weirdest day of her life, and she was ready for anything. She scrutinized Duane Braddock's youthful features, but he didn't appear capable of killing a fly. “I think I'm going mad,” she said in an odd sing-song voice. “Do you think I could sit down?”

  “Right this way,” he replied, as though in his living room. He led her to a nearby clearing surrounded by thorny foliage. “Have a seat.”

  The ground was hard-packed dirt and grama grass, and they both sat cross-legged opposite each other. They didn't speak for a long time, as night birds squawked and a lone lobo continued his desert serenade.

  Finally Doña Consuelo said: “What would you do if everything you believed in turned out false?”

  He shrugged, grinned, and said, “I'd try to get on with my life.”

  “Have you ever been betrayed by someone you loved?”

  “Once,” he admitted. “I fell in love, we were supposed to get married, but she ran off with somebody else. I still can't get over it, to tell you the truth.”

  “That's the way I feel.” She lowered her head. “I thought I had a certain life, but it was a lie. It turns out that my father betrayed my mother, and my husband is probably betraying me. I hate both of them, and I'll never trust another man as long as I live.”

  “I'd never trust another woman,” retorted Duane. “It's a funny thing about love. People say they love you, and a few days later they're chasing somebody else.”

  “But there are some people who fall in love once, and stay in love for the rest of their lives. That's the kind of love I thought my parents had, but what a delusion it was. I've met my father's woman, and I've got a half-brother too. I don't have proof on my husband yet, but I'm sure I'll find out if I try.”

  Duane pulled the brim of his hat low, so she couldn't see his roving eyes. She's not getting along with her husband. Hmmmm. He reached into his back pocket. “Care for a drink?”

  She stared at the bottle. “What is it?”

  “Mescal. And it's not bad considering what I paid for it.”

  She wrinkled her pretty nose. “I could never drink that.”

  “It might relax you.”

  “I don't want to relax. I want to do something.”

  “Like what?”

  “Kill my father, or my husband. Or maybe I should kill myself, and get it over with.”

  He held out the bottle. “Have some mescal.”

  She narrowed her eyes, trying to comprehend the strange creature sitting before her. He's half-drunk, he's just killed an Apache, but there's something nice about him. “I don't know if it's a good time for me to drink mescal,” she said.

  “On the other hand, it might be the best time of all.”

  The bottle dangled before her, and he appeared priest-like, although his latest victim lay less than a hundred paces away. She reached for the bottle. “I need something after what I've been through today, and maybe this is it.”

  She took a sip, coughed immediately, and turned red. Duane patted her gently on the back. “Easy now,” he said, thoroughly repelled by his own behavior. Here I am getting her drunk so I can seduce her, but why can't I stop myself?

  “What terrible stuff,” she said, making a face. “How can you tolerate it?”

  “As far as I'm concerned, mescal is the greatest gift that Mexico has given the world.”

  “I feel so confused—I don't know what to do.”

  “When
I get confused, I try to remember something an old friend told me. ‘A soldier keeps advancing toward his objective, despite wounds, hunger, illness, doubt, fear, or whatever.’”

  “Perhaps I should leave my husband, because he was part of the lie. I feel as if he's cheating on me.”

  Duane glanced around, holding his revolver ready to fire. “We'd better start back to the hacienda. There's no telling what's on the desert tonight.”

  They arose and stood inches apart, the moon outlining them with silver. She looked up at him, and he gazed down at her. Their eyes met, and he felt drawn to her.

  “Oh, Duane,” she said with a sob, “I'm so lost. ” She embraced him, placed her cheek on his chest, and absorbed his strength and warmth.

  “I know what you're saying,” replied Duane, as he comforted her with roaming hands. “I've been lost all my life, but after a while you get used to it.”

  “Sometimes I don't believe there's a God.”

  “My main problem is I'm a sinner, and can't seem to stop.”

  “You don't seem so terrible to me.”

  “But you can't see my mind.”

  “I'm sure it's not that bad.”

  She became aware that she was belly to belly with a handsome athletic young man, and his hands were on her rear end. “You're right—we'd better go back to the hacienda,” she told him. “There may be more Apaches in the vicinity.”

  He couldn't let go, as though she were a magnet and he mere iron shavings. “Doña Consuelo—may I tell you something?”

  His request took her by surprise. “What is it?”

  “I'm leaving first thing in the morning, and I just thought I should say that you're one of the loveliest people I've ever met in my life.”

  It was silent, as they gazed into each other's eyes. A falcon flew overhead, and the lobo in the distance barked at the moon. Doña Consuelo felt pure desert energy bolt through her, but was frightened and hopeful at the same time. “I think you're very decent too, Duane.”