“Not an easy-going kind of horse, is he? Sarcastic too, I bet. My mule, typically for that barren species, practises irony and silence. But I didn’t give you time to introduce yourself.”
He was just as drunk as Bowman was high on his decoction. Dry-mouthed, Bowman slowly articulated as he leaned his rifle against the dead tree: “Bowman. I’m from England.”
“Well, nobody’s perfect. And I don’t like drinking alone.”
Brezisky watched a carriage go past on the other shore, the canvas cover quivering in the colours of the sunset.
“Truth be told, the company of those goody-two-shoes makes me sick. If you have no objections, I think I will start preparing dinner while I am still able to stand up straight.”
From his crate, he took some mess tins, a bag of black beans, some lard, some bread and three eggs. He got the fire going again and put a pan of water to boil, continuing to speak as he did all of this, pausing occasionally to have a drink. He told Bowman about his hometown and his native country, Poland; he described the quality of Polish delicatessen products, the university where he studied medicine and discovered morphine, how he almost kicked the bucket in the hold of a third-class ship, what his wife died of, over there in Warsaw, before he decided to come to this nation of savages, madmen, heartless bastards and overly pious women. He served Bowman beans and fried eggs, with little bits of lard and a slice of bread.
Night fell. When they had finished eating, the doctor warmed up some coffee.
“And you, Mr Bowman . . . What brought you here? Because that is, ultimately, the only question one can ask in this rotten country.”
Bowman wiped his beard on his sleeve. The alcohol, added to Brewster’s plants, was weighing down on his half-closed eyelids. He smiled as he watched the flames.
“I’m searching for a killer.”
“Very interesting, but I already have a job, Mr Bowman.”
“Someone who always kills in the same way. He’s murdered three people so far.”
The doctor sat up in the firelight.
“Are you serious?”
“In London, a man whose name no-one ever knew. An engineer near Dallas, a year and a half later. And, two months ago, a travelling salesman in Las Cruces, which is five days’ ride from here.”
Brezisky burst out laughing, then, seeing that the Englishman was still serious, changed his expression. Hoping perhaps that the hooch, though drunk with another intention, would wake him up, the Pole wiped out the bottom of his jug and took another from the crate.
“You’re not joking? You mean he does this in a repetitive fashion? Like a ritual?”
“That’s what the soldiers at Fort Bliss said. They think it’s an Indian ritual.”
“Murders that are exactly alike . . . from one side of the world to the other . . . Never in my life have I heard such a thing. But, Mr Bowman, are you some sort of international policeman?”
Bowman swallowed his whiskey the wrong way and coughed.
“Not really.”
Brezisky leaned back against the trunk, staring at his jug and apparently meditating on the usefulness of an extra mouthful.
“It’s mathematical.”
“What?”
“A sequence.”
Bowman looked at him.
“A mathematical sequence?”
“Elements that precede and follow each other in accordance with a constant law, Mr Bowman. It can be infinite or finite. It is the repetition of a function, but in this case a human function.”
Bowman had no idea what he was talking about.
“I met an old man in Dallas who said it was not a science but a passion.”
“A ‘passionate series’ . . . And you’re here to arrest him? That is by far the best reason for coming to this country that I’ve heard in the past five years.”
Brezisky drank to that. Bowman joined him.
“For now, I’m just following him. Nothing else. I don’t even know if I’m on the right track anymore.”
“And the army thinks it’s Indians?”
“Because they say a white man couldn’t do such a monstrous thing.”
Dr Brezisky sat up straight.
“And what do you say?”
“They say it’s Indians. Because whites aren’t that cruel.”
Bowman laughed and the effect of the plants made him laugh more. His head was spinning. The Pole turned towards him, visibly panicked.
“My God.”
“What’s up?”
“The negro they’re going to hang . . .”
“What negro?”
“There was a murder in Rio Rancho, a few weeks ago. Something no-one dares talk about.”
He stared at Bowman, wide-eyed.
“It’s your killer.”
Bowman grabbed his lapels. Walden shivered and the mule opened an eye.
“Where?”
“Rio Rancho . . . The town’s sheriff had arrested a black man and was getting ready to hang him when I passed through. Just like with your Indians, the inhabitants claimed that only a black could have done that.”
Bowman stood up, holding on to the dead tree, and then ran over to the river. He stuck his fingers down his throat and made himself vomit. Then he splashed cold water on his face for a minute. Brezisky was pacing around the campfire.
“There’s no point now. He must be dead already. You’ll never get there in time!”
Bowman, struggling with dizziness, shoved his things in his travel bag and saddlebags. He threw the saddle on Walden’s back.
“Mr Bowman, Albuquerque is an hour’s ride from here, and it’s another two to get to Rio Rancho. The gallows was already up . . .”
Bowman strapped on the travel bag and the blanket. The Pole started throwing his own belongings into his cart.
“I’ll find you there!”
Bowman urged his horse into the black water of the Rio Grande and reached the other shore.
“Giddy-up!”
The mustang galloped along the main track to Santa Fe. Thirty minutes later, when he entered Albuquerque, they were still making good time. The town was asleep, flecked with a few lights. He sped through it.
“Giddy-up!”
They reached Rio Rancho in two hours, Walden, now trotting, covered in foam and pumping huge lungfuls of air through his nostrils, Bowman’s body paralysed with cramps. He could see the entrance of the village in the pale night, the outlines of the wooden houses, recent constructions, that came before the traditional earthen buildings. Like Las Cruces, the centre of Rio Rancho was a paved square. Walden, with his shoes cracking against the paving stones and his laboured breathing, moved through the village like a noisy ghost. The moonlight was reflected on the white façades, illuminating the gallows and the immobile body suspended six feet above the ground. The horse snorted and its rider, still numb from the journey, contemplated the hanged man, grey in the moonlight. The negro’s face was swollen like a drowned man’s, his massive tongue dangling over his chin.
Bowman got down from the horse and walked over to the arcades that surrounded the square. There, he sat on the ground, his back against a pillar, and waited for sunrise.
Doors and windows opened. Rio Rancho awoke in silence and the inhabitants walked past without daring to cross through the square, glancing up at the gallows and crossing themselves. They also avoided going too close to the white horseman, sitting on the ground, who was staring at the negro’s corpse swinging in the breeze. The body’s smell, in the warming air, reached his nostrils now. Given the state of the body, the hanging must have taken place the day before. The Americans had maintained the European taste for early-morning executions and Bowman had arrived twenty-four hours too late. The time he had spent getting drunk in Las Cruces.
He stood up, entered the nearest cantina and asked for someone to look after his horse, for a table to be put outside, and to be brought a bottle of tequila. Bowman had just started drinking when Brezisky arrived in the square in his shaky cart. After waving to Bo
wman, the Pole rode around the gallows, his eyes never leaving it, and brought his mule to a halt in front of the table. Then the doctor sat down next to the Englishman.
“I know the justice system in my own country is far from perfect, but it’s still better than the one in this country. Here, Mr Bowman, let me tell you, the judges are as hasty as an angry crowd.”
Bowman looked at the hanged man.
“How long will they leave him up there?”
“I am not acquainted with the local customs, but it seems rather unusual to have left him up this long already. Besides, most of the hangings I’ve seen before now have not taken place in the centre of town, but on the outskirts. A warning for new arrivals, I suppose. This one seems to be addressed to the townspeople themselves.”
In the time it took him to finish this little speech, Brezisky drank half the tequila. When the bottle was empty, Bowman stood up, walked over to the gibbet and climbed its steps. He took the dagger from his belt and cut the rope. The corpse fell like a bag of potatoes on the paving stones. The villagers watched him in shock. Bowman returned to the cantina, called the landlord, stared at him and put two one-dollar coins in his hand.
“Bury him.”
Not daring to refuse the money, the Mexican ran off to the back of his restaurant.
“Mr Bowman, I have a feeling your company will become more and more interesting.”
An hour later, three terrified men loaded the corpse on a mule and took it away.
Brezisky watched as two white men walked towards them from the other side of the square. Metal stars gleamed on their waistcoats and pistols hung from their belts. One of them looked tough, a moustache dangling over a square jaw; the other was much younger, beardless and nervous. The bigger man stood in front of the table.
“What the hell is all this? Who are you?”
The Pole stood up.
“Vladislav Brezisky, doctor. We rushed here, my friend and I, thinking we still had a chance to save that negro.”
The sheriff turned to look at the gallows, suppressing a snigger.
“You cut him down to save him?”
“Ah, no. That does not lie within our jurisdiction, alas. We hoped to arrive before the execution.”
The sheriff stared at Bowman, who was still sitting. The policeman’s tone of voice changed after their eyes met.
“By whose authority did you cut him down?”
There was something off about this man. Bowman, without understanding why, saw Collins again, in the Irish bar, putting his hands to Bowman’s throat to strangle him. Sergeant Bowman said through gritted teeth: “The black you hanged. It wasn’t him.”
A nervous tic pulsed in the young deputy’s face. The sheriff spoke in a muffled voice: “What the hell do you know about it?”
Leaning on the table’s edge, Bowman stood up, his head heavy with fatigue from the alcohol and his sleepless night. The deputy leapt backwards and his hand moved to the butt of his gun. Bowman stared at him, then at the sheriff, then opened his waistcoat and began unbuttoning his shirt. The sheriff did not move.
“What are you doing?”
Bowman continued opening his shirt, tearing off the last few buttons by yanking at the fabric. Brezisky muttered something in Polish and the deputy covered his mouth.
“The corpse you found, did it look like this?”
The Mexicans who had not fled at the sight of the sheriff now took off at a sprint. The tall man with the moustache did not react at all.
*
The lawmen escorted Bowman and Brezisky to their office, a hut in the middle of the wooden houses. White people on the sidewalks watched them go past.
“You, doctor: stay here and don’t move. You, go inside.”
The sheriff sat in his armchair. The deputy pulled out a chair for Bowman.
“No chair. Let him stand. Name?”
“Bowman.”
“Where did you come from, Bowman?”
“When did you find the corpse?”
The sheriff put his hat on the desk and cracked the joints of his fingers by twisting them.
“Why do you need to know that?”
“If you want me to tell you what I know.”
“What you know?”
The young policeman, leaning against a wall, was watching the sheriff, and that was the second thing that seemed wrong to Bowman. He was scared of his own boss. The man with the moustache smiled unpleasantly.
“We found Rogers three weeks ago, in an old Indian house on the edge of town. Rogers’ specialty was acting as a guide for pioneers. We were able to identify him because there was still a handful of hair on his head. Rogers was half-black. He had a negro’s hair, but blond as straw. That bastard always used to keep his hair hidden under a hat so people’d think he was white. Funniest thing was that he hated blacks even more than the rest of us.”
The sheriff glanced over at his subordinate, whose face was deformed by the tic again.
“Half the inhabitants of Rio Rancho are Mexican. The other redskins came down from the mountains to beg in our streets. We also have some negroes, a Chinese family, and some white folks from God-knows-where, just as poor as the niggers and who don’t speak a word of English. The folks who pay me to do my job are the others, the Americans, those who try to live their lives honestly. After Rogers’ murder, everyone started getting uppity.”
He turned to his deputy.
“How many fights did we get after Rogers’ killing?”
The boy blinked.
“At least twenty.”
“At least twenty. And when the Mexicans get their machetes out, it’s not so they can slice up beans. Never in my life had I seen such a mess in our little village. And in the middle of all that, last week, Willy showed up in town with Rogers’ hat on his head and his waistcoat on his back. Rogers was a card-player too. He used to wear that waistcoat when he sat down at a poker table, said it brought him good luck. Willy was completely drunk. When I asked him where he’d found them clothes, he just went crazy. He started talking about the Devil, how he’d met him, and the Devil had entered him. That kind of shit. Them negroes take religion too serious, and on top of that they get it mixed up with their African bullshit. Willy said he’d put the dead man’s clothes on so that Lucifer wouldn’t recognise him. When we tried to arrest him, he stripped buck naked. And it was . . . He’d cut himself all over his chest, like Rogers.”
The sheriff shuddered. He spat in a saucepan that was placed at his feet, looked up at Bowman and stared at his open shirt as he wiped his mouth.
“Like your scars.”
Bowman glanced outside. Brezisky was waiting on his cart, Walden beside him. The Henry was in the holster that hung from Walden’s saddle.
“Did you ask him what his devil looked like, or did you just hang him?”
The deputy moved in his corner. The sheriff raised a hand towards him without looking away from Bowman.
“Stay where you are, kid.”
But the boy had not been about to move, he’d been about to speak. The sheriff had just told him to shut his mouth.
“In the house where we found Rogers, there was nothing but his body, not a single one of his belongings. Willy was wearing them. And he’d always been a bit crazy. Rogers had even kicked his ass once or twice. Because he was black, you know.”
“So you didn’t ask any questions.”
“It was an open-and-shut case.”
“But it wasn’t him.”
The sheriff sat back in his chair and put his hands on his thighs.
“It wasn’t a good idea to cut Willy down. Up to now, everything was going fine.”
“And the judge agreed with you?”
“Bowman, I don’t understand what you’re doing here. You didn’t know Rogers, and you didn’t know Willy neither. In fact, none of this is any of your business. The closest judge must be in El Paso, unless people have been telling me lies. And even if I did make a mistake by sending Willy to the gallows, don’t
imagine that any judge, from here to New York, would blame me for it. So now, either you tell me what you know, or . . . I find myself with a second man in Rio Rancho who has the same scars as Rogers, and that would be a serious problem.”
Bowman had pins and needles in his legs. Not as if he was about to have a fit. This was more like something trembling in the depths of his flesh. Bowman thought of Brewster and his passionate attraction.
The man sitting across from him was like them: Peavish or Penders. And the deputy, in his corner, leaning against the wall, was shit-scared of him. The boy watched Bowman face up to his boss and waited to see what would happen.
Bowman spoke slowly.
“I know the man who did that.”
The sheriff blinked.
“The man who did that?”
He looked again at Bowman’s open shirt. Bowman glanced at the deputy.
“The negro had nothing to do with it. But he saw him and you hanged him for it.”
The sheriff slid a hand under his desk. The young deputy had also put his hand on his gun and his hoarse voice surprised them both: “We beat him up and never even asked him a question!”
The boy was angry and, for the first time, this anger was perhaps stronger than his fear. His fingers tightened around the butt of his revolver as he stared at the sheriff.
“We hanged Willy and it wasn’t him. And the other man got away long ago.”
“Shut your mouth, kid.”
Bowman almost screamed:
“The other man?”
The deputy was still staring at his boss and his gun was half out of his holster.
“The other Englishman. The one who came to town with Rogers.”
Before the sheriff had time to move, the young policeman had unholstered his pistol. He wasn’t really aiming at the older man: his gun was half raised towards the desk, his hand trembling, his face pale.
“We didn’t do anything, but he could find him. You have to let him go.”
Keeping an eye on the sheriff, Bowman continued questioning the deputy: “What did he look like?”
“An Englishman. Light hair. He came in with a convoy of other pioneers. Rogers acted as their guide. When . . . when we found the corpse, he was the only one who wasn’t in town anymore. But we never asked Willy anything, we just beat him up and hanged him. He wasn’t even in town when it happened!”
Retribution Road Page 32
