by Philip Webb
One mouthful turns into several in quick succession. I have to force myself to slow down.
“Is gophers.” He makes ears with his fingers. “Is good. The cook is Josie’s daughter. I think I love her.”
I nearly choke. My head races forward in the space of a second to his marriage with this unknown girl — me bravely congratulating them before continuing my journey alone. Then I realize he’s joking. “Josie will string you up,” I laugh, wondering what her daughter looks like.
“I can stay here,” he says with mock hurt. “Brokeoff is fine town. I will hunt coneys and never shoe horses.”
I look at him, mid-mouthful. There is resolve in his expression that I have not noticed before — a glitter of hunger in his eye. And I realize that anywhere on this Earth, even here in the desperate sanctuary of Brokeoff, in the depths of the Zone, is preferable to Marfa. He has been waiting, with just as much longing as I, to be free of that Deadline town, to come at last into the Zone.
I have held his gaze too long. “Thanks for coming with me,” I mutter at last, unsure why I feel suddenly agitated. Weren’t we joking just a moment ago? But the thought that Luis can choose whichever path he wants — it unsettles me.
He mumbles something in Spanish I don’t catch. He takes a deep breath as if set to say something important. But instead he looks at the window, and only then do I notice the rain. It pummels the roof, and lashes the glass in squalls. One decent sleep in this haven from the Zone and all my awareness skills have deserted me. My perimeter just reaches as far as a bowl of gopher broth and my childhood friend.
His face has become troubled. “Megan …” he begins.
What is he going to say? A queasiness takes me as all his possible confessions come to me at once. Does he really mean to stay in Brokeoff? Has he changed his mind about traveling farther? Has he fallen in love with Kelly?
Through the floorboards I hear raised and angry voices.
“Kelly! Where’s Kelly?”
“I … I not see her. In the tub for hours singing …”
I trip over my boots. Someone has taken them off for me.
We both run down the hall, but the bathtub is empty.
More fierce argument erupts from the saloon below us.
I stumble down the stairs, boots in hand, and stop dead.
It is a sight that cuts the clamor in one stroke — Kelly, steaming from the rain, strides into the saloon, leading the snorting Appaloosa across the floor.
I feel certain Josie will intervene and throw us out of her establishment. But the landlady just shakes her head with a half smile.
Kelly hushes the horse down. She still has her poncho but she is wearing a new black hat, clean jeans, and fancy boots with polished spurs. How long have I been asleep — a week? It is clear I have some catching up to do.
“Kelly!”
She throws me a warning glance — Don’t interfere, it says.
“I give her dollars for supplies,” Luis mutters angrily to me. “Not rodeo clothes.”
She ignores us, ties the horse to a post, and takes her place at a card table — eight men, all smoking cigars, stare at her. One of them, a man with a sheriff’s badge, though he seems far too old to have survived the position of sheriff here, pours her a drink. Kelly throws it back with gusto, coughing only slightly at the strength of it.
Belatedly, I see that Kelly is playing and that the game is in progress. A somewhat alarming pile of dollar bills and casino chips sits mid-table. There are three cards faceup by the pot — the king of diamonds, the ten of diamonds, and the queen of diamonds. It is a game I have witnessed at the Welcome Saloon in Marfa — a game that regularly ends in bloodshed. Texas Hold’em poker.
Kelly thumbs up the edge of her two facedown cards in the hole — I presume to check they have not been tampered with in her absence.
A red-faced man with a warty nose stands and leans on the table. “This is most irregular, Miss Tillman,” he says.
“The hell it is, Mr. Hart.”
For God’s sake, they know each other’s names!
“If you cannot see or raise,” he addresses the other players in a patronizing tone, “then you must either check or fold.”
“I know the rules, buddy. I’m just proving to you I got the funds.”
She isn’t just gambling with our money, it seems for all the world as though she’s losing it. Restraining my anger, I stride up to her. “Kelly!”
She ignores me, waiting for Mr. Hart’s response. The man throws me a nasty look, warning against interference. He seems smug about his hand and wants the game to conclude.
“Well, what is your play?” he drawls. “I think we’re all dying to know.”
“Josie, what’s my horse worth?” asks Kelly, without taking her eyes off Hart.
Josie ambles up to the Appaloosa, checks his teeth and feels his legs. “Two fifty. Two seventy with the saddle.”
“Three hundred and twenty,” says Kelly.
“Two eighty-five,” counters Josie.
“What the hell. I’m gonna be buying him back in five minutes. Done.”
Luis draws a sharp breath at the recklessness of the deal, and mutters an oath in Spanish. Where we come from, horse-trading takes days.
“Fats, pay the girl,” orders Josie.
The dealer, a man who in no way could be described as fat, peels off the money in fives and tens.
I hover by the table, desperate to put an end to the game, but what can I do? I’m not playing — I’m just a spectator.
“Kelly,” I breathe. “This is insane.”
She slaps fifty dollars into the pot. “See you and raise you.”
The player to Kelly’s left — a shifty-looking man with bad acne and sporting a pair of mirror sunglasses — blanches and folds his hand. Two more check with a nonchalant tap of the knuckles. Much tutting and wry shakes of the head. Around the table, the betting continues — fold, fold, call. The dealer burns and lays another card facedown into the flop. Queen of hearts. A few sharp intakes of breath. Some more onlookers gather around the table.
“Kelly …”
She turns to me sharply. “What are you, my mother? I can’t walk away now, else I’m stuck in this tin-can town forever.”
Fury swells into me — a rush of blood so rapid I want to beat her. For being so selfish, for jeopardizing our mission, for her vanity, her pride, her pigheaded stunts. Only a hand on the shoulder from Luis stops me from giving into rage. It’s just as well, a raised fist now, in the middle of this poker game, will start a riot. But I swear, if she loses, I’ll land one on her so hard she’ll be needing what passes for a dentist in Brokeoff.
It is Hart’s turn to begin the betting. He places fifty in the pot with an unnecessary flourish, though there is a layer of sweat above his lip for all to see.
Kelly raises another fifty without hesitation. The players to her left fold in disgust. Their discarded hands show a lack of diamonds. Only Hart and Kelly remain — perhaps one of them is hoping for a royal flush that beats all. The dealer burns and deals the river. It is a lowly three of spades.
Kelly leads the betting with everything she’s got left. All in.
“Madre Maria!” Luis takes a pace forward, and every customer in the saloon glares at him.
Hart hesitates.
The only sound comes from the Appaloosa shaking the rain off his back.
There is no way Hart is going to fold, on his home territory, in front of all these witnesses, to a girl.
He sees the bet, though his hands are shaking.
“What have you got?” he snarls.
“You first.”
He reveals the seven and four of diamonds. With the river, it is a flush. Pretty strong.
When Kelly makes no move, I fear the worst, and Hart leers at her. “Come on, sweetheart. I know you been bluffin’ on scraps.”
Kelly peels her concealed cards over one at a time, to an eerie gasp from the audience. Queen of clubs and the ten of he
arts. With the river, that makes three queens and a pair of tens. She has a full house.
Luis whistles in relief. Me — I’m thinking about landing one on her anyway.
Kelly winks at Hart and rakes in the pot. Hart looks fit to explode, but then an unsavory-looking character stoops to whisper in his ear.
“Hold up now, Miss Tillman. I declare that game void.”
“On what grounds?”
“That there horse is stolen property. Weren’t yours to sell in the first place.”
“Oh, put a cork in it, Hart!” pipes up Josie. “The girl won fair and square.”
Hart’s voice is sly and wheedling. “Ain’t worth nothing to you if that horse belongs to someone else. Why don’t you check up by its mane?”
I glance over at Luis for ideas. He gives me the slightest shake of his head and looks around for exits. But a crowd is closing in. This is an ugly situation about to turn uglier.
Josie turns up the Appaloosa’s mane and there’s another collective round of murmuring. “Hey, what you trying to pull here?”
“What’s the problem?” I ask, knowing full well what the problem is, but I’m hoping Kelly will catch my drift. The only way out of this is to leave the winnings on the table when we go.
Josie pulls out one of her enormous blunderbusses. “The problem, little lady, is that this horse got scorpion branding. It’s an outlaw ride — Jethro Boys. It ain’t worth two eighty-five. Hell, it ain’t worth glue.”
I wonder then if she has so much as an inkling that the Jethro Gang consists of Visitors.
“We’ll give you back what you paid for it,” I offer.
“And ten dollars more,” adds Luis.
“After she tried to palm me off with a horse I couldn’t give away?” she scoffs. “You’re gonna be doing a mite better than that.”
“The game’s void,” repeats Hart as Kelly begins to stuff the winnings into her jeans pockets.
“Er … I guess that means you’re under arrest,” says the man I take to be the sheriff of Brokeoff. He has a timid demeanor, and I suspect he has survived into old age by being both a coward and a turner of blind eyes.
“On what charge, goddammit?” cries Kelly.
“Possession of stolen property, fraud, being part of a criminal outfit, underage gambling,” says Hart with a triumphant smile. “Take your pick. Now, the game is void.” He stands quickly, with his hands hovering over the holsters. “So I suggest you give up the pot so these gentlemen can take back their wagers.”
“Not before I get my two eighty-five,” warns Josie. “And then some.” She levels the gun at Kelly’s head.
“Now, now, Josie. I’m the one making arrests round here,” complains the sheriff.
“If you wanna continue your custom here, Sheriff, then you’d best butt on out of this one.” She pulls back the hammer on the blunderbuss.
Nobody moves.
And then in the silence, another gun is cocked.
“I believe I can bring this tricky matter to a close,” a voice announces.
The intruder is possibly the ugliest man I have ever seen. His pig nose sprouts a bush of nasal hair from each nostril to approximate something like a mustache. His eyes are tiny dead dots. He has only one hand in which he brandishes a pistol. The sleeve of his left arm is pinned to his shirt to stop it flapping about.
Josie doesn’t lower her blunderbuss. “And who the hell are you?”
“My name is Virgil Bridgwater, and I have a bill of sale for that horse.”
The name of my father leaves me stunned. I do not listen to the bluster and swearing of Hart, who has gone from loser to winner to loser in the space of five minutes. I have my attention only on this stranger, this impostor.
“Well then, Mr. Bridgwater, let’s see your bill of sale,” says Josie, retaining both her poise and her grip on the blunderbuss.
“There’s a rip under the saddle — it’s in there. For three hundred and five dollars.”
The toad who informed Hart about the scorpion marks by the mane duly checks and produces a yellowing and much-folded document. “As the man says.”
I catch Kelly’s eye — an incredulous look that says, That’s your dad?
And I want to yell out to the entire saloon that he is not. But of course at this moment he remains our best hope of walking from this place scot-free. It does not take a genius to realize he is at least an accessory to the theft of my father’s horse, which makes him a probable outlaw of the Jethro Gang. And therefore in all likelihood a Visitor.
“So to recap here,” says the stranger, holstering his gun expertly. “If that horse belongs to me, it ain’t stolen. And if it ain’t stolen, the game stands. And if the game stands, the winnings got won aboveboard. Stands to reason the sale to the landlady was lee-jit also. Now, we can sit here and write out a new bill of sale, ma’am, except I figure you don’t wanna explain away them scorpions when you come to sell him. So why don’t I buy the horse back at your first asking price? That way, you walk away with the fastest profit you ever made in this here sa-loon.”
His accent and manner are so convincing, it is hard to believe he is Visitor, not human. Certainly, the saloon regulars are fooled.
“And who’s to say you really are this Mr. Bridgwater?” demands Hart. A good question.
“Well, my wayward and unruly children, sir. Who else?” He beams an insufferably smug smile, daring me to contradict him.
I say nothing. Luis takes a breath to say something, but I warn him off with a sharp look. Denying the stranger’s story will only complicate matters right now, especially given how edgy the saloon has become.
The pretend Mr. Bridgwater addresses the crowd. “Allow me to apologize — the fault is all mine. But who are we to indulge if not our offspring?”
I only gaze at this smarmy act unfolding before me as if it were a cheap traveling sideshow. The salesman laying down his patter. My rage is cold. But I must not puncture this lie. Our fate depends upon it. And of course, this impostor must know something of my father.
“You sure took your time,” announces Kelly, even frowning herself at the outrageous breezy tone she has adopted. “Daddy.”
It is stretching credulity indeed to believe that this fine blond girl and that shifty specimen are blood. But he presents a way out of a tricky impasse — one that Josie grasps. She puts away her gun and smiles, which thaws the atmosphere in the room. Everyone plays their part in the charade that follows — money changes hands, backs are slapped, drinks are bought for the card game losers. The sheriff is cowed. Any notion I entertained of appealing to justice is quickly dispelled as he lines up for his own shot of the cloudy moonshine.
Kelly, Luis, and I retreat through the rain to the stables with the impostor. He brings the Appaloosa, and it is strange how he doesn’t bother with the reins — just touches the neck near the mane. The horse walks with him calmly, as if this man is indeed the true owner. Only when we’re outside do I realize his fingers are resting on the hidden scorpion brand.
Right by the barn door, Luis swivels and reaches for the stranger’s holster. But it’s a wild move — Luis is parried and thrown against the doorpost with explosive force. From the floor, Luis gathers himself to attack again, but the stranger draws his gun so fast, it’s cocked and pointing before any of us moves.
“Don’t be getting any fancy ideas,” he mutters. “I’ll put a bullet through the next one of you that tries something.”
His eyes suddenly blaze at us — peepholes to the fires behind the mask, leaving no doubt that he is a Visitor. He … It …? I cannot reconcile the creature before me. It seems impossible that nothing remains of the man but flesh. Is there not some vestige of humanity there in that vessel of blood and bone? Something we can appeal to? He does not appear at all handicapped by being one-armed — he controls the three of us with ease, taking possession of all our guns before mounting his own horse. He ropes a mule laden with supplies to the pommel of his saddle and gestures for us to
mount up. Luis and I climb on Cisco, Kelly gets back on the Appaloosa that once belonged to Pa.
Hodges watches us from under the dripping eaves. There is no more understanding in him than what goes on between the ears of a horse. For a wild moment I think of conversing with him to see if, as Josie warned, he will flare up in temper. Perhaps in the confusion we might escape, though it seems unlikely we will get far.
The townsfolk must be sheltering from the rain because the main drag is empty. Once we’re out of the town, the Visitor orders me to tie Luis’s hands behind his back for good measure. We ride slowly north toward the mountains, single file, the Visitor on his horse bringing up the rear, trailing the pack mule.
“Who are you?” I demand over my shoulder.
The Visitor doesn’t answer. For twenty minutes we ride through the rain, across Route 62 into the foothills of the Guadalupe Mountains.
Luis whispers in my ear, “Ride, Megan!”
“Are you crazy?” I hiss back.
“He doesn’t shoot. They want you alive, no?”
“That won’t stop him shooting you in the back. Besides, what about Kelly?”
“She has her horse. We meet in Canyon de Chelly if we split.”
“Forget it. It’s not her horse — it belongs to the Visitors now that it has the scorpion mark. That’s how he tracked us down. Besides, Kelly can’t navigate through the Zone on her own. It’s suicide.”
The Visitor rides abreast of us. “Quit yabbering!”
He stays within earshot, but it gives me a chance to observe him, and after a while I recognize something. He is maintaining a perimeter, as trackers do. My thoughts race in confusion and surprise. It is not what I expected — that Visitors should ever need to be wary in the Zone they have themselves created.
“Where’s my father? What have you done with him?”
“Your father is as good as dead, honey,” he says out of the corner of his mouth. “No escape for him.”
I search the Visitor’s face for clues, but he is impassive. What reason would he have to lie? So, then, my father is alive and captured. But if the messages are from him, how is he able to send them? In secret? Or perhaps he is being coerced and the messages are a trick to draw me deeper into the Zone?
