by Jeff Guinn
Brautigan looked at Newman carefully, calculating motive. “All right. But water rather than whiskey.”
“Of course, water. You’ve got things to do tomorrow. No, I’m not asking about them. Less I know, the better.” Newman used a dented ladle to scoop stew into a bowl. He poured well water into a mug and took the bowl and mug over to the table. “Eat hearty. I won’t join, I had my dinner earlier. But I believe I’ll indulge in a toddy.”
Clanton drank while Brautigan ate. The big man accepted a second bowl of stew and declined a third. He pushed back his chair and said, “Now, about the provisions.”
“I’ve already got things put aside,” Clanton said. “Food for two, enough for five days. Canned peas and peaches. Biscuits. Bacon too?”
“No, I won’t be having fires.”
“Well, then, no bacon, or coffee either. But surely some dried beef? Two saddlebags of feed for the animals. I’ll have four canteens filled from the well, also the cask to be carried by your mule. Enough, I think, for three days of drink if you’re modest in use. After that, you’ll be within striking distance of the San Simon River, and there are also occasional creeks sufficient for water replenishment. Thirst should not prove a problem.”
“If you’ll lead me to these supplies, I’ll pack the saddlebags.”
“No need. My daughters will see to it. Don’t worry, you’ll have every scrap and drop promised. Clantons keep their word. As, I’m sure, will you. Prompt and full payment tomorrow morning?”
“Yes.” Brautigan pushed away from the table.
“What now?” Clanton asked. “Will you look in on the girl? I assure you she’s safely locked in the shed.”
“I want her left alone until morning. Don’t let any of your women bring her breakfast. She’ll mind better if she’s hungry.”
“I admire your thinking,” Clanton said, and meant it. In Brautigan’s place, he wouldn’t have given the girl breakfast either. “Let me speak of one other matter. Ike—will I see him tomorrow? You’re certain he’ll be free of any . . . consequences?”
Brautigan paused by the door. “As long as Ike does as I’ve told him, he’ll be fine. I’m going back to the barn and sleep a little more.”
“What time should we wake you?”
“When I need to, I’ll be awake.”
—
A SCRAPING SOUND just outside the shed woke Gabrielle. Then there was the metallic clink of the bolt, and the door creaked open. Gabrielle thought, for a moment, that Hettie might have returned. The young woman was clearly sympathetic. But instead a man’s voice said, “Let me close the door and get this candle lit.” There was the scratch of a match, a tiny flame, and then more illumination as a wick flared. The man holding the candle had lank hair and a drooping mustache.
“I’m Phin,” the man said. “Remember me?”
Phin Clanton, Gabrielle remembered. From Glorious. If he’s here, this must be Clantonville. But she didn’t reply. Brautigan might be outside.
“If you’re worried about the big man, don’t be,” Phin said. “He’s off sleeping in the barn. Nobody to bother us.”
The candle was wedged in some kind of small tin holder. Phin set the holder down on the dirt floor. The flame provided enough light for Gabrielle to see Phin’s expression, and she didn’t like it.
“Now, you’re in a fix,” he said.
She decided to risk conversation. Anything to delay what he obviously planned. “I can scream,” Gabrielle said, but the threat was tempered by the croakiness of her voice. She hadn’t spoken in forty-eight hours and her throat felt thick.
“You don’t want to do that,” Phin said. He grinned conspiratorially and sat down just a few inches from her. “I’m here to help.”
“How?” Again, her voice cracked.
“That big man, maybe you think he’ll be letting you go sometime. But I’m here to tell you he’s not. He’s been boasting to my pa and the rest of us. He’s going to kill you tomorrow.”
Gabrielle couldn’t suppress a gasp. It made Phin smile.
“Yep, kill you dead. Maybe he’s promised you otherwise, but he means to. Whatever it is he’s doing, he won’t want to leave witnesses. No, you’re a dead woman for certain unless I help you.”
“How?” At least her voice sounded a little stronger.
“Oh, so you want to know? All right. I’ve got some brothers here, also some brothers-in-law. We’re all tough and capable. I’m the leader. I give them the word and we put that big man down. He can’t fight all of us. Easy as that, you’re rid of him.”
“You’d do that?”
Phin leaned toward Gabrielle. He extended a hand and tugged lightly at the collar of the dead man’s shirt she wore. “I might if you’re nice to me. No screams, no struggling.”
She pulled back. Even that movement brought agony from her ribs and shin. Her shoulders brushed the shed wall. There was very little room. “Go away.”
“Go away?” Phin sounded incredulous. “I’m your only chance to get out of this alive and you’re denying me? And you’ll enjoy it too. Every woman who’s been had by me never wants to be with any other man again.” He moved forward; she tried to elude him but almost immediately found herself in a corner. “All right,” Phin said, sounding mean. He pulled a knife from behind his back. It must have been tucked in his belt—she hadn’t seen it. “Should you even open that pretty mouth to scream, I’ll have your throat slit before a sound comes out.” He reached for her, and Gabrielle had no way to elude him.
—
BRAUTIGAN LAY ON his blanket in the barn, thinking about the next day. McLendon was so slippery. What trick might he try? The surest thing would be to kill the bastard on the spot. Brautigan had the boss’s permission if—What exactly had Mr. Douglass said? Oh, yes—if he couldn’t get McLendon away clean. So once the exchange was made tomorrow and he had McLendon by himself in the middle of nowhere, Brautigan could snap his neck and later tell the boss sorry, there was unexpected pursuit and this was the best way. Maybe Brautigan could cut off a finger or an ear to bring back as proof of death. Then he could make his way home unencumbered, back to the city where he belonged instead of this hell on earth they called the frontier. Tempting, tempting.
But this easier option seemed incomplete. The job was designed to let the boss watch McLendon die. If it didn’t happen that way, Mr. Douglass might wonder if Brautigan couldn’t really have gotten McLendon all the way back to St. Louis. And with that doubt fixed in his mind, the boss would no longer trust Brautigan completely. He might begin thinking Brautigan knew too many of his secrets, and that for safety’s sake it was Brautigan’s turn to be eliminated. Brautigan knew himself to be a hard man, but Mr. Douglass was even more so. He was the only man Patrick Brautigan feared. If at all possible, McLendon had to be brought to Mr. Douglass in St. Louis.
Brautigan tossed on his blanket for a while. There were still hours before dawn. He decided that since he couldn’t sleep, he’d check on the girl in the shed. Just a quick look, to make certain the door was still bolted.
It was very dark in Clantonville. But as Brautigan neared the shed he thought he discerned a faint flicker of light from gaps in the upper, unchinked portion of the log wall. He hurried up; the door was closed but not bolted. There was movement inside. Brautigan pulled the door open and saw by dim candlelight two figures struggling on the dirt floor. A man was on top of the girl. His head jerked around as Brautigan entered—it was a Clanton son, the one called Phin. Brautigan wound his thick fingers in Phin’s long hair and yanked him off and up. He struck a single punch to his temple, enough to stun but not kill. Phin went limp and Brautigan dropped him. Then he turned to the girl. She was curled on the floor, trying to hold the front of her shirt together with one hand and pull up her trousers with the other. Brautigan looked down at Phin, whose own trousers were unbuttoned halfway but no more.
“Sit up,” B
rautigan told Gabrielle. “The bastard didn’t get the job done? This once, you can speak.”
“No. He didn’t.”
“All right. I’ll deal with him. I’ll return in the morning.” Brautigan blew out the candle, then dragged Phin outside. He closed the door behind them and shot the bolt.
Gabrielle sat in the darkness and tried to adjust her clothes. All but two buttons were torn from her shirt. She fastened those. There were gaps, but at least she was somewhat covered. The trousers had been loose anyway. She pulled them up over her hips and they seemed secure enough. Phin had bitten her a few times on her neck and shoulders. She gently prodded the sore spots but didn’t think there was blood; he hadn’t broken the skin. Phin had gotten her pants completely down but not his own when Brautigan interrupted. So assault but not complete rape.
There was a noise outside and then another, curious thuds. Gabrielle scuttled across the small shed on hands and knees because her shin and ribs hurt badly and she didn’t want to stand. More thuds; Gabrielle poked at the chinking between the logs and managed to dislodge enough clay to provide a peephole. It was dark outside, but she’d been sitting mostly in the dark already that night and could see fairly well that Brautigan stood over Phin, kicking him in the most brutally methodical way. Even one of the kicks could have killed Phin if it had been to his face, but Brautigan seemed to be starting on the legs and moving gradually higher. Phin must have regained at least partial consciousness from the head blow he’d suffered in the shed, because he began first to moan, then emitted a high-pitched scream. Brautigan kicked him in the ribs next, breaking some—she heard the crack—and then Phin was mostly quiet again. But a moment later lights appeared; people, other Clantons, she presumed, rushed out with lanterns; and first among them was a fat old man clad only in underdrawers, his thick white beard tumbling down his bare, flabby chest. Newman Clanton, whom she recognized instantly, had a shotgun, and he pointed it at Brautigan.
“Back off,” the Clanton man said. “Leave my boy be.”
The gun didn’t seem to intimidate Brautigan. He said almost conversationally, “I found him in the shed, raping the girl.”
“Get away from him a bit,” the old man said, gesturing with the shotgun. There were others gathered around now. Some of them were men with guns, too, mostly pistols drawn and aimed at Brautigan. He paid them no notice. He took a few steps back from where Phin lay moaning, far enough so the old man had room to bend over Phin, but close enough to kick either of them if he chose.
The old man lifted Phin’s head, not gently, and said, “Is that the truth? Did you go and rape her?” Phin whimpered. “You ain’t hurt so bad that you can’t talk. Tell me.”
Phin hawked and spit what Gabrielle hoped was blood. He replied in a pleading whine, “Daddy, he’s gone kill her in the morning anyhow.”
Clanton sighed. “No, he isn’t,” he said. Then he looked at Brautigan and said, “You’d do considerable damage prior, but we can still put you down right here. There are enough of us, most armed.”
Brautigan nodded. He looked around at the people and lanterns and guns, and said, “So?”
“You’ve got my word. Short of killing or crippling Phin because he’s my son, whatever you were going to do to him, I’m going to take him now and do as much or worse. Can you be satisfied with that?”
Brautigan thought for a moment. “All right.”
“The rest of you, git,” Clanton commanded. They obeyed. The area in front of the shed was left illuminated only by the lantern brought by the old man. “I need more room,” he said to Brautigan. “Get back some farther, if you please. I got to fetch something and I’ll be right back. Phin ain’t moving from where he is.”
The giant stepped back to the shed. He was directly in front of Gabrielle’s peephole, so she could only hear what came next. After a few moments there came a series of sharp smacks, the sounds of leather lashing flesh. Clanton must have gone for a belt or something similar. Phin screeched at first, but as the smacks continued Phin’s shrieks diminished in volume, until finally there were only the smacks and then they stopped. After a few moments more, Brautigan moved from outside the shed wall to its door. Gabrielle scrambled back. The giant said to her, “For the rest of the night, I’ll remain right outside.” He left, bolting the door behind him. Then the wall by the door creaked; Brautigan had sat down and leaned back against it.
Gabrielle made herself as comfortable as possible, given her physical discomfort and the near-rape she’d just endured. No one had given her blankets to lie on; the hard-packed dirt floor offered little cushion. In the hours until dawn, she found herself remembering over and over the old man’s reply when Phin whined that Brautigan was going to kill her in the morning anyway: “No, he isn’t.”
Gabrielle was still very much afraid for Cash. She couldn’t imagine any way he could escape once Brautigan had him. But her immediate concern was her own survival. The old man seemed quite certain that Brautigan meant to spare her. If Brautigan didn’t, why not let Phin rape her? So, apparently, she was going to live—but at awful cost to someone she loved. Brautigan had no right to do this. No one did.
In the past forty-eight hours, Gabrielle had experienced abject terror and hopelessness. Now a new emotion took hold of her.
Anger.
18
On Saturday morning, Ike Clanton smiled as he rode toward Devil’s Valley, and why not? As far back as Ike could recall, his daddy pounded into his head, his and his brothers’, that it was always Clantons against the rest of the world. The Clantons seldom won, but today was an exception. Cash McLendon was going to be handed over to Brautigan. Ike didn’t know exactly what would befall McLendon afterward, but he was certain it was going to be nasty. No son of a bitch deserved it more. McLendon had held himself above the Clantons back in Glorious, had mocked Ike himself openly. Finally he was getting his, and Ike played a key part. “Cream rises,” Ike’s poor dead ma liked to say, and now Ike had finally proven himself to be cream. Vengeful cream.
Much of the time it seemed to Ike that Pa didn’t quite respect him as he should. Ike was a grown man, smart and shrewd, someone with lots of possibilities if only he caught a break here and there. Clantonville looked like a near sure thing—Ike knew enough about his family’s history of bad luck not to think any success was certain—and instead of letting Ike help him run the spread, Pa sent him out selling lots in it. Ike didn’t mind the selling, he figured he was good at spreading charm, but once again he was taking orders from Pa instead of giving them out to other people.
Maybe this McLendon business would change Pa’s opinion. When Ike thought about it, it was him who’d done all the important parts of it. He’d found Brautigan wandering the Silver City streets, all confused and not knowing what to do. So Ike set him straight, got him first to Clantonville and then Mountain View, and once in Mountain View saved the day by finding the Silva woman and getting Brautigan the information he needed to snatch the girl. And now Ike, clever as usual, was leading McLendon right to his doom without anyone knowing it was Ike himself who’d arranged it!
Money had been made from all this, for Ike himself and also the Clanton family. Pa had a fondness for money, often liked to say that if a man got rich enough, it made him bulletproof. Ike thought Pa was wrong about that—bullets could kill anybody, regardless of wealth. Anyway, Ike had put together and carried out a winning plan. Pa couldn’t deny that. Now maybe Wes and Phin would get sent out to peddle lots, while Ike stayed home and gave orders for a change.
The only bug in Ike’s beer was that he guessed he personally wouldn’t see McLendon die. Brautigan planned to drag him back to Silver City and, after that, Ike assumed, somewhere east with a view toward killing him there. Ike didn’t know the details. No doubt if Brautigan had chosen to confide them, Ike could have sharpened them up a bit, helped the big man do the job better. Oh, well. It would have been a fine thing to hear McLendon beg
for mercy, then get his head kicked in or whatever was going to happen. Instead Ike would imagine it in all sorts of wonderfully bloody variations.
McLendon was silent as they rode this morning, which would only be expected, since he was handing himself over to his killer soon. Maybe he’d try to run off at the last minute. Ike figured that was why Joe Saint rode behind McLendon all the time, to discourage escape attempts. There’d been bad blood between the two back in Glorious, Ike recalled. Was it because of the girl? Probably. The third man, the Major, whispered to McLendon a lot. Comforting him? It didn’t seem to Ike that there was any way to truly ease a friend on his way to death.
The morning was hot, befitting the season. In another month the winds would change from south to north and it would gradually turn cool, but for now sweating was the order of the day. Ike drank some canteen water, being sure to leave a few gulps. It was only a few hours’ ride from Devil’s Valley to Clantonville, but he might get thirsty again and there was no creek in between. He wondered how much Saint and Mulkins had left in their canteens, and considered warning them to reserve some for their ride back to Mountain View with the girl. Then Ike thought better of it. He didn’t care if they went thirsty.
They moved down slopes, some steep enough that it was necessary to climb from their saddles and lead the horses. Then the land turned flat again, and there was cacti instead of trees. There were no clouds today. Ike pulled his hat brim low against the glare.
“How much farther, Ike?” Mulkins asked.
“Three, four miles,” Ike estimated. “Might take two hours. Devil’s Valley is surrounded by hills, so we’ll have some climbing to do.”
“Just so long as you get us there by noon,” Mulkins said. “You’re sure you know where you’re going?”
That annoyed Ike. “Of course,” he snapped, and lost himself for a while in daydreams of killing Mulkins and Saint once McLendon was handed over to Brautigan. Just draw his pistol and shoot them down. He could bury them under some rocks. No one would ever likely find them. There would be no witnesses—wait, there was going to be the girl. Kill her too? No, Ike remembered her as a pretty one. She might very well be impressed by his skills as a gunman. Women were like that. Sure, kill the two, take the girl back to Clantonville as a prize, make Pa proud, and have a wife besides. So nice to think about . . .
