Rides a Stranger

by Bill Brooks

  “Don’t come back to my town,” Bike said. “Don’t ever let me see you again.”

  Then they turned and rode off and I watched them go before sinking to my knees. Every time I took a deep breath it felt like a knife going into my lungs. I worked my wrists but they’d been lashed to the limb with rawhide strips. I knew one thing: I couldn’t allow myself to fall on my face or back or I’d never be able to rise again. Those old boys knew a thing or two about putting a man in a bad way. I forced myself up finally and realized that with night coming on fast I’d be a fool to try and make my way in the dark.

  I went over to the tree and placed my back against it and eased myself into a sitting position. With the support of the tree holding me up, I could at least sleep if I needed to, wait out the night, hope for better things in the morning. Where I was I couldn’t say. I didn’t see a road anywhere, no sort of trail.

  With the night came a steady rain that soaked me through to the skin, and after a while I couldn’t tell if what was flowing down my face was blood, rain, or tears.

  And that money I’d done this for, well, they’d taken that too, back when they arrested me and put me in the jail. I was broke and yoked and abandoned, and with my luck running the way it was, I’d probably be dead in a few days.

  Unless.

  It was a big unless.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The metaphor, he told himself, was a boat adrift, its mooring rope cut, the water wide, turbulent, always astir. He was the rudderless boat guided by the unpredictable winds after her death. The winds were mighty, carrying him along with no real sense of purpose. The winds were nothing more than God’s angry breath.

  His name was Tom Twist. And somewhere in the distant past were the mountains and a grave on a plateau with her in it. It was as though God had come to visit and then simply stood suddenly and said good-bye and took her with Him.

  He thought in metaphors these days. His heart had been assassinated. He had lived a good life for so long that now he felt the need to see the darker side. He bought a pair of fancy pistols off a man who said they once belonged to the famous but long dead Wild Bill, complete with matching holsters. Their weight felt right on his hips, balanced, deadly. He felt dangerous at last, a man to be feared.

  He thought he could find solace in the sort of women men fought over and spent their last dollar on. The whorehouses of Cripple Creek and Silver City and all up and down the goldfields offered him plenty of opportunity.

  In every whore he searched for a little bit of his dead wife, the woman he had loved so hard and true. They disappointed, left him wanting, ashamed, sick. One girl came close; a small dark-haired twenty-year-old from Iowa. She said her name was Alice Blue and that she’d been raised on a farm and could still smell pig stink. He did not know how much of what she said was true. Every girl had a story of sorrow, every one had a certain sadness.

  “My daddy would probably kill himself to know what I was doing now. Him and Mama were good Christian people.”

  The winter had set in. The gulches and hills were socked with wet fog, ice, snow. A dreary time to be a boat adrift. The mud came up to his knees.

  Alice Blue had the laugh of a schoolgirl. She was young, naive, childish, and goodhearted—somewhere between a woman and a child, with budding breasts and thick legs. He could imagine her married someday with several children and having grown to fat.

  He never told her who he was, what he’d been. He never told her about his dead wife, the life he’d lived. She never asked. She laughed and showed him her stockings, this well-fed Iowa farm girl. He liked that in her; it made her more wholesome than the others with their pocked faces and bad teeth and wasted bodies. But who could blame them for what they’d turned into? The men in those camps were the roughest there were. Hard as the rock they picked to get to the gold. They pried with dirty fingers the gold and the flesh with equal gusto, desire flaming in their brains. They also had rotted teeth and rotted breath from the rotted liquor and lack of personal hygiene. When they rose from the whores’ beds, the sheets were filthy.

  “Miners are terrible hard on a girl,” she said.

  She confessed to him many things about her life. She was as open as a book. And for a short while he was enchanted by her, thinking perhaps like God, love works in mysterious ways. And for a moment he allowed himself to believe that he could love her.

  Then one day he awoke to discover her gone, and with her, his money. He suspected the man she called “cousin” was her pimp. He thought the price of his stolen poke fair wages for the sin. He did not try and find her, but let the wind fill him again, a boat without rudder or sail, the weight of wind mapping his path.

  It didn’t matter where he had been or where he was about to go, for he was in search of himself and nothing else. The self lost needed to be found again.

  He came eventually into New Mexico and saw the dark mesas long and flat and black against the evening sky—reaching forth like gigantic fingers of an outstretched hand. The sky at evening went from a soft pink to a deep rose before becoming like unpolished silver.

  He came across the mouth of a cave one evening just after dusk, and from it flew thousands of bats and he sat and watched in amazement.

  He had heard stories about New Mexico, about shape shifters and men who could turn themselves into animals, about the haunted grounds of the Hopi and the sacred grounds of the Navajo.

  He knew a young priest who had gone and lived there and come back completely changed and married a woman and had children with her, believing, he said, that God did not want man to suffer alone, but to have himself children and a woman to love. The priest said, with tears in his eyes, that God was love and to deny love was to deny God.

  Tom Twist heard the echoes of his horse’s hooves within the canyon walls and upon loose rock.

  The stars seemed closer than ever as he waited for sleep.

  He was sure he had come to the right place. He was sure that whatever force was guiding him had led him to this place for a particular reason.

  And then one day he saw what looked like a crucified man staggering alone, his arms spread outward, tied to a tree limb, and with the failing light it seemed to Tom that he was having a dream—for how could it be, the thing he was seeing?

  And for a moment he held his breath thinking he was having a vision.

  But then he saw the man fall and not get up.

  He knew then there was a reason it was he who had come across this man and not someone else. But what that reason was, he could not yet say.

  He rode forth.

  Chapter Fourteen

  That son of a bitch Joe Bike was right about one thing—after two days I was beginning to feel death chasing me. I was cold and miserable and half out of my head. When I found water to drink, I’d have to kneel and balance myself, leaning forward so I didn’t fall flat on my face and end up helpless as a turtle on its back. The rain hammered me on and off through that first night and into the next and the day after that. The wind lashed across my face, at times making the rain feel like thorns, and my eye had swollen shut from the blow Bike struck me so that I had to turn my head to look at what was on my right. Making everything worse, more intense, was my broken rib, just trying to breathe. Every step was painful, but kneeling and rising again was excruciating. And every step I took stabbed more anger in me toward the men who did this to me, and especially the one who ordered it done: Johnny Waco.

  At one point near the end of the second day I nearly lost my balance and fell flat and had to retch because my stomach was turning over with probably bad water I’d drank out of a dirty puddle. That night I found a stump of a tree to sit against and the dreams came bad and repeated themselves over and over and I kept waking every few minutes, shivering, my teeth chat-tering, the pain so great I wanted to scream and did.

  The third day broke clean, or maybe it was the fourth, I’d lost track of time, and the sun offered some of its early winter warmth. But by then I might have even bee
n walking in circles. At one point I looked up and saw buzzards wheeling in the sky and wondered if they had found something already dead, or were just waiting.

  I knew no matter what, I had to keep moving. Every time I stopped and rested it was harder to get up again. At one point I spotted a cairn of rocks someone had stacked up and figured I’d give it one shot—to throw myself backward on those rocks and try and crack the limb I was lashed to.

  I knew the chances of success were not great, that if I broke anything it would probably be one of my arms in trying. But I was desperate and a desperate man will do desperate things when he feels his luck is about run out.

  I tried to think of the best way to do it and couldn’t come up with a very good plan. So I just stood with my back to the rocks and then flung myself backward as hard as I could.

  The pain nearly caused me to pass out.

  I lay there trying to get my breath, the plan a complete failure, my hands scraped and cut, my back bruised and aching. I cursed. I wept. I bargained with God. Nothing seemed to help.

  It took every last bit of my strength and three tries but I finally managed to lift myself up again.

  I staggered on. Toward what, I didn’t know. I just knew I had to keep moving.

  I recall falling, lying there with the sun in my eyes thinking it would blind me if I stared at it. I turned my face away and insects soon found me. I didn’t care. I had no strength or will to care anymore and closed my eyes and let them feast. I just hoped it would be over soon even though I knew it would probably go on a lot longer.

  After a time of the bugs crawling on me, pausing, biting, I knew I’d go mad. I managed to shake my head from side to side when it became too much. I cursed their existence. It would stop for a while then start again. Relentless. They seemed to especially like the blood—the cuts on my hands and the one over my eye.

  I struggled to get up but couldn’t. I’d die just as I was. Someone would eventually find me, or what was left of me, and wonder how it came to pass a man would be like this and stories would arise and be passed from one person to another—told in saloons and quiet rooms—about the man who was found crucified to a limb.

  I lay waiting for death.

  Death had a peaceful voice.

  I felt something working at my hands, perhaps a wolf or coyote gnawing them off. But then whatever it was did the same to the other hand and I managed finally to open my one good eye and saw the shadow of a man kneeling between me and the low sun.

  “Easy, mister. Go easy.”

  He was dressed in black: black hat, black coat. The sunlight gleamed off his knife blade as he folded it and slipped it into his pocket.

  “Who did this to you?”

  I could not speak, my throat as dry as sand. I tried lifting my arms away from the limb but my shoulders seemed locked. I curled my fingers.

  He raised my head and put a canteen to my mouth.

  “Drink slow,” he said.

  It was like drinking salvation.

  He trickled more water into my mouth until it had the quality and effect of oiling a machine. My tongue was swollen.

  He tried to help me sit up but my scream made him ease me back down again. Then blackness came over me like a blanket.

  I awoke knowing time had passed and stared into a fire lashing flames against the darkness. He sat across from it.

  “Thirsty?” he said.

  I nodded and again he brought me water to drink.

  “How about now, you think you can sit up now?”

  “I’ll try.” The words seemed to break in two when I said them.

  He helped me sit up and I nearly fainted but managed to stay upright.

  “Hungry?”

  “Yes.”

  “Chew on this,” he said and handed me some jerky.

  He had a sharp bony face with close-set eyes and white hair nearly to his shoulders; he didn’t seem old enough to have white hair.

  “Am I dead?” I said.

  “Do you think you are?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The thing is, none of us do. We have it in our heads that we’re this or that, but are we really, or is everything an illusion?”

  It made no sense to me what he was saying. Maybe I was dead, or hallucinating. I closed my eyes and chewed and the jerky seemed real enough and so did the night wind and the surrounding darkness and the flames in the fire licking at the night.

  I slept.

  I had dreams.

  I dreamt I died, that a faceless man had killed me. I awoke.

  It was morning and the man in the black hat and clothes and white hair sat across from me, the fire between us.

  “How are you feeling?” he said.

  “Like I was just taken out of a grave.”

  “Born again?”

  “Maybe.”

  His eyes were very pale, almost like colorless glass. I noticed as he reached for the coffeepot resting in the fire that he had smooth hands, the sort of hands a working man would not have, the sort of hands that a professional gunfighter or gambler would have.

  “Here,” he said, pouring me a cup and handing it across.

  I shrugged out of my blankets and took it. It was good coffee for trail coffee.

  “Who are you?” I said after taking a drink.

  “Just a man in search of himself,” he said, then half smiled. “And I found you, which isn’t like finding me at all.”

  “I guess not.”

  “How did you get yoked?” he said. “It was an unusual sight—like a crucified man fallen from the cross.”

  “Maybe that’s who I am, Jesus, or somebody like that. Don’t it talk in the Bible about Him coming back?”

  He grunted, said, “Maybe. This is strange country. I’ve seen lots of unusual things since I’ve been here, but so far you’re the strangest.”

  “I’ve heard it said the land is full of spirits—that they live up on the mesas, lots of them, and that there are some who men believe can change shapes, go from men to becoming animals and vice versa.”

  “I’ve heard that too,” he said. “You believe it?”

  “I believe I’m not Jesus or anything close to it.”

  He shook his head.

  “I believe that too. You want some bacon?” He took the lid off an iron skillet and the smell of fried bacon made my belly crawl. He had a Dutch oven setting on a rack over the fire and took the lid off it too and there were half a dozen small brown biscuits baked together in it and he took one out and split it apart and forked on some of the bacon and handed it to me.

  We ate without saying much because I was so damn glad to have anything to eat I couldn’t think to talk.

  “How’d you come to be here?” I said after I ate two more of the biscuit sandwiches and swallowed down my first cup of coffee and refilled it.

  “How’d you?” he said.

  “Fair enough question.” I told him, and he listened.

  “They sound like a pretty tough bunch,” he said.

  “Tough enough.”

  I asked him if he knew where the town of Refugio was. He shook his head.

  “No, I’m new to this part of the country,” he said. “I came from north of here, the goldfields most recently.”

  “You a miner?”

  “No,” he said. “The farthest thing from it.”

  “I’m from Nebraska, myself,” I said. “I sort of wish now I’d stayed there.”

  “I bet you do.”

  “I think I’ve got a busted rib.”

  He nodded knowingly.

  “I think I will find what I’m looking for here,” he said, gazing at the mesas and the landscape of sage.

  “Well, what you might find is trouble,” I said.

  “Maybe, but I think there’s a reason I came here and I’m soon to find out.”

  “How will you know?” I said.

  “I am not sure, but I believe I will know when I find it.”

  Sun broke over the mesas and the air
was crisp and way off in the distance I could see snowcapped mountains.

  “You come across a town nearby lately?” I said. “Someplace I could maybe find a horse, a pistol? Those old boys robbed me of everything I owned including some of my dignity and I aim to go and get it back, but I’ll need a horse and a gun to do it.”

  He sat there squatting on his heels looking for all the world like a man in no hurry to be anywhere soon. He turned his head slightly.

  “I came across a small village a few miles back. It was just some Mexican people mostly, a church, a cantina, some casitas. I’m not even sure of what its name was or if it even had a name.”

  “Which way was it and how far do you reckon?”

  He shrugged. “Three or four miles, perhaps.”

  “Well, I might as well get started then. I’m not sure how to thank you for what you’ve done.”

  “No thanks necessary. I’m sure you would have done the same thing for me.”

  I’d like to think I would have but the way my life had been going, I’m not sure how much good I had in me.

  I stood slowly and it hurt still and I was sore from head to toe and my shoulders ached like hell and I wouldn’t have paid a nickel for me even if I had a nickel left, which I didn’t. I was broke and afoot and a man in my condition couldn’t get much worse off.

  I started to walk in the direction he had indicated.

  Then he said, “I can ride you back there,” and stood himself and tossed the remains of the coffee into the fire’s ashes, causing them to steam and hiss, and wiped his fry pan out with sand and put away his Dutch oven and all the rest into a large canvas sack, telling me I’d have to carry it if we were going to ride double.

  He had a fine black horse—a Morgan, I’d judge—that seemed too proud to even be a horse. It stood our weight and its owner clucked his tongue and we started off at an easy walk.

  We made the village in an hour and he was right about it—there wasn’t much there except what he’d said was there. All the buildings were adobe and some of the casitas had strings of red chilies hanging by the front doors and brown-skinned kids played in the only street and women stood at a community well with clay pots.