Here by the Bloods

by Brandon Boyce

  “I said it all square in the courtroom. Story is as you heard it.”

  “Of course, sir,” Standish turns his chair perceptibly toward me. “But I assure you our readership eagerly awaits any of the more vibrant details of your harrowing account, perhaps some juicy morsel, no matter how trivial, that would have been too scandalous to introduce during a formal legal proceeding?”

  I feel little need to respond. I let the silence fester, building on itself, for a long, lingering moment. Standish licks his lips like a hungry dog. Willis eyes me curiously. And Genevieve, for her part, allows her unguarded, cornflower eyes to bathe over me as I relish the power of the pause. “Seems like what the Snowman done is scandal enough,” I finally say.

  It is Willis who smiles first. “Well said, Mister Two-Trees.”

  “Well, should anything come to mind, sir, please look me up here at the hotel. The entire territory, make that the country, hungrily awaits the slightest as-of-yet-unrevealed detail.”

  All at once, a high, piercing sound assaults my eardrums. The water glass slips from my grasp and shatters on the floor. My fingers jam themselves into my ear canals to relieve the torment. The rest of the patrons, their mouths agape, clearly hear it too. A second later, the sound comes again, closer this time. I recover from the initial shock to my senses and identify the noise as the urgent scream of a Pinkerton whistle.

  My head snaps toward the window. Flying from my chair, I cross to the portal. Through the waving undulations of the cheap glass, I see that the disturbance emanates not from the jail, but from across the street, from Madam Brandywine’s. A cold knot of dread blooms in the pit of my stomach. The Madam herself, with blood streaked across her ghost-white skin, points toward her establishment as the Pinkerton man lays into his whistle a third time.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  One of the whores—Carmelita, judging by the meatiness of her grip—paws at me as I enter the front door. I bust free of her and bound full-steam up the stairs, gobbling them up four, five at a time.

  Scratch Gardner slumps against the far wall of the waiting room, putting all his faith in a sopping red bedsheet that holds his belly together. Two blood-splattered white girls tend to the gash in his neck. A man’s finger lies in a crimson puddle on the carpet, and a piece of another near that.

  I move toward Scratch. Every step sloshes in the stickiness of what was recently inside him. How he still breathes is a mystery. That his one good eye falls on me as I bend down next to him is nothing short of a miracle.

  “I tried, Harlan. His razor got the drop on me.” His razor.

  The cold knot of dread punches though my gut again—I feel like I am choking down a mouthful of river stones. I turn to Maria’s door, or what is left of it. Splintered wood litters the floor inside. The amber glow of her single lamp catches the dark stain where the water from the tub spilled over, soaking the rug. Maria’s arm hangs over the copper edge. I run in, bellowing some wordless sound, and pull Maria’s body from the water. She still wears her dress. Her raven hair shines black as pitch as it falls heavily from her face, exposing her bare neck and deep, bluing rings where his hands held her under. His vile blood drips from her fingernails. She fought him.

  “We heard her screaming,” says a woman’s voice, laced with tears, from behind me. It is Carmelita. “Jed Barnes come in here, stinking like a sewer. Madam tried to send him away while I run in the kitchen to fetch Scratch.” I turn Maria on her side and watch the water pour from her mouth and nose. Her sad, brown eyes stay fixed—wide as saucers—in the same tragic gaze that was her last. I cannot bear the sight.

  I close her eyes, wiping away the drops of water from her cold face as if they are her tears. But they are mine.

  “Jed musta knocked Madam aside and charged up here,” Carmelita continues. “He was hell-bent on Maria, calling, ‘Where’s that Mexican whore?’ Next I hear, Maria’s screaming for him to get out. That he stink and she want nothing to do with him. Then it was a scuffle from inside and Scratch come running up and kick the door in to get her. That’s when Jed turned on him with that razor.”

  I pick Maria up and lay her gently on the bed. This poor, sweet creature, the daughter of a Matamoros laundress. All she asked was that her men not stink and if you did she would draw a bath for you and pull off your boots. Jed Barnes took offense at that and gave her a bath instead. But had it not been that, it would have been some other slight, falsely perceived, that incited his murderous ways. He had no intention of bedding her. He came here to kill her, to hurt me through her. I swear by the spirit of my mother, by the one God of the sheriff and the white folks, by the law of nature that guides every man and fills my throat with the boiling lust for vengeance—the drunkard will not see another dawn.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The valley spreads before me like the soaring wings of a condor. The night will get brighter when the little eye rises, fat and amber, from behind the Sangres. But for now it is black. And in this cool, darkest window of night I free my mind from the poison of rage. I cannot dismiss the anger entirely, any more than I could absolve the scoundrel guilty of causing it, but a predator must hunt without emotion. Feelings are the burden of the hunted.

  Twenty minutes ago, Jed Barnes ran out the back door of Madam Brandywine’s and stole the first horse he came upon, a two-year-old palomino with an alabaster mane tied up outside the Jewel. This was confirmed by Merle, who saw Jed through the window. From there he headed west out of town, where I now find myself.

  To track him farther, I must weigh the limited options through his eyes. If I can assume the state of mind of a panicked mule deer or an injured bighorn, no reason I cannot put myself into the head of a drunken murderer atop an unfamiliar mount. Heavendale is too far. To attempt such a journey without water would mean to die by mid-morning. Jed Barnes knows this much, despite his addled brain. The Sangres are out of the question. Jed is no mountain man. And with nothing to trade, the Navajo would sooner kill him for his horse than lead him through their holy wilderness. The empty flask on his hip, no doubt, proves a powerful motivator. He needs whiskey to steady his nerves and people to give him cover.

  I angle the stallion slightly to the south and bring him to his quietest canter. I make it quarter past ten as the little eye crests the first peak. Storm demands to know where we are headed at such an hour. “Agua Verde,” I whisper. He answers with a grunt, accepting that this will be the last we speak on the matter. Silent as the snow.

  Only Merle knows I am out here, and he has the tight lips of a saloonkeeper. Well, Jed Barnes knows, but he will not be speaking of me or anything else ever again.

  Madam Brandywine has her hands full, what with the girls clinging to one another in the upstairs parlor, too frightened to take on new customers now that their security, Scratch Gardner, lies leaking all over the carpet.

  The Pinkertons, for all their bravado, will not be venturing into the night to track down some drunkard for the killing of a Mexican whore, especially if it means abandoning even a single post in the protection of their precious Snowman, who is set to swing in just over twelve hours. This mission falls on my shoulders alone. And that is fine by me.

  I hold Storm to his canter, the correct gait to run down Jed Barnes. If he has that palomino in a gallop, she will burn out in three miles and either collapse and die under his brutal spur, or defy him and break for the creek. Either way, the waxing moonlight will give him away. Eyes of a hawk. But if, as I suspect, he cannot maintain the gallop from an untrusting mare, he will have to trot, and thus wither under Storm’s punishing speed.

  A mile out of town, as the glow from the little eye begins to take hold in earnest, a shift in the wind forces me to reconsider my tactic. I pull back on Storm’s reins, bringing the stallion to an uneasy halt. Corrupting the air beneath the sweet scent of sage and creosote lurks the acrid, foul stench of human urine. I can smell him. Nose of a wolf.

  The breeze comes straight at me from the west, from the Sangres, but
this makes no sense. Could Jed Barnes be such a fool? The great mountains boast a thousand ways to kill a man, ways that only matter if he reaches them alive, and no one would bank on that. Between me and the Sangres’ nearest foothills lay twenty miles of unforgiving wasteland. Jed Barnes has no supplies, no shelter, and no skills of survival beyond his handiwork with a razor. For him to head into the vast heart of the valley would be sheer suicide. Perhaps his intent is to hide amongst the rocks and hardscrabble shrubs until I pass and then to sneak back into town. If so, he would make the Pinkertons’ job easy and would soon find himself sharing a bunk with the Snowman before his own date with the gallows.

  I sit there in the saddle, trying to figure the play, when all at once the answer comes singing across my ears. A train whistle blows faintly in the distance. Ears of a buck.

  Of course. The train. The night run of the Santa Fe–Duke lurches out from Heavendale at ten o’clock and rumbles across the valley to Agua Verde. There, it restocks the coal cars and thunders off again, bringing its bounty of copper and turquoise to points unknown. Jed Barnes means to hop it, the slick bastard, and stow away to freedom.

  I bank Storm due west and kick him up to an easy gallop, straight into the wind. The night train moves fast enough to suck a man under, should he try to grab hold while standing still. To jump a steaming locomotive, a body best be running alongside, or better yet, keeping pace atop a horse that does not spook. I cannot figure that a strange palomino would proffer such bravery for the likes of Jed Barnes. The scoundrel needs an alternative stratagem.

  I trace the tracks over in my mind. There stands hardly a tree more than waist-high along that line of rail until well near Agua Verde. Yet the rank odor assaulting my nose bears from a heading straight out toward the barrens, where the only hint of elevation is Hatchet Rock.

  The whistle cries louder. In no more than five minutes, the Santa Fe–Duke will pass the cleaved chunk of red rock that spikes from the ground like the weapon that bears its name. It will pass close enough to kiss it. An easy, running leap would land Jed Barnes safely into the salvation of an open-top coal car. I coax from Storm everything he can muster. We fly across the desert, letting the building wail of the churning steam engine hide the stallion’s thundering gallop.

  The billow of white vapor coughs from the tracks in the distance as the train’s headlamp glimmers like a tiny star on the horizon. Hatchet Rock, a slate-gray slab in the pale moonlight, erupts into view. I slide the Spencer from my shoulder without breaking Storm’s stride. No sooner do I chamber a round than I see a figure charging straight at me. It is the palomino, without her rider. The frightened animal, spooked into retreat by the growling locomotive, screeches in abject terror at the sight of Storm—a locomotive in his own right—head down and frothing at his bit. The palomino breaks left as Storm holds his line. And then I see him.

  Jed Barnes clamors up the side of the rock, his frame silhouetted by the headlamp. He slithers over the top edge and finds his legs with the nimble step of a rapidly sobering man. The train reaches the rock and jerks sideways, the track demanding its sharpest corner. Jed Barnes takes a running start for the far ledge, nearest the track. He throws himself into the air. I aim the Spencer, standing tall in the saddle, and squeeze off a round that would earn the approbation of the Snowman.

  Jed Barnes grabs his backside mid-flight and slams awkwardly against the top lip of a passing coal car. The coal cars whisk past the rock, carrying Jed with them. A mile of boxcars trails behind.

  Beneath the deafening roar of the engine, amplified by the natural resonating chamber of the rocks, I swing Storm alongside the train. I lose sight of Jed. One misstep from Storm, or the slightest whiff of panic, and the wheels would churn us to butter. But there has never been such a stallion. We pull next to a rail ladder and I have to ease back on the reins to keep Storm from overrunning it. I stow the Spencer and reach out with both hands. The force of the train carries me upward. Storm instinctively slows, letting the train do the work. The stallion grunts for my speedy return before banking off to safety.

  Clutching the rungs of the ladder, I scale up the side of the train, humbled by her bone-jangling power. Her deafening roar obscures the sound of my ascent, but would swallow any last-second prayer as well. Steam spews from the blastpipe, choking the air around me and cutting visibility to little more than a step or two.

  The boxcar roof lurches and kicks beneath my feet. Every step challenges my usual sure-footedness. The train is a beast. And I am at her mercy. But Jed Barnes must contend with her as well. For that, I take only small comfort. I crouch low, finding a stretch of clear air beneath the thick torrent of steam, and creep forward. The cloud of mist obscures the moonlight entirely and the tender car, three cars ahead, blacks out the weak backwash from the headlamp. The darkness is a blessing, as the pearl-handled Colt jutting from my fist attracts no attention.

  The nearest coal car, filled to overflowing with chunky shards of pitch, appears at my feet. I hesitate at the gap, where somewhere down below the hitch clatters menacingly, begging for an ill-placed bootstep to shred my flesh across the tracks. I leap onto the coal, sinking more than I expect. It is my first time atop a mound of coal, and my first time on a train. I move across the car. At each stride, the ground gives way beneath me like iced-over snow.

  The breach between this and the next car, a four-foot maw of blackness, will require momentum to traverse. I build as much speed as I can and throw myself into the air. Something shoots upward from the breach—a coal shovel—and catches my leg above the knee. Sharp pain spikes through my body, tilting me off my line. I brace for impact against the coal. The jagged chunks give hardly at all now, feeling more like razor-sharp teeth, as I slam into them.

  The Colt bounces from my hand across the pitch. I paw for the second Colt as I roll over onto my back. Jed Barnes climbs from the breach with one hand, gripping the coal shovel in the other. He stands upon the lip of the car, about to stomp down on me. I fire at his middle, rolling left as he falls toward me. The ugly clank of lead against steel cuts the air as my shot hits the only thing I did not want to hit—the damn coal shovel. The blade of it snags my hip. I hear a voice that must be my own cry out in pain. I roll to my feet and pray my hip goes with me. My own weight, pressing down on my pelvis, sends a current of agony deep into my bones.

  Jed Barnes rises from the coal, opting to continue with the newfound shovel instead of the trusty razor that got him this far. The folly of that decision drives me forward. He swings the shovel, club-like, unaccustomed to the awkward distribution of its mass. I backpedal as it misses me completely. I hurl a hooking left fist that finds the meat of his neck. My knee follows, burying itself squarely in his rib cage. Jed Barnes doubles over. I kick him in the face. He staggers to the side and falls down onto the coal. I turn back in search of the Colts, both of which lie somewhere among the obsidian snow.

  The nickel barrel catches a glint of moonlight before the blastpipe belches another cumulous yawn into the night. I snatch up the pistol and pivot back, raising the gun as I do so. Jed Barnes emerges from the fog, charging me at full bore. The shovel sits poised above his right shoulder like a woodsman’s ax about to be unleashed upon unsuspecting timber.

  Jed Barnes lets fly a haymaker blow. I parry to the side. He brushes past me. The momentum of his ungainly swing yanks him toward the edge of the car. I follow right behind with a mighty shove into his spine. A sound, something between a startled gasp and a child’s truculent whine, tells me the fight is over. Jed Barnes sails off the edge of the car, lands like a sack of flour on the desert floor, and rolls pell-mell to a broken-bodied halt.

  I move with purpose. A brief window of idleness from the blastpipe sends me scampering for my belongings. I holster the first Colt. The train hits a turn, kicking up a gust of air that sends my hat rolling toward me across the coal. I pluck it up and press it firmly onto my skull. I hurt in more places than I can count and am not done putting myself at pain’s doorstep. T
he second Colt rattles not far from where I dropped it—another blessing. I am halfway down the side ladder, the unfriendly ground speeding by, before the true understanding of what is about to happen sets in. I am going to jump from the most powerful machine man has ever created into the most treacherous landscape in God’s design, and the only thing breaking my fall will be prickly pear, and rocks, and an unshakable desire to see Jed Barnes dead. I pray for the little eye to protect me as I spring outward from the bottom rung. The night is cool. There is a brief whiff of sage. And then blackness.

  I open my eyes to a sky bursting with stars. The little eye is small. Night has set in. The Santa Fe–Duke whistles harmlessly in the distance. I sit up. Pain explodes from a hundred places, and somehow is so prevalent in my body that the sum of it keeps me from fussing too particular about any one spot. On the horizon, the blastpipe spews another mouthful of smoke. I was out for maybe a minute. Two legs. Two arms. Ten fingers. One aching right hip. All parts accounted for.

  Two guns. One hat. I stand up.

  Thank God for the tracks. They will lead me to him. My eyes, my ears, my nose can stand down. I do not know how long I walk. The throbbing in my skull pulses a steady, dull reminder of my landing. I hope I rolled when I hit. I meant to. I do not remember. I remember her face, though—sad and scared, even in death.

  She had a smile, Maria, a sweet little girl grin that would show itself in fleeting moments like the sun peeking through storm clouds. That girl had loved me. And I had bedded her, deposited her at her place of death, and gone off to get a shave to impress another man’s woman. A budding sickness in my stomach cripples me more than any of my injuries. The shirt I bought today on a vain and foolish lark clings sweaty and tattered and bloodstained to my guilty flesh. I did not love her as she wanted, for that I cannot apologize. But her death, in which I will forever be implicated, will haunt me.