The Cost of Dying

by Peter Brandvold

  Prophet helped Colter onto the ground near the bank of the wash. He retrieved the new bottle from his saddlebags, removed the burlap, and brought the bottle over to the redhead. He popped the cork and handed the bottle to the kid. “Take a couple pulls of that.”

  “Are you kiddin’? I’m still sick from Don de la Paz’s pulque.”

  “Hair of the dog that bit ya.”

  Weakly, Colter took the bottle, and then Prophet wandered off in search of wood for a fire. Fifteen minutes later, he had that fire burning a little too brightly. The wood he’d gathered was tinder dry, and he’d included some brush in it, just to make sure it went. It went, all right, so that now he looked out from the pulsating glow, hearing the windy, crackling sound of the flames, wondering how far away the conflagration might be visible.

  “Christalmighty, Lou,” Colter scolded. “You roastin’ a buffalo?”

  “I admit I overdone it a little.”

  Colter scowled and leaned back from the heat. The horses whickered where they stood ground-reined and sidled away.

  “It’ll burn down soon,” Prophet said, taking a knee beside his trail partner. “Now, let me see how much damage old Ruiz did to you, kid.”

  “Oh, leave me be, Lou,” Colter complained. “I’m . . .”

  “Yeah, I know, you’re fine. Now, hold still or I’m gonna tattoo ya with my pistol butt!”

  “Mother damn hen is what you are . . .” Colter took a pull from the bottle.

  Prophet did a quick inspection of the younker’s wounds, relieved to find that neither one was too severe. They’d be sore for a while, but they were mostly just bad burns, the one in the arm a little worse than the one on the thigh. Both bullets had punched out some flesh, but Prophet was able to clean the wounds with some cloth from his saddlebags with little problem.

  He sutured the one in Colter’s arm, only wrapped the one in his leg. The arm wound took six stitches, and the kid didn’t even flinch when the needle went in.

  Prophet had a feeling this wasn’t the redhead’s first rodeo. Colter Farrow couldn’t hold more than a teaspoonful of alcohol, but he’d probably sported enough lead over the years that if all melted down would have supplied ammo for a small army. That might be a slight exaggeration, he opined with a wry chuff as he pulled the last stitch taut, but the kid had ridden the wild ’n’ woolly—there was no doubt about that.

  Too bad about that tattoo on his cheek. That was the wound that grieved him most and likely would till they fitted him for his wooden overcoat . . .

  “Stop starin’ at me, Lou,” the redhead cajoled him, lowering the bottle after taking another pull.

  Prophet jerked his head away. He was putting his sewing kit back together and hadn’t realized he’d been staring. “Helkatoot.”

  “You know what hurts more than someone lookin’ at me like I’m a dog with a dead snake in its teeth?”

  “No, I don’t, but I reckon you’re gonna tell me.”

  “Someone lookin’ at me with pity in his eyes.”

  “Hell, Red.”

  “There you have it.”

  Feeling about as low as a sidewinder, Prophet returned his sewing kit to his saddlebags. “Let me get these hayburners tended and staked out, an’ I’ll put some beans on the fire.”

  “Forget it.” Colter set the bottle down and heaved himself to his feet. It was an awkward maneuver at best. Not only was he sore as hell from the wounds and then having them stitched, he’d chugged down a good third of the mezcal, by Prophet’s estimation. Setting his boots under him carefully, the redhead strode over to his own mount and grabbed the reins. Slurring his words slightly, he said, “The day I can’t tend my own corn grinder is the day they plant me.”

  “All right,” Prophet said, stripping his saddle from Mean and Ugly’s back. “It’s your plantin’.”

  As he tended the hammerheaded dun, he couldn’t help keeping an anxious eye on his wounded but defiant young partner, hoping he didn’t get his feet entangled and fall and thus open those wounds. Colter managed all right, though. He was a picture of angry insolence and boldness, stripping the tack from his mount, thoroughly rubbing it down with a scrap of burlap from his saddlebags, then filling his hat with water and setting it on the ground where the dun could drink.

  He stood a little uncertainly beside the horse, patting its withers but also furtively steadying himself as Northwest drew water from the hat. When the horse had had its fill, Colter picketed the mount where grass grew up along the edge of the wash, tying its halter rope to a picket pin, giving it room to move around as it foraged.

  Prophet was already back to the fire when the kid stumbled into the camp, looking drawn and weary, his hair in his eyes. He practically tripped over the toes of his boots, his spurs ringing loudly. He dropped to his knees where he’d piled his gear and unrolled his soogan, his hands fumbling with the leather straps.

  Prophet had started to make supper, but he needed a drink first. He picked up the bottle from where the kid had left it, popped the cork, and held it out. “Need a little more painkiller?”

  Colter shook his head, cursing as he continued to fumble with his soogan’s straps. Prophet wanted to help the younger man, but he didn’t want to offend him further.

  Finally, Colter got the straps untied. He rolled out his soogan and then knelt, staring down at the bedroll for a moment before looking across the fire, which had burned down considerably, at Prophet.

  “Sorry about snapping at you, Lou. I was just bein’ a sorehead. I was feeling sorry for myself.”

  “You got a right.”

  “That was the busthead talkin’. Go easy on that stuff. It’s got some pop to it. I’m seein’ two of everything, and three of you.”

  “Hell, one’s too many of me.”

  Colter plopped down on his soogan, resting his head back against the woolly underside of his saddle. He snaked his arm across his forehead and lay staring up at the fire’s cinders that glowed until they turned to gray ashes against the black velvet sky.

  Prophet took a long pull from the mezcal bottle. Good stuff. It instantly filed the edges off this trying day. He took another drink and then looked at the redhead lying there staring up at the sky. Colter was thinking about something.

  Or someone.

  Lou decided to play a hunch and risk sticking his foot in his mouth again. What the hell? He was used to the taste of boot leather.

  “Say, Red, can I ask you a personal question?”

  “Try me.”

  “Did you leave a girl back in them mountains?”

  Colter continued to stare at the sky. “Yeah.” In fact, it was she he was thinking about. But, then, Prophet likely knew that. Marianna Claymore was her name. “We were gonna be married. That was three years ago now. She married someone else. Has a little boy.”

  “That’s tough.”

  “It’s the way it is.”

  “Still, it’s tough.”

  Colter turned his head to scowl at the big man lounging on the other side of the fire. “Damnit, I’m tryin’ not to feel sorry for myself anymore!”

  “Good night, Red.”

  “Night,” Colter grouched, then rolled over and folded his arms across his chest. He must have fallen instantly asleep, for he started breathing deeply, slowly, each breath rattling in his throat.

  “Still, it’s tough,” Lou repeated quietly to himself, and took another deep pull off the bottle.

  He took another pull . . . and another. He looked at the bottle. There were two bottles now before him, along with two of his own hands holding it though he was sure he was holding it with only his right hand. So he was seeing two bottles held by two right hands before him.

  “Damn good stuff,” he repeated, his words garbled even in his own ears. “But the younker was right. Goes down smooth then kicks like a mule . . .”

  He finished off the bottle but didn’t remember even setting it down after his last pull before a thick veil of sleep closed over him. He woke with a dul
l ache in his head. His tongue felt like a dried-up snake in his mouth. He opened his eyes then quickly closed them again, for harsh sunlight assaulted him, feeling like miniature, razor-edged spears stabbing his eyes.

  The sunlight reflected off the red desert sand and gravel only inches from his face.

  Wait. Something was wrong. His face shouldn’t be that close to the gravel, nor in the position it seemed to be in.

  He slitted his eyelids, looked around against the painful assault of the bright desert light. He saw ants toiling in the sand around him, just inches away from his eyes. They were so close he could see their itty-bitty little heads and feet, their itty-bitty little threadlike bodies.

  He tried to rise.

  No doing.

  He couldn’t move his arms or his legs. They were weighed down, held taut against him. He couldn’t even move his fingers.

  He was dreaming, of course. It was one of those dreams where you try to talk but your tongue is too heavy, and you try to move but your limbs are too heavy, too.

  As his eyes adjusted in small increments to the light’s vengeful assault, his heart thudded and cold blood pooled in his belly. He was not dreaming.

  A silent scream ripped through his head, deafening him.

  The reason the ground looked so close, including the many little ants . . . and the reason he couldn’t move a damn thing on his body . . . was because he’d been planted up to his neck in the desert!

  Chapter 24

  Voices rose around Prophet. He could barely hear them above the horrified screeching in his own ears. His lifted his eyes from the ground that was snugged up close to his chin and saw several men milling around him.

  Several men in the dove gray uniforms of rurales . . .

  Of all the rotten luck.

  One was looking at him. This man turned and said something in Spanish to the others and which Prophet translated as, “Look over here—this one’s awake.” Or some such.

  Several others turned toward Prophet from where they were milling around nearby, holding tin cups in their hands. Prophet saw smoke billowing around the rurales and then, sliding his eyes to his left, saw that some animal was spitted over a fire. It looked like a javelina. It smelled like one, too. The smell of roasting wild pig would have smelled more savory had Prophet not woken to find himself buried up to his pea-pickin’ neck.

  More men were sitting or lounging around the fire, and now they rose heavily to move in close to where Prophet’s head stuck up out of the ground like a sandy-haired turnip. Squinting as he gazed straight out before him, he saw that his was not the only head poking up out of the ground. The red head straight out before him, facing him from maybe ten feet away, belonged to Colter Farrow.

  As the rurales closed around Prophet, panic swept through him, his heart racing. He desperately tried to move his arms and legs, but it was as though he were swathed in cement.

  One of the rurales walked up to him. He was tall with a thick salt-and-pepper mustache and goatee. His face was long and very dark and the deep-sunk eyes were small, black chips of obsidian. He was not wearing the traditional tunic in this heat but only a sweat-stained gray undershirt and red suspenders that held his gray wool trousers up on his broad hips.

  “Ah hell,” Prophet said, crestfallen. “Sergeant Casal . . . long time, no hear from. You should write more. We were getting worried back home.” He sounded much less anxious than he felt. Being buried alive was the stuff of nightmares. But wailing about it in front of these Mexicans would only add insult to injury, and probably even more torment, as well.

  Sergeant Alonzo Casal usually rode with Lieutenant Ruiz. In the back of his mind, Prophet had wondered about Casal when he hadn’t seen him with Ruiz. Now he knew that the man had likely been one of the group that had gone over to the hurdy-gurdy house to get their ashes hauled while the lieutenant gambled in La Princesa.

  Casal tipped up the clear bottle in his hand and took a long drink. He pulled the bottle down, smacked his lips, wiped the hand holding the bottle across his mouth, and smiled at Prophet. The sergeant’s eyes flashed drunkenly from the tarantula juice. “Lou, how are you, mi amigo?”

  “Me?” Prophet tried to shrug but he couldn’t move his shoulders. “Fine as frog hair split four ways. Yourself?”

  “Well, to be honest, Lou, it would take some pretty sour luck for me to be in worse condition than you, my friend.”

  “Nah!”

  Casal nodded soberly though his eyes were far from sober. “Sí, amigo. I think so. A few more shovelfuls of sand and you’ll be all covered up in madre tierra.”

  “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” Prophet said. “I’m at home right here.”

  A whiptail lizard ran past Prophet, about four inches from his chin, and made a little trail in the sand before it disappeared in some brush to the bounty hunter’s left.

  Casal chuckled. The other rurales—there were around ten or so, by Prophet’s quick, distracted count—looked on with the dubious expressions of men who weren’t quite able to follow the English that Prophet and Casal were speaking. Maybe a couple did, judging by their knowing smiles, but most hadn’t followed, Prophet thought, though he had far more important things to think about . . . worry about . . . at the moment.

  “Can I ask you a question, Sergeant?”

  “Sure, sure, mi amigo. Ask me anything. That is what I am here for—to answer your foolish gringo questions.”

  Things hadn’t gone well lately for Lou and Colter Farrow, and it didn’t look like they were going to get any better real soon. The sergeant’s tone had been nothing less than peevish.

  Prophet narrowed one eye as he stared up at the rurale scowling down at him. “How in the . . . how did you manage to . . .”

  “Locate you and bury you?” Casal grinned, showing several rotten teeth. “As you slept like little babies . . . ?” He canted his head against his bottle and briefly closed his eyes, pantomiming a sleeping infant.

  “I don’t remember a damn thing last night, after . . . I . . .” Now it was starting to come clear. “After I finished that bottle of stump juice.”

  “Gringos should never drink Señor Anaya’s mezcal, cabrón!”

  “Now ya tell me.”

  “Spiked.” The word had sounded like a croak. At first, Prophet thought it had been croaked out by one of the rurales. But, no. It had come from straight out in front of him. Colter had croaked out the single word. The redhead’s eyes were open; he was squinting into the sun in the same way Prophet was.

  “The barman,” Prophet said. “Gave us a bad bottle.”

  “Sí, sí,” said the sergeant. “You see—Señor Anaya sells spiked liquor to gringos so that his putas can rob them after they pass out. The poison is Señor Anaya’s dear mama’s concoction. It contains all sorts of nasty stuff, including the oil of a rare poisonous mushroom, if I remember correctly. Men have been known to go blind before they die. You see, robbing gringos was a sideline for Anaya’s madre, an old bruja. That stuff creeps up on you very slowly, but then—wham!—you are out like a blown lamp. The putas usually cut the gringos’ throats and then Anaya carts them into the desert and tosses them to the pumas.”

  “Gee,” Lou said, squinting over at Colter. “Pilar and Roselle both seemed so nice.”

  “You really angered Señor Anaya last night, Lou,” the sergeant continued. “It was the mess you made. So much blood! ¡Tanta sangre! As soon as we rode over after hearing the gunfire, he sicced us on you right away. He didn’t even demand his cut!”

  Casal laughed delightedly through his teeth. “When we rode up on you, your horses were going wild but you two were really sawing logs. When we got close, following your tracks, it was your snoring that finally led us to you. And then the whinnies of your horses as they tried to wake you two gringo fools!”

  The sergeant threw his head back and laughed some more. The other rurales laughed, as well, though Prophet doubted they knew what they were laughing about.

  When the laughter
died, Casal stared angrily down at Prophet again. He straightened, stepped to one side, then pulled his right boot back. He shot the boot forward, slamming its toe into Prophet’s left ear.

  “Ow!”

  Casal turned toward Colter. He stared angrily down at the redhead for a moment, then walked over to him and kicked his right ear.

  “Ow!” Colter said.

  “There,” Casal said. “That is what I think of you two!” He staggered around as he regaled his prisoners, shuttling his gaze between Lou and Colter, holding his bottle almost tenderly in the crook of one arm. “You come into my country without permission, and you shoot Lieutenant Ruiz and our fellow rurales and leave them in bloody piles on a cantina floor!”

  Oh boy, Prophet thought. This is going south fast . . . not that it was ever north.

  Casal squatted between the two men and to one side, where he could keep an eye on them both though neither was going anywhere. “Tell me, Lou, what are you doing down here, huh? Who are you chasing?”

  “What makes you think I’m chasing anyone?”

  “You’re always chasing somebody, Lou. You are a bounty hunter!”

  “I just came down here to enjoy your purty señoritas,” Prophet said. “And to avoid that nasty weather we’ll have up north in a month or two.”

  “No, no.” Casal shook his head. “I don’t believe you. If you were down here purely for the señoritas, you would either be over on the ocean or on the Sea of Cortez. That is where the purtiest señoritas are. And the most comfort. No, no. You are out here”—he looked around at the sun-blasted rocks and wiry brush and cactus—“on this blister on el diablo’s ass . . . and that means you are on the trail of someone.” He paused, focusing his bleary, drunken gaze on the bounty hunter. “Who? And . . . how much is on his head?”

  Greed flashed in the rurale’s eyes.

  “Ciaran Yeats,” Colter said.

  Prophet looked at his partner. Colter looked back at him. Prophet thought that Colter might have shrugged if shrugging were possible in their current states, but instead Colter just stared back at him without expression.