The Cost of Dying

by Peter Brandvold

  He turned to snarl and roar, lion-like, at the six girls who scrambled to their feet and came running to the table. They were all dressed in frilly, colorful underwear that didn’t cover more than a third of any of them. Two were sobbing as they approached the table. They’d obviously incurred their master’s wrath before. They all appeared nearly as pie-eyed as Yeats himself, so they clumsily began gathering up some of the relics and scraps of several past meals.

  One of the girls approached the table on Yeats’s right side. He grabbed a handful of her hair, bellowed another curse, and slammed her forward against the table. If she hadn’t managed to brace herself with her hands, her head would have slammed violently into the debris remaining there.

  Colter jerked forward but Lou held his arm out in front of him, holding him back.

  “What did I tell you?” Yeats fairly shrieked. His thick, curly red hair liberally spotted with gray danced madly about his head, and spittle flecked his thick mustache and the tangled mess of his red-gray beard. “Did I not tell you two days ago to get rid of this mess?”

  Tears streaming down the girl’s cheeks—they were all crying now—she gathered several pots and plates and ollas and straw demijohns up in her arms and scrambled toward the adjoining room, scraps tumbling from the mess in her arms to land on the carpeted floor. Not stopping, she ran into the other room, followed by the other girls sobbing over the refuse they cradled in their arms.

  Yeats turned to Prophet and Colter, a vein still swollen in his high, ruddy, lightly freckled forehead above two large, glassy blue eyes that peered over the round, steel-framed spectacles sagging low on his thick nose. “How do you like that? I give these girls a home. I give them all the spice they want even though I’ve been running low for the past several weeks, and I need the stuff to stay alive! And this”—he held out his hand to indicate the litter-strewn table—“this is how they treat me!”

  Three days’ worth of leavings, eh? Prophet silently ruminated. Ciaran Yeats might have lived here like the king of his castle. But, obviously, chaos reigned. The Mad Major was indeed mad. Mad as a hatter or a tree full of owls in a lightning storm, Lou’s old ma would have called him.

  Savage, too.

  He’d kidnapped these girls from all over Baja, got them addicted to the locoweed, enslaved them to him and his men to fulfill their wishes both in and out of their mattress sacks, and he thought they were indebted to him.

  The man needed a bullet. Prophet was aching to give it to him. He just needed the right time and the right place. He also needed to find Alejandra de la Paz . . .

  Where could she be?

  Yeats looked down at the still-cluttered table, sighing and wagging his head. Finally, he leaned forward and ran his forearm across the table, sweeping a good third of the remaining debris onto the floor, including scrap-littered plates and ashtrays and half-filled cups.

  “There now!” he intoned heartily. “They have an even bigger mess to clean up for their sloth!” He waved impatiently at the men holding the panniers around their necks. “Come now, come now! Throw those beauties onto the table and let me see what you have for me, Jack! Is it good stuff? Of course it is. That’s why I buy from you exclusively, Jack. You’re the best spice farmer on the peninsula. What you lack in looks and stature you atone for by rising to the lofty heights of the locoweed-growing gods!”

  Baja Jack appeared to have forgotten his thirst for the moment. Waddling up to the table, he was grinning and blushing like a virgin bride. He was breathless as usual, as though the mere act of walking six feet on his bandy legs was exhausting.

  When the men had unstrapped the panniers, Jack scowled and waved at them, giving them their leave. They flushed a little, indignant, then turned and made their way back across the room but not before casting lusty glances behind them, no doubt hoping for another peek at the dusky-skinned, mostly naked señoritas, who were understandably taking their time returning to the room.

  They probably figured Yeats had forgotten about them. And it appeared that he had. His fleshy face with its rheumy, bespectacled eyes was aglow as he leaned over to slide one of the panniers toward him. He lifted the bag, hefting it, judging its weight, then opened the flap and peered inside.

  He arched a brow as though in preliminary approval.

  He shoved his right hand inside, raised a scoop of the green buds to the top of the bag, and fingered them, his brows hooding with concentration. He raked his thumb across the buds in the palm of his large, fleshy hand, making a soft raking, crunching sound.

  “Hmm.”

  He opened his hand, letting the spice drop back into the bag. He lowered his thick nose to the open top of the bag, closed his eyes, and drew a slow, deep breath. He lifted his face, keeping his eyes closed and his chest swollen with the trapped inhalation.

  Finally, he released the breath then repeated the action, dipping his nose into the bag again, closing his eyes, and drawing a slow, deep breath and holding it.

  He didn’t hold it for as long this time before releasing it and handing the bag over to Will-John Rhodes standing to his right. Rhodes went through a similar process as Yeats, who repeated his own ceremony on each of the other bags. He was in no hurry. He was taking his time, giving each pannier a thorough evaluation.

  Prophet sensed Baja Jack’s anxiety and saw it on the man’s gnomelike features. Jack’s head, still adorned by his black velvet, silver-embroidered, wagon-wheel sombrero, the thong drawn up taut beneath his chin, stared up at Yeats, his eyes wide, even the crossed one, which was angled toward the tip of his nose. He looked like a boy, albeit one with a gargoyle’s face, staring up at a temperamental, arbitrary father in anticipation of long-sought praise.

  Several beads of sweat cut through the dust on Jack’s narrow, unshaven cheeks and rolled down over his jawline.

  When Yeats had evaluated the last bag, he handed it to Will-John Rhodes. So far, the Mad Major had given no indication of the status of his evaluation aside from the occasional, intermittent, “Hmm,” or just as obscure, “Uh-huh.”

  Rhodes, a tall, brooding man whose taciturnity seemed to go hand-in-hand with the darkness of his features and the frosty, gray-blue remoteness of his eyes, hadn’t even given that much of a response. His face, which lacked definition aside from the unsettling eyes, had not betrayed even a trace of his thoughts on the matter of Baja Jack’s locoweed.

  Yeats kept his oblique eyes on Rhodes.

  When Rhodes had finished evaluating the last pannier, he carefully strapped the flap closed, set the bag on the table, glanced at Yeats, and raised both his eyebrows maybe a quarter of an inch. That was his only response. It seemed to be enough for Yeats.

  The Mad Major turned to face Baja Jack staring up at him like a tongue-tied gargoyle with the legs of a dwarf. Jack’s lower jaw hung. Yeats scowled down at him, his lumpy chest rising and falling sharply behind his frilly, white cotton shirt that was unbuttoned halfway down his chest to where his pale belly began to bulge sharply.

  Jack swallowed under the severity of Yeats’s gaze.

  Yeats planted his fists on his hips and leaned slightly forward at the waist, furling his brows as though with great disdain. “Baja Jack, you ugly little rascal—you know what I oughta do to you?”

  Again, Jack swallowed. He blinked once, his crossed eye nearly straightening for a moment before rolling back to stare at the tip of his long nose. He opened his thin-lipped mouth to speak but appeared unable to find his voice. Yeats spared him a further pained attempt.

  The man’s face suddenly broke into a broad smile and he said, “I oughta pick you up off the damn floor and plant a big old wet kiss right on your rancid mouth, and that’s exactly what I’d do if you didn’t smell like a dead javelina!”

  Yeats laughed.

  Jack beamed.

  Chapter 36

  The Mad Major drew Baja Jack close against him in a hug of sorts. Since Jack’s head didn’t come up much past the bulge of Yeats’s sagging paunch, it was a bizarre th
ing to see. They resembled a father hugging his child. At least from a distance it would have looked that way.

  Unfortunately, Prophet was close enough that he could see the pair all too closely—Yeats smiling approvingly down at Baja Jack staring up at him, blushing, that one wacky eye drawn toward his long, hooked nose.

  Lou thought that for his many sundry sins, he’d likely be condemned to remember the scene in vivid details on his deathbed.

  He looked away quickly, blinking, trying to keep the image from burning into his brain.

  Baja Jack cackled his crowlike laugh and bellowed, “Ah hell, Major. I’m just glad you like the stuff, and, uh . . . uh . . . well . . .” He gave a nervous chuckle as he raised his thick little right hand and rubbed his thumb and index finger together. He winked.

  “Oh, of course! Of course!” Yeats laughed raucously then turned to Will-John Rhodes. “Lieutenant Rhodes, will you please see to Baja Jack’s compensation?”

  “Of course, Major,” Rhodes said, glancing at Jack still beaming like the boy who’d built the flashiest kite. “Right this way, Jack.”

  “Right behind you, Lieutenant!”

  When Baja Jack had followed Rhodes out of the room and into the adjoining one and then beyond that one, Ciaran Yeats turned to Lou and Colter. He studied each man carefully, frowning suspiciously. Lou and the redhead didn’t say anything, just cut each other skeptical, edgy glances under their quarry’s careful scrutiny.

  Suddenly, Yeats raised an arm, gesturing toward the mess of sofas and chairs near the fire, and said, “Please, please, gentlemen. Let’s have a seat and get to know each other, shall we?”

  He turned to one of the Mexican girls—the only who’d returned to clear the table and was gathering up more plates and dishes now, tentatively, fearfully.

  “Chiquita,” Yeats said, moderating his tone this time, “bring me an olla of the grape pulque and one of the mezcal, por favor. And please apologize to the other girls for me, will you? They should be used to my temper by now, for crying in the queen’s ale. Assure them that I didn’t mean to hurt their feelings.” Like any good bully, he appeared weary at having to sooth the nerves of those overly sensitive enough to be offended by his perhaps headstrong but otherwise benign words and deeds.

  A little more of the former steel returned to his voice as he added, “Please tell them to toughen up a little, and for God’s sakes get back out here and get this table cleared. Then I want you all to haul your skinny little brown bean-eating asses outside to the cookfires and rustle me up a decent meal for a change. A meal for me and the lieutenant and for Baja Jack and my new friends.” He threw his arm out again, indicating Lou and Colter. “And please, please, please—a little efficiency for a change? Do not embarrass me this evening—por favor, I beg you, chiquita!”

  He clapped his hands together and steepled them beneath his bearded chin, closing his eyes as though in prayer for calm.

  With her arms full the girl hustled out of the room.

  Lou and Colter shared another furtively conferring glance.

  Crazier’n a privy rat . . .

  Yeats looked around the table, found a plate that wasn’t as overburdened as the others, and dumped the debris off it. He reached into one of the panniers and crumbled a handful of the locoweed onto the plate. He placed some shredded corn husks onto the plate, as well, and then led Lou and Colter over to the fireplace.

  “Sit, gentlemen,” Yeats said, collapsing with a sigh onto the sofa on which he’d been sitting before. “Sit and take a load off. You’ve had a long ride and, apparently, one that was not without trouble.” He glanced meaningfully over the rims of his spectacles at Prophet.

  “I reckon you could say that,” Lou said, grimly fingering his swollen left eye.

  “Gato, eh?”

  “We weren’t formally introduced.”

  “Thank you for scouring the trail of that vermin, Mr. Prophet. Any enemy of Baja Jack is an enemy of mine.”

  “Call me Lou.”

  “All right, then. Lou it is. And you’re . . .”

  The redhead shrugged. “Since we’re all getting friendly, I reckon you might as well call me Colter. Or . . .” He cast an ironic glance at Lou. “Red will do, I reckon. Since most folks end up calling me that sooner or later, anyways.”

  Prophet hooked a wry half smile.

  One of the young señoritas brought in two clay ollas and set them on the low table between Yeats and Lou and Colter, who both sat on the couch that Rhodes had been occupying when they’d entered the apartment. Another girl carried a tray holding three clay cups without handles into the room. She set the tray on the table beside the two pots and then in a voice so soft that Prophet could barely hear her, she asked Yeats if he wanted her to pour.

  Yeats didn’t look at her. He merely threw up his arm as though in disgust. The señoritas obviously took that as their signal to leave, which they did, nearly tripping over each other to exit the room.

  “Girls that age,” Yeats chuffed. “Good for one thing and they’re not all that good even at that. You have to teach them every damned move. If you take them any older down here, though, they’ve had niños—they drop them at sixteen, seventeen years old, even younger—and their bodies have already gone to seed.” He shook his head in disgust.

  “Help yourselves, gentlemen.” The Mad Major tapped each pot in turn. “Mezcal and the obligatory pulque, ancient drink of the Aztecs. The Spanish conquerors turned up their noses at it, preferring wine instead. A superior race, the Spanish. Too bad so many mingled with the Aztecs, giving us the lower class of mongrel now running things—or trying to run things—in Mexico.”

  “I reckon I’ll go with the mezcal, then,” Prophet said in a wistful tone, leaning forward and lifting the wooden ladle from the mezcal pot.

  He held the ladle up to Colter and arched an inquiring brow.

  Colter winced, probably remembering his previous encounter with the thunder juice. Not wanting to seem impolite or worse, weak, he said, “Fill ’er up.”

  “Cure what ails you,” Yeats said, apparently having noticed the redhead’s reluctance.

  Lou ladled mezcal into a cup and gave it to Colter.

  “Mezcal, Major?” Prophet asked.

  “Why not?”

  When Lou had ladled up one cup for Yeats and one for himself, he sat back in the heavy sofa of worn, cracked bull hide and sipped the smooth liquor. The mezcal did a good job of cutting the trail dust and easing the aches and pains he still suffered from his encounter with the half-Pima, Gato. It did not, however, relieve his tension. That was all right. He needed to keep his edge here in this veritable devil’s den, facing the devil himself and wondering where in hell Alejandra de la Paz might be.

  Yeats was fussily grinding the weed buds between his fingers, making sure all the bits of the weed tumbled back onto the plate. He looked up frequently, curiously at Colter. “Besides your non-preference for spiritous liquids, the scar makes you distinctive. You killed the man who gave it to you?”

  “Sure as tootin’.”

  “A sheriff ?”

  “Yep.”

  “An outlaw sheriff ?”

  “He killed my foster father.”

  “I am sorry to hear that.”

  Colter didn’t respond to that. He just sat with his knees spread, his hat hooked on one of them, his drink resting on the other one, staring at the man’s careful work with the weed, which Yeats was now rolling into a fat cigarette.

  Yeats looked over his sagging spectacles at him again. “You’re wanted by the law? Up north?”

  “That’s right.”

  Yeats slid his rheumy, uncertain gaze to Prophet. “How about you, Lou? Are you wanted, as well?”

  Prophet reflected none too fondly on Buzzard Gulch and Roscoe Rodane. With a weary sigh, he said, “The jake had it comin’—both barrels.”

  Yeats laughed as he deftly rolled the big, green cylinder closed. “They all do, don’t they?”

  “Some more
than others.”

  Yeats laughed even louder at that.

  He sank back into his couch and glanced over at the table, which all half-dozen girls were administering to once more. It was a long table and, judging by the smell of rotten food that hung in the room beneath the grassy aroma of the weed, probably hadn’t been tended for days.

  Yeats barked at the chiquitas for a light, making them all leap with a start. One grabbed a match from a box, scratched it to life on the table, then came over, cupping the flame tenderly in the palm of her hand. Her hands shaking, she touched the flame to the end of Yeats’s stogie.

  When he had the big cylinder burning, filling the air with the heavy aroma of fresh-cut alfalfa, the girl returned to her work and Yeats leaned back against the sofa, turning slightly to one side and crossing one of his jodhpur-clad legs over his other knee.

  He studied the ridiculously large cylinder in his large, soft hands—hands that hadn’t known real work in a long time—then lifted it to his lips. He drew deeply on the quirley, making the coal glow for nearly fifteen seconds.

  Prophet almost coughed, imagining the harsh smoke filling the man’s lungs. Yeats was accustomed to it. His eyes glazed as he stared off across the room beyond Lou and Colter sitting across the table from him. His mouth corners rose dreamily. He held the smoke for maybe ten seconds before he lifted his chin, gathered his mouth into a near-perfect circle, then parted his lips, blowing a thin, transparent plume of the skunky-smelling smoke into the air over Lou and Colter’s heads.

  “You can never really tell how good the weed is until you’ve taken the smoke deep into your chest. You really need to bathe the old ticker in it.” Yeats looked at the quirley’s coal again as he held the cylinder straight up and down between his thumb and index finger. He smiled, nodded. “That ugly little mestizo is one hell of a farmer, I’ll give him that.”