(1986) Deadwood (17 page)

Bill shrugged and reached for another glass of pink gin. There was a line of them waiting for him now as long as his forearm, and Charley knew he would drink them all with no visible effect. "You don't need the best hunter in Colorado to shoot moose that kiss you in the ear," Charley said.

"There's grizzly up there too," Captain Jack said, like that was free dessert.

Charley covered his eyes and tried to picture scrambling up a tree in front of Captain Jack Crawford, armed. "It isn't a good time of year to be encountering grizzly," he said. "A she-rip with cubs, the Indians'll be kinder to your body."

Captain Jack turned back to Bill, who had finished the gin in his hand and was reaching for another. "I predicted he wouldn't want to go," he said. The hail was coming heavier now, and with the noise of it on the roof, Charley could barely hear them.

Bill looked at Captain Jack, then back at Charley. "A hunt might not be so bad," he said. "The exercise relieves the shakes in your blood."

"We always hunted alone," Charley said.

"Just us and Jack," Bill said. "Jack's hunted moose with Custer ..."

Charley saw that Bill was asking him for something now, and he'd never told Bill no in his life. He said, "I suppose I could use some fresh air," and it was settled.

Captain Jack called the bartender over and bought Charley a shot of brown whiskey. He stationed himself on one side of Charley, Bill was on the other, and offered his glass of milk for Bill to toast. That left Charley in the middle, and he didn't have any choice but to join them. "To the moose," Captain Jack said.

Bill touched the glasses and killed another gin and bitters. "To ear-kissers everywhere," Charley said.

The storm lasted. Bill won fifteen dollars playing poker and drank free all night after shooting a beer glass off Pink Buford's bulldog's head. When things quieted, Captain Jack told the story again of Brick Pomeroy catching up with the greaser in Crook City. "Shot him four times, right, partner? Four?"

Brick Pomeroy was drinking pink gin too. He said four was the right number, but he wasn't anxious to tell it again. "I ain't even sure the greaser ought to be dead," he said.

Captain Jack bought him a drink and got himself another milk. "Modesty is a rare virtue in this country," he said, "and a welcome one."

They stayed at Nuttall and Mann's until the storm quit. Until Bill was half asleep and Charley was so drunk he'd begun to see what Bill liked about Captain Jack Crawford. He didn't know what time it was, but somewhere late in the night Charley noticed the sound of the wind and rain was gone. He walked outside and the hailstones had melted.

"If we're truly going to hunt moose tomorrow," he said to Bill, "we ought to close our eyes a while first." Bill never said a word. He just got up off his chair and walked back to camp. They went single file, Bill, Charley, and Pink Buford's bulldog. Bill climbed into his bedroll without taking off his boots. The dog curled up into his chin. One of them began to snore, and then the other. Charley couldn't tell which snore belonged to which party.

Charley took off his guns and boots and clothes, and washed. The creek was ice cold from the storm. He put his face a few inches above the water and rinsed it again and again, cupping the water in his hands. He did that until his cheeks went numb. Then he quit, and it felt like needle points all over his cheeks, and the life began to come back.

He brushed out his bedding in the small tent he was sleeping in now, with the boy in the wagon. Thinking of the boy, he looked in to make sure he was covered. It was darker in there than outside, reminding him of the kiln, and it took Charley's eyes a minute to adjust. Then he saw the boy, lying open-eyed in the dark, staring at him. His head was cradled in the armpit of Calamity Jane Can-nary, who was sound asleep, and looked happier than Charley had ever seen her before.

It was a few minutes after daybreak when captain jack came for them. He was wearing two guns on his belt, and had packed a Springfield needle rifle and a scattergun in his saddle. He was wearing more ammunition than a Mexican.

The sound of the horses woke Charley up, but Bill was already awake, sitting on the stump he favored, rubbing himself with mercury. If Captain Jack noticed Bill had silver skin, he didn't say so.

They went from Charley's camp to the north end of town to pick up two of his mules. It wasn't until they were in the grazing field that Charley remembered the celestial they'd left in the kiln. He got off his horse and handed the reins to Captain Jack. "You wait here," he said. "Bill and I got something to talk over."

Bill looked at Charley a minute, then got off his horse too. They walked off in the direction of the mules, and the kiln, which was black and undeniable in the corner of the clearing. Behind them, Captain Jack was in a hurry to get on with the moose-killing. "We don't need pack animals, boys," he said.

Charley turned around and said, "Are these creatures of yours friendly enough to accompany us back so we can shoot them here?"

He and Bill walked the rest of the way without a word. The ground was soaked, and their moccasins made wet noises as they went. The mules were tethered about a hundred feet from the kiln, and when they got to the animals Charley allowed himself a look back at Captain Jack. "How could we forget the celestial?" Bill said, no more than a whisper.

"It was the drinking," Charley said.

Bill nodded. "I wish to hell I had something in my hand right now," he said. Charley untied two of the mules, Bill stood looking at the kiln. He said, "I never forgot something of this nature in my life."

They walked the last hundred feet to the kiln and Charley opened it. First the top door, then the bottom. He stared inside for what seemed like a long time, then he closed the doors in the same order he'd opened them. He took one of the mules from Bill and started back toward the other end of the clearing, where Captain Jack was waiting.

"Somebody's watching," Bill said.

Charley didn't argue or ask who. He fell in next to Bill and walked. "You know where they are?" he said, into his shirt.

Bill looked straight ahead. "No, just that they're there."

"Who is it?"

"I don't know," Bill said.

Before they got to Captain Jack, Charley said, "The kiln's empty."

Bill said, "There has to be ashes." Charley said, "No there doesn't."

They followed the wagon trail south into the hills, keeping to one side or the other, more to stay out of the mud than to hide from Indians. At noon they left the trail and went east. "An Indian showed me this place," Captain Jack said. "I expect he's gone bad too, like the rest." He looked around at the Hills. "I wouldn't mind running into a redskin or two today," he said.

Bill hadn't spoken since they left the clearing and the kiln. They came to a flooded creek and followed it south most of the afternoon. When they stopped, Bill walked off into the bushes for half an hour.

Captain Jack got off his horse and pointed south. "About a mile down, it widens," he said to Charley, "just a few hundred yards. The water gets deep, and there's a little island out in the middle of it, all by itself. That's where the moose are."

"You didn't say anything about an island," Charley said. It was a queer thing for a man who spent so much of his life in water, but Charley couldn't swim a stroke. He thought his body sank because it had inner heaviness.

Captain Jack smiled. "I got a canoe," he said. "The same redskin showed me this place sold me his canoe."

The word canoe set off a panic in Charley. "If you wanted," Captain Jack was saying, "you could pick them off from this side with the Springfield, and then paddle over and pick them up. They'll come right to the edge of the island to see what we are."

"Some sport," Charley said. "Canoes, moose that come to watch you shoot them . . ." Captain Jack smiled in a certain way, and Charley thought he was probably composing an epic poem on it right now.

Captain Jack was looking in the direction of the bushes. "What's keeping Bill?" he said.

"He'll be along," Charley said.

Captain Jack shook his head. "He hasn't appeared well," he said. "All morning long I've wondered was he sick." Charley looked at him but didn't answer. Captain Jack said, "Sometimes when you

look at Bill he looks right, and sometimes he doesn't. But he never complains a word." The way he put it, that was a question.

Charley held silent.

"I always thought he'd be different," Captain Jack said. "From the stories, I thought he'd be wild."

There was some movement in the bushes now, Bill coming back. "When the time comes," Charley said, "he's wild enough."

Bill's mood had improved now that he'd passed water, and Captain Jack felt the difference and engaged him in conversation. Charley rode behind them, attached to the mules, and the water, thinking of canoes. More than most, Charley hated to be helpless.

They rode through a stand of evergreens so thick that the trees seemed to change color inside. Everything in there turned dark. Charley heard Bill's voice up ahead, steady and calm; nobody would have guessed he'd just gone stone blind.

When they came out of the trees Charley saw the island. The creek widened to maybe seventy yards, and the island was two thirds of the way across. The water was dark, no white in it at all, and he wondered what act of nature had occurred there to cause deep water this high in the Hills.

Charley tended to think more about how things got the way they were when he was in the mountains than he did when he was in the flats. He believed the world had once been bigger than it was now, and that in the squeezing down, parts of it had been forced up, between God's fingers. And God had left it like that, left the testing places for those that needed testing.

Captain Jack got off his horse and tied her to a sapling. Bill leaned in the saddle and dropped a line of spit to the ground. "It's right down here," Captain Jack said. He'd hidden the canoe under some branches fifty feet from the water, where it wouldn't wash away in a flood. The branches were arranged in such a way that you'd have to be blind not to notice something was hid there. The canoe was stub-nosed and narrow, not really a canoe at all. It was fastened together with nails and rawhide and baling wire. It looked exactly like half a dozen Indians had built it all at one time, without checking to see what each other were doing. The Sioux were not a great nation of boat-builders.

Captain Jack pulled the branches off, and the more Charley could see, the worse it looked. "What do you think?" Jack said to Bill.

Bill shrugged. "Why ask him?" Charley said. "He can swim."

Captain Jack flicked at some insects that had burrowed into the wood, and then pushed his thumb through the hull.

"Rotted," Charley said.

Captain Jack shook his head. "Just one spot," he said. "It's up over the water line." The sun went behind the hills in back of them, and the place began to feel dark. Captain Jack said, "If we get to it, we can be across before nightfall."

"We got to feed the horses and mules," Charley said. "We'll stay on this side tonight." The way he said that, it wasn't up for a vote. Bill got off his horse and pulled a bottle of gin and bitters from one of the saddlebags. Charley hoped he had something brown in there too, although he'd been meaning to cut back. Matilda disapproved and was still in the back of his thoughts. He had not given up on her. There was something about sitting in a bathhouse, for instance, and seeing a rail-thin morphine addict come in and take off her clothes that made him crave his wife's company.

On the other hand, Mrs. Langrishe had replaced her in his regular, conscious longings.

"Did you bring anything to imbibe that isn't colored pink?" he said.

Bill shook his head. "You ought to give pink its chance," he said. "It's a different taste on your breath the next morning, and it doesn't leak out of your skin."

Captain Jack took the saddle off his horse and began on Bill's. "You still got to put it in your mouth," Charley said.

"It's a first time for everything," Bill said. The mare he'd been riding had a blind right eye, and was nervous to that side. Captain Jack never noticed until he'd walked behind her and she kicked him in the leg. It wasn't much of a kick—it glanced off the side of his thigh, where it could have just as easily broken his kneecap—but it dropped him to the ground. He lay where he fell, cussing. Charley was embarrassed for him, lying on the ground crying when he wasn't hurt. Bill pretended he hadn't seen it.

Captain Jack got up slowly, flexing the leg at the knee. He walked around to the front of the animal, giving her plenty of room, and then jerked her reins twice. He said, "You ingrate whore," and then did something more ignorant than walking behind a one-eyed horse on her blind side. He hit her in the head. He made a fist with his right hand, still holding her reins with his left, and hit her square in the forehead. The poet-scout.

This time Captain Jack didn't cuss. He just sat down and watched his hand swell. The worst of it was the knuckle of the little finger, which puffed three times normal size. Bill took a drink of the gin and bitters and offered the bottle to Charley.

"All right," Charley said, and he took it. "I like a drink after a good fight."

"I think she broke my hand," Captain Jack said.

Charley said, "In any battle, there's winners and losers."

Captain Jack's face got damp and moldy-looking. "I never broke anything before," he said.

Bill took the bottle back and said, "Would you look at his hand for him, Charley?"

Charley leaned over to get close to the hand. "You still haven't broke anything," he said. He put Jack's hand on top of his, gently, palm to palm. He pointed to the knuckle and then touched the finger connected to it.

"See this here," he said, closing his hand around the finger, "when it makes a pop sound, that means it wasn't broke."

Charley sat still a minute, until Captain Jack began to understand what he was going to do, and then he pulled the finger straight out. There was a popping noise as the bone slipped back into the joint, and then the color returned to Jack's cheeks. He looked at Charley with new respect.