Damnation Road (21 page)
Authors: Max Mccoy
Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Apache Indians, #Western Stories, #Westerns, #Treasure Troves, #Large Type Books, #Cultural Heritage
“Yes,” Anise said. “It is finally time to have your photo taken.”
T
HIRTY-THREE
HIRTY-THREE
“Stop fidgeting,” Anise said.
Jacob Gamble was on the ground, his head propped on a pillow-sized rock, the broken shotgun placed across his chest. His left eye was swollen shut and blood was crusted from his temple to the side of his neck.
“Get on with it,” Gamble said.
She held the unfolded pocket camera in one hand, placed her other hand on her hip, and shook her head.
“Something's not quite right. Hold still.”
She leaned down and looped a finger beneath the strap of the eye patch, then lifted it off. The milky, unseeing eye made Gamble seem quite dead.
“There,” she said. “Now, hold your breath.”
Gamble heard the shutter click.
“Now all we have to do is slip this back in Jaeger's pocket and dump his body where somebody will find it,” she said. “If we leave it here, it may be years.”
“I know the place,” Gamble said, moving the shotgun aside and sitting up. “There's a slot canyon down below the boilings. It has a couple of water pipes running through it. Seemed like they were still carrying water. Somebody has to come check on those pipes every so often.”
“Especially if we put a hole in one of them,” Anise said.
“Where's the sun?”
“It's about eight o'clock. Can't you see at all?”
“No,” Gamble said. “If you could bring me some water, perhaps I could get the swelling down.”
She came back, knelt beside him, and handed him a kerchief and a canteen. He wet the cloth and pressed it against his eye. She placed the eye patch in his other hand.
“Jacob,” she said. “You're going to have to go it alone back down to the
Jornada.”
Jornada.”
“Go on.”
“I'm going to Mexico,” she said.
“That's insane.”
“Thirteen years ago, I wasn't freed at Geronimo's camp,” she said. “It was when my captivity began. Do you remember me speaking of a warrior named Massai? He is my husband. I was no slave. The Apaches are my people.”
“Then your people are at Fort Sill with old Geronimo. They keep him and about three hundred of the tribe on exhibit, like in a zoo, but let the old man out once in a blue moon to tour with the Wild West shows. That's where your Massai would be.”
“No,” she said. “Massai is here. He came this morning, just as he has on every summer solstice since my capture, to a place we both knew well.”
“Let me guess,” Gamble said. “Tall fellow, paisley headband, Springfield carbine? Saw him at the waterfall at the head of the slot canyon. Or rather, saw his reflection. Reckoned he was a ghost.”
“No ghost,” Anise said. “After my capture, I was made to feel ashamed. I told the truth to the soldiers, over and over, begged them to let me go back, but I was slappedâand worse. Nobody wanted to hear my story. They told me to keep still, that I was a disgrace to white civilization, that it would have been better had I died. Once my uncle claimed me and took me back, I had learned to keep my mouth shut. It took me years to gain my courage, and then to fashion a story that would compel him to bring me back.”
“And the Mohaves?”
“I wasn't captured,” she said. “My father sold me to the tribe after my mother abandoned the family. The tattoos are coming of age tattoos, not a branding reserved for slaves. Later, I was traded to the Apaches, but gladly because Massai claimed me from the very first.”
“Your sister?”
“I have no idea where Olive is now,” she said. “She went off with my father, so whatever fate claimed him probably took her as well. I told my uncle they were both dead so he wouldn't look for them. After so many years passed without word, I assumed my lie had become truth.”
“Where's Massai been since 1886?”
“Mexico, mostly,” Anise said. “He was always the best of the warriors, nobody could ever catch him, and he knows this country better than any living man. Nobody is looking for Apaches now, anyway. We aim to live in peace.”
“Whenever I hear somebody say that, I know heads are going to get busted,” Gamble said. “I'd like to talk to this Massai, because I think you are out of your wicked little mind. Ask him to come over here.”
Anise laughed.
“He will not come near you,” she said. “He says you have the sacred âenemies-against' power, like Geronimo, but that you are crazy like all white men and that you use the power badly because your heart is wounded. He wishes that someday your heart will heal, but that you have followed the black path for so many years that you don't know any other way to walk.”
Anise paused.
“He does have a request, however. He would like to take the broken shotgun and place it in the war cave.”
“Sure,” Gamble said. “Why not? That should confuse the hell out of somebody, someday.”
“Good,” Anise said. “We are taking the Marlin with us, but will leave you the Springfield, a handful of shells, and some food and water. We need the horse, but will place Jaeger beneath the water pipes in the narrow canyon before we go.”
“What about the body of your uncle?”
“Buried,” Anise said. “A Christian prayer was said.”
“Funny,” Gamble said. “I didn't hear the lightning.”
Anise stood.
“You'll be able to see well enough to begin walking out in a day, maybe less,” she said. “You'll have the carbine, if you need it, but I think the wolves will leave you aloneâthey've gorged themselves on the horses and mules. Oh, and you have a thousand dollars in the pocket of your mackinaw. Thought you deserved that bonus after all.”
“So, that's it?” Gamble asked. “You walk away I don't know if there's really a Massai or where you're really headed or whether anything you've said is true?”
“You'll have the Springfield,” she said. “I couldn't conjure that, now could I?”
She leaned down and he could feel her hair brushing his chest and her breath on his face. Then she kissed him, and for a moment he could taste the absinthe from the hotel bar at Amarillo.
“Farewell, Jacob Gamble,” she said.
T
HIRTY-FOUR
HIRTY-FOUR
Jacob Gamble sat in the doorway of the empty soddie, watching the sun as it sank toward the western horizon. He had been there, unmoving, for most of the day, the old Springfield resting against his knee. His left hand, up to his forearm, was bound and splinted.
His horse, dragging its reins, was chewing at some weeds it had pulled down from the soddie's roof.
Gamble did not rouse until the bone wagon creaked to a stop in front of him. The bone hauler jumped down from the box. He wore an old straw hat tightly over his head.
“Don't I know you?” the bone hauler shouted.
“We met, once,” Gamble said.
“That's right, near Dodge.”
“Sure,” Gamble said. “Near Dodge.”
“Any bones around here?”
“Haven't spotted any,” Gamble said.
“Damn,” the bone hauler said.
“There used to be a girl live here,” Gamble said. “Her name was Agnes. She lived here for a long time. Do you know what happened to her?”
“Agnes?” the bone hauler asked. “Hell, yes. She took off.”
“When?
“About the end of June.”
“Where'd she go?”
“Took off with some outlaw. Horse thief. Let's see, what was his name? Phillips. Kid Phillips. Escaped from jail with Bill Doolin a while back. Know him?”
“No.”
Gamble stood.
“What do you want for that rifle?” the bone hauler asked.
“The Springfield? It's not worth much.”
“I ain't got much.”
“You still cutting on yourself with that knife?”
“Sometimes,” the bone hauler said guiltily.
“I think I'll hold onto the rifle,” Gamble said. “I might need it. But here, I have something else for you.”
Gamble held out fifty dollars.
“Go back to Dodge,” he said. “Clean up. See a doctor.”
The bone hauler sneered.
“Ah, you keep your money,” he said, climbing back into the wagon. “The bone market will come back. It has to. Things keep dying, don't they?”
1900
T
HIRTY-FIVE
HIRTY-FIVE
The man wearing the smoke-colored glasses walked into the hardware store from Oklahoma Avenue, carrying a package under his arm he had just picked up from the express office at the Santa Fe depot. He walked up to the gun counter and placed the package on top of the glass case.
Andrew Farquharson threw aside the
Police Gazette
and looked at the shipping label on the package. It had a return address of Woodward, Oklahoma Territory.
Police Gazette
and looked at the shipping label on the package. It had a return address of Woodward, Oklahoma Territory.
“Who do you know in Woodward?”
“My attorney,” the man in the glasses said. He was about fifty, and thin, with a full salt-and-pepper beard. The brim of his black Stetson and the shoulders of his equally dark coat were peppered with road dust.
“What have you been reading about in that newspaper?”
“The World's Fair at Paris,” the boy said. “It opens April fifteenthâthat's next week. They say they have motion pictures that talk.”
“What do you mean, talk?”
“With sound,” the boy said enthusiastically. “Like Vitagraphs, but where you can hear people talk and sing and hear them play music. Can you imagine?”
“No,” he said.
The man glanced over at the stack of nickel postcards by the cash register. He reached over and picked one up. The photo was of what looked like a very dead man, his head propped on a rock, a broken shotgun across his chest. One eye was swollen shut and the other was milky and lifeless,
“That's the outlaw Jacob Gamble,” the boy said. “Gruesome, ain't it? He was killed by a Pinkerton in New Mexico after escaping from the federal jail here. But he got the Pinkerton, too, so they're both dead.”
“You seem to know a lot about it.”
“Oh, there's more to the story,” the boy said. “There was a big shootout here in the street and Gamble came in here and got the shotgun he used. It was a Model 97. He left his old converted cap-and-ball pistol behind. Told me to keep it for him. Wanna see?”
“Love to.”
Andrew reached beneath the counter and brought out the Manhattan. He placed it on top of the glass.
“Do you mind?”
“Go ahead, Mister.”
The man picked up the gun with his left hand, thumbed open the loading gate, and examined the cylinder.
“It's been converted to center fire.”
“Yeah,” the boy said. “I forget to tell you about that. When Gamble escaped from the federal jail, down on Second and Noble, he came here and got the same shotgun he used to kill the Jaeger cousins. I wasn't here, but he asked old man Morrisâthat's my dad's partnerâto tell me to keep it and have it changed over to center fire, so he could find cartridges for it. Said he'd be back for it, sooner or later. Guess he was wrong.”
“Guess so,” the man said.
“I think it's the same shotgun in the picture, but it's hard to tell. Nobody ever found it, anywayâor the body, neither. Just the picture in the Pinkerton detective's camera.”
The man put the Manhattan back on the counter and scratched his beard.
“Say, I have a notion to own that gun. How much would you take for it?”
“Oh, it's not for sale,” the boy said. “It's what you call a ... well, it's sort of a museum piece.”
“I understand,” the man said. “How about a hundred dollars?”
“Why, no,” the boy said. “I couldn't.”
“A hundred and fifty.”
“Dang it,” the boy said. “That's a lot of money, butâ”
“Two hundred.”
“I'll throw in a box of shells,” Andrew Farquarson said. “It shoots pretty fair for an old gun.”
“Some do.”
The man took a roll of bills from his pocket and peeled off ten twenties and placed them on the counter.
“Thanks,” the boy said. “What brand of ammo you want?”
“Robin Hood.”
“Sure,” he said.
The boy placed the box of cartridges on the counter and the man slipped them into the pocket of his black coat, along with the old revolver.
“I'll have one of these, too,” the man said, taking a postcard.
“Take it,” the boy said. “They printed 'em by the thousands.”
The man picked up his package.
“I reckon we're settled up.”
Andrew Farquharson stared at him.
“Yeah,” he said. “I guess so. Who did you say was your attorney in Woodward?”
“Temple Houston,” the man said, and thumped the package. “He sent me this fiddle that he picked up from a pawnshop up in Kansas.”
The boy nodded.
“What's wrong?” the man asked. “You look like you've seen a ghost.”
“Gamble was called the fiddling outlaw,” the boy said slowly. “And Temple Houston was his attorney.”
“Ah, the world is full of strangeness,” the man said. “But I'm no ghost. I'm as real as rock. All the same, if that telephone rings ...”
“Yes, sir?”
“Don't answer it.”
The man touched the brim of his hat, turned, and walked out onto Oklahoma Avenue without looking back.
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