Gabriel's Story (18 page)

Gabriel walked across the plains with Marshall and Rollins and Dallas, the other three well armed and tense and moving in a way that chilled Gabriel to the bone. As they went, Marshall explained to Gabriel that they were about to pay a social call, a little visit to his old friends at Three Bars. It was gonna be a surprise, but he was sure they'd be glad to see him. He said also that Gabriel had a part to play in this surprise and that all would be made clear to him soon. It would be simple. It would just require a little nerve, was all, and Marshall said he knew the boy had nerve. He knew that for sure, and now was the time to test it.

THE DOG SAW THE BLACK MAN COMING from a half-mile out,
walking through the first light of dawn. He came forward from the
bunkhouse porch, and as was his job and his duty and a calling
only he among all that lived in these parts was any good at, he set
to barking. He had a rhythm he liked to use and fell right into it:
three sharp yelps and then a howl, three sharp, then howl. He
repeated this refrain four times before he caught the scent of the
man and checked himself, finding in it something familiar. He sat
on his haunches and watched the man, cocking his head to one side
as he favored his left eye and seemed to see better this way. He
knew the man's stride, knew the set of his shoulders, and recognized the gesture he made, a motion as if he were shaking dice at
hip level. He wondered vaguely at the man's long absence, and
then forgot about that and wondered if the man had brought him
anything. He trotted out to meet him.

The black man knelt as the dog approached. He let the creature
cuddle up to him, a mangy thing with a tender foot, twice kicked
by horses and once shot at in some long-ago time. The man
scratched behind the dog's ears and spoke to him in tones the creature remembered. The man apologized for what was about to happen and said that there was a part of him that was saddened by it,
but only a part, and that the rest of him had long ago been consumed. He said a dog's life was a difficult one anyway and things
would be better for him soon. So saying, the man clamped the dog's
jaw shut in one gloved hand, placed the creature between his knees,
and slit its throat in a motion so complete that the dog's head
flopped straight back onto its shoulders.

The man watched the blood pour out in spurts. He felt the life
the animal was kicking for and heard it when the dog began to
pee. He was holding it still when the creature gave up its fight and
grew calm, calmer than it had ever been. The man let it drop and
looked down on his work.

There, isn't that better? he asked.

As he expected no answer, he walked on, knife held out to the
side and dripping, toward the bunkhouse where two men slept,
soundly and soon forever.

GABRIEL RAPPED ON THE DOOR TO THE RANCH HOUSE with his fist. The wood was hard and grainy. It hurt his knuckles and allowed little sound to escape. There was a window beside the door, but he could see little through it, as it mirrored the dawn behind him. He knocked again. Still no one came. A dry wind blew across from the south, bringing a cloud of dust that tickled Gabriel's skin and made a tinkling sound against the weathered boards. Other than that, all was silence. Gabriel turned around and looked out over the yard. He saw no sign of the others, and he wondered with a whisper what the hell he was doing here.

He heard her first, heavy footsteps like those of a man in workboots. Then he saw her through the reflection on the glass pane. She emerged there through the rising sun, her face red with the heat of it, round, and quite discernibly angry. She pressed her stout nose against the glass, stared at the boy with hard eyes, then kicked the door open. It swung out toward Gabriel, making him jump back to avoid its arc. She stood framed in the doorway, her body more than filling the space. She held a rifle at thigh level, tilted up in such a way that Gabriel could see down the barrels of the thing.

“There's few white men can get me out of bed this early, and no black boys that I know,” she said. “What the hell you want, nigger? And it better be good.”

In the strange way of a troubled mind, Gabriel found himself thinking two thoughts that surely were not the most necessary at the moment. First, he thought that Ugly Mary was not truly ugly, although she was so large that he was amazed at the notion that men had paid for her favors. And second, he couldn't help but feel a certain amazement at the number of times he'd had guns pointed at him in the last few days.

“Are you a goddamn idjit or what? I asked you your business.”

“I . . . I just . . .” Gabriel drew a blank. He searched for some possible answer to the woman's question, but there seemed none. The absurdity of it astounded him. He gave the only answer he could. “They just told me to knock.”

“They what?” Mary asked, stunned enough by the answer to let the rifle sag.

Another set of footsteps pounded through the house, and a man appeared. “What in God's name's going on here?” he demanded. He pushed Mary out of the way, set his hands on his hips, and stared at Gabriel as if he'd never heard or conceived of such a thing. He was a lanky man of considerable height, gaunt-featured and treelike. He opened his mouth to say something else, but then a very strange thing happened. In an instant, a moment frozen in Gabriel's mind then and forever after, a dimple of red no larger than a dime appeared on the man's forehead, above his left eye. At the same instant, the doorjamb behind him splintered. And also in the same instant, a fan of liquid sprayed the doorjamb, the nearby wall, and the left side of Ugly Mary's face. And then the instant was gone, and others followed it.

A rifle's report echoed in the air, a small thing, a noise no louder than a person clapping. The man's face went blank, his eyes careened up in their sockets, and he stumbled forward, grabbing Gabriel's shoulder with his enormous hand. His grip was so strong that the boy didn't even think of moving, but the man did. His head began to shudder, his neck loosened, and his body leaned over backward, pulling Gabriel part of the way with him but letting go as he hit the dry boards of the floor.

Ugly Mary took only a second to recover. Her rifle fanned past Gabriel and beyond him toward the prairie. She shot, her bulk quivering with the force of it, and Gabriel finally moved. He hit the deck, felt two bullets pass above him, and thought better of his position. He crawled off the far end of the porch in a second and looked back to see the carnage behind him.

Mary stood wide-legged, with her repeating rifle spraying bullets before her. Her reign of terror didn't last long, though. She quickly spent her cartridges, and just as quickly the unseen foe's bullets found her. They entered her flesh like concussions delivered to bone and muscle and flesh. She stumbled forward, dropped to her knees with a weight that must have crushed her kneecaps. Of this injury she showed no sign. She held the gun as if she might kill her attackers with the instrument and her will alone. She began to yell, a wail that started low and unintelligible but slowly became something of English speech. She invoked the wrath of her God and asked that she meet her murderers in hell. She began another curse but was cut short when a bullet smashed her lower jaw and blew out a portion of her skull. She fell backward and cursed no more.

Gabriel stared at the two fallen forms and didn't move until he heard the other men approaching. They collected around the porch and surveyed the scene in silence. Marshall looked down on the two bodies with eyes that seemed almost sad. Kneeling before Mary, he touched her cheek, testing it for warmth as if the flu might have been what ailed her, staining his hand with her blood in the process. He didn't seem to notice or care. He was silent for some time, and Gabriel thought he read in his eyes a kind of passion that made this all seem meaningful. But when he spoke, his voice was without remorse.

“Guess they had it coming.”

Marshall sent Dallas back for Dunlop and James, and when they arrived, he instructed the three boys to go inside with Rollins and take anything useful. James surveyed the scene with trembling features, his face a pale reflection of its usual rich color. Gabriel felt he could scarcely move himself, but when Marshall repeated the order, he pulled James by the wrist to get him going. They followed Rollins inside, stepping gingerly around Mary's body to do so.

For the next twenty minutes they ransacked the place. Rollins yelled out instructions, demonstrating the proper way to throw open drawers and overturn furniture. Dallas proved more than proficient at this, punctuating each action with hoots and curses. Gabriel and James went through the motions of searching but seemed oblivious of the motives of their work. James found a rifle cabinet, opened it, and stared at its contents as if he'd never seen such weapons before. He had just turned away from it when Rollins noted his discovery and told James to carry the weapons outside.

Gabriel found nothing of value. Left alone for a moment in the upstairs bedroom, he sat on the bed and stared at the photographs lining the dresser, daguerreotypes of an array of people. He found himself remembering his home in Baltimore, remembering a dresser much like this one on which photographs of his own family sat. He felt his eyes go watery. The world before him blurred, and for a moment he felt that he'd forgotten how to breathe. A new round of shouting from downstairs brought him back.

Rollins called Marshall inside. “There's a safe here.”

It was a small thing, solid and nondescript and no bigger than a breadbox, so plain that neither Gabriel nor James had even noticed it. The men quickly discovered that it was locked but could be opened with a key, if one could be found. The next half-hour passed in a hasty search for the key. It was eventually found, on a hunch of Marshall's, on a chain around Mary's neck, hidden in the folds of her bosom.

From where Gabriel stood, he couldn't see the safe as the men huddled around it. He looked out the front door at the limp torso of the woman, at the great plain and the yellowing sun behind it. Rollins let out a low whistle, which brought back Gabriel's attention. Marshall turned slowly, holding something in his hand, something heavy. It looked like a block of wood in the shadow where Marshall held it. But when he stepped into the sunlight, it threw back the light like a thing afire. Gabriel realized what it was, a long, brownish yellow piece of metal—gold, a brick so dense that Marshall had to support it against his abdomen.

“My friends,” Marshall said, “justice never got any better.”

Another twenty minutes found Gabriel and James standing outside as the men prepared to leave. Marshall was in a fine mood, seemingly untroubled by thoughts of escape or capture, or by any remorse. He spoke to the boys as he checked his saddle and rigged it to carry an extra saddlebag.

“So here's the way things lie, boys. We got ourselves these two dead bodies here, two in the bunkhouse, and we got that other guy back at McKutcheon's. That's a whole lot of killing for a few days' work. You boys got two choices. You sit here and wait for the law to show. You tell them the best story you can and then get yourselves hanged. Cause that's what would happen. Two niggers sitting on the porch with a string of dead bodies around and an open safe. You know you're hanged already. That's option number one. Number two is you take a hold of one of them guns and come along with us and quit this country and try your luck elsewhere. Which is it?”

Gabriel was stumped by the question.

It was James who spoke. “I . . . I don't aim to be no killer.”

“Oh, shit. You ain't gotta do no killing. These two here, they were just an old score. That man back at McKutcheon's . . . Well, I reckon I just did that to save you boys' lives. Not that you ever did say thank you. Myself, I don't give a good damn. I'm going to California.” He looked at Rollins as if he'd just discovered their windfall and was still processing the possibilities. “Shit. What do you say, Rollins? How bout we spend the rest of our lives drinking tequila by the beach and sticking Mexican whores? That ain't a bad way to go. My daddy would roll in his grave, but he never did know a good thing when he saw it. Anyway, boys, I don't give a good shit what you two do—”

“Marshall?” Rollins interrupted him. “We can't leave them boys here. First sheriff asks them a question, they'll spill their guts quicker than a pig at slaughter. That ain't no clean getaway. Same goes for Dunlop.” He motioned with his head. “He's looking a little spooked.”

Gabriel remembered Dunlop and turned in the direction Rollins had indicated. The young Scot stood beside his horse, holding the creature by the reins and staring around him like a man totally lost.

Marshall pondered all this for a troubled moment but quickly reached a decision. “All right, I take it back. You two saddle up. California's waiting.” He strode away, seemingly unconcerned as to whether the boys would obey or not. He went and spoke to Dunlop, and whatever he said proved most convincing.

Rollins watched the two boys as if he'd had another alternative in mind, but he didn't state it. “Come on, then,” he said, and he followed them till they were saddled and ready. Gabriel's horse, a rust-colored mare with timid eyes, shied and shimmied. The boy sat her with a concerned face that seemed only half there. The horse sensed this and was uneasy about it, and only quieted when actually under way. The party rode out to the northwest, Gabriel toward the back of the line but followed by Caleb. They left behind four dead, the two in the bunkhouse, whom Gabriel never saw, and the two on the porch, whom he'd seen all too closely. On some whim, Marshall propped Mary and Rickles up against the wall, their empty eyes staring unblinking into the morning sun, an image that Gabriel never managed to clean from his mind completely—the first true sign of the things to come.