The Vanquished (7 page)

Then, on one of his visits to Woods's saloon, Charley caught sight of a massive shape standing far down the bar—Chuck Parker. Charley stood still. The big man stood hipshot, his narrow, suspicious eyes sweeping the crowd with constant wary intensity, and Charley was reminded of the brisk, perfunctory trial that had sent Parker away.

Charley's legs were tired and when a good-natured gambler, flush after a winning streak, offered to buy him a drink, Charley accepted, sitting down at the gambler's table and listening with half his attention to the gambler's talk, which was the idle but insistent talk of a lonely man to whom few people ever listened.

The room was full of hearty people, drinking and smoking in large quantities and talking with loud and friendly ease. At the bar, Chuck Parker was signaling for a cigar and standing with the look of a man quite pleased with himself. His cheeks were round and his body was like a single square-hewn chunk of stone, with vast girths at thighs and waist and chest. His glance surveyed the room with cool detachment, passing over Charley's face without pause or recognition.
Well
, Charley thought,
I guess I've grown a little, changed some
. Parker was regaling a few awe-eyed drunks with stories. At the table with Charley, the lonely gambler kept talking, and Charley listened to him, thinking none of this better than it was. There was a man slumped over a table in a stupor. One of Woods's men just then came to the drunk and pulled him from the chair and boosted him out the door. Thereupon the gambler who had bought Charley's drink said, “Poor Tom. He'll be out in that cold damned street, and he'll tell himself he's cold, but he's not enough of a man any longer to do anything about it. He'll probably die out there unless some kind fool who still has dreams pulls him out of the street and gives him a blanket.” And a moment later, smiling coolly, the gambler excused himself politely and left the saloon, apparently to hunt up a blanket. Charley's expression remained blank.

Woods's professor was pounding the battered keys of the spinet, and the rouge-cheeked girls moved around the sawdust floor avoiding the stamping boots of the miners. A
vaquero
came into the place, swept off his huge hat and laughed loudly, afterward making a place at the bar and calling for a drink. Charley wished he was a
vaquero
—they were always laughing.

A husky miner with a pugilistic expression went by, bought a ticket and stood by the rope that defined the limits of the dance floor, waiting his turn. Charley felt in his pocket, and remembered he had no money, and observed that luck was truly indifferent, that you had to endure and reject it with equal sobriety, and that he was hungry again. One o'clock came and went. Chuck Parker was talking to a new group of interested listeners, and Norval Douglas did not appear; Charley remained in the saloon because it was cold and he did not want to sleep in the stable again. His lids were weighted. Men, eddied around, trafficked in and out, and gradually the crowd began to diminish and the volume of sound lessened. Chuck Parker shouldered away from the bar and backed against a wall, building a cigarette, covering the room from under the droop of his eyelids. Charley had a good idea of what was on Parker's mind. He watched the big tough with a measure of old contempt in his look. Parker was clearly roving, on the hunt in his animal way, awaiting the passing of some simple prey, and presently Parker's eye fell upon a small hollow-chested old miner who sat eating with his fingers at a table, alone in the back of the place, half drunk or more, with a round-butted leather sack at his elbow—a gold poke. Parker's attention became fixed, and Charley pitied the little drunk miner.

Parker's cheeks were flushed red, broiled to their lobster color by the sun.
Road gang
, Charley thought, seeing the raw marks of chain cuffs on the man's thick wrists. Parker pushed indolently away from the wall and rolled through the crowd out into the night. When Charley looked back, he saw the miner on his feet, swaying a little, pocketing his gold poke. His shoulders were stooped; his beard was ragged. The little man went bent-backed through the place and out the door. Knowing that Parker would soon be upon the miner, Charley, in a fit of accumulated unaimed rage, slipped from his seat and went to the door. He remembered a time when Parker and Bill, the bartender at the Triple Ace, laughing wickedly, had backed him into a corner and hurled obscene insults at him until his face had burned, and with his eyes redly filmed Charley had hurled a chair at Parker and Parker had been too drunk to dodge, so the chair had smashed his face, making his broad flat nose bleed furiously. In unreasoning rage Charley had cried out and Parker had growled and slung his weight forward, trapping Charley in the corner, and had pounded Charley senseless while somewhere in the background Bill was laughing.

That was Charley's memory of Chuck Parker, and now he wheeled out of the saloon doorway and saw the old stooped miner turn a corner two blocks away and fade back into the part of town that consisted mostly of board shacks and tents, where Charley had lived until two days ago. Charley hunched his shoulders against the cold and cursed his thin garments, and quickened his pace as he rounded that corner. He skirted the back of the big mercantile emporium and passed a row of tents and the frame building that was Madam Sarah's, and went up on his toes, running. A wide circle placed him behind a warped, weatherbeaten cabin, where he waited drawing up his breath for the miner to come by so that he could warn the miner against Chuck Parker. Parker would be along soon. Time grew shorter and Charley chafed.

The miner shuffled nearer and lurched against the side of a tent, springing its canvas, speaking to himself in a reasoning way, “On down just a piece more, Ben …”

The air had the chill of a sharp knife. The miner came past the edge of the tent, approaching the cabin. The moon was clouded over and it was hard to see anything. Charley was all set to jump out and warn the miner when a huge dark shape loomed in the night and fell upon the old miner, throwing itself upon the man's back, flinging an arm about the miner's neck and a knee into his back; the miner cried out softly, his body arguing ineffectually, and Charley held his breath.

There was a chance. In the shadow of the cabin, Charley stamped his feet, crunching gravel heavily. At that sound of steps, Parker jerked his head up. Charley stamped harder. Parker gave the miner a long shove and whipped about, racing around beyond the tent, soon going beyond earshot.

“Think of that,” Charley whispered, a little awed by the effect of his own trick.

The miner was down flat. Charley went to him and knelt. The stillness of the man's body was indication enough that he was dead. There was no pulse, no breath. Charley frowned into the night and cursed Chuck Parker and then, after a moment's thought, slipped the gold poke from the dead miner's pocket.

Afterward, suddenly afraid, he ran through the tent city, legs pumping, halting at last behind the livery barn. In that shadow he waited, trying to calm his breathing. Sometime in the ensuing run of time he heard a man's heavy boots tramp by beyond the stable and he recognized Chuck Parker's steady cursing. A little while thereafter the Negro hostler came out of the side door and shuffled away down the street, and Charley went inside and lay in the straw. The gold poke was heavy in his fist. He put his fingers inside it and sifted the gold dust between, his fingers. It was gritty, like sand. He could not be still, and finally he got up and went into the blackness, down to Woods's saloon. He pulled his shoulders together and shoved into the hot stale air of the place. His mind asked tricky questions; he went immediately to the bar. The bartender gave him a curious look and he said, “Norval Douglas been in yet?”

“No,” the bartender said. “Hear about the murder?”

“What murder?”

“Ben Crane.”

“Who's that?”

“Some old miner. They found his body a while ago.”

“Shot?”

“No. Neck broke. Funny thing.”

“Yeah,” Charley breathed. He looked around. There were very few people in the place. “This Crane—he have a family?” Charley asked.

“Wife and daughter.”

“They been told?”

“I guess so,” the barkeep said. “Why?”

“No reason, I guess. Where'd he live, this miner?”

“Little shack right behind Cora's place.”

“Yeah,” Charley said. “Well, I'll see you later.” He went out again and stood in the street looking upward. In his pocket his hand toyed with the gold sack. It made his pants sag. The moon was a vague luminescence through the thickness of a cloud whorl. The gambler who earlier had bought a drink for Charley now came down the walk and recognized Charley and touched his hatbrim. Charley said, “You put that fellow to bed?”

“Yes,” the gambler said. “I guess this is one more night he'll have to live through,” and disappeared into the saloon. Charley pressed his elbows against his sides and looked at the sky again. His feet turned and took him down past the mercantile emporium. The night was very dark and still. A light was on inside the shack behind Cora's crib, and there was the faint sound of weeping through an open window. He felt the taste of despair. Lamplight fell out through that opening and splashed along the earth. A pair of men stood by the door with hats in their hands, and while Charley watched from the shadows those two men spoke softly and soothingly and turned away, putting on their hats and walking away, coming quite close to Charley when they went by, hands in their pockets and heads down. Charley waited until they were gone, then pulled the gold poke from his pocket. He bounced it in his open hand and then raised his arm, and threw the heavy poke overhand. It went through the open window and he heard it strike the floor. There was a small startled cry, a woman's voice. Charley whirled away.

He entered Woods's saloon and went blindly to the bar again. The bartender gave him a questioning glance. Charley felt a hand on his shoulder and almost jumped, and turned to see Norval Douglas's yellow eyes smiling quietly at him. “You're freezing,” Douglas said in his gentle drawl. “Let me buy you a drink, boy.”

“Obliged.” Charley wondered how much the gold poke had been worth. His hand trembled a little when he lifted the drink, and he could not tell if it was from the cold. He nodded to Douglas and then looked past Douglas's shoulder, and his hand tightened on the glass.

Chuck Parker's huge frame filled the doorway, making an aggressive block against the night, and Parker's angry round eyes swept the room. Charley wanted to shrink back, but the bar and Norval Douglas stood there blocking his way. He flinched when Parker's hot glance passed him. Parker mouthed a silent oath and swung away from the door, disappearing into the night. Charley put his back to that and leaned against the rich brown wood of the bar. His hand was unsteady. He said, “All right. Sign me up.”

“Fine,” Douglas said. He produced a folded piece of paper, opened it and took out a pencil. “Sign here.”

“You write it. I'll make my mark.”

“Full name?”

“Charles Edward Evans.”

“All right,” Douglas said, and slid the paper along the bar. “Put your X here.”

CHAPTER 6

Giron's belly was soft from many bottles of beer. He stood smoking a cigarette, watching the bearded Pesquiera and the squat, strong Gabilondo. Crests of snow topped the mountains. On the Rio Sonora below, the capital city of Ures lay dusty and quiet. “Once it was Gandara's capital,” Pesquiera said. “Now it is ours, eh, Hilario?”

“
Sí
,” Gabilondo murmured. His evil eyes were slitted. Dark, stiff-backed, he stood looking down through the brush.

Giron watched the two of them and felt in his heart certain misgivings. He stood in a mesquite's shadow with his horse's reins in one hand and the other arm braced against a limb of a tree. Clouds like unpicked cotton balls speckled the sky. It was a gentle slope down toward the town, and in the brush below, silent shadows moved—an army of shadows stealing forward upon the unsuspecting capital. Gandara himself had already abandoned the palace. Rumors floated about: Gandara had retreated to the Sierra Madres with the Yaqui Indians to make war on Pesquiera from that stronghold; Gandara had fled to Mexico City to plead with the government for soldiers and aid; Gandara had made his escape by sea to South America; Gandara was dead. No one knew, in truth, where he was. But Giron knew one thing: Gandara was now the
ex
-governor of Sonora.

Gandara had a brother, Jesús, who was more of a fighter than the ex-governor. Jesús Gandara had an adamant army of guerrillas, and it was against these shadow-fighters that Pesquiera's army now moved in the brush below. Jesús Gandara's men still held parts of the town. The action that was about to begin would drive them out, send them into the Sierras where they would have to join their Yaqui allies. Meanwhile, many leagues southward, Benito Juárez was leading his own revolt against Mexico City from the provinces—and Giron was certain that the federal government would be far too busy with Juárez to spare any troops for Gandara. Besides, it was the federal government itself that had denied reappointment to Gandara. At the same time, the government had relieved Gandara's friend Yañez from duty as commanding federal officer in Sonora. Gandara and Yañez were finished; Giron stood satisfied of that. The government had sent Pedro Espejo to replace Yañez as commandante-general, and Espejo—who should arrive shortly—was a friend of Pesquiera's. Further, the government was dispatching one José de Aguilar, who had tried once before and failed to wrest the governorship from Gandara. Now, throughout the territory, Gandara's men were raising the cry that Aguilar and Pes-quiera were going to sell the state out to
Norteamericano
filibusters. It was, Giron thought restlessly, very complicated. During Aguilar's previous attempt to seize the governorship, Gandara's deputy had arrested and imprisoned Aguilar. That was what had prompted Pesquiera to take up arms against the governor. During the past summer, on July 17, Pesquiera had besieged the capital here at Ures. On the eighth of August the city had fallen; Pesquiera had released his friend Aguilar from jail, and on the same day Giron had had the satisfaction of routing Gandara's own troops. Altar, Hermosillo, Guaymas—all the cities had slowly yielded to Pesquiera, and today Gandara, wherever he was hiding, was overthrown.