Cloud of Sparrows (41 page)

“Where’s Mary Anne?” Stark said.

“Well, that’s a first. You actually want to see someone specific, do you?”

“Where is she?”

“You said spring.” Mary Anne stood at the top of the stairs. “It’s still winter, and you’re here already. Was the mine played out?” She smiled that gentle smile of hers and he knew why he was back. He was in love.

“What mine?” Stark said.

“The one in Mexico.”

That was the trouble with lies. You had to remember which ones you told to whom. It was easier to tell the truth. He’d tell the truth to Mary Anne as soon as he was alone with her.

“Are you busy?”

“Just putting the kids to bed. They’ll be asleep in a few minutes. Come on up.”

“Not an all-nighter,” Cruz said. He exaggerated his inhalation and exhalation with sound and gesture. “Nothing like the smell of pigs to fill a whorehouse. The best dozen’s going to be doing a lot of bouncing tonight.”

“I’ll pay up front for the night,” Stark said. “How much?”

Cruz narrowed his eyes, his brain calculating there in his ax-dented skull. “It’s not just the companionship. It’s the profit from the bar I lose when it’s just you up there instead of a line going up and down.”

“How goddamned much?”

“Ten American dollars.”

Stark took silver dollars out of his saddlebag and dropped them on the card table in front of Cruz. They were part of his savings from his previous, more successful forays into Missouri.

“Jesus, boy,” Cruz said, checking the coins and finding them genuine and satisfactory in every respect. “You haven’t been robbing banks, have you?”

“Seen any reward posters with my face on them?”

“Not yet.”

Stark went up the stairs to Mary Anne. The girls were in bed but still awake. The sound of fucking came through every thin wall. They didn’t seem to notice.

“Hi, mister,” Becky said. As usual, Louise didn’t say anything.

“Hi, Becky. Hi, Louise.”

“Hey, you remember our names.”

“Sure I do.”

“What’s yours?”

“Steve.”

“Hi, Steve.”

“Now, Becky,” Mary Anne said, “you know it isn’t polite to call an adult by his given name. You call him Mr. . . .What’s your last name?”

“Matthews.”

“You call him Mr. Matthews.”

“Hi, Mr. Matthews.”

“Hi.”

“Good night, Mr. Matthews.”

“Good night.”

Mary Anne went to pull the sheet shut.

“You don’t need to do that,” Stark said.

She gave him a funny look.

“We’re just going to talk, that’s all.”

“You paid ten dollars to talk all night?”

“That’s right. Is it okay with you?”

“It is if you don’t have anything funny in mind.”

“Funny like what?”

“Like talking dirty and having the kids hear you. Like making them watch while you do things.”

“What the hell kind of man do you think I am?”

“I don’t know,” Mary Anne said. “You’re in a whorehouse. I’m a whore. You pay ten dollars and say all you want is talk, I have to wonder why.”

“I love you,” Stark said. The words came out before he intended. He was hoping to work his way around to it. Now maybe he wouldn’t have to.

“Oh, is that it?”

He thought Mary Anne would be happy to hear it, or at least surprised. Instead, she looked disappointed and very tired.

His feelings hurt, he said, “I guess you hear that all the time from your many admirers.”

“More often than you’d know,” she said. “I wouldn’t call them admirers. Just men temporarily in a strange soft place in their lives, lost in some kind of dream. It’s not me they want, or Becky and Louise. It’s themselves, only seen in another way. It doesn’t last. Then they get scared mean. Blame me for things not being the way they want them to be. I’ve been through it. You’ll get over it.”

She went to her bed and lifted up a corner of the mattress. From the small roll of bills she found there, she peeled half away and put the rest back. She took his hand and put ten dollars in it. Then she closed the curtain between them and the girls and guided Stark to her bed.

“They’ll fall asleep in a few minutes. Then we’ll have some fun and you can go back to Mexico.” The tears in her eyes didn’t keep her from smiling. “It’s sweet of you, Steve, it truly is. Your feelings aren’t real. You’re so young you don’t know it yet, but you will.”

“Don’t tell me about my feelings,” Stark said. “I’ll tell you.” And he did.

He told her about the orphanage, the hammer, and Elias Egan; about the card game, the jammed Volcanic Pistol, and Jimmy So Fast; about the three gunfighters he’d shot dead. He told her about the banks in Missouri; about the trading posts in Kansas before the banks in Missouri; about the horses and cattle in Mexico before the trading posts in Kansas. He told her about the money he’d been saving without knowing why he was saving money.

“I almost got shot in Joplin because I was standing there with my gun in my hand, thinking about what I was going to do with the money, and I knew what I was going to do, and I was so surprised I knew, I didn’t notice the farmer until he started trying to unjam his shotgun.”

“You were thinking of all the pretty things you could buy if only you had a woman to buy them for.” Mary Anne still looked weary, like someone listening to a story she’d already heard.

“No,” Stark said, “I was thinking I’d like to have a ranch in the Texas hill country. Raise cattle. If you know how to rustle them, how hard can they be to raise, is what I was thinking. Build a cabin that’s not too cold in the winter and not too hot in the summer. Spend enough time out in the open and that becomes important to you.”

“I expect it would,” Mary Anne said.

“I was thinking about a place I rode through two summers ago, north of Ashville, and I knew where to build the cabin. I was thinking about the cabin and I saw you inside, cooking a stew with beef from a steer we’d raised ourselves, and outside I saw Becky taking care of Louise, in the shade of an ironwood grove, and when they’re thirsty, they get clear water from their own well.” Stark reached out and took Mary Anne’s hand in his. Still smiling and looking sad, she started to pull her hand away. He said, “We don’t see nor hear nor smell not one damned pig.”

She stopped trying to free her hand. After that, she looked in his eyes for a long time before she came softly into his arms.

The next morning, she said, “Ethan is fast with that gun of his. When he’s back, he’ll come after us, even if Cruz lets me go, which he won’t.”

“Cruz will let you go,” Stark said, “and Ethan won’t know where to look.”

“There’s a two-man–sized savage from the Pacific Ocean rides with him, tracks like an Indian.”

“If they find us,” Stark said, “they’ll soon enough wish they hadn’t.”

“Oh? And why is that? You have a lot of friends in Texas, do you?”

“Have you heard of Matthew Stark?”

“Who hasn’t?” She looked at him, thinking. “Now I remember. People say he’s the one who outdrew Jimmy So Fast, not you. No wonder your story sounded so familiar.”

“I’m Matthew Stark.”

Mary Anne knew Matthew Stark was the fastest gun in west Texas, a mean, scar-faced giant of a man who beat whores to death while fucking them. She started laughing because this sweet, handsome boy was either lying or crazy. Then she started crying because she and her daughters weren’t going anywhere, not with a liar or a lunatic, take your pick. It took Stark nearly another hour to convince her that he and his reputation had gone their different ways some time ago. He thought telling her who he was would make her feel safer and stop her worrying about Ethan. Instead, it almost lost her for him.

He waited until Mary Anne and Becky and Louise were finished packing their meager belongings in a decrepit trunk held together with a length of rope. Then he checked both his pistols and went downstairs.

“Well, you sure as hell don’t look too rested,” Cruz said, “for a man who’s spent all night in bed.”

“We need to talk a little business.” Stark sat down at the card table across from Cruz. The whoremaster was exactly where he had been last night, except he was eating a pork chop instead of dealing poker, and sitting alone instead of with a trio of suckers.

“Wind’s still blowing from the same direction. Price’s still ten dollars the night.”

“There are no more nights for her,” Stark said. “She’s leaving.”

“Sure she is,” Cruz said, “if you have five hundred dollars. That’s what she owes. Pay it, you can do what you want with her. She’ll be back, you know, once you get your head out of your ass and wake up.”

Stark had more than five hundred dollars. But he needed all his money to buy the ranch in the hill country. “I’ll give you a hundred.”

He saw Cruz’s eyes shift and, following them, saw the bartender coming around the bar with a double-barreled shotgun. He dove to the left toward Cruz while the blast turned the table to kindling. His first bullet went through the bartender’s right shoulder, his second through the man’s right thigh. The bartender dropped the shotgun and fell to the floor clutching at his spurting wounds with the one hand that still worked. When he looked back at Cruz, he saw a derringer aimed his way. Stark shot him in the face. The big .44 bullet undid the ax dent on its way out of Cruz’s skull.

Some people didn’t know when to quit. Stark did. He never robbed another bank or visited another whorehouse. He thought he’d never kill another man, either, and maybe he’d have been right about that, too, if it had been up to him.

All the while she was making her confession, Heiko kept her hands on the mat before her and her head bowed. She didn’t have the courage to look at Genji’s face. What must he be thinking of her, this fiendishly duplicitous woman who claimed to love him even as she awaited the command to kill him? The silence following her final words of contrition was almost unbearable. Only her pride kept her from weeping. That would be too shameless an appeal to his manly compassion. She didn’t let a single tear fall. He would kill her or, gentle soul that he was, he would only cast her out. No matter which act he chose, this was her last day on earth. She would not live without him. If she was sent from the castle alive, she knew precisely what she would do.

She would go to Cape Muroto.

Six hundred years ago, the first Great Lord of Akaoka, Genji’s ancestor Hironobu, had won the battle in the woods there, establishing his sovereignty. Today, there was a small Buddhist temple belonging to an obscure Zen sect at the top of the sheer cliffs crowding against the sea. Nine hundred and ninety-nine steps went up from the rocky shore to the temple. She would stop on each one and affirm her eternal love for Genji. She would beg Amaterasu-o-mikami, the Sun Goddess, to bathe him in her divine light for all his long and fruitful life. She would beg Kannon, the Compassionate One, to see the sincerity in her heart and reunite her with him in Sukhavati, the Pure Land beyond all suffering.

When she reached the top, she would thank the gods and Buddhas for granting her nineteen years of life, her long-departed parents for bringing her into the world, Kuma for protecting and nurturing her, and Genji for the love she had not deserved. Then she would step from the edge into the Great Void, without fear, without regret, without tears.

“How would you have done it?” Genji said.

“My lord?” Heiko still didn’t look up.

“My assassination. What technique would you have used?”

“My lord, I beseech you, please believe me. I could never have done anything to harm you in even the least way.”

“Hidé,” Genji said.

The door slid open instantly.

“Yes, lord.”

Nothing in Hidé’s face showed whether he had heard any part of the conversation. His hand, however, rested on the hilt of his sword.

“Ask Hanako to bring sake.”

“Yes, lord.”

Heiko knew he would not go himself. He would send Taro, who was behind the door on the other side of the room. Hidé would remain where he was, ready to burst in if needed. He would not leave his lord undefended in a room with a treacherous female ninja.

Genji was about to offer her a purifying ritual libation before he passed sentence. His graciousness tore at her heart. She barely managed to continue restraining her tears.

“I suppose you would have done it at night, when I was asleep. That is the kindest way.”

Heiko could not reply. If she spoke another word, her emotions would betray her. Trembling, silent, she kept her eyes on the mat.

“My lord.” Hanako’s voice came from the other side of the door.

“Enter.”

Hanako’s eyes were red and swollen. She bowed and came in with a tray in her hands. Upon the tray was a flask of sake and a single cup. Genji, of course, would not drink with Heiko. She would drink alone, repentant, and prepare to accept her fate.

Hanako bowed low to Genji. Then she turned and bowed with equal depth to Heiko. As she did so, a sob left her throat, and a shudder ran through her shoulders. She wept piteously.