House of the Rising Sun: A Novel (2 page)

Hackberry glanced up at the clouds that were roiling like smoke. He rubbed the back of his neck as though he had a crick in it, his pale blue eyes empty. “What would provoke them to do such a thing?”

“I’d tell you to ask them. But they’re all dead. Except one. He got away. A tall man. Like you.”

“I still cain’t figure why you hung those colored soldiers. Y’all don’t let them use your cathouses?”

“You ever seen dead people tied on car fenders? Tied on like deer full of holes? Americans did that in the village I come from. I saw it, gringo.” The Mexican soldier drew down the skin below his right eye to emphasize the authenticity of his statement.

“Never heard of that one.”

“You’re a tall gringo, even without boots. If we hang you up, you’re gonna barely touch the ground. You’re gonna take a long time dying.”

“I guess that’s my bad luck. Before you do that to me, maybe you can he’p me out on something. Those soldiers back there were members of the Tenth or Eleventh Cavalry. There’s a white captain with the Tenth I’ve been looking for. You seen a young captain, not quite as tall as me, but with the same features?”

The Mexican removed the toothpick from his mouth and shook it playfully at Hackberry. “You’re lots of fun, man. But now we’re going inside and meet General Lupa. Don’t talk shit to him. This is one guy you never talk shit to, you hear me?”

“You’re saying he’s not quite mature, even though he’s a general in your army?”

“That’s one way to put it, if you want to get your head blown off. The Texas Rangers I was talking about? They killed his son when they attacked the train.”

T
HE WALLS OF
the parlor were paneled with blue and magenta velvet dulled by either age or dust. The curtains were a gauzy white and embroidered on the edges, swirling and puffing with the wind, as though the decorator had wanted to create a sense of airiness and purity the house would never possess. There was a fringed rug on the floor and, in the corner, a pump organ. The settees had red cushions; old photos of nudes with Victorian proportions were framed in convex glass on the walls. Above the mantel, also encased in convex glass, was a painting of a pink and orange sunrise, with cherubs sitting on the sun’s rays. A wide hallway with a series of doors led through the back, like in the shotgun houses of southern Louisiana.

Two girls in shifts who looked like Indians sat in a corner, their legs close together, their eyes lowered, their hands folded on their knees. A middle-aged woman was standing behind a small bar cluttered with beer bottles. She wore a dark blue brocade dress with a ruffled white collar. Her eyes were recessed, almost luminous, unblinking. Behind her, on a table stacked with records in paper covers, was a windup gramophone with a fluted horn that had a crimson-mouthed, heavy-breasted mermaid painted inside it.

Hackberry’s attention was focused on a huge man sitting in an armchair, one leg stretched out in front of him, a blood-soaked dressing showing through a rent in his khaki trousers. He wore a billed cap with a polished black brim, like his junior officer, except it was canted on his head. He held an uncorked bottle of mescal on his thigh. When he picked it up to drink, the thick white worm that was the measure of the mescal’s potency drifted up from the sediment. The general’s mouth was wet and glistening when he perched the bottle on his thigh again. The coat that covered his sloping girth was stiff with table droppings and spilled liquids. The general sniffed. “You must have been far from water a long time,
señor
,” he said.

“If you’ve got a tub, I’ll take advantage of it.”

“You’re a prospector, you say?”

“I was till some Yaquis jumped me.”

“Do you know what our government has done to the Yaquis?”

“I’m not up on that.”

“You never heard of the one hundred and fifty who were burned in a church? The Indians are a long-suffering people.”

“Maybe that’s why they were in such a bad mood.”

“You do not have the eyes of a prospector. You have the eyes of a gunman. Your eyes do not match the rest of your face.”

“I was prospecting south of Mexico City in 1909. I prospected in the Yucatán and Chile. I’ve done other things as well, none of them dishonest. I’d surely like something to eat.”

“Yes, I think you should eat and build up your strength.”

“I’d like some feed for my horse, too.”

The general wagged his finger back and forth. “No, you don’t got to worry about your horse today. Your horse is Mexican. He’s gonna stay right here.”

“Does that mean I’ll be staying, too?”

“People go where they need to be. Under certain circumstances, people go to places inside their own minds. They find safety and comfort there. Or they try.”

“What kind of circumstances are we talking about, General?”

The general replaced the cork in the bottle of mescal and squeezed it solidly inside the glass with his thumb. “I think you are either an arms vendor or a Texas Ranger. We need to determine the truth about this question. That thought saddens me.”

“Not as much as it does me.”

“In one hour, nothing you tell us will be believable. Why go through such an ordeal to achieve nothing?”

“You don’t believe what I say now. What difference does an hour make? I heard Villa at least gave his prisoners a running chance.”

“My friend General Villa did not lose a son.”

“My son is an officer with the Tenth Cavalry. His name is Ishmael Holland. I came down here to find him. I don’t care about y’all’s revolution one way or another. You haven’t seen him, have you? He’s big, like me. He’s got a big grin.”

“Why does a father have to look for his son? Your son does not tell you where he is?”

“He gave up on his father a long time ago.”

“You are indeed a sad man.”

“What are you fixing to do, General?”

“Maybe you will feel better if you tell others of your sins.”

Hackberry gazed out the window at the sunlight lengthening on the canyon walls. “I put John Wesley Hardin in jail. Only two lawmen ever did that. I was one of them.”

“That is not a subject of interest to us. Why do you raise the subject of a Texas gunman?”

“I’d like a redeeming word or two on my marker.”

“In Mexico only the rich have markers on their graves. See this wound in my leg? I have no medicine for it. In your country, the medicine that could save my leg would cost pennies. I’ve heard the Negroes rub garlic on their bullets. Is true?”

“Villa raided across the border, General. You’re blaming the wrong people for your problem.”

“Texas Rangers fired blindly into the cars on the train. My son was sixteen. Your temper is your undoing,
señor
.”

“Then we’d better get to it.”

Hackberry saw one of the prostitutes lift her face to his, her eyes moist and full of sorrow, a tremble working in her cheek.

It cain’t be that bad. It’s never as bad as you think,
he told himself.

They took him outside, close by the trees where the bodies of the black soldiers were suspended, close enough to the house for him to see the faces of the Mexican enlisted men who watched his visit to the Garden of Gethsemane with the impassivity of statues.

P
AIN WAS A
slice of brassy light dancing off a mirror, a spray of blood flung across the tops of the grass, a smell like animal hair dissolving in an incinerator. Someone poured water into his face in order to revive him, then wrapped his head with a towel and flooded his throat and nostrils. When he passed out, he went to a place deep inside himself that he never wanted to leave, as though confirming the general’s prediction about Hackberry’s impending need for safe haven. It was a cool place that smelled of clover and sunshine on warm stone and rain blowing in the trees and flowers blooming in his mother’s window boxes; it smelled of spring and childhood innocence and was lit by a rainbow that arched into a green meadow. He thought he saw his mother smiling at him from the kitchen doorway.

He felt himself picked up roughly by men who cared nothing for his person or his life or the dreams that took him back to his childhood. His newly acquired friends carried him inside, knocking him against a doorjamb, dropping him on a dirty mattress. Someone tied his wrists behind him with a rope, then looped the rope around his throat and ankles and snugged it tight and left the room. As the sun climbed in the sky, the room became an airless wood box that smelled of old wallpaper and mold and the activity that had taken place on the mattress. When he tried to straighten his legs, the rope cut off the flow of blood to his brain. He slipped back into a state of half-consciousness, one in which small brown men were stuffing divots of grass in his mouth and holding burning sticks to his armpits.

Then the rope binding his wrists to his neck and ankles went slack, and he found himself staring into the face of the woman in the brocade dress. She held a short dull-colored knife in one hand. “It’s true Captain Holland is your son?”

At first his eyes could not focus. His throat felt filled with rust, his words coated with phlegm. “Say that again.”

“Ishmael is your son?”

“Why would I lie?”

“Because I think you’re a worthless man who lies with regularity.”

“What is my son to you?”

“I was attacked in my carriage by some of Huerta’s jackals. They accused me of working for the government. They were going to bury me alive.”

“What did Ishmael do to Huerta’s men?”

“He killed them. The general and his men are outside. They’re going to ambush him.”

“They’re going to ambush my son?”

“Yes, why do you think they’re still here? They’ve already slept with all my girls. Now they will kill your son.”

“He’s a customer here?”

“No, he is not. But he’ll come for his men when they don’t return to their camp.” She began sawing through the rope on his wrists. “There’s a gun under the mattress. I let one of the girls keep it there after she was beaten.”

“Who are you?”

“Why do you care?”

“You have such anger toward me.”

She reached into a pocket on her dress and took out a half-filled pint of whiskey. “Drink this.”

He tried to get up. Then his knees caved and he sat down on the mattress, hard, his hands shaking. He drank from the bottle, then closed and opened his eyes, the room spinning. “Answer my question,” he said. “You’ve never seen me before. Yet you judge and condemn me.”

“You smell of the blood you’ve shed. You’re a mercenary, no matter what you call yourself,” she said. “Get up from the bed and go. Do what you can for your son. But leave my house.”

He felt under the mattress until his fingers touched a hard object. He retrieved a nickel-plated derringer and opened the breech. Two .41-caliber cartridges were inserted in the chambers, one on top of the other. He closed the breech and rested the derringer on his thigh. “This won’t cut it.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means do you have a rifle or a shotgun?”

She seemed hardly able to control the animus that lived in her face. “There’s one in the closet. It belongs to the Austrian who beat the girl.”

“What Austrian?”

“One you do not want to meet. He’s coming today.”

“You have a French accent. You look like a Creole. I think you’re from the Islands or New Orleans.”

“Be glad I’ve saved your life.” She opened the closet door. A .30–40 Krag rifle was propped in the corner. “The Austrian shoots coyotes with it. The shells are in the leather pouch on the floor.”

“I’ve got a feeling all this is about the hearse.”

“That’s because your mind is always on personal gain. We may all be dead by the end of the day, but you think more about profit than your own survival. Your son told me what you did to him.”

Hackberry felt himself swallow. “He still hates his father, does he?”

“I don’t think he would go to the trouble of hating you. You’re a pitiful man, Mr. Holland.”

“Are you Ishmael’s lover?”

“I’m his friend.”

“You’ve hauled his ashes, too.”

She slapped his face.

He waited before he spoke. “I’m sorry if I’ve brought my difficulties into your house. I was at the attack on the train, but I told the general the truth when I said my intention was to find my son. I’m in your debt for speaking up to the Mexicans on my behalf.”

But she was looking at his feet and not listening, the disdain and anger in her face focusing on practical considerations. “They burned the soles of your feet. You won’t be able to walk. Stay here.”

She went out in the hallway and returned with a pan of water and a pair of socks and sheep-lined boots. She knelt and bathed his feet and rubbed them with butter, then slipped the socks over his blisters and torn nails.

“Thank you,” he said.

She raised her hand, indicating for him to be silent. She stepped closer to the window, her body perfectly still. The curtains were puffing in the wind. She turned around, her eyes charged with light. “There’s a wagon on the trail. It’s them.”

“Who?”

“American soldiers.”

“How do you know they’re Americans?”

“Their wagons have iron rims on the wheels. Mexican wagons do not.”