Wraiths of the Broken Land (31 page)

“Stevie,” said the gunfighter.

“Yessir?”

“Take the position on the west wall.”

“Okay.”

The young man slung his rifle, gathered together his spare magazines and strode to the opening that had previously been monitored by the dandy.

Brent raised his spyglass and looked outside. The halved moon was sinking behind the southern mountains, and the landscape was darker than before.

“What time is it?” asked Stevie.

Skilled at divining the hour from heavenly bodies, Brent answered, “Half past four.”

“Feels like next year.”

“At least,” remarked Dolores from the far side of the fort.

Long Clay said “Brent.”

“Yeah?”

“Put two lanterns on the front wall so that the opposition can see our decorations whenever they charge.”

“Okay.”

Brent gathered two lanterns, went outside, hung them over the inverted men, lit the wicks and hastened indoors. Presently, he returned to his slit, picked up his spyglass and located Deep Lakes.

The Indian rode a purloined gray mustang and trailed a white colt, upon which laid the unconscious body of the inscribed, blinded and castrated messenger. For ten minutes, the cowboy watched the horses race south, toward the weedy terrain that laid in-between the woodlands and the sere incline.

The animals reached the halfway point and stopped. In the spyglass optics, the steeds were magnified to the size of mice. The Indian leaped from his horse, took the messenger from the second beast and stood him upright. Weak starlight glimmered upon the Mexican’s inscribed chest and the dark dots that had replaced his eyes and phallus.

Deep Lakes leaned over, removed the messenger’s fetters, turned him south and shoved him forward. The blind eunuch fell to his knees. Then, the Indian helped the man to his feet, slapped him twice, and shoved him south once more.

Toward the black forest, the mutilated man drifted.

“Brent. Stevie. Dolores.”

“Yeah?”

“Yessir?”

“What?”

Long Clay adjusted the telescopic sight of his rifle, and weak moonlight glowed within his right eye like a cataract. “You need to understand our tactic.”

“We trust you,” said Stevie.

“You need to know it fully,” the gunfighter replied, “in case I get put down.”

“Okay,” replied Stevie and Dolores.

“Go ‘head.” Brent was certain that he was about to hear the machinations of evil.

“On an instinctual level,” Long Clay said, “a man fears torture and disfigurement more than he fears death. He can imagine what it’s like to be branded, because he’s burned himself; he can imagine what’s its like to be blind, because he’s been in a dark room stumbling into furniture; and if he’s ever had any pain in his privates, he can imagine what being castrated might feel like.

“Death is very different to him, because it’s an unknown. The man might even believe it’s the beginning of some new type of existence—like those heaven fantasies your sister entertains.

“But the man doesn’t have any delusions about what kind of life awaits a mutilated, blind fellow whose penis has been removed.”

“A terrible one,” opined Stevie. “I’d kill myself.”

Brent tried not to picture Alberto’s future.

Long Clay resumed, “After Gris’s men see the messenger we sent over, the hired guns who’re not personally invested in this battle will either ask Gris for more money—a lot more—or they’ll leave no matter what wage is proffered. Nobody wants to be the next messenger.

“Gris will lose one quarter to one third of his crew as a result of this tactic. Maybe more.”

“Holy goddamn!” enthused Stevie. “They should’ve hired you for the Alamo.”

Through the wooden spyglass, Brent watched the blind specter drift.

“The remaining men in Gris’s crew will become angrier,” Long Clay stated, “which is also to our advantage. Angry men don’t think clearly and they make hasty decisions—like charging onto a field filled with land torpedoes.”

“I sure hope it goes like that.” Brent watched Deep Lakes hasten his gray mustang up the sere incline, toward the fort.

“If Gris’s posse staged a siege, they would win,” declared Long Clay. “They have superior numbers and could pin us, while accessing unlimited reinforcements and supplies. We need to hasten their attack, kill as many as we can, cow the rest and get Gris.”

“I get to kill him,” said Dolores. “And I want to make him suffer.”

“We’re not dragging things out for revenge,” stated the gunfighter.

“Gris deserves to die slow.”

Long Clay did not respond to Dolores’s remark.

Ink spilled from the northern edge of the forest, toward the drifting snowflake that was the messenger. The distant particles that comprised the emergence were the riders and horses of the opposition, but in the heavy darkness they appeared to be a single entity, the arm of some gigantic black bear.

Suddenly, the messenger was seized by the extrusion and pulled into the woodlands.

“They snatched him up,” Brent informed his siblings.

Long Clay said, “Dolores. Stevie.”

“What?”

“Yessir?”

“Get on the south wall and put your guns forward.”

Chapter IV
Blood Gathering

The high heels of two beige dress boots dangled an inch above the brown carpet that Daddy and Patch Up had installed throughout the house when Dolores Plugford and her twin brother were first learning to crawl. Sitting upon the edge of her bed, the twenty-seven-year-old woman stared at a dark blemish amongst the familiar fibers and recalled authoring the stain when she and Brent had inexpertly opened a purloined bottle of wine with a pocketknife.

The hallway floorboards creaked six times, and a huge fist gently knocked upon the closed bedroom door.

“Angel?”

“Yes Daddy?”

“Can I come in?”

“Okay.”

The bedroom door opened and revealed Dolores’s handsome, broad-shouldered father, who was dressed in a dark blue three-piece suit. His silver and brown hair was neatly combed, and his face, washed and shaved by the best barber in Shoulderstone, gleamed. “I know I said it at the church, but you look stunning pretty in that dress.”

“Thanks. You look real handsome in that suit.”

“Tell Patch Up—he picked it out for me.” John Lawrence Plugford walked beside the green desk that Dolores had once used for her grammar school assignments and placed his hand upon its matching chair. “Mind if I sit?”

“Go ‘head.”

The patriarch set the chair beside the bed, seated himself and interlaced his big fingers. “I can understand why you’re upset. Can’t be easy watchin’ your kid sister get married first.”

Dolores looked through the window and down at the twilit celebration that occurred upon the festooned porch of the Plugford ranch. Sixty guests attended the wedding celebration, including a score of folks who had traveled all the way from San Francisco to watch Yvette change her last name to Upfield. Patch Up, wearing a tuxedo and a top hat, and Stevie, wearing a gray suit that was a little too small for him, argued beside the new phonograph that was to depart with the newlyweds, but their words and the sounds of the gay throng were muted by the thick pane of glass.

John Lawrence Plugford took Dolores’s right hand. “You’re still young and beautiful, and you got spark like your mother. A lady like you don’t need to worry about findin’ a man—only which one’s good enough for her.”

The compliment only grew the cancan dancer’s melancholy. “I wanted to marry Aaron.”

John Lawrence Plugford shook his head. “You’ll find somebody better than him.”

“I ain’t so sure.”

“You will. I’ve got perspective, and I know it definite certain.” The patriarch kissed his daughter’s hand. “You’ll find yours. And he’ll be better than Aaron Alders.”

“I never told you the real reason why he ended it with me,” confessed Dolores. “It had nothin’ at all to do with me.”

John Lawrence Plugford’s face stiffened. “Who’d it have to do with?”

Aaron Alders had an uncle in northern Florida who had heard some very disconcerting rumors about John Lawrence Plugford. These crumbs of information were conveyed to Dolores’s fiancé, and the oil man had inquired after their veracity. The cancan dancer was unable to lie to her betrothed, and he took the news very badly. “I still love you,” said Aaron, tears shining his eyes, “but I cannot—in good conscience—legally connect my family to yours.” After a long and heavy silence, the oil man added, “I know it’s not your fault…but it’s a fact and my uncle will raise an objection to my parents if I don’t break things off.” Too destroyed to get angry, Dolores nodded her head and asked the man to leave. She had never told anybody (excepting Brent) the real reason that the engagement had ended, and two years later she found that she still loved Aaron.

“Who’d it have to do with?” John Lawrence Plugford asked for the second time. The huge man looked intensely uncomfortable.

“Aaron found himself another woman. A secretary at one of his wells.” Although she was usually candid with her father, Dolores could not bear to tell him that he was the cause of her great disappointment.

John Lawrence Plugford looked relieved. “I know it hurts, but it’s better that you found out how he was before you two got married. You want your husband to be devoted steadfast. A man who thinks your smile is the most important thing in the world.” His eyes sparkled, and he squeezed his daughter’s hand.

The cancan dancer swung her boots back and forth. “Thanks.”

“Lets get down there and have us a waltz.” The huge man rose from his chair.

“I wanna be alone for a bit.”

“Nope.” John Lawrence Plugford leaned over and scooped his daughter up into his arms. “Moving and music will change your humors.”

The room spun around Dolores’s head, and a smile crept onto her face, despite herself. Once the revolutions stopped, she saw Brent, standing in her doorway. Presently, Patch Up appeared, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief.

Brent looked at Dolores. “You okay?”

“I’m okay. Your tuxedo’s nice—I didn’t see it good at the church.”

“I borrowed it from Isaac Isaacs. And he should mind what he leaves in the pockets.” Her brother grimaced.

The patriarch announced, “We’re comin’ down to waltz.”

“I’ll warn people,” said Patch Up.

“I know two waltzes.”

“Gigantic and huger.”

“Daddy. Put me down—I can walk.”

The floor rose, and the soles of Dolores’s beige boots sank into the brown carpet. John Lawrence Plugford extended his right elbow.

Arm in arm, Father and daughter walked out of the room, across the second floor hallway, down the stairwell upon which Stevie had broken his right arm when he was seven, eight and twelve years old, through the oaken dining room wherein hung a portrait of the petite matriarch (rendered in the year eighteen seventy-five) and a singed painting of the Florida plantation, across the turquoise tiles of the kitchen, through the back entrance and onto the porch where the recently-married couple and their guests celebrated holy matrimony.

Dolores was cheered by the fresh air, the sounds of the throng and the music that emanated from the flower of the phonograph.

“Stevie!” shouted Patch Up.

“What?” The nineteen-year-old’s lips were stained purplish-red with wine.

“Put on a waltz!”

“Which one?”

“‘His Waves Shall Carry Us Home!’”

Stevie pulled the needle from the wax cylinder, and music was sucked from the air. The dancers awkwardly aborted their steps and threw unhappy looks at the youngest Plugford.

“Wait ‘til the song’s finished done,” said Brent.

The chastened young man returned the needle to the groove from which it had been taken, and the music resumed, abruptly alive like a sleeper startled awake. After a few lurching steps, the dancers reclaimed their pulse. The phonograph attendant raised his glass of wine and drank.

John Lawrence Plugford walked Dolores around the guests, toward the eastern veranda, where the newlyweds stood and conversed with an older couple from Wyoming. Yvette’s sky blue wedding gown modestly displayed her figure, which had become lush and womanly in recent years, and her blonde hair was arranged in an artful swirl that looked like liquid sunlight. Her face was joyful. Samuel C. Upfield IV’s opalescent tuxedo scintillated, and his twilit eyes glowed as if they were made of gold.

When the older couple from Wyoming noted the approaching relations, they excused themselves from the newlyweds with a kiss and a handshake.

John Lawrence Plugford ducked his head underneath a blue and white festoon. “Mr. and Mrs. Upfield.”

Samuel and Yvette turned into the sun and glowed.

“You look real good together.” Dolores had her reservations about Samuel C. Upfield IV, but she could not deny how much he adored Yvette. “A real pretty couple.”

Twilight coruscated within the bride’s smiling eyes. “Thank you.”

“That yellow dress and you have a wonderful partnership,” Samuel remarked to Dolores over a glass of twilit gin. “My friend David has twice complimented the synergy.”

The music reached its cadence and, before its final chord had naturally decayed, vanished.

“The man has an interest,” clarified Yvette.

Dolores did not find the fawning banker from San Francisco at all appealing and had openly avoided his solicitations. “I’ve been apprised.”

Concerned looks were exchanged between Yvette and Samuel.

“Today is ‘bout you two gettin’ together,” remarked Dolores. “And making real long speeches with lots of words that nobody knows.” This later remark was addressed to the groom.

“Sesquipedalians draw from the supernal lexicon.”

A slow waltz emerged from the flower of the phonograph.

John Lawrence Plugford’s shadow covered over his daughters. “Let’s have us a dance.”

“That is an exceedingly splendid idea.” Samuel set his drink upon the banister that was once favored by the rotund tabby cat Pineapple, took Yvette’s gloved hands and walked her toward the center of the porch. John Lawrence Plugford and Dolores followed after the newlyweds.

“Daddy,” said Yvette.

“Angel?”

“This one’s in a five-four time signature. It’s complicated.”

“J.L. practiced with the record,” Patch Up said as he escorted the mulatto seamstress Jessica Jones into the dance area.

Yvette was surprised. “Daddy practiced dance steps?”

“Once the phonograph stopped laughing.”

The patriarch frowned at his best friend.

Stevie pulled Rosemary Finley into the dance area, and Brent, holding the rugose right hand of the widow Mrs. Walters, followed after his younger brother. Overhead wheeled two birds that blazed with golden twilight.

John Lawrence Plugford took Dolores’s hands and positioned his feet as if a boxing match were about to begin. His lips silently counted, ‘one, two, three; one, two; one, two, three; one, two,’ and on the third downbeat, the house, porch, guests and twilit ranch scrolled across his huge shoulders.