A Congregation of Jackals (11 page)

So when Quinlan told us that we were going to an Appanuqi settlement, the Tall Boxer Gang reined in. The other four pulled their steeds around and looked at us and at our hands
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I asked why any sane fellow would go there and Quinlan said, “The toddler can speak Appanuqi.” D asked how he learned that. Quinlan answered, “He captured one two years ago. It took a few months, but he forced the words out of him with a hammer.” It was then that I knew for certain we’d made a huge mistake throwing in with these men, and I saw it in the eyes of my fellows too. Just the same, we knew there’d be a gunfight if we backed away from this deal and the twins looked as fast as any of us on the draw, probably faster
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“So he can speak Appanuqi,” I said, wanting to know more
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Quinlan went on, “We are going to take over a tribe I’ve been marking for half a year. Intimidate them and get them under our heels.” He explained how he intended to do that, which was mean business. The other fellow asked him what would happen if the Appanuqi didn’t go along with the scheme or if they just came at us straight away
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Quinlan said, “We have enough firepower to put a third of them down before reloading and I have plenty of grenades to finish off the rest. As long as nobody hesitates, we are in no danger.” He said this last bit to my gang, as if we might be squeamish
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I mentioned to you once right after Benjamin was born that my father was killed by Indians, so you can figure I didn’t object to putting some down—especially savages like these—but I knew I couldn’t bring myself
to shoot a child or a woman no matter what race they were or what was happening. I kept these thoughts to myself
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We rode far. The sun had set and I heard some coyotes on the wind. J talked about buying a house and getting some dogs someday, but he was nervous and didn’t believe what he was saying. D, the other fellow and I were silent
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We made camp and huddled around a pit fire to make it less visible from high vantage points. Everyone kept their guns on while they chewed beans and dried beef and peanuts. The only ones who talked were the twins to each other, and I soon realized I shouldn’t listen to their stories because I would get into a brawl that would probably turn into a shootout
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When the moon was halfway up the sky, Quinlan said, “It’s time to conduct our interview.” He pulled a strap with eight grenades over his shoulder and gave the twins two more with just as many. We climbed onto our horses and rode southwest toward a ridge of mountains
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That ride was three hours, but it felt like a week. Our horses clumb the slope, their hooves getting louder and louder as the slope got steeper and steeper. Soon that clopping was the only sound I heard. We went up the incline, at the edge of which hung the half moon, then on its way down. When we reached the edge of the escarpment, we looked into a huge gorge. Two dozen fires burned in the settlement down below, which was by a small pond. Seventy wigwams were arranged in a large circle around a central building that was round and made of stacked flat stones. The curving wall of this structure was decorated with white pebbles, which—when I got closer—I saw were human skulls
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Quinlan told us that he had counted two hundred and thirty Appanuqi in this settlement, which was made up of mostly warriors—the closer to white men they got, the more braves in a settlement, it seemed. A few of them sat by the fire, but most were asleep in their wigwams
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We rode down a steep switchback trail they had carved in the side of the gorge. As we descended, they starting calling out to each other. The toddler told us that they were saying “Eight white men,” and some were saying “Breakfast rides in.” The Appanuqi were also cannibals. Quinlan lit the cigar in his mouth, as did the twins
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By the time we reached the bottom a score of braves had gathered to meet us, hatchets out. Quinlan and the twins lit the fuses of three grenades with their cigars and lobbed them into the group—the metal balls exploded the moment they hit the ground, they timed it so perfectly. Nine Indians lay dead and six more lay dying in the dirt, their faces half blown off, their sides blackened, some limbs gone and shrapnel burning in their guts
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Quinlan looked at the toddler and said, “Tell them we want to speak to the chief.” The toddler called out the words in Appanuqi
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More braves came out of wigwams, and I was thankful that I saw no women or children. J looked ill, D was covered with sweat and the other fellow clenched his teeth like he did when he was angry. A dozen braves gathered on our right to charge in, but the twins lobbed two more grenades that exploded the moment they were at shoulder level and blew off most of their heads. Most of them died instantly, but a few fell to the ground shrieking from exposed skulls. It was horrible
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D saw two Indians raise spears and I saw one with a strange bow. We put bullets in their hearts and dropped them. In the silence after those shots, none of the Appanuqi moved
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To the toddler, Quinlan said, “Tell them to send the chief out now or we’ll kill every last brave and sodomize the women.” The toddler called out in Appanuqi and the Indians looked amongst themselves, unsure what to do. A voice called out from the round building of flat stones and the Indians dropped to their knees and tilted their heads as if God had spoken. An Indian with a headdress made out of at least twenty bird skulls and clothing made from bear fur walked outside through the fabric door of the building. This was the chief. He held a leash attached to a Mexican with curved legs and a lumpy head who walked beside him on all fours like a pet. The Mexican’s jaw was wrecked and wouldn’t shut and his tongue hung out like a dog’s and all of his fingers were missing. This was one of the grotesques we had heard about and it was very hard to look upon him
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The chief walked up and I saw that he was about fifty, but still strong and full of fire. He had snake spines woven into his long hair and a tattoo of a bird upon his forehead
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He looked at the toddler and said some angry words, though he did not yell, but before the toddler translated, Quinlan said, “Tell him to look at me when he talks. I am the leader.” The toddler translated Quinlan’s words and the chief filled up with anger like a kettle with bubbles on the fire, but he looked over at Quinlan and repeated himself
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Quinlan said, “Tell him to kneel when he addresses me,” which we all knew was going to create some real trouble. J, D, the other fellow and I drew our guns; the
twins dropped down from their horses. The toddler translated
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Seven braves rushed us. I put down two, D put down three and J and the other fellow each dropped one. We were scared and there was no hesitation at all from any of us
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The twins walked over to the chief. The moment he dropped his leash, the Mexican grotesque scrambled off. The twins broke a couple of the chief’s ribs and his nose and then stepped back. Quinlan told the toddler to tell the chief to kneel again and this time the man did. The cowed Indian looked up at Quinlan and asked a question, something with less pride and fire than whatever he had said before
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The toddler translated, “ ‘What do you want of the Appanuqi?
’ ”

“Tell him that they all must obey me. I am the new chief.” The toddler translated Quinlan’s demand. The chief gaped in horror. The Appanuqi nearby looked fearfully at their leader
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The chief spoke his reply. The toddler translated, “ ‘I am the chief
.’ ”

Quinlan reached to the side of his saddle, where he’d hung a burlap bag earlier that day. I didn’t know what was in it. He tossed it to the ground in front of the chief. One of the twins pointed his gun at the chief’s head, the other one untied the bag and emptied it on the ground right in front of him. It was two pounds of horse dung. The chief began to shake as he filled up with rage
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“Tell him to eat all of that,” Quinlan said to the toddler. The toddler translated. The chief started to get up, but the nearest twin pistol-whipped him three times on the ear until blood was running out
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“Eat,” Quinlan said, and that didn’t need to be translated. The chief put his hands in the dung and pulled up some and put it in his mouth. He gagged, but he did not vomit. The Appanuqi grew somber as they watched their god-chief desecrate himself this way for ten minutes. He ate the whole thing and I couldn’t watch, nor could any of my men. He didn’t vomit, which only made it worse
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Quinlan said, “Ask him who the chief is.” The toddler asked in Appanuqi and the chief bowed to Quinlan in response
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“Tell your tribesmen that they must listen to me.” The chief looked at his people with tears in his eyes and spoke. The toddler nodded his verification that the chief had spoken true
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That was how we got more than two hundred Appanuqi under our heels. It was the first part of the plan Quinlan had plotted but hadn’t yet explained to us in full. He said if things went well from there on out, there would be no more killings, just earnings with very little in the way of personal risk. It seemed we had already done the hard part and though the Tall Boxer Gang considered leaving Quinlan after that terrible night, it would be foolish to pass up easy money after what we already went through to get it. That was what we thought, anyhow
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The next day we marched the whole tribe out of their settlement and went back east and a little to the north. If an Indian dawdled or acted up, the twins were there like gnats, throwing fists into them, giving black eyes, busted lips and broken noses to the offenders. Once they shot a brave who fought back and then urinated on his body in front of the rest. The twins seemed to enjoy doing stuff like this
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We pushed the Indians hard—they were on foot and we were up on horses—so that by the time we made camp late that day they were beat. We let them rest and also eat some of the meat they brought with them. They ate wolves and snakes mainly, though we did see some human parts in there too
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We were in a gorge about two miles from a town called Vaca Vieja, a place where people were getting into copper mining, something that would pay off big once the railway finally got there. These long-term investors were the richest kind of men, since they don’t need anything and all they do is sit around and gamble and go to brothels and watch themselves get fatter. So there was a lot of money in that town, but it wasn’t centralized in a bank, because it was just a bunch of rich investors staking their claims, hiring workers and setting up operations and also some tradesmen doing their own business. It seemed that nobody could rob a place like this, but Quinlan had figured out a way. Though most Irishmen I’d known drank a lot, Quinlan didn’t ever—he just sat around thinking, which I guess is when these schemes came to him
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That night we led the Appanuqi to an open plain near the town. Quinlan told the chief to make the Indians do a war dance and beat their drums and holler like devils. The Appanuqi cavorted and yelled and yipped liked wild animals, and the streets of Vaca Vieja got empty real quick. After the dance we led the Indians back to the gorge
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The next morning, Quinlan and I left the other six to watch the Indians and we rode into Vaca Vieja. More buildings were being made than currently stood completed and men from the East walked around the town in suits with all sorts of flaps and unnecessary stuff dangling down. There were about three hundred
people there total. Quinlan and I found the deputy and told him that we needed to speak to the mayor, quick. The deputy asked what for and we told him it was about those Appanuqi. He didn’t delay after that
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The mayor was a small nervous fellow with a red face and a runny nose. Quinlan said to him, “We’ve been tracking those Indians since they massacred a caravan. What did they do out on that plain last night?
”

“They made fires and danced crazy, yipping wild, beating drums and calling out blasphemies
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Quinlan shook his head solemnly and looked at me and I did the same, playing along. Quinlan then looked at the mayor (the fellow seemed about to cry) and said, “The Appanuqi have marked Vaca Vieja for purging
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The mayor went white as milk and asked what could be done—should he evacuate the town, or something like that. He was an Eastern tenderfoot and had never seen any real trouble in his life, it was clear. Quinlan said, “If you take to the plains, that’ll make it even easier for them to slaughter you all
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“But we can’t defend against a tribe of Appanuqis,” the mayor said
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Quinlan told him, “I know how to drive them off, I’ve done it before.” The mayor’s face lit up like a child’s. Quinlan went on, “But it’s a great risk to me and my posse.” The mayor, so excited about salvation, said that the town would pay us whatever we thought fair. Quinlan said, “You’ll pay us one hundred thousand now and another hundred after we send them running.” The mayor had not expected such a large sum to be named and his mouth hung open for a bit before he asked if it could be less. “No,” Quinlan said. “That’s what it costs for us to turn them. Last time I lost seven men
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“Good men,” I added for effect. And so the mayor
called a meeting, got us the money and paid us the half up front
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So that night we playacted just what you’d expect—the Indians came out of the plains and at the town making so much noise nobody could hear anything and then we rode out of the town toward them, shooting in the air. We knocked some down and the twins killed a dozen, but they turned and ran back into the plains as soon as the toddler told them to scat
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We went back and collected the rest of our fee. That first time, everything went smoothly and we were treated like heroes. We divvied the spoils evenly. Quinlan was fair about it even though it was his scheme
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