Stories (2011) (99 page)

“Me and my horse here thought we’d stop in the middle of the
goddamn prairie, under the goddamn sun, and take a goddamn nap.”

“Good a place as any,” I said, squatting down to look the
man over, “cause I don’t see one spread of shade nowhere.”

“And you won’t for some miles.”

“Course, that sombrero could cover an acre in shade.”

“It does me good from time to time,” he said.

I could see that the horse had a couple of bullet holes in
its side, and the fella had one too, in his right shoulder. He had stuffed a
rag in the hole and the rag was red, and the red shirt looked to have been a
lighter color before it had sucked up all that blood.

“I ain’t feelin’ so good,” he said.

“That would be because you got a bullet hole in you and a
big old dead horse lyin’ on your leg.”

“And I thought he was just nappin’. I didn’t want to disturb
him.” I bent down and looked at where the leg was trapped. The fella said, “You
know, I don’t know how much blood I got left in me.”

“Way you look,” I said, “not much. There’s a town not too
far from here I’ve heard of. Might be someone there that can do some fixin’s on
ya.”

“That’d be right good,” the fella said. “My name is Cramp,
or that’s what people call me anyway. I don’t remember how I got the name.
Something back in slave days. I think the man got my mama’s belly full of me
was called that, so I became Cramp too. Never knowed him. But, I got to tell
you, I ain’t up to a whole lot of history.”

I got hold of his leg and tried to ease it out from under
the horse, but that wasn’t workin’ went back to my horse, got a little camp
shovel I had when I was in the Buffalo Soldiers, and dug around Cramp’s leg,
said, “They call me Nat.”

He said, “That diggin’ is loosin’ me up, but I don’t know
it’s gonna matter. I’m startin’ to feel cold.”

“You’ve quit loosin’ blood for now,” I said, “otherwise,
you’d already be scratchin’ on heaven’s door.”

“Or hell’s back door.”

“One ta other.”

I got hold of his leg and pulled, and it come free, and he
made a barking sound, and I looked at him. His face was popped with sweat, and
it was an older face than I’d realized, fifty or so, and it looked like an old
dark withered potato. I got him under the shoulders and pulled him away and lay
him down, went back to his horse and cut one of the saddle bags off with my
knife, and put it under his noggin’ for a pillow. His sombrero had come off,
and I went and got that and brought it over to him, and was about to lean it on
his head, when I looked up and seen four riders comin’ in the distance.

Cramp must have seen the look on my face, cause he said,
“Did I mention that there’s some fellas after me?”

“That didn’t come up. Just said there was folks had somethin’
agin you.”

“That would be them. They’re mad at me.”

“They have a reason?”

“They don’t like me.”

“Are you normally likeable?”

“I’m startin’ to pass out, son.”

“Hang in there.”

“Can’t…Don’t let me be buried in no lonesome ground.”

He closed his eyes and lay still.

I got my long glasses and gave them a look. It was four
white fellas, and one of them looked to be damn near as big as the horse he was
ridin’. They all had the look of folks that would like to hang someone so they
could get in the mood to do somethin’ really bad. They was looking right at me,
the big cracker with his hand over his eyes, studying me there in the distance.

I got hold of Cramp and dragged his big ass on the other
side of the horse and stretched him out so that his head was against the saddle
and his feet was stretched out toward the North, which was the direction I
wanted to go. Actually, I kind of wanted to go any direction right then, and it
crossed my mind that I could get on my horse and just ride off, fast as I could
go, leave Cramp to the buzzards, the flies, and the ants, but havin’ been
partly ruint by too much good raisin’, and being of too much character, it just
wasn’t in me. But I didn’t have so much character I didn’t think about it.

I went around and picked up the Sharps and looked in the
saddle bag I had cut off, and found some loads in there, a whole batch of
handmade shells. I studied the situation awhile, decided that when things was
over there’d either be me and Cramp dead, or there would be some spare horses,
so I led my nag over near where the other horse lay, grabbed his nose and
pulled him down, way I had been taught in the cavalry, pulled out my pistol and
shot him through the head. He kicked once and was still, and now I had me a V
shaped horse fort. It was an old trick I’d learned fightin’ Indians. The other
thing I’d learned was not to get too sentimental about a horse, you never knew
when you might have to eat one or make a fort out of him. The one horse I’d
really liked, me and a woman I cared about had eaten him, but I don’t want to
get side tracked and off on that. It’s a sad story and doesn’t end well for any
of the three of us involved.

Lying down on my belly beside Cramp, I laid out the rifle
across his horse and took me a bead. A Sharps fifty, which is what Cramp’s
rifle was, can cover some real ground, but it takes some fine shootin’ to know
how to get the windage and judge the way the bullet will fall from a distance.
I was a fine shooter, but that didn’t stop me from worrying, especially now
that they were ridin’ toward me fast.

I beaded down on the big man, but another rider moved in
front of him, so he became my target. I had him good in my sights, but I
stopped and sucked my finger wet, stuck it up in the air and got me the pull of
the wind, then I beaded again. I took a deep breath and let it out slow as I
pulled the trigger. The rifle popped. I knew that from where they were, it
wouldn’t sound like much, and if they didn’t know their business, it would seem
to them I’d missed, cause it was a long damn ways.

The man I shot at was riding right along and it seemed that
a lot of time passed before he threw out his hands and I seen some dark wet
leap out of his chest and he fell off his horse.

I thought: What if ole Cramp here deserves what he’s gonna
get? That went through my head for a moment, but then I thought, even if he
does, he ought not to get it when he’s about dead, least not like this by a
bunch of angry peckerwoods.

They started firing at me with Winchesters, like the one on my
dead horse, and the bullets fell well short. They had stopped, but they hadn’t
shot their horses. They had dismounted and were standing by their horses firing
away, the bullets plopping well in front of me. I knew right then, them not
shooting their horses, they weren’t as committed as I was.

I said to myself, “You boys hold that position.”

I loaded another round in the Sharps and laid it back across
the dead horse and took a deep breath and cracked my neck the way I can by
moving my head a little sharply, and took aim. I was feelin’ frisky, so even
though I should have aimed for my target’s chest, I sighted a little high of
his forehead and fired. The shot knocked him off his feet, causin’ a puff of
dust to throw up, and I figured I’d gotten him right between the peepers,
thought that was guess work, because all I saw were the soles of his boots
comin’ up.

The other two, mounted up, and with the big man leading,
they went back in the other direction. I popped a load after them, knocking the
big man’s horse out from under him, throwing the bastard for a few loops. He
was on his feet quick and he got down behind the dead horse, and the other
fella kept on ridin’, like someone had stuck a lighted corn shuck up his
horse’s ass. I took a shot at him, but he kept ridin’, leaning low over his
horse like he was tryin’ to mix himself into it.

A moment later, he was out of sight, and I turned my
attentions back to the big fella.

I loaded again and raised up this time, on one knee, and
shouldered the rifle and took a long deep breath, and fired. This one plopped
into the dead horse. After that, I lay down behind Cramp’s horse with my head
barely up, and watched. The big man didn’t move until the day wore down and it
got near dark. He got up then and took off at a run in the other direction. I
could have let him go, because it was a hard shot, it being dark and all with
just some moonlight, but I was kind of worked up, them tryin’ to kill me and
all, so I raised up, and aimed, and fired, and got him. He went down like a
three hundred pound sack of shit.

“Asshole,” I said.

I wasn’t sure how to go from there, or where I was goin’,
less it was that town I told Cramp about, but one thing was certain, Cramp
wouldn’t be going with me, least not alive. He was colder than a wedge and
stiff as horse dick at breedin’ time.

When I felt wasn’t no one circlin’ in on me, I got up and
walked out a pace, carrying my Winchester with me, leavin’ the Sharps, but
bringin’ the loads with me, least they surprise me, come back, get hold of his
rifle and pick me off from a distance.

I walked in the direction I’d seen one of the horses go, and
when it was good and dark, I seen his shape outlined by the moon. I was able to
cluck to him and get him to come over, not mentionin’ to him I’d killed two of
his kind on this day.

I rode him back to where Cramp lay, got my saddle out from
under my horse, and swapped it onto the horse I’d rustled up. I got hold of
Cramp and threw him over the horse. He was so stiff, he rocked there for a
moment and nearly fell off. I climbed on board with the Winchester back in the
boot, and the Sharps, now loaded, across my lap, and started in the direction
of the town I knew was supposed to be out there, a place called Hide and Horns,
if memory served me. I hadn’t never been there, but I’d been told about it.
Before most of the buffalo was killed out in the area, it had been a place for
selling hides and horns and bones for fertilizer.

As I rode along, I didn’t let myself get too sure of things.
I kept my eyes open and my ears perked.

So far, I hadn’t torn open any of my cuts, and I determined
they had healed up good. I guess there was some things goin’ my way.

Hide and Horns, out there in the moonlight, looked like a
place you went to shit, not a place you went to live. But there was folks there
and the street was full of them, and a lot of them looked drunk. Thing was, I
was still wearin’ my army jacket from when I was in with the Buffalo Soldiers,
and this bein’ the panhandle of Texas, that blue jacket was bound to cause some
former rebel to come unhitched and want to kill him a nigger. I had not removed
it because of pride, but now as I neared Hide and Horns my pride was growing
smaller and my feelin’s about not gettin’ skinned for an incident of birth was
growin’ larger.

I decided to ride around the street, out back of the town
with my dead companion, and see what was on the far side, which is where I
figured the colored would be collected, if there was any. I rode around there,
taking it long and slow, and when I got to the other end, there was some shacks
and a lot of tents there. No coloreds to be seen, but there was four or five
Chinamen and some China girls outside next to a big fire and a boiling pot of
laundry, which one of them, a young China girl was movin’ around with a board.
Beyond her, I could see the town proper, lit up with lanterns and such, and
drunk cowboys crossin’ and wanderin’ around in the street like they really had
some place to go.

I got off my horse and led it toward the China folk, Cramp
rockin’ back and forth, and when I got up close to the pot, the girl, who
turned out to be a woman, only small, and beautiful in the firelight, looked at
me like I’d come from hell to borrow a cup of sugar. A Chinaman walked out into
the firelight with an axe. He was pretty big for a Chinaman. He said, “Do for
you?”

“Not if you’re plannin’ on choppin’ on me.”

He shook his head and his pigtail slapped from side to side.
“Do for you?”

“I got a fella here needs a place in the dirt.”

The Chinaman, maybe not sure what I meant, or just wanting
to satisfy his own curiosity, came over and took hold of Cramp’s boot and
pulled on it, said, “Dead nigger.”

“Yeah,” I said, “he won’t be havin’ dinner. But, I’d like
some. I got Yankee dollars.”

“How much dollars?”

“Enough.”

“Pussy?”

“Beg your pardon.”

“Sell pussy. You want?”

“Oh.”

I looked around. Four of the China girls had bunched up near
one of the larger tents, and they were looking at me, smiling. Two of them were
right smart lookin’, one was so ugly she could chase a bob cat up a tree, and
there was one pretty good looker with her leg cut off at the knee. She had a
wooden leg strapped on and had a crutch under her arm, and from what I could
make out in the firelight, she appeared to be missin’ a tooth on the far right
side.

“Half a woman,” the Chinaman said pointing at the wooden leg
gal, “she cheaper.”

“Actually, she’s more than half,” I said. “Way more.”

“She five penny.”

“Well, they are all as lovely as the next,” I said,” tryin’
not to look at the ugly one least I get struck by lightnin’ for lyin’, “but I’m
gonna pass. I’m hungry.”

I looked at the other one, at the wash pot. The Chinaman,
figurin’ I might be sizin’ her up for a mattress, said: “Daughter, not sale.”

“Okay,” I said. “About that food?”

“Chop suey?” he said. “Cheap.”

“What?”

“Chop suey,” he said again.

“That’ll work. Whatever that is.”

“Bury dead nigger?”

“He ain’t in no hurry,” I said. “I’ll tend to the horse and
eat before I bury him.”

As I was starting to remove my saddle from the horse, the
Chinaman walked by the China girls, and reached out and cuffed the cripple,
knocking her down. He said something in China talk. I went over and grabbed his
shoulder and shoved him back, and wagged a finger at him. “Hey,” I said. “Ain’t
no call to slap a woman around.”