The Sisters Brothers (11 page)

Chapter 34

After we dispatched the hand we visited with Mayfield in his parlor. He was shocked when he found us knocking on his door, to the point that he could not speak or move for a time; I ushered him to his couch, where he sat awaiting his nameless fate. To Charlie I said, ‘He is different from last night.’

‘This is the true man,’ Charlie told me. ‘I knew it the moment I saw him.’ Addressing Mayfield, he said, ‘As you may have guessed, we have cut down your help, all four of them, plus the stable boy, which was unfortunate, and unplanned. I am quick to point out that this is entirely your doing, as we brought you the red pelt in good faith and had nothing to do with its disappearance. Thusly, the deaths of your men and the boy should rest on your conscience alone, not ours. I do not ask that you agree with this necessarily, only that you recognize I have said as much. Are we understood?’

Mayfield did not answer. His eyes were pinpointed to a spot on the wall behind me. I turned to see what he was staring at and discovered it to be: Nothing. When I looked back at him he was rubbing his face with his palms, as though he were washing.

‘All right,’ Charlie continued. ‘This next part you will not like, but here is the price to pay for the impositions you hefted upon my brother and myself. Are you listening to me, Mayfield? Yes, I want you to tell us, now. Where do you keep your safe?’

Mayfield was quiet for such a time I did not think he heard the question. Charlie was opening his mouth to repeat himself when Mayfield answered, in a voice scarcely above a whisper, ‘I will not tell you.’ Charlie walked over to him. ‘Tell me where the safe is or I will hit you on the head with my pistol.’ Mayfield said nothing and Charlie removed his gun from the holster, gripping it at the barrel. He paused, then clipped Mayfield on the very top of his skull with the walnut butt. Mayfield fell back onto the couch, covering his head and making restrained pain sounds, a kind of squealing through gritted teeth that I found most undignified. He began at once to bleed, and Charlie pressed a hanky into his fist as he sat the man up. Mayfield did not ball this into a bunch and hold it over his wound as anyone else might have, but laid the square of cotton flat over his head like a tablecloth; as he was bald on top, the blood fixed the hanky to his head quite handily. Whatever possessed him to do this? Was this a thoughtless inspiration, or something he had learned somewhere? Mayfield sat looking at us with a sulky expression on his face. He had only one boot on, and I noticed his bare foot was red and swollen at the toes. I pointed and said, ‘Touch of chilblains, Mayfield?’

‘What’s chilblains?’

‘It looks like that’s what’s wrong with your foot.’

‘I don’t know what’s wrong with it.’

‘I think it’s chilblains,’ I said.

Charlie snapped his fingers, both to quiet me and to regain Mayfield’s attention. ‘This time,’ he said, ‘if you do not answer me, I will hit you twice.’

‘I won’t let you have it all,’ Mayfield said.

‘Where is the safe?’

‘I worked for that money. It is not yours to take.’

‘Right.’ He hit Mayfield twice with the butt and the man once again doubled over on the couch to wail and complain. Charlie had not removed the hanky to strike him and the blows were unpleasantly wet sounding. When he propped Mayfield upright, the man was tensing his jaws and panting and his entire head was slick with blood—the hanky itself was dripping. He stuck out his lower lip and was attempting a show of bravery, but he looked ridiculous, like something in a butcher’s display, blood running down his chin and neck, soaking into his collar. Charlie said, ‘Let’s get something clear between us, now. Your money is gone. This is a simple truth, a point of fact, and if you struggle against it we will kill you,
then
we’ll find your safe. I want you to ponder this: Why should you receive abuse and death for something that is already forfeit? Think on it. There is no sense in your attitude.’

‘You are going to kill me one way or the other.’

‘That is not necessarily the truth,’ I said.

‘It isn’t,’ said Charlie.

‘Will you give me your word on it?’ asked Mayfield.

Charlie looked at me, his eyes asking:
Should we let him live?
My eyes answered him:
I don’t care
. He said, ‘If you give us the money, we will leave you as we found you, living and breathing.’

‘Swear on it.’

‘I swear on it,’ said Charlie.

Mayfield watched him, searching for some sign of devilishness. Satisfied, he looked over at me. ‘You swear it also?’

‘If my brother says it’s so, then it’s so. But if you want me to swear I won’t kill you, then I swear it.’

He removed the heavy hanky and flung it to the ground; it clapped as it hit the floor and he regarded it with a measure of disgust. Now he straightened his vest and stood, teetering on his heels, then sitting back down, having nearly fainted from the effort. ‘I need a drink, and something more to clean my head. I do not wish to walk through my hotel looking like this.’ I fixed him a tall brandy that he drank in two long swallows. Charlie ducked into the water closet and emerged with a handful of towels, a bowl of water, and a hand mirror. These were placed on the low table before Mayfield, and we watched as he set to work cleaning himself. He was unemotional as he did this, and I felt an obscure admiration for him. He was losing all of his savings and gold, and yet he displayed as much concern as a man shaving his face. I was curious what he was thinking about, and asked him; when he said he was making plans I inquired as to what they might be. He lay the mirror facedown on the table and said, ‘That depends entirely upon how much of my money you men will allow me to keep.’

‘Keep?’ said Charlie, eyebrows raised. He was rifling the drawers of Mayfield’s desk. ‘I thought it was understood you will keep none.’

Mayfield exhaled. ‘None at all? Do you mean to say, absolutely none?’

Charlie looked at me. ‘Was that not the plan?’

I said, ‘The plan, if I’m not mistaken, was to kill him. Now that we have changed that part, we can at least talk about this new concern. I will admit it seems cruel, to leave him penniless.’

Charlie’s eyes darkened, and he went into himself. Mayfield said, ‘You asked what I was thinking. Well, I will tell you. I was thinking that a man like myself, after suffering such a blow as you men have struck on this day, has two distinct paths he might travel in his life. He might walk out into the world with a wounded heart, intent on sharing his mad hatred with every person he passes; or, he might start out anew with an empty heart, and he should take care to fill it up with only proud things from then on, so as to nourish his desolate mind-set and cultivate something positive anew.’

‘Is he just inventing this as he goes?’ Charlie asked.

‘I am going to take the second route,’ Mayfield continued. ‘I am a man who needs to rebuild, and the first thing I will work on is my sense of purpose. I will remind myself of who I am, or was, for I fear my padded life here has made me lazy. I should say that your getting the better of me with such ease is proof of it.’

‘He describes his inaction and cowardice as laziness,’ Charlie said.

‘And with five men dead,’ I said, ‘he describes our overtaking his riches as easy.’

‘He has a describing problem,’ said Charlie.

Mayfield said, ‘My hope, I will put it to you men directly, is that you will see me through for trip expenses to your hometown of Oregon City, where I shall travel at once and lay waste to the mongrel with the scythe blade, James Robinson.’

He said this and immediately my brother and I had the same, evil thought.

‘Tell me that it’s not perfection,’ said Charlie.

‘But it is too tragic,’ I said.

‘You would protect this criminal acquaintance against what you have done to me?’ Mayfield said indignantly. ‘It is only just and proper that you men assist me in seeing this through. You have taken away all that I have earned, but you can redeem yourselves, at least partially, if you will only let me keep but a portion of my own fortune.’

This self-righteous speech sealed his fate, and we came to the agreement that Mayfield should be given one hundred dollars, just enough to get him to Oregon City, where he would be stuck, and where the first person he asked would inform him of Robinson’s death, and he would know we had known and would recall our amusement in bitter, black blood. The money was paid out in stamped gold taken directly from his safe, which was located in the basement of the hotel. Staring into its open mouth, Mayfield said, ‘That’s the only time I’ve ever been lucky in my life. Filled up a safe with gold and papers. More than most can say, at any rate.’ He nodded solemnly, but his show of bravado soon gave way to passionate emotion; his face dropped and tears began squirting from his eyes. ‘But goddamnit, luck is a hard feeling to hold on to!’ he said. Wiping his face, he cursed just as hotly and sincerely as he could, though quietly. ‘I feel no luck in my body now, and that is a fact.’ He cut a piteous silhouette with his little purse of money, pinching the strings the way one holds a dead mouse by its tail. We followed him outside and watched him tightening and refitting his clothing and saddlebags. He seemed to want to give a speech, but the words either did not come naturally or else he considered us unfit to receive them, and he remained silent. He mounted his horse, leaving with a curt nod and a look in his eyes that said: I do not like you people. We returned to the basement to count the safe’s contents, splitting and pocketing the paper money, which amounted to eighteen hundred dollars. The gold proved to be too much to account for in our travels and so was hidden underneath a potbellied stove, resting on a pallet of hardwood in the far basement corner. This was a dirty job, as we had to dismantle the tin chimney to move the stove back and forth, and we were both rained down in black soot; but when we were finished I could not imagine a soul would ever find our treasure, for no one would think to look in so remote a spot. The rough estimate of these riches was set at fifteen thousand dollars; my take of this more than tripled my savings, and as we left the musty basement, heading up the stairs and into the light, I felt two things at once: A gladness at this turn of fortune, but also an emptiness that I did not feel
more
glad; or rather, a fear that my gladness was forced or false. I thought, Perhaps a man is never meant to be truly happy. Perhaps there is no such a thing in our world, after all.

As we walked the halls of the hotel the whores were abuzz with the news of Mayfield’s head-wounded departure, and the disappearance of the trappers. I spied Charlie’s whore, looking only slightly less green than before, and took her to the side, asking where the bookkeeper was.

‘They ran her up to the doc’s.’

‘Is she all right?’

‘I imagine. They’re always running her up there.’

I pressed a hundred dollars into her hand. ‘I want you to give this to her when she comes back.’

She stared at the money. ‘Jesus Christ on a cloud.’

‘I will return in two weeks’ time. If I find she has not received it, there will be a price to pay, do you understand me?’

‘Mister, I was just standing in the hall, here.’

I held up a double eagle. ‘This is for you.’

She dropped the coin into her pocket. Peering down the hall in the direction Charlie had gone she asked, ‘I don’t suppose your brother’ll be leaving
me
a hundred.’

‘No, I don’t suppose he will.’

‘You got all the romantic blood, is that it?’

‘Our blood is the same, we just use it differently.’

I turned and walked away. A half-dozen steps, and she asked. ‘You want to tell me what she did for this?’

I stopped and thought. I told her, ‘She was pretty, and kind to me.’

And the poor whore’s face, she just did not know what to think about that. She went back into her room, slammed the door shut, and shrieked two times.

Chapter 35

We rode out of town and followed the shallows of the river. We were days late for our meeting with Morris but neither of us was much concerned about this. I was reliving and cataloging the events of the previous thirty-six hours when Charlie began to chuckle. Tub and I were in the lead; without turning I called out, asking him what was so amusing.

‘I was thinking of the day Father died.’

‘What about it?’

‘You and I were sitting in the field behind the house, eating our lunch when I heard he and Mother arguing. Do you remember what we were eating?’

‘What are you telling me?’ I asked.

‘We were eating apples. Mother had wrapped them in a strip of cloth and sent us outside. She had known they would argue, I believe.’

‘The cloth was faded red,’ I said.

‘That’s right. And the apples were green, and underripe. I remember you making a face about it, though you were so young I’m surprised you cared.’

‘I can remember the apples being sour.’ The vividness of the memory brought a pucker to my mouth, and saliva washed over my tongue.

Charlie said, ‘It was the hottest day of a bona fide heat wave, and we were sitting there in the long grass, eating and listening to Mother and Father’s screaming. Or I was listening to it. I don’t know if you noticed.’

As he told the story, though, it was as if the scenario was coming into view. ‘I think I noticed,’ I said. Then I was sure I had. ‘Did something break?’

‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘You really do remember.’

‘Something broke, and she screamed.’ My throat began to swell, and I found myself holding back tears.

‘Father broke out the window with his fist and then hit her on the arm with an ax handle. He had gone crazy, I think. Before that he’d edged up next to craziness but when I entered the house to help Mother, I felt he had given over his whole being to it. He didn’t recognize me when I came in with my rifle.’

‘How is it that people go crazy?’

‘It’s just a thing that sometimes happens.’

‘Can you go truly crazy and then come back?’

‘Not truly crazy. No, I don’t think so.’

‘I’ve heard a father hands it down to the next.’

‘I have never thought of it. Why, do you ever feel crazy?’

‘Sometimes I feel a helplessness.’

‘I don’t think that is the same thing.’

‘Let’s hope.’

He said, ‘Do you remember the first rifle of mine? The gun that Father called my pea shooter? He made no jokes about it when I began pulling that trigger.’ Charlie paused. ‘I shot him twice, one in the arm and another in the chest, and the chest shot brought him down. And he lay there,
spitting
at me, over and over—spitting and cursing and hating me. I have never seen hatred like that, never before or since. Our father, lying there, coughing up thick blood and spitting it at me. Mother was knocked out. Her arm was badly broken, and the pain made her faint. That’s some kind of blessing, I guess, that she didn’t have to see her son kill her husband. Well, Father laid his head down and died, and I dragged him out of the house and into the stable and by the time I came back, Mother’d woken up and was in a trance of pain or fright. She kept saying, “Whose blood’s that? Whose blood’s that on the floor?” I told her it was mine. I didn’t know what else to say. I helped her up and out, walked her to the wagon. It was a long ride into town, with her screaming every time I hit a bump in the road. Her forearm was bent like a chevron. Like a shotgun opened for loading.’

‘What happened next?’ I asked, for this I could not recall.

‘By the time I got some medicine in her, got her splinted up, it was late afternoon. And it wasn’t until I was halfway back that I remembered about you at all.’ He coughed. ‘I hope that doesn’t make you feel hurt, brother.’

‘That does not hurt me.’

‘I had been distracted. And you were always off in your private world of thoughts, quiet in the corners. But as I said, it was powerfully hot that day. And of course just as soon as I left you, you pulled your bonnet off. And there you sat, for four or five hours, with your fair hair and skin. Mother was sleeping in the wagon, drugged, and I left her there to rush out and see about you. I had not thought of you getting burned—my concern was that a coyote might have come along and picked you apart, or that you had walked down to the river and drowned. So I was very relieved to see you sitting there in one piece, and I ran down the hill to collect you. And you were just as red and burned as could be. The whites of your eyes turned red as blood. You were blind for two weeks and your skin peeled away in swaths like the skin of an onion. And that, Eli, is how you got your freckles.’