The Texts Of Festival (9 page)

‘Lotta soljas in town?’

‘Sure, cheap bastards from Festival, want a reduction on everything. Claim they’re savin’ us from outlaws.’

‘Outlaws?’ Iggy pretended to look surprised. ‘Sho’ are a lotta soljas for one buncha outlaws.’

‘Ain’t you heard, dear? A caravan was turned over at Ruined Hill, they’re gonna get whoever done it.’

‘No kiddin’?’

‘You never heard about it, on the road?’ The girl looked suspicious.

‘We been in the hills.’

‘Oh.’ The girl lost interest and took a swallow from the jug and crossed her legs.

‘I don’ wanna hustle you, dear, but did you want us for somethin’?’

Iggy looked at the round-eyed Nath and smiled slowly.

‘One of yous could take care o’ my buddy here. He’s a country boy an’ he ain’t too smart, but I’m sho’,’ he laid two more papers on the table, ‘one o’ yous could improve his education.’

The second girl stood up.

‘C’mon then country boy, let’s go have a time.’ Nath scrambled to his feet and the girl led him towards the back door. Quickly Iggy called her back and pushed two more bills into the front of her dress.

‘Make sho’ he has hisself some crystal; know what I mean?’

The girl winked knowingly.

‘Sure.’

He turned to Winston as Nath and the girl left the bar.

‘We better move the party in here, case of trouble. Go round up the boys an’ send ’em in here. Meantime I’ll talk to this here young lady.’

Winston got up and went to round up the men; Iggy looked at the girl.

‘You ever had a cat who was, like, into a lotta crystal?’ The girl looked hard at him and nodded.

‘Then you’ll know about their, uh, special requirements.’

Billy Joe was drunk. He was dimly aware that most of his buddies were as drunk as he was. They had reached Afghan Promise just as the sun was setting, stabled the horses, headed for Eggs’s joint and got down to serious drinking. Some of the boys were out in the back tumbling with the bar girls, but most were crowded round the bar, laughing, shouting and singing.

The room started to spin and Billy Joe staggered towards the main door of the bar. Out on the front porch of the bar he leaned against a post and was violently sick, and then clung there, taking deep breaths and hoping the night air would clear his head. He heard the click of heels and raised his head to see the blurred image of a girl coming towards him.

‘You all right, mister?’

‘Sure baby,’ Billy Joe pushed himself away from the post and stood swaying, ‘how’s about you’n’me goin’ in back, an’ you’ll see jus’ how all right I am.’

‘You got any money, solja? You gotta pay for your fun.’ Billy Joe grinned drunkenly.

‘You ain’t gonna charge me, are you darlin’?’ He lurched towards her. ‘I’m savin’ you from them baby-eatin’ outlaws.’

The girl sidestepped and he sprawled against the wall. Swinging her hips, she walked back into the bar, leaving Billy Joe clutching the wall and struggling to stand upright.

‘Come back here you bitch. Come back here an’ I’ll teach you some fuggin’ manners.’

Billy Joe staggered inside the bar and looked round. The room appeared to swirl about him and he fought to keep his balance. He couldn’t see the woman anywhere and sat down heavily in a handy chair. The room spun and his head, cradled in his arms, rested on the table. For a while he shut his eyes but that seemed to make things worse. He opened them again and stared into a blurred mid-distance.

He remained motionless for what seemed like a long while. A part of the blur connected with his dulled consciousness as being in some way familiar. With some difficulty he focused his eyes. The woman! The one with the long legs and black straight hair. He’d been longing to get those legs wrapped around his waist and now the bitch was over there, sitting at a table with some drifter. To make it worse, the drifter looked like a faggot.

Billy Joe raised his head and muttered beneath his breath. Then, swaying, he climbed to his feet.

‘Godam whore, leavin’ honest soljas thuh to …’

He lurched, and grabbed at a table to steady himself. Few heads turned; it was just another drunk mumbling to himself.

‘Godam whore!’

Still she ignored him, laughing with the drifter, and drinking from his jug. Billy Joe raised his voice.

‘GODAM WHORE!’

The bar room became quiet, and the captain stood up and moved towards him.

‘You’ve had too much, Billy Joe, c’mon now.’

Billy Joe pushed past him and lurched to the table where the woman and the drifter sat.

‘Wha’ you doin’ wiv me woman, mufug?’

Iggy looked up as the drunken soldier staggered towards him. He placed both his gloved hands flat on the table, watching the man intently.

‘One of you soljas, take this bum away befo’ he gets hurt.’

With a snarl Billy Joe had grabbed for Iggy’s throat but one of Iggy’s hands shot out and chopped Billy Joe under the jaw. He sprawled backwards on the floor, shaking his head and pulling his knife from his belt. Knife in hand he moved more cautiously towards Iggy who edged sideways, away from the table.

‘It’s yer las’ warnin’ solja.’

‘I’m gonna cut yer…’

Before Billy Joe could finish the sentence, Iggy had a gun in his hand.

The shot hit Billy in the stomach; he folded in half, his legs gave way and he hit the floor.

When Winston returned to Eggs Akerly’s with the rest of the men, the place seemed unnaturally quiet. Then he heard a shot and Iggy’s voice shouting ‘Hold it’. He slipped the repeater from his shoulder, and broke into a run. As he burst through the door, Iggy was backed, gun out, against the wall and a group of five soldiers were advancing on him. Winston fired a burst into them and Iggy dived for the floor, letting go two shots as he dropped.

The rest of the Festival men milled drunkenly, reaching for discarded weapons and struggling to rise. Nath burst through the back door, holding his gun with one hand and his shirt in the other. One of the soldiers raised his gun but Winston fired another burst that cut him down, along with two of his fellows.

Iggy yelled ‘Split’, and he and Nath made a break for the door, firing as they ran. Winston paused for them to get clear, then fired a quick burst as he backed out of the door.

As the outlaws ran for the stables, soldiers milled out of the bar and bullets made angry humming sounds as they fired after them. Iggy swung round and returned their shots.

Then they were mounted and the night swallowed them as they raced out of town.

After two days and a night Hud Daley was sick and angry. Angry at the way he had let his men get so drunk that they could be taken like children; angry at the outlaws who had gunned down nine of his men; and angry that after tracking them for a day and a night he and his remaining men had finally lost them. His eyes were red with fatigue, he hadn’t shaved and most of the men looked as bad as he did. At the very least he would be busted back to trooper, and would probably be lucky to escape a flogging when he returned to Festival with only two thirds of his original squad. After an afternoon’s fruitless searching, there was nothing left to do but give the order to take the trail back to the highway.

The setting sun threw the trail into deep shadow as it wound between two low ridges. Preoccupied with his own failure Daley did not notice the movement on the ridge between him and the sun. Only when the man in front of him screamed and tugged at the arrow buried in his throat, did he realise that he was under attack.

Another man, and then another, dropped from their saddles. Daley fired wildly into the dazzling sun as rifle shots rang out, adding bullets to the steady stream of arrows.

Suddenly his horse collapsed under him and he was thrown to the ground. He rolled to avoid the hooves of the thrashing horse, and scrambled to his feet. Crouching he ran to where some of his men were firing at the ridge, squinting into the sun in an attempt to locate their invisible attackers.

Halfway there, he was spun round as a bullet tore into his shoulder. The ground tilted and it was suddenly black.

Iggy ordered his men to keep firing until nothing moved in the little valley. Then cautiously they rose from cover and advanced slowly down the slope. At the bottom they halted, and looked around at the litter of dead men and horses. Iggy walked among the carnage: nothing moved; the slaughter seemed complete. Then out of the corner of his eye Iggy saw the captain of the troop raise his head. Iggy stood still and grinned as the man painfully tried to raise his rifle. For a moment he held it poised and then, before he could pull the trigger, slumped as his strength gave out.

Still grinning, Iggy walked over to where the man lay, and put a bullet in the back of his head.

‘There, solja boy. You sho’ found your outlaws.’

9.

Blind Larry shuffled down the Drag in the grey dawn, his cane tapping in front of him finding a safe path in the potholed and rutted avenue. The rustle of windblown garbage and the creaking of a swinging bar sign provided a coarse background as he murmured to himself and sang softly:

‘Come on everybody,
Come gather round friends.’

A dog trotted quickly down the avenue, on furtive dog business, giving the muttering blind man a wide berth.

‘This is the day
Civilisation ends.’

A sleepy figure, huddled by the wall of Madame Lou’s, stirred slightly as Blind Larry went by, then drawing its legs closer to its chest it continued its unhappy sleep.

‘Let’s get together
And do death’s dance.’

His foot struck an empty spirit bottle and he bent down, feeling with his hand, to pick it up. Hooking his cane over his arm, he raised the jug to his lips to drink any discarded trickle. Nothing came and he hurled the bottle across the avenue. The dog barked as it rattled off the sidewalk in front of Cindy’s Pleasure Parlour. Blind Larry spat in the dust and shuffled on.

The crash of swing doors from the direction of the Last Chance made him stop singing and pause to listen attentively.

On the sidewalk in front of the Last Chance, Frankie Lee yawned and stretched. It had been a good night’s game despite the fact that he had come out with little more than he had sat down with. An honest game among professionals was much more satisfying than just taking money off a mark.

Seeing the blind man standing in the middle of the avenue, he called out to him.

‘Hey Larry, wha’s ‘appenin’?’

The blind man stared sightlessly in the direction of the voice.

‘Who’s ‘at, who’s talkin’?’

‘It’s me, Larry, Frankie. Frankie Lee the Gambler.’

The old man stood still, saying nothing. His ragged coat flapped in the breeze. Frankie Lee stepped off the sidewalk.

‘Well Larry, ain’t you got nothin’ to say? Wha’s the word, ol’ man?’

‘Wha’s the word, Frankie Lee the Gambler, named for the text? I have no word. What word? Word for what?’

Frankie Lee grinned; the old man was crazy, but he had the gift of fools.

‘No word for this new morning in Festival, Celebration morning?’

‘No word for Celebration, no word for morning, but for Festival there is a word in the west, too soon to know, p’raps the pale word, p’raps death.’

‘Death, ol’ man? Or mebbe weed an’ corn spirit. Let’s knock up Madame Lou, mebbe she’ll serve us eggs. Words of death run before a full gut.’

Frankie Lee clapped Blind Larry on the shoulder and led him off in the direction of Madame Lou’s.

Joe Starkweather slung his legs over the side of the bed and fumbled with his weed pouch. Lighting his pipe he inhaled deeply and coughed. There was little point in trying to sleep any longer; his leg had hurt like hell all night, and now that the dawn was filtering through the window shutters there was little use in a pretence of rest. He would be better occupied watching the early preparations for Celebration.

He pulled his shirt over his head, struggled painfully into his hide pants, and pulled on his boots. Then, throwing his coat over his shoulders, he limped out of his quarters.

The paved courtyard of the walled Backstage was deserted except for a cat that prowled through the previous night’s garbage. Starkweather headed across the yard in the direction of the guard house beside the Highway Gate.

He rapped on the heavy wooden door and after some delay a trooper, rubbing his eyes and straightening his surcoat and belt, opened it.

‘Joe Starkweather!I You’re about early.’

‘Couldn’t sleep, Luther. Ain’t you gonna let me in?’

‘Sure, sure. C’mon in.’

Luther held the door as Starkweather walked into the guard house and then shut it behind him.

‘Sit down, wanna drink?’

‘Sure, why not.’

Starkweather seated himself at the square wooden table. Luther brought mugs and a bottle of spirit. Two more troopers lay asleep in a double bunk against the wall. Luther splashed corn spirit into the mugs, and raised one to his lips.

‘Cheers Joe.’

‘Yeah, cheers.’ Starkweather picked up his mug and drank. Then he set it down and looked at the soldier. ‘So tell me Luther, how are things?’

‘Much as usual.’

‘Yeah. Hud Daley back with that patrol yet?’

‘Not yet.’

‘I’d have thought he’d be back by now.’

‘I reckon he’ll ride in today. I don’t see him chasin’ round the hills longer than he needs to.’

‘Unless he found some real outlaws.’

‘Come on, Joe, outlaws would’ve been long gone by the time Hud got there.’

‘Maybe. Any outlaw who’s prepared to jump a big caravan that close to Festival must be pretty confident, perhaps have something to be confident about.’

‘Could just be crazy.’

‘I just reckon any outlaws who could take on a caravan could give Hud an’ his patrol a hard time.’

‘Lissen Joe, I reckon today’ll see Hud an’ his boys ridin’ in. If not today, tomorrow at the latest.’

‘Yeah, you’re most likely right.’

Luther refilled the mug and they both drank. The hard liquor temporarily eased Joe’s sense of misgiving and for a while they sat in silence. Joe filled his pipe and passed his pouch to Luther. Just as he was about to light up, there was a rap on the door. Luther stood up and slid back the bolt. A trooper waited outside.