The Witch's Tongue (37 page)

But of course, it was not a representative of Happy Dan’s Custom Trucks and Vans who knocked on Charlie Moon’s door. Even so, the rancher was surprised to see this particular person standing on his porch, and the sleek black Cadillac parked under a naked cottonwood branch.

Bertram Eustace Cassidy considered the Ute with a grave expression. “Charles, we must talk.”

The rancher opened the door wide. “Come inside.”

“No.” The unexpected caller pointed at the river, slipping effortlessly over black boulders. “We shall go down there.” Without waiting for a response, Bertie led the way.

Pulled along by his curiosity, Moon followed.

Bertie stopped on the rocky bank. For the first time in his life, the soft, bald, city-bred man hooked his thumbs under his belt. To punctuate this excess, he spat on the ground.

Moon wondered what was up, and posed the question to his guest.

“Charles, I am highly dissatisfied with my life. I do not have a serious profession. I have neither a wife nor a home of my own. Even the automobile I drive belongs to Auntie Jane.” He fell into a dark silence before picking up his monologue. “This being my sorry condition, I have decided to be finished with it all.” He left the grim suggestion hanging by its neck.

The Ute squatted at the river’s edge, watched the setting sun’s crimson reflection dance on the rippling mirror.

The visitor seated himself on a basalt boulder. “I have decided to shuffle off my superficial persona—to expose the shining inner self. I shall be transformed, from despicable caterpillar to splendiferous butterfly.”

Moon sensed that a response was expected. “Sounds like a good move.”

“I am gratified to know that you approve.” Bertie’s round face broke into a grin; the effect was that of a small pink melon splitting. “Because for the metamorphosis to be ultimately successful, your cooperation will be required.”

The Ute turned to give Mr. Cassidy a suspicious look. “Would you run that by me one more time?”

Bertram Eustace Cassidy met the Indian’s flinty gaze without flinching. “I will need your help.”

Moon played for time. “I don’t know much about caterpillars or butterflies.”

“That was merely a transitional metaphor. The more concrete fact is—I wish to become exactly what you are.”

Moon cocked his head at the pale man. “You want to be a Ute?”

Bertie threw up his hands. “Of course not—am I a silly child? Why on earth would I wish to become a feather-bonneted, spear-chucking, drum-beating aboriginal? I mean, that is the most ludicrous, most…” He ran out of words.

Charlie Moon took it all in stride. “The tribe will be very disappointed.”

Bertie set his jaw. “I shall attempt to make my intentions perfectly clear. I want—no, I
hanker
to be a cowboy.”

The stockman smiled. “You’re joshing me, right?”

Bertie shook his shiny head. “In my entire life, I have never been more earnest.”

“Well, Earnest—it’s still a more-or-less free country. Buy yourself a big Tom Mix hat and a knobby-kneed cayuse and go galloping across the plains. Get falling-down drunk on rotgut whiskey. Play crooked poker with shifty-eyed villains.” The Ute added with a twinkle in his eye, “And shoot yourself some bloodthirsty, feather-bonneted, spear-chucking, drum-beating aboriginals.”

“Please, Charles—do not patronize me. I mean to be the real McCoy—a dusty, dirty, rip-snorting, grit-in-my-craw cowboy.”

Charlie Moon got to his feet. The sun had settled easily into the saddle on Dead Mule Notch and was about to ride away. “Bertram, it is one thing to play at being a motion-picture cowboy. But being a real working stockman, that is another thing entirely.”

“I realize that. During the past few weeks, I have researched the subject exhaustively.”

“Good for you. But you can’t learn a trade like cowboyin’ by reading books.”

“I am willing to start at the bottom, work my way up.”

“You willing to shovel manure twenty hours a day?”

“If called upon, I will wade up to my knees in the stuff.”

“How about doctoring sick horses that kick you in the face for your trouble. Sleeping in a drafty, flea-infested bunkhouse with a dozen smelly cutthroats that snore loud enough to drown out a tornado. Drinking muddy water six yards downstream from a bloated steer. All this for a few dollars a day and cold beans. And did I mention riding fences in sixty-mile-an-hour sandstorms?”

Bertie’s eyes glinted. “Riding across the
lone prairie
on a noble steed? Why, I would do it for nothing.”

Moon realized that drastic action was called for. He turned, pointed to the corral where a gimpy old cowhand was saddling up a decidedly ignoble steed. “You have any idea who that is?”

Bertram Eustace Cassidy shook his head.

“I call him Robert Finnegan. Most of the hands call him Sissy Bob.”

Bertie blushed to hear such a shameful name. “Why do they call him that?”

“It’s because of something that happened a long time before I owned the Columbine.” The rancher hesitated. “But I guess it would not be right to tell you about it.”

“Oh no, you
must
tell me!”

“All right, then—if I must. About thirty years ago, on a blustery day in March, Robert was working alone on the low, marshy section over by the Buckhorns. With no warning at all, the white stuff started to fall real heavy. Now, snow didn’t bother him none, so he just kept at his job—which was setting a line of cedar fence posts. Things was going along fairly well when something really terrible happened. It pains me just to think about it.” The storyteller paused as if he might not be able to continue.

Bertie clenched his hands into fists. “What?”

“He stepped on a rusty old bear trap that’d probably been there for sixty-two years or more.” The Ute’s expression was deathly grim. “Faster’n a woodpecker’s peck, Robert’s left foot got snapped half off.”

Bertie cringed. “That is absolutely
ghastly
.”

“You took the words right outta my mouth.” Moon went on with his narrative. “That trap was chained to an iron spike that was driven into the ground, which was froze solid at the time. Robert couldn’t get to his tools, and he didn’t have a folding knife in his pocket, so he had no choice but to take drastic action.” He waited for Bertie to ask him, “What did he do?”

“What did he do?”

“He used his teeth.”

“His
teeth
?”

Moon nodded. “Robert gnawed his foot off just above the ankle.”

Bertie blanched as if he had been slapped in the face. “That is simply astonishing. Even if a man had the raw courage to do such a thing, I would not have thought that he would be able to get his mouth that close to his foot—”

“Robert was a lot younger then, and a good deal more supple.”

“Well, that is really the most amazing, almost unbelievable—”

“Yes it is. After Robert had chewed himself outta the bear trap, he dipped the bloody stump in a bucket of hot tar.”

“Why did he happen to have hot—”

“For coating the bottom of the fence posts.” Moon picked up the pace: “After that, Robert tries to get onto his horse. But his mount gets spooked by all the blood and tar, and off he canters, clippity-clop, clippity-clop.” He paused to admire his way with words. “After he cusses that horse from here to breakfast, Robert breaks off a willow sapling and makes himself a crutch. What he has in mind is to hobble all the way back to the Columbine headquarters. Now, this was no small thing to do. On the way, he has to wade through eight or nine icy streams, cross over any number of steep ridges and deep arroyos—and all this during the worst blizzard this country’s seen in eighty years. And by now the snow is a yard deep, three or four times that much in the drifts.” As he contemplated such an admirable feat, the Ute’s dark features took on a rapt expression. “This is a hike of twenty-five miles. But ol’ Robert is tough as a fifty-cent steak; he makes it back alive.”

Tears pearled up in Bertie’s eyes. “I am almost too moved to speak.”

“Did I mention that a pack of starving timber wolves trails him half the way home, and Robert beats one of ’em to death with his crutch?”

Bertie shook his head.

“Well, he did just that.” Moon pulled down the brim of his hat, hoped Bertie would remember to ask.

After a puzzled frown twisted his brow, Bertie asked, “But why do the men call him Sissy?”

“Oh, that.” The Ute looked toward the corral, where the crippled old cowboy was loading a few hand tools into a saddlebag. “Robert might not want me to tell you.”

“Well, I certainly would not want to hear any scandalous gossip.” Every cell in Bertie’s body ached to know.

Moon lowered his voice to a conspiratorial tone: “You’d have to swear not to ever repeat it to a living soul.”

Bertie crossed his heart.

“When Robert got back and told the other cowboys what’d happened, the fellas in the bunkhouse thought it was another one of his jokes. See, he was a big cutup—always pulling chairs out from under the boys, dropping bear-sign in the Mulligan stew—clever pranks like that. So they took a doubtful look at that twenty-pound gob of tar at the end of his leg and figured his foot was still in there. While five or six of ’em held ol’ Robert down, the others began to pull that tar boot off.” The storyteller assumed a pained expression. “And when they did, I guess it must’ve hurt something awful. Anyway, when the tar finally popped loose, ol’ Robert sorta yelped.”

“Yelped?”

Moon nodded. “And that’s why they call him Sissy Bob.”

“But—how
awesomely
unfair!”

“Maybe. But it’s what a cowboy comes to expect.”

“Gruesome and unjust though it is, your account of the old cowboy’s tragic self-amputation does not discourage me in the least from pursuing my chosen vocation. Much to the contrary, I am all the more convinced that riding my pony on the wide-open range is the only life for me.”

The Ute shook his head. “Bertram, I’m sorry to say this—but you might as well forget it. You don’t have any applicable skills. There’s not a stockman in the world that’d hire you on.”

The small man set his jaw. “There is one.”

“And who would that be?”

“You.”

The rancher shook his head. “It will never happen, Mr. Cassidy.”

“
Au contraire, Monsieur Lune—
it will happen. And within the hour.”

Moon’s interest was aroused. “What’ve you got in mind—some kinda bribe?” He hoped it would be hard cash. And plenty of it.

Bertie shook his head. “What I have in mind is vicious, filthy—blackmail.”

Moon laughed in his face. “Is that a sure-enough fact?”

“You can bet your boots and saddle.”

Despite the seeming absurdity of the man’s threat, Moon felt an uneasy coldness settle in his gut. “You figure you got something on me?”

Bertie glared at the Ute. “I am morally certain that you, sir, have committed a flagrant piece of flummery.”

Moon requested clarification.

“By some means, you discovered the location of the loot burgled from the Cassidy Museum. I do not know how you got the stuff off that precipitous cliff ledge—but by some method or another, you most certainly did.”

Moon tried to smile, botched the job. “You been smoking Jimsonweed?”

“Oh, bosh and piffle—I am onto you and you know it.” Bertie gave him a very odd look. “And you will not deny it.”

The Ute turned his gaze to the remnants of the sunset. The sky above the Misery range was on fire.

Moon’s accuser cleared his throat. “I surmise that soon after you recovered the Cassidy valuables, you brought them to my aunt. Your intention was to return her property with no thought of asking for a reward.”
That is the sort of man you are—a genuine straight shooter
. “But when you arrived, Auntie Jane was even more rude than usual. She shrieked and screamed herself hoarse—and the old witch fired you on the spot.” Bertie watched the Ute’s frozen profile. “That was when you decided to collect the reward. Not that I blame you, of course.” His round face took on an expression of pure adoration. “It was, in fact, that single bold act that caused me to admire you more than any other living human being. To wit—”

“To what?”

“Please do not criticize my manner of speech. This is my account, I shall tell it in the manner that suits me.”

“Sorry. Go right ahead.”

“To wit—you scribbled that barely legible note to your lawyer with your own crafty hand.” He pointed at Moon. “You, sir, are Yellow Jacket!”

The accused gave Bertram Eustace Cassidy a dark look.

“Charles, I know what you are thinking. You’re thinking, He doesn’t have any proof.”

I’m thinking I oughta throw you in the river, laugh, and clap my hands when you go bobbing downstream like an empty jug
.

“But I do not need proof—not the kind required in a court of law. All I need do is plant some doubt about you in Walter Price’s mind. Your attorney is a very mean-spirited fellow. If Walter should come to harbor a suspicion that you snookered him into helping you fleece my aunt out of a fortune—he would make your life utterly miserable. And you know that I am right.”

In an effort to roll this issue over to the left side of his brain, Moon tilted his head. “Let me get this straight. If I don’t hire you on at the Columbine, you’re sayin’ you’ll make trouble for me with my legal counsel?”

“Indeed I am.” Bertie stiffened his back. “And I most certainly shall.”

“I am surprised at you.” Moon watched a cutthroat trout slice the river’s shimmering surface. “Spreading inflammatory tales about a man is a low-down thing to do.”

“Sticks and stones will shatter my bones, but words…et cetera.”

Moon noted that there were several sizable stones close at hand. And a big stick.

Bertram Eustace Cassidy rubbed his pudgy palms together. “So—what do you say?”

Charlie Moon looked down his nose at the miniature blackmailer. “Making threats may be how things are done where you come from. But it is not the Cowboy Way.”

This hurt, but Bertie stood his ground. “I don’t give a hoot about the Cowboy Way. If you do not hire me on, I will tell Walter Price that you flimflammed him.”