Wraiths of the Broken Land

“¡Muchachos,” the driver exhorted, “alto!” The whip snapped twice and was a dozen times reiterated by echoes.

Outside Nathaniel’s window, the rock wall was swallowed by darkness. Two eyes and a blade gleamed within the shadows, and a cold finger of fear poked the gringo’s stomach.

Ubaldo landed in front of the window and said, “Dos Árboles,” which meant Two Trees.

A craggy-faced old native, wearing a black poncho and carrying a bayonet rifle, stepped from the hiding nook and into the defile.

Ubaldo raised a covered basket.

With an oddly accented Spanish, Dos Árboles asked if the vessel contained dried plums and almonds.

Ubaldo confirmed that indeed prunes and almonds laid therein.

The old native asked if the basket contained any animal flesh.

“No carne,” said Ubaldo, shaking his head.

Dos Árboles took the basket by its handle and carried it into his niche. Nathaniel could not tell how deeply the hiding nook receded from the wall of the defile, but he did glean a cubbyhole that housed several clay jugs, an old book and a statue of a divine being with three heads.

Ubaldo landed his buttocks upon the driver’s bench and cracked his whip. The vehicle jerked forward, and the dark niche was replaced by crenulate stone. After Nathaniel had fulfilled his obligations to the Plugfords, he would not attempt to escape along this guarded route.

For ten minutes, the crimson stagecoach rolled along a curved rut that threaded the mountains. The vehicle slowed, and the gringo looked outside. From a dark nook located twelve feet off of the defile floor emerged two dark and knobby hands. Ubaldo gave the bodiless appendages a bundle of comestibles and cracked his whip, and the horses resumed their brisk canter.

The stagecoach emerged from the defile and traveled upon a road that hugged the skirt of a shale mountain, which was adorned with shaggy weeds and pale boulders. Nathaniel removed his pocket watch, pressed the release, turned the face to the moon and saw that the little hand sat halfway between ten and eleven. It had been more than an hour since they had departed Nueva Vida.

“¡Hombres,” the driver called out, “cuidado!”

Inside, the passengers grabbed the dangling straps. The front of the stagecoach tilted down, and Nathaniel and Juan Bonito were pulled forward. Leather tack and wooden poles creaked.

The stagecoach descended.

Gripping his strap tightly, Nathaniel leaned his head outside the window and looked forward. On the western horizon stood three mountains, but between the far-off peaks and the stagecoach laid a vast dry depression.

“Catacumbas is below,” stated Juan Bonito.

Nathaniel withdrew his head from the gaping night.

Toward the depression descended the stagecoach, yielding the altitude that it had gained during its initial climb. Presently, the vehicle rolled onto the level plain, and the passengers leaned back in their seats.

A portly fellow who had shouted the Spanish word for triumph whenever he won a hand of cards at Castillo Elegante asked a handsome Mexican what event the party at Catacumbas commemorated.

Shrugging, the gentleman replied that he did not know the precise reason for the celebration.

The triumphant man looked at the other passengers and asked if anyone could explain the revels.

Nobody responded with factual information, although an older man in a striped suit theorized that Gris had decided to have a party so that he could raise the transportation and liaison fees.

The handsome fellow told the triumphant man that Francesca had returned to Catacumbas.

“¡Triunfo!”

For more than twenty minutes, the stagecoach rolled toward the southwestern rim of the drear sunken plain.

“¡Hombres!” Ubaldo called from outside.

The passengers looked up at the driver’s unseen buttocks.

“¡La buena diversión comenzará pronto!” The man with the wooden nose cracked his whip to emphasize (and perhaps illustrate) the pleasing diversions that they would soon experience.

Soon, the horses slowed and stopped, and a wave of trailed dust enshrouded the stagecoach. Ubaldo dropped to the plain, leaned over, unfolded a short ladder and drew open the west door.

Nathaniel descended the steps and walked onto hard land. Aches, engendered by the percussive journey, bothered his legs, arms, shoulders, back and buttocks.

“That is Catacumbas.” Ubaldo pointed west.

Nathaniel looked in the indicated direction and saw several vast tiers of weathered stones that appeared to be the remains of an ancient step pyramid. He tasted dread in his mouth, but forced a smile to his face.

The Mexican gentlemen filed out of the vehicle, replaced their hats, inserted cigars and struck matches. Each hombre handed the driver one hundred pesos in banknotes, but when the gringo attempted to draw out his wallet, the little mestizo grabbed his wrist with a yellow glove, admonished him and paid his fare.

“Gracias.” (Nathaniel could no longer employ the word ‘friend’ without feeling ashamed.)

Ubaldo placed the bills inside his jacket, scratched an itch beside his wooden nose and motioned with his right arm. The gentlemen followed the driver toward the ancient ruins.

In a corral beside the structure, Nathaniel noted fifty horses and a dozen crimson stagecoaches, and atop the lowermost tier, he saw two riflemen, dangling their legs over the edge of a stone. A thirty-foot drop separated the soles of their moccasins from the ground and conveyed the immense scope of the mostly-absent ziggurat.

“¡Buenas noches!” Ubaldo waved to the armed sentries and announced that he had transported six men of distinction from Nueva Vida to Catacumbas.

One of the riflemen tossed six colored pebbles into a metal bucket.

Ubaldo asked if the bucket was full.

“Si,” said the rifleman.

The man with the wooden nose looked at the gentlemen and remarked, “The fiesta is underway.”

After a few strides, the triumphant man asked what event the party celebrated.

Ubaldo shrugged.

The gentlemen neared a reddish-orange square that did not match the remainder of the ochre-gray ruins, and presently, Nathaniel saw that the discoloration was comprised of modern bricks and mortar that had been employed to seal up the vast original ziggurat entrance. Standing at the center of the refurbished area was a lone iron door.

Girls, games, spirits and tobacco leaves were discussed by all of the gentleman, excepting the gringo, who was unable to do anything but stare at the metal entrance, which ten more strides revealed was covered with rows of outthrust steel spikes. Nathaniel was assailed by very significant doubts as to whether the Plugfords—even with the aid of their skilled native and ruthless gunfighter—had any chance of rescuing their abducted kin from such a place. The Hopi natives and Spanish War prisoners locked away in Alcatraz seemed as easily accessed as a person locked within Catacumbas.

Immediately beside the spike-adorned iron door, Ubaldo halted.

A blunderbuss emerged from a crenellation in the brick wall and trained its black eye upon the gringo and those with whom he had ridden. Nathaniel stopped breathing. He thought of Kathleen and his ruined hotel and his mother, a widow in Michigan with a candy store that nobody ever visited.

To the gun barrel, Ubaldo said, “Buenos hombres. Todos.”

The blunderbuss withdrew, and Nathaniel relaxed.

Beyond the iron door, a stone cracked, and a gear turned.

The gringo told the mestizo that he looked forward to meeting the gringas.

“I take care of those womens,” Ubaldo remarked, “that is why I learn good English.”

“I would like to see them.”

“I bring you.”

Nathaniel stomped upon his fears and steeled himself—he would locate these women, collect the remainder of his stipend and ride away from this awful drama as fast as his tan mare could carry him.

The spikes withdrew, and the iron door opened.

Chapter VII

Catacumbas

Ubaldo escorted Nathaniel Stromler and the hombres into a large anteroom that was illuminated by ensconced torches. The high walls of the enclosure were made of ancient triangular stones that were stacked in alternating inversions, and a quartet of dangling brass censers yielded aromatic cinnamon-and-vanilla bean smoke that obfuscated the aromas of lichens and centuries.

The assemblage walked along a gigantic tapestry that depicted the ancient ziggurat, whole, surrounded by a high tide of bloody bodies, most of which were short at least one appendage. Atop the step pyramid, warrior priests poured glowing hot coals onto the faces and genitals of captives.

“That is pleasant.”

Ubaldo escorted the gentlemen to a stairwell that led into the earth and advised the men to hold onto the banister as they descended.

Resting a white-gloved hand upon the rail, Nathaniel proceeded down the steps, toward the luminous amber portal at the nether end of the declining passage. It would not have surprised him overmuch to see the Devil stride through the opening.

Presently, the gringo emerged from the stairwell and entered a cavernous enclosure, which seemed like it had once been a place of worship or funereal ritual. The far side of the vast room had a dais, and the ceiling was covered with the strange sigils of a lost religion. Occupying the blasphemed temple and warmly illuminated by hundreds of ensconced candles were sixty gentlemen and half as many women.

A beautiful Mexican lady with full hips, long eyelashes and a strong jaw adjusted her rose kimono, approached the newly arrived sextet and greeted several gentlemen by name, including Juan Bonito.

“Buenas noches Pia,” replied the hombres.

Without provocation, Ubaldo and the Mexican gentlemen began to remove their shoes.

The madam looked at the tall gringo and said, “Welcome to Catacumbas, Señor. Please remove your shoes.”

Nathaniel inquired why he needed to discard his loafers.

“Gris wants to preserve the ancient craftsmanship.” Pia pointed to the floor of the funereal temple, and the gringo saw that it was comprised of innumerable clay tiles, every one of which one a perfect nonagon. “It is nice, no?”

Nathaniel complimented the nine-sided tiles and removed his black loafers.

Ubaldo and Pia exchanged a communicative glance.

“I have been informed that you favor the company of gringa women.” Radiating warmth and the scent of star anise, the madam advanced. “You do not appreciate the beautiful and passionate mujeres de Mexico?” She slid her hand along the gringo’s thigh.

Nathaniel told Pia that his wife was a beautiful woman from Mexico. (Kathleen’s family was entirely Irish, excepting a Jewish grandmother who had been an opera singer in Austria.)

“That is why your Spanish is so true,” commented the madam.

“And why I would like to spend time with a gringa.”

Pia laughed, a rich cachinnation that emanated from her belly, and said that she understood the value of variety.

“Señor Weston,” Ubaldo said, “make a seat and I will go speak with the gringas.”

“Gracias,” responded Nathaniel. “I would like to view them both before I make any decisions.”

“One has blonde hairs and the other has red hairs. They are both muy bonita, but…” The man with the wooden nose hesitated. “One has lost her right foot.”

The gringo acted as if he were pleased by what he had just heard. “That sounds interesting.”

Ubaldo looked directly into Nathaniel’s eyes. “You will like these womens.” Air whistled through his artificial nostrils.

“Perhaps I will spend time with both of them.”

The flat line that was Ubaldo’s mouth curved, and his wooden nose tilted. “You are a good hombre.” A small dark joy crept into his eyes. “I will return.” The pale man strode off, toward one of the eight passageways that radiated from the temple out into the catacombs.

Clay nonagonal tiles pressed into Nathaniel’s socks as he walked to the area where divans, fainting couches, bagatelle tables and stools rested upon a luxurious rose rug. He seated himself and was immediately given moccasins by a woman in a golden kimono.

“Gracias Señorita.”

Nathaniel donned the soft shoes and surveyed the assemblage. The clients were well-dressed Hispanic men, excepting a group of Orientals who played a game of mahjong in a far corner. The robed women who orbited the area like silken monks were a far more variegated group—Mexicans, South Americans, mulattos, negresses and Orientals offered themselves and kind words to the clientele. Not one of the female employees seemed to be distressed or compelled to perform her role, and Nathaniel doubted that it was because they were all terrific play-actors. It appeared as if many or most of the women who worked at Catacumbas did so by choice.

A striking man of fifty with a thin nose, full lips, ivory white hair and one eye stared down from a glistening oil painting that hung upon the wall. Below the left heel of the seated subject laid a swollen corpse that had a sliced open stomach from which poured a deluge of black oil and scorpions. Nathaniel pivoted so that he no longer faced the cruel tableau.

A rust-colored mongrel with a crooked snout trotted out of the hallway that Ubaldo had entered. Across the tiles, the canine gaily padded, tongue dangling.

“Henry!”

The dog stopped.

Ubaldo emerged from the portal and told the animal to behave like a gentleman.

Henry reared up on its hind legs and walked forward, upright, across the clay tiles.

The Oriental men applauded the nascent biped, and several Mexicans cackled.

Ubaldo patted the vertical dog’s head and approached Nathaniel. “Henry was a circus animal. He knows special tricks.”

Nathaniel asked after the gringas.

“The womens have friends right now,” Ubaldo replied, “but you will see them later.”

The canine staggered upon its hind legs in ever-narrowing circles, as if it were insane.

Nathaniel Stromler silently empathized.

Chapter VIII

Swallow Your Spit

A tiny azure star rose from the base of the southwest mountain range, paused, brightened, dropped, trailed blue sparks and disappeared whence it had arisen.

“That’s the beacon,” Brent Plugford said to the men who waited in the shadow of a huge igneous rock.

“I marked it.” Patch Up lowered his spyglass and pointed a mostly invisible finger at the dark mountains. “There’s a defile in that area.”

“Okay.” Brent faced northeast and scanned the grayish black plain that laid in-between his crew and the distant fungal effulgence that was Nueva Vida, but he saw no rider. “Long Clay should be with us.”

“He’s comin’.” John Lawrence Plugford’s words were confident, and his brusque tone precluded any further questions.

The cowboy was almost certain that the gunfighter’s ancillary mission involved Ojos. When Brent thought of the helpful Mexican being threatened or injured (or worse) he was disturbed, but as he had learned during the robbery, he was not responsible for the actions of Long Clay, nor would he be able to alter them in any way. The ruthless tactician had come on this ride as a favor to his old partner and would not answer to some cowboy foreman or anybody else in existence.

Brent snapped tack at his pointless contemplations. “Let’s get on.” Underneath him, the brindled mustang surged forward, and summarily the remainder of the crew coaxed their beasts into action. John Lawrence Plugford trailed the palfreys that bore the sidesaddles for the girls, Stevie led the dandy’s tan mare (which had been retrieved an hour earlier from Nueva Vida) and Patch Up whipped the rumps of his ragged brace. The group paralleled the edge of the range so that it would be difficult to see them from any vantage points within the mountains.

“You think anybody else noticed that signal he sent up?” asked Stevie. “I wouldn’t want to tip our hand with no Fourth of July practice.”

“Either he released the arrow where no guards could descry it,” Patch Up said, “or he’s taken care of the guards.”

“Deep Lakes is skilled,” added Brent.

“If he’s so skilled,” Stevie inquired, “then why’d they throw him in the fire?”

“He was a little infant when they done that,” Brent said to his brother, “and you shouldn’t be talkin’ ‘bout it neither. Ain’t your business.” The cowboy looked at his father and saw that the huge man was frowning.

“I was just wonderin’,” Stevie continued, “if that Indian’s such a marvelous talent, why his kin treat him like a log.” The way the young man slurred his words and carried on betrayed the fact that he had been drinking.

“Gimme that goddamn flask you dumb fool,” said Brent.

“No. And I only had a little.”

John Lawrence Plugford cut his horse and was directly beside Stevie’s careering colt. The huge man raised his hand and slapped his son across the face.

“Goddamn!” Stevie wobbled and righted himself. “I barely drunk a—”

The huge palm struck his face a second time.

Unbalanced, the young man grabbed his horn so that he did not fall out of his saddle. His right cheek was halfway between red and purple.

“Give it,” ordered John Lawrence Plugford.

Stevie reached into his saddlebag, withdrew the flask and proffered it to his father. The huge man took the metal vessel and put it inside the front pocket of his gray overalls. Beneath the men, horse hooves rumbled.

“I barely drunk—”

The huge hand slapped Stevie’s mouth shut. Lines of white moonlight that were spilled tears tracked down the young man’s discolored skin. The horses cantered apace, but to Brent the tableau seemed devoid of motion.

“Stop makin’ excuses,” the cowboy advised his brother.

Stevie remained silent.

John Lawrence Plugford looked at Patch Up. “Grab out a big handful of coffee beans.”

“I will.”

The patriarch looked at his drunken son. “Chew ‘em until I say you can spit ‘em out.”

“Yessir.”

With a baleful glare, John Lawrence Plugford added, “Your sisters need us clear.”

Remorse filled Stevie’s face. “I’m sorry.”

“Take a sip of liquor before we get home, and I’ll hold your arm to the fire.”

“I won’t drink nothin’. I swear.”

The huge man hastened his stallion away from the colt that carried his youngest child.

“Stevie,” said Patch Up. “Ride over.”

The chastened young man wiped his face with his shirt and guided his horse toward the front of the wagon.

Patch Up extended a tin cup, the contents of which rattled. “Take it.” A wagon wheel struck a stone, and two coffee beans leapt into the air like roused horseflies.

Stevie took the tin cup, poured its dark contents into his mouth and chewed. His head rumbled like a quarry. Brent recalled chewing coffee beans when he was a kid, after his father had caught him and Dolores drinking from a purloined bottle of wine.

Without warning, John Lawrence Plugford spun around in his saddle and pointed his sawed-off shotgun northeast. Brent withdrew his pistol and over his barrel scanned the area at which his father aimed.

A tiny light flashed thrice and disappeared.

Brent recognized the signal. John Lawrence Plugford holstered his sawed-off shotgun and faced forward.

From the darkness emerged Long Clay, atop his galloping black mare.

“Did you see the arrow?” the cowboy asked the gunfighter.

“What color was it?”

Brent knew that Long Clay had clear eyes, but for some reason did not see colors at this point in his life. This optical degradation was the gunfighter’s lone physical deficiency and John Lawrence Plugford had warned his sons not to ever comment upon it.

“It was blue.”

Long Clay nodded.

Brent had recently learned about the burning arrows, which were signals that his father and the gunfighter had devised back when they were shaking trains and doing other operations. A lone blue shaft was lodestone, a beacon to be followed.

Stevie crunched beans and spat black ichor into the wind.

“Swallow your spit,” ordered John Lawrence Plugford.

“Yessir.” The young man gulped down his retched saliva. A few drops of dark drool stained his beige shirt.

A burning arrow flared within the southwestern mountains, disappeared, reappeared at a higher altitude, vanished momentarily, climbed to its apex and paused. For two heartbeats, the eyes of the riders and their horses were a luminous crimson.

The beacon plummeted through the same two open areas and disappeared into the range. Darkness spread across the plain and filled Brent Plugford. The crimson arrow was the signal that the cowboy had hoped he would not witness.

Patch Up stated, “He’s killing.”

Chapter IX

Entertainments for Entrepreneurs

Nathaniel Stromler watched the circus dog sit, roll over, ‘get drunk,’ ‘talk,’ ‘play cards’ (it raised and observed its paws), ‘be a wife’ (it whimpered irritating frequencies), ‘dip his biscuit in tea’ (it performed an inexplicable gesture) and ‘walk like an American’ (it slid across the rug on its belly like a serpent). Shortly after the canine’s weird display ended, Juan Bonito disappeared into a passage holding the hand of a voluptuous Mexican woman who dwarfed him so substantially that the pair looked like mother and son. Four different Mexican women, a mestizo, a mulatto and an Oriental sat beside the gringo and tried to lure him back to their rooms in the catacombs, but he politely denied all of them. Instead, he drank a small amount of scotch and ruminated upon his predicament.

A stunning woman who looked like a confluence of Oriental, Caucasian and native lineages approached Nathaniel. Her eyes were onyx enigmas framed in luxurious lashes, and the sharp tips of her breasts prodded the purpureal silk of her robe each time her forward foot contacted the ground. The gringo looked away from her mesmerizing beauty and toward the wall upon which sat the gruesome oil painting of the one-eyed man.

“What are your opinions of this portrait?” inquired an unaccented male voice.

To his immediate left, Nathaniel saw the subject of the painting rendered in three-dimensional flesh that was clothed in a white linen suit, a rose shirt, matching gloves and Italian loafers. The lid over the man’s missing eye was closed, and his white hair was slicked back from his oddly handsome face.

“The subject has been richly rendered,” Nathaniel replied, “but the walls of the room and the scorpions look unfinished.”

“Your evaluation is correct—the artist has not yet completed the piece.” The man with white hair and one eye proffered a rose glove. “My name is Gris.”

A tingling chill descended from Nathaniel’s nape to his tailbone. “I am Thomas Weston. Buenas noches.” The gringo shook the man’s covered hand and summarily complimented all that he had seen of Catacumbas and its employees.

“Are you inclined toward conversation while you wait?” asked the proprietor.

Nathaniel knew that he had no choice but to invite Gris to join him, and thus motioned to the rose-colored fainting couch opposite his divan. “Please allow me to buy you a drink.”

Gris sat at a comfortable angle upon the satin cushions. “The drinks that we share are my gift to you.”

“I insist.”

“I would rather not owe a debt of kindness to a man whom I do not yet know.”

“Then I shall refuse your gift for the exact same reason,” replied Nathaniel.

“That is understandable.” Gris fingered a silver eyebrow and fixed his gaze upon Nathaniel. “You are a friend of Juan Bonito.” This was stated, rather than asked.

“A recent acquaintance.”

“His word has value.”

A red kimono that was an adroit barmaid flashed in-between the gentlemen and a tiny glass of port wine, which looked like an inverted dinner bell made out of crystal, materialized in Gris’s left hand.

“With which type of American business are you involved?”

“I am a hotelier.” Nathaniel hoped that the shrewd man would not inquire after too many details.

“You are successful in this enterprise?”

“I am.”

Gris sipped his carmine beverage. “Un sabor delicado.” His Spanish accent was that of a European Spaniard, not a Central or South American. “Where was your Mexican wife born?”

The question was asked casually, but Nathaniel felt as if he were suddenly inside of a courtroom. “Mexico City.”

“I am pleased to know that a distinguished American entrepreneur appreciates Hispanic women.” Gris saluted the gringo with his tiny glass of port wine and took a quiet sip.

Nathaniel wanted to guide the conversation away from potentially difficult terrain. “How long has this establishment been extant?”

“In which year did the USS Maine explode as a result of its incompetent crew?” Gris’s face was inscrutable.

The gringo’s unease was grown by the Spaniard’s blunt and colored reference to the event that was the catalyst for the war between Spain and America. “Eighteen ninety-seven.”

“My establishment opened that same year.” The proprietor’s eye did not blink.

The gringo tried to think of a way to guide the conversation away from the inflammatory topic.

“Do not be concerned,” Gris said, “I do not hold you personally responsible for diminishing the Spanish empire.”

Nathaniel relaxed. “I appreciate your exoneration. I was managing my mother’s candy store at that time and wholly uninvolved with warfare.”

“The capital for your hotels came from this candy store?” Gris sipped carmine fluid from the tiny inverted bell.

“My fiancé’s uncle loaned us the capital for the first hotel, and its success begat the subsequent structures,” replied Nathaniel, aware that good lies did not require this much exposition.

“A sizable loan for a risky venture, a burgeoning business and a lovely Mexican wife.” Gris raised his tiny glass and saluted. “You are a very fortunate man.”

“I am fulfilled.” The lying gringo drank from his glass of scotch. “I would like for you to know that Catacumbas contains several very secure and well-guarded vaults if ever you seek a place to deposit some of your rapidly growing wealth outside of America.”

“I shall keep that in mind.” (Nathaniel would be certain to tell the Plugfords that there existed additional guards within the catacombs.)

A shadow slid across the rose rug, directly in-between the two gentlemen.

“Perdón.”

Nathaniel looked up and saw Ubaldo.

“The gringa womens are watered and pleased to meet you.”

“Gracias.”

The proprietor motioned toward the dark catacomb portals. “Please do repair.”

“I shall.” The gringo rose from the divan.

Gris stood and shook Nathaniel’s right hand. “Have a fulfilling evening, Señor Weston.” The Spaniard lifted the lid that covered his bad eye, revealing a jagged gray rock, which was gripped by thin red strands that were either muscles or nerves. “Buenas noches.”

“Buenas noches.”

Gris withdrew his hand and covered over the stone in his face.

Nathaniel turned, followed Ubaldo toward the passageway and for the first time since his journey had begun, felt that Kathleen, his half-erected hotel, Leesville and all of the New Mexico Territory were far too close to Mexico.

Chapter X

I Was

“You talk with Gris,” Ubaldo said as he strode toward the southernmost portal on the west wall. “He a good man. His words very valuable.”

“Very valuable,” Nathaniel Stromler mindlessly echoed.

“He has five sons. No girl childrens—only boys. This is impressive, no?”

“Certainly.”

“He do a ceremony in the temple to have only the boy childrens.”

“Oh?” Nathaniel did not know what this meant, but was too preoccupied to ask for any further explanation.

The duo entered a descending torch-illumined hallway, where petrified wood and ochre stones withheld the crushing weight of the surrounding soil. A troglodyte with ugly wooden sandals and a dark head that was shaped like a coconut walked from the opposite side of the passage and passed by Nathaniel and Ubaldo. He smelled like fish guts.

The man with the wooden nose glanced at the gringo. “You would like to see first the one with blonde hairs or the one with red hairs and no left foot?”

“It does not matter. I intend to see them both before I make any decision.”

“I will take you first to the blonde hairs gringa.”

Nathaniel, following Ubaldo, neared an ensconced torch, and cool air blew upon his nape and excited the flames. Puzzled by the chill current, he looked up at the ceiling,

“There are holes of air in some walls,” explained the man with the wooden nose.

“I was told that the rooms were completely private,” remarked Nathaniel, perturbedly. “I do not want people listening to my assignations.”

Ubaldo stopped and turned around. “Of course, Señor Weston. You have the complete privacy. Do not you worry.”

The gringo motioned for his escort to proceed.

Presently, the duo arrived at a low entranceway upon the south wall. Nathaniel removed his stovepipe hat and followed Ubaldo onto a descending stairwell, wherein candles, nestled inside of cubbyholes, radiated amber light and the scents of flowers. An ambitious lock of the gringo’s lank blonde hair was snagged by a ceiling stone and jerked his head back. He pulled most of the twine free and continued down the steps, silently cursing.

Ubaldo landed upon the torch-illumined lower level and veered to the right. A moment later, Nathaniel exited the stairwell and strode into the middle of a finite passage, where wooden doors, braced by thick iron, sat upon the north and south walls.

“This part was the prison when the natives builted it.”

“That is apparent.”

Ubaldo walked to the farthest door on the north wall, inserted a key into its lock and twisted his fist. Metal groaned and torches quivered. The bolt clacked, reverberant.

“I show the blonde hairs.” The man with the wooden nose opened the door and motioned for the gringo to walk inside.

It seemed as if the moment of identification had finally arrived, and Nathaniel, hopeful that his ordeal might soon end, strode into the darkness. The cloying smells of flowers, cinnamon and vanilla filled his nostrils. Behind him, the door closed, but remained unlocked.

“I will return in ten minutes,” Ubaldo said from outside the cell, “and take you to see the other.”

“Gracias.”

Nathaniel’s eyes adjusted to the dim radiance of the candles that were nestled within the far wall. In the bed beside the tiny flames laid a blonde woman. Her lean body was draped by a diaphanous rose negligee, and upon her angular face, within symmetrical gray craters, were two wet black slits that were her eyes.

Deeply unsettled, the gentleman cleared his throat and located his voice. “Hello.”

The woman stared.

Nathaniel walked across the stones, toward the piteous being whom he did not yet recognize as either Plugford sister. The woman’s face and arms were covered over by powder, and her neck looked as if it were made of cables. Jutting sharply against the fabric of her negligee were two sharp triangles that were her hipbones.

“I am sorry,” whispered the gentleman, as if he must apologize for the odious gender to which he belonged. “I am so very sorry.” His eyes began to sting.

The woman clasped Nathaniel’s hand, tilted her head back and smiled hideously. “If you get me medicine,” she said with an enervated voice, “you can do anything you want to me. Beat me. Sodomize me. Strangle me. Anything.”

Nathaniel had never believed in a higher power, and now he felt as if he looked at irrefutable proof of His absence. He was horrified, unable to respond.

“Please,” the woman pleaded, “I need it.” The segmented bones that were her fingers tightened. “It’s been two days and I’m dying.”

The tall gentleman from Michigan found his voice and knelt beside the bed. “I have something to ask you,” he whispered, “but you must answer me quietly so that Ubaldo does not hear.”

The emaciated being was silent.

“Are you Yvette Plugford?”

The woman released the gentleman’s hand and stared forward, frightened.

“Are you Yvette Plugford?” Nathaniel quietly repeated.

“I…I was.”

The gentleman assumed that the woman’s ‘medicine’ had confused her, and so he restated his question. “Is your name Yvette Plugford?”

“It’s Yvette Upfield now—I got married back when I was twenty-three.”

Nathaniel did not recall Brent ever mentioning that either sister had a husband.

Yvette sat upright. “How do you know who I am?”

“Please speak quietly—I do not want anybody to hear our conversation.”

“Okay.” The skeletal woman was trembling.

“Your father and brothers hired me,” said Nathaniel. “They are going to rescue you.”

Yvette’s bleary eyes brightened and sparkled. “Thank you Jesus.” Tears spilled down her cheeks. “Thank you Lord.”

Nathaniel desperately hoped that the Plugford crew could save this poor woman.

“I wonder if…” Yvette looked down at herself and rearranged her negligee. “I wonder if they’ll even recognize me now.” She covered her emaciated legs with a blanket. “Maybe they won’t want me back.”

Nathaniel took her cold hands in-between his palms. “They want you.”

“How come my husband didn’t come with them?”

“I am uncertain why he is absent.”

“Samuel C. Upfield IV doesn’t want a ruined woman is why.” Yvette withdrew her hands.

“Brent, Stevie and your father are coming, and all of them love you dearly.”

“They need to get Dolores too,” Yvette remarked, “I think she’s in here.”

“They shall rescue her as well.”

“Should you get on top of me so Ubaldo doesn’t get suspicious?”

Nathaniel was horrified by the idea.

“I see that you don’t want to be with some used up whore.” Yvette lowered her gaze.

“You are a very beautiful woman,” Nathaniel explained, “but I need to visit your sister and let her know about the rescue.”

“I should probably take my clothes off so that Ubaldo can see you had a look.”

Although Nathaniel was uneasy with this idea, he recognized that it had some merit. “Go ahead.” He rose from beside the bed, turned his back to the woman and heard the soft rustling of fabric. The moment the noises stopped, he became extraordinarily uncomfortable.

“You can peek if you want,” said Yvette, employing a girlish voice. “I won’t tell Pa or my brothers.”

Nathaniel neither responded to the invitation nor turned around. For three long minutes, he stared at the door while his beating heart marked the chill progress of sweat droplets down his scalp, skull, nape and spine.

“You need to get me some medicine,” Yvette said, “and we need to get Henry, the circus dog.”

A knock sounded upon the door.

“¿Señor Weston?”

“Yes?”

“Would you like to see the other gringa or are you wanting to stay here for some time?”

“I would like to see the other one.”

The door withdrew from the wall and revealed Ubaldo, who stood in the hallway, holding a small purple box in his hands. Nathaniel exited the room.

“You like this gringa?”

“I am pondering some possibilities.”

The man with the wooden nose locked the door and scratched the stitches that held his false proboscis in place. “We have—what is English word for equipaje?”

“Equipment.”

“We have equipment.”

Nathaniel did not ask the man to elucidate his statement.

“Come follow.” Ubaldo led the gentleman toward the westernmost door on the south wall. “The red hairs is more stronger, but the foot.”

It was not easy for Nathaniel to feign licentious enthusiasm.

The man with the wooden nose inserted a bronze key and twisted his fist. Lock tumblers groaned, and a bolt clacked. “I hope you like.” He pulled the door wide and inclined his head toward the dark interior.

Nathaniel walked inside a candlelit room. Behind him, the door closed, but remained unlocked.

“Are you American?” asked the figure who laid upon the bed. The candles in the adjacent cubbyholes threw light upon the woman’s rose corset, folded hands and round hips, but her face was in shadow and her legs were secreted beneath a blanket.

“I am an American,” Nathaniel said as he strode across the stones.

The woman leaned forward. Candlelight divined her high forehead, sleepy eyes, upturned nose and Teutonic jaw from the darkness, and it was immediately clear to Nathaniel that she was Brent’s twin sister. The air around her smelled like wine.

“Take it easy on me,” the redheaded woman requested, “I’ve had five others tonight.” She shifted her legs beneath the blanket and drew long red curls behind her ears.

Nathaniel put his index finger to his lips. “We need to speak quietly,” he whispered, “I am—”

“Why? You gonna rescue me?” The woman’s voice was loud and hostile.

“Please speak quietly—”

“No. I played this game before. There was a Englishman who told me he was gonna rescue me, get me outta here, in exchange for certain acts I’m not s’possed to do with clients. And I did them—all of them—but here I am, five months later, lookin’ at you.” The woman pulled a bottle of wine from the wall and paused. “You ever had your mouth and nostrils filled up with excrement?”

Nathaniel had no reply.

“Keep your stupid games.” The embittered woman uncorked the bottle and drank wine that looked like blood. “You can fuck me regular—just don’t talk any of that goddamn Mr. Rescuer stuff.” She jammed the cork into the neck, tamped the cylinder down and replaced the bottle inside of a cubbyhole.

Nathaniel clapped his hand to the woman’s mouth and whispered, “Your name is Dolores Plugford. Brent, Stevie and your father John Lawrence sent me to find you.”

Hot air shot from the woman’s nostrils, and her bloodshot eyes filled with fear and confusion.

“I am going to release you,” the gentleman said, “but please mind your volume.”

Into Nathaniel’s palm, Dolores mumbled, “Okay. I will.”

The gentleman uncovered the woman’s mouth and sat beside her upon the bed.

“Maybe you learned them names somehow,” Dolores hypothesized, “to trick me like that other.”

“For what purpose? I have not asked you to do anything.”

The woman ruminated for a moment. “No. You haven’t.” She drew her knees against her corset and hugged her covered shins.

“I came only to identify you for your family. I can proffer descriptions of them if you would like some assurances that—”

“No.” The woman’s suspicious face softened. “I believe you.” Dolores looked up from her knees and into Nathaniel’s eyes. “It ain’t easy to trust a strange man at this juncture—but you seem true honest.”

“I promise that—”

The lock groaned, and the bolt clacked.

Nathaniel’s stomach sank. He looked at the door and inquired, “Does Ubaldo typically employ the bolt when you have a client?”

“Not usually.”

Needles climbed up the gentleman’s spine like a caterpillar.

“Yvette’s here too—they need to get her.”

“I already spoke with her,” replied Nathaniel, preoccupied by the locked door.

“What’d you tell her?” Dolores’s voice was sharp.

“I told her precisely what I told you. That your family is coming to rescue—”

Dolores swatted Nathaniel’s shoulder. “You’re a fool! Couldn’t you see how she was?”

The gentleman did not at all understand the woman’s sudden anger. “I saw.”

“She’s addled—a dependent,” explained Dolores. “They get your mind that way and you’d cut your own mama’s throat for another shot.” Tears filled her eyes. “I bet she already told him everything!”

Nathaniel was nauseated. “Jesus Christ.” His terrible blunder might cost him and all of the Plugfords their lives.

“You dumb fool!” Dolores slapped the gentleman’s neck and face as if she were attempting to kill a fly. “You goddamn fool!” Tears dripped from her lower eyelashes. “You have any idea what you done? What they’re goin’ to do my family and you also?”

“I have some ideas.”

Nathaniel’s stomach began to revolt. He stood, stumbled toward the door and shuddered. A violent paroxysm seized his body, and he expelled a bitter greenish-brown variation of Patch Up’s rabbit, grouse, potato, carrot and turnip stew onto the stones. Sweat streamed down his face, burned his eyes, soaked his tarnished mustache and dripped from the dangling twines of his blonde hair into the puddle of excreta. The stooped gentleman’s neck and face stung from Dolores’s assault, and his right inner ear sang a high pitch.

A bolt clacked, and the lock groaned.

The door opened.

Nathaniel looked up.

Standing in the doorway and twirling a syringe in his right hand was the man with the wooden nose. He pointed the needle at the puddle of vomit upon the floor, looked at the bent gentleman and remarked, “It looks like your belly has room for scorpions.”

Chapter XI

Insectile Notions

Yvette Upfield stared at the crimson dot. A beneficent warmth like rich honey spread from the place that the man with the wooden nose had pierced with his syringe, and the world quietened. The circle became a swollen three-dimensional crimson bead that tracked across her powdered skin.

The bed rose up to meet the back of Yvette’s head, and the ceiling slid before her glassy eyes. A segmented bug with innumerable legs crawled across a wooden beam, and she recognized the creature as the vessel into which she sent her spirit while her body withdrew semen from weak men as if it were a toxin.

Luxurious warmth spread from the red dot and replaced the hurt cells that comprised her bones, muscles and tissues. The fabric of her body became soft and homogeneous—a dense spongy material that absorbed her agonies.

Yvette tried to recall what she had told the man with the wooden nose, but her mind was a marsh.

“What did I say?” she asked the insect.

The many-legged thing upon the ceiling described an ellipsoidal pattern, halted directly above her face and stared down with multifaceted onyx eyes.

“What’re you trying to tell me?”

The watcher remained silent.

A drop of blood aspired to the tip of Yvette’s right index finger and dripped to the floor. It was suddenly very clear to her that if she touched the bug’s eyes, she would be able to communicate with it. She attempted to employ the muscles in her arms, but could not remember how to operate them. “Maybe later.”

A second or ten minutes later, blood tickled Yvette’s fingertips. To the vessel into which she often escaped, the gaunt woman said, “I need you to get Samuel. My husband.”

Candlelight flickered upon the bug’s multifaceted eyes.

The woman with the homogeneous body knew the truth. Yvette Upfield was a spoiled lady whom Samuel C. Upfield IV no longer wanted. Hundreds of men had used her, and she had entertained doubts about Him. Four months ago, a child had burgeoned within her belly, and even though she had cut herself to imitate her monthly bleeding, the man with the wooden nose had seen through her ruse and applied an abortive salve that smelled like berries, sulfur and burnt chicory, and she had lost the innocent to a terrible searing pain. Shortly after that incident, the man with the wooden nose had given her medicine (so that she could stop weeping) and she had been drug-addled ever since. Sins had been committed to her, by her and deep within her.

“I was different,” Yvette said to the bug.

Upon the ceiling, the vessel adjusted twelve of its legs.

The woman with the homogeneous body thought of her husband, Samuel C. Upfield IV, the articulate thirty-eight-year-old entrepreneur whose percolating mind contrived elixirs and devices as if he had a telephone cable that connected him directly to the great Creator. Although his ultimate ambition was to invent a very important thing (such as a motor vehicle or a telephone), he spent most of his time selling elixirs and investing small sums in prospecting ventures.

“If I’d been born in the antebellum period,” Samuel C. Upfield IV said to Yvette from the oak table that dominated the main room of their cozy apartment in San Francisco, “I would have a great number of important inventions to my credit. Myriad noteworthy contrivances.” He looked up from the sketches that filled ‘The Upfield Book of Very Important Diagrams’ and gazed through the bay window. Turquoise waves thundered harmlessly beneath the pendulous legs of circling seabirds. “But they’ve invented so much already…”

Doubt assailed the educated, pious and pretty blonde man who was the exact same height as his wife.

“I believe in you.” Yvette walked toward the table.

Samuel stood, withdrew a chair for his wife (he always chose the seat closest to his own) and presented it to her buttocks. “Set down the blessed posterior.”

Yvette sat into the airy folds of her bright blue dress, and Samuel placed earrings, which were gentle kisses, upon her bare earlobes. He slid the seat underneath her.

“Perfect.” The choirmaster laid her sheet music upon the table and looked at her husband. “The Lord has bestowed upon you a great gift so you could make the world a better place. And you are.”

Samuel seated himself, gazed wanly at ‘The Upfield Book of Very Important Diagrams’ and sighed. “I fear that I won’t ever realize my greatest potential. I had such grand plans for that traveling lighthouse, but then…”

(Electricity was a word rarely uttered by the Upfields.)

“Your elixirs help people,” defended Yvette.

“But are elixirs significant? Will they change the world?” Samuel shook his head twice, answering his two-pronged inquiry. “They will not.” He drank from his mug of spiced brandy.

“They already do—they help folks lead happier lives right now. Todd Parks had that bellyache for three years until he drank your restorative.”

“You are partial,” protested Samuel. “Lovely, but partial.”

“And our choir uses your throat tonic when we sing our praise and devotion direct to God each week. Ain’t that—isn’t that significant?”

“It is.” Samuel brightened, set down his brandy, fixed his cravat, stood, took one stride to Yvette and kissed her upon the forehead. “Lower the drapes.”

The choirmaster closed her eyes, and as she tilted her head back the floorboards creaked. Samuel’s soft lips landed upon her left eyelid and then its sibling. Presently, they kissed.

Yvette opened her eyes.

The bug with innumerable legs watched her from the ceiling of her cell.

“Where are you?” Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, and a drop of warm blood tracked across her right arm, grew cold and dripped to the floor. She looked down. The tiny crimson hemisphere sank into the ancient stone, and was wholly absorbed.

A person outside the door shouted, “¡Gringo, vas!”

The imprisoned, drug-addled, choirmaster who was born in Shoulderstone, Texas and lived in San Francisco, suddenly recalled whom she had betrayed to get her medicine. Upon the ceiling, the segmented bug moved its myriad legs, entered a hole in the ancient stone and disappeared.

Yvette’s soul was lost inside the walls.

“No.” The woman thought of her family and the tall blonde gentleman, and how her need for medicine, her sinful weakness, had doomed them all. “No!” shouted Yvette, even though the word did not have any meaning in Catacumbas.

“No!”

Chapter XII

Sharp Embodiments

Rising from the depths of oblivion, Nathaniel Stromler dimly apprehended the tight ropes that bound his wrists and ankles to the limbs of a heavy chair. His senses sharpened and he recognized the smells of wine, seafood and cream. Fork tines clinked upon ceramic plates, startling him.

The bound man shut his gaping jaw and opened his eyes. From the ceiling directly above him depended two gold-plated candelabra, European in style, and upon the surrounding walls of grayish-ochre ziggurat stones, hung tapestries that depicted hunting tableaus and galleon arrivals.

A man with European-accented Spanish remarked that the foreigner was awake.

“Señor,” enjoined a deep and familiar voice.

Nathaniel tilted his head forward and saw that he was seated at a long dining table. At the far end of the oaken slab sat Gris, accompanied by two men who wore dark cherry suits. Steam rose from the shrimp, peas, yellow rice and béchamel sauce that filled their plates.

Upon the table directly in front of the captive gringo laid two wooden bowls that were covered with heavy stone lids. Something living rustled within the vessel on the left.

Nathaniel jerked. “No.” He twisted in his seat, but his chair was made of stone and did not move even a fraction of an inch. Had he not already emptied the contents of his bladder and stomach, he would have done so upon hearing that insectile noise.

“Diego,” said Gris.

A gentleman with a neatly-trimmed black beard stood from his chair, withdrew a glove from his dark cherry slacks, inserted his left hand and waggled his fingers.

Nathaniel’s heart pounded.

“I am left-handed,” Gris declared, “as are all five of my sons.”

The bearded man, who had a thin nose and thick lips like his father, walked toward Nathaniel.

“Do you believe this is a coincidence?” Gris inquired as he speared a pink shrimp with his fork.

“I do not know,” responded Nathaniel.

“Scandinavian studies have proven that left-handed people think differently than do the majority and quite often reap the rewards of their atypical thought processes.” Gris pointed his speared shrimp at his bearded progeny. “At a very early age, Diego was instructed to favor his left hand and was punished for contrary behavior.”

Nathaniel doubted Gris’s sanity.

“Like all of my sons, Diego learned to become left-handed.” The one-eyed Spaniard ate the shrimp and summarily thrust his fork into another pink morsel. “That was my will.”

Unable to entertain desultory conversation any longer, Nathaniel demanded, “What do you intend—”

“Dolores Plugford is but two months away from fully accepting that she is a whore and my property,” stated Gris. “Yvette Upfield has a longer journey—her religious devotion is an obstacle—but she too will grow to accept that she is what she does. That is my will.” The white-haired Spaniard looked at Nathaniel with both his good eye and the gray rock that was lodged within his left socket. “Both of these women could have avoided many terrible—and pointless—agonies had they yielded to my will when they sat in the chair that you now occupy.”

Diego raised the thick stone lid from the right bowl. Deep within the vessel was a shallow puddle of pure black oil, upon which sat dim stars that were reflections of candelabra flames. Gris’s son uncovered the left bowl and revealed a roiling confluence of gray pincers, spindly legs and curved tails. The rustling and clicking of the arachnids sounded like a brush fire.

Nathaniel began to shake.

Gris said, “My son shall show you the embodiment of a lie.”

With his protected index finger and thumb, Diego extricated a small gray scorpion from the left bowl, held it above the adjacent vessel and let go. The arachnid plopped into the black mire. The legs of the ichor-covered creature clicked furiously upon the wood. Nathaniel felt a numbing horror spread throughout his chest and head.

“Each lie you utter shall be thus embodied,” stated Gris. “You are aware of this creature’s ultimate destination?”

Lightheaded, Nathaniel nodded.

The scorpion scrambled in circles, but could not ascend the bowl’s slick walls.

Gris inquired, “When does your group plan to raid Catacumbas?”

“Whenever I give them the signal. There was no set time.”

“How large is this raiding party?”

“Three men.” (Nathaniel had not mentioned Long Clay, Deep Lakes and Patch Up to Yvette.)

“Three men plan to raid Catacumbas?” The one-eyed Spaniard was doubtful.

Diego glanced at his father.

“I was hired by three men—the father and brothers of the women I visited.”

“The little husband was not involved?” inquired Gris.

“I was completely unaware of his existence until Yvette mentioned him to me.”

Gris inclined his head toward the unnamed silver-haired son and whispered into his ear. The gentleman nodded twice, rose and departed. A heavy door closed.

The one-eyed Spaniard returned his attention to the captive gringo. “What is your name?”

Once Nathaniel revealed his true identity, the path to Kathleen and his mother and sister in Michigan would forever be open to this repellant creature. “Thomas Weston.”

“It is unfortunate that you have chosen to disregard my advice.”

Strong hands gripped Nathaniel’s forehead and jaw, and his mouth was pried open by the unseen restrainer who stood directly behind him. A wooden ruler pressed his tongue flat. Diego reached into the oil and withdrew the dripping scorpion. Its wriggling legs showered black droplets upon the table.

Nathaniel shut his eyes. Needlelike legs tickled his cheeks, and pincers poked his soft palate. Uselessly, he struggled against the restrainer and the stone chair. He gagged, but his empty stomach had no more contents to expel. Spindly appendages pricked his nasal passages and esophagus.

“A bajo.”

The ruler was pulled from Nathaniel’s mouth. His jaw was slammed shut and his head was jerked back. The oily mass descended his throat like chewed chicken bones. It transgressed his neck, flinched once and entered his chest.

The strong hands released the captive’s jaw. Nathaniel tilted his head forward, and his vision began to narrow. Diego reseated himself and contemplated the manifold scorpions within the left bowl.

“What is your name?” repeated Gris.

Nathaniel recalled his monogrammed handkerchief. “Nicholas Samuelson.”

Gris contemplated the answer and nodded. “Do you have a wife?”

“I do not.”

“The discoloration upon your ring finger intimates a different truth.”

Diego reached his glove into the left bowl and withdrew a beige scorpion from its sharp contemporaries. Its legs wriggled continuously as if it were the conductor of an arachnid symphony.

Nathaniel said, “I am engaged to be mar—”

A stinger pierced his stomach, and he shrieked. The dire agony thrust him into a new stratum of existence, and his entire life prior to that extraordinary pain seemed numb and insensate by comparison. As the stinger withdrew from his stomach lining, a terrible coolness flooded his guts.

Death loomed, undeniable.

Nathaniel Stromler knew that his living remainder would be filled with bright red pain. The only thing that he could do was withhold information that might endanger Kathleen or his mother and sister. Presently, the dining room turned to watercolors and slid down his cheeks.

The silver-haired son returned to the room, sat at the table and put a napkin upon his lap.

Gris appraised Nathaniel momentarily. “Once el escorpión settles, we shall talk more about your fiancé.” The one-eyed Spaniard picked up his fork and knife. “I am a great admirer of women.” He stuck his tines into a delicate pink shrimp, which was covered with béchamel sauce, and raised it from its embryonic peers.

A burning harpoon that was a stinger lanced Nathaniel’s insides. He yelled. His pierced stomach shuddered and tried to jettison its attacker, but the arachnid clutched tissues with its toothpick legs and would not be expelled.

Consciousness leaked like a vapor from Nathaniel’s head. Candelabra flames fell like dying stars, and darkness blossomed.

Gris’s son complemented the shrimp.

Chapter XIII

Mean Men

Dolores Plugford watched the Oriental secret his damp dark phallus inside his drawers and reach for his opalescent silk shirt. A taste like soap and copper haunted her palate and she reached for the bringer of purgation (and obliteration) that was her wine bottle.

“You are skilled with your mouth.” The Oriental slid a manicured hand through a shirtsleeve; silk whistled.

Angry that she was adept at pleasing the different types of mean men who came to her in Catacumbas, Dolores drank. She washed the foul taste from her mouth with a bitter draught as she thought of freedom, her family and the tall dumb dandy who had ruined everything. After eight months of imprisonment, the dwindling star of hope had vanished utterly from the black sky.

The Oriental buttoned his shirt and glanced at her shorn left ankle. “What happened to your foot?”

“I s’pose they threw it out.”

“How did you lose it?” the man inquired, as if he were discussing a misshapen cabbage with a grocer.

“A man shot it.”

“A doctor should’ve pulled out the bullet and fixed the hole.”

“Nobody thought of that. I sure wish you’d been around to give us advice.” (The idiot did not seem to realize that she was making fun of him.)

“I once helped a doctor remove a bullet. It’s not so difficult.”

“I had six bullets.” Dolores’s left foot had been an unrecognizable mess the last time she had seen it.

The Oriental poked an ivory cufflink into his left sleeve. “The man who shot your foot must’ve been very angry.”

“You must be a professor.”

The Oriental paused. “Are you belittling me?”

“You’re little enough.”

A dark fist landed in Dolores’s stomach, emptied her lungs and doubled her over. Iron fingers grabbed curls of her red hair and yanked her upright. With a long and pointed fingernail, the Oriental tapped the woman’s tender stump. “I understand why you lost the foot.”

“Go roast.”

The man was perplexed by her remark.

“Roast in Hell you stupid mongoloid,” clarified Dolores.

Deep within the man, something smoldered. “I am not stupid.” The fingers clutching her hair tightened. “I have a good education.”

“So does that circus dog.” At that moment, Dolores knew that she wanted to die.

The wall impacted her ear, retreated and slammed into her nose.

Soon, the Oriental’s dark face expanded. “You are a dumb whore. Very, very dumb.” He inhaled wetly.

Spit struck Dolores’s left eye and dangled like a mucoidal tear, but she did not bother to wipe it away.

The man released her hair. “I will get the equipment. And I will return.” He turned away from the bed and walked toward the exit.

On the far side of the chamber, the door opened.

The Oriental paused.

Ubaldo stumbled into the room and dropped to his knees. His right eye was purple and hugely swollen, and his gaping mouth looked like a crushed tomato. Standing in the open doorway was a huge man who wore a rubber mask over his head, a thick iron tabard atop his gray overalls, four guns and giant work boots.

“Daddy?” said Dolores.

“It’s me angel.”

The huge patriarch sped at the terrified Oriental.

“Don’t hurt me, I—”

The small man was seized by the neck and slammed against the wall.

“Please—”

Thick fingers burrowed into the Oriental’s neck and yanked out his throat. Vomit sprayed from the open end of the corrugated tube like a garden hose, and his larynx buzzed a shrill pitch.

Dolores saw another man materialize in the hallway outside her cell. He was five foot nine and wore a rubber mask, an iron tabard, a beige shirt, denim jeans and cowboy boots.

“Brent?”

The man bolted across the room and threw his arms around her. “It’s me,” her twin brother said through his mask, “It’s me, I’m here.”

Tears spilled down Dolores’s face. “Oh god Brent. I can’t believe this ain’t a dream.”

“We’re here for real.” Brent pulled off his rubber mask, and his cheeks were wet with tears. “I love you.” He kissed her on the forehead. “We love you.”

Dolores squeezed her brother so tightly that the iron plate he wore dug into her corset and ripped the fabric.

Ubaldo crawled toward the door. John Lawrence Plugford stomped upon the Mexican’s forearm, snapping it. The crawler collapsed.

In the hallway outside appeared a tall narrow man who gripped two ebony pistols and wore a blood-splattered rubber mask, an iron tabard and black clothing. “Hasten.”

“Get your mask on,” the patriarch said to his son, “and carry her.”

“Got her.” Brent pulled on his rubber mask, drew a blanket over Dolores and slid his arms beneath her knees and behind her back. “Grab hold.”

The woman leaned forward and held her brother’s shoulders.

John Lawrence Plugford snatched Ubaldo’s collar and raised him to his feet. “Let’s get the other.”

The cowed Mexican silently endured his injuries and walked from the room, followed by the patriarch.

Brent raised Dolores from the terrible bed and carried her across the chamber, through the door and up the hallway to the tall narrow man, whose revolvers were aimed at the dark ascending stairwell. The stranger’s rubber mask swiveled minutely, and behind the glass goggles the woman saw two cold blue eyes, which appraised her face and body and lingered momentarily on her stump. He turned back to the stairwell.

“Are you Pa’s old partner?” asked Dolores.

“I am.”

The woman had heard her mother refer to Long Clay as ‘the fellow who the devil was afraid of.’ “Thanks for helpin’.”

The gunfighter nodded.

Accompanied by the patriarch, the injured Mexican walked toward the far side of the hallway. The pair brightened as they neared the ensconced torch and darkened shortly thereafter. Presently, they stopped outside the final door.

Ubaldo released his fractured right arm, winced as gravity strained the appendage, reached his left hand into his trousers, withdrew a bronze key and inserted it into the lock. Tumblers groaned, and a bolt clacked. The man with the wooden nose pulled the door wide and said, “The other.”

John Lawrence Plugford took a step forward and looked through the portal. He surveyed the room for a ponderous moment. “That ain’t—” His voice cut out.

“They made her dependent,” Dolores announced from Brent’s arms.

Staring into the darkness, John Lawrence Plugford inquired, “Yvette?”

“Is that you Daddy?”

“Yeah.” The patriarch’s voice was a translucent whisper. “It’s me angel.”

The huge man stood outside the room, still and silent for an awful moment, and then turned to face Ubaldo. Terror filled he man with the wooden nose.

“Don’t kill him yet,” cautioned Long Clay.

John Lawrence Plugford shoved Ubaldo against the wall; the Mexican’s skull smacked against the stone. The patriarch pressed the meat of his left palm to the man’s wooden nose, and the stitches that held the false proboscis in place pulled upon the surrounding skin.

“No,” pleaded Ubaldo. Air whistled through his nostrils.

John Lawrence Plugford thrust his hand upward. Wires ripped free, and crimson beads scattered into the air. The Mexican wailed.

“He deserves it,” said Dolores.

Ubaldo’s wooden nose dangled, anchored to the skin adjoining his corroded nasal cavity by two wires. He cupped his face. John Lawrence Plugford turned away from the dripping man and walked into the room wherein laid his daughter.

“I lost my soul in the walls,” declared the unseen woman. “There’s a bug that’s got it.” Her voice was enervated and girlish.

“Don’t worry,” said the patriarch.

“It took my soul away, and now I can’t move.”

Heavy footsteps echoed within the room. Presently, John Lawrence Plugford strode from the darkness, carrying an enshrouded corpse that Dolores soon realized was both alive and her sister.

“Oh God,” Brent quietly exclaimed within his mask. “Oh God.” His hands squeezed his twin sister. “Oh God. Oh God.” He shuddered.

“This place is terrible.” Dolores looked away from the skeletal thing that her father carried. “This goddamn world is terrible.”

Brent cleared his throat and looked at Ubaldo. “You…you got any other women pris’ners in this goddamn place?”

“No,” replied the dripping man through the glistening hand that held his face. “You can look—no other cells is locked.”

Dolores surveyed the hall and saw that most of the doors were ajar. “Where’s that fellow we sent here earlier,” Brent asked Ubaldo, “the tall blonde dandy?”

“He’s having dinner with the boss.”

“You’re gonna get him for us,” stated Brent.

“Si.”

The injured Mexican walked up the hallway. Carrying his piteous daughter, John Lawrence Plugford followed.

Long Clay turned to Ubaldo. “Stop.”

The Mexican halted.

“Let me see your face.”

Ubaldo lowered his left hand, and his nose twisted on its wires like a cat’s toy. Long Clay placed the tip of his long black revolver inside the man’s nasal cavity. Steel clicked upon recessed cartilage, and lambent torchlight dripped from the Mexican’s eyes.

“Do not cross us.”

“I will do what you say.” Ubaldo’s words buzzed inside the gun barrel. “I swears.” His breath caught erratically.

“He’s gonna sneeze,” warned Brent.

The gunfighter withdrew the tip of his revolver.

The Mexican sprayed gore upon the stone, groaned and stood upright. Long Clay yanked the dangling proboscis loose and discarded it. “Go.” The nose smacked against the wall and skipped up the hallway.

Cupping his dripping face with his good hand, Ubaldo entered the stairwell.

Long Clay looked at Brent. “Wait for my signal.”

“Okay.”

The gunfighter lowered his head and entered the portal. As he climbed the steps, the back of his iron tabard flashed.

Dolores looked at her younger sister, who was collapsed and pale in the arms of her father. It took the redheaded woman a moment to find her voice. “Yvette?”

The emaciated choirmaster brushed away the hair that hung before her dilated eyes. “You still look pretty.”

Dolores knew that she would sob hysterically if she attempted to respond, and so she reached for her younger sister’s hand, clasped what felt like a raw poultry and squeezed. It took all of her strength not to weep.

“Why didn’t my husband come?” asked Yvette. “Why isn’t Samuel here?”

Dolores felt Brent’s arms stiffen. She looked up at his rubber mask and saw that his eyes were narrowed and filled with hate.

Exasperated, Yvette whined, “Doesn’t anybody know?”

John Lawrence Plugford said, “We’ll talk about him later.” His words were black and irrefutable.

Dolores replaced her sister’s hand upon her narrow chest.

The family watched the stairwell.

“I don’t have no hands free,” Brent said to Dolores. “You think you can shoot a gun?”

“I worked at Jasper’s for four years.” (Although Jasper’s Palace of Good Chances and Dancing Cancan Girls was a reputable establishment, drunken gentlemen who lost large sums to truculent dice or restive ball bearings occasionally tried to reclaim their wages in a felonious manner. Resultantly, all employees were schooled in what the owner called ‘firearm preparedness.’) Dolores drew a nickel-plated pistol from Brent’s hip.

“Shoot every single one that touched you,” said John Lawrence Plugford. “Or point them out to me.”

“I know.”

The patriarch patted his daughter’s shoulder.

“Don’t murder nobody,” Yvette protested, “they’re weak is all.”

Nobody responded to the choirmaster’s advice.

Dolores looked at the front of the six-shot revolver, spun the barrel, saw two black holes, turned the weapon over, cracked it in half, discarded the spent shells, located the cartridge sash beneath Brent’s iron tabard, plucked out two bullets, loaded them into the empty grooves and snapped the gun shut.

“Did Stevie come?”

“He’s actin’ sentry upstairs.”

Dolores drew six more bullets from the sash and tucked them in-between her left breast and corset cup. “I’m s’prised he made the effort.”

“He’s sour,” Brent replied, “but he cares ‘bout you girls.”

“I need some medicine,” demanded Yvette.

“We’ll find you something once we’re out clear,” said Brent.

“And we’ve gotta get Henry,” Yvette added, “the circus dog. They’re mean to him and we’ve gotta get him out of here.”

“We’ll grab him if we can.”

“We have to save him.” The choirmaster sounded desperate.

Near the top of the stairwell, a tiny pinprick of light flashed thrice.

Brent said, “It’s clear,” and hastened forward. His left boot landed upon the bottom step, and his other foot aspired three levels higher. Dolores pointed the pistol up and out. Grayish-ochre stones and nestled candles sped past. Forty feet behind the twins, the patriarch, holding Yvette in the crook of his left arm and his sawed-off shotgun in his right fist, thundered up the steps.

Dolores was carried from the nether stairwell into a torch-illumined passageway and to the left. The floor wavered nauseatingly and she instantly regretted the quantity of sour wine that she had imbibed after her assignation with the Oriental.

Presently, the siblings passed an ensconced torch, and the flames reached after them like a clutching hand. The floor undulated. Sweat beaded upon Dolores’s brow.

“Hold that gun with both hands,” Brent advised as he bounded up the hall.

“Okay.”

Dolores clapped her left hand upon her right, and the gun steadied. She looked forward. At the far end of the passageway stood a rectangle of amber light. It had been five months since she had last been inside the parlor that laid beyond.

Brent bounded. Sprawled across the floor beneath an ensconced torch was an inert man in a bright yellow suit who was headless. A tarry stain comprised of roasted brain matter, blood, skull shards and hair sat upon the wall beside the flames.

“Pa got that canary,” said Brent.

“Good.”

The smell of baked gore was noxious, and Dolores held her breath as her brother circumnavigated the corpse.

Yvette yelled.

Dolores looked back at her sister. “Shut your eyes girl.”

The sepulchral woman, cradled in John Lawrence Plugford’s left arm, stared at the headless canary and was appalled. “You all can’t do any more killing.”

“Hush now angel,” the patriarch said as he bounded up the hallway.

“You can’t! I’d rather go back than have all these lives taken.”

John Lawrence Plugford poked the barrels of his sawed-off shotgun into a corner of the blanket that draped Yvette and drew the fabric over her face. “Don’t you worry about nothin’.” The patriarch hugged his daughter close to his chest. “Your daddy’s got you now.”

With a skeletal hand, Yvette gripped the blanket and pulled it from her eyes. John Lawrence Plugford concealed her face once more.

“Leave it alone,” advised Dolores. “You don’t wanna see none of this.”

“Make us a prayer,” suggested Brent.

John Lawrence Plugford carried his enshrouded daughter past the headless corpse.

Dolores faced forward. In the adjacent room stood the black scarecrow silhouette of Long Clay, who had one revolver extended and the tip of its sibling lodged within Ubaldo’s nasal cavity. (The Mexican’s good and broken arms were bound by a cord.)

“Wait in the hall.” The gunfighter shifted his rubber head so that he could see the Plugfords through his left goggle. “They’re fetching the dandy.”

Brent carried Dolores to the edge of the passage, and there she surveyed the vast subterranean parlor, which was illuminated by hundreds of nook-embedded candles. Upon the nonagonal clay tiles laid eleven corpses, a morass of charcoal faces, iridescent entrails, cracked white ribcages, exposed lungs and severed limbs. The redheaded woman recognized that the deceased men were Catacumbas guards, most of whom had visited her chamber.

“We brung grenades,” said Brent.

“Good.” The invasive smells of blood, gunpowder, iron and scorched fat filled Dolores’s nostrils. “They deserve it.” Two baby turtles crawled across a broiled liver.

Dolores raised her gaze from the carnage and looked toward the dais, which was thirty yards distant. Facedown upon the stone floor laid twenty-nine formally-dressed gentlemen and forty whores who wore variegated silk kimonos. Pointing the barrel of a pump-action shotgun at the exposed backs of the prostrated individuals was Stevie, clad in a rubber mask, tattered clothes and an iron tabard. He nodded his orange head at his sister, and she waved in return.

John Lawrence Plugford reached the twins and paused. Beneath her blanket, Yvette quietly prayed.

On the far side of the parlor and next to the stairwell stood the third corner of the sentry triangle, a small pudgy fellow who held a repeater rifle and wore an iron tabard, a maroon suit, a rubber mask and white gloves. He waved a hand at Dolores and summarily gripped his weapon.

The redheaded woman suddenly realized at whom she was looking. “Lord,” she muttered to her brother, “that’s…”

“Yeah,” said Brent. “That’s him.”

Dolores waved her hand at Patch Up. “I can’t believe he’d get involved in this ugliness.”

“He’s family,” stated John Lawrence Plugford.

Stevie called out from the dais, “You girls see any men you want me to execute?”

Yvette prayed louder.

Dolores could not see most of the prone captives, but a rotund man who had squeezed his bulk through her chamber door on several occasions was very visible. “Let me see that one in the second row—the fat one in the purple suit.”

Stevie walked over to the indicated man and kicked his head sideways. “Stand up.”

The fat fellow from Portugal rose to his knees, wiped dust from his iridescent cuffs and stood upright. His back was to Dolores.

Stevie prodded the captive with his shotgun barrel. “Walk to the front of the stage so she can see you good.”

The fat man wended his prostrated peers and strode to the edge of the dais, where he paused, buttoned his double-breasted lavender jacket and aligned his hair, as if he were preparing for an opera recital.

Anger coursed through Dolores’s breast. This was the odious creature who had stuffed dirty socks into her mouth and sodomized her.

“There are many important men in this establishment,” the Portuguese gentleman proclaimed, “and there will be retribution for what—”

The gunstock impacted his right cheek.

“Don’t share your stupid wisdom,” advised Stevie.

John Lawrence Plugford leaned close to Dolores. “Did he touch you?”

“Yes.”

John Lawrence Plugford stopped breathing.

Brent’s hands tightened upon Dolores’s shoulders and legs.

Stevie swung his gunstock into the fat man’s jaw, and the bone snapped. The rapist from Portugal cried out, exactly as he did whenever he sprayed semen, and he clasped his asymmetrical chin. Near him, the prone captives shuddered, but did not say anything.

“Apologize to her!” boomed John Lawrence Plugford.

“Do it!” yelled Stevie. “Apologize!”

Blood trickled from the fat man’s lopsided mouth, down his bulbous neck and onto his white shirt. He looked at Dolores and said, “I am so—”

“Get on your goddamn knees and put your fat hands together!” shouted Stevie. “That’s how you apologize!”

The fat man from Portugal dropped to his knees.

“Why you done it!?!” yelled Stevie. “Why you do that to her!?! She’s a good woman.” His voice warbled unevenly, and Dolores knew that he was crying beneath his rubber mask. “Goddamn you!” The gunstock crushed the man’s nose.

“Let him apologize,” John Lawrence Plugford said to his youngest child.

The fat man looked at Dolores and opened his mouth. Blood flowed from the carmine hole and down his chin.

“Hands together!” admonished Stevie.

The fat man pressed the palms of his hands together and said with a slurred voice, “I am s-s-sorry that I mis-s-s-streated you.”

“Say it true! What you did!” Stevie pressed the tip of his shotgun to the fat man’s hands. “Say it true!”

“I am sorry that I raped you.”

Barrels thundered. The fat man’s hands were obliterated by buckshot, and his face was seared by a brilliant flash of gunpowder.

Dolores felt immediate gratification, as if one of the many painful cysts in her guts had been removed.

The fat man wobbled upon his knees and fell sideways. Blood poured from his truncated arms.

Stevie raised a boot over the charred rapist’s face.

“No!” boomed John Lawrence Plugford. “He dies slow.”

Beneath her blanket, Yvette wept.

The fat man from Portugal tried to scream, but was unable to pull his seared lips apart.

Chapter XIV

In Adjacent Rooms

London was a large, gray and spectral city filled with ancient mysteries that tantalized Nathaniel Stromler’s burgeoning mind. Although he was only thirteen years old, he was capable, mature and tall enough to pass for a man of nineteen (the age that was the intersection of flip adolescence and ambitious adulthood), and naturally he wanted to explore the enigmatic environs unaccompanied. Unfortunately, for him the Itinerary was filled and allowed the youth no time for solitary rambles.

Out of necessity, the thirteen-year-old-fabricated.

On the eleventh morning of the family sojourn, a Thursday, the youngest Stromler announced that he felt ill and would be unable to endeavor the campaign that was described in the Itinerary. The delivered news was reinforced by a quartet of sneezes, which were coerced by pepper that he had ground the previous evening and installed inside his handkerchief. Although his older sister Isabella harbored suspicions regarding the veracity of his illness, the declarations and physical proofs he proffered wrought looks of consternation from his parents.

“Perhaps I should remain with you,” Mother said, “should your condition worsen.”

“The housekeeper is a dependable person,” the boy responded from his bed, “and shall be summoned should my mild illness become notable.” Nathaniel applied pepper grinds to his nostrils with the handkerchief. “I am quite confident—” He sneezed. “I am quite confident that a one day abstention from the Itinerary is all that I shall require.” The youth improvised a lusty cough.

Nathaniel’s parents squabbled over whether or not they could leave their innocent son alone in an English hotel apartment, and after each combatant had twice attacked and defended each position, they gave their assent.

“Do not leave the room under any circumstances.”

“Disregard your mother’s statement should there be a fire.”

“Naturally,” the woman replied, “Nathaniel would not remain in the room should it become enveloped by flames.”

“I only sought to clarify your advice.”

“It is a mother’s duty to offer her son guidance, especially when his father is only too happy to abandon him in favor of sculptures and paintings and sherry and glances (which he believes are surreptitious) at buxom English ladies.”

The squabble continued for five more minutes. Isabella complained that she was hungry, and presently, the trio departed.

Nathaniel walked toward the window, cloaked himself in striped curtains and looked through the glass. Father hailed an open carriage, Mother summoned its replacement and Isabella pointed out an omnibus toward which they all hastened.

The young man began his toilet and envisioned his private ramble throughout the great gray metropolis of fog. Upon his solitary walk, he would observe English architecture and the people who lived within it, and he would purchase some written works and perhaps a pastry. If he encountered the housekeeper before he departed, he would pay her some farthings to corroborate his whereabouts, but his intention was to stealthily escape the hotel and trust that his absence would not ever be discovered.

After he had completed his toilet, Nathaniel dressed himself in a brown three-piece suit and exited the apartment.

The lank youth entered the hallway and strode upon the pine green carpet that covered the major part of the floor. At the end of the hall, he heard a strange noise and paused. From behind a closed door emanated a loud crackling that he at first believed to be the theoretical fire predicted by his parents.

Concerned for the safety of any tenants therein, Nathaniel approached the portal.

A loud piano note rang and was succeeded by two different pitches. The young man recognized the crackling emanation as that of a wax cylinder amplified in the flower of a phonograph.

Suddenly, the music stopped.

“This is the penultimate piece I’m to sing at the recital,” said an Englishwoman located within the room.

“I very much look forward to hearing it,” replied a man who possessed a strange accent.

The crackling union of metal needle and spinning wax resumed, and the composition began anew. Nathaniel heard the familiar melody, and when the recorded pianist augmented the single note phrase with thick bass chords, the Englishwoman began to sing.

It was immediately apparent to the young eavesdropper that the lady within the apartment was a professional performer—she rang the pitches clearly and precisely. Although she strained for several high notes, her voice had a plaintive quality that turned this limitation into a virtue, a humble acknowledge of human fallibility. The song modulated to a lower register, and the singer’s voice blossomed like a lush lily garden causing the youth’s heart to pound within his chest. For the first time in his life, he yearned.

The notes climbed, and the woman followed desperately.

In the third floor hallway of The Hotel Gregory of London, Nathaniel Stromler savored a transformative invisible beauty.

The voice vanished, and the recorded pianist reached his concluding cadence. The phonograph crackled rhythmically for five heartbeats and was gone.

“You have a remarkable gift,” said the man with the strange accent. “Herrlich.”

“Danke, mein herr. I think of you whenever I perform this particular aria.” Buried within the Englishwoman’s speaking voice were the myriad hues that her singing had revealed.

For the duration of several heartbeats, Nathaniel heard nothing beyond the door.

“I would like for us to make love,” announced the Englishwoman.

The instinct to flee did not overpower Nathaniel’s curiosity.

“Ja.”

Footsteps resounded within the room, and a shadow darkened the narrow space between the carpet and the bottom of the burnished door.

“A boy is outside,” said the German man.

Nathaniel departed from the portal and pressed his back to the hallway wall. Adjacent to the doorframe, the youth lurked.

“Please help me remove my dress,” requested the singer.

Tumblers whined, and the lock clicked. Nathaniel’s fear of being apprehended abated. The shadow beneath the door changed into the sound of footsteps.

With his back flush against the wall, the lank youth listened. Silken fabrics rustled, buttons clicked, clothing crumpled and fell, fingers slid across skin, the man said, “Alyssa,” bedclothes crinkled, wood whined, the woman groaned, the man moaned, the woman said, “There,” wood whined, bedclothes rustled, the woman said, “Kurt, Kurt,” the man said “I love you,” a soft pulse grew louder and louder and louder, the wall throbbed, the man groaned, the woman cried out and together they said, “I love you.”

A burning harpoon lanced Nathaniel Stromler’s stomach and roused him from his dream.

The twenty-six-year-old gentleman from Michigan opened his eyes. Two scorpions that were covered with black oil scrambled around their wooden prison. In the adjacent bowl, fifty gray arachnids crackled like a spinning phonograph cylinder that had run out of music.

Gris, sitting at the far end of the dining room table, informed his progeny that he would remit the foreigner.

Diego clenched his gloved left hand and said, “Padre. Por favor. Nosotros—”

“Silencio.” Gris turned his eye upon the captive. “Your associates have killed many men, taken seventy hostages and demanded your immediate release.”

Nathaniel was fairly certain that this was a dream or a ruse (or perhaps the latter embedded within the earlier) and did not proffer any reply.

“Salvation does not seem to lift your spirits,” remarked the white-haired Spaniard.

“I am not entirely convinced that—” A new sharp agony seized Nathaniel, and he vomited a small amount of blood and black oil. The inhabitant within him—the third arachnid that had been presented to his digestive tract—harried his stomach lining with pincers that felt disproportionately huge.

“My sons would like to use you as a hostage,” Gris remarked, “but my opinion is that you are not very valuable.”

“You are correct,” replied Nathaniel.

Gris looked sternly at his sons. “We shall deliver the gringo to his associates.” In Spanish, he added that he did not want one more innocent person killed because of two foreign whores. “We shall conclude this business immediately.”

Diego and his silver-haired sibling nodded.

The white-haired Spaniard looked at whomever stood behind the captive. “Xzavier.”

Bright metal slid across the ropes that held Nathaniel’s left and right wrists to the arms of the stone chair, and the bindings sloughed. Unbound, the gringo raised a tremulous hand to his mouth and wiped away blood, bile and black oil. Although he still doubted his purported release, a small hope glimmered.

The flashing knife sliced through the fetters that bound his ankles, and dammed arterial blood surged toward his numb feet. For the first time since the painful dinner had begun, Nathaniel saw the person who had braced his head and inserted the wooden ruler. Xzavier was a muscular Mexican with curly black hair, a nose like wet clay and a large ‘X’ branded upon his neck.

Diego covered the wooden bowls, removed his canvas glove, rose to his feet and announced that he would escort the foreigner to the parlor.

Gris told his son to comply with the intruders.

“Si.”

Diego and Xzavier placed their hands beneath Nathaniel’s armpits and hoisted him from the stone chair. Hard things that felt like hot coals, needles and broken glass shifted within his belly.

From their seats at far end of the oaken dining table, Gris and his silver-haired son appraised the risen captive. Presently, they returned their attentions to quivering flan.

“Walk,” ordered Diego.

Xzavier slapped a palm in-between Nathaniel’s shoulder blades, and the gringo stumbled forward, holding his stomach.

The trio strode past tapestries of Spanish galleons, underneath two elaborate candelabra and to the double door on the far side of the room. Diego twisted the silver doorknob, pushed and motioned for the captive to precede him through the open portal. Compelled by Xzavier’s hand, Nathaniel walked into a torch-illumined hallway.

Diego exited and shut the door. “Continue.”

The three men traversed a long hallway of grayish-ochre stone; Nathaniel’s stomach alternately burned and grew cold, and his bruised right eye throbbed.

Presently, they entered a broader passageway, upon the far side of which waited a petite Mexican woman, clothed in a modest brown and green dress. She held an unborn child in her swollen stomach and a small revolver in her right hand. Nathaniel wondered if he was about to be executed by a pregnant woman.

“Halt,” Diego ordered.

The men stopped. Xzavier grabbed Nathaniel’s collar and screwed his fist clockwise; the fabric tightened around the gringo’s throat, and he wheezed.

“Vengo, Rosalinda.” Diego walked to the petite woman and from her received the small firearm. He kissed her upon the mouth, and they embraced.

Nathaniel saw that the couple wore matching gold bands upon their ring fingers.

“Gracias, mi amor,” said Diego. “Gracias.”

Rosalinda said that Gris never should have kidnapped the white women.

Diego stated that his father had fairly acquired the gringas.

The pregnant woman told her husband to be careful.

“Si.” Diego kissed the palm of his hand, pressed it to Rosalinda’s swollen stomach and said that he would be very cautious.

The woman asked her husband what he intended to do with the pistol.

Gris’s son said that he would not employ the firearm unless the intruders fired upon him.

“Si.” Nodding, the woman wiped fearful tears from her eyes. “Cuidado.”

Presently, Diego kissed his wife, slid the revolver into his left jacket pocket and looked at Xzavier. “Continue.”

The Mexican released Nathaniel’s collar and prodded him forward. Presently, the captive walked, followed by his captors; Rosalinda remained behind.

The trio entered a wide hall and turned to the left. At the far end of the passageway, Nathaniel saw a rectangle of amber light—the entrance to the parlor.

A shotgun blast resounded.

The trio paused, and Diego withdrew his revolver. Nathaniel’s heart raced.

“No!” boomed a stentorian voice. “He dies slow.” Nathaniel recognized the speaker as John Lawrence Plugford.

A piteous mewling sound emanated from the adjacent room.

“Where’s our damn associate!?!” shouted a man who was either Stevie or Brent Plugford.

“We are bringing him to you!” Diego yelled up the hall.

“You have one minute,” said a cold and certain voice that Nathaniel knew belonged to the tall gunfighter, Long Clay. “Each additional minute will result in another execution.”

Muttering an imprecation, Diego secreted his weapon. “We are coming now!” He gripped the captive’s left shoulder and pulled. “¡Rapidamente, rapidamente!”

Nathaniel clutched his burning stomach and hobbled forward. Xzavier hastened his strides with indelicate shoves. In front of the advancing men, the amber portal grew.

Nathaniel, Diego and Xzavier reached the end of the hallway and entered the vast funereal parlor. Opposite them stood Long Clay, wearing an iron tabard and a weird rubber mask atop his usual black clothing.

Xzavier stood Nathaniel upright.

Diego said, “We have done exactly as you—”

Long Clay’s guns flashed.

Chapter XV

Your Whole Goddamn Life is Over

Two muzzles glared upon the clear disks that were Brent Plugford’s goggles. Across the parlor, the left hand of the bearded Spaniard exploded, as the head of the Mexican with the branded neck jerked back. The perfectly concurrent shots resounded as one loud report within the parlor.

Presently, the cowboy adjusted his grip upon his sister, whom he shielded from the tableau.

Long Clay’s gleaming barrels blazed a second time. The eyes of the bearded man turned black, and gore erupted from the rear of his twice-pierced head.

Gurgling, the Hispanic men fell to the nonagonal clay tiles.

The dandy, covered with dark fluids, stumbled forward, saw the blasted guards and was stunned.

Brent shouted at Nathaniel, “Get to the exit!”

“Over here!” yelled Patch Up from his position beside the stairwell.

Overwhelmed by the tableau, the dandy stared blankly at the negro.

“Go to him!” shouted Brent. “Now!”

“Get!” prompted Stevie.

A loud wail resounded in the hallway behind the dandy, and he turned around.

“Clear out!” yelled Brent.

A woman raced up the passage, toward the bearded man. “¡Diego!” she yelled. “¡Diego, mi Diego!”

The stunned dandy backed away, and the woman, who was pregnant, fell upon the body. Brent felt ill—he knew that the gunfighter had just killed the husband of the expecting mother.

“¡Diego, mi Diego!”

“Get away from her,” Brent shouted at the bewildered dandy, “and go!”

The widow reached into her husband’s jacket.

Long Clay pointed his guns at her face and heart.

“Don’t let her draw!” yelled Brent.

The dandy lunged at the pregnant woman.

Nathaniel’s back obscured the struggle for whatever weapon laid within the dead man’s pocket.

“I kill, I kill!” the Mexican woman yelled, “¡Diablos—estan diablos!”

Long Clay pointed his revolvers at whatever parts of the pregnant widow were visible to him.

Ubaldo looked at gunfighter. “You no can kill the pregnant woman.”

The dandy yelled at his bereaved adversary in Spanish.

Long Clay aimed at the woman’s forehead and shoulder.

Stevie walked to the edge of the dais and pointed his shotgun at the entangled duo.

“Hold,” John Lawrence Plugford commanded his youngest child.

The dandy won a small revolver from the woman’s grasp, stumbled backwards and fell onto his buttocks.

Brent relaxed, as did Dolores.

“¡Vas al Infierno!” The widow threw a hard fist into the dandy’s stomach.

Shrieking, the tall gentleman dropped the gun. The firearm clattered against the tiles.

The widow lunged for the weapon.

“No!” yelled Brent.

“Jesus!” exclaimed Patch Up.

Dolores hid behind her brother’s iron tabard.

The widow grabbed the revolver.

Long Clay fired.

The pregnant woman shrieked.

Brent’s stomach twisted, and Dolores gasped.

The revolver and two curled fingers struck the tiles.

“Get the gun,” Long Clay said to the dandy. “Quickly.”

Nathaniel clasped the weapon and collapsed onto his stomach. Beside him, the widow clutched her bleeding hand and wailed.

“Don’t let her get it again.” Long Clay switched out his guns for two fully-loaded replacements.

The prone dandy, pale and convulsive, grunted a reply, and Brent surmised that he had been tortured during his captivity.

“Let’s make our departure,” announced John Lawrence Plugford.

Upon the dais, Stevie faced the prostrated captives. “Stay flat on the ground ‘til we’re gone. ¿You Comprende?”

“Si,” said the whores and gentlemen.

The young man leapt from the dais and walked toward the dandy. Long Clay monitored the dark catacomb portals with oscillating guns.

Patch Up shouted across the hall, “Once I’ve made a survey, I’ll signal.” The negro turned to the stairwell, pointed his repeater rifle into the darkness and ascended.

“Get that gun ready,” Brent said to Dolores.

The redheaded woman clasped the nickel-plated revolver with both hands and pointed it forward. “Okay.”

Then, the cowboy carried his sister past the blasted guards, toward the exit. The vast subterranean parlor was quiet, but for the sounds of footsteps and sobs. Brent tried not to think about the widow.

After ten strides, the twins reached the gunfighter and his captive.

“Look at me!” yelled Dolores.

Ubaldo turned around and looked at the redheaded woman.

“You hurt me for eight months,” Dolores said, “but I’m leavin’ this place, and you’re whole goddamn life is over!” She aimed the revolver at the man’s lower abdomen and squeezed the trigger. Gunpowder exploded flashing white.

A jet of urine sprayed from Ubaldo’s pierced bladder, and he dropped to his knees, whimpering like a puppy. He shut his shiny eyes, and pink tears dripped from his open nasal cavity. His face slammed against the clay tiles.

Dolores aimed at the prostrated man’s back and fired.

Ubaldo’s vertebrae cracked. He choked and twitched, facedown in the puddle of blood and urine that his punctured body grew.

Brent saw that Dolores’s hands were shaking.

“Get going,” ordered Long Clay.

As the cowboy carried his sister toward the stairwell, which was less than fifteen yards away she cracked her gun in half, replaced the spent cartridges and sealed the weapon.

A dog barked.

“Get off of him!” shouted Stevie.

Brent looked over his shoulder and saw that the widow had fastened her bloody hands to the dandy’s neck.

“I’ll get her.” Stevie set the heel of his right boot against the woman’s neck and shoved her backwards. He pointed his shotgun at her inhabited belly.

“Don’t!” yelled Brent and Dolores.

“You wanna have that little amigo?” asked Stevie.

The pale and bleeding woman seemed to understand that the young man’s threat was real, and she remained still, clasping three red fingers with five others. Behind her in the hallway, a rust-colored mongrel growled.

Stevie hooked a hand beneath the dandy’s armpit and helped him to his feet. “Can you walk?”

The saturated gentleman clutched his stomach as if it might drop out of his abdomen and strode toward the exit.

“Grab that dog!” John Lawrence Plugford said to Stevie.

“Okay.”

Brent carried Dolores through the portal and into the dark stairwell.

“Come on up,” Patch Up shouted from above, “it’s clear!”

“Okay!” The cowboy looked down at his sister. “We’re nearly out.”

Dolores pointed the shaking gun forward.

Brent was a strong man (he did not abstain from digging latrines or breaking broncos or running fences or working tack as did most cowboy foremen), but his additional encumbrances—especially his sister and the iron tabard—made his climb up the steps an arduous journey. A minute of strained exertion brought him to the middle of the stairwell, where he paused, panted and rested his burning muscles.

“Still clear?” the cowboy shouted up the steps.

“Still clear!” confirmed the negro.

Brent resumed his ascent and heard his father enter the nether end of the stairwell.

“I can’t believe it,” muttered Dolores.

Above the siblings, the dark portal grew.

Brent transcended the final step and entered the anteroom, wherein hung the tapestry of the ancient ziggurat. Only one brass censer remained alight, and the cinnamon-and-vanilla smoke it yielded did not conceal the ripe smells of lichens and blood.

“I can’t believe it’s happening.”

The cowboy carried his sister toward the vertical blue line that shone upon the far side of the anteroom. Prone beneath the glowing slit was a dead man who clutched a blunderbuss. The colorful feathers of a sunken arrow sprouted from his left nostril like a rectilinear flower.

Dolores pointed toward the deep blue light. “That’s outside?”

“Yeah.”

Tears poured down the woman’s face.

“All clear?” inquired Brent.

“All clear!” Patch Up confirmed from outside.

“I can’t believe it’s really happening.”

Brent carried his sister past the last censer, kicked open the iron door and walked through the portal. The twins entered an azure world.

“Oh my God,” said Dolores. There was joy in her voice.

A dark blue Patch Up stood beside his dark blue wagon, pointing the bright blue barrel of his repeater rifle across the deep blue plain, toward mountains comprised of variegated blue hues. He waved a light blue palm at the siblings.

“How’d it get to be mornin’?” asked Dolores.

“I don’t know,” Patch Up said, “I thought it was still hours away.”

Brent surveyed the horizons, all of which were clear, and counted his crew’s horses, all of which were present. Sprawled nearby were seven men with arrows in their heads and hearts.

“That Deep Lakes came with you,” stated Dolores.

“He did.”

The woman pointed a blue finger at the pale palfrey. “You brung out Elizabeth.”

“Think you can ride her?”

“I can, but Yvette can’t sit hers.”

“I know it.”

Brent heard someone directly behind him, glanced over his shoulder and saw his father bear Yvette, who was enshrouded, into the azure world.

“Any adversaries?” inquired John Lawrence Plugford.

“None standing, approaching or throwing bullets,” replied Patch Up.

Brent brought Dolores to her horse, and she returned the nickel-plated revolver to his holster. He set her posterior upon the embroidered sidesaddle, and she righted herself.

“Gimme back the gun.”

The cowboy gave the gun to his sister. “You want a holster?”

“I’ll hold it.”

“Tie somethin’ to the handle, so if you drop it, it ain’t lost.”

“I may be a cancan girl with one foot, but I still got brains.”

Brent kissed Dolores’s hand and approached his brindled mustang.

John Lawrence Plugford carried his covered daughter toward the white stallion.

“J.L.” Patch Up patted the wagon bench. “Put Yvette up here with me.”

“I’ll hold her.”

“Laid out on the bench is better—she shouldn’t get tussled.”

“I’ll hold her so she don’t get tussled.” The patriarch would not relinquish his girl.

The dandy emerged from Catacumbas, gripping his stomach and wearing a beard of blue-black ichor.

“Can you ride your horse?” asked Brent.

The dandy glared at the cowboy and walked like a weary crone toward his deep blue mare. Four hundred and fifty dollars seemed like incredibly poor wages for whatever tortures he had endured, and Brent did not in any way begrudge the gentleman’s anger. Nobody had expected this rescue to become so dangerous or so complicated.

Stevie emerged from Catacumbas, cradling the fifty-pound mongrel in his arms. “I got the dog.”

“Put it in the wagon,” Brent said, “and get on your horse.”

Patch Up received the dog from Stevie and set it within the canopy, where it barked thrice. Brent mounted his brindled mustang. John Lawrence Plugford, holding Yvette to his chest, climbed onto his sturdy white stallion. Stevie mounted his spotted colt.

An explosion thundered within Catacumbas. The ground shook, and Brent felt tremors deep inside his chest.

“What’s happenin’?” asked Dolores.

“Long Clay’s sealin’ up the stairs, so we can get us a good lead.”

A second explosion shook the ziggurat ruins. The doorway exhaled a column of azure smoke, and Long Clay materialized, walking.

“Bust up their wagons,” John Lawrence Plugford boomed, “and slaughter their horses.”

Long Clay reached underneath his tabard, withdrew an oblong grenade, attached a rear taper and hurled the device into the air, toward the horses and stagecoaches that were situated on the east side of the edifice. A mare’s neck depressed the plunger, and the device exploded. The horse, nine of its neighbors and four stagecoaches were consumed by the white burst. Against the azure sky, blue limbs spun, blue gore rained and blue entrails twisted.

The remaining animals jerked upon their tethers, but were unable to break loose.

Brent pointed his pistol at the right foreleg of a colt and squeezed the trigger. The beast shrieked and collapsed to the plain. He aimed his gun at the limb of another creature and fired. The animal pitched forward and broke its neck. “Hell.”

Stevie fired his shotgun. Buckshot peppered the chests of several horses. They shrieked and bucked, but did not fall.

“Them pellets won’t put any down from this distance,” chastened Brent. “Use a rifle or a revolver.” The cowboy aimed at an animal leg and fired. A dark blue horse collapsed, rolled onto its back and kicked three hooves at the sky.

Stevie sheathed his shotgun, drew his revolver, aimed and shot a horse through the foreleg. It screeched and tumbled to the plain.

Dolores turned her horse away from the massacre.

Long Clay hurled a grenade into the air.

Brent cracked his gun in half, dumped spent rounds to the plain, filled the empty chambers with new bullets and shut his revolver, which clicked.

The plunger struck the roof of a stagecoach, and the grenade detonated. A bright explosion wiped the heads off of seven nearby horses and tore open the sides of five others. Eviscerated and decapitated animals staggered, and a mare with a dangling head trampled the neck of a fallen palfrey that shrieked like a human child.

Dolores pressed her palms to her ears.

Beneath her blanket, Yvette wept.

The dandy stared at the ground.

Brent surveyed the fog of blue dust that obscured the dead and dying animals. Beside an upended black stagecoach were two terrified horses, straining against and nibbling their lines. “Over there.” He pointed his revolver.

“I see ‘em,” said Stevie.

The brothers fired their guns, and the animals collapsed to the plain. Brent heard (or imagined) human shrieks amidst the bestial cacophony, and he wondered if nightmares of this gruesome scene would haunt his sleeping mind for the remainder of his life.

Long Clay mounted his black mare.

John Lawrence Plugford pointed north. “Go!”

Patch Up cracked his whip at the braced quartet, and wagon wheels turned. Brent, Stevie, Dolores and the dandy urged their steeds into a quick canter. John Lawrence Plugford, cradling Yvette and trailing her spotted palfrey, coaxed his mustang into action. Long Clay shadowed.

The Plugford crew departed Catacumbas.

As they did so, the hard stone that had been stuck in Brent’s guts for eight months shrank. Although his sisters were not yet safe, they were free and alive, breathing the open air of the great landscape.

Hooves rumbled, and the ruins shrank.

The crew rode north across the blue plain.

Dolores and the dandy rode in-between the flanking brothers, directly behind Patch Up’s rumbling wagon. John Lawrence Plugford and Long Clay followed from a distance of forty yards.

“Can we take off these goddamn masks?’ Stevie asked from the saddle of his spotted colt. “Mine’s drippin’ with sweat.”

“Not just yet,” replied Brent. (Long Clay had told them to wear their masks until they were well beyond the mountain range.)

“They must’ve figured out who we are anyway.”

“That ain’t the same as knowin’ what we look like.”

“I s’pose.”

All of Brent’s limbs burned, and his throat was raw from yelling. He sat up straight and felt a tight pain in his lower back—a strained or torn muscle. “Hell.” Wondering at the greater agonies that his twin sister endured, the cowboy looked east.

Dolores rode the pale palfrey, staring forward and clutching the nickel-plated revolver. Her right leg was nestled in the fixed horn of the sidesaddle, but her shorn leg, although pressed to the leaping horn, did not reach the stirrup and bounced freely against the horse’s side.

“Dolores.”

The woman glanced at her brother.

“You feel steady?”

“Enough to hold on. Where we goin’ to?”

Brent pointed at the distant mountains. “Deep Lakes descried a pass in the north part of the range.”

“Let’s get there.”

“We will.”

In front of the Plugfords, blue mountains of one hundred shades expanded.

Yvette’s dog clambered to the back of the wagon and barked. A mildewed shirt that was an ersatz patch came loose from the canopy and flew into the air. The specter flitted in-between the twins and twisted weirdly in the wind.

Brent heard something whistle past him. Upon the back of the wagon, a panel cracked and turned into splinters. The dog howled.

“Somebody’s shootin’ at—” Brent’s head jerked forward on his neck. His right goggle eye turned red. Warm fluid ran down the right side of his face and soaked his ear.

The cowboy gripped the neck of his rubber mask, tore it from his head and flung it to the ground. He pressed the heel of his right hand to the side of his head and felt sharp splinters that he knew were bits of his skull.

“Get low in the saddle!” yelled Brent.

Dolores looked at her brother and screamed.

“Get down low!” repeated the cowboy. “Right now!” He hunched forward.

Dolores leaned forward so that she was hidden behind her large saddlebag. “Brent,” she yelled, “your head!”

Stevie looked over and was stunned.

“Low in the saddle!” yelled the cowboy.

Stevie and the dandy pressed themselves flush against the backs of their horses. A bullet clanged upon the youngest Plugford’s angled tabard and whistled into the sky.

The cowboy clutched his grazed head and felt blood, skull bits, hair and loose skin. “Hell.” A bullet whistled past his shoulder and lanced the wagon canopy.

Brent swiveled in his saddle. Forty yards behind him, John Lawrence Plugford, astride his galloping white mustang, huddled protectively over his daughter. Twenty yards south of the patriarch, Long Clay withdrew a telescopic rifle from the vertical wooden case that was fastened to his black mare’s haunches.

A distant gunshot cracked. The bullet clanged upon John Lawrence Plugford’s tabard and caromed across the plain.

“Goddamn, goddamn!” exclaimed Stevie.

Brent glanced forward and saw that Patch Up had joined Yvette’s dog at the rear of the wagon, which was now driverless.

Huddled behind a crate of gear, the negro looked through his brass and ivory spyglass. “There’s an automobile!” he yelled. “They’ve got an automobile!”

Brent glanced past his horse’s flashing tail at the southern horizon, but could not discern the vehicle.

“Shoot it to hell, Long Clay!” Stevie advised from his spotted colt. “Bust it to pieces!”

A distant gunshot cracked. The dandy’s tan mare shrieked, leaped (as if hurdling a hedge) and impacted the plain. Jarred, the blonde man spewed darkness.

Long Clay prostrated himself across his black mare’s spine and aimed his telescopic rifle over the beast’s tail. He fired. The gunshot resounded within the vast bowl of mountains and became a tattoo of asynchronous echoes.

“You got someone!” Patch Up shouted from the rear of the driverless wagon.

Long Clay discharged the spent shell. Upon the southern horizon, a tiny black rectangle trailed dust and vibrated.

“Brent,” Dolores shouted, “you gotta do something ‘bout your head right now!”

The bleeding cowboy recalled his friend Isaac Isaacs, who had been swatted by a bear in South Carolina and afterwards staunched the severest lacerations with breadcrumbs. “Hell.” Brent plunged his left hand into his saddlebag, searched for the victuals sack, located it, opened its drawstrings, reached inside, made a fist and withdrew dry oats. Gritting his teeth, he uncovered the wound on his head and filled it with grain.

The world turned black.

Dolores screamed.

Brent regained consciousness and found that he was hugging the neck of his horse. A bullet clanged upon his tabard and caromed into the air.

“You okay?” asked Dolores.

“Yeah.” The cowboy turned his head and saw Long Clay, who was backwards and prone upon his horse, aiming his telescopic rifle at the distant pursuer. Presently, he fired.

“You got the driver in the shoulder!” shouted Patch Up. The dog barked jubilantly.

Suddenly, the vibrating black rectangle slid to the west and disappeared inside its own blue wake.

“We killed your dumb automob’le!” jeered Stevie. “Time to roast it up and put it in your uncle’s burrito!”

Through the telescopic sight, Long Clay monitored the veil of blue dust that obscured the vehicle, Catacumbas and the southern mountains.

“Keep apace!” ordered John Lawrence Plugford.

The blue plain scrolled underneath blurry blue hooves.

“Brent!” shouted Stevie.

“Yeah?”

“You got oats on your head!”

“I know.”

“You gonna be okay?”

“I’ll find out when we stop.” The cowboy’s extremities felt cold.

“They’re still coming,” warned Patch Up. “Unhappily!”

Brent looked south. Once again, the vibrating black rectangle sat at the vanguard of a large blue wake.

“Go for the tires,” said John Lawrence Plugford.

Long Clay fired.

“Got their fender!” shouted Patch Up.

A distant gunshot cracked. John Lawrence Plugford’s white stallion reared up and shrieked. The patriarch grabbed his saddle horn and hunched over his daughter. Upon its hind legs, the beast twisted and bucked.

Brent saw that the pursuers had a clear shot at his father. “Pa! Watch it they—”

A distant gunshot cracked. John Lawrence Plugford’s goggles turned red.

“No!” shouted Brent.

“Daddy!” cried Dolores.

“J.L.!” yelled Patch Up.

The agitated white horse returned its forelegs to the plain. John Lawrence Plugford collapsed onto his daughter, but remained in the saddle, gripping the horn.

Stevie shouted, “Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn!”

Brent felt empty.

“Keep riding north!” shouted Long Clay. “I’ll get them.” He turned himself forward.

Stevie pulled tack and said, “I’ll help—”

“Keep ridin’!” Brent yelled at his brother. “You can’t get shot too!” The cowboy felt as if he were witnessing the awful scene from a great distance, over the shoulder of an uninterested God. “We gotta make all this worth somethin’.”

Stevie yanked off his mask and threw it down. “Goddamn!” The colt’s left foreleg flung the empty rubber head into the air. “I’m goin’ to kill all them fellas that did this! All of them!”

“I hate this!” shouted Dolores. “I hate this!” She clasped the mane of her galloping palfrey and yelled, “Goddamn this mis’rable world! I hate all of it—every bit!”

“Keep low in the saddle!” the cowboy yelled at his siblings.

Dolores and Stevie lowered themselves, and Brent looked back.

Long Clay reached the white stallion and dismounted.

A distant gunshot cracked, and the bullet whistled overhead.

“Rotten bastards!” yelled Stevie. “Dumb Mex’cans!”

With his sharp black boots planted on solid ground, the gunfighter aimed his telescopic rifle at the vibrating black rectangle, squeezed the trigger, slid the bolt and fired a second shot.

“Got the driver in the neck!” shouted Patch Up.

The small black rectangle swerved and disappeared into a blue plume.

Long Clay slung his telescopic rifle onto his left shoulder and took Yvette from beneath the huddled body of John Lawrence Plugford. Skeletal fingers emerged from the blanket, clasped the patriarch’s huge right hand and let go.

The gunfighter set Yvette upon the ground, laid John Lawrence Plugford across the saddle, secured the body, took a line from the animal’s bridal, scooped up the woman, mounted his black steed and hastened forward.

Brent looked north. Sitting upon a crate at the rear of the rumbling wagon was Patch Up. The cowboy could not look at the negro’s face.

In front of the fleeing Plugford crew expanded the north range of Gran Manos. The eastern faces of the mountains were ablaze with sunlight and sharply contrasted the major part of the blue vista, as if the whole tableau were an enormous stencil, backlighted by a white fire that would sear the eyes of any man stupid enough to look up.

Brent Plugford felt small, inconsequential and weak.

Part III

The Blood Hierarchy

Chapter I

Elixirs Denied and Given

Yvette Upfield looked at the tall narrow man who held her bundled body. A rubber mask concealed most of his face, excepting his blue eyes, which were visible through his blood-spattered goggles. An uneasy feeling burgeoned within the choirmaster’s heart, and she turned away from the dark man.

A luminous white stallion appeared.

Tied across the saddle of the animal was a huge arch of flesh that was John Lawrence Plugford. The man’s hands and feet reached toward the ground, swaying like the frills at the bottom of a dress. Tethered to the funereal animal and wearing a sidesaddle was a brown palfrey that Yvette had not ridden since her wedding day.

“My father’s dead, isn’t he?”

“He is.”

Yvette felt cold. “They shot him.”

“They did.”

With a hard skeletal hand, Yvette wiped tears from her eyes. “I’ll say a prayer for him.” Although John Lawrence Plugford was a good and loving father, he was an unbeliever who had committed many terrible sins, and the choirmaster doubted the efficacy of any prayer that she might say on his behalf.

“Do that,” said the tall narrow man.

Yvette closed her eyes and attempted to recall the words Minister Johnstone had uttered at Roger Field’s funeral service, but her dependent body cried out like a starving mendicant. The world wrought by God—the sphere of clouds, mountains, trees, churches, families, horses, dogs, bugs, diseases, rape and murder—shrank until it became one sharp scintillating point from which dripped the elixir of salvation.

The woman who had forgotten her name opened her eyes and looked up at the stranger. “I need medicine.”

“How long since your last shot?”

“All I had in the last four days was a tiny bit last night. It wasn’t—”

“You went through withdrawal?”

“I did, but—”

“You’re through the worst of it.”

“I need some now.”

“I don’t argue.”

“But you have to find something.” Yvette began to tremble. “I can feel my insides.” A paroxysm seized her body and she kicked her left leg.

Coolly, the tall narrow man looked away.

The woman who had forgotten her name rested her heavy head, shut her eyes and tried to send forth her soul.

A hoof shattered a rock and awakened Yvette. Ahead of her, mounted insects, which were her siblings and the tall blonde gentleman who had refused to look at her naked body, ascended the steep terrain, preceded by the family wagon. Sand and stones dripped from the hooves of the straining beasts and rattled down the incline.

Yvette adjusted her cold and wet blanket. “Did it rain?”

“You have a fever,” stated the tall narrow stranger.

“I need my medicine is why. I’m gonna die—you don’t understand.” The woman convulsed twice, and felt as if she were about to vomit. “I need it!” Clear fluid dripped from her nose.

The mounted insects that were her siblings looked back.

“Is Yvette okay?” asked Brent.

“She’s fine,” answered the tall narrow man.

To her brother, Yvette yelled, “I’m gonna die!”

The stranger looked down at her and said, “You must rest.”

“You’re the devil! I know it!” Yvette’s skin was burning and she smelled sulfur. “You’re the devil in the flesh!”

The tall narrow man stroked her forehead.

“Where’s my Samuel? Do you know what happened to him? Why he ain’t—why he isn’t here?”

“You must rest.”

“I’m gonna die!”

The black horse crested a ridge. Yvette watched her father, borne by the white stallion, rise from the dirt. The emaciated woman trembled, shut her eyes, curled herself into a ball within the devil’s arms and heard something hiss.

The darkness expanded.

Twenty-two years old and wearing a modest tan dress, Yvette Plugford marched through the swinging doors of Bess Hack’s Saloon of San Francisco. Heads emerged from slumped shoulders, turned toward the new arrival and flashed watery eyes that were simultaneously defeated and stimulated. The blonde woman surveyed the champions who intended to conquer their sobriety two hours before noon on a Wednesday. Atop a wooden barstool and melting like a candle was Gunther Linderson, the sixty-two-year-old organ player.

Yvette approached the negligent musician. “Mr. Linderson.”

The Swedish organist lifted his flat face from his hands and swiveled. “Miss Plugford.” His eyes were red and his overalls smelled like August.

“I’m not goin’ to lecture you.”

“This is how the lectures begin.”

“We don’t got—we don’t have any time. You were supposed to be at the church thirty minutes ago. Lots of folks depend on you.”

“I’m independent.”

“You’re drunk is what you are. Let’s go.” The choirmaster grabbed the Swedish man’s right elbow and tugged.

Mr. Linderson did not rise from his seat.

Yvette looked at the stout and dour barmaid, Bess Hack, who was her eternal adversary. “I asked you to mind what he drank on Wednesdays.”

“I heard your request.”

The choirmaster knew that she did not have time to scold the woman properly, and thus focused her energies upon the organist’s arm. “Don’t make this difficult.”

A diminutive and dapper blonde man, wearing an olive three-piece suit and matching bowler cap, strode toward the bar. To Yvette, he said, “Allow me to offer my assistance.”

“Get his legs.”

The pretty gentleman grinned and said, “I have a bottle that will help restore him—a healthful elixir that provides energy and combats the affects of alcohol.”

Mr. Linderson was aghast. “Why do you have such a terrible thing?”

“I only wish to help you fulfill your obligations.”

“We ain’t—we aren’t buying any cure-alls,” said Yvette.

“What I proffer is not a cure-all, but rather a highly effective restorative.” The dapper salesman pointed a scintillating index fingernail at the organist. “I shall administer to this dilapidated fellow—”

“What are you calling me?”

“I shall administer to this dilapidated fellow one free dosage of my elixir and, in so doing, prove its highly potent efficacy.” The dapper salesman revealed the whitest teeth that Yvette had ever seen.

“Okay.” The choirmaster looked at her frowning adversary behind the bar. “Please give Mr. Linderson a cup.”

“We don’t have ‘cups’ in this saloon.” Bess Hack slammed a small glass upon the table. “We have tumblers.”

Yvette held her tongue.

The dapper salesman reached inside his olive jacket and withdrew a dark flat bottle that bore a caricature of himself, smiling and winking, and the words, Upfield’s Restorative Elixir. His finely-manicured fingers rotated the bottle one hundred and eighty degrees so that Yvette and the barmaid could see the declaration, ‘It certainly works!’

“The size of the dosage,” the dapper salesman informed the women, “is mathematically proportional to the patient’s body mass.” He appraised the organist, nodded, removed the cork and poured out a thick, tarry concoction.

“I know what death looks like,” remarked Mr. Linderson.

“Drink it down,” said Yvette.

The drunken organist raised the tumbler to his lips, shut his eyes, opened his mouth, tossed the ichor inside and swallowed.

Expectantly, the salesman folded his hands.

Yvette and Bess Hack waited.

Mr. Linderson opened his eyes. “This tastes like coffee.”

“That is one of the elixir’s numerous ingredients.”

The organist savored the flavor a moment longer. “Bad coffee with some prune juice and black pepper.” He smacked his lips. “Maybe cinnamon.”

“Do you feel restored?” asked Yvette.

“I feel—” The fellow clutched his stomach and rose to his feet. “I need a latrine.”

“Behold the self-motivated man!” The dapper salesman threw his hands to Heaven for emphasis.

Mr. Linderson ambled toward the swinging doors, and Bess Hack walked toward wanting inebriates at the far end of the bar.

Yvette looked at the dapper salesman. “Thanks for helpin’,”

“You are quite welcome. And please call upon me, Samuel C. Upfield IV, at Hotel Adams, should you wish to purchase a supply of the elixir.”

“Okay.” The choirmaster walked after the organist, paused and looked back at the ebullient, articulate and pretty little dandy. “You should come on over to church if you want to connect with some good folks and God. I know that the life of a traveling salesman can be lonesome.”

“Thank you for your invitation.” Samuel C. Upfield IV replaced his elixir bottle within his jacket and ruminated momentarily. “I have not been to church in several months, and I feel an absence.”

“I’ll be there too,” stated Yvette.

“Then I have absolutely no choice, but to attend.” Samuel C. Upfield IV looked directly into Yvette’s eyes and smiled brilliantly.

The woman’s pulse quickened.

Darkness receded.

Wind blew upon Yvette Upfield’s forehead and snapped the fabric of her damp blanket. Beneath her spine, heavy hooves rumbled like boiling water. The emaciated woman opened her eyes and saw the triangular bronze face of the man who carried her. Cold blue gems glinted beneath his iron eyebrows, and a slender silver mustache sat atop the slit that denied her requests for medicine. The sun glared, tiny and hostile, upon his right shoulder.

Shielding her eyes from the burning orb, the woman looked south and saw, upon the white stallion, her dead father, far larger than the mountain range that laid behind him.

“How long’ve I been out?” Yvette’s mouth was dry and pasty, and the air was hot.

“Two hours. How do you feel?”

“My head hurts bad.”

“Are you hungry?”

Yvette tasted the sour chicken soup upon which she had subsisted for the last eight months and shuddered. “No.”

“Drink slowly.”

A canteen appeared. Yvette took the vessel, removed its stopper and poured cool water into her dry, empty body.

“You must rest.” Gloved hands reclaimed the canteen.

“I’m not tired.”

The tall narrow man pulled the blanket over the world. “Rest.”

“I’m not tired.” Yvette’s eyelids drooped. “I’m not tired.” Hooves boiled, darkness expanded, and in a dream that was reality, the wagon bench pressed against her back.

Chapter II

A Brief Respite for the Troglodytes

Pincers pricked Nathaniel Stromler’s soft palate, and spindly legs poked his cheeks. For the fifth time in thirty seconds, the tall gentleman from Michigan coughed as hard as he could.

“I think the dandy’s chokin’ to death,” Stevie remarked from atop his cantering colt.

Nathaniel reached his left index finger and thumb into his mouth, pinched the prickly scorpion corpse and pulled. The tail slid up his throat and its folded legs blossomed like a hideous flower.

Dolores yelled.

“Goddamn!”

“Does he need help?” Patch Up asked from the front of the rumbling wagon.

The gentleman flung the scorpion to the brown dirt, attempted to speak, felt a sharp pain in his throat, coughed up an insectile leg, spat it out and shook his head.

“He don’t,” replied Stevie.

Nathaniel had dislodged two of the ingested scorpions, but the third was no longer a presence within his throat or stomach and had descended into his intestines. The journey and ultimate emergence of the dead arachnid was not a pleasant thing to ponder.

On the northern horizon, creosote bushes, yucca trees and black grama expanded like spilled paint. The stand of vegetation was far taller and broader than anything Nathaniel recalled seeing on the journey down and engendered a new concern.

He spat bile and oil and hastened his horse forward, toward the wagon. The tan mare, exhausted and carrying a bullet in its hindquarters, strained to close the distance.

“Your horse ain’t doin’ much better than you,” remarked Stevie.

(The young man was not Nathaniel’s favorite Plugford.)

Presently, the tan mare overtook the wagon until the gentleman and the negro rode abreast. Upon the bench beside Patch Up was the unconscious body of Yvette, whom Long Clay had deposited an hour earlier.

The negro said, “It’s the dandy,” and smiled sadly. Underneath the canopy, the circus dog barked.

“This is not the way we came,” observed Nathaniel.

“You’re correct.”

“Why are we not riding directly for Leesville?”

“Do you want to lead whoever’s following us into a town filled with innocent folks? To your fiancé?”

Nathaniel became uneasy. “Is it a certainty that we have pursuers?”

“You’re much smarter than that question, Mr. Stromler.”

Creosote leaves slapped the legs of the horses, and stalks of dry black grama crackled underneath the wagon’s wheels. The tan mare bucked, unhappy with the flagellant flora, and Nathaniel gripped the horn to steady himself. Upon the bench, the bundled body of Yvette stirred.

“Goddamn,” Stevie cried, “lookit Brent!”

Patch Up rose from the bench and gazed over the canopy; Nathaniel faced south. The cowboy was slumped forward in his saddle, unconscious.

“We gotta get him before he falls!” Dolores reined her palfrey toward her brother and her red hair flashed south.

Brent wobbled in the saddle of the cantering mustang.

“Wake up!” Stevie drove spurs into his spotted colt and rode hard. “Get the hell awake!” His horse thundered.

Creosote leaves slapped Brent’s dangling right arm.

“Wake up!” yelled Dolores. “Brent!” Her palfrey galloped.

A bramble snatched a glove from the unconscious rider’s dangling hand.

“Wake up!” Stevie, twenty yards distant, fired his shotgun into the air.

Brent slid from the saddle.

A shadow grabbed the cowboy’s collar and resettled him. “Everyone hold here!” Long Clay snatched the brindled mustang’s loose reins.

Nathaniel slowed his horse; Patch Up pulled tack; Dolores and Stevie rode beside the gunfighter. Hooves and wagon wheels crushed irritating flora and stopped.

The negro stood from his bench and turned around. “Is he bleeding?”

“Not currently,” replied Long Clay.

“Bring him here—I’ll fetch my needles and snippers.”

The gunfighter, trailing the white stallion, the brown palfrey and the brindled mustang, approached the wagon, followed by Stevie and Dolores. Ambitious black grama blades harassed the pendulous limbs of John Lawrence Plugford and his wounded son.

Long Clay dropped from his horse, lifted Brent from the brindled mustang and set him inside the canopy, beside the pile of iron tabards.

“All of you are troglodytes!” Patch Up proclaimed from deep within the wagon. “Imbecilic troglodytes!” The circus dog barked a confirmation of the more descriptive rejoinder.

Long Clay, Dolores and Nathaniel silently accepted the insult.

After a moment, Stevie said, “He told us he could ride.”

Patch Up spun around, and his face filled with anger. “Does he look savvy?” The negro pointed a pair of bright medical scissors at Brent’s wound. “Is that what head trauma usually yields? Clear-thinking?”

“I didn’t think it—”

“And which one of you shoved oats into the wound?”

“He did that himself!” tattled Stevie.

“Heat up some water,” Patch Up said to the youngest Plugford. “I need to flush this clean before I can mend it.”

Stevie jumped out of his saddle, bounded three strides, clambered into the wagon and opened a crate.

“Keep the fire small,” Long Clay ordered, “and disperse the smoke.”

“I will help.” Nathaniel held his stomach and climbed from his mare.

Stevie raised a tin kettle of boiling water from the three-tongue fire and carried it toward the wagon. Nathaniel dispersed smoke with a mildewed shirt that smelled far better than did he.

Underneath the canopy, Patch Up received the steaming vessel and set it beside his patient. “You stay in the vicinity in case we need to brace him.”

“I will.” Stevie stared at his brother, concerned.

Patch Up dropped a white cloth into the pot, wrung out the excess water and pressed the hot fabric to the hairy raspberry cobbler that was the side of Brent’s head. The cowboy flinched, but did not awaken. “Oats,” lamented the negro. The circus dog yawned derisively.

Nathaniel saw a white splinter that he recognized as a skull shard and turned away from the grim ministrations.

Sitting atop a flat stone on the opposite side of the three-tongue fire was Dolores. Her legs were concealed beneath the hem of the lavender dress into which she had just changed, and in her lap was a water canteen.

“How are you feeling?” inquired the gentleman.

“Weak, but okay…considerin’.” Dolores looked at the fire. “I want to apologize for hittin’ you—back in Catacumbas. And yellin’ at you.”

“I had completely forgotten about that.”

“I was real drunk, but it was wrong and I’m sorry I did it.”

“You are forgiven.” Nathaniel dispersed smoke with the mildewed shirt. “Your assault was quite mild compared to the violence I have seen and experienced these last two days.”

“I’m glad you ain’t holdin’ no grudge.” Dolores drank from a canteen and handed it over to him.

“Thank you.”

“You got yourself a woman?”

“I do.” Nathaniel drank from the canteen.

Dolores adjusted the hem that covered her mismatched legs. “Is she pretty?”

“She is pretty.”

“I bet she’s got culture, too. Speaks good English and knows all about which forks to use at dinner and Europe and things like that, don’t she?”

Nathaniel felt that it would be unkind to articulate Kathleen O’Corley’s many virtues to Dolores. “She is a good woman.”

“You married her?’

“We are engaged to be married.”

“That must be real nice,” Dolores said, “to have all that to look forward to.”

The woman’s statement contained a note of defeat, and the gentleman was unable to do anything but nod an affirmation as if he were mute.

A man yelled.

“Hold him!”

Nathaniel and Dolores looked over at the wagon.

Stevie braced Brent’s shifting shoulders as Patch Up guided the needle through skin and air.

“Do you fellows need any assistance?” inquired the gentleman.

“We got him,” said Stevie.

Nathaniel turned back to the three-tongue fire, raised the mildewed shirt, and saw a dusty figure emerge from the yuccas.

“What’s wrong?” asked Dolores.

Presently, the gentleman recognized the new arrival. “Deep Lakes has materialized.”

“Greetings,” hailed the native, as he approached.

“Greetings,” replied Nathaniel and Dolores.

Two bird carcasses hung from Deep Lakes’s denim vest, and his right hand gripped the strange bow, which had seven holes arranged in cruciform upon its belly and three strings. Dark brown poultices sat like huge leeches atop injuries on his left ear and shoulder.

Dolores pivoted upon her stone and looked up at Deep Lakes. “Thanks for helpin’.”

“I’m sorry about what happened to your father.”

The woman shut her eyes and nodded.

“We leave in five minutes,” Long Clay announced from beside his black horse. “Brent will stay in the wagon.” The gunfighter pointed at the gentleman. “Ride his mustang instead of your mare.”

“What is our destination?”

“An outlying part of the New Mexico Territory.”

“And what exactly shall we do there?” pressed Nathaniel.

“I can’t accurately answer that question until I’ve gauged our opposition.” Long Clay turned away from the gentleman.

“Do you intend to treat them as kindly as you did those horses and that pregnant woman?”

Upon sharp black boots, the gunfighter strode directly toward his critic. “Would you like to proffer some advice on how I should run things?” The viperous visage loomed, radiating the smells of iron, blood and cinders. “Please opine, Mr. Stromler.”

Nathaniel would not be bullied. “Do not try to intimidate me. I deserve truthful and clear responses. After what I have suffered, I demand them.”

“Let me clarify the hierarchy.” Long Clay unbuckled his gun belt.

“Don’t,” said Dolores.

The revolvers landed upon the dirt.

Nathaniel positioned his feet as he had during his college fencing tournaments, but he raised fists instead of a rapier. Although he was certain that he would lose, he would do his best to land a few satisfying blows.

“Clay!” Patch Up shouted from deep within the wagon. “If you punch the dandy, you’ll lose your cook and your doctor.”

Long Clay paused.

“And if you get yourself shot,” the negro elaborated, “you’ll hear some heartless nigger whistling gay tunes while you bleed to death. That’ll be me.”

Long Clay snorted.

“You know I don’t bluff.”

The gunfighter picked up his weapons. “I am aware.”

Relieved, Nathaniel lowered his fists.

“The dandy deserves to have his questions answered,” stated Patch Up. “Tell him the plan.”

The gunfighter refastened his belt and looked at the gentleman. “Our pursuers are invested in us, and they’ll give chase until there’s a violent confrontation. We need to kill all of them or diminish their number until they are cowed.”

Nathaniel’s stomach sank. “The well-considered plan is to have a shootout with however many men are following us and…and…hope that we are victorious?”

Long Clay’s mouth became a thin line. “J.L. and I located a fort that will give us a big tactical advantage. That’s where we’re going. If you don’t approve of this plan, I suggest that you ride off and see what follows you home.” The gunfighter strode away.

Nathaniel felt helpless, as if he were stuck in the middle of a war between two foreign countries. “I am not going to kill anybody.”

Seated upon the back of the wagon, Stevie inquired, “What’re you gonna do while we’re throwin’ bullets into Mex’cans? Play chess with the dog?”

“Be quiet you ingrate,” hissed Patch Up. “Respect that this man’s already suffered overmuch for a bunch of damn strangers.”

“You should take one of Pa’s guns,” suggested Dolores.

“No.”

“Why not?”

Nathaniel walked away from the three-tongue fire. He approached the assigned mustang and recalled the day, twelve years ago, when his father had summoned the entire family to the library.

Mother, Grandmother, Isabella and Nathaniel seated themselves upon the sofa, and the silver-haired patriarch dropped his English wool jacket directly onto the floor, which was a unique occurrence in the history of the Stromler household. The perspicacious youth knew that something was terribly amiss.

“There was an incident at the bank,” announced Howard Stromler. “A…dreadful incident.”

“Were sums taken?” asked Nathaniel.

“What has occurred?” Mother’s voice trembled.

Howard Stromler wiped his gleaming forehead with a French cuff. “I was in the vault, alone and with the door open, when I first heard the disturbance. It emanated from the lobby. The clamor grew louder, and I heard someone scream.

“I took the emergency rifle from the wall, and an angry man yelled, ‘Everybody get on the ground!’ and there was a gunshot, and I heard a man cry out in pain.

“I drew a cartridge into the chamber of the rifle and slid the bolt forward, slowly and quietly, so that I would not be discovered. The mechanism clicked, and the bullet was in place.

“A woman got hysterical, and the angry man said, ‘Shut her up or I will!’ and I heard people try to quieten her, and I heard the angry man yell, ‘Take me to the vault!’ and I pointed the gun toward the hall, and I heard footsteps on the floor, and I saw a shadow rise up on the open door, and I saw the angry man walk into the vault, and…

“And…

“I squeezed the trigger. The bullet went over his arm, hit the metal door and ricocheted.

“And I heard the teller scream.”

Nathaniel was stunned.

“Two people shot the angry man in the back, and the other robber was overpowered, but I could not move. I just held the rifle and stared at the smoke that rose from its muzzle until it was invisible.

“I heard someone yell, Candace Carter is dead!’ and I knew that it was my bullet that had killed her. I killed her. I took a human life.”

“It was an accident,” protested Nathaniel.

“I killed an innocent woman.”

Nathaniel’s father never again returned to work. He became tacit and replaced his daily meals with increasing amounts of whisky. At night, he wandered through the snow-covered woodlands and became violent if anybody tried to stop him. On one occasion, the forty-six-year-old man had disappeared for a period of three days, and when his family finally recovered him in a neighboring town, he failed to recognize them.

Five months after the incident, Howard Stromler was discovered in the bank vault. The barrel of the security rifle was in his mouth, and the steel walls were splashed with his red guilt. Soon thereafter, the remaining Stromlers moved to a different town in Michigan and took no more trips to Europe.

“He’s mended.”

Nathaniel looked into the wagon. Patch Up rested Brent’s bandaged head upon a rolled-up towel, and Stevie buttoned his brother’s shirt.

“Get to your horses,” ordered Long Clay.

“Mr. Stromler.”

Nathaniel looked over at Dolores.

“Will you help me onto mine?”

Long Clay said, “Stevie will assist you.”

“I’ll get her.” Bearing red keepsakes from his brother upon his sleeves, Stevie hastened from the rear of the wagon, toward Dolores.

Nathaniel knew that the interference had been deliberate (Long Clay clearly did not want the gentleman to have any more allies in the crew), but he would not remark upon such a triviality. He walked toward the brindled mustang previously ridden (and stained) by the cowboy.

“Deep Lakes.”

The native looked at the gunfighter.

“Poison the site.”

“I shall.”

Stevie inquired, “What’re you leavin’ behind?”

Deep Lakes extricated a crackling sack from a burlap bag. “Datura and caladium leaves soaked in lard.”

“I hope them Mex’can horses are hungry.”

Nathaniel grabbed the saddle horn and pulled himself atop Brent’s brindled mustang. A pain shot across his stomach, but he remained silent.

Stevie scooped Dolores from the ground and carried her to the pale palfrey.

“Poison some potatoes and a rasher of bacon,” Long Clay added, “and leave it in a victual sack by the fire, like we forgot it. We might get more than just horses.”

Nathaniel turned the mustang north so that he did not have to look at the loathsome gunfighter.

Chapter III

Defining the New Mr. Plugford

Lying upon the rattling wagon bed, Brent Plugford awakened, turned his head to the left and looked at the huge man who laid directly beside him. A wheel struck a stone, and blood sluiced across the goggles that covered the eyes of John Lawrence Plugford.

The cowboy turned away from his deceased father, lifted his stitched head, looked past the brass tips of his brown boots and saw grass that was colored gold by the twilight sun. Atop the metallic flora cantered the horses that bore Dolores, Stevie, the dandy and Long Clay.

A groan emerged from the black trunk.

Brent slapped the portable prison. “Quiet.” He had completely forgotten about the captive. “We didn’t forget about you.”

The man gurgled.

“Patch Up,” said the cowboy.

“Yes, Mr. Plugford?”

“Why’d you call me that? I ain’t no Mr. Plugford. I’m Brent.”

“You’re the man of the family now.”

“Long Clay is in charge.”

“He’s running the tactics, but you’re heading up the family.”

“Same thing.”

“There’s a difference.” Patch Up whipped a sluggish rump. “Long Clay was your father’s partner for a long while, but he isn’t family.”

“That’s certain true. But you’re family—Pa always said so.”

There was a long pause. “I know that he did.”

Brent looked at the recumbent patriarch and remembered his forgotten question. “How come Pa’s still got his mask on? It’s full up with gore.”

“Once we’ve settled at the fort, I’ll clean him properly. He deserves—” Patch Up stopped speaking.

Brent twisted around and looked toward the front of the wagon.

Patch Up turned away.

“You okay?” asked Brent.

The negro nodded, but did not finish his statement.

Useless tears began to fill the cowboy’s eyes, and he became angry. “Don’t blubber!” he said, reprimanding both Patch Up and himself. “Ain’t no use in it.”

“You’re right.”

Patch Up set the bulb of the whip in its socket and turned to Yvette, who was curled up on the bench beside him like a kitten. Kindly, he caressed her forehead.

A sharp concern twisted Brent’s guts. “Does she know…who we got in here? In the trunk?”

“No. She hasn’t been awake more than a few minutes, and he’s been quiet.” Patch Up wiped his nose. “What do you intend to do with him?”

“Don’t know.” Brent considered Yvette’s religious views and her absurd capacity for forgiveness. “Maybe we should just execute him be—”

An appendage thudded within the trunk.

“You keep quiet,” the cowboy hissed, “or I’ll do what I did in Colorado.”

The man was silent.

Brent returned his gaze to Patch Up. “Maybe we should execute him before Yvette gets lucid. We’re long past using him for barter with Gris, and it’s certain definite that Dolores—when she learns what he done—will want him dead and would kill him herself, and Stevie and I want him dead, and Pa would’ve tore out his throat in six different states if me an Stevie hadn’t’ve stopped him every time.”

“That’s all true,” said Patch Up.

“But…” A consideration troubled Brent. “Yvette ain’t hardly herself right now—she’s like a ghost. And she might want him alive. Even with all that he did, she might still want him.”

“That’s true.”

Brent glared at Patch Up. “What in the hell kind of counsel is that?”

“I’m not counseling you Mr. Plugford, I’m—”

“Don’t call me that. I’m Brent.”

“No. You’re Mr. Plugford.”

“Hell.” The cowboy snorted. “He should be killed a hundred times for what he did. For what happened to my sisters and my Pa and them horses too. But—” He shook his head. “But I can’t give Yvette another grievance. I can’t hurt her in any way, even if it’s doin’ right by Dolores and Pa and all the rest of us. I just can’t hurt her no matter what.”

“That is a thoughtful and kind decision, Mr. Plugford.” Patch Up stroked Yvette’s forehead.

“Dolores and Stevie ain’t gonna swallow it easy.”

“They aren’t.”

The cowboy looked at the black trunk. “Your wife is gonna have the decision on what happens to you.”

From behind the wood, Samuel C. Upfield IV gurgled two muffled wet words that might have been ‘thank you.’

“If she don’t forgive you, we’re gonna throw rocks at you ‘til you’re dead. The whole family is.”

Chapter IV

The Family Agenda

Sitting on the wagon bench, Brent Plugford caressed Yvette’s chill forehead. The falling sun was a brilliant gold scalp above the northwestern hills, and in the oblique light, the gaunt woman’s face looked like a skull covered with wax.

Resolved, the cowboy turned around and looked at his trailing siblings. “Ride up here ‘longside me.”

“Okay,” responded Dolores.

“Comin’,” said Stevie.

Brent carried Yvette inside the canopy and felt as if it were a small sick calf that he bore instead of an adult human being. He knelt upon the wagon bed, laid his sister beside the patriarch, put cotton into her ears, kissed her forehead, slid the black trunk to the opposite end of the wagon and walked forward.

Dolores and Stevie were riding beside the driver’s bench when Brent returned.

“How’re you doin?” The youngest Plugford pointed to the cowboy’s bandaged head.

“Fine.”

Dolores inquired, “How’s she doin’?”

“Seems better—hasn’t kicked in a while. And she ate some stew a little while back and kept most of it.”

“Good.”

A chubby hand that belonged to Patch Up squeezed Brent’s shoulder.

The nascent Mr. Plugford said to his siblings, “I got somethin’ to say to you both, but I want you to hear me out full before you get hot at me. I made a decision neither of you is gonna like, but it’s the right one.”

Dolores, perplexed by the preamble, stared.

“If this is about the goddamn captive,” Stevie grumbled, “you can roast.” The young man’s reaction was not unexpected.

Brent looked over at Patch Up. Nodding, the negro put the bulb of his whip into the socket, grabbed his rifle and disappeared into the wagon bed. The cowboy informed his brother and sister, “He’s guardin’ the trunk until there’s some unity with us.”

“What the hell’re you boys talkin’ ‘bout?” asked Dolores.

Brent looked at his sister. “You girls got took because of Yvette’s husband. We know it certain true.”

Dolores was shocked. “How? Why?”

“We’ll get to the details later,” the cowboy said, “but it’s his fault, all of what happened. And he don’t deny it either.”

Dolores’s eyes filled with fury.

Brent continued, “We brung him with us to use for a barter, or in case he remembered somethin’ important, but he was double useless.”

Dolores’s eyes widened. “Samuel’s here?”

“He’s here. And I want him dead. Stevie sure does and Pa tried to kill him six times, but we stopped him. Killin’ Samuel C. Upfield IV’s the right thing to do and nobody knows that more than you. But you’ve seen how Yvette is.”

Dolores hissed, “This ain’t up to her!” Her wrath was a physical force inherited directly from her father.

“I say it is,” stated Brent.

Stevie growled, “Roast in Hell you dumb sodomite.”

The sky, grass and trees disappeared from Brent’s view, and his skin tingled. “I already whipped you once this trip for that sort of talk.”

“It’s true goddamnit! That’s why you couldn’t be no husband to that Janie Dill. I’d wager you never even put your pecker in a—”

Dolores slapped Stevie. “Shut your dumb mouth! That ain’t what we’re talkin’ about here.”

Brent doubted that he was a sodomite, but he had not fornicated with a woman since he was a teenager (and he had been drunk during those endeavors), and he knew that he was atypical. He did not desire sexual relations with women or men, and he wondered why such shuddering assignations so thoroughly preoccupied the cowboys with whom he rode—men who chose to live in the saddle and explore the great landscape, free from the constraints of little wives and tiny towns.

“You can’t hit me,” complained Stevie, as if he were a petulant child.

“Talk ‘bout Brent like that and I will,” threatened Dolores. “I promise you.”

“Goddamn.” Stevie rubbed the scarlet handprint emblazoned upon his face. “You hit hard.” He shook his head. “Like everybody in this family.”

“Let’s finish the discussion,” said Brent

Dolores and Stevie looked up.

“Whenever Yvette’s awake,” the cowboy resumed, “she asks for him. Again and again. ‘Why isn’t Samuel here?’ and ‘Where is my husband?’ kind of stuff.”

“Then we should sink him in a pond and not tell her what happened,” suggested Stevie.

“No.” Brent shook his head. “Yvette had a whole other life with Samuel out there in San Francisco—away from the Plugfords—and it’s clear visible that him and God are what matter to her the most. That’s a certain fact. And I wouldn’t want us to kill one of the two things she cares ‘bout.” He watched his siblings for a moment and added, “You all know what can happen when a hurt person ain’t got nothin’ left in the world.”

“I know.” Dolores contained her fury.

Stevie slapped his pommel. “That bastard should be killed slow with rocks like we said we would do.”

“I want him dead and you want him dead,” Brent responded, “but I’m askin’ you to think beyond yourself.”

“Go roast.”

“What I’m talkin’ ‘bout,” Brent continued, “ain’t justice or what we want, but allowin’ Yvette to keep her husband if she wants him. She’s dwindled, and we can’t take anything away from her.”

Dolores lowered her face. “So you just wanna let Samuel go free?” Her voice was a distant whisper.

“No. He wrote out a letter sayin’ how it all happened—in case we killed him or traded him over—and he wrote it true correct. I’m gonna give that to Yvette and tell her to read it and know what he done, because that has to be clear—this ain’t somethin’ to put under the bed. And after she knows what occurred, I’ll tell her she can decide what happens to him.”

“I want to read that letter myself.” Dolores squeezed the horn of her sidesaddle as if she wanted to strangle it. “And I want to tell her exactly what I think should happen to him.”

“That’s fair,” opined Brent.

“I was raped the same as her. And our daddy is dead.” Dolores pulled upon her reins, and her palfrey cantered away from the men.

Brent looked at his kid brother. “You accept it goin’ this way?”

Stevie spat. “I don’t.”

Patch Up emerged from the canopy, holding a repeater rifle. “Stevie.”

“What?”

“Listen to your brother.” Patch Up tapped the stock of his gun upon Brent’s shoulder. “He’s the man of the family and knows how to run things.”

“I ain’t listenin’ to him or to you. Samuel’s gettin’ executed like he deserves.”

Patch Up flung his trigger-guard forward, and a cartridge clicked into the chamber.

“You ain’t shootin’ me,” said Stevie.

“I will if you go against your whole family.” Patch Up’s voice was flat and grave. “I’ll go for a leg.”

“I got guns too.”

Stevie snapped reins and applied spurs.

“Stevie!” shouted Brent. “Don’t you—”

Furious, the young man cut in front of the wagon, rode up a green hill that was thirty yards to the west and pulled his pump-action shotgun from its sheath. The scalp of the sun sat beneath the hooves of his silhouetted colt like an infernal emergence.

“He can’t be this stupid,” Brent said to Patch Up.

“He’s been on his way for a while.”

“I hope there’s no liquor in him.”

“Listen!” Stevie pumped his shotgun, and a spent shell flew into the air, buzzing like an insect. “Give over Samuel or I’ll come get him!”

Brent did not know whether or not his brother was bluffing.

Yvette’s dog began to bark.

A black shadow interposed itself between Stevie and the wagon. “Don’t interfere with—”

Long Clay jerked the shotgun from Stevie’s hands and flung it to the ground.

“I was just tryin’ to get Samuel,” defended the young man.

“You were going to charge your family with a scattergun,” stated the gunfighter.

“We need to execute him. He’s the reason it all happened.”

“The only thing we need to do,” Long Clay coolly replied, “is prepare for the next engagement.”

“You don’t want no revenge?”

“Revenge is a fool’s obsession.” The gunfighter tugged the reins of his black mare and turned away.

Embarrassed and angry, Stevie remarked, “Seems like you don’t care what happened to Pa none at all. I thought you were partners.”

Long Clay pistol-whipped Stevie. The young man yelled, dipped in his saddle and clutched his broken nose.

“I’m done coddling you,” said the gunfighter. “You’ve got a tally with one mark.”

“No.” Stevie’s eyes widened with apprehension. “No!”

Brent was stunned by the declaration. The tally was how Long Clay and John Lawrence Plugford had disciplined unruly posse members long ago—each and every mark guaranteed a broken limb once the job came to its conclusion. Grimacing, the cowboy recalled the story of a fellow who had garnered eight marks and had each leg and arm broken twice to cover the deficit.

“You can’t do that to me!” cried Stevie. “You don’t got the authority!”

“Now you have two marks.”

“Close your stupid mouth!” yelled Brent.

The young man lowered his gaze, wiped blood from beneath his broken nose and spat pink. A moment later, Long Clay rode back to the horses that he had abandoned prior to his intercession.

Stevie clambered from his saddle, reclaimed his pump-action shotgun, and looked at the spotted colt. “He gave me a goddamn tally.” The beast flashed a tail, dismissively. “Two goddamn marks.”

A dark blue blanket covered over the magenta vault. The motley horses that pulled the wagon were weary and had grown immune to the negro’s administrative efforts with the whip, but still they plodded onward, through the grasslands, up the inclined terrain, toward the sere land atop which stood a vast mountain wall.

“I’ve descried it,” announced Patch Up, who had one eye to his brass and ivory spyglass.

“Any tenants we gotta evict?” asked Brent.

“None that I can see.” The negro handed the spyglass over to the cowboy. “Peruse the site.”

Brent raised the telescope to his right eye, peered through and saw the sheer and crenulate face of the beige mountain wall.

“Look west,” Patch Up advised, “near the split.”

The cowboy panned the lens to the left, located the defile, and soon discerned a rectangular edifice made out of white stones. “I see it.” Narrow vertical lines that were crenellations for weapons sat upon the fort’s façade, and upon the slanted roof were two small iron chimneys. Adjoining the eastern side of the structure was a cylinder that looked like a well, and to the west were arrayed the mismatched rocks and wooden crosses of a small cemetery.

“This is where it’ll happen,” announced Brent.

“This is it.”

Chapter IV

Family Allowances

Dolores Plugford was carried by her purple-nosed younger brother to the stone bench that stood outside the eastern face of the fort and set down. The sole of her riding boot pressed into the grit, and her shortened left leg dangled. Blood tingled like electricity within the stump.

“Thanks.”

“Mmh.” Stevie departed.

Dolores leaned against the fort and looked up. After eight months of confinement, the open night sky seemed vast and alien—a thing from another person’s childhood. She looked away from the daunting vault and adjusted the folds of her lavender dress. Nearby, dark shapes that were men brought horses into the sunken stable that was located behind the fort.

“Can I help?” inquired the redheaded woman.

“Not just yet.”

Brent carried Yvette and a bedroll into the fort. Patch Up followed, illuminated by an oil lantern that he shielded from the horizon. The amber flame disappeared into the darkness.

Mr. Stromler carried five empty canteens to the well, set them upon the ground and cranked the handle. A thick old rope twined around the turning bar, emitting creaks and dust. Beyond the gentleman, Long Clay walked into the wagon and returned, shouldering a heavy iron box that clanged with each stride.

The moment that Brent emerged from the fort, Dolores seized his right wrist. “Give me the goddamn letter.”

Her brother reached his free hand into the rear pocket of his denim pants and withdrew a folded envelope. “Don’t tear it up, Yvette needs—”

“Quit speechifyin’.”

Brent paused for a moment. “She needs to be able to read it.”

Dolores snatched the missive from the man’s left hand. “You ain’t Pa.” Although she was aware that her anger was misdirected, she was unable to control it.

Her brother squeezed her shoulder affectionately. “Talk to me when you’re done. Please.”

“Okay.”

Brent strode toward the wagon.

“There’s a lantern inside,” remarked Patch Up, as he emerged from the fort. “Let me take you in so that you have some light.”

“I want to read it out here.”

Patch Up looked at his palms. “I can barely see the side that gets to vote.”

“I got used to the dark.”

Saddened by the remark, the negro nodded. “Do you need anything?”

“I’d like a crutch so I can get ‘round on my own and help out.”

“I’ll make you something you can use.” Patch Up kissed her forehead and walked toward the wagon.

Dolores looked down at the missive. One word was written in the exact center of the rectangle.

Yvette

The redheaded woman turned the envelope over, lifted its flap, reached her fingers inside and withdrew a thick letter that was stained brown with old blood.

“Good.”

Dolores unfolded the papers and saw that they were filled with an elaborate and uncommonly beautiful calligraphy. “Pompous fool.” She surveyed the top of the first page.

The Coerced but True Confessions of the Man who was Samuel C. Upfield IV

Ninth Draft

Thirty minutes later, Dolores dropped the last page of the letter to the ground. Her guts boiled with a dire, poisonous hatred for Samuel C. Upfield IV.

“Brent!”

The cowboy hastened from the fort, knelt beside the bench and took his sister’s hands.

Trembling with fury, Dolores said, “We can’t let Yvette forgive him after what he did. We can’t. He’s the reason for it all—one hundred percent.”

Brent squeezed his sister’s hands. “I know.”

“I got raped—I was fucked by hundreds of men and had my foot blasted off and Pa got killed and Yvette’s ruined ‘cause of that dumb weakling!” Dolores shoved her brother away and shouted, “We gotta kill him! You’re my brother, my twin brother, and my closest in the whole world—how can you let him be? How can you allow him after this? How can you!?!”

Brent’s eyes filled with tears. “Dolores…Please…” Stars dripped down his cheeks. “We gotta think ‘bout Yvette too.”

Dolores hammered her fists against her brother’s chest, and he did not resist her assault. After ten blows, she stopped.

“Go ahead and hit more if you want to,” Brent said, “I can take it.” He wiped his eyes and proffered his chest.

“I’ve gotta throw rocks at Samuel before Yvette reads the letter and forgives him. I’ve got to.”

“You can’t kill him.”

Dolores wiped her eyes and nodded. “Deal.”

Chapter V

Crucibles and Defeat

Wearing his yellow riding clothes and carrying three filled canteens, Nathaniel Stromler ducked his head and entered the fort, which had been built for the Mexican-American War or the Civil War or some less renowned conflict that Mexicans or Americans had with natives. (Nobody knew the history of the edifice, and the graves were unmarked.) He passed the latrine and strode into the common area, where a lantern shone upon three tables, two cast-iron potbelly stoves (a rusted unit, and its warped mate) and thirty deteriorating wooden bunks. The enclosure smelled like dust and lamp oil.

“Please put them in the corner,” Patch Up said from his stool beside the bunk within which laid John Lawrence Plugford.

Nathaniel leaned over, felt a dagger stab his bowels, dropped the canteens, stumbled to one of the tables and regained his balance.

“Are you okay?”

“It will pass in a few minutes.” The pains were infrequent, but sharp and lingering whenever they occurred.

“Let me know if I can do something for you.” Patch Up wiped blood from the dead man’s face.

“Thank you.” Nathaniel sat atop a table and massaged his lower abdomen. “How long did you know him?”

“My whole life.” Patch Up rinsed the white washcloth. “Before I was born, J.L.’s father, Lawrence Gregory, bought my father and freed him, and like every negro that man freed, my father stayed on at the Plugford plantation and was treated fairly, like an equal.” The negro scoured the patriarch’s rubbery ears. “That’s where my father met my mother and had me. This was over in Florida—long before the war.” He wrung the pink cloth.

“I was raised there, alongside J.L., like kin. He told his father that I was clever and a quick study, and so I assisted the plantation doctor and the accountant, instead of doing menial labor.” Patch Up wiped the crust of blood and dust from the dead man’s lips. “That’s probably why I’ve always had this belly.”

Nathaniel’s pain subsided and he inquired, “Would you like some water?”

“Thank you, I would.”

The gentleman walked to a canteen that depended by its strap from a nail in the wall, removed the stopper and carried it over.

Patch Up set the washcloth across John Lawrence Plugford’s wrinkled eyes. “The lids won’t stay down.” The negro accepted the canteen, drank and returned the vessel to Nathaniel, who wiped the nozzle and swallowed a full draught.

“One dry hot summer night, the plantation caught fire, and the blaze roared across the whole property.” Patch Up reclaimed the washcloth and wiped the edges of the flower-shaped cavity that sat above John Lawrence Plugford’s left eyebrow. “J.L. and I were teenagers then, and we pulled children and oldsters from the servants’ houses, and we threw buckets of water, but the water turned to steam before it ever even touched the flames and didn’t affect anything. It was like we’d crashed into Hell.

“Lawrence Gregory and Darren, J.L.’s younger brother, tried to get J.L.’s mother out of the main house—she was trapped inside—and all three of them were burned to death. While all of this was happening, Teddy Tinkers, one of the slaves J.L.’s father had freed, took the safe that contained all of the family’s wealth—Lawrence Gregory did not believe in banks—and ran off with it.” Patch Up shook his head and frowned. “I still hate that nigger right now.

“J.L. lost almost everything that mattered in that fire. All he had left was a scorched plantation and me.” Patch Up wiped dirt and blood from the dead man’s huge hands.

“The workers stayed on for a week—for free—to help us salvage what we could, and shortly after the last rice and tobacco had been harvested, J.L. sold the property for half a pittance.”

“I learned, through some loose-lipped negroes at another plantation, that the fire had been started by a muleskinner named Jake Porter, and that he had been hired by two competing plantation owners who had been undersold by the Plugfords for many years.

“I told J.L.

“That was the first time he ever went dark. I was angry about what happened, and I helped.

“Not so long after that, while he was still filled with despair and anger, he met Long Clay, who was no different then than he is now.

“J.L. became an outlaw, and he and I were out of touch for a handful of years.” Employing a toothpick, Patch Up scraped grit from beneath the corpse’s fingernails.

“When J.L. met his willful little wife, he softened. He quit robbing banks and trains, and his great anger was gone—drained right out of him. He became a fulltime rancher, husband and father.

“J.L. asked me to come out to Texas and help him run things, and I accepted his offer.” Patch Up crossed John Lawrence Plugford’s arms together. “He was the same J.L. who I remembered from before the fire, and he stayed that way until the day that his daughters were taken from him.”

“It was clear how much he loved his girls,” remarked Nathaniel.

“They were his absolution.”

“Patch Up!” called Stevie from outside.

“Yeah?”

Nathaniel faced the south wall.

A silhouette approached the center slit and became a swath of Stevie’s face that contained one eye and six teeth. “I looked all the hell over. Where’re the shovels and pick axes?”

“Tied to the underside of the wagon.”

“Why’re they under there?

“So armadillos can admire them.”

“Ain’t you the wittiest nigger in the N.M. Territory? Don’t go hidin’ things for no reason.”

“I did it to make room for your father and Yvette.”

“Oh.” The halved face eyed the recumbent corpse. “We gonna bury him here?”

“Only if we have to.”

Stevie’s eye swiveled to Nathaniel and Patch Up and vacillated back and forth. “We need you two to come out and help us make holes for all these land torpedoes Long Clay brung ‘long.”

Nathaniel grimaced, but did not offer a verbal response.

“I’ll be there,” said Patch Up.

Stevie disappeared from the narrow opening and was replaced by a strip of blue-black night sky that contained seven dull stars.

Patch Up looked at the gentleman. “I suppose that you don’t intend to help us bury land torpedoes?”

“I do not.”

The negro nodded, put a cloth over John Lawrence Plugford’s wrinkled eyes, rose from his stool and stretched. “I’m going outside.” He reached his interlaced fingers toward the lantern and his vertebrae cracked. “If Yvette awakens, please give her some water. And try to get her to eat some more stew.”

“Certainly,” replied Nathaniel.

“Thank you.” Patch Up drank from the canteen and wiped his mouth. “I’m not going to pry and ask why you refuse to carry a firearm—it’s not my business and I certainly admire your decision not to wield an instrument of murder. But you should know that the odds of us winning the coming engagement are poor.”

The skin upon Nathaniel’s nape tightened.

“We are a small crew and every person counts,” stated Patch Up. “I’m very sorry that you’ve suffered and that you’re here with us now…but you can make a difference. You know who our enemies are, and what they’re capable of doing.”

Nathaniel nodded.

The negro claimed his repeater rifle from the bunk above the corpse and slung it over his shoulder. “I won’t badger you—I only ask for you to consider what I’ve said. You’re a very determined and intelligent man, and I believe that you can retain your integrity—and maybe even some of your youthful idealism—if a terrible situation forces you to waver once from your most firmly held belief.”

“I will think about all that you have said,” replied Nathaniel. “And I thank you for speaking to me in this manner.”

“I hate squabbles,” Patch Up remarked as he walked out into the night.

Nathaniel looked at the corpse of John Lawrence Plugford and the bundled body of Yvette, who slept upon the adjacent bunk. Although the gentleman knew that he would be changed irrevocably by the act of killing another man, he admitted to himself that he was already different—aware of his mortality in a physical way and cognizant that his most cherished viewpoints did not in any way alter the world that happened violently around him. The scorpions had shown him that he was not immune to death.

It became apparent to Nathaniel that fear, denial and stubbornness were the reasons that he still refused to arm himself in this desperate situation. At that moment, he knew that survival meant more to him than did his ideals.

At the age of twenty-six, Nathaniel Stromler relinquished a core and formative belief to the senseless world, balled his empty hands into tight fists and was defeated.

He exited the fort, felt night settle upon him like a cloak and surveyed dark horizons for the men alongside whom he would fight. Four upright figures, each darker than the dirt, stabbed shovels into the earth and opened black holes.

“Do you have another shovel?”

“I’ll fetch you the gilded deluxe,” responded Patch Up.

Long Clay led Nathaniel to the edge of the trench that encircled the fort, put the tip of the shovel into the dirt, gripped the handle, walked west for twenty paces and stopped. “Dig ten holes along this line—one yard deep and one yard wide. Cover the mark when you’re through.” The gunfighter returned the tool to the gentleman and strode away.

Nathaniel stabbed the shovel into the dirt, slammed the heel of his riding boot upon the metal, pulled the handle toward his chest and scooped up earth.

Somebody screamed.

The gentleman looked northwest, toward the fort, but did not see the exclaimer.

“Don’t worry ‘bout that,” advised Stevie, who was knee-deep in a hole. “It’s just some family business.”

Nathaniel noticed that Brent was missing.

Again, the man screamed. The cry echoed in the gorge immediately east of the fort.

“Who is that?” asked Nathaniel.

“The reason all this happened.” Stevie flung dirt at the stars.

The circus dog barked.

“You’ll rot in Hell for what you did!” yelled a woman Nathaniel recognized as Dolores.

The man screamed.

Stevie sullenly stabbed his shovel into the ground. “I wish I could watch.”

“We’ve got work,” said Long Clay, who was submerged up to his waist in a southern hole.

The anonymous man screamed.

Nathaniel ripped open the earth and sank into the ground.

Chapter VI

The Goddamn Letter

Yvette Upfield felt a coarse slug slide across the back of her right hand and knew for certain that when she opened her eyes, she would be in Catacumbas, beside the dead baby turtle. The moment that she engaged reality, she would see that her rescue was imagined and that she was still a whore.

“I shouldn’t’ve let you get that far—his whole jaw is broke.” Yvette recognized the speaker as Brent.

“Gimme that crutch,” said a woman who was Dolores.

Grit crackled beneath a lopsided gait.

The coarse slug slid across Yvette’s right wrist and radiated hot moist air. Presently, the choirmaster opened her eyes and saw the circus dog, sitting on its rump, staring at her as if it were a doctor with a dangling pink tongue for a stethoscope. Lying upon the sweat-dampened wood, Yvette surveyed the strange enclosure in which she found herself and saw numerous bunks, several crenellations, some dismal furnishings and the soles of her dead father’s work boots.

“Mano.”

The circus dog raised its right paw into the air.

Yvette reached out and shook the proffered appendage.

Dolores ambled into the room, employing a crutch that was a conjoined broomstick and gunstock. She looked at her sister and paused. “You’re awake.”

Yvette nodded, and the world wobbled.

“How do you feel?” At the bottom of her lavender dress, Dolores’s truncated left leg swung like a pendulum.

“Better than before…but I don’t know where we are.”

“At a fort in the New Mexico Territory—gettin’ ready for a stand-off with Gris and his crew.”

Yvette knew that there would be more killing, and also that she was powerless to stop it. She loved her family, but they were deaf to His exhortations and wisdom.

“You’ve got your wits?” asked Dolores. “Can think lucid?”

“I think so.” Yvette’s desire for medicine had definitely diminished. “Do you know why Samuel ain’t—why Samuel isn’t here?”

Dolores turned away from her sister, ambled to the south wall and through an opening yelled, “Brent!”

“What?”

“She’s awake and clear. Give her the goddamn letter.”

Hope fluttered within Yvette’s breast. “Is it from Samuel?”

“It’s from him.”

Something about the way Dolores spoke gave Yvette a chill.

Half of Brent’s face appeared in a slit, and his bisected mouth inquired, “How are you feelin’?”

“Better,” replied Yvette. “Please give me my letter.”

Brent’s eye stared at her for a moment. “You ain’t gonna like what he wrote.”

“You went and read it?” The gaunt woman began to shake. “He’s my husband and what he wrote to me ain’t—isn’t your business.” She sat up and said, “Give it over now—those words are private.”

A yellow rectangle slid through the narrow opening, two feet below Brent’s isolated eye. “Dolores. Take it over to her.”

“I’ll get it myself.” Yvette discarded her yellow blanket, stood up, felt the room melt, steadied herself, saw the room solidify, staggered toward her brother, grabbed the missive, hobbled back to her bunk and collapsed, exhausted and panting.

“I didn’t think you could walk,” remarked the cowboy.

“I had a reason.”

Brent looked meaningfully at Dolores.

Yvette’s heart was pounding from her exertions, and bright lights coruscated in her peripheral views. Her lungs, wet and weak, pulled at the chill night air and shuddered.

Dolores looked at Brent and said, “I’ll stay with her.”

“And hold her.”

Yvette surveyed at the envelope. “How come it don’t—doesn’t say Upfield? It just says Yvette. No last name.”

Neither of her siblings answered the question.

Dolores sat down and put her right arm around her sister’s shoulders.

Brent walked away from the crenellation.

“It’s his calligraphy for certain,” remarked Yvette.

“He wrote it.”

The choirmaster turned the missive over, reached inside and withdrew papers that were spattered with brown droplets. “Somebody got something on it.” She laid the envelope down, so that her name was facing up. “Brent probably dripped some coffee or tobacco juice—Samuel is fastidious.”

Dolores said nothing.

Yvette unfolded the papers and saw that they were numerous and filled with her husband’s pretty calligraphy. Her eyes went to the top of the first page.

The Coerced but True Confessions of the Man who was Samuel C. Upfield IV

Ninth Draft

“Oh Lord Jesus,” Yvette exclaimed, “he found himself a new wife while I was gone.” Tears filled her eyes. “That’s what this is—a goodbye letter. That’s why nobody’s saying anything about him.”

Dolores said nothing.

The choirmaster wiped tears from her eyes and read.

A Brief Foreword

Undoubtedly you, my spouse, are intrigued—if not befuddled—by the number of drafts that precede the finished document that you currently hold in your hands.

I shall explain this to you.

I was asked to pen a letter that would detail my mistakes, my betrayal, your capture and my subsequent actions. In previous versions of my confessional essay—the first five drafts—certain passages, reminiscences and solitary adjectives were determined by the Editors of the document to be overly piteous pleas for your forgiveness. The Editors did not feel that I should in any way attempt to engage your sympathies, and I agreed with them, although perhaps the manner in which they communicated their critiques to me, the author, was not the preferred. The sixth, seventh and eighth drafts saw a new creative direction for the confessional essay, a turn for the literary, especially as it became apparent to me that this work would likely become my last communication to you and, in fact, the world.

Yvette’s eyes widened in horror. “What’s happened to him?” Her thin body shook with a desperate panic. “What’s happened to my husband?”

“Brent and I will tell you after you’ve finished readin’,” stated Dolores.

Sickened and fearful, Yvette returned her gaze to the tremulous letter.

The Editors felt that these later drafts contained far too many apologies, and so suggested that I replace all apologetic remarks with an asterisk (*) to convey this sentiment, and this current version adheres to this stipulation. Additionally, there are some subjects that I did not fully explore during my allotted time at the desk, and so I have written notes to myself (enclosed in parenthesis) suggesting possible future elaborations should I live to author a Tenth Draft. I should also point out that the Editors will draw lines through any text that they deem objectionable or irrelevant, and you are advised by them to skip over all words and phrases thus marked.

The following confessional essay contains nary an untrue word.

You deserve to know exactly what occurred.*

Dear Yvette,

In early December 1901, I received a pair of telegrams that contained news about the prospecting ventures into which I had very heavily invested our life savings.

The first telegram informed me that a ruinous collapse had befallen our Arizona copper mine, and also how the terrible event had trapped and killed two unfortunate men. Immediately after the incident, the boss was seized and violently thrashed by a mob of angry workers, who had apparently warned him of the danger weeks earlier. The outraged legion claimed the cashbox, which was filled with payouts for the last three months of sales, and absconded with it. I never learned why the boss had not deposited these earnings into the Bank of Phoenix as he had been directed, but the money was gone, and he was crippled, and half of our life savings were naught but still wind.

The second telegram, which I received only two days after the first, informed me that the eighteen hundred beeves I had purchased from Jeffrey O’Mallory had become ill halfway in-between Montana and Colorado and had to be slaughtered, without exception. Not only did we lose all of the money invested in the cattle, but the cowboys, whose wages were supposed to come directly from the sum that the animals earned, were still owed payment for their work.

The two sturdy ventures into which I had invested the major part of our savings had fallen into ruin during the same week, and all of the money that remained—six hundred dollars legal tender in the Trusted Bank of San Francisco—could not even cover the debt owed to the cowboys. We were destitute.

(Elaboration: The inherent risks of investing in business ventures one cannot personally oversee or directly affect.)

Two days after I received the second telegram, your sister Dolores arrived at our apartment, where she was to stay and with us celebrate both Christmas and the New Year. I decided not to apprise you of our unfortunate circumstances, because of her presence and the coming celebration of His birthday. Additionally, it was my hope to achieve a modicum of amelioration before I involved you directly.

My anxieties were further aggravated by a telegram that I received from the cowboy boss—a communication in which he promised to visit San Francisco and collect the money that was owed to him and his riders if I did not presently remit. We possessed but a fraction of the deficit, and thus I decided not to respond at all to the aggrieved leader’s request.

Throughout the week that followed, while we were entertaining your sister and showing her the city of San Francisco, I pondered my options. You will very likely recall your comments about my detached manner, and now you know the cause of my worrisome preoccupations.

Four days before His birthday, I received a telegram from the cowboy boss notifying me that he and six of his riders were on “(their) way to San Francisco, to get (their) wages, and also to deliver out a rough whipping for all the hassle. Merry Christmas.”

I feared that our bank might be contacted directly by the cowboys or some legal official, and so I withdrew all of our money.

Undoubtedly, you now understand why I burst into tears when you informed me that you had prepared my favorite meal.* It was not easy to enjoy roasted goose with chestnut-bacon stuffing when monetary, physical and matrimonial ruinations loom. Nor was it possible for me to offer you my physical affections as I had throughout our courtship and marriage.*

You will recall that our friend David joined us for that meal and afterwards, for sherry in our little parlor, where he showed a clear interest in your sister that was rebuffed. His spirits sank after Dolores’s denial, and I volunteered to escort him home and leave you and your sibling to discussion and perhaps retirement, if you were seized by drowsiness. You helped me into my coat, located my bowler hat and kissed me upon the lips. I looked into your soft blue eyes, and nearly confessed our predicament. I desperately yearned to share with you the burden that had grown more ponderous with every waking moment.

As you will recall, I said nothing.*

I left the apartment with David, descended three flights of stairs, passed through the front door, and was struck by the icy winter winds of our seaboard city. With my head tilted down, I perambulated the cold avenues with my friend, endeavoring desultory conversation that is now difficult to recall because of my overindulgence in sherry earlier that evening. I know that twice I contemplated confiding in David, but did not because I feared that I would become hysterical in public. The gas lanterns along the avenues hissed, and the shadows cast by their unnaturally bright fires were opaque.

I watched David enter his apartment, and the very instant that I was alone, I began to weep. I had ruinously invested our life savings and was about be violently thrashed. I thought it quite likely that you would have to return to your family in Texas—a place where I was obviously unwelcome—and at that moment, I felt an utter desperation.

“You should’ve told me,” Yvette said aloud.

I thrust my cold hands into my pockets and clutched our savings, which were the only barrier between us and abject poverty, and I went toward the central square.

“No.” The choirmaster knew where her husband had gone. “No.”

The church has many adversaries in the modern world. Saloons and brothels are tawdry places wherein obvious transgressions nightly occur, and yet I am convinced that the casino is the establishment that conjures the most fabulous and dangerous hopes. The gambling den is the place where a man can change his entire life—through determination, skill and a mote of luck—and achieve his proper station in the world. At the betting table is where the fallen individual, prostrated by misfortunes, can raise himself up again. Agreeable ivory or beneficent cards are all that he requires to pay off his debt to the cowboys and treat them to a fine seafood dinner so that they might amicably conclude their business. With his amassed winnings, the resurrected man will be able to purchase a large apartment, wherein he and his wife shall live in great comfort and raise a beautiful and pious family.

These are the delusions—aided by alcohol and despair—that turn a reluctant gambler, such as I, into a man who is willing to risk money that is not even his own.

The Editors have asked me to state that conditions of depression, inebriation and desperation neither excuse nor diminish my deplorable behavior.

I entered the casino and went immediately to a table whereupon people played blackjack, a game with which I was well-acquainted and possessed some small degree of mastery. As I gambled, my face reddened, and often I felt as if I had no control over my actions, as if my body were an automaton that I witnessed from a great distance. In thirty minutes time, I had reduced our remainder by half and had no more than three hundred and ten dollars.

Presently, I seated myself at a poker table, where I saw a man I knew from church, as well as two strangers. I played for a period of an hour, and I lost and won equal amounts. Eventually, I was joined by a striking, finely-dressed gentleman who possessed only one eye and was younger than his white hair intimated.

Yvette’s stomach twisted.

The distinct individual introduced himself as Gris, which I believe is the Spanish word for ‘gray,’ but he did not proffer a full name. He proclaimed that he was from Spain, although his delivery of our language was perfect and did not in any way betray his country of origin. A man at the table, a plump codger who wore cracked glasses, stood up from his chair and departed—apparently he was still upset about that little argument America had with Spain a few years earlier.

We proceeded to play several more rounds of poker, wherein I lost one hundred dollars to the house, and Gris won from them twice that amount. He saw that I was anxious, purchased for me a drink, and recommended that I leave the table before I lost any more money. I thanked him for his generosity and advice, drank my bourbon, and proceeded to winnow our entire life savings down to sixty dollars, which was less than one-tenth the sum I had brought into the casino only two hours earlier. I was filled with despair.

Gris collected his winnings, which were quite substantial, and invited me to join him in the lounge, where an old man played piano while a negress performed buck dance with wooden shoes. I accepted his invitation.

The Spaniard purchased for me another bourbon, which I refused and summarily drank. After I had finished, the man asked after my troubles. I told him everything that had happened throughout the previous month. I found it easy to confess my woes and unburden myself to this stranger, a person who was not a part of my daily life, and thus far had been extraordinarily kind.

Shortly after I had finished detailing my misfortunes, Gris enquired, “Do you possess a photograph of your wife?” His eye did not leave the furious, percussive feet of the negress buck dancer when he asked this question.

I claimed the wallet from my vest and from it withdrew the photograph taken at our wedding, the single happiest day in my entire life. I delivered the image of us to him, and he looked at it for the time it took the negress to punctuate eight measures of music with her hard shoes.

Gris returned the photograph to me and remarked, “She is very beautiful.”

“There is no more beautiful woman in the world,” said I.

“Shall we return to the poker table?” he enquired.