The Raiders

1

THE DESERT SETTING OF LAS VEGAS INSPIRED SOME OF the men who came to invest to give their hotels fanciful names from the Arabian Nights — fanciful Arabian Nights films being a Hollywood fad in those years. The Seven Voyages was a reference to the Seven Magic Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor. The hotel was built in a Moorish style, actually in what Morris Chandler's architects had adapted from the style of a dozen movie sets. It was in the middle of a vast irrigated green lawn where twenty luxuriant palm trees swayed on the desert wind. Long three-story wings angled away from the five-story central building.

Water played an important role in the character of The Seven Voyages. Jets of bubbling water shot up from fountains in front. A swimming pool dominated the rear. As Jonas was to see when they were inside, fountains and pools were important elements of the interior decor.

At night everything outdoors was lighted. Underwater lights gleamed in the pool. White lights shone on the palms. Colored lights played on the fountains. Warm-yellow floodlights lit the facade of the hotel.

Jonas parked the car in the lot behind the hotel, and he and Nevada entered through a rear door. Nevada knew his way around in The Seven Voyages and led Jonas directly to Chandler's executive office on the second floor.

A dark-visaged man in a black suit stopped them for a moment but only for a moment, since he recognized Nevada. He opened the door to the inner office and said he would go and find Mr. Chandler, and they should be comfortable in the meantime.

The style there was not Arabian Nights. To the contrary. Chandler's office reminded Jonas of his father's office — his own for many years now — at the Cord Explosives plant. The furniture was heavy dark oak, the chairs upholstered with black leather fastened down with ornate nails; the drapes and carpet were green; and a brass banker's lamp with a green glass shade sat on the desk. The office was old-fashioned, functional, and unglamorous.

Morris Chandler was not the man Jonas had expected to meet. He was about seventy years old, at a guess — about the same age as Nevada. Though he was erect and looked well put together, he was short and thin — a little man. Silver-gray streaked his black hair. His brows arched above weary brown eyes. His nose might once have been long and sharp, but it was flat now, undoubtedly broken at some time in his life. His face was asymmetrical; his eyes didn't match; and Jonas guessed his right cheekbone had been fractured. His mouth was wide, and the lower lip was heavy. Deep wrinkles scored his flesh at the bridge of his nose, under his eyes, and around his mouth. The skin on his neck sagged. He wore a conservative dark-blue pinstriped double-breasted suit, precisely tailored to fit him perfectly.

As he entered the office and extended his hand to be shaken, he pulled a thick black cigar from his mouth with his left hand. The sharp, strong smoke swirled around him and reached Jonas's nose. The cigar was not just strong but cheap.

"Mr. Cord," he said, taking Jonas's hand in a firm grip. "I am pleased to meet you." He turned to Nevada. "Hello, Nevada. It's good to see you again."

"H'lo, Maurie," said Nevada.

2

It was true that Nevada Smith and Morris Chandler went back a long way, back in fact to September 21, 1900. They met in a state prison camp just outside Plaquemine, Louisiana. Morris Chandler was then Maurice Cohen. Nevada Smith was Max Sand.

That day was the worst day of Chandler's whole life. He had arrived from Baton Rouge on the back of a wagon — chained to the back of the wagon. In the yard, in view of anyone interested, he'd had to strip and put on a prison uniform: black-and-white-striped pants and a shirt much too large for him. Then he'd sat on a bench, put his legs on an anvil, and watched in horror as a guard riveted shackles on his ankles: steel bands joined by about a foot and a half of chain, with a large steel ring in the middle. They gave him no shoes, and he was barefoot as he lurched across the yard toward the warden's office.

The warden was a big ruddy-faced man who wore round steel-rimmed spectacles and now pulled them off as he squinted over a paper that had been handed him by a deputy. He read what was on the paper and looked up. His face was not unkind, not even stern. He shook his head.

"Boy," he said, "you gotta be some kind of dumb. Some kind of dumb to get yourself a year in a place like this for no more'n the petty racket you was runnin'." He shook his head again. "Jew-boy from N'Yawk. That ain' gonna make it no easier for you, boy."

"He's a fancy dude." The deputy laughed. "Prettiest little suit of clothes you ever see. Celluloid collar. Pink satin necktie. High button shoes, with spats. An' he greased his hair down with some kind of stickum that smelt like geraniums. Personally, I like him better in what he's got on now. Th'other way kind of made a man sick."

The warden read from the sheet of paper. " 'Maurice Cohen. Grand larceny by fraud.' Hell, boy, you shoulda robbed a bank. You'd had a better chance of gettin' some real money, and you'd done better time here. Ol' boys'd respect you if you was a bank robber. You gonna do bad time, Maurice Cohen."

Maurie trembled. He was on the verge of tears. He was afraid his legs would fail him and he would fall on the floor.

"Well, okay then," said the warden. "Mike, you take him out and give him ten stripes. Then he can have his dinner."

"Ten stripes!" Maurie shrieked. "Why? What have I done to get — Sir! Sir! Why?" He wept, and his words blubbered out of him. "Oh, please ..."

"Insurance," said the warden gently. "Seems like a man that gets ten the first day behaves better and doesn't think about tryin' to escape. Some way, they remember the feel of it, an' it makes better men of 'em."

Mike was a huge Negro. He was a trusty. As he led Maurie out across the porch and toward the whipping post in the middle of the yard, he spoke quietly. "Don' you worry none, boy," he said. "I'm very good at what I do. It ain' gonna hurt like what you think."

The big black man ordered him to strip off his uniform. He couldn't of course get his pants all the way off; he could only drop them down to his leg irons. When Mike lashed him to the post, Maurie was naked. He had an hour to stand there, bound to the post, before the work gangs came in and assembled in the yard to watch the whipping.

The convicts found him a curious figure. He was a little man, short and slight, and his skin was almost white. Many of them had never seen a circumcised man before, and they walked around him, staring and commenting —

— "Jeez Chrass! Somebody's cut th' end off him!"

— "God, it must hurt like hell t' have that done!"

— "It's what the Jews do. Talks about it in the Babble. Y' ever read the Babble, y'd find out where it tells the Jews to cut their boy babies like that."

— "Makes m' flesh crawl!"

Hanging in his bonds, Maurie saw a man as bad off as he was: naked as he was and locked inside a small cage in the middle of the yard, a short distance from the whipping post. The cage was so small the man could not stand up and could not stretch out. He was curled in a fetal position in a corner of the cage, confined with his own excrement, which lay about him on the ground. He seemed oblivious to the flies that crawled over his sweating body.

When the work crews were all in, fifty or sixty men formed a circle around the whipping post to witness the lashing about to be given to Maurie Cohen. His knees kept buckling, and he hung on the rope that bound his wrists to the post. He glistened with sweat, and when the wind blew he shivered. He knew he was earning the contempt of the men he was going to be locked up with for a year. He dreaded that, but he couldn't do anything about it. When he saw the warden step out on the porch, his bladder let go. They all laughed.

Then Mike, the big Negro, stepped up behind him. Maurie twisted his neck and looked. Mike was carrying the snake, a fearsome, threatening instrument of torture.

Maurie looked at the warden. The warden nodded, and instantly Maurie felt the snake crack across his shoulders. It hurt like being seared with a hot iron must hurt — worse because he felt its cut. He opened his mouth to scream —

Cold water crashed against his face. A lithe, muscular man with black hair stood staring curiously at him, empty bucket in hand. Oh, God, he'd passed out, and they'd revived him so he'd feel the remaining nine stripes! The man with the bucket wore a small quizzical smile. Maurie glanced around. The warden was gone from the porch. The convicts were in a moving line, going in the mess shack to pick up their food. All wore stripes the same as his. All wore leg irons. Except for the man with the bucket, no one was paying attention to him anymore. Maurie was still tied to the post. His back was ... What was it? It felt like it was on fire, and yet it ached, too, a deep, agonizing ache in swelling flesh.

"Felt that fust one, din't ya?" asked the man. "But none of the rest. Like Mike tol' ya, he knows how to do what he does. That first shot went across your shoulders all right. But when he give ya the second one he made the tip hit ya sharp and hard on the back of the head an' knock ya out. Ya got th' other nine while ya wasn't feelin' nothin'. Ya didn't even have to feel the sting of the liniment Mike poured on to keep th' stripes from festerin'. You lucky. You git stripes ag'in, y'll git 'em the reg'lar way. Think on't."

Maurie moaned.

"It was nothin' special, got nothin' to do with you bein' a Jew-boy. They done it to me my first day here. My name's Max Sand. The Man ordered me to take care of you fer a while."

Max untied him, and Maurie dropped to his knees.

"That's th' way, boy. Pull them pants up and come on."

Maurie followed him. He couldn't imagine trying to pull the shirt on over his back. Max led him to a shack, where there was a cot and a bucket. A chain ran from a ring set in a heavy block of concrete. Max padlocked that to the chain between Maurie's leg irons, and he went away and left him.

Maurie sat on the cot. He couldn't lie down. He sat and wept.

A little later Max returned. He brought a tin cup full of coffee and a tin plate heaped with food. Without a word, he put the cup and plate down and left, latching the door outside.

Beans. Beans cooked in some kind of congealing grease that was almost certainly lard. The few little flakes of meat among the beans were undoubtedly pork. Forbidden food. But Maurie had learned from his days in jail that even mildly suggesting they should not serve him pork would win him laughter at best, a backhand slap across the mouth more likely. He picked up the spoon that was the only utensil they provided and ate a couple of mouthfuls of the unappetizing mess. He'd starve if he didn't eat whatever they gave him; he knew that. God forgive, he prayed as he shoved some more into his mouth.

And then he wept some more.

3

The horror of his year's imprisonment had only begun.

They left him in the shack for five days: time for his back to heal, or begin to heal. He was let out only when he carried his slops bucket to the latrine and poured the contents in. Max came to take him out. Max brought his food. Max was no trusty, as Mike was. He wore stripes and leg irons as most of the other men did, but Maurie noticed that Max didn't stumble. He'd learned how to walk in chains.

Max sat down in the doorway of the shack and talked to him. He asked him what fool thing he'd done to get himself a year in this place.

"They say ya done somethin' stupid. How stupid? What stupid?"

Maurie sighed heavily. "I was selling insurance," he said.

Max grinned. "Oh, yeah. And there wasn't no insurance company, right? I guess you just had a printer print up some fake policies for you, and —"

"Right," said Maurie.

"That's dumb all right. That is dumb. To risk being sent to a place like this ... That's dumb."

"What are you here for, Max?"

"Two years. Illegal use of a firearm."

"What'd you do with it that was illegal?"

"I killed a man."

"You don't go out with a work crew."

"I will, next week. A cottonmouth got me on the leg. I'm on half duty right now."

At the end of the five days they took Maurie out of the shack. He was assigned to a cot in a barrack. At night they ran a long chain the length of the barrack, passing it through the ring in the middle of the chain that linked each man's leg irons. That confined them. The guards didn't even close the doors and windows, which were left open so air — and mosquitoes — could come in.

The warden really was a man of kindly disposition. Realizing Maurice Cohen did not have the physique to work all day in the fields, he had him assigned to the kitchen.

Routed out of bed and off the long chain before dawn, he shuffled around the kitchen shack, helping the trusty cook to bake cornbread and boil coffee. The convicts began their day with platters of cornbread soaked in molasses, a sticky-sweet melange that filled out their stomachs but rotted their teeth. Maurie managed to put aside some cornbread without molasses for himself. The cook noticed but said nothing. Similarly, Maurie kept the cook's secret: that he kept pots of molasses and water fermenting in various hidey-holes and in midafternoon ran a still that produced a fiery, heady kind of rum.

His back healed, and he learned to sleep in a long room filled with the oppressive stench of unwashed men and unwashed clothes, blowing wind from the meals of beans, the night loud with their snoring and cursing, violent with constant jerks on the chain between their legs. He learned to live without baths or clean clothes. He learned not to vomit as he relieved himself as fast as he could in latrine shacks over reeking holes of excrement alive with flies. He learned to walk in leg irons. He began to believe he might survive his year.

Then Big John LeBeau came for him.

It was in the evening, the first time. The prisoners were allowed to sit around in the dust of the yard, smoke, and talk for an hour before they were herded into the barracks and the chains were passed between their legs. Maurie's work was not finished. He was still in the kitchen, scrubbing tin plates.

Big John was a trusty with no chains on his legs. He was a gargantuan man, obese but with swelling muscles. Although men were allowed to shave — under supervision — twice a week, he shaved once a month. His arms were blue with tattoos of snakes and dragons. The convicts called him Boss.

He stalked into the kitchen shack, grabbed Maurie by the collar, and shoved him into a pantry stacked with bags of cornmeal and five-gallon cans of lard. Inside, with the door closed, he unbuttoned his pants and pulled out his long, thick penis.

"Okay, Ikey," he said. "What I hear, Jew-boys are better'n anybody at sucking on". Well ... better'n anybody but Jew girls. An' they ain' no Jew girls here. So, get at it. Let's see what you can do."

He put his hands on Maurie's shoulders and pushed him down to his knees.

Maurie whimpered. Big John shoved his wet, stinking phallus against Maurie's face. "Get goin'," he growled.

The door opened. Maurie nearly fainted. The penalty for doing what he had not yet begun to do — but surely looked like he was doing — had to be something brutal.

"Whatcha doin', John?"

Maurie looked up and through his tears saw Max Sand.

"You kin have yours after he gits finished with me," said Big John. "I kinda figured on the kike bein' mine, but, what the hell, I'll share with one man. In the spirit of Christian charity."

Max shook his head. "I don't figger it that way, John," he said. "I figger we oughta leave the Jew-boy alone. You an' me, we're tough enough t' handle th' Loo-zeeanna prison system. He ain't. There's plenty of men be glad to do what you got in mind. Git it from them. Let's let this poorly little fella alone."

Big John stepped around Maurie. His erect penis was still sticking out as he confronted Max Sand.

"You gone tell me who gits let alone, who don't?" he asked, squinting and bouncing a little on the balls of his feet as if he were ready to attack.

Max didn't wait to see what Big John had in mind. With his right hand he slapped him hard on that erect penis; and while Big John stood startled, even a little stunned, grabbing at himself. Max drove his left fist into his belly. Big John grunted and staggered, and before he could recover himself Max began pounding him, left fist and right fist, in the gut. Big John dropped to his knees, gagged and heaved, and spit out a mess of beans and grease.

Max had been smart. If he'd bloodied the big man's face with his fists, the fight would have become known to the guards, and both of them would have been lashed and locked in a cage. As it was, Big John was defeated but unmarked.

"Figger I'm right, John?" Max asked as the big man struggled to his feet.

Big John nodded. "See you again sometime, Max." Maurie couldn't express his gratitude. He didn't have a chance to try. Max led Big John back into the kitchen and pumped a tin cup of water for him. Then they left the shack.

Five months later something terrible happened. Max Sand escaped, together with Mike the big Negro trusty and a prison hustler named Reeves. The common story was that no one had ever escaped, but those three did. It caused a burdensome clampdown on security for a while: constant strip searches, more whippings, in general a tougher life for all the convicts. Then things went back to routine.

Something terrible ... It was terrible for Maurie. Immediately, Big John came back and began again where he had left off when Max stopped him. For all the remaining months of his sentence, Maurie was compelled to service Big John LeBeau.

Big John knew the prison routine and was a trusty besides. He found times and places, sometimes twice a day. Maurie had no choice. What he had to do made him sick every time he did it. He hated Big John and in his fantasies killed him a thousand times, a dozen ways.

Killing him would have been foolish, even if Maurie could have done it and gotten away with it. It would have meant only that other men would have demanded the same of him. Big John called him his wife and demanded that other men keep away from him. Maybe it was better, Maurie had to concede, that he was Big John's "wife." Not only did other men not dare intrude on what was Big John's; they didn't dare in any way abuse the little Jew who was under his special care.

For whatever reason, Maurie survived.

4

The familiar hard lines of the face were obscured by a thick black beard. The clothes were very different — no black-and-white stripes but a fringed buckskin jacket and Levi's, cowboy boots, and a champagne-colored cowboy hat, one of those with the tall crown and the broad brim. The man wore a pistol on his hip, too. He was tall and hard. He walked with complete self-confidence up to the bar, where he ordered whiskey.

It was the man who was with him that confirmed the identification. He hadn't changed, maybe couldn't change. He was Mike, the big Negro who had knocked Maurie unconscious with the second blow of the lash and had whipped him while he was unconscious. He wore the same kind of clothes and carried a gun.

If that was Mike — and it sure as hell was Mike — then the man with him was Max.

Sure. Max Sand. You could tell by the blue eyes.

Maurie gathered his chips, nodded farewell at his playing friends, and walked up to the bar. Max wouldn't know him, either. Max's clothes were handsome, conspicuously expensive; and Maurie's were too, in a style as different as two styles could be. Maurie's fine gray suit, narrow-tailored with a four-button jacket and thin lapels that ended at the level of the armpits, had set him back a few dollars. He wore a white shirt and celluloid collar, a pink satin necktie with a genuine diamond stickpin, high shoes and spats — pretty much what the deputy had laughed at when he described Maurice Cohen's clothes to the warden.

"Max."

Max Sand's head snapped around. Apparently he did not like to be recognized.

Maurie sensed danger and spoke quickly. "Maurie Cohen." He nodded then to the big Negro. "Mike."

Max's eyes, which had focused on him glittering hard, now softened. He raised his chin and looked down at Maurie. "Yeah," he said to Mike. "It's Maurie. Figured him for dead, didn't you?"

Mike shook his head. "Man lives through his ten stripes ain' gonna die of suckin' John."

"More nearly," said Maurie bitterly. "Can I buy you two gentlemen a drink."

"Why not?" said Max.

"Bottle of the better stuff for my friends," Maurie said to the bartender. "And my usual."

The bartender shoved a quart of whiskey across the bar toward Max. He poured a small glass half full of an odd yellowish fluid, and Maurie lifted a pitcher and added some water to it. The stuff turned milky green.

"What the hell's that?" Max asked.

"Absinthe," said Maurie. "It's made in France. I picked up the habit in New Orleans. Well ... cheers. What's it been, eight years?"

Max nodded. "Way I count it."

"Uh ... Figure Louisiana's still looking for you?"

Max shook his head. "Maurie ... I ain't never been in Loo-zeeanna in my life."

Maurie stiffened. "Uh — No. Me neither."

"You look prosperous," said Max. "Han'some-lookin' suit."

Maurie smiled and shrugged. "Pinchbeck," he said. "But I'm doing all right. There's money here. This is a boomtown. They drill in new wells every day. This country's afloat on oil."

"You still sellin' fake insurance policies?" Max asked.

"No, sir," said Maurie. "They'd hang a man for that here. They ain't got no sense of humor in Texas. But you can make money playin' cards honest. I got my method. Somebody says, 'You cheatin',' I says, 'Search me, friend. You'll find no gun, no knife, and no extra cards.' And they do, and they don't find them. Then I say, 'Call for a new deck of Bicycles, friend — just in case you think I got 'em marked.'

Then we play some more, and I win some more. Then if I see the man's gone bust, I say, 'Friend, I wouldn't never want a man to walk away from a table busted from playing cards with me. I believe I won a hundred fifty off you. Here's fifty back. Matter of principle with me.'"

"How you do it?" Mike asked.

"I play all the time, and I play smart. I don't drink when I'm playing. Besides ... word's around. It's a challenge. Beat Maurie Cohen. That proves you're smart. I've been paid as much as two hundred to sit with a man and lose a hundred to him. Gives him a reputation. What he does with it is up to him. Anyway, what are you guys doing in town?"

"We been runnin' cattle down in Mexico," said Max. "Once in a while we come up to Texas to put some of our money in an American bank."

"That's smart," said Maurie. "You like to have supper? And I know where I can find a couple of real nice young girls."

"That's friendly of you, Maurie," said Max gravely. "We've got to talk to a couple of men, then we'll be back."

5

A nightmare. They didn't knock on his door. They broke it down in the middle of the night. By the time he was awake, their heavy handcuffs were on his wrists, and he was being hustled out of his hotel room in his nightshirt — totally mystified as to why.

"Gentlemen!" he protested. "I don't cheat! Any man who has played with me can attest —"

One of the deputies shut him up with a hard fist to the jaw. He was dragged into the sheriff's office bleeding from the mouth.

They shoved him into a chair.

"All right, Cohen. Who are they? Where are they?"

"Who?"

The deputy slapped him. "You bought a bottle for two guys, one of them a nigger. You bought 'em supper. You bought two whores for 'em. That's who!"

"Friends," said Maurie. "Friends from years back. I hadn't seen them in eight years. What — ?"

"They didn't get into the safe, you know," said the sheriff. He was a fragile little old man, pallid, with an outsized hat he did not take off. "The one they kilt was one of them. Now, you tell us why, Cohen. Why'd they kilt that man? And that way? What the hell was goin' on?"

"I don't know!"

"Don't? Well, let's fill you in. They tried to rob the Merchants and Mechanics Bank. Only thing, the clerk on duty din't have the combination to the vault. They threatened to burn his eyes out with a hot poker they'd heated in the office stove. Instead, the big one, the mean one, burnt out the eyes of one of them. I mean, he blinded his partner with a red-hot poker he shoved in his eyes. The man ain't gonna live, I don't think. No difference. We'd hang him anyways."

"I don't know anything about this!" Maurie cried.

"Don't? The one they blinded was called Ed. What's his last name?"

"I don't know! I never met no Ed."

"Who's the others? Who's the men you bought drinks and supper and whores for?"

"I "

The deputy slapped him hard, so hard Maurie wondered if his neck hadn't snapped.

"Names, goddamn ya!"

Maurie bent forward and vomited. "Max!" he spluttered. "And Mike! The nigger is named Mike!"

"Their last names?"

"I don't know!"

"Where you get to know 'em?"

"In Louisiana."

"Where in Loo-zeeanna?"

"I had to do time on a prison farm. They were there. Mike give me stripes. Look on my back. You'll see I'm tellin' the truth."

The deputy lifted Maurie's nightshirt. He nodded at the sheriff. "Marks of a Loo-zeeanna prison snake if ever I seed any." He stared at Maurie with a new eye, with a sort of grudging respect.

"Cohen, where are these two men?" the sheriff asked.

"If I knew, I'd say," said Maurie. "I don't owe them nothin'."

The sheriff frowned at the deputy. "Well ..." he mused, pushing his hat back on his head but not taking it off. "I figger they'd-a got the fifty thousand out of the vault, you'd-a got a share. On that basis, we'll hold you for bank robbery and ... if the one they called Ed dies, for murder. Hangin' you might not be technical right, but it'll rid the world of one slick little Jew. Welcome our kike-boy into a cell, Brewster."

6

Nightmare. They took away his nightshirt and locked him in their cell naked, saying they'd bring his clothes from the hotel tomorrow. He wrapped himself in the skimpy, threadbare gray blanket from his cot and sat there shivering the rest of the night and all the next day. They didn't bring his clothes. They brought newspaper reporters to look at the bank robber — including a woman, before whom he could not cover himself decently. They shot off flash powder and took pictures of him.

He shuddered. They were serious. They were going to hang him.

The second day they brought him a woman's dress. They guffawed when he put it on, but it covered more of him than the blanket did, and it was warmer.

What evil spirit governed his fate? How had he come to deserve the tribulations that — ? God had tested Job and had not found him wanting. He, Maurie, had been tested in Louisiana and had been found wanting. He should have fought off John at the cost of his life. That was what the Lord had expected, and he had failed. Now ...

The second night, he managed to sleep fitfully. Until about four in the morning, when he was wakened by the sound of a key turning in the lock. A dawn hanging. A lynch.

But no. It was Max Sand. He jerked Maurie to his feet and shoved him out into the sheriff's office, where the deputy who had tormented him lay facedown on the floor.

They rode out of town. No one bothered them. Houston was not unaccustomed to seeing women riding astride horses. The odd-looking woman riding with the bearded man was obviously a whore, being taken out to entertain. She'd earn her money. People who noticed them shrugged and shook their heads. Many of them laughed.

7

They rode hard. A posse would not be far behind, but Max seemed to know where he was going, to some place he had been before. He avoided everything that might have made traveling easier and stopping more comfortable: groves, streams, grassland. They sat down at last, under a high sun, in a dry creek bed, where two rattlers retreated as they rode in.

"How can I thank you?"

"You can't. But you don't have to. If you hadn't said hello to me and bought supper and all, they wouldn't have grabbed you."

"Where's Mike?"

"He was hurt. He ordered me to leave him behind and go on. Worst thing I ever did, but I did it. 'Cause I figured I had an obligation t' come back and he'p you."

"How'd you know they grabbed me?"

"We didn't run out of town all that fast. Wanted to get some he'p for Mike. Figured too we'd better bring you with us. I saw 'em grab you."

"Max ... They say you shoved a red-hot poker in a man's eyes."

"I did it," said Max.

"My God!"

"That man," said Max, "was the last of the gang that tortured and murdered my father and mother. One of 'em carried a tabacca pouch made from my mother's tit, cut off her whilst she was still alive. Tanned and sewed up into a tabacca pouch."

"My God!"

"None of 'em died easy," said Max. "I shot the balls off one. I shoved a red-hot poker into the eyes of the last of 'em. I wisht they was all alive so I could kill 'em all again."

"What are you gonna do now, Max?"

"'Nough of this shit," said Max. "Got some money in a ranch. Gonna change m' name, shave off m' beard, and go to livin' honest. What you gonna do, Maurie?"