Shadow on the Sun (3 page)

“You sound as though you admire him,” said Boutelle. He was terribly uncomfortable in these sodden clothes and in the hot airlessness of the saloon, but it was his duty to learn as much as he could about the sort of man who was, after all, representing the United States of America.

“You have to admire a good general,” Finley was answering easily, “even if he is your enemy. Didn't we admire General Lee?”

“General Lee did not foment his war.”

“Neither did Vittorio, Mr. Boutelle,” the Indian agent said quietly.

The younger man cleared his throat.

“I fear we differ on several essential points,” he said.

Finley shrugged and grinned cheerfully. “That's what makes life interesting,” he said.

Boutelle nodded curtly. “Yes. Well, I really must be getting back to the hotel. These clothes . . .”

“Yes, yes, by all means,” said Finley in honest concern. “Get yourself into a hot tub. Down some whiskey. Drive the wet right out of you.”

Boutelle managed a politic smile. He knew that Finley was elated at having brought these savages to bay after more than seven years of trying. He had a right to, of course. Even if he did conceive of them as noble primitives instead of the murderous brutes they were.

“You wish to see my report before I send it off to the Capitol?” he asked.

“No, no, I'm sure it'll be fine,” Finley said amiably.

“Very well.” Boutelle nodded once and turned away.

Finley watched the younger man pick his way across the crowded saloon floor. Twenty-five years old, he thought, maybe twenty-six. Graduate of Yale most likely, maybe Harvard. Father in the law profession or in some legislature or both. Maybe even in Congress. Mother a society grande dame in New York City, Boston, some such place. His future a well-secured plan: politics, a proper wife and children, respectability, the quiet dignity which true wealth makes easier. The descent, more than likely, into stodgy complacence, into . . .

And, then again, maybe not, thought Finley with a self-deprecating shrug. It was unjust of him to write the young man off so easily. Was he, at thirty-seven, already taking on the dogmatism of old age? No sense in planning the poor boy's future all at once. There were always shadows in a man's personality that hid surprises. Besides, he was too happy today to feel critical of anyone. Appleface Kelly was right. It was, by God, a gala day!

Finley grinned at Kelly as the bulky man sidled up to him.

“Say that Boutelle is a stiff-neck, ain't he?” said Kelly.

“Oh, he's all right,” said Finley. “What's your pleasure, you great hulk?”

Kelly ordered whiskey and put it away with immaculate speed. Flushed from drink, his face was almost to the color of his name.

 

Al Corcoran
came in at four.

Just before he did, Finley had slipped back to his hotel room for a change of clothes. Now he was back at the saloon, chatting with Kelly.

“Somethin' I always wondered,” said Appleface. “Who in Sam Hill named you Billjohn?”

“Simple,” Finley answered. “My father wanted to call me Bill and my mother wanted to call me John.”

“So they struck them a bargain!” said Appleface.

“Right!”

The two of them were laughing when the double doors were pushed open and the tall, heavyset man came in, dark slicker dripping. Stopping at the foot of the counter, he looked around the crowded room, his eyes coldly venomous beneath the shadowing brim of his Stetson.

When his gaze reached Finley, he came walking over.

“Hello, Al,” Finley greeted him. “How'd it—”

“You seen my brothers?” Corcoran interrupted.

Finley's smile faded. “No, I haven't, Al,” he said.

Corcoran's lips flared back briefly from gritted teeth.

“Anything wrong?” asked Finley.

“I just told ya,” Corcoran said angrily. “I don't know where they are.”

Finley nodded. “Perhaps they went out to watch the meeting with Braided Feather. A lot of—”

“Then where are they now?”

“They might have decided to take cover somewhere until the rain lets up.”

“They had work t'do,” said Corcoran, by the statement indicating his disagreement.

“I see.” Finley shook his head. “Well, I don't know what to suggest, Al. I wouldn't worry about it though.”

“No, you wouldn't,” Al said bluntly. “You like Injuns.”

Finley looked surprised. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“I heard you, but I don't believe I—”

Finley broke off and stared at Corcoran in rising amazement.

“Al, are you trying to tell me—” he began.

“If those goddamn Apaches have anything to do with this,” said Corcoran, “you can kiss your treaty good-bye.”

Finley set his glass down heavily.

“Have you any reason at all for saying that?” he demanded.

“I
said
it,” snarled Corcoran.

Finley pressed down the tremor of anger rising up inside him. “Listen, Al,” he said, trying to take Corcoran's arm.

The brutish man pulled away.

“Al, you're wrong,” said Finley. “You have no reason to—”

“They're my brothers, Finley,” Corcoran said tightly.

“I know who they are, Al,” said Finley. “And I'm telling you that the Apaches had nothing to do with them not showing up.”

“They better show up soon,” said Corcoran.

Finley's breath shook a little.

“They will, Al,” he said quietly.

“They better.”

Finley gestured, trying to clear the air. “Look, Al, if I can help you—”

He broke off abruptly and stood there watching Corcoran move for the doorway. He kept staring at the doors even after they had stopped swinging behind Corcoran's quick exit.

“What?” He started to turn to face Kelly.

“You think the Apaches could've—”

“
No
,” snapped Finley, “I don't.”

But his fingers on the glass, when he picked it up, were white across the knuckles. And after he'd swallowed half the drink, he set it down and paid for it.

“I'll see you later,” he said.

“Y'need some help?” asked Appleface.

“No, that's all right,” said Finley. “I'm just going to help Al find his brothers. I'm sure they're somewhere in town.”

“You worried, Billjohn?” asked Kelly.

“No, no, of course not,” said Finley, forcing a smile, “but Al is.”

He patted Appleface's shoulder. “I'll see you later,” he said.

The smile began to fade as he turned away from Kelly. Before he reached the doors it was completely gone, and all the pleasure of the consummated treaty had turned into a cold, nagging distress.

L
ittle
Owl sat wondering what his brain looked like. In his youth, he'd watched two of his older brothers kill a white man. They had picked up the white man by his feet and smashed his head open against a rock. What had spilled across the dry surface of the rock had been the white man's brains, they'd told him. It had looked grayish, wet and slippery. It was still throbbing when he touched it.

But that was long ago. He could not understand why he should be thinking of it now. He had only been a small boy when it happened. Had it meant so much to him that now, when he was old, he should sit thinking of brains and wondering what his own looked like?

Abruptly, he remembered. Last week—or was it last month?—Doctor Phil had talked to him, right here in this room behind the barroom of the Sidewinder. Doctor Phil had been drunk. He drank a lot because he, too, was often tired and wanted to forget his tiredness. And he had been here, sitting across the table from Little Owl, telling him what his brain would look like if he kept on drinking.

The old Apache could not remember what Doctor Phil had said. Something about a sponge eaten away, he thought. He couldn't recall exactly. Memories were evasive now, uncertain in time and content. As if, somehow, it had rained in his head and everything was soaked together into a common, irresolute mash.

The thought amused Little Owl. Outside it was raining—he could hear it falling in the alley beyond the window—and in his head it was raining, too. The spaces between his brain matter were like alleys between the buildings of Picture City—muddy and dark. He was destroying his brain by a rain of beer and whiskey. Yes, that was what Doctor Phil had said.

Or was it?

Little Owl opened his eyes slowly and stared at the grain of the table. He looked at the limpness of his hands lying on the table with the empty, foam-flecked stein between them. What time was it? he wondered. Was it nighttime? Or was it morning? No, it couldn't be morning because, out in the other room, he could still hear the laughter and talking of the men, the clinking of glasses, the occasional scrape of a chair leg on the floor.

Little Owl straightened up with a soft groan. He had been slouched in the chair and his back hurt. Maybe he should leave the saloon and return to his wickiup, he thought. Yes, that was what he'd do. He watched his leathery hands slide off the table and felt them settle on the arms of the chair. Pushing down, he got himself into a standing position, his legs limp and watery beneath him. Everything around him was hazy at the edges, as if he were looking through the parting in a mist. Only those things he looked at directly had any clarity of line.

Little Owl walked across the room with careful deliberation. Maybe Finley was still there, he thought. Maybe Finley would give him some money to buy a stein of beer. Then he could go back to
the table again and drink some more. He liked the feeling it gave him to drink, the numb, bodiless sensation. When he was deep in it, he could return to the village in the mountains and be a boy again. He could run and laugh and wrestle in the clean, high air, ride horseback again, shoot his bow and arrow, fish in the cold, rushing streams. In memory, he could fill his stomach with roasted meat and lie, at peace, in the thick, hazy warmth of his father's wickiup.

The old Apache stood waveringly at the back of the barroom, looking for Finley. A sinking of disappointment pressed at his stomach. The Indian agent was gone. Little Owl sighed. He should go back to his wickiup. He should bring some meat to his children. Yes, that was what he'd do.

Appleface Kelly turned at the slight tug on his sleeve.

“You scroungin' again, you mangy old bastard?” he asked, then snickered. “No more,” he said in Apache. “Get out of here.”

Little Owl grunted and stood there, staring at Kelly with blank, obsidian eyes. Kelly turned his back on him, and after a moment, the Apache shifted his feet and headed slowly for the doors.

Before he reached them, Finley entered.

The Indian agent's slicker glistened from the rain and his hat was soaked through. Little Owl waited while Finley took them off and hung them on a wall hook.

Finley managed a smile as he turned. “Still here?” he said in Apache.

The old Indian still waited. Finley looked at him soberly a moment, then, sighing, reached into his pocket.

“Now listen,” he told the Apache. “Take this money and buy food for your children. You understand?”

Little Owl stared at him a moment, then, with a grunt, he nodded once. Taking the money, he walked past Finley and pushed through the swinging doors. Finley watched him go. Poor lost soul,
he was thinking. None of the dignity of his race left. Completely off the red road. Just a part-time cowboy who spent the major part of the year cadging for drinks and sitting in silent drunkenness, looking into a past in which he was a man and not just a “damn scrounging Injun.”

Appleface Kelly looked over as Finley leaned against the bar beside him and ordered whiskey.

“You find 'em?” asked Kelly.

Finley shook his head. “Not yet,” he said.

 

It was
not raining as hard as before. It came down now in straight, almost soundless curtains. The air was colder though. It made Little Owl shiver as he padded along the plank walk toward the south edge of town. He should have brought his blanket with him, he thought before remembering that, months before, he'd given the blanket in exchange for half a bottle of whiskey. Or had it been years before?

At first, he didn't notice the man on horseback riding in the same direction. When he was young, he would have sensed the man's presence instantly, long before his eyes had seen him. Now, when the muffled sound of the hoofbeats reached his ears, Little Owl started and glanced over his shoulder dizzily.

It did not come at first. Little Owl saw only the outline of a man on horseback. He turned his gaze back to the front and kept on walking.

It was only after half a minute had passed that he realized the man was following him.

The old Apache squinted back across his shoulder again, trying to see more clearly. Who was the man? Did he know him? Little Owl grunted to himself, sensing the first twinge of nervousness. He
walked a little faster, trying not to show it. He'd been through this sort of thing before. There were always white men who took pleasure in trying to frighten any Indian they came across.

Only when the man rode past him and reined his horse in up ahead did the small Indian stop. He was standing at the head of an alley which ran between the post office and the bank. He stood motionless, watching the man dismount and tie the horse to a hitching post.

Then the man began to walk toward Little Owl.

The old Indian shuddered. He squinted hard, trying to make the man out, but his eyes were not good anymore and all he could see was the tall, broad silhouette coming at him. Only his hearing, still acute, picked out every detail of the man's approach—the sucking of his boots in the thick mud, the creak of the planking as the man raised his weight to it, the slow, thudding fall of the man's footsteps on the walk.