So Brave, Young, and Handsome (23 page)

We got off our mounts and tied them in the brush and Siringo got out his annoying manacles and stuck them on my wrists. I judge he was gone half an hour before he returned, up on his toes for quiet and a little out of breath.

“Well, we found them,” he said. “The animals are in a lean-to by the creek. There’s a well on the other side with an elevated tank. Look, there is the windmill.”

“What’ll we do?”

“We could wait them out, or we could go down there and walk right in.” Siringo smiled. “They got music playing.”

“Music?”

“A cylinder recording of some kind. It’s pretty music. Could be they’re dancing in there. You suppose they’re dancing, Becket?”

He let me out of the cuffs and leaving the horses tethered we moved up through willows to a shallow rise. Peeking over the top I was surprised how near the cabin was. And how civilized, with its trimmed square corners and its door painted blue. Sure enough we
could hear a faint symphonic orchestra. We could smell ham frying. Ericsson’s dog pranced a bit because of the ham until Siringo took a length of cord and tied him to a willow trunk.

“Hood’s stubborn, you know,” said I.

He reflected on this. “I expect he is.”

“What if he fights?”

“What if he does?”

“What about Alazon?”

He said, “I won’t shoot a girl, unless it seems to me that I have to.”

“How long will we wait?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Suppose you fall asleep,” I said, recalling how he’d slept all day long sometimes when we were driving.

“I can sleep or I can not sleep.” He seemed to shift a gear and said, “Becket, what do you think that I am?”

I shook my head but he persisted.

“The question is not rhetorical. What do you say that I am?”

“Well, you are liable to sleep like anyone else after a long day. That is no particular weakness. I would say that you are human like everyone else.”

Siringo replied, “I was human, but now I think I am changing.” He made this dread and puzzling statement with an air of hushed merriment. “I have been noticing it for days. Perhaps I am only part human now.”

Noting what I suppose was my hesitant expression he added, “It’s a change for the better. I can sleep or not as I will. I feel no anger. I am not thirsty. Hot and cold have no purchase on me.”

I replied, “You are describing death.”

He frowned. “I should have known you would think something morbid. Well, get comfortable, Becket.”

So I settled in. Plainly Siringo meant to wait the sun down, sleep a little—or not, as he willed—probably taking Hood in the morning when he came out the door. I had no plan to thwart him, no scheme at all.

We hear much about moments of decision, but often you don’t know they have happened until later and there you stand in your cooling skin.

Siringo coughed, trying to keep it quiet lest Hood be alerted; he smothered the cough in his arm. He didn’t notice when I took his old Colt from its holster. He didn’t notice until his coughing fit had passed. When he saw me holding the revolver something warmed in his eyes, and “Becket,” said he, “I thank you for holding that for me; I’ll take it back now.”

“No, sir.”

“Come on. Ante up. Do you think it’s my only gun?” he asked, when I still refused.

I didn’t want to shoot Siringo. Now that the old Colt was in my fist, it didn’t seem possible to me. Even a pretend willingness to shoot him seemed out of my grasp; therefore I pointed the revolver straight up and fired in order to warn Hood. It was my first firing of a true Western
pistola
and its kick was not as troublesome as expected. I fired the revolver until it clicked empty, Siringo watching me balefully as though I were dead already.

First, all song and dance ceased from the cabin.

Second, Siringo with an expression of extreme aggravation rose over me and got hold of the gun and swung the barrel down hard on my collarbone. I went down writhing, while we heard frantic scrapes in the cabin that turned out to be window shutters sliding into place.

“Now, look, he aims to wait us out,” complained Siringo. “Now it’s a blasted all-night event. Moreover, someone else is likely to arrive.” No doubt he anticipated the despised Rangers. Hood Roberts had become a prize, after all.

“You broke my shoulder,” I gasped, for it seemed I could feel the astonished collarbone rubbing against itself.

“Well, there ain’t nothing for it,” he said. “We had a chance to take them in flagrante. You spoiled the surprise, and now you have to wait hurt.”

The good part is I didn’t faint. Soon I remembered how to breathe, how to bear resentment.

“I thought you felt no anger,” I told Siringo, which made him laugh so hard he leaned forward and gave my poor shoulder a comradely slap—I must’ve gone pale, for he gave me still another slap, laughing all the harder.

From our slight hill in the cover of willows we had a good view of the cabin. If Hood came out the front he was finished; out the side window lay fifty yards of open ground to cross; if he tried to escape from the rear we would see him before he reached the creek. Swelling large with confidence Siringo called out, “Hood Roberts!”

“Yes, sir, who is asking?” came Hood’s voice.

“Charles Siringo of the Pinkerton Agency.”

“Hello, Mr. Siringo.”

Despite all that had happened, he only sounded like himself. Like a boy speaking respectfully to his elders.

Siringo said, “Hood, things do not look good for you. I am offering you safe passage, followed by fair trial in the murders of the tracker Ericsson, the actor Ern Swilling, and Mr. Felix Fly.”

There was a pause before Hood called, “Who’s Felix Fly?”

“The brave fellow who perished in the fire you set back in Spigot.”

Again Hood said nothing for a while, then: “It got away from me, Mr. Siringo. I didn’t mean for it to burn so.”

“You’re calling it an accident?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I am comfortable with that. You are free to make your case at trial. If you will come out now, you’ll not be harmed.”

“I’d rather not, Mr. Siringo. If you don’t mind,” he added.

“Is the girl in there with you, Hood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You think highly of her, correct?”

Again a silence. I can guess why—it’s because Alazon was right there. That’s the way Hood was; he might wax like smitten Shakespeare to me or Glendon, but he was far too shy to say such things in front of the girl herself.

Siringo called out sternly, “Do you care for her!”

“Well—sure I do.”

“In that case you should send her out at least, son. You see it’s shortly going to rain down six kinds of Hell on that little love nest. She ain’t culpable for your crimes.”

There was a scuffling from the cabin and Hood called, “Can we have a little time to talk about this?”

“Go ahead,” said Siringo.

We had now a rest of perhaps a quarter of an hour. We heard nothing from the cabin; short of breath, I tried to ease my shoulder by lying flat on my back; Siringo took a deck of cards from his pocket and played a hand of solitaire.

“Mr. Siringo?” Hood called at last.

“Yes.”

“She won’t come out. I ast her and she won’t leave.”

Siringo sighed. He called, “Hood, if that girl’s really in there have her sing out. I got to know whether she’s truly inside with you.”

He reasoned of course that Hood might well be alone in there and would believe himself safer if we thought the girl with him. Almost immediately, however, the door opened and Alazon stepped out of the cabin. Insolent as a raven! A whirl of her dress and she vanished back inside.

It put Siringo in a temper. It jarred him that a pretty young girl thought so highly of this accidental outlaw as to stay with him in such hopeless circumstances.

We waited a long while. Siringo said, “Becket, we can’t wait for dark. They’ll slip off if we do.”

This fretting was so unlike his usual sangfroid that I allowed myself the pleasure of a snide remark. “You seem out of sorts for a man with six kinds of Hell at his beck and call.”

He replied, “I am thinking, that’s all. The thing would be to burn them out, but I guess you’re unwilling to help.” Nonetheless he
stooped away through the willows to return minutes later with an oilcloth packet from his saddlebags. Gauging our daylight he unstrung the loaf-size parcel and began a brisk inspection of its contents, chiefly waxed tubes of gunpowder but also bundled heavy matches and stiff gray strings of various lengths which could only be fuses. He fiddled and made small gratified noises: plainly, the stuff made him happy.

I said, “You have carried these things all this way?”

“I learned a few tactics from those anarchist boys in Haymarket. Never snub an education, Becket.” He uncapped a paperboard tube, sniffed it, rolled a pinch in his fingers. “I was concerned about the integrity of the powder after that wet business at the Hundred and One, but nope—it seems to be fine.”

I said, “Let me go down and talk to them. I know Hood. I can bring him to reason.”

“Reason? More likely they’ll take you hostage. I’ll pass on that particular bag of snakes.”

He had laid out half a dozen small tubes of powder and now took from the packet a length of iron plumbing threaded and capped on one end. The cap had a small hole and a groove across its center. He took his clasp knife and set its spine in the groove and twisted counterclockwise until the cap loosened. Squinting against dust, he blew into the pipe to clean it.

“Hood trusts me,” I said. “He knows I want the best for him. Let me go down to the cabin.” Even now, you see, I had hope for Hood Roberts. His killing of poor Ern was an accident. The fire in Spigot had outrun his modest design for it. Another accident! I remembered what the Odd Fellows had said, how Hood ran to and fro with buckets of water, fighting the flames alongside them—a mitigating factor, certainly.

You see how quickly I forgot about the poor tracker Ericsson, killed that very morning at his jam and pekoe—I forgot him just like that, though his bereft spaniel even now sat sighing beside us in the willows.

“Suppose you do go down,” Siringo said. “What do you know about the principles of negotiation?”

As he seemed quite serious I replied, “That I need to offer them something real. That I cannot betray them.”

“That would be a noble start if you were meeting union thugs on strike terms, but it’s poor fare here.” With that Siringo bent down and gently heaved me up. It brought a sweat to my brow, yet he brushed the grass and twigs from my shirt and straightened my shirt collar, taking special care about the collarbone he’d ruined. Like a sage old papa he spoke kindly to me; like windy Polonius he instructed me. As he talked he cut the tops off waxen cylinders of gunpowder and sampled each with a fingertip to test for aridity.

“Remember first that he is not a boy. He has killed three men we know of so his standing there has changed. When you walk down to the shack, watch your bearing. You carry what he most wants, another day of life. Therefore walk like a man with the goods. Know your own mind and what you can truly offer. Safe conduct to Columbus, New Mexico aboard a horse of my choosing. Trial by a jury of his legally chosen peers. Nothing more nothing less. It’s a charitable proposal.”

“It’s only proper,” I said.

“No, it is generous. Think and you will see I am right. It is his noteworthy good luck to be offered anything at all.”

He had emptied a number of the cylinders into the iron plumbing and was tamping a fuse into the powder with his bent thumb. It occurs to me now that Siringo was fully enjoying the story he was part of. He lifted the cap toward the failing sun and squinted into it—a drop of light came through the tiny hole and made a bright mark on his cheekbone. He fished the fuse up through the hole and threaded the cap tight. He said, “Also, you must admit no argument. There is no time today for nuance. In truth there is no negotiation to be made. Look at the sun, Becket. There’s only the offer and its acceptance or rejection.”

“If it is that simple, call out the offer yourself and spare me the walk.”

“No, amigo, you requested this opportunity. Besides, I agree the terms might be more appealing from your mouth than mine.”

“Suppose he tries to redraw the terms?”

His plumbing job finished, Siringo laid it aside saying, “What is this to you? Would you call it a mission of mercy?”

“I suppose so.”

“Mercy is a detour. Your mission down there is to get what I want, which is Hood Roberts. Alive is better but dead will do.”

I said, “The sun is setting. Give me your word.”

“My word?”

“That you won’t harm them, either one. Hood gets his trial and no abuse from you.”

“What do you think I am?” he asked again.

“I think you lie if lying suits you.”

“Let us say you are correct. It suits me now to tell the truth. Get the boy out and no harm will come to him.”

And so I called out, “Hood. It’s Monte Becket. I’m coming down,” and not waiting for a yes or no I stepped from the willows and crossed the clearing. The windmill screeled away in the orange breeze, cicadas droned, the dying heat came up off the brown grass.

At the entrance I called hello again and pounded on the door. It drifted open under my hand. The cabin was a single room and it was empty. My instinct was to cry out
they’re gone
but I checked myself. I went in closing the door and walked through to the back and unbolted a shutter. There were the four rusty cross-wired legs of the mill tower, the heat-struck prairie grass greening where the creek jolted through. There was no root cellar, no adjoining outbuildings. It was a marvel, a clean disappearance under scrutiny. I looked around the cabin at the sturdy trestle table in the middle of the room, the Edison machine with its wax tube in the middle of the table, the four Windsor chairs of excellent build finished in dark oil. A deck of cards lay on the table and I sat down and dealt myself a hand.

“Becket,” called Siringo. “Are you coming out?”

“We are in negotiations,” I replied, which struck me so funny I nearly wrecked it laughing. I looked at my cards and quietly reshuffled them and dealt another try.