The Ballad of Dingus Magee (6 page)

“Hey, Sheriff, look here—”

“I got work to do,” Hoke snarled. “If that diaper-bottomed damn desperado thinks he can keep getting away
with riding in here and making me shoot up innocent folks he’s got another think coming. And I don’t give a whorehouse hoot if’n he does face up to Wyatt Earp and the rest of them. I got to git back to my office and ponder what sort of mischief he’s most likely got in mind. Because this time I’m gonter—”

“You better look at this here blood first, I reckon—”

“I already seen it. I been hearing enough about it too. All that commotion over a little bullet hole in the belly—”

“Not this. This ain’t his’n.”

“This ain’t whose’n?”

“Here, where the second horse skittered afore it run off. Bring a lamp, somebody. This is too far aside to be that Turkey feller’s.”

Hoke gazed at the stains in the dim light. He ran his tongue across his mustache, which tasted faintly of gunpowder at the moment.

“What do you think, Hoke? You think maybe one of the five bullets that didn’t hit the one you thought was Dingus and was aiming at might of hit the one you didn’t think was, and wasn’t?”

“Unless it’s horse blood,” someone else speculated.

“Ain’t horse blood neither,” Hoke said, “but either way he ain’t going far, and that’s the Lord’s truth of it.” He started off once more, then whirled anew. “And you’re all witnesses to that blood now too,” he said, “jest in case he crawls into a dung pile somewheres and dies, and somebody else goes picking up the remains and claiming them rewards. Because he’s worked hisself all the way back up to nine thousand and five hundred dollars last I were informed, even without no train, and that money’s mine!”

3

“When I play poker, a six-gun beats four aces.”
Attributed to Johnny Ringo

Dingus, on the other hand, was mostly amused.

He had spurred his mount through a back trail to the far end of the town, and then he had almost fallen from the saddle, but even this failed to disturb him. “That Hoke,” he told himself merely. “He gets into the habit of shooting folks he ain’t pointing at and I’m gonter have to commence wearing that vest again myself.”

He rested beneath a cottonwood tree while waiting for the blood to stop, which it did. It was lull dark now, and not far away he could see a lamp burning within the doorway of a makeshift clapboard miner’s shack. There was an odor of woodsmoke in the air, faintly tinged with kerosene and manure.

When he stood again he discovered he had bled a good bit down his right pantleg and into his boot. That sock was soggy, and he limped gingerly with his weight on the other foot. “Well, howdy do,” he muttered. He kept one hand clasped over the wound, which pained him only slightly.

The shack was set apart from several others like it, amid tall weeds. There was no door, only a threadbare horse blanket hung from nails. Dingus considered this for a moment or two, then lifted the blanket and peered in.

The single room was dense with smoke from an untrimmed wick, and the faulty lamp itself stood on an upended wood
crate. Beyond that Dingus saw a disreputable shuck mattress on the dirt floor, a half-finished tin of beans on an upturned nail keg with flies swarming around that, and some rag ends of clothing hung from pegs. Otherwise there was nothing in the rank room except the man himself, whom Dingus did not know. He doubted that he wanted to. The man was tall and gaunt, with a face like a hastily peeled potato, and he had only one arm, the right one. He was also completely bald.

“I’m ahurtin’,” Dingus told him.

The man had been gazing emptily into the uneven, flickering glow of the lamp, and when he turned toward Dingus it was slowly, without surprise and without evident interest either. His long yellowed underwear was out at elbow and knee, spotted with savorings of a hundred meals. For a time he stood absently. Then his one arm lifted as if in accusation. “There’s gonter be violence wrought upon this new Sodom,” he intoned. “The wrathful fist of the Lord is gonter bring down fireballs and brimstone on it, sure as bulls has pizzles.”

Dingus cocked his head in curiosity. The man scowled, preoccupied. Then he nodded. “It’s whoredom,” he said knowingly. “Whoredom and the barter of womanflesh, arunning rampant. The emissaries of Satan, that’s what they be, and their name is women.”

“I’m ahurtin’ moderately bad,” Dingus said.

But the man was brooding now, or perhaps he was somewhat deaf. He could have been Dingus’s own age or twice that; with the light gleaming on his hairless narrow lumpy skull Dingus found it impossible to tell. “Gomorrah,” the man muttered. “But like it come to them cities of the plain, so too’s it gonter come to Yerkey’s Hole, which is a turd-heap and a abomination in the eye of the Lord. That’s a fact, ain’t it?”

“I ain’t thought about it none,” Dingus said, remotely interested now. So now the tall man merely belched.

“Womenflesh and womenwhores,” he said, “but they ain’t atricking Brother Rowbottom, even if’n my appointed mission ain’t quite clear yet. Give me a dollar.”

“It’s got started throbbing some,” Dingus remembered.

He was still holding one hand against the wound. “How far up the path there is the doc’s?”

“The doc’s?” The hand of the tall man rose and fell contemptuously. His voice was becoming more resonant now also. “A doc of the bones. I am a doc of the spirit, a doc of the soul. The wages of sin is Boot Hill, sure as sheep get buggered, but the way to salvation burns like a dose of clap. Ain’t you got a lousy dollar to give me?”

“I reckon I’ll find it myself, then,” Dingus decided.

“Go then. But you’re gonter regret it, same’s all the rest, soon’s I get the notification clear about my mission, oh yair.” Abrupdy the man whirled to settle himself onto the shuck mattress, pulling a motded quilt about his trunk with his one arm. The activity revealed an upright whiskey jug at the wall. “Go,” he muttered.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Dingus told him.

The man yanked the quilt over his head, turning aside. “Go on, scram,” he repeated. “Beat it. See if I give a fart on a wet Wednesday.”

Dingus shook his head, backing out. “Folks is right kindly,” he told his horse, still holding himself. He began to draw the animal along a rocky path which led toward the main cluster of buildings.

It was a walk of some length, but he was still amused. He knew roughly where the doctor’s would be, anyway, even approaching from the rear, and then a moon appeared, which helped.

But he had not yet achieved his destination when a dark squat figure loomed up to block his way. He was passing the fractured remains of an abandoned sutler’s wagon, and he sprang against it, a handjerking at one of his revolvers.

“You want bim-bam? Best damn bim-bam this whole town.”

This time Dingus laughed aloud, releasing the gun. The squaw’s thickly buttered hair gleamed dimly, and she stank of it. She was short and square-headed.

“You look for bim-bam, hey? Twenty-five cent, real hot damn bargain.”

“I look for the doc’s,” Dingus said.

“Doc’s? Why you look for there? You come scoot on around behind wagon, Anna Hot Water fix you up pretty damn nifty, better than that old doc. What for you hold onto yourself that way for anyhow, hey?”

But Dingus had limped past her, considering a row of adobe brick houses which fronted on the main street. “That’s Doc’s, ain’t it—on up to the end there?”

“Maybe, sure, who care?” The squaw trundled after him. “You don’t change your mind first, hey? You go to Big Blouse Belle’s, pay whole damn dollar. Anna Hot Water, only damn independent bim-bam in town. Damn hot stuff too, you betcha. Twenty cent, maybe? Fifteen?”

Dingus left her, grimacing when the odor followed him for a time, although still laughing to himself. The pain had diminished almost wholly now. He led his horse into the doctor’s small barn, easing its bit but not unsaddling the animal, before he crossed the silent sandy yard to knock at the rear door.

The doctor appeared almost at once, a short, elderly, scarcely successfiil but roguish-eyed man carrying a lamp that he raised for recognition’s sake. That came immediately also. “Well,” he said cheerfully, not quietly either, “ifn it ain’t Dingus. Been expecting you, what with another of your chums just brought in. You come for your vest like always, I reckon?”

“I reckon. Only I also got a—”

“Well, come in, come in!” The doctor waved him into a familiar kitchen, turning to set aside the lamp. “I jest put that feller Turkey to sleep inside—nothing but a scratch, actually.” He was dipping water into a coffee pot with a gourd, his back turned. “But you’re gonter get one of them poor critters murdered yet, you know that, don’t you?”

“Ah, Doc, you know Hoke—he couldn’t hit nobody if’n he was shooting smack-bang down a stone well. Matter of fact he missed Turkey so bad tonight, durned if’n he dint go and—”

“Sit a spell,” the doctor said, glancing across his shoulder. “You look a mite peaked yourself.”

“Don’t reckon I can,” Dingus said.

“Can’t what?”

“Can’t sit,” Dingus said. “What I been trying to tell you, about how Hoke ain’t never gonter murder nobody. Shucks, he were aiming at Turkey all the while, but durned if’n the old blind mule-sniffer dint go and plink me square in the ass—”

“There some new preacher feller in town these days, Doc?” Dingus asked. He lay on his stomach on a leather couch, with his head raised as he tried to watch.

“Stop jiggling, there,” the doctor told him. “If a man could get to see his own backside without he needed a mirror, I reckon maybe folks wouldn’t get booted there so frequent as they do. What’s that about a preacher?”

“Tall feller, bald as a bubble. Got only one arm.”

“Oh, that’s jest Brother Rowbottom. Can’t say if’n he were ever ordained anywheres, but he does take himself for a preacher at that, if’n he can get anybody to listen. Talk about a good swift foot where it fits, he gets that from old Belle Nops pretty regular himself, seeing as how he’s got the notion that the best place to tell folks about sin is where they’s doing it. Goes pounding on up to the bordello and yammering the Lord’s own storm about fornication and what all else, or fer as long as he can outrun Belle anyways. Don’t do no harm, I judge. Hold on there, this might pain you some—”

Dingus pressed his jaws together, clutching the arm of the couch as the doctor probed. He released his breath slowly.

“Got it,” the doctor went on. “I reckon it must of been spent a little, maybe deflected off’n your saddle first, or otherwise it would of torn right through. But this ain’t critical a-tall.” He crossed the room, removing something from a low cabinet. “Yep, Brother Rowbottom. Been around about a month now. Does a little pan mining too, I believe, though he ain’t had much luck with it. Mostly he jest tickles folks.” The doctor came back. “Won’t be but a while longer—keep on lying still there. Come to think on it, we been getting a right smart of new folks in town of late. Even a new schoolteacher.”

Dingus winced, tensing his cheeks at an unexpected sting. “I dint even hear tell there were a school,” he said.

“Well, there weren’t, until Miss Pfeffer chanced on along last month. She come out to many up with some Army lieutenant over to Las Cruces, were the original of it, except the lieutenant drunk some alkali water about a week before she got here and up and died. You recollect that wood frame house Otis Bierbauer were building up the road here before that drunk Navajo bit him one night, and then it turned out the Navajo weren’t drunk but had the rabies and we had to shoot the both of them? She moved in there. Right proper Eastern lady, a little horsy-looking in the face maybe, but a Up-smacking shape to her, even if’n it’s all such virgin soil there’s doubtless nine rows o’ taters could be harvested under her skirts.”

“Ain’t no such animal,” Dingus offered.

“Well, your chum Hoke Birdsill’s sure found out otherwise. He’s been courting to beat all, ever since she got here, without he had no more luck than a gelded jackrabbit. Sits up there in her parlor holding his derby hat on his knee is the all of it. But then Hoke’s been in a bad fix over proper flesh to bed down for half a year now, ever since he apprehended you that one time and Belle cut him off from free poontang up to the house. That’s how come he got hisself into trouble with that squaw to start with.”

“I don’t reckon I heard about that neither, Doc.”

The doctor was trimming bandages with a Bowie knife, standing within Dingus’s vision now, although he did not look up. “Pretty amusing, actually,” he said. “She’d be a Kiowa from the square shape to her forehead, I’d judge, although most like she’s got some mongrel strains to her too. Name’s Anna Hotah or some such, but folks settles for Anna Hot Water and lets it go at that. Seems old Hoke got to be mighty tight with a dollar once you’d escaped him out of both his pimping job and that reward money to boot, which didn’t leave him no more than his forty dollars a month from being sheriff, and so one day he rides off into the hills and he’s gone for, oh, like onto a week, and when he gets back it
develops he’s got this squaw in tow. Comes in a bit battered and hangdog-looking also, like he’s had a wearying time somewheres, but he don’t say nothing about that. This were eight, ten weeks ago, I calculate, and he had the squaw living in a lean-to out back of the jail after that. But then like I say, Miss Pfeffer gets to town, and Hoke kicked out the squaw and commenced his courting. But poor old Hoke, Anna Hot Water ain’t took to the idea so good yet. What I hear tell, she keeps tracking after him, calling him some right potent names and threatening to claim his scalp too, if’n he don’t marry up with her. Causes Hoke a mite of embarrassment, you might say, specially what with his intentions toward Miss Pfeffer.”