Tishomingo Blues (30 page)

It was too late now to go from Yankee guns to Yankee bats, damn it, the battle was on, a bunch of Rebels in black hats getting more than halfway across the field when the Yankee cannon blew out a cloud of smoke and every one of those black hats went down, staggering, clutching themselves, making a show of dying. Some of Arlen's boys, the ones that practiced taking hits. Now they'd lie there sipping shine from their canteens till it was over.

Hey, but they were crawling forward on their bellies toward the Union line, getting to their feet now and rushing the officer out in front, John Rau, four of them taking him by surprise, grabbing John by his arms and legs between them, lifting him off the ground and rushing him headfirst like a battering ram through the Confederate line, the boys in gray stopping midfield to return fire. Charlie raised his mike.

"You see that, folks. The Rebs made a daring raid there and have taken a prisoner."

They saw it, all right, the whole crowd cheering, loving it, watching the black hats running with JohnRau all the way across the field and into the orchard. Now the Confederate line was falling back.

Dennis turned to Hector next to him. "You see that? They got the cop."

"That fucking Robert," Hector said, "he must have thought of that."

Dennis let it go. Tonto stepped over to him saying, "How you doing? You got a load?" Dennis told him yeah, he'd only fired twice. After the first one he'd started to reload and Tonto exchanged rifles with him saying, "You shoot, I load. I don't get nothing out of shooting black powder."

Hector turned to Jerry staying in the thicket behind them. "The next time they come we go in the woods. You can sneak over there now, get a head start."

Jerry's voice came out of the thicket. "You saying I can't keep up with you?"

Hector turned away, not answering, and said to Tonto, "I insulted him."

"It's easy to do," Tonto said. "We carry him if we have to. Robert wants him there."

"I don't see Robert," Dennis said, looking across the field at the Confederates getting ready, loading their rifles.

"He took a hit," Hector said. "See the sword stuck in the ground? That's Robert." He said to Dennis, "They come this time we take off. Be sure you bring the rifle."

Dennis heard Charlie's voice over the PA system telling the crowd about Union soldiers playing baseball between campaigns to occupy their time. "They even played ball in Confederate prison camps," Charlie said, "and that's how us Southerners picked up the game. Pretty soon there was games between the prisoners and the guards. Well, I see casualties out there now in the hot sun, in their wool uniforms. I hope none of 'em have come down with heatstroke, and are real casualties. You want to be sure and drink plenty of water. And here we go again, Old Bedford's boys mounting their charge. From Brice's, they run those Yankees all the way back to Memphis."

Dennis brought up his Enfield and looked down the barrel at the wall of gray uniforms advancing, Dennis thinking, Pick one. He wondered if that's what you did, or you fired into them coming three deep and were pretty sure of hitting one, or if you fired as soon as they came out of the orchard and would have time to reload, pour in the powder, the ball, ram it down the barrel, set the cap on the nipple...

He heard Hector say, "Let's go," and he fired and saw Hector and Tonto ducking into the trees, Dennis realizing there wouldn't be time to reload. Man, it would be bayonets then, close enough to see the faces of guys trying to kill you. He followed Hector and Tonto into the gloom of the trees, holding the Enfield in front of him straight up to brush through the branches, his running steps kicking up dead leaves. He saw Jerry ahead of them with his sword hacking his way through vines hanging from the trees, Hector and Tonto darting and weaving past him, and Dennis slowed up to stay behind Jerry-but why?-and ran past him without a word and saw Hector and Tonto break out of the gloom into a clearing, a glade, a scattering of tall trees in sunlight. Now Dennis was out and running, gaining on Hector and Tonto as they reached the other side of the glade and disappeared into a dense wall of trees. Dennis followed, made his way through to come out at a ditch and a bank of coarse grass that sloped up to a road of red dirt and a truck standing there: a commercial delivery van painted white over the original white, a thin coat covering an emblem that looked like red, blue and yellow balloons and words faintly readable that said WONDER BREAD.

Groove and Cedric, both stripped to the waist and wearing shades, stood in the road at the back of the truck.

Now Groove was giving high-fives to Hector and Tonto, and Cedric was raising the truck's loading door, running it up on its tracks, Hector saying, "Man, give us the iron, we got to move." He said to Dennis coming up the bank, "Leave your rifle there to pick up when we come back. Cedric's passing out the six-guns, tell him you want one or two and if you think you gonna need an extra loaded cylinder to snap in when the Colt's empty-you think you gonna do all that much shooting. Pick up the one you snap out. Any people you shoot, pick up their guns and bring 'em back here. Except the general."

Hector, looking at Jerry approaching the bank worn-out, trying to breathe, said, "We pick up after the general," and said to him, "How you doing, you all right? You have cramps? You feeling dizzy, kinda sick?"

Dennis was up by the truck. He watched Jerry seem to cave in and sit down on the slope, watched him take off his coat and ease back to lie flat in the coarse grass, his shirt soaking wet. He didn't answer Hector.

"You sweating," Hector said, "that's good. You have a heatstroke you don't sweat none. Drink some water, it will pick you up."

Dennis took off his shell jacket and dropped it on the slope. He believed he could hear the popping sound of rifle fire coming from the battlefield, but it was so faint he had to stop and listen before he heard it again.

Tonto said, "They still playing." He took a Colt from Cedric and handed it to Dennis, Tonto in his headscarf and sunglasses looking into Dennis' face but not saying anything.

Dennis held the Colt in two hands and turned the cylinder to hear it click to each load and heard Jerry's voice, his growl:

"Gimme a Colt. I'm leaving this fuckin sword."

And Hector saying, "It's too heavy, uh?"

Insulting him again. Dennis thinking, He does it on purpose. And heard Jerry saying he could swing the fucker all day but he wasn't stupid, use a sword against a guy with a gun.

Close to Dennis turning the cylinder, listening to the clicks, Tonto said, "It has beauty, uh, you think?"

Dennis nodded, feeling the shape of the grip that had always fascinated him. He said, "This is the gun they used in Lonesome Dove. They're in the bar, somebody throws up shot glasses and RobertDuvall and the other one pull these big irons and shoot the glasses right out of the air."

"TommyLeeJones," Tonto said. "You want two?"

Dennis said, "You're expecting me to get into this with you?"

"What else can you do, Jerry watching?"

"I don't know. Hide behind a tree."

"What did he tell you, he sees you not shooting?" Dennis watched Hector go down the bank to hand Jerry a Colt and an extra cylinder. He said, "It'll happen fast, won't it, when they come?" "They all come the same time it will." "You shoot them, then what?"

"They go in the truck, also the pistols we brought, and nobody ever finds those guys. They disappear."

"How do you explain it to the cops?"

"Explain what? We weren't here."

Dennis said, "I know I shouldn't be."

"But you are."

"You actually think," Dennis said, "I'd shoot one of those guys?"

"I don't know," Tonto said. "You don't either."

"Well, I don't intend to shoot anybody."

"Yeah. but you still don't know."

RobertTaylor in his youth was a down-the-blockand-around-the-corner kind of runner, not ever an oval-track runner or a cow-pasture runner, the ground all uneven and waiting to wrench your ankle, put you out of action at the wrong time. He saw the danger of it on the first charge, running with his sword pointing at the Yankees, yelling the famous Rebel yell, shit, and tripping on the rocks and ruts and clods of earth hiding in the weeds. On the second charge he took a hit and said, "I'm hit, boys, get the motherfucker shot me," and stuck his sword in the ground as he went down, first picking his spot, not a hundred feet from the trees on the north side. He crawled over that way as the Rebs fell back and lay there till the next charge came out of the orchard. Robert pulled the sword free, waved it in the air, and saw Hector and Tonto and Dennis break from the line and run into the trees. He waited, giving them time, wondering if Jerry would keep up. The Rebel charge came to a halt so they could fire their guns, have some fun, and Robert looked back toward the orchard to see Walter off his horse, with Arlen and his retards, Arlen careful, looking this way to watch him. "Well, watch this," Robert said and took off-forgot the sword, fuck it-got into the trees and remembered where he was going: through these woods and across the clearing and through some more trees to the truck waiting on the road. He asked Groove if he'd jacked it. Groove said no, man, he bought it off the bread people, the Wonder Bread bakery in Detroit being a casino now, dealing in the other kind of bread. Hey, shit, and there they all were, coming out of the trees on the other side of the clearing Robert thought looked like a park that hadn't been kept up. This was where he believed the shootout would happen.

Let's see, he'd put Hector and Tonto over on one side, down a ways in cover, Groove and Cedric on the other. Arlen tries to edge around the clearing either side, he'd run into somebody. Robert would stay back here with Jerry and Dennis-Dennis not looking too happy to be along.

Arlen started out loosey-goosey, sure he could get 'er done. Hell yeah, catch Robert in the woods loading his gun, the smoke not use to doing it, dropping bullets in the leaves. Step up to him and bam, one less smoke. Arlen believed he had the advantage knowing the woods, pretty sure General Grant and the two greasers would set up to hit him coming out of the trees into those glades. Get the smoke quick and don't even worry about the diver.

But now he didn't know where his boys were, slow coming into the woods and not paying attention or following him like he'd told them, Fish and Eugene still fighting over Rose. He'd hear them thrashing around in the trees, yelling at each other, both with a load on from the shine. He'd stop to listen and then wouldn't hear nothing. They sounded like they were somewhere off to the right. They couldn't be far. Newton could be with them but was drunker'n either one and wouldn't be any help. They might've stopped to load their weapons. He'd told them to do it before they left the orchard, but then was busy getting Walter off his horse and hadn't checked to see if they had. Arlen would bet that was it. He thought of sending Walter to find them, but knew Walter would run off he had the chance. All Walter did was piss and moan about this not being his business and he shouldn't ought to be here, till Arlen said, "I'll shoot you you don't shut up and do what I tell you. Stay close to me. We come to that open part, I got an idea how to play it."

Walter said, "You think they're gonna be standing out in the open waiting for you?"

Arlen the campaigner, gear hanging from him, a loaded Colt in his hand, said, "If they ain't, I believe I can bring 'em out."

Newton was the one remembered. He said, "Shit, we doodlin' around in the woods with empty weapons. Didn't Arlen tell us?-Yes sir, he did. But you two're barkin' at each other-shit, I forgot." Newton carried a 12-gauge double-barreled shotgun that was dark and scarred and looked almost old enough to be authentic. He brought shells from his pocket and slipped them into the side-by-side barrels.

Once they'd loaded their pistols, Newton pulled the cork on his canteen, still some corn whiskey in it, to pass it around. He said to Eugene, "Fish gonna pay you anything for his killing Rose?"

That started them again. Eugene saying Rose was worth more to him than any amount of money. Fish saying, "Then I don't have to pay you nothing. Which I wasn't gonna anyway."

Newton believed it was Fish's sissy tone of voice that hooked into Eugene-prissy, what it was, irksome-and got Eugene to slash the barrel of his Colt at Fish and cut him across the forehead. Fish was stopped and fell back. Eugene, the hook still in him, went at Fish to cut him again. Fish saw him coming and thumbed the hammer of his Colt and shot Eugene in the belly. It doubled him over, Eugene going "Unnnh," like he'd been punched, but was able to straighten enough to put his Colt on Fish and shoot him in the face almost the exact same time Fish fired his second one and shot Eugene through the heart.

In the quiet that settled, Newton said, "Jesus Christ."

They heard the shot and then two more that sounded almost like one and they listened until Robert said, "That's not us."

They were in the trees on the north side of Robert's park. Jerry came over and he told him the same thing he told Dennis, and said, "Let's wait and see what's going on."

A couple of minutes passed and Jerry said, "We're taking too fuckin long. I'm going home."

Tonto appeared as he was saying it.

"Two dead. The Fish and I don't know the other one.

"Not Arlen?" Robert said.