When the Legends Die (20 page)

They went through Pecos and kept going northwest. The sign said Carlsbad was 85 miles ahead. The Delaware Mountains loomed off to the left, on the skyline, with the Guadalupes beyond, to the north.

Red sat staring ahead, unseeing. Finally he said, “Doc Barlow had billy-goat whiskers and he wore a top hat and a fancy vest and a big gold watch chain across his belly. No watch, just that chain. I ran away from home and was a twelve-year-old squirt working for my keep at the Madisonville livery barn, and Doc Barlow came to town and gave me a job helping him sell Kickapoo Elixir. Great stuff, that elixir. Half raw corn liquor, half branch water and strong coffee, with a handful of quinine in every tubful to make it taste bad. We bottled it and sold it at every crossroads in south Texas.”

He sat in silence several miles, then went on. “We sold Kickapoo Elixir two years hand-running. Then the Doc turned to revivaling. And working cures by laying on hands. He preached the loudest sermons you ever heard, and I passed the hat. But it was laying on of hands he was best at, especially with the women. The young, pretty ones, mostly. Then one night he laid hands on the wrong woman, and her man caught him at it. After that I had to take a job as a cowhand. Till I met up with Meo and took to rodeoing.” He sighed. “If Doc Barlow had just stuck to the elixir, we’d have made a fortune.”

He looked at Tom again. “We’d have made a fortune, back there in Uvalde County, if you hadn’t got so stiff-necked, Tom.”

“No, Red.”

“You won, you said?” 1 won.

“I guess you’re getting pretty good, Tom.”

Another silence. Then Red said, “We’ll go home and rest up. Then after the hot weather we’ll go to California.”

“No.”

“We could clean up, out in California.”

“No, Red. I’m through with that. All through.”

“What you got in mind, Tom?”

“I’m riding for keeps, from here on.”

“The big time?”

“Yes.”

Red sighed. “Always wanted to see that Odessa show. And Fort Worth, and Texarkana.” He reached for the big names. “Nampa, Torrance, Wolf Point, Calgary, Denver, Albuquerque.” He was silent again. Then he said, “I’m glad you didn’t sell my saddle, Tom. Fellow sells his saddle, he’s just about at the end of his rope.”

The spidery legs of a water tower, sign of a small town, were visible on the skyline eight or ten miles ahead. Red saw the tower and said, “Could you maybe stop up there, Tom, and let me get a bottle of the old elixir? I’ve got a hell of a hangover.”

“I’ll stop.”

Red reached in his pocket, found nothing there, glanced at Tom, then sat disconsolate. When they reached the edge of town Tom slowed up and eased down the dusty street till he came to the local bar and grill. He parked and gave Red a five-dollar bill. Red went in, was gone five minutes, and came back with his bottle.

Then they went on home.

J
ULY PASSED, AND
A
UGUST,
simmering hot. September came and Red wanted to go somewhere, do something, find a rodeo or a poker game, anything for excitement. “Just a couple of shows,” he urged Tom. “Keep you sharp for next spring.” But Tom said no.

Red became surly, then silent. He finally saddled a horse and rode away. He was gone a week, came back with a hangover and was mean as a rabid coyote. Tom and Meo ignored him and harvested the beans and chilies, and September passed.

October came, and first frost. Tom brought in the horses and spent a week working with them in the corral. Red, Meo said, was still
malo,
meaning either sick or mean, or both, but he came out to the corral and growled, “Damn shame, you doing this when you could be riding for money and both of us having fun.” Tom paid no attention to Red. When he felt that he was doing something wrong he asked Meo. Meo said, “You work too hard. Save your arm,” and when Tom asked what he meant, Meo pointed out that he tended to power the rhythm horses. It was a shrewd observation. You powered the duckers and dodgers that kept changing rhythm, but the pattern buckers didn’t need all that pressure on the rein. You rode with them, not against them.

He rode the rough string until he had satisfied himself. Then, the last week in October, Red rode off again. At dusk a week later a stranger rode down to the cabin, a little dark man on a scrawny mouse-colored horse. Tom went out to see what he wanted, but the man spoke little English. Tom called Meo. They talked in Spanish and Tom heard Red’s name several times. Finally Tom asked, “What’s the matter with Red? Trouble?”

“He is sick, this man says,” Meo told him.

“Did he get shot, or carved up?”

Meo shook his head. “Sick.” He patted his belly. “Very sick.”

“Where is he?”

“Aztec. In the hotel there.”

Tom went back into the cabin, got his hat and coat. When he came out, Meo and the stranger were at the barn saddling a horse for him. “No, Meo,” Tom said. “I’ll take the car. It’s quicker.”

“I forgot,” Meo said. Then he said, “Wait!” and hurried to the cabin. Tom started the car’s motor, and Meo came back and handed him a roll of bills. “Get the doctor,” he said.

It was dusk and the road was only a trail, but Tom knew every turn, every gully. He made the thirty miles to Aztec in less than an hour, parked in front of the hotel and went in to the desk. A little, bald man was there. “Where’s Red Dillon?” Tom asked.

The man looked up, frowning. “You come to get him out of here?”

“Where is he?” Tom demanded.

The man’s white eyebrows jumped. He jerked his head toward the stairway and then came around the counter. “I don’t like them to die in my beds. It’s bad for business. You going to pay his bill?”

“I’ll pay what he owes.”

They went upstairs and along the hallway and the man jerked a thumb toward a door. Then he turned and hurried off.

The room was dark, but by the faint glow from its one window Tom saw a bed and someone in it. He moved toward it and stumbled over a chair.

“Who’s there?” It was Red’s voice, hoarse and rasping.

“Me. Tom. Where’s the lamp?”

“On the dresser, over there.”

Tom found the lamp, lighted it, and in the glow saw the chipped iron bed, the grayish sheet, the worn brown blanket, the streaked yellow wallpaper. And Red, his face gaunt and dark with a week’s stubble, his eyes deep-sunken, red-rimmed. His hands lay listless.

“What happened to you?”

“I’m a sick man, Tom. Doc Wilson—“ He gasped, caught a shallow breath. “Take me home. Don’t let me die in this rat hole.”

Tom took one of Red’s hands. The fingers gripped his with desperate strength. They felt hot. “How long have you been sick?”

“I lost track.” Red tried to sit up, sank back on the dirty pillow. “Help me put on my pants and take me home.”

“Pretty soon. After I see the doctor.”

Red’s eyes lighted in anger. He pushed Tom’s hand away. “Just like the rest of them!” He tried for a jeering snarl, managed only a whine. “God damn all of you!” Then he reached for Tom’s hand again and his fingers worked convulsively. “I didn’t mean that, Tom. I didn’t mean it.” He pushed Tom’s hand away again and growled, “Go on. Get the hell out. I don’t need you, or anybody else!” He lay wheezing for a moment, frowning in pain. Then he whispered, “But come back, Tom. Come back and take me home.”

Tom went downstairs. The man at the desk said Doc Wilson lived two blocks down, in the white house. Tom found the house, went in the door marked “Office” without knocking.

A thin, dark man with a florid face sat in his shirt sleeves at a rolltop desk littered with pill bottles, rolls of bandage and adhesive tape, bottles of dark medicine. He was smoking a handmade cigarette and flakes of tobacco polka-dotted his shirt front. He looked up, scowling. “Who are you? What do you want?” His voice was a tired growl.

“I’m Tom Black. I want to find out how sick Red Dillon is?”

The doctor took a deep puff on the cigarette, slowly let out the smoke, then dropped the butt into a cracked soup bowl already overflowing. He stamped out the coal with his thumb and wiped it on his blue serge pants. “Dillon,” he said, “has a bad heart, his kidneys are riddled, his liver is shot to hell, and he’s got a double hernia. That answer your question?”

“Is he going to die?”

“Yes.”

“How soon?”

The doctor shrugged. “I saw him three hours ago and figured he’d be dead by dark. He’s still alive, I take it.”

“Yes. I’m going to take him home.”

“You’ll have a corpse before you get halfway there.”

But Tom had turned toward the door.

“Wait a minute, son,” the doctor said.

Tom paused. Doctor Wilson got up, wearily shouldered into his coat and put on his hat. “I’ll go with you, have another look.” He picked up his black bag, tucked in the dangling stethoscope and snapped it shut.

They went back to the hotel, ignored the man at the desk and went up to Red’s room.

Only Red’s eyes moved as they came in. He watched them a moment, his eyes vague, then rasped, “Where’s Meo? Tell the old chili-eater to make a fresh pot of coffee. Got a hell of a hangover.” He lifted one hand, let it fall limply and licked his lips.

Tom glanced at the doctor, who took the stethoscope from his bag, thrust the ends into his ears and held the diaphragm to Red’s chest. “Leave me alone,” Red growled, gasping. He lifted a hand, tried to push the stethoscope away. The doctor stepped back, slowly shaking his head.

Tom took Red s hand. It clutched desperately. Then Red’s eyes seemed to clear. “Take me home, Tom,” he ordered. He tried to sit up. Tom put an arm around him, supporting him, and Red stared at him and whispered, “Better luck next time.” He swallowed hard and his eyes closed, then opened again as with a great effort. His lips moved, whispering again, and Tom leaned close. “Game’s over,” Red said. Then Tom couldn’t catch the words until Red gasped, “… dirty deal.” Then the breath seemed to ease out of him.

Tom let him back gently onto the pillow. He glanced at the doctor, who held the stethoscope to Red’s chest a moment, waited, listened again. “That’s it,” he said. “He’s gone.” And he drew the sheet up over the lifeless face.

They went downstairs. The man at the desk looked up, questioning. “He’s dead,” the doctor said.

“Goddam it!” the man cried. “Another bed ruined, and—“

“Shut your foul mouth,” the doctor snapped. “Isn’t there any decency in you?”

“Where’s the room key?” the man asked sullenly.

“In my pocket. And if anybody goes in that room before the undertaker comes, you’ll answer to me.” He turned to the door. “Come on,” he said to Tom, and they went out into the street.

Tom hesitated. “I’d better go back and pay for the room.”

Dr. Wilson put a hand on his arm. “Let the damn fool wait. I’m the coroner, and I’m running things now. Where’s your horse?”

“I drove in.” Tom nodded toward his car.

The doctor got in and they drove back to his house. “Come on in,” he ordered.

They went into the doctor’s office and he got a bottle and two glasses from a cabinet, poured two drinks. He handed one to Tom, said, “You can use this,” then lifted his glass and said,
“A los muertos,
as they say.” He took a gulp, then glanced at Tom. “But you’re not Mexican, are you? No. Well, anyway, to the dead. Just like the rest of us, he didn’t want to die. And, like the rest of us, he was mortal.” He sat down at his desk and deliberately rolled a cigarette, brushed the spilled tobacco from his shirt front and struck a match. He smoked for a moment, then said, “Weren’t you the kid Dillon used to take the gambling crowd to a cleaning at the rodeo here a few years back?”

“Yes.”

“What do you do now?”

“I’m a bronc rider.”

“You any good?”

“I’m a good rider.”

The doctor nodded, then sighed and took another gulp from his glass. “At your age, we’re all good. Or think we are. Then life catches up with us, no matter who we are.” He sat silent a long moment, then said, “I suppose Dillon didn’t leave a dime.”

“I guess not.”

“Just that hideout of his, out on the river. He didn’t even own that. Or didn’t you know? Just a squatter. He have any livestock out there?”

“A few bad horses, buckers. That’s all.” Then Tom realized what the doctor was saying. “I’ll pay to bury him,” he said.

The doctor looked at him, surprised, but all he said was, “I guess he deserves a coffin and a prayer. He was a human being, no matter what else. Want me to notify the undertaker?”

“Yes.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“Go home and tell Meo.”

“I mean from here on. Get a job as a cowhand, or a wrangler?”

“I’m going down to Odessa the first of the year, to ride.”

“Rodeo?”

Tom nodded, and die doctor glanced at him and said,

“ ‘Time is the rider that breaks youth.’ ” He slowly shook his head. “A man named George Herbert said that almost three hundred years ago, and it’s still true. Most of us are a long time learning it.” He sat silent, considering, as though wanting to say more. Then he said again, softly, “A long time learning,” and he sat staring at the glass in his hand.

Tom set down his glass, half finished, and got to his feet. The doctor looked up, and Tom felt that he was a lonely man, reluctant to see him go. But he got up and went to the door with Tom and out onto the porch. He said, “I’ll get the undertaker.”

Tom got in his car and started the motor. The doctor was still there on the porch, his head tilted back a little, staring up at the stars. He was still there as Tom drove away.

Tom drove home, wondering whether Red would care whether he was buried in the graveyard, or out on the flats, or wrapped in a blanket and left in a cave somewhere in the bluffs along the river. Probably the graveyard was best. With a coffin and a prayer, as the doctor said. Maybe Red would be at peace there.

He went home and found the stranger, the man who had brought the message, still there, asleep in Red’s bunk. He didn’t rouse, but Meo did when Tom went in. Tom told Meo that Red was dead.

Meo sat up and crossed himself. “So,” he said. He asked no questions. He sat there on his bunk for several minutes, then lay down again, turned his face to the wall and went back to sleep.