Wraiths of the Broken Land (21 page)

Brent looked north. Sitting upon a crate at the rear of the rumbling wagon was Patch Up. The cowboy could not look at the negro’s face.

In front of the fleeing Plugford crew expanded the north range of Gran Manos. The eastern faces of the mountains were ablaze with sunlight and sharply contrasted the major part of the blue vista, as if the whole tableau were an enormous stencil, backlighted by a white fire that would sear the eyes of any man stupid enough to look up.

Brent Plugford felt small, inconsequential and weak.

Part III
The Blood Hierarchy

Chapter I
Elixirs Denied and Given

Yvette Upfield looked at the tall narrow man who held her bundled body. A rubber mask concealed most of his face, excepting his blue eyes, which were visible through his blood-spattered goggles. An uneasy feeling burgeoned within the choirmaster’s heart, and she turned away from the dark man.

A luminous white stallion appeared.

Tied across the saddle of the animal was a huge arch of flesh that was John Lawrence Plugford. The man’s hands and feet reached toward the ground, swaying like the frills at the bottom of a dress. Tethered to the funereal animal and wearing a sidesaddle was a brown palfrey that Yvette had not ridden since her wedding day.

“My father’s dead, isn’t he?”

“He is.”

Yvette felt cold. “They shot him.”

“They did.”

With a hard skeletal hand, Yvette wiped tears from her eyes. “I’ll say a prayer for him.” Although John Lawrence Plugford was a good and loving father, he was an unbeliever who had committed many terrible sins, and the choirmaster doubted the efficacy of any prayer that she might say on his behalf.

“Do that,” said the tall narrow man.

Yvette closed her eyes and attempted to recall the words Minister Johnstone had uttered at Roger Field’s funeral service, but her dependent body cried out like a starving mendicant. The world wrought by God—the sphere of clouds, mountains, trees, churches, families, horses, dogs, bugs, diseases, rape and murder—shrank until it became one sharp scintillating point from which dripped the elixir of salvation.

The woman who had forgotten her name opened her eyes and looked up at the stranger. “I need medicine.”

“How long since your last shot?”

“All I had in the last four days was a tiny bit last night. It wasn’t—”

“You went through withdrawal?”

“I did, but—”

“You’re through the worst of it.”

“I need some now.”

“I don’t argue.”

“But you have to find something.” Yvette began to tremble. “I can feel my insides.” A paroxysm seized her body and she kicked her left leg.

Coolly, the tall narrow man looked away.

The woman who had forgotten her name rested her heavy head, shut her eyes and tried to send forth her soul.

A hoof shattered a rock and awakened Yvette. Ahead of her, mounted insects, which were her siblings and the tall blonde gentleman who had refused to look at her naked body, ascended the steep terrain, preceded by the family wagon. Sand and stones dripped from the hooves of the straining beasts and rattled down the incline.

Yvette adjusted her cold and wet blanket. “Did it rain?”

“You have a fever,” stated the tall narrow stranger.

“I need my medicine is why. I’m gonna die—you don’t understand.” The woman convulsed twice, and felt as if she were about to vomit. “I need it!” Clear fluid dripped from her nose.

The mounted insects that were her siblings looked back.

“Is Yvette okay?” asked Brent.

“She’s fine,” answered the tall narrow man.

To her brother, Yvette yelled, “I’m gonna die!”

The stranger looked down at her and said, “You must rest.”

“You’re the devil! I know it!” Yvette’s skin was burning and she smelled sulfur. “You’re the devil in the flesh!”

The tall narrow man stroked her forehead.

“Where’s my Samuel? Do you know what happened to him? Why he ain’t—why he isn’t here?”

“You must rest.”

“I’m gonna die!”

The black horse crested a ridge. Yvette watched her father, borne by the white stallion, rise from the dirt. The emaciated woman trembled, shut her eyes, curled herself into a ball within the devil’s arms and heard something hiss.

The darkness expanded.

Twenty-two years old and wearing a modest tan dress, Yvette Plugford marched through the swinging doors of Bess Hack’s Saloon of San Francisco. Heads emerged from slumped shoulders, turned toward the new arrival and flashed watery eyes that were simultaneously defeated and stimulated. The blonde woman surveyed the champions who intended to conquer their sobriety two hours before noon on a Wednesday. Atop a wooden barstool and melting like a candle was Gunther Linderson, the sixty-two-year-old organ player.

Yvette approached the negligent musician. “Mr. Linderson.”

The Swedish organist lifted his flat face from his hands and swiveled. “Miss Plugford.” His eyes were red and his overalls smelled like August.

“I’m not goin’ to lecture you.”

“This is how the lectures begin.”

“We don’t got—we don’t have any time. You were supposed to be at the church thirty minutes ago. Lots of folks depend on you.”

“I’m independent.”

“You’re drunk is what you are. Let’s go.” The choirmaster grabbed the Swedish man’s right elbow and tugged.

Mr. Linderson did not rise from his seat.

Yvette looked at the stout and dour barmaid, Bess Hack, who was her eternal adversary. “I asked you to mind what he drank on Wednesdays.”

“I heard your request.”

The choirmaster knew that she did not have time to scold the woman properly, and thus focused her energies upon the organist’s arm. “Don’t make this difficult.”

A diminutive and dapper blonde man, wearing an olive three-piece suit and matching bowler cap, strode toward the bar. To Yvette, he said, “Allow me to offer my assistance.”

“Get his legs.”

The pretty gentleman grinned and said, “I have a bottle that will help restore him—a healthful elixir that provides energy and combats the affects of alcohol.”

Mr. Linderson was aghast. “Why do you have such a terrible thing?”

“I only wish to help you fulfill your obligations.”

“We ain’t—we aren’t buying any cure-alls,” said Yvette.

“What I proffer is not a cure-all, but rather a highly effective restorative.” The dapper salesman pointed a scintillating index fingernail at the organist. “I shall administer to this dilapidated fellow—”

“What are you calling me?”

“I shall administer to this dilapidated fellow one free dosage of my elixir and, in so doing, prove its highly potent efficacy.” The dapper salesman revealed the whitest teeth that Yvette had ever seen.

“Okay.” The choirmaster looked at her frowning adversary behind the bar. “Please give Mr. Linderson a cup.”

“We don’t have ‘cups’ in this saloon.” Bess Hack slammed a small glass upon the table. “We have tumblers.”

Yvette held her tongue.

The dapper salesman reached inside his olive jacket and withdrew a dark flat bottle that bore a caricature of himself, smiling and winking, and the words,
Upfield’s
Restorative Elixir
. His finely-manicured fingers rotated the bottle one hundred and eighty degrees so that Yvette and the barmaid could see the declaration,
‘It certainly works!’

“The size of the dosage,” the dapper salesman informed the women, “is mathematically proportional to the patient’s body mass.” He appraised the organist, nodded, removed the cork and poured out a thick, tarry concoction.

“I know what death looks like,” remarked Mr. Linderson.

“Drink it down,” said Yvette.

The drunken organist raised the tumbler to his lips, shut his eyes, opened his mouth, tossed the ichor inside and swallowed.

Expectantly, the salesman folded his hands.

Yvette and Bess Hack waited.

Mr. Linderson opened his eyes. “This tastes like coffee.”

“That is one of the elixir’s numerous ingredients.”

The organist savored the flavor a moment longer. “Bad coffee with some prune juice and black pepper.” He smacked his lips. “Maybe cinnamon.”

“Do you feel restored?” asked Yvette.

“I feel—” The fellow clutched his stomach and rose to his feet. “I need a latrine.”

“Behold the self-motivated man!” The dapper salesman threw his hands to Heaven for emphasis.

Mr. Linderson ambled toward the swinging doors, and Bess Hack walked toward wanting inebriates at the far end of the bar.

Yvette looked at the dapper salesman. “Thanks for helpin’,”

“You are quite welcome. And please call upon me, Samuel C. Upfield IV, at Hotel Adams, should you wish to purchase a supply of the elixir.”

“Okay.” The choirmaster walked after the organist, paused and looked back at the ebullient, articulate and pretty little dandy. “You should come on over to church if you want to connect with some good folks and God. I know that the life of a traveling salesman can be lonesome.”

“Thank you for your invitation.” Samuel C. Upfield IV replaced his elixir bottle within his jacket and ruminated momentarily. “I have not been to church in several months, and I feel an absence.”

“I’ll be there too,” stated Yvette.

“Then I have absolutely no choice, but to attend.” Samuel C. Upfield IV looked directly into Yvette’s eyes and smiled brilliantly.

The woman’s pulse quickened.

Darkness receded.

Wind blew upon Yvette Upfield’s forehead and snapped the fabric of her damp blanket. Beneath her spine, heavy hooves rumbled like boiling water. The emaciated woman opened her eyes and saw the triangular bronze face of the man who carried her. Cold blue gems glinted beneath his iron eyebrows, and a slender silver mustache sat atop the slit that denied her requests for medicine. The sun glared, tiny and hostile, upon his right shoulder.

Shielding her eyes from the burning orb, the woman looked south and saw, upon the white stallion, her dead father, far larger than the mountain range that laid behind him.

“How long’ve I been out?” Yvette’s mouth was dry and pasty, and the air was hot.

“Two hours. How do you feel?”

“My head hurts bad.”

“Are you hungry?”

Yvette tasted the sour chicken soup upon which she had subsisted for the last eight months and shuddered. “No.”

“Drink slowly.”

A canteen appeared. Yvette took the vessel, removed its stopper and poured cool water into her dry, empty body.

“You must rest.” Gloved hands reclaimed the canteen.

“I’m not tired.”

The tall narrow man pulled the blanket over the world. “Rest.”

“I’m not tired.” Yvette’s eyelids drooped. “I’m not tired.” Hooves boiled, darkness expanded, and in a dream that was reality, the wagon bench pressed against her back.

Chapter II
A Brief Respite for the Troglodytes

Pincers pricked Nathaniel Stromler’s soft palate, and spindly legs poked his cheeks. For the fifth time in thirty seconds, the tall gentleman from Michigan coughed as hard as he could.

“I think the dandy’s chokin’ to death,” Stevie remarked from atop his cantering colt.

Nathaniel reached his left index finger and thumb into his mouth, pinched the prickly scorpion corpse and pulled. The tail slid up his throat and its folded legs blossomed like a hideous flower.

Dolores yelled.

“Goddamn!”

“Does he need help?” Patch Up asked from the front of the rumbling wagon.

The gentleman flung the scorpion to the brown dirt, attempted to speak, felt a sharp pain in his throat, coughed up an insectile leg, spat it out and shook his head.

“He don’t,” replied Stevie.

Nathaniel had dislodged two of the ingested scorpions, but the third was no longer a presence within his throat or stomach and had descended into his intestines. The journey and ultimate emergence of the dead arachnid was not a pleasant thing to ponder.

On the northern horizon, creosote bushes, yucca trees and black grama expanded like spilled paint. The stand of vegetation was far taller and broader than anything Nathaniel recalled seeing on the journey down and engendered a new concern.

He spat bile and oil and hastened his horse forward, toward the wagon. The tan mare, exhausted and carrying a bullet in its hindquarters, strained to close the distance.

“Your horse ain’t doin’ much better than you,” remarked Stevie.

(The young man was not Nathaniel’s favorite Plugford.)

Presently, the tan mare overtook the wagon until the gentleman and the negro rode abreast. Upon the bench beside Patch Up was the unconscious body of Yvette, whom Long Clay had deposited an hour earlier.

The negro said, “It’s the dandy,” and smiled sadly. Underneath the canopy, the circus dog barked.

“This is not the way we came,” observed Nathaniel.

“You’re correct.”

“Why are we not riding directly for Leesville?”

“Do you want to lead whoever’s following us into a town filled with innocent folks? To your fiancé?”

Nathaniel became uneasy. “Is it a certainty that we have pursuers?”

“You’re much smarter than that question, Mr. Stromler.”

Creosote leaves slapped the legs of the horses, and stalks of dry black grama crackled underneath the wagon’s wheels. The tan mare bucked, unhappy with the flagellant flora, and Nathaniel gripped the horn to steady himself. Upon the bench, the bundled body of Yvette stirred.

“Goddamn,” Stevie cried, “lookit Brent!”

Patch Up rose from the bench and gazed over the canopy; Nathaniel faced south. The cowboy was slumped forward in his saddle, unconscious.

“We gotta get him before he falls!” Dolores reined her palfrey toward her brother and her red hair flashed south.

Brent wobbled in the saddle of the cantering mustang.

“Wake up!” Stevie drove spurs into his spotted colt and rode hard. “Get the hell awake!” His horse thundered.

Creosote leaves slapped Brent’s dangling right arm.

“Wake up!” yelled Dolores. “Brent!” Her palfrey galloped.

A bramble snatched a glove from the unconscious rider’s dangling hand.

“Wake up!” Stevie, twenty yards distant, fired his shotgun into the air.

Brent slid from the saddle.

A shadow grabbed the cowboy’s collar and resettled him. “Everyone hold here!” Long Clay snatched the brindled mustang’s loose reins.

Nathaniel slowed his horse; Patch Up pulled tack; Dolores and Stevie rode beside the gunfighter. Hooves and wagon wheels crushed irritating flora and stopped.

The negro stood from his bench and turned around. “Is he bleeding?”

“Not currently,” replied Long Clay.

“Bring him here—I’ll fetch my needles and snippers.”

The gunfighter, trailing the white stallion, the brown palfrey and the brindled mustang, approached the wagon, followed by Stevie and Dolores. Ambitious black grama blades harassed the pendulous limbs of John Lawrence Plugford and his wounded son.

Long Clay dropped from his horse, lifted Brent from the brindled mustang and set him inside the canopy, beside the pile of iron tabards.

“All of you are troglodytes!” Patch Up proclaimed from deep within the wagon. “Imbecilic troglodytes!” The circus dog barked a confirmation of the more descriptive rejoinder.

Long Clay, Dolores and Nathaniel silently accepted the insult.

After a moment, Stevie said, “He told us he could ride.”