Wraiths of the Broken Land (34 page)

Chapter VII
The Deep Defeat

Dolores Plugford looked beyond the azure veil of gunpowder and at the crimson stagecoach that was parked one hundred and fifteen yards south of the fort. Inside that distant vehicle was the man who had defeated her.

Sitting at the far end of the oaken dining room table, the one-eyed Spaniard nodded his head in approbation. “Jorge Calao complimented your beauty and amenability. And Eduardo Ramirez, who described you as affectionate, prefers you over every other woman in Catacumbas.”

“There ain’t no pleasure in any of it. None at all—it’s just…” Dolores rubbed her palms along the armrests of the stone chair in which she was seated. “It’s just easier not to fight sometimes.”

“That is exactly what I said to you three months earlier, when you first arrived.”

“Roast in Hell.”

“I ask for you to accept the fact that you are now my employee. If you do embrace your vocation, you will be treated well and granted the same privileges that—”

“I ain’t no whore. Never.”

A plate of shrimp and rice was set before the Spaniard and each of the six wraiths that sat beside him. Luminous eyes alternately observed the redheaded gringa and the steaming food.

“You are fucked by strangers,” Gris said to Dolores. “You are from a lower class background and are poorly educated. Should I return you to society, no man would ever want to marry you, and cancan dancing will not provide you with very much income once you are middle-aged.” The Spaniard unfolded his silk napkin and set it upon his lap. “The only thing that separates you from the other whores who work for me is that you have no say regarding what happens to you.” He lifted a silver fork and speared a pink shrimp that looked like an embryo. “I would prefer to treat you well. But first, you must accept that you are my employee.”

Gris put the shellfish into his mouth, chewed and swallowed.

The silent men picked up their forks, and the light from the candelabra flashed across polished silver.

Although Dolores knew that the quality of her life would be improved if she accepted Gris’s offer, the thought of acquiescence filled her with shame.

A plate of real food landed on the table in front her, and the rich smells of butter, garlic, onions, peppers and shrimp caused her to salivate. Presently, a glass of aromatic red wine materialized. For three months Dolores had subsisted on sour chicken soup that was distributed by a pump through a pig’s intestine.

Gris thrust four tines into a large pink shrimp. “I am pleased to see that you are taking my offer seriously.”

Dolores ate the proffered meal and summarily accepted her forced vocation.

Three weeks later, she attacked one of her regular customers and had her foot shot off.

“You’ve got ten seconds!” warned Long Clay.

Dolores Plugford returned from her grim recollections and surveyed the world that opposed the barrel of her rifle. Horizontal rays of sunlight brightened the fog and turned charred corpses into obsidian abstractions. From the open portal of the crimson stagecoach emerged a man in a white suit that was spattered with blood.

“Go to the other animals!” yelled a man from within the turquoise stagecoach.

“Don’t fire,” Long Clay told the siblings. “We need to be sure.”

“Okay,” said Brent.

The gunfighter handed his telescopic sight to Dolores. “Identify him.”

Holding the optical device before her right eye, the redheaded woman looked across the battlefield. The white-haired, one-eyed Spaniard stood at the edge of the trench, looking down at his dead progeny. Hatred filled the woman’s belly. “That’s him.”

Dolores released the telescopic sight and grabbed her rifle.

Gris dropped into the trench, out of view.

Long Clay snatched the weapon from Dolores’s hands and cast it across the fort. “A bad shot or an injury will prolong the engagement.” He picked up his telescopic sight and reattached it to his long-range rifle. “Gris! Get out of the trench!”

“I want to shoot him,” said Dolores. “After…after what he made me—I get to do it myself.”

“Revenge isn’t a tactic.”

The crippled woman from Texas would not allow another man to take something from her ever again. With both hands, she seized the barrel of the telescopic rifle. “Give it over!”

The gunfighter grabbed the woman’s left wrist and twisted. “Let go.”

“Gris just bolted,” Brent remarked from the roof.

Long Clay slapped Dolores.

The woman capsized her stool and fell to the ground. “Bastard!” The fort wobbled before her eyes, and her left cheek stung.

“What the hell’s goin’ on down there?!?” shouted Brent.

Long Clay threw a cold look at Dolores. “Don’t make this worse.”

If she told Brent what had happened, he would climb down from the roof, race into the fort and confront a man who could easily kill him. “Nothin’.” This was not the first time she had lied for the benefit of a Plugford man.

“You sure?” asked Brent.

“I’m sure.”

Long Clay pointed his gun through the crenellation. “Brent. Where is he?”

“He jumped into a crater.”

“Which one?”

“On the west. I’m not sure which exactly—he moved fast.”

Deep Lakes appeared in the east entrance, entered the fort, closed the door, slid the iron bolt north, strode beside Dolores and helped her onto her stool. His dark eyes noted the scarlet mark upon her left cheek, and his face grew grave. “Long Clay.”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t ever hit J.L.’s daughter.”

“I had a reason.”

“No you didn’t. Strike her again and our partnership will end.”

“Fine. Take a look outside.”

The Indian kissed the woman’s stinging cheek, stood up and walked to the far side of the south wall.

Dolores looked though her slit. Pulled by hasty horses, the wagons and the turquoise stagecoach rolled downhill toward the woodlands. “They’re leavin’,” remarked the redheaded woman, perplexed. The significance of the opposition’s descent struck her a moment later. “Brent!” A tingling hope electrified her nerves. “They’re leavin’—they’re runnin’ off!”

“I see ‘em!” her brother enthused from the roof. “Now it’s only Gris we gotta get.”

Hundreds of yards south of the fort, hooves thundered and wooden wheels spun. The opposing force retreated, careening.

“I don’t like this,” Long Clay said to the Indian.

“Nor do I.” Deep Lakes fitted three arrows to his bow.

“But we won,” opined Dolores, confused by the duo’s concerns. “It’s only Gris out there.”

The triangular stock of a repeater rifle appeared before her face.

“Take it,” said Long Clay.

Dolores reclaimed the weapon.

“Shoot him if you see him,” the gunfighter announced, “it no longer matters if it’s clean or in pieces.”

“Okay,” replied the siblings.

Dolores extracted the rifle’s depleted magazine, dropped it to the ground, slotted a replacement, flung the trigger guard and pointed the barrel south. The retreating force was more than a mile away, and on the near side of the trench, the riven land was still. Three black cruciforms that were vultures wheeled in the dark blue sky.

Brent inquired, “Should we go out and hunt for—”

Two black lines shot up from a southern crater. The oblongs, each orbited by circle of white fire, spun end-over-end, landed fifty yards south of the fort, rolled two feet and exploded. Dolores squinted and was pushed back from her slit. Dawn sunlight turned the cloud of dust into a brilliant flower that obscured half of the horizon.

“Hell,” remarked Brent from above.

Long Clay did not fire, nor did Deep Lakes release.

“Brent,” the gunfighter asked, “can you see past that?”

“No.”

Somewhere behind the brilliant flower, a gun resounded.

Deep Lakes stumbled back from his slit and clutched his gory throat. Three shafts thudded into the ceiling, and the Indian fell to the ground, gurgling.

“Oh God.”

Dolores pointed her rifle in the general direction of the unseen report, fired, expelled the spent shell and sent another bullet. Four red oblongs flew from the opposite side of the brilliant white flower and landed less than ten yards from the fort.

“No,” muttered Dolores.

The dynamite exploded. White fire and dirt flew through the slit, splashed Dolores’s face and knocked her from her stool. The floor slammed into her back and concussed her head. Along the façade, the captives shrieked. Gunshots rang out.

Unable to see, Dolores discarded her rifle. She spat out a paste of gore and sand, scooped detritus from her tingling face and tugged upon a cord that was anchored to the back of her left eye socket.

“No.”

Guns exploded pell-mell in the world of men.

“Your entire family shall perish!” The voice belonged to Gris.

Footsteps pounded across the fort. A hissing stick smacked Dolores Plugford’s nose, bounced to the floor and rolled.

“Whore.”

Chapter VIII
The Application of Hooked Beaks

Prone atop the southwest corner of the roof, Brent Plugford wiped grit from his face and ripped a splinter lose. “Hell.” The brilliant limbo of sunlit dust enveloped him like heaven collapsed, and he could not see anything but light.

“Brent!” Dolores shouted from the opposite side of the fort. “Don’t get killed! I love y—”

Thunder boomed. The eastern half of the roof erupted, and mortar, wood and bricks flew into the air. Brent was hurled from the west side into a bright white purgatory. Behind him, the fort shrank. The sere ground slammed into his left shoulder, and his right knee popped.

Brent lost consciousness and awakened a moment later, ears ringing and pains singing. On the far side of the blasted fort, stones and wood thudded against the ground. He prayed that Dolores had somehow survived the explosion. “Please,” he said to the dirt.

The badly injured man knew that he would be physically incapable of chasing after Gris, and so he devised a simple tactic that he hoped would conclude the internecine engagement. He rolled onto his stomach and crawled, agonizingly, toward the body of Jose Pastillo, the vaquero who had killed Stevie. Brent surmised that the fellow (like the Midwesterner and others) had joined Gris’s crew without knowing the real reason why the battle had first begun and what was at stake. “It’s like a war,” mumbled the cowboy as he reached the corpse.

Brent put his good hand underneath Jose Pastillo’s nape, sat him upright and covered his gory head with a hat. “There.” Presently, the cowboy claimed the fallen revolver, crawled into the graveyard, hid behind an unmarked stone, set the purloined weapon down and withdrew his own nickel-plated pistol. Twenty feet southwest of his position in the cemetery sat the corpse, hunched forward and ready to play checkers.

Shaking and dizzy, Brent monitored the riven land that laid south of the body. Nothing moved, excepting brilliant celestial smoke and vultures.

“¡Ayudame!” cried the cowboy.

An unseen man said, “¿Quién es ese?”

Brent waited in silence. He did not repeat his cry for help, which likely had some flaw in terms of enunciation, despite how many times he had heard the captives wail it from the façade.

Vultures applied their sharp beaks to obsidian corpses. Throughout the tableau, the hooked chisels of scavengers echoed.

A narrow shadow spilled from the southwest corner of the fort and inquired “¿Quién es ese?” Footsteps ground grit slowly, like the jaw of an old man eating peanuts.

Brent raised his nickel-plated pistol and aimed it at the elongate black stain, which was sixty feet away.

“
I admit,” the unseen man said from behind the fort, “that I imprisoned two women and forced them to work as whores so that they could pay off your family’s debt. That was my crime.” Hard shoes ground grit, and the shadow lengthened. “You killed and tortured innocent men. You murdered three of my sons. You murdered a pregnant woman, who was my daughter-in-law, and you murdered her baby, who was a beautiful girl. You murdered a baby girl!” The footsteps and the shadow stopped. “Face me with dignity if you have any, you vile, myopic and uneducated American!”

The cowboy could not contain his anger. “You stole and raped my sisters, you dumb hypocrite!” Vulture beaks chipped crystalline corpses. “You don’t deserve no goddamn dign—”

Gris flung his left arm around the corner of the fort and fired twice.

Jose Pastillo’s body fell over.

Brent squeezed rapidly. Two bullets cracked against the fort wall. The third shot impacted Gris’s exposed forearm and knocked his gun into the air. When the cowboy’s hammer clicked upon empty shells, he dropped his weapon.

Gris drew a second pistol.

Brent reached for Jose Pastillo’s revolver.

A gunshot flashed within the west crenellation. The bullet cracked against the rock in Gris’s face and sent it deep into his brain. His remaining eye bulged and gore squirted from his nose. The Spaniard stumbled forward, dropped to his knees and slammed to the ground. Three more bullets cracked his spinal column.

“Dolores?” Hope fluttered within Brent’s chest. “That you?”

Trailing dark gray smoke and covered with black soot, Long Clay emerged from the fort. The overall shape of his body was somehow different, and he lacked his right hand.

Although the cowboy already knew the answer to his question, he asked, “Is Dolores okay?”

“She’s dead.”

Emptiness filled Brent.

Coughing up blood and dark bits, the misshapen gunfighter hobbled toward the sunken stable.

“Is Yvette okay?”

Long Clay slid into the ground.

“I need to check on Yvette,” Brent said to himself. “See if she’s still…see if she’s okay.” He clutched the top of a tombstone with his good arm and pulled himself to his feet. “I’m com—” His right knee buckled, and a grave marker struck the side of his head.

Lying upon the cemetery ground, Brent Plugford stared up at the blue sky, where not one cloud trespassed. “We didn’t deserve none of this.” He looked away from the empty vault. “We didn’t.” The hooked beaks of vultures clicked against crystalline corpses and unearthed red crystals.

Darkness consumed everything.