A Congregation of Jackals Read online

  In the nascent quiet, the three men listened. Dicky heard the trot of a lazy horse, a woman call out, a door shut twice, a girl squeal in delight, the name Robert said thrice, each time louder . . . but he heard nothing that alarmed him. He glanced over at Godfrey, who shook his head, and then over at Oswell.

  The rancher said, “C’mon.”

  The three men walked across the stones, boot heels cracking rocks like dusty white knuckles. The trio walked onto the platform, beneath the overhang; the sweat upon Dicky’s forehead grew chill the moment he entered the shade. The Negro eyed him sullenly, but said nothing.

  Dicky approached the door. He surveyed the people within the train station: several read newspapers, one ate a large sandwich, one slept on a bench and two children chased after each other, their mother observing them with a frown that was recurrent enough to put wrinkles around her mouth. Dicky and the Danfords stopped just outside of the door and set their luggage down.

  To the man eating the sandwich, the New Yorker said, “Excuse me, sir.”

  The man looked up from the sandwich still jutting from his mouth; a large hunk of ham dangled like a stupid tongue in between the two pieces of seeded pumpernickel. Dicky tightened his grip upon the studded pommel of his revolver; the Danfords were still as trees, their hands at their hips. Two of the oldsters reading newspapers looked up; the mother ran to her children, looking over her shoulder at the trio.

  Dicky asked, “Are any men standing at either side of this door or beside any of the open windows? You may nod.”

  The man shook his head. A drop of mustard dribbled from the ham like slobber.

  The three men outside the station door relaxed, picked up their luggage and walked inside. Behind them, Dicky heard the Negro resume his slow and steady scratching of the overhang.

  Oswell pointed his left index finger to the front window of the station and said, “Over there.” Dicky looked through the glass and in the bottom right corner saw the rear wheel and trunk of a stagecoach.

  As the three men walked from the station, one of the oldsters said, “I think Albert is choking on that sandwich.”

  “Nah,” another replied. “He just chew so slow you can’t see it happenin’ all at once.”

  “Why does he eat like that for? Makes ’im look like a imbecile.”

  “He loves to eat, but ain’t got much money to buy food with. You should see him wit’ a boiled potato—an hour and a half to finish her off.”

  “It’s like some sorta contest.”

  The sun heated Dicky’s face, hat and jacket the moment he stepped into the weedy lawn in front of the station. Fifteen yards off was a stagecoach surmounted by an oldster and a short-haired teenage Indian wearing denims and a formal jacket that, sans dust, might have been worn by a white man to a society event (though his loafers could never be shined into something presentable).

  The old man—a spider-shaped fellow who seemed equal parts limb and belly—turned on his coach bench to face the trio and said, “You the ones that wired for a stagecoach up to Trailspur?”

  Dicky and the Danfords did not answer; they continued to approach the stagecoach in silence. The Indian leaned forward toward the rider’s box.

  “Don’t,” Oswell said.

  In the time it took the oldster to blink twice, Dicky dropped his suitcases, drew, thumbed and pointed his gun at the Indian’s face. The native stopped.

  Oswell, drawing his own gun, said, “Raise your hands, both of you.”

  The two coachmen complied; their pale palms sat in the blue sky like starfish.

  Oswell said, “We don’t mean any harm—we just need to check. Open up the coach so we can look inside.”

  The Indian jumped down—he was an agile brave—and walked to the side door that faced Dicky and the Danfords. With a tattooed hand, he twisted the handle and pulled the door wide. The stagecoach was weathered and threadbare, but empty.

  “You satisfied?” the oldster asked, more annoyed than angry.

  “For now. But if we get ambushed by a certain party, you two catch the first bullets,” the rancher said, holstering his gun.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t take you, threatenin’ me that way.”

  “It’s only a threat if you planned on double-crossing us,” Godfrey clarified.

  “Well, I’m honest.”

  “Then let’s load up,” Godfrey suggested.

  The Indian, who had wholly ignored the argument, checked the four-in-hand brace fitted to the quartet of old steeds.

  Dicky said, “Are these horses upset that they’re still working while their grandchildren have been put out to pasture?”

  “They ain’t that old. They canter good. And I’m not renegotiating the price, if that’s what you’re after.”

  Dicky placed his suitcases inside the trunk the Indian opened down and said, “We’ll pay what we agreed.”

  “What’s the likelihood of coming upon Indians?” Godfrey asked.

  “A coin toss, but most of them are peaceable,” the old man said, spitting. He pointed to his teenage partner. “And Chawipon knows how to talk to the ornery ones.”

  “Are we gonna make it to Trailspur by nightfall?”

  The old man clambered up to the driver’s bench and said, “Certainly not. But we’re meeting up with two more coaches headed to Westland and will have their company most of the way to Trailspur. Things are safer in a caravan.”

  Dicky sat on one of the shabbily upholstered benches within the stagecoach and looked through the window at the mountains on the horizon and the dissolving implications of more peaks beyond those.

  “It’s pretty country,” Godfrey opined.

  “It’s wild,” his brother replied, the remark having neither positive nor negative intonations.

  Godfrey looked at Oswell and said, “Do you think Quinlan will come at us before we get there?” The inquiry was followed by a heavy silence. The name that had not been said aloud had now been uttered.

  “I don’t think so. I think he intends for this to be a showdown at the wedding,” Oswell said.

  Above and in front of them, on the roof of the stagecoach, Chawipon snapped the reins and the car jerked forward.

  The two other stagecoaches were filled with excited Orientals newly arrived from the Far East. As Dicky listened to them chatter, he thought of pigeons pecking at pieces of discarded bread.

  He and the Danfords searched the stagecoaches, but found nothing they felt was worrisome. Regardless, the trio insisted that the chattering Orientals ride before them into the open landscape of the Montana Territory.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Grotesques

  I apologize if my handwriting is not as neat as before, but I am writing this in the Montana plains by moonlight and cannot see as clear as on the train. And I can’t light a lantern either, because that might attract the Indians, though they are supposedly peaceful ones out here, at least according to the driver.

  Let me continue.

  So there was that anonymous note I had about a business proposition and I told the fellows about it. We decided to go meet the man who wrote it at Black Cleft.

  We rondyvewed the next night, J, D, the other fellow and me. We went to the gorge, walked down and saw a small cave in the cleft wall fifteen feet up from the ground that we walked on. In that raised shelf was an odd tent and beside it was a small fire. We went closer to the tent and saw that it was covered with scalps sewn into the fabric to keep out the desert chill. None of us had ever scene anything like it before and immediately I was uncomfortable. We had our guns out, ready.

  Then a voice from within the tent said, “Put your guns away,” with an Irish accent. “I put stones all around the cleft—if anyone fires, there will be an avalanche and you’ll be crushed.” We looked up at the edges of the gorge and saw dozens of big stones hanging there—dragged into position and held back by branches and smaller stones that had ropes on them so they could be pulled loose. That was how Quinlan was—always thinking ahead o
f other fellows.

  So we put our guns away and he came out of the tent into the firelight, standing on that shelf fifteen feet above us. Quinlan was almost as tall as J, but skinnier than a sick woman. His eyes were different colors—one was blue, the other green—and sunken deep in his face. He had long wavy red hair that receded to the middle of his head and brown splotches like burn marks across his cheeks. His teeth were crooked and yellow. I’m telling you all this because I have no idea what he might do after he’s killed me. You should tell Sheriff Waterson to be on the lookout for a fellow of that description and shoot him on sight no matter what he says.

  So Quinlan said, “I need you boys to break three of my men out of jail. They got caught in Santa Fuerte and are to be hanged on Saturday.” I asked him what his men did. “They shot up a saloon and then beat the sheriff and his deputy to death with wine bottles.”

  I looked at J, D and the other fellow and saw that none of us felt good about this situation. I said, “Why would we want to help these brigands?”

  Quinlan sat upon the ledge of his shelf and dangled his long legs down. The fire that lit him from the side made his skin look as red as his hair.

  He took out an Indian knife, pointed it at us and said, “I have a business scheme that earns money, very big money for any who ride with me. I need these fellows out of jail to do it. If you rescue them, I’ll include you too.”

  I said, “We’re supposed to believe you without any more information than that?” But Quinlan didn’t say anything, he just sat there, waiting. Even though he didn’t tell us more, something about the way he spoke, we all believed him—this was a man who did what he said he would do.

  The other fellow said, “How many guards are at this jail?”

  Quinlan said, “Usually two. I don’t care if you kill them as long as you get my men out of there.”

  I clarified that we didn’t shoot a man unless he drew on us. To that, Quinlan said nothing.

  Oswell stood up from the stone he had been sitting on and arched his back, eliciting a string of minute pops. He saw that he had some ink on his right hand and rubbed some spit and dirt on the stain to no avail.

  The rancher glanced over at the three stagecoaches, from which emanated the alien snores of Orientals. The vehicles were lined in a row against a sheer cliff wall for protection. The Indian stood guard, rifle in hand, eyes alert.

  Oswell sat back down and pressed his fountain pen to the paper laid atop the wooden plank he used as a desk. He resumed writing.

  We went to Santa Fuerte, which was a few hours ride from Nuevo Pueblo. D and I cased the jail and saw that there were two guards, just like Quinlan said—an anxious teenager and an older fellow who looked sad, probably a relative of one of the victims.

  D and I rondyvewd with J and the other fellow and went over the plan. We would hit late at night, when these men were slow with sleep.

  There was one last discussion in our group as to whether or not we should get involved with this jailbreak and Quinlan. J was worried what business scheme a man like Quinlan would involve us in, especially since he rode with brutal murderers, which even though we’d killed people, we didn’t consider ourselves (though I now see that the distinction is pretty thin). We decided to do it, though J never really said yes, he just didn’t say no. He was thinking of going legitimate as a carpenter and was getting religious.

  Long after midnight, we went to the jail. D knocked on the door, saying there’d been a shooting, and the younger one opened the door to find a gun in his face. The other fellow and I stormed in, guns pointed at the older guard, who raised his hands like we told him. He then told us he didn’t have the keys. I asked him where the keys were and he said the deputy—the one who wasn’t killed—had them at his house. This was starting to get complicated.

  D and I took the older guard and had him lead us to the deputy’s home, which was a fair distance away. Outside the deputy’s home I looked at the old guard and told him what to say and what I’d do to him if he didn’t follow the plan. D and I hid on either side of the door, pressed flat in the shadows. The old guard knocked and after a minute the deputy’s wife came to the door. He told her he needed the keys because the prisoners had a scuffle and one got his arm broken in half and was screaming crazy. The deputy arrived, yawning, and said he’d go over and help deal with the prisoners. After he shut the door, I put a gun in his back and said, “Walk.” D, who had his gun pressed to the old guard, followed behind.

  We got to the jail and put handcuffs and gags on the old guard and the deputy like J had already done to the teenage guard. D took the keys from the deputy’s belt and he and I went to the back of the jail and opened the door leading to the cells.

  D and I saw the men we were about to break out of jail—a big fat fellow with blond hair who looked like an overgrown toddler and a swarthy pair of identical twins who looked like reptiles. I could tell that D was having his doubts too, but we opened the cells and let these men out. They didn’t thank us or anything. They just walked into the main area and went into the drawers to fetch their guns.

  We put the deputy and guards in the empty cells and locked them up. We left the jail and got to our horses—we had picked up a few extra for the fugitives—and rode out of Santa Fuerte without any problems.

  We rondyvewd with Quinlan at my house in Nuevo Pueblo. The Irishman looked at the fugitives with an unfriendly gaze and said, “Don’t do that again,” and the twins and the big toddler (who was probably my age) nodded and turned their heads down like whipped children.

  There were eight of us then, which Quinlan thought was just enough to pull off his plot. We ate and went to sleep and the next day rode out to Indian country.

  There was a tribe of Indians in southwest Arizona called the Appanuqi, and of all the Indians in the West, they were the most feared. When white men first moved into that land, the Appanuqi did not attack isolated coaches or stragglers—they swept down and raided the settlements. They killed most of the settlers, but always left a few alive, usually boys and girls, who they blinded with torches. When these children returned to the fringes of civilization, blind and sometimes mute, other people weren’t quick to follow the trails of their wagon wheels. Also, the Appanuqi traveled with grotesques for entertainment, Mexicans, other types of Indians and white people they had reshaped with doctoring and stoning and torture. The Appanuqis fought the other Indians and amongst themselves and were disappearing because of it. Not much else was known about these Indians because they did not ever speak to white men.

  So when Quinlan told us that we were going to an Appanuqi settlement, the Tall Boxer Gang reined in. The other four pulled their steeds around and looked at us and at our hands.

  I asked why any sane fellow would go there and Quinlan said, “The toddler can speak Appanuqi.” D asked how he learned that. Quinlan answered, “He captured one two years ago. It took a few months, but he forced the words out of him with a hammer.” It was then that I knew for certain we’d made a huge mistake throwing in with these men, and I saw it in the eyes of my fellows too. Just the same, we knew there’d be a gunfight if we backed away from this deal and the twins looked as fast as any of us on the draw, probably faster.

  “So he can speak Appanuqi,” I said, wanting to know more.

  Quinlan went on, “We are going to take over a tribe I’ve been marking for half a year. Intimidate them and get them under our heels.” He explained how he intended to do that, which was mean business. The other fellow asked him what would happen if the Appanuqi didn’t go along with the scheme or if they just came at us straight away.

  Quinlan said, “We have enough firepower to put a third of them down before reloading and I have plenty of grenades to finish off the rest. As long as nobody hesitates, we are in no danger.” He said this last bit to my gang, as if we might be squeamish.

  I mentioned to you once right after Benjamin was born that my father was killed by Indians, so you can figure I didn’t object to putting some
down—especially savages like these—but I knew I couldn’t bring myself to shoot a child or a woman no matter what race they were or what was happening. I kept these thoughts to myself.

  We rode far. The sun had set and I heard some coyotes on the wind. J talked about buying a house and getting some dogs someday, but he was nervous and didn’t believe what he was saying. D, the other fellow and I were silent.

  We made camp and huddled around a pit fire to make it less visible from high vantage points. Everyone kept their guns on while they chewed beans and dried beef and peanuts. The only ones who talked were the twins to each other, and I soon realized I shouldn’t listen to their stories because I would get into a brawl that would probably turn into a shootout.

  When the moon was halfway up the sky, Quinlan said, “It’s time to conduct our interview.” He pulled a strap with eight grenades over his shoulder and gave the twins two more with just as many. We climbed onto our horses and rode southwest toward a ridge of mountains.

  That ride was three hours, but it felt like a week. Our horses clumb the slope, their hooves getting louder and louder as the slope got steeper and steeper. Soon that clopping was the only sound I heard. We went up the incline, at the edge of which hung the half moon, then on its way down. When we reached the edge of the escarpment, we looked into a huge gorge. Two dozen fires burned in the settlement down below, which was by a small pond. Seventy wigwams were arranged in a large circle around a central building that was round and made of stacked flat stones. The curving wall of this structure was decorated with white pebbles, which—when I got closer—I saw were human skulls.