Hellfire, page 7
“How can someone eat any of it?”
He sliced into his steak. Slipchuck opened the door. “Save some fer me!” he shouted.
He sat at the table next to Priscilla and poured himself a glass of whiskey. “Here’s to Pitkin!”
He tossed the whiskey down his throat, and his eyes steamed over. “Hot damn!” he said. “This is fine likker!”
Stone was on his third glass, drinking it with his meal as if it were water. He sliced off a chunk of meat and stuck it into his mouth.
Diane looked at him out of the corner of her eyes. The candlelight behind his head showed a noble profile. He was a war veteran, a lost cavalier. What would it be like to be loved by such a man?
He reached for the bottle and filled his glass. Next to him, McManus stuffed a massive piece of steak into his mouth and gobbled it down. Slipchuck swallowed baked beans, gravy spilling into his beard, which seemed a repository of all the meals he’d eaten lately.
There was no delightful dinner conversation. No one spoke about the hunt he was on last Saturday or the latest ball. These people were eating.
Lady Diane daintily cut off a slice of meat and put it in her mouth, chewing nonchalantly. I think I’ve been holding myself a little too aloof, she said to herself, and plunged enthusiastically into the food.
They ate noisily and drank heavily. In the corner the cowboys played cards, one of them hooting occasionally. Backus carried more bottles to the tables, while his wife washed the pots and pans in a tub on a stand.
The door flew open, and a big cowboy with a black beard walked into the room. He slammed the door behind him and staggered to the nearest table. “I just been fired, goddammit, and I been drinkin’, and I’m gonna drink some more, ain’t that right?”
Backus brought him a bottle. The travelers finished their meal, and Backus cleared the dirty dishes away, but left the bottles of whiskey. Everyone continued to drink. McManus went out to the privy. Diane, not accustomed to a steak the size of a small dog, was growing sleepy. I wonder where the beds are?
Somebody stared intently at her: the drunken cowboy who’d just entered the stagecoach cabin. “Howdy, ma’am—name’s Holtzman.”
Diane felt warm, and unfastened the second button of her shirt. Holtzman arose and walked toward her.
Stone saw Holtzman coming and didn’t like the expression on his face. He lowered his hand toward his Colt. Then he saw Holtzman swerve to the side and move toward Diane.
Holtzman pulled up a chair and sat next to Diane. She turned and looked at him. His beard was matted, his eyes were bloodshot, and he looked as if he were insane.
She turned to Stone, and he was drinking whiskey, seemingly unmindful of her. McManus had returned and was pawing his wife. Priscilla had gone to the privy.
The cowboy stared at her, a bent cigarette in his fingers. “Miss,” he said hoarsely, “kin I buy you a drink.”
She turned to him and tried to smile. “No thank you. I’ve got my own.”
“Let’s go out back together, you and me,” he uttered.
She gave him a look that indicated she held him on a level with rodents and other pests. Then she turned to Stone.
“Can you do something about this man?”
“What’s wrong with him?” Stone slurred. “He’s bothering me.”
Stone bent forward and looked at Holtzman who looked back at him, a string of spittle hanging from his thick lower
Hp.
“Who the hell are you?” asked Holtzman, wiping off the spittle and throwing it at the stove.
“I’m with her,” Stone replied.
“How much you want for her?” Holtzman asked.
“She’s not for sale.”
Holtzman thought about that, still staring at Diane.
“Can’t you make him leave?” Diane said.
“How?”
“Tell him to go.”
“There’ll be a fight.”
“If you’re afraid, I’m not.” She turned to Holtzman and eyed him coldly. “Please leave at once!” she commanded.
He stared at the opening in her shirt. Her throat was smooth and white, and a sweet fragrance arose from her body. He felt she needed him, and he leaned toward her, placing his arm around her shoulders, puckering his lips. “I’m all your’n.”
His breath was like a buzzard’s, and his fingers were caked with cowshit. She screamed and jumped to her feet. Holtzman lost his footing and fell to the floor. Stone burst out laughing, spilling whiskey onto his shirt.
Holtzman heard the laughter, and growled. He got to his feet, staggered to the side, and looked at Stone. “What’s so funny?”
“Let me buy you a drink,” Stone said, knowing he shouldn’t’ve laughed.
“I asked what’s so funny, you squirrel-headed sheep-fucker.”
McManus stepped between them. “Gentlemen, I’m sure we can settle this amicably between us.”
Holtzman pushed McManus to the side, and McManus went stumbling into a flour sack. Holtzman and Stone glowered at each other. Everything became still. The cowboys in the corner turned around in their chairs.
Holtzman, in his pickled brain, thought Stone was standing between him and the woman he loved.
“Git out of my way,” Holtzman said.
“Sit down and have a drink,” Stone said. “You’re getting to be a pain in the ass.”
Holtzman lunged forward and threw a long looping punch at Stone’s head, and Stone ducked out of the way, but his timing was off and the fist smashed into his mouth. His head felt as if it had shattered, and he reeled backward across the room, crashing into a table and falling to the floor.
Holtzman advanced to kick Stone’s head in, but Stone rolled over quickly and got to his feet. He saw Holtzman coming at him, threw a punch, and this time it was Holtzman who couldn’t get out of the way. The punch landed squarely on Holtzman’s nose, and cartilage cracked beneath Stone’s knuckles.
Holtzman went flying backward and smashed into the wall. His knees buckled but he didn’t fall. Raising himself to his full height, he reached for his gun.
Backus cracked Holtzman over the head with the barrel of his shotgun, and Holtzman collapsed onto the floor.
“Will a few of you fellers gimme a hand with him?” Backus asked.
Stone and the cowboys from the corner carried Holtzman out of the stagecoach stop, seating him on his horse. Backus kept his shotgun trained on Holtzman as he regained consciousness.
“You’d better ride on out of here,” Backus said, “and if I ever see you again, you son of a bitch, I’ll shoot you on sight.”
Backus aimed his shotgun in the air and pulled the triggers. Both barrels exploded, and Holtzman’s horse became alarmed. He galloped into the night, taking Holtzman with him, drunk and dazed, trying to hold on for dear life.
They returned to the cabin. It was time to go to bed. Mrs. Backus showed them to their room.
It was ten feet square, and had straw mattresses covered with burlap on the floor.
Diane stared at the room in the wan light of one lantern. “We’re all going to sleep in here together?”
“That’s right,” said Slipchuck with a drunken grin. “Ain’t that great?”
Diane didn’t know what to do. Perhaps they’d let her sleep outside in the stagecoach, but there was the danger of Indians.
The same would be true of the barn. “I’ll take this one,” she said, sitting on a straw mattress next to the one Stone was reclining upon.
A peal of thunder shattered the sultry night air, and another followed, a rumbling that shook the ground beneath them.
“Sounds like it’s gonna rain,” said Backus.
Stone let out a snore. He hadn’t even removed his boots. Diane picked up her blanket and surreptitiously smelled it. It had the aroma of an old shirt with a touch of pig urine blended in. She decided to sleep without it, and spread out on the mattress.
It had its own special aroma, something between an old sock and a haystack. She used her knapsack as a pillow, but soon felt cold. The temperature outside was dropping, and a few pats of rain fell on the roof.
Stone continued to snore. She heard the others sighing, wheezing, and farting, trying to get comfortable. Priscilla Bellevue said a prayer on her knees before going to bed, then crawled beneath her blanket.
Diane stared at the ceiling. Here’s your story, darling. The Wild West with all its authentic smells. The Carrington Hotel in Clarksdale had been comfortable, but this was far beneath the standards she’d set for herself. With a rueful grimace, she closed her eyes.
A drop of water fell on her face, and she sat bolt upright. Another drop of water fell on her head. She looked up and realized the roof was leaking. With a groan, she covered her head with the filthy blanket.
It was pitch-black in the room. McManus was snoring, and Diane felt wet and clammy. She’d never gone to bed in her life without taking a hot bath. Rain fell heavily on the roof and plopped onto her blanket. She moved closer to Stone.
He mumbled something and threw his arm around her. At first she wanted to throw it off, but it was heavy and she decided to leave it alone. He moved closer to her, and she felt his body. His warmth chased the chill away, and he smelled like a man.
She cuddled closer to him and closed her eyes, drifting into slumber and dreams of the English countryside in springtime.
Chapter Four
They were on the road by seven o’clock in the morning, and the sun gleamed on the horizon directly in front of them, casting long shadows over the sage. Farmer on, beyond a gradual slope, rose a gigantic rock formation like the supreme monument of a lost civilization. The blue sky was adorned with streaks of silver, and a lone eagle circled high over their heads, a dot in the endless sky.
Stone wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His tongue hung out and he felt like shit. His head throbbed with pain. Why do I keep doing this to myself? With shaking hands, he rolled himself a cigarette.
“You ain’t lookin’ so good this mornin’, Johnny.” Slipchuck flicked the reins. “You look like sumpin’ that’s been shot at, missed, and then shot at and hit.”
“Think I had one too many last night.”
“I’m feelin’ poorly myself. But that was some fine likker and you got to take it when it comes yer way. It’s my belief likker keeps a man fit. Some don’t agree, but I ain’t been convinced.”
Stone lit his cigarette. He felt damn near dead. It was hard to breathe and he was weak. I’m killing myself.
The sun rose in the sky. In the cab, everybody lay with their eyes closed, taking a morning nap, the carriage rocking from side to side on its leather thoroughbrace suspension.
Diane felt languid and lazy, a faint smile on her pretty features. She was remembering how she’d spent the night cuddled against the standoffish John Stone, and how good it’d felt.
A few times, underneath the blankets, their cheeks had touched, and he’d pulled her closer. He’d been drunk, and didn’t know what he was doing, but their bodies had been separated by only a few thin layers of cloth.
Edward McManus was sprawled next to her, dreaming about a network of stagecoach stops throughout the frontier, where the roofs didn’t leak and there were decent sleeping facilities for human beings. He saw settlements growing up around the stagecoach stops, and then villages and towns. There’d be commerce, growth, railroads, factories. A new nation would arise and challenge the world. And he’d be one rich son of a bitch.
Across from him, Priscilla Bellevue was reading the Bible, John 8:7, about Mary Magdalene.
So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
Priscilla felt a special affinity for Mary Magdalene. Priscilla had to leave the town where she’d been teaching because of rumors about her and a cowboy named Zeke. Decent God-fearing people didn’t want a tainted woman teaching their children. Now she was going to a new town where nobody knew her, and this time she’d stay away from cowboys.
She looked across the carriage at Diane, and knew the Englishwoman was falling in love with John Stone, who, in Priscilla’s eyes, was either a cowboy or a gunfighter, probably both.
She was intrigued by Stone too. He was courteous and obviously a well-educated man, yet carried two big Colts, was built like a lumberjack, and drank like a horse. No man could drink like that and survive.
She wondered what was bothering him, and wanted him to tell her his problems, so she could help him. They could sit quietly someplace and talk about life. She wanted to save him.
In the corner, Maureen McManus reclined on her seat, a frown on her face. She’d married her husband because he was rich and she was poor, but kept comparing her husband to John Stone, and her husband didn’t come off so well.
Her husband was twenty years older than she, with a big potbelly, flabby jowls, and thinning hair. Every night she went to bed with him and made the best of it.
She thought it’d be nice to go to bed with a young man, like John Stone. She’d known a man like Stone once. His name had been Charley Russell and he’d been a gold prospector who’d searched all his life for the mother lode, but never found it, except in her arms.
They’d had good times together, but his future hadn’t looked so wonderful, and then she met McManus, who offered her the moon, and she took it. Now she was a rich banker’s wife, with the best of everything, but every night she had to go to bed with the son of a bitch.
John Stone reminded her of Charley Russell. They both had the same swagger and careless laugh. Each was good-looking, in a rough and ready way. And both were heavy drinkers.
Charley Russell was his most amorous when drunk. He became a naughty little boy. Her husband burped beside her, as he dreamed of cities in the wilderness. Maureen turned away from him. She didn’t ever want to go to bed with him again.
They came to a vast plain of gently rolling purple hills with a distant mountain range on the right. The plain seemed to go on forever, and the stagecoach path was a straight line directly through the middle of it, disappearing into the far horizon.
Stone puffed his cigarette, and little white spots danced in front of him. His stomach was queasy and he swore he’d never touch another drop.
He’d been drinking for most of his life, even when he’d been a teenager back in South Carolina. He’d drunk at West Point and he’d drunk during the war, but he’d never drunk like this. It was getting out of control. He had to take hold of himself.
Everything went back in Arizona. He’d been shot in a saloon, and his shoulder still hurt whenever it rained, like last night. An old Army friend had been mutilated by Apaches. A young cavalry officer whom he’d recently met had been disemboweled by Apaches. His Apache friend Lobo had been stabbed through the heart by another Apache. Stone began to drink seriously in Arizona.
But Arizona hadn’t been a complete catastrophe. In the Sonoran desert he’d met the rancher who thought he’d seen Marie in Texas. Maybe in a month or two he’d find her, and things’d be the way they had in the old days, before the war. Maybe his quest would soon be over, and he could live a normal life again. And maybe not. The woman in Texas might not be Marie, or if she were, what about her husband, the elderly gentleman Stone had been told about by the rancher?
“I think there’s somethin’ out there,” said Slipchuck, leaning forward and squinting.
Stone looked straight ahead and saw dancing dots of light. “What is it?”
“Somebody’s comin’.”
Stone raised the shotgun, cracked it open, and made sure it was loaded. “How many?”
“Cain’t see yet.”
Stone leaned forward and narrowed his eyes. He hoped they weren’t Indians. It’d be a rough go, if they were Indians. All they could do was turn around and make a run for it, but those old nags pulling the stagecoach would be no match for Comanche war ponies. The braves would fill Stone full of arrows and he wouldn’t have to worry about drinking anymore.
“Looks like a wagon,” Slipchuck said.
Stone peered ahead and saw a black dot followed by a puff of dust at the end of the road. He realized now that he should’ve made the trip alone by horseback, but hadn’t felt up to it. He’d nearly got killed by Apaches when traveling alone on horseback in Arizona. There was no easy way to cross the frontier. Indians even attacked trains.
The dot in the distance grew larger, and he saw that indeed it was a wagon. It looked as though one person was driving it, and he was alone.
“Looks like a female,” Slipchuck said.
The wagon came closer, and Stone saw a woman with long dark blond hair seated in front, wearing a gray dress, a farmer’s wife or daughter.
“Wonder what she’s doing out here alone?” Stone asked.
“Prob’ly lives around here.”
There was a load of hay in back of the wagon, which was drawn by two horses. Stone looked around cautiously at the gently sloping hills. He turned his gaze back to the woman.
He could see her white apron, and she wore her hair in pigtails. She raised her hand in greeting as she approached the stagecoach. Edward McManus poked his head out the window and took off his stovepipe hat. “Morning!”
She manipulated her reins, and her horses advanced across the road, blocking the path of the stagecoach. The stagecoach’s lead horses whinnied and raised their front hooves, pawing the air. Stone stood and brought around his shotgun.
A shot rang out, and the shotgun flew out of Stone’s hands, making them sting. He turned to the right and saw a man lying on a hill, a rifle in his hands.
The hay moved in back of the wagon, and three men stood up, masks over their faces, rifles in their hands.
“Hold ’em high and hold ’em steady,” one of them said.
Stone raised his hands. Seven masked men on horseback galloped out of the hills and headed for them, guns in their hands.
“What’s going on!” McManus demanded.
Diane looked out the window, and her hair stood on end. Masked men with guns in their hands were riding toward her. She unbuttoned her shirt pocket, pulling out her derringer.
