It was snowing the night a tall, bearded man wearing a stiff poncho—cut from the hide of an elk—came into Naturita’s Suit Yourself Bar. It was only the rougher sorts that drank there. He had ridden in on a horse, the storm having made driving impossible. The stranger sat down in the corner and ordered two shots of tequila. That was just the beginning. For the moment, it was just he and the bartender. The bartender poured. He drank. He drank until his eyeballs rotated independently of each other like those of a horned toad. When he decided that it was time to throw up, he calculated the distance to the front door and then the distance to the men’s room. The men’s room was closer, and there were chairs and tables to careen off of in support on the way there. In the filthy bathroom, he did what he had to do then rinsed his mouth and nostrils in the sink. Straightening himself, he finally took note of his surroundings and traced his fingers shakily over the black tiles that he may have had a hand in making when he was a boy.
When he came back out to the bar, there were four new customers. They had driven into town in a monster truck with huge utility tires. They were all wearing the same motorcycle jackets that featured a gold beehive with the insignia “The Busy Bees.” The leader of the group gestured that they sit at the bar.
It was Cookie Dominguez, now a hulking two hundred and seventy-five pounds.
“Hornitos shots, cherry cokes, and four Ding Dongs!” Cookie demanded as he sat down. His rear end was so big and encompassing that the round seat of the stool completely disappeared beneath him—making him look like a Mexican-on-amphetamines-fudgsicle. The Bees began discussing business when Cookie stopped them, noticing the stranger in the bar’s mirror.
“Hey, man,” Cookie said, turning around.
“Hey,” the stranger said.
“Some fuckin’ night, huh?”
The stranger deigned not to reply, possibly thinking that Cookie’s question was rhetorical.
“Did you hear what I said, bro? I said ‘some fuckin’ night.’”
“Yep…it’s a booger.”
“You from around here?” asked Cookie.
The stranger didn’t answer.
“What are you deaf, or something, motherfucker? I said, ‘are you from around here?’”
“How’s Mommy?” the stranger said. The other Bees started laughing.
“Who the fuck are you, man?”
Cookie slid off his stool and knocked the chairs over on his way to the stranger’s table. The stranger made no effort to protect himself.
“Yor brother.”
Cookie squinted suspiciously. The man before him looked like he had lived under a rock for five years. The other gang members were getting a big kick out of this reunion. Cookie whirled on them, wild-eyed.
“He ain’t my fuckin’ brother! That fucker killed my fuckin’ padre, man! So, shut the fuck up!” They shut up. He walked around Buster, examining him like an exhibit of a caveman at the Museum of Natural History. Still, he couldn’t believe it. “The fucker I knew was run off by the Stumplehorsts years ago…”
“Sorry ta diserppoint ya, but ah’m back.”
“Then that’s gonna be your last fuckin’ mistake.”
The bartender was nervous. In this snowstorm it would take the sheriff a minimum of thirty minutes to get here—that is, if he had the guts to reach for the phone to call him.
Cookie leaned down to look at Buster, his head slightly bobbing. With a mighty backhand, he slapped the hat off Buster’s head, sniffed, and made a horrible face.
“Tú apestas, motherfucker!”
Buster didn’t respond.
“I said, ‘you stink, motherfucker.’”
“Ah bet ah do.”
“Here,” said Cookie helpfully, “Try some aftershave.” And with that, he broke a bottle of tequila over Buster’s head—opening a cut five inches long.
Buster fell to the floor, momentarily unconscious. Cookie, now hyperventilating, put a quarter in the jukebox and cranked up Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man,” his favorite song to fight to. Then, bathed in the neon lighting of the point-of-purchase beer displays, Cookie and the Bees beat the hell out of him—maniacally stomping Buster’s head and kicking in his ribs. The bartender, who received a twenty-buck rake off and a small rock of crank when the Busy Bees used his place for business, was sure they were going to kill Buster and possibly kill him for witnessing it. He edged for the phone, but one of the Bees beat him to it and pulled it off the wall. Now he knew he was going to die. Cookie grabbed a silver napkin dispenser and squatted down next to Buster and began smashing his skull in beat to the ear-splitting music. He hit him a dozen good times, but on the backswing of number thirteen, the napkin dispenser flew across the room. Cookie felt something funny and looked at his hand. His index finger was gone—as was half of the other finger that he was partial to flipping as an obscenity. The stumps from both were squirting dark blood on his cruel heart’s accelerated downbeat. So jacked-up on alcohol and drugs—it took the pain a good fifteen seconds to get to his brain. Confused, he turned to his fellow gang members. They were holding their hands over their heads—looking at the new arrival.
Jimmy Bayles Morgan stood backlit in the doorway wearing his granddaddy’s pea-green campaign hat and his heavy wool Doughboy WWI coat. He, too, had come to the bar on horseback for a quick snort and got more than he bargained for. Leveled in his hands were his grandfather’s cannons—the two Colt New Service revolvers with staghorn grips and lanyard cords attached to a Sam Brown belt. Smoke was still curling from the barrel of the pistol in his right.
“You shot me!” Cookie cried.
Keeping one pistol pointed at Cookie, he blasted another slug into the jukebox to create some quiet for what he had to say.
“Hittin’ a man when he’s down…” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Ah cain’t much abide that.” Jimmy stepped forward into the bar, his hooded grey eyes barely visible. “Listen to me careful. Put yer hands b’hind yor neck and inner-lock yor fingers.” They started to do as he ordered, but Cookie stopped them.
“Kill that sonofabitch, you fuckin’ cowards!”
One of the Busy Bees reached for his pistol. Jimmy coolly shot him in the face with snakeshot. He screamed and fell to the floor clutching his eyes.
He bent down to address the Busy Bee moaning on the ground.
“How you enjoyin’ that ’coon face, sonny? An’body else want one?” There were no takers. “Now turn ’round and do as ah say! Walk to that wall yonder.” This time they were obedient. “Closer,” he said. “Until your dicks’er touchin’ the wall!”
With the compliance of the Busy Bees, Jimmy holstered one of the pistols and threw the bartender a rope.
“Tho’ this ’round the poor boy’s feet, if you be so kind.”
The bartender, with great relief, came around from the other side of the bar and did what was asked. Jimmy took some cash from his vest pocket and threw it on the floor.
“Here’s for the damages. We ain’t pikers.”
Jimmy mused at the unrecognizable bloody mess on the floor and shook his head.
“My, my…lookit what you done did ta this poor bastard.”
“I’m sorry I dint kill’m,” Cookie Dominguez said half laughing, half crying.
Jimmy lifted his eyes and smiled at him.
“Are ya?”
When the Bartender was finished tying Buster’s legs, Jimmy wrapped the other end of the rope around his arm.
“Don’t anybody foller me outside unless you wanna spend the night on a slab at Crippner’s.”
The bartender watched as he carefully backed out of the bar, clicked for his horse to get down on his front legs and then mounted, cinching the rope around the saddle horn—never taking his eyes or guns off Buster’s assailants. He gathered his horse’s reins then clicked his tongue a couple of times and the horse started to back up. Buster’s unconscious body slid feet first across the floor, knocking over the tables and chairs like bowling pins as he exited the bar.
Buster was conveyed, in this fashion, the whole five miles back to Lame Horse Mesa. He was too big for Jimmy to lift up and lay across Stinker’s saddle, so he thought, What the hell? Buster wasn’t going to get any more banged up sliding along the snow than he’d already been in the bar. Besides, Jimmy thought it prudent to ice down some of those contusions.
In the morning, when Buster finally opened his swollen eyes, he didn’t know where he was. He hadn’t remembered Jimmy coming into the bar, either. Slowly, he focused on his surroundings: there was a smoldering cigarette and a half-drunk cup of coffee sitting on the workbench ten feet away.
“You up?” came a recognizable croak from the other room. Buster swung his legs around to the edge of the bed, but when he tried to sit up, he almost passed out again.
“Whoaa, Nelly,” Buster said.
“That noggin’ prolly hurts like a sonofabitch, huh?” Slowly, Buster eased himself off the edge of the bed and discovered that he had no clothes.
“C’mon out here.”
“Where’s my clothes?”
“Ah burned ’em.”
In a few minutes, Buster shuffled into his parlor room naked. There wasn’t an inch of him that wasn’t blue or purple. Jimmy was pouring hot water from a camp kettle into a freestanding cast iron bathtub in the middle of the room. He topped it off with a scoop of Calgon Bouquet and tossed in a bar of Sweetheart soap for good measure.
“Get in.”
“Ah ain’t gettin’ in there. That water’s hot ’nough to make soup!”
“Gotta be to kill off them cooties! C’mon Nancy, clamber in there!” Disgruntled, Buster slowly and painfully eased himself into the scalding water. He looked up to see Jimmy stropping a straight razor on a bridle strap.
“This here was Grampie’s razor,” Jimmy said solemnly as if he were offering Buster the Holy Eucharist.
“Where’s Grampie?” Buster asked.
“Six feet south.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“They don’t make men like him no more. Ah can tell ya that.”
Jimmy swirled an old brush around in a shaving mug and applied the lather to Buster’s face.
“So, Sheriff Dudival tole me you went off ta Utah.”
“Them Mormons was heppin’ me find my kin.”
“They try ta feed ya that Jesus and the Injuns stuff?”
“No, sir.”
“Yor lucky ya got out with your skin. Thar some pee-culiar people.”
“They got themselves a big ly-briry with the fam-lee tree of all the people who ever was.”
“That’s how you found your kinfolk, was it?”
“A feller hepped me. Looked up two hunnert and fifty-nine Tom McCaffreys.”
“And which one of ’em was your pappy?”
“None of ’em.”
“Ah’m raht sorry to hear that.”
“How much did that Mormon feller charge ya…ta hep ya, that is?”
“Oh, he dint charge me nuthin’. He jes axed me fer a d’nation.”
“How much was that?”
“Three hundred dollars.”
Jimmy whistled between his brown teeth.
“Three hunnert dollars and ya dint find your pappy’s kin…”
Jimmy tilted Buster’s chin up so he could shave his neck.
“Ah’ll bet you cain’t even r’member that feller’s name in the ly-briry, can ya?”
“Heck, ah cain’t. His nametag said Flowers—and ah thought that there’s a funny name for a feller. Beverly Flowers.”
“Lookit how dirty you was,” Jimmy said, changing the subject and pointing to the grey scum floating to the surface of the tub water. “You can git out now.”
As Buster stepped out, Jimmy presented him with an old pair of pants and a shirt then left the room. The tan shirt, sans badge, was from the Lame Horse County Sheriff’s Department. Buster put it on and wandered over to Jimmy’s workbench. There was a brace of large frame Colt revolvers, a little automatic, leather repair tools, gunpowder, bullet-making equipment, and several boxes of Vulcan dynamite blasting caps. There was a cardboard box with a dusty old Contax camera and telephoto lens, a Silvertone wire recorder with earphones, and mounted on the Masonite backboard was a shrine of antique barbed wire surrounding a newspaper obituary for Sheriff James Morgan—a stern looking man with a haircut similar to Jimmy’s and a mustache.
“Is this here a picture of yor Grampie?” Buster called into the next room.
Jimmy walked back in and squinted his eyes to see what he was looking at.
“That’d be him.”
“Ah see the ra-zem-balance,” Buster said, scrutinizing the hawkeyed image in the faded rotogravure. He tried to read the obit. “Says here he was a-sass-i-naded by left wing el-ee-ments.”
“That’s right. The damn union people.”
“How’d that happen?”
“Why don’t you ask your friend, Sheriff Dudival, ’bout it?”
“Ah thought he was yor friend, too.”
“Yeah, he is.” Then he barely heard him mutter, “…Jes caint dupen on him, is all.”
“Well, he’s been plenny good to me and I don’t like you talkin’ ’bout him like that!” Buster barked back to him, surprising even himself. Jimmy clenched his jaws combatively then relaxed them into a smile.
“Ah like that…that you stuck up fer a friend. Would you do that fer me, let’s say?”
“Ah don’t think you should have these blastin’ caps jes layin’ ’round like this,” Buster said, sidestepping the question.
“They ain’t hurtin’ nobody.”
“That ain’t the way Mr. Svendergard taught me ta handle dynamite.”
“Well, he don’t have a lot to say ’bout it no more, now does he?” There was a little coughing laugh from the other room. “Get in here. Ah got somethin’ for ya.”
“Ah hope it’s breakfast.”
“Plenty a time for that later. C’mon now…”
When Buster came back into the other room, he was surprised to see Jimmy grab for a nasal cannula attached to an oxygen tank.
“What’s wrong with you?” Buster asked.
“What does it look like? Ah cain’t breathe.” He took a couple of deep sniffs then twisted the outflow valve shut so he could light a cigarette. Buster’s eyes tracked to an army surplus medical kit that Jimmy had laid out on a towel with sutures and several feet of catgut.
“What’s that all for?”
“Need to do some work on yor face.”
“Cain’t ah go to the doctor?”
“We ain’t payin’ those bastards a hundred bucks for an office visit! Now, set down here and stop bein’ sech a weak tittie.”
Buster sat down on the chair and looked warily as he strung the catgut through the first hooked suture.
“Where’d ya learnt to do this?” Buster asked, not unreasonably, as Jimmy daubed his face with rubbing alcohol.
“Haven’t ya ev’r darned a sock?” The bedside manner part of the procedure over, Jimmy jabbed the first suture into the ugly cut above Buster’s eyebrow.
“Jiminy Christmas!” Buster yowled.
“This might sting a little.”
“Good gravy! Ain’t you gonna give me somethin’ for the pain?”
“You had enough of that last night.”
And with that, he plunged the suture into his face again. Buster yowled and Jimmy just left it there while he retrieved his Chesterfield Commander that had been left smoldering in the ashtray and took a drag. Tears were running down Buster’s face, and his nose was dripping like an icicle on a south facing roof.
“So, you wanna be known as the town fool.”
“No, sir.”
“Well, yor winnin’ the e-lection, unopposed.”
“What’s it to you, anyways?”
“Makes me sick to see a man makin’ a fool of hisself over a dumb girl.”
“What ah do, or don’t do, don’t concern you.”
Jimmy was going to say something, but didn’t.
“And Destiny ain’t dumb. She plumb gone to college!” Buster said, defensively.
“What’re you talkin’ ‘bout? College! She jes went and got herself a fuckin’ reelstate license! And if you think sellin’ our land’s any proper way to make a livin’, yor a bigger ass than I give you credit fer!” Jimmy plunged the suture into his eyebrow once again. With all the jagged black catgut sutures bristling from his face, he was starting to look like a rag doll at an amateur craft fair.
“Ow, ow, ow!”
“Lemme ask you somethin’. You gotta a job?”
“Ah’m fixin’ to git me one.”
“Yor fixin’ to git one.”
“Why?” Buster asked suspiciously.
“You ain’t gonna git one ’round here.”
“And just how are you so sure a that?”
“The Stumplehorsts put the word out. They don’t want you bird doggin’ their daughter. An’body give you a job gonna be on their shit list.”
“But…but ol’ Pop likes me.”
“Ah see ah’m gonna have to curry the kinks outta you,” he said, turning on his oxygen for a quick pick-me-up. “Stumplehorst likes you to yor face, unnerstan? To yor back, that’s ’nother thing ’ntirely. A two-faced man…well, that’s one thing ah truly cain’t abide,” he said, his irises slowly narrowing darkly.
In fact, as we now know, there was not just one, but many things Jimmy Bayles Morgan could not abide. And these defects that he found in Man’s very nature kept him in a constant state of deadly vexation. Over twenty years had passed since the town biddies had refused his custody of the McCaffrey baby—the baby he had found. But that didn’t stop him from monitoring and surveilling him—the way he had learned at Sheriff Morgan’s knee. So, it should come as no surprise that he could not abide the child molester, Carlito Dominguez—who he blew up with dynamite before he could get his hands on Buster. Nor should it be surprising that, nudity aside, he could not abide Gil Svendergard denying Buster an education—and gave him that little push off his perch and into his cement contraption. And despite his tough veneer, Jimmy Bayles Morgan could not abide Buster living under the roof of a wife-beater. And so, he did a little work on Bob Boyle’s brakes. But as far as Stumplehorst was concerned, he had let him live. After all, he finally had the boy back under his control, so why not be magnanimous?
“Have you seen her?” Buster asked.
“Seen who?”
“Destiny.”
“Oh yeah, ah seen her.”
“How is she?”
“All right, ah guess.”
“Does she ever ask ’bout me?”
“Fuck no.” The catgut was holding Buster’s brow from drooping. “But, she’s prolly pretty busy…whorin’ for cocaine from that real estate guy.”
Buster looked at him wide-eyed for a moment, and then started to blubber.
“C’mon, now. This is disgraceful! Cryin’ over Destiny Stumplehorst, my goodness!”
Buster was inconsolable. Jimmy sat back and watched him cry and cry while he reheated his coffee and chain-lit another cigarette. “What about that VonMorsch girl? Seen her lately? Ah’ll tell ya, she’s a pretty good looker. Got a nice little ass on ’er, too—and she was the 4H swine champion—six years runnin’! Lemme tell you somethin,’ friend, that’s three good qualities in a ranchin’ wife right there!”
“Ah don’t wanna be with any other girls,” Buster said quietly.Jimmy shook his head at the hopeless lump in front of him.
“Here. Have something to eat. You might even grow a ball or two.” He grabbed a bowl and poured some Lucky Charms into it, then noticed some mouse turds speckling the presentation and gave them the boot with a flick of his finger before pouring on the powdered milk and water.
“Much obliged,” Buster said, sniffling. Jimmy was studying him now.
“Here’s a thought. Why don’t you throw in with me?”
“Takin’ folks on pony rides?” Buster guffawed, milk dribbling out of his mouth. “Thas no job for a real cowboy. No ’ffense.”
Jimmy had to bite his lip. “None taken. ’Course, it’d only be temp’rary ’til you got back on yor feet…”
“Yeah, ah don’t know ’bout that…”
“There’s probably some advantage to bein’ in proximity to your amor verdadera, but who am ah to say?” Buster considered that new wrinkle for a moment, while Jimmy considered pulling the stitches out of his face.
“All raht,” he finally conceded. “But jes ’til ah get back on my feet.”