CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Red Ryan and Buttons Muldoon walked south on Main Street, spotted a landmark beer brewing company building, and then made a left onto Lincoln, past a few frame houses of local merchants and then onto an area of litter-strewn open ground, mostly grass but with some red yucca and a few oaks. A cone-shaped Sibley tent about twelve feet high and eighteen feet in diameter, designed by the army to sleep about a dozen soldiers, dominated the patch and adjoining the tent a small corral held a couple of paint mustangs.
“Is this the place?” Buttons said. “Doesn’t look very Comanche to me.”
“It’s got to be,” Red said. “Look at all the Indian signs painted on the canvas.”
Buttons was down in the mouth. “Don’t make any difference to me anyhow,” he said. “There ain’t no cure for a hat curse. That must be wrote in a book somewhere.”
Red grabbed Buttons by the front of his shirt and pulled him toward the tent. “Hello, the house,” he yelled.
“That ain’t a house, it’s a tent,” Buttons said.
“It’s the Comanche’s tepee, so it’s a house,” Red said.
The tent flap opened, and an old man with gray braids hanging to his shoulders stepped outside. He wore a collarless shirt, a black frock coat, and pants shoved into knee-high moccasins. His face was wide, heavy cheekbones, and his dark skin was incredibly wrinkled. He could’ve been a hundred years old. The flap opened again and a young woman emerged, smoothing her buckskin dress over her hips. She frowned, looking displeased.
The old Comanche said, “When white men come to my door, it always means trouble.”
“No trouble,” Red said. He jerked a thumb at Buttons. “He’s under a curse. And we were told you can remove it.”
The old Indian looked at Buttons. “What kind of curse?”
“A hat curse. Can you cure me?”
The old man sighed. “A child can ask questions that a wise man cannot answer, but I will try. The answer is, I don’t know.”
“Damn it, Red, I told you this was a waste of time,” Buttons said.
“I’ll pay you a dollar to lift the curse,” Red said, desperation edging in his voice.
“Two dollars,” the Comanche said.
“Two dollars it is,” Red said.
The old man nodded. “I am Mukwooru, Spirit Talker in your tongue. I will end the hat curse.” He held out his hand. “Pay me, fire head.”
Red dug into his pants pocket, produced the required amount, and dropped the coins into the old man’s palm.
Spirit Talker turned to the woman. “Return later,” he said.
The girl gave Red a killer look and then walked away, her ample hips swaying.
“A good woman,” the Indian said. “Wild though. It takes a warrior to tame her spirit.”
Despite being burned for two dollars, Red decided to be amiable. “And you are that warrior,” he said.
“Heck, no, I’m not,” the Comanche said. “But she says I’ll do until a real warrior comes along.” He motioned with a hand. “Please enter my lodge.”
* * *
The air inside the tent was hot and still and smelled of sweat and tobacco smoke. A firepit filled with gray ashes took up the middle of the floor space, and the rest was filled with a couple of ancient buffalo hides, trade blankets, and some metal pots and pans. An almost-full bottle of Old Crow stood upright by the cold fire.
Spirit Talker seated Red and Buttons on each side of the firepit and then squatted between them. To Buttons, he said, “Tell me about the curse. Not a white man tell-me that goes on forever and ever, but an Indian tell-me, short and sweet.”
With an ill grace and using as few words as possible, Buttons told the story of his encounter with the cursed sombrero and the unfortunate events that occurred afterward.
After Buttons stopped talking, the old Comanche was silent for long moments. Then he said, “Truly, you’ve been cursed, as I am cursed with the gift to see things that are yet to happen . . . and now I see that I will lift the curse.”
“Then get it done,” Buttons said. “I’m dying here, Injun.”
“I will contact the spirit world and talk to the one who owned the hat,” the old man said. “It is he who laid the curse and only he can lift it.”
“Then talk with him,” Buttons said, in a high state of agitation. “Tell him if I had him here, I’d put a bullet into his sorry hide and kill him all over again.”
“That is not the way to speak to the dead,” Spirit Talker said. “I will address him in only the friendliest of terms and convince him that I am pure of heart.” He uncorked the bourbon, held it close to his mouth and said, “Nothing like whiskey to lay bare a man’s soul.” He took a swig, took another, and put the bottle aside.
Spirit Talker closed his eyes, rocked back and forth a few times, and then said, “Owner of the cursed hat, do you hear me?” He cocked his head to the side, listening. Then, after a few moments he said to Red, “More whiskey!”
Red passed the bottle, the old man took another long swig, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and Buttons said, “Heck, all the Injun’s doing is getting as drunk as a hoedown fiddler. Red, get our money back.”
Red put up a silencing hand. “Wait. Let’s see what happens.”
“If he’s pulling my leg, I’ll plug him,” Buttons said. “I swear I will.”
The old Indian ignored that, closed his eyes again and said, “Spirit of the cursed squashed sombrero, do you hear me?”
Then something that made both Buttons and Red sit up in surprise.
In a strangely hollow, sepulchral voice, Spirit Talker said, “I hear you, señor . . .”
“It’s him,” Buttons said. “It’s the dead vaquero son of a—!”
“Shh,” Red said. “Let the man talk.”
In his normal voice, Spirit Talker said, “I humbly ask that you remove your curse from this wretched man, the one who calls himself Buttons Muldoon.”
After a moment, the old man’s voice changed again, back to the funereal tone. “There is no curse . . . just bad luck to him who moved my hat.”
Sprit Talker said, “It was a mistake. The loco wretch ran over your hat with the Patterson stage.”
“I know,” the strange voice said.
“Then will you end this man’s run of bad luck?” Spirit Talker said.
“Yes, I will,” the vaquero voice said. “The one you call Buttons Muldoon is a well-meaning idiot, and I will torment him no further.”
“Thank you, spirit,” the old Indian said.
“Vaya con dios, Indian,” the dead man’s voice said. “In life, my name was Juan Lopez, and you will hear from me no more.”
For long moments, Spirit Talker sat where he was, his eyes shut. Then they flew open and he said, “Whiskey! A lot of whiskey!”
* * *
After he and Buttons stepped out of the tent, Red Ryan took Spirit Talker aside and said, “Thank you, Buttons is back to his old self again.” Red grinned. “First time I’ve seen him smile since he squashed the sombrero. I believe he swallowed every word you said . . . hook, line, and sinker.”
The old Comanche shook his head. “I don’t remember any of it.”
“You pretended to talk to the dead vaquero,” Red said. “And Buttons fell for it.”
“For white men, I drink whiskey, shake a rattle, and talk nonsense, and that seems to please them. I don’t talk to the dead. I never talk to the dead, especially for a white man.”
“But the vaquero . . .” Buttons said.
“I didn’t speak with a vaquero,” Spirit talker said. “How does a vaquero speak?”
“You mean, you didn’t . . .”
“I drank whiskey and fell asleep,” the Comanche said. “At my age that happens.”
“The vaquero said his name in life was Juan Lopez,” Red said.
“Never heard of him,” Spirit Talker said. “You must go now. My woman wants me.”
* * *
“I didn’t like those white men,” the Comanche girl said. “The one with the red hair was a gunman. I can tell.”
Mukwooru smiled. “It is good to play games of the mind with white men. Now the one with the big buttons on his coat thinks I spoke with a dead Mexican.”
“And did you?” the girl said.
“I drank whiskey and it helped me speak in a ghost voice,” the old man said. “Like this,” he said, using the funereal tone.
The girl laughed. “Mukwooru, you are a wise one.”
The Comanche nodded and smiled. “Wise enough to take the white man’s two dollars.”
* * *
“Red, I’m cured, fit as a fiddle,” Buttons Muldoon said. “Since the old medicine man lifted the curse, I feel that there’s a whole weight off my shoulders.”
“The vaquero said it wasn’t a curse, just bad luck,” Red said.
“Same thing,” Buttons said.
“You know, I never seen or heard the like,” Red said, grinning. “The old Comanche really can raise up the spirits of the dead.”
“That’s why they call him Sprit Talker,” Buttons said. “He’s right neighborly with dead folks on a stony lonesome.”
“The vaquero said that when he was alive, his name was Juan Lopez,” Red said. “But he didn’t mention being lonesome or getting struck and killed by lightning or anything like that.”
“Doesn’t surprise me none,” Buttons said. “Lifting my curse was more important, so he didn’t want to go into details.”
He and Red sat a table shaded by oaks in the nearly deserted Munich Keller beer garden. The waitress was blonde and buxom, and her name was Lilly, and Red liked her just fine. He reckoned that looking at her was one of life’s great pleasures, something that Buttons noticed.
“You thinking of sparking that gal?” he said.
“Yeah, thinking about it,” Red said.
“Forget it,” Buttons said.
“How come?”
“Heck, you’re a stage coach messenger. Stick to your own kind.”
“Buttons, there ain’t any female stagecoach messengers,” Red said.
“I know. Pity about that. But she might make courting time fer a driver.” He smiled at Lilly who stood at the bar and smiled back, twisting one of her pigtails around her forefinger.
Irritated, Red said, “Stick to your own kind, Buttons.”
“That rule don’t apply to me. Drivers are a good catch, and the ladies know it.”
The cuss that Red threw in Buttons’s direction was drowned out by the roar of a six-gun.
“The doc!” Buttons said, jumping to his feet.
Red said one word. “Augusta!”