CHAPTER NINETEEN
Brothers Zack and Arlo Palmer and their sidekick Boon Shanks stank up the East Texas hill country. Wolfers by trade, the three also dabbled in murder, rape, and robbery.
Clay Kyle greeted them like long lost brothers, ignored their gagging stench, and leaned from the saddle to embrace each in turn. Boon Shanks, a shaggily bearded brute in filthy buckskins, opened his arms, grinned toothlessly at Susan Stanton, and said, “And what do I get from you, little darlin’?”
“What you always get from me, Boon,” Susan said. “A kick in the teeth.”
“Bitch, one day I’ll cut you down to size,” Shanks said, still smiling.
“Try it, and that’s the day I’ll kill you,” Susan said.
“Enough!” Kyle said. “We’re all friends here and well met. Light and set, boys. We got whiskey to drink and now I’m in the mind for it, a proposition to discuss.”
Zack Palmer, older and little more intelligent than his brother Arlo, stared at Shanks and his black eyes glittered a warning. “Like Clay says, we’re friends here, Boon. Leave the woman alone. She has no interest in you.”
Shanks spat over the side of his saddle and said, “I don’t care.” He jutted his chin, using it as a pointer. “I see something better. Younger and fresher. Clay, how much for the farmer’s daughter? I got a double eagle in my pocket waiting to be spent.”
“We’ll talk about her later,” Kyle said. “Now let’s have a drink.” He glanced at the sky. “Be dark soon.”
The men dismounted, old acquaintances were renewed and handshakes exchanged with Loco Garrett, one-eyed Morris Bennett and Charlie Bates. But not with Doug Avila. The former vaquero was fastidious in the extreme and did not clasp hands with wolfers who smelled like gut piles. Neither the Palmer brothers nor Boon Shanks took offense, or at least they didn’t show any. Such was the power of the breed’s rep as a draw and shoot fighter.
The whiskey bottle made the rounds, men relaxed, and tongues loosened. Stands of mesquite, rare in most of the Texas hill country, provided wood for a fire and a meal of salt pork and pan bread was eaten just as the day faded into night.
Zack Palmer shoved the last of his pork and bread into his mouth, chewed noisily, burped, and said, “You got a proposition, Clay?”
“Yeah, and I reckon it’s one you’ll like,” Kyle said.
“Well, let’s hear it,” Palmer said. He scratched under his filthy buckskin shirt, stared at something embedded in his fingernail, and said, “Then I’ll tell you if I cotton to it or not.”
Aware of Palmer’s lack of intelligence and short attention span, in as few words as possible, Clay Kyle told the story of Sheik Bandar al-Salam and his gold-crammed fortress in the Sierra del Carmen.
“There’s a fortune just waiting to be took,” Kyle said. “By God, Zack, we’ll leave Old Mexico as mighty rich men.”
Palmer listened in silence and then turned his head and said to his brother, “Arlo, do you mind that time when you and me and Boon was talked into robbing a Southern Pacific payroll train at Dennison cut over in the Arizona Territory?”
Boon Shanks’s eyes were hot on Jenny Calthrop, and his reptilian gaze didn’t slither from her body as he said, “Sure I mind. We lost three men on that holdup. Big Jim McKay, remember? We lost him. Best dark alley man as ever lived.”
“I agree with you there. He was good with a dirk, was Jim,” Zack said. “None better.”
“Them Arizona lawmen hung him from a bridge trestle,” Arlo said. “And him with both legs shot through and through an’ bleeding like a stuck pig.”
Kyle’s irritation showed. “What the hell has all this to do with what I was talking about?” he said.
“Just this,” Zack Palmer said. “We was told we’d get rich, and instead we got shot up by a bunch of lawmen. Skinny-assed Sam Bass misinformed us on that one, the Hoosier.”
“Zack, we grab the Sheik’s—”
The wolfer shook his head. “Damn it all, Clay, what the hell is a sheik? You never did say.”
“He’s a big auger, lives in the desert with a hundred wives, and has so much money he never has time to count it,” Kyle said.
“Man with a hundred wives don’t have much time for anything,” Arlo said.
“That’s why they’ll be no gunplay,” Kyle said. “We grab the kid and hold him until his pa pays his ransom. It will be done quick and over quicker on account of how the Sheik is a busy man and by all account dotes on his son.”
That made Boon Shanks laugh, and he put his arm around Jenny’s waist and pulled her close. “I’m gonna be real busy real soon,” he said. The girl looked uneasy, pale, and scared.
Shrouded by pale moonlight, Zack Palmer drew up his knees, hunched over, and sat in silence, studying on things. Finally, he said, “It’s thin, Clay.” He pointed. “Thin as yonder prairie mist.” Then, his voice rising, “Hell . . . wait . . . did I just see something move out there?”
“You saw a coyote, maybe,” Kyle said.
“Something . . .” Palmer said.
Susan Stanton smiled. “You scared of coyotes, Zack?”
“It wasn’t a coyote,” Palmer said. He rose to his feet. “And I ain’t scared of nothing.” He angled an angry look at Susan. “An’ that includes a black-eyed woman.”
“It was a wolf then,” Kyle said. “A gray wolf won’t come near the fire, so sit down, Zack. We still got a business proposition to cuss and discuss.”
Palmer shook his head and pulled his gun. “There’s something out there, I tell ya, and it ain’t a wolf. Hell, I can smell a wolf a mile off.”
He stepped out of the circle of firelight and into the surrounding darkness.
Boon Shanks grinned and said, “I never knowed ol’ Zack to be so spooked of the dark.”
“If Zack said he seen something, then he seen something,” Arlo said. “An’ if it is a wolf, he won’t be back here until it’s skun.”
“Hell on lobos is ol’ Zack,” Shanks said.
Arlo nodded. “Yeah, he’s put the fear of God into every wolf in Texas.”
“And he’s hell on women,” Shanks said, grinning. “Just like me.”
The wolfer pulled Jenny Calthrop close, his hand busy on her breasts. The girl sobbed, tried to pull away, but Shanks jammed his hairy mouth on hers, bestial growls deep in his throat.
“Leave her the hell alone.”
Susan Stanton was on her feet, standing tall and slender like a column of spectral fire, her right hand behind her back.
Shanks pulled his face away from the girl and snarled, “You go to hell.”
The speed of Susan’s throw mocked credibility. Her right arm described an arc and she cast the bowie at waist level. The blade buried itself between Shanks’s thighs a quarter inch . . . less . . . a hairsbreadth . . . from the V of Shanks’s crotch. The man looked down at the knife, horrified.
The woman held her Colt steady and level. “I won’t miss with this,” she said. “I can geld you from here, Boon.”
By any measure, Boon Shanks was an idiot and a coward, and his reaction was that of a wounded animal. He shrieked in terror and then, uttering a series of panicked yips, he crawled on all fours and threw himself against Arlo Palmer, seeking his protection.
“Leave him the hell alone,” Palmer said. He remembered the knife and saw the unwavering Colt and added, “Miss Stanton.” Then to the cowering Shanks, “They’re all set on selling that girl to a Mexican brothel.”
“And she’ll get there a virgin,” Susan Stanton said.
Loco Garrett, Charlie Bates, and Morris Bennett looked on Shanks with a mix of contempt and amusement. Doug Avila watched, his face expressionless, waiting to see what happened next.
Clay Kyle provided it.
“You heard the lady,” Kyle said. “Boon, try anything like that with the girl again and I’ll kill you myself.”
Boon whimpered and Arlo said, “He was only having some fun, Clay.”
“He almost lost his balls,” Kyle said. “You boys ain’t here for fun, you’re here to talk business.” He looked into the darkness and said, “And talking about business, where the hell is Zack?”
“Taking a piss, more like,” Garrett said.
But Kyle’s question was answered a few moments later when the wolfer slowly emerged from the gloom.
Kyle smiled. “What did you see, Zack?”
Palmer looked distracted, confused, like a man with a disintegrating mind.
“What did you see?” Kyle said again.
“Nothing,” Zack said.
“Not even a gray wolf?”
“Nothing. I told you, I saw nothing.”
“Good. Are you ready to consider my proposition again?” Kyle said.
“Yeah . . . I’ll talk.”
“Hell, Zack, you feeling all right?” Kyle said.
Palmer was immediately defensive. “What do you mean?”
“All at once you don’t seem to be yourself,” Kyle said.
“I’m fine,” Palmer said. “And don’t ask me what I seen out there. Don’t ask me never again. You hear?”
“Anything you say, Zack,” Kyle said. “Not another word from me.”
“Where’s the whiskey?” Palmer said.
“Yeah, good idea. Set yourself down and have a drink,” Kyle said. “Then we’ll talk business.”
Palmer nodded. “Business. Yeah, we’ll talk business and nothing else.” He sat by the fire, took a slug from the whiskey bottle, and then hugged it close. “It’s good to talk business,” he said. “Sets a man’s brain to rights.”
* * *
After a time, while the men talked, Susan Stanton strolled unnoticed to the edge of the prairie darkness. She saw nothing. Jenny Calthrop joined her on silent feet. The girl said, “I wanted to thank—”
“No need to thank me,” Susan said. “As a virgin you’re worth twice as much to us in Mexico.” She smiled slightly. “It’s just business. You understand?”
“I want to thank you anyway, Miss Stanton,” Jenny said.
“You think I’m a nice lady, huh?”
“Yes, I think I do.”
“I’m not. If you were a whore, I’d have let Boon Shanks have you. Little girl, you mean nothing to me. Does that shock you?”
“I don’t think so,” Jenny said.
“Do you even know what a whore is?”
The girl was silent.
“Get away from me,” Susan said. “No, wait. Do you smell something in the air?”
“Perfume,” Jenny said. “Like my ma wore.”
“It’s nothing like your ma wore,” Susan said. “It’s called incense and it’s ancient.” She put a hand on Jenny’s shoulder. “What did Zack Palmer see out here?”
“I don’t know,” Jenny said.
“I don’t know either,” Susan Stanton said. “But he saw something. Or smelled it.”
NOTE: What did wolfer Zack Palmer see that night in the Texas Hill Country? We’ll never know. In the mid-1920s, an Austrian archaeologist hunting dinosaur bones did a brief excavation at the ruins of the old High Times mansion. He later reported that he’d uncovered human, skeletal remains, including a female pelvic girdle of great age, probably dating to Indians that lived in the area from 6000 B. C. to 500 A.D. The pelvis was later destroyed during WW2. Was it the pelvis from the mummy of the temple chantress Lady Teshet . . . and did her restless spirit, at least for a while, haunt the living? Zack Palmer might have been able to answer that question.