DUANE AWOKE BEFORE DAWN, HOLDING his gun ready to fire. Then he looked out the window at the first red sliver of sun peeking over distant mountains. It reminded him of when he'd dwelled among the Apaches, hunted wild animals, drank tiswin, and had incredible visions concerning his grandfather.
Duane wished he could be back with the Apaches, living a pure life close to nature, but warriors were always returning from raids wearing Mexican and American clothing and carrying rifles, ammunition, and other booty that they'd stolen. Their entire culture was on the dodge, and it was only a matter of time before the Army hunted them down.
Duane craved a normal life with home-cooked meals and honest ranch work. He'd loved his brief stint as a cowboy, but then he'd shot Otis Puckett, and his life had turned upside down ever since. When would the madness end? he often wondered.
He found the washbasin, splashed water onto his face, and made his way toward the undertaker's house, as Twilby's chant continued to ring in his brain. “Yer a grown man, and got the right to hear the truth.” The undertaker lived on the east side of town in an adobe house, with window frames trimmed in white. Duane knocked on the door, and the tall, severe-looking trafficker in corpses opened it. His eyes widened at the sight of the Pecos Kid.
“I'm here for the funeral,” announced Duane.
Snodgras led him to a back room, where a plain wooden coffin contained the late Amos Twilby. The undertaker had bathed and shaved the corpse, dressed him in a suit, dyed his mustache, and powdered his nose. Duane was revolted by the transformation of his friend. Will I look like that when they bury me? Duane wondered.
“Have you spoken with the parson yet?” asked the undertaker.
“I'll see him at the cemetery.”
“Reverend Berclair doesn't work that way. He'll have to palaver with you first, to make sure you're a good Christian. He takes his job seriously. He's not in it for the money.”
Duane noticed four other corpses lying on tables nearby. One was Jones, the owlhoot in the brown hat whom Duane had shot in the Last Chance Saloon. Second was the owlhoot wearing the green shirt, and the next corpse was the one with the pointy nose, both of whom Duane had outgunned in the street the previous night. Duane turned toward the fourth corpse, and his eyes dilated at the sight of the owl-hoot with the silver-star belt buckle, whom Duane had thought got away! “What happened to him?”
“Bled to death. He was found behind a stack of firewood with a bullet in his leg.”
So I got him after all, thought Duane, as previous conclusions flipped in his mind. “Wait a minute,” Duane said. “If a man gets shot in the leg like this, how long before he loses enough blood to conk out?”
“The bullet severed his popliteal artery. I'd say fifteen minutes to a half hour.” Then the undertaker smiled proudly. “I studied to be a doctor before I became an undertaker.”
Duane was struck by a disturbing new thought. If this outlaw died fifteen minutes after I shot him, then who tried to blow me to bits while I was asleep behind the Last Chance Saloon? A chill came over Duane. Is somebody who I don't even know trying to kill me?
Apocalypse Church was a white house with desert swallows flitting about the steeple and belfry. Duane had never been in a Protestant church. Most Texans were Protestants, whereas Mexicans attended the Catholic churches. He glanced behind him, to see if a bushwhacker with a shotgun was lurking in an alley.
The inside of the church was plain white, with no statues of saints, no candles burning, and no Jesus on the bare cross suspended behind the altar. A young woman prayed in the front pew, her shoulders bent in supplication before the Lord. Whoever she is, she really believes, Duane thought. He headed for the door that led to the parson's office, and the young woman's head spun around in alarm.
“Didn't mean to scare you,” he said. “I was looking for the Reverend Berclair.”
She was a frail-looking, pale-complexioned teenaged girl with black hair pulled to a ponytail behind her head, and she wore a gingham dress with a high collar. “Through there,” she replied, pointing toward a door.
Duane opened it. An older woman appeared in the corridor, her features austere, and she was dressed in black. “May I help you, sir?”
“I want to see Reverend Herbert Berclair about a funeral. My name's Duane Braddock.”
She made an uncertain smile. “Everybody's talking about you, Mister Braddock. I'm the parson's wife, Patricia Berclair. Right this way.”
As she led him to a small parlor, he noticed she was in her mid-thirties, and was tall and angular. “Make yourself comfortable. I'll get my husband.”
She headed for the door, and he decided that he liked the holy lady. He sat on an upholstered chair and looked at a small bare cross affixed to the wall above the fireplace. Above the cross was a sign: He Is Risen.
Duane felt out of place in the parson's home, because Protestants generally hated Catholics, and vice versa. He'd studied the Reformation at the monastery in the clouds, and countless warring Protestant sects had confused him. Duane didn't know what was right or wrong in religion anymore, but tried to keep an open mind. He expected a pale preacher with an elongated beak to appear, but instead a big strapping fellow approximately six feet four inches tall strode into the room. He had curly dark blond hair, a deep chest, a ruddy complexion, and advanced on a shiny walnut pegleg.
“I'm Parson Berclair!” declared the booming voice. He grasped Duane's hand firmly. “Pleased to meet you.”
Duane squeezed with all his might to prevent his knuckles from being crushed. “Mister Snodgras said you wanted to see me about the Twilby funeral,” Duane said.
“Are you a Christian?”
“Definitely.”
Parson Berclair fixed Duane in his stare. “I mean a real Christian who tries to live the gospel, not just pay lip service. If I'm going to bury your friend today, I expect a prayerful experience for all concerned, in which we relive together the passion of Christ and his resurrection into heaven.”
“Wouldn't want it any other way,” Duane replied.
Reverend Berclair beamed. “I've always believed that the best way to prepare for a funeral is to bare our hearts to God, ask for forgiveness, and pray for the soul of our recently departed. Most people in Escondido are outlaws, and perhaps you are too. But God loves repentant sinners most of all. Why don't you go to the chapel, and I'll call when we're ready to depart for the cemetery?”
The chapel was filled with slanting shafts of morning light that illuminated pews. Duane sat, looked at the bare cross and walls, and felt strangely bereft without the statues, symbols, and paintings of the Catholic Church. The Protestants didn't have anything except God Himself, he realized. It was an interesting concept, but he preferred Giotto and Titian to drab walls. He dropped to his knees, clasped his hands, and tried to pray.
Nothing happened, and he felt unworthy to appear before the Lord God. The plain fact was he'd broken every rule in the book since leaving the monastery in the clouds. Unable to turn the other cheek, he found himself drawn back to a more primitive biblical theme: An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. He knew it was barbaric, but also recognized that he was weak and couldn't ignore the murder of his father, the loss of his mother, and now, most recently, the killing of Amos Twilby and the subsequent attempt on his own life.
If Twilby had stayed away from me, he'd still be alive today, Duane surmised. Twilby stuck his neck out for Joe Braddock's son, and a snake in the grass shot him. Murder and robbery are taking over the world, while good people turn their cheeks. Didn't Christ throw the money changers out of the temple precincts?
On top of everything else, as if he didn't have enough worries, somebody had tried to blast him to pieces as he slept behind the Last Chance Saloon last night. Duane couldn't imagine who the bushwhacker was, and wondered when he'd strike again.
The back door of the church opened, and Duane's slender fingers darted toward his gun. He heard the laughter of five children chasing each other up and down the aisles. A stout woman accompanied them, and Duane arose from his pew as she approached.
“Sorry to bother you, sir, but this is the onliest place where the little ‘uns can play during the day. You're new in town, ain't y'all?”
“Just arrived yesterday,” Duane replied.
“The children cain't go outside,” she explained.
“There's so many guns in Escondido, you'd think there was a war on.”
She smiled apologetically, then waddled to a back pew and sat where she could watch the children. Duane returned to his knees on the floor and considered what she'd said. How can children grow normally if they're pushed indoors all the time?
Their screams pierced his ears, disturbed his prayer, and provoked his hostility against the outlaws who'd taken over Escondido. They have no respect for anybody, not even women and little children. Who the hell do they think they are? It's time somebody took charge of this town.
Now hold on, he admonished himself. Don't get carried away. You're just one ex-cowboy with a price on his head. You can't save this town, and if Jesus Himself came back to earth, even He couldn't save Escondido.
Duane heard a deep voice emanate from the front of the church. “It's time.”
Duane followed the Reverend Berclair to the parlor, where his wife was waiting, attired in her black dress, black lace collar, and black bonnet that contrasted sharply with her milky white complexion. They proceeded outside. The undertaker sat on the front seat of the buckboard. A planked wooden coffin lay in back. Duane knew who slept eternally inside, covered with cosmetic powder, wearing a new suit. The undertaker flicked his reins, and the horses pulled the wagon toward the cemetery.
Duane walked beside Reverend and Mrs. Berclair and the clanking buckboard. “The deceased was a close friend?” asked Reverend Berclair.
“Actually, we'd just met,” Duane said. “But he was a good man, and didn't deserve to get bushwhacked.”
“Remember the words of Paul the Apostle. Even if you are angry, you must not sin. Never let the sun set on your anger, or you will give the devil a foothold.”
“Nobody's shooting at me and getting away with it,” Duane replied darkly. “That's all I know.”
Reverend Berclair glanced at him. “You're on the road to hell, my boy.”
“Am I supposed to look the other way and let him do it?”
“Why does somebody want to kill you?”
“I think it has something to do with my father. You ever heard of Joe Braddock?”
The preacher shook his head. “Should I?”
“He was killed in a feud with some rich ranchers near the Pecos some years back.”
“I've never spent much time in the Pecos country, I'm afraid. My wife and I arrived in Texas only recently from Alabama. We felt that God was calling us to this sinful land, isn't that so, Patricia?”
She nodded solemnly. Duane glanced at her out the corner of his eyes, and thought she might be pretty if she gained some weight. “Escondido sure is sinful,” Duane said, picking up the conversation. “I never saw so many hard hombres in one spot in my life.”
“It's an uphill battle, but I believe in persistence and the healing power of God. I've seen Him, you see.”
“What'd He look like?” Duane asked.
The preacher appeared not to notice the skeptical note in Duane's question. “It happened a long time ago, during the war, at Vicksburg,” he replied, and his face seemed to glow with the memory. “Cannonballs were falling, canister raked our lines, the ground was covered with dead and wounded, and behind it all, high in the sky, I saw the face of the Lord God gazing at me, an expression of indescribable compassion on his face. I literally cried for joy, but then a chunk of flying metal hit me in the leg. It was the end of the war for me, but the message was irrefutable. God directed me to take up His ministry, and simultaneously made it impossible to do otherwise. So I mustered out, went to divinity school, and here I am in Escondido.”
Maggie O'Day stepped outdoors, accompanied by Bradley Metzger, and the bright morning sunlight nearly blinded her. She was a creature of the night, usually fast asleep in the early hours, but there was something she wanted to do. Duane Braddock's story had touched her, for she'd been a semi-orphan too, and had often wondered about her father. She suspected that news of Duane's mother might be available among the older women of Escondido.
“Pick me up,” she ordered.
Bradley lifted her easily in his powerful arms and carried her across the street, dodging potholes, refuse, and a puddle of horse piss. They came to the far side, and Bradley lowered her to the ground. “You ain't a goin’ in the Silver Spur, are you?”
She glanced at him sharply. “If I want yer opinion, I'll ask fer it. And if'n you don't like yer job, just give me a day's notice, so's I can git somebody else.”
“You'll never get anybody like me,” he said angrily.
“Your kind is a dime a dozen,” she replied.
She held her skirts as she entered the Silver Spur Saloon, so she wouldn't attract dirt to her hem. Outlaws slept bent over tables in the filthy, ramshackle saloon, while the bleary-eyed bartender washed glasses in a tub of dirty water. “Can I help you, Miss O'Day?”
“Where's Sanchez?”
The bartender nodded toward the back corridor.
“Why don't you wash the spittoons while yer at it?” she asked. He didn't reply.
Bradley accompanied her to the corridor. Sometimes he felt like murdering her, and other times he wanted to get on his knees and beg her to marry him. She turned toward him as they approached the door. “Wait for me here.”
“Be better if I went inside with you.”
She looked at him askance. “Better for who? I said wait for me here.”
She knocked on the door, waited a few moments, then disappeared into the office. Bradley sat on a chair near the door, placed his gun on the table, and looked around the smoky rundown saloon in the morning light streaming through smeared windows. A man in a frock coat lay unconscious on the floor, his arm hanging over a brass rail covered with rust and dried gobs of tobacco juice.
Bradley thought Maggie should stay out of filthy low-class saloons like the Silver Spur, but she never listened to him. She uses me like a horse, but she'll git her ass in Dutch someday, and turn to me for help. Maybe I will, and maybe I won't.
Sanchez was a portly olive-skinned Mexican with a short curly beard and half-closed eyes. He set out two glasses, poured whisky, then handed one glass to Maggie. “What can I do for you, Señorita?”
She turned down the corners of her mouth with distaste as she perused the room. “I've seen nicer pigpens.”
“My customers like it this way,” replied Sanchez. “It reminds them of home.”
“Yer the dumbest businessman I ever saw, but that ain't why I'm here.” She reached into her purse, pulled out her gold cigar case, selected a panatella, and lit it with a match scratched atop Sanchez's desk. “You ever hear of Joe Braddock?”
Sanchez reflected for a few moments. “What Joe Braddock?”
“He shot some folks up by the Pecos ‘bout eighteen years ago. Ever heard of the Polka Dot Gang?”
“Not that I remember, Señorita.”
“Well, Joe Braddock was boss of the Polka Dot Gang, and his wife was in the business, if you know what I mean. I'm tryin’ to find out who she was. Do you think you can ask yer gals if they ever heard of Joe Braddock and his women? I'd appreciate the favor.”
He leaned toward her, licked his upper lip lewdly, and asked: “What'll you do fer me?”
“I'll buy yer business fer a good price after you go broke.”
“Who says I'm goin’ broke?”
“Them dirty cuspidors and yer cruddy floor. It might remind some men of home, but most wouldn't set foot in here.”
“Maybe you and me could become partners,” he said.
“Find me some news on Joe Braddock's women, then we'll talk. You know where to find me, day or night. But don't get no ideas. This is strictly bizness.”
On her way back to the Last Chance Saloon, Maggie found Duane Braddock sitting on the bench in front. “Morning,” he said with a smile. “I want to talk with you.”
“Change yer mind about the sheriff job?”
Duane was surprised. “How'd you know?”
She turned to Bradley. “Go to the blacksmith and tell him I want a tin badge for the new sheriff.”
Bradley scowled. “I told you onc't afore that I ain't yer errand boy.”
She placed her fists on her hips and leaned toward him. “That's exactly what you are, and if you don't like it, you can pick up yer pay and leave.”
She placed her arm around Duane's waist and led him through the door. They passed afternoon drunkards, the bartender stocking fresh bottles behind the bar, and a Negro sweeping the floor. Duane said: “You'd better watch out for Bradley.”
“If he made a million dollars fer me, I'd kiss his ass. But until then, he'll do as I say.”
They entered her office. She sat behind her desk, reached for the whisky bottle, and dangled it before his eyes. “Want some?”
“I'm not drinking anymore, but could use a little breakfast.”
“Go to the kitchen and eat whatever you want. By the way, Twilby owned the stable free and clear, we got no probate in Escondido, and Twilby ain't got kin, far as we know. Since you was his best friend, the stable's your'n.”
“What'll I do with a stable?”
“Make money off it. What else?”
“Is it legal for somebody my age to be a sheriff?”
“The other businessmen and I pretty much make up the laws as we go along, ‘cause there ain't no lawyers here, thank God, and yer just what we've been a-hopin’ fer. We'll chip in to pay yer salary. Yer hired as of right now. How's it feel to be sheriff of Escondido?”
Two prostitutes in homespun dresses and no cosmetics sat at the big kitchen table, eating breakfast in the middle of the afternoon. It was their own private residential section of the Last Chance Saloon, and Duane felt like an intruder as he chose the stool farthest from them. The girls snickered, and one said. “You ain't afraid of us, are you?”
“What makes you think I'm afraid of you?” replied Duane.
“Why're you sitting all the way down there?”
“I didn't want to interrupt your conversation.”
“We was a-talkin’ about you anyways. What're you a-doin’ hyar?”
“I'm the new sheriff.”
She fluttered her eyelashes. “You can arrest me anytime.”
The girls giggled, and Duane's ears turned bright red. The face of a Negro woman appeared in the doorway. “Lookin’ fer breakfast?” she asked Duane.
“Yes ma'am.”
The face disappeared. Duane rolled a cigarette, as the girls whispered among themselves at the far end of the table. “I'm Shirley,” one of them announced. “And this is Maxine. We was just a-sayin’ ‘bout how cute you were.”
Duane's cheeks reddened deeply and the girls twittered at his reaction. The Negress cook appeared in the nick of time with a platter of fried eggs, sausages, beans, grits, potatoes, and biscuits slathered with butter. “If you ladies're finished, ain't you got somethin’ to do?”
The girls retreated from the kitchen as Duane scooped half of a fried egg into his mouth, then reached for the toast. The Negress returned with a pot of coffee and a mug. “I guess you're the Duane Braddock that everybody's talkin’ about. You sure don't look as bad as they say.”
“Nothing's wrong with me that a good meal wouldn't cure.” She returned to the kitchen, and Duane felt curious about her life. He didn't know much about Negroes, because there hadn't been any in the monastery in the clouds. Probably an ex-slave, he reflected, as he stuffed grits into his mouth. Texas had been a slave state, and most Negroes her age had been owned by white men in the bad old days.
A young woman with black hair in a ponytail entered the kitchen, and Duane was jolted with the awareness that she was the supplicant he'd seen earlier in church. His fork fell from his hand as he realized that she was a prostitute too! She sat opposite him, and said, “You ever find out who tried to shoot you?”
He realized with new wonder that she was also the loose-hipped enchantress who'd escorted him to his room the previous night! “No, but I remember seeing you in church this morning.”
“I told you where the parson's office was.”
What kind of prostitute goes to church early in the morning? Duane asked himself. The answer came with stunning forcefulness: Mary Magdalene. This is a God-fearing woman, Duane speculated, and if I were a good Christian I'd save her from her life of sin, but I can't even save myself.
The Negress cook brought another platter of food, as Alice Markham ate with both elbows on the table. She pretended to be tough, but Duane had seen her in church with her heart bared before the Lord. His acolyte's eyes examined the sadness in her eyes, the defiant corners of her mouth, her mock flippant manner. Underneath it, she was a pious young girl, and he felt inspired to rescue her from her squalid life. “You look so different today,” he said.
“Amazin’ what some paint and powder'll do.”
“Do you go to church often?”
“If I didn't, I'd go loco. Do you think it's fun a-screwin’ every galoot with a spare fifty cents in his pocket?”
Her blunt language gave him pause, but it was the opening he was looking for. “Do you know how to read and write and do numbers?”
“A little.”
“If you learned how to read and write better, maybe you could get a job as a clerk.”
“I'm too dumb to get a job as a clerk.”
“You don't seem dumb to me, and I could teach you. Hell, I've spent most of my life in school. I'm willing to give it a try if you are.”
She looked at him askance. “What's wrong with you, mister?”
“I thought you said you didn't like screwing galoots for fifty cents apiece.”
“I've met a million cowboys who needed to save me, but all they really wanted was my li'l ass.”
Again, her language stopped him cold in his tracks. “I made you an offer, and you can take it or leave it.”
“It's gettin’ better and better. Next thing you'll promise the moon.”
He refused to be drawn more deeply into the morass where she was dragging him. I made my offer, it was honorable, and if she doesn't accept it, not my fault. He continued to wolf down breakfast, as Maggie O'Day appeared in the doorway, a tin badge in her hand. She tossed it onto the table, and said, “Here it is.”
It lay before him, glowing dully in the light streaming through the windows. Cut crudely from a sheet of tin, it carried the word Sheriff hammered with the point of a nail. He pinned it onto his shirt and let it hang. Somehow it didn't look very impressive.
“Payday is the last of the month,” Maggie said. “Congratulations, good luck, and if you need me fer anythin’, you knows whar to find me.”
She departed the kitchen, leaving Duane alone with Alice Markham and the tin badge.
“Yer the new sheriff?” she asked skeptically.
“That's right.”
“You must be loco.”
He couldn't disagree, and their eyes didn't meet again as they continued to breakfast on opposite sides of the table. Duane finished first, put on his black cowboy hat, and was out the door. How strange, he thought. A prayerful prostitute.
He had no idea of what a sheriff was supposed to do, and thought he should ask Maggie first. Instead, he ran into Bradley Metzger in the corridor. “I want to talk with your boss,” he said.
The bodyguard wore a too-tight suit, the frock coat unbuttoned to show his low-slung holster. He looked at Duane's tin badge. “What in hell is that supposed to be?”
“Out of my way,” Duane replied.
“She's busy.”
The door flung open, and Maggie stood before them with sleepy eyes and a mug of coffee. “What the hell's a-goin’ on here?”
Duane was first to speak. “I want to talk to you.”
“Come on inter my office.”
Duane made a motion toward the door, but Bradley wouldn't get out of his way. Both men glowered at each other, and Duane was getting annoyed at the bad manners of the big ugly bodyguard.
A cross expression came over Maggie's puffy features as she turned toward Bradley. “Get out of his way, you damned fool. You'd better leave the new sheriff alone, if you know what's good fer you.”
“He ever starts with me,” replied Bradley, “I'll shove that badge up his ass.”
She pushed Bradley away from her doorway, and the bodyguard frowned at the sheriff passing him by. Maggie closed the door in his face, then sat behind a desk littered with breakfast plates. “You'd better watch out fer Bradley, ‘cause he don't like you.”
“I think he's in love with you.”
“That's too bad, and one of these days, he keeps it up, I'll fire his ass. But I'm glad yer here, ‘cause I've got good news. There's an empty store down the street next to the barber shop, and the blacksmith'll put bars on the windows later in the day. It'll be yer office. Here's the keys.”
Duane caught the jangling digits out of the air. “There's something I wanted to ask you, Maggie. Did you tell anybody what room I was in last night?”
“Don't believe so,” she replied. “Why'd I do that?”
“I'm trying to figure out how the man with the shotgun knew what room I was in.”
“Lots've folks could've see'd you.”
“Only one person saw me as far as I know, and she claims she didn't tell anybody.”
“Maybe she lied, or maybe somebody else spotted you, but you didn't spot him. Or her.”
“It was awful dark,” Duane admitted. “Maybe it was Bradley.”
She became coy. “He knows I like you.”
Duane didn't know what to say.
“You blush like a girl,” Maggie said with a kindly smile. “And I do like you, but I'm old enough to be yer momma, fer Chrissakes. It's just that Bradley's the jealous kind, although he has no right. But you know how it is. A man sleeps with a woman, he thinks he owns her.”
Duane wasn't sure how to respond, because no woman had ever talked to him so candidly. “I'd better set him straight.”
“Be careful how you talk to him. He's dangerous.”
“So am I.”
Duane yanked open the door, and Bradley turned around to the barrel of a Colt aimed at his nose. Bradley's forehead wrinkled in distaste and loathing. “What's this supposed to be?” he asked.
“Did you try to shoot me last night?” Duane replied, as he searched Bradley's eyes for the lie.
“If I tried to shoot you, I wouldn't miss,” hissed Bradley. “And if you didn't have that gun in yer hand, I'd kick yer ass all over this saloon.”
Sometimes a man had to draw the line, Duane reflected. Bradley itched for a fight, and Duane had to admit that he did too. Tense and anxious after the events of the night, he eased back the hammer and holstered his Colt. “Let's go.”
An expression of delight came over Bradley's face as he advanced down the narrow corridor, his left fist cocked for a skull-crunching blow, and his right pawing ahead, measuring the distance. Duane knew that a southpaw was defeated through maneuver, but there wasn't much room in the narrow corridor. Duane's spiritual advisor at the monastery, Brother Paolo, had fought semi-professionally prior to taking the tonsure, and taught Duane all the advanced tricks, clean and dirty, of fisticuffs.
The new sheriff of Escondido stepped forward cautiously, holding his left arm low, hoping to lure the bodyguard into overextending himself. Bradley saw the opening and shot his right fist forward, but Duane dodged out of the way, then launched a stiff right lead to Bradley's nose. Cartilage crackled beneath Duane's fist, blood spurted in all directions, and Bradley was knocked backwards by the force of the blow.
Duane went after him, to finish him off, when the proprietress stepped between them and held out her arms. “You want to fight, go outside!” she hollered angrily.
Duane headed for the back door, prepared for a backshoot from Bradley, but the bodyguard preferred to tear him apart with his bare hands. They stormed outside into the bright sunny southwest Texas afternoon. Duane removed his hat and hung it from a nail stuck into the side of a tree, then unbuttoned his shirt. Bradley blinked like an owl in the bright sunlight as he took off his frock coat. “Sonny jim,” he said. “I'm a-gonna whup yer ass.”
Duane decided not to remove his gun, although it was heavy and would slow him down. Men working in the vicinity drifted closer to see the action, as others called to friends far away. News spread rapidly throughout town that war was about to commence behind the Last Chance Saloon.
Duane knew that he had to trick Bradley into throwing punches, and then counter. But Bradley knew what to expect now, and was wary of another headlong rush. Both men circled each other cautiously, giving each other angles and looking for openings, as onlookers crowded around.
Thanks to Brother Paolo, Duane was a well-schooled fighter. He knew how to keep his elbows close to his body, hide his chin behind his shoulder, and snap his punches. In addition, Brother Paolo had taught him the science of lateral movement, how to guard against a thumb in the eye and head butts, and how to avoid the inevitable punch below the belt. Duane felt confident that he could outthink the bear-like bodyguard facing him with bad intentions in his eyes.
“When's the fight gonna start?” asked an old timer in the crowd. Another replied: “Looks like one's skeered and the other wants to run away.”
Bradley bent his knees and pawed with his right hand while loading up his left. Duane took a step to the side and buried his fist up to the wrist in his opponent's stomach. Bradley expelled air from all his orifices, took a step backwards, and threw his right fist forward. But Duane dodged out of the way, then smashed Bradley in the stomach with his left fist. Bradley lowered his arms, to protect a particular portion of his anatomy, and Duane threw a crunching right hook to the side of Bradley's head.
Bradley wasn't fazed by the blow, and responded with a digging left into Duane's kidney. It felt like a dagger, but Duane stood toe-to-toe with Bradley, smashed him in the mouth, whacked him on the ear, cracked him in the gut, and then danced away from Bradley's wild, flailing punches.
Bradley was furious, his lips pulped, left ear turning purple. He reached forward tentatively with his big right fist, but Duane went under it, slammed him in the gut, jabbed him in the mouth, and danced away. He believed that he had Bradley figured out, and it was only a matter of time until Bradley fell. Cocky, vain, filled with false pride, Duane darted forward for another quick combination of devastating punches.
Instead, a hamlike fist appeared in front of his eyes. A moment later something crashed into his skull, and it felt like the Last Chance Saloon had fallen upon him. Bradley had timed him coming in and hit him with everything he had.
Duane landed on his wallet. A boot came streaking toward his face, and he couldn't get out of the way. The pointed toe connected with his cheek and tore it open, and sharp pain blotted out the afternoon. Duane jumped to his feet, dodged a left hook, ducked an overhand right, and walked into a left uppercut.
It straightened him like a ponderosa pine, then sent him sprawling backwards. No ropes stopped him, and he landed flat on his back, as pigeons sang madrigals inside his skull. Bradley stood a few steps away, thumbs hooked in his suspenders. “This is some sheriff we've got here,” he drawled.
The crowd laughed, and Duane felt shame roll over him like a load of cow manure. Brother Paolo had taught him never to lunge with his punches, but he'd thrown caution to the winds, and Bradley had made him pay.
“Sonny jim,” said Bradley, “I think it's time fer you to climb on yer horse and ride out of town. Otherwise I'm liable to rip yer fuckin’ haid off.”
Duane wiped blood off his cheek, as wrath came on like a stampede of longhorns. He got to his feet, stepped toward Bradley, and flicked out a tentative jab. Bradley picked it off easily and countered with a left hook, but Duane was gone, with Bradley off balance, leaning forward, wide open. Duane slammed him on the ear, cracked him in the mouth, harpooned him in the belly, then connected with a solid uppercut to the tip of the chin. Bradley went swaying backwards, but friends in the crowd grabbed his shoulders and pushed him back toward Duane, who worked Bradley's midsection for a spell, then went upstairs and hammered his head. Methodically, Duane took Bradley apart. Bradley's knees weakened, and he wobbled around the backyard as Duane's fists pounded him relentlessly. Bradley made one last desperate attack to turn the fight around, but Duane stepped deftly to the side, loaded up his right hand, and sent it streaking toward his opponent's chin. Bradley was lifted off his feet by the impact of the blow and landed on his back. His eyes were closed, and only his heaving chest moved.
Duane's arms were sore from punches he'd blocked, and blood oozed out of the cut on his cheek. Somebody passed him a bottle of whisky, and he rinsed out his mouth. Some of his teeth were loose, and his left eye was half-closed, but he noticed the assembled townspeople and outlaws viewing him with new interest.
“Who's next?” he asked.
Nobody said a word. An unfamiliar face handed him a bucket of water. Duane upended it over his head and washed the blood and dirt away. Then he put on his hat and slogged away from the battleground. Outlaws, vaqueros, and gamblers made way for the new sheriff, and everybody realized that a new era of law and order had dawned on a certain little Texas border town.
Duane slept the rest of the day in the loft above the stable, his Apache ears tuned for danger. He awakened at ten o'clock at night, aching all over. He climbed stiffly down the ladder and found a muscular Negro approximately Duane's age studying ledgers in a small office at a corner of the stable. “You must be Mister Braddock. I'm Sam Goines . . . yer new stable man.”
Duane looked at him askance, because he appeared familiar. “Are you kin to Maggie's cook, by any chance?”
“That's my mother, Dolores Goines.”
Duane realized that Maggie had sent him there, and he'd probably been a slave too. “Where can I get a bath in this town?”
“I'll fix one up for you, suh. Maggie sent over some new clothes and sandwiches.”
Sam Goines pointed to a sack at the corner of the desk, but Duane's eyes were drawn to a wooden crate filled with books in the corner. “Where'd they come from?”
“I found ‘em under a pile of hay.”
The former acolyte was curious about the books. They were littered with dust and straw, and didn't look as if Twilby had been interested in them. Maybe a professor on the dodge went broke and gave them to Twilby in payment for stable fees, Duane speculated. Haphazardly, he picked up a black leatherbound volume from the middle of the pile and wiped the cover with his sleeve. It said, in gold letters, The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli.
“If you like books,” Sam Goines said, “my mother's got lots of ‘em that she's been carrying around fer years.”
The Negro sounded educated, with good diction. “Where'd you go to school?” Duane asked.
“The Freedman's Bureau.”
Duane had heard of the Freedman's Bureau. It had been formed by the federal government to assist ex-slaves. After Sam Goines left to perform his chores, Duane opened the book. A passage was underlined in black ink: The way men live is so far removed from the way they should, that anyone who abandons what is for what should be will end pursuing his downfall rather than his preservation.
Duane flipped a few pages, and read: Is it better to be loved than feared? The answer is that the most benefits would accrue to he who is both loved and feared. But since the two seldom appear together, anyone forced to choose will find greater security in being feared than being loved.
It seemed like Machiavelli was speaking directly to him. Duane recalled reading about the old Florentine diplomat at the monastery in the clouds, and knew that Machiavelli had been an advisor to the aristocracy of Old Italy but fell out of favor and died in obscurity. Some historians considered him the epitome of wickedness, while others said the silver-tongued courtier had looked reality in the face and had merely spoken the truth. Duane searched for more advice that he could apply to his new job in Escondido.
A man striving in every way to be good will meet his ruin among the great number who are wicked. You can't deny that, Duane agreed. In fact, it's exactly what happened to me. He touched the cut on his cheek, and it was caked with a scab. His left eye was nearly closed, his ribs ached, and teeth rattled painfully as he chewed a steak and onion sandwich. If I had any sense, I'd go back to the monastery and spend the rest of my life studying, praying, and singing Gregorian Chant. But unfortunately I don't have any sense.