Three men, three mounts. The men wore dungarees and dusty hats. There were bedrolls wrapped in slickers cinched to their saddles, like they were expecting rain. Or else expecting to be on our trail long enough it might could rain. In any event, they were there now. My first thought upon spying them through the narrowly cracked door was of the Mormons, whether they’d given us up or if some harm had come to them. I wondered too if they knew we had a child with us and whether they’d care. On that latter account, I reckoned not. These were not lawmen. They were mercenaries if ever I had seen one, which I had. Somebody had a price on us, me and Boon, and these were the fellows out to collect.
“This for Willocks, you reckon?” I whispered to Boon. “Or is this your pa’s bunch?”
“Could be either,” she said, wincing at my calling Stanley her pa, “or both. We need more than just one gun.”
“I don’t guess asking for one would do much.”
“You reckon?” She gave me a sharp look. I shrugged. “Split them up is what we got to do. Get one apart, get what he’s shooting with.”
“Then it’s fair.”
Boon said, “Nothing is ever fair.”
“Reckon not,” I said.
She motioned at the roof and I nodded, went softly to the big hole and sucked in a deep breath before attempting to climb up. The girl was awake then, staring. She looked no more or less afraid than she always did. I smiled, rolled my shoulders.
“I am too old and too fat for this shit,” I said, and I reached up to grip the timber around which the tarpaper had collapsed. Boon watched me, earing back the hammer on her .44. I faltered twice, the second time nearly falling on my ass, but on the third try I managed to find purchase and, slowly and painfully, pulled myself up through the hole and onto the cabin roof. I farted loudly in the process. No one seemed to notice.
I slumped over the timber, all but certain it would crumble beneath my weight, but the beam held and I could hear how close the riders were now. So, too, I could feel how stupid I was for doing this. A distraction, a decoy with no gun. There were dumber ways to die, but I’d always hoped for a little more dignity than that. Maybe I never did have much horse sense. I didn’t reckon the very dumb were tipped off to the fact that they were dumb.
Hooves and forelegs caked with mud, the horses loped up to within five or six yards of the shanty, where the point man raised one gloved hand to halt the procession. He pushed his hat back on his head and squinted, his face a network of deep wrinkles, like a spiderweb. The man had not yet spotted me. I stayed flat against the roof, waiting on Boon to make her move.
That move came when she slid the barrel of her .44 through the crack in the door and squeezed off a shot, sending a bullet clean through one rider’s right arm. The limb flapped wildly and the man screamed, batting at it madly with his other hand. Boon slammed the door shut and the other men, the point man and his sole uninjured rider, drew revolvers and started shooting. I tried to flatten myself still more but it was nothing doing. Beneath me, Boon crouched behind the fireplace. The child cowered behind her, compressed into a tiny ball and trembling with fear.
Boon shot me a look. It was all I needed.
“Hey, peckerwood!” I hollered, waving my arms in the air like an idiot or a lunatic or both.
“On the roof, Sam!” shouted the injured rider.
Sam, the point man, raised his gun and fired two shots at me, missing both times as I scuttled down the roof and down to the ground on the backside of the cabin. I moved to the corner, listened closely to the hoofbeats, and the second I saw a boot I grabbed a hold of it with both hands and yanked the rider off the saddle. The rider crashed down on top of me and together we rolled in the mud, the bastard’s dapple gray stamping the muck frighteningly close to my head.
It wasn’t Sam, nor was it the poor son of a bitch Boon got in the arm. This fellow wore a bushy yellow beard as unruly as mine had been, previous to my San Francisco transformation, and one of his eyes was so milky I reckoned he couldn’t see out of it. He saw well enough to pin me in the mud and pummel my face and neck with his hammy fists, though. I was getting sorely tired of having my ass whupped in the mud by roustabouts.
Two shots sounded on the front side of the shanty. Boon’s and Sam’s, I guessed. The jasper on top of me rained his fists down on me until I couldn’t really feel it anymore, which seemed equal parts blessing and curse. The upshot of it was I was able to gather my senses enough to focus on the task at hand. Namely, getting that son of a bitch off of me and his gun away from him.
It was easier than I reckoned it would be. I took the beating long enough that it gave the old boy a right smart of security that I would not fight back. He had me licked, at least as far as he was concerned, so that when I snatched the six-shooter from the rig he had cinched around his waist he hardly did anything but gawp.
My hand curled around that grip fair nicely, and though my eyes were half-swollen shut and I was half-blind with tears, I managed to stick the barrel right under his chin and I sort of smiled. His hands went up sort of instinctively.
I said, “We done here?”
He went for the gun. I wished he hadn’t done that. I shot him, the bullet exiting the top of his head and his eyeballs rolling back as the whites turned red. He slumped down on me. I rolled him off into the mud and spent a couple of difficult minutes rocking back and forth, trying to right myself. That fellow sure gave me a hellacious drubbing and I was beginning to feel it all over again.
I was dizzy on my feet. The world tilted and spun. I figured that made us just about even: one solid shooter on each side, one impaired. Then I remembered that Boon had a hole in her back. It was what it was. I shrugged it off and crept slowly around the side of the shack to the front.
Sam still sat his mount. The other fellow was crouched on the ground behind a rock, balancing his pistol on the surface with an unsure left hand. Both fired on the cabin until they were empty. Then the injured man vanished behind the rock and Sam wheeled around to the other side of the cabin while they both reloaded.
I checked the hogleg I’d taken off the corpse back of the cabin. Double-action five-shot, two in the cylinder. I cried out, “Boon!”
And ran out front, my boots splashing in the muck. The man behind the rock poked his head up. I fired, but the ball struck the rock instead of him, kicking up a column of dust and pebbles. Sam gigged his horse back to the fray, his iron trained on me. The front door slammed open and Boon spun out of it, shooting before Sam knew she was there. He got hit in the side and dropped out of the saddle. His mount didn’t move, so Boon hurried over and slapped it on the backside. Off the horse went, snorting its complaint, and Boon loomed over Sam on the ground with the Colt trained on his face.
“Hi, Sam,” she said.
Sam spat. I kept my eyes on the rock.
“Sam?” the man called out. “Hey, Sam?”
“She got me dead to rights, Lem,” Sam said. Though he hadn’t let go of his gun.
“That’s my brother there,” Lem called back. “Can’t let you kill my brother.”
“Seems like your brother was fixing to kill me,” Boon countered.
“Ain’t personal.”
“Is to me.”
“Christ in Heaven, woman,” Lem said. “It’s just a God damned job.”
“For Arthur Stanley?”
Lem did not respond to that. Boon kicked the revolver from Sam’s hand and spun her .44 ’round so that the butt jutted out. Then she smashed it against Sam’s forehead.
Sam hollered.
“For Arthur Stanley?” she asked Sam.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Where did he hire you? At the Palace?”
“Naw. Custom house.”
“That right,” she said. “Why there?”
“Why, he’s the collector.”
He said it like it was common knowledge and that he couldn’t believe Boon so stupid as to not know it. She knew it now. She looked both astonished and like it was the most expected thing in the world at the same time.
“He’s the Customs Collector, Edward.”
“I heard.”
“Guess that means he’s the boss of what can or can’t come through port.”
“Reckon it does, Boon.”
She nudged Sam in the ribs with the toe of her shoe.
“Stanley own any other whorehouses besides the Palace?”
“You kidding?” Sam said, wincing. “A shit-load of ’em.”
“Quite the mack,” I said.
“A mack who controls the human chattel he deals in,” she said coldly.
“Your pa ain’t a very nice man.”
Boon’s eyes flashed on me.
Sam said, “Your pa? Christ.”
Lem shouted, “Sam? What’s going on, Sam?”
“What’s going on is you ought to shoot these fucking people, God damn it.”
“I won’t let them kill you.”
“You shoot,” Boon said, “and Sam will die.”
“I believe this is called an impasse,” I offered.
“Shut up, Edward,” Boon said.
I shrugged. I’d heard her say it once or twice and it felt good to use it myself.
“Toss out that iron, Lem,” she said. “And come on out of there with your hands where I can see them.”
“I can’t hardly even lift the right one,” he said. “You shot me.”
“I surely did. Do what I told you or I will shoot your brother in the mouth and then I will come for you.”
“God Almighty,” Lem whined. “You are sure a mean woman.”
“What about Watts,” Sam said.
“That your other man?” Boon said.
Sam nodded.
I said, “Watts ain’t no help to you anymore.”
“Dead?” Sam asked.
“Dead.”
“You are both damned bastards and cocksuckers,” he spat. “Hey, Lem—they killed Watts.”
“God damn it,” Lem said from his hidey-spot.
“I wish that son of a bitch told me what bastards you are,” Sam lamented.
“Damned inconvenient when folks shoot back,” Boon said.
“Want I should start shooting, Sam?” Lem said. “I reckon I can get ’em.”
“Not before this bitch does me,” Sam said.
“Impasse,” I said.
Lem said, “Oh, God damn it.”
Boon gingerly lifted her right foot and brought the heel of her boot down on the gunshot wound in Sam’s side. He grunted. She stepped down hard.
He screamed.
“Sam?” Lem called.
“You cunt,” Sam spat, his eyes streaming and arms flailing. “You fucking bitch.”
“Where is he now?” she said.
“Fucking bitch.”
Boon lifted the boot again. This time, she stamped down fast and powerfully. Sam howled like a coyote caught in a steel trap.
“He still at the customs house?”
“She’s like to kill me, Lem,” Sam hollered. “Might as well start shooting.”
I thought I heard Lem sob then, and the next moment he was up from behind the rock again, squeezing off a shot with his left hand. The ball struck the cabin. The child inside yelped, but I didn’t think she was hit. Just scared. I hoped.
Boon said, “Edward.”
I heaved a sigh and sighted Lem down. His left arm was shaking, trying like hell to get a bead on Boon. I shot him in the chest. He looked startled when the bullet slammed into his ribs, then a little bit like he might start laughing.
Lem didn’t laugh. He just fell down and died.
Boon watched the whole thing, then quietly returned her attention to Sam.
“Just you now,” she said.
“You have murdered my brother and my friend,” Sam seethed through clenched teeth. “You will burn in hell, God damn you.”
“Whatever makes you feel better about it,” she said. “Now, back to business. Where is Arthur Stanley?”
“Up your ass.”
“Edward,” Boon said, keeping her eyes on Sam. “Let’s have that toothpick.”
I might have given it a moment’s thought, but I did as she asked. Pulled the knife, handed it over, hilt first. Boon took it, squatted down over Sam with her boot still pressing half her weight against the wound. He groaned wetly.
“Go on and check on our ward,” she said then.
I scrunched up my brows, uncertain at the time what she meant.
“The kid, Edward.”
“Right,” I said.
Sam turned his shimmering, frightened eyes to me, like I was like to do anything to stop her. I smiled at him. He closed his eyes.
Inside the cabin, the girl still cowered behind the stony fireplace, her dirty knees to her chin and arms wrapped around her shins. She wasn’t in anything anybody would call good shape, but she wasn’t shot, either. She raised her face up so that the light from the hole in the roof caught the water welling up in her wide, brown eyes. The kid didn’t seem much assured by my presence. Then again, I couldn’t see why she should. We might have taken her away from whatever hellish depravity went on in that cathouse back in the city, but she had no good reason to feel safe quite yet. Not with a couple of desperadoes like me and Boon.
I said, “Hey there, little calf. Don’t know if you understand any American or if you don’t, but some bad men came ’round, and now they’re gone, and you’re safe here with us.”
The tears spilled over and she didn’t blink at all. Just stared. Quiet like.
Outside, Sam got to wailing again. He sounded like a woman, the way he was screaming. Not that there was a thing wrong with the way women sounded, just that it struck me funny how men’s voices can get so high-pitched when they’re scared bad enough. I reckoned Sam was plenty scared, and plenty hurting, too.
I just hoped she cleaned my knife when she was done.
My meager hopes were dashed when Boon returned to the shanty, short of breath and specked with blood on her face and neck, shirt, and hands. She gave me back my knife, hilt first, and the blade was a gruesome mess.
“Could of wiped it on your pants,” I said.
“Could have,” she said.
“Might could wipe it on your pants my own self.”
“Wouldn’t.”
Good advice, there. I nodded at the open door behind her.
“Dead?”
“No. Just missing a few teeth.”
“Christ,” I said, making a face and looking at the knife. “With this?”
Boon nodded.
“Christ,” I said again. “Tell you anything?”
Boon nodded again.
“Stanley’s left the city. Figures on us coming back there for him, wasn’t willing to put all his trust in them dumb shits he sent after us to finish the job.”
“Good thinking,” I said. “Where’d he go?”
“Funny thing, that. All I could get out of Sam before he blacked out was ‘handsome Frank.’”
“Handsome Frank,” I said.
“Said it three times. Handsome Frank, Handsome Frank, Handsome Frank. Like that, but more blubbering and sort of wet like, on account of the blood.”
“Mighty strange.”
“Mighty,” she agreed.
“Handsome Frank,” I said again, just to hear it. “Reckon that’s what they used to call old Franklin Pierce.”
She chewed on that a minute.
“The president?”
“Yeah, but before that. Back in the Mexican-American War days, way I recollect. Maybe even earlier, one of them Indian Wars back east. Sort of a nickname. Generals always get all kinds of nicknames.”
“Well,” Boon said, “Stanley sure as shit ain’t going to spend his time with President Pierce. Man’s been dead some years now.”
“I recollect that, too.”
“Handsome Frank,” she said.
I shrugged. Looked to the kid, like she might know. If she did, she kept it to herself.
We packed up, left the cabin in the same condition it was when we found it, apart from a couple few new holes in the walls. At Boon’s insistence, we dragged Lem and Watts a ways from the back of the place, into the woods. Sam we left where he lay, his face swollen and some five or six bloody teeth in the dirt beside his head. He hadn’t woken up, but he was still breathing, if a little shallowly. The girl gaped at him.
All those teeth on the ground made me feel a little less troubled about the one I lost back in Revelation.
“Mayhap it was just nonsense,” I said, eyeing Sam’s saddle and provisions. “Crazy with the pain. Tooth pain is just about the worst pain. Mayhap you ought to have worked on him someplace else.”
“Why don’t you ask him,” she said, stepping up into her saddle.
I gave Sam a light kick in the ribs. He did not stir.
We rode out before noontime. I took Sam’s saddle, gun, and making for biscuits and cigarettes. So, it wasn’t a complete loss, even if we had no idea what was next.
That is, until the kid shocked us both to hell and back but muttering something under her breath, too quiet to hear.
“By God,” I said, pulling on my mounts reins to let Boon and the girl to catch up a bit closer. “She talks.”
“Shut up, Edward,” Boon scolded me. Then, turning her head as far as she could without knocking the kid off the horse they shared, she said, “It’s all right, honey. You can talk to me.”
“And me,” I said.
Boon shot me a look. I shut up.
The girl pursed her mouth and swallowed hard, keeping her eyes down and hands on Boon’s waist. Both horses slowed to a meandering pace. The cabin by then was far enough behind us that we couldn’t see it anymore, nor any other signs of man or beast.
Finally, with what looked to be no small amount of effort, the kid cleared her throat and tried again.
“It’s a town,” she said, her voice small and hoarse.
“What’s a town, darlin’?” Boon said.
“Handsome Frank is,” said the kid. “Used to be, I mean. I heard miners talk about it sometimes. When they…”
She trailed off, leaving that bit of horror to the imagination. I chose not to imagine it.
“A mining town,” I said.
“Ghost town, sounds like,” Boon added.
The girl nodded at that.
“Handsome Frank, California,” I said, staring at the trail ahead of us like we were already on our way. Which I guess we were, now that we knew.
Boon reached back with one hand and gently patted at the kid’s shoulder.
“Thanks, darlin’,” she said. “I figured you for clever, and there you are.”
The girl sort of half-smiled at that and pressed her forehead against Boon’s back.
I smiled a little bit, myself.