Читать книгу The Drop Edge of Yonder - Rudolph Wurlitzer - Страница 15

Annie May and Zebulon smelled broken elbow before they saw it. What had been a trading post and a few shacks only a year ago was now a long, rutted street dominated by pandemonium and open sewage. Drunken miners shouted back and forth in a dozen languages, a naked Chinaman crawled past them into an alleyway pursued by a screaming whore, halfdead oxen pulled overloaded supply wagons through mud and melting snow, past signs advertising wares at outrageous prices: Boots $30, Flour $35, Blankets $30, Washing $20. Every square foot of ground that was not lived on was cluttered with mining equipment, dead dogs, pigs rooting in piles of stinking garbage, wagon beds, spare wheels, barrels, and stacks of lumber, as well as makeshift corrals where mules and horses stood knee-deep in muck. Farther away, on the banks of a swiftly moving river, hundreds of high-booted men—most of them Indians, Mexicans, and Chinese—squatted beside cradle-like gold washers and sluice boxes while others worked up a canyon in steep pits, hacking at the soil with picks and shovels.

At the end of the street, they reined up in front of a two-story trading post.

Inside the cavernous room, clerks ran back and forth filling orders in Spanish, French, and English, for rifles, canned goods, farming equipment, wagon beds, and sacks of feed. A few of the older clerks waved to Annie May as she approached a plump young man perched at a high-top desk, adding up small sums inside a huge ledger.

Annie May pulled herself up to her full height, which was barely up to the level of the desk.

“I’m Annie May Shook, and I’m here to sell my pelts.”

The clerk nodded, not looking up as he took off his glasses and rubbed his strained red-rimmed eyes.

Annie May rapped on the desk with the barrel of her shotgun. “I want both ears when I’m talkin’, Mister. Where be the major?”

The clerk took his time placing his glasses over his nose. “Major Poultry sold out last winter. You’ll deal with me now.”

“Always was partial to the major,” Annie May said. “Dealt with mountain folk straight up.”

“Business is business,” the clerk said with measured patience. “Whoever be the buyer or seller.”

Annie May scratched her head, took out her pipe, began to light it, then shoved it back inside her buffalo robe. “All right, then. What be the price of pelts?”

The clerk looked down at Annie May as if her presence was an annoying fly. “The bottom has fallen out of the fur market. It will never come back. That said, I’ll give you fifty cents a pelt. Take it or leave it.”

She stared up at him, unable to comprehend. “The hell you say.”

“The numbers come down from St. Louis, Ma’am. Trade or cash.”

Her voice rose to a shout. “Two dollars a pelt, Mister St. Louis. And my usual loan on ’baca, cartridges, and flour. That’s the way it’s been for these thirty years, and that’s the way it’ll be. Nothing more, nothing less.”

The clerk shut the ledger with a loud snap. “I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

“Well then, Mister St. Louis, let an old mountain sage hen show you her possible bag.”

Annie May waved her shotgun at the clerk, then at a window, then at a row of pickle jars.

The terrified clerk backed away, bumping into Zebulon who shoved him against a shelf of canned goods, sending him and the cans crashing to the floor.

This was more like it, Zebulon thought, looking around the room. This was what the old Spirit Doc ordered when he needed to stir things up. He reached behind the counter for a jug of liquor, uncorked it and took a long pull, then tossed it to Annie May, who caught it in one hand. As the clerk staggered up from the floor, she smashed the jug over his head.

“Hurrah fer mountain doin’s!” she shouted.

Hauling herself onto a table, she fired her shotgun into the air. The pellets struck an overhead gas lamp that exploded when it hit the floor, sending a rush of flames roaring toward the ceiling.

“Hurrah fer mountain doin’s!” Zebulon shouted.

He yanked off a large gold nugget that hung from a string around the clerk’s neck.

“For settlement,” he said.

Then he picked up an ax handle and knocked over a shelf of air-tights and smashed a window as customers grabbed whatever goods were close to hand and started for the door.

Zebulon found Annie May slumped underneath the table, a bullet through her chest. As he gently gathered her into his arms, a barrel of kerosene exploded behind them, collapsing the ceiling, blowing out windows, killing two miners, and setting the building on fire.

Zebulon carried Annie May outside and laid her on the sagging wooden sidewalk. Around them, a line of men were hand-rushing buckets of water to pour on the flames.

Annie May’s voice faded to a whisper. “Deer is deer… elk is elk and this mountain oyster is a gone coon… I done you wrong a time or two, son, as you did me… but that’s family.” She raised herself up, trying to see him as her eyes clouded over. “Always figured I’d go out the old way. Straight up and on my own breath… But we caused a commotion in this town, did we not, son?”

“So we did, Ma,” he answered.

“Did I ever tell how Hatchet come to be with us?”

“You never did,” he replied, even though she had told him endless times.

“Pa won him from a Mex at a rendezvous down on the Purgatory… Everything was in the pot, everything the Mex had—his traps, horses, pelts, and even little Hatchet as a throw in. No more than a stump, he was. When Pa palmed the last card, he got caught, which bothered him enough to carve the Mex up for callin’ him out. Pa took Hatchet back with him out of guilt, and maybe because he thought he could use another hand. He was always one for slaves, your pa…”

Her voice stopped and he thought she was gone, until he heard her again.

“Are you with me, son?”

“I’m here, Ma.”

“All right, then. Hatchet was a weird boy. Always tryin’ to drown you in the river. And then you tried to do the same to him, just to get even… When you find your pa… tell him… Hell, don’t tell him nothin’. He never did a damn thing for us except bring misery. And now he’s trotted off to the gold fields. The old cocksucker.”

She looked up, her eyes pleading with his not to ever let her go, and then she died.

He sat holding her as the lines of water buckets were passed back and forth. When the fire was out, the sheriff and the owner of the trading post, along with several clerks, surrounded him with drawn pistols. One of the clerks carried a rope with a noose tied at the end.

As Zebulon was pulled to his feet, Hatchet Jack galloped through the crowd, pulling a saddled horse behind him.

Shots were fired, but before anyone could mount up to follow, Zebulon and Hatchet Jack had disappeared down the street.

Ten miles outside of town they parted company, Zebulon for old Mex, Hatchet Jack for California, where he figured to make peace with Elijah.