Читать книгу The Drop Edge of Yonder - Rudolph Wurlitzer - Страница 16

When Zebulon reached the high desert he hesitated, then rode back to the mountains. Two days later he arrived at the cabin in the middle of the night. His ma’s deck of cards was still spread out on the table. He removed a card and pushed it back into the deck without looking to see if it was the queen of hearts. What’s done is done, he thought, lighting up her clay pipe and sitting down at the table. And none of it was coming back. No more mountain doin’s. All gone. Forever gone.

Not able to sleep in the house, he went outside and built a small fire. When the first light of dawn prowled like a hungry predator over the mountains, he picked up a burning stick and tossed it inside the door. Then he walked around the burning cabin, yelling to his ma his last mountain goodbyes: “Waaaaaaaaagh…! Waaaaaaaaagh…! Waaaaaaaaagh!”

When he reached the end of the valley, he turned for a last look. All that remained was a thin cloud of smoke drifting into the sun.

From then on, it was a fast ride across the high desert toward Mexico, with a pause in Alamogordo long enough to hold up the town bank—an act that he performed with such careless disregard for his own safety that he not only escaped without a scratch, but with half a saddlebag of gold coins. Continuing south by southeast, he heard distant gunshots and shifted his direction, narrowly avoiding a band of White Mountain Apaches trapped inside a basin by a platoon of black cavalry. The next day he crossed the Rio Grande, then rode east across Chihuahua toward the Gulf of Mexico and down to Vera Cruz, where no one asked or cared who he was or where he came from.

In Vera Cruz he rented a room in the best hotel, spending his money on the sultry passions of a one-armed saloon singer who played with his broken spirit like a seasoned cat before a kill. Never mind, he told himself; Miranda Serenade, for that was her billing, healed the cravings of his body if not the confusions of his heart. Within a week, he had moved into Miranda’s room above the saloon; his only excursions were nightly visits downstairs, where he gambled compulsively and bought wall-to-wall drinks after each set of his lover’s sentimental love songs.

Miranda was pleased with him, at least for openers, as he was handsome and profligate enough to ease her constant insecurities about money and advancing age. He bought her a black pearl necklace and an elegant horse and carriage and filled her head with fanciful plans. The most prominent being a mad scheme he had overheard on the waterfront about a company of men led by a General Walker, all of them skilled adventurers planning to conquer Nicaragua—a conquest, he assured her, that was bound to be successful. She would be with him every step of the way, he promised, his muse, his fiery goddess, even his minister or queen of culture if that was her inclination. They would inhabit a palace in León or Granada, with all the finery of European royalty. She would have her own saloon, maybe two, and enough servants to satisfy every whim. If they grew bored running the country, they could retire to Madrid or Bahia or the new city of San Francisco, where half the planet now seemed to be headed. Or all three. It didn’t matter. The choice would be hers. Of course, neither of them believed a word, his plans having been conceived after an afternoon of compulsive lovemaking followed by generous dollops of laudanum. Miranda’s designs were more practical: an upscale milliner’s shop for aristocrat ladies or a music palace in the center of town. Business first. Baby second. Love, if not exactly an afterthought, a distant third.

When his money ran out after an all-night card game, he was unable to face Miranda’s wrath. Looking down at her as she lay sleeping in the black silk nightgown he had bought her that very morning, he kissed her for the last time and shut the door softly behind him.

Twenty miles into Texas, he noticed a wanted poster nailed to the side of a feed store:

Zebulon Shook Wanted Dead or Alive for

Bank Robbing, Murder, Arson, and Horse Theft.

It wasn’t his reputation or fear of the law that made him return to Vera Cruz. The pathetic truth was that he missed Miranda Serenade, a raw and vulnerable feeling that he had never experienced before.

~ ~ ~

Miranda greeted him at the door in the middle of a steamy, claustrophobic afternoon. She was wearing her black silk nightgown and pointing a pearl-handled pocket derringer straight at his aching heart.

“You want to know who you are, Zeb-u-lon? One more fucking gringo cabrón asshole with a used-up firecracker for a dick and no heart.”

When he told her that he was prepared to give her what she wanted, within reason, she said she’d consider it when he put something real on the table. Like money. Never mind his rotten used-up heart. She had given up on that part of him.

When he didn’t answer, she slammed the door in his face.

He sat on a park bench and thought it over. Except for his horse and army Colt revolver and enough cash to last a week, he possessed nothing of value. He could always ride back to the mountains and try to rescue the family business. He had been good at the fur trade and was widely known and respected. But he had celebrated a last adios to that way of life, and there was no returning to what was forever gone. There was always the outlaw trail. With his new credentials as a wanted man, he could ride up to Arizona where there was a local war going on. Or he could sign up with any number of desperadoes. Or he could disappear into the Far West, make his way to the Oregon territory, or Alaska where no one would have heard of him. And then there was Miranda. He could beg her for another chance, although if she was foolish enough to take him back, he knew that she would end up braining him with a frying pan. Or worse. Not to mention what he might do to her, heart or no heart.

Across the park a mariachi band was serenading a lavish birthday party in honor of a local politician. Farther away, two Texas mercenaries leaned against the trunk of a cottonwood tree, sharing a bottle of mescal. He had run into them in a saloon a few nights previously, bragging about their knowledge of explosives and firearms and how much their specialties were in demand from various well-heeled banditos and revolutionaries. The older man, who went by the alias of “Salty Smith,” was rumored to have broken out of the hard-rock prison at Yuma, killing two guards in the process before he joined John Wesley Harden on his last furious rampage through Texas.

The mercenaries weren’t pleased to see him, having heard there was a wanted poster on his head and that he was one of those mountain lunatics who brought more trouble to the table than he was worth. After he took a slug from their bottle of tequila, he asked if they could put him on to a job. “Anything but cleanin’ up saloon slop or runnin’ errands for Mexican floozies.”

Salty nodded, barely hearing the question, his attention directed across the park. He raised his hand toward a waiter standing at the edge of the birthday celebration. From then on everything slowed down. The waiter lit a match, cupping it in his hands as if it were a precious flame, while another waiter cautiously lifted up a large wooden box. The two mercenaries stood up, dusting off their pants as their eyes shifted across the park and down the side streets. Slowly, with studied nonchalance, they walked out of the park as a bomb exploded behind them, blowing up the politician and several guests. The act was followed by a line of men appearing on a rooftop, firing down at the crowd as they screamed and scattered in every direction.

Zebulon ran down a winding street, then turned into an alley as a platoon of mounted police appeared around a corner. Reversing direction, he stumbled into a crowded street full of cafés and clothing stores. A few people had stopped in the middle of the street to listen to the shots, which sounded, in the distance, like firecrackers. He ran past them toward the waterfront. Suddenly the shots stopped. Birds chirped from tree branches. Three young boys kicked a rolled-up ball of rope against a mud wall. Near them a vendor stood by a cart, calling out selections of fresh fish and crabs. Forcing himself to slow down, he walked on until he reached the harbor. When a cannon boomed a few blocks away, followed by more rifle shots, he turned into the door of a palatial three-story hotel.

The spacious high-ceilinged lobby was empty except for a well-dressed couple engaged in booking a room. Neither seemed aware of what was going on in the rest of the city. Zebulon picked up a newspaper and sat down in an armchair. Pretending to read, he was unable to stop glancing at the woman standing at the front desk with her back to him. A red silk shawl was draped across her shoulders, and her thick spill of black hair was as luminous as polished ebony. It was Delilah, the woman from the bar in Panchito.

Outside the hotel, a man was singing a plaintive song about a woman’s soul that no one, not even the lover he was singing to, was able to comprehend. The man’s voice made it seem as if he was drowning or committing suicide inside someone else’s dream.

Zebulon stood up with no idea where he was going or what he wanted to do. He was halfway out the door when Delilah called out to him.

“I thought you were dead.”

Her eyes focused on the Colt holstered around his waist, then shifted to the fifteen-inch Green River bowie knife tied to his right thigh, then to his Mexican trousers with silver buttons down the sides, his black sombrero, and finally, the bright blue serape that matched the color of his startled eyes.

“You seem to have recovered,” she said. “My congratulations.”

As he took a step toward her, she crossed both hands in front of her breasts. Help me, her gesture implied. And… whatever you do, stay away.

As impulsively as she had called out, she turned away, leaving him staring at Ivan, her companion that he remembered from the card game in the saloon. He wore a white flat-brimmed felt hat tilted over one side of his face, and the same black cape was draped over his shoulders. Walking back and forth across the lobby in yellow hand-tooled leather boots, he banged a silver-handled cane on the floor, his voice rising as he argued in Spanish over the availability of the hotel’s honeymoon suite, which, he claimed, he had booked three weeks before. The clerk threw up his hands, shouting that there was no record. Nada. Nada. Nada. There never was and there never had been. The only room was on the second floor facing the street. It was their choice. Take it or leave it. He had nothing more to say.

Zebulon walked across the room as if pulled by an invisible rope. “Give them what they signed up for,” he said to the clerk. “Or deal with one malo loco gringo. Comprende?”

Grabbing the clerk by the collar, he lifted him over the counter and dropped him to the floor. Then he removed the Colt from his belt and pointed it at the clerk’s forehead, pulling back the hammer.

The clerk handed over the keys and yelled for a porter to carry the guests’ luggage to the presidential suite muy pronto.

Before the porter could rush over, Ivan handed the key to Delilah, who seemed, by her controlled passivity, to have been through this kind of situation before.

Without a word, she picked up two bulging leather suitcases and hauled them up the winding staircase, leaving a bag and a wooden cello case behind.

The man in the black cape bowed to Zebulon. “I see that you found a way to survive.” He paused, extending his hand. “Count Ivan Baranofsky. I would be honored if you would join me for a libation.”

Zebulon’s eyes focused on the woman’s slender ankles and long muscular legs as they disappeared slowly up the stairs.

“I’ll handle the bags,” he offered.

“No need,” the Count replied. “Delilah is very capable.”

After a brief hesitation, Zebulon picked up the bag and cello case and went up the stairs two at a time.

He tried every door on the floor until he found her suite. She was standing at the window looking out at the harbor.

“Are you following me?” she asked, not turning around. “Or are you under the impression that I am following you?”

Her bare shoulders and the high sloping curve of her neck reminded him of a stalking crane.

“I follow what I hunt for,” he answered.

“Then you consider me an animal?”

“I’m helping out.”

“That’s not all you’re doing.” She held him inside her gaze, then walked over to the bed where she untied the flaps of a hand-stitched leather suitcase.

“Would it amuse you to know that I’m an expert at capturing wild animals?” She removed a rattle from the suitcase and shook it back and forth, her eyes rolling as she circled around him, uttering a throbbing chant that seemed to be coming from the middle of her chest.

“I don’t like being circled,” he warned. “When I’m trapped I feel—”

“I know,” she said. “You’re dangerous.”

She laughed and shook the rattle in his face, then threw it on the bed.

“If you don’t return to the lobby, Ivan will come up and shoot you. He’s famous for that.”

“I can handle Ivan,” he said.

“Are you sure?” Her question seemed to be directed as much to herself as to him.

When he couldn’t come up with an answer, he shrugged and left the room.

~ ~ ~

Count Baranofsky was waiting for him in the lobby. Taking Zebulon by the arm, he led him into the hotel’s cantina and ordered a round of whiskey at the bar. When the drinks arrived, the Count raised his glass, toasting Mexico, the United States, the brand new State of California, and finally Russia—but not the Czar, who, he proudly pointed out, had placed a price on his head. Then he asked if Zebulon was residing in Vera Cruz.

“Passing through,” Zebulon replied.

“And so are we,” the Count said. “Thank god our ship has arrived. We expected it six weeks ago.”

Zebulon reached for a plate of fried squid and cheese enchiladas. “The woman you’re with—”

“She’s my attendant,” Ivan said. “Or consort, depending on circumstance and your cultural point of view. We were traveling overland to California, but once in Denver and faced with the prospect of a harsh winter, we decided to take a stagecoach to Mexico and sail around South America to California. We were looking forward to a pause in Vera Cruz but, I admit, not one this long.”

“How’s your pause been treatin’ you?” Zebulon asked.

“Abominably. This is our third hotel. Each one more frustrating than the last. Sullen service. Worse food. Mosquitoes. Flies. Bed bugs. But despite the inconveniences, the city is not without its sultry charms; although, as we have learned only too well, it’s a city given to unexpected vapors and violence.”

The Count sighed, grateful for the opportunity of talking to a stranger that he would never see again. In pedantic detail, he described their voyage from Venice to New York, including the side streets and mercenary shops of Algiers, the restaurants of Málaga and Lisbon, and finally, the physical hardships of traveling overland to Denver—a journey that saw them nearly drowned crossing the Mississippi, attacked by Comanches, and almost killed in New Mexico in a barroom brawl.

The Count hesitated, not sure how much he should reveal. “An occasion, I might add, that you seemed willing to provoke.”

“I don’t recall what went down,” Zebulon said. “I was trapped inside a nest of snakes.”

“When you sat down at the table, obviously you were asking for trouble. Of course, I was well lubricated. And then we rode out on the stagecoach, so we never did find out what happened.”

“You call her Delilah?” Zebulon asked.

“A biblical name; her actual name is too difficult to pronounce, some sort of East African jibber jabber. I met her in Paris, where she had the misfortune to be handmaiden to a French officer. She’s part French, the rest Abyssinian, with a dollop of Babylonian and Egyptian and god knows what else. I would be lost without her. Fortunately I was able to free her owner from certain financial difficulties.”

“You mean you bought her.”

The Count laughed, delighted to be face to face with an authentic man of the West who was not afraid to say what was on his mind. “It wasn’t commerce that dictated my involvement. More an impulsive demand of the heart.”

Delilah glided toward them, waiting patiently until Zebulon pulled back her chair, a courtesy that he had never performed before, much less observed.

Without looking at the menu, the Count ordered a variety of hors d’oeuvres, followed by plates of burritos and chicken mole.

The Count’s probing questions about the rituals and hardships of life in the mountains made Zebulon realize that he was being given an opportunity to sing for his supper, if not a way out of town, and he enthusiastically launched into a description of his adventures in California—all of which he invented, not having been there. Absorbed, they listened with fascinated attention as he created and embellished his own history. In florid, often long-winded detail, he described Indian raids and encounters with grizzlies; rabid wolverines and drunken mountain rendezvous, where the lies of lunatic trappers became truth, and the truth became lies; spring celebrations of their winter hauls that often lasted for a month or more, until everyone was talked out or dead or broke.

“Well now,” he continued as they started in on plates of sugared apples wrapped in corn fritters. “Let me tell you, this coon’s tasted his share of Californie and the Far West. Yessir. Been shot on the Oregonian Trail, scalped and left for dead in the high Sierras, froze my belly in more than one tailrace ditch, trapped the Gila and the Green, near drowned on the Columbia, raised more hair’n any coon you’ll ever meet, was a barkeep in Hangtown, keel boatman on the Sacramenty, road agent, pit boss, company buster, buffalo skinner, teamster, logger, rail spiker; I done it all and then some. Been all the way to Alasky and the putrified forest, heard the opry in San Fran, scouted for renegade red niggers all the way to old Mex and on south to free Nicaragua with General Walker, parlayed my share of Chinee, Irish, and German bohunks, to name a few.”

They stared at him, stunned by this compulsive torrent of strange, exotic words, hardly any of which they understood.

“But surely,” the Count asked, “given the range of your extraordinary adventures, you must have searched for gold?”

“Gold, you say?” Zebulon wiped his face with the back of his hand and downed two quick shots, then one more. “Gold? This coon has picked more oro and Sonoma Lightning than you can shake a stick at. Made and lost more than one fortune. Even placed gold nuggets on the dead eyes of a Mex girl gut-shot in Sonora fer givin’ a poke to the wrong customer at the wrong time. Gold was my music, my fiddle and my piana, all seranadin’ the clink of pick-axes and the grind of shovels, washin’ pans, and rockers—all shakin’ for pay dirt. This coon gambled away more gold in three days than most pilgrims make in a lifetime. Yessir. I been on the Feather and South Fork and down to the Agua Fría, went bust on the Mariposa, struck pay dirt on Sullivan’s Creek, bought me a saloon and lost it the next week in Placerville, struck a fat vein north of Virginia City and was robbed down to my boots by my partner; took me a year before I nailed his scalp to the church door in Sutterville. Spent every haul faster’n I made it. Call it what you want: greasin’ the trail for salvation, or any damn thing. Now you take Tucker’s Bend or Hangtown or any one of them half-assed shanty towns of blue-belly pilgrims not knowin’ a pick or a shovel from a wagon wheel—all of ’em are bottomed out and gone back to where they come from. Good riddance, I say.”

He looked at Delilah. “If you dream of gold, chances are you’ll wake up and all that’s left will be the dream. And then not even that.”

She nodded, as if she knew all about dreams.

Gaslights were turned on as the dining room began to fill up with customers, all of them stunned and excited from the day’s events. On the street there was a sudden volley of shots that sounded like a firing squad. A dog barked and a lonely drunk sang a love song about a two-timing lover. Then silence.

Delilah pointed to the nugget hanging around Zebulon’s neck, the same one he had ripped off a clerk’s neck in Broken Elbow.

“Is that from California?”

“I picked it off the ground,” he replied. “Go ahead. Take it. There are plenty more where that came from.”

When he handed her the nugget, she hesitated, then gave it back.

“I prefer to gather my own,” she said.

“Delilah, for god’s sake,” the Count said. “The man gave it to you from his heart. It’s bad form not to accept such a spontaneous gift.”

“Bad luck, too,” Zebulon added.

Modestly, she bent her head, allowing him to slip the nugget around her neck.

“Then you’re headed for California?” the Count asked.

“One way or the other,” he said. “As soon as I gopher up enough chink for a passage. It ain’t that easy for a gringo to find wages down here.”

“Then you’re not a guest at the hotel?” the Count asked.

Suddenly Zebulon wanted to get shut of this Count and his strange consort, or whoever she was. He was singing for his supper and waiting for a bone to be thrown his way, but hustling dumb foreigners wasn’t a trick he favored, even though he had managed it more times than he cared to admit.

“Where on earth have you been?” asked a strident English voice behind him. “I’ve been searching everywhere for you.”

A tall emaciated man wearing a bright red serape, yellow sombrero, and brand new polished turquoise belt buckle stumbled toward them, accompanied by a local whore who was having trouble walking on one shoe.

“Don’t you know there’s a bloody revolution on?” the man asked. “Apparently some local politician was blown up in a park. Never mind! The ship is sailing on the tide, compadres! Muy pronto!

Zebulon knew the whore; she was an experienced and obliging professional that he had spent a few nights with before he had tied in with Miranda.

“Who’s the dumb gringo, Lupita?” he asked in Spanish.

She shook her head, forcing a smile as she took off her shoe. “Muy loco hombre. Many bad habits. You don’t want to know. As a favor to me, for all that I have given to you from my heart to yours, I am asking that you kill him. Or at least get him to pay what he owes me.”

“What exactly is she saying?” the Englishman asked.

“That she can’t live without you and that if you try to leave her she’ll shoot you and then herself.”

Lupita pulled on the Englishman’s sleeve, stroked his cheek, and held out her hand until he reached into his pocket and handed her seven silver dollars. The transaction completed, she turned her tongue slowly inside Zebulon’s ear, then hobbled back to the street.

As Zebulon started for the door, the Count took him by the arm. “I have a proposal that will relieve your financial dilemma.”

Zebulon looked at Delilah, who was staring back at him, her eyes narrowing, as if she had been seized by a premonition.

“If you guide us to the gold fields,” the Count went on, “I’m prepared to pay your passage to San Francisco. First we will travel to Sutter’s Fort to meet Captain John Sutter, whose courage I have long admired. I have had discussions with his wife in Switzerland about possible business ventures—ranches, commerce, that sort of thing. Then, after our visit with Sutter, we will press on to the gold fields. I assume you’ve heard of Sutter?”

“Heard of Sutter?” Zebulon said. “Everyone’s heard of Captain John Sutter. When they found gold on his land, it bumped off the whole damn stampede.”

Delilah turned to Ivan. “Are you sure about this offer, Ivan? You know what happens when you act impulsively.”

“Absolutely, I’m sure,” the Count said, his voice rising. “We need an experienced man to help with supplies and transportation, someone who will protect us from dangers as they arise. A man like…”

“Zebulon Shook,” Zebulon heard himself say, “A su ordonez. At your service. I’ll take steady wages and a thirty-seventy split on whatever gold comes your way.”

The Count hesitated, looking at Delilah as she considered the offer, then shook her head.

“Twenty-eighty,” the Count said.

“Done,” Zebulon replied.

The Count shook his hand. “The ship is The Rhinelander. German. Well appointed. You can’t miss her: she’s a three-masted merchant with a bare-breasted woman mounted on the bow and a row of three-headed snakes around her neck. A goddess favored by mariners. Or so they say. Our Captain informed me that she represents the beautiful woman in Greek myth that calms the cruel sea.”

“Here, here,” the Englishman said. “Although with a beautiful woman, one can’t be too careful. Wouldn’t you say? In any case, we welcome you aboard, Mister Shook.”

From an adjoining room, Zebulon heard the click, click of billiard balls. Stepping around Delilah, he walked across the lobby and through the restaurant to a lounge hosting a billiard table.

He maneuvered the cue ball around the table just to prove that he still could. Then he put down the cue stick and, without a look at his new patrons, made his way out to the harbor.