Against the Day (37 page)

“Oh? Running in the neighborhood of.
. . ?”

It turned out Deuce knew more than
the rep expected about how much the company might be ready to let go of.
“Course if you don’t have the spendin authority, we could put him onto the stub
instead, leave him off up on Dallas Divide, say, cost of the ticket to Montrose
plus my percent, or for a little bit more, clear on out of the state and you’d
never see him again. Save you some money, maybe trouble later on—”

“Done right, there isn’t any
trouble.”

Deuce could appreciate that. “I’m
listenin.”

“Nerve and initiative, Mr. Kindred,
two separate things.” They settled on a sum.

·
    
·
    
·

Deuce’s sidekick
, Sloat Fresno, was about twice his
size and thought that Deuce was
his
sidekick. It wasn’t the first time
they’d made themselves useful to the Owners Association. Mine security, sort of
thing. They’d picked up a reputation for being steady, for not talking to
people they didn’t know. In saloon engagements they tended to fight back to
back, each thinking he was protecting the other, which made them that much
harder to go after.

They got together first in Cripple
Creek during the earlier troubles, 1895 or thereabouts. Sloat had just begun a
career as a wanted man for practicing to flagrant excess what in those days was
known as “copping the borax”—enlisting in the Army, collecting the bonus,
deserting, showing up at another post, enlisting, collecting the bonus,
deserting again, all through the occupied West, eventually becoming for the
military as much of an annoyance as Gerónimo himself, with unflattering
likenesses tacked up in dayrooms from Fort Bliss to the Coeur d’Alênes. The
strike in Cripple may have looked to Sloat like some harebrained chance to
reingratiate himself with the forces of law and order. It must’ve worked,
because from then on he and Deuce were considered reliable enough for steady
work and even train fare sometimes to vicinities aswarm with anarchistic heads
yet unbroken.

“Just keep back of me now, li’l
buddy, watch careful back there, ’cause if they ever get me, what’ll become o’
you?” sorts of remarks Deuce had learned to ignore, though sometimes just barely.
With particular reference to Webb Traverse, “You do the old men, just leave the
younger meat to the Big S., he’ll have it all dressed out with no fuss ’fore
y’even know it.” Though Sloat was frankly in it for the feelings of passionate
alertness that grew in him while he was inflicting damage (though not
necessarily pain, for hell, any ordinary day is pain ain’t it), Deuce for his
part had found sport, and eventually respect, in the field of mental
domination, being known to intimidate whole posses without taking his hands out
of his pockets
. . . .
Some called it
hypnoism, whatever—folks said that until you had seen those two snake’s
eyes lit up so bright in the shadow of his hatbrim, zeroing in on you alone,
why, you had not yet run into a really dedicated badman.

But the difference between Deuce and
the common gunhand was, was that for Deuce it always got emotional somehow. If
it wasn’t to begin with, before the end of the assignment there’d always be
something he could find either contemptible or desirable enough to prod him
through it. He envied the more professional shootists of the time, even Sloat
with his enlistedman’s approach, dreading the day he might have to walk out
there in cold blood, with nothing else to crank him up.

Deuce came to imagine himself as “on
assignment,” for the owners, a sort of undercover “detective” keeping an eye on
agitators, including Webb Traverse. Webb halfconsciously imagined he’d found a
replacement son, and Deuce did nothing to tell him any different. Knowing there
was seldom a clear moment in these matters when the deceiver thinks his task is
accomplished, any more than the deceived stops worrying how solid the
friendship is, Deuce eased snakewise into the subject of Union activities, to
see how far he could get while pretending every appearance of
openness—something he thought he knew how to do by now, this
sympatheticyoungman performance.

Webb had got into the practice of
dropping by the Torpedo boardinghouse, usually around 4:00 a.m. when the night
shift came off, and they talked late into the night, beneath the unnatural,
hard moonlight of electric lamps up and down the trails and pipelines and out
from the dormitory windows, to the coming and going of the thirdshifters.
Shadows blacker somehow than they ought to be. Two of them sitting there
drinking red liquor like it was sadness medicine. Stupid. Thinking he saw
something wistful on Deuce’s face, though it could’ve been endofshift
exhaustion, Webb said, “Too bad my daughter’s flown the nest, I could’ve introduced
you two.”

No he couldn’t. What was he thinking
anyway? She was gone. Bitch was gone
. . . .

“Thanks. Single life ain’t that bad .
. .” Device trailed off, as if it was something he didn’t want to get into.

“It’s a mixed blessing, son. Enjoy it
while it’s there.”

When Deuce eventually understood he
was in the presence of an honesttoGod dynamitehappy Anarchist, he wondered if
he should have charged more. He sought out the company rep. “Got us a definite
time and place, oh and by the way—”

“Are you out of your godforsaken
mind? I don’t know you, we never spoke, get the hell away from me before
somebody sees us.”

Deuce shrugged. Worth a shot anyway.

The company
inspector said
, “You’ve
been highgrading, Webb.”

“Who don’t walk out of here with
rocks in their dinner pail?”

“Maybe over in Telluride, but not in
this mine.”

Webb looked at the “evidence” and
said, “You know this was planted onto me. One of your finks over here. Maybe
even you, Cap’n—”

“Watch what you say.”

“—no damned inspector yet ain’t
taken a nugget when he thought he could.” Teeth bared, almost smiling.

“Oh? seen a lot of that in your
time?”

“Everybody has. What’re we
bullshittin’ about, here, really?”

The first blow came out of the dark,
filling Webb’s attention with light and pain.

It was to be
a trail of pain, Deuce trying to
draw it out, Sloat, closer to the realities of pain, trying to move it along.

“Thought we’s just gonna shoot him
simple and leave him where he fell.”

“No, this one’s a special job, Sloat.
Special handling. You might say we’re in the big time now.”

“Looks like just some of the usual
tenday trash to me, Deuce.”

“Well that’s where you’d be wrong. It
turns out Brother Traverse here is a major figure in the world of criminal
Anarchism.”

“Of what’s that again?”

“Apologies for my associate, the
bigger words tend to throw him. You better get a handle on ‘Anarchism’ there,
Sloat, because it’s the coming thing in our field. Piles of money to be made.”

Webb just kept quiet. It didn’t look
like these two were fixing to ask him any questions, because neither had spared
him any pain that he could tell, pain and information usually being
convertible, like gold and dollars, practically at a fixed rate. He didn’t know
how long he’d hold out in any case if they really wanted to start in. But along
with the pain, worse, he guessed, was how stupid he felt, what a hopeless damn
fool, at just how deadly wrong he’d been about this kid.

Before, Webb had only recognized it
as politics, what Veikko called “procedure”—accepting that it might be
necessary to lay down his life, that he was committed as if by signed contract
to die for his brothers and sisters in the struggle. But now that the moment
was upon him . . .

Since teaming up, the partners had
fallen into a division of labor, Sloat tending to bodies, Deuce specializing
more in harming the spirit, and thrilled now that Webb was so demoralized that
he couldn’t even look at them.

Sloat had a railroad coupling pin
he’d taken from the D.&R.G. once, figuring it would come in handy. It
weighed a little over seven pounds, and Sloat at the moment was rolling it in a
weekold copy of the
Denver Post.
“We done both your feet, how about
let’s see your hands there, oldtimer.” When he struck, he made a point of not
looking his victim in the face but stayed professionally focused on what it was
he was aiming to damage.

Webb found himself crying out the
names of his sons. From inside the pain, he was distantly surprised at a note
of reproach in his voice, though not

sure if it had been out loud or
inside his thoughts. He watched the light over the ranges slowly draining away.

After a while he couldn’t talk much.
He was spitting blood. He wanted it over with. He sought Sloat’s eyes with his
one undamaged one, looking for a deal. Sloat looked over at Deuce.

“Where we headed for, li’1 podner?”

“Jeshimon.” With a malignant smile,
meant to wither what spirit remained to Webb, for Jeshimon was a town whose
main business was death, and the red adobe towers of Jeshimon were known and
feared as the places you ended up on top of when nobody wanted you found.
“You’re going over into Utah, Webb. We happen to run across some Mormon
apostles in time, why you can even get baptised, get a bunch of them proxy
wives what they call sealed on to you, so’s you’ll enjoy some respect among the
Saints, how’s that, while you’re all waiting for that good bodily resurrection
stuff.” Webb kept gazing at Sloat, blinking, waiting for some reaction, and
when none came, he finally looked away.

As they were
passing through Cortez, the
notorious local gunhand Jimmy Drop happened to be out in back of the Four
Corners Saloon pissing in the alley, when next thing he knew, there were Deuce
and Sloat with Webb slung over a packhorse between them, on the way out of
town. There was still light enough for Jimmy to recognize Deuce, who had ridden
briefly with his outfit. “Hey!”

“Shit and what next,” Sloat taking
out his pistol and firing a couple of wellmeaning rounds back in Jimmy’s
direction.

“No time,” Deuce agreed, using his
spurs, yanking on the lead of the horse carrying Webb.

“Can’t have none of this,” Jimmy
observed to himself. He had checked his revolver at the door. Damn. Buttoning
up his pants, he went running back into the saloon. “Apologies, miss, just need
to borrow this a minute,” searching energetically beneath the skirts of the
nearest unoccupied fandango girl.

She was holding a buck knife and for
the moment smiling. “Sir, please relocate your hand or I shall be obliged to do
so myself.”

“Hoping you might be packing a
Derringer of some make—”

“Not down there, dude rancher.” She
reached into her decolletage and came up with a small overunder .22. “And it’s
for rent, payable in advance.” By which time Webb and his murderers had
vanished from the streets of Cortez, and shadow had taken the immeasurable plain.

о help him through mine school, Frank had borrowed some
money from his brother Reef, who in those days was known for promoting quick
cash out of the air.

“Don’t know when I can pay this back,
old Reefer.”

“Whenever that is, if I’m still
alive, that would be payback enough for me, so don’t worry.” As usual, Reef
wasn’t thinking that closely about what he was saying, finding it in fact
impossible to imagine any kind of a future in which being dead was preferable
to living. Part of the same roosterinthemorn attitude that kept him winning at
games of chance. Or winning enough. Or he thought it did.

One day out of the usual nowhere,
Reef showed up in Golden to find Frank with his nose in a metallurgy book.

“I have a chore to run, sort of
romantic chore, nothing too difficult, you want to come along?”

“Where to? Being’s I’ve got this
exam?” Flapping the book pages at his brother for emphasis.

“Well you look like you could use a
break. Why don’t we go up Castle Rock to that amusement park and have us a few
beers.”

Why didn’t they? Frank had no idea.
Next thing he knew it was daytime again, Reef had squared everything with the
Professor, and they were headed for Nevada.