Ghost Town: A Novel (6 page)

In the dim starlight, that grit glows pallidly all the way to the encircling horizon, the town’s shabby structures negatively silhouetted against it, or else blackly lost in the black sky, discernible only where they blot out the stars. The hanging banker’s his lone companion out here: all’s shut down, even the bank, back there somewhere in the night behind him. The saloon, too, of course, no use looking in there, he knows what he’d find. He should have asked his deputy where the jail was; he could have spent the night in it. Assuming the night’s his for spending in a place like this.

He sorely misses his mustang now. Though it was its locomotory aspect that he most valued on the way here, now it’s his thoughts that are most afflicted by the horse’s absence. Astride it, he always seemed to know where he wanted to go, what he was meant to do. It even, oddly, made him feel rooted somehow, and thus somebody, somebody with a name, even as they drifted, he and the horse, uncompassed yet resolute, across this boundless desolation. The creature was a living part of him, which fit him as if born with him like his hat and boots, but it shared his miseries, too, his pains and hungers, absorbing some of them as rags might stanch a wound. And he’d got used to the view. Down here on the ground, he feels somewhat blinkered, things risen up around him that used to be mapped out below at some safer remove.

Not that he was gentle toward that evil-eyed bandy-shanked old cayuse, as he referred to it in his more sentimental humors. He respected it and shared what little he had with it, but it possessed a wayward mind of its own, and when it got too refractory, he had to take the whip to it or dig his spurs bone-deep into its flanks and haul on the bit till its mouth frothed and bled. Couldn’t let the dumb beast beat him.

Though in the end it did. They’d been out under that scorching sun for what seemed like years when they struck upon a fresh watering hole: just seemed to pop up out of nowhere. The rim of it was littered with the bleached bones of men and horses and he supposed it might be poisoned so he let the horse drink first to see what would happen. Nothing did, so he joined the horse at the edge, drinking with his face in the water and then from his hat. The water was clean and sweet and so cold it made his teeth ache. He soaked himself, filled his canteen, and got ready to move on, but the horse had contrary notions and wouldn’t budge from the spot. This was stupid, there was nothing to eat, no protection from the blistering sun, and anyway it made no larger sense, but the cantankerous thing seemed ready just to give it all up and toss in there with all those other anonymous bones. He talked to it, cajoled it, cursed it, kicked it, tried to lead it away on foot, yanked on its ears and bridle, used the horsewhip on it, his rifle stock, but the useless old scrag would not move; it was as still and stubborn as stone. Then, after he’d been whipping it mercilessly until his arms were ready to drop, he saw that what he was beating
was
stone and the damned horse was over on the other side of the hole, head down, still serenely lapping up water. He was furious. He whistled sharply at the perverse beast and it stepped toward him, into the water, and disappeared. In panic, he dove in after it, but the hole was only a foot deep and he hit the bottom hard. The water was warmer now and tasted salty and stung his eyes. When he could see again, he saw that the horse was standing in the same place where he’d been beating it before and the stone was gone. So he shot it. Enough was enough. On its side, the wounded animal kept quivering and kicking at the air and it had a pitiful expression on its face, so he put the rifle to its ear and finished it off. That was when, looking up from what he’d done, he first spied this town shimmering out on the horizon. He left the saddle and trappings behind on the dead horse, figuring to come back for them later, and set off walking across the desert toward the town, exhausted from his mad struggle, his legs heavy as sandbags, half dozing even as he stumbled along, regretting what he’d done of course, man always hates to lose his horse—and then one black moonless night, a night not unlike this one, there he was, slumped in the saddle, with the mustang plodding along under him like always, a dreadful thirst upon him like he’d been sucking salt, and his canteen empty.

As though provoked by his retrospections, there’s a faint snort and whinny up the street. Can’t see a thing in the black night, but he heads that way, pausing to cut a coil of frayed rope off the saloon hitching post. He’s not at all sure what he’ll find, maybe another wild horse wandered into town, even his old mustang resurrected again, but, whatever it is up there, he estimates that, if he can see it, he’ll appropriate it and ride it out of here. The flat shapes crowding in on him as he passes them seem less like buildings than their absence, like black gaps in the world, and he recollects walking this way under the noonday sun and having the sensation even then of other buildings lurking like shadows behind the buildings he could see. Not that he credits such apprehensions. The usual jitters of the ingenerate gunfighter, he’s familiar with such false hauntings.

Now, as he proceeds, gripping his rifle in one hand, rope in the other, he can make out a dim eery glow up ahead of him, and he recalls that it was up here somewhere that he first witnessed the beautiful widow lady, the one the men call the schoolmarm, though things may have got shifted about some on the street since last he walked it. Maybe, he thinks, maybe she’s set a light out in her window, a light lit just for him, knowing he’s out here and all alone and in need of some human comfort. The prospect of seeing her again spurs him on, such that soon he’s broken stride and is fairly bolting along, a sudden urgency upon him and a fear of the darkness at his back—and a fear for her, too, she may be in trouble again, it’s not easy for a woman like her out here, anything might be happening, and he’s the sheriff now, isn’t he?

He’s barreling up the black street at full pelt, his head a farrago of dire yet lubricious visions, when it suddenly appears before him and paralyzes him in midstride: a majestic white stallion, more than twenty hands tall, glowing spectrally in the night from the light of the full moon, which has slid suddenly into view as if from behind a cloud in the cloudless sky. It is the most beautiful yet terrible thing he’s ever seen, a powerful bluff-breasted giant of a horse, lofty in carriage, scornful of all it surveys, most particularly scornful of him, standing there in the dark street, utterly awestruck, his knees gone to jelly, his heart hammering in his ears, and he realizes that to bestride such a noble and worshipful creature was the sole reason he came out here in the first place, must have been, if in fact he did come out and was not born here. Just how he is going to capture such a wondrous beast with this miserable coil of weather-rotted rope is not clear to him, however, and when the horse snorts thunderously and rears high above him, its head haloed in its streaming milk-white mane and its mighty forelegs pawing the air as though to punch holes in the night, even that falls from his hands. Before setting its hoofs back down on earth, the great white stallion lets forth a trumpeting whinny that seems to come cascading down upon him from the very dome of the sky, echoing and resounding from all directions as though to pin him there, stunned, where he stands. As the horse snorts and paws the ground, preparing to come at him, its red eyes ablaze as if inside its cranium were a fresh-stoked furnace, he knows he can do no other than to stand his ground, exhibiting a seeming bravado, whereas in truth it’s sheer terror that has petrified his limbs and nailed him to the spot. He hears the galloping hoofs before he sees the creature move, and then as suddenly it is upon him and his heart feels violently trammeled but his body remains upright and all is instantly dark and the moon is gone and the white horse, too, and he is alone once more in the vast empty night.

His deputy, who is a goateed fat man with a flattened nose, finds him there in the middle of the dusty street, still rigid and locked in his boots, at high noon. Ho, sheriff, he says, picking up the dropped rope and looping it over a cocked arm and handing him his fallen rifle, we got a problem. The wimmenfolk in town is kickin up a awesome aggravation. It’s jest only about gittin raped too reglar by the goddam savages, but their pants is on fire, it’s a genuwine uprisin. I reckon mebbe yu better oughter talk to em.

He blinks into the blinding sunlight, lets his arms unbend and fall to his sides, the rope drop away. Talk to em? He clears his throat, spits drily into the dead air. The sign on the building in front of him tells him he’s standing outside the jailhouse. I dont know nuthin about rape.

Well jest tell em it’s a bad thing’n yu’ll see to it it dont happen no more.

How the heck am I sposed t’do thet?

Oh, aint much to it. Them wimmen mostly only imagine all that brutified belly-bangin anyhow, they aint got nuthin better t’do, cept bake pies or warsh our underwear. So yu tell em and ifn they dont jest take yer word fer it, well we kin slap em around fer a while, or else go cut us a bonyfide scalp or two; thet should usually oughter pacify em.

He stares down at his deputy, who has eyes like little shotgun pellets buried in his lardy white cheeks and a dry unwholesome reek about him. I aint much inclined toward takin scalps.

Shore yu aint, sheriff. The deputy smirks, nodding toward the scalp hanging from his gunbelt. But we aint got no choice, do we? Ifn we let them slits git poked by a buncha wild tattooed injun buttsmashers, it might cut inta their hankerin fer civvylized dick.

Well thet aint no nevermind t’me. I’m gonna go bunk down in the jailhouse fer a stretch. This job’s plumb got me bushed.

Aint no time fer thet, sheriff, here they come! He can hear them now, whooping and shrieking like savages on the warpath, sounds like hundreds of them, though there’s no one in sight yet in spite of it being more or less open space from where he stands all the way to the far horizon. Them ole flytraps is really riled up, sheriff, they got a awful mad upon themselves! I reckon yu better brace yerself’n ready yer weepons, yu may hafta shoot a parcel of em!

Suddenly the main street is full of women in bright calico frocks, shawls, aprons, and sunbonnets, marching noisily seven or eight abreast, wielding brooms and rolling pins and banging tin pots, and led by the ginger-haired saloon chanteuse, the one the men call Belle, all rigged out in her dancehall costume, ruby pin in her cheek and powdered cleavage on display. He takes his deputy’s sleeve-tugging advice and, cradling his rifle, steps back up on the wooden jailhouse porch for an elevated view, as the women, looking fierce and determined under the blazing sun, crowd up around below him. One of them, a tall ugly old buzzard with a frilly housecap pulled down over her tangled greasy hair, hikes her full skirts, reaches into her bloomers, and hauls out a pistol, shooting into the air. He fires and the gun flies from her hand.

Aw shit, sheriff, she yelps, squeezing her wounded hand between her legs. I wuz jest only tryin t’whoop it up a little!

Yu got a sumwhut tetchy aspect about yu t’day, sheriff hon, remarks the chanteuse with a wink, giving her breasts a hitch. Yu have a bad night?

I mighta done. Now whut’s all this ruckus about, Belle?

It’s them devil injuns, sheriff! They’re jest at it alla time!

We caint git no peace! squawks an ancient hunchbacked granny in a hand-sewn cape and slat bonnet, stroking her beard with gnarled spidery fingers. It jest aint natcheral!

And they fuck dirty, sheriff, says an ugly wall-eyed woman dressed up in a velvet and silk wedding gown, with her fat hairy belly sticking out. Not like decent folk do.

They like t’stick it in yu all over the place, a scar-faced motherly type with a missing ear explains. Ifn y’aint got enuf holes they make some new ones! And she opens up the front of her dress to show him a few.

Now, holt on a minnit, mam—!

And lookit the dirty pitchers they drawed all over my butt! says another, raising her skirts, which look more like window curtains, to show him her hairy behind, vividly decorated with a sacred buffalo-mating effigy. It’s a outrage is whut it is!

Now dammit, mam, yu jest git covered up thar!

Yu gotta do sumthin about this dreadful tribulation, sheriff! cries the chanteuse.

I’m
tryin
to!

Us proper ladies jest aint habituated t’sechlike incivil misabuse! cries the tall greasy-haired crone in the housecap. Our innercent little coosies is bein sorely afflicted!

A sweating one-eyed mestizo lady takes off her pink bonnet to fan her bald head and growls out: Show him, Belle! Show him whut them crool savages done to yu!

Well, first thing, the barroom singer says, is they hogtied me over a hitchin rail like this! She bends over the rail, her breasts spilling out, and takes hold of her ankles, while some of the other matrons tie her up there with some old frayed rope they’ve found in the street. They toss her black skirts up, tug her drawers down, pinch and palpate her exposed parts, and prod them with their brooms and pot handles.

Yow! howls Belle, twisting about on the rail in agony, her swaying breasts sweeping the street. This jest aint tasteful, sheriff! This aint how it oughter be!

He steps down off the porch to bring an end to this dismaying exhibit, but his deputy restrains him and the women push him back up again. Yu pay attention now, sheriff, says a squint-eyed old biddy with handlebars, burying her long warty nose in Belle’s hind cheeks, but dont git too close in. This here is ladyfolk bizness.

Well jest so nobody dont git hurt here, he says uneasily, and all the women laugh at that, showing the gaps in their yellow teeth.

Dont want nobody gittin
hurt
! hoots the one-eyed mestizo lady and, stuffing a black cigar in her stubbly jowls, she rears back and gives Belle’s upraised hindquarters a resounding smack with a butter paddle. The humpbacked granny follows, switching the chanteuse with a handful of wooden splints pulled out of her slat bonnet, and the others join in with whatever they have to hand from gunbelts and frypan spatulas to horsewhips, razor strops, and soup ladles, Belle screaming and yelping with each blow: Oh them dirty heathens! Jest lookit whut they done t’me, sheriff!