‘It is our only option other than fighting or running, neither of which we are in any shape to do. Come on now, let’s have it.’ He approached and stood before me with his hand out. I went through the motions of patting my pockets, a sad pantomime that gave me away. Scratching his stubbly neck, he said, ‘You left it for the woman, didn’t you.’
‘That was my own earned money. And what a man does with his earned money is no other man’s business.’ Remembering his whore’s clutched hand as she had covered her mouth, I said, ‘Didn’t you give any of yours away?’
‘You know, I hadn’t thought of that.’ He checked his purse and laughed bitterly. ‘And Mayfield had said it was on the house, too.’
More shouting from the parlor. A bell was rung, a glass broken.
‘I hope you don’t propose to pay the man out of our own pockets,’ I said.
‘No, I am not that keen to make friends. Let me gather my things, then we’ll fetch yours. We can exit out your window and hope for an unchecked departure. We will fight if we must but I would prefer to wait for another day, when we are feeling one hundred percent.’ Bag in hand, then, he scanned the room and asked, ‘Have we got everything? Yes? All right. Let us navigate the hall in pure silence.’
Pure silence, I thought as we crept along to my quarters. The words struck me as somehow poetical.
Chapter 33
We climbed out the window of my room and snuck along the overhang that ran the length of the walkway. This proved handy to us, for Tub and Nimble were housed in a stable at the far end of Mayfield, and we covered that entire distance without a soul noticing our travels. At the halfway point, Charlie paused behind a tall sign to watch the largest trapper leaning against a hitching post below us. Now the other three joined him, and the group stood in a loose circle, speaking through their dirty beards. ‘Doubtless they are infamous among the muskrat community hereabouts,’ said Charlie. ‘But these are not killers of men.’ He pointed at the leader. ‘He is the one who stole the pelt, I’m sure of it. If we come up against them, I will take care of him. Watch the rest take flight at the first shot fired.’
The men dispersed and we continued along the overhang to its limit, dropping off and sneaking into the stable, where I found the bucktoothed hand standing next to Tub and Nimble, staring at them dumbly. He jumped at our greeting and was loath to help us with the saddles, which I should have been made suspicious by but was too distracted with thoughts of escape to dissect properly. And so: Charlie and I were tying off our bags when the four trappers stepped noiselessly from the stall behind ours. We did not notice them until it was too late. They had us cold, the barrels of their pistols leveled at our hearts.
‘You are ready to leave Mayfield?’ asked the largest trapper.
‘We are leaving,’ said Charlie. I was not sure how he would play it, but he had a habit of cracking his index fingers with his thumbs just prior to drawing his guns and I kept my ear trained for the noise.
‘You’re not leaving without returning the money you owe Mr. Mayfield.’
‘Mr. Mayfield,’ said Charlie. ‘The beloved employer. Tell us, do you make his bed down for him also? Do you warm his feet with your hands on the long winter nights?’
‘One hundred dollars or I will kill you. I will probably kill you anyway. You think I am slow in my furs and leather, but you will find me faster than you had believed. And won’t you be surprised to find my bullets in your body?’
Charlie said, ‘I do think you are slow, trapper, but it is not your clothing that hinders your speed. Your mind is the culprit. For I believe you to be just as stupid as the animals you lurk in the mud and snow to catch.’
The trapper laughed, or pretended to laugh, an imitation of lightness and good nature. He said, ‘I heard you getting drunk last night and thought, I will not drink a drop this evening. I will be rested and quick, just in case I have to kill this man in the morning. And now it is morning, and I ask you this only once more: Will you return the money, or the pelt?’
‘All you will get from me is Death.’ Charlie’s words, spoken just as casual as a man describing the weather, brought the hair on my neck up and my hands began to pulse and throb. He is wonderful in situations like this, clear minded and without a trace of fear. He had always been this way, and though I had seen it many times, every time I did I felt an admiration for him.
‘I am going to shoot you down,’ said the trapper.
‘My brother will count it out,’ said Charlie. ‘When he reaches three, we draw.’
The trapper nodded and returned his pistol to its holster. ‘He can count to one hundred if it suits you,’ he said, opening and closing his hand to stretch it.
Charlie made a sour face. ‘What a stupid thing to say. Think of something else besides that. A man wants his last words to be respectable.’
‘I will be speaking all through this day and into the night. I will tell my grandchildren of the time I killed the famous Sisters brothers.’
‘That at least makes sense. Also it will serve as a humorous footnote.’ To me, Charlie said, ‘He’s going to kill both of us, now, Eli.’
‘I have been happy these days, riding and working with you,’ I told him.
‘But is it time for final good-byes?’ he asked. ‘If you look closely at the man you can see his heart is not in it. Notice how slick his flesh has become. Somewhere in his being there is a voice informing him of his mistake.’
‘Count it out, goddamnit,’ said the trapper.
‘We will put that on your tombstone,’ Charlie said, and he loudly cracked his fingers. ‘Count three, brother. Slow and even.’
‘You are both ready, now?’ I asked.
‘I am ready,’ said the trapper.
‘Ready,’ Charlie said.
‘One,’ I said—and Charlie and I both let loose with our pistols, four bullets fired simultaneously, with each finding its target, skull shots every one. The trappers dropped to the ground from which none of them would rise again. It was an immaculate bit of killing, the slickest and most efficient I could recall, and no sooner had they fallen than Charlie began laughing, as did I, though more out of relief than anything, whereas Charlie I believe was genuinely tickled. It isn’t enough to be lucky, I thought. A man has to be balanced in his mind, to remain calm, when your average man is anything but. The trapper with the blue-black beard was still gasping, and I crossed over to look upon him. He was confused, his eyes darting every which way.
‘What was that noise?’ he asked.
‘That was a bullet going into you.’
‘A bullet going into me where?’
‘Into your head.’
‘I can’t feel it. And I can’t hardly hear anything. Where’s the others?’
‘They’re lying next to you. Their heads have bullets, also.’
‘They do? Are they talking? I can’t hear them.’
‘No, they’re dead.’
‘But I’m not dead?’
‘Not yet you’re not.’
‘Ch,’ he said. His eyes closed and his head became still. I was stepping away when he shuddered and opened his eyes. ‘Jim was the one who wanted to come after you two. I didn’t want to.’
‘Okay.’
‘He thinks because he’s big, he’s got to do big things.’
‘He’s dead, now.’
‘He was talking about it all night. They would write books about us, he said. He didn’t like you all making fun of our clothes, was what it was.’
‘It doesn’t matter, now. Close your eyes.’
‘Hello?’ said the trapper. ‘Hello?’ He was looking at me but I do not think he could see me.
‘Close your eyes. It’s all right.’
‘I didn’t want to do this,’ he complained. ‘Jim thought he could lick you boys, and that he’d be able to tell everyone about it.’
‘You should close your eyes and rest,’ I said.
‘Ch. Ch, ch.’ Then the life hopped out of him and he died, and I ret
urned to Tub, and the saddle. This ‘counting to three’ business was an old trick of ours. It was something we were neither ashamed nor proud of; suffice to say it was only employed in the direst situations, and it saved our lives more than once.
Charlie and I were set to leave when we heard a boot scrape in the loft above us. The hand had not left, but hidden away to witness the fight; sadly for him he had also witnessed our numbers trick, and we climbed the ladder to find him. This took some time as there were many tall towers of stacked hay bales in the loft, which made for excellent covering. ‘Come out, boy,’ I called. ‘We are all through here, and we promise not to hurt you.’ A pause, and we heard a scurrying in the far corner. I fired at the sound but the bales swallowed the bullet. Another pause, and more scurrying. Charlie said, ‘Boy, come out here. We’re going to kill you, and there is no chance for escape. Let’s be sensible about it.’
‘Boo-hoo-hoo,’ said the hand.
‘You are only wasting our time. And we have no more time to waste.’
‘Boo-hoo-hoo.’
Chapter 34
After we dispatched the hand we visited with Mayfield in his parlor. He was shocked when he found us knocking on his door, to the point that he could not speak or move for a time; I ushered him to his couch, where he sat awaiting his nameless fate. To Charlie I said, ‘He is different from last night.’
‘This is the true man,’ Charlie told me. ‘I knew it the moment I saw him.’ Addressing Mayfield, he said, ‘As you may have guessed, we have cut down your help, all four of them, plus the stable boy, which was unfortunate, and unplanned. I am quick to point out that this is entirely your doing, as we brought you the red pelt in good faith and had nothing to do with its disappearance. Thusly, the deaths of your men and the boy should rest on your conscience alone, not ours. I do not ask that you agree with this necessarily, only that you recognize I have said as much. Are we understood?’
Mayfield did not answer. His eyes were pinpointed to a spot on the wall behind me. I turned to see what he was staring at and discovered it to be: Nothing. When I looked back at him he was rubbing his face with his palms, as though he were washing.
‘All right,’ Charlie continued. ‘This next part you will not like, but here is the price to pay for the impositions you hefted upon my brother and myself. Are you listening to me, Mayfield? Yes, I want you to tell us, now. Where do you keep your safe?’
Mayfield was quiet for such a time I did not think he heard the question. Charlie was opening his mouth to repeat himself when Mayfield answered, in a voice scarcely above a whisper, ‘I will not tell you.’ Charlie walked over to him. ‘Tell me where the safe is or I will hit you on the head with my pistol.’ Mayfield said nothing and Charlie removed his gun from the holster, gripping it at the barrel. He paused, then clipped Mayfield on the very top of his skull with the walnut butt. Mayfield fell back onto the couch, covering his head and making restrained pain sounds, a kind of squealing through gritted teeth that I found most undignified. He began at once to bleed, and Charlie pressed a hanky into his fist as he sat the man up. Mayfield did not ball this into a bunch and hold it over his wound as anyone else might have, but laid the square of cotton flat over his head like a tablecloth; as he was bald on top, the blood fixed the hanky to his head quite handily. Whatever possessed him to do this? Was this a thoughtless inspiration, or something he had learned somewhere? Mayfield sat looking at us with a sulky expression on his face. He had only one boot on, and I noticed his bare foot was red and swollen at the toes. I pointed and said, ‘Touch of chilblains, Mayfield?’
‘What’s chilblains?’
‘It looks like that’s what’s wrong with your foot.’
‘I don’t know what’s wrong with it.’
‘I think it’s chilblains,’ I said.
Charlie snapped his fingers, both to quiet me and to regain Mayfield’s attention. ‘This time,’ he said, ‘if you do not answer me, I will hit you twice.’
‘I won’t let you have it all,’ Mayfield said.
‘Where is the safe?’
‘I worked for that money. It is not yours to take.’
‘Right.’ He hit Mayfield twice with the butt and the man once again doubled over on the couch to wail and complain. Charlie had not removed the hanky to strike him and the blows were unpleasantly wet sounding. When he propped Mayfield upright, the man was tensing his jaws and panting and his entire head was slick with blood—the hanky itself was dripping. He stuck out his lower lip and was attempting a show of bravery, but he looked ridiculous, like something in a butcher’s display, blood running down his chin and neck, soaking into his collar. Charlie said, ‘Let’s get something clear between us, now. Your money is gone. This is a simple truth, a point of fact, and if you struggle against it we will kill you, then we’ll find your safe. I want you to ponder this: Why should you receive abuse and death for something that is already forfeit? Think on it. There is no sense in your attitude.’
‘You are going to kill me one way or the other.’
‘That is not necessarily the truth,’ I said.
‘It isn’t,’ said Charlie.
‘Will you give me your word on it?’ asked Mayfield.
Charlie looked at me, his eyes asking: Should we let him live? My eyes answered him: I don’t care. He said, ‘If you give us the money, we will leave you as we found you, living and breathing.’
‘Swear on it.’
‘I swear on it,’ said Charlie.
Mayfield watched him, searching for some sign of devilishness. Satisfied, he looked over at me. ‘You swear it also?’
‘If my brother says it’s so, then it’s so. But if you want me to swear I won’t kill you, then I swear it.’
He removed the heavy hanky and flung it to the ground; it clapped as it hit the floor and he regarded it with a measure of disgust. Now he straightened his vest and stood, teetering on his heels, then sitting back down, having nearly fainted from the effort. ‘I need a drink, and something more to clean my head. I do not wish to walk through my hotel looking like this.’ I fixed him a tall brandy that he drank in two long swallows. Charlie ducked into the water closet and emerged with a handful of towels, a bowl of water, and a hand mirror. These were placed on the low table before Mayfield, and we watched as he set to work cleaning himself. He was unemotional as he did this, and I felt an obscure admiration for him. He was losing all of his savings and gold, and yet he displayed as much concern as a man shaving his face. I was curious what he was thinking about, and asked him; when he said he was making plans I inquired as to what they might be. He lay the mirror facedown on the table and said, ‘That depends entirely upon how much of my money you men will allow me to keep.’
‘Keep?’ said Charlie, eyebrows raised. He was rifling the drawers of Mayfield’s desk. ‘I thought it was understood you will keep none.’
Mayfield exhaled. ‘None at all? Do you mean to say, absolutely none?’
Charlie looked at me. ‘Was that not the plan?’
I said, ‘The plan, if I’m not mistaken, was to kill him. Now that we have changed that part, we can at least talk about this new concern. I will admit it seems cruel, to leave him penniless.’
Charlie’s eyes darkened, and he went into himself. Mayfield said, ‘You asked what I was thinking. Well, I will tell you. I was thinking that a man like myself, after suffering such a blow as you men have struck on this day, has two distinct paths he might travel in his life. He might walk out into the world with a wounded heart, intent on sharing his mad hatred with every person he passes; or, he might start out anew with an empty heart, and he should take care to fill it up with only proud things from then on, so as to nourish his desolate mind-set and cultivate something positive anew.’
‘Is he just inventing this as he goes?’ Charlie asked.
‘I am going to take the second route,’ Mayfield continued. ‘I am a man who needs to rebuild, and the first thing I will work on is my sense of purpose. I will remind myself of who
I am, or was, for I fear my padded life here has made me lazy. I should say that your getting the better of me with such ease is proof of it.’
‘He describes his inaction and cowardice as laziness,’ Charlie said.
‘And with five men dead,’ I said, ‘he describes our overtaking his riches as easy.’
‘He has a describing problem,’ said Charlie.
Mayfield said, ‘My hope, I will put it to you men directly, is that you will see me through for trip expenses to your hometown of Oregon City, where I shall travel at once and lay waste to the mongrel with the scythe blade, James Robinson.’
He said this and immediately my brother and I had the same, evil thought.
‘Tell me that it’s not perfection,’ said Charlie.
‘But it is too tragic,’ I said.
‘You would protect this criminal acquaintance against what you have done to me?’ Mayfield said indignantly. ‘It is only just and proper that you men assist me in seeing this through. You have taken away all that I have earned, but you can redeem yourselves, at least partially, if you will only let me keep but a portion of my own fortune.’
This self-righteous speech sealed his fate, and we came to the agreement that Mayfield should be given one hundred dollars, just enough to get him to Oregon City, where he would be stuck, and where the first person he asked would inform him of Robinson’s death, and he would know we had known and would recall our amusement in bitter, black blood. The money was paid out in stamped gold taken directly from his safe, which was located in the basement of the hotel. Staring into its open mouth, Mayfield said, ‘That’s the only time I’ve ever been lucky in my life. Filled up a safe with gold and papers. More than most can say, at any rate.’ He nodded solemnly, but his show of bravado soon gave way to passionate emotion; his face dropped and tears began squirting from his eyes. ‘But goddamnit, luck is a hard feeling to hold on to!’ he said. Wiping his face, he cursed just as hotly and sincerely as he could, though quietly. ‘I feel no luck in my body now, and that is a fact.’ He cut a piteous silhouette with his little purse of money, pinching the strings the way one holds a dead mouse by its tail. We followed him outside and watched him tightening and refitting his clothing and saddlebags. He seemed to want to give a speech, but the words either did not come naturally or else he considered us unfit to receive them, and he remained silent. He mounted his horse, leaving with a curt nod and a look in his eyes that said: I do not like you people. We returned to the basement to count the safe’s contents, splitting and pocketing the paper money, which amounted to eighteen hundred dollars. The gold proved to be too much to account for in our travels and so was hidden underneath a potbellied stove, resting on a pallet of hardwood in the far basement corner. This was a dirty job, as we had to dismantle the tin chimney to move the stove back and forth, and we were both rained down in black soot; but when we were finished I could not imagine a soul would ever find our treasure, for no one would think to look in so remote a spot. The rough estimate of these riches was set at fifteen thousand dollars; my take of this more than tripled my savings, and as we left the musty basement, heading up the stairs and into the light, I felt two things at once: A gladness at this turn of fortune, but also an emptiness that I did not feel more glad; or rather, a fear that my gladness was forced or false. I thought, Perhaps a man is never meant to be truly happy. Perhaps there is no such a thing in our world, after all.