The Sisters Brothers
‘Have you doused him today?’
‘No, and I do not plan to. I did it just the once to show you the way, but from here on, it’s all yours.’
Wanting to get it over with, I unstopped the bottle and took a step toward Tub when the hand said, ‘I wish you’d take him outside. I just barely got the first hole covered without him kicking a new one.’ He pointed and I saw his pitiable patch job, the damaged timber gone over with scraps. I led Tub out and tied him to a hitching post. His socket had crusted blood and pus around its rim, and without the eye to hold its form the lid sagged at its center. I poured in a good amount of the alcohol and stepped clear of him. ‘Heee!’ said Tub, kicking and bucking and urinating and defecating. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry about that, Tub. Sorry, sorry.’ His discomfort passed and I retrieved the saddle from the stable. Charlie led Nimble out and stood beside Tub and I.
‘Ready?’ he said.
I did not answer but climbed onto Tub. His back and legs had more give than before, his muscles stringy with fatigue; also he was confused by the loss of half his sight, and he craned his neck to the left to see from his right eye. I backed him into the road and he walked in a tight, full circle, then another. ‘He is getting his bearings,’ I said.
‘It is wrong to ride him so soon,’ said Charlie, climbing on Nimble. ‘You can see he needs rest.’
I pulled hard on the reins and Tub ceased his spinning. ‘Let’s not pretend you care for his well-being all of a sudden.’
‘I don’t give a damn about the horse. I’m talking about what’s right for the job.’
‘Oh! Yes! Of course! The Job! I nearly forgot about it! Our preeminent purpose! Let’s talk about it some more! I will never tire of the subject so long as I am living!’
I found my lip was quivering; my feelings were so deeply injured that morning, looking at my brother on his fine, tall horse, and knowing he did not love me the way I had always loved and admired him and looked up to him; my lip quivered and I found myself shouting like this so that people walking past made comments and stared.
‘The Job! Yes! The Job! But of course that’s what you were referring to!’
Charlie’s eyes hooded with contempt, and shame enveloped me like a fever. Without a word he turned and rode off, cutting through the crowded streets and disappearing on the far side of a covered wagon. I scrambled to regain sight of him but Tub continued to crane his neck and walk sideways; I jabbed him with my heels and the pain righted him, but his breath was ragged as we ran, and my shame redoubled. I very much wanted to simply quit then, to stop and walk away from Tub, and from the job, and Charlie, to return on a new horse for my pile in Mayfield and construct a separate life, with the pale bookkeeper or without, just as long as everything was restful and easy and completely different from my present position in the world. This was my dream, and it was a powerful, vivid one, but I did nothing to enact it, and Tub continued his running and wheezing and I made it to the beach and rejoined Charlie, falling in beside him as we headed for the ferry landing. We passed the spot where the horse belonging to the man with the winch had died. The animal was partially skinned, with a good portion of its meat hacked away. Crows and gulls fought over what was left, hopping and pecking, the clammy flesh gone purple, the wind coating it in sand, and the flies insinuating themselves where they could. I felt San Francisco standing behind me but I never looked back, and I thought, I did not enjoy my time here.
Chapter 43
The ferry was a smaller-sized paddle wheeler called Old Ulysses that had a corral at its foremost end that housed horses alongside sheep and cows and pigs. Just as soon as Charlie tied off Nimble he left me; I did not follow after him but stayed behind to pet Tub and say sweet things to him, offering him comfort with my nearness and kindness, belated as it was. I had a plan to stay down there for the entire eight-hour voyage but the water was rough and the pigs became seasick (only the pigs became seasick), and I found it necessary to take in the air topside. I never once saw Charlie and nothing of consequence happened for the rest of the trip, except for this: I asked a woman if she had the time, and she looked me up and down and said, ‘I have no time to share with you,’ and walked away. I bought some mealy apples from a blind man and fed these to Tub as the boat was shoring up in Sacramento. His legs were trembling. It was late afternoon.
Charlie and I rode clear of civilization and entered into a forest of oak trees, dense and damp and impossible to navigate incautiously. It was slow going, made all the more so by the fact of our not speaking. I thought, I will not speak first. Then Charlie spoke first.
‘I would like to discuss our methods for dealing with Warm.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Let us cover the angles.’
‘That’s it. Starting with our employer. What might he want us to do?’
‘Kill Morris first, quickly, and without malice. From Warm, extract the formula, then kill him, also, but slowly.’
‘And what would we do with the formula?’
‘Return this to the Commodore.’
‘And what would he do with it?’
‘He would claim to be its author, and he would become ever more infamous and rich.’
‘And so the actual question is: Why are we doing this for him?’
‘But this is just what I have been getting at.’
‘I want to talk it through, Eli. Answer me, please.’
I said, ‘We are doing this for a wage, and out of your reverence for a powerful man whom you hope to one day usurp or somehow become.’
Charlie made a stretched-out face that said: I did not know you knew that. ‘All right. Let us assume that is true. Would it make sense then to empower the Commodore? To enable him in such a significant way?’
‘It would not make sense.’
‘No. Now, would it make sense for us to follow the Commodore’s instruction just shy of the last? Just shy of handing over the formula?’
‘To kill the two innocent men and steal their hard-won idea for ourselves?’
‘Morals come later. I asked if it would make sense.’
‘It would at least make sense, yes.’
‘Fine. Now, let us discuss the consequences of disobeying the Commodore.’
‘It would be unpleasant. I should think we would be hunted all our lives.’
‘Unless?’ he said, lips upturned. ‘Unless?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We would have to kill him.’
‘Kill him how?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Lie in wait for him? Make it known we are after him? Go to war with his lieutenants? He has men in most every outpost and town, remember.’
‘No, the only way would be to get it over with right off. To head back just as if we were still working for him, then kill him in his house, and flee.’
‘Flee where? Who would come after us if the man himself was dead?’
‘I would be surprised if he did not have explicit orders to be carried out in case of untimely passing.’
Charlie nodded. ‘He absolutely does. He has spoken to me about it in the past. “If my blood is spilled prematurely, there will be an ocean of blood spilled in response to it.” So: How might this inform our plans?’
I said, ‘The only way would be to kill him in total secrecy.’
‘Total secrecy,’ Charlie agreed.
‘We would have to arrive under cover of night and shoot him as he sleeps. After this, run into the wild and hide away for many days, then return empty-handed, as though coming from San Francisco, claiming to have missed the formula, to have lost Morris and Warm. We would act very surprised when we learned of the Commodore’s death, and we would offer our services in tracking down and killing any of those possibly involved.’
‘That is all fine, except for the last part,’ he said. ‘If the Commodore is murdered, accusations will fly in every direction, and there will be a good deal of violence because of it. I would be surprised if we were not accused; and it would be suspicio
us if we in turn did not level accusations of our own. A lot of blood work then, and for what? When the man with the money is already gone?’
‘What is your thought, brother?’
‘What if the Commodore simply died in his sleep? A pillow over the face, is all.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘that’s the way. And we would have the formula, also.’
‘We would have it, but would not be able to use it for a time.’
‘We could live off the Mayfield stash, plus our savings.’
‘Or we could find a private river and work with the formula anonymously.’
‘It would be a difficult thing to keep hidden.’
‘Difficult but not impossible. We would likely have to bring a few more into the fold. I don’t know how Warm thinks he will be able to dam a river with just the two of them.’
‘Let us return to the moral question,’ I said.
‘The moral question,’ said Charlie. ‘Yes, let’s.’
‘I’ve never much liked Mr. Morris on a personal, man-to-man basis. Or should I say he has never much liked or respected us, which colors my feelings for him. But I will admit to having a certain respect for him.’
‘Yes, I feel the same way. He is honorable. Even with this abandonment of his post he is.’
‘He is that much more honorable because of it, is my way of seeing things. And as for Warm, I can’t help it. I admire him for his intelligence.’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘Well, I don’t know what else to say.’
‘You would rather not kill them.’
‘That’s what it is. I have been thinking about the last job, where we lost our horses. Do you recall those men we were up against? All they were after was blood and more blood, and it made no difference to them whose it was. They were living just to die. And our role was ironclad the moment we stepped onto their property.’
Charlie paused, remembering. ‘They were a rough bunch, it’s true.’
‘It felt right to me, because whether or not they had wronged the Commodore they were evil men, truly, and they would have killed us if we hadn’t moved first. But these two, Warm and Morris. It would be more like killing children or women.’
Charlie was quiet. He was thinking about the two futures, the immediate and the distant. I had more to tell him but did not interrupt, as I felt I had said enough to make my point clear. I was relieved we had had this talk, and that Charlie was not outwardly opposed to my way of thinking. I was also relieved the bad feelings from San Francisco were abating or had abated. But then we often came about our truces through this kind of clinical discussion.
Chapter 44
Darkness fell before we could locate Warm’s claim, and we camped under the oaks. I doused Tub and he screamed, kicking and bucking; when the pain passed him he lay down on the ground to pant and stare at nothing. His appetite was poor but I still believed he had a good deal of life left in him, that he would soon begin his recuperation. As I drifted away to sleep I watched the treetops bowing and clashing in the wind. I could hear the river but could not place it; one moment I felt it was to the north, another moment I was certain it was to the south. In the morning I discovered it was to the east. We found Warm’s claim after lunch and decided to spend the night there, that Tub might be rested for a full day’s ride, and that Charlie and I might focus ourselves for what lay ahead of us.
The claim was an attractive and comfortable site, and we camped above the river on a grassy sandbank. A small sign posted at the foot of the claim line read: THESE WATERS ARE THE TEMPORARY PROPERTY OF HERMANN KERMIT WARM, AN HONEST MAN ON SPEAKING TERMS WITH MOST EVERY ANGEL IN HEAVEN. THOSE WHO DIP THEIR PANS IN HIS OWN PRIVATE STRETCH WILL FIND THEMSELVES SWARMED, INSULTED, TAPPED WITH SHARP HARPS AND LIKELY LIGHTNING, TOO. Vines were painted elaborately around these words. Warm had taken his time with the project.
Fat trout hung in the current and Charlie shot one in the head for our dinner. Upon receiving the bullet the fish issued a cloud of blood and steered sideways as the current pulled him down river. Charlie waded in and picked the fish up by the tail, flinging it through the air and onto the bank where I was sitting. I gutted and skinned it and fried it in pork fat. It was four or more pounds and we ate all but the head and innards. The thick green grass made for excellent bedding and we both slept well. In the morning a man stood over us, small and grizzled and smiling, a happy prospector reentering civilization with his hard-won pouch of dust and flakes.
‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘I was just about to make a fire for my coffee when I smelt your smoke. I’d be happy to share a cup, if I might borrow your heat.’
I told him to go ahead and he stoked the coals, setting his blackened kettle directly atop the embers. He spoke to himself as he did this, offering hushed words of encouragement and grace: ‘Good, good. Tidy, tidy. Very nicely done.’ Every half minute or so he suffered a fit of twitches and I thought, He has been alone in the wilderness for too long, and has become two people.
‘You are heading into San Francisco?’ asked Charlie.
‘You bet I am. Four months I’ve been away, and the closer I get I can’t hardly believe it. I got it all worked out to the last detail.’
‘Got what all worked out?’
‘All the things I’m going to do.’ We did not ask that he elaborate, but he needed no invitation to continue: ‘First thing I’m going to do is rent a clean room, up high so I can look down and see everything as it passes. The second thing I’m going to do is call for a piping hot bath. Third thing is I’m going to sit in it with the window open and listen to the town. Fourth thing I’m going to do is have a shave, to the bare cheek, and a haircut, close-cropped and parted. Fifth thing I’m going to do is buy a new outfit from the hat to the boots. Shirt, undershirt, pants, stockings, all of it.’
‘I have to go to the toilet,’ Charlie interrupted, and he walked away into the forest.
The prospector was undisturbed by my brother’s rudeness and in fact did not appear to notice it. He was staring into the fire as he spoke; he probably would have continued talking even if I had left: ‘Sixth thing I’m going to do is eat a steak as big as my head. Seventh thing I’m going to do is get very, very drunk. Eighth thing I’m going to do is get a pretty girl and lie down a while. Ninth thing I’m going to do is talk with her about her life, and she’ll ask about mine, and we’ll go back and forth like this, civilized and properly. Tenth thing I’m going to do is no one’s business in the world but my own. Eleventh thing I’m going to do is send her away and stretch out in the clean, soft bed, like this.’ He stretched out his arms as wide as he was able. ‘Twelfth thing, boy, I’m going to sleep and sleep and sleep!’
Now the water was boiled and he poured us each a cup of coffee, the taste of which was so poor it actually startled me, and it took my every bit of politeness not to spit the liquid out. Dredging my finger along the bottom of the cup, I brought up a mound of grit. I smelled and then licked this and identified it as dirt. People will often describe something as ‘tasting like’ dirt, but this was not the case, here—my cup held earth and hot water, nothing more. I believe the man, through some lonely prospector mania, had begun brewing dirt and tricking himself into believing it was coffee. I had a mind to broach the subject with him but he was so pleased to be sharing, and I did not want to upset his pride; at any rate, who did I think I was to try and undo what had surely taken many days and nights to become fact for him? I decided to wait until his next fit of twitches and then pour out the dirt-water while he was not looking. Charlie came back from the woods and I informed him with secret looks that he should not drink the ‘coffee’; when the prospector offered him a cup he declined. ‘More for us,’ the prospector told me, and I weakly smiled.
‘I am wondering if you’ve seen a couple friends of ours,’ Charlie said. ‘They would have been heading upriver a few days ago. Two men, one bearded, one not.’
‘Had a good deal of gear with them?’ he said.
 
; ‘The one had a red beard.’
‘That’s right. Had a good deal of gear with them. Two mules loaded down with twice what Benny’s carrying.’ He pointed to his mule, Benny, standing next to Tub and Nimble. I did not think a mule could carry any more than what he was.
‘What type of gear?’ I asked.
‘Pans, canvas, rope, timber. All the usual. Only thing strange was they had four twenty-five-gallon casks, two per mule. The redhead said they were filled with wine. Wouldn’t sell me a drop, the miser! I like a drink as much as anyone, but hauling that much into the wild’s just the type of greediness that’ll ruin you. You can work a mule to the point where he won’t ever recover. These two were well on their way, it looked like to me.’
‘Any idea where they were headed?’
‘They were keen to know the location of a beaver dam I told them about. I’d only brought it up as a place they’d want to stay away from, but they had to have every detail.’
‘Where is it?’ asked Charlie.
‘Now you got the same look in your eye they had! And I’ll tell you just what I did them: That stretch isn’t worth your time. Those beavers’ll strip every bit of wood from your camp just as soon as you look away, and whatever you put in the river—a rocker or cradle or anything—is as good as gone. A damned nuisance, is all they are. Hey, that’s a good one! Get it? Dam-ed?’ He suffered a fit of twitches and I poured out my dirt-water into the grass. The moment his fit ceased he spied that my cup was empty and made me another, encouraging me to drink. I held the cup to my mouth, clamping my lip on the edge, thus allowing none of the liquid into my mouth.
Charlie said, ‘If our friends were headed there, we would like to pay them a visit.’
‘Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn you. But you’ll know you’re close when you pass a camp of men four or five miles up from here. Do not stop in hopes of making friends, for this group has no interest in socializing. In fact they are downright rude. But no matter. Two miles more, and you’ll see the dam. You can’t miss the thing it’s so big.’ He hefted the kettle to pour himself another cupful of his brew and I noticed he winced at the effort. I asked if he was injured, and he nodded. He had fought an Indian with knives and won, he said, but the Indian had taken a piece out of him, which weakened him, and he had lain beside the corpse for long hours before he could summon the strength to stand. He pulled back his shirt to show us the divot beneath his breast. Its edges were scarring but it was still scabbed at its pit—a nasty wound. I would have put its age at three weeks. ‘Got me a good one, there. I guess I got him better, though.’ He stood away from the fire and returned to Benny, strapping his cup and kettle to the mule’s load.