Chapter 10

They began that summer morning as 7 o'clock sun flooded the countryside and all traces of sleepy darkness had vanished. It was a still, warm morning, and Y dressed lightly. He had to borrow clothes from some of the other men, and Percy being closest to him in size was his main benefactor. He wore a red shirt that was baggy on him and pants that bunched up at his boots. He pulled his suspenders until they were as tight as could be and made due. When he emerged fully dressed from behind the wagon everyone laughed at him.

"Really Dean, can't we manage to get the boy some clothes?" Hannah said, nudging him. "He looks like a vagrant."

"He is a vagrant," Dean jested. "Ain't you, Y?"

"A scoundrel of the highest order," Y confirmed.

"They's a little cattle town down the road," Will said. "Name of Alabaster. Wouldn't mind stopping myself. We're making good time and I'd like a saloon show."

"All the world is a show, Wilton," Wynchell chimed in. He sat on a moss-covered tree stump, holding a cup of coffee that looked pitifully small in his hands. In fact, to look at him, one would never see the tree stump he enveloped. "A show in which we are, the erm...yes, and we all of us has his lines..."

"He's going for Shakespeare again, ain't he?" Percy said, coming out from some brush where he had been attending to private concerns. When he saw what Y was wearing he beamed proudly. "Look at that stylish no-good gunslinger!" he came over, lifted Y's hat, tousled his hair and replaced the hat. "What do you think?"

Y became instantly shy. He shrugged and looked at Dean. "I don't know," he mumbled.

Percy, still beaming, looked from Dean to Y and moved along. He went to the wagon and took out a sack of oats. When he headed to the horses to feed and saddle them Wynchell stood up and set down his coffee on the stump, trudging off to help his brother.

Hannah and Dean were preoccupied with some quiet discussion, so Y decided to help Will pack up and load the wagon. It was a short job with the two of them working, and when it was over Will offered Y a dip of chew which Y accepted. They stood side by side in silence until Y blurted an awkward apology for losing Will's rifle.

"You'll make it up to me, won't you?" Will said.

"Sure I will. I have money."

Will waved his hand and shook his head. "I ain't worried about that. You know, I don't want to belabor the point, but I had that gun a long time. Since '66, '67 I guess. Used it when we were bushwhacking. Dean would stand by the road and catch a coach or wagon, say. Well, he'd distract them with this or that, meanwhile I'm up in some tree just out of sight, and when Dean gives the signal I shoot. You know, to spook em. Worked damn near every time. If a coach had a gun, I popped the gun. Yeah, we did a hell of a business then. We was only kids."

"Dean said you're soldiers. Soldiers turned outlaw rebels, I guess."

"He says soldiers but I says rebels. We fight for what's ours, for what's right. Definitionally, a soldier takes orders. Dean sees a romance in it. Word of advice, take the things Dean says lightly. He don't mean no harm, but he has notions. Some of em are stupid, and some of them are dangerous."

"I never seen myself as an outlaw."

"You will. It ain't so bad as all that, neither. Papers make everything sound worse so they can sell em. An outlaw just means you are beyond the borders of civilization, another extension of wild, untamed nature. Would you rather be here, riding with us under open sky or in some factory or another, some slaughterhouse, wasting away for wages?"

Y felt a shiver go down his spine. Will had sounded like his father there. "My Dad says luxury has a steep price. He always said for me to be a man of action so that I dont get eaten by the city."

"Sounds like my type of man. It's too bad you're Northerners. So you think your old man's still out there, do you?"

"Yes. Well, no. I mean, I don't know. I just can't abide waiting around. It may be stupid or reckless but I'm resolved to it."

Wynchell and Percy could be heard shouting and laughing with the horses. Dean and Hannah had taken a little walk down the road. Somewhere, a crow cawed in the still air.

"We should be off," Will said. "Let's go find my brother. And kid?"

"Yeah?"

"Your daddy's alright. I know he is."

Santiago Leon Guerrero was a young boy when his father dragged him and his brother from the mess in Veracruz to El Paso whereupon they were foisted onto a massive cattle ranch working as Mexican cowboys. When they weren't performing duties they patrolled the land's endless boundaries killing Apache and Comanche and Mexican rustlers usually by moonlight. From the time he was twelve he had shot multiple men and women, killed a few. He considered his first real kill to be the Apache whose throat he punctured with a machete. It was a real kill because it was personal, because he had sweat for it and suffered for it. The Apache had been a boy not much older than himself at the time.

As life progressed and the cattle ranch broke down to constant thieving and eventually a grand ragefire the Guerrero brothers and their still living/drinking father Esteban left and joined military men driving to Arkansas and signed up for service at a Fort Crimson. On to Chattenuga, Dodge City in 1870 and for two years there they settled and the senior Guerrero fell ill. He died in late '71 and Santiago's brother Manuel opened his first saloon. Then the Cheyenne raid. Fires, decapitation, dead women and children. The saloon was caved by a stolen bunch of dynamite. Manuel had been deveatated.

Both brothers survived and they stayed together. That winter was a harsh and lean one. They hired themselves onto a Romani stagecoach trailing northwest and spent four months in Montana territory freezing and watching the Romani desperados turn to bloody ice and starve. By the time Spring came the brothers were once again alone in their survival and buried the last of the Romani in a shallow grave in the woods, salting the corpse as the Romani had cannibalized each other at the end. It was owing to sheer luck and their strong bodies that they had been spared that fate.

Oh, and the Cheyenne again, with the Sioux. Caught them crossing the Territory making for Dakota, and they were kept prisoner of the Indians. Their interment was brief as the brothers proved themselves capable hunters and trackers, and they aided the Indians for some time until the fall of '72 when near the Boaz River they met a U.S. Army unit and surrendered themselves at once. They were beaten and consigned to hang for fighting with the Indians until Major James Wales wired a cohort at Fort Crimson. Once their prior work from the South had been confirmed the brothers were offered clemency if they helped the Army instead.

Manuel had served 18 months before he opted to accept the Army's offer of reprieve. Santiago, of course, did not. By the year of '74 Fort Labrador was completed and Major Wales took command, bringing the Guerreros with him. The small town of Henry was sprouting up around the base and Manuel took the opportunity to open another saloon. The Army abandoned Fort Labrador for a better position farther north called Fort Lincoln, but Wales and his loyalists remained behind. While only a matter of miles apart, Santiago and Manuel had not seen each other since.

The Captain rode in to Henry and dropped Windchaser at the stable yard. He was surprised to see so many folk about. Easterners, immigrants, plenty of them, Irish and German and Bohemian and Norwegian. Strange curses lurked in the air. Uneasy stares and breathless warnings. He found the Matador Saloon at the edge of town, a building that despite being fairly new was looking rundown and sunwashed with a sagging canopied porch and a second-story balcony that sagged a bit like a pouty lip. He went in and saw Sass and Wales at the counter and went over to them. He had to wade through a small crowd to reach them and when he did he ordered a shot of tequilla.

Wales laughed. He lowered his hat so that the brim covered his eyes and he spoke in low tones. "Santiago is with his brother. Manuel is a good man. You'll have to meet him. Stay close to us and drink your tequila."

"What's with the people?"

Sass answered, "New Attica. Fools think they'll get the gold."

"Like it isn't already contracted," huffed Major Wales.

The Captain nodded. "How long will we stay here?"

"Not long." Wales leaned back from the counter and took out a cigar. "Just a night."

"I hope so," murmured Sass. "I don't like this town. Never have."

"It's Drake's town," continued Wales, striking a match and lighting the cigar. The barkeep came and refilled their glasses.

"Drake?" said the Captain.

Wales leaned in, "He'a a businessman, a rancher. Owns Glory's Dawn, a ways west out of town. And the other saloon here, the Diablo. And he's a warlord. Fetches low people, leading low lives, like them around us, loads them up with ammo and piss and sends em out to do his bidding."

"I know them. I seen them, fighting with the Ixopaw. Didn't know who in the hell they was, but they was there."

"He won't like us messing about in New Attica," Sass added.

"Shush up," Wales said. "Let's not tell the whole dodgy saloon where we're headed."

"What's our plan?" The Captain stared at Wales.

"Lookie there, our little Devil," said Sass, looking at the staircase.

The Guerrero brothers descended together seemingly in high spirits. Manuel, curly haired with fuzzy shade on his chin, was squat and boxier than his brother. He wore a blue suit with a grey tailcoat and a little brown hat on the top of his head. They came down and Wales, cigar sticking out of his mouth, shook hands with Manuel.

"Meet our newest friend," the Major said cordially, pushing the Captain forward.

"You boys are awfully ambitious," Manuel said, his eyes glinting as he looked them over. "These folk round here, they are loco and desperate. To think you share their ambitions! Ay ay ay."

"My brother is a good man," said Santiago, "but he is afeminado. No cajones, you know?"

"I compete every day with El Diablo, and you say this? Ah, you are an idiot, and this is why you are such a good killer."

"This is true."

"Gentlemen," Wales cut in, stepping between them and putting his arms round their shoulders, "you must harbor us this evening so that we can set off at dawn tomorrow."

"You are traveling? I am intrigued," Manuel patted the Captain's arm and went around to the back of the counter. He shooed the barkeep away and bent down, coming back up with bottles of his own recipe. "Not often you leave your dungeon."

"Not often we have a Captain of the U.S. Calvary come asking for an escort," Wales answered, nodding in the direction of the Captain.

Manuel's eyebrows rose. "Calvary, round here? You are a ghost, amigo. I pray for you."

"Thank you, I think," said the Captain.

"We are headed for Fort Lincoln, Dakota territory. Up by Deerhead," Wales said.

Manuel doled out the brews to each of them and then stepped back from the counter where he lit a cigarette. He grinned at the Captain. "And you are going through New Attica?"

"It is the fastest way," said Wales.

"And also the riskiest. You best hope for clear skies."

In the middle of this conversation an interloper appeared at the counter next to Major Wales. This interloper was a portly man wearing a dark duster jacket with dusty clothes underneath. He had a pair of smoky dark eyes and was holding a cigarette. Major Wales, upon noticing this man, grimaced and fell silent, his head dropping.

Sass leered at the man. "I do believe I've seen chlamydia personified."

"Gentleman," said the man, his voice raspy and pitched high, "you have amazing gumption to be showing up in Henry."

"Gumption? Is that what it took to kill our compadre? Or to have Sass illegally arrested?" Santiago fumed.

The man looked at Sass and winked. "Is that what you got out of that episode? Should have had him illegally executed. Too old to make a decent farmhand anyhow. Suppose those cotton-pickin days is behind you, eh negro?"

"Leave us be, Molet, before people get hurt," Wales breathed through his nose--jets of hot air hissing intermittently. His face was close to the man's.

"I won't be long. Saw you and thought I'd say hello. You know, Drake ain't forgot about you. He'll be interested to know you're here."

"That's right," Wales said, "you tell him we're here. Tell him we're in this exact saloon and that we'll be here all night. Then, when he shows up with a posse, we can send you all to Hell."

The man smiled and blew a cloud of smoke over all of them. Then he scratched at the top of his stringy-haired head and backed up to leave. "We'll just have to see about that. Till next time."

After he walked away the Captain surveyed the looks on the faces of his compatriots and asked who the man was.

After a pause Wales said, "That's Jean Molet. Drake's lead dog and, in my view, the dirtiest and stupidest cur in all the West."

"Hillbilly dipshit," Sass concurred.

After another pause, this one longer, Wales spoke up. "We best make our time here short, gentlemen."

Nobody disagreed.