John C. Horst's Blog, page 11

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say. Sounds like Chinks talkin’ to me.”

Claudio Sacchi He sat up slowly and the woman gave him a warm smile and bent over until her breasts nearly spilled out and Ramon had a difficult time averting his eyes. The man was smaller than Ramon but well heeled, and Ramon was too weak to fight. He did not want to die now over ogling a whore’s breasts.

“How you doin’ handsome?”

He suddenly had a thought and answered in Spanish. “Hola, señorita.”

She looked back at her lover and smiled. “Awe, he’s adorable, and he speaks only Mexican.”

“Spanish, ding-bat.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say. Sounds like Chinks talkin’ to me.”

“No it don’t.” The man eyed Ramon carefully, taking his measure. Neither he nor the whore had been this far south before; neither spoke any Spanish. It would be interesting, and likely difficult to get the Mexican to do much of any kind of work, but the thin man would give it a good try.

He looked up ahead as he adjusted the oar in his hands. “Alright, get ready, there’s white water up ahead.”

Ramon turned to look in the direction the man had indicated, remembering that he was not supposed to understand the words. This would be tricky, and he wondered if it would not be wiser to just speak to them in English and get it over with now.

The woman jumped into action and Ramon dropped down and stood on the deck of the boat and held on as he watched the couple negotiate the rapids. They were pretty good but still green, and Ramon knew this because anyone with any sense would have pulled to shore and walked the rapids down to survey them before just riding over them. It was going to be a long ride back to Mexico.

But the woman was nice to watch as she was agile and pretty good at paddling and pushing off of boulders and, as it is always nice to see a beautiful woman nearly naked doing anything, Ramon was satisfied with the view. He took his ride on the rapids in stride, careful not to be too obvious in his ogling. She had pretty bare feet and he mostly stood still looking forward, then down at the deck and the barelegged beauty out of the corner of his eye. Allingham: Desperate Ride

"My Pa named me after some stupid fortune teller."

Brita Seifert Ramon moped around the rest of the day. The girl did her best to make him talk, engage, but he would not. He was growing disgusted with her by the minute as she seemed completely unconcerned regarding the death of her partner and lover and constantly paraded around in her sheer outfit, legs bare up to mid-thigh. She was appealing and repulsive at the same time, and Ramon wondered how he was to function around this Teutonic Amazon for the remainder of their little odyssey south.

She finally sat down beside him as he cooked trout he’d pulled from the river.

“What’s your name?”

“Ramon.” He looked her over and admired the fine downy golden hair covering her bronzed thighs.

“And yours?”

“Lola.”

“That’s not a name.”

“Sure it is.” She shrugged. “My name.”

“No, it is a nickname. What’s your real name?”

“Promise not to laugh.”

“No.”

“Then I won’t tell you.” She folded her arms and pouted unconvincingly.

“Go on, tell me.” He looked her over again and went back to the trout. “I probably won’t laugh.”

“Promise not to.” She looked and sounded like a child saying that.

“What if it’s funny? I’ll have to laugh then.”

“Hilola.” She looked out of the corner of her eye, through a thick lock of golden hair and he suddenly wanted to bed her right then and there.

“Well, that’s not funny at all. It’s very pretty. Unusual, but pretty.” He looked up at her, Hee-lol-la. Is that right?”

 She nodded her head in the affirmative and was pleased, as most men butchered her name, and that’s mostly why she went by Lola. “I’ve never even heard of such a name.”

She bent her leg at the knee and examined the ball of her foot, exposing herself for Ramon and all the world to see. He looked away and back at the trout in the frying pan.

“What kind of name is that?”

She lost interest in her foot and looked at Ramon and shrugged. “How the hell should I know? My Pa named me after some stupid fortune teller. She read his palm or his cards or some such bullshit and said he’d hit it big. The day I was born he found a five hundred dollar chunk of gold. When he came home and learned that I was born he said he hit it big for sure, and named me after the gypsy.”

“What happened then?”

“Don’t know. Ma said someone cut his throat for the rock of gold. I never knew him. Never even saw him.” She stretched her back, more as an exhibition than to work the kinks out. “Never even seen a picture of him.” Allingham: Desperate Ride.

I told him I’d shoot him if Rebecca did not make a full recovery.

Evan Wilson They all waited, impatiently outside of Rebecca’s room. Robert Curtin, the young engineer, the man who’d proudly declared that emotions never ran his life sat, broken, crying, now, nearly inconsolable. “All my fault, all my fault.” He sat forward with his head in his hands eyes red from crying so hard. Dan George patted him on the shoulder.

“Come on now man, you’ve got to be strong, be ready when she needs you.”

Zapata was respectful and kind to Marta. He could see it in her eyes. She was not easily shaken this one, but her most favorite person in the world was lying in the next room. They did not know if she would live or die. She held Zapata’s hand and he covered it, patted her gently with his palm.

“He’s the best surgeon in Mexico.” He waited for Marta to look up. “I only just captured him a few days ago. I told him I’d shoot him if Rebecca did not make a full recovery.”

She smiled a weak smile and looked into his eyes. “General, if she dies, I don’t know, I don’t want to live.” Curtin heard her and his tears began to flow more freely. He wasn’t embarrassed. He didn’t care who saw him cry. 

An eternity passed and the surgeon finally emerged from her bedroom. He looked tired. He looked on at Zapata then to the others. “The wound is clean and the bleeding has stopped. She will likely lose some use of one lung, but they’ll live.”

Marta jerked her head up. “They’ll live?”

“Young lady, your sister is going to have a baby.” The Mule Tamer III, Marta's Quest

“A puppet. ...the manipulator is the one holding the strings, making the puppets dance or whatever they do. That is not God.”

Brita Seifert She flashed with anger. “Oh,” she pointed at the head, “you know this hijo de puta? You know what he did? He abused a little girl. You say that is not cruel?”

“No, that is cruel. I said God doesn’t make it cruel.”

“Huh!” She got up and poured for him again. He was disarming, this prospector and she was not necessarily angry at him now.

He thought he should clarify. Go ahead and just say it all and get it over. She wasn’t going to let it go and his cryptic answers were just going to exacerbate the situation.

“Ma’am. Look at it this way. In the animal world, there is no cruelty. The animals eat other animals, that is true, but it isn’t in malice. Only humans can act cruelly. So, if God made all of the universe and the animals, both human and non-human, and He didn’t make any of the other creatures of the world cruel, and only humans can be cruel, then how can we say God is responsible for cruelty?”

She’d not thought of it that way.

“But He made that pig cruel.” She pointed to the head.

“No, no ma’am. He made the man, but the man chose the cruel and wicked path. God is not like a manipulator of the marionette…”

“What’s this marionette?”

“A puppet. You know, puppets, the kind on a string, the manipulator is the one holding the strings, making the puppets dance or whatever they do. That is not God.”

She sat quietly and got cigars out. They smoked and she looked into the fire. This man was very interesting. She thought of something else. “So, when a person, when a person has many bad things happening. That’s not God punishing them or making them have a bad time? That is what you are saying?”

“Yes, ma’am. That’s what I am saying. We have a great gift. We have something the other animals in the world do not have.”

“A soul?”

“Well, yes, we have that, but that isn’t what I was going to say. We have a thinking, reasoning brain.” He pointed at his head. “We have free will.”

“Free will?”

“Sure, you know, the ability to pick and choose. You can be good or you can be bad. You can sleep all day and not work or you can get up and make something of yourself, make something for yourself. You,” he pointed at her and she suddenly remembered the old woman showing her the reflection in the mirror. “You can make the world as you wish.” Maria's Trial

“My little box will be staying put, safe and sound, right here.”

Herbert Dunton “Yes,” Marta continued, “A big hole in the ground, then you can have all your men gather ‘round the hole. Then they could drop their trousers and shit in it. That would be a more fitting home for you I think.” She puffed on her cigar and looked him in the eye. She continued.  “My mother, she always taught me, before you kill a man, she would say, always offer him a way out. Always offer him his life. That’s the Christian way. That’s what Jesus would do. Well, general, I’m offering you and your men your lives. Go ahead out of here now, just ride away and you may live.” She regarded him and smiled. “No. I see it on your arrogant, stupid face, you aren’t going to ride. You choose to die, here and now.”

He smiled and then lost the smile and looked at her, stared through his bookish round glasses. “Before this day is done, I will make you cry like an infant, and you will wish that you’d been properly prostrated before me when I rode up here today. I will make a tobacco pouch of your womb and decorate the entrance to my new home with your head.”

“I’m sorry, general, but I disagree.”  She reached down with her free hand and patted below her belly. “My little box will be staying put, safe and sound, right here.” She leveled the shotgun and fired, hitting Tolkenhorn through the head, spraying brain and blood on the men behind him. The lawyer pitched over, onto the ground as the others looked on. She glared at the general. “I’ll kill you last, pig. I want you to see what Emiliano Zapata does to your army before I send you on to hell.” The Mule Tamer III, Marta's Quest

“All little girls should learn guns. Then no one can bother them.”

William Etty “I’ll show you.” He sat beside her and opened the latch. This Maria already knew but she was gracious and allowed him to show her as he loaded cartridges into each of the cylinder’s chambers. He got to the fifth one and stopped there. He held up one of the bullets. “Only five, Maria.”
“But it’s a six shooter.”
“Ah, and how many toes does my little Maria have?”
“Ten.”
“If you load six bullets in the gun, you might end up with only nine toes.” He laughed and closed the latch on the revolver. He handed it to her as he wagged his finger from side to side. “And don’t cock it until you are ready to fire.”
She nodded.
“Now, go put it back.”
The old woman harrumphed. “Under the pillow is no place for a gun.”
The old man sat down and waited for Maria to return from her room. He continued. “All little girls should learn guns. Then no one can bother them.”  Chapter V, Maria's Trail

“Captain, ain’t no way in heaven or hell they did what that piss-soaked bastard said they did.”

William Henry Dunton “Back when I first came out here, I was scared shitless of Indians. Heard all the stories; heard about Custer. I thought, damn, I’m goin’ to lose my scalp. And then, one day I was out, not far from here, on a big assed flat mesa and a lightning storm came up. Like you read about. Well, I wasn’t worried about any Indians then, I was worried I was goin’ to be electrocuted right on the spot. I started riding for all I was worth toward somethin’. Hell, I didn’t even know what; a ditch or a swale, anything to get me down low, and then I saw him, away off in a distance: an Indian. He was, I swear, thinkin’ the same damn thing and we rode, both at the same time for the same gully and wham, a big old bolt a lightning come down and knocked that old boy like he was no more’n a fly flicked off old Hobbsie’s ass.”

Rosario smiled at the thought of a fly resting on Hobbs’s backside and looked at Francis. “What did you do, Francis?”

“Well, I can’t tell you what I did first, Mamacita, but, if you’ll recall that boy’s pants, who was in here earlier, you’ll get a good idea. But the second thing I did was went up on that poor Indian fellar and looked him over and I swear, he was smokin’ like a burned out mesquite branch lyin’ on the ground. His horse got the worst of it; poor creature was dead and its feet were all smokin’, and my God, the stench, like burned hair. Blood poured out of his ears and nose and mouth. He was shoed and those horseshoes must have been red-hot.”

Mike spoke up between bites. He liked Francis’s stories, but never believed most of them. “By Jasus and begorrah, this is no yarn. Tell us, Francis, this is no yarn.”

Francis grinned. He was used to not being believed. He held up his hand in honor, “I swear, folks, may God send down another lightning bolt, just like that one, and strike me dead if I’m lyin’. It’s all true, all true.”

He sat back down and resumed his story. “Anyways, that old boy, well, he was really a young boy, he was dead as a church pew on payday, he was, and so I picked him up and hoisted him over my saddle. And you know what?”

“What?” They all leaned forward in their chairs. Francis had them now.

“I plopped that old boy down pretty hard, too hard I guess. It sort of made him start up again. Like kickin’ a sleepin’ pig it was. That old boy coughed and choked and hacked out a bunch a phlegm and he was fine as frog hair. So I pulled him back down and he sat and looked about. He had these silver bracelets on his wrists and you know, they burned hell out of his skin, and he lost a bit of hair, singed off like he got too close to a fire. But other than that, he was good. So, I took him back to his home and I was a great hero and that was the son of old Redshirt, his oldest son Natani, and we’re great friends now and,” he turned to Allingham, “Captain, ain’t no way in heaven or hell they did what that piss-soaked bastard said they did.” Allingham

“Are you ashamed to be seen with me, Pendejo?”

William-Adolphe Bouguereau “Pendejo! Wha’ are you doing here?” She smiled broadly at him. She was glad to see him. “I am in jail,” she spoke through the bars of her cell. She had been confined alone, as she had been ‘fomenting a riot’ according to the jailer.

“I see you are in jail, Chica.”

“Oh, Pendejo, I got too much whisky the other night.”

He did not speak to her as they rode back to the hotel. He told her to wait for him down the street, while he gathered his belongings.

“Are you ashamed to be seen with me, Pendejo?”

He glared at her as they rode out of town. He felt that every eye was on him. “Not now, Chica, I don’t want to talk about this now.”

She sulked for a while, then tried to tease him.

“I don’t want to talk right now, Chica. Please keep your mouth closed. I don’t want to discuss anything; I don’t want to hear your voice right now.”

She had never seen him angry. She didn’t like it. They finally stopped for the night at a boarding house just south of Flagstaff. He got them separate rooms. She left him alone for a while, then knocked on his door. He would not answer.

He had just begun to fall asleep when he realized she was in his bed. He sat up with a start.

“How did you do, that, Chica?”

“I come in through the window.” She grinned.

“You’d better go back to your room, Chica.” He turned away from her.

“Wha’ is wrong, Pendejo?”

“I am just tired, Chica. I am tired of all this. I am not cut out to live the way you live. I missed you, you go off, you don’t tell me where you are. Now, I have used my influence as a Ranger to get you out of jail. I constantly…”  He was too angry for the words to come.

“I am sorry, Pendejo. I should not have had so much whisky.”

He looked at her. “You don’t get it, girl. You just don’t get it, do you?”

“I see that you are sad, Pendejo. I am sorry that you are sad. I like you a lot better when you are funny.”

He put his hands over his face and rubbed his temples. “I have lost my wife, my child, my Sally, and now I am constantly thinking of you.”

“Sally? Who is this Sally, Pendejo?”

“My mule.”

“Pendejo, you need a get a grip on yourself. Sally was a beast of burden.” The Mule Tamer

“Thees hijo de puta is just a head, because I made him that way.”

Walter Ufer “This is the head of Enrique Gomez, the famous murderer of California, who was killed by a posse in 1861. Too far out in the desert to carry the entire body, the industrious lawmen severed the brigand’s head in order to prove his demise.”

“Tha’ is not right, Pendejo.” Before he could say or do anything, Chica had the head upended and removed the lid.

A young man rushed in to stop her. “Madam, please, please.”

Chica continued her work. “This is a not Enrique Gomez, or whatever you say, Pendejo.”

“Miss Maria?” Another man joined them. This one was wearing a Prince Albert suit and long cape. He wore a high silk topper. He had a strange accent, never heard by Chica before.

“Sí, I am Chica.” She looked up from her work of removing the head from the jar.

The man in the topper bowed to Arvel and Chica. “I am Ivan Yakovlevich.” He reached out and took Chica’s hand, began to kiss it, then thought better of it. He pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at her hand. “Mr. Joaquin has told me so much about you.”

The young man interjected, “Mr. Yakovlevich, the lady is taking the head out of its container.” He was flush with excitement.

Yakovlevich patted the man on the shoulder, “Now now, Vladimir, it is okay. Miss Chica, how may we help?”

“This is not Enrique Gomez. And none of that written there is right.”

“How do you know?”

“Thees hijo de puta is just a head, because I made him that way.”

 Yakovlevich chuckled. “Miss Chica, he died a long time ago, and you are a young lady. Perhaps you are thinking of another head?”

“This is my head, go ahead an’ look at his mouth. He has a gold tooth, right here, she pointed at the upper front tooth of her mouth. And he has a no tooth next to it.”

“How so?” said Arvel. He was intrigued now. Chica never stopped surprising him.

“He had two gold teeth and I pulled one, but the other I could not pull. Go ahead and look.” She began to reach into the blood tinged alcohol to retrieve the head.

 Yakovlevich waved her away gently, “Madam, please, you will soil your dress.” He nodded to Vladimir who unwillingly carried out the morbid task, peeling back the bloated lips to reveal the interior of the miscreant’s mouth.

“See, see, I told you.” She looked at the men, satisfied. “I sent this one to hell. Look, pull his hair up; you will see the bullet hole. I shot him in this side.” She pointed at the left side of the skull. “A little hole, I used a little gun, two-shot I had in my sleeve. I cut his head off and carried it in a bag for three days, then sold it to a prospector. This was at leas’, let’s see, four years ago.”

“What did he do to you?” Vladimir asked, intrigued.

“This excremento did nothing to me. He hurt a child I knew. He did not kill her but he hurt her. And that is all I will say. He is in hell now, where he belongs, but he has no head, so he cannot see where he is going. He cannot hurt little children anymore.”

“Then the plaque will be changed and, Miss Chica, we shall make certain it is accurate.” The Mule Tamer

I’m good at killing men who need it.

William Herbert Dutton Arvel watched the town prepare for the evening while having a beer and a smoke on the hotel’s veranda. Will showed up and sat down next to him. He slept well but was no less distracted than before his conversation with the party of men.

 Arvel offered him a smoke and poured him a beer from a bottle he’d just opened. “My friend, tell me, what’s on your mind?”

Will knew Arvel well enough to speak freely. “I’m no killer, Arvel. And that son of a bitch Dutchman, he just, what you did back at that place, to him, that just,” he looked into his glass, as if to find the words he could not conjure to express himself. He looked into Arvel’s eyes, “God damn, Arvel, I don’t know. I’ve heard stories about you, but back there, it was like you were another man, like you’re two different people.”

Arvel grinned, “Hah, just two. That’s pretty good. Chica says I’m at least six different men.” He crushed out a smoke and lit another. This was a two cigarette type of conversation. “I’m a killer, Will, you’re not. It’s like you being good at finding strikes; I’m good at killing men who need it.” He looked at Will to get his reaction and laughed. “Good God, man, you think I’m something. Chica makes me look like a piker.”

“Seriously?” Will was aghast. He’d heard stories of Chica, but thought most were exaggerated as well.

“It’s why I’ve left her alone, to get our little girl.” He suppressed an urge to cry, breathed in deeply and felt his throat quiver. “She’ll get her, and leave a whole passel of dead men in her wake, I will bet my ranch on that.”

Will sat silently for a few moments, gulped his beer and poured another. “I don’t have any business in all this, Arvel. I thought I did. I’m no coward…”

“No, you’re not, you are definitely not a coward, old friend.”

“I feel a fool, swaggering around toting that dynamite, like I’m some kind of Wild Bill Hickok. I just feel the fool. And I got no business questioning you or your methods. I know you and I know Dick, and the Colonel seems a moral fellow. I’m mighty sorry running off at the mouth like that. I’m just, I don’t know…”

“Well, I tell you what. You stick with me and my uncles, Bob and del Toro, and my mother and Kosterlitzky. I have a feeling we’ll be kind of directing the attack anyway, and I’ll need your expert’s eye, as a miner, to help direct the artillery, and when the time comes for your dynamite, and I’m certain it will, you help me with the strategy. Can you do that?”

“Sure, Arvel, sure.”

“I know you can, Will. And you know, some killing’s going to come of your work, but it won’t be close in…it won’t be”

“Shootin’ a man through the head at two feet with a scattergun?”

“Right, right.”  Arvel shifted in his chair. “And Will, get the word out to the boys, tell ‘em to enjoy themselves a little tonight. I’m not in any celebrating mood, with my girls still out there, but they should enjoy this a little.” He cast his eyes over the street. You could feel the energy in the air, it was going to be a big time.

Some young boys were kicking a football around the street and it landed in Arvel’s lap. He laughed and grabbed the ball. He hobbled over, down onto the street and dropped the ball, kicking it with his left leg, nearly tumbling over onto the dirt street. The boys ran after it and he followed, limping as fast as his broken body would allow. Will looked on. For a man of nearly sixty, a man who’d just had a stroke, and a man who just now sat before him and told him he was a killer, he certainly didn’t look the part. The Mule Tamer II, Chica's Ride