Los Caminos

        

Los Caminos

        “Where do they come from?”

No response. 

“Harry.”

“Hmm?” 

“I was asking you where they come from.”

“Hmm. What?”

“Just look where I’m pointing for a second will ya? Goddamn.”

“Hmm. Gimme a second.”

“It’s gonna be gone in a second Harry, just lift your damn head.”

Harry grunted indistinguishably.

There, across the burnt ground, almost out of sight due to Harry, procrastination, rolled a tumbleweed, black against the pale afternoon sand. He glanced at it for a second and dropped his head again. 

“What about it?” 

“Well, where do they come from, you suppose?”

“The tumbleweed?”

“No, the goddamn clouds Harry…..of course the tumbleweed.”

He gave me a look. 

“Don’t get smart with me now, boy.”

“Well, it’s just that you won’t answer the question and all…” I argued, speaking myself into some petulant mutter.

Harry holstered his gun, and put aside the dirty rag with which he’d been polishing his weapon for what seemed like an hour now, a task that had precluded him from answering this simple question of mine. Given, he did care a good deal about that gun of his, bragging about their exploits together to damn near everyone, as if it was his partner instead of me. 

—————————————————

  Every time we arrived at some lone cantina, it was a broken record occurrence: Harry’d walk in, order a drink, then put the gun flat on the counter with just a little pressure so it would hit the wood just loud enough to make people’s heads turn, and the bartender, who sure hadn’t seen a thing that shiny since the morning Sun, would saddle over to him, saying something to the effect of “nice gun there, fella”, to which Harry would chuckle with a rare glint in his eye, and start into his stories from out in Albuquerque, or El Paso, telling about the men he’d been sent to hunt, of how he’d found them and met them, and how they’d never had the chance to meet anyone after him. “ ‘Cept their maker” he always added, which was still yet to fail to get the whole bar pissing from laughter. I called that man Cantina Joe, for in that time he was Harry no more, someone else entirely, and even though I had heard his tales a thousand times before, I’d find myself pulled in, laughing along, drunk on the fascinating possibilities of Harry’s turbulent past. I’d listen and laugh until Harry’s glass’d start to empty and his stories would wind down; then, he’d slowly stop talking, the people’d go back to sleep at their tables, the bartender’d busy himself with empty mugs, and Cantina Joe would be gone. After some silence, Harry’d pull out his dirty rag again, wiping away at his six shooter, mumbling something about “the cleaner the gun, the cleaner the shot”. 

  Not to be misunderstood, I liked Harry a whole lot — respected him, too — but outside those drunken confines, he was a complete mystery to me, always busy wiping, saddling, sleeping, and repeating, as mute as the desert sands we rode on. I looked forward to our hunts more than usual just for the sake of having him say something to me unprompted, even if it were just him barking vague orders about positioning and targets. It’d been close to two days since we last came across bounty, and I don’t think Harry’d opened his mouth once since, except to ask me for my water. That, and the conversation we were having now, if it could be called that, was all that’d kept me from believing I rode next to an empty horse.

—————————————————

  I looked at him now, for he’d gone quiet again, and this time he was looking up way over where the tumbleweed had now disappeared behind some jutting rocks. I could just barely make out the depressions it had left behind in the sand.To my side, my horse, Dan, chewed on loose bits of grass.

“From up above,” said Harry suddenly.

“Huh?”

“Up above, I said”

“What? the weed?”

“Yes,” he said with a huff.

“The weed, the tumbleweed, comes from the sky, is what you’re telling me.”

“Yes.”

I tried to figure if he was trying to pull something on me — although he admittedly was not the joking type — but his face was pulled rigid, and his eyes were still on the rocks. 

“You being serious right now, Harry? Because my question was in serious, y’know?”

“I’m tellin’ you what I know.”

I laughed. By the way his eyes narrowed, I understood it to be a mistake.

“Come on now Harry, you can’t tell me that’s not an odd thing to say.”

He lowered his gaze and put it on me. I had offended him, somehow.

Before I could follow up with some apology, Harry began to get up and put his things in his saddle.

“Harry, I didn’t mean anything by it.”

He grunted and pointed at the things I had laying around me and motioned towards my saddle. Not knowing what else to say or do, I did as told, got up and got to packing. I picked up my gun that I myself had been trying to clean and holstered it. Then I grabbed hold of my knife, which I had spent the earlier part of our break whittling with. Harry and I had found a dead tree, a big one too, to sit on down next to a couple hours back, and with nothing to say between us, I found that cutting shapes into wood was what I did most of the time we spent off our horses’ backs. I slipped the blade into the saddle, and pocketed the little carving I’d managed to churn out from the small branch I’d broken off the tree: it was a cactus I’d tried to replicate from one not far off to my left, and its pointed head matched its real life muse quite to my satisfaction. Harry finished well before me, and sat atop his horse looking down at me in wait, watching me struggle to get Dan away from the plot’s last bit of grass. Climbing on, we started towards Las Puertas, a little town Harry had said lay near the hills ahead at a manageable distance, and had places we could stay at for the coming night. He’d probably gotten us started right now because it was still a half day’s ride away, and the Sun had just started to come down from the very top of the sky. 

  We rode in tenuous silence for a while, clipped by the occasional spittle Harry’d offhandedly discharge into the sand beside him, or a little whinny on the part of Dan when the light wind would pick up some pace, and uplift some dust to settle by his nose. Otherwise, there was a beautiful quiet all around as we slowly made for the pale hills way ahead. 

“’Twas Ma that used to tell me that when I was a young’n.”

I hadn’t expected Harry to speak.

“What was that?”

He looked at me reproachfully.

“The tumbleweed, boy. Left your memory back at that tree, have ya?”

“Oh…no, I just didn’t hear you right. Listen, Harry it’s okay. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t feel like, alright?”

“Yeah, she used to tell me a lot of stories, then,” he continued. So I listened.

“Y’know, people think I’ve got the skill I’ve got today ‘cause of my daddy, on account of that fact that he was a bounty hunter himself back in the day. Now, it might be true I got in the business ‘cause of him, but I owe all the skill part to Mama.”

Not a word escaped me. This was the most Harry’d ever said to me in one go, and I couldn’t bring myself to risk breaking the moment.

“Daddy was gone long weeks and months, y’know, doing the job. People found it odd, him being a married man. They didn’t understand how he could do what he did while having to worry about a wife and a child back home. Well, what they didn’t know was that long before I’d popped out, Mama and Daddy had been a partnership, and she knew how to do all that he knew how to do. So if there was anybody in the country he would trust his only son with when he was out risking his life out here on these cold, dusty plains, it was her.”

Hearing Harry talk about his parents reminded me how old he was. The whiteness of his beard, which usually became one with the light sand whenever I looked at him, now seemed to grow deeper. His eyes still seemed young.

“Anyhow, it was Mama I spent most of my time with. Learnin’ to ride, aim, shoot, and navigate the West. We’d both get on her horse; me in front with her six shooter, and her behind me to hold me by the waist and steady my aim. Slowly, I’d pull the trigger and an arm off of a cactus would explode. Together we must’ve blown the guts out of every goddamn cactus in the county!”

Harry’s eyes were shining like they did in cantinas. He still looked ahead at the land, but it was easy to tell that the sand he saw was not that which lay in front, but that which had long since been buried somewhere in time. After a short reverie, he continued.

“Even after all that, I always wanted to try to hit something that moved, y’know? ’Cause after all, Daddy didn’t earn his money shooting men that stood still, did he? So, sometimes, after we’d gutted a handful of cacti and dead logs, we’d see one of them tumbleweeds while ridin’ back, and I’d beg Mama to let me try at ‘em, and she’d smile and hold my hands and put her head on my shoulder so her eyes were right next to mine, and together we’d move the gun with the weed until it passed straight ahead, and BANG, we’d blow it to pieces. One night, I recall, I asked her about the same question you did, about where from those tumblers came, and she’d sit down next to me and whisper, ‘from the sky’. It seems funny now, sure, which is why I don’t blame you too much for laughin’, but that’s what she used to say. She used to tell me that the Almighty dropped those down to Earth on the days we went riding, just so I’d have something to practice with. She told me it was because He wanted me to become the best shot I could be, and then I could one day take care of her when she got old, and her arms couldn’t hold mine like they did while we went ridin’. She told me those little rolling bundles were signs that He was on our side. She told me they were made just for me and her.”

  After that, he was silent again. We rode a good four or five miles before I asked him what happened to his parents. It took a minute before he replied.

“Well, boy, it turned out those days of shooting tumblers were to help me very little in takin’  care of Ma. Some outlaw rode by our place one day when I was out fetching water — he must’ve been in search for some money. We lived a little ways from town, and so there wasn’t no help for her to call for. Mama put up a fight, I’d bet, but she wasn’t the same she used to be, boy. Her might just wasn’t the same, y’know. I found her with three holes in her chest when I got back. Nothin’ was taken, the bastard had just shot her and left. By some grace of God, Daddy happened to come back some time the next day, having been gone two weeks or so, and found me in my room, cryin’ with a bucket of water beside me. I showed him the grave I’d dug and everything, and I remember his hand on my shoulder as we stood out there, and the hills that sat on the horizon looked to be farther away. I remember he had very little to say that day.”

“After a while he stopped leaving for months, and kept his trips down to a few weeks to spend more time at home, even though I was grown ‘nuff to take care of things by myself if something were to happen again. In due time, he took Mama’s place in teaching me the ways of his work, and then he’d leave, and would damn near lose his mind every time he got back and saw how quickly I was turning out like him. He’d take me aside every time after our latest target practice before he left again, and he’d let me know about the dangers of what he did, of what Mama and him had done, and how I really had to be sure before I went around leading a life like his. Now don’t get me wrong; he was still damn proud, but he just wanted me to be sure is all. I didn’t really understand him back then, but nowadays there are times I wish I had.”

I thought about what Harry had just said, and then about the men I’d seen him kill. It made sense now, the reluctance I’d see sometimes at the tip of his finger as it floated above the trigger. He continued speaking.

“A couple trips before the one from which he never came back, Daddy came up to my room one night with a candle, like Mama would to tell stories, and brought with him a folded piece of cloth. He sat me up, opened the bundle, and gave me Mama’s six shooter. I hadn’t seen it for close to two years at that point, and let me tell you boy, it was still shining. Daddy’d kept it clean all that time, I imagine. Still, he showed me how to use the rag to get into the tough spots, how to make sure that no matter what I hit, or what I missed, the gun wouldn’t lose that glow. He didn’t talk; just gave me her gun, patted me on the back, and went to his room. Even after his candle light left, her gun kept the walls lit. I think I stayed up all night holdin’ it and wipin’ it with the cloth.”

I looked down at Harry’s saddle, and his dirty rag stuck out just a little from one of the pockets. Just like Harry, it seemed to me much older now. I waited for him to say more, but it was easy to tell that he was done; he had said all he could.

As he returned his focus to our trail, I sat burdened with discovery. It sobered me to think of the circumstances it took to make a man out of a boy, especially those it had taken to make the Harry of now, out of the Harry he had been.

—————————————————

Back when I had first joined Harry’s ranks, I could never have guessed at this past. To me, he had just been about the best gunman I had ever laid my eyes upon when I was growing up. His bounty hunting sent him across the country, of course, but he lived in the town I was born, and in that town Harry was the ideal for every boy to live up to. It had been about five years ago, when I was about fifteen or sixteen, that I had been with my father at the local cantina, and Harry’d walked in, having just returned a few days ago with what everyone was saying were the bodies of the Torres gang, having pulled in about ten grand off each one of them, which was to be paid to him by the Sheriff in the coming days. I remember him walking in — every step cushioned by his glory — sitting down at the bar, and putting his gun on the counter. Then he regaled the crowd with the tale, how he’d tracked the gang down, found them camped some distance from a ghost town, and how swiftly their end had come. He was surrounded by people who couldn’t wait for every word he spoke, anxious to piece them together and be overwhelmed by the magnitude of his escapades. Then his drink came, he downed it in one swig, and walked out, leaving behind his stories, which the townspeople would soon dramatize until they became legend. 

It was then that I ran out the doors, up to him, and asked him to make me his partner. 

He laughed and dismissed me with a pat to the head. He told me to run along, except I didn’t. I came to him again the next day, and the next, and the next, and on and on and on till he finally allowed me to be tested. He lined up bottles in the streets for me to shoot down, and I downed every single one. He threw cards in the air for me to pick off, and they all landed with a smoking hole in the middle. He lent me a horse to maneuver around the rough lands around town, and then he threw up bottles and cards for me to shoot as I rode. He watched how quietly I could peek from a corner, how silently I could draw a gun, and with what level of grandeur I could holster it.

So went these tests of skill, until one day, before he was supposed to head out again on another hunt, he took me to his home in the outskirts of town. In the back of the living room, under shreds of light from a window, lay the rotting bodies of what could only have been the Torres gang, wrapped in a large sheet and tied off with a larger rope. With a flick, Harry cut the wrap loose, and out poured the stench of death that must have been accumulating for the whole time Harry had been back. 

“Take your gun, and put a hole through each of their heads,” he said quietly.  
  I told him I did not understand.

“There’s nothin’ to understand, boy. Put a hole in these men’s heads and be done with it. We ride tomorrow at noon.” 

I lifted the end of my gun and angled it to the first man’s head. His eyes were open, and his pupils hung all the way up. His mouth was unhinged, and I could see on the side of his jaw where Harry’s bullet had entered him. Despite all that, he looked alive.

“Don’t dilly-dally now, boy. This is it. Shoot em’ and we ride off tomorrow…unless you’re havin’ second thoughts, that is.” 

I slowly shook my head and readjusted my grip. 

“This ain’t even a movin’ target, boy, what’s got you shakin?” 

I sputtered for a few seconds before I could speak clearly. “I can’t just go and…and…shoot a man, Harry. He’s…he’s—”

Without warning, Harry grabbed my gun from my hand, threw it to the floor, and turned me around by my shoulders. Even with my relatively grown up body, I was looking up at him.

“You want to work by my side, and can’t even kill a man who’s already dead?” His voice shook with meaning. “You want to work by my side, you want to be a bounty hunter, and can’t shoot because he’s not some bottle I’m tossing up right in front of your damn face?” 

He brought his eyes closer.

“Listen to me now, boy, and listen to me close,” he squatted down a little to my height and pulled me in tightly, “I can tell you’ve got this pretty grand idea of what this job’s like. Go out, come back, and then be celebrated by the whole damn town. You don’t see the blood underneath the shoes, you don’t see the scars inside the gloves, inside you.” 

His voice became intense and his grip on me vice-like. 

“That man right there who you can’t bring yourself to shoot, has murdered about six hundred people south of the Colorado River. He, along with every single one of his people, have killed and killed mercilessly. They made women widows and children orphans, and the only thing that ensured that they didn’t find another life to destroy was that I didn’t hesitate when I had them in my sight.” 

His eyes were wet now, with rage or passion, I could not tell. 

“Now,” and he shoved my gun to my hand and roared “Shoot these bastards till there’s nothing left to shoot goddamnit! Shoot ‘em!” I only remember then the distilled urgency that flew from my heart to my finger, and the sound of infinite wetness as the room around us exploded in a torrent of red. My quaking arms dropped the gun, and after a minute Harry picked it up and put it in my holster. True to his promise, he and I set out at noon the next day.

—————————————————

  Looking at Harry now I was again bewildered to find what profound change had indeed affected the man from my memories. Undoubtedly he outmatched me in every aspect of the job to this day, but his shoulders hunched lower now as he rode, and that beard of his was a startling white. Having revisited our past in my head made me want to say something to him, reach out to him maybe, especially after having learned now of a possible reason for his present demeanor. In my daydreaming, I had fallen a couple yards behind Harry, and so I spurred Dan forward to catch up. By the time I reached him, Harry had stopped. 

“Listen Harry, I know you’re not one to care about things like this, but I had just been remembering—”

I stopped. Harry had stuck a finger out to his side to quiet me, and he now stared intently at the horizon. At first I could not discern his object of attention, for all I saw were the pale hills still a half day’s journey away. It was when I blinked and the glare from the Sun relented slightly that I too stopped moving. Up ahead about a quarter mile in the distance, the dusty ground rolled up an incline that extended into a plateau that spread beyond our vision, and at the edge of this incline, shimmering in the afternoon Sun, were a band of about fifteen horses, and atop them were riders, on the heads of whom I could just barely make out some feathers.

“Comanche.” I whispered.

Harry did not move.

The Indians stood still too, the red of their clothing marginally visible from the distance.

Harry had told stories of his encounters with the tribes of the Great Plains before, but we had never had the misfortune of encountering a pack together. I felt my legs grow ice-like in my boots, all the while Harry moved not an inch.

       Out of nowhere, Dan jerked upwards, perhaps out of restlessness, and let out a whinny that echoed across the ground. The Indians were still for a second more, until the one in the middle, the leader undoubtedly, lifted his spear to the sky and let out a shriek so brutal that it ruthlessly drove back the sound of Dan’s yell, and with this cry the band of fifteen Indians descended from the incline and thundered towards us, dust rising up around them as if they rode atop the billowing clouds. 

       There was no cover. All around us lay stretches of flat land. I looked to Harry for an answer. 

“Get your gun out, boy.”

“Harry, what are we going to-”
“Your gun, boy, get it out, now!”

With trembling hands I unholstered my gun, and with those same hands I followed Harry as he raised his aim to the mass of war cries and savagery that had closed in a quarter of the distance to us. The Sun was much too bright to get a precise aim, for its rays glinted at the head of the gun, making everything right above it much too bright to aim it at eye level.

“Now you wait, boy. You wait till you can see every goddamn feather. Then go for the head.”

“Harry,” my voice cracked, “I really don’t think I can-”

“No, boy,” he looked at me, and in that moment there was deep understanding in his eyes, “now is not the time for that.”

I swallowed my fear and nodded gravely, and we both set our sights and aims on the incoming Comanche. 

As they closed in to about two hundred yards, arrows sprung out from their huddle and landed a few feet in front of us. I glanced at Harry. His aim had not wavered. I breathed out and focused ahead again. More arrows flew now, some flying just over us to land at the back of our horses’ tails. Still, we stood resolute. Finally, just as their eyes came into view, clouds passed over the Sun from in front of us, so that a shadow folded from behind the Indians, across us, and beyond. With the Sun left the glare, and with shadow, came our sight. Within a second of each other, our guns sounded, and two Indians went flying back from the sides of the oncoming row. I re-aimed, and pulled the trigger, knocking another off his perch. An arrow shot by my ear, nicking it enough to cause a sting. Harry had already unloaded four of his six bullets, and true to his intent had downed exactly four Indians. As I shot another what must have been dead between the eyes, the calculation came to me. We only had twelve bullets together in our first round. They were gonna get to us before we killed them all. Bang. I got a fifth. I glanced at Harry and saw him reaching to reload his gun, and in that instant I distracted myself enough to miss my last shot. I fumbled then too for bullets, as the four remaining Comanche rushed us and the horses of their fallen brethren screamed into the clogged air.

  It was when I heard their horses within a few feet of us that I realized we were not going to have enough time. It was also then that an arrow flew from the remaining four and landed directly into Dan’s eye. My hoarse cry of shock was cut short by Dan kicking up so strongly that I was knocked back onto the ground, and all air escaped me. I lay there, dirt filtering into my mouth as I gasped and tried to strain my head to look up at Harry. But I couldn’t. Something had pierced my neck and it would not lift beyond an inch. Immobile, I heard the Indians ride around me, hollering their indecipherable sounds. Suddenly, I felt something fall lightly to my side. I felt around, and grabbed what felt like a knife. 

“Come on, boy, use it!”

  Taking tight hold, I slashed at the sound of hooves racing by to my left, and an unearthly scream escaped from the horse as I felt the blade go clean through. The rider toppled over.

Then, I heard Harry’s gun click. Two shots sounded off in the air and I heard the two corresponding thuds as the bodies landed lifeless to the ground somewhere near me. I tried again to lift my head but it would not go, and I fell back, beaten. Looking straight up, I saw an arrow sail right above me, from my left, and imbed into somebody to my right. Harry let out a hardened growl. 

“No! Goddamnit Harry, no!” I tried to shout, but a striking pain in my neck overtook me.

In unparalleled agony, I turned my head to the right, which proved only slightly easier than lifting it, and I saw an Indian lying dead with an axe in his throat, and next to him stood Harry, an arrow in his right arm. His gun lay on the ground, where it had dropped after the arrow had entered. His eyes were set straight ahead, to my left, from where the arrow had flown. For a minute it looked like he would be alright, but then his eyes rolled and he fell, his left hand clutching the arrow in his right arm. “No!” I screamed, my voice mixed with blood, and burning, dust-filled tears seared my face. I heard footsteps approach to my left, and I turned my head weakly to look up. 

He stood looking down at me. The paint on his face was now just some flecks, the feathers on his head all fallen in the fight. His hair was darker than night, and it was tied in the back. His bare chest was dressed in a cascade of scars, some from now and many more from sometime before. His eyes betrayed no emotion, as he lifted his axe slowly over his head. Knowing I would not have the time to strike with a knife before he would cut me open, I lay still. In a low voice, he uttered some phrase. Then he swung the axe back, opened his mouth to shriek, and four bullets, in succession, went clear through his throat, so that the Indian’s sound started and then fell into a gurgle of blood, and he collapsed backwards, dead. I was too stunned to look to my right again, but I heard movement, and soon enough, there was Harry, kneeling down next to me. 

“Harry how did you,” I managed to say as I felt blood rushing into my throat from whatever had penetrated my neck.

“Just an arrow…it was nothin’ I haven’t dealt with before. Just lost my bearings for a second there is all.” Then he quietened and examined my state.

“Harry, I’m sorry—”

“No, boy, no-” he broke off. From the look on his face, I think he knew I was in worse shape than I realized. He shook his head. 

“There’s something…something in my neck, Harry,” I worried he could not understand me, for my voice gargled at moments.

His hands gently lifted me up, and I felt the striking of a thousand needles in one point as he pulled the object out of me.

It was the cactus that I had whittled at our stop earlier. Flying loose when Dan kicked, it must have landed right before me. Blood ran down its crudely shaped arms.

“I’d told you to kick this whittlin’ habit of yours, boy. Now look what you’ve gone and done,” said Harry. He was shaking his head. 

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” I said.

Harry kept a hand on my chest as my breathing slowed. I looked up beyond his mourning face at the sky. The dust was still in the air from the battle, and even though the clouds had now gone, I still struggled to see the Sun. 

“Harry, I missed my last shot. If I’d just-”

“No, boy, we don’t think that way. No.”

I accepted it, and took some deep breaths.

“Maybe now-” I started, before a fit of wet coughs overwhelmed me.

“Easy now, boy. Easy now.” Harry leaned his head closer to me.

“Maybe now,” I spoke, gently and measured, “maybe now I can go up and meet the man upstairs.”

“You will, boy, you will.”

“Maybe now, I could help him pick the next boy he sends down those tumbleweeds to.”

Harry tightened his lips. He had so much to say, and he knew I had not enough time to hear it all. Maybe he wanted to tell me that those weeds were just plants at the end of the day, plants that break off from their roots and travel the dusty plains, till men of passion blow them to pieces. Maybe that is what he wanted to tell me, but he didn’t. 

As my vision began to fade, I felt the ground shake, and the light sound of war cries returned to the air. I had not anticipated reinforcements. I looked at Harry, who was already looking to where the sounds were nearing, and had picked up his glowing gun.

Eventually, the sound faded from my ears. Harry said something, perhaps to me, but I could not hear. A blinding light seemed to call from somewhere above, and, gasping, I asked it for a few more minutes. 

“Just some time. I can help him.”

Harry lowered his eyes to me, as if he had heard. Again, he spoke, and again I could not hear. The light grew even whiter, till I could just make out Harry’s face.

I just wanted to see him shrouded in glory one more time before I left. To see if, like the stories I’d heard him tell so many times before, he would win his way through once more. Still, the light called me, and when the light of Harry’s gun blazed as his first shot rang, everything became white. In that soft nothingness,  I lost my worry. He would be alright, I decided. After all, the man above hadn’t sent him those tumbleweed without purpose, and, doubtless, there was a kid of skill greater than mine who was waiting somewhere ahead at Los Caminos, waiting for guidance, for freedom. Harry'd make it. He would be alright. After all, what else was the point of keeping a gun clean among all the dirt.