Chris Adrian - The Best American Mystery Stories 2007

“To what end, Joe?” I said, following from room to room. But the house was small and the search soon ended. My relief knew no bounds. I did not know what Joe was planning, but I knew it could not be for the benefit of those whose house we had upended.

Then Joe’s eyes fell on the carpet at the center of the room. It lay askew, as if hastily twitched into place. With the toe of his boot, he drew it aside, revealing a door set flush in the floor. Joe’s eyes lit as he held a finger to his lips and leaned down to the inlaid handle, jerking it with sudden force to reveal, in the shadowy interior as narrow as a grave, a woman lying stiffly, her eyes closed tight, the only sign of life being the fact that she was all atremble with fear. Joe grabbed her harshly by the waist. She made no sound as he hauled her up into the room and dropped her to the floor.

She rolled over quickly onto her stomach and curled into a ball, her eyes still clenched tight, but not tight enough to prevent tears from dampening her cheeks.

“Look at them hams,” McKendrick said quietly, the only words I had ever heard him say.

“She’s Mex,” Blaine added.

“She’s mine,” said Joe, quickly undoing his buckle and dropping his trousers.

“Joe!” I cried, but the beastly fire was strong in him, and my appeal had no effect. He began to paw at the woman’s white cotton dress, tearing at it. I laid hands on him but was pulled back by McKendrick or Blaine. I shook free and flew at Joe again, this time falling on him and on the woman, who still made no sound. She might have been a piece of furniture. Joe rolled me off and hauled me to my feet by the collar, his knife in his hand. In a flash, the tip of his blade was inside the bone of my jaw. When it slid inside my skin, I could not keep from shivering.

“My friend,” he said, “you shall wait your turn like a good boy.”

“Don’t do this, Joe,” said I through clenched teeth. And though it exacerbated my wound to do so, I could not help but speak again. “We have not marched these long miles and endured such privations to be reduced to this.”

“You may not, my good little Ellet, but this is exactly what I come for.”

Joe gave the knife a quarter-turn, and I felt a warm finger of blood move down my neck. “But are we not men of honor?”

At this, McKendrick and Blaine laughed heartily. I tried to pull my jaw free of Joe’s blade, but his cohorts had me by the hair.

“And if you interfere,” Joe went on calmly, “I shall cut her from groin to gullet, and you to follow.”

At that, McKendrick and Blaine threw me toward the door. I righted myself and prepared for another assault, but Joe tossed his knife to Blaine and turned to the woman, making himself ready like a beast in rut. He turned her and roughly pulled apart her legs, instructing McKendrick and Blaine to plant a boot on each ankle. They took to the task as if they had apprenticed in evil.

I moved toward them, but McKendrick pointed the knife at her and then at me.

“Think, men,” I said, my voice filled with tears. “Think of the fires of hell!”

Joe turned to me. His face was not a face. “I already been,” he said and then dropped to his knees to perform the Devil’s work.

I could not stay. I could not go. I could not watch. I cried out for help, but the woman’s hands covered her face, and she could not know what help I meant to bring. I threw myself into the rainy street, intent on finding a sheriff, an officer, someone. But there was no one in the street save more marauders and the stunned burro. I ran from house to house shaking the latches, rattling the windows, and pounding on the planks, but no one would answer me. In the distance, I heard the muffled sound of musket fire. I stopped a soldier who came careening out of a shop, a sack of tobacco held in his arms like a baby. Words would not give shape to what I had seen.

“Terrible!” I cried. “A terrible thing!”

“Yeah,” the soldier said, eyes glinting with long withheld joy. “I guess we seen the elephant now!”

I stood in the driving rain, the dumbest of brutes. At length, the woman’s tormentors came out into the street, their arms loaded with the goods of the house. I ran to them and pushed past them roughly, as if any show of violence now could undo the horror within. Inside, the woman lay on her side again. Her eyes were open and she did not tremble, but merely stared at the floor before her face. I knelt to give what comfort I could.

“No,” she said in a dull voice, a voice beyond pain, “No mas.”

I recoiled, as if the point of Joe’s blade had come to my throat again, and staggered out into the driving rain. My cohorts had made their way a little down the street in the direction of camp but turned when I came out.

“You get you some after all?” Blaine called.

Then Joe added, “Sure hope we left a little bloom on the rose!”

The three men laughed and headed down the road, bearing the proceeds of their iniquity, looking for all the world like refugees being driven from their homes. I followed at some distance, sick at heart, eyes burning, the wound in my neck swollen and stinging. I felt every bit as guilty as they should have felt.

Back at camp, it was clear that Joe and his friends were not alone in their misdeeds. What they did, many had done. Men staggered painfully into camp, their backs heaped high with loot — coats, trousers, blankets, nightclothes, ladies’ dresses and undergarments, even baby clothes. They drove mules stacked high with saddles, furniture, cookpots, and embroidered pillows. So overburdened were the mules that they could barely set one foot in front of the other. Mountains of loot stood everywhere, a thieves market. To whom could I report their behavior? There was no law, and the eyes of God were closed to this infamy.

Joe and his cohorts went straight to their hidden cache of bear meat, pulling off the clever covering of mesquite branches and brush. Not clever enough, it seemed. They uncovered charred hunks of glistening, dripping meat. It seems the men who stayed in camp had found Joe’s private store and unburdened their bladders upon it, every man contributing his share like a pack of amiable hounds.

Joe cried out and stamped the ground and kicked at his pile of booty, while his henchmen stared fiercely at their former comrades. The men stared back with mild amusement, but already the joke was stale and they were ready to move on to some new enormity. Joe paced back and forth in front of them, filling every ear with the story of his suffering and lamenting the lack of honor among his fellow soldiers.

“A man sacrifices for his country, and for what? I hereby take my bloody vow never to follow another order and to stay in Damn Houston’s army only long enough to get my share of treasure.”

While he ranted, McKendrick and Blaine stood by his side, nodding sagely. But I could listen no longer, my mind in other ways intent.

The lieutenant, passing, caught my eye. “Leave them to Heaven,” he said.

Without a word, I took myself some distance apart and stood in the driving rain as I watched their shameful tableau. I felt dreadful small. I had shaken the yoke of the plough, only to take on the yoke of a burden I could never shake. While shameful men did shameful deeds, I stood by. And now the eyes of Heaven would be forever turned away from me.

That night, under cover of midnight darkness, I smote them with my Barlow knife. I slew them, first one then the other, as each man lay sleeping, delivering a sharp blow to their throats to prevent any cries of alarm. I do not know whether I did the right thing or merely made myself a part of the bad. When it was finished, I made my escape through the chaparral and prickly-pear with naught but the North Star to guide me.