Квентин Тарантино - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - The First Novel By Quentin Tarantino

It started with the pilfering of a few head every night. In the beginning, Murdock posted a couple of ranch hands to act as guards spending the night in bedrolls to discourage overzealous steak lovers. That seemed to work at first. But then the ranch hand Pedro was descended upon by eight of Caleb’s brutal boys. They beat poor Pedro to a bloody pulp, then tied him to a tree and horsewhipped him damn near to death. The bastards herded off twenty steers that night and shot six more just for spite.

The problem with being the biggest landowner in the territory was, unless you maintained a personal army of gun-toting mean motherfuckers, it was damn near impossible to police an assault this aggressive in nature. The nearest law was a federal marshal over one hundred and fifty miles away. (And the truth of the matter was, protecting the property of rich men drew very little sympathy from law-enforcement agents paid fifty dollars a month.) Not only was Caleb herding off significant numbers of steers during the night, but he was also openly selling them at cattle pens sixty miles away (Lancer Ranch brand on their hide and all).

Then Caleb and his men moved into the town nearest the Lancer Ranch, Royo del Oro. First they took over the town’s saloon, turning its owner, Pepe, into a terrorized servant in his own establishment.

The mayor, a man who took his commitment to the civics of his community as a duty, tried to talk to Caleb. He was bullwhipped in the middle of Main Street for his efforts. The land pirates informed the merchants of Royo del Oro that unless they wanted their little red schoolhouse burned down to the ground and their women molested on a daily basis, when it came to Pepe and his place and Murdock and his cows, to mind their own fucking beeswax.

Then Caleb moved into the presidential suite of the Hotel Lancaster. And it wasn’t too long after that the land pirates started a weekly tax collection from all the business owners in the town.

Caleb’s plan was simple. A slow, steady, but relentlessly constant experiment of seeing how much guff Murdock and the citizens of Royo del Oro were willing to swallow. And experiment after experiment proved the community had a seemingly bottomless appetite.

Now, Caleb wasn’t so drunk with power that he thought this type of terrorism could last indefinitely. At some point, the Army would be called in. But they were a three-day march away. So by the time the blue bellies arrived, Caleb and his men would be long gone. Caleb only had one obstacle: Murdock Lancer’s money. When a man of principle battles a scoundrel, the scoundrel always at first has the upper hand. Because there are some things the man of principle won’t do. While the scoundrel will do whatever it takes. That is, until the man of principle is pushed past his breaking point and beyond his nature. Most of Greek tragedy, half of all English theater, and three-quarters of American cinema operated from this premise.

Other than leave town, the citizens of Royo del Oro had no recourse. But Murdock’s money offered him options. He could spend it buying scoundrels of his own. And with Caleb’s last transgression—the sniper killing of Murdock’s trusted ramrod, George Gomez—he finally pushed the old man over his self-imposed line.

The proposal Murdock Lancer proposed his sons was simple. Split his entire empire three ways with them. That meant cattle, that meant land holdings, that meant the ranch house, that meant bank accounts. In order to get it, they had to agree to two things: Help Murdock repel Caleb and his killing thieves from the area. And work the ranch and tend to the business of running a cattle empire for ten years. After ten years, if they wanted to leave and cash in their shares, they were free to do so. Both young men had been living hand to mouth for the last couple of years—Scott, a riverboat gambler, living from one poker hand to another, and Johnny from selling his gun arm to the highest bidder, keeping one horse length away from a posse. In both cases the brothers were risking more than they would ever hope to gain. There was no love lost between the brothers and their father, but both men had to consider his offer, because there was no other scenario on God’s green earth where either man could make the money Murdock was offering them. Not legally or illegally. Murdock Lancer wasn’t just rich. Murdock Lancer possessed wealth . Murdock Lancer didn’t just have a lot of land and a successful business—he had an empire. An empire he said he was willing to split three ways.

As far as Johnny was concerned, there was only one problem. He hated the fucker. This was the same fucker who threw him and his mother out in the rain. The same fucker who turned his mother into a money-grubbing whore. The same fucker who was ultimately responsible for putting her in that hotel room with that other wealthy fucker who slit her throat. Johnny was twelve years old when that fucker stood trial for the killing of his mother and was found not guilty. He was fourteen when he killed that fucker. And he spent the next ten years killing every member of that fucking jury who acquitted that motherfucker. Johnny slit all their throats, so they’d know how his momma died. Gurgling blood, unable to speak, dying slowly, terrified as they looked up at their killer. Then Johnny would smile at their agony and tell them, “Marta Conchita Louisa Galvadon Lancer says hola .”

It took ten years to kill those thirteen people, but finally Marta Galvadon Lancer was avenged. But the last person left who had yet to pay the final price for his momma’s murder was the man who sent her on her path of degradation. His father. Murdock Lancer.

Still, that was a lotta cows, a lotta land, a lotta ranch, and a lotta money. More than Johnny could make on his own in ten lifetimes. And all he had to do to get it was keep from killing his old man and from getting killed by a murderous gang of rustlers. But Johnny had a secret. Something neither Murdock nor Scott nor anybody else at the Lancer Ranch knew.

Johnny Madrid and Caleb DeCoteau were friends.

Johnny Madrid rode his horse down Royo del Oro’s main drag. When he rode in on the Butterfield Wells Fargo stage two days ago, it seemed a town like a hundred others he’d seen before. But that was before knowing the narrative that Murdock told him and his half brother. Now Johnny saw what separated Royo del Oro from other towns: This town was terrified. When he first arrived, he noticed the town’s big saloon, and he noticed the collection of owl hoots collected in front of it. Now, a lotta towns had saloons with a lotta owl hoots collecting in front of them. But Johnny knew these weren’t just any owl hoots. These were some of the men Johnny had been lured into town to shoo off or kill. These men were the men responsible for Murdock’s misery. These were the land pirates that worked for Caleb DeCoteau.

As he rode past the Gilded Lily, he felt their eyes follow him. Out of the corner of his squinty eye he counted four owl hoots. One was a black fella dressed like a bandito. Two were banditos dressed like banditos. But it was the fourth man that caught Johnny’s eye. A big white man, older than the rest. While the other three adopted the dress of Mexican scum, he wore a tailored western black suit and fancy cowboy boots of black leather. He sported a crisp big black cowboy hat on his head and a big soup catcher on his upper lip, slathered with a generous application of mustache wax. The big man sat in a rocking chair on the porch of the Gilded Lily, carving a wooden horse figurine with a pocketknife. Tiny flecks of wood collected in a small pile by his shiny boot. Aside from both his age and his dress, he was different from the other three owl hoots on the porch. They were henchmen; he was a cowboy of quality. Johnny couldn’t place him. But even if he didn’t know who he was, he knew what he was. The big man in the black suit with the black boots and the big mustache was a big name with a big reputation. These other prairie dogs divvied up slices of pie for the havoc they caused and the ruckus they raised. The big man was paid a sack of gold by Caleb personally before any work was done.