Rudolph Wurlitzer - The Drop Edge of Yonder

He jumped up and down on Zebulon's chest and stomach, banging the drum and smacking his thick lips. Then he did the same to Delilah. Lighting up a half-smoked cheroot, he blew smoke in four directions, haranguing Delilah in his native language. She had no idea what he was saying as he continued to shout, more and more agitatedly. Finally, fed up and more than a little afraid, she pulled herself out of the trench and staggered to the creek, where she submerged herself in the water, only to have Toku drag her by the hair back into the circle.

"Oh…! Ah…! Ha…!" he cried, banging his drum and spitting into Zebulon's face and then into Delilah's. "Oh…! Ah…! Eh…! Ha…! Ho…! Ah…! Ha…! Eh…! Ho…!"

Suddenly Delilah dropped to the ground, rolling over like a snake shedding its skin. Zebulon fell down beside her, his arms jerking in spasms over his head as a current of energy rose violently up his spine. They remained flopping and writhing next to and on top of each other until the energies roaring through them stopped, and everything became flat and empty.

"The bad spirits have left," Toku pronounced. "Or most of them. If they come back, I'll need more than fifteen dollars to get rid of them."

He put the mask into his sack, bowed to the statue of the monkey, then to each of them.

"If you're lucky, you will never see me again," he said and walked away.

HE NEXT MORNING THEY WALKED BACK INTO SAN Francisco. "If we're goin' on a long ride we should get ourselves outfitted," he said, pointing to a clothing store.

"I should certainly hope so," Delilah said. "It's important for a lady's state of mind to know that she's traveling with a provider."

Delilah bought a pair of leather kid gloves, a pair of black leather boots with high lace tops, two split riding skirts, and finally, a.41 — caliber derringer that she slipped into a leather purse. For his part, Zebulon chose a broad-brimmed hat ornamented with silver conchos and a fringed Mexican jacket with small lapels that reached over his hips. His final purchase was a pair of square-toed boots and a fancy set of spurs with silver rowels.

"So what do you think of my new-bought flasharity?" he asked, turning around and examining himself in front of a fulllength mirror.

"You look like a judge or a lawyer."

"Now no one will know me," he said.

She held out her arms, twirling around in front of him.

"And me?" she asked.

"The wife of a judge. Or the madam of a high-priced whorehouse."

She laughed. "Which do you prefer?"

She pranced away, swinging her purse and throwing him a coquettish glance over her shoulder. "I suggest that we find out."

Their next stop was the waterfront and the Palace Hotel, where Zebulon impulsively booked a room on the top floor with a view of the harbor, a transaction that was made possible only after he represented Delilah as his slave; as people of color, even one as obviously exotic and indefinable as Delilah, were not allowed in the hotel except on terms of servitude.

They stood before the window inside the lavishly overdecorated room, staring down at the harbor and its hundreds of abandoned ships.

"Now I'm your slave," Delilah said.

"For one night anyway," he said. "Does that bother you?"

She turned away, sitting on the edge of the bed. "It bothers me that we're joined to a fate that we can't control. But then isn't that what fate is, a kind of slavery?"

The seriousness of her question unsettled him, even to the point of making him afraid, and then angry. "If you don't want to be here, maybe you ought to take off"

"I no longer know how to take off," she said. "And I don't know how to be here either, or anywhere else. When I saw you in the saloon I wanted to run away And then in the hotel in Vera Cruz. But you keep showing up."

"Where does that leave us?"

"I have to see Ivan before he dies. He shot a man in the gold fields, in Calabasas Springs"

She stood up. "You don't have to come"

"I wish that was true," he said, and followed her out the door.

After they left the hotel, Zebulon purchased two horses and they rode south towards the Spanish town of Calabasas Springs, where Ivan was scheduled to be hung.

S SOON AS THEY LEFT SAN FRANCISCO, DELILAH'S MOOD changed. Rather than urging him to press on, she started to drift and hang back, allowing them to proceed at a more leisurely pace over rolling green hills dotted with giant oak trees and clusters of well-fed cattle; the only sounds they were aware of were those made by their horses' hooves and their own breathing, and then gradually, as if they had entered into a silent and languid dream, not even those.

Their reveries were interrupted by a dozen cattle scrambling out of a gully followed by a vaquero in a wide-brimmed hat, shouting and swinging his reata. Once the cattle were out of the gully, the vaquero reined in his horse. He was old and had been through more than his share of hard times, but he had never seen anything quite like these two fancy pilgrims. Most likely a wealthy businessman and his slave, he decided, traveling to one of the great Spanish ranches that spread down the middle of the state like feudal kingdoms. Not wanting to find out, he tossed them a quick salute and rode off after the cattle.

Delilah spurred her horse in the opposite direction, smacking Zebulon's thigh as she galloped past him.

Laughing and shouting, they raced across a grassy meadow until they pulled up their horses by the bank of a slow-moving river. When she leaned forward, trying to catch her breath, he pulled her off her horse, dropping her kicking and screaming into the river. Rolling over on the muddy bank, they tore off their clothes, reaching out for each other in the weed-choked water.

Suddenly she stood up.

He looked up at her, not understanding.

"I can't," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"Do I always have to know what I mean?"

"I'll get some food," he said.

Without bothering to put on his clothes, he picked up his rifle and waded across the river.

After he had walked several miles with no game in sight, he sensed that he was being followed. There were fewer bird calls, and the land was too still, as if an unknown presence was moving through it. At first he thought it might be a Miwok, or a lone brave from a tribe he had no knowledge of, or maybe even a bounty hunter. He erased his footprints and circled back where he came from. Crawling through a clump of waist-high bunchgrass, he saw Delilah bending over, her eyes on the ground as she concentrated on his footprints. He watched her until she disappeared, then he circled ahead, waiting to surprise her in a clump of high grass. When she didn't appear, he circled back again.

When there was still no sign of her, he suddenly became worried and ran back to the river.

Delilah was leaning against a tree. A few feet away a wild turkey was roasting over a spit.

"When the wolf is silent," she said, "the moon begins to hunt."

hat night they slept next to each other and yet apart. The following morning, after fording the San Joaquin River, they rode along the bank of the Tuolumne, through sparse country dotted with occasional oak groves, madrones, and manzanita shrubs.

Ten miles outside of Calabasas Springs they approached a collection of tents and shacks surrounding a half-finished adobe cantina. Any patch of earth not squatted on by prospectors was cluttered with mining equipment, wagon beds, spare wheels, barrels, and stacks of lumber.