Rudolph Wurlitzer - The Drop Edge of Yonder

HEY ENTERED DON LUIS' ESTATE THROUGH AN ORNATE iron gate and passed a guardhouse, tanning vats, a blacksmith shop, several smokehouses, a butchering shed, and five outdoor bake ovens. Further on, a forty-foot clock tower dominated the end of an overgrown garden whose crumbling adobe walls were covered with flowering bougainvillea. On the other side of the garden, a long stately colonnade introduced an imposing twostory Spanish adobe ranch house with a corroded red-tiled roof and thickly latticed windows, most of which were in serious need of repair.

A vaquero escorted their horses to a nearby stable, where a stooped white-haired retainer led them through a massively carved wooden door into a generous entrada lit by iron chandeliers. At the far end of the entrada they entered a library.

Despite the logs blazing in the massive fireplace, an air of gloom pervaded the musty high-ceilinged room with its cracked and peeling walls lined with overflowing bookcases and portraits of the Spanish court by Velasquez and Goya, as well as a mural celebrating the Conquistadors conquest of Mexico.

Don Luis sat in front of the fire in the middle of a deepseated leather couch, his frail body almost invisible inside a buffalo robe. Behind him in a far corner of the room, a threelegged French clavichord stood next to a collection of lutes, mandolins, and guitars, all hanging from the walls on sagging wires.

They sat on a row of armchairs facing Don Luis, sipping a dry red wine from his vineyard. After waiting an hour for Don Luis to speak, Zebulon finally broke the silence. "Maybe this ain't the right time to trample on your peace, Don Luis. We can pay our respects another day."

"In these dark days, every moment is precious," Don Luis replied. "Whoever you people are, wherever you are going, for this one night, mi casa, su casa. I am embarrassed that Calabasas Springs, a town my family has been proud to be part of for over nine generations, has now entered a state of anarchy and barbarism. In past years the entire town would have gathered at this ranch to celebrate Easter Sunday, but now…. Forgive an old man's ramblings about the ravages of time. But permit me to ask you: What is happening to this land? Why is it being raped and profaned and exhausted? But of course, how would any of you know the answer to such a question? You are obviously strangers here, and confused more than I about the way this country has always nourished itself, carried on its business, only to be — I don't know. God help me, it has all but disappeared."

He looked at Delilah. "Is it true what those savages said back there in the town square: that you're nothing more than an ambitious slave who will stop at nothing to get her way?"

"Perhaps at one time I could have been perceived that way" she said. "Certainly it was true for a short period in Africa, although that was due more to circumstances than character. But when Count Baranofsky made a proposal to me at an early age that I become his consort and eventually his wife, I was freed of any hunger for mere survival. He also saw to my education in many of the capitals of Europe. For his extraordinary generosity, I shall always be grateful."

Don Luis nodded, impressed by Delilah's diction and refinement. "A noble tradition, that of the consort," he said wistfully; "one that I have personally honored from time to time, even to the point of making a fool of myself — but that's another story."

"Certainly it has its advantages as well as its limitations," Delilah said. "On both sides."

"Of course," Don Luis said. "Why, not long ago…. Where was it? Madrid or Mexico City? Perhaps Venice. It doesn't matter. Another time, another place."

Don Luis shivered, pulling his robe around his shoulders as a sudden chill entered the room. "Let me add, my dear, that I was immediately struck by your courageous presence, by the way you stood on your chair calmly accepting your fate. Your resolve reminded me of my own situation — waiting… sinking… ready to depart…. I have made my final visit to Calabasas Springs. I will never go there again, not even to Mass; nor do I choose to go anywhere else…. In times past… before the insane gringos showed up… when my father was still alive… and his father and his father before him, they would have rescued your Count. No matter if he deserved to hang…. They knew how to please a guest in those days. Even if it meant arranging for his death, it would have been done in the right way-. Precisely. With a certain amount of grace. Without this useless horseshit."

He slumped back inside his buffalo robe, his head sagging to his chest. "What I meant to say to you…. I talked to your Count last week. He told me many things about you, things that you yourself might not even be aware of. Things that were, quite frankly, disturbing."

No one in the room spoke or even moved.

"May I sing for you?" Delilah asked.

Don Luis' lips whispered a reply. "Porfavor, Senora. Gracias."

She sat down in front of the clavichord, closing her eyes. Slowly, with rising passion, she began to sing Tomas Luis de Victoria's "Ave Maria" from a Mass that Don Luis had requested that very morning to be sung at his funeral.

As she sang, the room filled with servants, vaqueros, and caballeros, all of them gathered around the old patriarch, who had fallen deeply asleep on his couch.

The song over, a retainer led them upstairs for the night.

They found themselves in a large vaulted room dominated by a king-sized bed. Silk robes had been laid out for them on a leather couch, and plates of freshly prepared food had been placed on a round table lit by candles.

After Zebulon changed into his robe he lay down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling as he smoked one of Don Luis' Mexican cheroots.

When he finished the cigar, he noticed Delilah standing on the other side of the room. She was naked, her robe around her feet.

As she slowly walked towards him, they heard a bell ringing from the church tower and shouts from the garden, announcing the death of Don Luis.

~ ~ ~

Shen they rode back into Calabasas Springs, they found the jail burned to the ground. Three Mexicans lay dead in the middle of the street; another was spread across a wagon wheel, two men horse-whipping his back and shoulders. Except for Ivan's dead body hanging from the branch of an oak tree, the square was empty

Before they reached the end of the street, they were surrounded by a group of armed vigilantes.

"Don Luis is dead," Zebulon informed them.

"Good for him," was the reply. "Now you can join him."

As Zebulon was pulled roughly to the ground, Hatchet Jack rode down the street and grabbed the reins of Delilah's horse, and the two of them galloped off through the crowd of startled miners.

Zebulon's last image of Delilah was her long black hair streaming behind her as she and Hatchet Jack disappeared into the night.

No one bothered to mount a pursuit, there being no point in chasing after a whore and a half-breed with no price on their heads.

'EBULON WAS KEPT IN A SMALL HOLDING CELL BENEATH the Sacramento courthouse, half of which doubled as a thriving saloon. Unfortunately for the Australian miners who brought him in, the reward was only a quarter of what had been advertised, and they returned to Calabasas Springs as outraged as when they had first arrived.

The trial was jammed from the opening bell, mostly due to Artemis Stebbins' front-page article in The San Francisco Star reporting the capture of the celebrated outlaw The first week of examinations and cross-examinations proceeded at a slow pace, as everyone, including the judge, was preoccupied with rumors of a massive gold strike on the Feather River. Despite this distraction, which had already emptied half the town, there was no standing room left when the district attorney, a portly one-armed man with ambitions for the senate, approached the jury for his final summation: