Hari Kunzru - Gods Without Men

“Ellis,” said the sheriff. “They’re your boys. You think they had anything to do with this?”

“I couldn’t say, Dale. Joey, why don’t you explain to the sheriff what you were up to skulking around Mr. Craw’s watering hole.”

“We got lost,” said Joe. “Thought we was still on government land.”

Craw spat on the floor. “Bullshit!”

“And what about this kid? Which of you’s going to tell me what you all was doing with a white child?”

No one volunteered.

“Who is the child?” asked Deighton. “When was he reported missing?”

Calhoun sat down heavily in his chair, which creaked under his weight. “Well, we ain’t actually had a report yet. I’ve sent a wire to Victorville, and one of my deputies is over in the valley, asking around.”

“You mean no one’s even made a complaint?”

Craw turned on him furiously. “God damn it, Professor! This ain’t no time for splitting hairs. Some brave’s dragging a poor mite round the desert with him. Who knows what he’s about to do—”

“Do? What do you mean ‘do’?”

Craw jutted his chin at the Indians. “Weren’t so long ago they used to eat our livers. Lord only knows what purposes they got in their black hearts.”

“Look, Professor,” interrupted Calhoun. “I hold you partly responsible for this mess. You saw that child and you didn’t do nothing about it. Authorities wouldn’t even have known if it weren’t for Ellis here, who saw fit to mention it after Mr. Craw brought in them boys.”

“I don’t understand why you’re making such a deal out of this.”

Craw looked genuinely astounded. “My sweet Lord, will you listen to him? Some poor little Christian child’s going to be eaten alive unless we make a so-called deal out of this.”

Calhoun looked at him sourly. “Chances are it’s one of the boys from Kairo. Professor, you were the one saw him. You sure you didn’t recognize him?”

Deighton thought for a moment. And then he committed his great sin.

“Well, there was one man who seemed to be missing from his place.”

“What man?”

“His name is Willie Prince.”

“I know him,” said Waghorn. “Arrogant son of a bitch.”

“Looks like we ought to take a drive out to Kairo. Professor, you’ll take us.”

As they left the office, the crowd pressed forward, trying to find out news. The mood was ugly. As Calhoun confirmed that they were holding the Indians in custody “pending inquiries,” someone at the back yelled out that they ought to string the red bastards up from a tree.

The journey out to the oasis seemed interminable. The car complained as it climbed the grade up into the high desert, past an area of new claims marked by half-finished cabins and piles of building lumber. Deighton took the turn toward Kairo at speed, juddering down the frozen track toward the distant mountain range, which on that day looked dull and lifeless, a jagged iron-gray strip on the horizon. A grit-laden wind was whipping out of the north, stinging his cheeks and making him glad of his driving goggles. Mercifully neither of his passengers wanted to talk. They sat, hunched down into their jackets, hats pulled down low over their eyes. Waghorn had his hands jammed into his pockets, Calhoun’s on the carbine laid across his lap, like a musician waiting his turn to play.

When they saw the camp up ahead, Waghorn and Calhoun shifted impatiently in their seats. Deighton squinted ahead.

“Doesn’t seem to be anyone there.”

Calhoun grunted and lit a cigarette. They pulled up in a cloud of dust and stepped down, stamping their feet and rubbing their hands to bring back the circulation. Calhoun and Waghorn strode around, pulling open covers and peering into wickiups. The embers of the fires were still warm. A few dogs were nosing about in the trash; as the men walked about, they came forward inquisitively, hoping for food. Waghorn aimed a kick at one, which trotted a little farther off. “Now we know they’re up to something,” he said.

“Where do you think they’re headed, Ellis?” asked Calhoun.

“Into the Saddlebacks, I reckon. Any number of caves up there. They’ll be easy enough to track. You think they’ve got the boy with them?”

Calhoun stuck his head through the doorway of another wickiup and rapidly withdrew it. “I think we got someone. Jesus, it stinks like shit in there.” Deighton crouched down and looked through the opening. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. The stench was overpowering. Excrement, vomit and something else, something familiar to him from the war: the smell of a body in extremis. An elderly man lay on the ground, swathed in blankets. His breathing was labored, rattling in his chest like a bead in an empty box. By his side sat Segunda Hipa. He spoke to her in the People’s Language.

“Segunda. Are you sick?”

The old woman’s eyes were wide with terror.

“It’s all right. Nothing’s going to happen. Why did they leave you behind?”

She named the man she was sitting with. “He’s dying. It’s not proper to leave him alone.”

“Segunda, where is Eliza? Where is Salt-Face Woman?”

“Gone, where you can’t find her.”

“Is she with Willie Prince?”

Segunda said nothing.

“What’s going on?” asked Waghorn, trying to see past Deighton into the gloom.

“Just a moment.”

The old man groaned. Segunda took a rag and wiped his face.

“Segunda, tell me about the boy. I know you know something.”

“Why did you bring them here?”

Waghorn pushed past Deighton into the gloom, his foot crunching through something on the packed-earth floor, probably a basket.

“Come here, old woman. You need to talk to us.”

With one hand pressing a handkerchief over his mouth and nose, he took hold of Segunda’s arm with the other. When she didn’t immediately get up, he tightened his grip, dragging her toward the doorway. She began to wail, a high-pitched ululation that cut through the fetid air.

Deighton was appalled. “For God’s sake, leave her alone!”

“Get out of my way.”

Deighton tried to break Waghorn’s grip on Segunda’s arm and all three of them ended up outside in the dust, Segunda in a heap on the ground, the two men swearing and scrabbling to pick themselves up.

“Christ, Deighton, I said get out of my way. And now, you flea-ridden old cunt, you’re going to tell me what’s going on here. Where’s the kid?”

Deighton pleaded with Calhoun. “Sheriff, do something, or I will.”

“Ellis—” said Calhoun. “Lay off her, Ellis. This isn’t helping none.”

Waghorn let go. Segunda sat in the dust and lowered her face into her shawl. Deighton stepped toward the Indian agent, his fists clenched. “Professor,” warned Calhoun, “you better back up there.” Deighton glanced over and saw the carbine in the sheriff’s hands, the barrel leveled at his stomach. Part of him, the detached, externalized part, wondered how the situation had gotten so out of hand. He took a pace back. Waghorn’s hand was on his own gun, a long-barreled revolver holstered under his battered leather coat. The three men looked warily at one another.

“What kind of fool are you?” Deighton asked Waghorn. “She didn’t want to talk. Now she never will. The others obviously heard what happened to Joe and his friends and ran away. I can’t say as I blame them.”

“Oh, can’t you?” Waghorn wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. Calhoun lowered the carbine and squatted effortfully down on his haunches, the breath whistling out of him like a deflating bladder.

“Come on, old woman. Don’t pay him no mind. No one’s going to harm you. Why don’t you tell me what’s happened here? We’re just trying to find a child who’s gone missing. Little boy.”