Guy Vanderhaeghe - The Englishman’s Boy

“Ever see such a sight in your life as this blind mouse?” Hardwick inquired coldly.

Evans cleared his throat. “You can see he ain’t well, Tom. Give the man a chance.”

Hardwick lowered himself on one knee beside Hank. “He ain’t a goddamn man,” he said fiercely. “If the best part of him hadn’t run down his momma’s leg he’d have been a rat, but instead she had to squeeze out a little blind cheese-eater mouse.”

“I feel bad,” said Hank. “Real bad. I near drownded.”

“You near drownded,” said Hardwick. He pointed to where Scotty still sat in a daze, chin on his chest. “You near drownded that man there, who saved your skin. That’s who you near drownded, you worthless, no-account, half-a-penny mouse pelt.”

“It ain’t all his fault,” said Evans. “He was riding a unlucky horse.”

Hardwick got to his feet and spat. “Unlucky horse? Blind horse is more like it. Dumb son of a bitch’s been riding a blind horse since yesterday and didn’t know it. Blind mouse on a blind horse.”

“Blind horse?” said Evans.

Hardwick strode to the white horse daubed with yellow mud. “Why you think he missed the ford? Why you think he tried to climb that cutbank?” He poked his cigar inches from the nag’s eye. It didn’t startle. “Stone blind,” he repeated.

“Well, I’ll be jiggered,” said Evans.

“Don’t flinch from a lit stogie.” Hardwick drew his revolver. “No more than a pistol between the eyes,” he said matter-of-factly, raising his arm and firing in one movement.

The white horse crashed to earth like a wall razed in an earthquake. It lay in the rubble of its flesh, legs lashing about in the last gallop, impressing its mark in the mud like a child makes an angel in snow.

“Mind the hoofs, boys,” said Hardwick mildly, stepping around the flailing body.

The legs stiffened, the horse shuddered, died.

Already Hardwick was shoving his way through the stunned men. “We lost us time here,” he said. “Get the gear on the pack horses. Get Scotty dressed and ready to ride.”

“What about him?” asked Evans of Hank. “He needs a horse.”

“That’s his horse there,” said Hardwick, pointing. “If it can keep up, he’s welcome.”

They rode out an hour later. Hank sat with Mr. Robinson’s gun and the gunny sack of bacon which Hardwick had thrown him clutched to his breast. To the rider of each horse which passed, only feet from where he sat with his legs stuck out before him, he repeated the same words in a lifeless voice. “You best not leave me. Mr. Robinson’ll have the Choteau County law on you boys. Consider it.”

Apparently they had. No one spoke or looked at him. The trim legs of the horses paced by, as elegantly precise and monotonous as a metronome. Then he sat waiting for more legs to pass to which he could speak and there were none. “You don’t want to fool with the law,” he said. “No sirree.” He got to his feet and shouted after them, “You don’t want to fool with the law!”

No one looked back, the horses plodded on. There was nothing but the sound of the wind and his own sobbing. He ran after them the best he could, clutching his rifle and bacon to his chest, but it was cumbersome so he let the bacon fall. The figures got smaller and the sky more immense. It was the river all over again, a wider river, horizon to horizon, waves of grass. It was drowning, the wind stuffing itself in his throat when he opened his mouth to shout, the burning lungs.

The last the Englishman’s boy saw of Hank he was running and falling, getting up to run and fall again, running and falling. It was a shameful sight and he turned away from it. A little later, they heard three faint rifle-shots behind them, like firecrackers in the wind.

“What’s that?” Evans asked, harkening.

“That fool popping his popgun,” said Hardwick.

Evans thought for a moment. “He ain’t shot himself,” he said. “Not three times.”

“Don’t bet on it. Stupid bastard rode a horse for a day and didn’t figure out it was blind. That nester could shoot himself in the head three times. Nothing there to harm.”

“I don’t know what to think,” said Evans diplomatically. “It don’t feel right to have left him afoot.”

“If we’d left him a horse we’d never have got shut of him. He’d have dogged us like Mary’s little lamb.”

“Well, he was green.”

“Green? So green he don’t shit, he drips sap.”

“If you say, Tom.”

“He was a Jonah. Bad luck. Now we’re rid of him, we’re down to twelve. No more misfortunate number thirteen. Ain’t that so, Vogle?”

Vogle nodded sagely. “I don’t enjoy no thirteen,” he said.

“Jonah or Judas or some kind of witchery J,” muttered Hardwick. “Gone now anyways.”

As the Englishman’s boy rode, he speculated on the old white horse. Trade one pitch-black darkness for another endless night. Where’s the percentage? Except he got the rider off his back, now he didn’t have to bear around no heaviness in the level black where he lay, or stood, old white horse.

Last thing that horse ever did hear, the crack of the goddamn round that done him down. Never-ending darkness plus never-ending silence. There’s a cheat. But minus the misery. Just maybe, minus the misery. It was hard to say, a hard calculation.

Except for this. Better the white horse than him.

And then it came into the Englishman’s boy’s mind. The old white horse standing in the darkness of the other side and a rider setting on his back, a rider the Englishman’s boy could not make out, nor read his face or the meaning of his gestures, but knew only that he was a sign that nothing was different on the other side, only darker and dimmer, and that the rider on the pale horse was again one of their party, the unlucky, the cursed thirteenth.

Within an hour of leaving Shorty McAdoo, I pass on to Fitzsimmons news of my success at finding him. Fitz tells me that he’ll let Chance know. Then he says, “Don’t ever take the phone off the hook on me again like you did last night, Vincent,” and hangs up. I sit down to wait for Chance to call. An hour later, the phone rings.

“Hello, My Little Truth Seeker. Long time no see.”

“Rachel,” I say warily. I’ve known sooner or later she would call, but I’m still not ready to fend off the questions I know are coming.

“Why don’t we see you at the office any more? Your absence is sorely felt.”

“I thought Fitz explained that.”

“Fitz said you wouldn’t be coming in for a while. I thought that meant a couple of days. It’s been over two weeks. What’s up? You aren’t sick, are you?”

“I’m working.”

“Working on what?”

“A picture.”

“Don’t give me any of that guff. If you are, the story editor hasn’t heard about it. And he’s the next best thing to God around here, all-seeing, all-knowing.”

“There are higher authorities,” I say.

“Fitz?”

“I can’t talk about it.”

“What’re you doing for that black-hearted Irish bandit?”

“Not Fitz.”

“Who then?”

“Chance.”

There’s a pause. The line hums in my ear. “Harry, have you been taking your quinine? I believe your malaria’s acting up. What interesting hallucinations it produces.”

“Don’t believe me then.”

But she does. “You? Working for the great man? You’ve actually been to his office?”

“His house.” Despite myself, I’m beginning to revel in my glory.

“In the hills?”

“That’s right.”

“Up there on Mount Olympus? My curiosity is whetted. Details, Harry. Details. Describe, if you would be so good.”