Guy Vanderhaeghe - The Englishman’s Boy

“What the hell’s he up to?” I ask.

McAdoo shrugs. “I ain’t going to lay a guess. God himself don’t know what goes on in that boy’s head. I don’t reckon that gun was such a good idea. He’s shooting the property full of holes.”

Now Wylie is rearranging the cartridges in an X, extending the arms of the X with new ammunition recruited from the box, blissfully sucking on his bottom lip as he fusses with the alignment of the bullets like a little boy playing with his lead soldiers.

“What about these cards you want to lay on the table?” says McAdoo, as he watches Wylie tinkering with the cartridges.

“It needs to be said, Shorty. Don’t take it wrong.”

“Say it.”

“This crap you’ve been handing me doesn’t cut it. You’ve got to do better. My job’s at stake.”

I wait for Shorty to take the bait. He doesn’t.

“At first I thought, Shorty needs to get to know me. I have to establish confidence and trust before he’ll open up to me. I told myself, The money you’re paying him now is just seed money. Think of it as seed money. But where’s the crop, Shorty? I can’t wait forever for the crop.”

Shorty holds a can of beans in his left hand. His eyes avoid me.

“I think maybe I ought to lay the cards on the table for both of us, Shorty,” I say. “I’ve got a sick mother in the hospital. You want to take this boy to Canada with you.” Wylie glances up from his bullets when I mention him, eyes distrustful. “You and I have people depending on us. We have responsibilities. Responsibilities that require money. But nobody gives money away to get nothing in return. My employer is not getting what he wants, Shorty. Soon he’ll cut our water off.”

“Let him cut it.”

I raise my voice, turn McAdoo’s head with it. “That’s not good enough, Shorty. I deserve better from you.” I point to Wylie. “How’re you going to get him to Canada without money? And what the hell are you going to do for money when you get him there?”

McAdoo doesn’t respond. His face is set, emotionless.

“I am telling you a fact. There is a chance you can carry a substantial amount of money to Canada with you – if you tell me something I can use. But if you have nothing to tell, we are wasting each other’s time.” I pause. “You know what I am asking.”

“You asking me to put money in your pocket.”

“If it was just a case of money, don’t you think I could look out for myself? I’d sit down, make up a story, sign your name to it. I know what he wants and I can give it to him; I’m a writer. But more than money’s involved. There’s respect. I respect the man I work for. He’s trusting me to give him the truth and I’ll give him that or I’ll give him nothing. I respect you, too, so I won’t put your name to a lie. Because I don’t believe you’re a liar, Shorty.”

“No, I ain’t.” He records this as a fact, in a courtroom voice.

“I’m glad to hear it. Because if you aren’t, that must mean the things that are said about you are true.”

“I can’t answer on that. Depends on the things.” It comes out hard, a rebuke.

“They say you were an Indian-fighter.”

He smiles stiffly, mouth twisting lopsidedly with effort. “They say all the real Indian-fighters is dead. Like Custer.” He isn’t convincing.

“But if they aren’t? That makes a survivor damn valuable.”

He keeps smiling, his grin the rictus of a corpse.

“You a survivor, Shorty?”

“I done some surviving.”

“You ever fight Indians?”

He stares at me for a considerable interval. “Some,” he admits at last. The smile has vanished.

My heart is beating fast. I know I am getting close but I’m not sure how to finish. “Now was that so hard?”

“What you want, Vincent?”

“Not what I want, what he wants. He wants Indians. Indians plus the truth.”

“He don’t want no fucking truth. Not your man.”

“I assure you, he does.”

Shorty laughs sourly.

“Claiming he doesn’t want the truth gives you an out, doesn’t it? Because then you don’t have to bother telling it.”

“I know it. He don’t want my truth. It ain’t to his taste.”

“That’s what you say. I say different. Let’s see who’s right. Tell it.”

“For the money.”

“Money – for whatever reason you want.”

Shorty puts the can of beans down on the table. “Wylie,” he barks in a no-nonsense voice, “take your blankets, take your gun, go wait outside.”

Wylie squirms uneasily on the bed; he scoops up the box of cartridges in one hand and a fistful of blanket in the other. “Why I got to go outside, Shorty?”

“Because you’re the best shot here and I’m giving you the job of looking out for us.”

“Who’s it I’m a-guarding you from, Shorty?”

“You’ll know the bastards when you see them. Don’t let nobody close now. I’m counting on you.”

Wylie gathers pistol, cartridges, and blanket. “I’ll know them when I see them?” he asks doubtfully.

“They’re Mexicans,” says Shorty. “You see a Mexican, shoot first and ask questions later.”

“Christ, don’t tell him that.”

“Mexicans,” says Wylie to himself. “Mexicans.”

“Build yourself a fire,” Shorty tells him. “You going to be keeping watch a goodly spell.”

“How do I know if they’re Mexicans?” says Wylie.

“By the big fucking hats. Mexicans are big-hatted bastards. Sombreros. Look for the hats.” Shorty holds each of his hands out a couple of feet from his head.

Wylie nods and goes out full of purpose.

“What’s that about?” I say.

“He don’t need to see and he don’t need to hear.”

“See and hear what?”

“Us fattening on the dead.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“That’s what you and me are setting to do. Fatten us up on the dead.” McAdoo’s smile is beyond cold; it is a raw, self-inflicted wound. “What’s a dead Indian bring nowadays? Ten dollars a head? Fifteen?”

“I don’t follow you.”

Shorty sits down at the table. “Well, I’m just trying to put a price on what you asking for. Calculate the going rate. What’s he going to give me for a story about Indians, this boss of yours? What’s the price of truth?”

“If he likes your story, wants to use it, he has to buy it from you. You negotiate.”

“Rough figure? I reckon we need fifteen hundred dollars to set us up handsome in Canada.”

“I want to make this clear, he hasn’t given me authority to make deals for him,” I qualify. “But I think that if he likes the material a figure of fifteen hundred dollars would not be an unreasonable expectation on your part.”

“For the truth?”

“Of course, for the truth. There’s a premium on the truth.”

McAdoo spreads his hands on the table and gazes down at them, thinking. Scarcely above a whisper, he says, “I been thinking on this business for a long time. Ever before you came. I thought it in Mother Reardon’s boarding house. I thought it making them fool pictures. For a long time, I never thought it at all and then it starts on me. My daddy used to say you think a thing and think a thing, you can’t shed it, that means you going to be called to answer on it. My daddy believed in all kind of second sight.” He looks up at me. “I been thinking on this for a goodly time, but I didn’t want to believe what my daddy told me. I said it weren’t going to happen. Then you came along.” He sits quietly, his chin on his chest. “You got your pencil and paper out?”

“Yes.”

“Fifteen hundred dollars,” he says. “Now I know the going rate on a dead Indian. Near fifty dollars a head.”

Shorty McAdoo must have been thinking on it for a considerable time, just as he said. He knew exactly what he wanted to say and would frequently request me to read back to him what I had written in my shorthand notes. He listened very intently and then he might add or omit some detail. Occasionally he would get up and go to check on Wylie; sometimes I would accompany him to the window. We could see the boy beside the big fire he had built, the sparks churning up into the sky like fiery confetti, the flames blowing and seething in the night wind, the light swaying across the figure draped in a blanket, staring out into the darkness, forearm propped across one raised knee, gun hanging ready.