Guy Vanderhaeghe - The Englishman’s Boy

“Well,” I say, hopping quickly to change the topic, “this is all very interesting but what I came here about is a job.”

“Job?” he says, annoyed to be reminded why I’m here. He considers for a moment, lips puckered. “Could be if you write scenarios I like, I’ll buy them fifty bucks a pop. Westerns. But it’s strictly free lance. I don’t pay writers to loaf at my expense.”

I get to my feet. “All right.”

Going out the door I can hear Farnum muttering to himself. “Fucking McAdoo. Imagine somebody making a picture about that no-good grifter.”

I stand on the porch steps, my shoes sticking to the adhesive pepper-tree sap that has dripped on the boards. How will McAdoo take the news of his immortalization?

It’s not until a month later that I find out. Bound for Poverty Row with another dopey scenario to flog, I see the two of them a block up the street, headed my way. I consider crossing the road to the other side, but my limp is conspicuous; I’ll be spotted. Better to face the music.

There’s no choice but to hang on the sidewalk, waiting. Already I know Wylie has seen me, he stoops to pass on his news to Shorty, one hand flicking in my direction, his great height crooked over McAdoo. Shorty doesn’t appear to be listening, he just keeps coming on with deliberation, not a hitch or hesitation in his bandy-legged strut.

This morning McAdoo’s wearing a bleached blue denim shirt and pants and an obviously new seal-brown stockman stetson shading a face that shows no willingness to break into a smile of welcome. Wylie’s balancing a new hat on his head too, a big white Carlsbad which raises his altitude in the neighbourhood of seven feet and makes him look like he’d blow over in a gentle zephyr.

“Take a look at the mangy dick-licking dog,” Shorty says to Wylie as they come up. By the scowl on him, there’s no doubt Wylie is in complete agreement with McAdoo’s opinion of me.

“Nice to see you, too, Shorty,” I say. “I take it you’ve heard the rumours.”

He doesn’t answer at once. His eyes, pitted in dark, brooding flesh, are unflinching as they study me, but there’s something else in them too, weariness, perhaps even a touch of sadness. He looks older, more tired, than the last time we met.

“I told you once, I’m an old whore who’s been rid hard,” says Shorty. “But I don’t know if ever I been rid this hard before, Vincent.”

“Shorty says you sold him body and soul. That’s what Shorty says. He says that,” Wylie chimes in excitedly.

McAdoo makes a cutting motion with his hand. “Shut up, Wylie.”

We’re standing in front of a diner with gingham curtains in the window. “Let’s discuss this,” I say. “Let me buy you a cup of coffee.”

Shorty squints scornfully up the street. “What makes you think I’d set down with you?” he says.

I pull open the door. A little bell tinkles inside. “Come on. Hear me out.”

For a second, he seems bent on refusing but then brushes by me, Wylie following, his forehead wrinkled with disapproval because Shorty has accepted my invitation. We choose a booth and sit in tense silence while we are served. The two of them blow into the steam rising from their mugs, identical judgements.

“I thought you would be in Canada by now.”

Shorty puts down his mug and begins to roll a cigarette. “I guess that’s what you was banking on – old Shorty out of the way.”

“You didn’t get cheated. Nobody else could have got you as much money as I did. That’s a fact.”

“Fuck the money.”

Wylie’s eyes fly back and forth between us. He raises his mug to sip, changes his mind, glances at Shorty’s mug resting on the tabletop and thumps his own down, face screwed up like he’s sniffed poison in his coffee. “Fuck the money,” Wylie says, seconding the motion.

“Where do you think the money came from for your new hat, Wylie?” I say.

Wylie rips off his big white hat and presses it defensively to his chest: The Carlsbad is a fine one. Best beaver felt.

“You leave him out of this,” says McAdoo.

“Then tell him to mind his own business.”

“Shorty says you sold him down the river. Shorty says them pitcher people going to make him a laughing stock. They going to put some beauty boy in a big white hat and call it him. They going to make him wear his pants stuffed down in a pair of hand-tooled boots. They going to make him set on a silver saddle and ride a horse that’s all mane and tail. That’s what Shorty says. We going to stop that – Shorty and me.”

“Drink your coffee,” Shorty tells him. Wylie does, obedient for the moment. McAdoo turns back to me. “I spent but little of the money. I want to buy my life back. Get me in to see him. I asked to see him but he won’t.”

I shake my head. “I don’t work for him any more. I quit over a month ago. Besides, you can’t stop it now. I hear shooting’s started.”

“Don’t hand me no more fucking lies, Vincent.”

“No more lies,” repeats Wylie.

“Look, if I misled you, it’s because he misled me. As soon as I understood that, I quit.”

“Too bad for me you didn’t understand sooner.”

“Listen to me, Shorty,” I say. “I know you’ve got no reason to trust me, but trust me on this. Stay away from Chance.”

“It’s my life, Vincent.”

“That’s right. And I’m telling you to take the rest of your life north. Take it north and stay away from him.”

“And what about the girl?”

“Christ, the girl’s dead. Dead , Shorty.”

“I sold the girl, too,” says Shorty. “I got no right to sell him the girl if he ain’t going to do right by her.”

“It’s a little late for you to be developing a conscience about her, isn’t it?”

Shorty picks up his spoon, studies it, lays it back down carefully. “Well,” he says, looking up at me with those black eyes, “I’m an old man now, Harry. Lots of things I wish hadn’t happened – but everybody looks to keep his own precious hair. You drop the cat in boiling water he’s going to claw his way out or cook. I didn’t never intend to cook. So I clawed. I don’t make no apology for it. You’d have done the same. But what happened with the girl – there weren’t no excuse for it. There weren’t no excuse to scald the girl.”

Wylie leans across the table. In a voice low, husky with emotion, he says, “Shorty taken care of me. He did. I do the same for him. Remember that.” Then he sits back, satisfied, a self-righteous smile on his lips.

“Settle yourself, Wylie,” Shorty says quietly. “The milk’s already spilt. Now I got to see how much I can spoon back into the bottle, dirty or not.” He lifts his eyebrows. “Isn’t that right, Harry?”

“Believe me, there’s none of it you can spoon back in,” I tell him. “Don’t think you can.”

“Oh,” says Shorty, “I ain’t going to rest until I’ve tried. I wouldn’t talked to you but you promised me the truth would be proclaimed.”

“He promised me the same. Otherwise I wouldn’t have done it.”

“Then it seems to me the two of us is obliged to try put the milk back in the bottle,” says Shorty with a flat, terrible authority.

The wolfers remained pinned down in the coulee, forced to trade shots with the Assiniboine. The mathematics of that was not in their favour and they knew it. Although they had taken no casualties as yet, it was clear to everybody that with each passing hour their situation grew more dire. Their hunted, desperate faces announced that knowledge. One or two of them had already had to shamefacedly scurry further down the ravine to relieve themselves, terror proving a powerful purgative. Hardwick called a council of war, his lieutenants Evans and Vogle hunkered to the right and left of him. He began with an attempt to put some heart into his men. “Well, boys, we burned their asses good. I counted at least fifteen or sixteen dead Indians lying out there and not a one of us with a hair harmed on our heads. And we’re safe here for the time being. They can’t shake us out. But, on the other hand, we ain’t going to shake them out neither. If we try to skedaddle for the fort, they’re likely to pick a few of us off while we cover open ground. If we squat here, we cook in our own juice, seeing as we’re low on water, and ammunition ain’t going to last forever and a day. Also I’m thinking, could be there’s more than one band of Assiniboine in these hills. Could be they already sent a runner to round up the relatives and bring them in.”