Shirley Murphy - The Cat, the Devil, and Lee Fontana

Back on the train, as they got moving, Indio’s industrial buildings edged past and then its small old houses, and then outside of town began the dizzying corridors of towering date palms fanning swiftly past, making him giddy if he watched for too long. Closing his eyes, he wondered if those two young braceros had signaled a new pattern in his life, one where he, an old worn-out gringo, stood at the mercy of the young and belligerent field hands with whom he would be working—but then suddenly the cat was with him again, easing Lee, curling up against his thigh, invisible but warm and purring, and Lee felt steadier. Ghost cat, spirit cat, perhaps from a brighter dimension, Lee was grateful to have Misto near him.

He guessed when he got to the ranch the big yellow tom would have no trouble hiding himself, moving about invisibly; or perhaps he would make himself boldly known among the barn cats and the other ranch animals. He just hoped Misto would stay with him; the tom had been with him at McNeil both as mortal cat and as ghost, the little spirit proving to Lee beyond doubt that a vast and intriguing universe awaited somewhere beyond, a realm far more intricate, and perhaps far kinder, than this present world seemed to offer. Lee thought the ghost cat might know almost everything Lee himself had experienced in his life. He wasn’t sure what that added up to, but the thought was more comforting than annoying, that the friend from his childhood cared enough to know about him and to stay with him.

As the train picked up speed, the fanning of the palm groves so dizzied Lee that he turned again from the window. Dozing, it seemed he was a boy again, back with Russell Dobbs reliving, almost as if it were his own life, the tale of Dobbs’s bargain with the dark spirit, with the haunt that visited Lee himself too often, cold and tenacious. All the long-ago gossip that Lee had heard as a child seemed to come together now, as the cat lay with his paws on Lee’s arm, looking up at him, looking wise and all-knowing. As Lee dreamed, was it Misto himself who filled in the small, sharp details of the confrontation between the devil and Russell Dobbs? When Lee woke, he seemed to know the story more clearly, small details had been fitted into place. Could he still hear Misto’s whisper—or was it Lee’s own silent thoughts whispering, over the rattle of the train?

10

Having agreed to certain terms, Russell Dobbs spread the word quickly that the Northern & Dakota out of Chicago would be carrying a heavy payroll and that he meant to take it down. He put out that information in ways that would not be traced back to him, he let it be known that he would slip aboard at Pierre and work the job from inside the train, alone and that he meant to leave the train with half a million in cash.

His plan worked out very well. The five Love boys, and the three Vickers brothers lay in wait for the Northern & Dakota, stopping and boarding the train at different points, both sets of brothers unduly heated and aggressive with the promise that Russell Dobbs would already be aboard. Dobbs waited in the woods, quieting his horse as, inside the train when the brothers discovered each other, a small war fought itself to a bloody finish. When it was all over he rode away hoping he’d seen the last of the Loves and the Vickerses and of his phantom visitor.

Not until two weeks later, when Cage Vickers and Tessa Love were married, did Russell wake at dawn in his cabin to see the finely dressed figure standing before him, fancy black suit, embroidered vest, black string tie. He could not see the man’s eyes. The elegantly groomed haunt put him at a distinct disadvantage. Lying naked in bed, Dobbs rose on one elbow, pulling the blanket around him.

“You have destroyed both gangs,” the devil said coldly. “You knew I wanted them unharmed. You have, of course, lost the wager.”

“I didn’t lose anything. I agreed only to prevent Cage from getting them caught and arrested. Nor did I harm them. They harmed each other.”

“The three who lived were arrested, you knew I did not want them arrested, you failed at your task.”

“That wasn’t part of the agreement. I said I would prevent Cage from getting them caught—Cage didn’t cause that, they trapped themselves. That was the bargain,” Russell said. “I didn’t allow Cage to give up either gang, I kept that part of the agreement and you are bound to it. You promised me a long, healthy life, unwounded, unharmed.” Though Dobbs had no idea whether the haunt would keep his end of the bargain. What made him think hell’s messenger was bound by any code?

“Perhaps,” said the dark one, “perhaps I will honor what you call a bargain. And perhaps not. Whatever I do, Russell, you have only one lifetime to enjoy the fruits of such an agreement—while I have all eternity to retaliate for your deception by twisting and manipulating the lives of your heirs, and never think, Russell Dobbs, that those who come after you will not suffer. Your heirs will be bound to me through your deceit, they will know me, Russell, I’ll wield my hold over them in ways you have never dreamed.”

“You don’t have that much power. If you did, I would not have beaten you.”

“You will see what power I have when you view the lives of your descendants, when you see them from the other side, when you witness the suffering and agony of your own kin that you have deliberately destroyed.” But even as Russell rose, pulling the blanket around him, the devil vanished, was gone from the room, no faintest shadow remaining, the cabin dim and empty. Russell stared around at the log walls, the iron stove, his pants hanging over a chair. He got up, pulled on his pants and shirt, his boots, took up his rifle, and went to shoot some breakfast.

When Lee woke, the passenger car was hotter than a bake oven, the midafternoon sun burning in through the train’s smeared windows as they sped across the high desert. Far ahead, the land dropped down steeply onto the wide and ancient riverbed, dry now, forever waterless. And there lay Blythe, a jumble of faded rooftops, the end of the world, some said, the asshole of creation. He doubted the town had changed much, these twenty years. A small, ugly cluster of forlorn wooden buildings set along wandering dirt tracks.

But the dusty roads led, out beyond Blythe, to another vast spread of brilliant bright green fields just as in Indio, another welcome oasis, and that was where he was headed, out among the farm crops, the miles of melons, summer vegetables, and alfalfa, huge fields that, even as far as they stretched away, were dwarfed by the endless desert that spread on beyond, parched and ungiving. He remembered too well, when he’d run with Jake, the sour salty smell along the dry washes where the tamarisk trees thrived, remembered the beery smell of the little town when you passed a bar, the high sidewalks above the one paved street, the cross streets of powder dust so fine it would splash up over your boot tops. Remembered the dirty faces of the little Mexican kids and the patient-eyed women with that deep, lazy Mexican beauty. Mexicans, blacks, whites, and Indians all working their tails off making money for the farmers, and what little money they put in their own pockets lasted only one trip to town, where they lost it to backroom gambling and to booze and prostitutes, and what they didn’t spend someone waited to take forcibly from them.

But still the migrants kept coming, smugglers with overload springs on their Cadillacs rolling in from the border at night with trunks full of illegals who paid them two hundred dollars a head, innocents who blew their life savings trying to get a chunk of the American dollar, migrants who might end up treated like shit with the wrong farm boss, lucky if they got enough to eat for their stoop labor. And some of them weren’t that lucky. Those who suffocated in the Cadillacs’ locked trunks were stripped of what little they had and tossed out on the desert for the coyotes to finish.