“This Isn’t Hell, You Bloody Yobs. This Is Only Texas.”
In this exclusive excerpt from Custer’s Brother’s Horse, the new novel by Edwin “Bud” Shrake, honest men are marched to the gallows by red-throated Unionists hungry for revenge.
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Robin smiled at the girls and waved to them.
“They hate you Leatherwoods,” Robin said.
“They’re just a bunch of trash. What do I care about them?” said Billy.
“They whores,” Adam said.
“They’re not whores. Just trashy Austin girls,” said Billy.
“No, they whores with smelly, swampy cooters,” Luther said.
The Leatherwood brothers whooped.
“Cooters,” Adam yelled at the girls. “Swampy cooters.”
“I wonder if I might have a nip from that water bag?” the Englishman said.
Robin looked around at the scowl that was pinching Varney’s face. If Varney had been drinking at Dutch John’s until he tried to steal Custer’s brother’s horse in the middle of the night, he couldn’t have had any sleep except for the time he was unconscious, and that would not have been restful. Varney licked his lips. He was trying to decide which headache hurt the worst. He had the sick headache that follows from the poison of too much whiskey. He had the pulsing headache that came from the blows to his skull by the Leatherwood brothers and their uncle. But topsies among his problems was this awful thirst. He must have water. He thought of his journey across the plains of Punjab the summer when even the bloody camels were suffering. This morning was no topsies for that ordeal, but he could feel last night’s alcohol drying and shrinking his tissues. His body’s cry for water was more urgent than the hurt of a few more lumps on a head that had already taken so many.
“I’m saying, friend, what about a tug at that bag of water?” said Varney.
“Don’t give him nothing, Billy,” Luther said.
“We can’t be stopping. The judge gets mean if you make him wait,” said Billy.
Robin saw a small shudder go down to Varney’s boots. He wondered how a man like Varney, obviously educated and claiming a military background, had found himself accused of stealing a horse in Texas. Robin knew quite a lot about England from his parents—his father had sailed to London and married his mother there—and from books in the library at Sweetbrush. During his two years at Austin College, in Huntsville, Robin was reading for a history degree. For nine months of the year before the war, Robin came home and taught at the two-room, white-pine school his father, Dr. Junius Robin, had built for the children of the workers—slaves and Mexicans—at Sweetbrush. Soon after Dr. Robin had opened the school, young people had begun coming down the red-dirt roads from other farms and plantations, along with the children of property owners and merchants who did business in the town of Gethsemane, four miles through the forest by road but closer by boat on Big Neck Bayou. By the time young Robin returned from college to help his family at Sweetbrush and took over teaching school three mornings a week, there were from ten to forty pupils, Negro, Mexican, and white, in class, depending on the season. The Leatherwoods lived in a two-story house near the church in town. Pastor Horry Leatherwood, their father, the mayor of Gethsemane, sent his three sons to the Sweetbrush school even though he had become an enemy of young Robin’s father, the doctor. Adam and Luther would sprawl spraddle-legged in their cane chairs in class and listen to Jerod Robin with dull-eyed distaste, but little Billy was fascinated when Robin told them about British history, about the Magna Carta and the Crusades and the two American wars of revolution in the past eighty years against British colonial rule and the abuses of royalty. In particular, Billy had loved stories about the Crusades.
“I’m asking you one more time for water,” said Varney.
“Or you’ll what?” Adam said.
“I hate Englishmen,” said Luther. “Give me a look and I’ll bash you.”
“I’ll do it again, twice as hard,” Adam said.
Billy said, “My favorite Englishman is Ivanhoe.”
This was unexpected news to Robin. He had not taught Sir Walter Scott at the Sweetbrush school. Robin remembered Billy bent over a book on English history, slowly picking out each word and forming it in his mind to grasp and keep it. Later Robin discovered Billy had torn out the chapter on knights and the code of chivalry and had taken it with him when he ran away into the forest. Now Robin wondered if Billy might have slipped in and stolen Ivanhoe from the Sweetbrush library.
Billy said, “I like how Ivanhoe whipped that Boy Gilbert and rescued the beautiful Jew girl.”
“Bois-Guilbert?” asked Varney.
“ ‘Boy Gilbert’ is how you say it,” Billy said. “This ain’t France.”
“You are a fancier of romances, are you?” said Varney.
“Of what?”
“Of romantic novels.”
“Not that crap. No,” Billy said. “I don’t have time to waste on imaginary stories. I like to study the real English history. You ask Captain Robin if I don’t.”
“It’s true,” said Robin. “Billy is a great admirer of the Crusades.”
“I wish they would have another Crusade. I’d sign right up,” Billy said.
“You’re eager to kill Muslims?” said Varney.
“I’ll kill whatever they got over there,” Billy said.
Robin was watching all along the road for any intervention of luck or fate that would give him a chance to grab Billy’s shotgun and turn the weapon on the Leatherwoods. Robin could not flee because of the chain that locked him onto the chain of the Englishman. Sweat rolled down his chest inside his butternut coat. He could feel the letter from Sweetbrush against his heart.
“So to you Ivanhoe is an historical figure?” Varney said.
“What do you mean?” said Billy.
Varney’s tufted eyebrows lifted, and furrows trotted across his brow.
“I am a great admirer of Wilfred of Ivanhoe, just as you are,” Varney said. “Yes, I am a fan of Ivanhoe, indeed. Powerful chap. Handsome. Fearless. He fought in the Crusades against the Arabs beside Richard the Lionheart. Am I correct?”
“That’s right,” Billy said.
“Tell me if I am correct that Ivanhoe returned from the Holy Land to England and was betrayed and taken prisoner by the Norman barons. His friend Robin Hood helped him escape, if I recall the story truly.”
“You know your history,” Billy nodded.
Varney said, “The mysterious Black Knight appeared at the jousts as the champion of the beautiful prisoner Rebecca and in fair combat killed Sir Brian de Boy Gilbert, thus saving Rebecca’s life.”
Billy was excited. “Boy Gilbert was going to burn the Jew girl at the stake. But the Black Knight knocked him around and then stood over his hacked-up body. The Black Knight took off his helmet and it was Ivanhoe underneath. Ivanhoe looked at the damsel and told her to take her old Hebrew daddy and go back where they come from. He didn’t even rape her.”
“That was stupid of him,” said Luther.
“She was what is known in history as a damsel. He was a knight. Why the hell you think they called him Sir Ivanhoe? He don’t rape damsels,” Billy said.
“He’s really stupid, then,” said Luther.
“Who ever heard of a Jew damsel?” Adam said.
Varney said, “Wilfred of Ivanhoe always kept his prisoners well supplied with water. It was known by all. Even the Arabs in the Holy Land knew it—that if you were nabbed by Ivanhoe, you would never die of thirst. He might throw you off a castle parapet, but a man of great heart and humanity like Ivanhoe would never withhold water from a prisoner.”
“He’s making fun of you, Billy,” said Adam.
“No, he ain’t,” Billy said. “That’s the kind of fellow Ivanhoe was.”
Billy unhooked the goatskin bag of water from his belt and passed it to Varney, who emptied it with three gulps. Robin’s tongue touched his lips unbidden, but he would not ask the Leatherwoods for any favors.
“Where’s your uncle?” Robin said.
“He’s somewhere oiling up a new rope just for you,” said Luther.
“You shouldn’t of stobbed him. He was hurt real bad for a while. He almost died,” Adam said. “If you was going to stob him with your sword, you should of stobbed him good and killed him dead. Uncle Santana don’t forget, and he sure as hell don’t forgive.”
“He’s got a huge dent now where his right kidney used to be,” said Luther.
“He keeps his shirt on when he takes the ladies to bed,” Adam said.
“And he does lots of that,” said Luther.
“Not as much as he used to,” Adam said.
Varney gave the water bag back to Billy and said, “Thank you. This earns you a shiny gold star in heaven.”
“I’ve already got my ticket to heaven. Our daddy is a preacher. He keeps us prayed up and ready to go. But I ain’t ready to go just yet,” said Billy. “You prisoners step smart now. People are watching. You don’t want to look sloppy or scared.”
The odd little procession crossed West Avenue and passed into the heart of the town. Here in Texas they called it the capital city, but to Varney it was a small town. Several boys fell in behind and marched along, kicking up dust, mocking the prisoners and the red-throated Home Guards. The procession turned north on Colorado Street, walked a few minutes to Mesquite Street, and then turned east again. Swallows flitted overhead. The birds were making nests on the limestone walls of the old capitol. Pigeons ruffed up their feathers and strutted and cooed. At dusk, clouds of bats would fly out from the building. Men peered into the morning from doors and windows of saloons. In front of a Methodist church built of pine logs, a flea market was spread across the grass. Robin’s eyes searched the faces, hoping to find an ally who might help him escape. But the people were involved with their own daily despairs and turned away from the spectacle of three Home Guards marching two chained prisoners to confront their fate.
Copyright © 2007 by Edwin Shrake. Used by permission of John M. Hardy Publishing Co.
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