Tamer

Martin Foxx sat on the bench of the tumbleweed wagon—a stagecoach, but not one anyone would consider an improvement on riding horseback. Heck, Foxx could think of several people who’d rather be dragged behind a surrey than ride in the ol’ tumbleweed.

It was a rolling cage. Thick, tough lumber making up all the walls, the floors, the ceilings, and the only air came through the bars on the small windows. Its purpose was to circuit the West, picking up criminals from their local lockups and transporting them altogether to prison. There to be rehabilitated… punished… forgotten… whatever worked.

And the hell of it was that in one more day, Foxx would’ve been out of the tumbleweed wagon’s grasp forever. He’d had a good run as leader of the Markham Gang—the name a leftover from a man now gone. Foxx planned his heists careful, pulled ‘em off smart. No unnecessary gunplay, no getting into it with deputies or Pinkertons, just pure profit.

And none of the outlaw lifestyle for him, no thank you. He’d let dear departed Markham take the heat for leading the gang while he wore a mask. When a job was over, he took it off and idled into any saloon he wanted with a fat billfold. Never spending too hard, not even paying at the cathouse. Women came easy to Foxx. They seemed to have a sixth sense for dangerous men… the better to make a beeline straight for them.

But he shouldn’t be turning over what had happened in his head. He should be taking in the view while he still could. But there wasn’t much to see. Yuma State Prison existed because it was in the middle of nowhere—nowhere to run if you even broke out—and plenty of nowhere to go through to get there.

It didn’t make for an appealing view. Foxx didn’t think it would be much improved by prison bars. Or a number of fellow prisoners of the same like as his current companion, Albert Crane, a lowdown road agent who’d been caught somewhere between his fifth robbery and his sixth. Already, the conversational possibilities had been existed. Foxx worried he’d be as tiresome as Crane if he kept fixating on what’d been done to him.

His teeth bit into his tongue. But imagine it. He’d had enough. Heisted enough, stowed it away, decided he’d had his fill. He’d put his money into silver, take it all the way to the frontier, invest in some ranchland. A big, sprawling operation—too big to go bust. Start a family. Build an empire. Get to the point where all his misdeeds were just a charming story, like the background of any other rich son of a bitch.

Not good enough for John Wilson. He’d be getting charge of the gang, a well-oiled machine, plus all the loot Foxx’s plans had already made for him. But if Foxx was retired, he couldn’t make him anymore money.

So halfway through their bank heist, Foxx had taken a sharp blow to the back of the head. The next thing he knew, he was being turned in by the ‘bounty hunters’ of his old crew. It was enough to make you sick. No wonder Dante had written that the lowest circle of hell was for betrayers and mutineers.

It'd been real damn peaceful, though. Those few minutes when the job was about done and he was all but officially retired. Even when the butt of the rifle hit him, turned him into a jellyfish floating among fireworks going off at a sluggard’s pace. Been just like going to sleep, knowing he was dreaming, telling himself that when he really woke up, then he’d start that honest life his momma had always wanted him for it.

Foxx didn’t think he’d find that peacefulness again anytime soon.

He wasn’t angry.

He was just very, very short on calm.

He tried the window again. More desert rolling by. More boulders cropping into view. He wondered what God needed with so many boulders. Maybe scientists, years from now, would find out some way to turn it all into gold, bread, something useful.

Or maybe, generations back, the Injuns had gotten something out of them. Laid on top of one and gotten their hemorrhoids cured. That’d be nice. The Redskins might as well have enjoyed themselves before Columbus had come around and let them know they’d been savages long enough—civilization was on its way.

Well. Speak of the Devil. The squaw was back.

Foxx saw her through the window, so far back she could’ve been a child’s drawing. But even the silhouette of it conjured up the memory of when she got close. She was a pretty enough thing. Wore that sackcloth stuff that all Indians did. Plain face, the kind that didn’t get in the way when you’d rather think of a Gibson girl. And under the sackcloth, she did not embarrass her youth.

Foxx looked at Crane. He looked about right for the girl he’d paid for: unshaven, bulldog jowls and beady eyes, missing teeth and a scar around his throat like a dog collar. But he’d scrounged up a fistful of dollars and paid the tribe for a wife and now she was his, even though he’d gotten himself ditched.

Foxx wondered what she’d do when they got to Yuma. Camp out there, waiting for him to get parole and go back to his husbandly duties? Foxx wouldn’t bet against an Indian ever being able to find game and water… but around Yuma, he wouldn’t bet for her either.

A whipcrack rose over the dryly pealing desert winds. Foxx didn’t wince. There was no need to worry that it was aimed at him, though Genero might like it to be. Holland P. Genero was the lawman driving the tumbleweed wagon and at his spurring, the four coach horses reapplied themselves to the thoroughbraces. Giving the tumbleweed a burst of speed that made Foxx sway on his feet before he reoriented himself.

He sat down to better center himself until Genero was through with whatever impulse had induced him to pick up speed. Probably no more than boredom and errant sadism. He had nothing to vent his bitterness on beyond those horses. He was at least conscientious enough not to give Crane or Foxx a beating unless they asked for it—that was probably more laziness than anything else.

“Hey, Genero, slow up some,” Foxx called to the front of the wagon. “That squaw’s back. You’re making it hard for her to keep up.”

“She’s lucky I don’t take a potshot at her!” Genero shouted back. “For endangering the sanctity of an official US government transportation!”

Crane didn’t seem too perturbed at the prospect of his bought squaw catching some lead. “He probably just doesn’t want to waste the ammo. Bet the government doesn’t reimburse him for it—too afraid of him firing off a whole bandolier’s worth for the hell of it!”

Foxx raised an eyebrow. That was more insight than he’d expected out of young Crane. Maybe the boy’s downfall wasn’t all down to stupidity—he’d just had some bad luck.

Still, Foxx couldn’t muster up any interest in the particularities of Crane. His mind returned to his betrayal, and it embittered him as much as ever, and he spent the rest of the day in a fugue that did not light until the night, when it was too dangerous to travel.

Genero halted the wagon and tended to the horses and built a fire, but it wasn’t for his prisoners. They stayed locked inside the tumbleweed, huddling in thin blankets against the cold, and Foxx included Genero in some of his hatred. The man had no call to treat them so shabbily, unless he’d been ordered to deliver two pneumonia cases to Yuma. They could be let outside, stretch their legs, sleep around the fire—he wouldn’t even blame Genero for tying their hands and feet. But the Law so often got its jollies mistaking mercilessness for justice.

Foxx considered himself a reasonable man. He certainly didn’t steal from any dirt farmers, any but the big banks that could afford it. If he were a lawman, he’d treat criminals with a degree of fairness. It’d make it easier on himself in the long run: right then, he wouldn’t have particularly minded busting Genero’s head, owing to the shivering nights he’d spent as Genero’s charge. If Genero were a little more kindhearted, even Crane would probably hesitate to do the man wrong.

He tried to force his mind to clear. It was no good to take his antipathy towards John Wilson and make it Genero’s problem. A man could get real sick in the head, fixating on anger—letting it spread from the first target of his ire to any mere annoyance. Of course, what difference it made… him being sick in the head… was unclear to Foxx. He couldn’t much see how it’d benefit him in Yuma to be well-adjusted.