Howdy, e-pards. I thought you might like a short story.
Art
by Jeff
Arnold
“It’s awful.”
“It’s not very good, I suppose.”
“No, it’s awful.
Truly dreadful.”
“Well, I don’t know much about art.”
“Come on, Jake.
You don’t have to know much about art – in fact you don’t have to know anything
about art - to see that it is an offence.
If that is a true representation of a person’s artistic talent, he would
do well to take up woodwork.”
“What is it, do you suppose?”
“Well, I think it is meant to be up there at Taos, the
view from the village over east towards the valley. I guess anyway. But I only know that because that’s what he
always paints.”
“There’s something wrong with…”
“It’s the perspective.
The perspective is all wrong.
That buggy, I guess it is a buggy anyway, is bigger than the barn, yet
it’s behind it.”
“Yes, it does appear rather a large buggy. And the wheels are of different sizes.”
“And those colors!
I mean, they are lurid. When did
you last see a burnt-umber buggy? My son
could do better than that.”
“Yes.”
“And he’s six.”
“Yes.”
“But how dare he?
How dare he impose this on us? If
you had produced a daub like that you would do the decent thing and burn
it. Or at the most hang it in the
outhouse. But he has had it hung here,
in the schoolroom, for the whole town to see.
In the schoolroom! That will
likely have a harmful effect on the healthy growth of our town’s youth, that
will. Give them nightmares, probably.”
“Well, he’s kinda proud of his talent and –“
“Talent? Talent? There is one reason that this monstrosity is
on view in this town and one reason only and it has nothing whatever to do with
talent. It is because it was painted by
the… Oh, hello, Marshal.”
Marshal Billings walked over, stood beside the men with
his hands behind his back and his head to one side and waited for a
compliment. Or, given that both Jake Martin
and Henry Bradford were there, two.
“Er, we were just looking at your painting,
Marshal. Very, er, original. And striking.
Um, interesting coloration. It’s
the view up at Taos out over the valley, unless I am mistaken?”
The marshal frowned rather. This was hardly the fulsome praise he had
attended. Still, they had recognized the
view and called the painting interesting.
“Yes, indeed, you could see that, of course. It is a beautiful view, that, up there at
Taos, and I have always admired it. I
wished to capture it in oils for posterity, you might say, and for the whole
town to admire without having to ride out there so far.” He cocked his head to the other side now, as
if the picture might improve from this angle.
“Yes, one of my better efforts, I think.”
Henry started coughing and seemed to have some
difficulty swallowing. Jake squeezed his
arm, quite tightly in fact, and proffered his handkerchief. “You got that cough again, Henry? You ought to get the doc to look at that, you
know. Good day, Marshal. We look forward to seeing your next magnum
opus.”
Chief of Police Thomas Billings reflected. It was true, he was not a typical
artist. If, that is, you have a rather
old-fashioned idea of artists as smock-wearing, long-haired sensitive fellows
in berets. Thos. Billings wasn’t like
that. He wasn’t like that at all. In fact he was a mean son-of-a-bitch. In a way this was a good thing, for aesthetic
sensitivity was not really the foremost quality required of the leading police
officer of a town like Las Vegas, NMT.
It was far more useful to be fast and accurate with a firearm and to
have two great hams as fists. Essential,
in fact. Without these attributes, a
lawman in such a wide-open town as Las Vegas, NMT would not last long. And Thomas Billings (no one called him Tom;
no one called him Thomas, come to that) had indeed lasted, lasted over eighteen
months. He had clubbed to the floor or
shot to the ground or otherwise rendered unconscious, then prodded, kicked or dragged
to jail and locked up in its insalubrious cells enough men (and one woman) to
make up a whole church congregation. Had
there been a church.
But he did like to paint. He knew he was good at it, had a special
talent, and it gave him great pleasure to depict nature’s beauty (he stuck to
nature’s beauty because he was not quite as proficient at figures) for the
benefit of his fellow citizens. He loved
to take a candid canvas and from this pure nothing, create, well, certainly a
work of art if not, on occasions, why not, even a masterpiece. And it made him feel good that people viewed
him as not just a damn good lawman – he was that, certainly – but also as a man
with other talents. Gifted, if you
like. And cultured. Yes.
As far as civic buildings went, they had a court house
and a jail, of course, and a white-painted shack that now did duty as a
schoolhouse. They would need a church
next, no doubt, a proper Presbyterian one, not the adobe Catholic place the
Mexes used, but then after that, why not, an art gallery.
And he felt that the terrain out there around Taos and
down here in San Miguel County was truly susceptible to painting. A landscape like that could inspire a school
of art. Future painters would come and
interpret its beauty for the art galleries of the world. That Louver in Paris. And the one in Florence, Italy. And he was the first. The pioneer.
Apart from those two fellows who came through on Fremont’s expedition
back in the forties and painted a bit.
But who remembered them now?
But to work, to work.
He walked back across the plaza, past the windmill, to his office. He sat at the desk which he had carefully
positioned so that as he worked he had the best sight of two early works,
‘Sunset, Taos’ and ‘View from Taos’.
***
Buffalo John’s parents, a Negro soldier from Georgia and
a Chiricahua Apache woman, had not christened him with the name Buffalo John. They had not in fact christened him at
all. And he had not earned his name
because of a career as a buffalo hunter; still less because he resembled in any
way the famed Buffalo Bill. It was
because he resembled a buffalo. He was
huge, slightly hump-backed and his head was covered with tight, curly
black-brown hair that entirely matched a buffalo’s coat. There were other similarities: he was rather
pungent, extremely strong and dangerous when approached. He had, although no one in New Mexico
Territory knew it, been charged with assault in Texas and skipped bail,
drifting north and west along the course of the Rio Grande. He had worked for a
stretch as a teamster at Mr. Chisum’s ranch along the Pecos but had been
dismissed for one drunken brawl too many, leading to one too many cowboy with a
broken head. He had come north to Las
Vegas looking for work. But he hadn’t
found any. The fact that he was none too
bright did not help in his search. And
now Buffalo John was drinking, copiously, in the Flores Saloon on the plaza,
looking out morosely through the open door at the windmill in the square.
Buffalo John did not like this windmill. It stood high upon a square wooden frame that
looked disconcertingly like a gallows.
And indeed, it did service as exactly that whenever the vigilantes felt
the need to save the local authorities the bother and cost of legal process and
deal with malefactors a little more expeditiously. Put more simply, they hauled men out of the jail
and hanged them from the windmill. The
windmill now squeaked as it turned in the warm breeze. Buffalo John scowled and turned back to the
bar, ordering another pint of wine.
Flores’s was not crowded. Most men at that hour were working. But Cesar Romero and Jesus Martinez were
standing at the bar, discussing the price of ten head of cattle that Martinez
thought to be worth eight dollars a head less than Romero did. The discussion
was oblique, polite and punctuated by a not infrequent raising of a rough glass
to the lips but both parties were very determined nevertheless and final
agreement on the sale price was far away, if not unreachable.
However, as Buffalo John, slightly unsteady from the
wine he had taken, swung back towards the bar from his study of the windmill in
the plaza, he barged against Jesus and the earthenware jug of wine that stood
on the counter between them teetered, wobbled, then fell to the wooden floor
with a smash, staining the bottom of both Cesar and Jesus’s pale-colored pants
legs red. They sprang apart and dabbed
at their trousers, at first annoyed but then realizing that accidents can happen,
it was nothing, and Jesus shrugged his shoulders at the big man, saying, “No
matter, señor,” and turned to order another jug.
“Waddya mean, ‘no matter’?”
Jesus was surprised by the aggression shown. “It is not important, señor, do not
worry. It is nothing.”
“Are you implying that it was my fault?”
Now Jesus and Cesar exchanged looks. Buffalo John insisted.
“Don’t turn your back on me, you greaser.”
“Look, señor, I do not turn my back on you. I do not offend you. It was a simple accident. The wine spilled. It was an accident. Look, let me please buy you a drink.”
“I ain’t drinking with no damned greaser. You spill your wine and get some on my boot,
then blame me? The hell with that. You get down there and lick it off.”
Cesar intervened.
“Señor, I-“
“Don’t keep calling me a damn señor. I’m an American. You call me Mister. And you lick the wine off my boots. Now.”
Jesus gritted his teeth, then spoke, quietly. He used neither “señor” nor “mister”. “No, I will not do that.”
Buffalo John pushed Jesus against the shoulder with
the flat of his hand, hard, hard enough to send him cannoning into his
friend. Jesus recovered his balance,
then lashed out at Buffalo John with his fist.
It was a futile attempt. The big
Texan with surprising agility simply took one pace backwards and Jesus once
more lost his balance, this time tumbling to the floor. The disturbance had alerted the bar tender,
who sent a boy running across the plaza and reached under the counter for the
twelve-gauge scattergun he kept there.
Cesar, coming to the aid of his friend, had had enough and he pulled out
a small knife. Buffalo John took one
look at it and drew a large, ugly black .44 from his belt, leveled it calmly at
Cesar’s stomach and fired. Within the
confines of the small wooden saloon, the shot was a mighty roar and blue gun-smoke
swirled. Cesar was caught amidships and grunted
as he slumped backwards to the floor. A
deep redness began immediately to stain his shirt, matching the wine stain on
his pants, except that in the case of the shirt it was accompanied by a black
powder burn. The barman brought out the
shotgun and aimed it at the Texan. Jesus,
in a rage, shouted to the bar tender, “Give me that!” for, having no firearm
himself, he wished to shoot Buffalo John with the twelve-gauge. The bar tender shook his head and Jesus made
a grab for the gun. As they tussled,
Buffalo John aimed his .44 once more, squarely at the head of Jesus. He drew back the hammer and shouted, “Hey,
greaser!”
The blow was such a hard one that it broke Billings’s
good Winchester rifle in two. He had
swung it with all his considerable might at that spot just above the nape of
the man’s neck and below the skull. It
was perfectly aimed because Buffalo John simply folded up like a house of cards
and collapsed to the floor. But Billings
was damn sorry about the Winchester.
He looked at the Mex on the floor, gutshot. Well, he wouldn’t see tomorrow. The other one stood, shocked, at the bar and
the bar tender put his shotgun away.
Billings looked at him interrogatively and the barman shrugged. “Buffalo John was drunk. Jesus and Cesar here did nothing to provoke
him. On the contrary, they were very
polite. It was a deliberate aggression,
Marshal, with no motive except orneriness and drunken meanness.”
Billings nodded and grabbed Buffalo John’s
collar. The job of dragging him over to
the jail was a hard one, for all his strength, but he got him there and threw
him in a cell. He started to write out a
report for the judge.
***
The next morning the pain from the blow he had
received and the raging ache of the hangover vied for control of the head of
Buffalo John. He couldn’t remember ever
feeling worse, in quite a long career of waking up in cells. He screwed up his eyes and saw the policeman
who had, presumably, hit him. He must
have used a sledgehammer. He spat dryly and
asked, “Marshal?”
“I don’t know why everyone calls me ‘Marshal’. I am Chief of Police.”
“Yeah, well, Chief of Police then. Can I have some water?”
“Later. I’m
busy.”
He did indeed appear to be engaged in some work at his
desk, head down.
“I shot someone, didn’t I?”
“You did. He
died in the night too. So you’re on a
charge of willful homicide. They’ll hang
you, Buffalo John. The only question is
who’ll do it, the official hangman or the Vigilance Committee. Let me tell you, if they come for you tonight
I shall do what I can to keep you safe for I prefer a more formal hanging but I
warn you now that I ain’t going to risk my own neck for you and if they ask
insistent enough they’ll get the keys to that cell and then goodnight.”
“You’d let them hang me?”
“I done told you.
You’re going to be hanged either way.
You better get used to the idea.”
Buffalo
John grunted and turned back to his bunk to nurse his head.
Billings
went back to his painting.
***
The good citizens of Las Vegas, or at least about
thirty of the male ones, had had enough of murderers, thieves and
bunko-steerers bringing their town into disrepute and attracting even worse
rabble to the district. And Cesar Romero
had been a popular fellow, a decent cattle farmer and businessman. The thug who had callously shot him down was
alive and well in the jailhouse but he wasn’t going to stay that way. Justice in the legal sense of the word was
too slow and too risky. He might get
away with it from “lack of evidence” or even escape from the jail – it wouldn’t
be the first time. No, the hour had come
to resort to a speedier justice. As
night fell, these thirty men, all well-armed and some masked, gathered in the
plaza, talking quietly to each other.
The cold moon shone whitely and the windmill cast a long shadow. At a signal the men walked over to the jail.
Billings knew they were coming. He wasn’t afraid of them but he was a
realist. There was a knocking at the
door.
“Who is it?”
“We want to speak to you, Marshal.”
“Go ahead.”
“Open the door, please.”
“I ain’t that foolish, whoever you are. Say what you got to say through the door.”
“Marshal, let’s be sensible about this. There are thirty of us out here, all
well-armed and all determined. We want
Buffalo John.”
Buffalo John in his cell looked very unhappy. He whispered forcefully at Billings, “Chief
of Police, sir, don’t hand me over.
They’ll kill me!”
Billings replied calmly, “Well, it’s what you
deserve. Hold your peace.”
The voice resumed from outside. “Marshal?”
“I ain’t a marshal.
Why does everyone call me Marshal?
I’m Chief of Police.”
“Come on, Billings, please. Let’s just do this. We’ll give you five minutes then we will let
rip with these rifles and shotguns and you yourself will likely be hurt. Your jail will certainly not be the same
again.”
Billings knew he would have to come to some
arrangement. He was not about to risk
his life over the fate of such trash as Buffalo John. Still, he was Chief of Police. He took a shotgun from the rack, broke it, inserted
two shells and snapped it back. He put
more shells in his jacket pocket. He
unlocked the door.
Standing on the boardwalk, Thomas Billings looked and
felt pretty tough. His shotgun was
leveled at the mob and he spoke without a tremor. “Now listen, you men. I am the law round here and the fellow in
there, guilty or not, will receive due process and a fair trial. He will stay in my jail till the judge comes
from Santa Fe or tells me to send the varmint there, in which case I will take
him. But I will shoot the first man who
tries to take him from me.” He clawed
back the two hammers.
It was a brave speech.
And it almost worked. The crowd
may have been heavily armed and it may have had a great superiority of numbers
but each individual member was reluctant to be the first to press forward and
walk straight into the blast of the marshal’s shotgun. There was a kind of stand-off. It was broken by Henry Bradford, vigilante
and art critic, who had had the good sense to separate himself from the bunch
and now came up softly behind Billings with a Colt .45 raised.
“I’ll take that shotgun, Marshal.”
Billings was not an easy man to frighten. But he knew what was what. He shrugged, held the shotgun at arm’s length
and put the other hand in the air.
Bradford took the gun.
“Let’s go inside, shall we?”
As Billings entered his office he could see Buffalo
John through the bars looking even unhappier than before.
Bradford had clearly taken charge. “Get him out of there, boys.”
A man snatched the keys from the hook and opened the
cell door. Two others grabbed its occupant,
one at each arm, and started to pull him out.
But Buffalo John did not wish to renounce the hospitality of his host
and he was a very strong man. Others
went to help. It finally took five of
them to get Buffalo John out of the cell and standing in the middle of the
office. He pleaded. “Mr. Billings, please. This ain’t right. I know I’m a bad man and I gotta pay for
that. But if you let them take me that’s
murder too, and you will be an accessory.
Please, Mr. Billings.”
Thomas Billings thought he had a point. And he was pleased that someone was finally
addressing him properly by his name.
“I’d like to help you, Buffalo John. But I’m not exactly a free agent here, do you
see?”
A man was busily tying the Texan’s hands behind his
back.
Buffalo John grunted and his head fell to his
chest. Now he addressed the
vigilantes. Not angrily or even
pleading, just resigned. “Please, you
men, give me at least five minutes to make my peace with the Lord. You can’t deny me that. Let me pray a moment.”
Billings was surprised. He had never pegged Buffalo John for a
religious man. Still, the sight of a
noose does things to a fellow. He spoke
up on his behalf. “Give him five
minutes, boys. Go on. Wait outside.
We ain’t going nowhere.”
Billings’s authority still held. They grumbled a bit but shrugged and trooped
out to the boardwalk. Bradford put his
head back through the door. “Remember
we’re here, Marshal, and our guns are loaded.
Five minutes.” Billings was
starting to dislike this Henry Bradford.
Buffalo John slumped to a chair. “Thank you, Mr. Billings.”
“I’ll leave you alone for a moment.”
“No! Don’t
go! Just sit, please.”
Billings nodded and sat. Buffalo John stared into space. The minutes ticked by. Billings took out his watch.
“You know, that’s beautiful.”
“What is?”
“That picture there on the wall. A great artist must of done that. It’s mighty fine.”
“You like it?”
“Why, I sure do.
I never had no talent of that kind.
But that fellow sure could paint a picture. At least I go to meet my maker and something
beautiful is the last thing I see on earth.
That’s worth a lot, Mr. Billings, don’t you think? Who is it by?”
“You don’t know?”
Billings thought he must be trying flattery. But he was too simple for that. He really didn’t know. “You don’t know the artist?”
“Hell, no. I
don’t know any artists. Is it someone
from round here? It sure is mighty
pretty.”
Billings did not answer. He rested his elbow on the table and put his
hand to his chin in thought, then he stood, walked over and opened the door
again. “Bradford?”
“We’re ready.”
“No, I want to talk to you.”
Bradford shrugged and walked back in.
“I’ve changed my mind.
You ain’t gonna lynch Buffalo John.
In fact you ain’t gonna lynch anyone.
In fact I’m gonna clap you in the cell next to him for attempted
murder.”
“What?
Marshal, you’re-“
“And if you call me ‘Marshal’ once more I’ll put you
in the same cell as John.”
The other townsmen had crowded at the door. Billings addressed them: “Listen, boys, I
understand what you want and up to a point I sympathize with your aims but let
me tell you, and you had better believe it, that any one of you I recognize,
and that’s quite a few, who is still here by the time I have finished this
little speech here is going to be in that cell with Buffalo John and will
appear at the same assizes as John on a charge of attempted unlawful
homicide. And I mean it. I have decided.” He took a rifle from the rack and levered a
round into the breech. “I am the Chief
of Police of Las Vegas, San Miguel County, New Mexico Territory, duly sworn and
appointed, and I don’t intend to just stand by and let…” But the boardwalk was empty.
Billings turned towards Henry Bradford and picked up
the keys. “After you, Mr. Bradford. I’ll put you in a different cell from
John. It might be better for your
health. This one here would be
good. From here you get a good direct
view of ‘Sunset, Taos.’ One of my better
efforts, I think.”
Henry Bradford began to cough.
***
“And to think it was painted back in 1878. It’s so modern!”
“Mmm.”
“I love the courage of primitivism.”
“Yes, dear, but I fear this was a primitive in another
sense.”
“Oh, but surely you like it, Georgia? The deliberate bizarreness of the colors is
positively Van Gogh. And look at that
violent distortion of the perspective – it could be Picasso! Those wagon wheels! It’s a sort of Cézanne landscape which
foreshadows cubism. It’s a masterpiece.”
“If you say so, dear.
Now what about a cup of tea?”
