Chapter 6 Trouble in Taos Part 4 The Nuggets Fly

Here’s part four of chapter six of Trouble in Taos. This is a longer post because this is the action part of chapter. I once heard someone refer to the action part of the chapter as the nugget. Well, with Slimy, the action part is where people begin to lose their nuggets. If you want to see more nuggets fly, you can get this story on Amazon.

Slimy was good at diggin’ and good at killin’, but I never heard anyone say that he was good at anything else. So I didn’t hold out much hope that he was good at hiding. I didn’t hear gunshots right away, but I figured I would soon. Slimy could hardly miss with those shotguns, but unless his targets stayed in a tight group, I didn’t figure slimy had a chance of killin’ all four.

There was nothing I could do, and the piece of lumber in my hand was pathetic, but still I didn’t drop it as I followed the bad guys into Saint Frank’s.

Saint Frank’s was the biggest building in town unless you count the Pueblo. Unlike the Pueblo, which was a warren of Indian coves, Saint Frank’s was pretty much one large room. I didn’t see anywhere where Slimy might hide, but I also didn’t see Slimy, just Father Julio and the four men standing in front of Rutherford James’s casket.

“I am sorry, my sons,” said Father Julio, “but the viewing will not be until tonight.”

The casket was closed, though it had been open before. I could think of only one reason Father Julio was trying to keep those four fellers from opening the casket.

Now, Slimy would never have thought to hide in a casket, but Father Julio was a different type. Priests lived uncommon long for unarmed men wanderin’ in a land where bullets flew like horseflies. Might be the Lord protected them, but I was betting a clever thought or two had something to do with it.

“We’re here now, Padre,” said the ugly one, “so the viewing is now.”

Father Julio might be a clever enough fella, but his cunning, wit, or divine inspiration failed him under the pressure. He just stood in front of four armed men twice his size and said in a cracked voice, “I forbid it.”

I can’t blame Father Julio for losing his nerve. After all, he wasn’t much bigger than me, and that’s not big at all. I think he was trying to use the “they believe you when you’re angry” trick I thought I had invented a few minutes before. It didn’t seem to be working for him. Forbid’s not a great word to use with the “they believe you when you’re angry” trick.

When you tell four men, particularly four large men with guns, that you forbid something, unless you have five bigger men with bigger guns backing you up, the only likely effect is that they will want to do the very thing you forbid. They’ll probably want to do that thing even more than before, ’cause nobody wants a scrawny priest telling them what to do.

I know that’s true, ’cause Estevo told me so, and he was a good Catholic. He said it’s even truer of Catholics and nine-year-old boys than other folk, but the Catholics put up with it. 

 Religion, according to Estevo, is all about earning credit for doing things you don’t want do, and not doing things you do want to do. Obeying a scrawny priest you could knock over with one inebriated breath is a good way to get credits, even more if he shouts, “I forbid.” Estevo wasn’t too sure what the credits were for, except maybe heaven, which sounds like a place where nobody does anything they want to do.

Unless they like to play the harp.

I don’t much get religion, but I get what Estevo said about Catholics not wanting to obey scrawny priests. I’m not so sure what the bit about nine-year-old boys was about. It’s been a long time since I was nine, and I never raised any boys of my own.

So Father Julio tried to set his feet, but as I mentioned before, he wasn’t a very big man, and the fellers he was trying to block were pretty good sized. The padre kept his body stiff, but the four men moved him aside like you might a sticky door.

The casket was standing about a foot off the floor on a stand. I’m not sure where that stand came from – I didn’t make it; maybe all the churches have ’em – they’re just high enough so that the edge of the coffin stood at belt height. That is, belt height for me or maybe Father Julio, but considerably shorter than belt-high for these four monsters.

All four men reached down to lift the lid off the casket, and so when they saw Slimy lying there on top of Rutherford James, their hands were full of casket lid instead of something more useful for the situation, like a 45.

I still don’t know what I was doin’, but that’s the moment I decided to charge those bruisers, yellin’ and wavin’ my stick. I might have hit one too. I’d like to think I did, but it probably didn’t make much difference.

They weren’t so gentle with me as they’d been with Father Julio. The biggest one hit me in the chest with his elbow and knocked me back onto my ass.

The goon saved my life.

While the four men were either pushin’ Father Julio, throwing the casket lid, or elbowin’ me out of the way, Slimy was reaching for his shotguns.

I don’t know if Slimy aimed at each individual and unloaded four quick shots, or if he just held his guns apart and fired a single spread. Saint Frank’s has a high hard roof. It’s a precious loud place for gunfire. It sounded like Slimy was firin’ cannons instead of scatterguns.

From my perspective, one moment there were four tall men and one short man standing over a casket, and then the next moment they were all the same height, but only Father Julio still had his head. I sat there on the floor holding my ears, waiting for the boom to stop bouncing off those hard church walls.

When I sat back up, it looked like everyone was dead. The casket was blown back off the stand. Slimy and Rutherford were tangled together behind it. Father Julio was covered in blood from the neck up.

Costner's been in some good movies - but Silvarado is the only one where I liked him.

Chapter 6 Trouble in Taos Part 3 Bragging to Bad Guys

This is Part three. If you’re wondering what it’s part three of, then maybe you should stop here and read parts one and two. Or better yet, go to Amazon, buy my story and then buy copies for everyone you know, and half the people you’ve forgotten. It’s coming holiday time, and won’t you feel better making sure a starving writer gets Pop Tarts in his stocking?

Anyway – here’s part three.

If you were looking to spy on anythin’ in Taos, the steeple of Saint Frank’s was the best place to be. Even today it’s the tallest spot in town, and it sits like a mule in the middle of the main road. It sits so stubborn that the road has to split go around it. Even from where we were workin’ I could see all the way down the road to where it became more trail than street.

It was when I saw them four fellas comin’ into town and heading right into the Rosa Linda that it all came together for me. These men were not casual, mid-day drinkers, and Estevo, who knew damn well who killed Rutherford James, was not the type to heroically keep his mouth shut.

I looked over at Slimy with my good eye, and he of course was diggin’ and talkin’ to my bad eye. “So that musta been Raisin, ’cause she was the bitch that whelped Tunny. So it was Tunny that barked, ’cause Raisin was dead by then, when her leg swelled up so bad…”

“Slimy!”

“That barkin’ was so loud that Momma woked up, and Momma never woked much when she was drinkin”.

“Slimy!”

Slimy looked surprised. I don’t know if he was surprised to be looking at my good eye, which he rarely saw, or he was surprised that I interrupted one of his stories, which I had never done before.

“Slimy, you have to go hide.”

“Hide?”

“There’s four men comin’ to kill ya.”

Slimy didn’t say anything. He balanced his chin on the end of his shovel and took it all in. Slimy was accustomed to violence, but advanced warning was new to him. So was running and hiding.

“Go hide in the church,” I said.

“Where do I hide in thar?”

“Just find someplace.”

Slimy didn’t move at first. He just stood there in his ditch and stared at me. Finally he dropped his shovel.

“Alright,” he said, and he climbed out of his ditch and went into the church.

I don’t know if Estevo was holding out or the men were having a beer, but they didn’t come out of the Rosa Linda for nearly an hour. It had me hopin’ I was wrong about ’em, or about Estevo.

I wasn’t. They came straight over to Saint Frank’s. Estevo knew Slimy and me had a job there.

Now, in all these western novels, and I guess this is one too, but I’m hopin’ it’s a bit more truthful than the others…

Where was I?

Oh yeah.

In all those other western novels, the bad guys are always big bruisers. I’d like to tell you that these fellers were little guys, or even just middlin’, ’cause as you might have picked up, I kinda like to be different.

But these guys were monsters. The smallest was half a head taller than me, and he was a fair bit smaller than the ugly one that did all the talkin’.

Maybe if you’re an Indian agent and you plan on selling guns and booze to Indians, you hire the biggest fellers you can find to stand with you.

Anyway, the particularly big and ugly one says to me, “Hey Cock-eyed, are you Beach?”

“Nah,” I said, “the name’s Bego. Beach digs the holes, I build the latrines.”

“Ain’t that somethin’ to brag on,” said the ugly one. The other fellers laughed. I guess I woulda laughed, too, if it weren’t me that just bragged about building outhouses.

“So where’s Beach, Shitbox Man?”

“I dunno. He ain’t in his ditch.”

“I can see that. Where’d he go?”

“Hell,” I said, because I was mad and wanted to hit someone, but these fellers were much too big to mess with, “I told you I don’t know!”

I learned something about lying that day. I’m sure that Father Gonzalez wouldn’t approve me passing it on, and if there are any children reading this, you need to skip over the next couple of lines.

This is what I learned. People don’t believe you when you’re tryin’ to convince ’em, but they will believe you if you sound mad.

The four men stared at me. I did my best to stay mad, because that was just about the scariest moment in my life to that point.

“Yeah, alright, Cross-eye,” said the ugly one. I wanted to shout that I was cock-eyed and not cross-eyed, but it sounded too much like my brag about building shit boxes instead of digging them, so I just spit and picked up a scrap of lumber.

The ugly one laughed. “Well boys,” he said, “we better be movin’ on before our little shit-house builder takes to us with his stick.”

They all laughed, but they also left, so I felt a little better. Maybe I scared them some – well, it was a nice thought, anyway.

But I didn’t feel so good when I saw them go into the church.

Love this movie - Little Big Man

Chapter 6 Trouble in Taos Part 2 Spotting Trouble

This is part 2 of… Well, read the title. If you want part 1 here’s the link. You don’t really need it because it’s nothing but nonsense about global warming and aero planes. If you want to buy the book – please do. link

It was hot, but not as hot as it is now. Slimy and me was working together for the first time. As a matter of fact we were at church, but we was workin’, not going there for preaching.

There was a different padre at Saint Frank’s then, Father Julio. I’m not partial to religious men, but Father Julio wasn’t too bad. He was the first living client I had in Taos.

You see, Father Julio admired the coffin I made for Rutherford James and asked me if I’d be insulted workin’ on a couple nice outhouses for behind the church. He had this idea that men and women shouldn’t use the same shitter, so he wanted one for each. He thought I should carve Jesus on the men’s door and Mary on the women’s.

I told him that I didn’t much know what they looked like, so maybe I should carve a devil for the men and an angel for the women.

We finally decided to put hombres and mujeres in fancy letters. I guess Father Julio didn’t much care for devils.

Well, Father Julio wanted a whole new set up, so he hired Slimy to dig two new pits, and while Slimy was diggin’, I was banging together the planks for the walls and frame (I already had the doors done).

Now, Slimy was a peculiar character. I guess you knew that, but one way he was peculiar was the way he dressed. He wore all his clothes, all the time.

It was a hot day, and Slimy was digging a couple ditches, but he was wearing all his clothes, including that oversized duster. Ya gotta figure he was hot as hell in that damn thing, but there he was, digging ditches with his big fool coat on.

He was tellin’ me some story. I only say that because Slimy was always tellin’ me a story, but like usual I wasn’t payin’ any attention. I just kept my bad eye pointed his way as I worked, and that was good enough for him.

It was my good eye that spotted trouble.

A real thinking man might figure that one feller, especially a feller like Rutherford James, couldn’t work all by himself gettin’ all those guns and liquor to so many Indians. It just stood to reason a feller like that had people that worked for him. It also stood to reason that those people might not like a dirt-ditch-digger killin’ the Indian agent that was payin’ them so much money.

It just goes to show that no one at the Rosa Linda was a real thinking man, ’cause even Estevo didn’t think of it, or if he did, he didn’t say anything.

Might be trouble ahead for Slimy and Walter.  Maybe a number 6