The Teamster

The boy reconnoitered continuously as he moved through the streets, his pale, gray eyes moving beneath the frayed bill of his greasy woolen cap, scanning the wide, rutted thoroughfares for dropped coins, watches, glass vials – anything that might be jostled from the thousands of pockets crossing this threshold of the Overland Trail.

Toward evening when he had nowhere else to go the boy would climb stacks of discarded crates that choked the spaces between buildings. From there he could observe wagon trains forming for the trip west. Perched like a gargoyle in the waning daylight he would stare at the movement of animals and people and wagons until the images turned soft and grainy in the gathering darkness. Then he would climb down, and searching out a sleeping space, fold himself under his ragged canvas coat, knees bent to his chest, hoping for a dream that would carry him far out onto the prairie.

One morning the sky darkened under a storm that soaked Westport, turning the wide streets into bogs. By noon the hot, mephitic air carried the sucking sounds of boots and hooves and wheels that seemed too clogged and heavy to move at all. The hungry boy attempted to hopscotch his way across the churned quagmire of the main emigrant road, and as he moved he heard sounds of struggle. He looked up to see a clay-splattered teamster wrestle for control of a brace of tall, Missouri-bred mules.
Hold, Goddamn ye, hold now, he cursed.
The animals reared, white-eyed, ears flattened. Their jaws opened and shut as they sidestepped, tossing their heads, trying to turn away.
See here, ye damnable sonsofbitches.

The teamster’s temper fed the animals’ panic. He began hazing them with the muddy ends of their rope leads, shooting heavy globs of mud in every direction until finally a wad struck one of the animals above the eye.
The long, anvil-shaped head jerked upward as the mule simultaneously crouched on its haunches. A single, explosive movement took up the slack of the lead with a loud pop, and the force tore the line from the teamster’s hand. The mule hit full speed within yards, tailing mud fifteen feet in the air as it ran.

The boy’s reaction was pure reflex; he had little experience with livestock. The mule sucked past him and he saw the line whip up out of the mud, so he reached for it. It bounced into his hands, which closed so quickly he didn’t have time to think about consequence.

The force of the runaway jerked him out of his worn brogans, which sat empty in the muck as the boy was pulled headlong into the street. He managed to close his eyes before his face buried in the mud - the impact filled his open mouth with gritty, wet clay, yet he kept his grip even as his head and shoulders plowed a wet furrow past the wagons and spectators that lined the street.

And suddenly it was over; the mule stopped. At first glance it seemed the boy was the reason, but in truth, the animal simply halted at the rise of a small butterfly from the edge of a puddle in the middle of the street.
A crowd gathered. The boy didn’t move. Then he made a coughing sound, spat some muck and let go of the lead. His abraded palms oozed blood. His hair was matted with manure and mud, his face barely recognizable.

The teamster burst through the crowd to kneel beside him. Gently he turned the boy, whose shirt was ripped down the front to his waist, which lay exposed with his trousers and drawers pulled low, everything filled with mud.
By God, said the teamster, ye shoon’t have done it boy. But I’m glad ye did.
The boy reached trembling hands to his face and scraped mud from his eyelids. He spat again and blinked his eyes open, holding his hands in front of his face.
Can you see? Are ye blinded?
No. No, I ain’t blind.

The boy sat up, inspected himself, began scooping mud from inside the waistband of his trousers. He paused, looked around at the gathered crowd and continued cleaning himself. The onlookers murmured and began moving off. The teamster rose, grabbed the mule’s headstall, rubbed the animal’s nose.
They be knotheads, ain’t they?
The boy, still sitting in the street, picked mud from his socks.
Seen my shoes anywheres?
Right where you left ‘em. Over there, next to the walk.
The boy rose slowly, like something primeval emerging from the ooze, avalanches of slop sliding down his body. He moved to his shoes, pulling his sodden socks from his feet. He picked up the brogans and started away.
Hold on, boy.
The boy stopped, still facing away from the teamster.
Ye hungry? I got frijoles and hard biscuit. Come along, if ye choose.
The teamster started down the street, leading the mule. Without a word, the boy turned and followed.

---

Nighthawks chittered and swooped against the evening sky, reddened in the west where clouds shelved in preparation for distant storms that would flash and rumble on the horizon throughout the night.
At one end of the main street freight wagons were parked in long rows, packed and ready, the drivers making camp in the passageways between.

Silhouetted by his cooking fire the teamster lifted a heavy pot from the ashes; he handed the boy a tin plate heaped with beans, which were quickly set upon, the boy’s spoon sounds setting a metallic cadence against the night chorale of human and animal noises.
There’s more if ye need it.

The teamster pulled up an empty nail keg and sat. From his waistcoat he produced a small clay pipe, which he filled and lit as he watched the boy eat. In the orange firelight the boy resembled an ancient totem, cracked and fissured where the dried muck still clung to his skin and clothing. His hair was a headdress of splayed rows of dark, beaded strings of mud.

The teamster sucked his pipe and pulled his red beard. Long years on the trail had pressed his eyes to a squint, gullied deep furrows down his cheeks and across his forehead. When the boy sat down to a second helping he spoke.
Must be awhile since ye et.
The boy looked up.
Never seen none so eager for my board. That’s a fact. Go ahead, boy, eat up. Throw ‘er out otherways.
He waited another minute.
Your people camped hereabouts?
The boy shook his head, wiped his mouth on his crusty sleeve.
No? Where then?
Got none.
Well now.
I’m goin’ west anyways.
That so? And how will ye go?
The boy shrugged.
No outfit, then.
The boy looked at the teamster, shook his head.
Need possibles, boy. And transport. Ye plan to walk your way across the wilderness?
Could if I decide to, I reckon.
What will ye eat?
Ain’t got to that yet.
No. No, well…
The teamster tapped the ash from his pipe, stood.
Ye saved me a mule today. Let’s see what can be done here.
He climbed into the back of the nearest wagon.
Come up here, boy.
He lit a small lantern as the boy climbed under the heavy canvas cover. He tossed a flannel shirt at the boy’s feet.
See if that’s a fit.
The boy looked at him.
Go ahead. Your own h’ain’t much wear left to it.
The boy stripped off his muddy, torn shirt, dropped it with a clunk on the wagon deck. In the soft light his neck and hands were the color of leather gloves; between patches of mud the skin of his torso and shoulders shone like alabaster. The teamster’s eyes narrowed.
Strong lad, ain’t ye?

It took a moment for the words to register. When they did, the air around the boy seemed to hum. He paused, as if to sort out the source of a strange sound, and turned his head toward the teamster just as the man’s large hands closed upon his shoulders, forcing him down on his stomach to the wagon floor.

They struggled in silence. The teamster pinned the boy to the wagon’s rough floor, scraping his elbows and cheek as he tried to scuttle from under the man's heavy weight. The teamster’s face pressed close to the boy’s ear and the boy heard the wheezy breath, smelled the stale tobacco and coffee, felt the scratch of the beard. The boy flailed, clawing the air. It all happened in seconds. The teamster yanked hard at the boy’s worn trousers, grunting with each pull. There were ripping sounds. In desperation the boy flung his arms forward, seeking any handhold. Then he felt a metallic surface and closed his hand on it -- a heavy, cast iron pot lid.
Another pull and his trousers gave way; the boy felt the night air on his buttocks. The teamster sat back on his knees and raised himself slightly as the boy flipped over, swinging the lid with both hands. There was a solid, metallic sound, and the teamster pitched sideways on his right shoulder, his left hand going flat against the side of his head. Blood trickled between his closed fingers and his eyes blinked with surprise.

The boy pushed himself away, his breath coming in short, hard gasps. He was about to rise when the teamster caught him by the ankle. Kicking with his free foot, the boy caught the teamster on the forehead, cutting him again, and the man sagged against the wagon floor.

What came next was a surprise. The boy wanted to get away, so he swung the heavy lid again. He swung it back and forth, hardly feeling the strikes. He didn’t see the scarlet splatters on the wagon cover until he was done. Not until he felt the lid become sticky with the teamster’s blood.

He looked down. The man was no more. In his place was a corpse; blood-stained shirt, arms, hands, legs and trousers spread-eagled against the floor of the wagon, crotch darkened with urine; face, beard and skull battered into a shapeless, crimson pulp. Life was gone, and what remained hardly seemed the stuff of life, except for the sound of the man’s voice, which the boy recalled now, suddenly, blushing at the thought.
For a long moment he stood over the body, staring. There was no remorse; the teamster had betrayed him. No, he had survived. That was the only judgment he could apply.

The bloody lid slipped from his hands and he pulled up his trousers and picked up the shirt. He turned to go, and in turning his eye noticed a fold in the dead man’s pocket. Gently he lifted up the man’s leather coin purse and inspected the contents.

When his feet touched the ground outside a concertina nearby began to wheeze a jig as the silhouettes of small brown bats swooped down from the darkened sky to gather the insects that hovered in clouds above the camp. Voices strange and ominous filtered through the alleyway behind him, and the boy ducked down. The sounds seemed to close in around him. Bunching the waist of his bloody, torn trousers in his fist the boy took flight, bare-chested, shirt and teamster’s purse flapping in his free hand as he moved. Without direction or destination, without plan. Away. Just get away.

At that moment Deputy John Bayford Weaver was headed back to the city’s jail after making his rounds among the main street shops and warehouses. At age thirty-eight he lived a life of lock and window sash inspections, twelve hours each day, seven days a week, for twelve and a half dollars a month. As he strolled past the rows of freight wagons the deputy thought about the meal that awaited him at the jail: cold biscuits and red-eye gravy puddled with grease, black coffee, molasses, and perhaps a dollop of corn pudding, all from the kitchen of the Mays Hotel. He wondered if the meal had been brought over by Dora, the hotel’s kitchen girl. Dora, nineteen, hair the color of corn silk. Light blue eyes. Large-hipped, full-breasted, promiscuous. And as he walked the deputy recalled their encounter in the alleyway behind the hotel a week ago. It was a hurried fumbling, with skirts swept aside and trousers unbuttoned - a shivering, sweat-soaked coupling, barely one minute in duration, accompanied by no sound, nor smile nor kiss.

He gave her a dollar. She gave him the clap, which he would not discover for another three days.

As he crossed behind the last freight wagon at the end of the street, murder was the last thing on the deputy’s mind. But the panicked boy had reached that same place at the same time, barely slowing to dodge around the wagon; he ran into the deputy so hard that the teamster’s coin purse burst from his hand and struck the deputy full in the face.

Fortunately for Weaver he was a big man. The physical shock of the collision barely moved him -- although the surprise of it nearly emptied his bowels.
Good God Almighty.
Before him the blood-splattered, bare-chested boy lay stunned. It took a few long moments for Weaver to realize that the shiny objects scattered around his feet were gold coins.