The Book of Duels Read online

  Would that I had hands and the chance, when the next winds swung my arms low, I’d dust this knight’s bottom and lift him high thereafter for he has, sweet prince, reminded me who I truly am.

  Don Quixote, 49,

  Knight Errant de la Mancha

  I am not fool enough to believe this windmill a giant, but what right man would not choose to live in a world filled with maidens, beautiful and fair, high romance, a dragon’s lair, and a chance to earn a king’s ransom, compared with the daily life we live? So I set out with a dry old nag and this fool by my side to roam the country over, courting adventure in order to quell the searing fear of death that is in every man, and poor Panza, he cannot see because he has no eyes for fantasy, for dreams beyond his monstrous belly, yet I know these things exist, the same as I know that God does not, yet there I am weekly at mass, thumbing my rosary, a devout, praying at each station of the cross, all because I desire the approval of my own father, who once my mother had passed locked himself away in the library and read himself to death, and so too have I consumed my mind full of fantasy though I will not be my father, pining loveless and a loon—I know that before me, squat and bright in lye-washed white paint, is no giant at all, but I will it to be, and so it is—how can a man who knows he is mad be truly mad after all, especially one who knows his life draws near to close and wants nothing more than a moment’s pure good grace—so, Hie, vale anon! I spur dear Rocinante on and into the giant’s flailing arms, aware that his time too is at hand and shall like my father pass from this world.

  I smash my wooden lance against his jaw but, like the Reaper, he grabs my steed and self and sends us over—the world whirls by like a Bedouin dervish and slams us to the ground and in the distance I see clouds in the shape of buzzards, beautiful and languid and hungry, and just above me, the windmill’s slow, eternal spinning hands.

  Sancho Panza, 47,

  Illiterate Squire

  Under this unforgiving sun, I sit muleback in the meager shade afforded by a lone olive tree and I pick the fruit and bite and find it bitter. My bile rises for the want of brine. And of capers and of caper berries and of all things pickled and salty. My donkey has white rings around his eyes like a bull’s-eye and me without a dart! His head is like a giant shovel, his large jutting jaw like an insatiable maw! Oh what I could eat if I had that hasp: a dozen bocadillo con jamon y queso de cabra because I’ve always loved the bastards. And here’s the old man taken leave of his senses while on a service he declared that God has blessed but it’s plain to see there will be no boquerones en vinagre; no ajo blanco with a nubile Mudejar to grind the garlic with mortar and pestle and no bread to sop into it; no bladders of wine at the ready; no Gypsy girl to tickle my feet with rosemary branches, as we moon over my island paradise, where I serve as lord and governor and bring together the Moor and the Jew and the Catholic alike: come friends, one and all, bare your chests and souls and be my guests. My ass is swayed and my belly is bulging with the fat of years and indolence and friendships raised and toasted and gulped. Don Quixote has promised me this sacred isla de paz, but now, seeing his broken body lying in the earth, all hope for it is dashed. Shall I leave him, return home to my wife, who waved me a fond farewell, or to my daughter, who is old enough to marry, herself?

  True, the old man is little more than bluff and bluster, hot wind and noisy clang, like the time in my hometown when the wind rose and loosed the Santa Maria bell from its moorings and blew it out the church tower, bats bursting forth in all directions, the bell and frayed rope fell an impossibly long time and crashed in the earth, cracked, and let off one last toll that sounded in the square for nearly one whole year, the noise caught somehow in the winding streets of the old barrio, confused and lost, with no way nor want to find its way home.

  On Moses’s Failed Insurrection: Unbada v. Cantrell

  During a Slave Uprising outside Baton Rouge, Louisiana,

  March 5, 1811

  Unbada, 28,

  San Domingan Slave on the Picou Plantation

  I am awake but cannot flesh out the haints of sleep, as though my life’s become a dream, a shade passing before closed eyes. I cannot conjure my name nor who I was, and if I can’t, then was I ever? And if not, then what am I now? I reach for fleeting images—a woman’s parting lips, a child’s hair soft against my palm—when an odor comes over me, strong as pan-tote bacon fat frying in a deep pot, but like something else too I can’t quite call, and there’s a roar in my ears like waves crashing ashore and that smell drives my feet forward; it is salty as seawater and like everything I’ve ever wanted—a hug from my mother, a free moment to drum and enjoy the one-pot feast—I’m chest-punched, the air exploding from my body, and the sky tilts before me and I land on my back and I yearn to lie still and rest here forever but again I sniff that weird scent on the wind and am up once more, steady shuffling like the insatiable drive of mules, and all of my labors and all of my loves pass from me—I can’t resist this wanting to know the source of such intense perfume—my feet propel me and I am trying to say my name, though it comes out only a moan, and that water keeps roaring in my ears and I am bellowing like a belly-sick sow, wanting an answer to the question of that smell, and then I see Boss John and that odor becomes scythe-sharp and I smack my tongue against what’s left of my last meal, whatever it was, grainy remains like mullet roe in grits, and all I can see in the world is him and his smoking gun, but before he can fire again, I realize that he is the answer and I must have him.

  John Cantrell, 37,

  Georgian Overseer on the Picou Plantation

  Night drums come pounding my dreams and I stumble from bed into a scene in silhouette lit only by full moon and fire: the plantation owner, harried, dressed in nightshirt and stockings, his wife and three boys flee in a two-horse carriage and the warning bells clang in riot and the barn’s burning slap up, and against the high flames, the shades of slaves ride upon stolen horses and I hope they catch their old master, for I’d like to see that bastard dead as well, so I could claim for my own this land he never worked—the air is redolent with cane and burning flesh, and glass breaks in the Big House and flames roar there too—the fools, this revolting breed of island slaves, followers of Toussaint’s rebellion in that far-off hellhole, I’ll treat the same as I’d have done him: grab my gun and whip too and come to meet this moaning horde. Unbada’s the first I recognize, a docile I never thought would take up arms, even if he is Domingan, and it is a shame I’ll have to make an example of him, but he is coming at me, slow but insistent, blood slathered across his lips, so I shoot him clear through and I begin to reload the musket, when I see Unbada rise, and the black powder spills over my hand, streaking the scars I earned from lashing slaves, taxing their backs and lack of labor, these lazy beasts too brainless to conjure the brilliance of Christ on the cross, room enough only for thoughts of what hangs between their thighs, and I am ramrodding the ball down the barrel when Unbada grabs hold of me.

  Pharaoh, 33,

  Second-in-Command to Moses, Leader of the Slave Uprising

  The bay I ride stands sixteen hands high and glows the color of fire in the field and we ride over slaver and zombie alike, neither human enough for my taste—Moses and I spent moons weaving a plan down to the last stitch and I urged him hold fast to it—set fire to their homes in the black of the night and mow them down as they flee, all five hundred of us with sickle and shovel moving to a drum-banging beat—he insisted on the ways of the old country, said, Cousin, we can’t use the master’s tools to tear down his house, and I said, Master don’t own fire and death no more than cannons own war—there he is among them now, Moses, a striking figure on horseback with reins in one hand, a saber in the other, a pheasant plume tucked in his hat, looking every bit the president at the birth of a new nation, circling the men who do his bidding, and as if they were cattle, he drives them on but they trickle by like blackstrap bound for rum—so this then is our revolt in all its sluggish progress, gone now our African spe
ed and grace—beyond him, in the offing, Unbada rises from the earth like the dead thing he is, a Negro Lazarus, a hole the size of an urn’s base blasted from his body—no longer is he driven by the cocaine to work the fields, now some other drug possesses him—Unbada cracks his teeth into the white man’s skull and smoke and screams are all about me and Unbada laps at the slaver’s brains like a dog in a ditch and I bite my lip knowing our flesh is just as weak and just as strong as Christ’s—I can no longer resist: I heel my horse in a hell of a charge and Unbada eyes me with that same dull, lustful look—chunks of flesh falling out his open lips—I run my sword through his brain and Moses has come behind me with his horde of lurching dead and they tug at my feet and my horse rears, all slashing hooves and maniacal, and I club two in their relentless heads yet they yank and yank at my ankles until I finally fall, horse and all, and they are on me, moans in their throats, and though I flail about, I pray for the patience to wait till I too will rise, as I know we all eventually will.

  A Black Night in the South: Ackers v. McCarthy Sr.

  An Abolitionist Struggle in Kansas City, Missouri,

  December, 19, 1859

  Ezekiel Ackers, 56,

  Abolitionist Minister at the Sacred Duty Church

  He had gall enough to curse John Brown’s grave name on the day he was hanged—I’d follow that man to hell, go willing as Jesus, where we’d burn in bliss for the sins of this land and these men and, too, would rise three days hence, righteous as ever and tested true by God’s own counsel—before my fold I decried him and his slave-holding ilk, and in turn, he condemned me in the Beacon, called my sermons a cancer, claimed I should be railroaded back to Kansas—come last Lord’s day he sat proud as Satan on my very first pew, smug with his son in tow, both stretching their legs and propping one boot heel atop the toe of the other, so I pointed him out as an asp in the garden and not twenty hours more he quoted me on the front page of his no-count rag, using my words as cause for secession, making me his scapegrace—here he come again, sallying up the Sunday evening walk like he’d no care in the world but I barred the door to him, held my hands straight out and called down the wrath of Moses: This is the spot where you and your ways shall pass from Earth, and slapped his face with all my might and he said, You’ll not have to wait on my response, and I, I may not be the best shot, sir, but God will guide my way, and after you are dead, I shall make of my body a horn and trumpet the good news and deliver my Negro children from Pharaoh’s bonds.

  So under these dogwoods, not forty yards from my clapboard church, we measure our paces—I’m still wearing God’s own armor and the glorified have gathered to bear witness to my redemption yet he fires first—but at what?—the birds in the trees or, more likely, the good Lord Himself?—my second takes hold of my shoulders, says, Sir, the contest is yours—I shrug him off and take soulful care to put my shot dead center through this heathen’s heart.

  Alexander McCarthy Sr., 36,

  Founder & Editor of the Missouri Beacon

  I have always admired the sound of a good sermon, the words tippling one over the other, the rhetorical flair of a man in his Passion espousing the poetry of Love. Likewise, it is good to know the mind of your enemy. So I came to this church to search for the words that informed this pastor’s beliefs; instead, I gleaned only his zealous self-righteousness. God knows you can’t talk pragmatics against a dreamer’s ideology. Yet I have tried. I have tried. But when no peaceful accommodation proved practical, we loaded the pistols I keep in my carriage for just such engagements. Truth is, I don’t believe in shackling people any more than freeing them. True character is revealed by the aim of your shot and nothing besides—What a lie! What a liar!—I’ve covered my heart in a thin veil of words to hide the crimes I commit and now I stand waiting for the word and try to spit but nothing comes out of my mouth. I pinch the bridge of my nose and yawn and steady my breathing as I’ve done in five previous duels. I level my pistol, which, like its mate, I had handmade in Denver five degrees off true, and I compensate for the weapon’s dastard defect—I cannot possibly miss from this distance. I rock back and forth and the leaves crunch underfoot and my breath rises like spirits. I have always enjoyed the winter because I can see farther and clearer and I spot the button on the reverend’s wool frock where I will bury my lead. Then I see young Lex, who stares at me with those hollow eyes. Lord, I have been too hard on the lad, I know, blistered him with belts and branded him with irons, but only to clean him of the sin vested in his skin from birth, the matricide he can’t recall and for which I can never forgive. Yet in a world so dim and mean, I can at least afford him this one moment of Grace—

  I aim my charge heavenward and delope—I look to my lad to see if he understands, but I am, as if by some magnificent umbilical cord, yanked back to the world’s womb. Slammed into the earth, I can’t catch my breath, and all about me are the faces of the congregation. They all look exactly like my lad and they sneer and bare their teeth as if they have come to tear me apart.

  Alexander “Lex” McCarthy Jr., 14,

  Witness & Vengeful Son

  Father’s eyes bore into mine and I recall him washing the lather from my hair when I was yet a toddler, dunking me beneath the warm water and holding me there until my tiny hands flailed against his wrists and when he finally relented, I shot up straight, gasping for air that burned my lungs, only to find his expression same then as now—I understood that what exists in this world does so with his blessing alone—last week I tore the head from a toad and the week before I gutted Widow Tatum’s cat with a sharp river stone—ever since I was strong enough to level a rifle, I have shot wild squab and every creeping thing slithering in God’s drat earth. This morning I tore a lizard in two to see which half crawled faster and stomped on the losing end, because the killing, and the mercy, is my birthright—why has Father now sent his shot into the treetops, stark and leafless and gray as skeleton bones etched against the dark sky, where crows scatter, cawing through the clouds? And that preacher, fine white hair whipping about his cavernous face, fires a coward’s slug that drives Father down, and as he yaws side to side and keeling, I kneel over him, smoke rising from his belly wound and into my face, and I reach to push my finger into the hole when these Bible gnawers crush against me and I sprawl into his arms and Father hugs me and we lift and carry him to Dr. Gregg’s where he will lie in his deathbed, jabbering out his head about degrees of truth until I wish him good and gone already.

  I know murder when I see it but that was suicide. Still, I’ll send word for the preacher to get square with God, because two days after we lay Father in the ground, I will bury that man dead as well. I don’t understand all their Bible talk—preacher and Father could quote scripture to argue the Devil to tears—through all of the beatings he was still my father and I was tortured less than Jesus by His: I’ve always been told that vengeance is the Lord’s, but they never said it is His alone.

  Slap Leather: Hickok v. Tutt Jr.

  In the Quick-Draw Duel That Gave Birth to the Wild West, Springfield, Missouri,

  July 21, 1865

  James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok, 28,

  Abolitionist, Union Scout, & Gambler

  Was a time I rode with Colonel Lane and we took shot from border ruffians; or ’at knife fight with Conquering Bear, who I gave the old sockdolager to, till his blood soaked my buckskin britches; or how I bluffed Kit Carson with a two and a seven, my last ducat laid out on the table afore me; or the shootout I had with ’at cockchafer McCanles at Rock Creek when he bullied me as I mended the stamina I allers had; or when I ran the skirmish line at Wilme Creek and a dozen Johnny Rebs shot my way at’wonce, somehow, God only knows, missing me each and ever time—now here’s square-fisted Tutt, the sodbuster in a linen duster, dead set on giving me Jesse—he stands afront of me, thumbing my eye by wearing the Waltham watch my weeping ma give me when I left home ten year ago—I broke her heart on account I thought I’d killed that cunny-fisted Colston boy—I swea
r, ain’t a single damn thing scared me since that black bear in Raton Pass swiped me off my horse and took my six shots in her belly like runaway orphans and tore my shoulder clean out its socket and I even took my Missouri toothpick and stobbed her neck and I stobbed her thigh but she clean tore my head wide open, took my scalp half off like a swinging saloon door, and my fears musta fell out in the rock-strewn dirt, I swear, ’cause right then and right there I was reborn, fearless, and I buried that blade in her heart and killed her graveyard dead, I did.