“Go to bed, you son of a bitch!” Papa Lorenzo said once they were inside their house.
In his room, Agar heard Mama Pepita shuffling around the pots and pans in the kitchen, and from there came the unmistakable smell of chickpeas.
At Ten, Start Again
“ ‘We’re in the West, son,’ Old Jerome said. ‘And what you see here is none other than Tombstone: “The Two Who Refused to Die.” ’ ”
“You’ll stay in your room,” Mama Pepita said. Then she closed the door and left him alone in there.
Old Jerome started running to town. Agar turned over on the bed and thought that just about now, the West Side Boys would be running through Gómez Pass, hunting spiders or exploring the bushes.
His eyes scanned the room and he started to play with the gaps in the walls. Because, with the gaps in the wall and a little imagination, time flew.
The gap in the corner turned into Sergeant York, with his helmet and backpack. The peeling paint on the bathroom wall made up a legion of soldiers clearing the decks.
He would have liked to go to war. He would have liked to prove himself against bullets. He felt that only by turning into a hero could he free himself of his past. So sometimes he was Sergeant York, and other times he was Splinter Weevil, The Meanest Man in the World, and other times, he reappeared in Veracruz killing Indians with a revolver that never ran out of bullets. But that afternoon he was in Tombstone, Arizona.
He closed his eyes.
He tied his horse at the town’s gate and spit on the dry earth. He would walk.
He had waited for this moment for thirty years. He adjusted his guns and started walking slowly. Reverend Cunnings was the first to see him. He looked up at the heavens and rushed to shut the church doors. The church bells rang quickly and everyone in town ran to their windows.
“It’s Lorenz’s son!” They yelled from the Saloon. He heard the poker tables moving around loudly and the pianola waltz languish. He remained there, with his legs spread wide, standing in the center of the main street. Time seemed to stop in Tombstone. Tumbleweeds rolled by on the empty street.
They were scared. They were all scared. Only Parker the judge, leaning on his crutches, dared to look him in the eye.
“Listen, Bronco. listen to the words of an old man and then do whatever you want. But. may the devil take me away if it wouldn’t be right for you to forgive!”
“Where is he?” he said.
“Pop Lorenz left here a thousand years ago. May the devil take me away if that’s not how it was. He might have gone to Yuma,” Old Parker said, looking nervously at his pistols.
“Get back!” Bronco Joe said brusquely.
“Listen to the words of an old man, son!” The judge exclaimed, feeling found out. “Forget about the past. I know you can do it!”
“Forget.,” Bronco Joe whispered. “It’s hard to forget!”
“Leave it be, Parker!” He heard behind him. It was the unmistakable voice of Pop Lorenz.
He turned around brusquely and saw him again for the first time in thirty years. Tears of indignation threatened to fall.
“Leave it be!” Old Lorenz repeated. “God knows I don’t regret a thing!”
He grabbed a fistful of dirt and threw it at Bronco Joe.
“That’s what you are!” he yelled. “Dirt!”
Bronco smiled wanly and said: “The same old Lorenz, right?” He rubbed his chin, thoughtfully. “I’m glad it’s like this,” he said then. “It resolves an old doubt I had.” And he let the words fall lightly: “Do I kill you. or not kill you?”
“So what did you decide?” Pop Lorenz yelled. “Say it once and for all, for God’s sake!”
Suddenly, Old Lorenz gestured to his pistols. Bronco let him go until he practically saw him touching his guns.
“Now!” He said, drawing his own.
Pop Lorenz’s revolvers flew through the air. With his wrists bathed in blood, he fell to the ground on his knees.
“Finish it once and for all!” Old Lorenz yelled angrily.
“No.,” Bronco Joe said. “I’ve waited thirty years for this. To forgive you. ”
He slowly left the town, down the center of Main street.
“He’s a man from the West!” Old Parker yelled, raising up his crutch. But Bronco Joe didn’t hear him. He was already riding his horse very far away en route to the sweet plains of glory.
And so it happened in Tombstone, Arizona: “The town that refused to die.”
At Eleven, Get In on the Action
All of that had happened. He remembered it now alone. He closed his eyes and it was as if he were in the Buck Rogers’ Time Warp and landing on the planet of No Return. Where he could change the past at whim. He then remembered the stories piled under his bed. “Witch Tales,” “Frontier,” “El que la hace la paga,” “Superman,” “Walt Disney’s Stories.”
He felt he was leaving Walt Disney behind. Before he had lived for him, and had dreamed of being Gladstone Gander, the lucky one who found diamonds wherever he was. Or Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck’s uncle, who was swimming in millions and ate hot dogs to save ten cents. He liked Scrooge McDuck. He would have liked to be like that.
The owner of the house where he lived was a filthy rich Spaniard who was a lot like Scrooge McDuck. He walked around Santa Fe on Sundays with a cedar walking stick just like Scrooge McDuck’s.
“I’m thorry, I’m thorry. I’m thrict about payments. Dear thir, pay me. Fine! I’ll wait until Monday.”
“Mr. Castelón is a nice guy,” Agar commented that day.
Mama Pepita shot him a hard look from the kitchen.
“He’s a no-good son-of-a-bitch,” she said.
Agar didn’t say anything else. He would have liked to have been Castelón’s nephew. Uncle Scrooge Castelón, the golden old man who swam in bills from the bank.
He left aside the Disney stories.
Mickey Mouse was still looking for diamonds on the Lost Island.
Gladstone Gander was about to find Tutankhamen’s treasure.
Elmer Fudd remained lost under an avalanche in the Himalayas.
He now preferred “Witch’s Tales,” “The Spirit,” “Macabre Stories.” Although he knew that at night he would have insomnia and that things would reach for the bottoms of his feet.
He opened the book:
It was the story of Clay Putnam. The man who was hiding a secret. The unknown man who always walked with a box on his shoulder. What was Putnam hiding? The town asked itself. At church, the people would stop praying and turn their eyes on him. Who would pray without taking the box off of his shoulder?
One winter afternoon, Clay Putnam went into Peter’s Café. He asked for a glass of gin.
“I’m sorry, Putnam,” the barman said. “I won’t serve you until you get that damned box off your shoulder.”
“Leave me alone!” Putnam yelled. “Leave me alone with my blasted box!”
The men left their drinks and surrounded him.
“What do you have in there, you devil?”
“Show us what you have in that box, you damned warlock!”
“What did you come to Finstown to do, Putnam? Did you maybe come to cast a spell on us?”
Putnam backed away to the door and started running down the street with his box.
“Go after him, get that warlock, even if he’s the devil himself!”