The Last Hard Men

Brian Garfield

One

When Provo tripped, on purpose, over his leg irons, he let loose of the sledgehammer and fell on his hands. He timed the fall to put the fist-sized rock under his chest. When he started getting up, the rock was enclosed in the circle of his fist.

Guard Harrison came wheeling back down the hill road along the line of shackled prisoners, hefting his riot gun like a club. His big face was angry-red, peeling under the Yuma sun. “Shake it up, Provo.”

“Don’t shit in your britches.”

Harrison’s pale eyes studied him with hot mistrust. He turned to reach down and pick up Provo’s discarded sledgehammer, and glanced up the hot dusty hill. The front of the line had gone across the top—Guard Johnson was up front somewhere.

Guard Harrison seemed to catch it coming, out of the corner of his eye, but he was too slow. Provo smashed the rock into the back of his head.

It stunned the guard. He went to his knees, eyes losing focus. Provo jumped at him, rolled him over on his back away from the riot gun. Harrison was too dazed to fight, but his eyes showed his distress; sweat burst out in beads on his upper lip.

George Weed said, “Kick the shit out of him, Zach.”

Provo ignored it. He reached across Harrison to get the riot gun.

Guard Johnson came in sight on the hilltop, looking to see what had stopped the marching line. Provo leveled the riot gun. “I’d stay friendly.”

But Johnson’s gun muzzle lifted. Provo pulled the trigger: the buckshot blast ripped into Johnson’s chest and exploded his heart. Spasm closed his hand around the trigger and his gun erupted into the ground; its recoil knocked it out of his fists.

Provo could tell Johnson was dead by the way he fell. He spun toward Harrison, worked the pump action of the riot gun, and braced himself. But Cesar Menendez was already on top of Harrison, dragging the next man after him on leg chains; Menendez had his thumbs against Harrison’s eyes and his knee in Harrison’s gut. Harrison tried to struggle—got his hands on Menendez’s wrists. The little Mexican batted them away with contemptuous indifference and went for the throat, thumbs against larynx. It only took a few seconds.

Provo’s fiery eyes shifted from face to face. “They made a mistake, marching us this far out of Yuma to build their fucking road. Nobody near enough to remark those gunshots. We’re out.”

Young Mike Shelby was dubious. “We ain’t likely to get far in these irons, Zach. The keys are back in the yard captain’s office.”

Provo bounced the riot gun in his enclosed fist. He reached down with his free hand to pick up the sledge-hammer. “We’ve got these. Bust the chains, anyway—worry about the ankle cuffs later. Unless some of you want to walk back inside the walls?”

Provo smiled, and moved suddenly: he did most things suddenly. He lifted the hammer overhead in both hands and brought it down hard on the chain between his foot and Menendez’s. It crumpled a link but didn’t break it. A knotted muscle bunched at Provo’s dark jaw line; he swung again, swung a third time, and parted the chain.

There wasn’t much talk. Hammers started swinging all up the line, driven by biceps hardened on the Yuma rock pile.

Provo picked up the riot gun, sat down in the dirt, and splayed his legs out straight. The two-foot chain hung slack between his ankles. “Bust me loose, Menendez—and you ricochet any pieces into my balls, I’ll kick your ass into the middle of next week.”

Young Mike Shelby said, “He’s joshin’ you, Cesar. He’s too old to have much use for them anymore. Anyhow he’s been in Yuma so long he’s forgot how.”

“Twenty-eight years,” Provo breathed: the Yuma gates had closed on him in 1885.

Menendez’s hammer clanged off the chains; finally they broke. Provo stood up dragging the ragged ends. Menendez said, “Cot it off with a hacksaw, if you can get near one. Only take about fie honnerd strokes,”

“If he don’t cut his ankles off instead,” Mike Shelby said. “That’d be a lot quicker.” Shelby was always ready with a sour humorous remark. He only had six months behind him; they hadn’t crushed it out of him yet.

Provo’s dark hatchet face swiveled toward Menendez. “Come on up the hill with me. Let’s take that other gun away from Will Gant before he decides to walk off with it by himself.”

“Orrai,” Menendez agreed.

They walked up the hill past swinging hammers. Provo had his finger inside the trigger guard of the riot gun, the slide balanced across the crook of his elbow. Portugee Shiraz, vulpine faced, grinned through bad teeth and said, “What you gonna do next, Zach? Part the waters?”

“You just stick with me, Portugee.” Provo went on up the line with Menendez.

Will Gant saw them coming. He swung his big-bellied shape around ponderously and thought about picking up Johnson’s riot gun from the ground—he had put it down to use both hands on his sledge.

“Naw,” Menendez said, “I wouldn’t think like that, Will, it ain’t es-smart.”

Gant kept thinking about it, though—measuring the distance, judging the angle of Provo’s gun muzzle. The heavy roll of his lips peeled back nervously. “Yair,” he said, “I guess not. You want the gun, hey, Zach?”

“I’ve already got a gun,” Provo said. “Menendez wants the gun.”

Gant thought about that, visibly. Finally he said, “You waitin’ on me to fight you for it, Menendez?”

“Naw, you lazy turd. I ain’t got time for such truck.”

“Then get yo’ dumb ass on over here and pick it up. I ain’t rightly fixin’ to mess with you.”

“Smart,” Zach Provo commented. “Go ahead, then, Menendez.”

Menendez, with a thin smile, bent down to pick up the gun. He kept his head cocked, kept his eyes on Will Gant looming above him. Gant didn’t stir. Menendez hefted the riot gun and went over to the dead guard to strip the blood-darkened cartridge belt off him.

Provo was counting heads from his vantage point on top of the hill. Will Gant waddled over and ranged himself alongside him. “You takin’ over now, Zach?”

Twenty-seven men, Provo tallied. Too many: too unwieldy. Distracted, he said, “What do you think?” And without awaiting a reply, climbed the steep pitch alongside the road to the summit twenty feet higher. From here he could make out a little bit of the brown glint of the Colorado River, and the bluff where the ruins of Fort Yuma stood on the far side, in California. The flayed hilly landscape was empty of movement. The sun, on this early morning in July, was hard as brass. He had it behind him. He turned a slow circle on his heels surveying the great desert baking pan eastward, the line of stunt trees along the Gila and distant arid mountains. He shaded his eyes with a hand, saw nothing—no stirrings, no dust—and skittered back down to the road.

The hammers were still ringing. He waited for them to finish. Menendez fixed himself to him, at his shoulder. “What now?”

“We get rid of the sheep,” Provo said. His eyes were narrowed in a thoughtful squint.

“And keep the goats?”

“Aeah.”

Menendez picked at his scalp and studied his fingernail. “Then you got a plan in mind.”

“Maybe I do,” Provo said. He filled his chest and bellowed: “All right, everybody up here!”