‘Hands are hands,’ I said pathetically.
We had been playing poker for over an hour. I had already lost a hundred and twenty dollars. I drank some more of the whisky. It felt like fire. Now was the time, I realised. Now I had to say what I had come here to say.
‘I know who you two are.’
‘Oh?’ said Joe.
A clock ticked. Outside, far away, something howled. A dog or a coyote.
I cleared my throat. ‘You are like me.’
‘Sure doubt that.’ Joe again, with a laugh as dry as the desert.
‘Joe Thompson, that’s your name, is it?’
‘What you diggin’ at, mister?’
‘Not Billy Stiles? Not William Larkin?’
Louis then sat up tall. His face hardened. ‘Who are you?’
‘I have been many people. Just like you. Now, what should I call you? Louis? Or Jess Dunlop? Or John Patterson? Or maybe Three-fingered Jack? And that’s just the start, no?’
Four eyes and two guns were now staring hard at me. Never seen anyone so quick on the draw as those two. It was them all right.
They pointed at the pistol I was carrying. ‘Place it on the table, nice and slow . . .’
I did so. ‘I’m not here for trouble. I’m here to keep you safe. I know who you are. I know at least some of the people you have been. I know you haven’t always been working in a copper mine. I know about the train you robbed at Fairbank. I know about the Southern Pacific Express you took for more than most can ever dream of. I know neither of you need to be mining for copper.’ Joe was clenching his jaw so hard I thought he was going to lose teeth, but I kept going. ‘I know the two of you were meant to have been shot twenty-six years ago in Tombstone.’ I dug in my pocket and pulled out the pictures Hendrich had got hold of. ‘And I know these photographs of you were taken thirty years ago, and you have hardly aged a day.’
They didn’t even break away to look at the photos. They knew who they were. And they knew I knew who they were too. I had to talk.
‘Listen, I’m not trying to get you into any trouble. I’m just trying to explain that it’s all right. There are lots of people like you. I don’t know your whole story, but you both look about the same age. I’m guessing you were born shortly after seventeen hundred. Now, I don’t know if during that time you have come into contact with other people with this condition, apart from each other, but I can assure you there are many of them. Many of us. Thousands, possibly. And our condition is dangerous. It has been called by a doctor in England, anageria. When it becomes public – either because we decide to tell people, or people find us out – then we are in danger. And the people we care for are in danger. We are either locked away in a madhouse, pursued and imprisoned in the name of science, or murdered by the servants of superstition. So, as I am sure you know, your lives are at risk.’
Louis scratched his stubble. ‘From this side of the gun, looks like you are the one whose life hangs in the breeze.’
Joe was frowning. ‘So what are you asking us, mister?’
A deep breath. ‘I’m just here with a proposition. Look, people here in Bisbee already have their suspicions about you. Word is leaking out. This is the age of photography now. Our past has evidence.’ As I was hearing myself, with fear slowly creeping into my voice, I realised how much I was simply parroting Hendrich. Everything I was saying was the kind of thing Hendrich said. There was something hollow to every word. ‘There’s a society, like a union, working for the collective good. We are trying to get every person with this condition, this condition they call anageria, to be part of the society. It helps people. It assists them, when they need to move on and begin being someone else. That help can be money, and it can be in the form of papers and documents.’
Joe and Louis exchanged thoughts with their eyes. Louis’ eyes were duller, less illuminated with intelligence. He looked dangerously stupid, but he was the more malleable one. The one most likely to be sold. Joe was the strong one, in body and mind. Joe was the one who held his Colt without a quiver.
‘How much money you talkin’?’ Louis asked as an insect buzzed around his head.
‘It depends on need. The society allocates budgets according to the requirements of each particular case.’ God, I really was starting to sound like Hendrich.
Joe shook his head. ‘Didn’t you hear the man, Louis? He’s tellin’ us to move out of Bisbee. And that just ain’t gonna work, see. We’ve got it good here. We have good relations with folk here. We done our roamin’, and I been all over this country since I got off the boat all those years ago. And I ain’t bein’ told to move.’
‘It will be best for you if you do. You see, the society says that after eight years—’
Joe sighed a sigh that was halfway to a growl. ‘The society says? The society says? We ain’t in no society and we ain’t ever gonna be in no society. You understand me?’
‘I’m sorry but—’
‘I wanna put a hole in that head of yours.’
‘Listen, the society have contacted the law officials. They know I am here. If you shoot me, you will be caught.’
They both laughed at this.
‘You hear that, Louis?’
‘I heard ’im all right.’
‘Best we explain to Mr Peter Whicheverhisnameis why the joke is funny.’
‘You can call me Tom. See, I’m like you. I’ve had many names.’
Joe ignored me completely and carried on with his train of thought. ‘It’s all right. I’ll do it. See, the joke is funny cos there ain’t no law that touches us ’round here. This here ain’t an ordinary town. We’ve been helping Sheriff Downey and old P.D. out for some time now.’
P.D. Phelps Dodge. I’d been given enough information about Bisbee to know that Phelps Dodge was the major mining company in the area.
‘In actual fact,’ Joe went on, ‘we helped them instigate the Bisbee deportation. You know about that, right?’
I knew something about it. I knew that, in 1919, hundreds of striking miners had been roughly kidnapped and deported out of town.
‘So comin’ here and talkin’ about propositions and your little union ain’t gonna sway us too much. The last union men we dealt with we kicked all the way to New Mexico, and we did it with the sheriff’s seal of approval . . . Now, you really do look hot and bothered. Let’s go for a little walk and cool your blood a little . . .’
It was dark now. Desert-dark.
The air was turning chill, but I was sweating and sore and aching and my whisky-sour mouth was as dry as the grave I had been digging for over an hour.