The Sisters Brothers Read online

  THE SISTERS

  BROTHERS

  Patrick deWitt

  Dedication

  For my mother

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Part One - TROUBLE WITH THE HORSES

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Part Two - CALIFORNIA

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  INTERMISSION

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Part Three - HERMANN KERMIT WARM

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  INTERMISSION II

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also By Patrick deWitt

  Credit

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  OREGON CITY, 1851

  Part One

  TROUBLE

  WITH THE

  HORSES

  Chapter 1

  I was sitting outside the Commodore’s mansion, waiting for my brother Charlie to come out with news of the job. It was threatening to snow and I was cold and for want of something to do I studied Charlie’s new horse, Nimble. My new horse was called Tub. We did not believe in naming horses but they were given to us as partial payment for the last job with the names intact, so that was that. Our unnamed previous horses had been immolated, so it was not as though we did not need these new ones but I felt we should have been given money to purchase horses of our own choosing, horses without histories and habits and names they expected to be addressed by. I was very fond of my previous horse and lately had been experiencing visions while I slept of his death, his kicking, burning legs, his hot-popping eyeballs. He could cover sixty miles in a day like a gust of wind and I never laid a hand on him except to stroke him or clean him, and I tried not to think of him burning up in that barn but if the vision arrived uninvited how was I to guard against it? Tub was a healthy enough animal but would have been better suited to some other, less ambitious owner. He was portly and low-backed and could not travel more than fifty miles in a day. I was often forced to whip him, which some men do not mind doing and which in fact some enjoy doing, but which I did not like to do; and afterward he, Tub, believed me cruel and thought to himself, Sad life, sad life.

  I felt a weight of eyes on me and looked away from Nimble. Charlie was gazing down from the upper-story window, holding up five fingers. I did not respond and he distorted his face to make me smile; when I did not smile his expression fell slack and he moved backward, out of view. He had seen me watching his horse, I knew. The morning before I had suggested we sell Tub and go halves on a new horse and he had agreed this was fair but then later, over lunch, he had said we should put it off until the new job was completed, which did not make sense because the problem with Tub was that he would impede the job, so would it not be best to replace him prior to? Charlie had a slick of food grease in his mustache and he said, ‘After the job is best, Eli.’ He had no complaints with Nimble, who was as good or better than his previous horse, unnamed, but then he had had first pick of the two while I lay in bed recovering from a leg wound received on the job. I did not like Tub but my brother was satisfied with Nimble. This was the trouble with the horses.

  Chapter 2

  Charlie climbed onto Nimble and we rode away, heading for the Pig-King. It had been only two months since our last visit to Oregon City but I counted five new businesses on the main street and each of these appeared to be doing well. ‘An ingenious species,’ I said to Charlie, who made no reply. We sat at a table in the back of the King and were brought our usual bottle and a pair of glasses. Charlie poured me a drink, when normally we pour our own, so I was prepared for bad news when he said it: ‘I’m to be lead man on this one, Eli.’

  ‘Who says so?’

  ‘Commodore says so.’

  I drank my brandy. ‘What’s it mean?’

  ‘It means I am in charge.’

  ‘What’s it mean about money?’

  ‘More for me.’

  ‘My money, I mean. Same as before?’

  ‘It’s less for you.’

  ‘I don’t see the sense in it.’

  ‘Commodore says there wouldn’t have been the problems with the last job if there had been a lead man.’

  ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Well, it does.’

  He poured me another drink and I drank it. As much to myself as to Charlie I said, ‘He wants to pay for a lead man, that’s fine. But it’s bad business to short the man underneath. I got my leg gouged out and my horse burned to death working for him.’

  ‘I got my horse burned to death, too. He got us new horses.’

  ‘It’s bad business. Stop pouring for me like I’m an invalid.’ I took the bottle away and asked about the specifics of the job. We were to find and kill a prospector in California named Hermann Kermit Warm. Charlie produced a letter from his jacket pocket, this from the Commodore’s scout, a dandy named Henry Morris who often went ahead of us to gather information: ‘Have studied Warm for many days and can offer the following in respects to his habits and character. He is solitary in nature but spends long hours in the San Francisco saloons, passing time reading his science and mathematics books or making drawings in their margins. He hauls these tomes around with a strap like a schoolboy, for which he is mocked. He is small in stature, which adds to this comedy, but beware he will not be teased about his size. I have seen him fight several times, and though he typically loses, I do not think any of his opponents would wish to fight him again. He is not above biting, for example. He is bald-headed, with a wild red beard, long, gangly arms, and the protruded belly of a pregnant woman. He washes infrequently and sleeps where he can—barns, doorways, or if need be, in the streets. Whenever he is engaged to speak his manner is brusque and uninviting. He carries a baby dragoon, this tucked into a sash slung around his waist. He does not drink often, but when he finally lifts his bottle, he lifts it to become completely drunken. He pays for his whiskey with raw gold dust that he keeps in a leather pouch worn on a long string, this hidden in the folds of his many-layered clothing. He has not once left the town since I have been here and I do not know if he plans to return to his claim, which sits some ten miles east of Sacramento (map enclosed). Yesterday in a saloon he asked me for a match, addressing me poli
tely and by name. I have no idea how he knew this, for he never seemed to notice that I was following him. When I asked how he had come to learn my identity he became abusive, and I left. I do not care for him, though there are some who say his mind is uncommonly strong. I will admit he is unusual, but that is perhaps the closest I could come to complimenting him.’

  Next to the map of Warm’s claim, Morris had made a smudged drawing of the man; but he might have been standing at my side and I would not have known it, it was so clumsy a rendering. I mentioned this to Charlie and he said, ‘Morris is waiting for us at a hotel in San Francisco. He will point Warm out and we will be on our way. It’s a good place to kill someone, I have heard. When they are not busily burning the entire town down, they are distracted by its endless rebuilding.’

  ‘Why doesn’t Morris kill him?’

  ‘That’s always your question, and I always have my answer: It’s not his job, but ours.’

  ‘It’s mindless. The Commodore shorts me my wage but pays this bumbler his fee and expenses just to have Warm tipped off that he is under observation.’

  ‘You cannot call Morris a bumbler, brother. This is the first time he has made a mistake, and he admits his error openly. I think his being discovered says more about Warm than Morris.’

  ‘But the man is spending the night in the streets. What is holding Morris back from simply shooting him as he sleeps?’

  ‘How about the fact that Morris is not a killer?’

  ‘Then why send him at all? Why did he not send us a month ago instead?’

  ‘A month ago we were on another job. You forget that the Commodore has many interests and concerns and can get to them but one at a time. Hurried business is bad business, these are words from the man himself. You only have to admire his successes to see the truth in it.’

  It made me ill to hear him quote the Commodore so lovingly. I said, ‘It will take us weeks to get to California. Why make the trip if we don’t have to?’

  ‘But we do have to make the trip. That is the job.’

  ‘And what if Warm’s not there?’

  ‘He’ll be there.’

  ‘What if he’s not?’

  ‘Goddamnit, he will be.’

  When it came time to settle I pointed to Charlie. ‘The lead man’s paying.’ Normally we would have gone halves, so he did not like that. My brother has always been miserly, a trait handed down from our father.

  ‘Just the one time,’ he said.

  ‘Lead man with his lead man’s wages.’

  ‘You never liked the Commodore. And he’s never liked you.’

  ‘I like him less and less,’ I said.

  ‘You’re free to tell him, if it becomes an unbearable burden.’

  ‘You will know it, Charlie, if my burden becomes unbearable. You will know it and so will he.’

  This bickering might have continued but I left my brother and retired to my room in the hotel across from the saloon. I do not like to argue and especially not with Charlie, who can be uncommonly cruel with his tongue. Later that night I could hear him exchanging words in the road with a group of men, and I listened to make sure he was not in danger, and he was not—the men asked him his name and he told them and they left him alone. But I would have come to his aid and in fact was putting on my boots when the group scattered. I heard Charlie coming up the stairs and jumped into bed, pretending I was fast asleep. He stuck his head in the room and said my name but I did not answer. He closed the door and moved to his room and I lay in the dark thinking about the difficulties of family, how crazy and crooked the stories of a bloodline can be.

  Chapter 3

  In the morning it was raining—constant, cold drops that turned the roads to muddy soup. Charlie was stomach-sick from the brandy, and I visited the chemist’s for a nausea remedy. I was given a scentless, robin’s-egg-blue powder which I mixed into his coffee. I did not know the tincture’s ingredients, only that it got him out of bed and onto Nimble, and that it made him alert to the point of distraction. We stopped to rest twenty miles from town in a barren section of forest that had the summer prior been burned through in a lightning fire. We finished our lunch and were preparing to move on when we saw a man walking a horse a hundred yards to our south. If he had been riding I do not think we would have commented but it was strange, him leading the horse like that. ‘Why don’t you go see what he is doing,’ Charlie said.

  ‘A direct order from the lead man,’ I said. He did not respond and I thought, The joke is wearing thin. I decided I would not tell it again. I rode Tub out to meet the walker. When I swung around I noticed he was weeping and I dismounted to face him. I am a tall and heavy and rough-looking man and could read the alarm on his face; to soothe his worries, I said, ‘I don’t mean you any harm. My brother and I are only having our lunch. I prepared too much and thought to ask if you were hungry.’

  The man dried his face with his palm, inhaling deeply and shivering. He attempted to answer me—at least he opened his mouth—but no words or sound emerged, being distraught to the degree that communication was not possible.

  I said, ‘I can see you’re in some distress and probably want to keep traveling on your own. My apologies for disturbing you, and I hope you are heading for something better.’ I remounted Tub and was halfway to camp when I saw Charlie stand and level his pistol in my direction. Turning back, I saw the weeping man riding quickly toward me; he did not seem to wish to hurt me and I motioned for Charlie to lower his gun. Now the weeping man and I were riding side by side, and he called over: ‘I will take you up on your offer.’ When we got to camp, Charlie took hold of the man’s horse and said, ‘You should not chase someone like that. I thought you were after my brother and nearly took a shot.’ The weeping man made a dismissive gesture with his hands indicating the irrelevance of the statement. This took Charlie by surprise—he looked at me and asked, ‘Who is this person?’

  ‘He has been upset by something. I offered him a plate of food.’

  ‘There’s no food left but biscuits.’

  ‘I will make more then.’

  ‘You will not.’ Charlie looked the weeping man up and down. ‘Isn’t he the mournful one, though?’

  Clearing his throat, the weeping man spoke: ‘It is ignorant behavior, to talk about a man as though he was not present.’

  Charlie was not sure whether to laugh or strike him down. He said to me, ‘Is he crazy?’

  ‘I will ask you to watch your words,’ I told the stranger. ‘My brother isn’t feeling well today.’

  ‘I am fine,’ said Charlie.

  ‘His charity is strained,’ I said.

  ‘He looks sick,’ said the weeping man.

  ‘I said I’m fine, damn you.’

  ‘He is sick, slightly,’ I said. I could see that Charlie’s patience had reached its limit. I took some of the biscuits and put them in the hand of the weeping man. He gazed upon them for a long moment, then began to weep all over again, coughing and inhaling and shivering pitifully. I said to Charlie, ‘This was how it was when I found him.’

  ‘What’s the matter with him?’

  ‘He didn’t say.’ I asked the weeping man, ‘Sir, what’s the matter with you?’

  ‘They’re gone!’ he cried. ‘They’re all gone!’

  ‘Who’s gone?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Gone without me! And I wish I was gone! I want to be gone with them!’ He dropped the biscuits and walked away with his horse. He would take ten steps and throw back his head to moan. He did this three times and my brother and I turned to clean our camp.

  ‘I wonder what was the matter with him,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Some kind of grief has made him insane.’

  By the time we mounted our horses, the weeping man was out of sight, and the source of his worry would remain forever a mystery.

  Chapter 4

  We rode along in silence, thinking our private thoughts. Charlie and I had an unspoken agreement not to throw ourselves into speedy travel just a
fter a meal. There were many hardships to our type of life and we took these small comforts as they came; I found they added up to something decent enough to carry on.

  ‘What has this Hermann Warm done?’ I asked.

  ‘Taken something of the Commodore’s.’

  ‘What has he taken?’

  ‘This will be revealed soon enough. To kill him is the thing.’ He rode ahead and I rode after. I had been wanting to talk about it for some time, before the last job, even.

  ‘Haven’t you ever found it strange, Charlie? All these men foolish enough to steal from the Commodore? As feared a man as he is?’

  ‘The Commodore has money. What else would attract a thief?’

  ‘How are they getting the money? We know the Commodore to be cautious. How is it that all these different men have access to his wealth?’

  ‘He does business in every corner of the country. A man cannot be in two places at once, much less a hundred. It only stands to reason he’d be victimized.’

  ‘Victimized!’ I said.

  ‘What would you call it when a man is forced to protect his fortune with the likes of us?’

  ‘Victimized!’ I found it amusing, genuinely. In honor of the poor Commodore, I sang a mawkish ballad: ‘His tears behind a veil of flowers, the news came in from town.’

  ‘Oh, all right.’

  ‘His virgin seen near country bower, in arms of golden down.’

  ‘You are only angry with me for taking the lead position.’

  ‘His heart mistook her smile for kindness, and now he pays the cost.’

  ‘I’m through talking with you about it.’

  ‘His woman lain in sin, her highness, endless love is lost.’

  Charlie could not help but smile. ‘What is that song?’

  ‘Picked it up somewhere.’

  ‘It’s a sad one.’

  ‘All the best songs are sad ones.’

  ‘That’s what Mother used to say.’