A Tree of Bones (60 page)

“That a fact?” He asked, mildly enough.

Holger swallowed, visibly. His pals turned pale. And Charlie Alarid, previously the sole fierce Spartan in this whole five-horse crap-hole — he clapped his hands together, happy as a kid on Christmas, and laughed right out loud.

“
Told
ya,” was all he said.

The place seemed dimmer than before. Or was it just how Chess shone brighter, casting everyone ’round him into shadow? Not that he could help it, any more’n they could.

“I . . . ain’t afraid of you,” Holger lied, queasily, licking his lips. To which Chess simply shook his head.

“Boy,” he said, though the man in question probably had five years on him, “you need to listen, and listen good — there’s no way this goes well, for anybody but me. Walk away and you live, with a story to drink on. Make me kill you, what’s that? Stampin’ on an anthill just for fun, conduct unbecoming. You ’n’ yours ain’t worth the juice it’d cost me to set you afire, let alone the piss it’d take to put you out.”

Sounded fair enough as he said it, but how was he to know, without Morrow there to translate? Still, even as he turned his back, he suspected it wasn’t going to work. And indeed, a second later, Holger’s first bullet came pocking over his shoulder, shattering a lamp behind the bar — but the second bounced straight off in a heat-haze ripple, ricocheting back through the webbing between Holger’s gun-hand thumb and forefinger. Holger squalled, cradling his maimed hand. As his weapon hit the floor, meanwhile, Mister right-hand reputation-debunker and their left-hand pal alike were left stunned, unsure whether to help, flee or just stand steady, hoping Chess wouldn’t notice they were still there.

“Now,” Chess said, turning back, “just think a little, and you’ll see exactly how foolish a move that was. ’Cause me, I’ve been a damn
god
most’ve this last year, like Rainbow Bitch Ixchel-that-was and the rest — got hexation comin’ out my eyeballs, so much I don’t hardly know what-all to do with it, which is why I oft-times don’t choose to. But even was I ‘only’ plain Chess Pargeter once more, you’d still be the stupidest motherfucker alive to talk at me that-a-way . . . and you wouldn’t be
that
for long.”

He nodded at Holger. “Once upon a time, I’d’ve told you to come back when you’d trained left-handed, try it again. Here’s the difference a war makes, though — right this instant, I’m more inclined t’be merciful than not, since I’ve been travelling with good people a while. So . . .”

Here he stepped forward as Holger stumbled back, caught hold of him by the wrist and laid his opposite hand to his sweaty forehead, willing reparative sleep all through him. Holger folded up, wounds already knitting, to clunk skull-first back onto the floor at Chess’s feet; Chess stepped away while the fool’s friends lunged to catch him, wiping both palms of him like Pilate.

“. . . take
that
, clear out, and leave me be,” he concluded. “I’m drinkin’, and I don’t care to be disturbed.”

Everyone mostly took care not to do so, after — looked anywheres else, all but whistling. Chess sat and was served, though the barkeep kept on forgetting to charge him. He took it first as his due, then eventually sighed, shook what coin he had left ’til it had multiplied itself threefold, and left it by his up-turned glass.

Halfway down the street, he noticed young master Alarid still drifting vaguely after him, hands in his pockets and guitar dangling, and stopped to fix him with a cold eye. “Already saved your ass once tonight,” Chess pointed out, “so you can stop starin’ at me like I’m ’bout to grant you wishes.”

Charlie shrugged, not even pretending to be shamed. “Made
my
dreams come true when you showed Sam Holger and them how queer can go hand in hand with tough sumbitch, so . . . maybe I just want to thank you, is all.”

“Okay, then — you’re welcome. Now move on.”

“I’d heard you was prickly.”

“Oh, I am that. But I s’pose now you’ll tell me how you like ’em that way, right?”

Charlie smiled, as if to say:
Pricks’re good
. And suddenly, it was all Chess could do not to snicker.

Been so long since he’d flirted with anyone out of more than spite — a restless urge to mess with men’s minds, along with everything else — that he could barely remember what it felt like, let alone whether the result’d be worth the effort.

What’m I gonna do with you?
he thought, letting his eyes roam up and down, and Charlie — obviously well-able to tell what Chess was considering — shot him a hot look under lowered lashes in return, as though he believed he could suggest some options.

“Don’t think just ’cause we share the same tastes that makes me your patron saint,” Chess told the kid, at last. “I ain’t lived through . . .
all I did just to tour the West in search of fellow mis-mades, or save fools of any persuasion from their own mouths.”

“I
told
you I’m grateful, Mister Pargeter. Don’t want no more’n that.”

“So you say.”

“Well . . . might be I’d like to buy you breakfast, you was amenable, ’fore you ride off yonder.”

“Who says I’m leavin’?”

Now it was Charlie’s turn to hike a brow. “Who’d want to
stay
here, he didn’t have to?”

A good question, and one which came into even clearer relief when Chess saw the Widow waiting for him in her doorway, youngest child braced dozing between her and him like a shield.

“Don’t
do
nothin’ in my house, Mister Pargeter,” she asked him, “if you’d be so kind. Please.”

Nothin’ like magic, or nothin’ like ridin’ young Charles here ’til he pops?
Chess thought, sourly. But he tipped his hat and agreed to her terms, which seemed to disappoint Charlie somewhat.
That ain’t the Chess Pargeter
I
heard tell of!

Chess shrugged.
Probably not
, he thought.

Must’ve got over his dismay by morning, however, since he turned up back at the same not-quite-a-saloon done up twice as elaborate as the night before, like he was trying to show Chess who could shout “Lock up your sons!” the loudest.

“Don’t see Sam Holger,” Chess noted, glancing ’round, as he tucked into his eggs.

Charlie shook his head, coaxing a rippling run from his instrument, far prettier than most pauses. “Naw, don’t expect him to show his face for some time yet; he’ll want to make sure everybody who was there when you laid him low is elsewhere, so nobody’s ’round to cry lie on him when he starts in to claimin’ he kicked your ass.”

“So let him.”

“Couldn’t live with myself, if I did.”

“So you’ll risk getting killed over nothing, instead? Believe me, kid, Holger’s the exact type someone like you should keep away from, they want to stay upright — sort who won’t learn his lesson no matter how many times it’s repeated, or how hard.”

“Aw, he’s full of wind, is all. Been after me since we was knee-high, for reasons don’t stand lookin’ at. What duds I wear, what songs I play: be sort of funny, it wasn’t so damn sad.”

“That ain’t the sort of joke you laugh at, not ’less you got a gun to back your taste in humour up. ’Course, you bein’ somewhat of a fop probably doesn’t help, either.” Adding, gently, as Charlie stared up at him in utter confusion: “A clothes-horse, a dandy, like they said . . . fashionable beyond the proper bounds of sense, is what that means.”

“You get
all
your clothes store-made, or so I heard.”

“Don’t get ’em
made
at all, anymore — but yes, I used to. Still, you’ll note I ain’t the one of us wearin’ orange cowhide pants with brass buttons all up and down ’em, or a shirt embroidered with roses.”

Charlie shrugged. “Thought it’d suit me better to stand out as much as I can, since I don’t have no hope of bein’ passed over.”

“Now that, I understand. But if you’re gonna spend your whole life pickin’ fights, you need to know how to end ’em, not just start ’em.”

“You could teach me, I guess. If you wanted to.”

“If I wanted to, sure. You sayin’ I should?”

“I ain’t qualified to know what you should or shouldn’t, Mister Pargeter. Just . . .”

Just I’m the only other queer you ever met, let alone the only hex
, Chess thought, suddenly exhausted, though it was hardly gone ten in the morning.
Just like you look at me like I’m Jesus, like I could multiply fishes and turn water into wine — and Goddamn if I couldn’t, either. Goddamn if I couldn’t do any damn thing I want, even now.

It was a heavy burden, all this possibility. He didn’t remember ever feeling that way before, but maybe that was what coming back from the dead — twice, with different results both times — did for a fellow.

“Paradin’ ’round town dressed like that, let alone the rest, your Ma and Pa must’ve hated you somethin’ fierce,” Chess said, at last.

“By the end? I somewhat think they did. Named me after a king, though — Charlemagne, first of France: ‘Charles the big.’ Guess they hoped it’d fit.”

“Good thing you grew into it.”

That made Charlie preen a bit, which prompted Chess to crack another smile. But the next turn in their dance made it all slide side-a-ways, when Charlie asked: “You was . . .
with
Reverend Rook, is what I heard.”

“From them songs, and such? Sure was, and famous for it.”

“Dead, too, for some of that same time . . . that’s the other rumour.”

“That too, yeah. Twice over.”

“And then — you came back. Why?”

Didn’t care to stay prone
, he thought, but didn’t say. “’Cause I still had work needed doin’,” he averred, instead.

“To kill him, then. For . . . killin’ you?”

“That was
her
idea,” Chess heard himself snap. After a moment, with difficulty: “Ash Rook didn’t need
me
to get himself killed. No more’n — ”

I needed
him
to
get
killed, myself.

Truth was, as Chess only just now understood he already well knew, if it hadn’t gone the way it did, it’d’ve gone one of a hundred others. Chess had been moving toward fatality all his life, all unknowing of the cost. The moment when his inborn payload finally exploded, destroying everything ’round him sure as double canister shot.

A bomb, a plague, one more slice of walking doom. One more hex in a world that hated hexes, all the more so whenever they managed not to hate each other, or themselves.

But now there was Hexicas, at least. And that, too, was Ash Rook’s work, along with all the rest.

“Wanted him dead, that’s true ’nough — a thousand times over, and more,” Chess concluded, his own voice so low, so rough, he barely recognized it. “But even that he took pride in deprivin’ me of, by the end. Judged himself by his bad Book’s standard, found himself wanting and passed sentence, ’fore I had a chance to do more’n curse him over it. For Asher Goddamn Rook never could stand to be outdone by anyone, at anything.”

Something on his cheek now, warm enough, but not wet: Charlie Alarid’s big hand, cupping his cheek and half his chin. One guitar string-callused thumb, tracing the track where tears would go, if only there were any left to shed.

“I’m sorry,” the kid said, and seemed to mean it. Chess shook his head.

“No need,” he replied. “I’m sorry enough for the both of us.”

The barkeep, gazing studiously elsewhere, let out a dry little prompting cough:
Time, gentlemen. Please.
Which made Chess hiss a bit, but only a bit; more for show than anything else, and not much for that, either. He rose, Charlie following like a too-long shadow, and stalked over, as the barkeep recoiled.

“Get a lot of trouble like last night in here?” Chess demanded, placing one fist on the countertop.

“Uh . . . somewhat, I s’pose.” Jaw wobbly as a turkey-neck, the man stole a squint at Charlie, adding: “Mainly when Mister Alarid’s about, truth to tell.”

“You do know how he ain’t the only bent creature in this world, though, right?” Chess asked. “Or me, neither?” As the man shifted even further back, visibly uncomfortable, Chess leaned in, confiding: “Hell, there’s even ladies like
ladies
, if you could credit it. Or them who take what’s given, without pledging any sort’a allegiance at all — all manner of strange creatures, roamin’ ’round out there in the dark! And any given one of ’em might sometime want a drink, a plate or to just set a while, without some drunken moron runnin’ their mouth.”

“Uh, I . . . don’t know nothin’ on any of that, Mister Pargeter. I just . . .”

“Run a bar, yeah. Need the custom, no matter who brings it. So I’m gonna make sure no fool like Sam Holger ruins your prospects on that score, ever again. Now, how’d that be?”

“. . . good, I guess . . .”

“All right, then. Stand back.”

Using one lit finger to carve with, Chess doodled what looked like one of Songbird’s Chinee sigils on the wall behind, big enough to bake pies on. “This’ll be my eye when I’m gone,” he told the barkeep, hoping the idea sounded more likely than not. “What it sees, I see; show it something I don’t like, and I’ll be back. You probably don’t want that, I’m thinkin’.”

“No sir, Mister Pargeter.”

Emerging into the noonday sun, Chess turned to unhitch his horse, and found another animal tied up next to it: a stallion, black as Charlie Alarid’s hair and almost as stupidly big, already rigged out for hard travel.

“This’d be yours, I expect,” Chess said, as the kid stepped up behind him.

“Told you I was leavin’.”

“You did say something of the sort.” Chess swung up onto his own ride, popping the rope free with one hand, then shaking it to atoms with the other; he could call it back anytime he wanted, and it’d interfere with the reins. As Charlie mounted up as well, Chess touched the horse with a single spur, nudging it to turn, telling him: “Hope you don’t think travelling in the same direction means we’re
together
, as such.”

Charlie laughed, a music-touched sound, rhythmic as his own fretwork. “We’ll see. That thing you did in there, though — it actually work?”

“Hell, no; I ain’t got the sort of time to spend monitoring them that’s bound to hate our likes, let alone the inclination. Nice design, though, ain’t it?”