The Shotgun Arcana (16 page)

“You are my hero,” Becky said, and kissed him softly on the cheek. “Come visit me.”

Then, as quickly as she had grabbed him, she was gone back into the house and Jim could hear the laughter of the girls that greeted Becky.

Jim stood, looked back at the closed door and then turned toward the street. Constance Stapleton, Maude’s daughter, was standing near the edge of Bick Street, about twenty feet away from him, a wicker basket of laundry on her hip.

Jim had first noticed Constance in the days after the horrible events of last year—the plague of the Wurm. Constance had been tending to the ill, helping with the bereaved of the dead. She was beautiful. The devil would dance in her wide, dark brown eyes, a wicked intelligence and humor, but there was a wisdom and a sadness in the darkness as well. Her mouth was small but she had full lips and an almost demi-smirk most of the time, like she knew a joke you didn’t. She had thick lashes and expressive arched eyebrows. Her skin was pale and perfect, like fine china, and her thick, straight, long brown hair fell below her shoulders, pulled back into a simple ponytail. Jim had been trying to get up the nerve to talk to her for months. They saw each other often, but neither seemed to find the ability to cross the gulf and say more than just hello. Now, Constance had that slightly amused look on her face and one raised eyebrow.

“It’s not…,” Jim stammered, jabbing a thumb back toward the door. “I wasn’t … I … Official business.”

“Mmmhhhmm,” Constance said, her smile widening at the deputy’s blush and discomfort. “She sure looks like she could conduct official business.” Constance walked up Bick Street toward Prosperity. Jim watched her go, still flustered. Constance stopped and looked back at him. They both looked away quickly.

Jim whistled and rubbed his face. He suddenly snapped his fingers.

“Sheriff!” he exclaimed to no one and ran off in the direction of the jail. The sun was a red-lidded eye, slowly closing in the west. If Kitty Warren were telling the truth, when it closed, it could spell the end of Jon Highfather’s life.

Justice

The approaching night’s cold crept up the ridge of Argent Mountain, settling into the ground and the stones, as the sun retreated behind the distant mountains. Jon Highfather’s legs were cramping from his hours of sitting in wait. He had tied his horse, Bright, to a safe spot in the small stand of cottonwoods about a half-mile from the spot where the criminals were to meet.

A few weeks ago, the Central Pacific Railroad line had got hit by bandits. It was a new kind of crime, robbing a train, but it harkened back to the days of the old highwaymen and their modern descendants, the stagecoach robbers. This, however, was much grander a payoff than any coach. The gunmen had taken over $40,000 in gold off the train.

Charley Pegg, the sheriff over in Washoe County, had contacted Highfather by telegram that the man responsible for masterminding the train robbery was coming out of hiding and headed toward Golgotha looking for a fresh horse and supplies.

Highfather aimed to interfere with that transaction.

The weather had turned, as it often did in Nevada in the late fall. One day would be unseasonably hot, the next day you might find frost on the ground or even snow. The night was turning bitterly cold and Jon wished he had a campfire and a pot of hot coffee. Instead, he had an old army blanket wrapped around him, a loaded 12-gauge short-barrel shotgun, his new Winchester rifle, and his old Colt .44 revolver on his hip. The two rifles rested, propped on his saddlebags to insure that they didn’t swell or jam because of the cold. Mrs. Proctor had prepared him a cold lunch of shaved ham, cheese, some hard bread and a bull’s-eye canteen of water. The remains of the meal resided in his bag.

He had settled into his hidden roost on the western slope by early afternoon, after tending to his usual daily duties. The site for the criminals’ rendezvous was a rotting abandoned miner shack from the days of Argent’s first boom. It resided a few hundred yards off the narrow rutted path the locals called Backtrail Road—the only road granting access to the Argent Mountain on its western side. Backtrail was also synonymous with dirty deals because it gave parties access to Golgotha without having to ride down any of the primary well-observed roads. It was the outlaw’s preferred entrance and exit point for the town.

Truth be told, despite the reason for his being here and the cold seeping into his bones, Highfather liked sitting here. The view from the western slope was beautiful. The sun was sinking on the horizon, a silent furnace of orange and red, drowning at the end of the world. The shadow lengthened on the mountains and stretched across the arid, cracked north from the base of Argent, through the rough scrublands and the lush belt of pasture and farm country that blessed Golgotha, making it an emerald jewel between the teeth of two deadly wastelands.

It was beautiful country, a beautiful world. And spending the day on the side of a mountain, admiring it, was a pleasant change from his usual days and nights of conflict, terror and stress. Everyone always looked to him for the answers, to save the day, to make the monsters go away. No one in Golgotha understood what it felt like to be just as scared, just as confused and just as desiring of having someone show up and make it all right, and there being no one there. Who saves the savior?

For the hundredth time today he considered resigning. Mutt and Jim were more than capable of handling the strange things that visited Golgotha almost daily. They had shown him that numerous times now.

He’d never come to Golgotha to be the law, to wear a star. If the good townsfolk of Golgotha knew the full story of their beloved sheriff, what he had been and done before he pinned on that silver star, Jon was pretty sure they would run him out of town on a rail.

He walked into town five years ago, after crossing the 40-Mile on foot, more dead than alive. Within forty-eight hours, he’d found himself the only thing that stood between the people of this town, strangers who’d welcomed him like family, and a creature of chaos and evil—a thing made of sawdust, straw and hatred, that called itself Bodach-ròcais. Five years he’d worn this star, experiencing things no one would ever believe. Maybe he was insane and this was all a delusion, a fantasy. Maybe it was still 1865 and he was back in Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital, locked away, talking to his dead brother Larson. No. He was sane, as sane as he was capable of being after all he had seen in the war and in Golgotha. Where could he go after all that? Back to the homestead, to his parents and their accusing eyes? Eyes that saw Larson whenever they looked at him.

He had planned a home, a real life, with Eden when they met here in Golgotha, but the town had devoured her, left her dead, worse than dead. Highfather could never go home. This place was all he had now. So, again, for the 101st time today, he talked himself out of resigning.

The sun was a razor cut of brilliant light on the edge of nightfall when he heard the wagon clatter along the northeastern part of Backtrail Road. The northeastern trail ran up Argent to the entrance of the mines and eventually wound around to the miners’ camp and hooked up with Prosperity Road. It was dusk and it looked like the deal was about to go down. With Malachi Bick firmly in control of Golgotha, and Ch’eng Huang and his Green Ribbon Tong undisputed lords of Johnny Town, there were several men competing to be crowned the criminal king of Argent Mountain. One of them would be meeting the train robber tonight, and if what Charley’s source had told him was true, Nikos Vellas would be with them.

The wagon was a buckboard, with a saddled horse reigned to the back of the wagon. A man Highfather didn’t recognize drove the horses from the wagon seat. He carried a pistol on each hip. There was something covered by canvas in the back of the wagon and there were two men crouched next to it; both had rifles. Highfather recognized them from the mining camp, pros named Clement and Dodd. They used to do dirty work for Wynn, the owner of the Mother Lode Saloon and the old lion of the mountain—the original criminal boss of the camp, undisputed until this past year.

At first, Highfather figured with two of his boys here, it was Wynn behind this, but then two more men on horseback, cradling shotguns, rode by flanking the wagon, and following behind them was Bruce “Half-Guts” Mitchell, and Highfather knew Mitchell was calling the dance.

Mitchell, so the story went, had been a quartermaster in the 4th Regiment out of West Virginia, a Confederate unit. He was nearly cut in half by a stray cannonball, losing half his insides in the process, but being too damn mean to die. Folks who had crossed Half-Guts claimed he lost his soul as well as his innards, making a deal with old Scratch himself as he lay dying on the battlefield. Soul or not, Mitchell had come out west after the war and set up shop in Golgotha a few months after the Argent Mine was reopened. He possessed an uncanny knack for getting people together with what they wanted with not a lot of questions or laws getting in the middle of it.

Mitchell was a stocky man, blond, with bright green eyes, hair parted to the side and a full beard. He wore an old Confederate gray bang-up and a saber still hung on his belt. A lever-action Winchester was in a saddle sheath and one of Mitchell’s hands rested on the stock.

The party came to a halt just off the intersection of the roads, about fifty yards from the shack. One of the men in the back of the wagon climbed down, lit a lantern and stood near the center of the group. Mitchell climbed down off his mount, a blood bay quarter horse, and proceeded to fire up a pipe.

Highfather slid down to his belly and rested his arms on the saddlebags. He claimed his rifle and took bead on Mitchell, using one of the saddlebags as rest for the rifle barrel. The wind was picking up as the light faded. A few flurries swirled about in the cold night air.

“Where the hell is he?” Mitchell’s man with the lantern grumbled, and began to pace. Mitchell, nonplussed, puffed his pipe and admired the last sliver of light on the distant mountains.

“Patience, Clement, is a virtue,” Mitchell said. “They will show. We’re holding the goods after all.”

“That foreign fella gives me the creeps,” Clement said, adjusting the lantern. “Don’t trust him.”

“Mr. Vellas may be a gypsy, but he is a very well-connected gypsy. He located the goods quickly and at a price that was very fortuitous to us to say the least, since I am charging the gentleman who needs them a damn sight more. This is America, Clement. We welcome all kinds to our bountiful shores. The more ante in the pot, the bigger the take for the winners.”

Clement spit a brown stream of tobacco juice in the dirt near his boot. “Still don’t trust the damn gypsy, sir. He’s always too damn happy.”

As if he had heard the gunman, a dark shape detached itself from the shadows of the dilapidated homestead and moved through the overgrown field of sacaton grass swaying in the wind. Mitchell’s men drew their guns and aimed at the figure, but once the man stepped into the light of the lantern, Mitchell gave them a sign to lower their weapons.

“Mr. Vellas,” Mitchell said. “We were just talking about you, sir. No horse?”

Nikos Vellas was stocky and olive-skinned, with black hair and eyes. He lumbered more than walked and each movement implied great bulk and power. He wore a simple collared work shirt, a black frock coat, and black canvas pants. He appeared to be unarmed.

“I do not like the horses and they do not like me,” Vellas said. His voice had a booming, hollow quality to its timbre. “I prefer the rail, yes?”

Nikos paused and looked up the hill in Highfather’s general direction. A chill ran through the sheriff’s spine and his grip on the rifle tightened. Nikos smiled.

“What?” Mitchell asked.

“Nothing,” Vellas said. “I see you located the horse and the cache, yes? Do you have my payment?”

“Right here,” Mitchell said, reaching into his coat. He withdrew a thick packet of papers bound by a thin leather cord.

“Here you go, sir,” Mitchell said.

“It is accurate and to the level of detail I requested?” Vellas asked.

“Yes, very,” Mitchell said. “Just as you requested. May I ask why you wanted so much information about the town’s geography, the people living here? Mr. Bick?”

“You may inquire,” Vellas said, slipping the papers into his pocket, “but I have no intention of explaining myself to you, Mr. Mitchell. Some things it is better not to know.”

Vellas smiled. “Clement here doesn’t care much for a man who smiles too often,” Mitchell said. “He figures it ain’t genuine and you’re hiding something behind it.”

“Oh, I do,” Vellas said. “Much to hide, yes? But I smile because I am happy and life is good, Mr. Mitchell. You should learn to cultivate a smile; life is too short to frown.”

“Too damn long to smile,” Mitchell replied, “in my estimation.”

There was the sound of approaching hoofbeats from the west and a lone rider appeared out of the darkness swallowing the road.

“Ah,” Mitchell said, “and here is Mr. Chapman now.”

The horse’s stride was uneven and the poor animal appeared exhausted. The rider looked tired but did not slump in the saddle. He brought the horse to a stop and dismounted. Chapman was gangly, with the look of a vulture about him—a narrow face with a large nose and short graying hair. He was wearing clothes better suited to the city than riding the trail and they were covered with dust. The gunbelt he wore looked out of place.

“You Mitchell?” he said. Half-Guts nodded and the two shook hands. Chapman gave the smiling Vellas an odd glance and then looked back to Mitchell. “You got the supplies, the horse?”

“Yes,” Mitchell said. “All that is required is for you to cross my palm with the agreed-upon coin, my good sir.”

Chapman walked to the horse and unslung his saddlebags. He opened one and removed a stack of money. He counted some of the stack off and handed it to Mitchell, who inspected it and nodded in approval. Mitchell nodded to one of his men, who led the fresh horse that had been tethered to the back of the wagon over to Chapman, who busied himself with putting the rest of the money away and transferring his bags to the new horse’s saddle.