The Shotgun Arcana (36 page)

“Oh, Deputy,” Maude said to Jim’s back as he followed Constance outside.

Jim turned. “Ma’am?”

“Anything untoward happens to my little girl, my treasure, and you will learn whole new definitions of pain and suffering for the rest of your infinitesimally short life,” Maude said sternly, and then she smiled. “Enjoy your ride.”

*   *   *

Jim helped Constance up onto Promise and she slipped her arms around his waist. It felt good, Jim had to admit, and it also felt comfortable, like this was where he was supposed to be.

“She’s a beautiful horse,” Constance said.

“The best you could ever ask for,” Jim said. “I’ve had her since she was a foal. Me and Promise have been through pretty much everything together.”

“I like her,” Constance said, stroking the horse’s flank.

“You ready?” he asked her.

Constance nodded. “Let’s go.”

Jim snapped the reins and Promise took off at a gentle, easy trot, headed up Argent Mountain by way of Prosperity Road.

The road began to ascend toward the peak of Argent Mountain. Jim urged Promise on and the brown mustang began a smooth gallop up the winding road, rising higher and higher, Golgotha behind them. Constance’s arms encircled him. Jim couldn’t help but smile. Promise took the two young people higher into the savage beauty of the wilderness, their hearts thudding in time to the horse’s hooves. She tapped his shoulder and he turned his head slightly to hear her over the powerful drumming of Promise’s hooves.

“I know a place we can ride to,” she said. “It’s got shade and some food for Promise. We can eat breakfast out there, if you want?”

“Sounds good,” Jim said.

“Okay,” Constance said. “Bear right here at Backtrail Road.”

*   *   *

Constance took them to one of the places where she and her mother trained. The site was marked by a huge boulder that both Constance and Maude called “the giant’s fist” since it bore a certain resemblance to that. Off about fifty yards from the boulder was a wide rock shelf jutting out from the side of Argent. There was shade and low, flat rocks, big as tables, to sit or lay on, under the cool shadow.

They let Promise wander in the tall grasses off to the west of the stone tables, and the mare contentedly munched her breakfast. Jim stretched out a blanket on one of the wide flat rocks, while Constance gave Promise water from a canteens they had brought.

“She’s so good!” Constance said as she walked back under the cool shade. “And smart too!”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure she’s a sight brighter than me,” Jim said. “She’s kept me alive a lot of times. I owe her.”

“I’m pretty sure you’ve done the same for her,” Constance said, handing Jim an apple from her sack. “She loves you.”

“You have a horse?” Jim asked.

“My father promised me a pony, just mine, when I was twelve, but he got busy with work at the bank,” Constance said. “We have two horses my father bought. They’re carriage horses, but I’ve been riding one of them quite a bit lately,” Constance said. “She’s beautiful. Her name is Sheba. She’s a grulla.”

“A smoke,” Jim said, nodding and taking a bite of his apple. “Pretty horses, stout, gotta good heart. My pa always said they don’t give up.”

“Whereabout is your family?” Constance said. “If you don’t mind me asking. Harriet Rees says your father was some kind of hero, passed in the war, and the rest of your family was taken from you by Indian raiders on the western trail?”

“You believe all that?” Jim asked, smiling.

“No, it sounded very dime novel to me,” Constance said. “So, tell me the real story.”

Jim started to wind up the lie, the one he’d practiced till he was perfect at telling it: Dad passed away, mother and little sister back in Kansas; he came out west looking for a job to make some money to send home. Hoped they would come out here one day, to be with him once he made it big. It was a good lie, with plenty of truth and little stories sprinkled in. A fine lie. A safe lie.

He looked at Constance’s wide brown eyes and fell into them.

“I have this lie I usually tell most folks,” Jim said. “I don’t want to lie to you. Ever. It’s a bum way to start anything. Especially anything important.”

“I’m important?” Constance said. There was no teasing in her voice. A dry wind off the 40-Mile fluttered the edges of the blanket and her hair.

“You feel … very important,” Jim said, lost in her eyes. “The truth is I killed some men in West Virginia a few years back. They were … bad men. One of them killed my pa, hurt my ma and sister. The other … he didn’t do anything worth dying for … he just caught me when I was mad, out of control.

“I ran. My mother told me to run and never come back. My little sister, she … got hurt at the end of it. No, that’s a lie too—the hardest lie. When me and this other fella were shootin’, Lottie got hit … most likely by me. The last time I saw her she was bleedin’, dying. I honestly don’t know if she is alive or dead, if I killed my baby sister.”

Jim felt Constance’s hand slide into his, clutch it tight and squeeze.

“So that’s my family,” Jim said, his voice croaking a little. “And that’s the truth. I like Harriet Rees’ version better, I must say.”

Constance smiled. “I’m so sorry, Jim. You can’t go home, ever?”

Jim shook his head. “I guess I could if I’m looking to dance on a rope, and that’s fair, Constance. I did kill that man in cold blood and he didn’t have it coming. He just got between me and my pa’s eye.”

“Eye?” Constance said.

“Yeah, that’s another story,” Jim said.

“You’re full of stories, aren’t you, Jim Negrey?”

“I got a question for you,” Jim said, smiling. “How’d you come to know about this place up here?”

Constance sighed. “The lie is, this is a spot my mother and I found to come picnic. The truth is … the truth is it’s my favorite spot to hide away from the world. I’ve been coming here for years. When my father was angry, or mother was sad. Only my mother knows about it, and now you.”

“Thank you. I’m honored you trust me,” Jim said. “I understand. I got a place like that, too, over by Clay’s. It’s my secret spot to go to when I’m kind of fed up with everyone. It’s real beautiful, ’specially when the sun is coming up or sinking. Only Promise, and now you, know about it.”

“Well,” Constance said. “I am honored to be in such sterling company.”

They both laughed and ate and talked about books and songs they enjoyed, people their age in town and places they longed to visit. Constance was both proud and very ashamed. She had lied to Jim, lied expertly, using all the tools and tricks her mother was teaching her: the use of eye contact, the posture and body language, even her tone and inflection had masterfully concealed her lie. She told herself it was only a lie of omission. What she had told Jim was true; it just wasn’t all of the truth. Only a fool would be completely honest with someone they just met, she could hear her mother’s voice saying in her head. But Jim Negrey had trusted her with a secret that could get him killed and he certainly didn’t seem like a fool, far from it.

They ate all the food and drank a good deal of water. The sun was higher in the sky now and the heat of the day was settling in. “I hate to say it,” Jim said, hopping off the stone table and petting his full stomach, “but I reckon we need to get you home ’fore your ma puts a few extra holes in me.”

“This wasn’t my dream,” Constance said. “We were racing in the deep desert, full gallop.”

“Yep,” Jim said. “You’re right. I mean, don’t get me wrong, this was … well, this was great, Constance. But it wasn’t what I saw either.”

“I’m kind of glad,” Constance said. “This is ending much better than my dream did.”

“May I ask how it ends?” Jim said.

Constance sighed and decided that maybe sometimes lies were better.

“You try to kiss me and I have to punch you in the breadbasket,” she said, smiling.

An odd look came over Jim’s face.

“What?” Constance said.

“Nothing,” Jim said. “That’s two…”

“Two what?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Jim said. “All right, let’s pack up and get you home. I really enjoyed this, Constance.”

“Me too,” she said, folding up the blanket. “Can we do this again?”

Jim’s face lit up.

“Sure!” he said, “you say the word. I really like that.”

“Did you mean what you said about me seeming important?” Constance said, not meeting Jim’s gaze.

“Yeah,” Jim said, “very.”

They rode down Argent. Both were quiet and Constance rested her head against his back. It felt good. She hated lying to Jim, it felt wrong, a mistake, but how could she tell him, how could she tell him that her strange dreams always came true, that they had never been wrong. How could she tell Jim that her dream of them galloping across the desert ended with his death?

The World (Reversed)

Bick escorted Emily out of the Paradise Falls and down Main Street toward the Imperial for lunch. It was warm and bright out, but not overly hot today. Bick with his flat-brimmed Stetson, smoked glasses to avoid the desert glare, and silver-headed walking stick took the young girl’s arm and led her along the street, interposing himself between the filth, dust and bustle of the main thoroughfare and his charge.

“I’d like to spend Thanksgiving with you,” Emily said. “I’ve never really had a family to spend it with before.”

Bick smiled and nodded. He squeezed her arm gently.

“I’d enjoy that very much,” Bick said.

The faces that passed them endeavored to be polite enough, but Emily noted almost at once that it was a thinly veiled attempt.

“Mr. Bick, good day, sir,” Egypt Whitehurst, one of the stage hands at Professor Mephisto’s Playhouse, said and doffed his hat as he passed. Others walked by without a spoken word, but their eyes shouted murder. A few whispered and hissed behind their backs as they passed.

“These people hate you,” Emily said when they had a moment between the streams of humanity passing by. “I can feel it coming off of them like heat. Why?”

“They always have, to one degree or another,” Bick said. “Either fear or hate, or a charming combination of the two. Fear is useful; hate tends to be counterproductive unless you can aim it just so. They hate me because I own this place, own the land, the water, the houses, the mine, their businesses. I own them. And you always hate someone who controls your destiny without your say-so.”

“That … that must be lonely,” she said.

Bick shook his head.

“No, millions of years of solitude, far from home, is lonely. Crowded hatred is quite cozy after all that.

“They have every right to hate me, Emily. I’ve used and manipulated them, played on their weaknesses and misfortunes, and I own them lock, stock and barrel because of that. They all know it, too, and they all wouldn’t shed a tear if I died tomorrow, most likely they would have a party. But the world will endure and they will all be alive to hate me, and that will suffice.”

“A charming sentiment, Biqa.” The man’s voice was warmer than the sun in the sky. “Ever the noble, stoic sentinel, aren’t we? How amazingly boring.”

Bick stopped; he moved to interpose himself between Emily and the man blocking their way. The afternoon sun was behind him, so all Emily could see of the stranger was a vague silhouette wreathed in brilliant light.

“Hello, Ray,” Bick said. “Why are you here?”

“You know exactly why I’m here,” Ray Zeal said, stepping forward and blocking the sun so Emily could see him. He was slender, golden and handsome. Emily stepped back instinctively, though, because of the emotions she received from this man: pure, undiluted anger, cruelty and malice, wrapped in beauty and geniality—like a needle buried in a perfect apple.

“I’m here for the skull,” Zeal said. “Where is it?”

“Safe from you,” Bick said.

“Oh, Malachi,” Zeal said, laughing. “If there is one thing I have learned about this big, wide, wonderful world, it’s that there is no place that is safe.” He looked past Bick to Emily. “Well, hello there, you sweet little thing. What’s your name, darling?”

“She’s no one,” Bick said. “She’s lost and I’m escorting her back to her hotel.”

Zeal sniffed the air. He stepped into Bick, crowding him, and reached to Emily’s hair. He lifted a few locks with his fingers, pulled them close to his nose and inhaled deeply. His smile broadened. He leaned to Bick’s ear and whispered as he looked into Emily’s widening eyes.

“A family reunion. How sweet.”

“Stay away from her,” Bick said. He pushed, hard, and Zeal flew backward, away from him and from Emily. Zeal crashed into a few of the folks moving around them on the street, knocking some of them over. There was shouting, cursing, and a crowd began to form.

“Watch where the hell you’re going!” a burly miner shouted to Zeal as he climbed back to his feet. “You damned brick-footed…”

Zeal, smiling, lifted the man off the ground with one hand by the throat. He began to crush the man’s windpipe. Bick put his hand on Zeal’s forearm. The two angels locked gazes.

“Put … him … down,” Bick said. Zeal’s smiled slid away and he squeezed harder. There was a snapping, crunching sound like twigs breaking, and the miner’s body stopped struggling and hung limp. Zeal tossed the body. It flew across the wide, busy street, with people shouting, ducking and diving for cover. It crashed into the window of Geoff Aggerby’s barbershop and dentist practice. Bick tightened his grip and spun Zeal around. He led him farther onto Main Street and away from the crowds on both sides watching the altercation. He raised his walking stick to strike the golden angel.

“Yeah, Malachi,” Zeal said, the smirk back on his face. His hand dropped to his saber at his belt. “Let’s do it, Biqa! Let’s open the ball, right now. Do it, come on! Think how good it will feel to not have to walk on eggshells in this fragile little china shop of a world, to not hold so much of ourselves in any longer, for fear of breaking the props. We can flatten this shithole of a town in a single flutter of a fly’s wing.… Come on, it will be fun. You might even win.”

Bick lowered his stick and let Zeal go. “Get out of my town, Ray, now, or by the Radiant Arch, I will put you down.”