The Shotgun Arcana (58 page)

Constance hugged him tight and he hugged her back. She pulled away and her eyes were shiny with tears.

“I have to go away, Jim, soon. Maybe today.”

“What? No!” Jim said. “Why?”

“A dream,” she said. “One of my dreams. I have to go. I’m sorry.”

“Can … can I go with you?” Jim said softly, taking her hand. “’Cause I would.”

Constance was crying and laughing at the same time. She pulled Jim close to her.

“I know you would,” she said. “But you can’t. I’ll come back if I can, Jim. I promise.”

Jim held her tight. “I know,” he said. “And if you can’t come back, I’ll come find you.”

*   *   *

Zeal awoke in darkness. He was in chains of pure silver that bound his wrists, waist and ankles. A silver collar ringed his neck and was attached to the other manacles. Malachi Bick stood before him, Zeal’s saber sheathed at Bick’s belt and the blood-spattered feather in his hand.

“Get up,” Bick said.

Zeal struggled to his feet.

“I knew you wouldn’t have the sand to kill me, Biqa.…”

“Shut up,” Bick said, and Zeal did. “I didn’t kill you, and I don’t intend to. However, I can’t let someone like you roam free across the Earth, can I? So that limits my options, doesn’t it? You can speak.”

Zeal growled but didn’t try to move. “You are a fool, Biqa. There is no prison on this little shithole of a world that can hold me for long and when I do get free, I will make you and this miserable little town of yours pay for the indignity you’ve done to me. I serve our Lord, and I do His work. You are a rebel and a criminal to keep me from it.”

Bick shrugged. “This place is below Golgotha. It’s very old. There are several access points to reach this chamber, not the least of which is the old sacrificial well in town. It is an entranceway into another’s realm. I allowed him to create it a long time ago when he didn’t have many friends. Everyone lines up against a loser, Ray, you know that, don’t you? .”

Behind Zeal the room began to brighten with light akin to a huge hearth, or perhaps a forge. He turned slowly to regard two massive bronze gates, which were swinging open. A light more bright and terrible than a million suns poured forth and a lone silhouette crossed the threshold of the gates into the cave.

“Hail Biqa!” the figure bathed in light called, raising a perfect hand.

“Lucifer.” Bick nodded. “Raziel—Lucifer, Lucifer—Raziel. I think everyone knows each other.”

“No,” Zeal said. “No, you can’t do this! You wouldn’t dare!”

“Ah, yes, I remember him—Keeper of Secrets,” Lucifer said, ignoring Zeal’s outburst. “Yet seemed to really enjoy flapping his pie hole. Charmed.”

“You can do nothing to me, Morning Star,” Zeal said. “I am of the divine Host! You have no dominion over me!”

“Touchy thing, isn’t he?” Lucifer said. “It appears we’ve lost one, Biqa.” Lucifer pointed to the disturbed spell marks on the scuffed dusty floor. “I told you it would be better to just let me take them back with me.”

“I’ll attend to our lost charge,” Bick said. He turned to regard Zeal. “As for this one, take him with you.”

“You overstep, Biqa!” Raziel shouted. “I serve the Lord, God, Almighty. He will never allow this!”

Biqa looked Zeal hard in the eyes. “Then He’ll stop me from doing this, won’t He?”

Bick handed the blood-flecked feather to Lucifer, who took it with a smile.

“Come on, fresh meat,” Lucifer said. “You have a lot of folks waiting to say hello to a pretty fellow like you. Follow me.”

Zeal gave Bick a final look of horror and pleading, then began to follow the Devil back behind the burnished gates.

“Lucifer,” Bick called. The Devil turned back. “Be as easy with him as you are capable. He is sick in his thoughts. One day I may ask for that feather back.”

“Oh, Biqa.” Lucifer sighed. “You still refuse to see, to call a thing what it truly is, to give me my due. Very well, I’ll keep him safe and snug for you and very, very warm.”

The two figures crossed the threshold and were swallowed in the endless light, the unfathomable heat. The bronze gates crashed closed and the cave was silent, cool and dark again. Bick stood alone. His hand rested on the hilt of Raziel’s cold blade for a very long time.

*   *   *

The stage rolled into Golgotha, the first through after Ray Zeal’s blockade had been lifted. One of the first off, helped down by Pony Bob Haslam, was a young raven-haired beauty with a stunning face and flawless body. She had a single large carpetbag with her and she was dressed in a beautiful dress of dark purple taffeta and black lace. She wore gloves and a bonnet, with a lace veil covering her face.

The lady had gotten on the coach at nearby Virginia City and told her fellow stagecoach passengers that she intended to begin a new life in Golgotha.

“I used to be a seamstress when I was a young girl,” the woman said. “Before I got marr—I mean before I came to America.” Her voice held a slight German accent, mixed with something else, something unknowable. “I hope to begin a business here in Golgotha. I want a new life.”

Clay Turlough was waiting for the woman at the station on Main. He waved when he saw her disembark and smiled—a very uncharacteristic expression for Clay. He took the young woman’s bag and they began to head south down Main, toward the new construction and the repair projects in the wake of the riot. Neither of them noticed Miles Press, watching them as they walked by him on his bench, whittling.

“How was your trip?” Clay asked.

“Dreadful, but short,” she replied. “It was much nicer when you drove me over on the wagon in the night, Clayton.”

“I know,” Clay said, “but we must maintain the illusion. You want a fresh start, Gerta, you will need all the cover you can get.”

“Not Gerta,” she said. “Not anymore. According to these documents you secured for me, my name is now”—she examined the papers she had folded in her small purse—“‘Shelly Wollstone’ … Why do I think this is some kind of joke you are playing on me, Clayton?”

“It is a perfectly beautiful name,” Clay said. “Besides, you’ll always be my Gertie.”

Her hand reached for his and Clay took it. “I found you some lodgings. I hope they will suit you, and then I hoped we might have dinner?” Clay said. “I just recently found out they have places you can go out and eat dinner.”

“I would like that very much,” Shelly said.

*   *   *

The wasteland was cold, the sky achingly crystalline blue and clear, as Mutt rode out to meet the Black Feathers. Wodziwob, Mahkah and several of the men who had first ridden into Golgotha to fetch Mutt were waiting on horseback, their mounts’ foggy breaths swirling at the horses’ nostrils.

“You turned Snake-Man over to the army,” Mahkah said, matter-of-factly. “You know they will eventually shoot him.”

Mutt shrugged. His face was a mask of bruises, cuts and the wicked crescent scar of Snake-Man’s fang. “Let them waste the bullet, not me. ’Sides, that slippery nob will most likely wiggle loose. If I could, he will.”

“He’ll come for you, if he does manage to escape,” Mahkah said.

“Let him,” Mutt said. “I beat him twice. He looking for more of the same, he knows where to find me.”

“You did not bring the Manitou Skull,” Wodziwob said.

Mutt grinned. It looked painful.

“It’s safe and sound, along with all the teeth from it we could gather back up. It’s locked away and it won’t do anyone any more harm.”

“Back in the cave?” Wodziwob said, and Mutt shook his head.

“Nope,” Mutt said. “But rest assured, it won’t be troubling anyone.”

Harry had agreed to hide the skull in the same place he had kept it during the crisis. Where that was, exactly, Mutt didn’t know, and he didn’t want to. He knew Harry had kept it safe and he figured the fewer people who knew exactly where it was, the better.

“Why didn’t you bring it to me for safekeeping, as I asked you to?” Wodziwob asked.

“Because you want to use it against the white men, to wipe them out, and I can’t cotton to helping with that,” Mutt said. “You want to kill people, do it the old-fashioned way. Get your own damn hands dirty.”

“You speak with too much disrespect to the healer!” Mahkah said, his voice rising with anger.

Wodziwob raised a hand to silence his defender and Mahkah relented.

“You are correct, Mutt,” Wodziwob said. “I did consider using it to wipe the white men from our lands. Tell me, what is to keep me from sending others to fetch the skull?”

“Me,” Mutt said. “Anyone—white, red, yellow—don’t make no nevermind, they’ll have to get through me and my friends.”

Wodziwob nodded and smiled. “Very well,” he said. “You are the guardian of the Manitou Skull now, Mutt, and I will trust you to its protection and to the world’s protection from its terrible medicine.”

“How come I get the feeling that don’t disappoint you all that much?” Mutt said.

The old man laughed.

“And as for speaking to me with disrespect,” Wodziwob said, “we of this council must speak plainly to one another if we are to strive for and protect the truth, as we protect these lands.”

Wodziwob reached out to Mutt. He held a straight, perfect black feather in his hand. He offered it to Mutt. The battered deputy looked at it for a long time and then to the face of the old healer. He reached out with his cut and bloodied hand and took it.

“I ain’t never been much of one to join anything,” Mutt said. “I tend to piss people off.”

“Yes.” Wodziwob nodded sagely. “You certainly do.”

Mutt laughed.

“But,” Wodziwob continued, “you are exactly the kind of man we need in the days to come, Mutt. We shall continue to dance the circle dances. The dead will rise and call for the blood of the white man, and the white man’s army will thunder across this land. War is coming, Mutt. A war of spirits and faiths. The Ghost Dance heralds it, and in the days ahead we will need a man of both worlds, red and white, and of neither, to see us through. So, welcome to the Black Feathers, Mutt, and please … keep ‘pissing me off.’”

Mutt looked at the feather in his hand. “I’m pretty sure I can guarantee that, sir.”

*   *   *

During the hours and days following the riot, Highfather and his people searched the town to recapture the criminals freed from the Golgotha jail during Zeal’s occupation. While most were found, one never was. When Highfather and Mutt kicked in the door to Francis Tumblety’s small cottage, they discovered the good doctor’s final farewell to Golgotha.

The girl hadn’t been a prostitute. Her name had been Rosemary Hurst, and she had been a match girl at Bick’s saloon, the Paradise Falls. Tumblety had taken his time with her and the entire bedroom of his small, filthy house was a moat of blood, clumps of flesh, organs and entrails. The poor girl was barely recognizable as human anymore. Her perfect young heart lay on a silver tray, next to the bed.

“If it takes me the rest of my life I will find him,” Highfather muttered. “How can a human being do this to another human being?”

“Practice, Jonathan,” Mutt said. “Lots and lots of practice.”

On the platter next to Rosemary’s heart was a roll of parchment with a final farewell, written in the girl’s cooling blood, in Tumblety’s terse, formal cursive:

Dear Boss,

I want to thank you for welcoming me into your charming little town; it made me feel right at home. The stars have spoken and the numbers totaled and I have collected my five and now I must be away. There is so much work to do in this world, so many roses to pluck and prune, and my knife’s so nice and sharp.

I doubt we shall meet again, but rest assured I am with you. Rest well, knowing the screams I cause will echo in eternity, my monument to the human heart.

Yours Truly,

The note was unsigned. Highfather looked around the little cottage and felt all the heat drain from the room. He felt as if a door had opened, carrying a slaughterhouse draft with it, as if a million mutilated souls, terrified, stalked, helpless, tortured and abandoned, were standing around him, mute witnesses on the shore of an age of madness, inhumanity and death.

“We put this poor girl to rest,” Highfather said to Mutt, his voice cracking. “We comfort her kin. We find every scrap of evidence we can here and then we burn this evil place to the ground.”

*   *   *

Maude came to Mutt only a few days after the riot. He was alone in the jail, looking through the lists of the missing and the dead that had been hastily compiled, reading the papers by lamplight. He stood when he heard the iron door creak and smiled at her with his already healing face.

“What are you doing about at this hour?” he said. “Laundry’s been closed for a spell?” He paused when he saw the look on her face. Maude’s face was bruised as well, from her battles with Batra, but there was something wrong, a deeper mark than bruises could make. “What is it?”

“Constance is gone,” Maude said, and her voice quavered. “My father took her back to South Carolina with him.”

“Well, let me grab Muha and we’ll git saddled up and go after them,” Mutt said. Moving to grab his gun belt, he headed to the door. Maude put a gentle hand on his chest and stilled him.

“No,” she said. “We can’t. It’s not that easy.”

“Why?” Mutt said.

“We fought yesterday, at great length for many hours,” Maude said, her voice hardened, formalized with icy anger. “I made it abundantly clear to him that we had no intention of going back east. He accused me of parroting the cause of the suffragette, like my mother had—all her feather-brained causes—fighting for people’s rights! He was more than eager to explain to me exactly how much my mother’s ‘little hobbies’ had cost him, in peace and quiet and in business.”

“Okay, so tell me what your father did exactly.” Mutt took Maude’s hand from his chest and placed it in his own. “Whatever happened, we can set it right.”

“He took her while I was working today, under the pretense of spending the day with her prior to his departure tomorrow. He’s taking her home and he said in his letter he intends to petition the South Carolina courts to make him Constance’s ward due to my lack of fitness to serve as her mother.”