The Six-Gun Tarot (46 page)

“It’s okay, Jon,” Mutt said. “I know this fella. He’s solid. We can trust him.”

Highfather looked at his deputy, frowning.

Mutt nodded. “I’ll vouch for him,” Mutt said. “He’s my … friend.”

Highfather lowered his blade and nodded for Harry to do the same. Sheriff extended a hand to the stranger and the two shook. Jon noted the stranger’s grip was strong but odd in some way.

“Good enough for me,” the sheriff said. “Can use all the help we can get.”

“Thank you,” Maude said.

“Let’s go,” Highfather said. “Mutt, you fall back. You and your friend here guard the rear.”

“Okay, Jon,” Mutt said.

“And sometime you gonna have to tell me when you got so damned social all of a sudden,” Highfather said.

They traveled in silence for several more minutes. The shaft opened eventually into a rough-hewn chamber. Wooden crates lined the cave wall to the left, dozens of them. To the right was a jagged cleft of an opening, recently blasted and with only the most basic of support in place.

“Dynamite,” Highfather said, carefully lifting the lid off one of the straw-filled crates.

“Never heard of it,” Harry said. “Some kind of explosive?”

“Fairly new,” Highfather said. “It’s like blasting gelatin, but more stable, and more powerful. Still pretty dicey to mess with, though, but it could be the answer to our problem.”

“We set this stuff off and seal the chamber they are using to bring this thing up from,” Mutt said. “Can we do that and get out of here in one piece?”

“Wait a minute,” Harry said. “We’re not blowing anyone up! Those are our friends and family in there; we can’t just write them off as gone. We can save them, Jon; I know we can!”

“We’re running out of damn options here, Harry,” Mutt said. “I’m powerful sorry about Holly, but we’ve got to stop them, and if that means people got to die, then that’s just the truth of it.”

“I agree with the mayor,” Maude said. “I may have the means to save them. This may require a more subtle solution, Deputy.”

“Fellas…,” Highfather said as he placed the lid back on the crate.

“Right. What do you care?” Harry said to Mutt. “It’s not like you actually give a damn about anyone in this town, do you? You can count the people who even give you the time of day on one dirty hand, can’t you?”

Mutt looked to Maude, then looked down.

“Enough!” Highfather said. “ We’re not giving up on those people in there, until we have no other choice. And if that happens, we’ll be ready to blow Ambrose’s god all the way back to Hell.

“Now it will take me a bit to wire this stuff with some blasting caps and a good, long fuse. You three go in there and try to stop the ritual and save our people. I’ll join you when everything is ready. Agreed?”

“How you know all this about dynamite, Jon?” Pratt asked.

The sheriff kept working on the wooden spool of fuse he had found behind a crate. “I’ve had to blow things up from time to time in this job,” he said.

“That two-legged horse, Phillips, is mine,” Mutt said

“You be careful,” Highfather said. “He whupped both of us pretty good at the mansion. Didn’t look too tuckered out from the experience either.”

“I got a little surprise for him this time,” Mutt said with a grin.

“Watch out for Ambrose too—he’s not a scrapper,” Highfather said, “but he’s the heart of this and he’s a believer. That makes him dangerous.”

“Very astute,” Maude said. “If he becomes a problem, I can take care of him.”

“He will be a problem,” Highfather said. “Count on it.”

“I’ll deal with Holly,” Pratt said.

“Don’t get yourself killed doing it, Harry,” Highfather said. The mayor was silent.

“I’ll get the girl and as many of the townsfolk out as I can,” Maude said, fiddling with something in her canvas bag. “You may not see me, but I assure you, I’ll be around if you need me. I won’t let any of you down.”

“Sounds kinda like a plan,” Highfather said. “Let’s go earn our pay.”

“See you in a spell, Jonathan,” Mutt said.

Mutt took the point, lantern and shotgun in hand. Harry followed. They had to turn sideways to squeeze through the narrow, uneven passage. Ahead of them was the sound of chanting, of many throats straining under the cadence of painful words.

“You ready?” Mutt whispered.

The mayor nodded; so did Maude.

“Good luck,” Pratt said.

“You, too, Harry,” Mutt said. Then to Maude, “You be careful in there, y’hear me?” She smiled beneath the bandana and her eyes smiled too. She nodded.

They entered the massive chamber, its floor made of polished silver and etched with bizarre symbols, its ceiling lost somewhere to the roots of the world. Burning sconces encircled the chamber, giving everything a dim, shaky, dream-like light. A few dozen of the Stained townsfolk stood around the well at the center of the silver floor. As they continued to sing their blasphemies, one by one they eagerly stepped off into the void of the well, falling from sight. Constance was in the group awaiting a turn to plunge into the darkness.

“No!” Maude said, her voice slipping for a second back to her own.

“The townsfolk, the squatters?” Harry said. “Where are the rest of them?”

“Gone,” Mutt said. “Already gone.”

“Ah, gentlemen!” Ambrose’s voice boomed across the chamber. “So glad you could join us. I’m afraid you’re a little too late to stop it, but you are just in time for a splendid view of the end.”

Promise’s hooves thundered across the cold, still desert. Her breath trailed behind her, like a spectral banner. Jim was crouched low in the saddle. The eye was in his hand, burning with cold, emerald fire. He let it guide him forward. He tugged on the reins, left, then right.

Ahead was a sloping ridge rising out of the desert. He urged Promise toward it, up it. They reached the apex and Jim brought Promise to a halt. From here he could see across the vast expanse of the 40-Mile. Jim remembered the bleached bones, the discarded personal artifacts, the residue of so many lives and dreams crushed by the wastelands that guarded the promise of the West.

He recalled how it had felt when he had finally dropped in his tracks while leading Promise across the desert. His last thought was,
I came all this way, I went through so much, just to die out here—alone, forgotten.

The jade eye was growing colder in his palm, colder than the desert night. Jim looked at it. It was glowing green like it had that night with Pa in the graveyard, like it had with Arthur Stapleton. He looked up into the vast dark sky. Only a few stars remained sheltered overhead.

I know Mr. Huang said you got to believe in something to make it real,
Jim said silently to the empty sky.
And I rightly don’t know enough about any of you, or this eye of yours, to even figure out what to believe in, but I sure could use your help right now. My friends are back there in that town and they are fighting and dying to save all of this—to save you in whatever Chinaman’s paradise you all are in, to save Heaven, to save Golgotha. To save Ma and Lottie. So I’m asking for help. I don’t know if I believe in you-all, or not, but I believe in my friends. Please, show me the way to do what I set out to do out here. Please, let it be the right thing; please let it work.

Something moved across the sky. It swirled like sediment in muddy water, pushing aside the darkness. A thin sliver of silver moon appeared in the sky over the 40-Mile. It was just a sliver, but it was more than he dared hope for. He held the eye above his head and let the moonlight caress it.

“I know you-all are tired!” Jim said, shouting out across the desert. “I know how bone weary you-all are. I know what it feels like to fight for the next step, to push on, when everything in you screams to lie down. I can imagine how frustrating it is to not make it, to feel like you failed, like you made a promise you couldn’t keep.”

There was movement on the plain below him, vague, at the edge of moon shadow and sight.

“You have a chance, now, tonight, to make it not have been in vain. To push yourselves one more step, take one last ride. None of you are quitters. If you were, you would never have made it this far. I’m asking you to be ornery, as stubborn as a mule, one last time. Don’t let it end like it did—in failing, in being forgotten.”

The moon’s light struggled against the vast darkness. It faltered for a moment, then held. Jim looked down at the desert plain; green light shimmered off the desert floor like reflections of sunlight off of water. His eyes widened at what he saw. Promise snorted and shuddered wildly.

“Easy, girl,” Jim said, stroking her neck.

He shouted down to the plain, “Okay, we’ve got one more trip ahead of us—the most important one you’ve ever gone on! What do you say?”

A wind ripped across the desert, moaning, then howling, rising in pitch. Jim’s hair whipped in the wind. He clutched the eye, green light spilling out between his fingers, and nodded.

“Then let’s ride,” he said.

Mutt edged to the left of the chamber’s entrance, Harry to the right. Maude vanished into the shuddering shadows of the chamber.

“Where are all the townsfolk? The squatters? The people you infected with your sickness, Ambrose?” Harry asked. “Where is Holly?”

“Oh, them,” Ambrose said. His voice was close to the central pit; Harry couldn’t see him and Mutt couldn’t get his scent. “Some of the faithful remain in the town, doing God’s work, but most of them went down the well, to feed our Lord. He is hungry after his unjust imprisonment and needed sustenance to free Himself from His bonds.”

“Oh, merciful Savior,” Harry uttered.

“An odd epithet coming from you, Mayor Pratt,” Ambrose said.

Harry was edging closer to the center, staying in the shadows between the blazing sconces. He could see another of the Stained, old Edna Hull, step into the void, smiling, and fall silently from sight. There were only a handful of the Stained left now. “You, who have spat upon your faith your entire life, who have experienced firsthand the unjustness of the divine tyrant. Yes, I know your secret. Holly and I have spoken at length. Isn’t that right, dear?”

Harry stopped. It seemed ridiculous to be paralyzed by fear of discovery now, at the end of everything—the height of ego and pride. But he was genuinely terrified that his secret was no longer safe. He closed his eyes, wincing in pain. Holly’s voice snapped him out of it.

“Yes, beloved.” Holly’s voice dripped with passion, and with venom. “Hello again, Harry. So you finally found enough courage to come down here. Pity it’s too late to be of any value. I see you are still hiding in the shadows, though, like you’ve hid your whole life. You’re a coward, Harry, and I always despised you for that.”

“Come unto her, Harry!” Ambrose called. Harry could see them both now. A few of the Stained remained near the pit. Ambrose and Holly stood with them. “Come unto her and take the communion of the Greate Olde Wurm. You will know peace, you will know yourself and you will know freedom, for the first time in your wretched existence. Freedom without guilt.”

“I’ve had that,” Harry said, stepping into the light, sword in hand. “It took a long time, but I finally found that, in the arms of the person who loved me, and who I was supposed to love.”

Ambrose smiled. “How sweet! And what do you think your God would say to that, Harry? Do you think He would embrace you and call you son? Or would He cast you out and disown you for embracing the nature He gave you?”

“That’s between Him and me, I suppose,” Pratt said. He turned to Holly. “I am sorry, Holly. You’re right; I have been a coward. I’m sorry I ruined your life. I should have set you free a long time ago. I do love you; I always have. And I’m sorry I let you down.”

“Let me kill him, now,” Holly hissed in Ambrose’s ear. “You promised!”

“But it would be so much sweeter to give him communion, Dark Mother,” the old priest whispered. “To let him revel in the glory of the Wurm, as He tears His way out of this sham of a world and ascends to Heaven to drink the blood of the divine pretender. Perhaps he and I could fornicate as the world falls apart. How does that sound to you, Harry?”

“We’re going to stop you,” Harry said, stepping forward. “I don’t care if I die doing it. You’re not going to destroy my home.”

Ambrose and Holly laughed.

“Ah, there’s my knight!” Holly said. “Once again, too little too late, Harry. It’s done.”

“Those of the faithful drawn to the ritual were especially succulent,” Ambrose said. “Their souls carried the greatest light, doused in the beautiful darkness of the One True God. They were a veritable feast for Him, and they have awoken Him, made Him strong, and now He will be free!”

Harry looked to Holly, frantic. “Holly, your soul is still in there—he just said as much. You can fight this, Holly; you don’t want to do this. Think of your mother, your brother, your little niece. Please, Holly, fight!”

“Perhaps another, for good measure,” Holly said. “Come here, dear reverend.”

The Reverend Prine, eyes wet and black, staggered forward, a look of sublime happiness upon his black-stained face.

“For the glory of the Wurm,” he mumbled as he stepped toward the pit. “For His glory…”

“I am the Black Madonna, Harry,” Holly said, smiling, darkness dribbling down her chin. “The soul of the woman you know is gone, fed to a slumbering god while her last terrified thoughts were of you—how much she loved you, how much it hurt her that you didn’t come for her. Holly didn’t hear your sweet words, Harry. She never will. Die knowing that.”

The reverend stood at the edge. He looked to Ambrose, who nodded. Prine smiled and stepped out.

“Enough of this guff!” Mutt shouted as he launched himself from the shadows, knife in hand. “You damn white people talk too much!” He hurtled toward the pit, toward the reverend to knock him away from the well even as Prine took a step into oblivion. Mutt would have made it too.

Phillips, moving like a locomotive, was suddenly there, smashing into the deputy in mid-flight, knocking them both into the darkness. Prine, smiling, weeping black tears of joy, stepped off into oblivion. He fell, and was gone.