A Book Of Tongues (20 page)

With that, the inevitable wind whipped up — pillar boiling back
to dust with nauseating speed, a pale red cloud which blew away,
leaving him alone, in silence.

Sighing, the Reverend turned back for Bewelcome, and Chess.

Things went quicker, after that — like every other foregone
conclusion.

Rook returned to find Chess still waiting for him in Bewelcome’s
frozen ruins, even more parched and sunburnt than he otherwise
might have been, due to the salt’s coruscating glare. Hardly the best
place for any redhead to linger, let alone one who’d apparently fallen
asleep — or lightly comatose, perhaps, after what Rook later worked
out had been near two weeks of dehydration — with his shirt spread
out under him, to keep the ground from rubbing his back raw.

Two days, from Rook’s point of view. One less fourteen, for
everybody else. But that was magic for you, he thought, idly — ten
pounds of trouble in a five-pound sack.

Rook drew a stream up from beneath the lumpy white crust,
cracking it open ’til the fresh water bubbled free, and fed it to Chess a
fingertip at a time, for fear he’d puke and die. Then hoisted his slack
weight high, carried him over to the same hill they’d once stood on
and kicked it open, creating a cave. Since the trip hadn’t drained
him overmuch, Rook was still so stuffed-full of stolen power he felt
bloated as a tick — like he just
had
to use it, or pop.

Inside the cave, he nursed Chess through a day and night more of
fever, flensing his lover’s burnt skin away gently throughout, onion-careful. Beneath the worst of it a fine new layer of skin had already
re-grown, bright pink, painfully smooth and sensitive to the touch.

Ignoring its delicacy, Rook folded Chess close and refused to let
go, even when he cursed and kicked and bit — dripped the run-off
from Grandma’s legacy into Chess’s mouth along with their kisses
’til the energy he was giving out began to return to him, as Chess’s
fierceness rekindled. Eventually, the blaze of him rose to such an
intoxicating level that Rook had to rein in hard, pry free of Chess’s
grip and leave him sleeping, lest hex-hunger tempt him to push the
little pistoleer back over the edge and suck him dry once more . . .
permanently, this time.

When the sun set, the cave stayed warm — an oven-stone cut to
just fit two, so long as they lay close. Chess’s skin had firmed to the
point of cooling, his sweat no longer smelling of anything but itself.
So it came as no grand surprise that when — as though to celebrate
his escape from death — Chess curled a bit further into Rook’s
chest, slid one hand down the front of Rook’s flies, and commenced
digging for treasure.

At the cusp, however, he suddenly opened his green eyes wide,
staring at Rook as though he were a dream conjured to offputting
life. Like he’d never thought to see him again outside of sleep, and
wasn’t too sure how he felt about finding himself proved wrong,
even under such delirious circumstances. And the next morning,
while Rook was pissing in the scrub, Chess came wavering out after
him, barely able to stand — weak as a newborn colt, but with guns
still a-droop from either hand, cocked and ready.

“You son of a bitch,” he said. “You son of a
bitch
.”

Rook tucked himself away, and turned to face the music. “Don’t
you slander my Mama just ’cause
yours
ain’t worth a damn, Chess
Pargeter,” he replied.

“You left me behind, when I told you Goddamn not to.
One
fuckin’
thing I told you,
one
. And . . . you went ahead and
left
me.”

“But
I came back
.”

To which, a breathless moment on, Chess gave only a hoarse cry
for answer — and fell, headlong, into Rook’s open arms.

They
found
Hosteen
back
at
Splitfoot’s,
drinking
himself
incontinent, perhaps as a crude form of mourning them both. Rook
and Chess came in with the hot breath of the desert still on them,
and once they recognized exactly
who
was letting in the flies, the
bulk of the barflies leapt back — not just ’cause they remembered all
Chess had done the last time he was there, either.

Hosteen turned at the sound, gaping. “
I wanted t’stay!
” he yelled
out, voice a whole octave higher than usual. “T’look after him, like
you said! He wouldn’t let me!”

Rook: “I know, Kees.”

“
Shot
at me, point-blank, wouldn’t let up! ’Til I ran, yeah . . . but
that was ’cause I just
had
to, honest, Rev! He’d’a killed me for sure,
else!”

Chess laughed. “Hell, I already
told
him all this, you old fool. Ain’t
nobody here holds a grudge.”

Rook pulled a pair of chairs out from around the nearest table,
settling himself down in a third. “So there: all’s forgiven,” he
concluded. “Now sit, Kees, ’fore you go ass-over-teakettle. ’Cause if
you’re really all we got left for a gang, seems we got plannin’ to do.”

“Need to find us a nice, fat strike, first off,” Chess said. “And if
you want to pay me back for leavin’ me all that time in the sun, I’m
gonna need new clothes.”

“Oh, we’ll get them for you, all right — store-bought, tailor-made.
You’ll be fine.”

“Sounds expensive.”

Rook smiled again, wider — “Anything for
you
, darlin’.”

After news of Bewelcome spread, other bad men either flocked to
join up, tried to take Rook and his newly resplendent lieutenant on
directly, or got the hell out of their way. Rook paid little attention,
letting Hosteen handle such affairs. He had Chess, and Chess had
him. Familiar now with the feel of power’s thirst for power, from
both sides of the circuit, Rook found himself able to control the flow
from Chess to him more finely — slow it to a trickle, enough so that
Chess seemed well-able to replenish himself, without ever noticing
the loss. Grandma’s education had been good for that much, at the
very least.

1865 slid over into ’66 in a haze of loot and murder, the seasons
indistinct in the desert dust, and the Smoking Mirror drew ever
closer. Vague rumours of pursuit, by army or locals, rarely came to
anything much. Whenever the Railway wasted their money to hire
Pinkertons, Chess killed them, with or without Rook’s help. Claimed
he had a nose for that sort of stink, and that usually proved true.

So yes, Rook found himself startled when Hosteen brought Ed
Morrow by, ’round about Christmas of ’66. He said he’d found the
tall man moping at the back of yet another Border-bar, looking for
dishonest work. One glance told Rook Morrow was a Pinkerton,
almost down to the number on his badge — sent in Bewelcome’s
wake, more to gather information and assess the sort of threat
could reduce an entire township to Dead Sea salt, than as any sort of
inside man placed to save fellow agents from the Wrath of Pargeter.
But the funny part was, Chess’s sharp eyes skipped over Morrow,
like he’d been wax-coated.

Another hex’s influence? Intriguing, if so. But Rook knew it
didn’t matter, in the final go-’round. Things were much too far along
already, for that.

“Glad to make your acquaintance, Ed,” was all he’d said.

My oracles tell me you must seek this grim Lady who sends you her dreams
at the Place of Dead Roads,
Songbird had told him back in ’Frisco, once
Morrow was off looking for Chess. Adding:
And do not rush to demand
of me where that
is
, Reverend — that business is for you and she alone, to
settle between you. But though she may not want exactly what you want,
your wishes
do
coincide; she will certainly take you there, if you only allow
her to lead.

Granted, he hadn’t felt too inclined to believe her, right then —
with her still drawing energy from him in crackling bursts, the way
a church’s weathervane draws lightning. So he’d quoted on Jericho
City and pulled Selina Ah Toy’s down around her, easy as stamping
on an anthill . . . but taken the Smoking Mirror with him nonetheless,
all the same. ’Cause Christ knew, he’d damn well earned it.

And then, finally — leaving Chess safely asleep, with Morrow set
to watch over him, or get shot as a damn Pink — Rook had left the
Two Sisters without a backward glance, moving so quickly his boots
barely skimmed the desert floor. Above, the moon shone on, dead as
Judas. It was almost full.

You’ll have to do something about that, little king.

“I
know
,” he said, out loud. “Heard you the first time, woman.”

I know you did . . . husband.

Funny how even with both hands in his head, Songbird still hadn’t been able to figure how it was no mystery at all to Rook where
this Place of Dead Roads might lie. ’Cause — where was the single
deadest place he’d ever stood? Only the place he’d killed what little
good was left in himself, with Chess’s unknowing help.

And here it was now, glistening bright beneath a spray of stars,
like granulated marble: Bewelcome. Where Rook touched down
lightly, skidding a bit, ’til his heels snagged in salt, then flipped
open his coat’s front flap, and took out the Smoking Mirror’s uneven
black disc.

He held it up high, balanced in both hands — thumbs and
forefingers gripping its outer edges, the rest curved for additional
support, a shallow flesh funnel — before angling it to fit neatly
overtop the moon itself, like a cold iron skillet-lid.

A moment later, darkness came scuttling along the desert’s floor
to engulf all in its path, from east-west to north-south, the way
a photographer’s black cloth reduces the world to nothing but an
upside-down reflection trapped inside a box. And the moon’s whole
light was dowsed at once, in horrid sympathy.

We call that an eclipse,
he told the Rainbow Lady, arms still
extended, already beginning to ache.
When it happens naturally, that
is.

Even in this darkness, though, he could see her shake her head —
that stiff coronal of hair slicing the air, axe-heavy, like she could
make it bleed.

But — there is nothing natural about such things, little king,
in any event. When tizitzimime eat the sun and moon, horror
follows: fields fall fallow, water sickens, unborn children
wither. Bats fly up out of an empty cave, spreading disease and
death.

Rook snorted.
Sure they do,
he thought, mostly to himself. But
when she laughed as though he’d made a particularly witty quip, he
knew the truth at last: there wasn’t one single thought left inside
him, about anything, he could truly call his own.

It was . . . oddly freeing.

There,
he told her.
Done. Now what?

The words came back on the wind, night-scented, from infinite distances. Saying, only —
Watch. And wait.

He did.

And finally, from the north-east . . . someone came walking, out
of the dark.

It was a woman, full-grown and full-figured, well-made as a
statue. Her fine features were stamped in a mould which might mark
her anything from Navaho to Mex, skin copper-sheened, and from
the unconscious swing of her hips and the sureness of her light-shod
feet, Rook reckoned that — on any other given day — she would have
stepped proudly even here, in the midst of this desperate solitude.

But there was something
wrong
with her overall, visible from a
fair distance off — a wounded gait, with two hectic spots blazing at
her cheekbones. Her skirt itself seemed stiff, stained darkly ’round
where her belt should lie, while a kerchief had been thrust down her
shirt-front to cushion her swollen, leaking breasts. Her dark hair
was braided back haphazardly, the part frankly crooked. Both eyes
sat in shadows so deep they seemed bruised.

Childbed fever, maybe. Or something more: cholera, smallpox.
Dying anyhow, probably.

You just keep on tellin’ yourself that,
“
Rev,
” he thought.

Though she was already looking straight at him, it seemed to
take the woman a moment or so to realize he was actually there.

She cleared her throat, licked sticky lips and asked: “. . . who
are
you?”

But Rook just shook his head, by way of an answer; after the
fiasco with Grandma, he wouldn’t be makin’
that
mistake again.
Assuring her instead, as gently as he could — “Doesn’t matter. You
come a long way?”

She half-shook her head, half-shivered, teeth chattering audibly.
“Far enough. But I . . .”

And here a fresh uncertainty clouded her stare, drawing it back
down to both outspread hands. They were muddy from palms to
wrists, nails choked with dirt, like she’d been digging without a
shovel.

“. . . had a dream,” she told him, finally. “A woman — she told me
where to come.”

I’ll just bet she did,
Rook thought, wishing he felt worse over this
nameless sacrifice-to-be’s obvious plight, her probable fate. Yet
all he could summon, by this point, was a sort of random ethical
weariness, too shallow to reach anything that counted.

You know what to do, husband
,
the Lady reminded him.

“I . . . don’t know why I’m
here
, is all,” said the woman. “You
know?”

Rook bowed his head, and shot her his most trustworthy smile.
“Yes, ma’am. I can well understand how frightening that must be,
for you. But it’s okay, because . . .”

. . . I do.

Up from Mictlan-Xibalba, a crack came extending by slow degrees,
like the first small tear in a rolled snake’s egg — splitting, resplitting, fine and flexible as dead woman’s hair. Meeting on its
way with the same artesian wellspring Rook had teased forth once
before, it washed the earth beneath their feet free of salt to form
a mucky circle ’round himself and the woman, roughly twelve feet
in diameter, like it’d been measured out with a pair of coffins for
compasses.