Fistful of Feet (17 page)

   “Good,” Calamaro said.

   “He has a family. Wife. Small boys. You think this is a good idea?”

   “Long as the wife doesn’t pull a gun, she’ll be left alone. The boys won’t try nothing.”

   Their conversation was interrupted by a scream from upstairs. Betty said, “That’s June! I knew you should’ve made her come down!”

   Stacklee said, “Like I said, she told me she wanted to stay.”

   Betty shook her head and ran up the stairs. The others followed.

   They found June on the floor, a starfish on her chest, two of its arms hooked on her areolas. Her eyes were opened but they were glazed over with blue goo.

   Stacklee bent down and held her in his arms. Her legs shook, the four feet trembling like branches on a tree. All twenty toes wiggled.

   Kimama slowly bent down in front of her. She looked at Betty. “May I help?”

   She nodded.

   Rubbing his hands together, Kimama chanted softly. He stuck his fingers into his mouth and massaged his teeth. He lifted up June’s calves and put her feet to his lips, taking all twenty, wiggling toes into his mouth.

   The others watched as Kimama sucked on June’s toes, slurping loudly, drool oozing down his chin and onto the floor. The girl didn’t seem to mind. In fact, it looked like her eyes were becoming less glazed. Kimama was healing her.

   Stacklee thought it was strange seeing the dress-wearing Indian brave sucking on a whore’s toes. After three minutes of it, June’s eyes were back to normal and she sat up on her own. “What happened?” she said, looking down at her chest and seeing the starfish attached to her.

   Kimama pulled her toes out of his mouth. He yanked the starfish off June’s chest. She yelped in pain. Her areolas were covered in deep red tattoos.

   The Indian held up the creature and then slammed it down onto the floor, killing it.

   “Why’d you do that?” June said. “It was my baby.”

   “This creature is not a good creature.”

   Calamaro walked over to the window and looked out to see if there was any sign of trouble. There was a small crowd gathering by the hotel and he could see the sheriff standing there trying to calm the crowd. He didn’t seem too concerned and Calamaro could tell that the man would rather be somewhere else.

   He turned away from the window and said, “Stacklee, let’s leave through the back and head up to the hotel now. I’ll go get Sartana. Then Kimama, you meet me up by Lyons’ house.”

   The Indian nodded.

   Stacklee said, “Hope the plan works.”

   “It will,” Calamaro said. “But if it doesn’t, it was nice knowing you.”

* * *

   Nix walked into Calamaro’s hotel room. He thought it was real funny having some fun in that dead bastard’s bed. As he entered, he saw Chaps and Ryan under the covers. He said, “One of the whores just told me that Stacklee and Betty found out about Calamaro.”

   “Isn’t that something? I wished I could’ve seen that nigger’s face when he found out,” Ryan said.

   Nix scoffed. “Man, you should never wish to see a nigger’s face. That’s bad luck.”

   Ryan laughed hysterically while Nix joined him in bed. After they had gotten back from dealing with Calamaro, Chaps finally got the courage to share his feelings with Nix. One thing led to another and soon he was wearing a dress and was sucking on Nix’s tiny pecker. Ryan watched the whole thing while he pleasured himself. His leg stumps looked like two extra penises and so both Nix and Chaps sucked on them a little bit.

   Chaps said, “Nix, you want me on my stomach? I can take it.”

   “Maybe later. A man needs time to recover, know what I’m saying?”

   Nix was glad that the three of them were finally honest with their desires. He hated having to pretend he was interested in pussy. When he flexed his muscles around town, he had really wanted to impress the men not the women. Chaps was perfect. The guy didn’t have a macho bone in his body so there was no risk of the two of them battling for male supremacy.

   Nix said, “Right now I’d like just to take a load off, relax, maybe play some cards. I don’t know about you two but I’ve been dreaming about poker, know what I’m saying?”

   “Sure thing. Cards sound good,” Ryan said. “Did you ask Kersey about those cards from France? The ones with the pictures of a woman and a snake.”

   “Kersey wasn’t there.”

   “What?”

   “He wasn’t downstairs. Didn’t see anyone down there at all.”

   Ryan squinted. “That’s weird, don’t you think?”

   “Yeah and this place has been awfully quiet. I could’ve sworn when we got in all the rooms had been taken up,” Chaps said, adjusting his dress.

   Nix scratched his head. “Maybe there’s a picnic we don’t about.”

   Before Chaps or Ryan could reply, a shotgun blast came through the wall. Ryan was hit in the groin. He screamed and fell off the bed onto his leg stumps. Another blast came through and hit Nix in the legs. He fell to the ground and screamed, “Shit!”

   Chaps reached for his bullwhip. He yelled, “Stop your shooting!”

   Because he expected a response in the form of a shotgun blast, Chaps was surprised when he heard a voice coming from a hole in the wall.

   “Any of you religious men?”

   Chaps and Nix looked at each other. They recognized the voice but were shocked to hear it.

   Again, it said, “I asked if any of you are religious men?”

   Ryan was trembling on the floor. He slid his hand underneath the bed and pulled out a starfish. It squirmed in his hands. Ryan rolled over onto his stomach. Blood started to spread out like a rug underneath him. The starfish squirmed out of his hands and floated on the puddle.

   “Where the hell’d you get that?” Nix said.

   “Found a barrel of them in the church about a week ago.”

   Another blast through the wall but this time it didn’t hit anyone. Again the voice spoke through the hole. “Though I don’t think it’d be much good for anyone, you should probably start praying if you believe in that sort of thing.”

   Nix looked at Ryan. “There’s no way that fucker survived, know what I’m saying?”

   Ryan shook his head slowly. “Guess he did, Nix but look at me. I’m not going to survive. I feel like a slaughtered pig.” His large eyes got even larger as they bugged out of his head. “Things are starting to look blurry, blue. You look like a donkey. Are you wearing a mask or something? A costume? Oh, lord, my head hurts.”

   Nix knew Ryan would be gone in a minute or two. There was no use in trying to help the bastard. He looked at Chaps who appeared to be in deep thought.

   “Is that you, Calamaro?” Chaps said.

   “It just might be,” the voice answered. “I think it’d be best if your friend Nix came on out in the hallway.”

   Nix shook his head. His legs were busted up badly but he thought he could probably make it if he ignored the pain. “I’m coming out!” He figured there was no harm in dragging himself to the hallway if he was armed so he grabbed his pistol and started crawling.

   When Nix reached the door, he opened it and found himself staring at a pair of boots. He looked up and saw that it was Stacklee. The black man said, “He’s here, Calamaro.”

   “Shit,” Nix said. He tried pulling the gun up but it was kicked away.

   “Look at you. Guess you were right. Guess looking a nigger in the face is bad luck.” Stacklee smiled. “Real bad luck.”

   Nix saw a blade in the black man’s hand. He grabbed Stacklee’s ankle and pulled, sending him down on his ass.

   “Fucker,” Stacklee said. He sliced Nix across the face and then kicked him in the head. After that, he thought it’d be over but the man attacked again, this time biting Stacklee on the ankle. “You biting me? Jesus Christ!”

   Calamaro appeared behind Nix, grabbed a handful of hair, and sent a fist into the side of his head. The teeth held on, digging deeper into Stacklee’s leg. Finally he pulled his gun and put it to the man’s temple.

   The pistol burped, sending a bullet into Nix’s head. Chunks of brain bombarded the wall.

   As Calamaro stood up, he heard a crack and felt a piercing and familiar pain on the side of his head. Another crack and the gun was knocked from his hand.

   Chaps was standing in the doorway now, holding his whip. “Bring back memories?” he said.

   Calamaro ducked and jumped into the room, sending his head into the bastard’s stomach. Chaps doubled over but managed to wrap the whip around Calamaro’s neck.

   “Should’ve killed you when we had the chance,” Chaps said. He pulled the whip tight while Calamaro pummeled him in the gut. In the doorway, Stacklee stood pointing his gun.

   “Let him go, asshole,” he said.

   Chaps showed his goofy grin and said, “Okay.” He let Calamaro go and then jumped backwards out the window, cracking his whip on the way down so it caught the bedpost. He landed safely on the ground below and then pulled his whip free.

   Calamaro and Stacklee ran to the window. Chaps was running down the street, his dress blowing in the wind and his whip dragging behind him like a tail.

   “Asshole got away,” Stacklee said.

   Calamaro nodded. “No, he didn’t.” He aimed his gun, resting it on his other arm. He squinted, watching Chaps run like a child until he made it to the blacksmith’s place. Calamaro had him in his sights and then pulled the trigger.

   Chaps went down hard, his chest leaking blood and his mouth still holding that silly grin. He hugged his whip to his chest and died.

   Stacklee stared wide-eyed. He had never seen someone make such an accurate shot with a pistol especially one that burped. “Hey, that’s a strange gun. Where’s a man get something like that?”

   “Found it on a farm,” Calamaro said. “There was a whole bunch of them sticking out of the ground like flowers. Hundreds of them.” He holstered the gun and then motioned for Stacklee to follow him out of the room. They needed to tell Kersey and the other people that it was safe to come back in now.

   Calamaro said, “You can go back to Betty’s.”

   “You sure you don’t want to come with me? You might need a drink after this.”

   “I won’t need a drink till the killing’s done.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

   Leonard woke up next to a tombstone.

   A minute later Clayton sat up, sleepily hocking up phlegm and spitting it through the mouth-hole of his donkey mask.

   Then Sergio awoke abruptly. He was always the last to get up, saying that he had nightmares that he couldn’t escape from no matter how hard he tried. The nightmares were always the same. He was back in the prison camp. A confederate soldier is poking him with a thin, slimy sword. Sergio can feel himself bleeding but when he looks down, he only sees dust falling out of the wounds.

   Then came the machine.

   It was unlike any machine Sergio had ever seen and it always scared him how his brain can create something that didn’t exist. It was made of green metal and red flesh. Its size never stayed the same. At first it was small enough to fit into the soldier’s hands but as it crept closer to Sergio it grew to twice the size of a man. However, in most dreams it stayed small enough that the confederate soldier could hold it while it did things to Sergio that he could never bring himself to speak about.

   The nightmares always ended the same way. A large figure smelling of alcohol and apples would come up behind him and say, “Are you ready for Captain Burroughs?” Sergio would feel a sharp pain in his scrotum and then he’d find himself crawling out of the prison camp and into the burning sun where his frowning father awaited him, shaking his head in disappointment.

   Now fully awake, Sergio stood up. Leonard had the urge to ask him if he had the dream again but stopped himself. There was no use putting the man in a bad mood on the day they were going to pull their gold heist.

   Leonard said, “You ready?”

   “Yeah,” Sergio said, running his hands through his dark hair. “I’m ready.”

* * *

   After he came back from getting his morning coffee, Mayor Douglas found another black envelope lying on top of his grey velvet couch.

   There was no use in opening it. He knew the sort of picture that would be inside. Instead, he put it in his box of teeth along with the first photograph. He then rummaged through the box, looking for a tooth that would perhaps take his mind off the envelopes. He found it. It was a whore’s tooth, cracked and yellow.

   He popped it into his mouth and sucked on it. That always made him calmer. It was almost as if he was sucking the whore’s life away. Later, he would sleep with it under his pillow and dream about the woman he got it from.

   The memories started to get him aroused so he unbuttoned his pants and pulled them down.

   “Jesus Christ!” he said. The red tattoos had spread and now covered not only his crotch and belly but his thighs as well. What was happening to him?

   The new tattoos ruined his mood and Mayor Douglas decided not to jerk off to his teeth collection. Besides, a whole mess of trouble had blown through Screwhorse and he would ultimately be responsible for cleaning it up. Seems like running the town has been more hassle than it was worth. Perhaps he’d go to California and dabble in something that wouldn’t give him such a headache. Maybe he’d invest in the Chinese slave trade. That’d make it easier for him to get pussy, that’s for sure.

   Mayor Douglas took a handful of whore-teeth from the box and tried using them to scrub the red tattoos off his body. When it didn’t work, he threw the teeth across the room like dice.

   He slammed his fists into his thighs, making them jiggle. “Fucking Italians…”

   Then he heard several gunshots in the distance. What the fuck was happening now? The mayor pulled his pants up and headed out towards the jail. He’d have to beat some sense into that goddamn sheriff.

* * *

    After Sheriff Doyle let Tom and Bluford out, he heard the shots coming from the hotel but didn’t move an inch. He just knew it had something to do with that goddamned stranger who had some trouble with Nix Morrow. But Lyons said he had taken care of that, didn’t he?