The Shotgun Arcana (28 page)

“When I talked to Pa through the eye after he passed, he told me I needed to keep it safe,” Jim said.

“Yes,” Huang said. “In the wrong hands, the eye could lay waste to the Middle Kingdom, to this world. The Monkey King, Sun Wukong, stole it from Chang’e, the Goddess of the Moon, to give to humanity as a gift. However, as with most things involving the Monkey King, he didn’t think it through very well and soon lost interest in what became of the eye. It fell to mortals to keep it safe. It fell to your father and now it falls to you, Jim.”

Jim slid the eye back into the pouch and replaced the cord about his neck. “Keep it safe from who?”

Huang grew silent. He examined the tea leaves in his cup. “That is a question for another day. You are making acceptable progress.…”

“You said I did good,” Jim interrupted, smiling a little.

“Adequate,” Huang said. “You have your feet on the path of sorcery. We will see if you can stay on it. If not, then I still foresee you could make a half-decent Fu Yao Da Chia.”

“Come again?” Jim said.

“A hunter of demons—a hero, or sorts,” Huang said. “Don’t let it go to your head, boy. Demon hunters tend to flunk out of every respectable enterprise before they fall into the profession. They all possess one singular trait, though.”

“What’s that?” Jim asked.

“They are insufferably persistent.”

“Demon hunter it is,” Jim said.

Huang stood as Jim did.

“I have not yet given up that you may claim the title of Wu, one day,” Huang said.

“Are you really a god, Mr. Huang, sir?”

“No,” Huang said. “I am a crazy old man who has learned a few conjuring tricks. Does that make you feel any better?”

“It would if I believed you,” Jim said.

“Belief is a wonderful and terrible thing,” Huang said.

*   *   *

Walking through Johnny Town, the sun flashing off his badge, Jim observed the bustling crowds of Chinese populating the maze-like streets.

More Chinese were coming every day to Golgotha, looking for work in the mines, anywhere really, as the grand race of the transcontinental railroad came to an end. There was still railroad work to be done—Jim had once considered that life himself—but the massive numbers that had been needed to connect east and west were being let go.

Laundry lines connected many of the buildings in Johnny Town, with clothing drying and fluttering in the dry desert wind. Old men sat outside Tieshan Tehuai’s market and café, talking softly and watching the river of faces drift by. Children ran, laughed and played. One little boy stopped in front of Jim.

“Huìzhì niúz
ǎ
i!”
the little boy said and, lighting-fast, drew a finger.
“P
ē
ng!”
the boy said, unloading his finger on the hapless grinning deputy.

Jim winced and doubled over, clutching his chest with a gasp.

“Awww, you got me!” he exclaimed. The little boy laughed.

“N
ǐ
shì y
ī
gè qiángdà de h
ǎ
o qiú, xi
ǎ
o niúz
ǎ
i,”
Jim said, with many awkward pauses. He ruffled the boy’s hair. Huang had been teaching him Chinese and Jim tried to pick it up anytime he could. Highfather and Mutt knew a smattering, too, but Jim had taken to the language very quickly. Huang said it might have something to do with possessing the eye. The boy laughed at Jim’s clumsy attempt to speak Chinese, and stuck out his tongue. Jim laughed again.

The boy’s mother ran over and grabbed him by the arm
“Yufi! Fù zhèyàng de shíji
ā
n, bùyào làngfèi!”
she said, then to Jim, “So sorry, Deputy Jim. Yufi like you very much. Hear stories about you!”

“Stories?” Jim said. “About me? Huh? Well, I like Yufi too.
Xièxiè. Y
ǒ
u y
ī
gè h
ě
n h
ǎ
o de y
ī
ti
ā
n.”

The mother was a little politer, but it was still obvious to Jim his lingo stunk.

He walked on. The first time he had come to Johnny Town it was in the dead of night and it had terrified and confused him. Jim had learned since he had come to Golgotha that the few streets that made up Johnny Town on the maps didn’t even begin to adequately describe the narrow labyrinth-like streets that sometimes seemed to go on for miles when they simply couldn’t, as though they shifted and changed of their own accord; how doors and alleyways seemed to disappear from one moment to the next. It was even more byzantine at night. He had slowly discovered if you focused on a destination, you would eventually reach it, but that the route might be different each time. A story he’d heard from several folks in town, including Mutt, was that a drunken cowboy had shot a woman and child in the heat of an argument gone wrong. He fled into Johnny Town to hide from the law. They found his emaciated body three weeks later in a Johnny Town alley. He had died of starvation and dehydration. Jim was pretty much the only person with a star on his chest that regularly patrolled Johnny Town. Word had gotten out to the Johnny Town residents that Ch’eng Huang was mentoring the boy. The locals liked the idea of having one of Golgotha’s lawmen patrolling their streets alongside Huang’s private army of enforcers, the Green Ribbon Tong.

Today he could feel a little tension on the streets due to the murders even here in Ch’eng Huang’s kingdom. Jim hoped his presence was helping to keep the peace.

Jim walked down Bick Street—Johnny Town’s equivalent to Main Street—and crossed over Prosperity Street and out of Huang’s domain, walking past town hall and the office of the
Golgotha Scribe
newspaper. As he walked, he overheard bits of conversations in the air, like flies. Some were talk about the “whore killings,” others were gossiping about the upcoming mayoral election next year. A few were still puzzling over the mystery of the house on chicken legs that had appeared overnight a few months back and then up and walked out into the desert, not to be seen again. A lot of talk involved Malachi Bick and the shady deals he had done over the years and all the dirty dealing he had undertaken since the big trouble last year. Folks knew he had put a hurting to Auggie Shultz’s business and many others.

Jim knew it was Bick who had gathered him, the sheriff, Mutt and Harry Pratt together to save the town last year from the thing down in the mines. Bick’s family had resided here for centuries to protect these lands and make sure the thing in the mines never escaped to wreck the world. It was Bick who had given the evil they were fighting a face and helped come up with a plan to defeat it.

Jim wondered, if the townsfolk knew they all owed their lives and their families’ lives to Malachi Bick, would they still lick their chops to see him fall? Most likely. People loved to see the high and mighty hit the dirt. And Bick had taken advantage of a lot of people when they were down and out. Maybe he did deserve a little ass-whooping.

Where did payback end exactly? Charlie Upton had murdered Jim’s Pa. Jim killed Charlie. One day Jim might get shot or hanged for what he did to Charlie and someone like Mutt or Jon Highfather might seek revenge in his name. How far back did the blood flow? When was it enough? Could anything ever get square?

Jim paused at the corner of Main and Prosperity. Constance Stapleton, looking even prettier than in his vision, was talking to two of her friends, Harriet Rees and Jacoba Thorborg. The three girls were laughing. Constance had a basket of clean laundry on her hip. She looked over and saw Jim and said something to her girlfriends. They looked over at Jim, too, and then laughed, waved and departed, headed down Main. Constance crossed the street toward him, smiling.

“Deputy,” she said. “Just come from visiting your girl over at the Dove’s Roost, or headed over there now?”

Jim got redder. “She ain’t my girl,” he said, “and no, just making my rounds over by Johnny Town.”

“Just teasing you,” Constance said. “People getting ready for Thanksgiving. You got plans?”

“Just eating at Mrs. Proctor’s and then I guess do my rounds. Not much for church,” Jim said.

“My mother and I will be eating there too,” Constance said. “So guess I can view this legendary appetite of yours firsthand.”

“Shoot,” Jim said. “It ain’t all that!”

“Well, that is not what Mutt or Mrs. Proctor say,” Constance said. “They say you unhinge your jaw like a rattlesnake and shovel it in!”

They both laughed. It felt good. He looked at her. She had a faint line of freckles across her slender nose and her brown eyes were huge and bright. A few stray hairs fell from under her bonnet.

“What?” Constance said, looking away. “Why you staring at me?”

“Nothin’,” Jim said. “Sorry. You still Jess Muller’s girl?”

It was Constance’s turn to blush. “I most certainly am not anyone’s girl, Deputy.” She handed him her basket and Jim took it. Constance crossed the street again, headed down Main. Jim followed beside her.

“Heard you were sweet on him,” Jim said.

Constance looked away. “Jess is a fine fella, but he’s … No, I gave him the mitten,” she said. “Why you so interested?”

“I had a kind of … a dream,” Jim said, “about you. We were…”

“Riding in the desert,” Constance said. “Together, on your horse.”

“How did you know that?” Jim asked.

“I have … dreams, since all that mess last year. I have very … strange … dreams. I dreamt that one last night, you and me.”

“Well, I was wondering if you’d like to go ride tomorrow. My dream was … it was real nice, and I’d be honored if you’d consider accompanying me.”

“I’ll need to get my mother’s blessing,” Constance said. “She’ll want to talk to you. What time?”

“Tomorrow morning,” Jim said. “I’ll come by the laundry, if that’s all right? I figured we could ride up Argent in the morning, while it was still cool, if that is okay with you and your ma. You can be back in time for chores and lunch.”

They arrived in front of Shultz’s General Store and paused.

“It was cool in the dream,” Constance said. “But it wasn’t Argent Mountain. Windy but not hot. It was a nice dream, at first anyway.”

“What do you mean?” Jim said. Constance took the basket out of his arms.

“My dreams don’t usually end well,” she said. “It’s probably nothing. I’d love to go, if I can, Deputy.”

“Jim,” he said. “Please call me Jim.”

“I’d love to go, Jim,” she said, smiling. “See you tomorrow. Don’t get shot tonight and stay clear of that Dove’s Roost.”

Jim laughed. “Yes, ma’am.” He opened the door to Auggie’s store for her.

“See you tomorrow,” she said, and disappeared inside the cool darkness of the store.

Jim headed farther down Main, toward the cut-over for the jail. He was so happy he forgot to wonder how Constance’s dream ended.

The Three of Swords

If you’re riding through Kansas and the sun is setting and you’re thirsty, hungry or you need a place to lay down your weary bones to rest, then the quaint little tavern run by a family of German emigrants, just off the road in a secluded stretch of countryside, will seem like providence.

The Brecht Family Lodge offers the lonely traveler all manner of amenities—a roaring hearth, good hearty stout brewed in the traditional German manner, good food and a beautiful barmaid. Guests enjoy the hospitality of the lodge so much, in fact, that many of them decide to stay forever. At last count twelve, including a circuit judge and a little girl, are resting comfortably in the garden behind the lodge. An indeterminate number of patrons ended up as garments or as meals for the masters and mistresses of the Lodge—the Brechts.

The innkeeper, Herr Brecht, or Pa, as he insists guests call him, is six foot four, and fat, with thinning blond hair. He usually has a bloody meat cleaver in his brown-stained hands and can use it like a conductor wields a baton. He enjoys making sausage; don’t ask him where the meat comes from.

His wife, known only as Ma Brecht, is even larger in size, especially girth, and speaks no known human language. She occasionally whispers in Pa’s ears. She is very good with a shotgun, wielding it one-handed and making it look like a child’s toy. Her dry, grayish skin has a scaly, almost reptilian, cast to it.

The couple’s son, Ernst, is an imbecile, with a pointed malformation of the tips of both his ears, known as elf ear, and eyes that look red in the proper light. However, the young man is strong and lean of body and is a prodigy with a sledgehammer, the family’s method of choice for disposing of guests.

And then there is the siren, the oracle, the Brechts’ baby daughter, Hilde. Blond, beautiful and with a pleasing figure, the young woman claims supernatural powers of prophecy and fortune-telling. To some degree, these claims are accurate, as the family’s longtime business partner and patron whispers obscenities and portents into Hilde’s ear, while she giggles, seeming to listen to empty air. Hilde carries a butcher knife that she is very capable with, once using it to gut a mountain man who resisted Ernst’s hammer and was trying to escape while brandishing his impressive blade, called a Kansas City Toothpick. She buried his own knife in his anus while he bled out from a slit carotid on the tavern floor.

The lodge is the third such establishment the Brechts’ silent business partner has set them up in. Each has been a huge success, at least by the standards of the management and their patron.

So when Hilde saw signs and messages in the tarot cards she cast one late October night, she told the family they were being summoned by their business partner out west. The family eagerly departed, burning the lodge with four slumbering guests in their very comfy beds, as they had done with their other taverns. Each of the Brechts possessed one. They numbered twenty-two through twenty-five.