The Six-Gun Tarot (50 page)

In Golgotha, it was decided an epidemic of the Black Vomit had run through the town making folks so sick they could scarcely recall much of the last few days. At least that was the official, and loudly announced, explanation from Doc Tumblety, as soon as the good doctor himself had recovered from the malady.

Those who had been infected and managed to avoid getting killed during the madness made a full recovery complete with a terrible recollection of illness, vague nightmares of suffocating and the horrific experience of vomiting up dead worm-like things and viscous black fluid for days.

Other events could not be so easily put aside. The damage to the town, to the Argent Mine and the old Reid mansion, all was explained as caused by either locals mad with illness from the plague or earthquakes caused in some unexplainable way by the odd machinations of the eclipse—it really depended on who told you the tale as to what the explanation was. Most folk in Golgotha had learned long ago to quickly grab hold of any explanation in the daylight that might make it easier to sleep in the dark.

One fact of the dreadful mess that couldn’t be explained away or ignored was that eighty-six people had died during the “epidemic,” by most people’s accounting. Others vanished and were never seen or heard from again.

Clay Turlough kept pretty much to himself in the days following the fires and the plague, but he sent word that his main barn could be used as a morgue for the dead, until proper burials could be arranged.

Clay had moved his workshop to a smaller building and his horses to the old stables that he had used before raising the main barn. He watched, through the curtains covering the small window on the door, as families and friends wandered in and out of the barn. Most were weeping, holding each other, consoling one another. He felt a coldness slip through him; it slowly became anger, then resolve. What a waste death was.

Gillian Proctor suddenly came into view, carrying a basket. She stopped to speak with, to console, several of the mourners, hugging them, patting their hands, sharing a moment of despair with them, wiping tears from her eyes as she did. Also giving strength and hope to them. It had not occurred to Clay until now that Mrs. Proctor was physically perfect. Her proportions, her measurements and symmetry, were flawless. She was lovely, to be sure, if in no other way than mathematically.

She approached his workshop door and he withdrew from the curtain quickly. She rapped on the glass gently.

“Clay? Mr. Turlough?”

Clay growled and covered his work with a stained cloth. He strode to the door. The damnable woman would peck all day like a bird until he relented. He threw it open.

“Yes, Mrs. Proctor, I am in the middle of some very delicate experiments right now and—”

Gillian presented him with the basket. Clay’s nose caught the scent of ham and fresh-baked bread.

“I know; I’m sorry, Clay,” she said. “We were just worried you weren’t eating.”

“We,” Clay said.

“Auggie, me. He’s afraid you’re angry at him, still.”

Clay shook his head. “No, not angry. I just feel it is inappropriate for me to be on display given my current … condition.”

“Oh,” she said.

He had to give her credit; she hadn’t automatically lowered her eyes like everyone else who had seen him. He still wore dressings on the side of his face and on his forearms and chest where the burns were the worst. It was not for the benefit of others’ sensibilities but a matter of survival. He was working on a compound to help protect him from infections until the burns would scar over. Clay had never been a good-looking man and the burns were simply the final affirmation of his total disdain for the vanity of the flesh. They were the price he paid, and it was a cheap price.

“May I come in?” she asked.

“I, I think not,” he responded. He took the basket with one hand and began to close the door with the other. “Thank you for the victuals, Gillian.”

She pressed her hand against the door, stopping him cold. He had never experienced a display of such gentility married to such strength. Her eyes never left his.

“I never had the opportunity to thank you for saving my life.”

“Don’t have to. Thank Auggie.”

“I understand,” she said. “But I wanted you to know you have people who care about you, Clay. Auggie cares about you so very much, and so do I. You’re our family.”

She released the door and he closed it. She stood for another moment, hoping there would be more, but that was not Clay Turlough’s way.

She walked back to the wagon where Auggie waited.

“Well?” he said, taking her hand and helping her up onto the buckboard. “Is he all right?”

“He took the food,” Gillian said as Auggie climbed on the wagon beside her. “That’s a start.”

“Speaking of starts,” he said. “I want to show you the property up on Rose Hill I’m looking at buying. It’d be a good place for a house.”

“Shouldn’t we take care of fixing up the store first?” she said.

Auggie laughed, it was a beautiful sound to Gillian, any time she heard it.

“
Ja,
we probably should, but no work today! Today I want to show you where our home is going to be, where I’d like it to be.”

She smiled at him and took his thick, rough hand in hers.

“I’d like that very much,” she said.

He shook the reins and the wagon jumped forward, down the road, toward Rose Hill.

From his window Clay watched them depart. Behind him on the worktable was the blackened and warped jar holding Gert’s head. The head was mostly mummified by the heat of the fire. The brass cogs and wires below the jar were a melted, twisted mass. Hoses, tubing and wires ran from a box-like device into the tank and attached to Gert’s head, which nodded lazily, immersed in a new, bubbling nutrient solution. The eyes were squeezed closed in a shriveled mask, like the skin was too tight. Her hair tumbled, drifted in the currents.

“I know you were sad this way, Gertie,” Clay said, “powerful sad, but I ain’t never had much of anything in this life that mattered to me … ’cept you. I love you. I need you. And I’m gonna make this all better for you. Just like it was before you got sick, even.”

He turned away from the window. On the wall behind the worktable there was a drawing, an anatomical sketch of a woman’s body. The drawing had no head. Clay had done his best to make the drawing perfect. Mathematically perfect.

“I swear,” he said.

Malachi Bick drove another nail into the new wall, replacing some of the damage done to the Paradise Falls. He wore shirttails and suspenders as he worked.

“Making good progress, Malachi,” Highfather said as he entered. The sheriff’s arm was still in a sling, and his face was still covered with cuts and bruises. “Should be open by the end of the month.”

“That’s my intention,” Bick said.

“You’re going have to go pretty far ways to find another mirror for behind the bar.”

“There’s a place in Virginia City that makes them,” Bick said. “Surprisingly, they get a lot of business in replacing barroom mirrors.”

Highfather nodded. “I came to pay my respects, for Caleb.”

“I see; thank you, Sheriff.” Bick steadied another nail and began to drive it in.

“I lost the saber!” Highfather shouted above the hammering.

Bick stopped and turned.

“In the mine. After the explosion. I lost it. I’m sorry.”

Malachi nodded, put the hammer on the bar. “It’s all right. It served its purpose, and I doubt I’d ever be able to use it anymore, anyway.”

“What was its purpose, really, Malachi? What is yours?”

“Whatever I was, I’m not anymore. Not really. And for the first time in a long while, I’m good with that,” Bick said. “As for what I am, I am a businessman. I see opportunities and seek to profit from them.”

“The mine,” Highfather said, shaking his head.

Bick smiled. “And I am a civic leader. Those poor souls up in the squatter town deserve a fair shake, don’t you agree, Sheriff?”

Highfather laughed. “I thought all of this might have changed you, but I guess not.”

“It did, Jonathan,” Bick said. “It did. But you must understand I doubt I’ll ever be able to give you the full story of what I do or why.”

“Then I’ll keep poking around on my own,” Highfather said, “till I get the answers.”

He walked toward the doors, and then stopped, smiling.

“I’ll be keeping on eye on you, Bick.”

“I feel safer already, Sheriff,” Bick replied, returning the smile.

The saloon doors thumped open, then closed, swinging for a moment. They stopped suddenly and the noises from the street faded to silence. Bick picked a bottle of rotgut off the bar and poured two shot glasses.

“Care for a drink?” he said.

“Always,’ Lucifer replied, stepping from the cool shadows by the faro tables. “Congratulations are in order. Your pawns succeeded in sealing the bottomless pit and restraining the Darkling. Most impressive.” He picked up the shot glass. “Why reopen the mine, though?”

Bick raised his glass.

“It would draw more men like Deerfield and Moore if left unattended,” Bick said. “Open, under my auspices, I can direct them away from the chamber and the pit. And I get to make a fortune in the process. Oh, and by the way, not pawns,” he added. “Part of a design.”

“Oh please,” Lucifer said, eyes rolling. “After all of this, you honestly think the Almighty had a hand in how this shook out. He was pissing Himself, just like the rest of us.”

“Why give the greatest power in all creation to a bunch of monkeys?” Bick said. “A power greater, stronger, than the will of God itself? Why give them free will? Why give them a world they can damn or save, all on their own?”

“A test?” Lucifer said. “You think all of this was just another one of His little experiments? I think you give the Architect far too much credit.”

“To the human soul,” Bick said, raising the shot glass.

Lucifer tapped it with his own. “Keeping us all in business for a long, long time,” the Devil said.

They tossed back the shots.

“You water down your whiskey,” Lucifer said incredulously.

“The good stuff is for paying customers,” Bick replied.

“Offer still stands, Biqa,” Lucifer said. “A job, a home. The company of your kin.”

“I have those,” Bick said. “Just took me a spell to realize it. Besides, despite your opinion, I think the Almighty is a hell of showman and I can’t wait to see what He’s got in store for them next.”

“You’re not going to hear from the home office, you know that?” Lucifer said. Bick nodded. “You are alone here, Biqa. This place has tainted you, in their eyes. There will be no order to return, no reward for being a good soldier. You never get to go home.”

“I know,” Bick said, picking up the hammer. “But this will do.”

He looked up. Lucifer was gone. Bick gathered the nails and got back to work.

Mutt, hat in hand, knocked on the door. Maude Stapleton opened it, dressed in black. The purple smudges of bruises covered her face. She was still beautiful, Mutt thought.

“See you made it out in one piece,” he said. “Good.”

The deputy’s face was a road map of pain and suffering. Swollen, broken, split and jagged. He somehow managed a smile through the wreckage.

“Your face!”

“Not as bad as it looks,” he said. “You should see the other fella.”

“I did. I was very proud of you down there, Mutt. Even if you were a stubborn fool.”

“Thank you for saving me,” he said. “You really did, you know?”

“Thank you for trusting me,” she said. “When I had trouble even trusting myself.”

They stood silent for a moment, but more passed between them than words were capable of holding.

“Have you been to Dr. Tumblety?” she finally said.

“Nah, I heal pretty quick, and he’s a jackass.”

They both laughed. They both winced from the pain the laughter brought.

“I just wanted to check on you,” he said. “Make sure you and your girl were okay.”

“Yes,” she said. “She’s sleeping a lot. There are nightmares, but she remembers less every day. She is mending, getting stronger in fact. Thank you. I’ll tell her you asked after her. I appreciate your concern.”

They stood there, no words again, and that was all right. The afternoon wind was blowing up clouds of dust in the bright sunlight.

“I gotta go,” Mutt said. “Just wanted to, you know.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

He started to walk away.

“Why aren’t you asking me?” she said. “You must have a lot of questions.”

“Not really,” he said. “I know what I need to know. I know what counts. The rest is just conversation.”

He began walking again.

“Mutt,” she said. He turned back. “Arthur’s funeral is tomorrow. Most of our associates are really Arthur’s associates. I was hoping you could attend, as my friend. I don’t have too many. I never have.”

Mutt nodded. “Me too. I’d be honored.”

“Thank you.”

He stood in the street, watching as she closed the door. He put his hat back on and then walked away.

Many families held vigils with the bodies resting in Clay’s barn. With so many dead, it was taking a while to bury them all properly.

Tonight, Harry was alone with Holly on the black watch. The huge barn was silent except for the sounds of the wind coming off the desert, rustling through the high sacaton grass. The moon was swollen and bright—almost like day—and the stars chased each other like cats, racing across the desert sky.

Ringo and Sarah had both offered to sit the night with him, but Harry had declined. This was his duty alone. The least he could do for her after all he had stolen from her—the chance for a family, for a man who could love her as she had deserved to be loved. For failing to save her, for killing her. For every lie, every bitter, hurtful word. For not being able to say good-bye to her, just the thing that wore her body those last days. For not being able to tell her it wasn’t all fake, it wasn’t all untrue. There had been love, but she would never know that now. Her soul was gone, devoured.

He wanted to cry, but there was nothing left. He hadn’t been home to the mansion, to their home—her home—since the night she died. He knew who he was, why he was, and he accepted it. But the price she paid had been too high for his security, his fear and denial. Harry sat looking at her shroud-covered body, wishing it could be him there.