Dead Man’s Hand (21 page)

“If you’re right, it won’t make a shred of difference. Not in the long run. But then,
I suppose, what does?”

“You gotta help me, Bill. I know I did a rash thing out there. But it ain’t Parker
Quail or his men I’m worried about.”

“Who?”

“They’re still out there. The machines Miss Steel was tryin’ to find.” He shook his
head ruefully. “Should’ve listened to that woman. She told me not to go pokin’ my
nose into what I didn’t understand, but I thought I knew better… I couldn’t help myself,
Bill. I had to know if what I’d seen in that tent was real. So I kept on, tryin’ to
get close to the men at the heart of things… and I got
too
close. They know about me, know what I know… and I know one day they’ll find me.”

“Maybe you should’ve stayed out of harm’s way, instead of making a public spectacle
of yourself.”

My words seemed to wash through him. “You can get me out of here, Bill. Over the state
line. I’ll make it to Mexico. You won’t never hear of me again.”

I thought of what Parker Quail had said, of how I’d look after my friend. “I can’t
do that, Bill. We both know that. But you’ll be safe here. What you’ve done ain’t
exactly a swinging crime.”

“Help me, Bill.”

I made to answer when something crashed against the window, as if it had been hurled
from the street. The glass shattered, but the iron bars prevented the object from
going any farther.

“Don’t go anywhere,” I said, placing down my coffee mug. I wasn’t surprised that someone
had hurled something at the office, but I was annoyed and puzzled that there’d been
no reaction from Benedict, no shout or warning shot.

Something compelled me to fetch the shotgun. I cocked it, opened the door, and stepped
onto the sidewalk. A fist-sized pebble lay at my feet. Two shadowy figures were slipping
away, ducking down the narrow alley between the land office and Kimball’s hardware
store. It was still raining like the ocean itself was over our heads, draining out
through the clouds.

“Benedict!” I shouted. “Where in heck are you?”

“Over here, boss!”

Benedict was running down the street, coming back from the wrong direction. He had
his revolver drawn. “Thought I had ’em!”

“Must’ve been more than two of them,” I said, figuring that they’d meant to draw Benedict
in the wrong direction. I was cross, but I couldn’t hold it against my deputy. It
was hard to see much on a night like this, and Parker Quail’s men were sly and numerous
enough to give us the runaround if they so wished. “Guess I didn’t make my point strongly
enough.” I began to negotiate the steps down from the wooden sidewalk.

“Where you going, boss?”

“Quail’s saloon. See if I can talk some sense into that snake-mean sonofabitch.”

Benedict paused halfway up the sidewalk, the light from our window catching the gleam
of his boots.

“You want back-up?”

I shook my head. “Keep an eye on Abel McCreedy until I’m back. All this over a horseless
goddamn carriage!”

“My mammy always said no good’ll come of such things,” Benedict said, slipping past
me.

I didn’t know what kind of a deal I was going to have to make with Parker Quail to
keep the peace, but just the thought of it was already leaving a taste in my mouth
like I’d sucked snake venom. I’d made my promise to Abel, though. I couldn’t shield
him from the law, but I could shield him from lynch mobs.

But I was halfway to Quail’s saloon when it felt like a little lever had just clicked
in my head.

Something wrong about Benedict.

Not the fact that he’d mentioned his mammy, which was unusual. But his boots. Gleaming
in the window light. There hadn’t been one damned speck of mud on them as he came
up those steps. Almost as if the mud didn’t want to be on them, like it had better
places to be hanging around.

He’d looked dry, too. Even though it was still bucketing down. I was already soaked
clean through.

Feeling a deep foreboding, I turned around and headed straight back to the office.
It couldn’t have been more than two minutes since I’d stepped off the sidewalk. The
door was ajar, a crack of light spilling out onto the sidewalk. I readied myself,
prepared to use that shotgun, and kicked the door wide.

McCreedy was still there. Nothing had happened to him. He was still sitting in the
chair, facing me with a kind of slack-jawed look about him, as if it was odd for a
man to come busting through a door with a Winchester shotgun, which I suppose was
a fair reaction.

“I thought…” I started. Then: “Where’s Benedict? Did you see Benedict return?”

Abel didn’t answer. He was still looking at me, but nothing on his face had changed.
His mouth was still open. A long line of drool began to ooze its way out between his
lips, down into the uncharted territory of his beard.

“Abel?” I asked. “Abel? What in hell’s gotten into you?”

He made a sound. It was a series of dry clicks, made with the back of the throat,
the kind that people make in their sleep when they’re halfway to snoring.

I set down the shotgun and rushed to Abel. I knew then that something was wrong with
him, something beyond the capability of any doctor or surgeon to remedy, but I didn’t
want to believe it. He was still alive, still breathing, and I couldn’t see a scratch
or bruise on him that hadn’t been there before. But someone or something had got to
him, I was sure of that.

“Abel, talk to me,” I said, holding his head in my hands.

He just kept up that clicking. His eyes were looking into mine with a powerful fear,
as if he knew just as well as I did that there was something terribly wrong. But there
was nothing he or I could do.

Behind me, the door opened.

“Boss!”

It was Benedict, as muddy and soaked as his earlier apparition should have been.

I still had my hands on Abel’s head. “Where you been?”

“Heard a commotion around the back, went to look. Wasn’t no one there, so I came back.
Why are you looking at me that way?”

Benedict didn’t need to know what I’d seen only a few minutes earlier. It didn’t help
a man to know his double might be walking around. “Something’s happened to Abel.”

“You mean someone got in?” He was standing in the doorway, half in half out. “How
could they, boss? One of us would’ve been here.”

“Something happened,” I said. “That’s all I know.”

* * *

I don’t suppose the dry facts add up to much. Abel McCreedy, a man of my acquaintance,
was caught wrecking someone else’s property. The man was detained and found in possession
of an outlandish story, unquestionably the product of a mind losing its hold on things.
Threats were made against the man, and my deputy and I took pains to assert our authority
against an organized lynch mob under the influence of Parker Quail, owner of the damaged
property. In the course of events, on a dark and rainy night, there was a momentary
confusion of identities. Someone may or may not have gained entrance to the Town Marshal’s
office by posing as my deputy Tommy Benedict. If they did, they left no trace of their
presence save a man turned mute and fear-struck. Of course, when a man has spent ten
years of his life staring down a bottle, that sort of thing can happen to him without
outside assistance.

Doctor Hudson certified that Abel McCreedy had suffered damage to his wits, damage
that was serious and irrevocable enough to render him totally unfit for trial. Unfit
for anything, in fact. Abel McCreedy, son of Georgia, soldier, bounty hunter, Pinkerton,
private detective—and good friend of mine—was sent to end his days in the county asylum.
He remains there today. I have it on excellent authority that he has never uttered
an intelligible word, although he is said to be given to screaming in his sleep.

Mostly, I have tried not to think about Abel, or his story of machine intelligences.
It has not been too hard. There is always more work for me and my deputies. Each year
seems busier than the last, and each year goes quicker, too. None of us get any younger.
At times it is almost too much. One learns to snatch the quiet hours when they come.
Tommy Benedict has long since moved on, but I soon taught my new deputy the way I
take my coffee. When there is a chance, I like to read the newspaper. They have photographs
in them now, and advertisements for automobiles. No one calls them horseless carriages
anymore.

I am reading about some brothers in North Carolina, bicycle makers, when there is
a knock at the door. A woman enters, dressed all in black, and there is something
electric in the air, like the premonition of a thunderstorm.

“Miss Dolores C. Steel,” I say.

“You know my name.”

“I heard about you from Abel McCreedy. He told me you met in a huckster’s tent.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“But you don’t look any older than the way he described you. I shouldn’t be surprised,
should I?” I fold my newspaper carefully. “Have you come to turn me mute as well?”

“That wasn’t my doing, Marshal. I wanted the best for your friend, but he wouldn’t
listen. Unfortunately, he came to the attention of the wrong sort of people. I don’t
know how they found him so quickly. They must have been waiting… knowing he would
seek your assistance sooner or later. I would have liked to help, but I was… elsewhere.
I’m truly sorry about what happened.”

“Can you make Abel better?”

“No, that’s not within my gift. But I understand you did your best that night.”

“It wasn’t much.”

“Have you had cause to ponder on the things Abel told you? The other things, I mean.”

“How do you know he said anything at all?”

“Intuition, Marshal. And the way you’re looking at me now.” She raises a hand. “I’ve
not come to do you harm. Far from it. I just wanted to put your mind at ease. The
people who did that to Abel… they needn’t concern you now. They’ve been brought to
account.”

“Here, or on the Moon?”

The tiniest smile cracks the masklike perfection of her face. “A little farther than
the Moon. But they won’t be back here. And I’m sorry for the trouble that was caused.”

“To me?”

“Let’s just say there’ll be no more… interference.”

I nod at this, but my qualms won’t settle that easily. “But what Abel told me, it
all still holds? The triumph of the machines? That’s all still going to happen?”

“I’ve seen it a thousand times. I wish I could say otherwise.”

“You almost sound sympathetic, Miss Steel.”

“Perhaps I am. I’ve spent a lot of time around the organic. It’s hard not to form
attachments.” She pauses and extends her hand. The fist is closed, but it opens slowly.
“The thing that was troubling you, since the war between the States? I took the liberty
of removing it. I hope you won’t consider that an impertinence.”

She leans forward and places the little black pellet on my desk. It’s impossibly tiny.
How can a thing that small have given me so much unpleasantness? It doesn’t seem fair.

“When did you remove it?”

“A few moments ago. I needed only to be in this room. The rest was… well, I’ll spare
you the details.” She cocks her head in an oddly clockwork manner. “I could put it
back, if you’d like.”

“No,” I say. “Please don’t.”

“I’ll be leaving soon. I just wanted to make your acquaintance…”

“Thank you, Miss Steel.”

“See me to the street, Marshal?”

I stand, and for the first time since that bullet went into me, I don’t feel the slightest
twinge. I wonder if it’s a trick, a kind of hypnosis. That little black thing on my
desk could be anything, just some grit she found out on the road. I won’t know for
certain that she is what she says she is until she does that thing with her face.
But I can’t very well ask that of a lady.

Even in these times of automobiles and flying machines, there are limits.

My path to sickness began the day General Lee surrendered his sword. That coward laid
down his arms, and so me and my brother took our rifles and headed west. Wasn’t sure
where we was heading, just away. My brother didn’t make it far. He survived the Battle
of Sharpsburg but was brought down by a persistent cough. Fell off his horse and never
got back up. I’d seen more dead than any vicar, but that don’t make me immune to its
sad effects. Many a drink and several fistfights later, I found myself in a new army.
They gave me a uniform I was more familiar shooting at than buttoning across my chest,
and somehow slid from a war between brothers to this frontier life hunting natives.
It was all about killing a man you didn’t know. That made it easier, keeping them
strangers. Knowing them makes the killing hard.

My father had raised me and my brothers in the pine-studded hills of Virginia, just
outside of Staunton. Pa gave me my first rifle, pointed at a squirrel, and told me
to shoot. Men more dear to me than my father have been handing me guns and directing
my fire ever since. I still find it strange how a man can lose at a war and then enlist
in another with his enemy. But there are no real sides in this life except the barrel
of a gun and the butt of a gun, and I know where I prefer to stand.

After enlisting, they stationed me at Fort Morgan. This was years before that unfortunate
incident at Wounded Knee Creek. It was before the world heard of the Ghost Dance that
was driving the natives mad. What we would one day call the Messiah Craze, and would
lodge in my ear like a starving tick, had yet to cause trouble on those plains.

Fort Morgan was a lot like the endless Confederate encampments I had endured while
serving. The only difference was that the fort didn’t relocate in the morning; it
had far fewer men moaning and dying in tents; and it was less prone to abandonment
at night. I reckon Colorado was a long way for a man to run home from. Most soldiers
out there had already done their running, and Fort Morgan was where they’d ended up.
Their final resting spot was a scrabble of tents and rickety shacks ringed by a shoddy
wall of pine stumps where the best that could be said was they fed you twice a day.
Two muddy tracks came in straight as an arrow from the east, cut right through Fort
Morgan, and disappeared out the other end toward the west. In one direction, a flat
nothing where only the dust stirred and a creek petered out and was swallowed by the
cracked earth; in the other, ancient and impossibly tall mountains stood with white
tops like old men. The hell in-between was our home.