The Six-Gun Tarot (27 page)

“Worms,” Clay said. “Specifically, parasitic worms.”

“Did I mention lately how much I hate parasites?” Highfather muttered. “All right, so, someone poisoned our banker with this … wormy gunk. Now I don’t know why, but I’m pretty sure the new owners of the silver mine, Deerfield and Moore, do, and I don’t need a crystal ball to know Malachi Bick is mixed up in this, some way or other.

“Harry, you and Arthur had been in bed with Malachi over the years in quite a few business deals. Could he have had Arthur killed and Holly snatched? Fess up; if there’s something going on that we don’t know about, it could mean the difference in finding her and getting her home safe.”

Harry kept his head down. He was trying to focus, trying to concentrate over the jabbering of crazy old Clay, over his desire to smash Mutt’s sharp, smug face, trying to focus over the terrified, mad sounds Holly’s horses were making. She had loved old Dolly. When he saw Holly brushing her in the stables, singing “Lorena” softly to her, it had made him fall in love with Holly again, made him wish he wasn’t who he was, for her sake. She was a good woman, Holly Pratt. Sweet, passionate and beautiful. Strong and stubborn and so very, very sad after he had been unable to love her the way she loved him.

“I … I don’t think it’s anything like that,” he muttered. “I’ve no current business with Malachi that would benefit in any way from such blackguard behavior, even if I thought him capable of it. Malachi Bick is a true son of a bitch, gentlemen; he cheats, he lies, he steals and I’m told he has even murdered in his time, but I do not believe he would ever hurt someone he truly considered innocent. No, I don’t think he’s behind any of this.”

“How’s ’bout the Injuns?” one of the posse members, a cowboy named Dyer, suggested as he struggled with the other horse. “They could have snuck in here at night and taken her, maybe to sell. They could do some of that hexing stuff they do on the horses, y’know, with all that dancing and grunting and groaning that passes for church for ’em? A fine-looking lady like Mrs. Pratt would fetch…” He let the implication hang when Harry glared at him from under the shade of his bowler.

Mutt spit at a scorpion and let out a single dry snort of amusement, then turned to Highfather, ignoring Dyer.

“Jonathan, you remember that stuff old Earl Gibson wrote up in his Bible? It said something about worms in it.… The Greate Olde Wurm, or some-such. Think it could have anything to do with the stuff that killed Stapleton?”

The horses went berserk. More men hurried over to try to control them, but to no avail. Harry rubbed the bridge of his nose. The noise was like a hot wire, jammed into his forehead.

“Hadn’t had a chance to look at the Bible, or talk to Earl about it, since Arthur got killed,” Highfather said. “You told me Earl was mixed up with some preacher?”

Mutt nodded. “All the folks who went loco in the last few weeks were attending his services.”

“What does that crazy old drunk have to do with Holly?” Harry asked. “I’m of a mind to follow up on the notion the Indians may have had something to do with this.” He stared coldly at Mutt, who was not smiling for a change.

“Oh, come on, Harry,” Highfather said. “You’re too smart to have us waste time on that. The Shoshoni, the Paiute, they set up a raiding party, snuck into our town in the dead of night and took one person—Holly?”

“Sound any crazier to you than wasting time on damn fool Earl Gibson’s ravings and worm juice?” Harry said. He turned to the men holding the horses. “Can’t you people shut them up?” The men tried, but both animals seemed newly agitated, shot through with fresh fear.

“Uh, Sheriff, Mr. Mayor?” Jim said “Earl, that is, Mr. Gibson, he spoke to me the other day when I was cleaning up the cells. He said a lot of queer stuff, but he also mentioned … worms a couple of times, said they were eating him up.”

“Why didn’t you tell us this when it happened, Jim?” Highfather said. Jim locked his jaw but made no reply. Old Earl had known his real name, had known about his father’s eye. Jim wondered if it had been foolish to break his silence. He wanted to help, but too many lies, too many hidden truths, all led him back to the hangman.

“You should have said something,” Highfather chided.

“Venom,” Clay announced. Everyone stopped and looked at him. Clay pointed to Harry. “He said ‘worm juice’ and the sheriff said ‘wormy gunk’; it’s really more like a blood-based venom.…”

They all stared mutely.

“There’s no, you know, no juice actually involved, at all. And I don’t think ‘gunk’ is even a scientific term.”

Clay nodded sagely and shuffled off to retrieve something from his wagon.

“Well,” Highfather said. “That was helpful.”

“Jon, wasn’t Earl going on about worms or somethin’ when he tried to shoot up Auggie’s?” Mutt said, snapping his fingers.

“He did.” Highfather nodded. “We need to have a long talk with Earl Gibson.”

“No, Sheriff!” Harry shouted over the horses’ screams. Clay was near Dolly, on the side opposite him. He seemed to be trying to calm her down, along with the other men, and having no more luck. “If you want to waste time listening to some old drunk fool’s ranting, do that on your own time. I’m ordering you to investigate the possible Indian abduction connection and to notify the Army. Then continue to search the town, including the squatters’ camp—burn the damn place down if you have to, but find her!”

Harry knew he was overreacting, knew he was telling a good, methodical man how to do his job, but none of that mattered. The horses were shrieking. He had to find her, had to get the chance to say he was sorry, had to try to explain to her where it had gone wrong, where he had gone wrong, not her. The horses kept screaming and thrashing, lost in madness.

“Put them down,” Harry said, turning his back on Highfather and the others as he began to walk to his horse. “Both of them.”

“Man ought to take care of his own business, don’t you think, Mr. Mayor?”

It was Mutt’s voice. Harry turned and the deputy was standing there, no smile on his face, just cruel judgment behind flint eyes. His rifle was held out in his hand as an offering.

“Mutt…,” Highfather whispered.

Harry snatched the rifle, a Winchester ’66 carbine, out of the half-breed’s hand, cocked it, carefully. His eyes drilled blue fire into the void of Mutt’s gaze.

For a second, Highfather thought Mutt was in danger of being shot, but Golgotha’s mayor turned and walked to Dolly instead.

The gunshot echoed across the desert, sharp and then rolling like man-made thunder. A pause, then another.

The screaming stopped.

Strength

Two things came down Argent Mountain: miners and rumors. Both of them tended to pile up at the Paradise Falls. It was the end of the week and a mob of dirty, thirsty, rowdy miners poured into the saloon just after sundown, money burning a hole in their pockets.

The latest story floating around the room, along with milky streams of smoke and the jangling raucous piano strains of “You Naughty, Naughty Men,” was that that a new vein had been opened. The bosses, Deerfield and Moore, had ordered blasting this week. The always-dangerous gamble had paid off. Their dynamite man apparently had the nerves and eye of a surgeon and there had been no accidents, injuries or deaths. A new vein meant happy bosses, happy bosses meant bonus pay and a day off tomorrow and that meant the Paradise was full to busting.

The faro tables were packed. A crowd, two deep, was watching with amusement to see how much money the young tenderfoot miners were going to lose to the Paradise’s resident dealer, Henry Rorer. Rorer, his hair meticulously center-parted, every strand plastered down, sported a pencil thin mustache. He slid the cards out of the dealer’s box oil smooth. The ever-present smoldering Turkish Oriental dangled from the corner of his mouth.

Up on the stage, the ebullient Miss Sherry Haines led the girls of the Paradise Falls Burlesque and Review through her own production of the songs from the popular musical
The Black Crook.
Sherry and her dancers frolicked in a most provocative manner, all stockings and wigs, legs and grins, while the standing-room-only crowd of cowpunchers, muleskinners, rustlers, gamblers, miners and businessmen hooted and howled. A few of the local Mormon men sat in the shadows, guiltily enjoying the view and sipping cold beer that sweated as much as they did. If anyone had a little too much tarantula juice and decided to climb onstage to join the act, Kerry Duell with the big muscles and small bowler was there to pull them off, escort them outside and enlighten them to the error of their ways.

At the bar, Georgie Nance was setting them up as fast as the crowd knocked them down. Though his sphinx-like expression would never have let anyone know, George was happy. It was good to see big crowds in the Paradise again, good to see miners, dirty and loud—bringing in as much hope for this town’s future as they were tracking in dust. New silver meant new faces, new families and the promise that Golgotha wouldn’t just dry up and blow away.

A cheer rose up from the miners as Jacob Moore and Oscar Deerfield entered the saloon like conquering kings. The two made their way toward Georgie, moving through a sea of backslaps and handshakes.

“What can I get for the gentlemen of the hour?” George asked.

“We’re here to share our good fortune,” Deerfield said. “A round for the house of your finest, my good fellow!”

A cheer went up from the crowd. Deerfield raised a hand for silence. After a moment, the music stopped and the cacophony descended into a disjointed murmur.

“Gentlemen, we have done fine today! Thanks to you and your adherence to diligence and good old American hard work, the future of the Argent Mining Company has been assured!”

Another roar from the miners. George handed Deerfield his drink and the mine boss raised his glass, once again demanding silence. Painted saloon girls and drunken cowboys now leaned over the railings on the second floor, to hear Deerfield’s oratory.

You have worked hard, risked your necks; now enjoy the fruits of your labor! To the Argent Mine—the future of Golgotha!”

This time the whole bar exploded with whoops, whistles and shouts of joy.

Deerfield glanced up to see a shadow regarding him from behind a blinded glass window on the second floor. The door next to the large window said
Office
in elegant gold leaf. Deerfield shrugged and touched his glass to Moore’s. The smaller man’s whole face seemed to fall in on itself when he smiled.

“Good sirs, this way, if ya please,” one of the mine managers, a mug in his hand, said. “One side, ya drunken reprobates! One side, make way for the owners!”

Deerfield and Moore made their way to a table cleared by a few of the miners. The music had started up again, as had the overwhelming symphony of hoots, laughter and chatter. Deerfield nodded to the manager and his men, handed the manager a golden eagle and gestured for them to depart. The men, grinning ear to ear, disappeared into the churning crowd.

“Well, Oscar, m’boy, we’re on our way!” Moore said over the din. Deerfield was silent. The well-rehearsed smile was gone and Moore recognized the start of a fret coming on. Jacob Moore greatly admired the personal charisma, ruthless business acumen and general ease with which Deerfield could turn a disaster into a dollar. However, Moore’s lanky partner had a disturbing quality of looking for the cloud in every silver lining. Moore was in the mood to enjoy success. He had never seen it as often as Deerfield had, had never been cheered walking into a saloon before. He wasn’t in the mood to wrestle with Oscar’s black dog.

“Smooth sailing from here on, no doubt, my lad!” Moore said.

“Nothing about this business has been smooth, Jacob,” Deerfield said, sipping his whiskey. “This business with the preacher, or soothsayer or whatever the blazes he is, it’s troubling to say the least. The law is looking at us hard because of Art’s murder—”

He glanced up to the window. The shadow was gone.

“—and I think we’re getting other attention we don’t need.”

Moore shrugged. It annoyed Deerfield. The ambivalent gesture was his rotund partner’s answer to most things he preferred not to deal with at the present time.

“Look,” Moore said. “Everything Ambrose has told us has come true. Even the silver vein—it was exactly where he said it would be! And that man of his, Phillips, he’s the surest dynamite man I’ve ever seen; it’s like the man has frozen Chinamen’s blood in his veins.”

“Still, I don’t like it,” Deerfield said, leaning forward across the table. “I know a blackleg when I see one. This preacher is using us, Jacob. We need to settle our accounts with Ambrose and send him on his way, posthaste.”

“We will, we will; don’t let this spoil our mood. Look around you, Oscar, m’boy! We’re heroes, regular Alexanders to these mudsills. Relax.”

They admired Sherry and her girls as the dancers twirled and capered onstage. The men glanced at each other and broke into wide grins.

“Relax?”

“Relax.”

They raised their whiskey glasses to drain in sublime victory.

Two large hands, the size of skillets, settled on each man’s shoulder, gently. The partners paused and turned to regard the giant who loomed over them. The man was a Negro, at least seven feet tall, all of it coiled muscle and barrel chest. His head was shaved smooth and he wore a small gold hoop in one earlobe. His face was broad and flat, and it was strangely placid for a man radiating such power and mass. His eyes were a warm brown, flecked with green. He wore a well-made, and obviously custom, linen shirt with a vest. The giant smiled.

“Gentlemen,” he rumbled. His voice had an odd accent that Deerfield recalled from numerous trips to New Orleans—a French patois. “Sorry to interrupt your celebration, gentlemen, but Mr. Bick would care for a word with you both.”

“Hands off, boy.” It was the mine manager’s voice. “The masters don’t want to be—”

The hand lifted from Deerfield’s shoulder. There was a sound like a chicken bone splintering, about to snap. Moore and Deerfield spun to regard the serene giant holding their six-foot foreman. A massive hand was wrapped around the manager’s head, the palm covering his face. He dangled at least a foot off the floor, gasping in pain and shock.