Episodes
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If Dance only looked at one side of the street it could almost appear that Grantham had gotten back to normal. There had been a rough few days after the fire, but they’d buried the dead, said words over them, and moved on.
That didn’t mean that things were good but they could've been a hell of a lot worse. Food and supplies were dwindling, but since Dance had organized hunting parties, supplies were dwindling nice and slow. Sure, they'd have to do something about it, but right now the 203 surviving souls of the Town of Grantham were in need of a respite.
If they could keep from getting wiped out by the wildlife or savage tribes – and if the coffee lasted long enough — they just might be O.K.
Having given himself over to a philosophical turn of mind Dance could see how their predicament wasn't any different than any other frontier town. They were on the edge of the unknown struggling to survive. They had plenty of water and the weather, at least so far, was nice. He savored another sip of coffee and he resolved to enjoy what he could while he could.
Walking up the street and taking his own sweet time about it, Speedy Pete was headed towards the jail. When he got close Dance asked, "Pete, how in the hell is it that you ain't dead? I mean I ain't complaining. I'm just saying, I know which way I lay the odds on that one…”
Speedy Pete smiled slow and pushed his hat back. “Well sir, my Mama always said I'd be late to my own funeral. So what I reckon is… Death just shows up to where I'm supposed to be and when I’m not there, all punctual-lie, he get sick of waiting around. Goes off finds somebody else to do business with."
Dance was so stumped by the unexpected elegance of his Deputy’s explanation all he could say was, “Fair enough, Pete.”
"We step inside so I can make my report?"
"No, Pete she's in there schooling up them kids. Did you know that little girl can read?"
"School? But that school Ma’rm ran off. I mean afore we even… wound up here."
“I know Pete. But the Widow Miller is intent on her children getting an education. And I have reconciled myself to the fact that it's wise to stay clear of the entire enterprise so I don't get my head mixed up with any book larnin’. Somebody’s gotta think straight around here,” Dance said with a wink.
Pete missed the joke entirely and said, “You takin’ up with that Widder is one thing, but I’m not sure I'm OK with children living in a jail cell."
“Makes ‘em easy to contain,” said Dance, blowing another joke right by Pete. “Besides, we ain’t got no other use for them cells. They’re for holding people for the Judge, and as the Judge ain’t coming no more. Miscreants are getting fined or hanged.” Dance looked in his coffee and said, “Well, I suppose you could say the one’s gettin’ hanged are just getting fined everything.”
Pete puzzled on this for a moment then shook his head to clear it of philosophical speculations the same way that people will beat a rug to rid it of dust. Then he said,“Well, we got the watches all figured out, and I think them Polacks know where to be and when. But I can't understand a goddamn word they're saying most of the time.”
Dance said, “That's OK Pete, nobody can."
"They was jibber jabberin’ away about laundry! Something about that the Chinaman wasn't doing it for free no more. But I don’t think I heard it right. I mean why would a Chinaman watch a bunch of Polack’s laundry for free? Don't make no damn sense."
"And anything else around here does?" asked Dance.
“Well iffn I’m gettin’ any say in the matter, Sheriff, I'll take my mysteries in a language I can understand.”
Dance finished his coffee and said,”Let’s go down and see what the fuss with the Chinaman is all about.”
He took his cup into the jail and lifted a rifle from the rack. Penelope was sounding out words from a book and Mac looked up from a calculating slate to glare at the Sheriff. Dance couldn’t blame the boy much for his animosity. He reckoned he’d feel much the same. But Laura smiled at him and that was all that mattered.
Then she saw the rifle in his hand and her smile faded. Dance said, “Just have to see about a crazy Chinaman,” by way of reassurance, but Laura’s smile did not reappear.
By the time Dance got back outside the commotion had poured into the middle of the street and was headed right for him. Five thick-necked miners were following the Chinaman as he led a heavily-ladened mule up the middle of the street.
Dance asked, “Now just where in the hell does he think he's going?"
Pete said nothing, which, when Pete could manage it, was how Dance liked him best.
One of the miners, looking about as at home in the sunlight as a freshly upturned mole, seized the mule’s reins. This upset the Chinaman and he shoved the miner, and tried to regain control of his animal. This angered the rest of the miners, and they piled on. Dance had to respect to the little Oriental fella. He didn’t go quietly. He kicked the first one square in the nuts and then started jumping and gesticulating like he had a bad case of the St. Vitus’. It worked well enough at first but there were just too many miners and too few pounds of Chinaman for him to have any real chance.
The Chinaman dropped a second one with a chop to the throat and got a third with a kick to the kneecap. But then somebody got a hold of the Chinaman’s ponytail and gave it a yank and down everyone went into the dust.
Dance shook his head at the whole mess. He wasn't getting mixed up in that crap, no sir. Beside him, Pete started forward, eager to do his duty. The Sheriff stopped him with his left hand and raised the rifle over his head with his right and fired. As the report died away all eyes in the pile of men looked to the Sheriff. Dance said, “All right! That's enough rolling around in the horseshit for one day."
The pileup slowly disengaged revealing the Chinaman at the bottom. He seemed relatively unharmed. He barked a singsong phrase at the men around him and then started to walk off after his well-ladened mule. One of the Miners grabbed his ponytail and yanked him off his feet once again.
Dance lifted his rifle from his shoulder, stepped in, and clubbed the miner in the back of the head. As the large, fleshy man collapsed to the earth Dance said, "I said enough! And, by God, I meant enough. Now what the hell is going on here?"
The air was filled with languages that the Sheriff did not understand. He yelled for everyone to speak in English but, everyone could not. The one miner who spoke some English had a dislocated jaw, so Dance couldn’t understand him, even thought he was trying his best. The Chinaman stood with his arms crossed, not saying a word, and managed to be the most dignified party in the entire matter. Excepting the mule.
As Dance was trying to sort out the mess, Pete went after the Mule, that was quietly plodding up the street, wisely trying to distance himself from this human foolishness. Then, Pete stopped in his tracks. Coming from the East, silhouetted by the morning sun, was a stranger coming in from the wilderness.
“Sheriff…” said Pete.
The commotion of men arguing and incompatible languages continued behind him, so Pete tried again, louder.
"Sheriff!"
This time everyone looked up and saw the figure in his strange red robes, strolling into town as if he did it every day. All argument ceased. The Chinaman helped the clubbed miner to his feet. The miner, thinking that this meant the fight was still on, raised his fist to attempt a wobbly blow. The Chinaman slapped the fist away and pointed at the stranger coming into town. The miner forgot all about the fight.
Dance, held his rifle loose in both hands, stood beside Pete and squinted at what was coming. He said, “Pete, run go get that Englishman. He's gonna wanna see this."
Pete looked at the Sheriff, then at the stranger, then back to the Sheriff. He tried to get the sheriff the reins of the mule, but the Sheriff didn't take his eyes off the stranger. So Pete just dropped the reins and headed off with all the hurry he could manage.
* * *
By the time Archie arrived, limping in on his bad foot as fast as he could manage, the Stranger was standing at the end of main street. He was dressed in red robes and held a staff of plain wood in this right hand. Around his shoulder we wore a satchel, something like half a saddlebag on a leather strap. He had sandals and if he was scared by the crowd of townspeople that had assembled, he did not show it. His face was worn and his beard and hair were flecked with grey. He could have been anywhere from 50 to 80 years old.
Archie said, “What do we do now?”
The Sheriff said, “We go see if you and he have any languages in common.”
“I’m not much of a translator,” said Archie, “Especially when I’m nervous.”
“Relax. I’ve about half made up my mind to shoot him anyway,” said the Sheriff, and started walking.
Archie hobbled along behind.
As the Sheriff came closer the Stranger smiled and raised his hand in greeting. Dance gave him a thousand-yard stare.
The Stranger said something that no one understood. Archie said something back in a different language. In response, the stranger reached into his satchel and pulled out a skin of water. He took a swig and then offered the bag to the Sheriff and Archie. When no one moved, the stranger shrugged. Then he said, “Orlap Bechtanar thrunce dak.”
Archie shrugged.
The stranger repeated the words then nodded to himself. From his satchel he removed a cut red gemstone, the size of a small melon. The Sun glinted off its facets and as he held in front of him it seemed a thing made of light rather than mineral.
The Stranger took another step forward. Dance cocked the rifle and stepped forward to meet him.
The stranger stopped and smiled again. Then he slowly set his satchel and staff on the ground. He removed his robes and revealed his weathered body, as gnarled as piece of long-dried driftwood. And written in scar tissue across his chest were the remnants of a cruel wound. The ribs of one side of his chest were partially caved in and gave the old man a disturbing asymmetry.
Dance remained unmoved by any of this. And only moved his eyes to scan the horizon in case this was some kind of prelude to an ambush.
Clad in only a loincloth the stranger held the red stone out in front of him with both hands and walked slowly towards the men.
Beside him, Sheriff Dance felt more than saw people reaching for weapons in the crowd behind him. “Easy,” said Dance, “Ain’t no showdown. Worst he’s tried to do is kill us with a bad striptease.” He said it so well he almost managed to convince himself.
The stranger spoke again. This time just a single word, “Mobruk. Mobruk. Morbruk.” He held the stone out to the Sheriff, encouraging him to take it, using the same tone of voice a Mother might use to get a toddler to take a mouthful of food. He looked directly into Sheriff Dance’s eyes and nodded encouragingly. “Mobruk.”
The Sheriff reached out his hand and took the stone. He felt a shiver run up his arm and into his brain. He shook his head and then he understood what the man was saying.
“Take. Take.”
“What the hell!?!” said the Sheriff.
“Good, we have connection,” said the Stranger. “We can now understand each other.”
“But, I…” said Dance. He looked back to Archie and asked, “Can you understand him?”
“Not a word. You can?”
“I can. I don’t know how, but I can.”
“Please share the gift of Ba-El with others. So that all may understand and peace may be on the world."
The Sheriff looked at the stranger in his loincloth and said, “Yeah, I got a peacemaker too. Never seems to work like I want it to though."
Archie said, “What does he say? If you can understand him, you must translate."
Sheriff Dance handed Archie the glowing orb. Archie touched it and his eyes went wide.
"Yes," said the stranger, "you see now, his peace will spread. Glory be to Ba-El father of Harmony!"
Archie said, “Wait. Run that by me one more time. Ba-El is some kind of deity? What is this then?” He asked holding up the orb,“and by what source is this powered?”
The Priest of Ba-El said, “Please, I will answer all questions in time, but first spread Ba-El's gift, so that all may speak the same language."
Dance took the orb back from Archie and asked, “You think everybody knowing what people are really sayin’ is going to bring peace?"
"It is a consummation devoutly wished," said the Priest of Ba-El.
"Well, let's just see about that.” Dance turned to the battered Miners and beleaguered Chinaman. He threw the orb to the Chinaman who caught it deftly. Dance said, “Pass it round!”
The Chinaman’s eyes went wide with the shock of understanding the words. He looked at the orb, then back to the Sheriff. "How can you be speaking Chinese?!?"
"I don't know, how are you speaking English?"
"It is Ba-El’s gift,” said the Priest of Ba-El as he smiled at the wonder of shared understanding.
“Yes you’ve said that,” said Archie.
“Chinaman, give it over to them Polacks,” said Dance.
“My name is not Chinaman, it is Liu Sung.”
“Alright Loose Un’, give it over.”
Liu Sung offered the orb to the Polish Miners. First, none of them wanted it, but finally the man Dance had hit with the rifle stretched out his hands and took the orb. Dance asked “Can you understand us?”
“He stole our silver!!!” said the Miner
“I did not. You try to rob me!" countered Liu.
As the argument continued, Sheriff Dance looked back at the Red Priest and said, “Yeah, all sorted out. Happily ever after.”
The Miner said, “His mule is full of silver. This crazy Chinaman was washing clothes for free. We didn’t pay him no silver. He didn’t mine no silver. The only way for him to get it was to steal it.”
“Ah,” said Archie, “Deduction.”
“I never steal,” said Liu.
“Then how’d you get it, Chinaman!”
“Liu. Liu Sung!”
Dance stepped between them. “Easy Loose Un’! Let’s just take it one step at a time. Pete, fetch that mule over here.”
The mule, who somehow was the most even-tempered party in the whole matter, was freighted with heavy panniers on each of his flanks. Sheriff Dance looked inside and found them filled with small leather sacks. He opened one of the sacks and found it filled with silver dust.
“Alright. He’s got a shitload of silver. Mr. Chinam— I mean Loose ‘Un, you want to explain how you got all this silver?”
“I did not steal,” said Liu Sung.
“And I ain't saying that you did, but I am curious as to where it came from, and where you think you might be going out into that savage wasteland with it?”
“I go back to the middle kingdom, back to civilization."
"Ain't no civilization left, or ain't you noticed? We're on our own son,” said the Sheriff.
"Sung, Liu Sung. Sung is a proud name. The Sung do not steal.”
“If I may promote harmony...” said the Priest of Ba-El.
“Little harmony be real nice for a change around here,” offered Pete.
“He looks as if he comes from the Kithai people, a vast empire far to the NorthEast of here.”
Liu Sung said, “There has always been a middle kingdom. There will always be a middle kingdom."
"An empire you say?” asked Archie. “There is a civilization? More than one? Then why? And who attacked us? And the tower that he saw?”
The Priest of Ba-El smiled again and asked, “Which question would you have me answer first?”
Dance said, “Now, just hang on. Let's get one thing straight before we go bending all the rest. Loose Un, where did the damn silver come from?”
“These men work in the mine, chip, chip, chip, all day. They bring clothes to Liu Sung,” he said with particular emphasis on Sung, “and I wash them. End of day I pour out the water and save all the little pieces of silver I find. Why else I no charge them for laundry.”
“We just though you vere crazy,” said one of the Miners.
“I told you that was our silver!” said another.
“If it's anybody silver it's DuMonts’, and that useless son of a b***h is dead. Loose Song,” said Dance, sincerely trying to get his name right. “You ain’t broken any law and as far as I’m concerned I wish you’d stick around. We need all the smart people we can get. But I suggest you stick around long enough to see what we can learn from our new friend." Dance turned to the Priest of Ba-El and said, "and you, new friend, you're gonna draw us a map.”
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Laura looked out over what was left of the Town of Grantham. Smoldering buildings. Bodies scattered across the street. She realized that this was the reality. This was the natural state. There would be no rescue. Not by Virgil nor anyone else. She felt an urge to lay down with the dead and be at peace. Then she looked back to her children, asleep in each other's arms, huddled against the wall of Saloon #3. She resolved to go in search of hope even if she no longer believed in it.
She walked around the corner of the building and entered the saloon. The dead and the wounded lay scattered on tables and on the dirt floor. The place smelled of blood and whiskey and tobacco. On a table in the middle of the room lay John Dance, his legs dangling off the end.
In the darkness, the Doctor staggered around drunk and covered with blood, seeming like another one of the wounded. She touched his arm. He shook his head and came back to his senses, shamed by her loveliness in this awful place. He wiped his bloody hands on his bloody shirt and straightened his collar. "You're not hurt, are you?" He asked with real concern.
"The Sheriff?”
"Gutshot,” said the doctor, "and at least one of the bullets is still in him.” He pressed his lips together and said, "there's nothing I can do."
She went to Dance and laid her hand on his face. She felt his strong jaw, noticed the wrinkles from smiling in the corners of his eyes, and felt the fever raging through him. Dance moaned and turned uncomfortably on the table. "Is there nothing that can be done?" she asked.
The Doctor shook his head and looked away. He stepped to the bar and took another pull from a bottle of brown liquor that was covered in bloody handprints. He swallowed hard and then looked at the wounded around him. The burned and the crushed and the shot and said, "God dammit… There's nothing to be done. Nothing to be done for any of ‘em.”
Laura realized he was wrong and walked out of the grisly saloon.
She headed South to where the freight yard had been. The flames had ravaged the wagons and their cargoes. All that was left was the metal of the wheel hubs and tackle and whatever metal implements have been in the cargo. Scattered here and there were the charred bodies of the unfortunate who had not escaped the flames. What she sought was gone.
She had not forgotten the miracle that it saved her child from the arrow wound. The snake oil salesman and his seemingly worthless product had somehow become the elixir of life itself. Now it seemed lost forever. Except for DuMont.
She had overlooked it in the chaos, but now she remembered DuMont. He had not been bent over coughing in pain. He had stood straight with vigor in his spine and spoke with a thunder in his voice. Somehow he had become a healthy man. And Laura had never known or heard of a man with consumption who had been cured.
She walked up the hill, her sights set on DuMont’s strange Victorian house that stood untouched on the rise above her. She shuddered as she approached through the carnage of the night before, but it did not stop her from checking the bodies. Many of their wounds seemed small and innocuous, blood stains in the shirt, more to be fretted over in the washing rather than a cause of death. But after the shock of looking at dead men had passed, she found them to be peaceful and they generated feelings of love and acceptance rather than pity or fear. A strange thought, born of fatigue: she preferred men this way. How much more docile and well-mannered, they were, non-threatening.
But among the dead she could not find the man she was searching for. She continued up the hill and found DuMont slumped on his own porch, bloody like the rest but unlike them, with a shattered bottle of Ol’ Bartloeermere the 2nd’s Magic Elixir next to him on the steps. Nothing more than a few pieces of shattered brown glass held together by paper and the glue on the back of the label.
At first, She thought he was dead, but then he coughed and rolled to his side. "Inside," he said, pointing at the fragments of the bottle. "Inside, another bottle."
As Laura looked down on him, the whole story became clear. There was a bullet hole, right through his breast pocket, into his chest. Right, where one might keep a small bottle. What a particularly inconvenient place to get shot.
He held the fragments of the bottle out towards her like a talisman. "You stupid woman," DuMont rasped, "on my desk, a bottle like this…" He gasped.
Laura smiled. “You're saying that you have another bottle of magic elixir. And you're asking me to get it for you so that I can use it to save you just like it was used to save my daughter. Do I have that right?" He nodded and waved his hand as if to say, get on with it.
"All right. I'll go fetch it.”
In a moment she returned with the bottle. DuMont managed to smile through the pain of his body shutting down.
“Now,” said Laura, “What will you give me for it?"
“Anything, money, silver. anything…"
"Well Mr. DuMont, that certainly would've been a tempting offer a few days back, but we're fresh out of places to spend money. I can't even imagine who I would send silver ore to."
“That’s mine," rasped DuMont, pointing at the bottle.
"You come and take it then, otherwise we're in a negotiation. You got anything I might want? No, that ain't hardly a fair question to put a man in your condition. I’ll just tell you what I do want. A man who is a good enough neighbor to put aside petty differences during emergencies. One who could be counted upon to help with hands needed for a bucket brigade. One that would've known better than to start a fight in the middle of an out-of-control fire. Save you from death? I ain’t a thief. I wouldn't dream of taking something from you you worked so hard to earn."
And then she lifted the hem of her dress, stepped carefully over the pool of blood leaking from DuMont, and left him to die.
She took the bottle of elixir and walked back to Saloon #3. She checked to see that the children were still sleeping. Then she paused in the doorway and passed the elixir from hand to hand. It was a miraculous and unlikely thing she held – a second chance.
She wondered if she should keep it for herself. Or hide it away until she or Mack or Pen were badly hurt. But it was a false sense of security. Unless the sad, struggling little town pulled together it would soon be whisked out of existence in this great unknown nowhere where they found themselves. The fools, the madman, fighting amongst themselves as the town burned. Everyone who was left needed to work together, and for that, they needed the Sheriff.
She had been tempted to do a bad thing with him once. The sin of that was on her, she thought. But the fact remained, Dance was a man who had tried to do the right thing when others wouldn't. He wasn’t a good man. But he was good enough. She hoped.
—
Archie coughed himself awake. The sound was explosive in the confined space and even before he could open his eyes the headache came. The air was thick with dust and when he tried to see his eyes burned and he shut them again. There was no point to sight, he was in utter darkness.
Fear grabbed ahold of him and he thrashed about, throwing his body from side to side against the rubble. His left foot was pinned and pain spiked through his knee as he rolled.
He was aware, logically, that he was out of control, but logic could obtain no grasp on his psyche. He screamed at the top of his lungs and beat his fists against the rock. With anger alone he tried to stable his fear and master his mind.
Memories came flooding back to him. That horrible bat, the presence of it in his mind, the raw power of the creature as it broke forth from the vault of stone, dropping the roof upon him.
He grabbed the rubble beneath his hands until the pain of clenching it brought him back to his senses. He found himself clutching a flat rock, nearly a foot in length in his right hand, and a vaguely triangular rock in his left.
With some difficulty he worked himself onto his side and curled in a ball. He felt around his trapped foot and ankle to get a picture of the stone that pinned it. He wedged the flat rock into the gap between the stone and the floor then he slid the triangular stone underneath it, forming a fulcrum. He pressed down on the lever as hard as he could and the rock holding his foot moved — infinitesimally, but it had moved!
He worked patiently, pressing the lever until he could advance the fulcrum, and little by little the pressure on his foot diminished. He could feel the rock lifting from his leg, but when he tried to pull his leg free, it ground cruelly against the stone. He thrashed in frustration this time hitting his head on the slab that formed the roof of his prison. When he regained consciousness again, returning to his task and trying not to be alarmed by the powerful and rising thirst that he could do nothing about.
Laura stood over John Dance watching him die, surprised that he didn't look the least bit concerned about it. So unlike Virgil. Her husband worried about everything. She had almost forgotten there were men who would joyfully throw the chip of their existence around in the game of life.
Dance was unconscious but looked peaceful enough despite his horrible and poorly bandaged wounds. Flies swarmed in the lone shaft of Sunlight that had dared to enter Saloon # 3. As the day wore on sunbeam would lose its courage, and realize that this was not a place where the light was welcome and retreat with the coming of night.
John Dance, that damnable man, thought Laura. He looked so carefree as he lay in his own blood that she wondered if she should let him go. But the town needed him if it was to survive. And if her children were to stand any chance at all they needed to town. And finally yes, she needed him. She wanted him and that was the sharpest pain of all.
She put her hand to his face and caressed him. Then she shook him but he did not wake. So she uncorked the bottle and poured the elixir between his lips. Then she kissed him, pressing her mouth to his so that he would not spill even a drop. At least that's what she told herself as she felt the life stir in him and her hot tears baptized his battered face.
After hours of trying, Archie had still not freed his foot. His primitive lever was long enough to move the stone that had trapped his ankle but not long enough for him to get free. But since contemplating his full predicament was horrifying, he had devoted himself to his hopeless task. Then the stone broke into three useless shards.
Archie slumped in defeat, too tired to even sob.
He felt his breath stir the dust next to his cheek. He let his whole body go as if it were a burden that someone else had asked him to carry that he was now glad to be rid of. Now Death, he thought.
And from the depths, something answered.
He felt a distant pulsing in the rock, the intimation of mighty roaring subterranean engines, far, far below.
A sense of power filled him and he underwent a dizzying shift of scale. The horrible bat creature had called to him, trying to draw him out, trying to drain him, but this was something else. A pure sending – a gift of… what it was, he could not say. It felt like a gift from God, but it came from below.
He seemed mighty to himself, not in the way of giants but mighty in knowledge of the secrets of the world. His thirst, hunger, and cold were gone. He saw his predicament as a silly thing: A man trapped inside a room, thinking the door was locked when all he needed to do was to stop pulling and push instead.
He felt the rocks beneath him grow less substantial. It started as a buzzing feeling in his fingertips. He opened his eyes and saw that the darkness had been replaced. What had been so solid, now revealed itself to be glowing infinitesimals around which tiny particles revolved at fantastic speeds. These particles moved so fast that each iota of rock only seemed solid, but was in fact, nothing more than the pressure of frantically whirling tendencies.
He saw, for the first time, that had been foolish to think of stone as solid and weighty. Even more foolish to be trapped by stone. In time with this thought, his leg slipped free and drifted upward through what had been solid rock. And then Archie swam through the rubble of the collapsed vault, surprised to find that it was a kind of water and even more surprised to learn that he was a kind of fish.
Among the angular shapes that he passed through Archie was surprised to find a sleeping form of MacAllister, encased in the sandy rubble of the collapsed mine tunnel. He gathered the large Scotsman in a wave before him and carried him from the mine.
They coalesced onto the ground in the open air amid the charred rubble of the mine yard. MacAllister settled to the ground and Archie landed on his feet. A sharp pain spiked up his leg and he fell to the the sooty ground next to the large Scotsman. MacAllister coughed and spit sand on him.
"Bloody hell,” said Archie.
MacAllister open his eyes and asked, “We are named dead yet?"
Archie stared at him fascinated and terrified at the absurdity of seeing very whirling infinitesimals that the man was composed of.
As his vision faded back to normal, Archie answered, "I don't know what we are."
"I'll tell you what we are lad," MacAllister said with a wink, "we're thirsty!" MacAllister rose and helped Archie to his feet. By leaning against the Scotsman, Archie was able to ease the weight of his injured foot. And so they staggered together, into what was left of the town.
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The town burned through the night and when the glow of dawn finally overpowered the glow of the embers, the townspeople who were still alive collapsed to the Earth from weariness. Exhaustion granted a temporary reprieve from the crush of defeat.
Half of the town had burned. The north side was spared only by the direction of the wind and the unusual width of the main street. The Morning Star mine works, the Morning Star Saloon, The First Baptist Church, the Miller General store and countless odd shanties, tents and hovels had been incinerated. In the grim dawn, no one picked through the ashes to find the bodies.
Somehow, Saloon #3 had survived. And, grateful for it, Laura Miller slumped against its east wall, clutching Mac and Penelope to her. The children slept, but Laura’s worries would not let her sleep. She leaned against the wall, feeling the air warm as the sun rose, and tried not to move. Let the children sleep, she thought. That they were still alive was victory enough… for now.
Mac shifted in his sleep and the rifle he clutched to his chest pressed into Laura’s cheek. She pushed it away and shifted. But that upset the delicate equilibrium. Pen’s weight shifted off Laura’s leg and it tingled back to painful life. She groaned and moved out from underneath the children. Pen muttered something, wrapped her arms around her brother, and fell back to sleep. Mack lolled his head to the side and began to snore.
As they slept they looked so innocent, but Laura feared that innocence had been lost. What they had seen last night — things as horrible as what she had seen during the war and on the run — the things that she and Virgil had tried to protect them — these things could never be unseen.
Mack had grown so big, yet in some ways, he was still just a foolish, beautiful boy. When the mine exploded, they had all come out into the street to see what happened. Then they realized the church was also ablaze. As they watched the flames jumped to the saloon and then the mine. The next time they looked they saw the store, their home, was on fire.
Then Mac was away, running into the burning building. Laura screamed, the one time in that whole night that she did. But she could not reach Mack to stop him. He plunged into the building and she clutched Penelope to her and waited in terror. In those long seconds, the roof caved in and flames rushed forth from the second-story windows. She said her jaw and willed – willed – that foolish boy to emerge from the flames.
There was a clatter of hooves and the rattle of an empty wagon coming down the hill. A woman bellowing like a man for everyone to get out of the way. Laura turned to see Jane Siskin, the woman who hauled much of their freight, standing in the bed of a cargo wagon, reins in one hand, whip in the other, driving a team of oxen hard towards the river.
When the wagon had passed, she saw Mac, his hair badly singed, running towards her clutching the ancient buffalo rifle that had decorated the wall above the weapons rack.
She shrieked at him, then slapped him, then clasped him, gun and all, in a powerful hug.
“Pa’s coming back, and he's going to need it!"
Laura nodded, not giving a damn about the gun, tears welling up in her eyes. And then the tears burst forth as she realized, with the town ablaze around them, the Virgil was never coming back.
"He's gonna need it to put things right. Don't you worry Ma, you'll see.”
When the fire had started John Dance had forgotten all about the Burdock’s. They had scattered into the smoke and chaos. Dance organized a bucket brigade even though it seemed hopeless. But then that crazy Siskin woman had come driving up the hill with a wagon full of water.
"Drove it right into the damn river," she proclaimed proudly. Buckets and hats and spittoons and any other damn thing they could find to hold water went in and were used to try and douse the flames. The Church was a total loss, so they had focused their efforts on the Morning Star saloon. But it was no use. It went up like a match. Rats, drunks, gamblers, and w****s poured forth coughing from the smoke.
Dance diverted the brigade to the next building. "Wet it down! Keep the fire from spreading!” But soon the wagon was dry and Jane rode off to the river again. Everyone stood around looking at each other, looking hopeless. From out of the darkness a figure wearing a suit, and flourishing a cane like a dandy, emerged into the light of the burning town. It was Jean Dumont, followed by a large contingent of miners. But he was not stooped or coughing. He stood ramrod straight and his voice was clear and commanding when he said, “how dare you abandon my building to the flames! I demand that you…"
Dance said, “What! What exactly do you want me to do? We ain't got no water at the moment!"
DuMont had no response.
“That Saloon is a lost cause. What we need are men and buckets to stop the spread. Lend us your men, DuMont.”
“That is your affair!”
“My AFFAIR! For Christ’s sake DuMont, the town is burning!”
From the dark, on the other side of John Dance, Burdock rode his horse into the light of the flames. The shadowed forms of his cowboys were visible behind him.
“Burdock, get buckets in them men’s hands!” said Dance.
“No,” said Burdock, “I don’t think I will.”
Dance, silhouetted against the flames, looked back and forth between the two of them. "Good God! Can’t either of you see?"
"I see a town problem,” said Burdock.
Dance pleaded, “But we’re all we have left! You’ve been out there. You’ve seen! The world, everything we knew… it’s gone!”
Burdock sneered, “Civilization is gone, with its weakness and its decadence. If you can't live out here in the frontier, you shouldn’tve come. Hell of a way to larn it.”
From somewhere in the burning chaos a man screamed in pain. It was a sharp noise followed by a grunt and a bellow ending in a higher pitch scream. Then, entering like a chorus, the sobbing of a woman, the timeless song of grief.
From down the road, John Dance heard Jane Siskin cursing at her oxen as she drove them back from the river. He looked and saw the axle break and all the water slosh from the wagon.
Dance turned to DuMont and said, “Give me your Miners at least! Please!”
"This town has been nothing but an obstacle to my operations. My silver remains safe underground, and my men are employed in protecting what remains of Company property.”
Burdock snarled, “You always was a greedy, shortsighted, Son-of-a-B***h,” as what was left of the saloon collapsed behind him, “Ain’t even willing to defend the town you blighted this fine landscape with!”
The haggard people waiting for the wagon to return with water stood with their buckets dangling from their hands, staring at this conflict in disbelief.
Dance held his arms outstretched, imploring them both. “Maybe more of us survive when we work together. That’s all I’m saying.”
“You should have thought of that before you framed my poor boy Charlie for murder,” said Burdock.
“You should have thought of that before harassing my miners and taxing our operations,” said DuMont
Nearly in tears, Dance cried, “For the Love of God, do you men have no souls!”
Up the street, Laura Miller had stopped to watch the confrontation, clutching her children to her. As Dance held his hands high, and pleaded with the stubborn Rancher and the greedy Miner, she saw Charlie Burdock emerge from an alley on the North side of the street. He raised his pistol. As Laura cried “No!” he fired several times, hitting Sheriff Dance in the back.
Dance grunted and fell forward to his knees. Charlie fired again.
Dance coughed once, looked at all of them, and said, “You stupid sons-of-b*****s. You know not what you do.” Then he felt forward into the street.
Another shot rang out — Laura could not see who fired it — and Charlie was knocked off his feet. Then both the Miners and the Cowboys opened fire.
Laura fled with her children, as gunfire rang out and the town burned.
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Virgil had sat in the Nothing with the Shaman for an amount of time he could not identify. He asked, "I saw you dead. How is any of this possible?”
“It would be more polite if you asked me a question I could answer,” said Shaman, running his colorless fingers through the colorless grass on which they sat. “I am what you see, but I am not what you see. Your mind makes sense of it with the symbols it has.”
Virgil stared at him in mute confusion.
The old Shaman that was No One tried again. “All things have a symbol or a name, all things but me. I am no one. I am no thing. I am only that I am."
"Is this a riddle?"
"No,” said No One. “But because the truth is the wrong shape to fit into your head, you try to make it into a riddle. Some men try paradoxes. I like those best of all, they never go anywhere either."
"My wife… I came seeking…"
“Yes,” said No One, “I've tasted your desire on the smoke now for seven days – but here it feels like forever and still just an instant. See, paradox!"
“Where have they gone?” demanded Virgil, his hand on his gun.
"They have gone out of this world, to another. I think this not often done. Someone made a bridge. Someone made a tunnel. Someone made a tunnel through a bridge."
"Who? And how do I find this bridge?"
"Tunnel."
"Fine, tunnel…"
“It’s a bridge, you look up. But if it’s not a bridge, it’s a tunnel!” The old man who was No One laughed. “At least I’m pretty sure it is.
With an effort, Virgil removed his hand from his gun. He tried again, saying, “Who has done this?"
"One from here, one from there. From here the ones dug the tunnel to escape. From there, I think they built a bridge. No One shrugged. “Jave you seen anyone strange? Travelers, I mean?"
Virgil shook his head, no.
"Then perhaps someone has set a trap on the other side."
"How do I get there?"
"You would run into a trap?"
"I would ride into hell."
The Indian shrugged, “It is somewhere, I guess. But it all becomes nothing in the end.”
Virgil turned his head and spit. No One was shocked at this. He stared at the moisture hanging from the pigmentless grass and dripping on the colorless earth.
Virgil asked more questions and the Indian gave more unsatisfactory answers. This went on for an hour or an eternity, and Virgil had no way of knowing which it was. Virgil left, feeling that the Indian in the colorless place hadn't told him anything worth knowing.
Virgil did not remember leaving or even deciding to leave. It seemed that he had simply closed his eyes one moment, and opened them the next, to find himself riding on his horse, blinking against the profusion of colors he saw in the muted, eastern Arizona desert.
As he rode back from the Nothing to Nowhere the old Shaman’s words rang in his head, nothing could pass from one place to another without leaving a connection. But where would this connection be? What form would it take? A bridge, a tunnel? How might Virgil use it to return to his family?
He remembered the old Indian’s lopsided grin as he told him that the world was filled with women and that Virgil should go find another wife and have some more children. The Shaman said he was too old to try himself, but he had never stopped wanting to.
Virgil had cursed him then, saying, “If you can't do anything to help me then what are you good for?"
The old Indian had told him that People weren't supposed to be *for* anything. They’re just supposed to be. And added that people forgetting this fact was the source of most of the problems in the world.
He remembered setting seven fires to get to the Nothing. It only took him one night to return. The next afternoon, he spotted smoke on the horizon.
As he urged more speed out of his horse, he realized the shapes of the hills were familiar. He dropped the pack horse and spurs his tired mount into a weary gallop. But when he crested the hill and looked down at the spot where Grantham had been he saw that it still wasn't there. But he was faced with an even more puzzling sight. From the hill where the Morning Star mine had been, a column of black smoke rose into the sky.
At first, Virgil thought that the hill was somehow on fire, but when he approached he realized, even though the smoke smelled of burning hair and flesh, that it was no flame or even heat. The smoke emerged cool and thick, from the dirt itself. He scratched some of the dirt away until he got to rock. And from a crack in the rock itself, the smoke poured forth.
The next day, Virgil began to dig.
The loose dirt on the face of the hill fell away with ease and he had his first cave-in before he had cleared away the bedrock, a simple, but demoralizing landslide. He dismantled the wagon and used its wood to shore up the entrance.
That night he slept under the stars instead of under the wagon and as he fell asleep he whispered a message to his wife Laura. "I know not which one of these bright specs of light you might be by hiding behind, but if I have to search every one I am coming for you all the same. Tell the children I am coming.” Then weariness overtook him.
The next day he took a bag filled with ore and dirt and rode off to Bisbee. There he filed a mining claim. When the registrar asked him if the claim was in Grantham, he said “No,” explaining no further. The ore was rich and the assayer said the claim was promising. Virgil grunted and went on his way.
He bought a wagon and loaded it with mining equipment. Then he made the trek back to the town that wasn’t there anymore. When he arrived, he took a plank, painted the word “Nowhere” on it, then nailed it to a post.
The next day his work began in earnest. He dug with pickax and shovel. And before him as he worked was the always tantalizing crack. It rose and fell, widened and narrowed, but never opened. He got no more whiffs of smoke but by the guttering light of his miner's candle, he could see a thin layer of soot lining the bottom of the fissure.
At the end of each day, he would fill sacks with what he dug and carry them to the wagon. At the end of the first month, the wagon was full and he took it to the mills in Bisbee. It was assayed and sold and with the money, he bought more supplies and hired men. By the end of spring, a new settlement of tents had sprung up around the Nowhere sign.
Now, instead of digging, he supervised. He ran two shifts of miners and eventually hired a foreman. Another outfit came into town and filed a claim off to the South. Men built houses and saloons and stores and warehouses, but Virgil, the richest man in town still slept in a tent. And he might've stayed in that tent until the sun and wind had shredded the canvas.
But it was not to be. One night two desperados thought Rob him as he slept. The next morning, as Virgil stood over their bodies, his six-gun hanging hot and heavy on his hip, he decided it was time to build a house. But moving indoors changed nothing. He rose before dawn, worked all day, ate dinner, and then, as the last of the minors left, he would take a lamp and inspect the day’s progress.
When the Foreman, a barrel-chested man from Aberdeen, had first arrived, he expected Virgil would meddle in the mine operations. But when he asked Virgil if he had any instructions, Virgil turned to him with hollow-eye intensity and said, "I don't know anything about mining, but follow that crack wherever it leads." The foreman had raised an eyebrow, but since that crackled through the richest seam of ore, there was no point in arguing.
In five years, the Lost Girl mine was played out and Virgil had become a very wealthy man. So had the foreman, a few miners, store owners, saloon keepers, and w****s. But even as the mine waned in productive output, Virgil ordered the men to keep digging. The foreman, whose compensation was based on the output of the mind, moved to another Silver Mine farther north.
Yet still, Virgil paid the man to dig. The mills in Bisbee stopped buying the wagonloads of dirt and ore, so they just piled it up on the surface. The Lost Girl mine became surrounded by an ever-growing field of tailings and rubble. Someone named it "Miller's Castle" in mockery of the waste and foolishness. But as Virgil was willing to expend his considerable fortune to keep the mind operating, the Castle continue to grow.
The digging continued for years and men in the last open saloon placed wagers on how deep the useless mine would go before crazy old Virgil Miller's fortune ran out. But even the boldest wag held his tongue every evening when Virgil made his nightly walk to the mine.
In another three years, the money was all gone, the saloon was closed and Nowhere had become a ghost town. But still, Virgil rose every morning and went to the mine. He worked with pick and shovel, digging deeper and deeper into the earth, still following hope of a crack in the rock that had yet to open yet still hadn’t closed.
When he had first struck the earth, years before, he had swung his pick in anger. When he had men working for him, he swung his pick with confidence. When the silver had played out, he had tried to strike with confidence but had lashed out at the rock in fear and desperation. But now that he alone worked the empty seam, Virgil Miller struck the rock as if he was trying to ring the Earth like a bell. He swung with the patience of the wind wearing away rock. Digging not for a certainty, but for a chance.
And for Virgil, a chance was enough.
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Dance crawled until he passed out. He couldn’t say how long he slept, but he was brought back to consciousness by the peaceful sound of his horse cropping grass close to his head.
At this he spasmed in fear, rolled onto his back and crab-walked backwards, scrambling for his pistol. His horse looked at him evenly, knowing him for the fool that he was. When Dance realized his situation, he replaced his half–unholstered pistol and said a prayer of gratitude. Then he started looking for his hat.
He saw it a few hundred yards out on the prairie next to a burned black circle. He raised his eyes to the horizon and saw the black tower stabbing into the sky. He shook his head and said, “I never did like that hat, anyway.” Then he caught his horse and rode back to town.
With Archie in the lead McAllister and ten of the Teamsters crossed the street and made for the Morning Star mine. But before they could get to the mine yard, Jane Siskin stormed into their path. Gone was the dress of the night before and now she was in dusty leathers again. She planted her hands on her hips and said, “Now just where in the hell do you think you're going!?!”
Archie said, “And just whom in the hell you imagine you are addressing?"
"Oh, I ain't talking to you, your highness. These boys in on my payroll and that means they should have the courtesy to inform me before they go off getting in some foolishness. I mean, Clod there don't know no better, but I expected more from you MacAllister."
"Enough wi’ your haverin’ woman! My head’s not havin’ ’t this mornin. It’s bright and loud already and your man here is invited us to go for a walk in a nice, cool, quiet cave. So we've decided on a wee stroll."
Jane turned her skeptical eye towards Archie.
Archie told her of the disappearance of the silver deposits and their replacement with an ancient temple of unknown origin. Jane tried to look tough and unfeeling as he explained, but the memory of the darkness and the vision he had seen there were so fresh in Archie's mind she was captured by his retelling.
"Besides," concluded Archie, “since the road to Bisbee, and for all we know the entirely of the outside world, is gone, it appears you are out of the freight business and must seek a new line of employment. Might I suggest Archaeology?”
"Oh my sweet prince," at Jane with a smile. “It's you who don't get how the world works. Roads and towns come and go, but there is always – always – something that needs hauling. But let's have a look at what's in your root cellar. Then she hooked her arm through his and Archie escorted her across the street as if she had been a guest at the season’s finest ball.
As they assembled torches in the yard, Archie looked askance at the miners who stood around in small groups, muttering to themselves, “Bloody fools.”
“Why are you so angry at them,” Jane asked, “they're just afraid.”
“Superstition offends me. Right to my very core."
"You mean to tell me you don't believe in ghosts and spirits?" Asked Jane.
"Certainly not. I am a natural philosopher. I believe in what I can see with my own eyes, what I can verify with my own senses."
“What of God, ye English heathen? Have you seen him?” Asked McAllister good-naturedly as he tied a rag around a length of shattered board.
“Carefully recording the wonder of his creation so that we can better understand it, is that not worship?” asked Archie.
MacAllister smiled and answered, “Laddie, I’m just grateful when I walk in a church that the roof doesn’t fall in on top of me.
They filled a wagon with torches and rolled it as far as the mine tracks would go, then they all lit two torches a piece and advanced into the chamber. The twelve of them spread out in an attempt to fill the chamber with light. But there was something about the darkness. It retreated, but begrudgingly, stubbornly, as if still fighting to clock the secrets of the ancient Temple.
Jane asked, "then what was that nasty ol’ DuMont digging up this whole time?"
Archie said, "the Miners assure me that there was silver here yesterday.”
Jayne said, “Just like the river."
McAllister said, “I’ll take a clean river over a foul pit any day."
Archie walked along the edge of the room where a great arch opened onto nothing but dark, natural stone. "The curvature of this vault is quite sophisticated, and the interlocking arches would be quite unnecessary if this was merely an underground structure. Which is to say…" Archie trailed off in thought.
McAllister chimed in, “Which is to say nothing makes sense to me."
Archie outlined what parts of the arch she could reach with his torch and asked, “Doesn't this seem more like a window to you?"
“Aye, but it’s daft to build a window underground.”
“But it’s not quite underground, is it? Or at least it might not have been when it was built. If we dig away the rock here, this would be open to the sky. We have merely gone into the hill without descending appreciably.”
Jane said, “Darling, I love the way your brain is always working, but I don't see why it matters. There ain't no silver here, ain't nothing of value. Just a room we're savages used to kill other savages."
"Oh no," at Archie, “Here there is the most valuable commodity of all. Knowledge. And the entertainment of a true mystery. And if your only concern is avarice then what I am saying is that this structure must assuredly have lower levels."
"And we’ve a s**t–ton of useless miners out there," said MacAllister.
"Exactly, now let me see if I can catch a glimpse of the ceiling." Archie strode over to the center of the room and, with a shudder, stepped up on the sacrificial altar. He lifted the torch as high as he could above his head. At first, he thought the darkness was stubbornly congealed above him, like some strange pool of evil night, but as he moved the torch and looked at the shape of the darkness from different angles, he began to see that there was a large mass hanging in the center of the room.
“Scaffold, ladders, something to stand on!” cried Archie.
Two wooden ladders were brought and lashed together at the top and tethered by rope at the sides. Teamsters held the feet of the ladder on either side of the altar. Torch in his right hand, Archie ascended the shaky, makeshift ladder, white-knuckling the rungs with his left.
Perversely, the shape seemed to recede into the darkness above. And Archie felt queasy. He had the feeling that the scale and geometry of this space were wrong, somehow becoming larger the more he advanced into it.
“What is it?” cried Jane from below.
Weakness washed over Archie and he swayed on the ladder, nearly losing his grip. He pulled himself close to the rungs, and ground his teeth together, forcing his breath through his nose.
Without looking up, he climbed the last three rungs and lifted the torch again. The shape was bigger now, and he could almost make it out — almost understand the meaning of its silhouette. If only he could get closer. He stepped even higher on the ladder and now his hips and center of gravity were above the top of the improvised a-frame. His bent knees shook with fear, but he forced himself to stand, holding the torch as high as he could above his head.
It started to make sense. There were two long triangles on the bottom, black and covered with tendrils of mold — or was they fur? it was difficult to know because the blackness of this thing swallow the light. He swung a leg over the top of the ladder and put his foot on the topmost rung on the other side.
“Be careful!” cried Jane.
“I’ve almost made it out…” said Archie as he stood on the wobbling ladder, raising his torch as high as possible into the darkness. The flames from the torch licked one of the corners of the triangles, and there was a sizzling noise, then aroar as the thing caught fire.
Flamed rippled up the side of it, and, with a creaking noise, the thing turned its face at Archie and screamed. By the light of his torch and the light of the creature’s own immolation, Archie made out that the thing hanging in the center of the vault was a gigantic bat.
It let go of its perch and spread its burning wings, crashing into Archie, shattering the ladder, and sending all of it crashing to the stone below.
The Preacher had done a brisk trade all day. Townspeople were flat rattled by the appearance of a river from nothing, then the attack, and the disappearance of the outside world. By now reports had come in of a line surrounding the town beyond which the terrain was different. What was the meaning of this? Was this God’s work or the Devil’s? The End of Days or an unfathomable beginning?
In ones and twos they had trickled into his small church all day and by the late afternoon his conversation had turned into an impromptu sermon. The Preacher had never had an experience like this before and can only attribute the words that flowed forth from him as inspired by the Holy Spirit itself. Where there was fear, he sowed hope. Where there was doubt, he sowed faith.
"Even the Devil is doing the work of the Lord," he began. "For what can exist without it serving God? That's a hard truth to accept sometimes — may be hard to accept all the time. But God gives us troubles so we can grow. It's might be the end of the world but it’s not the end of God’s plan for you. And you don’t want the end of days to catch you and you be unsaved. ‘Cause you want to be in that number, Lord, when the Saints come a marchin’ in!”
“What do you think is going to happen to us?” asked a young woman whose brazen clothing contrasted with her timid manner. A young Magdalene thought the Preacher, cowed by the majesty of a simple chapel.
“in this life? Trial, pain, suffering, and death. All that is guaranteed. What is not guaranteed is that you find love and fellowship in the model of Christ. But you can have it. You grow in the world and in Christ to have a full life. But what is an absolute certainty is that you will be tested and then you will die. And after that, well, what happens it's up to you. Eternal damnation or eternal salvation. And as Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.’
“so the question to ask, my lost and bewildered sheep is not, are we going to die? The question is what happens after that. Are you saved? Have you been saved? Do you want to be saved?"
And so it was the Preacher led a procession down to the river’s edge to baptize 13 new souls for the Lord. As he did, he felt proud to be a mighty warrior for Christ.
He took off his jacket and waded right through the weeds into the depths of the river. There he raised his hands and cried, "Brothers and sisters, don’t be afraid of the water! Who among ye will go first?" But no one followed. So the Preacher said, "for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that you might have life eternal. Compared to that wondrous miracle, that most stupendous of gifts, I ask you, why would God not send a river into the desert so that your soul and your soul and your soul might be saved.”
The young Magdalene stepped forward shyly then stopped.
The Preacher beckoned her, “Come closer dear. There’s no reason to be afraid. The good Lord parted the Red Sea, saved Moses from the Pharaoh, and he said water into the desert that you might not die, but live eternal."
Then Preacher looked down at his leg with some alarm, something had brushed by him under the water – a large something, but conscious of the eyes of his flock upon him, he tried to be brave. With a confidence he didn't feel, he called out to the young Magdalene again. "Come on down here, time to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. He’s ready for you darlin’ I promise,” said the Preacher, forcing a smile across his face.
She made her way through the reeds and the cold, sucking mud, smiling at the crowd on the bank, then looking down and frowning at what the river was doing to her expensive dress. When she finally stood next to the Preacher he said, “Cross your arms across your chest darlin’.” Then put a hand on her forehead and another hand on the small of her back. “Are you ready to receive Jesus Christ as your personal savior? To receive the gift of Life Everlasting and the eternal love of God?”
She nodded.
“Are you ready to be born again in the Holy Spirit?”
“I am — ahhhhhhhh!” She screamed as something in the water grabbed her leg and dragged her under.
In the silence after that horrible scream, the Preacher stood in the water, not knowing what to say. He looked to the believers on shore and saw that they did not understand. And why should they? They had never seen a river baptism. Maybe this was what was supposed to happen. For a moment the preacher found himself, like any desperate performer trying to figure out how to salvage a bit from disaster. Then the creature in the river surfaced in its death roll, flinging the young woman's body into the air for long enough for her to scream in agony and for all to see her broken body washed with a thin mixture of blood and river water. As the screaming began, the Preacher splashed for the shore.
Dance had given his horse his head and slumped weakly against the animal’s neck, drifting in and out of consciousness as the horse found his way home. All Dance wanted from the world was to eat some of Speedy Pete’s beans, crawl into the number two cell, lock the door, and sleep secure in the knowledge that the iron bars were enough to protect him from the giant bear of his nightmares. But as he rounded the corner on the main street he saw a group of cowboys on horses in front of the jail.
At the head of them sat Nathan Burdock with his hands crossed over his saddlehorn. He yelled into the jail, ”You let my boy out, or this is gonna turn ugly.”
Well, thought Dance, at least the jail ain’t on fire.
From inside he heard Sleepy Pete's slow drawl, "the sheriff will be back anytime now, you'll see. Then you'll be in all kinds of trouble."
"Paw, you get me out of here!" Came Charlie Burdock’s thin cry.
“Now, Pete, the Sheriff’s just one man and I don't…" said Nathan Burdock, trailing off when he saw what was left of Dance.
Without a word, and without his hat, the Sheriff rode right through the Cowboys, right past Burdock and hitched his horse to the post.
“Jesus Christ,” said one of the cowboys.
“Fresh from the tomb,” said another, because Dance looked like 20 miles of bad road.
Dance paid them none of them any mind. He dunked his head in the horse trough, shook like a dog, then slurped greedily at the water.
Nathan Burdock cleared his throat. Then he drew his pistol, cocked the hammer and said, “Sheriff?”
Dance turned slowly, holding his hands away from his sides and said, “Why Nathan, I didn’t see you there.”
Nathan Burdock smiled and said, “You got my boy in there and I'll be having him."
"Don't worry Sheriff, I got a bead on him,” said Sleepy Pete from inside the jail.
“Pete, that ain’t reassuring, I know what kinda shot you are,” Dance yelled back at the jail. Then he turned wearily back to Nathan Burdock and said, “Sorry for the interruption, I didn’t want to get accidentally shot.” He swept his gaze across Nathan’s sour-faced ranch hands in front of the jail. “Or on purpose shot, either.”
“Just give me my boy and nobody gets shot.” Dance, swayed a little with fatigue and added, “I don’t know what you want that kid for. He’s a real a*****e, I can tell you that.”
Nathan Burdock said, “My line’s not long on charm, but I’ll be havin’ him all the same.”
“Well, the thing is, I’m supposed to hold him until the circuit court judge comes through from Tuscon. But seeing as Tuscon ain’t there anymore, I guess… s**t… you can have him.”
“Whaaaaaaat?” drawled Speedy Pete from inside the jail.
“Pete, go on and bring the prisoner out here!”
“Sheriff, I don’t think…”
“Deputy, it has been a long day and I’m in no mood for an argument.”
Burdock lowered his pistol. He looked confused and slightly disappointed to have gotten his way so easily. He was all keyed up for a fight that hadn’t come. He said, “You know, and I know my boy ain’t gonna see no justice from a crooked judge from big-city Tuscon.
“Jesus Nate. Take yes for an answer why’dontcha?”
“That’s Mr. Burdock to you.”
Dance nodded, waving a dismissive hand and said, “Pete, hurry up in there.” Then back to Burdock, “You see, his nickname is of an ironical nature.”
Pete unbarred the door. It was a hollow, violent thump that caused the horses and men jump. Burdock’s men were especially skittish with their easy victory, wondering if all this weren’t some kind of strange trick.
Pete emerged from the jail with a shotgun and Charlie Burdock in handcuffs. "You sure about this Sheriff? It don't seem right."
"Pete, Miguel is dead. And we are in Arizona no more."
"Oh no how do you die?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you. So if this old hatchet face b*****d wants to take his jackass kid and ride out of town to get killed – well, saves us tying a noose.”
"What are you carrying on about?" asked one of Burdock’s men.
"Don't pay no mind to his foolishness boys,” said Burdock, not sure what the play was here.
"I want to hear what he has to say," said another adding, "maybe he can tell us why the little bunkhouse disappeared."
"If I had answers, I wouldn't share them with a pack of thugs like you," said the sheriff and he took the shackles from Charlie Burdock's wrists. Charlie grinned at Dance and said, I told you that so I wouldn't hold me, Sheriff." Then he started down the steps.
Sheriff Dance’s kick got Charlie square in the right ass cheek and sent him sprawling flat in the street. He turned in the dirt and got up with his fist clenched, mad as hell. But dance just stood on the top of the steps with his hands held out from his sides, smiling like he had won a prize at the fair.
"Easy boy," said Nathan Burdock.
"Yeah boy, easy,” said Dance.
"That's enough out of you!" Burdock snapped at Dance.
“Somebody lend me a gun," Charlie said his face red with embarrassment.
"No,” said Nathan, trying to put a final word to it.
One of the ranch hands brought a saddled horse to the front for Charlie.
“Sheriff, you cain’t just let him go!”
“Pete, there’s no point. There’s no Judge comin’ from Tuscon.”
“But he killed a man in cold blood. You cain’t let him get away with that!”
Why not, Dance wondered? Hadn’t the man who became John Dance gotten away with it? He's gotten away with killing men all the way here. To this town where everybody smiled when they saw him. Where he had respect and found a way to use violent talents for good. This town and these people, even the roughest of them, generally weren't bad men, and they were still ignorant of how the world had changed around them. Of what they were facing and how lost they really were. This town was gonna fall apart when the truth landed.
Charlie snarled, “I didn’t kill nobody in cold blood, he drew first and I shot him.”
“You’re that fast, hunh?” asked Dance.
“Yes sir, I am! And iff’n you hadn’t blindsided me, I woulda got you too!” said Charlie, ignoring the waiting horse.
"Let's go home,” said Nathan Burdock.
Dance said, “’ cause it's one thing to be steady shooting a man in the back, as you did. But it's another thing entirely to aim and fire when they're shooting back."
"They don't get a chance to fire back on account I'm so fast."
"Oh boy, you're real scary."
"Enough," said Nathan Burdock
"Mister, you're lucky I don't have a gun."
“is that a fact?" Asked the sheriff. Then he reached out to Speedy Pete’s belt pulled out his pistol.
“I forbid this,” said Nathan Burdock.
“Forbid what? He’s a free man, just like you wanted. If you got some regrets about his unfortunate character, it's far too late to start raising him now. Here you go, little Burdock,” said Dance as tossed the pistol to the boy.
As it flew through the air, there was a tremendous explosion and everyone flinched. Forgotten, the pistol landed in the dirt as everyone turned to see a tremendous cloud of smoke rising up from the Morning Star Mine.
The congregation at the water’s edge had recoiled in horror at the gruesome spectacle of the young girl who had tried to give her life to God, but instead had wound up being food for some horrible and still unseen river monster. They pulled the preacher ashore and looked to him for answers, but he had gave none. He ran right through the crowd and kept running up the hill towards the church lost in terror and despair.
What was this? The preacher wondered. Oh God, why hast thou forsaken me? That young girl, so beautiful, not innocent of course, but not deserving of this. He remembered the feel of her flesh beneath her dress as she was torn from his grasp. The whole of it was incomprehensible to him. He saw the humble church and ran towards it seeking to take refuge in prayer in the house of the Lord.
There was a peal of thunder and black smoke filled the sky. Behind him he heard the screams and cries of the faithful. A cloud of roiling black smoke filled the air and threw it rose a conflagration with wings. As it rose it screamed hatred at all of God's creation. With two mighty wing beats it climbed towards the heavens like something from John of Patmos’ nightmares. On the third beat one of its wings shredded to ash and it spun downwards, out of control, headed right for them.
The preacher stopped running thinking that his doom was upon him. He cast his arms out to his side and cried aloud “Take me Lord,” ready to meet his maker.
The fiery beast crashed into the church in front of him, pulverizing the chapel with furious beats of its ruined wings. As the steeple fell it burst into flames. The agony of its death throes it screamed at the sky and thrashed what remained of the church to splinters. The scream was so loud it drove the preacher and his followers to their knees, where they clutched their heads against the noise and pain.
The bat fell dead in the ruins of the destroyed church. In the silence that followed the smell of burning hair and flesh filled the Preacher’s nostrils.
Then the fire leapt to the next building.
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As Sheriff John Dance rode down to the river, Miguel, the Stagecoach agent, came up beside him. Dance gave him a skeptical look, and didn’t have time to get to the question before Miguel said, “I have responsibilities…”
Fair enough thought Dance. He cast an eye over Miguel’s horse and rig. It was packed light and well, and Miguel sat his horse easy. He looked like he knew what doing. Probably more than Dance did. Dance was no frontier hand or Indian fighter by nature. But the misadventures of his youth had taught him to travel fast and leave as little trace as possible.
When they got to the river Dance reined, and without taking his eyes off the other side, Dance said, “We’ll head north along the river, see if we can find a place to ford, and any sign of that ship. First sign of trouble, I’m cuttin’ and runnin’. You understand? This is a scout.”
Miguel nodded and said, “If I find a way across, I have to go to Bisbee.”
Dance said, “Miguel, you see any telegraph poles on the other side of that river?”
Miguel shook his head. “It makes no difference, I must go anyway. It is my duty.”
“It ain’t a duty, Miguelito, it’s just a job.”
“I may not have a Star like you,” said Miguel, “But I have my duties.”
Dance shook his head and decided he wouldn’t share his opinions about Duty and Bisbee with Miguel. Duty was just some horseshit made up by powerful people to get the little people to sacrifice themselves when it was convenient. And Bisbee? There weren’t no f****n’ Bisbee there anymore.
Give it a few more days, and everybody would see that. It was just that most people, normal people with their settled lives, were slow to adapt to change. They ignored it, argued against it, and tried to resist it. But it was all foolishness. Things changed, the man who changed the fastest was the one who made the best of them. That’s how Dance had wound up as Sheriff in the first place.
Everything on this side of the river was normal for the first mile and even though the opposite bank was an unknown land, the river was peaceful and cool and Dance found himself thinking of the day he had come to Grantham, three years ago.
He had ridden into town dragging a different name and a streak of bad luck that had felt a mile wide. If Dance was honest, right now, it felt like he was draggin’ something wider and worse.
At the livery stable, Eli Johnson hadn’t known what to make of him when he handed off the reins to a battered old nag and said, “Take good care of her.”
“Why?” asked Eli, not afraid of offending this stranger ‘cause any damn fool could see this horse wasn’t fit for anything but the glue factory.
Dance had flipped him a newly minted silver dollar and said, “‘Cause I owe her.” That settled, he nodded his battered hat at the building made of thick, irregular stone across the street and asked, “Would I be right in thinking that’s the Sheriff’s office?”
“Yessir, says so right on the sign,” answered Eli, thinking that this man had been out in the sun too long to have retained a grip on the obvious.
The Sheriff’s office had a wide porch and awning of unpainted, rough-cut lumber. The windows, such as they were were in those rough stone walls, were long and horizontal, with the occasional cross openings. The place was a fortress, gunportd and all.
Dance glided up the steps and pushed through the door without knocking.
Inside were two desks - a rolltop stuffed with correspondence and a leather-topped one on the left of the door. There was a table, a few chairs, a half-full rack of long guns on the wall and a pot-bellied stove. What Dance didn’t see were any deputies, or anybody at all. At first.
On the wall by the door was a collection of wanted posters, and as Dance was checking to see if his face was on any of them he heard the muffled cry of someone calling out through a gag.
The back of the room was a wall of thick steel bars that was further divided into two cells. In the cell on the right, a man with his hands bound behind his back and a bandanna tied through his mouth looked frantically at him and cried out again. “Mmmmmmm!”
Dance looked around to see if someone was playing some kind of trick on him, but the room was still empty. The man in the cell waved him over with his head. Dance eased across the room.
The prisoner waggled his head around, trying to indicate the gag with his eyes. Then he thrust the side of his face up to the bars. Dance took another look around the room, then hooked a finger through the bandanna. Still not taking any chances, he kicked the man's shin hard with his boot. The prisoner grunted in pain and slumped against the cell bars, all balance taken from him.
As Dance held the man up by the bandanna, he slid his knife under the fabric, along the man’s face, and cut it away with a jerk. The prisoner fell to one knee and spit out the gag. “Jesus Christ Mister, you didn’t have to do that!”
“Didn’t seem right to shoot it off,” said Dance.
“Are you with THEM?”
Dance didn’t answer the question. He considered the angry man in the cell who still had his hands bound behind his back. He was lean and sleepy-eyed, with stoop shoulders and a handlebar mustache. He looked strong enough but something about his skin and the set of his chin spoke of a weak constitution.
His eyes were wide with fear and anger when he spoke, but when he listened they drooped heavy and he might have been mistaken for being on the verge of sleep. Dance thought, he’s some kind of madman. Then he asked. “Where’s the Deputies?”
“Don’t you know anything?”
“I know I care much for your manners,” said Dance.
“Deputy. There’s only one deputy left and I’m him. Pete. I’m the DEPUTY, now let me out of this cell. They’re robbin’ the bank.”
“Well Pete, if you’re the Deputy Sheriff, then what on earth are you doing in there?” asked Dance, enjoying himself.
“They got the drop on me,” he said, looking down and away. “And I’m ashamed to say they locked me in my own cell. That enough for you to let me out?”
“How many were there?” asked Dance.
“Must have been five. Maybe more!”
“Five,” asked Dance, with a raised eyebrow.
“Maybe more!” said Pete, “Now get me outta here. I’ve gotta go stop them from robbing the bank.”
“You?!?” said Dance. “One man against at least five hardened criminals? Dangerous men? Outlaws?” Dance shook his head and sucked his teeth at the thought.
“Not one man,” said Pete, “one Deputy,” his chest puffing out with pride.
“Well, I’d like to see that Pete. I surely would. Just one thing. You gotta key to this cell?"
Pete rolled his eyes and cursed. “I only had the one. T’other was on the Sheriff when he got killed…” he trailed off, wide-eyed as if he had said something he shouldn’t have.
Dance didn’t bite. He said, “Tell me which bank?”
“Bank of Grantham. Only bank in town. Other end of Main Street. By the wash.
“I think I’ll go down there and have me a lil’ look. Count up these desperados for you. But I gotta warn you, I’m stopping at 10. That’s all the fingers I got to count on.”
As Dance strode down the street he whistled tunelessly and checked the load in his pistols, pulling back the hammer and spinning the cylinders to reassure himself that all twelve cartridges were present and accounted for.
A passerby looked at him with fear, and he holstered a pistol and tipped his hat, breaking neither stride nor musical performance.
From the outside, the First Bank of Grantham seemed just as sleepy as the rest of town on that sunny afternoon. But before John Dance could mount the steps, he heard a series of gunshots and two men exploded out of the front door into the street, carrying what looked to be very heavy saddlebags over their shoulders.
Dance stood very still as one of them whirled and pointed a pistol right at him. But when the desperado looked at the man in front of him, his eyebrows raised in surprise so much that his hat lifted more than an inch. “John-John, look who it is!”
John-John, who was scanning the other end of the street for trouble, turned quickly and said, “Well, I’ll be damned!” he said as he broke into a smile and let his pistol drop. “Ain’t seen you since that dance back in Albequ-”
But John-John never made it to the end of that sentence. John Dance’s hands blurred into motion and he shot them both down, two bullets apiece just to be sure.
He holstered his guns and the good townspeople came out and declared him a hero. Jean DuMont, the man who had the most to lose from his bank being robbed, gave him a reward of $50, for doing the right thing.
They rescued old Speedy Pete from his own jail and all repaired to the Morning Star Saloon, where hands were shook, backs were slapped and nobody thought to question where this man had come from. Everybody was just glad that “John” had stepped up and done the right thing.
The man who brought him his third whiskey said, “Mister, just so happens we’re short a Sheriff.”
“Just so happens, I’m looking for work.”
“What’s your name? Your full name, I mean. So we can swear you in.”
Of course, John couldn’t give his real name. He was trying to outrun that name; the name of a man with a price on his head who, among other things, had robbed a dance back in Albuquerque with a nefarious character known as John-John and the Allen-Elder gang.
So he smiled his best smile and said, “Dance, John Dance.” Sometime that evening, somebody pinned a star on him, and from that moment on, he was the Sheriff.
What better place to avoid the law than to be the law itself?
At first, he thought he'd stay six months, maybe a year, but it had been three years since he’d stopped the bank robbery. He'd become accustomed to sleeping indoors and people smiling when they saw him on the street. Sure, Speedy Pete was enough to drive any man crazy, but though he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the sack he was loyal and honest and that made up for a lot.
But as much as he liked the town and the people he hated the feeling of being trapped. It was one thing to choose to stay when he knew he could just melt away at any time. But to stay when you weren’t allowed to leave, that was prison. And Dance figured the whole point was to stay the hell out of prison.
Dance was jerked away from his memories by the sight of an abrupt line up ahead. On one side of this line the ground was the harsh, rocky desert of Eastern Arizona. On the other side was lush thick grass. He and Miguel stopped just short of this strange line and looked at it for a long while. To his right, Dance could see where the line had split a rock in half. He said, "Miguel…" and pointed.
“Estoy perdido,” answered Miguel, not even aware he was speaking Spanish.
Dance’s horse lowered his head and took a bite of the grass. The horse didn't keel over dead or burst into flames. He just nibbled the grass is if he did it every day. It was thicker and crawlier than any grass Dance ever seen. But if it tasted all right to the horse, Dance supposed it might be OK.
Dance caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. He looked up and about 200 yards away he saw a giant, bear-like creature, rise up out of the grassland and grab a hold of a tree branch with a paw impossibly long fingernails twisted and turned in wild, unpredictable ways. Like a gypsy woman's fingernails he once seen in Galveston.
The creature lifted its long, teardrop-shaped head and began stripping the wide leaves from the tree and eating them. Dance looked to Miguel. Miguel stared at the strange creature with his jaw hanging open. In a voice that he hoped wouldn't carry, Dance asked, “You ever seen one of them before?"
"Nunca. ¿Quieres ir a ver?"
“No I do not,” said Dance, easing his rifle out of the saddle scabbard.
The sight of the weapon gleaming in the sunshine snapped Miguel back to himself. He said, “You are going to shoot it? It eats plants.”
“I’m just being cautious. I been known to eat vegetables from time to time, but we all know what I prefer.”
Miguel nodded. Then, before Dance could say no, he spurred his horse towards the strange creature. Dance cursed under his breath and touched his horse with his heels and followed.
“I think he likes that tree,” said Miguel of the gigantic creature, which was happily munching away. With chomp and a sweep of its neck, it denuded half the tree, taking no notice of them. As it ate, it made low, whuffing grunts.
“Can we go now?”
“Is there no wonder in your soul Sheriff Dance?"
"Oh there's plenty of wonder Miguel," he said, surveying his surroundings. "Right now I'm wondering what the hell we're doing provoking this animal?”
"Don't be like that. I think he's friendly."
"If you put that to the test, I'll shoot both of you and ride off I swear."
"I think you did not grow up on a farm or a ranch, Sheriff Dance. Maybe you did not grow up in nature."
Suddenly, the creature jerked its head up. It looked at the two men on horses and made a sharp bark of alarm, showing more and sharper teeth than John Dance felt a herbivore ought to be allowed. Dance brought the rifle to his shoulder, but the creature did not charge. It looked around frantically, sniffing the air so rapidly its long snout seem to vibrate. Dance, in fact, had not grown up outdoors or on a ranch, but he didn’t need to be a native guide to see that this thing was goddamned terrified.
"Come on, let's ease back,” said Dance.
Miguel nodded without taking his eyes off the creature. From fifty yards to the right, something came rushing through the tall grass. The air was shattered by a tremendous roar. The sound was so loud Dance felt like a great hand had reached into his chest and squeezed the air out of his lungs. The horses reared and screamed. As Dance fought to stay in the saddle he heard the creature that was eating the tree make a frightened, bleat-like sound.
In fear, it leapt onto the tree and climbed. Leaves and small branches and hunks of bark showered down as it scrabbled up the tree with its strange claws.
Behind the tree, Dance saw a bear rise from the grass. It rose until it was the size of a large grizzly, and it still kept coming. It stood on its hind legs, dangled its claws at the end of its too-long arms, threw its strange bulldog-like face back and and roared at its prey.
Miguel wheeled his horse around and cursed in Spanish. Dance could feel that his own horse was on the verge of bolting. In the interest of staying in the saddle, he fought to stay calm, but wheeled to the right and let the animal have his head.
When they had gained some distance, Dance reined up on a small rise. As they watched Miguel said, “You see, now the bear, he will climb the tree and eat our tree-eating friend.”
Dance spit. “Ain’t no friends of mine.”
The bear roared again, and reached up and placed its paw on the tree trunk. Above him, nearly at the top of the tree, the sad-faced herbivore clutched the trunk and bleated in distress.
But the bear did not climb. He put his forepaws on the trunk and by heaving his bulk forward and back, began to rock the trunk. High above, the top of the tree swung back and forth wildly. The herbivore tried to hold tight to the trunk, but with each swing, it seemed that a new appendage came free just as it had replaced the last one.
The tree trunk snapped off about 2 feet above the ground. The trunk fell over, slowly at first, but by the time the top of the trunk hit the ground, the herbivore was slammed into the earth at a hideous speed. Even at this distance Dance felt the impact in the seat of his saddle.
The poor creature tried to raise up and flee but fell to the ground after a single wobbly step. In a flurry of claws and teeth, the bear was on it, its short, punched–in snout, rooting deep into the creature's soft white underbelly. The bear pulled its bloody snout and face out from the still-living animal which was screaming in pain. The bear raised its head to the sky and roared again.
"Magnificent animal," said Miguel.
Then, and Dance would swear to this until the end of his days, the bear looked right at them and roared.
"Is that thing gonna follow us?" asked Dance.
"No, don't be silly. He has just killed and will eat his fill and take a nap, for a few days most likely."
"He's looking right at us."
Miguel considered this for a moment, then said, "No, Senor, his eyesight cannot be that good."
They headed north away and when they had put a hill between them and the carnage, they eased up on the horses. They decided to head farther north before circling back to town. "One more rise between us and…" said Dance.
Miguel nodded in a way that said he knew nothing about the great outdoors, and they rode on.
As the crest of the next rise, the grassland ended in front of them in a steep drop. The slope was steeper than anybody not being chased by bloodthirsty savages would want to ride down, thought Dance. But then he was torn from his geological and equestrian considerations by Miguel's soft gasp, "Madre de Dios."
Dance raised his eyes to the horizon. The plain before him was marked by irregular black circles in the green as if the land itself had been afflicted with some kind of pox. He could see the river cutting back in from the left, and following its course, he's could see a harbor of sorts that had been cut into the riverbank. And above it, on a small hill was a tall tower of dark stone that taper to a point high above the plain. It made Dance feel uneasy to look directly at it. Resting in the river, in the shadow of the tower, was the warship that had attacked the Town of Grantham.
Dance grunted. At least something had gone right about this scout. But the thought was interrupted by a strange, snuffling grunt. Dance looked over his shoulder and there, perhaps 30 yards away was the bear that was supposed to be sleeping off his meal. Before he could say anything to Miguel, the beast roared and charged them.
When dance saw the bloody maw of the bear rushing towards them, he realized they were not going to escape. He yanked his horse around and together they plunged over the edge.
The descent was so steep Dance had to lean back in his saddle -- stirrups jutting out alongside the animal's neck -- to keep from going over the horse's head. Dance thought the only way to descend faster would be to fall, but then Miguel came galloping past him on the left side.
As they hit the plain below, he heard the roaring of the Bear on the hill behind them, and his horse needed no encouragement to gallop. Dance chanced a look over his shoulder and saw the bear coming down the crumbling dirt hill behind him. The bear tried to slow, but he could not keep his weight off his front paws. He slowly came over, crashed into the slope and started to roll.
That ought to slow him down, thought Dance but when the bear reached the bottom, it rolled to its feet and kept running. Some days you et the bear and other days, well the bear et you. Dance was afraid he knew which one of those days this was going to be.
He heard the bear getting closer behind him and could smell the hot copper of the blood on his breath. He tensed his back anticipating the swipe of a claw, but it did not come. Instead, his horse stumbled and he fell hard onto the prairie. The bear continued on in pursuit of Miguel and his horse. Dance struggled to his hands and knees and realized he was in a blackened area of the plain, a shallow crater, the lip of which had caused his horse to tumble. The burned area in the prairie was about 10 feet across and on the other side of it, he could see his horse getting back to its feet.
He looked beyond his horse, hoping to see that Miguel had gotten away. But he was not surprised to see the monstrous bear pursued him still.
There was a strange crackling noise in the air, from far away yet from all around. In the distance, he noticed the tower was shimmering. Waves of crackling electricity swept up the sides of the spire and gathered at the top in furious bands.
In the distance Miguel still rode for all he was worth, trying to outrun the monstrous bear, but still, the bear gained. Miguel cut the horse hard around a crater, and the bear couldn't make the turn. It had to veer off and go the long way around the depression. Dance clenched his fist in excitement. It was a longshot, but with a few moves like that, Miguel might just survive. The bear was fast, but it didn't have endurance and it certainly couldn't turn like Miguel's fine quarter horse. Maybe, just maybe Miguel would get away.
There was a blinding flash, a bolt of lightning seared an arc from the tower to the plain in front of him. It came to rest directly on Miguel and his horse. After the sizzle and flash came a clap of thunder so deafening Dance thought his teeth had been turned to powder. Then the ground where Miguel and his horse had been erupted in chunks of burning earth. Hunks of dirt and grass rain downed all around him, but Dance heard nothing but the ringing in his ears.
His vision came back slowly and he did not like what he saw. There was nothing left of Miguel. The bear was off to one side, dazed, sitting over on his haunches, shaking his head like an old man who had gotten a hold of some bad moonshine.
Dance turned and walked away.
He had gone a few steps when he heard the bear running towards him. This time he did not turn. He thought to himself, Welp this is how I die.
He resigned himself to it, lowering his head as he walked, but then he thought of Laura and the promise he had made to her. He thought of Mac and the angry spirit in that boy, the courage to defend his mother against a full-grown man. He wasn't sure that all the fighting he had done in his life had gotten him anywhere he had wanted to go, but inside him, the fear turned to anger once again.
He spun on his boot heel and pulled his pistol with a fluid, long-practiced motion. The bear was now moving slower than before, but somehow it was more horrifying. The hair had been burned off half its face and snout and now it howled in rage and pain as it advanced.
"Yep," said Dance as he raised his pistol, "f**k you too." Dance took his time with the shots cocking the trigger with his thumb and carefully sighting before each pull. All six shots went home. The last one hit the bear in the head and glanced off the beast’s skull, leaving a red, angry canal along its brainpan. And still, the beast came.
That was the moment he knew he was done for. He dropped his pistol and put a hand to his knife. Then he heard it again – that strange, sizzling, crackling sound – now coming from all around him close by. The beast was there charging not more than 10 feet away. At the last moment John Dance threw himself to the ground. The bear stopped short and reared up on its hind legs, roaring in triumph. It raised its paws, each as big as an anvil, and Dance had time to see the strings of carrion dangling from its claws.
The world went white again.
Dance’s body convulsed with electricity as hunks of bear meat rained down upon him. When it was over he lay very still and moaned quietly for a long time. The bear had been disintegrated by the lightning. From where Jon Dance lay he could see the burn marks in the grass where the bear’s feet had touched the earth.
Without lifting his head, he scanned the horizon as best he could. There was nothing but open prairie, and when the wind blew the stench of cooked bear away he could smell the river. The tower on the horizon remained dark and motionless.
He crawled like a snake, very slowly back towards the bluff. For an hour or so, he inched way along the ground in mortal tear of that sizzling sound he was certain would be his end.
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Dr. Krupp was terrified. In all his years of selling snake oil throughout the frontier — a figure he often exaggerated, but in truth amounted to no more than three years — he had seen many remarkable things but never had he seen Dr. Bartoleermere the Second’s Magic Elixir actually work. But it had happened. He had seen the little girl’s wound heal! And Dr. Krupp had no idea what to do next.
As townspeople rushed about, frantic with news of the attack, Dr. Krupp walked in a circle in the center of town talking to himself. First, he wanted a drink but then he turned sharply and walked towards the livery stable and his wagon full of elixir. Then he looked around him in terror, certain he was being followed. Grantham, like all frontier towns, was filled with desperate characters; gamblers, miners, drovers, and cowboys down on their luck. What he had was absolutely priceless. Worth more than silver or gold.
The patter sprang into his mind unbidden, "the Elixir of life itself… Freedom from man’s age-old enemies, pain, and death. The lauded and once mythical Panacea now made available through the miracles of the modern age.” What a pitch! And all the better for actually being true. He smiled to himself, then he frowned and changed directions once again.
His wagon had elaborately painted canvas tarps on either side that proclaimed the value and wonder of Dr. Bartoleermere the Second’s Magic Elixir. The idea was to make it so a passerby couldn't help but notice such a magnificent example of the sign-maker’s art. And that cinched the argument. In a fright, he hastened to the freight yard knowing he must remove the signs and disguise his wagon.
Along the way, he passed the Preacher crying out to the people of Grantham as he stood upon an overturned bucket. He was telling the people that these strange happenings were the work of the Lord. These signs and portents were meant to call the faithful to arms. Dr. Krupp avoided the Preacher’s gaze as he pushed his way through the crowd, afraid that the man might call him out… afraid of what that man might say.
He crossed the main street, ducked through a narrow alley, and emerged on the edge of the freight yard. Wagons of all shapes and sizes crowded the dusty lot, but from the street, he could not see his wagon and sighed in relief. For the first time in his life, he was grateful that his advertising was obscured from the public.
He checked to see that he was not being followed and then hurried in among the wagons with surprising speed for a man of his girth. Behind two battered Conestoga wagons, he found his rig with its colorful signs. He had paid five dollars a side to get them done in San Francisco and they were worth every penny. In fact, he had paid more for the signs than he had to get the patent medicine brewed, bottled, and labeled.
In truth, the contents of the bottles had never been important. Grain alcohol, some hop, and something bitter would do it. Bitter because everyone knew that good-tasting things never made good medicine. And that was the secret, no one ever bought or sold a chemical formula. They paid for the prospect of relief from their ailments. And luckily for Dr. Krupp, the western territories were an endless wellspring of ailments. Wrenched backs, aching teeth, consumption, dysentery, hangover, boils, the pox, snakebite, yellow fever, tuberculosis, argue, gout, la grippa –- if you name a man's pain in detail he will believe that you have the cure for him. The secret wasn't in the bottle and never had been. It was in the *salesmanship.*
At least it had been. But now… He shuttered to think what a working formula meant. If the one thing he was certain was fake turned out to be real… then was anything real? Was everything fake? Had he been the one being conned all along. He was lost in his own understanding.
He climbed up on the side of the wagon and started untying the painted tarpaulin. As he worked he heard a strained cough behind him. He turned in terror, nearly falling off the wagon, but caught himself and dropped awkwardly to the ground. Off-guard and looking more like a thief than a proprietor he stared wide-eyed at the figure before him.
Jean DuMont tapped his heavy cane on the ground, coughed into his handkerchief said, “I believe you have the medicine that I require.”
Dr. Krupp opened and closed his mouth several times, looking more like a fish straining water through his gills, than the sharp-eyed huckster that he had been. Finally, his instincts kicked in and he said, “Well sir, you have come to the right place. The miraculous properties of the long-lost Panacea can be yours, for a price, of course.”
“I assure you, money is no object,” said DuMont, playing along, “I am as rich as Croesus.” He was overcome by a coughing fit, then continued, “And eager to pay. But there is but one consideration. What guarantee of efficacy do I have?”
“You have not heard of the remarkable transformation that Dr. Bartloleermere’s Elixir effected in the young girl who was mortally wounded at the river?”
“Yes,” said DuMont, “But I did not see it.”
“I assure you, as a gentleman, that this marvelous elixir,” he said, patting the side of his wagon, “will cure what ails you, or,” and he cringed to hear himself saying the words, “Or your money back. Would that be acceptable?”
“Usually, your terms would be quite favorable, but these are… unusual times… so I will need a demonstration,” said DuMont. And then shot Dr. Krupp in the stomach with his derringer.
It happened so fast that, Krupp didn’t understand that he had been shot. The barrels of the gun went off with a sound that seemed a little louder than the popping of the cork from a champagne bottle. There was no pain, but he felt a wetness on his abdomen, and when he touched his hand to his belly, it came away covered with blood. Dr. Krupp grew light-headed and slumped to the ground, still confused.
Jean DuMont looked down at the smoking gun in his hand. Its pearl handles and etched barrel glittered. He said, “One of a matched set. Pretty isn’t it?” he put the still smoking gun into his coat pocket. When Dr. Krupp didn’t rise, DuMont shook his head and said, “Ahch, must I do everything myself?” He stumped over to the wagon with his cane, opened the side panel, and removed one of the bottles of medicine. He opened it, sniffed it, then handed it down to Dr. Krupp.
Dr. Krupp looked up at DuMont and said, “You shot me!”
“Yes, we are past that,” said DuMont, “You need to keep pace with the moment.” Krupp looked at the bottle, then back at DuMont. Then back to the bottle. He sucked it down in two gulps.
Before Archie could make it back to the mine, one of the miners spotted him and came running. The man, Jablonski was his name was wide-eyed with madness, “Dere you are! You gotta help us! He’s gonna kill us sure!”
“What? Whatever are you talking about? Calm down man, what is it.”
“He gonna beat me to death with that heavy black cane of his. And it’s not my fault. Nonna dis is my fault. You gotta help me. You gotta get it back somehow or I gotta get outta town.”
Archie grabbed Jablonski by his shoulders and shook him vigorously. Then he slapped him across the face. “Get a hold of yourself, man.”
Instead of growing angry, or coming to his senses, Jablonski’s face dropped and his eyes went blank with a passive hopelessness that Archie found more terrifying than his previous ravings. A tear welled in Jablonski’s eye and he looked fearfully around him, whispering something that Archie could not make out.
“What is that?” Archie asked gently.
“The mine is gone.”
“What?”
“Gone… it’s not there anymore. It’s… it’s…” A tear streaked down the red handprint that Archie had left on his face and he felt guilty for slapping the man.
When they got to the mine, a crowd of flinty-faced men, pale from long hours in the depths, stood in clumps stealing glances at the mine entrance and muttering evil things in German and Polish.
From the outside, the mine was clearly there. Archie turned to a few of the miners and asked, “What has happened here? Is someone hurt?” The men shook their heads sullenly and turned away. Jablonski said, “It’s just gone…”
“What do you mean GONE!” said Archie. “You mean there’s been a cave-in? Is someone hurt?”
“No, Mister, sir. It’s something else. Something else in there I mean. In its place. None of us want to go in there. It’s… an unholy place.”
“What do you mean an unholy place? Have you lost your mind? For God’s sake man, start talking sense,” Archie asked, but he could see by the fear on the men’s faces that Jablonski believed what he was saying, and the men did too.
“Not for God’s sake, Mr. Sir,” said Jablonski. “You go see.”
“Superstitious b******s,” said Pulaski, the Foreman, as he burst out of his office, “You’d scarcely even call them civilized Christians if they weren’t crossing themselves all the time. Good workers, for the most part — more trustworthy than the Chinee we run on the second shift. But the damned Popery is what does it. All the costumes and incense and Latin mumbo jumbo.”
“Ah Pulaski,” said Archie, happy to see a relatively sane man, “What is going on here?”
“I can’t get ‘em to come to work, and when I do round enough of ‘em up to put together a shift, they go in and come right back out again.”
“It does appear to be there to you, doesn’t it? The mine, I mean,” asked Archie.
Pulaski looked at Archie like he was the crazy one. “The damn entrance is right there. Come on!” said the Foreman, “Let’s go see what Jablonski is so afraid of.” And he handed Archie a fine brass miner’s lamp. As they walked to the mine, the pale-faced men parted silently and let them pass.
Archie followed Pulaski into the mine, stepping carefully along the minecart rails. For the first twenty feet it seemed like every other mine Archie had ever been in, but soon the walls changed composition. The bare rock gave way to huge blocks of greenish-grey stone set without benefit of mortar. The minecart rails stopped suddenly and he was walking on a floor paved with the same stone.
“What the hell?” asked Pulaski.
Archie, a fine Anglican, fought off an urge to cross himself.
The passage they were in opened up into a gigantic, vaulted hall, that the lamplight could not reach the top of.
“Jesus Christ,” said Pulaski.
Archie said, “By the look of it, I would say this was a temple to a far older God.”
They played their lamps along the walls, but the feeble light didn’t allow them to make out the carvings or decorations there. What Archie could make out disturbed him. Glimpses of hideous flying creatures snatching up tiny human figures.
Pulaski muttered, “We need light.” He strode back to the hallway and yelled, “Jablonski! Bring all the lamps!”
“No Mister, Sir!” came Jablonski’s voice echoing back through the tunnel.
“I need light, you superstitious Polack!”
“It’s not natural boss, you come out of dere.”
Archie stepped further into the room and played his flickering lamp along the walls. In the gloom, he saw strange, bas-relief carvings. Human figures warring with bestial, ape-like creatures in one frieze. In the next, another band of humanoids were beset by creatures that seemed little more than masses of tentacles.
The argument in the tunnel reached a fever pitch. “Jablonski, I swear. If I have to come out there and get those damn lamps…”
“Lamps, amps, mps, ps…” the word echoed in the depths of the mine. Mine? Chamber? Temple? City? Whatever this was, it was built on a gigantic scale and with painstaking craftsmanship. What was it for? How did it come to be here? Feeling immeasurably ancient and yet… somehow.
Archie’s curiosity drew him deeper into the darkness of the massive room.
“Goddamn it Jablonski! If you don’t fill that minecart with lamps and wheel it in here right now…” cried the Pulaski.
“Ow ow ow ow…” echoed strangely through the chamber. And underneath it, Archie thought he heard something else, An answering sound from deep in the darkness. He could not be sure because it was obscured by Pulaski muttering, “And if there’s not some goddamn silver somewhere in here, Jablonski is going break the news to DuMont.”
Archie looked back towards the entrance. Pulaski was silhouetted against the last feeble remnants of daylight that struggled in from the mine opening. Behind him, he heard a hollow clomp from deep below, but when turned back around, the sound did not repeat.
At the edge of the feeble light cast by his mining lantern, Archie made out a large, static shape looming in the darkness. Even as fear pulled him backward, his curiosity drove him forward. Shaking a little, he advanced into the darkness.
There he found what he thought to be a large sarcophagus, or perhaps altar, in the center of the room. He moved closer and saw that there were chips and deep gouges in the surface of the ancient, evil-looking stone. Large rings were fitted in the sides which were covered with incomprehensible lettering and horrifying pictographs. A few threads of rotting hemp rope dangled from one of the rings.
He walked around to the long end of the stone altar and it all became horrifyingly clear to him. He saw where the grooves in the top led to a single downspout. He saw where the container would have been placed to collect the blood of a sacrificial victim. What unholy god or demon was this place consecrated to?
Even as his emotions recoiled from what he saw, his scientific training kept him asking questions and gathering data. In a bizarre act of crumbling sanity, he started counting the marks in the surface of the altar. There were hundreds. But surely every sacrifice hadn’t left a mark. Many, many people had died on this altar.
He stood, swaying with the horror of it all, yet still curious. He tried to read the characters carved into the side of the altar. The runes and glyphs were unknown to him but seemed tantalizingly on the edge of his understanding. And the more of the carvings he saw the closer comprehension seemed to be. It was like a word stuck on the tip of his tongue that he wished to spit forth into the world with a scream.
Archie broke out in a sweat, spiking a fever from nowhere. Then he heard a chant as if the entire room was filled with unseen worshipers. He looked around and no one was there. Yet he heard them, crowding in close around him, the chant little more than a whisper, yet massive from the number of people crowded around him, fervently praying. Praying to what? Praying for what? The sound surrounded him. Smothered him. He felt unable to move.
“Hey, Mister. What you got there?” he heard the Pulaski ask him from a long, long way off. Then Archie went blind. He could feel the warmth of his lamp still burning in his hand, but all he could see was darkness. And, in the darkness, he had a vision of a monstrous creature, a power of the Earth before the time of Man. It was mostly bat, but among its leathery features, Archie could make out a glimpse of sentience in its strangely human eyes. Was it a chimera? Or a horrid beast that evolution had forgot?
He felt the pull of this creature, its immense mind, its burning eyes, an ancient, undying thing that whispered the promise of secret knowledge, life eternal, and power in exchange for blood.
“Mister are you okay?” asked Pulaski, shaking his shoulder.
Archie struggled to answer the question. When he opened his mouth to speak he heard the sound of claws on stone and the rush of stale air across leathery wings.
“I… I… I’m fine” lied Archie, “I think I just need some fresh air.“
Archie was proud that he had not run screaming to the sunlight at the end of the tunnel. When reached the outside the world seemed bright and normal yet somehow smaller than the vast, hungry darkness inside the temple.
He staggered through the dusty yard and the miners looked at him with fear and concern. He could still hear the sound of wings. He looked around him frantically and realized that this too was hallucination or vision — as the vision of the sacrifice had been. But knowing something intellectually and getting rid of fear are two very different things.
He plunged his head deep into a water trough. It was still frigid from the high desert evening and he felt the bones in his skull pop with the cold. But the ache he felt was real and it blocked out the visions of death and leathery wings. He held his head under the water until his lungs screamed for air. He flung his head up, shaking and flinging water all around him as he struggled to regain his breath.
Pulaski, Jablonski, and the rest of the miners watched him with fear.
“Mr. Croyton, are you all right?” asked Pulaski.
Archie ignored the question. He stared at the black hole of the mine entrance like a duelist and said, “Torches! We need torches. And men to carry them.”
He saw many of the miners recoil in horror. And who could blame them? Horror was what lay beneath that hill. Ancient, unknown evil. But it was not the remnants of a bestial faith that Archie found terrifying, but The same irrational, superstitious, darkness that had held humanity back since the dawn of time. And now that he was faced with it in its purest, most powerful form, he decided that he would not be afraid. There was a truth to it and it could be brought to daylight. And he would do it. Archimedes decided that whatever the cost, he would rather know, than fear blindly.
When Pulaski hesitated, Archie took charge. He pointed at the men and then to the shoring timber. “You men, split that wood into f*****s, three feet long should be enough, and find rags, fabric, anything we can soak with oil. Mr. Pulaski, no one goes into that mine until I get back.”
Pulaksi looked at the terrified miners and said, “I don’t think that’s going to be an issue.” As Archie turned and walked away, Pulaski asked, “Where are you going?”
“To assemble a company.”
Archie walked across the street and into the staging yard where the teamsters were camped. A few of the teamsters had pitched tents, but MacAllister, true to his word, was passed out under his own wagon, still drunk from the night before.
“Gentlemen,” Archie barked, the horror in him driven off by the joy of the words growing inside him, “And such unfortunate ladies as there may be. Stand and be counted. Adventure awaits.”
He was greeted by a litany groans and of curses. From beneath the wagon MacAllister, said, “The horses are done in. The women have been rode hard and put up wet. The squadroon is in no condition to haul. Begging your poxy, arse-riddled pardon, sir.”
“The only cargo I require to be moved is your insolent carcass across the street. I’ve need of men to explore a ruined temple.”
“Ruined temple,” asked MacAllister, opening one bloodshot eye into the light of a new day. Is there treasure then?”
Dr. Krupp was certain that he was going to die. Slowly, painfully, most likely when his gunshot wounds became infected, but certainly, it would be death. He drank Dr. Bartoleermere the Second’s Magic Elixir as a desperate man clutches at fragments of his wrecked ship. Even after he had seen the miraculous recovery of Penelope Miller on the riverbank, even though his life depended on it, the snake oil salesman could not bring himself to believe that his elixir actually worked.
He swallowed the foul-tasting liquid and sighed hopelessly.
Standing above him, Jean DuMont watched all this with detached fascination.
“Why did you shoot me?” asked Dr. Krupp.
“I need to know how much of a fraud you were.”
“You coulda just asked,” said Dr. Krupp, almost breaking into sob at the end.
“I prefer to take my chances with other people’s lives.”
“Jesus, this hurts!”
“Ah,” said DuMont, hitting Krupp in the leg with his cane, “So it does not work and you are a fraud after all.”
Krupp nodded once, tears streaming down his face, but then his eyes grew wide. He felt a warming sensation in his stomach, and a light, euphoric feeling all over. He giggled, then tore his shirt open. He wiped the pooled blood away and found that the wound had healed. He laughed again and stood up, smiling at Jean DuMont.
“I’m okay. I’m okay! I’m going to live.”
“Quite remarkable,” said Jean DuMont. “What is the formula?”
“I don’t even know. I just bought it from a brewery in San Francisco,” said Dr. Krupp, just giddy from being alive.
“Ah,” said Jean Dumont, “Pity.”
“But I still have plenty of bottles to sell you! Though I’m going to charge you more since you shot me.”
DuMont produced his other derringer from his right coat pocket and shot Dr, Krupp again. This time in the head. Krupp died instantly and fell to the ground.
Not giving Krupp another thought, DuMont removed another bottle of elixir from the wagon and drank it. He was immediately overcome with a coughing fit. He hacked and hacked and hacked, bringing forth hunks of diseased, black lung tissue and spitting them onto the ground like strange, foul-smelling mushrooms
He fell to his knees, wracked with pain, and vomited blood into the dirt. Then he tried to rise, staggered a few steps, and fell down. He rolled onto his back and drew his coat sleeve across the bloody mess of his mouth.
Then he took a deep breath, exhaled it, and smiled. His lungs were clear and free of consumption. He rose, laughing like a madman.
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Virgil sat for two days while the strange grass around him died in the heat. At night he slept on the ground and in the daytime he sat once again. At some point, he remembered not when, he unhitched the horses from the wagon and hobbled them. When he drank the last of the water from his canteen they had crowded close, pitiful with dehydration. It was only his sympathy for the horses that got him up and moving again.
Where the well had once been in the town of Grantham, he found the barest seep of water. It was muddy and brackish, but when he dug it out it refilled gradually.
When the horses had drunk, he strained muddy water through his neckerchief into a canteen.
On the next day, he heard the lowing of cattle and soon cowboys drove a herd into view. These were some of the hands from the Bar D, and their north herd. They looked at Virgil's face and saw their madness mirrored in his eyes. They asked him where the town had gone and Virgil told him that he did not know, but that it had taken his family with it.
They told him how they had awoken to find the other bunkhouse, the corrals, barns, and ranch house missing. And all the other hands and the Burdocks.
"I had wife and children," said Virgil. No one spoke after that.
They sat a long time as the afternoon turned to night, bereft of an explanation. Finally, the setting sun moved some of the cowboys to go out in search of firewood. As one of them saddled up he asked, "if this isn't Grantham, then what is this place?"
Virgil said, "Nowhere."
"Hunh,” said the cowboy, “a town called Nowhere,” and rode on.
The Cowboys stayed that night, slaughtering one of the beeves for dinner. Virgil got some flour from his wagon and they had steak and biscuits. Even though his heart was broken and he was adrift in a cruel world that he could not force to make sense, the easy way of the Cowboys lifted his spirits. They were free and unencumbered by family or attachment. They joked and sang and carried on as young men always had. And their pranks and cocky banter brought a smile to Virgil's face.
In the morning, they rode back north to graze the herd. They said they'd get through the calving and the fattening, then drive the herd to the railhead in Tucson, sell the stock and head their separate ways. What would Virgil do, they wondered? He had no answer for them. He did not know himself. As they rode off, the youngest said, "Put up a saloon in this town of Nowhere and we’ll visit more often.”
Virgil thought long and hard about what he could do. Could he give his old life up for lost -- be as accepting and carefree as those Cowboys? Maybe he could head down to Mexico. Hell, he might drift back to Bisbee, and kill Fetterman just for the enjoyment of it.
In this incomprehensible situation, he could see how Fetterman was the reasonable person to blame. If that shifty b*****d had honored his contract, Virgil would've been in town when whatever had happened had happened. He would still be with Laura and Mac and Pen. It hurt to think of them. It hurt to close his eyes at night and see their sweet faces. Hear their squeals of delight, and Laura's whisper in his ear. Remember the light in Mac's eye when he looked up at him with pride, even though Virgil knew the boy would feel differently if he knew the truth of his father's past.
He vowed he would be with them again, no matter what it took.
What if they were dead? He shook his head to rid himself such an evil thought. They lived yet, he could feel it. With furious anger, he willed it to be so. For if they were dead, where were the bodies? But then, where hadthey gone? And how have they managed to take the buildings with them? The questions circled endlessly in spirals. Where were the people? Where were the buildings? But where were the people? But where were the buildings?
The next day he was sick of drinking muddy water, and even sicker of questions that had no answers. He spent all day gathering wood. That night he made a bonfire. The smoke from the fire rose straight into the air, up to the cold and indifferent stars that twinkled down on one man's problems from so impossibly far away.
He remembered an old Indian and the smoke of another fire in the Oklahoma Territory years ago. After Chickamauga, he had fallen in with guerrilla fighters. Murderous men who fought from ambush and showed no mercy. Virgil had wanted to have done with the war, but it wasn't safe to ride the lawless territories alone.
But since a man named Grundy had deserted their rough company he had spend more and more time thinking about it. The rumor had gone around the camp that Grundy had been a Union spy. Virgil had thought nothing of it, there were a million rumors in war and this was just one more. Bill Crawford, the leader of the 5th Arkansas Irregulars had taken a different view.
They had ridden a day out of their way, deep into the mountains, to an abandoned Indian encampment. Abandoned except for one old man, living in a badly patched army tent.
The old Indian stood in the door of his tent and said nothing as they rode up.
From his horse Crawford said, "I know you're not a good Christian man, but it doesn't seem too much to ask for a word of greeting."
"I thought maybe you had come to shoot me, so I wasn't wasting my breath," said the Indian.
Crawford acted like he was genuinely hurt by this, even though they were, for all intents and purposes, a band of outlaws. He asked, "Now why would you think such a thing?"
The old Indian shrugged and said, "that's what happened to everyone else," indicating the crumbling wigwams and the abandoned fire rings of the settlement.
"I thought maybe they left on account of your poor manners,” Crawford said.
The Indian shook his head sadly and said, "They are still here. You see the wildflowers?" And only then did they notice the patches of brilliant color scattered throughout the settlement. Bright mounds where the prairie had grown up into and around the bodies of the fallen.
"Jesus Christ, why do you stay here?"
With a strange light in his eye, the old Indian said, “It’s quiet here and I hope the spirits will come visit.”
Uncomfortable with this whole line of questioning Crawford got to it. "They told me you track men."
"I send after them, I don't go get them." And then Crawford nodded and they talked price. When the Indian had settled his fee he nodded again, as if resigning himself to an unpleasant task, and gathered sticks. None of the Arkansas Irregulars helped him. They all watched, most smoking pipes, laying on the ground, but none speaking.
The old Indian made a fire and the smoke from it rose in a thin line. He muttered to himself in Cherokee, then turned to the white man and said, "not enough smoke." He walked into the abandoned village and soon came back with more wood and a handful of moldy rags that had once been a tunic. He built up the fire and threw the damp fabric on top. Soon smoke roiled from the blaze. Then the old Indian asked for an article of clothing from the man Crawford wish to hunt. Crawford handed him a battered hat that Grundy had left behind when he fled. The Indian cut a strip of the felt and added it to the foul-smelling blaze. Then he began to chant.
The smoke formed into a dense column that rose straight into the sky. So high that it hurt Virgil's neck to seek the top of it. Then, as if a wind had sprung up, the smoke curved off to the southeast, but Virgil felt no breeze.
Crawford looked at Virgil and said, “You stay here and watch him. See he doesn't put out the fire and run off.”
Virgil nodded. It was OK with him, he'd always liked Grundy. Well, at least as much as he had liked any of these boys. The Irregulars rode on and Virgil sat down.
When old Indian stopped chanting Virgil pulled his gun and asked, “Don't you have to keep that up?"
The Indian said, “No, that's not how it's done. The chanting is mostly for show, so the secret can't be stolen by a rival tribe or evil shaman. That kind of thing. But there are hardly any more tribes and no more shaman. You can shoot me if you want to, I have lived long enough. Just don't let the fire go out."
Virgil felt foolish and put his gun away. "I wasn't gonna kill you. I… I just been riding with bad men so long I guess I became one."
"You don't like them much,” said the Indian.
"No, I guess I don't."
"But they are your tribe," said the old Indian.
"I'm a white man, we don't have tribes."
"Everybody has tribes,” said the old Indian. Then he asked, “Do you want something to eat?"
After a long pause, Virgil nodded and the Indian went into his tent. Virgil followed. The Old Indian laughed at Virgil and said, "I'm too old to run away."
Virgil said, "You got tricks and secrets, just like everybody else." The Indian nodded at this and smiled. Then he got some jerky and some acorn flour and went back to the fire. He mixed the acorn flour with water and made flatbread using an iron skillet. He gave the first piece to Virgil. It was bitter, but good. Virgil went to his horse and got some apples and a piece of rock candy that he broke in half to shared with the Indian. They had a meal.
When he had gnawed his fill of deer jerky, Virgil stared up at the smoke that still trailed off to the Southeast. As he watched, he saw it head around to the South a little. He said, "It's moving. Do you need to do something?"
The old Indian sucked on the rock candy and said, "The man it is seeking is moving."
"That's a neat trick," said Virgil.
"Do you want to know how to do it?"
"Why would you tell me that?"
The Indian looked around and sighed. “because there's nobody else left to pass it on to. And where the other ones tried to scare and bully me, you shared your food with me."
"You shared your food with me," said Virgil.
"Those bad men are not your tribe. You should leave them before they bring you to a bad end."
"It's hard to go out on your own. These are bad times and rough hombres."
The old Indian sucked his piece of rock candy and sighed contentedly. He said, "I have never had rock candy before. It's good. Doesn't taste like rock at all." Then he smiled. And Virgil smiled too.
"You have a destiny, I think. You will need this knowledge."
As Virgil watched, the old Indian gathered up broken twigs and arranged them in a place he cleared on the ground. At first, Virgil thought this was stupid folklore, but the more the man worked the more that the pattern seemed to be saying something to him. Something that couldn't be put into any tongue. Something about the seasons and the night, about the mother of all things and what a man should do with his time on the earth. About the ties that bind things together and how a man could be followed, even when he hadn’t left tracks. The old Indian hummed to himself as he worked and the tune of the song was a part of it too.
Virgil didn't understand it, it just became like something he had always known. He heard the rock candy clacking against the old man's remaining teeth and that was part of it too. Then his eyes were drawn to the empty patch in the middle of the pattern of sticks.
The Indian spat the rock candy into that empty spot on the ground. Where it landed, Virgil saw a flash of light. The sticks moved and weaved themselves together. The light shrank, gathering in on itself. Then it rushed outward engulfing Virgil in its brilliance and for a while there was no Virgil, there was only light.
When Virgil came back to himself, the old man was lying on the ground and the fire was going out. Now giving only smoke. Virgil rose on shaky legs and gathered more wood. In a daze, he scavenged small branches and twigs. Then he dragged two poles from a collapsed teepee and placed the ends in the fire.
Only when the blaze was rekindled again, did he think of the old Indian.
The old man was face down in the design of sticks, the piece of rock candy in the dirt next to his head. Then Virgil knew he was dead, and wondered why he had not seen it right away. Virgil knew other things too, but did not know how he knew them. Nor could he say how he felt the magic of the smoke pushing through the sky behind him. He felt it wane and then the smoke released and drifted aimlessly in the sky. He knew that they had found Grundy and he knew also what they had done with him.
He sat alone with the dead Indian and waited. He waited until he could no longer understand the meaning of the wind, until the pattern of sticks 0n the ground lost its movement and became just more twigs for the fire.
When Crawford and his men returned they asked him if he killed the Indian. Virgil said no. And he said nothing of what he had seen in the pattern, or what he had heard on the wind, or what he had learned in the light. He mounted his horse and rode on, the way a normal man would.
He had forgotten about the old Indian's gift until his memory had been jogged by one of the Cowboys asking, “Why do you stay here?”
And the Indian’s words had answered through him, “It’s quiet here and I hope the spirits will come visit.”
As he sat in front of his bonfire he fixed his mind on his wife Laura. It would have been easier to work with a piece of her clothing, or a lock of her hair, but just like the chanting, it wasn't the important part. The important part was the desire.
He found it hard to picture her face, but he had an image of her hair blowing in the wind as he as she had driven the wagon and he had ridden behind her. In this moment, she was scanning the horizon ahead, her body eagerly leaning against the wind, straining with excitement and impatience to be at their destination. This memory was from the trip they had made to Grantham to open the store. And that day had been pure and brilliant in a way that only days in the high desert could be. He had loved her then, and had even managed to love himself a little, thinking that the evils of their past were behind them. Later, he would realize, she had been pregnant with Mac on that trip.
He yearned for her, letting loose the strings of the bag deep inside that held his emotions. The terrible longing washed out of him and into the fire. It rose into the smoke, and the smoke, like water finding the easiest path to the sea, found the quickest path to his desire.
He saddled the horses, loading one with provisions, then followed the smoke and its high, unwavering arc to the northeast. For seven days and seven nights he rode until he could not see the smoke anymore. Then he would stop, build another fire, and ride on again.
He climbed mountains and crossed rivers, until at last, he found himself on a featureless plane. He traveled so far onto the plane that he could no longer see the mountains behind him. And but for the rising and setting of the sun, he could not tell the directions of the compass. The stars above were unknown to him, and every place he looked on this grass-swept plain looked the same as every other place looked. Finally, he came to the center of nothing. Here, the smoke arced downward and pooled to form a cloud bank, a sooty fog in the featureless nowhere.
Without hesitation, he rode into the smoke.
From the outside it roiled like a fog bank, but inside the smoke became thinner and somehow luminescent. The featureless plane became a featureless space. He was weary, weary beyond belief and he dropped the reins, giving his horse his head. The hoofbeats against the prairie grass were dull and heavy, coming from a long way away, as if he journeyed through wool instead of smoke.
He looked behind him and he could not see the pack horse, just the arc of the lead rope disappearing into nothing. Then he was afraid. He feared that he would dissolve into the featureless nothing. Trapped inside smooth walls that yielded infinitely, but would never let him pass. Searching for a door in a place where he was not shut in, but from which he could never leave.
Ahead of him he heard a cough.
The horse’s head jerked up, and Virgil clawed for the reins. As he drew the horse to a stop he heard the cough again and a voice asked "how many fires did you burn?"
"Seven," said Virgil, for it did not seem the time or place to hold back the truth. There was a loud clap and the smoke was pushed back in a rush of air.
There was the old shaman sitting cross-legged on the pigmentless grass with his palms held together out in front of him. He looked at Virgil with a smile on his face and said, "seven days, that is how many days it should take. Well, you've come all this way, you might as well rest a while,” he said with a shrug, "after all, time doesn't pass here."
Virgil dismounted and moved to hobble his horse with a strip of rawhide. The old Indian said, “Don't bother, there's there's only nowhere they can go."
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As the Sheriff and Pete walked back through town, they could all but smell the fear. Gone was the carelessness of rough men when they weren’t working. Wide eyes peeped out from behind dirty curtains. The piano player in the Occidental Saloon was going at it hammer and tongs, sounding more strained than celebratory.
The noisiest place in town was Saloon #3 and that wasn’t a good sign. If Dance didn’t know better he’d say this town felt like it had a showdown comin’. Maybe? Who the hell knew?
That was the problem. The damnable uncertainty of it all.
Pete peeled off at the jail and Dance tipped his hat to the deputy and kept walking. But before he got to the livery, he stopped in front of the Miller General Store. He knew he shouldn’t, but couldn’t think of a way around it. And he stood there trying to think of a reason not to go in for a good long while.
Ah hell, he thought, might not be back this way again.
From the doorway, he saw Laura Miller standing in the back, looking out the window. The sound of Penelope signing drifted down the staircase. She sounded as if nothing bad would or could ever happen to her.
Mack came down the stairs before John got three steps inside and said, “Morning Sheriff, what can I help you with?”
Dance looked back to Laura at the window. She had not turned around to acknowledge his presence in the store. He thought he saw her shoulders shaking. Was she crying?
Mack said, "I can get you whatever you need."
This annoyed Dance. He didn't like being pushed or goaded or directed. He gave the boy a flat look and said, "I need some cartridge, .44.”
The boy took two cardboard boxes from a shelf well-stocked with ammunition and placed them on the counter. The green labels read “Winchester Repeating Arms Co. New Haven, Conn., U.S.A.”
Dance was looking at Laura again, and this time Mack said, “Anything else I can get you?"
They were polite enough words but the boy didn't say them that way. A thought leapt unbidden into Dance’s mind. For all the rough things I done in my time, I never robbed a store.
"Laura," said Dance, a little louder than he meant to.
"Sheriff?" asked Mack, giving whatever he was trying one last attempt.
"Put it on the tab," said Dance, and then he strode to the back of the store. Laura turned to look at him and her eyes were filled with tears. In her hands she was twisting and twisting her pretty bonnet, looking like she might worry it clean in half.
They stood looking at each other, Dance now ashamed of the feelings that he had brought to this place. Above them Penelope's voice rang out clear and perfect as she sang, “May the red rose live always, To smile upon the earth and sky”
At a loss, Dance said, “She sounds fine."
"Yes," said Laura, “She is… It's a miracle." She waved a hand, unable to explain what none of them understood.
"Sheriff, I got your bullets here."
"Go upstairs and look after your sister," said Laura.
“She's fine,” protested Mack.
“She was fine this morning when I placed her in your charge," Laura said. The boy turned and walked away in shame.
Laura added, “No more backtalk, you hear, young man!”
"Yes ma'am,” he said and then climbed the stairs.
“John," she whispered, "John, what am I to do?"
John Dance stepped closer, thinking to comfort Laura. As he opened his arms to take her in a hug, she slapped him across the face.
"Not that." Laura said quietly, "I'll not do that. Not again."
Dance tried to shrug it off and forced a smile, “I didn't mean nothing by it. You just seemed low, is all."
"John Dance," she said with the first smile he’d seen from her in as long as he could remember; a sad smile, but a smile all the same. “You always mean something." She looked down at the wrinkled and absurd bonnet in your hands and made a disapproving noise. "Now what is it you want here that you can have and are willing to pay for?"
"Laura, I'm riding out for a scout.”
"But what about the town?"
"The town is having a meeting to figure out what to do. Which is plain foolishness, you ask me. We ain’t got no idea what's going on, so how can we make a plan? But one thing is sure. Whatever happened, that road to Bisbee is gone. And I can’t see an easy way across that river."
“What about the savages who attacked?"
"I got no answer about that either, but they weren't savages. Savages don't build warships.”
"Then who, what were they?”
“I got absolutely no idea. But I'm going to find out. But if I don't come back I just wanted to say…"
"You can't say that," Laura said, “Not to me. You don't have that right. Now take your bullets and go."
"Now hold fire, you contrary woman. There's more to it than that," said Sheriff Dance, realizing, not for the first time how hard it was to do the right thing. "Dammit, I'm sorry. The roads gone, maybe Bisbee's gone."
"Virgil is gone, is that what you're saying?"
"That ain’t the point." He stomped across the store and picked the bullets up off the counter. “Where did these come from?"
“Connecticut. Says so right on the box.”
“And how they get here? On a wagon from Bisbee.”
Laura nodded.
“Hell, you're the Shopkeeper. Tell me what that means?"
"Virgil went to Bisbee for flour.”
"And if he can't get back?” asked Dance.
“Then we don't have any more flour. Maybe Greeley has some, or the Morningstar or the Occidental. There’ll be some food with miners and camps but the point is…"
"The Town of Grantham is about to run out of flour. And everything else but dust, silver, and foolishness.” John stepped in close and put his hand on Laura's arm. Her eyes grew wide with the forwardness of it but she did not strike him.
“Whatever you’re worried about with me, with him, with anybody… None of it matters. Anything you want to keep, you hide it. Because they're gonna come and try to take it from you."
"But you're the Sheriff!" she protested, "it's your job to stop them."
"No one man can stop a panic. I'm riding out. I'm gonna see if I can find a way out. And if I can you're packing up and coming with me."
"But Virgil…”
"You're an angel surrounded by wolves. He’d want you to be safe and you know that."
Her face grew stern, "Mr. Dance, this is my store – our store that we have invested with all our efforts, hopes, and dreams. And I will not… I will not abandon it in a moment of panic!” She took his hand from her arm and continued, "Especially not without a fight."
"A fight," scoffed Dance. "What do you know of fighting?”
“More’n you might think,” said Mack, from the third step of the stairway, as he pointed a small pistol at the Sheriff. His hands shook — but not much — and his eyes were hard with anger. "Now step away from my mother," he said. His words all the more threatening for being delivered in high tones of a prepubescent boy.
"Mark, put that gun away before somebody gets hurt!" said Laura.
Dance said, “Keep the gun. you got the right idea. Only don't point it this way. Maybe you get me and maybe you don't, but…”
“You're not that fast," blurted Mac.
"But you don't have to miss me by hardly anything to hit your mother. So how good a shot are you?"
Mac pointed the gun at the floor. "Go upstairs, Mac!" Yelled Laura.
"Wait," said Dance stepping towards the boy, his hands held up and away from his sides. “She's not hearing me, but maybe you will. You take all that ammo and them guns in the case and you get them outta site. Put them away somewhere safe with anything else you want to keep. Don't argue, don't offer, you just say it’s all sold out." Then Dance turned and tipped his hat to Laura, took the bullets, and walked out the front door.
Laura thought, for a man that was in love with her, he really didn't know much about her at all.
Upstairs Penelope’s pure voice sang on. “Why should the beautiful ever weep? Why should the beautiful ever die?”
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For a long time, nobody said anything. They just stood on the bank of the strange new river with the wounded as if the whispering of the water would explain what had happened. All in all, Dance thought, it could have been a whole lot worse and it probably would be before the end.
Pete asked, “You want to get up a posse and go after them, Sheriff?”
Dance shook his head. “Let’s figure out what we’d be raiding into before we go a-raidin’. Besides, if that boat went upriver, it will come back down. Next time we’ll be ready for target practice.
As Dance thumbed rounds into his Winchester the Englishman walked up and stood next to him. Dance looked him over and said, “You got sand, Mister. But if you’re gonna pass the time out West, you best get heeled.”
“Archimedes Croryton, but my friend call me Archie,” he said, holding out his hand.
“Good for them,” said the Sheriff, “John Dance. What was that you were barking at them?”
“Aramaic, Syriac, Latin, some Attic Greek. Anything I could think of really.”
“You know what the hell they was?”
“Not a clue,” answered Archie. He nodded at the body of an archer floating in the river he said, “But I know how to find out.” And started stripping off his clothes.
When he reached his underwear, Archie waded into the river and swam out to the dead archer. His silken garment had billowed out around him, trapping air and giving the corpse buoyancy. Archie grabbed a handful of fabric and dragged the body back ashore. When Archie got to the mud, Dance helped him land his strange fish. As Archie caught his breath, Dance asked, “Anything familiar about this to you?”
“I was hoping you would know, you’re the native.” Archie rolled the body over on its back and brushed the mud off the face. The man had a dark, olive complexion with a large, hooked nose and strange characters tattooed on his cheeks. Out of respect, Archie closed his eyes.
The man’s silk garments were held at the waist with a thick belt of bronze plates. Archie asked for the Sheriff’s knife and used it to cut the shirt open. It was surprisingly tough. The man’s chest was tattooed in the same diamond pattern as his face. Archie made a close examination of the man’s hands.
Dance asked, “Mr. Croryton, how’s a man like you, an educated man, wind up here?”
“Sheriff, if you can tell me where here is, I’ll answer your question.”
“Hell, you’re in Grantham, Arizona Territory.”
Archie said, “Last night, I was reasonably certain that I arrived in Grantham. But now, I am not so sure.”
“Fair enough,” said the Sheriff, “What do you make of our guest?”
“My guess is this man has done little else in his life but fire a bow.”
“Professional military?”
“No, I am saying, this man was not merely in the army. His entire body and one might well say his being, has conformed to being an archer.” He gently turned the dead man over in the mud and pointed to the imbalance in the musculature of shoulders and arms. The right arm with a noticeably bigger biceps muscle, the left with a well-defined triceps from extending the bow. And the muscles between the shoulder blades stood out in almost chiseled detail. “He is a professional warrior. Like a Spartan or a Myrmidon.”
Dance said, “I ain’t never heard of them, but were they too dumb to duck too?”
“Yes, they did not react like men who had ever seen a firearm before. The question is where did they come from?”
Dance spit and said, “No idea. Not yet,” as he looked grimly up the river.
“Well, then you’ve got bigger questions. Who is this military power on your doorstep?”
“Hardly call them military if they don’t have guns.”
Archie said, “Did you not see how cool they were under attack? How they continued to nock and fire even as their commander was struck down and their comrades were dying around them?”
Dance rubbed his chin. “Yeah, fair point. I was at Shiloh and others besides, and I never saw any company, North or South, that stood that straight under fire.”
“Yes, your Civil War was fought by volunteer soldiers. These were warriors,” said Archie as he buttoned his shirt.
Dance said, “Maybe he was a rower?” looking for a way out of the mess he was in.
“A rower’s back is different,” said Archie.
“How do you know that?”
Archie removed his shirt once again and turned around. “I rowed crew for Oxford.” He made a rowing motion and Dance could see the imbalance in his musculature and the curve of his spine.
“Mostly with the right,” said Dance.
Archie flipped his shirt back up and nodded. “This man’s arms are different lengths. His left is shorter than his right. He could have been at Agincourt. But that was 1415. What’s he doing in 1888?”
“In America,” added Dance.
“I do just wonder about that…” said Archie.
Dance bristled. “What do you mean? We took this land from the Mexicans. Maybe not so fair and square, but we signed a treaty on it.”
“No, no, it’s not that. Plant whatever flag you like. I care not. What I’m saying is, if a river appeared last night to the West of Town, then what awaits us to the East? Or the North or the South?”
They looked at each other for a while in the hopes that somebody would have the answer. Finally, Speedy Pete said, “Mister, you think somebody done stole Mexico?”
“You mean since the Spanish?” asked Archie.
“Mr. Croryton!” cried a rasping voice, “Whatever are you doing with that corpse? And where did he come from?” Archie looked up and saw Jean DuMont, strutting towards them with the aid of his nurse.
Archie straightened up and tugged the bottom of his waistcoat and buttoned his suit jacket in an effort to appear presentable.
“I was conducting an examination, of sorts, M. DuMont.”
DuMont looked at the river and the fertile plain beyond. “Damned odd, wouldn’t you say, Mr. Croryton. A river from nowhere?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A lake collapsed in the mountains, you think?” asked DuMont.
“Sir, I do not. This mud is of a different composition than your native soil.”
“Come now, sir. Mud is mud. We will make advantage of this river and hope it lasts. Construct a silver mill, a ferry for travelers from Bisbee, charing a modest fee of course, but as for the rest… ” He nudged the dead man with his boot and said, “Just another tribe of savages.”
“Sir, I must —“
“I appreciate your excitement, Mr. Croryton, but I am not paying you to examine the savages. Whatever tourism you engage in will be on your own time. I have a mine that is filling with water, and I am paying for you and your marvelous pumping engine to pump them out.”
Archie said, “But with this unexpected development. This new… frontier… of possibility…”
“The Frontier is not your business. And I assured you all those who come from Bisbee,” he nodded his head and indicated where the road to Bisbee had once been, “will be coming for my silver, not, your corpse. That is, provided the Sheriff here lets them live long enough.”
“A man shoots at me, I shoot him back,” said Dance, not looking at DuMont.
“I don’t pay you to philosophize, Sheriff.”
“That’s O.K. Johnny,” said Dance, “You don’t pay me. The town does.”
“I am this town,” said DuMont, as he checked the time on a gold pocket watch. He snapped the watch shut sharply and said, “Mr. Croryton, mining has commenced for the day, and I expect you to do the same. There is much work to be done.”
DuMont walked back toward town without waiting for an answer. Giving one last look to the far side of the river, Archie said, “As you say, sir,” and followed his employer.
Pete looked at Sheriff Dance. Dance said, “Pete, get on back to the jail and lock yourself in there with young Burdock.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Pete.
“I’m going see if that John Bull was right.”
“About what?” asked Pete.
He nodded at the river, “It’s one thing to be faced with the unknown. Another thing to be surrounded by it.”
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Squatting on the bank of the river, Archie offered one word of description for the wooden ship that was bearing down upon the Town of Grantham, “Trireme.”
Sheriff Dance paid no attention to Archie. His eyes were locked on an imposing figure at the rail, who was looking down on the town and the people frolicking in the water. Even at a distance Dance could see that this man was not smiling.
In the shallows, Mack stared at the ship in wonder. On the bank, his sister turned a cartwheel in the mud.
The figure on the deck of the ship raised his hand and uttered a guttural command. The oars closest to the shore stopped moving and the boat turned in the wide river and headed for the shore. The townspeople scrambled and stumbled back up the muddy bank, retreating before the ship.
The hollow drumbeat stopped and the prow of the ship came to rest on the mud with the craft stopped 30 yards offshore. The imposing figure at the rail made a speech that Dance could not understand. But as the man gnashed out the words, he could see the white teeth flashing amid the man’s thick, black beard.
This man, surely the Captain of this vessel, finished his speech by raising his open hand and making a downward motion in conjunction with his last word. Which sounded like “Klahpheem!”
When no one on the bank moved, the Captain raised his hand and repeated this command,
This time Penelope shouted back, “Klahpheem!”
Embarrassed, Mack said, “Hush up.”
Archie said, “We don’t understand you!”
The Captain turn his head sharply with a bird-like motion and fixed Archie with his gaze. He smiled and then barked another command, “Ekidst!” Archers filled the rails around him.
Archie began shouting. First in one language and then another. But he got no response from the ship. The townspeople stared on in confusion and disbelief.
*Don't you do it*, thought Dance as he cocked his rifle and brought it to his shoulder.
In desperation, Archie asked, “You don’t think they’re going to?”
"Yeahp," said Dance.
“Well, don’t provoke them!”
“I think we’re past that.”
“What should I do?" asked Archie.
"You could try running,” said Dance.
On deck the Captain let his arm fall. Dance fired before the first arrow was released. As the Winchester roared, the Captain fell back onto the deck almost in time with the dropping of his own arm.
Further down the bank, Speedy Pete drew slow and opened fire with his pistol. At that range, even a good shot would have a hard time hitting anything with a pistol. And Pete wasn’t a good shot.
Archie looked up at the cloud of arrows, considered the futility of running, then muttered, “Never a phalanx when you need one.”
The townspeople screamed and ran, some slipping in the mud of the river bank. But there was no outrunning the arrows.
Penelope, oblivious as she always was, prepared to turn another cartwheel on the bank. Mack tried to run to protect his sister, but the mud sucked at his feet, and he stumbled, crawling on his hands and knees through the water.
As the arrows flew, Dance’s rifle boomed out again and again. And Archers fell at the rail like targets in a shooting gallery. He caught one of them low in the belly, and the archer slumped forward and fell into the slow-moving river.
Instead of running, Archie straightened his waistcoat and stood tall, ready to receive fire as bravely as any soldier in any line.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement. There was the little blond girl, tresses flying wildly, throwing herself into a cartwheel.
Everything slowed. The arrows flew. The girl turned. A noble fear grew in Archie and he started to run towards the girl. She spun upright, landing on her feet again, holding her arms up in triumph.
An arrow on a high trajectory punched through the left side of her chest, knocking her from her feet.
Archie slogged through the impossible mud and came to the girl’s aid. The arrow had gone right through and pinned her to the ground. Her mouth opened and closed as if she was trying to scream, but the pain made it impossible. She gasped infinitesimally small breaths as tears rolled down her cheeks.
She grabbed the shaft of the arrow that protruded from her chest and stared down at it. Archie whispered that it would be all right and that she should be brave, that she should not look at it.
She called out for her mother in a voice that was barely a whisper.
Mack was at her side. He said, “Is she okay?”
Archie looked up at the boy’s face and had to look away before he could say, “No. Get a doctor.”
Mack hovered above his sister, unable to move. Archie said, very gently, “Do you love your sister?”
Mack nodded as tears streamed down his face.
“Then run.”
Dance kept firing until his rifle was empty. The rail of the ship was clear, and the rowers had started backing water. Dance realized that many of the townspeople were now firing from the bank. He even saw a gambler, giving the attackers both barrels of his tiny derringer. It wasn’t worth a damn, but he grinned at the man’s spirit.
As the ship made speed upriver, he saw the bearded face of the Captain appear at the rail, holding a cloth to the right side of his head. Dance brandished his rifle above his head, sideways, showing it to the man and thought, I’ll see you again, you son-of-a-b***h. And next time I won’t miss.
He turned back to the townspeople to see how badly they had fared and then saw that Penelope had been shot. *God, not the child. *
As Archie held Penelope in his arms, Her head lolled backwards and she drifted into unconsciousness. Archie said, "No, no, dear girl, you mustn't go to sleep. You mustn't." She tried to speak but was unable to move enough air through her lungs to manage it. Then she was asleep. As Archie tried to revive her he saw that her lips were blue. This was a terrible sign and he was terrified by what it might mean. "Where is the damn doctor!" He yelled.
"He only went to bed a couple hours ago,” said one of the townspeople, waving his empty pistol back towards the town, a staggeringly fine example of a three–day drunk.
Archie turned Penelope over and found the tip of the arrowhead poking through the back of her blood-soaked dress. The tip was steel and had cruel, flaring barbs. It was impossible to think of yanking such an arrow back out the way it had gone in. Archie wracked his brain. Surely there was something he could do to prevent this little girl from dying in his arms. Before he was conscious of thinking it, he heard his voice saying, “Knife! does anyone have a knife?" He was surprised to hear that he sounded like he knew what he was doing.
A rough-looking man slid a Bowie knife from his belt sheath and handed it to Archie without a word. He heard a woman saying, “Don't you cut her!" Archie ignored her and took a notch out of the arrow shaft just beneath the fletching. He worked as gently as he could, trying not to move the shaft in the wound.
When he had cut a significant notch in the shaft he lay the knife on the ground and snapped the fletching off the arrow. Then he turned the girl sideways on his hip and pulled the arrow completely through her. Penelope's eyes fluttered and she came back to consciousness. Archie said, “There now. Isn't that better?”
She coughed blood on his suit and started screaming. As she convulsed each new movement brought new pain and the more Archie tried to calm her, the more she was overcome by terror.
In desperation, Archie looked around for a doctor or the girl’s mother. Even that vile-tempered nurse of Jean Dumont’s would have been a welcome sight. But all he saw was the snake oil salesman from the saloon. He stood holding a bottle of his ridiculous "medicine" in his hand, opening and closing his mouth, trying to work up the courage to give his sales pitch. What a loathsome fiend thought Archie. And just look at him, he knew it. He dare not give his "remedy" for the certainty that it would be proved fake on the spot.
As Dr. Krupp moved to put the bottle back in his jacket pocket one of the gullible miners in the crowd cried out, “He's got de miracle cure!" Dr. Krupp looked around frantically. But he was caught in his own con and there would be no rescue.
"Yeah," said another voice, "that little girl needs your miracle cure!"
"Don't let her suffer," cried another.
Dr. Krupp looked hopelessly at Archie. And raised his eyebrows in a universal, what-the-hell, expression.
Above Penelope’s screams, Archie asked, "does it have opium in it?"
Out of habit, Dr. Krupp launched into his standard patter, “The exact nature of this formula is a closely guarded –"
“Dammit man, is it full of hop!”
Defeated by his own humanity (the con man's worst enemy) he gave a jowly nod and passed the bottle to Archie.
Archie unscrewed the cap. It smelled sickly sweet and bitter. He stroked Penelope’s hair, trying to calm her but she wailed all the louder. "Please drink this," pleaded Archie, "it's medicine, and it will make you feel better." But Penelope was hysterical and couldn’t hear him. “No, no. Musn’t struggle. It will make the wound worse.”
But she fought all the more. Out of sheerest desperation, Archie poured the bottle into her open mouth, then covered the girl’s lips and nose with his hands. She fought, sputtered, and bit, but finally, swallowed. A strange look came over her face and she stopped fighting.
Archie was overcome by dread. Perhaps he had done the wrong thing. The most wrong thing of all. He had never been good with people, and this was doubly true of women and children. Archie found them to be such irrational, unreasonable creatures. They scared him with their unpredictable actions and how easily they could make him feel things that he could not reason with.
Then Penelope gulped deeply and struggled to cough. Her eyes grew wide with fear once again and she coughed up and spit out a clot of blood the size of her tiny little fist. It landed in the mud next to Archie’s leg, spattering his already filthy trousers with bright red blood. Then she smiled up at him, nestled into the crook of his arm, and went to sleep.
Archie tried to examine the girl’s wound through the hole in her dress. But try as he might he could not find it. He pushed the bloody tear in the fabric around, then tore it open further, but underneath was innocent immaculate skin. He looked up at Dr. Krupp and had no words to explain.
Dr. Krupp said, "we did all that was humanly possible, mighty though Dr. Bartoleermere’s elixir maybe there are…"
“No,” said Archie, "she's fine.”
Archie heard a woman's voice cry, “Pen! Penelope!"
Someone in the crowd cried, “Over here."
A beautiful woman with her blonde hair in a braid came into view. She looked angry at Archie, but it made no difference. On the spot, Archie decided that this woman with her cornsilk hair — this fierce woman who looked like she would claw the world itself apart to get to her child — was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Had his own mother ever loved him so much as she loved this girl?
She held out her arms to Archie and said, “They said she was hurt?"
Archie nodded as he handed the sleeping girl to her mother. "She was, shot with an arrow," said Archie, "but she's fine.”
Laura gave him a wild, unhinged look. Clearly, this strange Englishman was insane. And she took her child away from the river.
"Another miracle cure, thanks to Dr. Bartoleermere’s Magic Elixir!”
Sheriff Dance said, “You sell that somewhere else or I swear I'll shoot you myself."
"But Sheriff, you saw the miracle…" but when Dr. Krupp saw the look in the Sheriff’s eye, he turned and disappeared into the crowd.
“His potion worked,” said Archie.
“Meebee so, but I don’t want to listen to him right now.”
"Who were the attackers?” asked Archie.
Sheriff Dance stared upriver for a long time before he said, “My Deputy is of the opinion, that this is all just a complicated ruse to lure me away from the Jail, so Burdock can spring his idiot son.”
Speedy Pete said, “It might just be Burdock’s men.”
Archie looked confused.
Dance said, “Which is just a fancy way of saying I got no earthly idea."
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Chapter 10 — Ethan Burdock
To the Northwest of Grantham was the Bar-D ranch, owned by Ethan Burdock. Burdock had carved a 28,000-acre ranch out of Indian territory long before anyone had thought to look for silver in this rough land. More than five thousand head of Longhorn cattle toughed it out across his range which stretched far north of the main house.
Ethan had done well enough for himself that his house was made of stout logs instead of mud, a luxury in this dry land. But after he had almost drowned in the mud of his own house in the freak rainstorm of ’58 he decided he had lived in adobe houses for long enough.
Ethan had outlasted or outfought everything that had tried to remove him from this place. He fought rustlers, Apaches, Comanche, flood, drought, and everything else Mother Nature had thrown at him. Along the way, he had buried his wife, son and a daughter, and a lot of good ranch hands.
In addition to the main house, there were three barns, four large corrals, and two bunkhouses; one large, one small. All of the buildings formed up in a circle around a kind of dirt plaza in the center of which was a deep and steady well. It was a solid, durable place. And when he sat on the porch at the end of a day, Ethan found beauty in it.
But the ranch he had sacrificed so much for didn’t hold much more comfort than that. It seemed like there was always something to do and always someone to fight. He was an angry man, rarely at ease. But tonight was different. Both his boys were away and Lupita had served supper just for him. After dinner, he threw another log on the fire and sipped a glass of mescal thinking of old feuds he had won the way some men thought of women that had once loved.
He was old and his bones hurt at night and he needed glasses for reading, but his ears were still good. He heard the rider making hard for the house when he was still a long way off.
Ethan took the hurricane lamp in hand and went to see what was the matter. He crossed the yard and went to the figure standing between the two bunkhouses. Most of the men were asleep, but a few had come out in long underwear in various states of undress. Ethan didn’t recognize the horse, but it sure was in a lather.
Joseph, his oldest son, detached himself from the group of hands and met him halfway to the house.
“What’s the commotion?” asked Ethan.
“Charlie. He’s been arrested for murder.”
Ethan gritted his teeth and stared off into the distance, thinking *damn that boy.*
Ethan looked back at Joe. Joe continued, “He shot a man in a saloon in Grantham about three hours ago.”
“You let him go to town?”
Joe, a serious young man, saddle-wise and hard as a coffin nail, said, “He’s a grown man.”
A grown man, thought Ethan. Grown maybe, Charlie was forever a boy, and forever getting in trouble. “Who brought the news?”
“Mayhew.”
“He one of ours?”
“Rode with us for a couple of seasons, now breaks horses for Dumont.”
“Hate to see a good hand go to town,” said Ethan, saying the word ‘town’ like a curse.
“He came to be a friend to Charlie and us.”
“I know.” Ethan nodded once, making up his mind. “Pay him something, feed him and we ride in the morning.”
“You and me?”
“Everyone.”
“Everyone?”
“What else are we gonna do? Hire a lawyer?” Ethan said in a loud voice and the hands noticed and stepped closer to hear what their boss would do.
“That’s a start. He’s gonna stand trial,’ said Joe.
“We don’t know what Charlie did. And maybe he did gun somebody down. I’ll tell you what I do know. Right now Dumont and the rest of those parasites from back east are trying to figure out how they can use Charlie’s scrape to cause us pain. And sure, they’ll call it justice. But they’ll use it for everything else. For profit, for revenge, for enjoyment. ‘Cause what they want is our land. They want to take these wide-open spaces and the sky at night. They want to fence it in and charge rent for it. Ruin it by digging holes in it looking for silver.
“I’m not arguing with you, sir,” said Joe, “but the town’s got laws.”
“They don’t get to come here on my land and speak the law to me. Just like they don’t get to come here and take our cattle.” Ethan turned and paced in front of all of the men, raising his voice to address the crowd.
“Tomorrow, I’m gonna ride into town, collect my boy just like I’d collect any other wayward steer. Now I’m not telling any man to come with me. Could be this turns to a disagreement of a more hostile nature. I mean, not if they’re smart, ‘cause there’s only the sheriff and that dipshit Deputy between us and our boy.
“And I’m not gonna lie to you, Charlie ain’t no angel. Hell, after his poor mother passed, I practical let these bunkhouses raise him until he could ride a horse. So you know what he is what is capable of. Hell, you boys taught him.”
A chuckle went through the crowd. It was a rough, unlikely bunch of Uncles, but they were Uncles all the same. Ethan had spoken the truth and it had kicked many of his men like a horse. That was one of the secrets of these wild, often broken men called cowboys. They had no families of their own. No place else to go. If you gave them a place to be, a tribe of their own, they could be the most loyal men on earth.
“He’s our son, boys, for better and for worse. And if he’s done wrong we will deal with him. A trial by of a jury of his peers, cause a ranchin’ man don’t have no equal anywhere but the ranch.
“So turn in if you want to come with me. I ride at dawn to bring Charlie home.”
A ragged cheer went up. And Ethan waved them down, turning away so they wouldn’t see the emotion that came to his eye.
Joe caught up with him on the porch. “Pa, you know I’m coming with you, goes without saying…”
“It goes without saying."
"then why do you have to say it?”
Joseph looked hard at this, but before he could speak to the wrong of his father’s words Ethan said, “It’s a bad idea. That what you say?”
“Going up against the law…” Joe shook his head, “Sheriff Dance is honest, but the Judge is reasonable for sure. We get Charlie out with lawyers and a bribe. This way seems like a lotta risk for…”
“For Charlie. It’s okay, boy you can say it. I love him, but I don’t like him any more than you do.”
Joseph hung his head in shame.
“He ain’t much good, and that’s the fact of it. A constant thorn in my side since he was born. And if I didn’t think your dead mother was watching over us from heaven…”
“You’d do what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe this whole thing is my fault. I was too soft on him after your mother died. Should’ve spent more time with him. But that doesn’t matter.”
“Pa, I can handle this without any trouble.”
“If you’re wrong, he hangs. And hell, maybe deserves it.” Ethan kicked at a loose board on the porch. “He gets a fair trial, maybe hangs for what he done. But that’s not the point. They stole from us. Same as if they came and rustled a calf.
“That’s nothing you negotiate about. Politicking is just another kind of rustling. It’s just another way to take what belongs to somebody else. And if you let somebody steal from you once...”
Joseph finished the thought “You teach them it’s okay to steal from you all the time.”
“They're after our land. Your birthright. They’re just using your brother to get it.”
True to his word Burdock was up before dawn. His old bones creaked and popped as he shuffled around the room collecting his things. By the time he came downstairs Lupita had lit the fire in the cookstove and had coffee on. He took a sip of coffee and sighed. Then he said, “Pretty soon it’s gonna be just you and me rattling around this old house, Lupita.”
She didn’t look him in the eye when she asked “¿Vas a volver con Charlie?”
He said, “Si, Senora,” in no kind of Mexican accent. Then he asked, “Where’s Joe?”
“Durmiendo,”
He said, “Well, wake him up,” but he said it gently. Then he took his coffee and his coat and stepped outside.
The lights in the bunkhouse on the left were clearly lit. That was a good sign, but when he looked over to the other bunkhouse, he saw nothing but darkness. Damn that Prescott and the rest of them. They must of overslept. He banged down off the porch and struck out towards the unlit bunkhouse. He stabbed his boot heels into the dirt of the yard gettin’ angry, muttering to himself and warming up for the chewing out he was going to give Prescott and that entire bunkhouse. His right foot crunched on something. He broke stride, but his left foot was carried forward by his momentum and where it landed it crunched again.
“What the hell?”
He looked down, but could see nothing in the darkness. He ran his hand over the ground. Grass, by God! Thick grass! There was no grass in the yard. He fetched a lantern from the house and set it down among the strange flora so he could give it a closer look.
It wasn’t grass, exactly, but a low, leafy, spreading plant the likes of which Ethan had never seen before. He stomped back to the dry, hard-packed dirt of the yard and found a line, running northwest to southeast, right to the middle of his yard. On one side was dirt on the other side a lush carpet of greenery, fat with water. The line cut through the well, and where it passed, that second of the stone well was missing, replaced with grass-covered ground. Perfectly filled in as if by magic.
Burdock bent and crushed a piece of the strange grass in his fingers and smelled it. It was sweet and green, not at all the bitter smell of the rare scrub grass of the high desert. He walked quickly to the large bunkhouse and kicked the door hard three times. When a bleary-eyed cowboy opened the door, Burdock was already looking at the grass again. Without looking back he snapped, “Lamps, all you got.”
Soon he had the men fanned out along the line of new grass. They started walking forward, carrying lamps into the darkness, towards the other bunkhouse. 10 steps, 20 steps, 30 steps, still no building.
Ethan came to a halt and the rest of the line did too. Joseph gave voice to the question, “Where the hell did the other bunkhouse go?” A few of the cowboys started to wander off when Ethan Burdock snapped, “pull back to the house, we wait till dawn to see what we are dealing with.”
Cookie brought out large pot of hot water with coffee grounds in the bottom. The men dipped their cups and drank and talked in small groups waiting for first light.
“Pa,” said Joe, “what you think happened to the bunkhouse?”
“I’ll wait until we got some light before I speculate on the matter,” said Ethan.
The gloaming was like a hallucination. It outlined a strange new world in speckled grays and whites. Then, as quickly as if a symphony conductor had dropped his baton, pinks and reds swelled and filled the glowing scene.
They saw strange groves of trees across a wide grassy plain. Speculation rose to a dull roar and Burdock could hear how uneasy the men were. Where had the bunkhouse gone? What had taken its place? While the men speculated, Burdock kept his eyes on the Mountains — at least where they should have been be.
The land they knew so well was gone. Even the mountains were gone. Before them stretched an endless plain. It was a vast horizon of green disappearing in the mist rising from the ground.
One of the cowboys nosed around the spot with the bunkhouse should have been. He kicked through strange grass to the dirt below. Then he looked up and said, “Where’d they go? Where is the little bunkhouse? Where’s the North herd?”
“They’re Gone,” growled Burdock.
“What we do now?” asked Joe.
“First, we go see if the town is still there and collect your brother. Then we go find who stole my land.”
Chapter 11 — Welcome to Town
By the time Dance and Pete got to the river an unlikely crowd of early–risers and the still-drunk-from-the-night-before had formed along the riverbank.
Even the most worn out and used up miners had rolled up their pants and staggered through the weeds to splash in the muddy water.
Speculation abounded with but neither the drunk nor the sober could offer what Dance thought was a reasonable explanation for a river springing up overnight.
The mood of the crowd was excited and festive, but none of this set well with Dance. He scanned the far bank of the river for any sign of the road to Bisbee and found none. Even under the grass the land itself was different where there had been a hill was now vast grassy plain dotted with groves of tall trees with pom-pom-like clusters of leaves atop spindly-looking trunks.
For a moment, Dance thought he spied a herd of animals in the distance, but then whatever it was was gone. He looked to the pole that had carried the telegraph line and saw the line had been cut and now dangled from the insulator. He didn’t like anything about any of this.
Pulaski had shown up at the Morning Star mine early as usual. He lived in a cabin adjacent to the main yard, and his house blocked any view of the river. He had thought little of the fog and plunged right into work. But when the men did not show up for the first shift, he became curious and walked to the miners' tents. Along the way, he saw the crowd and the brand new river and investigated.
Laura Miller had slept poorly as she always did when her husband was out of town. She started breakfast and when Mack went out for his chores, he took longer than usual. When he returned he had no firewood and was so excited he could barely speak. He blurted out incoherently about the wash at the end of town being like a river and filled with water. And he begged to go take a look. Of course, Penelope wasn't about to be left out of an adventure. She begged to go saying, “He says it's like a river, Ma. And I ain't never seen a river. Can I go?"
“You can go and come right back. I'm putting these biscuits in and I have too much to do today with your father gone to wait breakfast on either of you."
"Come on, let's go!" cried Mack and dashed for the door.
Laura Miller cried after Mac, "you mind your sister now, you hear?"
Then she turned back to breakfast, shaking her head. Thinking a thimble of water in that dry gulch was a river was just plain sad. They have to show that girl the world before too much more time passed. Maybe the Rio Grande, or the Brazos. But when would they find the time? They were always so busy with the store. This boomtown wouldn't boom forever and they needed to make money while the times were good.
After surviving the stagecoach ride into Grantham, Preacher James Noyes spent the evening getting to know his new flock and marveling at the town's general wickedness. He settled into the back room of the rough, frontier chapel to which he had been sent. The welcoming committee for the First Baptist Church of Grantham had brought him dinner, including a whole pie. Backwards and dangerous though this place may be, these were all God’s children, and the best of people could be found in even the most desperate places.
When his visitors had left, he had gotten down on his knees and gave thanks to the Lord that he had come safe through his trials to this town of Grantham. And he prayed that the seeds of God's love that he would now sow here would fall on fertile ground. Preacher Noyes so desperately wanted to save souls and win people over to Christ.
He knew that he could do it, the mistakes in Richmond non-withstanding, and asked for no special assistance from the Lord with this task. He just expressed gratitude for being brought to this place where he could redeem himself by saving men's souls from the adversary.
His prayers completed he read his Bible by candlelight and went to sleep.
When he woke in the morning he kneeled and gave thanks once again. Then he stepped outside to see what evil would be sufficient unto this new day. From the front steps of the simple church, he saw a most remarkable site, a river, from nothing. A crowd had gathered on its banks. He straightened himself and went to see if this was an ordinary occurrence, or if this was indeed some miracle sent by the Lord.
Sheriff Dance watched Laura Miller’s children, Mack and… what was that little girl’s name? She was giving her brother fits as she romped through the mud and river water on the bank. And all the while her brother pleaded with her not to get too muddy.
Too late, thought Dance, with a smile. He looked back towards town for their mother. Not from concern for the children, but because it was Dance’s studied opinion that she was the most beautiful woman in Grantham. Hell, most beautiful woman Tombstone and Bisbee included. Maybe all of the territory and even beating out those dark-haired Mexican girls from across the border. And his estimate of her beauty was made all the more acute by her fidelity to her husband.
Dance had seen Laura smile and laugh with her family, but with everyone else, she was all business. This did not trouble Sheriff Dance. He was not one of those men who needed to own a sunset to bask in its beauty.
Penelope — yes that was her name — was the first in the water, and her laughter and shrieks of joy granted permission to everyone else on the bank to follow suit.
Soon everyone but Sheriff Dance and Mack were at least knee-deep in the muddy water. Even Speedy Pete had taken off his boots and was slowly turning his toes through the thick mud. Mack looked to Sheriff Dance in exasperation, as if it was his job to do something about all of this frivolity.
Dance said, “Well, go on Son. There’s no harm in it.” And, granted permission, Mack sat down to pull off his boots.
As she watched breakfast cooling on the table, Laura had an unkind thought for her children and immediately regretted it. So what if they ate cold biscuits – it would teach them a lesson – or maybe they wouldn't care. Her fierce wild children. She wished they would listen to her as they listened to their father. And again she felt it. A pang for Virgil her too, too serious man. She didn't like it when he went away. And she worried about him when he was gone. Life hung heavy on that man and she knew he was sad when he was away.
He was always sad for one reason or another and would never speak of the time before he had known her, nor how he had come to save her and how she, in turn, had saved him. He never raised his voice, nor drank, nor gambled, nor gotten into fights. He was hard-working and patient with the children. Still, he would not forgive himself for something. And the weight of whatever that thing was served to press all his joy into the earth. Only with Mac and Penelope did he seem lighter and Laura treasured the flashes of joy she would catch in his eye when he was with the children.
Well, she thought, nothing for it but to see this trickle of water that her children thought to be a river. She stood, wrapped a bonnet around her head, and went to see.
The preacher heard the wonderment in the voices of the townspeople and came to understand that this had never happened before. He, like the others, was taken with the green vision across the banks. Compared with the rough desert landscape of the last few days of travel, it looked like paradise. Almost like a garden…
"Preacher," said a rough–looking man who took his hat off to address a man of the cloth. "What do you think is happened?"
The Preacher grabbed up a handful of reeds and held them up in the air exclaiming "fit to build a boat for a baby Moses by God! This soil is a blessing from the Almighty himself – a spring in a dry place! It's a miracle!”
Not too far away two monks from the nearby Catholic Mission looked at the Preacher disparagingly. One said to the other, in Latin, "that, or the work of the devil himself."
Nearby, Archie was hunkered down on the bank, pawing through the muck of the river bed. Hearing Latin spoken, he perked up and added a phrase of his own. The monks were shocked and scowled at Archie. One of them was so disturbed that he crossed himself and they both moved away from the man in the strange hat.
When Archie saw the Sheriff watching this minor ecclesiastical drama with bemusement he said, “Sheriff, would I be right in thinking that this river was not here yesterday when I pulled into town?"
Sheriff Dance looked down at Archie, trying to decide if he was joking or not. "Well sir, I must say I do not recall directing my gaze towards this end of town yesterday. But before God and a Federal Judge, I would attest that this river was not here the day before last. And further," Dance continued, “No report of a flood, deluge or even rainstorm has made itself known to the Sheriff's office. Now what, may I ask, did you say to those papists?"
"They claimed the river was a miracle of God’s doing. I quoted Darwin to them."
Dance gave no indication of understanding.
He's a naturalist who wrote a book about… Well, it's not important. The point is this is rich, alluvial soil,” he said, holding a handful of the muck up so the Sheriff could see. “It is not the rocky substrate of the Arizona desert. The soil these reeds are so happily growing in, is the product of tens if not hundreds of thousands of years of hydrological action. This is not merely water in the desert springing forth. This is an entirely different biome than was here yesterday. Isn't that just remarkable?"
"What's that mean, you know, in English?"
"This isn't a matter of water flooding in from the mountain."
"You mean the ones that don't appear to be there anymore?"
"Yes, the very same. These deposits –"
"mud."
"Yes mud, said Archie, "the entire riverbed is deep mud and has been here thousands of years – if not more."
"On top of which, this was all gravel and rock yesterday," said Dance.
"Yes, exactly.”
"Then where the hell did it go? And the rest of the territory? And those goddamn mountains!"
“Yes, exactly."
“That ain't no kind of answer."
Archie looked up at the Sheriff and said, “Yes I know it's not an answer, I was agreeing with your question."
"Then why are you so happy about it?"
"Because it's a mystery, a great enigma. A puzzle."
Dance shook his head and sighed in exasperation
Archie smiled and said, "I love puzzles."
"Then puzzle me this, who cut the cable?" asked Dance.
"What,” said Archie.
"I said, who cut the cable?"
"Yes, I'm not deaf my good man. What I'm saying is that some thing, not someone cut the telegraph line. This mud is fantastically old. All in all, I think this might just the most remarkable thing I've ever seen."
“Mister, your mud ain’t got nothing on that s**t," said Speedy Pete, his eyes bugging out of his head as he pointed down the river.
Sheriff Dance followed Pete’s gaze. And there he saw a large wooden ship, glistening in golden hue in the early morning light. As it came around the bend, Dance could hear the beat of a drum pacing time for the craft’s three decks of oarsmen. In front of the ship an evil-looking ram sliced along just below the surface of the water as it raced towards them.
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—
Sheriff John Dance hadn’t slept much. When the night started, they didn’t have any customers, so he sat outside on the porch waiting for the heat to die down. About eleven he took a quick turn around the town. There were few drunks, but everything was quiet enough. Those goddamn cowboys from Burdock’s place weren’t in town, so nobody was expecting trouble.
He thought it was safe to go to bed. So he kicked the dust over to the Cavalier, Grantham’s third-finest rooming house, and had just about closed his eyes when Speedy Pete had come a-hammering on his door. Pete was out of breath and that was a bad sign. Speedy Pete’s nickname was ironical in nature, and he wasn’t one for hurry.
Turns out Dance had been wrong about Burdock’s boys. Well the worst of them at least. Earlier in the evening, the youngest son, Charlie Burdock, had installed himself at Saloon #3. What the name of the establishment lacked in originality it made up for in accuracy, being the third saloon built on the spot. The first one had been blown over and the second had burned down. Dance didn’t want to speculate about what Act of God or gross negligence would result in Grantham receiving saloon number #4.
He sent Pete in through the front and had him pretend to be staggering drunk. Pete was all but worthless in a fight, what with speed being of the essence, and smarts of a bonus. But Pete did have the virtue of being so non-threatening that he was liked by everybody. He was sort of the mascot of Grantham. Which came in handy.
Dance slid in through the back and found the place empty but for Charlie, Pete, a dead man on the floor, and Oscar, bartender and unlucky owner of saloons one through three. Old Oscar’s eyes went wide and he almost gave the play away.
Charlie didn’t notice. He was loaded to the gills and regaling Pete with the story of how the dead man got that way.
Spit flew from Charlie’s mouth as he said, “And Pete, hand to God, he went for his pistol and… well, I HAD to shoot him. You wouldn’t arrest a man for defended hisself would you?”
“No sir,” said Pete nice and slow, “that sure enough… ain’t no crime… that I know of.”
Charlie slammed his palm on the counter and turned to Oscar Brace behind the bar.” See, Oscar — I told you. I TOLD YOU! Was self-defense, the law even says so!” Charlie said, putting a swerve on the word ‘says’.
It was a convincing performance. Hell, even Dance wanted to believe him. Except for one problem. The poor b*****d on the floor wasn’t heeled. No evidence of a gun whatsoever. In fact, from what Dance could see, the rough lookin’ Polack on the floor had a surprised look on his face. Hell of a way to go. Dance hoped he’d live at least long enough to see Saloon #5.
He eased his pistol out of the holster and carefully pointed it at the back of Charlie Burdock’s head. He put his thumb on the hammer but didn’t cock it, wary of the click.
Dance stepped forward as quietly as he could. Part of him hoped Charlie Burdock would spin and try for his gun. He wouldn’t feel bad about putting this man down. Hell, he wondered if he shouldn’t just let fly now. He had done worse to better for less. But the damnable thing was, Dance liked Charlie. Hell, everybody did. Even if he weren’t no damn good.
Another step. Charlie poured Pete a drink from his own bottle.
Maybe he didn’t shoot because he knew that Pete would be flat rattled and never trust him again. And poor Oscar would be cleaning blood and brains off the bottles behind the bar. But it wouldn’t be the first bullet hole in the mirror behind the bar.
Another step. Speedy Pete threw his drink back and looked to Dance as he brought his head down. Dance shook his head, *not yet.*
It’d be better for the Sheriff’s office, in general, to have it done with right here, that was sure. Take Charlie in, he’d have to hold him until the Marshall came to fetch him. Three days at least, maybe a week. And Burdock was going to come for his boy. And he’s got thirty-some-odd hands at the Bar-D and the money to hire more. Most of whom feel a special attachment to Charlie.
He took another step, this one over the dead man’s leg. Pete was slapping Charlie on the shoulder, they were both laughing about now. Oscar found a reason to head to the other end of the bar.
All-in-all, it might also be better for Charlie if Dance had gunned him down. Likable though he may be, it was hard for Dance to see how there could be a happy ending for him. He’s a poor citizen and he’d make an even worse outlaw. Dance knew something about both.
All Charlie’s good for is spending money and making trouble for his father. And everybody knows it, including Charlie. But the thing of it is, he’s a *good-time* Charlie. Everybody likes him. Including Dance.
So Dance took one final step and brought the butt of the pistol down on Charlie’s head. Charlie slumped over the bar, then slid onto the floor. Sheriff Dance said, “You’re under arrest.”
He had looked down at Charlie. And thought he didn’t look like a peaceful sleeper. He had an ugly, sorta pushed-in face. Like somebody had let a horse kick him when he was a baby.
Dance took a swig from the bottle on the bar and said, “Deputy, let’s get him to the jail.”
Pete heaved Charlie Burdock over his shoulder and off they went. Pete wasn’t fast and he wasn’t smart, but he was loyal and strong and that was enough for Sheriff Dance.
They put Charlie in one of the cells, then Pete and Dance took the other one and tried to sleep. Charlie snored so loud Dance almost changed his mind, got up and shot him in the middle of the night.
When he saw rosy-fingered dawn poking around the windows, Dance climbed down from the bunk, went out into the office and rolled himself a cigarette more from feel than sight. He lit it with a match but left the oil lamp on his desk dark.
With the cherry of his cigarette bobbing in the half-light, he threw a couple of logs into the stove on top of the coals leftover from the night before. He belted his pistol on and stepped outside, happy to leave Charlie’s snoring and his liquor-sweat smell behind.
Outside, Johnson’s Livery Stable was still across the street but was somehow obscured and shifting, as if it had become a ghost ship of a stable. The air was thick, filled with moisture. He exhaled cigarette smoke and it hung together almost like it had mass. Like... fog.
By God, it was FOG he was seeing!
There was no fog in this part of the Territories. Hell, Grantham barely ever even saw rain. The closest they came to water was when the wash at the other end of town formed a trickle in the spring as the snow melted somewhere on the far off-mountains.
He turned his head to the right and looked down Main Street and gasped. He stood there, mouth open with a confused look on his face. He couldn’t make sense of what he saw. At first, he thought it might have been a mirage, but it wasn’t hot. The sun was barely up. He waited for his brain and his eyes to come to some kind of agreement about what he saw and what it actually was, but it didn’t come. So he stood there as the sun came up, watching it distrustfully and hoping that the full light of day show him what was real.
What Dance had expected to see on the other end of town was the road to Bisbee cutting through a collection of dusty rocks and creosote bushes. But instead, the road stopped at full river. A river at least 300 yards across and God knew how deep. A river that didn’t look fordable, or even swimmable. And on the other side, a lush, green grassland dotted with trees likes of which he had never seen before. This was a totally different terrain, a different climate than what had been there when he’d gone to sleep the night before.
He started at it until the cigarette burned down between his fingers. With a curse, he threw the wad of burning paper and tobacco into the street.
Speedy Pete stumbled out onto the porch, yawned, and settled in on the rail next to Dance. He turned his head to see what the Sheriff was looking at and his jaw dropped open too.
Sheriff Dance asked, “Pete, did you order a river from the Sears and Roebuck?”
Without closing his mouth, Pete said, “Nah.”
Dance said, “Well, c’mon, let’s go take a look.”
“But Sheriff! What about our prisoner?”
“Well he can’t come, Pete. He’s under arrest.”
“I mean,” said Pete, as he leaned in and narrowed his eyes, “you think maybe this might be a Braddock trick so’s they can bust him outta jail.”
Dance looked from Bill to the river and back again. A smile broke across his weathered face. He said, “Well Pete, if that’s a trick, then they got me.” And he chuckled all the way to get his rifle.
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The Apache rode until sunset. Then they rode until sunrise. They felt the wind through their hair and the horses pounding the earth, but all they heard was *the song*.
In the beginning, they had thought Goyaate had sung the song and they had only kept pace with it. Then they opened their throats and came to believe that they too sang the song. But after many hours, when exhaustion had stripped away all illusion, they realized that the song was singing all of them, and they were carried by the magic of it, out of themselves, across the land, without hunger, thirst, or fatigue.
They came to the middle of the emptiness where the color had leached away from the grass and the wind had forgotten its name. There in the center was nothing. And in the center of nothing was No One.
No One saw Goyaate and jumped with the surprise of seeing something in the emptiness. Then he remembered being human and raised his hand in greeting. The men and the horses fell exhausted and into a deep, dreamless sleep. All but Goyaate. He approached No One and sat with him by the fire that No One did not have. Goyaate told No One of all the things that the Apache did not have. Lands of their own, horses, great herds of beef. He spoke of the loved ones who had been murdered by the white man, and the children who had not been born because there had been no mothers to bear them. He spoke of the stories that had not been told and the laughter that had not been laughed. And with each of these things that weren’t No One nodded in understanding.
And when he was done listing the things that had been taken, the things that had been lost, and the things that would never be, Goyaate named Hope and he named The Future. No One looked away, because Goyaate had listed all of the things the Apache did not have and there was only nothing left to say.
Only then in that empty place did the mighty Goyaate dare to speak of the thing he had a vision of — of peering through a hole in the nothing that led to another world. One where the white man could not follow and would never come. He said that, if it existed, then No One must surely know about it. And if there was a place for an emptiness that contained another world then surely it would be here.
No One smiled and shook his head slowly. No One knew of such a hole. He told Goyaate of the dangers of such a passage. Of how it could be like one of the lines that the white man used to catch fish from the water. A hook dangling on the end, hidden by bait, floating its way through Goyaate’s dreams. No One could know for sure that it was a trap, but he knew that such a passage across the borders between worlds couldn't be opened just from one side. Someone was calling to this world and even with greatest of visions and the strongest of magics it would be dangerous to answer.
Goyaate laughed bitterly and said, "dying there can only be as bad as dying here.
No One said nothing. Then he said one thing. From that one thing Goyaate was able to understand how the ceremony was to be performed and where and how he might find the place for such a rite.
Goyaate smiled and said, “That is strange, I…"
No One asked him to finish his sentence.
"It is easier than I thought."
"Most things are when you know how."
Goyaate nodded and turned and looked at his men and their horses, lying on the ground as if dead. No One said, “You have come a long way, you should rest." Then No One touched Goyaate on the shoulder and the emptiness rose up within him and fell into a deep sleep.
Who could say how long they slept, or if time even passed in that lack of a place. But after what seemed like a long time, the creatures rose from their slumber. Man and horse alike were amazed to find that they were not thirsty or hungry or even sore after the ride.
When several of them started wondering from where they might find something to make a fire, Goyaate said, “We should not waste this gift." Then he mounted his horse and rode on.
The next day, Goyaate’s magic deserted him. Fatigue fell on the men and horses as if all the miles they had traveled had been saved up for them until now. No man would stay stop, but in their hearts, they longed for rest. Soon they thought, one of the horses would drop dead and they would be forced to stop.
They finally came to a place they recognized. Off to the right was the Gila forest and in front of them were the Chiricahua mountains and a place called Apache Spring where most of them had once surrendered. Red Sleeve, the oldest and the worst for wear among all of them, spurred his tired horse next to Goyaate. The War Chief looked not at his men, but only had eyes for the horizon. Before Red Sleeve could speak, Goyaate said, “We will rest here until nightfall. Then we will ride on by the light of the moon. We are in the death grounds and there will be no more rest after this.
That night they entered the mountains When the way became steep, they dismounted and led the animals. The horses were sure of foot but the Apache wanted no chance of dislodging a rock and having its rattle down the mountainside, betray them to distant scouts.
Goyaate was certain that Fort Bowie knew nothing of their escape from the Fort Sill reservation. What scout could ride faster than they had ridden, hypnotized by the sacred trance of War? But he was mistaken. The telegraph was faster than any trance.
At first light, they were spotted by scouts from the garrison at Fort Bowie. They heard a bugle echoing throughout the mountains and knew that the fight was coming to them. Now they made brave noises, speaking boastful words they hoped would distract them from fear.
Among the chatter, Red Sleeve spoke the truth of his heart to Goaayte. “I do not want to be twice defeated in the same place." Goyaate looked up sharply as one whose mind was far away, thinking of something else. He shook his head and said, “We will not be defeated. Our place is further on. You will see."
And they rode on.
Goyaate put out no scouts and made no effort to hide their tracks in the Apache way. He just rode. This time there was no song. No surge of hope and possibility. They rode through the mountains driven by the threat of the cavalry behind them.
A dark muttering went through the men. Perhaps Goyaate had spent the last of his power back on the plain and now they followed an old man to their deaths.
It did not matter. There was nowhere else to go. The trail they were on took but one path through the mountains. A few young strong Braves might climb the cliffs here, hold off the army with rifles for hours, maybe days in this narrow pass. But they had no young strong Braves anymore.
They came out from the cliffs. And in front of them opened up all of the Arizona territory. From this height, it seemed that they could see all the way to Mexico. There was nowhere to run. And nowhere to hide.
"We should turn and fight," said one of the men more from fear than from thirst for blood.
"This would be a stupid death," muttered another.
Red Sleeve said, “What say you War Chief?"
But Goyaate did not answer.
"We should fight them in the narrow place, back there, better odds that way,” said Red Sleeve.
A pistol shot sounded from the right. There, a scout, atop the ridge. The scout fired his pistol into the air again and again in excitement. He could see the outcome. Any man could see they had nowhere to run. All eyes turned to Goyaate. What was the great War Chief’s plan? He opened his mouth, and all were eager for the order, but what came out was a noise that was so like a sob, no one knew what to do. Was the War Chief crying?
The sound from Goyaate’s throat did not stop. He sang it on the exhale and he sang it on the inhale. The men all looked to Red Sleeve and he moved to speak to Goyaate once again. To tell him what they all felt in their hearts. That this death would be enough. Here would trap the cavalry in the pass. Here they would sell their lives dearly. He opened his mouth to tell his old friend that this was a good day to die.
But when he came up beside the War Chief he saw that the man’s eyes were rolled back into his head and nothing showed but the whites. Goyaate’s chant grew louder and louder. It grew from a sob into an angry cry.
The hair stood up on Red Sleeve’s arms and he felt a hot wind come up from the valley. The light turned blood red. He heard a growling, roaring, splitting noise as if the earth itself was cracking open but somehow the sound was coming from Goyaate. He heard the cries of the men behind and turned to see the cavalry, galloping out of the pass, drawing sabers. A bugler sounded the charge.
But the Apache were not looking back at the cavalry. They were looking down in the valley. He saw a shadow fall across the faces of the Apache and turned to see a wall of sand as tall as the sky hurtling towards them.
Goyaate, come back at last, cried “Ride, RIDE!” And he spurred his horse down the slope and into the oncoming dust storm. With a war cry, Red Sleeve followed.
They should have died. They should have died many times before this mad ride out of the mountains, but for certain they should have died racing blind down that hill into the dying sun and the devouring storm.
After a time, the hill Red Sleeve could not see beneath him became the plain he could not see beneath him and the panic of his horse became a walk. The sun set and the wind died, but the dust hung in the sky, suspended now in the still, desert air. Red Sleeve saw no one. He was all alone in the darkness.
He heard a faint drumbeat, far off. Then saw a flash of light, diffused by the dust. Having no other landmark, he aimed his lathered, exhausted horse towards it. Then another beat, louder, followed by another flash. The drumbeat became a regular pulse. He was so lost and exhausted that he cared not that everyone on the plain, friend or foe, would head to the same place.
But surely the cavalry would not have followed them into such madness? Red Sleeve wondered if anyone else was still alive.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
As he drew closer, the frequency of the drum increased and the light became more brilliant. He came to a flat place with a large saguaro after one side. He saw shadowy figures each revealed as a patch of darkness against the light. From the way they squatted, he could see that they were Apache. In the center of them, a man was striking the ground with his palm, raising his hand high and dropping it to the earth again and again. Each time he hit the ground with greater force than the last. And when he struck the ground a brilliant blue light exploded outward.
Red Sleeve got off his horse and led it towards the circle of men.
Goyaate raised his voice in a cry, not missing a beat as he pounded the earth. His voice came as if he were all around them and was a cry such as Red Sleeve had never heard before. And when the War Chief brought his hand down the next time, the blue light became everything. They left and took the desert with them.
For the first mile, Archie kept looking over his shoulder to check the connections between the two wagons. After a particularly rough jolt, he handed the reins to Jane and climbed back to inspect his handiwork. But that which Archie had joined, it seems no bump would put asunder.
Cantering along behind the unruly two-wagon rig, MacAllister said, "as much as it pains me to say it, I dinna think your cinch will fail.”
The rugged and forbidding landscape took on a magical aspect in the moonlight, and the yapping and howling of coyotes in the distance gave the journey a peaceful air.
After a time Jane said softly, "I don't care what you say, Mr. Croryton. I believe you are a prince."
Archie laughed out loud.
"See, you are," said Jane.
"I most certainly am not," said Archie.
“Well maybe. I mean if you were a prince, then you wouldn't be so ignoble as to take money away from the commoners like MacAllister and me."
"I dare say that is because you have had no experience with royalty. Where do you think all these riches come from? From the labor of peasants, my dear." He gave her a friendly poke when he said the word "peasants."
Jane's face warped into a scowl that made Archie grateful she did not have a bullwhip close to hand. She said, "that is why this new nation has dispensed with kings and princes and such wickedness has that. We have no parasites here."
"That is just a strength of youth, Miss Siskin. Give it enough time and your ideal will become just as corrupt as anyone else’s. But were I a prince, traveling incognito, I would trust you with my secret before anyone else."
Jane smiled and they rode on, listening to the clanking of the wagon. Then Jane leaned over and whispered, "I knew it."
They brought the contraption through the dry wash with less trouble than Archie expected. It made the passage so well that he even thought of designing a six-wheeled wagon, with three independent segments, for rugged terrain. As they pulled into the yard with the rest of the freight, Archie heard drunken snoring but saw no people. Then he realized that the Teamsters were sleeping beneath their wagons the same as they had on the road.
MacAllister handed over the reins to Archie's horse and a purse of coin, muttering something about “fair and square.” Then he headed off to his own bedroll.
He had wisdom enough not to interfere with whatever romance or disaster was brewing between his boss and her client. And, on that account, he wasn't sure who he'd be saving from whom.
Archie walked Jane to her room in the Morning Star hotel, which thankfully, was a separate building from the saloon, where the piano music and the party was still going strong.
Jane turned outside her door and said, “You should treat me with respect. You might not be a Prince, but they call me the Mule Queen. Not to my face, but still.”
"Oh, indeed, Boudicca of the West."
"Who is that?"
"A Pictish queen who fought the Romans,” Archie said with a smile. “and almost won.”
Jane leaned in and kissed him, long and hard. And when she pulled back she said, “A prince. I knew it. And don’t forget… I outrank you.”
Then she closed the door without saying goodnight.
Virgil let his horses follow the road to Grantham at a walk as he nodded off in the wagon seat. At first, he was glad of not staying in Bisbee, but as the sun went down and the moon had risen, he questioned the wisdom of his choice. He was tired, bone-tired, and between himself, the horses, and the moonlit road he had to admit he wasn't as young as he used to be.
How many years had it been since he fired a gun? Or even thought of killing a man, let alone… It wasn't a pang of conscience – not exactly – but a fear that the old days had come again. A fear that the old days were all there was and his time with Laura and the children had been the exception a lull in the storm of his life.
It was fear that the truth of things was war, bloodshed, stupidity, and struggle. That love counted for nothing in the face of might. That every man’s strength faded sooner or later, removing the possibility of defeating one's enemies and leaving, only the question of how bravely one might face the end.
What he had done to those Chiracahua today – they had deserved it, surely — and he had done it save lives, but it wasn't a thing that he ever wanted his son Mack to know how to do. But maybe Mack needed to know. As he jolted along with the ruts in the road, Virgil came to grips with the fact that he would not always be there to protect his family, and perhaps he had not done enough to prepare them.
And if he did not prepare them, who would protect him in his old age?
He had planned on stopping at the swing station and sleeping where he could find a place, maybe under the wagon. But his thoughts gave him such urgency that in the early morning hours he found himself getting a second wind. He did not drive the horses as much as he could. It has been a long day for them as well and they were good horses that deserved better than this treatment. So he rolled along, an old man in his wagon full of goods.
He came down into the open valley and did not look closely at the bodies of the dead men and horses. In the moonlight even not looking revealed that the buzzards had been at them. When he had passed he had to fight the foolish urge to look back and make sure that the men he had killed were not rising from the ground and following him in pursuit of vengeance. It was foolishness whispered to scare children. If such things existed, he would've seen them during the war, in Kansas, or in the terrible aftermath of Chickamauga.
After Chickamauga, he had awakened in a pile of bodies, suffocating. He had to fight his way through the dead to return to the world of the living. When he returned to his unit, some days later, he found out that it had been decided — although he knew not how it could be — that the Confederacy had won a great victory. Virgil decided that if that was victory, then the war between the states wasn't worth winning. He deserted and vowed to leave violence behind him. Yes, here he was, all these years later, vowing the very same thing. In the end, perhaps the end of violence was death and he wasn't ready for that yet.
Two miles outside Grantham he saw a flash of blue light in the sky. At first, he thought it might be lightning, but there had been no thunder. Then he saw it again and a boom followed with it. He wondered if the dry wash might have water in it by the time he got to town.
Then the blue light filled the sky to the northeast with an eerie glow that rose in intensity, making a mockery of the night. He heard thunder roaring so loud it was as if Giants were shouting in a language he did not understand.
Then, like the surf after the breaking of a wave, the light crested and pulled back in upon itself, wrapping the world in silence and darkness once again.
There was a cool, moist wind filled with strange smells. And then nothing.
For a time he drove the wagon on through darkness mad darker from this interlude of light. The moon started to dip below the horizon behind him, but before it disappeared completely it was overpowered by the dawn. The sun blinded him as he came over the rise and down the hill to the wash on the west side of town. He tried for a glimpse of home through the brilliant sun but found he couldn’t squint enough against the light to see anything other than the road in front of him.
It was only when he came up out of the wash that he realized the town was gone. No road. No buildings, not even the dirt was the same.
He jumped off the wagon and felt the strange, tubular grass crunch beneath his feet. He left the horses to graze on this strange prairie and stumbled towards the sun. There was the hill of the Morning Star Mine, but no mine. The slope was covered in this same strange grass. Where DuMont’s pink house had been, there were now trees unlike any he had seen before; long, spindly trunks ending in balls of leafy green. And where his store had been there was nothing but the strange grass and the bitter smell it release as he crushed it beneath his boot heels.
He turned once, calling out, “Hello!” There was no answer. Somehow, they were all gone.
That’s the end of Part One of A Town Called Nowhere. The story will continue on March 11th.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit patrickemclean.substack.com -
The saloon was a shoddy-looking two story box of building, made from unfinished boards that had not fared well in the desert sun. Above the awning was a sign, painted directly on the wood that read, “Morning Star Saloon. Jethro Earp, Proprietor.” Jethro was happy to tell all the patrons that he was related to the famous law man and saloon-keeper with whom he shared a last name, but in point of fact, Earp was not his real last name. Nor was Jethro his real first name. But other than that, he was a reasonably honest man for a saloon-keeper.
In his travels, Archie had become familiar with uniquely American institution of saloons. But the Morning Star was something unexpected. While no expense had been wasted on the outside of the building, the inside was lavishly decorated. And open two stories to the rafters. Around the top of the room were what appeared to be opera boxes, most with curtains drawn and some with painted ladies hanging over the rail. A heavy red-faced girl with strawberry blonde hair, called out to Archie and waved, and the others joined in.
Archie didn’t know how to take this, so he looked down at the floor. It was unfinished planks heavily stained with tobacco juice around the spittoons and here and there with what could be liquor or just as easily blood.
The saloon was crowded, and a large man in a fancy suit was addressing patrons who were not otherwise occupied playing faro or poker or in one case, sleeping on the floor.
“And you may well ask how I survived the the onslaught of those unspeakable savages and subsequent crash, to find myself alive here among you, my fellow men of the West, no worse for wear. And friends, I have an explanation.”
“You was jes’ lucky!” called out a tired miner, who was leaning against the bar to avoid falling down.
“Lucky I am, indeed, my good man. Indeed, some say blessed! But not in matters relating to highwaymen of any race, breed or nationality. No sir, I was fortunate to have made the acquaintance of a true genius of our age, the modern Hippocrates, to whom the secrets of the ages are known. Dr. Amadeus Bartoleermeer the 2nd who has rediscovered the sacred well-spring of Pancea for our troubled modern age…” and here he produced a small bottle of patent medicine from his jacket pocket, “A marvelous elixir, which restored me from my broken state to the hale and hearty creature you see before you.”
“Did it give you all them extra words,” cried a voice from the back.
A sweet whisper in Archie’s ear said, “Don’t believe a word of it. I was on that stage and I am perfectly fine.”
Archie turned and saw a lovely woman dressed in nothing more than a corset and petticoat. She smiled hungrily and said, “I escaped with nothing more than a bruise on my leg. Would you like to see it?”
Archie was flustered by this and, at a loss, blurted out, “Archimedes Croryton, at your service.”
“There’s a thought,” she said, “why don’t you come upstairs with me, Mr. Croryton.”
“I… uh… You are very forward aren’t you. Miss?”
“Alice, just Alice,” she said, wrapping her arms around him. “But if you want, you can call me yours.”
Archie looked around desperately, not sure what to do. From across the room, Archie saw MacAllister plowing through the crowd towards him. Grinning from ear-to-ear, he clapped Archie on the shoulder and said, “They’ve only Irish whiskey in this godforsaken place, but I’ll buy you one anyway.” He tipped his hat at Alice, “Ma’am.”
As they bellied up to the bar, Jethro dragged Dr. Krupp out by his ear. Not to be silenced by this rough treatment, the good Doctor bellowed, “Look for my wagon! Discounts for quantities! Perfect for hangovers…” Jethro hurled him through the door of the saloon and he was heard no more.
Archie watched Alice lead another man up the stairs and said, “Are they all so… mercenary here?”
MacAllister laughed heartily and said, “She’s in the business making money, lad. And business is good.”
“The mercantile finds it’s way into everything in America, doesn’t it?”
MacAllister said, “Are ye not getting paid?”
“Well, of course, but.”
“Then there’s your answer!”
They toasted and drank. It was awful stuff, really, but after a long and dusty ride and even in spite of the strange, paranoid reception of Monsieur DuMont, Archie found himself excited to be on an adventure. Even if nothing came of it. Even if, in the end, broken and penniless, he was forced to go crawling back to — best not to think of it — at least he would have seen something of the world. And besides, there were fortunes to be made here in the West. And with a fortune would come the power required to spit in his brother Reginald’s eye. They tossed back another whiskey and Archie’s spirits rose even more.
And then he turned and saw Jane Siskin at the entrance. Gone were the rough leathers of her traveling garb and battered gray hat. She wore a simple blue dress, and her hair was down, still damp from the bath, but already winding with natural curls.
In spite of himself, Archie said, “My word, she’s… quite…”
MacAllister leaned and said, “Ye may be a Prince where you’re from, yer excellency. But lad, she’s a Queen in this land. Mule Queen, but a Queen nonetheless.” Then MacAllister walked into the back. Archie called after him, “I’m not a bloody Prince!”
From over his shoulder, he heard Jane said, “You *are* a prince. I knew it!”
The bartender slid a glass and a bottle of light brown liqour across the bar to Jane and she raised the empty glass in salute. Archie thought her smile was the prettiest thing he’d seen in months. What a transformation had come over this hard-driving woman.
As Jane poured, Archie protested, “I told you am a second son, exactly nothing. Usually someone in my position has power, influence and employment – and is a man, in some measure to be reckoned with, but I have been disowned, for you see, my brother hates me.”
“What did you do to him?”
“Nothing that brothers have not been doing to brothers since the dawn of time. It was our father, you see. He loved me best. And he never let my brother forget it. To be sure, he wasn’t as bright or as diligent as I, but that was no cause for such abuse. I cannot imagine what my father was thinking, or how he thought it might turn out when he was gone. Perhaps he thought he would live forever.”
“That’s not a thought much entertained in this part of the world.”
“I would imagine not. Have you dispatched a team to recover my freight?”
“Sir, despite the best of intentions, I am unable to do so, said Jane suddenly becoming formal.
Archie grew stiff. “What do you mean?”
“My men, such as they are,” she said as swept her hand around indicating the general debauchery in which Archie recognized some of the Teamsters from the journey into town. At least one was catatonic, several others weren’t far off. MacAllister was now engaged in an arm-wrestling contest in the corner around which men were gambling and shouting. Another teamster was sitting next to the piano, singing along as loud as he could with a song he didn’t know the words to. Another two of the teamsters, followed proxy-looking women upstairs to the boxes.
Archie frowned. Jane snagged an empty, if not exactly clean, glass from the bar and poured him a shot of the light brown liquor she was drinking.” Come on my sweet prince, let your hair down from that funny hat a yours and relax a little. Your hunk of metal will still be there in the morning.”
Archie drank the shot and winced. “Good Lord, what is that?”
“Tequila. Mexicans make it from a cactus I hear tell.”
“Yes, that would explain the spiky taste.”
“See,” said Jane, slapping him on the shoulder and pouring him another, “I knew you was all right. Settle in and let’s get down to making bad choices with the rest of this night.”
In the back of the room, MacAllister slammed his opponent’s fist on the table and cheers erupted.
Archie paused a moment, considering his situation with a sad smile. Then, resolved, he picked his pith helmet up off the bar and said, “Sadly, Mademoiselle, my day is not done, so my evening cannot begin.” Archie turned and strode out of the foul air of the saloon.
“God dammit!” said Jane. Then she shouted, “Red! Come on! We got to save our headstrong Prince from himself.” While MacAllister gathered his winnings, she took another shot of tequila. Then they went in pursuit of their strange Englishman.
----
They found Archie struggling to assemble a team to pull a wagon.
Archie said, “You think I cannot recover the cargo on my own?"
"Mister, from what I've seen, I can't even be sure you can find your way back to the cargo,” said Jane
Archie looked to MacAllister, "And you?"
"Not doubting your spirits sir, but we had a team of 10 men to help load those wagons. And we needed everyone, as you may recall."
"Oh, there is that," Archie said with a smile, “Nonetheless, the way must be found, and I shall find it. On my own, it appears.But, if I might, perhaps you would care for a wager."
"Keep your money, you'll never pull it off,” said Jane.
“Then odds?”
"It's impossible!"
"That's a very strong word, impossible."
“It is lad,” said MacAllister, “Now come on, I'll buy you a whiskey and will forget this foolishness and we’ll go fetch your box in the morning."
"Perhaps you're right, so let me amend my wager. I say that I can recover that crate, before sunrise, using only two men, some rope, a block and tackle and two sixteen foot beams or logs."
“Two men!" said Jane, bristling at the implications.
"Or a man and a good woman," said Archie with a smile, and if I lose the wager, I will pay five dollars to every one of yours. And I will cover any bets up to $100. Now, do you have the courage of your convictions, or are you, What was the phrase? Ten horns?"
"Tinhorn," said Jane, "one word."
"As you say,"
MacAllister produced his winnings from the arm wrestling match, and said, “down for $25."
They both looked to Jane who nodded and said, “Hell, I’m good for $25.”
The Moon rose shortly after sunset, a waxing gibbous, so they had plenty of light to ride by. MacAllister drove the wagon, this one pulled by a team of six horses. The oxen were still worn out from heat. They were terrible animals for the desert, but for the heaviest load there was nothing else. Life was hard on man and animal alike in this place. But it was God who put the silver in the ground, so here they all were.
The road to Bisbee seemed easier in the chill of the night air and the landscape less harsh and forbidding in the moonlight. They reached the wagon quickly. MacAllister surveyed the wreckage and said, “There's no way you're getting that crate into this wagon without a crane, or more men."
“Why my heavens, just now I realize that you are correct. And I am embarrassed to have brought you all this way!” said Archie, laying it on thick.
"Pay up. I have a powerful thirst that needs attention."
“A distressing, yet all too common ailment among Scotsman, I am told. I shall endeavor to be quick.”
Archie was as good as his word. As MacAllister and Jane watched him, he lashed the ends of the beams together as they stuck out from the end of the wagon. MacAllister said, “I’ll give him this, he’s got an enthusiastic look for one about to lose a bet.”
Archie surveyed the position of the broken-axle wagon. In the moonlight, the giantic crate atop the wreckage of the wagon looked more like a ruin of an ancient civilization, than it did like something that could be budged by mortals. But Archie proceeded undaunted.
He counted his steps across the road, and marked a divot in the earth with his boot. “Mr. MacAllister, if you would be so kind as to plant the stake right here.”
“Why, of course, your Lordship,” and he set to pounding the heavy wooden stake into the ground with a twelve pound hammer. He made the heavy blows look like easy work. As he did this, Archie and Jane dragged the beams over to the broken wagon. With effort, they lifted the lashed ends and propped them up on the wagon above the broken rear axel.
Then Archie attached a rope to the top of the beams and opened them into two legs. When he had each leg seated, he tied a rope from the top and played it out to the stake in the ground. Then, with MacAllister’s assistance, they wrapped the rope around the stake and hauled the makeshift crane into the air. As Archie made the rope fast to the stake, Jane shot MacAllister a $25 look of concern.
“Not to worry. Let him have is wee bit o’ fun. Even if he can lift the crate, There’s no way in hell he can swing the box onto the new wagon.”
Archie smiled at Jane and said, “He’s right, you know. There’s no way I can move the box onto the wagon.”
“Then why are you smiling?” asked Jane.
z
“The resolute and indefatigable optimism that is the birthright of every English gentleman.”
MacAllister scoffed. As Archie climbed up on the wrecked wagon and made the block fast to his makeshift crane, he said, “Especially when in comparison with the dismal pessimism of say, you’re average Hibernian. Always with them what cannot be done. I think it has something to do with the bleakness of the landscape. The fewer hours of daylight in those far Northern realms.”
MacAllister said, “His brain has been addled by breathing the thick smog of London.”
Archie looped rope around the back of the broken wagon and made it fast. Then he hooked one side of the triple sheave block under this loop. He took another length of rope, made it fast and fed the other end through the blocks. He tossed the bitter end to MacAllister, then stooped to chocked the front wheels of the broken wagon. His preparations complete, he said , “If you please, Mr. MacAllister.”
With a few short heaves on the rope, the back of the wagon lifted clear of the desert floor, leaving the rear wheels drooping inward on the broken halves of the axel. Archie pulled each wheel and section of axel out, and let them drop on the ground.
Then he maneuvered the wagon they had brought around and backed the wagons up end to end. It was the work of a few moments to remove the sideboards, then Archie was able to back one wagon under the other. Then they lowered the broken wagon onto the working wagon and tied it tight.
Archie said, “You neglected to consider the wagon itself as a lever.”
Jane said, “Hell, seems like our mistake was doubting you,” and she beamed with pride in the strange Englishman.
MacAllister hefted his coin pouch with a bitter smile on his face. Torn between admiration for the work and disappointment at losing the bet.
MacAllister moved to remount the wagon and Archie said, “No, no. The bet is to get it back to town, and I’ll see it safely there on my own.”
Jane handed her reins to MacAllister and climbed up into the wagon next to Archie. And off they went, as easy as anything. MacAllister kept a respectful distance behind, not wanting to hear the conversation and knowing better than to breathe a word of his fears to Jane. Mule Queen she might be, but MacAllister knew, deep down, she was of a different class than Archie. And he’d seen what came of the hired help who dallying with with the “nobles”.
Oh sure, in America they would tell you that there were no nobles and there was no class. But MacAllister just shook his head at such talk. There were classes everywhere. Only here they hid the lines. From what he had seen, it just lead to more catastrophe. At such price freedom?
Still, he couldn’t help but like this Croryton. He had a care for his work and the most sand of any man he’d seen out West who didn’t carry a gun. So, as they rode back to Grantham, he stared up at the moon and thought of a girl he had known in Aberdeen, a lifetime ago and a world away.
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Virgil got into Bisbee late in the afternoon. Outside of Fetterman’s a drunk cowboy was staggering around the street running his mouth at passer-bys. He was young, dumb and mostly harmless, with spurs set low so they would jingle to announce his swagger. From time to time, his friends would hand him a liquor bottle and egg him on to greater stupidity.
Virgil didn’t like him, mostly because he was jealous of carefree youth. He was sure whatever ranch or cattle drive this cowboy had been on had been hard. He was even willing to believe that this kid was brave and diligent on the job. But Virgil had never had a chance to be that young and foolish; to drink without care. If he had let his guard down when he was that age, he wouldn’t have gotten any older.
“And he’s right to walk away,” the young cowboy barked as a scared man in a town suit skittered away from him. The Young Buck strutted in the street in front of the ramshackle bar across the street way Fetterman’s.“Few men, and none in these parts, can tangle with the likes of me without regretting it.” He wheeled and stared at Virgil, “Ain’t that right, mister?”
He gave the Young Buck a tight smile and said what the kid wanted to hear, “When I see you coming, sir, I step aside.” Virgil made a show of stepping out of the Young Buck’s gaze. The kid turned his head to follow Virgil, staggered a little and recovered.
“See, Bill? Man’s got good sense,” said the Young Buck. And by the time the kid turned back, Virgil was already in Fetterman’s. As the door closed behind him he heard Bill say, “Don’t you get it kid? He’s toying with you.”
Ezra Fetterman looked up from behind his desk of fat pine boards on a trestle stand. “Virgil Miller! Well sir, what can I do for you?”
“Release the seven tons of flour you owe me and I’ll be on my way.”
“About that…”
“Fetterman, they were due at my store two weeks ago.”
“Well sir,” said Fetterman, pulling on the bottom of his vest, “As my note made clear, there has been an increase in price since last we conferred. And I’ll be needin’ more for that flour.”
“Mr. Fetterman, we have a contract. So many tons of flour at such a price, and I expect you to honor it.”
“Well, of course, Virgil,” said Ezra, “I wouldn’t dream of breaking a contract with you. You just show me where it’s written and I’ll honor it.”
It had been a handshake agreement. Up ’til now Virgil thought a handshake was good with this man. He thought about pistol-whipping the man and taking what was his. But he didn’t need trouble. What he needed was flour.
Fetterman saw the dark look on his face, and started speaking quickly, “We had a contract, yes. But the market broke it. Douglas is booming. Yes sir, just booming. They got hungry miners there too. And the Phelps-Dodge company has outbid you.”
“I thought I had your word.”
Ezra smiled and flinched like a hand shy dog. “I’m sorry. I don’t control the prices. It’ll be weeks before we could bring this before a judge. Be my word against yours. I expect you need flour to sell now, so seems to me best thing for you to do is pay the overage and be done with it.”
“What’s this overage?” Virgil asked through his teeth.
“Well on 5 1/2 tons of flour –“
“Seven. The contract was for seven.”
“Now, Virgil, just calm down. All I got is 5 1/2 tons and that the God’s honest truth. I see you looking at me like that, and I wish I’d done things different. But I didn’t, and I’m sorry, and that’s that.”
Through a red haze, Virgil saw the faces of the men he had killed earlier in the day. How many years had it been since the last time? He didn’t like to think of it. Who was the last man he killed before those “Indians?” Crawford? No. He had killed more since him. But he was the last one who had meant something.
It scared him how easy it had been to kill those men. He would have thought that skill would have gotten rusty. But it hadn’t. Mostly nerve, he guessed. For all their bluster, most men were afeard of killing, deep down. With Virgil, it hadn’t made a dent. He was ashamed to have enjoyed it. Not with the cruel satisfaction of a sadist or a murderer, but with the quiet satisfaction that comes from a job well-done.
He remembered a time when he would have gunned this Fetterman down for less than this. Then taken all he could carry of the man’s property and left the building in flames behind him. But that had been back East. Where there were trees to hide in and mountains to escape to. Where he knew the secret ways and the safe places like the back of his hand. Most of all there had been water.
He thought about where he could run. Where there would be water and safe haven here in the desert. Mexico maybe.
“Virgil,” said Fetterman, with fear in his eyes, “Are you okay?”
“Some trouble on the road,” said Virgil. Then he thought of Laura and Mack and Penelope. If he went to Mexico, there’d be no going back home to them. They’d be ashamed to know their father was a murderer. And when he’d married and come West, he’d promised Laura and himself that he’d put all behind him.
Virgil buried his rage, swallowed his pride, and paid Fetterman what he asked. When the transaction was complete, Fetterman said, “Thank you very much. We’ll see you next time.”
“I expect not,” said Virgil.
He walked through Fetterman’s warehouse to the back lot where he had parked his wagon. He found the bags of flour stacked in the middle of the room. As he threw the first bag over his shoulder, one of the stock boys said, “You’re not pullin’ out tonight are you?”
Virgil carried the flour to his wagon without answering. The stock boy fell in and the wagon filled quickly. Still, by the time they were done, it was almost dark and Virgil was ready to be gone. As he heaved the last bag into the wagon, he heard a voice say, “Well there he is!”
Framed in the alleyway was Young Buck and Bill, drunker than before. The Young Buck kicked his boots so his spurs would jangle extra loud as he came down the alley.
This was trouble Virgil didn’t need. He ignored the kid and cinched the canvas cover tight over his wagon bed.
“Mister! I’m talking to you!”
Virgil turned to get onto the wagon, but the kid blocked his path and jammed a finger into his chest. “My friend over there says you’re making fun of me,” slurred the kid, reeking of liquor, “And I said that can’t be because there’s no man in this town foolish enough to make fun of me to my face.”
“I’m not making fun of you, sir. I’m just about my business,” Virgil said. Then tried to step around the Young Buck, but the kid was having none of it. He staggered to the side and blocked Virgil’s path.
Virgil said, “I’m taking that flour to the hungry people of Grantham, that’s all.”
“Who, you hear that Bill? He’s haulin’ flour! What are you some kind of Baker?”
“I keep a store,” said Virgil, seeing Penelope’s face from that morning as she had bounded out of the back of the wagon. He’d be no good to his family in jail. Best to take the abuse, he told himself, not quite believing it. He shook as he tried to contain his pride and his rage, and the anger at Fetterman came rushing back, this time twice as hot.
“Look at that Bill, he’s terrified!” said the Young Buck in mock concern. “It’s okay shopkeep. I never do you no harm. But let me show you what a daisy like me can do when I get riled.” The kid put his hand on his pistol and then Virgil moved fast. He stepped forward and grabbed the kid’s wrist before he could clear the pistol from his holster. Virgil slammed his forehead into the kid’s nose and the Young Buck cried out in pain as blood gushed down his chin.
Virgil jerked the kid’s gun hand, spinning the Young Buck around 180 degrees and pointing the firearm down the alley at his friend Bill. Virgil slammed his palm into the back of Young Buck’s hand, folding the kid’s wrist over on itself and causing his fingers to pop open and release the gun. In one smooth motion, Virgil seized the gun, pointed it at Bill and cocked the trigger, still holding the kid by his wrist with his left hand.
It had all happened so fast that all Bill could do was stand there with his mouth hanging open, trying to make sense of it. But when he heard the cocking of the gun he blinked rapidly as he realized he was in real trouble.
Virgil’s eyes were wide and filled with madness as he said, “I’m expected back home, you understand?”
The Young Buck made a feeble grab for Virgil. Without taking his eyes from Bill, Vigil slammed the Young Buck in the head with the pistol. His knees buckled and he fell to the ground, where blood from his head wound soaked into the dirt.
“I’m going home,” said Virgil, “And nothing and no one is gonna stop me.”
Bill nodded, still not thinking to close his mouth.
“Now, walk forward slow,” said Virgil.
Bill turned and ran away. As he disappeared around the corner, Virgil heard him say, “I think he’s killed Joe!”
“Goddamn it,” said Virgil. He looked down at Young Buck, unconscious and bleeding on the ground, and said, “God damn you too. Dumb kid with dumber friends.”
He walked to his wagon and looked up at the seat on its metal leaf springs. Sitting on that seat, he judged that his head would be maybe fifteen feet off the ground. And his good dray horses couldn’t manage much above a trot, even with an empty wagon. He’d be a fat target all right, like in one of those newfangled shooting galleries. And not much harder to hit.
He sighed and looked at the buildings around him. He might be able to climb up that corner and run across the roof, but the wagon was boxed in by the buildings and the stout fence across the back. Virgil wasn’t about to abandon his rig and the flour. Between those cowboys and goddamn Bisbee in general, he was pretty certain he wouldn’t ever see the wagon or the flour again. If nothing else, Fetterman would re-sell them as a package deal.
Out in the street, the rest of the Young Buck’s outfit and the curious spectators had formed a crowd and were trying to decide who was going to take a peek down the alley. Bill heard the clop of hoof and jingle of harness from behind Fetterman’s and said, “I think he’s coming.” Pistols cleared holsters and Bill’s hand wasn’t the only one shaking as he aimed at the opening of the alley.
At first, all Bill saw was two dray horses pulling a wagon. But as the wagon came out into the street, then he saw the top of Virgil’s head sticking up between the horses. He was walking between them, using them as cover. It had seemed like a good plan, but now Virgil couldn’t turn the horses while he was walking between them.
“All RIGHT!” boomed a man’s voice from behind the crowd. “I’m comin’ through and if I see a naked firearm, I”m arresting the man who bears it!”
Bill shouted, “But he kilt our friend!” without taking his eyes off what little he could see of Virgil. A mutter of agreement went up from the crowd.
A shotgun blast rang out. And in the silence that followed it, the man’s voice again bellowed, “It ain’t open for discussion!” Weapons were holstered all around and Bill followed suit. A large man in a long, dark coat and slouch hat pushed his way through the crowd, with a shotgun leaning against his shoulder. When he saw Virgil and his wagon, he chuckled.
“Sir, that is an entertaining predicament you’ve gotten yourself into.”
Virgil, still not showing his face, said, “I advise you to seek entertainment elsewhere.
“‘Fraid I can’t do that.” said the man, hitching back his coat lapel to reveal a silver star that read Sheriff. “I’m tasked with keeping the peace.”
“You showed up late for that,” said Virgil.
The Sheriff smiled again. “Well, you know, this town kind spreads its wickedness around. Not hardly convenient. They say you killed a man. But since this lot don’t look too reliable. I thought I’d get your thoughts on the matter before I go shootin’ horses to get to you.”
“He’s alive. Back there behind Fetterman’s. He pulled his gun and I took it away and hit him on the head with it.”
“And what’d you do to him to get him so mad?” asked the Sheriff.
Bill said, “He weren’t mad he was just funnin’ is all.”
Virgil said, “Drunk and fulla sand, looking for someone to push around,”
“And he pushed the wrong man, is that it?” asked the Sheriff.
“I’m expected at home. Not about to let a drunk accidentally shoot me.” said Virgil.
The Sheriff rubbed his chin and thought about it. “Yeah, I’ll allow it makes for a poor epitaph.” He turned to another man in the crowd and said, “Go have a look, see if he’s tellin’ the truth.”
The man came back, helping the Young Buck stagger, bloody-faced into the street. The Sheriff asked, “Did you draw on this man?”
Young Buck looked around, confused. All he saw was the Sheriff and what appeared to be an empty wagon. “What man?”
Virgil stepped out from between the horses. Young Buck flinched when he saw him. Then he looked to the Sheriff and said, “Yes, sir, I started to.”
The Sheriff shook his head. “Go see the Doc.”
“That it?” asked Virgil.
“No, sir, I’m gonna see you to the edge of town, make sure that nothing happens. And I don’t want to see you come back.”
“Fetterman’s a crook, that kid’s a fool,” said Virgil.
“I’m sorry to see a like-minded man go, but you are going,” said the Sheriff.
Virgil nodded and led his horses and wagon out of town. As he went, the Sheriff walked beside him and asked, “What’s your name? What’s your business?”
“Virgil Miller. I own the General Store in Grantham.”
The Sheriff laughed, “You’re a shopkeeper?”
“I married into it,” said Virgil.
The Sheriff said, “That makes even less sense.” He looked back and saw that no one was following them. Then he held out his hand and said, “Sheriff Dunston. I appreciate you not shooting that cowboy in my town.”
Virgil looked Dunston’s hand and said, “If I see either of them again, I’m gonna assume…”
The Sheriff nodded. “I would too. All I ask is just don’t go shootin’ anybody in Bisbee. Beyond that, it’s between you the Lord Almighty.”
Virgil shook his hand, climbed into his wagon, and rode off into what was left of the sunset.
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I wrote this essay 12 years ago. And there are a lot of things that I used to believe that I don’t believe anymore. But the substance of this essay has become more and more true for me with each passing year. Longhand has become the most productive way for me to write. And in the increasing noise and hysteria of our digital age, it has become, for me, a blessing.
Once again I find myself about 50,000 words into a substantial work. And now more than ever, I feel that my best drafts are written with a pen and paper. So here it is again, my Defense of Writing Longhand.
I like technology. A lot. But I'm not too sure how technology feels about me. It may be my faithful friend and boon companion — then again, it may just be pretending to be my friend so it can date my sister. Especially when it comes to writing.
I'm writing a book. And for all the romance and immensity that phrase can contain, writing a book is also simply a production process. I am in the process of assembling 75,000 to 100,000 words. And, after writing 50,000 of them, I've become convinced that the first draft is the hardest part. Hemingway famously said that the first draft of everything is s**t. For what it's worth, I agree. So, my question, becomes: What's the easiest way to get through the hardest part.
And to my surprise, the easiest way turns out to be writing longhand. Not printing, mind you, but composing with a long, flowing, and delightfully irregular script that fills the page like a river of words. I sit down with a pen and a piece of paper and a thousand words roll out in a flash. And not only does it often take less time than typing, I think I write better longhand.
Now realize, I am not a hunt and peck typist. I type very fast. And when I type on one of those thin little laptop keyboards that have about 3 millimeters of travel, my typing speed approaches the absurd—like Glenn Gould, the wonderfully talented and eccentric pianist who remanufactured his piano, shortening the action on his keys so that he could play Bach faster. Beautiful, yet a little insane.
But there is obviously more to writing than typing. What I'm really doing is composing. Composition requires focus. It is, like most acts of creation, monotasking. And as much as I love technology, it drives us to distraction.
A pen and paper has but one functionality. It captures the marks I make so that they can be referred to at a later time. It doesn't ring, it doesn't bother me with an incoming chat or IM. It never asks me to plug it in so it can get more power. It doesn't crash, it never needs an upgrade, and it is unlikely that someone will snatch my pad and bolt from a coffee shop with it when I turn my back.
Sure paper is perishable. But it is predictably perishable. Data turns to noise in all kinds of unpredictable ways. Like hard drive crashes. And if an IT person tells you that there is a way to archive a digital file, not touch it for 500 years, and guarantee that it will remain usable—that person is lying to you. If you think I'm wrong, I'll email you some WordStar and AppleWorks documents just as soon as I can figure out how to get them off my five and a quarter inch floppies.
But I can go the National Archives right now and read a copy of the Magna Carta that was handwritten 793 years ago. No format or version issues here. (It's fitting for this essay that Magna Carta literally means "Great Paper".)
But, to paraphrase Emerson, all of this is small account compared to what lies within us. And that is the struggle to organize and communicate our thoughts clearly with the beautiful, yet horribly imprecise instrument of language. And it is in this struggle, I believe, that the beauty and power of writing longhand is discovered.
In a way, the problem with writing is the same problem of hitting a golf ball. Both the page and the ball just sit there. And when you write you have (theoretically) a lifetime to rewrite it until you get it right.
But all that time is simply a field day for the critical part of your brain. Just the time it needs to jump in and muck everything up. This part of the brain needs something to criticize. After all, that's its job. But the critical function is not creative. Be critical about anything. No matter how absurd you are being, you will find ammo to support you. Try running Hamlet through a Microsoft Grammar check. Try running Hamlet and leaving all the scenes in.
The point is, there's no possible way to get it right if you don't first get it down. And as much as I know this—I mean know it in my bones, as a carpenter knows his measuring tape—it still doesn't help.The critical part of my brain is telling me, right now, that this sentence is horrible. That the entire device of anthropomorphizing the critcal side of my nature in this essay is a bad idea. And that I just misspelled critical. And I shouldn't have started two sentences in a row with "and".
But when I write longhand, the experience is different. I think it is because that critical part of my brain is busy picking apart my handwriting (which truly is horrible) instead of my prose. It tells me that my handwriting is atrocious. And it gets the satisfaction of being right. But who cares? While it's busy with that, the words are just rushing out. And they're not henpecked or second-guessed before they've had time to cool. They exist in a flawed, but pure state. This kind of prose has a feral power that seems to be lacking from the things I type. Maybe that's not it; maybe it's just harder to get my head in that effortless writing space when I use a keyboard. But whatever the case is, writing longhand makes it easier for me to reach a writer's high.
And if you're still not sold on the idea that writing longhand might help you write better, consider this: Until the 20th century, books were written by hand. I would argue that the best writing in history was composed by hand. The entire process is much easier now. But, would you like to argue that the increase in the power of our technology has led to a corresponding increase in the quality of our writing? Not me. I'm too busy scribing away.
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Archie rode uphill through the town, towards the elegant, yet out-of-place Victorian house on the hill. When those in the street and on the porches gawked at his unusual appearance he took pleasure in tipping his pith helmet to them.
He passed the Morning Star Saloon on his right, and tucked in behind it, found the mine. Convenient for the miners, thought Archie. And if he knew the breed, he doubted they would have any pay left over after drinking. The mine entrance was sunk into an unusual mound, perhaps thirty-five feet tall. Men were using mules to haul a heavy ore cart from the timber-framed opening in the hill.
Archie decided that his first step would be to survey the composition of the mound. If it was stable enough the engine could be installed on top, otherwise, the earth would have to be removed and a platform constructed. What a magnificent sight it would be if his engine was the tallest thing in town!
300 yards up the hill, he hitched his horse to the wrought iron fence that surrounded Jean DuMont’s house. Wrought iron? Ye gods, what expense in this wasteland.
By the glass in the front door, Archie could see that he was covered with the dust and grime of travel. He removed his helmet and could see a sharp line where the relatively clean skin began. He attempted to brush some of the dirt from his forehead, then realized the foolishness of it. He stood tall and knocked on the door.
His rap on the door was answered with frantic steps. The speed at which someone was approaching confused Archie. It had been a simple knock.
The door swung open quickly and a severe-looking woman in a nurse’s uniform whispered. “Who are you? What are you doing! Don’t you know that the Monsieur isn’t to have visitors?”
Taken aback, Archie asked, “Which one of those would you like me to answer first?”
“None of them. Go away.”
“My name is Archimedes Croryton and at Monsieur DuMont’s request I have spent some $30,000 of his dollars and traveled the better part of 2,500 miles to bring him pumps and an engine to clear his mine of groundwater.”
“The mine? The mine!” She said, “Why didn’t you say so? You must see Mr. Pulaski, the Foreman!” then she started closing the door. Archie placed his boot against the jamb, and said, “I really think he will want to see me.”
“Monsieur is not well!”
From inside the house came an angry bark. “Esther! Who is it?” This was followed by a phlegmy coughing fit.
“Go away,” Esther said, the anger in her eyes now replaced with pleading.
Archie was unmoved. “His letter was quite clear. I am to present myself immediately upon arrival.”
“Who is it!” Came the old voice again. “Is there something wrong at the mine?”
Reluctantly, Esther opened the door, glaring at Archie as he entered. To the right of the door, Jean DuMont was getting up from a chair with some difficulty. He clutched a handkerchief to his mouth and coughed loudly, angrily as if he were yelling at disease itself. But in his manner, he attempted to play it off as if it were nothing.
Archie had heard the rattling death sentence of that cough before. Tuberculosis. With the spirit of a true gentleman, Archie ignored the unpleasant noise, bowed his head and said, “Archimedes Croryton, at your service, sir.”
The older man’s eyes twinkled and his grey face lifted in a smile. He asked “have you brought it? The means to drain my sump of a mine?”
“Indeed sir, I have,” said Archie, and DuMont shook his hand heartily.
DuMont said to Esther, “This is him! The boy wonder that Stevens found in Boston!” Esther shook her head and walked away.
“Nevermind her. She’s professionally nasty. Keeps the riff-raff away. Come, sit. Refresh yourself.”
They talked for the better part of a half an hour. DuMont had real enthusiasm, but he tired quickly, coughing and wheezing as he struggled to breathe. Esther hovered behind the old man, flitting in and out of the room, attending to his needs, but always, always, glaring at Archie. As if her glare alone could drive him from the house.
As Archie sketched a diagram of the pumping mechanism he had designed, DuMont beckoned Esther for his medicine. She decanted him a glass of grain alcohol which had opium poppies floating in it. When he saw Archie’s curious glance he explained, “for my cough.” After he swallowed it, he did breathe easier and coughed less. But his energy quickly deserted him, and he collapsed into his wicker chair by the window.
“You must forgive me, Mr. Croryton. I no longer have the vigor I enjoyed in my youth. I am not well man, but I caution you, my mind is as sharp as ever. And I can see that my agent’s confidence in you was not misplaced.” He rose and went to his desk where he wrote a note, blotted it, and folded it. “Take this to Mr. Pulaski and he will give you everything you need to complete your work. But a word of caution. Trust in him, not a whit. Nor any of those other,” he paused for a coughing fit, “those other jackals in my employ. They are cheating me. Attempting to rob me blind. They think my mind and my eyes have gone because of the weakness in my lungs. But I know. Do you understand, *I know*. And I will have my revenge on all of them in the end.”
Uneasily, Archie said, “I know not what to make of your troubles, sir. But I will build your pumping engine. I will clear your mine. And if I can be of service in any other way…”
DuMont was wracked by a coughing fit, but his eyes never left Archie’s. The stare was an accusation Archie did not quite understand. When he had recovered himself, he said, “Welcome to the Morning Star Mine.”
As Archie exited, DuMont collapsed into his chair and Esther hurried to him with another glass of laudanum, hissing at Archie, “show yourself out.”
~ ~ ~
Beside the Morning Star Mine men were cutting timbers with a horse-powered sawmill. Four teams of horses walked a well-trampled circle around a central spindle. Archie followed the main drive belt as it came off the top of the spindle, then through several transfer spindles across the top of the barely roofed pavilion and then around the smallest wheel. The smallest wheel turned a spindle that led to a cage and peg gear that turned a horizontal shaft. Around that shaft, a circular saw blade now spun with blinding speed. As two men rolled a log onto a cast iron sled, Archie estimated the efficiency and effectiveness of the gearing.
While the blade was turning with great speed, Archie wondered if it had enough torque to get its job done. As the men pushed the carry sled forward, the log touched the blade and sawdust fountained through the air. The word parted easily enough at first, but halfway through the saw bound and the leather belt slipped and screeched hideously against the wooden spindle. The men stopped the horses and heaved against the heavy sled trying to back the log off the blade so that the mill could be restarted.
“You. What want?” Set a voice with an Eastern European accent.
Archie turned to see a man in filthy denim, wearing a mine lamp on his forehead that was still burning. Behind him, men were unloading an ore cart.
“Are you Mr. Pulaski?"
"He's down mine, come back later."
"I rather think you should go fetch him. Mr. DuMont sent me."
“Old snake, what new?”
“A curious term for your employer. I have 30 wagons of equipment due any moment and I need a place to put them.”
“Who are you?”
Archie turned and saw that the men with the sawmill were preparing to make the same mistake with greater vigor. With impatience, he said, “A man who makes improvements. Now, fetch Mister Pulaski while I repair your saw mill.”
With all the command and disdain of someone born to the aristocracy, Archie turned and strode to his work.
He held a hand up to stop the man about to set the horses into motion again. The man looked confused, but Archie offered him no explanation. He handed him his pith helmet as he walked by and the man took it and said nothing.
The men on the sled turned to see why the mill hadn’t restarted and watched Archie walk up and pull a lever that disengaged the cage and peg gear. Only then did he direct his attention to the saw blade. He ran a finger along the side of the metal blade and found it abrasive and hot to the touch. Then he set his thumb against one of the teeth and made a disapproving noise.
An angry man in suspenders with a sharp nose approached him and said, “What do you think you’re doing?”
Archie said, “When was the last time this blade was sharpened?”
The man blinked twice in thought, then mustered his anger again, “What’s that to you in your funny suit?”
Archie took his attention from the blade and spindle and stepped directly up to the man, saying, quietly but with real intensity, “This is no way to treat machinery you fool. If you treated your co-worker over there as poorly as you treated this mill, you would be in jail.”
The man sputtered and struggled to find words.
Archie said, “You will find me a small file…”
“You can’t talk to me like that!”
Archie continued in his quiet, but unbending way, “and a candle. Can you remember that? A small file, and a candle, repeat it back to me.”
“I… I…”
Another of the men intervened, saying, “The file is over on that stump. I’ll be back with your candle.”
Archie returned to his study of the blade and shaft.
“You, you mess with wrong Wlod. Now we see how good your name!” said the man, lifting his fists.
If Archie had risen to the argument, there might well have been a fight, right then and there. But Archie ignored him altogether, looking about the mill yard until he spied a sledgehammer. He walked and quickly picked it up, lifting it above his head.
Wlod jumped back in fear, thinking that Archie meant him harm, but Archie walked to the end of the rails that the sled was set upon. He hit one rail and then the other with two mighty blows that set the pavilion ringing. Then he checked the rails again, muttering to himself.
Archie looked up, suddenly becoming conscious of the man again. He said, “Has to be perfectly parallel to the direction of travel you see.” Seeing that the man didn’t see, Archie waved him off dismissively, grabbed the file and fell to sharpening the saw teeth with a will.
Archie gave each tooth five passes with the file then moved on to the next. By the time he had come back around to the first tooth the man had returned with the candle.
He spun the blade and brush the candle against each side of it. Then he handed the candle back and said, "every time the blade stops, you wax it do you understand?"
The man took the candle and looked at it, not quite understanding, but pretending that he did. Archie gave the signal to start the horses then engaged the pin and cage gear. The saw blade disappeared in a whirr of teeth. Then, with one hand, Archie pushed the cast iron sled and the saw parted the wood effortlessly.
Archie looked directly at Wlod and said, "less muscle, more sharpening."
The men, marveling at how easy their job could be said, "yes, sir."
A barrel-chested man with a sour look on his face called Archie, "now that you fixed the saw, what do you want?"
"Mr. Pulaski?" asked Archie and the man nodded and waved for him to come out of the sawmill so they might talk.
Outside Archie had it in the letter. Pulaski recognized the handwriting and shook his head. "Did he tell you I was stealing?"
Archie said, "in fact, he did."
"The only man stealing from this mine is him! If he'd stop meddling with his frightful suspicions and distrust –"
"Perhaps there is something to do that will allay his concerns?"
"You think I'm a thief!" Pulaski said getting red in the face. "What would I steal? Raw ore? There's no water here. We have to send the ore to Bisbee to be crushed and washed and smelted. Do you want to go through my pockets for silver nuggets?"
"I do not, Mr. Pulaski."
"He's crazy! You'll see. He'll turn on you too. Faster than you think."
"Be that as it may, Mr. Pulaski, I have 30 wagons of equipment on their way here and I need…"
"You don't believe me? He's watching you right now." Pulaski nodded his head uphill.
Archie turned and had a clear view of the Victorian Mansion’s turret.
“Sets up there with a spyglass he does. All day coughing and watching the mine, his brain et up with consumption. And when he gets bored with that he comes down here and gives us hell. I've half mind to quit right now.”
Archie said nothing, for there was nothing to say.
Pulaski stared at the sawmill now making cuts three times faster than it was before. He growled his approval as a fresh beam was dropped off the sled. "All right," he said with a violent jerk of his head that served as a nod. Pulaski indicated the empty lot across the street. “You can leave the wagons there tonight and we'll figure out the rest in the morning." Then he looked sharply over Archie's shoulder and said, "that is if you still have a job."
DuMont was stomping down the middle of the street covering his face with a handkerchief and coughing as he came. Following close behind him was his furious nurse. "Mr. Croryton!” Cough, cough, cough. "Mr. Croryton !”
Archie looked straight at the man, and still, he called out “Croryton!” as if Archie hadn’t heard. And he only stopped yelling Archie’s name when he got to arm’s length.
"Explain yourself, sir!"
"How do you mean, sir?"
“Give an ack ack accounting of your behavior. Are you not in cahoots with this man,” he said pointing at Pulaski.
"I don't see how I could be, as I do not know what cahoots are."
"Do not play games with me!" snarled DuMont, falling into a coughing fit again.
"Really sir, You should be in bed," said Archie with real concern.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?” asked DuMont. "Give you and the rest of these shirking scoundrels time to rob me blind!" He was interrupted by coughing again."But I am watching. Even when you think I am not. I am always watching! And I have revealed you for the fraud that you are!"
"How do you mean, sir!” said Archie, finally starting to take offense at this absurdity.
"The wagons, sir. You claimed to be something you are not in an attempt to defraud me no doubt!"
"The wagons are on the other side of town and only want but a small exertion of your much-vaunted perception to be seen.”
"Ha," cried DuMont, "there are many wagons in this town. But where is your cargo? Answer me that, sir."
Archie looked down Main Street and saw the wagon train advancing slowly towards them up the hill. "There, sir!" cried Archie and walked into the middle of the street waving his helmet above his head. As DuMont argued with his nurse in French, McAllister pulled the lead wagon alongside Archie.
"Where is Miss Siskin?" Asked Archie.
"We've one last wagon stuck in the wash and she's seeing to it. Rather violently, I'm afraid. But she and the wagon will be along in due time."
"Park here,” said Archie, and directed the train into the lot across the street from the mine and catty-corner from the Morning Star Hotel and Saloon.
The driver of the third wagon shouted to Archie, "across the street from the bar! You're a good man, sir!"
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Somewhere, out there, a story is searching for you.
It fumbles, faceless through the dark. Unknowable, unformed. Newt pads for hands, it whispers questions in the dreams of people you know.
Is this nascent thing a love story, a family drama, a gritty crime thriller?
It doesn't know yet, so how can we?
At this point, it is not much more than a stubborn collection of related longings.
Unless you are very sensitive (or very wise) you probably don't believe that this ur-story is real because it hasn't happened to you yet.
You are practical and level-headed about such things. Good for you, you think. But you are wrong.
Fiction, my friend, is the realest thing of all.
So real that even when you don't believe in it, it believes in you.
All of the mundane facts of life were once just stories. And EVERYTHING was a crazy idea at first.
From: "Whattyamean? You're going to live on land? Life has always lived in the ocean?"
To: "We could never go to the moon, that's a story for kids!”
And on and on.
Never forget that nations and causes are just stories. And nations and causes have murdered a lot of people.
They take you seriously, ESPECIALLY when you don't take them seriously.
And this story that is searching for you begins with a choice.
It could be a choice to say a thing or leave words unspoken. To move towards or away from or to just stand still.
Doing nothing is still a choice.
Ah look, the story has found you. It crept up on you while you were wasting time on social media.
Here it is to seize your life and make itself real.
Be brave, good luck and don't give up hope at the beginning of the third act. It only looks like all is lost. But if you trust in yourself and what you have learned and let your loved ones help you, you will triumph in the end.
I promise.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit patrickemclean.substack.com -
The Swing Station was a pile of mud bricks with a thatched roof on the east side of the Mule Mountains. The windows had no glass, only torn curtains that would flutter in their mud sockets on the rare occasions that there was a breeze. But there was no breeze today, and the Bisbee-Grantham station baked in the sun. Give it another hundred years of days like, thought Miguel, and the Bisbee-Grantham station would turn into a proper brick building.
The only things that separated the building from a ruin were the large corral of strong horses out back and the telegraph line running through the station and on to Grantham.
Miguel’s job as Station Agent was to mind the horses, see that the place had plenty of water, and operate the telegraph. Which meant that most of the time, he sat in the heat of the station waiting for that angry piece of metal to clack to life. All day long, he would listen to it tell tales of coaches traveling up and down the line. Two hours ago it had told him that a stagecoach with four passengers had left Bisbee headed this way. He has spent those two hours staring at the fat flies chasing the smell of the morning’s fried beans. They flew in slow clockwise arcs around the room while Miguel and the mestizo kid who helped with the horses endured the heat. There was a book open next to him on the desk, but in the heat of the day, the thought of turning the pages was ridiculous. It was all he could do to sit at the desk, chin propped in his hand, and breathe through his mouth.
When one of the flies dropped dead on his desk with a fat plop, Miguel nudged the mestizo boy, who was asleep next to the desk. The boy rubbed his face and looked at Miguel. Miguel said, “Sais” and the boy nodded and went outside.
There were twenty-three horses in the corral. The boy cut six out and formed them up into a team, moving the huge animals, and rigging the harness and yoke with ease and skill. When he was done he took the long reins and walked behind the animals as he moved them around to the front of the station. The stage would be here soon, and if it was to keep the schedule, it would need this fresh team of horses.
As the horses stood waiting, the boy walked around with a bag of oats giving each of them a handful in turn. It was a long run from here to Grantham. This was the last station on the line.
Inside, Miguel closed his eyes and drifted somewhere just on this side of consciousness. Even as he dozed, he was aware that something was wrong. The stage should’ve been here by now. He struggled to open his eyes and check his timepiece, but he told himself it didn’t matter. There was nothing he could do about it anyway. If something was wrong, he should be rested for when trouble came.
At the first sound of the far-off stagecoach, his cheek slipped from his palm and his face dropped onto the desk, causing the dead fly to bounce. In a minor miracle, the fly came back to life long enough to buzz off the desk and drop dead on the dirt floor. Miguel jumped bolt upright and rubbed his chin. That sound wasn’t the stage. It was coming from the wrong direction and was two horses at most. He could hear the boards of an empty wagon ringing from the jolts from the road. He walked to the doorway and fought to shove it open against the accumulated dirt.
On the road from Grantham, he saw a man in a broad hat driving an empty wagon. The man waved hello as he pulled into the yard and Miguel waved back. The mestizo boy only had eyes for the horses.
Miguel recognized him as the owner of the Miller general store. What was his name again, Virgil? He remembered Virgil’s pretty wife and son working with him and his even prettier daughter that argued with all the customers with the innocent mayhem of a six-year-old girl.
“Mr. Miller!” said Miguel.
Virgil opened his mouth to return the greeting but just then, they heard the rumble of the stage coming down the hill from Bisbee. The first blast of the horn might have been mistaken for a trick of the wind. But the horn kept sounding and sounding its urgent call.
Everyone stared uphill in anticipation of the stage’s appearance on the road down out of the mountains. The mestizo boy cinched one of the horses tighter. The stage always blew the horn for fresh horses. The boy and the animals were both well-conditioned.
The horn and the clattering of the stagecoach grew louder and louder. Just over the next rise now. Then the boom of a shotgun echoed off the hills. The horses' heads jerked up. Miguel stepped back through the door and grabbed his rifle, cocking it as he re-emerged. “Get inside,” he said to the mestizo boy who hitched the team to the rail and did as he was told.
“Mr. Miller, I do not know what we are about to receive,” Miguel called from the doorway, “but I think you should step inside.”
As Virgil ran to the building, the horn fell silent. The stagecoach burst over the rise with a thunderous clatter. It came down the grade at a hideous speed, lurching wildly, tottering on the left wheels and then the right, in danger of tipping over at any moment. They saw the driver fighting to control the panicked animals, but no one was riding shotgun. Behind the stage were three Mescaleros, ragged–looking, but on fast horses and riding as if they had been born in the saddle.
As the stagecoach roared passed, the driver looked to Miguel with fear-filled eyes, the silent plea of a man who has seen death gaining on him. The Stage hit the flat in front of the station and bounced hard before settling back to earth with a crash.
Miguel put the rifle to his shoulder and fired at one of the Mescalero’s. A miss. Before he could fire again the lead Indian shot the driver from the top of the stage. As the driver’s body pinwheeled into the dust and scrub, the stagecoach hurled, driverless, downhill towards the plain. Miguel fired three more shots out of frustration. None of them had a chance of hitting.
Miguel heard a clatter from the corral and saw Virgil riding after the stagecoach on Miguel’s horse. As Virgil disappeared down the road, Miguel yelled at the boy, “Goddammit, saddle me another horse!”
~ ~ ~
Virgil lashed the horse with the reins, shouting encouragement to the animal as he rode. he hadn’t had much experience with chasing people. In his old life, he had been the one being chased. As he rode through the dust kicked up by the stagecoach, he had time to feel the fool. Of course, a stagecoach getting robbed was bad for all business, general stores included, but stopping robberies was the stage line’s business first, the Law's business second and none of Virgil’s business at all.
But Virgil could do no other. He had seen a glimpse of terrified faces in the window of the out-of-control stage as it roared by. Lost souls if ever he had seen them. His heart had gone out to them. It wouldn’t have happened when he was younger, but now that he had a family, he looked at strangers and instead of seeing threats and opportunities, he saw sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, each a patch in the quilt of humanity.
Them as he used to ride with, would have said he had gone soft, and mark him for a shopkeeper. But that wasn’t true. When he was younger, he had been driven by anger and by fear. Now he was surprised to find he was driven by love. If desperate men were allowed to do this to strangers, one day they might do it to someone he cared about.
Besides, that station agent didn’t stand a chance. Playing with that rifle, wasting shots. A rifle was an honest man’s weapon and no good at a gallop. A man should only fire a shot that had a chance of hitting, especially with a fancy repeating rifle like that. When things went bad, ammo was always scarce. Miguel was a sportsman; a hunter, no killer of men.
The Mescalero’s had pistols, but now there was no one left on the stage for them to shoot. They thought they had won their prize, and just needed to run it to ground.
As Virgil came over the next rise he could see the bandits racing along with the stage, trying to find a place in the narrow road to get alongside. But the road was winding downward through the foothills with a cliff on one side, and a steep drop on the other.
As Virgil came up from the rear, none of the Indians looked back. There must’ve been more of them to start with, thought Virgil. The man riding shotgun would have gotten a few from the stage, and now these Mescaleros were too angry to let it go.
Virgil saw that the road bottomed out and opened up ahead. He took the reins in his teeth and drew both of his heavy pistols. He pointed them both on the same side of the horse’s head. Less likely to shoot the poor animal out from under himself that way. He had a moment to hope the horse wouldn’t spook at gunfire in his ear.
As the stagecoach bottomed out on the flat, Virgil came within in range of the first man. He brought the Army revolvers to bear and cocked them. He stabilized his hands, doing his best to let them float free as his body and the horse flailed along through space.
Virgil fired four shots as he swung the guns in an arc through the path of the Mescalero back to front. The first shot went wide the second and third hit. The fourth would’ve had a chance, but the Mescalero was already dead and falling from his saddle.
As Virgil galloped past the riderless horse, he heard gunshots from up ahead. The second Mescalero was alongside the stagecoach firing back at him. Beyond him, Virgil saw the third Indian lifting his pistol to fire into the stagecoach team.
Virgil had just enough time to think it was a cowardly thing, and not what proper Apaches would do. They could be fierce and cruel, but the ones Virgil had known had prided themselves on their horsemanship, and the care of useful animals. As Virgil shot the second one from his saddle, the one in the lead shot two of the stagecoach horses in their traces. This slewed the rest of the team around to the left. It happened so suddenly that the Mescalero couldn’t get clear. His horse was knocked sideways off the road and he flew from the saddle.
Horses screamed, leather and wood snapped. Dead animals and shattered tackle ground into the Earth as the stage skewed left, then capsized. The Coach smashed into the earth, and shuttered to a stop, scattering trunks and luggage and debris as it went. Virgil slowed his horse and shot the third Mescalero through the head as he writhed on the ground, struggling to catch his breath.
The horses were ruined. Piled up in rope and leather, and broken legs. One screamed intermittently, and the other two survivors panted, wide-eyed, in pain, resigned to death in that infinitely gentle, infinitely suffering way that all horses seemed to have.
Virgil dismounted and shot them one a time, careful not to miss. He heard moans from inside the stage but took the time to reload his pistols before he went to help. His hands were practiced, and he slotted the cartridges home, without looking down, keeping his eyes locked on the Bisbee road, looking for more marauders.
From the stage, he heard a voice say, “I hope you’re not going to do that to me.” Virgil turned and saw a badly battered man in a tweed suit drop down from the side of the capsized stagecoach. The man struggled as if he was drunk, but maintained his footing. He reached into the inside of his jacket, pulled out a bottle of patent medicine, and took a long swig. Then he added, “although, under the circumstances, it might be a blessing. Dr. Aloysius Krupp at your service.” He reached up to tip a hat he wasn’t wearing, lost his balance, and fell down unconscious.
Virgil shook his head and squinted at the road. Still no one on the ridge. He finished reloading the second pistol and walked to the coach. Along the way, he stepped gently over Dr. Krupp, who was snoring quietly in the sun. He climbed up the side of the stagecoach and looked through the broken window at the human wreckage inside.
In a pile, there was a large man in a black suit, a hat with a fancy silver hatband, a carpet bag, a lady’s hatbox, a man with a preacher’s collar, a young woman in a fine pink dress, a tattered Bible, and a deck of cards scattered around the compartment.
The man in the fine black suit moaned. Virgil guessed it was because the other two passengers were sitting on him. He said, “Mister, you okay?”
The question was answered with a louder groan. The woman came to her senses, swiveled her head around and tried to make sense of her predicament. Virgil asked, “Ma'am, can you rise?”
The woman looked up at him and scowled in displeasure. But it was not meant for him. She removed one of the Preacher’s hands from her bosom and then slapped the unconscious man across the face saying, “No free rides! Not even for a man of the cloth!” Then she looked up at Virgil and asked, “Sir, can you extricate me?” As she shifted her weight in an attempt to rise something in the pile dug into the man in the suit, who groaned even louder. This in turn woke the freshly slapped preacher who exclaimed, “Has the Lord God Almighty seen fit to deliver us from the savages?”
“Aw Christ, give it a rest,” said the man in the suit. “And would somebody get their elbow out my balls!”
“Hang on,” said Virgil.
He dropped down, cut some of the reins from the shattered team, and collected his horse. He looped one end of the severed reins around his saddle horn and then rode alongside the stage. He tied a loop in the far end and dropped it into the broken window. Then he pounded on the side calling out to the survivors within, “One at a time.”
The first one he extracted from the stagecoach was the lady... if she could be called that. She had dark hair and green eyes. As she emerged from the wreckage she revealed herself to be an expensive beauty. Virgil helped her down, trying not to look at her cleavage so he would not feel the guilt of it when he thought of his wife.
Next came the preacher, who cried out overmuch for deliverance and fell to his knees in loud and effusive prayer. The last man, in his dark suit, replaced the hat with the silver hatband on his head, held his handkerchief to his broken nose, and leapt down with surprising agility for a man of his size.
Dr. Krupp recovered consciousness and took another swig from the flask. He offered it to the Preacher, saying, “A most remarkable tonic for the nerves and spleen. It will settle you right down after an ordeal.”
The preacher broke into a hymn, and the man with the silver hatband shook his head and looked to Virgil. “Nevermind God,” he said, “Thank you, sir. We’re lucky you came along.” Virgil tipped his hat and looked back to the road. Still nothing.
Virgil felt exposed, but they only had the one horse, so the group wasn't going anywhere very fast. As he listened to their chatter he began to think that *having* rescued them would be more difficult than just rescuing them.
The lady picked her way through the luggage that was scattered behind the wreck of the stagecoach. The Preacher continued, hammer and tongs, praying “And for your deliverance, oh Lord, in your benevolence you sent a mighty champion, who slew the Philistines!”
Dr. Krupp barked,” you blathering charlatan! Those weren’t philistines, those were savages. Fearsome Indians!”
There was a clatter of hooves and Virgil looked up and saw Miguel, riding the left horse of the fresh team. Miguel looked at the dead horses and the dazed passengers and he said, “Verga.” He looked to Virgil and asked, “Señor, did you kill all of the Indians?”
Virgil said, “I got two of ‘em. The third one got tangled in the horses when it went over. But they’re not Indians. They just look like Indians. Maybe that one’s purebred, but they’re all border trash. Rustlers more than Indians.”
“How can you be so certain, sir?” asked the man in the dark suit.
Virgil shrugged, “Look at them. That one is a straight cowboy. And there’s not so many Indians left. These as call themselves Mescaleros, but they’re not much more than desperate men coming from across the border to raid and fall back. Besides, Apaches steal horses, children, women. They aim to take scalps, count coup. They don’t just steal money. They don’t have much use for it.”
“What’s your name, sir? How do you have a knowledge of the savage tribes hereabouts?”
“My name ain’t important, we need to get you people off this road.”
Dr. Krupp staggered over and said, “Mr. Miller, as a token of my gratitude, allow me to present you with a bottle Doctor Amadeus Bartoleermeer the 2nd’s All-Purpose Miracle Cure. The 9th Wonder of the medieval world — thought to be lost to the ages — known to the Greeks as Panacea and among the ancient Pharaohs as…”
Virgil look at the bottle from the man’s outstretched hand and asked, “you a real Doctor… Bartoleermeer?”
The expensive lady snapped, saying, “No, he’s just a salesman.”
“A Doctor of Philosophy. And a customer, a patient first and foremost! Let me tell you of my treatment and my miraculous results with this marvelous elixir.”
Miguel climbed up and checked the strongbox that was still chained to the top of the stagecoach. Then he inspected the wheels and the axles and found that all of them were unbroken. He said, “I’d call it a miracle except for the two men who were killed. By rights, all the passengers should be dead and this coach should be kindling.”
“And the horses,” Virgil said.
“And the horses,” allowed Miguel. “Give me a hand and we’ll put this rig to rights.” Then he cut the tangle of harness holding the dead team to the stage. With Virgil’s help he backed the fresh team around and made it fast to the top of the wagon axles. Then Miguel stood beside the team with the reins and snapped them over the horses with a whistle and a click.
As the team pulled, Miguel set his boot heels in the dirt and gave drag on the reins so the horses would not lunge forward, snapping the tackle. The load came on little by little. The ropes creaked, and the stagecoach groaned, but it came up on two wheels. It tipped past its center of gravity and crashed back onto all four wheels. Though it rocked back and forth violently, the battered coach held together.
After they had hitched the new team and salvaged what they could of the baggage Virgil quietly asked Miguel, “Leave me out of tellin’, if you would.”
Miguel was confused “But you are a hero, and the passengers - they will talk no matter what I say!”
Virgil shook his head. “They didn’t see anything. When they tell it, it'll the both of us. When you’re asked, just say I rode with you. I was first to the wreck. Lotta confusion, can’t be sure who did what.”
Miguel shook his head. “I don’t understand, but I will do as you ask.” They shook hands and Miguel drove the stage on to Grantham. When the stage was over the hill, Virgil looted the bodies for cartridges. He refilled the empty spaces in his bullet loops and filled another belt besides. Only then did he ride back to collect his wagon, and head on to tend to his business with the flour merchant in Bisbee.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit patrickemclean.substack.com - Show more
