“Aye. A few months now. We’re expecting our first child.”
“How wonderful for you,” Gabriela stated bluntly. To Emma, she suggested, “Why don’t you get out of the sun while you eat. I’ll stay by the Wheel.”
Emma swallowed thickly and stared down at her tamales as if she’d lost her appetite. “Sí, that is a good idea.” To Pierce, Emma said, “Adiós, Pierce.”
She quickly marched away, leaving him under Gabriela’s cheeky glare. Pierce acted with as much grace as he could, put his hat on, and tipped it to her. He left the square in search of a general store.
He found a clothing shop and dismounted his horse. Before going in, he spied a flyer advertising a dance occurring that night. He pulled the flyer down and went inside the store.
Pierce bought clothes for his entire family; sensible duds that would serve them better out in the harsh desert conditions. He got parasols and sun hats for his wife, mum, and Grandmother Fey. He bought tea for his mum, water canteens, a pair of tinted spectacles for himself, tobacco for Chief Victorio, and bars of soap.
When he left the store, he loaded the bagged items on his horse. Just before mounting up, he spotted a brightly painted wagon just down the road where a small crowd had gathered. A young, blond-haired feller, dressed in a red-and-black-checkered suit and a stovepipe hat, spoke Spanish to the people. In one hand, he held a bottle, and in the other, a bamboo cane.
Once again, curiosity drove Pierce to go over, leading his horse by the reins as he went. It was blatantly clear that the checkered gent was a traveling salesman. He stood on a soapbox in front of his one-horse buggy with a banner draped over the side that read: Magic Tonic Snake Oil! The text was also written in Spanish.
Snake oil? He wondered.
Keeping his grip on the reins, he moved to where he could get a closer look. Bottles sat atop of a large luggage trunk sitting on its end. Each bottle contained a different colored liquid. Pierce grabbed a bright blue one and studied it. As he did, the end of the bamboo cane tapped the bottle.
“¿Está usted interesado, amigo?” the young salesman asked.
“Eh?” Pierce said, confused.
The youth said in English, “American?”
“British,” he answered, holding up the bottle. “What is this stuff?”
“Why, it’s Snake Oil, mate!” he answered in a British accent Pierce had never heard before.
“I can bloody well read the sign, mate. I mean, what does this shite do?”
“It’s a remedy. That particular one you hold is for joint pain. The purples are for sore throats and colds, the yellows for headaches, and the green bottles are for fevers. The reds . . .” A mischievous grin creased his young face. “The reds help stimulate the old fella. I see by your wedding band that you’re a married bloke. Need a little extra kick to spice up the bedroom?”
Pierce snorted. “Don’t need any assistance in that area, chum. Why is it called snake oil? Is there snake venom in it?”
“Actually, yes.”
“What other ingredients are there?”
Pierce’s curious nature always prompted him to ask many questions, a habit that tended to annoy some folks.
“Well, mate, that depends on which of those you are referring to.”
“This one,” Pierce said, holding up the bottle again. “What’s in this one?”
“Cinquefoil,” the lad quickly answered. “The main ingredient is cinquefoil.”
“And the yellow?”
“Feverfew.”
The lad knew his herbs. Pierce wondered if he also had a wise woman for a grandmother. Clearly, this wasn’t the first time someone had asked the salesman this question. Still, from his own experience, Pierce knew a con artist when he saw one.
He smiled. “And the red? What herb ignites that certain extra kick?”
“Erm . . .” The bright-eyed youth glanced over at the throng that had thinned out while he’d been speaking to the gringo. He looked back to Pierce and retorted with a less than salesmen attitude, “Why should you care, handsome, eh? You already admitted you have no troubles in that department, right?”
To coin the phrase, Pierce like the cut of his jib.
After wearing out his welcome with the salesman who spoke in an odd accent, Pierce mounted up and left town.
Chapter Three
The Nomads
Guaymas City Bank was about to close for the day. Deposits from the local businesses had been made throughout the day, so the bank was bloated with loot.
Harvey Nickel stood in front of the butcher shop across the street from the bank. He was nearly drooling.
“The turnout for this year’s races is larger than the last one,” he commented to the gang while checking the bullets inside the chamber of his bayonet pistol.
“It most certainly is,” Nata, a young Cocopah Indian woman, agreed. “It’s good, because I do not believe we can take this bank again after today.”
Nata was a fashion elitist. She was stunningly dressed in a white, short-sleeved bodice blouse and an overbust with a connecting tail in the back that resembled a tailcoat. For practicality’s sake regarding the heist she wore pinstriped breeches, fitted to her shapely legs and knee-high boots. Her hair was pulled back and tied with a bow with a jewel clasp in it, a red velvet hat upon her head.
“Guaymas is a booming city with plenty of other banks, señorita,” Javier Saints remarked.
Javier was a foreigner from Spain. Like Nata, Javier wore fancy clothing, a sharp black suit. He enjoyed catching the eye of the ladies with his damn charming face. He stood the tallest among the gang and always smelled like fresh clean linen. Despite his grand looks, there was something not right about him. Harvey couldn’t figure out exactly what it was, but the Spaniard had a dangerous side—something foreboding.
And then there was Chibi. He had found each of them and brought them together a few years ago. None of them had ever seen Chibi’s face, for he always wore an ugly cowhide mask with large, tinted glass eyepieces and an elongated, narrow snout that had a breathing filter attached at the end. He sucked air in sharply through the filter before wheezing it out. He measured no more than three feet tall and wore a tattered coat tailored for a child, black leather kneepads, and dirty slacks with a broken suspender hanging down at his side. Chibi was a stocky fellow, although the oversized flintlock pistols holstered in his thick leather gun belt most likely outweighed him.
As for Harvey Nickel, he was a simple pioneer, born and bred in American’s wild western territory. He’d lived his entire life in the sun and desert, the complete opposite of the Emerald Isle his folks grew up in before they emigrated.
“Let’s go,” Chibi ordered, strutting off.
Because of the occasional dust storm, things such as masks, goggles, and bandanas were common. Mostly, though, Chibi’s size got people turning their heads.
“Yup,” Harvey declared to the rest. “Ya’ll heard the man.”
Javier put on a black metal mask with an air filter on both sides and tinted eyeglasses. Nata put on a stylish masquerade mask, while Harvey lifted his simple bandana over the lower half of his face.
The gang rushed across the road and caught up to Chibi just as he reached the bank entrance. They drew their guns and barged in.
Despite a bank teller being shot, the robbery took only minutes, and the thieves got away with hundreds.
The robbers burst out of the bank and hurried to the horses they had hitched at the building next door. The gang mounted up, Javier hoisted Chibi up onto his horse, and in seconds, they were away.
* * *
Once they had reached a hotel on the outskirts of the city, the gang divvied up their bounty.
“There’s enough here to carry us through many moons, eh, Nata?” Harvey quipped.
She did not look amused, especially when she noticed how he was staring at her breasts.
“What are you plannin’ on doing with your loot?” Harvey asked her.
The quest
ion raised her mood and the corners of her lips.
“I’m going to buy a new dress. The prettiest dress ever made!”
For an Injun, she sure had the needs and wants of any civilized lady.
“Can I watch you try it on?” he asked, offering her a ragged, lustful grin.
Nata crammed her share of the money into her velvet rucksack and snarled, “I much rather have Chibi watch.”
The sincerity in her tone hurt his pride.
“Until next year, gentlemen,” Nata said, heading out.
“Just you wait a minute,” Harvey seethed, rushing over and snatching her by the arm. “You don’t talk to me that way, you savage slut!”
Just as he finished speaking, she wedged the end of her gun barrel under his chin, nestling it deeply into his long, braided goatee. He had had guns aimed at him before and had even been shot, but never had a gun been pressed against him so violently. Sweat instantly developed on his skin.
“Release my arm,” she growled through clenched teeth, thumbing the hammer back, “or I’ll blow your head open.”
“Get your hand off her, Nickel,” ordered Javier. “I’ll not be sent to prison over the sound of that bullet passing through your empty skull.”
Harvey did not need to be told twice. He released her arm, and the instant he did so, Nata was out the door. Jagged laughter crackled through Chibi’s air filter as he slid his cut of the loot into his burlap bag. That did nothing to heal Harvey’s wounded pride.
“What the fuck are you chuckling about, dwarf?”
“I’m not a dwarf,” Chibi stated, shouldering his bag. He jumped off the chair he was standing on and waddled out.
“If you ain’t no dwarf, then what are ya? Why don’tcha take off that goddamn mask and show us what you are, eh?”
Chibi’s response was to give him the middle finger as he meandered out of the room. Harvey shook his head. “Little walking turd.” He turned to Javier. “What ’bout you? What are you gonna do?”
“I am finally able to buy a capacitor.”
“Capacitor? What in the world is that?”
The tall Spaniard tightened the straps of his rucksack and looked at him while putting on his tinted eyeglasses. “It helps bring life to the dead.”
His answer was as curious as it was eerie, and it was the sort of thing that gave Harvey the willies.
“I have a long journey ahead,” Javier concluded. “Adiós.”
Harvey moved aside as Javier walked by him and left.
“Well, damn,” he announced to the empty room. “I’m going out and getting drunk.”
* * *
The journey across the desert had been a lengthy one for the nomadic tribe. They had left Europe and crossed oceans until they landed in Laguna Madre. From there, the tribe had spent months traveling north over the hot, distant plains of Mexico.
The last time Gog’s feet had touched these lands, he was alone after fleeing from his responsibilities. He had grown tired of what storytellers and so-called Oracles said he would do, the battles he would wage, and his ultimate defeat in the course of them. He’d left it all behind and traveled, leaving more of his tales to be written by different writers. Gog had decided to craft his own version of his life. He wanted to live out his existence the way he saw fit instead of what those storytellers who were now century’s dead had predicted.
Now he and Magog wandered the globe with their nomadic tribe of Goth spirits, the last of that clan before the Moors wiped them out. Gog and Magog had led them through the galaxy, over many foreign planets and moons, and with no particular purpose other than moving. Only in the past hundred years had they returned to earth to explore what had changed during the centuries of their absence.
When they came on land, locals noticed them. The people—even the highly curious—somehow knew not to bother them. Soon, the tribe would be gone, leaving behind no footprints.
“You seem troubled,” Magog said to Gog after days of passing over the Sonora plains.
A hot desert breeze blew some of the ancient dirt and pebbles off Magog.
“Do I?” Gog responded somberly. “I suppose I am tired.”
“Shall we stop and make camp soon? We are closing in on the sea.”
“Yes. Though I fear it will do me little good. I am weary, old friend, but it is not due to the distances we have traveled.”
“Then what? Do you wish to cease our endless travels? Return to Jerusalem?”
Gog set his sights on Magog. His complexion was very pallid from the type of earth covering him. The same went for Magog’s matted hair. His blue eyes, however, shone through like flashes of lightning in the dead of night.
“Even if peace finds its way there—which it won’t—I shall never take up arms. I am not a puppet for the phony prophets. God can provoke me all he wishes, but I will not go to war.” Gog was silent a moment before he added, “I believe I am in need of something that will give me true meaning. I no longer wish to simply live. I long for a life.”
In the bemused eyes of his friend, Gog saw that Magog didn’t understand. In truth, Gog did not fully grasp the nature of his distress, either.
“We shall make camp when night falls,” Magog said at length.
And so, the tribe marched on.
Chapter Four
The Majestuoso Dance
Pierce returned to the village and handed out the clothing and other items to everyone except Taisia, who had taken a walk down by the river. He eventually found his wife in a little, secluded place beside the water under a straggly, twisted desert tree. She was reading one of the novels he had brought. For a moment, he just admired her.
Dots of sunlight shone through spaces between the branches. The drops of light touching her sienna skin made it glow. A gentle breeze rustled her curly hair, which had grown longer during their journey across the oceans. The strawberry blonde and cinnamon colors blended well. She also possessed more courage than anyone he had ever known.
Her face housed perfectly aligned features from chin to cheekbones. From her luscious mouth and shapely nose, to those bright cognac eyes, that enraptured him whenever he looked at her. She was so harmonious and picturesque in this natural setting that it sent a rush of giddiness through him. Taisia Landcross held so much wit and charm that she always found a way to fascinate him.
Despite the sun’s heat bearing down upon him, he wanted to stand there until she finished reading the entire bloody book.
She turned her head and smiled at him. “There you are. How was Guaymas?”
“Bustling,” he replied while approaching. “There are these races the day after tomorrow, if you want to go.”
She let out a sigh as he kneeled next to her. “I don’t think so. The heat is simply too much for me right now.”
“There’s also a soiree tonight,” he added, pulling out the flyer from his pocket.
Taisia read it.
“It’s been ages since we danced,” Pierce reminded her.
“The last time was when you proposed,” she recalled while rubbing her belly.
He grinned widely, for it was also the night they had conceived their child.
“I’m not sure about attending to that, either,” Taisia confessed grimly. “I feel so filthy.”
“Ah,” Pierce said, reaching into the bag. He fished out a bar of soap and held it up. “I brought us this, as well.”
Her expression was as gleeful as if he had presented her with a bar of gold.
“Want to get undressed with me?” he asked.
He hadn’t seen Taisia completely naked since their wedding night. Onboard the Ekta, there was very little privacy to do much of anything. Occasionally, Pierce and Taisia would climb up to the crow’s nest late at night and enjoy each other. Sometimes, they were able to sneak down into the storage hull, but, even then, they ran the risk of being caught.
Seeing her undress before him caused him to become lightheaded with delight. Pierce got half-undressed and gladly helped her ou
t of the rest of her garments. He kneeled to her and lovingly kissed her belly.
Taisia wept a little.
They slipped into the water and scrubbed each other clean. They made love in the sunlight. Afterward, they dressed in their new clothing. Pierce had bought her a simple traditional dress made of lighter fabric adorned in a colorful flower pattern. He had gotten himself a new vest, a white cotton shirt, and a pair of black vaquero britches with silver studs running up the legs. Taisia thought he looked very handsome.
* * *
The whole family had decided to attend the festival and left an hour before sunset. Before they mounted up, Nascha warned Taisia about riding too fast in her state. They rode slowly, not even taking the horses up into a trot. The family was simply happy to venture out. As rovers, the need to explore ran thick in their blood.
Night had come by the time they reached Guaymas, and the city was full of lights. Hundreds, if not thousands, of dazzling, festive lamps were strewn overhead, crisscrossing each other and powered by noisy generators. People were already out and about, drinking and singing songs, while parents were taking their children to a small carnival. Pierce led his family to the square and showed them the machines.
“Unbelievable,” Jasper said in awe as he gawked at Ame-No-Mi-Kumari, which was still levitating several feet off the ground.
“The dragon is most impressive,” Nona said. “Jasper, let’s see it up close.”
As they left, Grandmother Fey came alongside Pierce and Taisia. “I’m going for a stroll through the city. The fumes are making my head hurt.”
“Are the fumes bothering you?” Pierce asked Taisia.
“A little. Should we go to the dance?”
“Aye,” he said, offering his arm.
She wrapped her arms around his, and together, they headed out of the square when Emma suddenly approached.
“Hola, Pierce,” she greeted him happily.
Emma still wore the same outfit, but with a light jacket. Her small eyes captured the lights, making them twinkle.
Bounty Hunter Page 4
