The Curse of Jacob Tracy: A Novel

by Holly Messinger

  “No. What was that you were saying about how to kill them?”

  Trace glanced from Boz’s accusing look to Ferris’s encouraging one, and swiped a hand down his chin. “Fire kills them—we know that. Sunlight … I think Ferris the Fire-Master is right about that, but it doesn’t do us any good. Pure metals, like silver and gold, maybe—”

  “Lead’s as pure as it gets,” the conductor said, “and it only slows them down.”

  “Don’t have any silver or gold, anyway,” Charles said.

  “Shut up, let him think,” Boz muttered.

  Trace ground his teeth: he’d looked at those notes often enough, he could see Miss Fairweather’s spidery writing in his mind’s eye, but not clear enough to recall the last item in the list. He scratched the back of his head and winced as his fingers raked over the goose-egg throbbing there. Whatever the word was, it made him think of food, of steak and potatoes—

  Yum! said a voice.

  Trace glanced warily at the waiting faces; he was pretty sure he’d heard that voice with his mind, not his ears. He felt the slight shiver of power along his arms and neck, but he couldn’t fix on it coming from a particular point.

  Yum! the voice said again, more insistently. Yem!

  “Yim?” Trace repeated.

  “What?” Boz said.

  “Did somebody say yum? or yim?”

  They all looked at each other, an exchange of glances Trace had seen many times, usually before somebody asked if he’d had too much sun, or too much whiskey. He turned, slowly, sweeping his gaze over the people huddled in the cattle-car.

  The Chinaman’s ghost stood in the corner, erect and still, while the emigrants around him cowered and wailed. His dark robe blended into the shadows, and when Trace looked directly at him he faded further, until only his face and his pointing hand showed pale in the flickering light.

  Yim! said the dead Chinese, pointing under the feed trough. He raised his empty gaze to meet Trace’s, and raised his pointing finger to his own throat. Keung-si, he said, and made an unmistakable slashing gesture.

  Understanding rushed in on Trace, like a flash flood in a canyon. He dove for the space under the trough.

  It was down there, a whole block of salt-lick for the steers. Trace hugged it to his chest with one arm and crawled out backwards. “Salt!” he crowed. “Salt! That was it!”

  “Of course!” Ferris said. “Salt has powerful protective properties.”

  “Salt?” Charles repeated. “What, are you gonna pickle ’em?”

  “I can’t believe this,” the conductor grumbled.

  Trace gestured to Boz. “Gimme that ax.”

  Boz passed it over and Trace rose on his knees in the middle of the floor, lifted the ax handle up in two hands to bring the flat top of its head down square on the salt-lick.

  But he checked it. His knees felt warm where they touched the floorboards. He bent over and put one palm flat against the floor. Not merely warm—hot enough he had to pull away after two breaths. The quality of the smoke in the air they were breathing had changed, too.

  He looked at Miss Eliza, who was barefoot. “Your feet feel warm?”

  “No,” she said, and came closer to where he knelt, then quickly backed up. “Oh! It is there.”

  Trace beckoned to Charles. “Bring that torch over here.”

  There was smoke coming up through a knothole in the tightly-laid floorboards. He bent low, and got a whiff of hot metal, like a branding iron. “What did you say was under here?”

  The conductor’s face went slack, with terrible understanding. “The wheel journals,” he said hollowly. “We’ve got us a hot box.”

  “I think they made us a hot box,” Trace said.

  “Ah yes! Lubricating grease burns quite well,” Ferris said brightly. “They had only to light the animal fodder and let it spread.”

  “But they burn up if they touch fire,” Charles protested.

  “So do we, my friend,” Ferris said, “but we still handle it every day.”

  “Maybe you do,” Boz snapped. “These things are too damn smart to be animals.”

  “On the contrary, monkeys are quite clever,” Ferris said. “They’ve been known to—”

  “Will you shut up!” the conductor shouted. “There’s a damn fire underneath us and this whole car’s gonna go up in about five minutes!”

  That, of course, started another panic. A number of people rushed for the door, but Boz and the conductor got in front of them, Boz with both guns out. Miss Eliza tried to calm them, her hands and voice soothing, pressing people back toward the edges of the car. Brother Clark called out for an angel with a fiery sword.

  Trace got a leg up on one of the water troughs and stood, balancing against the wall to look out through the slats. Down the slope about five yards from the tracks, a half dozen of the black shapes crouched in a line, watching the car, firelight reflecting in their eyes. Smoke wafted up past the ventilation slats.

  Trace hopped to the floor and caught up the ax handle in one hand. “Boz!”

  “What?” Boz’s eyes and guns were still on the passengers, but some of them had backed down, and Trace’s words caught their desperate attention.

  “Sponge this water out of here,” Trace said, splashing his hand across the surface of the trough and trying to meet as many eyes as possible. “Soak the floorboards with it, where Mr. Railroad Conductor tells you to. Buy us some time.”

  “Sure will, boss,” Boz said, but it was the passengers who surged toward the trough, taking off shawls and shirts to soak up the water. Charles and Ferris moved to help.

  Trace caught Miss Eliza’s elbow, drew her toward the back of the car where Brother Clark was standing and shouting before his glassy-eyed audience.

  “Remember the prophet Elisha?” Trace said, kicking the block of salt before them. “How he cleansed the poisoned waters?”

  She looked blank for a moment, then her eyes widened. “The salt?”

  “Yes. It’s one of the guards against evil I studied at seminary. Blessed Salt. Same use as Holy Water, more or less.”

  “Holy wa—” She blinked. “You’re a papist? A priest?”

  “Papist, yes. Never got as far as a priest. I know the words to say but we’ll need Brother Clark to say them. You think his faith is true?”

  “He’s a believer, true enough,” she said, her lips pinched. “But I don’t think he’ll agree to this, Jacob.”

  “Make him,” Trace said, and put his hand on Brother Clark’s shoulder. “Pastor, I think I’m ready to hear the error of my ways, now.”

  Brother Clark flung him off with a snarl. “Blasphemer! You brought this pestilence upon us!”

  “I did not bring it,” Trace said. “I came here to fight it, but I need a holy man.”

  “You know nothing of sanctity! You speak with a false tongue, and you bring judgment upon all of us!”

  “You’re right,” Trace said. “I know I’m cursed. I’ve been this way for a long time, but I keep tryin, brother, and I need somebody to show me the right way.” He got down on one knee, laid one hand on the block of salt. “I just need your help with this one thing. Just ask a blessing on this salt-lick and—”

  Brother Clark sucked his breath in as if the suggestion were obscene. He whipped his right hand across Trace’s cheek. “Blasphemer! Papist! I will not be led astray by your falsehoods! This is the hour we must stay true, and walk willingly into the fiery furnace! Those of the true faith will be saved!”

  Trace’s jaw had already taken some bad blows that night, and the slap was enough to make his eyes water. He clasped a hand to his chin, amazed that anyone could be that arrogant.

  Brother Clark gave him a most un-Christlike look of triumph, and raised his hands. “Brethren! Though we are tested as Job, we must be ready as Job was, to go into that land of darkness, the place from which we shall not return, a land as dark as the shadow of death, where even the light is like dark—”

  Trace swung and clip
ped him under the ear. His audience gasped. Brother Clark’s head snapped back and he went down like a sack of potatoes, quiet at last.

  “I always hated that passage,” Trace said, flexing his hand.

  “I’ve never been fond of it either,” Miss Eliza said.

  And that was a damn fool thing to do, Trace thought, looking down at Clark’s slack mouth. He glanced at the huddled, shuddering congregation. “Anyone else here right with the Lord?”

  They just stared at him—eyes wide and faces bland with terror. Like sheep, he thought with a contempt that shocked him, because he’d always resented that derogatory description of the faithful. But it certainly fit here—these folks sitting and waiting to die instead of—what was it Miss Fairweather had said? Rather than accepting the truth, and learning to fight?

  “Jacob.” Miss Eliza put her hand on his arm. “You do it.”

  “Ma’am, I can’t,” he said. “I was never ordained. It has to be a priest.”

  “Elisha was not a priest,” she countered. “He was a prophet. And I know for a fact that you received a vision from God when Martin told you where we were going. I suspect your whole reason for following us here was to protect us from this evil.”

  Trace looked at her in surprise, but she only nodded, calm and sure. “My father used to say that the reluctant prophets were the only ones we could trust.” She smiled her serene Madonna smile. “I trust you.”

  The hiss of steam caught his attention; Boz and Ferris had resorted to scooping water from the troughs with a feed bucket and flinging it on the floor. The wood was hot enough that the water just sizzled when it hit. The last few children were whimpering and trying to back away from the spot, but they were already crowded into the corner as hard as they could get. The air was beginning to get quite warm.

  “Trace!” Boz hollered. “Whatever you’re doin over there, you better do it fast!”

  What the hell, Trace thought recklessly. Miss Fairweather had been right about the exorcism rite; maybe raw ability would serve him here, too. Or maybe God gave dispensation to folks who saddled up in a crisis.

  He closed a fist around his crucifix and pulled it off over his head, kissed it, and crossed himself. He dropped to one knee and put his hand on the block of salt.

  The words came to mind with frightening ease, bringing with them the smells of incense, and old wood, and musty vestments. He shut his eyes, sucked into a memory so sweet and strong it blotted out the darkness around him—the younger boys whispering and fidgeting during Mass, the singing at Vespers, the simple feeling of being good that he had hugged to himself in those days.

  “Almighty Lord, I beg you to bless this salt,” he said, “as You blessed the salt scattered over the water by the prophet Elisha. Wherever this salt is sprinkled, drive from us all unclean spirits, all satanic powers, all infernal invaders, all wicked legions, assemblies and sects—” Except the Baptists, we need them, his mind added irreverently, and he nearly upset it all by laughing. That sense of exhilaration was building in him again, that sense of being exactly where he should be, doing what he was meant to do—of being heard. He made the Cross again. “In the Name and by the power of Our Lord Jesus Christ, drive away the power of evil, and protect us always by the presence of your Holy Spirit. In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Amen.”

  “Amen,” said a chorus of voices, and he opened his eyes to see that a dozen of the passengers had joined him and Miss Eliza on their knees.

  He saw something else, too. The block of salt was glowing white, faint but distinct in the smoky gloom. He lifted his hand from it with a quick startled inhalation, and a few grains clung to his fingers, like the luminescence of a firefly.

  “It worked,” he said stupidly.

  “It did?” Miss Eliza said.

  “Can’t you see that?” he asked, but he could see she didn’t. “Never mind. Step back.”

  He raised the ax like a tamping pole and smashed it down on the block. A big chunk split off and he hit it again, in short hard blows to break it up as much as possible. The glow never faded, but spread out across the floor wherever the salt touched. Trace bore down on the chunks with the flat of the ax blade until they subsided into powder.

  Suddenly there was a fresh yelp and scurry around the edges of the car. Trace looked over his shoulder to see flames licking up through the floor, in a bull’s-eye of rapidly spreading black.

  “Trace!” Boz hollered again.

  “I’m comin!” he said. “Everybody get over here and pick up some salt! Smash it up, grind it down so you can sprinkle it.” Everyone’s hands scrabbled for pieces of salt-lick. Trace scooped a handful of grains into his own pocket and hefted up the ax, moved toward the car door where Boz and the conductor were gathered.

  “You really think that salt-lick’s gonna hold them off?” the conductor demanded.

  “We don’t have a choice!” Trace shouted. “We can’t stay in here. Try to corral them together, get them off in a body. I’ll clear the way for you as much as I can.”

  “Excellent idea, my godly friend!” Ferris appeared at his elbow, saluted him with his booze flask. “I’ll be right behind you!”

  Trace glanced at Boz, who was showing some serious strain—his expression was determined, but his eyes were worried and Trace realized it was because Boz—for the first time in five years—didn’t believe in him. “It’s gonna be all right, Boz,” he said. “Stay close to Miss Eliza.”

  He gave the door a yank.

  It slid halfway and stopped, its track blocked by the dead steer hanging from the ceiling. But that was all right, as Trace had time to realize: the narrow opening meant only two of the beasts could attack at once.

  And they did. Ferris spat fire at the one on the left. Trace swung his ax straight up and clove into the other’s ribs. His wild swing threw it against the doorframe over his head; it collided and bounced back down, squalling and flailing. Trace shook it off and jumped out after it.

  He landed solid and plunged his hand into his vest pocket, swept out his arm in a fanning gesture like sowing wheat. Glowing grains of salt arced out from his throw, and the five keung-si who had been converging on him suddenly leapt backwards, one of them falling right down and rolling over. It got up again, shaking its head, shrieking rage at him.

  “Come on,” Trace said, brandishing the ax. “Come on, you whore.”

  It pushed off on its knuckles and flew at him. He quick-drew the Colt and shot it out of the air, then buried the ax in its head before it could get up again. He wheeled at the sense of something behind him, but it was Ferris, who blew fire at the next one, missing but driving it away. Trace scattered another handful of salt and the creatures hissed and fell back further; he glanced over his shoulder and saw Boz and the conductor leap down from the car. Charles and Miss Eliza followed, and people were handing out the children, but Trace had no more time to look because they were circling him again. He and Ferris stayed back to back, while the beasts feinted and grabbed, shying back from the ever-widening lines he drew in salt.

  There was a shout and a gunshot blast, and Boz hollering orders, and the crying of children, and Miss Eliza’s voice rising calm over all. Trace saw their white nightshirts spreading at the edges of his vision, glimpsed Boz on his left and was glad, as they pushed their perimeter out further from the burning stock car.

  It was almost light as day, now, and the heat was getting intense, as the treated lumber of the car began to flame in earnest. He spared a glance backward; two men were letting down the limp body of Brother Clark. All the passengers were out on the dicey shale slope, flinging salt around them as Miss Eliza directed, until they were all ringed in a shining white barrier, like a fence made of moonlight.

  “It’s workin,” Boz said, relief in his voice.

  “Yeah,” Trace said, and laughed. The beast nearest him snarled at his mirth and Trace bared his teeth at it. “You like that? Huh? You want some of this?” He whipped out his Colt and shot it in its snar
ling face. It bowled over backwards and Trace leapt after it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “I count fourteen,” Charles said, flinging the last head into the smoldering remains of the stock car.

  “Me too,” Boz agreed. “Not countin the three or four piles of ash, can’t tell what they were.”

  “I can account for five piles of ash, personally,” Ferris said.

  “That makes twenty even,” Trace said, kicking the canvas-wrapped bundle at his feet. He yawned and cocked his right arm back behind his head to stretch the shoulder. He was going to be damn sore in those muscles for the next few days, although at the moment all he felt was limp and weary in a glad-to-be-alive way. The sun was coming over the rise, sending golden fingers of light over the ground and the sleeping pile of emigrants—those that could sleep, anyway. Some of them had just plain lapsed into senselessness.

  Trace sobered, looking over at them, their clothes smeared with soot and blood. He saw the conductor looking, too. The man’s gaze traveled from the little knot of survivors, over the butchered cattle, across the train standing like a gutted monument to the massacre. The conductor rubbed a hand across his face, paying extra attention to his eyes. He wiped away clean streaks on his cheeks.

  Boz put a hand on his shoulder. “You did your duty, mister. You stayed with the train.”

  “Thank you,” the conductor said in a shaky voice. He blinked several times, jabbed at his nose with a middle finger to push up spectacles that weren’t there. He wiped his hand on his pants and offered it to Boz. “Thank you, Mr.—?”

  “Bosley. John Bosley.”

  “Pleasure to meet you,” the conductor said.

  Trace felt a touch on his hand and looked down to see Miss Eliza smiling at him. She looked remarkably pretty and fresh, with a dressing-gown thrown over her soiled nightdress, and her dark hair hanging loose in the wind.

  “Brother Clark is awake,” she said, the corners of her lips twitching. “He doesn’t seem to remember how he fell senseless. He thinks perhaps he breathed too much smoke.”

  “Funny, I would have said he was blowin it,” Trace said, and they chuckled together, until her eyes suddenly brightened with tears. She put her fingers to her lips and looked away.