Dust

by Chris Miller

  The bartender just stared at him, confusion and a hint of angry fear painting his face as the color returned.

  “Let’s start with something easy,” James said. “What’s your name, boy?”

  The barkeep’s face darkened at the insult, obviously not fond of being referred to as ‘boy’. Still, he held his tongue and only answered the question.

  “My name’s Marcus.”

  “Marcus!” James said and slapped the bar with a laugh. “That’s good, that’s good. Well, Marcus, I’m Mr. James Dee. I ain’t from around here. Well, that’s not exactly true, but it ain’t exactly a lie, neither. But that’s a long story. We’ll save that one for another time. I’m looking for someone. A couple of someones, actually, but we’ll start with the lady.”

  Marcus continued to stare at him warily.

  “Lady’s name is Miss Agatha Dupree. I hear tell she’s from Winnsborough, though I can’t rightly say just where in Winnsborough. I have urgent business with her, and she’ll want to see me. Do you know Miss Dupree?”

  Marcus’s eyes narrowed to slits as he finished massaging his wrist and let it fall to his side.

  “What kind of business?” he asked suspiciously. “You looking to hurt little old ladies?”

  James laughed out loud and took another gulp of the piss. He smacked a sigh that wasn’t quite satisfaction as he replaced the mug on the bar.

  “Marcus, my boy,” James said, still laughing and wiping foam from his lips. “Do I strike you as the type of man who goes around hurting little old gray hairs? Honestly, I’m offended!”

  James put on a phony wounded look for a moment before resuming his laughter.

  “I just ain’t in the business of giving out folk’s whereabouts to strangers, is all. Forgive me, mister, but I don’t know you from Adam and we ain’t exactly got off on the best foot here.”

  James’s laughter died all at once and his face grew hard.

  “I believe that was due to your rude behavior to a weary stranger coming in off the trail merely looking to quench his thirst.”

  Marcus looked down at the bar again and sighed, embarrassed.

  “Now,” James said, softening his face and his tone, “if you’ll be so kind, where can I find Miss Dupree? Rest assured I mean her no harm at all.”

  Looks from the old-timers and the whore down the bar drew Marcus’s attention for a moment, but he eventually looked back to James and nodded.

  “Alright,” he said. “You head east out of town. ‘Bout a quarter of a mile past the town limits you’ll see a cottage on your left, has a big ol’ shed to the side of it. Big Oak out front. They’s a rope swing hanging from it, but she ain’t had kids in the house in ages. That’s her place. But if she asks, I’ll tell her I ain’t said nothing, you hear me?”

  Marcus was pointing at James now. James nodded reassuringly.

  “Your name won’t pass my lips, Marcus, I can assure you.”

  Marcus seemed satisfied with this and nodded, lowering his finger. He started to move back down the bar when James stopped him.

  “There’s still the matter of the other someone I’m looking for.”

  Marcus froze, then turned back to him.

  “A man,” James went on when he had Marcus’s attention again. “Goes by the name of Dreary. Gear Dreary. Not sure if that’s his given name or not, but it’s all you hear on the trail. Gentleman type, tends to wear a bowtie and one of those bowler’s hats. Big beard and—”

  “You don’t want nothing to do with him, mister,” Marcus said, cutting James off.

  James looked perplexed. “Now why would you say such a thing?”

  “Marcus is right,” the whore at the end of the bar said, stepping around the two old-timers. “Son of a bitch come in here, oh, I’d say a week ago now. Looking for that same lady you is.”

  “Is that right?” James said, turning to face her, leaning against the bar with his beer in hand. “What business did he have with Miss Dupree?”

  “Far as any of us know, same as you,” she said as she perched herself a couple feet from him on the bar. “Wouldn’t say. Said they had business to discuss. Man gave me the willies, though, I can tell you that. Looked all up and down me while he’s in here, then I offer to let him have a poke and he turns me down! Can you believe that?”

  James laughed as he finished his beer and set the glass on the bar.

  “Ma’am, I cannot imagine what would possess a man to turn down a poke with such a fine specimen as you.”

  He smiled broadly as she rolled her eyes and blushed.

  “Oh, don’t be an asshole,” she said. “I know I ain’t the cat’s meow, but this bitch can make you purr. When you close your eyes, a wet snatch is a wet snatch. Most men, that’s all they care about. But not this fella, Dreary. You know what he said to me?”

  James shook his head. “No, ma’am, I sure do not.”

  She leaned in close and he could smell sour beer on her breath under a far too thick musk of perfume and sex.

  “He says, ‘Madam, your offer—while appreciated—is tantamount to an investment in molten lava. It will surely melt one’s genitalia to a smooth stump, but then its fire will soon be snuffed and all one is left with is useless stone’. Can you believe that shit?”

  James was stifling a laugh. “That’s a new one on me, miss.”

  He turned, threw another nickel at Marcus, who caught it in midair. He then tipped his hat to the patrons, even the pianist still chiming away in the back.

  “I appreciate the information and conversation, folks. I best be on my way.”

  He turned to leave and felt a hand on his arm. He turned to see the whore, pulling gently on his forearm. She was pressing her breasts together with her arms to the point they nearly toppled out of the dress and the brown of her nipples showed plainly.

  “What’s the rush, honey?” she asked, fluttering her eyelids at him. “Got time for me to make your day?”

  James smiled widely and put his hand over hers as he leaned in close to her face. She began to turn her face up to his, as though he were going to kiss her.

  Then he stopped, only an inch from her face.

  “Madam, I prefer to dip my wick in clean wax.”

  He pulled her hand off his arm, turned, and walked out without another word. As the batwing doors swung in and out and he mounted his steed, he could hear her yelling from within the tavern.

  “You teasing son of a bitch!”

  He whistled to his horse as he tipped his hat once more to the tavern’s entrance and rode east out of town.

  3

  He found Agatha Dupree’s cottage just where the barkeep had said it would be. It stood off the trail a fair distance, plumes of smoke billowing from its chimney, the flaking white paint on the siding adding a charming layer of patina to the home. A large covered porch sat welcomingly in the front of the place, and a network of iron ore stones traced a path through the dooryard to a post where James tied the reins to keep his steed in place.

  An old woman sat on a wooden rocking chair on the porch, gliding to and fro lazily as the old thing creaked over the slats of the porch. James smiled charmingly at her as he traversed the iron ore path to the front, tipping his hat to her as he approached. Her face was set, but not hard, a curious expression etching her features. Beside her sat a glass with a what could have been lemonade or irony water from the well out back. He didn’t know which.

  “Ma’am,” he said as he came to the stoop and rested one foot on the first step. “Lovely afternoon we’re having.”

  The woman’s lazy rocking never ceased as her eyes—and only her eyes—scanned him over appraisingly.

  “I’m having a fine afternoon,” she said in the unhurried drawl of East Texas, an accent James found nostalgic. “But I don’t know who the hell we are.”

  The rocking persisted and silence fell between them. It was not an uncomfortable silence, but neither was it a comfortable one. James cleared his throat.

  “Ma�
�am, I must beg your pardon, I’ve forgotten my manners, I—”

  “Have to’ve had some to’ve forgotten them,” the woman answered curtly, one eyebrow raising ever so slightly.

  “I’m, uh, sorry, ma’am,” James went on, struggling to find the right words. “Been quite some time since I’ve had use for them, I’m afraid. But I do have some, I assure you.”

  The woman’s head joined her eyes as she made a second scan of him from head to foot and back again, resting on his eyes. Hers narrowed.

  “Why do you look familiar?” she asked, a note of pondering in her voice, as though she were trying to resurrect an ancient memory.

  James smiled. “I can’t rightly answer that ma’am, but let me start over here. My name is Mr. James Dee. I, uh . . . well, I’d say I ain’t from around here, but that’s not rightly true. Not entirely. But you see, there’s a man I’m looking for. But not just a man, you see, I’m looking for a town, as well. One I’ve been searching for these past seven years since I arrived in this place. I hear you might be—”

  “You’re looking for Dust and the gentleman outlaw Gear Dreary,” she said, matter of factly as though this were settled science.

  James was taken aback and his chin retracted. He had been told this woman was knowledgeable, but he hadn’t expected this. He didn’t know just what he had expected, but this wasn’t it.

  “Why, yes ma’am, as a matter of fact, I am. How did you . . . ?”

  “A man searching for a single town for seven years and not finding it is either an imbecile with a compass or he’s looking for Dust. No two ways about it. And a man looking for Dust on the heels of another man is looking for Gear Dreary.”

  James was astonished, and his hanging jaw proclaimed his awe.

  “He come through here a few days ago,” she went on, ignoring his surprise. “Same as you, looking for Dust. Mighty dandy fella, I’ll give him that, but it don’t hide what I can tell in a man right off. You see, I been blessed by God or maybe cursed by the Devil—haven’t decided which it is just yet—with the ability to know things about people just by laying eyes on them. And I’ve also been blessed—or cursed—with knowing how a body can find themselves in Dust, though there’s few who seek it with honorable intentions. Nothing there but evil, and I prefer it to stay there. If it were to get out, God help us all.”

  James leaned forward, his elbow propped on his knee, reeling in his jaw. He was fascinated by this mysterious woman, and he simply couldn’t contain his awe.

  “Ma’am, that is mighty inciteful,” he said, allowing the awe to transcend his voice. “How’d a lady such as yourself come to be here in Winnsborough?”

  She made a dismissive wave with her hand.

  “You ain’t here to write my biography, boy, you’re looking for an outlaw and a terrible place. Don’t go chasing rabbits that don’t got a damn thing to do with what matters.”

  James’s jaw clicked shut audibly and he did the thing with his chin once more as he felt his cheeks flush.

  She stopped rocking then and leaned forward in her chair, her hands on her knees. Her eyes, a brilliant blue he noticed for the first time, grew hard and bored into him. He could feel them digging beneath his flesh and he suddenly felt as though he were naked before her. His flush threatened to turn purple, but she leaned back and nodded once, then smiled for the first time. It wasn’t broad, but it was kind. Almost familiar.

  “You ain’t like him,” she said.

  James didn’t know what she was talking about for a moment, then it came to him.

  “Like Mr. Dreary, you mean?”

  “I do,” she said with a nod. “He come through here a few days ago, as I said. Looking for Dust just as you are. But I could see in that man something dark and fierce. That evil residing in Dust, he wants to harness it and use it for himself. But you, well . . . you seem to have a different purpose.”

  James just locked with her gaze and said nothing.

  “You were right when you said you ain’t from around here, but it’s more than that. A conundrum. It’s both the truth and lie, all at once. You are from around here, but you ain’t from around now.”

  James’s color vanished. It was as though the woman had looked directly into his brain—into his soul—and seen all his secrets laid bare. That was why he’d felt so naked before her. He had been naked before her.

  This woman is something else, he thought.

  “I knew you looked familiar,” she said as she stood from her rocking chair. “I’ll tell ya where to find Dust, mister, but not Mr. Dreary. Fact is, I can’t rightly say where he is. But it ain’t Dust.”

  “Have we met before, ma’am?”

  A thin, bullet-fast smile passed over her face and vanished.

  “No, but we will. We have.”

  James’s eyes narrowed for several moments, curious as to her meaning. This woman was full of mystery, but now was not the time to explore how they’d met. Or when.

  “You didn’t send him that way, I take it? Dust, I mean?” James said, prompting the woman on and dismissing his curiosity.

  “Christ on His throne, no!” she proclaimed, a hand covering her heart. “The very last thing this world needs is a man as black-hearted as Dreary finding Dust and harnessing what lurks there. I’m not sure you yourself are ready for what you might find, but there’s great power in you, mister. I can see that. You’ve seen many a thing in your travels, but what awaits you in Dust is something you’ve not encountered before.”

  “I have to get there, ma’am,” James said, placing his foot back on the ground and rising to his full height. “I’ve an understanding of what awaits me there, if limited. But no matter the cost, I have to find it and stop it. The future of mankind rests upon it.”

  She regarded him for a long moment, her head cocking to the side ever so slightly as she did.

  She nodded. “Yes, I suppose it does. You have a pure heart, Mr. James Dee. You were even a good man once, before your travels changed you.”

  An almost silent bark of laughter escaped him and he put his hands to his hips before he realized he’d done it. He quickly dropped them to his sides again.

  “Ma’am, I—”

  “Oh, don’t try and bullshit me, son,” she said, swatting the air. “You have a pure heart, but you’re not a good man. Not anymore. Maybe you will be again, but until your journeys are over, you can’t be. Good men aren’t capable of doing what your mission requires of you, but the pure heart . . . well, that’s necessary. And by the Christian God and all the lessers, I dare say you have one.”

  James took a step back and returned his hands to his hips. She was right. In all his years and travels through the unknown, the goodness had been stripped from him. Torn from him was actually a better assessment. It had been required so that he could do what had to be done. A good person wouldn’t shoot a man in cold blood to get the information he needed to go after the horrors of the universe. Only a hard and cold man would do that.

  Yes, the woman was right.

  “If I’ve offended you, I apologize,” she said. “You may live yet to redeem your soul, but you need to be hard for now. For the storm that’s coming. Dust is closed off for now, but it won’t last forever. The Others told me when I was still a girl one such as yourself would be coming along. One such as Dreary, too. I never figured it would take so goddamn long for y’all to arrive, but here you are. I sent Dreary on a goose hunt. But he’ll be back. You, on the other hand, need to get to Dust and do what needs doing before he returns and finds his way there. Do you understand me, Mr. James?”

  He looked up at her beneath the brim of his hat and nodded coldly.

  “Good,” she said. “Now listen up. I’m only going to say this once, and it’s closer to rocket science than you may think.”

  It took James a moment to realize what she’d said. He wasn’t confused by the terms—he’d heard them before—but he couldn’t believe the woman had used it. Not here.

  Not now.

&
nbsp; His face must have betrayed his shock because she smiled.

  “You ain’t the only who’s not from around . . . now.”

  James laughed and shook his head.

  “Lady, I’m listening.”

  4

  Gear Dreary pulled the telescopic lens from his eye and collapsed it down to the size of a large thimble before slipping it into the pocket of his vest. He struck a match and hovered it over his pipe for a moment and began puffing plumes of smoke. He waved the match to put it out, dropped it to the grass, and smashed it beneath his heel to be sure the embers were out.

  “Man’s headin’ out, Gear,” a burly man next to him announced, looking through his own collapsible telescopic lens. “Headin’ east.”

  “Indeed he is, Quentin,” Dreary said, a charming southern drawl on his tongue which hinted at education and etiquette. “I am presently observing such myself.”

  Quentin glanced back at him from his perch by a pine tree, confusion riddling his face.

  “W-wha—”

  “Never mind, Quentin,” Gear said as he pushed off his own pine which was across the trail and in the woods a spell from the lying old woman’s cottage. “We’ve business to attend to. You and Avery head on after our friend heading east, but don’t be seen. We want him to arrive at his destination. He’s going to lead us there, you see.”

  Quentin nodded as Avery, a wiry man in stained trousers and tunic, stepped to the horses behind them, and Quentin joined him.

  “Mr. Bonham,” Dreary said as he turned to his left, away from the other two, “you and I must visit the lady here. She’s caused me considerable frustration and cost me dear time. I do believe there’s some recompense due.”

  Bonham was a tall man, broad shouldered, a thick mustache perched upon his lip and week-old stubble littering the rest of his features. He smiled, though no teeth were visible behind the whiskered forest of his face.