The Black Blade: A Huckster Novel

by Jeff Chapman

  Whether insult or praise, everything out of Marzby’s mouth hissed like the snake talking at Eve.

  “I don’t know what you’re aimin’ at, but if you want me to find this knife, I need to skedaddle.” Framing my escape in terms of his cause seemed the best hope of success.

  Marzby perched on the edge of an oak desk. He drummed the long fingers of his left hand on his thigh and crossed his snakeskin boots. My stomach turned, imagining the length of his toes if they followed suit with his fingers.

  “You’re in need of a physician,” Marzby declared.

  “I made it this far. Any help I need can wait until Busted Axle.” I pushed on the armrests, raising my backside out of the chair. “Now if you don’t mind.”

  “Sit and be still.” Marzby stood.

  Quick as a cat, he pinned me to the chair. I fell back into the seat, my arms useless in his bear grip. I could have kicked him, but I didn’t need the setback of two crushed arms. His breath swirled across my face, heavy with pipe smoke and a hint of something rancid that I couldn’t place.

  “You’re breakin’ my wrists.” I gritted my teeth. “If you aim to kill me, why didn’t you get it over with before?”

  Marzby released me, standing tall again, while I alternately rubbed my arms.

  “That buffoon in Busted Axle couldn’t cure a man of thirst.” Marzby turned his back as he stepped behind his desk to a cabinet.

  “The buffoon? You mean Doc Logan?” Was Marzby mad because I insulted his professional reputation? I considered bolting. Might have been my only chance, but I held my ground, afraid of his magic and convinced he meant me no harm, for the moment. Obtaining this blade consumed his malice, focused his attention like a cougar stalking a deer. Question was what would he do with the knife and the rest of us once he had it?

  “He sells cures as efficacious as the whiskey-laced tonics your master peddles.” Metal clinked against metal as Marzby dropped instruments on a tray. “Remove your shirt. Unless you wish me to cut it off.”

  He placed the gleaming tray and his instruments, shining with eager cutting edges, on the desk. I gulped. Those sharp-edged scalpels, needle-like probes, and long-armed tweezers scared me more than Wilbur’s shotgun. They portended some long, sharp, twisting pain. Did mother earth feel the same when she saw someone with a spade?

  My arm tightened in agony as I twisted to pull it from my sleeve, and only by an act of will did I extract it. Blood had soaked through the fabric and run down my arm, leaving a red swath like a careless painter. I nodded at the scalpels, thankful he’d left the saws in the cabinet. “You ain’t cuttin’ off my arm, are you?”

  Marzby smirked. “I may need to open the wound if I’m to find the pellets. I don’t want you ailing from buckshot for your trip inside the hill.” He pressed my shoulder with his thumb, probing for the shot. I winced, clinching my lips and jaws tight. He stopped after a minute of torture.

  “What’s so special ’bout this blade?” I said through gritted teeth.

  “The errand boy doesn’t pester his master for the contents of a missive. Bite on this.” Marzby thrust a wad of gauze at me.

  So much for questions, but the fabric saved me from grinding my teeth to powder while Marzby probed. He squeezed my arm and lastly my forehead with a grip a boa constrictor would have envied. When he finished, there were six bloody lead pellets on the tray. I spat out the gauze into my hand.

  “Hold still,” said Marzby. “I want you healed for your journey.”

  I figured he was going to bandage the wounds, but Marzby had other plans. He placed two fingers where each pellet had entered. I winced. A feeling of hot knives poked me until he lifted his fingers, kind of like a foot or hand coming awake with pins and needles, but cutting a good kick deeper.

  When he’d finished, I studied my arm and touched my face. Bewilderment threatened to overwhelm my wits. Each site bore a tiny scar, the fruit of weeks of healing.

  “What have you done?”

  “Is it not obvious?”

  “I can see, but...?”

  “A simple healing charm.” Marzby sorted through the instruments on the tray, returning the ones he hadn’t used to the cabinet. “The strength of the wielder gives it power.”

  “Why didn’t you just take out the shot with a charm?” I figured the real reason was the joy he derived from digging around in flesh and inflicting pain, but it hurt nothing to ask. Ignorance ain’t a crime, my grandma said, but only fools perpetuate it.

  “Energy is constrained.”

  So he did have a limited supply. Always invigorating to have heard yourself proved right and another tool in the box. I buttoned up my shirt.

  “Why don’t you go get this blade yerself?”

  Marzby turned on me, his eyes burning a furious red. “You see these hands?” He wiggled his fingers. His words came in bursts like gusts of wind. “They cut both ways, healing and killing. With these hands I can set the world to rights. Dispense with the weak, heal the strong. Disease is nature’s broom. With these hands, I’ll direct the broom to our advantage. But I need more power. Do you understand now?”

  I understood that Marzby’s head was adled. Seemed he wanted to deal out death and life as he saw fit. “But what you need me and Wilbur fer?”

  Marzby studied me, and his roving gaze felt about as pleasant as a slimy slug oozing up your arm. “Does the owner of a stable muck out the stalls?”

  “I once worked for a man who did just that. He’d take the pitchfork right outa my hands and send me off to take a rest, though I believe he was just hopin’ to escape his wife’s temper. When she was on the warpath—”

  “Silence! A servant does as told. A tool performs until no longer needed.” Marzby gathered up the bloody pellets with a sweep of his hand and clenched his fist. Steam shot out between his fingers. When he opened his fist, a glob of lead dinged against the metal tray. “Tools can take on a new purpose. Remember that.”

  I gulped. Would Marzby have a new use for me?

  He touched my shirt pocket, pressing the clay tile against my chest. “Don’t lose it. Now don’t you have somewhere to go? Time is wasting.”

  So the tile was from Marzby, but for what purpose? I should have questioned him about it, but any moment with Marzby was one too many. “I can skedaddle?”

  Marzby nodded. “One warning. When the guardian asks you questions, think carefully, for your sake and that of your friend.”

  “Guardian?”

  “Did you think a treasure worth my seeking would be left for the taking? Without a watchman?”

  I shrugged. Never thought of a stone blade as so valuable. All the more reason not to let someone the likes of Marzby have it.

  I leapt out of the chair and dashed for the door in a snap. Outside, I made for the livery, feeling like a new man, all my aches gone. If Marzby healed only a few—especially the prominent folks—he’d have their loyalty, a better racket than threats any day. Marzby had things figured out as tight as a noose around a hanged man, which meant I was going to have to search a whole heap harder for the weakness in Marzby’s knots to save Orville and Nellie.

  I hired a saddle for our Percheron Maggie. She wouldn’t get me to Busted Axle as fast as a quarter horse, but sure and steady suited me fine at the moment. I had a lot of serious thinking to do. I stopped at our wagon at the fair to fill the saddlebags with beans. I didn’t find the bag of coins that Marzby gave Orville, so the few dollars of my own would have to suffice. Orville was very clever about hiding money. I strapped my hunting knife to my belt and swore I would never again go anywhere without it.

  There were two trails from Misery Creek to Busted Axle. The shorter followed a stream and became a muddy mire when it rained. The other cut between a stretch of wooded hills and outcrops and connected with a spur to the sawmill town of Dead Willow. If I were Wilbur, I would wager on me taking the shorter path.

  Maggie resisted, but after a few sharp tugs on the reins, I got her moving down the longer trai
l. I should’ve heeded her hesitation. Some folks have horses smarter than they are, my grandma often said. Wilbur wasn’t the only gun-toting loco haunting the roads.

  Chapter Eight

  “Alto! Alto, you stinkin’ gringo.” The tinny voice came from ahead of me.

  Maggie and I ambled around a bend in the trail when a scrawny palomino stepped out from behind a boulder. The path narrowed to the breadth of two horses between the bolder and a sharp-edged outcrop before widening. Behind me, steep hillsides bristling with gnarled pines and cedars hemmed in the path. A better place for an ambush would have been hard to find. The man astride the horse wore a stain-splotched sombrero and red-checked shirt. A tawny bandanna covered his nose and mouth, and a single black brow as bushy as a raccoon’s tail arched above his dark eyes. But his horse and costume wasn’t what held my attention. It was the long-barreled Colt .45 he leveled at me.

  Maggie stopped and shook her head. The palomino snorted. The bandit had chosen his spot well. By the time I could turn Maggie round to make a run for it, the bandit would weigh me down with lead, and running into a gun barrel was never advisable.

  “Dees road ees de property of Pancho Cucaracha. You pass? You pay heem mucho dinero.” Pancho the bandit shook his gun at me, as if I hadn’t noticed it yet. I wasn’t too familiar with the Mexican speak, not having travelled south of the border, but a feller who listened could pick up a bit here and there from ranch hands, and I was willing to bet my boots that cucaracha meant cockroach. I figured I didn’t understand him rightly through the bandanna.

  “Dinero. You pay. Pronto!”

  Pancho’s horse bucked, ready to bolt at the command, forcing Pancho to jerk back hard on the reins to hold the horse steady. Pronto, that word might come in handy I thought.

  I only had a few silver dollars in my meager grubstake and who knew what I might need to rescue Orville. Maybe I could barter my way past this bandit with the jumpy horse.

  “I ain’t got but a few pennies. Hardly worth the trouble.”

  “Maybe I keel you. Take horse.” Pancho shook his gun again.

  Wouldn’t have to be much of a shot at this range, which got me to thinking. Why hadn’t he already shot me or fired a warning shot? Maybe he only had a handful of cartridges or none at all. Wouldn’t be the first to make a living from bluffing.

  A crow cawed behind me, as another alighted in a dead cedar behind Pancho. A crow had been dogging me and Maggie all morning. Between the owls last night and now the crows, my suspicions were growing. If Marzby could force a spirit into a pig, what else could he do with animals? Was he watching me through their eyes? I shoved those concerns to the back of my mind. These birds were benign compared to Pancho’s Colt .45.

  “How ’bouts I cook you a meal? Share a bowl of my grub?” I offered. Pancho’s shirt hung from his chest and belly in folds. Appeared the huckster trade was more profitable than the bandit business. “I gots some beans in my grub pouch.”

  “Ees dey black beans?” His eyes twinkled.

  “They are. Good fat black beans. But I gots some urgent business ahead so I’d be mighty grateful if we concluded our dealings pronto.” I nearly shouted the last word to satisfy my curiosity.

  The palomino’s ears twitched. It lurched forward a step, but Pancho tugged on the reins to stop it. The horse snorted and seemed to resign itself to dragging its forehooves through the dirt.

  “You geeve me saddlebag with beans, I no shoot you.”

  “You’d leave a man with no grub?” The road to ruin is paved with greed, my grandma claimed, and Pancho was galloping down it.

  “Si. You theivin’ gringos take my grandfather’s hacienda. Leave my family with no land. You all the same. Maybe I shoot you full of holes. Maybe you bleed silver.”

  The revolver clicked as Pancho drew back the hammer. Up to now I had believed he wouldn’t shoot me, but that click resounded like thunder between my ears. First Wilbur and now this bandit were cocking guns in my direction. Seemed everybody wanted to kill me. A cold sweat broke out across my face. Maybe Pancho did have some bullets in there, and he had a fair point about his long lost hacienda. Looking down the barrel of a cocked gun decided me. I’d rather have an ache in my stomach than a hole in my head. With one hand on Maggie’s reins, I reached behind to loosen the knot holding my grub bag.

  Whether divine intervention, Marzby’s machinations, or plain old dumb luck, I never knew, but a flurry of black feathers and caws swooped down on Pancho, one crow from in front, the other behind. Yellow beaks snapped at Pancho’s face while orange claws ripped his shirt. He let go of his reins and tucked his head to his chest, waving both arms in a blind panic to fend off the birds.

  The attack stunned me as much as it terrified Pancho. I sat in my saddle, my muscles stiff with shock, until my thoughts caught up with what I was seeing. Recognizing my chance for escape, I whipped my free hand around and wrapped a fistful of Maggie’s mane in my fingers. She was a gentle sweetheart as horses go, but she got mighty angry having her mane pulled. The birds had spooked Pancho’s palomino, which was neighing and tossing its head from side to side. I yanked on Maggie’s mane. She neighed like a banshee, bolting straight ahead for Pancho. I ducked low beside her neck to make a smaller target. The palomino screamed and reared as Maggie raced past under its kicking hooves.

  “Pronto!” I shouted.

  Pancho fell off the back of his horse, his legs pointing skyward and his arms waving like he wanted to fly. His pistol cracked twice as he landed in a patch of prickly pear, yowling and yelping Mexican curses I’d never heard. I envied any man who could think to shoot with his backside stuck full of thorns. One bullet screamed across my back, showering me with rock dust when it slammed into an outcrop. Another inch lower and he would have dropped me. The palomino dashed down the road in the opposite direction.

  I pushed Maggie to run for as long as I could hear Pancho’s curses, yanking twice more on her mane. I dared not do it again for fear she’d buck me off and stomp me to a bloody smear, but I was taking no chances now that I knew Pancho carried a loaded gun. Once we’d zigzagged between a few hills, I pulled Maggie back to a walk. I figured Pancho would spend the rest of his day plucking thorns and looking for his horse.

  A curious thought entered my head, now I had a moment to think. Marzby had threatened to kill me, but then he healed me. The birds had followed me like hounds on a trail, but then attacked the bandit who threatened me. What was Marzby’s game? As simple as getting the blade? Then why the deadly competition to save one or the other hostage? And why bring all of us into this mess in the first place? I still hadn’t figured to my satisfaction why Marzby didn’t get the blade himself. If Orville were here, we’d reason a solution. I was sorely feeling his absence. You need flour and sugar to mix a cake and naught without the other, my grandma taught me.

  I pulled the clay tile out of my shirt pocket to study it in the light of day. A hatch pattern creased one side. On the opposite was a pointy-nosed man wearing a feathered headdress. His arms were wide and out of proportion. Were blankets hanging from them? I squinted and turned the tile at different angles. Wings. A bird-man.

  My first inclination was to cast the tile aside, thinking it was a sort of talisman. Perhaps Marzby had set a charm on it to draw the birds, like a buzzard to a carcass. I swiveled left and right in my saddle, twisted my head round to survey the sky until I spotted them: a pair of crows perched high in a pine, their beady black eyes focused on me.

  I cocked my arm to dash the tile against the nearest rock. I wasn’t hearing voices, not ready to be chained up in the madhouse yet, but something stayed my arm. It wouldn’t move, like a hangman who can’t pull the lever. I let my anger flow out with my breath and slid the tile back in my shirt pocket. Ain’t nothing good ever comes from decisions wrought in anger, my grandma taught me. I’d hold on to the bird-man a bit longer. The owls had done me no obvious harm or the crows, far from it.

  As I rode toward Busted Axle, I contemplated m
y predicament. Breaking Orville out, if I could find the building, sounded foolish. Digging a stone knife out of a hill didn’t sound much more promising. And who was this guardian I had to talk to, this watcher over the blade? I also had no idea how to find Isobel and her pa. The only sure place to find her was the saloon where she brought vittles for her uncle to sell.

  Chapter Nine

  I hitched Maggie outside the saloon. Was a bright, sunny morning, and my eyes needed a moment to adjust as I passed through the swinging doors. Four men sat at a table, playing cards. A couple of saloon girls in flouncy red and black dresses hovered behind the card players, gliding their fingers across the men’s shoulders. The card players were intent on their game and the coins and bills heaped in the table’s center, saying little but what was needed to advance the game. The saloon reeked of beer and whiskey, tobacco smoke and sweat, a man’s domain.

  I passed the card players on my way to the bar. One of the girls, her blond curls heaped high on her head, smiled at me.

  I tipped my hat. “Mornin’, ma’am.”

  One of the players guffawed, and the girl clouted him on the ear, knocking his hat askew, which brought laughter from the others.

  I didn’t see why a decent act of courtesy should bring on laughter, but I’d always found the mores of saloon life curious if not downright incomprehensible. He who’s at home in a house of drink and gambling, warned my grandma, will surely be at home among the demons of hell.

  I clambered onto a high stool at the end of the bar. The surface had suffered more scratches than a millstone, and some of the gouges were deep and wide, reminding me of the shape of a bowie knife. I suspect the bar had a few stories to tell.

  “Mornin’,” I said to the barman. He stood with his back to me—facing a grand, gilded mirror—polishing glasses stacked in neat pyramids. I hoped this was Isobel’s uncle. Above the mirror hung a picture of a lovely lady with nary a stitch of modesty, from which I struggled to avert my eyes. My grandma would not have approved.