The Good, The Bad and The Ghostly ((Paranromal Western Romance))

by Keta Diablo

"Yes, I have the address." Colby headed up to the counter with its small barred window behind which sat a man in a visor, his shirt sleeves held in place by arm bands.

  "I don’t believe, young man, I asked if you had the address." The telegrapher peered through the bars as if Colby were some strange animal in a zoo.

  "No, sir. Sorry." He fished in his pocket for the information Lizzie had mentioned. "I don’t have an exact address, I have the streets in St. Louis and the name of the agency to which I want to send a telegraph."

  "Well. That usually is a start. Let me have a look."

  Lizzie thought he stared at the paper as if it would morph into something else. "Ask him if he can get the exact address."

  "Hang on!"

  "What’s that you say?" The telegrapher frowned at Colby, his eyes squinting in query.

  "Sorry. I meant, is it possible for you to get the exact address and use it for a telegraph?"

  "’Course I can. But it’ll cost you a bit extra. Extra telegraph, see?"

  "Fine."

  The telegrapher turned away and started tapping out a message.

  In an undertone, Colby said, "This is going to end up costing me a whole lot of money I haven’t got, Lizzie."

  "Well. Maybe one day you’ll find that gold hidden on your ranch."

  "Doubt that."

  "I’m sorry. I don’t know what else we can do. We have to discover why I’m here and how I can get back."

  "I know."

  "Yep," came the voice through the grille again. "Got an immediate reply. Agency’s well known down there apparently. Whatever the heck it is. What the heck is it? This Psychic Specters Investigations? Never heard of such a dang thing in my life."

  "I suppose not," Lizzie mumbled.

  Colby jabbed her in the ribs. "It’s a...um...ghost hunters. We have a spot of bother out at the ranch."

  "Ghost hunters? Well, I’ll be...heh heh." The man looked like he was sliding away from a lunatic. His chair, on wheels, rolled back several feet from the grille. "Lookee here, young fella, you fill in that form with your message, and I’ll send it along."

  "Thanks." Colby took the message pad and walked to a shelf with pencils in a Mason jar at the ready. "What do you think I should say?" he whispered so the telegrapher couldn’t hear.

  Lizzie grabbed the pad and pencil and etched out:

  ‘Need immediate assistance. Ghost of dead wife returned. Reason unknown. Please send representative ASAP. Colby Gates.’

  Colby glanced at the paper, then back to Lizzie. "What the hell is ASAP?"

  "Oh, for heaven’s sake. ‘As soon as possible'".

  "Well, he won’t know what that means. I’ll have to write it out." When he had done so, he sauntered over to the window again and slid the paper through.

  As Lizzie watched, the telegrapher looked at it with nothing less than suspicion but finally nodded to Colby. "That’s twenty-five cents a word, Mr. Gates. Makes it five dollars seventy-five. And then an extra dollar for the first enquiry."

  "Wow, that’s cheap!"

  Colby gave one of his disgruntled throat clearances and nodded to the door.

  "Are you around a while in case there’s an answer?" The telegrapher flipped his visor into a lower position and swung his chair toward his machine.

  "I have some errands to run and might grab a bite at the hotel or café, thanks."

  He slipped the money to the man and followed Lizzie out the door.

  An hour later, with errands run and coffee in the café interrupted by varying answers to the queries as to whether the chair opposite him was free, the telegrapher’s boy found him. He tapped Colby on the shoulder.

  "Mr. Gates? Mr. Maxwell, the telegrapher said I might find you here." The boy handed him a folded piece of paper and, in return, Colby found a nickel to give him.

  "What does it say?" Lizzie asked as she snuck another bite of Colby’s cake.

  "Dudley Worksop, Denver agent, on morning train to Cheyenne STOP Will proceed by stage to Buffalo arriving Tuesday morning STOP Do nothing further to irritate ghost STOP."

  Lizzie stared across at the man who was once her husband and smiled. Then she sank her teeth into another bite of cake. "You hear that?" she said behind a full mouth. "Nothing to irritate me. Best news I’ve had yet."

  Chapter Seven

  Mrs. Fairweather’s boarding house, as Lizzie learned from Colby during their walk over, had started life as a genteel home for travelers and business folk who needed temporary accommodation while in Buffalo. She noted that it had been decorated with a refined taste of upholstered mahogany furniture, ornaments imported from several parts of the globe, and Aubusson rugs of the rarest kind. However, as Mrs. Fairweather had entered her later years and been less able to project the commanding voice that had for so long held tenants in its power, the regime she had been able to employ went by the wayside. At the same time, her finances being what they now were from the lack of prompt and reliable rents, she had been forced to take in a new brand of person with whom she would not have earlier associated. As Colby told Lizzie, even Butch Cassidy himself had crossed her once-elite threshold.

  Still, the rooms were large and well adorned and suited, to Lizzie’s mind, the new wife of her former husband. Certainly, Sylvie’s room, in which they now conferred, was quite elegant. She stood by as Colby tried to ensure Sylvie this was only a temporary arrangement.

  "I’ve wired some sort of ghost hunter down in Denver to come up and rid us of this...this intrusion. He’ll be out Tuesday and I’m sure things will get sorted then."

  Elzy stood by, hands in pockets. "Well, now, I have the room next door to missy here and I’ll be taking real good care of her."

  "I bet he will." Lizzie could hear Colby’s sharp intake of breath. "Think I’ll just pay a visit to his room while you keep him occupied—"

  "Don’t!" Colby had to catch himself once more. "Don’t hesitate to ask for anything, Sylvie, if you want something from home...."

  Lizzie slipped out the door as Sylvie asked just how was she going to let him know what her needs were. Now, the ghost-woman slowly turned the doorknob to the room to Sylvie’s left, only to have it slammed shut, tumbling her out to the sound of some woman affirming the wind must have blown it open. Must be the room on the other side!

  She slid into the room on the right-hand side of Sylvie’s, the smell as she opened the door almost knocking her backwards. Peee-euw!! This guy doesn’t wash from one end of the century to the other. Geesh. Trying not to breathe, or pick up any of his smelly, germy items of clothing strewn about the room, she began to do a thorough search. The bed was first; the stink of sex hung on it, as if he’d been regularly having his way with an assortment of soiled doves or, more likely in Lizzie’s estimation, having it away with himself. She gingerly held up the sheets to peek between, then released them and bent to look under the mattress and under the bed. Nothing.

  There was nothing in the linen press, since Elzy seemed to prefer the floor for the storage of his clothing, but a large chest held a few items in it. Lizzie rummaged through a couple of filthy collars, a folded dirty union suit, and some soiled shirts. A deck of cards with naked women caught her eye, giving her a fit of giggles at the absurd postures of the generous figures with their heavy breasts and beckoning eyes. Wouldn’t make the cover of Vogue, ladies—or Penthouse for that matter. With some trepidation, she crawled her hand into the folds of the shirts and then the union suit—Ugh! Disgusting! No doubt you thought no one would find this in your filthy clothes, jackass! Two sheets of paper. One a bit of a map drawn on brown paper from a shop or something. Little ‘V’s to show mountains, a line for a path, heavier lines to show what? A through-way of some nature? There was a square and, in what looked like a child’s handwriting, the words, "Ghent’s cabin." Can this moron even read? The other sheet, taken from some writing book or something, was even more interesting.

  Colby’s Ranch. She was sure of it. The Double Bar X.

  Uncertain as to whe
ther to take the maps, she riffled around in the drawer once more. Garbage. Her hand felt the rubbery texture of something that looked like it might serve as a condom, used, black and disgusting. Yuck!!! Oh Jeez, how revolting! She dashed for the pitcher of water on a marble-topped washstand and plunged her hand into its rather chilly depth. Shit! Her gaze caught a sliver of soap covered with dried mud, lying by the large china bowl next to the pitcher. She grabbed it to wash her hands in the pitcher, shaking them off in preference to using a towel on a roller attached to the wall. Then she wondered if ghosts caught germs.

  One more drawer and she was out of there.

  Sliding open the bottom drawer of the chest, the first thing to greet her was a Bible. Well, he sure as hell didn’t bring it. Must come...what year did the Gideons start leaving Bibles? Not yet, certainly. Must come with the room. Lizzie pulled it out and found a final sheet of paper tucked in, this one a more formal document than the others. ‘Certificate of Marriage—This Certifies That ELZY LAY and MAUDE DAVIS were united in Holy Matrimony.’ Holy shit! That filthy bastard is married! You must be joking! Wonder if Colby knows.

  She went back to the maps. If she took them, Colby couldn’t be accused because he’d been with the couple the whole time. But if they were gone, what would Elzy do?

  The door opened.

  "Well, thank goodness that’s over with." Elzy pulled a chunk of chew and shoved it in his mouth.

  "Do you have to do that?"

  "What?"

  Lizzie started to inch to the door, the maps now left so they wouldn’t be seen ‘flying’ through the room.

  "Chewing tobacco," Sylvie was saying. "You know I hate that."

  "Well, you ain’t chewin’, sweetheart, I am."

  Sylvie made a grunt of disgust as Lizzie got to the door. She was going to have to open it and get out, as if the wind had blown it again.

  "Come here and gimme a kiss, darlin’."

  The slam of the door brought silence to the duo of occupants until Sylvie asked, "What the hell was that?"

  "Just the dang wind. Stop bein’ so jumpy."

  "If you’d seen his hat fly across the room this morning."

  Lizzie could hear Elzy laugh. "Well, I’m gonna fly you to this a-here bed—"

  Oh, how disgusting, incest! No, can’t be. Is she Maude Davis? Is she a bigamist? Or is he playing around? How am I going to tell Colby all that?

  * * *

  "For someone who generally says, ‘Colby, let me finish,’ you haven’t even started a conversation." He lifted her down from the buckboard in front of the ranch, evening now coloring the sky with its own shade of purple, stars punching their way through as the darkness deepened. She felt light, weightless in his arms, his own little sprite. "All I’ve got out of you the whole journey back home is one-word answers, Elizabeth, so I know dang well something’s wrong."

  "I’m just tired."

  "No, I don’t think so. You have—have always had—more energy than any five of my men put together. What’s wrong? Don’t forget I’ve known you, or at least your former ‘you’, since we were children."

  She gave him a pretty little pout that ended with a sigh.

  "What did you find out, Lizzie? You must’ve found something in there or you would have come bouncing on out playing mischief with folks. What was it?"

  "I—"

  "Hey, boss, we got those strays outta Crazy Woman. Two a mite lame...Sorry. Is something wrong?"

  Colby knew he couldn’t watch as Lizzie made her way into the house. The door opened and banged shut, and Gus jumped.

  "Hell. What was that?"

  Colby’s hand went to his mouth while he looked his foreman in the eye. "We seem to have a ghost, believe it or not. Sylvie’s moved into town when she saw my hat come flying across the room. That’s where I’ve been."

  "Well, I’ll be." His foreman’s mouth hung open, ready to catch any passing flies. "I ain’t never heard nothing like that. Well, I’ll be," he repeated. "Out on the trail we used to tell each other them spooky stories but I never figured there’d be any such thing."

  "Well, Gus." Colby rested his hand on the other man’s shoulder. "I’m here to tell you there are such things, and we have one here. Some sort of ghost specialist is coming in on the stage from Cheyenne on Tuesday, so maybe he can get to the bottom of it."

  "Well, what’s it a haunt of? I mean, who? Who is it, do you know?"

  Colby took in a deep breath. "Yeah." His voice held that note of reluctance he knew would translate to the foreman as disbelief. "My late wife, Elizabeth, that’s who."

  * * *

  Lizzie hoisted the cut-off jeans and crossed her legs under her, giving her thumbnail a good bite and tug.

  Colby flung his hat up on a peg and, hands on hips, glared down at her. "You gonna tell me what’s wrong?"

  "I need a manicure for one thing."

  A grunt was the answer to that.

  She smiled up at him. "You know ‘boyfriend jeans’ are all the rage at the moment. I just don’t think they’re worn quite this big."

  "Well, if I understood any of that statement, I might agree." He pulled out a chair and folded his long frame into it, cradling her tiny ankle in his work worn hand. "Look. I know you’re keeping something, and it’s something that’s not gonna make me happy, so out with it. You know you have to tell me sometime, so sooner is better than later."

  "Hmmm." The click of her teeth on her nails stopped her from biting further. "Three things I found."

  "Three?"

  "Three. One, there was a map of something, I couldn’t tell where, but the words, ‘Ghent’s Cabin’ were written on this square. It seemed to show mountains somewhere—"

  "Maybe the Big Horns. Nearby."

  "Is that like the Little Big Horns? Where Custer’s Last Stand occurred?"

  "Well, if you’re talking about the battle of the Little Big Horn, what the Lakota call the battle of the Greasy Grass, that’s the one. Where General Custer died, yes. But these mountains out here, these are the Big Horn Mountains."

  "Well, it could have been China for all I know—or Belgium, considering it was Ghent’s cabin." She let this sink in. "Anyway, that was one. ‘Two’ was a map of this ranch."

  "This ranch? Are you sure?"

  "It had your brand—two bars and an X at the top of the map, and the building lay-out, the little squares looked pretty much like the ranch’s arrangement. Or as much of it as I’ve seen."

  "That’s interesting. Why would Elzy have a map of my ranch?"

  "Well, there’s something else...and you’re really not going to like this."

  "Which is?"

  Lizzie’s eyes fluttered, and she wished she could disappear, or at least disappear from Colby. But Colby was the one person, it seemed, from whom she could not disappear, and this was going to pain him. She took a deep breath.

  "Sylvie is sleeping with Elzy." There it was. The bold, plain statement.

  And there was Colby, his hand to his mouth as he rushed to the sink and retched and vomited into it. When he had hold of himself, he pumped some water into his cupped hand and rinsed his mouth out, reached for his whiskey and took a long pull. She would call him ‘pale as a ghost’ if it didn’t somehow seem unsuitable, but that was what he was.

  "You sure?" he asked at last. "Lizzie, how could you know that?"

  "He asked for a kiss while I was in the room—asked her, not me, of course. At that point, I thought it best to leave, slamming the door behind me but listening for a moment from the other side. She asked what had slammed the door and he said just the wind, and she told him about your hat ‘flying’ across the room, and he said he was going to fly her to the bed. But listen," she continued, "this may be no better, but he’s married. I found a marriage certificate. Could be they’re not related other than, of course, being married and she’s a bigamist."

  "Good gracious!" Colby swigged another pull of whiskey and stared at Lizzie in disbelief.

  "And...." She hesitated
before mentioning the condom-like thing. "Well...I found a used condom in his drawer. At least I think it was a condom. It was disgusting, Colby. How can anyone keep a used condom in a drawer with clothes...even someone so disgusting and filthy as Elzy?"

  Colby took this all in, digesting it. "You mean a rubber?" he asked at last. "Sweetheart, they’re meant to be re-used. People couldn’t possibly afford a new one each time—not if they...they made love as frequently as we did." A smile made its way back to his mouth.

  Lizzie could tell he was remembering things about them, about their love but, sadly for her, it was she who needed to remember and could not. "So, what are you going to do?" She tried to snap him back to the moment.

  "I beg your pardon?" His eyes were distant, staring through her almost, a yearning in them that touched her heart.

  She went over to him, reached out and ran her hand down the stubble that now shaded his face, but what a face! How she longed to take him back with her if she could go, longed to have him in a real life. At last, she reminded him, "What are you going to do about Sylvie and Elzy?"

  "Do? I’m not going to do anything for the moment. She’s not living here and we have to sort out the matter of your being a ghost first. I know...I’ve known for some time what a terrible mistake I made in marrying her, but what else should I have done, Lizzie? She said she was carrying my child; I believed her. Now I’d have to prove beyond a doubt she’s either being unfaithful or a bigamist, and a divorce costs. When this agent, Dudley whatever his name is—"

  "Worksop." A stream of giggles was buried as he continued.

  "Worksop arrives and helps us sort out why you’re here, and when Sylvie wants to return, then I’ll decide what I do, whether we’re staying married. If you think about it, it’s the least of my problems right now."

  "And what is the ‘most’ of your problems?" She sat again and stretched her legs out from under her, leaning back in the chair.

  "My biggest problem? My biggest problem is loving a ghost from another century who no one but me can see and who wants to return to that century—or maybe I should say millennium."

  "But the ghost loves you back, Colby. She does. If that’s any compensation."