A Rope of Thorns

by Gemma Files

  Far beneath, he glimpsed a figure climbing onto one of the tables, and noted how the celebrants gathered ’round fell immediately quiet: Fennig’s sweetheart, the gravid one, Clodagh. Who lifted her Irish voice in a familiar tune, snapping her fingers for accompaniment.

  “Oh sis, come down by the water’s side, sing I down, oh, sing I day—

  Oh sis, come down by the water’s side—the boy’s the one for me!

  Oh sis, come down by the water’s side, the eldest to the youngest

  cried. . . .”

  She sang the lay incongruously upbeat, which was why it took him a fatal few moments to recognize it—too late entirely, to stop the knife from twisting in his gut.

  “Sayin’ I’ll be true . . . unto my love—”

  “—if my love’ll be true to me,” Rook finished, beneath his breath. Feeling the full weight of what he’d done break over him, a salt-hot wave of regret.

  Ixchel, always aware of his thoughts, touched her rough tongue to his sweaty spine, laving the middle-top vertebrae as though she longed to bite straightway in, to hear them crunch between her pointy jade-flake teeth.

  He will come, husband, she said. It is . . . inevitable.

  And she drew him down.

  Though Rook’s Hell would be hot enough once he got there, Ixchel’s was cold, which explained why she so often needed warming. Still, it was an empty place, for all its passion, what with the Chess-shaped hole left forever open in its centre.

  My bed. Self-chose—self-made. Nothing for it but to lie down, and keep on lying.

  So Reverend Rook did his duty as the rowdy-dow spun on, marking mental time ’til he’d be able to get back to that other experiment he’d started, just before dawn. . . .

  Morrow did say how’s you had a lock of hair on him, tucked away in some dolly-bag, said Kees Hosteen’s shade—dead these many months, from an accidental application of lead while doing the Rev unwitting service. Hosteen, who’d thought he was betraying one master to help another only to end up losing both, and himself, besides. You keep a little somethin’ from the rest of us, too? Or am I just special?

  “The latter,” Rook lied. “Which is why, when I found I needed a favour . . . I naturally thought of you.”

  Oh, joy.

  “One only, and important enough that when you’re done, I’ll slip the chain; you’ll be free to slide off for wherever, with no further demands on your valuable time. Can’t beat those odds.”

  Yeah, sounds just peachy. That how they’re sellin’ indentured slavery, these days?

  “I could ask less nicely, you really want me to,” Rook observed.

  There was a pause, the barest flicker of something indistinct passing ’cross Hosteen’s face—a sigh, turned inside out. Incentive enough to make Rook smile, and continue.

  “Pinks’ll be moving against us, likely soon. So we need intelligence, to give us some warning what to expect . . . it’s a must, Kees. Old soldier like you knows that.”

  Hosteen still looked sceptical. Would’ve thought you’d just conjure that up yourself, frankly . . . sleep with that Bible of yours under your pillow and pull prophecy out of your dreams, like Joseph. What in the hell d’you need me for?

  Rook held up a hand to show the never-quite-healed burn across his palm. “The Book’s gone, Kees, a good while back. ’Sides which, there are factors which make it hard to act direct; Miz Songbird, for one. She’s . . . got the taste of me.”

  A smirk. Ain’t that convenient.

  “No, Kees, it’s very inconvenient, in point of fact. But I did find a way to get around it.”

  It took Hosteen a beat, before his insubstantial face fell. Aw, shit.

  “Indeed.”

  You do know she knows me too, right, Rev? From Tampico, when the Pinks came to pull Ed and Chess outta Mexico City, after it fell over. What makes you think I can slide under her notice, when you can’t?

  “’Cause she sees more ghosts than I do, every day of the week; don’t draw attention to yourself, you’ll be just one more shade amidst the throng. All I need you to do is find them, listen, come back here and tell me what you’ve learned . . . and then, soldier, consider yourself discharged.” He held out the Atwood’s bottle. “I break this, you’re free—beyond my reach for good. Back to . . .”

  He hesitated, lowering the bottle. The question seemed to spill up out of him, more of its own will than his. “Kees, I have to ask. What’s it . . . like? Where—you were?”

  Silence, for long seconds. Then: You’ll find out soon enough, I expect, the ghost he’d once called friend replied. Now: we done?

  “All but. Though if you were minded to look in on Chess as well, on your way back—” Rook broke off, shook his head. “No, bad idea. Forget I even said it.”

  For all Rook might wish different, Chess knew himself legitimately aggrieved and would seek the price, no matter what; let the world die screaming, so long’s he had his vengeance. The man didn’t forget, never forgave. To do so, he’d say, would be making himself a God he didn’t believe in’s bitch.

  Chuckling a bit at this last part, the Rev glanced up to find Hosteen’s phantom eyes upon him, full of something annoyingly unreadable.

  He might not kill you, even now, he offered, you only told ’im you was sorry.

  The very idea made Rook laugh full-out, long and loud.

  “Oh, Kees,” he said, eventually. “You know Chess, like you know me. So how damn likely is that?”

  Sure as nightfall, however, the old Hollander would end up giving Chess a fly-by, if only for old times’ sake—entirely of his own will, this way, with not a hint of Rook pushing him in that direction. Which really was about the only way he could hope to gain knowledge of Chess’s current whereabouts, since if Songbird had had a taste, the once, then Chess had had . . . all of him. And still did.

  Rook mounted the Temple’s inner staircases slowly, his footfalls leaden. ’Til, at the top, he fell back into bed without even bothering to kick off his boots and slept at once, stretched out beside devastation’s handmaid—a black, dreamless sleep, with darkness his only pillow.

  Chapter Eleven

  The last thing Mister Pargeter—Chess—did, before they came up over the final ridge, was to change Yancey’s much-abused wedding rig to a set of clothes more boy-fit; denim breeches, a loose cotton shirt, wool stockings, black boots. Pointing out: “You plan on walkin’ blind into a nest of no-’counts and raperees, I can tell you from personal experience how trousers are a sight harder to get off, ’specially if you fight back hard while they’re at it.”

  Yancey hoped she didn’t turn too pale at the thought. “Is that . . . likely?”

  “Not while I’m around,” Mister Morrow put in, voice dropping growl-low. Chess gave him a little eye-flick of amused appraisal, followed by a shrug.

  “Let’s put it this way, then,” he told Yancey, “if you ain’t got the sand to look after your own business, we ain’t got the time to do it for you. Fair enough?” Yancey nodded. “Which reminds me—have to cut that hair, you want to stay inconspicuous.”

  Both hands flew to her head, like he aimed to do it right then. “No!”

  Morrow again, sweet reason itself: “She can braid it up tight, stick it under a hat. ’Course, you’ll have to conjure that for her, too.”

  Chess hissed in annoyance, but popped his own off and ran a sparking finger ’round the brim, making it subdivide like string-cut dough: two identical beavers, one of ’em already sized to fit Yancey’s skull and top-knot alike.

  “There,” he said, tossing it her way—then turned back to the others. “She keeps her pride and glory; whoop-de-do. But once we’re through Joe’s door she’d better at least act the damn man, is all I’m sayin’.”

  Geyer opened his mouth, but it was Yancey who answered, thinning her voice as cold as she knew how, from years of wrangling drunks and settling bills. “A play-role you aim to coach me in, I suppose? If not, I suggest we get going.” She widened her glare to incl
ude the other two. “And while we’re at it, I’ll thank you to never again discuss me to my face like livestock, gentlemen.”

  Scooping her disordered ’do into a twist, she jammed the “new” hat down over it and brushed past all three of them to climb the next hill, resisting the urge to hike up those phantom skirts no longer restricting her movements. Geyer tried to take her arm, but she threw him off (as gently as possible).

  If I’m to be Adamized, there’s no more reliance on men’s kindnesses, lest I give the wrong impression. Chess doesn’t play such games, after all . . . and he’s far more cause to, given.

  In her annoyance, she’d forgotten he could probably hear everything passed through her brainpan, he only concentrated hard enough.

  So it was unsurprising yet blush-provoking when she heard him remark: “That’s one tough little stargazer you’ve yoked yourself to, Ed.”

  Morrow huffed, legging it upwards. “She ain’t, neither—and she’s a widow now, too, so show some damn respect,” was all he threw back.

  “Marriage for money’s not but one step away from outright whoredom, in my opinion.”

  Yancey stopped in her tracks. “Excuse me?”

  Those green eyes met hers, cool and poisonous, even less human than before. “All right, then: you and that tin star of yours, was that truly made in heaven? Or maybe something your Pa dreamed up ’cause he wanted law as family, and you went along, ’cause you might as well raffle your maidenhead to the biggest gun in town as not?”

  You, sir, are a toad, Yancey thought at him, bell-clear and deliberate, blush deepening. Meanwhile snapping, out loud: “None of your beeswax! He’s dead ’cause of you, anyhow—”

  “Oh yeah, that’s right: me, not you, for thinkin’ you could handle things on your ownsome. And you really do look like you miss him, too.”

  Geyer opened his mouth again, but too late, for Yancey had already punched the pistoleer full in his mocking face. “Oh my Jesus!” Morrow yelled out, and grabbed for her, bent on fending off whatever came next—but Chess just rocked back a tad, putting one hand to his split lip to taste the blood, before barking out a red-tinged laugh.

  “Gal,” he said, “I must admit I like you better this way, ’stead of all polite and persnickety; makes you seem like you got fire in your belly. Which you’re gonna need.”

  “And I’m supposed to be flattered, I expect? Balls to that! You’re a petty, heathenish deity indeed.”

  Chess shrugged once more, split lip already healed over. “Well, you’re the one started prayin’ to me in the first place—but since it’s all the apology you’re like to get, I guess you can either take it, or don’t. ’Cause I surely don’t give a damn.”

  A swish of dust, and he was out of reach. Yancey bent over a moment, panting harsh, sick with the helpless urge to kill: him, Sheriff Love, Reverend Rook and that Mexican blood-goddess of his, for gifting Chess Pargeter with such power when they knew him unfit to bear it. God Almighty.

  Geyer scuffed the hill with his boot-tip, seeming more embarrassed than anything else. But Mister Morrow’s hand fell on her shoulder, comfort-warm as Uther’s had always been—and though she shouldn’t’ve let it stay there, she did. “We’ll be there soon enough,” he told her.

  “Wonderful.”

  “Chess . . .” Morrow gave a sigh, choosing his next few words with laudable care. “Listen . . . he knows he’s done wrong by you, by all your folk, and it’s makin’ him hit out. But I know he feels badly, just the same.”

  “Really. How on earth can you tell?”

  “’Cause you’re still here, ma’am. ’Cause he didn’t just throw you right back no matter how much you pled to come along, and be done with it.”

  They trudged along in silence a moment while Yancey mustered her own thoughts, ’til she’d become near-enough calm to voice ’em.

  “‘Feels bad,’” she repeated, eventually. “My father is dead, Mister Morrow—husband, too. The town I lived in my whole life torn ear to ear, with my inheritance pushed over and burnt to the ground. Your Mister Pargeter . . . from what I see, he’s been mildly inconvenienced, at best. So thank you kindly, but I could give a horse’s fat ass how that hex-slung son-of-a-slut feels, and that’s a damn fact.”

  Geyer stopped short, amazed by her vehemence. “Miss Yancey!”

  “Oh, I’m sorry—does my rough speech offend you, ‘Mister Grey’? Besides which, his mother is . . . what she is, isn’t she, Mister Morrow? Didn’t object much to that part of the song, as I recall.”

  “She was, yes, like I said. She’s dead now.”

  Yancey paused in her tracks, yet again. “Then I’m sorry.”

  But Morrow just shook his head. “Don’t have to try and be, not ’less he asks you to. Which he won’t.”

  Staring past her, he sought out Chess’s bright purple figure far off in the distance, silhouetted ’gainst the sun. And Yancey saw him narrow his eyes, as though looking into either some unfathomable light, or some equally impenetrable darkness.

  “He’s not an easy man,” Morrow said. “Not with himself, and not with anybody else. Only good part is, when you get riled enough to slap back, it does make him respect you.”

  “Don’t doubt but you’re right, given you know him best. Still, he won’t get any more of a rise out of me from now on than he already has, if I can help it.”

  Morrow nodded, silent, while Geyer looked off into the distance, tracking Chess’s progress by the spindrift he kicked up.

  “But can you?” Geyer wondered, aloud. “It’s hard enough for me to keep a civil tongue in my head, and I’m not—a lady, with those sorts of finer feelings t’grapple with.”

  Morrow cast him a look that all but shouted: Stop your posturing, idjit. “You do know he’d kill you stone dead, though, if you tried to kick up a fuss about it,” he pointed out. “And that’s equal-true for all of us, in the end.”

  Not for you, Yancey thought, remembering how back in the thick of Hoffstedt’s Hoard’s demise, Morrow had been the only one to rein Chess in. Not really. Much as you may want to deny it, in front of me.

  And why might that be? Was Chess right, thinking he might have cause for jealousy from Morrow’s eye straying in Yancey’s direction?

  Useful, in potential, a traitorous part of her whispered. Now that I’m left to fend for myself in this world, robbed at gunpoint of all protectors, forced to choose ’tween bad and worse to get to what I need.

  Oh, she was starting to hate that Satan-practical little voice inside, the one she couldn’t dare claim came from anywhere but her own fast-withering soul.

  “Let’s get a move on,” she told both Pinkertons, and set her shiny hex-made boots back to the upwards path.

  Often as he’d done business with the Rev’s contingent before, however, today Splitfoot Joe proved singularly uninviting.

  “You get gone from here, Chess Pargeter!” he yelled from inside the saloon, while somebody else—more than one, probably—fired warning shots at them, out the barricaded windows. “You ain’t welcome no more, not after what you done here last!”

  “Can’t think what that could’ve been,” Yancey whispered to Morrow, where they crouched behind a handy rock—and Morrow found he had to think a bit himself to reckon the exact cause of Joe’s antagonisms, given how many transgressions he’d seen Chess perform.

  “Helped open up a doorway into Hell—a Hell, anyhow,” he set on, finally. “Oh, and brought the Pinks down on ’em, too; that’s all but a capital offence, ’round these parts.”

  Her brows knit. “But—don’t they already know how you, yourself—”

  “No, they don’t, and I’d be right pleased you didn’t enlighten ’em on that same fact, thank you very much. Frank too, I’m guessin’.”

  Geyer nodded. “He’s got the right of it, ma’am. Tell, and our lives won’t be worth a plugged nickel.”

  “Then my lips are sealed.”

  “Much obliged.”

  A yard or so away, Chess ignored
all this—bullets popped off him like moths on a lantern, singed to powder in spark-showers, each one merely serving to spur his own ire higher. “That wasn’t even me, you fools!” he hollered back, hands on hips. “That was the damn Rev!”

  “Same damn difference!”

  Chess’s eyes blazed at that, literally; the glow was visible from where Morrow knelt. “I say there’s a difference, then you need to take me serious—’sides which, ain’t no way on earth you can stop me comin’ in if I want to, save for setting yourselves alight and hoping I don’t care to burn. So—what’ll it be? Me, or the fire?”

  “Word is, you bring the Weed, too. What you got to say to that?”

  “Not a—” Chess began, but Morrow waved him silent.

  “Word’s right,” he said, rising to his full height. “I’ve seen it done: Mouth-of-Praise, Hoffstedt’s Hoard—all gone, wiped out, ’cause they didn’t take Chess serious. You already know what he can do; really want to make him want to?”

  Silence ensued. Then the door clicked open and Joe himself peeped out, looking stricken.

  “I got customers in there, Chess,” he said, half-apologetic. “You know how it is.”

  “Not really,” Chess shot back, as he strode past him.

  When those of Joe’s trade who could still walk straight saw Chess coming, they mostly cut loose and scarpered, leaving the place denuded but for a few dozing drunks. Joe knew better than to protest—just set ’em up at a table Morrow recalled as his “best,” while Chess paced and Geyer manfully fought down the urge to pull a chair out for Yancey, who did it herself.

  “Whiskey all ’round, Joe,” Morrow called out, to keep the man occupied.

  “Sure.” Rummaging behind the bar: “Truth to tell, them Pinks didn’t even stick around too long, not after that Chinee witch of theirs figured you all’d been whisked off to Mexico. Left a few here to wait, lest you somehow magic yourselves back ’fore they caught up with you, but then those got pulled out too, once the Weed started spreadin’. So there was my payment for lettin’ them badged-up fuckers in here in the first place, I guess.”