by S. A. Sidor
So, I waited with the lantern, which grew heavier by the second, as if the escaping smoke were somehow replaced with lead deposits. My arm trembled. My eyes watered sufficiently enough to give the impression I was crying. I was not crying.
McTroy did not emerge from his hiding spot.
“Nothing is happening,” I said.
I was prepared to repeat myself, even if it meant being shot, when McTroy sprung from behind another wall post, reached into the door void, and dragged in Evangeline.
She entered with her wings open and quite colorful like a flushed pheasant.
“Ohhh…”
As soon as he saw she was a woman he let her go.
While Miss Waterston was a sight to behold, this was my first chance to get a full view of McTroy. He stepped away as she regained her balance and then her composure.
People always remember Rex McTroy as a big man, but he stood average height and went underweight his whole life. He belted his pistols high and butt forward. When he drew them he habitually did so in the Cavalry twist style, quick as a rattler strike. He had unholstered a Colt single-action army revolver, and its twin remained sedate on his hip. His suit was unremarkably somber, his hat black as the barn we sheltered in. He wore a mustache and his hair reached his shoulders. Both were ashy.
“Ma’am,” he said. To add to his politeness, he shifted his weapon back to me.
“Pleased to meet you, Mister… McTroy, is it? He is the man I seek.”
“You found him. Is this joker with you?”
“I’m afraid I’ve never seen him before in my life,” she said.
Here I nearly dropped the lantern and started a fire.
“What on earth? Evangeline, tell him who I am. This is no laughing matter.”
She shaded her eyes from the lantern. “Dr Hardy, is it you? I almost did not recognize your face. You have a red mark on your cheek, yet you appear rather pale.”
“You know who I am. Stop playing games.”
“For a refined gentleman I don’t like your tone,” McTroy said.
“That is Dr Hardy, my associate. He is right to be upset with me. Now is not a good time for diversions. We need your help. And the doctor is no threat to anyone, so please put away your weapon. I think we all need to sit some place well-lit and talk.”
I wanted to argue that I was a threat, but I saw no winning.
McTroy sheathed his iron.
We followed the lady up the path to Black Shirl’s kitchen.
21
Ragdolls
We all ate beans. I was a little angry at the way McTroy had been talking to and about me – not to mention digging the gun into my face. But I remembered the warnings Black Shirley and Sheriff Mike Nugent had given us about McTroy’s prickly disposition. I was a good deal hungry as well. So, I kept my mouth filled with beans and empty of words. I don’t think I could’ve slipped more than a phrase into the proceedings edgewise, as Evangeline had taken control of the conversation and would not have let go without a quarrel. It was more monologue than anything else. She told him our story, from my expedition through the murderous robbery on the rails and right up to our parley in the barn. Only she left out any reference to the supernatural elements – which I don’t need to tell you is an omission of major dimensions. It was her show. I let her run it.
Once she had gotten to the part about the necrófagos – and notably left out the fact that they were necrófagos! And definitely not your ordinary cutthroat Mexican banditos! – Yong Wu started giving me pointed looks across the table. They were on the order of, “Hey, that’s not what happened!” and “Whoa, there! Are you going to just sit quietly while she lies through her teeth?” and even “What about the giant worm!!?”
The answer was in my silence.
Wu either realized my position on the subject, or perhaps it was his status in our traveling group. But he said nothing. Maybe he was really hungry too. The boy ate like a farmhand.
“There you have it, Mr McTroy. That is our story beginning to end. Only I must admit I have skipped over a most important part.” Evangeline tucked her chin coyly.
I stopped chewing.
McTroy had already wiped his plate clean with his bread. He leaned back on the creaky legs of his chair. In the kitchen light, I could see what Wu meant about his eyes. They were unnaturally light-colored in the irises. Cold and sparkly like the edge of a stropped razor.
“What part is that, Miss Waterston?”
She had paused long enough to force him to ask.
“Why, the money, sir. We don’t expect your expertise to come for free.”
I held out my plate to Shirl. “More beans, please, if you would.”
Shirl scraped out a last mound from the bottom of the pot.
“Thank you kindly,” I said.
“I do not typically work for hire unless you are a railroad. Miss Waterston, you are not a railroad.”
“But you hunt men for bounty?”
“I do at my discretion.”
“I guarantee there will be a generous bounty offered for these… evil men.”
“If your tale is true, then I don’t doubt it.”
“Then we can count on you to join us?”
“No.” McTroy started up from his chair.
Evangeline sighed. “The railroad’s owner,” here she mentioned him by his nickname and that impressed McTroy though he tried to hide it, “he and my father play cards whenever they are in town together. They do frequent business, but they are also friends. He will be greatly outraged at the misfortune we encountered on his train.”
“How does your padre come by his money?”
“Mining… mostly gold,” she said.
McTroy sat back down. He motioned to Shirley and she fetched him a bottle of whisky from the cupboard. She pumped water into the sink and filled a tin cup. He received the bottle, uncorked it, and drank directly from it. She passed him the cup and he wet his lips.
“Gold will do it,” he said, letting out a long, fragrant breath. “Your daddy paid spiffy boy here to mine up those dead Egyptians for him?”
I laid down my spoon and dabbed the corners of my mouth with a handkerchief.
“Father’s interests are diverse,” Evangeline said.
“Diverse and underground it seems.”
I cleared my throat to disguise my chuckling.
“The railroad will offer a substantial reward. My father will quadruple it – that is to say, double the amount twice. I do not know how you are accustomed to living. But it’s safe to assume you would never need to work again. Be sure of this: there will be a posse of bounty hunters in pursuit of the creatures who perpetrated this horrendous crime. If you help us, I promise you the whole prize. Dr Hardy and I want none of it. We know the ones who did this. No one can find them as fast as we can. Working together.”
“These creatures are already in Mexico. If what you say is true, they stole nothing from the train but a load of ragdolls.”
“It is true,” she said. She winced at her slippage of the word “creatures.”
“See, that makes less sense to me than digging up dead bodies for your art collection. A Mexican outlaw has enough corpses at hand, he don’t need yours. And he wouldn’t know what to do with them once he got them. So, either this scum didn’t know what they were stealing or they are loco. Either way, your ragdolls got dumped in the desert for crowbait or they sit in a cantina catching bullets for a bunch of tequila-soaked cholos.”
“May I say something?” I said.
“No,” McTroy said.
“Please do, Hardy. Tell him he simply must help us.”
I said, “McTroy, you do not need to help us.”
Evangeline made a quick move to slap my hand, but I was quicker in pulling away, and she hit the table hard enough to make the silverware jump. Yong Wu startled in his seat.
I went on. “Though we were assured by all who we asked that you were the hardest man in the territory, I, for one, completely un
derstand if you feel you are not up to the challenge of capturing these hostile foreign gunmen. They are numerous and fierce. Not to mention ugly as sin. You are but a man. Miss Waterston and I thank you for listening to our plea. In the morning, we will announce a call for the formation of a posse. They will guide us in collecting our ragdolls from over the border. The more I think about this plan of Miss Waterston’s, the more I think it is beneath a man of your caliber – despite the ludicrous financial compensation.”
I pushed myself from the table. “Come, Yong Wu, we must get to bed. Tomorrow there are contracts waiting to be drawn and crowds of fresh men to be hired.”
We had dusted the crumbs from our clothes and were about to cross the threshold into our humble bedroom before McTroy stopped us.
“Wait,” he said.
“Goodnight, sir. I hope you can return to your slumber in the barn.”
“I said, ‘Wait.’ Now tell me again what you all want from this deal. You want the coyote trash who robbed you… you want them killed? Taken alive? Which is it?”
“It is no consequence to us. We only want the mummies back,” I said.
“I can’t guarantee their condition if we find them. How many are there again?”
“Six. We will take them back in whatever form they are found. And there is only one we must have returned, with his sarcophagus – his stone coffin box. That is not negotiable.”
“I get the railroad money, plus four times that, for one corpse in its right box?”
“That is the offer as the lady presented it.”
“Well, I like it better now after you said it. And you don’t care who dies?”
“We would prefer not to die ourselves.”
“You ain’t going with me.”
“We must. Not negotiable. We are the only ones who can identify the robbers and the remains of Amun Odji-Kek – the corpse in the box, as you call him. We go with you.”
McTroy grumbled but nodded. “I’m not paying for daily expenses.”
“We will pay,” Evangeline said, happily.
McTroy screwed up his face as he was computing mental calculations. “Two quarter horses and saddles, bridles, blankets…”
Shirl had taken a pencil from her pocket and was writing down a list on a scrap of newsprint. McTroy shifted toward Evangeline. “Can you ride?”
“Of course, I can ride. Since I was a girl of seven.”
“How about you, Doc?”
“I’ve ridden horses and camels.”
“Shirl, you got any camels?”
“Nope.”
“Then I guess the doc will settle for a horse like the rest of us. We’ll need coffee, food, bedrolls, and such. I expect to be gone a week. Two at the most. Get the supplies from Abel’s general store. Tell Abel to bill the lady. I said she’s good for it. Can you find her some clothes that don’t stand out like a Bolivian flag? The boy’s not coming with us, is he?”
“Yes, he is,” Evangeline said.
“Then he’s your responsibility. He rides with one of you. I’ll already be slowed and sweating it like a whore at church.” He shook his head. “A dandy, a woman, and Jake Chinaman. These banditos better watch out. At least we’ll have shock on our side.”
Once we shook hands all around, even Yong Wu and Black Shirley joining us for this ceremony of harmonious accord, McTroy’s mood peaked. He finished off the whisky and took Evangeline for a twirl around the kitchen while Shirl played a mouth harp and stomped her foot. She fashioned a fine tune, though none I could name off the top of my head, and they all tended to run together into one dancing opus. Evangeline was red-faced by the time they finished. She and her partner had worked up a lather.
This time when I excused Yong Wu and myself for bed, I meant it.
“You’re right, Doc,” McTroy said. “We got big business in the morning.”
He bowed to the ladies and headed back to the barn.
Shirl went to the porch for a goodnight puff on her pipe. I ushered a sleepy-eyed Wu off to a much-needed night’s rest. I pumped water for Evangeline and me to toast closing the deal.
“I’m no dandy,” I said after the others left us.
“No, you aren’t,” Evangeline said. “He doesn’t know you. And I doubt he’s ever seen the flag of Bolivia. Don’t judge him on minor matters. It will take time for us to learn about each other, the good and the bad. The important thing is we’ve done it. We’re going to Mexico to beat those monsters and bring back our artifacts.”
“We’re going to Mexico. Let’s wait and see about the rest.”
“Hardy, I don’t know you all that well either. Are you always so gloomy?”
“I didn’t used to think so. But Odji-Kek might have turned me around since he wriggled his way into my brain aboard the Derceto.”
“Don’t say that.” Her expression had fallen. She paled.
“I was being metaphorical,” I said.
“It’s not something to take lightly. From what I know about Amun Odji-Kek he might very well seize a person’s mind and never give it back.”
That bit of intelligence was most unwelcome. I had more than enough worries to burden me. The prospect of losing my personal psyche instilled a degree of crankiness.
“When I went on my expedition I knew almost nothing about this sorcerer. Not his name. Not his story, which is still sketchy. I didn’t even know he was the one in the tomb. Your father did. You did.”
“I’m sorry we didn’t tell you more at the time. We thought you’d be scared off. You wouldn’t have been the first to turn tail. In retrospect, it was a terrible mistake.”
“Yet you’re making the same mistake again. Withholding information from McTroy.”
“Oh, we barely convinced him the way it is.” Her spine straightened. I could sense the righteousness flooding back into her. “Thank you for getting him to join our search. You know as well as I do that would have been impossible if we had told him the truth.”
“Perhaps…”
“Not perhaps, definitely not perhaps.” She shook her head. “We have a big day ahead of us, and if I don’t climb into bed I swear I will crumple to the floor.” She placed her cup in the sink and walked around the table, heading to her bedroom.
I cut off her path.
“Why does your father want Odji-Kek?”
“Really I… I don’t think it is appropriate… he may not want me…”
She was more flustered by my question than I expected. Words failed her.
“I can’t tell you,” she said, finally.
“Why not?”
“There are things I don’t know about my father. That is one of them.”
“I wish I could trust you more than I do.”
“Hardy, I wish you could too.”
How is it that I felt thwarted by her, and yet desired to embrace her equally?
I was about to touch her arm, as a preamble to what I could not exactly predict. But I had no chance to see where that contact might have led.
The door swung open, hinges screeching, and banged the wall. McTroy leaned forward. He was off-balance, grabbing me to keep from going sideways and sliding to the floor. I wondered how much whisky he drank in a day. He had his own bottle in the barn, I was certain. He smelled sweet and overheated. His clothes were glued to his skin.
“Sleep, you little hens,” he said. “We ride at daybreak.” He tottered out the way he’d come, not bothering to shut out the night. From the arch of his eyebrow and the gleam in his bloodshot eyes, I wondered if the devil had been listening outside the door the entire time.
22
Lobos
I hadn’t laid my head down on the pillow long enough to dent it before Wu was shaking me awake.
“What is it?”
“Time to go,” he said. His face was puffy and his hair stood at odd angles.
Although I scarcely believed him, I opened my pocket watch near his lamp and found it was indeed the cusp of dawn. I groaned.
“Is Ev
angeline up?”
“Yes, everyone is. You are the last person sleeping.”
“Would that I were still sleeping. Is that coffee I smell?” The door to our bedroom lay open, but all beyond it was murky.
“The tall lady says so, yet I am not sure. The paper package reads, ‘Arbuckles’ Ariosa Coffee.’ But look.” He held a red and white striped stick of peppermint candy in the light. “She said this came in the package and she gave it to me. Do you think it might be a trick?”
“You are too suspicious, my young friend. If Black Shirl meant us harm, we would be cold in the ground instead of cold on our feet in her boardinghouse.” I slipped into my trousers. “I judge the aroma to be fine. Let’s drink up. Save the candy for our ride.”
I twisted my neck, feeling as if I had been beaten with iron rods. The soft bed called to me like a warm and pouting mistress. I finished dressing in the chill air. My toes detected cool drafts whispering up from the cracks between the floorboards. Soon I will be too hot and complaining of that, I told myself.
With cup in hand, I ambled to the front of the house and peeked through the curtains. Three horses, including Moonlight, were tied outside in the milky-blue semi-dark. They appeared loaded and ready to ride. I saw neither Evangeline nor McTroy.
I caught a whiff of pipe tobacco before Black Shirl strode up the steps.
I pulled back and let the curtain fall as if I had been discovered spying.
With the pipe stem of that giant calabash clamped between her teeth, she told me McTroy was wanting to leave, the sooner the better. Shirl had stirred Abel, the local storekeeper, out of bed to supply our journey, and though he wasn’t happy to be disturbed, he did like the sizable bump in his business. When he found out we weren’t paying directly, his mood soured again.
“Evangeline has a bag of gold coins in that purse of hers. We counted out a few and Abel saw the rest so he quieted down. He’s not the only supplier in Yuma, you know,” Shirl told me.
