The Six-Gun Tarot

by R. S. Belcher

  The thunder of a shotgun blast rolled across the plain. One of the coyotes to the left of Squint was lifted up in the air, twisted in a cloud of bloody mist and fell, twitching, to the earth. The howling stopped.

  Jim saw the vulture-man, the one Mutt had called Clay, standing in the back of the wagon, one of his shotgun’s barrels trailing silvery smoke up into the starlight. Clay’s hair was a ragged halo around his liver-spotted pate and he was wearing a pair of filthy long johns. It would have been comical if Jim hadn’t been so scared.

  “Now, git!” Clay shouted. He leveled the shotgun at another of Squint’s pack and fired. The coyote’s whimper of pain was lost in the bellow of the blast. It fell as silent as its brother, unmoving on the ground. Clay frantically scrambled for more shells at his feet as he popped the still-smoking breech open.

  Squint glared at Mutt, who met the gaze with hatred in kind. The big coyote sniffed, and then turned and ran, barking a long string of yips. The pack joined in as they, too, turned to flee. The desert grew quiet again except for an occasional howl.

  “Well, don’t that beat the Dutch?” Clay said, hopping down off the wagon and hobbling, barefoot, toward the others. “Never seen coyotes act like that before. You, Mutt?”

  The Indian shrugged. “Clay, this is Jim.”

  “Jim Ne … Nelson, sir,” Jim said, pumping the old man’s hand when it was offered. “That was some good shooting up there.”

  “Clay Turlough,” the old man replied. “Thank you, son. I’m a mite ornery when I get woke up ’fore I’m ready to.”

  Clay looked out into the darkness. He seemed suddenly distracted. He handed Jim the open shotgun and then trotted into the shadows at the terminator of the fire’s light. He returned cradling one of the wounded, bloody coyotes in his arms.

  “Well, Mutt, don’t seem the trip was a complete loss. This one’s not too torn up and look, he’s still huffing a little air. Let me get him over to the wagon and have a look-see.”

  Jim looked at the Indian.

  Mutt took the shotgun out of his hands and reloaded it. “Clay owns the only stable in Golgotha. He’s the closest thing we got to a horse doctor in these parts. Went to medical school for a few years. Didn’t work out too well from what I heard. He makes a decent living doing taxidermy for folks as far away as Carson City, though. He … collects … dead things.”

  Jim approached the wagon while Mutt tended the fire. Clay had lit an oil lantern and set it next to the dying coyote on the back of the wagon. The old man had put on his boots and a trail coat over his long johns. His hands were black with blood, but he didn’t seem to mind. He was hunched near the animal’s face. Jim thought he heard him whispering to the animal, but Clay stopped when the boy approached.

  “Ah, Mr. Nelson. Come see, young man; this is a unique educational opportunity for a lad of your age. See, see. He’s just at the threshold now.”

  The animal’s eyes were wide. The pupils greedily drinking in every last flicker of light, scrapping for every final detail. Fear clouded the eyes like a cataract, but as the old man and boy watched the fear slid away from the eyes. A dumb peace settled over them, as if the animal was no longer looking at the same world any longer. Then the light flickered, and was gone. Clay audibly gasped.

  “‘Man,’” he muttered, “‘how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom.’”

  Jim stared at him oddly.

  “Shelley,” he said. It’s from Lady Shelley’s marvelous scientific fiction. We understand so little about life or its sister, death. Look at this animal. Why was it, a moment ago, alive and feeling and thinking and now it is changed, dead? Why?”

  “’Cause you shot it,” Jim said.

  Clay looked at him oddly, like he wasn’t standing in front of the old man or he hadn’t heard what Jim said. He blinked and the jovial old man was back, but the sour smell Jim had first caught off of him was there as well—a cross between formaldehyde and lilac water trying to hide it.

  “You’ve had a busy day and a busier night, m’boy,” Clay said with a razor cut of a smile. He placed a bloody hand on the dead coyote’s flank.

  “Get some rest.”

  The two men took turns keeping watch. The coyotes didn’t return. Just before sunup, the men broke camp and doused the cook fire. They set off at dawn for Golgotha. Jim sat on the buckboard with Mutt while Promise trotted along behind the wagon. Clay and his dead coyote rode in the back.

  As the day wore on, Mutt asked to see the eye. Jim reluctantly agreed. The Indian admired it, rolled it over in his callused, dirty hands. Jim noticed even his knuckles were hairy. Mutt tried to make out the tiny chains of inscriptions that ringed the iris.

  “It’s Johnnyman talk, “Jim said. “Chinese, I reckon.”

  “It’s not any kind of medicine I understand,” Mutt said finally. The two were talking softly. They need not be concerned, however; Clay was quite content to mutter to himself and the coyote. “Still, it’s powerful; I can feel it humming across the worlds.”

  Jim nervously held out his hand, and after too long a pause Mutt dropped the eye back into the boy’s palm.

  “You’d do well to not lose that,” Mutt said.

  “It’s all I got left of my pa, and I don’t intend to ever part with it,” Jim said as he stuffed it back in his pocket.

  They rode along in silence for hours. The desert was beginning to give way grudgingly to some greenery. Blackbrush, shadscale and an occasional yucca plant softened the unforgiving sameness of the plains. They began to spiral downward through small demi-canyons richer in low, hardy plants. Once, Jim felt a cool breeze off of some body of water caress his face for a moment. It was growing noticeably cooler as the greenery began to embrace them.

  “So,” Jim finally said. “Your brother is a coyote?”

  “Whereabouts in Kansas did you say your family was from … Mr. Nelson?” Mutt asked with a jagged smile.

  Jim shut up.

  A few miles later Mutt leaned forward on the seat and turned to look at the boy.

  “Jim, I know you’re set on heading to Virginia City and that railroad job, but I’m here to tell you, I’ve traveled my whole life one step ahead of what was trying to bite me on the hindquarters. People with secrets, people running, need to keep to the shadows, out-of-the-way places where the world just passes on by.”

  “Like Golgotha?” Jim said.

  Mutt nodded. “Small towns, hell, just about everybody in ’em got some kind of secret. Everyone minds their own business, holds their peace. Place like Virginia City, you’d be stumbling over marshals and sheriffs, bounty hunters and Pinkerton men. All the latest wanted posters are up and everybody is nosy as hell, up in your business.”

  “Why are you telling me all of this?” Jim said.

  “Guess I like a man who keeps his horse alive in the desert, who grabs a torch and helps a fella out of a jam, even if the fella is half-breed Injun he don’t know from Adam.”

  They passed a simple farmhouse with a corral pen full of placid cattle.

  “You and Clay saved us,” Jim said. “Didn’t have to, didn’t need to, but you did anyway. My pa always said a man was what he did, not where he came from or what people thought about him. You did right by me and Promise.”

  They passed old decrepit buildings made of dried mud set into the side of a mountain wall, a shrine of simple stones and a weathered Roman cross; the items seemed to be from vastly different times.

  Mutt smiled and nodded. “Fair enough. More fair than most. Your secrets are safe with me, Jim Nelson from Kansas.”

  They passed a cool stand of cottonwood trees on the left and a crumbling stone well on the right. The sky was bright and blue, shimmering with heat. The air smelled of sawdust and horse manure. The wagon slowed as they approached Main Street.

  “Welcome to Golgotha,” Mutt said.

  The Star

  Golgotha opened her arms to him.

  Jim had seen his fair share of towns in his travels toward the nea
r-mythical railroad job in Virginia City. Golgotha seemed an odd mixture of old ruin and new paint, boom and bust—like an old lady all gussied up and powdered to meet her suitor, wearing too much makeup and gaudy schoolgirl ribbons in her hair, not caring about the incongruity of it, just happy to be alive and in love.

  Golgotha was old, but she was still kicking.

  They had passed the rotted wood skeletons of old dwellings and tattered tarp doorways to the cave homes—gouged into the cool blue rock of the mountain slumbering off to their left. It all whispered of age—lives long ago lived and put aside, memories that refused to be wholly eaten by the dust.

  The first building that grabbed Jim was the theatre. It was a garish two-story affair off to his right, painted up in gray and mauve. The marquee stretched across the face of the building like a wide grin. It boldly proclaimed Professor Mephisto’s Playhouse and Showcase and further announced a production of Little Brown Jug currently ongoing.

  Next door to the playhouse was Shultz’s General Store and Butcher Shop, according to a large sign in fat Slab Serif print. A heavyset man with a thick rust-colored handlebar mustache was sweeping up the wooden planks of the sidewalk in front of the store. He reminded Jim of the drawing of a walrus he had seen in a book once. The man wore a crisp, white apron, a fringe of red and smoke-colored hair encircling his sun-freckled pate and a warm smile he shared as the wagon passed.

  “That’s Auggie,” Mutt said. “It’s his store. Well, it was his and Gert’s store. She passed a while back. Just about anything you need, Auggie’s got it, or can order it. Post office is in there too.”

  The street was a wide moat of wet and dried mud, dust and manure. People made their way between the buildings, many sticking as close to the wooden sidewalks as their business would allow them. Others braved the street, trudging between the trotting horses, clattering wagons and the muck. Men tipped their hats to the ladies, interposing themselves between the dirty streets and the women. Most of the folk looked like regular people to Jim, but a few were dressed all fancy, like they were headed to church, even though it wasn’t Sunday.

  Across the street from Shultz’s was the Paradise Falls Saloon, the largest building on the street. The Paradise had three stories, a wide covered porch on the ground level and a railed balcony wrapping around the second floor. Smaller balconies outside shuttered doors and parapets that were home to brooding angels or leering gargoyles adorned the third floor

  A group of well-dressed men, awash in the smoke of their huge cigars, congregated in front of the Paradise. They guffawed over some unseemly joke and slapped each other on the back, nodding.

  On the opposite side of the street from the Paradise Falls and next door to Auggie’s store resided the Golgotha Bank and Trust, a sturdy-looking building with iron bars over the windows.

  Mutt couldn’t help but give a sly grin when he saw Jim’s expression as they passed the bank. The boy had caught sight of the Johnnies, headed up Main toward Auggie’s.

  Jim gasped. Chinamen, real Chinamen. Not in a book or one of Pa’s stories of Washington. It was the first time in Jim’s life he had seen anyone so different in every way. They wore black tunics and loose pants, like pajamas, and wide cone-shaped straw hats that hid much of their faces in shadows. Sandals covered their feet and some were barefoot. He did a double take when he realized that some of them were women and were dressed the same as the men. No one tipped their hat to them, or shielded them from the street. They kept their heads down under their basket-hats. His hand slid into his pocket and cupped the jade eye.

  “Chinese, mostly,” Mutt said. “A few from other places I can’t pronounce none too good. They’re out here looking for work on the railroads. Like you. Most of them live over in Johnny Town, off of North Bick Street. Got their own saloons, businesses, everything over there. I wouldn’t recommend wandering there alone, Jim.”

  They passed a fancy-looking hotel, the Elysium, next to the saloon. Jim saw a barbershop that proudly advertised the dental services and curatives offered therein. Old men whittled on a bench next to the shop’s striped pole. An elderly Indian paused in his carving and nodded to Mutt. Mutt returned the gesture with the slightest of motions.

  Across from the barber was the Corinthian-columned façade of Golgotha’s town hall.

  Clay turned the wagon right onto a street named Prosperity. They passed a small cabin and a neatly whitewashed church on the opposite side of the road. The mountain was behind them now and when Jim looked back he saw that Prosperity Street snaked its way up the slope. There were tents, shacks and shanties, dozens of them farther up the mountain, a whole other small, ramshackle town, looking down on Golgotha.

  “Argent Mountain,” Clay said as he noticed the boy’s gaze. “Ole Moneybags Bick’s hole in the ground. There were some good veins down in there. The silver brought people here from all over. Then it went bust a few years back.”

  “Now you got lots of folks who live up there in the squatter camps, came here chasing a dream and ended up broke and lost in the desert,” Mutt said. “Figure Golgotha is as good a place as any to sit around and wait for your luck to change, or to die.”

  “Hell,” Clay added, “damn sight better than some places.”

  Ahead of them was another rise with a gentler slope. This hill boasted several homes residing on it of an obviously higher quality than the rest of the town, or the squalid shacks on Argent Mountain. Near the hill’s base was a beautiful building of dark wood and blued stone. Two steeples rose up out of its roof, both adorned with crosses. A literal wall of arched windows covered one side of the structure and reflected the brilliant sun in silvered mercury glass.

  “What is that?” Jim asked.

  “Rose Hill,” Clay said. “Where all the fancy folk live. Most of ’em is Mormons and that there is their temple.”

  “That’s their church?” Jim leaned forward in the wagon, squinting against the light. “Looks like a king’s castle or palace or something.”

  “They only use it for special ceremonies,” Mutt said. “They got a little meetinghouse off of Absalom Road they use most of the time. Not so off-puttin’.”

  “I heard some strange stuff about them Mormons,” Jim said.

  “They’re all right,” Mutt said blandly. “Bet you heard some strange stuff about Chinamen and Injuns too, huh?”

  Jim said nothing. Mutt’s chuckle was a dry grunt.

  Clay nodded toward a wide, rutted road off to the left, just past the whitewashed church.

  Mutt brought the wagon to a halt. “This is where we get off, Jim,” he said. “Much obliged to you, Clay. Sorry about the horse.”

  “Well, better luck next time,” the old man said with a shrug. He took the reins from the Indian. “Always glad to help out the law.”

  Jim climbed down. He stroked Promise’s bony flank as he hefted the saddlebags awkwardly over his shoulders.

  “See, girl, I told you we’d make it,” Jim whispered to the horse.

  “Now don’t you fret, young fella,” Clay said with a wink. “I’ll stable her over at my place. It’s a long bit a week; you think you can afford that? You come by when you can even up. We square?”

  “Uh, sure? Your place?”

  “Straight down Pratt Road here,” Clay said, gesturing to the wide track. “Can’t miss it.”

  “Thanks,” Jim said. “For everything.”

  Clay smiled and shook the reins. The wagon clattered along with Promise following behind. They turned up the road and slowly disappeared into the curtain of heat and dust.

  Mutt turned right onto a dirty little street just behind the cabin they had passed. The simple wooden sign announced it was called Dry Well Road. Jim hurried to catch up to the Indian. He noticed a lot of folks seemed to give Mutt a wide berth, moving to the other side of the narrow street and avoiding his unblinking gaze. Mutt didn’t seem to mind; if anything, Jim got the impression he enjoyed making the townsfolk feel uncomfortable.

  “Why did you te
ll Clay ‘sorry’?” Jim said as they walked past a seedy boardinghouse and a livery and tack store.

  “Huh?”

  “‘Sorry,’” Jim repeated. “You told Clay ‘sorry’ and he said, ‘Better luck next time.’ Why?”

  “Oh.” The Indian smiled, all yellow and jagged. “That. Well, the only way I could get him out there to the Forty-Mile was I told him your horse was pert near dead and if he would drive me out, he could have the carcass if she died.”

  The blood ran out of Jim’s face. His tongue seized up. “Oh,” was all he could muster.

  Mutt laughed again, shaking his head. “Now, Jim, he ain’t going to do nothin’ to Promise, ’cept feed her, brush her down and keep her safe. Clay is kind of odd about his little … hobby with dead things. But he won’t hurt her. She belongs to you, and he seems to have taken a shine to you.”

  “Why is he such an odd stick about dying, though?”

  “Everybody’s got something that puts wind in their lungs, Jim. Most folks it’s money or a fancy house. Some it’s another person. For Clay it’s figuring out how things tick and why they stop ticking.”

  They continued down Dry Well. They passed a blacksmith’s shop. The rhythm of hammer and muscle against hot iron filled the space of their silence.

  “Why did Clay say he was glad to help the law?” Jim asked finally.

  Mutt buried his hand in the pocket of his dungarees. He pulled out a badge—a star of silver within a circle of the same. He showed it to Jim and then pinned it on his jacket lapel.

  “You the sheriff here, Mutt?” Jim said, trying to keep the fear out of his voice. After the desert, it was easier.

  The gaunt man laughed. “Hell, no! You’d have to be nine parts crazy to one part stupid to be sheriff in this town. Sounds like a job for a white man, you ask me. Nope, I’m just hired help.”

  “Why did you take a job like that?”

  “Got my reasons.”

  They were approaching a squat cube of red brick. The bars on the windows and the heavy iron door, dented and scarred, a monument to old violence, told you what it was even before you read the sign hanging off the awning by two chains. A wooden board with public announcements was mounted next to the iron door. Wanted posters struggled in the stale, feeble wind to be free of the tacks pinning them to the board.