“What in the…”
The room was darker. The sun was not where it should have been. His ten minutes in Earl’s place were hours to the rest of the world. This was wrong, all wrong. The room was cold, colder than an icebox. His breath swirled like a ghost in the darkness. His hand fell to his gun, but his guts told him this was nothing a gun could kill. They told him to run like hell.
So he did.
Out, into the sunlight and the afternoon heat. He looked down at the Bible in his hand. Faint wisps of smoke were escaping from between the pages, as if the sun itself were trying to eradicate the thing. He quickly slipped it into his saddlebag and headed for the home of the next errant ridge resident. It took a while for the sun to warm him.
On his way to take a look at Daniel Basham’s digs, Mutt noticed the fresh wagon tracks he had spotted earlier in the day were leading up to the summit—where the entrance to the mine was. The gunpowder smell was stronger. Maybe because it was a fresher scent this time, or maybe because his senses were tweaked by the fear summoned up in him in Earl’s shack, he could identify it—dynamite, lots of it. He spurred Muha and raced for the top of the mountain. It took less than ten minutes to reach the summit. Two wagons were parked in the center of what had been the old mine camp. Men, at least a dozen, were in the process of rebuilding the camp. The sun was slowly becoming a bloody eye in the west as Mutt reined Muha to a stop. In a clatter of oiled gunmetal, the men leveled rifles and drew pistols, all cocked and aimed at him. Mutt rested his hand on the stock of his sheathed rifle and regarded the strangers.
“Before you decide to do something that will get you dead by a bullet, or a rope, you ought to know I’m part of the law in these here parts and y’all are trespassing on privately owned land.” He looked at hardened face after hardened face in the circle of death he had rode into. “Now you-all best be putting those irons away, or else I’m going to have to write you a citation.…”
Two men strode up with six more behind them. The two leading the charge were Fancy Dans—brocade vests, gold watch fobs, but with shirtsleeves rolled up and dirt on their hands. One was tall and redheaded, with chipmunk teeth, so pale it looked like the noon sun could make an Indian out of him; the other was short, olive skinned and fat, mopping his brow with an embroidered handkerchief. A few of the entourage behind them were carrying large rolls of charts and surveying tools. The rest cradled rifles. They all looked right tickled to see Mutt.
“What is the meaning of this?” Olive Skin said. He had the tone you give a waiter when you find a mouse turd in your soufflé. “You are trespassing here.”
“Actually, that’s my line,” Mutt said, his hand not wavering from his rifle. “This is private property. Owned by a fellow named Malachi Bick, down in the town below. I’m the deputy sheriff in these parts and you and your crew gotta move on.”
“This is outrageous!” Olive Skin bellowed.
Chipmunk held up a hand to calm his partner and turned to address Mutt. “Look, Chief, there’s a misunderstanding. Where’s your hoss? Maybe we could talk to him?”
Mutt slid the rifle clear of the sheath in one fluid movement, natural as stretching. He cocked the lever with a flick of his thick wrist, one-handed, as he brought it down to bear straight at Chipmunk’s horrified face. There was an instant of stunned silence as all the armed and ready gunmen realized Mutt had somehow gotten the drop on them.
“Sure thing,” he said, locking eyes with Chipmunk. “This is him, right here. Oh, and it’s ‘Deputy,’ not ‘Chief.’ Now you say it, hoss.”
Chipmunk swallowed hard, a lump of anger and fear that was sharp going down.
“Deputy, not Chief,” he said.
“Now I’ve tried being nice and I’ve tried being reasonable,” Mutt said. “And for my trouble I’ve had guns pointed at me and been treated in a disrespectful manner. Now I want all of you to drop your guns on the ground, now, or I will surely blow this man’s head clean off his shoulders. And I reckon that will affect all of y’all come payday.”
“Do it,” Chipmunk said to the men. A thin line of sweat now covered his upper lip. The crew looked to Olive Skin. He nodded quickly and made dropping motions with his hands. Pistols, rifles and shotguns all thudded onto the hot dust.
“Show him, Jacob,” Chipmunk said to Olive Skin. Jacob, formerly known as Olive Skin, slowly reached into his inside vest pocket and withdrew a folded packet of papers. He stepped toward Mutt, gingerly offering the packet to the deputy.
There was no way in hell Mutt was going to confide in this crew of lick-fingers that he couldn’t make heads or tails of this legal mush. He examined the papers while he kept the rifle on Chipmunk with his other hand. They looked official, with lots of places to put your mark and stamps and even gold seals. He nodded and looked for words he recognized. He spotted the word “deed” as well as the sweeping signature of Malachi Bick.
“You see the land was deeded to us by Mr. Stapleton a few weeks ago,” Chipmunk said, trying to get out from in front of the rifle’s barrel. “That’s my signature there, see, ‘Oscar Deerfield,’ and there is my partner, ‘Jacob Moore.’” He gestured toward Jacob, who was nodding eagerly.
“Arthur Stapleton, the banker?” Mutt said. Mrs. Stapleton flowed through his mind like cool, sweet water. He lowered the rifle. “Land ain’t his to deed; it belongs to Malachi Bick.”
“Used to,” Deerfield said, plucking the papers out of Mutt’s hand. “Bick deeded it to Art and he deeded it to us.”
“Fair and square,” Moore said. “All handled up in Virginia City by a first-rate lawyer.”
“Why would anyone want the deed to a busted silver mine?” Mutt said. The men with charts were chasing off the hired guns. They paused long enough to pick up their shooting irons and then shuffle back to work with hard sideways glances at Mutt. The storm had apparently passed.
“Because, Chie— Because, Deputy, it is most certainly not busted,” Deerfield said.
“Come again?”
“It’s not busted,” Moore repeated the claim, his wide face splitting into a grin. “And we intend to open ’er back up again and prove it.”
The Queen of Cups
Maude was cleaning up the last of the dinner dishes when Arthur arrived home. He slammed the door and then locked it.
“Have you eaten?” she asked. It was the first words they had spoken since he had struck her yesterday. He ignored her and made straight for the liquor cabinet, pouring a glass tumbler full of scotch. He downed it as he strode to the window by the front door and glanced furtively past the curtains, into the decaying daylight.
“Has he been by?” he asked, squinting out the window. “Him or his horse of a bastard-mulattoo son, or one of his other ruffians?”
“Who?” Maude said, walking toward Arthur, sensing the creeping fear building in him.
“Bick!” He spun and shouted at her, “Goddamn Malachi Bick! Tar-souled villain’s coming for me. I know it.”
Maude frowned. She wasn’t scared of Arthur. She hadn’t been in a long time. He was terrified and, like many men, his fear was usually wrapped in anger.
“Bick? Arthur, he’s your friend. You two have been partners for years. He needs you to run his interests.”
Arthur pushed past her and refilled his glass.
“Partner,” he spit out the word like it was a bad taste. “More like his goddamned pet. Malachi Bick doesn’t have friends; he has assets. And you are either a valuable asset to him, or a liability. I just became a liability.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Arthur, let me help you.”
Arthur snorted again. “What the hell do you think you could do to help, Maude? Snivel at him?” He hurried down the hall and disappeared into their bedroom.
For an instant, Maude considered telling him what she could do. How she could kill Bick before he had a chance to raise an eyebrow; vanish like desert dew as the sun arose ascendant. Poison him, cripple him, rob him, curse him. She was fairly confide
nt she could still do all that. She had let so much of the training go, slip away like sand, a few precious grains at a time. But she knew she still carried enough of The Load to deal with a scoundrel like Malachi Bick. She remained silent. It would do no good. Arthur would forsake her help, and berate her for what he’d see as a childish flight of fancy. She shook her head. She had promised Gran Bonnie that she would never end up like this. She had worked so hard, for so long, it was strange to look back now at what she had been and not understand in the slightest how she had arrived here now.
“If you flinch,” Anne Bonny said with a wicked grin, “you die, girl. Be still. Still.”
The blade hummed as it left the old woman’s hand. Maude felt the breeze, smelled the oiled steel as it flew past her cheek and felt it pluck the grape from between her lips. The blade and the grape thudded into the cypress tree Maude was standing in front of with a heavy hollow sound. The blade, still quivering, was half-buried in the tree.
“Good,” the old woman said. “You didn’t piss yourself that time. Good.”
A break in the training; they were sitting on a makeshift bench of deadwood along the private beach behind Grande Folly. The sky was blindingly blue. Gulls screeched in the distance, competing with the rumble of the waves. There was still an early spring chill, but the vigorous calisthenics that Anne put her through had driven it away. Maude munched on a hunk of sourdough bread from the lunch pail Isaiah had delivered some hours ago. She washed it down with great gulps of cold water from a tin cup.
“What is the source of all disease?” Anne asked as she admired the gulls’ aerial dance.
“It is a distorted reflection in the human soul, of its divine beauty,” Maude responded casually, enjoying the bread. “Sickness of the body, of the mind, is the soul seeking, and being thwarted in emulating the divine nature inherent in all human beings. This incongruity in the inner spiritual reality causes disharmony within the sheath of the soul, and therefore illness.”
“Now,” Anne said, “explain it to me simple, like I was a child, or a man.”
“All disease, all illness,” Maude said, popping the last bite of bread into her mouth and talking around it, “is born in a sickness of the soul. And we cure it by healing the soul.”
“Good,” Anne said, nodding. “Cite your source.”
“The heresies of the Yellow Empress,” she said, burping gently. “The hidden passages of the Cong-Fu of the Toa-Tse; 3000 B.C.” She stood up from the log, “Can we do more running on the sand now? I want to try not to leave prints again. I think I almost have it.”
“Yes, you do,” Anne said. “And no, we are not. This old crone is done with running for the day. Sit down; I need to show you something.”
Maude sat.
“Anne, when am I going to learn how to shoot? You’ve taught me all about other kinds of weapons, but not guns.”
Anne shook her head. “Guns. We’ll get to them, lass. Eager little thing now, aren’t you? Now that your eyes are open.
“To be honest, girl, guns really aren’t that important. Guns are like men—only useful for a little while. They can go off at a moment’s notice when you don’t want them to and they make a lot of damn fool noise doing it. They tend to fail on you when you need them most. Don’t rely on them.
“Trust yourself, your weapons, your talents. Remember how I showed you what sharp nails can do? Taught you how to disguise their potency, how to hide your claws in plain sight? You can open a man’s throat with them, quiet, quick. Hell, you can usually get a man to give you his throat to cut, with the right words, the right theatre. You can coat your nails with poison—”
“Oh, I know the two best alkaline-based contact poisons to use!” Maude interrupted. “There’s—”
“Not today,” Anne said. “No poisons, no guns. No, today we talk about the whys. First principles.”
Maude calmed herself. The day was getting warmer and the sun felt good on her skin. A lazy swarm of bees darted around some of the hydrangeas that grew wild at the edge of the sand. Everything felt like it was made of light and warmth.
“What,” Anne asked, “do you think is the reason I’m teaching you all these things, as they were taught to me?”
“So I can take care of myself, and help others,” Maude said.
“Why?”
“Because you hate men and they are evil and hurt the world?”
Anne shook her head. “No. No. Gods, no. This is one of the hardest things to teach and it should be the easiest.”
Anne looked out at the sea. She seemed to listen to the gulls. She nodded and turned back to Maude.
“Men,” she began. She stopped, sighed and turned angrily back to the sea. “Damn it.…
“Men,” she tried again. “Are part of the same world, the same design, as you and me, as the sea, the gulls, the sky. We need men and they need us. We are part of the same tapestry. Pull on one thread and the pattern is destroyed. Men are not evil. What men have done, some of that is evil. Men have driven themselves mad, lost and tangled in their own warped pattern, their own pain. And like every other animal in pain, they lash out, blindly.
“The tyrant-father of Heaven, the one Who created, hated and drove out the first woman, yoked men with a horrible curse, far worse than any imagined to have been handed down to Eve. Men were told they were masters of this world, of their mates, of the beasts and fish, of the land and sea and sky. How ridiculous! That’s like telling a little boy he’s in charge of the house when his da is gone. It’s silly!
“And like that little boy, men have tried to live up to the unreasonable demands of their mute, wayward, celestial father. They have enslaved and dominated, conquered and killed, all in the name of shepherding, of protecting, of ruling the world. They spend their lives trying to do what they think is right, what their father on high would want of them. The bastard.”
Anne sat next to Maude and fished one of her strong, bony hands down the front of her blouse tugging at a chain at her neck, pulling it free.
“I don’t hate men. I hate the madness that engulfs them. I hate that they rage and struggle and storm so damn loud that they can’t hear the voices around them, the voices that are here to guide them, to teach them and nurture them. I hate they try so hard to please their father they ignore the Mother.”
She pulled the chain over her head and held it up for Maude to see. It was old, worn. The links were flat and made of dull, crudely forged iron. Attached to the chain was a small vial, about five inches long, wrought of the same dull iron and smooth yellowed bone, enmeshed in a filigree web of silver wire. The vial was capped with a plug cut from a bloodred ruby the size of a large man’s thumbnail.
“And that is why I teach you, why I was taught, why one day you will teach another woman. Because it is our duty, now that we are awake and aware and fully capable of controlling our destinies, to look out past our own noses and protect the Mother, protect our sisters who still huddle in darkness and bondage, and even to protect the damn fool men who have made such a wreck of this world.”
Anne placed the vial in Maude’s hand. The girl shook her head.
“The Mother?” Maude said. “I don’t understand.”
“Ah.” Annie smiled. “All life come from the Mother. She is the sky and the sea, the moon and the mountains. Green trees, red blood. She is all that and we are all her children.
“It is our duty, our burden, to protect her, to use all of our gifts, all of our training, all our heart, blood and soul, in defense of the worthy and the weak, because we, as women, were created to protect, to nurture, to defend and to counsel. We alone were given the wisdom and the ferocity to heal the world.”
The old woman clasped her own hands over the girl’s, closing Maude’s fingers over the vial. The artifact was warm, almost hot, to the touch.
“This,” Anne said, “is the essence of The Load, the code you will live by. The Load has been followed by an unbroken line of women running back to Lilith herself. Protectors an
d healers, assassins and poisoners. Oracles, witches, kingmakers and courtesans. We are all that and so much more.
“And this,” Anne said, squeezing Maude’s hands tighter over the vial, “is the moon blood of Lilith herself. Given to me, in this very vessel, by a EweWitch on the plains of Africa. She taught me the ways of The Load and trained me as I now train you. She was over four hundred years old, having been granted extraordinary longevity and health by drinking the blood of the first woman. She kept it in a skull chalice and I drank my draught from it. She gave me this vial to take out into the world and pass along to a worthy successor. You, Maude, you are that successor.”
Maude’s eyes widened, her mouth opened, but no words came. It was like a dream in sunlight.
Anne smiled and nodded. “Yes, when the time is right, when you have completed your training and I deem you ready in body, mind and soul, you shall drink from this vial and become one of the line of Lilith and you, too, will carry The Load, all the rest of your days.”
Maude stood, the vial still in her hands. “I’m ready. Now.”
Anne laughed, plucked the chain away from the girl and returned it to around her neck. “The hell you are! But you are on your way, Maude; you are on your way.”
The sun sparkled off the blue waves far out in the ocean, like diamonds, and Maude felt all the doors in her life fly wide open, again.
Arthur returned down the hall. He carried the small pistol he usually took with him when he went away on trips. He was loading the gun and mumbling to himself. Maude was about to ask him where he was going when there was a sharp rap at the door. Arthur froze, the blood drained from his face.
“It’s him,” he whispered. “Bick.”
The knock was insistent. Arthur slid the gun into his coat pocket. Timidly, like a child, the banker approached the door. A sensation seized Maude suddenly. The same feeling she had when Gran had dropped her into the well with the copperheads and told her to bring her back three of the snakes, alive.
The Six-Gun Tarot Page 10
