The Six-Gun Tarot

by R. S. Belcher

  Something moved across the sky. It swirled like sediment in muddy water, pushing aside the darkness. A thin sliver of silver moon appeared in the sky over the 40-Mile. It was just a sliver, but it was more than he dared hope for. He held the eye above his head and let the moonlight caress it.

  “I know you-all are tired!” Jim said, shouting out across the desert. “I know how bone weary you-all are. I know what it feels like to fight for the next step, to push on, when everything in you screams to lie down. I can imagine how frustrating it is to not make it, to feel like you failed, like you made a promise you couldn’t keep.”

  There was movement on the plain below him, vague, at the edge of moon shadow and sight.

  “You have a chance, now, tonight, to make it not have been in vain. To push yourselves one more step, take one last ride. None of you are quitters. If you were, you would never have made it this far. I’m asking you to be ornery, as stubborn as a mule, one last time. Don’t let it end like it did—in failing, in being forgotten.”

  The moon’s light struggled against the vast darkness. It faltered for a moment, then held. Jim looked down at the desert plain; green light shimmered off the desert floor like reflections of sunlight off of water. His eyes widened at what he saw. Promise snorted and shuddered wildly.

  “Easy, girl,” Jim said, stroking her neck.

  He shouted down to the plain, “Okay, we’ve got one more trip ahead of us—the most important one you’ve ever gone on! What do you say?”

  A wind ripped across the desert, moaning, then howling, rising in pitch. Jim’s hair whipped in the wind. He clutched the eye, green light spilling out between his fingers, and nodded.

  “Then let’s ride,” he said.

  Mutt edged to the left of the chamber’s entrance, Harry to the right. Maude vanished into the shuddering shadows of the chamber.

  “Where are all the townsfolk? The squatters? The people you infected with your sickness, Ambrose?” Harry asked. “Where is Holly?”

  “Oh, them,” Ambrose said. His voice was close to the central pit; Harry couldn’t see him and Mutt couldn’t get his scent. “Some of the faithful remain in the town, doing God’s work, but most of them went down the well, to feed our Lord. He is hungry after his unjust imprisonment and needed sustenance to free Himself from His bonds.”

  “Oh, merciful Savior,” Harry uttered.

  “An odd epithet coming from you, Mayor Pratt,” Ambrose said.

  Harry was edging closer to the center, staying in the shadows between the blazing sconces. He could see another of the Stained, old Edna Hull, step into the void, smiling, and fall silently from sight. There were only a handful of the Stained left now. “You, who have spat upon your faith your entire life, who have experienced firsthand the unjustness of the divine tyrant. Yes, I know your secret. Holly and I have spoken at length. Isn’t that right, dear?”

  Harry stopped. It seemed ridiculous to be paralyzed by fear of discovery now, at the end of everything—the height of ego and pride. But he was genuinely terrified that his secret was no longer safe. He closed his eyes, wincing in pain. Holly’s voice snapped him out of it.

  “Yes, beloved.” Holly’s voice dripped with passion, and with venom. “Hello again, Harry. So you finally found enough courage to come down here. Pity it’s too late to be of any value. I see you are still hiding in the shadows, though, like you’ve hid your whole life. You’re a coward, Harry, and I always despised you for that.”

  “Come unto her, Harry!” Ambrose called. Harry could see them both now. A few of the Stained remained near the pit. Ambrose and Holly stood with them. “Come unto her and take the communion of the Greate Olde Wurm. You will know peace, you will know yourself and you will know freedom, for the first time in your wretched existence. Freedom without guilt.”

  “I’ve had that,” Harry said, stepping into the light, sword in hand. “It took a long time, but I finally found that, in the arms of the person who loved me, and who I was supposed to love.”

  Ambrose smiled. “How sweet! And what do you think your God would say to that, Harry? Do you think He would embrace you and call you son? Or would He cast you out and disown you for embracing the nature He gave you?”

  “That’s between Him and me, I suppose,” Pratt said. He turned to Holly. “I am sorry, Holly. You’re right; I have been a coward. I’m sorry I ruined your life. I should have set you free a long time ago. I do love you; I always have. And I’m sorry I let you down.”

  “Let me kill him, now,” Holly hissed in Ambrose’s ear. “You promised!”

  “But it would be so much sweeter to give him communion, Dark Mother,” the old priest whispered. “To let him revel in the glory of the Wurm, as He tears His way out of this sham of a world and ascends to Heaven to drink the blood of the divine pretender. Perhaps he and I could fornicate as the world falls apart. How does that sound to you, Harry?”

  “We’re going to stop you,” Harry said, stepping forward. “I don’t care if I die doing it. You’re not going to destroy my home.”

  Ambrose and Holly laughed.

  “Ah, there’s my knight!” Holly said. “Once again, too little too late, Harry. It’s done.”

  “Those of the faithful drawn to the ritual were especially succulent,” Ambrose said. “Their souls carried the greatest light, doused in the beautiful darkness of the One True God. They were a veritable feast for Him, and they have awoken Him, made Him strong, and now He will be free!”

  Harry looked to Holly, frantic. “Holly, your soul is still in there—he just said as much. You can fight this, Holly; you don’t want to do this. Think of your mother, your brother, your little niece. Please, Holly, fight!”

  “Perhaps another, for good measure,” Holly said. “Come here, dear reverend.”

  The Reverend Prine, eyes wet and black, staggered forward, a look of sublime happiness upon his black-stained face.

  “For the glory of the Wurm,” he mumbled as he stepped toward the pit. “For His glory…”

  “I am the Black Madonna, Harry,” Holly said, smiling, darkness dribbling down her chin. “The soul of the woman you know is gone, fed to a slumbering god while her last terrified thoughts were of you—how much she loved you, how much it hurt her that you didn’t come for her. Holly didn’t hear your sweet words, Harry. She never will. Die knowing that.”

  The reverend stood at the edge. He looked to Ambrose, who nodded. Prine smiled and stepped out.

  “Enough of this guff!” Mutt shouted as he launched himself from the shadows, knife in hand. “You damn white people talk too much!” He hurtled toward the pit, toward the reverend to knock him away from the well even as Prine took a step into oblivion. Mutt would have made it too.

  Phillips, moving like a locomotive, was suddenly there, smashing into the deputy in mid-flight, knocking them both into the darkness. Prine, smiling, weeping black tears of joy, stepped off into oblivion. He fell, and was gone.

  “No!” Harry shouted, stepping forward.

  Holly’s strong, Stained hand was on his shoulder. “One more failure as your epitaph, Harry,” she said. “Fitting.”

  The chamber began to shudder violently. Debris tumbled down from the dark vault above. More of the Stained eagerly walked into the pit, many hand in hand, singing the inane alien hymns they had been chanting earlier. The rumbling grew in ferocity.

  “Hallelujah!” Ambrose shouted. “Praise be to the One True God! Nyarl’ohtha, hub-ia,ia-vultgmm! The end is here!”

  A dark figure stood between the remaining six Stained and the well. The figure had not been there an instant before. Maude, hands loose, legs slightly bent, ready.

  “Who,” Ambrose said, “the fuck are you?”

  The voice came from inside herself, outside herself. It was her voice, a woman’s voice, all women’s voices gathered as one. Maude felt strong, stronger than she had ever felt before. All the years of doubt, all the fear and uncertainty, fell away.

  “I am the Mother’s blade,
the Mother’s wrath,” she said. “You have poisoned her, raped her and her children. Left her to die. Now you will suffer. You will fail.”

  “Take her!” Ambrose shouted to the Stained as he backed away from Maude. “Carry her into the pit with you!”

  They fell upon her, hissing like serpents. Maude went after Constance first for two reasons: Maude didn’t want her daughter getting any closer to that well, and if she had retained any of her training, she was the most dangerous opponent of the six.

  The girl lurched forward, like the others, her muscles seeming to be under the dominance of the alien force inside her. She moved with none of the grace or balance Maude had taught her. Good.

  Maude lunged low, tumbled and drove two stiff fingers into a nest of nerves in the small of Constance’s back. The girl shuddered, fell and remained still. Maude completed the tumble on the other side of the cluster of the Stained, crouched. As the infected floundered to keep up with the sudden movement of their prey and reorient themselves, Maude went to work.

  She launched herself again, driving a knee and forearm into the chest of one of her attackers. The infected staggered backward, and Maude came along. The blows would have floored a normal man, but did little to the Stained, and Maude knew that by now. However, she rode the momentum to use her target as a ram to break the circle they were trying to form around her and as a shield. As she and the Stained fell, Maude’s hands flashed out and struck two of the infected, one on either side of her. Her fingers, light as a firefly, hard as lightning, landed in the exact spots on each man’s side to paralyze them for a time.

  As her shield struck the silver floor, Maude, crouched on the man’s chest, stood. She ground her heel into the infected man’s collarbone at the exact spot she had practiced since she was Constance’s age. The Stained raised its arms toward Maude’s legs and then the arms dropped, and the man was still like a wind-up tin toy that had run down.

  In less than three seconds, she had dropped four of her six attackers. The room shook again with thunder from deep in the earth. Debris and dust rained down around her. Her bandana had slipped to around her neck and her face was bare. Her breath was coming in ragged razor-blade gulps. Her whole body ached as if she had been beaten from head to toe. She felt alive, powerful, and it was all worth it when she saw the look of fear slide across Ambrose’s smug face for just a second.

  “Avast, ye right bastard,”Anne’s words coming out of Maude’s mouth. Anne’s evil grin that could turn a cutthroat’s blood to ice stitched across Maude’s face. Everything became clear, sharp focused, like the point of a knife. “You’re next.”

  “Kill her!” Ambrose bellowed. “Kill the bitch!”

  The last two Stained shuffled toward her. Maude prepared to greet them with open arms and a pirate queen’s smile.

  Phillips scrambled to his feet a second ahead of Mutt. The deacon drove a powerful hammer of a fist into the deputy’s jaw, knocking Mutt to the silver floor again, in a spray of blood. The floor under Mutt was trembling.

  “Too late, half-breed,” Phillips said. “That’s the death of this half-assed world, of everything.”

  Mutt sprang at Phillips and tackled the giant. Straddling him, Mutt landed blow after blow into his face—left, right, left, right. Phillips freed his arms and slapped Mutt off him, like a dog shaking off a flea. Both men struggled to their feet again and circled each other. The chamber shook. There was a cracking sound and more debris rained down.

  Mutt scanned the floor for his knife as he wiped the blood from his mouth. Phillips, unbloodied, lunged forward and snapped a punch at Mutt’s head. The deputy ducked it, barely, and drove two quick body blows into Phillips’s side. It was like punching granite. The deacon grabbed at Mutt— He’s faster than a man his size should be, Mutt thought; he needed to watch that. Mutt darted away, his hands aching from his ineffectual blows.

  Phillips managed to grab Mutt’s hair. He yanked, hard. The Indian’s neck snapped backward and he crashed to the floor with a grisly snapping sound, and lay still in a cloud of settling dust.

  Harry jerked away from Holly’s steel grip. The sleeve of his jacket tore as he pulled free. He discarded the ripped coat as he circled her, keeping the point of the Sword of Laban between them.

  “What are you going to do, Harry? Run me through with your angelic pego?” Holly chuckled. “Not exactly the way to save your poor wife that you just apologized to, now is it?”

  She moved toward him, her dead, wet eyes searching his face for weakness, for hesitation. There was none.

  Harry advanced, a classic lunge—his legs scissored, together then apart, as he closed the gap, blade unwavering, rear arm raised. Holly sidestepped, grabbing at his arm. He pivoted, spinning like a dancer—feet close together, knees slightly bent—and in that instant he saw his opening. He took it. Holly’s arm erupted in golden flame as Laban’s blade pierced her above the elbow. The sound that fell from her open mouth could never be made by the apparatus of a human throat. The whole room seemed to spasm in her pain as she frantically beat out the golden, sparkling flames. Now her hands were on fire as well, and the unearthly conflagration was spreading over her. The black ichor from her eyes, nose and mouth began to smoke and burn away.

  “Damn you!” she screamed, lunging at him. “I’ll sheathe that damn sword in your arse!” Holly charged him, like a rabid dog, head low, those strong, claw-like hands outstretched, desiring to choke the life from him. Harry stood his ground; his face was a mask of stone, feet planted in an en garde T, the angel’s blade before his face as if to salute her. She was on top of him, burning hands seeking his throat. Harry turned his arm at the wrist and elbow smoothly and with blinding speed. The blade flashed out. Holly’s snarling charge drove it into her chest. Her eyes widened, still bleeding smoke. She blinked and tried to say something. The angelic fire swirled about her whole body.

  Holly’s hands flashed out, wrapping tightly about Harry’s throat. Harry felt the terrible heat, then numbing cold. His throat ached and his vision dimmed. Bitter smoke clawed at his nostrils, into his nose and eyes, but there was no air. The blade rested in her heart, up to the hilt. Husband and wife stood, separated by the gulf of a single breath, a single heartbeat.

  The blackness in her eyes boiled away, replaced by devouring golden fire. Her grip loosened and he greedily gasped and gulped in air, but there was little of it. The smoke poured from her tear ducts, her nostrils. It smelled of stale pipe tobacco and sweat—it was the smell of his father’s death.

  The Black Madonna opened her mouth again, fighting to hiss out a final epitaph perhaps, or maybe it was Holly frantically trying to hang words off of the tatters of her soul that were rolling out, up, away from this burning, dying home. But there were no words; all that rolled across Harry’s face was black smoke, smoke that smelled of damp earth and wet skin. Smoke that wept, whispering for a time when the world was young and everything was promise and potential—nothing was final; nothing was impossible. It was the smell of their first kiss, and it showed him exactly how much he had truly taken from her in this life.

  The smoke swirled up out of her, old pain and memories given black wings. It dispersed into the guttering darkness of the collapsing vault.

  “I love you, Holly,” he tried to croak, but, like her, his voice was gone. She slumped against him, and was still.

  Maude’s muscles were on fire. It felt like her insides were made of broken glass. She had torn ligaments and ripped cartilage she had forgotten she even had, and now the balm of the thrill of combat was departing her and all that remained was the damage done to an out-of-shape body. She lay near the edge of the well and cradled Constance’s limp form amidst the unmoving bodies of the infected Maude had incapacitated.

  She wiped the black ooze off her daughter’s face with a handkerchief, but as quickly as Constance’s features would appear from beneath the oily morass more of the substance would leak out of her eyes, nose and mouth and pool up. Constance moaned and a bubble of the
Wurm’s’s black, oily milk popped over the girl’s mouth, like a tar pit bubbling.

  Maude pulled Constance tight and rocked her.

  “Shhhhhh,baby girl. It will be all right,” she said over the sounds of the world ending, of life and death struggling for supremacy. Of everything falling down. “Momma’s got you. It will be all right.”

  It didn’t feel like a lie. It didn’t feel like a foolish, futile thing to say to a dying animal thrashing. Maude believed it; she actually believed it. With no evidence to support it and plenty to the contrary, she knew it was going to be all right. She held her child tight and knew the faith most holy men dream of possessing.

  With a free hand, she pulled the chain from out of her pack. The ancient flask, green with age, still wrapped in a web of silver filaments, dangled at the ends of the flat linked iron chain. It was the same flask Maude drank from so many years ago.

  She remembered Anne once sitting by a fire on the beach, looking out into the infinite.

  “Why me?” Maude had asked. “I’m no one special. Why do I get this gift you are giving me?”

  “I was … a wicked person,” Anne had finally said. “I spent my life killing, lying, cheating and stealing. I was selfish, small. I asked the woman who gave me this gift the same question … ‘Why me?’ She told me what I’m about to tell you.… She said to me, ‘Go find out why.’…”

  Maude wiped Constance’s face clean again and lifted her daughter’s head. She uncorked the jeweled stopper from the flask. There was a hiss, and a faint trail of smoke wafted out of the mouth of the flask. Maude tilted the container to her daughter’s dark lips.

  “Please, please … Constance, honey, please come back to me. Please.”