Gunsmoke Blues

by Balogun Ojetade

  The change would come soon, with the next full moon. Virginia had told him all about it. The full moon was just a few days away and Robert was becoming increasingly restless, drawn by the lunar pull. The same force that drew the ocean’s great tides was dragging him too, and he couldn’t resist. He didn’t want to resist, even though a part of him was slowly filling with dread at the prospect. “Tell me again how the change feels,” he said.

  Virginia stretched out on the bed. “There’s no way to really describe it. The only way to understand it is to experience it for yourself. It affects everyone differently.”

  “Does it hurt?” Robert asked, although it wasn’t pain that he really feared.

  “There’s some pain the first time, but not an unpleasant one. It’s a kind of fire that burns clean, if that makes any sense. It burns away all that you were, clearing a path for what you will become. There’s an intensity, for sure, but I’m not sure that pain is the right word. If there is pain, it’s a necessary one.”

  Robert nodded. He understood suffering for what’s right and good.

  “The light of the moon is magical,” Virginia continued. “I mean, not literally magical. I’m a scientist, after all.”

  She stopped and laughed again, her deep, infectious laughter rumbling in the way that Robert had grown to love so much, so quickly. “During the Second Degree of the condition, which is where you’re at now, your skin becomes hyper-sensitized, your eyes in a state of permanent dilation. That’s why it’s so painful to go out in bright sunlight, why you come to prefer the night. All that’s to prepare you for the change. The moonlight is the catalyst for the final transition. After the change, your eyes will almost go back to normal, and you won’t mind bright lights as much.”

  Robert nodded. That was good to know. He’d become increasingly sensitive to light since leaving the hospital. Even the dimmest gaslights now gave him a searing headache. Going outside in the blazing sun would be impossible.

  “Of course, your skin will always be sensitive to moonlight. Every full moon, the change will come again, but it’s only painful the first time. Afterwards, it’s just like slipping back into a comfortable set of clothes.”

  It would be like a baptism. A moonlit baptism. He would immerse himself in its purifying silver rays, and it would burn away his sins, making him new. Afterward, he would be like Virginia, and Mary, and Mose. He would be one with them. “How did it feel afterward?” he asked. “I mean, how does it feel now, compared with before?”

  Virginia cocked her head to one side, reflecting on that before answering. “I feel stronger, more enriched. I’ve always been an optimist, someone who sees the good in everyone, but the change has amplified that in me. I love the world more than ever. It’s like a kind of heavenly light is shining over all of creation and I’m the only one who can see it. You’ll probably understand that.” She laughed again, a warm, inclusive laugh. “But everyone changes differently. Mary has become cold. She was always a quiet one, an introvert, a big thinker. The change has amplified all that. It’s made her cunning too. You can’t trust her anymore. She says one thing, but you don’t know what she’s really thinking. Mose has always been a very competitive sportsman, pushing himself with his training, always desperate to win. Now his need to win has become a physical hunger. There’s no other way to describe it. If he comes in second, he rages and sulks. I believe he has the power to achieve almost any ambition he holds. They’re both pretty scary, really, Mary and Mose. Not like bubbly, cuddly, li’l old me.”

  “So it sounds like the change exaggerates whatever qualities you already have?”

  “I guess so. Amplifies them times ten, like you’ve been born into the world a second time. And of course it makes you physically strong. Stronger than you can possibly imagine.”

  “I already feel strong,” Robert said. Despite his photo-sensitivity and the headaches, despite the weakness in his aching body, he felt an inner core of steel.

  “Sure, but what you feel now is just a shadow of what will come.”

  Robert walked over to the bed and sat down next to Virginia. “I want you to be with me when the change comes. I don’t want to be alone.”

  Virginia grinned broadly and reached out her hands to grasp Robert’s. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Maison Gagne, Tremé, quarter moon.

  After his narrow escape from the Principal, Anton desperately wanted to leave Smokey behind too, but that was proving harder than he’d expected. Smokey had insisted on taking Anton to the apartment building he and his family called home.

  Anton stood nervously on the third floor walkway, drawing his collar up against the cold. He wondered how Smokey could stand the winter weather with nothing to cover his head except for his closely-cropped hair. The wind gusted hard, blowing discarded food packaging and other litter around the gray space, swirling it into a heap near the dark stairwell at the end of the walkway. He peered cautiously over the lacy wrought iron fence that lined the walkway’s edge, and saw the tops of bare trees. A mass of gray clouds crawled low across the sky, promising rain.

  “Come inside,” Smokey said, unlocking the door to his apartment and beckoning Anton inside.

  Anton followed. Smokey led him through another door and into his bedroom. It wasn’t a bit like Anton’s own room, which was full of books and old toys. Smokey’s room was almost bare, with just a bed and an old wooden chair.

  “I just need to get some clothes and stuff,” Smokey said, grabbing trousers and shirts from a gnarled wooden chest at the foot of his bed then stuffing them into a sack.

  “What for?” Anton asked.

  “I can’t stay here,” Smokey said. “What if the Principal comes looking for me?”

  “Where are you going, then?” Anton asked, but the question seemed to have an obvious answer.

  “I’ll come back to your place.”

  “But what if the Principal comes looking at my house?”

  Smokey shrugged. “Your house is safer than here.”

  Anton frowned. This really wasn’t working out the way he’d expected. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asked. “Haven’t you got friends you can stay with?”

  Smokey shook his head. “Marcel is dead now, so you’re the only friend I’ve got.”

  Smokey Donaldson as a friend. That was a bit of a leap. But now that Anton thought about it, Marcel was really the only person Smokey had ever talked to. Apart from Anton of course, if you could call that talking. Anton had always thought of Smokey as a popular kid, but the reality was that he actually had no friends.

  “You and me, we’re the only ones that know what happened, right?” Smokey went on.

  “I suppose.”

  “So we need to stick together.”

  “But you can’t just leave home and not tell anybody,” Anton said. “Your parents are going to worry themselves sick if you just disappear.”

  “Yeah?” Smokey said. “You sure of that?” He pushed past Anton and stepped into the hallway that led to the other rooms in the dingy apartment. “My daddy’s long gone. My mama’s got a new beau who she gives all her attention to. She don’t need me. I don’t need her.”

  “You’ve still got to tell her, though. You’ve got to leave a note or something.” Anton followed Smokey into the kitchen, where he seemed to be searching for something.

  “I’ll leave a note if it makes you happy,” Smokey said, rummaging through the kitchen drawers. He pulled out a bulging brown envelope sealed with an elastic band. “This is what I need.”

  “What is it?” Anton asked, eyeing the envelope with trepidation.

  Smokey ripped off the elastic band and shook the contents of the envelope onto the kitchen table. A score of gold coins fell out. Without bothering to count it, Smokey grabbed the coins and stuffed them into his pants pocket.

  “Are you stealing that?” Anton said with a frown.

  Smokey gave him a su
llen look. “Not stealing, just claiming it.” When Anton continued to look unhappy, he explained, “It’s emergency money. This is a goddamn emergency. I need it more than she does.”

  When Anton said nothing, Smokey walked past him back into the hallway. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  Anton trailed after him, leaving the grim concrete building behind. He wondered what Ava L’Esperance would think if she could see him and his arch enemy skipping class and running away from school together.

  Anton could barely work out how it had happened. One minute he’d been sitting outside the Principal’s office, ready to tell Mr. Howard that Smokey and Marcel had bullied him. Now, some forty minutes later, Marcel was dead and Smokey was coming home to live with him. He wondered if it was all just some kind of hallucination.

  ***

  When they arrived at Anton’s house, things began to feel more real, but even less comprehensible. “This is my friend, Smokey,” he explained to his mother. “He needs to stay with me for a day or so.”

  His mother regarded Smokey as if he was a puzzle to be solved.

  “If it’s okay with you, Mrs. Sardis,” Smokey said politely.

  “Of course, it is, Smokey. Only, do your parents know that you are coming to stay?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Smokey said. “At least, that is, my mama.”

  “I see,” Anton’s mother said. “I’m afraid we don’t have much space in the house, but you can sleep in Anton’s room. We can find some blankets for you to make a pallet.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Come on,” Anton said to Smokey. “Let’s go upstairs.”

  They went up to Anton’s room and sat down on the bed.

  “So this is home,” Smokey said, slinging his duffle bag into the corner of the room.

  “What are we going to do now?” Anton asked. “We need to tell my mama what happened, and yours, too. We need to get word to the constables and tell them about Mr. Howard. We have to—”

  “Naw,” Smokey said, cutting him off. “There’s no point.”

  “Why not?” Anton asked.

  “No one would believe us.”

  Anton sighed. Smokey might well be right. Who would swallow such a far-fetched story? The constables would never accept that the Principal of a local school had eaten one of his students. And even if they did investigate, what would they find? Mr. Howard sitting in his office, chewing Marcel’s leg? More likely they would find nothing. Most likely, they wouldn’t even bother to look. And where would that leave Anton and Smokey? In deeper trouble than ever.

  “But what if Mr. Howard comes looking for us?” he asked.

  “I don’t reckon he will,” Smokey said. “He won’t risk it. I bet he’ll keep well away.”

  Anton nodded. He was only just beginning to understand the full horror of what had happened.

  “I know some places we can go when we’re supposed to be at school,” Smokey said. “It’s only a couple of weeks until the end of term. Then we should be safe.”

  Smokey was probably right. Their best chance was to lie low, stay away from school, and hope that, somehow, Mr. Howard would be discovered soon. Marcel’s parents would report him missing, or perhaps another teacher would raise the alarm.

  “Your mama seems nice,” Smokey said.

  “Oh? I guess so.”

  “You got any other family? This is a big house.”

  “There’s my daddy, of course,” Anton said. “And my older sister, Garcelle. They’ll both be home later. And my grandmother lives with us, too.”

  “Happy family,” Smokey said.

  “Yeah, I guess we are.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Clinique Vétérinaire, Seventh Ward, New Orleans

  Ava L’Esperance worked at the Clinique Vétérinaire whenever she wasn’t at school, and Saturday was always the busiest day of the week. It was hard work but she loved it, and she loved the animals too, as if they were her own. Today though, something was wrong. The dogs paced around their kennels whimpering gently. The cats yowled and hissed. The one horse at the clinic—a pregnant mare—whinnied incessantly. They could sense something. They were frightened.

  Ava twisted her braids nervously around her slim finger. “What’s wrong with them?” she asked Denise, the veterinary clinic’s manager. “What are they frightened of?”

  “We haven’t got time to worry about that now,” Denise told Ava. “Dr. Comtois will be vexed at your little Gens de Couleurtail—and my Creole one—if the clinic ain’t in order.”

  Saturday was the day most of the animal’s owners came to drop off their pets, or to collect them again. Ava had to help Denise get all the animals ready for collection by ten o’clock and clean out the cages and stable for the new arrivals.

  But Ava couldn’t help worrying. She had never seen animals behave like that for no reason. They could hear or smell something bad, or sense it some other way. Something was out there, something dangerous.

  “Come on,” Denise said. “Let’s get to work.”

  Ava studied the timetable that Denise had drawn up, showing which animals were due to be collected, so she could wash them and feed them before pick-up. She unbolted the door of a Brittany and went inside its kennel. The kennel was a good size, almost like a tiny room of an inn, with a dog bed and a feeding area. The dogs and cats had an outside space where they could run about, too, and in the summer Ava took the dogs, and occasional horse, out for longer walks.

  The Brittany bowed its head when Ava entered, and backed into the corner of the room, whimpering. “It’s all right, girl,” Ava said soothingly. “Your owner’s coming to collect you today. You’re going home.”

  The dog did not respond to her words.

  Then Ava heard it—the roar of steam engines outside the building. She heard a man shouting in the street, and Denise’s voice in reply.

  Ava left the dog in its kennel, carefully sliding the bolt back on the door. She walked down the corridor to the reception area to check out the disturbance.

  Four Roper steam velocipedes had pulled up in the street outside. The men riding them all wore oxblood leather trousers and red shirts. They sported well-manicured beards and oxblood leather top hats. All of them were Black men of the same very dark complexion. Quadruplets? Ava wondered. But from that distance she couldn’t be sure.

  One of them dismounted his velocipede, his bulging biceps straining against his shirt. He stood just outside the entrance door, holding a wooden stake, one end tapering to a sharp point. The other men left their bikes and came over to join him. They also carried weapons—knives and cudgels. The cudgels were studded with nails. A black carriage, drawn by two huge black horses, joined the four velocipede riders, pulling up at the curb side, disgorging two more men in the same garb as their velocipede riding brethren. Behind them came four more velocipedes, belching black smoke into the crisp morning air and a huge cart drawn by four horses.

  Denise locked the main door, sliding two security bolts across the top and bottom. “I don’t like this,” she said. “I’m going to call the constables.” She ran to the telegraph and furiously typed a message on its lettered keys.

  Ava watched through the window as the men gathered outside. She had no idea who they were, but they obviously weren’t customers of the clinic.

  One of the men who had gotten out of the carriage seemed to be their leader. He wore red spectacles that matched his red beard and shirt, and his head was shaven clean. He turned his back to her, and Ava saw a white rat etched on his oxblood leather vest. The man strode over to the locked door and rubbed the top of his head with one of his big hands. He kicked at the door then stepped aside to let one of the velocipede riders try to break it down with his shoulder.

  Ava heard the animals going crazy behind her, barking, hissing, whinnying and growling in their kennels.

  The door was reinforced with steel struts and the big man had no luck breaking it down. Instead, two of the other men smashed through a window pane
with their cudgels, knocking away all the glass so they could climb through. One by one, they started to come through the opening, brandishing their weapons and advancing toward Denise.

  Ava backed away, but Denise held her ground. “Get out of here,” she said. “I’ve already contacted the constables.”

  The bald man who Ava guessed was the leader walked casually up to Denise and struck her on the side of the head with a ball-peen hammer. She didn’t even have time to cry out, she just went down.

  Ava screamed.

  There was nowhere for Ava to run or hide. Her first thought was for the animals. “Please don’t hurt them,” she begged.

  The man with the hammer smiled, like nothing had happened, and came over to her. She couldn’t stop looking at the hammer. It dripped a trail of red along the ground as he walked.

  The man grabbed her chin with his huge hand and lifted her face up to his. “Hey, little girl,” he said. “We’re here to collect some animals. You help us out and we’ll cause no further trouble. Does that sound good?”

  Ava shook her head. “No. You can’t take them. I won’t let you.” She risked a glance at Denise. The woman hadn’t moved, but she still seemed to be breathing. Her chest rose and fell as blood dribbled from the gash in her head.

  The man twisted Ava’s face back toward him. “We’re going to take them, with or without you. Now are you going to help us, or shall I introduce you to Joline?” He raised the dripping weapon in his fist.

  “Which ones have you come for?” Ava asked.

  “All of them,” the man said, leering at her. “So open the cages and the stable and whatever else and let them out.”

  “Please don’t hurt them,” Ava repeated. She went along the rows of cages, opening each door in turn. The animals wouldn’t come out. They stayed inside, barking fiercely, hissing, or retreating into the corner of their cages, whining or growling.

  The men went into the cages and started sorting the animals. They grabbed the large dogs and the cats and dragged them out to the cart. Any dogs that were small, or timid, they killed. Then they killed the mare, stabbing her belly as they bashed her head with the cudgels.