Gunsmoke Blues

by Balogun Ojetade

  Ida took hold of her hand. “Come with me,” she said.

  The woman rose to her feet unsteadily. Ida wrapped one arm around her waist and allowed the woman to lean her weight against her.

  A second woman came to help. “I’m the organizer,” she said. “I’m in charge here.”

  “How many people are in the building?” Ida asked.

  The woman hesitated. “Twenty, including me,” she said at last. We came to the church to set up the soup kitchen for the indigent, as usual, when we were attacked.

  Ida realized that the woman was just as terrified as everyone else. “Is anyone else injured?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Then help me get her to safety,” Ida said, nodding toward the injured woman.

  The three women set off, back toward the main entrance of the building. They had to move carefully, hugging the wall closely to avoid the fire. The injured woman was clearly in shock. Ida half-dragged her along, making painfully slow progress. With each step the fire raged higher.

  The noise of the flames was now so great that Ida could hardly hear any sounds from outside. The black smoke made it hard to see. She pulled the woman onward through the smoke and heat until they reached the exit.

  The door had been locked from the inside, presumably to keep the protesters at bay. “I have the key,” the other woman said. She fumbled in her pocket, searching for it.

  Ida glanced back at the way they had come. The other people were following in single file, pressing themselves to the wall, away from the heat of the fire.

  The woman brought out the key and pushed it toward the lock with trembling hands.

  “Here,” Ida said. “Let me help.” She took the key from the woman and twisted it in the lock. It turned and Ida pulled the handle to open the door.

  Fresh air rushed in as she threw the door open, and Ida gulped it down. But the fire devoured it just as eagerly. Behind her the flames leapt higher, crackling and roaring, filling the space from floor to ceiling with their wild dance.

  Two constables rushed forward to help the women out of the building.

  “Quickly!” Ida shouted, standing at the exit and pushing the people out to safety. She counted them as they went. Ten… twelve—

  They emerged one by one from the smoke. Fifteen… sixteen—

  She pushed them out through the door. Seventeen… eighteen—

  The last one, a teenage girl, staggered through the heat and the smoke, clutching at her throat. She was the nineteenth to emerge. There was no one behind her.

  The organizer had said that twenty people were inside.

  Ida grabbed at the teenager frantically. “Are you the last one?” she demanded. “Is there anyone else inside?”

  The girl nodded. “One more,” she croaked. “A boy.” A constable led her out of the building.

  Ida stared back at the raging fire inside. The noise and heat were overwhelming. She didn’t know how anyone could still be alive in there, but if a boy was trapped inside…

  She filled her lungs with fresh air then dived back in, covering her nose with her hand.

  Fire filled the entire building now and thick tangles of smoke made it difficult to see more than a few feet ahead. The heat was almost intolerable. Ida groped her way along the wall, retracing her steps. There was no one coming to meet her. She couldn’t bear to open her mouth to shout, and in any case the roar of the fire was deafening. Grimly she carried on in silence.

  Her hand touched metal. Even though she couldn’t see it, she knew the metal object was the handle to the interior door she had seen earlier. Previously it had been ajar. Now it was closed.

  She gripped the door handle, but let go instantly. The metal was intensely hot. She pushed it down with her elbow, using her sleeve to protect her from the heat. The door swung open and she almost fell through to the room beyond. She forced the door shut behind her. Immediately she felt the temperature drop several degrees.

  She was in a dim room, lit only by the light from a high, narrow window. There were no other exits. Smoke was filling the air, but she could see clearly enough for now. Crouched below the window was a boy, aged about ten. He had wrapped a cloth over his face to keep the smoke at bay. His head was a mop of dark curly hair and his eyes peeped out at her like big brown berries.

  The boy jumped up and ran to her. He seemed to be unhurt.

  Ida gripped his hand tightly. She opened the door back to the main hall, but the flames burned fiercer than ever. The fire rose up through the open doorway, seizing the opportunity to follow her inside. She slammed the door shut in its face.

  With dismay, she clutched the boy tight. There was no way out of there.

  The boy broke away from her and pointed up.

  The window. It was barely large enough for anyone to fit through. And yet, if she could give the boy a chance to escape, she had to try.

  She crouched below the window, forming her hands into a step. There was no need to speak; the boy immediately placed one foot onto her clasped hands and gripped her shoulders with his fingers. Ida lifted him up, rising to her full height to power him all the way to the window.

  The window was locked. She heard him fiddle with the locking mechanism, and then felt a rush of cold air as the window opened and the fire drew in fresh oxygen. The boy scrambled to open the window wide and she felt his weight vanish as he pulled himself out.

  She looked up and saw his feet disappearing through the open window.

  She was alone then. The heat had built to an intensity that made her skin burn. The paint on the door was blistering and peeling away. Smoke seeped around the edges as the door began to fail. She backed away from it, but there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

  A shout made her look up. At the open window a fireman’s face appeared. The face vanished and in its place a rope dropped down. Ida dived for it and began to climb. When she reached the top, she felt strong arms grip her and draw her through the window opening. It was tight, and she stuck fast for a moment, but suddenly she was free.

  The fresh, cool air was the sweetest she had ever breathed.

  Gradually, she felt her breathing return to normal. The smell of smoke inside her lungs might never leave her again, but at least she was alive and safe. So was the boy. He stayed by her side while the medics ran checks on them both.

  “What’s your name?” Ida asked him, through her parched throat.

  “Wilguens,” the boy said. “Mwen soti nan Ayiti.” He shook his head. “Sorry, I forget to speak English when I’s scared… I’m from Haiti is what I say.”

  “And are your parents here?”

  “Non, ma’am. They dead,” the boy said, matter-of-factly. “Is just me now.”

  “How old are you, Wilguens?”

  “I’s ten,” he said. “What happen now?”

  That was a very good question. They stayed with the medics for a while, but once Ida had recovered from the effects of smoke inhalation, they told her she was free to go home. Wilguens could go, too, although it wasn’t clear that he had a real home to go to any more.

  Dabney appeared. “Thank God. I wondered what had happened to you. You didn’t come out of the building.”

  “I came out the back way,” Ida said. “Me and Wilguens, here.”

  “Good,” Dabney said. “What happens now?”

  The same question again, still looking for an answer. And although she knew nothing about how to look after a ten-year-old boy, Ida surprised herself by offering to take Wilguens home with her. Why not? The world was going to hell already.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  The past few weeks had flown by and it was the day before Christmas Eve already. Since the funeral, Ida had been working long hours, helping with the hunt for the elusive Beast, which seemed to be lying low again, and also with the ongoing Ripper murders, which showed no sign of slowing. The previous day’s incident at St. Augustine church had exhausted her, and yet she’d somehow managed to find the energy to put in a
nother long shift.

  The flu symptoms had ramped up, and she was feeling nauseous now, too. She hadn’t been able to keep down any lunch, and she didn’t think she could face anything for dinner.

  What had she been thinking, bringing a Haitian orphan home with her? She had no means of looking after a child, and simply had no choice but to leave him alone in her apartment all day. Dabney had told her she was being stupid and that she should expect to find Wilguens long gone, along with anything valuable that was small enough for a ten-year-old boy to carry in his pockets.

  Yet Ida trusted her ability to judge character, and in her experience, frightened children weren’t likely to suddenly turn into criminals for no good reason. And Wilguens seemed resourceful. She hoped he would be able to look after himself.

  She unlocked the front door and went inside. The entrance hall was dark, and so was the main living area beyond. Ida sighed. It looked like her trusting streak had gotten the better of her on this occasion. She turned a knob on a pipe that protruded a few inches out of the wall. The gaslights came on. She went through all the rooms systematically, looking for Wilguens or any note he might have left behind.

  Nothing.

  At least nothing obvious appeared to be missing, apart from the money she had left for him. Oh, and the spare keys to the apartment. Great, she thought.

  She sank onto the sofa and put her feet up on the stool. It looked like a night for a bottle of wine to distract her from her headache.

  She heard a noise from the hallway. A key turned in the lock. Ida was on her feet and already in the hall when Wilguens pushed open the door and came inside. His brown eyes shone and he grinned impishly when he saw her.

  “Where have you been?” Ida cried. “I told you not to go out after dark.”

  The boy looked crestfallen. He held up some beignets. “De nice lady in de boutik gave me food,” he said. He handed it to Ida, together with the money she had left for him.

  Ida frowned. “Did the lady really give this to you? You didn’t steal it?”

  “Mwen pa yon vòlò—I’m not tief!” he cried as if she’d slapped his face.

  “I’m sorry,” Ida said. “Really, I didn’t mean it.”

  She made a mental note to thank the lady when she next visited the shop. She smiled at the boy. “You shouldn’t have gone outside after dark, though. It isn’t safe with all the trouble at the moment.”

  Wilguens shrugged. “Nowhere is safe.”

  There was truth in that, although hearing it from the orphaned boy nearly broke her heart. Only ten years old, and already he expected danger and violence. It didn’t look like she was making much difference, though. The last weeks had been terrible—losing John Scobell. Then the Ripper killings, the Beast attack at the omnibus station, and the fire-bombing at St. Augustine. She had never known it to be quite as bad. When terrible things happened to good people it made you wonder if there was any point. But of course that was precisely the point. It was because those things happened that the world needed people like Ida.

  Ida missed her father. He was a grumpy old man, who had never really grown up, but she had no other family. She hadn’t seen him in months, not since they’d had that last bitter argument and major falling-out. He’d been caught smuggling opium into New York’s harbor, and had asked her to “pull some strings’ to get him off. When she refused, he’d tried to put the blame for his problems on her. She’d promised herself she’d never speak to him again, but she regretted that now. She didn’t expect him to change, but if he could just admit that he was wrong and apologize—

  But that hardly seemed likely. He was a stubborn bastard. She wondered where he was and what he was doing. Out on the road, most likely, although in which country was anyone’s guess.

  “I miss you, Daddy,” she half-whispered then shook her head incredulously. What was she thinking? The only time she wanted him anywhere near her life was when he was nowhere to be found.

  The boy in front of her looked up with a concerned expression on his young face. “Is dere a pwoblem?” he asked.

  “Want to open a box of chocolates?” she asked him.

  Wilguens’s eyes went wide as saucers. “I like chocolate,” he said.

  “Me too,” Ida said. She fetched a box from the kitchen cupboard and let him open them.

  “How many can I have?” he asked.

  “As many as you like.”

  He helped himself to three then passed the box back to Ida. The smell of the chocolates hit her like a wave of noxious fumes. Suddenly she felt sick. “Excuse me,” she said, and rushed to the bathroom. She made it just in time.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Beaumont, Texas.

  James Wells would have liked nothing better than to visit his daughter, Ida, as he passed through New Orleans. It was almost Christmas, the season for families to come together. But James’ family was probably too broken even for Christmas to weave its spell.

  Ida was the only living relative he had. His own parents were long dead, almost like they’d lived in another age entirely. His wife, Elizabeth—Ida’s mother—had taken her own life when Ida was a teen because she was possessed by some malevolent spirit during one of her exorcisms and would rather die than let the foul thing totally consume her. A broken family, for certain, and hardly anything left of it except ruins.

  Ida was probably still angry at him after his last visit. He’d behaved badly, even worse than usual, and her expectations of him had already been low. It would probably be better if he kept his distance.

  He landed his airship in a field he paid some local boys to keep cleared—Beaumont, Texas was a common stop for him during his smuggling runs from Mexico. He’d set off that morning from Monterrey, Mexico, stopping briefly en route for his mandatory break time and to let his cargo stretch their legs and relieve themselves.

  There’d been a hell of a ruckus coming from the cabin earlier. Screams and shouts, and who knows what. Those asylum seekers were like animals. He’d gladly leave them to the ghul infestation, but they paid good money to come across—a thousand pesos each. It was as much as he earned in a whole month. How some of those people, farmers and laborers, got their hands on a thousand pesos he couldn’t understand, but it was none of his business. They could sell their own grandmothers for all he cared.

  They were cargo. He didn’t want to hear their sob stories. Just pay the money and he’d get them from Monterrey to New Orleans. Or thereabouts.

  He rose from the pilot’s seat then sauntered to the iron cockpit door. He placed his ear against the cool metal, listening for sounds coming from inside the cabin. All was quiet. Done with that damned squabbling, he thought. Thank God.

  He opened up the door and shone his lantern inside. “We’ve touched down,” he shouted.

  Silence.

  Have the bastards gone to sleep? “Hey! I said, we’ve landed. Get up and take a break.”

  He heard the hiss before he saw anything move. Then a flash as a man leapt out of the darkness straight for him. James dodged aside. He had been a minor boxing champ in his youth, and he still knew how to move. And just like his daughter, what he lacked in height, he made up for in ferocity. He landed a hard punch on the man’s back as he flew past then swiveled to face him.

  The man landed in the cockpit and rolled. He crouched on all fours, hissing and screeching like a lunatic. James didn’t wait for the man to attack. He lashed out with his foot, catching the man in the jaw. A loud crack was his reward.

  The man wailed in pain, blood spilling from his mouth. He lurched toward James, swiping at him with his long fingernails. James dodged again and delivered another punch to the man’s head. This time the bastard went down and didn’t get up. James kicked him, but he was out cold.

  James sprinted to the cabin door and slid it open. He leapt out then whirled on his heels to face his airship.

  “All right, you can come out now,” James shouted, peering into the dark cabin. The only response was the echo of his
own voice. Had the man done something to the other passengers? James had to know for sure.

  He hauled himself up into the cabin and shone his lantern into its dark depths.

  The cabin was piled high with crates of whatever his clients paid him to transport. James really didn’t care what was inside them. He stepped along the narrow space by the edge of the wooden crates, holding the lantern out in front. The light cast wavering shadows against the metal frame of the cabin as he moved.

  He slapped the palm of his hand against the frame and shouted again—still nothing.

  He rounded the last of the stacked crates and shone the lantern into the back corner of the container. “Holy Black mother of God,” he said. The other passengers were there all right, at least what was left of them. Arms and legs and other spare body parts lay strewn over the crates in a pool of blood. He leaned closer and shone the light to get a better look. Bite marks and scratches covered the dismembered corpses.

  A creaking noise alerted him to danger. He turned quickly and saw the man coming for him again. He raised his arms, but this time the man was too quick.

  The man—a farmer from what he recalled—grabbed James by the collar and hurled him against the metal frame with a fierce strength. James fell to the floor, winded by the impact. The lantern flew from his hand and spun away along the floor, casting wild shadows from behind a crate. He looked up and saw the man’s foot coming toward him. James twisted sideways, grabbing at the man’s ankle, and brought him down with a crash.

  He was back on his knees when the man came for him again, grasping with his claw-like fingers. James gave him a swift uppercut to the jaw, followed by a hook to the man’s cheek.

  The farmer snarled, scratching at James’ chest and upper arms, and tearing off a strip of his shirt.

  James head-butted the man on the bridge of the nose then stood up, facing his opponent head on. He struck him again, slamming both forearms into the middle of the farmer’s chest.

  The man fell backward and hit the side of his head against a crate.