by David Boop
He looked Cookie over. Every chef in the West was called “Cookie” it seemed. This one seemed no more special than any other. He was tubby with a dirty white shirt covered in blood and grease. His red face was topped by an equally red, bald pate…the former courtesy of the hot cook stove and the latter from the deceptively bright South Dakota sun. It was August, after all. Come winter, it would be just as red and cold as Hell.
“Yes. Yes, I will,” Lacy nodded as if he were considering it. Truth be told, traveling so far from his home in Tombstone, Arizona, funds were always short. If he could get in on this big feast for free, he wouldn’t complain.
“Say, Cookie, do you know…” he paused, remembering his manners. Or at least what passed close enough to get him what he wanted. “Is that your real name, Cookie?”
The chef grinned sheepishly. “Nah. It’s Milton. But no one calls me that. Cookie’s fine.”
Lacy nodded, his look of concern quickly changing to a friendly smile wide as the Great Plains. “Say, Cookie. What’s all the hubbub for? Any idea? That’s quite the gathering, isn’t it?”
Cookie nodded, eyes wide. “Most famous table I’ve ever set. Some law dogs from Kansas City. Bass Reeves. ‘Liver Eatin’’ Johnson. The Earps. Masterson. Those dime novel folks…Lynch, ‘Bad Luck’ Betty, Van Helter. You read those dime novels, Mr. O’Malley?”
Lacy’s grin turned slightly sardonic. “I sure have.” Memories of the trio’s adventures ran through his head. The dime novels made them sound heroic and romantic, but Lacy remembered the gore and the death and the abject terror of learning just what kinds of things lurked in the dark corners of the Earth. “I’ve…read a few.”
Lacy changed the subject. “So what have you heard? About the gathering, I mean.”
“Not much. The US agents hired me from Denver. I was workin’ at this place called the Buckhorn, and I guess they liked something they ate. Said they needed a cook for a big important meal. Pay was good and I like to get around, so here I am.” O’Malley seemed to be losing interest. Cookie struggled to think of something that might keep him around a little longer. “Oh! I saw some of the Sioux puttin’ in totems around the town. Some kinda protective boundary, I reckon. The agent who hired me, Mr. Jones…though I don’t think that’s his real name…said somethin’ about ‘stayin’ within the totems.’ I don’t really understand all the politics here, but there’s a whole bunch o’ Sioux livin’ in town now. A few are joinin’ us for dinner, I hear.”
Lacy looked up Broadway and across Gold Street. He could see Sitting Bull and some of his people camped out there. He’d talk to them next. “Anything else?”
Cookie thought for a moment. Remembered something. “Oh, I did hear Wyatt…that’s one of the Earps…say something about a ‘Twilight Protocol’ when he was talkin’ to that Ranger from Texas. Ketchum, I think is his name. That mean anything to you, Mr. O’Malley?”
Lacy nodded. He knew exactly what it meant. The protocol was a truce between the North and South, who’d been engaged in a long cold war with occasional hot flashes since 1860. It was now August 1881. The public thought the hostilities had died down, but Lacy and a few others knew that was only because the two governments had finally caught on to something far more dangerous…an event they called the Reckoning. Lacy believed the Reckoners were the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse…like right out of the Bible. They’d brought magic and monsters back into the world and some said even changed history. A shaman he shared a vision quest with once told him the Civil War shouldn’t have lasted more than five years. It was already going on a decade, on and off. The movers and shakers at this gathering were almost certainly aware of all that, and they’d only gather for something momentous.
“What else is going on around here, Cookie? Anything that might have attracted such a hall of fame?”
Cookie shrugged. “Ain’t heard nothin’. Just been here a few days myself. There was that war a few months back.”
Lacy frowned and started to amble away.
“Oh wait, Mr. O’Malley.” Cookie’s enthusiasm got the better of him once more. “I guess I did hear one thing. That Injun that started the Battle of Deadwood is still on the run somewhere in the Black Hills. Maybe they’re afraid he’s gonna do it again? I dunno though…I thought the Sioux wanted his scalp more than the government did, but…well…I don’t follow these things so much. I’m just a cook.”
Lacy nodded, gave a half smile, and went off to annoy some of the more famous faces he spied around Deadwood.
Cookie didn’t mind. He’d just talked to one of the most famous people in the West. And he was gonna make O’Malley and the rest one hell of a feast.
* * *
“Hey, little girl. Are you okay?” Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp stood in the yard of Dingler’s Whirligigs. His brother Morgan eyed an autogyro and was considering a ride, but the ever-cautious Wyatt had cast his aspersions as hard and silent as death.
Wyatt had left Morg to stare at the New Science devices and headed toward a small figure east of the shop when a young girl, maybe twelve or thirteen years old had just wandered out of the woodline. Her hair was a mess, her dress was tattered and filthy, and there wasn’t a spot on her face, arms, hands, or feet that wasn’t covered in dirt.
“I said are you okay, miss?” Wyatt repeated, closer now. But he knew she wasn’t.
Morgan followed right behind. “Holy Hell! What happened to you?” The more hot-headed of the Earp brothers drew his Colt and looked around for trouble, but didn’t see any.
The girl looked up at the Earps and recognition flashed in her eyes. Then she fainted dead away. Wyatt caught her before she hit the ground.
* * *
“What’s for dinner, Cookie?”
“More like what ain’t for dinner, Mr. Johnson!” Cookie smiled. “I got elk, pheasant, taters, onions, carrots, rabbit. No liver, though.”
Johnson’s mouth curled in a snarl.
“Er, sorry, Mr. Johnson. I didn’t mean to assume nothin’.”
Johnson held the snarl for a long pause, enjoying watching Cookie squirm…then broke out in a laugh. “Haw! You think I want more liver? I’ve had enough liver to last three hundred lifetimes.”
Cookie laughed back, nervously. “I reckon you have, at that.”
There was a brief awkward silence, then the tension and the horror of “Liver Eatin’” Johnson’s tragic past broke like ice on a lake, and the two guffawed like fools.
“Tell you what I could really go for,” Johnson eventually managed. “Somethin’ sweet. Gonna have anything like that?”
Cookie smiled from ear to ear. “Sure do, Mr. Johnson. Bass Reeves brought in all the fixin’s for an apple pie. I’ve already got the crusts bakin’.”
“Liver Eatin’” Johnson leaned in and sniffed. “It’s gonna be a good day,” he grinned. “Yup. I’ve got a good feelin’ about it.”
* * *
Millicent didn’t clean up well at all. The baths were all taken—both from the illustrious guests in Deadwood and the inevitable soiled doves competing for their attention. So Doc Taylor and his assistant had to make do with sponging her down. It didn’t take much.
“She’s malnourished, Mr. Earp. She needs a good meal. And a bath. But I’ve seen worse. That hair o’ hers is gonna take some real trimmin’ to clean up, but she won’t let me touch it. We don’t know what she…what kinda…trauma…she went through out there. There are mercenaries still out on the prairies from the battle. Prospectors hidin’ from the Sioux—and the US Army—the Black Hills are off-limits, you remember. And then there’s a whole mess of Indians looking for payback despite a truce most of ’em didn’t sign on to in the first place.”
Wyatt frowned, studying her. That was all likely. There was a lot of violence and ignorance in all parts of the world, of course, but there was an extra dose of hard feelings in South Dakota territory right now.
“But…I don’t see any signs of…well, violence.” Doc put his kit away and sighed. “Physical
ly, she seems fine. Unless she’s got a head wound. That hair’s more tangle than a briar patch. I’ll check her again after she gets a bath and we can untangle it a bit.”
Wyatt nodded. But something wasn’t right. He couldn’t quite put his trigger finger on it, but it nagged at him like his old school marm. “How long was she out there?”
“She said her parents died during the battle sometime, but that was a couple months ago now. From the look of her, I’d say she’s only been wanderin’ a week, at most. She’s thin and her color’s off, but nothin’ a young thing like her won’t recover from right quick.”
Morg pulled a piece of peppermint from his pocket, unwrapped it from a clean cloth, and handed it to the girl. “She just needs some hot food and maybe something to get her mind off whatever happened to her for a while, right, Millicent? You got any skills, girl?”
Millicent snapped her head toward Morgan Earp fast enough to startle the three men and answered instantly. “I can cook.”
* * *
“Cookie, it would be a great favor to me and my brother if this little gal could help in the preparation of the victuals.” Morgan Earp smiled. Wyatt stood behind him, rolling the cigar in his mouth back and forth, pondering.
Cookie looked Millicent over. He could use a little help with such a big feast. And a favor for the Earps? Well, that was something, wasn’t it? “I’d be happy to, Mr. Earp.”
Morgan went to pat Millicent on the head, but she pulled away quickly. “Well, I understand. Now you help Cookie here for a few hours and make sure you get yourself fed. My brother an’ I will check on you after this meeting and figure out how to help.” He flipped Cookie a double eagle and headed toward the meeting house. Wyatt stared a moment longer then followed.
Heart of gold, that one, Cookie thought about Morgan Earp. Hot-headed, if the newspapers were to be believed (and Cookie did), but that’s how it was with those passionate types, wasn’t it? Everything was Heaven or Hell with them. Not much Limbo in between. Morgan’s brother though? That one had a serious streak the size of Kansas.
Cookie looked over his new help. “Okay. I’m sorry, girl. I didn’t catch yer name.”
“Millicent. You can call me Milli.” She looked with wide eyes at the boiling pots, spitted meat on campfires, and Dutch ovens Cookie had set up in the empty lot west of Broadway. There was a house near there where all the bigwigs were talking, but it was too small to feed them inside. That would come promptly at six. The Chinese the agents hired had already set up long tables with red-and-white checkered tablecloths.
“Milli it is. So you can cook, you say. How about checkin’ on that stew then? See if the taters are soft yet. Oh, and are you hungry? Dinner’s not for another hour, but some of it’s ready. You look like you could use a little somethin’ to tide you over till then.”
Milli shook her head. “No. I’m not hungry.” She walked over to the stew and stared at it intently. She took up one of Cookie’s big wooden spoons and began to swirl it around the rich brown broth.
Her back was to him so he couldn’t see her face, but he winced a little at the debris in her hair. Cookie wasn’t the most hygienic person in the West, but he took pride in his work and tried not to let too many stray hairs wind up in his food. “Mind your hair there, girl. We don’t wanna serve up dirty grub.”
“Oh no…” she whispered. “We wouldn’t want that…”
* * *
Stone looked at the dead braves. Each one was twisted and contorted, as if something had wracked their bodies from the inside. They’d been here a few weeks. He chuckled slightly. You’d think being Death’s right hand, he’d know exactly when a man passed. But that’s not how it worked.
The bucks hadn’t been touched by animals. That was a dead giveaway that whatever had happened to them was less than natural. He sniffed. Something smelled off. Dead flesh was a constant, so he could filter that out easy enough. This was something else. Something pungent but subtle just below the surface…maybe congealed in their veins.
He poked one with a jagged fingernail, hard enough to pierce the skin. Dry black blood poked from the surface. More like dried paint sticking out of an artist’s tube than blood. He sniffed his finger.
There it was. That’s what he was looking for. The good stuff.
Stone stood. His dead knees creaked and popped as much as the dried leather of his gun belt. One of the braves had the scrap of a white dress in his belt. Maybe kept it as a souvenir. Maybe just used it to wipe the snot off his nose. But it was Milli’s. She’d been here.
It wasn’t the first group of dead Indians he’d found in the Black Hills. There were several others, all contorted and twisted up like these. Some, he could tell, had met with Milli. Others seemed to have keeled over soon after eating the local game.
This was one powerful little monster.
The gathering at Deadwood was a big nut to crack, though. There were a lot of goody-two-shoes and troublemakers down there. Some of them even had enough mojo to give Stone a little trouble.
And it was his job to be trouble. It was his job to make sure the so-called heroes didn’t foul things up for the boss. It was his job to plug ’em when they got too big for their britches.
“Let’s see what you can cook up, little girl,” whispered Stone as he climbed back on his mare. “I’ll handle the leftovers.”
* * *
Whatever the meeting was about, it turned contentious. Cookie watched as the Earps walked out of the house on Broadway and quietly talked among themselves. The Ranger sat alone on the porch, whittling a sharp stick out of pure frustration. The agents congregated in their own little clique, occasionally glancing over at the Ranger. The dime-novel heroes, Lynch, Van Helter, and McGrew, left town—Cookie shoved his worn copy of Perdition’s Daughter back in his pocket, disappointed. He was hoping to have them sign it.
“How’s them pies comin’?” asked “Liver Eatin’” Johnson, clearly starving. He was a big man. He dwarfed the table and blocked Cookie’s view of the meeting.
“They’ll be fresh and hot right after the main course, Mr. Johnson! They’re lookin’ good.”
Johnson patted his belly. “Can’t wait.” Then he noticed Millicent. “Say, who’s your new help here?”
“Her name’s Millicent. Don’t know her last name. The Earps found her wanderin’ the woods, I think. She’s helpin’ out for a while. I think maybe the Sioux…well…I don’t know what happened to her. She don’t talk much.”
Johnson sniffed the air. Leaned in closer to Milli, who was across one of several firepits and surrounded by the smells of cooking meat, boiling stew, raw onions, and more. Cookie thought he had a good sniffer, but Johnson’s senses seemed almost preternatural.
“The Sioux, you say?”
Cookie harbored no particular ill-will toward any race or creed. “Well, I don’t know. Coulda been anyone. Or, um, no one. I don’t actually know what…”
Milli said nothing. She just kept her back to the two men and stirred the stew.
Johnson took a step closer, peering at the back of her head. He frowned and looked over at his assembled peers just twenty yards away and scattered throughout the yard.
The mountain man stroked his chin. His frown switched to a sharp smile. “Y’know, I’ve got a case of something I’d like to share, given the rare nature of this meal and all these luminaries. Something of a certain vintage that’s hard to get out here in the middle of the Sioux Nations.” Johnson winked. “It’s with my mule over in the livery. Can I borrow your girl to help me haul it back?”
Cookie nodded. He could use a drink after this long hot day. “Sure thing, Mr. Johnson. Milli, would you mind helpin’ our friend here?”
Millicent turned from the stew pot and looked Johnson square in the eyes. “Not at all, Mr. Johnson. Show me the way.”
* * *
Stone sat on a little rock on the southwest side of Deadwood. There was an empty lot with several long tables and a passel of men and women standin
g about waiting to eat. There was also a cook manning several large pots, spits, and cook fires. But no Millicent.
Stone leaned back and rested, more out of habit than any bodily need. He knew whatever was about to happen would be interesting, at least.
* * *
“It’s right over here, girl,” Johnson said as he entered the livery. He glanced about to make sure no one else was around and headed toward the back of the large, dark building.
Milli followed, innocently.
All the animals were outside. There was nothing here but hay and horse shit. Johnson looked around for a second, then circled back around Milli, trapping her in the corner. His hand moved slowly to his belt.
* * *
A man calling himself Agent Sam Jones told Cookie to start serving. Cookie had to laugh a little at the fake mustache peeling slightly off one side of his face in the hot August afternoon, but the tone of the man’s voice wasn’t one to be trifled with.
“Yessir,” Cookie nodded. Now where’s that girl?
* * *
“Liver Eatin’” Johnson pulled a long Bowie knife from his belt. “I don’t know what you are, but I know you ain’t no little girl.”
Milli blinked in confusion. “I don’t… Momma said…”
Johnson took a step toward her. “What did Momma say?”
Milli turned her head slightly. “Momma said Daddy was bad. He had to go.”
Johnson’s eyes narrowed. “An’ the war was an excuse to get rid of ’im, wasn’t it?”
Milli’s eyes snapped to the mountain man’s. “She kilt him. Kilt him dead. Pa keeled over right in his stew. Then she dragged him out and put a few bullets in him. Said the Sioux did it.”
Johnson pondered for a moment. “How’d she kill him?”
Milli smiled. “I toldja. The stew.”
“I know a lot about Injuns, little girl. I know their habits and their ways, and I know their legends.”
Now it was Milli who took a step closer. Her smile broadened, showing long, pointed teeth that had grown an inch in the last minute.
