The Beast of Nightfall Lodge

by SA Sidor

  Until we got to Raton.

  November 5, 1890

  Train station and the Castle Ram Hotel

  Raton, New Mexico Territory

  I often think that, if not for mining, Americans would have left the West unspoiled, but such speculation is moot. Raton was in mining country, thus Raton existed, and so did her railroad station. Wu and I disembarked, rumpled, and in my case, glad to be free of the confines of the narrow train car. I am not one who fancies tight spaces. I loathe them. The Pullman sleeper that Wu and I shared felt closer to a coffin than a bed, and I say this as a person who once experienced the real threat of being buried alive. Happily, I left that glorified crate in motion for a wide vista nailed to one place. I crossed the platform quickly. A snowy briskness trailed the high air blowing down from the mountains. It colored my cheeks and incensed the depot with a strong fragrance of piñon pines. My cane tapped the boards nervously.

  “What is the name of the place where Evangeline is staying?”

  “The Castle Ram Hotel,” Wu answered.

  I surveyed the town’s main street. “There’s not much here, Wu. And certainly not many inns worthy of lodging someone of Evangeline Waterston’s caliber.” I stopped a clayey gray-all-over gentleman wearing an old cavalry hat turned shapeless with age, much like the man himself. “Excuse me, sir, where is the Castle Ram Hotel?”

  “Where it’s always been, I suppose.”

  “And that is…?”

  “Yonder.” He pointed with his thumb. “It’s got a big sheep on the sign.”

  I tipped my bowler to him.

  “You a gambler?” the man asked, pulling all the wrinkles of his face up and to the right, inquisitively, as if an invisible fishhook had snagged the corner of his eye.

  “Me? A gambler?” I shared an amused glance with Wu. “Hardly, my good fellow, I am only guilty of being a scholar, a historian of the ancient world, and chiefly an Egyptologist.”

  “That some kind of foreign gambling?”

  “In a way, yes. But in the way you mean, no. I am a man of science, not dice games.”

  “Oh,” the man said. “So it ain’t like baccarat?”

  I shook my head.

  “How about you, son, you play fan-tan? Them’s a Chinese game with buttons.”

  “I do not play, sir,” Wu answered.

  The man loosened his wrinkles and, slack-faced looked longingly off into some dreamy zone beyond us. “I was a gambler. Came here with a bundle. Lost it all. My hand too.” He showed us the empty cuff of his sleeve, and then his pale wrist poked out, tied off like a sausage. “They was good times here, though you’d never know, seein’ things now. Enjoy yourselves! Too bad ye ain’t gamblers.” He waved the hand he had and passed grayly up the street into a dim saloon.

  “That was a strange man,” Wu said. “And he is the only townsperson out today.”

  What Wu said was correct, though I had not noticed it on my own. The street was awfully quiet. Deserted, in fact. A few horses were tied to the hitching rail outside the saloon. There was a medicine show wagon parked in a tented lot across from the drinking establishment. Painted in sickly yellow letters on the side was: Doc Spooner’s Famous Elixirs and Potent Remedies. A hungry-looking dog the color of boiled sweets trotted away from us, checking over his bony shoulder to see if we were following him. “We are the exception. Let us find this Sheep Castle.”

  “Castle Ram,” Wu corrected me.

  I was glad to see his attention to detail. “Castle Ram it is!”

  The one-handed gambler had pointed us in the right direction. The sign outside the hotel soon came into our view. Indeed, there was a sheep painted on it, or, more accurately, the portrait of a ram’s head.

  “Will you look at that evil thing!” I grabbed Wu by the arm.

  The ram’s head did not appear painted as much as burned into a weathered, splintery plank suspended from twin chains. Huge, thickly-ribbed horns spiraled outward from an almost human face that appeared abnormally long with a wide, brutish anthropoid forehead; its mouth tilted in a sneer, a forked beard dangling from its chin. The eyes shone, catching the late afternoon light. As we approached, I saw a pair of glass orbs embedded in the wood; between them the woodgrain sketched a vague yet recognizable shape, something very like a star.

  A thin, elongated star.

  “I do not like it,” Wu said.

  “Agreed. What an eccentric building this is. One wouldn’t expect to find it here.”

  The hotel façade gave every appearance of being an actual castle barbican, though the gateway was drastically reduced in size. The construction materials seemed rough and curiously stone-like to the point I felt the urge to touch them and verify their properties. Using my cane for leverage, I vaulted the muddy gutter. I knocked my cane’s apish knob and then my fist against the castle wall. Hollow-sounding wood, as I expected. Above the entrance, my gaze climbed the heights of the battlements studded by turrets and two flanking corner towers. Darkly stained lattice strips were hammered to the doors. They represented a portcullis grill dropping down to bar intruders and guard whatever lived inside the Castle Ram’s keep. The scene was like a stage.

  “Time to cross the moat,” I said to Wu.

  He noted the flooded trench between himself and the boardwalk.

  With a running start, a smiling Wu leapt the odiferous gutter to join me.

  “Those are arrowslits,” I said, indicating the vertical openings in the towers.

  “What are they for?”

  “Bowmen. Though I can’t see how bowmen are needed here. These are decorations.”

  Wu whispered, “Who are the people inside?”

  “Inside?”

  I followed his gaze and saw as he did the flicker of quick movements and glittery black eyes peeking out. Too many eyes. I was backing away, tugging Wu after me and raising my cane defensively when an explosion of noise erupted from the left tower, and a mob of crows flapped through an unseen hole in the rooftop. The right tower roost emptied as well. Crows spilled forth, cawing, swooping, and circling overhead like black-feathered messengers announcing our presence to every citizen of sleepy Raton.

  “A-ha! We have spooked ourselves. They’re only birds,” I said, but I was not calm.

  Wu laughed, unconvincingly, and it is true the crows proved marginally less unsettling after they perched on the battlements, watching us as if we were a pair of trembling mice.

  We entered the castle proper.

  Candlelight. I have toured cathedrals with fewer candles than the Castle Ram Hotel lobby. One end of the room opened through an archway to a parlor furnished with chairs and settees piled with embroidered pillows of uncommon size and shape, ranging from bolsters and spheres to plush cubes and wedges; someone had arranged a few of the larger cushions in a heap on the floor. Ornate mythological creatures were carved into the settee arms, but none I recognized, which was curious since my knowledge of mythology covered ancient Eastern cultures and the Greco-Roman tradition. There were several colossal urns scattered about the lounge periphery. They contained no flowers but collections of dried branches like crude broomsticks. I bent to inspect a pot and discovered a strong herbal scent. A medieval chandelier hung from the ceiling and yet, despite the abundant flames, shadows packed the room. But no people. The front desk remained similarly vacant. So quiet you might imagine no one had ever worked there. I dodged a candelabrum to lean forward and inspect a thick, leather-bound book lying on the counter beside a pen and inkwell. After checking the lobby again for any guests, I turned the book and opened it.

  The hotel registry.

  It was blank.

  Not a single signature.

  Empty line after empty line filled the pages.

  “Unless this is a new ledger, we have quite a mystery to begin our adventure,” I said.

  Wu was about to answer me, to warn me, actually, when a bespectacled, bald man wearing a deep brown suit manifested himself from a doorway behind the desk and adjacent
to the key and mail cubbies. With both hands the man seized the registry, sliding it away from me. His smile was a slow-acting poison.

  “Can I help you?” he asked, in a most unhelpful tone.

  “Yes, you can. I didn’t see you hiding there.”

  “Hiding? I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You were taking your afternoon tea, perhaps? No matter. I am Dr Rom Hardy, and I am meeting a guest of your hotel today. I may even be a guest myself. This is my assistant, Wu.”

  The front deskman said nothing. Did nothing.

  “Miss Evangeline Waterston of the California Waterstons? She is your guest?”

  “I don’t believe she is,” he said.

  “She is your guest. Evangeline Waterston. Check your book, why don’t you?”

  “I don’t need to check my book. We have no guest by that name.”

  I shifted so Wu could stand with me, confronting the deskman.

  “Tell him, Wu.”

  “She is staying here. The Adderlys made her reservation. They own this place.”

  The deskman was unmoved. “I’m afraid we have no guest by that name.”

  “Is there another hotel in Raton?” I asked.

  “Not one as luxurious as ours,” the deskman answered smugly.

  “But there are others?”

  “Rooming houses… the saloon offers sleeping rooms with such a ruckus below no man could sleep… Madame Champagne’s Velvet Box has beds, but little sleeping goes on there–”

  “You would agree that a fine lady would stay here?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “That settles it then. Evangeline Waterston is nothing if not fine. Do please send a message to her that we have arrived.”

  The deskman was stunned. Without taking his eyes off me, he reached for a recess in the wall and jerked a beaded needlepoint bell pull. I did not hear any bell ring. But a hotel porter materialized behind Wu and me. We did not detect his approach and would not have noticed him standing there if the deskman had not addressed him directly.

  “Marcus, inform Miss Waterston she has two visitors.”

  Marcus was stooped and slightly older than the Sphinx. He gave no signal to acknowledge his orders but slipped off into a draped area that I presumed concealed a staircase.

  We awaited his return.

  “Might I inquire if you have any rooms available? My assistant and I need lodging.”

  The deskman replied with no hesitation. “Sorry, we’re booked.”

  I made a show of glancing around the abandoned vestibule.

  “Crowded, is it?”

  “A very busy time of year. Perhaps the saloon has accommodations.”

  I resisted the desire to rap him on the nose with my ape.

  Marcus returned.

  “She is not in her room,” he told the deskman. “Her trunks are gone as well.”

  The deskman cocked his head toward me as if I had not heard. “Miss Waterston has apparently left the hotel premises. You may choose at this time to do the same.”

  “Surely she must have passed by your counter. Perhaps you saw where she went?”

  The slim brown shoulders rose and fell with an indifferent shrug.

  My rage was growing, and my ears felt hot. I wetted my thumb and forefinger and pinched out every wick of his candelabrum. Trickles of smoke drifted across his face. He removed his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. Then he put his glasses on again.

  “Come, Wu. This dingy pit stinks of mold and dust. The employees fare no better.”

  I lifted my bag. Wu did the same with his. We swiveled away from the front desk. It was then I noticed the painting of a woman hanging opposite the desk. The woman in the portrait was an enchanting beauty. She was seated upon a black throne. Her eyes seemed to follow us as we marched back over the threshold and into the natural brightness of the outdoors. If I hadn’t been piqued by the deskman’s rudeness, I would’ve lingered for a deeper study of the pale, dark-haired woman done in oils. She had the kind of face that improved with further scrutiny. Who was she? Why did her likeness breathe more life into the hotel than the actual men who worked there? I had no answers, only more questions.

  “I am starting to feel we are not welcomed here,” Wu said.

  “Most observant, my friend, but the question is why. And the other question is where.”

  “Where?” Wu asked.

  “Where the hell is everyone?” I shouted in frustration. “I wonder if Evangeline ever checked into the Castle Ram. She would not tolerate such deliberate obtuseness and rude clerks!”

  Gunshots rang out in quick succession.

  “Where did those come from?” I asked, ducking and searching for signs of motion.

  Wu pointed across the street. “The saloon. Where the old man went.”

  “And where we might rent a room for the night.” I jumped down from the boardwalk.

  Wu hesitated in following me.

  “We’re going in there?”

  “It appears to be where the action is. Therefore…”

  Wu finished my thought. “Miss Evangeline will be there too!”

  “Correct.” I resumed my stride. Wu joined me. I smelled gunpowder and cigars. Men’s voices shouted inside the saloon. I saw two giant eyes painted on the establishment, but I could not read its name, sliced in half as it was by shade. The evening sun dyed the peaks a crimson red.

  “Now we know how the Sangre de Cristos got their name,” I said, though I was unsure if the blood on the mountains would be the only blood we witnessed this night.

  I never carried a gun.

  Wu drew a pistol from his bag. Before I could stop him, he pushed through the batwing doors into the chaos of the saloon.

  4

  The Starry Eyes Proposition

  Starry Eyes Saloon

  Raton, New Mexico Territory

  The man leaning over the bar, dripping blood from his jagged ear into a glass of whiskey, was laughing. Like a spiderweb, a crack spread across the mirror behind the bar, and in the center of the crack was a bullet hole. A second, older man wearing a flattened red flower in his lapel approached the bleeding drinker with a look of concern.

  “Billy, let me see that wound.”

  “He grazed me. It’s nothing,” Billy said, as he drank his whiskey down.

  The barman refilled the glass without asking him to pay for it. Patrons went back to their card games, cigar smoking, and drinking. Conversations resumed. The Starry Eyes Saloon was packed wall-to-wall with customers. The room was hot. I felt my cheeks flush. It was easy to imagine that all the citizens of Raton were here, crammed into this single business. It wasn’t all men; I did spot some women mixing in with the crowd. Dancers, cardplayers, hired companions, but others too, women of apparent taste and distinction, like flowers growing in a field of pig manure. Every chair in the house was filled, and the standees barely left us enough room to blend. We tried our best given the circumstances. I did not see Evangeline. But most of the room stretched beyond my sight though a bluish haze of smoke.

  Wu tucked his pistol discreetly into his belt before anyone noticed. I stepped in front of him and politely attempted to progress forward. Gradually we moved to the end of the bar, next to Billy, which was the only place where we could go, the crowd being bunched up so tight.

  “Show me,” the older man said to Billy sternly. “I have to keep you in repair, Kid.”

  Billy picked up his glass and turned, leaning his elbows back on the bar, allowing the other man to inspect his injury. The rest of the bystanders avoided looking at Billy.

  “I told him, Pops,” Billy said.

  “Yes, you did.” Pops pressed a soiled bar towel to the laceration. Billy winced.

  “I gave the coward every chance. He got what was coming to him.”

  “You’re going to need a stitch or two to save that ear.”

  I hadn’t noticed it before, but the older man, Pops, carried a black Gladstone bag. He withdrew a needle and a loop of heavy t
hread. He began to reattach the lobe of Billy’s ear. As the surgeon sewed, Billy stared into an empty space, reviewing the gunfight Wu and I had just missed seeing. I wanted to look away, but I could not force myself to do it.

  “I said you won’t draw on me if you have half a brain, you fool. Gutless and brainless, that’s what he was. Did he know who he was dealing with, I wonder?” Billy shook his head in reply to his own question.

  “Don’t move, please,” Pops sighed.

  “He was damn slow. Got off a lucky shot. He could’ve killed somebody!” Billy slapped his knee, inviting the crowd to join him in a laugh. But they declined. “I put him down like the mangy bug-eyed cur he was,” he said finally.

  “Stop moving or you will have to learn to live with a damn crooked ear.” Pops pulled his bloodstained hands away, leaving a long thread hanging loosely from Billy’s cartilage.

  “I don’t care,” Billy said, but he reined in his fidgeting. “Keep going. Sew me.”

  I was wondering about the fate of Billy’s counterpart in the gunfight when a group of men emerged from the parting crowd carrying the limp body of a dead man on their shoulders. The man’s head lolled, openmouthed, bouncing horribly with each step. As they began to pass, Billy stopped them. He stood up on his tiptoes, tugged at the dead man’s dusty shirt, and smiled.

  “Look here, Pops! Plumb through the heart! What would you call a shot like that?”

  Pops tipped his head back. His lips pursed as he searched for the right word.

  “Perfection,” he decided.

  “PUR-fection. That’s what I’m talking about. He was dead the minute he talked sass to me.” Billy tapped the corpse’s chest. “Only you didn’t know it yet. But I knew it. I knew it!”

  The grim procession continued out the batwing doors. A shift at the last moment of exiting the Starry Eyes caused the corpse’s head to swivel toward me, and I was sickened to see the old gray man who had greeted us on our arrival and directed us to the Castle Ram. The one-handed man. He wore no holster. I conjectured that his left hand had not been swift to pull a gun.