by David Boop
Deane took the thick leather-bound book and opened it on the most recent page. There he saw the names and dates of each of the victims and as he’d already learnt, how they all arrived within months of each other and came from Glenwood Springs.
There wasn’t anyone else who was new to the town or from Colorado.
Other than the pastor’s drink problem, Deane hadn’t heard any rumors about any of the victims before they died. But even Alice knew that Daniel Hooley had a wandering eye. If anyone suspected that Miss Lacie had been married to the famous robber and gambler, then it was never gossiped about. As far as Celeste was concerned, Deane could find no connection at all.
Then one of the girls from the saloon came to see him.
“Celeste was pregnant when she arrived here,” the girl said. “It happens.”
“What happened to the baby?” Deane asked.
“She took something to rid herself of it. She was sick for days. Doc Stewart had to be called. Then he gave her something that helped her pull round.”
“I guess that’s what you girls do all the time?” said Deane.
“The orphanage in Kansas has a few of mine. I don’t hold with taking a life… Sometimes nature takes care of it on its own. But Celeste liked to take her potions.”
“Where’d she get the stuff from?”
The girl glanced across the street to the apothecary shop.
“Did she know who the father was?” Deane said as the girl turned to go.
“Oh yes,” said the girl. “She boasted about it. She’d been this gambler’s girl back in Glenwood. Until he got sick in his lungs. She said before he died, he begged her to keep the kid. Said it was all he had left.”
“Doc Holliday?” Deane surmised.
“You knew already?”
“Just a guess.”
“He said he’d come for her if she killed his child. But he died even before she rid herself of it,” said the girl. “Celeste once told me…” She trailed off.
“What?” said Deane.
“That, well, she thought she saw him sometimes…standing by the graveyard. But I thought it was the guilt. The baby is buried there you see. She was quite far on before she ended it. Had to birth it, dead as it was. Doc Stewart made her name it and give it a proper burial. He didn’t know what she’d done though. Only Celeste knew. And me too… I guess he thought it was a stillbirth…”
* * *
Deane found the newspaper cutting in the top drawer of the dresser when he pulled out his clean shirt.
There was a picture of Doc Holliday. A death photo, taken as he lay in his open coffin. He looked peaceful. Deane recognized the man: It was Henry, the man Miss Lacie had said was her brother.
But it couldn’t be the same man. The dead don’t rise and die twice. Deane was confused and began to question his own sanity. He had to see that body again. Had to look into that dead face one more time. Surely his memory was playing tricks with him?
He pulled on his clothes and hurried to the undertaker’s.
“We got to dig up Henry,” he said.
Banks looked at the faded photograph in the newspaper clipping and paled. “That man was newly dead.”
“Maybe Holliday had a twin?” Deane suggested.
At the graveside, Deane waited while the digger and undertaker shifted the earth. Soon, the box was hefted up out of the ground.
“It’s light,” said Banks. Then he levered the top open.
The coffin was empty.
“Grave robbers?” said Banks.
They pulled Lacie’s grave up to see if she too was missing, but the body of the schoolmistress still lay there. Though now swollen with decay.
They put her back in the ground.
“Don’t tell anyone about this,” Deane said to Banks. “We don’t want superstition and panic.”
“There was a body in there when we put him in the ground,” Banks said. “Though Miss Lacie was acting weird about it.”
“What d’you mean?”
“She said, ‘He shouldn’t have come.’ There was ‘no place for him’ among the living. I thought it was grief talking. But Pastor Dylan. He comforted her. Said he’d do the rites again if needed to ‘keep him down.’ Then she stuffed some money in his hand, and he did them three times over the grave. Along with a prayer I’d never heard before. Something about the dead not rising.”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this sooner?” Deane said.
“I thought he was just feeding her superstition.”
“There’s more than superstition going on here,” said Deane.
“In my experience the dead don’t leave their graves,” said Banks. “It’s gotta be a living person doing this.”
* * *
Deane went home, the Colt still in his holster. At least no one else had died that day. Maybe it was over? One bullet left, he thought as he reached his house.
Alice was bringing in the washing. Her golden hair shone in the sunlight. Petey played on the patch of grass they had for a garden.
“Hey!” said Alice. “How goes it, Sheriff?”
Deane smiled at her. She seemed happier these days. As though she were free of some awful threat. Yet Deane knew there was still a killer on the loose. At least until—and the thought was insane—the last bullet was used.
They passed a peaceful evening together. Alice darned Petey’s trousers, scuffed open at the knees for the second time, and Deane poured himself a whisky.
Later when they went to bed, Alice initiated intercourse. She didn’t usually, but Deane was happy to oblige.
Then, with the Colt still in his holster, Deane slept.
* * *
He opened his eyes onto another world. Where was he? When was he?
Alice—a little younger than when they first met—with a woman who looked a lot like her aunt, but Deane knew had to be her mother.
“You ain’t marrying no gambler,” said the woman now. “Your father would turn in his grave.”
“Mamma, he has money. Lots of it. He promised to help with your debts. He wins all the time. Don’t you understand? We’ll want for nothing!”
“I won’t agree Alice, and you’re too young to do this without my consent.”
The vision faded. Then…
“I could kill her…” Alice said.
She took his hand. Deane pulled her to him. He was confused, but glad to hold her.
“Did you hear me?” she said again. “I could kill my mother.”
They were in a parlor. Deane couldn’t recall ever being there before. The door on the other side of the room opened. The woman he’d seen earlier now came inside.
“What is he doing here? I told you…”
Alice reached around Deane and yanked the Colt from his gunbelt. In a split second, she pointed the weapon and fired.
“What have you done?” said Deane, leaping from his seat. He went to check on the woman. The bullet hole in the middle of her forehead confirmed her death. How had Alice been such a good shot? Deane had never seen her pick up a gun.
“Not me,” she said, putting the weapon in his hands. “It was you…”
Men ran in then and, grabbing Deane, they yanked him around. Then he saw, reflected in the mirror above the fireplace, his white blond hair, tall lean frame. It was not his own image he saw now, but that of a young Doc Holliday. They pulled him from the house, and Alice shouted his guilt for all to hear.
* * *
Deane opened his eyes and found himself once more standing over the bed. Alice recoiled against the headboard.
“Why you looking at me like that?” she demanded. “What’s wrong with you?”
The Colt Lightning held his grip as though the metal had melted around his hand. It burned.
“You killed your own mother,” Deane said.
“What are you talking about?”
“I saw it. Through his eyes.”
“You’re not making any sense. Look at me. I’m your wife. I’ve never even
held a gun…”
Deane’s eyes cleared, and he saw Alice truly for the first time. For what she was and had always been.
“Gun? I didn’t say how she died…”
“Look…I’m…”
“You set him up,” said Deane. “You set up Doc Holliday.”
Alice’s face changed: She knew the ruse was up.
“I knew him as John… Others called him Henry… She, my mother, wouldn’t let us be together…”
“You shot her. He took the blame. Now he’s back, Alice. Back for revenge on all of you that caused him pain.”
Alice burst into tears. “I didn’t owe him anything. He was a coward.”
“He was lucky to have friends in high places. They made the whole thing go away. But you, Alice. You went to live with your aunt in Kansas. He never forgave you. He thought you loved him, Alice. Just like I believed you loved me.”
“I do…” she said. “Doc was a mistake.”
He raised the Colt and aimed it at her head.
“You can’t kill me,” she said. “They’ll string you up…”
“I’m not going to pull the trigger Alice, Doc is. Just like he did with all the others.”
“Please. I’m your wife. What about Petey?”
Deane faltered. The gun in his hand felt less stable. Then his mind drifted out of his body.
He thought he heard Alice cry out. But then he was no longer there.
* * *
Deane straightened up. The sheriff had always stood well below six feet, now he towered over. His dark hair faded, becoming white blond.
“Doc!” Alice gasped.
The Colt fired. Alice’s body jerked against the headboard. The heart in her chest burst as the .38 bullet burrowed in.
Doc saw her eyes glaze as the pain of death engulfed her and she slumped.
“Daddy?” cried Petey at the bedroom door. “Are you and Mamma in there?”
Petey opened the door, and saw his dead mother, and his father gone. There in his place was a tall blond stranger.
“It’s all right, son,” said Doc Holliday as he holstered his gun. “I’m out of bullets.”
As Petey ran to his mother, Doc Holliday left the sheriff’s house. He was revived for now and confident that he’d last a little longer in this body, just as he’d been able to use the previous one.
In time, this one would die, but his spirit would live on in another. After all, the dead can’t die twice.
The Adventures of Rabbi Shlomo Jones and the Half-Baked Kid
EYTAN KOLLIN
1877
Part 1
The Town of Last Drop
Shlomo Jones gave the mule a halfhearted threat followed by a halfhearted snapping of the reins. Neither were sufficient to get the exhausted animal to move one inch.
“Come on, Rivka,” the dirty and exhausted man said. “The town is right over there.” The not-so-recently arrived immigrant even pointed to the small ramshackle wooden town just about three miles away, nestled at the base of the Arizona hills. The mule looked back toward Shlomo and snorted. Shlomo sighed and looked at his wagon. It was an open wagon being nothing so much as a platform with two-foot wooden sides. It was just long enough and wide enough to carry a coffin, which it did. The coffin was old and battered, looking like it had been in the ground for a while before it was dug up and repurposed, which is exactly what had happened. Strapped on top of the coffin sat a steamer trunk and a carpetbag, secured with shipping cord.
With another sigh, Shlomo got off the hard wood seat and, even though his cramped legs did not want to walk an inch, his tuchus was glad. Walking and stretching at the same time, Shlomo went to the mule and gently took the bridle and stroked Rivka’s muzzle twice before slowly walking forward, bridle in hand. The mule paused for a second as if debating the value of being stubborn versus getting to town with a trough and maybe a stable with hay instead of dining on Arizona scrub grass in the 90-plus temperature. After a moment Rivka switched her ears and started walking forward.
Relieved to be finally moving, Shlomo welcomed the shade of his big black shtetl hat with the wide brim. Being wide-brimmed, it did an admirable job of keeping out the sun and the rain. It wasn’t a cowboy hat in any sense of the word, but Shlomo kept it. It was free and so ugly few were likely to steal it. Plus, it belonged to his deceased brother, a gentle reminder of him. The rest of his clothes were various bits and pieces he’d picked up along the way. The Levi blue jeans came from a stint in the silver mines of the Comstock. His very comfortable cotton shirt had been won in a game of chance in which Shlomo had cheated more skillfully than his opponent. The boots had been acquired from the feet of a man who would never need them again. The only item of clothing he’d actually paid for was his full-length duster. It was a hearty brown color with a wide lapel. It reminded Shlomo of a pirate jacket he’d seen in a magazine on his first day in New York City. He’d liked it so much, the vagabond actually spent three weeks working in San Francisco to simply pay for it. A circumstance he had found singularly distasteful. Of course, needing to work hard and save money was only a problem he had before he discovered his “special” talent.
When Shlomo was a mile from the town, he opened the carpetbag atop the coffin and retrieved the Colt revolver from where he left it. If it was possible to scowl and smile at the exact same moment, Shlomo did so as he belted the gun to his waist and tied the holster to his thigh. With lightning speed, he took the gun from the holster, switched it from hand to hand, twirled it from hand to hand, and guided it back into the holster with such speed that the pistol almost bounced back out. He did this without an ounce of joy at his obvious talent. He let the duster drape over the gun.
As Shlomo led his wagon down the main—and effectively only—street in town, someone shouted his way, “Who’s in the coffin?”
“No one,” Shlomo replied and waited a beat before he added, “yet.” This brought a laugh from the group of men waiting near the saloon. He took off his hat and gave the men a slight bow. “Tell me gentlemen, is the stable a good place to quarter my mule, or should I just take Rivka out to the field and shoot her now?”
This elicited more laughter from the men before one of them said, “Go to Cletus, right on the edge of town. Just arrange the price before you hand over the bridle, and you’ll be all right.”
“Thank you, sir,” Shlomo said with a deeper flourish of his old hat and made his way to the opposite side of town.
* * *
“Welcome to Last Drop, stranger,” a man said as he came out of the stable. The man was tall and wiry, looking a bit like Ol’ Abe Lincoln. Shlomo had only voted in one election in America, but he had voted for Lincoln. It was one of the few actions he had taken as a recent immigrant that he was truly proud of. But other than the build, the man bore no resemblance to the sixteenth president. Shlomo did not detect any burning light of intelligence from those dull eyes.
“Well, I don’t want to be a stranger. My name is Shlomo, Shlomo Jones,” He extended his hand. The man gave Shlomo a strong, squishy shake with his manure-stained hand.
“Good to meet ya, Slow-mo. I’m Cletus.” He pointed a thumb to his chest.
“Actually it’s Shlo-mo,” Shlomo said, accenting each syllable.
“That’s what I said,” smiled Cletus. “Slow-mo.”
Shlomo sighed. “That’s it exactly. How much to stable my mule, Rivka, and my wagon for two or three days?”
“I can do it for fifty cents a day.”
Shlomo sighed again. “I can manage two days on fifty cents a day. I will have to see about the third day though.”
“Fair enough,” Cletus said and held out his hand again which Shlomo shook. “Don’t you worry none. I’ll take good care of Rivka.” Shlomo couldn’t help but notice that the American had pronounced the mule’s name perfectly. “She’ll be brushed and fed, and I’ll clean her hoofs too.”
“That is most kind, but be careful on the hoofs. She is a bit…temperamental.”
/>
Cletus just smiled. “Ain’t my first mule, Mr. Slow-Mo.”
“I guess it ain’t. Where is a good place to bed down?”
“The saloon’s got some rooms, but they charge two-bit prices and it’s a one-bit place.”
“I guess it’s the only place.”
“Well other saloons tend to catch fire soon after opening,” Cletus said innocently.
“That can happen if you’re not careful,” Shlomo judiciously agreed.
“Always good to be careful,” Cletus said nodding.
Shlomo went to his little wagon and untied the top carpetbag and told Rivka, “You be nice for the stable master.” He grabbed her by the jaw and looked into her eyes. “No nipping!”
Rivka tried to bite his hand.
* * *
There were at least fifteen armed men in the saloon at a time of day honest men should be working. That usually meant trouble.
“Well, that is the stupidest hat I have ever seen,” a tall, fit man said from the bar.
Shlomo turned his eyes hat-ward. “It is true that my hat may not be the best hat in the world, but it was my brother’s. So I’ll keep it.”
“You sound funny,” said the man at the end of the bar with a slight southern accent. Shlomo noticed that all the other men in the bar waited. That was never a good sign. He decided to deal with this quickly.
“I should sound funny. I’m a Jewish man from Poland. I’ve been here for fourteen years. You think it would have gone away, but no, still I sound like a schnook from a shtetl. I was hoping the Army would give me English, like a Yankee, but no luck.”
“You were in the Army?” a man asked from one of the tables, but from the glares he got from the other players, he probably regretted it instantly.
“Indeed I was. My brother and I fought with the New York volunteers. Not that we were from New York mind you. But to be fair, we did volunteer.”
“Did you see any action?” asked another man.
Shlomo sauntered up to the bar and placed a quarter on the surface. “Mister, did I see action? Like you wouldn’t believe. At Gettysburg, I was. My first battle.” Shlomo grew silent as his mind went back to the battle. Some of the men also entered their own terrible memories.