by David Boop
“Rabbi, you and Line Walker cast your spell over three hours ago.”
And with a wild whoop, she flung herself out of the cave and toward the gunmen on the rise.
The red-skinned blond raced toward James’s gang. Seven of the men tried to get the gun pointed at the golem, but as it got closer one man ran away. Shlomo recognized James Beaumont. So apparently did Dahteste, who changed her course to intercept the gang’s leader. With a curse, and then an apology for cursing, Shlomo ran after Dahteste.
Out of the corner of his eye, Shlomo tracked the golem as it approached the field piece. He methodically grabbed each man by his right hand and squeezed. The men abandoned the field gun en masse. The gang routed, Shlomo concentrated on catching up to Dahteste and James Beaumont.
James and Dahteste disappeared over the rise and then came a gunshot. In seconds, he cleared the rise and found Dahteste holding her arm, blood pouring from her fingers. James aimed to take a second, killing shot.
“Hey,” Shlomo shouted. “I’m glad your verkachte Confederacy died, and I’m glad I helped kill it!” That had the desired effect. James forgot Dahteste and snarled hungrily. Pointing with Shlomo’s own gun, he said, “Die, Jew boy!”
Ignoring Dahteste was the last mistake Beaumont ever made, though, as with one fluid motion, she pulled a dagger from her boot and embedded it in the mercenary’s neck.
Bewildered, James stared at the protruding knife, then at Dahteste’s triumphant face. He dropped Shlomo’s gun, and his body followed it to the ground.
Shlomo rushed back over the rise. He was not surprised to see the golem running toward him.
“Golem, stop!” The golem did so at once. “Go and check on the Indians in the cave. Make sure they are alright.”
“But Rabbi, what about Dahteste and that still dangerous man?”
“First,” sighed Shlomo, “I’m not a rabbi. Second, the man is no longer dangerous and thirdly, Dahteste is mostly fine. But keep the Indians safe. Check on them.”
“Yes, Rabbi,” the golem said and ran toward the cave.
Shlomo returned to Dahteste. “Are you all right?”
“It only grazed me,” she assured him. “I have salves back at the cave.”
“Good,” said Shlomo. “Now go back to your people and, whatever you do, don’t let the golem out till I have buried the body.”
It was well past sundown before Shlomo had buried the unlamented remains of James Beaumont in an unmarked grave never to be found.
Part 5
The Half-Baked Kid
“You’re not dead,” Line Walker said in that still amazingly perfect Yiddish.
Line Walker stood next to a wall that contained a glowing circle of light. A woman walked through happily, a small girl waving to Shlomo from her mom’s shoulder. He gave a small halfhearted wave back as the light enveloped them, and they vanished.
“It is a traveler’s moon that I was waiting for,” explained Line Walker. “Now that it is here, the door is open, and we can go. It will be the last here for a long time, I think. I stuck around to thank you. You and your Earth Spirit saved us.”
“I am so very glad, but how is it that I find myself alive?”
“As you summoned your Earth Spirit, I connected you with the energy that resides in all of this place. It is why I can go home from here. It sustained you, but such a gift comes at a price.”
“A price I must pay before I could agree to it,” argued Shlomo.
“It did save your life,” countered Line Walker.
“Agreed,” admitted Shlomo. “What is the price?”
“You have killed nine men through your actions who would not have died. Out in the world you will find nine innocents that you must save for your debt to be paid. You will save many more than nine before you are done, but you will know the nine when you see them. Help will be provided. The Great Spirit likes you, Shlomo Jones. But he teases you, as well.”
“I am the Lord’s chew toy,” muttered Shlomo, deciding this night couldn’t get any crazier. Line Walker waved while walking backward into the circle of light. In a flash of light, it disappeared.
Shlomo made his way out of the cave. The moon and stars shown so brightly that Shlomo had no trouble making out the perfectly chiseled, six-foot seven-inch red-skinned golem with blond hair.
Still completely naked.
“Hello, Rabbi Jones,” the golem said. “It is an honor to meet you.”
“I am not a rabbi,” corrected Shlomo.
“But you are a rabbi,” said the golem. “Who I am is a mystery to me.”
“Who you are? More importantly, why are you still here? My golems only lasted an hour before.”
The golem was the picture postcard of confused. “I have been alive for many hours.”
“How?”
“Your magic combined with the native energy of the soil created this,” Dahteste said as she came up to the duo, her arm now wrapped in a dressing. “You are yet another white man stealing what is ours to your advantage!”
“Dahteste? If you hate me, so much, why did you stay? It can’t be to help me.”
Dahteste looked away from him, but the disgust was evident. “Line Walker said I was too filled with rage to walk between the worlds. I would get lost, and my soul would die in truly dark places, never to know light again.”
“Ah-haa,” Shlomo said, his finger in the air. “So you are not ready to travel. Many Jews were denied passage from Europe because they were ill. It is a thing. How can I help you get better?”
“Line Walker says I will have to truly forgive you for me to be able to return and join my people. I may even bring others with me, at that time. But in order for me to forgive you, I must see you truly suffer.” She gave him an evil grin. “I can’t wait to get started.” Shlomo took a half step back. “Don’t be foolish. Line Walker informed me I can’t hurt you myself. I must help you find your nine innocents. But I can watch while others make you suffer.”
She seemed wistful, Shlomo thought.
“What’s my name, Rabbi,” asked the golem interrupting.
“You look half-baked to me,” said Dahteste. “Let’s call you that.”
“I like that,” said the golem. Turning to Shlomo, he asked, “I am half-baked?”
“Are you sure you want you should be known as half-baked, kid?” questioned Shlomo.
“The Half-Baked Kid,” the golem tried out the name. “I like that, Rabbi. Thank you. I am The Half-Baked Kid,”
“Fine, but I am not going to call you that all the time. Your first name can be Chaim. Why not? You’re alive, are you not? But what am I going to do with you?”
“Well, you may want to put clothes on him. Not that I mind him like this, but you might find it hard to explain.” She gave Chaim an appreciative smile.
“Oy,” said Shlomo. “I need a drink.”
“What’s a drink?” asked Chaim.
“I will be glad to show you all about drinks, later,” Shlomo said. “First we need to go back to town and get my wagon, my mule and you,” he said, not looking at the naked and proportional giant, “some clothes.”
“The mule hates you,” Dahteste said. “Why go through the trouble of getting it?”
“One, that mule is mine. Or maybe I am hers. Who knows? Second, you and she both hate me so you’ll have that in common. Let’s go. With any luck we will get in and out of town before sunrise.” Chaim leaned down and whispered in Shlomo’s ear. He pointed at piles of earth near the mine entrance.
“Are you serious?”
The golem whispered again.
“No,” Shlomo said. “We don’t have time,”
“Please Rabbi,” the golem pleaded. “He deserves a proper burial.”
In obvious annoyance Shlomo went over the rise, retrieved the shovel he had used to bury Beaumont and practically threw it at the Half-Baked Kid. “There,” was all the not-so-pious Jew said as the golem happily got to work digging a grave-sized hole with impressive speed. It w
as only when Chaim started filling the hole with the dirt piled near the cave entrance that Dahteste spoke up, the confusion obvious in her voice.
“He dug a hole,” she began.
“Yes,” Shlomo answered, the strain of not screaming obvious in his tone. “He certainly did dig a hole, that is true.”
“And he is filling the hole dug out of the dirt, with other dirt?” Her confusion was even more obvious.
“Yes, yes he is,” Shlomo said pointing at the golem filling the grave with dirt.
“And this is something Chaim the Half-Baked Kid wants to do because it is a part of your customs?”
“Apparently yes, yes it is. We Jews love digging holes out of the dirt to put in different dirt,” Shlomo said, not explaining that the dirt was from the previous golem.
Dahteste pondered what she was seeing for a moment before concluding, “You Jews have some very strange customs, Shlomo Jones.”
Shlomo turned on the warrior with such a look of frustration and fury on his face that she took an involuntary step back. “Lady,” he practically shouted pointing one finger straight up to the starry heavens, “YOU HAVE NO IDEA!”
The End?
Rara Lupus
JULIE FROST
“Ladieees and gentlemeeen! Step right up and see a lady werewolf transform right before your horrified eyes!”
My blower’s job was to get the marks’ attention, and Prentiss was in fine voice standing outside the “Star Attraction” tent. His bright red coat and fancy cane with the gilded skull handle stood in stark contrast to the dusty surroundings, and his waxed mustache and dark eyebrows bristled as he extolled my dubious virtues. He had kind eyes, though most others never got to see that side of him.
I huffed out a sigh and spoke to the doomed sheep tethered beside me inside the wheeled cage. “Do you think he ever gets tired of this? Because I surely do.” Of course, the sheep wouldn’t have time to get tired of it. Usually we used a chicken, but there was a good crowd tonight, and they’d paid the extra two bits to see me, so they got the added thrill of the sheep.
“Not for the faint of heart or delicate of constitution!” he continued as people from the midsized Eastern Utah mining town and its environs trooped in to fill the seats and stare in aghast fascination, like I was some kind of exotic animal. I supposed I was. I sat demurely in a wooden chair, clad in a tear-away brown gingham pioneer dress with three-quarter length sleeves. My feet were bare beneath the floor-length skirt, and I wore no undergarments, but the audience didn’t need to know that.
People in places like this didn’t get much entertainment, but the booming mines were a source of vast wealth, giving them money to burn when amusements such as us rolled in. Most of them wore simple homespun or cowboy clothing, with a few gamblers, whores, and dandies sprinkled here and there. A dark-eyed vaquero with long black hair on the front row caught my eye—he gazed intently at me, but with none of the revolted curiosity of the others.
He smelled strange. Almost wolfish, but not quite. Other werewolves had a wild and bloody odor about them, untamed fur and fang and claw under a veneer of skin, ready to burst forth at any moment, and especially savage under a full moon. I had that lust myself, always lurking inside, which was why I lived in a cage even when it wasn’t showtime. My normal quarters consisted of a trailer much like everyone else’s—only barred and reinforced.
This man was different. Restrained. Controlled. Before I could pick it apart, the last seat was occupied, and Prentiss came in and resumed his spiel. “I have here a bottle of liquid wolfsbane.” He pointed dramatically at a large and elaborate perfume atomizer, sitting on a table outside the cage. “When I spray our Channie with it, she will triple in mass to a pony-sized wolf.”
Several people oohed and ahhed, but there were always scoffers. Someone snorted loudly. Prentiss scooped up the atomizer and held it aloft. “I realize this is hard to accept, but I promise…you will believe!”
He squeezed the bulb, and the effect was instantaneous. I doubled over, agony wracking my body, and a tortured groan forced its way from my throat. Bones cracked, muscles and tendons stretched, the dress gave way at the seams. My mind—
My mind shifted, as well. The people in the stands rose to their feet, some shrieking, others holding their kids up to get a better view. My inner wolf saw them all as prey and wanted to slaughter every last one.
All but the vaquero. He was one of us. Pack or rival or, dare I suggest…mate? But definitely not prey. He was the only one still seated, his hands clenching and unclenching on his knees, brow furrowed, teeth gritted.
“You. Will. Believe!” The sheep picked that inopportune moment to bleat. I whipped around to face it, catching my reflection—normally-blue eyes gone to amber, usually-pert nose lengthened, ears furring and shifting to the top of my head—in its terrified eyes.
And knew nothing more.
* * *
I awakened covered in blood amid sheep parts; wool stuck between my human teeth. Just like always. The cage included a blanket, and I reached for it first thing to cover my nakedness from the prying eyes of Eberhart McQuincy, the circus owner, who stared unashamedly. Just like always.
“We’re going to have to get us a bigger tent,” he said. He’d pulled one of the spectator chairs beside the cage, but not too close. Balding, bushy browed, and broad across his belly, he gave me a toothy grin through his walrus mustache. “You’ve become quite the celebrity, Miss Channie.” One of the troop’s capuchin monkey-clowns—used as comic relief in the center ring—sat on his shoulder, makeup smeared and pantaloons grubby. She chittered a “Hello” at me, and I flipped her a tired wave.
I was exhausted, sore, and heartsick, in no mood for Eb’s fatuous case of smug. “Just kill me and be done, Eb. You know you’ll have to anyhow, sooner or later.” I asked him to kill me every time.
And he refused every time. “Well, let’s just make it later, all right, honey?”
“You’re a son of a bitch, Eb.”
“That may be, but I’m a son of a bitch who keeps the law off you and your wealthy family’s reputation from being sullied back East. Don’t you ever forget that.” He continued, “Prentiss will be around directly to take you to your trailer. Will you require a meal, or are you still full from your…repast of mutton?”
I grimaced and used a fingernail to pry a bit of fleece from between my teeth. “Really not hungry, but a bottle of whiskey would go down nicely.” Maybe it would help me forget what I was for an hour or so.
He hrmphed. “I’ll see what I can do.” No, he wouldn’t. Jolee took off with a screech. She, at least, was on it. Eb hauled himself to his feet. “Sleep well, Channie.”
I never slept well, but he knew that.
* * *
Prentiss hitched a horse to my cage and wheeled me to my trailer. The horse didn’t much like it, snorting and dancing with its front feet, and Prentiss shook its halter rope and spoke soothingly, which didn’t really do much to calm it. Horses did not like me. For good reason, I supposed, still prying wool from between my teeth.
Prentiss slid the doors aside. I walked wearily into the place I called “home” on good days and “prison” on bad ones. He promised to hose the cage out. “Are you sure you don’t need anything else?” he asked, concern pulling his mouth down at the corners. He didn’t particularly like what he had to do to me, but I didn’t hold it against him. We all had our roles, and he was kinder than most. By nature, a circus had freaks—and I was by far the freakiest.
“That’s all right, Prentiss,” I said. “I’ll get by tonight.”
“Okay. I’ll bring you breakfast in the morning, then.” He tipped his bowler hat and took his leave, leading the horse with the bloody cage beside him.
I cleaned myself and put a nightdress on. Jolee came swinging up to my window a few minutes later with a nearly full bottle of fairly decent whiskey. She chittered, and I shook my head. “Jolee, you know as well as everyone that turning me loose isn’t an option. R
emember what happened last time?” Last time, we’d buried three roustabouts in the desert. I didn’t leave the cage at all, anymore, and no one teased me through the bars. My entire life had turned into a trap I couldn’t escape. The monkey-clowns didn’t understand, because they effortlessly broke out of every cage they were put in.
She knew better than to come all the way into the trailer, so I splashed a dram into a little glass for her, and she drank it down and whooped her thanks.
Then she suddenly screeched and took off, which wasn’t like her at all. A second after that, the wind brought me a familiar scent, and the wolfish vaquero from the front row stepped out of the shadows. I stiffened. It was one thing for him to come watch me at work. It was quite another for him to stalk me to my home. But proprieties didn’t mean as much to werewolves as they did to most other folks.
“That was quite a thing you did, Miss Channie,” he said with a slight Spanish accent. He wore Levi’s and a red bib-front shirt with mother-of-pearl snap fasteners, and a .45 Colt with a walnut stock holstered on his leg. A black flat-topped wide-brimmed hat and brown fancy-stitched cowboy boots with small-roweled spurs rounded out his ensemble.
I bristled at the familiarity. “Come back tomorrow, and you can watch me do it again,” I answered, a bit frostily, mind you. “You have the advantage of me, sir.”
“Ramon Lanahan. I work at the Wolfe Ranch.” I guffawed, and white teeth flashed in his tanned face. That smile was certainly easy on the eyes. “Yeah, yeah. But I’m the only wolf that works there, and it’s the biggest outfit in the territory right now.”
“Do they know about you? Doesn’t your horse have conniptions because of what you are?”
“Well, they know my ma was Mexican, but that don’t much matt—oh.” He shook his head slightly. “No, they don’t know about the wolf thing. I raise my string of horses from when they’re foals, before they know they should be afraid.” He took a breath. “Not to make too bold with you, mamacita, but you should leave this damned circus and run away with me.”