by Chris Barili
“Tell us everything you saw.”
Curtis drew in a deep, dramatic breath, and looked at the ceiling.
“I was outside the jail when they brought Red in. Took two men just to get him into the cell. He was yelling, and thrashing, making the biggest fuss when they dragged him in that front door. Marshal Rossen and Sheriff Plunkett did the arresting, and they said he had super-human strength, like he was four men wrapped into one body.”
He leaned in close then, as if about to enlighten them with a great secret. He lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper.
“Minute he got inside that cell, they say he went limp, and passed clean out.”
“That’s when the spirit must have left him,” said Camille. She avoided Frank’s gaze, now. “Do you know who the spirit possessed next?”
“Sure do!” he nodded as he spoke. “Jeb Fisher. I watched it happen, seein’ that he was standing right beside me. One minute he was watching Sheriff Plunkett, the next his eyes turned all black and he smiled all icy and cold. Then, he just turned and walked away without even a word.
“I knew something wasn’t right though—I’m a smart boy, they say—so I followed him. Followed him all the way to the Commodore mine, where he hitched up with some no-goods from out of town. They didn’t see me listenin’ under the foreman’s window, but I heard ‘em clear as day say they were going to Northfield, Minnesota.”
“Did they say what they were going to do there?” Spike asked. “Doesn’t seem like a very big place, and if I recall, Jesse likes to make a big show of things, likes to politicize them as the north oppressing southerners.”
“They all laughed and griped about making something right, like Jesse had unfinished business.”
Frank wracked his brain, trying to recall if the James gang had done anything in Northfield, but he’d never really followed them. He’d had his own problems to look after when he’d been alive.
“Who were these no-goods?” Camille pressed the boy. “And how many were there?”
“I counted four,” Curtis answered. “Mostly small-timers, thugs who worked for Soapy Smith, but crossed him somehow.”
“They any good with their guns?” Frank asked.
Curtis nodded. “Most of them are former rebel soldiers. They took a whole wagon load of dynamite, too.”
“What about your friend, Mr. Fisher? Can he shoot?”
Curtis opened his mouth to reply, but Camille cut him off.
“Doesn’t matter,” she said, frowning. “He’ll have Jesse’s shooting skills.”
“So, it’s five on three,” Frank said. “Good odds.”
“Unless our gold-digging friend shows up,” Spike added. “We barely handled him last time all by himself.”
“And they said they were hoping to meet someone with your same name in Northfield,” Curtis tossed out. “Frank.”
“Jesse has a brother named Frank.” Spike said, yawning. “They made a deadly team.”
Taking on the James brothers wouldn’t give Frank’s posse as good a chance. They were seasoned soldiers, guerrilla fighters who’d massacred dozens of Union soldiers without so much as blinking an eye. But if he had to face them, at least Minnesota was out of their stomping grounds, away from the hordes of sympathizers who worshipped them like heroes. People from Arkansas through Texas and into Missouri saw the James brothers as folk legends, robbing the rich to give to the poor. Except they never seemed to get to the giving part.
“We need to get there quick, then,” Frank said. “Our escaped prisoner is up to something.”
The door to their compartment slid open and a dapper-looking man in a suit and bowler, a thick moustache on his lip, and a shield-shaped badge on his chest stepped inside their compartment.
“Did I hear something about escaped prisoners?”
His voice reminded Frank of silk, smooth and cool on the ear.
“Just small talk,” he answered. “Nothing serious enough for a mighty Pinkerton man to worry about.”
The detective helped himself to the bench on the other side of Camille, making the one-time hooker slide closer to Frank until their thighs touched and her hand drifted toward her knife. He looked the group over one by one, swatting at the fly that buzzed around his head.
“You’re a might heavily armed for run-o-the-mill travelers,” he quipped, moustache jerking up and down. “You folks wouldn’t be a posse crossing county lines, would you?”
“We’re no posse,” Frank lied. “Just on our way to Minnesota and heard travel could be dangerous through the mountains.”
The detective looked unconvinced.
“Who ever heard of a posse with children?” Curtis interjected, smiling a rogue’s charming smile. “My ma and pa here just want to get us to our new home safe-like. They even told me, they said, ‘if only the brave men of the Pinkerton Agency were here to protect us, we wouldn’t need these weapons.’”
The detective gave the boy a long, hard stare, then shook his head and stood.
“You folks stay out of trouble now, hear?”
He left the compartment, sliding the door closed behind him.
“Go back to roughing up miners,” Curtis grumbled after him.
After a moment, Spike looked at Frank.
“I may know how to slow down our prospector friend. Did they give you Holy Water?”
“Kind of.” Frank removed the whiskey bottle from his duster pocket and started to hand it to Spike. He paused, then extended it to Curtis instead.
“Take a little drink,” he ordered. “Let’s make sure you’re alive.”
Curtis looked at Camille, who shrugged.
“Do it, if you know what’s good for you.”
Curtis grinned and popped the cork. Everyone stared at him as he took a tiny swig of the whiskey and choked.
“Yuck,” he said, sticking out his tongue, “it tastes so…old.”
When nothing happened to him, Frank breathed a sigh of relief and handed the bottle back to Spike.
“Now give me your bullets,” said the stout barkeep. “And a candle.”
An hour later, using a tin cup and a knife, he’d hollowed all the bullet points, filled them with drops of Holy-whiskey, and sealed them with wax. Then he dipped each one in Holy-whiskey and reloaded them into the guns or ammo belts, leaving just a few shot glasses-worth in the bottle. Camille handed him her Bowie knife and he coated that in the stuff, as well.
“That might not kill the prospector,” he said, “but it ought to slow him down a bit.”
“What was that thing back there?” Curtis asked.
“Not exactly sure,” Frank told him. “But Buzzy warned me James might bring someone else back to help him, and it looks like he did. Whoever he brought borrowed that old prospector’s body.
“Don’t matter though. Soon as we get to Denver, we’re dropping you off with a foster home, so you’ll never see that old man again.”
If Frank hadn’t seen the little con artist in action, he might have believed the look of indignation on his face, and fallen for the crossed arms.
“That’s not fair,” Curtis pouted. “You promised to take me with you, not dump me like an unneeded burden…”
“We never said how far—”
“…just like my uncle did!”
Tears welled in the boy’s eyes, glistening like flakes of silver, or in this case, fool’s silver, if there was such a thing. Spike looked ready to brim over, too, but Camille wasn’t fooled, crossing her own arms across her chest and glaring at the boy. Frank grunted and tried to keep a grin from spreading across his face. He failed.
Curtis realized his trick wasn’t working and changed tactics, dropping his arms and looking Frank in the eye.
“Besides,” he said, “I’m the only who knows what Jeb looks like. And I can see the dead people walking before most folks, like I spotted that prospector-thing before you did. You need me.”
Camille’s expression didn’t change, but Spike nodded.
“
He’s right, Frank.”
Frank fought down a groan, but relented with a nod. “So, how do you see them, anyway?”
The boy shrugged. “Dunno. I just see this shimmering glow around them, like they’re shining. Saw it the minute one moved into Jeb’s body. Been seeing it all my life. Used to scare me, but not anymore.”
“Do you see it around all of us?”
He seemed to study Frank for a moment, squinting his eyes. “It’s different around you. Barely visible. More like a shadow than a shine. Makes me shiver, honestly.”
“Adds up,” Spike told them. “We’re all using our old, dead bodies. Jesse’s using living ones. Interaction between life and death is bound to be a little different.”
That made Frank’s head hurt, so he changed the subject.
“How much dynamite did you say the gang took with ‘em?”
“A whole buckboard full,” Curtis said, settling back in his seat with a satisfied smile. “I counted six crates.”
“What are you thinking, Frank?” asked Camille. She still hadn’t moved away from him, and he tried not to think about the firm brush of her fingers against his thigh. Dead or not, she stirred something in him. He cleared his throat.
“Seems a bit much for a simple bank robbery, don’t you think?”
“Agreed,” she said, finally sliding away from him, breaking contact with his leg. He missed it instantly. “Shouldn’t need more than one crate to blow a vault, less if you’re going in through a side wall.”
Frank scratched the stubble on his chin. It hadn’t grown a bit since he’d woken up outside Creede.
“Looks like the new James gang is robbing something big,” he said. “Question is, what?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Trains didn’t run direct between Creede and Northfield, or as far as Frank could tell, between Creede and just about anywhere. So his group changed trains in Alamosa, Denver, and again in Minneapolis, all the while looking over their shoulders for the prospector.
They ran into no trouble, even when forced to spend a night in a hotel in Denver, just outside the depot. But even in their cramped, smoke-stained hotel room, the ever-needed vigilance chased sleep away. Spike polished his shotgun, Camille sharpened her knife for hours, and Frank paced, anxious to be on their way again.
So, when their train pulled up next to the small, brick station in Northfield at noon two days later, his group looked like they were slowly returning to the world of the dead. Camille had developed streaks of blue around her lips, while the flesh on Spike’s neck had rotted and started to slough off, requiring the big barkeep to cover his neck with a kerchief despite the baking heat and smothering humidity. Frank could smell his own flesh rotting again, and he didn’t dare look under his sleeves for fear of exposing the damage there. He had his own personal cloud of flies buzzing around him again, too, driving people away.
Only Curtis and the coyote seemed unblemished, but neither had struggled with sleep as the others had.
As they disembarked, Frank pulled them aside, away from the crowd, beside the scorching hot surface of the depot’s bricks.
“We need someplace safe to hole up and get some sleep. Apparently dead bodies don’t do well without some resting in peace.”
The others nodded in silence, too tired to expend the energy to speak.
“I’ll find us a place,” Curtis promised, and he disappeared into the milling throng of people without waiting for permission.
They found a wooden bench in the shade of the depot’s north side and sat, sluggish and despondent, Batcho flopped out in the dirt at their feet. Frank paid for a newspaper from a passing boy and checked the date.
“July twelfth, 1892.” He handed the paper to Camille. “See if you can find any clues in here about what our escaped spirit could be up to here in Northfield.”
Camille nodded, but a moment later, Curtis returned, beaming.
“I found us a place. It’s in a great spot and cheap. And I think I know why Jesse James is here.”
They stood to follow him, but Batcho froze, his hackles rising and his lips peeling back in a low, guttural growl. The coyote stared at the train platform, and as Frank followed his gaze, the feeling of being watched crept across his skin, like a snake brushing against him. No, not just watched—hunted.
The moment passed, Batcho relaxed, and Frank’s stomach un-knotted. He sighed and followed the boy. Curtis led them out of the depot and down a wide dirt road to an iron bridge. Still on foot, they crossed the bridge, dodging wagons and riders on horseback, the river making a smooth, rushing sound under their feet. Frank hurried across—his last experience with rivers had been in the underworld, and had been unpleasant. Once on the other side, they found themselves in a large square, looking north at a stone two-story building with arched windows on both levels. The left side bore a sign saying, “Lee & Hitchcock,” while the right sign read, “W. Scriver.”
“Remember that building,” Curtis said. Then he hurried down the street in front of it, slipping to the side of a three-story brick building with canvas awnings and a sign reading, “Dampier House” out front. A stooped old man with milky blue eyes and hair the color of snow waited at the bottom of a set of iron stairs leading to the second floor.
“Give him a dollar,” Curtis told Frank. “He has a room for us on the second floor with a fire escape out the back door.”
“Thought you said this was cheap,” Frank complained as he fished a silver dollar from his inside pocket. The old man snatched it from his hand lightning fast, then stood aside so Curtis could lead them up the stairs.
Their room had a bed large enough for two adults, and a sofa big enough for a third.
“I’ll take first watch,” Frank offered. “You three get some sleep, so Spike and Camille’s bodies can repair themselves.”
“Don’t you wanna know why he’s here?” Curtis begged.
“Of course we do,” Camille told him, stretching out on the couch with a gaping yawn. “Just be quick before we fall asleep.”
The boy perked up, his face glowing with pride. He paced the room, making quite the presentation.
“That building I told you to remember?” They all nodded sleepily. “Well, on the right side of it—across Division Street from our room—is the First National Bank of Northfield, the bank the James-Younger gang tried to rob in 1876. Tried and failed.”
Frank leaned out their only window and studied the front of the bank. Nothing unusual caught his eye.
“I remember now,” said Spike. “Locals fought back. Killed a couple of the gang members and stopped the robbery.”
Curtis beamed as he nodded. “Looks like he’s tying up loose ends in the living world.”
Frank nodded, but something didn’t feel right, like he was seeing just one or two trees in a vast forest. As the boy lay down beside Spike and Batcho curled up on the floor, Frank gazed out the window. Across the street, a shadow shifted in front of the Scriver building, little more than a shimmer in the hot summer air, but for an instant, Frank thought it took on the shape of some massive beast, a shimmering waver of light with glowing yellow eyes that sent a chill down his spine. His right hand strayed to his pistol, while the left clasped around the steel cuffs.
He shook himself, and the feeling passed. Nearby, Camille started to snore.
Sometime later—with the sun dipping into the orange and red colors of its evening paint palette—she joined him at the window, leaning against the opposite frame and staring into the street in silence. The crowd had thinned, and even though he’d watched non-stop, the shimmer had not reappeared. During his time in the underworld, he’d learned that such shimmers happened when the denizens of the underworld ventured too close to the world of the living. Not a good sign, he decided.
Still, the unmistakable feeling of being watched clung to him like fog to a gravestone.
After a few minutes, Camille brushed her finger across the scar on his cheek.
“You need sleep.” Her half
-whisper was throaty and soft. “Your body needs to rebuild.”
“Do I smell that bad?”
“Worse,” she replied. “Your stench woke me up and I think it’s giving the coyote nightmares.”
On the floor, Batcho twitched and yipped like he was chasing rabbits. Or prospectors.
Frank looked at her, and this time she met his gaze.
“So, if it wasn’t your…job, what landed you in Hell?”
She straightened and her hand dropped to the knife riding her hip. She gazed out the window into the darkness beyond the glass.
Her words came like icicles dropping on stones. “I stabbed a…client.”
Frank thought about that. “Doesn’t seem like sticking a John would be quite enough to earn your soul’s eternal damnation.”
“Two.”
Frank raised an eyebrow. “Two?”
“I stabbed two Johns. And a Steve. Pair of Bobs. At least three Mikes. I left a trail of dead solicitors from San Fran to Saint Louis before one finally got the knife out of my hands and turned it on me. Twenty-four kills. Probably more than you.”
She stole a look in his direction, and Frank made sure to hide his shock at her confession. So much made sense now—her dislike of men, the knife, even her sour demeanor.
“Twenty-seven,” he mumbled. “I got you by three.”
She stared at him a moment longer, then looked out the window again.
“They deserved it,” she said, her voice distant. “Everyone of ‘em hurt me. Paying for my body like it was a horse.”
“So, that night you and I met…”
He let it dangle there between them.
“I would have killed you, too. You’d have been number thirteen, but then you…well, you know.”
She looked at the floor.
“Well, I’d take you stabbing me over me shooting my son,” he told her, looking out into the darkened street. “Maybe then I could…”
Her fingers lighted on his shoulder, skating down the back of his arm and lingering on his elbow. She turned him to face her, looking up into his eyes, lips parted. The handle of the Bowie dug into his hip as she pressed herself against him.