When the cloud had gone, so had the witchen. A corner of the mountain man’s mouth turned up, and he gave a loud snort of satisfaction. “Hee-hee, hee,” he growled at nothing in particular.
“Mary?” a querulous, uncertain voice murmured. “Mary?”
Malone watched enviously as Mrs. Makepeace rushed to embrace her newly restored husband and children, vowing as long as she was granted life to live in understanding and harmony with him again, to love and honor and all those other words so many people take so casually the first time around. Her only problem was that she didn’t have enough arms to hug him and the children as tightly as she wished.
When the tearful reunion had settled down somewhat and the thankful Hart Makepeace had learned what had transpired during his cellulose sojourn, Mary was able to inspect a gleaming, completely restored kitchen. Even the ruined jams and preserves had been returned to their respective jars. Only the melted sink pump remained to remind all of what had gone before.
Unexpected side benefits arose from the confrontation. For the remainder of his life Hart Makepeace would smoke neither cigar nor pipe. The two Hart children, who spent the rest of the afternoon vomiting up cookies, chocolate, oatmeal, raisins, nuts, and other baker’s ingredients, were able to resist permanently the most tempting blandishments Sacramento’s millers could proffer.
* * *
—
That night, as Amos Malone was preparing to take his leave of the farm, Mary Makepeace asked him, “What was it you prepared that affected her so, Mr. Mal…Amos?”
“A little something I learned from Tullie Kanotay, ma’am.” He cinched the saddle a little tighter, and a warning groan issued from Worthless’s throat. “Tullie Kanotay’s part Apache, part Irish, part somethin’ not entirely human, and all Texan…which latter often amounts to the same thing as the former. Bit o’ the witch in her own right. That dish can only be made up once a year by any one individual, and then only by one who knows the proper proportions, has the touch of a master French chef and the heart of a Hindoo raj, or else the emissions might unbalance the ice which caps the head and backside of our world. Why, I can hardly eat more than a bowl or two of it myself.
“It’s chimera chili, ma’am, and its effects can’t be countered by any spell or magic known, because the taste changes every couple o’ seconds. It had to be that dish and that one only, or your nasty visitor could’ve spelled her way around it. But the flavor kept shiftin’ too fast for her taste buds, not t’ mention her counterspells, and so the moment she sipped it she was done for.” He patted the Sharps buffalo rifle slung next to the saddlebags on Worthless’s back.
“The recipe itself ain’t too hard to work up. Hardest part’s findin’ chimera meat.” He gestured toward the distant, moonlit, serrated crest of the High Sierra off to the east. “Ain’t too many chimeras hereabouts, but you can track one down if you know how they work their meanderings.”
Mary Makepeace listened to this quietly, then glanced back toward the farmhouse, which once more smelled of cleanliness and home. Inside, her husband and sons were reveling in being once more themselves instead of sterile objects of china and wood. She looked back up at the mountain man through eyes made of lime-green glass. “Dear, kind Amos Malone, whom I shall never call Mad, I don’t know how to thank you, but I…I would offer you one last favor in return for your aid.”
Malone eyed her uncertainly. “Now, ma’am, I’m not sure that I ought…”
“Would you…would you…stay for dinner?”
Malone wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or relieved. He rubbed gingerly at his stomach. The heat lingered…though it hadn’t really been a bad soup at all. No, not bad at all.
“I’d be pleased to, ma’am. I don’t get the chance to eat much in the way o’ home cookin’. I’ll stay…so long as there’s plenty of plain meat and unsalted potatoes.”
“I’ll lock up the pepper,” she assured him, smiling delightedly, and led him back toward the house.
Worthless watched them go, then ambled off toward the nearby barn. The forehead horn that Malone kept constantly trimmed back was itching again. That meant for sure there had to be a mare nearby who, like himself, would care nothing for the antics of silly humans but only for the things that really mattered….
Jackalope
A good story usually comes about when two or more elements fuse together. Sometimes these may relate to one another, sometimes not. Beloved of inventive tellers of tales and maniacal taxidermists alike, the jackalope is to be found stuffed and mounted in innumerable western bars and honky-tonks, patient recipient of whiskey stains, crude jokes, and the occasional criminally misplaced dart. Yet rumors of its actual existence continue to surface, even if largely due not to scientific reports but to the rumor-mongering persistence of elderly bewhiskered gentlemen comfortably ensconced in wooden rocking chairs on creaky porches.
The critter itself is story element one. Element number two derives from the steady trickle of European aristocrats who came to visit the Old West, marvel at its landscapes, exchange greetings with the fascinating Native Americans (some bewhiskered, some not), and slaughter as much of the local wildlife as nineteenth-century munitions would allow. All the while dining on tea and crumpets and roast pheasant set out on tablecloths of Irish linen adorned with the contents of wicker baskets filled with embossed silver service. It was all very elegant, civilized, and bloody.
Bragging rights among this imported mélange of dilettante toffs usually went to whoever had killed the most game, or sometimes the most unusual game. Hence one imperial and imperious visitor’s insistence on finding and blowing away the extraordinarily elusive jackalope.
Or maybe something else.
* * *
—
“I’m sorry, gentlemen, but there is nothing left to tempt me. I’ve killed everything there is to be killed.”
Lord Guy Ruxton extracted an imported Havana cigar from a jacket pocket, utilized an engraved Italian cutter to snip the end, and turned slightly to his left so Manners could light it for him. As he puffed it to life, there was a subtle but unmistakable shifting of bodies in the saloon as cardplayers and drinkers leaned in his direction in a vain but hopeful attempt to partake, however infinitesimally, of that expensive aromatic smoke that would forever lie beyond their modest means.
Though they shared the best table in the house with him, Ruxton’s audience of Butte’s leading citizens was equally admiring of the drifting fragrance, if not nearly so obvious in their appreciation. Being connoisseurs of silver, they admired the cigar cutter as much as the smoke. The town of Butte would not exist save for silver.
Ruxton was a rara avis in Montana Territory: a wide-ranging world traveler and hunter of big game. A fine orator, he held his after-dinner companions spellbound with his tales of tracking exotic animals to the far corners of the earth. Miners and bankers were enthralled by stories of stalking tiger in British India, oryx in Arabia, and all manner of dangerous game in Darkest Africa. Ruxton was only mildly condescending to the colonials, and they responded in kind. Still, it was clear he was bored. He took a sip of the best scotch Butte had to offer.
“I think the time has come for me to pack it all in, gentlemen, and retire to my estate in Hampshire. You see, there is nothing left for me to hunt. The walls of my trophy room will see no further additions because there is nothing further to add. I lament the end of excitement!”
Silas Hooten had founded the town’s first bank and watched it grow along with the production of silver. Now he smiled and put down his drink.
“If it’s excitement you crave, why not have a go at hunting buffalo in Sioux territory?”
Ruxton regarded his cigar rather than the banker. “Because there is nothing to hunt in the eastern portion of your benighted territory except buffalo, and I have found that animal a singularly uninspiring quarry, though I have hunt
ed it with bow and arrow in the fashion of the savages as well as with rifle. The presence of red hostiles in the vicinity does not alter the object of the hunt.” He sighed tiredly.
“No, gentlemen. I have sampled the best of your cuisine, your scenery, and your women. Now I fear it is time I return permanently to England. I do not fault your bucolic hospitality. America was the only land remaining to be hunted. That I have done. Would that there were more truth and less wind to some of the tales I have heard of this country.”
“Jackalope.”
Ruxton frowned and peered past Hooten. “I beg your pardon, sir.” His drinking companions turned to stare with him.
“Jackalope, I said. Got ears, ain’tcha?”
The mouth that had given birth to the word was hidden by a massive buckskin-clad back. The individual seated at the bar looked like a chunk of dark granite blasted from the depths of one of the town’s mines, hauled in by mine trolley, and set up on a stool like some druidic monolith. A hat fashioned of the neck and head of a wolf crowned the huge head. Black curly hair lightly flecked with white tumbled in an undisciplined waterfall from beneath the incongruous headgear.
As miners and bankers and visiting nobility looked on, the man turned like an Egyptian statue come to life. Deep-sunk black eyes regarded them from beneath Assyrian brows. The hair at the back was matched in front by a dense beard that might have been forged of wrought-iron wire. Two thick, gnarled fingers supported a beer mug full of whiskey.
“I was sayin’, sir, bein’ unable to avoid overhearin’ part o’ your conversation, that it might be you’ve never hunted for jackalope.”
“Yes. Well.” Ruxton noted that his companions were now smiling and chuckling softly among themselves. He lowered his voice. “Who is this extremely large chap, and what is he nattering on about?”
“Malone.” Orin Waxman ran the biggest general store in town. “Amos Malone.”
“Mad Amos Malone.” Hooten pointed a finger at the side of his head. “The man’s crazier than a field of drunken prairie dogs, but it’s a rare soul who’ll say so to his face.”
“Looking upon him, I can understand that. You say he’s mad?” Several of the men nodded. “What’s this ‘jackalope’ thing he’s on about?”
Waxman shook his head, grinning. “There is no such animal. Somebody somewhere faked one up, and it’s turned into a long-standing gag for foolin’ Easterners. No offense, Your Lordship. Someone will shoot a jackrabbit and a small deer or antelope. They’ll take both to a good taxidermist with a sense of humor, and he’ll stick the deer antlers on the rabbit’s head. And there’s your jackalope.”
“I see. It is quite imaginary? You’re positive of that?”
The men eyed one another uncertainly and left it to Hooten to reply. “Of course it is, sir. The mountain man’s just having a little joke at your expense.”
“A good joke, is it? At my expense?” Ruxton’s eyes glittered as he turned back to the bar. “Here now, my good fellow. I am intrigued by your comment. Do come and join us.”
Mutters of disbelief and distress rose from Ruxton’s companions, but none dared object when Malone lurched over to assume the lone empty chair at the table. Such men were not famed for their hygiene. Waxman and the others were relieved to discover that Malone, at least, seemed to have bathed sometime in the not too distant past.
Obviously enjoying himself hugely, Ruxton swept a hand toward his hosts. “These gentlemen insist vehemently that there is no such creature as the one of which you speak. I interpret that to mean they are calling you a liar, sir.”
Waxman choked on his liquor, while Hooten’s eyes widened in horror. Malone simply eyed them intently for a long moment, then sipped at his tenth of whiskey. The resultant sighs of relief were inaudible.
“None of ’em knows enough to call me a liar. I ain’t insulted by the denials o’ the ignorant.”
His response delighted Ruxton. “Sir, you are a man of surprises! For the moment I intend to leave aside the matter of your sanity. As you overheard, I am something of a sportsman.”
“Your claim, not mine.”
Ruxton bristled slightly at that but restrained himself. “True enough. You claim I have not hunted this creature you call a jackalope. These good citizens dispute the assertion that it exists. I would put you and them to the test, sir.” He made sure he met Malone’s gaze evenly. “If you are game.”
“I ain’t, but the jackalope is.”
Ruxton hesitated a moment, then burst out laughing when he was sure. “Upon my word! A rustic with wit. I like you, sir. ’Pon my word I do!” He stubbed out his half-finished cigar and tossed it over his shoulder, ignoring the near riot that followed its descending trajectory as a dozen men scrambled for possession of the butt.
“I would engage you, Mr. Malone, to direct me to the place where I might find such an animal and add it to my collection. I will pay you well, in gold, to serve as my guide in such a venture. Our bargain will be that should we find nothing except fast talk, all expenses will be borne by you.”
Malone considered, seeing the doubt in the others’ faces. Then he gently set down his mug. “Done. It’ll be you and me alone, though. I don’t like travelin’ with a crowd.” He glanced at Ruxton’s valet. “Especially slaves.”
The valet stiffened. Ruxton only smiled. “Manners is a valued member of my household staff, not a slave. However, it shall be as you wish. I will accompany you alone. Where are we going, sir, or is it to remain a mysterious secret?” He was clearly amused.
Malone turned and nodded westward. “Up thataway. Into the Bitterroots.”
“The Bitterroots!” Hooten half rose out of his seat. “Lord Ruxton, I implore you to reconsider this foolishness. The veracity of this—gentleman—is to be doubted. His reputation is eccentric in the extreme. There’s nothing up in those mountains except Nez Perce and Blackfeet. You’ll find only trouble and danger in that range, not nonexistent game!”
“Come now, gentlemen. Are you again openly disputing the good Mr. Malone’s word?”
Waxman’s lower lip trembled, but like the others, he said no more.
“Then it is agreed. When do we depart, Mr. Malone?”
“Morning’d be fine with me. We’ll be gone a few weeks. Take what you need, but it’s best to travel light.”
“As you say, sir. I understand the weather is good this time of year. I am looking forward to our excursion.”
* * *
—
They headed northwest out of town despite the last-minute pleas of Hooten and his friends. The death of so distinguished a visitor to their territory would not be the best of publicity for a growing community, and they feared it; yes, they did. Ruxton’s valet tried to reassure them.
“Lord Ruxton, gentlemen, is used to the life of the camp and the trail. He has been in difficult circumstances many times and has always emerged unscathed. He is a crack shot and an athlete, a man who relishes danger and its challenges. Your concern does him an injustice. No harm will befall him. If you must worry about someone, concern yourselves with this crude Malone person.”
“Mad Amos is no genius, but he ain’t dumb, neither,” said one of the men who’d gathered on the porch of the hotel to bid the hunters farewell. “Ain’t nobody never been able to figure him out noways.”
“I assure you,” Manners continued, “Lord Ruxton is more than a match for any situation this lout can place him in.”
“Oh, I wasn’t worried about how your boss is going to get on with Malone,” said the man who’d spoken. “I was wondering how he was going to cope with the Rockies.”
* * *
—
Once they left town, they commenced a steady climb into mountains as serene and lovely as any in the world. They reminded Ruxton of the Alps without the spas and fine hotels and other amenities of that ancient region. By w
ay of compensation, there was a freshness in the air, a newness not to be found at the watering holes of the wealthy that dotted the Continent. Ruxton’s packhorse trailed behind Malone’s.
“That is an unusual animal you ride, sir.” He nodded at Malone’s mount.
The mountain man spoke without looking at his guest. “Worthless has been called plenty of names, Lord. Most of ’em less complimentary than that.”
The animal Malone called Worthless was black except for patches of white at the tail and fetlocks. A single white ring encircled one eye, giving the horse the aspect of a permanent squint. He was a cross among half a dozen breeds. For reasons Malone chose not to elaborate on, a heavy leather patch was affixed permanently to the animal’s forehead.
Have to attend to that again soon, he mused. He didn’t worry about it out in the backcountry, but it was just the sort of thing to provoke consternation among simple city folk.
The horse snorted, just to let the two riders know he was listening.
“Magnificent country, your West. Do you think we might encounter some Red Indians, as Mr. Hooten seemed to fear?”
“Only if they’re in the mood for company. Nobody sees the Blackfeet unless they want to be seen, and sometimes the Nez Perce don’t even see each other. I don’t anticipate no trouble, if that’s what you mean. I’ve an understandin’ with the folks hereabouts. If we do meet up with any, you keep your mouth shut and let me do the talkin’. I ain’t sure how they’d take you.”
“As you wish, Mr. Malone. How long before”—he bent to hide a smile—“we stand to encounter one of your jackalopes?”
“Hard to say. They’re shy critters, and there seem to be fewer of ’em each year. Seems to be as folks start movin’ into this part of the world, certain critters start movin’ out.”
“Indeed? How inconvenient. Well, I am in no hurry. I am enjoying our excursion immensely. I took the liberty of stocking up on the finest victuals your community could provide. I shall enjoy dining au camp at your expense, Mr. Malone.”
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