by Gemma Files
“I . . . wasn’t raised to — care — for no one,” Chess told him. “But if I did grow fond of any man, outside the usual transactions, well . . . you might be that one, Rev.”
Rook nodded, carefully.
“I think I’d like that,” he replied.
“You’re damn right, you would,” Chess agreed. And gripped Rook by both biceps at once, his fingers leaving bruises, kissing him so hard spit mingled with blood.
They raised the subject of outlawry that night, ’round the campfire, and watched it pass unanimously. “Always did think I’d probably end up robbin’ folks, once the War was done,” was old Hosteen’s only comment.
“It’s dangerous work, is what I hear,” Rook pointed out.
“Sure,” Chess said, “same as anything else. But we’ll be right enough, I expect.”
“How’s that?”
That crooked, dazzling smile. “’Cause we got you.”
True, Rook thought, as far as that went. The only problem being he didn’t actually know, himself, just how far that was . . . not with any true degree of accuracy. Particularly not under pressure.
Magic had its price, was what Rook had always heard, and that price was mighty hard. On the one hand, whatever he preached did come true, indisputably — and since everything he preached came straight from the Book itself, the direct and truthful word of God, he believed he might be forgiven for having assumed it would be good work he did with it overall, rather than the reverse. Yet everything he preached went bad, in the end — swiftly, and often inventively.
In the Painted Desert, for example — waiting for information on which trains might be best worth robbing, with what food they’d brought along running out fast — he turned to the tale of Elijah, who was fed by ravens. Soon, a plague of black-feathered birds huge as his namesake descended, dashing themselves to death against the canyon walls. The gang, starved enough to overcome their disgust at this haphazard delivery system, handily ate them roasted, only vaguely plucked and splinter-crunchy with hollow broken bones.
So Rook turned to Moses and his manna instead, bringing unleavened bread falling from the air (straight into dirt, soft and sticky, not exactly nourishing). It was blander, but kept better.
“Maybe you should seek for other hexes,” Chess suggested. “Chat them up, get them to tell you what they do, or don’t, in similar situations. Couldn’t hurt.”
“Couldn’t it?”
(Minds always touching his, feeling him out, harrying him: Go here, do this, do that. Stay clear. Most he couldn’t put a name to, ’sides from a Chink gal called Songbird to the west whose thoughts coiled and spat in a venomous centipede nest. Rook hoped to never come near enough for her to see what he looked like, let alone lay hands on him directly.)
“Hell, I don’t know — I ain’t no hex. But I got my best advice from other gunslingers, same’s I got my worst. Take it all, pick through it at your leisure . . . and practise.”
That morning, before dawn, Rook woke first and left Chess wrapped in both their coats, careful not to wake him. Then sat down in the dust bare-assed, stretched out a hand, frowned at the largish, greyish rock set opposite, and ordered it — “Come here, to me. C’mon, now.”
Nothing happened.
“Here, I conjure thee. I . . . command.”
Still nothing. Rook felt ridiculous. Even his voice seemed flat, dry, without a shred of its now-normal rope-rough timbre. As though . . .
You are only talking for yourself, one of the voices told him — right in his ear, yet resonating considerably deeper: inside the hills around, the earth itself. Inside him.
A woman’s voice, but not his Rainbow Lady, who hadn’t spoken directly to him since his escape, for all he glimpsed her face in dreams. “And who should I talk for?” he asked her, out loud — more to see what would happen, than because he actually wanted an answer.
One man’s voice is only that, she replied — one small part of the whole. We must be larger than that, in order to keep our balance.
Sounds like an Indian, he thought. And felt, rather than saw, her smile curve, with the same quality to it his grandmother’s used to have, back when Rook was still Little Asher.
She is not to be trusted, your Lady of the Snares and Traps, she told him. But then, you know that, in your heart. And as for you, grandson . . . perhaps you must continue to speak in your blackrobe Lord’s voice, until you have the time — the inclination — to finally come find me, and learn better.
Then she was gone, leaving Rook alone in the desert, looking at a rock. His mind slid, automatically, to whatever Biblical claptrap might serve best, given the situation:
The lion’s whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it.
He putteth forth his hand upon the rock. He overturneth the mountains by the roots.
He cutteth out rivers among the rocks. And his eye seeth every precious thing. . . .
Job, 28:8-10.
And the rock cried out, he thought, feeling the words come up through him, scar ’round his throat left raw again, in their wake. The rock, at the very same time — a seed-pod stuffed with granite dust, cleft with an invisible axe — split wide open.
Oh, sinner-man. Where you gonna run to?
Behind, Chess slept on, hearing nothing of any of it, ’til Rook woke him with a kiss.
A week after, they rode down to No Silver Here and waited for the train to come smoking down its track, laid skeletal atop the new-blasted ground. Intelligence suggested it would be guarded by Pinks, equipped with at least one Gatling and a brace of pepperboxes; this Hosteen confirmed, via telescope. So they separated into two columns, Chess drawing fire on the right, while Hosteen made sure Rook could pull close alongside and catch the engineer’s eye, gesturing at him to haul on the brakes — thus giving a man they all called Big Al time to jump in through the back and clap a pistol to the man’s temple, making sure he would.
As the train started to slow, the accompanying gear-jerk threw one Gatling-operator into the other, spinning the gun’s muzzle in such a way that it laid two of Chess’s posse down. Rook dug in his spurs, surged maybe thirty yards ahead, reined in and slid off, stepping directly into the dreadnought’s path. As it bore down on him — the uppermost Pinkerton already back on his feet, grasping for the Gatling’s crank — he opened his mouth and preached, from Corinthians:
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
It was one of the sweetest verses known to man, quoted at every wedding he’d officiated. But when his lips shaped the words, something else came out through his mouth along with them — a lashing ghost-tongue spear of silver-gilt which rammed full-speed through the boiler without jumping the train off its tracks, just pinning it there like a massive iron bug, releasing its entire compliment of steam in a hissing cloud.
And that was the problem, in the end. It was a bit too dense for Rook to completely calculate what he was doing. So though he’d meant for whatever effect he produced to stop short, or just slap the Pink silly, it split the man’s skull and neck alike, spraying everything around it with gouting red.
The gang met it with a half cheer, half yelp — alternately disgusted, and pretty damn impressed. ’Course, that all changed once Rook turned to yell fresh orders at Chess, not realizing the spell-spear was still trailing along with him. Before he knew what was happening, it’d sheared off Joe Skopp’s left arm at the shoulder, and Joe fell, screaming.
Rook clapped both hands over his face immediately, unmindful of what damage he might do to himself (none, it turned out). Hosteen tried — and failed, miserably — to tourniquet Joe’s stump.
Meanwhile, Chess sprang up into the breach, yelling: “C’mon, you bastards! There’s lootin’ to be done!”
The others streamed after him, automatically — all but Petrus Kavalier, Joe’s best buddy, who stopped in mid-stride and looked back at Rook, eyes gone blank with shock. “
You’re the damn Devil, Rev,” he said, wonderingly, like he’d just worked it out. Raising his gun, cocking it back —
Maybe I am, Rook thought, while the LORD is my shield and the point of my salvation knocked hard against his teeth from the wrong side ’round — so easy to simply let it out, and watch what happened next. But it was a moot point, because that was when Chess shot Kavalier through the heart over his own shoulder, without even turning — an impossible feat, for impossible times. Almost . . . magical.
You ever notice how Chess hardly ever reloads? Hosteen had asked Rook. Or how he can fire in two separate directions at once, and still shoot straight? He fans the trigger, just for fun, and he actually hits his target. Ain’t no motherfucker on this earth can do that.
I don’t know that much about firearms, Rook had found himself replying, which wasn’t exactly untrue. Yet —
Chess’s hair lifted slightly in the wind, a tight blood-halo, and Rook could tell from the way he stood that he was grinning.
The train was taken five minutes on, with most of the remaining Pinks kneeling in surrender, down on their knees so fast they must’ve bruised the caps. But by the time Rook had coughed enough times to be sure his killing words were well-dispersed, Chess had already head-shot three of them, and was taking aim at the fourth. Rook slapped his gun up, annoyed.
“The fuck you do that for?” Chess snarled.
“We need one of them left upright, at least. To tell what happened.”
“So they’ll be warned, next time? Where’s the fun in — ”
“Not all of us’re quite so fond of murder as yourself, Chess. Or maybe you hadn’t noticed.” He indicated Hosteen, staring sick-white down at what was now Joe’s corpse.
Chess just sniffed, disapprovingly. “Well, you don’t have to coddle them, do ya?”
“Like it fine enough when I indulge you, don’t you, darlin’?”
Back to the grin. “But that’s different. Ain’t it?”
Rook couldn’t deny how something in him came ticking up to meet that wicked smile, even right now — like sticking his dick inside Chess had turned the key in a door that the whole world would’ve probably been better off keeping shut. And it would have been shamefully easy to believe it was Chess’s fault, but Rook knew the truth: he was changing himself to fit Chess. To be the mountainous man Chess dreamt on, fit to finally crush his rebel heart into submission — a man truly worth kneeling before.
“Think Kavalier was right?” Rook asked him, that night. “Am I the Devil?”
Chess snorted. “I’ve been called that, for a hell of a lot less. What I think’s that if there even is a Devil in the first place, we’re all him — and as for God, him and me ain’t ever met, ’less you count him puttin’ me in your path.”
He nipped hard at Rook’s lip, the pain of it both increasing familiar and increasingly pleasant. But the Reverend wasn’t quite done.
“With Joe, though, or the Gatling-operator — I never meant to do that. Jesus Lord God of Hosts, that was awful.”
“Yeah, well, Joe knew what he was gettin’ into. We all of us do, or should. As for the rest, meanwhile — hell, they was just Pinkertons, and I surely do hate all them fuckers. Stole my first gun from a Pink, I ever tell you that?”
“Not as I recall, no.”
“Yeah, I lifted his roll while he was busy feelin’ up my Ma, so he hauled me out into the back alley, beat me somethin’ bad. Didn’t know I had a razor in my boot, though — more fool him. ’Cause that’s the first damn thing that junked-out lunatic ever taught me, the only one I ever found worth remembering: sell yourself high, and dearly.”
They drifted off at last, soaked and sticky — replete, even in the face of Rook’s own deepest doubts. And Rook dreamt that old Indian lady again, sitting so close near a fire he could almost glimpse her face, nested in shadow beneath the overhanging folds of her shawl.
You should come and see me, grandson, she told him, without moving her lips. And soon. Before your Lady finishes the web she weaves, and sets her snares for you.
And how would I know where to go?
She shrugged. Easy enough, to let your feet move where your instincts point you. There is a mountain which we Dinécall the yellow Abalone-shell. She is a good place to go, if one wishes to make one’s vision quest . . . which you have not, as yet.
Thought that was just for — your people.
The People, we call ourselves, as all peoples do. But we are both of a very different tribe than those we were born into, you and I — and your Lady, too, once upon a time.
Meaning you’re a hex. Like I’m a hex.
We say it differently, of course, but . . . yes. And in my tradition, grandson, we do not wait for misfortune to push us headlong into power — nor shun and spurn the powerful, as your blackrobes counsel. What would be the point of that? But for the gods, we alone see the future, and make it come to pass. There must be balance. If we break it, it breaks us. Should we not help each other to keep it, then, if we can?
Rook hesitated. On the one hand, it did sound logical — hell, the idea of seeking out mentorship’d sounded logical even coming from Chess, and that was really saying something. Yet he also recalled hearing rumours to the contrary, especially as regards to magicians.
I . . . don’t know, he said, at last. What’s happening to me?
This I have told you already, grandson. Until you do come to me — or to someone — you will always be a danger . . . to yourself, as well as to others.
Got no reason to trust you —
No more than you have to trust anyone, even yourself. Yet there is someone else involved, after all — one you would do no hurt, if it might be avoided. Am I wrong, grandson?
She wasn’t.
Well, then. Come, if you decide — when you decide. I will be waiting. And do it soon.
But they both knew he wouldn’t.
CHAPTER NINE
Another few months flew by. In Solomonville, up near the New Mexico border, the gang’s object was the land office, where a fat payroll lay prepared for banking. Chess brought the company fast and hard — both guns already cross-drawn, guiding the horse with his knees — while Rook strode in front, hovering a yard above the ground and leaving no prints behind with a cloud of dust boiling out beneath him, like he was wearing Ten League Boots.
A dreadful flame lifted from his head, leaking out of every orifice, and whenever Rook blinked or spoke it guttered and danced, lighting up their way through the sandstorm-lively murk. By its baleful glare, Rook saw “good” people — parishioners much the same as his own, probably, once upon a time — scurrying from him and his in mortal panic, fast as their little legs would take them.
Fuck them all, he caught himself thinking, a grim smile curling his lips.
“No unnecessary casualties!” he roared down at Chess, who already had the land office manager in his sights; Chess brought his horse up short, reholstering, so he had both hands free to aid with his dismount. The manager just stood there trembling, too scared to even squirm.
“What-all do you men want?” he finally got out, through chattering teeth.
Chess returned Rook’s grin. “Fair question — ain’t it, Rev? What do we want, exactly?”
“Money’ll do, for now,” Rook replied. “That suit you?” he asked the manager. Adding, as if just struck by the thought: “Might end up bein’ blamed for all this, though, I suppose. For not puttin’ up an adequate defence of yours bosses’ funds.”
The manager coughed — a sound one-quarter laugh, three-quarters retch. “Ask me how much I care, long’s they don’t turn up here lookin’ like you.”
Rook smiled, yet again. Couldn’t help it, really. It was all just so funny. He could see his own teeth reflected in the man’s eyes as he did it, horrid little flickering red stars.
“Good man,” he said.
And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even dar
kness which may be felt.
And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven. And there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days:
As it turned out, the book of Exodus proved wonderfully fruitful quotation-fodder for far more than just Solomonville’s aftermath. Might’ve made it to an even ten, eventually, had Rook not decided that three plagues in a row were probably good enough.
News of their exploits ran ahead of them as they rode on into the dark, a dry and bitter wind. By the time they reached Total Wreck, a waiter-gal sidled by to show off their very first official “wanted” post-bill, slapping it down along with their drinks. Chess was — to put it mildly — unsatisfied with the crudely inept artistic renderings attached thereto, especially the one apparently meant to look like him.
Rook let out a raspy bark of laughter. “You’re peacock-vain, is all, Chess Pargeter! Don’t cherish the idea of anybody thinkin’ you’re a skinny little snip with wall-eyes and a beard like the Wanderin’ Jew, the way this seems to prove.”
Chess studied the thing one more time, then spat on it and crumpled it up.
“I ain’t so vain,” he maintained. “But I damn well know I look a sight better’n that.”
Rook nodded. “And every soul in here knows it, including me.” Voice dropping further: “Care for a demonstration?”
That night, Rook turned Chess’s many lessons in mutual pleasure back on him, and drifted off with the ragged sound of Chess’s breath coming and going straight into his open mouth, head like an echoing sea-cave. But when he opened his eyes once more, he found that the bed had somehow dropped away into darkness, and that the body in his arms was even smaller, far softer — a girl’s. Lady Rainbow, dead far longer than Rook’s former faith had existed, with her black hair spread out beneath them like a pair of wings carved from funeral jet.
This close up, Rook could see how each of her delicate ears was flared in fans of beaten gold, the rope of thorns heavy between her little breasts. Her gaze seemed both fixed and dead, sheened to a terrible lustre and unnaturally long-lashed at its lower orbits — ’til those lashes fluttered, and he realized she had painted false eyes upon the lids of her real ones, for what reason he couldn’t possibly stand to guess at.