“How highly ought I to think of myself?” Morne asked.
“Aye, sir, that is the question, isn’t it?”
Morne rose and stalked away. “Old nuisance.”
Saida smiled in spite of everything.
“I may be an old nuisance,” Bellero went on, “but I am the old nuisance that killed that thing’s mother so you perhaps should pay me some heed.”
Morne sat back down and paid some heed.
“The people who lived here before called me the Wielder of Piercing Weapons,” said Bellero. “Everything fell to my spear, my sword, my bow. But even I could not pierce the hide of that monster.”
“So how did you kill it?” Morne asked.
“Being able to breathe fire has its drawbacks. She can only attack with fire three times before she must rest and regenerate her power. And attacking her from without will do nothing but irritate her. Your guns, your knives – even your special blade, lady, the blessed one, will be of little use. She must be destroyed from within. I dodged her flames twice and on the third time I thrust my spear down her throat, only a spear not tipped with a point, but with a block of lead. The heat from her fire melted the lead and closed the monster’s throat. She choked to death, though I doubt if her offspring will fall for the trick again. They learn from their mistakes. You will have to come up with something new for her. And bear in mind that she is a female.”
“Most monsters are,” said Morne. He caught Saida’s eye. She was still in pain and she looked tired. Suddenly he was very sorry. He ducked his head. “Monsters are monsters. Male or female, it makes no difference to me.”
“Indeed?” Amusement danced behind Bellero’s eyes.
Morne found nothing humorous about monsters of any ilk. His expression hardened. “Male or female makes no difference.”
“I have told you what lost me my place,” Bellero said to Morne. “Tell me, what lost you yours?”
Morne scowled. “I have never had a place.”
“We all have a place.”
“Well, if I did,” said Morne, “I never knew it.”
“Now that is a dangerous deficiency.”
“I am not deficient!”
“A fire-eater!” Bellero smiled as at an old friend. “Another serious weakness, one that may destroy you. Or save you, if you let it.”
Morne turned to Saida for help. He shrugged. “A riddler is what he is and I tire of him.”
“Solve the riddle and you may yet thank him.” Saida shoved herself to her feet and walked unsteadily through the open door. “As I thank him now.” She mounted her horse and, from the saddle, she bowed to Bellero, an offering that appeared to please the old man no end. He returned a deep bow to her.
“Farewell, lady,” he said. “Good-bye.”
Bellero lost his smile and nodded. In another moment, she was gone, spurring in the direction of their last sighting of the chimera.
“Were I you,” said Bellero, “I would stay close to that one. Few there be who are given the chance to train with a true master…or mistress of the art of hunting evil things. She may even help you eradicate the evil you harbor.”
Saida fell asleep at dusk beside the tiny fire Morne had built. He left her to find more sticks to keep it going against the piercing night cold. When he heard the voice, he thought for a moment that Saida had awakened and was facing him. But when the voice spoke again, he knew it was not hers. It slipped like oil into his ears and lured him. As pleasing as the sound was, he knew it was a lie.
“Come with me. Abide the night.”
The voice pulled on his heart and Morne stepped toward its source. “Show yourself. Who are you?”
“Come closer and you will see.”
Morne hugged his gathered sticks to his chest and stood his ground. “No, I think I’d better go.”
“Do not return to her. You can find no happiness with her. I can grant your deepest desires, even the ones you have never spoken.”
Never hold a conversation with a monster. Saida had told him that time and time again. And the voice from the dark was no woman, flesh and blood; she was a deceiver. Anger flickered within him.
“Come with me. The night is long.” The light from the tiny campfire flared and he saw a woman’s face, a human woman, but nothing else showed. She was beautiful and her voice flowed like a soft, braided stream of clear water over smooth rocks. He wanted to go to her and he wanted to kill her. The old hate rose higher like a well filling up and threatening to overflow. He could not tell which desire was stronger. If he took another step toward her, he would fall.
A flash from the darkness and a pistol reported its position. The lead ball hit the chimera’s face. It wrenched into a panther’s snarl. The voice growled and the creature retreated hastily, running backward up the draw.
Morne drew his Navy Colt, aimed it point-blank at Saida, and with his thumb, pulled the hammer into full lock. The click punctuated his intent.
Saida pointed her revolver at him and rotated the cylinder with the pull of the hammer. She panted heavily against her fever and the fear that was assaulting her.
“What do you think you are looking at?” Morne asked. “A monster?”
“I am looking at a man who stands in danger of losing his last chance. And I don’t feel like digging a grave in this hard ground.” Her voice steadied. “All I have to do is touch this trigger.” Her finger wavered outside the guard that protected the hair trigger. “I will not let you go down that path again. I will not let you murder any more women. I granted you a second chance. I do not have to grant you another.”
“Who are you to judge? Who are you to interfere?”
Saida moved her finger to the trigger. “One who failed to interfere in the past…” Her dead children lived before her eyes. “One who let people tread their own paths without warning them of the consequences.”
Morne’s hand shook and his trigger finger lost its strength. He dropped his hand to his side and could not find the desire to raise it again. He turned his back to her. “Do as you will. But I don’t have to face it.” He closed his eyes and waited, wondering what dying would feel like.
“How can I trust you when you can be so easily deceived?” Saida buffaloed him with a single clout from the grip of her pistol. He fell insensible, a heap on the cold ground. She rolled him in his ground cloth so he would not freeze in the night. Using the vague firelight, she scribbled a note for him and stuffed it into the closed hand that had held the pistol on her. “Last chance,” she said.
Morne awakened after dawn with an aching head. The blood crusted on his scalp plastered his hair in one spot. Slowly, he remembered. He raised his hand to the sore spot, ready to curse Saida with all his considerable might, but the crumpled paper tickled the palm of his hand. He straightened it and read it in the rising light. He ran to saddle his horse and dug into his bag for a tow sack he knew he had stowed there against need.
Saida climbed the draw on foot toward Bellero’s cabin, slipping every few steps on the cast off leaves of the oaks that surrounded the ridge. The breeze swept up the heights so she felt the radiating heat and saw the destruction before she smelled it. The shack was a blackened heap. It could have happened only a short time before. Flames still ate at the wood.
No sign of the door remained. She peaked in. A pile of fleshless bones lay where they had fallen. Bellero had not tried to defend himself. He had known the monster would come for him. He had accepted that and had died without a fight. It would not be so for her.
She scurried down the slope and found her horse but not before the chimera found her and aimed a fiery blast that Saida and her mount dodged by inches. The heat seared the hem of her skirt and the horse cried out in pain. Saida kicked for the mesquite wood to gain any cover she could. The trees would not last long. She had no weapon that would work. A fiery blast singed the tail of her gray gelding as he passed into the thicket.
From above the trees, Saida heard the voice.
“If you
are what you say you are, face me. If you are no coward, fight me.”
Never hold a conversation with a monster. If she had told Morne that once, she had told him a score of times. She wondered if he had awakened from the clout she had given him. She could not hide in the trees waiting to be incinerated. She might die, but she would die confronting her foe.
Saida drew her Damascus blade and urged her horse out of the woods and toward the high ridge. The chimera folded her sharp-edged wings and settled on her haunches. She yawned, revealing her saber teeth and Saida’s horse shied to one side, anticipating the fire.
“That little sword will not work on me,” the monster said.
“It is not an ordinary blade.”
“You are very confident of yourself. I can end that confidence, or I can give you reason for more.”
Never converse with a monster…
Saida waited.
“Women hate me, but they understand me. You understand me. Men are my prey and I only prey on weakness. That man with you, turn him over to me. He is weak and dangerous. Be rid of him. Ride with me. We will rid this land of such men.” The chimera paused. Her voice rose when Saida did not respond. “You cannot stop me. You are alone. He has abandoned you. If you will not join me, then die.”
The monster reared back her head and flooded the air with flame, but Saida had taken the moment’s delay to her advantage and charged the creature’s underbelly. The flames overshot her. She hoisted herself onto the thin, leathery shelf of one wing, and grabbed the panther’s soft throat. The panther head roared and Saida jammed the Damascus blade into her mouth, propping the powerful jaws open at their weakest point.
“That was three.” Saida looked up in time to see Morne holding a squirming tow sack in front of the panther’s muzzle. Claws tore slits in the bag. He opened the cinched top and aimed the angry contents into the chimera’s mouth. The little red winged serpent flew down the monster’s throat, clawing and biting as it went. Saida snatched the wedged Damascus blade free and jumped from the creature’s back.
Chimera’s serpent tail whipped its scorpion tip over her head, barely missing Morne. The tail swung wildly, failing to strike either of its targets. The monster screamed at the sky and beat her wings to rise straight up, but the red serpent’s poison was working, opening holes inside the beast. Chimera reached the top of the ridge and plummeted. Morne and Saida spurred their horses clear as the monster crashed to the ground. The heaving sides blew in and out until the last breath escaped. Chimera breathed no more.
“Should we take proof?” Morne asked.
“Why? Who would believe this? They will know soon enough when no more men are attacked.” Saida observed Morne. “And how are you this morning?”
“Not as well as I was before you buffaloed me last night. But I admit that idea about the little red flying things was a good one. How is your hand?”
“Healing.”
“We should stop by and thank Bellero. Maybe he can give us some of the tea to take with us.” Saida said nothing and suddenly Morne understood. He removed his hat and held it over his heart briefly before replacing it.
As they trotted away through the scorched woods, a tiny movement came from the chimera’s mouth. A thin, bedraggled serpent, bright red and winged, crawled into the open air, shook itself, and flew into the branches of the nearest mesquite tree.
The Carpetbagger
A.J. French
“I’m gonna treat you kind
I’m gonna rob you blind
I’ll smile all the time
Oh yeah…”
—Jenny Lewis & Elvis Costello, “Carpetbaggers”
The Carpetbagger set his boots down in the dust of Jonesboro just as the sun was going down. The streets were mostly deserted, apart from the few drunk miners, Confederate soldiers, overdressed women, and men walking around in business suits. He could smell the reek of smoke, blood, and fire from the east. Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman and his boys would be here by nightfall to lay waste to this crumbling heap.
Good riddance, the Carpetbagger thought.
He tethered his horse outside of the saloon and tramped across the wood walkway to the swinging double doors. Lights, music, chatter, and laughter came from within, along with smells of whisky and ale. He smiled. This was going to be fun.
As soon as he stepped inside, everyone looked up and stared. Pairs of eyes bore into him like a volley of bullets. The bearded, sweat-stained miners seated at the bar; the rebels spread among the card tables; the harlots with their flagrant dresses, tousled hair, and vivacious curves; even the piano man at his rinky-tink piano.
“What in the Sam Hill,” said a man sitting in the back, a soldier in a deep gray uniform.
The Carpetbagger wore a brand-new blue suit with blue trousers and a pair of black boots. He looked sharp, like he had been plucked right out of the Capitol. In his right hand he clutched a magic weather-beaten leather bag.
When they saw the color he sported, their faces turned to scowls—all except the harlots, who batted eyelashes excitedly. Maws of stained yellow teeth opened inside of beards. Chair legs screeched as they were slid back from tables. But mostly there was a quiet, long, encompassing silence.
The Carpetbagger cleared his throat. “Just here to drink, boys. I don’t want any trouble.”
The men glowered at him, but they were clearly more concerned about their drinks, their card games, and their bevy of whores. One by one they all went back to their previous activities, and the place grew lively again. The piano struck back up.
He walked over to the bar. He was much taller than everyone, and not just because of his fancy boots. He seemed to take up more space; his presence was like a flash bulb going off in the room.
He shouldered his way between two burly miners reeking of sweat to prop his elbows on the bar top. The barkeep, a short man wearing glasses and a black vest, approached him.
“What’ll it be?”
The Carpetbagger considered, then said, “Whiskey. Two glasses.”
The barkeep returned with his drinks a moment later; he paid accordingly, watching while the man funneled the bills into a large cash register. The miner to his right leaned over and said, “Where you from, Yankee?”
The Carpetbagger finished his drink and started on the next; he replied simply, “I ain’t got no place in this world.”
The miner grunted like he understood, but there was no way he could possibly understand anything. The mystery of the Carpetbagger was far beyond his ken. The Carpetbagger had been at this for thousands of years. He was unclassifiable and indescribable. He thought in the higher and more spiritual realms of physical beings. He could walk through dimensions like a ghost walking between raindrops. As his pal Walt Whitman once said—“The Carpetbagger is large; he contains multitudes.”
After finishing his second whiskey, the Carpetbagger moved across the barroom floor in the direction of the piano. A gaunt but cheerful-looking man sat at the bench, fingers moving on the keyboard. He glanced at the Carpetbagger, who stood a moment to watch him.
The harlots reacted to him with the same intensity as the men, only theirs was on the opposite pole. They were drawn to him through some inexplicable force, could hardly keep their eyes from his towering presence. All at once they came to him, a flock of sweet-smelling buxom girls, pawing at him, leaning into his chest, brushing fingers on his face. He allowed them to do as they pleased, indeed he seemed to revel in the attentions, however there was one girl in particular that caught his fancy, and it was she whom he led up the stairs.
They found an empty room, entered, and she closed the door behind them. He kicked off his boots and dropped the magic leather bag onto the floor. Then they fell into bed and made love by the glow of guttering candles.
Afterward, as she lay panting snuggled against his chest, there was a knock at the door. It had not been an hour yet, and so he shouted as much without getting out of bed. When the knock came again, he stopped to listen and
noticed it was dreadfully quiet: no shouts, no clanking mug or tittering piano. This was bad. Cautiously he slid his arm toward the floor to retrieve the leather bag, and drew out his revolver.
The harlot made a face and was about to scream, but the Carpetbagger smothered her with a pillow, held it there. He aimed his piece at the closed door. “Come!”
The door burst open and the Carpetbagger jumped to his feet, naked, manhood swinging like a swollen cow’s tongue. But the doorway was empty. As he stepped off the bed, two shapes appeared in the hallway, men wearing deep gray uniforms, their guns raised, shouting, “Yankee swine! Carpetbagger! Kill ’im!” They started to fire, filling the room with thunder and smoke.
He dashed to the left as the volley of bullets made cheesecloth of the candles on the nightstand. The flaming ends tumbled to the floor, rolling toward the window, where they caught fire to the drapes. Tongues of flame licked up the walls.
Squeezing the trigger of his large metal revolver, the Carpetbagger sent a blistering round into the first man’s chest. It sent him back a pace, geyser of blood arcing forward in a liquid stream. Arms flailing, he tumbled back and down the stairs.
The other man took one in the neck, the bullet opening a vast cavity in his soft white skin. He too fell down the steps.
Suddenly conscious of his own nudity, the Carpetbagger dressed, then shouldered his bag. Shouts and footsteps came from downstairs; the metal clackety-clack of rounds being chambered. He noticed the harlot watching, frightened, and he held his hand out to her. “Come on.”
“But my dress…”
“No time.” He pointed to the fire.
She reached out, took his hand, and together they dashed down the hall.
Other men were already coming up the stairs, and the Carpetbagger picked them off—one two three four—without having to reload. He drew another revolver from the bag, re-shouldering it, and then wielded two.
Both Barrels of Monster Hunter Legends (Legends of the Monster Hunter Book 1) Page 52