by Max McCoy
“Ecclesiastes,” the Sky Pilot nodded. “Don’t be overly wicked, and don’t be foolish. Why should one die before one’s time?”
“He is howling mad,” Doc said. “And I’m all out of notions.”
“What will happen to him?” Rose asked.
“He can’t care for himself, and he hasn’t the money to pay someone to look after him,” Doc said. “I reckon the city marshal will have to lock him up in the city jail until somebody can figure out what to do with him.”
Silence fell like a wet burlap sack.
I don’t know how the others felt, but I didn’t want to take the Sky Pilot in because he smelled and ate books and was obviously insane. Uncharitable of me, I know. But he also scared me, because that grip of his was frighteningly strong. Also, I hadn’t been sleeping well, which made me irritable and subject to snappishness.
All the girls were looking at the ground, some with their arms folded. I imagine they were thinking of what having to take care of a smelly lunatic with religious delusions would do to their business. But the quiet and the guilt began to gnaw on me, and I was just about to give in and say to bring him to the agency, when Rose looked up and brushed the hair from her eyes.
“I will,” she said.
“At the sporting house?” Doc asked.
“There’s a store room,” she said. “It will be all right.”
“What about Miss Phossy?” April—or it might have been May—asked.
Miss Phossy was the madam at the China Doll, and she was one of the most feared characters in Dodge City; not only was she as mean as a snake, but she had a countenance to match.
“Miss Phossy owes me,” Rose said. “It will be all right.”
“Good girl,” Doc said. “Send to Sturm’s for a block of ice to be delivered, and make sure you chip it up fine. I’ll bring the chamomile along directly.”
“Thank you, Rose,” I said, and handed over the cannibalized Bible.
As I walked back across the scorching street to my agency, I had an uneasy feeling that dogged my steps. I was glad that Rose had agreed to nurse the Sky Pilot, but there was something about him that disturbed me. There was a mystery growing here. It wasn’t just that we didn’t know his name or where he’d been; the biblical reference to ravens and the missing pages of Genesis were a bit more than odd, considering my situation. I’d been a detective who consults spirits for a little more than a year now, with a pet raven named Eddie and an infuriating partner named Jack Calder. If there was one thing I’d learned, it was that things in Dodge City aren’t just stranger than they appear.
Things are stranger than you could imagine.
2
The unfortunate I would come to know as Molly Howart appeared at the door of the agency at four o’clock on Sunday afternoon, three days after the appearance of the Sky Pilot, her hands cupped around her bloodshot eyes, her red face flattened against the window—a perfectly pitiful apparition.
She startled me so that I dropped my pen.
The nib skittered and left a looping trail of black ink over the top of the oak desk, my papers, and the right cuff of my best white shirt.
“Fils de salope,” I exclaimed. Sonuvabitch.
This alarmed the raven on his perch in the corner, atop the bookcase, and he squawked and beat his wings.
“Midnight visitor!” he croaked.
“Settle down, Eddie,” I said. “She’s real enough, and it’s not even noon.”
I crossed to the door and tapped the pasteboard sign. Calder & Wylde, Consulting Detectives, was closed. The woman, however, gave no indication that she understood. She remained rooted by the window, eyes downcast, hands clasped. Alarmed that she might be suffering some kind of spell, I unlocked the door and opened it a crack.
“Are you all right?”
“Miss Ophelia Wylde?”
“Are you in some distress?” I asked.
“A problem is causing me great discomfort,” she said. “But it is a spiritual concern. I am in no immediate physical danger.”
“Of that I am glad,” I said, forcing a smile, “but the agency is quite closed. Do return during business hours.”
“But you are Miss Wylde? The woman who talks to ghosts?”
“Yes, and I will be tomorrow as well,” I said. “Come back then. But not too early, as I haven’t been sleeping well.”
I should have slammed the door, but the woman radiated sadness like a stove gives heat. Her weepy eyes looked at her own clasped hands, then to my hand upon the door, and finally to the stain on my sleeve. Her expression turned from sorrow to guilt.
“I’ve caused that stain,” she said, talking more to herself than to me. “You’d better put something on it before it sets. I apologize and will cause you no more trouble today.”
She turned to go.
“What would I use?” I asked.
She stopped.
“Pardon?”
“For the stain,” I said, opening the door wide enough so that it touched, but did not ring, the announcing bell above it. “These domestic matters escape me. What would I use to keep it from setting?”
“Vinegar,” she said. “Then warm water and soap.”
I sighed.
“I have no vinegar,” I said.
The afternoon seemed suddenly quite empty. Why would a lack of vinegar plunge me into a fit of melancholia? It wasn’t the shirt, but what the stain on the white shirt represented, and that it was now permanent; that I lacked any of the essentials to create a home; that I was spending another Sunday afternoon alone, save for a talking bird; and that, in my hour of need, I was denied even the consolation of sour wine, a biblical resonance that is at once absurd and indicates the depth of my sudden self-pity.
“Come in, please,” I said, opening the door and ringing the bell.
“No, I’ve already imposed.”
“Do me the favor,” I said. “I am in the mood for company.”
While I sat behind the oak desk, the woman slumped in the cane chair opposite. She patted her hair with her hand and began her story, which she had obviously spent some time rehearsing.
“My name is Mary Howart,” she said. “My friends call me Molly, and you may call me that as well, if you are a candidate for that position. My husband is Charles Howart, an employee of Morris Collar’s railway freight business. We were married six years ago in Newton, and came to Dodge last year. We have a trim little house on Chestnut Street with two pear trees started in the front yard and a vegetable garden out back. Although the Lord has not seen fit to bless us with children, Charlie is a good and temperate man and attends services at least once a month with me at Union Church on Gospel Hill.”
“Your life sounds pleasant enough,” I said. “Why do you need my help?”
She hid her face with her hand, fingertips trembling on her forehead.
“Because,” she said, in a voice so low that I had to lean forward to catch the words. “We are haunted by a book.”
I considered this statement for a moment.
“Do you mean a book appears to you?”
“No, the book is real enough,” Molly said. “It’s just an ordinary book, but the way Charlie treats it, you’d think it was made out of gold. He frets over it, moving it from one hiding place to another in the house, even getting up in the middle of the night to check on it.”
“What kind of book is it?”
“I told you, just an ordinary kind of book.”
“Not a grimoire?”
She looked at me blankly.
“A book of witchcraft, of spells or curses?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“The title, then?”
“There was once a title on the cover, in gilt, but most of the letters have been worn or rubbed away. What’s left is an S, an X, and a W.”
“It is a red book?”
“Yes, it is red leather.”
“And the letters,” I said. “You’re quite sure?”
She repeate
d them: S, X, W.
“Do you know this book?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “Can’t say that I do, but I may have seen it once. Wish I could tell you where.”
“The author’s name is Gresham.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, W. L. Gresham. It’s on the spine.”
I made a note—using a pencil.
“Have you read it?” I asked.
“Charlie never lets anyone read it—not even me. He keeps it wrapped up in an old flour sack, he says to keep the Kansas sand out of it, but I think it’s really to hide it. I asked him about it once, and he said it was just a story . . . a kind of fable, I think that is the word he used.”
“Did you ask him why he won’t let you read it?”
“Because of the ghost,” Molly said. “He says it has caused so much trouble already, that he can’t stand the thought of what understanding the book might do to me.”
“Curious,” I said. “Has this been going on for all six years of your marriage?”
“No, only since April. It was then that Charlie started acting jumpy and began constantly worrying where the book was. The ghost came the first time on the last Monday in April.”
“Tell me about that.”
“It was a quiet night, because you know it was too early in the season for the cattle drives to have reached Dodge yet. Charlie and I were both asleep when we heard the strangest sound coming from the parlor. A kind of mournful creaking, the protest of wood under strain, accompanied by the sighing of wind. We were afraid somebody was trying to break in, so Charlie jumped up and grabbed the shotgun he keeps in the corner, and he crept to the parlor. He kept telling me to stay put, but I was right behind him, looking over his shoulder.”
“What did you see?”
“An unspeakable horror.”
“If you could put this horror into words, what would they be?”
The woman thought for a moment.
“At first all I could see was some kind of bluish glow illuminating the parlor like a cold flame,” she said. “It hovered and bobbed in the middle of the room about chest height, as if it were suspended from an unseen cord, accompanied by the sound of the wind and that awful creaking. I took it for a foxfire light, because when I was a child in Missouri I heard tales of lights such as this drifting through cemeteries. But this was the first time I had ever seen anything I was unable to identify as belonging to this world and not the next.”
She paused.
“I wish it had been the last.”
“Please, go on.”
“The glow turned into a flame, and elongated, and took the shape of a pillar of fire with a brilliant star at the top. I told Charlie to fetch the Bible, but it was on a table on the opposite side of the room, and he was afraid to pass too close to the light,” she said. “I was afraid as well. So we stood there, frozen, staring at this unearthly blue flame that gave no heat.”
She looked down at her clasped hands.
“Then the pillar of flame began to take shape, resolving into a human form,” she said. “It was a hanged man, eyes open and hard as marbles, his black tongue protruding from swollen lips. The veins in his neck were thick and looked like worms above the rope. His hands were free and hung limp at his sides, and the fingertips and thumbs were dark and engorged. The toes of his boots pointed earthward in slowly inscribing circles as he twisted from the ghostly rope.”
“How awful,” I offered.
“But I haven’t told you the worst part,” she said. “On the floor, beneath the hanged man, was the book. It was open and the pages were riffling in a breeze felt by no living person. Then, as the body turned on the rope to face us for perhaps the third time, the body stopped and the dead man’s right hand came up and slowly pointed a dreadful forefinger.”
“You must have been frightened.”
“I was mortified,” Molly said. “Charlie began to tremble.”
She let out a burst of nervous laughter.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have said that. Charlie would be so embarrassed.”
“Who could blame him?” I asked.
“He cried out like a little girl.”
“Some do,” I said.
“Have you?”
“Never,” I said. “What happened next?”
“The apparition dissolved, leaving the parlor dark. The book, however, remained on the floor.”
“Fascinating,” I said. “What became of the book?”
“Charlie swept the cursed thing up and hid it, I know not where. By that time, I was on my knees, praying, eyes shut tight.”
“Did you know the man?”
“No.”
“Can you recollect any clues, in the manner of his dress, perhaps?”
“He was wearing the kind of western garb common some fifteen or twenty years ago, I suppose. A dark vest and checkered trousers. Oh, on the vest was pinned a note. It said, ‘Here hangs a horse thief.’”
“You say the ghost came the first time in April,” I said. “How many times has it appeared?”
“Every Monday night, at a few minutes after eleven.”
“The same scene is repeated? The finger pointing?”
“And the book,” Molly said. “No matter where Charlie hides it, it is always found open in the middle of the parlor floor.”
“This is extraordinary,” I said.
“I’m not sure that’s the word I would use.”
“I mean it is of note,” I explained. “This is a haunting in which a physical object is compelled. I have heard of doors and windows opening by themselves, but never of objects being carried or somehow compelled to appear in a certain location. Has your husband removed the book from your home in an attempt to forestall these Monday visitations?”
“I suggested as much,” Molly said. “But Charlie insists the book remain in the house, under his care.”
“Then he is hiding something.”
Molly recoiled as if wounded.
“The thought must have crossed your mind,” I suggested.
She shook her head.
“Another woman?”
“No, he would never.”
“Perhaps he is in debt, or in ill health . . .”
“Nothing like that. I would know.”
“Has he done anything unusual or out of character in the last few weeks, apart from this business of the ghost and the book?”
Molly thought for a moment.
“He did buy an insurance policy,” she said.
“With you as the beneficiary?”
“Yes,” she said. “It was quite an expensive policy, worth five thousand dollars, and I told him we couldn’t afford it, but he was adamant that I be taken care of in case something happened to him. This was a few weeks ago.”
“About the time the apparition first appeared?”
“Yes,” she said. “He brought the policy home and pressed it into my hand in a rather strange way. I still have it, in my bag.”
“May I see it?”
The certificate was printed on good-quality paper with an elaborate fine-lined drawing of Athena with her shield, making it resemble a bond or a bank note. Scrolled across the top was WESTERN MUTUAL LIFE ASSURANCE COMPANY OF LEAVENWORTH, and in the right hand corner it said, Policy No. 784.
I handed back the policy.
“Where is he now?”
“At the Saratoga,” she said. “He’s been drinking some since the ghost first appeared. It eases his nerves, he says.”
That can’t be good for him, I thought.
“Have you shared this with anyone?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “I’ve been afraid to.”
A silence passed between us. Then, she asked, “Will you help me?”
“Yes, if you’re willing to know the truth,” I said. “You asked earlier if I talked to ghosts.”
“That’s what I read in the newspaper,” she said. “The story of the murdered girl found on the Hundredth Meridian mark
er by the railroad tracks. You talked to that poor girl’s ghost, and you and Mister Calder tracked her killer clear to Texas.”
“I appreciate the publicity our friends at the Dodge City Times have given us,” I said, “but the facts of what I have come to think of as the Case of Revenant No. 1, the Mystery of the Girl Betrayed, were somewhat different. There were certain details that were of necessity excluded from the newspaper account.”
“Certain details?”
“It is true that the murder was solved in approximately the fashion the newspaper reported,” I said. “There was, however, more to the climax of the adventure than the Times revealed. I have been working on my own account,” I said, motioning to the papers. “It has proved more difficult than I anticipated, however.”
“Writing down a story must be hard work.”
“It’s not the writing,” I said. “It’s telling the truth about oneself.”
“You’re not truthful?”
“I am now,” I said. “But there was a long period in my life when I wasn’t. I was a con woman, a shyster, a spook artist of the first order. I am ashamed of it now, but there’s nothing I can do about it, except to make amends to those I’ve hurt, where possible.”
Molly thought about this.
“Are you lying now about talking to ghosts?” she asked.
“Talking isn’t the right word,” I said. “Ghosts don’t answer direct questions from the living, generally, but they do provide clues if you listen closely. Ghosts never lie, but demons often do. Not all the dead manifest as ghosts, but when they do it’s because of unfinished business, and they can only pass over when that business is resolved.”
“What is your rate?”
“My fee is twenty dollars, payable in advance, for a week’s detection,” I said, reciting from memory the lines I had spent hours composing. “That amount includes the assistance of Mister Calder, if needed, but it does not include travel or other expenses. These expenses will be subject to your approval before they are incurred and will be itemized and due upon completion of the case.”
“This all sounds so businesslike.”
“It is a business,” I said. “Ghosts may not require food or heat or a roof over their heads, but human beings do, as my partner is constantly reminding me. I am just as deserving of compensation as any of the other tradesmen along Front Street who provide a service. And so my clients know this is not some kind of swindle, all monies, save expenses, of course, will be returned if the mystery is not satisfactorily explained.”