The Good, The Bad and The Ghostly ((Paranromal Western Romance))

by Keta Diablo

  Dedication

  For WD. All for one and one for all.

  Chapter One

  In my dream, there’s a man.

  I can’t see his face or any other distinguishing features on him other than the fact that he is tall and dark, and I can sense that he is handsome. My dreams don’t allow for me to get close enough to see who he is.

  But I know him. He has captivated my heart and welded my soul to his. Something inside me intrinsically calls out to him, aching that he’s not close to me, skin to skin, pulse against pulse.

  We’re meant to be together, in this life and in others.

  I know this, and he knows this.

  In my dream, we’re standing about ten yards apart on a desert landscape, me in my corset and him in his dust jacket and hat that shades his face. I don’t recognize the place, but it feels alien, like nothing could ever survive in these harsh elements.

  We’re both dead.

  I see the glint of his smile as he looks at me. My heart breaks and I want to help him, but something keeps me rooted to my spot.

  "Find me, Hattie," he says, his voice in my head. "Save me."

  "How?" I ask. "From what?"

  But he keeps repeating those two words, echoing on and on in my mind.

  "Save me. Save me."

  * * *

  "Miss? Miss?"

  I open my eyes and blink several times before focusing on the stout attendant standing in the doorway of my private train car. He peers at me through a pair of spectacles that make his eyes look like huge tea cup saucers.

  "Are you getting off at this stop, Miss...?"

  I wipe some dried spittle from my mouth and glance out the window to see a small, wooden building and, beyond that, a weather-worn town surrounded by low mountains. Everything seems to be tan or yellow in color, giving the entire scene a dusty look.

  "Where are we?" I ask, dazed. I pass a hand over my cheek, conscious that he’s looking at the scar there. I’m fair-skinned, with mousey-brown hair and green eyes, so I know that my scar stands out starkly against my features.

  "We’re in Virginia City, ma’am."

  I look out again to confirm his answer and let out a breath. "Yes, this is my stop."

  I must have been asleep for a long time if we are already in Virginia City. I never sleep well on trains or in carriages, so this surprises me.

  "May I help you with your luggage?" the attendant offers.

  "I’d appreciate it."

  The man helps me carry my trunk from the shelf and out of the train car. The oppressive heat hits me full force as I step out into the harsh sunlight. It’s so bright that I take out my parasol to shade me.

  There aren’t very many passengers on the train platform as I look around. It’s...quaint. Rustic. Rough. Just the way I like things. At least there’s no pretense to my surroundings.

  "Thank you kindly," I tell the attendant as he sets my trunk down. I know it’s heavy and the poor man is huffing from exertion.

  "No trouble at all, Miss," he says. "Anything else I can do for you?"

  I smooth my petticoats with my hands. "I’m fine, thanks."

  He looks dubiously at me before he nods and boards the train again. It must be strange for him to see a lady painted in makeup and perfume traveling by herself out west. Then again, I’m not much of a lady to begin with, so I’ve become accustomed to those kinds of looks.

  I’ve never fit into polite society.

  Now to find a stagecoach to take me to Carolina City, my final destination.

  Leaving my trunk on the platform—because, really, who’d run off with such a heavy thing? —I walk inside the train station to see if I can secure travel. It’s about twelve miles to Carolina City, and I don’t have much more daylight.

  The inside of the train station is not much cooler than the outside. Here, the dry breeze stops, and the air becomes stagnant.

  At least it’s shaded.

  I grimace and press a finger to my temple, immediately feeling a headache coming on. It could be from the heat or—

  "Need some help, Miss?"

  I turn to a gap-toothed young man who can’t be older than thirteen. A boy, really. He looks up at me with wide eyes, an innocent lad. He appears to work for the station.

  "Can you help me find passage to Carolina City?" I ask.

  The boy frowns. "Carolina City?"

  "Yes, I have business there."

  "Not much happens in Carolina City, ma’am."

  Enough happens for there to be a haunting. Then again, I bet this boy does not believe in the afterlife and what happens beyond death.

  "I understand that," I say gently, pedantically. "But I do have business there, and I’d love to be there by nightfall if at all possible."

  The boy nods. "I’ll see if Mr. Peterson is available."

  I take out some coins from my handbag and press them into his hand. "And there’ll be more of those for prompt service." That is one thing I can say about my employer, the Tremayne Psychic Specters Investigations Agency, or Tremayne P.S.I Agency for short; they do pay well. "Thank you, boy—"

  The money clatters to the floor, echoing in the nearly empty station. It takes me a couple of seconds to realize that the boy vanished into thin air as soon as I touched him.

  A ghost.

  With shaking hands, I pull out a vial that I keep around my neck and deposit a few drops of laudanum underneath my tongue. I swallow, trying to calm my nerves and sedate my headache, which has flared into a raging inferno.

  I’d just been speaking with a ghost—a dead boy—and I hadn’t realized it. While I’ve been speaking with ghosts ever since I can remember, the times when I haven’t realized it have gotten more and more frequent. Sometimes, they look downright ghastly and I can tell, other times, they look like a normal sort of person.

  Doubt enters my mind like shadows enter homes as soon as the sun goes down.

  I bend down to pick up the coins.

  Guess I’ll have to find my own stagecoach.

  * * *

  Next assignment. Go to Carolina City, Nevada. Meet with Kurt Bonneville for further information about the disappearance of US Marshal

  That’s all the telegram says. It stops mid-sentence, giving me only enough information to be infuriatingly vague. I’d even sent a telegram back asking for further clarification from the Tremayne P.S.I Agency and waited for an answer, but one never came. The telegrapher said that there could have been a disruption in the line or the line switched mid-message. But there was never an answer, even though I’d waited for a day and a half.

  So I’m doing what any loyal employee would do: heading out to Carolina City to meet with this Kurt Bonneville about the disappearance of a US Marshal. I don’t know this marshal’s name, no description, no clue about why he’s missing. And I certainly don’t know why a psychic investigator like me should be involved. From what I can glean, it seems like a fairly normal case. Maybe some outlaws killed the Marshal. Maybe he went into hiding. Maybe he couldn’t take this bleaching, baking sun any longer.

  Probably nothing spiritual or ghostly.

  Still though, I’m determined to do right by my employer and see it through to the end. I figure I’ll find out once I get there.

  "I’d better," I mutter to myself.

  I refuse to let Nat down. He—or she, I haven’t figured that part out yet—has put his—or her—faith in me, and as usual, I intend to exceed expectations.

  I fold the telegram and place it back in my handbag, next to my revolver. When I said I’m not a lady, I meant it. A bullet may not work against the spiritual or the dead, but it sure works when you need to convince the living to listen to you.

  I sigh and lean back against my seat and close my eyes. The stagecoach sways side-to-side as we race against the sun to get to Carolina City. The boy back at the station, dead as he may be, was correct in that there is a Mr. Peterson who runs the Enterprise Stagecoach Company. The man wasn’t very happy about me demanding pa
ssage to Carolina City. He said that there were ghosts there and that he would never set foot in Carolina City ever again.

  That is until I laid three times my fare on the counter and my identification papers, labeling me as a psychic investigator. That shut him up real quick, and he readied a team to take me to Carolina City, saying he’ll drop me off as close as he would dare.

  In addition to my revolver, money makes people listen and do what you tell them. As I said, the Tremayne P.S.I Agency pays a fair wage. Much better than a former saloon girl from outside of St. Louis deserves.

  "You always were one to get caught up in the past, Hattie."

  I open one eye and peer at the passenger who has appeared in the seat opposite me. "Hello, Mary Ellen," I tell my sister.

  She’s grinning at me like some sort of ghoul. Despite the fact that she was born before me, she doesn’t look a day over twelve while I’m twenty-seven years young. Then again, she hasn’t grown since the day she fell off her horse, struck her head on a rock, and died.

  Unlike the boy in the station, Mary Ellen looks like she is among the dead. Her skin has a bluish tinge, and she glows with an ethereal quality, unlike anything you’d see in real life. Her head, where she suffered her injury, constantly bleeds, although gravity doesn’t seem to apply to the crimson stream. It just floats above her head and disappears before it hits the ceiling. Which is fine by me. I’d hate for Mr. Peterson to have to clean up a mess.

  "You look so..." Mary Ellen starts, assessing my appearance.

  "Distinguished?" I supply.

  "...different," she finishes. "I remember a time when you were in a corset with your breasts hanging out, trying to woo a spare few nickels out of men in the saloon."

  "Little girls aren’t supposed to know about that stuff."

  She shrugs. "Little girls aren’t supposed to be dead either."

  I flinch at her words. Even though I was eight years old when it happened, I remember it vividly. After all, that one event changed the course of my entire life. Mary Ellen and I were the only children of our parents, and when she died, our family fell apart. It drove my father to the bottle and my mother to die of a broken heart.

  And I realized a few days later, when Mary Ellen appeared to warn me about Father’s new abusive habit, that I could talk to ghosts. Not only that, they wanted to talk to me. Constantly. I can never get them to be silent, and it sometimes takes me a while to realize that they’re dead.

  And what was a young girl like me supposed to do to defend herself without her parents? I certainly wasn’t going to join a convent. No, I went in a fairly opposite direction.

  "Heh, you’d never fit in at a convent," Mary Ellen says, echoing my thoughts when I haven’t said anything out loud.

  It’s times like these when I wonder if I’ve indeed lost my mind.

  "You haven’t gone insane, Hattie."

  "You’re not doing much to convince me otherwise," I say dryly.

  "Why wouldn’t you want to talk to your big sister?" Mary Ellen says.

  I sigh. "I want her to go into the light. Find peace and leave this plane of existence. She’s lingered for far too long."

  She shrugs. We’ve had this conversation many times before, and it’s never bothered her. "I’m your guardian angel. I won’t leave until I’m sure you’re taken care of. Spoken for. Loved by someone."

  I chuckle mirthlessly. "No one wants to marry a former lady of the night."

  "Oh, you’re no lady, Hattie Hart."

  "No. I’m a psychic detective," I tell her, straightening up a bit. "And if I can’t help my sister’s restless spirit, how can I help others?"

  She puts her hand over mine, and if I concentrate hard enough, I can still feel the soft skin of her palm. "You know what will help."

  "Yes."

  Finding peace within myself.

  But I don’t think that will happen. Not with my past. Not with my future.

  "Just try," she says. "You’re not beyond redemption."

  "I’m beyond reckoning, which is far worse."

  Sure, as a former saloon girl and prostitute, I made a better wage than most women. But there are lines that I’ve crossed that have not only scarred my cheek; they’ve marred my soul for eternity.

  That’s why I got out of that line of business. That’s why I joined the agency.

  Mary Ellen shakes her head, the blood from her wound sloshing about before it floats above her head. I want to reach out and plug the hole with my thumb, just to make it stop. It hurts me to see her like this.

  "Miss?" a man’s voice asks, breaking through my thoughts.

  I awaken with a jolt, surprised that I’d fallen asleep. Mr. Peterson is in the open doorway to the carriage, looking at me with a perplexed expression. I look to the seat across from me, which is now void of my sister’s spirit. Had I really been talking to her spirit, or had I dreamed all of it?

  Again, I wonder if I’m going crazy.

  Maybe I took too much of the laudanum. I can’t distinguish fact from fiction.

  "Yes?" I ask through roughened lips, putting on a brave face like a woman puts on makeup. "What is it?"

  "You’re here, Miss Hart. You’ve arrived in Carolina City."

  Chapter Two

  Stopping at the outskirts of town is not exactly what I’d deem an acceptable arrival.

  I frown when I step out of the stagecoach, seeing the town nestled below the crest of the hill. The main street is probably a half mile away.

  "You won’t go any closer?" I ask, exasperated.

  Mr. Peterson points to the horizon. "We’re not too long from sunset, Miss Hart, and the horses are already spooked. I said I’d take you to Carolina City, and I have."

  He’s sweating profusely, making me wonder if he has gone crazy, too. Either that, or he is as spooked as his horses. Suddenly, it seems like there may be more to my assignment than just searching for one lost marshal. "I also said that you’d be on your own once we got here."

  I narrow my eyes. "So that’s it?"

  "I warned you, Miss Hart."

  I put my hands on my hips. "Yes, you did. I didn’t realize that you meant you’d leave a lady stranded."

  "You ain’t stranded."

  At least he didn’t say, "You ain’t a lady."

  He huffs, his cheeks bulging. "Carolina City is within walking distance. And you’ll get there before dark. But I highly suggest turning around and heading back."

  "I have an assignment."

  "So you say. But I’m urging you, Miss Hart, come back. I’ll even refund you the fare."

  I raise an eyebrow. Now I’m intrigued. "Thank you, but I have to decline."

  Mr. Peterson chews on his cheek as he watches me. Finally, he sighs. "Figgered you’d say that. All right, you paid $60 for your fare here. Least I can do is loan you Betsy."

  "Betsy?"

  The man moves behind the stagecoach and after a few moments produces an old gray mule. "She’s an old mule, nearly blind in both eyes and just as deaf too. But she’s a fast ‘un and can keep up with the horses as you can see. You can load up your trunk and she’ll take care of you."

  He’d planned this. I thought it was strange that he brought the mule along, and now I see why.

  I watch the mule, seeing the whited-out eyes now that he said she’s blind. What am I going to do with a mule? "Really, Mr. Peterson, I—"

  "She’s a loan. Not a gift and I want the saddle back," he grumbles as he hands me the reins. "So don’t go getting yourself killed. I’ll get your trunk now."

  Well, this assignment has already taken an interesting turn, and I haven’t even set foot inside the town yet.

  Mr. Peterson takes my trunk from the back of the stagecoach and straps it to the center of the mule’s rear, leaving enough room for the saddle and a rider. The old girl just stood there placidly while he worked quickly to get her set. Maybe I have more affinity for this mule than I initially thought.

  "All right, you’re good to go," Mr. Peters
on says, wiping his hands. "Last chance to head back."

  "I’m staying."

  He nods absently. "Right. Well, then, good luck to you."

  He climbs atop the stagecoach in an almost-angry manner before he clacks the reins and steers the six-horse team away from the plateau. Like he’s running with Death on his heels.

  Strange, very strange.

  I look up at Betsy and give her a light pat. The poor thing shies away from my touch. I grew up in urban St. Louis and never had the need for an animal like this, so we’re both at a disadvantage, Betsy with her blindness and me with my lack of skill.

  "Guess it’s just you and me, girl," I murmur. "Don’t worry, I’ll just walk you down there. I’m sure my trunk is heavy enough."

  Her ear flicks in response.

  I take the reins and gently begin walking her toward town. The sun has nearly set already, and I can see the kerosene lamps lighting the main street below. I remember what they say about mules and stubbornness, but Betsy complies and follows me like a lamb.

  "I’ll get you some carrots when we reach the hotel," I promise her.

  She huffs in response.

  * * *

  Carolina City, as I now realize, is a much bigger town than I initially thought.

  As I walk, leading Betsy down Main Street behind me, I note the placement of the wooden buildings close together. Saloons, hotels, stores, banks—this town has it all.

  I shouldn’t be surprised, as boomtowns pop up overnight, seemingly growing like hardy weeds across the west. And these towns would have to be weeds in order to survive out here. This dry, arid environment would kill anything that is too weak.

  Sunset is nearly upon us, but the streets are still bustling. People peer down at me from the streets and balconies. Men with cigars, saloon girls, and men with cigars and saloon girls.

  I tip my head toward one group of girls, hoping that they sense camaraderie from me. We are cut from the same cloth.

  Another headache hits me as I stumble and clutch at my head. I grimace and shut my eyes as lightning strikes across my vision.

  Not now.

  With shaking hands, I add another few drops of laudanum under my tongue. I seem to be using the opiate more frequently these days, but then again, it’s the only thing that seems to protect my sanity.