I see movement in the velvet sky above me and squint on the circling black shape of a vulture, looping around like an angel of death. It spirals slowly downwards, joined by another. They land not twenty feet from me and hop from side to side, squawking at each other. I want to scare them away, but a part of me wonders why I should bother. What’s the point?
There’s the sound of hooves on the stony ground, and the big ugly birds flap angrily up and away. It’s Old Jack, and Masters walks beside him.
“They’re gone.” Masters sits beside me, his face unreadable even in the low light.
“I thought they got you.”
“I’m a ghost, you fucking idiot. I’m already dead.”
“They nearly got me!”
“But they didn’t. Fuck ‘em. You’re haunted, boy, you know that. It’s how I found you, after all. You let me in and gave me strength. Don’t you let them in too, and they’ll stay weak.”
“I guess.” I don’t believe a word of it. Next time, the time after. How much more is in me for them to take?
“Finish this business,” Masters says. “Get some peace of mind for you and your momma. And for me. They’ll have less to hang onto.”
“Really?”
Masters stands over me, eyes dark and foreboding. “Get up, you weak prick.”
“I don’t care any more.”
“Yes you fucking do. Look.”
I follow his pointing finger and see a jack-rabbit sitting on a mound of prairie not thirty yards away.
“Slow and quiet,” Masters says.
The boom of my pistol in the cold air is staggering, and the jack-rabbit’s head is gone.
* * *
It’s well past noon when the silhouettes of a small town appear on the horizon. It gives me renewed strength, and I’m smiling as I ride down the main street that’s lined with wooden buildings, brightly painted awnings, and fancy sign-writing in the windows. I can see homesteads spreading out beyond the town, people working, wagons rolling. Hills swell up into mountains to the west.
I tie Old Jack to a post outside a saloon, give him a pat on his hot neck. I pull the heavy sleeves of my baggy shirt down to hide my new iron bracelets and walk in through the double swing doors. It’s dim and cool inside, quiet and still. Dust motes dance in the early sunlight shafting in between the slats of the shutters. A bald guy with a belly like a full sail is polishing glasses behind the bar, and a pretty young thing is sweeping up. I nod to the barman and watch the girl awhile. She’s young and slim, with a cascade of blonde hair and a glint in her eye. She holds my gaze for a second or two before looking back to her broom.
What I would give to find a town someplace, settle down and get some work, woo a pretty girl like that and maybe get married, have some kids of my own. Just normal stuff. But this fire burns in me, and I can’t do anything normal until it’s out, and that’s only going to happen when my daddy is brought to account for what he did to Momma and me. She’d have liked to live in a small town like this, I reckon. Far better than the nuns’ sanatorium where she’s lying now, mind broken and body withering away to sticks and dust.
“Help you?” the barman calls out.
I smile at him, friendly-like. “I could use a good meal. Or even a bad one,” I add with a laugh.
He pushes his chin at the girl sweeping up, and she sets her broom aside and disappears out back. I pull up a stool, sit down and put my ragged black hat on the bar beside me. There’s a moment’s uncomfortable silence as the barkeep measures me up and down.
The girl returns with a tin plate holding some kind of stew and a hunk of bread. She hands it to me with a soft smile, almost like a secret. The gravy is thick like mud and cold, from last night’s cooking, but it smells fantastic. The meat is mostly gristle and the bread’s stale, but I swallow it down like it’s the food of God, my belly aching at the sudden pressure it hasn’t felt for too long. That jack-rabbit kept me alive, but he was near as skinny as me. It feels like the first time I’ve eaten properly in weeks.
“I’m looking for someone,” I tell the barkeep as I mop up with the last of the bread.
He’s immediately suspicious. “That right?”
“Give me a whisky. Just the cheap stuff.”
He nods, puts a glass on the counter and fills it from a bottle without a label. I’m only drinking to be friendly, trade for the information he might have, but the sour burns nicely all the same. I put a couple of coins on the scratched bar.
Graham Masters stands beside me, unseen by the others. He tilts his head at the barman. Impatient fucking ghost. “I’m looking for a fella goes by several names. Mind if I run ‘em by you?”
The barman shrugs.
“All right then. Danny Calhoun?”
He shakes his head.
”Seth Cooper?”
Shake.
“Frank Gates?”
This time there’s a slight pause, and his eyes narrow just a bit before he shakes his head.
“Frank Gates?” I ask again, one eyebrow raised.
“I said no, dammit. I ain’t ever heard of no Frank Gates.”
The pretty young girl has stopped sweeping, watches us with a strange expression. Masters is virtually dancing on the spot. “He’s lying!” he says to me, like it ain’t obvious, even to the tables and chairs. Truth be told, I’m getting damned tired of this game, but my excitement rises too at this reaction.
I nod and stand up, tip my hat. “Much obliged, sir. Guess I’ll move along and keep looking.”
The barman seems relieved and smiles at me. “Good luck finding him.”
I turn to leave and walk slowly to the door, giving the barman plenty of time to pluck up the courage to ask the question that must be burning his lips to get out.
“Say, stranger.”
There it is. I turn back. “Yeah?”
“Why you looking for this fella anyway? You mean him harm?”
I laugh. “Shit, no. We have history. We go way back. I’m just looking up an old friend.”
His brow creases, eyes narrowed again. He doesn’t know what to make of that. I’m too young to be a pal of someone my daddy’s age. Eventually he shrugs once more. “Well, like I said, good luck.”
“Thanks.”
The sun is beating down outside, making me squint. “Back door or front?” I ask Masters, almost invisible in the brightness.
“Surely the back,” he says, vengeance clear in his tone. He’s at least as hungry for that now as he was for money in his life, I reckon.
“That’s what I thought.”
We stroll casually around the saloon, keeping to the shadows near the building walls, and peek around behind. Sure enough, the fat barkeep comes hurrying out, rolling up his apron and dropping it by the door as he waddles behind the other shops and slips away between them. I’m sure we’re close. I’m so near the quarry I think I can almost smell the bastard.
“Don’t lose him!” Masters barks.
I trot back around the front and turn the corner. It’s easy to see the fat barman, hurrying up the street. There’s not that many people yet in a frontier town like this, but you can see the potential of the place. It’s only going to get bigger, like so many others we’ve seen. Masters says San Francisco is a city that takes hours to walk across, with huge buildings of rock and brick. I can’t imagine a place like that.
The barman shouts and waves and a young boy runs across the street to him. There’s some frantic chatter and something changes hands, probably a coin, and the boy takes off north out of town like a rabbit running from a gunshot.
* * *
Old Jack trots along happily and I can see the young boy up ahead. There’s a property on the hill, just a small farmhouse, and I think that’s where he’s headed until he jumps bareback onto a horse out front and takes off again. He gallops north and I keep Old Jack in check, tailing him at a distance. There’s no point in giving myself away now I’m this close.
The kid rides hard for a good hour, gru
bby white shirt billowing in the wind of his gallop as his bare feet swing at the horse’s flanks. He heads into the hills and down a ravine with a river running along it. Masters is getting more agitated all the time, popping up and shouting at me about losing the kid, but it’s hard to keep up and not give myself away when there’s fuck-all but the two of us out here.
Sure enough, before we’re a half-mile into the narrow valley, I’ve lost all sight of the boy and his horse. I sit on Old Jack and curse. Masters is furious.
“You are one useless fucking idiot!” he yells. “What now?”
“I don’t know,” I say in a broken voice. It’s going to be dark soon, and the ghosts are coming back. Masters is getting worse at holding them away, and I can’t see the fucking point any more.
“Don’t you sink into some useless funk, you prissy child,” Masters says, his face an inch from mine even though I’m on horseback. “You start searching.”
The ravine doesn’t branch out, and it’s getting deeper. If the kid came through, it’s likely I can carry on and hopefully stumble across wherever he was headed. Follow the river and pray I find something before dark.
It’s slow going, picking along through the rock and scrub. Often we have to climb a steep bank and keep the river in mind by listening more than watching. We could go right by wherever that kid was headed and not even know it, but I don’t tell Masters that. He’s irate as hell all the time and only getting madder.
I’m tired, hungry and kinda scared, sagging in the saddle, when something pulls me up. Voices, drifting from somewhere. I hold Jack in a clump of trees and let him drink at the river. Once he’s safely tied, I have a drink myself. It’s at least as cold and fresh as it looks. Going quiet and careful on foot, it’s not long before a crackle of fire and the smell of cooking rumbles my stomach. There are men talking, not far away.
I can see down into the camp, six canvas tents and a big cookfire. Somewhere in here is Frank Gates. AKA Danny Calhoun and Seth Cooper. I settle down to wait for night. Time to finish this.
* * *
It’s nice to sit by the river until the dusk turns dark. Graham Masters is impatient to get moving. But it’s taken this long, so it can wait a little longer. Caution is the key here, or I’m liable to blow it and waste everything. Masters has ever been eager to get on with it and, if I’m honest, he’s often been a fairly unreliable companion. He’s caused me trouble more than once.
But it’s night, and I have a job to do. My heart’s beating fast at the thought. I could finally be here, at that point in my life where I can make my bastard of a father pay and shuck this burden from my shoulders. Tell my Momma he’s dead and buried; let her find some peace. Then maybe I’ll go back to that last town and talk to the pretty girl in the bar.
I creep down towards the tents. All prospector camps are like this; I’ve seen a few before. I hide in the shadows and watch as the men sit around the fire, eating and drinking and laughing too loud. I wonder if it’s to stem the disappointment of turning up nothing, or in celebration of the fact they’ve struck yella and know they’re going to be rich. Either way doesn’t bother me. I’m going to kill my daddy whether he’s rich or poor. Although pulling a few nuggets from the pockets of his corpse wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
The kid is curled up asleep under a big coat near the fire. There are four men, so I need to be careful. I don’t want to end up in a fight with them all. I’ve honed some skills these recent years, but even I can’t be sure I’d manage four on one.
Masters is clear beside me in the darkness. He squints into the gloom and a smile splits his face. “There he is!” He points to one fella and my chest tightens.
“You sure,” I ask.
Masters nods without looking at me. “Oh yeah.”
“Really sure?” I ask again, staring hard at him.
He turns his glare to me. “That’s Frank Gates.”
We watch a while longer. Nothing happens except more eating and drinking and then the men start heading for their tents, to bed early to get up with the dawn.
I keep an eye on Gates, staring hard at the man who seeded me for this world, who ruined my Momma’s life. He’s a rangy bastard, tall and skinny like me, but his hair is dark black where mine is sandy brown. He’s got a nose like an eagle’s beak, and that ain’t nothing like mine either. Nice to know I take after my Momma more than this sack of shit. He wears good clothes, though they’re dirty from prospecting, and his boots are finer than any I’ve ever owned. Son of a bitch. I start preparing for what I’m going to say to him, and I brace myself for the possibility that I won’t have a chance to say anything. Ending him is the only important part of this.
And he starts heading straight for us. I catch my breath, shuffle back against the rocks and scrub where I’m hiding. No time to move anywhere else. He walks right past me in the shadows and I see his mean face, eyes set close together, black stubble making his cheeks dark in the night. He seems in decent shape, but I don’t reckon he’s close to as strong as I am. He walks between some trees into the gloom, and I can’t believe my luck.
Creeping like a cat, I follow. Franks Gates, as he’s calling himself, grunts and undoes his braces. He kicks a hole in the sandy ground, drops his britches, and squats, elbows on his knees.
“Don’t make a sound,” I whisper, as the cold steel of that Sheriff’s Colt presses against the skin of his neck.
He stiffens, but doesn’t move. A muffled cry of fright escapes his lips, bitten off as soon as it starts.
“Pull up your britches and move forward.”
He complies. I can see his hands shaking as he buttons his fly. He stumbles ahead of me, my gun barrel pressed to the middle of his spine.
“What do you want?” he whispers, his voice trembling with fear. “You want money? Gold?”
“Shut the fuck up, Frank Gates,” I say quietly, pushing him away from the camp. “That’s what you’re calling yourself now, right?”
“That... that’s my name, right enough. Who are you?”
“I’m the son you abandoned, you slimy piece of shit.”
“What?”
“The son of the woman you left, pregnant, poverty-stricken and a pariah. She couldn’t take it, the ridicule, the rejection. She’s a fragile bird, and you broke her mind, Frank Gates! Our lives, too!”
His shaking is visible all over, his knees knocking together, hands flapping by his sides. “I don’t know what you mean. I don’t have a son. I have a wife and two daughters in San Francisco!”
That just makes me furious. “Is that right?” I almost yell. “Treat them a lot better than you did Momma and me, do you?”
His voice is hitched with tears, sobbing like a little girl. “I don’t know what you mean!”
“Turn around and face me, Gates.”
He stands there, back to me, shaking and sobbing.
“Turn your face to me, Pa!”
He turns slowly, hands raised. His face is twisted in fear, tears and snot shining in the darkness. I look around for Graham Masters, but he’s nowhere to be seen. Surely he wants to see this. My own hand starts to shake, the excitement of the situation is getting to me. Fuck it, I can’t put this off.
“Here and now you pay for what you did to us!” The flash and bark of the pistol is massive in the silent darkness, and a rush rips through me.
Franks Gates’ chest gouts blood as he staggers over backwards, my shot right through his heart. He’s dead before he hits the ground, and Masters comes running.
“Stop!” he cries. “It ain’t him!”
I can’t believe it. “Not again!”
“I lost you in the trees,” Masters says. “I tried to catch up, but I couldn’t find you. It ain’t him.”
My euphoria drains away like rainwater on sun-parched earth. I’m shaking all over. “I killed the wrong man!” I yell at Graham Masters. “Again!”
“I’m sorry, it’s so hard to tell. I’m a ghost, I don’t see real things as well as you
do.” He sounds altogether too relaxed for my liking.
“You said you were sure. Just like you did when we found Danny Calhoun, and Seth Cooper!”
Something like a smile glimmers across Masters’ face, but it’s hard to see in the shadows.
I can hear voices shouting and people crashing through the brush. Those gossamer spectral haunts that dog me every night are lurking, reaching, groaning mouths wide in supplication. Are there three now?
“You have to go!” Masters says.
Confusion fogs my brain. “I killed another innocent man!”
Masters’ sudden grin is feral. “Part of you likes it!”
“What?”
He grabs at my shirt, dragging icily at my flesh as his hand passes right through me. “Come on! Don’t let them catch you.”
Is he laughing? I stumble over rough ground, heading back to where Old Jack is tethered. My mind reels, my heart hammers.
“Keep looking,” Graham Masters says. “It’s your turn now. You’ll find him next time, I’m sure.” There’s no sincerity in his tone.
I look at the ghost of my mentor in the darkness, and his expression is hard to read. “My turn? Next time?”
He nods as I untie Jack and swing up into the saddle. There’s a self-satisfied look about him, like a man who’s enjoyed his fill of a good meal. His eyes sparkle, and there are creases at the corners as he grins.
“It’s your time, boy,” Masters says. “Now you get to keep moving, keep looking for your damn pa, free as you like! Vengeance is a selfish business. And you better stay ahead of those night-time ghouls.”
“You sound like you ain’t coming,” I say, shivers wracking through me.
Masters just stands in the night, smiling at me. I can hear the other prospectors crashing closer.
“I need you to identify him!” I say, and curse how scared my voice sounds.
Masters leans his head back and laughs. “Boy, I have no fucking idea who your daddy is. Never did.”
His words echo in my mind and his laughter rings through the valley as I gallop away from the river and into the night.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies #133 Page 4