The boo how doy fighters had the long braids of their queues wrapped around their hats, always a tell-tale sign that they were on a mission of deadly intent. Seeing one of their number down, they wasted no time reaching for the pistols thrust through their sashes. As they descended the steep street to the bay they sent a barrage of lead skipping across the water. A few shots struck the longboat and more than a few buried themselves in the strakes of the ship behind them. Crow and Jing-Wei were in the shadows beneath that ship and difficult to target, however there was so much lead in the air that a chance shot might easily strike either of them.
The t'ien kou continued to snarl and spit, hesitating to plunge into the bay to pursue its prey. A tong gunman made the mistake of stepping a bit too close and it leaped, venting its spleen on the hapless boo how doy, and rending him to bloody ribbons.
Crow glanced to Jing-Wei and noticed she sat upright on the bench of the longboat, not flinching as the bullets flew around her. “Get down,” he shouted. “You'll be killed!”
“If only I should be so fortunate,” she said, but she complied as Crow timed another shot and sent a tong gunfighter spinning to the ground.
The t'ien kou was frantic to reach its prey, but it was still loathe to plunge into the churning waters. It scrambled down the wharf and leaped onto an empty barge that was listing to port. From there it leaped to a water-logged skiff, and then used its eight legs and prehensile tail to walk the mooring line of an empty steamboat. Crow saw that derelict ships were so thick upon the bay that by using this method the t'ien kou might reach them without every having to touch the water.
The boo how doy scrambled after the fiend, following its lead, leaping across mist strewn chasms between forsaken watercraft and swarming up anchor and mooring lines. Crow might have picked off a few more of them, but he took hold of the oars and began drawing upon them as fast as he could, taking them deeper into the maze of empty crafts.
The fogs grew thicker and they played cat and mouse among the towering shadows of the ship graveyard. Occasionally, the piercing cry of the t'ien kou would float through the spectral mists and though the boo how doy moved mostly in silence, they hooted strange calls to each other as they split their forces, spreading their numbers among a few of vessels so that Crow and Jing-Wei wouldn't be able to double back to the safety of shore.
Crow caught glimpses of the dark shapes of tong hatchet men lurking among the mists and several times he heard the clicking of long nails, like rain upon a canvas tent, as the t'ien kou's many legs propelled it across the bare decks of ships whose shadows they had just departed. More than once shots echoed among the maze of ships as they rowed themselves behind the safety of another hulk.
Through the sliding mists Crow read the name Euphemia on the side of a ship that was draped with trailing rigging over the side. He called softly to Jing-Wei, “Catch hold. The tong fighters have us pinned down.”
Crow abandoned his oars and the two of them clambered into the slick netting, and then the Indian shoved the longboat away with his foot, so that it sliced through the waters empty of passengers, a drifting ghost ship to divert the attention of the boo how doy. Indeed, Crow's estimation was correct, for as soon as the boat drifted from its cover of boat and shadow a volley of gunshots rang out, splintering oars and strakes. While this barrage of lead chewed at the longboat, Crow and Jing-Wei climbed over the edge of the brig.
Drawing a holdout .45 pistol from his waist Crow shoved it into Jing-Wei's hands. “If a hatchet man gets to you, shoot him with this. There's only one shot, but I'll come running.”
“And if the T'ien kou reaches me?”
“I'll see what I can do to prevent that,” said Crow.
He expected Jing-Wei to ask him just how he was planning to accomplish this but, mercifully, the question was interrupted as they heard wailing and the gnashing of teeth resonating from the decks beneath their feet. For a moment Crow thought that the ship was possessed, for he had seen such things in his life, but then he remembered a conversation with Jake Higgins about the sheriff and his lack of room for prisoners.
“It's a prison ship,” said Crow. “The prisoners are locked below. Whatever you do, don't let them persuade you to let them free. The worst of the worst are aboard this ship.” With that he glided to the mast and began mounting the tattered rigging that remained. From this vantage point he peered down through the coalescing fog. Feet firmly entrenched in the rigging, he leaned his Henry rifle against the mast and laid the bead on a shadow that moved across the deck of a nearby freighter. Crow's rifle spoke when the shadow moved into the opening.
A tong warrior cried out and fell to the deck. Crow shifted his aim and glimpsed a strange shadow detaching itself from the leaning mast of a ship to his right. It seems that Crow hadn't been the only one with the idea of gaining the vantage point of height. Still, though the tong fighter in the mast of the adjacent craft had the drop on Crow, he wasn't equipped with a rifle. The range was long enough to be difficult with a rifle; with a pistol there was little chance of hitting and the bullets went awry, lost in the fog.
Crow levered another bullet into the chamber, ejecting the spent brass of his previous shot so that it spiralled and was lost in the darkness. He heard it tinkle against the deck below and he fired. The tong warrior pitched back, but his foot was tangled in the rigging, so he hung upside down, twisting as he bled to death.
Seeing no other available targets, Crow fished ammunition from the bandolier beneath his duster and replaced his spent rounds. Crow had accounted for a third of the tong fighters, but he had been very fortunate. The Henry rifle held ten cartridges plus one in the barrel and scarcely had Crow finished reloading, the scent of lingering cordite heavy in his nostrils, when he saw a dark bulk leap from a barnacled scow to the freighter. By its size and the way that it moved, Crow realized that it could only be the t'ien kou and with an exclamation he slung the rifle over his shoulder and slid down the rigging, finally swinging to the deck.
He found Jing-Wei backed against the rail, a tong hatchet man in a slouch hat advancing upon her with a long curved knife in his hand. How Crow had missed seeing the tong fighter he didn't know, but it was possible he had been on the ship before he and Jing-Wei had even reached it. At the sound of Crow landing on the deck, the hatchet man whirled. Crow reached for his rifle, a mistake, for the tong fighter was upon him with a speed he hadn't imagined possible. He barely managed to raise his rifle and deflect the descending blow of the hatchet man's knife with the barrel.
The tong fighter raised his knife again for a blow that would take off Crow's scalp, but a shot rang out and a crimson stain spread across his blouse. He crumpled to the deck and Jing-Wei stood behind him, gun smoke curling out of the barrel of the hold-out pistol. Crow had no time to thank her for saving his life. Instead, he snatched up the curved blade from the fallen tong fighter and rushed across the deck of the brig, the shouts and curses of the imprisoned calling to him from below.
He was not a moment too soon to reach the stern of the ship, for the t'ien kou came gliding across a mooring line, eight legs and tale moving in concert, so that he performed the task with a graceful ease that belied its hulking form. Just the appearance of such a beast had blasted the minds of lesser men and even Crow felt the icy fingers of fear clawing at his heart. But he steeled himself and moved forward, laying the tong blade to the mooring line and severing the thick hempen line that was drawn taut by the weight of the fiend. The strands parted like wheat beneath the reaper's scythe and the spitting fiend went tumbling into the waters where it thrashed and wailed.
For just an instant, Crow had a hope that it might drown, but to his great chagrin he saw the legs begin to paddle and the thing moved through the lapping waters toward the Euphemia. Crow threw his Henry rifle to his shoulder and began to fire at the swimming beast. Bullets ricocheted off its sloped skull and it lurched out of the waters, gripping the strakes of the brig with its clawed paws. It pulled itself up the side of the
ship as surely as a spider on a wall, even while Crow poured a barrage of .44 bullets over the side.
When he fired the last bullet and expended the last empty brass cartridge, Crow threw aside the rifle, fully convinced that Jing-Wei's words had been true, no mortal weapon could harm the t'ien gou. Still, he was no sorcerer, how could he combat a fiend that was untouchable by bullet or blade? He didn't have long to ponder the riddle for the t'ien kou leaped the last ten feet to the rail of the Euphemia and scrabbled over the edge and onto the deck.
The glowing violet eyes of the fiend caught Crow's and he found himself unable to act or even to think. Surely a moment more of inaction would have meant that he'd have been helplessly rent to pieces beneath the plethora of the beast's claws. Something in Crow's mind broke free from the t'ien kou's mesmerizing gaze though and he struck with frantic strength, bringing the curved blade of the tong fighter down between the glowing eyes of the fiend. The tang of the blade snapped off and went spinning past Crow's head and just before the t'ien kou rushed upon him, he realized he was holding nothing but the hilt of the blade.
The fiend bowled Crow over and he was tossed and turned beneath the tread of the many feet of the t'ien kou, the claws ripping and tearing at him as it passed. For the t'ien kou had fixed his sights on Jeng-Wei who was standing next to the far rail. Apparently, the t'ien kou's lust for angelic beauty was greater than his hunger for the flesh of a holy man or gunfighter and it brushed Crow aside as if he were inconsequential as it rushed forward to savage the China girl.
Before the t'ien kou reached Jeng-Wei, Crow rolled to his feet, his clothes hanging in bloody tatters, and he reached for his eagle-butted Colt pistol as he remembered the words that she had spoken to him in the Leaning Horseshoe Stable: “It is a thing that is pure evil and it cannot be slain by earthly weapons.”
But what of an earthly weapon that was blessed by the celestial power of a living prophet? Jeng-Wei pulled herself on top of the rail, clinging to the rigging, but ready to hurl herself into the water if it would buy her just a moment of respite from the t'ien kou. Her dark hair floated like a halo about her, but terror was written on her heavenly features.
Crow fired his blessed Colt and the .45 caliber slugs tore through the thick skin of the t'ien kou. Black blood spilled out and it howled, scrabbled to a halt, and then twisted around to focus its baleful glare upon the cause of its pain. Crow took a breath, held it and aimed. He squeezed the trigger twice and extinguished one of those great glaring orbs. It lurched toward Crow, fangs snapping, and then it fell at his feet and dark ichor washed across the Indian's bare feet.
The dark gun smoke drifted slowly and Crow passed through it, still holding the blessed weapon. All along he had possessed the means to defeat the demonic fiend. If only had understood earlier, he might have escaped the scathing claws that had trampled him underfoot. He moved past the fallen t'ien kou and helped Jeng-Wei down from her perch. As he did, she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.
The sensation was akin to none that Crow had ever experienced before, but he had no time to ponder the kiss for her limbs seemed to dissolve beneath his grip, the flesh becoming insubstantial. He looked up and saw that she was fading into the night, becoming a ghost through which he could see the pale moon beyond.
“By slaying the t'ien kou you have freed me from the sorcereries binding me to it,” said Jeng Wei. She read the confused expression on Crow's face. “Surely, you knew that I was something more than merely mortal?”
“You knew my name before I gave it to you,” said Crow. “But I didn't know if you were a lure sent by my enemies or if you possessed some powers beyond my understanding.”
“I am of the Hsien, the immortal race that sucks the wind and drinks the dew. I mount on clouds and vapor and rove beyond the seven seas. It was my purity that was bound to the evil of the t'ien kou and kept us both locked in mortal form and subject to its depredations and pain, though neither of us could be truly slain by a weapon that did not possess some supernal power.”
“The Hsien?” voiced Crow. “You said that was your surname...”
“The Hsein are known as the feathered folk, young mortal.”
“But you have no feathers.” Then even as Crow spoke he saw great wings unfurling from between her shoulders, and her skin shone like the frost reflecting the morning sun's rays, her robe fluttered as pennants in the wind and she sailed into the sky.
“Farewell, Crow. Seek your hunted man among the mines of the far terraces; he is still alive but not well. And seek true love in the chill wastelands of the North.”
“And what of your professions of love?” called Crow.
“I thought to make the best of my mortal form,” replied Jeng-Wei, her words carried on the mists. “But now I am freed, and no earthbound man can claim a hsien as a mate. I go where the breeze and misty vapors take me. Look for me only in your dreams.” Then she was gone from Crow's vision and hearing.
Stunned, he wandered past the horrible form of slain t'sien kou and recovered his rifle. Mechanically, he began reloading the gun, counting out ten bullets, and another for the barrel. A shot exploded from a pistol in the mist, casting splinters from the great mast, and Crow sighed. By his estimation there were seven tong fighters left. It was going to be a long night.
In doing research for this tale I discovered what a wicked and dangerous place gold rush era San Francisco was reputed to be. Originally it was a maze of tents, slab shacks and shanties and a few actual buildings that exploded into existence over night. Criminals of every stripe thronged to San Francisco and everything about it was designed to remove the hapless sailor or gold hunter from his money—by means fair or foul. Many different criminal elements vied for a piece of the pie, and there was no shortage of criminals.
Convicts from the penal colonies in New South Wales and the island of Tasmania, then known as Van Diemen's Land, swarmed to California and took up residence in a part of San Francisco that became known as Sydney Town. This part of the city was so feared that the police didn't dare enter it and the inhabitants were left to practice their criminal ways with impunity. If one of their number did happen to be arrested for theft or murder they usually didn't stay in prison for long, for a friend would pay off a city official and his release would be arranged.
Finally, the more upstanding residents of San Francisco had their fill and they formed a Vigilance Committee—a concerned group of citizens that took the law into their own hands and made sure that criminals and murderers were punished. This usually meant that they ended up swinging from the gallows. This Vigilance Committee so terrified the residents of Sydney town that they left in droves—looking for greener pastures to practice their criminal skills.
In a place teeming with such mischief trouble was bound to find Lone Crow...
Joel Jenkins lives in the heron-haunted hills of the Great Northwest with his lovely wife and numerous children. He is the author of the sword and sci-fi Dire Planet series, the noir horror novel Devil Take the Hindmost, the dark fantasy Tales from the City of Bathos novels, the thriller Nuclear Suitcase, and the children's book The Pirates of Mirror Land. He is not nearly as good with a tomahawk as Lone Crow.
The Enterprising Necromancer
by
Henrik Ramsager
It was half past eight in the morning, and Elijah Potbury was already hard at work in his office. His was a fairly new establishment located directly opposite the town’s oldest and most well-respected bordello. Business had been good for him lately – so much so that he was giving serious consideration to taking on an assistant to handle the more mundane tasks. Business had also been so good that he could ill afford having missed the previous two weeks while bed-ridden with an illness.
Mr. Potbury had a taste for fine clothes and fine living and, for the last year, the money to indulge these tastes. This morning found him dressed in a four-fingered silk tie, a homespun shirt and a vest lined with a black-wool back. Affixed to his arm was a silk arm garter
.
Just as the clock on the wall struck the half hour, Mr. Potbury heard someone step through the gap in the railing outside his office door. A rustling of petticoat folds on the plank sidewalk came to his ears.
Whoever the female caller was hesitated a moment before proceeding. With her mind apparently now made up, the caller gave a subtle knock to the doorframe.
“Door’s open,” said Mr. Potbury in a welcoming tone.
At this, an attractive young woman strolled into the office, bringing with her the scent of the latest Paris perfume brought in by stage just three days before.
“Ah, Miss Abigail,” said Mr. Potbury, his eyes alighting for a moment on the contours of her well-designed figure as he rose to greet her. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, and so soon.”
With a flourish of the hand, Miss Abigail folded her lace parasol and smiled a becoming smile.
“The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Potbury,” she said, as aware as Mr. Potbury that the advantage in pleasure was, in reality, strictly his.
Miss Abigail extended her hand to the eager lips of the proprietor, who bent forward as he took her hand.
“Oh!” exclaimed Miss Abigail. “Your skin is as cold as ice today, Mr. Potbury. Perhaps you still suffer from that illness of yours.”
“Not at all,” corrected Mr. Potbury. “I’m completely over that now. This coldness is something else – merely the result of poor circulation on a cold morning.”
“I’m certainly relieved to hear you’re over your affliction, Mr. Potbury. Why, it was just last week I heard talk of your not lasting through the weekend – and yet here you are.”
“Tut,” smiled Mr. Potbury. “It’ll take more than a little fever to make me cash in my chips. If I could survive five months on the Oregon Trail as a nameless young boll weevil, I’m sure I can survive a mild affliction such as that.
“Now – what can I do for you, Miss Abigail?” he said, showing her to a chair facing his desk. He then strode to the other side and retook his own seat opposite his visitor.
Six Guns Straight From Hell - Tales Of Horror And Dark Fantasy From The Weird Weird West Page 18