by Mark Anthony
“That you did, Mr. Gentry,” said the mustachioed man, the one with the sallow face. He lifted a thin cigar to his lips and took a long puff.
“I thought for sure I did,” the one called Gentry said in a melodious drawl. “I suppose these two don’t look all that peculiar.” He nodded at Travis and Durge. “Though the tall one’s a mite on the pale side—must be he’s fresh from the East. And the short one has a perilous look about him. I know a man-killer when I see one, and I’d say by the look in his eyes he’s taken a life before, maybe more than just one.”
Travis could see muscles bulge along Durge’s jaw. Next to him, Lirith pressed close to Sareth. Was she speaking to him with a spell? Travis wanted to say something, anything, but his tongue had bonded to the roof of his mouth.
Gentry moved toward Sareth and Lirith. “Now these two, Mr. Ellis, Mr. Murray, they stood out right away. We don’t see too many Negresses in this town, and the only ones I know of can be found for a dime a dance down at Morgan’s Variety. But you ain’t dressed like a hurdy-gurdy girl, though I reckon you’re more than pretty enough to be one.”
Anger flashed in Sareth’s eyes. He started to speak, but Gentry was faster.
“And you,” he said, his voice growing hard, “you’re the one that really troubles me. When I seen you, I thunk to myself, ‘Lionel Gentry, what in tarnation would a good man be doing with a peg leg?’ And then the answer came, ‘Well now, a good man wouldn’t have a peg leg. Them are for pirates and the like.’ And then I thunk, even without a peg leg, you’re an odd fellow. You don’t quite look like a Mexican, and you sure ain’t an Indian. So just what are you, boy?”
“He’s a gypsy,” Travis blurted out before Sareth could speak. He didn’t want Gentry to start asking what a Mournish was.
Gentry’s eyes narrowed to icy slits. “A gypsy? Well now, seems I was right about you. I’ve heard your kind are nothing but a lot of liars, thieves, and murderers. That’s why you’re always a-wandering.”
Motion caught Travis’s eye. He could see Lirith’s fingers moving at her sides. Was she trying to weave a spell? Maybe, but didn’t she need to close her eyes to concentrate?
What about you, Travis. Why don’t you speak a rune?
Only what rune could he speak without killing them all? This town was practically made of kindling; speaking Krond would burn it to the ground. What about Meleq then, the rune of wood? Could he make the planks of the boardwalk obey his commands? He had done something similar once with Sar, the rune of stone—forging shackles from a stone wall to bind an ironheart who tried to kill him in Calavere.
And what would Meleq do to Sareth’s leg, Travis? And all the shops around us, and the people in them?
Durge started to reach again for his greatsword, then forced his hand down.
The man called Ellis let out another puff of smoke. “What does that one there have on his back?” He pointed with his cigar at Durge.
“That’s right,” said the young one, Murray. “I keep seeing him reach for it, like it’s important to him.”
Gentry stood in front of Durge. “What do you have wrapped up in there, mister? A shotgun, maybe?”
Durge’s brown eyes were grim. “It does not concern you.”
At this, Gentry let out a soft laugh. “On the contrary, everything in this town concerns me. And right now, that includes you and your friends here. You see, this ain’t like some places you might have been. We believe in law and order here in Castle City. Good folk live here, peaceable folk. We’ve got no place for bummers or bilks or shootists. Or gypsies. Those types better learn to behave themselves. Or better yet, they should just get on out of town.” He touched the grip of his holstered gun. “You see, around here, bad things have a tendency to happen to bad folk.”
Travis tried to swallow the dusty lump in his throat. They couldn’t leave town. Not yet. They had to wait for Jack to come. Jack was the only one who could help them get back to where they belonged.
“I think they get your meaning, Mr. Gentry,” Ellis said, his lip curling in a smile. He took one last drag on his cigar, then poised his fingers to flick away the butt.
Lirith’s fingers froze. “I wouldn’t do that.” Her gaze flickered down to the boardwalk.
Travis looked down and saw the wet stains seeping across the wood planks.
Ellis’s visage darkened. “I won’t have the likes of you telling me what to do, miss.” He flicked the butt from his finger, and the glowing stump of the cigar hit the boardwalk.
Blue flames roared upward.
Travis, Lirith, Durge, and Sareth had already taken a big step back; even without a magical communication from Lirith, each had known what was going to happen. Not so the others. Murray scrambled back, kicking out the flames dancing on the toes of his boots. Ellis stared, mouth gaping. Gentry grabbed his arm, jerking him away from the fire.
“You idiot,” he snarled. “You know Doc Wetterly’s stuff is just about strong as kerosene. Now help me get this fire out.”
He took off his coat and started beating at the flames. Ellis and Murray did the same. However, the dry, weathered wood had been soaked with the alcohol from the broken bottles of patent medicine. The flames raced along the boardwalk. Shouts rang out up and down Elk Street.
“Sareth!” Lirith shouted. “Water!” She pointed to a rain barrel a few paces away, near the entrance to an alley. As one, Sareth and Durge lunged for it.
Yes. That was what they needed. Water. Travis reached into his pocket and touched the Stone of Twilight. Just as Durge and Sareth tipped the barrel, Travis whispered a word.
“Sharn.”
The rain barrel was only half-full. A thin sheet of water poured forth and struck the flames, but it wasn’t nearly enough. It should have evaporated in an instant.
It didn’t. Suddenly, more water than a single barrel could possibly have held flooded the boardwalk, washing over the tops of their boots, quenching the flames in a cloud of hissing steam. By the time the steam began to clear, the fire was out, and the water had run off the boardwalk, where it was drunk by the thirsty dirt of Elk Street. Murray and Ellis stamped the water from their boots; the cuffs of their pants were sopping.
“What the hell?” Gentry said, gazing at the barrel. “That just ain’t possible.”
He looked up, and his blue eyes narrowed as they locked on Travis. Travis opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Gentry lunged forward and grabbed the neck of Travis’s shirt.
“Let him go, Mr. Gentry,” said a deep voice.
Both Gentry and Travis froze as a man stepped through one last curl of steam.
He wasn’t a big man, no taller than Durge and slight of build. His face was plain, largely lost behind a sandy mustache, and his eyes were a watery color beneath the brim of his gray hat. All the same, there was something about the way the man stood that lent him an air of gravity. He wore a navy blue suit similar to those the other men wore. The suit was free of dust, but somewhat threadbare and frayed at the cuffs.
Gentry didn’t move; he still gripped Travis’s shirt. It was getting hard to breathe.
“I said let him go.”
Gentry released Travis and took a step back, his smooth face bearing no trace of expression.
“You don’t understand,” Murray said, stepping forward. “They’re a bunch of bummers, Sheriff Tanner.”
Only as Murray spoke did Travis finally see the polished silver badge pinned to the breast of the newcomer’s suit.
“Is that so, Calvin Murray?” Sheriff Tanner let out a quiet laugh that was somehow more damning than the sharpest reproach. “Of course, it looks to me like they just kept the whole town from burning down. Pretty good for a lot of bummers, wouldn’t you say?”
Murray hung his head, his cheeks as red as his whiskers.
The sheriff took a step forward. “What I’m curious about is how this fire got started in the first place.” He eyed the broken medicine bottles on the boardwalk, then kicked something with the toe
of his boot. It was the charred stump of a thin cigar. “Well now, I’d say that looks like your brand, Eugene Ellis. You know, you shouldn’t throw your live butts down on this old boardwalk. It’s dry as tinder.”
Ellis gave the sheriff a sour look, then bent down, snatched up the cigar butt, and turned away.
Travis cast a glance at Durge, Lirith, and Sareth, but all of them were watching the sheriff. Tanner took another step toward Gentry, so that only five paces separated the men. Gentry’s hand rested near his right hip. In what seemed a completely casual gesture, Tanner brushed back the front of his jacket, revealing a gleaming revolver.
“Why don’t you just move along and get you and your boys a shot of whiskey, Lionel Gentry?” Tanner said. “It’ll steady your nerves.”
Now an expression did touch Gentry’s face: a grin as curved and cutting as a bowie knife. “I don’t think I’m the one who needs steadying, Sheriff.”
Hovering an inch above the grip of his gun, Tanner’s hand vibrated with a resonance too rapid to be voluntary.
The sheriff let his jacket fall back, concealing the gun, and balled his right hand into a fist. “I said move along, Gentry.”
Gentry nodded, still grinning. “C’mon, boys. You heard the sheriff. It’s time for a drink.”
The three men started down the boardwalk, sooty coats slung over their shoulders. After a few paces, Gentry cast a glance back, only it wasn’t the sheriff he looked at. Instead, his icy gaze fell on Sareth. Then the trio stepped through a pair of swinging doors, vanishing into the dimness of a saloon.
“Are you folks all right?”
The sheriff was eyeing them, although not with an air of suspicion like Gentry and his cronies. Instead, his watery eyes were curious.
“We’re fine,” Travis said, letting out a breath of relief. “Thanks for your help, Sheriff.”
“No problem, mister. Men like Lionel Gentry want to think they’re in charge here in Castle City.” He blew a breath through his mustache. “I’m afraid it’s my job to keep reminding them otherwise.”
Durge nodded. “A sheriff is a kind of knight, then.”
Tanner tipped up the brim of his hat. “You haven’t been reading dime novels, have you, mister? If so, don’t believe a thing you’ve seen in them. There isn’t anything romantic about being a sheriff in the West. It’s a dull and dirty job, and not one I asked for.”
“Then why are you sheriff?” Lirith asked.
Tanner laughed. “That’s a story in itself, ma’am. Although nothing so entertaining as you’ll read in one of your pal’s dime novels.”
Sareth frowned. “What are these ‘dime novels’ you keep speaking of?”
“Please forgive my friends,” Travis said hastily. “We’re not from around here.”
Tanner let out a whistle. “That’s for sure. Castle City’s gotten too big for me to know everyone in town, but I could tell in a second you’re not locals. There’s something different about all of you, though I can’t quite put my finger on it. What parts do you hail from?”
“Back East,” Travis said, hoping that was both vague and specific enough.
“You got a place to stay in town?”
The four were silent.
“Thought as much,” Tanner said. “Well, you won’t find anyplace to stay here on Elk Street.” He cast a sidelong glance at Lirith. “But there’s a boardinghouse two blocks over, on Grant Street, called the Bluebell. I know the woman who runs it. She’s a good gal, despite what some folks might say. Tell her I sent you, and she’ll fix you up with a couple of rooms.”
Travis gave him a grateful smile. How old was the sheriff? It was hard to tell. He didn’t look any older than Travis; all the same, there was an air of weariness about him, frayed at the edges just like his suit.
Lirith stepped forward and took the sheriff’s right hand, pressing it between her own. “Thank you,” she said, gazing at him with dark eyes.
“You’re welcome, ma’am. Now go on over to the Bluebell, and get yourself off of this dusty street.”
Gentle as the words were, their intent was clear: Eyes still watched, and the sheriff wanted this show over. He tipped his hat, and the four headed down the boardwalk, which in moments was crowded once more.
They didn’t speak until they reached Grant Street. It was narrower than Elk Street, and not a fraction as crowded, although it was just as dusty.
“That was close,” Travis said with a sigh.
“I have met men such as this Gentry before,” Durge said in his rumbling voice. “They are bored and dangerous, and they are not merely simple brigands. We should take care not to run into him again, else I will have to unwrap my sword.”
Travis tried to imagine the public reaction to Durge wielding his Embarran greatsword in the middle of Elk Street. “Let’s stick to the not-running-into-them-again option.”
“Why did that one hate me so much?” Sareth said, shaking his head. “Was it really because of my leg?”
Travis laid a hand on the Mournish man’s shoulder. “Men like that don’t need a reason, Sareth. They just pick someone out of a crowd and decide that’s someone they don’t like, and nothing will change their minds.”
Sareth nodded, but his expression remained somber.
“The Sheriff Tanner,” Lirith murmured. “There’s something wrong with him. You saw the way his hand shook, didn’t you? When I took it in my own, I tried to sense what was the matter. I did feel something inside of him, almost like a shadow, but there wasn’t enough time for me to tell what it was.”
Travis knew it could be almost anything. There had been countless diseases to die of in the Old West—tuberculosis, smallpox, cholera, dysentery.
“Come on,” he said. “I think I see the sign for the Bluebell just up ahead.”
The Bluebell was the largest house on its block of Grant Street—a three-story Victorian with a full dozen cupolas and a wrought-iron widow’s walk topping its roof. In all, it seemed a little grand for a boardinghouse. Had Tanner overestimated their ability to pay? Then, as they drew closer, Travis saw the peeling gray clapboards, the sagging shutters, and the witch-grass tangling its way through the lattice beneath the front porch.
They headed up creaking steps to the front door and found a scattering of cats lounging in stray sunbeams or perched on the porch railing. All of them looked well fed. Lirith stopped to pick up a little calico. She held the cat to her cheek, and it let out the tiniest mew Travis had ever heard.
The front door opened with the sound of chimes.
“Watch out for Guenivere there, miss,” said a woman’s voice, rich and smoky as whiskey. “I think she’s got a bum paw.”
Lirith didn’t look up from the kitten. “Yes, she does. I think she’s gotten a thorn.”
“Does she now? I thought I had checked.”
“You can’t see it—it’s worked down between the pads.”
A low laugh, and a jangling sound Travis couldn’t place. “Well, bring her on in, then. And don’t forget your menfolk. You must be a lucky lady to have three such likely-looking gents in tow.”
The door opened wider.
Lirith laughed and, still holding the kitten, stepped through the door. Blushing, the three men followed.
They moved through a small foyer and entered a parlor. The walls were papered with a crimson fleur-de-lis pattern, although the wallpaper was faded and water-stained. A threadbare Persian rug covered a scuffed wood floor, and lace curtains, darkened to ivory by the sun and soft with dust, draped the windows. Just like the exterior, the parlor seemed oddly fine for a boardinghouse, yet worn as well, as if everything had been used far too heavily in its short time.
Travis could have said the same thing about the woman who stood in the center of the room. She couldn’t have been older than Grace—in her early thirties—and there was a fineness to the oval of her face. However, she was every bit as faded as her green-velvet dress. She made Travis think of a portrait of a young woman left too long in
a dusty attic, so that the painted hues—the yellow of her hair, the blue of her large eyes, the pink of her cheeks—were all muted with gray.
“I suppose you all need rooms,” the woman said, her voice like smoke—but not harsh and acrid. More like the heady smoke of cherry tobacco. “Do you have references?”
Travis glanced at the others, then swallowed. “Sheriff Tanner told us to tell you—”
She held up a hand. “Stop right there. If Bart sent you, that’s good enough for me. Now, on to more important matters— Miss Guenivere’s paw.”
The woman moved to Lirith. As she did, Travis heard again the metallic jingling sound. She stopped beside the witch, and only as she propped a polished mahogany cane against a battered horsehair sofa did he realize she had been using it to walk. The two woman sat on the sofa, cooed over the cat, and in a minute the offending thorn was plucked free. The patient was placed on a pillow, where it curled up, licking its paw.
Leaning on her cane, the woman stood. This action seemed to take the wind out of her. Lirith hurriedly stood beside her, but the woman gave her a warm smile.
“Now,” she said, still a bit breathless, “let’s see to your rooms. Since you were so kind to Miss Guenivere, I’ll give you a good rate—a dollar a day for room and board for each of you.” She gave them an appraising look. “You can pay, can’t you?”
Travis gave a quick nod and started to reach into his pocket for their last twenty dollars.
She laughed. “Not now, partner. All I need is your names. I’ll sign them in the ledger for you, if you can’t write them yourselves.”
Travis took the job of dipping a steel-tipped pen in an ink pot and writing their names in the book that lay open on a small marble table. He wasn’t sure he was the best choice, but he didn’t know if the coin pieces would let the others write in English. However, some magic seemed to be at work, for as he put down the pen, the names didn’t look as he had intended, and it wasn’t because of reversed letters.
The woman picked up the book. She smiled and glanced up at Lirith. “Lily. Now that’s a pretty name for a pretty gal. And let’s see if I can guess these others right.” She pointed at Durge, Sareth, and Travis in turn. “That’s Dirk, that’s Samson, and that would have to be Travis.”