Portlandtown: A Tale of the Oregon Wyldes

by Rob DeBorde

  “This one’s got a fractured scapula, four broken ribs, and a bullet lodged in his lower back that’s going to have to come out eventually,” said the doctor, pointing over his shoulder at a bloodied and bandaged young man curled up on the cot at the back of the first cell. A second man, a relation by the looks of him, sat nearby, leaning against the bars. “The other one’s got a load of buckshot in his thigh, which I’d call very fortunate, all things considered.”

  Andre looked at the two men. Hugh raised his head long enough for Andre to read the truth on his face. The man was just as broken as his brother. Neither would follow the path that had brought them to this place. Their days on the wrong side of the law were over.

  Andre motioned to the adjacent cell. “What about him?”

  The doctor ran a hand through the few hairs remaining on his head. It had taken him nearly two days to get to the men in jail, and despite a mighty headache and almost no sleep, he’d treated them fairly and honestly. This one, however, had pushed his limits.

  “Mr. Mason has a broken shoulder,” he said. “And a broken arm, just above the elbow. He also took a round in the face that punched through the cheek and tore off most of that ear.”

  “Will he survive?”

  “Oh, yes. Won’t be much to look at, but he’ll live.”

  Andre took a step toward the cell, but the doctor held him back.

  “This one’s a bit feisty. Deputy had to hold him down while I attended his wounds. Didn’t give him anything for the pain, either. Not trying to be cruel, but I’ve got more-deserving folks up on the hill.”

  Andre nodded.

  The doctor picked up his coat and bag. “When the deputy returns, please inform him that I’ve gone back to the carnival.”

  “Of course. Thank you.”

  The doctor nodded. He paused, giving Andre and Naira a final consideration, and then walked out the front door, leaving them alone with the injured outlaws.

  Mason didn’t wait for a proper introduction.

  “You come to collect me, big boy, is that it?”

  Andre turned to see Mason standing, his right hand gripping one of the bars to keep himself from falling. Blood oozed from beneath the bandage wrapped around his head. His speech was slurred, almost wet as he spoke.

  “You one of the government’s pet slaves, boy?”

  Mason made a guttural slurping sound and tried to smile. He couldn’t hold it without a great deal of pain, however, and returned to his grimace.

  Andre stepped forward and closed his much larger hand over Mason’s, pinching it firmly against the bar. Mason hissed in pain. He tilted his head down to the man, showing the criminal exactly how big he was.

  “Mr. Mason, it would be wise to adopt an air of respect in my presence, honest or otherwise,” Andre said in a voice half an octave deeper than that he’d used when talking to the doctor. It wasn’t a trick or a push, but the effect was just as powerful. Mason tried to slip deeper into his cell but his hand wasn’t going anywhere.

  “I have some questions for you,” Andre said, tightening his grip on the outlaw’s hand. “If you answer them to my satisfaction, I will see that the good doctor finds he has enough medicine to soothe the pains of all the wounded.”

  Mason felt a fresh wave of pain sting what remained of his left cheek. He bit into the right, trying to balance the misery, but managed only to make the wound flare up even more. He did his best to ignore it.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “There were four of you—”

  Mason’s eyes lit up. “Is he dead?”

  “Who?”

  “That traitorous son of a bitch, Henry! Tell me them freaks shot him.”

  “They did not,” Andre said. “He escaped, as did his accomplice.”

  Andre felt Mason’s heart rate spike as the man tried to pull away again, forgetting he had nowhere to go.

  “Tell me about Henry,” Andre said. “Do you know his last name?”

  Mason stopped squirming. “Why would I know that?”

  “Macke,” Hugh said from the other cell. “His name was Henry Macke.”

  “That coulda been it,” Mason said. “And this was his doing, it was his plan from the beginning.”

  Mason thought he was lying, but Andre suspected it might be closer to the truth than the man knew.

  “Tell me about it,” he said.

  Mason described the aborted holdup in Astoria, Henry’s plan to go after the gun, and their excavation in the cemetery. Andre was keen to hear more about the other graves that had been disturbed, but Mason had nothing to offer.

  “Somebody else dug ’em up,” Hugh said. “I don’t know who it was. Henry knew, I think.”

  Andre thought he might know as well.

  “Did you find the gun?” Naira asked.

  Mason scowled at the woman. “Think we’d be having this conversation if I had?”

  Andre tightened his grip. He could break the man’s hand, giving Mason even more of a reason to want the doctor’s relief, but he didn’t. He was not a violent man. Instead he released his grip, freeing the outlaw.

  Mason stumbled back into the cell and sat down roughly on the cot. The shock of it nearly made him pass out, but he managed to keep his attention focused on the giant man standing before him. Mason incorrectly believed this would make the man respect him.

  “Mr. Mason, I have no desire to punish you. The county constabulary will no doubt see to that. I am, however, eager to know what you know. Please believe me when I say I will have this information with your cooperation or without.”

  Mason flexed the muscles in his hand, surprised to find them still functional. “Gun was gone, already stolen,” he said. “Didn’t want to come away empty-handed so we took the only thing in the ground of any value.”

  “Selling the dead man was your idea?”

  Mason hesitated. “Well, it was, but I don’t know … maybe it wasn’t. Mighta been Henry made me do it. He coulda used one of them tricks on me.”

  “Tricks?”

  “From that damn book,” Mason snarled, circling in on his own answer for how everything had gone so wrong. “Oh, he kept it close to him, didn’t he? Right from the start … he weren’t after no gun, it was that book he wanted all along. Used us to dig him a hole, didn’t he?”

  “You said Henry did most of the digging,” Naira said.

  Mason shot her a look. “You wasn’t there.”

  Naira grinned, eager to put the man in his place. Andre held her back with another question. “Did you ever see him read it?”

  Mason shrugged. “Once or twice.”

  “He read it all the time,” Hugh said. “When we was riding, eating, even when we was sleeping. I don’t know if he was actually awake or not. Couple times I walked right past him and he didn’t flinch, but he had that book open in the moonlight and his lips were moving.”

  “Did he understand it?”

  Hugh shook his head. “I don’t know, but he could definitely read it.”

  “Reading and understanding are two very different things,” Andre said, more for his own benefit than that of the prisoners. “Either way, your friend is in a great deal of danger.”

  “He ain’t a friend of mine,” Mason spit out. “Got that? Him and his partner is gonna pay for what they did to me.”

  Naira moved closer to the cell. “The dead man was in on it, then?”

  “Weren’t no dead man,” Mason said.

  Andre wasn’t surprised by Mason’s disbelief. In fact, he found it one of the few redeeming qualities of the man. Mason would rather have been conned by a young store clerk than be party to the resurrection of the darkest soul the West had ever known.

  “He musta worked it out with the fella before we got there,” he said. “Made him up to look like the dude, or something. It was just a con.”

  “A con,” Andre repeated before turning to Hugh. “Is that what it was?”

  “I don’t know,” Hugh said. “We dug up a
dead man in Astoria, rode with him for a few days, and sold him to the circus. If it were the same man what stepped out of that coffin Friday night, I can’t say. I hope not.”

  Andre opened his mouth to agree with the man, but an abrupt choking sound from behind caught the words in his throat. By the time he’d spun around it was over.

  Mason stood with his face pressed against the bars, his throat firmly in the grip of Naira’s left hand. With her right she held up a six-inch surgeon’s blade.

  “I believe the doctor left this behind,” she said. “Mr. Mason was kind enough to bring it to my attention.”

  Andre took the knife from Naira. There was a streak of dried blood on the blade, which no doubt belonged to a victim of the recent attacks, possibly one of the men in the jail. Andre took another look at the man curled up on the cot and then wrapped the knife in a handkerchief and dropped it into his coat pocket.

  “Gentlemen, I’ll see to it that you are given something for your pain.”

  And with that the conversation was over.

  * * *

  “I have seen enough suffering for one day,” Andre said as he and Naira descended the front steps of the jailhouse. He hoped a preemptive strike would settle the matter before Naira could question his reasoning.

  She said nothing.

  Andre unloosed the reins of his horse from a hitching post in front of the jail. “They deserve to be punished, but for their crimes, not their companions.”

  Naira smoothly climbed onto her horse and still said nothing.

  With considerably more effort, Andre pulled himself onto the saddle atop his own horse, which shifted under the added weight. Andre settled in and then stared at his friend.

  Naira held his gaze, blinked her very large eyes once, and smiled.

  Andre sighed. “You are content to let me argue with myself?”

  “You’re winning.”

  “Am I?”

  Naira raised an eyebrow in mock surprise. “You’re not sure?”

  Andre had already lost. He knew it. Fortunately, he was a stubborn man.

  “I have made my decision, Naira. We will pay the doctor a visit before heading north,” he said, then directed his horse into the street.

  Naira prodded her steed to follow. “Our destination remains Astoria?”

  “Yes,” Andre said.

  “Are we following the book or the man?”

  Andre couldn’t feel the book—not as he had before. It had chosen its new master and in doing so had closed itself off to him save for a vague sense that its pages once again had eyes upon them. It was a relief in many ways, but the lack of contact would make it much more difficult to track. Unfortunately, Andre suspected that tracking the man—and his body count—would not be a problem.

  “He is not a man,” Andre said. “Though what he is I cannot say for certain.”

  Andre knew the spell Henry would have used. Malédiction du résurrection—the curse of resurrection. Performed correctly, it would produce a being known as zombia, a powerful creature, but also a slave. Bound to its creator, it would follow his or her command while exhibiting no free will of its own. The curse was a simple one, especially if the shortened version was used, as Andre suspected. It was, in fact, a hard spell to get wrong.

  But Henry had.

  According to John, Henry had run away from his creation, a sure sign he was not the one in control. What the young man didn’t know—but likely had since discovered—was that running would get him only so far. The creature might not follow his commands, but it would follow him. It was bound to Henry as Henry was to it. In such a relationship, strength usually won out, and Andre had no illusions as to who was stronger.

  “I believe wherever the Hanged Man goes, so too will the book … and so too will Henry.”

  “Astoria.”

  “He will return to the end of his old life before he begins a new one.”

  Andre felt a cold shiver try to fight its way to the surface of his being. He pushed it down, willing it to retreat.

  “You’re convinced it’s him?”

  Andre leaned back in the saddle. “I would very much like to believe that Henry Macke had a partner who helped him set up Mason … very much, indeed.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  “No,” Andre said. “But I imagine he has a partner now.”

  17

  Kate leans over the unconscious body of her husband, tilting the bundle in her arms just enough to reveal a tiny pair of eyes.

  “That’s your daddy, Samuel. He loves you very much.”

  The baby coos and kicks sharply. Kate can’t help but smile.

  “Oh … you’re just not going to give that up, are you?”

  The boy, only days old, looks at his mother and sees her—of this Kate is sure. She has never known anything so alive.

  Joseph moans softly, stirs, but does not wake. Kate touches his arm lightly.

  It’s been ten days since the warning came, a week since Joseph rode into the mountains to face his past alone. He returned only last night, bloodied and delirious, his words unsettling and few. Joseph fought the Hanged Man—shot him, he said—but flames had taken Joseph’s sight. He left to protect his children and now would never see them.

  “I’m so sorry, my love.”

  Joseph quiets at the sound of Kate’s voice. Before the tears come again, she turns her gaze to the window. Fresh drops of rain spot the glass, too small to make a sound. She can’t see the men her father left behind, but knows they are there: three men with guns, standing guard against a monster she doubts will ever come.

  “Never should have let you go.”

  A reply comes not from her man but his daughter, whose cry starts softly, then rises to a wail.

  “I think your sister is awake,” she says to the child in her arms.

  Kate descends the steps to the first floor slowly, the pains of childbirth not yet relieved. She finds baby Madeline in the bassinette by the fire, eyes open, cheeks ruddy and moist. At the touch of her mother the cries subside, but stop completely only once the twins are side by side. Kate wonders if this is how it will always be.

  Abruptly, both children begin to cry. Even before she turns, Kate knows she is not alone.

  He stands before her, grinning, eyes wide open with the Devil’s intent. The Hanged Man has come, evading the marshal’s posse and slipping past the protection he left behind. No, not past, but through; the bloody knife in the bastard’s hand tells the truth.

  “Hello, Mrs. Wylde,” he says, scraping the blade against his pant leg before returning it to its sheath.

  Kate stands between the killer and her children. “What do you want?”

  The Hanged Man draws the coat back from his hip, revealing the red-handled revolver that has become legend. Kate feels a chill in the air despite her proximity to the fire.

  “I would speak to your man. We have business to discuss of a personal nature.”

  “You’ve come to kill him.”

  The Hanged Man moves forward, forcing Kate against the bassinette.

  “I only wish to talk,” he lies.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  His hand is around her throat before Kate can think to scream.

  “No,” he says, turning his attention to the twins. “If there is to be any killing today, I’m hopin’ it won’t be your husband who dies.”

  Kate feels the scream rise through her body but doesn’t make a sound.

  * * *

  “Kick, be careful.”

  Kate stood at the base of a ten-foot ladder, holding it as securely as possible. Above her, Kick leaned out from the top rung, straining to reach the highest level of a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf that ran the length of the storeroom.

  Kate cringed. “What did I just say, Kick?”

  Kick ignored his mother, letting his fingers dance along a series of leather-bound journals until they came to a volume with gold-stenciled letters that read, Darcy: Victoria & Beyond. He slipped a f
inger under the spine and pulled it out, letting it fall into his sister’s waiting hands below. Two seconds later he was on the floor.

  Kate could only shake her head.

  “All right,” she said. “Let’s see it.”

  Maddie handed the slightly oversize journal to her mother. It was dusty and worn but otherwise in reasonable condition. The spine creaked as Kate opened the book to the title page.

  “‘The Explorations of Captain James L. Darcy: A Journey of the North Coast of America from Victoria Strait to the Yukon Territory,’” Maddie read aloud.

  Kate flipped through the journal, revealing dozens of maps, sketches, handwritten notes, and a smattering of typeset pages. Most of the drawings were of plants, animals, and waterfalls, with which the author seemed particularly fascinated. There were also sketches of the Native peoples, their villages, canoes, and quite a few totem poles. Kate came to an image of a tall, slender pole decorated with animals. She stared at the picture for a moment, then spun on the spot and looked up.

  Situated in the back of the storeroom between two freestanding bookshelves was the storm totem. The mayor’s men had delivered it late Sunday night rather than on Monday, hoping to keep local curiosity to a minimum. The trip had been largely successful save for bottoming out on a dry patch along Stark Street. The flooded alley behind the store provided good cover to offload the large sculpture directly into the Wyldes’ storeroom.

  Tucked into the cramped space between shelves, the totem looked bigger than Kate remembered, even though at barely nine feet it would be considered small for a totem with so many figures carved into it.

  “The bear is different,” Kick said, his eyes darting from the drawing to the storm totem. “So is the wolf. And this one doesn’t have a man, or whatever that is,” he added, pointing to the figure at the base of the pole.

  “It’s a man, but you’re right, it is different. Similar, but different.” Kate handed the book to her daughter. “Add it to the collection.”