Of Grave Concern

by Max McCoy

  “What about this permit?”

  “The permit,” he said, opening his eyes.

  “I’m sure Mister Potete can take care of that.”

  “No,” he said, still chewing. “This is not that kind of permit.”

  “You mean, it’s not a legal permit. It’s a ‘shakedown,’ or whatever you’d like to call it.”

  “I call it ‘the cost of doing business,’” Deger said, then swallowed. “And it seemed like business was pretty good at the opera house the other night. I reckon about fifty dollars would make us square.”

  “For the whole week or just last night?”

  “Just last night.”

  I took fifty dollars in banknotes and put them on the table.

  “I expect that I’m also buying some protection for this.”

  “You’ll have no trouble from me,” Deger said, scooping up the bills.

  “Partners, then.”

  “If you like to call it that.”

  “I do ask one small favor in return.”

  He looked at me with his bulldog eyes.

  “If a man by the name of Armbruster comes inquiring after me, you are to get me word quickly and quietly. No, don’t ask—better you don’t know. But you’ll remember the name, right?”

  “I’ll remember,” Deger said.

  Then there was the sound of dogs yapping and through the legs of the cowboys ran a trio of coonhounds, followed by a small man in white britches and high hunting boots. And when I say “small,” I mean small. He must not have been more than five-two, even in the boots, and his overall impression was that of a child playing dress-up.

  Beside the small fellow was a full-sized man with a humorless expression. His hands were clasped in front of him.

  “Mayor,” Deger said with ice in his voice.

  “Marshal,” the small man answered with equal venom.

  The hounds were creating general chaos underfoot.

  “I’ve got to go,” Deger said, rising from the chair.

  “Don’t you like dogs?” I asked.

  “Not all of ’em,” Deger said over his shoulder as he huffed away.

  “James Kelley,” the small man said, extending his hand to me. “But most folks around here call me ‘Dog.’”

  When I clasped his hand, he bent down and kissed the back of mine.

  I tried to keep from laughing.

  “This here is Hoodoo Brown,” Kelley said, motioning to the dour man.

  “The same Hoodoo Brown I’ve read about in the local paper?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Where’d you get that curious handle of ‘Hoodoo’?”

  “It’s jes’ my name.”

  “Mister Brown is a mite bashful about his powers,” Kelley said. “But he is one of the finest conjure men there is. He grew up in Missouri and learned it from his old uncle Ben, who taught him to use the Good Book to cast spells. Some say that his skill with a long gun comes from a certain passage in Genesis.”

  “Hesh up, Dog.”

  “We’re here to talk to you about the ghost of the murdered girl,” Kelley said.

  “Sit down, gentlemen,” I said.

  They did.

  “We’d like to know if you’d come out and talk to the ghost tonight,” Kelley said. “You know, ask her what her name is and what she wants.”

  “Get right to the point, in other words.”

  “That’s it exactly,” Dog said. “What a mystery! It’s been driving me mad.”

  “Oh, I’m sure it’s not the only thing,” I said, pushing one of the coondogs off my lap. “Hoodoo, is the account in the paper true? You saw the apparition?”

  “I did,” he said.

  “Blonde hair? Taffeta dress?”

  “Not taffeta,” he said. “Nothing so fancy. Calico.”

  “Ah, yes,” I said. “And the strange light?”

  “It was not as the Times described it,” he said. “It wasn’t a spotlight. It was more of a soft bluish glow, like very bright moonlight. The whole affair has upset my digestion and disturbed my sleep.”

  “Ghosts tend to have that effect,” I said.

  “I’d like to be able to eat without distress, and to sleep the night again,” he said.

  “Understandable,” I said.

  “So you will challenge the specter?”

  “Gentlemen,” I said. “I’ve had some experience in these affairs, as you might imagine. I must warn you that confronting the ghost might not have the hoped-for result. Something a bit gentler might produce a more beneficial result.”

  “‘Gentler’?” Brown asked.

  “A séance,” Kelley said.

  I nodded.

  “When?” Brown asked.

  “Tomorrow night,” I said. “I have an engagement at the opera house, but there will be time after. Please call upon me at the Dodge House just before midnight.”

  “Delighted,” Kelley said.

  “There will be some small charge for my services.”

  “Only fair,” Kelley said. “Because this is a matter of civic interest, I will take the funds from petty cash. How much should I bring?”

  “Fifty dollars. Now, if I might ask a question.”

  “You may ask me anything,” Kelley said.

  “Why is there an empty grave up on Boot Hill?”

  “Two weeks ago, we buried a ranger by the name of Powers, who was shot to death in a dance hall on the south side,” he said. “We didn’t know anything about him except his name. But his people in Ellsworth read about his demise and came, dug him up, and threw him in a wagon to take home to the family plot.”

  “And they left a shovel and an open grave?”

  The little mayor shrugged.

  “I believe it was meant as a sort of editorial comment on our city,” he said. “And I must admit, we have seen more than our share of violent death. In the first year alone, fifteen men killed on the streets of Dodge or in her dance halls and saloons. We have been described by the Eastern papers as ‘the most wicked town in the West.’ Now, these fainthearted editors mean that as a criticism, but I take it as a compliment. Find something you’re good at, I always say, and stick with it.”

  They left, and the dogs followed.

  I had one more mezcal.

  When I stood, the floor of the Saratoga seemed tilted at a crazy angle. But I threaded my way through the clot of cowboys to the outside, even if my legs seemed a bit heavy.

  It was a cool night, heavy with the smell of rain. Overhead, a layer of clouds hid the stars. Far beyond town, a coyote howled. Or was it a wolf?

  I took the cigar from my pocket and bit off one end. Then I jammed the Key West in the corner of my mouth. A passing cowboy paused, struck a match with his thumb, then cupped his hands around the flame. I pulled Diamond Jim’s letter from my vest and held it to the cowboy’s match, setting one corner on fire.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I waited until the letter was fully ablaze before using it to light the cigar.

  20

  I woke just before noon in my bed at the Dodge House, with my head throbbing like somebody had beaten me over the head with a shovel. My hair stank of cigar smoke and my mouth tasted like the floor of the Saratoga.

  “Oh, Eddie,” I moaned, sitting up and resting my forehead on my knees. “What have I done?”

  “‘Nevermore!’”

  “Never,” I vowed. “I’m never drinking again.”

  Then I remembered I had a performance that night, to be followed by a séance with some less-than-charming Dodge City types, and I threw myself back on the pillows.

  I thought I saw Horrible Hank leering at me from the mirror on the wall.

  “Perfect,” I said. “Join the party.”

  I forced myself to pull on some clothes, stumble downstairs, and walk down Front Street in search of a chemist. On my way, I passed Beatty & Kelley Restaurant, and just the smell of the bacon and fried eggs nearly brought me to my knees. I found the City Drug, on t
he west side of the Saratoga.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m in distress,” I said, leaning against the counter.

  “Well, come on over here and sit down before you fall over,” a man of about thirty with thick spectacles and a halo of sandy hair said. He helped me to a padded chair near the back.

  He placed a hand on my stomach. “How far along are you?”

  I swatted his hand away. “I’m not with child! I’m hungover.”

  “Apologies,” the man said. “But when most women say they are ‘in distress,’ it typically means they are pregnant.”

  “I’m not most women,” I said. “Just tell me what you have to relieve the pounding in my head.”

  “What kind of pounding?” he asked, placing a hand on my temple and tilting my head back to peer into my pupils. “Did you fall, or were you beaten, or did you indulge in too many spirits?”

  I again brushed his hand away. “What is wrong with you?”

  “I’m a doctor.”

  “Well, I don’t like to be touched. Restrain yourself.”

  “As you wish.”

  “Are you a real doctor or a conjure man or just another frontier quack?”

  “Pain makes people unpleasant, doesn’t it?” He was still smiling. “Oh, I reckon I’m a real-enough doctor for Dodge. I studied in Philadelphia, then practiced in St. Louis for a couple of years. Was on my way to Denver when I stopped over in Dodge City to see my brother-in-law and have been here ever since. There was a need, you know.”

  “So you get what Boot Hill doesn’t?”

  “I’d rather think it is the other way around. I do as much as is humanly possible, but sometimes there’s no way to keep body and spirit together,” he said. “I’ve set broken bones, healed burns, and mined more than my share of lead from the slow and the unlucky.”

  He said his name was Thomas McCarty. He moved behind the counter and studied his shelves of bottles and boxes.

  “I wouldn’t argue,” I said. “But there’s something else.”

  He looked at me with raised eyebrows.

  “I’m not myself,” I said. “I’m doing things I wouldn’t do otherwise. This drinking binge, for instance. Never done that before.”

  “Always a first time.”

  “I hope it is the only time.”

  “Now, the old-timers say the best cure for the common hangover is to brew up some tea using rabbit pellets,” Doc McCarty said, lifting his glasses so he could read the label on a small tin he had taken from the shelf. “You could try some rabbit-drop tea, if you like.”

  “The thought makes me want to hurt you.”

  “Here, I have something that will relieve the headache,” McCarty said. “Don’t worry, this won’t turn you into a hoppie or a laudanum whore. It’s a powder that is mostly caffeine.”

  “Why not just drink coffee?”

  “Because you’d have to drink a whole pot of it,” he said. “Dissolve a teaspoon of this in a glass of water and drink it down. Then drink three or four more glasses of water after that, because part of the pain of a hangover is dehydration.”

  “What irony.”

  Doc McCarty got a glass and filled it with water from a pitcher behind the counter.

  “I’d avoid the water at most of these joints along Front Street,” he said as he spooned the powder into the glass, then mixed it vigorously. “Mostly, they go down to the Arkansas River and fill their buckets. Problem is, there are a few thousand longhorns in the fields around us. When these beasts eliminate, their product trickles into the river.”

  He handed me the glass. “This water comes from my rain barrel out back.”

  I muttered my thanks. Then I drank down half the glass.

  Then Doc McCarty fetched a bottle of bourbon from a cabinet, walked over, and uncorked it.

  “You can’t be serious,” I said, covering the glass with my hand. “Just the smell of it makes me want to retch.”

  “Just an ounce or two,” he said. “You’re suffering alcohol withdrawal. A bit will ease the pain.”

  I moved my hand.

  “So much for never.”

  He poured a shot into the water, turning it the color of weak tea. “You’re that woman, aren’t you?”

  “What woman?”

  “Professor Wylde, the medium.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, drinking the watered-down bourbon.

  “I would be interested in doing an investigation of your powers.”

  “No thanks,” I said. “I’ve been subjected to enough at the hands of educated men. They have done things to me during séances that wouldn’t have been allowed during the Inquisition.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It begins simply enough, with the doctors wanting to hold your hands to make sure that you’re not manipulating objects. Then it progresses to the binding of both the hands and the feet, and of the legs. Sometimes they will tie your hands behind your back and then run a cord from that to your ankles. And then there are the searches, being required to shed every piece of clothing to assure them that you’re not hiding some apparatus for making fraud inside your bloomers, and then they want to examine your mouth and other orifices. Finally you are put in stocks, or your entire body is locked inside a box with holes for just your hands, and barely enough room to breathe.”

  “Sounds unpleasant,” Doc McCarty said.

  “That’s like calling an iron maiden uncomfortable,” I said. “The medical doctors will never accept communication with the dead, even if Jesus Christ appeared before them Himself and told them what Ben Franklin had for lunch in Summerland and where Captain Kidd hid all the loot.”

  Doc McCarty smiled.

  “Well, I wasn’t planning to bring out the thumbscrews,” he said. “I’m just curious, that’s all. I’ve seen enough to know there are more things in heaven and earth—people surviving wounds that should have killed them, prayer making a difference, folks coming back from being a few minutes dead and talking about bright lights and dead relatives.”

  “You sound like a regular sky pilot, Doc.”

  “Faith is not unusual,” he said. “It’s the natural condition of man. But it’s curious that a woman who professes to demonstrate spirit communication seems skeptical of religious faith. Don’t you believe, Miss Wylde?”

  “I believed in a lot of things, Doc,” I said, “when I was a child. But now, I have given up childish things.”

  “That’s good,” he said. “Using the Bible to support your disbelief. Clever.”

  “Glad you liked it,” I said.

  “But clever never eased an aching heart.”

  “You’re selling clever short, Doc.” I handed him the empty glass. “You’re onto something with this headache powder and bourbon cure,” I said. “You could patent it and make a fortune. I can almost hear myself think again.”

  The front door opened with a bang.

  Jack Calder backed into the drugstore, carrying a man by the legs, two dusty cowboy boots sticking out beneath each elbow. Tom the Jailer, had the other half, and between them was a thin orso covered in blood. The man’s head bobbed limply against Tom’s stomach.

  “Over here,” Doc McCarty said as he cleared a table of a coal oil lamp and a few books. The body was deposited on the table, and Doc McCarty ripped open the bloody shirt.

  There was a ragged hole in the man’s chest, about the diameter of a coffee can. The edges of the skin were blackened, and, deep inside, I could see white splinters of his sternum—and beneath that, his beating heart.

  Doc splattered whiskey over his hands, handed off the bottle, and rubbed them together with vigor. Then he plunged both hands into the wound, attempting to stop the bleeding.

  The stricken man’s eyes shot open and he uttered a terrible gasp.

  I realized the man was the bullwhacker whom I had seen with the freight caravan during my first day in Dodge.

  “What happened?” Doc asked.

  “Don’t know,” Ca
lder said. “Found him like this on the south bank of the Arkansas River.”

  “Get her out of here,” Doc snapped.

  “Let me stay,” I said. “I recognize the man.”

  “What do you want us to do, Doc?” Calder asked.

  “I—I don’t know,” Doc McCarty stammered. “I’ve never seen a wound like this. It’s as if he was shot in the chest with a mountain howitzer, but there’s no ball or shot or any fragments.”

  The bullwhacker turned his head. His eyes rolled, and a stream of blood poured from the corner of his mouth to puddle on the floor. There was a hollow rush of air as his lungs emptied.

  “He’s gone,” Doc said.

  “No more chipped beef for him,” Tom said.

  “Show some respect,” Doc said. “Take off your hat, at least.”

  Doc slowly removed his hands from the man’s chest. As he did, he drew out a sliver of something that looked like glass. In bloody fingers, Doc held the shard up to the light to get a better look at it.

  Red and black swirled and coiled.

  “It looks like a chip from a shattered marble,” Doc said.

  Then the piece evaporated, leaving Doc holding nothing.

  A shiver ran down my spine as I remembered Malleus and his leather bag and the violet-and-yellow-and-blue marble he had plucked from the mud after knocking the wind from me.

  “What was that?” Tom the Jailer asked.

  “Never saw anything like it,” Doc said.

  “It was a splintered aura,” I said.

  “What?” Calder asked.

  “An aura is a shadow your soul casts,” I said. “But that one wasn’t his. It was somebody else’s. It was somehow shot into his chest, like a bullet, where it exploded.”

  “That’s the craziest thing I ever heard,” Calder said.

  “You said you knew this man?” Doc asked.

  “No, but I’ve seen him,” I said. “He drove the oxen for Malleus, the repulsive creature who owns the freight company. I don’t remember the bullwhacker’s name.”

  “Shadrach,” Calder said.

  “Yes, that’s it.”

  “Malleus, you say?” Doc asked. “What an odd name.”

  “What language is that?” Calder asked.

  “A dead one,” Doc said. “A ‘malleus’ is Latin for ‘hammer,’ and the reason I know is because I had to learn it in medical school. It’s the name of a small bone in the ear that transmits sound vibrations from the eardrum.”