by S. A. Sidor
The sun was out. The air smelled of rotting fish.
We docked but could not go ashore until we had been cleared. The authorities needed to make certain we were not trafficking in contraband or smallpox. I smoked my pipe, enjoying the hustle and bustle of so much life. Comfort there, undeniable reality. My heart swelled while in sympathy with my countrymen. Here was civilization at work, Western civilization, making order from chaos. The idea pleased me to no end at the time. My love of Egypt was no less strong but far more complicated than it had been before going there. Returning to the West was coming home. Here was a world I could trust – or so I believed after landing ashore in New York on that crisp, clear, and sunny day.
Two men broke from the dockside crowd and headed for the Derceto’s gangplank.
Minutes later they were aboard. Serious men, beefy in their somber jackets, their eyes took in everything and their faces gave up nothing. The taller one had rounded stooping shoulders, but otherwise they might have been cousins, so alike were they in both bearing and physical attitude. The shorter man passed an envelope to the captain, which the seafarer pried apart, thumbing the contents, before he stuffed it in his pocket.
Then the captain pointed at me.
I had the awful impression I was about to be arrested.
The duo cornered me against the rail. I looked deeply into the frigid water. No jumping.
“My name is Kittle,” the shorter man said, “and this is Detective Staves.”
“Good morning. How are New York’s Finest today?”
The men exchanged glances. Kittle said, “We’re not policemen, Mr Hardy. We’re private detectives from the Pinkerton Agency. We were hired to protect you.”
I frowned. “Are you Waterston’s emissaries?”
Another unspoken communication passed between them.
“Not sure what you mean, sir.”
“My benefactor, Montague Waterston, sent a telegram before I absconded from Egypt. In it he said his emissary would meet me at the New York dock. Therefore, I ask, are you his emissaries?”
“Uhh… no, sir. I mean, yes and no.”
“Yes and no? Were you sent to meet me when I disembarked or not?”
“You aren’t disembarking, sir.”
My feet suddenly lacked a certain degree of stability and I spread my legs to counteract the disequilibrium. I saw the dock moving away. Rather, we were moving from the dock. The water widened. The Derceto had set sail again.
Kittle said, “Your benefactor sends his sincerest apologies. Unfortunately, this change in plans could not be avoided. I can’t tell you more, only that it was not safe to bring the cargo ashore here today. Staves and I will guard the shipment until it reaches its destination. We’ll watch over you too, of course.”
Good-bye, Manhattan. Good-bye, bridge. Good-bye, dry land and wet beer.
Both men were wearing Colt .45 revolvers on their hips under the flaps of their jackets. Staves carried a leather rifle case. It was their only baggage.
“Might I ask where the hell we’re going?”
“We’re catching a train.”
“Are there no trains in New York, Mr Kittle?”
“The train we’re taking waits in New Orleans.”
New Orleans Harbor
Kittle and Staves proved to be companionable if unimaginative. Like me, they had never met Waterston face to face. To us he was a name, a signature at the bottom of a letter, and a source of funds. Kittle informed me it was a woman – Waterston’s secretary, in the flesh – who appeared at their offices and paid for the guard services. Perhaps it says something about my anxious state of mind that steaming off the coastal islands of South Carolina, I wondered if Kittle and Staves worked for Waterston at all, or if they had kidnapped me and re-routed the mummies to the bayous as part of a clever ransom plot, and if my odyssey might end in the swollen belly of an alligator. But it was obvious they were not clever men. Stalwart, plainspoken if called upon, reticent if not. I do not think Staves said more to me than good mornings and goodnights, except when he was practicing his marksmanship off the stern by shooting those suicidal seabirds haunting the Derceto’s wake. He would call out which target he was aiming for prior to each shot, pull the trigger, and invariably the chosen bird exploded. It was a quick drop among the bull sharks who submerged with the carcasses post-haste. They never seemed nefarious, not these two honest gents.
“Do you enjoy shooting birds?” I asked Staves one afternoon on the poop deck.
“No more or less than shooting anything else,” he said.
I nodded and puffed at my pipe. “Is there any sport to it?”
“Sport? I reckon they could fly above or below my shot. A bird on the wing is no easy target, and from a moving boat…?” He shrugged.
“But they can’t dodge a bullet. The bullet is too fast.”
“I don’t know any animal speedier than hot lead.”
“Then the sport is not whether or not they can outfly or outwit you. It’s only a matter of your aim. If you choose a certain bird and your aim is true, then the bird dies.” I removed my pipestem from my mouth and pointed it at Staves. “You are the decider. The responsibility of their deaths lies solely on your shoulders. And no one else’s.”
Staves cradled the rifle in the hinge of his elbow and turned to frown at me.
“They’re birds,” he said.
“Nonetheless, their lives must mean something to them.”
“They’re flying into the stern to bash their brains in.”
I nodded solemnly. “Yes, these were – are – particularly strange birds.”
Returning from his latest patrol around the perimeter of the steamer, Kittle cheerfully joined us. “Is everything well with you two gentlemen?”
“Mr Hardy wants to talk about dead birds,” Staves said.
“Not at all,” I said. “We were discussing philosophy, I thought.”
Kittle, curious if he should be alarmed, asked, “What is a philosophy of dead birds?”
The gulls that Staves had paused in assassinating began to arrive at the stern with neck-snapping speed. Soft thumps, most of them followed by a fluttery spasm of feathers. We three observed the flock’s disturbing behavior. Broken gulls lay scattered whitely at our feet.
“Have either of you ever killed a man?” I said.
“Yessir” and “yes” were their answers.
I’m certain the causes were justified. I didn’t ask for more information.
“You live with it, then?”
“No other choice,” Staves said. Kittle agreed.
“What about you, sir?” he asked.
“I, myself, have merely gotten other men killed.”
Kittle absently pushed the dead birds into a pile with his boot while Staves reloaded.
I retreated to the bow alone to finish my smoke.
Cruising into the port of New Orleans, I could almost smell the malaria. The miasmatic air weighed upon us with its velvety green decay. I feared the mummies would turn to soap and dissolve. I supervised the transfer of the crates from the Derceto’s hold to our train.
One of Waterston’s poker-playing cohorts owned the Southern Pacific railroad. He had added a special car to the end of a line of standard coaches: a glossy black mammoth, dreary in design, but spacious enough to transport us and the six mummies to Los Angeles in seclusion. We need not worry about mixing with other passengers. We had no bother with changing trains either. Ours was to be a long, private ride out West.
We had an hour until departure.
Kittle and Staves stood sentinel over the midnight carriage to California.
“She’s a black beauty,” I said, indicating the train car. “We’ll be like a permanent shadow following the rest of the train.”
“I’ve never ridden in a private car,” Kittle said. “Is she up to your usual standards?”
I had never ridden in a private car either, but the detectives didn’t need to know that.
“She’ll
do,” I said. “Care for a little ramble? We’ll be cooped up on that train for a long time, I’m afraid.”
“No, sir, but thank you. We are on duty and need to watch the mummies,” Kittle said.
“If they get up and start walking, make sure you fetch me.”
Neither man answered. I wasn’t sure if they understood I was joking. Their seriousness gave me a chuckle, but at the same time I felt a peculiar tickle at the nape of my neck. I wondered if I had carried a fever home with me from my foreign travels. But the sensation soon passed. I decided to stretch my legs in the city and do a little shopping. I bought a bottle of absinthe, a few cigars, and a tin of perique blended tobacco.
It is unfair to judge a city in so brief a visit, and even more suspect to make statements about its culture by exclusively studying the wharf and those local amenities known to cater to men’s vices, but New Orleans did not feel like the United States to me. The languor, the smooth sensuality, the wild scents of the place, and the half-dreamy, half-violent gazes of its citizens – I think the French missionaries and Spaniards of old must have lost themselves in a fit of tropical delirium. Smoky-eyed Indians and Africans nursed them back to life. That explains the city. Or nothing does.
On my stroll back to the train depot I had the unsettling sensation I was being followed, so I changed my course – one too many turns and I found myself disoriented. As I tried to get my bearings, a figure emerged out of a doorway. I could not judge its sex or age. It was only when she spoke I knew her to be a woman. Skinny as sugarcane she was, but her dusky face glowed, and she wore drilled coins tied in the whorls of her hair. Her nostrils dilated. She tilted her face into a slant of coppery sunset. I saw her eyes were like oyster meat. A blind woman. She rolled her head on her stalk-like neck.
A necklace of cowry shells clicked.
“Ain’t you dead, chile?”
I kept silent. Her question froze me in place. So did her gluey stare.
“Somebody bring you back for no good?” She laughed deep in her throat and stepped into the street, a terrifying smile creasing in my direction, as she swayed to and fro. I thought she might offer herself to me for money. Nothing about her appearance told me so. But it was that kind of street I had ventured down. Such an offer did not happen. She leaned on a stick of intricately carved wood. Her hands were as large as a man’s. Fingers stuffed into gold rings.
“What you doin’ out before dark?” she asked. “The sun don’t like you, no?”
I heard melodious amusement in her words, as if we shared a secret. When I did not respond, she frowned and closed the distance separating us. Her nose crinkled. She ducked her head, lifted it slowly.
She was sniffing me.
“I smell the grave on you, cher. Did they cut out your tongue, or are you shy?”
I wanted to run, but her movement was so odd I stood transfixed.
She tucked her face into the crook of my neck and inhaled deeply. I heard the air suck inside her like wind down a chimney. Then she stopped and her mouth fell open.
The witchy woman leapt backward as if she had been scalded.
“Stay away, jackal!” Her walking stick broke in two pieces. The joint hid a sword that tapered to a thin, nasty point. She jabbed the blade in my general direction.
“You mistake me for someone else,” I said, doing my best to remain calm.
“Bokor!” she shouted. “Sorcerer, get back!”
She slashed, retreating farther. She reached back with her free hand and found the gap she was searching for. Backing into her doorway, she hissed and slammed the door in my face. I put my ear to the center of it, and felt the hot, peeling paint against my flushed skin.
Inside, her sobs grew frantic. “Please, leave me alone! I did not know it was you!”
I did not want to distress her further, so I obeyed.
I had never visited New Orleans before, and surely had never met this disturbed woman. Shaken, I departed. Around the next corner I glimpsed a column of train smoke. Fiery red sparks lit it from within. I followed that sign in the sky to the station and soon observed the now familiar forms of Kittle and Staves staying near the train like a couple of well-trained, loyal mastiffs. It might have been the frightened voodoo woman setting me on edge, or maybe the heat put my mind onto strange and worrying paths. Regardless, upon returning to the station, I purchased a pair of tickets from the stationmaster.
I sauntered over to our private car.
Kittle was pacing along the platform. Through the open carriage door, I saw Staves had already climbed on board, sitting beside the row of crates, his uncased rifle resting on his knees. The heat inside the black car was stifling. Sweat popped from his hairline.
“Tell me, Kittle, did I mention the mummy’s curse?” I asked.
“No, you didn’t.”
“Perhaps I did and you forgot.”
“I wouldn’t forget a thing like that.”
“Oh, they are awful stories… superstitions, I assume. They say a man who sleeps in the same room with the mummy will never sire children. His future dies.”
Kittle raised his eyebrows. “Really?”
“I’m afraid so. His seed is somehow curdled. Well, to be blunter, he can’t sow the seed at all. Cursed with perpetual softness, some say rot. Dreadfully gruesome stuff.”
“Rot?” Staves asked. He was standing in the carriage doorway now. His rifle, firmly gripped in one hand, pointed at the platform.
I nodded, bit the end of my cigar, and spit it on the boards.
“Is there a cure?” Kittle had stopped his pacing.
“None whatsoever. Prevention is the key. It’s a question of keeping one’s distance from the dead man’s magic. In Egypt, the workmen never sleep in the tombs.”
“I don’t think I could either,” Staves said, stepping onto the platform to join us. He wiped his brow with his sleeve.
“The origin of the curse probably stems from disease. The dead carry every kind of blight and pestilence. Who knows what lingers inside those glorified pine boxes, eh?”
Kittle and Staves turned, staring into the carriage.
I lit up and blew my smoke at their backs.
Staves coughed. He stepped away from the open door.
“Gentlemen, I have a proposition for you. I haven’t had a good night’s rest since I left home months ago. Privacy’s the thing. I can’t bear sleeping near other people. Every toss and turn, each breath and sigh wakes me. Would you fellows mind letting me ride alone with the mummies? I have taken the liberty of purchasing two tickets and–”
“That’s no problem at all,” Staves said.
He snatched the tickets as soon as I slid them from my pocket.
Kittle hesitated, and I thought Staves might use the rifle butt on him right there.
“You could ride one car up and sit at the windows,” I said. “Of course, whenever the train stops, I’d expect you to come back here and stand guard.”
“We could do that,” Kittle said.
“I caution you to remain generally alert. That is your mission.”
“You can count on us,” Staves said.
“It’s settled then. I accept all responsibility for this decision. But I expect no trouble either.” The train whistle blew out a piercing shriek. “Stay sharp. Here you go now.” I gave each man a cigar to mitigate any second thoughts.
It worked.
“What about you, sir? Aren’t you worried about your… future?” Kittle asked.
“I am an Egyptologist. My concern is solely with the past.”
Both men knit their brows as they trotted forward one coach, the speediness in their strides told me they were relieved not to be spending four days entombed in a rolling mausoleum with six dead Egyptians and a mad scholar. Myself, I had no choice.
I finished my cigar waving at the curtains of mosquitoes that descended during the twilight hour. If I were going to die I was determined not to take anyone else with me. Flicking away the well-sucked stub of tobacco, I
watched its spark redden, and then fizzle in a ditch. I climbed aboard and secured the door behind me.
The train lurched.
A uniformed Negro entered the car from the train.
“I’m Thomas, sir. I’ll be your porter. If there’s anything you need, if you have any questions, just ask me.” He appeared as tidy as I felt disheveled. I stared absently counting his polished jacket buttons until I blinked.
“At the moment I am quite content,” I said, adding, “tired, but content.”
“I’ll bring you a drink if you’d like. Or I can make down your berth if you’re ready to get to sleep.” He had a pleasant voice and a soothing, yet confident manner.
“Sleep is the farthest thing from my mind. A drink of water now and something stronger later would do nicely.”
“Very good,” he said.
We were on our way. Swampland fled past the windows. Soon the whistle screamed like a banshee over the marshes. Saltwater lay black between thatches of grass and pods of humpbacked islands. Out of the wet sprung skeletal trees, at trackside some waved as if hoping for a ride. Moon and stars pricked the bayou with silver needles.
The city lights of New Orleans faded.
I had made up the story of the curse. But was I afraid to sleep with the mummy?
Partly… curious mostly, foolhardy…
Something I could not explain – the witchy woman had mumbled a word through the door, the same word Hakim used when naming the sleeper inside the sarcophagus.
“Kek,” she said, repeating it over and over. “Kek, Kek, Kek…”
12
The Train
April 3rd, 1888
Southern Pacific RR’s Sunset Route, East of El Paso, Texas
I lay in my bunk, awake for the second straight night. The clack-clack-clack of the train and the West Texas heat were not to blame. Not entirely. A cotton sheet wound taut around my legs. I kicked loose from it. Though I had removed my shoes, I wore my clothes. They were sour with sweat, but so was every one of the suits I had packed. I rolled over to my side. My shirt collar pinched and my trousers twisted. Sleep refused to come. I thought I knew why. I sat up and fiddled with the lamp at my bedside until a smoking bud of light bloomed. I was alone in the cavernous private railcar. The Texas night slid by on the windows like oil.