by S. A. Sidor
“You accept what’ve I’ve suggested?”
Evangeline nodded. “The man-worm leading the necrófagos is not a necrófago himself. He has stolen Daddy’s mummies – I suspect it is Odji-Kek he is helping. Odji-Kek has called to him across the mists of time. No doubt promising him unholy rewards of the most savage, obscene kind.”
At first, I couldn’t tell if she were joking with me. Her eyes grew wide, glinting. I suspected then she was not prodding me for sport. This woman would never shy away from obscenity or perversity. Rather, she might choose to study her findings.
“Yes, let’s go then,” I said.
She began to walk farther into the tunnel.
“Let’s go up,” I said, and took hold of her sleeve.
“But–”
I didn’t want to argue.
I especially didn’t want to argue and then die in a steam explosion.
“Yong Wu is waiting for us. We cannot leave him alone,” I said.
With this she could agree. “And we need reinforcements as well.”
“I suppose we do.”
We climbed together out of the swirling vapor, and I moved faster when I noted the vultures fleeing before us, exiting the train, their black wings slowly pumping. Vile birds – always on the lookout for the badges of death – one cocked a drowsy, wizened eye at me, his belly stuffed, and a sample of carrion swaying tick-tock, tick-tock from his beak.
He seemed to be sizing me up for his midnight snack.
“Not if I can help it,” I said.
I chucked a small stone in his general direction, and fled.
19
A Bad Man Who Might Help Us
“Yuma is about two miles, that way.” Yong Wu pointed to the whip black rails running west. “There’s a man who works sometimes for the railroad company. He hunts down train robbers for money. Like the wanted posters say, dead or alive.”
“A bounty hunter?” I asked.
Yong Wu nodded. “I saw him once on the train. He has very bad eyes.”
“I would think poor vision is a hazard in his field,” I said.
The boy gawked at me, astonished. “He can shoot a man so far away you can’t tell there’s any man there.”
“But you just said…”
“One look into his shining eyes and I wanted to jump off the train.”
“Sounds exactly like the man we need.” Evangeline flushed at the news.
“Or he might make matters worse. Do we really want more violence?” I asked.
“If it brings the mummies back, then yes. I don’t think we’re going to get what we want by asking nicely. Do you?” Her voice climbed higher, flimsy, “Please, sirs, can we have our antiquities back?”
Yong Wu giggled at her caricature, and soon he and Evangeline were laughing out loud.
No, simply asking would not suffice. I was not suggesting that. I wanted to evaluate this hunter before we handed over our cash and rode into Mexico with him. Measure up the man.
“I only want to get a good long look at him before I decide anything.”
“Me too,” Evangeline said.
This time when she laughed she covered it with her hand.
“So this shining eyes bounty hunter, do you know his name?” I said.
“McTroy,” the boy said.
“McTroy something, or something McTroy?”
“I only know they call him McTroy. ‘McTroy will catch the sons of bitches and then they will wish they never were born. They will cry for their mothers when McTroy tracks them down. If any man knows how to flush vermin, it’s that god-damned McTroy!’ That’s what the bosses said. And then McTroy would come around.”
The boy appeared positively in awe of this gunman.
“And…”
“A few days later he brings the bad men to Yuma. With their hands tied, all walking behind his horse. Or over the backs of their horses with flies crawling on them.”
“I do hope he’s available,” Evangeline said.
I stumbled and blamed Staves’ pointy boots.
“For hire, Hardy. I hope he’s available for us to hire.”
“I know what you meant.”
“Where do we find him, Wu? Does he have an office?” she said.
“The people in Yuma will know him.”
The people in Yuma did know him. We were parched, sunburned, and covered in dust from ankles to eyebrows – just like everyone else in Yuma, or so it seemed from those we encountered in the street. We turned no heads. Well, Evangeline did. But not because she’d walked in from the desert. A pretty woman is always noted by the males of the species. Evangeline ignored their tipped hats, dingy grins, and words of self-introduction. She did take advantage of the attention to inquire into the whereabouts of McTroy.
At the saloon they said to check at the jail.
At the jail they said, did you check at the saloon?
When we said we had, they said, “Out. Might be he’s gone on a manhunt. Or ask Sheriff Mike Nugent.” And where is the sheriff? Did you check at the saloon?
So back to the saloon went our little three-car train of Hardy, Miss Evangeline, and Yong Wu. We found Sheriff Mike Nugent sitting at a table of drunken silver miners. He didn’t look drunk at all, and they didn’t look happy to have him there.
“McTroy? What do you want him for?”
“Business, sheriff. We aim to hire him to trail a gang of robbers,” I said. I kept the news of the train wreck, robbery, and murders private for the time being.
“That’s what he does best,” Nugent said. “You ask at the jailhouse?”
“We’ve just come from there.”
“Look for him at the country club on the river, did ya?” asked a miner. His head rested on the tabletop. His eyes were closed. The puddle he laid his cheek in might have been beer. He held a five-card poker hand (a pair of deuces) out for all to inspect. If I hadn’t seen his lips move I would have guessed him beyond speech in his present state.
“Frank, you gab in your sleep too? Well, there’s a rowdy Bisbee mucker for you.” Nugent swatted at his back. “He’s talking about up on the hill, at the territorial prison.”
I had heard stories of the Yuma Territorial Prison and I had no wish to visit the place for myself. I could not imagine bringing Evangeline up there, or Yong Wu.
Frank’s comment and Nugent’s response seemed to rouse the seedy, red-eyed miners from their evening stupor. They tipped their hats back and rubbed their benumbed faces as the lamplight turned them to gold. In doing so, they noticed that a woman was standing behind me, and this manifestation piqued their curiosity if not their vocabulary. Chairs scraped. Backs straightened. Smiles appeared, if not teeth.
“You folks appear a mite foot-weary and out of your element. You sure about what you’re doing? McTroy isn’t a man to trifle with. He might be at Sam’s Hotel. But it’s no place for a lady or a child to walk into.” Nugent directed this last comment at me.
“We will go wherever it is necessary to get what we want,” Evangeline said, “or in this particular case, who.”
The miners elbowed each other and quaffed their drinks in amazement.
Nugent nodded.
“McTroy keeps his horse in Black Shirley’s barn. She’ll tell you if he’s in town. Moonlight. That’s his horse’s name. A white mustang mare. Pretty horse. Good luck to you.” He leaned forward to get a fuller view of Evangeline. “Good evening, ma’am.”
He touched his hat. Raised a glass of beer and pressed it to his brushy mustache.
“Where is Black Shirley’s barn?” I said.
Foam in the whiskers – he wiped the bubbles with his sleeve.
“Down the street. Red shutters. Shirley’s a big, black-haired gal. Can’t miss her.”
“Thank you, sheriff.”
“Welcome to Yuma,” he said.
The miners laughed as the doors swung shut behind us.
20
Black Shirl’s Black Barn
Yuma, Arizona Territ
ory
Evening and Night, April 6th, 1888
Black Shirley was indeed hard to miss. She stood a head taller than I did and she smoked the biggest calabash pipe I’d ever seen. She wore buckskin britches and a white, collared shirt with floral embroidery. Her namesake hair hung below her waist. A pair of bloodhounds lounged on her porch along with a smaller dog that looked like a thatch of curly pondweed caked together with mud. The only parts of the bloodhounds that were moving were their sad eyes, but the pondweed skipped and barked and watered the tips of my boots after I climbed the steps. Shirley’s shoulders were broad as a man’s, and when she shook my hand I feared she might grind the bones to dust before she released me.
“Black Shirl is who I am. You say Sheriff Nugent sent you?”
I confirmed that he did and told her why.
“Is Mr McTroy presently in town?” I asked, trying to sound hopeful.
Shirl puffed her pipe and squinted past me at my companions who waited at the bottom of the steps. “That your wife?”
“Ah – no, she is not my wife. We are business associates.”
Evangeline smiled and waved to Black Shirl.
“The boy don’t look like either of you two,” Shirl said, not waving back.
“Yong Wu works for us. Are we in luck with Mr McTroy? We have walked several miles in the desert heat today. Yesterday our train crashed and we were robbed. Many people died. We are, in fact, the only survivors. And we have not slept or eaten and we really would like to find McTroy so we can settle this contractual matter and then rest.”
“He’s back there with Moonlight.”
“McTroy? He’s here?”
Shirl nodded. “I’ve got beans and cornbread. Two sleeping rooms in the back. Rates aren’t as cheap as some places in town, but there’s no lice. I keep a clean house.”
“Is McTroy staying here at your place?”
“Sleeps in the barn. You want the rooms?”
“Yes, yes we do,” Evangeline called from the street.
This time Black Shirl waved to her.
“The lady who isn’t your wife says you want them. She can have the room on the left. You and the china boy can take the other. I run a respectable Christian house.”
“Of course we will take the rooms. Thank you.”
“You pay first.” She told me how much and waited for me to change my mind.
“I will, yes.” I fumbled in my satchel bottom for loose coins. “What is McTroy doing now?”
“Sleeping, I imagine. Or not sleeping, hell if I know. I don’t go in the barn to bother him after sundown. You shouldn’t either, if you’re asking me my opinion. But you’re not. So go. See what happens. I’ll only caution you. McTroy don’t like surprises. He’s what you might call intolerant to strangers. You all are about as strange as I seen around here in a good while.”
I handed over the money for the rooms.
“You got bags?” Shirl asked.
“No, only what we carry.”
She jingled my coins in her large hand.
“Go back then. Get it over with. You can’t turn around now. Come all this way to turn around? I don’t think so. I ain’t responsible for what he says to you. I am especially not responsible for what he does to you. You remember that. I said, ‘Don’t go.’ Now go. You are frying my nerves. I’ll heat the beans. Rooms are through the kitchen. Barn’s right back there.”
The pondweed nipped at my trousers as I descended from the porch.
“Is she saying to go or not to go?” Evangeline said.
“Both and neither – as far as I can detect.”
Black Shirl nodded. “Both and neither. Fella’s right about that.”
She went into the house. Pondweed followed her. The bloodhounds watched us.
“What are we going to do?” Evangeline said.
“I will proceed to the barn and talk to McTroy. You will join Shirley for beans.”
“Maybe we should go together.”
“No, I think not.”
“But I want to be sure he says ‘yes.’ We desperately need his help.”
“I will get him to say ‘yes’.”
“It’s my father’s money. I should go too.”
“If he shoots me, then you can go next. Does that sound fair?”
The purple dusk – her eyes changed to seawater gray in the dimness. “Hardy, you are a funny man, I think. Would you like us to save you some beans?”
“Beans and bread. That would be very nice. If I die, you’re welcome to eat my portion.”
“Thank you. I am famished actually. Yong Wu must be as well.”
“It’s nothing. Black Shirl seems like quite the conversationalist once you break the ice. Perhaps she can give you valuable background about McTroy and Moonlight.”
She loosened a ribbon from her chignon and tied it around my wrist.
“For luck,” she said, and smiling, patted my hand.
The moon rose crooked in the sky like a wizard’s finger. Black Shirley’s barn was black, or looked black in the failing light. The barn door stood partly open, and that crevice was the blackest part of the whole tableau. I was slow going down the path. I shuffled my feet. I whistled a tuneless melody to disguise my fear and to inform McTroy a visitor, just a harmless, bookish visitor, was approaching. Second thoughts crowded out any firsts I had.
Here was the barn door.
“Hello in there?” I said.
No answer. My heart knocked. My hand refused to touch knuckles to the wood.
I tried calling louder. “Hellooo in the barn…”
Now he had to have heard me that time.
Still I got no reply. Not even a whinny from the horses, and I could smell them – a good farmy horse smell. It reminded me of my boyhood, of animals I knew like family, of mornings rising up in the gloom to take care of our stock: the first living things I saw each day before breakfast. Maybe it was that homey memory that gave me a dose of courage, I don’t know, but I laid my hand on the door and pushed.
“Say there, you’re a pretty girl. Aren’t you?”
The horse – his horse, Moonlight, and she did look like a piece of cool nocturnal magic – gazed nobly upon me from her stall. She was smallish, as horses go, and well-muscled. Later I would learn of her otherworldly endurance and an intelligence that surpassed many men. She was the only being McTroy would show his love to plainly. Rubbing her nose. Laying his face against her broad neck. I didn’t know this sentimental side of him yet. I only saw the beautiful animal he loved staring at me, quiet as marble.
Maybe the infamous man wasn’t here…
I pushed the door wider to see more.
Other stalls, other horses.
A lantern hung on a hook to my left. My fingers dug into my pockets and out came a match, quickly fumbled, dropped, lost, then a second match and my thumbnail scratched at it till it found its spark, flaming tall as I passed it under the lantern’s smudgy globe. Smoking, aflutter, enough light to walk behind, but casting shadows.
Indigo blanket folded on a bed of clean straw: McTroy’s nest. Empty. A Mexican charro saddle – well-traveled, the leather tooled and red as a drop of blood – was pegged on the wall.
So where was this mercenary man?
The cold muzzle of a gun touched my cheekbone.
“I’m looking for the bounty hunter, McTroy,” I said. “Are you he?”
“You he? Am I dealing with a fancy man or an idjit?”
I didn’t wait long to answer.
“My name is Romulus Hardy. I am a scholar and an archivist of ancient Egypt.”
“Fancy man it is then.” With his free hand he flicked the ribbon on my wrist. “Tell me, do they teach fancy men to sneak up on people?”
“I didn’t sneak. I called to you.”
“Huh. Maybe you did.”
Reader, this book is about how I – how we three from the train – became intimate with the supernatural world. You might think we introduced McTroy to it, too. But you’d
be wrong. He was acquainted with the nightside of things. He may not have talked about it, but he was touched with something southern folks call the gift. I don’t mean he could see far into the future. Obviously he couldn’t, or he would have turned me away. But he could peek a little bit. More than that, he knew what lurked beneath the surface life. He felt that clammy stone feeling in his stomach. It often arrived with no warning, because it was a warning: a slippery promise. Death signs. Evil juju. Corner-of-the-eye creatures that lurked, mocked, and hated every soul that lives in the light – McTroy knew them. In dreams… on mud streets after a driving rain… inside jail cells and lonesome, tilted, windblown shacks… fallen backward into lakes of blood… he had seen… things. He wasn’t one to share his uncanny experiences. But now and again he talked to me. That’s how I know.
There in Black Shirley’s barn we were still strangers to one another.
He greeted all strangers with suspicion.
We might have stayed strangers if it weren’t for my good luck and his bad. That’s how he would tell it if he were around. He would be joking, of course. He never told a story without a joke inside. But he would mean it too. Some parts. About the bad luck, about how it was coming for him that night as it had been coming all his life. His lifetime’s due.
The barrel of the gun stayed where it was.
“I really did call to you. If you were sleeping soundly perhaps–”
“Quiet.”
“What? I can explain.”
He poked the gun into my jaw where my teeth were.
“You got partners? Outside? Coming up the walk after you?”
“No, I’m alone… I…”
“Step right there and hold that lantern up.”
He shoved me in front of the doorway.
“You let ’em come,” he said.
He withdrew behind a wall post.
I felt like a fool standing there, teeth chattering, watching the same space I had been contemplating from outside the barn a minute earlier. I saw not a thing, heard nary a soul approaching either by coincidence or in stealth. It crossed my mind that though I may sometimes play the fool, here again I was dealing with a madman. I ask this: Why would a learned and habitually logical person get himself into such positions on a semi-regular basis? I will leave that question for people other than myself to debate.