The Six-Gun Tarot

by R. S. Belcher

  “You’re not telling me the whole story,” Satan said, smiling. “I can smell half-truths like horse flop and you, my noble angel, are lying by omission. Maybe even hiding a sin or two, hmmm?”

  Bick looked away, back toward the town and the mountain. “It’s a long story, one for another day. The gist of all this is I had to allow the Argent Mine to exist for a time. I made sure the deed to the land belonged to the Bick family and was passed along from heir to heir. I arranged for the mine to be reported as having gone bust a few years back. Problem solved, or so I thought.”

  “However…,” Satan said.

  Bick sighed. “However, I didn’t count on the growing interference of lawyers, regulators, bureaucrats and politicians into my business. I swear it seems that every year they stick their noses into more and more.”

  Lucifer chuckled. “Sorry about that—I outdid myself there.”

  “I began to diversify my holdings. I ‘sold’ a number of them to individuals with an understanding that they were only keeping them in trust for me, but on paper it no longer appeared that Malachi Bick and the Bick family owned every rock between here and California.”

  “You sold the mountain?” Lucifer shook his head. “You must have really been living it up with the monkeys to make such a foolish mistake.”

  The anger flared in Bick again, but he fought it down. Satan was right—he had fallen far too deeply into the role, had lost sight of his mission and foolishly believed the time he was now faced with would never come. He had failed when he had given Arthur Stapleton the deed to Argent Mountain, failed his Lord and failed the humans he had come to admire so much. He had failed Caleb.

  “Yes,” he said, “it was a mistake, my mistake. But I intend to rectify it.”

  “You best do it soon,” Lucifer said. “I was sent to tell you as much. What the Darkling’s servants are doing is weakening the divine chains. They are failing and the Darkling is waking up. God doesn’t seem to be taking any meetings these days about reinforcing the chains, so you had better come up with something else, and soon.”

  “The Lord does not speak with the Highest Host about the crisis?”

  “Or anything else for that matter. He’s been pretty quiet since He finished up the Earth. I think He’s studying something—you know how He gets with His hobbies. Either that or He’s foreseen what’s in the wind and He’s hiding. If you can’t stop them from awakening it, it will tear the Earth apart as it breaks free of its prison, and it won’t stop till everything we’ve created is gone. Heaven, Hell, but first and foremost your precious Earth. You remember how awful that thing was last time, don’t you—the siege at the Pillars of Tranquility? How many angels did we lose that day, phalanxes? ”

  Bick nodded. He rubbed his eyes. The sky should be getting brighter at the approach of dawn. It wasn’t. He noticed stars began to drop from the sky like sparks drifting away from a campfire. He felt cold fear slip into his bowels.

  “Better to reign in Hell than get devoured by that thing, I say,” Lucifer offered.

  “So I shouldn’t count on your help?” Bick said. “I’m shocked. How about the Host?”

  “It’s still your post,” Lucifer said. “You know the rules—‘one riot, one ranger,’ so to speak. If it gets free, no one will be able to stop it again—not even the Almighty could kill it, remember? No one in Heaven or Hell is going to be fool enough to stand against that thing. So it’s up to you, Biqa, but honestly, in the shape you’re in, I wouldn’t expect much.”

  Neither did he. He knew what that thing could do, knew how limited his powers really were here, especially now, since his lapses. It was impossible. He couldn’t stand up to the creature’s worshipers, let alone the Darkling itself, and what could possibly replace chains of divine fire to hold the thing and keep it sedate?

  Another scream from the town, it sounded like a child. Bick nodded to Lucifer and began walking back toward Golgotha.

  “I’ve got work to do. Go back to Hell and hide under your ottoman.”

  “You? You’re so compromised I’ll bet you can’t even wield your sword anymore. Can you even perceive its true nature as you are? You’re not much more than a human now, Biqa.”

  “That will suffice,” he said to the lord of Hell, still walking away.

  “What do you want me to pass along to the Host?” the Devil called out.

  “Tell them to have faith!” Bick shouted back as he disappeared over a rocky ridge. “Tell them we’re on it.”

  Another star fell beyond the shadowed horizon. The desert was quiet, like the whole of creation was holding its breath.

  “We?” Lucifer said.

  The Emperor

  The dawn never came. The stars, the moon, all fell into an endless, frigid night, sliding behind clouds of ink, never to reemerge. Once the celestial illumination was swallowed, the only light came from men—torches, lanterns and, of course, the fires that ran wild through Golgotha.

  Riley Finn staggered out into the darkness to see why Redbilly, his prize rooster, had not crowed. Finn’s homestead was off of Druffer Road—not much more than a tarpaper shack, a bare feeding yard and a small coop to house the chickens that made him a decent living in the town. Most folk around Golgotha knew the gangly man with the crooked smile and the red hair simply as “the Egg Man.”

  “Redbilly, lad, what’s gotten into you? Why aren’t you squawking? It’s already—”

  He squinted in the lantern light as he popped open the lid to his pocket watch. The hands were bent and the glass was broken. The watch had broken precisely at dawn. Riley had no way of knowing that every timepiece in Golgotha had suffered the exact same fate, at exactly the same time.

  “Bloody hell,” he muttered, and stuffed the broken timepiece back in his pocket.

  “Redbilly?” Riley called as he pulled open the narrow door to the silent chicken coop and swung his lantern toward the opening to see. Blood dripped down from the straw-filled rows of roosts, each holding a still, mute hen. The blood pooled on the floor. Riley crossed himself, then stepped into the coop, his lantern leading the way.

  The hens were all dead; their white, plump bodies were still warm, their feathers flecked with blood. Riley picked up an egg, gingerly, from one of the nests. His dead mother’s face was impressed on the egg’s surface, frozen in terrified pain—exactly how she had looked the moment she had died in Dublin from the Black Vomit. The detail was like a photograph in its horrible clarity. It almost seemed to move. Riley gasped and dropped the egg. It hit the floor with a wet crunch. He grabbed another egg—again his mother’s frightened, frenzied eyes, her sunken cheeks, the flecks of foam at the corners of her mouth, a perfect depiction of her last pained breath. And on another egg, and another and another.

  “Our Father Who art in Heaven…” Riley muttered the prayer even as he swung the lantern toward the back of the coop. Redbilly was there, hanging limply from the roost. The cock had somehow, through sheer terror, managed to twist his own neck backward until it snapped. The rooster had wrung his own neck rather than sing the song of this blasphemous day.

  “… hallowed be Thy name…”

  The coppery smell of blood mixed with the rich stench of chicken shit and a palpable fog of fear. Something creaked close by. A loose floorboard? The death rattle of a poor, dead, mad animal? Riley’s mind tumbled through the terrible permutations like a gambler shuffling cards.

  “… thy kingdom come…” His voice quivered.

  He tried to snort the spoor of death from his nostrils. He had to get out, get out into the fresh air, out into cool air and reason. He spun toward the coop’s door. His lantern’s beam was caught by a wet, black face with eyes as empty as the rooster’s, and oily hands clawing toward him.

  The Egg Man’s short-lived scream was lost in the cacophony of Golgotha’s death throes.

  “You have got to be pulling my leg,” Highfather said. His horse and Mutt’s galloped down Prosperity Street and turned onto Main. Donnie Broyles and hi
s crew were walking out of the Golgotha Bank and Trust lugging bags overflowing with cash. They halted on the stairs of the bank as the sheriff and his deputy pulled their mounts to a stop in front of the robbers’ horses.

  “What the hell are you doing, Donnie?” Highfather shouted. “I don’t have time for this!”

  “How in tarnation do you know it’s me?” Donnie asked.

  “’Cause no other soap lock in this town is stupid enough to rob the bank when the whole damned world is falling down. Now take that ridiculous bandana off your face and put the money back in there, right now.”

  “Naw!” Donnie shouted as he tugged down the neckerchief from in front of his nose and mouth. “I ain’t gonna do it, Sheriff. Now git outta my way, or else we’re going to have to slap leather, right here, right now!”

  Highfather looked at Mutt. The deputy rolled his eyes and shrugged. The sheriff dropped his hand near his holster and became very still. His eyes locked with Broyles’s.

  “You sure you want to do this, Donnie?” Highfather said softly.

  “You didn’t say nothin’ ’bout shooting no lawman, Donnie!” one of the other bandana-wearing men on the steps said. “Specially not a lawman that’s some kinda haint!”

  “Shut up!” Donnie barked. “He ain’t no ghost—that’s jist a tale! He ain’t nothin’!”

  Donnie looked at the sheriff. He’d have to cross draw to hit Donnie, and Donnie already had his gun in his hand. He was a dang good shot too. He could kill Highfather before he even got his gun out of his holster, dead to rights. And there was Donnie’s crew—all armed, all ready to cut the lawmen down. It was a done deal. He was sure of it. Sure of it right up until he looked in Highfather’s face, really looked. There was no fear in Jon Highfather right now, no uncertainty. Only a mild annoyance and perhaps a hint of pity. Then all the stories began rattling around in Donnie’s skull, like a bullet ricocheting. What if he couldn’t be killed? What if Donnie’s bullets just went on through him?

  “Think about it, Donnie,” Highfather said. “Look around; look at the sky. You think you can ride away from this? Think the stars are still twinkling in Kansas City or Mexico? Where you going to spend that money when it’s all going to hell? You going to buy yourself a sunup? Still, I reckon if you got to pick a night to die, might as well be on the last night ever, huh? So, what do you say Donnie, we doing this or not?”

  The pale eyes didn’t waver. The hand hovered inches from the holster, still as stone. Donnie’s dark eyes blinked; he swallowed hard and then laid his gun slowly on the ground.

  “Jig’s up, boys,” he said sullenly. “Lay ’em down.”

  The other robbers complied.

  “Still pushing that luck of yours,” Mutt said to Highfather softly.

  Jon pushed his hat up and spared a second to look at the dying sky.

  “Not time yet. Hey, look over there.”

  Down Main, in the direction of the theatre, a mob of the Stained suddenly came into view, pursuing a small group of the uninfected. The survivors were led by Dan Powell, one of Jon’s deputies.

  “Dan, over here!” Highfather shouted, drawing his pistol. The sheriff turned to address the thieves.

  “Like I said before, none of us has the time for this right now, Donnie. I’m hereby deputizing you and your boys. Pick up your guns and move your asses!”

  He spurred Bright to a full gallop and charged down Main. Mutt, on Muha, followed.

  The mob was at least twenty strong, lumbering and hissing. Their wet faces were black, broken mirrors that reflected the tongues of flame crawling up the walls of Chauncey’s Tobacconist, across the street from Shultz’s General Store. Heartened by the sight of Highfather and his reluctant posse, Dan and the few armed men with him turned to face the monstrous horde descending on them.

  “Hot damn, it’s the sheriff! Okay, boys, light ’em up!”

  Fire and thunder roared from the guns.

  “Aim for the heads!” Highfather shouted over the blast of his own pistol. “You have any silver rounds left, Dan?”

  “All used up to git us this far!”

  Donnie and his boys raced by on horseback, whooping and firing into the mob as they passed. A few of the Stained dropped from the rain of bullets. One of the survivors with Dan, Mrs. Gunderson, screamed as her infected nephew, Roland, clawed at her arm, trying to drag her into the mass of the Stained. Mutt pivoted on Muha, fired his rifle into Roland’s chest at point-blank range, grabbed Mrs. Gunderson and scooped her up onto the horse. The boy flew backward, chest smoking, knocking over several of the other infected. The sheriff, his deputy and Dan’s small band formed a circle, with the unarmed survivors at the center. Volleys of gunfire ripped into the swarm of the Stained. Donnie and his crew made another pass, flanking them with more gunfire. One of Donnie’s crew screamed as he was pulled down by one of the infected. The boy had no time to do anything but whimper as one of the Stained crouched over him, grinding its wet mouth to the fallen thief’s, filling him with alien darkness.

  “I’m out; any more shells?” Dan asked.

  Highfather swallowed hard, passed his last three bullets to Dan and glanced at Mutt, who dispatched another hissing member of the mob with a well-placed rifle shot.

  The deputy shook his head. “I’m out too now. We still got knives.”

  A shrill call echoed across the valley. It came from the top of Argent Mountain. It sounded like a cat screaming while it drowned, screaming with far too many mouths. The sound filled Highfather’s head with a buzzing mass of bees made of pain and nausea. All of the Stained stopped in their tracks and rocked gently at the inhuman wailing. After what seemed like forever, the sound ended; and with its end, the infected scattered, disappearing into the alleys of Main Street. Six lay dead; then suddenly two of them shuddered and got to their feet. Roland Gunderson was one of them. The two resurrected Stained staggered clumsily after their fleeing kin.

  “I’ll be damned,” Dan muttered.

  “What was that god-awful noise?” Highfather asked.

  “A call to prayer,” a voice as smoky as whiskey said.

  Malachi Bick stepped into view; the fire from Chauncey’s backlit him, fluttering like wings. “The faithful are being called home.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Highfather said.

  “It means we don’t have much time,” Bick said. “We need to talk, Sheriff.”

  “I knew you were messed up in this somehow or other, Malachi. You had—”

  “As I said, time is of the essence. I need to speak to you, your deputy, Mayor Pratt and young Master Jim as soon as you can summon them.”

  “What the hell do you want to talk to the boy for?” Mutt asked.

  “I’d rather not say out in the street. Sheriff?”

  Highfather sighed. “Dan, you got any notion where the mayor might be?”

  “Harry? Yeah, he was headed to the jail to try to get more ammo. He done a hell of a job tonight, Jon, Harry did. When those things showed up at the social, Harry got everyone out of there real quick. Saved a mess of folks, kept them from rabbiting. His old man would have been real proud of him.”

  Donnie and his boys rode up, yipping and howling. “Damn, Sheriff, if I knew being a lawman was this much fun, I’d have signed up a long time ago!”

  “Yeah, it’s a hoot. Listen, Donnie, you and your boys still got ammo, right?”

  Donnie and most of his boys nodded.

  “Good, toss Dan here some shells. I want you and the boys to escort these good people home. Get them to some place safe, and then get you and yours on home and stay put. You did good work tonight, Donnie.”

  Broyles smiled. It was genuine, like a child who was bringing home his first good marks from school.

  “Thanks, Sheriff,” Donnie said. “Come on now, folks; let’s get you all home. Maybe if we’re lucky we’ll run into some more of those things!”

  Highfather turned to Dan. “I need you to find Harry. Tell him to meet me here, at the Par
adise Falls, as quick as he can. Then get yourself home too.”

  “Don’t got to tell me twice,” Dan said, reloading his rifle. “I’m grabbing Gladys and the boys and we are skedaddling outta here. You may want to think about that too. I’ve lived in this town for a long time and I’ve been through some powerful weird things here, but nothing like this, ever. It might be time to go, Jon.”

  Highfather saw another star detach itself from the icy black firmament and burn, tumbling, toward the dark shroud of the horizon.

  “Not leaving my home, Dan. I’m of a mind to fix this.”

  Bick had already removed the boards nailed over the doors to the Paradise Falls. Highfather and Mutt followed him inside. A lit oil lamp was sitting on a red-felt octagonal card table in the back of the main room, as was a bottle of whiskey and six glasses. There was also a long rectangular wooden box on the table.

  “No more dancing, Malachi,” Highfather said. “The squatters going crazy up on the ridge, Stapleton’s death, what happened to Holly Pratt, these strangers—Ambrose and Phillips. What is this god, this thing they are trying to awaken? Time to acknowledge the corn. I want answers, or else I’ll finish the job on you someone already started.”

  Bick groaned as he fell into one of the chairs. He poured himself a finger of whiskey into one of the glasses. “It was Phillips, at Ambrose’s command.” He drained the glass. “They killed Caleb.”

  Highfather reached across the table and picked up a glass. Bick filled it, offered one to Mutt. The deputy shook his head curtly and kept watching the door while he reloaded his rifle.

  “I was sorry to hear about your son. Powerful sorry,” Highfather said. “My condolences. He seemed a decent fella.”

  “Thank you, Sheriff.”

  “Why did they do it?”