Scryer's Gulch

by MeiLin Miranda

  I’m getting off-topic again. The mind does wander when you get to be my age.

  At any rate, the more will you project into the gun, the faster the bullet goes. It’s easier for people to see in their mind’s eye what they want to shoot, and the bullet flies straight at what you picture no matter how you aim the gun if you’ve got the target in mind well enough, but it’s harder to actually hit the target unless you know how to project your will. It can be learned, but some folks are naturals, and Annabelle was that, in spades.

  It’s how artillery works, too, though it’s gotten much more sophisticated over the years. For instance, you don’t have to sneak your gunner close enough to enemy lines to see whatever it is he’s trying to shoot at now. Time was, the no-mans-land between combatants used to be crawling with plenty of men, patrols out to give their gunners a good look at the enemy, then get back to their emplacements. It was all about speed, and you risked a valuable asset in your gunner. It’s why artillery wasn’t a major force until the Great War. Nowadays, the etheric engineers have figured out remote EV feeds so clear the gunners don’t have to see their targets in person first. That was a huge technological advance. Combined with the massive improvements in will redirection--the technology that made your spellphone possible--well, it changed warfare as we knew it.

  What I worry about these days is that we lose the arms race, that the Russians will figure out how to encode a big gun so that more than one wielder can project his will into it at a time, first. Can you imagine how far you’d be able to send a missile with two or more good gunners wielding it? We’ve been working on it for years--I was involved in the early tests on a prototype cannon, that’s how long. Wish I could tell you about it, but it’s still classified.

  What is it the grandson says? Oh yeah: I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. Heh. That’s pretty funny.

  Episode 30: Sucker

  That was an interesting little diversion. I’ll let you get back to John and Annabelle. Take it away, grandkid!

  “All right,” said John once he’d recovered from his shock, “you’ve convinced me you’re a great shot and a great wielder with access to some pretty fancy hardware. Now convince me you’re Treasury and tell me why you’re here.”

  “Only Treasury would care about the reason,” she answered as she stowed her etheric pistols in their case. “Someone is corrupting ore coming out of Scryer’s Gulch.”

  Icy prickles came over John’s skin. “Corrupting--you mean like that nugget you found on Jamie? Someone did that on purpose? It’s not natural?”

  Annabelle shook her head. “Engineered. The best, our men tell me. Like nothing they’ve ever seen before.”

  John’s temper rose hand in hand with fear for his son. “And you didn’t see fit to take this to local authorities why, exactly?”

  “I didn’t know who was involved. I still don’t. I don’t know who the spellcaster is, and I don’t know who if anyone is running him.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning,” she said as if explaining to one of her slower students, “that you could have been in on it for all I knew. I’m taking a risk as it is that you don’t turn that rifle on me and leave me in some gully for the coyotes.”

  John chuckled and rested the rifle barrel over his shoulder. “I’d like to see the man who could get the drop on you, lady.”

  “That’s why they sent me,” she smiled, though she quickly sobered. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you more about it sooner, and I’m very sorry I didn’t discover what the ore did before Jamie got hold of it.”

  John made a dismissive motion with his free hand. “You’d been here a matter of days--” He stopped short, confused and horrified. “You didn’t know what it did? They didn’t tell you?”

  “No.” Annabelle frowned. She slid a finger restlessly over the pearl handle of her right-hand gun. “They said they weren’t sure, and that they wanted me to figure it out here. It’s never set right with me...”

  “Yes?” he prompted.

  “I was given everything I need to do the investigation, but little of the information,” she said reluctantly. “They hustled me out here straight from another assignment. I haven’t been back to DC in six months.” She looked at the toes of her boots. “It’s almost as if...as if they don’t want me to figure it out.” She crossed her arms against the chill, the unspoken “Why?” hanging between them in the air.

  Over at the Hopewell, Emmy was keeping herself warm out of doors back behind the hotel by means of exercise, swinging a cane carpet beater against Julian Hopewell’s parlor rug. Her long dust-brown hair hung in untidy braids where they’d fallen from atop her head--she never could get the hang of pins--and they flopped against her thin back as she waled on the carpet.

  She stopped to brush sweat from her brow and glanced down the alleyway, just in time to see that Duniway woman slip between two buildings further down. What was she skulking around for? Emmy beat the carpet slower so as to keep a better lookout, tiny poofs of dust barely rising from the pile.

  Sure enough, five minutes later here came John.

  Emmy beat at the carpet so hard the crumbs and dust flew; she kept at it until the cane beater broke clean in two. She’d show John what kind of woman that Annabelle was.

  “You surely put a lot of muscle into things, Emmy,” said a man’s voice.

  Emmy whirled around; it was Rabbit Runnels, John’s brother. She sighed. Rab was always hanging around. She didn’t want him, she wanted his brother. Though Rab had been good custom back when she’d been a goodtime girl full time, and still was on occasion; she turned a trick quiet-like now and again, with men she knew were discreet. Like Rab. He was a sucker.

  Maybe she could make a coin or two today, but he didn’t have that look on his boyish face. “What do you want, Rabbit?”

  “Nothin’,” said Rabbit gently. “Just came to pass the time, bid you good day.”

  “Ain’t never a good day for me.” She pushed up the drooping sleeves of her worn calico blouse and made a few ineffectual slaps at the carpet with the broken beater.

  “Here,” said Rabbit, taking it from her. “You want me to run and ask Minnie if you can use ours?”

  “Hopewell can buy his own damn carpet beaters hisself,” grumbled Emmy, snatching it back. “Anyway, carpet’s clean enough, I reckon.”

  “Well, then, you want help carrying it back up to Julian’s office?”

  Emmy put her hands on her hips and squinted. “What do you want, Rabbit Runnels?”

  “I told you, nothin’!”

  “You think you’re gonna get a free one for helpin’ me wrassle a carpet up the stairs?”

  “Emmy, don’t talk like that,” grimaced Rabbit, turning his head away. “No, I didn’t have a single thing in mind for helpin’, specially that.”

  “Oh, you don’t like me no more?” she taunted.

  “I like you a lot, Emmy,” he said, his face solemn. “I just wish you liked yourself a little more.” They stared at each other until Rabbit said, “So’m I gonna help you with this or you gonna wait for Ralph?”

  “Ralph didn’t help me get this thing down here, he ain’t likely to help me back up with it. All right,” she relented. “If you’re fool enough to help me, I’m smart enough to let you.”

  The two of them took the carpet off the line and carefully rolled it up. They carried it between them into the hotel like a well-fed snake slung over their shoulders, Rabbit taking most of its weight as they marched up the stairs to Julian’s parlor. “Thankee, Rab,” she said when it was done. He tipped his hat--tipped his hat!--and took the stairs down two at a time.

  What a sucker, she thought, and rolled out the carpet.

  Episode 31: A Full-Blooded Evening

  Julian Hopewell wasn’t in the habit of visiting Mamzelle’s Palace, at least not while the goodtime girls had been in residence at his place. But they were gone, all but Emmy. For a price, Emmy would do anything a man might want, from dishes to mor
e personal services. But Julian preferred that girls at least pretend they liked him, and Emmy wouldn’t do that for any amount. The occasional splurge on a visit to Mamzelle’s became necessary.

  The problem was affording it.

  Luckily for Julian’s libido, a hotel tenant with a big back bill and not much sense struck it rich on a claim everyone else had given up on. The greenhorn came back to town with one nugget the size of his fist and another the size of a hen’s egg; he paid Julian with the smaller one, told him to keep his room open and keep the change--”Call it six months’ interest and six more in advance”--and hightailed it back to his suddenly valuable claim.

  As a result, tonight Julian was in funds. The first thing he did after hitting the assayer’s office to cash in the nugget was to bespeak a dinner at the Palace, featuring a beefsteak the size of the table top.

  “Yes’m,” he said to Mamzelle as he sat back from the dinner table, “I tell you, you ever get tired of that ching-chong Chinaman in your kitchen, you just send him my way. Best cook in town--oh.” He pulled up short. “‘Cepting for my Ralph, a-course. My Ralph’s a fair hand in the kitchen, I must say. Ain’t much to look at, but no one comes to my place to look at folks,” he leered.

  Mamzelle smiled. “I like mon Chinois--my Chinaman, you say. But eef I do grow tired, I weel know where to send him.” In a pig’s eye, you savage, she thought. His people were writing poetry and building great cities when you lot were still picking mud out of each other’s hair. “And so now you ‘ave dined, Monsieur ‘Opewell. What now? You would like perhaps a little company? Une jeune fille?”

  “Boy, Mamzelle, the way you do talk, I’d swear you really were from France instead-a...” Hopewell paused, uncertain. “Instead-a...er...wherever you all are from,” he finished with a weak smile. “Well-l-l, I guess I would like a little filly at that. S’pose that’s what I came for!”

  “Très bien! I weel give you the choice best of my girls. But first, perhaps a drink?”

  She gestured, and Howard the enormous bartender appeared at her elbow so suddenly Julian started. Two glasses and an amber bottle were set on the table, and Howard disappeared as quickly as he’d come. “That man’s a tad disturbin’. He’s not...not one of your folk, is he?”

  “Oh, no. ‘Oward, he is human.” Mostly, she added to herself. She poured Julian a stiff drink and encouraged him to knock it back.

  “Boy, Mamzelle, you sure are bein’ nice to me tonight!” said Julian, with more cheer than suspicion in his tone.

  “And why would I not? Now we no longer compete, I weel be ton ami--friend. Friends of the best, no? ‘Ave another.”

  Julian grinned and hoisted the bottle. “Don’t mind if I do!”

  With each swig, Julian grew more talkative, just as Mamzelle had hoped; they began a good gossip over all of his various tenants. “The new schoolteacher--Mademoiselle Duniway--she goes well?”

  “Oh sure, Miss Duniway, she’s a peach!” burped Julian. “A reg’lar peach. That cat of hers is a holy terror, though.”

  “Cat?” said Mamzelle with casual interest. She had tracked Misi down to a single block of buildings including the Hopewell; her plan had been to go through the guests one by one and see who might be the owner of a large black cat. Hopewell had cut to the chase for her. “What kind of cat causes trouble for you?”

  “A big black tom. Furry beast with a bad temper. Just as soon spit ‘n’ scratch as say hello, that cat,” grumbled Julian.

  “I think I know this cat,” purred Mamzelle. “Now, mon ami, shall we try your luck of the best at the roulette wheel?”

  She stood behind Julian advising him on where to put his money, and made sure he lost so gently, and so mildly, and with such grand occasional reversals to good fortune, that when he came away much lighter in the pocket he barely noticed. He trotted upstairs with a giggly girl and the remains of the bottle, and didn’t come down for the rest of the night. When he did come down it was minus the rest of his windfall, but as far as he was concerned it was a fair trade.

  For her part, Mamzelle kept moving among the night’s customers, encouraging just enough drunkenness in them to throw caution to the winds and money on the gaming tables. It would be a good night, perhaps a very good one. At the next full moon, when she was free to kill once again, she’d have an even better one.

  Mamzelle knew where Misi slept at night now, and with whom. It remained only to kill the Duniway woman. Then Misi would be free to kill Jedediah Bonham, and then together they would slaughter the entire Dark-forsaken town full of human garbage. Kill them all, even down to her dear Chen Bing-wen and Sheriff John, and fly away.

  Would their blood be enough to cleanse her? She doubted it, but the world was full of human blood to bathe in. At some point she would be satisfied, though it might take a few centuries and great gouts of gore to accomplish.

  Mamzelle licked her sharp teeth and let her eyes glow red for a moment. She returned to her work, throwing an arm around a greenhorn with a dandy of a waxed mustache; he smelled of bay rum and anemia. She wrinkled her nose. Anemia was not tasty, but it could be fixed in time for her revenge.

  “A beefsteak, peut être, monsieur? On ze house,” she smiled.

  Episode 32: Hands All Around

  In the hours after Miss Duniway’s discovery of his perfidy, Simon suffered much and slept little. He longed for the chance to express the fullness of his regrets, but none came. It was left to him to make his own chance, and he took it the day after the horrible scene at the jail. He saw her on the street after school, threw on his coat, closed his office and hurried after her. “Miss Duniway!” he called, and she halted.

  “Mr Prake, how can I be of assistance?” she replied, in tones warmer than he felt he deserved but cooler than he wished.

  “I wonder if we might speak for a moment in my office? There are one or two things I wish to convey to you that I’d rather not say in the street.”

  Miss Duniway paused, and for a sickening moment Simon thought she might refuse. “Very well, Mr Prake, I have a short moment to give you, as long as it can be supposed I have business at your office,” she added in a low tone. Simon gave her his humble thanks, and she followed him through his door and into his back office.

  Once there, Simon poured out his deep shame and regret with such sincerity that Miss Duniway was obliged to not only forgive him but to beg him to forgive himself. “I know few people who could hold up to a strong demand from Sheriff Runnels. He was persistent, I take it?”

  “Yes, very,” nodded Simon, relieved to be understood. “I do assure you, Miss Duniway, that such a thing will never happen again as long as I live--with anyone’s correspondence--no matter how the law might threaten me. I have been miserable since I undertook to deceive you. Please do not let distrust of me color your decision to use the New Valley Printing Ethergraph Company.”

  “If your office sees less of me, Mr Prake, please be assured it’s from lack of funds rather than lack of trust,” she laughed. “I have been told by my cousin to use the mail more and the ethergraph less, which suits me as well. I must learn economy!”

  Thus forgiven, Simon shook her proffered hand and saw her from his office as relieved as he could be.

  But not as relieved as Annabelle was. From the moment she entered Simon’s back office to the moment she left, her detector bracelet tormented her so badly she almost couldn’t keep still. Hard to believe that a young man as seemingly upright as Simon Prake might be involved in this hermetauxite business--whatever it is, she mused as she walked to the Hopewell.

  As soon as she closed the door to her rooms behind her, she stripped the bracelet from her wrist and laid a cool cloth on the welts it had raised. “I think I’m done with that thing for now, Misi, unless I ever have to go to Simon Prake’s back office again.”

  “Wow, kid, that looks like it hurts,” said the cat.

  Annabelle sighed. “I’ve had worse. I’m sad that it’s looking more and more like young Mr Prake is ou
r man. He strikes me as so kind, and so unlikely to be involved in any bad business, the ethergraph snooping notwithstanding. As to that, I suppose Mr Prake is no match for the Sheriff.”

  “Question is, are you?”

  Annabelle was always amazed at how well he could smirk even in the form of a cat. She switched tacks. “How goes your surveillance of Mamzelle? Has she let anything slip about Bonham?”

  “I haven’t been that way in a couple days. She’s way too curious as to who you are. If she finds out, Annie, she’ll kill you next full moon.”

  “She’ll try, you mean.”

  “You better watch it, missy,” cautioned the demon cat. “She’s older than I am. Much stronger. I wonder all the time how Bonham caught her. He doesn’t strike me as that much of a wielder, but maybe I’m wrong.”

  “Hm. Might be worthwhile to find out before the full, find out what we’re up against. Get on that, kitty.”

  He shook his thickly ruffed head. “If you make me, but I’m telling you, the less I see that gal right now, the better off we are.”

  “That’s as may be, but I’d like to find out how close Bonham might be to the poisoned hermetauxite first. I can’t believe Mr Prake would fall in with any scheme of a Bonham, but money and power make people do things they mightn’t otherwise.”

  “What makes you so suspicious of Bonham? All the evidence points solidly at Simon Prake.”

  Annabelle flipped the damp cloth on her wrist to its cool side; the welts had blistered. Even were she determined to continue wearing the detector bracelet, she knew she couldn’t put it back on now; it wouldn’t close over the swelling. “I just cannot bring myself to believe that anything happens in this town without Jedediah Bonham having some hand in it, or at the least an ear.”