The Road to Hellfire

by Michael Panush

  The hatchetman brought Cane to a table at the back of the Golden Lotus and motioned for him to sit. A single Celestial was there, watching Cane with shaded eyes. A hand-rolled cigarette smoldered in the corner of his mouth. He wore a bowler hat and a Western frock coat over his traditional robe, a neat moustache on his upper lip. But it was his eyes that Cane focused on. They were cold and dead, more suitable for a corpse than a living man. Cane’s eyes darted to the revolver at the fellow’s waist and then he glanced up at the two burly hatchetman guards behind him. Mr. Lo wasn’t taking any chances.

  “Clayton Cane,” Mr. Lo said, extending a hand. “Please, sit. We have much to discuss.” He had no noticeable accent, but his voice was as cold as his eyes.

  “Reckon so,” Cane agreed. He sat down opposite Mr. Lo. “I heard you wanted to hire me. What’ll you pay?”

  Mr. Lo named a sum that sounded more than reasonable. “We are not low on funds here at the Golden Lotus, Mr. Cane,” Mr. Lo explained. “Your countrymen have made such profits possible. And all I must do in return is import opium for their lungs and workers for their railroads and factories.”

  “I ain’t surprised,” Cane said. “Lot of money to be found in being a slaver.”

  “Hah!” Mr. Lo slapped the table. “Forgive me if I ignore the moralizing of a man who makes his living off of death. I serve my community in my own way, providing a service and protecting my interests. If that means some of my fellows must die, then so be it. But, you will have nothing to do with that part of my business.” He nodded to one of his hatchetman servants, who arrived with two bowls of steaming tea in a wooden tray. “No. I have brought you here to guard the Golden Lotus from a hungry ghost.”

  “Hungry ghost?” Cane asked. He accepted the bowl of tea and raised it to his lips. It burned its way down his throat. “I ain’t someone who does cooking for dead men, Lo.”

  “No. You are a dead man yourself.” Mr. Lo smiled at Cane’s surprise. “My reach is long,” he explained. “For a few extra coolie workers, one of your government officials happily spilled the secret of your creation. He told me how you were made by a Confederate plantation during the war, built from the body parts of corpses and animated you with demon magic. You were to be their greatest soldiers, but instead the plantation was struck with cannon fire and you fled. And you have been killing men – and monsters, demons, and ghosts – ever since.” He brought the bowl close to his face and sniffed deeply. “Is that not true?”

  “Yeah.” Cane stared hard at Mr. Lo. “Now what do you want me to do with this hungry ghost?”

  “Destroy it.” Mr. Lo set down the bowl and tapped the table with a thin finger. “Every night for a month the hungry ghost has been haunting me. It appears somewhere in the Golden Lotus and disrupts our business. He frightens the addicts, or sends cards flying or smashes drinks. He ruins the night.” Mr. Lo sighed. “You are to be given an upstairs chamber, where you will wait and stay out of sight. When the ghost arrives, you will emerge and destroy it.”

  Cane nodded. “Sounds easy enough. Any idea why this spirit’s haunting you?”

  “That is not your concern.” Mr. Lo came to his feet. “I have business elsewhere in the city. More workers are needed and more bribes must be dispensed. My men will take you upstairs to your chambers.”

  “Keeping me on a tight leash, Lo?” Cane asked, as he stood up.

  “What else does one do with one’s dog?” Mr. Lo replied. “Good night, Mr. Cane.” He nodded quickly and then walked to the door, his hatchetmen following him.

  After he left, Cane allowed himself to be led up the rickety wooden stairwell and into one of the waiting rooms. The hatchetmen escorted Cane in and then pulled open the door, revealing a cramped room with a single cot on a bare wooden floor. Cane sat down on the bed and the hatchetman closed the door without a word. Cane didn’t mind the rudeness. He hated conversation himself.

  The bounty hunter drew out his pistols and rifle and set them on the cot. He got to work, carefully cleaning the weapons and loading them. He wondered if the hungry ghost would actually appear – and what he would do when he saw it. He’d battled specters and phantoms before, but never a Celestial one. Downstairs, the Golden Lotus continued its nightly business. Every so often, one of the opium fiends would release a low moan, as frightful as any ghost’s cry. Cane finished loading his rifle and slung it back over his shoulder. He was glad for the guns.

  Time passed slowly. Cane listened to the moans of the opium addicts and the rattle of dice, as well as the babble of the Golden Lotus’s drunks. He knew well the bloody business that Mr. Lo ran. He’d seen the bodies, strewn across the West like the slime trail of a snail, wherever the railroad went. It was a cold line of work that Cane had chosen – but it fitted the coldness of the world.

  As Cane thought about the job, he noticed a thin ribbon of steam floating up from a crack in the floorboards. Cane looked down as the gray line of smoke drifted up into the air and dissipated before it hit the ceiling. He felt no heat under his feet. It was like a portion of San Francisco’s mist had slipped inside his room. Cane’s hand drifted to his pistol. More smoke arrived.

  This time, it boiled up in a thick cloud like it had left an overheated kettle. It could have been opium smoke, but it lacked the sickly sweet smell. Cane knew the smoke had to be something else. He drew his revolver from his holster as even more smoke came up – and this time, it didn’t drift away, but hung in the center of the room in a great gray mass.

  The cloud seemed to shift and boil, the smoke forming and reforming in a constantly shifting sphere. Even though the revolver was in Cane’s hand, he didn’t fire. He just sat back on the cot and watched. The gas seemed to change from a circle in a strange shape, somewhat like a man’s body, but distorted and broken. It was hunchbacked and bent over, with arms as thin as ropes and no legs to speak of. The body itself seemed like a comma composed of a cloud. And right in the middle was the face.

  It was a man’s face, Cane was sure of that. The face was hairless, with wide sad eyes. But the mouth below the eyes was impossibly small, only about the size of a postage stamp. It couldn’t eat much more than a grape. No wonder the ghost was hungry. The thin limbs reached out towards Cane, brushing through the air like the tentacles of some underwater beast.

  “That’s far enough,” Cane said. He had the gun leveled at the ghost, though he doubted a bullet could harm a specter. “Don’t you do nothing more, you damn Celestial spirit. Don’t you—”

  But then the ghost was upon him, the thin arms wrapping around his neck. Cane lunged off of the cot, slamming his pistol through the body of the ghost. The mist split when his hand moved through it and the pinched face of the hungry ghost vanished. The arms remained and they seemed to double their grip. They pulled Cane closer to the ground. Cane could feel the fingers of the hungry ghost reaching past his skin, sinking into his flesh like freezing cold needles. They seemed to pierce his lungs.

  Cane’s eyes slammed shut. He struggled to breath. Only there wasn’t darkness when he closed his eyes, but a strange image. It was soft and indistinct, like a painting made of smoke. Cane recognized the hallway of the second story of the Golden Lotus, where he had been just an hour ago.

  This time, there were more of the Celestial women – or girls, really – standing in a nervous crowd. A bald fellow was talking to them and they were listening. He wore a ragged robe and Cane figured he must be some kind of priest or monk, ministering to the Golden Lotus’s girls. The monk was bald and Cane recognized him instantly. This was the ghost, though his mouth had not been shrunken in life. Cane didn’t speak a word of Chinese, so he had no idea what they were saying.

  Harsh shouts came from down the hall. Cane didn’t have to speak Chinese to know what was being said now. Three of Mr. Lo’s Tong gunmen arrived, one of them already holding a hatchet loosely in his hands. They surrounded the monk. Harsh words flew from all mouths and then the monk was on the ground, the hatchet’s handle bashed against his head
. Blood, looking like dark murky ink in the misty vision, splashed onto the ground.

  “Damnation!” Cane roared as he pulled back. He landed hard on the cot and rolled over, falling onto the ground. “I don’t give a damn about how you died!” he shouted. “You try your heathen magic somewhere else!” He kicked out, slamming his boot into the face of the ghost. The phantom’s head sunk away, but it was already reforming. The long arms came down again.

  A cramped Chinatown alley flashed into Cane’s eye. There was the monk, but he was rocking on his feet like a drunken man. Blood trailed behind him. The monk stumbled down the alley before sinking to his knees. Cane saw a pair of Tong hatchetmen close in, one wielding a wide-bladed Chinese broadsword. Mr. Lo followed them. Lo held out his hand and received the sword.

  The monk held out his hand. Mr. Lo brought down the broadsword. Cane didn’t see the rest of it. He swung his own hand down, forming a fist and driving a powerful punch into the face of the hungry ghost. It felt like he had slammed his hand into a pool of freezing water.

  His eyes flashed open and he saw the ghost’s thin arms wrapped around his like two long strings. The little mouth was drawing closer to Cane and he could see teeth within, like stars shining in a cloudy night sky. The teeth were not small, like the mouth was. It seemed the ghost had a normal mouth, except that the majority of his lips had been fused shut, leaving only a tiny gap open. Cane shuddered a little at the pathetic specter and pulled back. Then he saw his revolver on the floor.

  He grabbed the six-gun, cocked the hammer and fired. His bullet cut through the skull of the hungry ghost, leaving a trail of mist as it slammed into the wall and caused a shower of sawdust. The ghost spun to the side and floated towards the door. The fog around the specter’s head remained shattered, like the broken skulls of countless gunshot victims.

  The hungry ghost began to flee, passing through the closed door without even rippling its ethereal body. Cane came to his feet and kicked the door open, running after the ghost. “You won’t get away that easily,” he muttered. He had a job and it involved finishing the ghost.

  The ghost floated through the balustrade and dropped into the first floor of the Golden Lotus. Cane followed, darting to the stairwell and running down. Some of the Tongs, opium fiends and gamblers looked after him. A few drunks reeled limply in the direction of the door. Cane ignored them. He saw the ghost speeding under gambling tales and soaring over the opium fiends, heading for a door in the corner. Cane considered firing at the phantom, but the Golden Lotus was too crowded. He kept his revolver raised and chased after the ghost, stepping roughly over the opium fiends without interrupting their stupors.

  Bits of the vision filtered back into Cane’s mind as he ran. He tried to make sense of them. The hungry ghost had been a monk in life, who tried to help the women working in the Golden Lotus. Mr. Lo had been displeased and hacked the monk to death in an alley for his trouble. It was a grim, but that was how the Tongs operated. They ruled their little domains with terror, paying off the law, catering to the white man’s need for opium or cheap workers and murdering anyone who got in their way. They were the only law in Chinatown – not that anyone cared about Celestials murdering each other anyway. Cane knew that he shouldn’t care either.

  The ghost flitted to a small wooden door in the corner and Cane ran for it. He drew his second pistol as the hungry specter shifted into an even thinner shape, and then drifted into the keyhole. The ghost was gone in seconds and then Cane arrived. He kicked open the door and charged down a little flight of earthen stairs, both guns ready.

  He stopped and looked around. The hungry ghost was nowhere to be seen. Instead, there were piles of wooden crates, neatly stacked on the dirt floor. Cane walked over to the nearest crate, slid one revolver back into his holster and pulled back the lid. He peeked inside.

  The crate was full of bones. They were laid out in a messy pile, stacked like so much kindling. The skull was there, staring up at Cane with hollow eyes. So were cracked ribs and leg bones, broken to fit into the crate. Cane stepped back. It wasn’t that he was unused to death. It was the simple horror of the bones being packed away like supplies in a factory, mutilated not out of cruelty but to make them fit in their box.

  “Mr. Cane?” Lo’s cold voice reached Cane’s ears. Cane spun around, his revolver rising. He leveled it at Mr. Lo, who stood between his hatchetman bodyguards by the earthen steps. Mr. Lo looked around the room and then back at Cane. “I suppose you saw what resides inside the crates?”

  “You’re stockpiling bones, Lo?” Cane demanded. “That some kind of Celestial tradition?”

  “Hardly.” Mr. Lo stood next to Cane and reached into the crate. He pulled out one of the bones and held it up to the light. “The Chinese here in America are connected deeply to their homeland. When they die, they wish for their bones to be taken home and buried in the land of their fathers and mothers. If not, they fear that their ghosts will never know peace, but will wander here and there, blown about by the winds and remain always hungry. They travel from town to town and never know love or peace or find inclusion in the memories of those who care about them.” He tossed back the bone. “And so they fear leaving their bones here.”

  Cane stared at Mr. Lo. “So you keep them here?”

  “It keeps the locals afraid.” Mr. Lo puts his hands in his pockets. “They know that if they resist the Tongs, if they run from their positions or try to break the rules I have set, their bones will never return to the land of their ancestors and they will be trapped forever as a hungry ghost.”

  “Seems like one of them hungry ghosts has come back to haunt you.” Cane pointed to the rows of crates. “You figure you got his bones somewhere in this bunch?”

  “Indeed I do. But that’s why you have been hired, Mr. Cane.” Mr. Lo turned away and walked back to his bodyguards. “Now, I must return to the docks. There are more shipments to be overseen. You are to remain here and destroy the ghost that is haunting me. Do your job and receive your payment. It should not be difficult. After all, you are something of a hungry ghost yourself.”

  Cane watched as Mr. Lo and his bodyguards climbed up the steps and left him alone in the basement – along with the boxes of bones. The lid still lay on the ground. Cane picked it up and set it gently back on the box. He sighed and headed back into the main floor.

  There was no more sign of the monk’s hungry ghost, so Clayton Cane went back to his room and his cot. He reloaded his pistols then leaned back on the bed and closed his eyes. The tussle with the hungry ghost had tired him out, like bits of his life had been ripped away and swallowed up in the hungry ghost’s impossibly tiny mouth. He closed his eyes and before he knew it, he had drifted off to sleep.

  When he was uneasy, he dreamed of the war. Those were the only real memories he had, and even they were as faint and intangible as the hungry ghost’s body. They were the memories of the soldiers – Yankee and Rebel – who had been chopped up and sewn together to form him. But their memories remained, locked away in the dark recesses of his brain. When Clayton Cane rested his eyes and let his defenses go down, they came creeping back.

  Once again he saw the mansions of Georgia burning as he marched to the sea with Sherman. Along with Bloody Bill Anderson, he surveyed the massacred Union dead at Centralia. He charged into Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg and saw his friends reduced to rags by cannon fire. All the slaughter and horror of that war burned into him, marking him like a brand. It flowed through his brains and stayed in his bones in the place of marrow. He was a creature born of that war. Now that it was finished, what could he do but wander, always seeking out more violence and slaughter? What could he be but another hungry ghost?

  Something in the Golden Lotus moaned and Cane snapped into wakefulness. It wasn’t the opium addicts downstairs. Cane sat and up and looked to the door. The hungry ghost of the monk was there, waiting for him like a faithful friend. This time, Cane didn’t go for his revolver. He just watched as the monk slid through the door
and vanished into the hallway.

  He came to his feet and followed the spirit, pulling back the door and leaving his room. He stepped into the hallway and stopped. The hungry ghost of the monk was there – and he wasn’t alone.

  There were dozens of other ghostly figures there, floating silently in the hall. Cane looked over the figures, all distorted in death. He saw more Celestial men, perhaps rivals of Mr. Lo or simply workers who had tried to flee from him. There were women too, the unfortunate workers that had displeased their Tong bosses. And there were even children, who had been murdered alongside their parents to send the same bloody message that the Tongs’ power was not to be broken. All of them had the same thin, stringy arms and the closed mouths.

  They didn’t sweep down to attack Cane in a ghostly horde or attempt to float away to escape him. Instead, the hungry ghosts simply floated there, still and indistinct, filling up the hall like Frisco fog fills up an alley. Cane looked into the eyes of the ghosts and knew that they had been trapped here, wandering around Chinatown and always seeking sustenance their bodies could never use. They were unable to go home. No matter where they looked, they couldn’t find peace.

  “Hell.” Cane balled his hands into fists. “Even if I can’t rest, I can still help those who can.” He nodded silently to the monk. “I’ll help you,” he said. “Just wait on me a spell.” Cane stepped back into the little room. His rifle was resting on the floor next to his bed. Cane grabbed it and walked outside and then down to the stairwell. He didn’t look back at the ghosts.

  The Golden Lotus was still packed. Even though it was late enough to be near dawn, the die-hard gamblers, devoted drunks and opium fiends lounged about and remained. Cane couldn’t have that. He fired his rifle into the ceiling, then worked the lever and fired again. Even the smoke-addled minds of the opium fiends snapped dully to attention.