by C. S. Poe
“Pardon?”
“You use Crown perfume.” Gunner put his Stetson on and paused, his hand on the doorknob. “What is it? Not Buckingham. It’s less soapy.”
“Er—Fougère.”
Gunner seemed satisfied by that response. He opened the door and took a step out onto the porch without another word.
I watched him from the threshold, slack-jawed. In the last twelve hours, the outlaw Gunner the Deadly was at odds with the man who I witnessed with my own two eyes. His current behavior did not nullify the fact that he was a vigilante at best, and a murderer at worst, but—world ain’t never been black and white—I hadn’t expected the gruff care he’d shown me last night. He’d unbuttoned my shoes, folded my coat, and tucked me into bed. I hadn’t expected his frank openness regarding his own tendencies, like he’d meant to comfort me with the knowledge: I wasn’t alone. And I certainly wasn’t expecting the country’s most wanted man to be familiar with and have apparent preferences regarding Crown perfumes.
Gunner was… complicated.
IV
October 11, 1881
“Aye,” a grisly middle-aged miner was saying as he chewed on the end of an unlit cigar. “Hamilton, you said?”
“Yes.”
He nodded and combed his dirty fingers through his beard. “Aye,” he repeated. “Tinkerer was here before daybreak. We knew he’s been around these parts the last week.” He motioned to the equally dirty younger men flanking either side of himself. “And the boys over at Fist and Nugget—that’d be copper and silver mines, respectively, sir—they seen him. He gave them a good scare too.”
“Has he outright attacked any of the mines?” I asked.
The man squinted as he studied the horizon over my shoulder. “No, sir. Not exactly.”
“Which means?”
The miner removed a dingy cap from his head and wiped his forehead. “Last week, Tinkerer tried to buy Nugget.”
Gunner made a sound under his breath.
I shot him a quick look, but Gunner merely tugged the brim of his Stetson lower while his jaw worked a fresh stick of Black Jack gum.
“I guess that ain’t quite right,” the man continued. “He went ’round, started throwing double eagles at the lads, promising more where that came from if they handed over the daily loads of silver to him. You gotta understand, Mr. Hamilton—”
“Agent Hamilton,” I corrected.
“What?”
I sighed a little. “Special Agent Hamilton.”
“Oh. Aye. Er—” He chewed on that cigar some more. “Twenty dollars is over two weeks of work.”
“Then the miners at Nugget have supplied Tinkerer with silver?” I concluded.
“No. They considered. We all did. Double the pay is mighty tempting. But he can’t be trusted.”
“We didn’t take one cent,” the man on the right piped up. His face was speckled with freckles, like an artist had flicked paint from his fingertips.
“Wise decision,” I answered. “I’m sure it saved everyone’s lives. Because I can guarantee that if Tinkerer got what he needed, he’d have destroyed the evidence afterward. If you understand my meaning.”
The middle-age miner took the cigar from his mouth and pointed at Gunner with it. “That and because of Gunner.”
“Pardon?”
“Ain’t no one Tinkerer is afraid of. Except Gunner the Deadly. When he got into town yesterday, Tinkerer backed off. He’s still testing our boundaries, but he’s cautious. Less, ah… less aggressive. That’s the word.”
Was there not one person in Shallow Grave who didn’t view this outlaw as a saint?
I pinched the bridge of my nose, squeezed my eyes shut, and said, “I appreciate your opinion—”
“It’s true.” The lanky third man finally spoke. “No disrespect, sir, but lawmen take bribes. They look the other way. They abuse power. Gunner don’t.”
On this point I couldn’t disagree. I was from New York City. Our police force was corrupt beyond measure. It was only because of the Bureau’s unique organization that we were protected from similar exploitations. Agents were compensated well, but the simple fact that we were all registered and overseen by the government made it difficult to accept kickbacks. Director Moore was also as honest a man as they came these days. He was constantly clashing with the police commissioner over city regulations and the harassment his agents were often dealt by coppers on the street.
The third man continued. “Just havin’ Gunner in town keeps the gambling halls honest.”
The freckled lad asked, “Wild Freddie—you heard of him, sir?”
I let out a held breath. “I’m familiar, yes. Cattle rustler, isn’t he?”
“Aye. Piece of dirt tried to take advantage of my sister last year. She was fifteen. I was here—workin’ the mines—otherwise you’d best believe I’d have taken care of him myself, sir. But Gunner stepped in.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Saved my baby sister’s life and ran Wild Freddie out of town. He ain’t never been seen around here again.”
Lanky leaned forward to look around the man between them to ask, “Weren’t he missing a testicle too?”
“When Gunner finished with him,” Freckles agreed.
I spared Gunner a second glance and whispered, “You castrated a man?”
He didn’t answer, but a flicker of what constituted a smile passed over Gunner’s features.
Honestly, that was vigilante justice I could get behind.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” I stated. “Before we go, would you be able to tell us where you believe Tinkerer has gone to?”
Freckles and Lanky looked at the older man for guidance.
He stuck the cigar between his teeth again and patted the pockets of his dirty waistcoat. “East,” he grumbled.
“And what is in the east besides town?” I reached a hand out, snapped, and offered a small flame on the tip of my finger.
The miner jerked backward. His gaze darted between the magical offering and down at the cigar now clenched so hard between his teeth that he looked ready to bite through it. “N-no, thank you.” He quickly took the cigar from his mouth and stuck it into a pocket.
I fought to keep my face neutral, lowering my hand and snuffing the flame out of existence. “East,” I prompted once more.
“Dead Man’s Canyon,” the miner answered quickly, his interest in speaking with me so clearly over and done with. “The canyon is only ’bout a mile from town. Good a place as any to hunker down.”
I turned to walk away from the men and general commotion surrounding the mine, but paused to watch Gunner reach into his trouser pocket, remove several silver coins, and disperse them between the three. Neither of us spoke as we mounted our horses—Gunner’s a glossy-black Morgan stallion, mine a borrowed Saddlebred mare with a questionable disposition. Gunner took the lead until we’d put Big Mouth at our backs, then slowed his horse to a trot and fell in alongside me.
“That upset you.”
“What did?” I asked.
“His reaction to your magic.”
“I’m quite used to it.”
Gunner stared at me from under the brim of his Stetson. “It still bothered you.”
I gave the reins a tug when the horse slowed to consider some shrubbery. “I don’t enjoy being treated like I’m an oddity in a sideshow, no.” I changed the subject. “You paid those men.”
“I did.”
“No one in this town seems to have a negative thing to say about you.” I glanced at Gunner again. “Now it makes sense.”
Gunner chuckled in an actual, honest-to-God, he-found-something-humorous sort of way. “Are you always so cynical, my dear Hamilton?”
I felt my face flush. “It wasn’t cynicism.”
“What do you think I do with the money I procure?” he countered.
Procure.
“I’m certain you’ll enlighten me.”
“I require very little in life. Black Jack, Folgers,
and a loaded Waterbury,” Gunner explained.
“Stetsons aren’t what I would consider affordable.”
Gunner put his thumb and forefinger on the brim of his hat. “Every man has an element of vanity.”
I smiled. “So why appropriate the funds if you have no intention of keeping them?”
Gunner turned his attention to the trail ahead. He held the reins in one hand, his body moving in gentle sync to the Morgan’s gait. He looked comfortable. Confident. Like a man who truly didn’t need anything more than the hat on his head and the untamed wild before him.
“You said you’ve been working at the Bureau for nearly a decade,” he began.
“Twelve years next April.”
“In ’65—when the government mandated casters come out of hiding and be regulated—what did you do?” Gunner gave me a sideways look. “Did you comply?”
“I fail to see the relation between these topics.”
“It’s a simple question, Hamilton. Did you, or did you not, comply with the government’s order?”
I gave the mare’s reins another jerk. “I didn’t, no. Not right away. I was only thirteen.”
“And yet I’m certain you’d lived a lifetime in those thirteen short years.” Gunner’s gaze didn’t waver. “Enough to not blindly trust the promises of politicians in a war-weary country.”
Conversations of this nature were setting me increasingly on edge. I couldn’t understand how Gunner the Deadly, of all damn men, was able to dissect and label the parts of me that no one—not even my director—had been able to successfully identify. And yet he managed with such ease and accuracy. Gunner was certainly an observant fellow, but God, was he a mind reader as well?
I sat up straighter in the saddle. “I made an informed decision when I reached eighteen. I had time to consider all of the implications—”
“Of letting someone know how powerful you are.”
“Of the good I could do in return for the sacrifice of my privacy,” I corrected.
Gunner nodded. “We aren’t so different.”
I snorted. “Excuse me?”
“I didn’t wake one morning and decide to go out and break a few laws,” Gunner explained. “I was put into situations that required making a decision. Not only for my well-being, but of those around me. I’ve never killed an innocent man and never stolen bread from the mouth of a child. Your files call me a vigilante, and if you must put a label to my actions, then yes, that is likely the most accurate. I’ve sacrificed my safety because I know I can do good. Sometimes bad men die when I do good. I don’t regret that. I don’t regret feeling alive.”
“Alive?” That one word was so difficult to echo. Like it was foreign and my tongue could hardly comprehend the shape and structure of its syllables.
“I’ll keep skirting the law and you’ll keep enforcing the law,” Gunner continued. “But be certain your decision has allowed you to live. Otherwise, what’s the point of taking a breath today if it does nothing for you tomorrow?” He was quiet for a moment before adding with a touch of thoughtful consideration, “I steal from airships because sometimes, I get bored.”
V
October 11, 1881
The sun had warmed the desert landscape by late morning, and I was sweating as we dismounted from the horses under the shade of a cluster of scraggly, weather-worn trees. I wrapped the reins over a low-hanging branch, retrieved a handkerchief from my pocket, and removed my hat to wipe my forehead.
“I thought we were going to a canyon?” I said.
Gunner inclined his head to the side as he opened a saddlebag and sorted through the contents. “Just over there.”
I peered around him, squinting into the bright sunshine, but saw nothing other than shrubs and packed earth.
“Dead Man’s is a slot canyon,” Gunner explained. “It’s a hell of a fall if you’re not paying attention. We’ll leave the horses here and climb down.”
“Do you think Ferguson is actually in there?”
Gunner shrugged one shoulder. “This part of the canyon is the easiest to enter on foot. About a mile in, the passage opens into a cavern of sorts. Locals call it the Atrium. Good a place as any to remain out of sight while fiddling on whatever steam contraptions he’s brought with him.” He held out a parcel about the size of his palm, neatly folded in cloth.
I took it. “What’s this?”
“You didn’t eat before we left.”
I opened the bundle to reveal dried strips of meat and hardtack. “Thank you.” My stomach growled right on time, and I collected the beef in one hand before taking a big bite from all the strips.
Gunner waited, then took the cloth with the hardtack from me. He carefully refolded it, held it in one hand, and unholstered his Waterbury with the other.
“Unless that hardtack is from the war, shooting it seems excessive,” I said around a second bite.
The corner of Gunner’s mouth twitched, but he said nothing. He spun the pistol with quick, impressive accuracy, used the butt of the weapon to smash the tack, then holstered the Waterbury again. He unfolded the cloth to reveal the hard bread now broken into several smaller, more accessible bites.
“Clever little trick,” I said lightly, accepting the handout a second time.
Gunner gave me a wink in response. It was such a small gesture, as far as flirtations went, and yet it was so loud, so huge, it was akin to an airship exploding over the Lower East Side. My chest vibrated from the blast and my face was hot from the fire. Did Gunner look at every person that way? Strip them down to nothing but bone like a curious medical student, so he could understand how they were pieced together?
Or did he only look at men that way?
At me, that way?
Gunner reached out and my heart nearly stopped beating, because I was so certain he was going to touch my face. But he merely plucked a stray leaf from my collar. He tilted his head a bit, studying me again with those blue eyes, then said, “So much gray for a man not yet thirty. If I’ve done my math correctly.”
I kept my hair cut quite close on the sides of my head where the worst of the gray was. But it was still obvious enough, at least to someone as perceptive as Gunner. “Mama’s side of the family,” I said after clearing my throat.
Gunner said nothing more. He took a piece of broken hardtack and put it in his mouth.
I finished the dried beef before saying, “The Bureau has estimated your age.”
“Have they.”
“Between thirty and thirty-five.”
Gunner crunched the hardtack loudly, but made no indication as to whether that fact was in any way accurate.
“So?” I prodded.
“So what?”
“Are they correct?”
“I do enjoy that inquisitive expression you wear so often, Hamilton, but a man must keep his secrets from special agents. No matter how handsome they may be.” With that, he turned and walked away.
Gunner was goddamn infuriating.
Infuriating and enigmatic and charming and—lord save me.
I popped two pieces of the bread in my mouth, shoved the remaining food back into Gunner’s saddlebag, and hurried to catch up. I fell into step alongside him, both of us quiet but for the tread of boots on sand and rock for a dozen or so yards. I looked up at his profile briefly, which, of course, shared as much emotion as the smoothed surface of a river stone.
The Bureau knew little about him beyond his extensive list of crimes, but even some of those details were likely incorrect or hearsay. We didn’t know where Gunner was from, and he had no detectable accent in which to make presumptions. We didn’t know his age, although after careful consideration of the way he spoke and carried himself, and of the tiny suggestions of age around his eyes, I suspected he fell within our estimated age range. But beyond that, the Bureau and all other agencies of law knew nothing.
“Does anyone know your name?” I finally asked.
Gunner removed the package of Black Jack from his coat. “
I suspect my mother had an inkling.”
“No. I meant—”
“You meant, does a man know my name,” Gunner corrected. He placed a stick of licorice gum on his tongue and returned the rapidly depleting package to his pocket. “I’m unattached, to borrow a phrase.” He met my eyes. “I don’t make it a habit to share such details with men who are nothing more than a passing ship in the night.”
“Of course,” I answered, a lightness in my tone that didn’t match the sudden hurt in my gut.
Gunner put his hand out suddenly. “Mind yourself.”
I directed my gaze down and immediately before us, only to realize the desert literally stopped here. The red-and-orange ground plunged straight down for nearly a hundred feet, much too steep and narrow to even consider climbing. The canyon itself wasn’t terribly wide. I dared to imagine Gunner might have even been able to jump it with a good running start. It looked like a stitch had torn open in the earth.
“Well,” I said after a beat. “Being magically inclined has its uses, but I’m not sure how you expect to get down there.”
Gunner passed in front of me, dragging his hand lightly across my chest before turning and making a come-hither motion. He led the way toward a portion of the ground where juts of sandy rock protruded from the sheer walls, like broken teeth in the mouth of a boxer. Gunner started down the dangerous path first, moving from ledge to ledge like he’d done it a time or two. It was a slow and methodical process, but the temperature became noticeably more bearable as we neared the bottom and the sunlight had become diluted and less oppressive.
A few ragged rock outcroppings below me, Gunner’s boot made a sudden scrape against dirt. The edge he stood on cracked and crumbled under his feet before he could grab ahold of any purchase. He didn’t even get a curse out before he was falling the rest of the way.
I dropped to one knee, leaned over, and thrust a hand out. A strong wind erupted from the canyon’s twisting pathways, screaming around the tight passages like tormented spirits. It kicked up sand, caught Gunner, and gently eased him to the ground. He raised his head and, for the first time, his face betrayed very real human emotions. I stood and jumped, a second gust of wind reaching like the hand of God was guiding me safely down.