by David Boop
The green-eyed bruja spoke, in Spanish accented with Kiowa Apache. “Sueltenle la mordaza.”
I cut loose Ambrosio’s gag, which he spit out. He gazed defiantly at the brujas. “All you bitches can go to hell.”
A bruja with feathers braided into her hair leapt from her pony and landed in front of Ambrosio. She whipped him with a riding crop. With his hands tied behind his back, he was helpless to defend himself. Grabbing his shirt, she stared into his eyes. Then she opened her mouth wide and gasped like a serpent, showing him the mutilated stub of her tongue.
Ambrosio recoiled and dry heaved. Can’t say I was pleased by the sight either.
“Hell? We’ve been there, perdido,” the green-eyed bruja said, then warned, “Behave yourself, for there’s more of you to chop off than your tongue.”
I kept my hand loose, ready to draw my revolver in case she wasn’t just talking to Ambrosio.
The feathered bruja climbed back onto her pony. She prodded it toward our horses, took their reins, and led them to a water trough at one side of the porch.
“Adentro,” Green-Eyed Bruja ordered. “Todos.”
So it wasn’t enough that we delivered Ambrosio, Malachi and I had to wade deeper into this pit of perdition. I nudged Ambrosio forward and Malachi stepped alongside. Climbing the short flight onto the porch, we moved slowly and deliberately while Green-Eyed Bruja and another of her witches dismounted and trailed behind us.
The front door swung open, and in the darkened foyer appeared a pale, ghostly figure. She wore a crisply ironed white shift over a white ankle-length skirt, white oxfords, and a light-blue cape. Her blonde hair was pulled back and tucked under a white cap imprinted with a small crest. Eyes the deep blue of a mountain lake sparkled from a soft face with rosy cheeks. Compared to the hard-bitten brujas, she appeared as menacing as a stick of butter.
Cool, humid air spilled over her shoulders. From behind her and deep inside the house, some kind of gigantic machinery rumbled.
“Welcome gentlemen.” She curtsied and spoke English with a German accent. “I am Helmina Kolmar, Don Justos’s principal medical attendant.”
She winced as our gazes met, and that mountain-lake look in her eyes clouded over. She touched the silver crucifix on her necklace. “I hadn’t expected one of your kind.”
“I hear that a lot.”
She blinked as if to make sense of what I was doing here, then gestured down the hall. “This way, if you please.” Green-Eyed Bruja and her lieutenant fell in behind us.
As we proceeded inside, the air now smelled tangy and metallic. The rumble took on a cadence and became louder. Cool droplets spit upon us from rows of ceiling vents. The pulsating noise and the moist breeze brought to mind the same uneasy thought I’d had when following Elsa into the mine, that I was descending into the bowels of a gargantuan beast.
My kundalini noir hummed like a taut string, plucked hard.
Helmina led us down a corridor to a set of double doors, which I expected her to open in a theatric flourish—Behold, Don Justos! Instead she cracked open the one on the right and let us slip through.
At the back of the room, a battery of glass cylinders filled with amber liquid reached from the floor to the ceiling. Bubbles in the liquid churned in rhythm to the syncopated tempo trembling the air. Glass and polished-metal tubes twisted spaghetti-like from bronze manifolds along the top of the cylinders. These tubes led to a shallow bassinet-like metal contraption set against a bureau and a long black curtain. Cradled within the bassinet rested an old man in a baggy gown.
“Don Justos,” Helmina announced. “Your son is here.”
At the mention of his name, Justos perked up, and his dull, rheumy eyes became clear and piercing.
So this was Don Justos Zamora, the feared El Jefe de la Comancheria. I’d never seen him before, but considering his reputation I expected a giant of man—a Mexican Thor reposed on a throne of iron and thunderbolts.
What greeted us though, was half a human, meaning exactly that—Justos from the waist up! I don’t know had happened to the rest of him, but there couldn’t have been much left since the bassinet was maybe a foot deep. Waxy, jaundiced flesh sagged from his face as if he was dissolving. His body emerged from layers of fleecy blankets bundled around him.
Justos reached for the sides of the bassinet to sit up straight. His movements were at first palsied and hesitant, which only added to his crippled presence. But when he brought his gaze upon Ambrosio, it was like a fire had ignited inside the old man’s emaciated torso.
Ambrosio didn’t avert his eyes, and he squared his shoulders as if ready to face an execution squad.
“Bring him closer,” Justos ordered in a gruff mumble.
“In time,” I said. “There’s the matter of the bounty.”
“As you said,” Justos replied, “in time. First, allow me to speak with my son.”
Malachi nudged Ambrosio to take a step, but Ambrosio remained rooted in place. I elbowed him hard, and he staggered forward.
“Mijo,” Justos said, “when you were younger, when I looked into your face, I saw my own. Now what do I see? A thief. A swindler. An embezzler.”
Ambrosio’s lips pruned in disgust. “What bothers you the most, viejo gastado, is not that I stole, but that I also stole from you.”
“Indeed. You stole much. You squandered your birthright. You’ve forced my hand, Ambrosio.” The old man’s voice softened to a regretful whisper. “If I’m to retain the respect of my hacienda, of my neighbors, and most importantly, of my enemies, I have to make an example of you.”
“As you did to Mother?” Ambrosio cut his gaze to a polished human skull on the nearby bureau. “This is family love among us Zamoras.” He spit a gob to the floor.
Green-Eyed Bruja kicked the back of his knees, and he crumpled sideways, then collapsed onto his back.
Malachi and I jerked away, startled, ready to shoot our way out of here.
In a tired voice, Justos said, “Alimentalo a los zopilotes.” Feed him to the buzzards.
When Ambrosio opened his mouth—to curse, to scream, I don’t know—the green-eyed bruja yanked a leather belt around his neck and choked him to silence. The two brujas lifted him by the armpits and were about to haul him out when Justos announced, “Wait. He needs to see one more thing.”
He beckoned Malachi and me. “You two pistoleros, our business is not yet completed.”
What did he mean? My kundalini noir reared back, ready to strike. I sensed Malachi also putting himself on a hair trigger.
Justos turned to his nurse. “Helmina, the bounty, por favor.”
She pivoted toward the bureau and unlocked a drawer, withdrawing a small strongbox, which she brought to Justos, who then balanced it on the edge of his bassinet. From inside his gown, he fished out a cord and key, and with trembling fingers, opened the strongbox’s padlock.
“Every day I sit in this tub is torture,” he said. “But to endure, suffering must have meaning. And the meaning for me is to have my enemies brought here, one by one, and let them taste Comancheria justice.”
He reached into the lockbox and retrieved a pair of cloth bags each the size and shape of a large sausage. They sagged heavily in his hands. “La recompensa, señores. Two thousand dollars.”
Malachi’s guess about the bounty had been correct.
Justos tossed the bag to me, and I caught it with my left hand, my right remaining close over my revolver. Malachi kept watch as I opened the bag. Fifty-dollar gold coins clinked into my palm.
Malachi took the money and counted. “This is only half.”
“What’s going on?” I asked. “You said the bounty was two thousand dollars.”
“So it is,” Justos replied. “Two thousand dollars paid upon the delivery of my son Ambrosio to those who brought him in.”
He tossed the second bag toward the curtain on the other side of his bed. It thumped on the wooden floor. “Half to you both.” Justos pointed to Malachi and me. “Half to
her.” He pointed to the curtain.
Her, who?
Someone moved behind the curtain. My kundalini noir tensed, coiling. The curtain parted and out stepped a woman wearing a riding skirt, waistcoat, and boots spattered with mud. She picked up the bag of coins. A frizz of russet-brown hair framed a complexion bronzed by long days in the sun. She wasn’t exactly pretty, but she had dark, enchanting eyes that could make a man—or woman, depending—do plenty of immoral things. But the most remarkable feature about her was the mechanical crow perched on her shoulder.
Details clicked into place. The crow. The note. Ambrosio. Elsa’s disappearing act. The bounty. The crow again. The woman. Elsa.
She grinned at me. I grinned back. I had to acknowledge that she had been one step ahead of everyone else, even if by using supernatural means.
Ambrosio thrashed against the floor. The brujas loosened the belt around his neck enough for him to give a ragged whisper, “Elsa. You!” His voice sounded like gravel. “It was you who gave me up.”
When Elsa turned to Ambrosio, her grin heated into a glare. “When I asked you where you hid your treasure, you wouldn’t tell me. After all that we’ve done together, all those swindles and scams, all those times we looked away from each other’s infidelities as we drew our victims into folly, and you still didn’t trust me? If I couldn’t earn your trust, then I had to do something worthy of your mistrust.” She bounced the bag of coins in her hands.
His face reddened and contorted. “Traitor! Traitor!”
The brujas tightened the belt until Ambrosio’s eyes bulged and all that came out of his mouth was a spray of froth. As they dragged him out the door, he beat his naked heels against the floor until they bled.
Justos sighed. “Our business is done, señores. Close the door on your way out.”
Malachi tugged at my coat sleeve. We turned about and started the long trek home.
THE PETRIFIED MAN
Betsy Dornbusch
Creede, Colorado
April 13, 1892
I never thought I’d see Jefferson “Soapy” Smith again once Denver instituted its new regulations against gambling, but I’d just finished a case when his telegraph came from Creede—a telegraph concluding with, “Something strange is going on.” Soapy knew how to pique my curiosity even if I only half believed him.
A bunko man, gambler, and possible murderer was an unlikely friend for a lawman like me, the founder of the Rocky Mountain Detective Association. Not that he fought crime for the sake of any societal goodness. Soapy Smith solved crimes when it was good for Soapy Smith. Nobody cuts into a criminal’s business like another criminal. But Soapy and me, we’d seen some odd goings-on in our years hunting criminals. Ghosts, spells, and monsters were at the root of enough crimes we solved to always consider the supernatural a suspect…until our last case when he’d lied to me about a witch’s curse to direct suspicion at his competition.
Fresh-cut lumber hotels, shops, and saloons in Creede faced each other across a dirt road. Ladies-of-the-evening and miners mingled together in the early evening. The excited din of men just coming off their shifts in the mines and women just coming on their shifts in miner’s beds seemed to echo off the mountains that crowded the town. Overhead, the butcher and a restaurant had strung banners across the road. Constant hammering on new buildings created the cacophony of a town on the rise. Off in the distance, explosives went off, and closer in town, a pistol shot. No one batted an eye.
A certain tension tinged the hum of conversation, though, tension I had come to recognize. The name Maggie rested on several lips as I strode toward the Orleans Club, Soapy’s new saloon and gambling hall. An American flag flapped from a pole atop it as if put there to help me find my way.
The last of the daylight seeped through the dusty windows and red glass shades filtered lamplight. A few women in ruffled dresses leaned on the bar and over the shoulders of intent gamblers, but the pleasant early evening had kept people outdoors for a while yet. The men who weren’t on the street were still out at the mines, scraping the rock for silver without pause in underground hells fueled by steam power and prayers.
I asked for Jeff Smith at the bar, and the barman gestured with his towel. I needn’t have bothered, though. Soapy was striding across the room toward me by the time I turned around, clean and trim as ever. Must’ve bathed for the occasion.
“General David Cook,” he said.
I gave him a nod and offered a hand to shake, studying him closer. He had a fresh bruise on his cheek. “Somebody finally get a swing at the famous Soapy Smith?”
He scowled at me.
I grinned. “Who’s Maggie Maslow? I keep hearing her name.”
“Ever the detective.”
“She’s dead, isn’t she? Murdered?”
“She’s got nothing to do with my problem.”
“She’s all the conversation out on the street,” I said. “You know her?”
“Everybody knows everybody in a place like this.”
People looking for fortune had flooded the valley since Alpha Mine started producing great amounts of silver in 1889, but not too many to ignore an important event like someone dying.
Soapy rubbed the back of his neck. “You sure can sniff ’em out. All right, she got herself murdered. Beat to death by a miner, most likely.”
“Is the law on it?”
“I am the law in Creede.” He shrugged. “Cap’s my deputy.” William Light, his brother-in-law. I’d heard Soapy had declared himself camp boss within weeks of his arrival.
“Heaven help Creede, then,” I said.
Soapy snorted and gestured me to a back room, an office that had two straight-back chairs, a table, a safe, and a long pine box. “Maggie isn’t my problem. That is.” He pointed to the coffin.
“Usually your problems are with your safe.” I raised my brows and went around the table to open the casket.
“It’s empty, so don’t bother yourself. McGinty is supposed to be in there. My petrified man.” Soapy shoved a newspaper across the table.
The Creede Candle
April 10, 1892
Now Announcing!
the petrified man is available for viewing at the orleans club. Ten cents to see the amazing REAL petrified corpse of a dead man with perfectly preserved muscles and hair, even eyelashes! Skeptics especially welcome. Games of chance for your further entertainment and the finest selection of four whiskeys available West of the Divide.
I tossed it down. “Someone stole your latest hoax? This why you called me up here, Jeff?”
“It’s not a hoax. It’s a real dead man. Petrified. Perfect. Only cost a dime to see him—”
“Ten cents,” I said dryly. “What a bargain.”
“Got to give them incentive to try to win it back so we can fleece them in the real games.” He never pretended he wasn’t on the con, not with me. “That’s beside the point. I spent three thousand dollars on McGinty, and I want him back.”
I wasn’t easily caught off guard by the stupid amounts of money people spent, but that was an enormous sum, even for Soapy. “Sounds like you’re the one who got fleeced. Three thousand dollars for a statue?”
A muscle twitched in his bruised cheek. “I’m telling you, McGinty is a real man, and he’s gone, and I want him back.”
Soapy had a temper, but I saw something else in him. Desperation, maybe a bit of fear. It couldn’t be just the money. Soapy had just sold his saloon down in Denver for a pretty penny, and he managed his finances well enough to be a generous man to good causes…and bad. “When did he disappear?”
“Yesterday morning. Before dawn.”
The corpse was probably halfway to Denver by now. “Any idea who took him? Or why?”
“None, damn it. Why do you think I called you up here?”
“And what about the strange part?”
“He comes to life in the night.”
I got to my feet and put on my hat. “Goodbye, Smith.”
“He do
es! And he’s violent.” He gestured to his own bruise.
“Like that witch’s curse made Tom Horn kill that gang cutting into your business? And nearly got me killed in the process, I’ll add.”
Soapy stared at me, nostrils flared.
“I’m not going to help you unless you’re straight with me.”
Soapy lowered his gaze, his jaw set. “All right. I knew you’d come if I said something strange was happening.”
“Hmph. I ought to get back on the train and go home.”
“You won’t, though.”
“Damn you, Jeff Smith.” But my words didn’t have much bite. Lack of strangeness aside, a murdered dance-hall girl and a missing corpse were right up my alley. Everyone deserved justice in death, even if they hadn’t quite deserved it in life.
* * *
No one wanted to discuss the missing McGinty. All the talk was about Maggie Maslow being found beaten to death behind the Orleans Club—a fact Soapy had failed to mention. I picked up the evening copy of The Creede Candle and nursed a drink while I read about the robbery of McGinty. It was all speculation, but interesting nonetheless.
A deep voice interrupted me. “Hello, General.”
The man who had approached me was tall and broad and wore a good-natured grin under his curling mustache.
“You have me at a disadvantage,” I answered, folding up the paper.
“Pete Burns.” We shook, his big hand swallowing mine. I knew the name. One of Soapy’s gang.
“Welcome to Creede,” he said. The words held a question.
I sat up straighter to look him in the eye. “It’s not for pleasure. I’m investigating the disappearance of Mr. Smith’s petrified man.”
“Strange thing, that.”
“The man or the disappearance?” I asked.
Grin. “Both.”
“You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?”
“I sleep here in the club with the rest of the gang. Heard some banging down here about the time McGinty disappeared.”