CHAPTER EIGHT
Malachi and I hoisted Cicatriz’s corpse upright and propped him between us. I made sure the bag of gold coins was tight against my side.
Gunfire and commotion shook the walls. I pulled the door open, and we shuffled sideways out of the snug and into the hall, dragging Cicatriz. Gun smoke fouled the air. Fleeing men and women barreled into us. Others lay flat on the saloon floor, hands clasped over their heads. Still others crouched behind tables or the bar and unloaded their smoke wagons toward the entrance. Glass sprayed from shattered windows. A soiled dove pushed a fat well-dressed businessman—her john no doubt—behind an over-turned table as she emptied a derringer. A ragged-looking cowpoke crawled like a lizard through puddles of spilled booze and pocketed the loose change scattered across the floor.
Malachi jerked his head toward the kitchen, then to the saloon. “Which way?”
Another string of rapid-fire gunshots crackled from the street. These shots smeared into one another and I knew of no gun that could fire that fast. Those weren’t gunshots, but firecrackers—Hermosa’s handiwork. I pulled us toward the front door. “This way.”
Malachi and I tromped to the entrance, right through the riot of panic and gunfire. We hauled Cicatriz along, like the whole bunch of us were invisible, slugs zipping past, plaster falling from the ceiling, splinters flinging from the floor and the furniture. A bullet ricocheted against a spittoon and sent the brass vessel spinning and spraying its vile brown liquid.
A bullet broke the last remaining windowpane and whined past my head. Apparently Hermosa was using real ammo as well as firecrackers for her ruse.
We barged through the front doors and emerged into the cool night air. Bullets swarmed around us. Buckshot ripped clapboard siding to our left and right. We were taking fire from all sides. Gunshots from the Dizzy Ute must have zinged through the saloons across the street, because their patrons had also opened up with their guns, which only added to the confusion as to who was shooting at who. People ran pell-mell through the street, hollering and waving pistols, rifles, and shotguns, shooting at whatever spooked them. Cowboys on horses galloped in circles, shouting drunkenly and blasting away.
A buckboard sat against the sidewalk. Steam and smoke plumed from the head of an imposing horse-like contraption—a mechanical-Clydesdale made of brass and iron—strapped to its harness. Hermosa sat in the driver’s seat of the wagon, and she twisted around to face us, her identity masked by a bandanna tied bandito-style and the brim of her hat pulled low. She held a smoldering fusee and used it to light a string of firecrackers, which she tossed on the sidewalk where they detonated in a rip of sharp reports. Dropping the fusee, she reached into her lap to brandish the Merwin Hulbert. She squeezed shots back into the saloon, aiming high so she wouldn’t hit anyone but still stoking the ruckus. She shoved the pistol into the pleats of her skirt, planted her boots against the front of the wagon, and hollered, “Jump in.”
Grabbing a set of levers connected to the mechanical-Clydesdale, she worked them back-and-forth. The machine’s enormous iron hoofs churned against the dirt street, and the buckboard lurched forward.
Malachi and I pitched Cicatriz into the wagon. We leapt from the sidewalk and landed on the bed just as it pulled away. The bag of gold coins slammed against my ribs.
The mechanical-Clydesdale stutter-trotted toward the cowboys riding amok in front of us. Hermosa tugged on a lanyard and jets of steam shrieked from the machine’s nostrils, making the horses scream and rear up. The cowboys unloaded on us with curses and revolvers. Bullets clanged against the metal hide of the mechanical-Clydesdale but otherwise, we chugged away unscathed.
I climbed onto the front seat beside Hermosa. Malachi crouched behind us and kept a concerned eye trained back on the chaos.
We turned the first corner and headed east on 19th Street, the wagon bouncing and rumbling beneath us. The mechanical-Clydesdale pistoned its legs and pulled us along at an accelerating clip. Its abrupt, vibrating movements rattled us like beads in a maraca.
“Int-t-t-teresting m-m-machine,” I managed to say. I coughed and waved away the smoke streaming from its head. “B-b-but why not st-st-steal a real horse?”
Hermosa yanked the bandanna past her chin and let it settle around her neck. “St-st-steal a real horse and you sw-sw-swing,” she answered, a cautious gaze fixed on a circular gauge on the mechanical-Clydesdale’s butt. “T-t-technically, this is not a h-h-horse.”
I could’ve argued the legal distinctions but the wagon’s jittering motion about shook my teeth out every time I opened my mouth.
Arriving at Welton Street, we steered north to Five Points and continued past shuttered shops and noisy saloons, those patrons oblivious to the carnival of fireworks we had left behind. We kept going, on past the last trolley stop, until the graded road ran out and we bounced along a rutted trail. Countless stars glittered above us. A crescent moon washed the landscape with its dim, silvery light. We proceeded past small, darkened farmhouses and halted near a line of dense brush. Gears gnashed inside the mechanical-Clydesdale’s belly. Steam feathered from its nose. Its ears and the rivets on its neck glowed a faint red.
Water gurgled and splashed from the gloom in front of us, and when I stood to get my bearings, I spied the Platte River glinting through gaps in the brush. “Why did we stop? To dump Cicatriz into the river?”
Hermosa tapped the toe of her boot against the machine’s butt gauge. The needle hovered near the red zone. “Gotta let this thing cool down. And I’ve got other plans for Cicatriz.”
“Like what?”
She pulled the Merwin Hulbert from her skirt and twisted it open, scattering the spent shells. She fished a handful of loose cartridges from a pocket and after reloading the revolver, snapped it closed.
“You expecting trouble?” I asked.
“Tell me, what’s the point of carrying an empty gun?” She turned to Malachi. “Anyone following us?”
“No one I can see. How about you, Felix?”
The question implied I could see through this murk. Did that mean Malachi knew I was a vampire?
“Well?”
I scanned the trail behind us with my night vision and confirmed that no one followed. “We’re good.” My suspicions made my kundalini noir twitch, and my stomach grumbled. I hoped I didn’t get another bout of blood lust. No telling what or who I’d eat before I got the answers I needed.
Hermosa tucked the Merwin Hulbert into a skirt pocket. She tweaked the levers and the mechanical-Clydesdale squirted steam out its nose. I glanced at the gauge. The needle was back in the green. Smoke and embers puffed out the machine’s ears, and those big legs started to articulate. She steered the wagon to the right. We rumbled back to the trail and climbed a slight incline. The brush on either side of the path grew higher, blending with willows and oaks crowding against us. The cover became especially thick, and even with my vampire eyes, I might not be able to see someone waiting in ambush, especially considering the way we shook because of this mechanical beast. I rested a hand on my Colt Navy, thumb on the hammer, and glanced back at Malachi. He must’ve been equally concerned, having drawn one of his Schofields.
Sniffing smoke, I looked around for a campfire. Aching for a meal, I took another sniff and wished for a steaming bowl of blood.
We’d gone about two hundred yards when the trees gave way to a meadow. On the rise before us, lazy moonlit clouds outlined the silhouette of a broad house with a turret. Slivers of light peeked through curtained windows. A banner of smoke twisted from a stack behind the house.
Feet scrambled across the ground, heralding a pack of large dogs racing at us from the shadows. Seven big mongrels with necks thick as railroad ties, eyes menacing and teeth glistening. Hermosa slapped a hand across my arm, cautioning me not to shoot.
Looking back at Malachi, I noticed he had put his revolver away. Evidently, there was something about our destination I should know but didn’t.
I looked at the dogs the way one might scrutinize a lobster in a tank. If I didn’t eat soon, one of these curs might be on my menu.
The dogs escorted us to the house. Hermosa guided the wagon toward the entrance and braked. The mechanical-Clydesdale stood trembling, its engine puttering, steam seeping from its nostrils. The dogs sat on their haunches, panting, ears quirking at muted, random sounds.
Curtains parted in a window and light spilled out. A moment later, the front door opened. A tall, slender man in a high-crowned, flat-brimmed hat lumbered into the doorway, his body outlined in the warm tones of oil lamplight, his face shrouded in darkness.
“Who’s there?” he shouted. He carried no firearm, which I thought naive considering he opened his door to strangers. Then again, this pack of killer dogs was a pretty intimidating guard force.
“It’s me,” Hermosa shouted back.
“I know a lot of ‘me’s,’” he replied. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Hermosa Singer.”
“Felix and Malachi with you?”
He knew us?
“Chief Flaco Talaco,” Malachi called out. “How are you?”
“Busy, as if that mattered to you. Give me a minute.” The chief disappeared into the house. I didn’t know if he was a chief, but he did have the guttural accent of an Indian. Sounded Sioux. Cheyenne?
“Does he know what you want?” I asked Hermosa.
“You visit Flaco Talaco this time of night, there is only one thing you want.” She reached over the seat and rapped Cicatriz’s skull with her knuckles. “To get rid of one of these.”
The chief emerged again, this time with a metal bucket. He rested it on the threshold, reached in and began tossing hunks of raw meat at the dogs. “Good chunkas.” The dogs lunged and snatched the meat in midair, their jaws snapping like bear traps. The aroma of the bloody flesh made my fangs itch, and I fought the urge to dive among the dogs and fight for my share. The bucket empty, the chief set it by his feet. One of the dogs rushed over to stick its big head in the bucket and eagerly lapped the insides, making it clatter against the ground. The chief said, “Meet me at the barn.” He went back inside and closed the door.
Hermosa drove us around the house to a long wooden barn detached from the house. The dogs remained behind, tearing at the meat, gnawing on bone, and fighting over the bucket. As we approached the barn I heard the growl of a furnace and the smell of smoke became stronger. Light shined through cracks in the barn.
When we reached the other side of the barn, wide double doors creaked open. Lamplight bathed the threshold, illuminating Chief Flaco. I wondered how he got here from the house. Through a tunnel? He was very thin, as his name implied. A red-and-white checkered shirt hung on his lanky form like a sack. Small eyes peered from wrinkled sockets on either side of a large, hatchet-like nose. Two long plaits of braided hair hung over his ears, and silver conches glittered around the crown of his hat.
Behind him, inside the barn, bizarre bronze statues cluttered the stone floor. The sculptures—bent tubes, curvy petals, sieve-like cups—ranged in size from squat pieces a foot tall to spindly shapes that towered above the chief. Broken clay molds, sprue, and lumps of red wax littered the floor. I didn’t take the chief as a sculptor.
Chains hung from the ceiling. Stacks of crucibles stood beside the mouth of a furnace sunk into the floor. Its chimney pipe led to the ceiling. The fire inside the furnace growled like a hungry beast.
Hungry beast. That was me. I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t look at my companions the same way I had at the dogs. As chow.
“Before we proceed,” Chief Flaco said. I opened my eyes and saw him displaying an open hand.
Hermosa flipped him one of the gold coins. The chief pushed the barn doors fully open. She ordered, “Drop the tailgate,” and Malachi and I climbed off the buckboard.
Popping loose the pins holding the gate, we let it fall open. She manipulated the levers of the mechanical-Clydesdale to steer the wagon backwards into the barn. The chief grasped a loop of chain hanging from the ceiling and put his weight on it. A mechanism in the rafters rattled, pivoting rods connected to the floor. A long hatch of false stones pivoted open, then a metal chute angled up toward the back of the wagon. A door at the far end of the chute slid open, and intense heat from burning coals surged out, making me wince. Hermosa drove the wagon until it bumped against the chute.
“Okay,” she said, “in he goes.”
Malachi and I yanked Cicatriz by the legs and fed him into the chute. At the instant gravity took hold, we let go and he slid into the furnace where he disappeared in the flames with a belch of sparks. Cicatriz the werewolf would soon be roasted to ash. Goodbye. Good riddance.
The chief let go of the chain and the mechanism in the rafters rattled again. The chute retracted flat and the hatch folded shut.
“Is that all?” he asked.
“We need a place to spend the night,” Hermosa said. “Let things settle.”
“What about the horse?” He pointed. “And the wagon?”
“Uh,” she hesitated, “You want them? They’re yours.”
“Park them over there.” He walked from the door a few feet and waved toward a collection of steam machines and wagons along a corral behind the barn. “I could use the spare parts.”
Hermosa drove the wagon from the barn and parked among the other machines. The mechanical-Clydesdale clattered to a stop and a final breath of steam leaked from its mouth and nostrils. The fire in its eyes dimmed. Hermosa returned to the barn and she and Malachi headed for the house like they were familiar with the place. I started after them when the chief asked me to wait.
“What do you need?” I asked, famished and irritable.
“It’s not what I need, but what you need.” He tipped his head, motioning that I proceed inside the barn.
Perplexed by his comment, I waited among the bronze sculptures. Some looked like thick nets. Others were like barren trees or long spirals. All resembled pieces of jerky cast in bronze. “What are these?”
“Signal collectors.” He closed and latched the barn doors.
I shook my head, perplexed by the use of a term that didn’t seem to belong in this place or time. Maybe Flaco Talaco was more than an Indian chief. Maybe he was some kind of mad scientist.
“Collect what kind of signals?” I asked.
“Psychic energy. The telepaths use them.”
Again with the psychic energy. My last run-in with psychic energy had taken me to another planet and almost killed me. My thoughts turned to Wu Fei’s red-headed clairvoyant. I didn’t know how psychic messaging worked but hadn’t thought it needed mechanical help.
As he made his way to the far end of the barn, he avoided heaps of coal, stacks of bronze ingots, and wire armatures of those weird shapes. I had no trouble following him, though I was surprised how well he navigated the clutter without tripping or hitting his head.
The bag of gold coins sagged from my shoulder and that caused bothersome thoughts to wiggle down my spine. Why was the chief so interested in me? But Hermosa and Malachi trusted him, and I decided that I had to as well.
The chief and I stepped behind a wall and toward a stairwell that sank into the floor. So this was how the chief got here from his house.
At the bottom of the stairwell, the walls and ceiling glowed bright green, as if they’d been painted with the luminescent juice of lighting bugs. We turned a corner, walked down a short hall, and entered a small room, stifling hot.
But it wasn’t the temperature that made my kundalini noir scream Danger! Danger! The floor, the walls, the ceiling of the room were covered with diagrams and sketches etched in thick black lines against the radiant green paint, and they were drawings I recognized from the book Coyote had burned and then implanted in my memory. I froze in place, dizzy with confusion. And when I’m in a strange place and confused, my instincts take over. My claws and fangs extended and I reached for my revolver, just in case.
If the chief saw that I was contemplating massaging his guts with .45 caliber lead, he made no notice. Rather, he turned his back to me and leaned over a metal locker to open it and reach inside. I backed up a step, nerves tingling, my revolver drawn, the hammer cocked, finger on the trigger. I resisted the urge to gape at the drawings and instead kept my gaze focused on the chief and the spot where I’d pop him.
“Easy now, Felix,” he said in a soothing tone. He stood and turned around to show that he cradled a gallon-sized glass jar in one arm. He uncorked the jar and the mouth-watering scent of human blood wafted to me.
The chief’s eyes burned vampire red and his broad mouth parted in a smile that revealed a pair of fangs. “Here you go, brother bloodsucker. Bon appétit.”