CHAPTER NINE
A poke in the side jolted me awake. I opened my eyes. An Indian woman with a mop of cropped hair was staring at me. After that initial impression of her, an intense light flooded my eyes and her image dissolved in the dazzle.
“You want coffee?” she asked.
Startled, confused, I sat up and bumped my head. Squinting at the blur around me I realized I was on a roof high above ground. Then I realized the source of the blinding light was the sun. I cringed, terrified. The first rays of the morning sun were deadly to vampires and if I had been exposed like this at daybreak, I should’ve been cremated. But I wasn’t. Another change in the supernatural rules?
I was facing east, directly at the rising sun. Its warmth caressed me, and my fear melted away.
I blinked the haze and sleepiness from my eyes, but the bright sun stung and I raised my hand to shade my face. The details about where I was came into focus. A balcony on the roof. On the ground below me, a corral. In the corral, three horses soaked up the sun. Chickens pecked around their hooves. Outside the corral stood the mechanical-Clydesdale and the other assorted steam engines. I was on top of Chief Flaco’s barn.
The woman poked me again. She was using a stick and wore a checked blouse over a denim skirt. “Coffee?” She gazed at me from the edge of the balcony, so she must’ve been standing on a ladder.
A metallic, funky taste lingered in my mouth. “Yeah, coffee would be great. Thanks.”
“Then come down and serve yourself.” She disappeared past the edge of the platform.
Disoriented, I turned to see what I had bumped my head against. It was a large brass telescope mounted on a trunnion like a cannon. Scooting to the edge of the balcony and looking down a drop of about twenty feet, I saw that the Indian woman had stepped away from the ladder and was walking toward Chief Flaco’s house.
He was pissing against a fence post. In one hand he held a cup of coffee, in the other, he held his crank. He tipped his head up to glimpse me past the brim of his hat.
“Morning.” He hailed with a wave of the cup. He set the cup on top of the fence post, gave himself a shake, and buttoned his fly.
“Yeah, good morning,” I drawled.
“Get your ass down,” the chief said.
I took that to mean, no problem, levitate to the ground. I pushed off the roof and—oh shit!—plummeted to the earth, where I landed feet first and collapsed to my side. My revolver bounced out of its holster and clattered against the hard dirt. I picked myself up, shaken, embarrassed—some gunslinger I am—but unhurt.
“What the hell did you do that for?” the chief demanded, looking amused. “Are you afraid of ladders?”
A new mental note: I have no power of levitation. “I slipped,” I explained as I retrieved my pistol, wiped it clean, and jammed it back in the holster. I used my hat to beat dust from my trousers and coat, and I braced myself against the wall of the barn, still confused, still hung over. I squinted to keep the sun from hurting my eyes.
My bag of gold should’ve slammed into me when I hit the ground. I groped at my sides. The satchel was gone. “Where’s my bag?”
The chief sipped again from his cup, then flung the dregs into a patch of weeds.
As I waited for an answer, memories from last night bubbled into my consciousness. Seemed that since my arrival into this alternate place and time, I’d been cursed by bouts of fragmented memory.
What I recalled: The jug of blood, which he and I had decanted like a bottle of fine wine. The heady aroma of type A-negative. Its succulent meaty taste had smothered me like kisses from a big, horny woman.
Laughter. More blood. Then mescal. Mescal! What was I thinking? Obviously I hadn’t been thinking. Then more blood. Mescal. Blood.
Sometime during that drunken conversation I had asked Chief Flaco about his business with Wu Fei. Whatever the chief answered remained lost in the fog. Same for what he told me about psychic energy and our lives as vampires. In vain I picked at the recess of my brain for his explanations.
I remembered also asking him if he knew Coyote and felt elation when he answered, “Sure,” thinking that I’d at last have found a link between here and home.
But the chief elaborated by reciting a string of names such as, “Coyote-Peyote? Hairless-Coyote-Who-Shivers-In-The-Winter? Coyote-Squints-Too-Much? Coyote Five Legs?”
Since none of those names sounded familiar, I then described the Coyote I knew with as much detail as I could. Everything from his height, his scrawny build, his weathered face, his wispy mustache and soul patch. His accent. His manner.
The chief had replied, “You’ll have to be more specific. That sounds like half the Coyotes I know.”
So besides those scraps of memory, at the moment all I had was this stale taste in my mouth.
“You asked about your bag?” The chief now winged a thumb toward his house. “This way.” Shambling at first, I followed him, my legs growing steady, my head clearing. His pack of dogs were scattered about the yard, watching me with the same distrustful stare from last night.
“Your bag is inside the house,” the chief reassured me. “I was worried you’d lose it so sometime after we uncorked the second jug—”
A second jug?
“I had one of my wives take it away for safekeeping.”
Relieved by that scrap of good news, I asked, “How did I end up on the roof?”
“Actually, we both ended up on the roof. When we began drinking I showed you my astronomy charts, then you wanted to show me something in the heavens so we climbed on the balcony to look through my telescope. Then you babbled about alien creatures on another planet and a couple of women.”
“Did I mention Carmen? Jolie?”
The chief gazed down his big nose. “You tell me. You were the one doing the talking. Besides, I was drinking as much as you were.”
My thoughts spiraled back to the one crucial detail I was certain he couldn’t deny. I said, “You called me ‘brother vampire.’”
The chief adjusted his hat so it sat low on his brow, and he flung his braids behind his shoulders. He turned his craggy face in profile to mine. “If you have a question, I’ll answer on the condition that this time you won’t forget.”
“Just ‘a’ question? I have many.”
“Then start asking.”
“Who knows we’re vampires?”
The chief brought his dark eyes to mine. “That’s a rather simple-minded question. Like asking which way is up.”
“Just answer me.”
“Only us.”
“Us who? Vampires? What about werewolves?”
The chief grimaced like he’d stepped in dog shit. Good, I had the same reaction at the mention of lycanthropes. “We know about them. They know about us.”
“What about the humans?”
“My squaws know.”
“What about Hermosa? Malachi?”
“They think that on occasion you have one too many holes in your tipi. But as far as being a vampire …” The chief shrugged. “You’ll have to ask them.”
We reached the back stoop of his house.
I asked, “What about if—”
Chief Flaco halted and whirled to face me. “Just be careful.” His large hand grasped my shoulder and he gave me an avuncular shake. “Keep your secret for as long as you can.” With that terse advice, and adding nothing about the consequences if my vampire identity was revealed, he let go and pulled the door open.
We passed through a room filled with the eye-watering stench of lye. Piles of clothes soaked in large tin washbasins. In the next room, Malachi and Hermosa were sitting at a small table against a large window and drinking coffee. I took in the aroma of elk sausage, fried eggs, and fresh bread. Sunlight gleamed across silverware and plates of food on the table. And the satchel. My friends greeted my entrance with identical condescending stares, which I deserved.
Malachi’s hair was neatly combed, his face recently shaved. Hermosa’s tresses were drawn up and held in place with a silver and tortoise-shell hairclip.
Two young Indian women—or rather, girls—waited barefoot between the table and the kitchen. Calico blouses over simple cotton skirts draped their nubile bodies. Chief Flaco had mentioned his squaws, and I didn’t know if these two were wives or daughters.
Cocking an eyebrow, Hermosa appraised me over the rim of her cup, then looked at the bag, then me again. “Here you stagger in as usual. Late, hung over, and with empty pockets.”
I raised my hand to forestall any more snide comments. “Before we discuss anything, let me have a cup of coffee.”
One of the girls brought a cup and a coffee pot. I took an empty chair at the table.
Malachi pushed the bag of coins toward me. “The last time you were this careless was when the Gonzales brothers grazed you with buckshot.”
I didn’t know the Gonzales brothers or remember getting hit by a shotgun. That must’ve been the other Felix. “I’ll be more careful.”
“That’s what you said the previous time.” Malachi speared a hunk of sausage with a fork. “The gold’s all there,” he added as an aside.
I sipped the java, brooding. I was the leader in our quest to find Wu Fei’s daughter, and I couldn’t make it through the night without bumbling like the fall guy in a comedy.
Malachi wiped dots of grease from his mustache. “Chief, would you have a map of the territories? Something that illustrates the roads from here through Aztlan?”
The chief said that he did. He left and returned a few minutes later. We cleared the table to unroll a map and secured the corners with silverware. I leaned over the map, fascinated to learn more about the differences between this world and the one I had left behind.
The map showed the southwestern corner of the U.S. and northwest Mexico. What used to be New Mexico, Arizona, California south of Monterey, northern Chihuahua and Sonora, plus Baja California were now joined as the nation of Aztlan. New Mexico had been renamed Mogollon after one of its Indian tribes.
Malachi traced his finger from St. Charles south to the border of Mogollon and the West Kansas Territories (what had been Colorado). “We can take the train from here to Tucson. Once there, hopefully we’ll find out what happened to Ling Zhu Han.”
Still curious, I studied the map to see how in this time continuum (Oh God, I’m now in a cheesy episode of Star Trek TNG!), politics had rearranged the borders. I had so many questions about how this had happened. But considering I’d already mishandled the gold and was acting quite a bit “off,” I decided to pretend that I hadn’t perceived anything unusual.
“We shouldn’t travel with all this gold,” Hermosa said. “Why tempt the undeserving?”
“What do you suggest?” I asked.
“Decide how much we need. Convert that amount into smaller gold pieces, silver, and paper notes. Stash the rest in a bank.”
The plan sounded reasonable but that it came from Hermosa made the back of my neck prickle. Malachi waited for my reply, one of his eyes narrowed.
“All right,” I said. “Only we choose the bank.” I put my hand on Malachi’s shoulder. He nodded in agreement.
Hermosa raised her chin and turned away. “You don’t trust me, don’t be shy to say so.”
Malachi and I replied in unison. “We don’t trust you.”
An hour later the chief had his older squaw, the one who had poked me with the stick, drive us back into town in a sharp little buggy pulled along by a nice-looking mare. I had cleaned up and reeked of cologne, but I didn’t care. As we passed through downtown I kept my eyes peeled in case someone remembered us from last night. Glaziers knocked broken glass from shattered windows. Empty brass cartridges littered the street. Bullet-riddled signs dangled from lampposts. No one gave us a second glance.
Outside the Confluence Territorial Bank on Wazee Street, the squaw halted the buggy to let us dismount. Inside the bank, three tellers—all men wearing green eyeshades—sat behind a counter, each separated from the lobby by a brass grid. A sunburnt, ruddy-faced guard in a gray uniform tracked our entry, his arms cradling a coach gun. Malachi and I then took off our hats to show we were here on polite business.
We made a beeline toward the desk of a bank officer, a portly man in a neatly pressed business suit. He set his papers down and watched us expectantly. Rising in place, he extended a large soft hand to shake mine. His grip felt like a lump of warm dough. “Chester Dahlgreen, vice president. How may I help you?”
Hermosa stepped back to let me do the talking. “We’d like to change some gold into tender and rent a safe deposit box.”
“Which would you like to do first?” Dahlgreen’s thin, droopy mustache framed a small mouth with tiny teeth, no doubt an overworked eating apparatus for such a well-fed man.
“The safe deposit box,” Malachi answered.
“This way.” Dahlgreen led us to an anteroom between the lobby and the vault. He unlocked and slid open a rolltop desk and prepared three sets of forms.
“I’d like a box and two keys,” I said. “In case we lose one.”
“Of course,” Dahlgreen replied.
I added, “And three signatures to get into the vault.”
“Not a problem, sir.”
He sat in the desk chair and placed a quill pen beside an ink well. “Whose names shall I enter in the vault access authorization?”
I looked at my companions. “Her name, Hermosa Singer. His name, Malachi Hunter. And mine. Felix Gomez.”
Dahlgreen swiveled the chair to face us. “Before we proceed, I need some identification.”
ID? Here? Puzzled, I turned to my friends for help.
“What kind of identification?” Malachi asked.
“The usual. A birth or marriage certificate. Baptismal papers. Military discharge. Records from another bank or other such reputable institution.”
I blinked at Dahlgreen.
He shrugged. “Or someone who can vouch for your identity.”
Hermosa pointed at me. “He is Felix Gomez.” She pointed at Malachi. “Malachi Hunter.”
I pointed to her and Malachi and recited their names. Just to be sure, Malachi pointed to Hermosa and me and repeated the process.
Dahlgreen dipped his pen in the ink well. “Good enough.” He wrote Hermosa’s and my names on the forms. We signed. Malachi served as witness. Dahlgreen gave us one copy of the forms. We went through the ritual again for him to issue a set of two safe deposit keys, one for me, one for Malachi. I didn’t need to explain my strategy. To retrieve our stash of gold, all three of us needed to sign the access form, only I didn’t trust Hermosa enough to let her have a key. As long as she got her third of the final tally—which she would—she’d have to accept my arrangement.
Each of the safe deposit keys was stamped with FORTIS and the box number. I asked Dahlgreen if he had any cords handy. He did and gave Malachi and me two thin leather cinches that we used to tie the keys around our necks.
Dahlgreen approached the vault door and heaved against a lever. The massive circular door glided open. He high-stepped over the threshold and lit oil lamps hanging from the low roof. He stepped out. “Your box is on the left.”
The three of us climbed into the vault and clustered around a small table in the middle of the floor. The yellow glow from the lamps cast gray shadows across the rows of boxes. I set the satchel on the table and unfastened its buckles. With the flap pulled back, the coins inside glittered like the talisman from an oracle, an oracle that remained mute about what lay ahead.
Next stop, Tucson.