A Book Of Tongues

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The morning the gang made Splitfoot Joe’s — there to wait for Reverend Rook to join them, just how he’d instructed — Ed Morrow woke up aching, long before everybody else, and crept off into the bushes to do his business. The needle of pain he felt still dug deep in the meat behind one eye wasn’t even one splinter as bad as when he’d got caught in the Rev’s wards, a mere week previous, but it did have that same very particular stink about it, nonetheless: a spiritual marking, same as Cain’s. A hex-bag hangover.

Thrust deep in his waistcoat pocket, the Manifold whirled and chittered, like it aimed to break his rib. Groaning, Morrow dragged the damn thing out and popped it open, then glowered down at the face reflected within its glass-set lid — not exactly unfamiliar, but not his, either.

“Rev,” he rasped.

“Took you long enough to answer.”

Morrow squinted hard through his hurt, which was rapidly spiking worse. “Well . . . sorry, I s’pose. Just not quite used t’this method of communication, as yet.”

“Understandable. So — how’re the boys? Chess gettin’ cranky yet?”

“Like a cat on a Goddamn skillet.”

Rook laughed. “Sounds ’bout what I expected. Well, he won’t have much longer to fret — won’t be but a half-day more ’til you reach Splitfoot’s. And once you do, I’ll be home before breakfast.”

“Okay, that’s — good. I guess.”

A moment of silence passed, during which Morrow could only wonder if there was something further — something specific — Rook had expected him to volunteer. Unbidden, his mind jumped back to their last layover, where he’d caught three separate instances of what he now knew must be magic welling up inside Chess, stagnant and explosive, before backing up and leaking out: one new-signed gang member’s gun misfiring in practice, blowing off his thumb; eatery plates exploding when the cook dumped a scoop of stew into them; a store windowpane cracking right across as Chess’s shadow passed by. In the town’s single saloon, Chess had look stank-eye on some fool who’d just taken the trick in a card-game he was barely bothering to play — and when the idjit was dumb enough to grin back, a lamp flared up blue-hot behind him, throwing sparks that set his cards on fire.

The longer Rook wasn’t around to siphon it off, that influence Morrow could sometime feel boiling off of Chess at times kept ramping up, fit to blow. And though Chess didn’t seem to feel anything beyond ordinary orneriness, overall, something still made him want to keep Morrow close, like a lucky piece — to sit with, drink with, demand jokes from.

It raised Morrow’s hackles . . . and Chess’s, too, eventually.

“Just what the hell you lookin’ so scared of, anyhow?” he snapped, when Morrow failed to meet his eyes directly. “I mean, God damn! Got on fine enough back at the Sisters, didn’t we?”

Which was true enough, as far as that went. Trouble was, Morrow knew Chess for a hex now, and couldn’t un-know it — couldn’t stop wanting to treat him careful, no more than cheerfully juggle lit dynamite.

But from Rook’s point of view, all of the above was probably just his problem. So Morrow sat tight, keeping whatever trepidations he might have strictly to himself.

“You still there, Ed?” The Reverend asked.

“Yessir.”

“Thought I’d lost you, just for a minute.”

Oh, how I wish you had, Morrow couldn’t keep himself from thinking — then almost jumped upright when he saw Rook smirk, as he did. Then, before he could stop himself, another thought followed: Christ Almighty! He can’t really hear inside my head, ’stead of just talk there . . . can he? Even this far away?

“Well . . . that’d be the key question to ponder on, Ed, ’specially in your current position,” Rook replied. “Wouldn’t it?”

And then, while Morrow stood yet agape, struggling to compose a suitable rejoinder — Rook was simply gone, leaving him staring at his own reflection.

The Manifold whirred down within seconds, gave a final death-beetle click, and slept once more.

Legendarily, Splitfoot Joe’s had gained its infamously catchy moniker from the axe-split bottom edge of its sign, where (supposedly) the first “Joe” had once painted a bright red cleft foot with a grinning devil standing upon it — a symbol that served, in place of words few of his customers could read, to signify that the saloon was open for business. And since it also stood not five miles from the Mexico border in a conveniently hard-to-find valley, Splitfoot’s — along with the town surrounding it — had since become an unofficial way station for cross-border traffic of questionable character, a place with a foot in two lands.

After Chess, Hosteen and the rest — what was left of Reverend Rook’s gang, some eight to ten gentlemen of fortune — took up their residence that evening, the task of dickering over rates fell to Morrow, for reasons he found mysterious.

“Okay, we’re square,” he told Chess, when negotiations were concluded, and passed him the absinthe Joe had thrown in on top. “This here’s your bottle, by the by.”

Chess nodded, popping the cork. “He try anything?”

“Wanted ten cents on the dollar, but I jewed him down. Nothin’ I couldn’t handle.”

“Yeah, old Joe’s a tricksy fucker.” Then, contemplating the room through twin scrims of glass and gently sloshing green liquid:

“Might be I should go have words with him, later, ’fore we get to orderin’ up our bill.”

Morrow and Hosteen exchanged a glance. Chess had started drinking pretty much the minute they’d left the Two Sisters and hadn’t let up yet — just seeking to muffle the lack of Rook, maybe. Which certainly argued for him having Honest-to-Christ feelings, just like anybody else.

Or not. But feelings, anyhow — fairy-coloured ones, hallucinatory and mean, drawn closer surface-wards with each fresh swig.

“Oh, we’re well set up, Chess,” Hosteen assured him, tapping his money belt. “The Rev gave us plenty of gelt. No need — ”

“ — for trouble?” Chess swivelled ’round, grinning nastily. “Aw, that’s sweet of you to care, Kees.” To Morrow: “And where’d you learn to pinch pennies so fine, anyhow? Half this band’a numbskulls can’t count to twenty-one, ’less they’re naked.”

“Just careful, is all. Best to be, not knowin’ exactly when the Rev’s comin’ back — ”

“Rook’ll be back soon ’nough,” Chess said, a bit too quick for comfort, “whenever and however he damn well pleases. He told — you — he’d be back; that’s good enough for me. In fact . . .”

“Chess Pargeter?”

This was a new voice entirely, drink-roughened and shaky, from directly behind Chess — some cowboy, barely old enough to shave. Morrow stared at the scarred table-top, suddenly more exhausted than scared. Thinking: Aw, great.

Looked like the Bird-in-Hand all over again, at best. And at worst —

“Chess Pargeter,” the cowboy repeated. “You’re him, right? If so, we’re gonna have words.”

“Seems I’m lettin’ you have them now,” said Chess, not looking up.

“You recall a waiter-gal used to work here, name of Sadie?”

“No.”

“You broke her head open last time you come through here, over that damn Reverend of yours.” He had a sun-reddened face, with spots of colour burned high on broad cheekbones. “She never woke up. Died of a fever, a week after.”

“Boy . . . I’ve killed a lot of people.”

“She meant somethin’ t’me!”

“I can see that. Question is, what? You even think about that part yourself?” The cowboy laid hand to gun, flushing further. “’Sides which — you waited what, a half-year? Somebody killed the Rev, I wouldn’t wait two minutes.”

“Well . . . I had to train.”

At that, Chess nodded. “Good thought, on your part. So — ”

The kid caught his eye-flick, and barely had time to touch holster. Chess cross-drew at the same instant, so quick he’d already shot the kid twice before the boy even had time to realize what had happened. Then didn’t bother to watch as the kid collapsed, skull cracking heavily on the saloon floor.

Morrow stared at Chess, who raised an eyebrow back at him. “What? You thought we was gonna have us an honest-to-shit shootout, in the middle of the damn street? Please.”

Like some kinda fair fight, or somethin’? Morrow thought, his stomach clutching queasily. Guess not.

It must’ve shown on his face, though, because Chess snorted out a sour half-laugh — as though even he felt some inexplicable wrongness in what he’d just done, and was annoyed by it.

“Sit yourself back down, Ed,” he ordered. “Joe’ll get this — ” he nodded toward the body “ — took away, and I got most’ve a bottle yet to drink. I don’t aim to do it alone.”

Morrow had a giddy moment’s thought of slapping Chess right across the chops and walking out, bullet in the back or no. But Chess — who might just as easily be well aware of that fact as blithely ignorant — just met his eyes straight on, unflinching.

“You heard ’im,” he said. “Boy didn’t know half what he oughta; be crueller to prolong the misery. ’Sides — he’d waited long enough.”

Up on the wall, a greasy pastoral Joe’d hung to block a draft first fell sidelong, then detached altogether, hitting the floor with a clatter. The noise seemed to spur Joe’s slim consort of musicians-in-residence to draw out a wheezy squeeze-box, and set to mangling a tune that sounded for all the world like Chess’s Ma’s favourite: For I’ll be true to my love, if . . .

Blood on the sawdust, coming up in clots, and a few flies, already gathering: perhaps this was the price of “being true,” sometimes, sadly enough. Especially when you didn’t take care to pick and choose who best to do it to —

But that was a lesson Chess himself might have to learn, someday. “All right,” Morrow said, finally. And took his seat once more.