“We require two rooms,” I said. “One night.”
“You’re married?” the old woman asked.
“We’re not,” I said. “One room for myself, and another for these men.”
Aubrey remained close behind me, his constant presence at once overwhelming and a comfort. Seth found an overstuffed blue velvet chair by the window, and sat there, smoking a cigarette, and watching the passersby. As if we had not just spent days on a train, with nothing to do but sit and watch the slow unravelling of the world.
“Where have you travelled from?” The old woman made no move to check us in.
“Missouri,” I said. “St. Louis.”
“This is a moral establishment,” the woman said. “We are very rigid in our rules of propriety. We expect no less from our guests.”
“I am glad to hear it.”
“The President himself stayed here, you know.”
“Is his room available?” asked Aubrey. “I would not mind soiling those same sheets.”
The old woman reached behind her, produced a rifle, and placed it on the countertop. “We have no use for criminal types. Or drunks or carousers. We frown on heathenry of any sort.”
“We’ll take that under advisement,” said Aubrey.
“Any room is fine,” I said. “Any two rooms. I assure you these are hired men, nothing more.”
“Hired for what?”
“Bodyguards,” I said. “Would you expect a woman to cross the country by herself without someone to look after her safety?”
It was my opinion that women could and most often should look after their own interests, and by doing so, would find themselves much safer and more comfortable than those who relied solely on men. And I was confident my former occupation as a field doctor attached to the U.S. Cavalry had introduced me to more peril than my protectors would ever know. But I was sweaty and worn thin as a sewing needle. My feet hurt and my stomach sloshed about, and I wanted nothing more than to be alone some place cool and dark. So, I played the role she expected of me.
“I suppose not,” she said. “If you’ve no husband to accompany you.”
“I haven’t.”
“Are you a widow, or an old maid?”
“I’ve never married,” I lied.
“Well, I suppose it’s too late for that now,” she said. “Two rooms, then.”
“Excellent.”
“I’ll have the bell captain guide you.”
“Might I also inquire where the Wild West Revue is performing? I saw the posters, and I’d like to attend. If you don’t think such a diversion would prove overtaxing?”
Audrey snorted.
The old woman readied two keys and rang for the bell captain. “The show has moved on, thank goodness.”
“When?”
“Yesterday. Bunch of ill mannered, smelly animals and I’m glad our beautiful town is shut of them.”
“They’ve moved on to Fort Worth, then.”
“I didn’t care to ask.”
“Well, thank you for your kind welcome to Dallas.”
We followed the bell captain to our rooms, and the old woman had managed to situate us on opposite ends of the long, second-story hallway. As if distance might lessen any earthly temptations.
I dispatched Aubrey on an errand, and he returned fifteen minutes later with a pint of whiskey. I cracked the door, let him hand it through to me.
“Seth and I are going to see what this town has to offer,” he said. “Care to accompany us?”
“No, you go ahead,” I said. “I need to meditate before I drink myself to sleep.”
“You’re an uncommon woman.”
“Is that a compliment or an insult?”
“More of an observation,” he said. “You want me to bring you dinner?”
I shook the pint bottle. “This will suffice.”
“Shall I call on you later this evening?”
“I don’t believe that would be wise.”
“I’ll knock when I get back, just in case.”
I closed the door.
My battered leather doctor’s bag contained everything needed to conduct field surgery, as well as odds and ends necessary for more esoteric pursuits. I uncapped the whiskey and drank half the bottle. Unbuckled the bag and inhaled a melody of scents that sang my mind into a more peaceful place. I withdrew every ritual element I needed and arranged them just so. Colored candles and cut stones—onyx and quartz and lapis lazuli. Dried plants and scattered animal bones. With everything in place, I made myself comfortable. Removed each dusty, travel-stained layer of clothing until only my cotton slip remained. Relished the uncomplicated feeling of my bare feet against the hotel’s smooth sanded floorboards. Shadows cooled the room, and when I lit the candles, the darkness began to whirl and dance. I blew out the match, inhaled the sulfur. Arranged myself comfortably on the floor with my legs crossed and applied a perfume of my own manufacture to my wrists and my throat.
I downed the rest of the whiskey.
Closed my eyes and found a steady rhythm to my breathing.
Then I summoned up an image of my husband. Not the softspoken man with friendly green eyes and easy laugh that I’d known at Fort Ellis. That version of Frank died in Montana, and I should have left him that way. Instead, I imagined the violent, bloody killer that inhabited the new body I’d built for him. The killer I’d unleashed on the world.
Love and grief had motivated me then.
Now it was simple terror that insisted I undo it.
The killer’s image firmed up in my mind, greenish and mapped with scars. The world around him came into soft focus and I saw a young boy dogging his heels, a heavy pistol swinging from a holster at each hip. Cattle massed around them. Tent posts rose and the sound of hammers rang out. Campfires danced and the smell of woodsmoke and gunpowder suffused the room. The killer and the boy spoke to one another, but it was nothing more than a buzz and a murmur to my senses. I pressed myself closer, felt the heat of the afternoon on my shoulders, and the endless wind riding in from the plains as it tossed my hair. For a second, the killer seemed to sense me, and his eyes widened, like a ghost had passed in front of him. Then the chaos of their camp spiraled around them, and the colors in my mind began to run like rain down a windowpane.
I struggled to keep the connection, though I don’t know why. It had taken me years to build my abilities to the point where I could find Frank. Once I learned he’d joined Cowboy Dan’s Wild West Revue, it was only a matter of reading the newspaper advertisements to determine where he’d be travelling next. They had moved on from Dallas, which meant they were in Fort Worth, only thirty or so miles away.
Most likely, I’d see him the next day.
But I still couldn’t help myself, opening my mind and peering into his world.
Part of it was my simple curiosity, but there was also an addictive quality to visiting what my mentor had called the astral plane. Becoming free from the kingdom of earth for a time always proved beautiful and strange, and so very hard to resist. Particularly when one was little enamored of her everyday existence.
With concentration, the killer and the boy came into view again, and I chased after them, uninterested in their mundane pursuits, but content to simply exist in this other place for a time. Drifting and light and free from worry. The killer appeared jovial and almost fatherly around the boy, and I reminded myself there existed a trail of dead souls that had gazed upon that face and seen their own violent deaths. No matter his appearance, the killer still held darkness within him.
He owed eternity a death, and payment had come due.
The familiar white specter appeared in my mind like a deadly flower unfolding from graveyard soil. It banished the images of the Wild West Revue and the heat of the afternoon. Reached out to me with willowy limbs, like it meant to pull me into the afterlife and hold me forever. I withdrew myself at once from that ethereal place and returned to the hard world. I blew out every candle. Whispered thanks to the four elements and pressed my palms against the floorboards to feel the firmness of the world around me. Placed my forehead against the ground until my breathing stilled, and my heart quit trying to escape my chest.
Nighttime had arrived while I was in that other place, and some hours had passed. My stomach growled, and I wished I’d taken Aubrey up on his offer of food. I packed everything back into my bag and lay on top of the bedcovers without the benefit of candlelight. City noises carried up to my room as the denizens of Dallas caroused beneath the streetlights. When Aubrey knocked on my door, deep in the night, I pretended to be asleep. I was in no mood for his fumbling affections.
Tomorrow we’d head to Fort Worth to kill a man.
And I wasn’t sure any of us would be coming back.
*
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