A Rope of Thorns (2 page)

May 5, 1867

Month One Crocodile, Day Nine Water

Festival: Toxcatl, or Drought

This
trecena
, or thirteen-day period, Cipactli (“Crocodile”), is ruled by the great earth monster, who floats on the sea of stars. Since this is the first
trecena
of the sacred year, these days are governed by a primordial urge to create order out of chaos. These are good days to participate in the community, bad days for solitude.

Day Atl (“Water”) is governed by Xiuhtecuhtli, God of Fire: a day for purification through subjecting oneself to the ordeal of conflict. Water brings out the scorpion, who must sting its enemies or else sting itself. It is a good day for battle, a bad day for rest—at worst, the day of holy war.

The Lord of Night associated with this day is Tlaloc, the God of Rain, Lightning and Thunder. He is a fertility god, but also a wrathful deity. He is the ruler of Tlalocan, the fourth heaven. Tlalocan is the place of eternal spring, a paradise of green plants, and the afterlife destination for those who die violently from phenomena associated with water, such as by lightning, drowning and water-borne diseases. Tlaloc once ruled over the third world, which was destroyed by a fiery deluge. He is the ninth and last Lord of the Night.

They were only a scant day or so over the border, riding horses “paid for” in lead, when Morrow woke with a jaw so puffed it hurt him to talk—swole up like mumps, head clammy with fever. Chess was just strolling back into camp after his traditional morning piss, but the very sight of it brought him up short.

“Hell’s wrong with you?” Chess demanded. “Looks like you’re storin’ nuts.”

Morrow went to shake his head, but thought better of it.

“Hurts,” was all he could manage. “Real bad.”

They both knew what a toothache this sudden could mean, or cost them. Chess looked at Morrow askance, hissed like a cat, then looked away again, cursing: “Shit-fire, Ed! I damn well wanted to stay
out
of towns, not—”

“I know.”

More to himself: “And the bitch of it is, I could probably cure you, I only knew how the hell to do it. If anybody’d ever bothered to school me in this damn thing I’m carryin’ ’round with me . . . if
gods
were anywhere even halfway trustworthy, let alone lying, cheating, Goddamn
men
.”

As always, anything which sent Chess’s thoughts back toward Reverend Rook had immediate repercussions. Morrow saw the smaller man’s hands fist spasmodically, knuckles white, and felt
something
ripple up through the sand-topped earth beneath them both—almost too quick to track, a shiver echoing from everywhere at once. Like their very presence had just started to irk the world’s hide bad enough it was tensing, bracing for imminent trouble, and unsure itself whether it wasn’t worth the effort to simply flick ’em clear, like a pair of mosquitoes.

Though Chess might seem “normal,” most times, he very much wasn’t. He had the Rev dancing naked behind his eyes whenever he shut ’em, no doubt, enticing him to make for some dark city high on a hill—and that phantom siren’s call had to be damn strong indeed, considering how even a non-magical sort like Morrow could overhear it on occasion, back-washing through the embarrassingly intimate bond he and Chess had shared ever since fleeing Tampico together.

As a result, whenever Chess got riled, it was like being back in proximity
with
Rook . . . except worse, since Chess was far more volatile, and always had been. Apt as not to spit up whole poisonous toads, or stamp and bring a flood of amorously seeking bones, if he didn’t get his way; shoot spells that dissolved or transformed things on contact, throw away harsh words like bullets, only to watch them ignite in mid-air: concussive and gunpowdery, horridly random.

And yet, for all that—for
all
that, Morrow found he still trusted Chess more than he’d ever trusted the Rev, even at his most charming or soft-spoken. Their dalliance continued, even now; Chess wasn’t one to deprive himself of pleasures, and if it was a choice between fucking or fighting, considering the power disparity involved, Morrow knew which one he’d keep on choosing.

One way or the other, Chess and Morrow had drifted with odd swiftness into what Morrow could only deem some variety of demented battlefield camaraderie—a bond only accentuated by Chess’s damnable facility in applying himself to a man’s tenderest places: shameless, inventive, with Spartan revelry his favourite type of relief from the barest moment’s boredom. And though it was never a taste he’d looked to acquire, the truth was, Morrow could no longer (in good conscience) deny how he very definitely
had
acquired it—as regards to Chess, at any rate, if nobody else.

Would it stick, though?
Morrow wondered. Wondered if Chess—opaque as ever—wondered, too. From mere observation, Morrow already knew how he could be a jealous little sumbitch, if and when things got a bit deeper than a passing
Hey you, c’mere, I got somethin’ for ya—now you gimme somethin’ too, you big bastard.

Even with all they’d done together, however, Morrow didn’t exactly know if they’d reached that stage, as yet. Or if he even wanted them to.

“Am I queer now?” he hadn’t been able to stop himself from asking Chess, just the night before.

To which Chess had shrugged, and replied, “Halfways, at best. Why? Worried you’ll be doggin’ after every other man you come ’cross?”

“’Course not.”

“Exactly.” Chess turned over, stretching, and fit his head to the sweat-slick hollow of Morrow’s chest with creepish casualness, for all the world like it’d been made to act his pillow. “Then again, I
am
a special case, by anybody’s reckoning. Most men ain’t been to Hell and back, queer or not; most ain’t had their hearts cut out and ate by a damn god, and lived to tell the tale. So I figure you’re safe enough, regarding frolics with anybody else . . . ’less you don’t want to be.”

Morrow snorted. “No fear,” he said.

“Still,” Chess had blithely continued when they were up and dressed the next morning, just as though they hadn’t paused to sleep—and screw some more—in the interim, “it’s probably best we keep things light, anyhow. ’Cause much as I hate to admit so, seems my Ma was right, all along: love really
is
a damn disease.”

“Going by the Rev, you mean? But what makes you think she even knew what she was on about? And ’sides that, what makes you think—”

Chess shot him a shrewd look. “Think what?”

“Nothin’.”

“That Rook’s the only one I’ll ever love—was that it? Why ex-Agent Morrow, you sad sentimental. Or was that your clumsy idea of offerin’ an alternative?”

Morrow didn’t bother to answer, blushing to his hat-hid ears. And Chess laughed, off and on, throughout the rest of the day—almost from the time they mounted up right to the time they made camp once more.

All of which maybe proved Morrow either far too lust-struck to think straight, too punch-drunk on hexation-overspill to be reliable, simply plain stark crazy, or all three at once. But it had to count for something, didn’t it?

“Chess,” he made himself say, back in the here and now, “it’s . . . okay. I’ll be fine.”

“No you won’t.” Chess gave an angry sigh. “Tooth-rot’ll kill you, fool. Gets in your blood. Saw plenty die that way, back in the Lieut’s Company.”

Morrow set his lip, mutinous—tried to, anyhow. “Look, Chess—I’ll be
fine
. Don’t need no damn tooth-puller. I’ll just—”

Ride it off?
Was that what he was going to say? Sounded ridiculous, even to him. And it didn’t matter, anyhow. Having made up his own mind, Chess just rolled right over Morrow’s protestations.

“Big man like you, ’fraid of a pair of grabbers—that’s pure foolishness, son. We’ll get it looked to, maybe put some gold in your smile . . . now, how’d that be?”

“Aw, stop tryin’ to bribe me, you damn fancy-dancer! Call
me
‘son,’ when you’re half my age.”

“Yeah, there we go. Get mad, Goddamnit! Act a man.” With a grin: “’Sides which, I really wanted to
bribe
you into anything, I could do it a sight more cheaply—and amuse myself while doin’ so, too.”

Morrow couldn’t keep himself from flushing at the implication. “Rate your services pretty damn high, don’t you?”

“Sure. But then again—I’m worth it. Ain’t I?”

Morrow couldn’t argue with that, literally.

“Saddle up,” Chess told him. “Next shit-hole’s . . . Mouth-of-Praise, or some such, I seem to recall, from the last time the Rev and I rode through here. Should get there roundabout suppertime—and if the sawbones does his duty, you should be fixed enough to eat it, too.”

“Chawin’ down with a raw socket ain’t my idea of fun,” Morrow muttered, heaving himself haphazardly into the saddle. “Man, I wish old Kees Hosteen was here.”

Chess, already seated, tossed his head just the once at their dead friend’s name, like he was flicking flies. “Well, he ain’t,” he replied, shortly.

Morrow sighed. “I know. It’s just . . . he had a way of makin’ things go smooth, is all.”

Not the world’s best epitaph—but one he thought Kees might have appreciated, was he still in any way able to.

Chess shot him another look, this one almost completely unreadable.

“Talked a sight less than some people, that’s for sure,” he said, at last. And kicked his horse forward, hard as it would go.

As only seemed fitting, Mouth-of-Praise was mainly false fronts, with every house and shop jacked up twice its actual size with an overhanging façade meant to mask the disrepair within. They rode in slower than Chess usually liked, with what seemed like an inordinate number of eyes on them right from the get-go. Probably didn’t help that Morrow was drooping like he’d been shot, or that Chess’s coat was brighter than most of the ladies’ dresses.

“Might be they recognize us,” he said.

Chess didn’t even bother to look ’round. “Oh, ya think?”

Most places, the local barber did what extraction or patch jobs were needed—but here, perhaps as another mark of greatness yet to come, they’d somehow managed to attract an honest-to-goodness certificate-holder with university bona fides. His shingle, hung beside the expected red-and-white pole, read:
CURRER GLOSSING, D.D.S. Painless Process Practised!

Morrow, who’d had two teeth yanked already, doubted the claim on sight—but damn, if it wasn’t getting difficult to even keep his left eye open. He slid down heavily while Chess tied up their horses, and immediately felt a wave of vertigo so intense he almost wanted to thank Doc Glossing—a plump little thing, blinking meekly up at him from behind gold-rimmed glasses—just for opening the door.

“Gentlemen,” Glossing said. “You two appear to be in sore need of denticular assistance.”

He took one of Morrow’s arms, as Chess shrugged himself under the other. Together, they managed to wrangle him over the threshold, and laid him down onto a red plush couch that wouldn’t’ve looked amiss back in one of the ’Frisco whorehouses Chess had grown up in. In similar style, cash changed hands almost immediately—and where Chess had gotten it from, Morrow wasn’t quite sure, given they hadn’t exactly stopped to rob any banks since leaving Mexico, but he wasn’t about to ask. Could be dead leaves dressed up, like in them fairy tales his Ma used to tell. Or dirt, more likely.

One way or the other, deal done, Chess took up a stance near the window, watching the street as Glossing went about his business: Moistening two pledgets of cotton with a tincture of aconite, chloroform, alcohol and morphine, then packing them firmly ’round the afflicted section of Morrow’s gum, where he fixed them in place with a spring-wound clamp.

Morrow groaned at the feel, so pathetically it caused Chess’s head to whip ’round, hand on one gun-butt. “Can’t you do nothin’ more for him?” he demanded.

“Well now, that has to set a good five to fifteen minutes, in order for the full effect—”

“Ain’t too like to set at all, he keeps on squirming like that. So pour a fresh shot of the same down his throat, and let’s get the hell on with it.”

“Um, uh
kay
, Cheh,” Morrow broke in. But just at that moment—

“Chess Paaaaaaargeter!”

Fuck,
Morrow thought.
I knew it.

The voice came from up the street a ways, brazen-clanging, impossibly loud; it fairly seemed to make the storefront’s window jump in its frame. Chess swiped the doc’s curtains aside, trying for a better view, and got a shotgun blast over the shoulder for his pains, punching a shower of glass onto the surgery’s floor.

“Shit!” Chess cursed. “That son of a mother—”

“Chessss Paaaaargeter!”
the voice repeated, yet louder, and the next bunch of pellets peppered higher, some through Chess’s hat-brim. Chess cross-drew, firing back blind ’til he ran dry. At the same time, Morrow reared up, automatically grabbing for his own gun, only to be astonished—make that horrified—by how easily Glossing managed to press him back down to the couch.

“Sir—
sirs
!” the dentist protested. “Pargeter—Reverend
Rook
’s Chess Pargeter?”

Not anymore,
Morrow felt like telling him. But the tincture was definitely starting to work, in that the general cacophony made his head ring swoonishly. Swallowing, he squared his jaw, and managed—“Who
ih
thah?”

Chess was down on the floor now, “reloading” his empty guns—chamber by chamber—with fiery little clots of spell-work that dropped from each fingertip in turn. “Can’t damn well see, Goddamnit.” To Glossing: “And as for
you
, just keep on goin’. I want my money’s worth.”

“I believe I asked you a question, Mister—”

From the street:
“—PAAAAARGETER!”

Chess turned, fixed him with a narrowed green glare and rose to his full height—which, though nothing much comparatively, gave him a good half-inch on Glossing.

“Yeah, that’s right, Doc: I’m Chess Pargeter, he’s Ed Morrow—this is a gun, and so’s this. Now, I’m just gonna go outside and kill that big bastard, and if I come back in here and find Ed ain’t been fixed in the interim, you best believe I
will
end you. Got that?”