The Shotgun Arcana (33 page)

Maude nodded. Mutt checked his watch again.

“You,” Maude said, “are stalling me. What are you up to?”

Mutt shrugged. “Just enjoying the lovely view and trying to make as many white folks uncomfortable as I can,” he said. “I have no idea what you are on about.”

“I’m talking about killing something and eating it raw, pretty soon here, Deputy,” Maude said.

“Long as it ain’t me,” Mutt said. “I’m good. Just a few more minutes and we can head on over to the spread.”

Maude pointed at the well. “Something I’ve been wondering all the years I’ve lived in this town, are the stories about this old well true? I’ve heard it’s haunted. That there’s some kind of secret tunnel down in it, that the Bick family threw one of their mad relatives down in there and that you can still hear his screams on some nights.”

“My favorite is that back before there were any white folks here, the locals used it as a sacrificial well to appease the evil spirits that wander these lands,” Mutt said. “Been tempted to start that old tradition back up from time to time. And you, Maude, you are dancing around something with me, now. Something you don’t want to tell me.”

“You always can see through me,” she said. “You are the only one who can.”

“I pay the most attention,” Mutt said. “I’m kinda fascinated by you, if you haven’t cyphered that out yet. Talk to me, straight.”

Maude looked out past the buildings to the cool darkness settling over Rose Hill and the desert beyond that. This was harder than fighting the mountain lion could ever be.

“I received a letter from my father in Charleston,” she said. “He’s coming to fetch me and Constance, like we’re errant children. He’s already on his way. He feels that this ‘unwashed frontier’ is no place for his daughter or granddaughter without a man to look over us.”

“And how do you feel ’bout it?” Mutt said, without missing a beat.

Maude felt something flutter in her chest and she realized again why this man, this battered and coarse man, was the most miraculous person she had ever met and why he made her feel the things she felt inside whenever he was about.

“You are the only person in this world, except my daughter, who would even think to ask me what I wanted, as if that was an option,” Maude said. “Thank you.”

“I mean, after all you went through with Arthur being murdered and then almost losing Constance and what you had to go through to save her, I’d understand if you jist wanted to move away from all this badness. A lot of folks do,” Mutt said. Something else hung in his throat, more words that he wanted to say. Maude could sense them, but he held his peace.

“It’s been my experience that the badness here is balanced pretty well by the goodness,” she said. “It’s harder to find and it doesn’t always come looking for you, but it’s here. This is my home now and Constance’s. We have roots and I don’t intend to have them pulled out.”

Mutt nodded, again. Words held. Maude decided not to push that.

“Good deal,” he said. “You know whatever happens, I got you covered, right?”

“I know that in my bones,” she said. “And I can’t tell you how much it means to me.”

“C’mon.” Mutt stood and offered his hand. “Let’s git you fed.”

*   *   *

They walked into the dining room of Gillian Proctor’s home, which she ran as a boardinghouse, and Maude paused in surprise. No boarders were crowded around the dinner table. The room was empty, except for a slender man in his forties, with aquiline features and short, dark hair, turning gray at the temples. He was dressed in a traditional white double-breasted chef’s jacket and checkered pants and standing proudly by the kitchen door. The table had fine linen on it and there was a virtual feast laid out. At the center of the table was a lit candelabrum, bathing the dark room in warm light.

“Welcome,” the man said. “Perfect timing. I just chased Jim Negrey out of here. He did help clear the table, good lad, though how he did it with a biscuit in either hand and one in his mouth is beyond me.”

“Much obliged, Del,” Mutt said. “You really went all out for us. Maude Stapleton, this is Delmonico Hauk, to us by way of New York City.”

“Hauk? The owner of the new restaurant?” Maude said.

“Owner, chef, bookkeeper and dishwasher,” Hauk said with a laugh. “Pleased to meet you, Maude.”

Hauk took Maude’s hand and shook it politely and with a slight bow. “When Gillian and Mutt told me about the surprise wedding today and how she was supposed to fix you two dinner, I offered to step up and take over so her and Auggie could enjoy their honeymoon. I offered Mutt the best table in my place, but he wanted you all to himself.”

“Did he?” Maude narrowed her eyes at Mutt in mock accusation. “How long have you and Gillian been keeping all this scheming from me, Deputy?”

“Mutt worked it out with Gillian,” Hauk said. “He wanted to make sure I could arrange the meal and get the boarders out of here in time. For Mutt and Gillian, I’d feed them in the back alley. A few of the boarders are in the parlor. If they make too much noise, you tell me and I’ll shoo them.”

“Thanks, Del,” Mutt said. “I owe you.”

“Nonsense,” Hauk said. “I’d be dead in New York if not for you and I’d never have got the restaurant up and running here without Gillian’s help. Tonight is for you two. I’ll put these lovely flowers in water for you, Maude, and I’ll be right in the kitchen if you need anything. Mind your manners, Mutt.”

“Yes, mother,” Mutt said. As Hauk departed, Mutt pulled Maude’s chair away from the table for her. She sat and he pushed it in before taking his own seat across from her.

“They, uh, they usually say grace before we chow down,” Mutt said. “I don’t usually cotton to that myself, but I’ll do it if you’d like.” Maude smiled. Her eyes shimmered in the candlelight.

“No,” she said. “But thank you for offering.”

“Well,” Mutt said. “Let’s eat.” He gestured for her to begin, but Maude paused.

“Mutt,” Maude said. “This is the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me, ever. Thank you.”

“You deserve to be treated fine all the time,” Mutt said. “Thank you for lettin’ me.”

*   *   *

Dinner was the best either of them could recall eating. Hauk had prepared so much food: roasted chicken with fixin’s, corn dodgers, greens with bacon and biscuits. Hauk had made a large pandowdy full of apples, sugar and spices for dessert. There were large pitchers of cold water and tea and pots of hot tea and coffee, with an assortment of cakes for both.

“That,” Maude said, dabbing her lips with a napkin while Mutt poured her a cup of coffee, “was magnificent. Mr. Hauk’s a great chef. What was that about you saving his life back in New York?”

“Long story,” Mutt said. “Back when I was a short britches, not much older than Jim. Hated New York. Wouldn’t have gone if I didn’t have to. Some bad business with my father’s family. Like I said, a long story.”

“I have trouble seeing you in New York,” Maude said.

“Me too,” Mutt said. “Almost wrecked the damn place, but I met Del and he’s real good people. A very generous fella, Hauk is.”

Maude sipped her coffee. “You are a very generous man for doing all this for me.”

“Well, if I’m good to you, maybe you’ll stay,” he said, smiling. “How you going to handle your father?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Maude said. “But I will. I love him and I don’t want to hurt him. Father has business to attend to all over the world, so I spent more time, as a child, with this relative or that relation than with him. Truth be told, he loved me but I knew he always wanted a son to carry on the Anderton name. I was another … obligation, like a business debt, and father always saw to his obligations. He was a good provider and he’s good man.

“My mother was active in causes that embarrassed him often. Abolition, women’s suffrage. He could have forbid Mother from doing those things, relegated her to the role of wife, but he never even tried to because it made Mother happy, never because he thought those causes were right.”

“Your mother sounds like a fine woman,” Mutt said. “Sorry you lost her. I still miss mine too. She did right by me, when she didn’t have to.”

“I’ve told you before about my great-great-great-grandmother on my mother’s side, Gran Bonny? She was always more of a parent to me than my mother or father ever were,” Maude said. “She was there when I needed her and she actually listened to me.”

“You loved her a lot, it shows,” Mutt said. “You told me she’s the one that taught you how to do the things you do, right? The fighting, the disguise, all that hard case stuff?”

“Yes,” Maude said. “She did.”

“One tough old lady,” Mutt said. “Would have liked to meet her.”

“Tough? You have no idea,” Maude said, laughing. “She was the most alive person I’ve ever known. She took life by the throat and refused to let it go until she had wrung every last drop out of it. She could be stubborn and coarse at times, but she was honest and true and she spoke her mind and didn’t give a damn what the world thought. You remind me of her quite a bit, actually.”

Mutt raised a glass of water in salute.

“I’ll take that as high praise indeed. To Gran Bonny.”

“She’d hate being toasted with water,” Maude said. “Hated the stuff, said fish fornicated in it. I do believe she had wine in her veins. I think she’d like you.”

“’Course she would,” Mutt said. “I’m charmin’ as hell.”

“That,” Maude said, touching his hand on the table, “you are.”

*   *   *

They departed Proctor’s boardinghouse well after ten at night. Both profusely thanked Hauk for the wonderful meal and offered to help clean up, but he would have none of it.

“You get her home before she turns into a turnip, Deputy,” Hauk said to Mutt. “Pleasure to meet you, Maude.”

They turned right onto Prosperity Road. The shadow of Rose Hill stood before them and they began to climb the hill on the narrow, smooth stone path lined with desert willows. The walking path ran adjacent to the simple, but well-attended dirt road that gently ascended Rose Hill, running past the finest homes in Golgotha. Maude’s house was near the base of the hill. The two walked, arm in arm, as the moon was beginning to wane. The desert’s chill had fallen and it genuinely felt like winter was a wolf at the door. Mutt paused and draped his coat over Maude’s shoulders.

“You know the cold doesn’t affect me unless I let it,” she said softly.

“Humor me,” he said. And she did.

The faint perfume of the desert willows kissed the wind as they walked along silently. Maude knew the willows would lose their purple blooms soon, but tonight it felt like they remained here just for her.

“You have given me a perfect evening,” she says. “You always give me what I need. How do you do that?”

Again Mutt held back words. Then he said, “I treat you the way you deserve to be treated, Maude.”

They turned off the pavestone path onto a dirt one. There was a water pump that acted as a crossroads, with smaller paths leading to each of the circle of homes clustered around it.

“I’m going hunting again,” Maude said, pausing at the pump. “I felt I should let you know.”

“Mountain lions?” Mutt said.

“No, I’m tracking down the man who has been murdering the women at the Dove’s Roost.”

“Well, Jonathan and Jim and some Secret Service agent are trying to bag him tonight. Hopefully they do,” Mutt said.

“Secret Service?” Maude said

“Yeah, all the way from Washington, D.C.—the hometown of white-man crazy. I’m not ’posed to say anything about ’em being here. Real hush-hush,” he said with a grin. “Oops.”

“Well, you know you can trust me,” Maude said.

“Yes,” Mutt said. “I know.”

“Well, if they don’t get him, I will,” Maude said.

Mutt stopped walking. He rubbed his chin as he frowned. “Did you hear what he did to them?” he said. “This man is crazy to wake the snakes, Maude. Whores are real good at reading crazy, too, so that means he’s witchy at hiding what he really is.”

“Women,” Maude said. “People, not whores. And, yes, the women at the Dove’s Nest told me exactly what he did to them. That’s why I’m going to hunt him down and stop him if you can’t.”

“Maude,” Mutt said. “They are whores. Women, or people, or whatever you care to call them, who sell themselves. When you do that as a trade, you run into men like this one. I’m not sayin’ it’s right. Hell, I’d like to have a little private time with the no-account who done it, but it is kind of part and parcel of the business they chose.”

“Most of these women have no choice in this ‘business,’” Maude said. “It’s this work or they starve and their families starve. And I’ve been called ‘whore’ plenty of times in my life, mostly by men who claimed to love me. You, of all people, should be able to see past a label and see the person, Mutt. Are you just a ‘half-breed’? A ‘redskin,’ any of those horrible labels you’ve had spit at you?”

“Just names,” Mutt said. “Don’t mean nothin’ except to the damn fools that use them. Don’t make you who you are unless you let ’em.”

“You know I can handle myself,” Maude said. “Why are you being this way?”

“Because I caught a whiff of … just a hint of it today sniffing over that wagon,” Mutt said. “Something evil, and old, but hard to tag, like smoke from a far-off wildfire. Crazy. Hate and lust all mixed up together. It was like part of his scent but not … like a separate thing he’s tied into. I … I just don’t want anything to happen to you and I sure as hell don’t want you anywhere near this … whatever it is.”

Maude put her hand on his shoulder. “If it’s some kind of creature, then I need to stop it even more.”

“No,” Mutt said. “He’s human. As human as it gets. That’s part of what troubles me. Unnatural things—monsters, spirit things—they make sense in a weird kinda way, but this…”

Catching that scent today, Mutt had felt, more than sensed, an animal savagery that spoke to a part of him. This was the human animal at its most debased, its most horrible. No other animal, even mad and frothing, could do something like this. The thought of Maude torn and violated like that filled him with more fear than he could ever recall. This man was to be avoided like the prairie fire or the shuddering diamondback. He was death.