A Rope of Thorns (Hexslinger 2)

“I ain’t too like to make you fear I’ll bail out to chase some girl we both of us just met, let alone one new-hitched in holy matrimony,” Morrow told him, at the same time, “and not being quite so stunned as I look, I got no desire to get Chess Pargeter mad at me, either. ’Sides which . . .”

“‘The Red-Head Pistoleer’!” That one got cheers.

Here Morrow cut off, reconsidering his next sentence. But Chess simply nodded, and finished it for him anyhow: “’Sides which, you might get her killed,” he said, nodding to Yancey, now looking over at the band in dismay. “Right? Oh, Christ’s sake, Ed, don’t take on—who you think I am, your gal back home? So long’s you’re there for me when it counts, believe me, you can get gay with whomever you choose to.”

“Really?”

“True dish. Think I want a damn ring, from anyone? A church full’a fools and some combine playing clog-step crap like—” He turned, frowning. “What the hell is that song, anyway? Tune sounds familiar.”

“Think it’s ‘Two Dimes and a Nickel,’” said Morrow, eyes narrowed. “Lyric don’t seem quite right, though. . . .”

“Oh, no, that ain’t ‘Two Dimes’!” The man standing by them was one of Kloves’ deputies, Chess vaguely recalled; reflexively, he tightened his glamour, and Ed’s as well. “It’s a whole new reel entire, from someplace back Arizona way—‘The Red-Head Pistoleer’!”

Chess froze.

Morrow: “I, uh, never heard that before.”

“Oh, don’t worry yourself, Mister Chester—take ya home humming, you’ll see, ’specially the way Joe sings it.” And, slamming back the last of his punch, he hurried for the dance floor, calling over his shoulder: “It’s a right toe-tapper!”

Which seemed to be true enough, the way the dancers were now singing enthusiastically along.

Chesssss . . . Pargeter was a pretty little man, his hair was red as flame,

His Ma she knew no better, and she raised him up the same.

The ladies he liked little, the men he liked too well.

Mere repetition of his sins might send a man to Hell!

He danced with men for money, but he’d kill ’em just for fun,

And the only thing he truly loved was the barrel of his gun.

In the army he met Reverend Rook, who tried to pray him ’round,

But Chess sunk in his wicked hooks, and pulled that good man down.

Me, Chess realized. It’s about me. And—

He drew a long breath, thick-burning, gullet suddenly a-heave.Felt Morrow’s touch on one shoulder—all five fingers, strong and warm yet far too brief: appearances, don’tcha know. So’s not to fright the horses. “Chess . . . ter, Junior: buck up, little brother. Just hold on, now.”

Now, one sin leads to every sin, or so you may have heard—

And sodomy and sorcery are almost the self-same word.

He’d been a saint by all accounts, right faithful to God’s ways,

But once stuck fast in Chess’s toils, the Rev begun to change. . . .

Chess swallowed yet again, spit flavoured with bile. Said, slowly, “So . . . what they’re sayin’ is—I turned him bad?”

“It’s a song, is all. Wrote by some idjit in a saloon five states over, probably drunk, couldn’t even think up a brand new tune to set it to. Like the penny-papers, or them Dreadfuls done up on rag-pulp—all the lie that’s fit. You know for yourself they always get it wrong.”

The chorus rose up overtop, twice as strong, drunken-riotous:

The Good Lord wrote the Bible, Lincoln freed the slaves,

But the Devil made Chess Pargeter to drag fools to their graves.