A Tree of Bones (Hexslinger 3)

A surfeit of memory, Chess — not good memory, either, even as it engages us to all else’s exclusion. For “nostalgia” means “our pain,” you see.

“Sir, are you well? Are you all — ”

Fine enough, you idjit, given. Better by far, after a while, without your yammering laid in on top of the rest of it.

But: “Ma’am,” he managed, finally, doing what he thought might be a passable Ed Morrow imitation, “that’s . . . kind advice, I’m sure. Thank you for it.”

“Why, you’re most welcome. Room’s at the hall’s end — you take as long as you need, make yourself presentable. I’ll boil water for washing.”

“Ma’am,” he repeated, dipping his head like a play-actor. And stumbled past, nose suddenly salt-stuffed and eyes a-sting, too dim to negotiate except by touch alone.

It took him far longer than he’d thought it would to do for the beard he’d worn almost since he bid San Francisco farewell, hacking and scraping for what seemed like hours ’til the skin showed through, though at least he didn’t cut himself too badly. After, he examined his face in the dull tin mirror and was surprised to realize the scar ’neath his jawline barely showed at all, except from odd angles.

Otherwise, he looked thinner, older, burnt ’cross the nose and tanned darker than he’d ever seen himself before. A slight lightening at either temple, uneven on each side, dimmed his hair’s red from flame to afterglow. An outright thread of grey wove through one gilt brow, making it fork, then hike quizzically.

Maybe no one would take me for Chess Pargeter after all, he thought, for one breathless moment — frozen while a paralyzing wave of something swept up through him, strong but nameless, almost impossible to decode. Hope? Horror? Regret?

Regret, hell.

No, he was himself still, no matter what: small-made and slim, face like a scowling fox, harder by far than he seemed at a distance. Though the embers might burn low and crusted, they remained hot; something would blow on ’em soon enough, making ’em flare and pop. And then?

Well. Then, he supposed, they’d just have to see. Him too, along with everybody else.

Chess plunged his hands back into the washbasin, made one more grooming circuit, wiping away what was left of his whiskers. Then slung his ruined jacket back on, and went out in search of drink.

Nearest thing in Dry Well to a saloon was a combination eatery and melodeon in which a three-piece band sawed away at their fiddles, and two indifferent-looking skirted creatures moped wherever they thought they could show ’emselves off to best advantage. One bit got you a shot and dinner, a plate heaped with sowbelly, and the three Bs — biscuits, bacon, beef — with wild onions as a side dish, against the scurvy. There was a card game in one corner, a hot topical discussion in the other: Pinkerton’s legacy, that new outfit Geyer and that other ex-agent had cobbled together out of old Allan’s leavings. Doc Asbury they had working hard, making reparation, parsing his Manifolds from weapons back to tools — something Songbird would be glad to hear of, Chess supposed, for all the harm the old man had done her, in his misguided attempts to defang hexation at its individual roots rather than its ultimately unknowable source.

How he might convey that information to her, on the other hand, he had no idea. Nor why he might want to try.

You may speak to us at your convenience, red boy, that man-squaw Yiska’s voice murmured at his inner ear, the very same instant this thought framed itself — for she too seemed more powerful, perhaps augmented by dead Grandma’s legacy, now she’d passed beyond the veil Chess didn’t plan to penetrate again anytime soonish. We welcome your intelligence. There is a place amongst us held open for you, always.

And why would I want that? he ached to cry out, even aloud, for all around him to wonder at. I ain’t none of yours, like you ain’t none of mine. Only person left on this damn earth I belong to is —

— Ed, maybe, when all was said and done. Maybe even Yancey Colder Kloves, who might one day consent to set her weeds aside and be Missus Morrow. But aside from them . . .

Two women he’d hated in this rambling, violent life of his, a whore and a goddess, and he couldn’t even say he hated the first anymore, or not quite so much as he had. While for all his affections bent Ed’s way, frolic-wise and other-, there remained one man alone he’d ever loved, thus far. Loved and hated both, in almost equal measure.

The hurt of it crept up and down like sickness, but never went away; a self-refreshing void, set right where that hollow his heart filled once more used to gape. As though his own pulse, so long absent, were nothing but a hammer pounding one new nail for every beat

into his own flesh, forever wrenching the same wound open.

All things pass, still, red boy. All things move on. Even him. Even you.

He didn’t want the advice, necessarily, for all he knew it was probably good. Yet he couldn’t deny there were parts of him — larger parts than ever before — which wished to Mictlan-Xibalba’s lowest deeps it might, eventually, prove true.

Over by the trio, an altercation was rising, argument sliding fast to incipient brawl. A long-legged young man sat scowling with a guitar slung over his chair-back, mariachi-style, while three other cowboy bravos poked at him. “Sing for us, Alarid!” one demanded, jeeringly.

“Don’t think I will.”

“Aw, c’mon, we’re all waitin’. I know just the song, too: Oh, Charlie’s neat and Charlie’s sweet, and Charlie, he’s a dandy . . . and every time we chance t’meet, he gives me sugar candy . . .”

The lanky sumbitch in question — his first name being Charles, Chess could only assume — narrowed his eyes, which were bright blue fringed with lashes so dark and thick they looked like he’d smeared on what the San Fran ladies called fireplace kohl. His hair, too, was black as a coalhouse cat, unruly, with one long lock falling like a kiss-curl; some Mex in his complexion, the arrogant furl of his grandee’s lip. This was the sort of young buck annoyed those ’round him simply by existing, and didn’t seem to’ve figured yet that that should make him pull his head in, rather than jut it out all the prouder.

“‘Sweet’,” he repeated. “Problem is, though — I’m savin’ my candy for better men than you, Sam Holger. Not that I’d ever thought you wanted it before, as such . . .”

Holger turned first red, then white, choking hard on an in-drawn breath, like it was fire-water. “You . . . faggot motherfucker, you,” he began, spluttering, “always puttin’ on your Goddamn airs and graces — ”

“Better airs and graces than cowflop-stink, and ten pounds of stupid in a five-pound sack.”