There stood the Lieut, no worse for his abyssal plunge; next to him that flibbertigibbet Sadie from the Two Sisters, whose head he’d broke open for daring to drop a lure in Rook’s lap, with her red-faced country beau not far behind, who’d caught up with Chess in Splitfoot Joe’s only to get drilled twice before even clearing leather. The holes in the boy’s chest were still open, leaking ichor so pale it had only a hint of pink left to it. Close by, almost two-score men in bluebelly do-up — white and otherwise — stood shot-riddled or torn by old Kees Hosteen’s knife, scooped guts bulging their tattered shirts. The nameless Pink from ’Frisco who’d been Chess’s first real kill kept ’em company, razor-cut throat-grin gaping wide — laid low in back-alley garbage with his gun took while Chess just lit the hell out, man’s murder nothing but a ticket to get him shed of ’Frisco, and Oona along with it.
Other Pinks too, aplenty, like those three he’d shot on their knees after that first train job, ’fore Rook had slapped his gun away. Or former gang-brother Petrus Kavalier, done over the shoulder without even a glance, for the crime of merely raising a gun in horror at Rook’s dark craft. A sprinkling of Injuns too, plus a scattering of “good citizens,” men he’d thoughtlessly hoorawed past during some raid or other; gunslingers who’d ridden the exact same road, only to end it in front of his muzzles. Even that fool of a miner in the ’Frisco melodeon who wouldn’t damn well give over on Rook, his Ma, him, ’til Chess gave him one back, between the eyes.
Too damn easy, Ed Morrow’s voice told him, disapprovingly. You knock ’em down and giggle over it, after.
Over fifty, all told — maybe a hundred, if he wasn’t flattering his own capacities somewhat. And all of ’em equally dead, cold in ways mere landscape couldn’t explain, warmed only by hate-burnt eyes and wounds wisping steam.
My work, Chess thought. Mine, and no one else’s.
Once, he’d’ve preened to own it, but now . . . now, it just made him tired. All of it. All of them. Man lived twenty years or more in this world, shouldn’t he have something a bit better to show for it? Something more — permanent?
This is heresy, red boy, the Enemy told him, from nowhere, degrading to your nature. Besides which, what can be more permanent than the grave . . . the split earth, Cipactli’s open mouth, or all that comes after?
To avoid the temptation to even try to answer, Chess flicked his eyes back over the crowd, searching out faces from Bewelcome or Hoffstedt’s Hoard — but found none, which bemused him. Only those who’d died at his own hand made up the Dead Posse roster, then, which had a bitter kind of sense to it, he supposed. This was the Enemy’s territory, down here, and his way had nothing whatsoever to say about debts of conscience beyond the primal — blood for blood, too book-balancing cold for true revenge.
Christian Hell might be hot, after all, but Mictlan-Xibalba was cold as this place here. And deep.
Chess squeezed Oona’s clutching hand, shrugged, and took up his pistoleer’s pose, empty holsters notwithstanding. “Well,” he said, “c’mon, then. Whoever got something to say can just go on and tell
me ’fore we all die again of cold, or boredom.”
The crowd parted. Three personages pushed to the forefront, all wearing the shredded remnants of Confederate greys; one in the middle was a bald-headed idjit, near Rook’s size but flabbier. His smaller, equally ugly friends flanked him close. All three sported knife-slice neckties like that first Pink’s, gone stiff grey-blue in this blizzardly weather; a rime set their lips glimmering, edges a-tremble with the force of their eager dog-panting. The big one expelled a wheezing sigh, half-strained through his brittle wound, like he’d been silent so long he didn’t know which mouth was better for speaking.
“Might almost be worth it all . . . all this sufferin’, here in the dark,” he said, “just . . . t’pay you back, Pargeter.”
“I don’t misdoubt. But remind me, while we’re at it: who the fuck are you meant to be to me, precisely?”
“Oh, you’ll get it, you just try hard enough.” Fists now, steady at the man’s waist; he leaned forward, bringing his weight onto his toes like a pugilist. “We was soldiers together once, back in camp — you with your airs, swannin’ ’round, like you could dictate to real-made men. Thought you’d trade me somethin’ I didn’t want for what I did, ’til I taught you better.”
A preening wisp of a voice, shrunk now almost to nothing. Yet Chess could still catch an echo of what it might’ve been like once, full and mean, telling him: Guess you’re mine now, bitch.
With that, the other shoe dropped; Chess felt a rib-crack weight across his back and a tearing in his nethers, recalled the world gone dim from both his eyes being so bruise-puffed they barely opened, throat sore from ill use, inside and out. And thought, like he’d snarled through it nonetheless, right at that very moment —
Not likely. ’Cause . . . I ain’t no-damn-body’s, motherfucker.
He spat again just to rid himself from the taste, and grinned.
“Why, Private Chilicothe,” Chess named him. “You who played bad faith with my rules and never did pay me for the privilege, either, so I took my change out on your hide; you’re right, now I do recall. ’Specially that part in the doc’s tent, after — how sweet you looked lyin’ there asleep, right ’fore I slit your throat and left you to piss yourself dyin’.”
“Too scared to face me awake, that was all.”
“Ha! You never scared me, you sumbitch, not even when you was hip-deep up in my business. Didn’t leave that much’ve an impression.”
Chilicothe’s face shifted, lumpily; probably would’ve flushed, had he still had even a drop of blood to put toward the effort. “Pretend all you want, you little faggot bastard — I know better. Know damn well I hurt you, at least.”
“For a minute or two, sure. But I’ve had worse.”
Chilicothe’s shade lashed out, no doubt expecting things to go the same as up top, him still having a good foot and a half on Chess’s neat-made self. And Chess with no guns, plus no hexation to count on either, seeing how it seemed to vary in strength from spot to spot along this endless Hell-bound trudge.
But screw all that. For though he’d stopped looking to get into fist-fights the same day he’d realized he’d never make six feet, Chess’d be gang-fucked (again) if he wouldn’t go down swinging.
Before he could make his move, however — duck in under the bastard’s arm and hook him hard, maybe try to bust a rib, or just give him a good, swift punch to the nuts — Chess saw Oona come down on one knee, shoulders squared, rummaging through the snow. She came up with a sharp-splintered icicle roughly the size of some carved ivory Chinee dildo, and drove it straight into the back of Chilicothe’s calf, deep enough to judder. Then twisted it ’til he howled, so hard Chess swore he could hear the flash-froze hamstring snap.
Chilicothe went down, face-first into Chess’s fist. It was a good jab, right from the shoulder, and Chess felt the man’s ghost-nose squish. The other two jumped to help, but Oona moved herself sidelong, hunching up to form a brake; one skipped over her like a thrown stone, went right into the other and carried him away down the hill in a flurry of thrashing limbs, snow-scree and bruises. Which left only Chilicothe behind, pinned as Chess stomped on him once, twice, whole chest coming down like a rotten wall, to where Chess thought he felt the fucker’s wizened heart go pop, a mojo bag of vile intentions.
Chess spit down at him one more time, taking care to aim well. The result crackled mid-air and froze solid, falling dagger-style to embed itself a half-inch from the eye, then lodged and crusted over, bonding ice to skin. Chilicothe’s mouth dropped open, too shocked to yelp, as Oona made her blackening feet once more.
“Better get while the goin’s good, I’d fink,” she suggested, throwing back her hair.