[DL] Deadlands Fiction part 1

[Michael Cone <Michael.Cone@phoenix.edu>]

As requested.

This will probably give an editor fits...

						Valentine's Labors


	"Tico, uno mas cerveza, and don't spit in it this time! I swear on
my mother's stone, people can be just mean sometimes. Don't you think?" 

	"Who, me? Who's askin? An quit fiddlin with that pouch of yours
there. You make a body nervous."
	
	"So. You're the one who keeps writing me those letters. Are you sure
you got the time? And more to the point, are you ready to hear some ugly
stuff? I mean real soul-shrivelin' ear-bleedin' God take me now, ugly. All
right then, it's your funeral. And those are never as pretty as you'd
think."

	"Tico, dos mas y un tequila, por mi amigo. You'll like the beer,
almost no dirt. The tequila's for later. Trust me, you'll want it. I'd say
by the cut of yer boots and them new clothes that you really are from back
that far East. You stick out like a preacher in a whorehouse but you're
sweatin' more. Calm down, there's already been two shootin's tonight and the
upstarts have already been shown the street, so you ain't got no worries. At
least not yet. And if you can last to the end of things I'll bet a case of
Winchester's finest, you'll have more than you bargained for fer that book
o' yers."

	"Yeah, I know. The drawl gets a little thick, now and again. It
grows on ya. Like ashwood over a thief's grave. Have some more beer and get
yer pencil ready, Chief. It's going to be a tale for the ages. And I'll bet
I can put a little salt in that curly black mop of yours.......

"I am the one and only Melody Mclintock. People have a way of calling me
Valentine. I'll get to that in a minute.  You've probably also heard that
they call me the Gunwitch. Valentine Mclintock, she makes the guns burn,
bullets dance, widow's wail and orphans weep. That's laying it on a bit
thick but you know how these things kinda grow, like aches in a spurned
lover's heart. People have laid all sorts o' evils and madness on my door
but the truth is more that most folk can stand."

	"The other stuff? Hold on, Junior. One thing at a time. Or as
someone once said to me "The fate of a journey lies in the first step."
Sounds real wise, don't it? Well it sounds better when he said it. Anyway, I
really ought ta be startin' at the beginnin o' things. Get yourself a fresh
sheet a scratch and we'll start this one off with a thundercrack........

	"Now I know that even a little dandy such as yourself, aw now don't
go getting riled, it ain't personal, have heard the godforsaken crush when a
bolt hit down near ya. That sound of doom that makes ya feel that someone
upstairs is a little out of sorts. Now take that sound, that fraction of a
hair raisin' heartbeat and make it go on forever. A right horrifyin' roar
from angry god that just goes on and on. Kinda like the sky is about ta rain
on ya noggin. That was the sound in '68 when the West Coast just up and went
in the drink. Moira and Wesley Mclintock, may they be at peace, had a farm
on the eastern side of a little place you may have heard of. Used ta be
called San Francisco. In the early mornin' hours my Pa had woken us up to an
eerie calm. The kind that just makes yer neck hairs get up and jump. All at
once, all our horses went jus' berserk. Right then was when Ma found out we
got beachfront property real cheap. The whole house started shakin like a
steer with the fever and I watched the stars disappear behind some big
billowin' clouds. Pa pulled us under the great wooden bed he and Ma shared
and we all tried to pray as the dust began to swirl. And smother. Now, I
don't recall how long we were there but I do remember how long it seemed we
tried to breathe. I felt like my lungs were ready give up and walk on out.
Finally Pa threw off the blankets and we all crawled outside. 

Ma heard it first. The regular wet slap of the tide. Not a dozen yards from
what was our corral. Not a horse left after that. Just a dozen-foot drop off
a fresh cliff to the ocean. We were a good half-day's ride to the docks but
we could tie up our own boats now. Things kind of went down hill from there,
no pun intended. I can remember the panic when folks tried to find homes and
their kin but found only the new buttes and the great crevasses of the Maze.
My folks had no horses to sell so things looked kind of dicey there. Pa
finally gave up and talked Ma into sellin the house and the land so we could
make a start somewhere else. We wandered into the camp that sprang up near
our land and just kind of tries to help out. There was no shortage of other
folks who had lost more than we had.

We kept findin' sailors washed up at the base of cliffs, dead or knockin' at
the Reaper's door at any rate. Men babblin' about the seas comin' alive,
walls o' stone and dirt smashin' ships ta splinters. People covered in burns
or gouges, screamin' that the water burned 'em or somethin' tried to chew
'em in half. I was a little slip of a girl, all of seven years old when this
arrived upon the world. It changes how you look at things, mister. You make
sure that gets in yer book.

	My folks did their level best ta keep ends together, but life just
ain't that kind. Not long after my Dad began to help a small group of
immigrants slap together some buildings so we could ride out the wet season,
he was knifed in the back by some cutpurse lookin' for money that he didn't
have. Ma made a little coin plantin' and sellin' vegetables to the Chinese
and catchin' fish with some of the sailors but it was never enough. I begged
some and tried to stay out of the way. There was always some fathead that
wanted what other people got when he was too lazy to earn it himself, and
they always seem to breed.

	"What's the matter, am I borin' you? You asked for me, pipsqueak!
"Guns of the West", my dimpled butt!" That book o' yers ain't gonna mean a
lick a sense until you get where I came from. It may be borin' ta ya, but I
still dream about it ever Godforsaken night! Besides what you want ta hear
is startin' ta come up, so put that fancy pen a yers back on the scratch and
pay a lady some attention.

Ma used to sell fish to a little group of Chinese men that seemed to be
workin' themselves to be in charge of things. Most of the folks around now
were Chinese, either from the railroad work crews or from ships looking for
a place to find food since most of the ports were now in itty bitty pieces.
This bunch called themselves a Mutual Beneficial Society and I guess with
the fancy title, people started to think they was in charge. They got the
workers aimed at getting some real buildings put up and regular piers out
for boats again. People started to getting some coin to rub together again
and things started to roll. Ma taught me a little of that mishmash they
called a language so we could understand what they was sayin'. I thought
that things would get a little better. People were pulling through, putting
things back together. Pity that it never lasts.

	I lost my mother to a man who felt that he should'a had his greens
for free. He took what she had brought to town to sell and then tried to
take her favor as well.  Ma pulled her pistol pulled the trigger and I heard
the hammer fall on a wet cartridge. His ammo was dry. I buried her on a
hillside facing east so that she could still see the dawn. 

	Now I spent the better part of two months stealing and hiding to
keep what I stole as Shan Fan grew up around the docks. I would have wound
up at the bottom on the bay or made to work the docks as a cutpurse if my
mother's kindness had not been remembered. South of Shan Fan, along the new
coastline, immigrant Chinese had re-built a large hacienda. Ma had sometimes
sold them greens or potatoes. They had a leader, a kind of wise old monk who
everyone called Nine-fingered Chen. Chen and eight other guys had taken over
an old Spanish Mission house that had been abandoned not long after the
Great Quake. They just kept to themselves and fixed the place up some to
live in. Ma used to say they had started some sort of garden inside the
walls that was just a sight to behold. Flowers that's he had never seen,
little twisted trees, grass in spots and little patches of sand that they
would put designs in with rakes and hoes. They didn't go out much and Ma
said that they spent a lot of time sittin' on the ground, hummin' like
lizards sunnin' themselves on rocks. Kinda odd, but they never hurt no one
and would buy greens when ever she came by so she thought well of them.

	Chen found me, hungry and dirty, in an alley by the old opium tents
and somehow recognized my face under the sweat and dirt. He had a voice just
as soft as a breeze in the trees when he asked me why my mother had not come
to the temple. I told him what happened and he just looked into my eyes for
a long, long time. Like he was weighin' what he saw in there. With out a
word he took my hand and led me out of the city and south along the coast.
He took me in, introduced me to the other monks that looked on me with
serene wisdom in their eyes, and made me a home.

	Now, it wasn't until much later I learned that Chen had actually
broken some rule of theirs by bringin' me into their holy place of worship,
but it was never brought up from his end of things, not once. I never found
out until after things were done.


	Yes, monks! What did ya think I was gonna say. Bears raised me? Son,
those men were the most kind, gentle and wise men it was ever my privilege
to be around, so you can just wipe that look off yer face or I'll help it
out the door.

	Now, where was I? That's right, Chen. That night, Chen gave me a
room off of the old kitchen that they had been using for storage. The next
morning, he woke me with, a huge tub of steaming water, a pile of loose
robes that they all wore and some clothes they had found left in some of the
rooms. Now, or since, I have never had a bath that felt so good. I also saw
the pleasure in Chen's eyes when I stepped outside wearing robes like he
did. He took my hand, and led me into the chapel to meet the others.

	Nine-fingered Chen was the head monk in the house but all of the
others had a job to do around the mission, and I kinda got the impression
that they were all kinda equal when they went into the chapel to worship.
There was the one-legged fella he called Duck that would hop around the
kitchen and cook and clean all the monk's robes. I always called him Hoppin'
Duck in my head. There was the broad shouldered gardener whose name was
Autumn Dawn. He would spend hours in that garden, putting my mother's work
to shame. Rocks just so, tending every bud and stalk like they were newborn
babes. Plum Blossom and Old Tree were brothers who made repairs and worked
on the mission when the storms would blow through and they could work
wonders with no tools at all. Up in the chapel there were three of them who
did nothing but keep the place clean, tend to their shrines and pray an
awful lot. That bunch was Bright Diamond, Quiet Thunder and Blue Mountain.
The whole bunch was....

Now yer getting that "ain't this a funny bunch" look on yer puss again an'
its really startin' ta yank my bridle, mister. I'm givin' you a real story
fer that book and you look like I'm feedin' ya Eddie Foy's latest routine.
These men had names in their tongue that you can't pernounce, let alone get
right on that scratch o' yers. What I'm callin' them is what their names
meant. So quit snickerin, an' have a little respect for the dead.
	Out of the whole, quiet bunch, the most impressive one was Smoke
Dragon. He led all the others in a run o' exercises every mornin' at dawn
and every night at dusk. Smoke was a man who wore an aura of power like most
other folks wore a favorite pair o' boots. He stood like a redwood, ran like
stallion and struck like a snake. He soon had me in the middle of their
exercises, doin' all the moves and learnin' how to balance. If you ever
think that you have a lot to do, I am here to testify that those men did
more exercisin' at dawn than most folks will do in a week. And when they do
it, they do them hard. I lost count of the number of days that I woke up,
more sore than a Pony Express Mount.  But it was worth it. Smoke showed me
how to move with balance, strike with grace and make damn sure a man
understood me when I said NO! But that's getting ahead of things.

	All of these men did their jobs and said their prayers and no one
ever said a thing about the little girl in the house. They put food in front
of me, a roof over my head and old Chen taught me how to understand all of
them in that poetry they call a language. The monks and the years that
passed were a balm that worked slowly on my heart and Chen himself was there
every single night that I woke up cryin' like a babe and hollerin' for
Momma. I owed him so much for that, I even told him so. But he would only
smile a little and tell me that I would find a way to give kindness like he
had.

	Now, for eight years, I stayed with the Monks of the temple of the
Ghost Wind as they called it. I learned more than a few ways to discourage
unwanted attention from boys when I started to get older. I ran errands into
Shan Fan for them and helped tend the garden among other duties. I never
could get quite the hang of some of the feats that the others could do.
Smoke Dragon could trim the wick off a burnin' candle at twenty paces with a
blade on the end of a little metal chain while Plum Blossom could reduce a
log to kindlin' with his bare hands. There were plenty of times that I would
have sworn that Old Blue Mountain knew what was comin' out of my mouth
before I got around to sayin' it. Chen and Smoke tried for days and nights
on end to teach me how to focus, as they said it. But I never could seem to
get the hang of it. It was also those years that I learned that
Nine-fingered Chen had a lot of very interestin' friends...

	Now all that I could figure out on my own was that Chen knew lots of
people from all over. They would show up and talk to him in the garden for a
time. I saw professors all draped in tweed, ladies dressed in the latest
dresses from Back East, and Indian braves still wearin' buckskin and covered
with the dirt of the road. I never wanted to find out what they all came to
talk to him for, I just thought that lots o' people really liked Chen
because he was so nice. Some he would just talk to in the garden, or give
them little bundles of medicinal herbs from time to time. It wasn't until
after my sixteenth birthday that I really learned what Chen and the others
were doing here.