[DL] Valentine's Labors Part 5

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

Smoke Dragon lets the other one fall from his bloody hand.

	I drop the empty one back in the holster, and grab for the full one
lyin' in the dirt. That devil-spawned gunslinger cocked the hammers and
Dragon raised is fists. There was little bits of smoke curling from his
eyes, wisps that just curled away inta the breeze and the glare got a little
brighter. He locks eyes with Dragon and I watch the monk go stock-still. His
arms dropped to his side and his eyes never left the gunman's gaze. Two more
trigger pulls and Smoke Dragon looses both legs from the knees.

	I get the pistol and its just me, the gunslinger from Hell, and
Nine-fingered Chen with this look of deep despair in his eyes. I make ta
give him another ear-hole, but he's already there, and I'm lookin' down a
barrel that I think looks like the Mouth of Perdition itself. His finger
tightens, and the bullet sets forth. Chen is there, all of a sudden and I
see him slap his hands together in front a me like man doin' some deep
prayin' in church. Then I feel the sting in the base of my neck.

	I remember feelin' something warm at th' back of my throat, I look
down and notice that I'm still standin'. There at my feet is Chen, still on
his knees with a hole the size of a quarter in each hand. I hear somethin'
wheezin' and start to feel my chest get sticky. I look back up and that
gunslinger's just standin' there with his gun barrel pointed at the sky,
wispin' smoke at the twilight. I cough and I feel the warmth come up and
over my teeth and that's when it sinks in. I cough again, harder this time,
and my knees give out and I go over on my side. My hand won't hold the
pistol anymore and it looks a little darker than it should be.

	Chen just looks up at the madman and kinda gets to his feet. I
remember seein' the blood spatter on his ankles as the boots just crunched
their way closer. Like their owner had all the time on earth. I start to
hear a roarin' sound in my ears; it gets louder and louder as my eyes go
dim. I can barely make out Chen sayin' a prayer for longevity. I remember
thinkin' that was really kinda funny but then I realized that he was sayin
it for me. Those gentle prayers were the last thing I remember hearing.


	Gimme that bottle! I got one fer you now. What's th' one thing that
has scared you most? Just burn yer ears, make yer hair white, call fer mama,
scared. How about wakin' up?
Wakin' up, and feelin' pinned down. Like the weight of the world is just
settled down on ya like the worst quilt ever made. And it's not movin'.
Wakin' up and only been able ta see in patches. Little smears o' light and
darkness.  That sir, is scared. 

	I don't know how long I stayed there. Stiff, feelin' like this was
the devil's own prank for all my years of messin' with evil spirits to make
my tricks.  And the worst of it all was the little voice at the back of my
mind just givin' a real long giggle at me. I didn't think much of it then. I
was more concerned about why I was pinned down like a coyote's dinner. 

	Somethin' shifted and I felt air caress my hands like an old lover's
touch. I wrenched my wrists up and out and realized that I had my guns still
clenched in both hands. I felt a couple of shifts in the weight that was on
me and I sucked in a ragged breath. And a mouthful of old musty dirt. It
took all that I had left in me ta bend at the waist and push. I felt weights
scrape and begin to tumble and the pain was kinda dull and distant. Finally
getting myself upright, I got ta crack one eye open and cough out a mouthful
o' dry dust. Then I remembered.

	I shouldn'ta been openin my eyes or movin' at all fer that matter.
It all ran through my mind again, the gunman, all those messy deaths of
those poor gentle souls, Chen's last prayer. I had no business still drawin'
air past my teeth but there I sat. My shoulders cracked like an old leather
bridle as I uncrossed my arms from atop my chest, a dirty pistol still in
each fist. My legs were covered in big piles of stone. 

	I had been buried in a small cairn. Pieces of the mission house wall
fell among the rocks and I heard the voice in my head get a little louder,
jus' gigglin' away.  I brushed the rocks from my legs and kinda tumbled down
to the dirt. My irons just fell from my fingers when I finally saw the
mission.

	Sometime while I'd been lain' there, it had been put to the torch.
Some low heaps of scorched stone and shattered adobe were all that were
left. I felt th' tears start down my cheeks. There was no trace of th'
garden, mister. None at all. It was like an angry wind had just pulled it
all from th' ground. Like it was too peaceful ta be left alone. I don'
remember how long I cried there, just that I did. At least until I saw that
my tears were as dark and thick as molasses. My hands were spotted and then
I looked down again and saw the great dark stain on my shirt. It took a bit
but I finally got up the courage to touch my neck.

	There under my shakin' fingers was the bullet hole, just as neat as
you please. Turns out that I had another just under my collar in back. The
ground started ta spin, and I felt like swoonin' like a little girl. And
that damn voice in my head cacklin' away. I sat there on that desecrated
ground and thought about Chen's last prayer that he said for me in the face
of death. I had hoped that was it but the voice in my head said different.
And damn it all ta Hell, I knew better.

	"Dead, dead, cold and colder," rang between my ears and I swear I
'bout beat myself senseless trying to get it out. "No peace, no rest for the
wicked, yes."  I knew what happened and I had hoped that it would never do
it to me. Fate ain't that kind.

	Blackfeather had told me a couple o' stories about folks that had
died but jus' would not stay put. None of them had the courtesy ta stay in
the box and get buried like they used to. No, these ones had ta get up and
start spookin' the kinfolk, chasin' the little ones around and causin' all
kinds o' trouble. You won't hear 'bout it much. Figger that good folk don't
like that say that good ol' Uncle Henry had ta be beaten into his casket
with the preacher screamin' out an exorcism instead o' th' last rites.
Remember the little troublemakin' spirits I told you about? Sometimes they
can decide that they want to make a whole new world o' trouble for the good
folk. If they can put their minds to it, they can put on the body of someone
that's passed on from here. Kinda like you or I getting' a new suit o'
clothes. I kin tell by that look on yer puss that you figgered out where
this was headin'.

	Most times its jus' takin the bones and leftover skin from some soul
that's gone on ta their reward. That's bad enough. Sometimes they decide to
get one before the previous tenant had a chance to move out. They get inside
and now the poor sap has got a bunkmate in his head. And a body that ain't
quite what it was. Think about it, chief. Some times they could in th'
ground for months or even years. Years! And then they get yanked back from
where ever they go ta see that they been put back right where they done left
off. In a manner of speakin'.