Poem 11: Chasing Demons

Chasing demons is a difficult task
Because
They often hide behind a mask

Chapter 11: Time to Kill

Out of curiosity and slight inebriation I left the saloon to check on the coffin maker’s work. He had been busy. Only a few loose limbs were left scattered on the streets. The bulk of the bodies had been collected.
“Here to pay your respects? HEH! HEH!! HEH!!!” the coffin maker asked with his grinning guffaw.
“Something like that” I responded.
I looked down at the bodies. The fat official looked even more fat and bloated than when he was alive. Some people just never catch a break.
I had to cover my mouth as I looked down at the sobbing woman’s dead son. His hand was missing, and his face was split open. The slice only just seemed to have gone through his brain…
I waited until the coffin maker was not looking. Then I rummaged through my waistcoat pockets until I found my charm bracelet. I got the beaded bracelet a long time ago, and I felt it was time to give it up. With memories of Manchuria fresh on my mind the past was clipping at my boots. I could not read the Asian characters on the beads, but I remembered what they said.
“As you pass into the realm of the infinite, take your final rest forever” I spoke as I carefully placed the bracelet around his remaining hand.
I noticed that the coffin with the sobbing mother’s son in it was the only coffin which was marked. It had a small black cross on its cover. I had seen this before with grave robbers. They would pay the coffin makers to mark any coffins with valuables inside. But there was nothing of value on the dead young man.
“What is with the black cross?” I questioned at the coffin maker.
“Oh what? Well I ain’t seen that before. I doubt he will mind graffito on his fancy new box home! Heh!” the coffin maker said with a guffaw.
I could tell that he was hiding something…

…

Back at the saloon the townsfolk were still lauding the preacher.
“Where did you go?” Gan questioned.
“Just to look outside” I answered.
Shortly someone else came back into the saloon after also viewing the corpses.
He shouted “I am sure that two of those deputies are the same banditos that robbed us last month! A shame the priest did not come around sooner.”
The townsfolk probably already knew that the deputy banditos were corrupt. It was only now that they felt safe enough to speak out. Perhaps if they had spoke up sooner someone would have acted and it would not have ended up with seven dead in one day. I was beginning to fear that a religion would be built around the preacher Blakheart. We would have to make sure to put on a big show tomorrow morning in order to make this day to be nothing more than a footnote for the Beautiful Triumvirate.
“I cannot say I agree with the preacher’s blind vengeance” I confessed to Michael John and Gan.
“There is nothing blind about saving an innocent man and killing corrupt officials” Gan retorted.
“I thought we were going to focus on tomorrow and forget about the preacher till after” Michael John said with a cheeky smile.
“Yeah yeah I know, but I think there is nothing more dangerous than a man who believes he is God” I explained.
“And if he is God?” Gan questioned.
“All the more reason to worry…” I said as I finished off my drink.
I got up to visit the bartender when a man intercepted me. He was wearing fine clothes and he had an incredible beard. He had just entered the saloon. I had seen him in the crowd before, during, and after the chaos. My attempts to avert my gaze from this man’s beautiful beard had all but failed. I ignored his presence in the crowd, but now here he was coming at me head on. My beard envy had no chance. Our beards were probably on equal footing, but my jealously convinced me that his beard was superior in every way. I doubted that he cared for my beard, yet for some reason I was hoping he would comment on its splendour.
The man in fine clothes said to me “I am truly grateful to you! If I or anyone else was shot down, those banditos would face no repercussions, had they lived of course! They do not care about collateral damage. The law firm may have put badges on them, but badge or no badge! They are nothing but banditos!”
I did not know what he was grateful to me about, and I did not care.
“I am glad no one got hurt. Now if you will excuse me” I said attempting to brush him off.
“Nonsense! Nonsense boy! You and your friends should come by my ranch for dinner this evening.”
“Your ranch?” I questioned.
“Ha ha! I am not used to people not knowing who I am around these parts. The name is William Hicks. I own the biggest of the three ranches around here.”
Suddenly it all clicked. He was in the crowd of people that the deputy bandito was aiming at when trying to get his revenge on Blakheart. I had inadvertently possibly saved him. He seemed to see virtue in my action of kicking the gun out of the bandito’s hand. A man who judges by virtue would no doubt have virtues himself. We had time to kill until tomorrow. Perhaps visiting one of the ranches would give us a greater insight into the workings of this town. I needed to know whether the cancer Little Boy Blair and his cronies had brought to this town had spread. Greed and the belief of self-entitlement over others always go hand in hand.
“It is a pleasure to meet you Mr Hicks. My name is Whiskey.”
“Call me William. Is Whiskey your real name or do you just like the stuff?” he jested.
“Names are never real. They are just a way to identify something” I soberly responded.
“Okay…” he said smiling at me.
“Three whiskeys please” I ordered to the bartender.
“Let me pay for them” William pleaded.
“Sure thing. So your ranch is the one in the East?”
“Yeah how do you know that?”
“Jojo the stable boy mentioned you.”
“He is a good kid. Not the sharpest tool in the shed. Anyway can I expect to see you and your friends after dusk?”
I thought about it for a few seconds before responding “I already look forward to it.”
William smiled, shook my hand, and said “I better get off. Work to be done. It has been a pleasure meeting you!”
He paid the bartender and then left. I returned with our three free drinks to Michael John and Gan.
“Who was that stallion?” Michael John asked with a cheeky smile.
“One of the ranch owners. He paid for our drinks and has invited us over for dinner tonight” I answered.
“Did you accept his invitation?” Gan asked.
“Yes” I responded.
“Our last meal. The last supper!” Michael John said with his usual cheeky grin.
We drank and chatted until we had thoroughly decompressed ourselves from the noon event.

…

As we walked back to the hotel we saw that the coffins were being loaded onto a wagon. Most likely they were being moved to the small graveyard on the outskirts of town before the post noon heat decomposed them any further. We had passed the cemetery when we first arrived in town. It was small plot; nothing fancy. I did not expect the graveyard to be receiving so many new residents. We the Beautiful Triumvirate like to keep our killing down to a minimum as we travel from place to place. The preacher on the other hand had declared himself God and would strike down anyone who he felt had gone against his will. I wondered if this was the preacher’s first massacre, how many more he would carry out, and how far he would go. I could not shake the bad feeling he had induced in me. The way he had killed those men was like a cruel vicious child at play, slowly pulling the legs off of an insect for pleasure and amusement. Thou shalt not kill…
The streets were dead quiet apart from the noise from the men loading the coffins and the occasional guffaw from the coffin maker.
“He gives me the creeps” Gan said to Michael John.
I looked over. It was the coffin maker she was talking about. He was smiling as some ranch hands helped him place the coffins into the wagon. The scene looked somewhat morbidly picturesque with the loading of the coffins and the fallen giant wooden cross in the backdrop. Today had been a good day for the coffin maker’s business. Tomorrow would be a good day for him too. The sun glinted off the black cross graffito on the coffin that belonged to the sobbing mother’s dead son as the men lifted it onto the back of the wagon. I felt bad for the woman and the seemingly good but dead deputy bandito whose name I did not know. Hopefully he would rest easy with the charm bracelet around his wrist. I was still wondering what the black cross on the coffin meant if anything.
“What do you make of the black cross?” I asked Michael John and Gan.
They looked over, but the small black cross was now out of view. It was obscured by the angle in which the men had loaded the coffin.
“Never mind” I said.

When we entered the hotel we were greeted by Olaf. He was behind his counter with his cards sprawled out in a chaotic clutter. He had a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other.
“What is this town coming to?” Olaf asked as he gulped down the brown fluid from his glass.
“I think you are the first person I have come across who is not extolling the preacher” I mentioned.
Olaf confessed “I do not care if what he did was justified or not. There were women and children who witnessed that bloodshed today. It was horrifying.”
Gan countered “Women and children witnessing bloodshed is wrong? But seeing an Indian being hanged is okay?”
“I do not want to see anyone unnecessarily die, but we cannot have people taking the law into their own hands” Olaf retorted.
“You are a coward! You hide in your hotel as your town falls into the hands of bandits, and when someone does something about it you complain. How long will it be until the Bank wants your hotel and it is you on the gallows? Do not expect me to interfere on that day if you would find it too horrifying!” Gan shouted as she stormed off up the stairs to our room.
Olaf’s cheeks were red from the drink and from Gan’s searing attack.
Michael John smiled and placed his hand on Olaf’s shoulder “I am sorry about Gan. It has been an emotional day…”
“No no. Maybe there is truth in those words” Olaf said as tears began to run down his face.
“Are you okay?” Michael John asked.
“I will be fine” Olaf sniffed before continuing “the past has a funny way of catching up with a man.”
His words sent a chill down my spine.
“We will leave you to it then. And go easy on the drink!” Michael John said heartily as he slapped some joy into Olaf’s back.
“Thank you…”

We headed up the stairs towards our room. It had been a while since I had seen Gan explode at someone like that. What was right and what was wrong had fallen into that shade of grey. I no longer knew how I felt about the situation. We were going to let Chief Kief hang just so we could collect on our bounty. Maybe I was angry that the preacher had managed to save him without anyone in the crowd getting hurt. After all we were also planning on gunning down the deputy banditos. It could have easily been me who had ended the life of the seemingly good, but now dead deputy bandito. Perhaps these mixed feelings were from the feeling of being powerless in not knowing what the right course of action is or was. My resolve was slipping. There were too many questions, and not enough answers. The afterglow of the mescaline had let us three watch the impossible unfold in crystal clear definition leaving us an indelible memory of the high noon hanging that never was. The only thing I was sure of is that we would never forget this day. Tomorrow would be…

Gan was sitting on her bed checking her revolvers. The duck lay next to her.
“Are you okay?” I asked sympathetically.
She sharply responded “No Whiskey. I am not okay. What are we doing here? What are we really doing here? I thought we were supposed to be helping people, but we were going to let Chief Kief hang!”
“Manchuria…” I voiced, already feeling the sting of a tear in my left eye.
Gan shouted “This is not Manchuria! Michael John you were right. We should have intervened regardless. I cannot help but imagine how I would feel if the preacher was not there to save the chief.”
“The preacher be damned!” I replied raising my voice for the first time in a long time.
My hearing is so sensitive that when I shout it causes me pain, but I could not hold back, not this time.
“Why is it that you hate the preacher so? And! You rejected the chief’s offer for a feast but you accept without a moment’s hesitation an invitation from a ranch owner” Gan shouted at me.
I was about to shout back and say some things I would have regretted. Thankfully Michael John intervened before things got out of hand.
“Both of you need to calm down! Is the afternoon heat getting to you two? Whether or not we made the right decision in not acting is irrelevant. We are in the here now, faced with choices for the future. We do not have time to dwell on the past. Chief Kief is alive and we should thank our lucky stars for that! But you know what? Regardless of the preacher I do not think we had a choice over the events of today. We were merely spectators caught up in the middle of something! So stop whining! Now both of you kiss and make up!” he said gesturing for us to make amends.
My heart was racing. I had been caught up in the moment, but with three words my anger dissolved into nothingness.
“I am sorry” I apologised.
“No Whiskey… I am sorry. It is just…”
“I know” I told her as we embraced in a hug.
“Now kiss!” Michael John said with a cheeky grin.
We all smiled. Gan got back to checking her guns. Michael John got out his guitar and began to play. Eventually Gan stopped what she was doing and joined in.
I waited several minutes until some time had passed. I knew it was not the best time, but if the duck had any answers I wanted to know them and I could not wait any longer.
“So tell me about Blakheart” I whispered to the duck.
“Quack!” the duck quacked.
“I know you know him. Do not try to hide anything from me!” I pressed.
“Quack!” the duck quacked once more.
“You expect me to believe that?!” I questioned.
“Quack quack!”
I could not believe what I was hearing.
“You take that back right now!” I demanded.
“Calm down Whiskey!” Michael John said while still playing his guitar.
“You heard what she said?” I explained.
Gan joined in on the duck’s defence “You are pressuring her. The duck has been on good behaviour Whiskey. I do not believe the duck and the preacher could know each other.”
“But I heard them talking!”
Gan placed her guitar down and said “You sound crazy Whiskey”
She then shook her head at me all the while petting the duck. It was at this point when I noticed the duck giving me a certain look. It knew that I knew, but it had convinced Michael John and Gan otherwise. My line of inquiry into the preacher was dead. If the duck was unwilling to give me information… well there was nothing I could do about it. I had a feeling that the duck was protecting me from the truth, or perhaps from just finding Blakheart one day in the future. I do not need protection from the truth, and if a supposed God does strike me down can I really say I could have avoided it?
“Where are you going?” Gan asked me as I got up to leave the room.
“I am going to see if the preacher left anything behind in his room.”
“Let it rest” Michael John implored while still jamming on his guitar.
I could not let it rest. I exited out into the hallway and tried Blakheart’s room; the door was open. The duck quacked at me, but I did not care. I had to see the inside of the room. As I inspected the room I realised it had been unused. I was beginning to wonder if Blakheart had even slept in the hotel. There was nothing apart from a note on the bed.

Only I can save you from the Diablo

I tore it up.
“Son of a bitch!” I exclaimed.
The self righteous preacher was beginning to piss me off even though he was long gone. I would be able to track him down if I left now. With each passing hour he would be further and further. I could not help but believe that the preacher had planned to strike the day before the D-MOB arrived. He knew there was no way we would abandon our bounty. Or perhaps he was just an old fool who got lucky time and time again.
“Bastard!” I cursed.
It was the not knowing that was beginning to eat me up, and the knowledge that I would probably never know. Perchance I was overreacting. My contempt for the preacher may have been slightly misplaced. He was better than me, and better than the Beautiful Triumvirate. The preacher was a God amongst men. I swallowed my ill will towards the preacher, and I stored my curiosity away in one of my mind’s many vaults. I am a man and all I can do is pray that the preacher uses his powers for good. I myself a mere mortal struggle to do the right thing, and only through empathy do I prevail. But how can a God have empathy? For the preacher we must seem like insects. And how long can a God have empathy for insects?
I returned to our room defeated.
“Find anything?” Gan questioned.
“No. Nothing” I lied.
I sat down and listened to Gan and Michael John play their guitars. They took turns singing. The duck and I glared at each other but within no time she had melted my defences. The preacher was irrelevant. I had let my curiosity pull me too far. I could not help but need to know, but there was only one thing worth knowing. Everything that I need is here with me in this room.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Previously...

Chapter 1

@RiskDebonair
Irish Writer, Poet, & Lover

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