"Search For the Tzumatli Wheel"
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dochermes"Search For the Tzumatli Wheel"
6/27-6/28/2004
I.
"I'm a reincarnated cowboy," said Johnny Packard. "And by that, I don't mean in any symbolic or metaphysical sort of way, you take my meaning? I truly am the Brimstone Kid from the Old West brought back into a modern body."
The jukebox in the corner was turned up much too loud. The voices of the Dixie Chicks were familiar and the tune was clearly "Traveling Soldier," but the words could not be distinguished at all. Perched on a stool next to the bar, Ruffian brought her flawless face closer to Johnny to hear him. She studied him intently. She saw a young guy in his mid-twenties, no more than five feet six, lean and wiry in boots, black jeans and a denim jacket buttoned all the way up even on a sultry night. Johnny's angular face under the shock of dark red hair was not good-looking so much as it showed strength and wry humor. The bright green eyes were amused at seeing her examine him so openly.
"I should laugh nervously, I suppose, and quickly make an exit," the woman called Ruffian said. "But I don't know... Something in your voice, in your eyes, tells me you believe what you're saying. I want to hear more."
"It's gospel truth, ma'am," Johnny answered. "It don't make no never mind to me what folks believe but my words are always straight shootin'."
Ruffian smiled with her lips closed. She was slightly taller than Johnny, a slender woman about thirty with smooth olive skin and gorgeous straight black hair that hung straight down her back to her waist. In this honkytonk, she was simply dressed in sneakers, blue jeans and white long-sleeved blouse with a folded collar. No jewelry beyond plain stud earrings and a silver chain necklace with a turquoise pendant no bigger than a coin. "I'm glad to hear that, Johnny. I've heard stories about you back East. Just now, I happened to see you ride up on your Harley. Doesn't the modern world with all its technology seem frightening to you?"
"Naw, I may be from a different era but that don't mean I'm stupid. Back in Manhattan, I took recent history courses at a community college until they was comin' out my ears. I learn fast. There's lots of things I don't much care for about this modern world but there's just as many that suit me fine."
Ruffian flashed perfect teeth at him as she lifted her empty glass. "Buy a lady a drink and tell me more?"
"I'd be pleased to do so," Johnny said. He got the bartender's attention and freshened both their glasses. After he took a contemplative sip and muttered, "Good bourbon. Anyway, ma'am. Miss Ruffian, if I might call you that, are you from these parts?"
"Oh heavens no, I've never been in Arizona before. I came here to write an article about Skinwalker sightings. Was this your hometown in your... your earlier life?"
Johnny raised his shaggy eyebrows and gazed down at the bar. "For a while. I spent better part of a year in this territory. Tell me, have you heard of the Tzumatli peoples?"
"Never. The name sounds sort of Aztec, maybe?" She lifted her glass and took a delicate sip that barely got her lips wet. Behind those huge dark green eyes with long natural lashes, a shrewd mind was watching Johnny, calculating, planning, but none of that showed.
"Far as I can tell, almost nothin' is known about them for sure," Johnny Packard said. "There's a tiny bit of evidence that they were one of the very earliest groups in Mexico and Central America, but that's based on some pottery and bits of jewelry you could fit in a shoebox. Scientists would surely love to learn more." He paused and drained his glass with a single gulp, then seemed distant again.
"Oh, don't stop there," Ruffian said. "There has to be more to the story."
"True enough. In the late spring of 1881, some folks found a curious trinket while clearing land. It was a wheel of beaten gold, too big to hold in your hand, with a funny-looking green stone in its hub. In a circle around the outer edge were thirty-six symbols. Just squiggles or the head of a cow or the open hand of a man or a sun with lines coming off of it. The farmer took it to the local schoolteacher who figgered it was not only really old but interesting. He bought it from the farmer without lettin' fall just how valuable this Wheel was. You see, the teacher decided that this was not only from the Tzumatli but it was their alphabet inscribed on the outer rim."
He paused long enough that Ruffian tugged impatiently at his sleeve. "Come on! Keep going."
"Sorry, I was ponderin' a mite. The teacher wrote to a university back East and they promised him a wheelbarrow full of money for it. So he packed it up real careful and put it on a train headin' to St Louis and from there up North to Boston. The train was held up by the Mullen Gang. Four people got killed, includin' the engineer, the mail car man and two reg'lar fellows who tried to stand up to the outlaws. They got holes through 'em for their courage. Along with the money and gold watches and such, the Mullen brothers took some packages from the mail that looked as if it might seem worth something. That was when the Tzumatli Wheel vanished for the first time."
She was leaning in toward Johnny Packard more closely than seemed necessary just to hear him. Laying it on thick at first always seemed to work in her experience. "The first time?"
"Yesm. First of many. But that was when I first learned about the Wheel, the first time I had to shoot a man who was trying to take it away but not the last...."
II.
An hour later, she sat on the low stone border of the parking lot next to Johnny as he thought over her offer. "I'm used to traveling by my lonesome," he said at last. "And there's gonna be some hiking and climbing over rough terrain."
Ruffian rested a long-fingered hand on his sleeve for a second. "It's bragging but I am in great shape. I taught outdoor rock climbing and I have the strongest fingers you'll ever see. You're going to take me with you, Johnny, I can see you've already decided but you just have to get yourself to say the words."
For someone so young, the Brimstone Kid's face was remarkably weathered. He had brought his black Stetson with red trim from inside the bar, and he toyed with it thoughtfully. "Truth be told, your company would not exactly be hard to take. And a partner climbin' is always a good idea."
She smiled conspiratorily and leaned in close again. "Sounds like there's a 'but' in the next sentence, my friend?"
"But. Yeah. But what's your motivation? You don't know me and I just told you a story that must sound crazy." He tied the rawhide cord around his neck so that the Stetson hung at his shoulder blades. "Most folks look at me as if I got two heads when I mention who I am."
"It's time to tell you more," she said. "Johnny, I've written some articles for newspapers and one published book about the Midnight War. It's always been a interest of mine. Right now, I have enough notes and interviews to work up a second full-size book for my publisher. When I saw you walk into that bar, my heart damn near stopped at the odds against meeting you. See, I want to know more about the Preincarnators."
Half in shadow, sitting away from the light from the open door of the honkytonk, Johnny Packard laughed out loud. "I didn't calculate it were my boyish good looks that caught your eye, ma'am. All righty. The Preincarnators are a bad bunch. They practice Black Magic of the worst sort, they can somehow draw the soul of a man or woman from hunnerds of years ago and bring it into the body of a living person. Afore you can blink, the modern person gets so he looks just like the oldtime person down to every freckle and scar... and the mind of the oldtime person takes over."
She tried to see his expression, but his face was in shadow. "That's amazing. I mean, I've read about the Preincarnators but I've never met one before."
"I ain't one of that gang!" he snapped. "I broke away from them straight off. Been riding my own trail ever since."
"What did it feel like? Can you remember your earlier life at all? The historical information you know would be so significant. You could clear up so many questions."
The Brimstone Kid was staring up at the night sky moodily. "Last I remember of my own days, I was about twenty, workin' on a ranch in West Texas. I was feudin' with a local bully named Morgan Stilwell and we was headin' toward a punch-out. Then I blinked and there I was in a room with a dozen strange-lookin' folks starin' at me. A man named Leopold Vidimar broke the news to me slowly, he let me take my time readin' newspapers and listenin' to the radyio until I was up to speed. Then I found out he was planning to straight out use me as a hired shootist... but I ain't never done that and never will. I broke away."
"This is fascinating," she breathed. "Where are these Preincarnators now? Are there more of them running around I might locate?"
"They been busted up more than once by some friends of mine," Johnny said, finally turning his full attention to her. "Maybe a scatterin' of them are still loose. What makes you itch to meet such lowlife killers, if I may ask? And what kind of name for a proper lady is Ruffian anyhow?"
"I hate my real name, Rochelle Marie, it's an aunt's name I never got along with. 'Ruffian' is a sort of pen name that caught on. As for why I'm out here, it's a chance for a bestseller, some much-needed royalties," she answered. "My bank account has seen healthier days. So, back to the Tzumatli Wheel. I need to look that thing up online and learn its history. How is it you're out here where it was last reported?"
She could not see his eyes narrow in the gloom. He had caught something. "I'll tell you, Miss Ruffian. Lately I have recoverin' memories from the later years of my first life. It's purely unsettling. Here I am, hitting twenty-five or six in this body, but I'm startin' to recollect things I done and places I been when I used to be fifty or sixty. I'm having flashes of readin' about the Great War in the papers. I do recollect seein' an airplane fly overhead and riding around in an auto-MObile at some point, maybe 1910 or so. And I know that I should be comin' here to search for that little trinket...."
With the fluid ease of youth, Ruffian swung up onto her feet and dusted the bottom of her jeans off. "It's past two. Listen, Johnny, I'm staying at the RESTFUL MOTEL six miles down the road. When I arrived out here, I leased a new Range Rover, we should use that and leave your bike behind when we go out into the desert."
"Sounds like good thinking to me." The Brimstone Kid had risen when she did, holding his hat in one gloved hand. "How 'bout say, ten o'clock to get started, then?"
"You're welcome to stay with me," she said in a voice carefully without any seductive overtones. "My room has twin beds, it's a comfortable motel."
"I thank you kindly, Miss Ruffian but I do have one or two items I need to clear up yet tonight. I'll be at the RESTFUL at ten, never fear." Johnny bent his head in a respectful nod and swung around to march to the other side of the honkytonk where his Harley sat propped up at the corner the building. He turned back to watch at the sound of the Range Rover starting up.
After the gleaming dark blue vehicle had backed up and swung out onto the highway, Johnny shook his head. This Ruffian gal was not quite as sharp as she thought she was. The Kid unfastened the buttons down the front of his denim jacket and adjusted the twin Peacemakers which were strapped along his sides with their butts forward so he could reach them. Wearing his irons open on his hips just wasn't practical most of the time, but he had no intention of packing them away.
Straddling the bike and kicking its starter, Johnny adjusted the throttle and tugged up the kickstand with his boot. It was almost the middle of the night and the wild joy of his curse was calling to him. The Kid pulled up his black Stetson and fixed it firmly over the tousled red hair. Inside the Navajo beaded band, the ancient Darthan coin was burning painfully hot. Its energy coursed through his arteries, the gralic force tingling up his arms and legs like liquid fire. He fought down a gleeful chuckle.
By the time he rolled toward the highway and gunned the motor, Johnny had begun to transform. His proportions were already beginning to change. His shoulders widened and his arms and legs lengthened visibly. Under saggy brows, his eyes glinted with lambent red light. Hitting the road under a crescent moon, the Brimstone Kid let loose a long demonic peal of laughter.
III.
Promptly at ten that morning, Johnny roared into the gravel parking lot of the RESTFUL MOTOR INN. Ruffian was leaning up against a white Range Rover, arms folded, wearing sensible hiking clothes including well-worn boots, jeans, a khaki shirt with deep pockets and a baseball cap with her long hair tied up in a swirl behind her head. She gave a visible start as she got a good look at Johnny.
The Brimstone Kid pushed down his kickstand and shut off the Harley's motor. His face was bruised and swollen down the left side and there was a scrape across his chin that had dried blood on it. As he swung off the saddle, the Preincarnated cowboy wiped the back of a gloved hand across his sweaty face. "Rough night," he said unnecessarily. He had been wearing his gunbelt with its twin holsters but now he undid the buckle and slung it over one bony shoulder.
"What on EARTH...?" Ruffian blurted. "Did you meet the Skinwalker? I knew the reports were too consistent to be mere imagination. What happened? Tell me everything."
Johnny grinned his lopsided grin and brushed himself off. "Aw, Miss Ruffian, things ain't always so dramatic as all that. Mebbe I went to another bar and got in a fight with some drunk truckers. Mebbe I only had a spill in the middle of nowhere and smacked my fool head on the highway. Yuh never know."
"Huh. Very well. Listen, my cabin is number 4, it's unlocked. I suggest you go in and wash up a bit before we leave?" She indicated the door with a jerk of her thumb.
"I thank you kindly for that, ma'am," the Kid replied. He strutted into the cabin with a slight swagger as if very proud of himself over whatever had happened the previous night and closed the door behind him. Waiting, the woman called Ruffian went over to inspect the Harley. It stank faintly of gunpowder and burnt metal. Four deep gouges were etched into the side of the gas tank, spaced as finger marks might be. She frowned, straightening up and swinging around as Johnny emerged from her cabin.
Running fingers through the tangle of wet auburn hair, the Kid had tucked his wrist-length gloves into his waistband. He had scrubbed his face and hands and looked slightly more presentable. "I see you're ready for some walkin' and climbin'," he sang out cheerfully.
"Oh yes. An hour ago, I went into town and bought jugs of water, two big gasoline containers, rope and picks and power flashlights. And I already was carrying some dried food, Trail Mix and the like."
"Sounds good," Johnny said. He unfastened his saddlebags and bedroll from the back of his bike and headed toward the Rover. "You're better prepared than I ever was, truth be told."
They climbed in, swung out onto the highway heading away from the town and toward the low hills toward the West. Ruffian had put on a pair of BluBlockers. "You can understand I have several thousand questions for you, Johnny. Okay if I start?"
"It don't make no never mind to me," he answered as he took a swig from a bottle of water. "Can't promise I'll answer them all...."
Three hours passed as they rolled along a highway bordered on both sides by nothing but dry sand and some scrub bushes. Once an 18-wheeler went by them going in the opposite direction, but aside from that, it seemed like an arid limbo. Ruffian basically interrogated Johnny about his previous 19th Century life. Yes, he admitted he had met many legendary figures in his day, among them Tom Pinto, the Twilight Riders, Copperhair. Most of them were not at all as they were portrayed in movies and TV shows but had been in fact more interesting and even more violent than was usually shown. Except for when mining towns were first getting established and were indeed lawless hellholes, most settled places in the Old West were peaceful to the point of being boring. Guns were left at the constable's office, laws were strictly enforced and troublemakers were chased out quickly.
The funniest thing, according to Johnny, was that toward the closing of the century, people began to act more and more the way they had read about in trashy dime novels. Gunfighters started challenging each other to duels, usually outside town limits where they wouldn't be arrested. That had never happened before, in his experience. Gambling and whoring and drinking intensified to the point of causing real unrest as the rule of law teetered uncertainly. Then, as 1900 dawned, it all settled down again.
Johnny mentioned that he didn't know how long he had lived in his original life. The last recorded appearance of the Brimstone Kid was in 1912, when he had been almost sixty and had boarded a ship for Europe. History was silent on him after that. Johnny himself had been getting flashes of memory lately featuring his middle aged years, but none were later than when he had been hitting fifty and had been caught up in the hunt for the Tzumatli Wheel. All he had so far were brief, fragmented images capturing isolated moments but they had been enough to draw him here
Was there the slightest tinge of added interest in her voice? "Really. If you piece everything together about the Wheel, does it add up to much?"
"I reckon. The year woulda been perhaps 1904, 1905, somethin' like that. There was two gangs searchin' for the damfool thing. One was a young couple, man and woman who seemed of the Mexican persuasion. Then there was a fat old man and his little weasel of a sidekick... that was the gent I was forced to ventilate with a lead pill."
"Now I am even more interested," she said. At a gesture from the Kid, she turned off the highway onto a barely discernible trail in the dust. Ruffian raised one finger for emphasis. "I did a little research online this morning. The experts still know next to nothing about the Tzumatlis. Lots of conjecture and theories and high-sounding guesswork, but that's it. Every now and then, I found a reference to the missing Wheel. If people thought it was valuable back in 1904, they'd be stunned to learn its worth today. Anyone who finds the Tzumatli Wheel could demand enough from the Smithsonian or the Museum of Natural History or a dozen universities to be set for life."
"It's not just wanted for the pure gold it's made from or the mysterious green gem, then."
"Those are the least of its value, my friend," she snorted. "Say, are we going in the right direction? You're the one drawing on past-life clues, I'm totally lost."
"You're doing fine," Johnny said. "Them hills drawing near seem a mite familiar..."
Eventually, even the pretense of a trail petered out. The terrain became uneven enough that Ruffian decided it was prudent to leave the Range Rover before they got stuck. The early afternoon sunlight showed the nearby foothills in greater detail now. As Ruffian yanked her knapsack on, Johnny took the heavy coils of rope to carry himself. He hesitated in the strangest way before fixing the black Stetson firmly on his head.
Clipping her canteen to the back of her belt, the black-haired young woman gave her companion a dubious look. "Wait. You're not planning on rock climbing with two loaded Colt 45s on your belt, are you?"
"Might be rattlesnakes, might be worse," the Brimstone Kid answered placidly. He also had a wide-bladed knife sheathed behind the right holster. "I'm used to havin' them on me."
She shrugged. As Johnny studied the hills thoughtfully, Ruffian handed him a sturdy staff with a loop around the thick end and a pointed steel ferrule on the other. She held an identical stick for herself.
"Appears you've given this some thought," the Kid observed.
"I taught rock climbing in San Diego for two years, and I've reached a few peaks in the Rockies," she said. "I'm afraid I learn things the hard way."
"Same here, ma'am." The Brimstone Kid pointed to a steep cliff far to one side of the hills and started loping toward it as a relaxed clip. The area had evidently suffered an unheaval in some earlier age, it was uneven enough to present a real challenge. Loose piles of broken rock, many half-concealed holes and unexpected roots stretching horizontally tripped them many times. It was not a terrain that would appeal to casual tourists. An occasional lizard sunning itself on a rock or a few vicious horseflies were the only life apparent.
As they made their way with some effort, Ruffian said, "Tell me more about the time you were looking for the Tzumatli Wheel. What was your stake in the affair?"
"Aw, hell, it really weren't no business of mine. Nobody hired me to retrieve the darn thing and I didn't want it for the money it would bring. Truth be told, I was headstrong and impulsive in them days, barely more than a stripling. I was always stickin' my nose where it didn't belong and pokin' hornet nests with sticks."
"The stories about you are so contradictory," Ruffian said, catching herself as her boot slipped on a loose stone. "Sometimes you seemed to have been a gallant knight without armor, rescuing prisoners taken by Indians and standing up for old widows about to lose their homes. Other times, you seemed more like some.. I don't know, dark creature of the night terrorizing the West."
"I'm right complicated," he agreed. Johnny came to a stop as they reached the base of cliff, pushing his hat back and wiping his face with his red kerchief. "Mebbe we should sit a spell?"
"Oh, I'm so glad you said that," she said. Ruffian shrugged off the knapsack and sank down onto a round boulder. "I'm not out of breath but I would welcome a break."
Johnny took a swig from his canteen and swirled it around in his mouth before spitting it out onto the dirt. "This looks real familiar to me. This had something to do with my old life. I think the fat man and his stooge were here, this was where... where..."
"Yes?"
"Where Birchmann tried to kill me. Yeah. Anscombe Birchmann, that were his handle. Three hunnerd pounds but not soft at all. Older dude, white hair, with a flowery way of talkin' that showed he'd been to school. Yeah. Him and his stooge, that little punk with the curly hair. What was his name. Francis something?"
Ruffian had taken a dense granola bar from a pocket and bit off one end as she watched her companion. "The fat man tried to kill you?"
"It was a question of when he'd try, not if," Johnny said. "He was holding the Tzumatli Wheel and waving it around to distract me. His weasel Francis snuck up behind me with a pigsticker held behind his head ready to slide it into my back. I wasn't to be caught so easy. One slug was all it took to send Francis into the hereafter and I turned around to find Birchmann gogglin' at me with a face white as cotton. He fully expected to die next."
Ruffian said nothing further, afraid of breaking the flow of returning memories.
"It all happened right here. Thunderation, it's a-coming back. I held my iron on Birchmann while he fell to his knees and then, as I watched, he took a small blade from his pocket and dug into the edge of the Wheel. You shoulda seen his face. It sorta collapsed like dough and he screamed, "It's a fake! It's lead with gold coating. This isn't the Wheel. It's a fake. I couldn't stop laughing."
He adjusted his gunbelt and tugged on his boots before jumping back up onto his feet. "Calculate we start now, we'll reach that ledge up there before dark."
"Wait, what? What ledge?"
He pointed a gloved finger at a spot halfway up the cliff. "There. You spy it? It appears the cave has been covered over but I swear that's the spot we're looking for." He approached the base of the cliff with its jumble of fallen rocks, looped the walking staff around one wrist and leaped up to catch a projection just above head level. The Kid was strong for his size, nimble and sure-footed. Ruffian would find she had her hands full keeping up with him.
An hour later, finding a spot with secure footing where they could rest safely, she prompted Johnny. "So what happened to the fat man? What did you do to him?"
"I let him go. He was broken enough at bein' snookered by a fake Wheel and he'd just seen his sidekick gunned down. All the sass and arrogance drained outta him. I watched him waddle to his poor hoss and ride toward town. He said he'd be back with men to take the body of Francis for burial. This was my cue to move on. I made tracks back to where I had last seen Alejandro and Silvana at their cabin..."
"Yes? What is it?"
"I'm rememberin' their faces now. The Marcos couple. Good-looking young folks, spoke English with only a little bit a accent. They'd been chasing the Wheel themselves, hopin' to snatch it before Birchman did. Alejandro said they wanted to sell it so they could buy some more land and raise a family. They already had a baby girl..." After that, he fell silent again. After a few awkward minutes, Johnny took a deep breath and started climbing again.
Ruffian followed upward in silence. They had not linked up with the rope yet. The cliff face was vertical but it was broken by outcroppings and recesses that helped the ascent. As the shadows grew longer and the air began to chill, they finally scrambled up onto a ledge wide enough for a dozen people to comfortably fit. At the far end of that stone walkway, a pile of broken rocks blocked any access.
"If I recollect rightly, there's a small cave behind them rocks," Johnny said. "That's where Birchmann sent his sidekick to retrieve the Wheel so long ago."
IV.
Collapsing next to a boulder, Ruffian rubbed her aching legs. "I don't know about you, Johnny, but I'm hitting my limits. Can't we stop and eat a little, rest and stretch out for a few minutes?"
The Kid was studying the rock pile analytically. "No harm in that, ma'am. I calc'late we cain't clear that opening before dark and we sure as hell can't climb back down at night. I expect we'll be camped up here until daylight... best to drive a few spikes into the cliff and tie ourselves so we doesn't roll over the ledge in our sleep, mind you."
"Oh, I'm glad to hear that." The dark-haired woman dug in the knapsack Johnny had propped up and came out with sealed bags of trail mix and some chocolate bars. "Here," she said, dividing the meager supplies between them. "Some dried meat for protein, as well." They sat and chewed slowly between careful sips from their canteens. The sun was low on the horizon, giving everything an orange tint and horizontal shadows.
"Another tick, and we'd best set to work," Johnny said. "That cave mouth won't clear itself."
"I'm curious," Ruffian said as she wiped her grimy face and hands with a small cloth. "Have you remembered any more from your earlier life? That Preincarnation spell is amazing."
"Indeed I have," the Brimstone Kid answered in a distant voice. "Just flashes. Short little images comin' into my mind, like the glimpses of the surroundings you get during a storm when the lightnin' flash shows everything for an instant. There was Alejandro Marcos lyin' on the cabin floor with a knife stuck in his heart and his eyes still open. He had a fork in one hand and a table knife in t'other...the furniture had all been smashed and his young bride was nowhere to be seen."
"How horrible," Ruffian said. "What happened to her? Who took her?"
The Kid did not answer immediately, then said, "I reckon more will be comin' back to me. Best I don't try to force the memories to surface." He got nimbly to his feet and snatched up the climbing stick he had propped against the cliffside. "We need to buckle down now, Miss Ruffian."
An hour and a half of hard labor followed as they cleared away the opening. First, the smaller rocks and then the larger ones which needed to be pried loose with the climbing staffs or rolled aside with both of them putting all their weight into the effort. The light was failing by the time only a single knee-high boulder still blocked the entrance to the cave.
Johnny unclipped the thick Maglite from his belt and cast its sharp white beam into the entrance from which musty air seeped. "Like I figured," he said. "Not the prettiest sight."
Standing close behind him, Ruffian gasped involuntarily. On the floor of the shallow cave, lying face down, was a desiccated mummy on its stomach. One claw of a hand clutched a metal wheel-shaped disc that reflected back the flashlight beam with golden gleams. Withered skin still survived over the bones, brittle as parchment. Most of the blue and white gingham dress remained intact.
"The hot dry air preserved her," Johnny said. "Tain't like them mummies you read about in Egypt, though, this is all natural. I been told that down in South America there's lot of mummified Injuns sitting in holes in the Andes Mountains, dried and saved forever just like this one."
From behind him, Ruffian whispered, "Hard to believe but.. that's all that remains of Silvana Marcos?"
Without looking back at her, Johnny nodded in agreement. Then he slowly pulled up his black Stetson and fixed it on his sweat-matted hair. In a few more minutes, the last ray of sunlight would be gone. "Yep. She murdered her own husband for that Wheel. He was stabbed in the chest while still holdin' his tableware, that means it was someone he trusted enough to let get right up next to him."
"What's happening to your voice?" she demanded uneasily.
"It's the curse I live under," Johnny growled, still not turning. "Each nightfall, I become the Brimstone Kid in truth as well as in name." The hollow sepulchral tones made his voice eerie. "I don't mind it none. A man's gotta face his true nature. Miss Ruffian, you gave yourself away last night. You said this was the area where the Wheel was last seen. You couldn't have known that. I suspect you got a gun trained on me right now..."
She moved back a few steps before answering. "Yeah. I do. Sorry, Johnny, but you've served your purpose and I don't need you any more. Time for you to have your foot slip and take a dive off the side of this cliff."
Rising and turning to face her, Johnny Packard grinned wickedly. His face had not changed all that much. His features were more gaunt, the cheeks sunken and the eyes more deepset. His eyebrows had grown shaggy and spiky. But what made Ruffian draw back in sudden horror was that the green of his irises had turned bright, lambent red.
"Not only did Silvana kill her husband, but you yourself remember it," the Brimstone Kid hissed as he straightened up fully. He had left the flashlight on the boulder behind him and now he stood outlined by its illumination. "That's why you kept askin' so much about the Preincarnators... you're one of them, ain't ya?"
Ruffian's attempt at a scornful laugh choked itself off in her throat. "You're not so dumb for a cowboy. Yes, the Preincarnators in Phoenix tracked me down. It seems my great-grandmother was a little girl who'd been raised by relatives since her parents disappeared. They were Alejandro and Silvana Marcos. I was their infant, left behind on the treasure hunt. And now, finally, I'll claim what they both died trying to obtain. It's rightfully mine!"
"I reckon not," Johnny said in his faintly echoing voice. He was standing relaxed, open hands half raised up above his belt level. The lambent red eyes watched the small .32 revolver she held aimed at him. "I intend to leave that little souvenir as an anonymous donation to the University. Let them historians and big-brained archaeologists finally get good use from it. Enough lives been lost."
"Sadly, that's not for you to decide." Ruffian raised her hand ever so slightly, tightening her grip and her eyes narrowed. In that instant, a crash of blinding light exploded and a heavy .45 slug punched through her chest just left of her sternum. The retort echoed over the mountains like thunder. Ruffian had barely a second to realize what had happened as she sagged to the rocky ledge and died.
Under a black sky in which the stars were coming out, the Brimstone Kid held up his Peacemaker in his right hand. The metal of the gun shimmered with a dull ruddy tinge, as if it had been left in a fire. He watched her for a few more minutes, then stepped forward to kick the .32 away from her dead hand before finally holstering his weapon.
"I don't fault you for thinkin' you could pull that trick," he said. "You never faced down a genuine Texas shootist before. We can draw on a strikin' rattler."
There was none of the usual demonic glee in the Kid's voice. Johnny Packard went over to stretch far into the cave entrance and snatch the Tzumatli Wheel from the mummy's grip. He secured it in his knapsack, then picked up the still warm body of the woman who had called herself Ruffian. Johnny placed her right next to the mummy in the cave, laying her alongside the dried remains like two sisters.
"That's twice now you've been willin' to murder for gold and twice now you've died tryin' to get hold that gold trinket," he grumbled as he began with new unnatural strength to pile up rocks back over the cave entrance. "Hope it was worth it."
7/19/2017
6/27-6/28/2004
I.
"I'm a reincarnated cowboy," said Johnny Packard. "And by that, I don't mean in any symbolic or metaphysical sort of way, you take my meaning? I truly am the Brimstone Kid from the Old West brought back into a modern body."
The jukebox in the corner was turned up much too loud. The voices of the Dixie Chicks were familiar and the tune was clearly "Traveling Soldier," but the words could not be distinguished at all. Perched on a stool next to the bar, Ruffian brought her flawless face closer to Johnny to hear him. She studied him intently. She saw a young guy in his mid-twenties, no more than five feet six, lean and wiry in boots, black jeans and a denim jacket buttoned all the way up even on a sultry night. Johnny's angular face under the shock of dark red hair was not good-looking so much as it showed strength and wry humor. The bright green eyes were amused at seeing her examine him so openly.
"I should laugh nervously, I suppose, and quickly make an exit," the woman called Ruffian said. "But I don't know... Something in your voice, in your eyes, tells me you believe what you're saying. I want to hear more."
"It's gospel truth, ma'am," Johnny answered. "It don't make no never mind to me what folks believe but my words are always straight shootin'."
Ruffian smiled with her lips closed. She was slightly taller than Johnny, a slender woman about thirty with smooth olive skin and gorgeous straight black hair that hung straight down her back to her waist. In this honkytonk, she was simply dressed in sneakers, blue jeans and white long-sleeved blouse with a folded collar. No jewelry beyond plain stud earrings and a silver chain necklace with a turquoise pendant no bigger than a coin. "I'm glad to hear that, Johnny. I've heard stories about you back East. Just now, I happened to see you ride up on your Harley. Doesn't the modern world with all its technology seem frightening to you?"
"Naw, I may be from a different era but that don't mean I'm stupid. Back in Manhattan, I took recent history courses at a community college until they was comin' out my ears. I learn fast. There's lots of things I don't much care for about this modern world but there's just as many that suit me fine."
Ruffian flashed perfect teeth at him as she lifted her empty glass. "Buy a lady a drink and tell me more?"
"I'd be pleased to do so," Johnny said. He got the bartender's attention and freshened both their glasses. After he took a contemplative sip and muttered, "Good bourbon. Anyway, ma'am. Miss Ruffian, if I might call you that, are you from these parts?"
"Oh heavens no, I've never been in Arizona before. I came here to write an article about Skinwalker sightings. Was this your hometown in your... your earlier life?"
Johnny raised his shaggy eyebrows and gazed down at the bar. "For a while. I spent better part of a year in this territory. Tell me, have you heard of the Tzumatli peoples?"
"Never. The name sounds sort of Aztec, maybe?" She lifted her glass and took a delicate sip that barely got her lips wet. Behind those huge dark green eyes with long natural lashes, a shrewd mind was watching Johnny, calculating, planning, but none of that showed.
"Far as I can tell, almost nothin' is known about them for sure," Johnny Packard said. "There's a tiny bit of evidence that they were one of the very earliest groups in Mexico and Central America, but that's based on some pottery and bits of jewelry you could fit in a shoebox. Scientists would surely love to learn more." He paused and drained his glass with a single gulp, then seemed distant again.
"Oh, don't stop there," Ruffian said. "There has to be more to the story."
"True enough. In the late spring of 1881, some folks found a curious trinket while clearing land. It was a wheel of beaten gold, too big to hold in your hand, with a funny-looking green stone in its hub. In a circle around the outer edge were thirty-six symbols. Just squiggles or the head of a cow or the open hand of a man or a sun with lines coming off of it. The farmer took it to the local schoolteacher who figgered it was not only really old but interesting. He bought it from the farmer without lettin' fall just how valuable this Wheel was. You see, the teacher decided that this was not only from the Tzumatli but it was their alphabet inscribed on the outer rim."
He paused long enough that Ruffian tugged impatiently at his sleeve. "Come on! Keep going."
"Sorry, I was ponderin' a mite. The teacher wrote to a university back East and they promised him a wheelbarrow full of money for it. So he packed it up real careful and put it on a train headin' to St Louis and from there up North to Boston. The train was held up by the Mullen Gang. Four people got killed, includin' the engineer, the mail car man and two reg'lar fellows who tried to stand up to the outlaws. They got holes through 'em for their courage. Along with the money and gold watches and such, the Mullen brothers took some packages from the mail that looked as if it might seem worth something. That was when the Tzumatli Wheel vanished for the first time."
She was leaning in toward Johnny Packard more closely than seemed necessary just to hear him. Laying it on thick at first always seemed to work in her experience. "The first time?"
"Yesm. First of many. But that was when I first learned about the Wheel, the first time I had to shoot a man who was trying to take it away but not the last...."
II.
An hour later, she sat on the low stone border of the parking lot next to Johnny as he thought over her offer. "I'm used to traveling by my lonesome," he said at last. "And there's gonna be some hiking and climbing over rough terrain."
Ruffian rested a long-fingered hand on his sleeve for a second. "It's bragging but I am in great shape. I taught outdoor rock climbing and I have the strongest fingers you'll ever see. You're going to take me with you, Johnny, I can see you've already decided but you just have to get yourself to say the words."
For someone so young, the Brimstone Kid's face was remarkably weathered. He had brought his black Stetson with red trim from inside the bar, and he toyed with it thoughtfully. "Truth be told, your company would not exactly be hard to take. And a partner climbin' is always a good idea."
She smiled conspiratorily and leaned in close again. "Sounds like there's a 'but' in the next sentence, my friend?"
"But. Yeah. But what's your motivation? You don't know me and I just told you a story that must sound crazy." He tied the rawhide cord around his neck so that the Stetson hung at his shoulder blades. "Most folks look at me as if I got two heads when I mention who I am."
"It's time to tell you more," she said. "Johnny, I've written some articles for newspapers and one published book about the Midnight War. It's always been a interest of mine. Right now, I have enough notes and interviews to work up a second full-size book for my publisher. When I saw you walk into that bar, my heart damn near stopped at the odds against meeting you. See, I want to know more about the Preincarnators."
Half in shadow, sitting away from the light from the open door of the honkytonk, Johnny Packard laughed out loud. "I didn't calculate it were my boyish good looks that caught your eye, ma'am. All righty. The Preincarnators are a bad bunch. They practice Black Magic of the worst sort, they can somehow draw the soul of a man or woman from hunnerds of years ago and bring it into the body of a living person. Afore you can blink, the modern person gets so he looks just like the oldtime person down to every freckle and scar... and the mind of the oldtime person takes over."
She tried to see his expression, but his face was in shadow. "That's amazing. I mean, I've read about the Preincarnators but I've never met one before."
"I ain't one of that gang!" he snapped. "I broke away from them straight off. Been riding my own trail ever since."
"What did it feel like? Can you remember your earlier life at all? The historical information you know would be so significant. You could clear up so many questions."
The Brimstone Kid was staring up at the night sky moodily. "Last I remember of my own days, I was about twenty, workin' on a ranch in West Texas. I was feudin' with a local bully named Morgan Stilwell and we was headin' toward a punch-out. Then I blinked and there I was in a room with a dozen strange-lookin' folks starin' at me. A man named Leopold Vidimar broke the news to me slowly, he let me take my time readin' newspapers and listenin' to the radyio until I was up to speed. Then I found out he was planning to straight out use me as a hired shootist... but I ain't never done that and never will. I broke away."
"This is fascinating," she breathed. "Where are these Preincarnators now? Are there more of them running around I might locate?"
"They been busted up more than once by some friends of mine," Johnny said, finally turning his full attention to her. "Maybe a scatterin' of them are still loose. What makes you itch to meet such lowlife killers, if I may ask? And what kind of name for a proper lady is Ruffian anyhow?"
"I hate my real name, Rochelle Marie, it's an aunt's name I never got along with. 'Ruffian' is a sort of pen name that caught on. As for why I'm out here, it's a chance for a bestseller, some much-needed royalties," she answered. "My bank account has seen healthier days. So, back to the Tzumatli Wheel. I need to look that thing up online and learn its history. How is it you're out here where it was last reported?"
She could not see his eyes narrow in the gloom. He had caught something. "I'll tell you, Miss Ruffian. Lately I have recoverin' memories from the later years of my first life. It's purely unsettling. Here I am, hitting twenty-five or six in this body, but I'm startin' to recollect things I done and places I been when I used to be fifty or sixty. I'm having flashes of readin' about the Great War in the papers. I do recollect seein' an airplane fly overhead and riding around in an auto-MObile at some point, maybe 1910 or so. And I know that I should be comin' here to search for that little trinket...."
With the fluid ease of youth, Ruffian swung up onto her feet and dusted the bottom of her jeans off. "It's past two. Listen, Johnny, I'm staying at the RESTFUL MOTEL six miles down the road. When I arrived out here, I leased a new Range Rover, we should use that and leave your bike behind when we go out into the desert."
"Sounds like good thinking to me." The Brimstone Kid had risen when she did, holding his hat in one gloved hand. "How 'bout say, ten o'clock to get started, then?"
"You're welcome to stay with me," she said in a voice carefully without any seductive overtones. "My room has twin beds, it's a comfortable motel."
"I thank you kindly, Miss Ruffian but I do have one or two items I need to clear up yet tonight. I'll be at the RESTFUL at ten, never fear." Johnny bent his head in a respectful nod and swung around to march to the other side of the honkytonk where his Harley sat propped up at the corner the building. He turned back to watch at the sound of the Range Rover starting up.
After the gleaming dark blue vehicle had backed up and swung out onto the highway, Johnny shook his head. This Ruffian gal was not quite as sharp as she thought she was. The Kid unfastened the buttons down the front of his denim jacket and adjusted the twin Peacemakers which were strapped along his sides with their butts forward so he could reach them. Wearing his irons open on his hips just wasn't practical most of the time, but he had no intention of packing them away.
Straddling the bike and kicking its starter, Johnny adjusted the throttle and tugged up the kickstand with his boot. It was almost the middle of the night and the wild joy of his curse was calling to him. The Kid pulled up his black Stetson and fixed it firmly over the tousled red hair. Inside the Navajo beaded band, the ancient Darthan coin was burning painfully hot. Its energy coursed through his arteries, the gralic force tingling up his arms and legs like liquid fire. He fought down a gleeful chuckle.
By the time he rolled toward the highway and gunned the motor, Johnny had begun to transform. His proportions were already beginning to change. His shoulders widened and his arms and legs lengthened visibly. Under saggy brows, his eyes glinted with lambent red light. Hitting the road under a crescent moon, the Brimstone Kid let loose a long demonic peal of laughter.
III.
Promptly at ten that morning, Johnny roared into the gravel parking lot of the RESTFUL MOTOR INN. Ruffian was leaning up against a white Range Rover, arms folded, wearing sensible hiking clothes including well-worn boots, jeans, a khaki shirt with deep pockets and a baseball cap with her long hair tied up in a swirl behind her head. She gave a visible start as she got a good look at Johnny.
The Brimstone Kid pushed down his kickstand and shut off the Harley's motor. His face was bruised and swollen down the left side and there was a scrape across his chin that had dried blood on it. As he swung off the saddle, the Preincarnated cowboy wiped the back of a gloved hand across his sweaty face. "Rough night," he said unnecessarily. He had been wearing his gunbelt with its twin holsters but now he undid the buckle and slung it over one bony shoulder.
"What on EARTH...?" Ruffian blurted. "Did you meet the Skinwalker? I knew the reports were too consistent to be mere imagination. What happened? Tell me everything."
Johnny grinned his lopsided grin and brushed himself off. "Aw, Miss Ruffian, things ain't always so dramatic as all that. Mebbe I went to another bar and got in a fight with some drunk truckers. Mebbe I only had a spill in the middle of nowhere and smacked my fool head on the highway. Yuh never know."
"Huh. Very well. Listen, my cabin is number 4, it's unlocked. I suggest you go in and wash up a bit before we leave?" She indicated the door with a jerk of her thumb.
"I thank you kindly for that, ma'am," the Kid replied. He strutted into the cabin with a slight swagger as if very proud of himself over whatever had happened the previous night and closed the door behind him. Waiting, the woman called Ruffian went over to inspect the Harley. It stank faintly of gunpowder and burnt metal. Four deep gouges were etched into the side of the gas tank, spaced as finger marks might be. She frowned, straightening up and swinging around as Johnny emerged from her cabin.
Running fingers through the tangle of wet auburn hair, the Kid had tucked his wrist-length gloves into his waistband. He had scrubbed his face and hands and looked slightly more presentable. "I see you're ready for some walkin' and climbin'," he sang out cheerfully.
"Oh yes. An hour ago, I went into town and bought jugs of water, two big gasoline containers, rope and picks and power flashlights. And I already was carrying some dried food, Trail Mix and the like."
"Sounds good," Johnny said. He unfastened his saddlebags and bedroll from the back of his bike and headed toward the Rover. "You're better prepared than I ever was, truth be told."
They climbed in, swung out onto the highway heading away from the town and toward the low hills toward the West. Ruffian had put on a pair of BluBlockers. "You can understand I have several thousand questions for you, Johnny. Okay if I start?"
"It don't make no never mind to me," he answered as he took a swig from a bottle of water. "Can't promise I'll answer them all...."
Three hours passed as they rolled along a highway bordered on both sides by nothing but dry sand and some scrub bushes. Once an 18-wheeler went by them going in the opposite direction, but aside from that, it seemed like an arid limbo. Ruffian basically interrogated Johnny about his previous 19th Century life. Yes, he admitted he had met many legendary figures in his day, among them Tom Pinto, the Twilight Riders, Copperhair. Most of them were not at all as they were portrayed in movies and TV shows but had been in fact more interesting and even more violent than was usually shown. Except for when mining towns were first getting established and were indeed lawless hellholes, most settled places in the Old West were peaceful to the point of being boring. Guns were left at the constable's office, laws were strictly enforced and troublemakers were chased out quickly.
The funniest thing, according to Johnny, was that toward the closing of the century, people began to act more and more the way they had read about in trashy dime novels. Gunfighters started challenging each other to duels, usually outside town limits where they wouldn't be arrested. That had never happened before, in his experience. Gambling and whoring and drinking intensified to the point of causing real unrest as the rule of law teetered uncertainly. Then, as 1900 dawned, it all settled down again.
Johnny mentioned that he didn't know how long he had lived in his original life. The last recorded appearance of the Brimstone Kid was in 1912, when he had been almost sixty and had boarded a ship for Europe. History was silent on him after that. Johnny himself had been getting flashes of memory lately featuring his middle aged years, but none were later than when he had been hitting fifty and had been caught up in the hunt for the Tzumatli Wheel. All he had so far were brief, fragmented images capturing isolated moments but they had been enough to draw him here
Was there the slightest tinge of added interest in her voice? "Really. If you piece everything together about the Wheel, does it add up to much?"
"I reckon. The year woulda been perhaps 1904, 1905, somethin' like that. There was two gangs searchin' for the damfool thing. One was a young couple, man and woman who seemed of the Mexican persuasion. Then there was a fat old man and his little weasel of a sidekick... that was the gent I was forced to ventilate with a lead pill."
"Now I am even more interested," she said. At a gesture from the Kid, she turned off the highway onto a barely discernible trail in the dust. Ruffian raised one finger for emphasis. "I did a little research online this morning. The experts still know next to nothing about the Tzumatlis. Lots of conjecture and theories and high-sounding guesswork, but that's it. Every now and then, I found a reference to the missing Wheel. If people thought it was valuable back in 1904, they'd be stunned to learn its worth today. Anyone who finds the Tzumatli Wheel could demand enough from the Smithsonian or the Museum of Natural History or a dozen universities to be set for life."
"It's not just wanted for the pure gold it's made from or the mysterious green gem, then."
"Those are the least of its value, my friend," she snorted. "Say, are we going in the right direction? You're the one drawing on past-life clues, I'm totally lost."
"You're doing fine," Johnny said. "Them hills drawing near seem a mite familiar..."
Eventually, even the pretense of a trail petered out. The terrain became uneven enough that Ruffian decided it was prudent to leave the Range Rover before they got stuck. The early afternoon sunlight showed the nearby foothills in greater detail now. As Ruffian yanked her knapsack on, Johnny took the heavy coils of rope to carry himself. He hesitated in the strangest way before fixing the black Stetson firmly on his head.
Clipping her canteen to the back of her belt, the black-haired young woman gave her companion a dubious look. "Wait. You're not planning on rock climbing with two loaded Colt 45s on your belt, are you?"
"Might be rattlesnakes, might be worse," the Brimstone Kid answered placidly. He also had a wide-bladed knife sheathed behind the right holster. "I'm used to havin' them on me."
She shrugged. As Johnny studied the hills thoughtfully, Ruffian handed him a sturdy staff with a loop around the thick end and a pointed steel ferrule on the other. She held an identical stick for herself.
"Appears you've given this some thought," the Kid observed.
"I taught rock climbing in San Diego for two years, and I've reached a few peaks in the Rockies," she said. "I'm afraid I learn things the hard way."
"Same here, ma'am." The Brimstone Kid pointed to a steep cliff far to one side of the hills and started loping toward it as a relaxed clip. The area had evidently suffered an unheaval in some earlier age, it was uneven enough to present a real challenge. Loose piles of broken rock, many half-concealed holes and unexpected roots stretching horizontally tripped them many times. It was not a terrain that would appeal to casual tourists. An occasional lizard sunning itself on a rock or a few vicious horseflies were the only life apparent.
As they made their way with some effort, Ruffian said, "Tell me more about the time you were looking for the Tzumatli Wheel. What was your stake in the affair?"
"Aw, hell, it really weren't no business of mine. Nobody hired me to retrieve the darn thing and I didn't want it for the money it would bring. Truth be told, I was headstrong and impulsive in them days, barely more than a stripling. I was always stickin' my nose where it didn't belong and pokin' hornet nests with sticks."
"The stories about you are so contradictory," Ruffian said, catching herself as her boot slipped on a loose stone. "Sometimes you seemed to have been a gallant knight without armor, rescuing prisoners taken by Indians and standing up for old widows about to lose their homes. Other times, you seemed more like some.. I don't know, dark creature of the night terrorizing the West."
"I'm right complicated," he agreed. Johnny came to a stop as they reached the base of cliff, pushing his hat back and wiping his face with his red kerchief. "Mebbe we should sit a spell?"
"Oh, I'm so glad you said that," she said. Ruffian shrugged off the knapsack and sank down onto a round boulder. "I'm not out of breath but I would welcome a break."
Johnny took a swig from his canteen and swirled it around in his mouth before spitting it out onto the dirt. "This looks real familiar to me. This had something to do with my old life. I think the fat man and his stooge were here, this was where... where..."
"Yes?"
"Where Birchmann tried to kill me. Yeah. Anscombe Birchmann, that were his handle. Three hunnerd pounds but not soft at all. Older dude, white hair, with a flowery way of talkin' that showed he'd been to school. Yeah. Him and his stooge, that little punk with the curly hair. What was his name. Francis something?"
Ruffian had taken a dense granola bar from a pocket and bit off one end as she watched her companion. "The fat man tried to kill you?"
"It was a question of when he'd try, not if," Johnny said. "He was holding the Tzumatli Wheel and waving it around to distract me. His weasel Francis snuck up behind me with a pigsticker held behind his head ready to slide it into my back. I wasn't to be caught so easy. One slug was all it took to send Francis into the hereafter and I turned around to find Birchmann gogglin' at me with a face white as cotton. He fully expected to die next."
Ruffian said nothing further, afraid of breaking the flow of returning memories.
"It all happened right here. Thunderation, it's a-coming back. I held my iron on Birchmann while he fell to his knees and then, as I watched, he took a small blade from his pocket and dug into the edge of the Wheel. You shoulda seen his face. It sorta collapsed like dough and he screamed, "It's a fake! It's lead with gold coating. This isn't the Wheel. It's a fake. I couldn't stop laughing."
He adjusted his gunbelt and tugged on his boots before jumping back up onto his feet. "Calculate we start now, we'll reach that ledge up there before dark."
"Wait, what? What ledge?"
He pointed a gloved finger at a spot halfway up the cliff. "There. You spy it? It appears the cave has been covered over but I swear that's the spot we're looking for." He approached the base of the cliff with its jumble of fallen rocks, looped the walking staff around one wrist and leaped up to catch a projection just above head level. The Kid was strong for his size, nimble and sure-footed. Ruffian would find she had her hands full keeping up with him.
An hour later, finding a spot with secure footing where they could rest safely, she prompted Johnny. "So what happened to the fat man? What did you do to him?"
"I let him go. He was broken enough at bein' snookered by a fake Wheel and he'd just seen his sidekick gunned down. All the sass and arrogance drained outta him. I watched him waddle to his poor hoss and ride toward town. He said he'd be back with men to take the body of Francis for burial. This was my cue to move on. I made tracks back to where I had last seen Alejandro and Silvana at their cabin..."
"Yes? What is it?"
"I'm rememberin' their faces now. The Marcos couple. Good-looking young folks, spoke English with only a little bit a accent. They'd been chasing the Wheel themselves, hopin' to snatch it before Birchman did. Alejandro said they wanted to sell it so they could buy some more land and raise a family. They already had a baby girl..." After that, he fell silent again. After a few awkward minutes, Johnny took a deep breath and started climbing again.
Ruffian followed upward in silence. They had not linked up with the rope yet. The cliff face was vertical but it was broken by outcroppings and recesses that helped the ascent. As the shadows grew longer and the air began to chill, they finally scrambled up onto a ledge wide enough for a dozen people to comfortably fit. At the far end of that stone walkway, a pile of broken rocks blocked any access.
"If I recollect rightly, there's a small cave behind them rocks," Johnny said. "That's where Birchmann sent his sidekick to retrieve the Wheel so long ago."
IV.
Collapsing next to a boulder, Ruffian rubbed her aching legs. "I don't know about you, Johnny, but I'm hitting my limits. Can't we stop and eat a little, rest and stretch out for a few minutes?"
The Kid was studying the rock pile analytically. "No harm in that, ma'am. I calc'late we cain't clear that opening before dark and we sure as hell can't climb back down at night. I expect we'll be camped up here until daylight... best to drive a few spikes into the cliff and tie ourselves so we doesn't roll over the ledge in our sleep, mind you."
"Oh, I'm glad to hear that." The dark-haired woman dug in the knapsack Johnny had propped up and came out with sealed bags of trail mix and some chocolate bars. "Here," she said, dividing the meager supplies between them. "Some dried meat for protein, as well." They sat and chewed slowly between careful sips from their canteens. The sun was low on the horizon, giving everything an orange tint and horizontal shadows.
"Another tick, and we'd best set to work," Johnny said. "That cave mouth won't clear itself."
"I'm curious," Ruffian said as she wiped her grimy face and hands with a small cloth. "Have you remembered any more from your earlier life? That Preincarnation spell is amazing."
"Indeed I have," the Brimstone Kid answered in a distant voice. "Just flashes. Short little images comin' into my mind, like the glimpses of the surroundings you get during a storm when the lightnin' flash shows everything for an instant. There was Alejandro Marcos lyin' on the cabin floor with a knife stuck in his heart and his eyes still open. He had a fork in one hand and a table knife in t'other...the furniture had all been smashed and his young bride was nowhere to be seen."
"How horrible," Ruffian said. "What happened to her? Who took her?"
The Kid did not answer immediately, then said, "I reckon more will be comin' back to me. Best I don't try to force the memories to surface." He got nimbly to his feet and snatched up the climbing stick he had propped against the cliffside. "We need to buckle down now, Miss Ruffian."
An hour and a half of hard labor followed as they cleared away the opening. First, the smaller rocks and then the larger ones which needed to be pried loose with the climbing staffs or rolled aside with both of them putting all their weight into the effort. The light was failing by the time only a single knee-high boulder still blocked the entrance to the cave.
Johnny unclipped the thick Maglite from his belt and cast its sharp white beam into the entrance from which musty air seeped. "Like I figured," he said. "Not the prettiest sight."
Standing close behind him, Ruffian gasped involuntarily. On the floor of the shallow cave, lying face down, was a desiccated mummy on its stomach. One claw of a hand clutched a metal wheel-shaped disc that reflected back the flashlight beam with golden gleams. Withered skin still survived over the bones, brittle as parchment. Most of the blue and white gingham dress remained intact.
"The hot dry air preserved her," Johnny said. "Tain't like them mummies you read about in Egypt, though, this is all natural. I been told that down in South America there's lot of mummified Injuns sitting in holes in the Andes Mountains, dried and saved forever just like this one."
From behind him, Ruffian whispered, "Hard to believe but.. that's all that remains of Silvana Marcos?"
Without looking back at her, Johnny nodded in agreement. Then he slowly pulled up his black Stetson and fixed it on his sweat-matted hair. In a few more minutes, the last ray of sunlight would be gone. "Yep. She murdered her own husband for that Wheel. He was stabbed in the chest while still holdin' his tableware, that means it was someone he trusted enough to let get right up next to him."
"What's happening to your voice?" she demanded uneasily.
"It's the curse I live under," Johnny growled, still not turning. "Each nightfall, I become the Brimstone Kid in truth as well as in name." The hollow sepulchral tones made his voice eerie. "I don't mind it none. A man's gotta face his true nature. Miss Ruffian, you gave yourself away last night. You said this was the area where the Wheel was last seen. You couldn't have known that. I suspect you got a gun trained on me right now..."
She moved back a few steps before answering. "Yeah. I do. Sorry, Johnny, but you've served your purpose and I don't need you any more. Time for you to have your foot slip and take a dive off the side of this cliff."
Rising and turning to face her, Johnny Packard grinned wickedly. His face had not changed all that much. His features were more gaunt, the cheeks sunken and the eyes more deepset. His eyebrows had grown shaggy and spiky. But what made Ruffian draw back in sudden horror was that the green of his irises had turned bright, lambent red.
"Not only did Silvana kill her husband, but you yourself remember it," the Brimstone Kid hissed as he straightened up fully. He had left the flashlight on the boulder behind him and now he stood outlined by its illumination. "That's why you kept askin' so much about the Preincarnators... you're one of them, ain't ya?"
Ruffian's attempt at a scornful laugh choked itself off in her throat. "You're not so dumb for a cowboy. Yes, the Preincarnators in Phoenix tracked me down. It seems my great-grandmother was a little girl who'd been raised by relatives since her parents disappeared. They were Alejandro and Silvana Marcos. I was their infant, left behind on the treasure hunt. And now, finally, I'll claim what they both died trying to obtain. It's rightfully mine!"
"I reckon not," Johnny said in his faintly echoing voice. He was standing relaxed, open hands half raised up above his belt level. The lambent red eyes watched the small .32 revolver she held aimed at him. "I intend to leave that little souvenir as an anonymous donation to the University. Let them historians and big-brained archaeologists finally get good use from it. Enough lives been lost."
"Sadly, that's not for you to decide." Ruffian raised her hand ever so slightly, tightening her grip and her eyes narrowed. In that instant, a crash of blinding light exploded and a heavy .45 slug punched through her chest just left of her sternum. The retort echoed over the mountains like thunder. Ruffian had barely a second to realize what had happened as she sagged to the rocky ledge and died.
Under a black sky in which the stars were coming out, the Brimstone Kid held up his Peacemaker in his right hand. The metal of the gun shimmered with a dull ruddy tinge, as if it had been left in a fire. He watched her for a few more minutes, then stepped forward to kick the .32 away from her dead hand before finally holstering his weapon.
"I don't fault you for thinkin' you could pull that trick," he said. "You never faced down a genuine Texas shootist before. We can draw on a strikin' rattler."
There was none of the usual demonic glee in the Kid's voice. Johnny Packard went over to stretch far into the cave entrance and snatch the Tzumatli Wheel from the mummy's grip. He secured it in his knapsack, then picked up the still warm body of the woman who had called herself Ruffian. Johnny placed her right next to the mummy in the cave, laying her alongside the dried remains like two sisters.
"That's twice now you've been willin' to murder for gold and twice now you've died tryin' to get hold that gold trinket," he grumbled as he began with new unnatural strength to pile up rocks back over the cave entrance. "Hope it was worth it."
7/19/2017
