FORTUNE TELLER part 2

Copyright (c) 2019 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

FORTUNE TELLER

Part 2

By R. Peterson

“You can’t force yourself on a woman!” Jesska screamed at the man twisting the arm of her niece. “The sheriff will see justice done!”

“Both these gals are for sale!” Ben McCoy sneered as he held Lakasera’s arms. She broke free of his grip and scratched his face. He hit her hard with the back of his hand and she staggered barely able to stay on her feet. “Laying with a whore ain’t no crime in Montana!” He laughed. Even if this damn tent-town had the law!”

“Ravaging any Montana woman against her will is rape.”  Redonici screamed at the filthy man standing by the fire. “Our new sheriff, Thomas Lang, is six-foot four inches tall with both his boots off!  He rides a snorting West Texas mare named Comanche that the army swears was stolen from Chief Nokoni!  Tom can track a snowflake through a week-long blizzard. He’s lightning fast with a gun and can shoot both the eyes out of a rattlesnake at one-hundred yards. You’ll be dancing on the end of a slack rope even before he goes looking for someone  to play the fiddle for an hour!”

            “That sounds like the man that broke up your mail-order bride plan …”

            “Shut your mouth, Carl!” McCoy glared at his partner then released his hold on Lakasera and allowed her to slide to the ground. His face was suddenly all smiles. “Looks like we got ourselves off to a bad start. He laughed as he reached in his pocket and tossed three silver dollars at Jesska. The old gypsy woman allowed the coins to fall in the dust at her feet.

            “Voi uomini siete entrambi sporco,” she said. “A hot-bath is two dollars more. You both clean up … or you ride out”.

Brown started to object but McCoy held a finger to his mouth. “Give the woman five dollars,” he said and then added with a whisper. “Don’t worry about your dern poke  … we’re leaving with everything!”

Ben McCoy stared at the sign painted on the side of the wagon as his partner undressed and Redonici poured buckets of hot water from the fire into a large round tub. “How much to have my fortune told?”

            “We have a few minutes … this one is free,” Jesska said.

-------2-------

Jesska opened a window when the man sat across from her at the table inside the wagon. He smelled like a skunk trapped in a latrine half full of alcohol. “Maybe you should have taken the first bath” From outside, the off-key sound of the naked man in the tub singing “now don't you remember sweet Betsy from Pike …” fouled the air as Redonci added lye-soap to create bubbles.

            “I like to keep my shootin’ iron handy until I know things is on the up and up!” McCoy winked then patted the Colt 45 strapped to his waist. “Even if this is a free fortune  it’s still gonna be a good one ain’t it?”

            “What do you mean?” Jesska said as she took the ancient cards from the Ombré box.

            “Like I’m gonna strike it rich the next time I wash-out my biscuit pan in Grasshopper Creek and I’ll end up living in a hundred room mansion when I’m elected Governor of California!”

            “Fate is not in my hands,” Jesska told him. “I only deal the cards.”

Jesska lay three cards on the table face up: the Five of Pentacles, The Tower and The Moon.

            “This is the now,” Jesska said. “I see two men on a desperate journey filled with danger … and they’re afraid.”

            “That’s Carl!” McCoy slammed his fist so hard on the table the cards bounced. “I ain’t afraid of nothing!”

Jesska waited while the man outside yelled and asked McCoy if everything was alright and McCoy yelled back and told him that it was!”

She laid three cards face down on the table. “These are the things that are hidden,” she said. “Two from the past and one from the future.”

            “Don’t just sit there gawking … turn them over!” McCoy demanded.

            “Most things are hidden for a reason,” Jesska said. “Truth can bring about great pain.”

McCoy laughed. “I already know I’m going to hang,’ he said. I want to know when … so I can be good and drunk!”

Jesska turned over the first card. “I see a starving woman crying as a fat, bearded man with a wooden-leg and wearing a Confederate Sergeant’s coat steals food from her and his two babies to buy whiskey!”

            “That’s old Toby!” McCoy thundered. “We used to throw rocks at the drunk old buzzard when we was growing up … I didn’t know he was our pappy!”

Jesska turned over the second card. “I see a bleeding man burying a metal box in the desert then riding toward a campfire at night.”

            “That was Carl!” McCoy fumed. “He said he lost the strong-box after we robbed the Kansas City stage and then got ourselves separated!”

McCoy was on his feet and banging out the door before Jesska could speak. She could hear shouts and denials as she turned over the last card. “I see a respected lawman dying by your hand,” she gasped, “and the ghost of a woman who lingers forever.”

-------3-------

            Sheriff Thomas Lang looked at his watch as he strolled past the livery stable. It was three AM … the town was beginning to quiet down for the night. His boots made a clomping noise as he stepped from the street onto the covered boardwalk running in front of the new hotel. The two story wood and stone structure had taken just three weeks for an army of hungry men to build. “It’s amazing what you can get for two wagonloads of sugar, some bacon and some flour,” he muttered.

There was a space about ten feet wide between the hotel and the general store. The store owner used the vacant area to store empty barrels and the wooden crates that merchandise was shipped in. Sheriff Lang was almost past the dark alley when he heard what sounded like a man sobbing near the back. He pushed his way past assorted litter and a broken wagon wheel and found a terrified Amos Wilkes trying to crawl under a large pile of empty flour sacks. “Amos you got a tent down by the creek and a couple of partners to keep a fire going … what are you doing hiding under these bags?”

“Don’t let ‘em hang me, Tom,” Amos bawled.

“Who you figure is going to do that?” The sheriff had never seen the pudgy miner’s eyes bulge out like a cow’s.

“Jed and Cliff!” Amos sobbed. “They was both laughing while I swung from a cottonwood tree!”

“Jeddah Martin and Clifford Williams are both your friends. What makes you think they’d want to hang you?”

“I went to the gypsy wagon last night with two others…” Amos gripped the sheriff’s arm so tightly Tom had to pry his fingers off. “Cliff and Jed was too drunk so they went on to the camp.”

“That old witch woman ….”

“Jesska Descombey?”

“Yeah! She looked in a dern sugar bowl and sawed my future in three parts!”

“What did she see Amos?”

“She said I’d make me up a big breakfast … but a lupo affamato would eat it … and then the dark demon would eat me if I wasn’t careful!”

“I’ve met critters scared, mean and covered with dust,” the sheriff said. “I don’t recall ever meeting one that actually belonged to the devil!”

“I w-w-woke up l-l-like always,” Amos stuttered, “about an hour before daylight. Cliff and Jed had already gone to panning … somewhere upstream a ways. I carved up our last chunk of pork belly and sliced up two tiny taters that had gone soft into a pan with a clump of lard and left them on the fire. They was popping, sizzling and smoking when I went to the creek to get coffee-water.”

“Sounds like you boys eat good on your claim!”

“But we didn’t. None of us did!” Amos was gripping the sheriff’s arm again. “When I come back with the water, the fry-pan lay empty under a huckleberry bush. I was about to pick it up when I heard something thrashing just a ways off. It made a sound like to make my skin crawl. It was saying amooooouck amoooouck. Then I realized it was calling my name Amos! It was the affamato come to eat me!”

“You don’t look chewed-on, Amos,” Tom said. “Then what happened?”

“I hid in the tent,” Amos explained, “under Cliff’s buffalo hide … and when the sun come up I lit out for town!”

“You been holed up in this alley ever since?”

“No I needed me a drink,” Amos said. “The saloon-door was open so I went inside.”

“You start drinking before noon and you’ll roll down every hill my pappy used to say.” Tom shook his head.

“I was scared and I only snuck me one or two gulps from a bottle I found hid under the bar,” Amos told him. “I remembered the second part of my future.  That witch said I’d go blind as a bat and dance with the devil’s wife on the fiery floors of hell before I woke up in a coffin.”

Tom looked him over. “Your coat looks singed, like you was rolled through a campfire but your eyes look fine to me. I don’t see no body box!”

            “There!” Amos pointed to a large wooden crate that a dozen Sharps Model 1874 rifles had been shipped in. It leaned against the wall of the store with a splintered and broken lid swung open like a door. “The first man I ever saw hung was buried in a box just like this one!” Amos gasped. “When I got my sight back, I thought I was buried. It took more than an hour to break my way out!”

            “I’m sure there’s an answer to everything you saw,” Sheriff Lang said. “Why don’t I walk you back to your camp so your friends can look after you?”

            “I don’t want to hang under the light of the moon!” Amos moaned. “I’m sorry about Cliff’s bacon and the stolen whiskey!”

            “I ain’t gonna let nobody hang you over some food and a bottle of booze,” Tom told him.

-------4-------

Carl Brown stood up in the bathtub with his hands held above his head. A large clump of bubbles ran down his chest and covered his naked midsection like a loincloth. His legs were shaking. He looked like he was trying to dance. Redonici and Lakasera both laughed. “Now Ben you got no call to pull a gun on me!”

            “You lying no good skunk!” Ben McCoy pointed the gun at the fat man’s belly. His eyes were rabid and ready to see murder done. “You told me that strong-box fell off your horse while you was being chased by Indians. You said there was no way you could go back for it!”

            “It did fall off the horse,” Carl stammered. “Them Indians wasn’t that close, but I saw their smoke signals coming from the skyline. I knew it was only a matter of time afore I was scalped!”

            “So you took the time to bury our gold?”

            “I didn’t want it to fall off no more …” Carl’s eyes were flickering open and closed like the bat wing doors on a saloon on a Saturday night. “I knowed your Birthday was coming up … and I wanted to surprise you!”

            “When is my birthday Carl?” The hammer on the large caliber gun made a clicking sound.

            “I don’t recall … that’s why it’s taken so long to tell you,” Carl stammered. The bubbles between his legs began to disappear.

            “What’s going on here?” A staggering Parley Descombey was suddenly standing before the two men holding his head.

Ben McCoy turned and a flash of red-yellow fire leapt from the end of the gun a spit second before a tremendous boom shook the ground. Jesska, Redonici and Lakasera all screamed. From inside the wagon, five-year old Melania … began to cry.

           

-------5-------

Tom was careful to make plenty of noise as he and Amos walked toward the camp. It was late at night and even under the moonlight he and the miner could be mistaken for bush-whackers. The camp was in a clearing and they were still in the trees. It was always better to be safe.

            “Hello camp!” the sheriff called out. And then he waited.

Less than a minute later two men scrambled out of a tent. They had on only long-john underwear but both held pistols in their hands.

            “Is that you Amos?’ one of the men growled. “You dirty sidewinder! I ought to put a bullet in you for scaring the daylights out of us!”

            It’s me the sheriff,” Tom told him. “But your partner is with me …”

The sheriff turned but Amos was no longer behind him. The full-moon chose this moment to slide from behind a clump of cloud. It wasn’t daylight bright but it was close. The moon cast an eerie shadow on the ground beside Tom. Two booted legs swung easily in the breeze under the branches of a large cottonwood tree.

TO BE CONTINUED …

           

FORTUNE TELLER

Copyright (c) 2019 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

FORTUNE TELLER

By R. Peterson

Sixteen year old Parley Descombey gripped the reins with both hands as the gypsy wagon lurched and bumped down what a hand-lettered sign declared was Main Street. His ancient mother, Jesska, gripped his arm as she bounced on the plank seat and his five year old sister Melania had her nose pressed against a glass window. They all stared at the most white-people they had seen in over a month. Parley brought the tired draft horse to a stop in front of a large wooden building in a sea of tents when a gun discharged and a dozen dogs began to howl. Bat wing doors banged open and a mustached man wearing a dirty apron glared as two brawling men, followed by a dozen spectators, spilled into the street. “You want to kill each other?” He yelled over a lively piano playing inside as he re-loaded a double barrel shotgun. “Do it outside! … Just pay for your suds first!”

A bearded man watching the fight squinted at the fancy words painted on the side of the wagon. “You sell patent medicine?”

“That we do,” Parley told him. “What seems to be your ailment?”

“I done been snake bit,” the man said tossing Parley a silver dollar.

Parley put the coin in his pocket and then watched the miner bite the cork from a bottle of Doctor Todd’s Poison Extractor. “That was ten years ago,” the miner confessed as the last of the flavored alcohol spilled down his shirt. “And I still get the shivers thinking about it!”

Parley shook his head. It was going to be a challenge starting a medical practice in this town.

The two men rolling in the street had both pulled knives and the crowd moved back as blood began to spatter the dust. “Why doesn’t someone call for the sheriff?” Parley asked a lanky cowboy standing next to the wagon.

            “I am the sheriff!” The man turned and tipped his hat. “Thomas Lang at your service.”

            Parley recognized the man who had helped them pull their wagon from a river only a few days before. Jesska had told his fortune using bullets from the man’s gun. It wasn’t entirely a happily ever after reading.  “Ain’t you going to do something?” Parley asked.

            “I’ve only had this job for …” He lifted a watch attached to his pocket by a gold chain and opened it, “an hour,” Sheriff Lang smiled. “We ain’t got a jail yet. I’d rope and tie both of these pancakes to a tree … but we got us a hungry-bear prowling the camp at night.”

One man ended up on top of the other and when a knife slashed toward the cataleptic man’s head Lang kicked it away. “You want to start cutting hair. You’ll need a license,” he said.

            “You got no business!” The disarmed man’s eyes glowed like wind-stirred campfire coals. He lunged toward the sheriff and Lang’s boot said hello to his head.

            “You’re right,” the sheriff drawled over the unconscious pile. “I ain’t got any business … but I got this badge.” He opened his coat to show a silver star pinned to his shirt as he addressed the crowd. “Now drag these two varmints down to the river … and wash the ornery out of ‘em.”

The sheriff turned toward Parley and Mrs. Descombey and took off his hat. He smiled as he extended his hand. “Welcome to South Fork,” he said.

-------2-------

            Parley had the gypsy wagon parked in the shade of a cottonwood tree next to a stream and was starting a morning fire when Sheriff Lang strolled into camp. Lang noticed the two young women he’d met on a previous encounter snapping wood for kindling. “I see you moved a ways out,” he said. “Good call! Half the men in this town would come down sick if they knew what you was packing in that wagon!”

            “You people have a tavern,” Parley said. “No need to misuse medicine.”

            “Our saloon keep, Amos Charles, brews what he calls beer in a big old laundry tub,” Lang drawled. “I think he adds a little soap whenever his ranky socks needs a good washing … least ways that explains the foam taste. Good whiskey is hard to come by. You peel them labels off your medicine bottles and you got big-city trouble that can make a man run on four legs. You’ll have this whole town howling at the moon … if you ain’t careful.”

The door to the house-on-wheels opened and Jesska Descombey staggered slowly down the steps carrying a rusty percolator in her wrinkled hands. “The coffee will be ready in ten minutes,” she said, “and we’ve got the crème and sugar you like.” She pointed to a scrawny milk-cow grazing nearby. Five-year old Melania followed her out of the wagon with four ceramic cups balanced on a ten pound Lee Sugar Co. bag.

            “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you folks was expecting me,” Lang said as he took the heavy load from the young girl.

“Mama knew you were coming,” Melania said taking the cups. “She knows everything.”

Redonici smiled and batted her eyes as she bent over the pile of sticks exposing her abundant cleavage. A scowling Lakasera dropped her wood and then bumped into Tom as she moved past and climbed into the wagon. “You still smell like a cow,” she said.

            “Are you folks fixing to stay?” Tom noticed an open copy of Dr. C L Hempels’ Materia Medica Book  and a pair of eyeglasses resting on a tree-stump.

            “I’m studying to be a doctor,” Parley explained, “a real one.” He pointed to the colorful sign on the wagon. “Me and my mother both want to help people, but we have different ideas about how to go about it.”

Jesska returned from the stream. “The Ombré says this is where we were meant to be,” she said. She set the percolator on several flat rocks surrounded by hot coals then wiped her hands on her apron as she gazed toward the horizon. “Those who wage war with fate are seldom vincitore. (victors)”

            “You believe our days are all known and numbered?” Tom asked.

            “Not all … solo i più importanti.”(only the important) She smiled. “Visions are like far away birds crossing the sky. Those who look can see them.” Jesska carefully added a few sticks to the fire and the smoke rising began to form moving images. Tom was entranced. “I see an entire valley filled with white buffalo running in a circle,” he gasped. “And they turn into white Indians when soldiers appear!”

            “It is the Lakota Ghost Dance you see,” Jesska said. “Two of God’s most enduring creations … coming to the end of their time.”

            “Am I dreaming?” Tom asked.

            “Probably,” Jesska said. “Here, have some coffee and wake up.”

-------3-------

“You don’t really believe in that hocus pocus stuff do you?” Sheriff Thomas Lang sat at a rough wooden table in the back of the Gold Dust Saloon with three other men. Two had already folded on the second raise. He drew one, hoping for an inside straight or a flush. He smiled before he answered sheep-rancher Bill Wawmack. “I’ve had my fortune told by a floating-in-the-air dead-woman reading a crystal ball at the Barnum and Bailey Circus in St. Louis,” Tom told him. “And I’ve had the wife of a dying Sioux War Chief tell my future with just the wind and a handful of chicken bones. But I ain’t never had things come so true like they have with Jesska Descombey and my own bullets!”

Bill hesitated for just a moment before he discarded three and drew the same number of cards from the deck. “So how could one of your own bullets save your life?”

            “There was a coiled rattler in the trail I was riding,” Tom told him. “I blasted his head off with my pistol, but the bullet struck the flat surface of a rock behind the snake and ricocheted back. I felt the lead burn right past my left ear before it went into the head of a knife-wielding Indian waiting to leap on my back from the top of an overhanging rock!”

            “Could have been just luck,” Bill said scowling at his cards.

            “I don’t think so,” Tom told him. “You play billiards. That lead had to strike flat granite at an almost perfect ninety-degree angle to fly back at me like that and to smack that blood-thirsty redskin right between the eyes makes two too-many miracles in less than a second.”

            “What about that second bullet that was supposed to bring you love?” Bill rolled three gold coins in his fingers before he hesitated and then tossed two of them into the pot.

Amos Porter spit a wad of chewing tobacco into an engraved spittoon resting at the base of the bar almost nine feet away. Several men gave him looks of admiration.

            “She says her name is Elisabeth Walker and she was a mail-order bride homesteading a claim about four miles north on Canyon Road.” The sheriff tapped his cards on the table.  “A murderous no-good, name of Ben McCoy,  sent for her for the extra land claim then was fixing to choke her and toss her body in the river before I showed up. I blasted the gun out of his hand when he drew on me and then lost the varmint when he dove in the river.”

            “And I suppose she offered to marry you instead?” Bill laughed and shook his head.

Two fancy dressed ladies with brightly painted faces were dancing and kissing the same drunk miner as the piano player pounded out a waltz. A torn bag halfway fallen out of the man's back overall pocket kept spilling gold dust onto the saloon floor. Both of the ladies took turns grinding it into the cracks between the loose boards with their high-heel shoes.

            “No, but she made me a fine cup of coffee at her house,” Tom said taking a deep breath through his nose before smiling then flipping two twenty-dollar gold coins into the pile in the center of the table. “And I knew I was in love … even before she added the sugar.”

            “I bet she did!” Bill laughed. “I take that for a call.”

            “That you do!” A beaming Tom laid down his cards … “A flush … all hearts!”

Tom reached for the pot when Bill laughed and slapped down his own hand. “I got a river-boat special,” he said. “Full house … nines over sixes!” Tom and the other two miners sitting at the table all groaned.

            “It’s two AM!” The saloon owner called from behind the bar. “Drink up and get the hell out!”

The sheriff pushed back his chair and stood as Bill began to count his winnings. “I don’t recall what miracle you said that third bullet was going to bring.” Wawmack bit his tongue in the silence that followed. He allowed his eyes drift toward to the holstered Colt forty-five strapped around the sheriff’s waist and then to his enormous winnings.  There was more than a hundred-dollars’ worth of gold and silver coins in the pile. That was three months’ wages for most folks.

            “The third bullet is supposed to bring enormous wealth,” The sheriff told him. The hands of all three of the other men at the table were shaking as they passed around an almost empty Red Eye Whiskey bottle. “But don’t worry, Bill,” Sheriff Lang said letting his fingers brush against the black walnut handle of the Colt Peacemaker. “I know you and I almost never cheat at cards … without a good reason.” Tom smiled before he added, “… and I dealt that dern blasted hand!”

-------3-------

Parley Descombey relaxed his arm from the shadow of the cottonwood tree as he watched the two miners ride away. All four females were in the wagon. The double barrel shotgun was heavy. It had been a busy night. Redonici and Lakasera had taken in more than forty dollars between them and his mother had made nearly double that selling medicine and telling fortunes. The campfire was almost burned out. Parley leaned the shotgun against the tree trunk and was reaching for a green log for the fire when the man grabbed him from behind. “Whoo there! Easy Boy! We don’t want no trouble!” A bearded man with a scar running down his left cheek said putting his filthy hand over the boy’s mouth and laughing softly. “We been waiting out here for two hours … we thought them dern panners would never leave!”

            “What do you want?” Parley’s muffled cry made both men laugh.

            “Everything you got!” The second man, going bald with a bowler hat covering his dome, poked a dirty finger into Parley’s chest before he knocked on the wagon door.

When Jesska opened the door the man thrust a gun into her face. “Come out ladies,” he said with his eyes bulging. “This here party is just getting started!”

            “What do you want?” Redonici asked as they filed out of the wagon.

            “First off we want you two ladies to take off them dresses,” he said licking his cracked lips and pointing to Redonici and her sister.

            “Now Carl! There’s no need to be rude!” the first man said with a laugh. He struck Parley over the head with the butt of his gun and the boy crumpled to the ground. “Not until after we get to know each other” He bent Lakasera’s arm behind her back and pushed her toward the fire. “I’m Ben McCoy and this is my partner Carl Brown. We is gonna have us a real fine time … a real fine time!”

TO BE CONTINUED …

           

THE FOUR BULLETS

Copyright (c) 2019 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

THE FOUR BULLETS

By R. Peterson

The Gypsy wagon moved slowly, pulled by just one draft horse. Parley had spent most of the morning skinning the dead one, and stretching the horse’s hide over a hardwood frame. He salvaged what meat he could and left the rest to a pack of coyotes who had scrutinized him while he worked. Dried meat from any animal could be eaten if necessary, and it would be used to lure wolves away, as a last resort. The horse jerky hung in strips, from rope tied to the sides of the wagon, drawing thousands of insects as it dried in the sun. The coarse black pepper, and rock salt the meat was soaked in, kept all but the most daring of flies from actually landing on it.

The family all trudged through the mud alongside the creaking wagon, except for Jesska. Parley had insisted that the old woman ride in the wagon and all her belligerent arguing in Italian hadn’t changed his mind.

The pouring rain during the night slowly turned to a steady light drizzle. The roar of the river was heard, before the water was seen. The heavy torrent had swollen the banks, and misting whitecaps broke over rocks which had been bare the day before. Jesska stuck her head from the wagon. “Aspettare fino a quando la pioggia si ferma. You’re not going to try to cross here are you? That water looks too deep!”

“It will be hard to get across with only one horse pulling, even without the deep water,” Parley said. “We need to look for a place where we can float the wagon and use the current to sweep us to the far bank.”

“Sta' attento, watch out that you don’t get us all drowned,” Jesska warned.

Lakasera and Redonici helped the old woman climb out of the wagon. Redonici held a shawl over Jesska’s head like an umbrella as Lakasera lead her toward the shelter of some Cottonwood trees. “We don’t want you wet old mother, you’ll catch a cold and die.”

            “Sciocchezze,” Jesska said. “I’ll die when I have a real roof over my head,” she pointed a crooked finger toward the gypsy wagon, “not in that impolver which shakes like the back of a cow.”

Parley unhitched the horse from the wagon and tied it to deadfall under the Cottonwoods. He removed a coil of rope from a box on the wagons side and handed one end to Melania.

“Don’t let go,” he said. “If I fall, have your cousins’ help pull me back.” He waded into the cold stream. The rushing water rose to his chest. He stepped on slippery rocks and almost fell before he reached the far bank. “Less work for Lakasera,” he yelled back. “My clothes have already been washed.”

Parley used his knife to peal the bark from a Cottonwood that stood far enough from the shore to allow the wagon to climb the bank. Then he looped the rope around the make-shift pulley and made the return trip reeling out the line as he came.

“We’ll use the horse to help pull,” he said. “The river will sweep our boat down-stream but no farther than the slack we give it.” He attached one end of the rope to the house-wagon and fastened the other end around the old draft horse. Melania helped her cousins unload most of the contents from the inside of the wagon, in case something happened and the wagon-turned-boat didn’t make it across. They watched as Parley led the horse away from the river, and the wagon rolled into the fast moving water. The wheels turned slowly in the muddy stream bed but near the center the water level began to rise above the axels and the wagon began to float. The current picked up the house on wheels and swept it down stream. The force of the flowing water gave it momentum, and it moved across the river in a wide arc.

            Suddenly there was a loud whump as the wagon hit an object submerged just under the surface and tilted violently on its side. Water sprayed into the air, from the wooden floor and the enormous suction from the fast moving river parted the water showing the Gypsy wagon stuck against a massive stone. Parley whipped the poor draft animal furiously to try to get more tension on the rope. The overworked animal tried to try to pull the craft past the rock, but it was stuck fast. Hardwood splinters, from the ornamental carvings on the wagon, fluttered into the air as the force of the current pushed the old wagon against the rock and began to break it apart.

            Parley paused for a moment and stared at their home on wheels. He removed a large knife from his belt and cut the rope. Jesska and the girls all cried as the wagon slowly pivoted against the rock then twisted, became free and was swept downstream.

Parley hurdled across the river trying to grab the rope which snaked through the brambles on the far bank like an enraged snake running from fire. “Bring the horse,” he shouted, “If I can catch the rope we’ll need him to pull it back.”

As Parley raced down the bank leaping deadfall and staying just one jump behind the whipping rope, a roaring sound began to drown out his shouts. There was a waterfall just up ahead, and the wagon was moving faster. “Hurry Melania,” he cried, “Ride the horse into the water at the edge of the bank; It’s the only way we will be able to catch it in time.” Melania heard the fear in her older brother’s voice and she was on the back of the old horse almost instantly whipping him with the cut end of the rope. She was air-born and holding on for dear life as the horse sprang from the bank and galloped downstream spraying water from its flying hooves.

Jesska watched, as the floating wagon with her children chasing it, disappeared around a bend in the river. She sat down slowly on a fallen log clutching a card in her withered hand.

Redonici ran to the old woman fearing she had had a stroke from the excitement. “Old Mother,” she said. “The wagon may be gone, but we have our lives, it’s the work of the devil I say.”

Jesska slowly pushed her niece’s hands away from her shoulder and she peered down at the faded piece of paper in her hand for a long moment. A tiny smile formed on her wrinkled lips and she slowly raised her eyes upward toward Redonici’s concerned face. “It is Ombre,” she whispered, “a thing that must happen.” She began to mutter slowly as if in a trance. Her eyes clouded over and they were suddenly full of milky cataracts. “A stranger we must encounter and he comes this way. His life we must lay out for him with our magic. It is a thing already done, but still the hand of fate tempts us, to go a different path.” She stood up and pushed away the two women who hovered over her like mother hens.  “Avere fretta! We must make haste,” she began to scamper down the bank; “already our home is secure.”

The river become three times as wide and only two feet deep as it approached the waterfall. The rapidly flowing water had washed all the soil and sand away from the riverbed, leaving only marble bedrock which refused to be eroded quickly.

Parley had the loose end of the rope tied to the horse. Melania rode on the back of the straining animal coaxing it to pull while her brother pushed from behind. They two younger women removed their shoes and splashed into the stream to help their cousin.

Lakasera moved slowly and sure-footed with her legs spread in a wide stance while Redonici tried to run through the water. The latter fell tumbling over in the raging water as the fast moving current caught her skirts and swept her along like sails. Parley jumped from behind the wagon when he heard her cry out and saw her fall.  He bounded through the water leaping from exposed rocks and grabbed her by her ankles just before she was swept over the falls.

It wasn’t until he pulled her to her feet and she wrapped her trembling arms around him that they looked over the brink where the water was flowing. They stood gaping, their mouths open, frozen in astonishment. The entire river plunged into a giant hole in the solid rock, forming a deep canyon where far below them the water churned and swirled around, before disappearing into a hidden chasm. “I thought I’d seen everything, but never a whole river that disappears.” Parley marveled.

“People around here call it Magician’s Canyon,” a man’s voice called out.

Parley and Redonici turned and watched as a tall cowboy wearing a grey Stetson hat rode a spirited Palomino mare splashing through the water, causing sprays of rainbows to form around the horses prancing hoofs. “Easy there Comanche,” he said as he reined the horse in. He nodded his head to Parley, then lifted his hat, and bowed his head to Redonici. His shaggy straw blonde hair and twinkling blue eyes made her stumble backward as he smiled at her. “Pleased to meet you,” Parley said, without looking at him. Then he grabbed his cousin by the waist and led her away from the roaring waters.

“My name is Thomas Lang, but my friends mostly call me Tom. I can’t say what my enemies call me, least ways not in front of a lady.” The cowboy said.

Redonici blushed, and wrapped thin arms around herself covering her wet dress which clung to her vivacious body. Parley was having a hard time leading his cousin. She was suddenly limp in his arms. “I need to get my cousin to the shore,” he said. “She fell and almost went into that, what did you call it magicians ..?”

“Magician’s Canyon,” Tom said. “The Indians and most of the settlers around here, think that it’s magic, disappearing the way it does.” He glanced at the cascading water as he dismounted his horse. “I’d have to agree with them, we never have figured out where all that water goes, maybe down into hell.” He grinned. “I hear it’s hot down there, and them devils would be wanting a drink.” He took Redonici by the arm and helped her stagger through the water toward the far bank.

“I must look a sight,” Redonici said as she brushed her dark wet hair away from her face.

“Ma’am you look real good, when I’m used to staring at Comanche.” He pointed to the horse that followed behind without being led. The mare named Comanche bowed her head, and then playfully nudged the cowboy in the back lifting him off his feet. “Now don’t be that way, Tom laughed. “You know I love you too.”

“Too?” Redonici cooed, as she looked at the cowboy with the cute grin. She was batting her lashes over her big brown eyes.

It was almost dark before they had the wagon pulled to the far shore, but the rain had stopped.  Thomas Lang helped the Gypsy family repair a broken wheel on the wagon. The bright red sunset was reflected on the surface of the river, as flocks of swallows swooped low over the water catching insects.   Jesska insisted that the cowboy stay for the evening meal. “We have no extra money to repay you for your kindness,” she said. “We have already lost one horse, and the medicine we sell in the towns was consumed by a band of sick Indians.” Thomas smiled and held his hands up. “I don’t expect to be paid for doing what’s right,” he said, “and I have met lots of tribes with the sickness you speak of.”

“There must be something we can do for you,” Lakasera said as she sashayed toward the cowboy. She was oblivious to the angry looks that her sister Redonici flashed at her.

Thomas Lang shifted his eyes away from her and looked around the camp. Household goods lay piled about the brightly painted wagon. “I don’t believe I have ever had that there done to me.” He pointed toward the bright yellow letters on the side of the wagon that advertised “Fortunes Told”.

            “You don’t know what you’re missing!” Lakasera stomped away angry. She turned back toward the grinning cowboy, her eyes furious. “…And you need a bath,” she scolded. “You smell like a cow.”

            Jesska looked at the sign on the wagon then at Tom, “If that is your wish, then you will not be turned away.” She stood up and began to amble toward the wagon. She gestured toward a pile of boards stacked nearby. “Hurry, bring the table and the tessuto rosso. We must not keep our handsome customer waiting.”

Melania hurried to help her mother prepare for the fortune telling.

            It was dark when Thomas Lang climbed into the wagon. A small round table covered with a red cloth was set between two low cabinets that served as benches. Candles burned from numerous nooks inside the room giving the place a cathedral effect. Melania sat in a darkened corner watching her mother put aged cards back into a carved wooden box. The cowboy sat down. “Don’t you have one of them crystal balls?” he asked as he looked around the room. “I’ve always wanted to see one, up close.”

Jesska closed her eyes and was still for a few seconds, when her eyes opened they were bright and shining. “You live by the gun Mr. Lang, and that is what will speak of your future.” She gestured toward the pistol attached to his side. “Can I see it? …please.”

Tom pulled the Colt from its holster and carefully handed it to the old woman. “Careful, it’s loaded,” he said.

“I know it is Mr. Lang, but not for long,” she used the spring loaded rod on the right side to remove each bullet from the revolving chamber, dropping them purposefully onto the table. When she had finished, four bullets lay on the red cloth in haphazard fashion. One bullet stood upright on its casing, she picked it up and held it toward the light of a candle. “This bullet will save your life,” she said. The cowboy smiled and looked around the room, expecting laughter. There was only silence. Melania sat in the corner, her wide eyes watching her mother. Tom remembered his manners and stared down at the table. His smile slowly faded. Jesska picked up a second cartridge that lay with its rounded end lying across another shell. She smiled at the cowboy as she sat the bullet on a small shelf next to the other. “This bullet will bring you love.”

Melania was staring at the cowboy now, grinning. He grinned back at the tiny girl.

Jesska picked up the shell the previous one had been laying on. She also held it up to the candle light and slowly rotated it in her fingers.

“This bullet will bring great riches,” she said. Thomas Lang nodded his head as if he expected her to say that. It was a common thing fortune tellers said, or so he had heard. Jesska reached her hand out for the fourth bullet but her fingers began to tremble before she touched it. She pulled her hand back as if the shell had just turned into a snake. Tom rose from his seat, sure from the fear in the old woman’s eyes, that a spider must have crawled across the table to scare her. The table was bare except for the bullet and the red cloth.

            “What is it?” he asked. The old woman had pulled her hand all the way back and sat trembling.

Jesska slowly reached her old withered hand out toward the last shell as if afraid to touch it.

She slid the bullet back toward her but did not lift it, turning it over on the table looking carefully at it sides. Her face showed a ghastly white in the light from the candles.

“You have been very kind to me and to my family Mr. Lang and I repay your kindness with treachery. I should have persuaded you to take pleasure with Lakasera she would have been forgotten in a day or two and your life would have been your own.”

            “That’s all right,” Tom said. “I have been with a woman before, but I’ve never had my fortune told, it was my choice.” He smiled at Jesska and her daughter but neither one smiled back.

“You don’t understand,” Jesska said as she slowly lifted the shell and held it toward the candle light. “This bullet will cause your death.”

            Jesska was sad. She could barely look at the man who had helped them, as he saddled his horse in the early morning light. Melania walked up to the cowboy and gently rubbed her hand against the horses head.

“My mother feels as if she has only brought misfortune on you. That she has betrayed you with bad Ombre after you have been so kind and helped us.” Comanche muzzled into her hands looking for the sugar she smelled. She found it. Tom pulled the saddle cinch tight on the horse then waited for the mare to relax her inflated stomach, and then he pulled it tighter.

            “Your mother need not fret about it,” Tom said. “You folks have been plenty kind to me, and besides … I don’t really believe in that magic stuff anyway. He took his gun from its holster and spun the cylinder he had re-loaded with the fortune telling bullets. What if I was to just toss all these bullets into the Cottonmouth, I’ve got more. Who would that one bad bullet kill then?” He smiled. “Not me.”

            “I don’t know all about magic,” Melania told him, “but I know that Ombre is powerful and it will always follow you.”

Jesska ambled over to the cowboy as he made ready to leave.

            “My daughter is right,” she said, “Ombre will find a way. You can’t stop the magic from happening, but you can make it wait for you. Do not throw the bullet away. Keep your enemies close to you.”

            “Thank you madam,” Tom said as he swung up into his saddle. “You folks have been real kind to me.” He looked at Jesska and tipped his hat to her. “And I’ll remember what you told me, I will do my best not to let that dang old bullet get me.” He laughed. “So long,” he said. Then he gave his horse a slap with his rein to re-cross the wide part of the river. Comanche didn’t move where he directed her, instead she pranced sideways as if she were afraid to go in the water.

            “Is that horse broken?” Parley asked as he watched the cowboy having trouble.

            “Not really,” Tom said. “I like a horse that can think for its self, doubles your odds of staying alive.” While he was trying to get his horse to move into the water he happened to look toward the waterfall. A lonely figure stood in the water at the edge of the chasm looking down into the canyon where the river disappeared.

            “Do you know who that is?” Tom asked as he dismounted.

            “I believe it’s one of the Indians who were in our camp two nights ago,” Parley said shielding his eyes from the sun. “He was old, and the others ignored him.” The sound of high pitched singing floated across the water. Melania walked to the edge of the water and peered in the direction the others were looking. “It’s Bear-Who-Walks-in-Water,” she said. “I met him by the stream. I thought he was dead.”

            “I think he soon will be,” Tom said. “That’s a Shoshone death chant he’s singing.”

            “Why is he out in the river?” Melania started to walk into the water.

            “I think he figures on jumping into Magician’s Canyon,” The cowboy reached out and pulled the young girl back.

“I don’t want him to die, he was my friend.” Melania began to cry. “Can you stop him? Can you bring him back?”

“I could rope him and drag him to shore, but he would hate me for it,” Tom said. “He would still die, and likely would have no honor waiting for him if I did. It’s best to let him choose his own path.” They listened for a minute to the chanting. It was growing louder. “Indians believe that the world is a living thing, a spirit god,” Tom told Melania as he put his arm around her shoulder. “The canyon that swallows the river is the god’s mouth. They believe there is great magic in these things and in all these lands here a bout. There are places in this country where hot water sprays up from the ground even in winter. Hell I think it’s magic myself, and I’ve been to school. It is an honor for Bear-Who-Walks-in-Water, to die being eaten by the world.”

Melania stared at the lonesome figure that stood at the edge of the waterfall. She remembered his trick with the glass bottle and the spoon. Suddenly the old Indian’s chant stopped. “I’ll never forget … there is magic in all things.” she whispered. A memory of dark blood clinging to his lower lip flashed across her mind.

The old Indian paused for just an instant. Melania watched him bend down and lay an object on top of an enormous exposed rock, but he was too far away for her to see what it was. Time seemed to stand still. Melania looked at the sky. She thought she could see sparrows frozen in midflight. Then the old man leaned forward, and he disappeared into the mist.

            “I’ll be damned,” Thomas Lang marveled as he looked at the empty space where the Indian had stood only moments before. “Now I’ve seen everything, he was swallowed by the world.” He took his hand off from Melania’s shoulder and pointed toward the roaring water. “Ain’t that something?”

TO BE CONTINUED ….