The remaining beast had Dylan’s shirt collar hooked on its tooth, dangling him. Poor young soldier captured in the mouth of hell with Chip chasing behind. It advanced too far, too fast and leaped in the oak trees on the town’s outskirts, our cowboy in tow.

  My heart sank for Diamond. One day, she and her suitor are holding hands like few young lovers in this town do, the next… this. What was this?

  To the sheriff’s credit, he had done all he could to save the soldier. He was working to get his breath, hands on hips.

  That’s when a boy in a vest and lilac beret came racing out the local armory and stopped in front of him. Boy looked to be twelve and reloaded the sheriff’s six-gun shooter and stuck more rounds in his pinstriped shirt pocket and gun holsters. He lifted his finger in the air to signal he had one more thing to reach for—pulled out chewing tobacco.

  Chip took it, nodded, and thanked him, then sprinted towards the General Store alley to confront Calamity.

  Right as I got to my feet, I was taken aback by Patsy’s plea echoing into the ghastly atmosphere. “Diamond, ploise don’t go out there. Ploise, Diamond, I beg you.”

  Diamond had already gotten downstairs and out the Pharmacy door. In bare feet, with hem of dress in hand, she scurried past the Restaurant and around the corner to where Chip had gone. Shaking my head, I trailed behind.

  When we got in the alley, I marched between Diamond and Chip. In the light from torches pointed by Ana tribesmen, an elderly woman in a witch-hat rocked in a chair. She was toothless, plump faced, wart filled, bloodless, and black lipped. The fiery rods were pulled back, darkening her presence, then swayed forward again, casting light on the Calamity Dyer I recognized, complete with black lips, flowing silver hair, a snobbish nose, ageless eyes, and well postured shoulders. She sat cross-legged.

  “The hell kind of magic trick is this, Georgine— I mean Calamity,” I said.

  A wolf-man, head and shoulders above the tribe, jumped out the shadows and pitched something that smacked near our feet. He followed that by breathing a path of flames. Flickering in the firelight were buildings and their adjacent fifty-three-gallon barrels: sugar, water, and booze.

  Amidst the rumbling sounds, the firelight revealed a horrific image on the cracked soil. I nearly vomited at the sight of the decapitated head of the drunkard who Chip and I had seen on the corner of the bad part of town.

  Diamond shrieked.

  “By-fucking-Jiminy,” I said aloud.

  Right when I went for the water barrel to put out the flames, the Ana sucked them back into its belly.

  “That’s the head of a fool. Had no agency in his dark side,” Calamity declared. “He was stinking up the alley and asking us, of all people, for skids?” She sniggered like a schoolchild. “He wouldn’t have cut it for Sam Hill, and that’s to say the least. But he would do for an additional blood sacrifice to empower our dark entity friends.”

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  Chip aimed and said, “What kind of sick business are you and Sam Hill up to, witch?”

  “We are going to govern the West, and quite frankly, in a way much better than any government this world has ever seen. I don’t like the casualties more than you, but we cannot win with weakness. These casualties are the only way to even the viscous playing field that your world created.”

  “And what are you gaining by leveling the field?” I said with a note of bitterness in my voice.

  “Oh, I’ve already taken the shadows of the children Sam Hill wants in Grand Jose. Their shadows; their dark side. All those passions you people hide away; your bitterness, anger, rage, forbidden lusts, inconvenient fantasies—Sam Hill will one day have his way in the West, blossoming in your children’s silhouettes. And that child Martin—I don’t compliment many—but he’s going to be an exceptional reprobate. I can feel it. He could be chosen to be thee one, thee only.” The tribesmen rattled. With each of their voices becoming slower and more emphatic, they chanted “Bugger Bill, Bugger Bill, Bugger Bill.”

  Chip hollered, “Go ahead. Tell us. Time? Date? When’s this coup coming?”

  “Sheriff, don’t indulge her,” I implored.

  It was too late. She had the answer formed at the tip of her tongue. “Don’t be so pompous to think it’s all about Grand Jose. Sam Hill’s already planted his seeds here and in El Paso. Hill desires much more of the West than that. He’s sending me to hide in waiting until the time is right to overtake the Mexican capital.”

  “Why couldn’t you just have gone, already?” I flung my finger forward. “Why did you commit these atrocities on these innocent people? What’s this attack have to do with your mumbo jumbo... bosh curse?”

  “Oh Apollo, what happened today was only a farewell, a taste of what’s to come when we return. Didn’t go exactly how we planned. Did it, Chief Ahote? But we got some blood for the road. That should feed our dark entity watchers.”

  Ana Ahote, the one that stood taller than the rest, looked back at her and then at us, his speech growled like a wolf barking out words. “In the days of Sam Hill and Bugger Bill, your Promise Road will burn.”

  Calamity snickered. “A promise-for-Promise Road. How befitting.”

  “What are you gonna do with Dylan?” Diamond inquired.

  “Ho ho ho; he’s a real belvedere, isn’t he? I’m going to show him what a woman is. I mean, look at me, and look at you. You wish you’d experienced half the world as I have, don’t you cowgirl. I’m one-hundred-seventy-eight years old and still so beautiful but oh so wise. Your soldier boy will be in much better company with me.” She signaled her hand over herself. “This only takes cutting a deal with Sam Hill, honey. Play nice, and I may introduce you.”

  “I don’t care if you’re sixteen or sixteen hundred years old, ploise take care of my man. Ploise.”

  “Ahote, what’s more fun. Mexico, or the pathetic pleadings of a beggar?” Calamity yawned.

  “Out of our way,” Ana Ahote roared.

  Chip drew his gun.

  I warned, “You’re stopping right there. We’ll shoot you dead, put you six feet under and just as far away from our children.”

  Calamity sneered. “It is rich that you would come to defense of children. This is after you confessed to me that you abandoned your pregnant girlfriend. Poor Bet and your oh so precious child burned to death. All this while you were plotting to skip out on them to flee Washington DC. Guess when it’s the child of a slave girl, all righteousness goes to rags.”

  I knew this was Calamity trying to throw me off with her cruel games. After what she did to Sandy, I refused to play. “Told you that when you were crying in need of …” I stopped myself, knowing words to a fraud were pointless; she had duped me with sham tears. “Know what, keep Bet’s name out your mouth. She has no place near the rest of the skunk cabbage you breathe. Sheriff, blow her to smithereens.”

  “Bout time we got to it,” Chip said. As Chip fired, the tribe hurled down their torches. Without hesitation, I went for the water barrel. While I splashed the spreading infernos, they took the opportunity to blow past us. In their rush, the witch let out a mannish “tee-hee.”

  Chip fired until they got out of sight. May as well been blasting at the wind.