September, 1938

  “Ugh! How long was I out?” Rodney rubbed his head.

  Rodney Wells, a young black man in a clean pressed plaid shirt, had fallen asleep on the train ride from Wyoming to Nebraska. There had been no bumps or stops for hours, and Rodney simply couldn’t help but snooze in the soft private booth.

  “Bout an hour and a half I think.” snickered Billy Baird, sitting in the booth across from him.

  One boot resting on his opposite knee, his arms stretched out on the seat back, Billy looked comfortable on his ride from Yellowstone. Truthfully, train rides always bored him. He preferred the near instant transportation of a Translation Hex, but most of the witches refused to touch him. The train ride was better than walking.

  He understood why coven witches had such an aversion to him. He felt like jealousy was unbecoming of proper women, but he accepted he had no say in how they acted. They sure didn’t mind asking for his help, of course, if it meant they could observe from a distance. The thought always tickled him a bit.

  “Sorry, Mr. Baird. We were gonna play a game?” Rodney unfolded the tray table between their seats.

  Pulling the flat chess board from his satchel, Rodney carefully set up the pieces. The sorcerer watched the process silently, observing the care with which Rodney placed the pieces in their assigned squares. Rodney never mistook one piece for another, and he always set the pawns up from left to right. Little habits like this fascinated Billy Baird the most. He found people to be so much more interesting than they initially appear, if one only zoomed in a bit. Granularity had been Billy’s lens through which he viewed others.

  A knock on the booth door broke his thoughts up. The door slid open, revealing an attendant with a wooden cart full of goodies. Billy’s blue eyes lit up at the sight of sugary sweets.

  “Would you gentlemen like something to eat?” the pretty attendant spoke in a soft voice.

  “Don’t mind if I do!”

  Billy stood, almost bumping the chessboard. Rodney protected his work with his hand as the sorcerer moved over to the tray. Looking over the delicious delectables, Billy picked a candied apple and offered the attendant a nickel as a tip.

  Just as he went to bite into the apple, his entire world went dark. Billy stood, no apple in hand, in complete darkness. The feeling of standing in water interested him. Ripples cast across the inch high water from his boots. The only light in this place was the azure glow of Billy’s Resolute eyes.

  A lamp overhead came on with a hollow click, casting him in a cone of yellow light. His hat brim shadowed his face, the blue eyes appearing in the darkness as two floating beacons. A long grin crept across Billy’s face, barely visible in the weak light, as he found himself surrounded by four figures.

  Standing around him, the Yellow entities which had appeared to Calvin in death now appeared to his father. The Prophet, D, stood directly in front of him. Holding one hand in the other, Edel studied their new subject very carefully. He looked very similar to the boy she had seen that night, the one to be her husband. This man looked different. His eyes, their blue cutting the yellow glow, did not convey curiosity and fear. She could read no fear at all on this man. Only violence nested in those eyes. It shook her to her core.

  “So.” Billy raised an eyebrow, “You all decided to show face. Where’s your King, huh?”

  “You speak so flippantly about forces you can not understand.” spoke the Prophet.

  The gunslinger shook his head, “Don’t give me that crap! Your ‘unknowable’ act ain’t cowing me.”

  Standing silently, the other figures continued to watch him. Billy took the time to study the spell he found himself under very closely. His mind scoured what lay before him on the currents, trying to dissect its nature.

  “You interrupted my snack. That’s not very polite.” his grin grew wider.

  Billy’s Resolve Stall formed, deep and magnificent even in a muted state. In an instant, four shooting lanes appeared between him and the figures. Each one had been sighted and locked, even the Coal Man and the scarecrow behind him. Sensing that this conversation could go nowhere, D dispelled the sorcery which had brought this meeting together.

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  Billy disappeared in an instant, leaving D back in his study. Sitting in her reading chair, Edel breathed heavily. Her heartrate had increased; she placed a hand over her chest.

  The gunslinger-sorcerer snapped and crack of his fingers echoed through their minds,

  In the same instant they appeared back in the black again, the light above their heads now a bright blue. Yet again, they surrounded Billy. He stood in the light wearing that wolfish grin. Edel shivered; her consciousness hadn’t been manipulated by a non-yellow entity before. The cohort of Yellow entities appeared baffled by Billy’s spell. They hadn’t expected to lose control of the encounter so quickly.

  “Cowardice is unbecoming of you Yellow types. Thought this was supposed to scare me, not you.” Billy smirked.

  Overcoming his shock, the Prophet crossed his arms. “The storm is coming, Baird. Do you think you can break the waves by yourself?”

  “You want my honest answer, or the one I’m supposed to give?”

  Pursing his lips, D stepped forward. “I’ll test that confidence of yours. Just wait until we stand face to face. Pain and punishment. This awaits you, Baird.”

  “You’re the one hiding, not me.” Billy dropped his grin. He found that comment aggravating

  “The plan is in it’s next stage. We will gather your son and forge the storm. Then, you’ll watch your own blood put the Posse to the sword. This is YOUR doing, Southpaw. You gave him over to us.”

  D stepped very close to Billy, speaking low, “When your son is ascendant in Yellow, I hope you will know that you did it. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

  His comfortable smile returning, Billy remained unphased. He turned his head to meet the Prophet’s gaze.

  “The last thing you’ll see, when all this gets laid flat, will be me.” Billy’s words echoed through the darkness.

  Edel clasped her hands close, her eyes wide with anxiety. The blue light in the dark barely illuminated the face of this man in front of her. From her point of view, he appeared almost grotesque.

  “Make whatever plans you want, Gary; corrupt all the people you can. It just won’t make any difference.” Billy turned to look at the others, “The only reason you’re all even allowed to exist, is because I haven’t found you yet.”

  His face turned sour again. “That’s going to change. This is not some boast, not a threat. This is reality.”

  Turning back to the silent prophet, he once again fixed his eyes on him, “You may not understand it yet, Gary, or Benoit, or whoever else is in that head of yours. But you will.”

  The two stared at one another a long time, neither one speaking. This exchange hadn’t shaken the Coal Man, but it did pique the interest of the Scarecrow. He shifted a bit, pondering the reality which the sorcerer was trying to convey.

  “I don’t know why you all wanted to talk to me.” Billy took a step forward, beginning to pace between the four figures comfortably, “But I think this has been a pretty productive discussion. Gives me a chance to see all your faces, look you in the eye. And I got to see you again.” He turned and smiled at D. “Both of you.”

  “You’re overestimating yourself.” D shook his head, “But that’s fine. It only creates an advantage for me, and Calvin.”

  Billy stopped, casting more ripples in the water. They reached D’s boots and crashed over his toe.

  “There’s no man, no King, and no God which can save you from me.” clasping his hands together, Billy formed the Rite of Dispel, “Better hope I’m not around when you make all your moves.”

  With his message conveyed, Billy dismissed the spell he had copied from the Prophet. Yet again he stood in the private train car, holding his candied apple.

  “Hey, Mister Baird!” Rodney tilted his head, “You zoned out there. Everything alright?”

  “Fantastic!” Billy grinned, “Just thinking of an old friend, for a second.”

  He plopped himself down on the seat in front of Rodney, crunching on his sweet treat. Casting his gaze upon the chessboard in front of him, he saw that Rodney had taken the white pieces for himself. At first, Billy had assessed that Rodney always took white because he preferred the advantage of first movement. Now, having rolled it around in his head for a bit, Billy understood that Rodney gave him black out of respect for his Resolve. It always made sense for a Six-Gun to remain reactive. That Rodney would understand this conveyed an intelligence Billy hadn’t noticed before in the young Plaidshirt.

  He silently thanked his temporary travelling companion as the first pawn was moved ahead. This moment of contemplation had given Billy his position on the coming storm. He would have to let that thing which Doherty had become make the first move. Billy would keep his black pieces and wait.

  He moved his own pawn forward, in a position to be taken by Rodney’s pawn. Billy wondered if he might let the first sacrifice in the coming fight, give his opponent early confidence. As Rodney took his pawn, Billy mulled over the idea of overextending his enemy, forcing a mistake. He took Rodney’s pawn with his queen, opening up the board for his piece to harass the enemy. In this position, it behooved Rodney to forgo developing his position in favor of hunting the queen. As expected, Rodney moved his knight in a threatening position over the black queen.

  As he continued to play his game and enjoy his apple, Billy Baird made up his own game plan against the Yellow King’s forces. It was clear to him that Calvin would have to play a part, whether willing or unwilling. The Prophet clearly thought that would put Billy in a bind, but the Southpaw knew that it in fact placed the Yellow forces in a bad spot. Just as Rodney focused his moves on taking Billy’s queen, so too the Yellow Cult would focus their moves on taking Billy’s son. This made them both proactive and predictable, a fatal combination in a fight with a true Six-Gun.

  The thought brought the smile back to Billy’s lips. Like a train on a track, they’d end up facing him in the end. He stifled his excitement, reminding himself it would be quite a while before it was time for the pain and punishment.