Dead Sand: Part 2-Buzzard Creek: Section 2

Hello everyone! Here's the second section for the second part of "Dead Sand." I hope you enjoy!

That deputy ain’t worth a lick for watchin’ Dance. I’ll need more men over there if I’m at least to get some peace. The batwing doors opened without a creak, yet still some eyes followed him as he walked in. Most were engaged in their afternoon bouts of gambling and drinking, while the girls danced and the ragtime keened. A magician even performed on the stage. He spotted the marshal toward the back of the saloon, talking to a pair of farmhands dressed in brown-stained dungarees. He got to the bar and ordered himself a shot of Jack’s Nine. While there, he took a moment to observe the citizens of Buzzard Creek. They were like most men and women settling in the Wilds. They were rough, raucous, and indulgent, yet possessed that peace of self and earned confidence that came with living life outside the towering civilizations of the Republic. They were on discovery’s edge; standing on the known world’s absolute apex and they knew it. But that’s what made their lives all the more wholesome. A trait he found prevalent in both himself and all who dared live their lives past the Fringe Line.

But, looking closer, he noticed something wrong. It was unusually quiet for an afternoon in a saloon. There was a somber, almost tremulous note that hung in the air and passed between the silent, shuffling of cards, the joyless downing of whiskey, and the jotted, lackadaisical, and melancholic tinkling of the piano notes. Not to mention several were visibly ill, their skin pale and their frames shaking from deep spasms of coughing, much like Deputy Winterfield.

“Why the long, face stranger?”

She was a gorgeous thing, despite the cheapscent that stuck to her like sweat to a mule. Blonde hair done up in a tower of curls topped with a black feather that dangled sultrily in front of her face, tall, and eyes so blue they made the sky look lackluster. Her makeup made her face look impossibly smooth, which the hunter knew was its job anyhow. But it did little to gain his interest. He rolled a cigarette and lit it. “Just thinkin’” he said, not making eye contact with her.

She put a hand on his shoulder and brought her mouth closer to his ear. “Of what?”

Hawthorn smiled inwardly. She knows her trade, that’s for sure. He decided to indulge her.

“How the folk here don’t seem all that happy. Like something’s gone and sucked the life from the air.” he said. He took a puff and let a stream of the smoke out his mouth.

The saloon girl’s tone suddenly lost all its seductiveness. “I think you’re the first stranger to notice.”

“Am I? Well, don’t that say all. What’s been the cause?”

“I don’t know. Nothing and everything. There’s a strange bug goin’ round, no one knows why or how. People are gettin’ sick for no reason. Like Deputy Winterfield. He just got sick all of a sudden. Sides that, other folk are disappearing.”

An exclamation from the stage interrupted their conversation. The magician was trying a new trick. “Ladies and gentlemen.” he said, with a flourish of his black silk cape. Hawthorn took a moment to study the apparent sorcerer. He was young, with slick-black hair curling down his neck. Handsome, but with that characteristic naivete that plagued men like him. Furthermore, the way he talked and handled himself were those of a man neither born nor accustomed to the Wilds. He was an outsider in every way. An Easterner.

A two-bit dandy if I ever did see one.

“If I might have your attention, I am about to perform my most daring…!” A hoot of fanfare from behind the curtain. “Most spectacular…!” Another hoot from the trumpets. “Most mind-bending feat of illusion you shall ever witness!” And with those words two assistants dressed in black lace stockings and purple and black vests that looked tighter than straight-jackets and made their breasts bulge came out from behind the curtains wheeling a tall case-box on its end. They set in the middle of the stage for all to see.

The magician wasn’t finished. “As I, Swinton the Wonderful, attempt to make one of my lovely assistants here before you,” the two women posed for the crowd, “disappear!”

There was some scattered clapping and a harsh cough from an obscure corner of the saloon to serve as the crowd’s response. But that did not deter the magician.

“Esmerelda, my lovely.” Swinton the Wonderful said. The assistant he addressed came to his side. “Ladies and gentlemen, this Esmerelda the Enchanting, and she has graciously volunteered to amaze you!” Again, there was scattered applause and a cough.

The other assistant opened the case-box and Esmerelda entered. Swinton and the assistant closed the box. Then Swinton the Wonderful waved his wand over the box in flurry of random motions. From his mouth came a slew of rapid, convoluted phrases and words that Hawthorn knew to be nothing but gibberish. And from the looks on the crowd’s faces, the thought was mutual. Swinton the Wonderful finished his flinging of the wand and opened the case-box. Not so surprisingly, the assistant was still there. Much surprisingly, her clothes seemed to have vanished, leaving her standing there in her drawers. A storm of laughter erupted throughout the saloon. Esmerelda the Enchanting stood aghast and horrified, trying to cover herself while glaring murder at Swinton the Wonderful.

The magician faced the crowd and stammered out an excuse. “I’m sorry…ladies and er—uh, gentleman—there seems to have been—a, uh—malfunction with my wizardry.” All eyes went to the assistant as she stepped from the box and tapped Swinton the Wonderful on his shoulder. She smacked him, the sharp whack echoing. More laughter than before. The magician looked just as shocked as she had. The other assistant ushered Esmerelda off the stage as Swinton the Wonderful called after them. “Ladies, I’ll need help to move the case-box!”

Hawthorn chuckled. Not dissappearin’ like that, I hope. He returned his attention to his and the saloon girl’s conversation. “So, tell me what you mean by these folks dissapearin’.”

She shook her head. “Exactly. They just go and don’t come back. Husbands, sons, farmers, mill workers. About couple dozen now have disappeared, leavin’ no reasons or any trace of any kind to give a clue.”

Hawthorn mulled that over. “That’s unusual. Any ideas as to who or what’s been doin’ the takin’?”

“None of us bother thinkin’ about it anymore. Most don’t want to.”

Hawthorn scratched his chin and put out his dying cigarette on the nearby ash tray. “What’s the sheriff over there done?” Hawthorn said, nodding to lawman, who had just finished talking to the pair of workers and was now riddling his thoughts with whiskey.

“Marshal Howett’s doin’ all he can.” she said.

“Is this lady botherin’ you, sir?” The question was so blunt Hawthorn didn’t notice that the voice wasn’t human. “No, she…” he had turned around to meet eyes with the asker, and instead found himself looking at an automaton bartender with a metallic mustache curling up and under his optic receptors.

“She ain’t.” he finished.

The automaton’s mustached twitched upward, as if in a skeptical smirk. He looked to Giselle with what amounted as ire for an automaton. “Well, Miss Black here has a reputation for insisting when the customers are not interested. A habit that runs off business.”

Miss Black went a little red with indignation. “Name me one time that that has happened Charlie? Have I ever cost you any business? The only reason you’re so uptight is because of that time a customer threatened to bust your head off with his boot because I said ‘no’ to him.”

The automaton’s mustache twitched. “I just don’t want you bothering my customers!”

“Well, she ain’t, bucko.” Hawthorn said, his tone hard. The automaton went silent. “And if she were, I’d let her know. Miss Black here is bein’ kind and talkative, which I believe is what you pay her to do.” He stared the automaton down with his mismatched eyes. “If she missteps, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

“O—of course, sir.” And Charlie turned away and went back to his work, cleaning glasses.

“Charlie’s good, but he gets too worried about his own bolts sometimes.” Miss Black said. She chuckled lightly. “And to be fair, I was takin’ it you weren’t much interested anyway, were you, stranger?”

“Nah. Too much work to do. But I’m always up for a chat with a beautiful woman as much as the next man.”

She smiled sadly, not meeting his eyes. “Well, I thank you, stranger.”

“My pleasure, Miss Black.” And away he went to the sheriff’s table. When he got there he found the lawman staring into his glass of whiskey, eyes staring into nothing and loaded with thought. “I hear whiskey’s for drinkin’, not for starin’ contests.”

The sheriff laughed sheepishly. “Usually, but my mind’s been wrastlin’ such that even an amber river can’t calm it down. Of course, that’s what I get for this profession...” The sheriff left his trance to look up at Hawthorn. He instantly caught sight of the bounty hunter’s appearance. “Well, that’s an interestin’ taste in jewelry you got there, stranger. And those eyes…ain’t seen anythin’ like ‘em before.”

“Yeah. I like to think I’m one of a kind.” Hawthorn said. “Mind if I sit?”

“Not at all. I ain’t movin’ anywhere.”

“Obliged.” Hawthorn took a seat and met the sheriff’s eyes. The lawman and himself looked to be about the same age. Flecks of gray frayed the sheriff’s mustache, stubble, and sideburns while the beginnings of age-lines cut through his skin, which possessed that hard-bitten, dried-ruggedness only achieved by facing the desert time and time again. There was a grizzled and aged look to his lake-blue eyes and features that Hawthorn knew only too well. The look of a man who had seen and done too much, but was ready to keep doing more.

“To what do I owe the pleasure, stranger?”

Hawthorn lit himself another cigarette. “I’ve got myself a prisoner locked away inside your jail.”

The sheriff lifted an eyebrow. “You a bounty hunter?”

“Yeah.”

The sheriff’s eyes narrowed. “Your name wouldn’t happen to be Hawthorn, would it?”

“Damn straight, it is.” Hawthorn said.

The sheriff laughed lightly. “Well, here I am sittin’ with the Brute Slayer himself.” To Hawthorn’s surprise and interest, the sheriff showed no sign of awe or skeptic suspicion. His eyes looked upon his mismatched ones with a glint of respect. “So, who is it you got stowed away in my little cell?”

“Jack Dance.”

The sheriff laughed again. “Shoulda’ figured. You got a request?”

“Yeah. I need more men on him besides that wheezin’ greenhorn you got back there.”

The sheriff nodded understandingly and took a drink from his whiskey. “Yep. Whatever bug got Winterfield’s been bitin’ several others in town.” He indicated with a finger the others that were sick in the saloon. “I’ll get you some men, but I tell you now that experts are hard to find ‘round here. Buzzard Creek ain’t much for reliability these days, especially with all the folk goin’ missin’ and all.”

Hawthorn downed his shot. “Any idea what’s causin’ that?”

Howett shook his head. “Not a damn inkling.” he rested his chin on his fist. “The whole town’s scared, Hawthorn. Husbands, children, wives, all goin’ missin’. People gettin’ sick for no reason. And I got no idea how to stop it.”

Hawthorn nodded with sympathy. The man before him was a man without a hope; every idea he had was spent. But there was a flicker. “There is one trail that hasn’t run cold yet.”

Hawthorn raised an eyebrow. In all truth, he his interest in the mystery was purely superficial at best; true, he pitied the sheriff and the town. But his priority was Dance and the object and getting them to Redemption as soon as possible. Revik’s intervention had slowed him down, as well as Gordonson’s all the way back in Gideonville. Every moment spent in Buzzard Creek was another moment that the competition got closer to picking up their trail. And there’s always plenty of competition.

But still, he decided to indulge in the mystery. “What’s this last bit of trail you found?” he said.

“A Mister Tally left behind a note before he disappeared.” The sheriff quickly took it out of his pocket and handed it to Hawthorn. The writing was scribbled, choppy, and nigh unreadable. Yet he was able to make out, just barely, what it said: “goin’ out to the Old Well. Today, I’m gettin’ Cleansed…” There was something in just those few words that gave Hawthorn a peculiar feeling that tingled down his spine. There was something…determined in them. Fanatical in devotion.

“Mighty cryptic.” Hawthorn said, handing the note back.

“Yeah. But it’s all I got.”

“So, I take it you’re goin’ to the Old Well?”

“Got to. Part of the job.” he rubbed the back of his neck, a telltale sign he was holding something back. Hawthorn let him go on. “But I would like to have a hand on the way. I’m worried about the scale of this…whatever’s goin’ on.” the sheriff paused, as if to let his words sink in. “You wouldn’t be interested in helpin’, now would you, Mister Hawthorn?”

Hawthorn took out his cigarette and doused it on the ash tray. “Afraid I can’t, sheriff. I’ve got business of my own that I need to attend to. Most urgent business.”

“What if I paid you?” the sheriff said.

Hawthorn chuckled. “No offense, but I’m already bein’ offered more money than this town could scrounge in a decade.”

Howett nodded. “That’s maybe true, but money is still money.”

He had a point there. Hawthorn scratched his chin. “I’m a bounty hunter, not a detective.”

“Also true, but you’ve got skills that most folk in this town don’t got. Besides that,” and he frowned at this next point. “as I said before, a lot of folk are scared. They don’t want to get involved with anything if it means they wind up sick or missin’ themselves. But I got a feelin’ you ain’t afraid of things like that, now are you?”

“I ain’t.” Hawthorn said. He rolled himself another cigarette and lit it, thinking on the sheriff’s words. The offer was a little intriguing, but the matter of Dance and the object still stood. He couldn’t afford to tarry and he knew it; so many wanted Dance and that cursed whatever-it-was for Redemption’s bounty. Revik was just the beginning; for all he knew, a whole host of his rivals were on their way to Buzzard Creek now. And yet…something about the sheriff’s imploring touched him. Maybe it was that old sense of duty to doing the right thing that had been bread in him since he was a child by his old man. That same exact sense that had stopped Gordonson’s men from harassing that saloon girl back in Gideonville. He once again spared a look to the people of Buzzard Creek, and again he saw their fear. Their despair and utter hopelessness hung in the air like a dark dryness that brought unending draught.

He made his decision. “How much are you willin’ to pay?”

The sheriff smiled. “800.”

Hawthorn took a long drag. “Make it 850 and you got a deal.”