Out of the fire and the heat and the flame stepped a singular figure. It was impeccably garbed in the oufit of a professional gambler, and a successful one at that. Ruffled white shirt with neatly looped black string tie, gleaming black vest beneath black jacket, black pants and boots, all shone as if just lifted from the haberdasher’s shelf. The narrow, vulturine face featured a small, perfectly pointed goatee complemented by a thin mustache, the end curls of which defied logic as well as gravity. The teeth were pointed, as was the switching, ever-moving tail that protruded from the seat of the black pants, and the two small horns on its head punched neatly through the custom-tailored, wide-brimmed black hat. As it approached the mountain man, smiling a smile of immaculate, eternal evil, it extended a hand.
Malone did not shake it. Instead, he nodded a curt greeting.
“Mornin’, Nick.”
“Good morning, Mr. Malone. Good to see you again.”
“Wish I could say the same. You remember that little scrape I got you out of not long these many years ago?”
“Ah yes.” The figure in the gambler’s outfit murmured softly. “I never forget such things. Could have been most personally embarrassing.”
“Well, I’m callin’ in that card today.” Lifting his gaze, he nodded at the still figure of the demon Nagaroth, who had been shocked into immobility. “This ’ere property is now a park. It’s plenty big, with room enough fer all manner o’ critters—but the nature o’ the real estate notwithstandin’, I reckon there jest ain’t no room fer bone-scourin’ demonics.” He smiled thinly. “His is a presence that might have a tendency to dissuade folks who might otherwise be inclined t’ come a-visitin’.”
The gambler turned to confront the demon, who quailed visibly.
“Sire, I was only being myself. By all the sacrosanct laws that govern—”
“Shut up.” Eyes no ordinary human could meet and survive locked on the now-quaking demon. Their owner sighed. “This is what comes of giving the immortal impious a measure of individual independence. They invariably overreach themselves.” He raised a hand, the nails of which, while pointed and sharp as knives, were exquisitely manicured.
“Sire, no, I beg of you, I…!”
Thunder, dark and nasty, rolled across the valley. By the time it had died away, so had the formerly invincible demon Nagaroth. Using both hands to give a little tug-down on the hem of his fine vest, the gambler turned back to the one who had summoned him forth.
“You’re a piece of work, you are, Amos Malone.” Eyes flashed. “I now consider my old debt to you to be repaid. The next time we meet…” His expression, which had begun to darken, was once more replaced by a smile of suave iniquity. “I look forward to the day when our respective positions of strength are reversed, and I can summon you—for a visit to my place of dwelling.”
Malone snorted. “Good thing you’re immortal, ’cause I reckon that’s about how long you’ll have t’ wait. And even when that time cometh, I plan on plantin’ my backside elsewhere.” He glanced skyward. “Still, it’s a fine morning, if a bit chilly. Would be ill-mannered o’ me not t’ offer to share breakfast with a fellow traveler’s acquaintance, however mean and rotten be his immortal self.” He indicated the overturned skillet. “Have to start all over agin, though. Your minion made a mess o’ things.”
Taking a seat on the ground, the gambler indicated his acceptance. “I’m always chilly, up thisaway. I like my bacon and eggs well done, if you please, and my toast—”
“—burnt. I know.” Malone started back for his saddlebags. As he did so, the Devil called after him.
“It is no small matter for one to summon me, much less to readily cancel so powerful an obligation.” He looked back to the place that had formerly been the home of the now banished and disgraced demon Nagaroth. “Something of considerable consequence must have ensued for you to do so.”
Returning with eggs and bacon and bread, Malone whispered a few words to the upended skillet, causing it to tumble and bounce its way across the ground until it was once more comfortably situated above the circle of rocks that surrounded the cooking fire. Occasionally, a flicker of flame would burst forth from beneath the heavy cast iron to caress one of old Nick’s boots, like a cat licking its master.
“Why, I should think it would be obvious, in a place like this.” Tossing the bacon onto the skillet, Malone watched as it started to sizzle. He began cracking eggs. “Your former underling, why, he got me good and steamed.”
Free Elections
Combining science and magic is always a tough proposition. Even more so somewhere like the Old West, where science is apt to extend about as far as discussing the ingredients in lye soap. But when confronted with a problem that involves both, you have to employ both to solve it.
Stubbornness is a quality that can be found in equal measure in scientists and magicians. So is avarice. These human characteristics are present regardless of the profession to which one belongs. Dealing with them means dealing with both, understanding both, and being able to call upon both.
The science of puns being somewhat simpler, and absent of magic, I feel comfortable employing it.
“I’m terribly sorry, sir, but we have no water, and I fear that you will have to drink your whiskey straight.”
Though the young bartender was as tough and wiry as the hardscrabble land on which the drinking establishment in which he was currently employed had been raised, his voice trembled slightly as he explained. It was possible (indeed, it was most likely) that his current uneasy disposition was due to the presence of the customer to whom he was compelled to deliver the apology.
Mad Amos Malone had that effect on folks.
The mountain man did not so much rest at the bar as threaten to swallow it. Indeed, his colossal bulk seemed to fill a good portion of the entire Double Eagle Saloon. Standing slightly over or slightly under seven feet tall, depending on how long it had been since he had last made the acquaintance of a bath, and weighing in the neighborhood (a most inhospitable one, the bartender was certain) of three hundred pounds, give or take when he had last trimmed his enormous black beard, Amos Malone was not a man to be denied. It was therefore with considerable relief that the bartender accepted his gargantuan customer’s reply.
Raising his glass, the mountain man nudged back the wolf’s head that covered his scalp. One of the wolf’s eyes blinked. His gaze attending elsewhere, the bartender missed this particular canine impossibility. “I didn’t know thet Heaven lay this near south o’ Denver,” Malone declared solemnly. Draining the shot in a single gulp, he placed the leaded glass back down on the counter with surprising delicacy. “Another, if you please.”
The bartender hesitated, grinned, wondered if it was wise to be grinning, consequently got his mouth all twisted up like a Baptist preacher caught out on a matter of Scripture by a twelve-year-old in Sunday school, and settled for doing as the stranger requested. This time, Malone sipped the amber liquid instead of inhaling it.
“Not my business, but as a matter o’ curiosity, how come you to be out of something as basic as water, son?”
The bartender nervously stroked his own beard. It was reddish blond, washed, neatly trimmed, and a pale imitation of the facial forest that clung to the mountain man’s face like a gray-flecked thundercloud.
“It’s not just the saloons. Whole town’s out of water. Havin’ to haul it from the Carlos River just so’s the kids will have something to drink.” He shook his head sadly. “Poor womenfolk hereabouts ain’t had a bath in weeks. There’ve been fistfights.”