Straightening, the miner stared at the mountain man. “I don’t know what you did, sir, and I don’t know what I saw, but speakin’ for myself I am eternal grateful.” He gestured at the community below. “My friends and neighbors are assuredly also, and forever will be.”
Malone nodded once, then walked over to and swung himself up on his peculiar horse. The animal grunted and proceeded to utter what Green would later swear was possibly the absolute worst, most insulting single word in the entire English language, stretching all the way back to the Saxon, and ambled forward.
“Wait! Sir, if you wouldn’t mind—if you don’t mind—what exactly happened here?”
Malone did not pull back on the reins he was holding, but Worthless stopped nonetheless. “Why, feller-me-lad, ’twas all a matter of settin’. Of seeing which man could sit the most still. I’ve done such myself before, in other lands and days, and thought I could do so well enough here on the fringe o’ your parched reality. See, now and then I like t’ set a spell myself.
“What finally happened was all about what goes to make up a man. And mebbe pretty much everything else. We all of us seem to ourselves to be still when we set, but in truth we’re not. Though we cannot see them, the parts of which we are made are always in motion. Look at yourself. What d’you see? Movement, or stillness?”
Green looked down at himself, then back up at the mountain man. “Not to stand here in dispute with you, sir, but I must confess that I look still and unmoving to me.”
Malone smiled broadly, which action had the remarkable effect of transforming his appearance from that of a two-legged incarnation of imminent Doom to something approaching a sooty Saint Nick.
“A common illusion, friend. I assure you thet the tiniest parts of us are always in motion, though far too small to see. When I was at the Sorbonne, I discoursed much on the phenomenon with a charming young lady named Maria. Maria Skłodowska. Old Greek feller name o’ Democritus was also mentioned, I recall, and other learned gentlemen of antiquity. I’ve come t’ believe that each of us is at base composed of particles thet choose to comprise us. I conclude it is all a matter o’ electivity, this life and existence. We choose t’ hold together, therefore we are. I therefore have decided to call these tiny bits o’ which we are made ‘elections,’ as they elect to keep things together, much as we do with our country.” Raising his gaze, he focused on a part of the now-cerulean sky.
“But stay too still, fer too long, and the elections o’ which we are composed kin no longer hold together. They begin t’ fly apart. It is the same, I think, with everything. Rocks and trees, water and clouds, stars and sun. All and everything is made up o’ these tiny, unseen elections. The late unpleasantness who called himself Versus Wrathwell sat too still and too long and too tight, until his bits could no longer elect t’ remain together. Could no longer hold to their little orbits, as it were, and became free to fly off in whatever and whichever direction they wished.”
Asa Green found his own gaze turning to the same portion of sky at which the mountain man was staring. “So they flew apart. D’you think they kin come together again?” Blinking at the restored sunshine, he lowered his sight until it was once more fixed on the huge man sitting straight and sure on the decidedly peculiar horse. “To make that hideous old feller whole afresh?”
“I doubt it.” This time Malone did chuck the reins. Muttering under his breath, the stallion moved off toward town. “Once set free, I don’t think elections can bind together easy again. Leastwise, not in a way that would result in producing something like Versus Wrathwell.”
“Where you goin’?” Green called after the butt end of the stallion that was as unidentifiable as it was massive.
“Town, o’ course. I’m hungry, and I’m thirsty, and I’ve a mighty powerful urge to pay an extended visit to the nearest long drop.”
“There’s water now. Water aplenty.” Asa Green raised his voice as the mountain man rode slowly down the hill. “Thanks to you, Mr. Malone sir, there’s all the water you can drink!”
Turning slightly in the saddle, Amos Malone slapped firmly at something that was scuttling about within one of his saddlebags. It promptly went still, though a small puff of irritated gray smoke emerged from where the opening was not quite sealed.
“Water! Why, feller-me-lad, d’you think I’m mad?”
Ghost Wind
Not just Native Americans but many traditional cultures believe that every manifestation of Nature is possessed of a spirit. It doesn’t matter if it’s a tree, a rock, a river, or a cricket, the lowest meadow or the highest mountain. In these mythologies everything is alive in some fashion and therefore deserving of respect and perhaps, depending on its nature, propitiation. The Makonde, a tribe of modest dimension in East Africa, not only have a name for such spirits (shetani), but their best artisans turn blackwood into spirit sculptures of exquisitely terrifying proportions.
Many such communities believe in an “ill wind” far more deeply than our casual saying is meant to imply. But imagine: If an ill wind is a spirit, then what is the spirit of the spirit? If a tree has a soul, what lies beyond that?
And would we want to encounter it…?
“I’m not going in there.”
Barker’s manicured fingers rolled and twisted like a nervous baker kneading invisible dough. “But you got to, Doc. The man’s plain ill. Ain’t there an oath or somethin’ about how you got to take care of a body when they’re sick?”
“A human being, yes.” A wizened Doc Stanton kept his distance from the door that either led to room 12 of Bales Barker’s hotel or to Hell. “I’m just not sure that the thing reposing within is human.”
Outside, the mournful breeze that had been blowing all morning had picked up, sending papers and other debris whipping down Main Street.
“He’s human enough.” Both men turned to look at Hearts Doland, who had emerged from bed considerably earlier than was the professional gambler’s wont. Whip-thin of body, mien, and mustache, he calmly returned the questioning stares of the doctor and the owner of the venerable establishment. “Two days ago Addie the Well spent the night with him. That not-so-good woman lies resting still in her bed, sleeping off the aftereffects of what I am told was a profitable but wearying encounter. I had occasion to speak to her about the evening in question as she was dragging her way up the stairs. It is plain from the brief words we had that she would testify to his humanness, exceptional though it might be.”
Still wringing his hands, a pleading Barker turned back to the town physician. “You see, Doc? You’re obligated to treat him. You got to make him well. It’s your sacred duty. It’s the right thing to do. The poor man is suffering, Doc!”
Stanton’s gaze narrowed behind his wire-rim glasses. “You want him out of your hotel really badly, don’t you?”
Barker met the older man’s stare. “Please, Doc. You gotta help him. You gotta help me. When he sleeps, he snores, and when he snores, the vibration starts to workin’ the nails out o’ the walls and the floor beams. If he coughs, the sound wakes every guest in the place and the horses in the stable next door try to bolt. And if he blows his nose— if blows his nose…” The hotel owner shuddered. “You don’t wanna know, Doc.”