Portlandtown: A Tale of the Oregon Wyldes (16 page)

“As I recall, it was sunny when we were there last,” offered the one-armed woman.

Mason sneered at the little woman, who only smiled in return.

Garibaldi put a hand on the skinny man’s shoulder. “What’s your assessment then?”

“It could be him—I won’t say it’s not. I saw a ’Gyptian in New York City looked to be a few months out of the ground, but was said to be a thousand years, at least. Someone were to bury a body up north where the ground stays frozen year-round, they might could’ve kept it whole for a time, preserved like what we got here.” The skinny man looked over the Hanged Man once more. “Still, based on the eyes alone, I doubt he could be more than a month gone, probably less.”

“A month!” barked Mason. “Son of a … did you smell him?”

“I did,” said the skinny man. “And I daresay that’s another giveaway. Only the freshly dead stink of it. A dusty old corpse would smell of earth and little more.”

“It’s the curse,” said Henry. “That’s what kept him whole.”

The others in the group, most of whom had barely noticed Henry even when he was telling his story, stared at him now.

“He was a devil in life, kept alive by dark secrets that few men know. He survived the noose, he survived the gun. It wasn’t until a hundred men descended on him with the Lord’s righteous doom that he fell. Check the body. You’ll find at least a dozen holes in addition to the one in his forehead.”

“He was used for target practice,” said the apeman. “Could have been one of you, all we know.”

“Look at the hands,” Henry said. “Tell me, what do you see?”

The skinny man glanced at Garibaldi, who nodded. He then unwrapped the Hanged Man’s right hand, revealing a wrinkled but plump appendage that did little to challenge the skinny man’s assessment of the body’s age. The fingernails, however, told a different story.

“My, my,” said the skinny man. “That is interesting.”

“What?”

The skinny man grasped the Hanged Man’s wrist and raised it for all to see. The nails at the end of the thumb and first finger were black and broken shortly past the tips, but the other three remained intact and curled beyond the digits in uneven corkscrews.

“Take a man quite a few years to grow nails like that,” he said. “A very patient and very careful man.”

“Or a very dead man,” said Henry.

The skinny man hesitated before finally shaking his head. “No, not dead,” he said. “But not living either.”

“What’s that’s supposed to mean?” Mason said.

The skinny man lowered the Hanged Man’s wrist and stood up. He looked at Henry, then at his boss.

“There are methods of preservation that could account for the condition, methods that are not practiced in this part of the world. Not that I’ve seen, anyway.”

Garibaldi frowned. “So, now you’re saying it could be him?”

“I am saying it is possible the body could be a decade old. As to the identity, I have no conclusion.” The skinny man took another look at the corpse. “But if it is him, I would strongly advise against purchase. It’s not worth the trouble.”

The skinny man left the tent without another word. Mason grinned, unable to help himself.

“There you go. It’s him.”

Garibaldi raised an eyebrow. “Not what he said, friend.”

“Oh, then you’ve run across other cursed dead men with scars like this one here?”

The apeman leaned close to his boss and whispered something in his ear.

“Get him,” said Garibaldi.

The apeman exited the tent, leaving Garibaldi and the small woman alone with Mason and his gang. If he was concerned about this situation, he didn’t show it.

“Where’s the gun?”

“What gun?”

Garibaldi smiled. “That I have yet to pass on this obviously unique opportunity should not be taken lightly, Mr. Mason. Do not insult my intelligence. Where is it?”

Mason looked at the weapon on his hip. He pushed back the instinct to draw and instead pulled the gun from its holster and handed it butt-first to the carnival boss.

Garibaldi studied the pistol, turning it over in his hands.

“This was buried with the man?”

“Yup.”

Garibaldi nodded. “A little paint on the handle would help sell it, son.”

“You think I’m lyin’?”

“Are you?”

Mason held his tongue for a moment, then said, “I ain’t afraid to admit it. We dug the son of a bitch up for the pistol.”

“Something beat you to it.”

Mason shrugged. “That was all he had.”

Garibaldi stepped around the corpse. “Body’s worth more with the real weapon. Hell, the gun’s probably worth more than flesh and bone all by itself.”

Henry felt Mason’s stare fall on the side of his head, but didn’t turn. He wasn’t afraid of the man, not anymore, but Mason was still dangerous.

“We’ve got his book,” said Charlie.

Before Henry could stop him, Charlie had reached inside Henry’s coat and snatched the book from his pocket.

“Here,” he said, handing the book to Garibaldi. “It’s got all his black magic in it, and such.”

“No, that’s not part of the deal.”

Henry lunged at the book, but Mason caught him by the collar and held him at arm’s length.

Garibaldi waited for the scrum to end before opening the book. Satisfied, he flipped through the pages, stopping occasionally to study a passage. His eyes drifted across the words, following their meaning for a time before losing interest. He closed the book and flipped it back to Henry.

“Two bits for the book.”

“It’s not for sale,” Henry said, ignoring the hand on his neck that suggested otherwise.

Garibaldi looked at the corpse, then at Mason. “I’ll give you ten dollars for it.”

“Ten? I could get ten from a saloon down in Tillamook.”

“Try your luck then. I got a fellow works for me says he met the man ’fore he was put down. He’s going to take a look at what you’re offering here and if he doesn’t call him risen from the grave, you’ll walk away with nothing, save for your friend, here.”

Mason stared at the carnival master.

“Twenty-five.”

Garibaldi smiled. “Twenty. And for that I’ll keep the weapon, as well.”

Hugh leaned in to Mason. “Take it and let’s be rid of the thing.”

Mason glanced at Henry, eyeing the book in his hand. Henry clutched it even tighter.

“Twenty, then,” he said, and held his hand out across the Hanged Man’s body. Garibaldi took it, shook once, and let go.

“Mary?”

The one-armed girl drew a small purse from her blouse and passed it to her boss. He drew forth a handful of coins and passed them to Mason.

“Some fine shows on tap tonight. Stick around, if you like. No charge.”

“Thanks,” said Charlie.

Mason finished counting the coins and then nodded. “We could take in a show.”

Garibaldi gave another half smile and then turned toward the exit just as the apeman returned with another man covered in mud up to his chest.

The circus boss stopped the new arrivals and turned them around, but not before the muddy man got a look at the corpse on the ground. His eyes went wide and his mouth slipped open. Henry thought the words on his lip might’ve been
it’s him,
but he was shuffled out of the tent before they could be heard.

*   *   *

Mason, Hugh, and Charlie celebrated their successful sale by spending most of the profits at a drinking establishment in Tillamook. Henry joined in the first round, but soon retreated to a corner of the saloon that offered just enough light to read. Hugh and Charlie were content to let him be, but Mason eventually sought Henry out, a half-empty bottle in his hand.

“You owe me two bits.”

Henry looked up from the book. He’d just finished rereading the passage containing the spell he’d used on Charlie the night before. The words were still clear in his mind. Given the man’s inebriated state, it would be very easy to talk Mason into smashing the bottle over his head and then using the broken shards to slit his own throat. Henry could almost see it. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a single coin.

“Here’s a dollar. Keep the change.”

Mason snatched up the coin, grunting under his breath. He started to turn, but hesitated.

“I can read, too.”

“Can you?” Henry said, gripping the book a little tighter.

“My mama taught me. Maybe I take me a read from that book, see if I can’t find out what’s got you so interested.” Mason leaned over the table. “What say you to that?”

Henry tilted forward in his chair. Mason’s eyes were barely able to keep focus, but as the young man drew close, they seemed to still.

“It’s like nothing you’ve ever known,” he said, his voice smooth and inviting. “It’s alive and speaks in the language of your soul. It speaks only the truth. Do you want to know the truth? Are you ready to hear it?”

Henry set the book on the table.

“Shall I read to you?”

Mason felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. What senses weren’t buried beneath half a bottle of whiskey suggested he step back from the table immediately, but his legs refused to do their part.

Henry cracked open the book. “I know just the passage.”

Mason blinked and, for just a moment, saw clearly that Henry was dangerous, very dangerous. He would have to go, the sooner the better.

Mason shook his head and used the bottle to push himself upright. “You’re not through with us, you know. You ain’t proved nothin’ yet.”

Henry smiled and closed the book. “I wasn’t out to prove anything, Bill. I’m just along for the ride.”

Mason took another long drink from the bottle and stumbled back from the table, catching himself before he fell.

“Friends,” he said, addressing no one particular. “The circus is in town. Got a hell of a freak show, I hear.”

“Seen it,” said a man at the bar.

“Did you, now? Good for you!” Mason swallowed another tilt of the bottle. “But they got a new freak, just today. Might be worth a look.”

Henry watched Mason stumble down to the other end of the bar, where a pair of young women lingered. He held up the coin Henry had just given him. Neither woman seemed particularly impressed, but one of them took the dollar and led Mason down a hall and out of sight.

The saloon was quiet for a time, more suitable for reading.

*   *   *

A thick fog bank had rolled over the coast by the time Henry and the others returned to the carnival. Despite the gloom, the midway was crowded with townsfolk eager to explore the many games of chance, live performances, and other oddities on display. Lit by torchlight, the colorful tents and attractions took on an otherworldly glow in the mist.

On one stage, a man in a top hat introduced Mandu and Wattu, the Wild Men of Borneo. A diminutive, dark-skinned man in a tight-fitting suit scrabbled onstage to stand next to the barker. This was Mandu, the gentle savage, refined in the ways of Western man. His less-refined twin, Wattu, soon appeared through a trapdoor in the stage, shrieking and wagging his tongue (and other appendages) at the crowd.

Across the midway, a broad-shouldered man with an even broader mustache balanced a long iron bar on his head weighed down on either side by squirming children. He shared his stage with an equally bulky woman who had snatched up two men from the crowd and now held them aloft with a single hand. The men squirmed more than the children.

Content simply to sit and watch the faces of the locals react was Fanny Brown, the Big Foot Girl of Oregon. She reclined in a rocking chair, an afghan draped over her legs. When a patron drew near she pulled back the blanket to reveal a pair of puffed and disfigured size-36 feet. The more revulsion she engendered, the more her delight.

A half-dozen similar performers and prodigies lined the path to the big top. There were other tents and trailers, some with small lines of people waiting to see the likes of Madame Morgana or the Human Flame. Henry was content to stroll the midway, but Hugh and Charlie soon went in search of a performer they’d encountered earlier, explaining that the “lady in knots” required their company. Mason, too drunk to keep up, lingered at Henry’s side.

“Where’s the dead man?” he said, scanning the crowd. “There he is!”

Mason staggered toward a small stage at the end of the midway, knocking a pair of children over in the process. Henry followed, though not so close as to be an obvious friend of the drunkard.

Onstage, the skinny man stood beneath a sign proclaiming him to be the “Living Dead Dude.” He wore a long, hooded robe that covered everything but his sunken face. There were gasps of horror when the robe slipped to the stage, revealing not so much a man but a skeleton clad only in a short loincloth. He strode to the edge of the dais and spread his arms wide.

“I am the living dead,” he said in a voice much deeper than what Henry remembered from their earlier meeting. “Do not fear me.”

“You’re not the dead man,” Mason mumbled and then staggered off through the crowd.

The skinny man eyed Mason, then slowly turned his gaze to Henry. “Do you fear the dead that walk upright, young man?”

“No.”

“A brave soul.” The skinny man cast his gaze upon a couple standing to Henry’s side, who quickly shrunk back. “Braver than most.”

“He’s right, though,” Henry said. “You’re no dead man.”

The skinny man’s eyed darted back to Henry. “Do not speak ill of the deceased, my friend.” He then dropped from the stage and was upon Henry in one swift, fluid motion. There were more gasps from the audience, many of whom backed away.

Henry didn’t flinch.

The skinny man leaned in, his cheekbone nearly touching Henry’s. When he spoke, his voice was a whisper that only Henry could hear. “Hold your tongue so far from home, Henry Macke. The dead hear more than you think.”

Before Henry could respond, the skinny man slipped back onto the platform and climbed beneath his robe. He cast a sweeping gaze across the crowd and then disappeared into a small tent behind the stage.

Henry stood for a moment as the crowd dispersed before going in search of Mason.

*   *   *

Henry found the man in front of a tent second only to the big top in overall size. A long line of people filed through the front entrance, a line that snaked its way halfway around the tent and then back onto the midway. A hastily made sign declared that for only a dime a person could view the corpse of the Hanged Man. John Garibaldi himself stood outside the tent, declaring that this attraction was required viewing for any man, woman, or child who wanted to see the
real
West.