Dead Man’s Hand (6 page)

Of everything in the shop, the things that most interested him were those eggs. Hunger
gnawed at him. When Morgan was a child, his ma had often sold eggs to folks in town.
She’d taught him young how to handle one, to check it for damage.

“Is Black Pierre around?” Morgan ventured.

“Gone for supplies,” the squaw said. “Back in three, four days.”

The squaw was turning an egg experimentally, studying it. She didn’t look up. Morgan
could see how judging such an egg might be difficult. Most chicken eggs were a uniform
tan in color. Finding blood spots inside was easy. But these eggs were white, with
big specks on them—some sand-colored, others more like liverworts. The shells were
thicker than a chicken egg.

“I’d be right happy to buy some turkey eggs off of you,” Morgan offered.

“Not turkey eggs,” the squaw said, “thunderbird! Traders brought them in this morning.
Found them in an old geyser vent over in Sulfur Springs.”

Morgan had never seen a thunderbird egg before. Back east, they were called “snakebirds”
but had been extinct for at least a hundred years. Down in Mexico, the Spaniards had
called them quetzals, and some of the tribes still prayed to the critters.

“Want to see?” the squaw asked.

She held an egg to the hole in the lightbox, and Morgan peered in. Sure enough, the
light shining through the egg was bright enough to reveal the embryo inside—a birdlike
head with a snake’s body. Many of its bones were still gelatinous, but he could see
its guts forming, a tiny heart beating. Its scales were still almost translucent,
just beginning to turn purple.

“Well, I’ll be!” Morgan whispered. “Didn’t know as there were any snakebirds left.
They’re fading faster than the buffalo.”

“Mmm…” the squaw mused. “The world must get rid of the old wonders, so that it can
make way for the new.”

Morgan thought on that. He’d seen some of the last real buffalo herds as a child,
darkening the plains of Kansas. Now the railroads were coming, and the railroad men
were killing the buffalo off. The big herds were a danger to trains.

He imagined the clockwork gambler. Would such things someday replace men?

“Those eggs for sale?” Morgan asked.

“Not to you. They’re for the Sioux—big medicine.”

“How much you reckon to get?”

“My scalp,” she said. “The Sioux slaughtered General Custer last week at the Little
Bighorn. I’m going to need some gifts, to make peace.”

Morgan didn’t have a lot of money. He was able to buy back his pony and his hat at
the trading post, but couldn’t afford his rifle.

He set off down the Platte toward Fort Laramie, riding overland, well south of the
river, far away from the pioneer trails where the Sioux would concentrate their patrols.

When he reached Fort Laramie, the post was full.

People of every kind had taken refuge just outside the fortress walls in tents and
teepees—gold miners, fur trappers, homesteaders on the Oregon and California trails,
Mormon converts from England and Denmark on their way to Utah, railroad workers of
the Chinese, Irish, Dutch, and Negro persuasions, Omaha Indians and a few Comanches,
Bible thumpers. Morgan had rarely seen such liveliness on the frontier.

He heard a rumor that there was a plague merchant in town—with bottles of black death
and boxes of locust larvae.

Hell, there was even a freak show in town with a three-headed woman, an elephant,
and a genuine Egyptian mummy.

The town hadn’t seen rain in weeks, and so as Morgan entered the fortress, he found
a rainmaker at the front gates—pounding a huge drum that sounded for the world like
the crashing of thunder.

“Come, wind!” the rainmaker shouted. “Arise ye tempest, I say! Let your water soak
the gnarly ground. Let cactus flowers bloom, while toads claw up from the mud!”

Morgan sat on his horse and studied the slim man—a tall beardless fellow in a fine
top hat and tails, who roared as he drummed and stared off toward a few clouds on
the horizon like a lunatic, with manic eyes and a grim smile.

The clouds were drawing near, blackening from moment to moment.

Morgan tossed a penny into the man’s cup. “Keep your eyes on them clouds, Preach,”
Morgan said. “Don’t let ’em sneak off.”

“Thank you, good sir,” the rainmaker said, pausing to wipe sweat from his brow with
a handkerchief. “There will be rain soon. Mark my word.”

Morgan didn’t want the clockwork gambler to know that he was hunting for him. But
the rainmaker seemed like a trustworthy fellow. He hazarded, “I’m looking for a clockwork
gambler. Seen him?”

“You a friend of his?” the preacher asked. His tone became a bit formal, suspicious,
and he backed away an inch.

In answer, Morgan pulled the badge from his pocket, a star made of nickel.

“You’re too late,” the preacher said. “He went on a rampage yesterday. He was sitting
quiet at a card table, and suddenly pulled out his gun and shot a showgirl. There
was a big row. Some cavalrymen drew steel, and seven men died in the firefight. The
gambler escaped.”

“See which way he went?”

The rainmaker nodded toward the clouds. In just the few moments since they’d begun
speaking, Morgan realized that they’d shrunk and had begun to drift away. “He headed
off into the High Frontier, where no one can give chase. There won’t be no posse.
Major Wiggins has got more trouble than he can handle, with them Sioux.”

Morgan had heard tales of the High Frontier, but he’d never been there. Few men had.
There had always been stories of castles in the clouds, but truth is far stranger
than fiction.

“How’d he fly?” Morgan asked.

“Private yacht. He won it in a poker game.”

Morgan wondered. The clockwork gambler was far away by now, more inaccessible than
Mexico, almost as remote as the moon.

The rainmaker said hopefully, “Wells Fargo has a new line that goes to the High Frontier.
Got to stay ahead of them railroads. Schooner lands next Monday.”

“What day is today?” Morgan could guess at the month, but not the day.

“Today’s a Wednesday.”

Five days to get a grub stake together. Morgan bit his lower lip. He’d seen an airship
once, a big copper-colored bulb glowing in the sunset as it sailed through ruddy clouds.
Pretty and untouchable, like a trout swimming in deep, clear water.

“The dance-hall girl,” Morgan said. “She have any friends?”

The preacher squinted, giving an appraising look, and nodded sagely. “You thinking
’bout going after him?”

It seemed audacious. Hunting a clockwork alone was foolhardy, and few men had the
kind of money needed for airfare.

Morgan nodded. “Justice shouldn’t be confined by borders.”

The rainmaker nodded agreement, then thrust a hand into his pocket, pulled out some
bills and change, handed them over. “Here’s a donation for your cause, Lawman. Lacy
didn’t have a lot of friends, but she had a lot of men who longed for her from afar.
Check the saloon.”

Morgan’s heart broke at the mention of Lacy’s name. He remembered the red-haired girl,
her innocent smile. He’d seen her before. But what was she doing in Laramie?

She’d come here for safety, he figured, like everyone else. Scared of the renegades.
They were like sheep, huddled in a pen.

He’d felt so in awe of Lacy, he couldn’t have dared even speak to her, much less ask
to hold her hand. In some ways, she was little more than a dream, a thing of ephemeral
beauty.

The preacher smiled and began pounding his drum with extra vigor. “Come, horrid bursts
of thunder!” he commanded. “Come sheets of fire! Groan ye winds and roar ye rain!”

On the horizon, the clouds darkened and again began lumbering toward Laramie.

* * *

A week later, Morgan found himself in the gondola of a dirigible.

It turned out that Lacy had had a lot of friends in Laramie. Though none was rich
enough to afford passage to the High Frontier on their own, and none was mad enough
to shoot it out with a clockwork, Morgan was able to scrape together enough money
for his passage.

The balloon above the gondola was shaped like a fancy glass Christmas tree ornament,
all covered in gold silk. A steam engine powered the dirigible, providing a steady
thump, thump, thump
as pistons pounded and blades spun.

The gondola swung beneath the huge balloon, connected by skywires. Its decks were
all hewn from new cedar and sandalwood; their scent complemented the smell of sky
and sun and wind.

City slickers and foreigners sat in the parlor cabin, toasting their good fortune
and dancing while bands played.

Morgan could hear their music, smell their roast beef, sometimes even glimpse them
dancing. But he wasn’t a railroad tycoon or a mining magnate or a politician.

He’d taken passage in the lower deck, in the “Belly of the Beast,” as they called
it, and had one small porthole in his cabin to peer through.

Still, the sight was glorious.

The dirigible reached the High Frontier at sunset, just as the sun dipped below the
sea, leaving the clouds below to be a half-lit mass of swirling wine and fuchsia.

One could only find the High Frontier at that time of day—when the sun had set and
the full moon was poised to rise on the far side of the Earth. It was a magical place,
nestled in the clouds.

Down below the skyship, a silver city rose—elegant spires like fairy castles, with
windows lit up like gemstones. The colored glass in those windows made it look as
if sapphires, rubies, and diamonds were scattered over the city.

The skyship landed amid glorious swirling clouds, and the rich folk marched down the
promenade, arm in arm, laughing and joking and celebrating their good fortune. On
the deck, the band came out and played soft chamber music.

Women
oohed
and
aahed
at the spectacle, while men stood open-mouthed. Morgan imagined that saints might
make such sounds as they entered heaven.

The High Frontier had only been discovered four years back. Who had built the silver
castles, no one knew. How the cities of stone floated in the clouds was also a mystery.

Angels lived there—scrawny girls with wings, ethereal in their beauty. But they were
feral creatures, barbaric, and it was said that when the first explorers had entered
the silver city, the angels were roosting over the arches—little more than filthy
pigeons.

Some thought that it had once been an outpost, that perhaps angels had once been wiser,
more civilized, and that they rested here while carrying messages back and forth between
heaven and Earth.

One guess was as good as another. But a new territory was opening up, and folks were
eager to be the first to see it. Morgan couldn’t figure how a man might make a living
here. The sky was always twilit, so you couldn’t grow crops. The clouds were somehow
thick enough to walk on, but there was nothing to mine.

Just a pretty place to visit
, Morgan thought.

When the rich folk were mostly gone, Morgan made his way down the gangplank. A fancy
dude in a bowler hat stood at the top of the gangway, smoking a fine cigar that perfumed
the air.

He glanced at Morgan, smiled, and said, “
Das ist schön, nicht wahr
?”

Morgan grinned back. “Sorry,” he apologized. “I don’t reckon we speak the same language.”

Morgan walked down the gangplank, his spurs jangling with every step, and trundled
through the city. He imagined that madmen had fashioned the soaring arches above the
city gate, now planted with vines and lianas that streamed in living curtains.

Maybe a fella could grow crops up here after all
, he mused,
though the light is low.
Butterflies and hummingbirds danced among the flowers.

As he entered the silver city, spires rose up on either side. There was something
both strange and yet oddly organic about the tall buildings, as if some alien intelligence
had sought to build a city for humans. Perhaps dove-men had designed it, or termites.
He wasn’t sure.

People filed off in a number of directions. It was rumored that many a tycoon had
bought houses here—Cornelius Vanderbilt, Russell Sage, along with royals out of Europe
and Russia. Even Queen Victoria had a new “summerhouse” here.

All the high-falutin’ folks sauntered off to their destinations, and Morgan felt lost.

One fairy castle looked much like another. He searched for an hour, and as he rounded
a corner, he found what he was looking for: the wing doors of a Western saloon. He
could hear loud piano music inside, and smell spilled beer on its oak floors.

He walked into the saloon and found a madhouse.

On either side of the door were golden cages up over his head, and angels were housed
there—small girls, perhaps eight or nine, with fabulous wings larger than any swan’s.
Their hair was as white as spun silver, their faces translucent.

But their dark eyes were lined with a thick band of kohl, as if they were raccoons.
They drew back from Morgan and hissed.

Unbidden, a dark thought entered his mind. When he was a child, Morgan’s mother had
always told him that when a man dies, the angels come to take his soul to heaven.

He could be walking to his death.

A verse from Psalms came to mind, one of his ma’s favorites: “Lord, what is man, that
thou art mindful of him? Or the son of man, that thou visitest him? Thou madest him
a little lower than the angels…”

As if divining his thoughts, one of the angels hissed at him and bared her teeth.
She scooped a turd up from her cage and hurled it. Then grabbed a corn cob and tossed
that, too.

Morgan dodged and hurried past.

Inside, the place was alive. Dance-hall girls strutted on stage to clanking pianos
and catcalls. Men hunched at tables, drinking and telling jokes. It was much like
a saloon, but it suffered from the same miserable clientele as he’d seen on the dirigible—European
barons in bright silk vests and overcoats. Eastern dudes. Moguls and robber barons.