The Peregrine Omnibus, Volume Two (110 page)

Curious now, the clerk took in the rest of the picture, examining the man’s dusty boots, rugged dungarees and a flannel shirt. The clothing was all very nice, despite the worn nature of their appearance, making theclerk wonder if the stranger was from the big city. In the clerk’s right hand was clutched a clasped box about the size of a small shoe box. It was carved of wood and looked very old.

“Can I help you?” the clerk asked. As the stranger approached, the clerk made sure to show off the hand-made name tag he wore. It read ‘Rusty’ in big block letters. “Need a place to stay, I reckon?”

“Yes. Thank you.” The stranger’s voice sounded strangely disbelieving and Rusty straightened, wondering if he was going to be like the last city fellers who came through… always laughing and pointing at the ‘hicks’ in Eagle Eye.

“Where from?” Rusty asked, pulling a ledger out from under the desk. He pushed it towards the stranger, who deftly picked up a pen and signed his name in a flourish.

“Atlanta.”

Rusty nodded, taking a gander at the ledger as he did so. “Well, that’ll be four bits, Mr. Davies.”

“Just call me Max,” the stranger replied, pushing several shiny coins at Rusty. The clerk stared at them for a moment, lifting them up and examining them closely. “Those are United States currency,” the man said, seeking to soothe Rusty’s doubts.

“They look funny,” Rusty muttered. He deposited them in a drawer with a last glance at Max and snorted. He set a key on the counter top. “Nice set o’guns, Mister.”

“Thanks. I modified them myself.”

“Mind if I ask what you do for a living?”

“I’m self employed. Where’s my room?”

“Upstairs, third floor. Room 6. There’s a small dining area right around the corner from here. That’s where you’ll find Mabel. She bakes the best apple pie you’ve ever tasted.”

“I’ll have to give it a try,” Max said. He dropped the key in the pocket of his shirt and leaned forward, subtly pushing the box he held towards Rusty. “Do you know where I could find a man named Joe Gentry?”

Rusty nodded, smiling a bit. When he did, he revealed several missing teeth and several more that looked in poor shape. “Sure. Joe hangs out at the saloon. He’s there most every afternoon and evenin’.”

“Thanks.” Max glanced past Rusty and noted the yellowed calendar that hung on the wall. It was nothing fancy, just a large sheet of white paper on which a series of squares had been drawn in pencil. A number of the day squares had been crossed through with a large X. “Rusty, can I ask you something you might find a little strange?”

“I’ve heard just about everythin’ in this job,” Rusty answered with a laugh. “What do you need to know?”

“What year is this?” Max asked, his face serious.

Despite his bluster, the question caught Rusty off guard. He sputtered for a moment before answering. “Why, it’s 1884. Why on Earth did you ask a question like that?”

Max said nothing, instead choosing to incline his head in thanks. He headed up the stairs, box still in hand. The clerk’s answer had confirmed his suspicions… there was something terribly wrong in the town of Eagle Eye—while everyone seemed to believe themselves still in the 19thcentury, the truth was that it was currently October 1943… and a World War was raging outside the confines of this anomalous little town.

CHAPTER II

The Peregrine Goes Hunting

Max Davies washed off and took a few moments to rest his tired bones before heading back downstairs. Though he was surprisingly vital for his age, he was 43 years old and the hard ride into town had left him weary. He’d flown a private plane as far as he could but the engine had begun sputtering nearly a hundred miles outside of Eagle Eye, confirming the rumors he’d heard about the area. Modern technology seemed to be adversely affected by something in the area… and that was just the beginning of the problems Max was now confronting.

Eagle Eye itself had once been a thriving town, the very epitome of the rugged Wild West that had become a staple in popular fiction. But in 1884, things had gone horribly wrong… every man, woman and child had vanished, leaving behind all their belongings and homes. The place had become a ghost town, forgotten by all but the most ardent of history buffs.

Two weeks ago, the strange little box that Max now possessed ended up in Atlanta. Its owner told of a bizarre town into which he’d wandered with some friends. They’d run afoul of the locals and all but one of the group had been killed… the man who’d fled ended up passing on the evidence of his journeys to Max.

Truth be told, the transfer of the box hadn’t been done willingly. Max was known in the darker shadows of Atlanta as a masked vigilante, one who called himself the Peregrine. Under that guise, he had done his best to clean up the city over the last decade… and his exploits had sometimes spanned not just the nation but the entire globe. When he’d heard rumors about the box and its contents, he’d gone in search of its owner… and found a man who should have been in his mid thirties, but who instead looked like he was over 90… and aging fast.

The Peregrine had forced the truth from the man, who had seemed unwilling to part with his treasure: a box containing a number of gold coins, all dating back to the 19th century. Max had carefully handled the box after procuring it from the man, who had literally crumbled to dust before his eyes. At first he had feared that any contact with the box might be enough to activate whatever curse lay upon it… but now he had changed his views on the matter. He believed that it wasn’t the acquisition of the box that had brought death upon this man… it had been something else related to his time in Eagle Eye.

All of that had brought Max to the place that should not exist, a town that existed outside of time.

Max sauntered into the saloon after having a brief but delicious meal in Mabel’s restaurant. True to Rusty’s word, the apple pie had been delicious.

The saloon was a noisy, boisterous place. Two women were doing a high-kicking dance on a stage nearby, their movements accompanied by the steady rhythm of a piano player. Max still held the box of coins at his side and he scanned the crowd for a man who matched the description he’d gotten from Rusty after dinner. He spotted Joe Gentry towards the back of the bar, a shapely brunette perched on his knee. She was playfully pushing him away from her neck, which he’d been attempting to kiss. Max had a feeling that this particular scene had played itself out many times before.

Gentry was in his early fifties and grizzled to the extreme. His skin was leathery from exposure to the sun and his prickly beard looked unkempt. He wore a scarf about his neck and a hat was perched roguishly atop his head.

Max approached their table, stopping just a few feetaway. The girl noticed him first, looking up at him with interest. Gentry followed her gaze and frowned as he did so. “You want somethin’, mister?” he demanded in a gruff voice.

“I want to ask you a few questions about Harry Pinsler. He came through here a few weeks back with some friends of his and—”

“What about him?” Gentry asked, roughly pushing the girl away from him. She let out a huff and stalked away, smoothing down her dress. She cast an angry glare at Max, obviously blaming him for the loss of hard-earned money this evening.

“You and your friends gunned down the men who were with him,” Max stated without emotion.

“Yeah and we’d do it again, too. They were good fer nothin’ city fellas. Laughed at us like we were hicks. Are you a good fer nothin’ city fella?”

“He stole this from you, I believe,” Max answered, refusing to be baited into a conflict with Gentry. He had no doubt he could take the man in a fair fight but nothing about Gentry made him believe there’d be anything fair about the conflict.

Gentry’s eyes widened when he saw the box. Max set it down just in front of him but the grizzled cowboy didn’t make any move to take it. “He didn’t steal it from me. He stole it from… someone else.”

“Who? Who did he steal it from?”

“Why do you want to know?” Gentry seemed to recover his footing and leaned back in his chair, taking out a rolled cigarette. He lit it after striking a match to his boot. “Seems to me if you know what happened to him, you’d know that this isn’t something you should be stickin’ your nose into…”

Max reached and turned over Gentry’s table, spilling his drink on the floor and knocking the box to the very edge, where it hung precariously. The entire room grew quiet as everyone turned to stare at the scene unfolding in the corner. Several of the men quickly began placing bets on who would survive the confrontation. Max drew one of his pistols and pointed it straight at Gentry’s chest. “I don’t have time to play games with you. Every second I’m in this godforsaken place puts me at risk. So I’m going to ask you one last time: who does this chest belong to?”

“Better put down that gun, boy,” someone said from behind Max. Gentry laughed and nodded but Max’s only reply was to sigh in annoyance.

The Peregrine dropped down and spun, kicking out a foot and using it to sweep the legs out from under Gentry’s friend. A tall man went down on the ground, losing his grip on a handgun he’d been brandishing at Max’s back. The Peregrine quickly rose to a standing position and fired two bullets into the man’s leg. As the wounded man began to moan in pain, he turned back to Gentry. “Are you going to answer me or do you want to join your friend on the floor?”

Gentry stared at him coldly for a moment before breaking into a hearty laugh. He stood, holding his hands upright. “I’ll be more than glad to take you to him, stranger. But I gotta warn you… you might wish that you’d just turned tail and left.”

“I’m willing to take my chances.” Max gestured for Gentry to head towards the door and he followed the other man at a close pace, ignoring the faces of those who were watching them. Max couldn’t help but notice that many of the men and women seemed to have knowing smiles on their faces.

CHAPTER III

Acts of the Devil

“So were you a friend of his?” Gentry wanted to know. He was leading Max through the dusty streets of Eagle Eye, sauntering along with his cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. Every now and again he’d glance over his shoulder at Max, obviously making sure that the gun was still pointed at him.

“Pinsler? No. I only met him once. It was right before he died. His skin turned to dust and he fell to pieces.”

Gentry didn’t look surprised, confirming Max’s suspicions that he knew about the curse. “I’m not the most educated of men, mind you, but I know that this here town is under some sort of spell. A very bad thing occurred here… and when it did, all of us kind of went to sleep. It’s the strangest thing… but I have a feeling we do just about the same thing every night and every day. Until Pinsler and his boys showed up… and then things kind of changed. And now there’s you…”

“I’m here to make sure that whatever killed Pinsler doesn’t harm anyone else,” Max explained. He saw Gentry come to a stop just outside a small stable. “What’s in there?”

“The answer to your questions,” Gentry replied with a laugh. “Want me to go first?”

Max nodded and followed Gentry into the darkened room. He narrowed his eyes and peered into the gloom, watching as Gentry found an overturned lantern. After setting it upright and making sure the oil inside hadn’t spilled out, Gentry lit the lamp and illuminated the room.

There was a small carriage in the room, covered with cobwebs. Inside the carriage was a number of crates and boxes, many of which had been broken open, revealing a massive amount of money and bars of gold.

Max couldn’t hide his astonishment… why was all of this wealth here? Why wasn’t it in a bank? “Who does all this belong to?” he asked, gesturing towards the fortune before them.

“A man named Clarence Waller came through town. He was a Negro preacher.” Gentry said these last words with disbelief, as if the very thought strained credulity. “Said he wanted to start up a school for Negro children, was gonna teach ’em about God. He said we all worshipped the same God… like our God would ever let a man like him be a preacher.” Gentry spat a wad of phlegm on the floor.

“Where did he get all this money?” Max inquired, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck begin to stand on end. There was a definite presence here… a palpable sense of rage that charged the air.

“He said he’d been a slave when he was a boy, back before the War. His daddy had been a house slave or somethin’… and when the man who used to own ’em died, he left a bunch of money to Waller.”

Max approached the carriage, his eyes traveling over the length of it. It was a fine piece of work, obviously well-wrought. Max found himself reaching out to touch the carriage’s surface… and the contact was electric. He jerked his hand away, images flashing before his eyes.

He saw a youthful-looking black man lying on the ground, blood spilling from his mouth. He’d been shot three times, each bullet passing through his chest. As Clarence Waller tried to crawl away, a group of men crowded about, laughing not only at his pitiful expression but also at their sudden, newfound wealth.

Clarence had closed his eyes, trying to find it within himself to pray for survival and to forgive the men who had done this to him… but in that awful moment he could find no solace in God. He found only hate… raging, pain-fueled hate. Through blood-splattered lips, he’d whispered “This town’ll never be rid of me. Not ever. Every man, woman and child who ever steps foot in this place will know what you did… and they’ll suffer for it.”

While Max staggered under the onslaught of hisvisions, Gentry laughed and shook his head. He balled the fingers of his right hand into a fist and drove it hard into the side of Max’s skull. The blow knocked the vigilante off his feet. Max landed facedown on the floor, the small domino-style mask he wore as the Peregrine slipping free from his shirt pocket.

Gentry stooped and picked up the mask, twirling it around on his fingers. “What in tarnation is this? You like dressin’ up, stranger?”

Max gritted his teeth and quickly slipped a hand into one of his pockets. He drew forth a knife whose blade shone with a golden light, stabbing out with it in an attempt to bring his opponent to an equal footing with him. Max caught Gentry behind the ankles, driving him to the floor. Max sprang up, driving a knee into Gentry’s back. “Don’t call me stranger… call me the Peregrine,” he hissed. He reached down and plucked the mask from Gentry’s grasp. A second later, the mask was affixed to Max’s face and something subtle had changed in his demeanor. An aura of power seemed to emanate from the Peregrine and he gripped Gentry by the hair, painfully yanking the man’s head back.