Dreams of witches and monsters carried me to a foggy afternoon in the desert. A stench like rotting meat entered our wagon. The pungent smell brought back my own words to Calamity in that alley. “Know what, keep Bet’s name out your mouth. She has no place near all the skunk cabbage you breathe.”

  As silent as Chip and Diamond were— one may be forgiven for thinking they were asleep. Unable to hold her breath any longer, Diamond said, “Ewe. Smells like skunk cabbage.”

  I would have been obliged to tell myself the odor that repelled us both was a mere coincidence. Afterall, some less than pleasant plants lived out there, cactus and flytraps, and yes, skunk cabbage, but by this time, my reasoning had gotten me nowhere. The fact of the matter was the word “fact” had come to mean that every wild intuition as to what may exist will be affirmed. We were closing in on that boneyard garden, and it felt like a fact that Calamity’s ambience was nearby and was smothering as the smog.

  A hawk came soaring next to Chip and Diamond’s window and squawked in our direction. We’d ride past it, but it’d catch back up.

  “Get out of here.” Chip said, reaching for his gun. He never unsheathed it, because his attention was quickly turned to another ruckus—a horse had come a-chasing after the ominous bird.

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  My heart beat with every gallop. Then, a gunshot from the horseman dropped the ol’ hawk. Diamond and Chip lurched up, turned, and peered out. The sheriff said, “Can’t see anything past the mist.”

  As soon as I glanced out my window, the horse appeared. I caught the mane of a dark mustang and boots of a rider, but he got too far for me to make out who he was. Chip lifted his hands in a questioning gesture. “How’d the horseman get all the way over there?”

  “He tossed something in,” Diamond said. On the ground next to her feet lay a part of the plant life we'd been smelling. Skunk cabbage. Maroon leaves formed the shape of a heart that surrounded its spiky center.

  I felt my forehead wrinkle and observed the equal bewilderment on the face of Diamond. More perplexing than that, Chip maintained a certainty in his gaze.

  “Look,” Chip said, slipping out a small book from his shirt pocket. “It’s time you learn how truly rotten but powerful this witch is. I’m going to share notes from my investigation with you. It’s important, ahem… that you know your adversary.

  During my time in El Paso, I found out someone wrote a biography on her. The book was banned, and Calamity became wanted. When I confided in their mayor over the story of the Bowie Knife under the Coffees’ bed, he allowed me to have a special viewing of this banned book.”

  After we sloped in, he took us on a journey that went way back to the sixteen hundreds. Only a few words in, and we were already affirming her claims of being one-hundred-seventy-eight years old. I refrained from sneering, demonstrating politeness rather than better judgment, as I’ve made clear in this journal that in this world, better judgement had become nothing more than wheels spinning in mud.