I gripped the table and would have trembled it in angst, but the furniture was too heavy in that ol’ S.H.D.E Saloon. Before me lay sorrows inside an undrunk glass of hard, bitter antifogmatics with ice melted and liquid warmed up—same way I use to take it.

  If I stayed with Bet, she’d have been killed. In retrospect, it happened to her, nonetheless, without a proper jury to avenge her. When the smoke clears after a slave cabin is burned, and the bodies of those considered less than human are buried, did it even happen?

  I felt more impotent at this time than I did, even, back then. Every heart wrenching mile forward on this trip led me further into a lost world, one needing much more than a simple doctor. From the beginning of this trip, I only wanted to never have Diamond or Chip or now Chief in my care, poisoned or maimed by forces no science could understand, that renders my services useless. I only never wanted to see anyone die.

  From the stairwell, Diamond appeared. She spoke with a toned-down twang owed to somberness. “Doc Apollo, don’t droink that.”

  I smiled with bloodshot, teary eyes. “Don’t worry, miss. I won’t.”

  “We noid you downstairs for an emergency posse meeting.”

  First meeting they ever called. I mounted to my feet, without a rattle out of table or scrape out of chair. Twinge in my heart and quiver behind my goatee, I nodded.

  When I got downstairs, Chief was playing poker with Dunbar, who jumped up and yanked at the handlebars on his own mustache. “Arg, Gawd, you’re a cheat. I never assembled a straight flush before, and you expect me to believe the one time I do, some giant Indian got a royal one?”

  The chief laughed. “You carry your hand on your face, Dummy Bar. So easy to play and beat.” He shouted to Chip in the other room. “Chip, come play. I need real opponent to make game fun.”

  After Chip came bursting out of the guestroom, he and Diamond both sent somber frowns in my direction. This news wasn’t going to be pretty.

  The sheriff’s boots echoed to three steps, and he swooped Owl’s cards off the table. “What hand have you been hiding from us?”

  My eyes constricted when making contact with Chip’s.

  The sheriff continued, “Doc Apollo, let me fill you in. Those animals that flew us here…they’re light entities, and the chief didn’t just summon them with some flute. They are only empowered by human blood, and he took out a loan. Chief, who’s blood did you promise to fork over?”

  Owl gazed ahead and responded quickly. “Doc Apollo’s.”

  I marched forward, one hand on hip and the other wagging a finger. “Mine? What in tarnation did I do to deserve that? Why not Calamity’s or Dunbar’s? So, you knew why my face was on that wanted poster in the saloon, after all.”

  Chief placed a hand on his knee, looked me in the eyes, and said, “Light entities only take blood, because they must. It’s necessary evil to them. They take it if it’s out of mercy. Way you always whine, Giant Chief thought it would be merciful to offer yours.”

  Dunbar glared on from the doorway, a little more measured than expected. Diamond placed her hand on my shoulder, and Chip went at his forehead as if he could a-rub the stress out.

  Chip finally spoke up first. “Owl, thank you for your help, but we can’t have you along, any further.” He paused, considering the giant level of respect he would forever owe. “I’m sorry. Doc’s blood will be on your hands if I can’t help him escape.”

  Before Dunbar could draw a weapon, Chip had his six-gun shooter on him. “Stand down, Deputy. It’s our job to settle this vendetta, not Doc’s. He will not die because of us forcing him along.”

  Dunbar raised his hands. “Aint you forgetting something? Only I know where that witch goes after we cross the Rio Grande. Now, I, also, questioned the correctness of them light entities at first, but now I know the one who knows his name is truly expecting a blood sacrifice, and you aint gone be in the way of it.”

  Chip said, “We’ll find our way without you.”

  Diamond placed her hand on my arm. “I want to avenge Dylan with everything in me, but at the expense of Doc’s life? No way.”

  None of us spoke at the standstill. For a moment, I grappled with what I’d do, but before I could get deep into thought, blasts from the stairwell broke up any more a-pondering. Black powder had us a-separated and coughing, while a heavy flurry of feet rushed downstairs.

  When the powder cleared enough for us to make out our attackers, we identified uniformed Mexican and American soldiers who pointed their muskets at us from all directions. From their midst, General Jones grinned, aiming two pistols

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  “Ploise General, let my friend go,” Diamond pleaded.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that. You see, I wrestled with my faith when I saw you and the evangelist going at it up there. Whose side should I choose? That’s until I considered two miracles that assured me that I was on the right path. First, my prayers were answered when you performed one more time for me, but that alone wasn’t enough. No, no, no. It’s this second miracle that happened a minute ago. It’s astounding!” He removed his eyepatch and revealed a healthy gray eye. “The one that knows his name has proven himself with signs and wonders. That blood loan must be paid to his light entities.”

  Mexican soldiers laughed in joy and with alleluias, while Dunbar and the Americans shouted, “Hallelujar.”

  “Now get some beauty rest, gal. And as for you, Doctor, you may not know this now, but you’re a true soldier, paying the highest price for the most noble cause.”

  Chief got up. Allowed to exit by our captors, he left the door open for a howling gust of wind to enter.

  ***

  The way out of Texas wasn’t under any sunup, like the evangelist promised, but under dark cloudy weather of slashing rain, shaking branches, and muddied slopes. United troops of Mexicans and Americans marched ahead and behind me, Chip, and Diamond through woods.

  An occasional tree limb cracking or breeze wailing broke up what would be all silence. Diamond touched my back, and what once would be words of strength, were those of sorrow. “I hate all this with every bone in my body.”

  The woods opened, and we froze at the sight of the mediating light and dark entities, in male and female forms— those in white judge like robes stretched down to the riverbank on one side, and those with similar black ones on the other. Among the light entities were Friedreich and Xochipilli who we met at the Light Entity Hub. In the narrow passage of the Rio Grande River were two pirate ships that a-waited.

  The sky rumbled, the river reflected dullness and barrenness from nearby trees and dead grasses. Atop the ship’s masts, the sails and skull flags flailed.

  The entities only stared into our souls as the troops forced us along. Fredrich and Xochipilli boarded me on a separate ship from the rest of the posse. I said to them, “You’re as dirty as they are. You know it.” Without saying a word, they turned me over to their enemies in black.

  More light entities escorted General Jones to the captain’s cabin of my ship. As we set sail, I looked into the stony faces of dark-haired, darkly adorned guards, and shouted over the slapping rain. “Quiet bunch, aren’t you?”

  When we rocked in the water, they held me back from tilting forward and gestured over to the plank opposite of the way General Jones went. Two dark robed male entities spread apart to reveal Calamity. Her silver wet hair, only parted far enough to show her pale long nose and puckering black-lipped sneer. Her black dress pushed against her figure, as she spread both arms to her sleeves fluttering.

  I remembered the law of entities as stated by the evangelist. They could never kill nor be killed by humans; however, I’d be damned if one didn’t knock Chip out with only a blow, back in that boneyard garden.

  At the next marvel, I exhaled over and over, curtailing myself from exploding with all emotional anguish. The two dark entities transformed to Calamity and my murderous former lover, Aminda, in her bun and big bustled dress. I stood on one side, with my heart racing, and the real Calamity watched from the other without a trace of humanity in her expression.

  I cried out. “The hell you getting out of this, Calamity?”

  The two entities with Calamity and Aminda’s forms acted out a scene. Turned away from Calamity, Aminda buried her head in her hands. “What have you done to father?”

  Another dark entity lay flat on his back and altered himself to appear as the bowtie wearing, white haired senator, spasming, spewing blood out his mouth and down his chin.

  Calamity replied, “Your father is a perverse man. He killed the slave girl. He deserved the poison.”

  “Mother, everything you do, you have to justify. We’re the reason this happened. We planned Doc Apollo to meet the slave girl. This was your way of keeping him away from baby Martin, remember.”

  Fire ensued in the middle of the scene. Calamity replied, “It’s indeed your father who burned that slave cabin down to hide his deeds. But we can transform this tragedy into a greater purpose. Bring Doc Apollo back here. Show him the burnt down cabin, and yes, tell him you did it. It’ll kill him inside; dissipate any affection he could ever feel. Such coddling would only weaken the baby Martin.”

  As the entities faded, ending their show, I was in shock. First, I felt sorrow, then quickly, rage. Wind blowing upon the real Calamity’s hair, she said, “Hill has made me a superior leader. We all have a purpose, Apollo, and it’s glorious when one knows theirs.”

  I snapped, “Aren’t you just another radical for dark entities as Dunbar is for the so-called light ones?”

  She approached me and stood a bit taller; immediately, both a light and dark entity placed a hand betwixt us.

  Calamity replied, “We are the true settlers. We’re taking this corrupt earth, namely in Hill’s case, the West, and redistributing the power to the downtrodden. You’re not that different than me, Apollo. The people in this world have been cruel to you. Chip Blaze, to name one, has stubbornly forced you onward to this death.”

  “We’re nothing alike. You know damn well you’re appealing to humanity’s worst instincts. Look at you; you’ve lost all compassion.”

  “After one-hundred-seventy-eight years, you no longer cry for those who you lost to the governments of a backward world; you take the world over.”

  “But you’re doing it for Sam Hill, you goddamn stooge.”

  “Oh, feisty! We’ll see who breaks first. Hill has delt me youth, power, purpose. The feeling of power—you should have tried it. Maybe, then, you wouldn’t be getting scapegoated out. You’ve been a victim of the same world I’m trying to change.”

  She went to point her finger in my chest, but I captured her bony hand, squeezed it with all I had. “Don’t touch me, you cunt.”

  Her mouth opened in the shape of an o, and her face trembled, oozing hurt pride, and the entities pulled us apart. “Who do you think you are? And please don’t hate my daughter, Aminda. She did just as our clairvoyant advisors predicted, help set you off to another path, but you’re the one who took it, and here you are, about to die.”

  Aminda was her daughter? She plotted everything that led to Bet’s death? As the rain poured down and blinded my view, I pitched forward to strangle her. The entities restrained me, while the wet, damp smell became that of madness.

  I screamed as the ship disembarked at a moor that connected us to a wide-open field, lost my shoes from the velocity of those entities dragging me to my death.