The sheriff didn’t answer John’s plea to string me up, and I didn’t push it. Matter of fact, I took a seat on the bed behind the prison bars. Seemed safe to keep to myself and gaze at the golden beam the sun cast over the cell’s brick wall and plywood floor. Sheriff Chip knew I’d have to have my day in court.

  Things were quiet but for the bumping from the Coffees’ things coming down the stairs as John gathered them together to hightail it up to Massachusetts. It seemed like an eternal wait for the last bang of the door and the departure of the hoofs from his six-horse stagecoach.

  After the commotion settled, I walked over to the bars betwixt Chip and I. “Sheriff, you know better than this. Whatever Georgine—I mean Calamity— Calamity Dyer is into, I’m not complicit.”

  He had scattered papers and a Holy Bible on his ligneous desk but stopped his reading to address me. “Alright, I’ll level with you. John’s a bottom feeder, but he’s got Mayor Heck’s ear. They’re hunting buddies, while I’m only a Virginia greenhorn growing my influence. We need to lay low and let this blow over.”

  I clasped the bars. “Lay low?” Easy for him to say. It wasn’t his freedom.

  The office door flung open, and the room shook all the way to my cell.

  Deputy Dunbar had fallen through the door, and a sling of screams from his rugged Texan draw had seized the building. “Oh, my fiddle, my diddle. Oh, my nick-nack. Oh, that beast man put his claw right through my nether eye.”

  Most times, I didn’t understand a lick of what this man went on about, but when I fixed my eyes under his leather vest on blood seeping through the crotch of his trousers, I comprehended. The sweat and tears between his cowboy hat and long mustache told it all. He crawled and cussed.

  “Well, do something, Doc,” Sheriff Chip said.

  “You’re asking for my help?” I chuckled.

  “It’s your duty as a physician, isn’t it?”

  “Well, I can’t do much without a kit. How about you grant me a release and hurry me to the Pharmacy?”

  Dunbar raged from where he lay. “No, don’t you let that negro go. This is all his fault.”

  “Well, it aint my nick-nack that got patty-whacked,” I quipped.

  “Enough.” Chip said, standing over a crouched deputy. “What in the hell happened to you?”

  Deputy Dunbar replied, “A thang— wudn’t quite a wolf, wudn’t quite Indian. That thang’s what happened. I never seen one like it in the West. Some savage gear, some wolf fur—Gawd, my noodle hurts.”

  “Go on.”

  “Had a headdress of feathers, an Indian chest plate, and loin cloth. But also had a wolf tail, fur and snout. Were the colors of an orange and black ominous sky. Under the snout, had—black human lips running like ink over an ice blue chin.”

  I shook my head, while Chip bent to one knee to indulge his wild tale.

  “I seen it right outside town, and it was staring in, standing on two feet like a human. I farred my revolver, but it moved so fast, I couldn’t tell it from the dirt it rolled in, and when it came up, it put its claw right through my—"

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Yeah, we know,” I said. “Come on, nothing like what you’re talking about exists. You’re sick out your head.”

  “Damn it, I seen it, and it told me its name before it went away. Ana Ahote, and said it was the chief of all Anas in the Ana Tribe. Then, it promised it was coming back for more, and I aint got much more down there for it to come back for, so I figure it means our town.”

  “Where in tarnation do you suppose this so-called Ana Ahote came from?” I hollered.

  “He said he’s spying out our town on behalf of their leader, the witch, Calamity Dyer. Oh, my dandy, it hurts like hell! I tell you what. Get that quack doctor to the Pharmacy, make him heal me, and then lock him right back up.”

  My look of disgust turned to a grin when Chip pulled a key the size of a cowbell out his belt and opened the door. When I exited, I gripped my lapels and took the longest stride of freedom that a wrongfully convicted man ever did.

  “Wait. Cuff him,” said Dunbar.

  The sheriff placed his hands on his hips and sucked his cheek in. “That won’t be necessary. This Ana beast that assaulted you—It sounds like it could be the progression of the monsters formed from the stolen shadows of Indians.”

  ***

  Heading West toward the Pharmacy, Chip and I moseyed through the bad part of town, not saying dickens to one another, dusty breeze in our eyes.

  Bit some grit and heard commotion on the wide road that separated wooden buildings, each some few feet from the next. Some of the cowboys glowered out the Saloon windows, some of whom I paid doctor’s visits to in the last damn year.

  “Picked a fine location for the Sheriff’s Office,” I said.

  “I inherited it.” He laughed.

  Passing a crowd outside a brothel house, we heard gossip from some guy in a long-tasseled, leather coat to a crowd of harlots in stockings and short dresses and gamblers in black hats. “You know who’s got the worsest morphine habit, don’t ya? Here’s a hint. His name’s Mayor Heck.”

  Laughter ensued. Guess it was too early for the fun, and they had to entertain themselves somehow.

  When we finally reached the corner to turn, we had to step over a man on hands and knees, airin’ the paunch, another fool who couldn’t hold his liquor.

  We headed down Promise Road, an area between the rough cowboy life and the school, bank, and chapel at the edge of town. The women dressed less scantily, more bodices and dresses; there were less cowboy hats on men, too.

  Had gossip out in the road going on, but the much more positive kind. Passing the Barber Shop, I heard someone say, “Sheriff Blaze and Doc Apollo, two ace-high fellas.”

  City smelt like manure, and, someway, some buildings West of the Barbershop, Chip got on to some stinking wrasslin story.

  I didn’t want to hear it on account he had me in a collar and elbow tie up for two damn hours and my neck still ached. I stopped and faced him. “Let’s enjoy the goddamn view.”

  The Restaurant and General Store painted white, with railings and signs, led to the shiniest white of them all, the two-story Pharmacy structure, ahead.

  “With all due respect, Sheriff, I’m your prisoner. We don’t need no small talking.”

  “I told you. It wasn’t my idea to arrest you. John Coffee and Jed Dunbar cooked that up. Lay low, don’t cause problems. Once I’m in good with Mayor Heck, I’ll get you out of this.”

  “Once you’re in good? I see.”

  Chip changed the subject. “Now, Patsy and Dick have their daughter running the Pharmacy, these days.”

  “I know Patsy and Dick well.”

  “I’m sure you do, especially Dick. Everyone loves Dick. Anyway, this gal— their daughter Diamond—she’s a good, strong gal, and there’s no need to get her angry over your arrest. Matter of fact, it’d be better if we didn’t mention it.”

  “I’m certain it would be, Sheriff.” I smiled. “You have a thing for Diamond, don’t you?”

  “What? Don’t be ridiculous.” He tossed his hands up and took a backwards step directly into a pothole— and I swear the earth thundered when that gorilla man went down. I laughed about as hard as his fall.

  After he dusted off, he grumbled, “They need to fill that in.” If he could have put it in a collar and elbow tie up, he would have.

  “You do have a thing for her,” I insisted.

  A gunshot fired. We both jumped and gazed up and over at the second story balcony of the Pharmacy. Diamond pointed a pink sniper rifle toward a sky that was as blue as her eyes and vest. The gal’s blonde hair seemed to give off as much a ray of light as the sun. Underneath her striking beauty, she seemed to pierce through us with her gaze.