THE NIGHT ARTEMUS GORDON DIED (con’d)

[one]

In the chilly darkness he rode through the hills as fast as he dared, pushing Midnight to a canter when the light of a gibbous moon broke through the patchy fog and he could see the road ahead, holding to a walk or jog when the mist closed in, the frustratingly slow pace admittedly giving him the opportunity to doze a little and to wolf down the jerky and crackers and apples Emory had packed in his saddlebags. At least it wasn’t raining, and if the fog didn’t get any worse he should reach Whistle Stop by two. He’d been glad to leave behind the clocks of the city, the chimes and gongs and bells that lanced along his nerves; but he found as he rode alone past the black looming hulks of boulders and groves of towering fragrant redwoods and firs that they’d been replaced by a countdown in his head, a mental timepiece ticking away the moments of Artie’s life.

West was not, by nature, a worrier. He didn’t waste time or energy anticipating trouble; he simply accepted the trouble that came his way and reacted to it, step by step. Oh, a few things could put him in a stew, chiefly the safety of the President or of the nation they both served, or of anyone whom he and Gordon were assigned to protect. But he did not, as a rule, worry about Artemus, who generally worried enough for both of them. He would miss Artie fretting over his every bruise and scrape.

He would miss Artie, the way he would miss an arm.

Having witnessed how far Artemus’s condition had deteriorated even during the few hours they’d pursued their separate leads, he was worried now. In the various predicaments in which they’d found themselves over the years, one or both of them usually retained some degree of control over the perils that beset them. Now he was on the defensive and Artemus was helpless, a double setback he did not very often encounter; it gnawed at him and kept him alert despite the weariness settling again into his bones.

Step by step, he told himself, urging Midnight to a faster trot along the damp silver ribbon of road as the latest patch of fog began to thin. Step by step.

The farther inland he rode the clearer the night air became; able at last to maintain a steady brisk pace, he arrived in Whistle Stop just as the town clock—of course there was a clock, of which the two hundred or so residents were no doubt very proud, mounted on the rather pretentious facade of the lone bank—was chiming a quarter past two. Cold moonlight reflected off its face and outlined the row of buildings along the narrow street: two saloons, one with rooms to let; a general store next to the bank; a barber-surgeon who also boasted a bathtub; a schoolhouse; a livery stable with a tiny paddock. On a Wednesday night, all were quiet and closed. Only a few points of meager lamplight shone from houses along side streets, and no one seemed to be out and about in the small hours of the morning; thin woodsmoke from fireplaces and stoves drifted on the air.

There was no lawman’s office of any kind—no available assistance if he should need help bringing Loveless in.

There was also no theater.

He tugged lightly on the reins and Midnight came to a nervous halt in the middle of the street. So sure! He’d been so sure that he had simply to stand at the front door of a playhouse and pace off the directions Artemus had deciphered in order to find a road or a trail, a topographical landmark—something. He twisted in the saddle, frantic gaze raking both sides of the street, the horse sidling with the shifting of his rider’s weight.

And then he relaxed, his spine sinking into the leather. Of course—in towns this small, theatrical performances were often held in the saloon or schoolhouse or any other space large enough for the players to string up a curtain and folks to gather to watch them. Fatigue and anxiety were slowing his wits as well as his body more than he’d realized. He couldn’t afford such weakness. Artie couldn’t afford it.

No splash of yellow from lantern or firelight spilled from any of the windows along the main street, but still he took care to move quietly toward the larger of the two saloons, the Gold Dust. Dismounting and looping Midnight’s reins around the hitching rail, he stepped softly to the porch just outside the front door. Consulting Artie’s pages of notes by the quick flare of a match, he paced off the steps forward and right and left, and found himself looking at a wall in an alley. To his experienced eyes and hands, the wall presented no doorway, no false siding, no signs of digging or a trap door.

Clamping down on his rising angry impatience, he jogged up the street to the porch of the Mother Lode saloon, and repeated the sequence. This time the final step would have put him in the watering trough, which struck him as too infantile a prank even for Dr. Loveless.

Dismayed, he stood in the street at a loss, turning first one direction and then another. He remained confident of the town; obviously Loveless wanted something from him, and if he hadn’t been heading in the right direction out of San Francisco the good doctor would somehow have set him on the proper course. But now— Would he be reduced to trying to let the crafty manipulator know that he needed another clue? How Loveless would crow over such an opportunity to humiliate his enemy. But Artie would live.

His stride heavy, his boots scuffing, he returned to the front of the Mother Lode and peered through the window. In the pale silvery wash of moonlight illuminating the interior he could see chairs up on tables so the floor could be swept, bottles and glasses glinting over the bar, a dark and tantalizing door to a back room. If he had to he would break in to search that back room, but better to check out the Gold Dust before taking the chance on rousing someone who might decide to investigate a late-night trespasser. He was glad now that there wasn’t any law in town.

The larger windows of the Gold Dust admitted more light, and he could see protruding from the shadows in the back the apron of a low stage. Next to a lustrous proscenium curtain, moonlight glinted on the ivory keys of an upright piano. In such a place Artie would be instantly in his element.

It was the work of seconds to pick the unsophisticated lock and slip inside. Able to see well enough without a match to avoid knocking the chairs off the tables, he threaded his way through the weirdly skeletal shapes and leaped lightly to the stage, alert for any menacing flick of the curtain, any movement from the hallway of a proprietor or boarder curious about the faint creak of floorboards out front. Light reflected from the sheet music resting on the piano, from the globes of the kerosene foot- and proscenium lights. But where exactly to position himself—at center stage, maybe? He looked down to locate a mark—and there at his feet was a small card, a pale rectangular glow of white. Ready to dive to one side should he sense anything—anyone—coming at him from the rear or his flanks, he stooped to pick it up.

BRAVO, MR. WEST! it cheered in bold, block letters. START HERE.

Crumpling the card in his hand he flung it to one side, but did not indulge his irritation more than that, did not bother looking about for Loveless, who was observing him, he was certain, from some adjacent hidey-hole, vastly and contemptuously amused. The mad doctor’s latest game was evidently about to come to its climax; they would meet soon enough. Guessing that he should begin by facing in the direction an actor would face, toward the audience, he paced off the pattern of steps once again.

Forward off the stage, right down the dark hallway past one room emitting suggestive sighs and moans and another emitting deafening snores, then left into a cluttered office and storeroom—and this time West found himself standing at a small window just to the right of the back door. Through the dirty panes he could see the silver lopsided disc of the moon dropping down behind a bluff about ten miles to the west and a little north; it was shaped, from this angle, something like the letter L.

Slipping silently through the back door he hastened around to the street, where he was relieved and not a little surprised to see that Midnight was still where he’d tied him at the rail, tossing his head with boredom and impatience. The previous afternoon Loveless had wanted to delay him. Now, apparently, the good doctor was ready to receive visitors.

“Ready or not,” West muttered as he pulled himself into the saddle, “here I come.”

With the setting of the moon the night grew darker, but a breeze had kicked up and chased the clouds away; in the starlight he could make out the faint outline of a wagon track leading toward the bluff, whose shape was clearly visible as a solid wall of black against the star-flecked sky. A few miles out from Whistle Stop the track curved to the east and he saw across an expanse of meadow that the horizontal stroke of the L was cut by a narrow pass or notch; toward this he veered through the knee-high grass, leaving the track behind. Another mile passed under Midnight’s tireless hooves, and then another and another.

By the time he reached the opening to the notch the sky was less black, the stars less bright; in the surrounding forest individual trees were distinguishable, gray and towering in the waning night. The trail began to climb a rocky slope, the rocks soon giving way to boulders large enough to conceal a platoon; and so he was not in the least surprised when men toting rifles and shotguns emerged from cover on either side of the trail, some on horseback and others on foot, falling in behind him in silent escort as morning dawned on the last day of Artie’s life.

********************

Richmond stirred awake, rubbing his stiff neck and blinking in confusion. It was the morning sun that had awakened him, blazing into his eyes through the window whose curtains he had neglected to close the night before. Thank Heaven for the sun. Mornings were so often gloomy here, and he didn’t need more gloom on the day he might have to watch Artemus Gordon die.

He set aside the report that had put him to sleep, levered himself to his feet, and stepped softly over to Gordon’s bed. After a bad night Artemus was sleeping at last, but it was not a kind sleep; his head rolled about, his limbs moved constantly, and now and then he mumbled or cried out, inarticulate choking wails of terror or pain. Sometimes he fought the restraining straps until he was bathed in sweat and his nose bled; sometimes spasms of agony wracked his body as if he were being tortured. When he was conscious, the look on his face told Richmond that he didn’t want to know what horrors Artemus saw in his mind.

He wished Loveless would walk into the room right now. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord—but lawmen occasionally objected to that exhortation. The colonel found that he was objecting mightily to it now. He found that he envied Jim West, very much.

Several times he had sent the duty nurse for Dr. Isaac so that he could demand some relief from suffering for a valued agent whom he also considered his friend. Always Isaac listened patiently, then just as patiently explained once again why such intervention would be ill-advised.

“His nervous and circulatory systems are in turmoil already,” he would say. “At this point even a light sedation would almost certainly risk damage to his brain, and might even kill him.” And then he would go away again, until the next time Richmond summoned him. Gradually it sank into Richmond’s awareness that Dr. Isaac, too, had not left the hospital since Artemus had been admitted.

“Jim?”

Gordon’s voice—that in full bellow could make a bystander’s ears ring—was so weak Richmond wouldn’t have heard it had the hospital been awake and bustling. The nurse encouraged him to drink some water, but he had difficulty swallowing. He was visibly failing, his cheeks sunken, his skin translucent but here and there blotched red.

When the nurse had laid his head back on the sweat-soaked pillow, Richmond rested a hand on his arm. “Jim isn’t here, Artemus. He’s on his way back with the antidote.” He prayed it wasn’t a lie.

The dark head nodded. “Never doubted it for a minute. Never doubted . . .” The soft voice trailed off into an incomprehensible whisper. Gordon’s eyes had not once opened.

Richmond clasped his arm until he slept again. Outside the sun rose higher.

********************

“Good morning, Mr. West!”

The jovial greeting resounded off the nearly sheer granite walls of a small box canyon that formed a natural courtyard from which several caves opened back into the rock. An arrangement of ironwork stairs and catwalks circled the courtyard about fifteen feet off the ground, and it was from the stretch of catwalk directly opposite the east-facing entrance to the canyon that Dr. Miguelito Quixote Loveless gazed down upon West, bathed in the golden glow of the morning sun and puffing on a cigar. Flanking him like mirror images of each other, demon familiars shaded by parasols, were Pearline and the old acquaintance to whom she bore an uncanny resemblance, Antoinette.

West ignored them while two of his escort made him dismount and led Midnight away toward one of the cave openings. Others took up guard positions along the catwalks, at the mouth of the courtyard, and above it on the rim, climbing iron ladders set into the rock. Looking about and evaluating possible avenues of escape, West counted a dozen visible guards, some familiar to him from the warehouse, and reckoned on that many more out of sight. Loveless had an amazing knack for assembling new gangs no matter how many of his minions various law enforcement agencies tossed into jail, but he wasn’t as particular as he ought to be; some of these looked so loutish that he surely couldn’t trust them with any chore requiring brains.

He delayed his reply until Loveless’s face was screwed into a pout, and then stepped far enough away from the catwalk so he could look up without tipping his head back very far. “Dr. Loveless. I can’t say it’s a pleasure.”

The pout dissolved into laughter that contained genuine amusement, the blue eyes sparkling, the white teeth gleaming in a broad smile. “Mr. West, I congratulate you. You are always prompt, but this time you’ve arrived several hours earlier than I expected. Could it be that I’ve provided you with a little more motivation than usual?” He leaned over the rail like a self-satisfied vulture.

“You can congratulate Artemus Gordon while he and I are escorting you to jail where you belong. He’s the one who deciphered your code and saved me hours of searching.”

“And how is your pesky cheating partner, Mr. West? Have the hallucinations begun? Is his heart galloping against his ribs fit to burst?” The hand that held the cigar curled into a fist and pounded the open palm of the other hand. “Bom-bom, bom-bom-bom—” Another unpleasant giggle. “Are there indecorous rumblings and eruptions from his gastrointestinal tract?” The stunted body convulsed in a gurgling, snorting, gasping fit of hysterical mirth, Antoinette and Pearline chiming in with their own birdlike peals.

Having all his life striven to honor the universal boyhood law to pick on someone your own size, West had never physically assaulted Loveless. Had the little sadist come within his reach at this moment, that might have changed.

Stifling his violent impulse, he said blithely, “Mr. Gordon sends his regards. He’s sorry he isn’t able to join our little get-together.”

“Oh-ho, yes, I’m sure he is!” As he recovered his breath Loveless’s expression and tone turned snide. “You and I both know that Mr. Gordon won’t be escorting anybody anywhere today, nor will he effect any miraculous rescues, nor be an interfering busybody—” Now he was positively snarling. “By rights that little gambit at the communications center should at least have cost him his arm, if not his life.” He folded his own arms across his small, puffed-out chest. “It was, in fact, a much showier gesture than your usual, Mr. West. How diminished you must feel that your friend and partner upstaged you!”

“Oh, he’s always doing that—I’m used to it.” Loveless pouted again at the failure of his barb. “It was one of the most self-sacrificing acts I’ve ever seen,” West added, and meant it. He would never forget the sight of Artie held rigid against the destructing machinery amid a shower of sparks, the awful uncertainty of playing showdown with Loveless while subconsciously listening for rough gasps of breath behind him, for the scrape of boots against the floor that told him Artie was still on his feet— Despite the layer of rubber in the soles of his boots, his own hands had tingled for hours from even the brief contact of pulling Artie away. What Artemus must have felt—

Loveless cocked his head in scornful appraisal. “That’s quite a compliment coming from a man whose career has been so bloated with self-sacrifice.”

West bit down a retort; he didn’t have time for their usual verbal fencing. “What do you want, Loveless?”

While they talked the sun had continued its inexorable arc, searing away the night’s chill and casting Loveless into the shadow of a protrusion of rock from the canyon rim, and West stepped now to one side so he could still see the little madman’s face. The minions got nervous, hands slapping to their pistols, but he kept his movements slow and small; nudging them off guard was one thing, but he didn’t want to provoke them into action until he’d learned what their boss was up to.

“Insolent, to the last.” Loveless tucked one hand into a vest pocket and with the other gestured grandiosely with the cigar. “As you well know by now, Mr. West, I am nothing if not resilient, and I am never idle. I have a new project. One must always have a project or else boredom awaits, and boredom is so . . . boring. Actually I have many concurrent projects, always puttering away at this and that—but it occurred to me that you and Mr. Gordon could aid me in the testing phase of this one.” Petulant anger briefly furrowed his brow. “It’s only fair, you know, since the two of you disrupted my last brilliant scheme.” He rocked back and forth on his small feet. “This one is my best yet.”

“That’s what you said the last time—or near enough—and the time before that, and the time before that. Whatever it is, you know we’re going to stop you. Why don’t you just give up and save us all a lot of trouble?”

Rising up on his toes Loveless hissed in barely controlled rage, “I’ll never give up!” In an instant he regained his composure, but the rage still flickered, always flickered, behind his eyes. “I wouldn’t want to cheat you of the opportunity to give your life in the service of your country, Mr. West. I’ll make that happen someday, I promise you. I very nearly did at our last meeting. The look on your face as I cocked the hammer of my pistol, as my finger tightened on the trigger, is one of my pleasantest memories . . . But I’ve realized I can still make use of you after all.”

West, in his turn, would always remember the look on Loveless’s face, the sudden capricious resolution to put a permanent end to their long and ultimately wearisome conflict. If Artemus hadn’t barged in just then wearing a wig and mustache and a canteen full of kerosene—

“Toy with me, you mean,” he said.

Loveless chuckled. “Point of view makes such a difference, doesn’t it?”

“And you think I’ll help you willingly?”

“Oh, don’t dissemble, Mr. West. You and I both know why you’re here.” From an inside jacket pocket Loveless drew a stoppered vial of an amber-colored liquid and held it aloft. “You’ve come to attain the most meaningful prize of your career—the only prize, I would imagine, that could compel you to submit to my every demand: your partner’s life.” He gazed lovingly at the vial. “Yes, this is the antidote for Mr. Gordon’s unfortunate illness—and I should mention—” he added hastily as West took an involuntary step forward, “—that this is the only supply, all there is, just enough to save Mr. Gordon but no more. So you wouldn’t want to do anything rash like dart up the stairs to pounce upon me, which your tigerish stance tells me you would very much like to do.” He began to toss the fragile vial from one slender hand to the other, never letting go of the cigar. “It’s deliciously ironic, don’t you think, that I based the original toxic formula upon belladonna after my former confidante—” —the words were a growl of lingering wrath— “—has been so helpful to you? I do so hate tattlers.”

West didn’t take his eyes from the vial, ready to spring to catch it if Loveless should let it fall—unintentionally or not. “She wouldn’t have tattled if you hadn’t betrayed her. You should learn to treat your minions better, Doctor.”

“I treat my associates as well as they deserve.” Loveless offered a gallant bow first to Antoinette, who looked proud and doting, and then to Pearline, who managed to look complacent and devious at the same time. Posed together on the catwalk, the two women, both brunette and beautiful in a duplicitous sort of way, made West think of sinister schoolmarm twins. “Besides,” Loveless added sourly, “Belladonna was always pouting.”

West lifted a hand in mock salute. “She learned from a master.”

Briefly he feared he had pushed the little madman too far. Loveless’s face lost its expression of smug pleasure and became again the face that had gazed balefully along the pistol barrel. Still holding the vial, he froze for a moment, then started down the stairs, heels ringing against the iron, elegant patent leather boots gleaming in the sun. West’s whole body tensed as he watched each measured step. Beneath their parasols Antoinette and Pearline darted hawklike glances from him to Loveless and back again; he could sense their pulses fluttering with excitement.

Suddenly Loveless stumbled and pitched headlong. Heedless of the onrush of minions cocking pistol hammers, West leaped toward the lower half of the staircase, eyes riveted on the vial, hands reaching to save it should it fly out of Loveless’s hand—but he pulled up at the bottom step as Loveless settled securely on his feet on the midpoint landing, his mocking laughter echoing off iron and rapidly warming granite. With a wicked taunting grin, he dangled the vial between his thumb and forefinger out over the railing, eight feet above the hard pebbly ground.

“Time’s a-wastin’, Mr. West. Make up your mind.”

Now West understood why Loveless hadn’t brought him here after the fight in the warehouse. He’d waited until time was so short and Artie’s prognosis so grim that his usually unyielding partner would submit to almost anything to save him.

“If I agree,” he bargained, “then I’ve done my part to stave off your incipient boredom, right?”

Loveless frowned, clearly wondering how suspicious he should be. “Ye-e-s—”

“Then I want your word that if I don’t survive whatever you have planned, or if I’m incapacitated by it, you’ll deliver that antidote to Presidio Hospital in time to save Mr. Gordon.” Loveless didn’t answer right away, only narrowed his eyes and debated with himself how badly he wanted his nemesis to surrender. West added, “I promise you if you kill me but let Artemus Gordon live, you’ll never be bored again.”

A slow smile spread across Loveless’s changeable face; he brought in his hand and slipped the vial safely back into his inside breast pocket with a little reassuring pat. “Done for a ducat, Mr. West. Isn’t it gratifying when two longtime foes can come to an amicable arrangement?”

“Delightful.”

West’s sour sarcasm concealed his inward relief that Loveless had not extracted an equivalent promise from him—that he wouldn’t try to escape with the antidote or arrest Loveless when the test was concluded. He would have given such a promise without a second’s hesitation, and he would have honored it. Without such restrictions on his own actions, however, he planned to take advantage of any opportunity that Loveless’s usual overconfidence presented to him.

Stepping back from the staircase, he held his hands away from his weapons.

His own confidence faltered, however, when the henchmen, obeying a nod from their employer, proceeded to yank off his coat and vest and gunbelt and pluck every knife and lockpick and exploding pellet from the seams and buckles and buttons and lapels. At least Loveless couldn’t know about Artie’s latest modifications to his waistband and boots—

“You once told me that subjecting your visitors to a search was ungentlemanly,” he said.

Loveless conceded his point with a bow. “So it is, Mr. West, but why should I hold myself to standards of behavior that you consistently ignore? In fact, you’re probably carrying an entirely new assortment of ingenious doodads of which I am unaware.”

He gave another nod, and West’s old foe Red poked with the muzzle of his pistol at West’s hips, leaving oily smudges on his trousers. “Strip,” he drawled.

In reflex West backhanded the pistol away with his left hand and drove his right into Red’s belly. “Like hell—” —but his arms were grabbed from behind and his legs kicked out from under him by several other erstwhile opponents who were clearly itching for a rematch. He thrashed against their hold, but they held him spreadeagled above the ground and he could find no purchase.

“Now now, Mr. West,” Loveless chided from the landing, “don’t be obstreperous. Remember time is pressing.”

Scowling, West ceased his struggles so abruptly the minions almost dropped him. When they had set him on his feet he pulled off his shirt, boots, and trousers, his movements slow and controlled as he channeled humiliation into a hard core of fury that lodged unwavering next to the knot of fear he’d carried inside all these exhausting hours, telling himself that Artemus would peaceably bow to much worse than this in order to save him.

He stood before Loveless in his bare feet and drawers, the hot sun prickling on his back, the pebbles of the courtyard jabbing into his soles. “You’ll have to take the rest off yourself.”

Loveless gazed down upon him with an expression of mock dismay. Antoinette and Pearline gazed down upon him, too, boldly appreciative until Loveless glared at them. “Mr. West, we are honorable enemies. Do you really believe I would rob you of all your pride? I simply wanted to ensure that if you should manage to regain your impeccably tailored garments, I will have stripped you of your arsenal.” He giggled at his own witticism.

West glanced over to where Red, Burly, and Smiley were dumping explosive and gas pellets of various sorts from his boot heels. He was pleased to see that Burly’s arm was in a sling and that Smiley wore both a sling and a brace around his knee. With a wondering shout Burly found the flick-knife in the sole of the right boot and broke the blade under his heel. They hadn’t yet found the awls and acid pens in the boot linings or the sedative patches in his waistband, but at this point he didn’t suppose they would do him any good.

“Are you sure you don’t want them to check up my . . . nose?” He wondered if he imagined that Antoinette and Pearline gasped in harmony.

“Don’t be crude, Mr. West—there are ladies present.” Loveless dragged deeply on the cigar and exhaled, the cloud of smoke hovering about his head in the baking, breezeless air like a satanic halo. “You know, I’ve seen you react with aplomb to far more disconcerting scenarios than mere indignity. Perhaps the personal element of this challenge has made your skin a little thinner.”

West squinted up at the sun; his shoulders were already beginning to burn. “Speaking of skin, I expected a more innovative area of research from you, Doctor. A great many people have already studied various forms of torture.”

“Oh, surely you think me more creative than that. Broiling a man alive—how woefully passé!”

“Well, whatever it is, just get on with it. I’m getting a crick in my neck.”

He was not encouraged by the genially evil grin that spread over the little madman’s face. “Oh, I can take care of that.”

Like a diminutive god Loveless nodded once more, and Red and Burly marched West at gunpoint toward the largest cave entrance. Trying not to cut his feet on the scorching, rocky ground, he lost sight of Loveless and the ladies; when he glanced back just as he was shoved into sudden dimness, he didn’t see them anywhere in the courtyard. The caves had been blasted and hewn into a network of irregular corridors lit by kerosene lamps; the air was cool on his heated skin, the tile floor a relief to feet that weren’t accustomed to being unshod. He was guided down the entry hallway past six doors on one side but none on the other, around a bend to the right and then another, and into a large room whose walls were lined with banks of humming and buzzing equipment of an elaborately electrical nature; through his bare soles West could feel the floor vibrating with what he assumed were the pulsings of a large generator somewhere below.

In the center of the room was a varnished wooden table illuminated by a chandelier so astonishingly bright that he couldn’t bear to look at it. Naturally he was strapped to the table—at ankles, hips, wrists, and forehead—in such a way that he couldn’t easily look at anything else. Rarely had he been this vulnerable. His every muscle and nerve objected to being so thoroughly and immovably trussed. Artie, you’re really gonna owe me one, he thought, and prayed that he had the chance to collect.

Dainty footsteps sounded at the other end of the room, and by craning his neck painfully he could see that they belonged to Antoinette, who was smoothing his clothing neatly on a hanger; he saw that she’d sewn new buttons onto his vest. Of his assortment of tools there was no sign.

“Ah, the fair maid Antoinette. It’s been so long since I’ve heard your lovely voice—I was beginning to be concerned about you. Won’t you sing something for me? There’s probably a folk song about a rabbit caught in a trap.”

“There is indeed, Mr. West,” said Loveless’s voice.

West could see only Pearline enter the room, but judged from the direction of her eager gaze that Loveless was just in front of her, below his line of sight. She and Red and Burly passed out of his field of vision and then back in, now rolling an elevated walkway which they fastened to the table by means of screw-brackets. Onto this Loveless made his way by a short stairway at one end and came to stand over West, grinning.

“It’s called ‘Stew for Supper’—and, as you might guess, it doesn’t end well at all for the rabbit.” His eyes flared with theatrical relish. Pearline had been rummaging in a cabinet and now approached the other side of the table, where the walkway did not extend, carrying a box from which trailed dozens of long, thin wires. “In fact,” Loveless continued, “my dearest Antoinette has only recently recovered her voice after losing it for a time to smoke inhalation from the fire you set in our forest home.” His face puckered sadly. “I was so grievously distressed by her injury, though it was temporary, that out of sweet consideration for my sensibilities she took herself away from me for a time. I did so miss her, Mr. West. I was not myself for months.”

“I didn’t invent the powder that caused the fire, Doctor. But I took great satisfaction in destroying it—though I would have regretted Antoinette’s misfortune if I’d known about it.” West tried to catch Antoinette’s eye, but she had moved behind him. It was difficult to be gallant when you were flat on your back in your underwear, but Antoinette responded as he’d hoped and leaned above him so that he smiled at her upside-down. “Do sing for me, fair maid.”

“Perhaps later, Mr. West, if Miguelito is feeling musical.” West suppressed a sigh. So often Antoinette had exhibited just this behavior, warming a little to his flattery but always letting him know in no uncertain terms that her loyalty to Loveless could not be swayed.

Nevertheless, Loveless was always peeved if her attention drifted from him in the slightest. “To work, Antoinette,” he snapped.

“Yes, Miguelito.” Meekly she withdrew.

From Pearline to his right West heard a tiny satisfied sigh. Resentment in the ranks? Maybe he could use it to his advantage. “And you, Pearline, do you sing as enchantingly as Antoinette? Has the duet become a trio?” How far did the resemblance between the two women extend?

Loveless was half-hidden behind a huge clipboard on which he was busily making notes. “Alas, the muse Euterpe did not bestow her gift of song upon the infant Pearline.”

“What a shame.” With false sympathy West gazed up at Pearline, whose face contorted with annoyance that she didn’t share Loveless’s regard equally with Antoinette. “But I happen to know that she has many other useful talents.”

Unfortunately his tactic also fell flat with Pearline. Her smile was bright and cold. “Artemus Gordon knows it, too.”

Loveless peered over the edge of his clipboard. “You’re wasting your time, Mr. West. You’ll never win these two to your hopeless cause. They are incorruptible! Do you know they actually doubted that you could arrive in time to save poor Mr. Gordon?”

Abrading his forehead against the strap as he strained to glance from one to the other, West regarded them with mock hurt. “Ladies, you’ve cut me to the quick.” Even upside down Antoinette looked genuinely contrite, but Pearline merely smiled again and began to swab his exposed skin with an astringent; he would have bet one of his lockpicks that she used extra on his sunburn where it would sting. “While we’re catching up, I must ask about Voltaire. How is that gentle giant?” The strap constricting his forehead felt like one of Voltaire’s enormous hands clamped vise-like around his skull.

“He’s otherwise occupied.” Loveless’s vague reply was followed by a conspiratorial glance among the three, and West felt a pang of anxiety for Artemus, defenseless in his hospital bed, and the men whom Richmond had assigned to his protection, for whom Voltaire would be more than a match.

“How nice that he’s still with you. It just wouldn’t be the same without him.” Before he could try to discover what exactly was occupying Voltaire, however, Loveless began to wave the clipboard over him, creating a cold breeze that raised gooseflesh on his skin. “Are you trying to freeze me to death?”

“In this appalling climate? No, the astringent must be dry before the electrodes are attached.”

“Electrodes?” West began to wonder if he should perhaps really be alarmed. “You mentioned a test, Doctor, not an electrocution.” He noticed that Loveless had donned rubber gloves.

“Do all scientific experiments end well for the test subject?” Loveless asked pointedly. “Remember that rabbit.” There was a small silence, and another sneaky three-way glance.

“Actually,” West countered, “I prefer the Indians’ stories about the rabbit as a trickster, always able to outsmart his opponents.”

Loveless’s eyes narrowed briefly, as if he feared his victim might really have a plan for escape; but then he smiled and bowed, miming a gracious doff of a hat. “A brave riposte, Mr. West. Never fear—if you behave yourself you’ll come out of this alive. I do appreciate your cooperation, you know. You don’t like to submit to an enemy, and in particular you don’t like to submit to me, just as I don’t like to submit to you. —My, that is an impressive lump, isn’t it?” He was examining West’s skull where his sleep-vanisher had struck. “Give Mr. West a pillow, Antoinette. And look, a shaving cut. Perhaps your hand was a bit unsteady yesterday, hmm?” He poked at West’s chin, gloved finger scratching against the new growth of beard. His demented eyes bored into West’s. “But you’ll submit to me now, won’t you?”

He darted back to the humming, clicking machines as Antoinette lifted West’s head and thrust a small pillow underneath. It felt slightly rough, as if it were lace or embroidery. From the drawer of a rolling cart Pearline had pulled a metal tray piled with little round pads separated by squares of oiled paper.

“You know,” Loveless continued as he twiddled dials and tapped gauges, glancing repeatedly over his shoulder to make sure West was still paying attention, “it’s fitting that this time you will gain a close acquaintance with the many applications of electricity. Currently—” and he dissolved into a paroxysm of laughter— “—currently I am involved in the study of electrophysiology, a science which concerns itself, as you might surmise, with the electrical aspects of physiological processes. Specifically, I am interested in the application of electricity to the nerves and muscles of the human body.”

At his nod Antoinette and Pearline began to smear the little pads with a gel and apply them to West’s skin from his scalp to the soles of his feet. The first sensation was of a sticky cold, but soon the gel began to burn, not quite enough to be called pain, but definitely enough to notice—as if a hundred candle flames wavered a little too near his skin. After they’d placed dozens of the pads on the front side of his body and attached the ominous wires, Red and Burly made him struggle to his side so the ladies could reach his back, his head wrenched down at an awkward angle by the strap.

“All finished, Doctor,” said Pearline after a time, and West heard Loveless stride along the walkway behind him, felt the little man’s breath on his back as he bent close to check their work.

“These two must be lower on the deltoids,” he said, stabbing at West’s shoulders with his pencil, and when they pulled the pads off West felt a layer of skin go with them. “Only a surface abrasion, Mr. West,” Loveless assured him briskly, and West heard the pencil scratching on the clipboard. “The conductive gel does burn but the wounds will heal without scarring, as long as the pads don’t stay on too long. You may lie on your back again.”

West wriggled into his former position, his abused neck muscles sighing with relief. Antoinette replaced the pillow, which had become dislodged, while Loveless began to attach bundles of wires to the machinery along the wall. The pads and wires glued to his back made him feel as if he lay on a bed of twigs and pebbles. “How long is this going to take?” By now it must be mid-morning.

“Considerably longer than you would like, but not too long to prohibit your saving Mr. Gordon.” Loveless flipped a switch, read a dial, made a few notes. “He’s an intrepid individual, isn’t he? I do admire the way he took an immediate hand in his own deliverance—plunging into his research, journeying to visit the Millers when he could barely stand— He really is rather courageous, isn’t he?”

You’re just now figuring that out? West thought. But he refused to listen to the little sadist wax eloquent about Artie’s courage or his peril. “What about the Millers, Doctor? Are they your associates, too?”

“Dear me, no! Can you picture such innocents—? But I’m forgetting you haven’t met them. I’m sure Mr. Gordon has reported that they’re thriving. What a pleasure to come to the aid of a worthy family.”

“Then—the title to that property is genuine?”

Loveless held up a sinister-looking pliers. “On my honor,” he said through a giggle, and West rolled his eyes. Loveless did something with the pliers and West stopped rolling his eyes, instead squeezed them shut against a shooting lance of fire along his left sciatic nerve that felt as though it might blow his leg off. His leg convulsed, his hands clenched the edges of the table, his jaws clamped shut against a cry of shock and pain. “Hmm,” Loveless muttered. “Too strong.”

In an instant the pain subsided, and West drew a steadying breath. When he could speak he said hoarsely, “You never do anything without an ulterior motive. What do you want from the Millers in return?”

“Nothing that will harm a hair on their naïve little heads, if they’re careful and do as they’re told,” Loveless answered testily. “Now be quiet so I can work. If you keep interrupting me with idle chitchat, little surprises like that will happen frequently. And,” he added with a pointed glare, “I’ll have to go more slowly.”

West obeyed, to Loveless’s obvious surprise. Nevertheless he worked for some minutes without comment, adjusting the web of wires crisscrossing West’s body and scampering along the walkway to the wall of dials and gauges and back again. Every time he came within his subject’s field of vision, West could see the deepening of his sulk. Still West said nothing, as his arms and legs, hands and feet, jumped and twitched and quivered, and Loveless made his notes.

Finally the pouting little popinjay leaned over West and sputtered, “You can’t hide it, Mr. West—I know you’re beside yourself with curiosity—and here the waggish Mr. Gordon would no doubt interject a clever prepositional witticism about being in front of himself or behind himself or some such thing. By way of partial and rather simplistic explanation—the details being much too technical for a layman to comprehend—the human body is in fact a machine, Mr. West. A miraculous, organic machine, but a machine nonetheless, and it runs on—e-lec-tricity. Nerve and muscle fibers are stimulated by electrical impulses from the brain, and the brain is in turn stimulated by electrical touch receptors all over the body. These impulses can be altered, they can be controlled, by electrical currents introduced at varying frequencies. Our work today will take us a step or two nearer to isolating the optimum frequency for the control of each muscle and nerve.”

West remained silent, but began to try to resist the tingling stimulus in his muscles in order to throw off Loveless’s readings. “Stop that,” Loveless snapped, and made a slight adjustment to a dial. West’s right arm felt as if it had been dunked in acid. Gasping, he made a fist and spread his fingers again and again; nothing relieved the agony. Sweat sprang from every pore and made the table slippery under his shoulders and elbows and heels. “‘What’s the point of this?’ you would ask if you could. Why, to do this—” Loveless touched another dial and the pain was gone. What sensation remained was no more than the remnant of the muscle-memory of pain, and in a moment that remnant faded, too. “Your muscles are still receiving the pain stimulus, Mr. West, but your brain cannot register it.” West lifted his arm, saw that his fist was clenched as if under some strain; but he felt nothing. “Think of it, Mr. West, a warrior who cannot be stopped by heat or cold or pain. Even his own desire to resist cannot stop him, because I will control his body. You’ll remember my Lord of the Forest, he of shining strength? Some of the same principles of manipulation apply.” He touched the dial again, and West’s arm and hand relaxed.

In order to draw Loveless out, West did his best to sound skeptical, but what he felt, and could not entirely hide, was genuine amazement. “You can’t possibly have that kind of control over the human body—it’s too complex.” He recalled Dr. Faustina’s incredible work on the reanimation of corpses, but in those cases the subjects—mere biological automatons, no longer human in any real sense—didn’t fight back. “And allow me to point out that this equipment isn’t what I’d call portable.”

Loveless gave him a withering look. “I believe I was very clear that this is a testing phase, Mr. West.”

“Then allow me to play devil’s advocate, Dr. Loveless. Say you want your—your ‘warrior’ to carry a bomb into a building, or waylay a diplomat’s carriage, or assassinate an important public figure. The brain might not be receiving impulses but it isn’t shut down. It doesn’t stop thinking. Once the warrior is out of your reach, what’s to prevent him from simply—” He reached for an electrode on his ribs—

Every muscle in his body froze. He looked up to see the doctor’s gloved hand resting delicately on a dial he hadn’t turned before. “I wouldn’t advise that, Mr. West,” Loveless said in gentle admonition. “Remember that the heart is also a muscle—the most vital muscle—controlled by those very same electrical impulses. That is why electrical shock can disrupt the heart rhythm, as Mr. Gordon so recently was reminded. When this circuit is armed, if the electrodes aren’t detached in a certain sequence, a minuscule timer is set and in ten seconds the apparatus will deliver a fatal shock.” If they hadn’t already been locked open, West’s eyes would have flared wide. “No doubt you’re thinking that you, with your flexible limbs and sure fingers, could remove all the electrodes within that time; but remember that in a real application the subject will be fully clothed. It simply can’t be done. That danger, of course, is why the conductive gel must also be a strong adhesive—we wouldn’t want those electrodes coming loose by accident. And you have no way of knowing whether I’ve armed that circuit just now, have you?”

“Just trying to be helpful, Doctor.” West couldn’t move even to lie meekly back, but Loveless read capitulation in his eyes.

“But I’ve already thought of everything, Mr. West.” He prodded a few electrodes, turned a few dials, and West’s muscles were his own again. “Very good. Let us begin.”

West’s stomach plummeted to the level of his spine; he became aware of the beat of his heart. “I thought we had begun.”

“Dear me, no, Mr. West—those were merely the preliminaries,” Loveless said, and threw a switch.

It went on for hours. Pain surged and faded throughout West’s body, in crashing waves that constricted his lungs and made his heart stutter and then vanished in a breath; in explosions of agony worse than any bullet could cause, extinguished on his persecutor’s whim. First an ankle and then a bicep, a hand and then a thigh; and some places he’d never before felt pain: in the center of his skull behind his eyes or deep in the abdomen where the pelvis met the spine. Gauze was pressed to his flesh and came away bloody; he never felt the cut or the prick. Blisters were raised by hot coals, with so little sensation they might have appeared on another man’s arm. And then Loveless signaled each electrode one by one, stimulating the muscle and letting it relax, over and over again, stronger each time, his inhuman machine pushing West’s body past the limits his brain tried to impose, until the muscles were pulled and stretched almost to the point of tearing. West couldn’t help an occasional moan or grunt of pain; he lay in a slick of his own sweat, contemplating the possibility of inadvertent electrocution and wondering if the good doctor had thought of that.

As he observed dials and gauges and his subject’s every twitch, Loveless offered his underlings a running commentary, and West was grateful for the minor distraction. “Note the involuntary grimace of suppressed agony. We must be careful to stop just short of real damage, for if the muscle actually tears it’s no longer of any use to us in our test.” He took furious notes, very much the clinical researcher now rather than the deliberate torturer; West knew that in future he would always feel a sincere sympathy for laboratory animals. “You see why I wanted Mr. West to be our subject; his well-defined musculature makes it easy to see the results of each impulse.” Loveless frowned at a sudden thought. “I suppose that in a way the test isn’t really fair because he is such a superior physical specimen. We won’t find many like him—” His gaze shifting to one side, he lifted a scalpel from a tray on the rolling cart. “If the skin were removed we could see the contractions of the muscle fibers themselves, the pulsing of the nerves—”

To West’s horror Loveless looked as though he might be seriously considering the idea; Pearline was practically licking her lips. He tried not to show his sudden alarm, but one of the many gauges must have betrayed him.

“No,” Loveless said on a laugh, “we’ll save that for the next phase.”

“The ‘next phase’?” West asked through gritted teeth.

Loveless laid the scalpel aside. “Don’t trouble your poor aching head about that, Mr. West. I’ll let you know then if you can be of aid.”

“I can’t wait—”

From somewhere behind West’s head Antoinette trilled, “Miguelito, the time!”

Instantly Loveless flew into a sputtering frenzy. “Oh, the time, the time!” He leaped to shut off the main switch, yanked off his rubber gloves, and began to snatch the wires from the electrodes. “You and Pearline almost let me go on too long, almost made me break my word! Pearline, help me with these—”

All West’s muscles were twitching and spasming uncontrollably; his entire body was heavy with exhaustion as though he’d come through a challenging workout or a tough fight. He thought again about Dr. Faustina and knew that Loveless’s work, should it succeed, would not surprisingly be the more cruel, because his subjects would be fully aware of what was being done to them up until the moment they died.

“Are you sure that’s all?” He tried to sound robust and unimpressed, but his throat muscles were convulsing and his voice broke like an adolescent’s.

“Careful, Mr. West,” the good doctor sang out cheerily, “if you make me believe I haven’t yet pushed you to the limits of your endurance I might continue my tests for several more hours, and poor suffering Mr. Gordon doesn’t have several more hours, does he?”

The lilting chords of Antoinette’s lute reached his ears. With his head still strapped down he couldn’t see her, so the melody seemed to come from nowhere, and everywhere. She began to hum, and soon Loveless was humming along with her, and then they launched into song, a rather pretty ballad about long-separated lovers, smooth tenor and light soprano each effortlessly gliding from melody to harmony while Loveless and Pearline pulled the gel pads from West’s skin. It took a long time to pull them all off. West wished he could just rip them away, but he was so tired, and there were so very many of them, each one leaving behind a small patch of raw flesh that stung with the cool air and the salt from his sweat. He hurt all over, every muscle inflamed from overuse. His eyes burned, and squinting into the reflective hood of the chandelier he could see that they were bloodshot from the lights, the astringent fumes, the repeated stress to the muscles in his neck and head and face. A smear of blood from his nose had congealed in the two-day stubble on his upper lip; sweat plastered his hair to his scalp. His head felt heavy and throbbed in time with Antoinette’s strumming. Now and then when Pearline unconsciously joined in for a bar or two, Loveless grimaced as if he’d eaten a raw lemon, and even West, of whose musical abilities Artemus despaired, could tell she was half a tone flat.

When at length the last gel pad was removed and the straps unfastened, Pearline toweled West dry under Loveless’s suspicious gaze. The little madman had stopped singing, though Antoinette continued to play and he did not object. “All right, Pearline, that’s enough. Now, let’s look you over, Mr. West. I wouldn’t want to send you away with hurts needing treatment. I couldn’t bear for you to have to go to that barbarian in Whistle Stop who calls himself a doctor, and even those bumblers at the hospital would be more likely to kill you than not—I do pity Mr. Gordon in their clutches.” Deftly he cleansed each small wound with something that stung, then daubed on a cream or ointment that soothed, while West tried to ignore the red and black spots dancing before his eyes and wondered if the proceedings could possibly get any more bizarre. “There, now you’ll survive until our next meeting. Pearline, bring Mr. West his clothes.”

West had been calculating how quickly he could take effective action once he was dressed again. A few seconds to lay out Red and the injured Burly and get their guns; two or three minutes to hustle Loveless and the antidote toward the stable. He’d have to let the ladies go for now, but though Pearline was lethal she did seem to require some direction, and Antoinette was merely insane—

He sat up and swung off the table, reaching for the hanger Pearline held out to him—

—and crashed to his hands and knees on the hard tile floor, muscles jerking and jumping, the floor heaving and buckling as his brain seemed to expand— His arms and back shook so badly he could hardly keep from collapsing prone at Loveless’s feet.

At last he was afraid, for himself and for Artie. “What have you done to me?” He could barely lift his head to look his tormentor in the eye. How could he walk forty feet, much less ride forty miles? Would Loveless keep his word to deliver the antidote to the hospital? He’d never thought the oath would actually come to the test.

Looming above him, Loveless gave a merry laugh. “Give it time, it will pass. In a few hours you’ll be your superbly coordinated self again—though of course the aches and pains and fatigue will last a day or two, even for you.”

Gripping the edge of the sturdy table, West struggled awkwardly to his feet and felt his muscles trying to remember how they were supposed to behave. “Now I know why you didn’t bother to make me promise not to try to escape or take you into custody.” It was hard to talk past the spasms in his throat; even his tongue felt heavy and thick. Every fiber of his law officer’s justice-seeking soul objected to leaving Loveless at large—but he couldn’t wait until he was stronger and by the time he returned to the compound the little imp would have cleared out, equipment and all.

With shaking arms he hoisted himself back onto the table and tried to dress while sitting down. Spasms in his shoulders kept jerking his arms to one side and he couldn’t yet bend his knees far enough to get his feet into the trouser legs. Anger made the spasms worse. So did Loveless’s taunts.

“No doubt you’d like to throttle me but can’t quite make your hands close, hm? Or perhaps you’d like to punch me in the nose, but can’t control the motion of your arm?” He leaned forward so that his nose was within reach of West’s fist.

West was sorely tempted, but knew that any such violent motion would only pitch him onto the floor again and make him look a fool. “Next time,” he promised, in a voice almost toneless with fury.

Loveless laughed again. “Mr. West, I tell you in all honesty that you are the best test subject I have ever had.” He looked like the proud master of a trained dog that has performed well.

Even to appease a madman, West could not react to such lavish praise with the raptures Loveless obviously expected; he was too busy trying to slide off the table without landing in another graceless heap. His whole insides felt quivery. “You’re a monster.”

Loveless’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Great things come in small packages, Mr. West.” His tone was edged with menace, and West realized that Loveless, always defensive, had taken his remark to be a demeaning slur about his size. Let him, he thought with a weary mental shrug—until Loveless pulled the vial of antidote from beneath his white lab coat and waved it carelessly through the air. “If you offend me too deeply, Mr. West, I might just throw something at you.”

West flung his arms out for balance as the floor lurched again beneath his feet. “Remember, you gave your word,” he said hastily, not sure he could catch the vial even if Loveless were to fling it right at him. Again Loveless tossed the vial from one hand to the other, beginning to sing softly to the gentle strains of Antoinette’s ceaseless accompaniment. “My apologies, Dr. Loveless.” West forced out the words. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Mollified, Loveless smiled and bowed. “That’s better.” Drawing himself up to his full height, he took a dignified step forward and offered the vial up to West, holding his slender hands ready to catch it until West managed to close his own around it and tuck it safely into the jacket pocket where he’d carried the vials of Artie’s blood. “Inject it all in two equal doses, thirty minutes apart. Is that clear?” He waited until West gave a hesitant nod. “You take with you, Mr. West, not only that precious vial but also my sincere appreciation of your stamina and perseverance.” Hearing genuine respect in his tone, West was taken aback until Loveless added, with his typical threatening glee, “The more amazing you prove yourself, the more pleasure I will take in finally bringing you down.”

Clinging to the edge of the table, West bent as far forward as he dared. “If you’re lying, if this potion kills Artemus, I won’t give up until I bring you down.”

“I’m hurt that you think so little of my sense of honor,” Loveless said, cheerfully disregarding his threat of only minutes before. “Have I ever lied to you?”

“No,” West conceded, “I suppose you haven’t.”

Throughout the long procedure in the lab, Red and Burly had been silent and watchful, shifting their weight now and then but otherwise making no sound or comment. Now Red stepped to the opposite side of the table with a frown. “Doc, you ain’t really gonna let ’im go?” His pistol was pointing at West’s heart.

In a flash Loveless pulled a .45 from the deep pocket of his lab coat and cocked the hammer. In relation to his small frame the big pistol looked like a cannon. “Don’t, Mulvaney, or that’s the last move you’ll ever make.”

West wasn’t sure whether to believe him. He’d never witnessed Loveless kill anyone himself. Order his minions to do it, yes, and then relish watching his victims die; deploy bombs or vicious drugs to murder at a distance, yes; but shoot a man in cold blood? Despite the fact that he himself had been at the business end of Loveless’s weapon on several occasions, he simply didn’t know. Clearly, however, Mulvaney believed his boss would fire. Adam’s apple bobbing in a swallow of dread, he stepped back and gingerly holstered his gun.

“Now,” Loveless said, uncocking the pistol and dropping it carelessly back into his pocket, “you and Baker escort Mr. West outside.”

Strutting like a martinet, he led the way from the room. Pearline and Antoinette followed just behind him, Antoinette never losing her place in her music or plucking a wrong note. Burly—Baker—joined Mulvaney on either side of West, and accompanied by this eccentric honor guard West made his way back through the hallways toward the courtyard, Baker and Mulvaney and sometimes both supporting him with a hand on his arm. Unsure whether or not his muscles would obey his commands, he concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other so he wouldn’t stumble over his own feet and smash the irreplaceable vial, wishing now that Loveless had held onto it a little longer.

In the courtyard he blinked and squinted against the assault of sunlight reflecting off the rock walls and sandy ground; his eyes burned and watered as Mulvaney and Baker propped him against the iron staircase. It was already midafternoon, the sun dropping down behind the western rim of the natural fortress; the courtyard was an oven of absorbed and radiating heat. He was still half-dazed when someone brought Midnight to him and gave him a leg up into the saddle; someone else tied a burlap sack containing his weapons and tools to the horn. It took him three tries to get his boots into the stirrups.

“He’s been fed and groomed,” said the director of this extraordinary closing act. “What a splendid animal—he’ll get you there in time. If you continue through the pass and go left at the crossroads in Masonville, you’ll save an hour or more. Please give Mr. Gordon my sincerest regards.” He was the host at a house party, bidding his guest farewell and suggesting a more direct route with only the slightest glint of amused disdain in his eyes. “Ta-ta.” He flapped his long hand in a dismissive wave.

Speechless, perplexed, and utterly spent, West didn’t even attempt a Parthian shot. He rode away as fast as he safely could before Loveless decided to do something other than wave.

********************

Colonel Richmond was contemplating his hands. Unable to concentrate on the reports he should have been studying or even on a newspaper, he had contemplated his hands for much of the day, and by evening had memorized every hair and callus, every pore and freckle, every crease in the long worry lines the carnival gypsies had always noted when he was a boy.

Artemus was barely breathing; after a restless morning he hadn’t stirred since noon, even when he was examined or tended, and Isaac feared that paralysis had set in. Seven o’clock had come and gone, and then eight.

He became aware of the hammer of boot heels in the corridor, coming nearer, coming fast. Please, God—

Clothing and skin coated in trail dust, West staggered into the room through a parting phalanx of his fellow agents. Richmond met him at Gordon’s bedside. “He’s still alive. Did you—did you get it?”

“Where’s Isaac?”

“He’s on his way.” At West’s arrival the duty nurse had dashed out the door.

The thirty-second wait seemed an eternity. West was perilously close to collapse, catching his weight against Gordon’s bed with arms that trembled. “Hang on, Artie,” he said, gripping Gordon’s shoulder. “Hang on.” Turning carefully, he pulled the vial from his pocket and gave it to Richmond for safekeeping, his shaking hands curling Richmond’s fingers around it as tightly as his own had been. “That’s all there is.”

White-clad figures rushed in, seeming to West in his half-coherent state like a small army of angels. Richmond handed the vial to Dr. Isaac, who started at once for the corridor.

“Where are you going?” the colonel demanded.

Isaac turned in the doorway. “To test it, of course. I’ll not inject my patient with an unknown substance.”

“There’s no time for that—I’ll take responsibility—”

“No—I will.”

With sudden speed and sureness borne of desperation, West sprang forward and grabbed the vial from Isaac’s hand. While the orderlies dithered about whether they were going to try to stop him and Richmond remonstrated with the doctor, his eyes raked the room and spotted the tray of instruments on the table at Artie’s bedside: scissors, bandages, antiseptic; probes and tongs and scalpels that reminded him of Loveless’s playthings.

Two hypodermic syringes.

He jammed the needle of one of them through the rubber stopper of the vial and drew up half the amber fluid, then set the hypodermic down while he uncovered Artie’s arm and swabbed the vein.

Catching him completely by surprise, the duty nurse darted forward and snatched up the syringe and the vial from the tray. West spun to face her, half-falling against the table; she shrank back terrified from the look in his eyes, her face as white as her frilly cotton cap. For a fraction of a second he hesitated: she was a woman, she was doing her job, and she clutched the antidote in her shaking hands. And then he charged her—

—only to find himself wrestled halfway to the floor by Richmond’s guards. Dr. Isaac relieved the quaking nurse of the vial and syringe. “It might work more quickly if it’s administered properly,” he said, with a calm, accepting air that made West cease his struggles.

When he plunged the needle home, Gordon didn’t so much as flinch—not the slightest flicker of movement in arm or eyelids or mouth.

Thirty seconds had been excruciating. Thirty minutes made West a candidate for the psychiatric ward. Ignoring the insistence of his body that he rest, he paced the length and breadth of the room and watched the minutes tick by, certain that the clock was slow. It seemed to him that Artie’s breathing was deeper and more even, but Dr. Isaac volunteered no such evaluation and West was afraid to ask him. The doctor never left the room, nor did the brave nurse, to whom West, after observing her devoted attentions to her patient, finally thought to offer an abashed apology; she forgave him with a smile, but tensed nervously whenever he came near. He couldn’t blame her; he’d been a little mad himself, just then.

At last it was time for the second injection. This time West thought he saw a slight motion of Artie’s head when the needle went in, thought he heard a faint hiss from Artie’s parted lips, so chapped he might have spent a week in the desert. For several minutes Dr. Isaac pressed the bell of his stethoscope against his patient’s chest, once or twice adjusting the ear tubes, and when he raised his head West thought that perhaps a layer of cloud had vanished from his face.

“His heartbeat is definitely stronger, and I believe his lungs are clearing. But,” he added in a note of caution, “we won’t know if there’s been any permanent damage—physical or mental—until he wakes up.”

More waiting. West drained the bedside ewer, causing Miss Penn—she had consented to give him her name—to put down her book by Florence Nightingale and take it to the washroom to refill it. She seemed pleased to have something to do, a sentiment with which he could empathize. She had offered to clean and bandage the gel wounds on his face and neck that were caked with dirt and sweat, but he said only, “No thank you,” and she left him alone. Though he hadn’t yet eaten, he’d been frantically thirsty ever since he’d left Loveless’s compound; he’d drained his canteen and paid a boy feeding chickens in Masonville ten cents to refill it from the backyard pump, afraid that if he once descended from Midnight’s tall back he’d never be able to mount up again. He’d gulped about a quart of the boy’s mother’s coffee, too, and his head was buzzing.

Softly he said, “Artie would rather be dead than—not himself anymore—”

Richmond had settled into the lamplit chair to wait, his chin sunk on his chest. “It’s been a long time since I’ve said many prayers,” he said, his voice muffled by his cravat, “but that’s the mercy I’m praying for now.”

For a time they were silent. West pulled a chair to the side of Artemus’s bed opposite Miss Penn and allowed himself to sit down. He felt a kind of leaden life coming back into his body, a physical recovery that lent no spark to his numb emotions. He remembered the rock-strewn, scrubby pass and the crossroads and the boy, but after that the brutal five-hour ride was a blur of shimmery heat and choking dust and dread of what he would find at its end. Midnight at his calmest was hardly a placid horse, and half a day of inactivity in Loveless’s stable had left him fractious; with his weakened muscles West had only barely managed to stay in the saddle. Even his hands were stiff from his long death grip on the pommel. Death grip—

“I always figured I’d go first,” he said. “There’ve been times I thought Artie—but he always turns up again.” Restless again, he got to his feet and resumed his pacing, stopping at the window and gazing unseeing at the cheerful winking lights of the great city. “In this line of work you have to care, you know, but not too much—” He stood motionless for a long time, turning his sweat-stained hat around and around in his grimy hands. But you do anyway.

“West,” Richmond said gently, “when did you last eat, or sleep?”

“I don’t remember—”

At the rustle of fabric behind them they turned, to see Miss Penn bending over Gordon, checking his pulse. West saw that Artie’s hands were moving—they were moving—clenching and unclenching in the bedclothes. Miss Penn scurried into the hallway and West heard her urgent voice calling for Dr. Isaac. He rushed to the bed. “Artie?” Gordon’s hand gripped his with surprising strength, then released it, gripped and released again; there was no variation in rhythm, and West didn’t know whether or not to be encouraged.

The angel army reappeared and this time he got out of their way, hovering near but unable to see anything because of all the white uniforms surrounding the bed. Richmond stood beside him, rigid with cautious hope.

And then the white uniforms parted, and Dr. Isaac waved them forward. “Let’s see if he knows you.”

Gordon’s eyes fluttered open, rolled back and then squinted, then opened wide and stayed that way. “Jim!” He clutched West’s arm. “What—?”

Glancing up, West saw that Dr. Isaac was smiling. He gained control of his own face. “You’re gonna be all right, Artie. We got the antidote in time.”

“Y’mean you got it. Y’ look beat. Wearing half of California.” Gordon’s voice was hardly more than a mumble, but to West it was clear as a bell. “Hey—” His hand waved weakly toward West’s face. “Somebody’s been using you for an ashtray.”

“It’s nothing—I’m all right.” Better than all right.

“—don’ b’lieve it,” Gordon fussed. “See? Get yourself killed in five minutes without me— Gotta get back to work—” He drifted off for a moment, and when he roused again West and Miss Penn got him to drink a couple of glasses of water until he pushed their hands aside. “Gonna float away. Hey—” His eyes and voice were suddenly sharp. “What about Loveless?” He tried to sit up but West pushed him back against the pillows.

“I’ll tell you all about it later. You get some rest.” He filled his lungs with air and let them empty completely, feeling as if he hadn’t taken a full breath in three days. “I have to make a date with a couple of concerned young ladies.”

“Better shave first.” With a rueful laugh West scratched his bristly chin. Gordon clasped his other arm. “Jim—thanks.”

West merely shrugged, though he made no move to extricate his arm. “I didn’t have a choice. If I ever had to dismantle your lab I’d probably blow up the train.” Gordon read the sentiment underlying his words, and West knew he did, and that was all right.

“Kiss Charlotte for me—but don’t get carried away—” Sleep claimed him before he finished the sentence. His hand relaxed, and West laid it gently back on the bed.

“See ya, Artie,” he said, a soft echo of an earlier, grimmer parting.

As he watched life flush pink into Gordon’s face against the white pillowcase, watched Gordon’s haggard exhaustion give way to a complacent half-smile, he felt that just now a hundred Lovelesses at large wouldn’t very much bother him. He hardly noticed his own recent hurts as he bobbed his head to Richmond and the understanding Miss Penn and sauntered out of the room.

********************

“Just make sure you stand upwind,” Gordon warned.

West stuck his finger in his mouth, held it up. “South-southwest, five knots.” Laughing as he donned his gloves, he hopped around the stacked cases of cigars to Gordon’s other side and opened the firebox.

While the crew, going about their hammering and oiling, looked at them askance, one by one they ceremoniously tossed the contaminated cigars into the firebox, watching as the smoke rose harmlessly aloft into the clear summer air.

“The next time we meet up with that brilliant little pest I’m gonna demand restitution,” Gordon grumbled, mournfully tossing in a handful; the delicate printed labels flared green and vanished. “Sorry you had to let him go, Jim.”

Sorry you had to go through that for me. He suspected, in fact, that his partner had gone through considerably more than he’d let on in his dry report; Gordon had seen the punctures and cuts on Jim’s arms and the dozens of raw sores all over his body, though they were healing quickly with his usual enviable powers of recuperation. But Jim would never tell him if he had.

He flung a cigar into the fire and added in a growl, “It makes me boil to think that he won this round.”

“He didn’t win.” West shot him a quick affectionate look and waited until Artie grinned in response before he continued. “We’ll get him next time.”

“Yeah—next time.” Gordon pondered the cigars in his gloved hand. “I wonder what he’s working on, what this ‘next phase’ is all about—” The cigars met their tragic end.

“I have a feeling that one of these days we’ll find out.”

Gordon grimaced and opened another box. “That’s what I’m afraid of—”

As West had predicted, the compound had been deserted by the time Richmond’s men reached it early the next morning, and no member of the hospital staff had given himself—or herself—away as a Loveless minion during the two days that Artemus had remained under Dr. Isaac’s observation. They could always investigate any sudden resignations, but such spurious employees wouldn’t leave a trail any more than had Mr. Swanson’s planted assistant.

In his report, West had repeated Loveless’s lectures as accurately as he could, but he didn’t pretend to grasp all the underlying science of the mad genius’s diabolical apparatus. All he himself needed to know about human anatomy was where to aim a punch or a kick or a bullet in order to do the most damage. Artie would have understood the details. He wasn’t the genius Loveless was but he was certainly as diabolical—always in a righteous cause, of course. And they both tended to speak in italics.

“Well, at least the Millers seem to be safe,” Gordon commented with an air of satisfaction.

In his vaguely official guise he had visited them again, this time meeting Bob and Davy Miller as well, to warn them that that nice little Mr. Michaels was a notorious confidence man and urge them to contact the Service if he should reappear in their lives. Bob Miller had nearly had the vapors when he’d thought the title to his cherished enterprise might be in question, and then nearly had them again with relief when Gordon assured him that it was—inexplicably, to his mind, but perhaps Loveless couldn’t be bothered with manipulating small fry—legal and completely unencumbered.

The best part about the meeting, however, was that he found himself reacting properly to the charming Miss Jo, and despite the existence of the equally charming Charlotte he might have paid his addresses to her, had he not also been introduced to her fiancé—because he never beat another man’s time except occasionally for Jim’s, in friendly and usually reciprocal competition.

Yes, he felt young again, young and fine.

Joe Emory stepped up onto the platform of the locomotive, greasy wrenches stuck in the pockets of his coveralls. Delicately between thumb and forefinger he held out a pink envelope. “Message just delivered, sirs.”

“Thanks, Joe.” West inhaled the perfume as Emory withdrew. “It’s from Annabelle.” He broke the seal and took out the single sheet of lace-bordered paper. “She and Charlotte are free tonight.”

“Hooray!” Gordon exulted. “After three days of—” He made a face. “—oh, let’s just call it a liquid diet, shall we?—and two days of pap, I want veal Oscar, I want caviar, I want champagne—and I want dessert—ha-hah!” He began to ba-bom one of his own bouncy tunes, flinging cigars with every beat.

West held up Annabelle’s note to catch his attention. “They say—” Here he paused significantly, and Gordon, reading his expansive innocence, prepared to endure a spot of leg-pulling from his devoted partner. “They say they’d be willing to see Hamlet again so you could enjoy it, too. Such nice, thoughtful girls—” His grin was wicked and expectant.

On cue, Gordon flew into wounded outrage. “‘Thoughtful’? ‘Thoughtful?’” His voice crescendoed into a higher octave. “A play in which the hero is poisoned at the end??” Hurling the entire box of cigars into the roaring flames he slammed the firebox door shut with a resounding clang. “No no no no no no NO—!”

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© 2008 by Karen A. Beckwith

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