Capeworld Comics

The sun began to set as Martin continued to perform the Aldi Operation.

His friends placed food purchased at the local saloon (local by the terms of the Arizona territory, Martin couldn’t imagine going for food a mile away back home in Blackwall) by the door, and occasionally the door would crack open and a hand would creep through and seize the food. Moments later, the hand would return to deposit an empty dish.

As the sun set, Mr. Reeves turned the electric lamps on the walls on. Soft, yellow light filled the station.

“You have electric lamps all the way out here?” Joseph asked.

“That’s not all. We even have an electrograph.” Mr. Reeves answered. “It’s in that room over there, next to the bathroom. We have everything the stations East have, just in smaller quantities. To be honest, I prefer being out here. It puts me closer to my other work, and there aren’t any walk-ins to bother me. The station back East is like an office, but this is like a fort. You rest up, eat up, gear up, and go.”

“We never have to worry about comparing stations back home on the account of only having one.” Joseph said. “Perks of living on a tiny island, I suppose. Everything in our business is centralized at our office in Blackwall. It’s where we keep our equipment, our notes, our library, our ghosts–everything is in the office.”

“And in the tunnels below the offices.” Mr. Reeves said with a wry smile.

“Ah, yes. But we’re not supposed to talk about those! I don’t think I would call our office an office, actually. That’s just the name for it. And I don’t think I’d call it a fort, either. I think it’s like a home, really.”

“I can see that. With how much time you three spend there, it truly is your home-away-from-home.”

“Anyway, Mr. Reeves, now that we have a little time on our hands, what say you teach me one of those card games popular out here in the great American West?”

“Sure.” Mr. Reeves produced a deck of cards from out of the pockets of his duster coat.

“You keep a deck of cards on your person?” Joseph asked.

“It’s not the most important thing to keep handy while you’re on the trail, I wouldn’t even say it’s in the 10 most important things, but when there’s no work to do, you have to find something to do.” Mr. Reeves turned to Matthew. “Dr. Ernst, you want me to deal you in?”

Matthew answered by tapping his notebook. He had a lot to record.

“Alright.” Mr. Reeves said. “Suit yourself.”

Evening turned to night as Matthew wrote in his notebook and Joseph wagered his pence against Mr. Reeves’ pennies. Martin continued to work away in the room in which they kept a haunted piano. Mr. Leeds had departed without a sound, leaving his coat and hat and gloves on his chair, all neatly folded. No one was surprised. It was his nature to be active at night, when it was dark, and no eye could see him. In the night, he could be free to be what he was, stretch his wings wide, and take to the air.

A sharp cry came from outside, like an owl, but deeper, and with warbling notes.

“Boss sounds like he’s on the hunt.” Mr. Reeves said.

“You know, there are some elements of his physiognomy I envy.” Joseph said. “His ability to devour raw food, for instance. I like that. I think it would save me a lot of time not to have to cook things.”

“That’s what you envy?’ Mr. Reeves asked. “Not that he can fly, but that he can strip a moose down to the bone in seconds?”

“Oh, well, I can fly. I fly often.” Joseph replied. “I fly with Whistle, mostly, but also with the Sky Witch, and Martin’s thought-form creatures. But I can’t eat a mouse raw.”

“And you would want to do that?”

“If I could, and had the stomach and palette for it. It seems like a very efficient way of eating.”

Mr. Reeves made a face. “Disgusting! Almost as disgusting as your chances, Dr. Morton.” Mr. Reeves placed a pair of twos and fours down on the table.

“Sorry to disappoint you, my friend.” Joseph placed down a straight.

Mr. Reeves tossed a nickel onto Morton’s pile. “What are you going to do with all that, anyway? You can’t spend it in Blackwall.”

“I’m not sure. But I like having it!” Joseph said. “I think I may take a page from your organization and put it all in a glass case by my desk. I’ll get bronze labels for all these coints–penny, won from Bass Reeeves, nickel, won from Bass Reeves, second penny, won from Bass Reeves, third penny, won from Bass Reeves…”

“You’re not cheating, are you, Dr. Morton?” Mr. Reeves asked. “You remember what I did to the last man that cheated me at cards, don’t you?”

“He’s not cheating. He’s just very good at card games.” Matthew said, not bothering to look up from his notes. “He used to be an alienist before he became a manesologist.”

“What’s an alienist?” Mr. Reeves asked.

“One who studies the patterns and behaviors of men.” Joseph said. “Sometimes, I can figure out what a man is going to do before he himself knows it.”

“You sound like a manhunter.” Mr. Reeves said.

“Coming from you, Mr. Reeves, I take that as a huge compliment!” Joseph said.

Martin suddenly opened the door and stumbled into the main room of the Poeists station. His short blonde hair was disheveled and dark bags had formed beneath his eyes, but he perked up when he saw the scrambled eggs and coffee waiting for him on the table. “Ah! Wonderful!” he exclaimed.

“After seeing how fast you devoured what we left out, we had to go get you seconds for dinner.” Mr. Reeves said. “The saloon owner sure was surprised to see us back so soon! I also got you some coffee. I heard you liked it over tea.”

“I do.” Martin said. “I know tea is more properly British, but I can’t help but prefer coffee. I suppose I’m just not a proper Englishman.”

“Eh, you aren’t a proper man, let alone an Englishman!” Joseph said.

“And you aren’t a proper anything.” Martin said.

He sat down at the table and greedily devoured his eggs. “Oh, I love the bite this red sauce has! Mr. Reeves, you said that it was made of bird pepper? What is bird pepper?”

“Small, red, wild chilies.” Mr. Reeves explained. “They grow south of here near the Tumacacori Mountains. Birds love them.”

“Really?” Joseph asked. “I would have thought they would have been used to repel birds with the way that sauce smells.”

“No. Birds can’t get enough of the little peppers.” Mr. Reeves said.

“Ah! Who would have thought that avians would have such well-developed tastes?” Martin said.

“You would like something birds eat.” Joseph said. “Perhaps we should try you on bird seed next?”

Martin’s fork clattered on his empty plate.

“I love this so much, I’m going to bring this bird pepper back to Blackwall.” Martin said. “You like to grow your asphodels, Joseph, well I’m going to grow bird peppers.”

“They’ll die in that climate.” Mr. Reeves said.

“Don’t worry. Nick can make it as dry and hot as it needs to be.”

“Oh yes. I remember him. The fire wisp.” Mr. Reeves recalled how Nick had helped him and the others burn the Snallygaster to ashes. “How’s he doing?”

“Much the same.” Martin said. “Occasionally melancholic, but always helpful. He’s our light. Literally, our light. We use him so we don’t have to pay for lighting and heating at the office.”

Martin took a long swallow of the coffee. “Ah! Nice and hot!”

“It seems you only like food that burns and drink that scalds.” Joseph said.

“I like what I like.” Martin said. “Anyway, gentlemen, I’m going to finish this cup of coffee and then I’m off to bed!”

“Who drinks coffee before they go to sleep?” Joseph asked.

“I’ve done it a few times.” Mr. Reeves said.” It helps when you need to wake up early, or if you need to sleep light because owlhoots are moving around in the dark.”

“He doesn’t need to wake up early, and we all know who’s making the boogieman sounds outside tonight, so there’s no reason he should be drinking coffee.”

“I don’t care.” Martin said as he took another sip of coffee. “Say! This is rather thicker and chalkier than people normally make it.”

“Sorry if it’s not to your liking.” Mr. Reeves said.

“Oh no! I prefer my coffee to be like this. Where did you learn how to it like this?”

Mr. Reeves shrugged. “Just on the trail.”

“Fascinating! Do you know what this coffee reminds me of? It reminds me of the coffee I drank back when I was a student of thaumaturgy studying the original texts of Abdul Alhazrad in Baghdad. My dear teacher Dr. Lumen made coffee like this, and he got it from a Turkish recipe that Afet Alhazrad shared with him.”

“Well, I don’t know anything about Turkish recipes. I just make it like how I learned to make it from cowboys.”

Martin smiled. “You know, whenever I find little commonalities like this, it refreshes my faith in God’s cosmic order.”

“Coffee does that to you?”

“It shows that things are always more interconnected than they appear. If a lawman in the United States makes his coffee like the venerable Afet Alhazrad of Bagdad, and neither knows the other exists, well, that’s a minor miracle!”

“A miracle?” Mr. Reeves smirked. “Come on, now. That’s a little much, don’t you think?”

“Well, I did say a minor one.”

“Well, speaking of minor miracles, where’s that Aldi compass you made?” Joseph asked. “Don’t go to bed without giving it to us first.”

“I have it right here.” Martin took out the mass of red hair, now twisted into the shape of a crucifix.

Joseph made a little face as he took the Aldi compass. “You tied it into a little cross! Why’d you do that?”

“It helped me concentrate, and the Red Ghost’s hair is surprisingly supple.”

“The things that you do when you’re by yourself. Look at you, playing with hair like a girl!”

“Someone should play with your hair. No one can tell where your beard ends and your hair begins.”

“I like that. It makes me look like a lion.”

“It makes you look like a gorilla.”

Joseph flicked the Aldi compass between his fingers. “ Well, so long as this little thing works, I suppose the shape doesn’t matter…”

“Oh, it will work, better than any Aldi compass you could possibly make, I might add! I did a very good job with that compass, if I do say so myself.”

“Or say so by yourself…” Joseph muttered.

“This compass is so good we may be able to wrap up this case tomorrow.” Martin turned to Mr. Reeves. “Anyway, where do we sleep?”

“On the floor, I’m afraid.” Mr. Reeves said. “We don’t have beds at the station, we don’t have the room for them, but we do have bedrolls. I’ll get them out.”

“You won’t need one for me.” Martin said.

He leaned back and relaxed seemingly in the empty air. He placed his arms behind his head.

“Ah, your thought-form dogs, I see.” Mr. Reeves said. “Or rather, I don’t see.”

Martin’s dogs were a product of his brief thaumaturgical instruction. The Ror Raas taught him how to shape his mental energies into two beings that he could control like puppets. They were clouds of force and could lift things, hold things, or, in this case, be used as a bed.

“You can hop up.” Martin said to Mr. Reeves. “There’s plenty of room.”

“No thanks.” Mr. Reeves replied. “I’m too used to bedrolls. I’ve used so many on the trail it now seems weird to me to sleep even a hand’s breadth above the ground.”

“I’ll take a bedroll.” Joseph said. “And I’ll hunker down next to the goat sucker. We make quite the pair, don’t you think?”

“You’d rather sleep on the floor than on one of the dogs?” Martin asked.

“With the floor, I don’t have to worry about it suddenly moving and causing me to fall.”

“How are the dogs going to suddenly move?” Martin asked. “They obey my every command.”

“That’s what concerns me.” Joseph said.

“Oh, ha ha.”

“I wonder if the goat sucker will give me interesting dreams?” Joseph said. “He’s an ugly fellow, but he’s still fairy kin, and they say they fill your mind with wonder just by being close to them.”

“Knock yourself out trying it.” Mr. Reeves said. “I’m going to sleep by the fireplace.” Mr. Reeves turned to Matthew. “You know where you’re going to sleep, Dr. Ernst?”

“Right in this chair.” Matthew said. “Just hand me a blanket. I’ll write by the olprt radiance of my gaeite candle until I fall asleep.”

Suddenly, a howl which was like an owl trapped in a wolf’s throat split the night.

“Glad to hear Mr. Leeds is having fun.” Joseph said. “It’s crazy to me how much time he spends with those straps on. I think I’d go mad in his place.”

The Second Day

As dawn broke, Mr. Reeves was the first to wake up. He fixed coffee for himself and Dr. Glass and tea for Dr. Morton and Dr. Ernst. He gently cracked open the door to Mr. Leed’s office, saw that he was curled up and asleep, and quietly closed the door.

Dr. Morton and Dr. Ernst woke shortly after Mr. Reeves, but Dr. Glass remained fast asleep as they gathered in the main room for breakfast.

“Any dreams?” Mr. Reeves asked Joseph.

“I dreamed of an old case.” Joseph said. “It was the Chelmsford Bandage Man.”

“Oh. Him.” Matthew said. “That must have been an awful dream.”

“It was, but I won’t hold it against the goat sucker.” Joseph said.

“The Bandage Man was a bad one?” Mr. Reeves asked.

“Very bad.” Joseph said. “He killed many. He was horribly mangled in life. Doctors tried their best to keep him alive, but all they could do was hold death off a few days. He was just..blood and bandages, all stuck together. And he killed people because he felt he could repair himself with the pieces. He was mad. He thought he could take off the bad parts and attach new, good parts…but enough of that, the Bandage Man is old news, and if I spoke any further about him I’d ruin breakfast for you! What do we have to eat, anyway?”

“Biscuits.” Mr. Reeves answered.

“Oh? What kinds? Sweet teas? Chocolate digestives? Scousers?

Mr. Reeves shrugged. “American, I guess?”

“Oh. Well, no problem. I’ll just have to soak them a bit in my coffee. These old teeth of mine can’t stand things so hard.”

“It’s not hardtack.” Mr. Reeves said.

“Yes, but it’s not proper English biscuits either. I think you Yanks use biscuits as a synonym for rocks.”

“Poor Dr. Glass seems like he wants to sleep until the afternoon.” Mr. Reeves said. “That Aldi Operation takes a lot out of a man, I see.”

“It does, which is why we have him do it.” Joseph said. “Martin’s not as young as he used to be, but he’s still younger than Dr. Ernst and myself.”

“Should we wait for him to get up, or should we head out on our own and let him sleep?” Mr. Reeves asked.

“Let him sleep.” Joseph said. “He did his fair share of work, and it’s not like the Alid Operation improves with the number of manesologists, one man does it as well as several.”

“I’m not experienced with that Operation.” Mr. Reeves said. “So I’m afraid one of you has to do it.”

“I’ll do it.” Matthew said. “Mr. Reeves, you can perform the Perkunos Operation.”

“The Perkunos Operation?” Mr. Reeves asked.

“Yes. Are you familiar with it?”

“Yes sir, Dirk Peters taught it to me. But that’s to weaken the khet component of a ghost, to make their physical manifestations stronger or weaker. Why will we need someone to perform that while we’re hunting for the Red Ghost?”

“Because we’re going hunting with Whistle, and the thing about Whistle is, his physical manifestation naturally blinks.” Matthew explained. “Sometimes he’s solid, sometimes he isn’t, and if someone isn’t constantly performing the Perkunos Operation, he’ll turn intangible while you’re riding him, and well, we did an experiment with a pumpkin one time. We ate pumpkin pie that night.”

“So no more.” Mr. Reeves said. “This ought to be interesting. I’ve never hunted anything or anyone with a ghost horse before. I bet if I had Whistle a year ago, I would have gotten to the Clayton Gang before the Sunrise Kid. This ought to be real interesting. Hell, I bet it’s even going to be fun!”

…..

“Is this interesting enough for you, Mr. Reeves?” Joseph asked as Whistle took to the air.

“Hell yes it is!” Mr. Reeves tapped the ectoplasmic straps holding him fast to the hollow insides of the carriage. He kicked a clump of glowing yellow hay with his boot. “I don’t know whether I’m inside Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage or Rumplestiltskin’s lair!”

“Just be sure to keep performing the Perkunos Operation in the back of your head, otherwise we’ll all find ourselves in Humpty Dumpty!” Joseph said.

Mr. Reeve’s gaeite lantern hung from his belt. It’s gaeite core was open and exposed. Olprt radiance shined forth from the amber colored block of gaeite and slivery-white light filled the hollow carriage. At the back of his mind, Mr. Reeves performed the Perkunos Operation, guaranteeing that he and his friends would remain in a solid carriage.

A large round window allowed the group to see over Eagle Creek, which from their height appeared as a blue ribbon snaking across the Arizona territory.

“How are you handling the Aldi Operation, Dr. Ernst?” Mr. Reeves asked.

Matthew fiddled with the ectoplasmic cross of hair in his hand stained black in Mr. Reeve’s olprt radiance.

“I feel the pull.” he said. “We’ll be on him in a moment.”

Suddenly, Matthew tightened his grip on the cross.

“I misspoke. We’re actually on him now and–ah, damn it all, I lost him!”

“You lost him?” Joseph asked. “Oh no! Don’t tell me–the Red Ghost is another teleporter?”

“It would seem that way.” Matthew said.

Joseph groaned. “Oh I hate dealing with teleporters. Cheaters, the lot of them.”

“What’s worse is that the Red Ghost also has one of the most sensitive manifestations I’ve ever encountered.” Matthew said.

“Oh, joy.” Joseph said.

“As soon as my mind touched his manifestation, he teleported.” Matthew said. “This is like the Oxford Flash all over again. We’re in for a long and troublesome chase, gentlemen.”

“So be it.” Mr. Reeves said. “The greater the trouble, the greater the glory.”

“We need to talk about a plan B, however.” Joseph said. “Matthew, assuming that we can’t get close enough to the Red Ghost to affix him, when do you think you’ll have enough psychic familiarity with his manifestation to drag him to our side with the Zacare Operation?”

“That’s hard to say.” Matthew said. “I’m going to tentatively say two days, maybe three. I only got a very brief flash when my mind made contact, but it was a vivid flash. I can make psychic contact with the Zacare Operation with just a few more of those, I think.”

“I’m starting to think the Red Ghost is the ghost of an animal, like Whistle here.” Mr. Reeves said. “He wasn’t spooked by a woman, but sensing the approach of several people and a horse set him to flight. That feels like animal behavior.”

“You may be right, Mr. Reeves.” Joseph said. “But it’s still early in the investigation. We haven’t even seen the Red Ghost with our own eyes. Anything can happen.”

“I’m getting a pull towards port quarter.” Matthew said.

“Port quarter?” Mr. Reeves asked.

Joseph pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. “It means back that-a-way, or just abouts.” Joseph took out a large metal cube from his pocket covered in knobs. He twisted one.

The cube made a sound like a whip cracking through the air once, and then twice in rapid succession. The men felt themselves pull against the ectoplasmic straps as Whistle turned.

“New question–what’s that box that sounds like a horsewhip?” Mr. Reeves asked.

“Oh, it can sound like more than that. This is our noise box. We built it shortly after we acquired Whistle to deal with a ghost called the Modern Siren who could only respond to sound.”

“I remember reading about her in Illustrated Phantom Stories.” Mr. Reeves said. “I thought it was funny that the drawing on the cover had her as a beautiful lady in a diaphanous gown but in the story itself she was a living song without a physical shape.”

“A cover with a pretty girl on it will always sell more than a cover of three men staring at empty space.” Joseph said.

“And it was a fine cover indeed.” Mr. Reeves said. “But about this port quarter thing?”

“We have a system based on the directions of a boat.” Matthew explained. “Towards Whistle is bow. Away from Whistle is stern. To the right of Whistle is starboard and to his left is port. Port quarter is halfway between port and stern.”

Mr. Reeves smiled. “So I’m on a flying horse-drawn boat? Hell, I knew this was going to be fun!”

“Oh!” Matthew gasped. “I think I feel the Red Ghost again! And… and he’s gone.”

“Don’t feel bad, Dr. Ernst.” Mr. Reeves said. “We have all day to hunt for him, and even if we don’t corner him, there’s the Zacare Operation.”

“It’s still so frustrating.” Matthew said. “Like trying to grab a fish with your bare hands, it just slips right out.”

The manesologists continued to fly up and down Eagle Creek in search of the Red Ghost. They fell into a familiar pattern. Matthew would get close to the Red Ghost, it would teleport, and then Joseph would use the noise box to turn Whistle in a new direction indicated by the Aldi Operation.

Little by little, Mr. Reeves grew restless. The Perkunos Operation was but a trifle for him to perform. Dirk Peters taught it to him years ago, and he was so familiar with it that he could perform it in his sleep. He started to rap his fingers on his ectoplasmic straps and listen to the strange chime-like sound it made. That satisfied him for a minute, then Mr. Reeves started to sing to accompany his strumming.

“I killed a man in Dallas, and another in Cheyenne, but when I killed a man in Tombstone, I overplayed my hand. I rode all night for Tucson, to rob the Robles mine, and I left old Arizona, with a posse right behind.”

“What are you singing?” Joseph asked.

“Does it bother you, Dr. Morton?” Mr. Reeves asked.

“Not at all. I just want to know what it is.” Joseph answered.

“It’s an old cowboy ballad. Arizona Killer.”

“It’s actually called that?”

“Yes, sir.”

Joseph chuckled. “Oh, I do so love this continent! Do you know a lot of these cowboy ballads, Mr. Reeves?”

“I know a lot of them, and for some of them, I even know the poor desperados that inspired them.”

“Poor?” Joseph asked.

“Yes. Even bad men can be poor men, when they have to run from me.” Mr. Reeves said.

“You have a remarkable singing voice.” Matthew said. “If you ever tire of chasing after men and ghosts, there’s this theater we know of in Essex called the Gnome, it used to just show Shakespeare plays, but it started showing operas a few years back.”

Mr. Reeves laughed. “You really think I can do Opera?”

“I think you’d be smashing.” Joseph answered.

“No, sir, I can’t agree. Can you imagine? Bass Reeves, lawman, manesologist, and now, baritone for an Essex opera! This world of ours is strange, Dr. Morton, but it’s not that strange!”

“Have you always been a singer?” Joseph asked.

“This singing of mine, it’s a habit I developed in my childhood. I’ve always liked to sing, especially on a trip. My mother swore up and down that one day I’d become an outlaw because I always sang about them. She was close, I suppose. Becoming a lawman meant my life became encompassed by outlaws.”

“And ghosts.” Joseph said.

“True. But I find they’re very similar.” Mr. Reeves said. “They both cause disruptions to the lives of normal folk, they both take to hiding whenever someone’s after them, and they–”

Mr. Reeves stopped. Something outside the window caught his eye.

“Wait! Stop the carriage!” Mr. Reeves pointed at a spot on the ground. “There’s something down there! It looks like a body!”

Joseph squinted and strained to see what Mr. Reeves saw. “Damn it!” he hissed. “I can’t see a thing! It all looks like dirt to these old eyes of mine.”

Joseph pressed a button on the noise box. The sharp sound of a single whip crack made Whistle stop. The horse stood still in the middle of the air, not seeing anything out-of-the-ordinary with doing so.

Matthew then worked an Operation to make the horse and carriage descend to the ground.

A Dyeus king pointed at an ancestral warrior battling opponents on all sides, whirling and cutting with every rotation. The ghost was then transported through the air and deposited safely on a mountain. The battle would be lost, but this ancestral warrior had proven more valuable than the land, and could not be lost to enemy necromancers.

The Ozien Operation

As the ghost horse and carriage descended, what Mr. Reeves had spotted became clearer. Something had been torn to pieces next to the creek. Its blood was being washed downstream in fat globs.

When Whistle touched down, Matthew quickly performed another Operation to allow him to tear away their ectoplasmic straps with his hands.

The Dyeus prince touched the ghost’s face and rearranged the features until they bore a resemblance to his own. The trick would only work once, but it would only need to work once to bait out the assassin.

The Molvi Operation

The men bolted from the carriage as soon as Matthew had freed them.

“Oh Lord, please don’t let it be another person.” Matthew said.

Mr. Reeves was the first to reach the corpse. “It’s not a person, thank God, though this is a cause for concern.”

“What is it? A moose? A coyote?” Matthew asked as he got closer.

‘No.” Mr. Reeves answered. ‘Take a look. It’s a poor bear, and a grizzly at that. It looks like a butcher and a tanner had a fight over him and neither won.

It was hard to tell skin and fur from muscles and organs. Everything was a red mass. Most of the grizzly was scattered about in a smear across the shore, but parts were inside the shallow water. Strings of gore flowed in the current. Something white, which might have been a jaw or a rib or a bit of skull, had been washed clean by the water and clung to the side of a rock.

“It did this to a grizzly. My god.” Joseph exclaimed. “An entire grizzly!”

“When they say the living have no defense against the dead, it goes for animals as well.” Matthew said. “Poor creature was eviscerated like it was made out of paper.”

Mr. Reeves crouched down by the remains and regarded them as only a seasoned trailman could.

“God, all the red reminds me of Martin’s horrid bird pepper sauce.” Joseph said. ‘It’s making me feel sick.”

“That it’s blood doesn’t bother you none, but that it reminds you of pepper sauce does?” Mr. Reeves asked.

“Yes.” Joseph answered. “I know the taste of blood and it’s metallic, like mushrooms. But that abhorrent sauce is simply pain in liquid form.”

“Hm. Fair enough.” Mr. Reeves said. “I’ve had blood in my mouth enough times to know how it tastes. But I don’t think it’s worse than something people put on eggs.”

Mr. Reeves pulled a clump of hair from the wet mass. With his other hand, he activated the gaeite core of his lantern. The clump shone beetle-black in the olprt radiance.

“The Red Ghost did this, as if we needed any more proof.” Mr. Reeves said. “Still, more curios for the collecting .Maybe we’ll collect enough hair to make a whole blanket?”

“Leave a few strands for us.” Joseph said. “We’re a sentimental lot ourselves. I like to watch the shelves stock up in the basement.”

“You gentlemen see those piles?” Mr. Reeves pointed to several small piles of thoroughly ripped and smashed flesh. “They look like someone went over the meat with a hammer and knife many, many times, or in other words, they look like someone chewed them. I don’t think the Red Ghost just killed this grizzly. I think he tried to eat it, not fully understanding he was a ghost, and left these piles as the flesh fell through him.”

“Just like Whisper and carrots.” Matthew said.

“So, it tramples a woman to death, but it eats a whole grizzly bear, or rather tries to eat a grizzly bear. Why? Why does it kill a woman but eat a beast?” Joseph asked

“Human impulses.” Matthew said. “That’s my guess. This points to the Red Ghost being the manes of a man, just in the form of a strange and monstrous animal. A man would eat an animal, but a man won’t eat another human, not even one he hated.

“And he’s a very hungry man.” Mr. Reeves said. “Hungry enough to literally eat a bear. I’m starting to think that the hypothesis that this is the ghost of a jealous settler is true. I can see it–a man from back East goes West, but he’s not prepared for how it really is out here when your closest neighbor is a mile away, so he ends up starving. It’s not too uncommon a story. But then his ghost manifests, and he sees all these well-fed homesteaders cultivating the land he wanted, the land he died on, and decides to take his revenge.”

“A man becomes so jealous that he becomes a red-furred monster…” Matthew mused. “It almost sounds like a fairy story.”

“The animal form might be a way for him to disassociate from his crimes.” Joseph suggested. ‘Like how murderous shapeshifters like the Snallygaster only killed in bestial forms.”

“We need to take photographs.” Matthew said. “Mr. Reeves, please help Joseph retrieve the photography equipment from the trunk inside Whistle’s carriage.”

“Not a problem, Dr. Ernst.” Mr. Reeves replied. “I love photographing clues, be they for a manhunt or a ghost hunt.”

“Here’s a man that loves to solve a mystery!” Joseph said. “A man after my own heart! I am so happy we got to team-up with you for this case and not Etienne Bisclavret–but don’t tell him I said that. He’s liable to eat me if you do.”

Mr. Reeves smirked. “Oh, Etienne would do worse than that. He’d eat you after covering you in bird pepper sauce.”

“Truly, my Hell.”

While Mr. Reeves, Joseph, and Matthew took photographs of the bear’s corpse, Martin and Mr. Leeds played each other in an old board game that predated not only chess, but chess’ inspiration chaturanga.

Mr. Leeds was once again tied into his suit and his stiff arms rested at his side as Martin moved the pieces for the both of them. The sawdust filled gloves of Mr. Leeds’ suit couldn’t pick up the pieces.

The board and its pieces came from the Antarctic palace of the Necromancer King Tekeli-Li, the White Necromancer, and Tekeli-Li himself had found the board within the ruins of a gaeite spire that once loomed over Pangea. The game was called zilodarp, which meant conquest in the ancient language of the Dyeus.

The zilodarp board was, as with chess and chaturanga, composed of 64 squares arranged in eight rows and eight columns. The board was red, and was built from the wood of a tree that no longer grows on Earth, but a 2X2 square in the center was made of a bright silver alloy that was nearly the exact color of olprt radiance. The game pieces numbered 52 in total, 26 for each player, but only twenty of the pieces had survived the aeons. The rest were modern glass replicas.

The original pieces were made out of a material known as perkunite and were colored blue and yellow. Very little was known about perkunite. What the Ror Raas could glean from their psychic visions of the past told them that perkunite was created from gaeite, but retained none of its metaphysical properties. Perkunite was an indestructible metal, vastly stronger than even Krupp steel, and could do strange things to heat and energy. It was not without good reason that the Dyeus sacrificed their most precious material to create perkunite. Dragons from distant stars invaded Earth back when the continents were one, hungry for the secrets of gaeite. The Dyeus and their ghost armies fought the dragons back, pushing most of them back to the stars and a few to distant underground caverns where they slept dreaming to this day. That the pieces to a wargame were made out of material used for weapons perhaps indicated a sort of “swords-to-plowshares” statement on the part of the craftsman–it was one of many things Mr. Leeds and Martin discussed over their game.

The pieces depicted two Dyeus kings and their spectral forces. The kings were easy to identify, they wore robes and gaeite crowns similar to what the Ror Raas saw in their visions of the past. But what their forces represented was a matter of dispute. Their forms were highly abstract. Some looked like stacks of building blocks, others like billowing clouds, and others still like frozen waterfalls. Some said they represented ghosts, others said they represented thought-forms similar to Martin’s dogs. It was also possible that they were a mixture of thought-forms and ghosts.

The game was played with each player taking turns placing two pieces in the center of the board which represented the Astral. Each piece moved a different way and had different rules for how it could be captured. The goal of the game was to fill one’s back row with summoned spirits while preventing one’s opponent from doing the same, though victory could also be achieved by slaying the opponent’s king, an action accomplished by placing three pieces adjacent to the king.

As the game currently stood, the board was filled with a mixture of blue and yellow pieces. Even an intermediate player familiar with the rules would have struggled to figure out who was winning. To a novice, it looked like two boys playing with toy soldiers. There was a suggestion of structure and rules, but only a suggestion and nothing more.

“So, who’s winning?” Joseph asked as his group entered the station.

“I am. I think.” Martin said. “But I think Mr. Leeds may have a different take on the situation.”

Mr. Leeds made a sound that was as close as he could come to laughing. It was highly unsettling to those that didn’t know it represented laughter.

“Perhaps.” he said.

“So, did you affix the Red Ghost?” Martin asked.

“No.” Joseph said.

“No? But you’ve been tracking it all day!”

“The Red Ghost is a tricky one, unfortunately.” Matthew said. “Its external manifestation field is extremely sensitive. As soon as I sense the very fringe of its Astral hand, it teleports away.”

An Astral hand was the manesological term for the faintest part of a ghost’s manifestation, as it was a “hand reaching down from the Astral and entering the physical world.”

“Oh, another teleporter. Damn!” Martine exclaimed. “Those are so annoying to deal with.”

“But not impossible to deal with.” Mr. Leeds said. “Old Bloody Bones was a teleporter, and there’s his sack up there under the Snallygaster’s tentacle.” Mr. Leeds gestured to the sack with a stiff glove as if he were slapping the air. “We will get him.”

“Yes. It’s just a matter of time.” Joseph said. “Our minds are gradually adapting to the Red Ghost’s presence. If we put in a full day of hunting tomorrow, we should be able to use the Zacare Operation on it, and reel it in towards our location like a big, furry trout.”

Joseph pointed to a fur-bearing mounted on the wall. “We’ll hang him up there!”

“That’s quite a way of putting it, but yes.” Mr. Reeves said. “We just need to make sure people know to stay indoors for the time being, because the Red Ghost didn’t slake his bloodlust with Mrs. Richards.”

Mr. Reeves placed the photographs of the bear on the table.

Martin gasped–then gave a sigh of relief.

“Oh. I thought it was a person!” he said.

“We did, too.” Joseph said. “Until we got a good look at it.”

“Still, poor creature. Nothing deserves to die like that.”

“Ever seen what a bear does to a fish it catches?” Mr. Reeves asked. “It’s not too dissimilar to what was done to it. You could call this justice, albeit a very strange form of it.”

“It looks like it…ate parts of it.” Martin said.

“Good eyes!” Mr. Reeves said. “It took me a few moments looking over the remains to figure that one out.”

“Thank you.” Martin said. “I’ve always had good eyes.”

“Yes, we think it tried to eat the bear, but it couldn’t hold any of it down in its ectoplasmic body.” Mr. Reeves said. “Those piles are bits of bear that got chewed up and swallowed down to a stomach that didn’t exist.”

“Oh, you poor creature!” Martin frowned at the pictures. But at least you weren’t a human.”

“Given that the Red Ghost killed a woman but ate a bear, we’re thinking that the Red Ghost isn’t the ghost of an animal but the ghost of a man. A man will kill another person, but not eat them.”

‘And so the bloodshed of the Red Ghost continues, regrettably.” Martin said. “We need to send an electrogram to the authorities. Who would that be in Arizona territory, exactly?”

Mr. Leeds pointed to the electrograph room. “Directions for how to contact Fort Bowie are on the wall. They should be able to send an alert to all the post offices and they’ll send riders to alert the homesteads.”

“I’ll get to it.” Matthew said before heading to the electrograph room.

“I’ll be leaving soon.” Mr. Leeds said. “For my nightly business.”

“Don’t let us keep you.” Matthew said. “You’ve seen what we’ve found today, so go ahead and take off.” With that, he walked into the electrograph room and closed the door behind him.

“Leave it to Matthew to volunteer to do some writing.” Joseph said. He turned to Martin. “Tomorrow, be sure you wake up so you can come with us,” he said.

“An extra manesologists won’t help you three acclimate faster to the Red Ghost’s telepathic signature.” Martin said.

“True, but you going out with us has got to be better than sticking around here all day playing magic man chess with Mr. Leeds.”

“Actually, I didn’t spend all day here.” Martin snapped his fingers and several canvas sacks levitated onto the table through the power of his dogs. The dogs then pulled back the drawstrings to reveal the yellow and red contents of the sacks.

“Good lord!” Joseph exclaimed. “You really were serious about this bird pepper business!”

Martin nodded. “If it all goes well, I’ll have all the bird pepper sauce I could ever want. I may even sell some in little bottles and donate the profits to Asphodel Street.”

“That’s not a bad idea.” Mr. Reeves said. “There’s a man by the name of Edmund McIlheney down in Louisiana, a friend of the Bisclavret clan, though he’s not a shapeshifter himself. He owns an island about three miles from Vermillion Bay called Avery Island. It’s not a good land for growing things, on the count of a salt dome beneath it, but what does grow good on Avery Island is peppers.”

“I like this man and his salt island, and I’ve never met him.” Martin said.

“McIlheney learned about a unique variety of bird pepper that grows down in Mexico, in a state called Tabasco. He imported some and now these Tabasco peppers grow like a weed around Avery island. He makes a sauce out of it, vinegar, and salt–which is dirt cheap on Avery Island, literally from the dirt.”

“Is it good?”

“I’d say so. The Bisclavret siblings love it, they drink it like its water.”

“I see you two have the tastes of not only birds but loup-garou. Charming.” Joseph said.

“Mr. Leeds, I must ask you, have you ever tasted this bird pepper sauce that’s become such a point of contention between my colleagues?” Matthew asked.

But Mr.Leeds didn’t answer, because Mr. Leeds wasn’t there.

On a hunch, Mr. Reeves opened the door to Mr. Leeds’ room and found his clothing neatly hung over his chair.

Joseph whistled. “So he went past us, took his clothes off, went past us again, and left without any of us knowing it. It is incredible how fast he moves.” Joseph said.

“I sometimes forget how quick he is.” Martin said. “I remember how a cannonball smacked into him and didn’t so much as bruise his flesh and I get to thinking of him as like Joseph–big, strong, and slow.”

“Slow, am I?” Joseph smirked.

“Slow you are.” Martin said.

“Slow compared to who, Martin?” Joseph asked. “I tend to recall a time when we went hiking through Epping forest to check on the Black Pool and you were lagging quite some ways behind me–or am I remembering several times, Martin?

“Only because of your freakishly large stride…” Martin mumbled.

“He’s faster than my draw.” Mr. Reeves said. “He’d be the greatest quickdraw in all of America if we could somehow convince him to learn how to hold a gun.” he looked down at his holstered gaeite lantern. “If people could build this contraption, they could build something for his hands, I’m sure of it.”

“He’s a gentle soul.” Martin said. “The way he hunts may be off-putting, to say the least, but he learned those behaviors at a young age, and he would never think of turning his teeth upon another man, or harming another man in any way.”

“Perhaps it’s good he never learns. Violence does change a man.” Mr. Reeves said. “And not for the better. I know this all too well.”

“Well, gentlemen, I’m going to finish my coffee, and I’m off to bed.” Martin said. “I suggest you all follow shortly. The Red Ghost still prowls Eagle Creek, and if we can’t capture him, at least we can patrol the area and make sure the innocent are kept away from any possible danger. If he’s teleporting from us, he’s not hunting them.”

The door to the electrograph room opened and Matthew stepped into the main room. “The message has been sent to Fort Bowie and they promise to forward it to nearby post offices. With any luck, the population will keep itself inside.”

The Third Day

As on the previous morning, Mr. Reeves was the first to rise. He checked in on Mr. Leeds and found him sound asleep after his night of aerial play, then he made coffee, tea, and biscuits.

At breakfast, Martin drowned his biscuits in bird pepper sauce until the dry, crumbly bread was wet and pink.

“Good lord, do you have to put it on everything now?” Joseph asked.

“Bury me with a bottle.” Martin said.

“We’ll drown your coffin with it.” Joseph said. He wrinkled his nose from the smell.”Ugh! How does that not knock you out?”

“Says the man that smokes like a chimney.” Martin said. “You know what, I think that’s your problem, Joseph, you’ve dulled your sense of taste. You simply can’t enjoy bird pepper sauce, it’s wonderment is beyond you. Breathe the smell in deep, old man, it’s vitalizing, you could use it.”

“There’s nothing vitalizing about that horrid red substance.” Joseph said. “I am convinced that you would die on the spot if you tipped the whole bottle down your gullet. In fact, I’ll bet you a whole crown that you can’t drink that whole bottle.”

“You’d take money from a dead man?” Martin asked.

“I’ll claim it from your ghost.”

“I have to intercede here, children.” Matthew said. “But we’re here on business, and I’m not going to let Martin scald his insides off a bet.”

“What if I made the bet a crown and two shillings?” Joseph asked.

“Speaking of business, I checked the electrograph today.” Mr. Reeves said. “Fort Bowie sent a reply to your electrogram, Dr. Ernst.”

“What did they say?” Matthew asked.

“About what you’d expect. They’ve sent word up and down Eagle Creek for people to stay in doors and keep away from the Red Ghost. They’re also slightly upset that we haven’t resolved the haunting yet.”

“That’s usually how the authorities treat us outside Blackwall.” Joseph said. “They want the ghost gone and they want the ghost gone now. It makes me appreciate Chief Constable James. Sarcastic though he may be at times, he’s always had our backs. I know you Poeists don’t have a central base of operations, what with you covering the entire bloody continent, but do you have anyone like Chief Constable James? Someone in authority that’s always got your backs?”

“Well, like you say, we’re very decentralized, but our two main stations are in New Jersey and West Virginia, and the governors of those two states are usually on good terms with us. Usually. But we don’t have a Chief Constable James. I wish we did…no wait, you know what? Would Judge Isaac Parker and Marshall James Fagan count?”

“Who are they?”

“Friends. More my friends than friends of the American Manesological Society, but friends nonetheless. Judge Parker is who I send all my bounties to, the ones with pulses, and he sometimes sends them back to me when he’s done with them–their ghosts, that is. They call him Hanging Judge Parker.”

“Doesn’t sound like a very merciful man.”

“I suppose that’s fair to say. It’s hard to call a man that’s stretched the necks of so many men merciful. But consider the nature of Indian territory. Back in 1828, Jackson’s Democrats uprooted the Indians and pushed them west of the Mississippi, to Indian Territory, and promised them protection–protection which never came. Like Judge Parker once said when he defended himself from men that called him brutal, it fell to the courts to provide some of that long-promised protection, the courts and their officers, like myself and Marshal Fagan. Men, that I would scarcely call men, that Judge Parker calls devils in human form, cut their teeth on bloody sin back east and flee west, to Indian Territory, to try and escape the law. The United States exports the worst of their criminals to Indian territory. I’ve seen the worst evil that comes on two legs. I’ve put bullets in some of them, but most I capture alive to face Judge Parker. And I can’t rightfully say I feel sorry for most of them.”

“We’re no strangers to the rawest evil of man.” Joseph said.

“True. There was that killer back in 1866, the “Werewolf of Blackwall” you called him, right?”

“Yes. He liked to cut young women of the night and watch them bleed out as they ran from him. We never encountered his ghost, but a friend of ours did, and dealt with him properly.”

“The Bisclavret siblings never liked how you called him the Werewolf of Blackwall.”

“Apologies. It was before shapeshifters were known to the world at large. They clung furtively to the shadows back in 1866. But regardless of what we called him, he was certainly the kind of man Judge Parker would have called a devil in human form.”

“True. But the Werewolf of Blackwall was one devil from one city. Indian territory is a lake of filth whose tributaries are the dirty cities of the east, Dr. Morton. There was this one half-breed, went by the name of James Foy. He killed a man the local natives called the barefoot school teacher, all because he happened to have a roll of bills in his hand at the time. James Foy hid his body in the mountains where it moldered for years until a Seminole boy found it. His name, even after several years, was still legible on the fly-leaf of the book he had in his coat pocket, and that led me to James, and I led him to Judge Parker’s gallows. That’s one devil, Dr. Morton, just one of many. If Judge Parker is a hard man, he’s a hard man because this is a hard territory. I spent time among the Cherokee and Seminole and Muskogee after I escaped slavery. They were good to me. If I have to send some men to Hell to return the favor, I will.”

“I see your point. But what about the other man, this Marshal Fagan?”

“Judge Parker is the one that signed off on my star, but Marshal Fagan is the one that pinned it on my chest. He used to be a Confederate, if you can believe it.”

“A Confederate deputized a negro?”

“A Confederate general, actually. He was at Shiloh when the Ror Raas brought an end to the war with their sky-fires. When the Confederacy started to dissolve under economic strain, General Fagan was appointed Marshal Fagan, and Marshal Fagan appointed me.”

“Even though you were a negro?”

“I speak Tsalagi, among several other Indian languages, I can ride to beat the devil and shoot his horns off, and I’m as good a shot with my left hand as my right hand. A Democrat would have appointed me, and Marshal Fagan was never a Democrat. He was a Whig, then he joined the American Party. He never owned a slave and he clearly has nothing against my race. He gave a negro the power to arrest white men, didn’t he?”

“That seems odd to me.”

“Nothing odd about it. Not every man in the South fought because of slavery. Anyway, Dr. Morton, Marshal Fagan and Judge Parker are my friends. But I’m not sure they would count as counterparts to your Chief Constable James.”

“I would say they would count, even if they’re just your friends. Really, that’s all you need sometimes–someone who knows you and can sympathize with you.”

When they finished breakfast, the men boarded Whistle’s carriage and took to the Arizona sky. Though Matthew found the Red Ghost to be just as hard to pin down with the Aldi Operation as yesterday, it would not be long before the manesologists found another clue left by the Red Ghost.