A floorboard creaked under Mr. Doolin’s foot.
“Try not to wake the Deputy,” Cornelius Magnus sat at the end of the little bed in the jail cell. Behind him, on the little side table, the flame in the lantern danced. “God only knows his disposition toward the augural arts.”
Deputy Broomstache hadn’t even twitched. Only a few long hairs of his mustache trembled in the gale of his snores. Reclined in the chair, his head hung limp, chin against his chest. Arms were folded. Boots propped up on the Sheriff’s desk, one denim leg laced over the other, and the bowl was right next to them. Another ten feet and Mr. Doolin would have the bowl. Another ten feet and he’d learn where to strike it rich. He stepped lightly, slow, creeping.
But, another old board complained. Louder. Higher Pitched.
The Deputy stirred, snores jamming his nose, making a sound like a rutting pig. He yawned and stretched. Smacked his lips and scratched his belly as he dropped his feet to the floor. Eyes still closed he put his head on the desktop, like a boy who had fallen asleep during a lesson in a schoolroom. His left elbow jostled the bowl. Mr. Doolin waited for the tune of those snores before he ventured another step. However, before he could even lift a foot, the Deputy, caught in the throes of a dream, swung his left arm out, knocking that Indian bowl right to the edge of the desk.
It teetered there, wobbling. Dr. Magnus’ mouth drooped. Mr. Doolin lunged, his hand outstretched, but the bowl fell and smashed onto the floor, ringing like a hammer on an anvil as it shattered. At least, the Deputy didn’t wake up.
Dr. Magnus swore, trying to keep his voice at a whisper, as he sprang to his feet.
“Now what?” Mr. Doolin whispered, dropping to his knees, his confused hands hovering over the fragments of pottery. His eyes were big and red and his bottom lip puffed out in a pitiful pout.
The huckster white knuckled the jail cell bars. “Pick up the pieces. And be sure to get every last one.”
“Can you still perform the séance?” Mr. Doolin gathered the shards, trying to scoop them up, but was forced to pick them up one at a time. The bits of pottery chinked in his palm. He sniffled. “I need to find that gold.”
Dr. Magnus glared at the man, glared at him as he walked over to the jail with those broken fragments of the bowl, and when their faces were only inches apart, Dr Magnus spoke. “It’s my bowl that broke, sir. It’s the shattered bits of my livelihood you hold in your calloused hands.”
Tears welled in Mr. Doolin’s eyes as he stammered. “I…I…”
Dr. Magnus held the lantern, picking through the pieces. “Hold still.”
“I’ll buy you a new bowl.”
“Just lay the rest of your mess on the floor.”
Mr. Doolin sniffled as he reached through the bars and dumped the contents on the boards. Dr. Magnus knelt, set the lantern to the side, and began arranging the jagged pieces on the floor, reassembling the image of the hand painted raven, like a puzzle.
“Nothing goes my way.” Mr. Doolin, with his sleeve, rubbed the tears away from his face. “I’m just trying to do right. Provide for me and Ms. Kate, but calamity seems to always be dogging my heels.”
“You are a discontent and sad man, Mr. Doolin.” Dr. Magnus used a single finger to slide the fragments along the floor to their correct place. “A man fixated on greener pastures and thus will never be satisfied. You’re doomed to the life of a cynic, sir. And I pity you.” Dr. Magnus placed the last pentagonal piece within the raven’s chest. “Violà. Not a piece missing.”
“Do we need glue?” Mr. Doolin asked.
Dr. Magnus reached into his white suit jacket and removed a flask. He took a swig, grimacing.
The blacksmith held out his hand, expecting to receive a shared drink, but Dr. Magnus poured the liquor on the fractured raven. The gray liquid splattering on the shards and floorboards smelled like vinegar mixed with the left behind water that was used to boil a mess of corn cobs. Then, Dr. Magnus, there on his knees, chanted.
It wasn’t Spanish.
It wasn’t Latin.
It sounded Indian, but not like what Mr. Doolin heard the Apaches that came into town speak. It was a harsher language. Raspy. Coughing almost. Sounding old and forgotten. Like the words themselves were draped in cobwebs. Like they had been buried for centuries. Dry syllables covered in dust, choking Dr. Magnus as he spoke.
From the black lines of the fragmented raven, a mist rose. The vaporous curls glinted like the bellies of cobras enticed by Dr. Magnus’ song. They climbed, the silver threads of mist.
Rising.
Rising.
Standing three feet tall. They rippled. And then the black lines, the hand drawn lines, the painted lines of the raven, awoke and rose, peeling from the broken fragments.
Rising.
Twisting.
Slithering up the tendrils of mist. Wrapping and coiling as they mingled and blended, churning the mist, transforming into a billowing smoke that thickened and conformed into the ghostly mold of a raven.
The raven stood there on the now blank shards of pottery, feeble strings of mist wafting from its feathers, like the loose strands of those cobwebs found in the high up corners of a long, abandoned mansion. Despite his transparent appearance, a crack was visible there along the top mandible of his beak. The splintering line of silver was thick, running up and down. Not a sound could be heard when it stretched its wings, fluffing a cloud of spectral dust and phantom down (those little white feathers) that settled about its feet, evaporating as soon as it all hit the ground, like flakes of snow falling on the grass when the day was a little too warm. His voice was only a whisper.
“What happened?” He hopped off the busted pieces of pottery and pecked at one of the shards.
Dr. Magnus still kneeled on the floor, mouth agape and brow furrowed in surprise. He blinked, shaking the expression from his face. “Cracked Beak?”
“I am aware of my state of being. But why are we in a jail cell?”
Dr. Magnus reached out to pet the raven, but it ducked away.
“What are you doing?” Cracked Beak snapped.
The summoner cleared his throat. “We have a customer.”
Mr. Doolin’s eyes were about to pop out of his head and if he wasn’t holding on to the bars, he would have collapsed out of sheer fright when that spectral raven tilted his head and looked up at him.
“You see my condition, correct?” Cracked Back said to Dr. Magnus.
“A little different I suppose.”
“A little different?”
“But,” Dr. Magnus raised a finger. “Adversity can only add to the warrior’s honor.”
“I cannot enter the Spirit World. Not like this. I am too vulnerable.”
“Our customer, though.”
“He will have to wait until you procure a new vessel. Then summon me from that.”
“The broken bowl is not our only hiccup,” Dr. Magnus stood up, flask in hand. He tilted it upside down. A single drop fell to the floorboards between his boots.
Cracked Beak hopped over to the tiny wet spot that quickly dried. “It is your responsibility to have a ready supply..”
“The new supply is still fermenting.”
“How long till the Tizwin is ready?” Cracked Beak studied the damp out line of where the liquid had soaked into the floorboards. Turning his head to the side, he stuck his little ghostly tongue out and licked a moist spot on the wood.
“Three more days. Probably.”
“We wait then. Gives you time to obtain a new vessel for me.”
“No,” Mr. Doolin said, standing at the door of the cell, gripping the bars. “I need that gold.”
“Come back in three days,” Cracked Beak, with his beak, cleaned the pit of his left wing.
“I don’t want to wait three days,” Dr. Magnus sat on the bed, leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “I want out of this jail and far away from this unfriendly town.”
“Why were you arrested?”
“Because of you, Cracked Beak. Distressing Mrs. Pearl like that. Retrieving the ghost of her dead son.” He shook his head. “I thought you had your own purposes?”
Cracked Beak puffed his chest. “I do, but I could not shun a mother’s desire for her child.”
“Well, her husband, the Sheriff, did not appreciate it. And now we’re locked up and God only knows for how long.”
“Send the ghost raven for my gold,” Mr. Doolin rattled the bars.
“We’re partners, Mr. Doolin.” The mattress creaked as Dr. Magnus scooted on the bed and reclined against the back wall. “He only goes if he wants to.”
Cracked Beak stretched his wings then fluttered toward the bed, perching on the brass rail at the foot of it. Little spectral feathers and flakes of dust drifted to the floor. One eye of the raven was focused on Mr. Doolin, staring at him through the bars, while the other was on Dr. Magnus, sitting on the bed. “I will not risk the danger of entering the Spirit World, especially in my current state.”
“We don’t even know if he is still searching for you,” Dr. Magnus said.
“The Shaman’s memory runs long. And he is thorough,” Cracked Beak said.
“You said he was old, Cracked Beak. Senility has probably ravaged his mind, especially after what? Three years. Find this man his gold and let’s get out of here.”
“Three days is not that long to wait. The corn will be fermented and I could have a new vessel. Then I could be summoned at my full powers.”
“Well,” Dr. Magnus laid his head against the wall and closed eyes. “I risk being found.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean there are men seeking to collect and I have no money.”
“Because of your gambling?”
“Can you even believe it?” Dr. Magnus grinned.
“I have told you multiple times…”
“Circumstance binds us, Cracked Beak. Three days is ample time for them to catch up and I do not expect a cordial conversation. And, like I said, who knows how long the Sheriff wishes to detain me.”
Deputy Broomstache continued to snore at the Sheriff’s desk. Mr. Doolin, as Dr. Magnus and Cracked Beak were talking, had scanned the room and discovered that the key for the jail was hanging from an iron ring on a peg on the adjacent wall. He stepped lightly, toe to heel, but still those old boards squeaked like he was walking on a floor made of mice. Deputy Broomstache, though, was dead to the world. Dr. Magnus turned around and Cracked Back swiveled his head when they heard the faint jangle of the iron key.
“Free Dr. Magnus,” Cracked Beak said. “We will perform the séance then.”
Mr. Doolin stood there at the cell door. “I don’t trust Dr. Magnus as far as I can throw him. Do it now. Then I’ll aid his escape.”
Cracked Beak sighed. “What is your name?”
“Jesup Doolin.”
“Give me something that belongs to you, Jesup Doolin. Something important.”
Mr. Doolin’s brow furrowed. “I have already given Dr. Magnus $59.33.”
“I need an item of yours, Jesup Doolin. It will be the conduit between the two worlds.”
Mr. Doolin took off his hat.
“It has to be something important to you,” Cracked Beak said. “There has to be strong emotional associations with the item.”
The blacksmith pushed his hat back on his head and felt around in his pockets. There was a pocketwatch. Plain. Brass. A payment for tools fashioned for the Pearl Ranch. His pocket knife. Brand new. Just bought it. He could’ve made one, but this one had a nice bone handle. Then he felt the three dollars, the paper money crinkling in his fingers, rustling around the knife in his pocket. He was careful to only pull one of the dollar bills out.
“I expect it back.” Extending his arm through the bars, he held the crumpled dollar out for Cracked Beak.
The ghostly raven looked at him, sort of like he was saddened to see that money bore the strongest emotional attachment for the blacksmith, but he accept the bill, bit it, adjusting it within the mandibles of his beak like any other bird when they come up from the ground with a worm.
When he was satisfied with the dollar bill’s positioning and had it clasped firmly in his beak, he hopped off the brass rail bed, alighted on the floor, and waddled toward the broken bits of pottery. He ducked down like he was fixing to crawl under an object, then, with the paper money still held in his beak, he flicked his beak, like he was scooping something up. Suddenly, his head was gone. As if it simply was erased. Not a line, not a smudge left behind. In the next second, he vanished completely, same as if he had scuttled under the folds of a curtain.