CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Something wicked this way comes . . .”
The old Creole woman Ezora Chabert shivered in anticipation as she felt the nearing presence of a soul as evil as her own. She smiled. She had known for days that the handsome blond white man with the satanic eyes would visit her, and she had made all ready to greet him. But not for this man a love potion or a spell for wealth or an amulet to protect against the evil eye, but something darker, more elemental, the acquisition of the truly wicked . . . the powder that paralyzes or the poison that kills.
Ezora had both, and more, should the customer require it.
The woman who watched Seth Koenig from the window of her shack ten miles southwest of Deming was small, thin, bent, the very image of the old crone, the foul witch of legend. Once, as a young woman in her native New Orleans, she’d been beautiful, or so the city’s police records have it, but she’d poisoned a rich and old husband, then another, and then the wife of a man she craved. As she prospered in her murders, something evil crept into Ezora’s soul like a dark mist into a swamp and all that was beautiful in her withered and died, leaving a malformed, hideous husk. She fled New Orleans to escape the hangman’s noose and by the time Seth Koenig came to call she was wanted for murder in half a dozen states, cited in several court records as a “supplier of poisons and other noxious drafts.”
She was wickedness personified and a fit match for the man who was there to ask her help.
Seth dismounted outside the old woman’s cabin, a former prospector’s shack set among trees at the base of a stunted limestone ridge. The tinpan had lain dead inside for several years before his mummified body was discovered. The local punchers avoided the place, and no one had occupied it until Ezora moved in, three years before she opened the door to Seth.
The woman read the surprise on the man’s face and said, “No need to announce yourself. I’ve been expecting you.” Her voice was midway between a hoarse whisper and a raven croak. “Come inside.”
“How did you know I was coming?”
Ezora’s smile was toothless and ugly. “I see things. And I smell things. Evil has a stink that carries in the wind.”
“And you have a stink that’s all your own, hag,” Seth said.
“I stink, you stink, because we share the same darkness of soul. Come now, a riddle. Whose soul is blacker, the witch or the parricide?”
“Parricide? What the hell does that mean?”
“It means father-killer. Ha! I see the guilt in your face.”
“I have no guilt, crone. Now step away from me. You smell like a gut pile.” Seth looked around him.
The gloomy cabin consisted of one room with a dirt floor and was furnished with a cot and a rocker pulled up to a stone fireplace. A blackened pot hanging from an iron hook bubbled above the flames and smelled of boiling meat. The wall to the right of the door supported three shelves that were covered in clay pots of varying shapes and sizes, and bunches of dried herbs hung from the roof beams. On the floor, a steel cage the size of a steamer trunk held half a dozen brown rats that scrambled and squeaked and scratched, and nearby an oil lamp stood on a three-legged stool.
Ezora wore a shapeless dress that was once white and a black shawl that she drew closer around her skinny shoulders. “What do you want from me?”
Seth grinned. “I thought you knew everything.”
“Nothing is closed to me,” the old woman said. Her hair was gray and thin and very dirty. “But I need to hear it from your own lips. It is the way of the witch.”
“I want to kill a man.”
“Yes, I know. You wish to kill your father.”
“My father. Yes, he is the one that must die.”
“But you don’t want to shoot him.”
“No. His death must look natural, like his ticker stopped and he keeled over.”
“Do you want this man to die quickly or slowly in great pain?”
“Quickly enough that he doesn’t have time to draw his gun,” Seth said
“Ah, then you need a poison that kills fast.”
“Yeah, something I can put in his whiskey.”
“Then I have something special for you.”
“All right. Then give it to me.”
“Patience. First describe this man,” Ezora said. “Describe your father.”
“Why the hell do you want to know that?”
“The strength of the poison depends on the strength of the man.”
Seth saw the logic in that and said, “As tall as me, maybe twenty pounds heavier.”
The old woman nodded. “Yes, I can see your father. What a big man. But you do not wish to wait a day longer for your inheritance . . . so he must die.”
Yes, he must die and so must you, old witch. “You’re right. He’s my fond papa, and I want his money,” Seth said, grinning. “He’s lived too long.”
“Then so be it,” Ezora said. “You have coin? Silver and gold?”
“If you help me, I’ll pay your weight in silver.”
“You are very generous.”
“When I want a thing, I’m willing to pay for it.”
“I can help you in your endeavor . . . as I’ve helped many before you,” the old woman said. “But first listen to me. Poisons, even my venoms, do not kill instantly. Often the victim will scream and groan and foam at the mouth as he clutches his belly and rolls on the floor. It can be an exquisitely painful death and may arouse suspicion.”
Seth did not receive that bad news well. “Hell, you crazy old slut, that will give Blade time to draw his iron and plug me.”
“And you have no wish to die.”
“Damn right, I don’t. I’m destined for great things.”
Ezora smiled. “You will fulfill your destiny, never fear. I told you I have something very special and it is true, I have. Many years ago, the making of it was taught to me by a voodoo priestess in New Orleans. It is very ancient and very powerful.”
Seth smiled. “Then let’s have at it.”
It was stifling hot in the cabin. Fat black flies buzzed around his head and the rancid smell of boiling meat was overwhelming. The rats in the steel cage squeaked and scuttled.
“The powder I will show you has killed many,” the old woman said.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Then let’s get at it. The stench in this damned hovel is making me sick to my stomach.”
“Very well. I’ll reveal the powder’s secrets.”
The old woman crossed the floor to the shelves and picked up a leather wallet that contained three glass vials. As he watched, Ezora opened one of the vials and sprinkled its contents, a fine white powder, on the palm of her left hand.
“What is that?” he said, stepping toward her.
“No, stay back,” the woman said. “Watch from there where it is safe.”
She stepped to the cage on the floor and grabbed a rat. The animal wriggled and squeaked . . . until Ezora lifted her palm to her lips and blew the white powder into the rat’s face. Instantly the rodent stiffened and all movement ceased, like a doorstop in the shape of an iron rat.
Seth Koenig was stunned. “What the hell?”
“The powder paralyses and then death follows, hours or perhaps days later, but it comes,” Ezora said. “Your father will die two deaths, one by powder, one by poison.” She cackled. “And you will become a rich man.” The old woman stepped to the fire and dropped the rat into the boiling pot.
Seth was horrified. “You’re going to eat that?”
“I live on soup,” Ezora said. “It is my only food.”
He felt his gorge rise. “Give me what I need. I got to get the hell out of here.”
“Young man, murder in cold blood is never a pleasant road, especially the murder of a parent. You know you will burn in hell for what you do?”
“Let me worry about that. I only want the poison, not the damned powder. And I’ll take my chances on hell.”
The woman nodded. “Very well. Who knows, perhaps your father will die quickly from the poison.”
Seth smiled. “Make the stuff strong, hag. A dose that will kill an elephant will kill a man fast enough.”
“Have you ever seen an elephant?” Ezora said.
“No. I never have,” Koenig said.
“It is large and powerful, the true king of the beasts.”
“Just like my pa.”
Ezora Chabert poured a measure of clear liquid into a glass vial the size of a man’s thumbnail and handed it to him. “Death in a thimble, yet enough to kill the biggest and bravest. Pour this into your father’s whiskey and then sit back and watch him die.”
Seth smiled. “It will give me the greatest of pleasure.”
“You must hate him very much. I have seen many strong men die from poison, and their deaths were terrible.”
He grinned. “Like I give a damn.”
“Is there anything else I can do for you?” Ezora said. “A love potion, perhaps?”
“I don’t need love potions. I want women to fear me, not love me.”
“Then our business is finished. Now pay me my weight in silver as you promised,” Ezora said.
“I don’t have that much.” He pressed a silver dollar into the old crone’s veined hand. “I’ll make up the difference in lead.”
He drew and fired.
The .45 bullet hit Ezora’s chest and she staggered back against the far wall. He kept shooting, nailing the old woman to the timbers like a grotesque trophy. His revolver finally ran dry, and he watched Ezora slide slowly to the ground, leaving behind a glistening snail trail of blood.
Grinning, feeling good as he always did after a killing, he worked quickly. He smashed the oil lamp on the floor and then grabbed a burning brand from the fire and set the spreading kerosene ablaze. The cabin was tinder dry and the fire spread quickly, forcing him outside, where he stood and watched the building burn. A column of black smoke rose into the sky but was quickly shredded by the prevailing wind. Within minutes all that was left of the cabin was a pile of ashes and a few blackened spars of wood, flames clinging to them like scarlet moths.
Seth Koenig was mighty pleased with himself as he swung into the saddle and headed south for the Hellfire. He patted the poison vial in his shirt pocket where it rode alongside his tobacco sack. He had the means to kill Blade and make it look good to the ranch hands. For all the world, it would seem like Pa’s heart had given out and he’d just keeled over. Of course, Seth would put on a show of grief in keeping with the sad situation.
If he’d been a singing man, he would’ve sung a happy song as he crossed the flat scrubland, but since he wasn’t and didn’t know any happy songs anyhow, he contented himself by imagining Blade’s horrified expression when he whispered into his ear that he’d been poisoned. Seth tilted his face to the sky, his arms outstretched, and laughed out loud at the pictures that took shape in his mind.
Damn, life was good . . . and getting better.