Geyer glanced at him, then back at Morrow. “Remember what Pinkerton always feared, Ed?” He asked. “That if hexes could combine, they’d rule the world in a decade?”
“Sure, like everyone did. But the Hexicans don’t strike me like that’s their aim — not this generation, anyhow. And again, you sure couldn’t stand in their way, they decided otherwise.”
“But your friend Mister Pargeter might,” Thiel pointed out.
“Might. If you could find him, and he wanted to.”
“Can I count on your support, in that area?”
Morrow snorted. “Support — so I can steer him around, point him where you want him? How likely you think that is to work out, exactly? Doc Asbury’s gimmicks ain’t the be-all and end-all, sirs. If you go against Hexicas, you’ll find that out. Same thing if you go against Chess Pargeter, likewise.”
“Oh, undoubtedly,” Thiel replied, coolly. “But then again, if you continue to tame Mister Pargeter the way you have already, you and Missus Kloves — gently alter his nature with this highly laudable mixture of true affection and morally improving example — then perhaps we’ll never have to.”
God damn, this was a perceptive fellow; Morrow was almost afraid to tell him any more, knowing it’d be filed away somewhere for reference. Which Geyer seemed to figure out pretty quick, as his next words indicated.
“What George’s maybe trying to say is . . . you and Mister Pargeter — and Missus Kloves too, with all her woes — have mainly known the West thus far in its raw state,” he explained, “unrefined; a work in progress. But things will have to change, for that progress to continue. Things are already changing.”
“And this would be the part where you ask me which side of that change I want to end up on, right? Whether I want to go the way of the buffalo, or stake my claim to Manifest Destiny?” At Geyer’s look: “Yeah, that’s right, sir: I read a paper or two, now and then.”
“The question stands,” Thiel said.
“Then I s’pose my answer would be: good luck with all that. I’m well out of this tussle, considering I worked two years without pay to set it up, let alone to bring it to bed. You want to talk to Chess, chase him down; see if he’ll stand still for it.”
“Will he?”
“He just might, you come at him on a good day. ’Cause, see — he’s changed, too.”
Geyer nodded. “That’s what I’d heard. Saw evidence of, too, outside Hex City.”
“That’s as well,” Thiel replied. “Because you’re right, of course, Mister Morrow: I don’t really expect our hexacious brethren will be rejoining the Union anytime soon. But I can foresee a time — sooner, rather than later — when Hexicas finds it useful to send emissaries our way, same as any other sovereign nation. Hell, even Vatican City receives petitioners. And I can even see a day when your young Mister Pargeter might consent to be their chief ambassador, once he’s been off on his own in the world a while — lived a few more years alone under the shadow of his own infamous name, ’til he’s had the rougher edges either knocked off him, or just smoothed over a tad. Daniel Boone himself ended up a state representative, after all.”
“’Til the speculators did for him?” Morrow shook his head, smiling. “You don’t know Chess all too well, Mister Thiel, that’s for sure.”
“Not yet. But I hope to.”
Next morning on, Yancey woke early, as was her wont — emerging headlong from a dream, a distinct vision of Chess in the future, small as ever though not quite so slim, his beard tamed and groomed into Satanic points, more silver than red. Saw him strutting down the aisle at some big to-do in a city as far from New Mexico as Boston had been from Hoffstedt’s Hoard, when her parents first set out on their emigrants’ journey. A voice announced him, flat-vowelled and hoity, clearly Eastern: The Representative from Hex City, Sheriff Chess Pargeter, and his . . . companion. And though who that was she couldn’t see, somehow she knew it wasn’t Ed, which (even in her sleep) made her quite uncharitably glad.
A moment later, however, she rolled over to realize the bed was empty — thought he might’ve gone to the jakes at first, ’til she caught him hoisting his already packed saddlebags by the back door. He froze when he saw her, ridiculously shamefaced for such a big man, ’specially one who’d already come intact through Hex War, fire, flood and rout, not to mention tussling with her and Chess, in his time.
“I’m not impressed,” she told him, hands on hips.
He sighed. Replying: “Wouldn’t expect you to be, overmuch.”
“Wanted to warn Chess ’bout those jackasses, is that it? ’Cause you could’ve got me to do it, easy enough; that’s the nice part about having a dead-speaker for your woman. Means you don’t have to almost anything in person, not unless you want to.”
Morrow looked down, one hand ruffling the back of his neck uncomfortably, as though he had some sort of cud he’d been chewing over caught in his throat.
“Well,” he began, at last, “I guess I just thought . . . Sheriff Love bein’ dead — again, and all — that . . . you’d want to settle down, build yourself a life, do . . . womanly stuff.”
“You did,” she replied, flatly.
“Well, yeah. Don’t you?”
Chess’s voice in her head, then, like always — like he just couldn’t help himself, present or not. Observing: Oh, all men really are fools, just like my Ma always used to say.
She felt the sudden sting of tears as she looked at this fool she’d roped herself to, studying him hard, wondering at the fact it’d taken them this long to find a place where they weren’t of a complete accord anymore. Just what happened when you stopped meeting in dreams and tried living side by side, she supposed, in the frail and fragile meat, with all its pleasures and complaints; when you moved from intention into reality, and found yourself abruptly saddled with all the mistakes and complications human beings were heir to, by simple flaw of design.
Yancey sniffed. Then managed, at last, schooling her thick voice hard in how best not to tremble, “No, Ed. That must’ve been some other female you were thinking of.”