Fighting with fire

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The red Swann was already in Lex’s hand and he started to mutter the wish under his breath as fast as he could the moment the cowboy’s leg moved towards the wooden stake, praying to the Gods all the while that the name on the coffin was correct.

‘I wish that Jesse Layton and Clint Davis would change places!’

To those watching, it seemed that, at the very moment the noose tightened around Jesse’s neck, the cowboy disappeared and some fat bloke appeared in his place, dangling lifelessly at the end of the rope. Everyone stared. Some yelled in fright. Others reached for their pistols. After all, nothing protects you from a swinging fat man like a few rounds of bullets.

Lex shouted, ‘ Go!’ and positively vaulted on to Rusty’s back. Jeremiah whipped up the horse with such zeal that the wagon shot straight towards the open desert. Lex paused just long enough to shout, ‘It’s all true! Jesse Layton has become a sorcerer! He’ll see us all dead for this!’

Then he dug in his heels and raced after the wagon. As he did so, he could just see, out of the corner of his eye, many of the other cowboys scattering towards their own horses, setting off in random directions in their haste to be away from the most unnatural hanging any of them had ever had the misfortune to witness.

They’d been riding for quite some time before Lex finally slowed Rusty down to a halt. In the blistering heat, such a mad-dash ride was extremely unpleasant. Lex’s shirt was clinging to him and he was so thirsty that his throat burned and itched like he’d been drinking sand. Jeremiah stopped the wagon beside Lex and looked over at him with a slightly wild expression on his face as he said, ‘What in the world just happened back there? Where’s Jesse? Is he in the coffin? Is he all right?’

‘I dunno,’ Lex replied. ‘Let’s ask him.’ He slid off Rusty’s back, then clambered up on to the back of the wagon, thumped on the wooden lid of the coffin and said loudly, ‘Hey, Jesse! Are you in there and, if so, are you all right?’

‘Let me outta this thing!’ Came the muffled response. ‘I feel like I’m being cooked! And it stinks like the bejesus, too!’

‘For Gods’ sake, Lex, let him out!’ Jeremiah said.

‘First things first,’ Lex replied firmly. He rapped on the lid of the coffin again and said, ‘What did you do with my sword?’

‘Sword?’ Jeremiah said. ‘What sword?’

‘Here’s the deal, Jesse,’ Lex said calmly. ‘You’re not getting out of this coffin until I say so. And, believe me, I’ll see you buried in it before I let you out without getting my sword back first.’

There was a long moment of silence before Jesse’s voice came out reluctantly. ‘Rusty’s got it, dammit. Didn’t have time to do anything with it. It’s in one of the saddlebags.’

Lex hopped off the wagon and went straight over to Rusty. Inside the larger saddlebag he did, indeed, find the sword, along with his black Swann.

‘Lex, what the heck just happened back there?’ Jeremiah demanded. ‘How did you manage to switch them like that?’

‘I’m a great magician,’ Lex replied, transferring the Swann to his pocket and the sword to his bag which, being magical, easily accommodated it.

‘What is that black swan?’ Jeremiah asked. ‘It looks like our Dragons. And that sword, Lex? where did you get it?’

Lex ignored the questions and went back to the coffin to undo the brass clasps and let Jesse out before he could be cooked to a crisp.

‘You wretched little brat! I’ll get you for this!’ were the first words out of the cowboy’s mouth.

He sat up in the coffin, looking hot, sweaty and dishevelled. An angry red mark ran all the way around his neck. It looked extremely painful, which pleased Lex. Even though Jesse hadn’t actually been responsible for the blow Lex had taken to the head, he felt a bit of resentment towards him for it, anyway.

‘Get me for what?’ Lex replied carelessly. ‘Saving your life? You ought to be thanking me!’

‘You cut it too fine!’ Jesse snarled. ‘I almost had my neck wrung like a turkey whilst you were pratting about making your little performance!’

‘The performance is important, you simpleton!’ Lex replied. ‘Otherwise they might have thought I had something to do with your miraculous escape. They needed to believe I wanted you dead. Besides, don’t you think you ought to be more careful how you talk to me? Don’t forget that it’s me who’s really the sorcerer, not you!’

‘If you’re a sorcerer then I’m a blinkin’ ballerina!’ Jesse growled. ‘You ain’t no magician! You’re just a kid with a few magic Swanns!’

‘Magic Swanns?’ Jeremiah repeated. ‘What the heck are they?’

‘They grant wishes, or something,’ Jesse replied. ‘That’s how he did it.’

‘Well, whatever! I still saved your neck, you ungrateful wretch! After you stole from me, too, and left me for dead!’

‘Did I heck!’ Jesse scoffed. ‘It was only a little crack on the head. I’ve had worse and lived to tell the tale. So, yeah, I took the sword. But I only did exactly what you’d have done in my place.’

‘That may be,’ Lex replied in a voice of ice. ‘The difference is that I wouldn’t have got caught! I heroically, selflessly, save your life and then you actually have the nerve to lecture me about the way I went about it! All right, so I let you sweat a bit first but you ought to consider yourself lucky that I saved you at all!’

‘No way you’d have let me die, seeing as you had no idea where the sword was!’ Jesse retorted.

‘Well, maybe I saved you because I wanted the sword, and maybe I saved you for your charming company!’ Lex snapped. ‘I guess now we’ll never know! No doubt you would have used the Binding Bracelets to switch places with me if you’d been given the chance to get your hands on any food!’

To Lex’s surprise, Jesse looked utterly gobsmacked by this. Then he looked highly offended.

‘Hey!’ he said angrily. ‘Stealing the sword was one thing? it weren’t even yours to begin with? but letting you hang for my past is somethin’ else. The thought never even entered my head!’

‘Surely you can’t expect me to believe that?’ Lex snarled.

‘Will you two shut up!’ Jeremiah said loudly. He glared at Lex and said, ‘You dragged me here under false pretences! They weren’t about to hang Jesse because he helped you get into Dry Gulch House but because he double-crossed them; you weren’t interested in saving his life? you just wanted the sword; and I’m starting to think the cowboys weren’t the ones who roughed you up, either.’

‘No one roughed him up,’ Jesse snorted. ‘A chandelier fell on his head.’

‘Yeah, that sounds more like it!’ Jeremiah replied, looking quite vicious. ‘No doubt you were doing something you shouldn’t have been doing at the time, too! If that sword you’re talking about is the one I think it is, then it once belonged to my uncle! Which means it now rightfully belongs to me!’

‘Does it ever!’ Lex scoffed. ‘I’m the one who found it!’

‘That doesn’t make it yours!’

‘It does in my book! I’m the one who got my head bashed in to get it! I’m the one who’s probably gone half crazy for it and, no doubt, will be seeing giant talking foxes for the rest of my days because of it!’

‘What in the world,’ Jeremiah said, ‘are you talking about?’

Lex cursed silently. He hadn’t meant to say anything about Plantagenet. He’d end up strapped down in a loony bin, for sure. He told himself that it had just been a dream. To prove it to himself he took the trout out of his bag and threw them defiantly down on the sand where, given the heat, they would probably be cooked within minutes.

‘I’m hot; I’m tired; I’m thirsty; I’m probably concussed; I’ve done what I came here to do; and I’ve had it up to here with the pair of you! I’m going back to my ship!’

‘Well said, old chum.’

Lex almost jumped out of his skin, and whirled round on the spot to stare in dread at the wagon. There, perched on top of the coffin, was Plantagenet. He looked just as he had before? dressed in a waistcoat, and even holding a cup and saucer.

Lex stared at him for a moment before looking back at Jeremiah and Jesse. He’d hoped to see suitable expressions of shock on their faces but, instead, they just looked slightly puzzled.

‘Can’t you see him?’ Lex hissed.

‘Who?’ Jeremiah said blankly.

‘ Him!’ Lex pointed back at the wagon. But when he looked back, there was no one there. Plantagenet had gone, almost as if he’d never been there to begin with.

Lex pinched the bridge of his nose, but it didn’t help and he swayed where he stood.

‘Is this another one of your acts?’ Jeremiah demanded.

‘No, I’m not feeling well!’ Lex snapped. ‘It’s this heat! No doubt you two would just love it if I dropped down dead? then you could pinch all my stuff and leave me out here all alone in the desert. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to be left for dead twice in the same day! So I’m leaving right now! You can find your own way back! See if you can manage to stay out of trouble for five minutes without me!’

‘You should probably see a doctor,’ Jeremiah said. ‘Head injuries can affect people in funny ways, and that looks like a nasty one.’

‘I don’t need any doctor!’ Lex snapped. ‘And I don’t need you sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong!’

‘Aw, just let him go,’ Jesse replied. ‘With any luck, he’ll keel over before he gets back, and the vultures will peck him to death. Save us all a lot of grief.’

Lex ignored him. He picked up his bag and, after a brief hesitation, snatched the trout off the sand before making his way back to Sally. He unhitched her from the wagon, climbed up on to her back and then set off in the general direction of what he hoped was Dry Gulch.

Secretly, he was completely and utterly horrified. It seemed to him that he’d either suffered some sort of serious brain damage that caused him to see Plantagenet, or else he’d gone mad. But he couldn’t afford to go mad! Not now, when he was in the middle of a Game, and close to winning it, too! He cursed the black Swann, and the chandelier, and the sword, and Jesse for causing him to get hit on the head like that. He’d been perfectly fine up until then. He thought angrily to himself that he seemed to be completely incapable of getting through a Game without some seriously debilitating thing happening to him. Last time, he had spent the better part of one week as a whiskerfish; this time he was seeing giant, talking foxes wherever he went!

After a while, Lex became aware of the sounds of a wagon trundling along at a brisk pace behind him. He risked a glance over his shoulder? just to make absolutely sure that Plantagenet wasn’t the one driving it. To his relief, it was just Jeremiah and Jesse. Lex pulled a face and turned back. Why the heck was Jesse giving Jeremiah a lift? Didn’t he understand the concept of them being on different sides?

Still, Lex slowed Sally down just a little. For, although he knew the way back well enough, what he really wanted to do as soon as he got to his ship was raid the larder. And he couldn’t do that unless Jesse was there. So he went on just far enough ahead to look defiant, but not so far that he would lose sight, or sound, of the wagon behind him.