Judge Shivers by Scott Bell

Author:Scott Bell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Weird Western, Magic, Time Travel, Fantasy, Cowboy Stories, Old West Time Travel, Wizards, Witches, Weird Western Tales, Science Fiction
Publisher: Red Adept Publishing
Published: 2023-11-28T00:00:00+00:00

The faro table at the Broken Wheel played a low-stakes game, and I took care to win only a little above average. As a consequence, I was up only by forty dollars after three solid hours of playing. Might have been fifty but for Esmeralda, who sat next to me and squealed when I won and moaned when I lost. Every time a grimy miner or a dusty vaquero sidled up to the one-legged woman, I slipped her a dollar, paying her to stay with me rather than go off and earn a living the old-fashioned way. She stuck on me tighter than a rusted jar lid.

I cut a look at Esmeralda, her body so close I could tell she had an innie and not an outie. “How’d you lose your foot?”

“A bear trap,” she said without blinking an eye.

“A bear trap?”

“Si.” Esmeralda demonstrated by clawing her fingers together. “Is a steel trap, to catch the bear.”

“Ah. You shouldn’t step in those.” It was the fourth time I’d asked her how she lost her foot, and the bear trap was her fourth different answer. First, wolves. Then a mountain lion had eaten it. A horse spooked with her foot caught in the stirrup. And now, bear trap.

I yawned, and my eyelids drooped. I needed a bed, and I would honestly have considered inflicting grave bodily injury on the entire offensive line of the Detroit Lions for a long, hot shower. My skin itched and felt greasy and gritty. I laughed at my own fussiness. When did you become such a priss? In the army, I had gone days, sometimes weeks, without a proper bath, but in the years since, as a Magical and a Judge, it had been much different. Showers every day, sometimes twice. Deodorant. Safety razors, ten in a package, all nested together with plastic guards over the blades.

Esmeralda’s fingers tickled my neck, jerking me back to reality. “Wass wrong, mi hermano?”

“Nothing. Sorry, just tired. I’m calling it a night.”

“Ah yes, let’s go upstairs.” Esmeralda jumped up, eager as a puppy. “I’ve been waiting soooo long.”

I stood and stretched. Joints popped. I pocketed my winnings and peeled the young woman from my side. “Not tonight. Here’s another dollar. Go to bed and get some sleep.”

“But my bed is so cold and lonely.” She pouted her full, red lips. “I need you to keep me warm at night.”

“How old are you, really?”

“I’m... nineteen,” she said while watching me through her eyelashes.

If Esmeralda was over eighteen, I’d eat Misery raw, without salt. I had no illusions that she would go to bed and sleep. The night—by a prostitute’s clock—was still very young, and given the high count of randy men in the saloon, she would have customers lined up before I reached the hotel.

You’re not a social worker, big fella.

No, that was true. I’d done what I could. It wasn’t my job to uphold the woman’s virtue—or anyone else’s, for that matter.

I touched the brim of my hat. “G’night, ma’am,” I said in my best John Wayne voice.

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