The Phantom of the Pass

Art by Fasslayer

Year 0

               “Louis Love, I am gonna marry your sister!” 

            Arnold Holtz hoped that sounded braver, fiercer than it felt.  He was sweating rivers down his pants and into his big brother’s hand-me-down boots, and not just because of the unblinking yellow sun staring down on Stockton at what he’d heard many folks around the territory call a “Colorado Noon”. 

            It wasn’t a big town, clawing its way up the sloping lap of a lone mountain and dribbling out into the rolling expanse of the dunes.  There was Tony’s Barbershop, Mullin’s Ice Cream Parlor, Davy’s Pub and Boarding House, and St. Mulligan’s—not a saint Arnold had ever heard of, but he’d never been the most devout—Irish-Catholic Church, which capped off the end of the dusty main street, the only street in Stockton.  

            It wasn’t a big town, no, but right now it sure as hell felt claustrophobic, as if the buildings were lurching over Arnold, hands on their hips in a, “Really, boy?  This is what you’re doin’?” jocular stance.    

            And it didn’t help that the whole town had turned out to see the lanky kid call out the Phantom of the Pass.  The assorted patrons of Davy’s Pub had filed out, scratching their wiry beards and muttering odds to each other.  Arnold saw a few dollars change hands and a few snickers change lips.   Mullin was rocking on his porch, licking a vanilla cone, little gobs of cream catching in his sprawling handlebar mustache.  His wife, Lauren, was balancing their two year-old John-Boy on her lap and trying to reign in his two siblings, eight year-old twins Kasey and Kassie, whose cheeks were smeared with chocolate and were engaged in the classic tyke contest of each trying to kick the most dirt at the other.  Even Tony had taken a break from his well-documented rigorous trimming schedule—he’d lugged out his ratty barber’s chair and was administering Taylor Thomas, the banker, a close shave, all while keeping his eyes on Arnold and the Phantom.

            The Phantom of the Pass.  Arnold ripped his eyes from the crowd and tried to focus on the man not thirty feet away from him.   If you believed the stories whispered in the dark corners of midnight saloons, he was no man, but a wraith, a tortured soul from ages before the West was on the minds of every man, woman, and child east of Denver.  A lingering shadow who skirted from town to town, covering vast distances in only a day’s time, sometimes less.  Rumor had it that he could literally disappear into thin air, a power gifted only to the most twisted and satanic of spirits.  That was only rumor though, and Arnold, again, had never found himself to be the most devout.  Not yet, anyway.  

            He wasn’t much more than a long, thin shadow in a shabby serape and a fraying Stetson the color of wet dirt.  Orange curls spun down onto his shoulders, and red-brown fuzz dusted a long face that hid two eyes dark as wet stones under the Stetson’s brim.  At his hip was a simple Colt Single Action, army-issue.  Nothing remarkable except for the hue which had given the fabled handgun its name—Dawn.  

            Arnold didn’t have much in the way of firepower.  Before leaving Lansing a few years prior, his brother had given him a rusted Webley Naval Revolver, scavenged from some Reb corpse after a battle that had no name.  Arnold had fired it once—this morning, at the scraggly Kentucky Coffee Tree out behind the boarding house.  The hammer had gotten stuck twice, and the only time he’d actually managed to get off a shot, it went wide, leaving nothing but a broken echo in its wake that was swallowed up by the mountain morning air. 

            He felt for the pistol’s weight on his hip—still there, hadn’t forgotten it.  It was a comforting weight of memory… winters with his brother, chopping wood for the furnace and fire, smoke filling the air and perfuming their clothes for weeks… he missed snow.  He missed home. 

            “Louis!” 

            A young woman in a light blue Rosedale blouse and a black calico skirt elbowed her way through the crowd outside the boarding house.  Her hair was the color of Michigan Oak leaves in fall, and it bounced with furor as she stomped over to the Phantom. 

            “This is ridiculous,” she hissed, quiet enough to remain courteous and civil, loud enough for everyone to hear.  “He hasn’t done anything, he’s not a threat, and I like him.” 

            “Sis,” the gunslinger tipped his hat up, wet eyes fixed on Louis, and a small grin rocked up the corner of his mouth.  “That’s threat enough.”  

            She rolled her eyes and kicked a cloud of dirt on him before hustling her way over to Arnold.  “Hi.” 

            He blinked.  “Hello.” 

            She grabbed his arm and spun him around.  “You don’t have to do this.  My brother’s a shit-kicker, and he plays with his food.”  

            Arnold rubbed his cheeks, a heat rising under the skin.  “He’s your brother.  That’s important—I gotta ask his blessing.” 

            “No, you don’t.” 

            “You got a pa?”  

            She rolled her lips together, a tic that helped her bite back barbed words.  “Arnold…” 

            “Millie,” Arnold took her hands in his, tracing the soft bumps of her knuckles with his thumb.  He tipped her chin up with his thumb.  There was a patch of dirt on her cheek—he wiped it away, and she pressed into him, tender.  “Even if that means facing down the Phantom of the Pass… which, in hindsight, woulda been nice to know that’s the ‘mystery family’ you never told me about, but that’s fine, I’m sure it won’t cause any issues, other than me dying, maybe—” she rolled her eyes, but unlike with the Phantom, they weren’t cynical and mean, but full of a trust and hope built over the endless uninterrupted days they’d spent together in Stockton.   

            “You’re gonna be fine,” she smiled, the kind that pressed her cheeks up under her eyes to keep away tears.  

            “I’m gonna be fine.”  He didn’t feel that in his gut, the steel will he wanted—but Arnold remembered what his mother had always said: people don’t give a whit for the truth if a white lie makes them feel safe.  

            Millie wiped damp spots from the corners of her eyes and sniffed, still smiling.  “Before you do this, c’mere, I’ve got some advice.” 

            Arnold leaned down, genuinely curious.  “What, about your bro—?” 

            Her lips met his, and her hands clutched the back of his hair.  He gave into it, and pulled her hips tighter to him.  

            After a few moments, she broke away, leaving him in a bit of a daze, warmth bubbling in the soft pit of his belly. 

            “Well,” he said, smacking his lips together and nodding at nothing. “Thanks for the advice.” 

            She laughed and hugged him, heading back to the front of the crowd, a few of the grizzled onlookers nodding and muttering to each other.  

            Arnold watched her go… and a little laugh tore through his lips with a smile.  He shook his head, turning around to face the Phantom. 

            “Alright,” he said, hands clutching his belt—not a big buckle, but he felt like if he pretended, he could hold his own.  “We gonna do this or what?” 

            The other man, who’d been spinning and clicking the chamber in his Colt, looked up from under his brim.  Errant wisps of dust and desert spiraled across the main street.  

            “What’s your name, guy?” the Phantom asked. 

            “Arnold Holtz.”  Arnold knew that the other man knew his name—he’d signed the letter to the Phantom asking for Millie’s hand in marriage, for cripessakes.  This was all just part of the show.  High Noon Theater. 

            “Holtz… Holtz…” the Phantom nodded, running the name along his tongue.  “What is that, German?” 

            “Thereabouts, yeah.” 

            “Family from Munich?” 

            “Herfen-Hessen.  Grandad was a cobbler, came to the States, settled in Michigan.”  

            “Hmmm… German…” the Phantom tapped the barrel of the Dawn against his lips. 

            “What’s Love?  English?”  Arnold didn’t much see what the other man was getting at, but he figured he’d play along.

            “Irish.  Pure Irish all the way down to me and sis,” the Phantom scratched his neck.  “Alright, then, Kaiser Holtz.  Let’s finish our business so the people can get back to theirs.” 

            Holtz nodded, and his hand hovered over the Webley.  The Phantom slid his back into the holster. 

            “On the count of three…” the Phantom said.

            “One…”

            Dust and dirt. 

            “Two…”

            The serape flapped with the dignity of a tattered flag.  Millie’s eyes, watching.

            “Three!” 

            There was a flash and a whirl, Arnold’s stomach pitched, is this what being shot is like—

-

And then Arnold wasn’t standing on his own two feet in Stockton, Colorado, sweating rivers under a pale noon sun. 

            He was belly-down and chin-high in snow on some hump of a hill.  His coat and pants were damp from the gradual melt beneath his body-heat, and his breath steamed out between chattering teeth.  A grey, barren winter sky drifted over sparse farmland pocketed by islands of black, spiny trees.

            And he was staring through the sights of a Winchester, Army-issue rifle, straight at two figures who were carrying bundles of firewood, padding their way past the slope of the hill to some lopsided crate of a cabin anchored by a chunky stone chimney. 

            “It’s freezing out here, Kaiser.  You gonna take the shot or what?” 

            Arnold jumped and spun around—the Phantom sat cross-legged on a stump, hunched over the paltry flame of a twiggy match, trying to light a cigarette.  He sucked in and puffed out through the corners of his mouth—a nest of embers signaled success.  He sat straight up, puffing with vigor. 

            “What is this?  Where—” Arnold remembered he had a rifle in his hands.  He leveled it, fumbling for the trigger.  “What did you do?”  

            The Phantom laughed.  His eyes flicked to the rifle, then to Arnold’s face.  “I wouldn’t waste that shot on me.”  

            “Who’s a better alternative?” 

            “You.” 

            Now it was Arnold’s turn to laugh, albeit shakily and short.  “Millie was right.  You really are a shit-kicker.” 

            The Phantom arched an eyebrow.  He stood up and spit, stomping his way through the snow. 

            “See them, right there?” 

            He pointed at the two figures, now halfway to the cabin.  One stumbled, and a few logs spilled out of his grip.  The other shook with laughter, a full sound rolling up the hill.  He bent down and helped the first gather up his logs. 

            “Look through that scope.  Tell me if there’s anything familiar about ‘em.”  

            Arnold felt a sickness wash over him, a fuzzy tightness in his gut and throat. 

            But he felt himself, deliberate, careful, push the butt of the gun into his shoulder and squint through the crude telescopic sights.  There were razor scratches on the glass as he adjusted the device to the proper magnification... and then he saw.

            It was him.  He was kneeling in the snow, picking up the last stray logs.  Curly black hair, thin nose, red cheeks, barely treading water in his father’s hand-me-down coat.  Next to him was, unmistakably, his brother, Alec, rounder, taller, thick shoulders and thin-frame glasses.  He was patting other-Arnold on the back, chuckling.  

            The rifle fell into the snow with a muffled thump.  Spots opened up across his vision as Arnold turned to the Phantom. 

            “What is this?”

            The Phantom drew his serape closer, sucking in through his teeth.  He clicked his tongue.  “It’s another world, Kaiser.  Like the one we came from, almost exactly.  Except in this one, you never went out to Colorado to do… well, whatever it was you were doing out there, I didn’t really read your letter. You stayed right here in Michigan.  You never met Millie.  You never met me.”  

            “Is this hell?” 

            The Phantom almost spit out his cigarette.  He snorted smoke through his nose.  “No, Jesus, no, why do you guys always ask that?”

            “I don’t understand,” Arnold said, watching him and his brother trudge through the snow from the corners of his eyes.  They were fifty feet from the cabin, give or take.  “

            “Make a choice,” the Phantom bent down and dusted off the rifle.  He pressed it into Arnold’s hands. 

            “I—” 

            “If you take the shot,” the Phantom jerked his head in other-Arnold’s direction.  “You’ll take his place, instantly.  All memories of Colorado, of Millie, of me, everything from your other life, gone.  You’ll live out the rest of your life here, in Michigan, with your family.” 

            “How—”

            “Don’t ask how,” the Phantom said.  “Don’t ask how, there’s no point.  All you need to know is that it works.”

            A wind tore at Arnold, and despite shivering, he found himself warm with memory.  He’d missed the cold, the grey… his family.  This was nice, being back here. 

            The rifle was heavy in Arnold’s hands.  He stared at it… a thought occurred.

            “What about Millie?” 

            The Phantom shrugged.  “Can’t miss her if you never remember she existed.”  He lifted the tip of his Stetson up with a thumb and forefinger.  “You miss home, don’t you?” 

            Arnold’s shoulders slumped.  “I couldn’t give her up.  I want to spend my life here, with her—”

            “I got news for ya, Kaiser,” the Phantom stuck the cigarette, now a smoldering nub, in the corner of his mouth.  “She’s not gonna move out here.  Millie’s a Western gal.  She wouldn’t give up three-hundred-sixty-five days of sun for anything.  Even you.” The Phantom tilted his head.  “Probably.” 

            He clomped his way back to the stump, the back of his serape fluttering.  “Whatever you do, make it quick, ‘cause, again, it’s freezing out here.”  

            Arnold nodded, staring at the rifle. 

            He put the sights up to his eyes… centered himself. 

            “Make it quick, huh,” he muttered. 

            And he spun around, opening up on the Phantom, who, wide-eyed, drew Dawn—

-

Whipping sworls of neurotic crimson, pulsing seas of blue and gray, greens that had a million tongues of purple flame, warping inside out and out, within each other and not.  They were his eyes and his mouth, warm behind his teeth.   He wasn’t falling… you couldn’t fall in a place like this… he saw his heart outside his body, pumping blood to veins that slowly unraveled from his arms like the spools of thread for a kite.   He as staring into his own eyes as he turned inside out—

“You dICK!”  

-

            Arnold slammed into the back-bar, bottles shattering like thin ice against a fat kid’s ass.  He crumpled to the sticky wood floor, face-down, with a crack of pain shooting up his nose.  A dozen trickling waterfalls of liquor burbled onto his back, pattering on his coat.

 Was he dead?  Could he please be dead?

            “Kid.  Hey, kid.”   

            A shadow with an odd, drafty voice swelled over him, a lone thundercloud in his otherwise sunny day of a day.  “Kid.  You alright?” 

            Arnold nodded into the floor. 

            “Here.” 

            He felt soft arms hoist him up off the floor and onto his feet.  He rubbed his nose, wincing. 

            “Thanks.  I’ve been having—” he opened his eyes to get a full face of a man with no face, featureless as the mannequins at Sally’s.  It was wearing a tight black vest, a nice white button-up with red sleeve gaiters, and a corn-yellow bowtie. 

            It patted his head with a firm glove-hand and nodded sagely.  “Rough day, huh?” 

            “I’ll say,” a voice grumbled, and Arnold, vision swirling, legs numb and buzzing, watched a hand slap up onto the bar, followed by a Stetson the color of wet dirt and a face framed by ginger curls in disarray.  “This kid’s stranded us, Francis.”  

            “You don’t say?” the no-face leaned down to Arnold’s level.  Its breath smelled like the sheets his mom would leave out to dry in the summer. “Now why would you do that?” 

            Arnold threw up and fainted.  

-

            “Fix it?” 

            Arnold nodded, but his mind wasn’t on the conversation.  It wasn’t even on the cool copper cup of some kind of alien whiskey he’d forgotten the name of, his fourth, probably should be his last.  It felt like his mind was still tumbling out in space, in that zone of swirling color and deep black.  

            “We can’t just… hey, look at me,” the Phantom waved his hand in front of Arnold’s tired eyes.  With the bare minimum, Arnold directed his attention to the other man. 

            “We can’t just fix Dawn,” the Phantom said, a bit slow, as if he was starting to understand how much of a shock Arnold was really in.  “Does it look like it can just be fixed?” 

            He followed the man’s gesture to the crimson Colt lying on the bar.  Its chamber was cracked, leaking a white-purple light that pulsed, like a cosmic mouse’s heartbeat. 

            Francis took a moment’s break from polishing the glasses behind the bar to suck in behind the absence of his mouth, the universal symbol of, “Oof, that’s rough, buddy.”  He went back to scrubbing.

            “But then… how are we gonna get home?” Arnold said, hating how blank the statement came out, how dumb he sounded.  But he couldn’t muster the energy at this point to be anything else. 

            “Well,” the Phantom tapped his palms against the wood, thinking.  “I don’t know.”  He signaled for another drink.  Francis nodded and poured.  

            “That’s it?” 

            “Listen, that judging tone, even behind all the shock, it’s insulting,” the Phantom said.  “And yeah, that’s it.  I’ve never had someone shoot my gun before, in all the time I’ve run this gammit, never had that.”  

            “But there must be some way—”

            “Oh, there is,” the Phantom said, nodding a thanks to Francis as the no-face set down his drink.  He took a long pull, gasping after a few moments submerged.  “We could play Russian Roulette with all possible realities and all possible worlds in every cosmos conceivable.  It’s not like Dawn doesn’t work, but the directionality’s all shot.  I can’t control where or even when we’re gonna end up anywhere.  In simple terms,” he took another sip, another gasp, “your terms, you blew the horse’s reigns right off, compadre.  We got no way to steer, and it’s bareback in every direction.  You wanna give that a shot?” 

            Arnold thought for a moment.  “Yes.” 

            The Phantom coughed into his whiskey.  He looked up.  “What?” 

            “Well,” Arnold said.  “If we’re looking at all possible realities and all possible worlds, there’s a pretty good shot that I could end up right back with Millie, right where we started.” 

            “Actually, it’s the exact opposite of that,” the Phantom said.  “The odds are so infinite that every possible alternative is against us.  It’s literally infinity to one.”

            “I’m willing to risk it.”  Arnold meant it. 

            The Phantom snorted and kept drinking.   

            “You could always take it to him,” Francis said, spitting into his current glass.

            “I’m not taking it to him,” the Phantom said into his glass.

            “It’s just a suggestion. “

            “It’s a bad one.” 

            “What is?” Arnold asked.  “Who’s him?”  

            “The Smith,” Francis said, setting down the glass.  “Best repairman in the any universe.” 

            “He’s not a man,” the Phantom said.  Arnold noticed something hard in his eyes, a quiet anger.  “He’s more like an eldritch god.  You know, the bad ones.” 

            “He gave you Dawn, didn’t he?  I’m sure he’d want it fixed.”  Francis leaned on the bar, staring at the Phantom.

            “That was a long time ago,” the Phantom said.  He set his head down on the bar, rubbing the copper cup with his index finger.  “A long time ago.” 

            Arnold glanced between Francis and the Phantom.  His stupor was evaporating—if someone or something put the Phantom in a mood like this, it had to be real.  Which meant there was an out to all this. 

            “What do we have to do to get him to fix Dawn?” Arnold asked. 

            “It’s a big fix,” the Phantom said.  “The payment alone will take decades to get.”  He looked at Arnold, and for the first time, there was something softer in his eyes, the cynical joker edge gone.  “It’s not worth it.  We’re better off with roulette.  Trust me, there are plenty of other Millies—” 

            Arnold slammed his fist on the wood. 

            “Listen,” he said, dullness, shock, gone.  “I love her. I am going to marry her.  I told her that’s what I would do.” He jabbed a finger at the Phantom.  “Now, I have no idea where I am or if I’ll ever get home—in fact, the only person I know here is you.  And I know if you got us here, you can get us home.  I’ll do whatever it takes.”  

            The Phantom lifted his head, sharing a look with Francis.  The no-face man shrugged. “Anything?”  

            “Anything.” 

            “We’ll be stealing a lot of stuff.” 

            “Great.” 

            “We’ll probably die.” 

            “No, we won’t.” 

            “We might hurt people.” 

            “No, we won’t.” 

            “We might never get back home.” 

            “Can you promise me we’ll try?”

            The Phantom smiled.  Genuine.  “We’ll try.” 

            Arnold nodded.  “Well, okay then.”

           

-

Year 2

            “Don’t panic,” the Phantom said.  “That’ll only make the trial worse.”

            “Worse?!” Arnold struggled against the bonds of his chair.  “How could it be—”

            “Citizens of Judiciary Asteroid 914-A!” a voice cried out.  “All rise for his most righteous and just Honor of the Peace, The Supreme Lizard, and give great glory to his most trusted speaker, the illustrious Calliphius Nymph!” 

            It was as though he’d been in a kind of dream state, with browns and blacks and oranges all swirling around him in a soup of consciousness, but all at once, Arnold was thrown forward into the scene. 

            He was tied to a chair at a wide desk.  Behind him he could make rows of pews…?  That looked about right, on which hundreds of people had crammed themselves.  A line of wide windows stretched across the opposite end of the room, the canvas of a swirling starry sky of iridescent purples and blues.  

            To his left, the Phantom was also bound to a simple wooden chair.  And in front…

            In front was a two-tiered dais, chiseled out of gleaming mahogany.  On either of the lower ends sat two men in pitch-black robes and dusty powdered wigs.  And at the highest position… a swollen behemoth of a lizard with bulging eyes that twitched every few moments, glaring in different directions at the banquet of justice and people laid out before it.  The thing was draped in a judicial robe as well, and atop its horny had sat a leviathan powdered wig just a little bit askew. 

            At the foot of the dais was a thin hook of a man in a tight grey suit.  He dabbed at his upper lip and read from a piece of paper. 

            “You, Louis Love, have been charged with illegal interdimensional cross-immigration and trespassing, as well as vandalism, larceny, and loitering.” He looked up, his beak nose quivering. 

            “How do you plead?” 

            “Don’t worry, these guys got nothin’ on me,” the Phantom hissed out of the corner of his mouth before straightening up and clearing his throat.  “Not guilty.” 

            A rumble twitched in the lizard’s throat, and the man in grey smiled.  “Let us see how the Supreme Lizard decides.”    

            “Alright, sure yeah, hey Kaiser,” the Phantom leaned down to Arnold.  “They didn’t take my gun.” 

            “Yes, they did.” 

            The Phantom’s eyes widened with memory.  “Oh crap they did.” 

            “Yes,” the speaker said, his voice a crowish tenor.  “Yes, we fed your precious Dawn to the Supreme Lizard!  Much sustenance it shall provide for his most scaly judiciousness!” 

            “Right,” the Phantom nodded.  He whistled at the lizard.  “Yo!  Alright.   Just give us the sentence already.” 

           That’s when the thing’s tongue shot out and suckered to the Phantom and Arnold, snapping them both in its cavernous mouth. 

            “Oh my God!” Arnold screamed as he was forced down the soft, squishy throat of the gargantuan lizard.  “Oh my God we’re gonna die!”  It was like being caressed on all sides by giant spongy mattresses.  

            He landed with a sizzling splash in the gullet, still tied to his chair.  A stinging, pungent odor spiked through his nostrils, and he was hacking in seconds. 

            “Can’t… breathe…” he managed out as the Phantom’s chair fell in next to him.  “Going… to… die…”  

            A moment later, the Phantom burst up through the pool of gut-juice, snapping his ropes.  “Stomach acid!  Never fails!  Now—” 

            He rooted around, tongue sticking out of his mouth.  “Where… ah!”  And out from under the bubbling stomach acid came the Dawn. 

            “Alright.  Now we’re good.” 

-

Year 14

            “Whoa, wait!  You hear about this?” 

            “’Bout what?”

            “ ‘Trans-dimensional criminals nab Heaven’s Light, a fragment of the Century Star.  Whereabouts unknown.” 

            “Oh, I’ve heard about those guys, actually.  Stole stuff from a whole buncha different realities.  Crazy stuff.” 

            “Crazy stuff.”  

            …

            “Are you still gonna mug me?”

            “Yes.”  

-

Year 23

            Arnold tilted his head back against the stone ridge of the breakwater.  His breath was foggy in the sharp night air, his joints stiffer than usual.  He was starting to get old. 

            A little grey strand of blew into his face.  He puffed it back up into place.  As if the hair wasn’t enough of a reminder.

            “Look at all those,” the Phantom said, wiping his mouth. 

            Above them pinwheeled the sprawling swath of the Third Galactic Arm.  Clouds of blue-gray and orange and green nebulae drifted across the sky to destinations millennia away.  A billion stars poked a billion holes in the lacy curtain of their birth chambers, proud of what they had become. 

            “Some of ‘em are dead, you know,” the Phantom said.      

            “Really?” 

            The Phantom nodded.  “A lot of ‘em, actually.  A lot of the sky is really just a memory.”  He laughed to himself, a quiet exhale through the nose.     

            “Well, I’m glad they stuck around,” Arnold said. 

            “Me too.  Me too.”  

           

-

Year 26

            It’d been an accident, showing up here.  Just like every other place before it.  There wasn’t anything to take, but that hadn’t stopped the Phantom from heading inside.  Arnold saw something in the other man’s eyes, in the way his fingers trailed on the door-frame.  Recognition.

            He stared at the prone form in front of him.  The house, simple wood and stone, was barren except for her.  No furniture, no photographs, nothing but eyes that were miles away and cold lips parted in the ghost of a final breath.

            And hair the color of a Michigan Oak in fall.  A facsimile.

            After a moment, Arnold spoke.  “This always happens?” 

            “No.  Sometimes she’s just married and unhappy.  Sometimes it’s this.  Never anything good, though.  Never anything happy.” 

            A puff. 

            “I’ll be better for her.”

            He turned to face the Phantom, but the other man was already out the door, strolling across the grey winter grass. 

-         

Year 38

“The Ballad of the Phantom and the Kaiser”

The Phantom and the Kaiser,

Leavin’ none the wiser,

First they stole the stars,

And then they stole our hearts.

With beards of red and silver,

Their smiles’ll make ya shiver,

Gleamin’ like the starlight

Lightin’ up our night.

One day they’ll be gone for good,

And I’ll sing, as I should,

‘Bout those two star men

Who taught me that I can.

They don’t want money,

They don’t want fame.

Who needs those,

When you’ve got a name?

The Phantom and the Kaiser,

Leavin’ none the wiser,

First they stole the stars,

And then they stole our hearts.

-

Year 44

            “Gentlemen,” the Smith put folded its hands together, infinite and all voices possible echoing in one kaleidoscope tone.  “How may I be of assistance?” 

            For all the years of toil, the Smithery wasn’t exactly what Arnold had expected.  Perched on the edge of a dying star, it wasn’t much more than chunks of rock and comets and starship parts and galactic worm bones and other assorted space junk pieces, all lashed and welded together.  Every room either stunk from years of rot or burned with acrid sterilization. 

            The main chamber, where Arnold and the Phantom now leaned over the desk, only really had its high ceilings going for it.  Junk was piled high in every corner. 

            Why the Smith chose this spot for its forge was… well, impossible to tell, to say the least. 

             The Phantom drew out the tattered brown cloth.  He laid it carefully on the table, unfolding each corner with delicate hands. 

            After so many years, here it was—Dawn.  Broken, rusty, weak light trickling from cracks in the chamber… so still very much alive. 

            The Smith’s eyes, warbling, warping pools of eternal light and color, widened.  “A big fix,” he said softly. 

            The Phantom nodded.  “A big fix.” 

            “You have payment?”  

            “It’s on our ship,” Arnold said.  He rubbed his throbbing back.  “Took us ages to get it all here, but it should be enough—”

            The Smith shook its head.  “No, you misunderstand.  Not the raw materials.  The payment.” 

            Arnold felt his mouth go dry.  He laughed, short, a bit scared.  “What are you talking about?  That’s the payment.  All the treasure.  That’s what we’re giving you.” 

            “Those are simple materials, the raw goods for your fix,” the Smith said.  “I need payment.  Divine currency.” 

            “What are you talking about?” Arnold chuckled in spite of the sweat prickling on the back of his neck.  “Phantom, tell him—”

            “I’m the payment,” the Phantom said.  “I’ve got it, we’re good for it.”

            “What the hell is divine currency?” 

            “Don’t worry about it.” 

            “Don’t worry about it?  After forty years, when we’re right here, that’s all you can tell me?” Arnold felt rage, decades of it, clawing out of his mouth.  “I’m not some scared-shitless kid from Michigan anymore!  I’m eight years older than my father was when he died!  What the hell is divine currency?” 

            “It is a universal constant,” the Smith said, spreading its hands.  A faint, dreamy smile settled across its face.  “Other than myself, the only universal constant.”  

            “What?” Arnold rubbed his face.  He was so tired.  He just wanted to go home.  “What does that mean—?” 

            “Memory.”  He looked over.  The Phantom was feeling a little corner of Dawn’s frayed brown cloth, rubbing it between his fingers.  “He takes memory as payment.  All the stuff we took, it’s what he’ll melt down and use to fix Dawn and give us what we need to get back.  Right?” he eyed the god, who nodded.  “But he needs memory to do that.  It wasn’t the stuff we needed, Arnold.  It was our memories.”  He smiled, sad.  “And I’ve got plenty.”  

            The Smith smiled.  “I guarantee you eternity, my friend.  Let me remember you.” 

            “No.” 

            The Phantom and the Smith both turned their eyes on him.  Arnold took a step forward. 

            “Take mine.” 

            “Arnold—”

            “You don’t need me anymore, Louis,” Arnold said.  “We’re almost home.”

            The Phantom shook his head.  “No, I can’t, you won’t—”

            “Whatever it takes, right?” 

            “Arnold—” 

            “You can keep a watch, don’t worry,” Arnold patted him on the back.  “In fact, that’ll be your favor to me.  If I step outta line, you let me know.  Alright?”  

            The Phantom was searching his face for something, a trace of the kid who, forty-odd years ago, woulda backed straight out, woulda given anything to be back home in the snow in Lansing. 

            And that kid was still there.  Arnold knew that; but there was an old man there now, too.  An old man who’d been around, and who knew enough to see that this is what had to be done. 

            So, the Phantom couldn’t do much more than laugh, and hug his friend. 

            And the Smith led that friend away, through a door where a plaque sat reading:

           

The smith guarantees eternity by remembering all.

-

            Arnold loaded the bullet into the Winchester.  Carefully, minding the dull ache in his knees and the chronic sore spot that warmed his lower back, he got onto his belly, pressing into the warm, cracked dirt and sighting the rifle.  

            He was on a hill, a hill overlooking Stockton.  The Stockton.  Not a replica, not one where everyone died before the age of fifteen or where they were all actually horses in people clothes, or where the sky was black all the time and hummed every hour on the hour.  No.  It was the Stockton.  His Stockton. 

            And there he was.  Right on the main street.  Waiting all by his lonesome for the Phantom to make his debut.  

            He smiled.  His finger scratched the trigger, tightening. 

            He’d miss Louis. 

            And a shot rang out. 

           

-

Year 0

“Louis Love, I am gonna marry your sister!” 

            Sounds a bit braver than I remember, Louis thought.  He spun the six chambers of Dawn, galaxies spinning in their black eyes.  

            It was hot today, really hot under… what did they call it here?  A Colorado Noon?  It’d been a while since he’d visited, but he doubted the lingo had changed.  Regardless, he was sweating rivers.  He needed a drink.  Something nice and cool, with a lot of ice and bubbles. 

            “Louis!” 

            Millie shoved her way past a couple miners and tugged Louis down by his serape.  He noticed her hair was wavy, combed, and there was a light scent of fig around her chest.  She’d really gotten dolled up for this.  She really cared about this kid.  Kaiser.

            “This is ridiculous,” she hissed.  “He hasn’t done anything, he’s not a threat, and—”

            “You like him?” 

            Catching her off-guard was like bottling sunshine—impossible, but he’d done it.  She pressed her lips together, and her cheeks grew natural rouge.

            He smiled and peeked at the kid from under the lip of his dad’s hand-me-down Stetson. 

            “Alright.  He’ll do.” 

            He holstered Dawn and looked up at the kid. 

            “I’m callin’ it off, Kaiser,” he said.  “You got my blessing.”  

            “Kaiser?”  

            “You’re German, ain’tcha?  Roundabouts from Herfen-Hessen?” 

            Arnold blinked.  “How did you know?” 

            Louis shrugged.  “I got an eye for that kinda stuff.  Hope you can drink with the best Galway County’s got to offer ‘round Christmas time,” he said, wrapping an arm around Millie’s shoulder and squeezing her tight.

            She laughed, but her eyes were on Louis. 

            “What are you playing at?” she whispered. 

            “Nothing.  If you like him, and he likes you… good enough for me.” Louis adjusted his hat and started off down the main street.   

            Arnold came trotting up beside Millie.  “Mr. Phantom?”

            “Louis, Kaiser.  Call me Louis.” 

            “Alright Louis… where ya headed off to?”

            Louis took a look around, squinting.

            “You know, I don’t really know.  I’ve been traveling a long ways for some time now… might be nice to find somewhere to finally settle down.” 

            “Need any help?  I know the territory—”

            Louis held up a hand.  “You’ve helped, kid.  Trust me.”  He smiled.  “Take care of Millie, alright?” 

            And he started off down the main street, ghosts of dust kicking up behind his heels, serape flapping in the breeze.