Merging Paths Read online

  Merging Paths

  A Curtis Jefferson novel

  Copyright © 2022 Vince Bailey

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by other means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published by IngramElliott, Inc.

  www.ingramelliott.com

  9815-J Sam Furr Road, Suite 271, Huntersville NC 28078

  This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, or events used in this book are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people (alive or deceased) events, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Book design by Maureen Cutajar, gopublished.com

  Cover design by: H.O. Charles

  ISBN Hardcover: 978-1-952961-09-0

  ISBN Paperback: 978-1-952961-10-6

  ISBN E-Book: 978-1-952961-11-3

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2022945203

  Subjects: Fiction—General. Fiction—Historical. Fiction—Paranormal. Fiction—Suspense. Fiction—Western and Pacific States. Fiction—Myth & Legends. Fiction—Visionary and Metaphysical.

  Published in the United States of America.

  First Edition: 2022, First International Edition: 2022

  The Curtis Jefferson series

  BY VINCE BAILEY

  Path of the Half Moon

  Winner of the Arizona Authors’ Association Literary Award and the Chanticleer International Book Awards for Paranormal and Supernatural Fiction. Book one in the series, Path of the Half Moon is a paranormal historical fiction tale set in a remote detention facility for wayward boys in the early sixties. Curtis is an African American youth whose character and physical endurance are tested by a murderous inmate and a century-old Apache curse.

  Courses of the Cursed

  Finalist in the 15th Annual National Indie Excellence Awards. Book two in the series, Courses of the Cursed, brings back Curtis Jefferson as he continues to be challenged by his nemesis, Harvey Huish, while a café owner struggles with a premonition that her nephew will be the victim of a treacherous plot. The parallel stories share a common theme: the curse of Fort Grant.

  Merging Paths

  Merging Paths is the exciting conclusion to the colorful, intricate world presented in this unique paranormal series. Curtis Jefferson’s closing tale of the century-old curse of Fort Grant follows our hero as he escapes from the fort, endures a perilous desert crossing, and evades a rogue lawman who is bent on ending Curtis’s life.

  Contents

  Dedication

  A Presence Abroad

  Catchin’ Up (Interlude One)

  Sonoran Crossing

  Haunted Taunt

  Risen

  The Fugitive

  Memories

  Night Flight

  Mass Communication

  Total Recall

  Performances

  Friendly Persuasion

  Out Through the Back Door

  With a Kiss

  Now, and at the Hour of Our Death

  Lazarus Moment

  All’s Well … (Interlude Two)

  Never on Sunday

  Lifeline

  The Doctor Came In…

  Bedside Bride

  In the First Degree (Interlude Three)

  When Pigs Fly

  An Incident at Hayseed Heights

  Glances at the Rearview

  Woman at the Well

  Prelude to a Dirge

  Godspeed

  Early Guests

  A Backward Glimpse (Interlude Four)

  Requiem for a Featherweight

  The Eulogy

  A Tangle in the Web

  Funeral Pyre

  Aftershocks

  Battle of the Bullhorns

  His Honor

  Homeward Bound

  Loose Ends and Ashes

  About the Author

  Dedication

  I dedicate this third and final book in the series to my family and friends who have fueled my creative efforts with their continuing encouragement and genuine excitement over new developments in Curtis’s perilous journey. Thanks to their abiding interest in his tale, I felt compelled to produce a concluding installment that addresses the unresolved issues raised in its series forerunners, Path of the Half Moon and Courses of the Cursed, and to do it with the same entertaining panache that defines its predecessors. Thanks, as well, to a growing readership for their patience in spite of their hunger for finality. I trust they will find some captivating closure with this writing.

  A Presence Abroad

  The wheels of a beige Ford pickup chattered along the otherwise deserted washboard road for several miles before a smooth stretch finally silenced the annoying floorboard din. Ezra, the nearly nodding driver, raised and cocked his head as if to listen more intently for a sound no longer stifled by the clatter underfoot. Perking up, he released the pressure on the gas pedal and glided the aging rattletrap to a dusty halt at the right shoulder of the unpaved county road. Engine still idling, the old Apache shaman shifted the truck into neutral, set the hand brake, and clambered out onto a wide running board. He craned his neck until his entire weathered face cleared the top of the cab. Facing south, he tipped his nose upward, sniffed the stirring air, and growled softly like a perturbed hunting hound.

  “Something…something human has entered my desert,” he muttered to a nonexistent passenger.

  He reached down into the cab, then rose back up clutching a severed arm, using the stiffened dead palm as a visor to shield his eyes from the low morning sun. His enhanced animal vision allowed him to see clearly for more than a mile, but it was his sixth sense that enabled him to “see” several miles beyond the rocky knolls that dotted the horizon. At length, he drew his canine features into a wry smile, and he licked his lips upon identifying the intruder.

  “It’s the black boy Curtis Jefferson!” he exclaimed with surprise. “He’s a bigger fool than I thought. Who in their right mind would abandon the safety and security of those walls after what he’s seen of the outside?” he continued, addressing no one. “He’s certainly outlived his usefulness to me. Come to think of it, I’ve never dined on African cuisine, and I am, after all, quite the culinary adventurer. Still, I must put that novelty on hold while I have more pressing business elsewhere. I’ll keep an eye out and bide my time with this dolt while the desert has its way with him for a while.”

  And with a “humph,” Ezra, phantom chief of the ill-fated Aravaipa clan, ducked back into the cab and motored up the road northward, toward Phoenix.

  Catchin’ Up (Interlude One)

  “So, this stuff with me all happened in a day and a half, right around the time Isabel sent ol’ Ezra packin’ back to hell with a pound of lead in his hide.”

  The statement was startling on several counts. I could tell Curtis had broken off from the story right away by the stark change in his tone. His voice went from monotone while narrating to loud and commanding as he was directly addressing me. But aside from the tone and the volume, I was startled because, once again, he was answering a question that had been building in my mind—answering as if I had asked it aloud. The combined shift and the nearly clairvoyant response to my thoughts struck me momentarily dumb.

  “You remember that turkey shoot, don’t ya, Vince?” Curtis asked in reaction to my silence.

  “Let me see,” I answered, pretending to strain for the recollection. “You mean the time she blasted the old shaman nine times and blew off his arm?”

  “That’s the time.” Curtis chuckled. “I thought maybe you forgot.”

  “Not likely,” I countered. “That part
of the story stuck out like a fly on a wedding cake. Listen, Curtis,” I added thoughtfully, “you don’t have to test me. I’m soaking this all up. I just get a little lost on the timing of things. You know, the way the episodes overlap and all. But I’m getting this down in my mental notes.”

  “I’m glad to hear that ’cause, to be honest, I get kind of mixed-up myself.”

  “That so?”

  “Yeah, it’s like everything right around then started happenin’ so fast and furious, lots o’ stuff started runnin’ together—I had the vision of Ezzy and the lieutenant after I got drugged, then Leon and the boys rescued me, then I went to that weird church service, then I found Randy hangin’ from the rafters, then I led ol’ Harvey down to…well, you know,” Curtis said.

  “Yeah, I know. Sounds like way too much to handle.”

  “It was pretty confusing at first, I gotta admit. But, during the year between then and now, I’ve had a lot of time to sort of put things together and make better sense of them.”

  “Well, you sure seem to have a handle on it all now, right down to the details. In fact, you’ve given a few specifics that make me wonder.”

  “Wonder away right now, writer-boy, ’cause I don’t want to get interrupted later.”

  “Okay, I wonder about how you know all these particulars involving Isabel and Ray. I mean, you were still behind the wall when most of that stuff happened with them, right?”

  “Good catch. Yeah, I got most of those parts from the chats I had with them—back then and since.”

  “Kenny too?” I pressed.

  “Yeah, but you gotta understand, I’ve been working my sixth sense overtime on this stuff for the better part of a year, and sometimes I just fill in the gaps for good measure. Got it?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” I muttered.

  “Now, where was I?”

  “You were recapping how you dispatched Harvey Huish. Then there was the fire.”

  “Oh my God, yes!” he exclaimed. “That was the worst of it—knowin’ that those four cavalry guys were in there burnin’ up. I hate to even think about it, much less tell it.”

  “What an awful way to go out,” I said. “Did you ever come to understand why the lieutenant did that—burned himself up with the others like that?”

  “Best I can guess is that there was no other way out for ’em. They couldn’t get discovered as they were, and they couldn’t leave the fort ’cause that was part of the curse. I guess the lieutenant figured that burnin’ a body into nothin’ was the only way the never-dyin’ can get truly dead.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m not sure, but it seems like the four of them stopped gettin’ older ever since the massacre—somethin’ to do with the curse, I guess, and the way time got all fucked up in that place.”

  “What do you mean by the never-dying?” I wondered aloud.

  “At first, I thought it—you know, the whole never-dyin’ thing—was some sort of punishment for bad things they’d done, part of the curse, in other words. That would sure fit for Jeb and the doc. But that wouldn’t explain the lieutenant or especially Marcus—no way.”

  “I get your point—but what, then?” I pressed.

  “Let me tell it the best I know how. Take ol’ Jeb. Now, there was a bad character if there ever was one—bad and ignorant.”

  “Yeah, you got him pegged. A grave robber—that’s about as low as they come,” I said.

  “Then there’s the doc—sharp as a razor, but slimy as a jar o’ toad eggs.”

  “I’m with you on that one too.”

  “But take the lieutenant—not a mean bone in that man’s body…”

  “Are you forgetting about the time he took a razor strop to your backside?” I interrupted.

  “Strict ain’t the same thing as mean,” Curtis observed thoughtfully. “Ya know, there’s a part in the Bible that says the Lord whips every son he loves. The lieutenant thought I was lyin’ to him—and I was. He was keepin’ me on the straight and narrow, kinda like my daddy would have done. No, the lieutenant was a good man, at least to a point.”

  “And what does that mean—‘to a point?’”

  “Two things: he drank way too much. The guy was single-handedly keepin’ the bourbon business propped up.”

  “Hmm. Okay, you said two things. What’s the other?”

  “Decidin’ on any ol’ thing. If there was more than one way to go about somethin’ at all, the guy would go into full-tilt mode. Hell, he’d starve before he could decide between oatmeal and corn flakes for breakfast.”

  “That’s right!” I recalled. “The history said that his indecision sort of set up the massacre. And since he was the author of the manuscript, he was confessing his fault, in a way.”

  “I guess, but he was in no way to blame for what happened there. Those devils from Tucson that did the killin’ were the guilty ones, plain and simple.”

  “True enough,” I agreed. “But from the way you tell it, the notion that he was guilty haunted him for his entire long life. He sounds like a really sad character, Curtis.”

  “I suppose he was sad, but he was a lot of other things too,” he murmured, as if thinking out loud. “I jus’ keep thinkin’ about how he saved my life—twice, when you think about it. I count him as a hero before anything else.”

  “That seems fitting,” I said. “Heroic and tragic at the same time.”

  “But now, when it comes to Marcus, well, there was nothin’ sad about that man at all,” said Curtis, more cheerfully. “That guy was always grinnin’ an’ crackin’ a joke or hummin’ a tune. Man, I think Marcus could light up a cemetery on a moonless night jus’ by bein’ there.”

  “I guess it was lucky that you had some good friends like Marcus and Randy to make up for the evil that came your way from the others—not to mention the protection you got from the lieutenant.”

  “I can’t keep myself from thinkin’ that none of those folks were real friends—or even real enemies, for that matter—though they sure seemed so at the time.”

  “Do you mean they weren’t real friends or enemies because they weren’t real at all?” I finally blurted out.

  “They were real all right,” he asserted quickly, as if startled by the question. “They ate and drank and burped and farted jus’ like you and me.”

  “You know, you and Randy had a lot of discussions about the devil’s hand in all of this Fort Grant voodoo. Do you think those characters were sort of like the devil’s playthings?”

  “I think you’re close, Vince, but I don’t believe any true explainin’ is possible for the strange survival of those spooky dudes,” Curtis replied. “To me, they seemed like actors in some creepy-ass movie. But if I had to give the short answer, I’d say the two sewer rats were trapped there because of their dark deeds; the lieutenant was caught there because of his damned wafflin’. Maybe Marcus was there because of his blind loyalty to the lieutenant. Who knows for sure?”

  “It seems to me that the fire was the lieutenant’s rebellion against his own indecision,” I continued to speculate. “Maybe only such a firm and final act could possibly break the time-hold on them. Maybe he gave them all a way out.”

  “Yeah, I think you’re probably on to somethin’, Vince. But, then again, maybe they were carryin’ out a mission.”

  “And what mission would that be?” I challenged my friend.

  “To educate,” said Curtis.

  “They sure gave you an education. And two of them turned out to be friends,” I said.

  “No, not really friends. See, the reason I say that again is because they seemed like they were just sort of actin’ out roles, just like you said. Fact is, I only had one best buddy in that whole place that was real.”

  “Let me guess.” I nearly squealed. “Leon Hawkins!”

  “Right on the money again, bright boy.” Curtis grinned. “See, ol’ Leon, he stood watch over me, rescued me, took me to church—not to mention that he gave me some provisions, point
ed me in the right direction, and helped me over that wall before all the state fuzz come swarmin’ around. Yep, he saved my ass and busted me out. I’ll be forever beholden to that boy.”

  “How long was he in for?” I asked.

  “Not sure about that, but only a few hard cases were ever in for longer than a year.”

  “Then he’s probably out. Ever try to look him up?”

  “Yeah, for one of those chats I was talkin’ about,” he muttered. “Let’s just get back to the story.”

  “Sure, I just thought…”

  “I said we need to get back to the story before I lose the thread,” he growled impatiently. “Let’s see…I’d just gone over the wall that morning, maybe an hour before dawn. It was pretty easy to go unnoticed, what with all the attention on that fire…”

  Sonoran Crossing

  Curtis had put a good ten miles between himself and Fort Grant on the first day of his flight. Fear of pursuit pressed him from behind, and the wide azure sky opening before him seemed to beckon the boy onward in his stalwart march eastward across the barren expanse. The dual stimulants of adrenaline and the colorful brightness of the new day drove the sleepiness from his eyes, and the bill of his Dodgers cap sheltered him from the late-morning sun. His strength and stamina had sustained him early in the day. But, in the first hours after midday, lack of sleep from the eventful night before and the draining effect of a glaring sun predictably drew the onset of utter exhaustion. A dull ache in the left side of his rump reminded him of the stitched-up gash in the fleshy cheek, another symptom of profound weariness. The pain jogged his memory of being attacked by a devil-dog outside the fort, just the night before. Was that overgrown coyote actually Ezra, the Apache chief, in his demon form, as the lieutenant had suggested? Curtis purposefully dismissed the thought in order to keep focused.

  It was pure serendipity that his leaden plodding brought a lone mesquite into view. Curtis aimed his faltering progress toward the promise of shade that punctuated the horizon. Within five minutes, he reached the solitary source of shelter in an ocean of sand and gravel. He slipped under the bright-green umbrella, sat cross-legged with his back resting against the craggy trunk, and began to nod.