Lourdes: A Vampire In The Old West

4. One of the Better Nights at the Guinevere

Emma walks across the deck of the Guinevere Hotel and pushes hung over cowboys onto the street. The waitress sends the drunks into the sand without the slightest smile, as while the morning's come, her night is still not done. Emma's eyes are red, her skirt stained with sweat, and her skin reeks of whiskey. Her only thought is loosening her burdens for but a few brief hours alone beneath her sheets. The sun's risen, and it's time for the now-penniless lushes to return to their wives. Emma slaps cowboys over the patio's side with a broom and makes her way to a pile of rags hidden in shadow.

"Wake up, sleepy head. Time for all good little boys to get to work to make more money to slip into Momma's stockings," Emma spits at the rags. She waits for a reply. Or movement. Or moan. There's nothing. She brings her broom forward, poking the shape, softly at first and then, after a few more taps, hard into its center. It doesn't budge. "If you want to sleep here, you've got to pay for a bed!" Emma shouts. "Come on, go home!" Bending down, she tries to make sense of the ball. It looks more like a swaddled doll than a man. Emma kicks it before extending her hand. She peels away the top layer of rags.

"Lourdes?"

It is. The boy lies there under bruises and dried blood.

Grievous wounds run into his bones, and his face is hollow, without expression or thought. Lourdes's eyes are open, but he doesn't see Emma. He doesn't so much as blink. A blistered Lourdes is wrapped into himself in the last speck of shadow in this new day.

†

"Lourdes, meet Beatrice, Helena, and Cassidy!" Emma barks in a hurry. A bottle of gin shatters on the floor. A cowboy with bloodshot eyes is sent down after the hooch. Emma clears a table as her trio of attendants lift Lourdes into the Guinevere Hotel. "They don't know much about medicine, but each has plenty of experience dressing up as a nurse. In other words, they're the best we've got." The three barmaids rush about as Katterina wipes a nearby table. All eyes in the bar turn to the commotion surrounding the boy. All eyes except Katterina's.

"What's wrong?" Helena asks Lourdes.

"Is it a fever?" Beatrice questions. "Could it be a fever?"

"Put him here! Put him here!" Emma orders.

"No, he's cold! It can't be a fever!" Cassidy yells.

Beatrice, Helena, and Cassidy struggle to maneuver Lourdes into place. He's not heavy. Instead, his body's too light. Lourdes is fragile.

"Put him here!" Emma repeats, slamming a fist onto the table. The girls stop any attempt at finesse and let Lourdes drop. A thud as he crumples against splintering wood. The boy's eyes slowly roll back and a thin breath starts to escape from his lips. This breath is cut short, though, as Helena forces a flask into the boy's mouth. Brandy fills Lourdes's cheeks and floods down his throat. Lourdes coughs. Lourdes chokes. Liquor cascades across his chest, and the moment the girl's alcohol splashes into the cowboy's wounds, animus overflows. Like lightning, Lourdes knocks away the flask. Poking and prodding and trying to help, the women dash about.

Emma wraps her apron into a pillow. She sets it down behind Lourdes's head and brings her fingers up to inspect his eyes. The child's golden pools respond immediately. His eyes follow Emma and also track Beatrice, Helena, and Cassidy. And every other waitress in the room. He sees them all. He sees their customers. He sees the dirty dishes peeking over the bar waiting to be cleaned. He sees the grain of wood on the ceiling. He sees the seven kings and nine queens in a game of cards. He sees the uprooted contents of a man's stomach rotting by the far wall.

"What happened?" Emma asks the boy.

"I got in a fight," Lourdes wheezes. His eyes shift straight ahead, and he tries to rise. Lourdes finds, though, while he's regained his will, he doesn't yet have the strength to stand. Struggling to so much as sit up, he falls back onto the table and into the makeshift nurses' care. An ugly thud. Beatrice and Emma stand ready with improvised dressings as Cassidy rolls up the first of Lourdes's bloody sleeves. Scars, bruises, and broken skin.