The Six-Gun Tarot by R. S. Belcher Page A

passed, she was always the first one in town there with a cake or a basket of preserves for every birth, every funeral. In time Golgotha forgot Will Proctor and his poor wife and embraced the Widow Proctor as part of the community.
    Gillian was there for Auggie too when Gert succumbed to Influenza back in ’67. She comforted Gerta through the worst of it, when Auggie had to run the store or simply collapse from exhaustion. Gillian promised her beloved friend she would look out for Auggie and not let his black moods eat him alive. The two survivors wept together over Gerta’s still, frail frame when the time finally arrived.
    “What are you staring at?” Gillian asked from her chair in the back room of Shultz’s.
    “Nothing,” he replied. “I did not mean to stare. I was just thinking.…”
    “Yes, we have been through it all, haven’t we, Augustus?”
    “Ja.”
    She rose. Her movements reminded Auggie of water—fluid, effortless, something so free in them. She always seemed like she was more of the world than in it, a presence, like the breeze of the desert, or the blessed, scarce rain. She come over and put her hands on his shoulders and began to rub. They were bruised from where Earl had manhandled him earlier and her strong fingers felt good on the knots of steel under his skin.
    “What is das ?” he said, surprised but not offended. Definitely not offended.
    “Hush up, you old grump,” she said. “Let someone do something for you for a change.”
    It felt good to feel hands on him again. They were warm and strong, but so very, very gentle too. They reminded him of …
    He stepped away from Gillian and turned, taking her hands in his own.
    “Thank you, Gillian,” he said. “But I have to get supper started. It’s getting late.”
    She smiled, reddened and nodded. “Yes, I guess it is. Say, why don’t you have dinner with the boarders at my place tonight. Save you from having to cook, and the Lord knows you don’t care to wash dishes.”
    “Thank you, that is very generous, but I … I’m sorry, I can’t tonight.”
    She picked up her basket and handed it to him.
    “I thought you might be a stubborn old goat, so I went ahead and made you something.”
    She brushed her soft lips against his bristly cheek and walked to the storeroom door.
    “Augustus, Gerta was my best friend. I loved her very much and I miss her dearly. She would never have wanted you to dig her grave large enough to hold two people.”
    “Thank you for the food, Gillian, and the concern. I’m just tired and sore and I want to go to bed.”
    “Good night, Augustus,” she said.
    The door closed and Auggie stood alone in the storeroom with only the lengthening shadows for company.
    He locked the door and slowly climbed the narrow stairs to where all the ghosts lived.
    Their apartment was small, a few rooms crammed full of the antique furniture from his family home in Hamburg that had endured the ocean voyage and the wagon ride to Golgotha. Auggie sat down in a high-backed chair and slipped off his boots. Through the windows the sun was crawling lower along Main Street. He picked up a photograph off an end table. It was of himself and Gert from the year they had arrived in Golgotha. It was taken by a roving photographer from back east who said he had come west to capture the buffalo in pictures. Auggie and Gert both looked so young in the picture, trying to stand still and look serious without laughing. So young, and thin and happy, and alive.
    He stared at the photo until he noticed how dark the room was. When he looked at the Swiss clock on the wall, he realized hours had passed. He reluctantly put the photo away and stood.
    Down the narrow hallway into the bedroom. The familiar stab of pain as their wedding bed taunted him with memories of love and comfort, sickness and death. He opened the closet and took down the heavy wooden box with the brass hinges and clasp. He carried it gently to the small kitchen table where they