After supper, Dr. Landscomb and Mr. Liam Welloc, co-proprietors of the lodge, entertained the small group of far-flung travelers who’d come for the annual hunt. Servants lighted a fire in the hearth and the eight gentlemen settled into grand oversized chairs. The parlor was a dramatic landscape of marble statuary and massive bookshelves, stuffed and mounted heads of ferocious exotic beasts, liquor cabinets and a pair of billiard tables. Rain and wind hammered the windows. Lights flickered dangerously, promising a rustic evening of candlelight and kerosene lamps.
The assembly was supremely merry when the tale-telling began.
“We were in Mexico,” Lord Bullard said. Lord Bullard hailed from Essex; a decorated former officer in the Queen’s Royal Lancers who’d fought briefly in the Boer War, but had done most of his time pacifying the “wogs” in the Punjab. Apparently his family was enormously wealthy in lands and titles, and these days he traveled to the exclusion of all else. He puffed on his cigar while a servant held the flame of a long-handled match steady. “Summer of 1919. The war had just ended. Some Industrialist friends of mine were visiting from Europe. Moaning and sulking about the shutdowns of their munitions factories and the like. Beastly boring.”
“Quite, I’m sure,” Dr. Landscomb said. The doctor was tall and thin. He possessed the ascetic bearing of Eastern European royalty. He had earned his degree in medicine at Harvard and owned at least a quarter of everything there was to own within two counties.
“Ah, a trying time for the makers of bombs and guns,” Mr. Liam Welloc said. He too was tall, but thick and broad with the neck and hands of the ancient Greek statues of Herakles. His hair and beard were bronze and lush for a man his age. His family owned half again what the Landscombs did and reportedly maintained ancestral estates in England and France. “One would think there are enough territorial skirmishes underway to keep the coins flowing. The Balkans, for example. Or Africa.”
“Exactly. It’s a lack of imagination,” Mr. Williams said. A bluff, weather-beaten rancher baron attired in Stetson boots, corduroys and impressive buckle, a starched shirt with ivory buttons, and an immaculate Stetson hat. He drank Jack Daniel’s, kept the bottle on a dais at his side. He’d come from Texas with Mr. McEvoy and Mr. Briggs. McEvoy and Briggs were far more buttoned down in Brooks Brothers suits and bowlers; a banker and mine owner, respectively. Williams drained his whiskey and poured another, waving off the ever-hovering servant. “That’s what’s killing you boys. Trapped in the Renaissance. Can’t run an empire without a little imagination.”
“Besides, Germany is sharpening its knives,” Mr. Briggs said. “Your friends will be cranking up the assembly lines inside of five years. Trust me. They’ve the taste for blood, those Krauts. You can’t beat that outta them. My mistress is Bavarian, so I know.”
Lord Bullard thumped his cigar in the elegant pot near his foot. He cleared his throat. “Harrumph. Mexico City, 1919. Bloody hot. Miasma, thick and gray from smokestacks and chimneys of all those hovels they heap like ruddy anthills.”
“The smog reminded me of home,” Wesley said. Wesley dressed in a heavy linen coat and his boots were polished to a high gloss. His hair was slick and parted at the middle and it shone in the firelight. When Luke Honey looked at him, he thought Mr. Weasel.
“A Mexican prince invited us to a hunt on his estate. He was conducting business in the city, so we laid over at his villa. Had a jolly time.”
Mr. Wesley said, “Tubs of booze and a veritable harem of randy strumpets. What was not to like? I was sorry when we departed for the countryside.”
“Who was it, Wes, you, me, and the chap from York… Cantwell? Cotter?”
“Cantwell.”
“Yes, right then. The three of us were exhausted and chafed beyond bearing from frantic revels at the good Prince’s demesne, so we ventured into the streets to seek new pleasures.”
“Which, ironically, constituted the pursuit of more liquor and fresh strumpets.”
“On the way from one particularly unsavory cantina to another, we were accosted by a ragtag individual who leaped at us from some occulted nook in an alley. This person was of singularly dreadful countenance; wan and emaciated, afflicted by wasting disease and privation. He smelled like the innards of a rotting sheep carcass, and his appearance was most unwelcome. However, he wheedled and beseeched my attention, in passable English, I must add, and clung to my sleeve with such fervor it soon became apparent the only way to rid myself of his attention was to hear him out.”
“We were confounded upon learning this wretch was an expatriate American,” Mr. Wesley said.
“Thunderstruck!”
“Ye Gods,” Dr. Landscomb said. “This tale bears the trappings of a penny dreadful. More, more, gentlemen!”
“The man’s name was Harris. He’d once done columns for some paper and visited Mexico to conduct research for a story he never got around to writing. The entire tale of his fall from grace is long and sordid. It’s enough to say he entered the company of disreputable characters and took to wickedness and vice. The chap was plainly overjoyed to encounter fellow speakers of English, but we soon learned there was much more to this encounter than mere chance. He knew our names, where we intended to hunt, and other details I’ve put aside.”
“It was uncanny,” Mr. Wesley said.
“The man was obviously a grifter,” Luke Honey said from his spot near the hearth where he’d been lazing with his eyes mostly shut and thinking with mounting sullenness that the pair of Brits were entirely too smug, especially Lord Bullard with his gold rimmed monocle and cavalry saber. “A spy. Did he invite you to a séance? To predict your fortune with a handful of runes?”
“In fact, he did inveigle us to join him in a smoky den of cutthroats and thieves where this ancient crone read the entrails of chickens like the pagans read Tarot cards. It was she who sent him into the streets to track us.” Lord Bullard fixed Luke Honey with a bloodshot stare. “Mock as you will, it was a rare experience.”
Luke Honey chuckled and closed his eyes again. “I wouldn’t dream of mocking you. The Romans swore by the custom of gutting pigeons. Who am I to argue?”
“Whom indeed? The crone scrabbled in the guts, muttering to herself while Harrison crouched at her side and Harrison translated. He claimed the hag dreamed of our arrival in the city for some time and that these visions were driving her to aggravation. She described a ‘black cloud’ obscuring the future. There was trouble awaiting us, and soon. Something about a cave. We all laughed, of course, just as you did, Mr. Honey.” Lord Bullard smiled a wry, wan smile that accentuated the creases of his face, his hangdog mouth. “Eventually, we extricated ourselves and made for the nearest taproom and forgot the whole incident. The Prince returned from his business and escorted us in style to a lavish country estate deep in the central region of the country. Twelve of us gathered to feast at his table, and in the morning he released boars into the woods.”
“Twelve, you say?” Mr. Williams said, brows disappearing under his big hat. “Well, sir, I hope one of you boys got a picture to commemorate the occasion.”
“I need another belt to fortify myself in the face of this heckling,” Lord Bullard said, snapping his fingers as the servant rushed over to fill his glass. The Englishman drained his glass and wagged his head for another. “To the point then: we shot two boars and wounded another — the largest of them. A prize pig, that one, with tusks like bayonets and the smoothest, blackest hide. Cantwell winged the brute, but the boar escaped and we were forced to spend the better part of two days tracking it through a benighted jungle. The blood trail disappeared into a mountain honeycombed with caves. Naturally, honor dictates pursuing wounded quarry and dispatching it. Alas, a brief discussion with the Prince and his guides convinced us of the folly of descending into the caverns. The system extended for many miles and was largely uncharted. No one of any sense attempted to navigate them. We determined to return home, satisfied with the smaller boars.”