That Book Your Mad Ancestor Wrote Read Online Free

I heard a holy man say once, out in the canyons. You like it, eh?’
    ‘ It’s great. I’ve always liked predators more than prey.’
    ‘ Is that a fact?’ Gwynn blew a smoke ring for the wind to ruin.
    ‘ Yeah, all you gunslingers and swordswingers and knife-fighters and all – well, you’ve got the power of life and death, right? I guess I’d like to be able to put holes through people, too, sometimes. I’ve always admired you folks.’
    ‘ Well, thank you, that’s very nice. But tell me, do you agree with those who believe that we’re instruments of some kind of divine judgement?’
    There was a change in the man ’s voice, an undercurrent which Siegfried heard but could not identify. He hesitated, pen arrested over paper. ‘I’m not really sure.’
    Gwynn put his cigarette down. He plucked the head off one of the wild white poppies growing around the stone and carefully poked the flower into his top buttonhole. He gave Siegfried a foxy look .
    ‘ Choose a number between one and five.’
    ‘ A number?’ Siegfried was nonplussed. The man hardly seemed the type to play parlour games. He shrugged. ‘All right. Four. But I don’t–’
    Gwynn drew one of his twin revolvers. He emptied two rounds out of the chamber, leaving four in. After appearing to give it a moment’s second thought, he removed a third and a fourth round. He spun the chamber and snapped it shut.
    ‘ Stand over there,’ he said, gesturing with the gun at the open ground past the thorn bush.
    Siegfried swallowed hard. Was this some kind of ceremony, an initiation ritual? Perhaps he had to survive it in order to be admitted to certain secrets. He had heard of such things happening.
    ‘Over there. Now.’ The muzzle pointed.
    Siegfried ’s heart vibrated as if someone had struck a gong inside his chest. Slowly he put the notebook away in his pocket. There was nowhere he could run to, except over the cliff. He had no doubt that Gwynn’s other gun was fully loaded. He had no idea of what else to do, so he got up and stood in the indicated place.
    T he revolver waved again. ‘Further back.’
    Sieg fried walked haltingly backwards, toward the sheer escarpment. He felt sick and weak-gutted, and wished he had relieved himself back at the café, which now seemed to belong to another world.
    ‘ Further… Further… Stop!’
    Siegfried didn ’t dare look around, but he knew the end of the ground must be right behind him. Have I been a fool? he wondered. Gwynn was taking aim. The gunman’s hair lifted suddenly in the wind, floating up to form a black halo radiating around his starkly moonlit face.
    The shot was very loud.
    Blood and matter erupted from the back of Siegfried’s head, and his body fell backwards into the empty sky.
    Gwynn stalked to the cliff -side and looked down. He caught a vertiginous glimpse of the dead kid, a barely visible speck that soon diminished out of sight. He reloaded his gun and holstered it with a philosophical shrug. Perhaps we really are instruments of divine judgement – or divine humour, he thought, smiling to himself. He considered the idea for a moment, but decided he didn’t care for it. He had masters enough on earth.
     
    Mona did not die, and seemed embarrassed. Soon afterwards she resumed taking her medicines, claiming publicly to have grown bored with Death as a lover, but admitting privately to Vali that she felt a fresh enthusiasm for life.
    ‘ What made you change your mind?’ Vali asked one morning. The early sun was shining gloriously through a vase of glass flowers on the windowsill, throwing a kaleidoscope of colours onto their bed.
    Mona stretched her back and legs, luxuriating in the mild sun and the feel of the crisp linen sheets on her skin. Her malady was slowly but steadily going into remission. Her adventure in illness had been worth it, almost, for the pleasures of convalescence that were now hers – those delicate, slightly abject delights of the reawakened senses. Milky tea