Free The Shotgun Arcana by R. S. Belcher Page A

to a cable of copper electrical wiring running up through the top of the jar and now connected to an external set of wiring.”
    Jim looked to Mutt. Mutt shrugged.
    “Well, Clay, I have to tell you those are … the … finest … eyeballs all stuck together in a jar like that, that I’ve … ever seen,” Mutt said. “Yessir. What are you going to do with your fine jars of eyeballs, Clay?”
    “This here,” Clay said, connecting the last of the jars to the coil of wire, “is my occustereograph.”
    “Oh,” Mutt said. “That clears things up.”
    “This device is based off another invention of mine, the occuscope,” Clay said, either unaware of or uncaring of the deputy’s mocking tone. “The occustereograph imprints images off the eyes from multiple angles and directions. I then can use my occuscope to merge the images into a truly fully immersive photographic view. It’s based off the work of Professor Wilhelm Kuhne, head of the Department of Physiology at the University of Amsterdam. Herr Professor holds the theory that the eye can hold its final image for some time after death. We’ve corresponded quite a bit over the last few years.”
    “Are these human eyes?” Jim asked.
    “Ya know, Clay, I can fetch Bertrand Fisher, over at the Golgotha Scribe . He takes pictures,” Mutt said. “No need to use up all your fancy eyeballs.”
    If Clay heard either of them, he didn’t reply. He connected the copper wire to posts on top of the wooden box. The box had a large hand crank on the side, and it reminded Jim a little of a dynamite detonator. Clay nodded to answer some question in his own head and began to crank the wooden box. As he turned the crank faster and faster, blue sparks snapped from the posts. The thick gel-like fluid in the jars began to glow with a faint blue light. Jim swore he saw one of the eyeballs move, then focus.
    The whole process took about ten minutes. Some of the jars began to bubble and smoke, and several of the eyeballs popped from the heat the process produced. The sun was peeking up over the ridge of Rose Hill when Clay finished his work with the device and began to pack up. A few work wagons were beginning to make their way down Bick Street on their appointed rounds. The town was waking up, and they were finished, just in time. Clay carefully gathered up Sweet Molly’s remains with Mutt’s help, even taking samples from the swamp of blood and mud on the alley’s floor. He measured and sketched the boot print and made meticulous notes of every detail of the alleyway.
    Jim noticed the tenderness and care Clay used in the process, and part of his concern for Clay’s sanity began to fade. Then Jim recalled when he had first met Clay in the desert, how the old man had studied and pondered over the carcass of a dead coyote. A strange look of peace and something else, something Jim didn’t want to try to understand, had crossed Clay’s face as he watched the animal breathe its last breath. Jim realized that the taxidermist was looking at Molly’s body the same way he had looked at the coyote.
    “Jon and I will meet up with you in the next day or so, Clay, so you can tell us what’s what. Square?” Mutt said. Clay grunted in the affirmative. He climbed up on the wagon and drove away without another word. As the wagon bumped and jumped down Bick Street, one of the girls that worked at the Dove came out back with a bucket of water and dumped it on the pool of blood. Jim watched as she repeated the process, until the alley was no longer what it had been a few hours ago, no longer a door to Hell. It was just an alley outside a whorehouse.
    “C’mon,” Mutt said, slapping him on the back. “Let’s git that baby goat and git home. Mrs. Proctor should have breakfast waiting.”
    In the wagon, Clay Turlough’s mind was a crashing torrent of thought and theory, cause and effect. He was eager to get the female’s remains back to his workshop at the livery. The girl still had