DISORDER IN THE HOUSE (How the West was Done 2)
released May 25, 2012 from Siren-Bookstrand, Inc.
Erotic Western Menage a Trois Romance with paranormal elements, M/M/F with M/M elements, Sex Toys,
Liberty clung to Garrett’s arm, her eyes shining with passion. “Let’s try it.”
“Yes,” Garrett agreed. “Maybe your mother will guide our hands, Zeke.”
Items were soon gathered, and the table in the dining room was cleared of all objects, save for the board, candles, and a pencil and blank paper. The table was too long for them all to reach the planchette, so Liberty and Zeke sat at one side and Garrett and Levi around the corner from them.
“You don’t have to hold hands,” Zeke assured them.
“That would be pretty hard to do,” Garrett started to point out. “If our hands are on the planchette, how can we—” But Levi’s kick under the table shut him up.
Liberty sipped her sarsaparilla. “What question are we asking?”
Zeke said, “I want to find out if my mother is still with that greengrocer in the afterlife!” He heatedly gulped his own whiskey.
Levi said calmly, “Why don’t we ask something that will interest all of us? For example, the whereabouts of Shady Barnhart.”
“Yes!” cried Zeke. “I was wondering where that worthless jackass had gotten to, myself. One day he’s selling me a bunch of necklace beads wrapped in a skunk skin for four dollars, I mean just absolute extortion, and the next day he’s gone.”
Liberty’s mouth was a thin line. “Zeke, he was supposed to give those things to the Indians. For free.”
Zeke chuckled. “Ah, well! It’s just a bunch of…I mean…” Only his eyeballs moved, glancing from Levi to Garrett and back to Levi. “You know…Indians…”
Liberty sighed with exasperation. “Besides, what do you want necklace beads for, anyway?”
Zeke explained, “But it was such a good deal!”
“All right,” said Levi. “Our question is, where is Shady Barnhart?”
Everyone agreed they would pose this question, and they placed their fingers on the woven rim of the upside-down basket. They took it lightly at first, laughing and joking.
It was actually Zeke who reprimanded them. “This is serious business, people. I’ve been witnessing some pretty important happenings here in town lately. I tell you, the psychic vibrations around Laramie are at their highest right now. Don’t laugh.”
Garrett actually wasn’t laughing. He’d witnessed enough psychic vibrations lately to convince him of the truth in all of this supernatural stuff. He just felt self-conscious putting his fingers on a basket and looming over a board that talked about a fish.
But almost the moment Zeke lectured them, the planchette began to move. Everyone gasped as it raced over the polished board to the letter S. Then an H. Then an A.
“Shady,” whispered Liberty.
Zeke said, “Don’t think ahead of time of what it might say. Try to keep your mind a blank. Otherwise your hands might accidentally intentionally push the planchette where you want it to go.”
That made sense, but it still spelled out SHADY IS SCARING BRULE.
“Brulé,” Garrett told a quizzical Liberty. “That’s the tribe of Sioux we have here.” Louder, he said, “Where is Shady scaring the Brulé?”
ROCK WITH TREE.
“Great,” said Levi. “We already knew that. But where is this rock with a tree? Paddy, is that you?”
The planchette swished to where YES was printed on the board.
“Paddy,” said Levi. “Where is this rock with a tree?”
The basket spelled out SHADY SCATTERS BONES. Then, HE HAS WAKAN.
Liberty frowned. “What is wakan, I wonder?”
Garrett explained. “Wakan means anything that is strange or mysterious to the Indians. Like, if we call someone a medicine man. The Sioux call him wakan man. Taku-wakan means anything that is wakan.”
“Yes,” agreed Levi. “They have another word that means spirit or God, but the word wakan is never used that way.”
“So,” said Liberty. “Shady is being…mysterious or strange. By scattering bones.”
“Yes,” Garrett agreed. “I suppose that’s how he’s scaring the Indians.”
Zeke exploded, pounding the table with his fist. “Wakanana, I knew it!” The other three séance-goers jumped. “Wakanana, Illinois, was where my mother met that greengrocer Ernest! Ma! Ma!” he beseeched the ceiling with hands shaped like claws. “How could you do this to us? Why aren’t you with Pa on the other side?”
“Son of a gun!” cried Liberty. “Zeke, I don’t think this has anything to do with your mother. Garrett just explained what ‘wakan’ means in the Sioux language. I think—”
But Zeke was now on his feet, shrieking at the ceiling. “Ma! Pa crossed over to the other side five years ago! Why aren’t you with him? That chiseler Ernest was always trying to swindle us out of our school money, charging five cents for lettuce—how can you say you’re happy with him on the other side?”
Garrett would have disregarded this as the grief of a misbegotten son—he had heard that Zeke had suffered a brain injury during the recent war—but just then, a shower of rappings engulfed the room. The three remaining séance-goers slowly pulled back from the table, casting glances all about, but it was impossible to tell where one rap sounded before another rap came from the other side of the room. Were they coming from outside the house? Or were tiny little fists knocking the interior walls of the dining room? And what were the rappings telling them?
“Is it spelling out something?” Liberty wondered.
Garrett said, “It seems like the more Zeke rants, the more insistent these raps become.”
Levi suggested, “Let’s just put our fingers back on this thing and ask the next question.”
So the three of them—Zeke had thrown open a window and was wailing out of it about the greengrocer—put their fingers back on the basket, and this time it was Garrett who asked, “Paddy, where is Shady? Where is the lone pine that sticks out of the rock?”
Swiftly, as a hail of raps sounded all around them, the planchette spelled out BEWARE.
“Beware of what?” Garrett asked logically.
WATCH OUT FOR LIBERTY.
“Oh, dear God,” murmured Levi. “Paddy! Something is going to happen to Liberty? Tell us what. When?”
WATCH OUT FOR COLD WATERS.
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