How the West Was Weird, Volume II
Twenty More Tales from the Weird, Wild West
Edited by Russ Anderson, Jr.
Copyright 2011 Russ Anderson, Jr.
Individual stories are copyright their respective authors.
Published by Pulpwork Press at Smashwords
All Rights Reserved.
Front cover art by Jim Rugg
Cover design by Tamas Jakab
These are works of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in these stories are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
This book is available in print at most online retailers.
Smashwords License Statement
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
For Jasmine and Trelina, who missed out on a lot of daddy/hubby time during the making of this book - and only complained a little.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
by Barry Reese
by David Boop
by Ian Taylor
by Joel Jenkins
by Ron Fortier
MR. BRASS AND THE DEVIL'S TEETH
by Josh Reynolds
by Thomas Deja
by Desmond Reddick
by Grahm Eberhardt
by Dale W. Glaser
TELL ME YOU LOVE ME AND THAT'LL BE AN END TO IT
by Ian Mileham
by Stacy Dooks
by Mark Bousquet
by Matthew P. Mayo
THE TESTIMONY OF CONSTABLE FRASER
by Kevin Thornton
by David Golightly
by Tommy Hancock
by Tony Wilson
by Derrick Ferguson
by Mike McGee
DESOLATION
by Barry Reese
1873.
The fires lit up the night sky and the stench of burning flesh made Lucas Johnson flare his nostrils. Illuminated as he was by the flames, Lucas looked like a demon that had crawled out of hell, with six-guns at his side. He stood a little over six feet tall, with gray eyes and a battered hat. His face might have been handsome, had it not been for a trio of scars that ran from just under his left eye all the way down to the right side of his chin. They were a parting gift from a whore in Tucson, a reminder that Lucas should never try and short-change a working woman.
“There’s still one more,” Nancy said. Lucas glanced over at his sister, who wore her nun’s habit with pride. She was a lovely woman and Lucas sometimes thought it a shame that she’d given her life over to God. Nancy would have made some man awful happy if she’d gone the usual route of being a wife. Then again, with Nancy’s gifts, there was no way she’d ever be able to settle for a white picket fence and a ranch to call her own.
Lucas took out his pistol and made sure he had a couple of bullets left in the chamber. He was running low but he knew that there was another town not more than thirty miles from here. He’d restock when he got the chance. Until then, he had more than enough to get the job done. “Man or woman?” he asked, his voice gruff from breathing in too much smoke and dirt.
“A child.” If Nancy felt any regret over that fact, she hid it well. She walked through the flaming ruins of Hope, Texas with a cold expression on her pretty face. Lucas followed her, knowing she’d lead him where he needed to go. He trusted her and always had, from the moment she’d sprang forth from their mother’s womb. He was six years older than his sister, but in all the important ways, she was the elder.
They found the little boy huddled in the back of the general store. He looked to be about eleven years old but Lucas knew that it was impossible to be sure. You sure as hell couldn’t ask it – the little things were liars, through and through.
The boy looked up through tear-streaked eyes. The emotion on his face would have been enough to melt the heart of most men, but not Lucas. He was made of sterner stuff. “Please, mister. Just let me live. I won’t tell nobody.”
Lucas glanced at his sister, who had turned her head away from them. She was staring off into space, already listening to the voices only she could hear, telling her where they should go next. Lucas sighed and pointed his pistol at the monster that wore a boy’s face. “Can’t be done,” he said. “And you know it. Do you really think I’d kill everybody in this whole town, just to let one of you bastards live?”
“But I ain’t done nothin’, mister.” The boy sniffled loudly. “Please.”
Lucas chewed the inside of his lip and looked once more at his sister. “Nancy? You got anything to say here?”
From beneath her nun’s habit, Nancy turned narrowed eyes upon the boy. “He wears this guise to try and weaken you. But God has given me the Second Sight so that I might look past the lies of the Devil. This boy is a demon. A monster. An ugly little creature who wants only to rape, lie and steal. Do the Lord’s work, brother.”
Lucas relaxed, feeling better now that his sister had pronounced her verdict. He pulled the trigger twice, using both bullets even though only one was really needed. At this range, he placed both slugs deep into the demon’s head, splattering blood and brains all over the bags of grain.
After putting his pistol away, Lucas stared down at the remains of the demon’s body. Even in death, their lies remained in place. The corpse did not revert to its true form, but remained as it had appeared in life. If Lucas hadn’t known better, he’d have thought that he had just killed an innocent youth.
“We need to be on our way.”
Lucas nodded, knowing his sister was right. The flames were bright enough that somebody would be coming from the neighboring areas to investigate. “We did good here,” he muttered, taking out a cigarette that he’d rolled earlier. He struck a match against his boot and then lit the tobacco.
“Yes. God is pleased,” Nancy said. She smiled softly and it reminded Lucas of how she’d been as a little girl, before the visions and the voices. There had been a time when her laughter had rung out often and loudly.
Lucas let Nancy take his hand, enjoying the softness of her skin against his callused palm. They moved to their waiting horses together, patting the animals reassuringly.
“What’s the name of the town east of here?” Nancy asked.
Lucas helped her into her saddle and then mounted his own steed. “Desolation.”
Nancy nodded, closing her eyes for moment. She said the name of the town, as if letting her tongue and lips taste it: “Desolation.”
Desolation lived up to its name. The town was small and had been built in the center of a harsh, rocky field that contained only a single tree – and that one looked like it had barely survived the last few thunderstorms. The grass that grew was more like weeds and was a dull brown in color, with the barest hint of green at the tips. There were seven houses in total, a small general store/bank, a tiny building with a “Sheriff Wanted” sign hung on the front porch, and a saloon by the name of Dusty’s.
The few people who were out in the street all stopped and stared as Lucas and Nancy rode into town. The scarred gunslinger and the beautiful nun were an unusual sight, to be sure. They stopped in front of the saloon and Lucas tied up their horses, ignoring the men and women who watched them.
“You want to wet your whistle?” Lucas asked his sister and she nodded. It had been a long, thirsty ride and both of them were parched. “Let’s go in and get us a drink, then. Once you’re situated, I’ll head over to the store and see if they’ve got a case of bullets.”
“Better make it two,” Nancy warned. “I have a feeling that there’s more danger ahead.”
“But none here, right?”
Nancy shook her head. “I don’t think so.” She cast her eyes slowly around at the townspeople, most of them nodded and smiled at her appraisal. Many of them had begun to return to their tasks, having decided that the strangers were nothing all that special. “But you never can be too sure.”
Lucas silently agreed with that. Over the years, he’d been shocked at how many demons were loose in the world. It seemed that every time he thought things were slowing down, Nancy would find another nest that needed rooting out. It had become a hard road, but it wasn’t one that Lucas would have traded. It wasn’t that he enjoyed the killing, it was more that he loved his sister and didn’t want her being on her own.
The saloon was basically one big room with a bar set up in the back. There were four round tables in the center and a handful of people sat at three of them. There were two women to be seen and from the slit in their skirts and the world-weary look in their eyes, they were obviously more than simple waitresses. They both regarded Lucas with curiosity but neither made a move to intercept him as he ambled towards the bar. Lucas wasn’t sure if their lack of interest stemmed more from his scars or from the fact that he'd walked in alongside a nun.
The old man behind the bar was busily cleaning its surface with a filthy rag. “What can I get fer ye?” he asked with forced enthusiasm.
“A clean glass of water for the lady and a whiskey for me,” Lucas answered. He dug in his pocket and dropped a few coins on the counter.
“Can do. You folks just passing through or looking to stay a spell?”
“Didn’t see any hotels,” Lucas muttered. “So I guess we’ll be passing through.”
The bartender set two glasses in front of them and quickly poured some whiskey into one of them. The other he filled from a pitcher of water he kept under the counter. “Well, there’s a widow who sometimes rents out a couple of rooms in her house. I could point you folks in that direction if you wanted.”
Lucas downed the whiskey in one shot. As the burning liquid rushed down his throat, he shrugged his shoulders and turned away from the bartender. The saloon patrons weren’t paying them much attention. They were a morose lot, staring into their drinks or occasionally pawing at one of the whores.
Desolation was just like a hundred other towns that Lucas had been to. There were booming places on the frontier, to be sure… but there were also dozens of small groupings of humanity, where men and women huddled together until they all died or finally moved on. People back East didn’t really understand what it was like out here, Lucas believed. You could see that whenever a well-dressed man and his wife stepped off a stagecoach, having come from New York or Boston with visions of easy wealth and a new life shining in their eyes.
“Want another?” the bartender asked and at a nod from Lucas, he refilled the shot glass.
Nancy sipped her water, softly humming a church hymn. “I’d like to stay here a day or two,” she said at last. “It’s been ages since I took a bath.”
Lucas said nothing. It wasn’t required. They both knew they’d abide by what Nancy chose for them.
When Lucas had polished off three shots of whiskey, he turned to his sister and said, “You wait here while I buy some supplies. I’ll see if I can’t find the widow while I’m at it.”
Nancy nodded. She leaned in close and her lips brushed her brother’s cheek. “You’re a good man, Lucas. I’m sorry that I’ve made this your lot in life. Sometimes I wish it weren’t so. “
Lucas stiffened in surprise. He’d never heard Nancy talk like this. The toll her powers had put upon both of them was obvious enough and they never discussed it aloud. “We’re family,” he mumbled gruffly. “Blood’s thicker than anything.”
“Maybe not as thick as this water is,” Nancy said, swirling the liquid around in her glass.
Lucas grunted in amusement. He strode back into the heat and adjusted his hat. He found that a heavyset woman with a malformed right hand manned the store. She had no thumb and the other four fingers were melded together in two places, making it look like a claw of some kind. The store smelled of sweat and piss but the goods looked relatively fresh so he bought what he could and refilled his stash of bullets. The entire time the woman said nothing to him, save for telling him the cost when the transaction was nearing its end. She just looked at him with the tired glare of someone who hated their lot in life.
After moving the goods into their saddlebags, Lucas found a place to stable his horses and carried the bags down to the widow’s house. The stable boy had been an eager lad, especially when he saw that Lucas was willing to pay extra for a guarantee that his animals would be well cared for.
Lucas had expected to find an old crone opening the door at the widow’s house but he got the exact opposite: the widow was about his sister’s age and looked as fresh as a newly opened flower. She had creamy, milk-white skin and dark hair. Her shoulders were exposed in the black dress she wore and beneath the cloth folds he could tell that she had a pleasing shape, with the proper amount of padding in the right places.
“Can I help you?” she asked, her eyes widening a bit at his scarred visage.
Lucas reached up and removed his hat, holding it against his chest. “Sorry to bother you, miss, but my sister and I need a place to rest our heads. I was told you might have a couple of rooms?”
“Oh, don’t call me miss... the name is Wilma. And you’d be welcome to look at the rooms to see if they’d suit your needs.”
“I’m sure they will. As long as we’ve got a roof over our heads and a basin for my sister to bathe with, we’ll be right as rain.”
Wilma smiled and Lucas felt an unfamiliar stirring. It wasn’t simple lust – he felt that as often as any man and slaked his lusts with those in the carnal profession. This was the kind of feeling that he used to get as a boy, when the older girls would walk past and occasionally look in his direction. His mother had called it “being smitten” and Lucas recalled the term now with perfect clarity.
“Do you have a name, Mr.—?”
“Lucas. And my sister is Nancy. She’s a woman of God and we’re traveling together, bringing God’s word to those who need it most.”
Wilma stepped aside so Lucas could enter and she shut the door behind him. “That sounds wonderful. She’s lucky to have a brother who would assist her like that.”
Lucas looked around at the simple furnishings. He knew it wasn’t perfectly proper but he found himself asking, “Might I ask what happened to the man of the house?”
“My husband was killed after being thrown from a horse. The fall broke his neck.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. Did it happen long ago?”
“Almost a year. We didn’t have much money set aside so I’ve taken to renting the extra rooms. We’d planned on having a big family so we built more house than we really needed.”
“I’m sure you’ll find someone else,” Lucas said, his eyes shining. “Can’t be a lack of suitors for a woman like you.”
The blush that spread across Wilma’s features was obvious, even in the dim lighting of the house. “I’m still in mourning,” she said, though the words lacked conviction. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you the two rooms I have available.”
Nancy was well aware of any change in her brother’s demeanor, so she immediately noticed that something was different about him when he returned for her. As he led her to the widow’s house, she asked him, “Did something happen while you were away?”
Lucas looked uncharacteristically pensive as he responded, “I got us the supplies we’ve been needing and found a good place to put the horses for the night.”
“And?”
“Met the widow. You’ll like her. She says she’ll cook dinner for us tonight. Says she likes to have an excuse to make something special. Since her husband died, there hasn’t been much call for such around her place.”
Nancy caught the change in his voice as he spoke about the widow and she frowned slightly. “Did this woman try to put her wiles on you?”
Lucas stopped in the street and stared at her. “Where in the hell did you get that?”
“A woman can sense these things.”
“She didn’t try to put any wiles on me,” Lucas said with a shake of his head. “She’s a good-natured woman and it’s been awhile since we found anybody we could say that about.”
Nancy adjusted her habit, her lips thinning into a straight line. She followed her brother to the widow’s house and though her eyes widened slightly, she tried to be as expressionless as possible when the widow introduced herself. She wore black, which was appropriate for one in mourning, but the way she showed off her shoulders was the obvious mark of a harlot.
Lucas, being a man, had obviously not picked up on the dangers that were now presenting themselves. “Wilma, this is my sister, Nancy. She’s real anxious to get herself cleaned up.”
Wilma laughed. “I can imagine. Sister, your room is right here. I’ve laid out some towels for you and I can fetch you some of my spare clothes if you like. They may not fit perfectly but it’ll give me a chance to wash yours for you.”
Nancy entered her room and closed the door behind her, saying nothing. She was angry, though she couldn’t quite specify the reason. She knew that her brother had bestial lusts and she had turned a blind eye to his dealings with such. But this woman... this woman was different.
Nancy stripped out of her garments and began to wash. Normally she would have focused on the pleasant sensations of cleaning herself but she couldn’t stop thinking about her brother’s demeanor and the way he’d looked at Wilma.
One day became two, then three and then four.
Wilma provided three meals a day and Lucas took to doing a few odd jobs around the house. Nancy stayed in her room most of the time but she could hear their laughter. Once she imagined she could hear them rutting like animals on the kitchen table but when she could stand it no more and had flung open her door, she had found them sitting calmly there, playing a simple game of cards. She had retreated to her room, afraid and embarrassed.
I’m losing him, she realized and the thought was terrifying. He had been her protector for as long as she could remember and when it came to their Holy Work, he was essential. She can’t have him, she thought as she lay in bed, eyes wide open. He belongs to the Lord.
And to me.
She finally confronted her brother as he came back from the well, a heavy bucket of water in one hand. “We need to leave this place,” she said, using the tone of voice that had worked on him since they were children.
Lucas set down the bucket and wiped his brow with the back of a hairy arm. “Why’s that?”
“Because God’s mission will not wait. There are demons loose on this world and we are the only ones who can stop them. I am the Lord’s Eyes but you are his Right Arm. I point the way and you bring down the hammer of justice.”
“Wilma asked me to try and patch up the holes in her roof. I’d like to do that before the rain comes.”
Nancy reached out and touched her brother’s chest. “Lucas. Please. We must go.”
“The demons will be there after I fix the roof,” Lucas retorted. He sounded angry, using a tone of voice that she’d never heard before. He immediately realized what he had done and placed his hand over hers. “Nancy, just give me a few more days. This rest has been good for me. I hadn’t realized how tired I was.”
“Are you in love with her?” she asked, fearful of the answer.
“I barely know her,” he answered quietly but it was there in his eyes.
Nancy stepped away, pulling free of his grip. She licked her lips and shifted her weight from foot to foot. “There’s something about this place,” she whispered, lowering her voice so much that Lucas had to lean towards her. “Ever since we arrived, I’ve felt it. We’re being bewitched. This is a test, don’t you see? Will we be blinded by temptation? Or will we be true to our mission?”
“Don’t you think God would want us to be happy?” Lucas asked and the question gave Nancy pause.
“No,” she said at last. “I think he wants us to do His work. Sometimes we suffer in this life so that we’ll be rewarded in Heaven.”
Lucas sighed, picking up the bucket and resuming his march towards the house. “Well, you’ll be a rich woman after you die, Nancy. Richest in Heaven.”
“Lucas!”
He paused, looking back at her. “Yes?”
“I didn’t want to tell you because I love you too much and I don’t want to cause you such pain...” Nancy began to wring her hands in desperation. “But I have seen a demon here.”
Lucas dropped the bucket, rushing back to his sister. He gripped her shoulders so hard they hurt. “Why didn’t you tell me? We have to deal with it before it threatens Wilma or the other people in town!”
Nancy looked at her brother, tears in her eyes. “Because it’s her. She’s the one. I didn’t want to tell you but I’m sure of it.”
Lucas let her go, looking like he’d just been slapped. “You’re saying that your Sight has shown you this?”
“Yes. But I know she means so much to you, Lucas, so we can let her be. We can leave this place and, just this once, leave a demon be.”
“I... are you sure?”
Nancy nodded, looking to the ground. “I can only tell you what God has shown me.”
Lucas hesitated, his hands clenching and unclenching. At long last, he picked up the bucket of water and moved towards the house.
Nancy walked through Desolation, feeling more alone than she ever had before. She wasn’t sure what Lucas would do but she hoped he’d make the right decision. As he’d said back in the saloon on the first day they’d arrived, they were family... and that took precedence over everything.
A drop of rain hit her shoulder and Nancy looked up to see the skies darkening overhead. A rumble of thunder shook the earth beneath her feet and she had to close her eyes as rain began to fall in thick sheets all around her. She covered her habit with her hands, bolting for the safety of the empty Sherriff’s building. She crouched there, grateful to be out of the rain. The thunder came again, sounding like the explosion of a cannon. She heard the horses in the stable complaining about the noise and she didn’t blame them. The strength of the storm was overwhelming.
“Times like these, you’d almost think God was venting his anger, wouldn’t you?”
Nancy jumped, having thought she was alone. She turned to see a man seated in a rocking chair, hidden by the shadows. He rocked to and fro, the chair creaking slightly. She couldn’t make out many details about his appearance but he seemed to be youthful and fit. “His power is awesome to behold,” she answered.
“That it is,” the stranger confirmed. “Makes it hard to know what works are His and what works are those of Man, though. If you see a burning blaze, how do you know it was God’s plan at work? Maybe it was just the act of a mortal man, doing evil for his own reasons.”
“Why are you talking like this?” Nancy asked, a wet shiver going down her back.
“Well, you are a nun, aren’t you? Thought you’d like a bit o’ Bible talk.”
Nancy stood up, looking out into the rain. The storm was weakening a bit but there was no sign that it would let up completely, not for a good long while. “You can recognize the true hand of God,” she said. “He always signs His work.”
“You really think so?”
“Of course I do.” Nancy adjusted her habit. “God speaks through me.”
The stranger watched as Nancy stepped back out into the rain, hurrying towards the widow’s home. “Sure he does,” the man muttered, “But are you ever really listenin’?”
Lucas was standing outside the house when she got there. He looked lost, his hair soaking wet and his eyes wide.
“Lucas?” she asked, moving to stand next to him. The rain was still coming down hard but now it had a melancholy quality to it.
“We better get going,” Lucas said, shouting to be heard over the rain. “It’s going to be hard traveling in the rain but we need to get away from here.”
“Did you tell Nancy we were leaving?”
“Yeah. I did.” Lucas looked at her and for the first time in their lives, she knew that he was regarding her with suspicion. “You were telling the truth? About what she is?”
Nancy nodded slowly. “Yes. But we’ll let her be. Just this once. Just for you.”
Lucas wrapped his arms around her, pressing her face hard against his chest. “I love you, Nancy. I don’t understand why God did this to you but I won’t let you face it alone.”
Nancy smiled, feeling her confidence returning. “Everything will work out, if we just trust in the Lord.”
A jagged burst of lightning cut across the sky, like a knife slipping through warm flesh.
In the dark recesses of her house, Wilma sat at the kitchen table, her head resting against the wall. Her eyes were open but they saw nothing, nor would they ever again. There was a single bullet hole that lay between them.
THE RAG DOLL KID
by David Boop
The Rag Doll Kid looked at the rapidly cooling body on the floor. He circled it with curiosity. He took in the face from different angles. No matter which way he tried, he couldn’t deny the fact the body looked exactly like him.
He bumped the toe of his boot against the blooded scalp. It was spongy under the dirt-water hair. He walked around to the front again, crouched, and examined a hole just about an inch above the left eye. It still leaked a bit, looking like a scarlet worm crawling down a flesh-colored apple. The worm extended its reach across the dead man’s nose and over his moss-like mustache to pool on the floorboards. It would slink through the gap between the planks and drop the twelve or so inches to the Arizona dust.
“Yep. No doubt about it. That’s me.”
The Kid’s voice sounded funny, like he was talking in a cave. He guessed that’s how ghosts were supposed to sound, anyway. Least, that’s the way his pappy had made them sound as they’d sit around the fire and tell stories about wolf spirits and ghost trains. He shook his head at the thought of being known as the Ghost of the Rag Doll Kid from then on.
He cringed. Would he haunt this cabin forever? Once the town folk found his rotting corpse, they’d most likely burn the place down. Then where would he be? Out near the trail into Drowned Horse, haunting that cactus people always peed on? Wasn’t that worse?
He took a look at the body again.
“God, hope I don’t stink too bad when I’m found.”
The image of his once friends and neighbors gathered outside the cabin, each battling to be the one to put the torch to the walls, leapt to mind. Maybe the preacher man would say a few words, using his Christian name.
“Lord, commit the body of our fallen brother, Matthew Ragsdale, to your eternal embrace, or at least have pity on his wretched soul before Satan’s foul minions drag it to the fiery pits of hell. Amen.”
Children would dance around, singing that dang-blasted rhyme he tried not to hear in his sleep.
Women folk, say goodbye to yer men.
The Rag Doll Kid has come agin’
Oh, mama, keep your boy in tow.
The Rag Doll Kid will kill him so.
The men would all head for the saloon to toast their good fortune. Few people liked to have their mistakes shoved in their face, yet those mistakes were painfully clear when they saw the rag doll hanging on Matt’s belt.
Matt tried to leave “the Kid” stuff behind him. Heck, it’d been seven years. He didn’t bother nobody. He stayed home as much as possible, stepping out occasionally to see what a red dust-filled sky would do to the sunset. He was rarely disappointed in the view.
Why had someone chosen now to kill him? And who? He’d sent all the ones that’d have a grudge against him to their final judgment, or so he thought.
He checked the window. Had he heard the sound of shattered glass just before the flash of light that put him in this state? Matt found a bullet hole there, as well. The mystery gunman had been waiting for him a long time in that desert, hoping he’d get just the right angle; one without any chance of missing. The sharpshooter had to know if he missed, the Rag Doll Kid would see him dead.
The shooter was good. Matt peered through the bullet hole, trying for a guess at trajectory. There were a few spots he could lay without chance of the sun gleaming off gunmetal. A gulley about three hundred yards out seemed about right. Had the killer set himself up at night and waited through the morning for Matt to give him the perfect shot?
Weren’t many men could do that. Matt actually knew of only one still alive and, if it was him, why’d he chose now when there’d been so many chances to kill “the Kid” in the past?
Matt felt the beginnings of a draw against the back of his shirt. Instinctually, he knew this pull would rip his soul off this Earth. He wanted answers and figured he didn’t have all that much time to get them.
Despite his ghost-like state, Matt was able to move things around with some effort. The door latch felt slippery as finally he grasped it and slid it clear. When he walked out into the midday sun, he could still hear his boots against the porch.
He cursed when he couldn’t get close to his mare. He’d hoped to untie her and let the old girl carry him into town, but she spooked as he approached. Instead, Matt walked out by the yellowed cactus and waited. It only took an hour before the daily stagecoach to town stirred up a dust cloud on the horizon. Like clockwork, it slowed as it approached. Matt slid away from the spot that would soon be wet, not just for that reason, but to also be away from the spookable horse team. He slid around to the back of the carriage and climbed up on the luggage rack. He looked at his cabin one last time, knowing that eternity had something else in store for him.
The town of Drowned Horse was true to its name. A town that nobody ever planned a move to, they ended up stuck there like a carcass in the wash after a big rain in Flagstaff. A passerby would think the place was just wood waiting to be burned.
It was both eerie and refreshing to walk through town and not have people look away.
Damn! Never realized that Martha Fenski had such pretty green eyes, Matt thought.
He headed for Nathaniel Chalker’s smithy. The serrano-thin young man was in the back. He had just put something under a tarp. Sweat-slicked black hair leaked down the back of his head like pitch. The smith turned around abruptly, like he’d felt someone in the shop. Matt stood firm, waiting. Nate surveyed the place with nervous eyes that took in every corner. He moved into the center of the room. Matt took the opportunity to slowly walk to the tarp. He picked up the edge. Nate’s special rifle lay beneath it. Once, the twenty-ish man had drunkenly bragged on killing a coyote with it from four hundred yards. It was fortune that Matt had been within earshot.
“Nate?” Matt said, as he tested the sound of his voice, “What’d you do, Nate?”
The smith turned around wild-eyed, looking for the voice’s owner.
“What? Who’s there?”
“Why’d you kill the Rag Doll Kid, Nate?”
Nate dropped to the floor and crossed himself. He rattled off prayers in succession.
“Why’d you kill the Kid!?!”
Nate wept now. He said between sobs, “What— what he’d done to all them folk. He – deserved – to die.”
“You know that’s not right, Nate. If he was that bad, he would have killed you, like those he hunted down, just to cover his tracks, but he wouldn’t harm a child, would he?”
“He killed – he killed—”
“He killed your dad. Yes, he did. But is that any worse than what your daddy done did to him?”
Nate slipped into a silent torment, but guilt unmistakably furrowed his brow. However, Matt thought there might be more to this. Someone had convinced the lad to settle accounts last night. The smith was hot-headed, but not prone to making decisions on his own. Whatever the crowd wanted, he wanted.
“Nate? Why now? You could have killed him a dozen times since then.”
Nothing.
“Nate? Were you drinking last night?”
Nothing.
The former Sheriff-come-outlaw reached down and grabbed the scruff of Nate’s shirt. It was filthy and sweat stained from the hours he’d spent in the desert laying in wait to kill the Kid. With effort Matt pulled the smith to his feet. Terror rippled his face. Nate screamed as invisible hands shook him.
“Tell me, Nate! Why now!?!”
“Th-th-there was th-th-this man. C-c-came in last n-n-night.”
“Who!?!”
“Idon’tknow!Idon’tknow!Idon’tknow!”
“What did he say?”
“He k-kept buying me whiskey and t-talking about how much he h-hated the Kid and how c-cowardly it was th-that he’d k-killed my pa.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s st-still at the Sagebrush. He w-wanted me to c-come over once I’d done the job.”
Matt tossed his murderer down hard to the wood floor. The Rag Doll Kid spat invisible spit at the cowardly young man’s feet. He stepped backward and uncovered the smithy’s rifle, took it up and turned to see the horror in the lad’s eyes. To him, it’d appear as his rifle floating in mid-air aimed at his heart.
“I am a vengeful spirit, Nathaniel Chalker. The same one that claimed your daddy and his friends. Now, I claim you.”
When Nate didn’t move, the Kid spoke with the voice of the grave.
“Run.”
Nate leapt from the ground and fled down the street, The Kid knew he wasn’t too bright and would run straight. The trigger was hard to pull and the recoil launched the gun from his nonexistent hands; however, the bullet was true. The gun’s echo rang through town.
Carried by the force of the impact, Nate propelled forward and slid across hard-packed earth to lay still. People ran to the fallen smith, splayed out in the center of Main Street. At one woman’s scream, more gawkers poured out from behind home, store and saloon doors.
Someone rolled Nate over and held up his head as he tried to speak. Blood leaked from his mouth. The smithy coughed, spewing forth life-juices. Matt leaned over the shoulder of a lady in the crowd and locked eyes with Nate as he lay dying.
“Who done this to ya, Nate?” somebody asked.
“r-rag” *cough* “d-doll k-kiii…”
The last words were but a whisper; however, no one doubted their sincerity. Angered, men shouted orders to search the town. Others jumped on horses and rode off towards the Kid’s cabin.
Well, looks like they will find me before I stink too bad.
Matt headed over to the saloon.
The Sagebrush was the blackened heart of town. Matt knew every face, truthfully more from profile, but enough to spot a stranger. More people funneled out onto the street, lowering the number of patrons in the bar. Matt looked for the most out-of-place person there. He had a list of three when barkers came back in to spread the news.
“It’s true! Nate named the Kid as the one who done him in.”
One of the three, a man who looked hauntingly familiar squirmed uncomfortably at this news. His scalp was visible through his tumbleweed hair, and a long scar ran from his ear to a cleft chin. He stared into the two fingers of gin on the counter before him like a Chinese fortuneteller did to a pot of tea. Maybe he was seeing his future there. He slammed the shot and headed up to one of the rental rooms on the second floor.
Matt followed the man, careful to dodge johns and whores as they came down the stairs. His feet felt light against the steps, as if that force was pulling him up by his suspenders. It had grown stronger in the minutes since he’d shot the smith, but undaunted, Matt pressed forward. He started to have visions and had to grab the rail for support. Scenes from his life flashed in front of him:
Matt the child coming across the prairie with his folks.
Matt the young deputy learning under a great teacher.
Matt the young man in love.
The ghost got himself to his feet and continued pursuit. Each image was harder to take:
Matt the naive sheriff.
Matt the new husband.
Matt the father.
A noise came from the Kid, half-laugh, half-sob, as the next wave subsided.
I thought your life flashed before your eyes at the moment before your death, not a couple hours later?
The memory of Matt the Vigilante nearly toppled him over the balcony.
By the time he’d reached the landing, Matthew Ragsdale was burned away and only the Rag Doll Kid remained.
The Kid leaned warily against the open door to the room his prey had entered. The pudgy man had his back to him. He was gathering up articles of clothing and tossing them haphazardly into a bag. The man who instigated the Kid’s death turned slightly and his face was reflected in a vanity mirror.
A final vision came, yet caused no pain, just bringing with it a sense of understanding. The Kid poised at the edge of a ravine. A madman with his hand on a holster. Words that ultimately meant nothing now. A movement. A drawing of guns. Flashes of light and blood and a scream as the villain went over the side and down some three hundred feet into the raging waters of a spring-flooded Oak Creek.
No one could have survived that. No one sane. No one human.
“Hello, James.”
James Kettle caught an image of his stalker in the mirror, but couldn’t find him after he spun and drew. The Kid was impressed that the jiggly man had drawn so quickly from his hip.
“Where are you, Kid? We got us some things to settle.”
The former Sheriff stepped inside and walked past James. He spoke from the other side of the room.
“Oh, I agree. Just not in the way you’re thinking.”
Again James spun with a speed that belied his age and shape.
“Not bad, James. Looks like you’ve managed to keep that arm in shape despite the rest of you going to seed.”
James guffawed, “Seven years, Kid! Had a lot of time for practice. Never could get the draw on you before, could I?”
The Kid moved to a new spot.
“Nope, just bank guards, drunken gamblers and one woman and her child.”
“Stop with the tricks, Kid,” James demanded, sweat leaking from his pate. He targeted the new place the Kid’s voice came from, “I’m guessing the smith gave me up. He was so sure he could kill you. Hard to believe he missed.”
“Oh, but James…”
The Kid stepped up to an inch of James’s face. Despite his spirit state, he could smell the whiskey on the breath of his former archenemy.
“He didn’t.”
The Rag Doll Kid pushed Kettle hard, forcing the outlaw to fall backwards onto the bed. Kettle rolled over it and landed on the opposite side in front of the window. Fear and alarm stood arm-in-arm with Kettle as he tried to find something to shoot.
“Jimmy Kettle, leader of the Claw Rock Gang, wanted for the rape and murder of Sarah Ragsdale, wife of Matthew Ragsdale, and the murder of Trina Ragsdale, daughter of Matthew Ragsdale.
“I am a vengeful spirit. I failed to kill you once, now I claim my due.”
The Kid picked up the commode from the floor and threw it with all the strength he had available. It flew across the distance and hit Kettle square in the head. The outlaw stumbled backwards and through the window. The Kid heard the recognizable scream cut short this time.
When he peered out the shattered remains of the window, he saw the broken body laying prone over a hitching post. Jimmy twitched for a moment or two, then died.
The spiritual pull was now even greater as the Kid descended the stairs and exited the saloon. He wanted to look on the body closely, to make sure he’d done his work right this time, but the crowd was even thicker.
The sound of horses at full gallop brought everyone’s attention around. The men who had ridden off to Matt’s cabin had returned with his body slung over the back of his horse. It wasn’t making any sense to those in charge.
“The body was cold and stiff,” said the town doctor. “He’d been dead awhile, maybe late last night or early this mor-ning.”
“But that woulda been before the smithy,” said one official.
Gasps and prayers were heard as the realization struck them.
“If not the Rag Doll Kid, then who?”
An older man called out, “This is Jimmy Kettle, the guy that Sheriff Matt, I mean, the Kid swore he’d killed. Maybe he was cleaning up some loose ends. Maybe all this was some sorta payback.”
There were murmurs of agreement, and everyone seemed satisfied. They’d write off Kettle’s death as an accident, cosmic justice to an evil soul. Nobody wanted to think too hard on it.
“The Rag Doll Kid is dead and Jimmy Kettle is officially dead. The people of Drowned Horse can breathe easy again,” intoned the preacher, who’d come up to give last rites to both.
Hearing the name spoken aloud, the Kid looked to a spot on his belt for the first time since his death.
It wasn’t there.
The Kid made his way around and saw the small stuffed toy on his own dead hip. It had been his good luck charm since the day he pried it from Trina’s cold hand. He wore it as he hunted down the gang of outlaws that had kidnapped and killed her and his wife, Sarah. And after the Kid had dispatched them, he continued to wear it as he hunted down and showed no mercy to the dozen men and women who had stood aside that fateful night and let Jimmy Kettle do his devil’s work on his family.
The Kid gingerly spirited the doll away from the corpse without anyone’s notice and held it to his chest. The pull was inescapable now. He let it lift him up. He passed the rooftops in an instant. Clouds surrounded him and he left his burdens there. The release was welcome after so many years of torment, of guilt, feeling like his actions had led to the murder of his loved ones. He wanted to kill himself after he’d finished his crusade, but held on. As the stars guided him, he understood he’d been kept on Earth to dispense one last piece of justice. Now, the scales were bal-anced.
As Matthew Ragsdale crossed over eternity, he saw little hands reaching out toward him. He handed them the rag doll and accepted a hug in exchange.
THEY CALL HIM PAT
by Ian Taylor
Saying that Pat wasn’t like the other folks in Salina was kind of like saying that horses weren’t a lot like beer. It was obvious to anybody that looked at him that he wasn’t from around those parts. He was bald for one thing – in fact, those that’d seen him with his shirt off while he was working in the fields swore that the fella didn’t seem to have a sprout of hair on his entire body. His skin was gray too, not the ashy gray of a corpse, but dark gray, like the sky when an all too infrequent thunderstorm blew across the valley. Besides that, he had big, black, kinda teardrop-shaped eyes.
The people of Salina were put off by his appearance at first, like you’d expect, but Pat won them over real quick. He came from far away, yeah, but it wasn’t like that wasn’t true of everybody in town. Salina had only been founded ten years earlier, when the General set an army of men to expanding the ancient canals that ran through the empty Arizona valley. The canals had been made by the Indians, most likely, or whatever came before them, and it didn’t take long for modern technology to make them bigger and better. Now Salina was a thriving farming community out in the middle of what could politely be called desolation.
It wasn’t just that Pat was a fellow immigrant that set the townspeople at their ease, though. Funny looking or no, he could charm the ring out of an angry bull’s nostrils. He regularly closed down the saloons with the working men, but was always there bright and early the next day, sometimes hours before the sun peeked up over the Ocotillo Mountains, tending the General’s herds or working in Old Man Robinson’s fields or whatever other odd job he’d picked up. He could tell a joke that’d have a hanging judge squirting milk out of his nose, and he could switch that humor from dry to bawdy as quick as a whip. He worked more than anybody else and accepted the same amount of pay as the other men. Despite his smooth, bulbous head, creepy black eyes, and tiny mouth, there were more than a few women in town – whores and ladies alike – who would have liked to spend an evening with Pat.
But that was one way Pat wasn’t like everybody else. He had a family back home, and his goal was to earn enough to bring them here, to buy some land and work it and create a home for them. He was devoted to his wife in a way that most men only pay lip service to. No woman in Salina ever felt those spindly gray arms around her.
Now the valley that Salina was built in was right in the middle of Navajo country, and the Navajo were understandably a little perturbed about that. For a long time they’d mostly let Salina be because they had bigger problems with the Mexicans. Eventually, though, all those canals the General had built siphoned off enough of their water that they couldn’t ignore the town anymore, nor content themselves with the odd bit of rustling or thievery. A couple of the local tribes banded together and started making trouble for the town. They burned houses, rustled cattle, carried off a child or two, and when the townsfolk couldn’t take it anymore, they turned to the General, the man who had brought them all here in the first place, and told him he had to do something, or he was going to have as much trouble from the white folks as they were all having from the Natives.
Pat was working for the General at that time, and having caught wind of the local discontent and being the community-minded… well, whatever he was, he offered to parley with the tribes on our behalf. Out of desperation or perhaps a vague hope that Pat’s appearance would scare the Navajo off, the General agreed. He formed a sizeable posse and put Pat in charge of it, then pointed them in the direction of the nearest known tribe and bid them go with God.
The posse was on the move for less than a day before they were attacked by a pack of braves, probably on their way back to Salina for some more raiding. The braves pinned the posse down in the rocks at the base of the Ocotillos. Nobody knows those rocks better than the Navajo and the posse was getting chewed to pieces by gunfire. They couldn’t even tell how much they were outnumbered by, and just as the survivors were casting about for somebody with underwear clean enough to use for a white flag, Pat stepped right out into the hail of gunfire.
Pat owned a dusty old six-gun he used when he was working cattle jobs, but that wasn’t what he was wearing on his hip that day. That day it was a gleaming metal thing, bulbous at the back end, with three bright red rings stacked along the length of the barrel. From all accounts, Pat cast his big black eyes across the brush and outcroppings that surrounded them once, ignoring the spray of dust and rock as lead plunked down all around him, and then he drew that gun and pulled the trigger.
It was lightning that came out of the gun’s business end, not lead. Blue lightning by all accounts. Pat held the trigger down and strafed the landscape to right and left. Brush exploded into blue flames and braves were thrown from their hiding spots by the bursts, some of them on fire too. The Indians were fleeing as fast as they’d appeared and Pat, ordering some of the men to stay behind and tend to the wounded, leapt onto his horse and led the rest of the posse after them.
Pat chased those braves over eight miles of desert and mountain, occasionally hitting them with the lightning gun again whenever they got the urge to turn and fight. Eventually, the braves realized that they were being followed home and tried to lead the posse off to the south of their encampment. But Pat knew where they were supposed to be going, and he broke from the braves to head east instead. The braves tried to circle behind them and attack their rear, but the posse’s regular guns were enough to fight them off by that point.
When they reached the camp, the posse rode right through the middle of it, most of the men running interference for Pat while he blew up every teepee he saw. When they’d made two passes, and the Navajo women and children were scattering everywhere like a bunch of stinger-less bees, Pat found the old chief and told him to carry a message to his amigos, that Salina was off-limits, and if they couldn’t live here without starting a ruckus… well, there was plenty of room down in Mexico. He put a period on the sentence by blowing up the old chief’s wigwam.
The posse had nearly killed their horses chasing the braves, so they took the tribe’s horses and rode back into Salina the day after they’d left, carrying one of the old chief’s wives as collateral against him keeping his promise. Pat had been popular before, but now he was a hero, and the posse he had rode with would drink for free on the story of that triumphant ride for weeks to come.
The General, who had seen Pat’s mission as nothing more than a delaying tactic, was grateful beyond his ability to express it – and considering the General’s gift for oratory, that was saying something indeed. So instead of making a speech, he gave Pat his own plot of land in thanks, forty choice acres carved out of the nicest part of the General’s own estate. Pat no longer had to work for anybody except himself.
And work he did. Pat was the only member of his posse who never once drank for free off the story of his Navajo conquest, because he never made it to the saloon after that. Instead, he was working from morning to night on that land. He used some money he’d socked away to buy two oxen and hire a couple men to help him. It was early in April at this point, nearly the end of the spring planting season. Most farmers didn’t like to plant that late for fear that Arizona’s summer sun would roast their crops before they were ripe enough for harvest. But it was either plant or let the land lay fallow until autumn. Pat decided he’d take the chance.
Pat disappeared into the little shack he’d thrown up on the edge of the property, delaying the planting by another week. Everybody thought he was crazy, of course… but they were wrong, because when he came out of the shack, he had modified that lightning gun he’d used on the Indians somehow. There were fewer rings now, and an odd little rectangular contraption soldered onto the back. His hired hands thought he was going to blow them sky high when he pointed it at the wagonload of corn seed, but this time when he pulled the trigger, a soft blue light came out, and the little box attached to the back glowed. One by one, he shone that light on each of the seed bags, stopping every once in a while when the box on the back got too hot. And every time he’d finish with a bag, he’d get the men to work sowing it right away.
Three weeks later Pat’s corn was as tall as the farmers who’d planted at the beginning of the season. Over the next months, he harvested and sold them himself at market, and sold out in a couple of days while his competitors had ears piled up for weeks afterward. People couldn’t wait to try Pat’s miracle corn, and the ones that were lucky enough to score some of it swore it was the best they’d ever tasted.
Now some of the other local farmers approached Pat, interested in learning the secret of his blue ray, but Pat didn’t have time. He was taking the summer off, rather than rotating new crops onto the land, in order to prepare for the next round of his super corn. He was convinced he could get two crops in the autumn season, which sounded like madness… but then again, a fully mature crop in three weeks would have sounded like madness at the beginning of the spring, and Pat had done it.
He started by redrawing his irrigation lines, and then used most of the profit from his first harvest to commission Salina’s smith to build a dozen tall iron tripods, each one ten feet high with a tiny rotating harness suspended beneath it. Pat hauled these monstrosities out into his fields and planted them, and then he disappeared back into that shack for the hottest weeks of summer.
There were starting to be some grumblings among the townsfolk regarding Pat. It had been months since he’d routed the Indians, and that sort of thing tends to fall out of the community’s memory pretty quick, especially since nobody’d heard a peep out of the local tribes during that time. Pat had done such a good job of defeating them that he made it really easy to forget how bad it had been before he’d intervened. And he wasn’t seen around town at all anymore. Always, he was tucked away in his shack or working in his fields. It gave folks the impression that he’d gone snooty, and the other local farmers were still sore enough about him not sharing his blue ray with them that they took every opportunity to sow the general discontent with Pat.
When he finally emerged from the shack, he had a dozen tiny metal boxes, sort of like the one that had been welded onto his lightning gun during the spring season. They all looked kind of cobbled together, so most folks figured he’d cannibalized the lightning gun to make them. He put one of these boxes on each of his tripods, suspending them in that rotating harness. Then he started plowing and getting ready to sow his new crop.