The Beast of Nightfall Lodge

by SA Sidor

  Gustav was chewing his lip.

  She turned left to face him in the trance world where they connected.

  “Did you see an elk? Or a bear? A cougar? Was it wolves, Gustav? What got you?”

  “Wasn’t no elk or bear or puma cat no wolf pack neither that took me down in the snow like a fawn like a fawn in the snow I was out on that naked slope in the deep snow running like a hare I was like meat running for its life but there’s no running from a thing like that–”

  “Why didn’t you shoot it?” Oscar Adderly called out in his strong voice.

  The question enraged Gustav.

  “Goddamn you! It was a demon. Can you shoot a demon? Show me how!”

  The branching, stretching shadow head on the floor floated up to the ceiling of the saloon. It was solid and charcoal black, not a phantasm or a ghostly vapor. I could not see through it. It stood on two legs in the middle of the room, and its head was too tall, so the body hunched forward to fit itself. It was a gaunt thing, stripped of fat, but it was not weak. The arms were sinewy and long. The face was a blank in which I could see nothing but two glowing red eyes like pits of ruby fire.

  I do not know if it was the result of the residuals that the sorcerer left in my mind years ago, but I felt that I was connected to Vivienne and Gustav. That she had sunk the end of a cord into my mind the same way she’d speared Gustav out of his wandering forever in the woods – or wherever it was his soul had traveled. We three were looped together in this vision of the day Gustav lost his life on the mountain slope. The patrons in the barroom glimpsed us, but I was there, with Gustav and Vivienne and that antlered demon stalking the hunter in the cold.

  Gustav said, “I know I’m going to die. I’m slow and the shadow it’s… I’m under it and inside it and I spin around and fire my rifle, but it takes my rifle and it throws it so far over the tops of the tallest pines so high it looks like a little bird flying and disappearing in the snow. I want to fall back into the snow and I’m not looking at the demon but it picks me up and I feel like I’m rising up so fast I feel the wind and my hat my coat they rip off of me and I won’t open my eyes but I keep going higher like I’m flying like the demon’s flying with me and we’re over the treetops and I feel my boots hitting the tips of the trees and the snow fills up my eyes my eyes my hair is frozen to my head and then…”

  “Then what…?” Vivienne and I asked him aloud at the same time.

  Vivienne was looking at me now, from her vantage point up in the pulpit. She was Vivienne and not Gustav. I saw her curiously puzzling over me: Who are you? Do I know you? I heard her questions the same as if she had asked me while peeking over the rim of a teacup, seated beside a sunny garden window and a table with cucumber sandwiches. The rest of the people in the Starry Eyes were like statues, immobilized and unaware of our little conversation.

  “I am Rom Hardy,” I said, knowing she was the only person who heard me.

  She smiled. Her lips were unnaturally red. Beautiful, but strange. “Rom Hardy,” she tested how my name tasted. “Let us talk later, Rom Hardy. Gustav needs to finish his tale.”

  I felt I had no choice but to nod. She would accept no less from me.

  “Hunter! Gustav!” she shouted. “What did this demon do to you after you flew so high?”

  Gustav stared out of Vivienne’s face. It was as if one photo lay atop a second, and their images bled together until all I saw was Gustav. His eyes were bleeding. He looked like one of those holy shrines crying tears of blood in a church somewhere in Central Europe, only there was nothing holy sharing this space with us. Gustav’s arms and torso materialized in front of the pulpit. But below the waist he wasn’t filled in yet.

  “It threw me down the mountain. My back broke. I couldn’t move. It started on my legs. ‘The demon is eating me!’ I screamed. No one heard. Such a cold, lonely place. Only the wind in the pines answered. The demon beast put its face up against me and it licked me. I never felt the bite. My belly opened like pantry doors. It took what it wanted from under my ribs. Greedy thing, like it was starving. The red snow steamed. It looked up at me, a smiling face slick with my gravy. It ate the soft parts first. I squeezed fistfuls of snow until they were lumps of ice and they melted. I stared up at the sky. The pain changed me into something I never was before that day. I walked away from my body. Until you brought me back. I want my beer now. Give me my–”

  Gustav was finished. His chin dropped, his unblinking eyes fixed on the floor.

  Half of him was all they ever found on the slope.

  Gustav’s spirit lost its energy. He looked like ashes, cold ashes left in the snow. His face disappeared from Vivienne’s. But the spiky antlered shadow crouched over the saloon folk, and this time they clearly saw it. A table full of cigar-smoking men bolted for the batwing doors. They might have made it outside if another gang sitting nearer the exit hadn’t had the same idea. The two crews collided, and a fistfight ensued. Knives slashed blindly in the semi-dark, flickering room. Each one of them imagined it was the demon shoving them, and the demon claws grabbing; knife cuts were the demon beast’s sharp teeth slicing their way to a hot meal.

  I didn’t see Vivienne’s black candle topple from its stand, but, after it landed in a puddle of rotgut whiskey, I watched the flames pop up like little devils dancing. The barroom filled with evil energy. My ears popped at the sudden pressure change. Icehouse cold seeped up from the spaces between the floorboards. The rush of oxygen doubled the combustion. Above us, and everywhere around us, the piercing beastly whistle returned. The four walls shook with a thunderous rumble I imagined equal to a wild buffalo stampede, and already the panicking patrons were stepping on the drunks and the fallen among them. Trampling them in the sawdust. Without warning the saloon lamps burst, spraying a mist of hot coal-oil on the terrified crowd.

  Women screamed, men screamed.

  Fire!

  I turned to find Wu, to tell him we needed to get out. The Starry Eyes was a matchbox.

  But Wu was gone.

  6

  An Imperfect Reunion

  A strong hand seized my arm and dragged me around the bar counter. The room filled so quickly with the blackest smoke that I could make out the shape of a man and nothing more.

  “Duck,” an oddly familiar voice said.

  I had no time to decide, only to obey. I ducked, and we sped from behind the bar into a secret passageway that opened though two sliding racks of shelved liquor bottles.

  Here was a narrow corridor.

  My fear of tight spaces pushed a lump into my throat. But there was no time to entertain my private dread. We were moving now, straight back. I perceived no light whatsoever. But my companion and I were not alone in the passageway. Other footfalls were evident, and I also detected what could only be the rolling of wheels. Smoke followed us into the corridor. It was being sucked in, and its effect choked me. The sound of coughing told me the others had trouble breathing too. We turned ninety degrees left. I trailed the ape head of my stick along the wall.

  “Cover your mouth. We’re almost there,” the voice said.

  I tucked my face into the crook of my elbow. Truth be told, it was no easier to breathe in my woolen sleeve, but the choking was less severe. My eyes burned, but behind us in the saloon whole people were roasting alive in the fire.

  “Watch your step.” The hand jerked me up so hard, I had no choice but to rise with it.

  Fresh air and light. We had arrived in the back alley behind the Starry Eyes saloon.

  An old but well-kept Concord coach and a team of sturdy horses waited for us. The door swung wide. I followed my rescuer inside. The rather lovely burgundy upholstery appeared as supple as a maiden’s hand. I dove into it. My landing was soft and well supported, as I expected. Two wide seats faced each other; between them sat an ample bench. A rubber wheel passed the coach window on an upward trajectory, and I realized it was Vivienne’s wheelchair being loaded into the cargo area. Lea
ther side curtains dropped over both windows, keeping out the smoke. There were other figures seated in the dark coach.

  The driver cracked his whip, and with a jolt, off we went.

  I heard the distinct pop-fizz of a striking match.

  A face with glittery gray eyes filled the globe of match light. I knew him as both a rival and a friend, an honest hero and a hardened tracker of men he’d shoot in the head as soon as speak to; his name has passed into legend, no doubt because of our odd exploits together, as well as the blood-soaked trail he walked alone. This was the bounty man extraordinaire: Rex McTroy, sitting beside me.

  “Hidey there, Doc. Long time no see. Why, you look paler than poor ole Gustav.”

  “I am not pale. It is the lighting.”

  “I never noticed this before, but you got a forehead on you that could crack boulders.”

  “The better to outthink you with, McTroy,” I said, tapping my temple.

  “Miss Evangeline, did you ever reckon the size of Doc’s melon?”

  “He has a noble brow,” Evangeline said, from the seat opposite us. “I positively adore it.”

  Next to her the two Adderlys remained silent. Their expressions were masked partly by shadows. Oscar’s mouth opened as if he were about to speak. I nodded to acknowledge their presence. Oscar thrust a hand out toward me.

  McTroy passed me my bowler, which I had mislaid in the Starry Eyes inferno, filling the hand I had extended to meet Oscar’s. “Cover your nobleness ’fore the coyotes mistake it for the moon and start howling. We’ll keep the curtains down just in case.”

  Oscar took his hand back and folded his arms.

  “No coyote can see me in here,” I said, while understanding and immediately regretting the absurdity of my defense upon uttering it. Vivienne Adderly’s big eyes crinkled in amusement. Oscar shifted in his seat and grunted softly.

  “Good point, Doc.” McTroy grinned.

  “More importantly,” I said urgently. “Wu is missing. He may be trapped in that fire.”

  “Fret not, my nervous compadre,” McTroy said. “Wu’s ridin’ up top with the buggy driver. He tried to get you out of the saloon back there, but you were stupefied by Viv Adderly, which, mind you, is completely justifiable. However, the boy couldn’t shake you out of it. He came and got me. Then I got you. You’ve stared some at the Adderlys, notably the missus, but you haven’t been introduced yet. So, let’s do it now.”

  His match hand drifted from Evangeline to the well-dressed couple. Vivienne touched a finger-sized red candle to McTroy’s flame. When it lit she turned it upright.

  “Thank you kindly,” he said, blowing out his lucifer. “This here’s Oscar and Vivienne. They invited us up to their mountain lodge to slay the damned Beast. We’re in their coach. Adderlys, this fella is Doc. He’s awful serious, but he don’t mean it.”

  “I’m the reason you’re here, Dr Hardy. The reason you are all here,” Oscar said.

  “Good to meet you,” I said, feeling awkward for a myriad of reasons.

  I re-extended my hand to Oscar, and he gripped it as if his intention were to crush the bones to dust. Vivienne then offered me her hand. I touched my lips to her knuckles. They were surprisingly warm, with a faint scent of roses and black licorice. My mouth failed to work; its connection to my thoughts grew choppy.

  “You… you are… your abilities are quite…” I stumbled.

  “Is that the first time you’ve ever seen a woman trance?” she asked me, eyes flashing.

  I nodded.

  “Well, it won’t be the last if you’re staying with us,” she said. “I promise.”

  Vivienne and Evangeline laughed. McTroy slipped his hand behind the side curtain and peeked out. I leaned into his shoulder, gazing past him to see the Starry Eyes saloon and her neighboring buildings engulfed in flames. Our coach drove toward the mountains to the north. I could see men behind us forming a line to throw buckets of water on the fire. They would be lucky to save one side of the street. The smoke was a black cloud looming heavily over the town.

  “I fear that people died back there,” I said.

  “I’ll rebuild,” Oscar Adderly replied.

  “That’s not the… ah!” I startled. McTroy had grabbed my knee and squeezed hard.

  “My friend is sensitive to the perils of others,” McTroy said to Oscar.

  Oscar nodded, and then he turned to me. “They’re flinty back there. They’ll be fine.”

  I looked at McTroy, but he inclined his head toward Oscar as if the man had imparted a bit of wisdom. I decided to keep my comments to myself. Yet it struck me that neither McTroy nor Evangeline seemed concerned about the fearsome appearance of the antlered shadow creature and the subsequent conflagration which we had fled fortunately by way of a secret passage and a private coach. “I would’ve died,” I said, adding, “if not for your intervention.”

  “I get a kick saving you, Doc.” McTroy let the curtain fall back. He cocked a thumb in the direction of the town. “They broke the big front windows. Everybody got out. Right now the ne’er-do-wells are drinking free whiskey in hellfire’s cherry glow. Almost wish I was with them. They have a drinking story they can tell forever ’bout the night the Starry Eyes burnt down.”

  “But what if everyone didn’t happen to make it out?” I asked, hypothetically.

  Oscar said, “A man should never let himself get so drunk in a bar that he can’t leave when the time comes. I assure you, Dr Hardy, your sympathies are given to those who have none for you, or any other man, woman, or child. Rumors of my offer brought out the cutthroats and scoundrels. They will kill each other whether or not my saloon burns. It’s the way of nature.”

  “What nature is that?” Evangeline asked. Despite her obvious conviviality with Vivienne, I detected that she maintained a certain guarded distance while appraising Vivienne’s mate.

  “The same nature that makes the hawk grip its talons into the squirrel’s back. Or that sinks the lion’s sharp curved tooth into the neck of a gazelle.” Oscar reached into his coat, retrieved a stout, black-leafed cigar, and tore off the wrapper, dropping it to the coach floor.

  He grasped Vivienne’s wrist, guiding the candle nearer to light his tobacco.

  “Must you?” Vivienne asked.

  “I must,” he said, as he puffed. “I entertain no illusions, Miss Evangeline. I see things as they are. In the desert or the jungle, no animal cries for another. Feed or be fed upon. Man is the same way. He cannot drive the survival instinct from his soul. I do not run from my nature. I relish it.”

  His cigar glowed redly, and the smoke stung our eyes.

  “This is tiresome conversation, Oscar. I am already so tired,” Vivienne said, rolling up her leather curtain to allow the smoke to clear. “Save it for tomorrow. May tonight be different?”

  “As you wish, darling,” he conceded. “I know how your dead talks exhaust you.”

  “But we did learn something. Talking to the hunter was worthwhile,” she said, cheerfully nudging her husband. “Gustav gave us details!”

  “Yes, he did,” Oscar said. “Though I don’t know how much I trust that Swede.”

  “You think he lied?” McTroy asked.

  “He didn’t sound like a man lying,” I added. “I believed him. The creature killed Gustav.”

  “What creature, Dr Hardy?” Oscar asked. “He described no animal I know. And I know them all.”

  “The huge shadow on the ceiling? Wasn’t that the thing that did for him?” I said.

  Oscar waved his hand. “That was Gustav’s nightmare. We saw a shadow puppet. A moving portrait of what he imagined was chasing him on the mountain. Do we take for truth every child’s bad dream? No. And we shouldn’t listen to a man who tells us a monster ate him.”

  “Something ate him,” McTroy said.

  “Grizzly bear.” Oscar waved dismissively. “Maybe a big cat. It might’ve even been other men who did it. Maybe some of those yo
u’re so worried about, Dr Hardy. Don’t look shocked. I’ve met cannibals. Supped with them, in fact. On an island south of the equator. A lovely bunch. Yet I never sampled their stew.” He chuckled and rubbed his hands delightedly, like a boy scaring other children with ghost stories at a Christmas party.

  I have met cannibal monks and corpse-eating ghouls. It was my memories that changed my expression so dramatically, not my shock. I could almost smell the anthropophagites’ stew.

  “You’re frightening him, Oscar!” Vivienne said. “Leave the man alone until we get a brandy or two in him, at least.”

  Evangeline and McTroy, who had met the same monsters I did, stayed silent.

  “It is intriguing, gentlemen, and fine lady,” Oscar said, with a nod to Evangeline. “I’ll grant you that. This mystery is why you are here. Why I invited you. I have many clues, a puzzle, if you will, and no solution to satisfy me. Something is killing hunters in Raton. It is a strange and bloodthirsty beast. What do we know of its nature? Is it a new beast or a very old one? What is its origin? I want to see it. Up close. I want to have it locked in a cage where I might study it.”

  The coach wheels made an odd rhythmic change in their sound.

  “Pardon me,” I said. “Are those cobblestones?” I peered out the window to find gas lamps lit on either side of the lane. Indeed, I made out the cobblestone road passing beneath us.

  When I looked back at Oscar, he was grinning widely.

  “They are cobblestones, Dr Hardy, from the Paris rue where Vivienne lived as a child. I paid to have every one prized up, labeled, and re-laid here. I also paid the damned Parisians to fix their damned street. All to make her happy. To make my wife feel more at home.”

  “I do not remember la rue,” Vivienne said, touching my knee lightly with her fingernails.

  “But it sounds the same! Trust me,” Oscar insisted. “I remember.”

  “When I lived there, I walked on the stones with bare feet,” she said.