Pale Rider

by Alan Dean Foster

  No, there was nothing to worry about at all.

  The door to the Lahood building opened. Stockburn’s deputies emerged and arranged themselves with ritual precision. Three to the right side of the doorway, three to the left. Finally Stockburn came out and turned his gaze up the street.

  As the Marshal appeared the Preacher slid home the last cartridge. He snapped the .44’s cylinder shut and slid the big gun back into its holster. Standing there by himself in the middle of Main Street, he hardly seemed to be breathing. The distance that separated him from Stockburn and the deputies was not great. The sun was high, eliminating shadows and warming him.

  He waited.

  Stockburn’s men gazed back at their quarry. There was no cover in the middle of the street, nothing to duck behind, no place to run. They considered this aspect of their job dispassionately, as they did with every other job. They did not think of their opposition as gallant or brave. Nor did they regard him as foolhardy or particularly stupid. To them he was nothing more than a cipher, a time card to be punched, something to be resolved as quickly and efficiently as possible. That was why they were in Stockburn’s employ. That was what they would do.

  As if marching in time to some unheard rhythm, they descended from the porch and crossed into the street. They stared at the single figure confronting them as they formed a single line stretching from boardwalk to boardwalk. His hand moved ever so slightly nearer the staghorn grip of his pistol.

  Stockburn nodded slightly, and the line began to advance. Beneath the shading brim of his hat, the Preacher’s eyes narrowed. He moved to meet them.

  As they always did at such moments the Marshal’s fingers began to twitch, curling and twisting about themselves where they hung suspended above the handle of his gun. His attention was fixed on the single man walking toward him, searching for some sign of weakness or any movement toward the oversized .44. He was also straining to make out the features staring back at him, but the wide-brimmed hat held them in shadow.

  The distance between the one and the seven closed. To thirty-five yards, then to thirty, twenty-five . . .

  At twenty-three yards the deputy on the far right went for his gun. The Preacher reacted immediately, and Stockburn and his men reacted to that. The air was filled with swirling black smoke and the thunder of eight pistols firing as rapidly as possible.

  When the forty-eighth shell had been spent, the firing stopped. The haze began to dissipate.

  Three of Stockburn’s men lay dead on the ground. Opposite them, lying motionless in the dust was—a broad-brimmed hat. There were two holes in it, one in the crown, one along the left edge. Of its owner there was no sign.

  Stockburn’s smile was cynical and knowledgeable. He barely glanced at the three corpses as he hastened to reload. His eyes flickered over the buildings that lined both sides of the street.

  “Fan out,” he said tersely. “Find him.”

  Without a word, the three surviving deputies split up, reloading as they ran.

  A preternatural silence had engulfed the town, as though it had been afflicted with the plague. Nothing moved on the streets or within the silent buildings. The inhabitants of Lahood, California, had retreated to their bedrooms and inner sanctums. They would huddle there, trying to pretend that nothing was happening within earshot of their comfortable little lives, shutting out the knowledge of what was taking place in their streets, until the sound and fury went away of its own accord.

  One of the deputies had rushed up to the hat that lay in the street. Standing over it, he glanced sharply to this right, then turned to race down a narrow alley that separated a pair of two-story buildings. It was the most logical escape route for their quarry to have taken. Holding his pistol at the ready, he began checking windows and doorways, barrels and posts, ready to fire at the slightest suggestion of movement.

  Ahead was a door into the building on his right. It stood half open. As the deputy stared it moved slightly on its hinges, as if nudged by a gentle breeze. But there was no wind. The midday air was still as death.

  The deputy’s expression did not change as his eyes fastened on the doorway. Taking one long jump to his left, he landed in a crouching position even as he began to fan the hammer on his gun, emptying the contents of the cylinder into the door. The wood was particularly thick. It recoiled under the impact of the heavy slugs. Then it began to come apart, its center section chest-high blown to bits by the six shells.

  The deputy reloaded rapidly, then advanced on the blasted door. Pushing it inward with his right boot, he paused a moment to listen to the silence. Then he stepped through the portal.

  The single shot that greeted this entrance was loud in the confines of the hallway. A look of profound surprise came over the deputy’s face as a hole appeared in his forehead. He kept that look as he toppled over backward.

  Stockburn heard the single shot that followed close on the heels of the volley of six. He glanced sharply to his right. Then he began to move.

  Deputy Kobold came racing around the back end of the alley, but pulled up fast when he saw his colleague’s body lying sprawled in the dirt. Cautiously he peered around the corner.

  There was a huge livery stable across the small side street where the alley ended. Its back bay doors were standing open. The deputy was just in time to see a tall shape disappear inside. The man did not look back and so did not see his stalker. A pleased grin spread across the deputy’s face. Noiselessly he ran toward the double doors.

  He slowed as he reached the stable, glanced inside, and pulled his head back. His brief exposure drew no reaction from within. Nor was there any activity when he darted into the shadowed interior. He kept his back pressed against an exterior wall as he scanned the cavernous structure.

  Thin rays of light poured through cracks in the roof. Horses munched contentedly in their stalls. Tresses of alfalfa streamed from the storage lofts overhead. Nearby was a three-walled alcove filled with saddlery and other gear. Something within the tack room caught the deputy’s eye. He darted toward it, keeping low and watching possible hiding places.

  On a shelf within was a shotgun. It was old, but well maintained and freshly oiled. It hardly made a sound as Kobold broke back the breech and slid a shell into each barrel. He snapped it shut and drew back both hammers.

  Stepping out into the vaulted main chamber, he began to saturate the livery stable. Horses pitched and screamed, battering at their restraints as shell after shell ripped through the barn. Kobold was as proficient as any of Stockburn’s deputies. He reloaded and fired so fast there was hardly a pause between blasts. Charges ripped through the loft, through haystacks and empty stalls. He didn’t concern himself with the stalls that were occupied. The frantic, pawing horses would make short work of anyone foolish enough to seek cover among them.

  Not even the smallest potential hiding place was spared. Fifty-pound sacks of oats flew apart, sending a deluge of feed cascading to the stable floor. Old, partly rotten timbers overhead collapsed and hay came pouring down in waves.

  Eventually running out of shells as well as out of targets, Kobold set the shotgun back on its shelf. It should take him only a minute or two to locate the body. He looked upward. Most likely it was lying up there, shattered by one or two loads of heavy buckshot from below.

  It was a big axe, a man’s axe, the double-bladed tool designed for splitting rails. It came flying through the air like a tomahawk. Kobold’s eyes barely had time to go wide before it sliced through his right arm just above the elbow. The axe bounced off the opposite wall. The severed arm dropped to the floor, the shotgun still clenched in the now lifeless fist. Kobold gaped at it for another second.

  Then he screamed.

  Stockburn’s eyes flicked in the direction of the cry. His expression did not alter. It rarely did. That granite visage was not capable of a broad range of expression.

  Someone else heard the scream. High up in his opulent aerie Lahood found that his hands were beginning to shake. He pou
red himself a whiskey, hesitated, then made it a double and downed it straight if not quite neat. A slight trickle dribbled down his chin to stain the front of his immaculate shirt.

  The Preacher emerged from the shadows and stepped over Kobold’s writhing body. Pistol drawn, he headed toward the stable doors, ignoring the quivering, bleeding thing behind him.

  At the last instant something made him hesitate. A slug splintered wood barely an inch from his face. Whirling, he threw himself back inside the stable, pressing his body against the interior wall. He took a deep breath, then tentatively peered out in an effort to pinpoint the location of the remaining deputy.

  A second shot missed him by the same margin as its predecessor. Dropping to a crouch, he worked his way along the wall until he found a chink between two planks. He squinted through the narrow slit.

  His range of vision was restricted, but he could still see most of the side street that fronted on the stable. There was the back wall of a clapboard building bordered by the skinny picket fence that was badly in need of a white-washing. There was the sickly apple tree in its yard, a watering trough, and across from it the windowless brick back wall of the town bank.

  But of his assailant there was no sign. Whoever he was, he was good. He’d managed to disappear himself as effectively as his quarry. An incautious step by either man now would be instantly fatal to the one making the move.

  Eliminate the possibilities, use logic—a minute passed before the Preacher was nodding to himself. Rising, he stepped around the open door out into full view and raised his pistol. He fired six times, stitching a neat line the length of the horse trough. Water came pouring out through the half, dozen punctures. It was clear at first but soon began to run crimson.

  He headed toward the trough, reloading as he walked. The deputy’s body floated within, the pistol still clutched in a dying hand. The Preacher’s gaze came up.

  Only one left now.

  Stockburn had retreated back toward the warehouse, his expression inscrutable, his attitude implacable. He squinted up the street in the direction of the gunfire.

  Then a figure stepped out from between the buildings. It moved to the middle of the street, apparently uninjured. There was something else in the middle of the street. A hat. The figure knelt to pick it up. The Preacher thoughtfully noted the position of the two holes. Then he dusted off the brim and set the hat back on his head, tugging it low over his eyes.

  Fifty yards away, Stockburn was suddenly transformed. He grinned, an utterly humorless grin that did little to soften his appearance. He removed his own pistol and methodically checked the load. Then he stepped off the boardwalk out into the street. The fingers of his left hand were twisting and curling rapidly now while those of the right held the gun tightly. Fifty yards separated the two men. Fifty yards, and the bodies of the three deputies slain in the initial exchange.

  He started up the street. Immediately the tall man moved to meet him. Both men measured their pace. There was nothing to disturb them, nothing to distract one man’s attention from the other as they closed the distance between them. With infinite patience Stockburn was raising the muzzle of his own weapon. Each additional millimeter of arc he could cheat would enable him to get his shot off that much faster, would reduce the time he would have to spend to aim and fire.

  And still his opponent’s hand did not move, made no effort to match the Marshal’s subtle shift in the attitude of his weapon. What the tall man did was raise his head slightly. For the first time the sun fully illuminated his face.

  Stockburn met his eyes and for the first time the Marshal’s expression underwent a radical change.

  “You. You!”

  He fired as fast as could have been expected to under the circumstances, confronted by that revelation, by the last face he could have been expected to see. Even with his surprise his hesitation was minuscule. His reaction was more instinct than calculation in any case. He fired with a speed born of years of practice at murder and killing.

  It made no difference. The tall man got off five shots as one. The shells ripped an eight-inch circle into the Marshal’s chest. Stockburn staggered, tried to aim, and fired a last time as the sixth shot blew the back of his head apart. He fell, unable to strike his opponent with even a final look of disbelief. The fingers of his left hand gave a last, repulsive twist.

  Empty brass casings clattered on the ground as the Preacher emptied his cylinder. Calmly, matter-of-factly, he began to reload, his gaze still absorbed by the spread-eagled body of Stockburn. Both the Marshal’s hands were motionless, their nervous twitching stilled forever.

  Closing the cylinder, he holstered the gun, pivoted, and strode across the now silent street toward his horse.

  An ashen-faced Lahood stared out the second-story window, following the tall man’s movements. In his right hand he held a long-barreled blue-black derringer. He raised the muzzle purposefully.

  The Preacher put a foot in the stirrup and hesitated. Turning, he lifted his eyes to a particular window. The curtains behind it moved slightly. The report of the single shot was muffled by distance and glass. From his position the Preacher could not hear the thump of the body as it struck the thick Persian rug. He did not have to hear it.

  Lahood had begun this day’s work, and Lahood had finished it.

  It was over.

  Slipping smoothly into the saddle, the Preacher flicked the reins.

  The buckboard came pounding into town, the slim figure seated on the bench refusing to ease back on the reins until it careened to a stop outside the bank. Some of Lahood’s citizens spared it a passing glance. For the most part their attention was drawn to the numerous dead bodies that pimpled the street.

  Megan jumped down from the buckboard. She had also seen the bodies and had scanned them anxiously. All were unknown to her. She altered her gaze to stare into the benumbed faces of the townsfolk. No one stared back at her.

  “Where is he?”

  No one had a reply. The shock of the morning’s activities was wearing off, but slowly. Even the mortician appeared too stunned to begin his chores.

  She moved from figure to figure, confronting each and receiving only the same blank stares. Eventually she encountered the stout, familiar face of Jed Blankenship.

  She grabbed him by his coat and demanded a response. “Where is he?”

  The merchant blinked at her, then came out of the daze that had afflicted the rest of the citizenry. “Where is who, child?”

  “The Preacher!”

  “Ah. The Preacher.” He looked down the main street and nodded. “He’s gone.”

  “Gone where?”

  Blankenship shrugged, “Who knows?”

  Distraught, Megan turned away from him. Her eyes raked the street. It was full of citizens and corpses, but there was no sign of the tall figure she sought. Lips tight, she scrambled back aboard the wagon.

  “Child!” Blankenship hurried after her, waving a restraining hand. She paused to gaze down at him. “Look at your horse, all lathered up like that. You ride her any more, you’ll kill her. She needs rest. We all need a rest. The Preacher’s gone, child,”

  He bestowed a fatherly smile on her, then turned purposefully back toward his emporium. Toting up the damage was going to take a lot of time and work, but he didn’t mind. He was rid of his main competitor. When this day’s accounting was amortized over the rest of the year, Jed Blankenship knew he’d be coming out far ahead.

  He left Megan with the backboard, feeling betrayed and near tears. After awhile she grew aware that the bodies filling the street no longer occupied everyone’s attention. A few people had begun to stare at her.

  She straightened, fighting back the tears. She was a Wheeler. Blankenship’s words clung to her. “Gone?”

  “No he’s not,” she murmured aloud. “Not really.”

  She unharnessed the mare, which was still breathing hard, and began to walk it back up the street. Halfway to the stable she stopped. Her eyes rose to the
distant Sierra crest.

  “Preacher!” she shouted. No more tears now, not ever. That was how it ought to be. It felt right. “I’m setting you free, Preacher! You hear me?”

  A few of the townsfolk turned to eye her curiously. She had no trouble ignoring them. They didn’t even exist. Only she existed, and the mountains.

  “I’m setting you free!” Her voice fell slightly. “I love you, Preacher! Goodbye!” She patted the mare reassuringly on its neck. “He’ll come back,” she whispered to herself. “If I pray for him, he will come back. If I ever need him again, I’ll just pray for a miracle.”

  Table of Contents

  CONTENTS

  PALE RIDER

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII