O 'course, it didn't last.
Things have gotten mighty queer in the last few years, and nowadays it seems like nothing good lasts for too long. It's almost as if all the blackness and evil in the world is watching, and notices when something noble takes root.
Notices—and stomps on it.
Slade had a wife-pretty young thing, name of Annabelle-and a son, barely out of nappies. They were with him on the night it happened. The first thing Slade heard was a rumble, off in the distance. He was in bed, Annabelle already asleep beside him, and thought it was just thunder.
But it didn't quit. It got louder, far faster than it had a right to; and by the time he knew what it had to be, it was too late.
***
Parlor stopped and fished in a grubby vest pocket for his tobacco. The other men waited patiently-they knew better than to rush one of the old man's tales.
Andy didn't. "Well, what in tarnation happened?" he blurted out when Parlor was halfway through rolling his smoke.
Parlor raised an eyebrow, but didn't say a word; he just finished his makings, stuck the finished product in his mouth and lit it with a stick from the fire. He blew a few smoke rings, looking meditative—then fixed a grim eye on Andy.
"You ever hear of los diablos, boy?" he asked him.
"Nossir," Andy said.
"Well then, shut your piehole-and listen up."
***
Take two thousand pounds of muscle on four legs and wrap it in a hide like gator-skin. Add horns big enough to gore a locomotive, hooves like sledgehammers and red eyes that glow like embers. Make it mean as a rattlesnake and twice as quick-then give it a taste for lawmen.
That's los diablos.
The Hell-bulls are bad enough, but they don't travel alone. Behind 'em come The Devil's Own Herd, made up of every sorry soul they've ever trampled; doomed to run with los diablos forever.
Slade Hardwell found that out firsthand, as the Herd crashed through his house like a runaway train. They smashed the place to flinders, and the flinders to smithereens. His son and wife were killed outright, but Slade was knocked down into the root cellar and survived—for a while, anyway.
He was all busted up inside, and knew he didn't have long. He was no stranger to unnatural happenings, and knew of the Herd; knew once he died he'd be cursed to ride with his killers for eternity. So Slade took hold of the medicine pouch he always wore around his neck, given to him by a shaman out of gratitude, and he prayed for just one favor-the power to make his family's murderers pay.
Now, I can't tell you what was in that pouch, or what it was meant to do—if it was s'posed to protect Slade, it wasn't worth a damn-but it must of done something, 'cause three days later he crawled out of the wreckage.
His family was dead and gone.
Slade was just dead.
***
"Now hold on!" Andy blurted out. "You mean to tell me he was a corpse?"
"That's right," Parlor said quietly.
"But he was up and walking, just like regular folks?"
"You ain't been around much, have you, son?"
Some of the other men chuckled. Andy reddened, but he held his ground.
"Mebbe not-but this is a lot harder t'swallow than your grub."
Parlor grinned at the backhanded compliment. "Fair enough," he admitted. "What say you let me finish before you hang me for a liar?"
Andy gave him a grudging nod.
***
Well, then—during the Rodeo, there's more dead men in the streets of Devil's Gullet than a graveyard. Walkin' dead, I mean; hombres too ornery to stay buried. That's what the Harrowed were-and what Slade Hardwell now was.
He set out right after burying Annabelle and Slade Junior. He was a good tracker, but even he couldn't follow a trail that just vanished into thin air. Los diablos were gone-and they'd taken the souls of his loved ones with them.
He couldn't go back to being a sheriff, not without a pulse. So he just kept riding, wherever the trail took him.
Over the next few years, the trail took him all over the West. He drifted naturally into bounty huntin', that being the sort of thing he was good at, as well as a profession where you could move on before people startin' wondering why you smelt kinda funny. He never stopped looking for los diablos, and he crossed their trail more than once; but they were always gone by the time he got there.
A dead man hears things others don't, though-and one day, he heard about the Rodeo.
It was the one time of the year he could be sure of exactly where the Hell-bulls would be. So he made a few special preparations, saddled up and rode for Devil's Gullet.
The Rodeo was held over the course of three nights, all the events taking place after sundown in deference to the critters that were allergic to sunlight. Hardwell got there just as the first event was starting—a ropin'-and-ridin' contest, in a corral made out of human bones. The crowd that surrounded the corral was a devil's dream: Night haunts and naguals, werewolves and wendigos, stone men and bogie men and skinshifters and chupakabaras.
First up was a Harrowed cowpoke on a horse as dead as he was. The nag was nothin' but leather stretched over a skeleton, and the cowpoke wasn't much better.
Then they opened the pen and let loose his opponent: a Mojave rattler. In case you ain't ever seen one, a Mojave rattler is a worm big enough to swallow a buffalo, with a bunch of tentacles growin' out of its mouth and no eyes. It prefers living underground, and gets mighty riled up in the open air.
The rattler came after the cowpoke like a bird after a bug. He had a lariat ready, but he never had a chance to use it; the rattler was on him quick as a bullwhip. It had him down its throat in a single gulp, and his horse in two more. The noise the crowd made could have come from the Pit itself.
Now, while in most of the events there was a clear winner— the one still standin' at the end-there were judges, in case of a dispute. These weren't the kind of judges you'd argue with, either, no matter how fearsome you might be. They were three of the infamous Hangin' Judges themselves.
Hardwell studied 'em, sitting alone on a raised platform at one end of the corral. He realized after a second that it wasn't any old platform; it was a gallows. The three judges all looked identical, faces hidden by hoods, hands gripping Peacemakers with scythe-like bayonets jutting from the barrels.
The rattler went through a few more meals before it met its match at the hands of an undead Confederate soldier with a sabre and a bad attitude. He wasn't too interested in ropin' or ridin' the thing, but he did hack it in half and try to eat its liver. The Judges didn't take too kindly to that, and shot him on the spot.
And so it went, through the night, one event after another: bronc-breakin', calf-ropin', hoss-ridin'. 'Course, the broncs n' calves n' hosses were just as likely to have poisonous fangs and six-inch claws as hooves and horns, but that didn't seem to matter too much to the contestants.
It wasn't 'til early in the mornin', just before daybreak, that the event Hardwell had been waitin' for came up: bull-ridin'.
You don't just put los diablos in a pen and jump on one, though. No, it had its own gate at one end of the corral; the bull-rider had to wait for it inside, and find his own way onto its back. If one ever showed up, that is-Hardwell hadn't seen hide nor hair of the critters yet.
When one did show, it made quite an entrance. There was the same low rumble Hardwell remembered from years before, getting louder and louder like a racing thunderstorm-and then it was suddenly there, at the head of its own stampede, charging at the corral like doom itself.
It slammed to a halt right at the edge of the corral, eyes glaring red through the cloud of dust it had kicked up. The Herd behind it was as silent as the grave. Regular folks would have just seen a bunch of steers, but Hardwell's dead eyes could see the grim spirits astride the cattle, all the poor souls who'd met death under the hooves of los diablos. His wife and child were in there, somewhere.
The gate swung open slowly without a hand touching it. El dia
blo stepped inside.
Hardwell wasn't the first rider-he wanted to get the lay of the land before committin' himself. A walkin' corpse by the name of Hidalgo jumped into the corral, eager to count coup on a Hell-bull.
Hidalgo was Mexican. He had a fancy kind of lariat called a bola, a throwin' rope split three ways, usually with a rock at the end of each strand. Hidalgo was usin' human skulls for weights instead of rocks, but they didn't improve his aim none. He missed with his first toss-and that was all he got.
El diablo charged straight at Hidalgo, but it didn't gore him-no, it spun around at the last second and lashed out with its hind legs instead. Took his head right off, and sent it flyin' so far it disappeared clean over the horizon. I heard tell someone eventually found it in South America, but that's probably not true; I reckon it wouldn't have cleared the Gulf of Mexico.
Anyhow, that was the last event of the first night. All the unholy horrors left to hole up for the daylight hours, either in the abandoned buildings of Devil's Gullet or under a convenient rock. Hardwell took himself a room in the local hotel where most of the other Harrowed were staying.
Believe it or not, even corpses need to sleep-but Hardwell didn't get too much rest that night. All he could think about was gettin' his rotting hands on the beast that put his wife and son in the cold, hard ground; the beast that even now had their very souls in its grasp.
***
Parlor stopped, staring into the campfire. This time, not a man said a word; even Andy held his tongue. The only sound was the crackle of burning wood and the far-off hoot of an owl.
After a silent moment, Parlor started up again.
***
Long about twilight of the next day, things began to creep out of their hidey-holes and slink off toward the saloon. Hardwell did the same. „
The Rodeo kicked off its second night at the stroke of midnight. Once again, Hardwell watched as the undead tried their hand at wranglin' a Hellacious lot o' critters, with varyin' degrees of success.
He watched corpses ride horned serpents, rope chinooks and wrassle bone fiends. He saw a headless horseman get throwed from a Mexican dragon. He saw 'gloms, terrormentals and dark beasts come and go like a parade in Purgatory, but he wasn't interested in none of it.
The last event was the bull-ride, just like before. Hardwell watched as el diablo made its entrance once again, watched as another dead man proved he'd left his sense six feet under. This time, the Hell-bull trampled the contestant into a sheet of human leather so thin you could have read through it.
Hardwell barely noticed; he'd found a pair of familiar faces in the Devil's Own Herd.
Bein' incidental victims, they were at the back; the front and middle were made up of hardened lawmen, sheriffs and marshals and Rangers and such, all of whom had spent their life kickin' evil in the teeth. They looked just as grim and final as a wagon-load a' gravestones, but Hardwell didn't pay no attention to their faces at all. He was lookin' at his wife, and his son.
Annabelle was just as lovely in death as she had been in life, wearin' the same lace bonnet he'd buried her in. Little Slade Junior was ridin' behind her, his pale white hands clutched around her middle. They both looked sad, and lost. If Slade's heart had still been beatin', it prob'ly woulda burst from sorrow; but it was just a blackened, shrivelled prune inside his chest, and had no room left in it for anything but revenge.
He went back to his room at the hotel, and made his preparations.
The next night was the final one-and Hardwell was ready. Another man might have gotten antsy, but the dead can be patient; he stood as still as a rock, watchin' and waitin', until the very last event.
This time, when el diablo made its appearance, Hardwell stepped into the corral. The Hell-bull glared at him with its fiery red eyes, and Hardwell nodded at it grimly. They knew each other, and the beast understood this wasn't gonna be as easy as the last two were.
Hardwell had a saddle-bag slung over his shoulder, and he pulled a rope out of it as the bull charged. You might think he shoulda done that first, but he had his reasons; he didn't want the critter to know what it was up against until the last possible second.
See, it wasn't no ordinary rope. Know what bloodwire is? It's a thorny vine that looks just like barbed wire, and that's where it makes its home, wrappin' around the metal so's it can lash out at unwary cowboys and drain the juices right outta them. Well, one a' the advantages to bein' a walkin' corpse is that you ain't got much use for blood after a while; it just dries right up, like a shallow well in a long drought.
Hardwell's veins were as dusty as the Mohave-the first time a bloodwire tried suckin' on him, it coughed dirt for five minutes and sand for five more. He'd unwrapped the thing from its perch and stuffed it in a sack. It took him a year to train it, but like I said: the dead can be patient.
Now that patience was about to pay off.
He dodged to the side as the bull charged at him, and whipped the bloodwire around its neck at the same time. All the spikes stickin' outta the bull's neck didn't bother the bloodwire none-it was just as comfortable as it would be stretched between fence-poles. It commenced to feed-and found out that whatever flows in los diablos' veins, it ain't blood. It killed the bloodwire stone-dead in an instant.
Not that Hardwell cared-the bloodwire was still wrapped around the bull's neck, and that's what he wanted. He let the vine play out as the bull turned, and before it could charge again he muttered something in a low voice.
Hardwell had learned a few tricks in the years since he'd woken up on the wrong side of a tombstone. One of 'em was how to call a Hellwind.
The air swirled and danced like a living thing, and picked Hardwell off the ground like a tumbleweed. EI diablo charged, but its horns just brushed the bottom of his boots; higher and higher he rose on a funnel of air, up into the dark sky, the bloodwire still clutched in his hands.
When he was fifty feet up or so, he reached the end of his rope-or rather, the end of his vine. But that didn't stop him, nossir; he just tightened his grip, the thorns diggin' into his undead flesh, and kept goin'—straight up.
The bloodwire tightened around los diablos' throat. All three of the Hangin' Judges leaned forward, real interested; this was their area of expertise. That bull must have weighed a ton, easy-but slowly and surely, its front legs came off the ground. Hardwell was gonna hang it as high as the moon.
If it was a normal critter, he might have, too.But this was a creature straight from the Pit, an unholy Abomination and fearmonger if ever there was one. Normal rules didn't apply to it.
With a bellow of rage, it charged straight up the funnel of air.
***
Parlor stopped. Stretched wide, his old bones cracking. Yawned. "Well, fellers, it's gettin' awful late. Think I'll turn in-"
The chorus of wails that rose up would have done a pack of coyotes proud. Parlor let it go on for a moment or two, then grudgingly let himself be persuaded to continue.
***
El diablo charged right up the funnel, its hooves strikin' sparks like they were hittin' steel instead of thin air. Hardwell could float, but he couldn't fly; the only bird imitation he could do was a sittin' duck. Not a chance he could get outta the way.
Which was just how he wanted it.
With two thousand pounds of certain destruction cannonballing toward him, Hardwell stayed as cool as a mountain stream. As soon as the rope went slack, he let go with one hand and reached into his saddle-bag.
And pulled out a branding iron.
It was one he'd had made up special, by the same shaman that gave him his medicine bag. The brand on it wasn't from no ranch-it was a powerful magic symbol, and not one used for protection, either.
Hardwell spoke the words the shaman had taught him, and the branding iron started to heat up.
The bull was half-way up the funnel.
The iron glowed red.
El diablo was so close its eyeballs looked like twin lanterns— but the tip of the branding iron
was even brighter, flaring to white-hot as Hardwell raised it above his head with both hands. He brought it down like a thunderbolt from God, and caught the abomination square between its Hellish eyes.
There was a crack like a crate a' dynamite goin' off, and the critter stopped dead. For a second it and Hardwell hung up there in the sky, and then they both dropped like rocks. Hardwell latched onto the bloodwire around its neck on the way down, and when it landed on all four feet, he landed on its back. The spikes there went right through his legs, but Hardwell didn't care; it nailed him to the thing better than any saddle.
Every monstrosity around the corral backed off and averted its gaze; not a one of 'em could bear to look full-on the design now burnt into the bull's forehead, smoke still rising from the seared flesh. El diablo wasn't too happy about it neither; but there wasn't a blamed thing it could do.
Hardwell had beaten it.
He gave a defiant look to the Hangin' Judges, but they didn't say so much as a word. He kicked his new steed in the flanks, and it stiffly trotted over to the gate.
On the other side, the Devil's Own Herd waited. He made his way to the rear, the Herd parting before him, until he reached Annabelle and Slade Junior. He stared at 'em for a long while.
Finally, he just said, "Go."
They turned and rode off. He never saw 'em again.
***
Even the fire seemed to go quiet at the end of Parlor's tale. And it was the end; all the trailhands could tell. A few sighed, and mebbe one of 'em even brushed a tear away from his eye; it was hard to tell in the dark. And then they all started to turn in for the night.
'Cept Andy, o'course.
"Wait just a ding-dong minute!" he said. "That's it?"
"What else did you expect?" said Parlor patiently.
"Well, what happened to Hardwell after that?"
"No one knows for sure," said Parlor, getting to his feet. "Some say he rode that bull straight to Hell, intending to put a few more things right. Some say he rides with the Herd still, but now they only appear as a warning, not a threat."
Deadlands: For a Few Dead Guys More Page 18
