Dead of Winter

by Lee Collins

  Duggan's boots slammed on the wooden floor as he stood to his feet, the newspaper scattering. He planted one hand on his desk and pointed the other in her face. "Now you listen to me! You and your husband is only here because Sheriff Barnes thinks you're worth a damn. If I had my way, you'd have till sundown to clear out of my town before I ran you out. It still ain't settled in my mind that you ain't drifters looking to turn a quick dollar before moving on to some other fool town. Lord help you if that's true. I won't stand to be made a fool of."

  Cora let him finish, a small grin playing at the corners of her mouth. "Ain't no fool I've ever met that needed help being made, marshal. I know you got to keep this town together, and that ain't no mean feat. Last time I was through here, why, you could have thrown a stone from one end of town to the other without hitting a single head. Now the only thing you got more of than saloons and brothels is the miners that use them."

  The marshal's finger sank to his desk as she talked, and she took that as her cue to stand. "As I said before, we're looking to make your life a bit easier," she said. "You're a right fine lawman, but you're green when it comes to handling any sort of monsters. Me and Ben happen to be experts in that area, and as experts, we're fixing to lend you our expertise. If you choose not to take it, that's your business. We'll be on our way, no hard feelings. You and that sleepy Mexican in the front room and all your other little deputies can have this town to yourselves."

  "But." She planted her own palms on the desk and leaned toward the marshal until their hats touched. "When that thing in the woods finishes picking them wolfers out of its teeth, you can bet your badge it'll come back for more. Creatures like that can't never get their fill. If it can't find any idiots like them wolfers out in the forest, it'll start prowling around your streets. Pretty soon, you'll hear stories of lonely miners disappearing between brothels. Maybe that vaquero out there won't show up one morning." She grinned at him, her brown eyes colder than the frost on the windows. "Could be your office here ends up looking like that clearing, only instead of you cleaning up some unlucky saps, it's your wife cleaning strips of you off the windows."

  Cora straightened up and rested her right hand on the hilt of her cavalry saber. "Of course, your monster could take a fancy to none of that. Maybe killing the wolfers was a one-time thing. I wouldn't bet an entire town on it, but it ain't my town. Ain't no piss in my soup if Leadville gets torn apart and dragged to hell bit by bit. Me and Ben can kill this thing for you, but not without your help. So it's your call, marshal."

  Duggan stood silent for a moment. This woman had a way of getting under his skin that few could manage. The hot-headed Leadville marshal was known for his temper, but it usually took longer than a few minutes to whip him up into a fury. A self-proclaimed woman spook hunter with enough lip to call him a fool in his own office was a new thing for him, and he hated every bit of it.

  Her words unsettled him down to his bones, though he would never admit it. In his four years as Leadville marshal, he'd jailed more than his fair share of ruffians, rowdies, and crooks. Most were drunk enough that a good smack on the head and a night behind bars would clear them up, but he'd settled a few high-profile troublemakers as well. He'd even faced down the mayor a time or two, refusing to let a rich friend of his walk free until the man sobered up. Duggan feared no man, but what this woman described wasn't a man, and he knew it. As much as he hated to even think it, he couldn't pistol-whip something that could shred two grown men in seconds and disappear without a trace. He could shoot it, maybe, but one of the wolfers had done the same thing and ended up dead anyway.

  He rose to his full height and looked across his desk at this strange bounty hunter. Duggan was not a tall man, and his eyes were level with hers. As she said, there was a chance that this thing would keep to the woods or even move elsewhere, but he didn't trust the notion. What he had seen in the clearing had been the work of something savage. He'd never heard of the animal that was satisfied with just a taste of human blood. Bears, wolves, and cougars all became regular man-killers once they'd whetted their appetites for a man's flesh. That thing out there wasn't any of those, but it was an animal just the same. Better than any of them, when it came right down to it. More dangerous. If this woman wanted to throw herself in its way, he shouldn't try to stop her. If she actually managed to kill the thing, so much the better.

  "All right," he said at last, extending his hand. "You got yourself a deal."

  Cora took his hand and shook it, another grin bearing the gap in her front teeth. "Glad to see you ain't a fool after all."

  "That Duggan is a damned fool."

  A loud bang echoed in the hotel room as Cora slammed the door behind her. Ben was stretched out on the bed with a book in front of him, a kerosene lamp casting its dim light over his shoulder. He didn't look up or even flinch at the sound of the slamming door.

  "Why is that?" he asked.

  "I had to sit in his office and tell him that his own wife would be cleaning his guts off his windows before he could bring himself to help us out." Cora's boots thudded her indignation into the worn hide rug as she walked across the room. She set her pistol on the wooden table that stood between the room's two windows and rolled her head around on her shoulders. "Seems to me that a man with any kind of sense would be begging us to chase that thing off after seeing the clearing."

  "Didn't seem that bad to me."

  "Sure, when we was there," she said, sitting down and pulling off her boots. "Critters had picked it pretty clean by then. Not much left to go on."

  "Then what did you shoot at?" Ben finally looked up from his book.

  "A gray something hiding itself up in the trees."

  The book's spine crackled as Ben closed it. "So you did see something."

  Cora told him of the strange shadow she'd seen in the trees and of the chill she'd felt. When she finished, he leaned his head back against the headboard and smoothed down his mustache.

  "Ring any bells?" she asked.

  Ben shook his head. "Can't say it does. I've never heard of something that can cause a chill like that."

  "Sure wasn't no hellhound." Cora propped her feet up on the other chair. Ben nodded his agreement, his eyes tracing the thick pine logs that framed the room.

  Cora's gaze settled on her toes, and she gave each set a stretch. Like the rest of her feet, they were thick and hard from long years trapped in boots. The second toe on each foot stuck out beyond the others, the nails worn small. When she was a little girl, her father had told her that having long middle toes meant she was born to ride. Their tiny farm on the Shenandoah hadn't housed more than the two horses needed to plow the furrows. They were big and thick with shaggy brown hair, four-legged giants in her young eyes, but they weren't for riding. Her father had promised that he'd make enough one day to buy her a real riding horse. Then he'd show her how to sit and ride like a real lady, he said.

  Of course, that was before the blue coats had come through the valley and burned them out, leaving nothing but blackened earth behind them. She had been a young woman then, gangly and freckled, not the pretty Southern belle she had pictured herself growing into when her father had made his promise.

  "Don't seem like a hell beast to me," Ben said, pulling her out of her thoughts.

  "What do you mean? Anything that can whip two wolfers that quick sure ain't no angel."

  "Course not, but most of the things old Hades spits out have the feel of that place about them, you know? All fire and flames and pain, like the good book says. That unnatural chill you felt out there don't sound like Hell to me."

  "Well, maybe Hell has a patch of cold for those that enjoy the warm," Cora said. "Folks living out in Carson City or Santa Fe wouldn't be all that uncomfortable in the regular parts of Hell, and that ain't no kind of punishment. Maybe Lucifer made some part of his kingdom like Montana in the winter-time to put them off their feed."

  "Could be," Ben said. "Still, you'd think the good Lord would've mentioned someth
ing like that if it was so."

  "If the good Lord wanted us to be prepared for everything in life, He'd have put us in the womb with one of these." Cora picked up her Colt from the table, admiring the nickel shine in the lamplight. She wore her holster cross-style, the butt of the gun pointing toward her right arm from the front of her left hip. Every now and again, some pudding-headed cowboy would call her out for it, saying she carried like a Mexican whore instead of a proper white woman. Most of the time, she was too involved with a card game or a glass of whiskey to pay them much notice, but they'd sometimes catch her in a foul temper and end up in the street with a fresh bruise. If they were still sore about it, she'd challenge them to a shooting contest. Used to be that she could win a month's wages with a few rounds, but her reputation started calling ahead of her, turning the gunmen yellow about facing her. Not much of a loss, really. She and Ben were set for cash from the jobs they did, and the quiet left her more time for gambling. Hearsay still couldn't keep the occasional young buck from trying to make a name for himself by besting her in a match, though.

  "I doubt even the Lord's rich enough to give every new baby a silver shooter," Ben said, picking up his book.

  "Good thing He ain't, or we'd have to settle for regular work like tilling a farm or digging in a mountain somewhere."

  Ben grunted in agreement. "Speaking of, did that marshal say anything useful?"

  "Mentioned some feller named Bill Hicks. Said he was the one that told him and the deputy about the killings that morning. Seems this Hicks is one of those retired miner types, like old Jules Bartlett from a few years back."

  "Which one was he?"

  "He's the one that made Sheriff Jim Barnes jump out of his boots for fear of vampires last time we was through here."

  "That's right," Ben said. His memory was sharp except when it came to names. "Took a liking to lurking around at night for his meat instead of during the day like most folk. Good thing he had himself that full beard, or you'd have shot him for a vampire anyway."

  "Hunting at night ain't natural for any folk except the unnatural ones."

  "You damn near pulled that beard off the poor ass when you dragged him in to the sheriff."

  "Shouldn't have been about at that hour, plain and simple," Cora said with a small shrug. The revolver clicked as she turned the cylinder with her fingers. "He's damn lucky we found him before something else did. Never did thank us for that, now that I think about it."

  "Thank us?" Ben raised an eyebrow as he looked at her. "He looked right ready to put his pick through your hat with your head still in it."

  Cora could still see the miner's face, his eyes blazing above his gray beard as he stood next to her at the door of the sheriff's station. The sheriff himself was disheveled, having been roused from a good sleep by the pounding on his door. When he opened up, Cora had Jules Bartlett in one hand and the miner's big Henry rifle in the other. Marching past the bewildered lawman, she had set the rifle on the desk before propping the miner up like a prize stag.

  Jules had balked when Cora told the sheriff she'd found his vampire, but Jim Barnes looked as though he couldn't decide whether to laugh or apologize. The miner's confusion turned to anger, and he'd demanded that Barnes arrest her for making sport of him. Cora had laughed at that notion, telling the old man that he was lucky she'd left Ben with the horses or he'd have laid him out for such talk. Both men flushed red, and Cora had left them to it after telling the sheriff she'd settle accounts with him the next morning.

  "All the same, I reckon we should look him up and get our due gratitude," she said. "For all he knew, Barnes could have been right about a vampire in the area. A sucker would've made a short meal of that old codger, though I'm not sure it would've bothered. He didn't look like he had more than a pint of blood in the whole of himself."

  Ben nodded. He was sinking back into his book when a thought hit him, bringing his head up again. "Maybe Barnes was right all along and we just dragged in the wrong fool. What if there is a real vampire around here, and it's started acting up again? Think a vampire could've done those wolfers in?"

  "Not a chance," Cora replied, shaking her head. "A vampire could've done that kind of damage, sure, but the sign was all wrong. Wouldn't do one any good to spill that much blood on the ground. Besides, that fool marshal said the bodies was torn to bits, so much that he couldn't find anything recognizable. Vampires usually leave shriveled stiffs behind, all curled up and panicky-looking."

  "At least until the dead folk start moving around again," Ben said. "Still, maybe this is some new kind of vampire."

  "They is all the same from what I've seen. Savage, mindless blood-suckers the lot of them. Remind me of them Yankees, to be honest."

  "Couldn't be because the first vampire we killed was wearing a Union jacket," Ben said, his blue eyes alight with amusement.

  "Well, can't say I was surprised the Union had actual monsters working with the human ones in their army. Damn shame we can't blame their tactics on the undead, but there ain't no vampire that can make battle plans."

  "Can't imagine what would happen if there was," Ben said. "We would have a serious problem on our hands."

  "Well, that's one of the advantages the good Lord does give us, I guess. He may not see fit to give us all peacemakers and blessed silver bullets, but at least He gave us the brains to make them." She replaced her Colt on the table. Looking out the window, she considered the remaining daylight, then she turned to her husband. "Sun's about set for the night, meaning a shift of miners will be coming through the Pioneer soon. I've a mind to go fleece them for their earnings and get me a few drinks in the meantime. You up for a game?"

  A smile bloomed beneath Ben's mustache. "Think I'll stay in. You know I hate to watch you lose half our money in a single night. Besides, one of us needs to come up with a plan for tracking this monster down, and I don't reckon the king of hearts will have any good ideas."

  Cora picked up one of her boots and threw it at him. He caught it in one hand without looking up from his book, the grin never leaving his lips. She pulled the other boot over her toes, then step-thumped her way over to the bed and held out her hand. Ben dropped the boot on her palm and looked up at her. She returned his smile as she put the boot on, then leaned over and kissed his forehead.

  THREE

  Our Lady of Virginia picked her way along the snowy path one hoof at a time. Cora let the mare go at her own pace, taking the time to enjoy the quiet. The two of them were traveling along a rough trail that wound around the base of a mountain. They were near the treeline, giving Cora a clear view of the snow-covered slope rising above her. Somewhere behind her, she could picture the crooked peak rising on the other end of the valley, and her thoughts returned to town for a moment.

  She wondered if Ben was having any luck tracking down Bill Hicks. He had wanted to stay in town, leaving her the task of heading out to visit Jules Bartlett. While she was playing cards, Ben had given more thought to the idea of looking up the old hermit, thinking that he might know something about the creature prowling the woods below his house. By the time she returned to the hotel room, Cora had been too drunk to feel stupid for not thinking of that herself. She listened as closely as the whiskey allowed while he outlined the next day's agenda. Despite the potency of Boots' private stock, she only had to ask him to repeat himself six or seven times.

  Cora could see a dirty yellow trail flowing down the mountainside above her, muck belched out by a nearby silver mine. She smiled at the ugly stain, thinking of the silver that mine would produce, silver that she could use for bullets. Silver that had once been part of a holy relic or symbol was more effective against Hells' minions – it made a priest's blessings that much more potent – but any silver would do in a pinch.

  The trail continued to wind its way around the mountain's base. Through the trees, Cora could see what seemed like a thousand snowy peaks reaching toward the afternoon sun. The sight made her head swim, and she soon found the saddle horn i
n front of her a much more comforting view. Our Lady was content to find her own way up the slope, snow crunching beneath her hooves.

  Once, a stray limb reached out for Cora from a nearby tree, its branches groping toward her like a skeletal hand. Her eyes were still fixed on the saddle horn when the branch brushed against her coat and neck, and she jumped at the touch. Her right hand had already pulled away the leather flap that held her Colt in place before she realized what had scratched her. Looking back at the tree, she gave it a deep scowl. She hated to leave it unharmed for such an offense, but the mare's steady pace had already put it out of reach.

  After a while, her thoughts returned to Jules Bartlett. Despite the hostility the old miner probably still harbored toward her, Cora wasn't worried about paying him a visit. Age had taken the best part of his strength, leaving him with bony arms and legs. She figured he had spent his youth in California during the big gold rush they'd had back in the early fifties. His beard had been big and brown beneath his floppy hat then. She pictured him sticking his hands into the freezing runoff in some mountain stream, a stubborn set to his jaw as he filled his pan with mud. No gun, no horse, not even a pick to his name. He was just a sprout looking to make himself a fortune and go on to live a fancy life down in San Francisco.