A cold feeling of dread began to creep into him. It was only eleven-thirty. The sheriff should have been on duty until well after midnight if there was no one else to man the front desk. Unnoticed, he slipped back into the shadows of his booth and sat there. He considered pouring himself another beer, but decided that he had better stay sober until he found out exactly what was going on.
One of the fellows dropped some change into the jukebox and punched up a couple of Randy Travis songs. When he returned to the bar, their conversation resumed. The group didn’t seem to care how loudly they talked either. Rowdy had felt insulted when the tavern’s bartender and proprietor, Big Hank, had failed to recognize him when he first came in, but now he welcomed the advantage of anonymity. Homer and the others had no idea that Rowdy was sitting only a few feet away, quietly listening to every word they said.
“We should’ve found him,” said Homer, calling for another beer. “It bugs the hell outta me knowing he’s still out there somewhere.”
“Don’t worry, hoss,” assured Whitman, pounding the deputy on the back. “You shot the old bastard right in the gut. He’s probably bled to death by now.”
Who are they talking about? wondered Rowdy. Who did Homer shoot? The answers to those questions sprang immediately into mind, but he pushed them away, unable to accept them as truth.
“Yeah, stop worrying your fat head over it, Homer,” said Gooch. “We pulled the deal off and got the job done. That big shot Dellhart don’t have to worry about the local law interfering in his business anymore. We pulled that ambush on Pale Dove Mountain as planned and got paid damned good money for it. So what if the old-timer got misplaced out there in the thicket? We’ll let the buzzards and bugs take care of him.”
“I propose a toast,” called the fellow with traces of ketchup still on his face. “To Homer Lee Peck…the new sheriff of Peremont County.”
The others raised their mugs and matched the salute. As they gulped down their beers, Rowdy left his cowboy hat on the table and slipped out the front door of the tavern unseen.
He leaned against the front wall of the beer joint and closed his eyes. Oh God, they were talking about Grandpa, he thought. They ambushed and shot him somewhere up on Pale Dove Mountain and left him for dead. The mere thought of it threw him into a wild panic. He felt like jumping into his Renegade jeep and launching a one-man search for Gart that very moment. But he knew he had to keep calm and not lose his head. The mountain covered a lot of ground. There were half-dozen different access roads up there and countless acres of dense forest and thicket. If he didn’t know precisely where to look, he could end up roaming around up there for days without luck. He had to know the exact location of Gart’s ambush, and for that, he would have to get his information directly from the source.
Rowdy went to his jeep and reached beneath the front seat. He brought an old-fashioned Western gun belt with an ornate brass buckle and cartridge loops around the back. In the hand-tooled holster was the pride and joy of his gun collection—a nickel-plated .44 Magnum replica of a Colt Peacemaker. Rowdy had brought it along, hoping to get in a little target practice during his stay in the mountains. He slipped the revolver from the holster and checked the cylinder. The six-shooter was loaded with extra-hot hollow-point rounds, destructive enough to disintegrate a good-sized watermelon with a single shot.
Okay, here’s the plan, he thought, taking a deep breath and putting his mind into gear. I’m gonna walk back into that honky-tonk, step right up to that fat bastard Homer, and stick the muzzle of this gun in his ear. Then I’m gonna suggest that we take us a little drive to Pale Dove Mountain, so he can show me where he betrayed my grandfather. And if any of those other rednecks make a wrong move, I’ll put some mighty big holes in them.
Rowdy took another breath of fresh country air, then prepared to buckle the gun belt around his waist. But before he could, he heard the sound of footsteps crunching on the parking lot gravel directly behind him.
“Leave ’em to me, buckaroo,” drawled a voice over his shoulder.
He began to turn, but something hit him a numbing blow across the back of head. He felt the strength drain from his legs and he went down hard. He tried to get up, but he felt the heel of a man’s boot push him back down.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the red and blue neon of the tavern’s beer signs begin to fade into dense darkness.
The last thing Rowdy Hawkens knew before blacking out was the tug of the gun belt being wrenched from his grasp and the sound of someone walking toward the entrance of Rebel’s Roost, cheerfully whistling “Back in the Saddle Again.”
Homer Lee Peck was just starting to relax and enjoy his recent victory when the tavern door burst from its hinges and somersaulted across the barroom. It crashed into the jukebox, shattering the dome and demolishing its inner workings. Randy Travis was abruptly cut off in mid-lyric, giving way to the tinkle of broken glass and the shocked silence of the men at the bar.
“Howdy, hombres!” roared a voice like thunder.
They stared at the dark form who stepped through the open doorway. The tall man was decked out in a fancy outfit reminiscent of the “singing cowboy” era of Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter, and Gene Autry. He wore a high-peaked black hat, a black kerchief and Western shirt with an iron-gray sheriff’s star pinned to the chest, black trousers, and dark riding boots. The lawman had two gun belts cinched around his waist. Homer recognized one of them as belonging to his unfortunate predecessor, complete with handcuff pouch and holstered Smith & Wesson. The other gun belt held a large-caliber Peacemaker with a nickel finish and polished ivory grips.
“Who the hell are you?” breathed Jimmy Whitman hoarsely.
“Why, don’t ya’ll recognize me?” asked the dark sheriff. “I’m your old pardner… Black Gart!”
Startled, they all stared into those ghastly gray-fleshed features and saw the lean face of Gartrell Mayo staring back at them with sparkling black eyes.
“Thought you had me bushwhacked, didn’t you?” sneered Black Gart. “Well, you figured wrong, you lowdown sidewinders! Say your prayers…it’s a long, hard ride to hell!” Then, with gray hands as quick as greased lightning, he drew his pistols and began blazing away.
A few of the men scrambled over the bar, while some dove behind overturned tables. Six were slow in moving, though, and they were the ones who caught the hail of lead. Bullets riddled their bodies, knocking them against the front of the bar, splattering the polished mahogany with crimson. Jimmy Whitman was one of the unfortunate ones. He took a .44 slug right between the eyes and his head erupted in an explosion of skull fragments and ruptured brain.
The fellow who had served as bait for Mayo’s ambush emerged from behind a table. He heaved a heavy chair at Black Gart with all the force he could muster. It shattered into a burst of splintered wood as it hit his chest, drawing only hearty laughter from the dark gunman. The sheriff fired from the hip, nailing the guy in the heart. As he dropped, another made a run for it, heading for the rear exit. Black Gart snapped off a couple more shots, putting one into each of his kneecaps. The man screamed and dragged himself painfully behind the shelter of the alcove wall.
Emery Gooch crouched behind the bar with Big Hank and Homer Peck. He looked at the wall above the shelves of liquor bottles and shot glasses. Hank’s prized collection of Civil War memorabilia hung there—a Confederate flag, bayonets, cap and ball pistols, and several genuine cavalry sabers. He reached up and drew one of the swords, then bounded over the bar.
“You lousy son of a bitch!” he shrieked. “I’m gonna slice you up good!” He expected to be shot at, but the dark sheriff merely stood there with a big grin, letting him come on. Gooch reared back and, with all his might, brought the edge of the saber down on the side of Black Gart’s neck. There was enough force behind that swing to decapitate a normal man, but Gooch suddenly realized that it wasn’t a normal man he was dealing with. The steel blade snapped off at the brass hilt with a metallic clang. He watched in s
hock as the sheriff returned the .38 to its holster, freeing his right hand. Gooch tried to get away, but gray fingers shot out and buried themselves in his gullet. He could feel them punching through the flesh and muscle of his throat, searching for the bone within. They found his upper spine, squeezing tightly and turning the vertebrae into tiny splinters of pulverized bone. Gooch grew limp like a rag doll, then was flung across the barroom. He tumbled into the game room, landing on top of a pool table.
“Hey, you stinking bastard!” yelled two voices in unison. Black Gart turned just as the Conover twins came barreling toward him from out of a side booth. Their huge hands were linked and their flabby arms extended at throat level, ready to pull a strangling clothesline. The dark sheriff merely laughed. He cocked his head back a bit, giving them a clearer shot at his gray throat.
They hit him full force, but the effect was not the one they had hoped for. Instead of knocking the sheriff off his feet, they shot past him and kept right on going. The Conovers screamed in sudden agony as they hit the saloon wall and slid heavily to the floor. Their shrieks grew louder as they stared at the bloody stumps of their shoulders. With eyes glazed with pain and horror, they stared up at Black Gart and saw their lost arms hanging around his throat like a gruesome necklace, the white-knuckled fists still joined. The sheriff cast the limbs aside and lifted the Magnum. Two slugs left the muzzle with the fury of miniature cannonballs, putting the two brothers out of their misery.
A thunderous explosion erupted from behind and a bee swarm of double-ought buckshot hit the dark sheriff between the shoulder blades. The pellets were ineffective, however. They ricocheted in all directions, punching large holes in the tavern walls. Black Gart turned and saw Big Hank shucking the spent shells from his double-barreled shotgun and replacing them with fresh loads. A single shot from the .44 knocked the twelve-gauge from the bartender’s hand, taking a couple of fingers with it for good measure. Clutching his hand, Hank leaped over the bar and ran for the back door. The hellish lawman didn’t make any attempt to stop him. Someone else was foremost in his mind.
“Homer Lee Peck!” growled the dark sheriff with Gart Mayo’s face. “Show yourself, you fat son of a bitch! You traitorous bastard!”
Homer knew there was no place to run to. He had to fight back and hope for the chance of escape. He drew his .38 Special from its holster and powered to his feet, clutching the revolver in a two-fisted combat hold. He took aim and fired rapidly.
The slugs flattened against Black Gart’s chest, then dropped to the floor with dull thuds. When Homer had run out of bullets and continued squeezing the trigger, striking empty casings, the sheriff grinned. “Reload!” he demanded, taking a classic gunfighter’s stance. “Then we’ll have us a rootin’-tootin’ showdown!”
Numbly, Homer did as he was told. He ejected the spent casings from his revolver and replaced them with fresh cartridges. Slowly, he walked around the end of the bar and faced Black Gart. “It ain’t fair,” he protested lamely. “You can’t be killed.”
“The eyes!” bellowed the sheriff, pointing to those inky black orbs. “Shoot for the eyes!” His splayed hand hovered over the handle of the .38 like a gray spider. “Are you ready? On the count of three…one…two … three!”
Homer drew his service revolver and fired. His aim was slightly off. It missed the sheriff’s left eye by two inches, landing in the pocket of his ear. The lump of lead squealed as it traveled the curve of gray flesh and wedged there. Black Gart pried the deformed slug away with his fingers and tossed it aside, as if it were no more than a bothersome insect.
“Now it’s my turn!” he laughed. The hand dipped and flashed in a fraction of a second, full of cold blue steel, belching flame, and gun smoke. The bullet hit Homer squarely in the stomach, in the exact same spot that Mayo had taken one only an hour before. The impact slammed the deputy against the edge of the bar. Before he could slump to the floor, Black Gart was there, hand wrapped around his flabby throat, lifting him up as if he was a feather pillow.
The dark incarnation of Gartrell Mayo glared at him with those pitch black eyes and grinned broadly with teeth that could literally bite nails in half. “Time to leave another message!” he rasped.
Homer Lee Peck begged and pleaded for mercy, but to no avail. Black Gart merely laughed in his pale face, then went to work.
Rowdy Hawkens woke up feeling as if a freight train had run over his head. He staggered to his feet and leaned against the fender of his jeep, feeling a knot the size of a goose egg on the back of his skull. When his vision began to clear, he checked his watch. According to it, he had been out for nearly twenty minutes.
Who had hit him? One of Homer’s pals? He looked around for his gun belt, but it had been taken by the one who’d brained him. He started toward the tavern entrance. Halfway there he saw that the door was gone. “Something’s wrong here,” he said out loud. Carefully, he peeked inside.
Rebel’s Roost was a slaughterhouse. Blood stood in murky puddles on the barroom floor. Twisted bodies lay amid the gore, most of them sporting nasty bullet holes. He glanced to each side of the entrance and found the Conover twins sitting slumped there, each with a bloody stump at the shoulder. Their missing arms lay beneath a barroom table, holding hands like two lovers who simply wouldn’t let go, even in death. Emery Gooch was stretched out on the blood-drenched felt of a pool table with his head twisted completely around on his boneless neck.
The sight of the mass bloodletting made Rowdy’s head pound even more. He stumbled to the bar and steadied himself, but the view was no better there. In fact, it was much worse. He looked up at the wall over the bar and felt the dizziness and nausea hit him even harder than before.
Homer Lee Peck was pinned, spread-eagled, to the big rebel flag with bayonets and sabers. It looked as though he had been crucified by the Confederate Army. His huge belly had been ripped open and inside the hollow of his abdomen there was only glistening darkness, nothing else. Homer had been brutally disemboweled and left as a ghoulish trophy on the rear wall of Rebel’s Roost.
It was at that moment that Rowdy shifted his grip on the bloody bar top and felt something wet and squishy beneath his palm. He glanced down and, with a yelp of disgust, jumped back.
Homer’s intestines trailed the length of the thirty-foot bar, but they weren’t stretched into a taunt line. Instead, they looped and swirled with a definite pattern. It took Rowdy a few moments, but he finally recognized the tangled viscera as being some insane jokester’s duplication of human handwriting.
“Oh, God, it’s another one,” moaned Rowdy. “It’s another message.”
And it was…a very. Clear and concise one.
LAST WARNING!
Rowdy was turning to get the hell out of there when something caught his eye. On the booth table, next to his white Stetson, were a couple of gun belts. One was his, while the other belonged to his grandfather. But how did it get there? He checked the guns. Both were empty, every round in them fired. Looking around the room, Rowdy could see where the bullets had gone to.
“But who?” he asked himself. “Who did this?”
“Hopalong Cassidy from hell,” sobbed a voice from the back of the saloon.
Rowdy loaded his magnum, then checked the source of the voice. He found one of Homer’s gang sitting at the end of the little hallway, between the restroom doors. His legs were spread out at awkward angles. It looked as though someone had blown his kneecaps apart, most likely with the .44 he was now holding. “What did you say before?” Rowdy asked. “About the one who did all this?”
“It wasn’t human,” the fellow moaned, teeth clenched against the pain in his ruined legs. “It looked kinda like Sheriff Mayo, but it wasn’t. It was that critter that lives up on the mountain…the one that can change into all manner of evil things.”
“The Dark’Un,” said Rowdy.
The man shuddered. “Yeah, that’s the one. It must’ve saw us ambush Mayo up on the mountain, then came after us.”
&nb
sp; Abruptly, Rowdy lost control. He grabbed the guy by the collar of his shirt and lifted him. “All right, I wanna know exactly where on that mountain you left my grandpa, do you understand me?”
The man answered only with a shriek of agony. Rowdy looked down and saw that the man’s lower legs had folded outward at the fractured knees, instead of inward as they normally did. The fellow collapsed in a dead faint as Rowdy let go of him. He couldn’t wait around for the man to regain consciousness and tell him what he needed to know. The state police were bound to be on their way already and he didn’t want to be discovered there, especially with the guns that had killed half of the men in the place in his possession.
He went back to the table, put on both the gun belts, then headed for the tavern door. He intended to drive his jeep to Pale Dove Mountain and search high and low until he found out what had become of his grandfather. He just prayed to God that the old man was alive and kicking when he finally found him.
Rowdy left the blood-splattered ruins of Rebel’s Roost, his eyes directed toward the black, Southern night. He avoided glancing back at the awful carnage that the Dark’Un had decorated the barroom with. Neither did he want to see the pulpy, pink-gray message spelled out on the bar. He only had to close his eyes to see that grisly final warning etched in the darkness of his inner mind.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Anything wrong?” asked Glen. The interior of the four-wheel drive was dark, but even in the faint glow of the dashboard light Jenny could see the concern on his bearded face.
“No,” she said, forcing a smile. She turned her eyes from him and looked down at Dale’s sleeping form on the bench seat between them, his head resting in her lap. Jenny absently ran her fingers through his thin brown hair. He stirred a little and then was lulled back into slumber by the monotonous drone of the Ramcharger’s engine.
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