Curse of Skull Canyon

by Peter Brandvold

  He probably sensed there were things they needed to discuss. He was right, but Lonnie didn’t work up the courage to broach the subject until the fire had died and he and Casey lay in their bedrolls about six feet apart, both staring quietly at the stars.

  “Casey?” Lonnie said, keeping his voice low. “You still awake over there?”

  “I’m awake.”

  “I suppose you’re thinkin’ about fancy Da . . . er, I mean, Giles Gilpin.”

  Casey gave a sardonic snort. “It’s Niles. But at the moment I reckon I got more important things to think about but him. Besides, there’s probably not much to think about. He is, I am sure, well aware that I was the wild young lady who galloped off like Calamity Jane with Halliday’s prisoner, leavin’ a bullet-cut hang rope dangling in the air below the gallows.”

  “I reckon I pretty much cost you your chance of gettin’ hitched to a moneyed fella, and not havin’ to worry about supporting yourself anymore.”

  “I reckon you did, Lonnie,” Casey said with a sigh, raising her arms straight above her, interlocking her fingers, and stretching. “Thank you very much, Lonnie Gentry.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You’re not sorry.”

  “No, I reckon I’m not sorry about Giles. But I am sorry about gettin’ you into so much trouble.”

  Lonnie saw her eyes sparkling softly in the umber glow of the coals as she turned her head toward him. “You didn’t get me into this trouble, Lonnie. I got into it of my own free will. Because we’re friends. You needed my help. And, since we are friends, I had to help you. You would have done the same for me.”

  “I reckon I would have. But I can’t imagine you gettin’ into half the trouble I’ve gotten into.”

  Casey chuckled softly, half to herself, as though she’d found what he’d said genuinely funny. “No, I can’t imagine that, either. But, you never know. I am still young.” She chuckled again.

  “Casey?” Lonnie said after a stretched silence.

  “What, Lonnie?”

  “You mind if I bring my gear and lay over there beside you?”

  She looked at him again, her eyes flashing as though tiny fires burned inside them. He could see the whiteness of her smile in the darkness. “No, Lonnie. I wouldn’t mind that at all . . . as long as you can keep your hands to yourself.”

  “I will, I will.”

  When Lonnie had quietly hauled his gear over and was lying beside Casey, only inches away, so that he could feel the warmth of her supple body beside him, he said, “I reckon Calhoun’s right.”

  “About what?”

  “At least we got each other.”

  Casey turned her head to him. “Lonnie, I am not going down to Mexico.”

  Lonnie stretched his gaze to the stars twinkling high overhead, beyond the occasional breeze-jostled pine boughs. “I reckon you won’t have to. I’m gonna get us out of this.”

  “What’re you thinking?”

  “I’m going to dig up that money tomorrow. I’ll take it over the mountains again, just like last year, and get it into the hands of the deputy US marshal in Camp Collins. Then folks will have to believe I didn’t kill that marshal, that Halliday did and that he’s the one who was after the money.”

  Casey stared skyward for a time. Then she shrugged. “I guess it’s our only option. It might work . . . if Halliday doesn’t hunt us down first.”

  “Yeah, there’s another problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Halliday might be figurin’ that’s what I’d do. He might decide to dig that money up now himself, and hightail it. We have to get to it before he can.”

  Lonnie jerked with a start as Calhoun’s quiet, anxious voice sounded from the direction of the ruined stone cabin. “Will you chil’uns pipe down over there? We got company!”

  Lonnie heard the man click a gun hammer back.

  CHAPTER 44

  “Company?” Lonnie reached for his Winchester and pumped a round into the chamber. He aimed the rifle into the darkness.

  Casey lay beside him, keeping her head down, blankets drawn up to her chin.

  Lonnie peered into the trees around the camp, caressing his Winchester’s trigger with his finger, the blood rushing through his veins as he waited for the gun flashes and the bullets screeching toward him.

  Calhoun ran down the slope, both his old Confederate Griswold & Gunnison revolvers in his hands. Cherokee came running out of the woods, barking, hackles raised.

  “I don’t see anything,” Lonnie said, keeping his voice low.

  “I don’t, either,” Casey whispered.

  “I do!” Calhoun said, his voice echoing loudly in the quiet night.

  Cherokee had followed its master and was barking furiously now.

  Lonnie could no longer see the man’s silhouette in the darkness. He jerked with a start when Calhoun fired one of his pistols. The report was a hard crack. The gun flashed redly, silhouetting the tall, lanky man against it.

  Calhoun fired his other pistol. Again, Lonnie jerked, his heart hammering in his ears now as he waited for return fire.

  Footsteps sounded as Calhoun continued running down the slope.

  “I know you’re out there!” he bellowed, triggering both his pistols again.

  “Wait here!” Lonnie told Casey. “Stay low!”

  Lonnie scrambled to his feet. He pulled his boots on and then ran with his rifle down the slope toward where Calhoun had fallen silent. The dog had stopped barking. The night as quiet as the bottom of a well now on the lee side of the man’s pistol shots and Cherokee’s barking.

  Lonnie wasn’t sure where Calhoun was. The moon had not yet risen, and not much starlight penetrated to the forest floor around him.

  Calhoun’s pistols barked loudly and flashed brightly to Lonnie’s right and down the slope a ways. “I see you, you sumbitches!” the ex-Confederate shouted. “Come on out here and face me like men ’stead of possums ’fraid of their own shadows!”

  He fired again . . . and again.

  Lonnie couldn’t help flinching at each loud report that vaulted around the forest, chasing its own echoes.

  Lonnie pricked his ears as the echoes died. For the life of him, he couldn’t hear anything more than the soft sighing of the breeze and the occasional, soft thud of a pine cone falling to the ground. No night birds hooted. No coyotes called.

  There were no sounds of men moving in the forest around him.

  The horses were milling back where they were picketed near the camp, but that had only started after Calhoun had started shooting. Cherokee was sort of mewling curiously deep in his chest, but he was no longer barking.

  Lonnie said quietly, “Mister Calhoun, I’m to your left and behind you a little. Don’t shoot me.”

  “I know where you are, boy,” Calhoun said in his gravelly voice. “I got the ears of a bat and the eyes of a prairie falcon. Been that way since the war.”

  “I don’t hear anything,” Lonnie said. “Are you sure they’re out here?”

  “I’m sure.” Calhoun fired again. “Right there—you see him? Runnin’ around like coyote scopin’ out a fresh trash heap! Cherokee, get after him!”

  The dog barked once but remained sitting to the ex-Confederate’s right, staring into the darkness.

  Lonnie dropped to a knee to avoid possible return fire. He looked in the direction that Calhoun had fired, the flashes of the ex-Confederate’s pistol still flashing dully on his retinas.

  “I didn’t see nothin’,” Lonnie said. “Didn’t hear nothin’. I don’t think Cherokee did, either.”

  “They’re here, all right. Boatwrights. Sneaky sons of Satan!”

  Lonnie frowned toward where he could make out the tall Southerner’s vague shadow. “Who?”

  Calhoun fired again. “Come on out here, Danny! Come out here, Collie! Who you got with ya? You got ole Cousin Earl Sapp here, too?” Calhoun chuckled and fired two more times.

  Lonnie licked his lips and scowled skeptically. “Who’
re you talking about, Mister Calhoun?”

  “Boatwrights,” Calhoun said after a brief silence. “Virgil Allen Boatwright’s mountain folk from Tennessee. Mangiest bunch of curs you’ll find in any hollow in Appalachia. I shot Virgil when I found him with my dear sweet June, after the war. Shot the sumbitch in my own cabin, though shootin’ was too good for him. He deserved slow Apache torture, Virgil did. I shot ole Virgil, and Virgil shot June as he fell. Shot her with a bullet meant for me. Killed her, the polecat. They both died. The Boatwrights been shadowin’ my trail for the past twenty years. Followed me west to avenge their kin. They been shadowin’ me ever since, bidin’ their time. I even seen ’em a time or two when I was huntin’ Injuns with the frontier army.”

  Calhoun raised his voice. “You hear that, Danny? You hear that Collie? Yeah, I know you’re foggin’ my trail! I’ve knowed it for a long time. Been waitin’ for you to work up enough sand to face me like men!”

  He fired again.

  “That’s probably been plum foolish of me, though, ain’t it?” Calhoun said. “There ain’t nary a Boatwright that’s ever done anything a man would do. Not a real man. All the Boatwrights do is steal other men’s women! While said men are off fightin’ the war that the Boatwrights cowered from!”

  Soft footfalls sounded behind Lonnie. Before he could turn around, Casey said quietly, “It’s me.”

  Cherokee was whining now as he sank to his belly on the forest floor, ears pricked and looking around incredulously.

  “Come on out here, Boatwrights!” Calhoun shouted into the darkness. He extended his left pistol. The hammer clicked benignly down onto the firing pin, empty.

  Casey moved up to stand beside Lonnie. She held up a whiskey bottle. There was no cork in it. She turned it upside down to show that it was empty. She looked at Lonnie, pursing her lips.

  Lonnie looked at Calhoun who had holstered one pistol and was now busily reloading the other one.

  “Mister Calhoun.”

  Lonnie moved on down the slope. He stopped beside the tall ex-Confederate and looked at the revolver he was expertly reloading from the leather pouch on his shell belt. Lonnie could smell the sour stench of alcohol.

  “I don’t think there’s anyone out there, Mister Calhoun,” Lonnie said. “I haven’t heard anything. Haven’t seen anything, either. I don’t think your dog has, either. I think you must’ve dreamed it.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at Casey moving on down the slope to stand beside him.

  Calhoun looked at Lonnie, frowning deeply. He looked at his dog.

  He swung a look into the darkness again. He turned his head this way and that. Then he just stood there for a time, staring, listening.

  “If that don’t beat a hen aflyin’,” Calhoun said at last, his shoulders relaxing. “I believe you’re right, boy. I must have dreamed the whole thing.”

  “I think that’s what must have happened,” Lonnie said. “You’d best go on back to bed. Still a few hours before sunup.”

  “Yeah,” Calhoun said, slowly easing the pistol into its holster. “Yeah . . . I reckon I’d best do that.” He chuckled incredulously. “Imagine me . . . dreamin’ the whole thing. I reckon I’m gettin’ spookier’n a tree full of owls.”

  “It’s all right, Mister Calhoun.” Despite the brouhaha, Lonnie felt sorry for the man. Calhoun had left a trail of trouble behind him. And a trail of ghosts.

  But, then, who hadn’t?

  Calhoun turned to start back up the slope toward the ruined cabin. Cherokee followed him.

  He stopped and glanced back at Lonnie and Casey. “Them Boatwrights are right sneaky. That’s why I dreamed it. They’re out there somewhere. Maybe not close. Not tonight. But they been trailin’ me a long time. They won’t rest until they’ve settled up for me killin’ ole Virgil. They’ll be huntin’ me till Gabriel blows his horn.”

  Again, he started walking away. “Virgil. Can’t understand what my dear sweet Junie ever saw in that spineless scalawag . . .”

  He gave a sardonic shake of his head as he climbed the slope in the darkness, his dog behind him.

  “Whiskey and that man don’t mix,” Casey said when Calhoun was out of earshot. “We should’ve remembered that from last year.”

  “No, they don’t mix. Not with all the demons poor ole Calhoun’s got lurkin’ around between his ears.” Lonnie glanced at her. “You go on back to camp. I’ll stay out here a bit and keep watch. If Halliday heard them gunshots, he’ll be comin’.”

  Casey sidled up to him, pressed her hand against his. “I wish the other men in this world were half the man you are, Lonnie Gentry.”

  She kissed him and walked away.

  Lonnie stood there, staring into the darkness, his cheek on fire.

  CHAPTER 45

  Lonnie sat up the rest of the night, occasionally wandering around the perimeters of the camp, looking but mostly listening. He knew that the General would likely alert him to trouble, but he wanted to be on his toes when and if trouble came, though he had no idea how he’d fend off a dozen men.

  Fortunately, he didn’t have to.

  The rest of the night was peaceful, with only a night bird hooting now and then and the breeze scratching around in the branches. He wondered where Halliday was. Had he lost his quarry’s trail? Apparently, he hadn’t been close enough to hear Calhoun’s wild, drunken gunfire.

  As soon as dawn brushed a pale blush across the eastern sky, the ridges standing black against it, Lonnie quietly gathered his gear and saddled his horse. Casey slept curled on her side. She did not stir as Lonnie walked back into the camp, stepped around her, and strode over to the ruined shack. He moved on through the low doorframe and dropped to a knee beside Calhoun.

  He hesitated, wary of waking the man out of a dead sleep. Calhoun had proven himself to be one jumpy old soldier. One who slept with both his holstered pistols close.

  Cherokee growled softly from a corner but flapped his tail when he scented Lonnie.

  Lonnie silently slid Calhoun’s holstered guns out of reach, and placed his hand on the snoring ex-Confederate’s left shoulder.

  Calhoun was instantly awake, reaching for his pistols.

  Whispering, the boy said, “Easy, Mister Calhoun—it’s only me, Lonnie!”

  “Wha . . . where . . . wha . . . ?” Calhoun sat abruptly up, blinking and looking around, maybe imagining Union soldiers or Sioux warriors overtaking his camp. “What is it? Where’s my pistols?”

  “Shhh!”

  Lonnie glanced through an empty window frame toward where Casey lay asleep by the fire ring.

  “Please, keep your voice down, Mister Calhoun. I don’t wanna wake Casey.”

  “Why? What’s goin’ on, boy? Trouble?”

  “No, no trouble,” Lonnie said, shaking his head. “I’m headin’ back to Skull Canyon. I gotta find that money, get it back to a bona fide lawman so I can clear my name. Our names, I should say,” he added, glancing at Casey again.

  He doubted that anything would be able to clear Calhoun’s name, as there was a good possibility the old soldier had a long list of old warrants on his head. His most recent transgression, freeing Lonnie from the hang rope, was likely the least of his transgressions.

  “Wait—what?” Calhoun scowled at Lonnie, blinking sleep from his eyes. “What are you talking about? Skull Canyon?”

  “That’s where the money is buried. Didn’t Casey tell you?”

  “No, sir. She never told me nothin’ about Skull Canyon.” Calhoun placed a big, strong hand on Lonnie’s shoulder and leaned close. Lonnie could still smell the whiskey on his breath. “That canyon’s a bad, bad place boy. You don’t wanna have nothin’ to do with it.”

  “You believe the old legend? You believe it’s cursed?”

  “Hell, yes, it’s cursed. Listen, son, I come from the old South. The Appalachians. Back there, folks is taught to respect them old legends. Some places is haunted, and that’s a fact. Restless souls, sometimes demons, lurk in places where bad thi
ngs happened. I was raised near a hollow where a man killed and ate his whole family. Any man, woman, or child who visited that hollow turned into a bag of bones. I know that to be true, because one of my uncles wandered in there without knowin’ it, huntin’ coons. Guess what happened to him?”

  Lonnie felt chicken flesh rising across the back of his neck. “He turned into a bag of bones?”

  “That what my mother told me, and that woman wouldn’t have lied to save her own son’s soul!”

  “The damage is already done,” Lonnie said, darkly, feeling a deep chill. “I’ve already spent a night in the canyon.”

  Calhoun shook his head. “That ain’t one bit good, boy. If so, you’re likely wearing the curse on your shoulders. What you need to do now is not go back to that infernal place but find you a witch to get the curse lifted. Until then, draw a circle around yourself, wherever you’re gonna be for any length of time, and try to stand in it as much as possible. And when you get home, hang a horseshoe on your door!”

  “I spent a whole night in that canyon several nights ago, and I ain’t dead yet, Mister Calhoun. And I ain’t been drawin’ no circles or hangin’ horseshoes!”

  “You ain’t dead yet—no. But not because folks ain’t been tryin’!”

  Lonnie considered that. Calhoun had a point. “What about the money?”

  “Forget the money!” Calhoun squeezed Lonnie’s arm tighter. “Listen, I know an old Ute medicine woman. She lives over in—”

  “Forget it!” Lonnie straightened. “I don’t have time for none of that hokum. I have to get that money back and turn it over to the law. The right law. Standin’ around here lettin’ you scare my bones to putty ain’t gettin’ it done. The reason I woke you in the first place is I want you to take care of Casey for me. When she wakes, tell her to wait here with you. I’ll try to be back before sundown. Whatever you do, don’t let her come after me. It’s too dangerous.”

  Calhoun stared in disbelief. He wagged his head slowly. “Well, if I can’t talk you out of returnin’ to that infernal place, you don’t have far to ride.”