Comanche

by Brett Riley

  Anyway, Thornapple said. He passed by the depot, and his bike chain broke. Just busted open. He managed not to fall over and break his neck, and while he tried to fix it, the sun went down. The moon was full, though, so he had enough light to work. He cobbled the chain together and was tryin to work it back on the bike when he looked up and saw this pale man standin ten or twelve feet away, watchin. Pappaw was sittin by the road, not on the depot grounds, and when he saw that fella just standin there like that, he got scared and dove into the ditch. He crawled through the mud—it had rained just the day before, he said—and ran like hell once he got past the depot. Swore he didn’t know why. His daddy brought him back for the bike the next day, but it was gone. Said the ghost he seen was the only one in the world that moonlighted as a bike thief. I never figured there was much to it.

  Raymond, McDowell, and LeBlanc exchanged nervous, interested glances. Frost kept writing.

  That’s some story, Raymond said.

  I’ve never believed in ghosts, Thornapple said. But what y’all saw matches my Pappaw’s yarn. Maybe it’s coincidence. But if it ain’t, that means my line could have ended in the forties if not for that ditch. It’s literally a soberin thought. He drank, his Adam’s apple bobbing. When he finished, he set the bottle on the table and stared at his shoes.

  Frost cleared his throat. In my research, I came across the name P.D. Thornapple. He was on duty at the depot when the posse brought in the Kid.

  Thornapple nodded. Yeah. Like I was sayin earlier, I’m descended through P.D.’s brother, Nat.

  Given the parameters of this story, I assume Nat must have avoided the depot, Frost said.

  From what I’ve heard and read about him, he avoided most everything. Hardly ever left this property, and when he did, it was usually for church or a quick trip to the general store. He liked God and cows and not much else. But I reckon his wife charmed him well enough because they had kids, and those kids had kids, and so on, each eldest child passin the estate to their eldest. I’m the last. Ain’t got no kids. Probably never will.

  He looked toward his bedroom, to which Johnstone had retired earlier that evening. McDowell sipped her iced tea and said, Not everybody needs ’em to make a full life.

  Now that I think of it, everybody descended from that posse was pretty lucky just to be born. Some of our ancestors died not long after the Kid, and if they hadn’t already started their own families, we wouldn’t be here.

  Who died? Raymond asked.

  Noseless McCorkle passed away on the depot grounds a couple years after they brung in the Kid.

  Noseless, said LeBlanc.

  Yeah. Somebody found him layin against that storage buildin, blood runnin from his mouth and eyes and the hole where his nose used to be. Then old Beeve Roark died on the tracks, right behind the main buildin. Train run over him, though nobody ever found out what he was doin there in the first place.

  A heavy pall settled in the room. McDowell stirred the cold food on her plate.

  Raymond thought about his hand. The man, or spirit, had pointed a gun at him and pulled the trigger. They had all heard the report in their minds, not with their ears like you would with any self-respecting gunshot. And then his hand had exploded from the inside. Add to all that McDowell’s bleeding eyes, and now this, the possibility the Kid had been appearing for decades whenever some descendant of that long-ago posse wandered onto the depot grounds and turned him on like someone flipping a light switch. Or maybe it was more like a battery. Maybe the psychic energy had to build. Perhaps Thornapple’s grandfather had brought the Kid back to the world gradually, the charge growing a little stronger each time he biked past the grounds. Cut to the present—several descendants ate at the diner multiple times. One of them owned the place. They all met for an evening of interviews, which is when the ghost appeared again, and this time it had remained.

  I got a theory, if anybody cares to hear it, Raymond said. He recounted his ideas for them and finished by saying, It all sounds batshit to me, but at this point, I’m about ready to believe anything.

  No one stepped forward to say that his idea made perfect sense, but nobody broke out the chains and butterfly nets either, so it turned out better than he had hoped.

  Frost cleared his throat. I think your reasoning follows. If ghosts can be connected to certain locations or objects, why couldn’t they be tied to people, too?

  LeBlanc snorted. Are we really talkin about this?

  Frost smiled without humor and drank some beer. If you read different cultures’ folklore, you find variations on the basic ghost story. Spirit of the departed can’t cross over. Unfinished business, overwhelming anger or sadness, violent death, poor burial, whatever. All of that is true here, according to you guys.

  Raymond held up his ruined hand. This is all I know, he said. And that Darrell shot him point-blank without producin a body, or even any blood.

  I want to see these grounds, Frost said. What we’re doing right now will become part of the future’s folklore, even if the Kid kills us all.

  No one said anything for a long time. They drank. McDowell got up to pee.

  Finally, his expression sour, LeBlanc said, Shit, Doc, you sure do know how to make a body feel good and confident.

  Raymond knew how LeBlanc felt. Here’s what I don’t get. If the Kid’s a ghost, how the hell is he shootin people? It ain’t like he could hold a real gun or run to wherever you buy ammunition around here.

  Frost shook his head. No, but if he’s an angry spirit, a manifestation of the living man’s psychic or spiritual energy, then it logically follows—and I admit I’m using the term logic loosely—it follows that the ghost has to focus that energy somehow. The guns and bullets might just be a symbol of the spirit’s memory echoes.

  LeBlanc looked confused. Huh?

  I mean its energy is lashing out in a form that would have been familiar to the Kid. If we were dealing with his Native American companion’s ghost, it might be skewering people with a phantom spear.

  Phantom spear? Now you’re just makin shit up.

  Wait, said Raymond. That’s a good point. That same posse killed the Kid’s Comanche runnin buddy. Where’s his ghost?

  The posse didn’t dismember the Comanche’s body, said Frost. At least nothing I’ve read suggests they did. Maybe they were so used to Native Americans and white people killing each other they didn’t see any need for extra brutality. Or maybe they just used up all their time and effort on the Kid.

  So if the ghost uses its energy like the Kid used his guns, why ain’t it ever pistol-whipped anybody? asked LeBlanc as McDowell returned and sat next to him.

  It probably could, said Frost. I’d wager it controls how its energy manifests, which might also explain why its so-called bullets can pass through skin or muscle but blow apart internal organs and matchbooks. He shoots only what he wants to hit. If he had been more famous for barroom brawls than gunfights, we might see death from blunt-force trauma.

  Maybe we should stop lookin for more crazy bullshit to deal with, McDowell said.

  The deep throbbing in Raymond’s hand had eased. It now felt like a second fevered heartbeat, painful but bearable. I think we gotta move on this tomorrow, he said.

  What’s the plan? asked Thornapple. You ain’t got the boots or the gun belt, and C.W. will call the goddam National Guard if he sees any of you inside the city limits.

  Raymond stood and stretched. Bradley will get the boots. I’ll call him before I turn in and let him know he’s gotta move. As for C.W., I can think of only one thing, short of kidnappin him or blowin up his car. Betsy, you feel up to a little errand tomorrow?

  Sure, she said. Her eyes looked hollow and tired. They had all been on edge since they first set foot in the Dead House, McDowell most of all.

  Good. Since you’ve offended C.W. the least, I’d like you to sit with Rennie and help her keep h
im at home. Me and Darrell will go to the diner in case he gets past you. Jake and Bradley can torch the boots, and the hell with usin ’em as bait—sorry, Jake, but my hand says we ain’t got that luxury.

  LeBlanc drained his beer and set the bottle on the coffee table, which bore the weight of over a dozen empties. Sounds like a plan, he said. But we’re gonna need those salt rounds. If Tidewater delivers when he promised, they’ll be ready in the mornin.

  Raymond smiled. He felt as if he were floating.

  The good feeling did not last long. As they walked down the hall, Raymond took LeBlanc by the elbow and said, Listen, I could use another pill tonight. That last one took the edge off, but I’m still hurtin.

  LeBlanc looked hard at Raymond, his eyes cold, his face expressionless. No, he said.

  Raymond furrowed his brow. That prescription says every four to six hours as needed. Well, I need some good sleep before I ruin my relationship with my brother-in-law once and for all.

  Right, said LeBlanc. Just like you used to need all that whiskey. Just like you needed them beers you stared at all evenin.

  Anger flared in Raymond’s belly. That ain’t fair. I never asked for a drink. And I don’t want a pill to get high. I’m thinkin about tomorrow. I can’t sleep with an elephant steppin on my hand.

  McDowell clutched his shoulder. We said we’d keep an eye on you. That’s what Darrell is doin.

  It was my idea to stretch out the doses, remember?

  And now you’re askin to increase ’em, said LeBlanc. With all this shit goin on, we need you sober.

  Tomorrow, I’ll be as sober as a nun.

  Those people out there, McDowell said. Their lives are in our hands.

  I know that, goddam it.

  Would Marie wanna see you like this? Beggin for a fix?

  All the blood drained from Raymond’s face. He pushed McDowell’s hand away. How fuckin dare you? he croaked. You don’t know a damn thing about her.

  Don’t talk to her like that, LeBlanc said. She’s just tryin—

  I’m goin to bed, Raymond said, backing into his room. He slammed the door and fell onto the bed, his head swimming, his mouth dry. Water would feel so good—beer, even better. And as that thought crossed his mind, he knew they were probably right. It was best not to strain his tenuous sobriety, even for good reasons. If only he had the energy to get up, go find them, and apologize. But then, he had been right, too. He just wanted sleep, needed it. That was all.

  Soon Raymond fell into a fitful slumber, still fully dressed, his hand aching. If he dreamed, he did not remember.

  McDowell stared at the ceiling for a long time, her mind running a hundred miles an hour. Raymond had never spoken to her that way before, but it had come from an honest place. She had felt the pain and the worry radiating off him like fever. McDowell worried, too—about Raymond, about going back to the diner and how she would handle whatever happened there, about the people they were trying to protect. So much stress, so little peace of mind—how did Raymond and LeBlanc do it every day?

  All those ghost stories, especially Red Thornapple’s, seemed to show their lives depended so much on chance—this person meeting that one, accident A avoided, relationship B consummated. If one variable were changed, whole existences might never be. What did that mean for the decisions they were making here? What world were they ensuring? What lives were they devastating without even realizing it?

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  September 15, 2016—Comanche, Texas

  Raymond awoke the next morning and—seeing the deer head mounted on the wall, plus the window treatments—had no idea where he was. Not in the hotel, and not at home, where nothing hung on the windows but the plain, deep-bruise-colored sheets he had tacked up after Marie died. The old curtains had been hers. She had sewn them herself, working at night while Raymond watched the news and the talk shows or slept in his recliner. After she died, just looking at them hurt, so he took them down and folded them up and shoved them deep in his linen closet.

  These curtains, blue with an arabesque pattern, looked like nothing he would pick out. A cedar dresser stood against the far wall, a forty-two-inch television on top of it. It came to him—Red Thornapple’s house. Still, he felt like all those times when he would awaken in a strange place, sometimes among people he could not recall meeting, more often alone, his mouth tasting like a rotting whale’s anus and his head pounding fit to burst.

  He sat up and scratched his cheek, feeling his palm rasp against two days’ growth of beard. Yesterday had been exhausting—Roark’s visit, their drive to Thornapple’s, the strategy session, the pain in his hand, the argument with McDowell and LeBlanc.

  When Raymond emerged, the others were already up, and Thornapple had left. Everyone took long, hot showers and drank coffee. Raymond and McDowell muttered apologies to each other and then said little else. He swallowed two BC Powders he found in Thornapple’s bathroom and kept the rest of the box close.

  The living room’s clutter did not extend to the rest of the house, which seemed tidy in places, almost Spartan in others. When LeBlanc mentioned the dissimilarity last night, Thornapple shrugged and said, A lot of the shit in the den was here when my daddy was a boy. The rest of it I’ve brought in from hither and yon. I mostly just lay it somewhere and then never get around to storin it. My housekeeper fixes up the rest of the place once a week, whether it needs it or not.

  Raymond liked the newspaperman. Their houses had much in common.

  Thornapple had left a note on the kitchen’s granite countertop—Johnstone had gone to work, and they should make themselves at home. Wielding a spatula in his good hand, Raymond helped McDowell cook an enormous breakfast of eggs with hot sauce, bacon strips, sausage patties, and hash browns.

  Everyone ate and washed the food down with more coffee until they felt awake, alert, on edge. Frost and LeBlanc washed dishes. Raymond found a screening of The Quiet Man on American Movie Classics. They all gathered around and watched it. Despite their stress and anticipation, the caffeine wore off, and everyone but Raymond fell asleep before the movie ended, so he was the only one who heard the truck in the driveway just before 1 p.m.

  A moment later, Thornapple walked in, looking tired and sleepy. He saw everyone curled up on his furniture, nodded at Raymond, and said, I got your ammo in the truck. You ought to be able to gun down a whole regiment of ghosts.

  Raymond gave him a thumbs-up. Thornapple headed for the kitchen, where he proceeded to bang pots and pans until everyone woke up. Soon the smell of frying meat filled the air. As if he knew what the racket had wrought, Thornapple poked his head around the corner and called, I’m fryin up some steaks and steamin broccoli. Hope y’all are hungry.

  They looked at each other, yawning. Raymond found he could eat again. Perhaps the idea of battling a ghost for the lives of a passel of strangers worked up an appetite. His hand was starting to throb, so he downed another BC. In fifteen minutes or so, Thornapple called them to the table. McDowell and Frost ate small pieces of steak and some of the broccoli. Raymond ate a decent helping of both, though Frost had to cut the meat. LeBlanc ate two steaks and a pile of broccoli big enough to choke a tiger.

  No wonder Darrell shits three or four times a day.

  As they finished, Thornapple asked, So when do we leave?

  Raymond pushed his plate away. You don’t leave. In an hour or so, Betsy will go to the mayor’s place, and Jake will meet Bradley. Me and Darrell will head to the diner around four, in case C.W.’s too stubborn to listen.

  Thornapple tapped his fingers on the tabletop. I don’t much like other folks doin my fightin for me.

  Right now, we can do our jobs better if we know you’re safe. If we need your help, I got every confidence you can more than pull your weight.

  I don’t know how long I can keep your brother-in-law at home, McDowell said. He ain’t exactly a sensitive m
an.

  Raymond reached over and patted her hand. If you can delay him even five minutes, you’ll be a big help. Jake, you still game to help Bradley?

  Yes, said Frost. If you won’t let me try to make contact, then performing a ritual to sever a ghost from the earthly plane is a pretty good second choice.

  How does Bob plan to get the boots out of the station? Thornapple asked.

  He’s the chief, said Raymond. I reckon he can check somethin out if he wants to.

  And if somethin stops him?

  No one had an answer to that.

  Johnstone returned around 2:30, just as McDowell and Frost were leaving. McDowell drove Thornapple’s old work truck toward the mayor’s house, a set of directions complete with hand-drawn map sitting on the seat next to her in case she lost her phone signal. Frost took Thornapple’s new Chevy, a candy-apple red extended cab with GPS. In the back seat, Thornapple had stashed a shotgun and a box of salt rounds. Frost had never fired a gun in his life, but he felt confident even he could hit something with a shotgun. He only hoped it would not be Bob Bradley or his own foot. McDowell left first, the truck kicking up a plume of dust that hung in the air. Frost followed until the GPS told him to turn. He waved, even though McDowell probably did not notice. It seemed like the right thing to do.

  Bob Bradley entered the station after a late lunch. He carried his old duffel bag. Grooming his skinny black mustache with a pair of scissors and a handheld mirror, Sergeant Gomez greeted Bradley at the desk. The chief headed for his office, thankful for his small force. Every other officer on duty was patrolling the town, and Gomez would not leave the desk unless he had to piss, which would carry him away from where Bradley intended to be—the evidence locker. Once everything had happened and the dust had settled, the chief would likely lose his job, but that could not be helped. He got paid to protect the town, and with all the weird events of the last few weeks, it seemed possible that torching those boots might be the only way to do it. That theory sounded crazy in daylight, but it felt real after dark, when you lay in bed with the covers pulled up and a tree branch scraped against your window screen like talons. Another thing he had never told anyone—he always felt a chill when passing the depot, even with gray in his hair and a gun on his hip. Plus, he still had no explanation for the kinds of injuries the victims had suffered. The county coroner had determined Lorena Harveston and John Wayne died because their internal organs had been churned into soup, but no one had determined any weapon or object or illness capable of that kind of damage. And so, in the absence of other possibilities, Bradley had to accept the notion—privately, at least—that the ghost of the Piney Woods Kid had killed them. He would burn the boots and gun belt and deal with C.W. Roark later. No matter what happened, he would be able to sleep at night.