by J. P. Sloan
“This ain’t for me,” I push. “This is for Gil.”
His eyes droop. “I’m sure he’ll be fine with what I pressed.”
“I got enough unsettled business in this town as it is, Holcomb. I don’t want to have to ride back in with the Godpistols and deal with a slope-assed, light-fingered sumbitch on top of a whole mess of man-eaters.”
“You won’t.”
I gave him a little extra measure of hard-eye before pocketing the bullets.
“I’ll be back, anyways.”
He mumbles, “I doubt that.”
“You think we’re going to leave a mess like this God-blasted little town be?”
“How’d you make out with Katherina?” he replies with an edge to his smile.
“Hmm?”
“Folger’s wife? You make a move on her?”
I don’t answer.
“Mmm hmm. How’d that play out for you?”
“Not so good. She’s quicker than I figured.”
“She’s Strigoi. What did you expect?”
“Not what I saw.”
“Didn’t figure you had it in you to kill her.” He hangs a pair of tongs on a nail. “Can’t say I’m sorry to hear it.”
“How can you say that?”
He snarls. “Between the two of us, which one is actually a Godpistol?”
I set my jaw, but keep my mouth shut.
“I don’t know what you think you’re trying to play at, but you ain’t no Godpistol. We never ride alone. We never go in against a Strigoi by our lonesome. We hunt in packs because we ain’t got a chance otherwise.”
“This weren’t exactly my choice, Holcomb.”
“I believe that. Look, whatever your name is. If there’s a good God in Heaven, you’ll be gone from here before you get people killed.”
I put on my hat and shake my head. “I’ll confess it. I was stupid with Folger’s wife. I lost my grip on my weapon. But I didn’t lose no nerve. When I come back with the others, I’ll settle accounts with her, sure enough. Her and Richterman.”
Holcomb lifts a brow and leans into me. “Got it out for Richterman, all of a sudden?”
I lower my voice. “I figure we both know what Richterman is.”
“I suppose that’s possible.”
“Man’s a strigger, if I have his bearing. I’ll reckon with him soon enough.”
The smithy hunkers down onto his stool with a weary sigh. “Blood-suckers and crook-assed cannibals. You got more reckoning comin’ than you got piss in your britches.”
“Shit. The cannibals, too. Nearly forgot.”
“I suggest you keep them forgot. All of them, and all of us. Ride to Cheyenne and keep riding.”
I wave off his words and tip my hat. “When I ride back with the Godpistols, we’ll clear ‘em out. All of ‘em. Cannibals. Richterman.”
Holcomb drops his chin and chuckles. “Son, you are just looking to die, aren’t you?”
“I ain’t your son.”
“Listen… Odell? That right?”
I nod.
He steps forward with a sour twist on his mouth. “You got everything figured wrong, Odell. That Folger’s a good man, but he’s all tangled up with Richterman. It’s likely the two can’t part ways lest one or the other gets killed. Now, if you think on it, would you rather see a man like Richterman left standing? Or Folger? You think on that, and you think hard. And then you try and figure what good it’d do to turn his wife into a monster in his mind.”
“The woman’s a monster, Holcomb, no matter what I tell him. Or don’t tell him. She’s still a monster.”
“I’ve met my share of monsters in life, Odell. Most of them were human.” He adds as he turns away, “And we don’t hunt human.”
My patience with this man has run powerful thin, so I step half out into the street before giving him one last tip of my hat. “Can’t say it’s been a pleasure.”
I return to Ripper, sunlight gleaming off his chestnut shanks, and think about what Holcomb had said. He had a poor opinion of me, that much was a fact. And though he was right about me not being a full Godpistol just yet, he didn’t know me from Adam. What right did he have to level that venom on me? After all, he was holed up in this town by choice. He hadn’t lit out yet, or Richterman hadn’t seen fit to run him out. It could be that Holcomb wanted my hide clear of town before I called his past to Richterman’s attention.
Or it could be that, like myself, Holcomb had come partial to Folger’s innocence, protecting him out of sense of loyalty, letting him sleep with a devil before he broke his heart. Maybe Folger was the reason Holcomb had stayed in Gold Vein? Waiting. Waiting for his wife to cross some line he drew in his mind.
The time had come for me, however. I had my bullets. I had my horse. I was alive and whole. Hell, I even had a new hat. It was time to steer to Cheyenne and Gil. A few days hard riding, and I’d be where I could do some good.
So why was I steering back for Folger’s homestead?
Holcomb was right. It would ruin Folger if I killed his wife. And that was the problem. He didn’t see the creature as a creature. He saw it as a woman. He loved it as a woman. He needed― no, he deserved to know the truth. Hell, it was probably in his head to begin with, just hadn’t owned up to it yet. It would be bitter water for him to drink, but someone had to bring him to the trough. Perhaps the Good Lord had brought me into those cannibal hills to be that person? Riding on without trying would have been the cowardly choice.
And I had had my fill of that particular poison.
wo of Scarlow’s deputies keep a modest distance as I exit town, following me for a good ways until they decide I’m either in no danger or pose no danger to them. Buzzards. The rest of the ride is quiet, and not the kind of quiet that puts nerves to rest. It’s the quiet that sends them up into the skin.
It’s when I round the third hill past the Hitchenses’ ranch that I hear the screaming. I fight my urge to kick Ripper to a gallop, falling back instead on Gil’s training. I can’t know what’s happening beyond the last low ridge, and blundering right into the middle of a fight is a dandy way to get myself killed. I dismount and trot through the grass to the highest line of ground before catching sight of Folger’s stead.
I spot two lithe, fierce figures haunting his front door. They’re lean, bony, wearing little more than rags. I keep my head low and move inside the grass to catch a better look. I make it close to the side of the house before stopping. Someone’s moving around inside Folger’s house. I can hear voices. Well, one voice, and a mess of pained noises.
I fish out my gun, tempted to load the two empty chambers with my new bullets. I decide against it, though. These bullets are for Gil, and I still have shots ready to unload.
I ease up onto the house, pressing against the clapboards. I recognize the voice inside now.
The Parson.
Looks like the cannibals found their way to the Folger homestead. Probably followed my scent. I may well have brought Hell down onto Folger, like it or not.
I sidle along the side of the house, inching to the front. If I learned anything from my last run-in with these bone-chewing ghouls, it was that I can’t go toe-to-toe with even one without ending up eaten. But they’ll go down quick enough with silver.
The two lean-faced ghouls are still haunting the front of the house. I can hear them twitching around in the tall grass. I have no clue how many made it inside the house excepting the Parson, hisself. There is one other soul in there with him. I can hear the groaning, and the voice is fading fast. I have to move.
Two ghouls, two bullets. That’ll bring me down to two slugs left in my gun. I’d have to leave one for the Parson, and one more for whatever else he has in store for me inside. The only way to survive this is to move quick. Pull and fire. Move into the house and fire. Got to be quick. They’ll tear me to pieces if I hesitate.
I round the corner.
Remington’s up.
First cannibal turns to face me. Ugly. Skin pu
lled so tight against his cheeks it looks like it’s about to split.
I fire a round directly into his chest. He goes down in a heap.
His companion, a fair-skinned woman with long gray hair as fitting on a corpse as anywhere, snarls at me. A line of spit falls out of her mouth as she reaches with gnarled fingers. These things ain’t as fast as striggers, but she moves quick enough to close the distance between us before I throw a silver slug into the front of her face. The back of her head blows out in a red spray, and she drops onto my boots.
That’s two shots in a couple seconds. They’d have heard the shots inside. Can’t dither. Got to move.
I pull open the door and raise the pistol to the dark opening.
A familiar voice spills out. “Ah, my lost little lamb.”
I inch forward, squinting into the space inside Folger’s house. I make out the Parson’s face, wide-rimmed hat set on his skeletal head. His eyes hover in deep sockets over a toothy grin. I can’t tell if he’s smiling or if his condition has rendered his body into a walking skeleton.
His hands wrap around a slumped body, holding it up in front of his own. He’s shielding hisself against my silver. No easy shot. Can’t pull and fire on this sumbitch without clipping his hostage.
I slow my brain and take the situation in. The body he’s holding up is broad and young. Dusty travel clothes. His head is slumped down onto his chest, but I can tell by his hair it ain’t Folger.
Who the hell is this, then?
The Parson calls out, “You really must stop depriving me of my flock, son. Magner’s likely to lose his patience with you.”
“Where’s Folger?” I growl.
The Parson shakes his head and wrestles his hostage higher up his body. “I’m not interested in Denton Folger, friend.”
I notice his hostage is missing most of his leg. Looks like the two ghouls outside got paid in flesh before I arrived.
“Why don’t you just let your friend there go, Parson. I’ll end your suffering. Send you home to the Lord nice and easy.”
“The Lord?” he wheezes. “What right do you have to tutor me on the Lord? I’ve lived the gospel my whole life, son!”
“That may be, but you’ve gone and caught yourself a curse. Now, I don’t know how the Good Lord cottons to cursed bodies, but if I was in His shoes, I’d be keeping account of all these people you’re chewing on. You can’t want this.”
His eyes narrow. There it is. Something human still lurking inside that head.
“He wants Richterman,” the Parson mutters.
“Tell Magner he ain’t here.”
“Not Magner, you dolt. Him!”
The Parson shoves his hostage across the room with infernal strength. The dead weight of the body slams into me, knocking me down out of the doorway. I lose my grip on my pistol and shuffle aside to secure it. Once I push the body off me, I swing to my knees and search the house.
Empty.
The Parson leaves me with two dead bone-chewers and whoever this poor bastard is who’s bleeding on my new britches. I roll him over into the prairie grass and inspect his face. He’s familiar, but I can’t put a name to him. After sweeping left and right over the tall grass and the inside of the house, I’m confident the Parson done lit out for good. I holster the Remington and pull the stranger up into the house.
His leg is bad. Chewed off at the knee, and I do mean chewed. His face is pale, probably done lost too much blood to survive this. Not a lot I can do for this man. Not a man, really. More like a boy on the cusp of manhood.
I ease him along the floorboards until my knee hits something hard. I turn to find a Winchester rifle.
Then it hits me.
This is the Hitchens boy.
I give his face a turn and rub some life into it.
“You alive?” I whisper.
His eyes move behind the lids, but there ain’t nothing left in him to open them.
I settle his head against the floor and take a quick inventory of the room. Looks like a hell of a fight broke out in here. Pots and dryin’ herbs scattered across the ground. Chairs and table turned over.
But where is Folger?
I hear a noise from the bedroom.
It isn’t a happy noise.
I pull my gun once again, just to be sure. By my count I got two silver slugs left. Ought to be enough to handle whatever Hell sits behind that door.
I reach out for the latch and give it a gentle push.
Coughing.
From behind me.
I turn to see the Hitchens boy leaning up just a bit. His eyes are open. His arms just strong enough to lift his rifle.
And a finger just strong enough to pull the trigger.
A white-hot pain slices through my side, sending me spinning back into the door. My head slams into the boards just before the rest of me hammers down onto the floor. My hand lifts with a quick jerk and I fire. Instinct. War reflexes. I don’t think about it. I just up and fire.
Hitchens’s head blows out against the underside of the overturned table, and his torso drops, his last whole leg twitching.
I reach down and grip my side. Jesus shit. Sumbitch shot me.
It takes a good minute to pull myself upright, wincing against the pain, but I manage it.
I shove myself against the floor to Folger’s bed, planning to pull myself up with aid of the bed frame, when I spot a pair of boots behind the bed.
Folger.
The sight of Folger’s body shoots some steel into my spine, and I make it to my feet. I shuffle over his bed to find him lying on the floor. Looks like Hitchens put a round into him, as well. His hand rests limp over a wide red stain in his gut, but his chest rises and falls. He’s breathing, at least.
Gut shots are hard to climb back from. I gnash down on my teeth as I reach around my back. I can feel a length of wet linen on my back. And a hole. Good. Through-wound. No bullet left inside me to fester.
I got short odds on surviving this, but I probably faired better than Folger. What in Hell’s name possessed that Hitchens boy to come gunning for Folger? Last I saw them, they was all packed and bound north for the Nebraska Territory.
Don’t rightly matter at the moment. The day is still young, plenty of sunlight left to keep Folger’s strigger wife bound down in the cellar. Meanwhile Folger and I are bleeding upstairs.
I pull my head out of the clouds and reach for his bed. The linen sheets are easy enough to rip if I put my teeth to them. Which I do. I start ripping linen strips until I get a long string of rags ready. My shirt sticks to my body, and pulling it off takes some work, especially with a hole punched directly through my side. I manage to shimmy it off and start rigging myself a field dressing around my midsection. I’ll survive if I don’t bleed out, and if the fever don’t set in. Fevers move slow, though. I’ll have a chance if I can make it to sundown.
Assuming Folger’s wife is up to healing a slope-assed Godpistol twice in the space of a week.
Folger, on the other hand, ain’t looking as solid. I need to inspect his wound. I reach down to ease him off the floor, when his eyes open. I jump and suck in a breath.
He gives me a cough, and his lips start working at words that don’t quite slide into sound.
“Take it easy, Denton,” I mutter. “Gotta check you out.”
He nods, and I roll him to his side. He hisses as I get him to his unpunctured side. I spot what I was hoping to spot. Blood pool on the floor. More important, a bloody circle on the back of his jacket. It means he’s bleeding, and good at that. It also means a through-wound like my own. Just gotta stop the bleeding.
It’s work dressing his wound. Hard work. He’s lost more strength than I have, which wasn’t all that considerable to begin with. By the time I have him wrapped tight, his blood is already soaking through the new bandages, but his eyes are open and watching me.
“You still alive, Denton?” I mumble as I tie off the last bandage. “Or am I off the hook for the hat and britches?”
&
nbsp; He coughs through a laugh and waves his hand.
“Don’t try to talk,” I say. “You’re shot through the gut. It’s through and through. You’ll live if you don’t bleed out or take the fever.”
Another cough, and his lips move again.
“Did I not just tell you no talking?”
I catch his voice, finally, as he whispers, “How’s Chris?”
“Who’s Chris?”
He points to the door to his room, and I remember the Hitchens boy. I suppose his name was Chris. Whatever the sumbitch was called, he was the one who put a bullet through the both of us. And here’s Folger worrying over his dead body.
“He’s gone,” I answer.
Folger’s face pulls into some mix of grief and relief. It was a face I’d seen so often before in the War.
“The Parson lit out, though,” I offer. “Took down two of his bone-chewers before he ran off.”
“Uriah,” Folger gasps.
“Yeah. Or what used to be. Can’t say he’s the same man. Maybe he ain’t no kind of man, now.”
Maybe. Maybe not. I saw something in his eyes. I can’t let that go, either. I got to that bastardly piece of work, and I know it’s eating at him. What a Hell of a curse that is, to leave a mind inside its body while its soul has done passed on.
This is why the Godpistols do what we do. Such a thing ought never be.
“Don’t you worry about him, now,” I say as I bunch up what’s left of his bed dressings under his head. “You just got to hang in here with me until your wife can come out of her cellar. Do her craft to save you.”
His hand lifts, and he pats my stomach right against my dressings.
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” I mutter. “You and I are just lucky, is all.”
Folger’s eyes open with enough screw of the brow to question my sanity.
“We’re lucky,” I explain, “that the Hitchens boy decided to pack a Winchester into a short space like he did. Enough punch to knock a hole clean through the two of us, instead of leaving a hunk of lead in our guts.”
He nods with the thinnest of grins before he closes his eyes.
