by Lon Williams
Bogie filled two glasses and took his pay. In McGuffy he discerned birth of a new spirit, surcease of trouble, contentment after sorrow. A cat in similar situation, thought Bogie, would have begun to purr.
In Whit Pettigrew, Bogie detected a contradiction of qualities. Friendliness— insincerity. Generosity—leonine voracity. If Pettigrew had suddenly gobbled up his charmed captive, Bogie would have been surprised, though not bewildered. Professor Pettigrew was a consummate actor. Bogie himself felt a hypnotic tug; slightly shaken, he grabbed a bar-rag and moved out of range.
A moment later his batwings swung out. McGuffy, under Pettigrew’s gentle guidance, was leaving. Bogie shook his head; he was glad it was McGuffy, not he, who was leaving in such weird company.
Outside, Pettigrew drew McGuffy’s arm under his own. “Your remarks, McGuffy, about sunsets and sweeping clouds, were divine. With your reasonable cooperation, I shall show you how to ride upon a cloud and live forever in sunset glory. You, I happen to know, have much money on your person, but it means nothing to you; it is only a part of that mundane imperfection which has brought you disillusionment, unfitted you for life among creatures of blemish and sordid aims. Stars should be your companions, your abode a realm of untarnished blue.”
Night-wind brushed McGuffy’s warm cheeks and cooled them. Fascination slowly yielded to his acquired fixation of fault-finding. As Pettigrew’s oily tongue raced along, McGuffy began to think of his companion as a windbag who was not to be trusted. Uneasiness increased when he realized they were passing along an unlighted street—now and then in moonlight, but mostly in shadow. Of Bogannon’s saloon, they’d passed out of sight; Goodlett’s porch lamp grew dim.
Suddenly McGuffy stopped, pulled against Pettigrew’s clamping arm. “All this rosy palaver is missing its objective, whatever it is. Something warns me that I should go back; so…goodnight.”
McGuffy gave his arm a jerk.
But Pettigrew held it tight. “Now, now, sir. Of course I would not deny your wish to do as you please, but do allow me to release you like a gentleman.” He relaxed his hold, and McGuffy sighed. But something had moved behind them; something tapped McGuffy’s head, not crushingly, but hard enough to weaken his knees.
He had a sinking sensation, then one of being carried into a building and down a stairway. He regained full consciousness in a lighted cellar, but only to find himself unclothed and strapped securely on his back on a long, narrow workbench. He tried to speak, but discovered he could not; he’d been gagged. He turned his head sideways and saw Professor Pettigrew seated on a tall, sturdy wooden stool.
Pettigrew’s flabby lips moved loosely. “You should not have trusted me at all, McGuffy; else, you should have trusted me more.” His voice was low, but minus its former rich melody. Pettigrew glanced up and nodded.
McGuffy’s eyes followed that glance. What he saw filled him with horror. It hardly looked human—but it had to be, of course. He was a man with long legs, short torso, huge lumpy shoulders, and a small round head stuck down between them. He stood by and blinked at McGuffy.
McGuffy tried to scream. “Help!” he squeaked. Futility of that squeak appalled him truly; he broke into a cold sweat.
“Meet my efficient friend, Wheezy Mainrod,” said Pettigrew. “Mainrod is a true artist; his specialty is carving. Many a carcass has yielded to his manipulating, slicing touch. You complain, McGuffy, of universal imperfection. Well, here is an artist who is perfect; ordinarily he makes his operations painless by a quick throat-slice, but at my request he will proceed contrarily in your case. You will suffer, naturally, but ample compensation will be yours in observing a flawless artist at his work. Proceed, Mainrod.”
Wheezy Mainrod moved around to McGuffy’s feet. He caught a toe between thumb and index finger of his left hand. In his right he held a long knife, its blade a-glitter with sharpness. “Now, me,” he wheezed, “I likes to start with little pieces, and work from there.”
“Your pleasure is mine,” responded Professor Pettigrew. He pulled a bloody canvas bag from a wall hook and tossed it at Mainrod’s feet. “Put that by your workbench; it will avoid double work.” McGuffy felt sick, felt himself drifting away into a mixed state of dream and fantasy. Mercy’s gentle hand thus soothed his brow, closed his eyes against another horror that was about to pass by night in Forlorn Gap. Darkness drew its benign veil…
* * * *
Deputy-Marshal Lee Winters had gone to bed, but he was not asleep. Beside him lay his beautiful wife Myra, her gentle face kissed by moonbeams. Her breathing was even, slow, untroubled. When on long, lonely rides he’d taken to count his blessings, he’d thought first of her. Visions of a peaceful life lured him then—a quiet spot in some un-preempted valley, where he could raise cattle, horses, food, and a family. But somewhere he’d heard, or read, a doleful, fatalistic declaration: There is a destiny that shapes our end. Despite that lure of a peaceful life, he would go on, he knew, until a destiny greater than his own volition had shaped his end. It made his skin damp to think of what that end might be.
After his encounter with Wheezy Mainrod on Pangborn Road, Lee hadn’t ridden directly home. He’d spent several hours in his office, going through reward posters—scrutinizing pictures of wanted monkeys; giving long study to occasional baboons whom creation had designed for great things but in whose assembly a few screws had been omitted. Run-of-mine gunmen he knew how to meet; it was primarily a matter of being first to draw and trigger. But these geniuses scared him. They lived in two worlds, one of which he was not privileged to enter. Into that exclusive realm, they retired for inspiration, to conceive dark deeds, to emerge with cunningly-wrought schemes which they concealed underneath a cloak of apparent sanity. More than likely, Winters feared, it was one of those two-world apes who’d eventually shape his end. Thinking of it made him weak and angry.
Mail from Brazerville next morning sent him on a two-day, grim chase of a grizzled varmint who’d shot up and robbed a merchant at Rocky Point. Tense and stubborn, tormented by a bullet scratch along his left side, Winters rode back at night across Alkali Flat. He almost wished some ghost would tackle him; he was that thoroughly in a killing mood. Possibly his mood diffused itself across Alkali. At any rate, nothing more than eerie sounds molested him.
“Winters!” exclaimed Doc Bogannon, as his batwings squeaked and Deputy Winters strode in. “You’re just in time for a nightcap. My friend and I were just about to indulge; join us, by all means.” Winters approached their table as Bogie got up. He stared at Bogie’s new friend, an irregular mass of flabby skin and loose-jointed bones.
“Deputy Winters,” said Bogie proudly, “my good friend Professor Whitson Pettigrew. We’ve been having a most charming visit with each other.”
Winters did not offer to shake hands, nor did Pettigrew undertake to rise.
“A pleasure, Officer Winters. Any friend of Bogannon is a friend of Whitson Pettigrew; sit down.”
Winters took Bogie’s chair, faced Pettigrew. “I suppose you and Doc have been discussing philosophy?”
Professor Pettigrew smiled indulgently. “You could call it that.”
Bogie returned with a glass for Winters. He filled it with wine. “Have a good trip, Winters?” Winters displayed a currency holder full of money and passed a dollar to Bogie. “A mean trip, Doc. A longhaired mongrel refused to surrender; I had to shoot him.”
“You came off lucky, as usual,” observed Bogannon, pocketing his dollar bill.
Winters thought of his bullet-scratch, felt its persistent sting. “Luck explains it, Doc; and I’ve got a feelin’ my luck’s likely to play out someday, along about when I’m ready to quit chasin’ these gun-totin’ polecats. I’d quit right now, but I never seem to come to a good quittin’ place.”
Professor Pettigrew leaned forward slightly. “That reminds me, Winters; there’s a matter I’d like to call to your attention as a law officer.”
“Name it.”
“But let’s enjoy our wine,” s
aid Bogannon. “Winters has had enough excitement for a while.”
“Very well,” agreed Pettigrew. “Let us drink first.”
* * * *
Winters sipped wine and, through narrowed eyelids, studied Whit Pettigrew. Pettigrew’s face reminded him vaguely of one he’d seen among his pictures of wanted monkeys. Anyhow—here was a genius, he thought. Pettigrew had a fine big head, wavy, thick black hair. Some ways he reminded Winters of Doc Bogannon, too. He’d been born for great things; undoubtedly he was possessed of an intellect of marked superiority.
But then Winters’ eyelids froze. He’d seen a strange light in Pettigrew’s eyes, a gleam of carnivorous ferocity. He felt a chill suddenly, and then alkali dust, dissolving in fresh cold sweat, began to burn his skin.
“Doc, where’s that vinegar bowl you used to keep around?”
Bogie stared at him, surprised. “Oh, sure, Winters; I’ll get it.”
Lee followed him. No words passed between them while Winters washed his face in vinegar, but the deputy had time to think. When they were seated again, Winters glanced casually at Bogie.
“Doc, what’s become of your hard-to-please friend McGuffy?”
Doc scratched a corner of his spacious forehead. “McGuffy? Oh, yes…McGuffy. Why, I haven’t seen McGuffy lately.”
Professor Pettigrew leaned forward, smiled brightly. “McGuffy? Was it McGuffy who could not see life’s charm because of life’s imperfections?”
“No less,” said Bogie. “Ah, I remember now; he went out with you a few evenings ago. Hasn’t been back since.”
Pettigrew sank back. “McGuffy,” he mused. “What a charming person McGuffy turned out to be. Yes, we left here together; we had a most delightful stroll by moonlight. Talked of many things. As a result McGuffy, I’m sure, found himself. You’ll hear no more complaints from him, I venture. Life, as he now sees it, is not something imperfect and repulsive, but an experience of transcendent beauty. McGuffy, I happen to know, has left Forlorn Gap—returned to where he came from. And from all indications, I am confident he won’t be back.”
Winters shoved back his chair. “All I’ve got to say is, Forlorn Gap has lost a first-class bellyacher.” He got up and shifted his belt to give his six-gun a proper feel at his hip. “Enjoyed our nightcap, Doc; goodnight.” He turned to leave. This was one time he couldn’t get away fast enough.
“But wait, Winters!” Professor Pettigrew shoved back his chair and wobbled up. “You forget, Winters; I had to see you on official business.”
Winters caught a quick breath; his face was wet. Pettigrew came flapping after him, preceded him out, beckoned Winters to follow.
Doc Bogannon shook his head, as if awaking from sleep. He gathered up bottle and empty glasses, glanced at his watch, observed that it was midnight. His mind cleared. That man Pettigrew, he realized now, had almost put him under a spell. Now, also, he remembered more vividly about Aloysius McGuffy—remembered his departure with Professor Pettigrew and under what strange fascination Pettigrew had held McGuffy. He thought of a queer look he’d seen in Pettigrew’s eyes, queer talk from his eloquent tongue.
Suddenly he was gripped by a clammy fear for Winters. “Winters!” he shouted. When no answer came, he ran out and looked up and down Forlorn Gap’s lonely, deserted main street. A low half-moon cast long shadows that lay black upon dust and barren walls. “Winters!” he yelled. Still there was no answer; worried to near distraction, Doc tramped back inside, and sat down to wait.
* * * *
Pettigrew was saying to Winters in low tones of confidence, “What I had in mind to tell you is that a crime, I fear, has been committed in your town.”
“Nothing startling about that,” said Winters. He’d heard Bogannon’s distraught call, but gave no intimation thereof to Pettigrew. “Nor is this what I’d call a good hour for investigations.”
“True,” said Pettigrew, “but this is exceptional. I have a habit—a foolish one, I admit—of walking abroad at night. Recently, I heard groans in a deserted building and peering through a cranny I saw a man with a knife. A grotesque creature, he was. I could not see his victim, but I did see him lift his knife and plunge it down hard. Groans ceased then; undoubtedly that plunge was a death-thrust. Needless to say, I was frightened. Ah, it was that building there. Bless me, there’s a light in it now. You, as an officer, perhaps should go see what, I dare say, will curdle your blood.”
Winters stepped aside. “I never go before; it’s impolite. You go.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Pettigrew. He stepped in front of Winters and proceeded slowly, bending forward to peer cautiously at a streak of light.
Winters wished for a thousand eyes. He expected something violent to befall him at every moment—an object dropped on him from a roof; a snare pulled tight around his feet; a knife-thrust into his back; a clubbing blow on his head; some monster leaping at him from a dark recess.
Pettigrew stopped abruptly. “Look there!” he whispered. “There’s a cellar under that building. Something’s moving—”
This, Winters knew, was a critical moment. They had just passed a narrow space between buildings, shrouded in black shadow. Something undoubtedly was hiding there; this pretense of caution and discovery put on by Pettigrew had but one object—to distract Winters’ attention from a trap which had been set for him.
Winters heard a noise; vaguely he saw a misshapen creature leaping upon him. Winters whipped up his six-gun and fired. A club descended toward his head, missed, but jarred his left shoulder. He fired again—point-blank—at a small, round head that silhouetted itself against sky. Two flailing arms closed around his neck. He stepped backward to struggle free, tripped and fell. His breath went out under a dead weight that had fallen with him.
Above, towered Professor Pettigrew, gun in hand. Fire blazed downward. A slug, intended for whatever it might hit, buried itself in a body already dead. Winters’ gun had caught under his back. He tugged to get it free, at last succeeded. He aimed at Pettigrew’s chin; two guns blazed as one.
* * * *
In his saloon by a table Doc Bogannon swabbed a perspiring face. When his batwings swung in, he stared, horrified. “Winters! You’re killed.” Winters strode forward and eased himself into a chair. “A little arnica, Doc; I’ve got a bruised shoulder.”
“Winters, you’ve got blood all over your face and neck!”
“Not my blood, Doc. You might fetch a bowl of water, too, and a towel.”
Bogie, about to drop, stumbled off and poured himself a drink of whiskey. He came back with water in a wash basin and a towel over his arm.
“Winters, what happened?”
Winters stood, bent forward and washed his face. He was painstaking and slow with both water and towel. At last he sat down, looked at Bogie and drew a deep, shuddering breath. “Doc, you want to know what happened? Well, I’ll tell you. I ran into a wool-merchant. And something else, Doc. If you want to stay out of trouble, take my advice; don’t ever have no truck with a wool-merchant.”
MASTER OF INDECISION
Real Western Stories, April 1953
Deputy Marshal Lee Winters left Rocky Point at noon and traveled by way of Cow Creek and Elkhorn Pass. This was ten miles farther, but he figured on its being much safer than that ghost-infested wasteland of Alkali Flat. Even by this longer route, he counted on reaching Forlorn Gap and home comforts with Myra Winters, his good-looking wife, at least two hours before midnight.
He was three hours out of Elkhorn and riding by moonlight, when he began to wonder whether he shouldn’t have gone by Alkali Flat after all. From Elkhorn Pass to Forlorn Gap ran an ancient, lonesome road. White men did not much concern themselves about its past. It was merely a means of getting from one gold town to another, haunted because of stagecoach robberies and murders along its course, but no more forbidding to mad gold-hunters than any other cutthroat trail.
Deputy Winters, however, recalled something Doc Bogannon’s half-breed wife had said about it; an a
ncient warriors’ path, Athi-ami-owee, she’d called it, a trail where Shoshone braves had tramped to and fro to test their metal against enemy tribes in far-off valleys. It had been a death-trail, too, where warrior bands fell in bloody ambush. There were always haunts in a place like this.
Winters had half-expected to tie in with a ghost or two on this winding cliff-lined road, but he hadn’t expected to get his daylights scared out. He didn’t see anything; he just heard a voice that came out of a wall of solid rock. It was a spook’s voice, of course, for only a spook could live within a crackless, holeless cliff.
It was a quick, hollow voice, hard and mirthless. It said, “Going somewhere, stranger?”
Winters drew rein, hand dropping to six-gun. “What’s that?”
It came again. “No use to hurry, stranger. Time and tide have already passed you by. What difference does it make, whether you die tonight or tomorrow? Tarry a while, rest your weary bones, and renew acquaintances with departed souls. You are closer to Happy Hunting Ground than you think.”
Winters wanted no truck with disembodied spirits. He lifted bridle leather and gigged with spurs. His horse, Cannon Ball, leaped into action; his clattering hoofs filled canyon and night with wild echoes. Winters looked back at every turn, expecting to see pursuers, but except for him and his speeding horse, Athi-ami-owee was a lonely, deserted road.
