by Lon Williams
Large stared at his companion. “But we smothered one. Wasn’t it a man name of Gate Lavin as we smothered?”
Ruppel stared into Large’s beady eyes. “Quim Large, you know what happen to that feller? We ought to locked him in a box, like ’em others.”
“Huh?”
Ruppel nodded his head vigorously. “What we ought to done, Quim, because that Laffin Gate sure resurrected hisself and lit out somewhere back there.”
Large shoved his hat back and scratched his bushy head. “You mean Gate got away? Umph! What we do now?” Ruppel ran his finger along as he read again. “Now,” he said, “it wants one as is starved to death.”
Quim Large was puzzled. “But one is to be smothered. Don’t it still want one as is smothered?”
Ruppel in turn was puzzled. “No,” he said with a vigorous shake. “That was him back there, that Laffin Gate. We done smothered him; it wants one now as is starved to death.” Ruppel stared at Large and jerked a thumb at Harry. “If we locks him in a box now, will he you reckon be starved to death agin we git to Saint Looey?”
Quim Large puckered his lips as if to whistle, though he did not whistle. “How many days is it to Saint Looey?”
“About a month, I figures.”
Large nodded slowly. “That would about make it; he ought to starve putty good in a month. How many we got now, Shadrack?”
Ruppel laid down his paper and counted on his fingers. “Nineteen it is, Quim.”
Large furrowed his swarthy brow. “But I figured this one was to make twenty, and we could start to Saint Looey.”
“So he was,” said Ruppel. “We miscounted somewhere.” Both of them studied hard, and then Ruppel got it. “It was that feller Laffin Gate, him as got away. That’s where our trouble is. We got to get him back, or somebody in his place.”
Large shook his head emphatically. “We never catch that one again; I figure he be too scared to stick around. But I figured this one was to make maybe. Shad Ruppel, what kind of man does it say it wants there?”
Ruppel studied his paper, ran his finger along as he read slowly. “It wants a man as is smothered. It wants a man as is lean and tough, with just nothing on his bones but muscle.”
“It’s that deputy marshal,” said Large. “I got him spotted. Right tonight I seed him, and I knows where to catch him.” Large stared at Ruppel, puzzlement on his rugged brow. “Shadrack Ruppel, why you reckon that man in Saint Looey want so many dead bodies?”
“Why, Quim, don’t you know? He sells ’em to these here doctor schools and such, where they cuts ’em up to see what’s inside of ’em. And he gives us a hundred dollars a head.”
“He does?” Large thought that over with slow comprehension. “Twenty heads would be twenty hundreds, wouldn’t it, Shad?”
“Just about, I figures.”
“And that would be how many hundreds apiece?”
Ruppel did some hard calculating, but gave it up. “You got me there, Quim. I guess that feller in Saint Looey can figure it for us.” Ruppel pivoted around on his bottom and stared at Harry. “Reckon we ought to fix him up, Quim?”
“I reckon so. He looks like he’d as soon be fixed up as not. You drag in a box and we’ll double him up and cram him in it. Might as well let him start starvin’ one time as another.”
* * * *
Ruppel went out and came back in a few minutes with a wooden box, two feet wide, three feet long and eighteen inches deep. It had a hinged lid which Ruppel unlatched and turned back. Harry Albatross kicked and tried to yell, but he was well trussed up and gagged, and it was no bother for Large and Ruppel to cram him into his narrow prison.
“Maybe he smother,” said Large.
“He be all right; they holes for air.”
“Maybe he freeze,” said Large.
“Not in cave. He freeze, though, if we take him out to wagon.”
“Ah,” said Large. “What about him as drives for you?”
“Let him drive some more,” said Ruppel, giving his ugly head a jerk. “Long as we got a dead man driving, them painted, whoopin’ Injerns won’t pester us.”
Ruppel closed Harry’s box and fastened its strap-latch. They lay down by their fire then and went to sleep. Harrison Abendroth soon heard them snoring ponderously. He tried to free his limbs, tried to ungag himself, but after a prolonged, fruitless effort, he gave up in sick despair.
* * * *
In his upstairs bedroom, Deputy Marshal Lee Winters lay awake beside his beautiful wife, Myra, who breathed softly in sleep, moonlight on her gentle face. Pressing heavily upon Winters’ brain was a premonition that this small, nuptial paradise was in dire peril of final and violent interruption. Some day, some night, he would ride out on a mission of deadly law enforcement and not return. What would become of Myra then? What would become of that peaceful life on a ranch in some quiet valley that he might have lived, had he known when to quit this war against wanted monkeys, bloodly scoundrels and homicidal maniacs?
Because it was wintertime, their bedroom window was open but a cranny, yet he could distinctly hear noises. Some were familiar, such as passing stagecoaches and riders. Others were familiar only in that he had heard them on other nights. Otherwise they were indefinable and alien to ordinary lands, though peculiarly one with that desolate and haunted region of Alkali Flat. Among those somber voices he heard, either in reality or in fancy, was one that chanted dolefully, “Stay away! Stay away!” It was long after midnight before he sank into tortured sleep.
* * * *
Next day he rode to Dead Horse Pass, on Brazerville Road. A letter from Marshal Hugo Landers of Brazerville advised that a robber, or robbers, had taken mail from an eastbound night stage at Dead Horse, and that striking a trail was imperative. Before sundown, Winters struck a trail, and what he found disclosed there had been three robbers. Winters always experienced heart flutter and cold perspiration when tracking just one bad customer; three bad ones made odds entirely unacceptable. He gave up and turned homeward. He would not send old Huggie a false report, however; he merely would not send any.
* * * *
It was close to another midnight when he again came within sight of home lights in Forlorn Gap. Chilled, aching bones turned his thoughts toward Doc Bogannon’s saloon.
Bogie’s place was still open for business, though customers had dwindled down to five. Four had a nip of wine and departed. Then there was but one, and being alone with him gave Bogie a bad case of shivers.
Quimby Large sat with huge humped shoulders at a table and watched Bogie, like a cat watching a mouse hole.
Bogie nervously polished his last glass. “Waiting for somebody?” he asked, casually.
“Huh?” said Large, startled. “Why, uh-huh. I been waiting long time for somebody.”
“Well,” said Bogie, “I regret to advise that it is time to close up and go home.”
“Ain’t midnight,” said Large. “You not close before midnight.”
Bogie looked at his watch. “Doesn’t lack enough to count. So—”
His door opened and closed with a bang.
“Winters!” Bogie exclaimed, stirred by relief and genuine pleasure. “Am I glad to see you!”
Winters came up, taking off his gloves. “A touch of wine, Doc; my bones feel like icicles.”
“I was just about to close up,” said Bogie. “Let’s make it a nightcap, with drinks on me.”
“You’re elected,” said Winters, turning to a table.
Bogie joined him with a bottle and two glasses. He spoke in a nervous, low voice. “Sure glad you dropped in, Winters. That ogre over there almost had me seeing ghosts. His name is Quimby Large, and I like neither his looks nor his smell.”
Winters saw a form more monstrous than human rise and come humping, rocking toward them. He slid his chair back a couple of feet to give his gun hand room for quick action.
Instead of a weapon, Quimby Large carried a paper in his right hand. He stopped, towering and stinking, above th
em. His beady eyes fixed themselves impassively upon Winters. “You Deputy Marshal Winters?”
Winters had a clammy sensation. “I am,” he said uneasily.
“Then take a look,” said Large. He handed his paper to Winters. It was a reward poster, its picture a likeness of one Ditney Gilmer, notorious robber of stagecoaches who had been hanged several years before. Large added, “Split halvers, and I tell you where you catch him.”
Winters furrowed his brow, perplexed and angry. Here was a filthy monkey who was up to no good. “Might trade you,” Winters said musingly.
“But not tonight,” said Bogie. “Winters, it’s late.”
“He be gone tomorrow,” said Large. Winters held his glass for more wine. Meanwhile he kept a wary eye on Quim Large. “Where is this wanted monkey?”
“That I show you; you come?”
Doc Bogannon was uneasy. This hybrid between a gorilla and a caveman had vague association with missing men in Bogie’s thoughts. Just then his mind was confused as to identity of any particular individual, but a consciousness of something wrong gripped him with cold horror. “Winters, don’t go. If that outlaw leaves before tomorrow, it will be good riddance.”
Winters got up and wiped sweat off his forehead. “Doc, you’d make a coward of me; I’m scared enough, as it is.” He nodded to Quim Large. “Man, I’m at your heels.”
“Dot’s good,” said Large. He turned abruptly and went humping out.
* * * *
Winters followed, and as Bogie’s door closed behind him his hat was knocked off and something descended with incredible swiftness over his head and shoulders and down to his hips. A quick tug from behind drew it fiercely tight around his body. Too swiftly for shock to yield to a cry for help, a gag was drawn viciously into his mouth and secured remorselessly.
“Now, I show you him,” said Large. With an ease that was both humiliating and terrifying to Winters, Large lifted him into his saddle.
Soon Large was mounted and leading Cannon Ball southwestward across Alkali Flat. Winters’ horse allowed himself to be led, but fractiously. Twice he reared and pawed at his captor, but getting only hard jerks for his pains he became tractable and loped angrily along.
Large had not bothered to take Winters’ six-gun. His wild-animal cunning had not extended that far; such intelligence as he possessed, manifested itself in behavior comparable to what might have been taught to a well-bred dog. He rode hunched forward, clung to Cannon Ball’s bridle rein, but paid only slight attention to Winters.
In that inattentiveness Winters found a fragile, desperate hope. He could have disengaged his legs and fallen off his horse, but that would have got him nothing except a jolt and a mouthful of alkali, for he would promptly have been handed up again and possibly tied on like a sack of horse feed. In a careless moment, Large might have allowed Cannon Ball to jerk loose; but that promised little, for Cannon Ball was trained not to run with bridle reins dragging.
Winters had been caught in this straight jacket of netting as he was grabbing for his gun. He discovered now that by lowering his right shoulder he could free his hand, grasp his gun handle and thumb its hammer. He could not draw, however, and nothing was to be gained by firing straight down. Yet with a familiar, deadly object in his grasp, fierce, angry determination stiffened his spirits. Ghost voices, pouring up from Alkali Flat and down from a star-jammed sky, became a medley of taunt and wild cheering in his ears, exciting desperate, violent thought and a sudden fury of action.
With both spurs, Winters raked Cannon Ball’s sensitive flanks, an infuriating punishment which Cannon Ball had never taken without a rearing, twisting protest. He reared now, squealed, and his hoofs beat into emptiness. In that noisy, explosive instant, Winters leaned back and, by aiming his body to give direction to his sixgun, drove two bullets through its open-ended holster into Quimby Large’s huge, stinking body. Cannon Ball’s frantic kangaroo leap unseated Winters, but he stiffened his left foot, made of it a hook in his stirrup, and let himself be dragged by his rearing, lunging horse.
When going got too rough for further endurance, Winters withdrew his foot and rolled to a stop, eyes smarting and mouth dry and stinging with alkali dust. Far off to his right he heard Quimby Large crying dolefully, “Oh, Shadrack! Oh Shadrack, I’m shot—I’m shot. Oh, Shadrack!”
Winters sat up. Punishment had yielded its reward. His imprisoning net, dragged across sharp, hard crusts of desert, had ripped apart. Winters by repeated contortions got an arm free and took out his pocket knife. Net threads were promptly cut. With net and gag removed, Winters sprang up. Cannon Ball had lunged on for a hundred yards and stopped. Winters, after wetting of bruised lips and repeated efforts, managed a sharp whistle. His horse came skittishly toward him.
Winters met him more than halfway and swung up. For a moment he listened, expecting again to hear that far-off moaning cry of Quimby Large, but Alkali Flat had lapsed into a solemn hush. An inner voice whispered to Winters that his escape from a monster should teach him caution, but he was too angry to heed its warning. He swung southwest and was off in pursuit of his tormentor.
He found no trace of Large. From a cavernous mountain recess a light glowed dimly. Yet a wary, dismounted search disclosed only a deserted campfire. Large and Shadrack—whoever Shadrack might have been—had fled.
Winters was about to leave when he heard a distorted, muffled groan, and sweat popped in profusion upon his face. Six-gun in hand, he spun around and found; his wide, staring eyes probing. Firelight flickering upon cavern walls revealed no living things. Not until his vision fell upon a rectangular wooden box did he have an inkling from whence had come that agonized, incoherent sound.
Winters holstered his gun. An instant later, box lid thrown back, he gazed upon a tightly bound human body. Or was it still a living man? He touched it, saw and felt it jerk.
* * * *
In his saloon, Doc Bogannon waited. More than an hour had passed since his friend Deputy Winters left with that gruesome creature who called himself Quimby Large. Odds had been against Winters before, and he had returned. Bogie nevertheless was near abandonment of hope this time, when his front door opened.
“Winters!”
Bogie sprang up as Winters entered, supporting another who, from his squatting stoop, appeared to be permanently bent three-double.
“A little help, Doc,” said Winters. Bogie lent a hand at once and they put their burden in a chair by a table.
“Who is he, Winters?”
“A friend of yours, Doc. Fetch whiskey.” As Bogie hastened off, Winters added, “And a swig of wine for me.”
Doc’s unidentified friend clutched at his glass as Bogie poured, then he bent to meet those hands as they rose, trembling and splashing whiskey. After a generous helping, he lowered his hands and stared at Doc and Winters.
“Hee-hee,” he laughed crazily.
Bogie was horrified. “It’s Albatross!” he exclaimed. “And he’s cuckoo. Winters, where did you find him?”
Winters drank wine and drew a hand across his lips. “Spooks had him, Doc. What they wanted with him, I wouldn’t know.”
Bogie stared at Harrison Abendroth. “Winters, I didn’t recall that his hair was gray.”
“It wasn’t, Doc.”
Bogie went for another glass. He resumed his seat, took a drink of wine and wiped his face with a handkerchief. “What happened to him, Winters?”
Albatross giggled, stared at his companions and curled his upper lip in a half-grin.
Winters arched his eyebrows at Bogie. “I don’t know what happened to him, Doc, but I notice one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s still got his gold tooth.”
WIZARD OF FORLORN GAP
Real Western Stories, December, 1953
Deputy Marshal Lee Winters staggered across Rocky Point’s dusty main street and found his horse at Press McNew’s hitchrail. Upon his third try, he mounted. Guided by homing instinct, he rode out and headed no
rth. Blood stained his hand when he had touched it to his head. Guns still roared in his brain; he could still see a man crumpling and falling.
Cannon Ball, horse sense telling him, too, that he was homeward bound, swung into a determined, long-legged lope. His trail led him through narrow gorges, into lonely canyons, along precarious precipices and shelves of dark, tumbling mountains.
Winters exercised no independent will. Indeed, he had none to exercise; he was no more than intermittently aware of his whereabouts—until by starlight and a silvery quarter-moon he came to his senses in a vast wasteland. Even then his consciousness was dreamlike. A level grayness spread away in every direction into impenetrable gloom, eerie, wind-whipped and cold. For a moment he had an odd, dreadful impression of his having passed through death into a world of eternal twilight and solitude. That impression lingered on when he realized hazily that this was Alkali Flat, a lonely region whose desolate face and stinging dust suggested kinship with things alien and ghostly.
Cannon Ball had stopped. Winters, casting desperately about to learn why, saw a man standing to his right, straight and motionless in a small round cap, his body of excellent proportions now real, now spectral, as haze alternately lifted and descended across Winters’ peering eyes.
“Howdy,” said Winters, not so much to be polite as to reassure himself of reality.
A question was his answer, rendered in a clear, friendly voice. “Sir, would you kindly direct me to Forlorn Gap?”
“Sure,” said Winters. A wave of dizziness caused him to grasp his saddle horn. “Forlorn Gap is straight north.” He stared, puzzled, for an unusual number of lights blinked distantly, as if nobody there had gone to bed. “F’lorn Gap’s where you see—where—you—see—” His words lost themselves in thick mental darkness. In returning twilight he saw a form that might have been a man speeding northward, on foot. To his amazement that form rose and seemed to settle upon an invisible horse; seconds later this rider, or apparition, had disappeared into nothingness.
