by Lon Williams
* * * *
Two miles out Brazerville Road, Shakafut halted with his captive. They had passed around a sharp curve, where on their right a broad shoulder of rocky earth rose from a gorge. Shakafut pulled Barstow from his horse.
“Now,” Shakafut said coldly, “perhaps thou wilt bow down before King Kiff-Wiff?”
Barstow’s voice wheezed from a dry throat. “Set me free, and I’ll give you everything I’ve got.”
“We wait for his majesty.”
“Everything; even my horse.”
“We wait.”
They waited several minutes. Kiff-Wiff appeared slowly around a bend. Upon seeing Shakafut and Barstow, he dismounted, hitched his steed to a scrub pine and strode up on foot.
Barstow, terrified, started to flee. Shakafut quickly overtook him, lifted him and flung him down hard. Barstow rolled over and rose to his knees.
“So!” exclaimed Kiff-Wiff. “Prince Barstow hath bethought himself to bow down before his king, after all.”
“Spare me, your majesty,” Barstow pleaded; “everything I have shall be yours.”
“Thou didst murder Monte Gaut, who was my faithful servant.”
“He threatened to kill me,” replied Barstow. “Thou didst murder my faithful engraver, Dolphus Dewberry—my maker of money.”
“I done it for your majesty,” said Barstow. “Dolph and Monte leagued against you; they offered to let me in on their deal. When I refused, they said they’d kill me.”
“Ah!” said Kiff-Wiff mockingly. He stared at Barstow, whose kneeling posture gave him an idea. He whispered at length into Shakafut’s ear, then stood in front of Barstow. “My loyal Prince Barstow, I have grievously misjudged thee. To amend my error, I shall make thee a knight—a knight of desert sands, of pyramids and withered mummies. Shakafut, thou wilt touch his shoulder with thy mighty sword.” When Shakafut had taken position immediately behind Barstow, Kiff-Wiff extended his right arm forward. “With this ceremony, Prince Barstow, I dub thee knight. Enter thou into history’s immortal ranks of chivalry and valorous deeds. Be thou forever blameless—” Barstow listened in dread of great Kiff-Wiff. He felt a sword touch his neck. It pained a little, though not for long.
* * * *
At breakfast next morning, Lee Winters stared across at his charming wife, Myra. He stretched his eyebrows, then blinked to bring his eyes into focus.
“Myra, in all your reading, have you ever read of anybody riding a nossy-horse?”
Myra was puzzled. Then she understood what he meant. Rhinoceros. “No, Lee,” she said, an inclination to smile sternly repressed. “I’d think it would take some riding, wouldn’t you?”
“I’d think so,” said Winters. “In my opinion, no human could do it.”
“You have me curious, Lee.”
“I’m curious myself. Reason is, that’s what I saw yesterday. Maybe I just dreamed it.”
“It could have been somebody riding a hog,” said Myra. “That is something I’ve heard of. In fact, an Ozark Mountain farmer my parents knew had a huge hog that was saddle-broke. His owner had to shoot him, he got so mean. Killed two or three horses; almost killed a man.”
“Hog,” mused Winters. “That’s it. Monte Gaut is a hog-raiser. But that rider; reminded me of a flower on a cactus.”
Myra banteringly said, “Are you sure it wasn’t a ghost, Lee?”
He got up, buckled on his gun and put on his hat. “Since thinking it over, my guess is, it was King Kiff-Wiff.”
Myra was frightened suddenly. “Kiff-Wiff? What do you mean, Lee?”
“Some wanted monkey who calls hisself King Kiff-Wiff.”
“Sounds crazy,” Myra said thoughtfully. She remembered other lunatics who had come near to killing her husband. When he was riding off, she ran out and called anxiously, “Lee, you’ll be careful, won’t you?”
He waved a silent, but reassuring goodby. Winters stopped to see Pegleg Hully, known also as Hully Gee, who owned a leather shop. Winters strode in and found Hully sitting on his backless chair, his peg leg thrust straight out, a pegging-awl rammed through a boot sole. Pegleg glanced up.
“Morning, Winters.”
“Hully Gee,” said Winters, “I need something, and I need it bad.”
“Name it.”
“First, I need a stout, double-rein bridle, one that would lift a buffalo.”
“What else?”
“A bridle bit, one of those hangdown jaw-breakers. My horse has got a mean streak. Any time he takes a notion, he clamps his grinders down tight on his bit, and there ain’t a thing I can do about it. I want you to fix me a bridle with a bit that would pry open a sawlog.”
“Have it tomorrow,” said Pegleg.
Winters left.
That day he rode to Elkhorn Pass. He was looking for a wanted monkey named Voss whom Luke Riser, driver of Elkhorn-Brazerville stage, had spotted there. He didn’t find his wanted monkey, but he found one Gottleib Lather with a complaint about money.
“Look here, officer,” he snarled at Winters. He fluttered a twenty-dollar bill in front of Lee’s nose. “Valse money, it is. Vot’s it mit you Gowermint men for you don’t keep valse money outta circulation?”
Winters backed a step and eyed his questioner, a barber, he judged by oils and smells. “How come you got paper money anyhow?” he asked sternly; “paper money never was no good in these parts.”
“How vas I to know? Back East vere I come from, eferybody takes paper money. But ven I drops in at Leek Stevenson’s store for bottol of hair oil, he takes vun look at my money and holds his nose. ‘Counterfeit!’ he screams. And I say, you being a officer, you gotta make it goot. For dis I gif one haircut and eighteen dollar gold and silfer money. You gif me eighteen dollar and I knock off oil and haircut.”
Winters swung onto Cannon Ball. “I’ll give you some good advice, mister. Don’t take no more paper money till you go back East.” He looked back as he rode off.
Gottleib Lather tore up his spurious bill and blew its fragments toward Winters. “You no-goot deputy marshal! I report you. I haf you fired.”
* * * *
On a turn several miles east of Elkhorn Pass, Winters met Beecher Turnbill’s four-horse stage on its daily run from Brazerville. Turnbill pulled up.
“Howdy, Winters.”
“Howdy, Beech.”
“Lookin’ for a man without no head, Winters?” Winters’ reply was powdery. “No; I’m lookin’ for a head without no man.”
“You’ll find ’em both two miles t’other side of Forlorn Gap, Winters,” said Turnbill. “Giddap!” Winters was perturbed as he rode on. He could never be sure whether Beech Turnbill was serious, or merely ragging him. When he got to Forlorn Gap, he headed for Hully Gee’s leather shop.
Hully was at work, his peg leg thrust out, as before.
“Howdy, Winters.”
“Got that bridle ready?”
“Be ready tomorrow,” said Hully. He gave his pegging-awl a shove. Hully was still at his boot-making.
Winters glanced around. A newly-made bridle with jaw-breaker bit hung on a peg. Winters snatched it down. “What’s this?”
Pegleg drew a waxed thread through his newly-made pegging-awl hole. He said unconcernedly, “That’s a bridle, Winters.”
Winters examined it minutely. “Look here, Hully Gee, this bridle’s mine, and it’s done.”
“Be ready tomorrow,” said Hully, thrusting again.
Winters studied a while. People were sure queer. He scratched his head. Maybe this means I’ve got one more day to live, he thought. He considered whether to take his new bridle, with or without Hully’s permission. Superstition outdid his reason. He hung it up.
“See you tomorrow, Hully.”
“Be ready tomorrow,” said Hully.
Outside, Winters paused, hand on his saddlehorn. He reasoned that he should go and see about that headless body Beecher Turnbill had mentioned. Yet he wasn’t sure he should go without his jaw-breaker. Cannon Ball was making a
coward of him. He was scared enough at best. If he couldn’t be master in his own saddle, he was just about done for.
Cannon Ball, as if sensing his owner’s problem, swung his head around and gave Winters a mean look. A mistake, definitely. Winters, furious suddenly, swung up and gigged with his spurs. He rode past Bogannon’s saloon and Goodlett Hotel at a dead run, and when Cannon Ball slowed Winters gigged him again.
But when out of town he allowed his horse to take his troubles more reasonably. Yet in a short time an ominous sign appeared ahead. Buzzards were circling slowly near Enloe Pass, dropping lower and lower. Cannon Ball began to toss his head uneasily and to push his bit forward with his tongue. Winters caught onto what his horse was up to and drew back hard, so hard as to pull Cannon Ball’s bit behind his molars so he couldn’t clamp down on it. He slowed, but Winters dug him with his spurs and kept him moving.
They came to a turn where they had a tussle, but Cannon Ball quieted at last and Winters swung down. Here was that headless body Turnbill had told about. To Winters it was a headless body, nothing more. But hasty search disclosed identity. Looking down, where road shoulder fell away into an abyss, Winters saw a head lodged in a notch between stones. He recognized it as that of Ace of Diamonds Barstow.
Winters shook his head. He was not an undertaker.
* * * *
He rode back to town and stopped for a visit with Doc Bogannon, who was taking life easy at a table in a temporarily unpatronized saloon.
“Winters,” he cried joyously, and waved a big hand. “Come in, Winters. I was just wishing you’d drop around.”
Winters sat opposite Bogie. “Doc, remember a redhead named Barstow?”
“Certainly I do,” exclaimed Bogie. “That wild-eyed loony was going to take my saloon away from me. You arrived last night just in time to save me, certainly to save my property.”
Winters stared hard at Bogie. “So you had a motive, eh?”
Bogie detected a faint grin behind that insinuation. “Winters, I was never without a motive of some sort; who’s been murdered?”
Winters tossed Bogie a coin. “Wine, Doc, and two glasses.”
Bogie tossed Winters’ coin back to him and brought wine and two glasses. He poured for both. “Something happened to my recent enemy, Winters?”
“He’s lost his head, Doc.”
Bogie sipped his drink. “I’m not surprised. Kings’ subjects frequently lose their heads.” Winters stiffened. “Kings!”
“My apology,” said Doc. “I assumed you knew about King Kiff-Wiff, but he came into my place last night after you’d gone. Some king, this Kiff-Wiff. He and his mighty man of valor, Prince Shakafut, took my friend Barstow away. What they did with him I’ve no way of knowing, unless I’m to infer they decapitated him.”
“They what?”
“Cut his head off, Winters.”
“Oh,” said Winters. Doc’s learnedness was beyond his depth sometimes. “Well, Doc, that’s exactly what they done to Barstow; they decaptivated him. Know why?”
Bogie sipped and lowered his glass. “Certainly, Winters. Barstow refused to bow down.”
Winters sniffed. “Don’t tell me you bowed down.”
“But I did,” declared Bogie. “If you don’t want your head cut off, you had better bow down, too.” That was not funny to Winters. He had seen a head wedged between rocks, its dry eyes staring. “What else do you know, Doc?”
“Nothing,” said Bogie. But immediately he remembered something. “Wait, now. There was something queer about this Kiff-Wiff. He rode a hog—a huge black boar. It went ‘Woof!’ and took after those horses Barstow and Shakafut were riding. Its tusks curved upward six or seven inches.”
No wonder it had looked like a nossy horse, thought Winters. “Got any idea where Kiff is hiding, Doc?”
Bogie wrinkled his forehead. “Kiff is liable to turn up anywhere; you see, Winters, Kiff-Wiff is a ghost.”
“Hold it,” said Winters. “I’m not interested in ghosts.”
Bogie stared at his empty glass. “Well, he’s not a ghost, I suppose. A reincarnation, more likely. This Kiff-Wiff says he is really King Khufu, or Cheops, that redoubtable pyramid-builder who lived in Egypt anywhere from five to seven thousand years ago. Centuries after his death, he appeared as Sennacherib, Nero, Captain Kidd, and goodness knows how many other memorable scoundrels. With Kiff-Wiff, cutting a man’s head off is of no more consequence than mashing a grasshopper.”
Winters shoved back glumly. “That’s enough about Kiff-Wiff, Doc. I’m going home and get a good night’s sleep. If I see ghosts in my sleep, it’ll be your fault. Good-night.”
Doc was not smiling as Winters left. Suppose, he thought, such rummies as Khufu could reappear on earth? And maybe they did. Sometimes he wondered.
* * * *
Winters was in a raw mood when he dropped in next morning to see Pegleg Hully. “My bridle, Hully ”
Hully had resumed work on a boot. “Bridle’s ready.”
“It was ready yesterday,” said Winters.
“Price is a quarter-eagle.”
Winters snatched his bridle and tossed down a gold coin. “There, Hully Gee; and I could as well had my bridle yesterday.”
Hully shoved his pegging-awl. “Mad about something, Winters?”
“Of course not. Why do you ask that?”
Hully pocketed his coin, extracted his awl and inserted a waxed thread. “You seem a mite crossways. Maybe it’s just your usual manner.” Winters strode out and swapped bridles with Cannon Ball. He gave his jaw-breaker a trial pull and with satisfaction watched Cannon Ball’s mouth open.
His next stop was at Bogannon’s. Bogie had just opened up.
“Morning, Winters.”
“A nip of whiskey, Doc.”
“Whiskey?”
“I said whiskey.”
“Hmmm,” said Bogie. He poured a drink. “Thought you were off of whiskey, Winters; seen a ghost?”
Winters downed his drink, held his glass to be refilled. “Thanks to you, Doc, I saw ghosts all night. Kiff-Wiff was everything from wolf to Old Horny hisself. Another thing; if I meet this Kiff-Wiff, I’m aimin’ to ride. If I’m afoot, I’m aimin’ to run.”
“Can’t blame you for that,” said Doc. He gave his handsome head a mocking nod. “And if you can neither ride nor run, you can at least bow down. I did.”
Winters finished his second drink. “No, Doc. Be confound if I bow down; no Texan ever bowed down to anybody. Be seein’ you, Doc.”
With that unexecuted arrest warrant still in his pocket, Winters went out and headed east. Later he turned south onto Cracked Kettle Creek short-cut. He was in an angry mood. He was also scared. It was a toss which mood predominated.
He reached that most rugged part of his trail, a mile from Cracked Kettle Creek and Monte Gaut’s ranch. There Cannon Ball stopped, looked up, snorted, and started to turn. Winters held him, a moment later discovered what had caused his stop. On a high overhang, variously known as Smoke Pinnacle, Eagle Roost, and Judgment Day Rock, a large man dressed in bright red stood with white flag in hand. This, a signal flag, he lowered, raised and lowered again. On Winters’ right was a perpendicular drop of two hundred feet. From Judgment Day Rock there was a thousand-foot drop.
With his attention diverted upward, Winters failed to see what approached suddenly around a shoulder of mountain. But Cannon Ball saw. Wise to his jaw-breaker, he reared almost straight up and spun around, all in one instantaneous movement. Winters turned a complete somersault and hit feet first. But he had been flung with such violence that he went on down. His breath was knocked out; blood gushed to his brain; his wrath was measureless. But so was his terror.
For coming toward him was that unearthly rider, King Kiff-Wiff, on his woofing hog. “Hail to your king!” Kiff-Wiff shouted. “Bow down, ye filthy slaves.”
Winters could neither ride nor run. He was lying face down, spitting dust from his mouth, clawing at his six-gun, shaking his head of its dizz
iness. Kiff-Wiff came on with amazing speed. He shouted. His hog woofed. Then, seeing that his fallen enemy stirred, Kiff-Wiff drew a forty-five and cracked down at Winters. His bullet missed.
Winters blinked his eyes of spattered dust. He saw only a dark blur plunging toward him. A second bullet from Kiff-Wiff s gun edged his hair. With eyes that swam and stung, Winters aimed. He triggered, aimed, triggered again.
His first shot had brought a squeal. With his second, Kiff-Wiff s steed swerved and leaped outward into space. His royal rider went out and down with him. Winters heard them thud. He sat up, swabbed his face.
Then from Judgment Day Rock came an agonized cry. “Oh, my king! My king is dead.” Winters saw indistinctly. But he was certain of what he had seen when seconds later a body shot out from Judgment Day Rock and whirled downward, for a second thud came up, and there followed a sickening stillness.
Minutes passed before Winters had passably clear sense and sight again. He got up then, staggered downtrail, found Cannon Ball with his mouth open, standing with a bridle strap half-hitched around his rear ankle. Winters, still too befuddled to be angry, untangled his horse and swung aboard.
Doc Bogannon, alone after whiskeying some stagecoach passengers, heard his batwings swing open violently.
“Winters!” Bogie hurried around and helped Winters to a chair. “Winters, are you hurt?”
Winters sat erect, but painfully. “No, Doc. I just stopped to ask a question. How long do you figure it will be before this here King Khufu shows up on earth again?”
Bogie understood by that question that Kiff-Wiff was a dead monkey. “Oh,” he said, staring hard at Winters, who looked sick and battered, “I’d say at least a thousand years.”
Winters pulled himself up to go. “Thanks, Doc. That’s all I wanted to know.”
LANTERN IN THE SKY
Real Western Stories, June 1955
Deputy Marshal Lee Winters, homeward bound by night, rounded a perilous curve on Mt. Horeb Road. Instinct, or his natural fear of incomprehensibles, caused him to draw his horse Cannon Ball to a quick stop. His darting, watchful eye had caught a rectangle of light on one of those massive heights of stone on his right, so far up that it suggested a window of Infinity. For one moment it was softly aglow; then there was darkness, except where countless stars glittered.
