The Starlit Wood

by Dominik Parisien

  “Shouldn’t have done that,” said Ten, and spat.

  “He done pissed on me,” protested Eleven, lifting a boot to show the faintest of stains.

  “Spillin’ blood under the full moon,” said Ten. “And if I don’t misremember, this is the thirteenth day of the month.”

  “So?”

  “Maybe you just helped summat cross the Line,” said Ten. He spat again. “That ain’t never useful, brother.”

  “Hell, we ain’t near no gate I ever heard about,” replied Eleven. Nevertheless, he looked around nervously and gripped his knife a little tighter. Ten knew a lot more about that kind of stuff than he did. “Not round here.”

  “Maybe so,” said Ten. He hesitated, looked up at the moon again, then made a decision. “We’ll give up the stage. Let’s get back to the horses.”

  “Whaaat!” exclaimed Eleven, drawing the word through his teeth like he was inhaling some ugly smoke. “After we been sitting here so long? And they got the payroll for them new workings aboard?”

  “Yep,” said Ten. He stood up, spat again, and stalked off, calling over his shoulder, “See if the boy had any money on him. Leave the rifle. Folk’ll recognize it.”

  “Whatever you say,” grumbled Eleven. He sheathed his knife, bent down, and rummaged through Danny’s pockets. Finding nothing, he started to pull off the boy’s left boot but stopped when he heard a faint noise. Or to be more specific, a noise from Danny. Which would be surprising, given the young man’s guts and blood were all over the ground and he’d completely stopped moving a minute or so before.

  There was nothing in the left boot. But again, when Eleven was wrestling the right boot over a recalcitrant heel, he heard something. A whisper, almost beyond the edge of his hearing.

  He dropped the boot and backed away from the corpse. Not quite quickly enough to miss the third faint noise. A definite whisper that might or might not be coming directly from the dead man.

  “Vengeance . . . vengeance . . . vengeance . . .”

  Eleven turned and fled, face gray under the moon, eyes that had seen horrendous things done wide in terror, hands that had done horrendous things shaking in fear. He ran past where Ten was saddling the horses and kept running, not stopping, not stopping at all till he fell from exhaustion two miles along the road, and had to be strapped across his own horse by his exasperated brother.

  Neither of the Osgoods noticed the thing that had crossed the Line. A being without flesh, made of air perhaps, or smoke. It had a faint touch of color in it, off and on. The reddish hue of Danny’s spilled blood. The color faded as it drew apart to become almost invisible and then intensified as it coiled together again. Bright and red for a moment, before stretching out into absence, slowly inchworming its way from Danny’s body after the outlaws, and always whispering, almost too quiet to be heard.

  “Vengeance . . . vengeance . . . vengeance . . .”

  The insubstantial creature had come from across the Line, and found blood and a purpose. Now it needed to find someone to help it along, someone who could move faster than its meager inching pace, someone who shared some of dead Danny’s blood, kin to the drop it held tightly in the core of its new being.

  Danny had three sisters, but two of them had lit out for more fascinating parts as soon as they were old enough to get away. His one remaining sister, Lilibet, called Lili, was eight years old and a lot smarter than her brother. He was, or had been, a waster and a drinker. Lili was a worker and entrepreneur. One of her major enterprises was buying a box of matches for three cents, then reselling the individual matches at a penny apiece to profligate miners, melancholy drunks, and lonely travelers who took pity on a small, destitute orphan likely to starve without assistance. It helped that this was essentially true. She certainly couldn’t rely on her sibling Danny to reliably provide shelter and sustenance, and their parents had died of yellow fever when she was five.

  Selling matches was a good business. When all the miners were in town, Lili would sometimes even get a nickel or a dime for a single match, and once had almost bitten her tongue in surprise at the careless handing over of a silver dollar.

  It took three days for the thing from the other side to find her. Blood called to blood. Lili saw something glinting in the dust around the side of the livery stable. A penny, strangely red. She picked it up, and that was all it took.

  Around that same time, a traveler, drawn by the circling buzzards, found Danny’s body. He took the rifle and handed it over to the sheriff, a man name of Laidlaw. The sheriff threw the Sharps in a chest with other lost weapons and forgot about it. Whatever had occurred was outside the town limits and therefore none of his concern. Sheriff Laidlaw did consider telling Lili her brother was dead, but he didn’t get around to it straightaway. Or at all, as things turned out.

  Ten was the first to go. It was late, near midnight, with a clear sky, and the beginnings of frost. He came out of the saloon, buttoning up his big sheepskin coat, the one he’d taken off the body of a rancher a lot farther north, in the high country. Lili was waiting by his horse, a small lump of darkness. When she moved, he reached for his pistol before he realized it was only a little girl.

  “Penny for a match, mister?” she asked, lisping. She’d never lisped before.

  “Git away from my horse,” snarled Ten. He was in a temper due to losing money playing faro against three well-heeled, dangerous-looking gentlemen he hadn’t dared cross, not without his brother or more of his gang.

  Eleven and the others were all drinking themselves stupid out at the ranch house where Errol the sheep farmer had been killed by a gunman brought in by the Cattlemen’s Association. The Nail in the Head gang had informally taken over the ranch house, and the sheep, which they ate. The former sheep farm was well outside the town limits, so the sheriff paid them no mind. He’d done a deal with the Osgoods: provided the gang behaved themselves within a mile in every cardinal direction from the central saloon, he’d leave them alone. Beyond that range, they committed whatever crimes they felt like.

  “Penny for a match, mister,” repeated Lili. Then, unusually, she held one of her matches up. “I’ll show you how good it is.”

  “Git!” swore Ten, aiming a drunken kick at the girl. He missed, and almost lost his balance, staggering against the hitching rail.

  When he straightened up, the girl was holding a lit match. A match that burned with unnatural ferocity, the flame a good foot high, white at the core, blue at the tip.

  Ten went for his pistol, and Lili flicked the match.

  The outlaw burned, his screams mingling with the roar of the air that the fire sucked in, craving oxygen. But it was a curiously contained fire, not spreading to the hitching rails, the stoop beyond, or the saloon’s shingled roof. It just stuck to Ten, burning down from his head toward his heels.

  Like he was a match, held upright to the last.

  When everyone inside the saloon came rushing outside, they saw a column of flame lurching into the street, spinning and turning, as if there might be some way to escape for the man within.

  No one saw a little match-selling girl. All attention was on the burning man, who was still screaming. A fire that hot should have killed him near instantly, but this death was drawn out. His screams remained full-throated, not husky, fading gasps from smoke-filled, heat-destroyed lungs.

  His agony might have lasted even longer if one of the faro-playing gentlemen hadn’t sworn a strange oath, drawn a funny little piece from inside his coat, rather than the Navy Colt at his side, and fired three shots into the spot where he reckoned Ten’s head would be, the fire now too intense to make out any anatomical details.

  By the time Sheriff Laidlaw got there, still buckling his gun belt over his long johns, all that remained was a blackened husk. Vaguely man-shaped, it was made brighter here and there by little puddles of hot metal. The fire had burned so hot that Ten’s pistol had melted in an instant, without the rounds in the cylinder having a chance to cook off, and the rest of the m
etal came from his silver belt buckle, spurs, and two gold fillings.

  The man who’d fired the mercy shots still had the small revolver in his hand. He walked over to where the sheriff was about to gingerly touch the ashy pile with the toe of his boot and said, “I wouldn’t if I were you, Sheriff. That there weren’t no ordinary fire. It’ll be damned hot for hours yet.”

  The sheriff drew his boot back and looked at the stranger. He seemed typical enough of the kind of successful gambler who drifted through the saloons of the West, winning often enough to keep himself in fine clothes, company, and whiskey. But the weapon in his hand spoke otherwise. The sheriff had seen one of those silver-chased revolvers before and thought it too small in caliber to be a serious weapon. He had learned he was wrong about that, and a few other things besides. He hadn’t expected to see such a weapon again.

  The stranger saw him looking.

  “Yep,” he said, replacing the pistol inside his coat. “Tombstone bullet, cold marble, fired from a silver-washed gun. Lead would’ve melted, and that man would still be screaming. Something very nasty’s come over the Line, Sheriff. Better get yourself some help.”

  “You offering, sir?” asked the sheriff hopefully. Now that he looked closely at the stranger, he thought he could put a name to him, a famous name, a man renowned as both gunslinger and wizard. “Town’s got a budget for—”

  “Nope,” said the stranger, with great surety. “I got business elsewhere. I’m heading out on the morning stage. Besides, I ain’t a lawman. You need a warden-marshal got jurisdiction both sides of the Line.”

  “Yeah,” replied the sheriff, staring down at the remains of Ten. “I reckon we do.”

  He thought for a minute, then turned to the silent, awed crowd who were arrayed on the saloon’s stoop.

  “Anyone know who this is . . . I mean was?”

  There was no reply for a moment. The stranger, who had been about to go in, turned at the door.

  “Ten Osgood,” he said.

  “Shit,” said the sheriff, seeing his comfortable arrangement with the Nail in the Head gang about to turn into as big a pile of ashes as Ten Osgood himself.

  Lili had no memory of what she’d done, or rather what the thing that now lived within her had done. She heard about Ten Osgood’s mysterious fiery death, all right, because everyone in the town talked about it at every opportunity. But she had no idea she was connected to it in any way. She also still didn’t know her brother Danny was dead, and half expected him to turn up at some point and shamefacedly ask if she was all right and if she needed anything. Not that he would provide. He’d always seemed to think the asking was enough.

  So Lili kept selling her matches, and helping Marcia in the laundry, and Lee Liang in the feed store. By dint of working every daylight hour there was and then some more, she usually managed to get enough coin to have two or sometimes even three meals a day, and still be able to hand over the weekly dime to old Mister Tobin, who let her sleep in the loft above the livery stable. It smelled, but it was warm, with the horses below.

  It was a week past Ten Osgood’s demise when another opportunity for revenge arose. Eleven Osgood had taken it into his head that it was the faro players who’d been responsible for his brother’s death, so he and the gang had wasted several fruitless days pursuing the westbound stage. Finding himself inexplicably unable to catch it—every time they almost did so, a girth strap would snap, or a horse would stumble, or there’d be a sudden rainstorm—he’d given up and returned to town, fourteen disgruntled members of the gang trailing in his wake.

  They rode in just after dusk, tired, saddle-sore, and parched. Sheriff Laidlaw met them in the main street, a little ways short of the saloon, a double-barreled shotgun under his arm. A charcoal-black stain in the dirt a few paces away marked the last resting place of Ten Osgood. They’d tried to get rid of this unwelcome civic blemish, but even digging up the whole area hadn’t made a difference. The mark returned overnight.

  “Evening, Sheriff,” said Eleven, in as peaceable a manner as he ever achieved.

  “Evening, Eleven,” said the sheriff. “I just wanted a quick word.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “There’s a marshal-warden coming to investigate whatever burned up Ten,” said the sheriff slowly. “Until she’s done—”

  “She?” asked Eleven.

  “Yep. Name of Rose Jackson.”

  Eleven nodded slowly. The name was not unknown in those parts.

  “There’s paper on you and the boys, federal paper,” continued the sheriff. He was speaking very slowly, a sign of his nervousness. “The marshal won’t overlook that. I want you to stay out of town, stay up at the sheep place until she’s gone.”

  “Need a drink,” said Eleven.

  “One of your boys can pick up half a dozen bottles,” said the sheriff. “Then you gotta go, and stay out until I send word.”

  Eleven thought about it for a few seconds, the rage building inside him. He’d been thwarted from catching the faro players, and now this pipsqueak of a sheriff wanted to stop him spending the evening in the saloon. And he was no closer to finding whoever killed his brother, and that in turn meant his leadership of the gang was weakening. . . .

  He snarled, making the sheriff twitch and raise his shotgun, but the snarl was just Eleven letting some of that anger out.

  “All right, Sheriff, all right,” growled Eleven. He wheeled his horse around and yelled at the least of the gang members, a cousin of his who wasn’t much use. “Potato! You go get a dozen bottles and bring ’em out to the ranch.”

  “Yeah, boss,” said Potato, whose real name was Patrick. He dismounted gingerly, very stiff after a long day’s ride, and hitched up his horse as the rest of the gang headed back out, their dust rolling over Potato as they passed. The sheriff watched them go for a good ten seconds, gently uncocked his shotgun, and wandered into the saloon himself.

  Potato was alone. Except for the little girl no one had noticed, swinging on the post at the end of the stoop.

  “Penny for a match, mister?” lisped Lili, holding one sulfur-headed stick out to the young man.

  “Uh, I ain’t got a penny,” said Potato. “Sorry.”

  “These are real good matches,” said Lili.

  “Sure,” said Potato uneasily. There was something funny about the girl. Her eyes were kind of bright, way too bright, full of fire—

  “Vengeance,” said Lili.

  There was fire in her mouth as well as her eyes, and the match she held was alight, alight without striking.

  Potato screamed as the match flew through the air and landed in the hollow of his throat, sticking to the skin. He reached up to pluck it off, but it was already too late, the flame spreading across his shoulders and head, licking down his arms and torso.

  Like his cousin Ten, Potato spun burning out into the street. Unlike Ten, he kept screaming for a good fifteen minutes, a corpse-fire capering in the dust all that time, because no one present had a silver-chased gun charged with a tombstone bullet, or anything else that might end his suffering.

  The warden-marshal arrived the next morning, to a town that had largely stayed awake and fearful all night, not counting the few who’d immediately decamped.

  Rose Jackson rode in and went straight to the sheriff’s office, pausing briefly near the saloon to glance at the two charcoal marks and sniff the air. She wore both a marshal’s star-and-circle badge and a warden’s star of bright silver on her leather waistcoat, and had a Frontier Colt .45 on her right hip, a knife on her left, and a Winchester ’73 in the bucket holster by her saddle.

  “Telegram I got said one burning,” said Rose, as she settled back in the sheriff’s own rocking chair, a cup of his coffee in her hand. When she didn’t get an answer, she added, “Sheriff Laidlaw. That really your name?”

  “Huh? Oh sure, my apologies, Marshal,” said the sheriff, who’d been staring out the window. He grinned weakly. “Laidlaw by name; laying down the law’s my nat
ure. My pa was a town constable too, back East. You were saying?”

  “Telegram said one burning, name of Ten Osgood,” said Rose. “Who was the second and when did it happen?”

  “Last night,” replied the sheriff. He looked out the window again. “Young man named Potato . . . that is, Patrick.”

  “Patrick got a surname?” asked Rose.

  “Uh, yeah . . . Osgood,” replied Laidlaw slowly. “A cousin of Ten’s.”

  “And another member of the so-called Hole in the Head gang.”

  “Nail in the Head,” muttered the sheriff. “Uh, yeah, that’s so.”

  “How many Osgoods are there about the place?”

  The sheriff swallowed and continued staring out the window.

  “How many Osgoods?” repeated Rose. She set down her coffee on the desk and settled back in the chair, rocking it forward and backward a few times.

  “There’s Eleven,” said the Sheriff reluctantly.

  “Eleven of them? That must be near the whole gang,” said Rose, her tone of voice a little facetious.

  “I ain’t responsible for their naming,” said the sheriff irritably. “And I thank everything nameless I never met One to Nine Osgood or their misbegotten parents. Anyhow, there’s Eleven Osgood, that’s all.”

  “So two Osgoods killed by fiery magic and one remaining,” mused Rose.

  “There is another cousin of the same name,” said the sheriff. “Jeremiah Osgood, called Jem. But he don’t ride with the Nail in the Head, nor live near here neither.”

  “The Osgoods do anything particular recently?” asked Rose. “Somewhere near a gate, or to a practitioner?”

  “Not that I know of,” said Laidlaw.

  “Seems to me there’s something stalking Osgoods,” said Rose. “Something that came across the Line. But that don’t happen without a reason.”

  “What . . . ah . . .” asked the sheriff. He cleared his throat a few times before continuing. “What could it be, and . . . um . . . how do we get rid of it?”