He looked down at the pendant hanging against his chest, taking the stone in the palm of his hand. His flesh tingled and burned for a few seconds, as if reacting to the silver, before the pain was replaced by a familiar numbness. Where the stone had previously appeared red laced with skeins of black, now it resembled a glass filled with red and black ink that swirled together, yet never mixed.
“All I know about this necklace is that Sangre had it on him when he was found, and he didn’t come back to life until it was removed. And I know that he, and the others like him, are scared of it.”
“Ah!” Pretty Woman said, nodding her head as if it all suddenly made sense. “It is a containment charm. Its medicine holds and binds evil spirits that dwell within the flesh of the walking dead. It has placed the demon inside you under a spell, so it can not control your flesh.”
“What would happen if I took it off?”
“The evil spirits would be free to do as they like.”
“I have to go back to the place where this all began. It’s my job to ride the range and deal with those situations the local law can’t handle. I’ve got to go back and see to it that Sangre doesn’t do to the rest of Texas what he did to Golgotha. That son of a bitch started shit on my watch, in my territory—I’ll be damned if I ain’t the one who’s gonna stop it.”
“Do you think that’s wise? You don’t even know if you have the power to stop this Sangre.”
“I’ve always done my duty by going where I was needed, no matter what the circumstances, whether it was riding down rustlers, hunting banditos or fighting redskins—no offense, ma’am. I don’t see why I should stop now.”
“I know the place of which you speak. It is a half-day’s ride from here—if we had horses. Besides, you can not travel during the daylight hours.”
“Who said anything about we? I’m the one who has to go, not you. Besides, it will be far more dangerous after dark for you than it will be for me.”
“I have ways of protecting myself against such creatures,” Pretty Woman replied. “Besides, this is part of my quest. I not only saw you in my vision, but the one you call Sangre as well. That means our destinies are intertwined.”
He dropped his shoulders in resignation. He could tell there was no talking her out of it. And, truth to tell, part of him did not want to strike out alone. They walked for the rest of that night, before holing up in an outcropping of rock that provided enough shade to wait out the daylight. Upon the setting of the sun, they resumed their march. It was close to midnight by the time they reached the outskirts of the town.
Sam frowned and paused, tilting his head. “He’s gone,” he said flatly.
“How do you know?”
“I’m not sure. It’s like the hairs going up on the back of your neck when you know you’re close to something dangerous.
You just feel it—or, in this case, I don’t feel him.”
It had been just over three days since Yoakum had last been in Golgotha, but the town was almost unrecognizable. Save for the church and the general store, every building had been burned to the ground. Among the still-smoldering timbers were a number of bodies covered in soot and ash, their limbs contorted and scorched.
“What happened here?” Pretty Woman asked in a hushed voice as they surveyed the carnage.
“I’m not sure,” Yoakum replied. He scanned what was left of the town, trying to apply his lawman’s knowledge to an outlaw beyond human experience. “Lord knows I’ve seen more than my fair share of massacres, but nothing like this! Whatever happened, it looks as if they did this to themselves. It’s as if they were winnowing themselves out.
“And if Sangre isn’t here—where is he? I know for a fact that there wasn’t a living pack animal for twenty miles in any direction. If he did leave on foot, how could he do so without the risk of exposing himself to sunlight?”
He fell silent as his gaze fell on the town cemetery, located behind the church. Cursing under his breath, he motioned for Pretty Woman to follow him. As they drew closer, Sam could see that a number of the graves had been desecrated, the bodies pulled from their final resting places and tossed about like so many macabre dolls.
“There are thirteen open graves and thirteen missing caskets,” the Ranger said. “That means, of the forty-plus people that lived in Golgotha, only twelve are left, plus Sangre. Judging by these tracks, they all headed out on foot, taking their coffins with them. That way they can travel by night and are guaranteed a place to hide from the sun during the day. These drag marks show them heading in every direction of the compass. And there’s no way for me to know which track belongs to Sangre.
“Merciful God, it’s like when a ship runs aground and all the rats in the hold swarm out before anyone can discover the crew is dead of the plague. How can I possibly stop this from spreading across the country? I’m just one man.”
As he stared out into the vast emptiness of the Texas wilderness, a sense of hopelessness rose within him. During his life he had never known such feelings, even after his father died. He had been faced with ruthless enemies and impossible odds before, but back then he had been part of a larger organization. If he could not handle a situation on his own, he knew there were other Rangers he could call on to back him up. But that was all gone now, sucked into the same void that had claimed his life.
There was a touch on his shoulder as light as a butterfly’s. He turned to find Pretty Woman standing beside him. As she brushed back the hair from her face, he realized for the first time how true her name was.
“You are wrong about two things, Sam. You are no longer a man. And you are not alone.”
Chapter Five
Texas, 1869, once more:
The sun was down. Yoakum knew this because he was able to move once more. Over the years, he had developed a means of surviving as a creature of the night in a land of relentless sunshine. Every morning, just before the dawn, he would crawl into his custom-made shroud of canvas, secured on the inside by leather laces set in metal gussets. Then Pretty Woman would sling the shroud—with him inside—over the back of his horse, so that they could continue to travel. Upon growing tired, she would find an appropriate spot to make camp. Once dusk had settled, he would awake and once more resume his semblance of life.
One of the first things Yoakum had learned upon becoming a dead’un was that despite his superhuman strength and relative immunity to physical harm, it was difficult for a dead’un to survive in the world of the living without the help of humans. He knew for a fact that he would never have survived to see his first night as a dead’un, much less his first year, if not for Pretty Woman’s intervention. After all, it was she who guarded his shroud while he slept. She was the one who handled buying feed for their horses, dealing with tradesmen and other such mundane business situations that required someone able to travel about in the daylight.
Indeed, three of the original twelve Golgotha dead’uns had perished within their first week. The first had made the mistake of attempting to ford a river, unaware that running water renders dead’uns immobile. The current quickly separated the dead’un from the coffin he was carrying, sending both spinning downriver, where the casket was dashed to bits on the rocks while the creature was snared by the branches of a partially submerged tree. The dead’un remained trapped, helpless to free himself, until the sun rose. Sam and Pretty Woman found what was left of him the next evening, still entangled in the deadfall’s embrace.
The second dead’un had managed to find a small cave in the foothills, where he hid in his coffin during the day. However, while he was asleep, a pack of coyotes that usually made the cave their home dragged his carcass out of the casket and devoured it. When Hell arrived, he found a pup busily gnawing away at the creature’s skull as if it were a ball.
The third dead’un had more sense when it came to finding a place to hide her casket, choosing the hayloft of an old barn. However, her fatal mistake was that she lost track of time while out hunting. As the sun began
to rise, her long, unbound hair caught fire. As she fled back to the safety of her coffin, her hair trailing behind her like a blazing bridal veil, she ignited the surrounding bales of hay, burning the entire structure to the ground, herself along with it.
The rest of the dead’uns spawned from the Golgotha massacre, however, proved far better at survival than those three. Over the last few years, with Pretty Woman’s help, of course, he had succeeded in tracking down and exterminating the remaining nine, as well as their own unholy spawn.
While Yoakum had put his skills as a tracker to good use in hunting each of them down, what he relied on the most was a kind of sixth sense he acquired after being bitten. Whenever there was anything supernatural within a certain radius, he could feel it drawing him forward, like a magnet attracts a piece of iron. The closer he was to something of the supernatural world, the more intense the pull became. In the years he had spent hunting monsters, it had yet to let him down. And now he was feeling the persistent tug of the paranormal yet again, like an angler with a fish gently nibbling on his line.
“There’s something out there,” he said. “I can feel it.”
Pretty grunted and tossed what was left of the coffee onto the campfire. “Can you tell what it is?”
“Not yet,” he replied with a shake of his head. “Might be a ghost. Could be something more tangible. Hard to tell. I need to get closer before I can draw a bead on it.”
“What direction?”
“Thataway,” he said, pointing west.
The McKinney’s ranch and the gently rolling rangelands of the Lower Rio Grande Valley had long since given way to the less forgiving landscape of Western Texas. Upon crossing the Pecos River, the flatlands were replaced by the mountains that marked the boundary between the Great Plains and the Cordillera. They were now in the high desert, where the lowlands and highlands were equally bare of trees, and where only the highest mountain peaks supported stunted forest growth.
They had been following the pull for the better part of a week when they finally made the crest of a rise, and Hell found himself looking down at surprisingly familiar surroundings.
“I know this place. At least I used to, back during my Ranger days,” he said as he stared down at a large, two-story house surrounded by several smaller outbuildings. “It’s called Tucker’s Station. It’s a trading post that doubles as a way station for the San Antonio-San Diego stage route. Fella name of Jimbo Tucker runs this place, along with his wife, Dottie. Decent folks, if memory serves.”
“Do they know you?”
“I only met them once or twice, and that was before the war. Odds are they wouldn’t recognize me. Besides, there’s always the chance they’ve moved on and someone else is running things now.”
“Do you want to risk it?”
“We’ll have to. Whatever I’ve got a line on has been here recently. I can feel it.” As they approached the trading post, Hell pulled the reins in on his horse, bringing it to a sudden halt. “You hear that?” he whispered.
“I don’t hear anything.”
“That’s just it. It’s too quiet. The Tuckers had themselves a big ol’ coonhound that would howl like the dickens the moment anyone rode in. And even at this time of night, we should be able to hear the livestock making some kind of noise. I’ve only been one other place that was as quiet as this place is right now—Golgotha.”
Hell dismounted, signaling for Pretty Woman to do the same. They approached the main building from opposing sides, moving fast and low, weapons drawn. Pretty Woman circled around back while Hell approached the front. No lamplight came from any of the windows facing the dooryard. None of the curtains so much as twitched. As Hell approached the front door, he caught a stench so foul it made him stagger.
“Hold it right there!” a voice called out from the deep shadow cast by the wooden overhang suspended above the door.
“One step closer and I’ll blow your ass to Kingdom Come!”
“I mean no harm, friend,” Hell replied, holstering his gun.
The owner of the voice stepped forward, revealing himself to be a man in his late fifties, with unkempt gray hair and whiskers. The old-timer had the wiry build and sunburned skin of a veteran fence-rider, dressed in a denim work shirt and well-worn dungarees. He was also armed with a shotgun, which was pointed level at Sam’s chest. As the older man moved closer, favoring his left leg, the stink moved along with him.
“Who the heck are you, stranger?” the old-timer asked.
“The name’s Hell. Sam Hell,” he replied, coughing into a clenched fist. “What is that stink?”
The muzzle of the shotgun wavered slightly. “Afraid that’s me,” he explained, gesturing to his pants, which were soaked from the knees down in shit. “Now what do you want, mister?”
“I want you to put down your shotgun.”
“I’m afraid that just ain’t gonna fuckin’ happen.”
“Want to put money on that, old man?” Pretty Woman asked as she reached around the old-timer’s shoulder and placed the blade of her knife against his grizzled throat.
“Let’s not do anything god-damn rash,” the old man said as he dropped the shotgun and put his hands on the top of his head. “Pardon, my French.”
“You have nothing to fear from us. As I said, my name is Sam Hell, and this is my traveling companion, Pretty Woman.”
The old-timer raised an eyebrow and let out with a low whistle. “My-my! Ain’t you as fine as cream gravy, even if you is a squaw.”
“I could have slit your throat from ear to ear, you old buzzard,” Pretty Woman growled in reply as she returned her knife to its sheath. “Don’t make me regret that.”
“A feisty one, eh?” he grinned, displaying missing teeth.
Pretty Woman rolled her eyes and turned to address her traveling companion. “I checked the back way. No sign of life. Even the pigs in the sty are gone.”
Hell fixed the old man with a hard stare. “Okay, mister—?”
“Johnson. But most folks call me Cuss.”
“All right, Cuss—where is everybody?”
“They’re gone. Carried off by a bunch of cocksucking fiends. Pardon my French.”
“Come again?”
“You wouldn’t believe my story, even if I told you.”
“You’d be surprised by what I’ll believe,” Hell replied, pulling a handkerchief from his back pocket and placing it over his nose. “But would it be too much of a bother for you to change out of those clothes before you start telling it?”
In deference to Sam and Pretty Woman’s olfactory senses, Cuss lead them to a small shed near the livery stable that served as his living quarters. The interior was spartan, but surprisingly tidy, with the only furniture being a rope bed fitted with a horsehair mattress, a chair and small washstand with a basin.
“Normally, I’m a modest man,” the ranch hand said as he reached under his bed and dragged out a pasteboard suitcase. “I don’t usually change my drawers in front of them who ain’t kin, or at least I haven’t rode with a spell. But modesty be damned! I can’t stand myself any longer!”
Cuss removed a folded pair of dungarees from the suitcase and snapped them open with a practiced flick of his wrists. He kicked off his boots and unbuttoned the fly of his soiled jeans, peeled them off and tossed them out the front door. Dressed in nothing but his union suit, he sat down in the solitary chair and began to pull on his clean pants.
“Aren’t you gonna change your long johns, too?” Hell asked.
“Ain’t got but one god-damn pair,” Cuss grunted as he threaded a belt through the loops of his pants. “Besides, they been through worse without needin’ a wash.”
“Maybe you could borrow a pair from the Tucker’s inventory? I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.”
“I already checked the trading post,” Cuss sighed, wiping at the muck that encrusted his boots with an old rag. “Them thievin’ marauders took everything that weren’t nailed down. Pots, pans, blankets, bolts of trad
e cloth … you name it, they hauled it off.”
“You want to tell us what happened?” Hell asked, folding his arms across his chest.
The ranch hand stared at the boot he held in his hands for a long moment before replying. “I been workin’ for the Tuckers ever since I got throwed by that god-damn bronco over at the Lazy J. Must be goin’ on five years now. It busted up my leg somethin’ awful. Doc said I was lucky they didn’t take it off at the knee. It’s good for walkin’ and such, but it keeps me from ridin’ herd. Jimbo, he took me on after that. Mostly I see to the horses, while him and the missus tend to the folks that come through. The pay ain’t much, but I got a clean, dry place to bunk, and I’m allowed to take my meals in the house. For an ornery ol’ hoot-owl like myself, I have to say it’s a sweet deal.
“We don’t get much in the way of trouble out here. The stage comes and goes twice a week, and that’s about it in terms of excitement. The Tuckers have made a point of bein’ fair in their dealings, and it’s helped keep them in good stead with the Injuns and Meskins hereabouts. The worst we’ve ever had to worry about was a horse thief or two. But that was before today.
“I knowed there wasn’t something right with them cocksuckers the moment I clapped eyes on ’em. There was ten of ’em: eight men and two women. They was drivin’ three covered wagons. Claimed they was homesteaders headed out West. They said they’d been on the road for the better part of a month and were runnin’ low on flour and sugar and the like, and were hankerin’ to spend a night under a solid roof. But they didn’t strike me as settlers. For one, the men seemed a touch hard for farmers, if you get my drift. The womenfolk didn’t strike me as proper ladies, neither. And there weren’t a young’un to be seen, which struck me as odd. Besides, I don’t trust folks that smile when they ain’t got no god damn reason to, and these folks was showin’ way too much teeth for my liking.
Hell Come Sundown Page 5
