Lynch

by Nancy A. Collins

  “What are you men looking at?” Barnes bellowed as everyone silently stared at the woman’s body. “Ain’t you never seen a bitch put out of her misery before?”

  “You mean you put her out of our misery, Lieutenant!” Lewes laughed, toasting Barnes with an upraised bottle of rotgut.

  “Ain’t that right, boys?”

  A ragged chorus of laughs rose from the men. The laughter of the women was noticeable for its absence. Then again, they hadn’t done anything except scream, cry, groan, and beg for mercy for days on end. When the men weren’t fucking them on top of the gaming tables, the captive women stayed huddled together like baby rabbits trying to keep warm. Whenever one of Drake’s Devils felt the need, he would stagger up and simply drag one of them off to do whatever it was he wanted.

  A few of their number were professional whores, but the rest were the mothers, daughters and sweethearts of the men lying dead in the street. The working girls tried as best they could to put themselves between the outlaws and the other women, but there were simply not enough of them to go around.

  Drake watched the women weep and shiver in fear, scowling in disgust. As loathsome and primitive as they might be, he had more respect for squaws than he did white women. At least a proper squaw would kill herself before allowing herself to be raped.

  As Drake’s Devils once again resumed their monstrous revelry, another scream rang out. But this time it didn’t come from inside the saloon or from a woman. Seconds later, Ferguson’s body came flying through the batwing doors and landed on the sawdust-strewn floor.

  Lewes stared at the halo of blood forming underneath his friend’s head, his face drained of color. “Where’s his ears?” he croaked, wiping his upper lip with the sleeve of his shirt.

  Drake leapt from his chair and grabbed one of the women, a young girl who would have been pretty if not for the bruises on her face. The girl sobbed in fear and pain as he dragged her to the door of the saloon by her hair. Drake positioned himself in the threshold, using her as a shield, and pressed his pistol against her temple.

  “I don’t know who you are out there—!” he shouted at the darkness. “And I don’t care!” He wrapped another length of the girl’s locks around his fist, pressing her tear-stained cheek closer to the muzzle of his gun. “Pull another trick like that, and I’ll have my men open fire on the whole lot! You hear me?”

  There was a long silence, then a lone voice spoke from somewhere in the darkness: “I hear you, Drake.”

  He backed away from the open door and then roughly cast the sobbing girl aside. Whoever killed Ferguson must have taken out Powell as well, which meant that Drake no longer had the church. That left him with only the women in the saloon as bargaining chips.

  “Captain—did you recognize the voice?” Barnes whispered.

  Drake shook his head, preoccupied.

  “Do you think it’s the Army?”

  Drake snorted and pointed at what remained of Ferguson. “Whoever did that ain’t reg’lar Army. I’m bettin’ on vigilantes.”

  “Vigilantes?” Barnes frowned. “How would they know to look for us here?”

  Before Drake could answer, there came the sound of horse’s hooves hammering against a boardwalk at full speed. Drake grabbed his gun and spun around in time to see the Devil himself come crashing through the front window of the saloon. Drake knew the man dressed in the black duster with the scarf thrown round his neck had to be the Devil because he had mismatched eyes—and the face of a dead man.

  Satan rode a coal black horse with eyes that burned like coals snatched from the inferno’s hottest forge. In his right hand, he held a pearl-handle revolver, in his left a shotgun, and between his teeth was clamped the reigns of his mount. The black horse landed on one of the flimsy gaming tables nearest the door, sending empty whiskey bottles and poker chips flying. The roughness of the landing, however, did nothing to shake the rider’s aim. Within seconds Lewes, Childers and Dawson were dead, bullets lodged in their brains, hearts and lungs.

  Realizing they were under attack, the remaining outlaws dove for cover and began immediately laying down fire. The women, forgotten in the confusion, ran for the backdoor of the saloon.

  Lucifer glanced up at the wagon wheel that served as the barroom’s chandelier. Ignoring the hot lead whistling past him like angry mosquitoes, he raised his gun and fired at the pulley mechanism. The chandelier crashed to the floor, killing the outlaw standing under it instantly. The six kerosene lamps affixed to the spokes shattered on impact, sending burning kerosene flying in all direction. Within moments, the saloon was on fire.

  “You murderin’ son of a bitch! I’ll get you for what you done!” Detweiler screamed as he lunged from cover, burying the blade of his knife in the stranger’s right leg. But to his amazement, the other man did not so much as flinch. The horse he was riding, however, closed its white, strong teeth firmly on Detweiler’s throat, shaking him back and forth as a terrier would a rat.

  Drake saw the Devil staring at him through the smoke and fire he’d brought with him from Hell. Drake was frozen, unable to look away from the pale specter as he made his slow, stately way toward him from across the burning barroom, the fire reflecting in his mismatched eyes.

  Suddenly Barnes was there, shouting in Drake’s ear, tugging on his arm. “Captain! We’ve got to get you away from here before the whole building comes down on our heads! Grunwald! Obermeyer! Help me get him out!”

  Drake looked into his second-in-command’s face, his piercing blue eyes clouded by confusion. “He’s here to take me back.”

  “Take you back where—?” Barnes frowned in confusion. “To Washington?”

  “No; to Hell,” Drake replied.

  Suddenly there was a loud groan and a burning timber came crashing down from the ceiling, blocking the Devil’s path. Someone screamed, and Drake turned and saw the flames swallow Grunwald. Barnes grabbed Drake by the collar and dragged him through the shimmering curtain of fire toward the back door that the women had used to make their escape. A second later they were outside, coughing smoke out of their lungs and swatting at the burning cinders clinging to their clothes and hair.

  Upon sucking in a lung-full of fresh air, Drake seemed restored to his usual vigor. “That son of a bitch double-crossed me!” he roared. “He sent one of his monsters after me!”

  “Sir?” Barnes gasped, blinking in confusion. “I don’t understand—”

  “It is not your place to understand me, Barnes—only obey!” Drake shot back. “How many men are left?”

  “Just Obermeyer and myself, sir.”

  “Then that will just have to do. We’re saddling up and leaving right now.”

  “Where are we going, sir?”

  “To settle the butcher’s bill, Lieutenant.”

  It took Lynch a few hours to dig his way out from under the rubble of what had once been the saloon. When he saw the ceiling coming down, he dived under the bar, which saved him from getting his back broken or his skull smashed by falling rafters.

  He looked down at his hands—the flesh covering them was reddened and blistered from the intense heat but otherwise whole. He touched his face, making sure that everything was still in its proper place. A large flap of skin hung from the side of his face like a piece of wet tissue paper, but outside of that he seemed to be intact.

  As he stumbled out of the jumble of charred timber and burned bodies, he heard a shocked gasp. He looked up and saw a knot of townspeople standing on the nearby boardwalk, staring at him in horror. Lynch dusted the ash off his clothes as best he could, then smiled and tipped his hat.

  “Don’t mind me, folks,” he said, smoke curling from his mouth as he spoke. “I’m just passing through.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  After Lynch dug himself free of the ruined saloon, he spent some time tracking down Alastor, who at least had enough horse sense not to stay inside a burning building. Once he had finished sewing the various bullet and knife wounds in his body shu
t and given himself an injection of the good doctor’s marvelous elixir re-vitae, he was faced with the question of provisions for the journey ahead.

  He waited until it was dark to sneak back into Newtonville and drag Powell’s body from under the stairs of the church. When he first arrived, he’d been tempted to steal one of the corpses Drake had left lying in the street, but he was afraid of drawing the outlaws’ attention to his presence before he was ready. Besides, they were already a little too ripe for his tastes.

  Once he finished butchering Powell into easily carried choice cuts, he sat down for a much-needed meal. He figured Drake had a three-day start on him. But that didn’t mean much to a man who didn’t sleep and never got tired. Besides, it wasn’t like the renegade was going out of his way to hide his tracks. Either Drake thought he was dead, or he didn’t give a good goddamn that he was being followed.

  At first Lynch wondered where Drake thought he was going. But as he followed his prey’s trail across the plains, toward the towering peaks of the Grand Tetons, he realized that, for some reason, he was being lead back to the scene of his rebirth.

  The cabin was in shambles when he arrived. The bookshelf had been knocked over, its cache of rare volumes and medical texts spilled across the floor like playing cards. The table was upended, its chairs reduced to kindling. The door that lead to Mirablis’ secret cave stood wide open, sagging on broken hinges. Lynch hurried into the darkness on the other side of the threshold without hesitation. To his eyes, at least, the cave’s shadows held no secrets, its darkness no mystery.

  “Doc! Where are you?” he called out.

  The only response to his call was his own voice echoing back to him. As he continued his search for the old man, he stumbled and nearly fell across a body sprawled on the cave floor. He recognized the dead man as Barnes, Drake’s second-in-command.

  He was the one who had knotted the rope that snapped Johnny Pearl’s neck so neatly. He realized Barnes’s face was staring up at him, even though the dead man was lying belly down.

  Pompey lay a few feet away from the outlaw’s body. The mute was riddled with bullets, but what finally snuffed out the second life of the doctor’s faithful servant was the shot that parted his sinus cavity down the middle.

  But if Pompey was dead … what had become of Mirablis?

  Lynch got his answer when he reached the tank. The artificial womb’s glass panels were smashed, and a huge puddle of elixir re-vitae was pooled underneath the structure. Mirablis’s body lay face down in the greenish yellow fluid, blood seeping from a half-dozen bullet wounds.

  Despite himself, Lynch cried out in alarm. He hurried forward and awkwardly knelt beside his creator. Lynch rolled Mirablis over, hoping against hope that he might still be alive, but his prayers were in vain. Though his wounds were still fresh, Mirablis’ flesh had already taken on the chill of death.

  Lynch sobbed as he cradled the dead scientist in his arms, rocking back and forth as the grief rose within him. As much as he had resented Mirablis’ interference with his life—and afterlife—he had never wished the old man any harm. He clutched the body to his breast, mourning him as Johnny Pearl had never been allowed to mourn his own father, all those years ago.

  “No—not like this—I didn’t mean for it to be like this,” he moaned. “I never meant for anyone but Drake and his men to die!”

  There came the sound of a boot heel scraping against rock, and Lynch found himself staring at the muzzle of Drake’s gun. Though he knew he was moments removed from his second and final death, all Lynch could think was how shabby the once-fearsome Captain looked.

  The renegade officer still wore his cavalry uniform, but the company insignia and his officer’s stripes were now missing from the shoulders and sleeves. His handsomely coifed red mane and beard was tangled and liberally shot with gray, the whiskers about his mouth permanently stained by tobacco juice and whiskey. His eyes still shone as brightly as the first time they met, but now they burned with madness.

  “That’s right. You were too late to save your master,” Drake snarled, blood smeared across his lower lip and chin whiskers. “Still, the old bastard put up a hell of a fight—more than Barnes and Obermeyer were expecting, that’s for sure. Or, rather, his pet monsters put up the fight.” Drake waved a bloody hand in the direction of what was left of Obermeyer scattered about the cave floor.

  “Where’s Sasquatch?”

  “You mean the Injun? When it realized the old man was dead, it hollered like a stuck hog and ran off into the cave. It’s dead, too. Or will be soon. God knows I emptied enough lead into it.”

  “I don’t understand—how did you know to come here?”

  Drake laughed and spat a wad of bloody phlegm on the floor of the cave. “Don’t play innocent! I know what that ungrateful sack of shit did! He didn’t have no more use for me, once I was drummed out, so he sent you after me! Who was he to think he could treat me that way after all I’d done for him over the years?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Who do you suppose it was who allowed that medicine wagon to travel unmolested by Injuns—or dissatisfied customers, for that matter!” Drake snorted. “Hell, I even provided him with bodies for those damn fool experiments of his!”

  “Y-you mean you and Mirablis—you were working together?”

  “Let’s just say we had us a business arrangement. The old geezer paid me so he could get first crack at the spoils of war, as it were.” Drake studied Lynch’s face for a moment then gave a short laugh that sounded like a bark of pain. “You ain’t shittin’ me, are you? You really didn’t know about me and th’ old man. Huh! I guess Mirablis was right when he said this was all a big misunderstanding.”

  “Oh. There’s no misunderstanding,” Lynch said as he laid Mirablis body on the ground, his voice strangely calm. “I am gonna kill you, you murderin’ Yankee bastard.”

  “You can try, you broke-neck freak,” Drake snarled. “But better men than you have died tryin’.”

  Lynch smiled, his eyes glowing like stars in the gloom of the cavern as he got to his feet. “Be that as it may, Drake. But then again—I’m already dead.”

  The bullet struck Lynch’s neck brace, knocking him onto his back. Drake moved forward and pointed the gun point-blank at the other man’s head and repeatedly pulled the trigger, only to have the hammer click onto empty chambers.

  “Damn you!” Drake screamed in rage, hurling the useless gun aside. He turned and fled as fast as he could, stumbling through the darkness toward the light that marked the open doorway leading to the cabin.

  Lynch took his time getting to his feet. There was no point in hurrying after Drake. After all, where could his prey possibly go that he could not follow? Drake was a dead man and knew it. Lynch could afford to stalk him at his leisure—after all; he had all the time in the world.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Drake ran through the cabin’s single room, bursting through the door and into the open air. He was bruised and cut from slamming into rock formations in the dark, and he had a cracked rib from where the Injun freak had grabbed him, but he was alive—which was more than could be said for Barnes and Obermeyer. He had to get some space between him and that broke-necked son of a bitch. Once he had space, he could figure out a battle plan. But right now he had to grab his horse and ride.

  Drake hurried toward the barn, only to come to a sudden halt upon seeing the doors standing wide open. The horses that he and the others had arrived on were lying on their sides. Standing in the middle of the fallen animals was a black horse, tearing at the flesh of the fallen animals as if it was grazing in a field of clover. The black beast raised its head and made an angry snorting noise as it pawed the ground, staring at him with glowing eyes.

  The outlaw made a choking sound, then turned and fled on foot, following the narrow winding path that lead toward the top of the mountain. As he neared the first bend, he looked over his shoulder and saw the hanged man standing outside the cabin, watching him.


  Lynch watched Drake run until he was out of sight, then fished out his pocket watch and Katie’s braid. He sat down on a nearby rock and stroked his dead wife’s hair, the time piece resting beside him with its case open. When five minutes had passed, Lynch snapped the case closed and returned the watch to his waistcoat pocket. He began walking in the direction his prey had gone.

  Halfway up the mountain, Lynch noticed that the wind had grown considerably stronger. He paused to tilt his head back as best he could and stare up at the sky. There were clouds gathering overhead—growing larger and darker with every minute. He grunted to himself and returned Katie’s braid to his breast pocket.

  A few minutes later, the foot path disappeared, and Lynch found himself alternately hiking and scaling his way up the side of the mountain. Though there were plenty of natural handholds in the form of rocks and stunted shrubs, the rigid neck brace made it difficult for him to maintain his balance while climbing. He was within feet of the pinnacle when something wet and cold splashed against his cheek.

  As he paused to wipe the raindrop from his face, a large rock struck him in the shoulder, sending him sliding ten feet down the side of the mountain. As Lynch struggled to regain his footing, a second, even bigger stone struck him squarely on the spine.

  In the months since his resurrection, Lynch had forgotten what true pain actually felt like. He routinely suffered shootings, stabbings and being burned alive, much like anyone else would endure a scraped knee or bruised elbow. However, the pain exploding along his spine was so intense it was all he could do to keep from screaming until he burst a lung. As he lay there, groveling in agony, he could make out Drake’s silhouette on the ledge above him. The outlaw looked like a wild-haired savage preparing to bash out the brains of his enemy.

  “I’m gonna kill you, dead man!” Drake shouted as he lifted a small boulder over his head. “And this time you’re gonna stay dead!”

  As if to punctuate his statement, the storm clouds swallowed the sun. The winds howled like wolves scenting blood. Lynch stared up at his killer, awaiting the final blow that would return him to his wife.