How the West Was Weird, Vol. 2

by Barry Reese

  Sometimes he sounds like Aunt Ruthie did at night, when she was alone, once she thought we had all gone to sleep. Chattering away like a finch at springtime. I’d hear her voice through the log wall my sleeping space shared with the main room of the cabin, sounding like she was talking through a stack of blankets. No words I knew, but the sound of her voice was enough, sort of mumbly and even. But I swear it wasn’t in any language I was raised with. Then I’d fall asleep anyway, worrying about Pap or the crops...

  For some time, Pap had been looking older and poorer than ever I could imagine. He’d taken to bed more and more for chilblains. His arms got stringier looking, and even his hair changed from thick and brown to sort of weak and grey. Odd for a man who’d been one of the stoutest fellows to settle in the region. Why, I seen him whup Sioux raiders, steady as you like, one at a time, like he was plucking pas-ture grubs off the cow’s back.

  Lucky I was young enough to keep up with chores, even if no matter what I did wasn’t good enough for Aunt Ruthie. I was tired most all the time, and reckoned that’s how Pap felt his whole life. If that was the case, I figured I didn’t want none of that. If it weren’t for Pap, I’d have gone off to see the elephant a long time before, maybe join up with a cowboyin’ outfit. But he needed me. Sure as shootin’ no one else was going to help him.

  Them twins were primped and pampered something awful and Aunt Ruthie would just about chew coals and spit fire if you so much as looked askance at them. Heaven forbid you should ask the princesses to lend a hand filling the woodbox or working the churn. By the end of each day, me and Pap were bone-tired, falling asleep at the table over bowls of stew. But the twins and Aunt Ruthie were rested and fine.

  Then it all changed that hot autumn afternoon when Aunt Ruthie shouted for me. I was at the forge with Pap, working up a new set of pin hinges for the barn. One thing I’ve always liked is heating up steel until it looks like the prettiest sunset you ever saw, then swinging down hard on it. The spray of sparks shoots out every which way – nothing like it. And that’s about where I was. Truly enjoying myself, you know? Working with Pap and scattering sparks. Nothing like it.

  So when she called to me, said I should come on in, get cleaned up, I looked to Pap to tell her she’d have to do without me. But he kept his eyes down, then shook his head. Well there it is, I thought to myself as I stomped on down the hill to the house.

  I was mumbling and fuming and trying to think of a way I could sass Aunt Ruthie. Even though I was seventeen and man enough, I reckon, Pap was forever telling me to not spar with her so much. Keep the peace, he’d say. Do what she wants and treat her like you would a mother. But that afternoon, I reckoned I’d had enough of that kind of chatter, Pap or no. Then as I come around the corner of the cabin, I lost whatever argument I might have cooked up, and any sense I had, too. For there stood Lorna Tinker.

  Now, I’d see her all the time growing up. Heck, we used to play together at church functions and the like. And I saw plenty of her over the past few years, too, what with Aunt Ruthie instructing her and the twins in what Ruthie called, “the herbal arts.” But for all that, I’d never seen her looking quite like she did that day.

  She wore some sort of frock that, from the way she was standing, with the afternoon light just behind her, why I could nearly see through. And what I couldn’t see, I could nearly see, if you understand me. Across her chest there wasn’t much in the way of cloth, and she was trussed up in all the right ways. Bubbling up soft and pink. And her hair, now there was something different there, too. All told, I’d never seen a girl look any prettier.

  I must have gawked a bit too long, because Aunt Ruthie come stamping up to me like she always did, but this time she just handed me a clean shirt and pointed to the wash basin. And do you know what? She was smiling. Yes sir. Smiling at me. Not at the twins, but at me. I hadn’t seen that sight in a coon’s age. Took me nearly as long to recover from it as it did on seeing Lorna so gussied up.

  “You two will be going on a picnic.” That’s all Ruthie said.

  I reckoned that was about all I needed to hear anyway. Plumb forgot about Pap and the forge and hinges and sparks showering.

  We didn’t talk much as we wandered off away from the farm. I thought we might take the basket full of food into the hills, and set out on that rocky knob with the one stunty tree atop. I’d only seen a snake sunning there a time or two. There might be prettier views on earth, but I’d not seen ’em. From that knoll a body could see a good fair bit of the Black Hills.

  But Lorna had other ideas. Said she heard all about the low road from Aunt Ruthie. All about how gold was fairly popping out of the ground no matter where you stepped, how she wouldn’t be afraid of bears if she was with me in them woods, how there would be more privacy for a pair of young folks such as ourselves.

  Well, all these notions added up in my head to something that held more promise than sense. And soon enough I found myself trailing after Lorna Tinker, swaying ahead of me for all the world like she’d been down through there a hundred times before. And before I knew where I was or what I was doing, she’d pulled up short at a hanging snag of roots and vines all matted together, sort of draped over a rock face.

  “What’s this, Lorna?” I said. But she didn’t say a thing. Just walked over to me, stood up on her toes, and her warm breath on my face.... For some reason I closed my eyes. Then I felt the picnic basket pulled out of my hand and I heard a giggle and opened my eyes in time to see her slip in between them vines, laughing the entire time.

  And that’s when I knew where we were at. The cave. “Lorna, no girl! You don’t know what you’re doing!” I ran to the vines, stood there without touching them, my hands held out as if I was testing heat off a stove. “Lorna!”

  I heard more giggles, from deeper in. I tried to sound mad and not scared. “Lorna, you come out here right now. This ain’t funny.”

  She just giggled some more and said, “Come get me.”

  I rolled my eyes a bit, gritted my teeth, and parted them vines and roots. Then I took a breath, and in I went, thinking of my Mama the entire time.

  It wasn’t nearly so dark in there as you’d think. I didn’t know where the light came from, but there was glow enough that I could see where to put my feet. It was what you’d expect, sort of dry and dusty feeling.

  “Lorna!” I sort of hissed her name, not daring to shout. I got a look around me then. If I’d reached up I could have touched the ceiling. It curved down wider inside than you’d guess from the outside, maybe as wide as two men laid out end to end. But how far back it went, I didn’t know. Then she giggled again, from way back in there, and I knew I’d find out soon enough.

  “Lorna, Lorna, where you at, girl? This has gone on long enough. This cave ain’t for playing in. Bad things happen here—”

  Her giggling stopped. I swallowed a hard, dry lump in my throat. It got darker the deeper in I walked. I was trailing my fingers along one wall and sort of crouching, lest I skin my head. Seems like I went back in there forever. Then I heard Lorna whisper, “Here I am.” And by god if she wasn’t right in front of me.

  I reached out to grab hold of her, ready to drag her straight out of there. But my hands closed on nothing, no pretty arms nor anything else, and I pitched forward.

  I didn’t hit the cave floor. I kept right on going. Falling.

  Today I saw something that doesn’t give me much hope. That old man-creature took to sipping from the pool like he does, then waggled his hands in the water down by my legs, though I never felt it. I guess I’ve grown too numb, being in the water all this time. But as his glow grew and crawled up the walls, like when you first open your eyes in the morning, I saw on the wall to my right all these little hollowed-out nooks in the rock. And they had faces in them, like carvings.

  Most of them were men. One was a woman, I think, because I saw what looked like part of a bonnet attached to her head. I believe I saw a few snouts, too. One looked mighty big, a bear maybe, and a fe
w were doglike. And I fancy one was a badger. There were lots more, I guess, lost in the dark. And here’s the odd part – they were all staring at me, I swear it. I would almost say that I saw their eyes move, mouths open and close, eyebrows rise up, that sort of thing. But I guessed it was the dark playing tricks on me. Had to be. I know it sounds crazy, because they were only heads.

  The fellow pulled his hands from my little pond and reached out toward that wall, though he was too far away to touch it. But as I watched – and I swear I saw all them heads cut their eyes in his direction – his hands began clawing at the air, as if he was waving like a tired child. Then I saw what was happening.

  He was sort of scooping at the wall, but without touching it. Bits of rock no bigger than a bean dropped to the stone floor, even a little dust kicked up as the hole he was digging at widened and deepened. Every once in a while he’d face me without opening his eyes and let out a soft, “Mak u.” His eyes would sort of flutter like they might spring open again any second.

  And all the while he was scratching at the air with those long, white, claw fingers and saying, “Mak u, mak u.” I’d never seen anything like it. But when I shifted my eyes back to them heads, I saw most of them staring at me again. And that’s when I knew for certain that they were alive. I know how it sounds, but I tell you I saw their wide, white eyes move. And what’s more, I saw raw fear in them.

  Next, he turned and shuffled toward the end of the chamber. I thought he was leaving again, and I usually start singing when he leaves, to have something to do, maybe annoy him a bit. But today he’d drunk from my pool a good long time, and the water, like it always did, gave him a glow as he moved around the chamber. Sort of like when you carry an oil lamp from room to room. Then he bent low, a wedge of rock close by the floor half hiding him. He made a grunting noise, and it looked as though he had hold of a rope and he was yarning on it something fierce.

  But do you know, there was nothing there. No rope, nothing attached to it, and still he kept grunting, crouched and hauling in something hand over hand. And then I heard it – a sliding sound, matching his dragging efforts, little by little. At first it was a low, dark shape slowly scraping into view, then as it slid into the paltry green-white glow I saw it for what it was – a man’s body, coming into the chamber head first. But there was no rope attached to the man, and he appeared to be unconscious or dead.

  I watched the progress and thought I saw the man’s left arm move a bit, rise up and flop back down. Probably hung up on a rock, but I chose to believe it also could have meant that he was alive.

  “Hey, hey you there, fella. Wake up!”

  The skinny little man straightened up and looked at me. “Mak u, mak u.”

  “Yeah, yeah, mak u to you, too,” I said like I always say to him.

  As if to agree with me, he pointed to the spot he’d gouged in the wall and nodded, his mouth whispering, “Mak u.” And he pointed to me.

  And that’s when I understood more than I wanted to.

  “Oh Lord, he’s going to cut off my head!” I said loud enough to echo around that dank chamber like a ricocheted rifle shot.

  The little man grunted at his task for a minute more, then he come on over to me, bringing his glow with him. He’d never done this before. He leaned in close and smiled, really smiled. And when his mouth opened wide, there was nothing in there but blackness.

  Then he looked me over, almost like you’d do with an apple before you decide to pick it or not, as if he was making sure I was ready for whatever it was he had in mind. I was too soon find out. Whatever he saw must have agreed with him, because he backed off a bit, all the while keeping on with his “mak u” mumbling. Then he closed his eyes in that twitchy sort of way and pointed his claw hands at me.

  Imagine my surprise at seeing I was rising up out of the water. I heard little splashing sounds as I left the pool, and I looked down, wondering what my body would look like after soaking for so long.

  I was nothing but a head swinging in the air.

  I kept looking at the little pool where I’d spent so much time, and I could see there was nothing else in it. And there damn sure was no body of mine in there. Where it went I could not tell you. Before, I had been sort of emotionless and accepting of the foul situation, but now the truly horrible nature of it hit me hard. And it was bad, I tell you. As bad a feeling as that day when Aunt Ruthie slapped my face and told me that my Mama was never coming back. And I’d finally understood.

  I could see my face in the water, like a mirror. It was me, all right. But I didn’t look like a prize winner. My patchy beard had grown in, my hair was longish and sticking up, my eyes were opened full and showed all white, my mouth wide. And that’s when I realized no sound was coming from me anymore, even though I was screaming like I was on fire.

  I sort of floated toward the little hollowed out space in the wall he’d dug for me. He spun me around with his skinny white claw hands, one of them bunched tight like he was hefting a lantern in the dark, like he had a handful of my topknot. Only there was nothing in his hand.

  As the little man spun me around again on the slow journey to my cubby hole in the stone wall, I saw the last thing I ever expected to see. Ever. There she was: my Mama. I kid you not – my own Mama staring at me from one of them holes in the wall. Her head had been the one with the flopped bonnet I’d seen before. Her eyes followed me.

  And she was alive, as sure as I knew I was. They all were alive. For not only were her eyes following me, wide open and pleading, her eyebrows working up and down, but her mouth was in a full scream. Mine too. But we made no noise. Only thing I heard was “Mak u, mak u,” and I wished the evil little creature man would die right there or drop me. Anything to stop the craziness.

  But it didn’t happen. He spun me around and set me down, far enough back in my hole that I couldn’t see whoever was beside me. And I guess that means they couldn’t see me, neither. I kept trying to shout, but nothing came out. He gave me that sort of shy smile look again, and then he shuffled away, his feet dragging on the stone.

  I watched his glow. He walked around the end of the pond and pretended to muckle onto something again. Then without touching him, he dragged on that other fellow, who by now had set up a low, steady dribble of moans.

  Closer he got to the pool, which was right down there below me, I saw the moaner was an old man with stringy gray hair and a sparse beard bristling off his face. He was thinner than a body had a right to be. He wore raggedy brown pants tucked into boots that were wore clean through. And his homespun shirt was more hole than cloth. His right leg, below the knee, had snapped and trailed at a poor angle. He was a raw-looking affair, all around.

  I tried to shout to him, warn him, tell him to jump up and give that little animal-like medicine man what-for, and get the heck out of there. But of course I hadn’t a squeak to my name. Nor a body. There’d be no running for me. If he didn’t wake up, the same thing waited for him. And from the looks of it, he wasn’t waking up.

  I’ve had a load of time to think on it, and I figure that old fellow must have taken the same fall I did – straight through the dirt floor at the back of that cave. Maybe he went in there to avoid a storm and met a bear, maybe his horse run off – who knows? Misfortune dogged him, as it did all of us. Some way or other, each of us, big and small, animal and man, took shelter where we shouldn’t. Or were led in there by something or someone, like curiosity... or maybe a wily, near-naked young thing put up to it by an aunt who always seemed to know more than the rest of us.

  As the little white creature-man circled the room, I saw he was in fine form, glowing up a storm. He passed close to the walls, and I saw that they were full of faces, hundreds or thousands or more, all staring down. Some of them were creatures I never even heard of. Some of them were tiny, like mice, some were bear or horses or buffalo. Some of them were people, whites and Indians. And there were others, too, with an old-timey look to them, older than Indians. And all of them staring, mouths
working open and shut, each trying to make the only sounds they knew how.

  Yes sir, all of us hollering and not amounting to a whisper. And all of us had fed this creature – though I don’t rightly know what he is, for surely he isn’t an animal, isn’t a man.

  As he flopped the old fellow into that shallow pool, clothes and all, the man moaned like a whisper, but he never woke up. I knew whatever I had been through couldn’t get any worse. Then that little witchy man leaned down over the old moaning man and his glow shined on the codger’s face. And sure enough, all at once it all got worse. For that old man was Pap, sure as the morning light won’t never warm any of our faces ever again, there was my Pap in the pool.

  And I can’t do a thing but watch him wither away.

  I wonder how Aunt Ruthie wore him down enough to get him to the cave? Knowing her, she carried him on in. And now she and her little witchy brood got all they need, I guess. And they got rid of the stuff they don’t need. No matter now, at least me and Mama and Pap are all together again.

  I expect that when Pap does wake up, he’ll see us heads staring down and wonder what has happened. When he does finally look up at me and our eyes meet, I would like to be able to tell him that it’s nothing but a bad, bad dream. That the only things worth knowing come to us too late to be of use.

  THE TESTIMONY OF CONSTABLE FRASER

  by Kevin Thornton

  “Hey get a load of this,” said Erica. “Should we open it?” The folder was dusty, wrapped in a parchment of sorts and labeled: