Six Guns Straight From Hell
Tales of Horror & Dark Fantasy
From the Weird Weird West
Edited by
David B. Riley & Laura Givens
Science Fiction Trails Publishing
Vail, Colorado
© 2010 Science Fiction Trails Publishing
PO Box 8191
Avon, Colorado 81620
http://www.sciencefictiontrails.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the express written consent of the publisher. excepting brief quotes used for review purposes.
The stories contained herein are works of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The only exception is some stories may contain brief casual references to historical figures from the Old West era.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cover Design by Laura Givens
Contents
Introduction
Chin Song Ping and the Fifty-Three Thieves
Laura Givens
Clay Allison and the Haunted Head
Bill D. Allen & Sherri Dean
Decently and Quietly Dead
Matthew Baugh
Trouble Huntin’
Bill Craig
On the Road to Bodie
Lyn McConchie
Spook
John Howard
Bleeding the Bank Dry
David Boop
A Specter in the Light
David Lee Summers
As Ye Sow
Renee James
Night Bird
Don Hornbostel
Smile
Kit Volker
Ghost Dancers
Sam Kepfield
Justice
Nicole Givens Kurtz
The Man from Turkey Creek Canyon
Lee Clark Zumpe
The Last Defenders
Carol Hightshoe
Long Night in Little China
Joel Jenkins
The Enterprising Necromancer
Henrik Ramsager
Snake Oil
Jennifer Campbell-Hicks
The Murders Over In Weirdunkal
James Patrick Cobb
Grumpy Gaines, Texas Ranger
David B. Riley
Introduction
Howdy. When I talk about Weird Westerns, I often use the phrase “These ain’t your pappy’s western stories.” Actually, that may not be entirely true. The Weird Western genre has been around for quite a while now. I also used to call these type of stories, “The greatest genre nobody ever heard of.” The actuality is Pappy may well have read something like this and Pappy may have heard of them. I’ve been editing, publishing and writing in this area for more years than I care to admit. Over that time, I’ve seen all sorts of things passed off as weird western. I think the genre has changed a bit as the years have gone by. And, perhaps, people have worried too much about labels.
One of the tests of literature is the test of time. The weird western story has shown it has legs and will be around for a long time to come. People like stories about vampires and ghosts and things that go bump in the night. When the Wild West lawmen, the cowboys and the cavalry soldiers take on these entities, they do so with their nineteenth century mindsets and abilities. So, these stories take us back to a simpler time, yet the tension and danger of any horror tale remains. I think their great lure is their unpredictability. It’s like taking a horror tale and making it into a new painting by using the canvas of the Wild West frontier.
Even though many of us love these stories, there has been a tendency with some writers and publishers to simply crank out one wretched work after another. There have been plenty of collections that bear the Weird Western label and offer little more that one cookie cutter dark zombie tale followed by another just like it with lots of shooting in some generic western town, then two or three survivors are faced with the choice of rebuilding or moving on.
So, that’s the paradox of the Weird Western story. Some of the most expertly crafted and exciting tales I’ve ever read came out of this genre. Yet, at the same time, some of the most dreadful and poorly written crap I’ve seen has also born the Weird Western label.
In putting together this collection, Laura and I wanted to challenge the contributors to come up with fresh approaches to the genre and we set out to select only the best. Our readers will judge if we succeeded.
David B. Riley
Introduction II: Revenge of the
Weird Western
When you think about it, all westerns are weird. Life during that period bore little resemblance to the movies, TV shows and stories that we’ve come to think of as westerns. Of course the same applies to the worlds of cops, doctors, samurai and lawyers. We recognize the genre shorthand that drops us into familiar worlds that don’t actually exist, and we go along for the ride. But, when you smash up a couple of familiar genres, well then, something cool happens and you aren’t quite so sure where it’ll take you.
That’s our aim here, High Noon at the stroke of midnight.
The horror genre has been getting a big overhaul during the past couple of decades, where once there were castles, now the monsters live in condos. So why shouldn’t they find a home on the range? The same historical time period that gave the world its first taste of literary vampires and monsters also gave birth to the fictional adventures of Wild Bill and Billy the Kid. I don’t think that’s a coincidence, I think they were made for each other. Now, this is hardly the first attempt to set these two crazy kids up on a blind date, but this time we’re sending along some really top notch authors to chaperone the event.
So saddle up and have yourself a good howl at that big ol’ moon because you never know what’s over that next ridge.
Laura Givens
Chin Song Ping and the
Fifty-Three Thieves
by
Laura Givens
As near as he could figure, Ping had fallen into one of the levels of hell. The sun overhead stripped all color from the barren landscape and the mind-squelching heat seemed to come from below and above equally. There was no relief in sight and the horizon seemed to stretch further than he would have thought imaginable only a year before. This level of hell had a name, and the name was Arizona.
He wasn’t terribly surprised at being in hell, his mother had always said it was where he would wind up, but he did resent having to walk through it while leading a magnificent white stallion which refused to be ridden today. For the eighth time that day, he stopped and bowed to the stallion, “Great and honorable steed,” he said as he bowed to the horse, “I realize you are far too noble to be ridden by a scoundrel such as my humble self, but we may move out of this place much faster on your four feet than on our six collective feet.” He bowed lower and added, “Please?” Ping then clambered onto the saddle secured to the broad, strong white back of the animal and did all the “Giddyup” things he had seen white riders do, to no avail. For the eighth time, he slid to the ground thinking that the problem was speaking Chinese to an American horse. He was naturally good with languages and understood the language well enough, but the best he could manage to remember right then was, “Horse, go now, please!” and that had just seemed to irritate the animal. So, he walked, heading southeast for no particular reason other than that it was away from the railroad.
It had begun a year ago with his latest career choice,
after being an acrobat had ended so badly (following private instruction in contortion, from the wife of the head acrobat). He decided that women and his handsome face were a formula for failure. So he became a gambler, which was a very male oriented profession indeed. After an early run of good luck, he had the bad luck of continuing his winning streak in a game of chance with several brothers in the local Tong. After an upturned table, an escape through a window, and a daring chase across the city’s rooftops, he had blended in with a group of men gathered at the docks. He subsequently found himself herded onto a ship headed for America. He was to become a railroad worker. He wasn’t sure what exactly that meant, but it was a career he had not tried before.
Being a Chinese worker for the Central Pacific Railway was back-breaking, demeaning and boring work, so he took to gambling again most nights, just to keep his skills fresh. At first, he gambled only with other Chinese, but they had very little money. So, as soon as he learned enough English,, he sat in on poker games with the Americans. It was another bad career move. Drawing four aces to Chauncey O’Donnell’s three kings had put him on the work-gang foreman’s permanent bad side, so much so that Ping had found himself in the basket three days later, when blasting into a hillside was required.
A unique method of planting explosives had been developed by the Central Pacific; you lowered a Chinese worker over the cliff side in a basket to set the explosive and light the fuse and then hauled him up as quickly as possible. Often, the man even survived. Ping kept his eyes closed during the descent and quickly planted the charge and lit the fuse. He screamed to be pulled up and was raised a couple of yards before his ascent abruptly ended. He hollered frantically and looked up to see the smiling face of Mr. Chauncey O’Donnell. Stunned, Ping reached downward to snatch the fuse, but he was too far away. With laughter wafting down from above, he started his basket swinging while keeping a close eye on the sizzling fuse. When it reached its last sputter he leaped from the basket at its highest arc, tucking into a ball and rolling with the blast as it sent him high into the air. When he felt himself start his downward plummet he went spread eagle in an attempt to impede his fall and managed to land square onto the head engineer’s large, snowy white tent. Extricating himself from yards and yards of canvas and cursing white men, Ping sensed that this might be the time for yet another career shift, perhaps horse thief. He grabbed a large water skin hanging off a post and jumped onto the onto the engineer’s beautiful, white stallion which took off like a shot. Random gunfire and angry yells receded as he urged his stolen steed in the direction that he had seen whites point towards and call Arizona.
Deep in a cavern, in the mountains south of Tucson, danced a man with sly features and ancient eyes set deeply in a young man’s face. He danced, not any particular step known to the feet of man, but a mad dervish of joy and self congratulation. And he giggled at his own cleverness as he danced. Behind him were seven cages of a size and strength to hold a human being, and they were empty except for the two in the middle. A young woman sat in despair in each of those cages, one black, the other oriental. Though clothed in elegant attire, all hope had fled their expressions and tracks of tears, long spilled, streaked their lovely cheeks. To the side of the cells was a natural hot spring, large enough to bathe in, that bubbled and spat with sulfurous odors and an unnatural glow from deep within. Louise, the young black woman, spit vehemently at the pool.
The sly featured man stopped in mid gyration and ran to Louise’s prison. “Don’t pout so, my African beauty.” He purred, “Your time will come. Today our Celestial princess shall be the star attraction.” He nodded toward the other cage, “A pity she refused the opium, though.” The other girl whimpered slightly. “I hope you aren’t so foolish when your time comes. I do so hate to see a dumb animal suffer.” With that, he jumped across the bubbling stone cauldron and shouted, “So much to do, our guests will arrive any moment now!”
At least it wasn’t flat. After a night’s march further, Ping had finally come to the boulders scattered around the foothills of a mountain range which stretched to the north. Ahead, he saw a cloud of dust approaching from the east and was unsure of what course of action he should take. In desperation, he thought to consult his traveling companion. “Great and honorable steed,” he bowed, “there are many men coming our way. They may be our salvation, or they may be our doom.” The horse nodded his head. “They come from the wrong direction to be those who might chase us, but there is the mystery of the telegraph which could have foretold our coming. They might also be those known as Apaches who, I am told, have no sense of humor in these matters. Of course,” he wrinkled his brow, “any random band of white men might also find distraction in disposing of me and acquiring you.” The horse lowered his head and shook it distractedly. “Yes, you are wise, oh noble one. Let’s hide!”
Soon he and the horse were safely behind a large boulder with enough brush that Ping could peer out without fear of being seen. The dust cloud soon became a large group of hard looking Americans led by three men with dangerous expressions and red sashes about their waists. When they came to a rock face in the hill, they all sat for a moment to let the dust settle, then the three leaders began to wail loudly, sounding like wolves or coyotes on a moonlit night. The ground beneath Ping started to rumble as the Rock face pivoted upwards with a frightening majesty which froze most of the riders and frightened their horses. When the way was completely open, the men with sashes began swearing at the rest, gesturing wildly to move them all into the cave. Once the rest of the group had vanished into the hillside, the three whooped and shot off their pistols, then galloped after the others.
As the stone slid slowly back into place, Ping sat wide-eyed and slack jawed for a few heartbeats. America was such a strange place, and Arizona doubly so, but as odd as what he had just seen was, what he smelled was opportunity. He bowed briefly to his steed and said, “Stay!” Ping ran around the boulder, legs pumping in a way that might have prolonged his short career as a messenger many years ago. With not a second to spare, he dove for the diminishing opening, again tucking into a roll, which carried him into the dark interior which, Ping belatedly admitted to himself, had all the makings of a fine tomb.
Staying in a crouch as his eyesight adjusted to the gloom, he could see that he was alone. But somewhere, further down in the Earth’s bowels, came a grumbling of loud, masculine conversation and a faint reddish glow that made his surroundings even more surreal. The smell of opportunity had been replaced with the unpleasant whiff of sulfur. He glanced back at the now closed stone wall before taking a deep breath and moving forward in a cautious, but determined, trot.
It wasn’t a straight course and several times he thought he was surely lost, but then a snatch of conversation would steer him back into the correct path. On his last wrong turn he found himself tumbling into a large chamber about six feet lower than the passage way. As he dusted himself off and made sure all his bones were sufficiently intact, he noticed that the room was filled with stacks of paper and piles of things that sparkled or glowed with a warm luster. Gold, jewels, American money. He lost no time in stripping off his shirt and filling it as full as he could before tying it into a bundle. Smiling broadly, he was about to make a hasty retreat when, through a hole set into the wall, he heard a woman cry out in fear and anguish. He stood for a second, looking at the ceiling, reciting to himself all the reasons he should just keep going. Then there was another scream followed by a woman’s voice pleading loudly, in Chinese, for help. This was followed with coarse laughter. Okay, one look wouldn’t hurt, so he dropped his loot and scrambled into the hole. A series of twists and turns brought him to a lighted opening in a wall that overlooked seven cages.
The sly-faced man stood on a platform, resplendent in a crimson robe, dangling a young woman over a steaming water-filled pit as his audience of desperate looking men whistled and cheered. Both her bound hands were bound and held high by only his strong right hand and every few seconds he would dip her lo
w enough for the water to scald her feet, causing her to scream and the men to howl their approval. “I am Moses Castle and, like that Moses long ago, I will deliver you into the Promised Land!” he shouted, and the crowd went wild. “You have been chosen to carry out my law in this land, and my law is chaos and violence! You will do this, not for my pleasure but because it is your pleasure.” More cheers and hooted laughter. “You fifty men will wear the red sashes that will make you my Cowboys and you will be invincible from this day forward. That invincibility does not come cheaply though, it requires sacrifice,” Moses frowned, then threw his head back in a loud laugh, “Not a sacrifice by you though, but for you.” He then turned to the young woman whose life he held in his hand and said soothingly, in flawless Chinese, “A shame to waste one so lovely on such a pack of mangy curs, but it’s for such a worthy cause.” Suddenly, a long, gleaming knife appeared in his left hand and with a movement as quick and sly as his features, he cut the woman’s Celestial throat and let her drop into the pit below. The water splashed over the sides in a hissing tide of deepest red as she sunk into her bubbling grave. A bright red light erupted from water ‘s depths and cast Moses’ shadow in stark relief on the wall to his left, not a human shadow, but that of some great dog, howling at an unseen moon. To his right and from above came Ping’s anguished cry of anger and frustration.
Six Guns Straight From Hell - Tales Of Horror And Dark Fantasy From The Weird Weird West Page 1
