“Passing through is all.” Johnny dithered over his fourth mug of lukewarm coffee, teasing images from the shadows swirling through is aching head. A year of perpetual intoxication had disengaged him from all recent memory. He knew a string of countless sins and degenerate indiscretions lay smothered by his callous conscience. He knew his indulgences had earned him implacable enemies and malevolent allies. He could not say with any certainty, however, what road led him to this particular scab of a town. “Just passing through.”
“Ay, no one ever stays 'ere long, o'course.” Wickham leaned forward, rested his elbow on the mahogany. “Say, lad - seems the fella in the carner knows yeer face. Might oughta go have a weerd w'him, ay?”
The tall, scruffy veteran of the Mason County War looked over his shoulder. A lone figure sat at a table in the far corner of the saloon, smoke and darkness conspiring to cloak his face. Only his eyes pierced the hazy gloom, reflecting the dull red glow of his cigar.
Johnny expelled a long-drawn-out sigh, as if his lungs alone could exorcise all the demons that dwelled in his otherwise vacant and soulless shell. Evil tainted a man, made him conspicuous in a crowded room. Like an ebon beacon it stressed every iniquitous fiber, emphasized every delinquent trait. A lifetime of wantonness had left him branded so that no matter how obscure and remote the venue, someone always recognized him.
No matter where he stopped for a moment's peace, someone always lurked in the shadows, gunning for him.
Aggravated by the disturbance, Johnny gulped down the last of his coffee, paid off his tab and shambled across the floor of the saloon toward the solitary gentleman waiting patiently at the secluded table. Drawing closer, he watched for the glint of a pistol ably extricated from its holster, watched for the telltale twitch of a muscle or tremor in the man's placid expression.
“Welcome to Long Home,” he said, warily tipping the brow of his black bowler cap. His demeanor and manner of dress distinguished him as one not long removed from more lush and lavish surroundings. “Take a seat. If my intentions were hostile, your brains would be scattered all over the saloon by now.” Johnny, disarmed by his confidence, slid into a chair facing the man. Dark-complexioned, willowy and shamelessly wicked, he spoke with an unidentifiable accent that suggested close ties to the Old World. “Pleasure to meet you, sir. I've been admiring your work for several years.”
“And you are…”
“The exchange of monikers upon such a fortuitous encounter seems appropriate, doesn't it?” He crushed the remnants of his cigar on the tabletop leaving a streak of ashes quivering in the draught. “Call me Ebenholz.”
“I'm Johnny. Johnny, uh,” Johnny rubbed his eyes as he struggled to penetrate the miasma blurring his mind, to relocate the scattered pieces of his miserable existence blotted out by self-abuse in bars and brothels and opium dens throughout the territory.
“Don't trouble yourself, Johnny. It's your skills that I wish to employ, not your memory.” Ebenholz flashed a sinister smile so beguiling Johnny shrugged off all of his apprehension and frustration. Staring into his eyes was like looking into a mirror. Johnny recognized in Ebenholz the same seething misanthropy and universal disgust that had raged within him since birth. “I presume at this stage of your career you would not take offense to being considered as a hired gun, Johnny.”
“No sir.”
“Excellent. I have a proposition for you then.” At that moment, a sizeable group of cowboys wandered off the dusty streets of Long Home, channeled like livestock through the swinging double doors. Dazed and bloodied from a skirmish that had clearly not turned in their favor, they shuffled toward the bar where Wasatch Wickham welcomed them with whisky and an animated Irish salutation. Ebenholz evaluated the newcomers curiously, weighing their potential worth against the promise of his present company. Still seemingly satisfied with his choice, he plucked a scroll from his vest pocket, pushed it across the table toward Johnny. “Are you familiar with the stage stop at Dos Cabezas?”
“Yes sir.”
“In two days time, a wagon train will pass through there. Their destination is of no importance.” Ebenholz cradled a wine glass in his palm. He sipped some unnamed liqueur, some dark and syrupy fount of spirits that hemmed in a multitude of minuscule flecks gleaming like the shimmering stars of twilight. “Led by a man named Bowen, the caravan seeks to settle in these parts, to establish a utopian commune where they may worship as they please. I need you to make certain that their journey continues uninterrupted.”
“They need a gunslinger, someone to keep the outlaws from attacking them and the Indians from raiding the wagon train.”
“Yes, but,” Ebenholz said cautiously, concerned that revealing too much information might make Johnny suspicious. “More specifically, I am quite convinced a small band of Chiricahuas will attempt to slaughter the settlers shortly after they leave Dos Cabezas. I need you to arrive at their encampment and see to it that the massacre I have foreseen does not take place. You'll find a map on that scroll that will take you to them.”
“You want me to take on a Chiricahua war party alone?” Johnny leaned back in his chair, the corner of his lip curling in a scornful smirk. “I'm flattered you hold my abilities in such high esteem, Mr. Eben…whatever you said your name was…but it sounds to me like you need the services of the United States Cavalry.”
“You discredit yourself. I have faith in your skill and in your will.” Ebenholz's eyes narrowed, his head tilted as he leaned forward. “You neither surrender to shame nor wallow in remorse. You are devoid of guilt, beyond self-reproach. Moreover,” he smiled, leaning back in his chair, “you have been reinforced by circumstances beyond your reckoning - conditions which have bestowed upon you a degree of imperviousness.”
“I don't follow…”
“You should open your eyes, Johnny.” Ebenholz chuckled, pushed himself away from the table and stood. He tossed a few dozen bullets on the table, each one forged from silver and branded with unrecognizable symbols that held no meaning for the outlaw. The clatter turned a few heads, drawing attention Johnny despised. Even Wasatch Wickham glanced, stopped dead in the middle of spinning a yarn for his newest patrons, and raised a thick, bushy eyebrow at the transaction taking place. “Use these. Walk like a shadow amongst them in the moments before sunrise -they will not see you. Kill them all.”
“And then? What about my money?”
“You'll be amply rewarded after you complete the job.” Ebenholz patted a breast pocket so that the clang of gold coins chimed like an unspoken source of inspiration. “Meet me in Turkey Creek Canyon in four nights.” He started to walk away, sidestepping the beaten and bloodied cowboys. More than a few looked like they were ready for the grave. “You do remember Turkey Creek Canyon, don't you?”
Johnny knew the place well enough, though he could not recall what incident inexorably tied him to it.
Sulphur Springs Valley, Arizona Territory - 1884
Not even the long ride to Dos Cabezas could clear the cobwebs from Johnny's mind. He remembered only faint fragments from his life prior to arriving in Long Home, glimpses of gunfights and brawls and a series of pointless scuffles and scraps culminating in a handful of more recent skirmishes tied to some bitter vendetta. While the faces of those lives he had snuffed out glared at him from the pit of his emasculated conscience, the particulars of life continued to elude him. Nevertheless, he doubted neither his proficiency with a pistol nor his capacity to kill without clemency - the blood in his veins ran like spring-thawed ice.
Along the way, he had watered his horse in Tombstone early in the morning where he helped himself to a shot of whisky at the Oriental Saloon when the acting barkeep failed to acknowledge his requests. Before leaving, he had paused along the mining town's main thoroughfare as a procession of local ranchers solemnly paraded toward the graveyard with some slain soul whose speed apparently did not match his boasts.
Johnny had similarly obliged more than a few such individuals in his day.
“Takes more than speed,” a bystander whispered, as if reading Johnny's thoughts. The man's pallid face rippled with twitching muscles as if something swarmed beneath his ashen flesh. “Guts. A belly full of hate. That's what you need.”
“Billy?” For a moment, Johnny thought the man standing next to him looked like Billy Clanton. “That you Billy,” he asked, stumbling over the words even as he recalled the day he watched Billy and two McLaury brothers laid to rest after a fierce shootout.
The stranger turned and shambled down the street, silently following the mourners toward the all-too-familiar burial ground.
In Dos Cabezas, Johnny watched as the wagon train Ebenholz spoke of arrived. The declaration “devoted parishioners of the Starry Wisdom Church” had been painted in bold black letters on the side of the leading prairie schooner. The group's leader approached a town official, negotiated for various supplies and comfortable lodging for the evening for his womenfolk and declined invitations of liquor and gambling for the gentlemen in his congregation.
“We seek only shelter and food,” the preacher said, his tone somber and stern. “We will continue on in the morning.” His flock seemed a peculiar sort, not fit for the hardships of life in the Arizona territory. Dismal and tightlipped, they filed into a nearby inn without speaking a word, without lifting their gaze from the ground beneath their feet and without reacting to the vulgar comments of a few inebriated cowboys.
Johnny pilfered a bottle of gin from a negligent bartender and spent the day expunging his recent attempt at sobriety. If abstinence could offer no reprieve from his lapse of memory, alcohol could at least temper his frustration. Hours crept by as barroom conversations blossomed and withered all around him. In the evening, a few games of chance ended in heated contention, resolved by the smoking double barrels of some shootist's shotgun or the bloodied dagger of a devious delinquent.
The wounded slithered off to find medical assistance or to cower behind some apathetic officer of justice. The dead found themselves hastily divested of all worldly possessions by pitiless scavengers while waiting for their bodies to be hauled away by indifferent custodians assigned to aid the resident undertaker. Their souls, however, recoiled into adjacent shadows, confused but compelled to linger just beyond the border where ghosts dwell in residual nightmares.
Johnny saw them, skirting the edges of the establishment, numbering in the hundreds. He stood on the periphery, residing in neither world but still a part of both. He understood, finally, what Ebenholz meant about walking like a shadow. He had opened his eyes.
When the lights finally dimmed, Johnny headed out of town. Above Sulphur Springs Valley, the stars stretched from one horizon to the other like shimmering maggot holes in the dusky hide of night. The corpse of the universe rotted in its cosmic tomb as carrion feeders digested the putrefying residue of extinct civilizations.
The Chiricahua encampment sat along the edge of a creek the wagon train would ford in the morning on its westward trek. Johnny approached the tee-pee closest to the brook instinctively, using the sound of flowing water to mask his approach. An Apache knelt beneath the moonlight, washing his face and hands. Watching him, Johnny wondered how many of his friends and family had been slaughtered by nefarious frontiersmen, driven from the lands of their ancestors or afflicted with diseases introduced by settlers and traders.
Their refusal to capitulate when faced with overwhelming defeat made them admirable in Johnny's eyes. Had he been a sympathetic man, he might have forgotten about the task at hand. Compassion, though, had never eclipsed the dark engines that drove him to kill.
The Chiricahua suddenly turned, looked straight at Johnny and tensed. Johnny froze. Though the fading night revealed nothing, the Apache could not ignore his instincts.
Before he could issue a warning, Johnny silenced him with a single shot from his Colt Peacemaker. The blast echoed across the valley as the first streaks of dawn illuminated the eastern sky. Johnny wheeled about, a sudden wave of invincibility imparting a spitefulness and thirst for blood more consuming than anything he had previously experienced. Prepared to gun down the rest of the war party, Johnny faced an unbearable revelation. Waiting for the action, he heard only the startled screams of women and children woken by the shooting.
Slowly, cautiously, they scrambled out into the subtle radiance of dawn, anxiously scanning the landscape. Finding no trace of the killer, they fell to the ground near the dead man's side, tears streaming. Their screams grated Johnny's conscience, evoking the screams of widows he had mocked. Their tears drowned out his determination, washing away the barriers stifling his memory. Their grief inspired in him an unfamiliar sense of responsibility, filling him with insufferable shame.
Ebenholz lied. These Chiricahua had no intention of raiding the wagon train.
Johnny holstered his six-gun, refusing to complete the job.
Before the sun emerged from its hibernation, Johnny slipped into the shadows.
Turkey Creek Canyon, Arizona Territory - 1884
Ebenholz shook his head in disgust. His brother, Teufel, would surely ridicule him over this defeat. Johnny's poorly-timed epiphany had left him shy of his quota.
“A pity.” Always arriving at the most inopportune moments, Teufel emerged from the compounding dusk, flicking stray stardust off of his cloak. The two men faced each other towering over the stone-covered grave of Johnny Ringo. “Occasionally, even the wickedest soul can turn on you.”
“These things happen.” Ebenholz frowned. “Redemption is a pesky bane to our stake, is it not?”
“Quite.” Surprisingly, Teufel did not dwell on the unfortunate turn of events. “I'm sure your next choice will be better suited. Perhaps one of your parishioners would make a viable contender; unless you're enjoying all that devotion and ritual worship.”
“No. Not yet. I'll nurture those seeds for a future harvest.”
“Have it your way,” Teufel said, kicking Johnny's tombstone. “Just remember: I'm currently ahead by 23 corpses. Choose your next player wisely.”
Whitechapel, London - 1888
Ebenholz watched as the man inspected the surgical instruments with an intuitive veneration that bordered on obsession. Already, dark designs had begun taking shape in his mind - horrible, wicked and merciless undertakings that would leave scars in history. With the stealth of a shadow he could go about his work, a master of his craft commissioned into service by a kindred spirit.
“Kill them all,” Ebenholz whispered.
Lee Clark Zumpe has been writing and publishing horror, dark fantasy and speculative fiction since the late 1990s. His short stories and poetry have appeared in a variety of publications such as Weird Tales, Space and Time and Dark Wisdom; and in anthologies such as Horrors Beyond, Corpse Blossoms, Abominations, Withersin’s Unkindness and Cthulhu Unbound, Vol. 1. His work has earned several honorable mentions in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror collections.
An entertainment columnist with Tampa Bay Newspapers, Lee has penned hundreds of film, theater and book reviews and has interviewed novelists as well as music industry icons such as Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains and Alan Parsons. His work for TBN has been recognized repeatedly by the Florida Press Association, including a first place award for criticism in the 2007 Better Weekly Newspaper Contest. He also is a regular contributor to the blogs at She Never Slept (www.sheneverslept.com) and Elder Signs Press (www.eldersignspress.com).
The Last Defenders
by
Carol Hightshoe
The echo of my horse’s hooves on the stones of the road rings in the night. How many years have I been trapped in this half life? How many nights have I ridden through the streets of San Antonio de Bexar? How many times have I failed to reach Travis and the others? How many times have I fallen to the rifles of Santa Anna’s army, unable to reach the Alamo? Unable to tell them of Fannin’s treachery.
They were expecting his reinforcements and he turned back, returning to Goliad after less than a day of travel.
I don’t know the reason why Fannin’s troops turned their backs on Travis, but Houston said holding the Alamo as long as possible was key to Texas’ Independence. How much longer could they have held if Fannin’s troops and artillery had reached them?
The timbre of my horse’s hooves changes and I pull back on the reins—something is different. We have crossed the river and there is no sign of the Mexican Army. When I fell, all those nights ago, I was ambushed at this spot and never made it across the river. How is it that, this time, there is no ambush, no army between me and the Alamo?
I pause and stare at the field between where I sit on my horse and the front gates of the old church. Where previously the Mexican Army led by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana was camped, there is only grassland. But there is something else. The breeze catches the flag flying above the barracks and as it unfurls slightly, I see—not the familiar red, white and blue of the Texas flag, but the green, white and red of the Mexican flag. The battle is long over, Houston defeated Santa Anna at San Jacinto—even trapped as I am in this recurring nightmare ride, I do know what happened. How is it that a Mexican flag now flies over the Alamo?
I kick my horse lightly and he snorts, but refuses to take another step toward the Alamo. A harder kick and he neighs and rears, then takes a step back. No matter how hard I try to convince him to move, he only moves backward.
I dismount and he vanishes, but not before he taps the ground with his hoof. A sign he will be at this spot when I return. I feel myself being drawn toward the Alamo and I relax as I make my way toward the fort. I know the Mexicans who traveled with Santa Anna were superstitious and perhaps, having a ghostly presence in the Alamo will be enough to make them leave. I still remember how they tried to burn the Alamo after the battle and how several spirits appeared with flaming swords—their message was clear, they would continue to defend the Alamo. Now that I’m a ghost, I can sense the amount of blood that has been spilled and the number of spirits laid to rest in this ground. I don’t know who the spirits were who appeared, but I believe they were Travis, Bowie, Crockett and Dickenson. They were the last to defend the Alamo and would be the newest spirits in the area and the least likely to have found their rest with their defeat.
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