Terovolas

by Edward M. Erdelac

  Then there was a hiss to my left and something came galumphing through the grass. I could hear it coming, but couldn’t see a thing. Then my horse shook its head. It had had enough of the whole affair, and pitched me right over the rump and beat it for the stables and the smell of hay and others of its kind, I guess. I landed hard on my bad arm and let out a yelp involuntarily.

  I don’t know how well they could see in the dark, but with my caterwauling, if they hadn’t known exactly where we were before, they knew it then.

  As I rolled on the ground hugging my busted arm, something huge passed over me, and the night got darker, if that was possible, for just an instant. I couldn’t clearly see what it was. I only got a hint of some big shadow, and the smell of animal musk thick in my nose. There was a peculiar howl as it bowled right into the side of Van Helsing’s horse.

  The pony screamed in surprise and crashed over on its side. Van Helsing’s pistol went off, and I saw it flash from the corner of my eye. The sound was louder than anything out in all that empty, like a pair of Dutch ovens banging together on a winter night.

  The one that had knocked over Van Helsing and his horse moved faster than a rabbit in springtime. It bobbed away from Van Helsing’s gun and seemed to move in and out of the shadows at will, like a nightcrawler wriggling through the mud. The howl it had let out on the charge turned into a ferocious snarling bark that was deeper and more vicious than any dog I’d ever heard. Something went whistling through the air and connected with a wet sound.

  Van Helsing yelled.

  The thing’s roar broke into a man’s unmistakable shriek. Human, and yet somehow not.

  The huge thing whirled, bringing one long, ape-like arm around, and I heard Plenty Skins grunt and saw him flung from his horse. He landed in a heap beside me. His horse took off after my own.

  Van Helsing’s pistol crashed over and over, and I managed to turn and look.

  The sporadic glances from the muzzle of the Professor’s revolver shed a flickering light on something I will take with me to my last day.

  It looked like a huge grizzly reared up on its hind legs. Its monstrous forearms were outspread and the light played upon its hooked talons, which dripped red. Those huge furry arms led to a broad set of shoulders upon which sat a hairy head capped with pointed satanic ears. And sprouting out of the top of that head like a bloody sapling was the ash handle of the Indian’s tomahawk.

  How could it still be moving with that hatchet sticking out of the top of its skull?

  As the last light from Van Helsing’s gun burned itself on my eyes, the thing slumped over, kicking in the grass.

  Although the skirmish in our little circle had ended, out in the dark Alkali’s rifle blasted to pieces the short interim of relief. Another one was out there with him. We heard its howl, heard Alkali curse mightily, and then the sounds of a struggle out in the tall grass.

  Van Helsing tried to induce his horse to stand, but it thrashed strangely on the ground, nearly dashing my skull with an errant hoof.

  Plenty Skins got to his feet, shaking off the effects of his fall. He whipped the big knife from his belt and plunged toward the fight, fading into the dark.

  Van Helsing’s horse continued to screech, and the sound ground itself into my skull, which was already throbbing from the pain of my fall.

  “Can’t you shut that nag up?” I hissed.

  Van Helsing said nothing. He was hard at work reloading his pistol.

  Out in the dark the other one snarled and Alkali snarled back. The Injun let out some weird war-whoop that sounded almost like the howling of the thing that had jumped us. I heard another howl to match his. Alkali’s rifle spoke no more.

  I rose up on my knees and then light flooded the patch of ground I knelt in.

  Beside me, Van Helsing had lit a bit of oily rag from his pack and was holding it up to see.

  “Put that damn light out you old fool!” I said.

  Or at least, I think I said. The words didn’t come in time to beat the nightmare I saw not four feet away. Maybe they never left my throat at all.

  Van Helsing’s horse had been torn open at the shoulder. The cut was so deep I could see the leg bone, white in the firelight. The horse was kicking out frantically, tearing the wound wider.

  Van Helsing was standing over it, his pistol in hand, and I thought he aimed to put the horse down. But he wasn’t looking at the horse.

  Lying on its side in the grass nearby was the thing that had attacked us. Except it wasn’t a mountain lion or any other kind of critter. It was one of the Scandinavians. One of the big blonds. He was wearing the same sort of wolf-hide tunic and cape that the Indian had shown us in the canyon. His huge arms, crossed haphazardly in the grass, had those claw bracers strapped to them, and the nails on one were bright with horse blood. To complete his odd attire, there was a furred cowl over his face made to give his head the shape of a wolf, with pointed strips of stiffened hide as ears. Plenty skins had planted his axe right in between those two false ears, and blood flowed freely like red lightning down his face.

  His face.

  His eyes were wide and staring through the eye holes of the cowl, and right there in front of me I saw the pupils, which had been open and large enough to color his whole eye black, close slowly as death came over him, returning them to their nickel blue. His expression was one of leering, ecstatic surprise. His lips were pulled back and frosted with a bubbly foam that ran down his face, mixing with the blood, and I remembered seeing him at the party smiling and sipping brew. In his mouth, just as if they were his naturally, was a row of pointed carnivorous teeth. I knew it was just those damned false teeth, but the effect was fearful in the winking gloom; like some grinning thing straight out of hell. A parody of man and animal handcrafted by the devil to put terror and loathing into a man.

  “You can put that light out, Professor!” Came Alkali’s voice out of the dark. It was cheerful.

  “Yeah,” I said, fighting hard to keep the shaken, begging lilt out of my voice. “Put it out, Professor.”

  We sat there in the dark with that thing. I keep calling it a thing. I know it was just a man, but when I think of that face in the dark, and the way it kept on fighting even with an axe stuck in its head...I can’t make myself call it a man. We sat there with it for a few minutes before we all decided there had only been two set to watch the place.

  I didn’t go and see the one Alkali and Plenty Skins killed.

  Alkali remarked that he had put two bullets into his when he’d seen it coming and the son of a bitch had still managed to tackle him. Alkali treated it all as a matter of course. He let me have it for letting go of his horse when I fell from mine.

  Van Helsing wanted to look my arm over, but I wouldn’t let him. I knew there was only one thing to cure my ills, and Alkali always keeps a little around the place for chilly winter nights.

  So I bid a fond farewell to sobriety and toasted the late and lamented Pepperbelly. The hell with teetotaling. Tonight I learned there are worse things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than a bottle of whiskey.

  CHAPTER 14

  From Aurelius Firebaugh’s Diary

  Aug 28th

  I never seen a man in skins or cotton take two blue pills from a Whitney rifle and a gaff in the neck and keep on fightin’. The one the Professor done in took every cartridge in his wheel and a hatchet to the braincase besides. The one I danced with had my hook stuck up under his chin when Plenty Skins finally run up and cut his throat. The son of a bitch carved me up pretty good with those long nails (he knocked my Whitney away after the second shot), but Van Helsing sewed me up. I asked the Professor what we could expect from here on in. This old dawg don’t need to get whupped twice with the same stick.

  He told me the Norgies believe that they can’t be kilt on account of their religion, and that the more of them there are together, the stronger they’ll be. I guess it’s sorta like them old mountain preachers that handle the snakes. If you can make yourself be
lieve in somethin’ like God grantin’ you what it takes to ignore the bite of a copperhead, I ‘spect you can disregard any sorta pain.

  As to bein’ together makin’ you strong, I reckon that’s like anything. Back when I rode with the Black Flaggers during the War a single bushwhacker was only as mean as the other fellers around him. Get one lone dawg out on his own and he might not put up much of a fight, but when there was a pack of us, lock your doors.

  I almost envy them Norgies. Sure they’re crazy as shithouse rats and murderous besides, but what the hell were us bushwhackers? Takes me back, to think on it that way. The boys. Heck and Petey Slidell, Zeke True, Cullen Baker, Black Jack, Thrailkill, they wouldn’t even know me now. The South is gone and for all them Yankees we dusted you wouldn’t even know we’d ever been around to look at the world today. ‘Course we weren’t no blood crazy madmen runnin’ around in wolf skins like wild Injuns either. But I guess they must think whatever they’re about is the way to go if they can just shake off bullets and keep comin.’ Hell, I wish I still believed in somethin’ just half as much.

  The Professor, Alvin, and Plenty Skins is holed up in the house, whereas I am sitting in the barn with my horses. I’ll be straight damned rather than let a buncha foreign savages fire the stable with all this prime horseflesh inside and Bernice with her new colt besides. Them two dead Norgies is damn lucky they didn’t touch my horses, else I’d have dug ‘em up and shot ‘em again, then lit out directly for Skoll with dire intent.

  What we ought to do next is anybody’s guess. Can’t sit here forever and that’s a fact. Particularly with the way Alvin is draining my liquor. I hate to see the little scribbler tumble off the wagon, as I know he had a real problem for awhile, but a man goes his own way.

  Going to get some shut-eye for now. Expect we will have a plan in the morning.

  * * *

  From the Journal of Professor Van Helsing

  August 29th

  A fitful night has given way to a clear and sunny day, and with it a plan on what course of action we shall take next.

  Our cowboy army has been scattered in the face of Skoll and his deputized marauders, though two of them will pose no more threat.

  Mr. Firebaugh’s house is eminently defendable, though I confess that his insistence on remaining in the barn with his horses is infuriating and a liability. However we are not the ones in danger. I fear more for the safety of Coleman and young Ranny Brogan in the Sorefoot jail. They are prisoners and the law is not with them. Whether Sheriff Shetland and Judge Krumholtz are a party to Skoll’s machinations or have been cowed by his superior numbers into neglecting their duties, I do not know. However, it is certain that we cannot proceed to liberate Madame Terovolas without first seeing to the safety of our fellows. Theirs’ is the more immediate danger. At any moment Skoll’s ‘deputies’ could elect to drag them from their cells and treat them to a dance on the gallows, or worse, such savage deaths as they inflicted upon Early Searls, Sheriff Turlough, Tyree and Picker.

  We must engineer their escape.

  Alvin, who has proven himself unable to effectively deal with the stress of our situation and has resorted to drink, said, in a surprisingly lucid tone:

  “If it’s a jailbreak you’re looking to pull, Professor, then we ought to get Alkali back in here. He’s dodged the law more than anybody I know.”

  It took the promise of breakfast from his own cupboard to entice Mr. Firebaugh into joining us in the main house. He is quite anxious about his horses, but when we brought up the notion of removing Coleman and Ranny from harm’s way in the jail, he warmed to the idea.

  “Well, you were right to ask me, Professor,” he said, settling into a chair while Alvin poured hot coffee and Plenty Skins doled out ham and eggs. “Why I’ve busted the locks on more jailhouses than any man in this county from the inside and the out, and that’s a fact. The Sorefoot calaboose ain’t no better’n a rickety shithouse with a pair of busted bat wing doors for keepin’ a man in. But the thing to consider is who’ll be there watchin’ it, and where to head when it’s all said and done.”

  “I can find out who’s standin’ guard,” said Plenty Skins. “I was a scout for twelve years. Nobody’ll even see me.”

  I asked why we couldn’t simply come back here.

  “Soon as word gets out that Cole and Ranny busted out, they’ll know right away who done it. My place won’t be safe,” Firebaugh said grimly. “Besides, you know what a long, hard ride it is to get here.”

  I suggested Misstep Canyon. It wasn’t much closer than the Firebaugh ranch, but it was surely not equated with our group.

  “Misstep ain’t too bad,” Alkali said. “I reckon it’ll be a good place to hide out till we figure out what we ought to do. I guess…”

  Something was bothering him, but he waved it off with his hook when questioned.

  “What we’ll need is a distraction. Now in the old days, we’d fire a wagon, or a building in the town. Half the deputies would nearly always head for the fire. You could lay money on it.”

  “Nobody’s burning my press!” Alvin said.

  “Don’t worry, Scribbler. The Picayune’s too close. Gettin’ em to run just across the street wouldn’t do us no damn good. No. It’s got to be further off.”

  “The telegraph office?” Alvin offered. Now that he knew his beloved Picayune was not in danger, he was eager to participate. “Gridley’s?”

  “Dammit if I ain’t getting’ respectable in my old age, but I’d hate to do that to poor John Gridley. I do enjoy his steak and frijoles. I’d say the telegraph office, but it might not do to cut off the town from outside help. We might could get Marshal Ruddles down from Bastrop with some men. No, there’s a storehouse out back of Sagramore’s store, where he keeps his extra feed. I don’t like to ruin good feed, but it’s better than torchin’ the place.”

  I asked when we should depart.

  “Don’t be too anxious to get shot, Professor. I figure we give it two hours and then head out. By the time we get there it’ll be sundown, and Plenty Skins’ll have cover to work under.”

  “What if it’s just Rufus guardin’ the jail?” Alvin asked. “You going to shoot him?”

  “I ought to, on account of him givin’ in to these damn foreigners without a fight...no offense meant, Professor. But no, I ‘spect not. At least if it’s just him things ought to come off without a hitch.”

  “And if it’s not Rufus?” Alvin asked.

  “Pack all the cartridges you can carry.”

  As breakfast ended and we made ready to enact Firebaugh’s plan, there came a sound which very nearly sent us all into a panic. A frantic scrabbling came from the back door. For a moment only I feared that there was more to Skoll’s fanatics than I had judged, and that the bloodied madmen whom had been dispatched by a full cylinder of my bullets and Plenty Skins’ hatchet had dug his way out of the shallow grave we had heaped him in, and was now clawing feebly at the back porch.

  But Mr. Firebaugh, fearless or perhaps careless, I do not know which, went nonchalantly to the door in question and opened it. A furry form came bounding in, but not the one my fear had placed there. It was Coleman’s one-eyed hound, Useless. Apparently he had followed us at a leisurely pace. He came directly to the table and cast his mournful eye expectantly at Plenty Skins, ready to be given his chore of dirty crocks to clean.

  Mr. Firebaugh kept a well-stocked cabinet of arms, and we divided every box of ammunition within between us. Plenty Skins and Alvin were both given a pair of revolvers, and I was handed a second, which I had to push through my belt. When I asked him about the wisdom of weighing ourselves down with so much firepower, Firebaugh replied, “Maybe all that iron’ll keep you in the saddle this time, Professor.”

  As he shrugged into a shoulder holster-harness and pushed a long barreled pistol under his left arm, he went on.

  “When I rode with Bloody Bill, we used to tote four, sometimes six pistols at a time. One under each arm, two in the belt, two
more on the saddle. Always faster to grab and make ready a fresh weapon than to reload. ‘Course I mostly make do with three nowadays. If I put one under my right arm I’d hook myself like a dern catfish grabbin’ for it outta habit.”

  I am not familiar with this ‘Bloody Bill’ character to whom Firebaugh keeps referring, though by the unquestioning manner of my fellows he must be a man of some competency. Whether he is (or was) an outlaw or a soldier I cannot tell. But his lesson was passed down to me that day as I felt the heavy burden of two pistols on my hips.

  When the time came for us to take our leave, Mr. Firebaugh asked for a moment of our patience and went off once more to his barn. We could see him plainly from the yard as he flung open the door and walked down the center of the stable, flipping up the latches on each of the stalls. He was speaking as he went, but we were too far away to hear. When he reached the last stall, the one in which the mare and her colt resided, he paused for a moment and seemed to speak to the animal. Then he swung the stall door open. He came back down the row, jerking each door open and giving a lusty shout to each of the animals within. With each stall he passed, a fine specimen of horse emerged, shook its mane, and bolted off to freedom. By the time he had traversed the length of the stable not a single horse was left under the roof.

  Alvin was dumfounded by this.

  “What in the hell’s he doing?”

  “What he’s got to,” said Plenty Skins.

  When Alkali returned to us, Alvin asked him plainly what he meant by releasing such a crop of ponies.

  “If them sons of bitches come back and we ain’t here, they might fire the place. I’d hate to think of all them animals burnin’ up.”

  “But that’s your whole stock! I remember when you caught some of the mustangs that sired this bunch down in Misstep. You won’t ever catch ‘em all again!”