“My wife and little girl.”
The bounty hunter glanced over at the burnt rubble of the farmhouse. “I’m to assume they did not perish in the fire?”
“No! You took them. Wait a gall darn minute,” the head said, and squinted his eyes against the glaring afternoon sun. “You’re not one of them.”
“No, I’m not,” the bounty hunter said. He reached under his long coat and pulled out a folded parchment. He tucked his sawed-off shotgun under his arm, opened up the wanted poster, and showed it to the head. “Is this one of them?”
“That’s him! He’s their leader.”
“How many were there?”
“Five. Scary Injuns they were.”
“That they are. Scary. But they’re not Injuns.”
“Then what in hell’s name are they?”
“They’re Naguals.”
“Never heard of that tribe.”
“That’s because they’re not Injuns.”
“Then what are they?”
“Evil incarnations conjured by some diablerie curse.”
“You mean like demons?” asked the head.
“Skin-walkers.”
“Sounds to me like you’ve been drinking too much tarantula juice.”
“That so? I suggest you look around,” the bounty hunter said.
The head glanced to the left then to the right, staring at the dismembered human limbs and the heaps of horrific sanguineous bowels before furrowing his brow and asking, “Who is that?”
“That, my sodbuster friend, is you. Or what is left of you.”
“Yeah, then why aren’t I dead?”
“Oh, I think you’re as good as dead.”
“The hell you say.”
“One of them put a curse on you. It’s medicine man magic. Anyway, I best get going.”
“You can’t just leave me for the buzzards!”
“Sorry but there’s a bounty on this bunch and I need to get after them while their tracks are still fresh.”
“But I could help you nab those renegade outlaws.”
“How, by jabbering them to death?” the bounty hunter snickered before turning and striding over to his horse.
He tucked the shotgun back behind the bedroll, climbed onto the saddle, and grabbed the reins.
“Please, mister. They...took my family,” the head said with a quavering voice as tears rolled down both cheeks.
* * *
The bounty hunter stood up in the stirrups, peered down, and appraised the town below. He panned the shabby rooftops—figuring them for a saloon, livery, general store, hotel, and a couple of other dilapidated structures—before easing back down in the saddle. A dust devil as tall as a hitching post twirled down the main street of the ghost town past the five horses tied up in front of the saloon.
Before the buckskin had carried the bounty hunter up the steep grade onto the ridge of the bluff, they’d passed a perched turkey vulture urinating on a sign riddled with bullet holes and the town’s name Hangman’s Gulch branded on the plank.
“Looks to me we found them,” said the head.
After the bounty hunter had taken pity on the head, he had braided a pigging string in with the head’s long strands of hair and then cut a short length of lariat with his 12-inch bowie knife—the hefty blade having been forged out of Damascus steel in Arkansas by the blacksmith James Black—wrapping the rope around the head’s forehead for a carrying handle and looped it around the horn.
“What now?” the head asked. “Ride in, guns blazing?”
“What and end up like you?” the bounty hunter replied.
“So how long have you been chasing these skin-walkers?”
“Across seven territories. I have to say, they’re a slippery bunch.”
“Must be a mighty big reward.”
“There’s not enough gold in all of Fort Knox to pay for what they’ve done.”
“They must be some cold-blooded heathens,” the head said.
“That they’d be.”
The head closed his eyes for a moment, then reopened them and said, “Any chance my wife and little girl could still be alive?”
The bounty hunter reached down, grabbed the end of the headband rope and held the head up so that they were facing each other.
“I have to be honest. I’d be betting against it,” the bounty hunter said.
“I was afraid you might say that.”
“There’re two things you should know before we ride down,” the bounty hunter said.
“What’s that?”
“The Naguals are not what they appear and will show no mercy.”
“All right, and what’s the other thing?” asked the head.
“Remember that poster I showed you?”
“Yeah.”
“Says those Naguals are ‘wanted dead, not alive.’”
“That’s fine by me.”
“You don’t understand. Once we kill the Nagual that put the curse on you, you die too.”
“Damn if that ain’t just my miserable luck.”
* * *
Standing a few feet away from the batwing doors leading into the saloon, the bounty hunter took a moment and opened his long coat, giving the head an appraisal of the hardware he was packing.
“Good Lord, you’re a one-man regiment,” the head said and let out a low whistle as he gazed up, dangling from the bounty hunter’s gun belt.
“In my business you have to be.” Besides the Dragoon and the bowie knife, the bounty hunter was also armed with a Colt Navy .36-caliber revolver; a two barrel derringer he had confiscated from a cheating card dealer; a throwing tomahawk he had won after a fight to the death with a Navajo warrior; a bayonet he had pulled out of the chest of a Confederate soldier in New Mexico at the battle of Glorieta Pass; a bandoleer of cartridges, and a split hide bullwhip. The coach gun was hidden in the deep pocket of his long coat.
Four leopard-spotted Appaloosas and a white paint with a black head were hitched to the rail, the stallions’ chests lathered with white brine from being ridden hard.
The weary horses watched the bounty hunter with mild interest as he walked up to the batwing doors, pushed them open, and stomped into the saloon.
* * *
Three of them were congregated around a table studying the cards in their hands as they intently played a game of Navajo Tens. They wore cloth headbands and long bead strands draped down their chests, over light-colored long sleeve cotton shirts with the shirttails out. Their pants were tucked inside knee-high leather boots. Three Winchester carbines leaned against the table. Not one of the Naguals bothered to glance up as the bounty hunter sauntered by.
A beak-nosed Nagual wearing a top hat and smoking a stogy stood behind the bar.
The bounty hunter unhooked the head from his gun belt and placed him on the bar top.
“Name your poison,” stated the beak-nosed Nagual.
“Two whiskeys,” the bounty hunter said. “One for me and one for my friend here.”
The beak-nosed Nagual slammed two shot glasses on the bar. He grabbed a bottle and pulled the cork out with his rotted teeth and spat the stopper onto the floor. Tipping the bottle, he overflowed the whiskey into each shot glass so that the rotgut ran down the sides. The Nagual sneered and banged the bottle down.
“Can I get a little help here?” the head asked.
The bounty hunter picked up a shot glass, put the rim up to the head’s lips and tilted. In one gulp, the head swallowed and the whiskey was gone.
The head shriveled up his face and gasped, “Could use a little more turpentine and cayenne.” The whiskey drained down his throat right away, seeped out from the bottom of his stubby neck and formed a circular puddle on the bar.
Downing his whiskey, the bounty hunter casually glanced about the saloon, searching for the fifth renegade outlaw, the honcho Nagual. The only other occupants in the room were three mummified corpses propped up in cheap pine caskets leaning against a wall. They were dressed in dusty b
lack burial suits with the cuffs sewn to the lapels so that their arms were crossed over their chests.
The younger-looking Nagual at the table snatched a card from the discarded pile and tucked it in his hand.
“That’s my card!” yelled the burly Nagual.
“You put it down!”
“Be still, or I’ll shoot the both of you,” the gray-haired Nagual growled, slamming a heavy .45-caliber Colt on the table.
Watching from across the room, the head on the bar glanced up at the bounty hunter and commented, “If we’re lucky, these boys might do us a favor and do themselves in.”
The two Naguals bolted up from the table, tipping over their chairs, ready to brawl.
“See, what did I tell you,” the head said with a smirk.
A door opened behind the bar and out stepped the honcho Nagual. He wore a striped cotton shirt with leather cuffs covering his forearms and short chaps tucked inside his shin-high moccasins. A pair of pearl handle revolvers hung low on his hips. He held a young child and led a woman out by a short tether wrapped around her throat.
“Lizzie, Lizzie, thank God!” shouted the head.
The little girl’s eyes brightened at the sound of her father’s voice. “Daddy, where are you, Daddy?”
“I’m right here!” the head replied from the bar top.
Lizzie screamed when she saw her father.
The three Naguals at the card table turned and faced the bounty hunter.
The honcho Nagual stepped out from behind the bar with his two captives. “You should have given up long ago, bounty hunter. But as you are here, perhaps you would like to feast with us,” he said and yanked the tether so that the woman’s slender neck was up to his lips just as his human face transformed into a snarling puma. He buried his sharp fangs deep into her flesh then drew away and reverted back into the honcho Nagual.
“Lizzie!” the head screamed.
The burly Nagual roared as his face jutted into a snout. Keen claws shot out of his stubby fingers. His massive shoulders were bulging out of the split seams of his shirt as he shape-shifted into a black bear. The bounty hunter pulled out the Ithaca shotgun from the long coat and fired both barrels, blowing a hole through the Nagual’s chest with silver ball bearings smelted by a superstitious miner living in a cave up on Hermit’s Peak.
The saloon shook as the 400-pound bear crashed to the floorboards.
The bounty hunter immediately uncoiled the split hide bullwhip, strung it out with a rapid toss and cast the lash out with a loud snap. A pure silver three-foot section of barbwire attached at the end wrapped around the younger Nagual’s neck as he reached for his carbine. The bull-whacker yanked on the taut whip, tearing the Nagual’s head clear off his shoulders.
The gray-haired Nagual grabbed his hog-leg off the table, aimed straight for the bounty hunter and fanned the hammer.
Slugs ripped through the bounty hunter’s long coat as he returned fire with the Navy Colt and the long-barreled Dragoon.
The exchanged hail of bullets filled the room with smoke.
The gray-haired Nagual threw down his gun and instantly transformed into a giant timber wolf before leaping at the bounty hunter.
And when it pounced, the bounty hunter drove the long silver shank of the bayonet deep into the creature’s chest.
The Nagual howled and reared back, clutching the bayonet as it fell dead on the floor.
“You are a brave warrior,” remarked the honcho Nagual, releasing the unconscious woman. Blood trickled down her neck as she slumped to the floor.
“Let me go!” Lizzie yelled, kicking her tiny feet.
“Take the brat!”
The beak-nosed Nagual reached over the bar counter and snatched the squirming child from the honcho Nagual.
“Don’t you hurt her none!” the head warned.
“Put a bullet in that thing,” said the honcho Nagual, his hands hovering over the pistol grips in a gunslinger stance as he faced the bounty hunter for a showdown.
“You don’t hurt my Daddy,” Lizzie yelled and scratched the beak-nosed Nagual’s face before he could reach for his gun.
The bounty hunter flipped open the front of his long coat and pulled out the tomahawk. His shirt was blotched red from his bullet wounds; blood had dripped down his pant legs onto his boots.
“You bring that to a gunfight?” laughed the honcho Nagual. He gripped both gun handles and drew the pistols, cocked back the hammers, and pointed both barrels.
All the while the tomahawk was spinning blade over handle as the bounty hunter had already flung it, its travels ending when it thudded in the honcho Nagual’s forehead.
“I finally tracked down the Navajo shaman that changed you into skin-walkers,” the bounty hunter said. “I made him lift the curse by blessing that tomahawk before I sent him off to his happy hunting grounds.”
The honcho Nagual dropped his guns and reached up to pull the tomahawk out of his skull but the blade was wedged tight, so he kept yanking until it finally came out.
Suddenly a deafening shrill emanated out of the fissure in the honcho Nagual’s forehead, and like a tornado swirling down a mineshaft, the honcho Nagual was sucked up inside the hole and vanished.
“Nice trick,” said the beak-nosed Nagual before shooting the bounty hunter in the back.
The bounty hunter fell but managed to get off two wild shots from his derringer before hitting the floor.
“You bastard!” the head yelled.
“Oh wait. I forgot to kill you,” the beak-nosed Nagual said and aimed his revolver squarely at the head.
“Leave my daddy alone!” Lizzie screamed.
“Shut up, before I rip out your tongue.” The beak-nosed Nagual gripped Lizzie behind the neck and pushed her face down on the bar. “Say bye-bye papa.”
“Hold on a minute!” pleaded the head. “Aren’t you supposed to give a dying man a last request?”
“You want me to save you a slice after I throw her on the spit?”
“Just a last smoke and a whiskey, that’s all I ask.”
“Sure, why not.” The beak-nosed Nagual held onto Lizzie and put his gun down on the bar. He grabbed the whiskey bottle, pouring some into a shot glass. He wrapped his newly forming talons around the glass and held it for the head to drink.
“After the drink, give me my smoke.” The head opened his mouth and gulped the entire shot glass.
The beak-nosed Nagual—his face now sprouting tiny feathers—took the stogy out of his mouth and shoved the smoldering cigar into the head’s mouth then lit a stick match.
The head waited for the appropriate moment as the flame approached the end of the stogy then spewed out the mouthful of combustible alcohol, catching the Nagual’s face on fire. The Nagual released Lizzie and spun around as the flames quickly spread and engulfed his body, the heat from the flames strangely contained. The conflagration raged and within seconds, the Nagual was reduced to a small pile of skeletal ashes.
Lizzie sat up on the bar. “Daddy, we’re safe. The bad men are dead.”
The head gave his daughter a loving smile, rolled back his eyes, and then, unceremoniously died.
* * *
The woman gazed down at the bounty hunter as he slowly opened his eyes.
They were in one of the hotel’s abandoned rooms. The bounty hunter was flat on his back under a blanket, she in a chair beside his bed.
“I dug enough lead out of you to sink a canoe,” she said.
“I reckon I owe you.”
“Just rest.”
“You know, I never did get your name.”
“It’s Selma.”
“And your husband’s?”
“Jonathan.”
“How’s your little girl?”
“She’s asleep in the next room.”
“If you care to know, my name’s Grainger. You should be proud to know that your husband was a good man.”
“I know. Now you must rest,” Selma said.
She watched o
ver the bounty hunter as he drifted off to sleep, dreading tomorrow as the Nagual’s blood coursed through her veins.
13
THE DALTRYS
Grainger drew the horse blanket around his shoulders and stared out the second-story hotel window, watching Selma trudge out of the saloon. She was lugging a severed leg in one hand, the tomahawk in the other. She approached the bonfire burning in the middle of the ghost town’s main street and tossed the limb into the flames.
He repositioned his stance, wincing as his wounds flared up.
The bounty hunter heard footsteps approaching down the hall and spun around, lifting his cocked Colt .44-caliber Dragoon out from under the blanket. He pointed at the intruder, and when he realized who it was, quickly raised the barrel and reset the hammer on the firearm.
“Not wise to sneak up on a person,” he admonished Lizzie who was standing in the doorway to his room.
“Sorry,” Lizzie replied but showed no fear.
“Mind if I get my britches?”
Lizzie snickered and faced away.
Grainger dropped the blanket, snatched his denim trousers off the back of the wooden chair, and sat down on the edge of the swayback bed. Stifling a groan, he slowly slipped his pants over his bandaged legs. He put on his indigo shirt, leaving the front unbuttoned so as not to aggravate the dressings on his chest as he stood.
“You can turn around,” he said.
“Momma says you should be dead.” It was a direct statement made without malice by a brave little girl that had recently witnessed her father die.
Grainger glanced down at Selma’s weeping patchwork on his torso. “Guess I’m lucky to be resurrected.”
Lizzie stepped over to the small table by the bed to admire some of Grainger’s belongings. She appraised the ornate pocket watch with the antlered stag etched on the silver case and fiddled with the cartridges next to his .36-caliber Navy Colt. She picked up a couple of half-dollar coins and tested their weight in her palm then placed them back on the table.
But it was the penny knife that truly struck her fancy.
Grainger picked up the purposeful tool and demonstrated how the folding blade bent so it could fit inside the wooden handle.
“Makes for a fine whittler if you want it.”
Cryptid Frontier (Cryptid Zoo Book 7) Page 5
