Cryptid Frontier (Cryptid Zoo Book 7)

by Gerry Griffiths

  “Thanks,” Lizzie said, and accepted the gift.

  Grainger turned to the sound of clopping hooves outside and saw two riders out the window coming down the street.

  “Who are they?” Lizzie asked.

  “They call themselves the Daltry Gang even though there’s only the two brothers. The older one in the raffia straw hat and chinos is Ned. The other is Angus. He’s one back-shooting son of a bitch. There’s a fair price on both their heads for robbing banks and gunning down folks that got in their way.”

  “You going to arrest them?”

  “Nope. That’s a marshal’s job,” the bounty hunter said, tensing when the outlaws pulled back the reins and leaned on their saddle horns to appraise Selma standing by the funeral pyre.

  The Daltrys conversed for a moment then Angus pulled his revolver and aimed it at Selma, who after some consideration dropped the tomahawk on the ground.

  Angus threw his leg over the cantle and dismounted. He handed his horse’s reins to Ned and marched over to Selma. She was standing her ground and didn’t appear to be afraid of the outlaw.

  “He better not hurt Momma,” Lizzie hissed.

  “Quiet,” Grainger whispered as they watched the scene unfold outside.

  Angus grabbed Selma’s arm and yanked her behind him as he tramped toward the steps of the saloon. Ned got off his horse and tied their mounts to the hitching post. He followed his brother with his captive up the steps onto the planked walkway and they pushed through the batwing doors.

  Grainger looked down at Lizzie. “Fetch me my boots. And when I’m gone, you’re not to leave this room.”

  * * *

  The bounty hunter strode across the dirt street, spurs clinking, and climbed the steps to the saloon. He was wearing his gun belt with the Dragoon in the holster. He had half-buttoned his shirt, leaving the top three loops undone.

  He was carrying the 10-gauge Ithaca shotgun with its twin barrels.

  Grainger pushed through the batwing doors and stepped inside the gloomy saloon.

  The stinking remains of the dead Naguals still permeated the room and reminded him of the time he had ridden down onto a killing field of rotted carcasses after a buffalo slaughter.

  He spotted the Nagual that had attempted to shapeshift into a black bear before Grainger had blasted a barrel-sized hole through its chest with the double load of silver ball bearings, spraying its heart, lungs, and innards clear across the room.

  Selma had partially hacked up a corpse that lay nearby—the one halted in mid transformation as the beastly timber wolf tried to regress into its human form before the demise.

  Blowflies were hovering around the blood-splattered fur, while white maggots wiggled through tiny moist tunnels of flesh.

  “You kill those skin-walkers?” a gruff voice spoke from a dark corner.

  Grainger turned and saw two silhouettes sitting behind a card table as the morning sun filtered through the filmy windows. “That’s right.”

  “Never liked those Naguals. Lose the scattergun or she loses her head!”

  It took a second or two for Grainger’s eyes to adjust before he saw Selma.

  Angus was seated beside her and had the muzzle of a .45-caliber Schofield revolver pressed against her temple.

  The coach gun crashed on the floorboards.

  “Now the gun belt!”

  The bounty hunter suspected that Ned was slunk down, hiding behind the bar. He figured once he was disarmed, the coward would pop up like a prairie dog and commence firing.

  “Have it your way,” Angus said and drew back the hammer.

  “I’m letting it fall.” Grainger unclipped the friction buckle and his gun belt hit the floor.

  “Now reach for the rafters.”

  Grainger lifted his arms. His shirt was sticking to the oozing bandages and he was leaking like a cask of red wine that had been used for target practice. “You can let the woman go.”

  “From where I’m sitting, you just lost your right to barter,” Angus grumbled back.

  The batwing doors burst inward and Ned stormed in, dragging Lizzie in by her hair.

  “Didn’t I say to stay in the room?” Grainger snapped.

  “I was,” Lizzie replied. “He come up and nabbed me.”

  “Hey, baby brother, looks like you and I are going to have ourselves some fun,” Ned said.

  Angus nodded his head and let out a boisterous laugh. Every tooth in his mouth was black as tar.

  “Let my daughter go!” Selma’s eyes narrowed with rage. The veins in her neck bulged like thick cords of rope.

  Grainger could see thin trickles of blood oozing from the two puncture marks on her neck made by the honcho Nagual’s fangs.

  Angus saw the blood too. “What the hell? Ned, she’s been bit.”

  Selma lowered her head. A low growl rumbled in her throat. Her shoulders hunched as she stretched her arms on the table.

  She dragged her huge paws back, raking her razor-sharp claws over the tabletop, cutting deep, chiseled furrows into the wood.

  Then she raised her head.

  “Momma!” Lizzie screamed.

  Angus’ eyes widened when he realized he was sitting next to a fierce cougar. The big cat opened its mighty jaws, roared in his face, and pounced on the startled man, shoving him backward in his chair and onto the floor.

  Angus let out a gurgled cry and drummed the heels of his boots on the hardwood floor as sharp teeth and claws ripped through his flesh.

  Ned froze for a moment as he watched his brother being torn to bits.

  The bounty hunter lowered his right hand and reached behind his head, gripping the handle of the bowie knife in the sheath strapped between his shoulder blades.

  The nine-inch plus blade sailed across the room and struck the crown of Ned’s straw hat with an impressive thud. He teetered then dropped to the floor with his hat pegged to his forehead.

  Lizzie scampered over and hid behind Grainger.

  “Please don’t kill Momma,” she pleaded.

  The bounty hunter bent down and retrieved the shotgun, bracing himself as the carnage continued across the room in the dark corner of the saloon.

  14

  THE FARMSTEAD

  After leaving the ghost town and riding for days, Grainger reached a bluff overlooking a canyon and saw a farmstead down below, situated near a shallow rock bed stream that meandered through the arroyo.

  He assessed the shack-like clapboard farmhouse with its steep-pitched metal roof and the nearby barn, both built with similar materials by a person of limited carpentry skills. A shabby woodshed and henhouse were set in the middle of the barnyard.

  Beyond was a trodden path that led through a parched brown field of wilted cornstalks to a crudely constructed privy erected at the edge of a thick stand of oaks.

  Grainger searched for signs of life and saw an enormous draft mule—sixteen hands tall—standing in a section of corral, its chin resting on the top rail. It was a dark bay, mostly black with a chestnut forehead.

  A behemoth Texas Longhorn bull, big as a buckboard, was in a nearby pen, its head down, snorting up dust devils. Its horns were spread seven-feet apart from tip-to-tip and were as thick as a wrangler’s arms. The hide was bluish in coloring, signifying a feral ancestral lineage.

  The bounty hunter figured the place was either deserted or the homesteader—if he were determined to keep trespassers off his land—was concealed down there somewhere, the site of his turkey shooter zeroed in on Grainger’s head.

  “We might be able to water and feed the horses,” Grainger said, turning to Selma and Lizzie astride the Daltry brothers’ horses.

  He felt somewhat remorseful for having to tie Selma’s hands to the saddle horn but he knew it had to be done.

  “Let’s go,” he said, and turned the buckskin’s head in the direction of the broad strata declivity that stretched down into the basin. Selma and Lizzie’s horses followed behind the bounty hunter’s mount in single file.

&
nbsp; The horses plodded wearily down the grade.

  Grainger’s face was shaded under the front brim of his Stetson, his eyes wary of the first sign of trouble. He knew from his line of work that a man who paid poor attention to his surroundings only made himself a fool to the pallbearers.

  As they drew nearer, Grainger noticed that the farm animals had taken a certain interest in their arrival—enough hoopla to draw an immense chanticleer out from the henhouse.

  Flabbergasted, Grainger gazed upon the extraordinary bird.

  The fowl was as big as a buzzard. The comb on the bridge of the crower’s bony head was bright red and resembled a jagged lightning bolt. Twin wattles hung from its massive beak like two saddlebags, along with dangling earlobes.

  The gamecock puffed out its plumed chest like a defiant Thanksgiving turkey and clawed the dirt with its pointy talons.

  Though the farmer did not seemingly possess a talent with a hammer or a hoe, Grainger had to give him credit: the man was a wizard when it came to feed, as he surely knew how to fatten up his livestock.

  Grainger rode up short of the front porch. “Hello inside! Could you spare some water for our horses?” He leaned on his saddle horn and waited for a reply.

  “Could be he’s in the barn,” Selma said, as her horse and Lizzie’s horse stopped in front of the hitching post.

  “Momma, I need to use the facilities,” Lizzie begged, squirming in her saddle.

  “Then you better run along. Outhouse is yonder by those trees.”

  Lizzie scooted down off her horse and hit the ground running, her long riding skirt flapping against her skinny legs as she dashed across the barnyard and down the path toward the privy nestled by the woods.

  Grainger dismounted, the reins draped on the buckskin’s neck. He stared up at Selma with an apologetic expression on his weathered face. “Let me check inside before I get you down.”

  Selma nodded and sat solemnly in the saddle.

  The bounty hunter’s spurs jingled as he climbed the steps onto the porch. He pounded once on the door with his gloved fist and the hinges creaked as the door swung inward a few inches.

  Brushing the front of his long coat aside, he drew the Dragoon.

  “We are riders, seeking water for our horses. Nothing else, I assure you.”

  Grainger placed his hand on the face of the door and pushed it open, allowing the morning sunlight to illuminate the dark interior.

  A thick layer of dust covered the broken-down furniture and cobwebs hung everywhere like thin-thread silver doilies. It was obvious that the place was deserted and had been abandoned for some time.

  If that was so, then why were there—

  Something large in frame prowled in the shadows just inside the doorway to another room.

  “Show yourself and I won’t shoot.”

  He could hear it shuffling and rubbing its body up against the other side of the wall. Whatever it was, the creature was big. And when he heard it growl, he knew with a great amount of certainty that it was tensing up its muscles getting ready for the kill.

  * * *

  Lizzie sprinted toward the outhouse, boots crunching across the shriveled field of corn. Upon reaching the privy, she swung open the door and quickly stepped inside. A crescent moon-shaped opening had been carved high up on the plank of wood, so even though it was dark, there was sufficient light when she closed the door, enough for her to see and wish she had chosen the woods to relieve herself instead.

  The inside of the privy was teeming with labyrinth webs of preying spiders and crawling bugs clinging to the claustrophobic walls and dangling from the ceiling.

  She speedily reached down and hiked up her dress. Glancing back, she spotted the box frame over the pothole and sat down.

  Nasty, vile things wiggled and squirmed in the decayed defecation down in the crapper pit. She held her nose and quickly did her constitutional.

  Lizzie discovered a few brittle pages of an old Sears Roebuck catalog that had been left in a rusted can and tore a page out, crinkling it to make it softer, and got the deed done. She jumped up, letting the heavy material of her skirt drop, the hem touching the tops of her bootstraps.

  She pushed open the door and stepped out into the fresh air and was about to scurry back to the farmhouse when she heard a horse whinny somewhere back in the woods and thought perhaps it had strayed from the property and might be lost. She was certain if she retrieved the farmer’s horse, he would be so grateful and generous enough to reward them with a hot meal and even perhaps a real bed to sleep in.

  She followed the sound, which took her deeper into the copse of oaks. Soon, she saw the markings on the flank of a horse behind some brush. It was an Appaloosa. Then she saw another horse with similar spots. She came across two more horses, a palomino and a pinto. The Indian ponies were adorned with war paint and were tethered side by side to a long rope stretched and secured between two trees.

  Lizzie turned and ran back the way she had come. Jutting branches scratched her face and arms as she dashed madly through the woods.

  Finally out of the trees, she raced through the decomposing cornfield, waving her arms, screaming, “Momma! Momma! The Naguals are here!”

  * * *

  When Selma heard Lizzie yell, her horse’s ears pricked forward. The animal snorted and turned its head toward the corral. And then Selma’s horse spooked and sidestepped away from the pen.

  Selma saw the paddock gate swing open.

  The Texas Longhorn bull bolted out with its head down and charged Lizzie’s horse, driving a horn tip deep between the dun’s shoulder and girth, spearing the leather saddle. The bovine pulled back to free its horn and thick blood spurted out of the gored hole like a red pressure-released geyser.

  Mortally wounded, the horse backed up and staggered. Its back legs gave out and it collapsed dead on its side in a crimson pool, eyes glazed and its tongue in the dirt.

  The triumphant bull snorted and raised its right front hoof and stomped the ground.

  Grainger’s buckskin took off and galloped around the far side of the farmhouse.

  Panic seized Selma and she reached for the reins in hopes of escape—but she couldn’t, her hands were tied to the saddle horn.

  And that is when the draft mule bounded out of the corral, calculated its attack, and with both hind hooves kicked, striking the gaskin and snapping the thigh bone and delivering an organ-imploding blow to the barrel of Selma’s horse, narrowly missing her leg booted in the stirrups, leaving Selma no recourse but to hang on for dear life.

  * * *

  Lizzie had never seen a giant rooster before.

  But there it was.

  Standing in her path.

  It was as tall as her, staring with beady eyes that reminded her of black marbles.

  The head kept bobbing up and down like it had a disorder. The gamecock was not distracted by the clamor made by the horses and the livestock in front of the farmhouse.

  Its sole focus was on Lizzie.

  Lizzie reached inside the pocket of her skirt.

  The rooster leaped in the air, scattering feathers as it flapped its wings and flew at Lizzie with its sharp spurs pointed at her face.

  * * *

  Grainger stood motionless, ignoring the ruckus outside as his attention was on the phantom lurking just inside the other room. The bizarre noises emanating from the room had been chilling—like sodden branches snapping, accompanied by fitful moans.

  He pointed the long barrel of his Dragoon and approached the doorway.

  As he advanced, he heard the distinct ratchet sound of a lever-action inserting a cartridge into the chamber.

  The Nagual stepped out of the shadows. He was wearing traditional Indian garb: cloth headband, cotton shirt hanging over pants tucked inside the tops of knee-high leather boots. He was no longer in the body of his spiritual animal-self but in human form, so that he might use his Winchester to get the drop on the bounty hunter.

  Grainger fired first.
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br />   The headshot made by the .44-caliber slug cleaved a teacup-sized chunk of skull out of the Nagual’s cranium, brain matter exploding in a gory mist.

  Suddenly, the whole farmhouse shook when the front door and adjacent walls smashed into kindling and the Texas Longhorn trampled in and charged Grainger.

  With the grace of a rodeo performer, the bounty hunter grabbed a hold of the right horn and swung up on the animal’s shoulders as the bull stormed through the farmhouse and crashed out the rear wall, upending Grainger and spilling him across the barnyard.

  The bull spun around, narrowing its eyes on its prey.

  Grainger gazed up with relief when the buckskin appeared and trotted over, allowing him to reach behind the saddle’s bedroll and pull out the coach gun as the aggressive Longhorn charged.

  He waited for the bull to get within five feet and fired both barrels.

  The head burst in a grisly cloud as it disintegrating between the horns, wet slabs of meat flying everywhere as the headless brute plunged onto the dirt.

  * * *

  Before her horse could hit the ground, Selma changed into the cougar. The metamorphoses had been that quick. This time her fear had triggered the transformation where before it had been anger. Perhaps to her animal spiritual self they were the same.

  Clinging to the saddle, she arched her back and when the draft mule was in range, she lunged.

  The animal whimpered as she buried her sharp claws into its shoulders and back.

  She raked the withers with her right paw, ripping deep slashes down its hide.

  Refusing to be bucked off, she sank her teeth into the back of the neck, biting and grinding her teeth until she snapped the spinal cord.

  She leaped off as the mule’s legs buckled and it dropped.

  * * *

  The airborne rooster smacked into Lizzie, knocking her down on the ground. She raised her forearm over her face to ward off the bird’s repetitive pecking as it tried to gouge out her eyes. The bird’s weight pressed on her thighs and she could feel the talons digging into the rawhide material, attempting to rip her skirt and tear at her flesh.

  Lizzie came up with her left hand and stabbed the rooster in the chest with the penny knife but the blade was too small to render serious injury. So she plunged the blade in again and again.