Dead in the West Read online

  Next morning they found Hirem's body behind the saloon. His hand was clutched around a bowie knife. He'd used it to cut his own throat from ear to ear.

  Next the stage came up missing. Then there was the man in the street today, falling apart like wet paper. And Nate, the banker. Found out back of Molly McGuire's with his throat torn and his neck broken. Nolan's body. His neck ripped the same way. Loss of blood, but neither of them having a lot of blood on them, or in Nate's case—only a bit was found where he died. I don't know about Nolan, but I'll bet the same. Or did you notice? No matter.

  And there was a baby a few days back. I ruled it natural causes. There was a little wound in the small of its back, but it wasn't bad enough for the child to bleed to death-there was only a drop or two on its bedclothes. I figured it had rolled over on an open diaper pin or something.

  It all fits the pattern that the books say the demon will follow—a vampiric existence till all his enemies are vanquished. As well as anyone that gets in its way. And even then—it may not be satisfied. The demon may decide to stay in the dead body and use it for as long as it pleases.

  Now, before you go back on your word and tell me I'm crazy, let me add just one thing.

  And I admit, I was sleepy at the time and had all this other stuff on my mind. And I’d been dreaming.

  But the other night I was having the dream I told you about. Bedding the Negress until I died of a heart attack. Only it was strong this time. Different. So intense, I woke up sweating.

  When I sat up—the window is at the foot of my bed— I saw through a slit in the curtains: a FACE looking in— nose pressed up to the glass. The light was so bad, and I couldn't tell for sure, but it looked like the Indian's face, and he had the same expression he wore that day I went over to talk to him and look at their wagon. A superior, knowing look. It was like he was saying with his eyes, "Do you like the dream I sent you?"

  I reached for the lamp to light it, but by the time I did, the face was gone.

  One last thing. The dream about the woman was the same—except for one major difference. It was her skinned corpse—the way she looked that night Hirem and I buried her—that I was making love to.

  Now, tell me, am I crazy?

  I don't think you're crazy, Doc," the Reverend said.

  "But I'd be a liar if I said I swallow all of this whole. I think you believe what you're saying, but you just might be terribly mistaken."

  "As for seeing the face at the window," Abby said, "I believe you, Dad. But it was part of your dream. You feel guilty for what happened to the Indian and the Negress-think maybe you could have stopped it. As for your sexual interest in the woman—that's only healthy.

  But you feel you must be loyal to mother even in death, and the dreams make it seem you're defiling her memory, cheating on her. Your last dream, making love to the corpse, was a combination of both of those guilts."

  Doc's face was slightly flushed. "Possible, I suppose."

  "You may also feel guilty about your envy of the Indian's abilities," the Reverend said.

  "Perhaps, deep down, a part of you feels he got what was coming to him. But all of us have those kind of feelings to one degree or another. You're torturing yourself for nothing, Doc "

  And the Reverend thought to himself: I, on the other hand, have plenty to feel guilty for.

  "It still doesn't explain the similar wounds on the necks of Foster and Nolan. The man in the street."

  "All right, Doc. Let's say that all this is true. What do we do?"

  "I'm not sure," Doc said. "But I've come to believe there is more at work here than my guilt or imagination. I believe there really is a curse, and if there's any way of finding out how to deal with it," Doc waved a hand, "it's in these books."

  The trio sat silent for a while.

  "Hell," Doc said finally. "I feel like an old fool. You're right, of course " He poured himself a shot of whisky and downed it. "It's in my head. All of it."

  II

  The Reverend and Abby walked outside along the alley that led to the street.

  "You have to forgive Dad his mumbo jumbo" Abby said. "He's gotten fanatic about it since Mama died."

  "No apology necessary. I think your dad's a fascinating man." What he was thinking and didn't add, lest Abby feel the need to apologize for him, was that he thought Doc might be onto something.

  "Perhaps this is a little undignified, Jeb. But I'd like to see you again."

  "You will."

  She took his hand. The next moment she was in his arms and their lips pressed together.

  It was even better than he thought it would be.

  When they pulled apart, he looked a little flustered.

  Confused even.

  "Bad for your business, huh, Jeb?"

  "A Reverend shouldn't be kissing beautiful women in an alley."

  She smiled. "Remember, you promised to see me again." "Tomorrow." They kissed again, and the Reverend told her bye. Quickly.

  III

  Doc knew Abby and the Reverend were struck with each other, and it did not bother him.

  He was actually pleased. The Reverend impressed him as a good man, though there was a personal streak of torment in him. About what, he did not know, but he understood. He bore a similar scar because of the Indian.

  But he didn't think guilt was entirely the problem. He hadn't changed his mind completely. Mud Creek was cursed.

  Doc did not go back to his office that afternoon. He had no patients and nothing pressing to do. He combed through his books and made notes. What he found was very disturbing.

  IV

  The Reverend went back to his room and opened his Bible to Revelations.

  The blood drops were still there. They had not been a dream.

  He walked over to the window and looked out. It was easing toward evening. Another hour maybe.

  He sat on the bed and cleaned his revolver.

  Then he loaded six and made sure his coat pockets were full of ammunition. He didn't know exactly why.

  V

  Joe Bob Rhine left the livery shortly before dark, leaving David a few chores to finish up, including carrying some old harness up to the loft for storage.

  Usually, the loft was of no concern to David. But in the last few days, though he had not consciously thought about it until this moment, he found that the idea of going up there disturbed him.

  He found himself even wishing his father were still in the livery, and that was most certainly not a common thought. Generally, anytime he was around his father, he felt ill at ease, never knowing when the man would be angered and fly off the handle—either verbally or physically.

  If his father were in the shop, he thought, the idea of going up the ladder with the harness wouldn't be so bad. But being alone with darkness setting in, he felt most uncomfortable.

  The horses weren't happy either. They hadn't been for days. They rolled their eyes and snorted and were hard to manage. His pa said it was the weather. That it made them skittish.

  Maybe so. But David couldn't remember ever seeing them like this. They didn't seem so much skittish, as just outright scared.

  Looking up at the loft, he felt as if eyes were on him, and he sensed something—the word came to him—EVIL.

  It was dumb, but that's what came to him. Evil in the loft.

  It made no sense. About the evilest thing in that loft were rats. Nothing else.

  He told himself that twice, took a deep breath, took hold of the harness, and started up the ladder.

  Closer he got to the top, the stranger he felt. As if he was certain something was lurking up there at the edge of the loft, waiting to reach out and clamp down on him. He had a vision of a great hand snatching him about the top of the head, lifting him from the ladder like a hound dog pup, and dashing him to the ground below.

  Another step on the ladder, and he thought he heard a creak from above. Like rusty hinges.

  And he could smell a dead odor.

  Maybe a n
est of rats had died up there.

  The creak again.

  He stopped.

  Now he heard nothing. But the smell was strong. Almost overwhelming.

  Another step and he was peering over the edge of the loft.

  There was an old plow crate up there. Dirt was caked on its sides, as if it had been buried.

  And for an instant—a quick instant—he thought he had seen the lid settle down, as if someone were hiding inside the crate and had closed the lid quickly.

  He found he could not swallow. He didn't remember that crate.

  All he had to do was take another step, then another, and he would be level with the loft.

  Then he could walk across the loft through the maze of hay up there and hang the harness on a peg against the wall.

  That's all he had to do.

  But he couldn't.

  Pa was going to beat him with a knotted plowline for sure, but he couldn't. There was no way he could move his feet. He felt cold, as if it were the dead of winter. And above all, he felt frightened. It was like knowing a snake was coiled nearby, ready to strike, but you didn't know where it was.

  David swung the harness off his shoulder and tossed it up onto the loft as hard as he could, then started down the ladder.

  Halfway down he heard the creaking again and stopped.

  Looking up, he thought he saw through the cracks in the loft, a set of blazing eyes and the thinnest definitions of a face.

  He dropped the rest of the way to the ground, rushed out of the livery, and pushed the doors shut. He slipped the padlock in place, and then, leaning against the doors with his palms out, he breathed hard.

  Placing his ear against the door, he listened. But there was nothing to hear except the horses moving about restlessly.

  He thought about the eyes in the loft and felt foolish. Rat eyes most likely. He ought to unlock the padlock, go back inside, and put that harness up right. That's what he ought to do. Spare himself a beating from his pa by hanging the harness up right.

  But it was getting darker, and inside the livery it would be darker yet. And he just couldn't bring himself to go back in there.

  He began walking briskly toward home.

  VI

  Darkness had not taken full hold, but it had set in, and fingers of its shadow clutched the town, drawing it slowly into its fists.

  And the nightwalkers were almost to town.

  And in the livery the horses trembled in their stalls, rolled their eyes to the loft and finally to the ladder, as a shape—fluid as water—descended.

  VII

  The sheriff, in his office, looked out at the darkening street and locked his door.

  He put on his new hat and sat down at his desk, the barred window at his back, got out the whisky and a glass and poured himself a healthy shot.

  He wasn't going to make his rounds tonight. No way. In fact, he might never make them again. He was considering moving on. Maybe to West Texas, or Oklahoma. He wanted to be shut of Mud Creek, and fast.

  He poured another shot. Then another.

  Damn. He couldn't even get drunk.

  VIII

  When Jim and Mary Glass heard their granddaughter's voice outside, it was more than a pleasant surprise. She had been given up for dead.

  They had just been considering how they could tell their daughter and her husband. The idea of sending a wire or a letter did not appeal, yet they hated taking a wagon trip to Beaumont and telling them face to face that the child had not arrived, and they had no idea where she was.

  They felt responsible. It was their suggestion that the little girl come to visit them by stage, and now the stage and the girl were missing.

  Until now.

  A child's voice, and they knew it was Mignon's, was calling outside their door.

  Almost together they rushed the door.

  Mary won out and opened it.

  There, standing in the early darkness, in the dirtiest clothes imaginable, was Mignon. She held a doll in her hand, her fist clutched tightly about its cotton neck.

  "Grandma," the little girl said, and the voice was as cold and hollow as the first blow of winter.

  "There's something wrong with her eyes," Jim said as Mary reached out for the little girl, and Mignon went into those arms rapidly, her teeth clamping through her grandmother's neck like a hot knife through butter.

  Mary screamed. Blood spewed out of her neck, and she fell back against the doorjamb holding her hand to her throat.

  The little girl whipped away from her grandmother and charged Jim. She latched both arms around his right leg and shot her head into his crotch, her teeth crunching into his testicles, ripping his clothes and flesh like rotting sailcloth.

  Jim swung his arm around and knocked her across the floor.

  At a glance he saw that his wife was dead. The blood flowed from her neck in small streams. Her eyes had rolled back into her head.

  He stumbled two steps, grabbed a hat rack for support, and turned toward his granddaughter.

  She came running across the floor fast as a cat. She put a foot on his knee and climbed him. She dropped the doll. Her hands went around his neck and her fingers latched together.

  "A kiss for grandpa," she said, and her head arched forward, and with a clamp of her teeth and a twist of her head, she tore his throat out.

  Jim collapsed to the floor. He tugged at her some more, but to no avail. He could hear and feel her tongue darting between her teeth, lapping at his blood. Then he heard no more.

  IX

  When Mignon finished feeding, there was little left of Jim's face.

  A few moments later, faceless, he rose. His teeth—

  looking like sugar cubes in the midst of tomato pulp with eyes—snapped open and closed a few times. He was hungry.

  Mary stood up. Her head hung at an angle, and one side of her dress was bright red.

  She walked out the door toward town and the living.

  Jim followed.

  Then Mignon picked up her doll and went after them.

  Grandfather, grandmother, and granddaughter were going into town for supper.

  X

  Just about dark, Buela heard the singing.

  It was bad singing and it was muffled and it was coming from somewhere outside the house. Still, she recognized the voice.

  Her sister, Millie.

  Buela went outside, carrying a lantern.

  "Millie, my God, is that you?"

  No answer—just the singing—like a dying bird chirping down in a well.

  "Millie, I'm here. Where are you?"

  "Hungry," came Millie's voice. "So hungry."

  Now Buela had it pinpointed. The voice was coming from the root cellar. But there was nothing but water in there.

  Buela suddenly had it. Millie had been lost. Something terrible had happened to the stage, and Millie had been lost. Maybe she was delirious with hunger, half out of her mind, hiding in the root cellar. Down there in that foul water.

  Buela hiked up her skirts and rushed toward the root cellar.

  "I'll feed you, darling. Just you hang on. I'll feed you."

  Buela jerked back the door on the root cellar.

  There was no voice or singing now. Just blackness. Lizards of fear scuttled up her body.

  "Millie?"

  She held the lantern down into the root cellar.

  And there was Millie's face, a dirty moon in which worms squirmed. Slime dripped out of her hair.

  "My God" Buela said.

  Millie's hand shot forward and grabbed the arm with the lantern and yanked.

  Buela screamed, but only briefly. She went under the water, and the lantern went out.

  But true to Buela's word, she did feed Millie.

  XI

  The undertaker, Mertz, was at work. He had Nate Foster fixed up and dressed in a suit the sheriff had brought over from the banker's house, and Mertz was of the opinion that Nate had never looked better. He hoped the worms appreciated all this w
ork.

  On the other hand, the amount of work he'd put in on Nate had tired him. And considering Nate had about as many friends as a ground rattler, he should have just stuck him in the box and got him buried before he bloated.

  Looking at Nolan lying there on his slab, he decided that was exactly what he was going to do with this one. Neither were exactly the sort that drew mourners—though Nate would have some paid-for mourners. They were more the sort that drew flies.

  Mertz thought the best move with Nolan would be to strip him of his clothes, wrap him in an old sheet, and put morning early—before he stunk so bad and swole out the sides of his pine box. That had happened to Mertz once at a cheap funeral. He'd stuffed old man Crider in a box without embalming him and kept him overnight. Next day at the funeral—out in the hot, July sun—the bastard bloated like a whale. Luck had been with Mertz, however, and the body didn't cause the sides of the coffin to break open until after the family left. And stink—it was worse than a week-old rotted string of fish. Mertz and his gravediggers pushed Crider in the hole and got him covered pronto.

  Course, Nolan already stunk. And something awful.

  Mertz went over and looked down at the body. He was an ugly hombre. Maybe Mertz should at least clean the dirt out of his eye socket.

  Nah. In for a penny, in for a pound. He'd just strip him, put him on ice, and get him planted early tomorrow morning. He already had a couple of gravediggers lined up. When that was over, he had Nate's funeral, and he would make some money off that. Even if no one cared about Nate. There might even be a few people come by to gloat.

  Mertz turned up the lantern hanging over Nolan's slab, walked around to Nolan's feet, turned his back on the corpse, took hold of one of the stage driver's boots, and tugged it off.

  He held the boot down to one of his feet to measure. Nope, not a fit.

  He took hold of the other boot and pulled. It wouldn't come.

  "Come on, you sonofabitch!"

  Nolan sat up on the slab. Dirt dribbled from his eye socket and dropped from his hair.

  Mertz quit tugging.

  The back of his neck was crawling.

  He heard a noise over on the other slab where Nate was dressed out. Glancing that way—

  in the shadowy light cast from his lantern—he saw Nate swing off the slab.