9 Tales From Elsewhere 2

by 9 Tales From Elsewhere

  When the lady strode in, Inky was seated alone at a table, playing solitaire and drinking rotgut. Isabelle sat down beside him. “You are Gilly’s friend, are you not?” Inky was unable to speak.

  She extended her hand. “I am Isabelle Starr… delighted to make your acquaintance.” Inky took her delicately gloved hand in his massive paw and shook it gently.

  “My, you are quite a specimen, Mr…. Mr. ..?”

  “Dugan, ma’am. Inky Dugan.”

  “Oh, how delightful! Inky! Yes, it suits you. And where is your friend… Mr. Gammesson?” Inky pointed toward the rooms upstairs, where Gilly was taking one of Sunny’s new girls out for a hard ride.

  “Oh, yes, I see,” said Isabelle, as she poured them both a drink from the bottle on the table. She raised her glass. “Tir nam beann, nan gleann, nan gaisgeach!” she toasted, then downed the shot without hesitation. “Cheers”, said Inky, and followed suit. And so it went.

  Soon they were laughing and sharing intimacies, with Izzie reaching over and playfully twirling Inky’s black chest hairs in her long white fingers. Inky was more intoxicated by her than the whiskey. Soon enough, they too were in a room upstairs, thrashing around like beasts in heat.

  When Inky fell asleep, drained and exhausted, Izzie dressed and slipped out. Downstairs she found Gilly, chatting with Sid Uhry at the bar. Their eyes locked. Gilly had known Isabelle since his childhood days in Rook. She smiled, but her eyes betrayed a reptilian quality that raised the little hairs on the back of his neck.

  “Well, well… Mad Gilly. Welcome home,” Izzie said.

  “Yeah, yer daddy’s boys sure gave me a real `welcome home’, alright. So what’re ya doin’ in my town, Miss Starr?”

  “Why Gilly, you can’t possibly think I give a hoot about daddy’s minions. Or about who controls this spittoon of a town.”

  “No? Then what are you here fer?”

  “I’m here for YOU, Gilly.” She kissed him and he let hisself get kissed. He could smell her, and it was a smell that filled his senses like a bouquet of poppies. He could feel his desire overwhelming his distrust. And soon enough the two were upstairs again, rolling around in the room next door to the one where Inky still slept.

  Now, as regarding the third of Gilly’s three great gifts, folks said that Gilly was even better at pokin’ than poker, and when he got Izzie to hit high “C”, it was she what got trapped in her own snare. Suddenly she was not only wanton, but wantin’, and her daddy’s intrigues went flying out the window. She was blinded by golden curls, and caressed by bronze skin, and falling into black eyes that went on and on forever.

  But the next thing she knowed, a massive paw had grabbed her by her white tresses and was dragging her, buck nekkid, out of the bed, across the room, down the stairs, and out of the saloon and into the street. She screamed and tried to pull free, but Inky Dugan barely noticed her efforts. He hauled her up to her horse and tossed her over the saddle onto her belly, as she continued to writhe like a sackful of diamondbacks. He tied her hands and feet together under the horse, as she let fly with a tirade of foul language that, while unbefitting a lady of her stature, was surely appropriate to her situation. Inky whispered to the horse, “take her home,” then slapped her flank… the horse’s flank, that is. And off went the snowy mare, cantering up Main Street, back to the Starr ranch. Izzie’s screams and vituperations grew fainter, as did the glare of the sun off the milky white buttocks of both horse and passenger, as they disappeared into the distant hills.

  Inky walked back into Uhry’s saloon and sat down at the table where Gilly sat, waiting. Gilly filled their glasses. Inky pushed the cards over to Gilly. “Deal,” he said.

  ><><

  Charge of the 40 Guns

  “Destroy them, da… destroy them now!” shrieked Isabelle.

  Old Newt was angry. His town had been taken, his men killed, his mines shut down, and now his daughter publicly humiliated. He was a man of power, of means, who was used to getting his way, and he had been utterly thwarted by that son of a whore and his friend, the half-breed bear-man. So when I speak of his anger, you can’t even imagine the depths and the height of it. But compared to the rage of Izzie Starr, his was but a dim spark next to a conflagration.

  “Be reasonable, my dear. I must wait until the solstice to perform the ritual, and...”

  “I don’t care about any silly ritual. You have hired enough new men. Use them!”

  “We need Bull Evans to lead them. Without him, they are just 40 men with guns.”

  “But Gilly and Inky are just two men!”

  Two, yes… but men? No, I don’t think so… not entirely.”

  “Da, I did as you asked and this was the result. Now do this for me, or so help me…”

  “Yes dear, I…”

  “…I will not be responsible for the consequences!”

  “… I understand, me dearie. The moon disappears from the night sky only three weeks hence, upon the summer solstice, and I swear to you, on that night the Bull shall rise and our enemies shall fall!”

  “Three weeks? THREE WEEKS!? Hrummph!” Izzie stormed off, not overjoyed by her father’s cool response to her burning need for immediate retribution.

  Finally, three weeks slunk by and, in the dark night of the new moon, Ole Newt berobed hisself with the accoutrements of his office: a velveteen cape, a pointed cap, and a bejeweled staff carved from an ancient wood that no longer grew upon the Earth. He spoke sacred words from an ancient text over the decayed and headless corpse of Bull Evans. And even as his incantations sung out over Lake Thannat, something stirred deep beneath its waters, causing waves to ripple across its bubbling surface.

  Evans’ corpse started to shake and glow. Suddenly, the head of a great bull emerged from the body’s neck stump, with deadly horns blossoming like ivory flowers atop the skull, and a snout rising from the bovine face like a feller’s manhood at first light. The body’s shriveled feet grew into great cloven hooves, as the body’s decaying flesh reconstituted itself from the stuff of air, and earth, and water, and flame. Bull Evans stood up from the stone table on which he had been laid, his Bull’s head now towering nearly 9 feet above the ground.

  “Go, oh great bull, and destroy our enemies,” spake the velveteen dwarf. “Circle around Rook and take the southern road up through Humble’s Wood. You will come out behind their mighty gate and take them by surprise. When the brothers have fallen, open the gate. I shall then send in the 40 guns to help you take back the town.”

  The Bull roared and stampeded off into the night. Ole Newt stood on a chair to hang up his cape and hat and put away his staff and book. He then readied his gunmen to ride on the town. “Where is Izzie?” he wondered, amidst the hubbub. “She would so enjoy this glorious moment!”

  ><><

  The Bull and the Bear

  The Great Bull made its way down the road, passing by the southern tip of Lake Thannat. There he saw a shadow emerge from the water. It was the lady, Isabelle, who somehow glistened on that moonless night. She called to him. “Come to me, Bull. I have a gift for you.” Bull heeded her command. “Kneel before me.” He did. She reached into the water and scooped some mud from the lakebed. She whispered some words over the dark wet earth in her hands, and then rubbed the mud over the horns of the great beast. “Any son of man gored by your horns shall die in slow, writhing agony. Now go!”

  The Bull was soon enough strolling through the heart of Humble’s Wood. White men wisely avoided that trail, afeared as they were of the Hums and the beasts residing there. But The Bull knew no fear. He knew only the scent of blood, the stench of which rose in his great snout. He uprooted a smallish tree along the way, pulling off its branches and leaves, shaping it with his sharp hooves, fashioning hisself a club. Ya see, since he was still part man, the Bull felt nekkid without a weapon in his hands. And, so armed, he stumbled loudly through the woods toward the town, making no secret of his coming.

  It was Inky that sensed it first. He awoke with a start.
He heard the call of drums, though whether they were coming from the woods or from inside his own head, as a reminder of his late night debauching, he was not certain. He looked in on Gilly, who was a snoring like ole Epharim the she-bear. Inky let his brother sleep on. “I’ll check on this myself. No need to involve Gilly just yet,” he thought, as he crept out the rooms of Sunny’s bawdyhouse, where the two had taken up permanent residence. He follered the drums south, off the main street and towards the woods.

  Now whether it was two men that fought in a dark forest on that fateful night, or whether it was a man-bull and a were-bear, it is hard to say and harder still to know. What is clear was the bloody result, which Gilly stumbled upon after following Inky’s trail some time later. The headless body of Bull Evans was laying on a rock, with the bull’s head spilt out over the forest floor. And, nearby, Inky sat up against a tree, trying to catch his breath.

  “Inky, watcha doin’ out here, fightin’ with that bullheaded son of Hell, all by yer lonesome?”

  “I did not want to disturb you, Gil. But it is alright, I took him.”

  Gilly looked down and saw the blood oozing from Inky’s side. “Yeah, but it looks like he done took ya back! Lets get ya home, to Sunny. She’ll fix ya up good.”

  Gilly got Inky up on Horse, as gentle as he could, and they rode back into town. Inky was laid down on a bed and Sunny tended to him. But after a while, she turned to Gilly and said,

  “My son, the wound cannot be healed. He is bewitched by a poison that I cannot defeat.”

  “Mama, there must be somethin’ you can do. He cain’t die!”

  “Yes, he can. And so can you.” Now that news struck Mad Gilly Games like a lightning bolt. It had never occurred to him that he could die. He was the golden child. Surely he would live forever, he thought.

  “You and Inky are not gods, Gilly. You are men… mostly. And it is the blessing of the great mother that men can die. So be glad, not afeared. For those that do not know death, do not know life. And Inky has lived a life of awe and wonder. As have you, my son.”

  “But it cain’t be over yit, ma. It just cain’t.” Gilly sobbed and was shocked by the sound. He hadn’t even cried over his own mama dying at the moment of his birth, nor upon any occasion since, but here he was now, balling like a child lost in the dark.

  “Gilly, I will tell you again what I told you once before. Go up to the mountains. Find Trapper Dugan. He might be helpful at a time like this. But don’t be long about it. Inky doesn’t have much time left.”

  “How long?”

  “A day… two, maybe. Now ride!” Hanging on to the thinnest thread of hope, Mad Gilly hopped on Horse and galloped toward the Eastern Gate, carrying Bull’s head by his side. The gate was opened for his passing and he rode north and west, into the foothills. So distracted was he, he did not see the 40 gunmen waiting on the distant horizon. Upon the gate’s opening, the 40 guns charged!

  ><><

  Mad Gilly’s Quest

  Not knowing what bloody doings lay behind them, Mad Gilly and Horse burned the wind across the northern foothills, before having to slow their pace as they climbed higher into the jagged, frozen mountains. He would have to find Trapper Dugan afore long or the trip would be for naught. And so, that night, Gilly built a bonfire, setting off a blaze that could be seen from the highest peak in the Rockies. As he suspected, it drew Dugan to him.

  “Hey, boy. I heard you was lookin’ fer me,” said Trapper Dugan.

  “Howdja know?”

  “I got my ways. Between the Hums drummin, the guns ridin’, and the wizard spellificatin’, I jes’ knew you’d find yer way to me, one way or t’other.”

  “It’s Inky. He’s in a bad way, Pa, and Sunny said…”

  “I ain’t YER pa, boy.”

  “Yeah, I know, but…”

  “I’m Inky’s pa.”

  “…well, Inky’s my brother, so that makes you SOMETHIN’ to me, don’t it?”

  “Alright… how bout you settle for `uncle’, then?”

  “If that’s what you’ll have me call ya, then that’s who ya are, I s`pose.”

  “So what happened to my boy, then?” asked Dugan, and Gilly related the recent doings.

  “Mountain’s Blood… he needs Mountain’s Blood. The injuns say it can cure any ailment, even ones of magical origin, and can even slow down the aging of men.”

  “Where can I find it at?”

  “Well, that’s the trick, ain’t it, nephew Gilmore?”

  “You don’t know where it is, do ya?”

  “Oh, I do, I do… I jes’ don’t know if I should be tellin’ ya, is all. You and Inky is my only kin, after all, and it would be a mortal sin to put such a burden on ya both.”

  “I’ve done enough sinnin’ in my life fer all of us, uncle. So don’t you worry bout that. Now jes’ tell me how to find it.”

  And so Dugan did and, upon doing so, vanished once again back into the mountains without another word, for either good or ill, him being an unsentimental sort.

  Gilly rode off north, as Dugan instructed, to Lake Thannat. He arrived at daybreak and was shocked to find Ole Newt… dead. Dead, and hard as a trail biscuit. Newt, it seemed, had petrificated while staring out at the lake from a rocking chair on his porch. Some say he suffered a heart attack when he saw Gilly ride up with the head of the great bull. Others think that Izzie Starr, murderously impatient with her da’s failure to defend her honor in a timely manner, done witched the juice right out of him, or some such mumbo jumbo.

  At any rate, Gilly shook off his shock at Newt’s hardened condition and proceeded down to the lake from the ranch house. Dugan tole him that Mountain’s Blood could only be made from a weed that grew in fresh water below a new mountain. He had instructed Gilly to take the Bull’s head and throw it into Lake Thannat, to start the process.

  Lucky for Gilly that Dugan left unsaid what happened next, or he’d likely never have gone and done as he was tole. Ya see, when the bull’s head hit the water, Isabelle emerged from the depths of the lake, howling. Her burning hate caused the water to boil like a cauldron, and she, no longer held in check by her father’s magick, reverted to her true and terrible nature. She arose from the water a great white serpent, big as the hills nearby, with gusts of flame shooting out of her bristling nostrils, which were flared by the presence of her most hated love, one Mad Gilly Games.

  Now Gilly had never lacked for nerve, but this was something else again. What could he possibly do agin’ such a creature? Nothing else occurred to him, so he drew his pistol and, with five beans in the wheel, let fly. All the bullets struck home but made little impression. He was like a hound barking at a knot. Izzie roared and came forward. Her giant head swooped down… and she swallered Gilly up whole, in a single gulp.

  Lesser men would surely have been discouraged by such a turn of events but, inside the gullet of the serpent, Gilly had one last card to play. He took Sunny’s talisman from round his neck and stuck Inky’s bear tooth into the notch in its hilt. He then stabbed it, tooth first, with all his might, deep into the tender innards of the beast’s gullet, using the butt of his Colt to hammer it home. The dragon Isabelle, violated in this unseemly way, staggered and then vomited Gilly back up onto the shore. She stumbled again, then stood up and, upon doing so… the mighty serpent froze into stone.

  Yep, ya heard me right. I said stone.

  And so a new peak had been added to the Colorado Piedmont… a great white butte rising up out of the edge of Lake Thannat that would, in later years, come to be called Mt. Gil. And jes’ beneath it, rising up from the mountain’s afterbirth, could be found a weed of great and terrible power.

  ><><

  Inky Dugan Goes Home

  Gilly and Horse rode back to Rook as if death itself was chasing them, but, in point of fact, `twas the other way round. Death, however, rode a faster, paler horse that day. By the time they arrived, Inky had passed on… as had all of Starr’s gunmen, who were strewn about the town in various state
s of ghastly repose. Ya see, the townsfolk had learned well to defend themselves, what with their great wall and the training that Gilly and Inky had provided them. And with no Bull to lead them, Newt’s men were jes’ men with guns, going up agin’ angry fellers defending their homes and loved ones. It should go without saying that those gunmen got totally exfluncticated. But there, I said it anyway, lest there be some doubt.

  Gilly was grief stricken and heartbroken upon witnessing Inky’s lifeless body, still laying there in Sunny’s bed. But, in that tragic moment, the town took Gilly to its bosom, offering up profound condolences for what he had lost… but deep gratitude, too, for what he led them to find within themselves.

  The next morning, Gilly, Sunny, Sid Uhry, Miss Sharon and the other townsfolk followed Inky Dugan’s casket deep into Humble’s Wood. It was more Inky’s home than anywhere on Earth and was the only proper resting place for his mortal remains. Words were spoke over the grave by an itinerant preacher, but they felt hollow. Gilly then dropped into the grave the weeds he had collected at the lake, below the new mountain. He would have no truck with them now.

  Then, as if coming out of the trees themselves, there appeared the Hums. Folks were afeared o’ reprisal, but none was forthcoming. An elder of the tribe came forward and began singing and dancing around the open grave, as some of the Hums banged on drums. After a bit, a tiny roar could be heard from the hole and out climbed a grizzly cub, stumbling on shaky legs. It looked around, sniffed the air, and then scampered off toward the mountains without a backwards look. The sight filled Gilly’s heart.

  Soon enough, the Hums disappeared back into the woods and the townsfolk drifted back to their homes and back to their lives. Hums were never seen again in these parts, nor any demons, dragons, wizards or were-bears... at least, no sightings that folk would ever admit to out loud.

  ><><

  Epilogue

  Gilmore Gammesson spent his remaining days here in Rook. While he was held in high esteem, he never did take a wife nor did he ever make another friend. When Sunny finally passed on, Gilly buried her near Inky. He would, on pleasant Sunday afternoons, picnic upon their graves. He would, on occasion, hike up into the mountains, too, but he never saw any sign of Trapper Dugan, nor the bear cub that would’ve growed itself into a dangerous ole grizz by that time.