Hellfire

by Jeff Provine

  “The mayor?” Husk blurted. He composed himself. It was back to the truth. “Why, no, I had no idea the mayor would have any interest in this. Honestly.”

  “Seems mighty coincidental you might wander into the lumberyard right about now and then head off. Got a problem with our little gathering here?”

  Husk shook his head as widely as his lanky neck would let him. “I don’t see any problem at all. You’re free men, Americans with the right to assemble peaceably.”

  The tall man held up his long rifle. “This looks peaceable to you?”

  A lump grew in Husk’s throat. He swallowed against it until he could speak. “Boys, I don’t have two clues to rub together on what you’re doing here, and I don’t care one way or the other about what your mayor thinks about it. I just came in from Bastrop this morning.”

  The two men exchanged glances again.

  Husk kept his face taut to prevent a grin. He was winning them over. “Mind filling a neighbor in?”

  The bushy-eyebrowed man tightened his grip. He said through gritted teeth, “If you really don’t know what’s going on, you shouldn’t be asking. Best you get yourself back on a train to Bastrop before you get hurt.”

  Husk couldn’t agree more. He pulled away, and the short man’s grip loosened.

  Bells from the town square rang again, chiming out just over the grinding sound of saw-blades on wood. On the twelfth clang, Husk turned back toward town. He didn’t need a story this badly.

  The man with the long rifle took two steps and blocked his path. “Hold up.”

  Husk gagged on his own dry throat.

  “What?” the bushy-eyebrowed man asked.

  “Maybe he should stay until the meeting’s done.” The tall man raised an eyebrow and looked cockeyed at Husk. “Even if he ain’t from the mayor, he might talk to somebody we don’t want him talking to just yet.”

  “Ah, now I see.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t,” Husk cut in.

  “You wait until the meeting’s over, and then we’ll send you on your way,” the tall man said.

  The shorter one again caught him by the shoulder. Husk winced, but he didn’t do anything else violent. He just pulled, taking Husk deep into the heart of the lumberyard.

  Men were gradually coming together into a central cluster. Most of them were tightlipped, staring off into the distance at nothing or looking down at their boots. Husk caught a few words over the echoing saw-blades.

  “I seen it!” one man said in a raspy voice. “Claws draggin’ on the ground, its face all mangled like a stillborn calf.”

  “It’s got a shaggy coat, bright red as blood from a fresh wound!”

  “It was eight feet tall if an inch!”

  “I saw it crawling on all fours across Loneman’s bridge. That’s how it got across McCain Creek.”

  “I still think it was just a bear.”

  “Ever heard of a bear getting into a locomotive?”

  A man in a long, alligator coat climbed on top of a pile of cedar. The voices died down as everyone turned to him. He spoke loudly, clearly, even over the roar of the sawmill. “All right, boys. You know me, and you know I ain’t a lying man.”

  Husk squinted his eyes, trying to recognize the man. Something about him seemed familiar, and he kicked himself when he realized it: Two years ago, there had been a photograph of a record-sized alligator caught by Vincent Pike. He stood beside the monstrous creature, hung by its tail from a crane. Pike commanded respect even silent and frozen in the image with his hand upon the gator’s shoulder.

  Now his long hair, blond as the midday sun, was tied back and his voice bold. “There’s something out in those woods. I haven’t seen it myself, but I’ve seen what it’s done. Whole trees have been turned over. Three chicken coops have been broken open. O’Reilly’s barn’s been smashed, and his herd of pigs wiped out.”

  “What do you think it is, Vincent?” someone from the left side.

  A shout came from the right. “It’s a monster!”

  Several more cries erupted from the crowd.

  Husk looked all around him. There wasn’t anyone among them who had a shop downtown or worked in an upstairs office with their starched, white collars. These men were all taken from the edge of town, lumberjacks who frequented the woods and humble farmers who tried to eke out a living in the bayous. A few had on the gray coveralls of workers in the mills.

  “Quiet!” the man in the alligator coat called. The voices settled, and Vincent Pike continued, “Whatever the hell it is, we know it’s a force of destruction that’s been killing anything it’s come across. We’re lucky it hasn’t gotten any people yet, but it’s just a matter of time before it turns on a homestead. I’m going after it. Who’s with me?”

  A cry rang out from the crowd.

  Then a gunshot went off.

  Everyone in the crowd ducked at the same time. Husk had his hands over his head before he knew he had surrendered. He peeked over the stocky man with the eyebrows behind him toward the shot.

  A cluster of men holding rifles stood with their feet firmly planted at the back of the crowd. One of them had his rifle still raised above his head, a coil of smoke wafting up from the barrel. A silver star rested on his lapel.

  “Break it up! Y’all go on back home now and forget about this monster business before somebody gets himself hurt.”

  A wave of grumbles ran through the crowd. Nobody moved.

  “Sheriff!” the man in the alligator leather called from the stack of cedar. “You know as well as we do that there’s something out in those woods… something evil!”

  The sheriff of Shreveport shook his head and lowered his rifle. “The mayor’s office has already issued a letter to the public about those woods. It’s an escaped circus ape, and men are already on the case tracking it down.” He turned toward another man in the cluster. “Ain’t that right, Marshal Davies?”

  A blond man stepped forward and showed his own badge, the star of the Rail Agency, just as Husk had seen on the black-coated Ticks man the evening before at the train wreck outside of Bastrop. This marshal wore a garish blue suit. He said something, but it was lost in the grumbling of the crowd.

  Husk scratched his chin. What did the Rail Agency care about a circus ape? Unless it tore up the tracks, he couldn’t imagine that they would bother to look in on it. Even if they did want the ape caught, what would they care about a bunch of farmers and lumberjacks went hunting for it? If anything, they should have issued a bounty on it to speed up its capture.

  The men around Husk began shouting again. He turned both ways to see their twisted-up faces, red with heat and anger.

  “You are forbidden by order of the Federal Rail Agency from setting foot in those woods!” the blond marshal yelled over the crowd.

  “Those woods are ours!” the man with the alligator coat shouted. “Let’s go, boys! We have a circus ape to catch!”

  All at once, they rushed forward. Husk’s lanky body was pushed by two or three men behind him. He had no choice but to march with them.

  The sheriff and his men took several steps backward and raised their rifles. He barked out several unintelligible warnings.

  Husk slid his hand into the hidden pocket with his revolver. If this was going to turn ugly, he was ready to blast his way out.

  The rail marshal’s voice rang out shrill, “Stop this now, you inbred hicks!”

  The crowd didn’t stop.

  He turned to the sheriff and cried, “Shoot them!”

  Even from a distance, Husk could see that the sheriff’s face was blank. The marshal screamed again and again, but the sheriff shook his head and dropped his own rifle. The cluster of deputies followed suit.

  “I’ll do it myself, then!” the marshal screamed.

  Before his hand could reach his gun belt, the mob was on top of him. Even over the sound of the sawmills, Husk could hear fists and boots hitting the blond marshal from all sides.

  The crowd flowed toward the
back gate, which opened onto the wild green of the trees and the bayous beyond. Armed men marched like a loose army into it. They sought blood. Husk turned to the tall man, who had his long rifle held ready with both hands.

  “This… thing you’re going after,” Husk mused, “was it the thing that caused the train crash a few weeks back? Killed Jim Ralph and Matt Thompson?”

  “You really do know something, don’t you, boy?”

  Husk shrugged. “That’s all I know about it.”

  “All I know is we’re going to kill it before it ruins another farm,” the man with the bushy eyebrows said.

  A knot formed in Husk’s tight stomach. This was a creature that even a blind man could see. Did they know if it could actually be killed? He cradled his revolver and mumbled a little prayer hoping he wouldn’t find out, even if it would sell a lot of papers.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Nate Kemp strained once more against the leather straps on the mental hospital bed. He pressed his shoulders as hard as he could into the mattress, feeling the stiff board underneath, and tried to arch his back. There was a little bit of give on the strap over his chest, just enough that he could move his upper arms and pull on the straps at his wrists.

  His back ached, and his shoulders burned. Still, Nate pushed. He tried to wriggle, scooting toward the edge of the bed. The leather groaned softly at the buckle. Just an inch more, and he could have twisted his shoulder, bearing the long, fresh scar, under the strap.

  His lungs began to scream for air, and Nate gave up. He let his body collapse back into a prone position and took in a huge gasp. The air was cool and smelled of paint inside the cell.

  Nate looked down over his body. Even if he could get out of the strap against his chest, the ones holding his hands wouldn’t budge. The strap over his ankles wouldn’t be too difficult if he could turn his legs, but the point was moot as long as his hands were held tight. Whoever had been in here before must have stretched the leather out all it would go.

  He rolled his head back and looked around the cell. The asylum here at Oak Grove was only a year old from what Nate had read in the paper, replacing the old wooden one that looked more like a fort with a stockade than a hospital. Still, he wondered how many men had been confined in this room with its barred window, bedpan, and four blank walls. There were manacles linked to a chain on a ring set into the floor. At least they hadn’t chained him up there.

  Or maybe it would have been better. He would be able to move around, orient himself right over the bolt in the floor and pull straight up with his legs and his arms. If that didn’t work, he could try rocking the bolt. Stone didn’t stretch like leather; it just gave way.

  Nate huffed. As long as he dreamed, he might as well give himself the key.

  He had nearly convinced that pretty nurse to let him escape. Everything was going well as they talked. There was something about the way she made him feel calm, as if even locked up in a loony bin was a good choice for the time. Then his temper had driven her off. She might still have believed him, crazy as his story was of monsters and angels catching him as he fell, if he had just kept his temper.

  His stomach rumbled. Nate shifted again under the leather straps, trying to find a more comfortable way to lie and let his empty stomach ball up. The farmer’s wife who had stitched him up had given him some cheese and jerky yesterday, and he hadn’t eaten since. That stew the nurse had mentioned couldn’t come fast enough.

  When it did, maybe he could talk them into letting him get one hand free to work a spoon. He’d eat, be good for them, and then free his other hand. Then it would be out the door, into the long hall, out to the front entry… where he was sure five orderlies would jump him.

  “Stop it,” Nate told himself. “You’re going to drive yourself crazy in this nuthouse.”

  A soft chuckle rose up from his gut. Nate let it out. He laughed long and hard until he had to catch his breath.

  It was the first time Nate had laughed in he didn’t know how long. Days were tough on the train, and he and Jones only occasionally swapped a joke or two. At home, he, Ann, and Ma were tired enough that all they could muster were weary smiles. There were laughs down at Tacker’s Saloon, but those always had the tinge of something dirty to them, like MacGill’s limericks about Zelda the barmaid’s waist. They were funny at the time, but, looking back, he couldn’t help but think of the sour expression on Zelda’s face, miffed but enjoying the attention. He wondered when the last time was that someone told her they genuinely appreciated her.

  Somebody screamed beyond the heavy wooden door. Nate set his head up to look, even though he couldn’t see anything. It sounded like the breathy hollering Flipp—Weatherford—had made when he first came in.

  He really had known Zane Weatherford. The courier had ridden on his train dozens of times, ensuring particularly valuable crates got to their destinations in western Gloriana or back to Lake Providence. Weatherford was fairly quiet as he went about his business, but Nate had always traded hellos with him. He had a head full of coal-black hair starting to turn to ash at the temples.

  Now Weatherford was completely bald. Nate had heard stories about people going gray after a terrible shock. Seeing a hellion must have been enough to make his hair fall out completely. Nate had a bad enough time himself when the locomotive went weird, and it took him hours to get back to being able to talk at all. That was after fighting the little monster with the spider legs and eyes. He couldn’t imagine seeing hell break loose without any warning. Even worse, there was being picked up by the Rail Authority and locked up in an asylum. For the past week, Weatherford had been told over and over that he was, in fact, Rodney Flipp and his whole memory was a lie. No wonder he had turned to stealing ether.

  The cries were getting louder outside. Flipp’s shouting had set off some others, and now it seemed as if everyone in the hall were having at it. Nate wondered, Does this happen all the time?

  Then he smelled it.

  Flipp was right: he never would forget that ruddy smell of sulfur and rot. It had washed over him from the hellions on the train, and then it had been forced into his face when the hunchback grabbed him.

  The door’s lock turned itself over with a dull clunk. Whatever made the smell was coming inside.

  Nate struggled with the straps again as quickly as he could. They wouldn’t give.

  The door groaned open, and the screaming became deafening. The first person in was Jim, the freedman who had strapped Nate down. His face was wrinkled with worry. After him came the doctor that had taken out Nate’s stitches.

  Lastly came the man in the long black coat. He smiled under his waxed mustache. His dark eyes sparkled as the screams resounded.

  Nate gasped and tried to press himself against the wall. “You!”

  “Remember me, do you?” Marshal Ticks said calmly. He turned to the doctor. “That should give merit to my story.”

  “Indeed,” Dr. Sims replied. He squinted his eyes at Nate.

  Behind the black-suited marshal, there were his two henchmen in their long, brown leather coats and wide hats. He could see the toes of their boots and the dark lenses on their masks with tubes running under their coats, but there wasn’t an inch of uncovered flesh. The short one, Parvis, came inside. The tall one, Biggs, the one who dropped him from the airship’s platform, stood in the hall, the top of his hat hidden by the top of the doorframe.

  Shadows flashed in front of Nate’s eyes. Between the spots of black, he could see Parvis with his hammer. He struck Nate again and again until his body was so ragged he couldn’t even fight back when Biggs picked him up. Then Biggs dropped him, and Nate grabbed the mask. The horrid flat-nosed face with the beads of eyes and wide ears like a bat flashed before him. It had squealed at him as he fell into the night.

  “Get them away from me!” Nate screamed. He pulled on the straps at his wrists as hard as he could. Blood made the leather slippery, but he couldn’t get loose.

  Nate wanted to scream more, bu
t he lost his breath. He had to calm down. He had to think. Nate gave up pulling on his wrists and worked to turn his ankles. Just maybe he could slip a foot free from the bottom strap.

  “The patient seems to be quite disturbed,” Dr. Sims said. “He has been claiming to have seen monsters and that he himself was thrown out of a Rail Agency airship.”

  Ticks narrowed his eyes. “He has, has he? What nonsense.”

  The marshal took several steps toward Nate. His boots echoed in the small room.

  Nate wriggled his whole body for show, but he kept his foot working on the leather strap.

  Ticks stood over him a moment and glared. His face turned to a sneer, and he said, “It’s a miracle he survived the fall at all. Typically, when someone becomes desperate like that and jumps, it ends much more poorly.”

  “You pushed me, you filthy weasel!” Nate said through gritted teeth.

  Ticks shook his head. “Stop that twaddle-talk. You’re only making things more difficult for yourself. The doctors here are trying to help you.”

  “That we are,” Sims agreed from behind him. “While I understand your position in needing to reclaim him for the pursuit of justice, marshal, I would like to keep him here for observation. He is clearly unwell.”

  “Clearly.” Ticks clicked his tongue. He smiled thinly. “Unless he is lying, pretending to believe stories of monsters to cover up his clarity of mind in murder.”

  “Murder?” Nate blurted. Jones. “I didn’t kill Jones! I tried to save him!”

  “Precisely,” Ticks said. “From the monsters.”

  The marshal shrugged and turned away. “This one has the truth either tangled up in his lies or locked away in an unsound mind. Tell me, doctor, how might I sort out the truth?”

  “The human brain is a complex organ,” Sims said. “Through at-length discussion, we may be able to decipher what he genuinely believes.”

  “I don’t quite have time for that, I’m afraid,” Ticks said, his tone sorrowful. “I will need to turn in my report to the judge as soon as possible with recommendation as to whether this is a matter to turn to the justice system or if it is best handled under your care. Taxpayer dollars are at risk.”