Dead of Winter

by Lee Collins

  Cora took a minute to ponder the news. "Well, marshal, I have to say I'm impressed. I never figured you for facing down the wendigo like that."

  "Did what I had to," Duggan replied, surprised by the compliment. "Damn thing was fixing to eat my men, and you wasn't around to stop it."

  "Won't say I'm sorry I wasn't," Cora said. "You routed it well enough, and what we learned in Denver was well worth the people that got ate."

  Duggan's temper flared. "George Murray was a right fine deputy, little missie. I won't have you or anyone else say he wasn't."

  "Never said no such thing," Cora said, holding up her hands. "All I said was that our trip to see Father Baez was worth his life. You see, while George was getting ate, we was learning how his killer could be killed."

  "So it can die." The marshal's eyes lit up with vengeance. "What's the trick?"

  "Well, seems this wendigo is an Indian monster."

  "Indians?" Duggan asked. "There ain't been any Indian threat in these parts for years. They trying an uprising of some sort?"

  Cora shook her head. "No, they didn't cause it or call it into being or nothing. They're just the ones who know what it is and how to lick it."

  "Which Indians? The Utes?"

  "No, some tribe back East. Father Baez had to send out a telegram to his friends in Boston, and they told him the whole story on the wendigo."

  "So how can it be killed?"

  "Well, as I said before, silver and fire are weak spots, but to put it to rest proper, the silver needs the blessing of an Indian shaman."

  Duggan's shoulders slumped. "We ain't got one, and I can't imagine any of the local tribes would be too willing to loan us one."

  "Don't you worry your head about that," Cora said. "The priest in Boston's agreed to settle the whole matter for us. He'll be sending out some silver bullets blessed by one of the tribes in the area."

  "So all we have to do is shoot it with them and it'll die?"

  "As I understand it, yes," she replied.

  "Good," Duggan said, clapping her on the shoulder. "I trust you'll come calling when they arrive, then?"

  "Don't see how we'll need your help, but I won't keep you in the dark."

  The marshal nodded and left without another word. Cora watched him go, her arms tucked inside the sleeves of her buffalo-hide coat. Hearing how he'd managed to route the wendigo had surprised her. The marshal was made of tougher stuff than she'd thought, even after watching him stand down that group of miners. Drunken miners were easy enough to predict, but it took real guts to go up against a true creature of the night.

  Feats like that always began out of desperation, either for yourself or someone else. Nobody in their right mind ever took a supernatural creature head on unless they knew what they were doing, and nobody ever knew that the first time around. It was a wonder anybody lived to tell such tales, but some people just had more luck.

  "Ben!" she shouted, turning back toward the train. "Where you at? Let's get them bags and get back to our room!"

  Cora sat on the cornshuck mattress and sighed. She was glad the same room was still available when they'd arrived back at the Northern Hotel. Staying in the same room in a city was a sort of tradition for them. It helped them feel more at home when they arrived at each place, and every new city they visited soon had a room they liked to call theirs.

  Ben would apologize for it from time to time, saying he felt bad for not being able to provide a real house for his wife. She would always wave him off, saying she preferred the roaming lifestyle, anyway. Wandering from town to town, turning in local bounties, and moving on had seemed romantic, the sort of lifestyle most every woman they met grew to envy. She wasn't tied to children, a cooking stove, or a washboard. They were free to go where they pleased, sometimes sleeping under the summer stars for several nights in a row while on a hunt, sometimes bedding down for a month at a time in a city while investigating rumors and playing cards. Some folk called them heroes when they finished a job, even as they were collecting their pay from the local law. The life seemed to fit them like a well-tailored coat.

  Or at least it had. As Cora sat on the bed, she could feel a dull ache in her feet and her fingers. Even a day of nothing but sitting in a train coach had left her slightly stiff. Getting up on a cold morning hurt more than it used to, and her draw wasn't as fast or as sharp as it was when they'd turned in their first bounty. Age. She'd felt it, fighting the wendigo in the mineshaft; the monster's chill had hurt her more than it should have.

  She looked over at Ben, who was stretched out on the bed next to her reading a book. If time took its toll on him, he certainly never showed it. His brown mustache, a shade lighter than the hair on his head, showed no signs of graying, and his sky-blue eyes were still clear and bright. The pains of a long day of travel seemed to slide right off his back as they walked to the hotel from the station. Of course, that could have been because she'd carried the bags.

  "You know, I sometimes wonder if we ought to retire soon," she said, leaning back against the headboard.

  "Why's that?" Ben asked, looking up from his book.

  "Seems to me we're about used up is all," Cora said. "Worn out like a pair of old pack mules. Somebody's bound to tie us to a tree and shoot us before too long."

  "Not so long as we're useful, I reckon."

  "But how long until we run out of useful? Take the situation here: we was nearly outdone by a fool of a marshal, and we had to go see a priest to even understand what it is we ought to be experts at fighting."

  "Ain't nobody got to be an expert without learning something."

  "But now they got experts that do nothing but sit around and study things like vampires." The meeting with James Townsend upset her more than she liked. She'd told Ben about the eccentric British scholar when he'd awoken from his nap, but he'd been unimpressed. Still, she didn't like that a man in a tweed suit could tell her things about vampires she'd never heard.

  "Maybe so," Ben said, "but I'll be damned if that feller on the train could even stand in a vampire's shadow without pissing himself."

  Cora chuckled at the image of James Townsend soiling his drawers. "Maybe not, but that ain't the point. Point is, we're coming up against things we ain't never heard of before. Used to be we could lick them right quick anyway, but I'm feeling slowed up lately. One of these days, I may not come back from a hunt at all."

  "You ain't giving me much credit."

  "Of course you'd be there to lend a hand," she said, giving him a playful shove. "But suppose we meet something else new in a week or a month, and nothing we shoot at it slows it down a whit? I mean, I reckon I was always aware of the risks, but I ain't never given them serious thought. Just kind of rode along and let come what may."

  "Can't see a better way of doing what we do," Ben said.

  "Ain't like I've thought of one, either," Cora said. "I'm just wondering what happens to us when we meet up with something we're too old or too dumb to whip."

  "I expect we'll get our own whipping and head on to glory everlasting."

  "You're awful casual about it."

  "Ain't much I can do about it," Ben said, shrugging. "Either we whip it or it whips us, like any other time."

  "But don't you think we should have a care to stay alive? If not for us, then for all the folks counting on us to keep them safe."

  "Well, sure. Ain't no point in riding around looking for your death. You're bound to find it quick if you do that."

  "Seems to me that the older we get, the closer we are to doing just that." Cora flexed her fingers. "Give it a few more years, and I won't be able to draw my gun without dropping it on my boots. A fine place to be when there's a wendigo or one of them new vampires fixing to make a meal of me."

  "You sure they'd want to eat you? I don't reckon old woman tastes all that nice."

  She shoved him again. "Some help you are."

  Ben closed his book and set it on the bed. "I wouldn't waste much thought on fretting about it. We're st
ill spry enough to handle whatever the Devil sends, and when we can't draw our guns no more, why, we'll find ourselves some other means to make our way. This old world is stuffed full of things a pair of bodies can busy themselves with."

  "Is that so?" Cora asked, raising an eyebrow. "Can't think of a single one myself."

  "We could go back into my family business," Ben said. "Ain't too much work to print a newspaper. My pa could have kept that old shop running for twenty years or more if them bluecoats hadn't burned him out."

  "A printer?" Cora's shoulders slumped. "I'd go plumb stir-crazy if I was trapped in a dark, smelly little room all day. My eyes would probably shrivel up and fall out from not seeing the sun."

  "It ain't half as bad as all that," Ben said. "Why, once you're used to it, you barely even notice the dark."

  "Any other ideas?" Cora asked.

  "Maybe we can get a job with the railroad. Can't take much to sit in them engines all day."

  "I suppose that's better than print work, but it still ain't my idea of living." Cora sighed and folded her arms. "I reckon I'll have to get used to it, though now the idea of getting killed by a monster is looking a sight better."

  Ben put his arm around her shoulders. "Getting old ain't that bad."

  "How do you know? You ain't aged a whit since we left Virginia."

  "Ain't seen the need yet is all." He ran a hand along the shock of white running through her dark hair. "Besides, unlike you, aging won't make me any prettier."

  Cora felt herself blush. "Oh, hush up, you big sweettalker. You're just trying to make me all soft so I forget about all this and stop badgering you."

  "I ain't, either," Ben said.

  "Right, and I'm General Lee," she replied, kissing his cheek. "You keep on dripping molasses if you like, but I got me an itching for a game of cards. Age brings knowhow, at least, and I can still make them sprouts a sight poorer for it."

  Ben smiled at her as he picked up his book. Cora smiled back, then rose to her feet with a groan. She lumbered down the stairs and out into the street. A soft gray light glowed from behind the thick mantle of clouds. Pulling her coat closed against the snowflakes drifting through the air, she made a new set of tracks in the fresh powder leading from the Northern Hotel down to the Pioneer.

  The familiar aromas of the saloon greeted her as she pulled the door open. She blinked a few times, then took off her hat to shake off the snow. Surveying the room, she was disappointed to find only one promising table. She sighed, preparing to move over and claim a seat at it, when she saw Boots out of the corner of her eye.

  "Howdy, Boots," she called. "I think you got something of mine."

  The bartender turned toward her, his expression blank. "What might that be, Cora?"

  "A full glass of rotgut, my good man," she replied, grinning. Boots didn't return the grin as he shuffled into the back room. Cora waved her hand in dismissal and made her way over to the card game. She dropped into an empty chair to a chorus of mumbled howdies from the other players.

  "Cut me in, boys," she said.

  An older miner with a full salt-and-pepper beard nodded. "Soon as we finish this hand."

  Cora nodded and settled in to watch. It was a small game, only four players. The man who had spoken to her seemed to be the oldest as well as the dealer. Two younger men, their mustaches still thin and dark, sat on either side of him. The fourth player wore a well-trimmed, sandycolored beard that he stroked as he looked at his cards. He spoke in a quiet voice when making bids, and he didn't join in the conversation with the other three. His sharp blue eyes flashed at Cora from beneath the brim of his hat.

  The hand finished with the quiet man scooping his winnings into his pile. Cards flew around the table. Cora picked hers up and was trying to make sense of them when Boots appeared over her shoulder, drink in hand.

  "Took you long enough," she said, taking the glass.

  "My apologies, Cora," Boots said with a slight bow. He turned and marched back to the bar, the polish on his boots reflecting the flames in the big fireplace.

  "Who jammed a boot up his ass?" Cora asked.

  "He ain't been the same since the other night," the dealer replied. "The attack has him all shook up, I reckon."

  "Ain't nobody who ain't," one of the younger miners said.

  "Hell, I ain't," the other replied.

  "Then you're a damn fool," the blue-eyed stranger said, his eyes still on Cora. "I got a notion that Cora here ain't scared, though."

  "How'd you know my name, stranger?" she asked, taking a gulp of whiskey.

  "Heard the barkeep say it twice now," he said.

  "Mind sharing yours, then?"

  "Washington Jones is my proper name," the man replied. "Most around here call me Wash."

  "What's your line of work, Mr Jones?"

  "Rather dull compared to yours, I reckon," Wash said.

  Cora gave him a hard look. "What do you mean by that?"

  "Word travels fast out here." Wash tossed a few coins into the pot. "Most of these miners is too crusty to poke their heads up above ground long enough to hear rumors of the world outside, but I like to keep my ear to the ground, and she tells me you're a bounty hunter and a loon besides."

  "I reckon I'm enough of both, but can't say neither is spot on," Cora said. "I'm in for ten."

  The other men anted up. "So there ain't any truth to the tales of the Mad Madam?" Wash asked.

  "Well," she said, unfazed by the nickname, "as I said, I'm a good sight crazier than some, but I ain't fit to be tied yet, neither."

  "Hunting bounties ain't really a woman's work."

  "Can't say that ever bothered me." She drained her glass and set it down with a thunk. "My ma always said I wasn't no proper lady. As for that Mad Madam bit, I ain't got no say in what folk take to calling me."

  "They ain't exactly playing on your good points."

  "Ain't too many good points to play on." She leaned forward and showed her hand: three queens. The others tossed their cards on the table as she swept the take into a pile of her own. She handed her cards to the old miner to shuffle and leaned back in her chair. "Speaking of points, I ain't following yours."

  "Just pleased to meet a legend like yourself," Wash replied. "Some folk go their whole lives without cutting a deck with Cora the Mad."

  "Lucky them," Cora said. She tilted her head back and shouted for Boots.

  "Yes?" the bartender replied from behind the bar.

  "I got some winnings that need spending," she said, holding up her empty glass. Boots nodded and walked over with a bottle in hand. Glass clinked against glass, and Cora leaned back with the whiskey burning her throat.

  "You're an odd one yourself, Wash Jones," she said, peering at him over the top of her glass. "Ain't got much by way of manners, at least."

  "I got a few to help me get by," Wash said, "but not so many as get in my way."

  "Well, you might want to find one that stops you from asking strangers questions. Some of them might take offense."

  "I ain't worried none about that. Why, I'm the one most folk should take care not to rile. I've ended more than a few as did in my day."

  "A gunfighter, I take it?"

  Wash nodded. "Some would say I'm a braggart."

  "Well, I ain't one of them," Cora said, sliding two cards toward the dealer.

  "Never said you was." Wash traded in three cards. "Of course, I reckon you have the same sort of troubles."

  "How's that?"

  "A lone gunfighter roaming the West with a reputation as big as yours."

  Cora laughed. "Hell, I know Ben ain't much of a fighter, but it ain't fitting to leave him out of the legend all through. He's shot him up some bandits, too."

  "If he don't make the tales, he ain't worth the fame," Wash said.

  "You really is hurting for manners, ain't you?"

  "Did I give offense?"

  "Could be," Cora said, leaning forward. "Could be you're just lucky."

  "How so?"
r />   "Lucky shot, lucky stars." Cora shrugged. "Lucky Ben ain't here to put you in your place."

  A small grin spread beneath the man's beard. "I don't suppose you'd care to take it up for him."

  Cora blinked at him, then howled a laugh that startled the other players. Wash's grin soured. Behind the bar, Boots leaned on his elbows and watched her.

  "So that's what this is about, is it?" Cora asked when she regained her breath. "You're fixing for a fight and figured licking me would add to your own tale?"