Stories (2011)

by Joe R. Lansdale

  They were far out now, but I took windage with a wet finger, beaded that fifty caliber, called them sonofabitches, and fired. As is often the case, it seemed like a long time before the bullet hit. In fact, I was already startin’ to reload, when one of the riders threw up his hands and went flying off. The other just kept ridin’. He was way out there, but I had the Sharps ready, and I aimed high to let the bullet drop. I fired. I got him somewhere near the back of the head and he fell off, his horse still runnin’.

  I know all this makes me sound a mite god like, but, true story. No lie. I killed everyone of them sonofabitches. It made me wonder how I’d managed to let one of them that had come up on me with Cramp get away. But, hell, even the gods nod.

  But the gods don’t bleed. I did. I had been hit. Didn’t know it right off, but I started hurtin’, and looked down at my side and seen I was bleedin’. I lay down on the ground suddenly, and closed my eyes and the sun didn’t feel all that warm anymore.

  “You not dead,” the crippled China girl said.

  “No?” I said. “I feel dead, and maybe buried, but I still seem to be among the livin’ Chinese.”

  I was lyin’ under a wagon and the cripple was down there with me. I tried to sit up, but couldn’t. She said, “No. Sit. Stay.”

  I had a dog I talked to like that. I felt my side. It was bandaged up.

  “We got to go,” I said. “They’ll be after me.”

  “You all shot up,” the cripple said.

  “That I am,” I said.

  “Rest a day. Have chop suey. Pussy. Feel better.”

  “I’m sure. But that rest a day part, not such a good idea.”

  I lay for awhile anyway, not having the strength to do much else. I probably laid there much longer than I thought, but finally I woke up and crawled out from under the wagon. The other Chinese girls had pulled a tarp over the frame of the wagon, and made a kind of traveling tent out of it. They had two horses tied on the back. One of the girls was missin’. I asked the cripple about that.

  “Washie girl. She stay,” said the cripple. “She make good money washie clothes.”

  I managed to walk around and gather up my goods, saddle and saddle bags and weapons, and found the horse that had been draggin’ Cramp. I cut the old boy loose and looked at him. He had asked me not to bury him out in the lonesome, but the thing was, he was lookin’ pretty ripe, and I come to the conclusion I had done my best, and he wouldn’t know the prairie from a place under a church pew. The girls helped me dig a hole, as they had shovels and all manner of equipment in the wagon, and I wrapped him in a blanket and put him down.

  I was bleeding pretty good by the time I quit, and I had been wrong about them knife wounds being all healed up. A couple of them was leakin’. I said, “We got to get movin.”

  As we walked away, I looked back at Cramp’s grave, said, “Sorry, Cramp. I done my best. It beats bein’ dragged around till your hide comes off.”

  I climbed in the back of the wagon and lay down and slept while the little China girl who looked about twelve years old drove. In the back, the cripple tended me, and the other two looked on. We rode on through the day and into the night, the wagon bumpin’ along, those two horses tied to the back of it, trottin’ to keep up, and finally we stopped near a little run of creek, and the girls got out and made a fire from some dried buffalo shit. They fixed up some food, which was pretty good and had a lot of hot peppers in it. I didn’t ask what it was, cause I couldn’t identify the meat and figured I might not want to know.

  Later that night, the cripple showed me how she could move around under me good as a two legged girl, and then I had to show all of them that my pecker was black and the color didn’t come off in their little nests. I showed that to all of them to be polite, and to prove I wasn’t showin’ no favoritism, even though I was wounded good and bleedin’. A man has to have some priorities, I always say, and if a bunch of Chinese girls beg to see your dick, you should be willin’ to show it to them.

  Now, them townsfolk had to have figured out their men weren’t comin’ back, and in time I’m sure they found them. Maybe they sent someone out after us. But if they did, we never seen them. Jumpin’ ahead a bit, I should say the story about the gunfight began to spread, and since there wasn’t no one livin’ who’d seen it besides me, I knew the stories I heard about survivors who could tell it like it was, wasn’t true in any kind of way. Thing was, the stories didn’t mention I was colored. I just became a mysterious gunman, and in some of the stories I was a hero, and in others a villain. Cause of that, and some other things happened in my life, there was some dime novels written about me, basing themselves on true events at first, but not afraid to add a lie in when it made the story better, and then later, the stories was just dadgum windies. And though the stories didn’t mention I was colored, they did call the books stories about The Black Rider of The Plains, and named me Deadwood Dick on account of some things happened there in Deadwood, including a shootin’ contest where I shot against Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley. But, again, that there is another story, and though it’s been told a thousand times, ain’t nobody told it right yet. I live long enough I plan to tell it the way it was, just like I’m tellin’ you how this was.

  As for me and the China girls, we rode on across that prairie for days, and when we got to the peak of the Texas panhandle, we turned northwest, across Oklahoma toward Colorady, with a plan to go on out to San Francisco so the China girls could catch a boat to China.

  Now there’s one more thing that’s kind of interestin’, and goes with this story, and if I’m lyin’ I’m dyin’. When we was four or five days out, headin’ up to the tip of the panhandle, we seen a scrawny horse grazin’, and as we bounced the wagon closer, we seen there was a fella with his foot in the stirrup being dragged along, and even from a distance it was easy to see he was deader than a wind wagon investment.

  Feelin’ a bit spry, now that my wounds had had a few days to heal, I got out of the wagon and walked over and caught the horse and looked at the dead man. His boot was twisted up good in the stirrup, and he’d been dragged around for days, cause a lot of his skin had come off and ants and such had been at him. His eyes were gone and his lips had started to curl, showin’ his teeth. He had a pretty large hole comin’ out of his shirt on the right side of his breast, and when I seen that, it all tumbled together for me.

  Back when I had found Cramp, and had a shootout with those folks who come to finish him off, one of them had got away. I had taken a shot at him, and figured I’d missed. But I hadn’t. He’d just been able to ride some, and then he’d keeled over and got his foot hung in the stirrup, and his horse had been draggin’ him around for damn near a week.

  I worked the fella’s foot out of the stirrup and let his leg drop to the ground. Tell you true, just like them other fellas I shot, I didn’t have no urge to bury him and say words over him, cause buryin’ someone I didn’t have no feelin’s for was stupid, and sayin’ words that didn’t seem to do nothin’ but waste my breath, wasn’t exactly appealin’ either. I was glad he was dead, and I left him lyin’ out there on the prairie with the sun on his face and ants in his ears.

  His horse we took with us and fed grain the gals had in the wagon, and we fattened him up a mite, and sold him and the saddle in Amarillo, before going on up into Oklahoma, and turnin’ west toward Colorady.

  THE HONEYMOON

  It was his sixth honeymoon, her first.

  The night was clear and cold, the moon full, and he was eager.

  The couple checked into a little motel just off I-20. He unlocked the door and looked at her. She was radiant. He hadn’t lost his touch. He still knew how to pick them, how to get them. He could hardly wait.

  The bit about carrying her over the threshold was a little silly, but always effective. Impressed them. Made them giggle. To do this right, humor was necessary. Laughter removed inhibition–and suspicion–more than any other emotion.

  She was still giggling when he
put her down, and another hard look at her assured him that she was undoubtedly the loveliest of his six brides. A beautiful blonde with brown, liquid eyes like a faithful pup. And she was stacked like a magazine fold-out. Everywhere you looked she offered delightful diversions to the hands. And she was compassionate. Worked with The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Somehow that was very important to him, knowing that she was compassionate. It made what was to come all the better.

  Of all his brides, she had been the easiest to woo. She had had that husband-shopping look in her eyes, a look he knew well. He also knew exactly what to say and when to say it. Three weeks after they met she fell for him hook, line and sinker and accepted his proposal. Piece of cake. Tonight she became Mrs. O’Sullivan.

  O’Sullivan. Nice name. He hated to give it up. It had been his favorite of all his aliases. The last two had been so, so plain. Smith and Jones. Grief!

  Angela leaned forward and kissed him. Her lips burned with passion. God, he couldn’t wait to get on with it.

  When they finished kissing, he held her at arms length and smiled, drank in her beauty once more. For a moment he wished her complexion were not so milky. Maybe that was one flaw with her. The others had been darker skinned and the bruises hadn’t shown. With her they might, and he always liked them to look like an unmarred work of art when he was finished.

  For a moment he contemplated another technique, but finally decided to stick to the old tried and true thumbs behind the windpipe. It was the only method he had had success with, and now with his most beautiful specimen, there was no need to risk all by deviation. As for the bruises, he’d just have to hope for the best. Or perhaps he could tie an attractive ribbon around her throat, sort of a gift-wrapped body for the police. Yes, that definitely had possibilities. In fact, that was a perfect idea. When it was all over he’d go out for some ribbon, fix her up before leaving to call the cops.

  "Why don’t you get ready for bed, darling," Angela said, breaking his train of thought. "I’ll change into something more comfortable."

  He smiled at her. Passion stretched his veins. Soon she would be his, and during that moment when they were riding the crest of the wave, just when she thought ecstasy was hers, he’d fasten his thumbs behind her windpipe and watch the fear swell into her eyes as she realized she was on the descending end of a totally different sort of orgasm.

  Oh yeah, it was his night to howl.

  Angela blew him a kiss and hip-swung seductively toward the bathroom. The light went on, the door closed. He took off his clothes and slipped into bed, waited.

  Beneath the sheet his hands opened and closed. A thick slab of moonlight edged through the sheer curtains. That was good. He’d be able to see her face. That was one reason he waited for a full moon. The papers had caught on to it, and referred to him as THE FULL MOON STRANGLER or THE HONEYMOON STRANGLER. He preferred the latter title, it was more romantic. Besides, he wasn’t responsible for those sloppy ripper jobs that took place on the full moon, the ones that were sometimes blamed on him. He’d have to write the police about that and set them straight. Seemed to him a drastically different M.O. like that would make them realize that the killers were not one and the same, in spite of the coincidence of the full moon. Why, they had even tried to blame him for some silly killings over in Dallas that had turned out to be nothing more than husband and wife squabbles.

  The bathroom door opened and Angela stood framed in the light. She was magnificent. No, that description was too cheap. There were no words to describe her.

  The light shone through her gown and outlined her body–110 pounds of sexual dynamite! With the light hitting her hair that way, it made it look like a golden mane, and even from where he lay he could see her eyes sparkling with passion.

  "Well," he said, "I see you’ve changed into something more comfortable."

  She smiled and walked to the bedside. Moonlight washed in over her. Suddenly she grunted. Her face began to twist and her mouth opened impossibly wide. Her nose and lips stretched out and thickened into a snout. Ropy saliva dripped from between her sharp, bared teeth. There was a sound like snapping sticks as her body writhed, grew. The negligee burst into flimsy strands that dangled from a thick, gnarled, hairy body–the body of a huge, blonde, upright wolf!

  Her voice became a hoarse parody of human speech. "Now, darling, I’ve changed into something more comfortable."

  As she bent toward him, and the cry he wanted to make hung in his throat, he realized to his horrible dissatisfaction, that it was not, in fact, his night to howl.

  HUITZILOPOCHTLI

  Night’s chill breath whispered across the woodland and licked the pines with ice and flicked snow throughout until they looked like tombstones rising in the moonlight.

  Two hikers, packs on backs, made their way through the ankle-deep snow, stopped to observe and rest less than fifty feet from an old weather-beaten house. The two-story structure creaked in the wind. The moon draped shadows like gaunt, clutching fingers across it.

  The female hiker, long red hair appearing strawberry in the moonlight, snow resting in it like powdered sugar, said, "That’s the place, Kevin." She shifted her pack for comfort.

  "Creepy enough," Kevin said. "You know, Dag, you get some crazy notions. How long’s this shack been in your family?"

  "It’s not exactly a shack, Kevin. Old, yes. But a shack? No. There was a house here on this site before the Civil War. Not this one, but a house. I believe this one was built in the early 1900s, but don’t quote me on that. But, you don’t like the view, so let’s get inside. It’s cold."

  Kevin smiled, pushed at his unruly brown hair with a gloved hand. "You’re the one that wanted to rough it a little. So don’t say it’s cold. ‘Any fool can hike in the springtime,’ you said. ‘Where’s your sense of adventure?’ Remember?"

  "I remember," Dag said. "I wasn’t cold then. I meant it would be more exciting."

  "The word’s cold, not exciting."

  "All right. If you want to go home, there’s the trail... somewhere beneath the snow."

  "You’ve got me trapped," Kevin said grinning. "Guess I’ll have to go through with it."

  "Thought you might, tenderfoot. Besides," Dag said, showing him a narrow smile, "I thought we might be able to think of something to do besides sleep. Something to wile away the time, help us forget the cold."

  Kevin looked curious. "You brought cards?"

  Dag slapped his shoulder playfully. Her gloved hand popped up flecks of snow from his thick flannel coat. "Silly. C’mon. The snow is nearly to our butts."

  Laughing they trudged toward the house.

  The wind picked up, blew a gusty popsicle wind against them, chewed through their clothes and pricked their flesh with goose bumps. The house, a cold, gray corpse, capped and slashed with white, rattled its termite riddled bones.

  When they were on the long encircling porch, Kevin said, "This is the damnedest snowstorm I’ve seen for this part of the country. It’s really getting deep out there." He slung his pack off his shoulder. "This porch go all the way around?"

  "All the way," Dag said, and she removed a key from her jeans pocket.

  "You keep this old joint locked?"

  "For what good it does. It’s been in the family for years. Some pretty nice antiques in here. That’s why all the windows are boarded up. Even have an old Edison in here with those big thick platter-looking records."

  "What a treat."

  "No sense of history," Dag said, and she unlocked the door. It was as dark as the sea bottom inside.

  "Charming," Kevin said, and he took out his flashlight. They went inside, Kevin led with the light, slashed at clinging cobwebs and swirling dust.

  "Damn," Dag said as she thrashed cobwebs from her face and hair. "You’re supposed to knock them out of the way, not on me!"

  "Pardon me, Masser Dag... God, but it’s dark in here, and cold as a polar bear’s foot."

  "It’s the high ceilings that do it," Dag sa
id. "Hard as hell to heat."

  Dag slipped off her pack and frame, leaned them against the wall; Kevin, who had been carrying his in his hand, tossed it next to Dag’s pack.

  Dag bent over her pack and removed a Coleman and a handful of candles. She lit the candles, and with Kevin guiding her with the flashlight, placed them about the room in a circle. They lit the candles on the old fireplace mantle last.

  "Don’t throw out a lot of light, do they?" Kevin said.

  "Reddi Kilowatt they’re not," Dag agreed.

  "And they smell funny."

  "Cheap."

  "Tell you what," Kevin said. "I’ll go out and see if I can scrape up a bit of firewood. Provided I can find something that isn’t snow covered."

  "There’s a little shed out back. Used to be a pump house. There’s some wood there. Some of it might be rotten, but it’ll do for tonight, throw off a little light and heat."

  "Sounds like my best bet."

  "Yep."

  "You coming?"

  "No, I’ll stay here and make sure these cheap candles don’t go out."

  "Don’t talk to any ghost while I’m gone."

  "Don’t even say that, Kevin."

  "Hey, sweetheart. This was your idea."

  "Don’t remind me. Go on before I tag along in your shoes."

  Kevin kissed her on the forehead, said, "Right back."

  He went outside and around to the old pump house. The wind howled through the pines like a dying wolf.

  The fire crackled pleasantly. Kevin and Dag sat together, Kevin’s flannel jacket draped over their knees. Strobe shadows and orange-red glints filled their faces.

  "Not so bad, huh?" Dag said resting her head on Kevin’s shoulder.

  "Well, the rooming isn’t great, but it isn’t as bad as the food."

  "Last time I ever buy Spain."