Dead or Alive

by William Harms

  “As secure as we can get it,” John said. “We piled up everything we could find.”

  “We’re going to go back down for one final look. Can you two carry this crate of ammunition up to that Gatling gun?”

  “Sure,” John said. Seth looked at Paul and then walked back into the building, Joseph in tow.

  John walked over to the crate with the uniforms and pulled one out. He pulled on the coat and buttoned it up, and then dug around the bottom of the crate and pulled out a pair of yellowed socks and an old pair of boots. He pulled them on and then handed a uniform coat to Paul.

  “Put this on.”

  “Screw you.”

  “Suit yourself.” John tossed the coat aside and grabbed a handle on the side of the ammunition crate and lifted up one side. “Grab the other end.”

  Paul spit and grabbed the other end of the crate. “I’m going to kill him.”

  “Let’s go.” John headed for the ramp leading up the catwalk. The wood beneath their feet creaked from the weight and John had to move slowly to make sure he didn’t back over the side of the narrow wooden walkway.

  “I mean it. I’m going to blow his damn head off.”

  “When the hell are you going to learn?”

  “You turning on me?”

  “There’s no reason to shoot any of these people. They just want what we want--to live through this thing.”

  “Listen to you, Mister Goody-goody. You didn’t mind killin’ earlier.”

  “I’ve regretted shooting those fellas ever since I pulled the trigger. I ain’t like you, Paul.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “You’ve always been mean. You were born mean. You like beating on folks. I don’t and I’m sick of paying for your mistakes. From now on you can pay for them yourself.”

  “I’ve been paying ever since I was born, you asshole. Our father used to kick the shit out of me for no good reason. Don’t talk to me about paying. I’ve paid my pound of flesh.”

  They reached the front of the fort and lowered the Gatling gun to the wooden catwalk. “So what, now you’re blaming Pa? It’s not his fault that you turned out like you did.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. You never had him whipping you out in the barn because you happened to look at him the wrong way.”

  “Maybe if you’d kept your hide out of trouble for ten minutes he would’ve left you alone.”

  “Fuck you. You and him are just alike, you know that? Always bossing me around, telling me what to do, how to live my life. Don’t cross me, John. Pa crossed me and look what happened to him.” Paul spit on the catwalk. “You’d be surprised how easy it is to fake a suicide.”

  “What did you say?”

  “You heard me.”

  “You saying you killed pa?”

  “No, the rope around his neck killed him. I just whacked the fucker on the back of the head and knocked him out. The hard part was pulling him up in the tree.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You’d better fuckin’ believe me. You cross me again, I’ll kill you too. You understand me?” Paul spit at his brother.

  John shot forward and punched Paul in the face. Paul fell backward and struck the side of the fort, all while fumbling for his gun. “Leave your gun where it is,” John said. His revolver was trained on his brother.

  “I’ll let this one slide, but don’t ever lay a hand on me again, you hear?”

  “I should shoot you right now.”

  “You ain’t got the balls for it. You never have. You’ve always been a pussy.”

  “You’re dead to me,” John said. He put his revolver away and walked toward the ramp. He couldn’t believe this, that his brother had killed their father. A tear slid down his face. Why was his entire world crashing down around him? What did he do to deserve this?

  John reached the ramp and started down, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. He subconsciously braced himself for the shot, for the impact from Paul’s bullet, but it never came. He knew that Paul was behind him, fiddling with his gun, deciding what to do. There was no question about it now--he should have shot Paul.

  It was too late for that now, though; Paul would be ready. This whole affair was a mess, and John knew with complete certainty that his brother would kill anyone who survived the night. The others wouldn’t trust John, no matter what he told them, so it came down to him. He’d have to keep an eye on Paul, watch for him to make his move and be ready to strike when his brother threatened someone else. It wasn’t the best plan, but it was his only option.

  John wiped his eyes and looked up at the dark night sky and wished for the hundredth time that he had never helped rob that stage.

  #

  The dead slogged their way to the base of a hill and looked up in unison. At the top of the hill sat the fort, its sides lit up by the makeshift torches. Lightning flared overhead and thunder shook the ground. The dead started to spread out, forming a circle around the fort. As the circle was completed, they marched forward, their feet slopping through the deepening mud.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The group stood at the head of the catwalk, behind the mounted Gatling gun. Seth had told Esperanza and Ed to relight most of the torches by wrapping strips of kerosene-soaked uniforms around the top of the wood. And so far it had worked; despite the gusting wind and the rain, most of the torches ringing the top of the fort still burned. The wood of the catwalk was slick from the water, and the ground inside the fort was one huge mud pit. The three horses stood at the back of the fort, in a dark corner, and the remains of the wagon burned in an effort to provide the interior of the fort with some light. Other lit torches lined the inside of the fort.

  “That everything?” John asked.

  “Yep. Thirty rifles, fully loaded,” Seth said.

  “I hope we got enough ammo.”

  “That Gatling will chew a lot of them up,” Ed said.

  “Assuming you really know how to use it,” Paul said to Seth. He looked at his brother and then back at the Gatling. Anger coursed through Paul, white-hot anger that he could barely control. He knew for damn sure he was going to kill everyone here, except maybe John. He still hadn’t decided what to do about his traitor of a brother.

  “I fired one in the army. I’ll hold up my end.” Seth motioned down at the small cluster of jars; each was filled with kerosene and had a long strip of cloth jutting out of the lid. “There are only eight of those, so we’ll have to use them sparingly. Remember, only throw them into large clusters.”

  “You really think you’re going to fight them off, don’t you?” Thomas said. As the others had prepared the fort, Thomas spent his time wandering the open, middle area muttering to himself. As the others convened at the front of the fort on the catwalk, he joined them. In one hand he held a battered copy of the Bible.

  “We’re going to do our best.” Seth moved behind the Gatling. It was a little rusty but it looked like it would still fire. Seth would rather use the Gatling that was down in the cellar, but there wasn’t enough time to dig it out and put it together.

  “It all started with an Indian. You folks don’t know that, do you?” Thomas moved to the edge of the catwalk and sat down, his feet dangling over the side. He tilted his head back so that the rain struck him directly in the face. He licked the rain off his face with his tongue.

  “No,” Ed said, “we don’t know about that.”

  “He was a Hualapai medicine man.” Thomas lowered his head and gazed at the interior of the fort. “It was toward the end of the worst of the fighting with the Indians. That medicine man was only supposed to have a handful of braves with him and a few old men and women. A group of twenty-some-odd men were sent out after him, but they never reported back. Most of us assumed they deserted.

  “I was part of a unit of sixty men sent out to take care of this business once and for all. Winter had set in and we had a tough time tracking down that damn Indian, but we finally caught up to him so
mewhere along the border with California. We made camp for the night and planned to attack in the morning.

  “That night was the coldest of my life. The wind burned to the bone and snow came in something fierce, and the men’s morale was very low. Most of us had been fighting the Indians for years and we were sick of the whole damn thing and just wanted to go home.

  “Shortly before dawn, a bunch of Hualapai braves came charging into our camp and all hell broke loose. Those damn Indians gunned down men who were still sleeping, dropped on them and scalped them right then and there. That wasn’t the worst of it, though--the braves were impossible to kill. I saw one Indian take six shots to the chest and he didn’t even bat an eyelash. Instead, he grabbed one of our boys, threw him onto the back of his horse and rode back into the night. I got off a couple shots but didn’t hit anything; the snow and darkness made it too damn hard to see. Men all around me were screaming and I saw three other braves grab our men and ride away with them. A few minutes later the attack was over and the only sound was the screaming of the wounded.

  “A fella a few feet from me managed to kill one of those bastards and we went over to inspect the body. The dead Indian was painted black and was naked--like all the other braves--but there was spot on his left arm where the paint had worn away, and that’s when we saw the tattoo. It was a tattoo from the Civil War, from the Confederate Army’s First Battalion.

  “We wiped his face clean and someone recognized him as a soldier from the missing unit. There were four bullet wounds in his chest and another fella, guy named William outta Georgia, said that the dead soldier only went down after he got shot in the head.

  “Four shots to the chest. Can you imagine how badly that scared us? We went and looked at the two other braves we had managed to kill, and the story was the same with them, except they were real Indians. One of ‘em had been shot seven times and his belly had been sliced open with a bayonet, and yet he still didn’t go down until a rifleman shot him in the head.

  “Word got out to the other men about what was going on and a lot of them ran like hell. I looked around for our lieutenant but he was nowhere to be found. Someone told me that he had been taken by a Hualapai brave, but someone else said they’d seen him running off, so it’s hard to say what really happened to him.

  “Anyway, those of us that stayed behind knew that the only way to stop those savages was by shooting them in the head, so we spread the word and made damn sure that everyone knew what to do. We spent the rest of the day fighting off the cold and waiting for night to fall. If the Hualapai attacked again, it would be under the cover of darkness and we wanted to be ready.

  “I can’t explain to you how long that day lasted. We built up a couple fires with scraps we found here and there and everyone tried to keep warm, but it was so damn cold. More men deserted and a couple even took their own lives. I think we all knew that we were dealing with something supernatural, but folks don’t like to talk about that stuff, so we talked about home and ranching, and that helped ease everyone’s mind a bit. It’s easy to pass the time when you’re talking about breaking horses and castrating pigs.

  “Right around nightfall the Hualapai came swooping in like before but this time the men the Hualapai had kidnapped were fighting alongside them. They weren’t painted black and they still wore their uniforms, but they killed us just the same. I saw a lot of boys just stand there in disbelief as their former comrades gutted them or shot them or took their heads clean off. The whole thing disintegrated into a dream for me. The fires were suddenly everywhere and all around me men were dying and the snow was coming down something fierce. It seemed like I was watching the whole thing from a distance, like I wasn’t even there. And yet I’d look down and it was my hands I saw firing my gun.

  “At some point everything seemed to stop, like everyone had up and vanished. I started to reload my Colt, and that’s when I saw a short Indian man walking through the camp. He was old and his body was painted black like the others, but his skin was streaked with sweat. He carried a small pouch and he would bend over the dead soldiers and rub their faces with a white powder that he got out it.

  “I watched the old Indian for a bit and then I noticed a dead soldier, a fella named Ray outta Kentucky, laying a few yards from me. His face was smeared with the powder and as I stood there he suddenly sat up. Blood oozed from his wounds and I had no doubt that he was dead, but there he was, climbing to his feet. He grabbed another man and bit him on the face. That’s the last thing I saw before I turned and ran.

  “I don’t know how I managed to get away from the camp--surely it was only through God’s grace--but after running for what seemed like forever, I stumbled across some other soldiers. The snow was coming down something fierce and even though the wind was blowing hard from the north we could still hear screams. We tried to find our way to the main trail, but it was impossible to see anything in that storm. Thankfully we stumbled across an old cave, so we crawled back there and decided to wait out the night. That’s when one of the fellas became sick.

  “It started out as a fever, and then he was puking up blood and this white pasty foam. An hour or so later he died. We were trying to decide what to do with his body when he sat up and started laughing. God, what an awful sound that was, that man’s laugh. It sounded like he was gurgling mud. He killed two men before we put him down.”

  “How did you end up here?” Seth asked.

  “We stayed in that cave for two more days and then ran across some miners heading to Jackson and we fell in with them. We got back here and told our captain what we saw. He didn’t believe the Indian was bringing back the dead, but he did believe they somehow managed to wipe out our unit. He got word back to his commanding officer and the army sent three hundred men out after that Hualapai medicine man. I heard they trapped that damn Indian in a canyon and blew him back to Hell.

  “We got stationed here. There were four of us, but the other fellas passed on, like I already told ya. Now it’s just me.”

  “That’s one hell of a story,” Seth said.

  “Yessir. When I was fleeing across the desert I swore right then and there to dedicate my life to the Lord. He’s the only reason I’m alive today.”

  “How come only some of the people get sick?” Ed asked. “I mean, none of us are sick or anything.”

  “Don’t know.”

  “My God,” John said. He had been dozing off from exhaustion for most of Thomas’ story, but now he was wide awake and taking in what he had just heard. The white powder, the old Indian--it all made sense now. “I think I know what’s causing this.”

  “What are you talking about?” Paul said.

  John ignored his brother and looked at Thomas. “We camped a day’s ride from here, up on a bluff. My horse wandered off and we found him in some old Indian grounds. It wasn’t a burial ground because there wasn’t any graves, but there were bones and skulls scattered around and we found part of an old army uniform. My horse dug a hole and his feet and legs were covered with a white powder.”

  “You’re saying you’re responsible for this nightmare?” Seth said.

  John didn’t know how to answer the question. Were they responsible for this? There was no doubt that if they had never robbed the stage, they never would’ve found the old Indian ceremonial ground. It all kept coming back to robbing that stage.

  “It’s not their fault,” Thomas said. “They don’t have anything to do with this. It’s all that Indian’s doing. These boys were just unlucky enough to have stumbled across that medicine man’s old lair.” Thomas spit. “It would’ve happened eventually.”

  Lightning cracked across the sky. John looked at the others and they stared back at him. Despite Thomas’ statement, it was clear everyone blamed him and Paul for this mess.

  “Well, there’s nothing we can do now except fight,” Seth said. “We should get ready. They could come at any time and catch us all sitting here shooting the breeze.” Seth looked at Thomas. “If it’s all the
same to you, I’ll man the gun up here and Joseph will help me.” He pointed to John and Paul. “You take the west side, you the east, and the rest of you take the rear of the fort. If any of them get in, they get top priority.”

  Paul grabbed two rifles and several boxes of ammunition and walked away. Damn if he didn’t want to shoot that prick in the face. Maybe he’d shoot his arms so he couldn’t fight back and then cut his face up with the knife for a bit--take his time. The others would take their bullets in the head, nice and quick, but that bank employee, he was going to get something special. After he was dead, Paul would cut off his ears and wear them around his neck, like a trophy. And if John got in the way, well, he’d take his bullet too.

  “And what if they all get inside?” Ed asked.

  “Then we gather around the Gatling and hope for the best.”

  John grabbed two rifles, several boxes of ammunition, and two of the jars and walked over to the west wall. A moment later Esperanza, Ed, and Thomas walked past him, each holding two rifles and ammunition. John nodded at them, but they ignored him. John knew that they thought he was nothing more than a thief and a murderer. And maybe that was true; maybe he didn’t deserve their company, especially in light of what was causing all of this. He placed the jars and one of the rifles on the catwalk next to his feet and sighted the gun he was holding. It looked like it would pull a little to the right. Lightning flashed across the sky, but it was still too dark to see much more than twenty feet out. John lowered the rifle and waited.

  #

  Esperanza, Ed, and Thomas reached the rear of the fort. Thomas kept walking and soon stood by himself in the far corner. Ed leaned one of his rifles against the catwalk then took the boxes of ammunition and placed them on the catwalk, flush against the wall in an effort to shield them from the rain. The last thing he wanted was to have to deal with slick bullets.

  Esperanza lowered herself to her knees and crossed herself. “El señor, nos protege y nos entrega de este mal. Si fallamos, dénos la fuerza para hacer frente a su juicio santo. Amen.” She crossed herself again and rose from the wet catwalk. Her clothing was smeared with rain and mud and blood.