Yea Though I Walk

by J. P. Sloan

  “It’s enough.”

  He nods and kicks his horse up the lane.

  I dismount and lead Ripper into the back of the shed where Holcomb kept his shoeing stall. I get some good, fresh water and hay for the poor horse. I even take an hour to brush him down and check his hooves. I’ve put too many miles on this animal. After tonight, those miles would likely be my last.

  That, or Ripper would need his strength.

  I climb up into Holcomb’s loft, still empty and haunted with the man’s stink. I don’t bother much with unpacking. No point. This is a transient situation. I do lie down, however, and feel the soreness from the trip leech into my shoulders. Sleeping on the prairie is no kind of rest. And as sorry as this pathetic straw-stuffed bed is, it’s miles past what I’ve been sleeping in at Folger’s.

  Sleep catches me, and does it quick.

  I wake up in a start, wondering if I’d missed sundown.

  As I crawl back downstairs, I catch the last of the orange hues lighting on the clouds in the distance.

  Without a chance to prepare myself, I find it’s time to face Richterman.

  I pull my gun and check the chambers. Good thing… I still have Scarlow’s lead slugs in my revolver. I swap them out with more of Gil’s silver. It calms me, somehow, to know the silver is ready to fly. It’s as if Gil’s here with me, guiding my steps.

  Though in earnest, I’m glad he ain’t here. He’d pistol-slap me for letting things get this far. For letting Folger get to me.

  And his wife.

  Lights flicker in windows along the lane as night falls. Step by step, I close the distance between the smithy and Richterman’s office. I pause in front of Folger’s pressroom to my right. Windows dark. Door shut and shuttered. The press has done its duty.

  Now it’s time to do mine.

  I step up into the assay office, its candle sconces already glowing and sending shadows darting through the room. One of Scarlow’s men eyeballs me from the far end of the office, the one I didn’t leave silver with. His gun is holstered. His face is stony. I expect no resistance from him, as Scarlow appears to be a man of his word.

  Footsteps clap from the stairs leading to the second floor. Scarlow descends, his face drawn, eyes drooping. He gives me a slow look, and a puddle of a grin gathers in the corner of his scruffy face.

  “You came after all,” he drawls.

  “Is Richterman ready for me?”

  A cold feeling slithers along my neck, and I turn my head.

  The same deep voice from the church… the night I shot the Parson… echoes in the corners of the room. “Are you ready for me?”

  I spin a circle, pistol in my hand. I didn’t even feel myself pull it from its holster.

  Scarlow holds up his hands and steps forward. “Easy.”

  He’s always listening.

  I nod to Scarlow, and with my gun held tight to my shoulder, I move for the stairs.

  Scarlow reaches out and lays a hand on my shoulder. “I think things will be easier for the both of us after tonight.”

  I can’t tell if he thinks I’ll survive this meeting or not. Scarlow wanders over to the front of the office and stares out the window.

  It’s just me and that flight of stairs.

  So I climb.

  At the top I find a U-shaped hall wrapping the banister and leading to the rear of the building. Seems the entire upstairs is one large office.

  Why am I evaluating the building? Remember. Swift strikes. No mercy.

  Stop being a coward, Lin. Just end this.

  I wind around the banister and toward the single door set dead center in the hall. I reach for the latch and ease the door open.

  I press my pistol against my shoulder. My breath is slow. Resolute.

  These Master Strigoi move fast. I can’t give him the first chance to move. When he does, I won’t be able to see it. It’ll be my head clean off my shoulders in one strike. I’ll have to shoot first.

  I remove my hand from the latch and kick the door open. It swings wild against its hinges, slamming into the side wall before careening back into my arm. I jump forward as it slaps my shoulder, gun up, hammer back, finger tight.

  I find a large map spread across the wall in front of me between the two black-laced windows overlooking the street.

  I turn to my right to find some pointless furniture, neatly arranged with doilies and books set at angles.

  Finally I spin to my left. One large desk.

  And one man.

  I take aim and will my finger to pull the trigger.

  But it won’t.

  I hesitate.

  Because as my eyes adjust to the light in the office, I recognize the face looking back at me over this desk. I lower my gun as I find myself staring into the face of Denton Folger.

  enton?” I stammer.

  He runs a hand through his hair, somewhat greasier than I remember it, and pulls in a long breath.

  “You bring your flask?” he asks in a voice wholly unfamiliar to me. That’s a lie. I recognize the voice, from that night in the church. From the corners of the room downstairs. A deep, articulate, oddly accented voice that’s been haunting me for some while.

  I slowly raise my gun once again and blurt, “What’s going on?”

  He squints and raises his hand. “Put the gun away, Odell. You will only hurt yourself.”

  “Denton?” I repeat.

  “Call me Lars. It will be for you to grow accustomed to this, and for that I do apologize. Seems you find yourself in quite the predicament.”

  The Remington shakes in my hand. “What is this?”

  “I have been watching you, Odell. You’re a clever boy. I know I won’t have to spell this out for you like some primer school whelp.”

  “You look like Denton.”

  “This is true.”

  “You twins?”

  He smiles and releases a broad laugh. “That is good. Had not thought of that.”

  “Then what are you?”

  “Well, if I look like Denton Folger and there’s only one Denton Folger, then what does that mean?”

  I lower my gun again. “You’re… Denton Folger?”

  He lays a finger alongside his nose and pops it forward at me. “Spot on, boy.”

  “Denton?”

  “Please call me Lars. I feel we’ve earned enough familiarity at this point.”

  “You’re… Richterman?”

  “I am.”

  “You’ve been lying to me this whole time?”

  His smile melts into a sneer. “Oh, Christ. You haven’t figured it quite yet. No, Odell. Folger hasn’t lied to you once. He’s nothing if not painfully virtuous.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “He’s inside here, Odell,” he states as he taps the side of his temple. “Locked away, sometimes creeping out of his cage when he starts to feeling righteous.”

  “Good God.”

  “I doubt that’s the case, parenthetically. Any God with the capacity to unleash the evil of Free Will upon His creation must be either vengeful or inexcusably careless.”

  I move away from this figure I can’t find a name for.

  He steps around his desk toward me. My gun arm feels too heavy to lift, as opposed to my stomach, which is turning flips.

  Folger, or Richterman, steps in front of me and reaches slowly for my pocket. He eases out the flask and holds it up to the light.

  “Oh, good. You brought it.”

  He turns and moves for the doilied table to our right, lifting a crystal decanter and swishing it.

  “I figured by the time you’d mustered the courage to be a man and put a bullet into my head, you were ready for the truth.”

  “How did this happen?”

  Richterman pours some amber liquid into the flask, splashing just a little onto his fingers. “How does anything happen, Odell? One impetus leads to a consequence, typically cascading into a chain of events that leads us to where we stand”—he sucks off the extra whi
skey from his finger and tightens my flask—“tonight.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “Is that a question or an observation?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I suppose you could say Folger suffers from all manner of complaints, both mental and epistemological. Whether he’s the crazy one or not, well, that depends largely on how you view things. For example, he denies the existence of Strigoi despite living with one for over a decade. You, however, openly embrace the supernatural. Which is crazy?”

  I holster my gun. As my head spins, I have to agree with Richterman. A gun will only get me injured at this point.

  Richterman holds out the flask. I reach out and take it, staring at it without a sense of what to do with it.

  “You’re not Strigoi,” I mumble. “I’ve seen you in daylight.”

  “You’ve seen Folger in the daylight.”

  “You’re one in the same.”

  He lifts his finger and slides back toward his map wall. “An interesting assertion, Odell. Wherein lies the true existence of the Strigoi? The creature changes its aspect as it gives in to the hunger, does it not? A physical change overtakes its features. Skin turns black, teeth grow sharp. This is a transition not just physical but existential. What happens, therefore, when the monster’s face breaks from the existence of the human face?”

  “You’re saying you can walk in daylight when you’re Folger?”

  “Clearly.”

  “But, I’ve stayed with him. Katherina…” I take a moment, and my knees grow weak.

  In a blink, Richterman is at my elbow, guiding me to a chair. He has demonic speed, to be sure.

  I settle in the chair, still gripping my flask. “That’s why she couldn’t kill you.”

  “Ah.”

  “If she killed you, she’d kill Folger.”

  “I knew you were a clever boy.”

  “This is what she wanted. This whole time, she wanted me to help Folger with you. I thought…”

  Richterman—yes, I recognize him as Richterman now—walks again to his map wall, turning to it with a sigh. “Katherina is an amazing creature. A touch naïve, perhaps.”

  My gut twists as he says her name aloud.

  He continues. “So much of this,” he adds with a wave of his hand against the map, “was inspired by her.”

  “Huh?”

  “This, Odell, is my master plan for Gold Vein. Come, if you’re able. Come and see my vision.”

  I twist open the flask, take a belt of some admittedly fine sipping whiskey, and test my feet. I stand, steady enough, and walk forward to look at his map. I find the town settled in the middle, easily three times its present size. Houses… rows upon rows. Shops. Ranches.

  And the mine.

  So much is drawn overtop the mine. It looks like a city in and of itself.

  “It is, Odell.”

  I turn sharply to Richterman. “What, inside the mine? Underground?”

  “Nights upon nights, she’d whisper her memories of the Old World into Folger’s ear. A time before gaslights, when the cities were dark and the Strigoi could walk among the living as if they were still human. They would feed, time to time, but there was civility. A culture they could maintain. And then the lights came, and persisted. The Strigoi were unable to remain unseen, and thus retreated. And were hunted.

  “Then came new understandings of steam power. New technology. The relentless expansion of human ingenuity drove them into the forests and into the catacombs. Holy Orders far older than your Godpistols laid waste to the Strigoi. Driving them to the brink of oblivion.

  “And then the same steam power made the voyage to the New World survivable for the Strigoi. Those that didn’t perish en route found a whole new frontier, Odell. Far from the city lights. Far from the Old Religions. A new land to settle. And if they moved fast enough, and if they ever mustered the will, they could build whole cities underground and just wait for the westward march of the living.”

  He turns to his map, sprawling fingers over the complex lanes and buildings lacing one on top of another at the center of the mine.

  “And with planning, they could guide the living into some structure. A place for them to gather, breed, settle, and become available to the Strigoi as they saw fit.”

  I ball my fists. “It’s a ranch.”

  “Hmm?”

  I repeat, “A ranch. Humans are being corralled into the valley like cattle. That’s what this is, isn’t it? Feeding grounds for the Strigoi.”

  “It’s a fantasy of Katherina’s, Odell. One she couldn’t express, much less realize. It took someone with a sense of abstraction and fortitude to bring it this far.”

  “You can’t do this, Denton.”

  He stomps his heel and turns to me. “My name is Lars.”

  I take a step away. “I want to speak to him.”

  “I don’t believe I’m going to allow that. Not for a while.”

  “Does he know?”

  Richterman shakes his head. “I alone remain vigilant. The poor fool keeps waking up, hating me, plotting my downfall. And I’m―”

  “Always listening.”

  He nods.

  I shake my head at him and pace a slow circle. “The press. I mean, he’s printing libel against you. Against hisself. I just delivered a handful of papers to Broad Creek. It’ll bring the law here.”

  “Will it?”

  I grip the window frame next to me and work through a stray thought before I open my mouth.

  “Did Scarlow… did he bring them back?”

  Richterman holds his hands behind his back as he returns to his chair to take a casual seat. “Not to my knowledge.”

  “Then those papers will be your undoing.”

  “Those papers are part of the plan, you dolt.”

  “That a fact?”

  He reaches into his desk and pulls out a sheet. “Did you even read it?”

  I nod.

  “Sure about that?” he prods, slipping the paper to the front of his desk.

  I approach with caution. “I read it when he wrote the damn thing.”

  “Yes, but is that what he printed? More accurately, is that what I printed?”

  I snatch the paper and hold it up to candlelight.

  Instead of Folger’s fiction of Richterman’s murder of the Hitchens boy, I find fat letters and a sketch similar to the village half of Richterman’s map. Beneath the sketch words drawl out an urging for settlers.

  GOLD VEIN, WYOMING TERRITORY, UNCLAIMED PLATS AVAILABLE CHEAP, NEGROES WELCOME.

  I let the paper slip from my fingers. It falls into a curl onto Richterman’s desk.

  I’d never read the papers. Not the ones Folger had handed me. That’s all it would have took. Just reading one damn sheet of the papers I was stuffing in front of poor drunkards in Broad Creek. I wasn’t burying Richterman. I was helping him.

  “I know it must sting,” he coos. “But you were unprepared. I had an advantage, and I always press my advantage when I can.”

  “You’re leading them to slaughter.”

  “What would that be in aid of? Killing people wholesale? That’s not a growth industry, Odell. No, the Strigoi have no interest in murder. This many households in such a close proximity will provide copious feeding stock. No one need give more than two draughts per week. With organization, an equilibrium can be maintained.”

  I slam a hand onto his desk. “Is that what you call what happened to the Hitchenses? Equilibrium?”

  His eyes narrow. “That wasn’t my doing, if that’s your insinuation.”

  “Strigoi bled them dry. I seen their bodies.”

  He waves a casual hand in front of his face with a huff. “Orphans. New arrivals. Probably hit their wagon before they even reached the valley. Word has spread as far as Cincinnati, by my reckoning. The first wave of immigrants is nearly complete.”

  “Why orphans?”

  “Because Master Strigoi would complicate the equilibrium. They’re too proud. To
o demanding. Wouldn’t accept autocracy, not now that they’re used to the American sense of liberty. Besides, no one wants the orphans. They’re dangerous. Difficult to control.”

  “If they’re so goddamn dangerous, what makes you think they’re going to bleed the people in this town slow? What makes you think you can control them?”

  His mouth slithers into a wide smile. “I always press my advantage.”

  “Katherina.”

  “She has a way of soothing them. They sense she’s genuinely invested in their well-being. I’m sure she suspects I’m manipulating her into my vision, but it’s Folger that keeps her pliable.”

  “It’s a miracle the townsfolk ain’t lynched you yet.”

  “Granted, the original residents of this town have had some difficulty divorcing the two of us in their mind. Which is why they are being relocated.”

  I nod and move back to the chairs to take another belt from the flask. “That’s what the land grab is about. You’re getting rid of anyone who remembers when it was just Denton?”

  “I’ll be keeping myself tucked away for a while, deep inside Folger’s neat-shelved brain. Let him be the guiding light for the second wave of immigrants. This means he’ll need to think I’ve gone away. Otherwise he’ll never stop obsessing over me.”

  I take a seat in the chair across the office. “How do you plan on pulling that off?”

  “With your help.”

  I grit my teeth. “I figure I’ve already done enough helping.”

  “Oh, my dear Linthicum Odell, you’ve only begun to serve the master plan.”

  “You can go directly to Hell, Richterman. I’m having no part of this.”

  “You’re already a part of it, Odell. Stop being such a righteous prig. That’s really more Denton’s purview, anyway. No, you will help me. You will, because it’s the only way your conscience will allow you to leave this valley.”

  “The only thing keeping me in this valley is Magner.”

  He lifts a brow and releases a long cackle. “Is that so?”

  “That’s a fact.”