Yea Though I Walk

by J. P. Sloan

  Gil grumbles, “You said this Richterman was going to be trouble.”

  “I’m not Richterman,” I shout. “Name’s Folger. Denton Folger. I’m not Richterman. I’ve never been Richterman!”

  Gil gives a stern glare to Holcomb, who reaches for my arm to spin me around.

  Holcomb lays hands on the sides of my shoulders. “Denton? Listen to me. You’re in trouble. Precious trouble, and you need to do as this man says.”

  “That’s Gil McQuarrie,” I announce. “I’ve been trying to prove my worth to this man for, dear God. I can’t even remember.”

  “Denton. You need to stop.”

  I nod. “Yeah, I get it. This business with Richterman and Odell.”

  Holcomb grips my arms with a tight vise. “Don’t mention that name. If you want to survive, don’t even whisper it.”

  I give Gil another glance. Seems I’ve aroused some confusion in his bushy white brows.

  “Hol, do what I said. Check him for bites. These ain’t no pure kind of Wendigo, and you know it.”

  “They’re not,” I call out. “Not pure.”

  Gil grumbles, “I suppose you’ll explain it to me, then?”

  “I will.” I shove Holcomb aside. “They’re mongrels. Half Wendigo. The other half is Strigoi.”

  The riders toward the back grumble and confer, though Gil remains stony.

  “That is a load of horseshit,” he states.

  “Not if a Master Strigoi attempts to cure the curse by turning the original Wendigo into a Strigoi.”

  I clamp my mouth shut, realizing I’m paving a path to Kate’s execution with every word I utter.

  Gil works the thought over, then nods.

  “Suppose it ain’t revenants after all, Hol. Owe you two dollars.”

  The Godpistols behind Gil chuckle, but Holcomb remains rigid and miserable.

  “Now do what I said,” Gil declares. “He’s still who we’re after, and we must be thorough.”

  Holcomb steels himself and grips me by the arm hard enough to jerk me from my feet. I stagger backward, nearly dragging him into the grass with me.

  Holcomb pulls me up and gives me a measured look before whispering, “You injured?”

  I don’t respond, neither with word nor expression. He won’t have my cooperation any more than will I receive from my dying body.

  Holcomb drags me into my own house and settles me in my bedroom.

  With a wave of his finger, he spits, “Strip on down.”

  I give him a snarl.

  And he pulls a gun, training it directly at my chest.

  “Denton, I know about Katherina. I’m trying my best to keep her out of this business, but you’ve made that directly impossible for me. Now, I’m assuming she’s hibernating in your cellar. If you make this difficult for me, I’ll have to tell Gil to nose around down below. If you appreciate what I’m doing for you in the least, then you’ll just strip the fuck down and let me check you for bites like he said.”

  The room spins a moment, and I drop to sit on the bed. He’s right. I’m not in any position to stop them. And I have my mission.

  Protect my wife.

  These are not mindless monsters. These are men well-trained in felling Strigoi and Wendigo and whatever other horrors walk this Earth. They can’t be dismissed. And with Kate in her weakened state, I must put as much distance between her and them as possible.

  Even if that makes me the monster in her stead.

  So I unbutton my shirt and follow through to the rest of my clothes.

  Holcomb’s face sours as I limp a circle in front of him, showing him my blackened and battered frame.

  “The hell happened to you?” he whispers.

  “Magner. The man was a colossus.”

  “I’ve thought about what he might have become. Can’t believe you put him down.”

  “Well, believe it.”

  “How?”

  I give Holcomb a sneer. “Are you satisfied I’m not possessed of the Wendigo curse, or shall I parade for you some more?”

  He nods and turns away as I dress.

  “Aspen,” I finally answer. “He and his turnlings inherited more than one Strigoi weakness.”

  “I see.”

  I falter as I try to don my shirt, and Holcomb steps up to assist.

  “You’re going to be taken,” he utters.

  “What?”

  “The Godpistols. They know you killed one of theirs.” He buttons the last of my shirt and steps aside.

  “You mean Odell.”

  “I mean the real Odell, who rode with these men. The man you murdered.”

  I shut my mouth. It never occurred to me they’d be coming for a human purpose. Nothing so mundane as vendetta had even crossed my mind.

  “They plan to turn me in?”

  His face stiffens. “They plan more than that.”

  “You did this, didn’t you? You gave them Richterman. You gave him over, and now they’re going to do what? Hang me for what he’s done? Are you satisfied with that, Holcomb?”

  Holcomb’s eyes harden, and I don’t have time to brace before he swings a haymaker at my chin.

  He makes contact, sending me flying back onto my own bed. My head slaps back, and new waves of fire slice through my abdomen.

  “You forget how many people Richterman led to die,” Holcomb growls. “You’ve hidden behind this feeble Eastern face too long. You’re responsible, I don’t care who you think you are now. You done set Scarlow and his thugs on twenty-some good people.” He catches his breath. “You’re a killer, Denton. Even if it wasn’t you, you did this. And someone has to pay for it.”

  I look up from my pillow. “I have.”

  stare up at the square of sunlight streaming through the wrecked front of the jailhouse past the bars. My belly aches almost as much as my ankle. Neither complains quite as loudly as my head.

  One of Gil’s Godpistols sits on a chair by the far door, utterly uninterested in my existence.

  I look down to the floor, the precise spot I killed Scarlow’s man. Christ, I’ve forgotten his name!

  Ramon.

  Here is where I found the answer to the Wendigo problem.

  A face glares at me from the corner of my cell, nodding in self-indulgent piety.

  “You’re a damned idiot, Folger,” Richterman grumbles.

  “Thought I was rid of you,” I mutter. “I didn’t send for them. You know this.”

  “Yet still, they came. And now we’re behind bars, waiting for a noose. Your problem is, you shouldn’t have buried the malevolent little prick. Should have left his bones for the coyotes to pick clean, but no. You had to leave him a nice, tidy little grave for these Philistines to exhume. Even gave this one a hurdle to jump,” he adds with a wave to the other corner of my cell.

  Odell sits on the back two legs of a chair across from Richterman, rubbing his chin.

  “I figure these hopped-up sumbitches got you figured as weak,” he says. “That’s an angle, and we’re gonna use it to break clean of this mess.”

  Richterman sneers. “How precisely do you figure that’s possible? They have us under lock and key.” He leans forward with a wink. “Listen to this.” Richterman leans back toward Odell. “So, Lin. When we ‘break clean of this mess’ what’s the next move? Where do we ride from here?”

  Odell shrugs. “We ride to Cheyenne.”

  Richterman rolls his eyes. “Do you even hear yourself? Your high and mighty Gil McQuarrie is here, right now. He’s the man with the free end of the noose in his fist.”

  Odell lifts his hat with a dark look. “You want to speak ill of that man―”

  I hold up my hand. “Both of you, shut your mouths for a moment. Yes, Lin. He’s angry with us. He’s angry, and he’s probably going to hang us by sundown.”

  Odell blinks in confusion and shakes his head slowly.

  As does Richterman, to my surprise. “No, he’s not.”

  I ask, “He’s not what?”

 
“Angry. Have you seen him? Really looked at his face? He doesn’t strike me as a man prone to emotional extremes. Can you try to fathom the real point here? What do these Godpistols do?”

  Odell answers, “We purify the world of dark creatures.”

  “Precisely,” Richterman answers with a snap of his fingers.

  I mumble, “The end result being I’m still getting hanged.”

  “Get your head square, Folger,” Richterman chides. “You really think a miserable whelp like Odell is worth McQuarrie’s time? Or all this effort?”

  “Why wouldn’t it?”

  “Because Odell’s a lost cause. He’s a hanger-on who’s been rejected for years.”

  “Meaning?”

  Richterman steps up from his chair and fills my vision.

  “He doesn’t care about you or the monsters you’ve killed. He wants the monster who survived.”

  I blink and find Gil’s man staring at me from the seat beyond the bars. He gives me a sour face.

  “You want to shut your mouth?” he snaps as he returns his attention to what appears to be one of Toomey’s penny books.

  I lean back on my cot, alone again in the cell with my thoughts, and consider the point. McQuarrie doesn’t care about the real Odell. He wants Kate. Of course, he would! Maybe I clued him in when I spoke of the half-Strigoi nature of the Wendigo? Maybe Holcomb was more forthcoming with our peculiar little drama in this valley than he wants to own up to? I honestly couldn’t care. Fact is, Kate’s in danger, and McQuarrie is only keeping me alive long enough to flush her out.

  Which means sundown.

  Gil’s silhouette consumes the wrecked entrance to the jailhouse. He draws up at the door to the bars and gives his man a nod. “It’s time.”

  My guard hops up and opens my cell, giving me a long, careful glance.

  “He’s been talking to hisself,” the guard mutters as I step into the jailhouse proper.

  Gil motions for the exterior door.

  Lacking an option, I hobble forward, reaching for the doorframe to grant me stability. Once my eyes adjust to the afternoon sun, we proceed past the old burned church and a series of bone fires smoldering with Wendigo corpses toward the center of Main Street. I make out a platform directly in front of the assay office, hammered together with what lumber these men have scavenged from Cheevey’s construction.

  A gallows.

  A single length of rope hangs from a cross beam, and only a small block of lashed lumber sits beneath, just high enough to kick free of a man’s feet.

  Gil states as he urges me forward, “You can try to run, but we’ll just gun you down. Can’t guarantee it’ll be a clean shot, either. The rope’s quicker, if that matters to you.”

  “Why wouldn’t that matter?” I jibe for no specific reason beyond, not wanting this man to feel any measure of power over me.

  “I’ve known your type, Folger. Mind scattered by horrors. Body acting on its own accord.”

  “And that doesn’t incite any sense of perspicuity?”

  Gil grins. “Perspicuity is a luxury of the easily persuaded.”

  This is an educated man. I may very well be doomed.

  Two Godpistols stride forward and grip my arms. I half welcome their ministrations, unable as I am to achieve a satisfactory gait. They haul me onto the platform and jerk my hands behind my back. A length of jute lashes my wrists together, and I’m left standing between two men with pistols drawn.

  A crowd has gathered, or rather has been gathered by gunpoint. The remaining three Godpistols have chosen hidden positions, likely poised to keep watch for Kate and whatever army of undead is left.

  I peer up to the sky. The sun is on its descent, but I still have a good hour of daylight left. Kate won’t be coming to save me at this rate, and I feel the phantom of Richterman pleading his case in my mind might be wrong.

  These men intend to hang me.

  The townsfolk shuffle in a mass before the platform. I recognize these faces. Faces I fought with. A couple I’ve threatened. At least one, Grangerford, I’ve beaten senseless in Broad Creek.

  It’s the children I latch on to. Those tiny faces peer up at me with sorrow. They see the man who saved them from the horrors of the night before. The man who guarded them with the last measure of his own strength.

  Perhaps that is what I am, now? I am the man who chose to be this town’s savior. I am no tyrant. I am no murderer. Hell, I’m more a Godpistol than these rank mercenaries.

  Gil steps up beside me and addresses the crowd.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I do beg your patience in this matter as I’m sure you have a good deal of sorting to contend with. But a matter remains for our consideration, and it’s a matter present in your minds I’m sure.” He points to me. “And that is the matter of Lars Richterman.”

  I suck in a breath, but hold my tongue.

  Gil continues, “I have interviewed several of you independently, and I feel that our man, Smith Holcomb, has painted an accurate picture for us, here. A picture of a man who has manipulated the people of this town to suit his selfish personal ambitions. I have, by my count, twenty deaths accounted to this man’s direction. Twenty lives he has ended in the name of avarice.”

  The townsfolk have fallen silent, staring in awe at this gentile figure outlining my failings before them.

  Gil nods and paces a while. “Now, I understand there are circumstances that muddle the issue, vis-a-vis this man’s mental state. I urge you to recognize that justice cannot make a distinction between a man’s intention and the consequences of his actions.”

  Many faces search left and right for meaning in his words.

  McQuarrie recognizes his overarching language, and adds, “You can’t let a murderer free because he wakes up one day and decides he’s a good man. No. Actions can’t be taken back. They’re permanent. And so, therefore, must justice be singular in its application. One rule, one punishment.”

  He holds up a single finger, running it above the heads of those gathered.

  After his point has well set, he turns to me with indifferent eyes. “So, what say you, the accused?”

  I squint at him and consider my words. “You have no authority to charge me.”

  Gil crosses his arms. “You think so?”

  “By whose authority, then? The Governor? The Capital? The Church?”

  Gil snarls. “We are agents of God’s justice.”

  “Please,” I spit. “You’re a posse of thugs.”

  “And you have murdered one of our number and buried him behind your homestead. And then, in a lapse of humanity only the most vile can muster, you have adopted his identity toward confusing and defrauding the people of Gold Vein.”

  I slam my boot into the platform.

  “I’ve lived in this valley for ten years, trying to protect these people.”

  “You have a peculiar way of offering protection, sir.”

  One of my guards snickers.

  Gil paces some more, as I check the sun overhead. I am trapped in a prison of daylight.

  He steals a peek at me and rushes to my side.

  Leaning into my ear, he whispers, “You waiting for someone?”

  “I’m waiting for you to end this farce and leave this valley.”

  “This valley requires purification.”

  I turn my head to bring it in front of his, looking him straight in the eye. “I couldn’t agree more.”

  Gil steps away with a smirk.

  “The accused has a right to speak his innocence. And thus has he declared himself free of guilt. Though he hasn’t denied that he is the resident of a body he shares with a murderer.”

  The crowd stands silent.

  Gil prods, “We require an accuser. One of you. So, what say you? Where are the victims of this man’s machinations? They are the ones who stand in judgment. I am but God’s messenger. So speak. This man, Lars Richterman, has stolen your land, murdered your neighbors, and driven you to war with a monstrous army which slaught
ered your loved ones before your very eyes. Speak in judgment now, and the Lord shall hear.”

  Faces turn to one another for permission to speak. I feel the weight of years piling upon my shoulders. It occurs to me how right and proper this is. I should stand trial for Richterman’s deeds. It is not for me to escape. It is my lot. And though I, Denton Folger, have done nothing but attempt to save them from the tyranny, it is their justice that needs to be served. They should have it, and I must stand here alone to receive it.

  The noose seems far more fitting than it had before.

  A girl steps forward. I recognize her face. Lizzy.

  “I want to say something.”

  Gil motions her forward with a wave of his fingers.

  She turns to the crowd. “Lars Richterman… sent his men to beat my pa. He knew my pa had seen him put a gun to Old Man Carruthers two years ago, and he was going to ride into Broad Creek. His men put a beating to my pa good and hard. He slept for a month before he died.”

  My stomach knots more than my injuries call for.

  Tears stream from her eyes as she turns to face me. “Richterman killed my pa. He killed my pa, and I hate him for it.” She sucks in a halting breath and turns back to the crowd with a finger pointed straight toward me.

  Gil nods, his face flushed. “And this man, here,” he states with a finger raised at my chest, “is he Lars Richterman?”

  Lizzy looks up to me, then down to her feet. A single tear slips down her cheek as she answers, “No.”

  A murmur spreads across the crowd.

  “Excuse me?” Gil grunts.

  “That’s Mister Folger.”

  Gil steps toward the girl, but another man jumps between them. I know this man, as well. Eli.

  Two of Gil’s thugs reach for him, but he gathers Lizzy and slides back into the crowd before they can grip hold of him.

  Gil holds up both hands. “I need an accuser.”

  The onlookers shift on their feet.

  “Who will identify this man?” Gil bellows.

  A man steps forward. I don’t know him, though his face seems vaguely familiar. He clears his throat and holds Gil off as he tries to contain the scene.

  “I’ve lived in this valley for nigh to twenty years. I can tell you Richterman was the worst thing to happen to this town.”