by Lon Williams
* * * *
In Forlorn Gap, semi-ghost town—and ghostly reminder of gold-rush days, a few windows still shone with lamplight. A stagecoach pulled out by Goodlett Hotel and headed eastward toward Brazerville. A saloon nearby was alive with light and voices.
Doc Bogannon, saloon owner and bartender, was putting away glasses and tidying up for closing. “Sorry to remind you gentlemen,” he said, “but it’s midnight and closing time.”
Men threw down their cards, emptied their glasses, got up and went out. Bogie gathered up these remnants of his service, washed and dried glasses, set them back and reached up to extinguish his bar light. He was a large man, of splendid stature, handsome and intellectual, about whom little was known, but who knew much about men, as such. Why a man with his endowments should be content to own and operate a saloon and live with a half-breed Shoshone wife, was one of Forlorn Gap’s mysteries. He liked everybody. Yet outside his own household he had only one friend.
He had drawn down his hanging lamp, when his batwings swung inward and that friend, a tall, wiry, weather-beaten man with dark mustache, tramped unsteadily in.
“Winters! I was just thinking about you.” Winters dropped into a chair. “Wine, Doc, and two glasses.”
“Wine it is, Winters.”
Bogie joined him promptly and filled two glasses.
Lee drank thirstily. “Another, Doc.”
Bogie had stared at him worriedly. “Winters, you’ve had a close call. I see it in your face, your expression. And that blood in your hair! A wanted monkey nearly got you, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, Doc. In Cow Creek.” He squeezed his forehead, which throbbed dreadfully. “I should’ve got here hours ago. Must’ve been lost. My horse is all fagged down, too.”
Bogie was staring at something which swung from Lee’s wrist. “Winters, what’s that? Have you taken to wearing fetishes, or such like?”
Winters lifted his left arm. “Well, be— confound! What am I doing with a little jug hanging from my wrist?” He took it off and set it before Bogie. While Bogie stared at it, afraid to pick it up, Winters’ subconscious mind began its subtle processes of recollection, in sum and substance recreated a harrowing, impossible dream. “What is it, Winters?”
Winters smiled wryly. “It’s a honey jug, Doc. Got magic in it.”
Bogie looked his utter disdain. “Humph! A ghost gave it to you, eh?”
“Couldn’t say about that, Doc. But she was a beauty. Name was Ernesta Barcelena.” He nodded at Ernesta’s gift. “Pick it up, Doc, and open it. Wouldn’t you like to see what’s in it?”
Bogie picked it up cautiously. His fingers trembled, either from fright or from some external force exerted upon them. He tried its glass stopper, quickly put it down. His face perspired. “You may be right, Winters.”
“You mean you can’t open it?”
“That’s what I mean exactly. Suppose you try it.”
Winters drew it across and stared at it wonderingly. He put his right hand on its stopper, but then a voice in memory stayed him. This was something for his defense in time of great need.
“No, Doc,” he said, and drew a sleeve across his face. “I can open it, all right, but—some other time.”
TRAIL OF PAINTED ROCKS
Real Western Stories, February 1956
Deputy Marshal Lee Winters of Forlorn Gap, homeward bound after a day-long chase, rode his tired horse Cannon Ball into ghostly Tallyho Canyon about ten o’clock at night. Stars had lost their earlier brilliance in competition with a full moon. Bright, persistent rays now splashed against high mountain towers and canyon walls. They made his journey a mixture of revealing light and obscuring, uncertain shadow—an arrangement by no means conducive to peace of mind for Winters, already, in anticipation of spooks, afraid of anything that moved.
He was tired anyhow, and he wondered— doubted, indeed—whether he would make it safely home. Warily he had trailed a wanted monkey named Will, alias Speckled Bill, Vaulkner, a crafty fugitive who might have turned at any moment and settled his pursuer’s hash for keeps. This one was official in that a warrant had been issued for his arrest as a mail robbery suspect. Accordingly, no reward for his capture was in prospect, except that gloomy possibility of an avenging six-gun bullet.
Lee had gone but a short distance among Tallyho’s imposing and eerie walls when an unheralded omen brought him to a quick stop. It was a wisp of smoke that rose from an invisible source around a turn and pursued a waving, serpentine course down Tallyho Canyon, past Winters’ nose and up into infinity. Winters sniffed. What he smelled gave him an exhilarated, enchanted feeling, a circumstance that definitely boded no good.
Yet thinking that possibly he had come upon his wanted monkey, he dismounted and crept forward, alert for ambush, half-wishing that what awaited him was only some desert rat preparing an evening meal. He slid between huge rocks, crawled under an overhanging ledge, and came erect with six-gun lifted and cocked. “Hands up!” he commanded sharply.
There was no response. A creature who passed as human sat by a small fire over which hung a bird carcass in slow roast. No wanted monkey was this. On his head was a war bonnet, once certainly imposing and beautiful, but now as unsightly and unimpressive as a buzzard at molting time. He was dressed in buckskin shirt, trousers and moccasins, all scabby and ancient.
Winters holstered his six-gun. “Howdy there, Chief.”
That brought response. A face as wrinkled as a dried grape turned toward him. “How.”
Winters fetched up his horse. “What’s your name, Chief?”
Reply to that inquiry was slow and came from disgruntled feelings. “Why you ask?”
Winters got his temper up. “Because I wanted to know. Why does anybody ask anybody anything?”
“You tell-um me.”
This was getting nowhere. Winters turned to Cannon Ball, said over his shoulder, “I tell-um you nothing.”
“Ho!” There was a crafty yet conciliatory note in that summons.
Winters faced about. “Yeah?”
“Me tell-um. Paleface not badman. Paleface great deputy marshal name Winters. And me? Me great chief. Me Chief Whittlestick.”
Suspicion was born then. Winters felt sweaty. These characters whom he had never seen or heard of before yet who mysteriously knew him gave him chills and creeps. “How come you know me, when I don’t know you?” Winters demanded nervously.
“Me been here heap plenty long time. Know many things.”
Whittlestick’s voice had remote, unreal qualities, his old eyes spectral looks. If there was anything that scared Winters stiff, it was a ghost. Yet he wasn’t going to accept Whittle stick as a ghost unless he had to; he didn’t believe in ghosts. “If you know so much,” he said, feeling unnaturally resentful and bold, “maybe you can answer a question.”
“Me answer question if want to. If don’t want to, won’t.”
Wrinkles on Whittlestick’s face moved as if they were a mass of little snakes crawling, and his eyes had fixity for moments, like snake eyes. Once they seemed but dark empty sockets.
Winters perspired but maintained his false front of courage. “Maybe you know what I’m looking for, Chief Whit? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s a two-legged varmint named Speckled Bill Vaulkner on a paint horse. Have you seen him?”
“Uh.”
“Uh?”
“Uh.”
“Which way did he go?”
Whittlestick had a sharp hunting knife in his right hand, in his left a stick of soft pine. He whittled slowly and curled shavings dropped and rolled away like wheels. After a spell of whittling, he pointed with his knife. “Him went that way.”
Winters looked northwest, toward a distant, haunted wasteland known as Alkali Flat. “That way!” he said with a foolish feeling.
“Um. Him follow signs—paint rocks. Long time Indian trail. Heap mighty trail. Plenty happen.”
“Yeah?” said Winters. In his opinion, this would be a good trail to stay away fro
m. But there was that warrant in his pocket. Getting his fugitive monkey was a matter of pride, as well as of duty. If he had been interested primarily in collecting a reward he would have turned back—gone home to Forlorn Gap by way of Cracked-kettle Creek and Brazerville Road. “Anyhow, Chief, thanks for telling me.”
“Ho!” grunted Whittlestick as Winters was again about to mount his horse. “Me proud chief. Not like it, if Winters not smoke-um peace pipe.”
Winters let his foot down. “All right, Whitty, smoke away. It can’t be said I turned down a chance to be friends.”
Chief Whittlestick lifted his pipe and drew. It had to have a fresh coal of fire. Whitty picked one up with his bare thumb and finger and placed it in his pipe. Winters stared, wondering why there was no indication of pain. However, that cause for wonder soon merged into a greater wonder. When Whittlestick drew on his pipe again, a thin smoke of pale green and orange rose and spiraled like a corkscrew. Winters watched it rise until it lost itself beyond reach of vision.
“Ugh!” grunted Whittlestick.
Winters withdrew his upward gaze and looked at Whittlestick, who extended his long arm and pipe. Instinct of self-preservation warned Winters to mount and ride, but prohibitions that existed between man and man, particularly those against inhospitality, asserted themselves.
He accepted Whittlestick’s pipe and drew what he considered a most conservative draught. But before he could remove its stem from his lips, smoke rose from its bowl, writhed away and then back. As it curled in toward his eyes its forward end took on a face, one that leered and gloated with noiseless laughter.
Winters blinked, shook his head, flung Whittlestick’s pipe at its owner, mounted quickly and dug in his spurs. Cannon Ball reared, twisted, came down and pounded away. Winters had no time for looking back.
* * * *
After a mile or so of clattering run, Cannon Ball had winded himself. He slowed then, and as they passed a smooth section of cliff Winters pulled him to a halt. Moonlight cutting into Tallyho Canyon through an eastward notch fell here with spotlight brightness. That which had caught his attention was an arrow painted in scarlet at a height level with his face. Its sharp end pointed west. Winters stared at it in damp terror, for its paint was not dry. A breeze blew against it, and it quivered as clinging blood.
But that which paralyzed him was appearance of a hand—a hand without a body. Like that of Belshazzar’s palace Winters had heard of from Scripture it traced its message upon a wall. Winters observed with cold fascination. It wrote: Go back, Winters. You are heading for worse than death. Speckled Bill.
Nice feller, thought Winters. He felt himself shrink inside his clothes.
Cannon Ball supplied what Winters lacked— enough volition to move on. Winters hunched his shoulders and tried to button his jacket to keep out what had become a chilly night. His fingers failed to respond and he held his jacket close by clutching it with both hands.
Cannon Ball gaited himself into an easy lope, moved now in darkness, now in moonlight, until he came alongside another smooth-faced cliff and a spot of bright light. Here was another painted rock. Its sign was not an arrow, but a long knife gripped in a savage hand. Winters stared, waited for a hand to write. But no hand appeared.
Cannon Ball resumed his journey, with Winters like something frozen on his back. Lee had heard of painted rocks since he was a button on Trinity River, down in Texas. His pa had talked about them. From Tennessee clear to Texas there were places called Paintrock. He had given them no thought. It might have been better for him if he had.
He came to another. This one was a skull mounted upon a stick. It was painted white. No hand wrote under it, but as Winters rode past without stopping it seemed to turn and grin at him.
Later he came to still another. This one was a second arrow. It pointed north at a cliff where a second canyon branched northward from Tallyho. Winters, still frozen, let Cannon Ball have his way, which proved to be northward.
In a short time Winters knew he was lost. He was in mountainous country he had never seen before. There was so much clatter from Cannon Ball’s hoofs that Winters had a momentary illusion of being on a hundred horses. Of course he was merely a victim of echoes. This was, indeed, a place for them, a wilderness of broken walls, gigantic niches, wind-blown towers and stupendous overhanging rocks.
But he came again to something that looked familiar. Mountain walls ended abruptly; before him spread a great whitish plain. With a shudder he recognized it. Alkali Flat!
Cannon Ball had stopped. Winters unfroze when he discovered why. Before them and slightly to their right a strange fire burned, and around it sat a group of Indian chiefs. Inverted over their fire was suspended what might have been a cow’s dried paunch. Long stems protruded in a circle from its upper bulge, and each outermost end was held in a chief s mouth. They were tenants in common of a huge, inverted pipe supplied with smoke from a smoldering ground-fire.
Apparently they had been only about to start puffing. As if at a signal they removed their mouths and stared at Winters.
One of them said, “How.”
Winters stared at them in disgust. Something about their absurd arrangement made him angry. He said, “What kind of powwow do you call this?”
That one who appeared more hospitable than his companions nodded his head sideways. “Get off horse, Winters. Smoke-um peace pipe.”
Winters swung down. “No Injun can say I ever refused to be a friend.” He left Cannon Ball ground-hitched and joined this queer group.
“But how did you know me?” he asked dryly. “Indian chiefs know heap much plenty,” their spokesman replied.
“Winters great deputy marshal. Killum heap badmen. Me great Cheyenne chief. Me Whirlwind Horse Arrow Bow Plenty Buffalo Killer.”
Winters threw a glance around their small circle. “Maybe these are great chiefs, too?”
“Uh,” replied Whirlwind Horse. He nodded at one. “Him great chief. Roasted Bear.” He nodded at another, a skinny one wrapped in a blanket. “Him Big Freeze.” After nodding at a hostile, dark one, he said wryly, “Him Wolf Dog That Have No Tail.”
Wolf Dog stared at Winters. “Him paleface. Me no like-um.”
Beside Wolf Dog was an upright stake. On its top was a scalp of sandy, thick hair. “Ugh!” Winters grunted. He nodded at Wolfs trophy. “Who’s he?”
Wolf put his shoulders back proudly. “Him Speckled Bill.”
Winters had almost sat down. He changed his mind and remained standing. He let his hand brush past his six-gun to make sure it was there. “Maybe I’m late,” he said warily. “Better ride along, I guess.” He turned to Cannon Ball.
“Ho!” said Whirlwind Horse. “Winters not go; not smoke-um peace pipe.”
Winters hesitated, turned back. “I don’t see any peace pipe.”
Whirlwind Horse made a circular motion with his left hand, palm down. “All one great peace pipe”
“Him paleface,” said Wolf Dog. “Me no like-um.”
Big Freeze, face long and gloomy, moved his right hand in a slow, horizontal circle. “New kind of peace pipe. Smoke-um dream weed. Make wish. Get wish.”
Winters had been brought up on a diet of hate-Indian. He despised these shabby, wormy looking monkeys. Big Freeze’s preposterous talk enraged him. His question was a sneering dare. “Then why do you set around like a bunch of stupes? Why don’t you wish for something?”
Wolf Dog said, “Me no like-um paleface. Him talk too much.”
Chief Roasted Bear gave Winters a sidelong study. “Not think Indian mean what say. But look. Me hungry. Wish for food.”
Roasted Bear leaned forward and put a smoke stem in his mouth. He smoked, and smoke puffing from his mouth spread and enclosed all of them within a dark cloud. Roasted Bear placed his smoke stem in a forked stick for support and straightened. This act was followed by common silence. Then an Indian girl of remarkable beauty emerged from obscurity with a great feast of potatoes, roast beef, coffee and bread upon a woo
den tray. This she placed upon Roasted Bear’s lap, backed away, smiled at Winters, and disappeared.
“Well!” said Winters. “A right good trick.”
Wolf Dog stared malignantly at Winters. “No like-um paleface.”
While others watched, Roasted Bear gorged himself with food, then crawled back a short distance, stretched himself lazily on a blanket and went to sleep.
Winters said scornfully, “Never knowed Injuns could do slight-of-hand tricks before.” He puckered his mouth at Great Chief Big Freeze. “Why don’t you wish for something warm and quit shivering?”
“Um!” said Big Freeze. “Me do that. Paleface think no can do. Me show-um.” Big Freeze’s smoke stem was likewise supported by a forked stick. He put his mouth to it and said from twisted, flapping lips, “Me cold. Wish for teepee and heap fat squaw. Keep-um warm.” He smoked and puffed, and once more a smoke cloud enveloped them. When it had cleared a teepee stood nearby, at its entrance as fat a squaw as Winters had ever seen. Big Freeze gave a wild whoop, rose and hopped off to enjoy his fulfilled wish. He and his fat squaw disappeared inside, and their teepee flap was closed.
Winters looked around. They were within a semi-circular cove with cliffs rising all around, sky-high. He wondered where these fakers had their confederates hid. He glanced at Wolf Dog. That chief was staring at him out of black, malevolent eyes. Winters brushed past his six-gun, partly as a warning, but mostly for reassurance. Wolf Dog said to Winters, “Make wish.”
“Me?” said Winters.
“Um,” said Whirlwind Horse. “Winters make good wish. Make dream. Get wish.”
“Him coward,” said Wolf Dog.
Winters regarded Wolf Dog with vengeful eyes. If he could wish Wolf Dog into an extremely small horned toad, it might be worthwhile. He was bored, however, by these monkeys who thought they were making big medicine. A moonward glance warned him, also, that he was approaching midnight—a bad time to be out on Alkali Flat.