“He hunts the biggest of all game: human souls. Just as you or I might trail our quarry by the tracks it leaves, Old Scratch gets on the trail of his human prey by the smell of the sins he or she has committed. For a sin is a stench in the nostrils of the righteous and an offense to the Almighty,” said Jenkins Vale.
“A mortal man uses a pack of hunting dogs to sniff out the trail of the beast he seeks. Trust Old Scratch to have himself a pack of hunting dogs unlike anything in the natural world this side of heaven and earth, that unholy brood of relentless, unstoppable, insufferable sin-sniffers, a foul brood of four-legged fiends: the hellhounds!”
Hellhounds! The very name sent shivers along little Bill’s spine, making his blood run cold. With ever-mounting dread he sat still, rigid, as though the least little motion would call the hellhounds’ wrath down on his head.
In fascinated horror, little Bill heard the preacher tell the tale of how the hellhounds came to reside in the Kennels of Chaos amid the Eternal Inferno.
Each hellhound was as big and tall as a pony. Their paws were larger than human hands and equipped with razor-sharp talons, each curved like a crescent moon. Their bones were iron and their hides tough as armor plate. They came in such colors as coal-black, blood-red, bile-green, jaundice-yellow, pumpkin-moon.
Their ears were triangles pressed point-up at the sides of their skulls, and their eyes were burning coals. Gaping maws were fitted with multiple rows of teeth that were little daggers. Their nostrils were complex bundles that could smell out even the smallest sin.
“Once a hellhound gets a whiff of sin, the brood trails that sinner until his or her dying day—and beyond. Other people can’t see them, only the sinner. With cruel patience they wait and wait, always there so the sinner can see them but invisible to all others. Pity these poor sinners who can never know a moment’s peace. Haunted by the knowledge that when they draw their last breaths, they will find not the peace of the grave but the never-ending torment of a nightmare that’s only begun, for death’s door leads them only into the bloody-fanged jaws of the hellhounds, to whom they belong now and forever. Amen!” Preacher Vale said breathlessly.
“Think on that before you yield unto temptation and fall into sin, you who stand on the brink of a cliff, hesitating before taking the final plunge from which there is no return, no salvation! Think on that, you weak-willed sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, and repent!”
Preacher Vale continued. “Repent, Repent! For once you fall into the jaws of the hellhounds, it’s too late, nothing can save you! Repent!” At this, he triumphantly concluded his sermon, leaving his audience stunned and silent.
Then someone shouted, “Hallelujah!”
Another joined in and then another until the crowd was transformed into a shouting cheering mass, chanting “Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah!”
Little Bill sat stiff and shocked. A sharp poke in the ribs from Ma broke the spell, bringing the youngster around to a sense of himself and where he was.
Little Bill Longley took up the chant, shouting as loud as he could for as long as he could.
That night back at home in his bunk he fell into a black bottomless pit of sleep, mercifully free of dreams.
The next night the nightmares began. He woke up screaming in the middle of the night. Ma and Pa were quite cross with him. The following night when it happened again he got a whipping.
It happened the next night and the next, hellhound nightmares, then a whipping. After eight or ten days and nights he got himself under control so he remembered not to scream when he started awake in the dead of night from a dream of burning coal-eyes and razor-sharp teeth that ripped and tore . . .
The screaming stopped, but the nightmares continued for another month before they began to taper off.
Longley mastered his fear of the hellhounds but he never forgot them.
* * *
Now running for his life in what might perhaps be the last few hours of his life—minutes, even—Bill Longley found himself tormented by a new breed of hellhound.
The hellhounds of yesteryear were the product of a child’s overactive imagination. Today’s hellhounds were stark reality, relentless man-hunters who’d been dogging Longley since they first clashed early that morning east of Weatherford.
Bill had managed to thin the bunch, taking down two outside Weatherford and three in Mineral Wells. He didn’t know the ultimate fate of the Weatherford duo, but they were definitely out of the hunt. The Mineral Wells trio, he knew, were dead.
The rest of them had stuck close to him ever since Mineral Wells. There were eight of them and they had him pinned and they were gaining on him.
They were hellhounds for damned sure. He’d been thinking of them that way for a long time now as the day wore on. He was aching to turn the tables on them but it simply wasn’t in the cards, not yet and not as far as the eye could see. Which was pretty damned far on this sprawling seemingly endless Texan flat.
He toyed with the idea of turning around and coming at them with both guns blazing. It was a loco idea and he knew the pressure must be getting to him. At eight to one that would be a suicide run.
Bill didn’t like running; it went against his grain. If he only had himself to consider he might have tried it anyway. But he had to stay alive because he was on a mission bigger than himself.
He hadn’t come so far, crossing hundreds of miles from the swampy East Texas Gulf Coast lands to North Central Texas to be stopped when he was so close to his goal.
But the choice might not be his to make. It was now mid-afternoon and the new hellhounds had been in sight of him for some time. Bill calculated that at this rate they’d soon be within shooting distance.
On he raced west on the Hangtree Trail, a trail he had come to passionately hate. Was there no end to it?
A ribbon of dirt road stretching across plains varied by low ridges and shallow hollows, gorges, and tiny rounded hills that seemed like giant ant mounds. Gray clouds hemmed it in from horizon to horizon.
The bay was a fine horse with a big heart, speed, and stamina. But it had been ridden too hard for too long with little real rest. The bay was fading, nearing the end of its endurance.
The hellhounds’ mounts were fresh by comparison. They’d only been at the chase for one day only, and not a full day at that!
The pursuers were steadily closing the gap. Two lead riders were less than fifty yards behind and coming fast. The others weren’t too far behind them.
On Longley rode. Time passed. He didn’t know how much. All too soon crackling noises broke out nearby.
Gunfire!
Bill glanced back. The two lead riders were now within shooting distance, popping away at him with pistols.
Bullets whipped past Bill on all sides with angry thrumming bumblebee noises. His immunity couldn’t last forever and didn’t.
“Ahrghh!” The shot grazed him, leaving its brand on his flesh. He shuddered from the impact of its passage.
“It’ll take more than that to stop me,” he vowed.
They had more.
Ahead was a low rise. As Bill neared the top a hammer blow slammed his left shoulder, blowing off a chunk of it. The hit knocked him sideways. Bill felt himself going off the saddle, but he was helpless to stop the fall.
He dropped, tumbling to the ground on the far side of the rise. He rolled head over heels, taking a pounding. The turf-covered ground spared him some of the worst of it.
The bay kept right on going, so used to running that it didn’t stop.
SEVEN
The two lead riders who had downed Longley halted at the top of the rise, looking at the body sprawled facedown and motionless.
They were of Loman Vard’s Twelve, now reduced to six. Plus Vard made seven.
Hampden Bray was big, thick featured, with a loose oafish mouth. Milt Mills had sleek silver-gray hair with a well-trimmed mustache to match.
“Haw! Got him!” Bray crowed.
“I got him,” Mil
t Mills said.
“Like hell you did!” Bray got hot fast; money and bragging rights were involved. “My shot brought him down!”
“I want to see what I got,” Milt Mills said, starting his horse downhill.
“What I got,” Bray insisted, doing the same.
The two halted near Bill Longley’s body.
“So that’s what all the fuss was about! He don’t look like much now,” Bray sneered.
“He was good enough to do for Kurt, Ginger, and Acey-Deucy in Mineral Wells,” Milt Mills said, “and they wasn’t none of them shot in the back.”
“He must have took ’em by surprise.”
“He wounded two of ours back in Weatherford and knocked one of them clean out of the chase.”
“Beginner’s luck,” Hampden Bray said. “The chase is over, and I ended it.”
“I did!” Mills countered.
Bray gave the other a hard look, Milt Mills returning the stare impassively. Here were two hardcases well schooled in giving hard looks.
It was Hampden Bray who was the first to break eye contact, climbing down from his horse. “What’s the kid’s name? I forget.”
“Longley—Something Longley,” Milt Mills said. “Or maybe Longley Something,” he added after a pause.
Hampden Bray went to the body as a third rider came downhill. The newcomer, Big Taw, was a hulking brute, a man-mountain riding a dappled gray the size of a quarter horse.
“You got him,” Big Taw said, and grinned.
“I sure did!” Hampden Bray said, chest swelling with pride.
“I did,” Milt Mills said.
“I don’t give a good damn who got him so long as he’s got. My tailbone’s sore from all that riding,” said Big Taw.
“You’d give a damn if it was you who got him,” Hampden Bray said.
“Me,” Milt Mills said, indicating himself by pointing at himself with his thumb. “I took him.”
“Fun’s fun but I ain’t funning,” Milt Mills said.
“The kid probably killed hisself so he wouldn’t have to listen to you two jawboning.” Big Taw laughed.
Bill Longley lay facedown with his right arm under him and his left stretched out at his side. Hampden Bray went down on one knee beside the body.
He took hold of Bill’s left arm at the elbow and roughly rolled him over on his back, saying, “Let’s have a look at you, sonny.”
Bill had a gun in his right hand pressed against his chest. He’d been playing possum. It took all he could do to keep from crying out from the pain of Bray manhandling his left arm with its wounded shoulder, but it was all worth it for the look on Bray’s face when he saw the pistol.
Bill Longley put a bullet in the middle of that face at point-blank range. Bray catapulted backward.
Milt Mill, still in the saddle, drew his gun and fired. The horse sidled and danced, throwing off Mill’s aim. Several rounds tore into the ground near Bill.
Bill rose on his side, breath hissing through clenched teeth from the agony that motion wrung from his shoulder wound. He returned fire, tagging Milt Mills in the middle with a couple of rounds.
“Oww!” Milt Mills crumpled, dropping his gun. He gripped his saddle horn with both hands to stay on his horse.
Big Taw had already stepped down from the saddle. Gun raised, he rushed Bill from behind. Bill couldn’t turn around fast enough to stop him.
Big Taw savagely sent the gun barrel crashing down against the back of Bill’s head, sending him rocketing off into darkness.
Big Taw rubbed his lantern jaw thoughtfully as he stood over Bill Longley. “No shooting for you . . . shooting’s too easy.”
EIGHT
Loman Vard and the rest of what was left of his band of Twelve, strung out in a loose arc, came on to the east slope of the rise.
They were five: Vard and Narcisco Velez, Ryland Fenton, Duff Toplin, and Dick Stratton.
This was after Longley had been downed and Bray, Mills, and Big Taw had disappeared behind the low wall-like ridge—between eight and ten feet tall—that extended nearly as far as the eye could see.
A fresh outburst of gunfire broke out on the far side of the ridge. It was almost over as soon as it began.
“Now what?” Vard spat sourly. His sharp-featured face showed rattlesnake eyes and a skinny mustache that smacked of the tinhorn. There was a lot of tinhorn in Loman Vard but more of the killer.
“Mebbe they’re finishing the kid off,” Dick Stratton suggested.
“I counted about a half-dozen shots. It only takes one to shoot somebody in the head,” said Vard.
“Somebody got restless, maybe,” Stratton said.
“Here comes Milt,” said Duff Toplin, suet faced and heavyset, a sometimes Weatherford deputy marshal. He wore no badge when riding with the Twelve. “He’ll tell us what’s up.”
Milt Mills rode his horse over the top of the ridge, starting down the near slope. He held on to the saddle horn with both hands, the reins trailing near the ground. His head was bowed forward, his hat hiding his face completely.
“He don’t look so good,” Narcisco Velez said.
Vard took out a long skinny cigar that looked like a brown twig, stuck it between his jaws, and lit up, puffing a rank-smelling cloud of smoke smelling of burned cherries.
Milt Mills came on toward the band, bent almost double over the horse’s neck. Somebody hailed him, calling him by name but receiving no response.
His horse advanced at a slow steady pace, closing on the others, its course taking it near Vard.
“Look at Milt’s front, it’s all blood!” Stratton gasped.
Milt Mills drew abreast of Vard. He would have kept right on going had Duff Toplin not leaned over in his saddle and grabbed the reins of the other’s horse, halting it.
“Lord, Milt, what happened?” Toplin demanded.
Milt Mills slowly lifted his head, showing glazed staring eyes in a blue-white face. Whatever those eyes were looking at, it was not of this world.
“I’m dead,” he said.
Toplin was so taken aback that he let go of the reins. The horse started forward, going a few paces before Milt Mills fell off.
Dick Stratton dismounted, hunkering down beside the fallen man.
“He’s dead now,” he announced.
Velez cursed, pulling his gun and spurring his horse up the slope. When he reached the top he saw Big Taw standing over Bill Longley’s inert form.
“Longley’s taken! . . . alive!” Velez shouted back down to the others, waving to them to come on over.
* * *
Bill Longley returned to wakefulness, sputtering, coughing, choking. He lay on the ground, ringed by Vard and the remnants of his band. Duff Toplin stood over Bill, emptied the contents of a canteen into his upturned face.
Bill pawed at the stream of water with his right hand, trying to brush it away.
“Back to the land of the living.” Toplin laughed.
“But not for long.” Velez grinned, showing a mouthful of gleaming white teeth centered by a gold front tooth.
“Not too soon, either,” Ryland Fenton said. They called him “Rile” because of his ornery disposition. It was on display now as he glared down at Bill with murder in his eyes.
“This lowdown dirty son killed blood-kin of mine. Kurt Angle was my cousin. Longley’s gonna pay for what he done, pay hard!”
“He killed a lot of good men today,” Big Taw said. “Some was friends of mine.”
“So what? Acey-Deucy owed me a hundred dollars’ gambling debt,” Duff Toplin said mournfully. “I’ll never see that money now . . .”
“You got your priorities wrong-way around, lawman. People is more important than money,” Rile Fenton said.
“Not when it’s my money,” Toplin hurled back.
Rile Fenton actually felt the same way but he liked to needle Toplin and make him look bad.
“You’ll have your fun, boys,” Vard promised. “All in due time. Don’t rush things.”
“It’s a long way off, beyond the far rim of the basin. No guarantee it’s going to head this way,” Loman Vard said.
They were to wind around of the eastern ridge, inside the basin. The ridge was part of an oval ring several miles in diameter. It enclosed the site of a dry lake bottom with walls some ten feet high.
“Mortlake,” it was called on maps and surveyors’ charts, from the French, “Morte du lac.”
They were all wrong, from the French trapper and explorer who first named the site several hundred years earlier to the modern-day, up-to-the-minute Texas locals of Year AD 1867 who called the site “Dead Lake.”
The hard-packed ground was shot through with cracks, creating a kind of natural pattern looking like a giant spiderweb. Weeds grew in the cracks. The Vard gang’s horses were hitched to gnarled scraggly shrubs that looked like dwarf trees.
In the far distance at the basin’s western rim, a vast charcoal-gray cloud bulked over the horizon, blotting out the sun. A narrow gray whirlwind extended like a feeler from the cloud’s underside to a point beyond the western rim wall. It spun like a top, whirling, widening, narrowing, then repeating the cycle.
“It’s a damned tornedo!” Dick Stratton cried.
“I see it, Dick,” Loman Vard said. “What of it?”
“Let’s get out of here!”
“It’s far away on the other side of the basin, moving north. We’re safe here.”
“Yeah, hold on to your guts, Strat, if you got any,” Rile Fenton said.
But Stratton’s fears were not so easily gentled. “Gunning down some punk kid is one thing, but you can’t shoot down a twister,” he cried.
“You want to run, run. I got me some evening-up to do.” Rile Fenton spat down at Bill Longley. “I’m sticking.”
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