High Country Horror

by Jon Sharpe

  Fargo galloped for the mesa. He listened to the rifle bang three more times before it went empty. A Spencer, he suspected, since Spencers held seven shots.

  Two more bodies joined those already down.

  Tibbit’s hat had been whipped off and he was riding bareheaded and bawling for everyone to follow him. A handful did. The rest made for boulders and patches of vegetation.

  Maybe twenty, all told, reached the mesa, Fargo among them. He clattered into a stand of trees and drew rein. Worthington and another man were right behind them. Together they swung down, shucked their rifles, and moved to trees.

  The Spencer was still silent but Fargo wasn’t fooled. It took only seconds to reload. The Ghoul was waiting for them to show themselves.

  “What do we do?” asked the townsman with Worthington, his eyes wide with fear.

  “We stay put.”

  “But he’s killed a bunch of us.”

  “Listen to Mr. Fargo, Timothy,” Sam Worthington said. “He knows what he’s doing.”

  Timothy half rose from concealment. “So do I. I’ve hunted bear and deer. I’m going up whether you two are or not.” He took a step and his left cheek dissolved in a shower of blood and flesh.

  Fargo dived to pull him to the ground but it was already too late; the exit wound was as big around as an apple. He rolled aside as the body crashed down and took up his position behind the tree.

  “Tim always did think he knew better than other folks,” Sam Worthington said.

  Fargo scoured the slope for sign of the others. They had all gone to ground and were well hid. Then a hatless head popped out from behind a boulder and Marshal Tibbit waved.

  “Fargo! I’m over here! Do you see him?”

  Fargo motioned for him to get down. “I am surrounded by amateurs,” he remarked.

  “Most of us push plows or pencils,” Sam Worthington said. “We’re not man-killers.”

  The bodies sprinkled over the wasteland were a testament to the farmer’s statement. Fargo almost regretted involving them. “Cover me the best you can,” he directed.

  “What are you fixing to do?”

  Fargo made sure a cartridge was in the Henry’s chamber.

  “The Ghoul will pick you off the moment you step into the open,” the farmer remarked.

  “He’ll try.” Fargo sank onto his belly and crawled to Timothy. He had to lift and tug to get the jacket off. Then, holding it in his left hand, he crawled to the last tree.

  Worthington reached the next trunk over. “I’ll spray some lead to discourage him but without knowing where he is it might not help much.”

  “Take care of my horse until I get back.” Fargo tossed the jacket into the open. The Spencer blasted, and simultaneously he pumped his legs for a cluster of boulders forty feet higher. The Spencer cracked again and a dirt geyser spewed next to his foot. Behind him the big farmer commenced shooting as rapidly as he could. A slug clipped a whang from Fargo’s buckskin shirt. Another nicked his hat. He dived and rolled and was up running and bounded the last few yards with his skin prickling.

  Fargo flattened behind a boulder. He was caked with sweat. He looked at Worthington and held his thumb up. Worthington grinned and ducked behind the tree.

  The next moment, to Fargo’s complete and utter amazement, Marshal Tibbit started up the slope after him. Worse, as Tibbit burst from concealment he shouted loud enough for all creation—and the Ghoul—to hear.

  “Here I come! Cover me!”

  Fargo swore and heaved up and fired shot after shot. The Spencer answered. Fargo sent four swift blasts at puffs of gun smoke he spotted and the Spencer fell silent.

  Tibbit gained a nearby boulder and sank to his knees, rasping for breath. “Thanks,” he puffed.

  “You’re a damned fool.”

  “Here now,” Tibbit said. “Don’t start.”

  Fargo studied the slope above them. It wasn’t as steep as it had appeared to be but climbing it would take some doing and he would have to cross a lot of open space.

  “I’ve done pretty good so far,” Tibbit remarked.

  “Besides getting six or seven men shot?” Fargo said. There might be more. He hadn’t counted them.

  “How you can blame that on me, I fail to see.”

  Fargo stared at him.

  “Why do you keep doing that?”

  From the west scuttled the thunderhead. The wind grew stronger, so strong it pushed at Fargo’s hat. The scent of rain was heavy in the air. Flashes of lightning lit the roiling clouds and now and then a bolt streaked to earth.

  Tibbit sat with his back to the boulder and began reloading his revolver.

  “That was a glorious charge, wasn’t it? I only wish so many hadn’t turned tail.”

  “They were the smart ones,” Fargo said.

  “How can you say that? You, of all people?” Tibbit started to insert a cartridge the wrong way and reversed it so it slid into the chamber. “The Ghoul must be brought to bay for his misdeeds and today is the day we do it.”

  “He has uncommon luck.”

  “Why?”

  Fargo nodded at the ever darkening heavens.

  “The storm will help us as much as him. We can sneak up on him under cover of the rain and capture him.”

  “You hope.”

  “Must you always dwell on the worst that can happen?” Tibbit finished reloading and cocked the six-shooter. Cupping his other hand to his mouth, he hollered down, “Men, listen to me! As soon as the rain starts we are going up after him. I’ll give a yell. That will be the signal. Stay close together, and each man watch the other’s back.” He grinned at Fargo. “How was that?”

  “The Ghoul heard that, too.”

  “So? We outnumber him. He’s had the better of us so far but now we’ll get the better of him.” Tibbit chuckled and rubbed his badge with his sleeve. “I do so love this job.”

  “You’re a wonderment,” Fargo said.

  “Thank you.”

  Wet drops struck Fargo’s face. Lightning crackled, close enough to illuminate half the mesa, and the thunder that followed buffeted his eardrums. When it faded he said, “Do you know a man named Timothy?”

  “Tim Bainbridge? Yes. I know him well. He came to Haven about four months ago. He works as a clerk. He has a pretty young wife and a new baby. They are a fine family.”

  “When you get back break the news to her and her baby that her husband was shot in the face.”

  “Why would you say a thing like that?” Tibbit demanded. “Of course I’ll tell her. But why?”

  “Figure it out yourself.”

  “You know,” Marshal Tibbit said, “I am beginning to regret asking you for help. You prick at me like an itch I can’t scratch.”

  “Someone has to,” Fargo said.

  “You make it sound as if I can’t do anything.”

  “You can sell corsets.”

  “You chew a bone to death. Do you know that? When we get back I would be grateful if you would pack up and leave.”

  “When I’m damn good and ready.”

  More drops fell, large cold drops, and then the sky opened up and down came the deluge. The wind howled. The lightning was near continuous, the thunder near constant.

  Fargo darted around the boulder and climbed. He barely heard Tibbit yell for him to stop. The flashes of lightning lit the terrain but the rain was so heavy the Ghoul would have to be ten feet away to spot him. At the next boulder he paused. Bellowing told him Tibbit and the rest of the posse had started up after him. He resumed his ascent.

  The wind howled and keened. The footing became treacherous. Twice Fargo slipped and went down on one knee. He kept a firm grip on the Henry. The slope steepened and he used his free hand for extra purchase. He was soon soaked to the skin and had to repeatedly wipe his sleeve across his face to keep the rain out of his eyes.

  A shot cracked. Not from above but from below. A nervous posse member, Fargo reckoned. He hoped the man hadn’t been shooting at him.

>   Up and up and up he went, the wind pummeling him. He almost lost his hat but snatched it in time to jam it back on. He lowered his head against the rain and pistoned higher and suddenly the ground seemed to fall away under him and he tripped and nearly fell. Crouching, he tried to make sense of it and realized he had come to a flat shelf, invisible from below. The next bolt of lightning showed that it went a good long way in both directions and for forty or fifty feet in.

  Pulling his hat brim as low as it could go to ward off the rain, Fargo slowly advanced. He had a hunch this was where the Ghoul had been firing from. He went maybe twenty feet when he saw what he took to be a boulder about as big as a watermelon. A bolt from above blazed the shelf white with light and in the glare he saw that it wasn’t a boulder at all.

  Fargo crouched and bent lower and his skin crawled as if with a thousand ants.

  It was a woman’s head. Most of the flesh had long since rotted and her skin had withered. Her hair was plastered to what was left of her face and down over the sides of her skull. She had died with her mouth agape in a twisted scream.

  Fargo gripped the hair and turned the head so the face was to the ground. Wiping his hand on his pants, he edged forward. More lightning revealed a cliff that he took to be solid stone until he discerned the black maw of what might be a cave.

  The Ghoul’s lair, Fargo suspected. He wedged the Henry’s stock to his shoulder. Staying low, he moved each foot with care. He was at the cave opening when his foot bumped something. He glanced down and his skin did more crawling. The thing he had bumped was a withered hand, possibly from the same woman.

  Fargo looked up just as lightning streaked the firmament. A dozen feet in stood a figure.

  There was only one person it could be.

  Fargo had found the Ghoul.

  18

  Fargo trained the Henry on the center of the figure and curled his finger around the trigger. Another instant and he would have fired. But something about the figure gave him pause. He waited for the next bolt to light up the shelf, and when it did, he slowly straightened. As wary as a cougar, he moved into the cave.

  It smelled of food odors and woodsmoke and human sweat. He was close enough now that the next flash confirmed what he thought he had seen—the figure had long flowing hair and its arms and legs were outspread. More bolts revealed more details: the blackened embers of a fire; a mess of blankets; a shovel and an ax; the haunch of a deer; a lantern, and beside it a box of lucifers. Hunkering, he soon had the lantern lit.

  In its glow Fargo saw the figure clearly. She was young, barely twenty, and as naked as the day she had been born. Her wrists and ankles were bound to poles imbedded in the cave floor. Her head hung low, her hair half over her face, and her eyes were closed. Either she was unconscious or she was dead. A gag suggested the former.

  Fargo raised the lantern higher. The cave went back another ten feet and ended at a rock wall. Lying over near the right wall were female undergarments and a pair of shoes. The woman’s, he suspected. He went up to her, set the lantern down, and lightly touched a finger to her throat. There was a pulse, weak but steady. He was lowering his hand when her eyelids fluttered and her eyes slowly opened. They were dull and vacant.

  “Are you Myrtle Spencer?”

  At the sound of his voice she stiffened and stark terror wiped away the dullness. She mewed in fear and weakly tugged at the ropes. Her wrists and ankles, he saw, were caked with dried blood.

  “It’s all right. I’m here to help you.”

  The woman stopped mewing and blinked. Tears started to flow and she quaked from head to toe.

  “Where is the man who did this to you?” Fargo asked. “Where is the Ghoul?”

  The woman went on quaking. Her tears went on flowing.

  Fargo set down the Henry and drew the Arkansas toothpick from his ankle sheath. “I’ll have you down in a moment.” He cut the rope on her right ankle and then on her left, careful not to cut her. Rising, he sliced the rope on her left wrist and she sagged and would have collapsed if he hadn’t hooked an arm around her to support her. She was still quaking. He cut the rope on her right wrist and she fell against him. With great care he carried her to the blankets and went to lay her on them.

  Myrtle Spencer, if that is who she was, looked down and broke into violent convulsions. She shrieked and struck at his chest and kicked but she was so weak he hardly felt the blows. Baffled, he drew back.

  “What’s the matter? I need to put you down.”

  The woman grew still. But when he went to lay her on the blankets she whimpered and kicked. At last he understood. Backing away from the blankets, he eased her to the ground. She didn’t resist. He pried at the gag but the knots were so tight he had to resort to the toothpick. “Are you Miss Spencer?”

  She stared at him without answering. Or, rather, past him, at the roof of the cave.

  “Myrtle Spencer?” Fargo tried once more.

  The vacant quality was in her eyes. They lacked any spark of vitality whatsoever.

  “I’m with a posse. We’re after the Ghoul.”

  She might as well have been on another world.

  “Do you know where he got to?”

  Nothing.

  “Would you like water or food?”

  Nothing at all.

  Fargo stood and brought the undergarments over and with a lot of lifting and him doing all the work, he slipped a chemise over her head and shoulders and pulled it down as low as it would go. He had just finished and stepped back when Marshal Tibbit bellowed.

  “A cave, by God, boys!”

  Boots thudded and scraped.

  Into the cave rushed Joseph Spencer. He came to Fargo’s side, and groaned. His face was pale as a sheet. “Myrtle, honey? It’s your pa.”

  She showed no more life than she had with Fargo.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” Joseph knelt and gently clasped her hand. “You’re safe now, girl.”

  Fargo was aware of other men ringing them. Tibbit was on his left, dripping wet and grinning.

  “We found her! We actually found her. This will show everyone I’m not worthless.”

  Fargo almost hit him.

  “Myrtle?” Joseph touched her cheek and her brow. “What’s wrong with her? Why won’t she say anything?”

  “Could be she’s in shock,” a man said.

  “Could be she’s been scared out of her mind,” said another.

  “Myrtle?” Joseph lightly shook her shoulders but all she did was go on staring her eerie empty stare. “God, no.”

  “Where’s the Ghoul?” a townsman asked, and the rest of the men began moving about the cave searching when it was plain he wasn’t there.

  Marshal Tibbit beamed at Fargo. “You did it. You said you would find him and you did. We’re all in your debt, me most of all.”

  “It’s not over,” Fargo said.

  Outside, the storm was abating. The rain had reduced to a drizzle and the lightning flashes were fewer and farther between.

  “Did you see the Ghoul? Did you get a good look at him?”

  Fargo shook his head.

  “Well, he can’t have gotten far. We’ll get him yet. With your help he’s as good as caught.”

  Fargo could have pointed out that the rain had washed away any tracks.

  He reclaimed the Henry and went to the cave mouth. The worst of the thunderhead was to the east and the clouds overhead had gone from black to gray.

  Sam Worthington came over and stood staring into the drizzle. “He’s gotten clean away, hasn’t he?”

  “He has,” Fargo said.

  “Damn.” The big farmer looked over his shoulder. “That poor girl. She’s a friend of my daughter’s. You should have known her. Always so sweet and kind and forever smiling.” He ran a callused hand across his brow. “What could he have done to her?”

  “You know as well as I do.”

  “Yes. Yes, I suppose I do. I just don’t want to admit it. It goes against everything that is decent in t
his world. I don’t understand how a thing like this can happen.”

  “Ask God,” Fargo said.

  The farmer scowled. “That’s a terrible thing to say. The parson would call it blasphemy.”

  “Have the parson ask Myrtle Spencer how she feels.”

  Worthington looked at him and said, not without admiration, “You’re a hard man.”

  “It’s a hard life.”

  Marshal Tibbit bustled over looking as happy as if he had just eaten a fresh-baked apple pie. “We can’t get a word out of her but I bet the doc can.” He scanned the wet wasteland and nudged Fargo. “The rain has about stopped. How soon can you head out after the Ghoul?”

  “He’s long gone.”

  “He can’t have more than half an hour start on us,” Tibbit said. “Forty minutes at the most. Find which direction he took and me and five or six others will go with you. The rest are taking Myrtle back to town.”

  “I’ll look around,” Fargo said. Now that he thought about it, there hadn’t been any sign the Ghoul kept his mount in the cave. It had to be elsewhere. He hiked to the north end of the shelf. The slope beyond was too steep for a horse. He walked to the south and was thirty feet past the cave when he spied a game trail leading toward the crest. Made, no doubt, by whatever used the cave before the Ghoul moved in. Fargo headed up, the footing treacherous on the wet rocks. In spots the climb was almost sheer. Eventually he gained the summit and found what he was looking for: a stake and a rope.

  Essentially flat, the top of the mesa was sprinkled with brush and boulders. The ground was mostly dirt, not rock. Old tracks, extremely faint but not entirely washed away, pointed to the south.

  Fargo turned and hurried down the mesa to the Ovaro. As he was crossing the shelf someone called his name.

  Most of the posse had gathered outside the cave, apparently waiting for Joseph Spencer and his daughter.

  Marshal Tibbit had spotted him and came over. “Where are you off to in such a rush?”