by Barry Reese
The brute was clearly hurting, but it wasn’t going down easy. It had plenty of time to twist my head off before it dropped. It reached out with one of those huge clawed hands and I shot it point blank in the palm. I looked at it through the fresh hole in its hand and the beast roared in pain. Before I could even cock my weapon, a furry arm belted me off my feet and into the wall at my back. Some-thing cracked inside my chest.
The longer the fight lasted, the better my chances were. As the beast closed in on me, I fired another shot into it open mouth. it tried to roar, but it came out as spray of blood and foam, covering me in its red spittle.
“Giving up yet, ugly? I’d be happy to leave if you want to call it a draw.”
It clutched its throat and studied me intently. Did it understand me? There was something vaguely human behind those eyes. It stumbled forward and I fired a shot into its left eye, splattering it like a grape across its face. It wavered and managed to take another step. It was just going to keep on coming until one of us was dead. There was only one civilized way left to solve our dispute.
I holstered my gun, reached behind my back, and pulled the stick of dynamite out of my belt. In one smooth motion, I plucked a match from my hatband and struck it on the heel of my boot.
I stared the creature in its good eye. “Sorry about all this. Looks like you had a good thing going. But now I have to ride back to Des Moines by myself and deliver some bad news. So...”
The fuse hissed as I touched the match to it. I jammed the stick in the bloody hole where its left eye used to be and fell back holding my aching ribs. A gurgled howl erupted from the beast and it clutched its face in pain. I made a move to get past it when a blindly flailing fist took my legs out from under me. I crumpled to the cave floor and watched as it staggered towards the crescent tunnel that led back out into the box canyon.
“Aw, you dirty cocksucker...”
My world went sideways. The explosion shook the cavern like God himself rolling the bones. I was thrown across the room into the rear alcove and peppered with bits of fur, gore, and rock. All I could hear was a high pitched whine in my head as I dusted myself off and rummaged around in the rubble for my hat.
The good news was that my hat made it through the experience. It needed a dip in the river, but it had been through worse. The bad news was that the blast had collapsed the tunnel out.
“Well, shit,” I murmured and then was swept away in the blackness.
It took me a good three days, but I managed to dig myself a way out of there using the hand shovel from the creature’s collection of shiny treasures. I was lucky the weather worked in my favor; I collected some rain water from the holes in the cavern ceiling. My only source of food came from the remains of the beast I pulled out of the rocky debris. Let me tell ya, monster jerky ain’t half bad when you’re starving for anything to put in your belly. Either way, I did what I needed to survive and not have that cave become my final resting place.
Now I found myself riding on a fresh horse, headed eastward to Des Moines. My saddlebags were full of new equipment and I’d replaced the Winchester I’d lost. My purse was bulging and I still had a lone gold ingot to deliver to Lily along with the news of her being a widow. I hadn’t made up my mind yet if I was going to tell her how Adam died. The story sounded too outlandish every time I went over it in my head. Hell, I’d have a hard time believing it and I lived through it.
As I rode off into the rising sun, I decided I’d likely be taking the story with me to my grave. Mysterious Indians, severed heads, lost gold, magic potions, and monsters. Who in the world was going to believe me and my tale of the beast of the Black Hills?
STORMS OF BLOOD AND SNOW
by Derrick Ferguson
It was after he participated in a range war down in Cartwright County that Sebastian Red once again took up the trail of Madman Mike McGee and his partner Chris the Ix. Those two together represented the largest cash reward Sebastian or any other bounty hunter had ever seen in those parts. They also were the craziest and most elusive rascals unhanged. Sebastian Red had spent considerable time and effort pursuing them, had even come close a time or two, but to date they’d eluded his sword and gun.
Their latest outrage occurred in a small settlement at the foot of the Savales Mountain Range. A town of only a hundred souls, the number had been reduced by nearly half after a visit of a week from those two, and the rest traumatized for life. It never failed to amaze Sebastian Red that for all their canniness and cunning, there were basic things that McGee and the Ix never remembered. Such as, they were supposed to rustle the cattle and rape the women, not the other way round.
The trail went up into the mountains and Sebastian Red quite naturally followed. Not just because of the bounty, but curiosity as well. He’d never been in this region. Rode around it a time or two, that’s all. He’d never had work that necessitated bringing him here, despite the wanderlust that raged inside of him like a fever. The thought of seeing new land, new towns, and new faces excited him and drove away the melancholia that so often infested his waking hours as well as his dreams.
Even Ra seemed thrilled. The great bronze stallion’s eyes glittered with a fire that matched that of the man who sat on his broad back. For the next three days, man and horse followed the trail of the two owlhoots deeper and deeper into the mountains. Nights in those mountains were cold but oddly enough for one born and raised in the warm southern land of Carrincha, Sebastian found the chill invigorating. It was a different sort of cold here. A clean cold. When he made camp at night, he wrapped himself in his thick sheepskin coat, the Sharps rifle he had won two years ago at the Great Quigley Buffalo Rifle Match across his knees. He listened to the winds as they blew through the passes and the valleys. Sometimes it sounded almost as if the mountains were singing. Other times as if they were crying. But it always sounded seductive and soothing. And while Sebastian slept by his small fire, Ra would stand stone still, nothing moving save for his ears as they twitched this way and that. He heard the song of these strange mountains as well.
During the day Sebastian Red heard nothing. As if the wind went away and took its rest during the day in a dark and forgotten cave, regaining its strength for the night. There was game and vegetation aplenty and both man and horse ate well. But it was as if they both drew their true sustenance from the songs of the mountains.
It was on the fourth day that Sebastian Red lost the trail. Inexplicably, the track of the two horses the despera-does rode simply vanished as if the riders and their horses had been plucked straight up into the air by giant invisible hands. But as far as he knew, neither outlaw had any skill as a spellslinger, so they could not have transported them-selves away by that means. And in any case, why come so deeply into the mountains and then work a spell? It would have made more sense to try and ambush Sebastian Red, seeing as how there were two of them and one of him.
Almost as if he could read his rider’s thoughts, Ra nickered reproachfully. Sebastian grinned and stroked the huge horse’s thickly muscled neck. Yes, Sebastian had been wrong. It would have been an equal fight. Two against two.
But there was still the mystery of what had happened to McGee and the Ix. Sebastian hadn’t noted the track of any large beasts or mountain cats that could present a threat to a pair of well-armed men. Still he loosened his long barreled, seven shot .45 Leone Nightmaster in its well-worn holster just in case.
Sebastian Red pressed on, intrigued by these mountains and even more by the mystery of what had happened to his quarry. He sensed no danger and if Ra had, the horse would have indicated such. And so he rode on deeper into the Savales Mountains. Despite their remoteness, there were remarkably clear trails that made navigation relatively untroubled. Someone traveled these mountains on a regular basis. He had the suspicion that he would come to a town soon and on the fifth day, he did.
It had been cloudy and damp all that morning. Water dripped from the brim of his sombrero, so laden with moisture it was. At the summit o
f the trail, the road forked. Sebastian Red stroked Ra’s neck. “I’ll leave it up to you, boy. What’s your pleasure?”
Ra’s head turned toward the left, then to the right, nostrils flaring, ears rotating back and forth. He let out a whuff and nodded his head as if agreeing with himself, then started down the right fork which elevated gradually for the next four or five miles. At the summit, Sebastian Red saw a crude hut built on a platform some ten feet high in the middle of the road. On either side of the hut were two huge boulders. One painted red and the other, white.
Sebastian Red pulled back on the reins slightly, bringing Ra to a stop. “Hello, the guard tower!”
The blanket hung in front of the opening was thrust aside by a hand and an aged, furious Asian face peered downward. “You tryin’ to be funny, hay?”
Sebastian leaned on the horn of his saddle and grinned up amiably at the man. “Not tryin’ to be funny at all, uncle. I mean, that is the purpose of this bein’ here, ain’t it? You’re the guard of the road, right?”
The Asian man came all the way out of the hut and sat crossed legged in front of it, a Winchester across his bony knees. “I don’t guard a thing. I just collect tolls.”
“And how much would that be, uncle?”
“Whatcha got?”
Sebastian Red chuckled as he dug a silver coin out of a small leathern money bag dangling from his saddle and flipped it to the toll man. He plucked it from the air with the speed and dexterity of a much younger man and gave it a confirming bite. Nodding in satisfaction, he waved the rifle in the “pass, friend” gesture.
“My thanks to you, uncle,” Sebastian Red saluted as Ra slowly started forward. “Might I ask the name of this town?”
“Zeso.”
“An odd name.”
“One from the Bocusery tongue, I’m told.” The aged Asian retreated back into his hut. “Don’t bother me on your way out,” he threw over his shoulder.
Sebastian Red laughed as he rode on. Once he was in the town proper he knew why it was there and what its purpose was. Towns like this were not intended for settlers. It was simply a place for travelers through the mountains to be able to rest for a few days. Have some hot meals; sleep in a warm, comfortable bed. And then there were the other amenities such as gambling, liquor, and women. Sebastian had seen plenty of towns such as this.
It mostly was one long street with several small streets branching off the main one. No bank and no church. Folks that lived in towns like Zeso kept their own money and worshipped their own gods. About two dozen buildings lined each side of the wide, muddy road. The buildings had once all been different colors but now they all were the same dingy, dull brownish gray. No one ever bothered to repaint them. But they looked as if they’d all been built to last.
Sebastian noted a general store on his left and made a mental note to himself to make that his first stop after he’d secured lodging for the night, seen to Ra’s needs, and put a hot meal in his stomach. He was quietly surprised to see a bookstore on his right. Somehow he hadn’t expected to find one of those way the hell out here. He passed a doctor’s office; saw an owly looking man standing in the door, wearing a grossly stained lab coat, wiping his hand on an even grosser rag. Sebastian Red touched the brim of his sombrero in the man’s direction in polite greeting. The owly looking man nodded back pleasantly enough.
Sebastian stopped in front of a three story establishment that claimed to be a hotel. Across the way to Sebastian Red’s left was a whorehouse. Rouged and painted woman leaned out of windows and despite the cold brazenly displayed their breasts as he admired the view, gallantly touching the brim of his sombrero to them. They hooted, laughed and pleaded for him to come visit.
Sebastian Red was about to climb down off of Ra when something caught his eye further up the street. A cantina. But it wasn’t precisely the cantina. It was the woman who stood on the porch, smoking a long pipe. Even from this distance Sebastian was amazed at the pure whiteness of the torrent of hair that fell to her shoulders and half way down her back.
Intrigued, he turned Ra in that direction and continued on, ignoring the cries of the whores to come back, don’t leave now. As he came closer he saw that she was barefoot but amazingly, not a speck of mud marred the perfection of those small feet. Her skin was nowhere near as dark as Sebastian’s but it was dark enough, her having enough exotic blood to give it a dusky coppery glow. Her figure was that of a young girl’s but her face had the lines and experience of a woman who knew well the world and all its ways.
And that hair. Sebastian Red had never in all his life, in all his travels, seen hair that pure white. Maybe when as a child in Carrincha he had lain on his back in fields of tall emerald green grass and looked up at the majestically floating clouds so impossibly high in the sky. Yes. Yes.
Her bright gray eyes sized up the tall man wearing buckskins. A wide-brimmed sombrero sat atop a head of tight dreadlocks hanging to his shoulders. Small wooden idols and gold coins so old that the images on both sides were worn smooth were woven into his hair. Several necklaces hung around his throat, thin necklaces of gold and silver with bits of colored crystal dangling. The huge black seven shot revolver rested on his right hip and on his left a scabbarded sword. Five feet of shining death. The hilt banded with well-worn leather. The pommel a gauntlet holding a rose. So wonderfully worked in silver and ivory it was a masterful piece of craftsmanship.
“Afternoon, ma’am. Didn’t expect to find a settlement or town this far into these here mountains.”
The white-haired woman removed the pipe from her mouth and pointed off to the east with the long stem. “Another two days ride and you’d be out of the mountains. Lots of towns on the other side. Zeso is what you might call a way station. Place for folks to rest up for a spell traveling through the mountains. Or a refuge if they get caught by a storm. You’d do well to stay for a day or three, Sebastian Red.”
Normally, having his name dropped so casually by a stranger would have earned this woman a bullet in her forehead. Sebastian Red had many enemies who sought his life, both human and not. But if this woman had been a demon of any sort, Ra would have immediately sensed it and alerted him. Only thing Ra hated worse than rattlers were demons.
“We ever met, woman?”
The white-haired woman resumed smoking her pipe. “We’ve never met.”
“How come you to know my name, then?”
“I listen to the wind in these mountains. If one gives proper ear to what they say, they speak. The winds told me days ago you were comin’ to Zeso. You know well what I say. You’ve listened to the mountains at night. They spoke to you as well, even if you didn’t understand what they were saying.”
“You a witch woman, then?”
“I have knowledge of certain Arts.” The look in the woman’s eyes plainly communicated to Sebastian what she meant. “My name is Elora. Come rest yourself in my poor establishment.”
Sebastian Red’s eyes never left hers as he replied; “Reckon I will.”
Elora gestured again with her pipe stem. “Stable your animal in the back and come on in. I’ll whip up some food and drink. Draw you a hot bath after you eat.”
Sebastian Red climbed down off of Ra. He walked the horse to the small stable in back and removed the saddle. A search of the stable turned up a covered bucket of oats. Sebastian found another empty bucket and filled it from the trough out back. He gave Ra a quick rub down with a handful of hay, promising him that Sebastian would do a more thorough job later on. He picked up his saddle in one hand, his rifle in the other, and went on in the cantina.
It was nothing special; maybe a little cleaner than most he’d been in. Four rough round wooden tables, each with two or three chairs. Green and white curtains hung over the windows and doorways. Elora cooked at a small stove tucked in a corner. Sebastian dropped his saddle by the door and took a seat at a table where Elora had already set out a bottle of tequila with a shot glass and a bowl of eggs. Elora had thoughtfully set him up so t
hat his back was not to the doorway leading out to the street. The door was open so that the fresh air could get in. Sebastian poured himself a drink.
“So how came you to be here?” Sebastian asked. The frying snake meat sure smelled good; it made his stomach rumble in anticipation. He took off his sombrero, placed it on a chair and sat down, leaning his rifle against the same chair.
“Came here a year ago with a man said he wanted to make me his wife. Take me away to a big town and make me a fancy lady, runnin’ his household. We stopped here ‘cause we got caught in a storm. Storm lasted three days. When it was over, he was gone with the woman who used to run this place. I stayed.”
“Why didn’t you go back to where you come from?”
“Why? Bad as this place is, it’s a sight better than where I come from.” Elora brought over a pan full of sizzling snake meat with a small wooden bowl and chopsticks. Sebastian reached out for a couple of eggs, cracked them into the bowl. Using his chopsticks he selected pieces of the meat and dropped them into the eggs, stirred the whole thing with his chopsticks so that the heat from the fried meat cooked the eggs.
“You seen anybody else besides me come this way? I’ve been trackin’ a pair of mean hombres for a fair number of days. Lost their trail a couple days back. Mebbe they stopped here for supplies? Drink and women?”
Elora shook her head, took a seat across from Sebastian Red, still smoking her pipe. “You’re the first visitor we’ve had here in ‘bout a month, now. But I ‘spect we’ll have more real soon.” Elora’s smile was as enigmatic as her eyes.