Hell Hollow

by Ronald Kelly

  “What the hell’s going on here?” Rusty muttered. He walked across the dusty street, sidestepping the dead dog and starting for the saloon. Two children appeared from an alleyway, rolling a metal hoop with a wooden stick. When they saw the marshal, their eyes widened and they stopped dead in their tracks. The two abandoned their hoop, letting it roll into the open street as they turned and ran.

  “Hey, you young’uns!” he called out. “What’s the matter?” His voice only seemed to frighten them even more, though. They sprinted down the shadowy alleyway and disappeared from view.

  Puzzled, Rusty stepped onto the boardwalk and pushed through the bullet-scarred batwings of the Whipping Post Saloon. Like the town itself, the interior of the bar was simply not the same. The big room was dark and dusty, its stale air reeking of rotgut whiskey, puke, and piss. The piano stood silently in the corner. Its bench was empty and its wooden center had been split clean open by the blast of a shotgun. Dried blood speckled the ivory keys. Apparently, someone had not been all that pleased with the piano player’s musical prowess, or, rather, his lack of it.

  Rusty walked up to the bar and waited. The bartender spat tobacco juice into a shot glass and wiped it out with a dirty bar rag. He seemed to ignore the marshal for a while, then grudgingly flung the cloth across his shoulder and glared at the lawman. “Yeah, what the hell do you want?”

  “The service ain’t quite what it was last time I was here,” said Rusty, disturbed by the man’s insolence.

  “Well, if you don’t like it, you can go somewheres else.” The bald bartender snickered. ”Of course, the next saloon is two hundred miles away, so you’d best get to walking.”

  Rusty matched the barkeep’s glare with one of his own. “Just quit your jawing and give me a buttermilk, will you?”

  The man turned to fetch the marshal’s order. He returned a moment later, setting the tall glass of milk on the counter with a bang. “Enjoy,” he said with a sneer.

  Rusty raised the glass to his mouth and took a big swallow. It wasn’t the delicacy that he recalled it to be. Thick globs of clabbered milk moved sluggishly down his throat, causing him to gag. He coughed and sputtered until his face was red. “This is soured!”

  The bartender laughed. “It’s our vintage stock, Marshal. Ain’t my fault that you can’t handle the hard stuff.”

  Rusty’s temper got the best of him. Before he knew it, he had the rude bartender by the bowtie and the muzzle of his six-shooter pressed firmly against his nose. “I don’t think that was none too funny, you hairless polecat!”

  The contempt that shown in the man’s eyes suddenly changed into pure fear. “I’m sorry, Marshal,” he stammered. “Honest! I’ll fetch you a fresh glass right now.”

  “You do that,” said Rusty. He released the man and watched him hurry to set things right. “And put it in a clean glass this time.”

  “Yessir!” said the barkeeper. “Anything you want, Marshal!”

  As Rusty waited for his drink, he heard the drumming of horse hooves approaching from the direction of the open desert. They grew nearer, like the spreading thunder of a bad storm. A moment later, they stopped with a grating of iron shoes against dry earth. Rusty waited for another sound, but it did not come for a long time. A tense silence seemed to envelope the desolate community of Carnage City.

  Then a voice – half snake and half mad dog – cut through the hot, noon air.

  “Rusty McLeod! Show yourself!”

  The marshal felt a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach; a feeling of uncertainty and apprehension he had not experienced when he had faced Kid Calhoun. He turned his eyes to the barkeeper. The man stared at the daylight beyond the batwings like a frightened jackrabbit. Obviously, he was more scared of the one out on the street than he was of Rusty.

  “Oh God, it’s him!” moaned the bald man. “It’s Sidewinder himself!”

  “Who the heck is Sidewinder?” asked Rusty. But the question was pointless. Rusty already knew who the desperado was. In fact, he had his wanted poster pinned to the wall of his office, offering a reward of ten thousand dollars for bringing the gunslinger in dead, not alive.

  “I said get out here, Marshal!” snarled the voice again. “Or are you too stinking yellow-bellied to face me?”

  The challenge steeled Rusty’s nerve. He took a gulp of the fresh buttermilk, then turned and walked across the sawdust floor of the Whipping Post.

  “He’ll gun you down, Marshall,” called the barkeeper with a nervous giggle. “Just like he has a hundred men before.”

  “We’ll see about that,” said Rusty. Despite his bold words, the fluttering in his belly increased tenfold, as if he’d swallowed a nest of candle flies. What’s the matter with me? he wondered, slipping the rawhide loop off the hammer of his Colt forty-five. This is my dream. I’ll do okay. I’ll beat him to the draw, just like I did with Calhoun.

  Rusty pushed through the batwings, squinting against the sunlight. As he stepped into Carnage City’s single dirt street, he faced east. Fifty feet away, silhouetted against the glare of the noonday sun, was the form of a tall, thin man dressed entirely in black. The gunslinger’s clothing was much darker than Kid Calhoun’s garb; as black as death itself. He tried to distinguish the man’s facial features, but they were totally obscured by shadow.

  “What do you want?” Rusty asked, although he was well aware of the shootist’s intentions.

  “I want you, Marshal McLeod,” said the gunslinger with an oily laugh. “I’ve already killed every lawman in the Arizona territory. You’re the only one left. That’s why I rode all this way… to try my hand at you as well.”

  Rusty peered into the dark face of his opponent. A glint of steely eyes shown from the shade beneath his hat; eyes as cold and deadly as those of the gunfighter’s namesake. They were eyes that had seen men sweat in fear, time and time again. Eyes that had watched men die… and enjoyed it.

  “What’s this going to prove?” Rusty found himself saying. In the last dream, he had felt no mercy for the one he had faced, as well as no fear of being a fraction too slow on the draw. But this time, he possessed no such confidence.

  “Nothing, except that I’m the fastest gun in the West,” said Sidewinder. He dropped a skeletal hand easily to his holstered gun and slipped the thong from its hammer. “Now, are you going to stand there and try to talk your way out of dying? Or are you going to slap leather and test your skill against mine?”

  Rusty swallowed nervously. He glanced down at his holstered Colt. Although his fingers hovered a mere inch from its pearl handle, it seemed miles away. He heard the snort of an animal and glanced to his left. Sidewinder’s horse stood tethered to a hitching post, every bit as black and bold as its master. Its eyes were the most striking features; they glowed a muted red like the lingering embers of a campfire. Rusty then looked to his right. Through the cracked panes of the hotel and the surrounding shops he could make out pale faces watching them. Faces with eyes that gleamed not with fear or concern, but anxiousness.

  They want to see him kill me, Rusty thought. They don’t respect me after all. They’d like nothing better than to see me die in the dust with a bullet hole in my guts!

  Sidewinder spread his legs slightly, taking a wider stance, his right hand dangling loosely over the jutting handle of his six-shooter. “We’re wasting time, Marshal. Are you ready to die like a man?”

  Rusty straightened his shoulders and relaxed the muscles of his arm, ready to drop, draw, and fire. “You’re the one who’s likely to die,” he replied. “But not like a man. Instead, like the slimy snake you are.”

  The gunslinger laughed softly. “We’ll see in a second or two. Now on the count of three…”

  Rusty took a deep breath and held it.

  “One,” Sidewinder began to count.

  The marshal splayed his fingers like the legs of a pale tarantula and waited for the moment to arrive.

  “Two.”

  Rusty focused on the center of Sidewinde
r’s black shirt, finding his target before he even took aim.

  “Three!”

  The lawman drew his Colt and fired, quicker and with more fluid ease than he had shown during his gunfight with Kid Calhoun. The .45 boomed in his hand, sending a jolt of recoil through the bones of his wrist and arm. He tensed, expecting to hear a similar gunshot ring from fifty feet away. But it failed to come. He watched in amazement as the dark form wavered on its feet, gun aimed impotently at the ground. Then it crumpled into a black heap on the sunbaked earth of Carnage City’s main street.

  I did it! thought Rusty in exhilaration. I beat him to the draw!

  But his joy at having survived the gunfight was short-lived. A voice to his left suddenly rang out.

  “Mighty fine shooting, Marshal. But there’s just one little problem. You shot the wrong person.”

  Rusty turned his head and saw Sidewinder leaning against a post outside of the Whipping Post Saloon, a mug of cold beer in his hand. The outlaw’s face was less obscure now. It was lean and whiskered, but the upper half was still hidden by the shadows of his broad-brimmed Stetson.

  Confusion filled the lawman. “But if I didn’t shoot you… then who?”

  Sidewinder laughed, his mouth curling into a pearly grin. “Take a look.”

  Almost afraid to, Rusty turned and regarded the one who had fallen to his quick-draw. He was shocked to find a middle-aged woman dressed in a black mourning dress lying in the street, a bloody bullet hole piercing the center of her chest. It was the Widow Johnson, a respected citizen of Carnage City. Around her knelt her six children – orphans now – dirty-faced and shoeless. The brood cried in anguish, grieving over the murder of their poor, defenseless mother.

  “No!” yelled Rusty. “It wasn’t her. It was you!”

  “Afraid not, McLeod,” said Sidewinder. “You just screwed up, pardner. And not only will it cost you your badge… but your life as well.”

  Suddenly, all the doors of Carnage City opened, disgorging a stampede of outraged townsfolk into the dusty street of the Arizona town. They converged on Rusty before he could hope to react, knocking the Colt from his hand and assaulting him with rifle barrels and axe handles. The pain of the blows, the smothering crush of their bodies, and the awful thrill of raw fear… all were incredibly real.

  “Wake up, Rusty!” he found himself repeating over and over again. “Come on, it’s time to get the hell outta this blasted dream!”

  Beyond the angry faces of the townspeople, Rusty saw Sidewinder fling his beer mug aside and step into the open street. “Sorry, hoss, but this ain’t a dream… not any longer. It’s as real as real can be. And it won’t be over till these good folks convict you of murdering poor Widow Johnson and hang you by the neck until dead.”

  Then Sidewinder lifted his face toward the sun and began to laugh. It was the most sinister, chilling laughter that Rusty had ever heard in his entire life.

  But that wasn’t what surprised him the most. It was the sight of the gunslinger’s face that sent a jolt of alarm through his bruised and battered body. For it was a familiar face.

  The face of Augustus Leech.

  “I’ll see you at the trial, Marshal,” said Sidewinder with a sneer of contempt. Then he turned and went back into the saloon.

  “No!” screamed Rusty, knowing that he had been lured into a clever, but horrible trap. He bit his tongue and clenched his fists until his fingernails drew blood from the palms, but neither did the trick. He failed to dispel the enraged mob around him and awaken in his bed back home. Instead, he was carried down the street toward the town jail to await trial for the crime of cold-blooded murder.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Jasper McLeod was sitting in a waiting room at Coffee County Medical Center, drinking a can of Sun Drop and brooding over a Newsweek article on the ecological hazards of a particular brand of fertilizer, when a nurse stepped inside and knocked gently on the doorjamb.

  “Mr. McLeod,” she said, “Dr. Jenkins wanted me to let you know that Mr. Hill has just regained consciousness.”

  Relief showed on the elderly man’s face. “Thank God! So, how’s he doing? Is he going to pull through?”

  “That remains to be seen,” the nurse told him truthfully. “His vital signs are improving, but he’s had a massive coronary. His heart has suffered a lot of damage and that’s very risky considering Mr. Hill’s age. Presently, he’s listed in fair condition.”

  “Would there be any chance for me to see him?” asked Jasper hopefully. “Just for a couple minutes?”

  The nurse smiled and nodded. “Dr. Jenkins said it would be okay to allow you a short visit. No more than five minutes, though.”

  “I’d surely appreciate that,” the farmer told her. He tossed his half-finished soda in the waste basket, returned the magazine to the stack on a side table, and followed the nurse from the waiting area.

  A moment later, he was escorted into a room in the intensive care unit. Upon walking in, Jasper was sure that they had entered the wrong room. The sunken, old man who laid in the adjustable bed, linked to half a dozen high-tech monitors, possessed little resemblance to the wry, checker-playing storekeeper he had known all his life. But, as he drew nearer, he saw that it was, indeed, Edwin. Just looking at his friend with all those tubes and wires sprouting from his body both sickened and scared Jasper McLeod. Not that he was unaccustomed to seeing someone he cared for in such a pitiful condition. His beloved wife, Gladys, had looked much the same way, just before she died only a couple of floors away in that exact same hospital.

  “Just take it easy at first and try not to excite him,” advised the nurse. “He’s still extremely weak.”

  As the woman left, Edwin opened his eyes and swallowed dryly. A feeble smile crossed his wrinkled face. “Should’ve known your ugly puss would be one of the first things I’d see when I woke up.” He slowly lifted his hand and motioned for Jasper to come nearer. “Pull up a chair and sit a spell.”

  Jasper looked around the room and found a single padded chair against a wall. He took the chair and parked it next to Edwin’s bed. “It’s good to see you again, old man,” he said, his voice breaking. “I was afraid…”

  “Now, don’t go getting sentimental on me, Jasper,” Edwin said. “Next you’ll want to give me a big hug and a kiss!”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” chuckled Jasper. He reached out and took his friend’s hand. “But it is a load off my mind, seeing you up and talking like this.”

  A worried look came into Edwin’s bloodshot eyes. “Jasper… there’s some things I’ve got to tell you. Some right important things.”

  “What is it?” asked Jasper.

  “First of all, I’m sorry,” Edwin said softly, squeezing the elderly farmer’s work-calloused hand. “Sorry for lying to you.”

  “Lying to me about what?”

  “About that dream you had the other night,” he said, his eyes flitting nervously toward the open doorway of the intensive care room. “About that fella in the stovepipe hat and Hell Hollow.”

  A cold sensation ran through Jasper’s aged body. “What do you mean, Edwin?”

  In halting whispers, Edwin told him of the incident that took place in the autumn of 1917. Of how a mob of angry vigilantes – Edwin and Jasper among them – had hunted the murderer of twelve of Harmony’s citizens and, out of vengeance, shot him down in cold blood deep in the dark valley of Hell Hollow. He also told Jasper that it was his own father, Charles McLeod, who had delivered the bullet that had ended the life of the sadistic traveling medicine man.

  Upon hearing that, Jasper leaned back in his chair, his face dazed, as if he had been struck by a physical blow. But Edwin knew it went much deeper than that. “Are you okay, buddy?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said the farmer, nodding slowly. “I remember now. What happened that night. Oh God, he really did do it, didn’t he? Killed that fella in the wagon?”

  “That’s right,” replied Edwin. “But it was out of love for his de
ad child – your sister – as well as all the others who died from that bastard’s poisonous elixir.”

  “I understand that,” said Jasper. He took a couple of deep breaths and wiped a film of tears from his eyes. “That’s why I dreamed what I did. I reckon it was just a repressed memory coming to the surface. That’s all there was to it.”

  “Or maybe not,” said Edwin gravely. “Could be it was more like an omen of sorts. A premonition.”

  Jasper stared at his friend as though his heart attack had damaged his brain in some way. “A premonition? You know I don’t believe in such foolishness, Edwin. I never have.”

  “Well, maybe it’s about time you should,” said the old man. “Because I didn’t give myself this damn heart attack. It was given to me.”

  “By who?” asked Jasper, feeling that eerie sensation of dread close in on him once again.

  “By that son-of-a-bitch your daddy killed ninety years ago,” whispered Edwin.

  A name suddenly popped into Jasper’s mind, one he hadn’t thought of since he was five years old. “Leech,” he gasped. “Doctor Augustus Leech.”

  “That’s right,” said Edwin with a nod. “He’s back, Jasper. Not in the same form he was before, but just as evil and dangerous as he was back then. Maybe even more.”

  “But that can’t be. That’s just plain craziness!”

  “I would’ve said so, too, if he hadn’t come to me in the form of Aaron last night,” he replied. He closed his eyes at the image of his mutilated son. “Leech struck me down with emotion the same way another would use a gun or a knife. And, when he was done, he stood right there before me, laughing, dressed in that confounded stovepipe hat and black coat. The face was a little different, but it was him alright. I swear it was!”

  Jasper couldn’t believe such a thing was taking place. “But what does he want? Revenge for what we did to him?”

  “That’s one reason. But there’s others as well. Part of it is pure pleasure; just the fun of watching someone die in horrible agony. But part of it is even more sinister in nature.”