by Jasper Bark
“So is everyone in Dead Scalp an outlaw?” said James, as Clem led him down a narrow trail to the town below.
“Sure do ask a lotta questions don’cha,” said Clem, with a wry smile.
“I’m about to hand over ten thousand dollars for the privilege of livin’ here. Reckon I’m entitled to a few answers.”
“Nope, they ain’t all outlaws, only half the population’s on the run from the law. They got in like you did. As to the rest, we got a lot of whores. Some of those came willingly, others were captured and forced to work in the brothels, bit like the slaves.”
“Niggers you mean?”
“Not just the colored folk. We need men who can build and make things, carpenters and smiths. Mostly we kidnap ‘em and force ‘em to work for us. If they live long enough to work off the ten grand entry fee, we set ‘em free.”
“You let ‘em go home?”
“No, they can’t go home. Like I warned you, ‘fore you got here, there’s no way back. Once you’re here, you’re here forever.”
“So how does a man make a fortune in this town?” said James as they reached the end of the trail and approached the first buildings.
“There’s a few rackets,” said Clem. “We always need stuff from the outside. Can’t grow shit here, ‘cept hair, so we gotta find ways to get food and liquor in without alerting the law.”
“I can do that.”
Clem steered his horse to one side as they came up to the saloon. James followed him. “Course you gotta give over half of everything you make to Big Bill,” said Clem nodding to two men sitting out front of the saloon. The men nodded to others across the street. James was suddenly aware of at least five men reaching for their weapons.
“Big Bill,” said James. “He the man that runs this place?”
“Let’s just say he’s not the man you wanna cross,” said Clem with a broad smile. James could see five rifles trained on him. He scanned the street looking for routes of escape and froze when he felt a pistol barrel pressed against the base of his spine. Some guy had snuck up behind James without him even seeing or hearing.
“Speaking of which,” said Clem. “I believe you were gonna hand over thirteen grand.”
“Agreed price was ten.”
“Well I just put it up. You put Bart out of action for at least a month. Big Bill ain’t gonna be pleased. Muscle like Bart is hard to come by.”
“That don’t leave me hardly anything left.”
“Been an expensive day for you then.”
James handed over the saddle bag and filled his pockets with the coins he had left over. He’d been right about Clem. He was the more dangerous. “Been a pleasure doing business with you,” said Clem. “Now you’ll have to excuse me, I got some business to attend to, in a back room.”
CHAPTER 3
Clem needed to get a little drunk before attending to the business in the back room. Not so drunk he lost his edge, just enough to hold his nerve.
Doc Hendry let Clem into the back room. Charlie’s corpse was laid out naked, on a long wooden table. Clem could see the ingrowing had started. There wasn’t a hair left on Charlie’s body. All of it had gone, including his beard.
The skin around his chin and scalp was the most raw. It was stretched out of shape by the hair that had forced its way back into his body. Charlie’s eyeballs were bugging out of their sockets. Blood was streaming from his ears, his nose, his mouth and asshole. It had pooled around the body and was dripping off the table.
The two slaves in the room were staring at Charlie’s body with terror. They were both young and new to Dead Scalp. They knew nothing of the ingrowing. That’s why they’d been chosen to help with what came next.
“You boys alright?” said Clem. “I don’t need to have you beaten or nothing do I?”
“No, sir,” said the tallest, a skinny boy with a wispy blond beard. “We’re fine. It’s just, he was screamin’ something awful afore we untied him. Then the screamin’ kinda choked off and blood started pourin’ outta him.”
“That’s cos the hair was all inside him,” said the Doc. “First it would’ve crushed his lungs, then ruptured all his internal organs. It’s a painful process. This case was kinda fascinating though. Never seen so much hair disappear so quick.”
Doc’s beady little eyes glittered behind his spectacles. He was a short, thin guy, with a bulbous red nose, who could come off kinda creepy. Especially when he appeared to relish these kinda details. Clem remembered he’d once been a man of science though, back before the drink and the back street abortions had put an end to his career. This was just the sort of thing that would fascinate them science guys, Clem figured.
“You get the swamp bark and the matches like I told ya?” Clem said to the shorter slave.
“Yes, sir,” he said, fumbling with a big wooden bowl and dropping the matches. Clem cuffed him hard round the back of the head.
“You drop them matches one more time boy and I’ll shoot you, understand? Little slips like that will get us all killed.
The skin over Charlie’s belly started to swell and writhe, as though Charlie were suddenly pregnant with some hellish beast. Clem felt a sick, nervous feeling in the pit of his gut and wished he was a lot more drunk. “This here’s the bit I hate,” he said.
Blood began to pour in torrents out of Charlie’s ass. Then his stomach sagged and sank back to its normal size as the first hairs poked their way out of his butt.
The hairs acted as if they were alive. They probed the top of the table and the inside of Charlie’s thighs. They reared up as if scenting the air and moved towards the edge of the table. Huge wads of hair pushed their way out of Charlie’s ass, stretching and splitting the puckered brown skin of his hole.
The hairs grabbed hold of the edge of the table and wrapped themselves around its legs. They moved further abroad, stretching themselves out of Charlie’s torn anus and moving across the room. They grasped hold of loose floorboards, doorjambs and window bars. They snaked round the stove in the corner and cottoned on to anything in the room that would give them a purchase.
The two slaves had backed into one of the only two corners where the hair hadn’t fastened itself. Clem and Doc stood in the other. “What... what in tarnation is happening,” said the taller slave. “This is unbearable!”
“Shaddap,” said Clem. “It gets a hell of a lot worse.”
Once the hairs had all attached themselves to something, they began to tug at Charlie’s asshole. More blood poured out as Charlie’s innards were torn from his rectum. Charlie’s legs were splayed with the pressure the hair was exerting. They stuck out at right angles to his body. Clem could hear the tendons and muscles in his hips snap and grind as the legs began to move into an even more impossible position. Charlie’s arms began to move next, reaching straight up, while his shoulders contracted into his body with an awful noise.
Then Charlie’s skull collapsed. His face folded into itself, and what was left of his head slithered down the bloody maw that was now his neck. Most of the interior of Charlie’s body had been torn out of what had once been his asshole. With one huge, almighty tug the hair turned the rest of his body inside out.
What now lay on the table, was a writhing mass of living hair, ruptured organs and dislocated human bones. The taller slave let out a whimper.
“Light that goddamn bark and get over here,” said Clem.
“It won’t catch,” said the short slave, holding it over a lit match. “I’m tryin’ but it won’t catch.”
“Hold the match along the edge,” said Clem, “not in the middle.” The slave did as he was told and the dried bark finally caught light.
“Now blow out the flame and waft the smoke over that thing’s body.”
“Why?”
“Don’t ask stupid fucking questions boy, just do as you’re told. The smoke from that bark is the only thing that can knock this thing out and keep it under control. But we’ve got to act quickly, while it’s still sluggish.”
Doc Hendry was filling a big glass syringe with enough strychnine to kill a herd of buffalo, as the slave blew out the flaming bark and edged closer to the thing on the table.
It wasn’t as sluggish as Clem thought. The slave didn’t see the strands of hair that wrapped themselves around his ankle until his leg was yanked and he toppled to the ground, dropping the bowl with the bark.
More strands of hair caught the bowl and turned it over, trapping the smoke inside. The slave clawed at his throat in desperation as further strands of hair wrapped themselves around it, crushing his larynx and choking him to death.
Clem made a lunge for the bark in the upturned bowl. He didn’t see the strands of hair that had pulled the barred grill off the window, until they swung the grill at his head. Bright sparks rattled around Clem’s skull as the pain of the impact blinded him.
He may have passed out for a second. He heard breaking glass and guessed the hair was smashing the window with the grill. When he opened his eyes, he saw Doc Hendry make one last attempt to stick the thing with his syringe as it pulled itself out of the broken window.
Doc didn’t spot the hair at his feet until it was pulled from under him like a rug. He fell on the tall slave who was curled into a ball in the corner. The Slave gasped when he saw the empty syringe sticking out of his chest.
“Sorry kid,” Doc said as the slave frothed at the mouth and went into death spasms.
Clem put his hand to the throbbing lump on his temple and winced. He lay still for a moment contemplating what was worse. What that thing was going to do to Dead Scalp now it was loose, or what Big Bill was going to do to Clem when he found out it had escaped.
CHAPTER 4
James had been nursing the same glass of whiskey for over an hour now. He had to, it cost a damn sight more in Dead Scalp than it did on the outside. But then, everything seemed to cost a damn sight more in Dead Scalp.
Not for the first time that night, he wished he’d taken more silver dollars in the heist. It had been such a risky move though. Everyone had said it couldn’t be done, that the place had too many men and was too well guarded, but James was desperate, and up against it.
The lawmen had gotten hold of a witness who was willing to testify that James shot Robert Perkins in a card game. Even though Perkins had it coming, John Law had a reason to see James swing.
After that, James’s only hope of survival had been Dead Scalp. The lawmen had closed off the border so he couldn’t get out of the country and the net was closing in on him. He’d heard the rumors about a mystical hideout that the law couldn’t touch, the only problem was his lack of the entry fee—ten grand in silver dollars.
So James had staged a desperate robbery. The one theft no-one thought was possible. James had nothing to lose, so he thought what the fuck. It was this or the scaffold.
Looking back he couldn’t believe how easy it was. He’d been real careful to stay out of sight when he staked out the old ranch house. Even still, it felt as if the old devil in charge of the place had known he was there.
More than that, it was as if he were purposefully tempting James to come on down and make his move. He left doors unlocked and the gates off the hook. He moved the dogs out of the back yard and he got the guards blind drunk on moonshine.
It looked as though he wanted James to rob the place.
When James had struck, the old devil didn’t put up any fight. Not even to save the drunken guards. He just stood by and watched as James blew their addled brains out. When James had put his gun to the old devil’s head, he’d shown him exactly where the money was.
James’s only mistake was not stealing more saddle bags and more horses. He’d made off with as much as he thought he could carry to Dead Scalp. It had all gone without a hitch.
Well not quite without a hitch. There’d been that slight business at the end, but that didn’t matter now. He was here in Dead Scalp and the law could never touch him again. He was going to get rich and live forever and that’s all that mattered. So long as no one found out he had nothing to worry about.
James’s thoughts were cut short by the sound of feet approaching his table. He glanced up and saw Clem bearing down on him along with a man who was nearly as tall and fat as Bart. His beard was bigger though and he looked about the most dangerous man in a room filled with nothing but dangerous men. He had to be the guy who ran things.
James looked down at his drink and tilted his Stetson so they couldn’t see his eyes. He heard them stop at his table. Surely they couldn’t have found out already. There was no way that was possible.
“This him?” said a deep, rasping voice.
“Yeah that’s him,” said Clem’s voice.
“Help you fellers?” said James without looking up.
“Yeah,” said the raspy voice, which obviously belonged to Big Bill. “I hear tell you took out one of my men.”
“Already paid off that debt,” said James.
“I’ll tell you when you’ve paid me off,” said Bill in a voice that made James look up with a start. “Until then you owe me, understand?”
James blinked. He glanced from Bill to Clem, who had a huge bruise on his forehead, trying to read their eyes for suspicion. He saw nothing but anger in Bill’s eyes but, for a moment, he was sure Clem had seen the fear behind his own eyes. “Reckon I do at that,” James said. Bill wasn’t a man you argued with.
“Now,” continued Bill. “Clem here says you can handle yourself and I got something that needs handling.”
“There any money in it?”
“Let’s just say you’ll be more likely to live if it goes well.”
“That ain’t the worst offer I’ve had since I got here.”
“Good, you start straight away. Clem’ll fill you in on the details.”
“So you want me to work for you cos I took out your main muscle. Is that right?”
“No, I want you to help me sort something out, cos you’re the new man in town, and that makes you too dumb to realize how scared you oughta be.”
Big Bill turned and strode away. Clem smiled at him. “C’mon,” he said. “It’s already dark and you’re not gonna like this.”
CHAPTER 5
Nat was shit faced. What’s more he was up two grand from the poker tables. Life was good.
He’d almost forgotten how bad he felt about poor Charlie and Tom. He’d done what had to be done though. He’d taken a pretty bad beating at the hands of Bill and his men and he had to give someone up. Charlie was the obvious scapegoat. Poor kid always was too trusting.
It was Nat’s idea to run a side operation and cut Bill out. Charlie had been real scared of Big Bill discovering their racket. So Nat promised Charlie that, if anything happened, he’d take the fall. Charlie had bought it too.
The side operation only seemed fair to Nat. After all it had been him and Charlie who’d discovered the miraculous properties of the swamp water.
Charlie knew an old quack who ran a medicine show on the outside. He and Nat had bottled some of the stagnant water from the swamp on the outskirts of Dead Scalp, a sodden and fetid stretch of land next to the graveyard.
The first load of bottles damn near killed anyone who drank ‘em. Then someone poured it over their head and discovered it not only cured baldness, but dandruff and head lice too. After that Nat and Charlie couldn’t bottle it quick enough to satisfy the demand.
When Big Bill found out about this, he not only took his cut, but moved in and took over the whole operation. Nat and Charlie were frozen out. So Nat cut a side deal with Rivers Flow to help him move some bottles without Big Bill knowing.
Rivers Flow controlled all the traffic in and out of Dead Scalp. He was pissed enough at Bill’s high handed ways to go along with it. Then Bill found out what they were pulling, and all three of ‘em were in a world of trouble.
Nat never thought Bill would kill Charlie when he sold him out. He felt plenty cut up about it. It was a rotten shame. Charlie had been the only perso
n in the whole Dead Scalp that Nat gave a shit about. The kid always did have a way of getting right under Nat’s skin.
Charlie had called Nat two faced. Well he was right. But then, what did he expect? Nat was an outlaw for Christ’s sake. People talked about honor among thieves but it didn’t mean shit when it came down to it.
Saying one thing to someone, and doing something else behind their back, was what had gotten Nat where he was today. Damn right he was two faced. Two faced and proud of it.
Nat stumbled back towards his lodgings. He was tottering as he entered the dark alley that led to the room where he flopped. He had to prop himself up against the wall and feel his way down the alley.
Nat decided he must be really shit faced. The walls and the ground felt all spongy. No, not spongy, more soft and fibrous like... like... oh shit!
Strands of hair wrapped themselves tight around Nat’s ankles, making it impossible for him to flee. More strands wrapped themselves around his wrists.
“Charlie... Charlie, is that you?” said Nat. “Oh Christ Charlie, what have they done to you?” Charlie didn’t answer, but Nat felt hundreds and hundreds of individual hairs wrap themselves around the hairs of his head and beard.
“Now listen, Charlie, I know I ratted you out and everything, but honest to God, if I’d known what Big Bill was gonna do to you I never would’ve said a word.” Nat felt more hairs wrap themselves around his own.
“Well okay, I might have said something, but I wouldn’t have let you take all the blame–”
Nat’s words were cut short as the living hairs tugged fiercely at his beard and hair, stretching the skin of his face so taut he could neither blink nor open his mouth to scream with the pain.
Nate saw something glint in the moonlight. It was a shard of glass being held by a bunch of hairs. The hairs brought the shard of glass up to Nat’s face and buried it in the top of his forehead, just below his hairline.