Whispers Out Of The Dust: A Haunted Journey Through The Lost American West (Dark Trails Saga)

by David J. West

  Black Jack shivered and drank and shivered and drank.

  With dawn we two buried poor old Shan Balden and it was a wonder that a man who had lived as he had should have no mark upon him in death. We spoke few words at his graveside and put him in the ground with a small cross marked R.I.P.—S.B. to comfort his lost soul.

  By noon Jack was caterwauling at the pain and his dressings were soaked in blood and pus. I had to carry him over to Mother Jennings. Mrs. Perkins was there as I brought Jack in and she begged her pardon but wished to remain. She asked Jack if he felt he was improving, to which he replied ““No lady, I am getting no better, at times the pain eases a little but I will never get well and for a reason, lady, I was in the mob that killed the Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith in Carthage Jail and every man who was in the mob has suffered just such as I am suffering, by the flesh being eaten off their bones by worms.”

  I saw the worms in his flesh and the oozing sores and it was truly a horrific sight.

  We took the blood money we had been paid and did have the best supper we could possibly acquire in St. Thomas town, but once it was spread before us we did ponder on it and found we had no appetite any longer. Black Jack then smiled and said it was now for our hosts and with his best regards. They did thank us but I know they wondered at our grim repose.

  We instead drank and Jack told me alone who had paid him for that wicked ambush he had planned. “I was at the crossroads of St. Thomas, Las Vegas, Pioche and Rioville when who should appear but Old Scratch himself. He told me that he had one last job for me and that t’was due. That I was to ambush a man in the Virgin River Gorge and would know him when I saw him. He gave me this blood money of which I shall never spend and in my pain and fury I did accept his cruel charge.”

  We drank a bit more and Black Jack he laughed until he cried. He took out a worm from his mangled legs and showed me its mealy head saying, “Look here, this is the true measure of me. I am but a conqueror worm.”

  I then fell to a fitful sleep, where demons, goblins, and ghosts danced upon my grave.

  I awoke to Jack cursing softly as he spilled coffee. To his credit he did offer me the last cup.

  Thanking him I did wonder aloud if perhaps we should be spared this night as it was well past the witching hour. Jack gave a grim laugh and said he already heard the hooves of hell approaching.

  Silence mocked my ears as the moonlight did the same to my sight, but the shivers running up my back sensed what the others could not.

  I waited and listening hard again heard the ghostly tramp of a pair of hoof beats though I saw no one there.

  Black Jack, he smiled at what he alone could see and said, “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

  He then expired in his bedroll and I heard the hooves of death ride away and swift to the west as Black Jack made his last ride.

  I myself much to my shame did pass out cold in fright and wondering at my own marked and wicked name.

  In the morning Black Jack’s corpse was littered with worms, large black-headed maggots that writhed through his bones, and made his flesh fell apart. The men who saw him became sick and could not bear to look upon him any longer and we prepared a spot right where he lay. The stink was enough to make a butcher gag. With no other recourse we rolled him in his own tent canvas and buried him in an unmarked grave. He had no ceremony, no kindly words of the gospel or hope for the hereafter. For no man who saw it wished to recall that awful sight of his death mask again.

  I finish this statement as evening comes on. I have nothing left to confess or say as I fully expect that after midnight that last hell horse will come a galloping in to drag me to purgatory and where I belong.”

  “Everything is not jes zaclky as it wus when u hurd from thes quarters afore. We hav been mad down hear, and one Piute got stabed in the back, and several Lamenites[36] had jes a little too much firewater fur thur good. An one Gentile wus mity mad, but he didn’t hurt enybody by it. U understand now that Sant Tomas is not a town of the past any longer. No sur, she kumin to the frunt, she iz.”

  — Pioche Weekly Record: October 14, 1882

  A Rose for Miss Dolly

  The tale of Louis Fontaine as recorded by Jake Longabough[37]: November 7th 1882

  This tale is old as time and reminds of many a legend of loves lost that few knew, but sit a spell and have a listen for I swear tis true.

  There I was in the saloon having drinks with the boys and playing along with greasy cards when we done run out of whiskey and everybody had lost all their money to that shark from Pioche[38].

  The saloon actually had a grandfather clock and when that thing chimed midnight I couldn’t have believed how fast they all disappeared when it came time to pay up and buy someone else a drink for a change.

  Witching hour somebody claimed and the others said that had to get some rest for church in the morning, pack of hypocrites! Some few folks were asleep at the table and some upon the floor, even the barkeep was up and gone or passed out or the like and I found myself in a terribly quiet establishment when all I could hear aside from snoring was a wee little gal crying.

  Dressed all in white and lace and such and I thought I never did see such a sad but pretty little thing as her. The smell of lilacs permeated the room and I wondered for having only ever smelt them before near a tomb.

  I looked her over and said hello, she blushed and then went to hiding her face. As I said she was a pretty little thing and I couldn’t imagine what could be making her cry. I asked her, excuse me miss but whatever could be the matter?

  She explained that her love was lost and she was dead, tired and all alone in the world now and couldn’t find happiness til he came home to her.

  I explained in my likely drunken way that t’was natural to feel that way sometimes but love is like the dawn and will rise again. She smiled at that and did ask if I had any other homespun wisdom to impart.

  I liked that smile and I called her a rose and she said her name was Dolly and I did propose that she get to know me much better. That my name was Louis Fontaine but she could call me Lou. She said it back to me and Lord that was nice.

  We did talk and laugh for some time I told her of all the places I’ve been from St. Louis for which I’m named and new Orleans where the dancing girls in red tutu’s made me ashamed, up west to the Black Hills and the cold northern plains where the Injuns did give Custer such pains[39], I’ve been to Texas and New Mexico and even San Francisco but I never did see such a pretty rose as my miss Dolly.

  She told me she has never been much of anywhere just here and there and expects that alone she won’t be going to any place but despair. I asked her not to cry and said I’d be true and stay with you if you’ll just not let any more tears fall.

  She smiled at that and said she’d hold me to my very word and I’d stay most any place from now on with her. And as I spoke and thought I start to saw the dawn rise faintly from far behind the horizon she said it was beyond time to go, that she had a fine time with me and would see me soon enough and when my back was turned she was gone like the last stars of night.

  I told the boys that I was in love that I’d met Dolly kind of and they did spoke that there was no such woman and no such gal last night in the poke.

  Now some did laugh and some did frown and I guessed it was all because I was the one who had won her heart and interest hands down. But my good friend Jake, he said I’d had too much to drink and needed to sleep it off, give it some time to think, that I wasn’t about to start no affair of any kind with this sweet little dove. They said I’d been seeing things and all that rot, that nobody else saw her while I sat on a cot.

  Now I grumbled it’s true and asked what do I do? She was the one for me that’s sure and true. I couldn’t have them discouraging me no more, no how. They cajoled and argued and swindled and shouted and near everyone said it had gone on way too far.

  Who was she I pleaded, a married woman, a scarlet lady, a tattooed whore? I couldn’t take their jokes a
nymore. What could I do what more could I say? To get them to see things just my way? Because love won’t stand behind any closed door and soon enough I’d be asking for more.

  The boys they bought me a drink and forced it down and then granted me another and another til I was ready to drown.

  They took me down to the old churchyard that day and showed me the forgotten grave of one, Dolly Shauntay[40]. I left a single rose for Miss Dolly on her tomb I’d be joining here soon enough and there was room

  I dropped my complaints and accusations galore for I knew that I should only have here about one day more. I spent my money upon my friends and gave them the best going away party I knew how to send and left them these words to leave all on the mend.. Come morning I knew I wouldn’t be waking up in this world again.

  Cause when the death angel calls, you best be prepared and with friends and the good Lord always be squared.[41]

  “The [dangers] are the black rattle snake, the scorpion or tarantula, the centipede, a vicious, deadly reptile, and large green worms that come up from the ground.”

  — George W. Brimhall 1865

  If I Call to the Pit[42]

  The curious account of one Tom Dabney[43]: 1888

  Tom Dabney’s grandfather left England and Tom’s father left Connecticut and Tom—well, he left St. George. It wasn’t really that far to be leaving his father’s house, but it did give him more than a good day’s ride away from his mother’s apron strings.

  He joked that he came to St. Thomas because it was named for him. But he would admit to friends that it was to prove he could do something on his own and here in such a barren dead land he could make something of himself all on his own. He hoped. After all he had few enough skills but he had a quick enough mind when he applied himself.

  Tom had just enough seed money to get a small plot of land that was richly irrigated by the Muddy River and the ramshackle remains of a cabin/adobe hut full of whiskey bottles and rotten deer hides. He had his doubts anyone had lived in the place before him, rather than just using it as a trash heap. It took some doing to clean the place up but once it was done and he had reroofed it, he was quite proud of the accomplishment. It was the hardest thing he had ever done before. Granted he had not had a very hard life.

  Soon enough he was plowing the fields and preparing for a crop of radishes, carrots, onions and a few melons. He had picked these in part because they were what he liked and what he had heard was in demand at the markets in the territories. Tom had pitiful enough knowledge of farming but went into it with gusto and a belief that it couldn’t really be that hard.

  The heat in the valley was primal and it beat on him something fierce even for a youth raised in St. George. He found that he could fill his canteen with coffee beans and water in the morning, hang it on a tree and have a fine hot brew by noon[44].

  Tom also discovered that watering his carrots too late in the day caused them to boil and die in the ground. This was going to be much harder than he had anticipated[45].

  Forced to re-plow and replant a vast section of his fields, he began to ponder the wisdom of his choices in giving it a go on his own. An unscheduled arrival and visit from his mother cemented his resolve at continuing the sweltering ordeal and he borrowed from her to start over.

  This time however he resolved to actually learn what he could from those he understood were the true masters of growing in this oven of an environment, the Paiutes.

  Tom asked around and went to the in town dwellings of the Paiutes over by the Big Ditch[46] and asked about what grew best in the sunbaked condition of his soil. He heard a variety of answers and felt as if he was getting nowhere in useful solutions.

  Then he found an old man in a bleached pair of canvas trousers with a turkey carcass around his neck, mutilated feathers dangled from his hair and dark coal dust smeared about his eyes. The old Indian had a particularly sinister look but this did not daunt Tom who was sure this man would have some ideas.

  “Your ground is no good, it needs help to recover itself,” the old man told him. “You need to call upon the earth spirits for help.”

  “And just how do I go about that?”

  “I will help you, for a price.”

  “How much?” Tom asked, with some fair amount f trepidation.

  “Not how much now, but later.”

  “What?” Tom scratched his head sure now that the old man was crazy as jack rabbit with heat stroke.

  “Someday I will come and you will give me your daughter, your first born daughter.”

  “Heh, I ain’t even married,” said Tom, with a laugh, “how do you expect to collect on such a thing? Could be years. What if I never marry, what if I only have sons?”

  “Important thing I help your crops grow now, you pay me when is time,” said the old man, with a wicked grin.

  Tom looked the old man over and fairly determined that he had nothing to lose as he had no wife and no daughter and not yet even any prospects for same. If the old man’s plan didn’t work he was out nothing and if it did work, the old man would likely die of old age before Tom would have any children.

  “It’s a deal then” said Tom extending his hand. “But you better deliver.”

  The old Indian shook his hand and said, “Tonight I will call up the earth spirits and they will renew your fields and what you plant will grow very well and when the time is ready I will come back for your first born daughter.”

  Tom laughed but agreed and went and had himself a drink with the Cutter boys and soon drank himself to oblivion and any recollection of any deal he had made with anyone. He stumbled back to his place well after midnight and fell upon his cot in a stupor.

  Morning came and Tom awoke late. He stepped outside with a pondering of what he had to drink the night before and what he should do with what was left of the day ahead of him. But when he looked to his fields he was amazed to see the completely plowed over. The ground was turned into a fine fresh mix of topsoil and what appeared to be fertilizer and organic filler.

  He readily got to work planting a new crop and it sprouted and was ready for harvest in record time. Tom became the talk of the town as the most successful farmer in the county. Folk came from miles around and marveled at how well his fields grew right beside others that suffered. Tom acted like he was responsible and knew watering tricks and such and usually only appeared the fool to those that knew better. Some folk thought him a bizarre charlatan and others respected that he could accomplish what they could not, either way Tom was something of a wonder.

  That next spring he began courting a Monson girl from Overton and they were married by summertime and by winter she was with child. Tom was overjoyed in his successes and readily forgot everything from the year before.

  But when it was time for the child to be born, he did get a little nervous. The field hadn’t been producing quite as well as he thought it should and he was reminded of the bizarre old man and his wicked pact. He was however overjoyed when his child was born a son.

  Still he resented the pact and the old man but still wished to reap the benefits of same, so he spent some time searching for the old Indian again and was puzzled when none of the Paiutes had any idea of whom it was Tom had spoken with.

  Tom had just about guessed that it had all been a dream from a drunken stupor when very late the week after the babe was born, the old man came knocking at his door under a waxing moon.

  “What of our bargain?” asked the old man. “Are you not satisfied?”

  “I’ll tell you true, I was satisfied last season but it seems that as of late, the crops have not done nearly so well as the year before and I am quite concerned over your end of the pact,” said Tom. “It seems your work does lack something as time goes on and I sure hope you aren’t welching out on me!”

  The old man scratched at his chin saying, “These things take some time and I can again employ the earth spirits, if you like, but must ask that when I call again it be two daughters you swear to give me someday
.”

  Tom weighed in his mind the chances of this feeble old man living another winter and the chances on his having a daughter or two anytime soon and he bet. He bet it all.

  “Do it, give me the best fields in the county, No! In the territory!”

  The old man clapped his hands and this time, this time Tom watched as the dirt rippled under foot and some things tore through the ground in a terrible roaring and rushing of turmoil.

  “What is that!?” shrieked Tom, wholly amazed at what rending of the ground was happening before him.

  “You don’t want to see,” said the old man.

  “Yes I do.”

  “All right then.” The old man clapped his hands again and the surface moved from indistinct swirling through the fields to three waves in the dirt like three wakes of three great invisible ships toward Tom and the old man.

  Tom threw up his arms in useless fear and supplication as the old man called in a horrific language commanding the things to rise and rise they did like Leviathans of the deep.

  The old man called to the titanic monsters again and they wavered a moment letting Tom get a full look at them up close and personal. Great green worms they were with bodies as big around as a horse. Tom could not fathom how long they were in total but what was exposed above ground was more than wagon team long.

  “Judas Priest! Those are big!” exclaimed Tom.

  “Now that you see my power will you not reconsider our bargain and cease your prattling of terms? Accept that I will keep up my side as you must keep up yours.”

  “Well, I assure you that I will have more children though I cannot promise they will be daughters.”

  “I assure you,” said the old man. “That you will have many daughters.”

  “All right then, then I have no problem making a new binding pact with you.”

  “Good,” said the old man, rubbing his hands gleefully.

  Tom nodded as he scanned the monsters. “Is there anything the worms can’t do? Is there anywhere they cannot go? Do they obey you to the Tee?”