Gasher Creek

by J. Birch

Although the man was pinned to the ground and partially obscured by the grass, Jack could see that he was tall and broad shouldered. The impact had thrown his hat off, revealing a head of messy brown hair. A moustache stretched past his lower lip.

  Jack recognized that moustache. Skidding to a stop, he said, “Sheriff Tracker?”

  “Devlin,” Tracker said, his voice constricted. “Get your mutt offa me!”

  The coyote looked at Jack with its large copper eyes. Its tongue dangled from its long, tapered maw. Beads of saliva dripped from its teeth onto the sheriff’s ear.

  “What are you doing here?” Jack asked.

  “I’d (gasp) like to (gasp) answer you,” Tracker said hoarsely. “But I can’t (gasp) breathe with this mangy (gasp) dog on my back!”

  The coyote growled. It wasn’t about to move.

  “Get off him,” Jack commanded.

  The coyote looked elsewhere. Following its gaze, Jack spotted another man laying in the grass. He was dressed in rags. His skin was pale, his face gaunt. A mop of black hair hung over his forehead. His wrists were cuffed. For a moment, Jack forgot the sheriff and approached the stranger.

  Then his breath caught. He couldn’t believe it.

  It was Andy.

  Andy sat up. “Jack?”

  Jack rushed forward, drew back his leg, and kicked Andy in the face. Andy’s head snapped back, his teeth gnashing together in a sickening crunch. He fell over. Dropping to a knee, Jack slammed his fist into Andy’s cheek, the bone cracking under his knuckles.

  “Devlin, stop it!” Tracker shouted.

  Jack could barely hear him. The sheriff’s voice seemed muffled and distant as if shouted behind a thick pane of glass.

  “He must stand trial—”

  Jack flattened Andy’s nose with his right fist. His left split Andy’s lip. He threw punches with wild abandon, not carrying where they landed:

  Right,

  Left,

  Right,

  Left.

  Blood gushed from Andy like water from a smashed fountain. His body twitched like a rabbit full of buckshot. His face was a mash of bone and flesh.

  Jack stood and admired his handiwork. His fists dripped blood. Rage surged through him. He felt like a god.

  And like a god, he wasn’t satisfied.

  Scanning the ground, he looked for a rock large enough to crush a skull. There had to be something, anything he could—

  Beside a stinging nettle, that something glinted. It was the thing Jack had seen in the sheriff’s hand. He moved over and plunged his hand into the thick of the grass, expecting to touch the cold blade of a knife. Instead, he found the ivory grip of a gun. He lifted out a silver-plated revolver. It felt incredibly light.

  “Devlin,” Tracker gasped.

  Jack turned to look at him.

  “I know you’re innocent. Don’t destroy your life by—ach!”

  The coyote dug its claws into his shoulders.

  Jack turned back and stared at the squirming mass of pulp that used to be Andy Dupois. “I am innocent,” he said. “That’s been my foolishness.” He knelt and touched the barrel to Andy’s forehead. “You misused me. You thought you could drown me in your mud.”

  Andy mumbled something.

  “But that don’t matter,” Jack said. “I reckon I’m used to folks misusing me. What does matter is that you killed Sally. You let Cole hurt her. You let him touch her and she didn’t ask for that. Jeanie didn’t ask for that!”

  “Devlin,” Tracker pleaded, “no.”

  “Sally can’t stand,” Jack said, slipping his finger over the trigger. “Jeanie can’t stand. Charlie can’t stand. But I sure as hell can stand. Yes, I can.”

  You’re no monster…

  Andy stared up at him, his eyes wide and bloody. He was such a pathetic creature, a prisoner of that damned whorehouse in Gasher Creek. As far as Jack knew, he’d never even left town before, always at the beck and call of his pa, always—

  He shook off the thoughts. They didn’t help. All it did was buy Andy the precious few moments he didn’t deserve. A roach wasn’t granted extra moments; a roach was crushed.

  Jack applied the slightest amount of pressure to the trigger—

  I’ll never get it back.

  The coyote growled—

  Tracker shouted, “Devlin, don’t!”

  Jack, you listen to me. You listen real hard. A man shows his goodness not by what he says or thinks, but by what he does. I don’t know what you did in Gasher Creek; curses man, even you don’t know. But I’ve seen what you’ve done since then. I’m not sure who this raping, killing, Jack Devlin is, but he’s not sitting across this table from me.

  The gun slipped from Jack’s grip and fell into the grass.

  Beneath him, Andy gurgled and passed out.

  He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t shoot Andy. He wanted to, God help him he wanted to pull the trigger, but—

  “Devlin, watch out!”

  Jack turned to see the black coyote lunge at him. It struck him in the chest and pinned him to the ground.

  “I can’t do it!” Jack shouted.

  The coyote howled into his face and the world turned black. In the darkness, he saw Jeanie drop to the floor, her neck crushed.

  Charlie’s head exploded in the blast of the carbine.

  Sally rotted in the bed beside him.

  Jack could feel the coyote’s desire. It needed him to kill Andy. Jeanie and Sally and Charlie were morsels of guilt compared to the feast of a murderer’s conscience.

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” Jack said. “All this time, I’ve been feeding you.”

  The coyote snarled.

  And it wouldn’t stop. He was haunted by it. He would always think of Jeanie. He would always dream of Sally and Charlie, unless—

  Jack reached out and groped in the grass around him. It had to be close, if he could only find it—

  He touched the grip of the gun, pulled it out of the grass, and jammed the barrel against his temple. The coyote yelped as if struck. It slunk away, its head low, its ears back.

  Jack sat up and stood, the gun still held to his head.

  “Devlin,” Tracker said. “What are you doing?”

  “I won’t feed this beast any more.”

  “Put the gun down.”

  “When I die, it dies.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Slipping his finger over the trigger, Jack said, “It’s the only way.”

  He closed his eyes. In his mind, he saw all his loved ones:

  His mother, his sister, Charlie…

  A bite of peace.

  Jack pulled the trigger.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  When a man sees one strange event happen, it tends to stick in his mind for a long time. When he sees two strange events happen simultaneously, it can become a guaranteed cure for sleep.

  Even as he witnessed them, Tracker knew the events of that day would return to him in the quiet moments of his later years. And he knew, no matter what the weather, that he’d always feel a chill.

  Devlin held the gun to his head, babbling about feeding the coyote. Tracker didn’t know what he was on about, but he did look determined to pull the trigger. He tried reasoning with him, but Jack looked like a man about to fall of a horse. It was going to happen, whether he liked it or not.

  The hammer was cocked.

  The finger was on the trigger.

  And then Jack Devlin pulled the trigger.

  And the Lightfeather revolver, famed gun of Oscar Matthews, the cost of a wagon, dependable firearm for the dainty gentleman and exclusively manufactured in Seaview—misfired. Tracker winced reflexively, but the blast never came.

  Devlin stood still, his eyes clenched shut. After a moment, he opened them and looked at Tracker. Then he looked at the coyote.

  “Drop the gun,” Tracker said, standing.

  Jack cocked the hammer again. He pulled the trigger—another misfire—and cocked the hammer a third ti
me.

  Tracker ran toward him. “Stop!”

  It may have been the hours in the rain, or his summersault into the stream. Whatever the reason, the gun was useless; or at least useless enough to give an idiot a second chance.

  Tracker had almost reached him, but not before Devlin pulled the trigger

  click—

  again and again—

  click click click.

  He’d nearly cocked for a seventh try when Tracker rammed his shoulder into Devlin’s chest and knocked him down. He stomped on his wrist and ripped the gun from his grasp. “You fool!” he shouted.

  Jack stared up at him, desperate as a drowning man. “I have to do it,” he said.

  “No you don’t.”

  “I have to!” he pleaded, his face a quivering mess of dirt and blood and tears. In that moment, he looked so much like a child that Tracker fought the urge to scold him like one.

  “Listen to me, Devlin. Whatever you reckon that coyote is, it won’t go away by you scattering your brains all over the ground.”

  “You—don’t—understand,” Jack insisted.

  “I understand plenty. You think you got no reason to live. You let your pa, Andy, and everyone else treat you like a cur and you want it to stop. But they gain by your death, don’t you see that?”

  “I can’t keep feeding it,” Jack said, his eyes on the coyote.

  “It’s just a wild dog,” Tracker said, “starving and crazed. Look how skinny it is.”

  The black coyote growled. Tracker knew it could pounce on him again, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off Jack. “Look Devlin, I know there are plenty of shadows in the day. Most men spend their lives without promise, but—”

  “What did you say?” Devlin asked.

  “Most men spend their lives without promise,” Tracker repeated. “But that doesn’t have to be your lot in life. If you just—”

  Devlin looked at his hands. He looked at the gun. He whispered a word but it was too soft to be heard.

  And that’s when something extraordinary happened.

  When Tracker was a soldier, he hated marching on damp, fall mornings. The wind chilled him to the bone, the grey clouds muted his spirits, and he marched as if wearing leaden boots. But every once in a while the sun would break through. It would warm the top of his head, spill down his back, and chase away the gloom.

  That’s how Jack Devlin looked; like the sun had broken through.

  “What is it, Devlin?” Tracker asked.

  “I … promised,” he said. He closed his eyes for a moment, and then re-opened them. He stared past Tracker.

  Tracker turned.

  The black coyote was gone.

  Moving away from Jack, Tracker scanned the landscape and peered into the patches of long grass. “Devlin,” he said. “What in blue Heaven happened to your coyote?”

  When he turned back, Jack was on his feet.

  “I have to go,” he said.

  “It was here,” Tracker said, “and then—go? Go where.”

  Devlin started walking toward his horse. “Wait,” Tracker said, raising his gun. “Halt!”

  Jack stopped and turned around.

  It was an empty threat. A gun with soaked powder was nothing more than a fancy little club. But he couldn’t let him go.

  “You need to come back with me,” Tracker said.

  “Why?”

  “I need you to testify against Andy.”

  “I need to go.”

  “I need your help. Don’t you want justice?”

  Devlin looked at Andy’s unconscious body. “Not anymore,” he said.

  “Then let me protect you from Smith,” Tracker said. “I have reason to believe he’s involved in the murders. If he finds you—”

  “He’s dead,” Jack said. “Shot in Brush.”

  “Dead … by your hand?”

  “No. I just saw it.”

  “I send word to Sheriff Garnell and he’ll tell me the same story?”

  “He’s dead, too,” Jack said. “Cole shot him. You send word to anyone in Brush and they’ll tell you that.”

  Tracker couldn’t detect any trace of a lie. In fact, it was the first time the boy didn’t look twitchy and frightened. He stood taller somehow, his chin held high.

  Tracker knew he should force him back to town. Andy had confessed to an involvement, but perhaps there was more. The threat of Jack’s testimony could draw that out of him. It was the logical course of action. It’s what the law required.

  “Well?” Jack said.

  Tracker slipped the gun into his holster. “All right, Devlin,” he said. “I came out here to get my man, and I got him. You can go. You’re a free man.”

  “Yeah,” Devlin said. “I reckon I am.”

  * * *

  Shortly after Devlin left, Tracker turned south. Andy was still unconscious, so he laid his body over Bucko’s hindquarters and tied him to the saddle. It was a chore doing it, but Tracker preferred an unconscious prisoner to a conscious one. A man in custody could be counted on to cry, plea, harass, and bargain, but rarely did he stay quiet. It was a bit of good fortune that Tracker hoped would last all the way home.

  As the morning stretched into noon, the sky remained cloudless and the sun burned hot. Tracker’s clothes dried. He was able to sweat out the fever. Bucko moved at a good pace and seemed to enjoy the heat. If they didn’t stop to rest, they’d reach Gasher Creek by late evening.

  Smiling, he imagined himself entering the cabin. Which would he want to do first, kiss Caroline or hold Edward? It was impossible to decide. Of course, the very first thing he’d do is listen to Caroline cuss him out for not saying goodbye to her. This cussing out may or may not involve a book hurtling toward his head. But after that, a kiss was surely forthcoming. He hoped.

  After spending a few more minutes thinking about his wife and son, his thoughts returned to Jack Devlin. He thought about him traveling north on that giant horse of his, wondering where on earth he got such an animal. He pondered the meaning of the words I promised but didn’t know what they meant. And, of course, he thought about the black coyote. There was something unsettling about that animal. It wasn’t just its size, although its size was alarming. It wasn’t its strange, copper colored eyes or gaunt appearance. It was the fact that it had disappeared. Tracker didn’t have the eyes of a hawk, but he could still spot a prairie dog at four hundred yards. That coyote hadn’t run away. He knew it.

  When he was a boy, his mother often visited a Chinese fortune teller named Liu Ying. Tracker thought it was a load of hogwash, but his mother believed it without question. He once asked her why she believed, and she said, “Thomas, there are things in life that make us shiver, and that’s all we’ll ever know about them.”

  At the time, he dismissed her words as nonsense. But now, in a strange way, he understood. The black coyote was one of those things. It reached into the deep, dark places of the mind, like the emptiness of a dead body or the kind of thoughts that only arise in bed at night. Thoughts of a dark tapestry, and what lies behind…

  Tracker snapped the reins, urging Bucko to go faster. Bucko eased into a canter, stretched into a gallop, and then started to waver and buck his head. Tracker slowed him down, saying, “Whoa, whoa. What’s the matter, you smell something?”

  Months later, when Tracker recounted the tale, an old rancher named Ferguson said he wasn’t surprised at Bucko’s sudden switch. “They can smell it on the wind,” he said to Tracker. “They can smell blood the way we can smell the hotel’s coffee from the other side of the street.”

  Tracker didn’t know if this was a fact, as Ferguson also claimed that horses could read minds, count to ten (but not eleven), and recite the poems of Tennyson under a full moon. But even if he was a little touched, he may have been right about Bucko’s twitchiness. Until that moment, the young quarter horse had performed admirably, carrying his master over uneven land with little rest, braving the lightning and thunder without spooking, and staying with Trac
ker throughout the night even though he wasn’t tied off. The only time he’d put himself in hitches was when it sensed the dead paint mule.

  And now it was happening again. Bucko snorted, bared his teeth, and made strange guttural noises in his throat.

  Tracker slowed to a stop. He scanned the land but couldn’t see anything. “I don’t,” he said, and then fell silent as his eyes caught a shape in the east. It was too small to be a soddy, too large to be a cow or buffalo. He wished he carried an army telescope.

  “Come on,” he said, snapping the reins. Bucko swished his tail, but obeyed.

  As they drew closer, the shape spread in length and definition until he recognized it as a homesteader wagon. But something was off about it. There was no movement around the wagon, no cooking fire, no smoke. A mule, freed from its harness, stood near the wagon and grazed.

  Then Tracker spotted the first body. He pulled on the reins, dismounted, and moved closer to investigate.

  Up on the wagon seat, a woman lay slumped over as if napping. She was young, eighteen maybe, her face partially obscured by a slip of blonde hair. She wore a dark green bonnet and matching dress; or at least the dress used to be green. Blood had drenched it a muddy brown. She’d been shot in the neck.

  The wagon appeared untouched. There were no tears to the bonnet or breaks to the bows. No broken dishes littering the ground, no ripped clothing, no signs of looting at all.

  Circling the wagon, Tracker looked inside and found pots and pans, a shovel, and some other supplies. All untouched. Whatever happened to the woman, it wasn’t at the hands of longriders or rogue Chewaks.

  Returning to the front, he nearly tripped over the second body. It was a young man, most likely the woman’s husband. He lay face down in the grass, still gripping his shotgun. The back of his head had been blasted out.

  Tracker scratched at his moustache and glanced from the man to the woman. It didn’t make sense. Why would someone shoot them and not rob them? Perhaps whoever did this was in an awful hurry.

  Examining the tack, Tracker found two harnesses. He looked at the mule as it grazed on the long grass.

  It was a paint mule.

  “Oh … God.”

  He turned and stared at the unconscious body of Andy Dupois.