Portlandtown: A Tale of the Oregon Wyldes

by Rob DeBorde

  Or was made to forget, Andre thought. But if that was the case, how had Henry found the Hanged Man? Had Kleberg told him? Could he have? And how had the man left town so easily? Such a departure meant Andre’s own magic had failed … or been broken.

  “I need to see the burial site,” Andre said.

  The sheriff shared a look with his deputies. “Which one?”

  “All of them.”

  * * *

  Andre put his ear to the ground and listened. Even through six feet of earth, it didn’t take long for the sound to reach his ears.

  “I can hear them.”

  “Hear who?” asked the sheriff, sure he wouldn’t like the answer. He and his deputies stood behind Andre, well back from the grave at which he was kneeling. Joseph stood beside the headstone, his gaze seemingly elsewhere, or so thought the sheriff. It was difficult to tell what the one-eyed man was looking at in the day’s waning light.

  “Bodies of the dead,” Andre said, standing up. “They are awake.”

  Deputies Collins and Kendle drew their weapons and began scanning the cemetery.

  “Like them others in town?”

  “Yes, but you may lower your weapons, gentlemen. These poor creatures remain firmly planted in the ground.”

  Joseph placed a hand on the grave marker. He could feel them through the stone, clawing at wood and dirt, moaning, hungry. The image fixed in his head all too clearly.

  “They’re in pain,” Joseph said, almost under his breath. Andre heard him.

  “What they feel does not matter. They are an abomination and they must be put down.”

  Collins holstered his weapon. “I miss something? If they ain’t come up outta the ground, what’s there to put down?”

  Andre looked at Naira, who was just returning from a quick survey of the graveyard.

  “One hundred and one markers,” she said. “Six open graves, six empty coffins. Twenty-three recently disturbed with no signs of escape, and one … escape in progress.”

  Naira led the group to a grave on the far side of the cemetery where the head and arms of a woman protruded from freshly dug ground. As the group approached, the zombie twisted around, revealing a dirty young face that might once have been beautiful. The creature bared its teeth and began clawing against the dirt.

  “My god, that’s Gretchen Vail,” said Barker. “She died only a few weeks ago.”

  “She’s stronger,” Joseph said. “The muscles have yet to deteriorate.”

  “Yes,” Andre agreed. “It also appears this grave was one of those disturbed, suggesting the coffin may have been compromised.”

  The sheriff drew his pistol and shot the zombie in the top of the head. Its jaws snapped shut once more and then it slumped face-first into the dirt.

  “That leaves ninety-four that will have to be checked and destroyed if necessary,” Andre said. “You understand what needs to be done?”

  The sheriff nodded unenthusiastically. “You want us to dig up every g’damn grave so we can put a bullet in the head of anything we find moving.”

  “Yes. I am sorry, but if this is not stopped here and now, it will find a way to spread.”

  “Like plague?” Joseph asked.

  “In a manner,” said Andre. “A plague born of man a long time ago in a place very far from here. Born of words, foul deeds, and dark intentions. Spread through contact with the infected.”

  “I get that,” said the sheriff. “All the biting and such. But if these dead folks is trying to dig themselves outta their graves, how’d they come in contact with anyone in the first place?”

  This was a question Andre had only just answered for himself. He’d heard of such things—of such evil—but to stand in its presence was chilling, even for a man who rarely felt the cold.

  “A carrier,” he said. “One who is … diseased, but not like them. This creature has control of his faculties, his actions, his mind. Merely his presence is enough to transform the dead into what we have seen here.”

  “You’re talking about the Hanged Man,” Joseph said.

  “I am. Dead for eleven years, but not destroyed. He was buried in a plot just beyond the borders of this cemetery, beneath the cold, unmarked earth. There was no funeral pyre, Joseph. That was merely a bit of theater created to bring satisfaction to the masses.”

  “It was a lie.”

  “Not a lie,” Andre said. “A different kind of truth. Simply burying the man would not have been enough for many who suffered his reign of violence. The Hanged Man had to be destroyed completely and visibly. Fire is very visible.”

  Collins snorted. “I’d say turning a man to ash is more than just visible.”

  Andre sighed. Explaining the presence of the undead was hard enough with the proof clawing its way up through the ground. Digging into the depths of the Hanged Man’s black heart and the dark power that kept it beating was complicated and would raise more questions than Andre was prepared to answer.

  “Fire is not always a destructive force,” he said. “Sometimes it can be a cleansing agent, a rebirth for those who are prepared.”

  “Resurrection.”

  “Yes. And while burning the Hanged Man would have destroyed his physical form, he ultimately would have found a way to return stronger than before. To truly arrest such power one has to take away that which makes it strong.”

  “Belief,” Joseph said.

  Andre nodded.

  The sheriff furrowed his brow, but it was Collins who asked the obvious.

  “Belief in what?”

  “Faith, magic, and his own abilities,” Andre said, which was accurate, albeit simplified. “If you kill the man—”

  “He stops believing,” Joseph finished.

  “Yes, but in the case of the Hanged Man, it also meant the fear of those he terrorized. His strength came not only from within but also from those who believed he might do them harm. His death would allay such fears, but only time would erase them.”

  Joseph thought of a long walk in the dark and a baby crying. He doubted such memories would ever leave him.

  “Why keep it a secret?” Deputy Barker asked.

  “Burying his body in an unmarked grave left no altar for his power.”

  The sheriff narrowed his eyes. “You buried him?”

  “No. But I attended the funeral.”

  “The marshal,” Joseph said.

  Andre nodded. “Other than myself, he was the only man who should know the location of the Hanged Man’s grave. It was never meant to be disturbed.”

  “But someone did disturb it,” said Joseph. “Someone dug him up and turned him into one of these creatures.”

  “No, the Hanged Man has become something much worse. He knows who he is and has set upon a path to regain his power. Those who stand in his way are in grave danger.”

  There was no name attached to the threat, but Joseph heard one just the same.

  The sheriff stared at the corpse half buried in the soil. The body had long since stopped moving, but it still made his skin crawl. It was several seconds before he realized he was scratching his leg above the knee.

  “Is there a cure?”

  “If the process is arrested in time, yes,” said Andre. “I carry medicines with me that will arrest the effects.”

  The sheriff shook his head, almost smiling. “How much will that cost me?”

  “Not a penny, Sheriff. It is an herbal concoction, one for which I will gladly share the recipe should you require more after our departure.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “No,” Andre said, once more searching for the words that required the least amount of explanation. “I would also prescribe a passage be read nightly for seven days.”

  “A prayer?”

  Andre smiled. “If you like.”

  The sheriff ran a hand through what little hair remained on his head. “’Fraid I ain’t much good at talking to God.”

  “This is a different kind of prayer,” Andre said, failing to me
ntion it was also for a different kind of god.

  * * *

  Over the next hour, the sheriff and his deputies dispatched the inhabitants of fourteen of the twenty-three recently disturbed graves. The rest remained deep enough or weak enough not to require immediate attention. The sheriff hadn’t decided whether it would be better to enlist a few dozen townsfolk for the remaining cleanup or to try to keep the task quiet so as to protect the psyche of the community. Realizing the job would fall to them alone without help, the deputies assured the sheriff the town could take it.

  Joseph went to the marshal’s house, not surprised to find the lock on the front door smashed. There was no obvious damage inside, but a stench in the air left little doubt as to who had been there. He soon found the crumpled photograph in the attic, and although Joseph couldn’t see the family smiling up at him, the handwritten title on the back told him everything he needed to know.

  Andre and Naira were waiting for him when he came downstairs.

  “He was here.”

  “Looking for Marshal Kleberg,” Andre said. “Perhaps more.”

  Joseph didn’t have to guess. “The gun.”

  Andre nodded. “You know of its power.”

  “I know the myth.”

  “It is more than a myth, Mr. Wylde. The weapon is cursed; it makes him a killer.”

  “Then I guess it’s a good thing the marshal took it with him.”

  “He has it?”

  “He’s going to put on a public demonstration in a day or two as part of the Portland Rain Festival.”

  For the first time since meeting Andre Labeau, Joseph felt a shift in the man’s demeanor. He was afraid. Naira felt it, too.

  “He’ll hear it,” she said. “It will call to him.”

  Joseph thought he, too, might recognize the sound of the gun, but still found the choice of words unusual.

  “He must not have it,” Andre said. “The marshal knows this.”

  “That’s why he stayed, isn’t it?” Joseph said. “To watch over the body, make sure nobody found it or the gun. He thought he was protecting us … but he forgot. He dug up all those graves looking for the Hanged Man.”

  “It’s unfortunate he didn’t find him,” Naira said.

  Joseph nodded. There was more to it, but how much he wasn’t sure.

  “You said he’ll try to regain his power. How so?”

  “There are ways he can be made more powerful, more alive. The closer he comes to living, the more dangerous he becomes.” Andre hesitated for a moment. “He will come for your father-in-law, Mr. Wylde, and for his weapon.”

  Joseph didn’t need to be told. He knew the truth of it—all of it.

  “Won’t just be the marshal, Mr. Labeau. If the man is clear about who he was, the one person on this earth he’ll want to kill above all others is me.”

  * * *

  Early the next morning, Andre and Naira paid visits to three homes where they found five people in need of special attention. Andre gave each the same elixir and prayer, along with a mental push to ensure that all followed through with the treatment. A known sixth victim proved more elusive. It was almost noon before the pair rode east en route to Portland.

  Joseph was already gone, having hitched a ride on an empty ore vessel heading upriver. The last thing he did before leaving town was to send a message to Kate. The telegraph operator asked several times for clarification, but each time Joseph assured him the words he’d read back were correct.

  KATE—HANGED MAN ALIVE.

  WANTS GUN. DO NOT LET MARSHAL USE—HIDE IT.

  STAY OFF STREETS. AVOID CEMETERY.

  WILL RETURN SOON. BE SAFE—JOSEPH.

  22

  The first day of the Rain Festival arrived without a cloud in the sky. The front page of the Portlandian happily predicted a wet opening, but most who got the early edition doubted they’d need more than a hat to keep the sun out of their eyes.

  Despite the clear skies, the buzz downtown was one of anticipation—at least as far as the weather was concerned. The sidewalks and plank ways were crowded with the usual Thursday-morning merchants and businessmen, as well as locals eager to get a glimpse of the festival attractions before the out-of-town throngs arrived. The official kickoff wouldn’t begin until evening, but many of the festival booths were already open along the boardwalk surrounding the main stage.

  Rain-related merchandise dominated the wares offered by most vendors, from simple rain gauges and mercury-based barometers to silk umbrellas with telescoping handles and the latest styles of vulcanized Wellington boots. Seattle Storm Catchers, purveyors of ornamental weather vanes and lighting rods, had already sold three of its six-foot Franklin attractors. John Dale’s Waterworks of San Francisco proudly displayed the latest in fountain technology, including a steam-powered copper salmon that could shoot bursts of water thirty feet into the air, which it did regularly, to the delight of every child in sight.

  There also were numerous historical attractions, including a corner booth documenting the city’s most famous floods. A not entirely accurate depth-measuring pole planted in the waterlogged street marked the relative heights of various surges. The current waterline topped out at almost eighteen feet, which was below the twenty-one feet of the week before and well off the more than twenty-nine feet of 1877. That the pole itself was submerged in only three feet of water remained a point of confusion, despite a sign explaining the height was in relation to the river, not to the road.

  Tucked into the narrow space between the Oregon Ice Works and the Tualatin River Crawfish Society was a long booth papered with charts and a simple hand-painted sign that read: ATMOSPHERIC PROBABILITIES.

  Samuel Edmonds sat near the front of the booth, behind a table displaying numerous weather-data-gathering instruments including a hundred-year-old barometer that had once belonged to Thomas Jefferson. Edmonds had spent the morning gathering additional data that he was currently using to formulate a final set of predictions for the day. His concentration thus distracted, he failed to notice the first visitors to his booth until an orange-tinted “Lightning” jar half full of water was set in front of his face.

  “Look what I got, Mr. Edmonds!” Kick proclaimed and slid the canning jar toward the meteorologist. A piece of string tied around the top of the jar held on a small tag on which WORLD’S LARGEST RAINDROP was scribbled. It took him several seconds to grasp the meaning, long enough for Kate to catch up to her son.

  “Good morning, Mr. Edmonds.”

  Edmonds looked up to see Kate standing behind her son. Maddie stood on the other side of her mother, looking at one of the weather maps Edmonds had drawn up for the festival.

  “Oh, Mrs. Wylde, good morning.”

  “Ready for the big day?”

  Edmonds tried to smile but it came out as more of a cringe. “I certainly hope so.”

  “So, what do you think?” asked Kick.

  Edmonds glanced from Kate to her son. “About what?”

  Kick picked up the glass jar and shook it. “This!”

  Edmonds caught Kate’s uneasy smile, which helped him find his own. He took the jar from Kick and made a show of studying its contents. By all outward appearances it looked to be roughly a half quart of dirty water that, according to the back side of the tag, had cost Kick (or his mother) a nickel.

  “Very interesting,” he said, handing the jar back to Kick. “Where’d you get it?”

  “From that booth back there,” Kick said, pointing over his shoulder. “They also had the biggest hailstone and the biggest snowflake, ’cept that one was melted.”

  “I told him it was a waste of money,” Maddie said. “It’s not real.”

  “Says you,” Kick said and held the jar up to the light. He shook it, kicking up a cloud of tiny particles. “Look, you can see cloud dust floating around inside the drop.”

  “That’s not dust,” Maddie said. “That’s rust falling off the lid!”

  Kick frowned and shook his head. “You’re just m
ad because I found it first.”

  Maddie crossed her arms. “You don’t even know what cloud dust is.”

  “Do too. It’s the stuff that makes rain clouds dirty. That’s why they’re gray. When it rains, the water washes all the dust out and then they’re all clean and white.” Kick turned to Edmonds. “That’s what happens, isn’t it?”

  “That’s a very interesting theory.”

  “See?” Kick said, turning back to his sister. “He likes my theory.”

  Maddie shook her head. “He didn’t say it was accurate.”

  Kick shrugged. “Interesting is better than accurate.”

  Maddie rolled her eyes around to Edmonds. “Is that true?”

  The meteorologist obviously wasn’t prepared for conversational combat this early in the morning, which was why Kate tossed him a lifeline.

  “So, Mr. Edmonds, should we still expect rain this evening?”

  It took a few moments, but Edmonds finally responded, “Oh, yes, definitely.”

  “Definitely? As in a one-hundred-percent probability?”

  “I think so,” said Edmonds, happy to be back on surer footing. “In fact, I’m a little concerned about how much it might rain.”

  “Really?”

  Edmonds nodded. “The latest reports I received from our westernmost relay stations suggest a dramatic increase in cloud cover over the northern Pacific. The waves at Cape Disappointment are already breaking ten feet above normal, which means there’s a storm on its way, a big one. Couple that with a significant drop in local pressure just this morning and we’ve got the makings of a real downpour.”

  “That should be good for the festival.”

  Edmonds glanced at the neighboring booths and then leaned over the table. When he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper. “I’m not so sure. An inordinate amount of rain could seriously overtax the local waterways, causing floodwaters to rise, possibly much more than anticipated, and overflow the current barriers, spreading into new sections of town.”

  Kate understood the man’s concern, but she, like every other longtime resident, had been through high waters on numerous occasions. Getting one’s feet (and ankles and calves and knees) wet simply wasn’t that scary. It was a way of life.