Strange Dominion

by Lyons, Amanda M.

  Boomer didn’t hurt it, I don’t think, but it distracted it enough for the Indians to get an upper hand. An arrow suddenly appeared in its flank. The monster screamed a high pitch scream and pulled the arrow out with one of its hands. Three more arrows took its place and a couple of gunshots rang out. I called out for my daddy. I don’t know if he was gone by then or not.

  I covered my ears and closed my eyes until the sound stopped. When I finally dared to peek, Boomer had run over to my side. Most of the wagons were fully ablaze and White Thunder was there. Him and a group of Indians had grabbed the monster and were holding it by its arms and legs. There had to be three of them holding onto each limb, and even then they were having a hard time keeping it from getting away. It struggled and bit at them, but they were able to keep it under control.

  It shot its tongue out at White Thunder, who was helping hold the thing’s shoulder, but he caught it with one hand just before it tunneled into his ear. I could tell he was struggling, but he held onto it. The muscles in his powerful arms strained against it.

  Just then, the old one, White Thunder’s grandfather, was there, still holding his torch. He approached the monster and said something. It didn’t sound like Pawnee, I don’t know what language it was. It sounded like he said “mixchereaps” or something.

  The monster stopped struggling and sucked its tongue back into its mouth. The old one said it again, but this time he yelled it, “mixchereaps!” The monster hissed at him and barked like a dog again.

  The grandfather wasn’t even scared. He started talking to it and shaking his torch. I don’t know any Indian languages, but they all have a certain sound, a rhythm. The old man’s voice had that classic native rhythm to it and there was hatred there, he had hated this monster for a long time. Then, the thing spoke back to him!

  The Indians were shocked, but the Grandfather was not. They hollered at each other in Pawnee before the old one finally took a few steps forward with his torch. He was intent on burning the thing. Just as he got within an arm’s length, the beast shot out its tongue and wrapped it around d the old man’s neck.

  White Thunder and a few of the others were visibly shocked, still struggling with the monster. The grandfather immediately put one hand to his neck to loosen the noose. I could see the tendrils closing in on him. He locked eyes with White Thunder and hollered something at him before the monster cut off his air. White Thunder repeated it to the rest of them and they held tight to the monster despite its fighting to get free.

  The tip of the tongue rose up like a snake and buried itself into the old man’s ear. His face was blood red and I could tell that he couldn’t breathe, but he still stepped forward.

  The tongue pulsed, like a snake swallowing a chicken’s eggs, and I could see the old man starting to wither away right there where he stood. The grandfather took another step forward and put the torch against the monster’s face.

  It sizzled like bacon and caught fire quickly. The tongue retreated into its mouth and the old man fell to the ground in a dry and wrinkled heap. The Indians holding its misshapen limbs had to let go to keep from getting burned. They dropped it and watched as it squirmed and erupted into blue flame. It looked so much like a person there, a person with arms and legs that were wrong, but the center like a man.

  White Thunder cried out and knelt next to his grandfather. I don’t know what he said, but I didn’t need to. I just stood there and listened to him talk or pray or whatever he said. The monster had finally stopped moving and the others gathered around, too. The old man was obviously quite revered in his own tribe and in those of others.

  It was a long time before anything else happened. I looked over at the beast and one of its legs twitched. Boomer saw it too and he started barking. Before anyone could act, the thing came alive and rolled on the ground, trying to put the fire out. A fresh arrow appeared in its back followed by another. It was still aflame, but the fire had died down some. It rose up on all fours and made a mad dash towards one of the wagons. More arrows pierced its trunk as it dashed from wagon to wagon, shrieking as it found each one on fire.

  Finally, it found one that had a canvas still intact, even though it was ablaze. It hesitated for a second and then dove into the flames. There was the hiss, like cooking bacon, again for a second before the monster screamed. I put my hands over my ears to block the sound, it was horrible.

  The Indians, and what was left of the wagoneers, gathered around and watched the wagon burn down to the ground without a further trace of the beast. I swear, I could hear White Thunder whisper something like “mixchereaps” under his breath.

  It’s quite possible that I was the only one on that wagon that had cholera and it’s also possible that it saved my life. You don’t have to believe a word I’ve told you, but that’s exactly how I remember it. My daddy didn’t make it that day, neither did Captain Faber. White Thunder made sure that I made it back to Georgia and Boomer went with me. When we were traveling back east, I asked him once, “What was that?”

  He was quiet for a long time before he answered. “That, little girl, was the worst thing a man can become,” and that was all he ever said about it.

  The Dark Man

  Michael Fisher

  “Carcosa, you will be the answer to all my dreams.”

  Ezekiel Jaeger took another look at the wanted poster. The unbleached paper was printed with the standard information a bounty hunter could want. The name of the desired target, one Jacob Carcosa, was emblazoned under a sketch of the man, followed by a description of his physical form, as well as his crimes. Carcosa was described as a Negro of the darkest sort, skin like ebony. Standing at six foot four inches, Carcosa would stand out in a crowd. Most people will remember seeing a giant Negro in predominately white towns.

  While President Lincoln may have freed Carcosa before his assassination, colored folks were about as welcome in common American society as Jaeger’s own family. Jews were second-class citizens in all but the largest cities in the land. He thought back to his father’s admonishing words as he prepared to set out into the wilds, seeking his fortune hunting down the lowest of the low.

  ‘Zeke, my boy, I know our family were hunters in the old country, but this is the New World, a land where we can be what we want; what I want is my family to be safe. Stay here in New York and finish yeshiva. Be a rabbi, a nice safe job.’

  Zeke knew that, while he had a strong faith in Hashem, he also knew his place was out in the wilds of America, helping make the nation a safer place for those who couldn’t fend for themselves. So, Zeke Jaeger, following in the family name, strapped on his brand new Colt Peacemaker, saddled up his horse, and put the lever-action Henry rifle in the holster on the right side of the saddle, as he rode off to make his name as one of the top bounty hunters in the West.

  That was ten years ago. On this sweltering day on the prairie, Zeke was wondering if perhaps he should have listened to Lemuel Jaeger and stayed. He certainly wouldn’t have taken that errant .45 to his calf, giving him the limp that made people think he was Hopalong Cassidy. Sure, New York summers were just as hot, but it was nowhere close to the beauty of the sunset over the far plateaus.

  Zeke committed Carcosa’s face to memory, since this would be the payday that let Zeke return to New York and settle down. Sixty thousand dollars, dead or alive, was unheard of in a bounty. While it would drive every upstart with a pistol to take him out, Zeke had it on good word that Carcosa had passed through this area night before last. The barkeep in the Blood Gulch saloon saw, as the wrinkled old timer had said, ‘a coon the size of Goliath’ passing by his door as he was closing up for the night. The whiskey seller had described him as riding a horse ‘just as big and black as he were.’ He had given Zeke a slow shake of his head, as if that alone would communicate how unbelievable it was.

  Zeke looked back over his shoulder, the ramshackle town known as Blood Gulch faded in the distance, heat making the faint image shimmer. Yet again, Zeke gazed at the browning pap
er, trying to figure out what the Negro had done to warrant such a high bounty. He had done this every day since he snatched the poster off the front of the Deadwood Sheriff’s Office. All it said was Crimes Against God. Not Crimes Against Nature, which did occur when you had a bunch of lonesome sheepherders, but Crimes Against God. There was no way Carcosa was drawing a sixty thousand dollar bounty for buggering sheep. This had to be much worse, but for the life of him, Zeke couldn’t imagine what.

  Zeke folded up the poster and tucked it into the pocket of his duster, before kicking dirt over the last embers of his dinner fire. He settled his hat on his head before swinging up into the saddle. Giving the reins a quick shake, he called out, “Come on, Mordecai! Let’s get this monster!” The horse shook its head, as if to say, ‘You don’t know how right you are,’ before trotting off toward the crimson horizon.

  Ezekiel Jaeger saw the lights of a town far ahead, fading in contrast with the oncoming dawn. According to the map, there shouldn’t be a town here, so either Mordecai had lost his way while Zeke had dozed in the saddle, or more likely, it had sprung up since the map had been drawn. New settlement popped up all the time, what with prospectors heading west for the hopes of riches just waiting to be mined.

  The surrounding hills and mesas were constant companions in these barren wilds. As he neared the outskirts of town, Zeke spied a rough wooden sign, proclaiming this town to be Severen: Population 93. Zeke double-checked his map, confirming that Severen was nowhere to be found.

  “Looks like we have a prospector town, Mordecai,” he said, spurring the horse. “It’s too close to those hills to be anything else. Oh well, I could use a good meal and a drink or ten. Severen, here we come.”

  Zeke rode calmly down the dusty path that passed for the main street of the tiny outpost, taking in the few clapboard buildings. He took note of the saloon and general store, planning to restock what foodstuffs he had consumed since Blood Gulch. He paused in front of the sheriff’s office, looking at the few posters nailed to the rough-cut wood.

  Carcosa’s poster was missing from the lineup. Zeke’s heart raced, realizing that no one here had gotten word about the fugitive yet. Glancing at the rooftops, he confirmed that this town didn’t have telegraph service yet. If the mail came once a month, they were lucky.

  Zeke was feeling lucky too. If Carcosa had come this way, and these folks weren’t looking for him, Zeke might just have shot at him. Zeke understood how these prospectors must feel now, rambling off into these wastelands in hope of riches. Zeke’s goal was a bit easier to follow than the chance of mining gold ore out of ‘them thar hills,’ as he heard in so many of these towns. The fact his prey towered over most folks made him even easier to find, or so Zeke hoped.

  With the ease that comes from familiarity, Zeke swung himself down from Mordecai’s back and looped the reins around the hitching post, leaving his chestnut stallion beside the grey mare already tied up.

  After a quick knock on the plain wooden door, Zeke swung it wide and entered the sheriff’s office. Behind a simple desk, a portly man slumped, his hat pulled low over his bleary eyes. He tugged the hat up, acknowledging his visitor.

  “Morning, stranger,” he said, his voice thick with the catarrh of a smoker. After a brief coughing fit, he continued. “Sorry about that, son. What can I help you with?” his voice taking on a nasally tone.

  “My name is Ezekiel Jaeger, Zeke to my friends. I am looking for a fella.”

  The man sat up, the tin star glinting on the breast of his shirt. He noticed the lettering embossed in the tin read ‘Deputy.’ Of course, the sheriff wouldn’t be pulling an overnight shift. “Really? What sorta fella, and why should I help you find him?”

  Zeke smiled, all too accustomed to being challenged by the authorities. Tugging his credentials from the breast pocket of his shirt, Zeke handed them over to the deputy. The man rubbed his eyes before squinting at the ornate lettering that made up Zeke’s license from the State of Texas. After a few prolonged moments of squinting, Zeke stepped in.

  “That paperwork you are holding is a certified copy of my license to conduct business in the procurement of itinerant felons. A bounty hunter, you would say.”

  “Really,” the deputy mumbled, running his finger along the lines of text. “You’re chartered here in New Mexico Territory?”

  “No, sir, Texas, sir.”

  “Texas? Well, I’m not surprised,” the deputy scoffed. “They’ll let anybody hunt for ‘em.”

  “Excuse me?” Zeke asked, a bit taken aback.

  Well, I can tell from how black and curly your hair and beard is, that you ain’t all white, boy! Is you miscegenated, boy?”

  “Pardon me?” Zeke asked, his eyebrows rose in shock.

  “You’s dumb too, huh?” the surly deputy continued. “Miscegenated. Means ya got some nigra in ya!”

  Oh, I see,” Zeke replied. “I can assure you that I do not have a drop of colored blood in me.”

  “Uh huh, sure ya don’t.”

  “I swear,” Zeke countered. “My father came here from Germany when he was young. I was raised in New York City in an Orthodox neighborhood, where the shul helped all the families out.”

  “Othrodox?” the deputy stumbled over the word. “What the hell ya mean by ‘shool’, boy?” he asked, dragging out the word. “You mean school?”

  “No, sir,” Zeke replied, trying to maintain civility in the face of this bigot with a badge. “Shul is a Hebrew word for temple. We also call it a synagogue, kind of a Jewish church, for those who are not familiar with it.”

  The deputy, who still had not introduced himself, tossed the paperwork back at Zeke, who snatched it from the air. As Zeke smoothed the paper out, the deputy’s sneer became ever more pronounced. “What the hell! I thought it was bad enough that you might be miscegenated, but you’re a Christ Killer. Get the hell out of my office and out of my town!”

  “Well, then I guess it will do me no good in asking if you have seen a colored fella about yay high,” Zeke said, holding his hand about six inches above his head, “riding a huge black horse.”

  The deputy’s face blanched at the description. “What the in the name of all that’s holy do you want with that thing?”

  “Well, deputy, I hope to bring him in for the price on his head. Dead or alive, it said. It sounds like dead might be a good choice.”

  “I would just hop on your horse and turn tail outta Severen, son,” a booming voice said from behind the bounty hunter. Zeke turned to see a tall man, heavily muscled from a life of farming. The tin star on his shirt was polished to a gleaming brightness, the word Sheriff in black enamel.

  Zeke tipped his hat to the wall of muscle blocking the doorway. “Morning, Sheriff.”

  “That it is, son, but a good morning you’ll never see again if you are on the tail of the Dark Man.”

  “So you know of Jacob Carcosa?” Zeke asked, holding his hand out to shake. “Ezekiel Jaeger, bounty hunter.”

  “Sheriff John Skinner,” he said, crushing my hand in his powerful grip. It wasn’t the handshake that lesser men attempted to assert their dominance; it was just a grip backed up by a lifetime of physical labor. “I do know of the Dark Man, but not by that name. He owns the mine down the road a ways, just past the town cemetery. When he bought his stake on that property, he was using the name Thomas Eibon. He hired many locals to work his mine, but after the fifth death down in that accursed hole in a month, the crew walked off the job. Now, he goes out looking for new people to lure back here to Severen with promises of gold.”

  “Thank you for being a bit more forthcoming than your deputy,” Zeke replied. “He obviously has a problem with my people.” Zeke turned to glare at the deputy, saying with a wink, “God’s Chosen People, if you read your Bible.”

  “I don’t particularly care one way or another about you, son. The only thing I really care about is not having to bury you out there near Gnarled Hat.”

  “Gnarled Hat?” Zeke asked, his brow furro
wed in confusion.

  “It’s Eibon’s mine,” Skinner replied. “When he opened it, he named it Gnarled Hat On Top, since the hill it is in looks kind of like a man wearing a long, twisted hat. His mine is the opening between his legs.”

  “Wonderful,” Zeke replied. “So I will look for a man-shaped mountain, out past the graveyard, in my search for a mountain of a man?”

  “Yup,” the sheriff replied, simply.

  “Sounds like I have my work cut out for me,” Zeke said, a huff of frustration escaping his lips. He started to turn, when the deputy’s nasal voice stopped him.

  “That’s right, Moses, lead yourself out of Severen,” the deputy spat, rising from his seat. “Go wander the desert like the rest of you sheenies!”

  “Earl,” Sheriff Skinner snapped. “Mind your mouth in my office! While I may not go to church much these days, I’m still a God-fearing man, and Moses is part of the Bible too.”

  Zeke simply tipped his hat to Skinner, saying, “Thank you, Sheriff” before turning to the cowed man behind the desk. “That’s mighty white of you, Earl,” Zeke said, as the deputy sank back to the wooden chair, a scowl continuing to crease his face.

  “I’d be remiss if I didn’t try to warn you away from Eibon’s mine, son,” Skinner said. “There’s been plenty of folk to go into that accursed hole and never come back out.”

  “Thank you, Sheriff, but I think I can handle myself,” Zeke replied, patting the holsters on his thighs.

  “Sure, you can,” Skinner sighed. “Ain’t the first time I heard that neither. I just had to try. It’s the Christian thing to do.”

  “I am sure it is,” Zeke said, pushing the door open. “I’m sure it is.”

  Zeke swung the double doors of the saloon wide, his worn boot heels clocking on the plank floor as he strode across the room. The half-dozen scattered tables were empty, the bar almost as much. The barkeep looked up at the sound, eyeing the swagger of the stranger who was closing on him. The short man’s eyes narrowed, as he noticed Zeke’s dark, kinky hair and beard. Great, Zeke thought, another one. Just what I need right now.