Strange Dominion

by Lyons, Amanda M.

  I tramped around trying to find the best spot on the ridge, out of the howling wind. The snow under me broke open and I fell through a crevasse into a warm darkness. The fall hadn’t been that far; I seemed to be uninjured. I stood up and walked cautiously in a small circle. The walls were close around me, but high. There was no way out.

  Something landed on the floor beside me.

  A chunk of ice had broken from the lip at the top of the crevasse. The sharp edge had just missed slicing my head in half.

  I needed to get out of here before one of the frozen chunks hit me. I was trying to remember what was in my bag when something soft hit the wall beside me. I reached over and felt it. A ladder of some sort hung down into the hole. I backed away. Was someone, or somethin’, about to come down that ladder?

  A godawful light cut into the hole, scorched my eyes, and practically blinded me. Brighter than any light I’d ever known, it wasn’t no kerosene lantern. Could have been the sun, but it was night and the light was blue. It focused on the ladder, if you could call the odd steps hanging into the hole a ladder. I’d never seen the likes of it before. I waited.

  The light drew in tighter on the ladder and began to ripple from my feet to the steps, and again, the light rippled from my feet up, up. I was getting nauseous by the time I got the idea something wanted me to climb up the damned thing.

  I leaned against the wall and squinted into the light, “Who are you? Who’s up there? Show your face.”

  Nothing. No response. Now I couldn’t even hear the wind outside the crevasse.

  “I’m mighty grateful that you’re rescuing me and all, but I’d be a lot more comfortable if you peeked in and told me your name ‘fore I climbed out.”

  The ladder shook.

  I cupped my hands and hollered up in case they were hard of hearing, “They call me Dutch. What’s your moniker?”

  The ladder shook harder; snow fell onto my head.

  “Hey, watch it! This thing’s gonna cave in on me!”

  And whoosh! A tube of air sucked me up out of the crevasse. Next thing I knew I landed in a pearly white room. People ran at me from all sides. They all looked normal except one. That one looked at first to be the color of sage brush with a long face and big dark eyes. The others hollered at it and pushed it into the wall. When it turned back towards me, I saw that it was normal, too. Turned out, she was a fine looking woman. I don’t know why I thought she had been anything else. The tube of sucking air must have distorted my eyeballs.

  They all must have been like Doc ‘cause they started handling me, all concerned like they were giving me a medicinal exam. Poking and prodding, just like Doc does.

  “I’m fine. I’m fine. Thanks for saving me and all, just show me the way out.” It was the last words I remembered speaking until I woke up laying in the snow on Devil’s Ridge with the woman. We were both naked and wrapped in a funny silvery blanket.

  When she saw I was awake, she reached around me and patted my back. She nodded and put a small leather bag in my hand then she pointed down the Ridge. When I looked back at her, she was gone.

  * * *

  At Lily’s Saloon my lady for the night said, “what’s wrong with your back, Dutch?”

  “What do you mean, ain’t nothing wrong with my back besides too much hard work and too many muscles. Nothing that laying up in this bed a few days won’t fix. Get me another bottle, this one’s empty; seems to have a hole in it,” I laughed.

  “No, Dutch, look–you got a long scar that wasn’t there when you left for Devil’s Ridge. A long scar.”

  “What the hell?” I jumped up and looked in the mirror, sure enough there was one long ugly sucker of a scar on my lower back, “get the Doc, where’s the Doc?”

  “He’s right next door, surprised he isn’t in here already the way you’re yelling. Doc!” She pounded on the wall.

  “What? Somebody dying in there?” Doc hollered from the next room.

  “Something’s happened to Dutch!”

  Doc must have pulled himself together pretty quick ‘cause he was in my room that fast. He examined my scar, poked and prodded, hemmed and hawed.

  “If I didn’t know for a fact that I’m the only doctor qualified to have done such fine stitching west of the Mississippi, and the fact that you would die without it, I would say you recently had a kidney removed, Dutch.”

  “What the hell?” I felt the blood drain from my face. “Doc, would a kidney be worth gold to anyone?”

  “I don’t see why, there’s nothing can be done with a loose kidney. It’s not like you can put it in somebody else who’s own kidneys are failing, besides you need two kidneys to stay alive.”

  “You do? You need two?” Now I was really getting nervous. “Any way you can tell if mine is gone?”

  “Yeah, sure. Yours isn’t gone–you’re not dead. If your kidney was gone, you’d be dead.” Doc laughed and left the room.

  Well, I wasn’t dead and I had a bag of gold. I went to San Francisco and blew my money on gambling, opium, and whores.

  I figured I wasn’t suffering from whatever had happened to me on the ridge and I liked the high life I’d been living so, before my gold ran out, I figured I’d better go back. Now I was able to get together a crew of a dozen men whose eyes had lit up when they’d seen me spending the gold. We made the trek to Devil’s Ridge.

  When my strange friends were done with them, they sent the men back one by one. I shot each one and pushed their bodies into the crevasses. I came back alone with the dozen bags of gold.

  I did it a couple more times, took a dozen men up–came back alone.

  Each time I went back with another dozen men the howling of the wind sounded more personal, like voices calling my name, calling me a selfish murdering bastard.

  Now there are too many voices, too many dead men; I can’t go back to Devil’s Ridge.

  Some nights an odd light shines in my window and I think maybe it’s the strange ones I met on the Ridge, looking for me, wanting more of me.

  Sometimes I’m tempted.

  Revenge of The Phantom Stranger

  Kevin Henry

  The summer of 1865 was uncommonly hot. Some folk said it was the heat that caused the things that happened that week in August. They say the heat causes folk to do strange things. I don’t think it was the heat at all. I think some folk just have somethin’ bad inside ‘em. Like a dog chasin’ cats, it’s a part of their nature.

  A lot of good things happened that year. I kissed a girl for the first time. Penny Sue Martin was her name. I didn’t even think she liked me ‘cause I picked on her all the time. Next thing ya know, behind the hickory tree at school, she laid it on me. Can’t say I didn’t like it. Not at all.

  I went fishin’ with my Pa a lot that summer and I caught the biggest bass either of us had ever seen. Pa tipped his hat to me when I caught it. He had a funny way of tippin' it from the back instead of the front. Ma said he did it that way 'cause he was ornery.

  That was also the year that hell and...somethin’ else came to Sweetwater Springs.

  Sweetwater was a quiet little Arizona town. We had a general store and a protestant church, a school and several saloons. It was the feed mill and the lumber company what employed most folk. It was the kind of place where everyone knew each other and nobody locked their doors at night.

  My family had a plot of land just outside of town. My Pa was a speculator. He built houses and such and waited for families to buy ‘em and move in. He weren’t dreadful flush, but he made good money and built us a big ol’ house far enough away from town that we had some privacy. Pa said he didn’t like livin’ so close to folk that he knew when they was knockin’ boots. It turned out that the privacy of our little paradise was what drew the Deadeye Gang.

  The Deadeye Gang came through southern Arizona, runnin’ from the law for numerous counts of robbery and murder. Their leader was a man known as Deadeye Jack. He didn’t get the nickname from his dead aim, but from his one creepy
, dead eye. He said he could see into the spirit world with it. With him came five others, each more scruffy and morally bankrupt than the last. They were not only bad men, they were the worst. They were the kind of men who stomped puppies to death and hurt those who were weaker than them just for the fun of it. The gang was a blight. Where they went, things died.

  When the gang first showed up, Pa tried to chase ‘em away. He said he didn’t want no trouble and there was a perfectly good hotel in town. Deadeye said he couldn’t go into town on account of being recognized. He wanted to lay low at our place for a while. Pa wouldn’t have it.

  My Pa was as brave as any, but he was no match for half a dozen experienced killers. They disarmed him and took him out to the barn. I don’t know what they did to him out there, but me and Ma and my sister could hear him scream all the way up in the house. I don’t know what was worse, hearin’ the screams or hearin’ the silence when they finally stopped. I never saw my Pa alive again.

  Deadeye Jack and his men made themselves at home in our house. They ate our food and drank Pa’s beer. Then they began lookin’at my Ma and older sister, Missy, in a funny way. I was only twelve that year and didn’t know much about the birds and the bees, as they say, but I knew the looks those men were givin’ were no good. They said they’d been on the road for a long time with no companionship. They had frustrations that needed taken care of.

  After some arguin’, Ma convinced those degenerates to take out their frustrations on her and to leave Missy alone. They took Ma to the bedroom. At first, they went in three at a time. Ma never came out much and when she did she was cryin’.

  I was the man of the house what with Pa gone. I tried to fight those men, to get them to leave Ma alone. They smacked me in the face hard enough that I saw stars. After they cleaned my plow, they tied a rope ‘round my neck and made me walk on all fours like a dog. They called me “hound” and if I didn’t come real quick when they called me, I got smacked upside the head again. Jack snubbed out his cigars on my arms when he felt like it. Missy cried for me.

  After three days, the men said they were bored with Ma and started lookin’ at Missy again. Ma fought those men like Kilkenny cats, but they was too much for her. They beat her like I never saw anyone beat. She lay in a pool of her own blood and wept as the men took Missy to the bedroom. I pulled at the end of my rope like a mad man but couldn’t get free. There was no one to help poor Missy.

  I heard lots of screamin’ and cryin’. I always had a vivid imagination and that night I imagined all sorts of things that grown men might do to a young girl. I’m sure what I thought of paled in comparison to what really happened. When Missy finally came out, her face looked hollow, like those men had taken everything good away from her.

  Ma became like a wild animal. As hurt as she was, she tried to kill those men with her teeth and her bare hands. Deadeye Jack shot her in the head.

  The next day, Deadeye sent a man called Frog to town to buy provisions. The food at the house was runnin’ low and the men needed more alcohol. I know what happened next ‘cause I heard folk talk about it later.

  Frog, a short, mean-tempered man with a pot-belly and a handlebar mustache, did his shoppin’. He must have worked up a powerful thirst doin’ it ‘cause instead of bringin’ the provisions back like he was s’posed to, he went to the Red Slipper Saloon. He spent a lot of stolen money on whiskey and gamblin’. He was still playin’ cards when the stranger showed up.

  Folk said they never saw the stranger come into the Red Slipper. It was just like one minute he wasn’t there and the next minute he was. They say the stranger was dressed in simple clothes. He wore dark pants and a long, dark jacket. His black, wide-brimmed hat cast shadows on his face so no one could tell what he looked like.

  The stranger stood watchin’ Frog play cards, starin’ right at him. Frog got uneasy and spoke up. He said, “Yer either playin’ or walkin’ mister, and this table is already full.”

  Without a word, the stranger reached down and turned Frog’s cards over on the table for all to see. Everyone was shocked to see that they was all Jokers, smilin’ like a cat that had cornered a mouse.

  Frog went for his gun, but the stranger was faster. He pulled a knife and sliced Frog’s throat open in the blink of an eye. Blood went everywhere. Frog flopped around for a spell, then fell over dead.

  In all the commotion, no one saw where the stranger went.

  The next mornin’, when Deadeye found out Frog had been out all night and not come back, he sent two more of his men to find him. Skeeter Baldwin and Kid Bannister went to town. Skeeter and Kid found out pretty quick that Frog was dead. They started askin’ questions ‘round town 'bout what happened. When they heard the story of the dark stranger, they went lookin’ for him.

  All those questions made folk nervous and, eventually, Sheriff Cotter caught up with Skeeter and Kid. It was the worst thing he ever done. Those men strung Cotter up in his own jail. They locked the place up before they left and no one found him for two days. I bet he was pretty ripe by then.

  By sundown, they still hadn’t found a trace of the stranger, but they was tired and thirsty. They stopped by a saloon for drinks before headin’ back to the house. That was when the stranger found 'em.

  After gettin’ their attention, the stranger walked outside. The outlaws followed. They drew on the man in the dark hat, firing a volley at him. Even though they had him dead to rights, somehow they missed every shot. The stranger drew his own pistol and gunned Skeeter and Kid down in the street. They say he disappeared in the crowd of onlookers.

  The following day, when Skeeter and Kid didn’t come back, Deadeye got all sorts of nervous. He paced back and forth, muttering about how Marshals or bounty hunters must have found 'em. He decided that he and his last two goons would wait until nightfall, then hightail it out of town under cover of darkness.

  Deadeye said he wasn’t afraid of nothin’, but I noticed his hands tremble as dark approached. He seemed like a rat in a cage that was caught in a flash flood, waitin’ for the water to come up and drown him. He put Nubbins and Doolin to watch duty, in case the men who hunted them tried to come at them unawares. No one came.

  The gang got rowdy when they drank and things got broke. I cut through the rope around my neck with a broken piece of Ma’s dinnerware that I found on the floor. I slipped away to where Missy sat, staring placidly at nothing. I held her and told her that everything would be fine. I had a feelin’.

  After the sun went down and before the gang could escape, the stranger got into the house. He was just as quiet as a shadow. I heard guns firin’, then heard Nubbins and Doolin curse and fall down dead, one by one. There was just Deadeye Jack left then. He pulled me away from Missy and held a pistol to my head. He called me his insurance policy, sayin’ that no law man could stand for seein’ a kid get hurt. He maneuvered me around the house, through the livin’ room and toward the front door.

  The stranger appeared at the door before we could get to it. Seein’ him for myself, a coldness ran down my spine like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water on me. Even though I looked straight at him, I couldn’t tell what he looked like. The shadows were drawn to him like black to the night. They moved with him, always hidin’ his face from view.

  Deadeye must have seen somethin’ I didn’t ‘cause he cursed real loud. His face went white and he dropped his gun. He let me go and fell to his knees, begging the stranger for mercy. The stranger was not in a merciful mood.

  I saw the Finnegan brothers torture a dog once. They shot both its eyes out with a .22 first. It didn’t die, but whimpered and whined pitifully. Those boys spent the better part of an hour makin’ that poor dog wish it had never been born. I got sick and tried to run home, but they wouldn’t let me. When they finally killed that dog, it wasn’t an act of cruelty, but the most merciful thing they could have done. It would suffer no more.

  That was what it was like when the stranger got a hold of Deadeye, except I didn’t get sick wat
chin’. When the screamin’ was done and Deadeye was gone, I didn’t feel like somethin’ bad or wrong had happened. It was just and right. The bastard had deserved every second of what he got. It was justice for Ma and Pa and Missy. For me too.

  The stranger never said a word the whole time he was workin’ Deadeye. When he was done, he looked at me. Although his face was still shadowed, I swear I saw him smile.

  Afterward, folk in town said the stranger never existed. Some said that Deadeye and his gang must have died from some sort of poisonin' ‘cause there wasn’t a single mark on any of their bodies. It was like all the wounds just disappeared. Didn’t matter to me. Dead is dead, right?

  I know the stranger was real ‘cause I saw him for myself. When he left, he didn't go out the door. He just disappeared right in front of it, like a drop of ink in a tub of water, fadin' and stretchin' until it’s all gone. But before he turned to leave, he tipped his hat to me, not from the front, but from the back.

  Even though I never saw him again, I’ll never forget the phantom stranger.

  Relentless

  Scott Rinehart

  It was February of 1879 and an unknowing west was being invaded. Sixty-eight dead outlaws had returned to a world that didn’t want them. Since their return they had banded together and terrorized Arizona being led by Snake Meyers, a ruthless mother stabbin’ and father rapin’ son of a bitch. These undead outlaws were hard to kill and too much for human lawmen to handle.

  The Hell Bent, as they liked to be called, took to robbing stage coaches and railroad paymaster’s offices. Wherever pursued, the lawmen chasing them never returned. They robbed a train one day and burned a town another. Settlers went missing where they had been. They were unstoppable, at least for a time.