Blood and Beauty and Other Weird Tales

by Jeff Chapman

  Respectfully, etc.

  Cornelius Direbrand

  Shafts to Hell

  “Now you listen carefully.” He poked a stubby, calloused finger at his audience sitting on the bunk across the cell. “It didn’t happen the way they’ve been tellin’ it. Can’t say who could put up with all Elmore’s preachin’. All shut up in the bowels of that gold mine. Those tunnels were tighter than a snake skin, and the deeper we dug and blasted, the tighter they got.”

  He shivered. “Gives me the willies just to tell of it. Like coffins they were, all dark and dusty and narrow, my neck scratching the rock above and my chin the rock below, and Elmore behind me jawin’ on and on about sin and kingdom come. All the while we were diggin’ our way to Hell.”

  He laughed. “Elmore wasn’t always so high and mighty. I wouldn’t have made him my partner if I’d known how marryin’ that Bible-thumpin’ teetotaler would tarnish him. The whores weren’t good enough for Elmore. No, he had to have himself some kind of lady, somethin’ pretty and shiny. I’ll admit she was a fine woman to look at. Don’t know what she wanted with Elmore. Maybe she saw something malleable, like gold.

  “If only we’d struck a big vein before, well, before he took to preachin’. I know it’s there. We’d see glimmers of it, streaks of yellow like Elsie’s hair and that yellow dress she wore on Sundays.” He shook his head. “Sundays. Elmore quit workin’ on Sundays after gettin’ hitched to Elsie. Left me to do all the diggin’ myself. But it wasn’t all bad, alone every seventh day. Some folks go to hear preachin’ on Sundays. That’s the only day I didn’t hear preachin’. And I’m thankful.

  “Was on a Sunday that I got stuck. Got my gut wedged in tight and Elmore wasn’t there to pull me out. My candle burnt itself out and I was trapped in the darkest of mines. Any direction I moved my hands or arms, I hit rock. I shivered and screamed but that mountain had a grip on me. That mine wailed when the wind blew, and all night I lay in the black guts of the earth, listenin’ to the mine wail. I’ve heard people say that moanin’ is from the souls stuck in Hell, cryin’ for mercy. Well, if that be true, they begged all night and didn’t get none.

  “Guess I’ll find out for myself soon enough. As Elmore was so fond of sayin’, I got more sin weighin’ on my head than the mountain above the mine. Ain’t no way I’m gettin’ into heaven. No, siree. I done cooked my goose. But I shivered all night, surrounded by all that cold rock, fearin’ a scorpion might crawl up my pants. Elmore pulled me out in the mornin’, tied a rope round my ankles.”

  He leaned against the wall, stroking the ragged beard covering his chin, grinning at the opposite bunk. “I bet you’re wantin’ to know why I did it, where I got the idea. Well one day we got to talkin’ about sin and flesh and those folks that got snowed in, the Donner people, and had to eat their dead to make it through the winter. Elmore mounted his high horse and said he would starve to death before he’d.... Now what did he say? ‘Violate the sanctity of a fella’s remains.’ That got me to thinkin’, in that twisted way you think when you been crawlin’ around beneath the mountains.

  “Wasn’t too hard really. You could say lady luck paid me a visit. Elsie was takin’ the stage to San Francisco, to visit her sister. I asked her to come by my shack and take some letters to mail. Elmore went on up to the mine. She was gussied up real pretty. Her being a trusting, Christian woman, never crossed her mind why I’d have letters since my ma and pa are long dead and I’ve got no notion of where my brothers are. I didn’t go up to the mine that day. I was busy.

  “When Elmore came down the mountain, I told him we had a feast. He thought I’d butchered a hog, but no siree, there ain’t nothing that’d make me kill one of my fatted barrows to feed Elmore, even to celebrate the mother vein. So we sat down and ate our fill of meat and Elmore smiled his stupid grin and patted his swollen belly. The only thing worse than his preachin’ was his damned optimism. He always thought we were just one pickax swing from the mother vein. That’s why he pushed me to work so long and to squeeze into places where a man ain’t fit to squeeze. It was greed, cold as the snow on top of the mountain.

  “‘Well,’ I asked him after he’d stuffed his fat belly, ‘what’d you think of the meat?’ He said it was the sweetest pork he’d ever tasted. Now it was my turn to grin. I went over to the stove and took the lid off of one of the pots. I was pickling Elsie’s head in some moonshine. Served that teetotaler right to soak up some real lightnin’ and fire. I grabbed Elsie’s head by the hair and held it up for Elmore to see. ‘Say hello to your dinner,’ I said.

  “Things got a bit confused after that. Somehow Elmore got a knife stuck in his chest. He loved that little woman so much that he tried to cut open his stomach to let her out, but he wasn’t letting her out of me. Some people been sayin’ that I’m a savage, but I ain’t no injun. I didn’t lift a scalp off Elsie and hang her locks outside my door. No, I left her pretty hair attached to her head. Folks like Elmore would starve in the mountains, but not me. I know how to—” He stopped at the sound of voices belonging to the Sheriff and a stranger.

  “If not for the, well, the savagery,” said the Sheriff, “it’d be your typical case of murder. One partner killing the other when they get up to a big strike. The bank manager said Elmore thought they were close, and Elmore wasn’t one for counting his chickens.”

  “This is common?” asked the strange voice.

  “The murder, not the other. These miners get greed boiling over, looking for gold one day after another.”

  “Greed and jealousy are the poisons of the soul.”

  “Shame about Elsie. Not right for an honest, respectable woman to suffer like that.”

  “Will I be able to spend some time alone with him?”

  “That won’t be a problem, Padre. No one will bunk with him. And I’m obliged to you for riding all the way over here. I’m not a cruel man so I like to honor their last request if I can.”

  “A lost soul was calling. The, uh, the....”

  “He’s gonna swing in the morning if that’s what you’re asking. Expect a big crowd. Elsie was much liked. The Sheriff unlocked the door to the cells. “Melvin, here’s that priest you asked for.”

  Melvin gawked. The Priest stepped forward then stopped and stared at the bunk opposite, where a pillow sat propped against the wall with a happy face scrawled on it in black bean juice.

  “Made his own bunk mate,” said the Sheriff. “Talks to it all day and night long.”

  “I see,” said the Priest, fingering the crucifix hanging over his heart.

  Melvin lunged to the bars, dropping to his knees. He thrust out his arm and grabbed a handful of the Priest’s black robes. The Priest flinched and tried to back away, but Melvin held fast to the cassock.

  “I’ve sinned horribly, Father, so much that the Almighty, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost all together can’t forgive me. But I need to know somethin’ before I hang. Tell me, Father. Is Hell a cramped place, long and narrow, like a gold mine?”

  Good King David

  Uzzah strode across the courtyard, angling for the double gate, the only break in the palisade. A predawn mist swirled at his ankles and a damp chill seeped through the woolen tunic beneath his leather brigandine. Two small fires crackled on either side of the path. Ash glowing red spiraled upward in the heat and smoke before burning out to black and disappearing in the night sky. Something wasn't right. He sniffed. A stench came forth from hell or the gates, metallic and musky like battle and blood but faint like a memory.

  A shadow passed the gate. “Halt,” shouted Uzzah. He gripped the hilt of his sword. “Who walks the King’s ground without leave?”

  “And who challenges the King’s watchman?” the shadow answered.

  “Ahio,” said Uzzah. The brothers clapped each other on the shoulders and then stepped closer to one of the fires to warm their hands. “I expected to find you on the wall.”

  “I would be, but....”

  Uzzah followed Ahio’s gaze to a dark corner of t
he palisade blackened with shadows from the walkway overhead.

  “There’s something foul in the air tonight.”

  “Aye,” said Ahio. “I came down to have a look.”

  They nodded to one another, drew their swords, and advanced toward the wall, following the sick scent.

  “Who’s there?” Ahio shouted in a tone backed with steel, a command rather than a question.

  A groan answered them, a mournful, wavering note, reeking of festering wounds but very far away like the splash at the bottom of a well reverberating to the surface. The watchmen stopped their advance. That groan belonged to no mortal man or any animal they had ever slain. They held their position, fighting their instincts, forsaking a bolt for the safety of the fire because no soldier wants to be the first to flee. They waited, but whatever groaned spoke nothing more.

  “Unfold yourself,” said Ahio.

  The mist at the base of the wall glowed yellow and swirled with streaks of red, growing taller until it reached the height of a man. The watchmen stepped backward, gaping at the spectre coalescing before them.

  The translucent form—a tall man with a stout body and arms like a bear—hovered in the shadow of the wall. Clotted blood matted a yellow beard that trailed down his chest. His gray mail was torn across his shoulder. Another gash sagged above the opposite hip. Splotches of dried blood, the color of ochre, stained the tunic as if he had splashed through a river of it. No helm protected his head.

  “It’s Uriah,” said Ahio.

  “Uriah the Geat,” said Uzzah.

  Uriah the ghost turned his eyes to them. Once the deep blue of a glacier lake beneath a summer sun, his eyes weighed with the leaden gray of a rolling sea on the verge of a storm. With a tired, hollow voice, it spoke. “Send for Absalom.”

  Uzzah and Ahio exchanged nervous glances. “We should rouse Nathanael the Wise,” whispered Uzzah. “He’ll know the witchery at work here.”

  “I’ll fetch him at once,” said Ahio but the hollow voice stopped him.

  “You believe the dead deaf? That I am a conjurer’s trick? Do you not see the blood of my wounds? Shall I turn my head and show you my cleaved skull? How many curses have I lain on the hand wielding the ax that parted me from Bathsheba. A hand I would have died for without a second thought.”

  “‘Tis not right to speak with the dead,” said Ahio.

  “Nor is treachery and murder,” said Uriah. “You honored me once. Will you not honor me after death? Fetch Absalom.”

  The watchmen backed away. “If Absalom will come,” said Ahio. “We will bring him.”

  “I shall wait,” said the ghost, whose shape faded and folded in on itself, leaving a pillar of white mist.

  The watchmen abandoned their post, a terrible breach for which a rope and tree awaited, but the ghost had addled their thoughts, bending them.

  They found Absalom in the great hall, wrapped in elk hide blankets, sprawled on a dais before the king’s table. A wolfhound with shaggy white fur lay beside him, resting its head on its paws. The sweet scent of mead punctuated here and there with the stench of vomit wafted from the stone floor. Orange embers dying in the fire pit reflected in the black pools of the hound’s eyes. Its nostrils quivered, ever vigilant. It followed the movements of the watchmen as they stepped over and around snoring bodies. It growled as they approached. They gave a wide berth to the beast. According to rumor, the hound was the maker of eunuchs. Few believed the rumors, but none tested them. Uzzah knelt beside Absalom and nudged his shoulder until he stirred.

  The prince squinted at them. “What? It’s still night.”

  “We beg your forgiveness. But Uriah the Geat has come back. He demands to speak with you.”

  “Uriah? He’s dead, you fools.”

  “He’s come in spirit,” whispered Uzzah. “He waits for you by the gate.”

  “In spirit?” Absalom raised his head and shoulders, leaning on his elbow, his linen shirt trimmed with silver threads at the collar and wrists. “What does Nathanael say of this?”

  “We came directly to you,” said Ahio as he knelt beside Uzzah. “It’s Uriah. We saw the wounds.”

  Absalom threw off the blankets. He wrapped a bear skin cloak around his shoulders. Jabbing a finger at the hound, he commanded it to stay. The hound watched Absalom follow Uzzah and Ahio the length of the hall and into the night. It turned its nose to the thigh bone just beyond its front paws.

  ~~~

  The watchmen stopped at the fires beside the path and pointed to the swirling pillar of mist that glimmered white against the shadowed wall as if a dagger of moonlight had stabbed the fog.

  Absalom combed his fingers through twisted curls of his raven locks. He looked at the full moon chasing the western horizon, a single white eye behind scudding, wispy clouds.

  “A trick of the moon.”

  “Do the moon and the fog speak?” said Uzzah.

  Absalom glared at Uzzah and for a moment the two watchmen believed he growled deep and low at the back of his throat, but the night had already played tricks with their senses and they no longer trusted them.

  Uzzah bowed his head. “Forgive me, sire. I swear it spoke to us.”

  “With enough mead and wine the moon might do anything.”

  “It took shape when we approached,” said Ahio.

  “You deserted your posts. Joab would do much worse than hang you.” Absalom laughed at their ashen faces. “You still possess enough wits to fear Joab so you can’t be too witless. Give me some water. If I’m to speak to a ghost I can’t go with a parched throat.”

  Absalom drank from a gourd that Uzzah proffered, held it above his mouth with his head flung back to catch the last drops.

  “Did it say it was Uriah?”

  “There was no need,” said Ahio.

  “Uriah,” shouted Absalom. “I’ve come.”

  When the pillar said nothing, Absalom leaped across the fire pit and strode toward the swirling mist.

  The same groan accompanied the transformation, the cry of an agonized prisoner chained to the floor of a dry well. A snap and a spark and the pillar churned like a cyclone, spawning from the ground a man of light and shadow. The groan brought Absalom to a sudden halt. The young prince nearly fell into the translucent man.

  “Uriah,” said Absalom.

  “What is left,” said Uriah, “when all a man holds dear is slashed from him.”

  Absalom took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and reached for his absent hound. “To what.... I was....” He held the ghost’s gaze as he fumbled for words. “You summoned me? Surely you want my father.”

  “Do you ask the Frisians for aid to fight the Frisians?”

  “You were loyal,” said Absalom. “My father did you no wrong. You were entombed with more honor than a king.”

  “Guilt. My honor was a salve for his guilt. How quickly he found a husband for my widow. There is a festering sore at the heart of your house; it spreads its poison through the branches, sickening the flesh with greed and lust.”

  “Lies and slander, you fiend. Who sent you?”

  “There are some agonies that even the grave cannot contain. Idiot. Your father, our king and master, coveted my joy, seduced her into adultery, and sent me to my death.”

  “You’re one of Baal’s demons, an agent from a Jutish sorcerer sent to sow discord.”

  “There is no need to sow when corruption grows abundant.”

  “Am I to believe hearsay about your widow? Prove your charges. Show me the corruption, this pestilence spreading through my father’s house.”

  “You have a sister, a much beloved sister.”

  “Tamar. Yes?”

  “You shall see.”

  The light faded to gray shadow and the shadow to night and the ghost was no more. Absalom stared at the darkness below the wall. He heard the footfalls of the watchmen approaching from behind. He ignored them. Something prophetic had been announced, witchery against Tamar.

  “Prince Absalom,” said Ahio.
“Was it Uriah?”

  “I don’t know,” said Absalom. “Something malevolent. When day breaks, send Nathanael to me.”

  ~~~

  King David sat in a throne carved from the bole of a massive oak. Reliefs of bears and wolves spiraled around the legs. Eagles and falcons supported the arms. Angels soared across the chair’s back accompanying a burning tree whose flames jutted above the top. The eyes of every angel and beast sparkled with inlaid garnets. The flames of the tree sparkled with amber and crimson rubies. The chair sat in the center of a dais on the bottom of the hexagonal tower built on a motte in the center of his fortress. Moat and forest and fields encircled the stronghold; David’s kingdom stretched beyond the horizon in every direction.

  David tapped his fingers on the armrests. His youthful beauty was a memory locked behind a protruding stomach and soft muscles. He was waiting for Nathanael the Wise in the chair from which he heard counsel, and judged.

  Years ago, when he was young and honest, he relished these meetings. Now, Nathanael bore only accusations. From outside the tower, guards pushed open the double doors. Nathanael marched to King David without bowing or pausing. His staff clicked on the stone floor.

  “May the Lord of the eternal fire that burns but does not consume bless you and shower mercy on your soul.”

  “And may he bless you likewise,” David answered; his sigh rattled through the halls inspiring smirks from all quarters. “Your messenger said you had a vision, most urgent.”

  “I did. But I am not the only one. I met with Absalom before the sun rose to talk of ghosts, the ghost of Uriah.”

  “Absalom? Uriah’s ghost?”

  “Perhaps the dead hate treachery.”

  The two men glared at one another, an old bear and an old wolverine in a standoff. David raised his white knuckled fists as if he could hide his animosity and fear. Finally, as if he could dictate to the prophet of God, he motioned for Nathanael to continue.