by James Palmer
"S-sorry, mister. I didn't mean nothin' by it. Say, are you here about the Riders?"
Cairn cocked his left eyebrow. "What riders? Is one of ‘em named Shade?"
"N-no. They started coming back about a week ago."
"Back? Back from where?"
"The c-cemetery. Calico Pete was the first. Old Sheriff Talmadge killed him while he was trying to rob the bank. Three days later, here he comes, walkin' out of the cemetery, all that rouge on his cheeks, and he takes a gun and kills the sheriff, then rides off on the sheriff’s horse. Four days later, the sheriff comes ambling out of the cemetery and takes off. Some others come out of the cemetery too, only they was in there a lot longer. They all rode off in the same direction as Pete and the sheriff, and now they've been scarin' everybody in the territory. Nobody knows what's goin' on. Old Preacher, he said at the end times, the dead would ride. You know what that means?
Cairn shook his head. He released the boy's wrist.
"I don't either, but it's got folks in these parts scared. You can't kill the Riders. I reckon you can still only kill a man once. I guess that'll never change."
Cairn looked around. He smelled the work of Shade and his minions.
"You ever heard of a man, an albino, around here?"
"What's an albino?"
"A man who's all white, I mean chalk white, skin and hair, and pink eyes. He'll be wearin' glasses like yours, because he don't like the sun."
"No, Mister. But I'm the wrong person to ask. I can't see nothing except what's in people's hearts."
"This man's heart's as black as sin," said Cairn. "He's a very bad man. That man I killed, Krieg, he was one of his boys."
"No, I never heard tell of anyone like that around here. There's just the Riders, and they're enough to deal with. Say, you ever heard of Hell getting' full? That's what Preacher said. He said at the end times, Hell would be full and the dead would have no choice but to ride. You think that's what's happening around here?"
"I hope not," said Cairn. "I'm hoping there’s room in Hell for at least a few more.”
"Like Shade?"
Cairn's jaw worked. "Just feed and water my horse, put him up for the night, and have him ready to ride come morning. I'm leaving at dawn."
Cairn tossed the kid a coin, which he caught perfectly.
"Thanks, Mister. Gee, this silver piece lights up like Carson City too."
Cairn decided, once his grim business was done, he would have to visit Carson City. He touched his hat and sauntered off.
“Aren’t you gonna do anything about the Riders?”
Cairn shrugged, a move that was lost on the blind boy. “Not my problem. I’m here for Shade.”
The boy looked down at his feet like he could see them. “I figured if anyone could stop the Riders, it would be you, the way you’re lit up and all. Anyways, they’ll probably come lookin’ for you, ‘fore it’s over. I think they can see the way you’re lit up too, and I think they need what’s inside you to survive. The magic, they eat it. At least that’s what I think.”
With that he turned and led Cairn’s horse into the nearest stall and started removing the tack with practiced ease.
“You just mind that horse, now,” said Cairn. “There’ll be another silver piece for you tomorrow.” He turned and exited into the bright morning sunlight.
He asked the livery man where the saloon was, and he grunted and pointed in its general direction. Cairn walked toward what appeared to be the center of town. Off to the east, surrounded by broken-toothed pickets, was the town’s cemetery, an assemblage of sad, ramshackle markers.
When there’s no more room in Hell, the dead will ride.
A chill wind blew through Josiah Cairn as he turned and headed toward the town’s saloon. If Shade had been here, he would have gone there, and people would remember. You couldn’t forget Shade.
Cairn swung the batwing doors wide as he entered. The place was as dead as the rest of the town at this early hour. A few old timers played cards, glancing up at him as if they were hoping to see a familiar face, but going back to their game when they saw it was a stranger. A man rested with his head on one end of the bar, snoring loudly. The bored-looking bartender barely batted an eye at Cairn as he stepped up to the bar and sat down.
He ordered a whiskey, then realized it was the first time he had had one in more than ten years. Maggie had never allowed spirits in her home, so he had to give up the liquor or lose her. He chose her. Now she was gone, and Cairn wondered if the bottle was worth picking back up again. Would it once again fill the empty space she had taken up in his life? What other bad habits would he take up again?
The bartender put a glass in front of him and filled it, eyeing the rope burns on Cairn’s neck nervously. Cairn regarded the amber liquid briefly before upturning it down his throat. It felt like fire, but it did not burn as it settled into him. Slowly, Cairn began to feel like himself again. Not someone who had briefly died and crossed back over with a score to settle. He nodded to the bartender, who refilled the glass.
“Where you from, Stranger?” asked the bartender with practiced ease.
Cairn stared into the full glass. “All over.” He drank it down. “Know where I can get a room for the night?”
“Upstairs,” he said, pointing over his head. “Twenty-five cents a night. Entertainment’s extra.”
Cairn heard muffled noises, the giggles of women coming from upstairs. They would know if Shade and his men had passed through.
“Sounds good,” he said, pulling another silver piece from Krieg’s purse. He would have to go easy or he would run out before he caught up with Shade. The bartender’s eyes boggled at it.
“That’s twenty-five cents for the room,” said Cairn. “The rest is for some information. I’m looking for someone. An albino. He’ll be traveling with an Indian, a Chinaman, and a white man.”
The bartender shook his head. “Sorry, Mister. I haven’t seen anyone like that around here. Say, any of you boys seen an albino around these parts?”
The gamblers shook their heads and chuckled.
“I seen a albino whore one time, near Galveston,” said one of the men, a young man barely half Cairn’s age. This elicited laughter from his fellow card players.
“Say, you ain’t one of them dead’uns, are ya?” The young man got up, went over to Cairn.
“How’d you get those rope burns, anyway? Somebody string you up?”
“Easy, Eddie,” said the bartender.
Eddie ignored him. “It was the albino, wasn’t it? And I bet you’re gonna get your revenge, just like in one a them dime novels like what those queer fellas from back east brought with ‘em. Those engineers.”
“Cadre,” said Cairn, who was growing impatient with all his attention.
“Yeah, that’s them.” Eddie poked Cairn on the shoulder. “But you sure you ain’t dead? You look dead, and you sure as hell smell dead. I’ll bet you’re one of the Riders.”
“Go sit down, Eddie!” the bartender snapped.
The young man un-holstered his pistol and leveled it at the barkeep.
“You shut your mouth! I’ll do as I damn well please. You ain’t my pa.”
Cairn and Eddie locked gazes. “And you, Mr. Dead Man. After I send you back to hell, say hello to my pa for me.”
What happened next happened so fast that few could follow it. Cairn lashed out with his left arm, knocking the boy’s gun to the floor, while pulling his right pistol and ramming it into the boy’s forehead.
“I think you need to go sit back down and play some cards before you hurt yourself,” said Cairn evenly.
The boy’s eyes began to grow hard, but quickly softened. His brains beginning to reign in his temper. Cairn had met young men like him, easy to run their mouth, quick to pull a pistol, but that was the extent of their fire. This boy-man saw something in the grim, grey gaunt stranger that he didn’t like, something in the hard grey eyes narrowed to slits; something in the cut of the lean jaw th
at made him think twice.
“OK, Mister. “I was just…foolin’. I’m s-sorry.”
Cairn nodded and holstered his pistol. The young man retrieved his gun and returned to the table, crestfallen but glad to be alive.
“Everyone’s a little on edge,” explained the bartender. “What with the Riders and all.”
Cairn nodded. “I heard about them.”
“Whole damn town’s afraid of its own shadow. People afraid to go out at night.
“Sounds like a real problem,” said Cairn. “Now, about that room.”
Josiah Cairn had barely settled onto the bed when the first saloon girl came calling. He flipped her silver piece and asked about Shade. She hadn’t seen him, but she said three days ago some men came into town asking about the old witch.
I’ve been dead for three days.
“Where can I find this witch?”
*
The old witch lived on the outskirts of Oblivion, where the well-worn streets gave way to scrub and hillocks again. He found her easily enough, in a ramshackle house with a sign out front that read:
TAROT ~ PALMS READ ~ FORTUNES.
She opened the door with that all-knowing air common to fortunetellers, that sense that they knew you were coming all along. Cairn said nothing as he stepped in out of the heat into the dim sitting room where she apparently did her readings.
“Hello, stranger,” she said. “Name’s Tabitha. Tabitha Odom, though most folks round here call me Tabitha Hemlock, or Mother Hemlock, if ye prefer.”
Cairn shrugged. “I suppose it don’t make much difference, one way or the other.”
Tabitha nodded, her pale blue eyes, like ice on a mountaintop, working their way into him. “And who might ye be?”
“I might be a lot of things,” said Cairn. “But my name’s Cairn. “I’m looking for someone. An albino. He’s—”
“Come. Sit,” said the old witch, taking Cairn by the arm and pulling him deeper into her home. She bade him sit in a chair set before a velvet-covered table, taking the chair opposite. “There’s a certain order to these things. If we must hold palaver together, then we must do it right.”
She looked at Cairn, her eyes rheumy, her skin etched with thousands of lines, like creases in parchment. Then she reached into a pocket of her worn calico dress and pulled out a bundle wrapped in black velvet. She untied it, revealing a stack of faded yellow cards. Cairn was surprised to see that they were like no playing cards he had ever seen.
“Are ye familiar with the tarot?” she asked.
Cairn shook his head as she began dealing the cards, laying them one at a time on the table. Then she stared at them for a while. Finally she rocked back on her heels and uttered a cracking cackle.
“You are at the beginning of a long journey, Mr. Cairn,” said Tabitha Hemlock. “I cannot see how that journey ends. The man you seek is one of great power, and he is growing stronger by the day. But you are being pursued as well. The Devil himself rides your coattails.”
“He came to see you,” said Cairn. “Three days ago.”
The old woman arched an eyebrow. “The Devil?”
“The man I’m hunting.”
“Aye? Did he now? Well, lots of folks come to see ol’ Tabitha. I know who you mean. White like alabaster he is, and he shuns the sun. Shade, his name is. Them what ride with ‘im have hearts black as his. The Four Horsemen they are, riding toward their own private apocalypse.”
“What did he want?”
“What all men of his ilk want, Mr. Cairn. Power.”
“Did you give it to him?” asked Cairn.
Tabitha laughed. “’Tis beyond my power, Mr. Cairn. All Tabitha can do is guide ye. Whether ye heed my advice is up to you.”
Can you tell me where he went?” asked Cairn. “Where he is going?”
Tabitha lifted a shaking, crooked finger. “We never discussed payment. Let’s do so now.”
“How much?” said Cairn, reaching into his pocket for Krieg’s purse.
“I don’t need your money, Mr. Cairn,” said the old woman. “I need yer service. This town needs yer service.”
Cairn stopped reaching for the purse and placed both hands upon the table. “What would you have me do, witch?”
Tabitha smiled a toothless smile. “Most do not enter deals with me so lightly.”
Cairn shrugged. “I made a pact with the Devil himself. An agreement with a witch is nothing compared to that.”
“I suppose,” said Tabitha, giggling. “Very well. What I want from you is simple. You must stop the Riders.”
Cairn sat back in his seat.
“You’ve heard of them?”
“Yes. It’s all anyone in this town talks about.”
“Good. Get ye to the mine. There you’ll find ‘em, toiling away, the poor souls.”
“What makes you think I can do anything about them?”
“I don’t know for certain that ye can,” said the witch. “But I have a feelin’ about you. The way you’re lit up and all.”
Cairn smarted. There was that phrase again. Lit up. What did it mean?
Christ, mister, you’re lit up like Carson City.
“Do that, send the poor, bedamned Riders back where they belong, and I’ll tell you where your albino is headed.”
“The Riders are not my concern. Only Shade.”
“The albino will be there when your task is done. Dispatch the Riders back to the land of the dead, and I will tell you how to find Shade.”
“Shade is already three days’ ride ahead of me.”
“You’ll catch up,” said Tabitha darkly. “It’s in the cards.” She motioned to the tarot deck spread out before her. “Now you must do this thing. That is our deal. Or you can wander the scrub for days and dry up to a mummy before you ever find your Shade. And you’ll not scare me into tellin’ with those guns a’ yours, either. Ol’ Tabitha has seen horrors make the Devil stain his drawers.”
Cairn sighed. He didn’t want to hurt the old witch, or anyone else in this town. Doing so would make him just like Shade. “All right. How do I get to the mine?”
*
The path to the mine was easy enough to find, a winding trail not quite gone back to scrub that zigzagged toward a set of low hills that squatted on the horizon like morose giants. Josiah Cairn felt something too. The hairs on the back of his neck quivered, and he thought he could sense the Riders as he got closer. He also felt some force in the mountain, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
It was nearing dusk as he made out the mine’s entrance. Once boarded up, it was now an open maw, a black hole leading down into the earth. As Cairn neared got closer, he noticed a greenish ting to the air surrounding the mine entrance, and the force he felt grew stronger. He also smelled the stench of death, a cloying miasma that hung over the land like a pall. Something was very wrong here, and the old witch thought Cairn could put it right again.
But could he? When he had done so much wrong in his own life?
I should be going after Shade.
When you made a promise to the Devil, you had better not go back on your word.
He had a feeling going against the old witch could be just as bad.
His horse stopped, fighting against Cairn’s urgings, refusing to go any further. Cairn sighed and climbed down from his mount. He walked toward the mine’s glowing entrance while his horse foraged among the rocks for scrub grass to eat. Cairn drew his right pistol, holding it at the ready.
Inside the mine’s mouth he heard digging and furtive whispers. What were the Riders doing? Whatever it was, Cairn was certain they weren’t digging for turquoise.
Off to the right of the mine entrance a trio of frightened-looking, half-starved horses stood tied to a post near the remains of a campfire. The smell of death hung everywhere.
A shadowy figure emerged from the mouth of the mine, shuffling along holding a lantern. Cairn noted his pale, sunken and rotting flesh, and the lost, almost vacant look to the thing
’s pale eyes. But he felt no horror, only pity. These had once been men, and something inside the mine had turned them into something less. A tin star glinted dully on the creature’s left breast.
The thing that had once been Sheriff Talmadge walked straight forward, muttering something Cairn couldn’t quite make out, and grabbed up a pick from a pile of digging implements near the extinguished fire, then reentered the mine. Cairn watched as the lantern light bobbed back into oblivion.
Cairn cocked back the hammer on his pistol, the noise deafening in the silence. Can you even kill a dead man?
He steadied himself and entered the mine.
The darkness swallowed him whole, and for an instant he had the panicked feeling of being in the other place. He forced it down and kept going. Ahead in the darkness he could hear digging, the scraping of metal tools against unyielding rock. He tightened his fingers around the sandalwood grip of his Colt. It made him feel better, even though he knew it was nigh useless down here in the dark with these dead men.
A faint glow told him he was getting closer. At last he rounded a bend in the tunnel, which opened up and out into a wider cavity. Cairn could make out several other side tunnels that had long since caved in. And there, in the center of the cavity, the dead men toiled, swinging their picks and stabbing at the earth with shovels. They did not turn to look at Cairn, but just stood there muttering to themselves.
Cautiously, Cairn stepped closer, keeping his pistol steady. Looking over the sheriff’s decaying shoulder, he saw the object of their strange work.
In the bottom of a hole the Riders had furtively dug was a large black sphere, glinting darkly in the lantern light. At first Cairn thought it some enormous jewel, but no naturally occurring stone would look like this. It was perfectly round and smooth, as if it had been milled somehow. Cairn also felt more than heard a strange hum coming from the object. He thought the dead men could hear it too, for it grew louder as they worked, and the louder it got, the harder they chipped at the dirt that held it.