Ice and Blood

by Oliver Altair

  “I needed to ruffle your feathers just in case. You’re no saint, O’Leary. I’m sure you have so many skeletons in your closet, it looks like a goddamned boneyard. But I’d bet my tin star you’re not behind the slaughter. What you are is the next cow in line to get axed.”

  Tiberius palmed his numb thigh. “Whatever went on between you and Hank Albers got him killed, that’s for sure. Reverend’s a whole other song and dance. Wrong place at the wrong time. He got drunk and passed out in the wrong room: yours. Killer showed up in the dark, too rushed or frantic to double-check who was under his blade. And that was that.” He reached for the photograph pieces in his pocket. He showed them to Owen. “This is you and Henry when you fellers were young, right?”

  Owen’s face turned sickly. His red beard shone like a flame against his waxen skin. “Where did you get those?”

  “A little present from the butcher. Listen, whoever is behind this must have figured out he gutted the wrong Joe by now. You’re still on the list. Come with me, and I’ll do my best to keep you safe. Unless you’d rather never sleep again. In case someone rips your heart out of your chest when you’re not looking. Your call.”

  “I’m a survivor. Always have been.”

  “You’re a goddamned fool.”

  “Says the man who stepped on a jaw trap.” Owen smiled joylessly. “Take care, Sheriff.”

  The blizzard built up all around them. The branches of the firs shook in the whistling wind. Clumps of snow landed on Tiberius’ hat and leather duster, on Owen’s red beard and the gray furs wrapped around his shoulders. Swirling snowflakes whipped their faces. Tiberius shielded his tearing eyes. A tall blur walked in their direction with rigid strides, like the ghost of a soldier returning from the battlefield.

  He kneeled and tried to pry the metal maw open with his bare hands. “Let me out. Right now.”

  Owen turned. His back bristled like a cat’s facing water. “Heaven help me.”

  He shot. The thunderous echo of the rifle quieted the birds. The slithering steps of the ice statue sounded crisper.

  Tiberius stood back up. He limped toward Owen as far as the trap’s chain would let him. “Bullets are no good. Run! I’ll buy you some time.”

  Owen ignored him. He kept shooting. The creature quickened its deadly march. Clouds of frosted dust drizzled around the impact marks of the bullets.

  The trapper cackled with the stuttering laughter of a madman. “Come on! Come get me! Where’s the black robe and the scythe?”

  His last two shots shattered the left side of the statue’s trunk and the right side of its thigh. The broken symmetry of its body gave him an ancient beauty, like a Greek statue found in a dig. Its inert face breathed more terror than the most heinous of masks. Its opaque eyes were more chilling than the gleaming orbs of a night predator on the prowl.

  The cold thrived. Not the frosty dampness that enveloped the forest, but a phantom shiver that came from deep within: unnerving, paralyzing, grim. Tiberius choked. He felt his heart pumped blood no more but freezing water. The silent horror was upon them.

  Owen swung his empty rifle. The ice statue grabbed it and pulled it out of his hands. It tossed it into a nearby bramble of juniper and sagebrush, grabbing the trapper’s neck right after. It raised its opposite arm over its head. Its fingertips sharpened into claws. The creature swung his arm with the precision and speed of a seasoned executioner. His hand cut through layers of furs and clothes, skin and flesh. Owen O’Leary’s screams died in his throat.

  Tiberius tried to back away. He tripped with the chain of the trap, fell backwards, and hit his head against the frozen rocks. The sky between the treetops started to spin.

  A warm drip slithered down his cheek. He smelled a salty and metallic scent, familiar and nauseating. The monster towered above him, holding Owen’s bloody heart in its icy hand. The blood ran between its fingers, raining onto Tiberius’ face.

  There was no fear. No instinct to run or even move.

  There was only him.

  And the nightmare.

  And the ruthless, engulfing cold.

  19

  Blackness.

  Tiberius couldn’t remember shutting his eyes, but he must have. He lay on the chilly ground of the blue fir forest, waiting.

  For what?

  For his end at the hands of the looming creature. Every part of his body paused—muscles, breath, heart. He squinted.

  Dimness.

  The skin of the statue glistened as it reached for his chest with an open palm while squeezing Owen’s oozing heart in the other. Its touch stung like a million furious wasps. The agony deepened as the creature pressed harder.

  His flesh, frozen. His blood, frozen.

  His deepest thoughts, frozen, heartbeat fading away like a distant drumbeat in a long-forgotten dream.

  Silence…

  The pain receded. Tiberius listened to the soothing sounds of the forest: the song of the winter birds, the crackling icicles, the howling wind. He sat up against the bark of the closest tree. He breathed in painful, faltering huffs. The center of his chest hurt as if he’d been rammed.

  “Sheriff?”

  Tiberius looked up with narrowed eyes, head as heavy as a sack of grain. He met the Chief’s concerned gaze. “I’m fine.”

  He leaned on the tree to get back to his feet. The chain of the jaw trap jingled. The Chief crouched and examined the metallic teeth biting around his ankle. “You stepped wrong.”

  “That I did.”

  “The trapper is dead. There is blood on your face.”

  “Yeah, it’s his. But I didn’t touch him. Cross my heart.”

  The Chief nodded. He fetched the machete hanging from his belt and pried the trap open.

  Tiberius pulled his foot free, wincing. “Thanks.”

  He limped toward Owen O’Leary’s butchered body. The corpse lay on its stomach in a puddle of bloodied snow. Tiberius had no wish to turn it. He’d already witnessed the same carnage twice before. “Killing statues…” he muttered. “And I thought I’d seen it all in the fall.”

  He looked around, suspicious of every waving shadow.

  “It’s gone,” The Chief said, standing close behind him. He waved his hand to a rocky trail buried in ice. “That way.”

  Tiberius took two clumsy steps toward the trail. His injured ankle throbbed. His leg wobbled like a bar of gelatin. The Chief caught up to him. He lent him his arm to help him stand. “You need to see the medicine man.”

  “That can wait. But my ankle might be too shredded to track that thing through a rough path.”

  “I will go.”

  “Wait. If you find the creature, stay away. Note its whereabouts and come for me. I don’t wanna chance upon your bloody heart pierced in a branch. Is that clear?”

  The Chief replied with two solemn nods. He handed Tiberius a black revolver. “Your gun.”

  Tiberius held the Colt Dragoon. He brushed the snow off its barrel. The coldness made the weapon more alive. It reminded him of the chilling grip of its previous, undead owner. He tipped his hat. “Much obliged. See you in town.”

  He walked to Owen’s campsite with slow, dragging steps, like a long, arduous pilgrimage. When he peeked over his shoulder, the Chief had already vanished, as fast and quiet as a winter critter. The trapper’s campfire still burned, but the flames fought to survive under the burgeoning rage of the blizzard. Tiberius bumped into a half-empty bottle of rye. He raised it before all of its remaining contents soaked the ground. He took two long gulps. The liquor numbed his pain but didn’t diminish the frosty sensation above his heart, where the creature had pressed its deadly palm. He would always wear the mark of its ghastly mercy.

  The wind swayed the treetops with increasing violence. A clump of snow buried the flames with a hiss. Tiberius circled the dead fire, dodging the cemetery of broken bottles, dirty furs, and animal traps, most of them rusted shut. Owen’s muddy tent hung between two firs, secured within a web of ropes. Some cords flew up
and tied to the branches, some pointed down and wrapped around the pegs nailed to the soil. Most were loose. They whipped the air like the tentacles of a squid on the hunt.

  Tiberius crouched under the flapping tarp. He rummaged through the piles of scattered objects on the floor: an oil lamp with no screen, an empty canteen, a mass of rope coiled in an impossible knot. A banjo missing two strings. Owen’s pipe and a pouch of his malodorous tobacco. A pair of twin Bowie knives wrapped in a piece of rucksack fabric stained with crusted blood. Rusty jaw traps. Empty bottles.

  The trapper’s bed was but a mountain of crumpled furs. They were stacked in a gradient that went from off-white to dark gray and smelled of damp earth, whiskey, and sweat. Tiberius unwrapped the pelages one by one. The floating hairs and dander tickled his nose. Between the last two layers of pelt, he found a yellowed photograph. Owen, it seemed, had always slept on a hidden memory.

  Tiberius brought the photograph outside. It showed a group of young men wearing matching overalls. They carried construction tools and stood in front of an unfinished train track that ran into a rough tunnel. He studied the men from left to right, mentally matching them to the torn pieces he had found inside the corpses. The first was Henry Albers, as stated by Doc Tucker. Owen had confirmed the second as himself. The young Irishman proved difficult to pinpoint without his wild hair and bushy red beard, but his feral eyes had endured the test of time.

  At first sight, Tiberius could have sworn the next man in line was Bennett Rowland. A second glance positioned him as his late older brother, Julian. Yet a third, closer look revealed the young worker was neither. His gaze lacked the sharpness Bennett and Julian had inherited from their mother, but his overall expression beamed with the same innocence both kids shared. He was their father, Silas.

  Owen had ripped the last part of the portrait, but the arm cut in the jagged edge of the photo hinted at a fourth man standing beside the others. Someone the trapper would rather forget.

  Tiberius flipped the paper. He read a number: 1865. He read a name scribbled on the opposite border: Donner Pass. Neither the date nor the name meant anything to him, but he understood the grim significance of the photograph. It was a list of targets.

  Henry Albers, killed.

  Owen O’Leary, killed, after the Reverend took his place.

  Silas Rowland would be next.

  That left the fourth man in the picture, either the last victim… or the man behind the bloody curtain.

  Tiberius tried to run, but his wounded ankle sent painful shivers up and down his leg. He settled for a speedy stride. So much death. So much darkness. So much blood drenching the streets of Souls Well. He shook his head to cast away the image of the ice statue holding Owen’s heart over his head. He had to get to Silas Rowland before the creature knocked on his door with its icy claws. He hoped Bennett was still under Doc Tucker’s care. He hoped he wouldn’t find the creature squeezing two human hearts this time, father and son.

  Tiberius clenched his jaw. He breathed in. His pain would have to wait its turn.

  He ran.

  20

  The blizzard veiled the streets of Souls Well. No one wandered out. Silence reigned supreme. All the buildings looked the same under the falling snow, with their white crowns, blocked steps, and shutters tightly closed. From the frozen road, it was hard to tell which houses sheltered people and which weathered memories and dust. Only the smoke that swirled up a handful of chimneys gave a clue as to the homes that still belonged to the living. Most had changed hands with the specters of the past.

  There was smoke above the chimney of Rowland’s Bakery, but that gave Tiberius no relief. He pounded on the door with his whole fist. “It’s the sheriff. Open up.”

  None of his thunderous knocks brought an answer. He leaned on the doorframe, under the wooden canopy that decorated the bakery’s entrance. The relentless wind whistled between the hinges of the sign hanging above the storefront, swinging it wildly. It blew around him in gelid gusts that frosted his duster and hat. The blizzard had followed him all the way from the forest, raging, mirroring the turbulent angst inside his own head. His ankle throbbed with pain as soon as he stopped running. His foot splashed inside his boot as if he'd stepped into a puddle, sock drenched in blood.

  Tiberius knocked again. No answer.

  The silence, the cold, and the monochrome hue of the falling snow presaged nothing but dread. The more time he spent outside, the more seductive it became to give himself up to the winter storm. He rammed the door with his shoulder. It creaked but held after his first blow, his second, and third, swinging open after the fourth. Splinters rained on his sleeve as he barged into the empty bakery.

  “Hello? Silas? Bennett?”

  A layer of smoke and flour floated throughout the room. The counter in front of him, often filled with hot buns and pastries, was empty. Behind it, Silas’ worktable showcased unfinished blobs of dry dough. The brick oven by the table gleamed with a faint orange light. It radiated but a sickly heat. Only a fistful of embers held on to their blaze. Tiberius pulled out the skillet resting inside the oven. He placed it on the hearth, coughing at the acrid odor of the charred loaves, black as lumps of coal. The smell reminded him of the torched stagecoach parked in front of the Silver Moon.

  He drew his gun and climbed the staircase to his left. “Anybody home?”

  The steps led to a locked door. Tiberius kicked it open with his healthy leg, holding the banister to keep his balance. He ventured into a dark living room. Someone had nailed all the windows shut. He walked among the three rooms that made the Rowlands’ home: a small living area that lead to two consecutive bedrooms. Half-packed bags piled up on the beds, and he tripped repeatedly over crates left in disarray all around the floor. A shutter at the back of the house was loose. It clapped in the wind, casting an intermittent striped shadow on the dusty furniture.

  The barrel of a gun poked him between his shoulder blades. “Hands up.”

  Tiberius sighed. He holstered his weapon and turned. “I’m sick and tired of you people pointing guns at me.”

  Silas Rowland took a step back. He squeezed a small pistol in both hands. “Oh, it’s you.”

  “You expecting someone else?”

  “N-No. No one.” Silas’ eyes twitched as much as his words.

  Tiberius frowned and crossed his arms. He jerked his head to the man’s pistol. “Are you done shaking that cricket?”

  Silas seemed not to hear. He rushed to the window, pushing Tiberius aside, and slammed the shutter close. He held it in place with one hand, while pointing to a chair with the other. “Sheriff, if you would?”

  Tiberius grabbed the hammer and the box of nails resting on the seat. He handed them to the baker then sat down.

  “What’s with all the nailing?”

  “It’s—” Silas bit his thick lip. “Too bright out.”

  “There’s a heck of a storm outside. Sunlight’s so dim one would think it’s already late afternoon.” He rocked his chair. “What the heck’s going on with you?”

  “Nothing, Sheriff.”

  Tiberius waved his arm to a column of crates set on top of a table. “Do you plan on keeping your house boxed up? You’re not still thinking about skipping town, are you?”

  “No. At least until Bennett shows up.”

  “Shouldn’t you be looking for him, by the by?”

  “I can’t leave the house.”

  “He can’t leave the house.” Tiberius took off his left boot. He lowered his sock, wincing. His wound looked like a string of snake bites. “Why’s that?”

  Silas kept quiet.

  “Well, lucky for you, your chap’s at the doc’s. Don’t worry, he’s fine.”

  Silas lowered his pistol but kept fidgeting with its grip. “What happened to your ankle?”

  “Some Irish lunatic mistook me for a fox. At least he didn’t gun me down. Do you have some whiskey lying around?”

  The baker left the room and came back holding a bottle of
green glass. “I only have moonshine. I make it myself.”

  Tiberius uncorked the bottle. The smell made his eyes teary. “No kidding.” He irrigated his wound with the pungent liquor, sucking the air between his front teeth. Then he soaked his sock in alcohol, put it back on, and placed his foot back into his boot, tying the laces tight. He stood up. An herbal scent followed him as he walked around, listening to the roar of the blizzard outside.

  Tiberius fetched Owen’s photograph from his pocket. He held it in front of the man’s face. “Would you look at these fine young men! Ain’t they precious?”

  Silas’ lip quivered. “Where did you get that from?”

  “O’Leary.”

  “Did he give it to you?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Silas gulped. “What happened to him?”

  “Same end as your other friend, Hank Albers.” Tiberius tapped the jagged edge of the photo. “There was a fourth man here. Who was it?”

  “No one. You should leave, Sheriff. For your own good.”

  Tiberius leaned against the wall. “Mark my words: if I go you’re as good as dead.”

  Silas stared at his pistol, turning it under the faint light crossing the shutters. “I’ll take my chances.”

  “What about your chap?”

  “You’re right. I have to get to Bennett.”

  “Hold it. I already told you the kid’s fine. Doc Tucker will keep him safe.” Tiberius pointed to an empty chair. “Sit down, Silas. Let’s chat.”

  The man’s frantic pacing made the floorboards screech like a chorus of cicadas. “I’ve nothing to say. Please Tiberius, leave me be. Please.”

  “I could do nothing for Henry Albers. O’Leary got murdered right in front of my face. I want to help you and your son, but I need to know what I’m dealing with first. Sit down.”

  Silas obeyed. He grabbed a crumpled envelope from the pocket of his pants. He handed it to Tiberius with a trembling hand. The envelope had his name and address. Its top has been ripped in a hurry, almost tearing the note inside. Tiberius read the letter without asking for permission.