by David Boop
“One of them legends is about the poison woman,” He continued, never taking his eyes off the girl. “The Sioux believe that if you poison your husband, you’ll come back as some sorta…”
Milli’s eyebrows rose in anticipation…and though it was dark in there, her eyes looked clouded. Black as coal.
“Thing.”
At that Millicent’s entire jaw unhinged, revealing an unholy maw of spiny teeth!
“But I’ve killed ‘things’ before…” Johnson grunted.
Millicent’s black fingernails erupted from her fingertips, black blood dropping as they ripped apart the flesh around them.
The mountain man heard footsteps behind him, back toward the door to the livery.
“WHAT THE HELL?” Cookie yelped as he walked in on the mad scene.
Johnson turned his head to see who had interrupted his killing time, giving the thing that had been Millicent the opportunity she needed to strike. Her long dark claws ripped into “Liver Eatin’” Johnson’s thick beard and dug into his throat. They came out dripping bright red blood.
If Cookie’s jaw could unhinge like Millicent’s, it would have hit the floor. He simply gawked in fear as his senses rebelled against what his treacherous eyes told him was playing out in the darkness of the livery.
“Oh, Cookie,” it said. “I wasn’t ready for you yet. You have such a feast to serve. Guess I’ll have to do it myself now!”
Millicent leapt across the room at the cook, her jagged nails pointed like the tines of a pitchfork at his throat—and stopped in midair an inch from his flesh. “Liver Eatin’” Johnson held her ankle with one hand while his other stayed tight on his own torn throat. “Kill it…” he rasped and pointed with his eyes at Cookie’s hand.
Cookie looked down. Maybe there was a God, because he still held his meat cleaver.
The cook swung halfheartedly…he’d never harmed a living person in his life. He hated to kill what was once a little girl, but his reflexes and fear took over.
The blade bit deep into Milli’s left arm. Black blood dripped from it and hit the floor, the fresh hay sizzling beneath it.
She barely winced.
The odd scene held for what seemed an eternity…Cookie standing there with his meat cleaver in Millicent’s arm, she on one leg, her other held by Johnson, and the mountain man on his knees with one hand on his throat and the other on Milli’s ankle behind him.
Milli, or the thing that lived inside her now, laughed out loud at the absurdity of it all. Then she jerked her leg free of Johnson’s grip and danced about the livery, slashing at Cookie with her talons as she herked and jerked demonically on the blood-spattered hay.
“You’re right,” she hissed at Johnson, but kept her dead black eyes fixed on Cookie. “I am a poison woman. But not how you might think. This girl poisoned no one. Her momma did.”
Johnson rolled over on his back to face the horrid thing. Cookie backed up against the opposite railing, holding his meat cleaver hopelessly before him.
“Momma became a poison woman after she killed Daddy. But then that war with Raven came. Her supplies didn’t last a week and all the game was gone.”
Johnson sneered. Cookie’s mind reeled.
Milli danced now, twirling her gore-stained dress obscenely. She was a full-on demon now. Sunken eye sockets and obsidian eyes. Yellow, veined skin oozing pus from numerous cuts and gashes. Oversized claws. And that massive, unhinged jaw full of rotten, spiny teeth.
“Momma was always protective of this little one. That’s why she did it. And that’s why she kept the stew coming day after day. And why she walked a little funny afterwards…” Milli held up a foot…topped with scraggly black and yellow toenails.
She smiled at Cookie and licked her own toe. “Any kind of meat tastes good in a stew, doesn’t it, Cookie?”
Horror grew on the chef’s face as he realized what Milli was saying. “Your…mother…fed you her own…”
“Oh yes! Such delights!” Milli danced again, kicking the rapidly fading Johnson in the leg as she twirled about. “This little one didn’t know what was happening, but as she faded, I grew. Finally, Momma died, and she and I went out into the wilderness and became one. So many young braves tried to help me. We became one with them too!”
Milli moved with ferocious speed into Cookie’s face, her vile spittle landing on his cheeks as she spoke. “How about that? They tried to help me.” She trailed a claw down the front of his shirt. “Most of them, anyway. But they all died.”
Hot piss ran down Cookie’s leg.
“IT MUST HAVE BEEN SOMETHING THEY ATE!” Milli rushed in with her massive maw to rip Cookie’s throat open. He somehow managed to dodge, causing her to bite hard into the railing behind him.
The cook took a haphazard swipe with his cleaver…and felt it fly out of his sweaty hand. He dodged past her and ran in terror, but found himself trapped in a horse stall with Johnson.
“Kill…it…” Johnson repeated.
“WITH WHAT?” Cookie screamed in panic.
Millicent hurled herself at Cookie. He threw his arm up for protection and felt her horrid teeth sink into the bone. He grabbed the back of her head with his other hand, trying desperately to pull her off, but to his horror, felt his fingers sink deep into mush where there should have been solid skull.
Milli released her jaws and pulled back. She bent over, almost a curtsy, and let her hair fall forward, showing her prey the hideous hole in her head and the green pus dripping out of her exposed brain. “That’s where the good stuff comes from,” she laughed.
Cookie felt the world spin. How was any of this possible?
The demonic child pulled a small piece of pus-stained gray matter from the hole in her head. “That’s what I’ve been putting in the stew all day!” she cackled, delighted to finally reveal her secret ingredient. Then she roared back into Cookie’s face once more. “THEY’RE ALL GOING TO DIE! EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM!”
Cookie fell to his knees, wiped the poison off his hand onto his apron.
“The greatest heroes and those who might have been! They’re going to choke on it, Milton! They’re going to choke and dance and die in such beautiful agony!”
Something snapped in Milton’s mind. She knew his name. Of all he’d seen, somehow that was the final straw. He rose, picking up Johnson’s Bowie knife as he shuffled to his feet.
“No,” he spoke softly, at first. Then with more confidence. “No one, and I mean no one, messes with my table…”
* * *
“I’ll have some of the stew.” Wyatt Earp motioned with his head at the big pot, now sitting cold by the fire it had been simmering on all day.
“I’m afraid it didn’t turn out,” Cookie smiled apologetically.
Wyatt noted Cookie’s left arm was in a sling and he had on a fresh wipe apron, far cleaner than the one he’d been wearing earlier. “That’s a shame,” Wyatt replied. “I was looking forward to it.”
“Meat spoiled. Might have killed every one of ya,” Cookie laughed nervously.
Wyatt nodded slowly. “How’s that girl? She okay.”
A thin voice came from behind Earp. “She moved on.”
Wyatt turned to see “Liver Eatin’” Johnson, a bloody bandage wrapped around his throat.
“Cut myself shavin’.” He half grinned. “A lot.”
“Mmm hmm,” Wyatt replied. “Well, what else is good?”
“Everything. Everything else is good,” Cookie said proudly. “Especially the apple pies. Have some of them elk loins, and I’ll bring you a slice in a few minutes, Mr. Earp.”
Wyatt nodded and loaded up a plate…slowly. The cautious law dog cogitated and looked carefully about for anything untoward, but nothing stood out. Finally, he decided that whatever had happened there had already played out. He even sensed it had played out right. He didn’t know how he knew that, but he did. He’d been party to some strange occurrences himself the last few years.
“Pie it is, Cookie. I’ll
be waitin’.”
* * *
It was near 10 p.m. The gathering had ended, and those who were still around had moved on to the Bella Union for drinks. Cookie was still in the empty lot, preserving what he could to sell tomorrow and cleaning up his pots and pans.
“How’d you do it, cook?” came a voice like gravel from the darkness. A tall, gaunt man in a ratty brown coat stepped out of the gloom.
“Wha—” Cookie jumped. After today’s events, he was still more than a little jumpy.
Stone looked the man up and down. “How’d you kill her? Average man like you. Nothing special. Ain’t even heeled.”
“What’re—who are you?” Cookie instinctively felt for his cleaver, but it was nowhere to be found.
“Doesn’t matter. But tell me. How’d you do it? Or was it one of those…heroes.” Jasper Stone said the last word with a sneer most others usually reserved for the lowest of creation.
Cookie drew himself up. Stood straight. After today, if he was going to die, he was going to die with his spine straight. “She…it…fucked with my food. I may not be much, whoever you are, but one thing I am… I’m the cook. She had a hole in her skull just the right size for a Bowie knife. An’ I know how to cut aroun’ bone.”
Stone chuckled. Then he laughed. Loud and hollow, like it was coming from the inside of a grave.
When he was done he looked at the cook all over again. “I oughtta kill you for that. She was gonna make this easy. Kill ’em or make ’em sick. Take out the whole lot at once. That’s my job, y’know. Killin’. Those who keep pesterin’ the thing that thinks it’s my master. And anyone else who gets in the way.”
Stone leaned in close across the carving table. “Or anyone else I just feel like killin’.”
Cookie stood his ground. Running really wasn’t an option anyway.
Stone pulled back. Almost relaxed. Thumbed his gun belt and thought about it for a few seconds. Then he seemed to reach a decision. “But there’s a lotta trouble a street over. And you made me laugh. So I guess today’s your lucky day, cook.”
Milton glared right back at the monster before him. A whole world of terrible things splayed open before him like the guts of a sick elk.
“It’s Cookie.”
Deadlands is TM Pinnacle Entertainment Group. All Rights Reserved.
A TALK WITH MY MOTHER
Charlaine Harris
I sat on a bale of hay and stared at the horses in their stalls and the cars parked in the other half of the stable. Weren’t enough horses to fill it up any more, and visitors wanted to put their cars somewhere safe. Not that our little town had many visitors. When there were strangers, they stuck out. Strangers didn’t seem to understand that. I laughed a little, and I wiped the wetness from my face. I knew what I had to do next. I had to talk to my mother before anyone else got to her.
I stood. The corral and the parking area were both empty, to my relief. I took a deep breath and stepped out of the shadowy stable, looking up at the sun. About four o’clock.
It was a good time of day to find my mother alone in the house she shared with her husband, Jackson Skidder. Mom had dismissed the kids from Segundo Mexia’s one-room school two hours ago. She might have dropped by the grocery, but then she would have gone home. Mom often took a little time to relax before she started supper.
Jackson, who was my mother’s husband, but not my father, would be out and about attending to one of his businesses. With any luck, I’d have enough time to talk to Mom alone. Tell her what I’d done.
I felt a little off plumb as I walked from the stable to the house. It was not far, a block and a bit from Main Street, but my feet didn’t seem too well connected to the rest of me.
I remember somewhere along that walk, someone said, “Hey, Lizbeth,” and I spoke back. Don’t know who it was or what I said.
When I’d unlatched the gate in the fence and stepped onto the stone walkway to the porch, I pressed my lips together so hard they hurt. This was going to be very hard. I forced my feet to move forward, onto the porch. I took care to wipe my feet on the mat. Mom was rigid about stuff like that. I had dust all over my boots. Plus, I smelled like horse.
I used my special knock.
“Come in, Lizbeth,” Mom called. “If you’ve wiped your feet.”
Mom and Jackson have a nice house by Segundo Mexia standards: one big room, two bedrooms, and a bathroom. I had done some of my growing up in this house. There was still a bed in the second bedroom for me, though I had my own place now.
Mom was sitting in her easy chair with her feet up on a stool. She’d been snapping beans. She put the bowl on the table beside her and scooted forward as if to get up.
“Stay still,” I said, motioning her down. I bent to give her a hug and then sat right opposite. I not only reeked of horse, but I had death hanging around me. I could feel it, almost smell it. I didn’t want Mom sensing that.
But Mom smiled at me, though I already saw some doubt creeping in.
Mom’s name is Candle Rose, and she’s real pretty, and she’s smart, and she has what Jackson calls “integrity.” I think that was the clincher after he first noticed her. Jackson wasn’t put off by Mom having a ten-year-old. If he had misgivings, he’d kept em well hidden.
And in all the years I’d watched em, they’d gotten along real well.
Mom kept the house neat and straight, and she ran things the way lives ought to be run. She was a good cook, and meals were on time. Jackson had bought her a big wood stove, after she’d turned down an electric stove. (Our electricity is what you might call unreliable.) Jackson worked hard, never came home drunk, and didn’t visit whores. He gave Mom respect.
“Lizbeth, how you doing?” Mom’s eyebrows had drawn together, and her smile was long gone. She knew something was wrong. But I couldn’t just plunge right in.
So I shrugged. “Okay,” I said. “You?”
“Teaching kids is not as easy as it used to be,” Mom said. “Especially now that I’ve got twenty-four, all different ages. And especially now I’m in my thirties.”
Mom was young to have a grown girl like me. I’m eighteen, and her only child; Mom had me when she was fifteen. She’d had a hard row to hoe. Her mother and father had kept me during the week while Mom rode the bus to the training course for teachers.
Mom had not married, hadn’t even considered it, for most of my childhood. I’d asked her why more than once. She’d finally told me, “After—you know—what happened to me, I was real man-shy. That’s the first reason. For another thing, I loved you so much I couldn’t be with any man who didn’t love you, too. Who might just put up with you because he wanted me. Who the hell wants to be with a man who thinks I ought to be grateful for the privilege of sharing a bed and an income? I figured I’d rather pay my own way than be dependent and beholden.” Though these were bitter problems, Mom had smiled at me as she closed that conversation forever.
I understood how much she loved me.
I felt that love now, and wished I had the words to tell her how hard I returned it. But I’m not good with words. I’m more of a doer than a sayer. As I looked at her, the sunlight from the window glinted on a white thread in the black river of Mom’s hair. It would be a blow to her pride when she noticed that.
“How is Jackson?” I asked, because she was looking at me funny. It was kind of a waiting look, kind of anxious. Moment was approaching when I had to speak up.
“He’s well. You know that man never gets sick. He was saying just the other day it had been too long since you two had been out hunting together.”
“I’ll be glad to go hunting any day he picks, if I don’t have to work.” If Jackson Skidder had ever thought I was a burden, he sure hadn’t shown it. “You know I love to hunt.”
“Oh, Lizbeth,” Mom said, shaking her head. “You love your guns.”
That was the truth. I loved the bolt-action Winchester my grandfather had left me. He’d carried it and used it through many skirmishes, and it h
ad a history of accuracy. I also loved the matching Colts Jackson had given me. I wore my sidearms everywhere, and I’d just put the Winchester in its rack by the door where it kept company with Jackson’s rifles.
Of course, I was not the only gal in Segundo Mexia who liked to hunt. And I was also not the only gal who was a good shot. But I was one of the few who made a living with my guns.
Tarken had taken me onto his crew when he’d had a vacancy. (When there’s an opening on a crew, it means someone died, nine times out of ten. I’d taken Callum’s place when his wounded leg got infected, which is what killed him.) Not many doctors left now, after the flu, and the banks failing, and no crops for a while.
“I love the work,” I said. “I got a knack for it. Galilee and Martin and Tarken say so.” So had Solly, until he got killed on a run to Mexico.
“I guess the money is okay?”
“The money isn’t bad.” Every now and then, I slipped into the house while she was gone to hide some money in the secret hole in the wall in my old room. I was sure she knew that.
“You all have a job lined up?”
“Tonight. A run to New America. Piece of cake.”
Mom sighed. “I wish you’d get a regular job with some nice people.”
But she knew I couldn’t have borne to teach school like her, or work in a shop, or take care of a house and kids and cooking and laundry—the never-ending work of keeping a family running—like my neighbor, Chrissie. “Me and the Colts and the Winchester, we work together,” I said.
Mom shook her head and got up to start supper. Looked like that would be chicken and rice and the green beans. In quick movements, she dumped the snapped beans into a pot of hot water and added a dollop of bacon grease.
“Heard you were seeing Tarken after work,” Mom said, taking care to be turned away from me when she said it. She tried to sound casual. She was poking around trying to find out what was wrong with me. Trouble with a man would always be the first suspicion that sprang to her mind.