The Good, the Bad, and the Dead Page 15

  "Wait here," Louise said, getting out her carriage outside the jail. "I'll just be a minute."

  "We'll wait right here, ma'am," Zach answered for them, tipping his hat and grinning, and she walked right in the sheriff's office. "Where's everybody at, pa?"

  "I don't know..." he began, but was cut off when a fat man with a tin star burst out of the sheriff's office door and two more came around either end of the building, all three with shotguns leveled at them.

  "That's them, I tell you! That's them!" Louise peeked out from behind the fat. grizzled deputy, breathing hard and screaming. "The older one snuck up on me in the form of a wolf, I tell you! A wolf!"

  "Don't make a move, mister!" Jeb and Zach both raised their hands as the other two deputies came close and relieved them of their holsters and guns.

  "Pa, I..." Zach started.

  "Shut up, son! What's the meaning of this? We're just headed north to..."

  "No, you shut up, mister...or demon or whatever you are!" The fat deputy spit out his chaw on the road. "Your kind's got no business in this town!"

  "I promised them I'd sneak them into town so's they could eat the children," Louise weaved her lie as she went, all the while glaring at Jeb with black eyes. "Yeah, that's what I did! They're stupid, demons are!"

  "Going to eat our kids, were you?" the fat deputy shouted, and Jeb opened his mouth to protest but caught a shotgun barrel across the back of the head instead and heard and saw no more.

  ***

  "Wake up, pa. Come on, please wake up." Blurred images of light and dark danced before Jeb's eyes, focusing finally into the light of morning streaming in through a barred window and Zach's anxious face. His boy held his throbbing head in his lap while he lay on a hard bunk. Jeb sat up, wincing at the pain from the lump on the back of his head, and looked around. Their cell was at one end of the jailhouse, with a single window and locked door. Beyond was a couple of heavy, wooden desks, a locked gun case, a wall full of wanted posters, and a closed door stenciled "Sheriff Bear."

  "I thought you might be a goner," Zach confessed, breathing a heavy sigh.

  "No, I'm all right," Jeb lied. The pain in his head subsided a little, but every move brought him agony. "What's been going on."

  "After they clubbed you they tossed us both in here. There've been deputies coming and going all night, but that's about it. They think you're some kind of monster or something. I'm powerful scared, pa!" Tears started in his eyes, but Jeb mussed his hair reassuringly.

  "We'll be all right, son. If we can get the sheriff in here, he'll certainly see that I'm no wolf like that horrible woman said." Jeb looked out through the bars of the window, blinking hard at the sunlight. It looked out over the town square, barren but for a few scrawny trees and a broad pile of stones at the far end. Crosses of all manner covered the stones, either sticks stuck in the ground around it or tossed right on the pile. Children scampered over the stones, pausing occasionally to put their ears against them as if listening for something.

  The jail door burst open and in walked a tall man with dark leather breeches and a red flannel shirt with a bright sheriff's badge pinned to it. Dark locks stuck out beneath his hat framing a grim, bearded face. He stood inside the door for a moment as if preoccupied, then turned slowly toward them in the cell. Closing the door behind him he walked slowly, evenly toward the cell, removing his riding gloves and leveling a cold stare at its occupants. Stopping just at the bars, he locked eyes with first Jeb and then Zach, contemplating the prisoners silently behind dark eyes. After a moment he turned and walked back across the room toward his office door without saying a word.

  "Where's my money, Bear?" Louise rushed into the jailhouse, now all cleaned and made-up in a bright blue dress. "I brought 'em in and I want to be paid!"

  "Good morning, Miss Granger," Bear answered confidently "Just exactly what have you brought me, Louise?" He leaned up against the closest desk and crossed his arms.

  "He's a demon, like I told Fatty Burke last night. Just look at him!" She pointed a lace-covered finger at Jeb but the sheriff never took his eyes off the prostitute.

  "I've seen him, or them if you please, Miss Granger. Just exactly which one is a demon, then?"

  "The older one! Came at me like a wolf, he did!"

  "Nothing you shouldn't be used to, I would think. Still," he continued, walking back over toward the cell, gazing at its occupants, "they aren't from around here, that's for sure."

  "We're from Montana," Zach said before Jeb could stop him, but the sheriff appeared not to hear. Louise's face turned red with rage. She went over to the wall and ripped down a bounty poster and tossed it down at Bear's feet.

  "Fifty dollars it says! Fifty dollars for demons!" She trembled angrily, gritting her teeth. "When do I get my money!"

  Sheriff Bear ignored her flash of temper and said evenly, "After he's been tried and convicted. That's when you will be paid, and not before."

  "Why wait! He's accused and no one in town's gonna stand up for him..." But Louise was cut short when the rotund deputy barged in, huffing and puffing.

  "What is it, Burke?" Bear demanded, still staring down the irate prostitute before him.

  "Got the night's tally, Bear," He tossed a paper onto the desk.

  "More stuff stolen by the demons is it?" Louise challenged in a disbelieving tone. "More cattle driven off, goats mutilated?"

  "That's enough, Miss Granger..."

  "Folks are starting to figure you out, Bear!"

  "That will do, Miss Granger."

  "The Federal Marshal's going to set things right!"

  "Perhaps, but for now I am acting with the Marshal's blessing and I won't be sending for him until the demon crisis has passed. Now good day to you, Miss Granger, or perhaps you'd like a new residence beneath the stones?"

  "You wouldn't be nothin' if you didn't have that thing!" the whore challenged, and Bear quickly grabbed at something beneath his shirt. His face went white, his eyes wide, strangely vulnerable for an instant, relaxing only after fingering the object beneath his muslin shirt.

  "Your mouth runs on, Miss Granger," the sheriff retorted finally, adjusting a gold chain previously hidden around his neck.

  "That necklace thing! Not too many knows about it, but I do, Bear! I do!" Her face was flush and her hands trembled. "It's some kind of evil thing!"

  "If it helps me keep the demons from the city, well, so much the better, wouldn't you say?" Bear pulled the object out, a golden amulet about the size of a rifle cartridge, shining unnaturally in the dim light of the jail. "A little magic in these strange days used for the common good, nothing more. And since no one knows about it but my comrades," he shared a smile with Burke, "and some dead men," he glowered at the cell, "who do you suppose is going to listen to a drunken whore? Or would you like to end up dead yourself, accused of being a demon?"

  Her face turned quickly from red to pale white, and she backed away from the grim-faced sheriff in horror, raising her hand finally to block his gaze. In the end she turned and ran back out into the street, stumbling past the large deputy as she went.

  "I—I got the list for you, Bear," Fatty Burke said cautiously.

  "Yes, thank you Burke." The sheriff put the amulet back in his shirt and glanced briefly toward the cell. "We'll go over it in my office. In the meantime, I want an armed man in here watching these two. One of them's a demon, you know."

  "Yes sir," Fatty answered. "Right away."

  ***

  "What're we gonna do, pa?" Zach's hands trembled as he clutched at the bars of their cell. "We ain't done nothing wrong!"

  "I know, son. I know." Jeb mustered a smile. "We just have to have some faith, that's all. This is America, and justice will prevail, you'll see." Bear and Fatty had gone into the sheriff's office and locked the door behind them, their low voices occasionally punctuated with laughter. Another deputy, a slender fellow with no teeth, watched them with shotgun in hand, but soon tired of such vigilance and busied himself with som
e paperwork.

  "Y'all just keep quiet in there, and don't go changin' into no bat or wolf or whatever," the deputy challenged, patting the barrels of his gun. "Betsy here can cut through about anything, so watch yourselves!" The prisoners sat quietly while the sun streaming through their barred window crawled across the floor and disappeared entirely after noon or so.

  "Hey, Reverend," greeted the deputy when an old gentleman in a gray suit came in off the street. He removed his bowler hat and knocked the dust off of it, then put his worn, black bible and silver crucifix on the desk while he mopped his brow with a stained, yellow handkerchief.

  "It's getting to be a warm one, deputy," the minister said, hanging his hat on a peg, collecting his things and staring into the cell. "Haven't seen you in church lately" he continued, absently, while fumbling for his spectacles, but the deputy dove deeper into his paperwork without responding. "Which one is the demon?" he asked softly, squinting, but the deputy just shrugged.

  "Beats me, Reverend. I figure they're both demons if one of 'em is."

  "This is our salvation, son," Jeb whispered confidently. "A man of the cloth can see I'm no demon." Zach offered a half-reassured smile. The minister approached slowly, clutching his bible, crossing himself and kissing the crucifix while pulling up a wooden stool right outside the cell bars.

  "I am Reverend Thomasson, the spiritual guardian of our fair community," he said. His close-cut, gray hair mingled with wild eyebrows above large, staring eyes.

  "Yes, praise God, finally someone we can talk to. My name is Jeb Carter and this is my son..."

  "Serpents and demons in the form of living men plague this community," Thomasson interrupted, speaking slowly and evenly. "Satan's spawn ravage the crops and slaughter the livestock, burn homes and search for the wicked to corrupt! For months they've plagued us but with God's guidance we've put many demons beneath the stones. They are a sign sent from on High verifying the wickedness of men."

  "Yes...yes, I'm sure they are," Jeb reasserted, "but we're travelers returning through these parts..."

  "By His will they shall be discovered and destroyed." The reverend, Jeb noted, wasn't even looking at either of them, just staring through them as if transfixed by some rapture with the Lord. "The Blessed shall triumph over evil and the servants of Satan!"

  "But we're not servants of Satan!" Jeb shouted, standing up and gripping the bars between them. "Listen to me!" But Thomasson stood up and back, knocking his stool over on the wooden floor, causing the deputy to grab up his shotgun.

  "I have searched and prayed for such a clear sign," he rambled on, oblivious to Jeb's protests. "For thirty years, nothing, not one sign." His lips trembled and his brow furrowed. "I thought perhaps God mocked me, showing me no sign of Himself whatsoever, thereby challenging my faith. That's why I came to the frontier, to see His work, to seek His signs, and now I have found them." Sweat broke out on Thomasson's wrinkled brow, and his eyes widened, bloodshot and unblinking. "Yes, now I have found His signs everywhere. Demons, the spawn of Satan among us!"

  "But we're not demons!" shouted Zach, shaking his head in disbelief.

  "You have to listen to us!" insisted Jeb, clutching his temples.

  "You are a demon, sir, identified and accused by a good and true woman of the community! Confess yourself that God may take mercy on your soul!"

  "Good woman and true? She's a whore!" But the reverend was beyond hearing more, mumbling sdripture with his eyes rolling slowly back in his head.

  "You are accused and condemned! Your life cannot be spared, only your soul. I cannot save your soul, demon. Only God can do that, and only if you confess yourself before Him, before the Son, and before the Holy Spirit!"

  "I cannot confess what isn't true!" Jeb insisted. By this time the shouting roused Sheriff Bear and Deputy Burke from the office, the latter emerging with his revolver in hand. "We're just traveling through! You've got to understand!"

  "Satan wields your tongue now, demon. Fight him! Turn away from his evil and abase yourself before the will of the Lord!" Thomasson spread his arms high, bible in one hand, cross in the other, his head thrown back. "Listen, oh Lord, listen and give him the strength to resist!"

  "No!"

  "Confess! Confess and save your soul!"

  "No, I can't!" Jeb staggered backward, and despite Zach's efforts to help him he stumbled over the edge of the bunk and sprawled out onto the floor. The ache from the lump on his head spread through his entire body, and he clutched his temples hard against the pain.

  "Pa, what's the matter?" Zach put a blanket under his father's head and clutched his arm tight, but Jeb barely heard or felt him. The maniacal rantings of the reverend reverberated through his head along with images of the greedy whore and power-mad sheriff, all mingled with his rosey-cheeked daughter pleading not to be forgotten.

  "Lord, give him the strength to confess himself!" Thomasson hollered. Sheriff and deputies watched silently, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, as the zealot trembled with the strength of his convictions before the prisoners. Jeb's heart pounded and he labored to breath, and though he hadn't eaten he fought to keep his stomach down. A moment passed in a whirlwind of shouting and near convulsions, and when he looked up the reverend was silent, holding out the bottle of medicine from Laramie.

  "Is this some elixir of the undead?" he asked calmly, turning the brown bottle over in his fingers.

  "No," Jeb started, thinking quickly. "No, it's just medicine." With his son's help he got to his feet. "I stole it from the boy. It's his medicine."

  "Pa?"

  "Stole it, my child?" The reverend stepped cautiously forward.

  "Yes, I did. In demon form."

  "No, Pa!" Zach tugged at his father's coat but Jeb would not be dissuaded.

  "In demon form, you say," Thomasson asked. Beyond, Jeb saw Bear smile, grab his hat, and leave.

  "But the boy had nothing to do with these things. If I confess he goes free, right?" Zach protested, pulling at his father's arm and weeping.

  "The boy is not accused, demon. Only you." The reverend pulled his bible in close to his breast and slowly closed his eyes.

  "Promise me he'll go free, damnit!"

  "No, he's a liar," Zach protested, grabbing out through the bars, then toward his father, toward anything.

  "He is free if you release him from the spell you must have over him." Thomasson opened the bible and thumbed through its pages absently.

  "Then he is free of it." Jeb insisted. "I release the boy from the spell that binds him!"

  "No, Pa, don't do it," Zach protested weakly from the bunk, head in his hands.

  "I confess I am a demon. And may God have mercy on my soul."

  •**

  "Pa, I don't understand," Zach sobbed.

  "Yes you do," his father challenged. The sheriff, deputies, and reverend had all gone from the jail, the last with his crucifix to his lips, satisfied that another demon was going to be destroyed, but not before turning the brown medicine bottle over to Zach, it's rightful owner. The boy fidgeted with the bottle while sitting on the edge of the bunk.

  "They're gonna kill you, pa. It was dumb to tell them you're a demon. You ain't no demon, pal"

  "No, of course not, son." Jeb sat next to his boy and put his arm around his shoulder. "With all the weirdness we've seen it's no wonder these people are turned so nasty against strangers and such." Certainly they had seen plenty of strange things the last few years back in Montana, Jeb thought, dead things that walked as men, giant worms, and strange Indian spirits.

  "That don't change things, pa! What're we gonna do now?"

  "You're going to go back on home with the medicine. Your sister and the others are counting on you."

  "No, pa, I can't go without you," the boy protested, tears welling up again in his eyes.

  "You have to. I'm counting on you, too."

  "But they're going to kill you. I can't leave you here."

  "Well, I'm not dead yet, son. There's got to be somebody i
n this town who will stand up for me. Or maybe a Federal Marshal or someone will come through in time. Who knows?" He hugged his boy close and kissed him on the head. "The important thing is that you continue on and get back home. Your sister and the others will be waiting."

  "I'll come back for you, pa!" Zach said, resigning himself and throwing his arms around his father on the bunk. "I'll come back for you for sure!"

  "Heck, Zach, I'll probably catch up to you before you get ten miles down the road," Jeb said, encouraging his boy and himself. "Here, take the money I've got to help you on your way." He pulled out his leather wallet and produced all the folding money and coin he had left. Zach stuffed it all into his pockets, wiping his running nose on his sleeve.

  "I'll get the medicine back home, pa. You can count on me!"

  "I know I can son. I know I can."

  Just then the jail house door opened wide and Sheriff Bear walked in. He had a pile of papers under one arm and a half-smoked cigar in the other. His long shadow preceded him into the room as the sun sank low in the West. The sheriff deposited the papers onto a desk, leaned back and took a long puff on his stogie and blew a satisfied puff of smoke out in front of him that obscured his face in cloud.

  "You have confessed yourself a demon. Sentence will be carried out at dawn." The sheriff cocked his head to one side. "Confession will make the whole thing go easier on you."

  "You know he's no demon!" Zach shouted. "He's my pa and he's a decent man!"

  Sheriff Bear considered that for a moment and said "The West is covered with the headstones of decent men, boy. What's one more going to matter?" He let the ashes of his cigar fall to the floor. "Demons are everywhere, boy. Remember that."

  Zach clenched his fists but Jeb put his arms on the boy's shoulders.

  "He don't know what he's saying, sheriff," Jeb apologized, but Bear seemed to take no special notice, puffing again on his cigar and watching the smoke swirl before him.

  "No matter. The good reverend tells me that you are free to go, young man, not being a demon at all." He picked up a ring of long keys from the desk and came over to the cell. Zach stiffened at the sheriff's approach, but Jeb held him by the arms and turned him around to look right into his eyes.