The Good, the Bad, and the Dead Page 2

  Heck removed the knife, disturbed that Archie didn't even flinch.

  "But that Sheriff shot you straight in the heart. Didn't know he had to shoot you in the head. We buried you so no one could find you while you healed up. Took you three or four days, didn't it?"

  "The head, huh?"

  Archie nodded, suddenly realizing what the cold glare in Heck's eyes meant for him.

  The cavalryman suddenly lurched forward and stabbed the Bowie knife straight up through Little Archie's jaw and into his brain. The long-dead outlaw squealed like a banshee, green fire burning from his eyes and mouth in the quickly cooling desert air.

  "Burn in Hell, Archie. Hot and hard."

  ***

  Whatever had happened to him, whatever had taken him over these last 13 years, Archie hadn't been able to tell Heck had changed. Bill probably wouldn't either. But Pale Willy would. Heck was sure of that. He couldn't explain one single other thing he had learned in the last few hours, but he was certain Pale Willy would notice he was himself again the moment they met.

  He took Archie's horse but had a hard time mounting it. He had grown up on horses and had never had any trouble before, but the animal did not give easily to his touch. It was quickly becoming obvious to Heck that he wasn't normal anymore. He felt faster, stronger, and nearly invincible, yet somehow heavy like some great weight had settled in his guts and wouldn't pass. Things felt different, too. The night air didn't taste crisp and cool, it was heavy and laden with death and the smell of corpses. Archie's horse must have sensed the change, too. It shied away whenever Heck got close. When he finally got the horse mounted, even the feel of a strong horse-once the greatest feeling in the world to this boy who had raised them— brought no joy.

  Heck rode toward the mountains Archie had pointed toward, knowing he would somehow find Bloody Bill and Pale Willy there. And he would kill them. Though he was beginning to suspect that like him, they were dead already.

  ***

  He met Pale Willy first. He sat atop his horse at the head of the trail, outlined by the blood moon behind him. The red light cast his pale skin in a hateful crimson. He seemed somehow stronger than before, though even at 50 paces Heck could see his face was covered with black boils.

  "Heck?" Willy whispered. His teeth shone in the moonlight as his sneering lips parted to speak.

  Heck said nothing but continued to ride forward.

  "Stop," Willy hissed. Heck had never heard him sound like this. Willy stared hard, as if concentrating. Heck continued to ride forward at a steady trot. He reached for the gun he'd taken off Archie.

  Willy's pale eyes opened wide with fear. He reached for his own six-gun.

  Thirteen years ago, the outcome would have been decided. Heck had hardly ever held a gun, Willy was a master at the fast draw. It was closer now, but Willy still won. He drew, fired, and put a bullet straight through Heck's teeth.

  The blast threw the young man to the ground in a clumsy backflip. Willy covered him and slipped down from his horse. He advanced slowly, curious as to what had caused his companion of the last 13 years to turn on him.

  "Missed me," Heck muttered through his ruined jaw when Willy got close. Heck's gun was beneath his chest. He fired through his own shoulder, catching Willy square in the chest and driving him back. The blast through the teeth confirmed what Heck already suspected-he was dead. Moving and speaking—but dead.

  He rose quickly and looked down at his shocked opponent. Willy raised his gun.but Heck fired another round into his wrist and blew the hand off. A second shot did the same to the other hand just as it drew a second pistol.

  "I don't understand what's happening. I don't know if this is . a nightmare or some divine joke, but I don't much care. All I want to do is kill you, Willy. And then I'm gonna kill Bill. See, I'm eat up with hate for you both. Always have been. All I wanna do is kill you both."

  Heck took aim. "Archie said you had to kill the head. Just like a snake. Seemed to work on him."

  Willy shuddered and looked about for a weapon, but he was a gunman, and without hands he wasn't much of a fighter.

  "Reckon it'll work on you, too. Let's find out."

  "What do you want?" Willy hissed. It wasn't his normal voice. There was something else there, and it made Heck shiver.

  "What are we?" he said.

  The thing inside Willy replied. "Demons, boy! Demons straight from Hell! You cannot defeat us, we are Legion!"

  "Archie doesn't seem much of a threat with a Bowie knife jammed up through his skull. I'm bettin' I put a slug in your head and you'll shut up too."

  The thing scrambled backward, looking for an escape. Heck stepped forward and aimed right between its eyes.

  "Sometimes we inhabit mortal shells. Like yours. You have a demon inside you. That's what keeps your stinking corpse up and moving, monkey." It said the last word as if it were the foulest thing imaginable.

  "Why don't I remember?" Heck pressed.

  "Willy" said nothing, so Heck used his fifth bullet to put a hole in its neck.

  "Because your demon had complete control, mortal! Your worthless soul was locked away for 13 years because you are weak! You must have regained your control over our brother when that sheriff shot you."

  "I reckon that's good enough for now," Heck said, and shot Pale Willy square between the eyes without another word. There was no sense giving such a dangerous man time to fight back.

  Heck remounted Archie's horse, again with difficulty, and headed further into the hills. He reached up and felt his jaw. It was a mess. His four front teeth were missing and the back of his throat had a nasty hole in it, but it didn't hurt. That's when the reality of it set in. He was a walking dead man. So were Willy and Little Archie. Bill too, he figured. Animated by a demon wiggling around inside him. It wasn't possible, but there he was, riding a horse and fingering the hole in the back of his neck that bled only a foul, black ooze.

  Heck roamed the hills all through the night, but found no sight of Bill. About dawn, he realized that with 13 years passing, his family must think him dead-in the traditional sense. His mother and father had to live with the death of another son. And how many more families had suffered from Bill and his bushwhackers because of Heck's failure to bring him in?

  Heck felt that old familiar feeling building within him. Hot hate swelled in his heart and fed into his brain. Bloody Bill. Bushwhackers. Rebels. How he hated them all. He ground his teeth—completely healed by now-and seethed. That hate'll eat you up, boy his pa had said. Let it, he thought. It's all I got left.

  Another hour went by and Heck came once again upon the body of Pale Willy. He stared hard at the hated thing, then noticed a set of hoof prints leading away from the twice-dead corpse. Bloody Bill had been here!

  Heck turned his horse about and followed the trail-it led straight toward the ruins of Purgatory.

  ***

  A single horse and a few buzzards moved about the little town Heck had helped destroy. It was Bill's horse, tethered outside the saloon.

  Heck dismounted and slapped his own horse on the flank. It was all too happy to move away from its rotting master.

  There was no sign of Bill, but a clock on a general store behind Heck read high noon.

  "Bill Anderson!" Heck called in his gravelly voice.

  Long seconds passed. He heard the clock tick behind him and watched a buzzard pull an eyeball from some sun-scorched body a gunshot away.

  Finally, Bloody Bill Anderson, dressed all in black and holding a bottle of liquor in his hand, stepped from the swinging doors of the saloon.

  "Heck Ramsey," he said. "You've changed. For the worse, I have to say."

  "I've come to kill you, Bill." Heck seethed. Seeing Bill again fired all the infernal stoves in his hating heart.

  "You do loathe me, don't you, Heck?"

  "More than you'll ever know, Bill."

  "That's good! Hate is good, boy!" Bill stepped on out into the street, still drinking from the whiskey bottle. "It's
made me one of the most famous men in history, you know? Course, the world thinks I'm dead. Dead and buried just a few months after Centralia. You convinced 'em of that. After you came back-in a much better disposition, I might add-you told me I could be just like you. You said we'd be immortal. We'd have incredible powers and kill Yankees for thousands of years! It took me a while, but finally you convinced me. Me an' you rode straight into the Federal line at Albany, Missouri, October 27th, 1864. Ah, I do so fondly remember that glorious ride!"

  "They propped up my body for a while, even took pictures. But I did what you said—just sat there quiet-like and let it happen. Then they buried me. I rose on Hell's Eve—just as three drunken Union boys was pissin' on my grave." Bill smiled. "I stuffed their peckers in their mouths before I left."

  "Took a few years to find you back here. Back in Texas. You said the Rangers'd find us if we stayed in Missouri, and they knew how to deal with our kind. You was right, of course. So we laid low, working mischief along the border up north, killin' soldiers in those little isolated outposts they keep between North and South. Oh, that's right, Heck. You probably don't know. The war's still goin' on."

  "A lot's changed, Bill," Heck couldn't hold his hate in much longer. He could almost picture tendrils of it seeping from his mouth, nose, and ears. He wanted nothing more than to torture Bill, to crush him slowly, cut him limb from limb-make him suffer for all the things he'd done. And all the things Heck had done in the last 13 years as well.

  "I reckon it's time to end this, Bill," Heck managed through grinding teeth.

  "I reckon it is." Bill finished his whiskey and dropped the bottle on the ground. "But I just want you to know one more thing. We're exactly alike."

  Heck's eye twitched. "We're nothing alike."

  "No? You were a spy because you hated Rebels and bushwhackers. Ain't that it? That's what your better side told me. It said you had as much hate in your heart as I did. And my demon don't mind me stayin' in charge."

  "It's different," Heck grumbled.

  "Is it? My sisters was killed by Yankees. I hate anything in blue, and I've killed thousands of 'em over the years for it."

  All that hate'll eat you up inside, boy, Heck heard his father say. Hate was a strange thing. It could feed passion and cloud judgment. Heck tried to let it go, let the hate pass out of him.

  The moment he did, Bill shot. His gun was in his undead hands like lightning. It flashed and tore off the top of Heck's scalp—but didn't blow out the all-important brain the demon inside needed to keep its host alive.

  Heck fell backward and saw black blood ooze down his face. He instinctively knew Bill had failed to finish him and moved to draw his own gun but Bill was on him in what would have been a heartbeat to a living man.

  Bloody Bill stood over him, his boot on Heck's throat just as it had been 13 years ago. Hot hate surged in his wild eyes and his grisly flesh trembled with rage.

  "My pa was right. Bill."

  "What?" the murderer replied, terrified and angry that his prey still spoke.

  "All that hate can eat you up. Make a man into a monsterlike you. But it don't have to. Sometimes you can use it. Sometimes hate and anger are good. You can use it. Use it to teach the wicked a lesson."

  "What are you talkin' about?" Bill whispered, but his eyes revealed his growing terror.

  "I'm talking about you an' me, Bill. I'm talkin' about how we're both filled with hate. I hate you because you killed my brother and made my father look like a coward. You hate me 'cause I'm a Yankee and Yankees killed your sisters."

  Bill cocked his pistol and aimed at Heck's right eye.

  "But it ain't the same. It's powerful, and it can eat you up all right, but there's a secret, Bill. You have to let it. And even when it does, you can still control it. But you don't. You let it take over—maybe like these damn demons inside us. You can use 'em, or you can let 'em take the reins."

  "Enough talk, boy," Bill made as if to fire, but stopped.

  "If I tried this on my own, I'd probably fail, Bill. You got the gun on me, you got speed, and you got plenty of hate in your heart, too. But I hate you Bill, and no other. One of Quantrill's raiders taught me that. A man by the name of Lawrence Simms from Cape Girardeau, Missouri. He stood up to you even though he was a Reb and a bushwhacker. He stood up to you because you were wrong. You let your hate rule you. You didn't rule your hate."

  Bloody Bill screamed up at the Heavens in rage. Heck made his move. He felt the demon inside him well up and add speed and strength to his muscles-it didn't want to die either. He grabbed Bill's gun and yanked it back so fast and so hard that the murderer's fingers snapped like dry branches.

  Bill screamed, more in shock than in pain, but Heck was already on top of him. The undead cavalryman ripped the pistol from Bill's hand-taking the trigger finger with it-and held it high over the bushwhacker's head.

  Bill fought back like a wildcat, pulling a hatchet from his belt and sinking it deep in Heck's chest. The Yankee smashed the heavy pistol down on Bill's head and punctured his skull, but it still wasn't over. The two possessed fighters struck over and over-hacking, smashing, clawing, biting, and gouging each other in an incredible flurry of savage blows.

  "Die! Die! Die! Die!" Bill screamed in his demon's voice.

  Heck said nothing, but let his hate out in a fine, hot stream, letting it overload his system like pushing the throttle on a steam train past the red line. Time after time he smashed Bill's own pistol down on the madman's skull. His own arms and chest were cut to pieces by the bushwhacker's axe, but Bill couldn't manage to cleave open the wooly blonde head.

  Finally, Bill lay still, stunned and battered. His head was an eggshell on the verge of busting. He looked up at Heck and managed a half-smile. "You're just like me, Yankee. Just like me."

  '"Cept I'm still movin'," Heck said. Then he brought Bloody Bill Anderson's own pistol down on the murderer's skull one last time, spattering the foul, diseased mind inside onto the Texas soil like a burst melon.

  Heck felt the hate still welling within him. But it wasn't just hate—it was the demon. It was trying to regain control.

  All that hate'll eat you up inside, boy he heard his father say. He closed his eyes and thought of home. Thought of growing up with his brother, Tom. Thought of the two of them running through fields of flowers back in Kansas with a kite their father had made. Of breaking horses on their ranch. He thought of all the good things he'd had in life before Bill Anderson had come to Lawrence. He'd had a good family, good friends, food on the table and a roof over his head.

  The thing inside him raged-it had sensed it might be able to take over again. But Heck had won. It threw its spiritual weight against his mind one last time just for spite, then sunk down deep in his rotten innards. It would be back, both it and Heck knew that. But Heck had learned a valuable lesson. He could use the thing inside him-use all that demonic hate and fury when he had to. If he was careful, if he could control the rage, he could even put the thing back in its "cage" when he was through.

  Hate could eat him up, but it had its uses too. Heck wondered if his father knew that.

  He mounted Little Archie's horse-noting that it bore the brand of the US Marshals-and headed north. Maybe he'd find out who this animal belonged to. He'd find the name of the lawman Little Archie had killed and continue in his place, and use a little hate to bring some peace to this new, weird West.

  TALKING HEADS

  by Matt Forbeck I'd only been in the jail cell for a few hours when that shrunken head first spoke up "Duke Solomon," it rasped in its squeaky little voice (what else would you expect from a shrunken head?), "Get up off your lazy ass!"

  I almost fell off the rickety cot I'd been lying on, feeling all sorry for myself. Of course, at first I didn't realize it was one of the heads talking to me, but maybe I'd better back up a few steps here. I think I might have gotten a bit ahead of myself. If you'll pardon the pun.

  The name's Duke Solomon. For those of you who ain't rea
d of my exploits before, I'm known as the "cowboy detective," at least in some of the more popular dime novels they publish Back East. I wander around this Weird West of ours, looking for trouble and trying to put an end to it. Sometimes it tries to put an end to me first, but I'm still here, so it hasn't won yet.

  Usually I like to collect a fee for my troubles too. As Philip used to say, "Altruism only takes you so far." Hey, a man's got to eat.

  Back in the day, I used to be a gunslinger, and a damn good one at that. Between times of throwing down my irons, I occupied my few spare moments by writing up colorful accounts of my adventures, and a few of those publisher fellows Back East even bothered paying me good money for the privilege of publishing them. I got to do what I was good at, and then folks paid me money to tell them all about it.

  It was a pretty good life, but somewhere along the line it went sour.

  Actually, I know exactly where it turned bad.

  It's not a pleasant memory, and I don't like to talk about it much. I like writing about it even less. Still, if you've been following my stories up till now, I figure you've been a faithful enough reader that you deserve to know the truth about what happened to me.

  If you've read enough of these dime novels, you can probably guess what happened. My fame finally caught up with me.

  I was in Deadwood, Dakota Territory-or Sioux Nations, depending on who you ask-working on a job for Sitting Bull, the great Sioux chief himself. There was someone who'd lit off a few smaller ghost-rock veins over the past month-rather wastefully and explosively-and Sitting Bull wanted a stop put to it. In return, he offered me as much ghost rock as I could carry in my hat—not an insubstantial fee-I got a big head.

  I went out and bought a bigger hat, but I never got to make use of it. Timmy Carson interrupted me.

  I didn't know who Timmy was at the time. He was just some snot-nosed teenager who'd read too damn many dime novels over the years. When he heard I was in town, he decided he just had to meet me.

  I wasn't in the meeting mood though. I was on the job, and I didn't have a whole lot of time for a boy who was just getting in my way. That was one thing Timmy was damn good at.