Story Selection Four

Williamson/Story Selection Four.

AFTER WINTER.

When they brought the two bodies down from the line cabin after winter, the rancher,

Mr. Campbell, sent for the Sheriff.

The Sheriff looked at the bodies then had them brought into town. He left them with the

undertaker, and brought in Doc Hall.

Doc Hall was a young man newly arrived from the East who’d studied Medicine at

Heidelberg.

“It’s hard to believe those boys died of natural causes,” the Sheriff said. “They lasted

out two previous winters. Might be somethin’ they ate up there in the cabin. I told Mr.

Campbell not to let anybody go up there for a while.”

“A sensible precaution.”

“What killed them, Doc?”

With the help of the undertaker, Doc examined the bodies with eyes and hands.

“What do you make of it, Vaslav?” he asked the undertaker when he’d finished. Vaslav

Ravic had come to town shortly before Doc Hall.

“I think there is no blood left in these bodies,” he said.

“That’s what it looks like.”

“How could that happen, Doc?”

Doc was examining the bodies again, paying close attention to the necks and arms. The

undertaker seemed to know what he was looking for.

“Puncture marks,” Doc told the Sheriff.

Doc explored the noses and mouths of the dead men, then, looked up at the Sheriff.

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“What’ve you found?”

Doc showed him a discoloured and bloated mouth with a series of small white-ringed

holes in the lower lip.

“Are there caves near the cabin, Sheriff?”

“Yeah. Right behind where the line cabin’s built.”

“Sheriff, I’d like you to take me there.”

“What are we talkin’ about here?”

“It’s a theory, but if I’m right these men were killed by bats.”

*

The names of the two dead riders were Jeff and Ben. The undertaker wrapped them in

white linen, laid them in caskets and went home. The sun was down.

“Jeff?”

“Yeah, Ben?”

“Time to go.”

“We still helpin’ out?”

“Let’s go see.”

Two bats came streaking out of the chimney of the funeral home. In Boot Hill they

waited until they were joined by another bat.

“How is she?” asked Ben.

“Not, good”

“Can’t she come out at all?” asked Jeff.

“Her recovery is slow.”

“So we got to keep doin’ what we been doin’?”

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“For the time being.”

“Don’t mind me askin’,” Jeff said, “but if we wasn’t able to get what we need what

would happen to us?”

“We’d look after you the way we look after Myra until you could get what you need for

yourselves again.”

“That’s good to know,” Jeff, said.

An hour before sunrise the three came to a place where a fourth lay. Each in turn gave

her regurgitated blood, and when finished she thanked them.

“I will soon be able to go out again.”

They smiled joyfully at her showing small sharp teeth with long incisors.

*

On the way to the line cabin the Sheriff and Doc stopped off at the Campbell ranch.

“Bats, you say,” the rancher said. “Ain’t heard of them attackin’ people, but they sure

suck at my steers.”

“Did you lose many in the blizzard?” Doc asked.

“More than I can afford.”

“That might be it. With the cattle dead and covered in snow the only flowing blood was

that of your men.”

“Hardly bears thinkin’ about,” Campbell said. “You hear all sorts of tales about

vampire bats.”

“That’s all they are,” Doc said. “Tall tales to frighten the children.”

“You sure there’s nothin’ more than that?”

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“I’m a scientist, Mr. Campbell. “I believe in having proof. I work on the hypothesis that

there is a natural explanation for all things. Nothing is supernatural.

“What tall tales?” the Sheriff asked.

Doc told him..

Vampires were undead people.

They lived in coffins during the day in dark, dank, crypts.

They could change into bats.

At night they feasted on blood to sustain their bodies during the day.

“Which is true of real vampire bats. If they don’t get blood they die within forty-eight

hours.” Doc explained. “All that stuff about garlic and crosses and holy water and wooden

stakes and exposure to direct sunlight is absolute nonsense.”

The Sheriff looked troubled but said nothing until he was on the trail with the doctor.

“How come you know so much about Vampires, Doc?”

“I have a scientific education, Sheriff. Anyone who comes from Europe knows about

Vampires.”

“That why Mr. Ravic knew what you were looking for?”

“Probably.”

“I stopped by to see those two bodies again before we left. Mr. Ravic was wearin’ a

cross and the place stunk of garlic.

“It would seem Mr. Ravic is a superstitious man.”

“Maybe, but what worries me is that those two bodies looked better than they did when

I brought them in.”

The Doc gave a hearty laugh.

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“Imagination is as good to a fool as a physic,” he said.

*

They reached the line cabin, late afternoon. There was only the disorder of two men

living together over winter. There was nothing in the line of poisoning.

They went to the cave dwellings and in the darkness found vampire bats.

Once out in the light again, the Sheriff felt less uneasy.

Doc went on about vampire bats, saying that in common with human beings they were

the only species that cared about the survival of their own and if one wasn’t able to feed at

night, the others brought it blood until it was well again.

“They got a lot in common with us,” the Sheriff said. “They like blood, and it seems

like we do, too, ’ceptin’ we spill it. We just had a Gray and Blue war that proves it.”

“On the positive side, we do look after our sick, Sheriff.”

Doc looked westward.

“Sun’s goin’ down,” he said. “We might as well stay at the line cabin until morning.”

They made their way to the line cabin, the Sheriff unaware that he was biting at his

lower lip that had been irritating him all day.

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ALIAS APPELBAUM AND PLUMTREE.

Jones and Brown were a couple of cowhands who wanted to get rich quick and have more

money than Mr. Tracy their rancher boss.

So they changed their names to Appelbaum and Plumtree and took to a life of crime. They

worked out the details of this shift of occupation in a line shack during winter and reckoned that

rustling was out because the Mexican border was too far away and the only people who were

likely to buy the steers across any of the Territorial lines belonged to the Cattlemen’s

Association and were all friends of Mr. Tracy whose herd was the only one they could rustle

anyway.

What they’d do was move out of this Territory, hold up a stage or two, get a good poke and

move to yet another Territory and set up a legitimate business in General Goods, and rob stages,

trains, and banks in the surrounding Territories.

Come Spring they gave in their notice. Mr. Tracy asked them what they intended to do.

“Head East,” said Jones, now Appelbaum.

“We always had this hankerin’ to see New York,” said Brown, now Plumtree.

“Go with God,” Mr. Tracy said, and gave them a small bonus with their wages.

They put their plan into action and for a while successfully rode with the Devil.

*

Young Tom Tolliver talked himself into a job with the Overland Stage Company riding

shotgun because he wanted to marry Cora Simms.

He sat up on the box beside the driver, Jeff Curry who hauled back on the reins as the six-

horse team came towards Elbow Bend. Jeff was masterful with the brake and the coach rounded

the bend at walking pace.

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Tolliver kept his eyes skinned as they approached the Twin Boulders, one on each side of the

road. If the coach with its payroll to the silver mine, was going to be held up, this would be the

place. He cocked both hammers and held the shotgun at the ready.

The coach passed the boulders and the horses began the steady climb uphill. Tolliver heard

the shot that took Jeff Curry down, pitching him forward between the stage and the horses.

Tolliver grabbed for the reins and while he struggled with the horses, a masked rider came up

and stuck a rifle in his side and yanked away the shotgun.

“Unbuckle that gun belt!”

Tolliver did as he was told. The man flung it into the rocks.

“You folks get out of that coach, now,” another voice said and the five passengers got out to

be robbed of their possessions.

“Throw down that payroll bag,” said the man watching Tolliver.

When Tolliver threw it down it was too near the man’s face and it dragged off his mask.

“Why, Mr. Plumtree,” Tolliver said, surprised.

Plumtree shot him. Just before young Tom’s eyes glazed over, he breathed out his last words,

“Ill get you for that.”

“Some hope,” said Plumtree and put another bullet into him.

“Hell,” said Appelbaum.

“They know who I am now,” said Plumtree indicating the passengers.

“Maybe they didn’t hear.”

“You heard.”

“Yeah.”

“Then they heard.”

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They made sure all five passengers were dead before riding off.

“How’d he know who you were?”

“He comes to see his girl in our town, and he’s been in the store.”

“He sure won’t be comin’ in again.”

*

Young Tolliver had no folks and was buried by the Simms, Cora’s people, in the cemetery of

the town where Appelbaum and Plumtree had their General Store. Both men attended the funeral

and added money to the reward that the Overland Stage Company posted for the capture of the

killers. It rained on the tears of Cora Simms.

*

“I think we got enough now with that last haul,” Plumtree said to Appelbaum.

“Then let’s go see New York.”

“We can sell off the business.”

“At a handsome profit.”

“I reckon we got as much now as old man Tracy.”

“And it took us less than half the time.”

“We’re Capitalists, Mr Appelbaum.”

“We sure are, Mr. Plumtree.

They took to each other and danced around, then, both, simultaneously, looked down at their

feet. Their eyes met with horror, then checked again what they had felt then seen.

Bubbling up through the laces of their boots came a red sticky substance, and when they

moved they left bloody footprints behind them. Each sat and snatched their boots and socks from

their feet. The blood continued to gush through their toes.

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They put on new socks and new boots, but it made no difference. The blood continued to

gush, and in mounting terror they wondered if it was their own blood and how they would stop it.

They rushed out and knocked Doc Carey out of his sleep.

“Doc, we can’t stop our feet bleedin’.”

Doc Carey examined their feet and found them smelly, but unbloodied.

“If this is some kind of joke boys, I sure don’t appreciate it at this time of the morning.”

When they left Doc Carey’s their boots filled again and they left bloodied footprints on the

ground.

“Hell,” said Appelbaum, “what’s happenin’?”

That was when they heard the laugh, and saw a dark figure in the shadows. The form laughed

again and moved off.

“He knows somethin’ we don’t,” said Plumtree, and they both tried catching up with the

figure, but no matter how they tried the distance between them and the dark form never changed.

So intent were they in following that they did not realize where they were being led until they

were pulled up short in the cemetery when the form now standing upon a new-dug grave

bedecked with wild flowers, turned and smiled at them.

“Mr. Appelbaum and Mr. Plumtree, I bid you goodnight.” The figure with a salute,

descended inch-by-inch into the grave.

The name and dates on the simple wooden cross were those for Tom Tolliver.

Appelbaum and Plumtree sploshed back to their General Store, leaving behind them bloodied

footprints.

9


CHRISTMAS IN HELL.

On Christmas Eve Hell froze over.

Maybe it had been someone’s idea of a joke to call the town Hell, and an even bigger joke to

set up a pair of iron gates right where the only road in entered the town.

I didn’t see him myself, but the sheepherder must have walked through the gates of Hell, and

on up the street with the frozen filth crackling beneath his boots.

How he ever got as far as the Lost Chances Saloon I don’t know. I would have thought he’d

have been beaten senseless or gunned down by Nichols’ henchmen.

He came into the saloon and left the batwings swinging behind him. He was dressed in

sheepskins and his long hair had a coating of frost that did not melt in the heat of the room. He

carried a long shepherd’s crook in his right hand.

I went on playing the piano, fingering over and over and over again the same two bars of OH,

THEM GOLDEN SLIPPERS, as I had been doing since I’d been here in Hell. Whenever I tried

to play the rest of the tune I couldn’t. I couldn’t play any other tunes even though I knew them in

my head and wanted them to come out of my fingers. I longed to play classical and sacred music.

All I could do was play those same two bars of OH, THEM GOLDEN SLIPPERS.

The sheepherder looked round the lamp-lit, smoky and liquor-sodden bar room. Drunken

miners and cowpokes playing poker or blackjack occupied all the tables, and the Chuck-a-Luck

wheel clacked and came up with a loss for every player time after time. It was a saloon full of

losers compelled to go on losing but knowing how they might have won. The air was thick with

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their profanities and blasphemies, and the circulating dance-hall girls promised delights never

realized.

Nichols who owned everything in Hell came down the stairs. By contrast, he was as

handsome as the sheepherder was ugly. He wore a silk shirt and a blue silk waistcoat and

velveteen trousers. A Colt .45 hung low on his left hip. He and the sheepherder made their way

towards each other, eyes locked.

As they met, all the gamblers and dance-hall girls stopped what they were doing and I got an

urge to stop playing, but when I lifted my fingers from the keyboard, I got a painful urge to play

on. My fingers went back to strike the keys and the hubbub of the gambling resumed, but it

stopped again as I got an irresistible urge to cease.

All eyes turned towards Nichols and the man with the shepherd’s crook.

“What do you want here?” Nichols said, harshly.

“I have come for what is mine,” said the other.

“There is nothing here of yours.”

“I intend to take what is mine.”

“None of this scum leaves here.”

“We shall see.”

They seemed to be locked in a battle of wills, then Nichols smiled.

“Why don’t you take my former offer?

“I refused it before and I refuse it again.”

“Why work for James Lord when you can work for yourself?”

“He offers me a better life than you or I could make.”

“He has you believing that, but it is not true.”

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“And is this the best you can do?” The sheepherder indicated the saloon and its inhabitants.

“You are a fool,” Nichols said.

“Not I. I have come for my own.”

“I told you. Now, let me show you there is nothing here of yours.”

Nichols clapped his hands and called out for the dancing girls to do their act, and for the rest

of us to continue our futile activities. The two curtains across the stage drew back to each side.

None of us moved. Our eyes were on the stage.

“What the…?” cursed Nichols.

On the boards, instead of Can-Can girls in frilly knickers, there was a Mary, a Joseph, and a

burro heading towards an inn. The Virgin was Gloria, the brothel Madam; Joseph was a

gunslinger and back-shooter. Nichols yelled for them to get back to their own routines.

The gunslinger stepped forward, hand hovering over his six-shooter.

“We want to do this,” he said, tersely.

“Damn you, do as I tell you.”

“Let’s sit down,” the sheepherder said to Nichols. “Let’s watch what can be no longer

offered to you.”

As the story of the Nativity unfolded it brought tears to the eyes of some but not to others. I

played the hymns of Christmas as accompaniment. Three Chinamen played the Wise Men from

the East, and Herod was a former Governor of the State.

When the play was over the sheepherder said: “You have heard my voice. If you know me

and who I work for, then come with me.”

I stood up along with many others.

12


“None of you are going anywhere,” stormed Nichols. He motioned with his hand and from

the balcony above the saloon there was the sound of levered Winchesters. Three of his men

barred the way to the door.

“You can go,” he said to the sheepherder. “Alone.”

“They will come with me.”

“Then I’ll just have to kill you,” Nichols snarled, stepping back and drawing his gun.

“He’s not armed,” I shouted, afraid for the shepherd.

But I was wrong. As Nichols stepped back, the shepherd stepped forward and two-handed

drove the point of his crook into Nichols’s forehead between his eyes, crushing his skull bones

into his brain. As Nichols’s gun cleared his holster it exploded shooting the heel of the

sheepherder.

A couple of the girls and myself rushed forward to help him but he waved us away saying it

was nothing.

He limped out into the street, and those of us with quickened eyes looked at each other and

rushed out after him.

We followed him through the gates of Hell, and when I looked I saw that the filth of Hell was

again unfrozen.

13


CLEM GODWIN.

Ride for a week in any direction and you’ll still not reach the boundaries of Clem Godwin’s

land.

He’d come west bringing his family, the beginnings of a cattle herd, and his own cowhands.

He’d built his ranch house and when his herd multiplied and he’d established good relationships

with the Indians and town folks he decided to move back east.

“You understand our contract Bart?” he said to his foreman.

“Sure, Mr. Godwin. You lease us the land and we send you back a tenth of all the ranch

makes,” said Bart Samuels, who thought Godwin soft in the head. “It’s a good deal.”

“Think you can live up to it?

“Easy.”

“I’ve told you how to look after the land and the livestock and about getting’ on with your

neighbours. Keep doin’ that and you’ll not want.”

“Sure, Mr. Godwin. Will do.”

*

Clem Godwin, his wife and his only son went back east where Godwin used his great wealth

for works of philanthropy.

After three years Bart Samuels stopped sending the tenth.

“Isaiah,” Godwin said to one of his accountants, “go to the ranch and find out why the

money’s dried up.”

In a month Isaiah came back with bruises and a broken nose.

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“They said, ‘tell Godwin he can whistle for his money’,” he reported.

*

“What do we do?” Josh, Godwin’s son asked.

“I’ve sent Jeremiah,” Godwin said.

“What makes you think he’ll fare any better than Isaiah?”

“He has my full authority.”

“So had Isaiah. Maybe I should have gone.”

“They’ll listen to Jeremiah.”

Jeremiah came back empty handed, badly beaten, and without ears.

*

Godwin sent another servant because he did not want his son to go.

Ezekiel, the servant telegraphed saying he was too severely wounded to travel back east and

that Bart Samuels and his people had no intention of honouring the contract they’d made with

Godwin.

*

“They will respect me as your son,” said Josh Godwin.

Godwin thought differently but agreed to let Josh go.

“Take a company of men with you.”

“I wish them no harm, I will go alone.”

*

“Hey, Bart, look who’s here,” one of Samuels’ men called.

Samuels came to the door of the ranch house, his thin mouth twisted into a crooked smile.

Josh brought his mount to a standstill.

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“Well, Bart?”

“Well what?”

“After what you did to my father’s accountants there’s a debt to be settled. Your lease has

been terminated.”

A thought stirred in Samuels’ eyes.

“I ain’t givin’ up what we got here, son and heir.”

“It doesn’t belong to you.”

“I got possession.”

“Bart you got a lot of bad things to pay for, both here and back in town. You burned down

the newspaper office and left a boy orphaned.”

“Didn’t like what his pa wrote about me.”

“You killed the Sheriff and appointed your own. Come back, submit to my father, and take

your punishment.”

“Rather own all this.”

Samuels laughed, drew his Colt and shot the son of Godwin through the head.

*

Clem Godwin rode west, a hard-eyed wrathful man. He had a uniformed force with him and

all the necessary papers against Samuels.

He rode into the town and smelt its corruption. He arrested the Sheriff and his deputies and

burned down every establishment owned by Samuels. Some of those working for Samuels died

in the flames, the rest made a sorry sight and they hauled out across the prairie.

He restored those who had remained honest but had been reduced to poverty by Samuels

among them the boy whose father had owned the newspaper.

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“Name’s Chris, sir.

“Come with me Chris.”

*

Faced with grim-faced fighters, Samuel’s men and their families walked from the ranch and

into captivity.

Which left the disarmed Samuels face-to-face with Godwin.

“Give me back my gun, and let it be just you and me, old man.”

Godwin took off his coat and his own gun and stood on solid legs.

“I trusted you to look out for my land and my cattle and my people, and to treat your

neighbours as you would like to be treated yourself, but you betrayed my trust and you injured

my servants and you killed my son. Admit your guilt and I’ll spare your life.”

“You’re a crazy old fool if you think you can best me in a fist fight.”

“Submit or I’ll beat you to death.”

“If I beat you, I go free?”

“Yes.”

“You heard that,” Samuels said to the circle of men, and swung at Godwin who stepped back

and swayed as the blow grazed his cheek.

Godwin stepped in while Samuels was off balance and dealt him a mighty blow to his

midriff. As Samuels folded, Godwin cracked his jaw with a right uppercut sending him back and

down.

Samuels got up, lowered his head and rushed taking Godwin back with him. They didn’t go

down and Godwin got a hold around Samuels’ neck and brought him down like a grounded steer.

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When Samuels got up and stood shaking his head Godwin delivered a flurry of punches to

his body and to his head. Samuels went down again. He got up slower, and backed away from

Godwin, who was relentless and remorseless, following him around the circle of men delivering

blow after blow, sapping Samuels’ strength until he stood panting and looking balefully at

Godwin.

“Come here Chris,” Godwin said.

The boy came forward.

“I’m giving this ranch and land and everything on it to this boy whose father you killed and

the town to those you dispossessed. I thought you needed to know that before you died.”

“I ain’t goin’ to die,” Samuels snarled and flung himself at Godwin, who took a vice-like grip

with both hands on each side of Samuels’ neck and squeezed until the blood supply to his brain

was stopped. He held Samuels like that for a long time until he let go and Samuels fell to the

ground, dead.

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I WAS ALIVE

An old Indian, and his daughter, found him.

He, too, was old. Seventy-one. Too old to rebuild the ruined cabin he’d found to live in, and

to repair the roof beam that pinned him so he couldn’t move a muscle.

He’d been to Mexico and come back to find a place far removed from the follies of mankind.

He’d mailed a letter from Chihuahua on Boxing Day 1913, so folks back East would reckon he

was still in Mexico with Pancho Villa instead of here along this stretch of the Colorado that’s the

border between Mexico and the U.S.

Twenty-five thousand men died at Shiloh. Thirty-four thousand at Chickamauga. He’d

survived both battles and the Civil War to be pinned helplessly under this rotting roof beam.

Words of his own come to his mind. “But it was decreed from the beginning of time that

Private Searing…” He’d written that in “One of the Missing”. Did he believe it now? Had this

beam been waiting for him from the beginning of time?

Who’d find him here? He is alone; a word he’d defined in “The Devil’s Dictionary” as

‘being in bad company’. He thinks of his family, his estranged wife and his son’s suicide.

Scuffling, chases these thoughts.

Rats!

How can the Master of the Macabre not imagine being eaten by rats? Dead, he’ll be good to

eat and wholesome to digest as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a

man, and a man to a worm. But what if it happens before he’s done with the work of breathing

and his mad race run? His mind shudders.

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He tries to cry out to frighten them off, but no sound comes from his mouth. His voice won’t

function.

He reasons this is because the beam crushes his chest. The rats sound closer now.

One runs across his ankles.

His mind yells at them, soundlessly.

Eyes; juicy morsels.

He becomes terrified.

That is when the Indians find him.

They come in cautiously.

Terror subsides.

It takes them a while to shift the beam enough to get him out from under it.

He thought he’d be able to speak after that, but, still, he isn’t able to.

He’s lying on his back. The old Indian has an ear to his chest. He says something to his

daughter in their own language and shakes his head. His daughter puts her ear to his chest, and

agrees with her father.

They leave him and search the cabin. What is valuable to them they put in a sack. The father

finds a Mauser, and sticks it in the waistband of his Levis.

He sees and hears what they’re doing, but can’t even blink to let them know he lives.

The old man goes through his pockets taking his penknife, money, pipe and pocket-watch.

“They think I’m dead. I’M NOT DEAD!”

Inside, he screams, “SIT ME UP. SIT ME UP.”

The Indian says something to his daughter, and his daughter pokes the fire tearing up his

diary to help it on its way. She puts logs on.

20


They find food and spirits and talk while they feed.

He’s angry with them. He’d been angry with people all his life, but transmitted that anger

with a hard, biting, vitriolic wit that alienated him from the rest of humanity.

They glance his way, nodding and pointing.

Damn them!

Fear comes furiously to the boil when the old man picks up a spade and goes out.

A cold certainty comes upon him that they intend to bury him.

He laughs silently, hysterically.

“It’s like one of my stories,” he thinks.

He’d heard of this. He’d interviewed a man, certified dead, left in the morgue, and whose

ability to move had returned just as they were putting him in a coffin. A case of being “Locked

in”.

He is locked in his body and nobody knows he is there. They’ll bury him not knowing he is

there.

A hideous scream rents his prison, but still he can’t move.

Exhausted, he becomes calm, the fatalism he’d practised all his life, clicks in and he says to

himself, “It doesn’t matter. In such an absurd world, nothing matters.”

The old man comes back, says something to the girl and she goes out.

“Probably to finish digging my grave,” he thinks.

He’s right. She’s out there digging. He hears the spade striking rock.

So be it. With death will come the ceasing of all his problems. He won’t have to worry about

putting a roof over his head or food in his stomach. He won’t have to listen to all the stupidities

he’d put up with all his life. Oblivion.

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But the dying is something he does not relish. Suffocation in a confined space. His fear

returns like a stampeding herd of buffalo and with it the realization that everything matters. He’d

been wrong.

The Indian girl comes back. They carry him outside into the dusk, lay him beside the grave,

push him in.

It’s shallow, not long enough and slanted to a degree so that his head is higher than his feet.

They fill the grave and go back to the cabin.

There is no suffocating, just awareness that he’s still alive.

Suffocating comes with the return of movement, movement with the blinking of his dirt-filled

eyes.

His hands claw, desperately at the pressing clay.

*

The old Indian was swigging the last of the spirit from the bottle when he heard his daughter

scream as the door burst open and the white man they’d just buried swayed there, red-eyed, and

caked with clay. He moved towards them with arms extended.

The old Indian grabbed the gun from his belt and shot at him.

He staggered back, the Indian fired again.

He was down, his back against the wall.

He raised his eyes to the Indian.

“So this is the end of ‘Bitter Bierce’,” he said. “I was alive.”

And died.

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Williamson/Story Selection Four. 23

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Story Selection Four