Hawthorne: Tales of a Weirder West (6 page)

Blood arced away and the big man howled in pain. His beefy fingers went to the knife. Hawthorne punched him in the mouth, hard, and pushed him off. The big man rolled aside, trying to yank the knife out of his neck. Hawthorne pulled himself up by the back of the bench. One of the corpses grabbed at his arm. He knocked it down, stood up on wobbly legs.

The monster had managed to pull the blade out of his neck and was getting to his feet. With one hand over his wound, he glared at Hawthorne, said, "You aren't supposed to be here, Lord. This isn't for you. You aren't supposed to be here. I don't want to make you a sacrifice, I don't want to. Don't make me, Lord."

Hawthorne frowned, glanced around for his revolver. He spotted it lying under a bench, covered in blood. He dove for it just as the big man came at him again, this time brandishing the stiletto.

On the floor, Hawthorne grabbed the gun, rolled over with it pointing at the monster just as the stiletto was coming down at him. He fired.

The hammer clicked. Misfire. The cylinder was choked with blood from the floor.

The big man roared and Hawthorne started to roll away but the blade came down in his left shoulder.

The force of it felt like being pinned to the floor. Hawthorne gritted his teeth, fought off the wave of black that threatened to wash over him. He punched and kicked, almost blind with pain, and smashed his knuckles into the big man's nose.

The big man made a choking noise deep in his throat. He pulled the blade out of Hawthorne's shoulder, started to come down with it again. Hawthorne grabbed the man's wrist, gripping it hard. The monster pushed down and Hawthorne held the wrist with every ounce of strength he had. The man outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds, and was clearly stronger, yet Hawthorne's will was iron.

But the blade, very slowly, began to lower, closer and closer to Hawthorne's face. With his other fist, he punched the big man in the nose, over and over, still the blade inched its way down.

Hawthorne jabbed his fingers into the man's eyes.

The behemoth bellowed in pain, hands going to his face, and fell back. Hawthorne kicked his way out from under him, dragged himself a few feet away. Again, he got to his feet, felt a shimmer of dizziness blanket his head. He ignored it, took two steps toward his enemy and planted a boot in the man's throat.

The monster's cries choked away. On hands and knees, he swiped out with the stiletto, slicing across Hawthorne's thigh.

Hawthorne grimaced in pain, blood gushing down his leg. He stepped back, into a bench. The corpse of a man with no legs and only one arm slumped into him, moaning miserably in his ear. Hawthorne shoved the thing away, struggled to get back up.

The big man had crawled to the other side of the car. He stood up, weaving on his feet. His eyes red and bleeding from Hawthorne's fingers.

They faced each other across the length of the train car.

The big man said, "You ... you aren't Jesus."

"No kidding."

"But that cross on your head. Is it meant to mock? Are you the Devil?"

"No," Hawthorne said. "But the Devil is a friend of mine. Says he misses you. Wants me to send you along, pronto."

The big man breathed hard, shook his head. A sly smile spread across his face. He said, "You're no friend of my master. You have no friends. I can tell."

"Your master?"

He nodded. "Everything I do, I do for him. He's given me this power, this power to alter and create. It's all to glorify his name. Do you understand? I have the dark touch of imagination. I can make new, twisted things out of the rubbish of the old."

"New, twisted things," Hawthorne said. "I reckon you're twisted enough already."

"Of course I am! Do you think the master would assign work this important, this ... sacred ... to someone who didn't understand the twisted path? And I know I'm bound for Hell and torment when I'm done. I know that. But it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. Why doesn't anyone understand sacrifice? So selfish. Everyone is so selfish."

"The Devil tells you to do this," Hawthorne said.

"Yes! You do understand! He talks to me. He whispers in my ear. Can you see him? Please, tell me you can see him. Here, perched on my shoulder."

The big man looked lovingly at his left shoulder, as if there was something there, something that meant the world to him.

Blood was pouring from Hawthorne's leg and forearm and shoulder, and it was getting harder to stand. For a moment, he could almost see it on the man's shoulder, almost. A chittering, ugly rodent with matted fur and red eyes. But it faded away.

He said, "There's nothing on your shoulder. You're a delusional maniac. And you need to die."

"There's nothing delusional about the things you've seen this night," the man said, grinning like a spoiled, satisfied child. "You've seen the work I've done. You can't tell me I'm a madman."

"Whatever the case, it ends here and now."

The man said, "No, I'm afraid not. Whether you are God or the Devil, you are rubbish now. You are an ingredient."

The man fished into his valise again, came out with a machete. The steel gleamed gold in the gas lamp. He moved toward Hawthorne, roaring.

Behind Hawthorne, a gun boomed once, echoing through the car, nearly rupturing his ear drums. The big man screeched in pain, dropped the machete and clutched his hand.

Hawthorne turned, saw a man standing there behind a veil of gun smoke, his face twisted with fear. He still pointed the gun at the monster but didn't fire again.

Hawthorne knew him. He had a wanted poster in his coat pocket with the man's face on it.

He grabbed the gun away from Bill Cobb, who didn't try to stop him, and turned his attention back to the big man, who was howling and trying to stop the flow of blood from his shattered hand.

Hawthorne shook his head. The monster took two bullets to the chest and hardly blinked, but a bullet in the hand and he was falling to pieces.

He took the three paces calmly, placed the barrel against the monster's head, and pulled the trigger.

The big man fell, but he wasn't dead. Hawthorne pumped another bullet into his head, shattering bone, and brain matter painted the floor along with all the blood. The big man twitched, even with half his face gone.

"Sonofabitch," Hawthorne said.

He picked up the machete, took a deep breath, and lopped off the big man's head.

That did the trick.

Weak now with blood loss, Hawthorne dropped the machete and turned back to Cobb, who stood there in shock.

"Where'd you come from?"

Cobb stared in horror at the corpses all around. They finally stopped moving and moaning—the big man's death meant their death. He said, "I ... I was in the caboose. I locked myself in. It was ... it was horrible. A nightmare. Jesus God, it was the most horrible thing I've ever seen. When I saw you go into that passenger car, I worked up the courage to come out. Thought maybe it was safe then."

"Where's your wife?"

Cobb finally looked at Hawthorne. "My ... my wife?"

"Bette Cobb. Where is she?"

"Mister, how do you know—"

"Where?"

Cobb sighed, motioned with his head toward the woman at the other end of the car, the one who's head the big man had been sawing off. He said, "There. There's my Bette. I couldn't save her."

"You left her here while you ran off to hide."

"No, mister, it wasn't like that, I swear! I tried to save her, I really did! But I—"

"And Bette's sister, in Carson City. You killed her."

"How do you know that? Jesus Christ, who are you? I swear, I didn't—"

Hawthorne raised the gun and pointed it at Cobb. He said, "I'm here to kill you, Bill Cobb."

Cobb began backing up, hands in the air. "Christ, no. Mister, don't. Not after all this. Please ... I ... I helped you just now! I saved your life! You owe me."

Hawthorne considered for a moment, then said, "I reckon you're right. I do owe you."

Cobb breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank God!"

Hawthorne pulled the hammer back. "I'll make it quick."

The sun was coming up by the time the train ran dry of coal and rolled to a stop in the middle of the forest. Hawthorne got off the train alone.

He looked back at it once, just in time to see something scurry out of the passenger car he'd just vacated.

From a distance, it looked like an enormous, filthy rat, the size of a raccoon.

But in half a second, it was gone, disappeared into the pines. Hawthorne turned and walked away.

Hawthorne came across the Lakota camp in mid-afternoon, with the autumn sun burning hard in the sky. The camp had been decimated, teepees burnt and food stocks scattered. Corpses littered the ground.

He reined in the horse at the edge of the camp, dismounted, and let the animal wander off a ways. He pulled the Schofield from its holster. He listened for any indication of life, heard none.

Army
, he thought. The Indians weren't supposed to be here in the Black Hills anymore, not since the Treaty last year, but they were goddamn stubborn. And their stubbornness got them slaughtered. Just like a hundred times before. Not just the braves, but women and children, too. The Army didn't seem to care who they killed, just as long as the Black Hills were open to them and closed to the Indians.

He wandered the camp, stomped out several small fires still smoldering. There were about thirty dead, all of them sprawled out facedown, no blood anywhere.

He holstered his gun, knelt down over the body of a woman, and turned her over.

Her face was emaciated and skeletal, dry eyes bulged out of their sockets and teeth bared in a horrible, contorted grin. Her body was stiff and brittle, like an old corn husk left out in the sun.

The front of her torso was covered in spider webs.

He stepped back from her, walked a few feet to another corpse, this one belonging to a man, and turned it over with his boot.

The body weighed next to nothing. It too was dry and stiff and bone thin, as if all the juice had been sucked out of it. The arms and part of the chest were laced with spider webs, also.

No, this wasn't the work of the Army. Not this time.

A few feet further on, he came across another woman.

This one was different. Still the same shriveled body, but her face was gone. It looked as if something had burst forth from her head. The inside of her skull was like a hollow, dry bowl.

Spider webs covered her.

In the sparse woods around the camp, something moved, snapping twigs and scuffling through dead leaves. Hawthorne drew his revolver, spun to face the direction of the noise.

His gray eyes scanned the area, saw nothing. And then he heard another breaking branch to the right, caught a quick glimpse of someone trying to move furtively through the trees.

Hawthorne gave chase. Whoever it was gave up all pretense of stealth and ran.

It was a Lakota boy, about sixteen, and he moved like the wind. Hawthorne picked up the pace, tearing through the woods after him.

The boy scrambled up the incline of a small hill, leaping over fallen tree trunks and skirting around the ancient conifers and spruces. Hawthorne stayed on his tail, though just barely. The boy angled off to the left, cutting across the side of the hill. He glanced over his shoulder, saw Hawthorne closing in. He suddenly changed course, veering down the hill again.

It was a bad decision. Hawthorne's longer legs carried him down the incline faster, and he cut the boy off near the base of the hill, barreling into him.

They both tumbled down. Hawthorne grabbed the kid by his long hair—he wasn't wearing a shirt, so hair was the only option—and pulled him up to his feet. The boy fought, throwing sloppy punches and trying to kick Hawthorne with his buckskin moccasins.

Hawthorne cuffed him on the side of the head and some of the fight went out of the boy. Hawthorne gripped the kid's hair, shook him. "Stop it."

The boy spit at him, a nice fat glob on the jaw. Hawthorne slapped him again.

The boy was small, but lithe, with the build of most Lakota and transplanted Plains tribes Hawthorne had seen. He said something sneering in his own language

"I don't speak Lakota. Talk English."

The boy had lost his will to fight and stopped struggling, tears shone in his eyes. "What makes you think I speak your ugly language?"

"What happened to your camp?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Tell me anyway."

The tears were running now, but the boy's face was twisted with anger. He said, "
Iktomi
."

"What?"

"The
Iktomi
. They are what happened to my camp. To my family."

Hawthorne didn't know what
Iktomi
meant, but decided he wouldn't get anywhere trying to find out more just then. He said, "Did anyone else survive?"

"What do you care? It's just more dead stupid savages, isn't it? Less trouble for the whites."