Stories (2011) (102 page)

As we walked away, I looked back at Cramp’s grave, said,
“Sorry, Cramp. I done my best. It beats bein’ dragged around till your hide
comes off.”

I climbed in the back of the wagon and lay down and slept
while the little China girl who looked about twelve years old drove. In the
back, the cripple tended me, and the other two looked on. We rode on through
the day and into the night, the wagon bumpin’ along, those two horses tied to
the back of it, trottin’ to keep up, and finally we stopped near a little run
of creek, and the girls got out and made a fire from some dried buffalo shit.
They fixed up some food, which was pretty good and had a lot of hot peppers in
it. I didn’t ask what it was, cause I couldn’t identify the meat and figured I
might not want to know.

Later that night, the cripple showed me how she could move
around under me good as a two legged girl, and then I had to show all of them
that my pecker was black and the color didn’t come off in their little nests. I
showed that to all of them to be polite, and to prove I wasn’t showin’ no
favoritism, even though I was wounded good and bleedin’. A man has to have some
priorities, I always say, and if a bunch of Chinese girls beg to see your dick,
you should be willin’ to show it to them.

Now, them townsfolk had to have figured out their men
weren’t comin’ back, and in time I’m sure they found them. Maybe they sent
someone out after us. But if they did, we never seen them. Jumpin’ ahead a bit,
I should say the story about the gunfight began to spread, and since there
wasn’t no one livin’ who’d seen it besides me, I knew the stories I heard about
survivors who could tell it like it was, wasn’t true in any kind of way. Thing
was, the stories didn’t mention I was colored. I just became a mysterious
gunman, and in some of the stories I was a hero, and in others a villain. Cause
of that, and some other things happened in my life, there was some dime novels
written about me, basing themselves on true events at first, but not afraid to
add a lie in when it made the story better, and then later, the stories was
just dadgum windies. And though the stories didn’t mention I was colored, they
did call the books stories about The Black Rider of The Plains, and named me
Deadwood Dick on account of some things happened there in Deadwood, including a
shootin’ contest where I shot against Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley. But,
again, that there is another story, and though it’s been told a thousand times,
ain’t nobody told it right yet. I live long enough I plan to tell it the way it
was, just like I’m tellin’ you how this was.

As for me and the China girls, we rode on across that
prairie for days, and when we got to the peak of the Texas panhandle, we turned
northwest, across Oklahoma toward Colorady, with a plan to go on out to San
Francisco so the China girls could catch a boat to China.

Now there’s one more thing that’s kind of interestin’, and
goes with this story, and if I’m lyin’ I’m dyin’. When we was four or five days
out, headin’ up to the tip of the panhandle, we seen a scrawny horse grazin’,
and as we bounced the wagon closer, we seen there was a fella with his foot in
the stirrup being dragged along, and even from a distance it was easy to see he
was deader than a wind wagon investment.

Feelin’ a bit spry, now that my wounds had had a few days to
heal, I got out of the wagon and walked over and caught the horse and looked at
the dead man. His boot was twisted up good in the stirrup, and he’d been
dragged around for days, cause a lot of his skin had come off and ants and such
had been at him. His eyes were gone and his lips had started to curl, showin’
his teeth. He had a pretty large hole comin’ out of his shirt on the right side
of his breast, and when I seen that, it all tumbled together for me.

Back when I had found Cramp, and had a shootout with those
folks who come to finish him off, one of them had got away. I had taken a shot
at him, and figured I’d missed. But I hadn’t. He’d just been able to ride some,
and then he’d keeled over and got his foot hung in the stirrup, and his horse
had been draggin’ him around for damn near a week.

I worked the fella’s foot out of the stirrup and let his leg
drop to the ground. Tell you true, just like them other fellas I shot, I didn’t
have no urge to bury him and say words over him, cause buryin’ someone I didn’t
have no feelin’s for was stupid, and sayin’ words that didn’t seem to do
nothin’ but waste my breath, wasn’t exactly appealin’ either. I was glad he was
dead, and I left him lyin’ out there on the prairie with the sun on his face
and ants in his ears.

His horse we took with us and fed grain the gals had in the
wagon, and we fattened him up a mite, and sold him and the saddle in Amarillo,
before going on up into Oklahoma, and turnin’ west toward Colorady.

It was
his sixth honeymoon, her first.

The night was clear and cold, the moon full, and he was
eager.

The couple checked into a little motel just off I-20. He
unlocked the door and looked at her. She was radiant. He hadn’t lost his touch.
He still knew how to pick them, how to get them. He could hardly wait.

The bit about carrying her over the threshold was a little
silly, but always effective. Impressed them. Made them giggle. To do this
right, humor was necessary. Laughter removed inhibition–and suspicion–more than
any other emotion.

She was still giggling when he put her down, and another
hard look at her assured him that she was undoubtedly the loveliest of his six
brides. A beautiful blonde with brown, liquid eyes like a faithful pup. And she
was stacked like a magazine fold-out. Everywhere you looked she offered
delightful diversions to the hands. And she was compassionate. Worked with The
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Somehow that was very
important to him, knowing that she was compassionate. It made what was to come
all the better.

Of all his brides, she had been the easiest to woo. She had
had that husband-shopping look in her eyes, a look he knew well. He also knew
exactly what to say and when to say it. Three weeks after they met she fell for
him hook, line and sinker and accepted his proposal. Piece of cake. Tonight she
became Mrs. O’Sullivan.

O’Sullivan. Nice name. He hated to give it up. It had been
his favorite of all his aliases. The last two had been so, so plain. Smith and
Jones. Grief!

Angela leaned forward and kissed him. Her lips burned with
passion. God, he couldn’t wait to get on with it.

When they finished kissing, he held her at arms length and
smiled, drank in her beauty once more. For a moment he wished her complexion
were not so milky. Maybe that was one flaw with her. The others had been darker
skinned and the bruises hadn’t shown. With her they might, and he always liked
them to look like an unmarred work of art when he was finished.

For a moment he contemplated another technique, but finally
decided to stick to the old tried and true thumbs behind the windpipe. It was
the only method he had had success with, and now with his most beautiful
specimen, there was no need to risk all by deviation. As for the bruises, he’d
just have to hope for the best. Or perhaps he could tie an attractive ribbon
around her throat, sort of a gift-wrapped body for the police. Yes, that
definitely had possibilities. In fact, that was a perfect idea. When it was all
over he’d go out for some ribbon, fix her up before leaving to call the cops.

"Why don’t you get ready for bed, darling," Angela
said, breaking his train of thought. "I’ll change into something more
comfortable."

He smiled at her. Passion stretched his veins. Soon she
would be his, and during that moment when they were riding the crest of the
wave, just when she thought ecstasy was hers, he’d fasten his thumbs behind her
windpipe and watch the fear swell into her eyes as she realized she was on the
descending end of a totally different sort of orgasm.

Oh yeah, it was his night to howl.

Angela blew him a kiss and hip-swung seductively toward the
bathroom. The light went on, the door closed. He took off his clothes and
slipped into bed, waited.

Beneath the sheet his hands opened and closed. A thick slab
of moonlight edged through the sheer curtains. That was good. He’d be able to
see her face. That was one reason he waited for a full moon. The papers had
caught on to it, and referred to him as THE FULL MOON STRANGLER or THE
HONEYMOON STRANGLER. He preferred the latter title, it was more romantic.
Besides, he wasn’t responsible for those sloppy ripper jobs that took place on
the full moon, the ones that were sometimes blamed on him. He’d have to write
the police about that and set them straight. Seemed to him a drastically
different M.O. like that would make them realize that the killers were not one and
the same, in spite of the coincidence of the full moon. Why, they had even
tried to blame him for some silly killings over in Dallas that had turned out
to be nothing more than husband and wife squabbles.

The bathroom door opened and Angela stood framed in the
light. She was magnificent. No, that description was too cheap. There were no
words to describe her.

The light shone through her gown and outlined her body–110
pounds of sexual dynamite! With the light hitting her hair that way, it made it
look like a golden mane, and even from where he lay he could see her eyes
sparkling with passion.

"Well," he said, "I see you’ve changed into
something more comfortable."

She smiled and walked to the bedside. Moonlight washed in
over her. Suddenly she grunted. Her face began to twist and her mouth opened
impossibly wide. Her nose and lips stretched out and thickened into a snout.
Ropy saliva dripped from between her sharp, bared teeth. There was a sound like
snapping sticks as her body writhed, grew. The negligee burst into flimsy
strands that dangled from a thick, gnarled, hairy body–the body of a huge,
blonde, upright wolf!

Her voice became a hoarse parody of human speech. "Now,
darling, I’ve changed into something more comfortable."

As she bent toward him, and the cry he wanted to make hung
in his throat, he realized to his horrible dissatisfaction, that it was not, in
fact,
his
night to howl.

Night’s chill breath whispered across the woodland and
licked the pines with ice and flicked snow throughout until they looked like
tombstones rising in the moonlight.

Two hikers, packs on backs, made their way through the
ankle-deep snow, stopped to observe and rest less than fifty feet from an old
weather-beaten house. The two-story structure creaked in the wind. The moon
draped shadows like gaunt, clutching fingers across it.

The female hiker, long red hair appearing strawberry in the
moonlight, snow resting in it like powdered sugar, said, "That’s the
place, Kevin." She shifted her pack for comfort.

"Creepy enough," Kevin said. "You know, Dag,
you get some crazy notions. How long’s this shack been in your family?"

"It’s not exactly a shack, Kevin. Old, yes. But a
shack? No. There was a house here on this site before the Civil War. Not this
one, but a house. I believe this one was built in the early 1900s, but don’t
quote me on that. But, you don’t like the view, so let’s get inside. It’s
cold."

Kevin smiled, pushed at his unruly brown hair with a gloved
hand. "You’re the one that wanted to rough it a little. So don’t say it’s
cold. ‘Any fool can hike in the springtime,’ you said. ‘Where’s your sense of
adventure?’ Remember?"

"I remember," Dag said. "I wasn’t cold then.
I meant it would be more exciting."

"The word’s cold, not exciting."

"All right. If you want to go home, there’s the
trail... somewhere beneath the snow."

"You’ve got me trapped," Kevin said grinning.
"Guess I’ll have to go through with it."

"Thought you might, tenderfoot. Besides," Dag
said, showing him a narrow smile, "I thought we might be able to think of
something to do besides sleep. Something to wile away the time, help us forget
the cold."

Kevin looked curious. "You brought cards?"

Dag slapped his shoulder playfully. Her gloved hand popped
up flecks of snow from his thick flannel coat. "Silly. C’mon. The snow is
nearly to our butts."

Laughing they trudged toward the house.

The wind picked up, blew a gusty popsicle wind against them,
chewed through their clothes and pricked their flesh with goose bumps. The
house, a cold, gray corpse, capped and slashed with white, rattled its termite
riddled bones.

When they were on the long encircling porch, Kevin said,
"This is the damnedest snowstorm I’ve seen for this part of the country.
It’s really getting deep out there." He slung his pack off his shoulder.
"This porch go all the way around?"

"All the way," Dag said, and she removed a key
from her jeans pocket.

"You keep this old joint locked?"

"For what good it does. It’s been in the family for
years. Some pretty nice antiques in here. That’s why all the windows are
boarded up. Even have an old Edison in here with those big thick
platter-looking records."

"What a treat."

"No sense of history," Dag said, and she unlocked
the door. It was as dark as the sea bottom inside.

"Charming," Kevin said, and he took out his
flashlight. They went inside, Kevin led with the light, slashed at clinging
cobwebs and swirling dust.

"Damn," Dag said as she thrashed cobwebs from her
face and hair. "You’re supposed to knock them out of the way, not on
me!"

"Pardon me, Masser Dag... God, but it’s dark in here,
and cold as a polar bear’s foot."

"It’s the high ceilings that do it," Dag said.
"Hard as hell to heat."