The Midnight Men and Other Stories (8 page)

She cried out in a mixture of ecstasy and pain. Then she exhaled long and slow, her hands running over her body, cupping her breasts, stroking each nipple, sliding down into the shadows between her legs. She moaned loudly, before chuckling in that deep, unfeminine way.

“Hmm, I like this,” she said, looking down at her body with a stranger’s eyes. “I like this a lot. I am going to have so much fun with this body.”

“Jas?” Carter said hopefully, but he already knew it wasn’t Jasmine any longer. He knew who had taken her place.

She looked at him now, as if seeing him for the first time, her eyes full and black and filled with monstrous glee.

“Please, Jas,” he whispered. “Don’t hurt me.”

“Now, my sweet,” she said, delicately removing the Boker stag-handled hunting knife from his bag on the dresser. “I’m not going to hurt you. We’re just going to have a little fun.”

(
For Louise.
)

“Good morning, Sheriff,” Kyle Tippet said from the shadows of the general store.

“Good day to you, Mr Wade,” the grocer called from behind his stall.

Walking through town, Wade was always conscious of how the townsfolk kept a respectful distance. No one ever brought up the subject of the dark twist of night which clung to him every minute of the day, but they all saw it. The spectre appeared less tangible in daylight, more ethereal, but still clearly visible. The children were terrified. They didn’t understand it, and their parents couldn’t explain it. No one could. Ever since it happened the people he had sworn to protect had shunned him. Yes, they all wished him good morning and how-do-you-do, but when it mattered, when he really needed solace, there was no one there.

Not even Louise. And that hurt worst of all.

As he crossed the dusty main street a small voice rose above the early morning clamour.

“Sheriff! Sheriff!”

It was Saul, the blacksmith’s son. He stood on the threshold of the open-fronted workshop where his father was already hard at work, pounding his hammer in a glittering spray of orange sparks. The young apprentice wore a besmirched apron that was far too big for him, a smile frozen on his face. He lifted his hand in a hesitant wave then lowered it slowly when Wade failed to respond.

Wade felt a surge of self-loathing. Saul was only thirteen years old, the only youngster in Perseverance who wasn’t afraid of him . . . or the thing which clung to him like a shadow. If there was such a thing as hero worship in this town, it was there on Saul’s freckled face. But Wade didn’t know how to deal with that. When he looked in the mirror each morning, he saw no hero, just a broken man.

Seeing the growing disillusionment in Saul’s eyes, Wade decided on a compromise: he tipped his hat, a gesture which lit the candle of adoration in the boy’s eyes once more, then went on his way.

***

Wade approached the white picket fence surrounding the school yard and stopped. He didn’t dare go any further. The children didn’t notice him at first, lost as they were in their carefree games. Then a pigtailed girl stopped in front of him, eyes wide, sucking in breath in short gasps. She backed away across the yard, bumping into other children who, in turn, spotted the nightmare which stood on the boundary of their safe haven. The girl found enough breath to scream before turning and running inside. Wade held out a placatory hand, but it was pointless. He turned and began to walk away.

“Jeremiah!”

He stopped, captivated by that familiar voice. He looked back to see Louise running across the yard. She approached the fence and stopped. Pink roses bloomed in her cheeks after her short run. The sun gilded her blonde hair like a halo; her freckles looked beautiful in the morning light.

“Jeremiah, what is it?” she asked.

Before he could form an answer, he heard footsteps in the dirt behind him. He turned and found the figure of Randy Took hurrying towards him, pulling on his overcoat. Wade noticed the pronounced limp his old friend still carried since the nightmare at the Parnell homestead. The night everything changed. . .

Randy stopped his advance when he saw Wade. His face became rigid and his gaze faltered. He hurried past, giving him a wide berth.

“Louise?” he said. “I heard the children screaming. Everything all right?”

Louise touched Randy’s arm, a small sign of affection that cut Wade deep. The diamond engagement ring on her finger glittered, mocking him with its simple beauty.

“Yes, Randy,” she said. “We’re fine.” She turned back to Wade, eyes filled with pity.

Wade studied her face, struggling to recall the quiet, intimate moments they had once shared, but most of it was lost to him. He remembered the taste of her breath after a kiss, the scent of her skin, but that was all. That was enough torture.

Louise and Randy, the two people he cherished most in the world, stared back at him like strangers.

“Did you want to see me?” Louise asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I just wanted to see you. One last time.”

The black shape at his side let out a sudden mournful howl. The children yelped, clutching at Louise’s arms and the frills of her dress. Louise herself fought to contain her dread.

Wade grimaced, consumed with despair, then turned and walked away.

***

The spectre had once been a Native American Sioux called John Parnell, who came to the town of Perseverance with an English wife and a beautiful daughter. Under the name Far Rider he had been a great warrior back in Wyoming, but his tribe banished him after he betrayed them to the Federals, or so the story went. The majority of Perseverance’s citizens were immigrants, with pasts and secrets they wished forgotten or buried, so no one questioned him about the scandal, and the town was happy to let it slide into history. The Parnell family seemed to fit right into the close-knit community of Perseverance . . . until the night Parnell brought terror to their peaceful little town.

He remembered his deputy, Randy Took, jostling him from sleep.

“Injun gone crazy in town with a gun”, he’d said, and Wade was out of bed and strapping on his guns in no time at all. They were both new to the post, both full to overflowing with youthful vigour. Looking back, Wade found it hard to reconcile himself with the idealistic, gung-ho young man who had stormed out into that sultry night, filled with arrogance and the certain belief that no matter what happened out there, he had the law on his side and was thereby free from recrimination. But the law is a manmade thing. What happened that night, the outcome, turned the law on its head and made a mockery of it.

It did not take them long to reach the Parnell residence. They crept past the rickety wooden outhouse into the deep shadows at the eastern side of the house. With a silent gesture, Wade sent his young deputy round the back of the building. Wade crept along the eastern wall until he was able to peer round the edge of the house.

In the front yard he found Parnell’s daughter sitting in the dirt, bound with chicken wire to a wooden stake in the earth. Moonlight turned the bloody scratches on her dark skin into silvery curls. She was crying, tears glistening on her cheeks. Sitting on the porch steps only a few feet away was John Parnell. He was dressed in his nightgown, a wide-brimmed hat pulled down low over his eyes. His arm rested on his knee in a relaxed manner, a silver pistol in his hand.

“Papa, please,” the girl sobbed.

Parnell’s arm rose, as if independent of his body, and fired a single shot into the stake inches above the girl’s head. She screamed and tried to twist herself away from further shots, but the chicken wire tightened, cutting deep into her arms.

The retort of Parnell’s gun was like a thunderclap in the night. The echo seemed to last forever. Wade’s earlier bravado wilted in the face of this very real, very unpredictable threat. After firing the shot, Parnell resumed the same relaxed pose.

Wade placed his back against the wall and closed his eyes. He had to steady his breathing, control his fear. Think what to do.

A bloody hand fell on his shoulder. It was Parnell’s wife. Her face was a mass of bruises, her lower arms dark with fresh blood.

“Don’t kill him!” she screamed. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing!”

Whatever advantage Wade had hoped to gain was gone. He shoved her away and rushed out into the open yard, gun pointed at Parnell’s head. The big man hadn’t moved, and Wade found that more terrifying than if he’d found himself staring down the barrel of a gun. He held Parnell in his sights and glanced quickly at the girl. She was staring up at him with the blazing light of hope in her eyes.

The mother remained in the dirt, wailing like a banshee.

“Please, Sheriff!” she cried. “He’s just had too much to drink. The drink makes him crazy, that’s all. Don’t shoot.”

“I don’t intend to, ma’am,” Wade hollered. “Just as long as he drops that weapon, and—”

Randy appeared around the western edge of the house, creeping cat-like towards Parnell’s static figure. His gun was drawn, but Wade could see he was intent on disarming Parnell by hand. Wade tried to halt his advance with a shake of his head.

At the last moment, Parnell twitched. In hindsight, Wade figured he must have spotted Randy’s moonlight shadow edging across the dirt. Parnell’s gun hand whipped round and the pistol went off. There was a cloud of smoke which obscured Wade’s view of Randy, and in that split second he didn’t know if his deputy was dead or not.

So he pulled the trigger.

The shot went clear through Parnell’s left temple. For a long time, Parnell just sat there on the steps, blinking like a man waking from a dream. A thin rivulet of blood ran down the side of his face and soaked into the cloth of his night robe. Then the gun slipped from his grip, clattering noisily on the bottom step before settling in the dirt. To everyone’s surprise, Parnell stood up on trembling legs, groaning like an old man rising from his bath chair. He turned, took one step up towards the front door of his house before stumbling sideways, hitting the steps and tumbling to the sand.

Wade stood over the prone body for a long time, smoke still seeping from his gun, staring into the man’s eyes as they lost their lustre, as his last breath escaped from between his lips.

Mrs Parnell fell onto her husband then, her screams filling the silence that had fallen over the Parnell homestead. If Wade had known then what was to happen shortly after that disastrous confrontation, he would have screamed too.

***

He sat in the empty chapel, head bowed. The spectre, seated on the bench behind him, rocked and keened like a funeral mourner. Wade clasped his hands together as if in prayer, but communion with God was the last thing on his mind.

There was a time, not long after the Parnell incident, that he came here to ask the heavens for an explanation for this purgatory . . . but that time had passed.

It was there in that dusty silence that he made his decision. Tonight, he would take his own life. The only thing left to decide was how: whether it was a bullet in the brainpan or a noose around the neck, he would end this mockery of a life. He didn’t know the implications of his actions, what might happen to him afterwards or, for that matter, the spectre chained to his side, but he didn’t care. He’d persevered for as long as he could, waiting in vain for a solution to this problem, but after twelve long months he saw no end in sight. He yearned to be free of this burden. And if by ending his own life he might free the thing which had once been John Parnell . . . well, that was a price he was willing to pay.

He knew that in the eyes of God this was no solution. Suicide was never a solution. But this was not an everyday problem. This was a decision he had to make alone.

His only comfort was that he got to see Louise one last time . . .

“Hello, Jeremiah.”

Wade looked up. The gaunt figure of Reverend Simmons stood in the doorway of the vestry.

“Reverend,” he said tightly.

The preacher’s deep-set eyes studied Wade for a few moments, finally settling on the spectre at his side.

“How are you, son?”

“Fine, Reverend.”

“No, you’re not, Jeremiah. Everyone can see that. You look-” He hesitated. “If you don’t mind me saying, you look like a man sitting before the gates of hell, waiting for them to open.”

Wade said nothing.

“I’m always here if you want to talk, son.” He stepped forward, placing a hand on his shoulder—the empty shoulder. “I want to help you.”

Wade met the older man’s eyes. “You can’t help me, Reverend. I killed a man. And ever since I’ve had to live with his soul, his ghost, whatever this thing is . . . this abomination! Explain that to me, Reverend. Explain how I can make it go away, how I can take it back. That would be helping me.”

The Reverend’s features sagged. He glanced at the spectre. “I can’t, Jeremiah. It . . . it goes against everything I believe in or understand. But . . . all I ask is that you don’t turn away from God. The House of God is always open . . . to everyone.”

Wade shook his head. “Tell me I can walk into this chapel on Sunday morning, Reverend, without the entire congregation getting to their feet and leaving through the side door, and I’ll be there.”

Before Simmons could reply the chapel doors rattled open. Wade turned in his pew, squinting against the sunlight to find the figure of Saul, the blacksmith’s boy, silhouetted in the doorway.

“Sheriff!”

The boy sprinted down the aisle and stopped at the end of the pew, hands on his thighs as he fought to regain his breath.

“We’ve been looking for you everywhere, sir!” Saul gasped.

“What’s the matter, Saul?” he asked.

“Bad man,” Saul said, pointing to the exit. “Bad man’s coming to town.”

***

At first it was difficult to see what he was looking at. A strong wind blew in from the desert plains to the south, stirring up a wall of dust devils along the edge of town.

A dark figure was approaching; a solitary man without a horse. The stranger was filthy dirty, his skin a deep brown colour and leathery, as if the dirt had been burnt into his skin over a period of months, maybe years. Wild moustaches drooped over a sore-encrusted mouth, and his unwashed clothes hung from him like oily rags. When he came close enough to see the man’s eyes, Wade felt a chill like never before. These were the eyes of a man who knew no law, who abided by no code, moral or otherwise.