Bucking the Tiger
I wrote this by request when I was in Vegas for possible inclusion in an anthology of Western ghost stories. It didn’t get picked up by I like it.
There was a faded stripe on the handle of the Dude's Colt Dragoon. He had a habit of rubbing his thumb over the top. Given he rarely if ever had his right hand anyplace but his revolver, the section of the wood was discolored and bruised.
"Bet's up."
"Is it fitty cents this round?" asked the Prospector.
"Dollar per, Mr. Beecher." replied the Banker.
"God-DAMN. This game is getting too rich for my blood!" Beecher gently placed three one dollar silver pieces on the eight, five, and deuce of spades. The Dude flinched and his hand slid slowly to the pistol grip.
"Oh. I apologize for my blaspheming, Mr. McCulloch. I did not mean to cause you offense."
McCulloch's hand relaxed. "Your apology is accepted, reservation-free, Mr. Beecher. I'll sit this one out, Mr. Hume." He pulled a rolled cigar from his breast pocket, bit off the end, spat it to the side and struck a match. "If it does not hinder your dealing, I think I'll watch a bit."
"Never an issue, sir. We've been at it for some time. Would you care for a drink while you observe?" Hume put a cloth over the table to preserve the bets and lifted his considerable mass up behind the bar.
The saloon was dark. Outside the stars shone brightly in the Nevada sky. There were twelve wooden chairs in various states of repair, a wood-planked floor, two smaller tables. The only items in the place worth taking note of were the Faro table, clothed in faded green felt with hand painted card placements and the bar itself.
Transported from New York, the bar was long and expansive with leather edging and a deep red stain to the wood. Four fancy barstools flanked the front along with a shelf with twenty or so bottles of liquid standing at attention. Underneath the barkeep side was a loaded short-barrel in case of shenanigans.
"Whiskey and thank you, sir."
Hume uncorked a bottle and poured a shot. “You gentlemen missed a group of Mormons heading to Las Vegas by a day. They were a grand promenade with many colorful tales to tell. Didn’t drink a drop or gamble, though, so I only acquired boarding fees for them and the horses.”
He passed the drink to McColluch. The right hand stayed put on the pistol. He stretched around to grasp the glass with his left.
"Mr. Beecher. You were mentioning earlier about traveling through Denver on your way to the mines. How was it there? I have a cousin owns a saloon. I'd be curious if you availed yourself there."
"Well, sir, I did not care for Denver. I did not care for it at all."
The Denver Birdcage
Thomas Jefferson Beecher was a freedman born in Georgia. His owner, the Honorable Mr. Jack Beecher-Lee, set his charges free a full year before Mr. Lincoln announced his proclamation. He supplied each of his Negroes a horse and thirty dollars before he sailed to live in Europe during the war.
Thomas had no family but he had sand and headed for the West after hearing of the mountains full of gold and silver flake.
Six months on the road landed him in Colorado. The city of Denver seemed friendly enough until it didn't.
His prison was like a giant birdcage he'd seen back home, where Mrs. Beecher-Lee kept two small birds. This cage held three grown fowl—himself, an Indian woman, and a dope fiend who kept chattering on about nonsense for hours.
"What's your name, Negro? Unless you ain't got a name on account of slaves having no names. Ain't that right about slaves? No names?"
"Beecher. We all have names. And I have not been in service for the past six months. I am a freedman, true and true."
"Is that so? Well, paint me fucked and stupid to boot!" He laughed hard enough to rattle the humors in his throat thus commencing to hack a cough that signaled he was not long above the snakes.
"I seem to have more phlegm than is normal tonight. I need my medication. Been in this here trap for a few days and I am shaking like the Lord's voice on high."
"Why, sir, do they have you imprisoned?"
"Mr. Beecher, it's a sad tale, it is. It seems that in my desperation for a few balls of dope, I accidentally beat a man for three dollars. The gentleman was nice enough, I suppose. He tipped his hat. He fared me well. I found myself outside of myself, reached over to the wood pile to my right, grabbed a stick and beat the man. Took his coin. Purchased a ball. I sure do wish that he hadn't been on either side, a deputy to the sheriff or quite hearty to boot. Threw me in here. Hanging in morning."
The Indian squaw remained quiet. She was small and old. Her left wrist was shackled to a bar of the cage. Beecher guessed it was because she was tiny enough to slip through the bars and escape otherwise. He wondered how she came to be locked in here but he spoke no Indian and doubted she spoke American.
"Sir, I have shared my story, it seems only right that you reciprocate, yes?"
"Reciprocate, sir?"
"Why in hell are you locked up in this cage, if you don't mind the inquiry?"
Beecher thought for a moment. His story was all too familiar but he hadn't expected it this far west.
"Looking wrong at a white woman."
The tale was more complex but he didn't expect the dope fiend to empathize. Beecher had been minding his business and was a friendly sort. Good manners was a virtue in the Beecher-Lee home and as he had traveled these months, he had discovered that in some places a lack of courtesy was cause for a lynch mob. In others, as was Denver, the very presence of a tipped hat and a 'How do you do?' was the impetus for a beating and incarceration.
"Understandable, Mr. Beecher. Understandable." The dope fiend's eyes grew wide. "What? What is she doing?"
The Indian woman was slowly twisting her wrist in the shackle and moaning softly. She rocked a bit back and forth as she did it. She looked at Beecher and sort of smiled, all ivory. Her teeth had been filed into sharp incisors like a canine.
"What do you suppose afflicts her, Mr. Beecher? Pagan demons? Heathen gods?" He laughed a raspy guffaw that culminated in a hacking up of mucus and blood.
Her humming became guttural singing of sorts. It grew louder. Shrill. Enough to pierce the sounds of the saloon across the way and through the street. People stopped and gawked. The piano player inside the saloon ceased his version of "Camptown Races" and patrons wandered out to see where the horrible screeching music originated. She became louder still and her arm's twisting more violent. It was as if she were possessed.
Beecher moved to the opposite side of the cage, pressed up against the closed gate of the contraption. His fellow inmate sat as if nailed to his spot, jaw askew and slack.
Suddenly the woman stood or floated. Her song was deafening. Lawmen came running, pistols drawn. With one last shriek, she opened her mouth wide and brought her needle teeth down. Chomped viciously on her own arm. Blood spattered in all directions and she chewed her own flesh with fervor. Blood shot out an onto the dope fiend who awakened from his stupor and squealed. The lawmen stopped cold unable to fully process the sight.
Bone snapped under her mastication and tendons stretched. A popping sound accompanied the carnality until the woman jerked to her right and her hand came away from the gore and the shackle dropped to the floor. A gush of blood spurted from her stump and she wriggled herself in between two of the closest bars in pursuit of escape.
A pistol fired. The dope fiend was hurled across the cage, his shoulder pulverized by the shot. He screamed. Beecher pressed hard against the gate. The woman was nearly out of her prison. More gunshots. A window blew out from a stray bullet and a horse was hit on its flank. Beecher heard shouting behind him and the clanking of keys and, in an instant, found himself toppling backward to the hard ground.
All eyes were on the screaming, chanting, bloody Indian. Pistols continued to fire but not a single bullet managed to find its target. The woman, greased as she was with her own blood, slipped to the ground and ran. Beecher realized that no one was paying him any mind and he vaulted up and ran in the opposite direction.
He ran for hours and miles until he collapsed. He crawled up under a rock cropping and slept. He decided to do his best to avoid cities until he reached California and even then keep to himself as much as he could bear.
∞∞∞
McColluch laughed a dry wheeze. "That's some tale, Mr. Beecher. Good thing you escaped yourself without having to gnaw your own paw off.”
The Trapper grimaced. His voice was low and methodical. "I've seen those Injuns with their teeth filed. They aren't like the rest. They are truly and unrelentingly savage. Perhaps from another world altogether. Mr. Beecher, you are, indeed, one lucky man to escape being caged with one."
"Ayuh, Mr. Roberts, true what you say." replied Beecher. "I surely wish I was as lucky at Faro!"
The Chinaman moved to the bar and opened his satchel. He pulled out a cloth and unwrapped a black egg.
"No. No, Mr. Pan! You can't eat that in here, sir!"
"Is Thousand Year Old Egg. Chinese delicacy. Make me lucky!”
Mr. Roberts put his hand up to his nose. "The smell is no delicacy, Pan. The smell is nothing less than offensively robust."
Mr. Pan shrugged, re-wrapped his egg, and limped through the swinging doors out to the street.
"Those Chinee eat some pretty awful victuals. Not appealing in my opinion." offered McColluch. "We set to wager again, Mr. Hume?"
Hume looked to Roberts. "Are you inclined or is the respite required for a bit longer?"
Roberts closed his one eye and sat silent for a moment. The crow croaked lightly from his shoulder. "Mr. McColluch, why is it you keep your hand poised upon that revolver at all times? Are you the sort of man who shoots first at the least sign of provocation or just skittish?"
McColluch sat back, his right hand still stroking the handle, his left hand rising and pushing his hat back a notch. "What business would you say is it of yours, sir?"
"No disrespect intended. I knew a cowpoke back in Wyoming with a similar tendency. You could say the habit is one that puts me at unease. You have your reasons to grip your weapon as I have mine to suspect potential mayhem."
Hume put his hand on the sawed off shotgun just under the bar but otherwise kept an amiable smirk on his jowly face.
"Perhaps another moment before we commence to gambling. That alright with you Mr. Beecher? Can your coins wait a few minutes longer?"
Beecher smiled a toothy grin. "Ayah, sir, if that might mean an additional bit of whisky. Mr. McColluch, may I purchase one of your cigars while we wait?"
McColluch, never taking his eyes from Roberts, reached into his vest and pulled out a half-smoked cigar. "If you don't mind smoking the second half a one, I'll grant it to you gratis."
Beecher clapped his hands. "This is a bargain I shall avail myself of with no hesitation! Thank you, sir!"
"Mr. Roberts, in the spirit of congenial relations and to ease the tension of the moment, perhaps you could tell us all how you came to lose that eye?"
"Mr. Hume," replied Roberts, "It is not a clean story but while we wait on the Chinaman to eat and the Negro to smoke, I suppose it will suffice as an edifying topic.”
The Expanding Sight of Mr. Roberts
Roberts—he had no first name as far as he knew—had learned to hunt and skin animals from as early as he could remember.
He'd always preferred the creatures of the land over men. Men lied and stole. Men killed for sport rather than necessity. Roberts had little luck engaging with men despite the requirement of human company to sell his furs and meat. The occasional visit to a brothel to ease his backup and a tendency toward games of chance were his remaining vices in terms of community.
The campfire he constructed was not an invitation for company but where there is fire there is usually unasked for companionship.
The presence of this loudmouth jackass made him uneasy.
"I killed people, you know. Plenty of 'em. I murdered a Mexican who was tryin' a jackboot me in Utah once. Put a hole through the back of his skull. So don't try nothing, you hear?"
Roberts nodded slowly. He kicked his boot on the embers to stir up a bit more heat. The sparks popped out like a cloud of red mist.
“Apologies for my brusk nature. My brother tells me I brag too much and he’s right. I do.” He grinned from ear to ear. “But when you got as much to brag about as I do, I s’pose it just comes natural!”
Roberts noticed the chatterbox touching his pistol as if making sure it was still there. He also caught the eyes of his campsite companion darting around the perimeter.
“You sure are a big ’un, sir. Heck, I’d guess that coat you’re wearing could fit three of me.”
Roberts grunted out of simple acknowledgement that the man was talking. There was something amiss but he couldn’t suss it yet.
"So, what you got in that rucksack, friend? If you don't mind me asking."
Roberts remained quiet. He quickly surveyed the darkness. He couldn't see past the glow of the dwindling fire but something about the tone of the question raised his hackles.
"Not gonna say, is that it? That's fine. You never know who you might meet out here so I appreciate kindly the sharing of your pit and the bit of rabbit. Oh, and the coffee—"
In a split second, the metal coffee cup and hot liquid hit Roberts square. As he reeled back, waving his hands at his scalded face, from behind he heard "Gotcha!" and he felt something hard crack him in the head. He went down like a felled tree. All went black.
28 hours later, Roberts opened his one remaining eye. His head was covered in blood, long since dried by the baking sun. He was naked and laid out like a corpse. He shook a bit and assessed the map of pain he felt. He reached up to where his right eye used to be and discovered a festering hole.
They took my fucking eye?
He closed his left eye and suddenly felt a sensation of vertigo. He was flying or something like it and could see the ground, far below, moving past like water in a rushing river. He shook from head to foot again and opened his eye.
What the fuck? What the fucking fuck?
He could feel maggots rummaging around in the socket. He'd been out at least long enough for the flies to assume his descent to the nether realms.
Good enough. Maggots will clean the infection.
He closed his eye. Again he saw somewhere apart from where he was displayed. He concentrated. Whatever he was seeing stopped at a tree. He could see the horizon. He saw trees in a patch. Then he saw himself, some 200 yards away, lying on the ground.
Roberts sat up fast and his aching, dehydrated body groaned in response. His head reeled. He looked in the direction of the sight. There was a crow, black as pitch, staring back at him, perched on a tangled mess of tree. He closed his eye, saw himself, opened it, saw the crow.
That fucking crow has my eye.
He didn’t understand how this could be. Roberts was a firmly pragmatic man. He didn’t bother to question the mystical import of his situation only how to use it now that it was.
For the next hour or so, Roberts gathered himself up. His ruck and weapons were gone. He found a stream and drank until he puked then drank some more. He washed the blood from his head and eye. Each time he closed his eye, he saw himself. The crow had not moved from its perch and was staring at him throughout.
He caught a trout with his hands and gutted it with a stick. He started a fire, wrapped the fish in leaves, and while it roasted, he contemplated the crow. Something wicked was afoot but he was not a philosophical man so rumination of what might be Good and what be Evil was beside the point. If it was evil, well, he had done some evil so perhaps it was just a natural path.
After devouring the trout, he held up a piece and waved it to the crow. It lit and flew directly to him like a pet and gingerly ate directly from his palm. He thought for a moment and looked hard at the bird. He envisioned the loudmouth jackass. He got down on his knees and put his face inches from the bird.
Go.
The crow flew in an instant. Roberts sat cross-legged and watched from the view of the sky. He was flying in a way and within a half hour, the crow landed a short distance from the man and his partner.
They sat round a wet and smoky campfire, laughing about something. The loudmouth spinning his pistol on his finger. He saw his clothes on the partner, a much larger man. He saw his ruck and tomahawk. He saw his rifle. He willed the bird to look around for some landmark and, sure enough, he was looking around as well.
Roberts summoned the supernatural bird back him as he gathered himself up. He buried the bones of the trout along with any remnant of the fire. He stood and moved slowly toward the trajectory he/they/it had just flown. He began walking.
He had an idea of what would transpire when he arrived and it was grisly.
∞∞∞
Hume leaned on the bar. "Mr. Roberts, I've heard some tales in my day but that one is a true whopper. You say you killed those men?"
"I did. They claimed there was a third with 'em but I never found him."
"And you can still see through that bird's eye?"
"I can."
Beecher looked amused. "You got a crow. You also got a big blue ox?"
Roberts stared hard at Beecher. “No ox. No windwagon, neither. I’m not one to indulge in tall tales.”
"How about we get back into the betting? Mr. Pan! C'mon back in here or you'll be out of the game!" said Hume.
McColluch downed his last bit of whiskey. "Sounds good to me. Enough horseshit and more coin play. What do you think, Crow Master?" He stared into Roberts's one eye and smiled knowingly. His thumb stroked his pistol slowly.
Roberts sat. Mr. Pan came in with a huge grin and sat down next to him. "What have I miss?"
Hume walked around the bar, sat at the Faro table and gingerly pulled the cloth. "Not much, Mr. Pan. Ante up."
Beecher's coins were still firmly where he left them. Each man slowly pulled silver from their pockets and placed their bets. The game ensued.
"Mr. McColluch? No disrespect but are you a Christian man? Your umbrage taken earlier indicates that this may be so." offered Beecher.
"No, sir. No offense is taken in the question. I am, indeed, a follower in the teachings of Jesus. Didn't used to be but I've seen a few things in my traveling convinced me that a man without faith dies without hope. God guides my shooting hand and I offer thanks with each encounter what results in me still standing."
Pan's eyes lit up. "I have met God."
Hume paused in the dealing. Roberts's mouth turned into a grim smile. "You've met God, have you, you heathen prick?"
Pan nodded. "I have. God is a white man."
The God of Dei Pan
"I AM GOD!"
Jack O'Halleran was a giant. A full six and a half feet tall and carrying nearly 360 pounds, a shock of bright orange hair with a Viking beard to boot, O'Halleran was a sight to see on any day.
Standing stark naked with a rattlesnake in his huge right paw, waving the creature around like a tassel, Dei Pan was struck by his immense size, messianic pose, and knew in an instant it was the hokus fueling his insanity.
Both Pan and O'Halleran were commissioned laborers for the Central Pacific Railroad. The company bought contracts from Europe and Asia, paying for transport and board, shipping them across the ocean. Pan was working off his debt feeding the gandy dancers from the mess hall during the day and issuing dope in the tent behind the Golden Dragon until late in the night. O'Halleran used his bulk to move ties from the lumber yard and otherwise straightening out track.
O'Halleran was both a drunk and a dope fiend. Including three whores from the Dragon, he was the dope tent's most frequent traveller.
The night before O'Halleran had, in Pan's opinion, overindulged the pipe to a degree most white men couldn't handle without turning green and dead. Jack was so goddamned big, the fever dream had extended into mania.
"You bloody slants hear me? I AM GOD and you will bow down before me Gaelic manhood and be amazed!"
Jack's audience was twenty or thirty Chinese workers, some butchering pigs, others boiling laundry. The ordinarily chatty group stood in awe. Pan couldn't help notice that the length and weight of Jack's cock seemed to be thicker and more imposing than the snake he held.
"This here demon in me hand is Satan himself. Jaysus starved for forty nights to thwart the dark lord but Jack O'Halleran shows the devil who's the king angel in this here camp!"
He raised the snake to his face. The snake struck him twice in the jaw before he stuffed its head in his mouth and bit down. Dark blood ran down his chin and gushed from the decapitated body. His massive chest and gut were soon glistening deep red.
He turned and let out a howl that permeated the entire camp. It was primal and awful. He balled up his fist and threw a haymaker into the side of a horse's head. The horse went down in an instant. He strode into the street, arms held out like an eagle, and stated (in case anyone doubted him): "I AM GOD!"
Jack/God pointed his huge, boney finger at Dei Pan. "Chop Suey for your GOD! Now!"
Chop Suey was known in the camp as a Chinese delicacy. Only the foremen were allowed to eat it. In reality, the dish was made up of everything leftover—greens, onion skins, offal—mixed together and steamed then topped with dried and otherwise unusable noodles. Pan grabbed up the lifeless carcass of the snake and ran to the mess.
By the time he returned with a bucket of slop, Jack/God had turned his attentions to a group of Irish. They were less impressed with Jack's deification and instead were yelling at him to cover himself.
"Ye ain't no fooking god, Jack! I s'pose god might have a cock that size but hide it, ye arsehole! Sleep it off already a'fore the bossman sees ye!"
"Bossman? BOSSMAN! Dere ain't no bossman of God. I am the bossman of de universe, ye daft cunt!"
A shot rang out and Jack's right elbow exploded. Another shot and his left calf blew out in a shower of gore. The foreman cracked the used shells and started to reload his buffalo rifle. Now on his knees, Jack looked up at the foreman and slowly rose to his feet.
"Ye think your worldly guns can defeat God?" He strode over to the foreman as if he had not been wounded at all and smashed his huge fist on top of his assailant's head. The foreman's neck crumpled and a gush of blood spewed from his mouth, nose and ears. Jack lifted the now deceased foreman and tossed him aside like a sack of flour and opened his arms wide.
"Chop Suey and whiskey!"
Pan ran to Jack and put the bucket at the giant's feet. He bowed quickly. "Whisky coming." He turned to go but Jack's mitt grasped his shoulder.
"Whiskey coming, what?"
"Whiskey coming, God?"
Jack let out a beefy laugh, sat and started gulping handfuls of the food.
When Pan returned with two bottles of rotgut, Jack had either died or fallen asleep and a group of men were shackling his hands and feet. They put a noose around his thick neck and it took two horses and seven men to drag his body to a tree just east of the camp. They took great effort to hoist Jack up over the thickest limb of the tree. Jack hung like a monolith.
Moments later, Jack's eyes opened slowly. He stared at the men, they stared back.
"Ye think you've got me, do you?" he croaked. "The Lord cannot be kilt be earthly means, ye heathen fucks. When God comes down, he cannot be demised. Gather round, children, and hear the Word of your God!"
Jack spoke for hours like that. He told the increasing crowd of men stories of great men and holy relics. He told stories of the many women he had bedded and the vast amounts of drink he'd consumed. There was the tale of his birth in the belly of a ship sailing from the continent and his great strength even as a baby. For hours he preached of his achievements until, in groups of three and four, the men gathered started to disperse to sleep.
Pan was the last man standing in the early hours of the morning, still as a stone, holding the two bottles. Finally, he could not stay awake. He sat. He slept.
When he woke a few hours later, just at dawn, Jack was gone. The noose still hung limply as if Jack simply blew away like a ghost.
He had taken the whiskey with him.
∞∞∞
"No disrespect, Mr. Pan, but that is biggest bunch of shit I've heard yet," declared McColluch. "I mean, pardoning the sighted crow and the Indian banshee, everyone knows that god would never come to earth as a deuced paddy. God's from Wyoming, boy."
Roberts sat up a bit. "You from Wyoming, sir?"
"Not so much from as having been through. Known a few from, though. Done some business there aways."
Hume stood up and cracked his back. "Libations, gentlemen? The yarn about the big mick god has me parched." He walked to the bar, pulled a rag from his pocket, spat in it, and rubbed on a spot near the edge to clean it up some.
"Sure. Drinks are on me as I'm doing just fine at the game tonight." Beecher handed over four silver coins. "I'll have two if you don't mind pouring."
"As long as you're paying, I'm pouring, Mr. Beecher."
Roberts stood and the crow flew from his shoulder for the first time that night. It hovered a moment and perched on a rafter just above the entrance.
Beecher whistled. "Well, if that ain't cryptic."
"What you mean?" asked Pan.
"You know. The raven and all that."
McColluch sat up and eyed the crow. "That's no raven. What are you going on about?"
"Edgar Poe? He wrote a story about a raven. It perched above his chamber door. Spooky story as I recall."
"You can read, Mr. Beecher?" asked Hume as he spit into a shot glass and wiped it clean.
"Sure can. Mrs. Beecher-Lee taught all of us hands right next to her own. Learnt to write, as well."
Roberts took a glass of whisky and shot it straight. "Something to be proud of, Mr. Beecher. Not too many of you can."
"I'll drink to that!"
"It's a nice enough place you have here, Mr. Hume. Good whiskey, too. I’ll admit to admiring this bar. You build it?”
“No. I brought that with me from back east. My partner and I came here when the town was booming. Few years back, the mine was bled dry and people up and left.”
“Your partner leave, too?”
“Partner was killed by a horse.”
For the Love of a Horse
Gerald Hume and his partner Nate Baumgarten knew that there was gold and silver in the most remote parts of Nevada. Made a state during the war, the boon of the region was the pockets of water to be found in the middle of miles of desert.
Baumgarten had a nose for business and his wife Shirley was like a human divining rod. Hume brought with him a bit of money he had inherited from his father back east and the bar he purchased from a tavern since burned down, and so the trio loaded up wagons and found a spot in the Mojave.
Once they built the place, Shirley came down with a fever and died shortly thereafter.
Baumgarten was devastated. He took to talking to his horse, Cash, and brushing him for long periods of time. Hume noticed Baumgarten spending more time with Cash than tending to the saloon. He knew of men who fell in love with their animals but this felt unnatural.
Then one day, he caught Baumgarten with a mare in heat. He was wiping her spunk all over himself like a lotion. He approached Cash, covered in musk, and the horse went wild. Hume knew that a human body simply wasn't built for a full-sized horse cock and…
∞∞∞
McColluch slammed his fist on the bar. "Stop! What the fuck? You ain't saying what I think you're saying, are you?"
Hume shrugged. "I'm saying that the horse..."
"Don't. Don't say anymore. That's just wrong. Even to speak of. I knew an old boy who satisfied himself with a sheep he had but the other way around? With an equine? No, sir. I now have that image in my mind and you owe me at least that bottle to wash it away."
"Fair enough, sir. I suppose you have something to share given my story has been deemed unacceptable?" He sullenly poured four more shots and handed the rest of the bottle to McColluch.
McColluch stared for moment into space. He then turned his gaze on Roberts. No pistol. No rifle. All Roberts had was a tomahawk he most likely took from a redskin. Beecher was armed but didn't seem terribly comfortable with iron. Pan probably had something in that robe and Hume had the shotgun behind the bar.
"Awright, gentlemen. The last time I told this to anyone, a man called me a liar. That man no longer breathes. I'm just letting you know that everything I'm about to tell you is the God's honest. If you are thinking of doubting me, best take a stroll."
Roberts sat down. “Regale us, friend."
Strangers from the Sky
Jack McColluch was not blessed with intelligent companions. His brothers were both of them idiots.
Chester was thick as an axe handle and slow to boot. He was, however, big and obedient. Cyrus was the youngest and tended to think he was on his way to becoming Jack. He had something to prove—always.
"Say, Jack? You want I should go gather some more wood fer the fire?"
"Yup. Why don't you go do that. And Cyrus? Put that pistola away already. You're gonna shoot one of us and that is not going to go well for you."
Cyrus started to whine. "C'mon, Jack. How am I gonna get better at the quickdraw if'n I don't practice when we ain't riding?"
"No one wins a gunning with a quickdraw. Highly over-rated. It isn't the gun that moves fast, it's the hand that shoots steady. You wanna practice, wait until light and try shooting straight. Calm. A wild hand'll get your balls shot off."
Cyrus holstered his pistol but, like Jack, kept his right hand poised on it.
“You know, Jack, we coulda taken those cowboys back aways. There’s three of us and those boys were nothing but affable. Affable gets you killed out here. I’ll bet they had some money on them.”
“Cyrus. There’s risk and there’s reward. You don’t steal from a man with a weapon unless you know what the reward may be. You might be risking an early grave for nothing but a bag of beans and some jerky. Get smart or you’ll be done for, son.”
From behind, the sound of Chester bullrushing up the hill sounded like a wounded buffalo. "Boys! You gotta see this! You gotta see this NOW!"
Jack's Colt was out of its sleeve in an instant. Cyrus fumbled his, dropped it, cursed, and picked it up. "What is it, Chez?"
"Injuns! There's injuns in that clearing!"
Jack holstered. "Did they have guns?"
"Naw, Jack. They're naked. And tall. No arms as far as I could tell."
"They ain't got arms?" barked Cyrus.
This caught Chester off guard and he laughed a donkey bray. "Yeah, they got arms! They don't have no weapons, you mo-ron!"
Idiots thought Jack with a mental sigh.
The three crept down and up to a crest in the hill.
"Those are not Indians, Chester."
"What the hell are they?"
Jack looked hard. Three incredibly tall creatures with legs and arms like men but each as thin as a rail and at least seven feet tall. In the moonlight, their skin seemed grey or purple. As Chester pointed out, they were naked but had no genitals. Their eyes were huge glossy black holes. Jack couldn't quite see but it looked like they had no mouths.
"What are they doing, Jack?"
"Hell if I know."
The three things came together and raised their rubbery arms and in a flash of light, above them appeared a metal sausage or plate the size of a wagon. It made the sound of a man whistling and humming at the same time and made the hair on Jack’s arms straighten. Then Jack heard Cyrus.
Cyrus had run down to the clearing, whooping and hollering, waving his pistol. Chester leapt up and followed as soon as he saw him.
These baboons are gonna get themselves killed thought Jack who stayed still as a stone.
Cyrus was suddenly enveloped by a shimmer coming from the sausage plate and he began to float up off of his feet. Chester reached him just in time to latch one of his boots and start to pull him back ground-ward. The creatures flew up themselves and into the whistling/humming thing and the shimmer grew stronger. Fortunately for the two men, Chester was simply too heavy for the shimmer and after a few fits and starts, the light wave dropped them both hard and then disappeared in another flash.
Jack waited a moment then headed down to see if the boys were worse for wear.
"Did you see that, Jack? Them dudes almost had Cyrus up in their cigar!"
"Did not! DID NOT! I knew what I was doing. I was gonna murder them boys and see what they were about."
Jack cracked a grin as he lit up a cigar of his own. "How would you know what they were about if you had just up and killed them?”
∞∞∞
McColluch leaned back in his seat and looked each of them in the eye. His thumb stroked his gun as he sought any hint of disbelief or mockery.
Hume broke the silence. "You still travel with those two?"
"No, sir. Found them nearly dead in Wyoming a stretch back. Someone had skinned them both alive and left them to bake. I queried them a bit then put them out of their misery. Buried them right next to each other."
"Skinned them, you say?" asked Beecher.
"Yup. Been looking for that murderous bastard ever since.”
“How long you been looking?” asked Hume.
“I’ve been searching for the past three years. Thought I’d caught up with him in Idaho once but heard he’d headed south.”
"Any idea who this man is?" asked Pan.
"I have an idea. When I found my brothers, they were skinless and staked to the ground. Chester was too far gone. Cyrus was still screaming in fits. According to Cyrus, this dude was big. Naked. Had only one eye."
All four men looked over at Roberts. He had his one eye closed and was sitting forward, his hand on his tomahawk.
McColluch leaned in. “Look at me, Mr. Roberts. A man should see it coming, don’t you think?”
Roberts didn’t move. “I am looking.”
McColluch gripped his pistol, pulled it fast from its holster, and aimed it straight at Roberts. Just as he pulled the trigger, Roberts had chopped his hand off at the wrist and the bullet fired astray and embedded in the bar.
For a beat, the five men regarded what had just transpired. Then McColluch started to howl in pain, blood gushing from the stump.
“My HAND! Oh Christ! You unholy…”
McColluch fell to his side, clutching his arm, and passed out.
Hume rushed over with a dirty rag. Beecher fumbled his gun, looked at the crow above the door and decided against it. Pan stood in the corner, sipping his whiskey.
Roberts opened his eye.
“I have no quarrel with the rest of you. This man had his moment and failed. Now I’m gonna gather my things and leave him to you. I’ll be taking his gun and his hand as is my right. Any one of you have issue with that?”
“No sir, Mr. Roberts,” said Hume. “No issue from us. You take what you need, we’ll take care of Mr. McColluch.”
Roberts picked up the pistol and stuffed it, still smoking, into his belt. He took the hand, wrapped it in a cloth, and placed it gently in his sack. As he slowly walked out the saloon door, the crow hopped off the sill and onto his shoulder.
No one said a word until they heard Roberts’s horse gallop away and then for a few minutes more.
Then Pan laughed.
“What’s funny, Mr. Pan?” asked Beecher.
“Appears that the devil is a white man, too.”
∞∞∞
Don Hall is a writer, storyteller, and creative mercenary whose wildly varied career—from homeless busker and Chicago public school teacher to theater producer, jazz musician, radio executive, and front-of-house manager at some of Chicago's most iconic venues—has given him an endless supply of stories and an abiding distrust of certainty.
He is the author of Belief Is a Thermonuclear Warhead, co-editor of The Literate Ape, and publisher of the Substack The Attention of Fools, where he writes about culture, politics, creativity, and the glorious absurdity of being human.
