A Fistful of Horror - Tales Of Terror From The Old West (24 page)

Gillian and Ann buried Herb and Lucy Welch on the hill in shallow graves covered with rocks. They left the man to the buzzards.

***

Gillian had been sixteen and Ann ten when the man came. Gillian continued to work the crops and Ann grew up quickly keeping house, milking goats, feeding chickens and doing all the many chores it took to keep a farm. But the sisters had no living family so they had nowhere to go. If they wanted to live, they had to work the farm.

The worst part was night, after dark fell. Would another man come with a gun? What would he do to them? To little Ann? Gillian slept with her father’s gun in her bed. No matter what, she would fight back.

The sisters were getting ready for bed the night of the storm. Gillian had already checked the gun and bolted the doors to the cabin. At first the wind kicked up and then the rain started. Within moments the rain was torrential. Lightning lit the sky and thunder rocked the house and rattled the windows, breaking one. The girls could clearly see the hill and the tree. The wind whipped the hanging rope that still dangled from the tree limb.

Buzzards and other scavengers had destroyed the man’s body but his bones lay at the base of the tree just yards from the graves of their parents. Both girls screamed when a bolt of lightning ripped the tree in half. Fear turned to terror as the driving rain swept the remains of Herb and Lucy and the man down the hill towards the house.

Rocks and bones rolled down the hill. Three skulls were washed down the side of the hill. Bones were everywhere. Some bones still wore scraps of clothes. Lucy’s torn dress and arm bone snagged on the horse hitch and stopped.

The wind blew out the candles through the broken window. Gillian and Ann Welch were all alone in the dark cabin and they were frightened of the man they knew was coming. Gillian held Ann tight as they cowered on her bed. Then there was a knock at the door.

Ann shrieked hysterically and cried, “No, No, he’s dead. We killed him!”

That instant the door flew open. The silhouette of the hanged man was in the doorway.

As suddenly as it started, the rain stopped and the man was gone. Gillian’s heart rate slowed and Ann’s hysterics turned to gentle sobs. Gillian held her until sleep finally took her.

The door to the cabin was open. The wind must have blown it open she told herself. She lugged the gun to the door to shut it. On the hill the tree stood undamaged with the rope dangling from the limb. The rocks covering their parents were intact. There were no bones or skulls in the yard.

“Wow! What a dream,” thought Gillian.

The next day was spent cleaning up the mess left by the storm and fixing some damage to the roof and barn. Gillian groused to herself that she’d make some woman a good husband someday.

At dusk Gillian took her gun and walked around the outside of the house. She looked in the barn and even climbed the hill and gazed out on the prairie. She saw no one in any direction. She sat for a moment by her mother’s grave and she wiped away a tear.

“Oh, Mom, what are we going to do? Ann and I can’t just rot away out here for ever.” Gillian had begun to think that getting married might be an answer. Lots of young women got married at sixteen. But for that to happen she would have to take the long ride to town and somehow make herself available. Maybe someday, she concluded ruefully.

She walked back to the house and locked up for the dreaded night. At least there was no sign of rain. They could see a glorious moon through the window and they could also see a man standing by the tree. Ann literally crawled under her bed and wept softly.

Gillian slumped in a chair and waited for the knock. She had never believed in ghosts but there had been nobody out there. Nobody. She was positive. When the knock did come she said weakly “Come in.” She raised the gun wondering if it could kill a ghost.

But the door did not open. Instead there was a soft laugh from outside, a chuckle really. And then Gillian heard something drop onto the stoop. She waited for hours but the man did not show himself that night.

In the morning she cautiously opened the door and gasped when she saw a rope on the stoop, a rope with a noose tied at one end. Gilliam decided right then that they had to leave. She called Ann and headed to the barn. They would hitch up the wagon and head towards town. The trip would take all day and maybe longer but she could only imagine what would happen to them if they stayed another night in the house.

The girls opened the door to the barn. Ann stumbled against Gillian who held onto her younger sister as hard as she could. The wagon was in pieces, as if someone had taken a sledge hammer to it. Every chicken in the barn was headless. The pig and goat had been gutted and their innards were smeared on the barn walls.

The two horses that pulled the wagon were unhurt but the riding stock lay on the dirt floor. Every leg had been broken and their necks snapped. Tools were strewn everywhere. Gillian could not find the sickle. He must have taken that.

But her blood ran cold when she saw two ropes hanging from the rafters. A noose hung from each. Ann was sitting in the blood of one of the animals. Gillian could not get her to move. It was as if she had lost her mind, lost her will to fight through this horror.

“Christ,” thought Gillian. “She’s still just a baby.”

That was the first time Gillian had ever sworn.

Gillian thought about what had happened. If the man, the killer, the ghost, wanted to harm them, he certainly could have done it. She had no idea how a ghost could do so much damage but there was no on else.

“But,” she thought, “he’s in no hurry.”

Both Gillian and Ann rode of course but the remaining horses were not meant to be ridden. She tried to saddle one and it reared and kicked and snorted viciously. Then she tried climbing a rail in its stall and sliding onto its back. The horse was not happy but he did not buck her off.

Next she somehow got Ann on the back of the other horse. Gillian ran back into the house for her father’s gun and for the small hide away that had killed him. She packed them in saddle bags and mounted her horse.

Ann could barely sit atop the huge animal without a saddle much less control him. The long ride to town might take days riding like this. But there was no choice and the sisters rode out onto the prairie. Gillian was certain she saw the man standing on the hill as they rode past it.

Ann kept glancing back as their home receded out of sight. Suddenly she shrieked and Gillian whipped her head around. Just beyond the horizon they could see smoke. The thing had burned their house. There was no going back.

The noon day sun blazed and the girls suffered terribly in the heat. Without wide brim hats they started to burn beet red. They found a stream and stopped to water the horses and themselves. A few scrub trees along the bank broke the direct sunlight. Gillian looked back towards home. The smoke was no longer visible. But a rider leisurely followed them.

Gillian had no way to know the time or how close they were to town. But the sun was going down and dusk was setting in. Suddenly Ann’s horse stepped in a prairie dog hole and went down. Ann was thrown off and landed on her back. The horse squealed in pain. Gillian could plainly see its broken leg.

She had no choice. She used the big Colt and evening grew quiet again. But she thought she could hear laughing behind them. Her horse would now have to carry both girls. It whinnied its displeasure when they mounted but obeyed the command to move on. Gillian decided to ride all night. The temperature was cooler and they were still ahead of the killer’s ghost.

By morning the horse could go no further and Gillian could not see any streams nearby. They would be on foot the rest of the way. She looked back and the rider was only about a hundred yards back now. And he was clearly laughing.

The girls trudged ahead on foot with Gillian supporting Ann most of the time. Gillian saw a few trees in the distance and made for them. Maybe there was water there. In fact, there was a small stream and the sisters drank thankfully.

When they stood up two ropes hung from the trees. There was a noose on each. Gillian wheeled around but the man was not in sight.

But as soon as they left the small grove of trees they saw him. He trotted in a circle around them and finally stopped and dismounted.

“So this is the place where it ends,” thought Gillian.

The sun was behind him so Gillian could not see his face. She wondered what the ghost of a murderer would look like.

He motioned to the ground where he stood and mounted his horse and rode off towards the sun. Gillian walked to the spot and saw two mounds of earth. They had to be graves.

“Was he telling us he killed here?” she wondered.

She found a small flat branch and started to dig expecting to find bones or at least bodies.

Gillian lost her mind at that exact moment.

For she uncovered not bodies but herself and Ann, buried in dirt graves. Maniacal laughter drifted across the plain.

A week later three cowboys found the sisters when they stopped to water their horses. Ann lay dead in Gillian’s arms. Gillian was filthy, dehydrated and emaciated. And she was raving gibberish about murders, ghosts, bones and skulls.

Town was still half a day’s ride and the cowboys doubted Gillian would live that long. So Lester Morris hoisted her onto his horse and they rode the few miles to the ranch where he worked.

The men carried Gillian carefully into a spare room in the main ranch house. Mrs. Johnson cleaned her and dripped water down her parched throat. Gillian continued to rave and all of them were certain she was dying.

Each day Lester visited the crazy woman. He spoke softly to her and told her stories of the open range and the cattle drives he had worked. After a month, Gillian started to look better. She was eating a bit and her color had returned. She still spoke only of ghosts and killers. Lester still came every day.

Two full months after she found herself buried, Gillian was able to stand. Her head was clear and she remembered the ranch, her parents, the killer and his ghost.

And she remembered poor little Ann. She was too small and too young to survive. And Gillian had not been strong enough for both of them.

Gillian had hung a dying man out of revenge and now her sister lay dead in an unmarked grave by a stream. There had been no sign of the killer’s ghost while she recovered. Gillian wondered if it was gone. Was Ann enough? Or would it still come for her. Gillian was certain of the answer.

He came that night.

Gillian awoke with a start to find a tall man standing over her. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and stared at the apparition. “Funny,” she thought. “I’m not afraid of it anymore.”

The thing’s head was a skull and its body was bones, bleached white by the sun. His eye sockets were empty but burned with red fire.

Gillian said out loud to it, “You’ve taken everything from me. But I’m not running away again. Just leave me alone or kill me where I lay.”

His eyes changed from fire to molten lava and he spoke for the first time. She recognized the voice of the man who had asked to sleep in her barn. The killer told her that she owed him one more life. Then he chuckled, then laughed and finally a demonic roar came from him.

Lester, Mrs. Johnson and the others came on the run. All they could see was a man riding off on a horse. Gillian knew the man had just threatened Lester, the man who had saved her life, the man who had loved her back to life.

“Les, I have to go back home,” she told him. “I think I know how to end this.”

Lester argued, of course, but Gillian was determined. She borrowed a wagon and a team of horses from Mrs. Johnson, packed food and water for a week, and was ready to leave. Lester announced he was coming with her. Another argument ensued and this time Lester won. He climbed onto the seat next to Gillian who took his arm and they started towards her old home.

They took their time, stopping frequently to pick up large rocks until the wagon creaked dangerously and the horses panted under the huge load. Finally they could see the charred remains of the house and barn. And they could see the tree and the rope.

Summer had given way to late fall. The tree still had a few red and orange leaves that a brisk breeze blew off one by one. Gillian stood by her parents’ graves. Les put his arm on her shoulder and she cried gently. “Mom, I am so sorry about Ann. I just wasn’t strong enough. But I’m glad she’s with you.”

Scavengers had been at the man’s bones and they were strewn all over the hill. But his skull lay where it had fallen, directly under the rope. The rope had rotted from rain and sun and the noose had fallen near the skull. Gillian looked around. He had to be here.

The ground under her feet shifted and a bony hand crawled out of the ground and grasped her ankle. Gillian was startled but was no longer afraid of the thing, the ghost of a murderer. She yanked her ankle free and watched as the man dug himself out from under the earth. Les was speechless and he was definitely afraid.

The thing that emerged from the ground had no head. But it reached down and picked up the skull and placed it on top of his body. Instantly the eyes began to glow red. Gillian smiled at him and strolled to the wagon. She picked out a substantial rock and began to circle the man. Les knew the plan and also picked out a large rock.