An Occurrence in Crazy Bear Valley

DEADITE PRESS

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PORTLAND, OR 97211

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 AN ERASERHEAD PRESS COMPANY

www.ERASERHEADPRESS.com

ISBN: 1-62105-048-3

An Occurrence In Crazy Bear Valley copyright 2010, 2012 by Brian Keene

Lost Canyon of the Damned copyright 2010, 2012 by Brian Keene

Cover art copyright © 2012 Glenn Chapman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written consent of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

Printed in the USA.

Acknowledgements

For this Deadite Press edition, my sincere thanks and appreciation go to everyone at Deadite Press; Richard Chizmar; Brian Freeman; Tim Lebbon; Steve Vernon; Tim Curran; William Schafer; Joe R. Lansdale; John Joseph Adams; Tod Clark and Mark Sylva; and my sons.

For Bryan Smith,

my fellow Prostitute...

AN OCCURRENCE IN CRAZY BEAR VALLEY 

ONE

The following story is based on true events…

Morgan and his group heard the lumberjacks long before they spotted them. The noise echoed through the thick, shadowed forest—the heavy, monotonous thud of large axes striking wood, the honeybee-buzz of sawing, the crude, grumbled curses, snatches of conversation, grunts of exertion and loud gasps of breath. Morgan and the others simply followed the sounds, riding single-file around the bend in the swift-flowing river, until the woodsmen were in sight. The lumberjacks continued with their work, oblivious to the group’s presence. Morgan wasn’t surprised. With all the noise, the workers wouldn’t have heard their approach.

For the last twenty miles, Morgan and the others had ridden through the shallows and along the riverbank, rather than trying to lead the horses through the dense, choking undergrowth. The horses didn’t like the forest. It spooked them. In truth, it spooked Morgan, too, though he didn’t dare admit it to the others—he didn’t have that luxury. Display even the slightest amount of indecision or fear, and they’d be jockeying to take his place as leader of the gang. He kept his misgivings regarding the forest to himself. Ever since entering this vast stretch of cool, murky wilderness, he’d had the uncanny sensation that the trees were watching them. Before coming across the lumberjacks, he’d been unsettled by the lack of sound—there were no birdsongs, no squirrels barking, none of the usual things one heard in the woods. It was as if Mother Nature had decided to hold her tongue.

He squinted, surveying the locale. For the last several miles, the river had wound through a long but narrow valley. The lumberjacks had cleared a wide swath along the riverbank. The clearing stretched deep into the woods, ending atop a faraway hill covered with tall grass, broad ferns, and a colorful rainbow of wildflowers. Morgan smiled at the simple beauty, studying the various hues of red, yellow, blue, white and purple. In contrast, an ugly, crude bunkhouse sat on top of the hill. It had been fashioned from uneven pine slabs, sod, and rocks. It looked sturdy but drafty. Morgan guessed that the structure was probably cold as a witches titty in the wintertime. Smoke curled lazily from a chimney in the cabin’s roof.

Morgan halted his mount. One by one, the rest of the group fanned their horses out beside him and stopped as well. He nodded at each of the riders in turn—Tom Parker, tall and dour and pale, with an S-shaped scar just above one thin eyebrow and an ability to cheat at poker like none other; Henrik Gunderson, the mountain man whose perpetual scowl and tobacco-stained teeth both remained hidden beneath his thick, unkempt, salt and pepper-colored beard; Vernon Stephens, fat, bow-legged, and oily, his bulbous nose infested with blackheads and blue veins, gasping for breath as he sagged in his saddle; Eli Johnson, flashing missing teeth and bleeding gums as he smiled humorlessly, his pink and gnarled left hand, burned in a fire at a livery in Kansas City many years ago, clutching the saddle of his horse; and finally Clara, a refugee from a whorehouse in Wisconsin, riding behind Johnson, her long, wavy red hair spilling out from beneath her hat, her small, thin hands wrapped around Johnson’s waist. None of them spoke. They simply watched the workmen.

There were four lumberjacks. Two of them worked a massive handsaw, pushing and pulling it back and forth as the blade bit deep into a gnarled old oak tree. Both men were covered in sawdust and sweat, despite the cool breeze. Two more workers hefted heavy, cumbersome axes, chopping up the oak tree’s already-downed companion. They remained unaware of the riders. Stephens twisted in his saddle and farted. Gunderson noisily spat a wad of brown tobacco juice onto the ground. His horse whinnied. Finally, the woodsmen looked up, clearly startled by the unexpected newcomers.

Smiling with reassurance, Morgan raised his right hand in greeting. “Howdy.”

One of the men nodded, holding his axe cautiously in front of him.

“Howdy,” the lumberjack returned the greeting. “Where’d you all come from?”

“Back yonder.” Morgan nodded with his head. “My apologies. Didn’t mean to spook you or nothing. We were just passing through.”

“Well, you did spook us and then some, I guess. But it don’t matter.”

“Looks like hot work,” Morgan said. “Hard work, too. Damn hard.”

One of the men on the tree-saw nodded. “I reckon you could say that.”

Morgan let his hand slowly drop to his side, so as not to spook them any further. His smile remained.

“Well,” he said. “I’d imagine you boys could use a break. Am I right?”

The lumberjacks chuckled at this, visibly relaxing.

“Yeah,” a man with an axe said, “I reckon we could, at that.”

“We was just fixing to take one,” his partner agreed.

“Good,” Morgan said. “Please, allow me to help.”

“What’s tha—”

Still smiling, Morgan pulled his pistol and shot the man in the face. The worker’s nose, chin and teeth vanished in a wet, red spray. The man spun around and toppled over, still clutching his axe. Before the other three lumberjacks could even move, Gunderson, Parker, and Johnson had pulled their weapons and gunned them down. Giggling, Clara put her hands over her ears to block the noise. Stephens simply watched, blinking atop his overburdened horse like a squat toad. None of their mounts reacted to the gunfire. Like their riders, the horses had grown accustomed to it by now. The shots echoed through the valley and surrounding forest like slow-rolling thunder. Their ears rang from the noise. Acrid smoke hung in the air.

When the last lumberjack fell, Morgan’s smile grew broader. He raised his head, cupped a hand around his mouth, and shouted, “Timber!”

Laughing at the joke, the group dismounted and stepped into the clearing, examining the bodies of the lumberjacks. They rummaged through the men’s pockets, but found nothing useful.

“Shit,” Parker muttered. “They weren’t worth the price of the bullets we put into them, Morgan.”

“Reckon there’s any more of them up in that cabin?” Johnson asked, warily eyeing the ramshackle structure.

“I doubt it,” Morgan said. “If there were, they’d have started shooting by now, or at least come outside to see what all the commotion was about.”

Stephens, who’d been kneeling over one of the corpses, stood up quickly. His disfigured nose wrinkled in disgust. “Aw, goddamn it!”

“What’s wrong?” Clara asked.

“This one shit his pants when he died,” Stephens said. “I got it on my fucking fingers.”

Clara and Parker laughed.

Ignoring Stephens’ plight, Morgan pointed at the shack on top of the hill. “I reckon we might find something useful up yonder. At the very least, we can camp there for the night. Be nice to have a roof over our heads again.”

Johnson nodded. “If it don’t leak.”

Gunderson frowned. “You sure that’s a good idea, boss? Making camp here?”

“We need to rest,” Morgan said. “So do the horses. We keep pushing them the way we have, and they’re going to drop right out from under us. I don’t know about y’all, but I don’t cotton to the idea of outrunning the posse on foot.”

“I reckon,” Gunderson replied. “But what if the posse comes across us here?”

“I don’t think we have to worry about that,” Morgan said. “In truth, I don’t think they’re after us anymore.”

“How can you be sure?” Eli asked.

“This is wild country. There’s nothing out here but Indians, critters, and folks like these ones we just shot—lumberjacks and prospectors. Most of the men in that posse are city-born. Townspeople. They like their three meals a day served with silverware and cooked on a stove instead of around a fire. They like their books and music and sitting around of an evening, deciding who to vote for and discussing the problems of the world as if they could do something to change them. My point is, they’ve gotten soft. More and more since the end of the war. They’ve got big old bellies to go along with their big old wallets. They’ve been out here long enough that they’ll miss their warm beds and their women. They can’t go without their comforts. I don’t reckon they’ll want to stay out here too long before turning around and heading back, no matter how high the bounty on our heads is. But just in case, we’ll stay here in this valley just long enough to rest up, and then I reckon we’ll ride on.”

“And go where?” Stephens blasted another fart as he bent over on the riverbank and washed the dead man’s feces from his fingers.

Morgan shrugged. “Somewhere away from your sorry ass, I imagine. Damn, but you stink. Reminds me of the whores in that place we took Clara from. Their snatches smelled like your ass, Stephens.”

Laughing, the group started up the hill. Morgan turned back to Stephens, and nodded at the four corpses.

“Toss them bodies in the water, far out enough that the current will take them away. Make sure of that. We don’t need them attracting bears and what-not.”

“Actually,” Parker said, “maybe we ought not to. I mean, not to second-guess you, boss, but I dare say that my stomach could do with some fresh game. I’m a might tired of eating scraps on the run. These dry rations don’t make a proper meal. I bet the rest of you could do with some fresh meat, too. Am I right?”

The others nodded cautiously, glancing between Parker and Morgan.

“So,” Parker continued, “if we was to leave these bodies lying out, and a bear or wolves come sniffing around, looking to eat, we could bag one.”

Morgan paused, considering the suggestion. “I’m sure those lumberjacks have food up yonder in the cabin.”

“Yeah,” Parker said, making one more effort. “I reckon you’re right. But it’s probably all salted or dried. Same shit we’ve been eating for the past week. Wouldn’t you rather have something fresh between your teeth, boss?”

“I guess we could all do with some of that. Good idea, Parker.” Morgan turned back to Stephens. “String them corpses up, and ring the dinner bell. But not too close to the cabin, mind you. Just close enough that we have a good shot when something comes along to eat them.”