New Title 1 (4 page)

“
Wait,” O’Rouke demanded, turning to Louis, “What are you talking about? Wasn’t Highwater that town that people say went crazy and no one made it out of there still breathing?”

“
Yes, but one person did make it out,” Louis gestured at Nathan. “He did.”

“
None of that matters,” Nathan shouted. “I didn’t kill those people! He’s coming here—right now. Will you stand with me and defend humanity?”

O’Rouke turned to Louis with his eyebrow raised in question. The editor was stunned the sheriff considered his opinion to have any value. “I think we should,” Louis said quickly. “If he’s telling the truth, one can infer that this demon he’s talking about is what caused the Highwater massacre. I don’t know about you, Sheriff O’Rourke, but I believe him. I think we’re in danger.”

Eight

Eliza was impressed by the size of her brother’s estate. His farm was massive and his house was a mansion in comparison to the ones she’d seen in Reaper’s Valley. It was a two story affair with six rooms on the ground floor and three above.

There was china in the cabinets, furniture that looked to have been well cared for until recently, and even a small library which must’ve been Timothy’s study. The brother she recalled from her youth, who’d struggled to become a lawyer only to throw it all away on a whim, was an ill-tempered drunkard lost in self pity.

Losing his license to practice law was the least of the shames he’d visited upon their family name. He’d stolen money from his clients, gambled, kept whores on his payroll, and worse, until it all came crashing around him so hard, Timothy had no choice but to leave the city or risk having his crimes proved in court of law. Their father, a powerful senator, had cleaned up most of his mess and swept it under the rug, but even so, Timothy was left with much to own up to.

This house, however, made Eliza wonder if Timothy had found himself again in the west. She believed people could and did change—and she hoped he had. In spite of all of the sins Timothy had committed during his short lifetime, to die out West alone, far from his family and childhood friends, was a sad and tragic thing.

She ran a fingertip over the top of the table in the living room. It came away from the wood’s surface smudged with dust. The only question left was what to do with the house and the farm. Timothy’s debts were surprisingly small. It appeared he’d kept a good watch on his accounts and made sure they were straight and properly handled here, unlike his past conduct in the city.

Paying off his few debts would not be a problem.

Selling the house was why she’d come. But now, here where her brother had apparently reshaped his life and reformed his behavior, she was tempted to stay—at least for a while. If she did, she would certainly require some servants and hired hands. Though she was capable and independent, the house was simply too large for a single person to care for on a daily basis.

Timothy’s staff was long gone. When he passed on and their pay came to a staggering halt, they hit the trail. Word of her coming had not proceeded her or perhaps they might have stayed to see if they could find work in her employ.

Tomorrow, she promised herself, she would ride into town and hire help. With a laugh, she realized she had made her choice. Eliza walked onto the house’s front porch. Before her lay a beautiful sea of browns and greens which intermixed like life and death themselves. There was no denying the allure of the wide open West. Not even the darkness of a small band of storm clouds gathering on the horizon marred its rugged splendor, only added to her feral grace.

Nine

Louis wandered back to the saloon as O’Rouke left to gather those he could. Nathan agreed to wait for him at the jail.

For the life of him, Louis couldn’t puzzle out why he’d opted to accompany Nathan and the sheriff as they rode to meet the demon before it reached Reaper’s Valley. Such bravery was very uncharacteristic, and his skill with a gun was negligible. Likely, he admitted to himself, he would be more of a hindrance than a help to their posse should real trouble arise. But something inside him, whether it was a misguided sense of adventure or something more, told him he had to go.

Maybe, he thought, I have finally grown a backbone. Louis marched himself up to the bar and slapped his palm loudly on its top, demanding Pete’s attention. The big man sauntered over to where the editor stood. “What do you want?” Pete barked as he polished a water-spotted shot glass with a stained white rag. Louis steeled himself and spoke. “I want to see the girl who was here last night.”

Pete laughed in his face. “Which one?”

“
The one who was sweeping behind the bar.”

Pete’s head tilted slightly to the right as his gaze cut into Louis’, his humor gone. “My daughter?” he asked sharply. “What do you want with her?”

Louis held firm, though inside, he was shaking in his boots. “That’s between us.”

Pete set down his towel and glass and leaned onto the bar, his hand reaching for something out of sight.

“
Pa!” the girl shouted from the rear of the bar as she came running up behind her enraged father. “You leave him alone, now. You can see he’s harmless. Put down that gun!”

Pete grunted and his hand drifted back into sight, empty. The saloon owner laughed, taking in Louis’ gangly frame and bespectacled face. “I reckon he is at that. You just remember you got work to do. Don’t you let him keep you long.”

“
Yes, pa,” the girl answered as she walked around the bar and led Louis to a table in the far corner of the saloon where they took seats across from each other. “You’re either really brave or really stupid, mister,” she told Louis. “I seen my pa break a man’s arm for less offense than that.”

“
My name’s Louis,” he said nervously as he chewed on his lower lip, preferring not to think about her pa and whatever weapon was lurking beneath the grimy bar counter any longer.

She grinned at him. “I know.”

Beautiful wasn’t the right word to describe her—she was fetching in a plain, simple kind of way. Her dress was home spun and worn from age. It possessed its fair share of patches, which Louis guessed she’d sewn into it with her own capable hands. She was thin, but not sickly, with brown hair and eyes to match that complimented her tanned skin. She certainly wasn’t the type Louis lusted for in his dreams, but she’d been nice to him, and he found her kind nature attractive. “What’s your name?” he asked. “I didn’t catch it last night when we met.”

“
Beth,” she answered, brushing a strand of hair over her ear.

He took her hand and she gasped at the unexpected contact. “Beth, there’s some real bad trouble coming to Reaper’s Valley. I’m riding with the sheriff this afternoon to see if we can stop it before it gets here.”

Beth giggled, her mirth lighting up her face to make her dull features almost pretty. “There’s always trouble here.”

“
Not like this,” Louis assured her. He fetched his Derringer from his pocket, concealing it as best he could in his palm, and pressed it into her hands. “I want you to have this.”

She gave him a look that told him it was the oddest gift she’d ever gotten. “I don’t want no gun, Mr. Farmer. I got my pa to look after me.”

“
Please, Beth,” Louis begged her. “Take this. You may need it if we can’t stop the killer that’s coming.” She studied him for a minute and then sighed. He guessed she sensed his real fear. Finally, she accepted the gun and slid it into one of the pockets sewn into her dress.

“
Don’t let anyone know you have the Derringer and only use it if you have to,” Louis finished as he stood up from the table.

Beth met his eyes as he looked down at her. “Thank you, Louis,” she said softly, giving him a small, crooked smile. He nodded and walked from the saloon, hoping she’d be alright. He’d done what he could to repay her kindness.

Ten

Eliza started into her brother’s house, but movement in her peripheral vision made her turn to the horizon once more. She squinted towards the east, trying to see the tiny shape in the distance drawing closer with each beat of her heart.

Then she saw him.

A rider was pushing his horse hard and heading straight for her new home. A shiver ran through her and turned her blood cold as she realized she was alone without a proper weapon to defend herself with if the rider proved to have ill intentions.

Never one to give into fear without cause, Eliza remained where she was on the porch and checked her appearance, making sure her dress and hair were in order. She released an audible gasp as the rider drew closer, shock coursing through her veins. The man in the horse’s saddle was her dead brother, Timothy.

He brought his horse to a stop at the edge of the porch, kicking up dust in the animal’s wake. Timothy’s boots crunched the gravel as he dismounted, a leer splitting his face. His blond hair, which matched her flaxen tresses, was drenched with sweat and he appeared very much alive, though on the verge of collapse.

“
Hello, sis,” he greeted in a haggard voice. “I didn’t really think you’d come.”

His corporeal ghost walked up porch’s short set of steps and approached her. “Timothy?” she cried in disbelief, still not trusting her eyes, even as tears welled up in them. “But you’re dead.”

Timothy’s form shifted like water, swirling and reshaping. Maggots crawled from open patches of decayed flesh across his rotted, sickening excuse for a face. His nose was missing and one of his eyes dangled from its socket, attached by a bloodied strand of sinew. Eliza almost vomited when she caught a whiff of the stench wafting from his decomposing person. The repugnant odor of decay coming from his walking corpse was overpowering.

Timothy took her hand and pulled her into his arms. His touch was cold and his grip was so tight she winced. “Yes, he is,” the corpse-thing cackled as it held her to its chest. Then it whispered, “I’m not your brother,” as its foul breath tickled her ear.

Eliza screamed and shoved the thing with all the strength her adrenaline-spiked terror could muster. She caught the ghost by surprise, causing it careen backwards over the porch’s railing, into the yard. It hit the ground with a loud, wet thud.

The corpse suddenly melted away and in its place was a foppish man dressed in regal white clothing from head to toe. Even his hat was a stark shade of white, blinding like snow on a clear winter’s day. The man grinned, showing her his perfect teeth, with a devilish glint of mischief in his eyes. “Oh, Eliza,” he giggled, “I was just funnin’. I am very upset at what a naughty girl you have been. It’s not nice to shove people. Someone could get hurt.”

Eliza ran into the house and slammed the door behind her, twisting the lock into place, fearful the small precaution was not enough to keep her unexpected visitor outside of the home she had just inherited. Her breath came in ragged pants and her heart raced in her chest as she leaned with her back to the door, taking inventory of her situation and trying to come up with a plan of escape.

Expecting the man-ghost outside to come crashing in through one of the dusty windows at any moment, she sprinted for the stairs. She raced up to the second floor, and into what was once Timothy’s bedroom. The door had no lock. Straining, she shoved a heavy dresser against it, blocking the entrance, then slumped to the floor in the corner of the room.

Tears flowed over her flushed cheeks in tiny rivulets, but she managed to keep her sobs muffled. The house was quiet and the sounds of shattering glass never came. After a couple of moments of satisfying self-pity, Eliza forced herself to take several deep breaths and calm down. If she was going to live through this nightmare, a clear head was a necessity—fear caused people to do foolish things, and she could afford no mistakes.

She listened closely, hoping to hear something that would give her a clue as to where the creature was, but there was only the sound of her own heart beating in the silence which had fallen over the house. She scanned the room from where she sat, trying desperately to spot something, anything, she could use as a weapon.

She held her breath as she heard a faint scuffling noise in the bedroom’s closet. Craning her neck in the direction of the sound, Eliza threw up her hands and let out a startled shriek as the monster exploded out from the closet and scurried toward her. It roared, revealing row upon row of jagged, razor-like teeth within its distended jaw.

Eleven

“
This is it?” Nathan asked O’Rouke, disappointment dripping from his words at the sight of the small group of armed men the sheriff had rounded up.

“
Reaper’s Valley ain’t New York City, Nathan,” the sheriff drawled, shrugging. “These men aren’t being paid or asking to be compensated for joining our cause. You should be glad anyone came at all.”

“
He has a point,” Louis added. “I really have no idea why I am here myself.”

“
Neither do I,” O’Rouke muttered under his breath.

“
He’ll be riding in from the east,” Nathan told the small posse as he drew one of his revolvers and checked it. “I doubt he’ll care if we see him coming or not. He won’t see us a real threat. That should give us an advantage.”

“
It’s pretty barren out there, nothing but sand and rock for miles other than a few homesteads,” O’Rouke said. “There’s only one road and that’s the one the stage uses. From what you say, he shouldn’t be hard to find. I’m told Bull is the best tracker in these parts.” O’Rouke gestured to an unusually tall Indian who stood even taller than the Irish lawman. “He doesn’t speak much English, but he’s a good man from what I’ve seen of him so far and comes highly recommended.”