High Country Horror

17

The black mesa towered stark and remote in the dark heart of the cloud-covered wasteland. The wind was bringing a storm from the west and thunderheads framed the far horizon. Vivid flashes rent the black clouds, so far away that the consequent thunder was the faintest of rumbles.

“Just what we need,” Marshal Tibbit complained.

Fargo wasn’t happy about it either. They had half a mile to cover and the dust their mounts raised could be seen for three or four. The Ghoul was bound to have spotted them and would either be long gone or prepared to spill a lot of blood. Neither prospect was appealing.

To add to Fargo’s unease, the townsmen and farmers were much too lax.

They wouldn’t stop gabbing about everything from the weather to their families. It got so, he began to wonder if any of them fully realized what they were up against.

“Maybe we should turn around and come back tomorrow,” Tibbit suggested.

“We came this far,” Fargo said, implying it would be a shame not to finish it. Tippet took it another way.

“I’m not yellow, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I never said ...” Fargo began.

“I’ll show you.” Tibbit rose in the stirrups and faced the posse. “We need to hurry, men, to beat that storm. At a gallop, if you would!” And he whooped and used his spurs.

“No!” Fargo shouted, but the rest were quick to follow the lawman’s lead and went pounding past, many yipping and hollering as if it were some sort of child’s game, all save for Sam Worthington who stopped next to the Ovaro.

“What’s the matter?”

“The fools,” Fargo said, and lit out after them. They were charging across open land in plain sight. He dreaded what might happen.

The shod hooves of the posse’s mounts raised thunder of their own. They spread out, Marshal Tibbit at the center urging them on with waves of his arm.

They were caught up in the charge, oblivious to all else including Fargo’s shouts for them to stop.

The black mesa seemed to grow as Fargo drew nearer, an illusion enhanced by the darkening clouds that mantled it in shadow.

“Stop, damn you! You’re riding into his gun sights!”

Marshal Tibbit was whooping the loudest of all and lashing his horse with the reins.

To the west lightning split the sky and real thunder boomed.

It explained why Fargo didn’t hear the first shot. The posse was two hundred yards from the base of the mesa when a rider next to Tibbit threw up his arms and catapulted off his saddle and was nearly trampled by the horse behind him. Tibbit didn’t notice and kept going but a few others did and drew rein.

Fargo heard the second shot. A man in a bowler lost part of his face and fell headlong to the ground. The third shot lifted a farmer clear of his mount, a scarlet stain in the middle of his shirt. The fourth shot brought down a horse. By then the rest awakened to their peril. They broke right and left, some heading back the way they had come, others racing for the mesa, and cover.

Fargo galloped for the mesa. He listened to the rifle bang three more times before it went empty. A Spencer, he suspected, since Spencers held seven shots.

Two more bodies joined those already down.

Tibbit’s hat had been whipped off and he was riding bareheaded and bawling for everyone to follow him. A handful did. The rest made for boulders and patches of vegetation.

Maybe twenty, all told, reached the mesa, Fargo among them. He clattered into a stand of trees and drew rein. Worthington and another man were right behind them. Together they swung down, shucked their rifles, and moved to trees.

The Spencer was still silent but Fargo wasn’t fooled. It took only seconds to reload. The Ghoul was waiting for them to show themselves.

“What do we do?” asked the townsman with Worthington, his eyes wide with fear.

“We stay put.”

“But he’s killed a bunch of us.”

“Listen to Mr. Fargo, Timothy,” Sam Worthington said. “He knows what he’s doing.”

Timothy half rose from concealment. “So do I. I’ve hunted bear and deer. I’m going up whether you two are or not.” He took a step and his left cheek dissolved in a shower of blood and flesh.

Fargo dived to pull him to the ground but it was already too late; the exit wound was as big around as an apple. He rolled aside as the body crashed down and took up his position behind the tree.

“Tim always did think he knew better than other folks,” Sam Worthington said.

Fargo scoured the slope for sign of the others. They had all gone to ground and were well hid. Then a hatless head popped out from behind a boulder and Marshal Tibbit waved.

“Fargo! I’m over here! Do you see him?”

Fargo motioned for him to get down. “I am surrounded by amateurs,” he remarked.

“Most of us push plows or pencils,” Sam Worthington said. “We’re not man-killers.”

The bodies sprinkled over the wasteland were a testament to the farmer’s statement. Fargo almost regretted involving them. “Cover me the best you can,” he directed.

“What are you fixing to do?”

Fargo made sure a cartridge was in the Henry’s chamber.

“The Ghoul will pick you off the moment you step into the open,” the farmer remarked.

“He’ll try.” Fargo sank onto his belly and crawled to Timothy. He had to lift and tug to get the jacket off. Then, holding it in his left hand, he crawled to the last tree.

Worthington reached the next trunk over. “I’ll spray some lead to discourage him but without knowing where he is it might not help much.”

“Take care of my horse until I get back.” Fargo tossed the jacket into the open. The Spencer blasted, and simultaneously he pumped his legs for a cluster of boulders forty feet higher. The Spencer cracked again and a dirt geyser spewed next to his foot. Behind him the big farmer commenced shooting as rapidly as he could. A slug clipped a whang from Fargo’s buckskin shirt. Another nicked his hat. He dived and rolled and was up running and bounded the last few yards with his skin prickling.

Fargo flattened behind a boulder. He was caked with sweat. He looked at Worthington and held his thumb up. Worthington grinned and ducked behind the tree.

The next moment, to Fargo’s complete and utter amazement, Marshal Tibbit started up the slope after him. Worse, as Tibbit burst from concealment he shouted loud enough for all creation—and the Ghoul—to hear.

“Here I come! Cover me!”

Fargo swore and heaved up and fired shot after shot. The Spencer answered. Fargo sent four swift blasts at puffs of gun smoke he spotted and the Spencer fell silent.

Tibbit gained a nearby boulder and sank to his knees, rasping for breath. “Thanks,” he puffed.

“You’re a damned fool.”

“Here now,” Tibbit said. “Don’t start.”

Fargo studied the slope above them. It wasn’t as steep as it had appeared to be but climbing it would take some doing and he would have to cross a lot of open space.

“I’ve done pretty good so far,” Tibbit remarked.

“Besides getting six or seven men shot?” Fargo said. There might be more. He hadn’t counted them.

“How you can blame that on me, I fail to see.”

Fargo stared at him.

“Why do you keep doing that?”

From the west scuttled the thunderhead. The wind grew stronger, so strong it pushed at Fargo’s hat. The scent of rain was heavy in the air. Flashes of lightning lit the roiling clouds and now and then a bolt streaked to earth.

Tibbit sat with his back to the boulder and began reloading his revolver.

“That was a glorious charge, wasn’t it? I only wish so many hadn’t turned tail.”

“They were the smart ones,” Fargo said.

“How can you say that? You, of all people?” Tibbit started to insert a cartridge the wrong way and reversed it so it slid into the chamber. “The Ghoul must be brought to bay for his misdeeds and today is the day we do it.”

“He has uncommon luck.”

“Why?”

Fargo nodded at the ever darkening heavens.

“The storm will help us as much as him. We can sneak up on him under cover of the rain and capture him.”

“You hope.”

“Must you always dwell on the worst that can happen?” Tibbit finished reloading and cocked the six-shooter. Cupping his other hand to his mouth, he hollered down, “Men, listen to me! As soon as the rain starts we are going up after him. I’ll give a yell. That will be the signal. Stay close together, and each man watch the other’s back.” He grinned at Fargo. “How was that?”

“The Ghoul heard that, too.”

“So? We outnumber him. He’s had the better of us so far but now we’ll get the better of him.” Tibbit chuckled and rubbed his badge with his sleeve. “I do so love this job.”

“You’re a wonderment,” Fargo said.

“Thank you.”

Wet drops struck Fargo’s face. Lightning crackled, close enough to illuminate half the mesa, and the thunder that followed buffeted his eardrums. When it faded he said, “Do you know a man named Timothy?”

“Tim Bainbridge? Yes. I know him well. He came to Haven about four months ago. He works as a clerk. He has a pretty young wife and a new baby. They are a fine family.”

“When you get back break the news to her and her baby that her husband was shot in the face.”

“Why would you say a thing like that?” Tibbit demanded. “Of course I’ll tell her. But why?”

“Figure it out yourself.”

“You know,” Marshal Tibbit said, “I am beginning to regret asking you for help. You prick at me like an itch I can’t scratch.”

“Someone has to,” Fargo said.

“You make it sound as if I can’t do anything.”

“You can sell corsets.”

“You chew a bone to death. Do you know that? When we get back I would be grateful if you would pack up and leave.”

“When I’m damn good and ready.”

More drops fell, large cold drops, and then the sky opened up and down came the deluge. The wind howled. The lightning was near continuous, the thunder near constant.

Fargo darted around the boulder and climbed. He barely heard Tibbit yell for him to stop. The flashes of lightning lit the terrain but the rain was so heavy the Ghoul would have to be ten feet away to spot him. At the next boulder he paused. Bellowing told him Tibbit and the rest of the posse had started up after him. He resumed his ascent.

The wind howled and keened. The footing became treacherous. Twice Fargo slipped and went down on one knee. He kept a firm grip on the Henry. The slope steepened and he used his free hand for extra purchase. He was soon soaked to the skin and had to repeatedly wipe his sleeve across his face to keep the rain out of his eyes.

A shot cracked. Not from above but from below. A nervous posse member, Fargo reckoned. He hoped the man hadn’t been shooting at him.

Up and up and up he went, the wind pummeling him. He almost lost his hat but snatched it in time to jam it back on. He lowered his head against the rain and pistoned higher and suddenly the ground seemed to fall away under him and he tripped and nearly fell. Crouching, he tried to make sense of it and realized he had come to a flat shelf, invisible from below. The next bolt of lightning showed that it went a good long way in both directions and for forty or fifty feet in.

Pulling his hat brim as low as it could go to ward off the rain, Fargo slowly advanced. He had a hunch this was where the Ghoul had been firing from. He went maybe twenty feet when he saw what he took to be a boulder about as big as a watermelon. A bolt from above blazed the shelf white with light and in the glare he saw that it wasn’t a boulder at all.

Fargo crouched and bent lower and his skin crawled as if with a thousand ants.

It was a woman’s head. Most of the flesh had long since rotted and her skin had withered. Her hair was plastered to what was left of her face and down over the sides of her skull. She had died with her mouth agape in a twisted scream.

Fargo gripped the hair and turned the head so the face was to the ground. Wiping his hand on his pants, he edged forward. More lightning revealed a cliff that he took to be solid stone until he discerned the black maw of what might be a cave.

The Ghoul’s lair, Fargo suspected. He wedged the Henry’s stock to his shoulder. Staying low, he moved each foot with care. He was at the cave opening when his foot bumped something. He glanced down and his skin did more crawling. The thing he had bumped was a withered hand, possibly from the same woman.

Fargo looked up just as lightning streaked the firmament. A dozen feet in stood a figure.

There was only one person it could be.

Fargo had found the Ghoul.