A Penny Down the Well: A Short Story Collection of Horrifying Events (27 page)

“
God didn’t protect Hank.”
Floyd muttered, sending a chill through Harriet, as she felt the
rumble of his throat as he said words bordering
blasphemy.

“
Mind yourself, Floyd!
That’s no way to speak of the Lord, now! You repent for that!
Things haven’t gone well, but I’ll be damned if things couldn’t be
a whole lot worse now! Couldn’t they? Couldn’t they?” She burst
from his lap with his remark and stared down to him angrily. She
felt that now, of any time, was not the time to be making a mockery
of God.

Floyd watched his angry
wife for a moment. He nodded, dejectedly, and apologized. “I just
don’t understand. We should have been more prepared.”

“
Chances are, Floyd,
there’s a plan for each and every one of us. And if God wanted
Hank, then God wanted Hank, and there isn’t a thing you, or I, or
Mr. Vickers or Jim or anyone could do about it, you hear? We just
have to send up prayers and hope that things turn out how they
should for us here on this Earth.” Harriet continued her spiritual
lecture. It wasn’t unusual for Harriet to move into these sorts of
tirades with Floyd, who with his profession, often confused the
positions of gods and men. Then, he wasn’t the sort of man to push
his luck with his wife, who was a strong woman, and probably a
greater source of fear than God was to him.

“
I understand, Hattie. I’m
sorry. I’m sure they’ll be fine. How about you and I manage
ourselves some breakfast here in the ‘fort,’ yes?” Floyd made a
mockery of the term Jasper and Chance used for the small post, but
these days, it was common for even the smallest keep on the
frontier to be labeled a “fort.” Fort Deposit, their final
destination, wasn’t one of those large, defensible structures like
the Alamo mission out in Texas. Still, Fort Bleck offered shelter,
likely food, some protection and, now, music.

***

Through each wound in
Grant Vickers beaten body, blood came. Two horses out of those used
by the Greyson party to travel adjacently to the wagon were all
that were left of the many cattle, oxen and provisions. On the back
of the horse Grant had made off with, the limp, dead-weight of his
pulverized companion, Hank, flopped, in increasing danger of
falling off of the back of the running steed. Close behind Grant
was only one of the two Indian guides that were hired to accompany
the Western-bound party.

Things had gone as could
be expected. The delay to try and round up whatever provisions
could be carried out, the assembly of the cattle and oxen after the
raid, and the focusing on where exactly the Southern fort rested,
were all things that contributed to the eventual arrival of a
second Shoshoni group, curious of where their hunting party had
disappeared to. When the second wave of Shoshoni stumbled onto the
mound of overkill, the situation took a turn for the
worst.

Before the violence broke
out, things were already heading proverbially south for those that
remained at the stranded wagon. One of the two guides refused to
travel to Fort Bleck, frantically shouting about the word that was
said by the first wave of Shoshoni raiders, “Dzoavits.” While the
word made the other guide as uncomfortable, it didn’t drive him
off, which meant that all that remained of the Greyson party at the
wagon were Grant, Jim the butcher, and one of the two Indian
guides. The party of three no later became a party of two when Jim
Bleckley, who initially offered to protect the honor of Hank
Paulson, the carpenter, was murdered by way of an arrow through the
skull. Gunfire from the weapon that Grant Vickers had maintained
after the first attack, kept his life, and the life of the
remaining Indian guide, intact. The irony was that Hank’s honor was
likely to be preserved while the dead body of the one that made the
offer to bring Hank back, Jim, was bloodied in the dirt, dead in
the same place Hank died earlier.

Either concerned about
ending up like the first wave of Shoshoni, or unconcerned with the
fleeing of two men over the abandoned provisions at the camp,
eventually both Grant and the guide made it away from the chase,
heading East for some time, only to turn and head Southwest, in the
direction of where the guide presumed Fort Bleck rested. The run
off course cost them time, as did the attack, as did the fruitless
preparation. The only sign of hope was that the Fort itself wasn’t
very distant, even after being sent off course for some
time.

When there was no longer a
need to run and a slower pace could be taken, it was. Grant Vickers
rode beside the Indian guide with Hank better secured at his flank.
Grant asked, suspiciously. “Is there any chance Akule told the
Shoshoni where we were?” Akule was the name of the guide that fled
in fear.

Apenimon, the guide that
remained, shook his head. “No. Akule would not.” His thick accent
coming through the English words.

Grant sighed as he looked
down the hill to what he believed was a small post, likely to be
Fort Bleck some distance away. “How are you so certain? It makes
sense he would tell of our whereabouts to protect himself.
Cowardly, but people do such things to preserve their own
lives.”

Apenimon said nothing for
some time, observing the distant post himself, eyes open and sharp
for anything that could have been out of the ordinary. “We’ve
already angered the Western spirits. We would not provoke them more
than we have.”

Grant watched Apenimon
peculiarly. Grant wasn’t one for spirits, either Christian or
native, but with how terrible the trip had become so quickly for
the Greyson party, if there was any prospect Grant was wrong on
this one thing, he wouldn’t make it any worse by provoking the
unknown. He simply said, “If this is the result of angry spirits,
then remind me what ritual it is that will allow me to make
amends.” And he smiled for the first time in a few days, continuing
on his way down to the old post at the bottom of the
hill.

***

Jasper and Chance waited
at the gate of old Fort Bleck as Grant Vickers and Apenimon
arrived, bloodied, wounded and with nothing but a dead, macerated
body in tow. The two gunman looked to each other, sharing another
nonverbal exchange, before looking back to the pitiful
men.

“
Looks like things didn’t
go quite as planned, eh?” Jasper confessed the obvious.

Meanwhile, the both
disheveled Floyd and Harriet emerged from their cabin, rushing to
assess the scene. When all that they saw were two men on two
horses, and one dead slung behind Grant, the grim reality of the
situation settled in.

“
Where’s Jim?” Harriet
asked, almost too softly to be heard, as she felt she knew the
answer before asking the question.

Grant halted on his horse,
as did Apenimon, and merely shook his head. “We were attacked by a
second wave of Shoshoni. We were able to make it off with these
horses, Hank here, and that’s all. Jim was killed almost
immediately. The other guide ran off. We’re all that’s left,
Hattie. I’m sorry.” And Grant carefully pulled himself down from
the horse, slouching as a sudden pain reeled within him.

Harriet rushed over to
Grant, looking over the damage caused by the second attack. “You’re
wounded, Mr. Vickers! We need to get you treated immediately. Mr.
Jasper, where are all of your medical supplies located?” Harriet
asked, never turning an eye to Jasper.

Jasper smirked, holding
the banjo he was playing from earlier in front of him, its round
body to the ground. “Well, about that...” Jasper admitted, with an
uncertainty about his usually gruff voice.

Floyd moved beside his
wife, giving an additional assessment of Grant Vickers, who
appeared to be in a much worse condition than Apenimon, his Indian
guide. When Jasper had alluded to some mystery in respect to
medical supplies, the attention of the remaining four members of
the Greyson party was captured.

“
About what?” Harriet was
the first to ask, quickly suspicious.

“
There isn’t any medical
supplies here at the Fort, I’m afraid.” Jasper said with his eyes
in a deadlock on Harriet.

“
No medical supplies?
However do you help those that come through here?” She wondered,
her voice raising a bit as a sudden anger flashed through her,
bringing a warmth to her pale cheeks.

Floyd stepped to his wife
to take hold of her wrist, preventing her from charging the gunman
should the situation become any worse. That, it did.

“
That’s not all.” Chance
said near to his mentor, Jasper.

The four then turned an
eye to the younger of the two gunmen.

Chance continued then. “We
don’t have any food, either. We’re bone dry out here. That’s why we
wanted you to come out this way, you hear? You all were stocked
full of food and cattle. Well, now, I reckon, you don’t have much
of anything. You have the clothes on your back, wounded folks and
dead folks to boot, and some Indian fella that’s probably more
likely to run off with the local savages than sit around and starve
with the rest of us.” And Chance focused in on Apenimon, who was
already clearly uncomfortable upon arriving at the Fort.

“
You lied to us!” Harriet
screamed, prepared to charge, but it was Floyd’s restriction that
prevented her from lunging at the young man. “You said we would be
safe! You told us to come here and leave everything!”

Jasper lifted a hand,
gesturing for the woman to calm down. “Listen, it doesn’t matter.
If you would have stayed, you know how things would have turned
out. Look at your friend there, Missy!” Jasper pointed to the
wounded Grant Vickers. “You probably would have turned out just
like him, or worse, maybe like that fat butcher ya’ll brought
along.”

“
You monster!” Harriet
screamed, falling back into her husband’s chest, where she pounded
against him and whispered. “What are we to do?”

Floyd was quiet for a long
time while he watched the two gunmen that invited out his party.
Floyd couldn’t help but feel a certain level of responsibility for
the group, one he’d been proud to have for most of the travel out
West, but the recent and terrible turn of events made him feel
foolish. He wasn’t sure what to do now, but to hold his
wife.

Grant Vickers piped up.
“What about hunting? Why can’t we hunt out here? I mean, there has
to be wild life around these parts. Why haven’t you stocked
anything like that?” Something wasn’t adding up to the resident
cartographer.

Jasper looked down to his
banjo as he replied. “You seen what’s out there. Yeah, so they
ain’t attacked us here in the post, no, but we’ve had plenty of men
leave this place and we’ve had plenty of men never come back.
They’re out there, mister, waiting for one of us to make a bad
move. When we do? Well, you’re the one gettin’ hunted, you
understand?”

Grant turned his head,
struggling through some of the pain that came with making such
movements, to look outside of the gate. He swallowed hard. “They’re
trapping us in these gates? What, are they trying to starve us
out?”

Chance shrugged. “Hard to
say. We ain’t ate in a while, mister. We’re awfully hungry. How
about that horse there? If you’re stayin’ here, you won’t be
needing that horse, will you?”

Floyd finally broke his
silence, moving around his wife to leave her near Grant. “You
listen here: we’re not eating the horses. That’s just not going to
happen. We’re not going to stay here for long either. If there’s
nothing here to eat and no way to manage food, then the only thing
we can do is get out of here after tending to some of these wounds.
Better we take out chances out there with the natives than staying
here and dying like cowards.”

Harriet’s eyes lifted as
she listened to her husband make his bold comments, to make
decisions for the entire group. None of them, however, protested
Floyd’s idea.

Jasper looked back at
Chance, then Chance back at Jasper. Jasper nodded, spitting out
into the dirt near his feet. “Well, we ain’t gonna keep you if you
don’t want to stay. You can stick around for the evening and if you
want to leave tomorrow, well, you can leave tomorrow. We ain’t
responsible for whatever happens out there, though. And don’t
expect us to come save ya’ll again. Once you’re out that gate
there, you’re gone, ya hear?”

Floyd’s authoritative
disposition faded a bit as the reality of the alternative really
started to set in. Still, he nodded once. He understood what was at
stake. They could take their chances and leave or stay and die
slowly, to wither into nothingness. He believed that they’d avoided
death once by the skin of their teeth, perhaps with a bit of divine
intervention, and he had faith they could do it again.

Apenimon spoke up through
the rising franticness of the small group, his assertive,
native-touched voice piercing through the sobs and discontent. “You
were there. You were at the camp when the Shoshoni came. If it is
dangerous, why were you there?” And although the questions were
valid ones, and were all questions that hadn’t occurred to the
distraught travelers, something in Apenimon’s eyes said that
he
knew
something, like a lawyer having caught a false witness in an
incredible lie.

Jasper wasted no time
responding to the native guide, cool and level-headed, unlike what
almost emerged from Chance’s lips. “Obviously things are desperate
here at the Fort. We were responding in a sort of desperate
measure, Indian, but our trip out there’s only confirmed that we
ain’t got a chance, and now we ain’t got any bullets.”