Massacre at Lonesome Ridge: A Zombie Western (7 page)

"I don't understand," she whispered.

Little Bear leaned over and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Welcome to the fold, my little one."

Jeremiah Gaines wandered over to the barn, grumbling the whole way. "Stupid Jed. What's he know anyway?" Jeremiah continued to mumble for several minutes in a nonsense language he had invented as a child to express his anger toward his older brother. He threw open the door to the barn and stomped through. The wind slammed it shut behind him as he made his way past the mostly empty stalls. The large barn was falling apart after years of disuse. Animals of every sort used to ramble all over the farm when his parents were alive. Now they just had three horses, one for each of the three remaining brothers.

Jeremiah stopped in front of his horse's stall. "Howdy, Nelly," he said as he opened the door. The mare nuzzled his pocket when he closed it behind him. "Here ya go, my lovely lady." He reached into his pocket and took out a stick of peppermint candy he had swiped from the general store earlier in the month. He snapped one stick into several pieces and held them in his hand for her to take. She rested her head on his shoulder as she munched and he scratched her along the jaw. "That's my girl. Least someone loves me."

He glanced over at Jed's horse, Saddle, who stood looking through the bars longingly. Jeremiah narrowed his eyes at the horse. "Stupid name for a stupid horse," he mumbled even as he reached into his pocket with his free hand. Using his leg for leverage, he broke one of the remaining candies into several pieces and pulled them out. Then he stuck his hand through the bars and let Saddle lap the pieces up. He scratched the old horse on the nose even as he continued to grumble.

When his fingers started to ache, he pulled away from Saddle and pushed Nelly off his shoulder. Nelly's reins were hanging just outside the stall and he reached through the bars to pull them off the hook. After slipping them over the horse's head, he led her out into the walk way.

A young stallion stood with his head over the door on the other side of Saddle's stall. Drool dripped from his lips as he stared at Jeremiah. The big man dropped Nelly's reins and took two giant steps to reach the door. "Don't worry, I didn't forget you, ya big dummy." After doling out a quick scratch and the last couple pieces of peppermint, he grabbed his saddle from the saddle rack and threw it over Nelly's back. He cinched it tight and led her out into the sunshine.

"Hey! Where you think yer going?" Jed called to him from the porch where he sat on the steps whittling a stick. There was a pile of old shavings on the side of the stairs and an enormous collection of hideous wooden figures cluttered up nearly every surface in the house.

Jeremiah pulled Nelly around to face Jed. "Lonesome Ridge. What's it to ya?"

Jed raised an eyebrow at him. Jeremiah had a weakness for the saloon girls. Especially one in particular, one who had no interest in him and who could get him in a whole mess of trouble with the sheriff. "You keep yer nose clean, ya hear me?" Jed waggled his knife at his younger brother. "I don't need you bringin' McClane down on us again. We don't need him stickin' his nose around here any more than he already does. In fact..." He stood up and hollered into the house. "Jasper, get yer ass out here. Yer headin' to town."

The young man came out onto the porch. "Why do I have to go? Jer can handle himself." But he was already strapping on his belt. It was a futile argument that he never won.

"Don't go givin' me no lip. Move. Jeremiah's ready to go already and yer gonna make him late."

Jasper jumped off the edge of the porch to avoid his oldest brother arm as it made a beeline for Jasper's head, then he trotted to the barn as Jeremiah began to protest behind him. "Aw, com'on, Jed. I don't need no nanny goat. I can look after myself."

Jed grunted and went back to his whittling, effectively ending any potential conversation before it began. Jeremiah grumbled atop Nelly until Jasper returned with Dynamite a few minutes later.

"Come on. Let's go," Jasper said as he nodded toward the path through the hills.

Jeremiah glared at him for a full thirty seconds before he spat on the ground, aiming in Jed's direction. The older Gaines brother pretended not to notice, even though his eyes narrowed and his face darkened. With a growl, Jeremiah spun Nelly around and spurred her into a trot. She felt his irritation and snorted as she kicked up dust in her wake. Jasper sighed and followed at a slower pace. This was a regular occurrence and he knew Jeremiah would eventually slow down and wait for him. No matter what his brother said, he liked having Jasper along for the ride whenever he went into town. Jasper kept him out of serious trouble... usually.

As he expected, Jeremiah was waiting where the hills split apart to go their separate ways. He spat again and a fat glob of brown juice pooled on the hard dirt.

Jasper's nose curled and he fought against his gag reflex. He glanced at his older brother. "You should wash up before we get to town if you don't want Ms. Cora to dump a bucket on you."

Jeremiah glared at him again. "That only happened once. She never dare do it again. I'd whoop her and she knows it."

Jasper laughed. "She did it twice, Jeremiah. And I have no doubt she would do it again if she thought it was necessary. That girl is afraid of no one, especially not you."

Jeremiah snorted. "Whatever. That little whore needs someone to teach her a lesson. She'd do right to listen to us menfolk."

The younger man shook his head. His brother was all bark and no bite. "Why would she do that? She has you boys wrapped around her finger. And she's not a whore, she's just a dancing girl. She gets you all riled up, then sends you off to one of the real whores. You're just mad because she won't take you to her bed."

The older Gaines brother growled. "She will. Just you wait. One of these days, she will."

They rode in silence to the river. "Stop here." Jeremiah jumped off Nelly and draped her reins over a tree branch near the water before he stripped down to nothing.

Jasper pressed his lips tightly together to stifle the know-it-all smirk that would surely get him a good beating. He tethered Dynamite near Nelly so they could both drink and wandered down the river a short distance to give his brother some privacy. Not that Jeremiah had a modicum of humility anyway. He would strip down in the middle of town and bath in a horse trough if he thought the sheriff wouldn't arrest him for it.

As Jasper sank down onto a log to get lost in his own thoughts, Jeremiah splashed about in the cold water. It hadn't rained for awhile, so the river was low. The mud he kicked up made it brown and ugly and didn't help him getting clean much, but he didn't notice. He always felt like a kid whenever he bathed in the river. It was the only place he would bathe, and he didn't do it often enough. But it was fun when he did.

A flicker of light caught his eye and he dove toward it. The fish slipped through his fingers by barely an inch. "Lucky bastard," he grumbled as he stood up and surveyed the water again. It took him several tries, but he caught the fish and soon after that, he snagged another one.

"Jasper, get over here."

The young man looked up in time to see his brother emerge from the river, stark naked, dripping wet, and carrying two large fish. He grinned and grabbed some of the fallen twigs that littered the ground around the trees.

"I thought you wanted to get to town," he said as he piled the wood up and got a fire started.

"Eh." Jeremiah shrugged and looked to the sky. "Sun's still high yet. We got time. Don't wanna get there too early or the good whores is still sleepin'."

Jasper snorted and rolled his eyes. He took the fish from his brother and skewered them on two longer sticks. Then he propped them over the fire using several stones. Jeremiah lay back on the ground to air dry, heedless of the dirt that was now covering his backside. Jasper rolled his eyes and pulled a small book from Dynamite's saddle bag.

He settled himself on the other side of the fire. He opened the book very carefully. It was called
Frankenstein,
written by a young woman named Mary Shelley. The
shopkeeper's wife, Emma Jones, had let him borrow it. She had lots of books, books she had brought with her from back east. Rumor had it she was a librarian before moving out west. Why someone would give up that life to come out west and toil in the hot sun and dirt all day, Jasper would never understand.

Jasper found the page where he left off and began reading. It was a good book. They always were. He had to be careful with them, though. Jeremiah mocked him for reading, but he never did anything cruel to him. Jed, on the other hand, would snatch the books from his hands and throw them in the fire hard enough to send the coals flying. Mrs. Jones had been very upset when that had happened to one of hers. Jasper thought she would never lend him another book again, but she forgave him and now he took great care with the books. Jed never saw one and Jeremiah never said anything about it to Jed.

Jasper glanced at his brother. Jeremiah was rough and uncouth, a bull in a china shop as the saying goes, but he wasn't Jed. There was a stupid innocence to Jeremiah. He did what he was told and didn't think much about right and wrong. He just went with the way life flowed. Unlike Jed. Jed went out of his way to hurt people. Sure, on the face of things he pretended to have morals. No shooting women or children, no shooting the animals. But that didn't mean he didn't find other ways to do damage, to hurt people as much as he could. Even those he claimed to care about weren't immune to his vileness. Ma and Pa were afraid of him toward the end. She died before Pa, which was a stroke of luck for her. Pa didn't make it to a natural end. Jasper was there the day Jed decided to "put the ol' man outta his misery." He had tried to stop his oldest brother, but he was too weak. All he did was earn himself a broken arm, a black eye, and several bruised ribs.

Jasper inhaled to chase the memories away before he turned the fish over and stoked the fire. Jeremiah groaned and sat up. He saw the book sitting beside Jasper and grunted, but didn't say anything. They both stared out over the river for a few minutes until Jasper pulled the fish from the coals. He handed one to Jeremiah.

Jeremiah ripped a steaming piece off and popped it in his mouth, heedless of the pain. "Ya know, I'm not as dumb as you think I am."

Jasper glanced sideways at him. He ate a piece of fish before responding. "What do you mean?"

He nodded at the book. "You and Jed act all high and mighty around me, like I'm a moron. I may not be as learned as you, or as good at plottin' as Jed, but I'm not an idjit either. I know these lands, I know how to navigate them. If it weren't for me, you fellas woulda starved after Pa croaked."

Jasper gritted his teeth. Jeremiah had been in town when Jed shot Pa. He didn't know the truth. The old man was buried six feet in the ground long before he even got home. "I know. You're the best hunter of us."

Jeremiah grunted. "That ain't all. I can read an' do math an' all that borin' stuff, too."

Jasper looked at his brother and raised an eyebrow. "I've never seen you with a book."

The scruffy man shrugged a shoulder. "Well, naw, not since Ma's gone. But when we was younger I used to read all the time. She taught me. Said she wanted me to be one of them liars in New York City. Said she wanted me to go places, be somebody. But then she got sick. You was just a little baby then. She couldn't help out no more an' Pa said I couldn't leave. So I stuck around, helped out. Jed wasn't no good. He was always gettin' into trouble. Him an' that gang of his. You remember them?"

Jasper nodded. "Bobby Blake and Jimmy Two Fingers. I hated them."

"Yep, me, too. Everyone thinks I'm the trouble maker, but I only have fun. I don't mean to hurt nobody. Jed, he likes to hurt people. You know he an' the sheriff were best friends when we was kids growin' up?"

Jasper half shrugged, half nodded. "I remember Connor and Cora coming to the house a couple times when I was really young, but I didn't know they were that close."

Jeremiah tossed the nearly empty skeleton into the river. He watched as the other fish swarmed around, picking the bones clean. "Mmhmm. Afore the McClanes died, they were real close with Ma and Pa. Used to come to the house all the time. Cora was a spitfire even then.” He grinned at a memory from long ago until his face fell. “Then her folks died in that fire. She was at a friend's house. Somehow Connor got out alive. They say he was burned pretty bad. They moved to town with their aunt, Elizabeth. You couldn'ta been more'n five then. She was a real piece of work, that one. A real stickler for rules and all. After awhile, she wouldn't let him come over anymore. Said we was a bad influence. We wasn't. Jed was. But that didn't make no matter."

He picked a piece of bone from his teeth. "You remember Lydia Prince?"

Jasper thought for a minute. "I think so. She and her parents died in that attack on the stage coach, right?"

"Yep. Musta been more'n ten years ago now. Did you know she was engaged to McClane at the time?"

Jasper's jaw dropped. "No, I didn't know that."

"Yep. Nearly broke him. He thinks Jed did it."

"Did he?"

Jeremiah shrugged a shoulder. "Maybe. Maybe not. I wasn't there, but I don't know where he was at the time. Don't matter none, though. Can't change it. Connor was too upstandin' to go after Jed without proof, but it killed what little friendship they had left."

He stood and unzipped his pants. The story continued as the fire sizzled. "He did get revenge on Jed's gang, though. Bobby bit it out in desert. No one saw it, but everyone knows who did it. He was left out there to get ate by the buzzards. It was a revenge killin', no doubt about it, but he deserved it. And Jimmy Two Fingers hanged a few years later for the rape and murder of a town girl, all legal like. Jed, though... the sheriff couldn't pin nothing on him. Never could in all these years. He's too smart."