The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard (74 page)

“Buckner!” he screamed. “Buckner! Help, for God’s sake!”

His voice strangled in his throat. He had reached the upper landing. He was tottering down the hallway.

The whistling sank and ceased, but its impulsion still drove him on. He could not see from what source the dim glow came. It seemed to emanate from no central focus. But he saw a vague figure shambling toward him. It looked like a woman, but no human woman ever walked with that skulking gait, and no human woman ever had that face of horror, that leering yellow blur of lunacy–he tried to scream at the sight of that face, at the glint of keen steel in the uplifted claw-like hand–but his tongue was frozen.

Then something crashed deafeningly behind him, the shadows were split by a tongue of flame which lit a hideous figure falling backward. Hard on the heels of the report rang an inhuman squawk.

In the darkness that followed the flash Griswell fell to his knees and covered his face with his hands. He did not hear Buckner’s voice. The Southerner’s hand on his shoulder shook him out of his swoon.

A light in his eyes blinded him. He blinked, shaded his eyes, looked up into Buckner’s face, bending at the rim of the circle of light. The sheriff was pale.

“Are you hurt? God, man, are you hurt? There’s a butcher knife there on the floor–”

“I’m not hurt,” mumbled Griswell. “You fired just in time–the fiend! Where is it? Where did it go?”

“Listen!”

Somewhere in the house there sounded a sickening flopping and flapping as of something that thrashed and struggled in its death convulsions.

“Jacob was right,” said Buckner grimly. “Lead can kill them. I hit her, all right. Didn’t dare use my flashlight, but there was enough light. When that whistlin’ started you almost walked over me gettin’ out. I knew you were hypnotized, or whatever it is. I followed you up the stairs. I was right behind you, but crouchin’ low so she wouldn’t see me, and maybe get away again. I almost waited too long before I fired–but the sight of her almost paralyzed me. Look!”

He flashed his light down the hall, and now it shone bright and clear. And it shone on an aperture gaping in the wall where no door had showed before.

“The secret panel Miss Elizabeth found!” Buckner snapped. “Come on!”

He ran across the hallway and Griswell followed him dazedly. The flopping and thrashing came from beyond that mysterious door, and now the sounds had ceased.

The light revealed a narrow, tunnel-like corridor that evidently led through one of the thick walls. Buckner plunged into it without hesitation.

“Maybe it couldn’t think like a human,” he muttered, shining his light ahead of him. “But it had sense enough to erase its tracks last night so we couldn’t trail it to that point in the wall and maybe find the secret panel. There’s a room ahead–the secret room of the Blassenvilles!”

And Griswell cried out: “My God! It’s the windowless chamber I saw in my dream, with the three bodies hanging–ahhhhh!”

Buckner’s light playing about the circular chamber became suddenly motionless. In that wide ring of light three figures appeared, three dried, shriveled, mummy-like shapes, still clad in the moldering garments of the last century. Their slippers were clear of the floor as they hung by their withered necks from chains suspended from the ceiling.

“The three Blassenville sisters!” muttered Buckner. “Miss Elizabeth wasn’t crazy, after all.”

“Look!” Griswell could barely make his voice intelligible. “There–over there in the corner!”

The light moved, halted.

“Was that thing a woman once?” whispered Griswell. “God, look at that face, even in death. Look at those claw-like hands, with black talons like those of a beast. Yes, it was human, though–even the rags of an old ballroom gown. Why should a mulatto maid wear such a dress, I wonder?”

“This has been her lair for over forty years,” muttered Buckner, brooding over the grinning grisly thing sprawling in the corner. “This clears you, Griswell–a crazy woman with a hatchet–that’s all the authorities need to know. God, what a revenge!–what a foul revenge! Yet what a bestial nature she must have had, in the beginnin’, to delve into voodoo as she must have done–”

“The mulatto woman?” whispered Griswell, dimly sensing a horror that overshadowed all the rest of the terror.

Buckner shook his head. “We misunderstood old Jacob’s maunderin’s, and the things Miss Elizabeth wrote–
she
must have known, but family pride sealed her lips. Griswell, I understand now; the mulatto woman had her revenge, but not as we supposed. She didn’t drink the Black Brew old Jacob fixed for her. It was for somebody else, to be given secretly in her food, or coffee, no doubt. Then Joan ran away, leavin’ the seeds of the hell she’d sowed to grow.”

“That–that’s not the mulatto woman?” whispered Griswell.

“When I saw her out there in the hallway I knew she was no mulatto. And those distorted features still reflect a family likeness. I’ve seen her portrait, and I can’t be mistaken. There lies the creature that was once Celia Blassenville.”

The Dead Remember

Dodge City, Kansas,

November 3, 1877.

Mr. William L. Gordon,

Antioch, Texas.

Dear Bill:

I am writing you because I have got a feeling I am not long for this world. This may surprise you, because you know I was in good health when I left the herd, and I am not sick now as far as that goes, but just the same I believe I am as good as a dead man.

Before I tell you why I think so, I will tell you the rest of what I have to say, which is that we got to Dodge City all right with the herd, which tallied 3,400 head, and the trail boss, John Elston, got twenty dollars a head from Mr. R. J. Blaine, but Joe Richards, one of the boys, was killed by a steer near the crossing of the Canadian. His sister, Mrs. Dick Westfall, lives near Seguin, and I wish you’d ride over and tell her about her brother. John Elston is sending her his saddle and bridle and gun and money.

Now, Bill, I will try to tell you why I know I’m a goner. You remember last August, just before I left for Kansas with the herd, they found that Old Joel, that used to be Colonel Henry’s slave, and his woman dead—the ones that lived in that live-oak thicket down by Zavalla Creek. You know they called his woman Jezebel, and folks said she was a witch. She was a high-yellow gal and a lot younger than Joel.

She told fortunes, and even some of the white folks were afraid of her. I took no stock in those stories.

Well, when we was rounding up the cattle for the trail drive, I found myself near Zavalla Creek along toward sundown, and my horse was tired, and I was hungry, and I decided I’d stop in at Joel’s and make his woman cook me something to eat. So I rode up to his hut in the middle of the live-oak grove, and Joel was cutting some wood to cook some beef which Jezebel had stewing over an open fire. I remember she had on a red and green checked dress. I won’t likely forget that.

They told me to light and I done so, and set down and ate a hearty supper, then Joel brought out a bottle of tequila and we had a drink, and I said I could beat him shooting craps. He asked me if I had any dice, and I said no, and he said he had some dice and would roll me for a five-cent piece.

So we got to shooting craps, and drinking tequila, and I got pretty full and raring to go, but Joel won all my money, which was about five dollars and seventy-five cents. This made me mad, and I told him I’d take another drink and get on my horse and ride. But he said the bottle was empty, and I told him to get some more. He said he didn’t have no more, and I got madder, and begun to swear and abuse him, because I was pretty drunk. Jezebel come to the door of the hut and tried to get me to ride on, but I told her I was free, white and twenty-one, and for her to look out, because I didn’t have no use for smart high-yellow gals.

Then Joel got mad and said, yes, he had some more tequila in the hut, but he wouldn’t give me a drink if I was dying of thirst. So I said: “Why, damn you, you get me drunk and take my money with crooked dice, and now you insult me. I’ve seen nigras hung for less than that.”

He said: “You can’t eat my beef and drink my licker and then call my dice crooked. No white man can do that. I’m just as tough as you are.”

I said: “Damn your black soul, I’ll kick you all over this flat.”

He said: “White man, you won’t kick nobody.” Then he grabbed up the knife he’d been cutting beef with, and ran at me. I pulled my pistol and shot him twice through the belly. He fell down and I shot him again, through the head.

Then Jezebel come running out screaming and cursing, with an old muzzle-loading musket. She pointed it at me and pulled the trigger, but the cap burst without firing the piece, and I yelled for her to get back or I’d kill her. But she run in on me and swung the musket like a club. I dodged and it hit me a glancing lick, tearing the hide on the side of my head, and I clapped my pistol against her bosom and jerked the trigger.

The shot knocked her staggering back several foot, and she reeled and fell down on the ground, with her hand to her bosom and blood running out between her fingers.

I went over to her and stood looking down with the pistol in my hand, swearing and cursing her, and she looked up and said: “You’ve killed Joel and you’ve killed me, but by God, you won’t live to brag about it. I curse you by the big snake and the black swamp and the white cock. Before this day rolls around again you’ll be branding the devil’s cows in hell. You’ll see, I’ll come to you when the time’s ripe and ready.”

Then the blood gushed out of her mouth and she fell back and I knew she was dead. Then I got scared and sobered up and got on my horse and rode. Nobody seen me, and I told the boys next day I got that bruise on the side of my head from a tree branch my horse had run me against. Nobody never knew it was me that killed them two, and I wouldn’t be telling you now, only I know I have not got long to live.

That curse has been dogging me, and there is no use trying to dodge it. All the way up the trail I could feel something following me. Before we got to Red River I found a rattlesnake coiled up in my boot one morning, and after that I slept with my boots on all the time. Then when we was crossing the Canadian it was up a little, and I was riding point, and the herd got to milling for no reason at all, and caught me in the mill. My horse drowned, and I would have, too, if Steve Kirby hadn’t roped me and dragged me out from amongst them crazy cows. Then one of the hands was cleaning a buffalo rifle one night, and it went off in his hands and blowed a hole in my hat. By this time the boys was joking and saying I was a hoodoo.

But after we crossed the Canadian, the cattle stampeded on the clearest, quietest night I ever seen. I was riding night-herd and didn’t see nor hear nothing that might have started it, but one of the boys said just before the break he heard a low wailing sound down amongst a grove of cottonwoods, and saw a strange blue light glimmering there. Anyway, the steers broke so sudden and unexpected they nearly caught me and I had to ride for all I was worth. There was steers behind me and on both sides of me, and if I hadn’t been riding the fastest horse ever raised in South Texas, they’d have trampled me to a pulp.

Well, I finally pulled out of the fringe of them, and we spent all next day rounding them up out of the breaks. That was when Joe Richards got killed. We was out in the breaks, driving in a bunch of steers, and all at once, without any reason I could see, my horse gave an awful scream and rared and fell backward with me. I jumped off just in time to keep from getting mashed, and a big mossy horn give a bellow and come for me.

There wasn’t a tree bigger than a bush anywhere near, so I tried to pull my pistol, and some way the hammer got jammed under my belt, and I couldn’t get it loose. That wild steer wasn’t more than ten jumps from me when Joe Richards roped it, and the horse, a green one, was jerked down and sideways.

As it fell, Joe tried to swing clear, but his spur caught in the back cinch, and the next instant that steer had drove both horns clean through him. It was an awful sight.

By that time I had my pistol out, and I shot the steer, but Joe was dead. He was tore up something terrible. We covered him up where he fell, and put up a wood cross, and John Elston carved on the name and date with his bowie knife.

After that the boys didn’t joke any more about me being a hoodoo. They didn’t say much of anything to me and I kept to myself, though the Lord knows, it wasn’t any fault of mine as I can see.

Well, we got to Dodge City and sold the steers. And last night I dreamt I saw Jezebel, just as plain I see the pistol on my hip. She smiled like the devil himself and said something I couldn’t understand, but she pointed at me, and I think I know what that means.

Bill, you’ll never see me again. I’m a dead man. I don’t know how I’ll go out, but I feel I’ll never live to see another sunrise. So I’m writing you this letter to let you know about this business and I reckon I’ve been a fool but it looks like a man just kind of has to go it blind and there is not any blazed trail to follow.

Anyway, whatever takes me will find me on my feet with my pistol drawed. I never knuckled down to anything alive, and I won’t even to the dead. I am going out fighting, whatever comes. I keep my scabbard-end tied down, and I clean and oil my pistol every day. And, Bill, sometimes I think I am going crazy, but I reckon it is just thinking and dreaming so much about Jezebel; because I am using an old shirt of yours for cleaning rags, you know that black and white checked shirt you got at San Antonio last Christmas, but sometimes when I am cleaning my pistol with them rags, they don’t look black and white any more. They turn to red and green, just the color of the dress Jezebel was wearing when I killed her.

Your brother,

Jim.

STATEMENT OF JOHN ELSTON,

NOVEMBER 4, 1877

My name is John Elston. I am the foreman of Mr. J. J. Connolly’s ranch in Gonzales County, Texas. I was trail boss of the herd that Jim Gordon was employed on. I was sharing his hotel room with him. The morning of the third of November he seemed moody and wouldn’t talk much. He would not go out with me, but said he was going to write a letter.