Unquiet Dreams (27 page)

“Well, that don't happen every day,” I said needlessly.

Jim just stared at me and wiped some of the blood away from his mouth. His name wasn't really Jim. It was just I could never quite get my mouth around his real name without calling up a cough and he somewhat pityingly told me to stick with Jim. It wasn't that I meant any disrespect—I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, I know, as my pop always told me—but that Navajo is a twisty language that leaves my tongue twitching in pain whenever I try to repeat the things he says.

“It's still wiggling,” Jim cautioned as I stepped forward to take a look.

“I know, I know, I ain't an idjit.” Sure enough, the old man was jerking around like a fish on the end of a line, his sightless white eyes rolling around, but his limbs seemed to convulse uselessly now. Not like before. “What do you suppose he's got?”

Jim moved warily toward the too-lively body. “Whatever he has, we don't want to catch it.”

“Damn! You don't suppose it's catching!?” I took a quick two-step back.

“Maybe it is, maybe it isn't,” Jim replied evenly, gazing closely at the old man's face. “Best to be careful.”

“Well, hell.” No arguing with that. “You ever seen anything like this?”

“No.” Jim picked up a broken chair leg and poked at the guy's shoulder. He made a sort of wheezing sound and tried to attack the chair leg. He didn't have much luck because both his arms seemed to be broken, in fact the jagged end of one bone poked up through the graying skin I could see now as he rolled over weakly. It was a peculiar sight.

“I think we better dismember the body,” Jim said after we'd watched the old guy struggle aimlessly for a time.

“You mean chop it up?”

“That would be the gist of it in words of one syllable,” Jim said. If you didn't know him, you might not have realized that he was being sarcastic. It took me a couple of months of riding with him to realize that sometimes he was being funny. Me, I tell you when I'm making a joke. Jim just figures you'll find it out somehow. Inefficient, I call it.

“Why you want to chop him up?”

“Well, he's dead, yes?”

“Yes.”

“But he's still moving, yes?”

“Yeah,” I said, “obviously.”

“Well, if we chop him to pieces, maybe he will stop and be all dead.”

“And if he's not?”

“You have a better idea?”

Well, the only thing we could find was a shovel. You'd think in a house like this, so far from other folks, there'd be plenty of useful things like big butchering knives or a saw for firewood, but we sure as hell couldn't find them. Guess he was a little too much on his own out here. Town looked to be within a morning's ride, but it wasn't like he wanted neighbors. Maybe this was why.

“You think he's been like this a while?” I asked Jim as I brought the shovel's blade down on his neck. The neckbone was a tough thing to chop through all right. Those thigh bones weren't going to be much better.

“I don't see how he could live long like this,” Jim said watching me impassively. You notice I was the one doing all the sweaty work. “He must have eaten whatever was live around here, but he can't live on nothing at all.”

“You figure he's been eating?” Damn, but this old guy was tough. I gave the shovel a good stomp and finally broke through to the dirt floor.

“Look at all the chicken beaks and feathers on the table. He ate all his stock and then started to starve. He must have been desperate when we passed by.”

“Well, I don't know,” I said as I severed the arm that was hanging only by skin. “He might have ate them while he was still alive—more alive.” I moved down to the leg.

Jim shook his head. “Look, he ate everything but the beaks.” Sure enough, the table which, unlike the full set of chairs, was still upright and covered with a mess of half chewed chicken beaks and a whole lot of feathers. “He's been like this a while. Dead, but not dead. It's not right.” I looked over at him, but before I could flap my gums, he anticipated my words of wisdom. “It's more than not right, I know. Strange magic.”

Now, I'm a good Christian man. Well, okay, not a good Christian man, but a sort of Christian man. I don't go for talk of magic, because there's only one kind of magic and that's the good lord's miracles, which don't happen anymore because we're all such sinful people and we have to wait for the end times to come and we'll see miracles a plenty. Or so my mama always said. But this was no miracle, that's for sure. I know the story of Lazarus. He did not return just to eat chickens. He did not try to take a bite out of the good lord. But that old man, he sure tried to take a bite out of Jim and me. “Magic?”

Jim nodded and we both looked down at the old man in pieces, but the head still jittering like a rummy's fingers.

“Damn.”

We dug a hole as best we could and chucked the pieces in the ground. Jim muttered a few words of peace over him and I gave him the words of the alma mater. Then we saddled up and headed toward the town we could just see in the distance as the sun was coming up. My palomino Beau seemed a bit spooked still. It was him that saved me before, shying away from the old man when he darted out of the house after we hollered out. Good thing I was pretty much born in a saddle or I might have been thrown at that. Beau sure knew that there was something not right with the old guy long before we started to catch on to those weird white eyeballs and the jerky way he moved. I shivered. It was just not natural.

“We might find more of them in town,” Jim said, as if responding to my shiver. I hate the way he always seemed to know what I was thinking before I did. It was an annoying habit. It was also probably not that difficult.

“Well, what do you think we should do? Go around?” I said trying not to let the sulk creep into my voice. He was just being thoughtful after all.

Jim shrugged and his paint nickered as if he was chortling under his breath at me. He did that a lot. Jim always said I was imagining it, but that paint was awfully smart for a horse and I swear sometimes he just had the most disdainful look about him. It's true enough he saved my life once, but sometimes it was like he seemed to think that maybe he had made a mistake in doing that. “We might as well see if this thing is going around.” Like it was a cold or something. “If the old man caught it in town, well—”

“Maybe we'll be lucky this time.” Like the time we met up with those renegade soldiers half-mad with gold lust. Or better yet, the time we found that starving family of mountain lions in the only cave for miles around in the middle of that early fall snowstorm. Yeah, we're just chock full of luck.

Things weren't looking promising as we rode up. Sure it was early, but in any decent town there would always be folks out in their gardens, or hitching up a team, or sweeping off the sidewalks from last night's boozers. It was quiet. I had a bad feeling it was too quiet. Jim rode silently but his eyes were darting around just like that paint's. He looked relaxed, but I bet if I had leaned over and tapped him on the shoulder he would have killed me in a second. I didn't tap him on the shoulder. I knew better.

We finally heard some groaning as we approached what was apparently the saloon. Funny, how they all pretty much looked the same: smoke-soaked wood, broken glass, and an invitingly dark interior. Well, most days it would have looked inviting. After the old man last night, the dark seemed a tad suspicious. The groaning that came from the darkness didn't help much either.

“Going in?” I asked pointlessly. We were going in. Somehow along the way we had acquired a habit of looking into things that were nobody's business. Why stop now? I slid off and dropped Beau's reins to the ground. Jim slipped off as well, and the paint moved over to quiet his pal, who was snorting a little nervously. But Jim didn't give me time to help calm Beau down, moving quickly and silently over toward the open doors of the saloon. I never can figure out how he does that—silent, I mean. I always make too much of a ruckus. I suppose it helps that he doesn't wear boots and spurs, but I bet he'd still be a damn sight quieter than me even in the jangliest spurs around.

Jim went around to the far side of the opening and I paused at the near one, pulling out one pistol and cocking back the hammer just in case. We tried to peer into the darkness to find the source of the groaning. As our eyes adjusted we could see a few pairs of boots lying under the tables, many of which had been knocked over somewhat hastily.

The boots had feet in them, but not much leg.

I looked over at Jim and he seemed to share my thoughts, I suppose, that this was not going to be a fun day. I raised my eyebrows to him and he nodded, meaning we ought to proceed inside, but like him I went slowly, trying to look all around me in case another old guy was hanging by ready to take a bite out of us. We eased into the room and made our way behind one of the overturned tables. It wasn't long before we found the source of the groaning: a man maybe thirty or so, a white shock of hair and an arm without much past the elbow. Jim lifted the man's head and looked in his eyes which were puffy from crying, which didn't seem like a man's kind of thing to do, but it must have hurt awful having your arm gnawed off like that. Not quick either, I suppose. In fact the more I thought about it, the more I was glad I hadn't eaten anything but hardtack from my saddlebag that morning.

Jim saw whatever he needed to see in his face and tore his own kerchief off to wrap around the guy's stump. “Whiskey,” he said over his shoulder to me and I thought, well, it was a pretty unsettling sight, but I didn't know Jim to have much taste for whiskey even at the worst of times. But then I noticed his look and sheepishly turned around to find some alcohol to clean the wound. I was just scurrying over to the next table where a miraculously whole bottle lay undisturbed when she came through the door.

You'd forgive me for staring if you could have seen her, too. She was tall and red-haired, the long curls swept up into one of those crazy things that women like her wear that holds the hair up in complicated ways, but gives way at just the right touch so it all comes tumbling down and awes men like me. Her skin glowed white like my mama's best china, especially because the rest of her body was clasped in a shiny black dress with all kinds of fringe dripping off it that shook when she moved and emphasized her pleasing shape from her broad shoulders to her tiny waist and flaring out again at her elegant hips that swayed as she stood in the doorway and took us in.

If it weren't for the blood smeared across her face and the white orbs rolling in her sockets, I might have been in love.

As it was, I was kind of taken aback. The day was getting no better, and this kind of disappointment was apt to make me a bit cranky. I shot a look over to Jim and he was staring, too, but not in the goggle-eyed way that I could sense I had slapped on my face. Managing to close my jaws at least helped a little bit. But I didn't really know if I should just make a grab for that whiskey or wait a minute to see what she would do. Jim kept looking at her, too, when all of the sudden the guy he was holding up started to gag and tremble like he had a sudden fever come over him. The red lady hissed and groaned and that took my eyes off Jim and right onto her.

Her eyes stopped rolling and seemed to fix on me. “Howdy, ma'am,” I murmured barely loud enough to be heard, I'm sure. I could feel the sweat beginning to crawl down my spine as I pondered whether to meet those eyes, say something else clever and pithy, or just snatch that whiskey and run. I decided to be a man about it and do both. I tried to meet her wobbly gaze with a tough guy glint while I sidled over toward the table with the bottle. I believe I failed to impress her with my act as she hissed again and began to stumble toward me. I had an awful feeling she was going to be chomping down on me if she got a chance, but my dim-witted self had seized on the plan to get that whiskey, and get that bottle I was determined to do.

She made a sudden lunge and I let her have it. The bullet bit through her shoulder and she snarled while I snaked my arm out and grabbed the neck of the jug. Sad to say, that shot didn't much slow her down and I could hear Jim shouting at me to get my fool ass out of the way, when all of the sudden her head just seemed to explode into pieces.

Not a pretty sight for her, and not so much for me either, as I wound up with bits of her head smacked across my own face, including an earring I found later in my pocket. You wouldn't think it, but bits of skull smart plenty regardless of the contents within them. And don't get me started on brains. I have seen far too many brains of late to be surprised much anymore, but at the time, the gooey porridge-like smack of that mess was a real unpleasant surprise. So was the sight of what was behind that red-haired lady. In fact, at first I wasn't too sure just what I was seeing—you wouldn't think about it much, but brains can really block your vision. Normally, I'm not too troubled by the presence of brains.

Once I squinted some of the grey matter out of my eyes, I was more than a tad alarmed to see both barrels of a shotgun pointed right at me. Behind it was what looked to be a little Chinese girl and she was hopping mad. It seemed like a bad combination.

I could hear Jim off to my left saying something soothing like, “Let's take things slowly, miss,” but I was more than a mite worried that she didn't understand a word he said, she being from out of town so to speak and trembling so much that the trigger in her hands might go off even if she wasn't meaning to blow a medium size hole through my noggin, too. Thing like that, intention don't matter so much after the fact. Dead is dead.

Although that's a belief I am beginning to re-examine in light of recent events.

However, I was not in the mood to philosophize about my own death. I knew for sure I wouldn't want to count on coming back as one of them Lazarus folks because I got the feeling already it wasn't much of a life the second time around.