Last of the ravagers, p.1
Last of the Ravagers, page 1
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.
Last of the Ravagers
Copyright © 2023 by Bryan Smith
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
Published by Death’s Head Press,
an imprint of Dead Sky Publishing, LLC
Miami Beach, Florida
www.deadskypublishing.com
First U.S. Edition
Cover Art: Justin T. Coons
The “Splatter Western” logo designed by K. Trap Jones
Book Layout: Lori Michelle
www.TheAuthorsAlley.com
ISBN 9781639511419
This one’s for my late father, Lonnie L. Smith, who had another book dedicated to him way back at the beginning of my career.
Still miss you after all these years, Dad.
ONE
On a lonely night in the Arizona desert, face turned toward the sky, a man could sometimes start to feel as if he were a solitary traveler of the cosmos, standing at the edge of the universe and staring into the depths of infinity. Or like he was the only living soul left in the world. The desert, however, was alive with all sorts of things. Silent, slithering, nasty things, invisible in the darkness. Venomous pests and predators.
Gnawing on the sodden end of a stogie, Russ Harper crushed a scorpion with the heel of his boot, grinding it into the dry desert soil. As the scorpion was expiring, somewhere out there in the dark landscape a pack of coyotes started yipping and yowling at each other. Russ looked up and scanned the jagged top of the rocky outcropping near where he’d pitched camp for the night, watching for any tell-tale glint of moonlight in the eyes of hungry predators.
In his experience, coyotes weren’t much to worry about for two-legged types such as himself. They tended to shy away from people in general, but he’d heard tell of the occasional vicious exception. It mostly only happened when a large and hungry pack was driven to the edge of desperation due to a scarcity of food in their territory. A big pack like that just might collectively work up the nerve to overcome the species’ natural timidity around human beings, particularly when the human in question was traveling alone.
Like Russ was tonight.
Well, alone, if you didn’t count the unfortunate fella wrapped up in burlap and strapped to a travois over by his horse. The man was an outlaw named Beauregard Conklin. Beauregard was more commonly known as “Bo” or “Boom Boom”. The latter nickname derived from the sound his pistols made. He’d worn a Colt revolver on each hip and was known for his penchant for drawing and firing both at the same time, often in a showy way. For years Bo was the notorious leader of an elusive gang of bandits who committed robberies all over Arizona and Nevada. The gang was considered invincible and beyond the reach of the law for the better part of a decade, but all good things must eventually come to an end.
For Bo’s gang, the end came in the form of a midnight raid on their camp by a sneaky group of hatchet-wielding redskins. Most of his men died in their sleep, their skulls cleaved open by the flashing blades. Few had any real opportunity to defend themselves. Bo was the only one to escape with his life. He wasn’t heard from for a while thereafter, but eventually reemerged as a solo operator, once again robbing banks and the occasional stagecoach, albeit not quite as successfully as before. Leads on his general whereabouts and a possible home base emerged. People started saying it was only a matter of time until someone finally caught up with him.
That someone eventually turned out to be Russ Harper, and now big, bad “Boom Boom” Conklin was just an odiferous carcass with a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. A $2,000 payday awaited Russ upon delivering the corpse to the head lawman in a town called Snakebite, a thing he hoped to accomplish within a couple hours of sunup tomorrow. Barring any unforeseen setbacks, that is, such as being set upon by a pack of ravenous beasts.
As best he could tell, however, there were no predatory creatures slinking about along the top of the outcropping. Moreover, his concerns regarding any potential danger began to abate the longer he listened to the song of the coyotes. They weren’t quite as close as he’d initially imagined. The vast, wide-open desert could play tricks on a man’s hearing, a phenomenon he’d encountered often in his travels. He also no longer perceived any degree of danger or lethal intent in the sound. The animals were talking to each other, laughing in their beastly way and having a grand old time in the middle of the night, like a bunch of rowdy ranch hands blowing off steam at the saloon after a long day.
Russ grunted as he took the sodden stump of the stogie from his mouth and flicked it into the campfire. “Have fun, fellas. Reckon it’s time I hit the hay.”
He would sleep close to the fire and not just to ward off the cool temperatures of the desert at night. The heat from the well-stoked flames would also serve to discourage encroachment by most of the landscape’s creeping, slithering creatures. The horse would alert him to approach by larger things. Bedelia was well-trained in that regard and just about as reliable as any two-legged sentry.
Taking his heel off the crushed scorpion, Russ got as close to the fire as he could comfortably tolerate and stretched out beside it, lying flat on his back with his head resting on his bedroll. He opened a well-worn copy of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and began to read by the light of the fire. This was his fourth time reading the book, which he’d pilfered from the belongings of an earlier quarry, another man who, like Bo Conklin, no longer had use of material possessions.
The book was an old favorite, but the actual reason for the repeated readings was more a product of carrying only a few volumes with him at any given time. Traveling light was a necessity when one’s work involved the frequent transport of corpses. Melmoth the Wanderer, Uncle Silas, and Varney the Vampire were the only other tomes currently among his possessions. He liked dark and lurid stories because they spoke to truths about the world he rarely encountered in other forms of literature.
He’d read about ten pages and was getting droopy-eyed when he heard the strange sound from the vicinity of the outcropping. Sitting up with a start, he turned his head in that direction and squinted into the inky darkness. His heart was thudding because the sound was unlike anything he’d ever heard. There’d been a distinctly unnatural quality to it, an otherworldliness that unsettled him on a primal level. Despite the heat from the fire, his arms and legs became pebbled with gooseflesh.
Getting to his feet, he hurried over to Bedelia and withdrew his repeating rifle from its saddle scabbard. Turning again toward the outcropping, he took several steps in that direction and once again scanned the jagged tops of the rocks. Though he still saw nothing moving about up there, he was nowhere near ready to relax. The outcropping was some thirty feet distant, just far enough away in the dark that he might easily miss seeing something crouching at the edge of those rocks, particularly if the fur or hide of the creature was as dark as the desert night.
After staring at the top of the outcropping for several additional tense moments, Russ swallowed a lump in his throat and let out a breath. The strange and unsettling sound had not repeated in all the time he’d been standing there. He was just starting to relax when he was taken aback by a belated realization.
The coyotes were no longer singing.
The entire desert, in fact, seemed to have gone deathly silent and an unsettling stillness had overtaken the entire landscape. If not for the sound of his own rapid breathing, he might’ve believed time itself had become frozen. A wild idea, perhaps, but in those disquieting moments any crazy thing seemed possible. He was barely conscious of his grip on the rifle tightening, and when he became aware of it, he made his fingers relax. It was possible whatever had made that strange noise had moved on already. An accidental big boom might bring it back in this direction.
Some more silent moments elapsed.
Then Bedelia whinnied softly behind him.
Russ let out another big breath and nodded.
Yeah, girl. I think it’s gone, too.
He yelped in sudden fright upon hearing a loud scream of pain from somewhere out in the darkness. The sound went on and on and it took another couple moments to realize it wasn’t a human sound. This was one of the coyotes that’d been yipping and singing a short while ago. Its high-pitched whimpers now sang a song of purest agony The sound set Russ’s teeth on edge and he was grateful when it came to an abrupt end seconds later. He was no fan of coyotes, but the sound of the animal’s suffering was a terrible thing.
Something dangerous was out there in the night. Some deadly creature. A thing capable of moving about with uncommon stealth and cunning. The only logical move at this point was to hurriedly pack up camp and move on as fast as possible. He wouldn’t feel safe until he’d put many a mile between himself and that unholy beast, whatever it was. He was tired as hell after a long day’s trek across the desert, but sleep would have to wait.
Before he could put this plan in motion, the strange sound that’d snapped him out of his doze came again. Hearing it with a clarity unfettered by grogginess rendered it even more deeply unnerving. There was a grinding quality to it with an undertone of ululation. His initial impression of otherworldliness was enhanced immensely by this second exposure to the noise. It made his innards clench and his nuts shrivel to about half th eir normal size. Russ considered himself as tough as any man, but this sound unmanned him in ways no human adversary ever could.
The sound came yet again, much closer this time. His gaze went again to the top of the outcropping and this time he saw something, the outline of a dark shape crouching at the top of the highest of the jagged stones. Though he couldn’t fully discern its shape and appearance in the inky blackness, he could tell the thing was smaller than he’d expected. It was short and squat, with a thick body and a large, wide head. While Russ stared at it, the thing opened its mouth and made that dreadful sound again.
Behind him, Bedelia whinnied and bucked.
Time to run, Russ. Right goddamn now.
Russ wasn’t inclined to disagree.
More of the short, stout shapes began to appear at the edge of the outcropping. That grinding, ululating noise started up again, but this time it was a chorus of otherworldly gnashing and chittering rather than a single unsettling voice. The sound had him close to peeing his pants, making him feel more like a meek and sickly child than a man. Its alien quality made his guts curdle. A few of the diminutive shapes teetered precariously at the edge of the rocks, rocking back and forth a few seconds before dropping to the ground. As soon as they hit the ground, they bounced back to their feet and began rapidly waddling their way toward the campsite.
Bedelia whinnied loudly again, clearly on the verge of terrified flight. Russ hesitated a final moment longer, torn between flight and an urge to start firing at the strangle little beasts. The decision was made for him when he glanced back and saw the burlap-wrapped corpse begin to struggle against its bonds on the travois. It was sitting halfway up and making inarticulate sounds of rage as it clumsily attempted to tear its way out of the burlap. The bounty hunter’s first thought upon seeing this inexplicable thing was that perhaps he’d only wounded Conklin instead of killing him. This possibility was the most obvious and logical explanation for the man’s unexpected revival, for the simple reason that expired corpses were not in the habit of returning to life under ordinary circumstances. At least not in his experience.
The only problem with the logical explanation in this case was he knew it wasn’t true. He’d put a bullet through the man’s forehead. A good bit of Conklin’s brains had leaked out of the exit wound at the back of his head. The man was deader than the proverbial doornail and stinkier than a cow pasture at high noon on a hot summer’s day.
Except now he wasn’t dead anymore. Somehow.
That settled it.
No way was Russ sticking around to deal with any of this madness.
He looked around again just as one of the strange creatures launched itself into the air from ten feet away. He raised the rifle and fired. Whether he hit the thing or not, he didn’t know, because by then he was running.
Dropping the rifle, he vaulted himself up into Bedelia’s saddle. As soon as his butt hit leather, she was off and running, galloping at high speed into the cool desert evening. There’d been no time to lash the travois to Bedelia, but this was of minor importance in the larger scheme of things. He’d lost his rifle, too. And the book. And his bedroll. All these things could be replaced. The lost income could be made up. But he only had one life and he’d been damn lucky to escape with that.
Bedelia didn’t slow down for at least an hour.
The same could be said for the manic beating of Russ Harper’s heart.
TWO
Not much exciting ever happened in Snakebite. It was a little town smack in the middle of the Arizona desert and many miles away from any other significant population center. Most new folks who wandered into town were only passing through on their way to somewhere bigger and more interesting.
After serving as Sheriff in Snakebite for going on a decade, Ned Kilmister sometimes wondered if he should pull up stakes and start over again in some new place. Either back east where he was from or some closer rowdy city like Galveston or Frisco. The notion was not without allure, especially when some pants-pissing drunk was loudly belting out raunchy saloon songs in between puking into a holding cell bucket, as was happening right now.
Riley McKay was the temporarily incarcerated man, and though it was daylight now and several hours had passed since Ned had conked him over the head and dragged him off to jail, he still sounded far from sober. Riley was a former volunteer soldier in the defeated army of the South. Though the war was more than a decade in the past, it was still a fresh wound in the minds of many. Riley was an outwardly cheery and gregarious sort in the early stages of his nightly drunkenness, but he was prone to becoming a bitter and violent malcontent as he got deeper into his cups. Such was the case once again last night. Riley became belligerent and started waving his gun around after debating a few of the usual points of contention regarding the war with some of the other regulars at the Last Chance Saloon. He fired off two rounds and was damn lucky neither had found flesh to perforate, otherwise he’d be facing some serious consequences. Being drunk as a skunk might fly as an excuse for all sorts of questionable behaviors, but not for murder.
Ned yelled at Riley to shut his damn fool mouth as his off-key warbling reached an ear-piercing volume. The prisoner ceased singing and started cackling like a madman. This was followed by a rude comment about Ned’s mother, implying she was of loose character. All Ned could do was shake his head and sigh. The damn drunk couldn’t possibly know itnless he’d spent time in Baltimore at some point, which seemed unlikely—but his description of Martha Kilmister wasn’t far off the mark.
Ned took his pipe from his mouth and exhaled a stream of fragrant smoke, staring at the ceiling as he sat kicked back in his chair with his booted feet propped up on a corner of his desk. He was in a reflective mood as he returned the pipe to a corner of his mouth. Sure, things could get a tad dull in Snakebite, almost painfully so at times, but when you got right down to it, he preferred it that way. Life as a lawman was better when it was boring as opposed to filled with violence, noise, and chaos.
From somewhere outside Ned’s office, the usual placid quiet of morning time in Snakebite was disrupted by a burst of hollering. Ned’s pipe slipped from his mouth and dropped to the floor as he jumped in his chair. He just managed not to fall out of the chair, which would’ve been embarrassing. Because the holding cells were out of view in back, no one would’ve seen it happen, but he would know and that would’ve been bad enough. A man charged with upholding the law and ensuring the safety of the citizenry of his town shouldn’t be so easily startled.
Riley ceased his drunken caterwauling and said, “What in tarnation is that racket?”
Ned retrieved his pipe from the floor and set it on his desk. “Damned if I know, but I mean to find out.”
He got up and went to one of two windows that looked out on the street. The hollering was getting louder by the moment, but the source of the ruckus wasn’t immediately obvious. A few people were standing out there in the dusty main street with their heads turned in a westerly direction. Ned looked that way and saw nothing out of the ordinary, at least not yet, but the sound did seem to be coming from that way. A few seconds later, he perceived another sound beneath the hollering—the full-tilt gallop of what sounded like a runaway horse.
THREE
Down in the cellar underneath the Last Chance Saloon, a woman lying flat on her back on a long wooden table was clinging to life. Standing over her was a man named Albert Richardson, though no one ever called him by his given name. Because he was the only man in Snakebite operating anything resembling a professional medical practice, townsfolk only ever referred to him as “Doc”.
Doc Richardson maintained an office in a small two-storey building directly across the street from the saloon. His medical practice occupied the upstairs level while Eddie Horton operated a barbershop downstairs. Proximity to the saloon meant Richardson spent a lot of time treating injuries incurred during the drunken brawls that broke out there a few times a week. He wasn’t rich by any means, but the preponderance of drunken dunces in the area ensured a comfortable living.
The woman on the table did not have the kind of injuries he was accustomed to treating. Nothing that could be handled with a few sutures or a simple bandage. She was missing her right arm, from just above the elbow. It had not been removed with an axe or other sharp, heavy blade. The stump was a ragged and knobby mass of charred meat, the result of a torch being applied to the bloody flesh for cauterization purposes. That was the work of Quentin Brown, proprietor of the Last Chance. Had he not taken that step, there was every chance the woman would’ve died within a few minutes from blood loss. Given the extent of the woman’s horrid injuries, Richardson wasn’t so sure that wouldn’t have been for the best.
