Joe Lansdale - Dead in the West

Something the Reverend and David were not. It did their pessimistic souls good to have her around. As the Reverend drove the wagon out of town, he could not help but feel slightly like a family man taking his wife and son on an outing. It was a nice and disturbing feeling all at once.

They took the stage trail and followed it out three or four miles and pulled over to the edge of the road. The Reverend examined the woods.

"Hope you brought a sharp axe?" the Reverend said.

David said, "I brought two of them. One for you. One for me."

"Good," the Reverend said. "I'll show you how it's done."

"That'll be the day," David said.

"Boys, boys," Abby said.

…

The Reverend and David chopped, skinned, and loaded trees until noon. Abby sat in the shade and read a dime novel that made her chuckle out loud from time to time.

For lunch—they spread a checked blanket on the ground, and Abby got out the picnic basket. They ate fried chicken, home cooked bread, and drank from a jug of tea in which most of the chipped ice had melted. It was all very good.

The Reverend was surprised that things went so well. He and Abby had much to talk about. Books for one. They had both read a lot, though she had a taste for dime novels which he did not care for. David also fit in, but not from the book angle. He had read little to nothing. But he had a ready wit and knew all the dirt on the townsfolk, and Abby encouraged as much of it out of him as she could.

The whole thing was pleasing, and the Reverend found that he was wishing he could make this trio permanent. But then he didn't wish too hard. Most things he wanted out of life turned to dust in his hands. He felt as if he were some sort of Jonah, and that everything and everyone he touched and cared for would be soured or destroyed. If he got his wish, it would merely be for as long as it took him to make it all go bad.

It was a hell of a curse for a man whose life was based on bringing happiness and salvation to others. He himself never got to taste of the well-water he poured. And if he stayed about too long after pouring, then he would somehow taint the well. Never failed.

"Now" David said, "how about that shooting lesson."

"What's the hurry?" the Reverend said.

"I'd just like to shoot that damn gun," David said.

"I guess that's reason enough," the Reverend said. "One more glass of tea and then we'll start."

"You told him that already," Abby said.

"So I did," the Reverend, said pouring a glass of tea, "but I have to do it this time. This is the last in the jug."

VI

While the Reverend, Abby, and David were so engaged, Cecil—one of the cooks for Molly McGuire's—went out back to toss the morning grease, and saw a pair of feet in shiny shoes sticking straight up out of the big, wooden trash box.

He put the grease on the ground and looked into the box. The trash that belonged there was all over the alley. There was just a man and a big yellow dog—the one that had been such a nuisance all year.

Cecil was two hundred pounds on a six-foot frame. He wrapped his bulging arms—both tattooed with anchors from his time in the navy—and pulled. The body wouldn't come free.

The blood in the box bottom had congealed and stuck to the top of the corpse's head. The body was also wedged in with the dog.

Cecil got a fresh grip, grunted, and pulled.

This time the body came free, leaving a mess of its scalp and hair in the bottom of the box.

Cecil tossed the body to the ground. Other than the neck which lolled loosely, the body was as stiff as a board. The tongue hung out of its mouth, and it seemed a foot long, and it was as dark as a razor strop.

"That's who I thought you was," Cecil said, looking at the corpse. "Morning Banker—you being dead ain't nothing personal."

This was a variation of what Nate had told Cecil when he foreclosed on his farm last year.

His words had been more like, "You being broke ain't nothing personal. Just doing what I have to do."

"You look good as I've seen you," Cecil said absently. "In fact, you look better than I've ever seen you, you old fart."

Cecil, sensitive as he was, scratched his balls and looked in the box again. He could see the dog more clearly. It looked as if it had been wadded up into a ball. Its muzzle was mashed like a squeeze box into its head, and both its eyes were sticking out on tendons like strange insects. The dog and Cecil stunk of shit.

Cecil got a cigar out of his white shirt pocket-occasionally the ash from his stogies revealed itself in the cafe's chili—and lit up. He usually waited for the evening to smoke the one cigar he bought a day, but hell, this was kind of a celebration. That damned mutt had turned over his last trash box, and good old Nate Foster—resident banker, drunk and full-time horse's ass—had foreclosed on his last farm.

Cecil went back to the cafe, had himself a drink of cooking sherry, then went out front to tell the sheriff (who was having lunch with Caleb) about poor old Nate.

VII

The dog stayed in the box, but they took Nate over to the undertakers and sent for Doc.

When Doc got there, Nate didn't look any better. The sheriff, the undertaker Steve Mertz, and Caleb stood looking down at the corpse.

"Think he's dead, Doc?" Mertz said with his usual mirth.

"I reckon he's just holding his breath," Caleb said. "But that trick with his tongue out like that will throw you."

"Oh for Christsakes," Matt said, and walked out of the room.

"I tell you," Caleb said, "that boy is getting squeamish."

Doc paid no attention. He bent to look at Nate's face. An ant crawled across Nate's left eye. Doc brushed it away. He gripped the man's head and turned it.

"Neck's broken, ain't it?" Caleb said.

"Yep," Doc said. He looked at the bruise on Nate's neck and a deep, jagged wound just under it.

"Guess the dog did that," Mertz said.

"Right" Caleb said. "Then old Foster smashed the dog's muzzle halfway through his skull, wadded him up, tossed him in the trash, jumped in after him, landed on his head, and broke his neck,"

"Well," Mertz said. "The dog could have bitten him."

"Shut up, both of you, will you?" Doc said. "I can't hear myself think. Maybe the dog bit him after he was dead."

"How'd he get his neck broke," Mertz said.

"It could have been a big man done it," Doc said. "Only he'd have to have been a really big man, and the strongest man I've ever seen to do what he did to that dog's body.

Anyone that knew how could have broken Foster's neck."

"I seen a big nigger who fought bare-knuckle once, and he could have done that" Caleb said. "No trouble."

"Don't suppose he lives around here?" Doc said.

Caleb smiled. "Kansas City."

"And I thought we were going to save Matt a lot of work. Do me a favor, Caleb, take a walk. You're stinking the whole place up."

Caleb grinned again and lifted his hat in mock salute. "Glad to oblige, Doc, and I'll remember you."

"In your prayers, I hope," Doc said.

When Caleb was gone, Mertz said, "It don't do to piss Caleb off. He's onery and he don't forget."

"To hell with Caleb."

Doc looked the neck over some more. "What gets me is the rip," he said. "I suppose a crazy man might have done that."

"A man?"

"Ever seen a man with rabies, Mertz?"

No.

"Ugly stuff. Gets to his brain. Gets so he can't stand light and is thirsty all the time. Gets to where he'll bite like a dog. Has crazy strength—like ten men."

"You mean Nate was bitten by a man with rabies?"

"I didn't say that.... But it doesn't look like a dog bite. Though, to tell the truth, it doesn't look all that much like a man's bite either. I'm just thinking out loud is all."

"If it ain't animal and it ain't human, what's that leave?"