Joe Lansdale - Dead in the West

"You do that," Caleb said. "Me, I'm going to sit right here and keep this bottle company."

"Good place for you. You might even catch a fresh fly or two. And Caleb, do me a favor.

Don't drink out of the bottle."

Matt went out.

Caleb picked up the bottle and took a long, deep swig.

VI

Standing in front of his office, Matt looked down the street. Caleb was right. For some odd reason this night did remind him of the night the Indian was hung. He should have killed Caleb that night. He couldn't understand what it was about the man that had him buffaloed. Why he even treated him like a friend. He was scum. Ate flies, had no manners—and what he had done to the Indian's woman.... He was glad he hadn't been there to see it. In fact, he had tried to stop it.

Matt squinted his eyes and looked down the street. That night came back to him clearly.

He was standing right there where he was standing now when they came for the Indian and his woman.

Caleb was in front of the pack, holding a bowie knife. "Let us by, Matt," he said. "This ain't none of your affair. We want that Indian and his nigger, and we aim to have them."

"I can't do that" he had said.

And that was when David Webb stepped forward. He looked a total wreck. He had been crying. "He killed my little girl," Webb screamed. "He's a murderer. You're supposed to be sheriff. Mud Creek's sheriff. If you know what justice is, let us have him."

And Matt had stood firm for a while, his hand on the butt of his revolver.

But then he had looked at Caleb and Caleb had said, '"You're protecting a murdering Indian and a nigger. Where's your guts, Matt? Step aside!" And he had.

They had entered the jail, taken the keys from the wall, and pulled the Indian and his mulatto wife from the cell.

And when the crowd came out of the jail, they were practically carrying the Indian and the woman, and the Indian, held tight as he was, turned his head toward Matt and said almost casually, "You'll not be forgotten."

The crowd pushed into the street, tossed the man and woman into a wagon, bound them hand and foot. The driver clucked to the horses, and the wagon was off, the crowd running behind it.

Except for Caleb. He walked over to Matt and tossed the keys at the lawman's feet. "You did the right thing, boy."

Then Caleb was off at a trot behind them.

…

The night of the hanging faded before him, and Matt stepped off the boardwalk and began his rounds.

VI

Matt liked the night rounds. It was his favorite part of the job. It made him feel as if he owned the town. He nodded at people he passed, though as usual, there were few out.

Most were home or at Molly McGuire's or The Dead Dog Saloon.

He came to the saloon and looked in over the bat wings. It was a small crowd. They all looked hot and tired.

Zack, the bartender, looked bored and crabby at the same time. There was a drunk asleep under the table at the back, and the Dead Dog's only saloon girl was leaning against another drunk at the bar. The bar drunk had his head on the counter and was asleep. The girl looked sleepy and downright sick of the whole mess. At a table, four men played a lackluster game of cards.

Zack saw Matt at the doorway, cupped his hands in a come-hither wave.

Matt smiled, shook his head, and went on.

Matt went down the street, checking locked doors, making sure everything was sound.

When he came to the alley that led back to Molly McGuire's, he hesitated. He heard a sound, like something meddling in the trash boxes out back.

Probably that damned dog again.

Matt pulled his revolver. This time, he'd get that bastard. He started to creep down the alley. A moon shadow became visible. It was the slanting shadow of a huge man wearing a broad-brimmed hat. It looked uncomfortably familiar.

Matt froze.

He cocked the revolver and stared at the shadow.

"Who's there?" he said. "This is the sheriff—Who's back there?"

Silence. But the shadow did not move.

Matt inched forward.

"You are not forgotten " came a voice. Or was it a voice? It had almost sounded like the wind.

But there was no wind.

"Who's there, I said?"

And then the shadow quivered and melted and reformed. It was no longer the silhouette of a big man with a broad-brimmed hat. It was the shadow of a wolf.

Matt blinked, started backing up the alley, holding the revolver before him. The shadow moved and swelled in size.

Matt broke and ran out of the alley, turning too quick to dart into Molly McGuire's, but going up the street as fast as his legs would carry him.

And then he felt stupid.

He stopped. He didn't look back. He just stood in the street. He had not heard a voice.

That had been the wind and his imagination. There was no man-shape becoming a wolf-shape. He had seen the shadow of the dog all along, the dog that had troubled the town for a year now. He was getting jumpy. Maybe Caleb was right. He was getting squeamish.

But then he heard something behind him like the padding of feet.

All I have to do, he told himself, is turn, and there will be that big yellow dog, and I will shoot his brains out, and it will be over.

But he found he could not turn. He was afraid of what he would see—and deep down, he knew it would not be the big yellow dog, or for that matter a true wolf. It would be something else.

He started walking briskly up the street toward the church.

The padding behind him had stopped momentarily, as if examining him, but now it had picked up again. Whatever it was, it was big. And he could hear the sound of breathing.

Matt broke into a run.

The street was empty, not a soul in sight. There was only the church at the end of the street, calling to him as if it were a beacon, its white cross standing high on its roof peak, throwing a black-shadow cross into the street.

Matt's breath was coming in bursts now, and so was that of whatever was behind him, and he could sense that it was almost on him, ready to leap and take him down, and he found a second wind and ran harder, and then his side felt as if it were about to burst, but he still ran, and he thought he could feel the hot, damp breath of his pursuer on the back of his neck.

His hat came off. His breath was coming in gasps now. He was almost to the church.

The buildings on either side of him seemed to lean out and push—hang at strange angles over his head. And there didn't seem to be as much light as usual, and no sounds, other than his own breathing, and the breathing of whatever was at his heels.

And then he was in the shadow of the cross, and it was as if he had been struck by a warm wind. He ran up the church steps, and when he was at the church door, he wheeled—the revolver held before him—and he saw—

—nothing.

Just the empty street with his hat in its center. There was nothing wrong with the buildings. They grew at proper angles and did not hang over the street, and there were just as many lights as usual, and in the distance he could hear the buzz of voices at Molly McGuire's, and someone had finally decided to play the piano at The Dead Dog Saloon.

Matt leaned against the church door and got his breath. His face became less tense and finally turned humorous. He collapsed on the top church stoop and laughed at himself. He slipped the revolver back into its holster.

"Nothing," he said. "Not a goddamned thing."

But at that moment there came a long, haunted howl that filled the street, and the howl gradually began to sound like a hoarse and hateful laugh.

VII

After a little while, the sheriff cautiously walked away from the church and picked up his hat. When he was about to put it on his head, an involuntary cry escaped his lips.

The crown was bitten neatly out of it.