Lawless Lands: Tales from the Weird Frontier Read online

  When the first one disappeared, Blue didn’t pay it much mind. It wasn’t a surprise, after all. Life out here wasn’t for the faint of heart. And especially not for those war-weary widows and calico queens that had followed Blue and Nellie out into the desert. She’d tried to warn them. Every woman who came to the desert came with her eyes wide open. Each one had her own reasons, but there were always a few who got homesick and skint out for the security of some boozy belvedere with loose fists and a slick tongue. That wasn’t really Blue’s problem. Like her old granny said, to each her own. But when Nellie, her friend and the closest thing to a daughter she’d ever known, vanished, Blue knew something was wrong.

  “What we gon’ do here, Nena?” Lotte’s eyes were everywhere as they started into the town of Perdition. “This is a mean place.”

  “Hush, child,” Blue hissed, steering the old gray stallion into the dusty road that split the town down the middle. “We don’t want to call too much attention to ourselves.” Not that it would make much difference either way. An old black woman and a little white girl riding into town together wasn’t exactly everyday. She shouldn’t have brought Lotte with her, but at twelve years old, the child could shoot straight, and she never hesitated. Blue liked that in a gunfighter. “I didn’t ride twelve miles with my bohunkus stuffed in this saddle just to get shot.”

  “Do you think we’ll find Nellie here, Nena?” Lotte asked.

  “No way to tell. All we can do is look.” Blue had to stare into the sun. Now was not the time to be sentimental.

  Perdition was a grimy piece of Hell smack in the middle of the desert. Blue hadn’t set foot on this road in near thirty years, but Nellie was the only real family she had, and Blue was damned if she was going to let her go so easy.

  There was a line of buildings as they came into town: a restaurant, a general store, and a barber shop, and surgery. Her destination was farther down the street.

  The hotel. Well, they called it a hotel. Puttin’ on airs was another thing Blue had no time for. Just call it what it was: a whorehouse. The wooden façade dominated the landscape on the far side of the street. Years of dust devils had nearly peeled the paint off until you could barely read the name, Bareback Betty’s. Charming, Blue thought. A snaggle-toothed saloon dove grinned down at them from the raggedy old sign out front, inviting them in.

  Blue slid down from the saddle. Her boots scraped on the gravel, and the noise echoed off the meager buildings. Lotte started down behind her, but Blue stopped her with a gnarled hand. The town was unusually quiet for a Sunday morning. After all, there sure as shit wasn’t any churchin’ up going on in Perdition. Folks here tended to worship things more basic like violence and money. Out here, those were the only things that mattered. One invariably led to the other, and without them, the desert would devour you quick, bones and all.

  “Stay with the horse,” Blue hissed.

  “No, Nena! I wanna go with you,” Lotte said. Of course she did. Little Lotte had been hanging on to Blue’s petticoat since the day she found her.

  “Listen to what I’m tellin’ you girl. Anybody come ‘round that bend you don’ like the looks of, you plug ‘em.” Lotte pulled the six-shooter out of the holster at her hip and clutched it to her chest the way an ordinary child might hold their favorite doll.

  Blue straightened the ruined sunhat that sat askew on her head. A thin, gray braid trailed over her shoulder, and a few escaped tendrils tickled her sweaty forehead. She pushed them away from her face and steeled herself to walk into the saloon. Thirty years ago, she’d left Betty’s and swore she would never be back.

  The doors swung closed behind her, catching the hem of her dusty work dress. She almost stumbled, but she kept her head high. The mirror behind the bar blinded her with the glare, and her boots made a scraping sound across the dirty floor. It still smelled the same, that was for damn sure. A mix of turpentine, dust, and French perfume that could take your breath away with one good sniff. As Blue’s eyes adjusted, she could make out the silhouettes of several men up at the bar. Strangely, there was almost no noise. No conversation. No hatchet-faced girl caterwauling over an out-of-tune piano. In fact, there wasn’t a woman to be found in the place. Even the poker game in the corner was quiet.

  “Women ain’t ‘llowed,” the barkeep grumbled, as if plucking Blue’s thought right out of her head. “Unless o’ course you lookin’ for work.” He gave her a once-over with a greasy smirk as he scrubbed at a glass with a dirty cloth. Just the way he rubbed his palm over the butt of the glass was suggestive. “Yer a bit past prime, but all our girls have absconded.”

  “Skinned out like a bunch of scalded heifers,” someone called from under a tired-looking bowler.

  “What about baby-faced growler monkeys?” Blue asked.

  The barkeep chuckled and tossed his towel aside. He leaned forward on the bar, staring holes into Blue. She knew he had his hand on his iron under that grubby old apron. “If yer talkin’ ‘bout Charlie Bishop, we ain’t seen him in days neither.”

  Blue’s heart was a still stone in the middle of her chest. She’d known that Nellie was sweet on that boy for months. They’d met at the general store last winter, and ever since there had been something between them. They were attracted like sparks to dry scrub. Blue didn’t mind all that much. Charlie Bishop was one of those soft-spoken, intellectual types. Nose always in a book unless he was workin’ for his daddy here at Betty’s, slinging barrels of beer and tending the bar. Some said he was touched, and others thought he was a nancy-boy; Nellie didn’t care.

  “Think you best get on back to whatever hovel you come from,” the barkeep said.

  Every eye in the place had settled on her, but now was not the time to settle old scores. She heard a scraping noise behind her and detected movement out of the corner of her eye. Then the rough shuffle of boots behind her. The tip of her finger played on the trigger of the rifle in her hand. She let everything fall away except for the gentle pounding of her own heartbeat that mirrored the slow footsteps approaching.

  “I know you,” the voice behind said. “I know all ‘bout you, Blue Tompkins. You got a lotta damn nerve comin’ back here.”

  When he said her name, she recognized him immediately. “Alistair Bishop,” she said. “You just tell me where Charlie and Nellie run off to, and I’ll leave you in peace.”

  “You scared to face me, woman?” Bishop asked.

  Blue turned, raising the long rifle as she did and forcing the man to take a step backward. He hadn’t changed much since the last time she saw him, standing in this same spot. His posture had been a little straighter back then, and his eyes had lost some of the carefree gleam they’d once had, but Blue could see the boy she’d once loved lurking inside.

  “I ain’t never been ‘fraid of no man in my life, Alistair. But I ‘spect you knowed that already.”

  “True enough. But you know what they say ‘bout bein’ brave. It’s just another word for foolish.” At that, four men stood up behind Bishop with their irons in hand. “And you are mighty damn foolish for comin’ back here, Blue.”

  “May hap be, but I ain’t leavin’ without Nellie.” She nudged Alistair in the belly with the muzzle of the rifle. Her eyes were keen, and she could almost see his heart pounding in his chest. “So if you know where she’s at, I suggest you bring her out here now.”

  “It don’t look like you’re in much of a position for suggestin’,” one of the others said.

  Blue smiled. Unlike her old lover, she wasn’t a bit afraid. “Friend, I think you’ve mistaken me for a woman who won’t put a bullet in yer boss’s belly. You might kill me, but not before I drag old Alistair to Hell with me.” She nudged him once more with the gun for emphasis. “So you either tell me where your son has taken my Nellie, or I swear to God I’ll drop you right here, Alistair Bishop!”

  “All right, Blue,” Alistair said, putting his hands up and stepping back. “Ain’t no need to get so agitated.” He gave a nod and waved his stoo
lies away. “You always did get mad faster than any woman I ever saw.”

  “And that’s high praise,” Blue replied, lowering her rifle. “Considerin’ how many women you seen.”

  He grinned, stepping into the golden light seeping through the slats of the doors behind Blue. “Look, Blue. Nellie ain’t here. If she was, you know I’d tell you.”

  “Would you? Your daddy wasn’t much for lettin’ go of his money.” The scar of an old brand on Blue’s thigh, hidden under a layer of crumpled and worn petticoat, throbbed with a dull ache. “I know she was comin’ here. Mayhap we just go upstairs and find her.”

  “Don’t you get it?” the barkeep barked suddenly. “Nellie ain’t here. None of ‘em are!”

  “What are you talkin’ about?” Blue asked.

  “There is a definite shortage of whores in this place, or ain’t you noticed?” the barman went on. “The last one was gone this morning. In fact, I bet you won’t find another woman in Perdition for miles. Unless they seen too many summers or too few. We figured they all slipped out to go live with you on the tommy farm outside of town.” His words were met with chuckles from the others. Only Alistair wasn’t laughing.

  “Maybe we should just go on out to the tommy farm and round ‘em up,” another said.

  “Bring ‘em in like stray heifers!”

  The crowd of men that had seemed so sullen when Blue first arrived were now starting to turn. The old woman wasn’t afraid of much, but a room full of desperate men were apt to do most anything. Perhaps this had been a fool’s errand after all.

  “Nena! Nena, come quick!”

  The whole place started at the girl’s shouting and crowded to the windows. Blue jerked away from Alistair and pushed her way through the doors to where the girl stood pointing to the horizon. A cowboy, silhouetted against the bright, unforgiving sky, galloped toward the center of town. As he got closer, Blue could see that the man was barely hanging on to his saddle, gripping the apple tight. He didn’t reach the hitching post before falling down in the street.

  “Nena! It’s Charlie Bishop!” Lotte said.

  The man Blue had come to see was lying in the dirt, pouring sweat and red with fever. The boy looked like a heap of raw meat. His face was such a mess of blood, it was a wonder Blue could even tell who he was.

  Alistair pushed through the crowd that had now oozed onto the porch of Betty’s. “Charlie! What the hell happened?” Blue helped Alistair get the boy to a sitting position. His head lolled back and forth, like he couldn’t focus on anyone. The barkeep handed Alistair a bottle of whiskey, and he waved it under the boy’s nose. It seemed to bring him around a little, and he was able to take a sip or two before coughing and sputtering to life. They backed off as Charlie shook his head, trying to clear it. He peered up into first Blue’s face, then his father’s. It was as if he didn’t recognize them at first, starting with a sharp gasp.

  “Where are they?” he cried. “Let me go! Nellie…”

  “Easy, boy,” Alistair said. “Just take it easy for a minute.”

  “No!” he exclaimed, pulling away from his father. He tried to stand, but his legs wouldn’t bear the weight, and he sat down hard. “No… Pa… we gotta go. We gotta get out of here!”

  “What are you talkin’ about, son? Where have you been?”

  “No…Nellie…”

  Blue knelt down, still gripping her rifle. “What about Nellie? Where is she?” she demanded.

  “Me and Nellie, we was gonna leave. I give her Granny’s diamond, and we was gonna go back east. But they took her! They took all the girls! They didn’t get me. They didn’t…” His head fell back, exhausted.

  “Who?” Bishop asked. “What in hell are you talkin’ about, boy?”

  Charlie looked up at his daddy with a blank expression that made Blue’s blood turn cold. It was an almost hopeless stare, like he was giving up to some devil that was lurking just behind him in the shadows. After a minute, he focused and took a watery breath. “The men with no faces.”

  Charlie Bishop had the look of a man whose mind was completely lost. Blue had seen that look a lot since the war. Whatever happened to that boy out in the canyon, it was bad enough that his mind had retreated. Maybe for all time. Funny, men were supposed to be so tough. In Blue’s experience, they were anything but. They couldn’t stand up to the ugly parts: pain, sorrow, loss. Blue herself had lived through slavery, a horror most men couldn’t fathom. She often thought about her ma and pa and how much courage they must have had to keep getting up every day. Blue was a little thing when her pa had tucked her in that crate full of supplies bound for Kansas. She could still taste his tears when he hugged her tight, knowing he’d never see her again.

  “Doc says he’s going to be all right.” Blue’s memories dissipated when she heard Alistair’s voice. He descended the stairs and emerged from the shadows, wiping his handkerchief over a sweaty forehead creased with worry.

  “That’s real good, Alistair,” Blue replied.

  He shook his head. “I can’t make heads or tails of what he’s goin’ on about. I don’t know if any of it’s real or just some peyote hallucination he had in the desert.”

  “Did he say anything about Nellie?”

  “He kept raving about some men with no faces hidin’ out in Clearwater Canyon.”

  “Men with no faces?”

  Alistair shrugged. “No idea what he’s talkin’ about. He kept goin’ on about creatures with thin, white skin and no faces. Doc says it’s probably the fever.”

  “No, it isn’t.” They turned to see Lotte sitting by the door. Her knees were pulled up under her chin, and her wide eyes darted here and there. The child was afraid, and that made Blue afraid. “I seen ‘em.”

  “Seen what?” Blue asked. “Speak up, child!”

  Lotte hesitated just a moment, staring from Blue to Alistair and back. “The Men with No Faces. I seen ‘em outside my window. That night that Nellie disappeared. I remember it was so dark. There was barely any moonlight, and the wind was blowin’ so hard the windows were rattlin’ in the frame. A wolf howled down toward the canyon, and it woke me up. I got scared, and I called out for Nellie, but she didn’t answer. So I got my rifle out from under the bed, went to the window, and looked out. I could hear ‘em scratchin’ around in the dirt around the fence. Prob’ly trying to get to my rabbits. I slowly opened up my window and peered out before I stuck the barrel through the crack. If there was wolves outside, I was gon’ shoot ‘em! But what I saw that night weren’t no wolves. They were taller than any man I ever saw. Their skin was so white they looked like ghosts in the dark. And their faces… they didn’t really have faces. Just a mouth… When one of ‘em opened its mouth, I could see a thousand sharp, white teeth shining in the dark. When it come toward the window, I cried out. I just knew it could see me, but when it came closer, it didn’t have any eyes. Just that wide mouth. I had to bite my cheek to keep my screams in, but it was right there. So close that I could have smelled its breath if there hadn’t been a windowpane between us. I wanted to run away, but I was scared they would see me, so I just sat there still as the air before a storm!”

  Anger bubbled up in Blue’s belly. “And you didn’t think to tell anybody about this ‘til now?” Lotte winced, but Blue just tightened her fist.

  “I thought it was a dream, Nena!”

  Blue looked back at Alistair, expecting to see disbelief. The child’s story was ridiculous. Monsters with no faces peeking in windows? Lotte had never been a child to make up stories. Before she could say a word, Alistair shoved past her and started down the corridor.

  “Alistair! What are you doing?” Blue cried, following. “Alistair!”

  He threw open the back door leading into the saloon. The crowd inside had shrank considerably since Charlie’s abrupt return. Only the barkeep and a few others still sat there talking in hushed tones.

  “I need as many men as I can get,” Alistair said. “Ridin’ out to Clearwater Canyon.” Not a single one
of them looked up from their whiskey. “Well come on then,” he said. “Jensen! Sam!”

  The two turned and stared at Bishop as if he’d taken leave of his senses right along with Charlie. “I don’t know, Alistair,” Sam started. “After what your boy said…”

  “Maybe we should just go to the sheriff, Al,” Jensen said.

  “We don’t have time for that!” Alistair said. “It’s only a half day’s ride out to Clearwater Canyon. If we wait for the sheriff to come in from Silver City, it’s going to be a week before we get there!” He turned and offered Blue a sorrowful expression. “The girls could be dead by then!”

  “So what?” that nasty barkeep snarled. “Just a bunch’a whores anyway. There’s wagons full come through here every day. Admittedly, none as fine as that Nellie…”

  Something in Blue snapped. Before Alistair could stop her, she was over the bar with her pistol against his forehead. “You listen here, string bean. Nellie’s the closest thing I got to a daughter, and you call her a whore once more, I’m gonna put a hole in your brain big enough to drive a locomotive through.”

  “You sure ‘bout that, bitch? They hang black whores in this county for threats…”

  Blue was cool as she let the pistol go off right by his ear. “Ask me if I’m scared.” He flinched at the click of the hammer pulling back once more. “The memory of your brains splattered all over that mirror will be enough to carry me through to St. Peter.”

  “All right now,” Alistair said, stepping between them. “Just take it easy, everyone.”

  “Maybe Sid’s right,” Jensen said, knocking back another shot. “If what your boy says is true, we’d be plumb crazy to go out into the desert lookin’ for those things.”

  “Especially not over eight wh—I mean, girls,” Sam added, looking away from Blue.

  Blue stepped back from behind the bar, shaking her head. “Damn cowards,” she murmured.

  “You implyin’ we’re cowards?” Sid the barkeep demanded.

  “No. I’m sayin’ it real plain.” She shoved Alistair out of the way and started toward the door, calling for Lotte. She paused at the door, not looking back. “I’m headin’ for Clearwater Canyon. Anybody else comin’ with me better have their own irons.”