RETURN TO BRIMSTONE I: Spellbound
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dochermes"RETURN TO BRIMSTONE I: Spellbound"
10/9-10/12/1881
I.
"Return To Brimstone!" the pale old woman whispered from under her shawl. An order that would shoot cold fear along the spine of any man who was raused in that isolated town called Brimstone, that lies by Deadman's River... to draw him irresistably back to that obscure region, wherever the word might reach him.
It was only a whisper from the withered lips of a shuffling crone, who vanished among the crowd outside the Wagon Wheel Saloon before Johnny could question her but it was enough. He felt no need to question by what mysterious covert way the word had come to her. No need to inquire what obscure forces worked to impart that message to a Brimstone townsman. He knew he would answer.
How could anyone from Brimstone, Texas fail to answer that command?
Within an hour, dust was being raised further behind Johnny with every stride of his great black stallion Terror. To every man born in Brimstone, there always remained a subtle bond that would drew him back if his hometown was imperiled by the menace that had lurked in its shadows for more than a century.
Johnny Packard reached the Texas border at dusk of the following day. At the town limits was a Western Union station where he paused to fire off three desperate telegrams to the widely scattered places where he might hope to reach help from one man he trusted. He stopped at a stable outside the town of Bailey to rest and water his horse. As a lanky boy fastened rubbed down the stallion, Johnny turned to the owner of the stable, fat old Jackson Rafferty with his battered chamberpot hat and dingy overalls.
Johnny had yanked off his open black vest and red flannel shirt and was swabbing his grimy torso with handfuls of water from the trough. He was small but wiry, no more than five feet five and maybe a hundred and fifty pounds at most. Johnny Packard had shaggy red hair over a lean, clean-shaven face. In the setting sun, his green eyes seemed to spark with a catlike lambent gleam. "Is it true they is rumors of trouble in Brimstone?"
Rafferty stepped back as if he felt threatened. "I don't rightly know. There's been unsettling talk. But you Brimstone folks aren't what might be called talkative. No one outside knows what really goes on in that town..."
"True enough," Johnny replied as if ending the conversation. He had a handful of silver dollars on him, which which he purchased some oats for Terror's canvas feed bag, dried beef and beans and tea leaves for himself, as well as a box of 45 cartridges that old Rafferty happened to have on hand. Then it was time to move on. As darkness neared, Terror grew restless and agitated as usual. They both needed little rest after years under their curse.
The dusk deepened as Johnny rode west along the pike.
The moon rose red as fire over the scattered Live Oak trees which reached up twenty feet. A lone pecan tree caught Johnny's eye, he hadn't seen one for years. An owl hooted his omens away off in the woods, and somewhere a hound howled in mournful reply. In the darkness, Johnny crossed Sterling Creek, a streak of shining black fringed by walls of solid shadows. His horse's hooves splashed through the shallow water and clinked on the wet stones, startlingly loud in the stillness. Beyond that creek began the territory claimed by Brimstone.
It took stern resolve for him to leave his black Stetson hanging on its cord down by his shoulder blades. Tucked in the beaded hatband was the mysterious coin of red metal he had been given by the elderly shaman Machingtok. He felt the nagging urge to put his hat on. If that token was near his forehead after dark, he would yield his humanity and unleash the Brimstone Kid once again. Tonight was not right to set that demonic presence free.
The woods thickened, the road narrowed, winding through unfenced pinelands, broken by live-oaks and cypresses. There was no sound except the soft clop of hoofs in the thin dust, the creak of the saddle. Then someone laughed throatily in the shadows.
The Kid drew up and peered into the trees. The moon was high in the hazy night sky and by its glow, he made out a dim figure under the low branches. Johnny's right hand automatically dropped to the butt of one of the matched Peacemakers he wore, and the action brought another low, musical laugh, mocking. Johnny glimpsed a strangely compelling oval face with a pair of almost colorless eyes and white teeth displayed in an insolent smile.
"Who in tarnation are you?" he demanded.
"Why do you ride so late, Johnny Packard?" Taunting laughter bubbled in the voice. The accent was foreign and unfamiliar, but it was appealed to his ear. In the elaborate pile of white hair a single red blossom glimmered in the darkness.
"What's an unescorted lady doing way out here?" the Kid demanded. "You're a long way from town. And you're a stranger to me."
"I moved to Brimstone since you went away," she answered. "My cabin is on the Deadman's River. But now I've lost my way. And my poor brother has hurt his leg and cannot walk."
"Where might this brother be?" the Kid asked, uneasily. He was remembering now all the memories he had tried to hard to bury away. The weird albino-like clan with their pink eyes and long thin spidery limbs.
"Back in the woods, there, far back!" She indicated the black depths with a swaying motion of her supple body rather than a gesture of her hand, smiling audaciously as she did so.
Johnny knew of course there was no injured brother, and she realized he knew it. But the knowledge amused her. The woman's long pointed chin, sharp nose and narrow oblique eyes should not have been attractive but somehow they had an unsettling effect on the young wanderer.
Johnny found himself dismounting and tying his horse to a branch. The black stallion shifted its weight from one leg to another, snorting angrily. For once, the Brimstone Kid disregarded Terror's instincts. He scowled at the pale woman, deeply suspicious yet fascinated.
"How do you know my handle? Who are you, lady?"
With a sly laugh, she seized my hand and drew him deeper into the shadows. Fascinated by the lights gleaming in her eyes, he was hardly aware of her action.
"Who does not know Johnny Packard?" she laughed. "All the people of this area speak often of you, the Brimstone Kid himself. Come! My poor brother longs to look upon you!" And she laughed with malicious triumph.
It was this brazen effrontery that brought him to his senses. She overplayed the act. Her mockery broke the almost hypnotic spell into which Johnny had fallen. He flung her hand aside and spat, "You think you can play me for a lovesick fool, do you?"
Instantly the smiling siren was changed to a blood-mad jungle cat. Her eyes flamed murderously, her red lips writhed in a snarl as she leaped back, crying out shrilly. A rush of bare feet answered her call. The first faint light of dawn struck through the branches, revealing three gaunt assailants. Johnny saw the gleaming whites of their eyes, their bare glistening teeth, the sheen of naked steel in their hands.
His first bullet crashed through the head of the tallest man, striking him dead in mid-stride. The next pale man had already lunged in close enough to grapple. The Kid smashed his gun into that grimacing face. As the man fell, half stunned, he saw the final attacker stabbing forward with a wide-bladed hunting knife. Johnny parried the stab by grabbing the man's wrist and forced that hand back so the point ripped across the attacker's belly-muscles. He screamed like a panther. Johnny crashed his gun barrel in that man's mouth and felt those lips split under the impact. He reeled backward, waving his knife wildly in confusion. Before he could regain his balance, Johnny was after him and, instead of firing, struck the man hard across the top of his head with the Colt barrel. The man groaned and slipped to the ground as life left him.
Johnny wheeled about, seeking the surviving other. He was just rising, blood streaming down his face and neck. As the Kid started for him, the strange man sounded a panicky yell and plunged away into the underbrush. The crashing of his blind flight came back, muffled with distance. The girl was gone. Johnny was left shuddering at what he had clashed with already. The Llanghoirs.
II.
Dawn showed the girl had vanished.
The black horse snorted and pulled against his tether, excited by the smell of blood that hung in the heavy damp air. Terror had long been changed as much as Johnny had by the Brimstone Kid curse, perhaps more so. Hoofs clattered down the road, forms bulked in the growing light. Voices challenged.
"Who's that? Step out and name yourself, before we shoot!"
"Hold yer fire, Lucas!" the Kid called. "It's only me, Johnny Packard!"
"Johnny Packard!" exclaimed Lucas Carleton, lowering his pistol. The tall rangy forms of the other riders loomed behind him.
"We heard a shot," said Carleton. "We was ridin' patrol on the roads around Grimesville like we've been ridin' every night for a week now, ever since they killed Charlie Jackson."
"What? Who killed Charlie Jackson?"
"The Llanghoirs. That's all we know. Charlie come out of the woods early one mornin' and knocked at Chubb Sorley's door. Chubb says he was the color of ashes. He hollered for Chubb for God's sake to let him in, he had somethin' awful to tell him. Well, Chubb started down to open the door, but before he'd got down the stairs he heard an awful row among the dogs outside, and a man screamed he reckoned was Charlie. And when he got to the door, there wasn't nothin' but a dead dog layin' in the yard with his head knocked in, and the others all goin' crazy. They found Charlie later, out in the pines a few hundred yards from the house. From the way the ground and the bushes was tore up, he'd been dragged that far by four or five men. Maybe they got tired of haulin' him along. Anyway, they beat his head into a pulp and left him layin' there."
"I'll be damned! That's hard news to hear," the Kid muttered. "Well, there's a couple of them Llanghoirs lying back there in the brush. Let's see if you know them. I surely don't."
A moment later we were standing in the tiny glade, now clear in the growing dawn. A cold form sprawled out on the matted forest floor, his head covered with drying blood and brains. There were wide smears of blood on the ground and bushes on the other side of the little clearing, but the wounded Llanghoirs was gone.
Carleton turned the carcass with his foot.
"One of them new Llanghoirs that came in with goddamn Santero," he muttered.
"Who the devil's that?" Johnny demanded.
"He's a strange albino that moved in after you left Brimstone. Nobody knows where he came from, no more than we know where any of these Llanghoirs was spawnded. Lives in that old cabin in the Neck...you know, the shack where Colonel Reynolds used to live."
"Suppose you ride on to town with me, Caleb," Johnny said, "and tell me about this business as we ride. The rest of you might scout around and see if you can scape up a wounded Llanghoir might be a-lying in the brush."
"I hope you'd be showin' up soon," opined Carleton, as we rode along the whitening road. "You're something of a legend in Brimstone, Johnny. The tales 'bout you are somethin' to make a man's hair stand up like a porcupine."
"Never mind all that guff. What the devil is happening?" the Kid inquired. "I don't know anything. A strange old woman dropped me word way over in New Mexico that I needed to return home. Naturally I rode back fast as I could. Three strange Llanghoirs waylaid me..." Johnny was curiously disinclined to mention the woman. "And now you tell me somebody killed Charlie Jackson. What's this mess all about?"
"The Llanghoirs killed Charlie to shut his mouth," announced Carleton. "That's the only way to figure it. They must have been close behind him when he knocked on Chubb Sorley's door. Charlie worked for Chubb Morley most of his life; he thought a lot of the old man. Some kind of deviltry's bein' brewed up in the deep woods, and Charlie wanted to warn the Chubb. That's the way I figure it."
"Warn him about what?"
"We don't know," confessed Carleton. "That's why we're all on edge. It feels like the explosion we all been dreading."
The Llanghoirs had first turned up one or two at a time more than fifty years earlier, before Texas was a state. Reclusive and secretive, they staked out small farmholds and kept to themselves. Over the years, more and more were glimpsed until eventually they seemed to be equal in numbers to everyone else. All had pale clammy skin, snow-white hair and nearly colorless light blue eyes. Were they all one huge incestuous inbred family? Did they suffer an unknown diseases? No one knew. But any person who crossed a Llanghoir even by accident met a gruesome fate within a few months. Sooner or later, the townspeople of Brimstone feared a violent showdown was inevitable.
"What makes you reckon that time has come?" Johnny asked.
"The Llanghoirs have all quit the area, for one thing. God knows where they're hiding. I ain't seen a Llanghoir in town for a week. And folks in Gatlingville and Torley say they haven't seen any of those devils either."
"Where could they have gone then?" the Kid asked.
"Beats the hide off me. They lit out a week ago. Probably hidin' down River."
Johnny found his matter-of-factness a bit ghastly, as if the actuality of the uprising were an assured fact. "Yeah, and what have you done 'bout it?" he demanded.
"Ain't much we could do," he confessed. "The Llanghoirs ain't made no open move, outside of killin' Charlie Jackson; and we couldn't prove who done that, or why they done it.
"They ain't done nothin' but clear out. But that's mighty suspicious. We can't keep from thinkin' Santero's behind it."
"Who is this ranny anyhow?" the Kid asked.
"I told you all I know, already. He got permission to settle in that old deserted cabin up river a few miles. He's a great big albino that talks with an accent no one recognizes. But he acts respectful enough. He had three or four big servants with him, and a pale girl which we don't know whether she's his daughter, sister, wife or What. He ain't been in to the town itsel but that one time, and a few weeks after he came to Brimstone, the Llanghoirs begun actin' curious. Some of the boys wanted to ride over and have a show-down, but that's takin' a desperate chance."
Johnny knew he was thinking of a ghastly tale told us by their grandfathers of how a vigilante mob going after a Llanghoir was brutally butchered among the dense thickets along Deadman's River. Not a single body was left intact, and the damage appeared to have been done not by weapons but by fangs and claws.
"Might take all our men to get at Santero," said Carleton. "And we don't dare leave the town unprotected. But we'll soon have to...hallo, what's this?"
They had emerged from the trees and were just entering the village of Brimstone itself. It was not imposing. Log cabins, neat and whitewashed, were plentiful enough. Small cottages clustered about big, old-fashioned houses which sheltered the rude aristocracy of that backwoods democracy. All the ruling families lived in town. The countryside was occupied by their tenants, and by the small independent farmers, both white and black. There was only one Mexican family in the area, and they were well liked for their tolerably good restaurant. Only painted boards over front doors marked which structures were the general store, restaurant and doctor's office.
A small log cabin stood near the point where the road wound out of the deep forest. Voices emanated from it, in accents of menace, and a tall lanky figure, rifle in hand, stood at the door.
"Howdy, Carleton!" this man hailed us. "By golly, if it ain't Johnny! Glad to see you, son."
"What's up, Dick?" asked Carleton.
"Got a colored boy in the shack, tryin' to make him talk. Bill Hathaway seen him sneakin' past the edge of town about daylight, up to no good, and nabbed him."
"Who is it?" the Kid asked.
"Old Felix, you know him, he lives with the Campbells. The boys are a mite on edge, they're not being gentle with him."
With a smothered oath, Johnny Packard swung down off his horse and strode in, followed by Carleton. Half a dozen men in boots and gunbelts clustered about a defiant figure sitting on an old broken bunk. Felix was a forlorn sight just then. He was a middle-aged man with plenty of grey in his balding hair and getting thick around the middle. And, despite his efforts to appear brave and defiant, there was fear in his eyes. Fresh bruises showed purple against the brown skin.
"Here's Johnny Packard!" laughed one of the men as the Kid pushed his way through the group. "I'll bet he'll get some answers."
One of the men was slapping an axe handle loudly into the palm of his free hand.
Johnny pushed it aside with a frown and went over to plant himself in front of the prisoner.
"You remember me and my family, Felix," the Kid said, "Have I ever mistreated you or done you any disrespect?"
"No, suh," came a low reply. "You're a good man."
"Then what are you afraid of? Why don't you speak up? Something's going on in the deep woods.. I want you to tell us why the Llanghoirs have all run away, why Charlie Jackson was killed, why the colored locals are acting so mysteriously."
"And what kind of devilment that cussed Santero's cookin' up over on Deadman's River!" shouted one of the men.
Felix seemed to shrink into himself at the mention of Santero.
"I don't dare speak up," he shuddered. "He'd put me in the ground for a night!"
"Who?" I demanded. "Santero? Is Santero bad medicine?"
Felix sank his head in his hands and did not answer.
Johnny laid a hand on his shoulder. "Felix," he said, "you know if you'll talk, we'll protect you. If you don't talk, I don't reckon Santero can treat you much rougher than these men are likely to. Now spill it, what's all the mysterious goings-on about?"
He lifted desperate eyes. "I'm sorry, I'm surely sorry but I don't dare speak. There's them that has eyes and ears everywhere and their hand can reach long.""
He capitulated, collapsed, and words tumbled from his livid lips.
"Santero's a Spellbinder. He come here because it's way off in back-country. He aim to kill all the white folks in Brimstone—"
A growl rose from the group, such a growl as rises unbidden from the throat of the wolf-pack that scents peril.
"He aim to make hisself king of Brimstone. I haven't taken no orders from him, but I know many of my folks that have been terrorized into working for him. Santero sent Leyla and some mean men to waylay you on thee road, cause he knows the reputation you have."
"Yeah? Good, keep talking, let it out," the Brimstone Kid urged.
"Santero knows magic. Voodoo and Juju, not the harmless love potions or good luck charms but real dangerous, blasphemous stuff. Charlie Jackson was goin' to go to the city to get the Rangers, so Santero's men follered him and killed him.
"What are you talking about?" I demanded.
Far out in the woods rose a strange, shrill cry, like the cry of a bird. But no such bird ever called before in Brimstone. Felix cried out as if in answer, and clapped both hands over his face. He seemed to be trying without success to force his mouth open.
"That was a signal!" I snapped. "Some of you go out there."
Half a dozen men hastened to follow the suggestion, and Johnny returned to the task of making Felix renew his revelations. It was useless. Some unnatural force had literally sealed his lips. He sat there shuddering in horror, and could only make muffled sounds. No one suggested further violence. Anyone could see the man was somehow not able to speak.
Presently the searchers returned empty-handed. They had seen no one, and the thick carpet of pine needles showed no foot-prints. The men looked at the Brimstone Kid expectantly.
"What about it, Johnny?" asked Carleton. "Morant and the others have just rode in. They couldn't find that albino you cut up."
"There was another Llanghoir I pistol-whipped," the Kid said. "Maybe he came back and helped him." Still he could not bring himself to mention the strange pale girl. "Leave Felix alone. Maybe he'll get over his scare after a while. Better keep a guard in the cabin all the time. The Llanghoirs may try to get him as they got Charlie Jackson. Better scour the roads around the town, there may be some of them hiding in the woods."
"I will. I reckon you've got plans of yer own?"
"You reckon rightly. I'm going to ride out and tell the country people to come into Brimstone. If it's to be a no-foolin' war, we don't know when it will commence."
"You're not goin' alone!" protested Carleton.
"I can take care of myself," Johnny Packard answered impatiently. "All this may not amount to anything, but it's best to be on the safe side. That's why I'm going to give alarm to the country folks. No, I don't want anybody to go with me. Just in case the Llanghoirs do get crazy enough to attack the town, you'll need every man you've got. But if I can get hold of some of the Llanghoirs and intimidate 'em, I don't think there'll be any attack."
"You won't get a glimpse of them," Carleton predicted.
III.
It was just past noon when Johnny rode out of the town westward along the old Schoolhouse Road. Thick woods engulfed him quickly. Dense walls of pines and oaks marched with him on either hand, giving way occasionally to fields enclosed with straggling rail fences, with the log cabins of the tenants or owners close by, with the usual litters of children running in circles and aged hound dogs drowsing. There was some cattle, some pigs and goats to be seen.
Most of the cabins were empty. The occupants, if white, had already fled to nearby Bailey; if black, they had more likely gone into the deep woods. In any case, the vacancy of their hovels was sinister in its suggestion of impending disaster.
A tense silence brooded over the forest, broken only by the occasional call of a plowman. Progress was not swift, for from time to time the Kid turned off the main road to give warning to some lonely cabin huddled on the bank of one of the many thicket-fringed creeks. Most of these farms were south of the road; the settlements did not extend far to the north; for in that direction lay Deadman's River with its sparse arable soil.
The actual warning he gave was brief, no time to argue or explain. He called from the saddle, "Get into town; trouble's brewing in Brimstone." Faces paled at the news, and people dropped whatever they were doing: the men to grab guns and to unfasten mules from the plow to hitch to the wagons, the women to bundle necessary belongings together and fetch the children in from their play. As he rode on, Johnny heard the cowhorns blowing up and down the creeks, summoning men from distant fields That mournful blowing was a danger alarm not sounded for a generation.
The sun was swinging low over the topmost branches of the trees when Johnny reached the Richardson cabin, the westernmost cabin in Brimstone. Beyond it lay the crook of Deadman's River, where blighted soil yielded no crops and no settler had stayed long.
Mrs. Richardson called to him anxiously from the cabin stoop. "Well, Johnny I'm glad to see you back in these parts! We been hearin' the horns all evenin' but what's it mean? It—it ain't...?"
"You and Joe better get the children and light out for Bailey," he answered. "Nothing's happened yet, and it may not, but it's best to be on the safe side. All the people are taking precautions."
"We'll go right now!" she gasped as she snatched off her apron. "Lord, you reckon those freaks'll cut us off before we can git to town?"
The kid shook his head. "I calculate they'll strike at night, if at all. We're just playing safe. Probably nothing will come of it."
"I'm feared you're wrong there," she predicted, scurrying about in desperate activity. "I been hearin' a drum beatin' off toward Santero's cabin, off and on, for a week now. They beat drums back in the day of the slaughter. My pappy's told me about it many's the time. Our cowhorns was blowin' all up and down the creeks, but the drums was beatin' louder'n the horns could blow. You'll be ridin' back with us, won't you, Mr. Kirby?"
"No; I'm going to scout down along the trail a piece."
"Don't go too far. You're liable to run into old Santero and his devils. Lord! Where is that man? Joe! Joe!"
As I rode down the trail her shrill voice followed me, edged with raw fear.
Beyond the Richardson farm, pines gave way entirely to live-oaks. The underbrush grew ranker. A scent of rotting vegetation impregnated the fitful breeze. Occasionally I sighted a delapidated hut, half hidden under the trees, but always it stood silent and deserted. All these abandoned cabins meant but one thing: the tenants were collecting at Jubal, some miles to the east across Deadman's River. That gathering, too, could have but one meaning.
Johnny's goal was Santero's hut. There could be no doubt that Santero was the dominant figure in this web of mystery. Risking his life was nothing new to an outsider like the Brimstone Kid.
The sun slanted through the lower branches of the trees when Johnny reached a log cabin set against a background of gloomy thickly wooded depression. A few steps beyond it began the uninhabitable wetlands.
Vaulting down from the saddle, right hand on his gun butt, the Kid called: "Santero! Santero, you unholy beast! Come out here!"
No answer came. In the silence, Johnny tied Terror's reins loosely to a tree and approached the crude, heavy door. Perhaps this cabin held a clue to the mystery of Santero; at least it doubtless contained the implements and paraphernalia of his wicked craft. The Kid had dealt with warlocks and bad medicine in his time, he took black magic seriously. The faint breeze dropped suddenly. The stillness became so intense it was like a physical impact.
As he stood there every fiber quivered in response to that subconscious warning; some obscure, deep-hidden instinct sensed peril. Johnny drew his right hand pistol, sweeping the trees and bushes with its barrel, but saw no shadow or movement to betray the ambush he feared. More annoyed than fearful, he strode toward the cabin.
And abruptly he stopped short, with one boot on the tiny stoop, and a hand half advanced to pull open the door. Despite all the eerie threats he had faced, he felt true fear for the first time. Touching that door would have been as perilous as trying to grab a rearing rattlesnake.
Old Machingtook had warned Johnny how some shaman could leave their tents or teepees guarded in their absence by an infernal spirit which dealt madness and death to the intruder. The intruders were found either babbling nonsense or lying dead with their faces contorted in terror. These Llanghoirs were worse than any Indian medicine man or Celtic witch. Johnny sensed the eagerness of the evil spirit to strike him down. He drew back and saw his gunhand was trembling.
Santero was not there, but that did not mean the hut was unguarded.
10/9-10/12/1881
I.
"Return To Brimstone!" the pale old woman whispered from under her shawl. An order that would shoot cold fear along the spine of any man who was raused in that isolated town called Brimstone, that lies by Deadman's River... to draw him irresistably back to that obscure region, wherever the word might reach him.
It was only a whisper from the withered lips of a shuffling crone, who vanished among the crowd outside the Wagon Wheel Saloon before Johnny could question her but it was enough. He felt no need to question by what mysterious covert way the word had come to her. No need to inquire what obscure forces worked to impart that message to a Brimstone townsman. He knew he would answer.
How could anyone from Brimstone, Texas fail to answer that command?
Within an hour, dust was being raised further behind Johnny with every stride of his great black stallion Terror. To every man born in Brimstone, there always remained a subtle bond that would drew him back if his hometown was imperiled by the menace that had lurked in its shadows for more than a century.
Johnny Packard reached the Texas border at dusk of the following day. At the town limits was a Western Union station where he paused to fire off three desperate telegrams to the widely scattered places where he might hope to reach help from one man he trusted. He stopped at a stable outside the town of Bailey to rest and water his horse. As a lanky boy fastened rubbed down the stallion, Johnny turned to the owner of the stable, fat old Jackson Rafferty with his battered chamberpot hat and dingy overalls.
Johnny had yanked off his open black vest and red flannel shirt and was swabbing his grimy torso with handfuls of water from the trough. He was small but wiry, no more than five feet five and maybe a hundred and fifty pounds at most. Johnny Packard had shaggy red hair over a lean, clean-shaven face. In the setting sun, his green eyes seemed to spark with a catlike lambent gleam. "Is it true they is rumors of trouble in Brimstone?"
Rafferty stepped back as if he felt threatened. "I don't rightly know. There's been unsettling talk. But you Brimstone folks aren't what might be called talkative. No one outside knows what really goes on in that town..."
"True enough," Johnny replied as if ending the conversation. He had a handful of silver dollars on him, which which he purchased some oats for Terror's canvas feed bag, dried beef and beans and tea leaves for himself, as well as a box of 45 cartridges that old Rafferty happened to have on hand. Then it was time to move on. As darkness neared, Terror grew restless and agitated as usual. They both needed little rest after years under their curse.
The dusk deepened as Johnny rode west along the pike.
The moon rose red as fire over the scattered Live Oak trees which reached up twenty feet. A lone pecan tree caught Johnny's eye, he hadn't seen one for years. An owl hooted his omens away off in the woods, and somewhere a hound howled in mournful reply. In the darkness, Johnny crossed Sterling Creek, a streak of shining black fringed by walls of solid shadows. His horse's hooves splashed through the shallow water and clinked on the wet stones, startlingly loud in the stillness. Beyond that creek began the territory claimed by Brimstone.
It took stern resolve for him to leave his black Stetson hanging on its cord down by his shoulder blades. Tucked in the beaded hatband was the mysterious coin of red metal he had been given by the elderly shaman Machingtok. He felt the nagging urge to put his hat on. If that token was near his forehead after dark, he would yield his humanity and unleash the Brimstone Kid once again. Tonight was not right to set that demonic presence free.
The woods thickened, the road narrowed, winding through unfenced pinelands, broken by live-oaks and cypresses. There was no sound except the soft clop of hoofs in the thin dust, the creak of the saddle. Then someone laughed throatily in the shadows.
The Kid drew up and peered into the trees. The moon was high in the hazy night sky and by its glow, he made out a dim figure under the low branches. Johnny's right hand automatically dropped to the butt of one of the matched Peacemakers he wore, and the action brought another low, musical laugh, mocking. Johnny glimpsed a strangely compelling oval face with a pair of almost colorless eyes and white teeth displayed in an insolent smile.
"Who in tarnation are you?" he demanded.
"Why do you ride so late, Johnny Packard?" Taunting laughter bubbled in the voice. The accent was foreign and unfamiliar, but it was appealed to his ear. In the elaborate pile of white hair a single red blossom glimmered in the darkness.
"What's an unescorted lady doing way out here?" the Kid demanded. "You're a long way from town. And you're a stranger to me."
"I moved to Brimstone since you went away," she answered. "My cabin is on the Deadman's River. But now I've lost my way. And my poor brother has hurt his leg and cannot walk."
"Where might this brother be?" the Kid asked, uneasily. He was remembering now all the memories he had tried to hard to bury away. The weird albino-like clan with their pink eyes and long thin spidery limbs.
"Back in the woods, there, far back!" She indicated the black depths with a swaying motion of her supple body rather than a gesture of her hand, smiling audaciously as she did so.
Johnny knew of course there was no injured brother, and she realized he knew it. But the knowledge amused her. The woman's long pointed chin, sharp nose and narrow oblique eyes should not have been attractive but somehow they had an unsettling effect on the young wanderer.
Johnny found himself dismounting and tying his horse to a branch. The black stallion shifted its weight from one leg to another, snorting angrily. For once, the Brimstone Kid disregarded Terror's instincts. He scowled at the pale woman, deeply suspicious yet fascinated.
"How do you know my handle? Who are you, lady?"
With a sly laugh, she seized my hand and drew him deeper into the shadows. Fascinated by the lights gleaming in her eyes, he was hardly aware of her action.
"Who does not know Johnny Packard?" she laughed. "All the people of this area speak often of you, the Brimstone Kid himself. Come! My poor brother longs to look upon you!" And she laughed with malicious triumph.
It was this brazen effrontery that brought him to his senses. She overplayed the act. Her mockery broke the almost hypnotic spell into which Johnny had fallen. He flung her hand aside and spat, "You think you can play me for a lovesick fool, do you?"
Instantly the smiling siren was changed to a blood-mad jungle cat. Her eyes flamed murderously, her red lips writhed in a snarl as she leaped back, crying out shrilly. A rush of bare feet answered her call. The first faint light of dawn struck through the branches, revealing three gaunt assailants. Johnny saw the gleaming whites of their eyes, their bare glistening teeth, the sheen of naked steel in their hands.
His first bullet crashed through the head of the tallest man, striking him dead in mid-stride. The next pale man had already lunged in close enough to grapple. The Kid smashed his gun into that grimacing face. As the man fell, half stunned, he saw the final attacker stabbing forward with a wide-bladed hunting knife. Johnny parried the stab by grabbing the man's wrist and forced that hand back so the point ripped across the attacker's belly-muscles. He screamed like a panther. Johnny crashed his gun barrel in that man's mouth and felt those lips split under the impact. He reeled backward, waving his knife wildly in confusion. Before he could regain his balance, Johnny was after him and, instead of firing, struck the man hard across the top of his head with the Colt barrel. The man groaned and slipped to the ground as life left him.
Johnny wheeled about, seeking the surviving other. He was just rising, blood streaming down his face and neck. As the Kid started for him, the strange man sounded a panicky yell and plunged away into the underbrush. The crashing of his blind flight came back, muffled with distance. The girl was gone. Johnny was left shuddering at what he had clashed with already. The Llanghoirs.
II.
Dawn showed the girl had vanished.
The black horse snorted and pulled against his tether, excited by the smell of blood that hung in the heavy damp air. Terror had long been changed as much as Johnny had by the Brimstone Kid curse, perhaps more so. Hoofs clattered down the road, forms bulked in the growing light. Voices challenged.
"Who's that? Step out and name yourself, before we shoot!"
"Hold yer fire, Lucas!" the Kid called. "It's only me, Johnny Packard!"
"Johnny Packard!" exclaimed Lucas Carleton, lowering his pistol. The tall rangy forms of the other riders loomed behind him.
"We heard a shot," said Carleton. "We was ridin' patrol on the roads around Grimesville like we've been ridin' every night for a week now, ever since they killed Charlie Jackson."
"What? Who killed Charlie Jackson?"
"The Llanghoirs. That's all we know. Charlie come out of the woods early one mornin' and knocked at Chubb Sorley's door. Chubb says he was the color of ashes. He hollered for Chubb for God's sake to let him in, he had somethin' awful to tell him. Well, Chubb started down to open the door, but before he'd got down the stairs he heard an awful row among the dogs outside, and a man screamed he reckoned was Charlie. And when he got to the door, there wasn't nothin' but a dead dog layin' in the yard with his head knocked in, and the others all goin' crazy. They found Charlie later, out in the pines a few hundred yards from the house. From the way the ground and the bushes was tore up, he'd been dragged that far by four or five men. Maybe they got tired of haulin' him along. Anyway, they beat his head into a pulp and left him layin' there."
"I'll be damned! That's hard news to hear," the Kid muttered. "Well, there's a couple of them Llanghoirs lying back there in the brush. Let's see if you know them. I surely don't."
A moment later we were standing in the tiny glade, now clear in the growing dawn. A cold form sprawled out on the matted forest floor, his head covered with drying blood and brains. There were wide smears of blood on the ground and bushes on the other side of the little clearing, but the wounded Llanghoirs was gone.
Carleton turned the carcass with his foot.
"One of them new Llanghoirs that came in with goddamn Santero," he muttered.
"Who the devil's that?" Johnny demanded.
"He's a strange albino that moved in after you left Brimstone. Nobody knows where he came from, no more than we know where any of these Llanghoirs was spawnded. Lives in that old cabin in the Neck...you know, the shack where Colonel Reynolds used to live."
"Suppose you ride on to town with me, Caleb," Johnny said, "and tell me about this business as we ride. The rest of you might scout around and see if you can scape up a wounded Llanghoir might be a-lying in the brush."
"I hope you'd be showin' up soon," opined Carleton, as we rode along the whitening road. "You're something of a legend in Brimstone, Johnny. The tales 'bout you are somethin' to make a man's hair stand up like a porcupine."
"Never mind all that guff. What the devil is happening?" the Kid inquired. "I don't know anything. A strange old woman dropped me word way over in New Mexico that I needed to return home. Naturally I rode back fast as I could. Three strange Llanghoirs waylaid me..." Johnny was curiously disinclined to mention the woman. "And now you tell me somebody killed Charlie Jackson. What's this mess all about?"
"The Llanghoirs killed Charlie to shut his mouth," announced Carleton. "That's the only way to figure it. They must have been close behind him when he knocked on Chubb Sorley's door. Charlie worked for Chubb Morley most of his life; he thought a lot of the old man. Some kind of deviltry's bein' brewed up in the deep woods, and Charlie wanted to warn the Chubb. That's the way I figure it."
"Warn him about what?"
"We don't know," confessed Carleton. "That's why we're all on edge. It feels like the explosion we all been dreading."
The Llanghoirs had first turned up one or two at a time more than fifty years earlier, before Texas was a state. Reclusive and secretive, they staked out small farmholds and kept to themselves. Over the years, more and more were glimpsed until eventually they seemed to be equal in numbers to everyone else. All had pale clammy skin, snow-white hair and nearly colorless light blue eyes. Were they all one huge incestuous inbred family? Did they suffer an unknown diseases? No one knew. But any person who crossed a Llanghoir even by accident met a gruesome fate within a few months. Sooner or later, the townspeople of Brimstone feared a violent showdown was inevitable.
"What makes you reckon that time has come?" Johnny asked.
"The Llanghoirs have all quit the area, for one thing. God knows where they're hiding. I ain't seen a Llanghoir in town for a week. And folks in Gatlingville and Torley say they haven't seen any of those devils either."
"Where could they have gone then?" the Kid asked.
"Beats the hide off me. They lit out a week ago. Probably hidin' down River."
Johnny found his matter-of-factness a bit ghastly, as if the actuality of the uprising were an assured fact. "Yeah, and what have you done 'bout it?" he demanded.
"Ain't much we could do," he confessed. "The Llanghoirs ain't made no open move, outside of killin' Charlie Jackson; and we couldn't prove who done that, or why they done it.
"They ain't done nothin' but clear out. But that's mighty suspicious. We can't keep from thinkin' Santero's behind it."
"Who is this ranny anyhow?" the Kid asked.
"I told you all I know, already. He got permission to settle in that old deserted cabin up river a few miles. He's a great big albino that talks with an accent no one recognizes. But he acts respectful enough. He had three or four big servants with him, and a pale girl which we don't know whether she's his daughter, sister, wife or What. He ain't been in to the town itsel but that one time, and a few weeks after he came to Brimstone, the Llanghoirs begun actin' curious. Some of the boys wanted to ride over and have a show-down, but that's takin' a desperate chance."
Johnny knew he was thinking of a ghastly tale told us by their grandfathers of how a vigilante mob going after a Llanghoir was brutally butchered among the dense thickets along Deadman's River. Not a single body was left intact, and the damage appeared to have been done not by weapons but by fangs and claws.
"Might take all our men to get at Santero," said Carleton. "And we don't dare leave the town unprotected. But we'll soon have to...hallo, what's this?"
They had emerged from the trees and were just entering the village of Brimstone itself. It was not imposing. Log cabins, neat and whitewashed, were plentiful enough. Small cottages clustered about big, old-fashioned houses which sheltered the rude aristocracy of that backwoods democracy. All the ruling families lived in town. The countryside was occupied by their tenants, and by the small independent farmers, both white and black. There was only one Mexican family in the area, and they were well liked for their tolerably good restaurant. Only painted boards over front doors marked which structures were the general store, restaurant and doctor's office.
A small log cabin stood near the point where the road wound out of the deep forest. Voices emanated from it, in accents of menace, and a tall lanky figure, rifle in hand, stood at the door.
"Howdy, Carleton!" this man hailed us. "By golly, if it ain't Johnny! Glad to see you, son."
"What's up, Dick?" asked Carleton.
"Got a colored boy in the shack, tryin' to make him talk. Bill Hathaway seen him sneakin' past the edge of town about daylight, up to no good, and nabbed him."
"Who is it?" the Kid asked.
"Old Felix, you know him, he lives with the Campbells. The boys are a mite on edge, they're not being gentle with him."
With a smothered oath, Johnny Packard swung down off his horse and strode in, followed by Carleton. Half a dozen men in boots and gunbelts clustered about a defiant figure sitting on an old broken bunk. Felix was a forlorn sight just then. He was a middle-aged man with plenty of grey in his balding hair and getting thick around the middle. And, despite his efforts to appear brave and defiant, there was fear in his eyes. Fresh bruises showed purple against the brown skin.
"Here's Johnny Packard!" laughed one of the men as the Kid pushed his way through the group. "I'll bet he'll get some answers."
One of the men was slapping an axe handle loudly into the palm of his free hand.
Johnny pushed it aside with a frown and went over to plant himself in front of the prisoner.
"You remember me and my family, Felix," the Kid said, "Have I ever mistreated you or done you any disrespect?"
"No, suh," came a low reply. "You're a good man."
"Then what are you afraid of? Why don't you speak up? Something's going on in the deep woods.. I want you to tell us why the Llanghoirs have all run away, why Charlie Jackson was killed, why the colored locals are acting so mysteriously."
"And what kind of devilment that cussed Santero's cookin' up over on Deadman's River!" shouted one of the men.
Felix seemed to shrink into himself at the mention of Santero.
"I don't dare speak up," he shuddered. "He'd put me in the ground for a night!"
"Who?" I demanded. "Santero? Is Santero bad medicine?"
Felix sank his head in his hands and did not answer.
Johnny laid a hand on his shoulder. "Felix," he said, "you know if you'll talk, we'll protect you. If you don't talk, I don't reckon Santero can treat you much rougher than these men are likely to. Now spill it, what's all the mysterious goings-on about?"
He lifted desperate eyes. "I'm sorry, I'm surely sorry but I don't dare speak. There's them that has eyes and ears everywhere and their hand can reach long.""
He capitulated, collapsed, and words tumbled from his livid lips.
"Santero's a Spellbinder. He come here because it's way off in back-country. He aim to kill all the white folks in Brimstone—"
A growl rose from the group, such a growl as rises unbidden from the throat of the wolf-pack that scents peril.
"He aim to make hisself king of Brimstone. I haven't taken no orders from him, but I know many of my folks that have been terrorized into working for him. Santero sent Leyla and some mean men to waylay you on thee road, cause he knows the reputation you have."
"Yeah? Good, keep talking, let it out," the Brimstone Kid urged.
"Santero knows magic. Voodoo and Juju, not the harmless love potions or good luck charms but real dangerous, blasphemous stuff. Charlie Jackson was goin' to go to the city to get the Rangers, so Santero's men follered him and killed him.
"What are you talking about?" I demanded.
Far out in the woods rose a strange, shrill cry, like the cry of a bird. But no such bird ever called before in Brimstone. Felix cried out as if in answer, and clapped both hands over his face. He seemed to be trying without success to force his mouth open.
"That was a signal!" I snapped. "Some of you go out there."
Half a dozen men hastened to follow the suggestion, and Johnny returned to the task of making Felix renew his revelations. It was useless. Some unnatural force had literally sealed his lips. He sat there shuddering in horror, and could only make muffled sounds. No one suggested further violence. Anyone could see the man was somehow not able to speak.
Presently the searchers returned empty-handed. They had seen no one, and the thick carpet of pine needles showed no foot-prints. The men looked at the Brimstone Kid expectantly.
"What about it, Johnny?" asked Carleton. "Morant and the others have just rode in. They couldn't find that albino you cut up."
"There was another Llanghoir I pistol-whipped," the Kid said. "Maybe he came back and helped him." Still he could not bring himself to mention the strange pale girl. "Leave Felix alone. Maybe he'll get over his scare after a while. Better keep a guard in the cabin all the time. The Llanghoirs may try to get him as they got Charlie Jackson. Better scour the roads around the town, there may be some of them hiding in the woods."
"I will. I reckon you've got plans of yer own?"
"You reckon rightly. I'm going to ride out and tell the country people to come into Brimstone. If it's to be a no-foolin' war, we don't know when it will commence."
"You're not goin' alone!" protested Carleton.
"I can take care of myself," Johnny Packard answered impatiently. "All this may not amount to anything, but it's best to be on the safe side. That's why I'm going to give alarm to the country folks. No, I don't want anybody to go with me. Just in case the Llanghoirs do get crazy enough to attack the town, you'll need every man you've got. But if I can get hold of some of the Llanghoirs and intimidate 'em, I don't think there'll be any attack."
"You won't get a glimpse of them," Carleton predicted.
III.
It was just past noon when Johnny rode out of the town westward along the old Schoolhouse Road. Thick woods engulfed him quickly. Dense walls of pines and oaks marched with him on either hand, giving way occasionally to fields enclosed with straggling rail fences, with the log cabins of the tenants or owners close by, with the usual litters of children running in circles and aged hound dogs drowsing. There was some cattle, some pigs and goats to be seen.
Most of the cabins were empty. The occupants, if white, had already fled to nearby Bailey; if black, they had more likely gone into the deep woods. In any case, the vacancy of their hovels was sinister in its suggestion of impending disaster.
A tense silence brooded over the forest, broken only by the occasional call of a plowman. Progress was not swift, for from time to time the Kid turned off the main road to give warning to some lonely cabin huddled on the bank of one of the many thicket-fringed creeks. Most of these farms were south of the road; the settlements did not extend far to the north; for in that direction lay Deadman's River with its sparse arable soil.
The actual warning he gave was brief, no time to argue or explain. He called from the saddle, "Get into town; trouble's brewing in Brimstone." Faces paled at the news, and people dropped whatever they were doing: the men to grab guns and to unfasten mules from the plow to hitch to the wagons, the women to bundle necessary belongings together and fetch the children in from their play. As he rode on, Johnny heard the cowhorns blowing up and down the creeks, summoning men from distant fields That mournful blowing was a danger alarm not sounded for a generation.
The sun was swinging low over the topmost branches of the trees when Johnny reached the Richardson cabin, the westernmost cabin in Brimstone. Beyond it lay the crook of Deadman's River, where blighted soil yielded no crops and no settler had stayed long.
Mrs. Richardson called to him anxiously from the cabin stoop. "Well, Johnny I'm glad to see you back in these parts! We been hearin' the horns all evenin' but what's it mean? It—it ain't...?"
"You and Joe better get the children and light out for Bailey," he answered. "Nothing's happened yet, and it may not, but it's best to be on the safe side. All the people are taking precautions."
"We'll go right now!" she gasped as she snatched off her apron. "Lord, you reckon those freaks'll cut us off before we can git to town?"
The kid shook his head. "I calculate they'll strike at night, if at all. We're just playing safe. Probably nothing will come of it."
"I'm feared you're wrong there," she predicted, scurrying about in desperate activity. "I been hearin' a drum beatin' off toward Santero's cabin, off and on, for a week now. They beat drums back in the day of the slaughter. My pappy's told me about it many's the time. Our cowhorns was blowin' all up and down the creeks, but the drums was beatin' louder'n the horns could blow. You'll be ridin' back with us, won't you, Mr. Kirby?"
"No; I'm going to scout down along the trail a piece."
"Don't go too far. You're liable to run into old Santero and his devils. Lord! Where is that man? Joe! Joe!"
As I rode down the trail her shrill voice followed me, edged with raw fear.
Beyond the Richardson farm, pines gave way entirely to live-oaks. The underbrush grew ranker. A scent of rotting vegetation impregnated the fitful breeze. Occasionally I sighted a delapidated hut, half hidden under the trees, but always it stood silent and deserted. All these abandoned cabins meant but one thing: the tenants were collecting at Jubal, some miles to the east across Deadman's River. That gathering, too, could have but one meaning.
Johnny's goal was Santero's hut. There could be no doubt that Santero was the dominant figure in this web of mystery. Risking his life was nothing new to an outsider like the Brimstone Kid.
The sun slanted through the lower branches of the trees when Johnny reached a log cabin set against a background of gloomy thickly wooded depression. A few steps beyond it began the uninhabitable wetlands.
Vaulting down from the saddle, right hand on his gun butt, the Kid called: "Santero! Santero, you unholy beast! Come out here!"
No answer came. In the silence, Johnny tied Terror's reins loosely to a tree and approached the crude, heavy door. Perhaps this cabin held a clue to the mystery of Santero; at least it doubtless contained the implements and paraphernalia of his wicked craft. The Kid had dealt with warlocks and bad medicine in his time, he took black magic seriously. The faint breeze dropped suddenly. The stillness became so intense it was like a physical impact.
As he stood there every fiber quivered in response to that subconscious warning; some obscure, deep-hidden instinct sensed peril. Johnny drew his right hand pistol, sweeping the trees and bushes with its barrel, but saw no shadow or movement to betray the ambush he feared. More annoyed than fearful, he strode toward the cabin.
And abruptly he stopped short, with one boot on the tiny stoop, and a hand half advanced to pull open the door. Despite all the eerie threats he had faced, he felt true fear for the first time. Touching that door would have been as perilous as trying to grab a rearing rattlesnake.
Old Machingtook had warned Johnny how some shaman could leave their tents or teepees guarded in their absence by an infernal spirit which dealt madness and death to the intruder. The intruders were found either babbling nonsense or lying dead with their faces contorted in terror. These Llanghoirs were worse than any Indian medicine man or Celtic witch. Johnny sensed the eagerness of the evil spirit to strike him down. He drew back and saw his gunhand was trembling.
Santero was not there, but that did not mean the hut was unguarded.
