Deadman's Crossing by Joe R. Lansdale Read Free Book Online Page B

the open gap, grabbed the interior latch, swung the door open and climbed inside. He touched the woman’s throat. She moved a little, groaned again. Jebidiah turned her face and looked at it. She was a handsome woman with a big dark bruise on her forehead. Her hair was as red as a campfire. She wore a tight-fitting green dress, some fancy green shoes. She wore a lot of makeup. He lifted her to a sitting position. She fluttered her eyes open, jumped a little.
    Jebidiah tried to give her a smile, but he was no good at it. “It’s okay, lady,” he said. “I am here to help.”
    “Thanks. But I need you to let me lift my ass. I’m sitting on my umbrella.”
    Jebidiah helped her out of the stagecoach, into the hotel and upstairs. He put her on the bed he had shaken the dust from, gave her a snort of the whisky, which she took like a trouper. In fact, she took the bottle from him and took a long deep swig. She slapped the umbrella, which had a loop for her wrist, against the bed.
    “Damn, if that don’t cut the dust,” she said.
    Jebidiah pulled a chair beside the bed and sat. “What’s your name?” he said.
    “Mary,” she said disengaging herself from the umbrella, tossing it onto the end of the bed.
    “I’m Jebidiah. What happened? Where are the stage horses?”
    “Eat up,” she said. “Them, the driver, and the shotgunner too.”
    “Eaten?”
    Mary nodded.
    “Tell me about it.”
    “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
    “You might be surprised.”
    And then, after another shot of whisky, she told it.
    “I’m a working girl, as you may have already noticed. I am late of Austin, Texas, and Miss Mattie Jane’s establishment. But Mattie met a man, got married, sold her place, made a deal with the madam here in Falling Rock for my services, as well as the remaining girls. I was the only one that took her up on the deal. The others spread out across Texas like prairie chickens.
    “Must say, I thought there would be more to Falling Rock than this. Thought it would be a sizable town. And maybe it was. I figure what ever got the driver and shotgunner, as well as a whisky drummer in the coach with me, got most of the town, too. Hadn’t been for my umbrella, I’d be dead. I was surprised at how well I was able to protect myself with it.
    “We came into town late last night, me ready to start my job here at the Gentleman’s Hotel, ready to buck pussy, when a strange thing occurred. No sooner had the stage entered the town, then a shadow, heavy as if it had weight, fell across the place and sort of lay there. You could see the moon, you could see the town, but the shadow flowed between buildings and into the stagecoach. It became hard to breathe. It was like trying to suck down flannel instead of air. Then the stage shadow flowed away and the stage rolled on, stopped in front of the hotel. The stage shook real hard and then I heard a noise. A kind of screech, unlike anything I had ever heard. Then I remembered one of my old johns telling about being in an Indian fight, and that it had been close and hand to hand, and the horses had been wounded, and there had been a fire in a barn that the Indians set, and the horses inside burned alive. He said the horses screamed. Somehow, I knew that was what I was hearing. Screaming horses. Except there wasn’t any fire to burn them. But something was scaring them, causing them pain.
    “The stagecoach shook and tumbled over. I heard the shotgun go off a couple of times, and next thing I knew the driver and the shotgunner were yelling. The whisky drummer stuck his head out of the overturned window, jerked it back again. He turned and looked at me. His face, even in the night, was as white as the hairs on an albino’s ass. He pulled a derringer, then there was a face at the window. I ain’t never seen a face like it. I couldn’t place it. My mind wouldn’t wrap around it.
    “The drummer fired his derringer, and the face jerked back, then it filled the window