Hawthorne: Tales of a Weirder West by Heath Lowrance Read Free Book Online Page A

night," the man said, grinning like a spoiled, satisfied child. "You've seen the work I've done. You can't tell me I'm a madman."
    "Whatever the case, it ends here and now."
    The man said, "No, I'm afraid not. Whether you are God or the Devil, you are rubbish now. You are an ingredient."
    The man fished into his valise again, came out with a machete. The steel gleamed gold in the gas lamp. He moved toward Hawthorne, roaring.
    Behind Hawthorne, a gun boomed once, echoing through the car, nearly rupturing his ear drums. The big man screeched in pain, dropped the machete and clutched his hand.
    Hawthorne turned, saw a man standing there behind a veil of gun smoke, his face twisted with fear. He still pointed the gun at the monster but didn't fire again.
    Hawthorne knew him. He had a wanted poster in his coat pocket with the man's face on it.
    He grabbed the gun away from Bill Cobb, who didn't try to stop him, and turned his attention back to the big man, who was howling and trying to stop the flow of blood from his shattered hand.
    Hawthorne shook his head. The monster took two bullets to the chest and hardly blinked, but a bullet in the hand and he was falling to pieces.
    He took the three paces calmly, placed the barrel against the monster's head, and pulled the trigger.
    The big man fell, but he wasn't dead. Hawthorne pumped another bullet into his head, shattering bone, and brain matter painted the floor along with all the blood. The big man twitched, even with half his face gone.
    "Sonofabitch," Hawthorne said.
    He picked up the machete, took a deep breath, and lopped off the big man's head.
    That did the trick.
    Weak now with blood loss, Hawthorne dropped the machete and turned back to Cobb, who stood there in shock.
    "Where'd you come from?"
    Cobb stared in horror at the corpses all around. They finally stopped moving and moaning—the big man's death meant their death. He said, "I ... I was in the caboose. I locked myself in. It was ... it was horrible. A nightmare. Jesus God, it was the most horrible thing I've ever seen. When I saw you go into that passenger car, I worked up the courage to come out. Thought maybe it was safe then."
    "Where's your wife?"
    Cobb finally looked at Hawthorne. "My ... my wife?"
    "Bette Cobb. Where is she?"
    "Mister, how do you know—"
    "Where?"
    Cobb sighed, motioned with his head toward the woman at the other end of the car, the one who's head the big man had been sawing off. He said, "There. There's my Bette. I couldn't save her."
    "You left her here while you ran off to hide."
    "No, mister, it wasn't like that, I swear! I tried to save her, I really did! But I—"
    "And Bette's sister, in Carson City. You killed her."
    "How do you know that? Jesus Christ, who are you? I swear, I didn't—"
    Hawthorne raised the gun and pointed it at Cobb. He said, "I'm here to kill you, Bill Cobb."
    Cobb began backing up, hands in the air. "Christ, no. Mister, don't. Not after all this. Please ... I ... I helped you just now! I saved your life! You owe me."
    Hawthorne considered for a moment, then said, "I reckon you're right. I do owe you."
    Cobb breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank God!"
    Hawthorne pulled the hammer back. "I'll make it quick."
    * * *
    The sun was coming up by the time the train ran dry of coal and rolled to a stop in the middle of the forest. Hawthorne got off the train alone.
    He looked back at it once, just in time to see something scurry out of the passenger car he'd just vacated.
    From a distance, it looked like an enormous, filthy rat, the size of a raccoon.
    But in half a second, it was gone, disappeared into the pines. Hawthorne turned and walked away.
     
     
     
     
    †



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Part One
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A Reckoning
     
     
    Hawthorne came across the Lakota camp in mid-afternoon, with the autumn sun burning hard in the sky. The camp had been decimated, teepees burnt and food stocks scattered. Corpses littered the ground.
    He reined in the horse at the edge of the camp, dismounted, and let the