Gunmen in Black
After battle come unsettling visitors.
The battle between the United States Army and Modoc Tribe raged across the lava beds, leaving behind the flotsam and jetsam of war. Moaning horses lay in troughs of churned earth. Dead hands gripped fallen standards. Bodies lay in a litter of spilled cartridges, bayonet shards, fragments of clothing, and bits of photographs and letters from home. And onto this field stepped three gunmen in black.
Bo “Bronco” Riley hit the dirt. The hell’d they come from? he thought as he wriggled behind the body of a dead horse and peeked around for another look.
All three of the figures were tall and moved queerly, loosely, like wind chimes affixed by their skulls while the rest of their bones dangled underneath. They formed a knot, heads down, brims of their broad black hats and black bandannas obscuring their faces. Then they separated, fanning out through the detritus.
Bronco, who had gained his nickname after riding a particularly rebellious mustang in his village down south as a boy, was accustomed to cursing God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Mother Mary, her mama Anne, the angels and whoever else kept their company, and he did so now, under his breath, but in the foulest of terms. He had come to scavenge this battlefield and the heavenly powers wouldn’t even grant him that without a fight.
The pulse is still quick in these poor bastards’ veins, he thought, looking at the victims of war around him, and I have to deal with these three cowpunchers out of God knows where!
He looked at the sack in his hand. The hilt of a cavalry saber protruded from the top. It was silver and wrought in floral patterns. After filching the weapon, he had only had enough time to grab a tin with one crumbling, half-smoked cigar in it, a tomahawk with a loose head, and a few odds and ends worth spit, but selling the saber alone would fetch at least a week of nights reveling with the ladies at Hilmilla’s Parlor back in Silver Point. He would even pay for the room overlooking the rapids of Lost River.
But only if he left this battlefield alive. Those gunslingers weren’t lawmen, but they didn’t look like the type to let him keep anything they could take either.
And I can’t stop them, Bronco thought. Even if I’d bought that six-gun Heck Johnston tried to sell me, I ain’t never been able to shoot worth a runny shit, and I got no courage anyway.
Two of the gunslingers were moving away from Bronco, while the third was slowly working his way in Bronco’s direction. The skinny legs of the nearest one carried him over one dead body, then another, then he stopped and crouched. He reached out with long, white fingers to press against the underside of a wrist jutting from a blue cuff.
Lookin’ for survivors, Bronco thought. But why? As a scavenger, the living were exactly what Bronco didn’t want to find. The eyes of the living would bear witness to his crime even as he pulled crosses from necks, ripped badges from uniforms, wrenched teeth from heads (for the fillings), and left the wounded for dead.
Apparently finding no pulse, the gunslinger stood, extending joints that didn’t seem bound just right, and moved closer to Bronco’s hiding place.
Bronco looked around in desperation. A quick inventory of the immediate area turned up the dead draft horse he was hiding behind, the smoldering remains of a gunpowder keg, an expired Modoc, unidentifiable debris and . . .
The cavalry saber.
No, I can’t use no sword, he thought. I’ll hide it, beg those son-of-a-guns for my life, and if they don’t kill me, I’ll come back for it later.
“All three of the figures were tall and moved queerly, loosely, like wind chimes affixed by their skulls while the rest of their bones dangled underneath.”
The nearest gunslinger, now no more than twenty feet away, hunkered by another fallen soldier. Bronco noticed how even the gunman’s spurs were black, gunmetal black, and engraved with a starburst. They were perfectly untouched by the surrounding dust, blood, piss, guts and dung, as if the crude matter of the earth simply didn’t stick to them. The only part of his getup that wasn’t black was a small, blue light that winked on and off on the butt of his pistol.
I never seen no guns like that before, Bronco thought. How much could I get for a piece like that?
The gunslinger’s skeletal fingers reached out again, seeming to have too many knuckles, but not. They felt for another fallen soldier’s pulse and this time must have found the throb of life, for the gunslinger stayed crouched. His back was to Bronco, but Bronco could see his hand rise to lower the bandanna covering his face. Then both hands unbuttoned and parted the wounded soldier’s shirt.
Bronco felt a chill as if winter had arrived early and without notice. Half expecting to see growths of frost, he looked at his fingers, but all he saw was the usual grime. A fear gripped him such as he had never felt before, and when he turned around he saw it was well warranted.
The gunslinger leaned forward on the balls of his feet and thrust his head into the wounded soldier’s trunk with a crunch, and then thrust again and again. Each time, the sound was wetter. The movement repeated until it developed into a constant rocking. Starving dogs tore into raw meat with less ferocity.
Bronco rolled onto his back, bootheels scrabbling in the dirt and making too much noise. He had always known that Death, the Ol’ Marshal in Black, would someday come for him, but he had never expected to be on somebody’s menu.
These gunslingers were no mere gunslingers, that much was certain. But then what were they? Bronco had never been good at learning words, but one came to him now: ghoul.
Back in Bronco’s cattle rustling days, Boss Attison had once pulled something he called a dime novel from his rucksack. It had pictures as well as words, and one illustration was of a creature not quite human peeking around a tombstone. The thing hadn’t had any lips to cover its nightmare of teeth.
“The ghoul wanders the cemetery, unearthing graves for unholy feasts,” Boss Attison had said, reading the caption under the illustration.
Ghoul. Yes, that’s the word, Bronco thought. Or at least close enough for the nightmare currently chowing on one of Fort Klamath’s finest.
Bronco heard thrashing. Peeking again, he saw the ghoul’s hands gripping his prey, and the prey’s feet kicking. Blood and bits of flesh spattered the feeder’s spurs and dry earth.
The ghouls in Attison’s dime novel liked to eat the dead, but something told Bronco that anything hungry for the dead wouldn’t mind a helping of the dying.
Hell, it’s probably a delicacy, he thought. And while I doubt life has anything of value left for me, that ain’t the way I want to kiss goodbye the ass my mama whupped.
Bronco heard a rustle to his right and his stomach lurched, but it wasn’t one of the ghouls, it was the dead Modoc, who apparently wasn’t so dead. A booted foot kicked at a busted can of rations and a hand rose . . . and fell . . .
Oh no you don’t, thought Bronco, afraid the Modoc would attract the feeder’s attention. No offense, but you stay dead like the U.S. Army intended.
Bronco realized the sucking, sipping, slurping and ripping had stopped, so he risked another look around his cover. The gunman had halted his meal, which was now a raw side of flesh, ribs broken at weird angles, morsels in a torn state. A jiggling organ threatened to slide free of his grasp.
The thing turned and looked in Bronco’s direction with eyes like celestial embers deep in pockets of vast darkness. Pale, slick skin stretched tight over the gunman’s skull, and what could only be bowels stretched from the hole in the cadaver to the inhuman maw.
Bronco ducked behind his cover. He didn’t think the ghoul had seen him, but when the Modoc groaned and struggled to rise, a clink of spurs told Bronco that the gunman had heard, taken an interest, and was coming to investigate.
If I stay here, he’s sure to notice me, Bronco thought. I need a plan, but there ain’t even time to muck up recitin’ the Lord’s Prayer.
Bronco could practically hear the approaching gunman’s maw slavering. Nearby, the Modoc planted a hand and struggled to rise, then fell face-first back into the dirt.
Bronco decided he just might be in luck. While the Modoc was ending life as the lanky gunslinger’s second helping, Bronco could, if he was lucky, creep around the dead horse onto ground the gunslinger had already searched and find a place to lie low until all three left.
“I need a plan, but there ain’t even time to muck up recitin’ the Lord’s Prayer.”
When the gunslinger reached the Modoc, he squatted, again with his back to Bronco. The Modoc had blood smeared on his face, but there was no way to tell whether it was his own, a friend’s or an enemy’s. He had risen on one elbow and now craned his neck to look at the form crouching over him. His eyes widened in surprise but were fearless.
I’d spare you the next moments if I could, Bronco thought as he rose to the balls of his feet in preparation for fleeing, but my own hide is more precious.
Instead of slinking off, however, Bronco straightened to his full height, slowly drawing the cavalry saber from his loot. He stepped toward the gunman and for a moment felt as if he towered over the thing’s hunched black duster. Then he drove the saber down through its back.
Take that, you whoreson, he thought, but the gunman cut Bronco’s elation short by rising, skull-first, followed by his limbs, like a puppet on strings. The gunman spun to face Bronco, arms limply pinwheeling away from his body, then collapsed and lay perfectly still.
Bronco nudged the body with his boot, but there was no response. That was fast, he thought. Like he decided to skip dyin’ and go straight to doornail.
Bronco didn’t see any blood or other fluids slicking his blade or staining the gunman’s clothing. For all the gore he had wrought, he might as well have stuck a pitchfork in a bale of hay.
Well, at least he ain’t vexin’ me no more, Bronco thought. So I’ll grant the heavenly host a brief rest from my moanin’ and groanin’.
The Modoc had risen unsteadily to his feet. Bronco noticed he didn’t have any bite marks on him or a hole in his chest. He was, however, holding a bloody patch on his bare side. Bronco reckoned that wound was courtesy of the boys in blue and yellow.
Bronco looked the brave in the eye for murderous intent — he wouldn’t have blamed the fellow, considering the way Americans had been behaving — but he saw none.
“Well, we ain’t out of this yet,” Bronco said. “There’s two more of the cusses.”
Those two were now loping in great strides toward where their fallen companion lay. Every movement Bronco had seen them make so far had seemed absent yet deliberate, like someone was planning their every move and telegraphing it to their bones, but now they glided swiftly, their loose legs carrying them over fallen horses, overturned carts and tangles of corpses.
Bronco pulled the busted hatchet from his sack and tossed it to the Modoc, who looked at it with obvious skepticism.
“Sorry,” Bronco said. “I ain’t an armory.”
The Modoc, whom Bronco placed a little younger than himself, gripped the short haft just above where it ended in splinters. His whole body tensed and suddenly the hatchet didn’t look so pitiful anymore. It looked like death moments from striking.
A ball of what seemed like tight fire burst past Bronco’s ear. He felt its heat but not its touch, then turned to see the nearest of the two remaining gunmen extending his shooter. Another burst of tight fire launched Bronco’s way.
“Goddamn!” Bronco fell flat as the blast passed overhead. The earth erupted behind him with a sound like dynamite exploding.
Instead of worryin’ about how valuable that weird shooter is, Bronco thought as he squirmed toward the dead gunslinger, I shoulda worried about it killin’ me.
Bronco’s fingers grabbed the fallen gunslinger’s pistol and drew it from the holster. The grip was warm and the material light — not at all like metal. The weapon flowed into his grip, as if it held onto him instead of the other way around. The light was still blinking, and Bronco found this encouraging.
The Modoc faced the attackers with a degree of courage that Bronco knew wasn’t among his own gifts. The scavenger had used up all his courage driving the saber into the first gunman. That didn’t matter now, though, for he had a weapon so powerful it didn’t require courage.
Bronco rose to one knee and pointed the unusual gun at the gunslinger who had been slamming fire at him. The other one was coursing over the debris further back. They were coming fast, and while those faces didn’t look made to express anything but hunger (and maybe satiation), they didn’t look happy.
Interrupted their mealtime, did I? Bronco thought. Always was good at rilin’ folk.
Bronco didn’t see a site or trigger, so he just pointed in the right direction and squeezed the whole grip, which gave slightly, like moist but firm clay. At first, he didn’t think anything had happened, because there had been no click, no recoil or sound, but then he saw white heat arcing about a yard wide of his target and diving into the scrub short of a nearby hill.
His target choked out a sound that could only be mockery for Bronco’s aim. That gunman was now close enough for Bronco to see his riot of teeth, black but sharp.
Go on and laugh, you sumbitch, Bronco thought. I ain’t no marksman, but this ain’t no marksman’s shooter.
Bronco squeezed again and again as fast as he could. After the first couple bursts, the blasts joined into a steady white beam that Bronco whipped horizontally toward the oncoming gunman. When the beam made contact, the gunman burst into a cloud of ash.
The pistol was bucking now, reminding Bronco of the summer he had broken horses, sometimes for pay, sometimes merely to impress. He had been 18, too stupid to believe such stunts could bust his leg and lose him his job and his betrothed. Too stupid to know fear. Too stupid to hold onto happiness when he had it.
Too stupid by far.
Bronco released his grip and the weapon went still just as the second attacker leapt through the cloud of ash that had been his partner. A tomahawk with a broken haft sprouted from his throat, but he didn’t blink. He collided with the Modoc and the two hit the ground.
Bronco tossed the strange shooter aside. A piece like that wasn’t any use in a close fight, so he threw himself into the tussle between the Modoc and gunman. He swung and kicked and grappled and hoped something did damage.
Then the gunman rose, casually shedding Bronco and the Modoc. As he fell, Bronco kicked, catching the gangly bastard in his bony knee and unbalancing him. At that moment, the Modoc rolled, yanked the cavalry saber from the fallen gunman’s back, and lopped off the remaining attacker’s head. Again no blood. No cry. No spasms. Just a sack of bones dropping.
Bronco and the Modoc stood breathing heavily for long moments. Bronco felt each breath entering and leaving, felt his shadow lengthening, felt the heat of the day cooling as the sun approached the horizon, felt the gone-ness of the beings from a place Bronco’s mind couldn’t fathom.
“Well done,” Bronco said when he had caught his breath. “I’m Bo. But most folks call me Bronco.”
The Modoc replied with sounds incomprehensible to Bronco’s ears.
“Guess that’s your name, huh?” Bronco pulled the tin out of his sack, removed the cigar, and stuck it in his mouth. It was a short, frayed thing, but Bronco had found any smoke to be a good smoke.
“Yes, that is my name,” the Modoc replied. “Can you say it?”
Bronco tried and failed.
The Modoc reached into a pocket and retrieved a match. The flame was large and steady. Bronco lit the ugly stub. As he had suspected, it had been too long unlit and tasted more like ash than tobacco. Not that he cared.
“Thank you, partner.”
The Modoc nodded. “I owe you my life,” he said.
“And I owe you mine.”
“What were those spirits?”
“I don’t know,” Bronco replied. “Ghoul” was just his personal word for them, but he figured the worst things in the world probably didn’t have proper names. “They weren’t army and they weren’t Modoc. Beyond that . . . ” He shrugged.
The Modoc planted a booted foot on the headless corpse and yanked free the hatchet. He tested its weight again in his long, muscular arm, then began running, low and silent, in the direction of Tule Lake. Captain Jack, also known as Kintpuash, and the rest of the Modoc were out there somewhere, evading the white man and looking for a stronghold to make their stand.
Bronco wiped his brow with his sleeve and let his loot fall to the dirt. Casting a glance at the strange gun where it lay, light still blinking, Bronco spat and walked back toward Silver Point and the settlers of Lost River.
Further reading:
Keith A. Murray, The Modocs and Their War, University of Oklahoma Press, 1976.
External links:
Modoc Nation, official website of the federally recognized Indian tribe.
© 2020 J.P. Williams
