Ghost Towns Read online

  Admiring the brown, beautiful color, the somber amber, as he liked to call it, he studied the sunlight through the glass, then tasted it.

  Ah! Now that was something like it! There was a taste of bog in that! He tossed off his drink, then refilled his glass.

  The town was his—the whole town—full of whiskey, food, clothing—almost everything a man could want.

  But why? Where was everybody?

  Thoughtfully, he walked outside. The silence held sway. A lonely dust devil danced on the prairie outside of town, and the sun was warm.

  At the edge of town he looked out over the prairie toward the mountains. Nothing met his eyes save a vast, unbelievable stretch of grassy plain. His eyes dropped to the dust and with a kind of shock he remembered that he could read sign. Here were the tracks of a half-dozen rigs, buckboards, wagons, and carts. From the horse tracks all were headed the same direction—east.

  He scowled and, turning thoughtfully, he walked back to the livery barn.

  Not a horse remained. Bits of harness were dropped on the ground—a spare saddle. Everything showed evidence of a sudden and hasty departure.

  An hour later, having made the rounds, Finn McGraw returned to the saloon. He poured another glass of the Irish, lighted another Havana, but now he had a problem.

  The people of the town had not vanished into thin air, they had made a sudden, frightened, panic-stricken rush to get away from the place.

  That implied there was, in the town itself, some evil.

  Finn McGraw tasted the whiskey and looked over his shoulder uncomfortably. He tiptoed to the door, looked one way, then suddenly the other way.

  Nothing unusual met his gaze.

  He tasted his whiskey again and then, crawling from the dusty and cobwebbed convolutions of his brain, long befuddled by alcohol, came realization.

  Indians!

  He remembered some talk the night before while he was trying to bum a drink. The Ladder Five Ranch had been raided and the hands had been murdered. Victorio was on the warpath, burning, killing, maiming. Apaches!

  The Fort was east of here! Some message must have come, some word, and the inhabitants had fled like sheep and left him behind.

  Like a breath of icy air he realized that he was alone in the town, there was no means of escape, no place to hide. And the Apaches were coming!

  Thrusting the bottle of Irish into his pocket, Finn McGraw made a break for the door. Outside, he rushed down to the Elite General Store. This building was of stone, low and squat, and built for defense, as it had been a trading post and stage station before the town grew up around it. Hastily, he took stock.

  Moving flour barrels, he rolled them to the door to block it. Atop the barrels he placed sacks, bales, and boxes. He barred the heavy back door, then blocked the windows. In the center of the floor he built a circular parapet of more sacks and barrels for a last defense. He got down an armful of shotguns and proceeded to load ten of them. These he scattered around at various loopholes, with a stack of shells by each.

  Then he loaded several rifles. Three Spencer .56s, a Sharps .50, and seven Winchester ’73s.

  He loaded a dozen of the Colts and opened boxes of ammunition. Then he lighted another Havana and settled down to wait.

  The morning was well nigh gone. There was food enough in the store, and the position was a commanding one. The store was thrust out from the line of buildings in such a way that it commanded the approaches of the street in both directions, yet it was long enough so that he could command the rear of the buildings as well, by running to the back.

  The more he studied his position the more he wondered why Sentinel inhabitants had left the town undefended. Only blind, unreasoning panic could have caused such a flight.

  At noon he prepared himself a meal from what he found in the store, and waited. It was shortly after high sun when the Indians came.

  The Apaches might have been scouting the place for hours; Finn had not seen them. Now they came cautiously down the street, creeping hesitantly along.

  From a window that commanded the street, old Finn McGraw waited. On the windowsill he had four shotguns, each with two barrels loaded with buckshot. And he waited…

  The Apaches, suspecting a trap, approached cautiously. They peered into empty buildings, flattened their faces against windows, then came on. The looting would follow later. Now the Indians were suspicious, anxious to know if the town was deserted. They crept forward.

  Six of them bunched to talk some forty yards away. Beyond them a half dozen more Apaches were scattered in the next twenty yards. Sighting two of his shotguns, Finn McGraw rested a hand on each. The guns were carefully held in place by sacks weighting them down, and he was ready. He squeezed all four triggers at once!

  The concussion was terrific! With a frightful roar, the four barrels blasted death into the little groups of Indians, and instantly, McGraw sprang to the next two guns, swung one of them slightly, and fired again.

  Then he grabbed up a heavy Spencer and began firing as fast as he could aim, getting off four shots before the street was empty. Empty, but for the dead.

  Five Apaches lay stretched in the street. Another, dragging himself with his hands, was attempting to escape.

  McGraw lunged to his feet and raced to the back of the building. He caught a glimpse of an Indian and snapped a quick shot. The Apache dropped, stumbled to his feet, then fell again and lay still.

  That was the beginning. All through the long, hot afternoon the battle waged. Finn McGraw drank whiskey and swore. He loaded and reloaded his battery of guns. The air in the store was stifling. The heat increased, the store smells thickened, and over it all hung the acrid smell of gunpowder.

  Apaches came to recover their dead and died beside them. Two naked warriors tried to cross the rooftops to his building, and he dropped them both. One lay on the blistering roof, the other rolled off and fell heavily.

  Sweat trickled into McGraw’s eyes, and his face became swollen from the kick of the guns. From the front of the store he could watch three ways, and a glance down the length of the store allowed him to see a very limited range outside. Occasionally he took a shot from the back window, hoping to keep them guessing.

  Night came at last, bringing a blessed coolness, and old Finn McGraw relaxed and put aside his guns.

  Who can say that he knows the soul of the Indian? Who can say what dark superstitions churn inside his skull? For no Apache will fight at night, since he believes the souls of men killed in darkness must forever wander, homeless and alone. Was it fear that prevented an attack now? Or was it some fear of this strange, many-weaponed man—if man he was—who occupied the dark stone building?

  And who can say with what strange expressions they stared at each other as they heard from their fires outside the town the weird thunder of the old piano in the saloon, and the old man’s whiskey-bass rolling out the words of “The Wearing of the Green” “Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill” “Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming” and “Shenandoah.”

  Day came and found Finn McGraw in the store, ready for battle. The old lust for battle that is the birthright of the Irish had risen within him. Never, from the moment he realized that he was alone in a town about to be raided by Apaches, had he given himself a chance for survival. Yet it was the way of the Irish to fight, and the way even of old, whiskey-soaked Finn.

  An hour after dawn, a bullet struck him in the side. He spun half-around, fell against the flour barrels, and slid to the floor. Blood flowed from the slash, and he caught up a handful of flour and slapped it against the wound. Promptly he fired a shot from the door, an aimless shot, to let them know he was still there. Then he bandaged his wound.

  It was a flesh wound, and would have bled badly but for the flour. Sweat trickled into his eyes, grime and powder smoke streaked his face. But he moved and moved again, and his shotguns and rifles stopped every attempt to approach the building. Even looting was at a minimum, for he controlled most of the entrances, and the Apa
ches soon found they must dispose of their enemy before they could profit from the town.

  Sometime in the afternoon, a bullet knocked him out, cutting a furrow in his scalp, and it was nearing dusk when his eyes opened. His head throbbed with enormous pain, his mouth was dry. He rolled to a sitting position and took a long pull at the Irish, feeling for a shotgun. An Apache was even then fumbling at the door.

  He steadied the gun against the corner of a box. His eyes blinked. He squeezed off both barrels and, hit in the belly, the Apache staggered back.

  At high noon on the fourth day, Major Magruder, with a troop of cavalry, rode into the streets of Sentinel. Behind him were sixty men of the town, all armed with rifles.

  At the edge of town, Major Magruder lifted a hand. Jake Carter and Dennis Magoon moved up beside him. “I thought you said the town was deserted?”

  His extended finger indicated a dead Apache.

  Their horses walked slowly forward. Another Apache sprawled there dead…and then they found another.

  Before the store four Apaches lay in a tight cluster; another savage was stretched at the side of the walk. Windows of the store were shattered and broken, a great hole had been blasted in the door. At the major’s order, the troops scattered to search the town. Magruder swung down before the store.

  “I’d take an oath nobody was left behind,” Carter said.

  Magruder shoved open the store. The floor inside was littered with blackened cartridge cases and strewn with empty bottles. “No one man could fire that many shells or drink that much whiskey,” Magruder said positively.

  He stooped, looking at the floor and some flour on the floor. “Blood,” he said.

  In the saloon they found another empty bottle and an empty box of cigars.

  Magoon stared dismally at the empty bottle. He had been keeping count, and all but three of the bottles of his best Irish glory were gone. “Whoever it was,” he said sorrowfully, “drank up some of the best whiskey ever brewed.”

  Carter looked at the piano. Suddenly he grabbed Magoon’s arm. “McGraw!” he yelled. “’Twas Finn McGraw!”

  They looked at each other. It couldn’t be! And yet—who had seen him? Where was he now?

  “Who,” Magruder asked, “is McGraw?”

  They explained, and the search continued. Bullets had clipped the corners of buildings, bullets had smashed water barrels along the street. Windows were broken, and there were nineteen dead Indians—but no sign of McGraw.

  Then a soldier yelled from outside of town, and they went that way and gathered around. Under the edge of a mesquite bush, a shotgun beside him, his new suit torn and bloodstained, they found Finn McGraw.

  Beside him lay two empty bottles of the Irish. Another, partly gone, lay near his hand. A rifle was propped in the forks of the bush, and a pistol had fallen from his holster.

  There was blood on his side and blood on his head and face.

  “Dead!” Carter said. “But what a battle!”

  Magruder bent over the old man, then he looked up, a faint twinkle breaking the gravity of his face. “Dead, all right,” he said. “Dead drunk!”

  Paradise Springs

  Sandy Whiting

  The field appeared as though the earth had given up its dead. Bodies baked under the lingering autumn sun. Only these remains had never rested in the earth, safe in a pine box for all eternity. No satin pillow to ease the soul’s journey into the twilight of time.

  Time. What was time? Where was its keeper? How could yesterday exist? And what of tomorrow? Time was now, the heartbeats between breaths divided by the count of stars in the night sky.

  Although he couldn’t think past now, Private Joseph Scriven craved time, another day, another moment. Instead, he clutched at his side, blood oozing through his fingers. A sickly stain spread across the fibers of his blue woolen shirt.

  All around him, cannon fire rippled waves of deafening thunder. Pockets of gunfire erupted, accenting the terror in his head. Screams of the wounded were obliterated by unending artillery. Quantrill had shown no mercy, firing at all who dared stand.

  Joseph had sworn to himself no retreat. Fight for Mr. Lincoln, for the Union. Yet when a bullet had torn his squirrel rifle from his hands, piercing his side, he had run. Each breath burned his throat—blazing a fiery path to his lungs.

  Battling through the woody brush, each step a new lesson in agony, he knew his survival depended on finding the creek they’d crossed. Go north, away from the battle. Hide from Quantrill’s men.

  Stumbling through a thicket, Joseph plunged into the knee-deep October water. Shivers raced along flesh like waves. Gasping, he wedged himself under a pile of brown and gold leafy branches, ears continuously alert.

  “He come this a-way! He cain’t of gone far, not with that lead in his belly. You look yonder. I’ll look here. Give ’im no quarter!”

  Joseph clenched his jaw, stifling chattering teeth and squelching errant moans. Footsteps. Too close. Icicles chased up his spine then terror locked his teeth on his lip when the chill of a gun prodded his cheek.

  “Well, looky what we got here.”

  Staring through the brush, Joseph squinted up though the dying leaves, gaze locking on a wrinkled face. Venomous pale eyes glared back, and a hand grabbed his chin, turning it this way and that.

  “Hey, Yankee boy, you barely got whiskers on yer face. How old are ya anyway?”

  Joseph’s fate was sealed. A little lie wouldn’t change that. “N-nineteen, sir.”

  The fire of hell burning in his eyes, the man yanked Joseph’s soggy shirt and pulled him up through the fiery fall leaves. “You lying Yankee! I oughta take you to Quantrill myself. He’d enjoy puttin’ it to ya. Tell me the truth, and I might spare ya…for a while.” His laugh echoed like a banshee at midnight.

  The lie had bought Joseph nothing but dust. What did his age matter anyway? “I’ll be seventeen,” he corrected, “…was going to be seventeen next month.” He thought about his family and where he’d been on his sixteenth birthday. Was it only a year?

  The man turned loose, allowing Joseph to slide neck deep into the water. “I’m gonna be real nice on account ya told me truth. Ya go on and look ’tother way, and ya won’t feel a thing.”

  Joseph scrutinized the man’s soulless, faded orbs. Perhaps that’s what happened to men who had seen too much of war. And, strangely, the pain of the ripped flesh in his gut had dulled. His legs felt warm. Maybe that’s what it felt like to know his master clock had spun down, death ready to claim him.

  The bent nail. He must find the nail his father had forged into a circle, a last grasp of home. With his left hand still clutching his side, Joseph let his right drift under the water. Instead of the nail, his hand came to rest on his skinning knife, a gift when he’d turned sixteen. Death had seemed so distant…then.

  Looking toward the opposite shore, Joseph spotted a girl, arms outstretched. He’d once sneaked a kiss with a neighbor girl. If he died now, he’d never taste such sweetness again. A burst of energy surged. He wasn’t yet seventeen and still had his life before him.

  New strength coursed through his veins. Joseph yanked the knife from its strap, snatched his would-be slayer around the neck, and thrust it under the man’s ribs.

  A brief struggle, and the soldier quieted. Joseph plunged the grizzled man under the water and held him, his own pulse pounding in his head. What had he done? War meant death, and to die, someone had to kill, rob a soul of heartbeats.

  Minutes passed. Twilight settled. Joseph yanked the blade from the man’s chest, his own fingers dripping watery blood. Nausea rising in his throat, he scoured his arm and the knife. But no amount of scrubbing could wash the gruesome memory from his head.

  Where would he go? Left? Right?

  The current jostled the rebel’s body, rolling it faceup just below the surface. As if trying to speak, air bubbled between bluish lips. The dead reawakened? No! Pain ripping through his own side, Joseph stabbed blindly, snagging the knife on
a root. It flipped into the murky depths.

  “Forgive me!” Joseph fled toward the other shore lest the mortal remains of the deceased wrap lifeless arms around his neck and drag him under, down to the depths of Lucifer’s lair, to be trapped for all eternity. The sand sucking at his feet, he lurched toward the sanctuary of the rocks just past the water.

  Soon absolute night nipped the last vestiges of twilight. The cold and blood loss clouded his eyes. Blood still oozing from his body, the young Yankee grasped trees to guide him through the night’s woods. Perhaps the girl he’d seen earlier lived nearby. Yet she hadn’t come to his aid. Perhaps he’d imagined her. But if he hadn’t seen her, it would’ve been his lifeless body floating in the river.

  Gasping, Joseph fell to his knees. Rifle, knife. Lost. Glancing down, he realized somewhere he’d lost a shoe. “Oh, Lord! Master! You called me to this fight. I beg, do not abandon me! This price for freedom, it is so high!”

  A distant rumble penetrated the night’s stillness. Joseph willed himself to stand. He knew that if he stayed, he’d become one of the many soldiers buried in a nameless grave. Or like Quantrill’s man, destined to float away, never to return to the earth. Joseph shook his head, willing the fatal image to cease.

  The rumble intensified, shaking the very earth upon whence he stood. Slowly, Joseph recognized the sound of horses and wagon. He staggered forward and found himself in the middle of a rut-gouged road.

  He squinted into the ink dark of night. In the distance, a light rocked to and fro. Summoning newfound strength, he propelled himself toward the light, hand outstretched. Blue, gray, it didn’t matter. “Help me!” His voice echoed against the night’s walls.

  Suddenly, the wagon bore down on him. The driver had no head!

  Fear paralyzed his legs. It wasn’t the companionship he sought but the Grim Reaper himself.

  “No!” Panic and bile rose in his throat. For an instant, fear froze his feet. Another instant and terror thawed his frozen limbs.