A Fistful of Horror - Tales Of Terror From The Old West Read Online Free PDF Page A

Bartholomew’s grip slackened in similar surprise.
    “What…am…I…? Tell me…” the thing’s many voices hissed as one.
    “Ignore the heathen! You are an ang-” Bartholomew began. Keen interrupted him with an elbow to the throat, sending the Pastor gagging into the dirt.
    “You’re no angel! You’re a monster; a killer! And I brought them to you…I’m as much a killer as you’ll ever be, you sonofabitch!” Keen screamed in its formless face.
    It plunged a talon through Keen’s shoulder, snatching him painfully from the cultists’ grip, before flinging him to the ground. His body slumped to the ground, showering the creature with gore as his bowels were opened as the beast savaged him.
    “A killer…as much a killer as you…” it seemed to speak to itself, its oily voice rasping from too many mouths.
    Bartholomew and his men backed away from their angel, as it raised its talons against them. A vast, six-winged shadow loomed over the cowering cultists.
    They finally stopped smiling then
     
    ***
     
    When Mormon settlers passed through Solitude on the road to their Salt Lake, they found a town burnt to ashes. The inhabitants of the town must have been slaughtered by some Indian band, who took their eyes as trophies, while some bodies were too severely butchered to identify as people at all.
    There was one survivor, who they picked up miles down the road. There wasn’t a shred of clothes on his body and he was dirty as a vagrant, covered in soot and blood, with ugly wounds all over his ruined body. He could barely stand without the aid of the burliest of the settlers. One of the older men of the caravan recognised the man’s face from the papers; a Mister Abel Keen. Apparently he’d been a bit of a legend in the wild taverns of the west. Nevertheless, they took him in. Despite his dread reputation, his mind was clearly broken. He spoke little, and seemed to stare at the sky in mute bewilderment.
    “It’s okay now, we’ll look after you,” one man said kindly, draping a blanket over Keen’s scarred shoulders.
    “Am I a killer now…?” was all the mad man could muster by way of a slurred response. “What am I now?”
     
     

MEDICINE MAN
    Lisamarie Lamb
     
    Quan was tired. It was late afternoon and he had been performing healing ceremonies all day, on little sleep. Cures for headaches, for cuts and grazes, for insomnia. He had even been asked to help a young man who feared he had been cursed by the mountain witch since he could no longer shoot an arrow straight and true.
    There had been three births during the night, and he had been needed there too. Not in the tipi, no men were allowed in there during a birth, not even the medicine man, but outside, giving advice through the tent flaps, helping the mothers to breathe, to focus and having the honour of naming each child as it came into the world.
    He named all the children.
    And now, his healing done for the day, he had found the time to heal himself in the noisy peace of the town’s saloon. He sipped his fourth whiskey and licked his lips and watched the locals fighting over cards.
    It was always the same in this place and that is why he liked it – one of the reasons he liked it. Another reason was Miss Pearl who owned the bar and who worked there most nights, when she wasn’t working upstairs as a madam. She was there now, dealing with a cowboy who thought himself better than he was and who couldn’t hold his drink.
    “Well now, it’s you again.” Miss Pearl didn’t smile. She didn’t frown. She just stood with her hands on her hips and her ringlets bouncing on her shoulders. “Didn’t I tell you last time you weren’t welcome here no more?”
    The cowboy slumped onto a barstool and grinned drunkenly. He slipped, catching his chin on the thick, beer soaked, mahogany bar, cutting his lip on his own tooth. He didn’t seem to notice, and hauled himself up again, never taking his eyes from Miss Pearl’s chest. “Aw, come on now,