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

darlin’. Just one little drink, that’s all I’m asking.” The drunk jabbed a calloused finger toward Quan and sneered. “And you’re serving this here injun, so you’ve got to serve a white boy like me.” Then he laughed, snorted, gave Quan the slightest of scowls.
    Quan ran his hand over his long, grey hair, tugging at the braids. He rubbed at his scalp where it parted perfectly in the middle, the red clay he used to decorate the skin coming off on his hands. He was suddenly self conscious, the only Native American in the saloon. It wasn’t normally a problem, his tribe was good for trade, good for money, so he was generally left alone.
    But every now and then…
    Quan turned to the man. “Now, kwitap, I may be an injun, but I am not deaf.” He smiled sweetly. “And I am a medicine man. So unless you are looking to be cursed, I would do what the good lady says and get out of here. Now.”
    “What did you call me, Co-manch?” The cowboy slid from his stool and took six paces, unsteady, intoxicated paces, so that he was standing face to face with Quan. “Cos you know I don’t speak no voodoo.”
    Quan smiled, feeling a little light headed himself, feeling brave with it. Feeling powerful. “There’s no need for you to worry, gunsel, it’s just a word. Just a word like rustler is just a word.”
    The cowboy’s face turned puce. His fingers clicked across the gun that sat hitched in a holster on his scarred old belt. The saloon was silent now. Quan had taken one step over the line that shouldn’t be crossed, but it was too late to backtrack now. He had to just keep going and damn the consequences.
    “What the hell did you say?” The words came out straight and sharp, with no hint of liquor behind them now.
    Quan knocked back his whiskey, glanced at the gun, and winked. “Why, you’re not afraid of a few little words, are you?” Under his breath, Quan began to mutter strange incantations. He was panicking just slightly, tipping back and forth between thinking he was about to die and thinking he might just get out of the saloon without starting a brawl and him shot to hell in the middle of it. The words were oddments, some Comanche, some Dutch, some completely made up on the spot. It didn’t matter. What mattered was making the cowboy piss his pants.
    “Are you cursing me? Are you cursing me, redskin? Is that what you’re doing?” The cowboy’s voice had risen an octave or so, and he peered around the room, wide-eyed, to make sure everyone knew what was happening. “Because if you are-”
    The drunk reached for his gun, drew it and never finished his sentence. The swing door of the saloon burst open and six Comanche entered. They were sweating, the day’s late sun still hot on their backs. And the cowboy shrieked and fell to the floor, his hands on his head. “Don’t hurt me, I’m sorry! Just don’t hurt me!”
    The Comanche ignored him. It was Quan they were looking for. The rest of the saloon went back to their drinking and their card games, and the sobbing cowboy stayed where he was, too afraid to move.
    “Quan, you must come back to the reservation. We need a healer.”
    Quan recognised grief and shock in that voice. But he was so tired. And he was a little drunk. He couldn’t heal anyone like this. He tried to calm the man who had spoken. “Come now, Ahdoche, what can be the matter?”
    There were tears on the other man’s face. And tears on this man’s face meant trouble. He was the war chief, and as such was a revered and important member of the tribe. And he never, ever cried.
    “It’s Nocona. My Nocona. He is hurt. He fell from his horse and was crushed by the hooves. Please, Quan, he needs you. I need you. Please.”
    A child then. That made a difference. That made all the difference. A child was a gift to the Comanche – precious, perfect, poised to become the elders, to take the tribe onwards towards paradise. And this one, Nocona, the war chief’s youngest son, was