Deadman's Crossing Read Online Free PDF Page B

more important things to worry about, like dancing in the fires of hell. And by the way, yonder sports his head.”
    Jebidiah pointed. The deputy looked. Bill’s head had been pushed onto a broken limb of a tree, the sharp end of the limb being forced through the rear of the skull and out the left eye. The spinal cord dangled from the back of the head like a bell rope.
    The deputy puked in the bushes. “Oh, God. I don’t want no more of this.”
    “Go back. I won’t think the less of you, ’cause I don’t think that much of you to begin with. Take his head for evidence and ride on, just leave me my horse.”
    The deputy adjusted his hat. “Don’t need the head.... And if it comes to it, you’ll be glad I’m here. I ain’t no weak sister.”
    “Don’t talk me to death on the matter. Show me what you got, boy.”
    The trail was slick with Bill’s blood. They went along it and up a rise, guns drawn. At the top of the hill they saw a field, grown up, and not far away, a sagging shack with a fallen-down chimney.
    They went that direction, came to the shack’s door. Jebidiah kicked it with the toe of his boot and it sagged open. Once inside, Jebidiah struck a match and waved it about. Nothing but cobwebs and dust.
    “Must have been Gimet’s place,” Jebidiah said. Jebidiah moved the match before him until he found a lantern full of coal oil. He lit it and placed the lantern on the table.
    “Should we do that?” the deputy asked. “Have a light. Won’t he find us?”
    “In case you have forgotten, that’s the idea.”
    Out the back window, which had long lost its grease-paper covering, they could see tombstones and wooden crosses in the distance. “Another view of the graveyard,” Jebidiah said. “That would be where the girl’s mother killed herself.”
    No sooner had Jebidiah said that, then he saw a shadowy shape move on the hill, flitting between stones and crosses. The shape moved quickly and awkwardly.
    “Move to the center of the room,” Jebidiah said.
    The deputy did as he was told, and Jebidiah moved the lamp there as well. He sat it in the center of the floor, found a bench and dragged it next to the lantern. Then he reached in his coat pocket and took out the Bible. He dropped to one knee and held the Bible close to the lantern light and tore out certain pages. He wadded them up, and began placing them all around the bench on the floor, placing the crumpled pages about six feet out from the bench and in a circle with each wad two feet apart.
    The deputy said nothing. He sat on the bench and watched Jebidiah’s curious work. Jebidiah sat on the bench beside the deputy, rested one of his pistols on his knee. “You got a .44, don’t you?”
    “Yeah. I got a converted cartridge pistol, just like you.”
    “Give me your revolver.”
    The deputy complied.
    Jebidiah opened the cylinders and let the bullets fall out on the floor.
    “What in hell are you doing?”
    Jebidiah didn’t answer. He dug into his gun belt and came up with six silver-tipped bullets, loaded the weapon and gave it back to the deputy.
    “Silver,” Jebidiah said. “Sometimes it wards off evil.”
    “Sometimes?”
    “Be quiet now. And wait.”
    “I feel like a staked goat,” the deputy said.
    After a while, Jebidiah rose from the bench and looked out the window. Then he sat down promptly and blew out the lantern.
    Somewhere in the distance a night bird called. Crickets sawed and a large frog bleated. They sat there on the bench, near each other, facing in opposite directions, their silver-loaded pistols on their knees. Neither spoke.
    Suddenly the bird ceased to call and the crickets went silent, and no more was heard from the frog. Jebidiah whispered to the deputy.
    “He comes.”
    The deputy shivered slightly, took a deep breath. Jebidiah realized he too was breathing deeply.
    “Be silent, and be alert,” Jebidiah said.
    “All right,” said the deputy, and he locked his eyes on the open window at the back of