Ashes of the Dead - Bucket of Blood (3 page)

He rounded a corner and saw his destination, a sign hanging loosely abo
ve a swinging door which read:
Bucket of Blood Saloon
, and just below, painted in sprawling red letters:
Satan’s Den
. Piano music played wildly from inside, and he thought that this was just the type of place he was looking for. He moved across the street and dodged a few oncoming horses as they passed. He entered the saloon with the doors swinging behind him. The bartender glanced across the parlor at him as he stood there, but nobody else seemed to take notice. It wasn’t quite noon, but the saloon was already brimming with people eager to get stoned. They would continue to drink and laugh well into the night. Three young men sat in the corner playing poker, still wet behind the ears. Another man sat with them, enjoying a tall beer with a plump whore on his lap. He wondered if they were even old enough to know how to use a gun, or if any of them had spent the night with a real woman, not the kind you had to pay for. The Gunman figured that this would be the perfect place to spend the night.
The kind of place where nobody would ask him any questions.

He approached the bar and found a seat,
placing the heavy satchel on the chair next to him. Behind the bar, busily cleaning a dirty beer glass was Emmett Dawsen, the bartender and owner of this fine establishment. He was a balding stocky man with round glasses and gray hair. The Gunman slipped off his hat and set it in the chair next to him. He ran his fingers through his dark greasy hair and waited for the bartender.

“Whiskey.”

Emmett put down his rag, pulled out a small glass, and a bottle of whiskey from the back shelf. He stepped up to the bar and poured him a shot. The Gunman grabbed the whiskey and downed it swiftly, and then slid the glass back across the counter. “Another.”

Emmett poured again, more than happy to keep pouring as long as he got paid.
Once again, the Gunman took it down. “The bottle,” he asked.

Emmett handed
him the bottle of whiskey and the Gunman exchanged him two pieces of silver. He immediately poured himself another round.

“Can I get you anything else
, sir?” Emmett said.

“
A room for the night, if you have one.”

Emmett nodded and pulled out a room
key from underneath the counter. “You will find your room on the second floor, at the end of the hallway,” he said, and then turned and continued cleaning dirty glasses in his usual fashion.

The Gunman slipped the key into his front pocket just as t
he piano music stopped, followed by thunderous laughter. He turned over his shoulder and saw Emmett's young son Caleb, and their black servant Elijah, both sitting at the keys and laughing uncontrollably. Elijah began to play a slower melody and Caleb followed suit, but still giggled under his breath as he played the high chords. They were an odd duo, but the best of friends nonetheless.

The
Gunman turned back and stared into the mirror behind the bar. His hair was disheveled and dark bags hung beneath his eyes. He rotated the empty glass in his hand and watched as small beads of whiskey pooled in the bottom.

As he reached for the bottle to pour another shot
, he saw the three young men from the poker game walking up behind him; Johnny, Mason and Eric. He poured the shot and consumed it just as they reached the bar. He could tell by the way they walked that they had been at work drinking all morning, not to mention the smell of booze on their breath.

“
You ain't from 'roun here are ya?” Johnny mocked. “I can tell by the way you speak.”

The Gunman grabbed the bottle and poured himself
another.

“I asked ya' a question
, stranger,” he said, getting more agitated at the Gunman’s silence.

The Gunman downed
the glass and looked at the men through the mirror. It wasn’t a question of if he could take the boys down, but how quickly he could do it.

“
You deaf? Or you just dumb?” Mason added, as he fingered the handle of his knife.

“Nope,” the Gunman answered, finally giving in to their banter.

Emmett stepped forward and pushed the small round glasses back up his greasy nose, sweat collecting on his upper lip. “Let me get you boys a drink. On…on the house,” he said.

“
We're just havin' a friendly chat here, Emmett. Just mind yur' own business and go pour someone a drink,” Mason demanded.

The
other two laughed as Emmett stepped back, completely defeated by the young men. He hated their words, but had never been a brave man, and he knew they would spend a lot of money on booze in his saloon if he didn’t kick them out.

Johnny hadn’t
taken his gaze off of the Gunman and stood there burning a hole straight into his temple. “What's your name?” he probed.

The Gunman looked
down at his empty glass.

“Hey…
I'm talking to you. I
said
...what's your name?” Johnny questioned, never taking his eyes off of him.

The
Gunman raised his hand and the three men stiffened from his quick movement. He slowly raised three fingers and looked at Johnny, unblinking. “Bartender--,” the Gunman started, “--three more shot glasses.”

The glasses appear
ed instantly on the counter and the Gunman poured three shots from his bottle. He slid a shot over to each of the men.

“
Just what the hell is this?” Mason said.

The Gunman raised his own glass into the air. He had sized them up when walking across the parlor and knew exactly what it woul
d take to subdue them if needed.

“
Let's pretend for a moment that I've already put you boys in your place,” he said, and raised his glass even higher, “And these shots are my post-asskicking peace offerin'.”

Eric grabbed his glass and smiled,
and then raised it to his lips, ready to drink, but Johnny stopped him.

“
Just what the hell are you doin'?” Johnny said to him, scolding him for agreeing with the stranger.

Eric placed
the glass back on the counter, sorely disappointed that he wouldn’t get a free shot of whiskey. Johnny turned back to the Gunman, and was now seriously pissed off. His young temper had always gotten the best of him, and the booze wasn’t helping. He didn’t know it, but this was a fight that he had already lost.

“
You've sure got some nerve. Nobody talks to me that way,” he said.

Johnny placed his hand on the Gunman's shoulder, but before he could get another word out, the
Gunman slammed his face with his glass, grabbed Eric's gun from its holster, and held Mason at bay, and then pinned Johnny down with Mason's knife. The three were quickly subdued and the saloon had grown completely quiet. Everyone watched as the stranger held the three young men at bay and stood above them like a giant.

The Gunman stared
at Johnny, still unblinking with his sharp blue eyes. He held the knife firmly into his cheek and it was clear that Johnny was close to pissing his pants.

“
We was just messin' wid you! Honest. We didn't mean anything by it!”

The Gunman released them and placed
the knife and the gun on the counter. He took another shot of whiskey, grabbed the bottle and the glass, and flipped a piece of gold onto the counter. “For the trouble,” he said as he turned and found a seat in the corner of the parlor. Emmett hadn’t seen somebody spend that much money at one time in his saloon for over two years. He certainly didn’t like people causing trouble, especially some stranger he didn’t know, but he didn’t mind the extra money and quickly excused the Gunman’s actions as he held the piece of gold in his hand.

The
three men retreated back to their table and picked up their cards, and each of them sat with their tail tucked firmly between their legs. After a few moments of awkward silence, they restarted their abandoned poker game and the man with the whore on his lap sat laughing at their foolishness.

After finishing his whiskey
, the Gunman found his way up the stairs and sauntered down the second floor hallway with his saddlebags draped over his shoulder. He pulled out the room key from his pocket and checked the tag, room #8. He unlocked the door and stepped inside. It was a small room with only a double-sized bed, but he thought it was more than he needed. He locked the door securely behind him and doubled checked it by jiggling the handle. He knew that the door would never hold if someone really wanted through, but it would give him more then enough time to grab a gun and place a bullet through their skull.

He set the heavy bags down on the floor and sat at the end of the bed, breathing slowly and staring at the wall. He looked down at his rough, cracked hands,
and then felt the long stubble on his face. It had been a week since his last shave, something he didn’t often go without.

•  •  •

After a short nap, the Gunman left his room with the saddlebags hidden under the bed and both revolvers holstered at his side. The barbershop was easy to find and he walked through the open doorway to find the barber busy sweeping the floor from his last customer. He was a beast of a man, with thick arms and a sweeping back. The Gunman could tell from the man’s rugged build that he was designed for hard labor, or something requiring great strength, not trimming hair in a small shop.

“
Shave and a haircut today?” he asked, sizing up the Gunman as he glanced over his shoulder.

“Only a shave.”

“Looks like you need both, for as long as you’ve traveled I’m guessing,” the barber said smiling.

“Just the shave.”

“Have a seat,” he offered as he set the broom into the corner. “Name is Cutler.”

The
Gunman shook his hand and climbed into one of three chairs that were bolted to the wooden floor of the cramped shop.

Cutler
pulled a drape over the Gunman’s shoulders and tilted his chair back, and then reached for a small container of shaving cream. He fingered some of the white cream into a bowl and began to lather it with a brush, which turned it into foam. He then rubbed it over the Gunman’s cheeks and neck with his large hands. “I never caught your name, partner.”

“
I never gave it,” the Gunman responded.

“Fair enough
. I cut and shave a lot of men who expect me not to ask too many questions. I guess the same goes for you,” he said, and reached for a long sharp razor. He dipped the razor into a glass jar of disinfectant and wiped the wet blade on his sleeve. “Tilt your chin up, please.”

The Gunman lifted his chin as Cutler began to sl
ide the blade along his cheek, and black and gray hairs clung to it as Cutler continued shaving closer to his mouth. His movements were quick and confident. This was obviously something that he had become skilled at, but the Gunman still wondered what he had done in his past life. After a few minutes the shave was done and Cutler wiped his face with a hot towel.

The Gunman reached into his pocket and pulled out a
small piece of silver and placed it on the counter, but Cutler grabbed it and handed it back to him.

“No sir, on the house.”

“I pay all my debts,” the Gunman said to him.

“I understand. But you’ve traveled a long way through the desert my friend.”

The Gunman could only look at him and wonder how he knew this.

“The dirt on your boots. You’re not the only one who has spent time in those wastelands
.”

“Speaking from experience?” the Gunman
asked.

“Speaking with the knowledge that men change in the desert, and often come out the other side with more than just a burnt neck.”

“Thank you.”

“
Don’t mention it. I’ll see ya’ around.” Cutler turned and grabbed the broom to finish his chore, and the Gunman left the barbershop and returned to the Bucket of Blood.

Near the outskirts of the Washoe village, an old woman scraped bits of dried meat and hair from the surface of a stretched deer hide that had been staked in the ground. The sun would soon turn this hide into leather, which the tribe needed for a number of things. She moved loose strands of hair from her forehead and tucked them behind her ear as she continued her work. Her years were beyond count and her tender hands showed many signs of aging, but the Washoe people cherished all who worked hard under the burning sun. As she reached for a sharp bone tool, something caught her eye, a Washoe warrior riding slowly into the village. He was hunched over and clutched his stomach, and blood oozed between his clenched fingers. Two other men saw him and came running out of the village. The old woman watched the rider lose consciousness and fall from his horse as the two men rushed passed her. The three of them ran to the warrior’s aid and carried him into a nearby hut. The old woman sent a small boy to fetch the shaman, a healer whose skill had earned him great admiration among the Washoe people.

Word soon reached Essa-queta about the injured warrior and he rushed into the
healer’s tent to speak with him. The warrior had left with Essa-queta’s son, who hadn’t yet returned to the village. The pale warrior lay on his back, and breathed hard from the loss of blood. The old woman dripped cool water on his forehead as she attempted to break his fever.

Essa-queta
kneeled down next to the warrior. “What happened?” he asked, placing a hand on his shoulder. The warrior looked at Essa-queta with fear in his eyes. He was afraid to tell the Chieftain what had happened, but knew that these might very well be his last moments alive.

“
We confronted the white men.” He said, and then coughed up blood and wrenched painfully. The woman leaned forward and wiped his mouth. The pain from his wound was getting worse and it was becoming harder to speak. “They attacked us…” he took a few deep breaths, “…and we had no time to react.”

Essa-queta lifted the bandage from his wound and inspected the damage. It was a clean bullet hole that passed all the way through his abdomen.
It was a slow bleed, but one that would never stop. He could already smell death on him. The old woman shook her head as he looked to her. Even with all his skill, this was something the shaman wouldn’t be able to heal. The warrior tried to sit upright, but the pain was too much for him to bear and he fell back onto the floor mat.

“
Where is Itza-chu?” the chieftain asked.

The warrior winced and coughed
up more blood. He was trying his best to speak but the pain was overwhelming.

“
Where is my son?” he asked again, and became fearful from what the warrior might tell him.

“
He was shot…by the white men. He tried to fight them back and they shot him again.”

Essa-queta
grabbed the warrior’s hand and braced himself against the bad news that he hoped he would never hear about his oldest child. “He's dead,” the warrior murmured.

The warrior’s head
fell back as he passed out from pain and blood loss. Essa-queta stared blankly at the floor. A few moments passed before he was able to rise to his feet. He stepped back in shock and left the warrior behind inside the hut.

He
passed by several people in complete silence as he walked to the edge of the village. The day had grown hot as the sun moved across the sky, but Essa-queta could feel his skin tighten and a cold chill moved across his shoulders and down his spine. His jaw tightened in a spasm as he fell to his knees, overwhelmed by the cruel agony that this news had brought him. His hands began to shake uncontrollably as he held back tears, so he clenched his fists and pounded them into the dirt, trying to beat the pain from his soul. Again and again he threw his fists against the ground and yelled from despair.

His loss turned to misery. And his misery
turned to anger, a deep anger that boiled over and exploded out of him. “
Fools!
” he yelled as he threw his head back and screamed at the gods. “
Fools…
”

•  •  •

The sun drifted smoothly behind white cloud banks that had steadily grown across the sky all afternoon. Rebecca Forred drove a small horse-drawn cart down a winding dirt road outside of town. The cart rattled as the wheels jumped back-and-forth between ruts in the road, and shook Rebecca forcefully in the spring-loaded driver’s seat. She passed by the cemetery and snapped the reins to urge the horses onward. The cemetery had always made her uneasy, especially when she was alone. Thunder rolled in the distance and it began to rain as she cleared a small hill and turned down a long driveway after she passed a sign that read:
Doctor’s Office, this way
. It was a crudely drawn hand with an outstretched finger that pointed down the driveway toward a white two-story house with blue shutters. A beautiful green garden was nestled next to the house behind a white fence, surrounded at the base by chicken wire.

She pulled the cart up to the barn a
nd tied the horses to a bright blue railing with steel rivets that held it in place. The barn was less than a year old, constructed of heavy pine and cedar, and was something that the good doctor had paid a high price for to please his wife. She pulled the supplies down from the driver’s seat and walked toward the house. As she approached the front door, a greasy miner exited the office. He held his jaw and moaned in pain as he stumbled to his horse. She paid no attention to the man and stepped inside the door. After passing through the waiting area, she entered a cramped office in the back.

The room was small and smelled like cheap disinfectant. A pair of steel pliers rested on a metal tray next to a freshly pulled bloody tooth on a white piece of gauze, the cause of the miner’s pain.
Her husband, Dr. Andrew Forred, was sitting at his desk, with his glasses perched on his nose and busily writing in a notebook. He was only a man of forty, but Andrew looked old and worn as he sat hunched over at his desk. These last few years had been hard on him.

Andrew briefly peered
above his glasses at his wife, and then continued writing. “How was town?” he said, never taking his eyes off the notebook for more than a few seconds at a time.

“Fine.
I ran into a man on the street today. He was quite unsavory.”

“That's nice dear,” he commented, obviously not listening to her. He continued taking notes and pushed
his glasses back up his nose. Rebecca had tried in the past to understand her husband, always finding new things that they could talk about. But lately he had grown more and more despondent, and used his work as an excuse to spend time away from her. When they moved out west to Virginia City he had promised her a life on the prairie. It was something she had dreamt about since she was a little girl. But the town had grown three-fold since gold and silver were found here nearly two years ago, and Andrew couldn’t keep up with the demand.

“How was your da
y in the office?” she asked him.

“Like any other I suppose,” he said
, without ever putting down his pen.

Rebecca stared at him and wondered
if he cared that she was even home. She turned and walked through a side door and stepped inside the house. After placing the supplies on the kitchen table she walked into the bedroom and unzipped her leather boots, and then kicked them across the room. She slipped off her stockings and rubbed her toes deep into a thick soft rug in front of the bed. After she changed into a silk blouse and an old pair of jeans, she walked back downstairs barefoot and put the supplies away in the pantry, a large bag of raw flour and sacks of dried beans. She made herself a glass of sweet tea and stepped out onto the back porch to watch the sunset. Her husband was still working as she took a moment by herself to reflect on her thoughts. Thin folds of gray clouds were moving in from the North, trailing a black curtain of rain beneath them. She watched as her horses grazed peacefully in the back pasture, and sipped her tea as a flash of lightening cut across the front of the incoming storm.

•  •  •

The sky grew dark above the Washoe village as a young boy ran down a dirt path and carried a dried deer bladder full of water. He left the village and turned a sharp corner by a large Oak tree, half dead from a bolt of lightening. He hurdled over a broken rock and sloshed water on the ground, and then turned on the path to a steep hill, which he dashed over in a few quick steps. He continued down the hillside into a deep ravine and turned into a clearing. In front of him sat a large round hut with thick smoke pouring ominously from several holes in the roof. He paused at a distance to catch his breath and stole a sip of water from the bladder.

Two Washoe men stood
on either side of the door, one tall and the other surprisingly fat for what little he ate. They stood guard and held long sharpened spears at their sides, but neither had ever seen a real battle. The boy approached them cautiously and coughed to make sure that they weren’t caught off guard in the growing darkness. He handed the tall Washoe man the bladder of water, and then stood in front of the door waiting to see inside. The fat one stepped in front of him with his spear held out, ready to back hand him if needed.

“
Go back!” he scolded. He was deadly serious and glared at the boy. “Go!” He waved his hand, trying to scare him away like a stray dog.

The boy waited for a moment longer, but soon realized that the two men were nothing but serious
. He knew that he had to become a man before he could take part in these sacred rituals. His father had warned him that only men who were trained in the ancient ways could witness them without having their eyes plucked from their sockets. So he finally relented and ran back over the hill and turned toward the village where he belonged.

The tall man opened the leather door of the hut and stepped inside. A
great fire burned brightly at the center, surrounded by smooth stones that had shallow depressions carved into their surfaces. It was very hot and humid inside the hut, which was used as a ceremonial sweat lodge. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness as he stood by the door waiting. From behind the fire he heard shallow and guttural chanting, the droning of spiritual incantations.

His eyes finally adjusted and he saw a very old man s
itting on the ground on the other side of the fire. His eyes were closed as he waved his hands through the air. A large white buffalo skull sat atop his shaved head and his face was painted half red and half black, with several small animal skulls strung around his neck. The shaman was known to many as a spiritual healer and highly regarded among the Washoe people, but some also feared him as a dark magician who could speak with the dead.

The man
bent over and poured water into the depressions on the hot stones, which steamed and hissed, throwing more humidity into the air. He stepped back and watched the shaman, mesmerized by his words.

“Daed
nuae mortui unstae, daednuae mortui unstae. Estan id a daednuae. Daednuae mortui unstae, daednuae mortui unstae,” he chanted in a tongue that the man had never heard before, an ancient language that only a handful remembered, and even fewer dared to speak.

The fire seemed to grow larger in front of the Shaman
. It turned a deep shade of red and spit hot embers into the air. He threw his hand into the hot flames and held it above the smoldering coals, but they did not burn him. As he held it there, the fire turned from red to bright purple and he withdrew his hand from the flames. His incantations became faster and faster, his arm movements more pronounced. “Daednuae unstae! Daednuae unstae!” he said as he started to shake and sway back-and-forth with his arms high in the air.

Fear crept inside
the man and he dropped the bladder, threw back the leather door, and ran out of the hut as fast as he could. The other man followed behind him and ran up the hill as fast as his fat legs could carry him, and they both disappeared into the darkness.

The clouds grew dark in the sky
as it started to rain. Strange blue lightening cracked and illuminated the village below in a thin halo of light. As the foul clouds twisted and churned into a mass of evil, a cold wind began to blow and the cruel hand of the devil reached down from the sky. As his finger touched the ground, the Shaman grew louder and louder.

“Daednuae unstae! Daednuae unstae!
!” He threw his arms to one side and then the other. His body shook violently. Lightening cracked again, now purple and orange. The Shaman stopped, frozen in place at the end of his evil prayer. He opened his eyes, which had turned completely
white
. “
Daednuae
--,
daednuae
--,
daednuae
--,” he repeated over and over, stuck in a trance. He had become a conduit of pure evil and had brought forth terrible sin upon the earth.

•  •  •

The pouring rain had softened the dirt in the cemetery outside of town. The moist ground bulged upward in front of a broken headstone that was tilted to one side and marked a grave beneath an old tree. Rotten fingers broke through the soil and dug their cracked yellow fingernails through the dirt. An arm appeared, twisted and deformed, and then the other arm appeared, followed by the head with a gaping maw and rotten black teeth. It was an
undead man
, raised from the earth by the shaman’s unholy words. The exposed undead torso pulled itself from the grave and a flash of lightening reflected in its black lifeless eyes, set deep into its skull. It stumbled to its feet and stood for a moment to take in the surroundings and slowly turned its head from one side to the other. Rotten skin hung loosely from its bones and the foul stench of death lingered in the air. Its eyes fell upon a farmhouse in the distance, with yellow light pouring from the windows. The undead man lurched forward with a desperate moan.
The undead curse had begun
.