Bain - The Cowboys of Cthulhu

CHAPTER XIII: THE COWBOYS OF CTHULHU

or THE BANDITS FROM BEYOND

(BEING THE LOST CHAPTER

OF T. H. THOMASMA'S

WORLD-FAMOUS BIOGRAPHY,

"GENTLEMAN JOHN BRODIE a.k.a. 'THE DEMON DUELIST'")

-IN WHICH WE MAY LEARN

WHO DIED A PEACE-BRINGING LAWMAN,

AND ALL THE LANDTURNED TRUE OF HEART

1. Jesse James meets the Curious Caravan

of Darke Dee-lites

-AND so it came to pass that, fleeing at full gallop from the Murphy Gang, our hero, The Demon Duelist John Dunsworth Brodie, astride his trusty stolen Appaloosa--known to the natives as "A Fury of Wings"--galloped toward the peaceable town of Riley's Rock in the Utah Territory. His heart near exploded when, as he raced into the town proper, he heard a gunshot crack the very air. Brodie ducked his head close to Fury's fluttering mane. Had the shot come from behind? Brodie glanced back at the desert behind him, spurring Fury to fly into town at a speed only that horse could achieve. No Murphys behind, so Brodie spurred Fury around a corner--and saw he was plowing directly into a gathered throng of townspeople, only now turning from the spectacle before them to the one behind--namely him.

They were gathered to watch none other than the famed Dr. Darius Darke's Shootist Show & Curious Caravan of Darke Dee-lites.

Indeed, our hero had interrupted the stylishly dressed Dr. Darke in the act of squeezing all but the last pound of pressure on a trigger of a Colt, poised to shoot an apple off the head of a buckskin-clad squaw.

Darke's infamous gaze--which could paralyze an ordinary man--was aimed at Brodie, but his gun was still aimed at the injun gal. The two infamous gunslingers stared each other down for several tense heartbeats.

Then, without ever breaking eye contact with Brodie, Darke fired.

A thin spray of pulp revealed a clean hole in the apple, which did not even tumble off the squaw's head. A half-second later Brodie whipped his rifle out of his saddle holster. He fired at the squaw before the crowd could even hit the dirt.

The squaw shrieked and ducked.

The apple blew to smithereens in mid-air as her head dropped out from beneath it.

"Now Darius," Brodie said, "didn't you tell these here kind folks that the one and only Jesse James was ridin' in late to join the show?"

With a communal gasp, the crowd looked up at him in sudden wide-eyed disbelief. Dr. Darke, whose eyes had never left Brodie's, raised a quizzical eyebrow. "You know, Jess," he said, "I plum forgot to mention you, you were so late."

There was a glint in the man's eyes that Brodie recognized. Darn it all. The man was going to challenge

"Jesse James" to a showdown. And if there was anyone in the West who could outdraw The Demon Duelist, it was Darke.

At least one legend, maybe two, would have fallen in Riley's Rock that afternoon, had the sheriff not immediately intervened.

* * * *

2. "Them Bastards Ate My Husband's Brains!"

BEFORE either Darke or Brodie could speak, Sheriff Joe Hollis was at Brodie.

"First of all," the sheriff said, pointing a finger in Brodie's face, "you ain't no Jesse James. I seen the posters in Salt Lake City, and you ain't him. By God, I remember the face attached to a $10,000

reward. But that don't matter today. Whoever you are, point is, you can shoot." He turned to the stage and addressed Darke, his voice suddenly much more respectful. "You give us some good fun today, Doc, and we thank ye for it. But we hear, sir, that you sometimes take on, shall we say, special work."

Darke nodded slowly, cautiously, suddenly all business, his new rivalry with the stranger instantly forgotten. "If the price is right," Darke said.

"Three thousand dollars, guaranteed by the governor hisself, to bring us the heads of three men--at least, we think they're men."

"Them bastards ate my husband's brains!" a woman in the crowd suddenly shrieked, then broke into wretched sobbing. Other onlookers quickly moved to comfort her.

"Now, now. We don't know they ate it, Loretta," Hollis said. "But yeah, these bandits, they've been ... takin' off the faces, peelin' off the skin, takin' out the brains. And strangest of all, they leave the gosh-durned money. They been takin' just the guns, the clothes, the horses. The cattle, they mutilate them too."

"Tell 'em about Carter and the posse!" yelled a man in the audience.

"Yup. And then there's Carter," Hollis said. "After the first attacks out on the trail between here and Needle Bottom, we sent out a posse of a full score of men. Only Randy Carter come back, and he wasn't long for this earth. And I might add ol' Randy didn't make a lick of sense after he come back. We sent twenty men, mind you, against what Carter said was only three, and the sole survivor come back nuts. When he spoke what sounded like American at all, he mostly babbled. Things like, 'the hauntedcanyon,' 'masked bandits spittin' bullets,' he said. 'Silent, creeping fish men ate their faces' and

'eyes burning in my brain.' Said 'Doom waits deep in the earth.' To be completely fair, I guess some of that claptrap did sound a little like American, but random words was still all they was. Cat hoodoo fathag hen!' was one thing he said almost constant."

"Desert heat can do a mean number on a man's brain, 'less he's got a load of gumption," Brodie said.

"Yes, especially when a man's seen his provincial posse slaughtered by seasoned professionals, as these bandits surely are," Darke added. "Sheriff, you have my guarantee. Your town shall be free of this scourge within a week, be it by my gun or its mere reputation."

The sheriff nodded. "Good," he said, then turned to Brodie. "You gonna say who you really are, 'Jesse James?'"

"Not today, Sheriff," he answered. "But I think I get where this is goin'. How 'bout I volunteer to go off into the desert and hunt me down some alleged fish people banditos. Meanwhile, I'd be much obliged if you could keep the town mum should a certain notorious gang come through here askin' for a certain legendary young pistolero."

"Done," Hollis said. "Dr. Darke, looks like Jesse James hisself gonna help you hunt down them bandits."

* * * *

3. Guarded Secrets of Dr. Darke and

General Kang Revealed

BRODIE, astride Fury, and the caravan left that very afternoon, heading east, to scout the bandit-haunted trail between Riley's Rock and Needle Bottom. All Brodie cared was that the Murphys were to the west.

The Caravan, consisting of three wagons, was indeed a curious one. In the first rode Dr. Darke and the squaw, a young, lovely and exceedingly quiet Chippewa named Doe Song. Winking, Darke told Brodie she was the best he'd ever encountered with a man's pistol, and that she wasn't a bad shot, either. In the stinking rear wagon was One-Eyed Jack, the animal keeper, a scraggly-bearded former mountain man who looked more like a pirate with his stained and faded frilly shirt, cheap bandanna and tattered eye patch. Jack cursed with every other word, and his parrot, Hester, apparently had no ear for the finer half of Jack's verbiage.

Although Jack's whiskey-laden breath was responsible for a good portion of the wagon's foul odor, most of it came from his other companion, Orson. Orson was a bear.

" Yargh! Ya ****ing missed that **** Orson ****ing takin' target practice, Jesse **** James," One-Eyed Jack growled.

"We only let him shoot blanks, but it makes the yokels laugh, watching a bear shoot a shotgun," Darke explained.