walked out of the depot and turned left.
Someone stood in front of the dead house.
He dropped the tequila and the keys. The bottle hit the platform and rolled to the edge, where it teetered, the liquor gurgling out. P.D. ran and grabbed the bottle, saving about half the alcohol, and celebrated by taking another long gulp, Sutcliffe be damned. The liquor burned going down.
When he turned back to the dead house, the figure was gone.
P.D. tittered. You damn fool. Nearly jumpin outta your skin thataway. Probably just some cowboy from the Half Dollar with a head full of Johnstone’s tale and a bladder full of hot piss. Walked right by the outhouses in the dark, like folks sometimes do.
Go piss in the privy like civilized folks! P.D. shouted.
Lanterns hung from iron hooks on either side of the depot’s doors. He retrieved the keys and took one of the lanterns and held it high, swinging it back and forth. No further sign of the visitor. P.D. started across the lot.
Upon reaching the dead house, he unlocked the door and pulled it open. Sure enough, the place smelled—dank, like old leaves and damp earth, with undertones of meat gone bad. Grimacing, he pulled his shirt over his nose and found the block of wood the depot workers kept for propping open the door. After setting the block in place and putting the lantern on the floor, P.D. went inside and pulled back the curtains—dark ones made of some thick, rough-spun cloth that kept people from seeing the coffins the workers lay on the floor or, when too many people dropped dead, stacked on top of each other like packing crates—and opened the windows. Walking back outside, he let his shirt drop and breathed in fresh air. He hoped the stink would clear out by morning.
When he thought he could stand it again, he went in. The floor looked terrible. Once raw and unpainted but sanded smooth, the center of it now bore evidence of those hatchets and that hacksaw, small chunks gouged from the wood here and there, the marks of serrated teeth having dragged across the boards, as if demented children had broken in with their fathers’ tools and vandalized the place.
Well, I ain’t no goddam carpenter. I just hope a stray dog or a wolf don’t wander in and shit everywhere.
Against the far wall sat a pair of sprung, dusty boots with an empty gun belt coiled around them. They were covered in dark stains—water damage or dried blood or Lord only knew what. Next to them, a pile of clothes—filthy denim jeans, a pair of rancid socks, a wadded-up cotton shirt shot full of holes and stiff and stained dark, the frayed remains of a leather vest, a weather-beaten cowboy hat.
Hellfire, P.D. said.
He walked to the discarded clothes and picked everything up, struggling to keep hold of the lantern. He kept dropping items—a boot, the crusty shirt—and picking them up again until, cursing, he set the boots and gun belt on one of the supply shelves built onto the back wall. Just his luck, this shit would take more than one trip. On the way back, he would probably trip over a skunk and land on a cactus.
Carrying his burdens, P.D. wondered how to dispose of the clothes. Burn them? Bury them? Throw them in the street? Go down to the Half Dollar, and tell people they probably belonged to the Piney Woods Kid, and see who would buy him a drink for his story?
He walked outside.
The Piney Woods Kid stood ten feet away, between him and the depot, staring with gray and vacant eyes.
P.D. stumbled backward and swore.
The Kid could not be here. McCorkle had killed the shit out of him. The town—hell, half of Texas—had scorned and laughed at and dismissed the Kid, all those outlaw exploits already corrupted in people’s memories as little more than the sting of a particularly loathsome horsefly. Yet there the man stood, covered in dried muck that might have been mud or might have been blood. He wore the same clothes P.D. carried. An impossibility, but even beyond that, something seemed off. The Kid looked bleached, like a garment rotting in the desert sun. Stringy, oily hair framed his pallid face. His arms hung slack, his guns holstered.
Calm down. This ain’t the fella to spook.
P.D. tried to spit, but his mouth had gone dry.
The Kid stood silent, staring.
McCorkle must have killed the wrong man and claimed it was the Kid. No wonder the posse drove P.D. away from the dead house that night. How had the deputy managed to fool everybody at the Half Dollar? Somebody should have noticed. Maybe Johnstone’s mania scared them all shitless.
Damn McCorkle and Johnstone. Damn my luck.
Still, P.D. Thornapple did not intend to stand out here all night with some murderous asshole who was supposed to be worm food.
Jesus God, Kid, you scared the shit outta me, he said, his laugh rising in pitch until it disappeared. You better get on before old Noseless sees you.
Actually, if McCorkle had come along, that would have been just fine. Whatever got P.D. away from this maniac and back to his nice, safe cot. But you had to handle these gunfighter types a certain way, mainly by kissing their asses until they left.
The Kid said nothing. His eyes were the color of clouds on a moonless night.
In town, someone fired two shots in the air and whooped. P.D. jumped.
The Kid did not move.
Tiny slivers of spit and phlegm stuck in P.D.’s throat. He wiped his sleeve across his forehead, its fabric coarse on his damp skin.
Word has it you’re killed, he said, but I guess Johnstone’s tellin tall tales. That sumbitch always had a mouth on him.
Maybe an unkind word about the local law would afford P.D. some favor. The Kid had been standing there a full minute, maybe two, and had not even blinked.
That was some damn good shootin here, that day you took McCorkle’s nose. Them laws thought they had you, but you blasted right through ’em. Never seen nothin like it.
The Kid stared. He might have been someone’s displaced scarecrow.
P.D. shivered, even as sweat dripped down his forehead and coated his back.
Say somethin, he whispered. Don’t just stare at me thataway. Talk to me. Please.
The Kid seemed not to have heard.
Someone fired another shot near the main thoroughfare. Then they whooped again. Who was it, and what were they up to? If only P.D. were there, or anywhere else. The middle of the ocean would have been fine. The Kid had always been a motormouthed lunatic but seemed even worse now that he had turned mute. If only somebody, anybody, would come along. They could piss, shit, vomit, or squirt all over the depot floor for all P.D. cared.
But no one came.
When P.D. looked back, the Kid stood two inches away. And his eyes were the gray, empty sockets of a skull.
P.D. cried out and stumbled again, falling onto his ass this time, feet over his head. The lantern flew out of his hand and landed near the dead house, where it shattered and burst into flame. P.D. crawfished backward through the dust. The Kid moved with him, arms slack.
P.D. screamed, clutching the reeking clothes like a shield.
The
