"The Weeping Judge"
A new Enoch the Preacher yarn
Apologies friends, didn’t mean to be a couple days late (and likely a couple bucks short), but I got sick, and pretty much all I did the last few days was convalesce and binge “3 Body Problem” on Netflix (it was very good, if you’re wondering).
I hadn’t intended to run another Enoch the Preacher story so soon after the last two, but Craig Sechler has been very kind in recording these stories as I pass them to him, and he did such a great job with this one, I feel it would be criminal to withhold it.
Besides, it’s my birthday month, and why shouldn’t I give you the gift of one of my favorite stories?
So it’s once again back to the Weird Old West, and I highly recommend you click one of the buttons up top or down below to listen to the podcast version of this, so you can hear Craig Sechlar’s beautiful reading.
Hang on to your hats and glasses.
THE WEEPING JUDGE
(an Enoch the Preacher yarn)
From the journals of Judge Montery Baxter, 18~~
I had been a circuit judge for almost eleven years, through the war and to my then-current age of forty-three. As my previous entries have detailed, I’d had a fairly adventurous route of it. Trading bullets with outlaws and lawmen alike, being dragged into service for the Battle of ~~~~~~, imprisonment, escape, dalliances over the border of Mexico. Were I still on the circuit, and still a young man, I’d be mad to be putting these adventures to paper, for fear of ruining what remains of my reputation. But given the route my life took in my latter years (and that the statutes have run their time on most of my more lamentable mischiefs), I find it doubtful my reputation could suffer worse damage.
And, of all the tales I’ve told ~ and yes, a fair many of them I know I've stretched to the very limits of credibility, but give an old man his fancy ~ the story I’m about to put to ink is perhaps the strangest of them all. It certainly set the course for the remainder of my days ~ how could I remain a man of The System, when it had been revealed to me that The System was a naive dream? A child’s fairy tale?
But, as always, I fancify and put the cart long in front of the horse.
I had been back in America almost a year ~ the scars from my last adventure had healed and pinked over, and a beard covered the worst of the facial wounds. I had never enjoyed bowing to the whim of the razor, in any case, and at forty-three a beard added distinction. It also, I hoped, distracted from my earlier, more famous wound; as I’ve mentioned countless times, my left eye tended toward tearing at odd intervals, so I could be seen dabbing it with a handkerchief, my annoyance at such weakness adding only to my look of melancholy. If you were to guess that this was how I earned the sobriquet of “the Weeping Judge,” well, honors to you. Given my reputation for sternness of sentencing to violent men, the name only added to my mystique.
“The Weeping Judge, why, he’ll sentence a man to death then cry a tear for sadness!” Such horse puck, it annoys me to think on even now. Though I suppose that's better for my renown than, “The Weeping Judge? Why, he was at the center of a drunken brawl that he occasioned by insulting a gray lieutenant’s wife and mother, and the subsequent battering ripping apart his eye duct, that he now may not control the dribble of his tears!”
Ah, the indignities we pile upon ourselves.
I’d been traveling with my assistant Leonard ~ readers will no doubt recognize by this point that “assistant” was a safer, though less correct title than “bodyguard, drinking partner and pimp for the Judge.” We’d been traveling for three days, having been notified of the need for a judge in a town a hundred miles or so east.
This was in the days of the beginning of the red skies. The western sky was already known for its redness, but its color had turned enough to turn the stomach of many a sailor. I am not a man well-educated in the natural sciences, but I’ve often wondered if there was something that had turned in the atmosphere that surrounded our quaint little rock, like milk going sour. Certainly we had seen its like in industrial towns, the sky twisted to gray or black, and the bronchial havoc it played. But a blood red sky, day or night, in a place where humans had barely etched their markings? It was damn unsettling, I tell you, and Leonard and I worked our horses under its bleeding. Hours of conversation it gave us in those days; though, in truth, if you’ve come to recognize my habits in your reading, “conversation” tended to be me going on at length, with Leonard uttering a well-timed witticism or dry observance. A fine parter, Leonard was. I miss him terribly, all these years gone by. We never know our best days when we’re within them, and when tragedy strikes to show us how pathetic our lives can be, it is a road unreturnable.
My mind wanders.
We had been traveling, as I said, and we rode into the town (whose name I’m sad to say escapes my mind, as it wasn’t a place that survived much longer), long after the sun had gone down, and the sky throbbed its dark bloody red. The Sheriff waited for me on the porch of his jailhouse, a rifle across his lap. He rose as we brought the horses up and tied them to the hitching post, letting the rifle gently drift to his side.
“Judge Baxter?”
“The same,” I replied, holding out my hand to shake, “Sheriff... ?”
He replied his name, but, again, the years have conspired to steal it from my memory. We shook, and I introduced Leonard, and they shook as well.
“I thank you for riding this far afield,” the Sheriff said, “I know we’re quite a ways from your usual route.”
“Thanks are unnecessary, it is my obligation and my pleasure. You have the accused still in custody?”
The Sheriff nodded. “I do.”
“And the crime for which he stands accused?”
“Murder. Walked right up to Patrick Daniels there in front of the barber shop, pulled his pistol and shot him six times.”
I nodded. “Anything else? Resisting arrest or the like?
The Sheriff shook his head. “Not at all. When I stepped up to arrest him, he very agreeably surrendered his weapons and allowed himself to be brought into custody. A good thing, as with his size, he certainly could have made my life a misery.”
“And no problems with him since?”
“Not an ounce of trouble, which is quite a pleasurable difference from the men I’m used to dealing with. I presume you have dealt with quite a wide variety of scoundrels.”
“I’ve seen every manner of criminal ‘pon God’s earth.”
The Sheriff smirked. “Funny you mention God.”
He did not explain his amusement, merely opened the door to the jailhouse, nodded us inside.
Leonard took a standing post at the end of the hallway leading to the cells, and the judge unlocked the barred door that allowed access to the hallway. “Give a holler if he starts giving trouble. As I say, he’s been docile as a pup, but that don’t mean you should get too relaxed. He did kill a man in cold blood.”
I nodded, and stepped into the hall, my boots thumping on the wood. The red sky could be seen through the bars of the prison cells, and thunder had begun to rumble in the distance. I walked the length of the hall to the last cell, the thundering prickling my skin.
When I saw the man sitting on the bunk, I immediately noticed a pair of items. One, the Sheriff was not fooling, he was the most massive man I had ever seen, and I had seen a great many. Though he sat as relaxed on the bunk as he could, the wood bent underneath him, and he seemed to take up the whole side of the wall.
Second, I saw that he was wearing a preacher’s collar. My heart sank a little. I was not, in those days, given to a particular religion my own self, but my upbringing was by a firmly devout Christian woman, and my mind flutters to this very day when confronted with men of the cloth.
But there was something strange about the collar. It was the only thing about his person that cried religion. Everything else spoke to a hard man. The calloused knuckles screamed violence, the eyes had seen much. His right hand was a mass of scars, leaving the appendage bone white.
I could see what the Sheriff had meant. This man was only still in custody because he allowed himself to be. If he had wanted to leave the cell, I have no doubt he could have wrestled the door from its moorings, or even kicked the wall down. But he sat calmly, studying a battered old bible. When he saw me approaching, he marked his place, and put the Good Book aside.
“Father,” I nodded.
“Son,” he said, with what sounded like an irony, though he did not crack a smile.
I sat in a battered chair set for me outside the cell.
“What denomination?” I asked.
“A good question.” Evidently one that would pass unanswered.
“Judge Baxter.”
“Enoch.”
“Christian or Surname?”
“Could be.”
I could not tell if he was provoking me purposely, testing me. I decided to push right in. No sense dickering around if he wasn’t playing me straight.
“I’ll be the judge at your hearing. I’ll also be acting as your defense.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Seems a conflict of interest.”
“Nonsense. I can do both jobs effectively. That’s why I was made judge, my objectivity.”
“Then I won’t waste your time debating the point.”
I produced a small notebook and a nub of a pencil. “Fine enough. As your defense, lay out for me the details for me. You stand accused of killing a man in cold blood, firing six shots into the victim's head and torso. How do you plan to plead?”
“Well, that’s a difficult question.”
“You claim to not have shot the man?”
“No, I very much did. Six times, as you mention.”
“Understood. Will you be claiming self-defense, then?”
“Not for myself, no. In the moment, I was defending the members of the community, who the... victim, are we calling him? In any case, the victim posed a threat to the people of this town, so I discharged my pistol into him.”
My heart lifted a little. Defense of community, that was just fine. Necessary, even.
“Grand,” I said, scribbling a note. “So the man was vocally threatening? Brandishing a weapon?”
“Not as such.”
“So how did you determine him as a threat to the community?”
He rolled it around for a moment. “He had been overcome with a... call it a disease.”
“Pox?”
“I do not know what manner of contagion. I haven’t seen its like before.”
“Does it affect the body, the mind, both?”
“All and more, so far as I could tell.”
“You said a moment ago that it was difficult question, so I ask again, do you plead guilty to killing Patrick Daniels?”
“Well, I do not plead guilty to killing him. To shooting him, yes, I must admit I am guilty of that.”
I put down my book with an irritated sigh. “Please do not tell me you are one of those preachers who love to debate semantics.”
He looked at me, confused. “Semantics?”
“Details. Niggling.”
He nodded. “Ah. No, I’m not given to debating... semantics. I would say that in most things, especially preaching, I am no expert.”
That struck me as a strange thing to say.
“How long have you been practicing?”
“Not very long at all.”
He didn’t elaborate.
I sighed.
"So, you ~~"
I realized he was staring at me. "Have I said something to sadden you?" he asked.
"Christ," I muttered, pulling out my handkerchief, wiping at the cursed water dripping from my eye. "I ask you to ignore my flesh's weakness."
He nodded. I have to say, I appreciated him saying no more on the matter.
“So," I continued, "you’re guilty of shooting a man, in your opinion ravaged with some sort of disease that threatened the safety of the community. You killed him to prevent the spread, let us say. Is that your concern? Your motive being questioned?”
“Your honor, it’s not the action I’m denying, it’s the word ‘killed.’ You cannot kill a man that is already dead.”
My face must have registered my confusion. "You're saying... Patrick Daniels was already dead when you shot him?"
The Preacher stared at me.
"You do know how that sounds," I said, finally.
"I do," he said.
“You have proof of this?”
“Not as such. But I would recommend that before you act as my defender, you examine the body. If it is determined that I shot Patrick Daniels in transgression of man or God’s law, I accept my punishment. But until you see his body, I will not accept being labeled a murderer. That is a violation of the Lord’s commandments, and I do try my utmost not to sin when can be avoided.”
I slapped the notebook closed. "Very well. Have you need of anything? Books, paper?"
He lifted the immense Bible, "I have what I require."
I stood to leave.
"One thought," he said.
"Yes?"
"When you've examined the body to your satisfaction, and I would recommend that you do so cautiously, for fear of contracting his malady, I would request that the body be burned to ashes, and the ashes buried in consecrated ground."
I thought about it. "If the man is plagued, then how will consecrated ground make any difference?"
"Couldn't hurt, could it?"
I tipped my hat to him, and made my way back to Leonard.
"You hear any of that?" I asked Leonard under my breath.
"Some," he said, "We dealing with outbreak here?"
"Could may," I said. "If so, we'd best be prepared. Quarantine, marshal law, any number of steps might be necessary. The Sheriff doesn't seem given to resistance, but if he needs to be replaced, I'll be looking to you to be the enforcer. In any case, whether the victim was plagued or no, I can't imagine I'd see anything that justifies the outright taking of his life, before attempting to give medical treatment, despite what this Preacher says."
Leonard nodded. We walked outside to rejoin the Sheriff.
"You see what I mean?" the Sheriff asked with a half-grin.
"He is a puzzlement," I agreed. "Do you believe his story? That the victim was plagued?"
The Sheriff shrugged. "If he was, weren't no symptoms I could see from the outside. Though, Pat always kept himself to himself, truth be told. There went by whole years where I never heard the sound of his voice. So if he'd taken ill, it might not be immediately apparent. The corpse bore no lesions on the skin, nor seemed otherwise necrotic. Though, with all the bullet holes in it, it did make it difficult to tell."
I nodded, putting on my leather gloves. "We should examine the body," I said, "Determine the truth of the matter."
The Sheriff paused, considering. "Might be a problem."
"Oh?"
"We buried him last week."
"Hm."
After some back and forth, we determined that if necessary, the corpse might have to be exhumed, to determine if infestation was evident. Exhuming by night would be impractical, but just to satisfy my curiosity, I asked the Sheriff to take us to the boneyard, so I could have a quick glance at the victim's gravesite. It served no immediate purpose, but I must admit, especially under the light of the red skies, I had grown uneasy with the whole affair, and something inside me thought it might be a good idea. A preacher in custody, accused of murdering a man who might be a plague carrier, it all served to give me creeping flesh.
I didn't know how appropriate that feeling would be.
We had to ride a short distance to the bone orchard, as the town had placed it near a forest, well outside its borders. Wisely, as it turned out. The Sheriff rode in front, with Leonard and I following. He and I rode close, our voices low. Were I a proud man, I would tell you that we spoke of great matters, of ideals, of the nuances of the American law.
"Think it too late in the evening to find us some companionship?" I asked of Leonard.
"Never too late, your honor," he replied. "Only question is how choosy you are of what's available at such a late hour."
"After a week's abstinence, all that concerns me is the price. If we should --"
"Holy Christ," the Sheriff said suddenly.
Leonard and I looked forward, instinctively pulling our horses to a stop. When we saw what the Sheriff had seen, we were both struck dumb.
Near the front of the cemetery, Patrick Daniel's grave was undisturbed, still covered in week-fresh dirt, the marker still new and unblemished by weather.
But all the other graves were open.
We dismounted, Leonard sliding his rifle out of its strap. I kept my pistol in its holster, but rested my hand on the butt. There didn't seem to be an immediate threat, other than the multitude of open graves. But one never knows.
Now, I know how this next part will sound. I was there, and I sometimes wonder if I dreamed it, or crossed the border of insanity, or even just witnessed a trick of the light. Yes, I still try and tell myself that, even given what followed.
We slowly walked forward, examining the graves at a distance. They did not seem to have been dug up. Rather, the dirt seemed pushed to the sides, the holes just wide enough for the graves' inhabitants to have squeezed through. The Sheriff stooped to examine one of the graves, the coffin visible through the dirt atop it. The wood was splintered from the inside.
"This... cannot f~~~~~~ be," the Sheriff said.
My damn eye had started its infernal leaking, so I paused a moment to daub it with a handkerchief. When the tears suppressed, I looked at Leonard. His eyes wide, he shrugged his ignorance.
I stared back at the empty graves, took stock. Very certainly, someone wanted us to believe that the corpses had burst from their confines and walked away. That was, of course, ridiculous. My first thought was the Preacher had done it. But to what end? To provide some kind of alibi for the murder of Patrick Daniels? But then I realized, it would have to have been done between the time Daniels had been buried and that moment. And the preacher had been convalescing in a jail cell.
Partners of his? Perhaps. But again, to what end? If the aim was to break their friend out of prison, what possible use could corpses be? And given the Preacher could practically walk out of his cell at will, escape didn't seem to be a motivation.
And then Leonard whistled me over. I walked to where he stood, and he pointed at the ground, where the dirt turned to mud, leading into the woods.
Footprints in the mud. Dozens of them, overlapping. Some in boots, some barefoot. All heading into the woods.
The Sheriff came up behind us, saw the footprints.
"Lord save and keep us," he said.
The three of us stared into the woods, trying to see anything. It seemed quiet. Though I could not swear by it, I thought I could hear rustling. Saw the glint of the moon off eyes.
Leonard spoke softly. "We should bring back men," he said, in that way of understatement he had.
I nodded agreement. The Sheriff seemed unsure, but since I presume he didn't favor the notion of taking on potential adversaries on his own, he walked with us back to the horses.
I mounted my horse, stared back at the trees. My flesh crept again.
We returned then to the prison, the three of us walking that long hall to the preacher's cell in lockstep.
The Preacher heard us coming, sat up. Seeing the looks on our faces, his brow furrowed.
"The grave was open," he said.
"No," I said, "Patrick Daniels still lies in repose. It's every other grave in the damn yard that's wide open."
He considered this.
"Did not expect to hear that," was all he said.
"Sheriff," I said, "Unlock this man's cell."
"We sure he's not the cause of the whole thing?" he said.
"If he is the cause and can do all this from the confines of his cell, it certainly will not matter if we let him roam free. Alternately, if he is not responsible, we need all the manpower we can get. Or, at the very least, a preacher to ask God to save us. Open it up."
The Sheriff unlocked the cell and opened the door. The preacher stood to his full, massive height. I looked up at him, much the way my diminutive mother used to look up at me when she gave me a scolding, showing not an inch of weakness. "Can I count on you, sir, to return to your cell and face justice when this matter is concluded?"
He looked down at me. "Of course. But I would like it entered into the record that there seems to be additional evidence in this matter."
"So noted," I said.
I spun on my heel and walked down the hall. "Give this man his irons back," I yelled over my shoulder.
We gathered in the Sheriff's office, stocking ourselves with arms and ammunition. The plan we had concocted was to gather a loose posse and go back to the cemetery at daybreak, see if we could pick up more tracks.
I watched the Preacher load a rifle. There was something in his movements that once again gave me pause. I've known many ministers, I've known public servants, I've known outlaws and law men. All carry themselves in particular ways. And his way did not seem that of a religious man.
Except, before he loaded each bullet, he put it to his forehead, and muttered what I assumed to be a blessing.
"Sir, when you say you are a preacher, is this a self-appointed role? A faith not given legitimacy in a standing religion?"
He looked at me.
"I apologize if I offend, but I feel it important," I said.
"I take no offense. Leave it to say that I have been baptized by a clergyman. And under his tutelage, while extraordinarily brief, I have been anointed as a man of the cloth."
He took his massive bible in one hand, flipped to a page near the back, and handed it to me. There on an empty page, in a barely-legible scrawl, was the proclamation that the man Enoch was baptized and ordained by a man claiming to be "Father Carlton Jeffries, of the Old Song Protestant Church, ~~~~~~~, Texas." A date was scrawled, but I couldn't make it out properly.
That was not the part of the page I found distressing.
The Preacher understood. "The blood is Father Jeffries's," he said. "You could say it was a deathbed writing."
Death, yes. The page had drips of blood across it, a few bloody fingerprints where Jeffries had probably gripped it. Some of the words were smeared under the blood.
I looked him in the eyes. He held up his hands.
"Legitimate. Not forced by me. I'm confident he thought he was doing me, or perhaps the world, a kindness."
"Was he?" I asked, handing him back the bible, so heavy it took me both hands to hold it.
He sighed. "I often wonder if he did me well by his actions, or if he cursed me. But I can say in all honesty, he made the choice of his own free will."
"Fine. The court accepts that are you are a legitimate preacher. How did you know Patrick was afflicted? Were there symptoms, visible signs?"
The Preacher was slow to answer.
"I wonder if perhaps I should exercise my right not to self-incriminate."
"Son, I am not asking as an officer of the court, I am asking for the most practical solution to a problem. Obviously, something was deeply amiss with this man. I am going to assume that you have knowledge or experience that we do not in this matter."
He thought on that. "I've seen a fair amount of strangeness of late. Things unexplainable. However, I cannot lay claim to any experience beyond what I've seen with my own eyes, and no special knowledge besides. Save perhaps that God sometimes brings strange things to this earth. Giants to battle children. Men of great strength, invincible so long as they don't cut their hair. Given all that, can we agree that what I say here is perhaps off the record? Client to attorney for the defense?"
The Sheriff and Leonard looked at me. I could not claim to know their minds, but they seemed curious what I was going to say. Leonard knew my mind well, but even at that moment, he seemed anxious that I might stand down from my more hardened tactics.
I grumphed. I didn't like trading favors for the law, but there is the law of the books, and the law of the world around us, and often, the two do not come anywhere close together.
"So agreed. This will not be entered into any legal record."
The Preacher breathed deep. "The man, Patrick. His gait was a trifle affected. He seemed in a daze. His eyes were of a strange pallor, but as it was night, I couldn't see if the color was different."
Here he paused. Looked out the window.
"The truth, however, is I probably would not have noticed these things and assumed he was diseased, rather, merely drunk or perhaps opium-addled."
He looked at me.
"I again ask you to take my next words with trust."
I nodded.
"As I have inferred, I have not been a preacher for very long. I have only recently had my conversion to the faith. And I am slow to learn its teachings, and my path in it. So I am unsure what preachers find typical in their profession."
He paused again, then continued.
"Of late, I have been... hearing a voice in my head, that I had not heard in the years of my life previous to my conversion."
Leonard looked at me. The look he gives when he wants to know if he needs to be going for his metal.
"The voice started faint. So quiet I didn't really notice it wasn't my own. But it became louder over time. It would tell me things. Things I would not have known of my own accord."
"And one of the things the voice told you was to shoot Patrick?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Not precisely. It told me two things: one, that he was already deceased, hence my claiming innocence in the matter of his killing. Two, that he had a demon inside his dead body. And given leave, he would pass that demon to others. The voice did not tell me that shooting him was the solution, just that I needed to prevent the demon's passing. I took the shooting upon myself. Considering what you've told me, perhaps that was the incorrect solution, as the demon seems to have been passed anyway. I had feared the demon would pass from the dead to the living, but now it would seem that it passes from the dead to the dead."
Leonard was still looking at me in his way.
"Preacher... do you believe this voice to be the voice of God?" I asked.
The Preacher looked at us. This was the first time he seemed to consider putting his hands on his pistols, but he also seemed to fight the temptation.
"I do not know if it is the Almighty's voice," he said. "However, as I've mentioned, it does often tell me things that I could not know on my own."
I could feel the tension in the room rising. "Could you do me a favor, preacher? Would you mind waiting outside while I confer with these gentlemen?"
He nodded. Seemed to expect it. He took the rifle and headed to the door, gently closed it behind him.
I looked at the Sheriff.
"Most g~~damn madness I've heard outta anyone's mouth," he said.
"More mad than corpses emptying their graves?" I said. My eye was leaking again, so I sat, pulled out my handkerchief and dabbed it.
"You don't really believe that?" he said. "It's someone pulling our bellropes! They dug up the corpses and dragged 'em off, and has 'em all piled up on a farm somewhere, spellin' out cuss words 'r some sh~~!"
"All that work and no one took notice?" I said.
"Well Christ, it makes more sense than a dead man gettin' up and wanderin' off."
It did. My mind wanted to go that direction. But there was something strange about it, something in the air. Yes, under a blue sky, the empty graves would seem like an elaborate prank. But under blood red skies?
"And you?" I asked Leonard. "Thoughts?"
Leonard thought a moment. "Typically, I'd side with the Sheriff. Especially given that the big'un thinks he hears the voice of God. Thing is, Your Honor, there's things we've seen give me pause. I don't know about no demons, but pox don't seem the oddest thought. We've seen men go full insane when riddled with it. I don't know if I believe it could inspire the dead to stand up, but then again, we have seen men do questionable depravity to corpses."
We had. I won't describe such madness here, but I had tried and convinced men of lewdnesses and worse to the dead.
But I pause here to tell a truth. And that truth was, I believed the Preacher at his word. Perhaps more the fool, I. It isn't rational for a man of the law to believe such nonsense, but there was something in the manner of the man that inspired belief. Perhaps his honestly in the matters of his only recently becoming clergy. Or perhaps he was simply charismatic, which I have known many a grifter to be. I'd want to believe their lies all the way to the moment I put the nooses around their necks. But there seemed something else at work here, I could feel it. I don't know if was the touch of the Lord, or Satan himself, but I could feel something building.
I just hadn't reckoned on it exploding so quick.
We heard screams, just then, from the other side of town. Not just one, but many, a chorus. The Preacher opened the door, leaned in and said, "Think we may not be waitin' 'til dawn."
We grabbed up our guns, and followed behind him.
When we arrived on foot to where the screams were coming from, we were greeted by a horrifying vision. In the torchlight, the street was filled with people, fighting and brawling, ranchers, whores, men and women alike. There is no other way to put this than the truth: they were battling corpses. Their attackers were in various states of decay, I assume based on how long they lay interred in the earth. Their skin rotted and dirty, sloughing off them as they fought, their clothes ripping off them like feathers. Some were just bones and muscle. These dead men tore into the living, gouging them with cracked and broken fingernails. They even went after the horses, ripping their flesh.
Men and women alike were hitting them with whatever weapons they could, fists, clubs, one even a sword. Some had guns and were emptying them into their attackers. The bullets were hitting more civilians than attackers, but even the ones that hit the attackers seemed to do not one thing.
But that was not the most disturbing part.
I watched myself as one of the evening ladies got her throat ripped out by one of the attackers. I saw as she tried to breathe, her mouth now unattached to her lungs, and I saw as she collapsed in the dirt.
And I saw, a moment later, as she rose again, the same death in her eyes as the other attackers, and watched her launch into the crowd of still-living men and women, savagely attacking.
"Preacher," I said, as we observed the mayhem from down the street, "Any notion on how we should deal with this?"
"You say Patrick Daniels remains in his grave?"
"Yes."
The Preacher cocked his rifle.
"Then maybe best to do what we do best," he said, and fired.
The shot hit a nearby attacker, barely more than a skeleton with some dried jerky on its bones. Its chest exploded, and the skeleton fell to the dirt, where it remained, unmoving.
I looked to Leonard and nodded. He raised his rifle and fired at one of the nearest attackers, a woman who had evidently been buried in her best Sunday dress, now fallen to tatters, to reveal the desiccated flesh underneath. Now, I had been on many an adventure with Leonard, and many of those adventures had climaxed in gunplay. Leonard was one of the best shots I had ever known. So I was not surprised to see that his shot was true, catching the attacker right in the center of her skull. I was not surprised to see her rotten brains exit the other side, and spatter in the dirt.
I was, however, surprised to see her turn in our direction, the front of her face missing, before she charged, bearing down on us with great speed. Leonard shoved me to the ground as she fell upon him, tearing at his chest. Holding her at arm's length with his left hand, Leonard dropped his rifle and drew his knife from its sheath, slashing at the woman's rotting throat. His blade struck true, cutting and hacking pieces of her neck away. Her head was barely attached, and still she slashed at him, slicing through his shirt and clawing his chest.
The Preacher saw Leonard's distress, put the rifle to the side of her head, and pulled the trigger. Her head more or less shattered, and the body dropped on top of Leonard. I kicked the unmoving body off of Leonard, as the Preacher gave him a hand and helped him to his feet. Leonard nodded his thanks, picked up his rifle, and began firing at the attacking corpses.
I followed suit, firing my pistol, and the Sheriff and the Preacher raised their arms and did the same.
I quickly noticed that our shots, mine, Leonard's and the Sheriff's, no matter where and how perfectly they struck, did not fell the attackers. The only shots that finished the corpses were the Preacher's. And though many of his shots struck true, hitting in vital spots, there were others that only winged or barely nicked the corpses.
And yet, all fell to his shots, unmoving and vacant.
"Why do your shots finish them, and ours do not?" I yelled to the Preacher.
He paused a moment while he took aim and fired at a corpse.
"My bullets are blessed," he replied.
"That does not help the rest of us," I said.
The Preacher drew one of the pistols in his belt, reached it out to me. I nodded to Leonard, who grabbed the pistol, took aim, and fired at a dead cowboy attacking one of the whores. His neck exploded as the bullet struck, and the corpse dropped.
As Leonard did his work, The Preacher handed his other pistol to the Sheriff, who followed Leonard's lead, firing at the corpses. Two of his shots missed, but four struck home.
The Preacher, meantime, had unbuckled his gun belt, the loops lined with bullets, and tossed it to Leonard, who caught it, and quickly reloaded his pistol.
The Preacher handed me his rifle. "Trade," he said. I handed him my rifle and took his. He quickly unloaded the bullets from the rifle, then taking each in turn, tipping it to his forehead and saying words I could not hear. After each was blessed, he reloaded it in the rifle.
The corpses had taken note of us by this time, and had started to turn their attention from the crowds, running, shambling and stumbling toward us.
I tried to calm my hand. I have been known to occasionally hit what I aim for, but usually only if the target is stationary, making me near-useless in a gun battle. But knowing our survival relied on my caution and aim, I took care to keep the rifle steady, choosing targets I was certain to hit, and aiming dead center, hoping that any small hit would mean a success. In this way, slow though I was, each of my shots hit a target, and brought down another corpse.
But slow and steady only counts for tortoises against hares, and though we had felled a good many of them, the corpses were getting closer. We were forced to slowly fall back, firing, reloading, and the Preacher blessing ammo all the while.
The Sheriff had given the Preacher his own bandolier of ammunition, and the Preacher was trying to give each bullet its due, just as both the Sheriff and I clicked on empty at the same time. A line of corpses had formed in front of us, stumbling toward us. One of them, a boy in a black suit who looked like he'd only been interred a short time, climbed on the backs of the corpses in front of him, and hurled himself toward us. Leonard had paused to reload, and seeing the boy leap, he snapped the chamber of his pistol shut and fired.
Sadly, for the first time I'd seen that night, he missed.
The boy had been leaping toward me, and Leonard, God bless his soul forever, did what he always did, putting my welfare before his, and threw himself between me and the boy. The boy landed on him, and though Leonard was able to get his hand around the boy's throat, the impact knocked him off his feet. They hit the ground hard, Leonard lost his grip on the pistol, and it went spinning off into the dark. He held his attacker by the throat, but the boy clawed at him, a finger hooking into Leonard's eye.
To his credit, Leonard didn't make a sound as the finger gouged the eye out of its socket. He tried to push the boy off of him, but the creature held fast to him. His fingers scratched at Leonard's face, blood flowing in rivulets.
I, for my part, had been taking aim as carefully as I could, knowing my shot could mean Leonard's life. I had the boy dead center in my sights, and I gently squeezed the trigger.
And, curse my soul to Hell, I missed.
The boy jerked at the last moment, and the shot intended for him struck Leonard in the side. Leonard let out a grunt through clenched teeth, and his grip on the boy's throat faltered. The boy dove into Leonard's chest where the shot had hit, ripping it open with teeth and fingers.
The Preacher saw, and with all his strength, kicked the boy in the side, sending him sprawling into the dirt. The boy rolled over quicker than anything I'd ever seen, bounced himself to all fours, and launched toward Leonard. With no time to take aim, I fired.
My shot glanced the boy in the cheek, tearing his mouth open, teeth flying. Not a mortal blow for a living man, but his lifeless body dropped, unmoving. The Preacher and I dragged Leonard to his feet. Leonard clenched his teeth, but didn't make a sound, keeping his hands to his stomach, trying to keep his guts inside. I put my shoulder under Leonard's to hold him up best I could, and I heard him laugh.
"Can truly say you don't see a thing like this every day," he croaked.
"Shut your hole and quit dyin'," I growled back.
The line of corpses moved steady toward us, and we were being pushed back into a closed alley. They were still many in number, their forces dwindled, but still more than we had bullets to finish, as our supply was also dwindling. The Sheriff and the Preacher worked in tandem, picking them off, while I held Leonard up on my shoulder, trying to do my part, and failing to hit a damn thing. One shot missed my target completely and was lucky to strike a corpse behind it, but my others went stray, and I cursed again as my hammer fell on empty.
The Sheriff ran dry moments later. "Empty!" he yelled.
"Almost out," the Preacher said. "We're not gonna have enough."
"Don't suppose you can curse them with the words of Jesus?" I said.
"I've been cursing this whole time, don't seem to be stoppin' 'em," he replied.
The Preacher's eyes lit around the alley, landing on a torch on the second story of the building.
"Got a notion," he said, handing me his pistol, "Need your aim to be true."
"Then you're doomin' us," I said.
"I have faith," he said. "I'm headin' to the right, try'n keep 'em off me."
He ran toward the line of corpses, at first straight-on, then hooking to the right. No time to aim properly, I stuck my arm out to the corpses on the right side, and fired wild. Three shots roared out, and then I clicked empty.
One of the corpses was nicked and fell, another took a bullet in the chest. They dropped, and the Preacher stepped on their backs as he ran out of the alley, around the corner of the building, and disappeared.
Leonard, the Sheriff and I were almost against the alley's back wall. "Son of a whore up and left us," the Sheriff growled. I hoped he was wrong, but truly, I couldn't blame the Preacher if he ran. He had done more than his part for a town that had kept him in a cage.
A moment later, our backs touched the wooden wall of the alley. The Sheriff and I kicked at it, but it didn't want to give. The corpses were near upon us.
"Leonard," I said, "it has been a pleasure and an honor."
"Same, boss," he said, blood leaking from his lips.
It was then that rain, or what I thought was rain, began to fall, dribbling down on the corpses before us. A few stray drops hit me, and I realized I smelled oil.
"Get down!" the Preacher yelled from above us. He stood in the window of the building, an empty tin of lamp oil in his hand, tipped toward the corpses. He yanked the torch off the wall, and threw it upon them.
They burst into flames, though they barely seemed to notice, still coming toward us, now with the added danger of the flames.
Then, as I watched in stunned disbelief, I watched the Preacher step up into the window, and launch himself toward us. I remembered his warning to get down, and I dropped like a rock, accidentally jostling Leonard badly on the way down.
The Preacher crashed into the fence, using his great mass to topple it. The wood splintered under him, and he fell into the mud on the other side. The Sheriff and I hoisted Leonard, and stepped over the broken fence, moving as quickly as we could. We dragged Leonard out of the other end of the alley, bringing him to rest on the steps of the ladies' dress shop.
The corpses kept shuffling forward, as the flames consumed them. Their gait was slow now, like every step was agony.
"How did you know the flames would work?" I asked the Preacher.
He shook his head slightly. "Didn't. But blessed the oil, just in case."
Slowly, one by one, they began to drop, until finally, only one remained, a woman, the flames having consumed her burial dress, which was probably also used at her wedding. She dragged toward us, her body crumbling under her, bringing her first to her knees, then to crawling.
Finally, the Preacher stepped up to the flaming corpse. "God send thee to the rest you deserve," he said, and kicked the corpse. The woman burst apart, the flaming pieces landing across the alleyway.
The Sheriff and I erupted in cheers. For a brief moment, I knew relief and happiness.
Until Leonard spoke.
"Boss," he croaked.
I looked at him, and realized, he was practically dead on his back. His guts had started to slip through his fingers.
"Think we need to finish them goodbyes," he said.
I gently squatted down next to him. The Preacher started saying words quietly, under his breath. Last rites, I assumed.
I took Leonard's hand in mine. "We've been through much, my friend."
He smiled through the blood. "Been the best time of my life, Your Honor. Do me a favor, if y'would. I don't favor taking forever dying at this pace. And I certainly do not favor becoming one of those creatures."
I felt my insides curdle. "I understand."
Leonard nodded. "Knew you would. Be careful with yourself, 'til you find another flesh shield."
He laughed, blood bubbling between his teeth.
I stood. The Sheriff brought the Preacher the gun Leonard had dropped, the Preacher took it, let it rest gently by his side, as he stood beside me and spoke in low tones.
"I can do it," the Preacher said softly.
"No," I said, "wouldn't be proper. As you say, you should strive to honor His commandments." I exhaled a breath, gathering my courage.
"And he's my friend."
The Preacher nodded, handing me the pistol. I hunkered down by Leonard. His remaining eye had become glassy.
"Anything else I can get you?" I asked.
"Ohhhhh, drop'a whiskey, couple gals who don't mind sodomy. Another few years," he said, closing his eye. He smiled beatifically.
"Go ahead," he whispered.
And G~~ damn it, wouldn't you know, the one time I would have reveled in a good weeping, my cursed ducts wouldn't give me water.
I wish I could say the town recovered from the attack, but that would be untrue. The flames from those last corpses spread quickly, and decimated the buildings all along that end. The morning after, the Preacher spent good hours walking the perimeter of the ashes, muttering blessings, in the hopes that whatever had entered the corpses, demon or disease, would be quelled.
But the townspeople had already seen too much. Most spent the day packing, intending to move further west. Some left that very morning. Some remained, but those that did couldn't save it. I returned years later to the same spot, to find the rest of the buildings had been burned down. Whether an errant spark, the work of an arsonist, or even the Preacher himself, returned to finish his work, I could not say for certain.
I learned later that morning how Patrick Daniels had himself died. He'd been blind drunk, per usual, and riding his horse in circles out in the forest. One of the children had been out hunting varmints, and seen him fall off his horse, breaking his fool neck. The boy checked for certain, and after minutes of prodding the body, seeing neither breathing nor blinking from the wide-open eyes, the boy had rushed off, fearing he'd be in trouble for witnessing such a thing, and vowing to keep it to himself for eternity. Luckily his mother had convinced him to speak up.
How circumstances had arisen to get the body back up and moving remained a mystery, but having confirmed that Patrick Daniels had indeed been deceased before encountering the Preacher, that was enough evidence for me to agree that the Preacher hadn't committed murder, and naturally, seeing as he'd done his best defending the town, I considered the matter of his guilt closed, charges dismissed with the court's thanks to him.
I was ashamed to realize I didn't know Leonard's people, and had no idea where to send word to next of kin. You can know a man, and not know him, I suppose. I spent the better part of a year on the matter, and eventually discovered that he had a sister in Plymouth, that I was able to send word to. I'm further ashamed to say I never recall him mentioning her, though I don't know if that was because he never did, or I never paid attention. And that, for me, was the final straw.
Leonard's death, unfortunately, had shown me to myself. I realized I was a selfish no-account, and all my self-indulgent "good works" weren't worth a spit in Hell. And given that Hell now seemed a real place to me ~ which, given the dead rising, seemed a logical assumption to make ~ I no longer felt like wandering through life seeking merely pleasure and whatever I considered "justice." I remained a judge awhile longer, and had more adventures, which, do not fear, I plan to detail, but suffice it to say, the scales had fallen from my eyes, and I realized I needed to find something to give back, both to the world, and the world underneath.
Thus, when I met the Preacher again down the road, though he still remembered me as the Weeping Judge, my circumstances had entirely changed, as had the world's.
But that, as they say, is another story for another time. For tonight, I put my pen to rest. God bless and keep us all.
© 2024