And the Hills Opened Up (16 page)

part four

The Last Souls in Town

30

When the sun rose again on Red Earth, Father Lynch was sitting on edge of his cot, fully dressed, with his worn Bible on his lap and his clerical color tight about his throat.  He had not slept, read, or touched a drink since emerging from his shared coffin, the stink of decay in his nostrils.  He’d simply sat on his bed, his mind both blank and feverish, anticipating the grim day before him.  He believed he was the last living person in camp, the only lamb spared from the nocturnal slaughter.

Lynch had no idea why he’d been spared, why the Good Lord had chosen him alone to escape from the demon set loose upon His creation.  Lynch did not believe he was a particularly good man, if he could be said to be good at all, and he was definitely not a brave man.  He might have been spared by his calling alone—perhaps it was too much, even for the all-powerful Lord, to allow another priest to fall to the Devil. 

Or perhaps that was not the reason at all.  Perhaps the reason would never be revealed, could not be revealed.  The ways of the Lord were mysterious, to be certain, and Lynch had not been present when the world’s foundations were laid.  He was only a mortal creature, raised from dust and to dust soon to be returned.  In the time between, Lynch could only perform his duties as best he could, tending to the town’s dead and easing their passage into the next life as best he could.  What else could be done in the face of such wickedness? 

“I will do so, my Lord.  I will tend my butchered flock and ease their passage into the life beyond.”

The priest rose from his bed, dropped his Bible into his coat pocket, and strode through the bedroom door.  The church’s sanctuary, which had been filled with such dark shadows throughout the night, was flooded with bright morning sunshine.  The light caught the sifting dust motes hanging in the air and made the line of coffins resting behind the pews glow, as if the cheap pine was lit from within. 

Father Lynch passed through the sunny room without lingering, pushing aside the broken front door and descending the church’s back steps.  Turning left, he was greeted immediately with the sight of the Copper Hotel next door, its front bay window shattered and dead bodies circling it on all sides.  A wake of black feathered vultures had already found the piled dead—they sat perched on torn backs and split stomachs, their talons dug in and raking while their hooked beaks pecked at eye sockets and tore away strips of flesh.  The ugly, enormous birds glanced up when the priest clapped his hands, eyeing him briefly before returning to their business. 

Lynch approached the Copper Hotel, deciding to ignore the carrion birds.  Some of the dead he recognized, some he did not.  A great pile lay just outside the hotel’s door, sticky with dried gore.  The priest took a deep breath, placed a handkerchief over his mouth, and stepped through the hotel’s doorway, which was splintered and beaded with buckshot.  More bodies lay heaped inside, so many he had to push them aside to pass through.  Each corpse was maimed in some way, with the most common wounds originating at the throat and chest, and a few were so badly gored their features were no longer recognizable.  Only the center of the hotel’s main room, which had been cleared of the usual tables and chairs, was empty, with the dead lining all four walls, while another large pile lay in front of the hotel’s back entrance.

Father Lynch raised his head, reluctantly, and surveyed the hotel’s second floor balcony.  Madam Petrov stared back at him, her large, pale face wedged between two bars of the railing, her eyes glassy and flat.  He couldn’t see her wounds from where he stood but it was plain to see she’d been set on from behind.

“I am sorry, Madam,” Lynch said, making the sign of the cross in her direction.  “You were a true Christian woman and deserved a better fate.”

As the sun rose higher in the sky the temperature, and the smell, in the hotel was increasing.  Soon the stench would be unbearable.  Lynch had thought to bury the dead, every murdered soul, but now he saw the work such an endeavor would entail with his own eyes and saw his folly for what it was.  He said the Lord’s Prayer through his handkerchief and made the cross over the entire room, one body after another, his free hand touching the Bible through the fabric of his coat. 

“Rest in peace,” he concluded, stepping out through the broken bay window and into the street.  Ingrid Blomvik and the two other bodies, the man and the woman, remained prone in front of the church, with the still-smoking ruins of the Runoff Saloon behind them.  The saloon’s roof had collapsed entirely during the night, leaving its base exposed to the blue sky.  Father Lynch found himself perversely glad for the fire—at least whoever had died in the saloon would not be left to rot slowly, uncovered to the vultures and the elements.  They would have burned cleanly, hopefully quickly, their mortal bodies cleansed by flame as their souls fled to Heaven.

Father Lynch bent over Ingrid Blomvik and made the cross above her forehead.  Her blue eyes—such a deep, wonderful blue—were open.  The priest’s chest hitched with a spasm of pain as he rolled the girl’s eyelids shut.  He would cover her with a sheet after he’d made his rounds through town.  He’d bring a pile of sheets from the Dennison bunkhouses up the street and cover as many bodies as he could.

The vultures squawked behind the priest, fighting over a length of bare leg.  Father Lynch straightened and continued his survey, circling round the smoldering saloon to get a closer look at the damage.  What remained of the building’s walls had blackened, as if roasted in a kiln.  The priest had seen plenty of fires in his lifetime, but none that had burned so rapidly and so thoroughly. 

Had the occupants set the fire intentionally?  Had they decided to end their own lives before the stranger could perform the task more violently?  How—

Lynch halted. 

A body was lying in the grass, thrown twenty yards from the rear of the saloon.  He could see its dark outline in the grass, boots up.  Lynch approached the body and found a slim man covered in grime and blood, with an unsightly gash along his left cheek that ran to his jaw.  It was the man Lynch had spoken to the night before, the one who’d told him about a fellow he’d accidentally killed in a street brawl.  He had a brother.  His family had a farm in Nebraska.

Elwood.

The cut man was Elwood Hayes, and he was breathing. 

Hayes looked strong enough to be left alone for a few minutes.  Father Lynch circled round the saloon in case anybody else had been thrown clear of the fire, but found nothing but scorched earth.  It’d been a small miracle the fire hadn’t spread to any of the other building’s on the street, the bunkhouses on the south side or the shacks further north.  Sure, the buildings had some space between them, but the fire had raged so fiercely earlier that morning it had seemed destined to spread across town, unchecked by the hand of man.

As he returned to the street, intent on gathering supplies for Elwood Hayes, the priest found Main Street eerily silent, the few buildings as still as the hills behind them.  More bodies lay scattered up and down the thoroughfare.  The priest eyed them uneasily as he headed down to the general store, not wanting to recognize anyone he’d known personally.  The store’s front porch was clear of bodies, which surprised him, and Lynch stopped short of the steps.

“Leg?  You in there?”

No answer.  The priest tugged at his collar, which always seemed to tighten as the day grew warmer.

“I’m coming in for supplies.  Don’t anybody shoot me.”

Lynch climbed the general store’s steps and showed himself inside, where it was cool and dark and smelled strongly of urine.  He paused, letting his eyes adjust, and was relieved to find the premises empty.  The shelves were in order, too, except for the empty spaces where Leg usually kept the rifles and scatterguns.  Leg and Henry might have been in the backroom, still lying abed after a night of hard drinking.

“I need supplies, gentlemen.” Father Lynch went around the counter and poked his head through the backroom’s doorway.  Both beds were vacant.  Either the Jamesons had died on their feet or they’d cleared town.  The priest looked around the store, its shelves still filled with stock, and decided he’d put his money on dead.  “A shame, gentlemen,” Lynch called out, pulling out the bottle of East Coast whiskey everyone knew Leg kept beneath the counter for fine occasions.  He also gathered a tin of salve, a pile of linens, and a corked jug.  He went outside with his supplies and circled behind the store, where he filled the jug with water from Leg’s pump. 

After a pause to catch his breath and wipe the sweat from his eyes, Lynch started back toward the Runoff Saloon.  Hayes was in the same spot as where he’d left him, his chest rising and falling as he slept.  Lynch splashed water on one of the towels and started scrubbing at the soot and grime that coated the wounded man like a second skin.  The gash along his left cheek bled at the fussing, flaring red and sore.  Lynch poured water on the wound directly, trying to flush it clean.

“You hear me, son?”

Hayes kept breathing without pause.  He was deep under.

“This might hurt, but it needs doing.”

Lynch uncorked the fine whiskey and took a swig.  The liquor burned the back of his throat, cleaning out the sour.  He hissed, took a second swig, and poured some into the sleeping man’s wound. 

Hayes’ eyes opened and rolled in their sockets wildly while he thrashed about.  “Whoa,” the priest said, pushing the wounded man back to the ground.  “It’s over, it’s over.”

Hayes’ eyes slowed their rolling and came into focus.  Father Lynch smiled and patted his shoulder. 

“I bet that stung as bad as ten hornets.”

Hayes gazed beyond the priest’s shoulder toward the sky.  Then he turned his head to the side, as if he could not bear the sight of it.

“You remember what happened, son?” 

Hayes said nothing.

“If you’re strong enough to sit up, I got a jug of water here.”

Hayes stared at the grass he was eye-level with.  Finally, after a couple of minutes of this, he grunted and sat up.  Lynch uncorked the water jug and Hayes snatched it away, pouring the water into his mouth and then over his head, sending rivulets of soot-blackened water down the front of his shirt. 

“I’m no goddamned invalid, Father.”

Hayes set the jug down between his legs, his chest heaving.  The gash on his cheek was bleeding anew.

“Your wound—”

“I can feel it.  Don’t worry about that.”

Lynch handed him the tin of ointment and a clean towel.  “You should rub some salve into it.”

Hayes nodded, staring past him again at the ruined saloon.  He took the cloth and the salve and unscrewed the tin’s lid.  A pungent, clean scent filled the air, reminding Lynch of gin.  Hayes dipped two fingers into the white grease and smeared it across his cut cheek.  He winced, folded up the towel into a thick square, and placed it against his face, still eyeing the blackened saloon.

“The Charred Man,” Hayes said, “leaving behind more charred folks.”

The priest straightened and crossed his arms.  He felt like drinking more of the whiskey, but it was too early. 

“That’s what you call him?  The Charred Man?”

“Sheriff Atkins referred to him as such.”

Father Lynch turned, peering across the half-mile of valley toward the Dennison Mine.  He could make out the dry house, halfway up the hillside, but the mine’s dark mouth had disappeared.

“Was that what the blasting was about last night?  The Charred Man?”

Hayes nodded.

“Sheriff Atkins said they tried to seal him in, but he got out anyhow.  Atkins called a town meeting at the hotel but it was already too late for that.  I reckon he’s some kind of demon.”

Lynch knelt down and took a drink from the whiskey bottle, deciding it was late enough after all.

“I saw them die,” Hayes said, still pressing the towel to his cheek.  “Clem.  Roach.  Owen.  I missed with the fire and he came at us with his razor.  Cut through the men like they
were butter.  Nobody got off more than one steady shot.” 

Lynch took another pull, imagining the scene.  Fire at one end of the saloon, a retreat to the back. 

“I tried a second bottle, got it lit and thrown.  Missed with that, too, and the whole place was afire after that.  He started tossing folks around.  Even the dead folks, he tossed.  I think he liked it.  He liked watching us go flying like that.  Like we was nothing but rag dolls.”

Hayes looked around his spot in the grass. 

“He tossed me after he lit into me with that razor.  Must have thrown me through the goddamn wall.”

A cloud drifted across the sun, dropping them in shadow.  Hayes coughed into his lap, spitting up something black and wet.

“Did you see her, Father?  You see Ingrid?”

“Yes.  I did.”

“She’s dead, too.”

“Yes.  She died in front of the saloon, in the street.  She got clear of the fire but not him.”

Hayes doubled over further, until his forehead nearly touched his knees.  He coughed and spat again.

“She fought him until the end.  She pulled a gun.”

Hayes looked up and searched the priest’s face. 

“You saw her die.  From your church, you saw her.”

The priest nodded, clutching his folded elbows with both hands.  Hayes sniffed and wiped a smear of ointment from the corner of his mouth.

“I don’t blame you, Father.  If I was you, I’d have done the same.”

Father Lynch turned his face to the clouded sky, feeling the wind on his face and how it blew through his gray hair.  He could feel no blessing in it.