Skinwalkers (28 page)

Dan had to hurtle little more threats of persecution at the outlaw, for Black Bob knew he must take his chances with Dan in the street or face a slow death at the noble gunslinger’s hands. Soon, Bob emerged from the mercantile, his yellow teeth smiling in his coal-colored face. “Stay your barking, noble gunslinger,“ Bob said sardonically as he stepped over the body of a felled dog-man and into the street, “ere one will think you akin to this miserable breed.“

“The only barking you’ll hear today, Bob,“
Deadshot
Dan said forcefully, “is from the barrels of my trusty revolvers, Death and Doom!“

“So you’ve said without end, gunslinger,“ Black Bob remarked doubtfully as he positioned himself opposite Dan, “and yet here I still stand.“

“An oversight I shall soon remedy, I assure you,“ Dan said definitively.

Then the threats and declarations ceased and the men gazed coldly at one another across the corpses of dog-men littered upon the city street. Seconds stretched themselves into geological ages and the ground beneath their feet swelled and contracted, placing miles between the gunfighters before closing in again so that mere inches separated the combatants.

Neither man gave quarter and neither asked it. Their duel of words had now become a duel of speed and skill. They’d both raised accounts against one another that both men knew could now only be paid, and paid in full, in lead.

Then, somewhere in the distance, a lone cock crowed to herald the dawn and Black Bob’s hand shot toward his gun belt. But the rogue
nere
had a chance clear his holster before Death and Doom were thundering their familiar song. Dan’s gunshots boomed nosily throughout the town, echoing off the buildings and then lifting high into the purple sky above.

Black Bob momentarily gazed at Dan in wide-eyed astonishment until his eyes rolled up in his head and he dropped decidedly to the earth. “You have bested me, Dan,“ Black Bob gasped hoarsely with his final words, “You truly are the greatest!“ Then Bob’s death rattle ended and he spoke no more.

T
he midday sun blazed in the empty blue sky as Maxine walked up the side of the hill east of Perdition
. She carried
a burning torch in her right hand. She was now dressed in man’s chambray shirt and britches.
Crisscrossing
gun
belts housing twin six-shooters
rode on her hips. She joined Pablo and Farnsworth on the hilltop and then turned to view the results of her
handiwork
.

She’d
taken her time setting fire to what remained of Perdition.
A job worth doing was a job worth doing well
, Max used to say, usually when the two of them were up to no good in order to save the neck they shared. This time was no different.

Coyote was gone, but Maxine knew in the deepest parts of her soul that this was only a temporary reprieve. Something as evil as the Navajo witch just wasn’t that easy to kill. Not for good.

Sooner or later, Coyote would be back. But Maxine sure as hell wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of having anything to come home to.

“Fuck you here, now, and forever,“ Maxine mumbled under her breath. As she looked upon the town, the fires of Perdition danced in the mirrors of her eyes.

Farnsworth adjusted the makeshift crutch wedged in his armpit
. “Dry as it’s been,
there’s little doubt that the town will burn until it’s scoured from the earth.“

“And good riddance.“

“It’s too bad,“ Farnsworth said.

“Hmm?“

“Too bad the others didn’t make it. Especially our friend, the bounty hunter.“

Maxine frowned.

“He was one annoying bastard, I confess
,“ Farnsworth continued. “But
the man had gumption. There was no denying that. I may have to make chronicle of it someday.“

“How so?“ Maxine asked
the question
out of reflex. But she wasn’t really paying attention. Her eyes were still glued to Perdition’s flames.

“I write books, my good lady
,“
Farnsworth said. A long moment pregnant with silence passed before he continued. “I could write one about what happened here. As fiction, of course. No one in his right mind would believe
the truth of
what we’ve been through.“

Farnsworth turned to study Maxine’s silhouette. “Well?“

“Well what?“

“What do you think?“

Maxine didn’t reply at first. As usual, she was lost in a conversation with herself
—
or at least trying to be.

We did it, Max. We kept Pablo and ourselves alive to face another day. Whether that’s good or bad, I don’t know
.

Max gave no reply. In fact, Maxine hadn’t heard from her split personality since he’d offered to dispose of Coyote for her. Somehow, Maxine knew
she’d
never hear her alter ego’s
voice
inside her head ever again.

“I think
—“
Maxine shifted her gaze to Pablo. “I think the past is best left in the past, Professor.

“
Right here and now is all we got. All that matters. Everything else is just white lies and bullshit.“

Maxine produced a cigar from her shirt pocket and then lighted its end with her torch. She took a large drag
off the cigar
and then
let the smoke waft
out
of her mouth of its own accord
, the action
familiar and
soothing to her.

Maxine tossed the torch to the ground, and shouldered the pack of supplies she and Farnsworth had gathered from town.

“Let’s go.“ Maxine began to walk away. Farnsworth and Pablo followed after her.

From an interview with B
ear
Hill in
Fright Magazine
…

FRIGHT: The horror genre has been said to have peaked with King in the mid-80s. What made you decide to write your first book in a field that is considered to be well on its way to extinction?

HILL: Because I was tired of writing idiotic drivel for the masses, that’s why!

FRIGHT: You’re referring to your history as a writer for television situation comedies?

HILL: No, I’m referring to my time as a greeting card writer for fucking Hallmark. Of course I’m talking about my work in sitcoms! That shit was for the birds.
Skinwalkers
allowed me to shrug off the restraints of the corporate environment and be as down and dirty as I want to be, which is pretty fucking nasty! And I hardly see horror on the verge of extinction. Sure, no one puts up numbers like King, or at least like he used to. But the man was a fucking phenomenon, the Charles Dickens of horror. So long as this book puts food on the table, I’ll consider it well worth the effort.

FRIGHT:
Skinwalkers
certainly appears to be doing that. I hear Splinter’s Edge Films has optioned the book and also hired you to write the screenplay?

HILL: You’re damn
skippy
. I’m excited as Rodriguez is in talks to direct. We’ve spoken over the phone and e-mailed quite a bit. He gets it; the whole transformation metaphor and the exploration of the angel and the devil living inside each of us. It’ll be an absolute dream-come-fucking-true if he ultimately comes on board.

FRIGHT: Speaking of film, it’s become a known fact you’re understandably quite the movie buff. The influence of horror cinema seems to be very prevalent in the book…

HILL: Absolutely!
Skinwalkers
is a “tip of the hat
“
to films ranging from Romero’s
Night of the Living Dead
to James Cameron’s
Aliens
. Just like with those movies, in
Skinwalkers
, I want to reader to experience the pure, unadulterated thrill of being scared shitless with little or no complications. Horror is such a primal thing. It speaks to our lizard brains—takes us back to the days when our ancestors huddled around a fire at night not just for warmth, but to simply stay alive. I wanted to create that kind of tension in
Skinwalkers
—the feeling of being trapped with only paper-thin walls separating you from death. It’s a prison you loathe but also welcome. It’s a metaphor for life in general.

FRIGHT: Another popular tenant of modern horror fiction is to make monsters commonplace and then combine the story with another genre, most notably romance or noir fiction. While
skinwalkers
are hardly considered every day fare for your protagonists, let me ask you what made you decide to set your horror novel in the Southwest of the 1800s?

HILL: Four men: Louis
L’Amour
, Larry
McMurtry
, J.T. Farnsworth, and Sergio Leone. Once again,
Skinwalkers
owes a lot to the cinema as, although my book borrows its premise in large part from one of the dime novels by Farnsworth, of the four, Leone was probably the greatest influence on me as a storyteller. I knew from the beginning, I wanted the heightened reality of his rough and gritty west to be the setting of my book. I liked the moral ambiguity of Leone’s characters—something he borrowed from another film legend, Akira Kurosawa—and wanted that state of being for my own characters. In
Skinwalkers
, there are no good guys in white hats, or bad guys in black ones, for that matter. These are all flawed people who have things to answer for. But under the right circumstances, many of them rise to be better than they otherwise would be.

FRIGHT: The Old West also seemed a natural fit your spin on the werewolf myth—the Native American legend from which your title gets its name.

HILL: Most certainly. I’ve always dug werewolves. But it would have been utterly ridiculous to have brought its European incarnation into the American West when the folklore was already there and ripe for the picking.

FRIGHT: Has your use of a subject considered taboo among Native Americans resulted in any backlash?

HILL: Actually, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Especially among the Navajo. They understand my book is a work of fiction and is intended to be taken only in that regard.

FRIGHT: Going back to
Night of the Living Dead
, many considered it a bold move within the context of the times for Romero to have cast a black man in the lead role. Romero later confessed there was no such political thinking at work; Duane Jones was simply the best actor available. It seems there was actually some deeper thought on your part in making your lead protagonist—Dewayne Jefferson, the bounty hunter—African-American.

HILL: I’d like to take credit and say you’re right, but the Romero scenario is closer to the truth in my case, as well. When I decided to make the bounty hunter a black man, it simply felt right. That’s just who the character was in my mind. Now, I certainly took that aspect of his person within the context of the times and ran with it. And my giving them similar names is yet another cheap pop to Romero. Now I grant you, there may have been some subconscious desire on my part to play with convention and flip-flop the race of Farnsworth’s villain with that of my protagonist. Farnsworth’s making Black Bob, well,
black,
and the light in which he portrays Native Americans are obviously devices catering to that time period’s popular opinion of white supremacy. But for the most part, Dewayne simply was who he was.

FRIGHT: It’s rumored you camped out on the scorched earth thought to be the lost town of Perdition, New Mexico, to research your novel. Is that true?

HILL: What, with all the shit that’s supposedly happened out there? Do you think I’m fucking crazy? Hell no, it’s not true!

From transcript of pre-trial interview of Johanna Sims while under hypnosis in the case of The People vs. Johanna Sims…

Hypnotist and interviewer: Kevin Lewis (Professor of Psychiatry, Purdue University)

Interviewee: Johanna Sims (the accused)

Representation: William Devine (Attorney for Ms. Sims)

Security: Bryan White (Officer, San Ramirez Correctional Facility)

Interview

Lewis: Johanna, I want to discuss with you a bit about hypnosis. Basically, it’s a procedure that will make you completely relax. Once you’re relaxed, you will be able to hear better, see better, and focus. Upon hearing better, whatever I say to you or whatever you say to yourself will soak in more and you will remember it when we are finished. This is merely a means of creating greater awareness. You won’t be asleep. You’ll actually be in a state of heightened alert. Your subconscious thoughts and memories will be totally open and available to you. You may stop the session at any time. You can do anything in hypnosis that you can do out of it, only you’re less distracted. You won’t do anything against your will. We will try to find those memories you have that will help answer our questions, but you will watch anything unpleasant as if it were in a movie. Nothing can harm you. You will be safe. Do you understand?