Beyond the Pale -Part 15
Aug. 2nd, 2005 11:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
secret_historySo far so good, faithful readers! I am on track for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
august_writing, although barely.
This is the start of a new chapter in Vicky's little saga. I also decided to give poor Vicky a break from all the bad things that've been happening lately. Lord knows, she doesn't get many in life. That, and getting her into more trouble would have meant probably doubling the word count on this or more, which I didn't think was a good idea at this juncture. Expect the manure to hit the windmill tomorrow.
Happy Trails!
*****
Full Moon Over Coldwater Springs
“I’m sorry, there’s nothing more we can do.”
A comforting hand landed heavily on her shoulder, then the reassuring pressure was gone, withdrawn as the speaker drifted from the room. She didn’t even turn to watch him go, sat instead and gazed at the inert form on the bed, its blue eyes still open and staring sightlessly at the ceiling.
“This isn’t really happening.” She spoke aloud, but the words were for her own benefit. The woman on the bed couldn’t hear her, and there was no one else nearby. She repeated herself: “This isn’t really happening. I’m going to wake up soon, and it won’t be real anymore...”
She waited, fingers laced tightly together and hands trapped between her knees, shivering in spite of the room’s relative warmth. The air grew heavier as she waited, more oppressive, the sound of her own breathing harsh in her ears. On an impulse she reached out tentatively with one hand, leaning over the bed, to brush her mother’s body gently with her fingertips.
“Mama?” her voice shook.
The corpse lunged at her then, the emaciated hands grasping clumsily but viciously for her throat, choking off her scream of terror. As she fought to release herself from the death-grip, the flesh began to pull away from her mother’s fingers, revealing glistening white bone beneath. To her growing dismay, the skin continued to slough away as the two women struggled, crumbling like dust under her touch. With every movement, she helped turn her mother into a leering skeleton whose sharp bones dug cruelly into her neck.
“Don’t worry, Vicky, I’ll never be truly gone,” the skeleton said in an eerie sing-song. “I’ll be with you wherever you go, and we’ll never be apart ever again!”
She was choking, sobbing, trying to free herself while at the same time part of her longerd for release. She shook her head in violent refusal, denial, as the room tilted on its axis. The grinning skeleton shifted in and out of focus, almost shimmering in her vision, until to her horror Vicky found herself staring into the mirthless rictus of Heywood Landry.
“Don’t worry, Vicky,” he echoed her mother’s words mockingly in his harsh, grating voice. “I’ll never truly be gone.”
She found her voice, then, and screamed. Flailing for purchase, she managed to grasp Landry’s dessicated skull with both hands and pushed as hard as she could, wrenching herself free. With another scream filled as much with rage as terror she flew at him, knocking him to the floor from sheer momentum.
“You leave her alone! You don’t get to touch her, ever!” she screamed, using all her strength to beat his head against the floor.
Landry’s corpse dissolved beneath her, sinking into the floorboards and disappearing with a last whisper of derisive laughter. Vicky remained kneeling on the floor, gasping for breath, tears streaming from her eyes.
“You see, Julius? I told you she had a knack for dealing out death.”
She whirled around to see Wright and Grey standing in a far corner of the room. They doffed their hats politely, smiling all the while. Then the walls of the room began to close in, choking of her air, and the two undertakers vanished before she could try to plead for help.
She awoke with a jolt that almost knocked her off the narrow bed in her hotel room, coughing spasmodically. With difficulty she ggot to her feet and stumbled to the wash basin, where she spat out a mouthful of blood. Fighting dizziness, she splashed some cold water directly out of the jug onto her face, then let herself sink onto the chair by the window, holding her head with one hand and the back of the chair with the other.
Eventually the spell passed; they always did. One day, she knew, there would be a spell that didn’t pass, and she would haemorrhage for the last time and die. Staying in Colorado hadn’t helped her health much, but then again, it hadn’t done too much damage either. She hadn’t counted on remaining long in Coldwater Springs, but she hadn’t felt up to a long journey after the showdown with Heywood Landry, and an unseasonably early blizzard after that had all but guaranteed that she’d be staying put.
“Slowpoke” Monroe hadn’t been all that put out to have at least one ally of his stay in town, truth be told. Taft had gotten out while the getting was good, along with Jackson Blainey and the Widow Smith, who appeared to have struck up a much more cordial relationship since the shootout. In fact, Blainey had wandered around town looking pleased and not a little poleaxed for several days before their departure, whereas the Widow Smith had begun to look positively predatory when in his presence. Victoria had decided that discretion was the better part of valour where those two were concerned, and hadn’t tried to pry into their affairs. Town gossip maintained that they had spent at least one night in each other’s company, and that a black cat had been seen exiting Blainey’s room on more than one occasion. Vicky gave little credence to the latter bit of information: if Blainey wanted to feed the local stray population in his spare time, that was his affair. For that matter, if he wanted to bed down with a Wichita Witch, that was also his affair, although privately Vicky was of the mind that it might be contraindicated for the health of a Union Blue engineer to do so. The two had left shortly after, leaving Blainey just enough time to send one more telegram to his headquarters:
PROBLEMS DEAD -STOP- CANCEL TROOPS -FULL STOP
With an effort Victoria got to her feet and began to dress, fortifying herself with a shot or two from the whiskey bottle she’d taken to keeping in her room. Monroe would disapprove, she knew, especially since she’d agreed to stay on as his deputy now that he’d been officially elected town Marshall, but somedays the whiskey was the only thing that let her get out of bed and function. The election had been uncontested, of course, but if no one else wanted the job, Vicky had no problem with appointments by acclamation. The town could do worse than Monroe, in any case.
It had been an unexpected windfall, but she wasn’t about to complain about having a good salary and a little stability for a while. That and, she had to admit to herself, she kind of liked it in this little backwater hole of a town, now that she was getting to know the folks around. Without Heywood Landry to drive it into the ground, Coldwater Springs was beginning to show signs of life it had never displayed since it had been founded ten years before. It had never been much of a town to begin with, but the new mayor had his heart set on transforming the little boomtown into a prosperous community, and his infectious enthusiasm and liberal use of his own money to help fulfil his dream had earned him the goodwill of his constituents.
Robert Quarrie had been one of the first to settle in the area, although unlike most of his fellow-prospectors he already had a considerable income to his name. Although his family were prosperous cattle ranchers in Texas, as a younger son he’d struck out early on his own, and had made a name for himself by being extraordinarily lucky when it came to prospecting. He’d struck a rich vein of gold out in California before the Great Quake, and it was well-known that his claim near Coldwater Springs had the highest yield in the region. Now, well into his forties, he had left his claim in the capable hands of some trusted men, and had turned his attention to politics, where he proved to have as much success as in his other endeavours. Quarrie was a man, folks were wont to say, who had the Midas touch.
Quarrie really had done a bang-up job so far, Victoria thought to herself as she headed downstairs for breakfast, buckling her gun belt as she went. She and Monroe had done some digging for him back in November, after the shootout, and had discovered to no one’s surprise that Landry, together with Arizona Jake Tully, had been involved in an elaborate scheme of claim-jumping. That explained the open hostility toward any of the large railroads that showed interest in turning Coldwater Springs into a rail town: it was hard to keep a town under your thumb once it was no longer a backwater. Mayor Quarrie had made a point of seeking out the victims of Landry’s racket who were still around to tell the tale, and had offered various forms of restitution where he thought it appropriate, dealing fairly with everyone involved, which had gone a long way toward shoring up his reputation among the townsfolk.
Vicky slid onto a stool at the bar and ordered herself a pot of coffee. It was just pas daybreak, and she was due to start her rounds any minute. After that, there was a fair bit of bookkeeping to be done: no proper records had ever been kept in Coldwater Springs, and it had taken her months of painstaking and excruciatingly boring work to get everything to her and Mayor Quarrie’s standards. Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud exclamation somewhere near her left shoulder.
“It is freezing out there!”
Blowing on his gloved hands, Monroe pulled up a stool near hers, not bothering even to remove his coat.
“It is February, Marshall. And it ain’t that cold, all things considered. The way it looks, we’ll probably bet gettin’ snow, more like.”
Monroe raised an eyebrown in mock-astonishment. “What’s this? Victoria James, saying something positive about the weather? I’ll have to go check out the window to see if the pigs have started flying yet.”
“Oh, ha ha.” Vicky made a face. “Don’t get used to it, Marshall. I’ll be going out in that weather soon, so I don’t doubt I’ll find fault with it soon enough.”
Monroe chuckled and cradled his cup of coffee in both hands, trying to warm his numbed fingers. “No doubt. I was going to ask you to check on Eli for me, just to make sure he didn’t pass out drunk somewhere and freeze to death in a snowdrift, but he’s been in the Dixie since last night. I’ll see you tonight, then?”
Vicky nodded and finished her coffee. “I’ll see you tonight, Marshal.”
She pulled on her coat, a new thick one she’d bought expressly for the Colorado winter now that she was able to afford one, and headed out into the cold morning, where a few snowflakes were already beginning to drift by, heralding an oncoming storm. The air hurt her lungs, but at least it was fresh, and the wind felt good on her face. She saddled Lightning and swung herself up onto his back.
“Come on, boy. We got rounds to make. If you’re real good, I’ll get you some warm mash later on, and give you a proper rubdown.” The horse flicked his ears back and nickered quietly, and she laughed. “Yeah, you heard me, you sly devil.”
She spurred him forward, still smiling. For once in her life, things were looking up.
august_writing, although barely.This is the start of a new chapter in Vicky's little saga. I also decided to give poor Vicky a break from all the bad things that've been happening lately. Lord knows, she doesn't get many in life. That, and getting her into more trouble would have meant probably doubling the word count on this or more, which I didn't think was a good idea at this juncture. Expect the manure to hit the windmill tomorrow.
Happy Trails!
Full Moon Over Coldwater Springs
“I’m sorry, there’s nothing more we can do.”
A comforting hand landed heavily on her shoulder, then the reassuring pressure was gone, withdrawn as the speaker drifted from the room. She didn’t even turn to watch him go, sat instead and gazed at the inert form on the bed, its blue eyes still open and staring sightlessly at the ceiling.
“This isn’t really happening.” She spoke aloud, but the words were for her own benefit. The woman on the bed couldn’t hear her, and there was no one else nearby. She repeated herself: “This isn’t really happening. I’m going to wake up soon, and it won’t be real anymore...”
She waited, fingers laced tightly together and hands trapped between her knees, shivering in spite of the room’s relative warmth. The air grew heavier as she waited, more oppressive, the sound of her own breathing harsh in her ears. On an impulse she reached out tentatively with one hand, leaning over the bed, to brush her mother’s body gently with her fingertips.
“Mama?” her voice shook.
The corpse lunged at her then, the emaciated hands grasping clumsily but viciously for her throat, choking off her scream of terror. As she fought to release herself from the death-grip, the flesh began to pull away from her mother’s fingers, revealing glistening white bone beneath. To her growing dismay, the skin continued to slough away as the two women struggled, crumbling like dust under her touch. With every movement, she helped turn her mother into a leering skeleton whose sharp bones dug cruelly into her neck.
“Don’t worry, Vicky, I’ll never be truly gone,” the skeleton said in an eerie sing-song. “I’ll be with you wherever you go, and we’ll never be apart ever again!”
She was choking, sobbing, trying to free herself while at the same time part of her longerd for release. She shook her head in violent refusal, denial, as the room tilted on its axis. The grinning skeleton shifted in and out of focus, almost shimmering in her vision, until to her horror Vicky found herself staring into the mirthless rictus of Heywood Landry.
“Don’t worry, Vicky,” he echoed her mother’s words mockingly in his harsh, grating voice. “I’ll never truly be gone.”
She found her voice, then, and screamed. Flailing for purchase, she managed to grasp Landry’s dessicated skull with both hands and pushed as hard as she could, wrenching herself free. With another scream filled as much with rage as terror she flew at him, knocking him to the floor from sheer momentum.
“You leave her alone! You don’t get to touch her, ever!” she screamed, using all her strength to beat his head against the floor.
Landry’s corpse dissolved beneath her, sinking into the floorboards and disappearing with a last whisper of derisive laughter. Vicky remained kneeling on the floor, gasping for breath, tears streaming from her eyes.
“You see, Julius? I told you she had a knack for dealing out death.”
She whirled around to see Wright and Grey standing in a far corner of the room. They doffed their hats politely, smiling all the while. Then the walls of the room began to close in, choking of her air, and the two undertakers vanished before she could try to plead for help.
She awoke with a jolt that almost knocked her off the narrow bed in her hotel room, coughing spasmodically. With difficulty she ggot to her feet and stumbled to the wash basin, where she spat out a mouthful of blood. Fighting dizziness, she splashed some cold water directly out of the jug onto her face, then let herself sink onto the chair by the window, holding her head with one hand and the back of the chair with the other.
Eventually the spell passed; they always did. One day, she knew, there would be a spell that didn’t pass, and she would haemorrhage for the last time and die. Staying in Colorado hadn’t helped her health much, but then again, it hadn’t done too much damage either. She hadn’t counted on remaining long in Coldwater Springs, but she hadn’t felt up to a long journey after the showdown with Heywood Landry, and an unseasonably early blizzard after that had all but guaranteed that she’d be staying put.
“Slowpoke” Monroe hadn’t been all that put out to have at least one ally of his stay in town, truth be told. Taft had gotten out while the getting was good, along with Jackson Blainey and the Widow Smith, who appeared to have struck up a much more cordial relationship since the shootout. In fact, Blainey had wandered around town looking pleased and not a little poleaxed for several days before their departure, whereas the Widow Smith had begun to look positively predatory when in his presence. Victoria had decided that discretion was the better part of valour where those two were concerned, and hadn’t tried to pry into their affairs. Town gossip maintained that they had spent at least one night in each other’s company, and that a black cat had been seen exiting Blainey’s room on more than one occasion. Vicky gave little credence to the latter bit of information: if Blainey wanted to feed the local stray population in his spare time, that was his affair. For that matter, if he wanted to bed down with a Wichita Witch, that was also his affair, although privately Vicky was of the mind that it might be contraindicated for the health of a Union Blue engineer to do so. The two had left shortly after, leaving Blainey just enough time to send one more telegram to his headquarters:
With an effort Victoria got to her feet and began to dress, fortifying herself with a shot or two from the whiskey bottle she’d taken to keeping in her room. Monroe would disapprove, she knew, especially since she’d agreed to stay on as his deputy now that he’d been officially elected town Marshall, but somedays the whiskey was the only thing that let her get out of bed and function. The election had been uncontested, of course, but if no one else wanted the job, Vicky had no problem with appointments by acclamation. The town could do worse than Monroe, in any case.
It had been an unexpected windfall, but she wasn’t about to complain about having a good salary and a little stability for a while. That and, she had to admit to herself, she kind of liked it in this little backwater hole of a town, now that she was getting to know the folks around. Without Heywood Landry to drive it into the ground, Coldwater Springs was beginning to show signs of life it had never displayed since it had been founded ten years before. It had never been much of a town to begin with, but the new mayor had his heart set on transforming the little boomtown into a prosperous community, and his infectious enthusiasm and liberal use of his own money to help fulfil his dream had earned him the goodwill of his constituents.
Robert Quarrie had been one of the first to settle in the area, although unlike most of his fellow-prospectors he already had a considerable income to his name. Although his family were prosperous cattle ranchers in Texas, as a younger son he’d struck out early on his own, and had made a name for himself by being extraordinarily lucky when it came to prospecting. He’d struck a rich vein of gold out in California before the Great Quake, and it was well-known that his claim near Coldwater Springs had the highest yield in the region. Now, well into his forties, he had left his claim in the capable hands of some trusted men, and had turned his attention to politics, where he proved to have as much success as in his other endeavours. Quarrie was a man, folks were wont to say, who had the Midas touch.
Quarrie really had done a bang-up job so far, Victoria thought to herself as she headed downstairs for breakfast, buckling her gun belt as she went. She and Monroe had done some digging for him back in November, after the shootout, and had discovered to no one’s surprise that Landry, together with Arizona Jake Tully, had been involved in an elaborate scheme of claim-jumping. That explained the open hostility toward any of the large railroads that showed interest in turning Coldwater Springs into a rail town: it was hard to keep a town under your thumb once it was no longer a backwater. Mayor Quarrie had made a point of seeking out the victims of Landry’s racket who were still around to tell the tale, and had offered various forms of restitution where he thought it appropriate, dealing fairly with everyone involved, which had gone a long way toward shoring up his reputation among the townsfolk.
Vicky slid onto a stool at the bar and ordered herself a pot of coffee. It was just pas daybreak, and she was due to start her rounds any minute. After that, there was a fair bit of bookkeeping to be done: no proper records had ever been kept in Coldwater Springs, and it had taken her months of painstaking and excruciatingly boring work to get everything to her and Mayor Quarrie’s standards. Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud exclamation somewhere near her left shoulder.
“It is freezing out there!”
Blowing on his gloved hands, Monroe pulled up a stool near hers, not bothering even to remove his coat.
“It is February, Marshall. And it ain’t that cold, all things considered. The way it looks, we’ll probably bet gettin’ snow, more like.”
Monroe raised an eyebrown in mock-astonishment. “What’s this? Victoria James, saying something positive about the weather? I’ll have to go check out the window to see if the pigs have started flying yet.”
“Oh, ha ha.” Vicky made a face. “Don’t get used to it, Marshall. I’ll be going out in that weather soon, so I don’t doubt I’ll find fault with it soon enough.”
Monroe chuckled and cradled his cup of coffee in both hands, trying to warm his numbed fingers. “No doubt. I was going to ask you to check on Eli for me, just to make sure he didn’t pass out drunk somewhere and freeze to death in a snowdrift, but he’s been in the Dixie since last night. I’ll see you tonight, then?”
Vicky nodded and finished her coffee. “I’ll see you tonight, Marshal.”
She pulled on her coat, a new thick one she’d bought expressly for the Colorado winter now that she was able to afford one, and headed out into the cold morning, where a few snowflakes were already beginning to drift by, heralding an oncoming storm. The air hurt her lungs, but at least it was fresh, and the wind felt good on her face. She saddled Lightning and swung herself up onto his back.
“Come on, boy. We got rounds to make. If you’re real good, I’ll get you some warm mash later on, and give you a proper rubdown.” The horse flicked his ears back and nickered quietly, and she laughed. “Yeah, you heard me, you sly devil.”
She spurred him forward, still smiling. For once in her life, things were looking up.
