No Good Deed
by Timothy Brown
"Pa, I can't see the trail no more! Pa!"
Jeb Carter pulled his leather collar tight against the stinging rain and adjusted his grip on the cold leather reins. He, too, had lost sight of the muddy trail since the last light of day failed away to their left and the low, gray clouds blew in to obscure the sliver of the waning moon. His mare plodded and splashed gently forward into the misty darkness while his last remaining son's roan kept close behind.
"We'll get along a bit and make a camp before long, Zach," he called reassuringly back over his shoulder. "Don't fret none. We'll be home in a few days I reckon."
"Yeah," his boy answered, his voice muffled through scarf and glove. "Besides, we got the medicine, and that's all that counts!"
How right he was, Jeb thought, reaching back to pat his hand on his saddle bags. 'Don't forget us,' they all asked, the schoolteacher and her sister, the grocer and the ranchers, all the townsfolk who had succumbed to the fever back home. Headstones were going up like weeds when the two of them had left three weeks ago, the last two healthy men, a ranch hand and his boy, to get medicine in Laramie. Travel in these strange days was dangerous, everybody knew, but it was the only chance to save their small Montana town. But for all their voices only one rang in Jeb's head day after day on the trail, the tiny voice of his fever-stricken little girl Emily, clinging to him until the last, bawling when they took her away. 'I'll be waiting for you daddy! Don't forget me either, daddy!"
"I won't forget you, sweetheart," Jeb mumbled beneath his breath, thankful for the frigid rain and darkness masking his tears.
"Hey, there's a light up ahead!" Sure enough, Jeb thought, there were a couple of lanterns ahead along the trail, dim through the rain and mist but growing brighter as they approached. The lanterns were hanging from the back of a small black carriage that had one wheel well off the track and stuck between some large stones. A woman in a drenched skirt and shawl took her frustrations out on the horse still hitched up, beating its rump with the shaft of her whip and cursing like a saloon keeper so loudly that she didn't hear them approach.
"Damn weakling animal! Move your bloomin' arse!"
"Should we go around, pa?" Zach inquired.
"No, son. Even in these strange times, we cannot be so afraid of one another that we cannot help strangers on the road. What kind of people would we be then?"
"Can we be any help, ma'am?" Jeb called, and the woman started when she turned, slipping in her mud-caked heels and falling on her posterior with a loud splash. Zach quickly dismounted and helped her to her feet.
"Well, gracious, thank you gentlemen," she began, suddenly taking a much gentler tone. "Why, I must have driven right off the road in this wretched rain, silly me, and now the wheel's stuck there. My name's Louise Granger. Can you help lift it out?" The rain had had its way with her make-up and curls, the former running down black from her eyes and red from her lips, the latter stretched and flat where they stuck out from beneath her bonnet. Still, she was a handsome woman, trying to appear a bit younger than the lines around her mouth and eyes indicated, Jeb saw, but she'd certainly caught his son's attention. Zach barely took his eyes off her while they heaved the carriage wheel loose and back onto the rutted road. His boy was every bit of fifteen, he figured. By the thickness of her make-up, heady aroma of her perfume, cut of her blouse, and her brazen vulgarity, Jeb guessed her for a working girl.
"Bearville, that's my town, is just ahead a mile or so. You all can come and get dried out if you want." She stepped up to the carriage and put out her hand so Jeb could help her in, then leaned to his ear and added quietly "Why, when we get into town I might just have to give you boys a free one."
"A free what, Miss Louise?" Zach's eyes widened, but Jeb interjected quickly.
"Just a dry place to sleep will be more than enough, ma'am, thank you."
"Are you sure?" She kept her voice low and put her muddy, lace-gloved hand up to her mouth. "You're about the strongest man to come through here in weeks and I could use something more than the old shopkeepers around town. I'm sure I could get one of the other girls to entertain your boy and…"
"No, thank you!" Jeb insisted, grabbing Louise by the waist and setting her in the carriage.
"Well!" she said, dejected, turning up her nose. "Suit yourself, then. Still, you two look like you could use a night off the trail." And with that she snapped her small whip and guided the carriage forward. 
"What was she talkin' about, pa?" 
"Nothing, son. Come on, we could use a dry night." They mounted and ambled down the trail, easily keeping up with the small black carriage moving through the mud. The rain lessened as they approached the outskirts of a small town. Houses, dark and shut tight, lined the road, growing larger and more frequent until the riders came to an open square in the middle of town, dimly lit by large torches hissing against the raindrops. Not a soul walked the streets.
"Wait here," Louise said, getting out her carriage outside the jail. "I'll just be a minute."
"We'll wait right here, ma'am," Zach answered for them, tipping his hat and grinning, and she walked right in the sheriff's office. "Where's everybody at, pa?"
"I don't know…" he began, but was cut off when a fat man with a tin star burst out of the sheriff's office door and two more came around either end of the building, all three with shotguns leveled at them.
"That's them, I tell you! That's them!" Louise peeked out from behind the fat. grizzled deputy, breathing hard and screaming. "The older one snuck up on me in the form of a wolf, I tell you! A wolf!"
"Don't make a move, mister!" Jeb and Zach both raised their hands as the other two deputies came close and relieved them of their holsters and guns.
"Pa, I…" Zach started.
"Shut up, son! What's the meaning of this? We're just headed north to…"
"No, you shut up, mister…or demon or whatever you are!" The fat deputy spit out his chaw on the road. "Your kind's got no business in this town!"
"I promised them I'd sneak them into town so's they could eat the children," Louise weaved her lie as she went, all the while glaring at Jeb with black eyes. "Yeah, that's what I did! They're stupid, demons are!"
"Going to eat our kids, were you?" the fat deputy shouted, and Jeb opened his mouth to protest but caught a shotgun barrel across the back of the head instead and heard and saw no more.
***
"Wake up, pa. Come on, please wake up." Blurred images of light and dark danced before Jeb's eyes, focusing finally into the light of morning streaming in through a barred window and Zach's anxious face. His boy held his throbbing head in his lap while he lay on a hard bunk. Jeb sat up, wincing at the pain from the lump on the back of his head, and looked around. Their cell was at one end of the jailhouse, with a single window and locked door. Beyond was a couple of heavy, wooden desks, a locked gun case, a wall full of wanted posters, and a closed door stenciled "Sheriff Bear."
"I thought you might be a goner," Zach confessed, breathing a heavy sigh.
"No, I'm all right," Jeb lied. The pain in his head subsided a little, but every move brought him agony. "What's been going on."
"After they clubbed you they tossed us both in here. There've been deputies coming and going all night, but that's about it. They think you're some kind of monster or something. I'm powerful scared, pa!" Tears started in his eyes, but Jeb mussed his hair reassuringly.
"We'll be all right, son. If we can get the sheriff in here, he'll certainly see that I'm no wolf like that horrible woman said." Jeb looked out through the bars of the window, blinking hard at the sunlight. It looked out over the town square, barren but for a few scrawny trees and a broad pile of stones at the far end. Crosses of all manner covered the stones, either sticks stuck in the ground around it or tossed right on the pile. Children scampered over the stones, pausing occasionally to put their ears against them as if listening for something.
The jail door burst open and in walked a tall man with dark leather breeches and a red flannel shirt with a bright sheriff's badge pinned to it. Dark locks stuck out beneath his hat framing a grim, bearded face. He stood inside the door for a moment as if preoccupied, then turned slowly toward them in the cell. Closing the door behind him he walked slowly, evenly toward the cell, removing his riding gloves and leveling a cold stare at its occupants. Stopping just at the bars, he locked eyes with first Jeb and then Zach, contemplating the prisoners silently behind dark eyes. After a moment he turned and walked back across the room toward his office door without saying a word.
"Where's my money, Bear?" Louise rushed into the jailhouse, now all cleaned and made-up in a bright blue dress. "I brought 'em in and I want to be paid!"
"Good morning, Miss Granger," Bear answered confidently. "Just exactly what have you brought me, Louise?" He leaned up against the closest desk and crossed his arms.
"He's a demon, like I told Fatty Burke last night. Just look at him!" She pointed a lace-covered finger at Jeb but the sheriff never took his eyes off the prostitute.
"I've seen him, or them if you please, Miss Granger. Just exactly which one is a demon, then?"
"The older one! Came at me like a wolf, he did!"
"Nothing you shouldn't be used to, I would think. Still," he continued, walking back over toward the cell, gazing at its occupants, "they aren't from around here, that's for sure."
"We're from Montana," Zach said before Jeb could stop him, but the sheriff appeared not to hear. Louise's face turned red with rage. She went over to the wall and ripped down a bounty poster and tossed it down at Bear's feet.
"Fifty dollars it says! Fifty dollars for demons!" She trembled angrily, gritting her teeth. "When do I get my money!"
Sheriff Bear ignored her flash of temper and said evenly, "After he's been tried and convicted. That's when you will be paid, and not before."
"Why wait! He's accused and no one in town's gonna stand up for him…" But Louise was cut short when the rotund deputy barged in, huffing and puffing.
"What is it, Burke?" Bear demanded, still staring down the irate prostitute before him.
"Got the night's tally, Bear," He tossed a paper onto the desk.
"More stuff stolen by the demons is it?" Louise challenged in a disbelieving tone. "More cattle driven off, goats mutilated?"
"That's enough, Miss Granger…"
"Folks are starting to figure you out, Bear!"
"That will do, Miss Granger."
"The Federal Marshal's going to set things right!"
"Perhaps, but for now I am acting with the Marshal's blessing and I won't be sending for him until the demon crisis has passed. Now good day to you, Miss Granger, or perhaps you'd like a new residence beneath the stones?"
"You wouldn't be nothin' if you didn't have that thing!" the whore challenged, and Bear quickly grabbed at something beneath his shirt. His face went white, his eyes wide, strangely vulnerable for an instant, relaxing only after fingering the object beneath his muslin shirt.
"Your mouth runs on, Miss Granger," the sheriff retorted finally, adjusting a gold chain previously hidden around his neck.
"That necklace thing! Not too many knows about it, but I do, Bear! I do!" Her face was flush and her hands trembled. "It's some kind of evil thing!"
"If it helps me keep the demons from the city, well, so much the better, wouldn't you say?" Bear pulled the object out, a golden amulet about the size of a rifle cartridge, shining unnaturally in the dim light of the jail. "A little magic in these strange days used for the common good, nothing more. And since no one knows about it but my comrades," he shared a smile with Burke, "and some dead men," he glowered at the cell, "who do you suppose is going to listen to a drunken whore? Or would you like to end up dead yourself, accused of being a demon?"
Her face turned quickly from red to pale white, and she backed away from the grim-faced sheriff in horror, raising her hand finally to block his gaze. In the end she turned and ran back out into the street, stumbling past the large deputy as she went.
"I-I got the list for you, Bear," Fatty Burke said cautiously.
"Yes, thank you Burke." The sheriff put the amulet back in his shirt and glanced briefly toward the cell. "We'll go over it in my office. In the meantime, I want an armed man in here watching these two. One of them's a demon, you know."
"Yes sir," Fatty answered. "Right away."
***
"What're we gonna do, pa?" Zach's hands trembled as he clutched at the bars of their cell. "We ain't done nothing wrong!"
"I know, son. I know." Jeb mustered a smile. "We just have to have some faith, that's all. This is America, and justice will prevail, you'll see." Bear and Fatty had gone into the sheriff's office and locked the door behind them, their low voices occasionally punctuated with laughter. Another deputy, a slender fellow with no teeth, watched them with shotgun in hand, but soon tired of such vigilance and busied himself with some paperwork. 
"Y'all just keep quiet in there, and don't go changin' into no bat or wolf or whatever," the deputy challenged, patting the barrels of his gun. "Betsy here can cut through about anything, so watch yourselves!" The prisoners sat quietly while the sun streaming through their barred window crawled across the floor and disappeared entirely after noon or so. 
"Hey, Reverend," greeted the deputy when an old gentleman in a gray suit came in off the street. He removed his bowler hat and knocked the dust off of it, then put his worn, black bible and silver crucifix on the desk while he mopped his brow with a stained, yellow handkerchief.
"It's getting to be a warm one, deputy," the minister said, hanging his hat on a peg, collecting his things and staring into the cell. "Haven't seen you in church lately," he continued, absently, while fumbling for his spectacles, but the deputy dove deeper into his paperwork without responding. "Which one is the demon?" he asked softly, squinting, but the deputy just shrugged.
"Beats me, Reverend. I figure they're both demons if one of 'em is."
"This is our salvation, son," Jeb whispered confidently. "A man of the cloth can see I'm no demon." Zach offered a half-reassured smile. The minister approached slowly, clutching his bible, crossing himself and kissing the crucifix while pulling up a wooden stool right outside the cell bars.
"I am Reverend Thomasson, the spiritual guardian of our fair community," he said. His close-cut, gray hair mingled with wild eyebrows above large, staring eyes.
"Yes, praise God, finally someone we can talk to. My name is Jeb Carter and this is my son…"
"Serpents and demons in the form of living men plague this community," Thomasson interrupted, speaking slowly and evenly. "Satan's spawn ravage the crops and slaughter the livestock, burn homes and search for the wicked to corrupt! For months they've plagued us but with God's guidance we've put many demons beneath the stones. They are a sign sent from on High verifying the wickedness of men."
"Yes…yes, I'm sure they are," Jeb reasserted, "but we're travelers returning through these parts…"
"By His will they shall be discovered and destroyed." The reverend, Jeb noted, wasn't even looking at either of them, just staring through them as if transfixed by some rapture with the Lord. "The Blessed shall triumph over evil and the servants of Satan!"
"But we're not servants of Satan!" Jeb shouted, standing up and gripping the bars between them. "Listen to me!" But Thomasson stood up and back, knocking his stool over on the wooden floor, causing the deputy to grab up his shotgun.
"I have searched and prayed for such a clear sign," he rambled on, oblivious to Jeb's protests. "For thirty years, nothing, not one sign." His lips trembled and his brow furrowed. "I thought perhaps God mocked me, showing me no sign of Himself whatsoever, thereby challenging my faith. That's why I came to the frontier, to see His work, to seek His signs, and now I have found them." Sweat broke out on Thomasson's wrinkled brow, and his eyes widened, bloodshot and unblinking. "Yes, now I have found His signs everywhere. Demons, the spawn of Satan among us!"
"But we're not demons!" shouted Zach, shaking his head in disbelief.
"You have to listen to us!" insisted Jeb, clutching his temples.
"You are a demon, sir, identified and accused by a good and true woman of the community! Confess yourself that God may take mercy on your soul!"
"Good woman and true? She's a whore!" But the reverend was beyond hearing more, mumbling scripture with his eyes rolling slowly back in his head.
"You are accused and condemned! Your life cannot be spared, only your soul. I cannot save your soul, demon. Only God can do that, and only if you confess yourself before Him, before the Son, and before the Holy Spirit!"
"I cannot confess what isn't true!" Jeb insisted. By this time the shouting roused Sheriff Bear and Deputy Burke from the office, the latter emerging with his revolver in hand. "We're just traveling through! You've got to understand!"
"Satan wields your tongue now, demon. Fight him! Turn away from his evil and abase yourself before the will of the Lord!" Thomasson spread his arms high, bible in one hand, cross in the other, his head thrown back. "Listen, oh Lord, listen and give him the strength to resist!"
"No!"
"Confess! Confess and save your soul!"
"No, I can't!" Jeb staggered backward, and despite Zach's efforts to help him he stumbled over the edge of the bunk and sprawled out onto the floor. The ache from the lump on his head spread through his entire body, and he clutched his temples hard against the pain.
"Pa, what's the matter?" Zach put a blanket under his father's head and clutched his arm tight, but Jeb barely heard or felt him. The maniacal rantings of the reverend reverberated through his head along with images of the greedy whore and power-mad sheriff, all mingled with his rosey-cheeked daughter pleading not to be forgotten.
"Lord, give him the strength to confess himself!" Thomasson hollered. Sheriff and deputies watched silently, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, as the zealot trembled with the strength of his convictions before the prisoners. Jeb's heart pounded and he labored to breath, and though he hadn't eaten he fought to keep his stomach down. A moment passed in a whirlwind of shouting and near convulsions, and when he looked up the reverend was silent, holding out the bottle of medicine from Laramie.
"Is this some elixir of the undead?" he asked calmly, turning the brown bottle over in his fingers.
"No," Jeb started, thinking quickly. "No, it's just medicine." With his son's help he got to his feet. "I stole it from the boy. It's his medicine."
"Pa?"
"Stole it, my child?" The reverend stepped cautiously forward.
"Yes, I did. In demon form."
"No, Pa!" Zach tugged at his father's coat but Jeb would not be dissuaded.
"In demon form, you say," Thomasson asked. Beyond, Jeb saw Bear smile, grab his hat, and leave.
"But the boy had nothing to do with these things. If I confess he goes free, right?" Zach protested, pulling at his father's arm and weeping.
"The boy is not accused, demon. Only you." The reverend pulled his bible in close to his breast and slowly closed his eyes.
"Promise me he'll go free, damnit!"
"No, he's a liar," Zach protested, grabbing out through the bars, then toward his father, toward anything.
"He is free if you release him from the spell you must have over him." Thomasson opened the bible and thumbed through its pages absently.
"Then he is free of it." Jeb insisted. "I release the boy from the spell that binds him!"
"No, Pa, don't do it," Zach protested weakly from the bunk, head in his hands.
"I confess I am a demon. And may God have mercy on my soul."
***
"Pa, I don't understand," Zach sobbed.
"Yes you do," his father challenged. The sheriff, deputies, and reverend had all gone from the jail, the last with his crucifix to his lips, satisfied that another demon was going to be destroyed, but not before turning the brown medicine bottle over to Zach, it's rightful owner. The boy fidgeted with the bottle while sitting on the edge of the bunk.
"They're gonna kill you, pa. It was dumb to tell them you're a demon. You ain't no demon, pa!"
"No, of course not, son." Jeb sat next to his boy and put his arm around his shoulder. "With all the weirdness we've seen it's no wonder these people are turned so nasty against strangers and such." Certainly they had seen plenty of strange things the last few years back in Montana, Jeb thought, dead things that walked as men, giant worms, and strange Indian spirits.
"That don't change things, pa! What're we gonna do now?"
"You're going to go back on home with the medicine. Your sister and the others are counting on you."
"No, pa, I can't go without you," the boy protested, tears welling up again in his eyes.
"You have to. I'm counting on you, too."
"But they're going to kill you. I can't leave you here."
"Well, I'm not dead yet, son. There's got to be somebody in this town who will stand up for me. Or maybe a Federal Marshal or someone will come through in time. Who knows?" He hugged his boy close and kissed him on the head. "The important thing is that you continue on and get back home. Your sister and the others will be waiting."
"I'll come back for you, pa!" Zach said, resigning himself and throwing his arms around his father on the bunk. "I'll come back for you for sure!"
"Heck, Zach, I'll probably catch up to you before you get ten miles down the road," Jeb said, encouraging his boy and himself. "Here, take the money I've got to help you on your way." He pulled out his leather wallet and produced all the folding money and coin he had left. Zach stuffed it all into his pockets, wiping his running nose on his sleeve.
"I'll get the medicine back home, pa. You can count on me!"
"I know I can son. I know I can."
Just then the jail house door opened wide and Sheriff Bear walked in. He had a pile of papers under one arm and a half-smoked cigar in the other. His long shadow preceded him into the room as the sun sank low in the West. The sheriff deposited the papers onto a desk, leaned back and took a long puff on his stogie and blew a satisfied puff of smoke out in front of him that obscured his face in cloud.
"You have confessed yourself a demon. Sentence will be carried out at dawn." The sheriff cocked his head to one side. "Confession will make the whole thing go easier on you."
"You know he's no demon!" Zach shouted. "He's my pa and he's a decent man!"
Sheriff Bear considered that for a moment and said "The West is covered with the headstones of decent men, boy. What's one more going to matter?" He let the ashes of his cigar fall to the floor. "Demons are everywhere, boy. Remember that."
Zach clenched his fists but Jeb put his arms on the boy's shoulders.
"He don't know what he's saying, sheriff," Jeb apologized, but Bear seemed to take no special notice, puffing again on his cigar and watching the smoke swirl before him.
"No matter. The good reverend tells me that you are free to go, young man, not being a demon at all." He picked up a ring of long keys from the desk and came over to the cell. Zach stiffened at the sheriff's approach, but Jeb held him by the arms and turned him around to look right into his eyes.
"Remember what we talked about, Zach," he said softly. "You've got to get back home with the medicine. Don't do anything stupid." The hatred in his boy's eyes softened as Bear turned the key in the door and swung it wide open.
"Out!"
"Get your horse and get out of town, son. Leave my horse for me."
"I will, pa!" Zach pressed his face into his father's chest for one moment more, soaking it with his tears before tearing away and barging out past the tall sheriff. He darted across the room and flew out into the street without looking back. Bear watched him go, then slammed the bars shut and walked away himself.
"Sleep well in there tonight," he called back over his shoulder. "Tell me, do demons sleep?" Bear laughed and closed his office door behind him.
***
Jeb pondered that question through the night. He didn't know if demons slept, but certainly he didn't. When the first gray fingers of approaching dawn came in through the cell's only window Jeb's heart was racing. Lingering pain from the lump at the back of his head penetrated his very bones and no position, standing, sitting, or laying down was comfortable for long. Feeling helpless, trapped, and alone, he mustered courage from the thought of Zach heading away north and home.
"Ride, Zach," he whispered to himself and smiled. "Ride."
"Up and at 'em, demon," Fatty Burke ordered. Jeb had barely heard them come in, the fat deputy and his two thinner comrades, scatter-guns at the ready. "Don't try nothin' stupid 'er we'll blast you." One of the others grabbed up the keys and turned Jeb loose, never letting his eyes or gun barrels drop. Jeb stood slowly, painfully, and ambled out the door. Fatty produced a pair of steel cuffs and locked the prisoner's wrists together in front of him. Once in the street, even the light of the approaching dawn made him squint hard after being all night in the dark cell.
"Get a move on!" Fatty ordered, poking Jeb in the back with his shotgun. He staggered forward down the dirt street, his legs trembling from lack of use. Or was it terror? Jeb wasn't sure. The large torches along the street were just smoldering now, the smoke drifting lazily through the slowly stirring town.
The deputies positioned themselves behind and to either side of the condemned man, herding him around the left of the jail and out onto the nearly barren town square. The mud from the rain two nights before had mostly dried, but little or no grass grew, and the few trees were spindly with only a handful of gray leaves. Jeb felt the cool morning breeze as it rustled through those leaves, making him tremble all the more as they approached the pile of stones.
Crosses grew up around the pile like so many weeds, so many that Jeb had to pick his way through them. There were all manner, finely crafted of stone, wood, or iron, or just sticks lashed together and thrust into the ground. Even on the waist-high pile there were more, stuck between the stones or just laying on top, crosses of leather and painted wood, crockery and twisted vines. Some had taken to painting crosses right onto the stones in blacks and reds. The stones themselves were of all sort, granite and slate mostly, quarried who knows where and brought here. From the dirt piled along the edge of the pile in places Jeb figured the pit went deeper than just ground level. Lord only knew how many poor folks were buried there.
"Over there!" Fatty ordered, shoving Jeb against the ribs and nearly making him fall. The Reverend Thomasson was along the far side of the stone pile along with Bear and a couple of other town dignitaries in their black suits and gold fobs. At their feet was a pine casket and in the street a large wagon piled high with fresh stones. Grimy workmen, probably railroaders or miners with their picks and shovels, stood nearby, ready for their grim task. 
By now the gathering light spread clear across the sky, and the eager onlookers emerged from their shuttered houses to attend the show. Shopkeepers in white aprons with their wives in simple dresses strolled down the street behind suited bankers with their parasol-wielding wives, nannies, and brats. Buildings nearby opened up and windows filled with anxious faces sipping coffee or chattering softly. The quiet morning succumbed slowly to the din of gathering onlookers, witnesses taking well-remembered positions practiced many times before, carriages parked along the road, folding chairs set in the dust for the elderly or infirm. Beyond the stones on a large balcony above a saloon the pantalooned working girls gathered, and Jeb could see among them his accuser Louise Granger, reclining against the rail, sipping a drink and smiling knowingly. Rage welled up inside him. Jeb gritted his teeth hard and clenched his bound fists before him, but the image of his son riding away to the north gave him strength. The grim carnival atmosphere built steadily as he made his way around the stone pile.
"The accused has chosen wisely to save his mortal soul and confessed his crimes to me yesterday from his cell," Thomasson began, getting right to the point, hushing the gathered throng with his booming voice. "The Lord grants mercy to those who confess their sins! This demon shall fall!" And with that the onlookers cheered and hissed. But all Bear had to do was raise his hand once and the crowd fell deathly silent.
"We will dispense with the opening prayer and instead hold a special prayer during our regular services later on this morning," the reverend continued. Was it Sunday, Jeb wondered? He had lost track. "Now our town is rid of one more demon and one step closer to God!" The workmen stirred to bring over the stones on cue while the children in the crowd scurried forward to get a better view.
"Wait!" Jeb shouted, but Bear swiftly knocked him across the jaw with the barrel of his pistol. Splintered teeth and blood filled his mouth, but Jeb spat them out, falling forward against the sheriff, spitting a crimson stain on his shoulder. Disgusted, Bear shouted and Burke yanked the accused off of his boss and back onto his feet and Jeb yelled again. "Is there no one here who will stand up for me! No Mayor! No Judge! No Federal Marshal!" His eyes shone wildly and Bear reared back for another blow against him, which Jeb barely dodged.
"My God! I'm no demon! I confessed to save my boy but I'm not! You've got to believe me!" Another blow took him on the back of the head and the children cried out delightedly. A hand grabbed the hair at the back of his head and forced his head up.
"Someone wants to say good-bye, demon!" Bear said grinning. Stunned, Jeb blinked and looked up where the whores were laughing at him from the balcony. Among them was a bedraggled customer with one hand on Louise Granger's exposed breast, heaving his drunken guts up over the side. A youngster, just a boy. His boy.
"Zach?" It couldn't be, but it was. Inebriated and oblivious to his surroundings, Zach turned back from the rail dizzily, slipped in his own vomit to the delight of the whores around him.
"Headed straight over there when he left the jail," Bear stabbed. "Miss Granger was anxious for his company after I talked to her again. She can be most persuasive, especially with a youngster like that. He sold that medicine for another ride with the ladies. Sold your horse, too." Sheriff and deputies laughed.
Jeb's own guts rebelled against him, forcing dry heaves that convulsed his entire body. The sheriff pulled him to his wobbly feet by his hair, threw him forward and landed a well-placed boot to his side to send him sprawling into the casket. Jeb rolled over desperately, blood from his mouth streaming into his eyes as the lid was pushed down on top of him, blocking the early morning light. He pushed against it but the laborers held it down and set hammers and nails. The hammering deafened him until the casket was dragged over and dropped into the shallow hole, slamming his shoulder and hip against the side and forcing him to bite his tongue. Then they brought the stones, one by one, dropping them loudly onto the casket while the children chanted "Bury the demon, bury the demon!" With every stone the light streaming through the casket's planks grew dimmer and his own cries weakened and faded.
***
How much time had passed? An hour? A day? Jeb didn't know. Images swam in his spinning head of demons and hatred, temptation and resolve. One moment he felt free and soaring, the next painfully aware of the close walls of the pine casket holding his arms at his sides. He screamed and then again and again until he hurt his own ears and throat and when he stopped he heard the distant laughter of children scampering around above him. They giggled and listened as he hollered until he was hoarse and choking. But when he started laughing with them, slowly at first, haltingly, but steadily louder, the children grew silent and then scampered away, some whimpering for their mothers. Jeb laughed and laughed with the last of his strength, fumbling with the amulet he stole from around the sheriff's neck.
"Demons, come and get 'em!" he shouted, snapping the thin metal in his fingers with a brief flash of light in his darkened tomb. It's magic was finished, he knew, the sheriff's masquerade at an end. "Dinner time for the Devil's children! Zach, get off them whores and get to your horse, boy!" Jeb giggled into the evening, delighting in the screams of terror above him, the cacophony of a village descended upon by demons and the creatures of the night. The flapping of leathery wings, the ripping of flesh and pleadings of the damned mingled in Jeb's ears. Let the demons consume them, he thought in a most un-Christian manner, just like they had consumed him!