Free Deadman's Crossing by Joe R. Lansdale Page B

had whittled on was little more now than a thin, sharp stick, as Jebidiah had torn off the umbrella itself, and worked on the shaft with his knife.
    Mary sat in the center of the bed. He had given her the rifle.
    She said, “You know, I can’t hit the back end of an elephant with a tossed shot glass.”
    “Wait until they’re close.”
    “Jesus,” Mary said.
    “He’ll be of no help,” Jebidiah said. “Put your faith in that Winchester.”
    “Maybe they won’t know we’re here,” Mary said.
    “They’ll know. They’re hungry. They can smell us.”
    The sound of Mary swallowing was as loud as a cough.
    Jebidiah sat in a chair by the window and watched Mary, who had fallen asleep. He was surprised she could sleep. Every nerve in his body was crawling. He lit one of the lanterns and put it on the floor by his chair, then sat back down, took out his pocket watch. He popped the metal cover and looked at it. Even as he watched the hands crawled from eight-thirty to nine. He took a breath, shut his eyes, looked again. It had already moved five minutes past. He went to the window and looked out. Something moved across the street, through the low hanging shadow that had mostly seeped into the ground, like a dark oil of evil. Jebidiah had gotten only a glance, but it was something big and hairy, and it had moved from the far side of the street to the back of the hotel. His horse stirred in the corner of the room, where it had taken up residence by backing its ass against the wall.
    Jebidiah took a breath and moved away from the window. He went over and stroked the horse’s nose, then went to the door, opened it, stepped out on the landing.
    It was dead dark down there and he couldn’t see a thing. Not even Dol lying behind the bar; perhaps he had gone wherever the others had gone, some other part of the town, all scrunched up and wadded together in a mass of white mist in a closet somewhere. He could see that the door to the hotel was partially opened. When they had come into the hotel, he had closed it.
    Jebidiah stood there for a long time, one hand on the rail, looking down. Gradually his eyes became somewhat more adjusted. He thought he saw something moving near the bar.
    There was a shape.
    It was still.
    Perhaps it was nothing.
    All right, Jebidiah thought, it’s not like they don’t know we’re here. He took a small Bible from the inside of his coat pocket and tore off the front page and took out a wooden match, struck it, lit the paper and dropped it.
    In the falling light of the paper, which lasted briefly, he saw the shape was not just a shadow, but was in fact a thing. Dark fur was glimpsed, hot, yellow eyes, teeth, and then the beast was moving, darting around the bar, heading for the stairs, climbing two or three steps at a bound. In that brief moment, Jebidiah saw that there was another in the corner. A large beast with even larger, yellow eyes. That would be the King Wolf, he thought, the one who would command the others, the one who would send them on their missions.
    Jebidiah stepped to the mouth of the stairway and pulled his revolver, pointed it casually and comfortably at the shape that was bounding up the stairs, its chest covered in a metal Spanish breastplate. In the darkness he could only tell it was there, couldn’t make out features, could catch glimpses of that breast plate by the thin moonlight they came through the hotel windows. He aimed a little low, toward the groin, so that when he pulled the trigger on the Colt .45 it bucked and rode up, throwing the bullet into the upper part of the thing’s body, clanging the armor, but traveling through it. The beast grunted, twisted slightly, kept coming. White smoke twisted up from its breastplate where the bullet had gone in, and from its back where it had come out.
    Jebidiah cocked back the hammer again, thought, my God, I hit it straight on. A .45 slug should have knocked him down the stairs and on his ass, flat, breastplate or no