Mercer's Ghost by Milo James Fowler

We rode until the break of day and beyond, and I’ll admit I was a bit saddle-sore by the time the sun broke through clouds in the east as cold as steel, warming my back with its fresh morning light. I started thinking Mercer might have had more at stake here than he was letting on. Had he been swindled by the same man as I? Is that why he’d resorted to cheating at a card game—had he been so desperate to get back some of his money? Here I was riding with a ghost of a man who seemed to think I could have back everything I’d lost, but I started to grow certain he was in it for more than reasons solely altruistic.

Mercer drew rein as we approached what looked to be a small cave in an outcropping of rock dug into a rain-slick grassy knoll. He climbed down from his horse with elderly joints that crackled and popped as he moved.

“Excuse the racket,” he muttered, drawing his six-gun to take a closer look.

I held the reins to his horse and remained mounted.

Mercer kicked at a heap of ashes just inside the cave. They sparked at the disturbance. “Somebody spent the night here. They won’t be far ahead.”

He heaved himself back into his saddle with another series of crackles and urged his mount into a gallop. We’d ridden hard all night, and it didn’t seem that we would be slowing our pace anytime soon.

“How far is it to Dry Gulch?” It couldn’t be all that dry after the past week of heavy rains.

Mercer didn’t reply. He kept his gaze fixed straight ahead, eyes narrowed to slits as the sun burned away the cloud cover and shone hot on the muddy trail. I watched him and couldn’t help wondering. What had he ever done to deserve what was obviously some kind of curse upon his soul? To never be allowed to leave this earth—

“How many times have you died?” I had to know.

“Too many to count, son.”

“How old are you?”

Again, it didn’t seem that he would respond. But then he said, “You went to school, back East.”

“Yes, I did.” All six years of it—more than enough, I’ll tell you that.

“You learned about the Roman Empire?”

“Of course.” But truth be told, I didn’t know it from Greek.

“I was there.” He paused to let that sink in. “I stopped counting the years a long while ago. Didn’t see the point.”

I swallowed. This was too much. “You’re saying you’re… immortal?” I’d read about immortals in dime novels; but they were made-up stories, nothing you’re supposed to ever find in real life.

“I’m saying I’ve lived a long time. Long enough to know when somebody has a chance at making a better life for himself.” He shook his head at me. “This one isn’t it for you, son. I hope you realize that now.”

“Just because I made one bad decision—”

“That’s all it takes sometimes. Now you listen to me. We get your money back, and you take the next train back East. You go back to your father.”

My grip tightened on the reins. How did he seem to know so much about me? “I can make a life for myself here. I just…ran into some bad luck.”

Mercer’s gaze focused on something in the distance, and again he kicked his mount hard, forcing it to give him all it had left. I soon saw the reason for our haste: up ahead, a lone rider stood out on the ravaged trail, moving along at a leisurely trot. He glanced back when he heard Mercer coming, but by then it was already too late. Mercer had his six-gun out, firing two warning shots. One round knocked the rider’s hat from his head, and the other nicked his ear with a spurt of blood.

“Dismount!” Mercer shouted as he drew rein, and at first I thought he meant me. But he had his gun aimed at the thief before him who quivered in his saddle with both arms in the air, reins trailing down from his left hand.

It was the same fellow who’d promised me a fifth share in his claim. I couldn’t believe it. Mercer had actually found him.

“I don’t have anything worth killing for!” the man cried.

“Tell us your name, and let it be true.” Mercer’s corpse looked even more horrific in daylight, the skin ashen against that fine, rain-wilted suit.

The man gulped, Adam’s apple bobbing. “Sherman. Harry Sherman.” He blinked all of a sudden as if seeing Mercer for the first time. “But you…You can’t be!” Recognition and horror traded places in Sherman’s eyes, sparkling like blue marbles in the sun. “You’re dead!”

“Sure about that?” Mercer grinned.

“I-I saw it myself…” Sherman’s hands started shaking. “What the hell’s going on here, Lowell?”

Lowell—the name that had once belonged to Mercer’s current fleshbag?

“Dismount, I said.” Mercer nodded at me while keeping both his gaze and his aim trained on Sherman. “Trade horses with this scoundrel.”

I dropped to the mud; it sank beneath me, sucking at my boots. Truth be told, I was all too eager to hand off that animal I’d stolen back in town.

“So you’re a horse thief now, is that it? Back from the dead to rob honest folk?” Sherman’s voice shivered as he climbed down from his mount.

“Keep your hands where we can see them.” Mercer had said he was no killer, but he seemed good enough with a gun to keep any man in line.

“I’ve got—” Sherman reached for his saddlebags.

“We know full well what you’ve got in there. Leave it be.”

Sherman stared up at Mercer. “Y-you’re not Lowell.”

“No. I’m not.”

I handed Sherman the reins to my stolen horse. “I don’t know what he is,” I admitted. “But do you remember me?”

Sherman took a while to focus his eyes on my face. “Sorry, son. Can’t say I do.”

“You took me for all I’m worth, Mister. You stole every cent I had. And you don’t even recognize me?” My free hand tightened into a fist.

“He’s done a lot of business around these parts,” said Mercer. “But now it’s come back to bite him in the ass.”

“Hey, listen,” Sherman began, but he didn’t finish. I hit him as hard as I could, right across the mouth, and it felt like I’d broken every knuckle in my hand. Sherman staggered back, reaching for the gun at his side.

“Don’t,” Mercer warned, backing up his mount for a clear shot. “Drop it.”

Blood oozed from the corner of Sherman’s mouth, but he did as he was told, slow and real careful. “You can both go to Hell!”

“Don’t tempt me.” Mercer fired a round between the man’s boots, and Sherman nearly leapt half his height. “Get on that horse and ride back to Warner Springs. Tell the Sheriff what happened here. Tell him old man Lowell’s back from the dead, whatever you want to tell him. But you clear out of here right now.”

Cursing beneath his breath, Sherman climbed into the saddle, and I tossed him the reins, all the while under the unblinking eye of Mercer’s gun muzzle. Without a word, the man galloped off, south along the trail we’d ridden. Mercer watched him go until he was almost out of sight. Then he climbed down, popping every joint.

“Let’s take a look, shall we?” He unbuckled one of the saddlebags, steadying the horse as he did so with a low, rhythmic murmur.

I retrieved Sherman’s gun and tucked it into my belt. “What’s to keep him from bringing back a posse or something and setting out after us? It’s just my word against his, you know. He could say he runs a legitimate business or some such, that my two hundred dollars is in his possession because I signed it away—”

“There’s plenty more than your two hundred here, son.” Mercer withdrew a sheaf of bills and grinned at me. “And I’m pretty sure some of it belonged to old man Lowell, among other luckless folk. Don’t you worry about Sherman. The sheriff will most likely have other plans for him.” He winked at me. “He’s riding a stolen horse, after all.”

I took my money in the tens and twenties he doled out to me, and I stuffed them deep into the front pocket of my trousers. I watched as Mercer took the rest for himself.

“How much is that?”

He shrugged. “What’s it matter? You’ve got what’s yours.”

“I think we should split it.”

“I don’t think so.” He turned to mount up, crackling all the way into his saddle. “Now, you just go on back home to your folks where you belong. That was the deal, remember?”

“I say we split it.” I had Sherman’s gun trained on the corpse in the saddle, though I can’t recall how exactly the weapon made its way into my hand.

Mercer didn’t look surprised, only saddened. “Go ahead and shoot me, son. You’ve seen what good it can do.” He kicked his mount and took off, but not before I’d emptied my shooter after his retreating form. I got him with at least three of the rounds, but there were no spurts of blood—just hollow thuds as each bullet punctured his back. He slumped low in the saddle, but he didn’t slow down. His horse bolted, scared by the shots.

For a second there, I considered climbing into the saddle of Sherman’s horse and following suit; my blood boiled so fiercely in both my ears, the hunger burning in my gut for double, maybe triple the money my father had given me. But then Mercer’s words came to mind:

“That’s the sort of thing you don’t come back from. You’ve got a chance to set things straight in your life, son.”

This man Mercer, if what he’d said about himself was true, and if what I’d witnessed for myself was real—him moving his ghost into a body from the undertaker’s shop—then I wouldn’t really be killing him if I destroyed the fleshbag he currently wore. I’d just be setting him free to find himself another one.

So that’s how I came to find myself riding hell-bent for leather, as the dime novels called it, after Mercer with Sherman’s horse straining forward against every one of my vicious kicks, with Sherman’s reloaded pistol at the ready in my grip. It wasn’t long before I caught up to Mercer; his horse had been driven hard all night long, and mine hadn’t. I didn’t waste time on words. I emptied all six rounds, and this time most of them found their marks. Mercer’s corpse shuddered in the saddle with the impact of each bullet, and slow as molasses in winter, he pitched forward and dropped into the mud, leaving his horse to run off alone.

I jumped to the ground and went through the pockets of that fine suit he wore, tugging out wads of bills as the frail body writhed and the throat strained to speak. I kicked the gun out of his limp hand and tugged off his gun belt, buckling it around my own waist, tucking Sherman’s shooter into the holster and sliding Mercer’s behind the buckle.

“Sure you want to do this?” the corpse rasped, fixing me with a sunken-eyed stare.

“You can’t die. You told me yourself.” I shook my head at him. “I don’t know what you are, Mister. But it sure as Hell isn’t natural.”

I climbed back into the saddle of Sherman’s mount—I was already thinking of the horse as my own, as with his gun and Mercer’s, and the hundreds of dollars in my pockets. There was no way any man would ever swindle me again. I would go to Dry Gulch and get myself a room at the nicest hotel and buy me a fine new suit like the one this creature wore, and I would be the Newcomer, the Wealthy Young Man from the East, the Investor. I would make a name for myself in this golden land of opportunity. I would become my own man.

“Goodbye Mr. Mercer, or Lowell—whoever you are. Maybe we’ll meet up again someday.” But I had no intention of ever crossing his path from that day forward.

The corpse lay back, gazing up at me. I could see where my bullets had pierced him straight through; there were seven holes burned out the front of his vest. He made no reply, looking deader now than he ever had before, the eyes dull and lifeless. Had Mercer’s ghost already left the premises? Was it hovering around me now, unseen by my mortal eyes? The idea of it filled me with dread.

Then I heard words spoken to me as if they had been drawn from my own mind and whispered by the voice of another, words that left me shivering with self-loathing and despair. The last words I had ever said to my father:

“I shall return richer after a month than you could ever hope to be by the time you fall upon your deathbed.”

And I knew then and there I had not witnessed the last of Mercer’s Ghost.


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