I am haunted. I tell you the
truth.
Like so many
others before me, I found as I approached my seventeenth
birthday an overwhelming desire to test my mettle, to become
my own man, and so I was led by insatiable curiosity to the
western frontier to see for myself that golden land of opportunity
and adventure where men were made overnight, either forged
in the fires of adversity or blessed by Providence with wealth
beyond measure in veins of gold or winning streaks at cards.
This was my aim: to prove to my father that I was more than
the son of a newspaper man. There would be no ink found beneath
my fingernails but rather the dirt of my own land and hard
calluses from the pickax I’d wield to claim my fortune from
God’s green earth.
But alas, as
with all good intentions and best-laid plans, Hell more often
than not is the unforeseen destination, and so one night
in the sleeping town of Warner Springs, I found myself penniless
with no bed, no claim, and no plans for the future other
than keeping out from underfoot. The local sheriff was a
hard man who did not take kindly to vagrants sitting on the
stoops in front of hotels or saloons or whorehouses, unable
to afford the pleasantries that teemed within their walls.
To put it plainly,
I had been swindled.
As a young
man of schooling from the great city of Boston, Massachusetts,
I should have known better; but at first I saw this frontier
through rose-colored spectacles, as the saying goes. The
man who promised me a fifth share of a certain claim—a “sure
thing” in his words, a site that was releasing gold nuggets “like
a bitch in heat”—took my money and vanished without
a trace, and there was nothing the sheriff could do about
it, reticent as he already was to come to my aid. As soon
as I’d opened my mouth to speak, he heard the roots of my
accent, and a look of utter disdain passed through his eyes.
I have never experienced such prejudice in all my life.
Abandoned by
luck, I sat on the stoop of the third hotel I’d visited that
night, as the sheriff made his rounds and threatened me with
no more than a withering stare—but it was enough to
get me moving along the muddy streets and driving rain, my
frock coat tugged tightly to shield both my chest and throat
from the biting wind.
Warner Springs
was not the land brimming with golden opportunity I had hoped
for; rather it was no more than an uncouth frontier town
that would forever leave a bad taste in my mouth. Hopes dashed
by one foolish mistake—trusting a man I had no right
to trust with a fortune I had no right to demand from my
father, I vowed to survive the night if nothing else.
And even if
I had been able to afford the train fare back to Boston,
how could I have faced my father again?
“I will
make a name for myself,” I had told him with my chin raised high and haughty. “You
will see. I shall return richer after a month than you
could ever hope to be by the time you fall upon your deathbed.”
The memory
itself left a strong bitterness in my mouth.
The doors behind
me crashed open as a man tumbled outside head over heels.
I started to my feet, stepping out of the way as another
man charged outside of his own volition, right hand hovering
over the holstered six-gun at his hip.
“Mercer, you
no good son-of-a-bitch!” this man roared, planting his feet
on the boardwalk where I’d been sitting just a moment ago. “That’s
the last time you cheat me out of a fair hand!”
A game of cards
gone awry, by all appearances. I noticed there was no one
else watching; the townsfolk seemed to have dissolved into
the dark as soon as the ruckus started. Deciding it was in
my best interest to do the same, I moved out of range of
the hotel’s exterior lanterns.
The man in
the muddy street rose to his feet and faced both the hotel
and the angry fellow on its stoop. “You want to do something
about it, Olson?”
“Damn straight
I do!” Olson’s hovering fingers twitched with anticipation. “I’ll
give you the count of three—”
“That doesn’t
seem fair to me, you counting it off.” The man in the street
backed off a step, then two, three, until he was halfway
to the deserted mercantile shop.
“I sure as
hell ain’t alright with you doing the counting, Mercer.”
“He’ll count
for us then,” the man named Mercer said, pointing straight
at me.
My heart jumped
up into my throat at that, and I felt a bit dizzy all of
a sudden. How had he spotted me there in the dark?
“I don’t see
nobody.” Olson scowled. “You better not be trying anything,
Mercer. I’ll gun you down right where you stand.”
“You’ll count
it off, won’t you, son?” The man Mercer looked right at me
like it was as bright as day out there.
“Y-yessir,” I
managed.
Olson cursed,
boots shuffling at the sound of my voice. “Fine. Count it
off. Do it now!”
“One.” My voice
came nearly inaudible. Mercer swept his mud-splattered coat
aside to bare his holstered shooter. “Two.” Olson’s fingers
kept twitching; his jaw muscle did the same, glowing in the
lantern light off the hotel porch. Mercer just stared at
him, his eyes pinpricks of light in the darkness. I swallowed
the strong urge to flee burning inside me. “Three.”
Olson cleared
leather first like the gunslingers did in all the dime novels
I’d ever read, and he brought over his left hand to palm
back the hammer with every shell he fired, pumping lead into
Mercer’s chest like it was a target at a shooting gallery.
The man Mercer didn’t stand a chance; Olson was that fast.
But Mercer
remained on his two feet. Sure, he fell back a step or two
as the bullets punctured him and the blood spurted outward
like little gushers, but he didn’t fall.
“What the—?” Olson
couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. “I put all six
slugs into him!” Was he talking to me? Well, I couldn’t believe
it either.
Mercer coughed,
spitting blood into the mud at his side. He straightened
his shoulders and cracked his neck, loosening up. “You already
done?”
Olson cursed,
fumbling with the shells in his gun belt, slipping them into
the open cylinder of his revolver and glancing up at Mercer
in a frenzy.
“Feel free
to have at it.” Mercer laughed, extending his arms as if
to an invisible crowd. “I’ll be here all night!”
“Ain’t right,
ain’t natural,” Olson murmured, sweating now, his gun reloaded.
“You count
it off again, son.” Mercer was looking at me.
“Go to Hell!” Olson
fired another six rounds into Mercer, who just threw back
his head and laughed. Olson started crying then, calling
on the name of the Lord, beseeching all of Heaven to intervene. “Why
won’t you die?” Olson was shaking. His fingers wouldn’t cooperate,
and his empty six-gun dropped to the boardwalk with a clatter. “What
kind of devilry is this?”
Mercer took
a step toward him, then another, the lantern light glowing
against the wet crimson of his shirt, all twelve of the bullet
holes plain to see.
“Stay back!” Olson
cried out, retreating, shaking his head like he was seeing
something that shouldn’t even exist.
I was seeing
the same thing, and I had to remind myself to breathe.
“Go ahead and
take what I owe you in blood, Olson. This fleshbag has plenty
more to give,” Mercer said with a grim smile. “Load up that
shooter and let’s have at it. Hot lead hurts so good!”
“You should
be dead,” Olson started repeating like a fervent prayer.
Mercer nodded. “You
have no idea.” He slapped at his blood-drenched chest. “C’mon
now, the fun’s just getting started!”
“Stay back.
Don’t you come any closer.” Olson stumbled into the hotel
and slammed the door behind him, bolting it shut.
Mercer laughed
again, mirthlessly. Then he looked at me. “Sticking around,
son?”
I had no words
for him. My legs wouldn’t move; that was the only reason
I remained rooted to the ground.
“Pick it up.” He
gestured to Olson’s discarded six-gun. “You might need one
of those.”
“Are you…all
right?” I couldn’t believe he was able to talk, let alone
stand upright.
He winced,
fingering one of the holes in his chest, then another. “This
bag of bones won’t last much longer, and that’s a fact. I’ll
have to find me another one.” Half a smile tugged at one
side of his unshaven face. “But first, maybe we’ll pay a
visit to that swindler who took you for all you’re worth.”
“How do you—?”
“I see things.”
Well, that
much was true. He’d seen me clearly in the dark. “I wouldn’t
even know where to begin to look for him.”
Mercer’s legs
gave out without warning then, and he collapsed to the mud
with a groan. Despite my horror, I rushed to his side.
“Guess I was
a little too optimistic.” He grimaced and reached out for
me, gripping my forearm. “You take my gun belt, and you meet
me at the undertaker’s. We’ll ride out tonight.”
I had no response
to that.
“You hear me,
son? You want that money of yours?”
“Yes.”
“Then you do
as I say, and you don’t ask no questions. Meet me at the
coffin shop.”
“But how—?”
“I said no
questions.” He unbuckled the belt and whipped it off with
a splatter of mud and blood. “Here. Now go.”
I just stood
there like a lost fool. “You want me to go for the doctor?”
“No good. Go!”
I took off
running down the street, and for all intents and purposes
I’m sure it would have appeared to the sheriff that I was
up to no good, leaving a man dying in the mud behind me while
I carried off his weapon. But what else could I have done?
I’d seen something that night that defied all logical explanation,
and the man had said to meet him at the undertaker’s. So
I did. That much of it I could do.
The heavy rain
pelted my face, shuddering my eyelids, and in the darkness
lit only by intermittent splashes of lantern light, I stumbled
and nearly fell. Lightning brightened the sky, and a few
seconds later thunder shook the heavens. I felt God watching
me, and I could tell He was displeased.
My mucked-up
boots thumped onto the plank sidewalk at the coffin shop,
and I tried the handle. Locked. There were three empty pine
boxes set up inside the front window, and I knew one of them
would soon be holding Mercer’s body.
Meet him there?
Twelve bullets in him, and he’d still been able to stand—even
if just for a little while. I’d never seen anything like
it in all my life. But then again, I hadn’t been in the West
for very long.
A crash came
from inside the shop, followed by footsteps thudding unsteadily
toward the door. The bolt slid back, and I found myself face
to face with a dead body.
“You made it,” the
corpse rasped, grinning at me in another flash of lightning.
An emaciated hand reached out for the gun belt I carried,
and I was too frozen with fear to offer resistance. “I’ll
take that. You got a horse?”
“Who-who are—?”
“The name’s
Mercer, son. Now pull yourself together. Haven’t you ever
seen a dead man before?”
In all honesty,
I hadn’t. My grandfather’s funeral service had been closed-casket.
Regardless, I’d never seen nor heard of any dead person walking
or talking before, and so I was understandably at quite a
loss for words.
“That son-of-a-bitch
who took all your money, he lit out north this afternoon.
I’m willing to bet he’s headed for Dry Gulch to try the same
thieving shtick on a new crop up that way. We leave now,
we’ve got a chance at catching him.” The corpse chuckled. “Only
fools would ride in weather like this.”
“I-I don’t
understand. You—” I glanced back down the street to
where Mercer’s body remained, a formless shape abandoned
in the dark. “Unless I’m mistaken—” I broke off, cringing
as the corpse stepped toward me in a crisp new suit.
“We could waste
time jawing about what I am and what I am not, or we can
go after your money. What’ll it be?”
I blinked in
a sudden gust of rain-driven wind. “Why are you so keen on
helping me, Mister?”
Mercer buckled
the gun belt around his narrow hips and cinched it tight. “You’ve
got a chance here to set things straight in your life, son.” With
that, he pushed his way past me and trudged across the street
to the livery stables. I followed, drenched and chilled and
knowing it would be getting a whole lot colder and wetter
before the night was through.
Mercer untied
his mount and motioned for me to take the one next to it.
Fortunately, I knew how to ride; that wasn’t the issue.
“Isn’t this
stealing?”
“Got a better
idea?”
I did not;
so I mounted up and steered the horse out into the rain behind
Mercer, and kicking our steeds into a gallop, we left Warner
Springs without so much as a single soul to bid us farewell.
For this I was grateful, as I had read enough about the western
frontier to know that horse-thieving was a capital offense,
worthy of the gallows.
But did such
laws apply to me anymore? I was riding with a man who had
defied the laws of nature, having died only to return in
a new body—albeit the corpse of an old man. Mercer’s
ghost had not been carried to Heaven nor Hell after his last
breath. He was still here on the earth, wearing a different “fleshbag” as
he called it. I had to accept matters as they stood; but
I could not begin to comprehend them.
“Have you made
some kind of deal with the devil?”
Mercer chuckled
drily, half-turning in the saddle to wink back at me. “I’m
sure he thought so, once upon a time. But I don’t work for
that imp anymore. Only for myself.”
“What’s in
this for you?” I had to shout to make my voice heard over
the thunder from above and the sloshing hooves of our mounts
beneath us. “Why are you helping me?”
“I was like
you once, son. The whole world was mine. But I made a bad
choice, one I couldn’t ever come back from.” He paused. “You’re
not there yet.”
“What do you
mean?”
“You can go
home again. I can’t. Not ever.”
He kicked his
mount hard, digging his boot heels into the horse’s flanks,
and I did my best to keep up. We rode all through the night
with no respite in the downpour. I had never been so wet
and cold in all my life, gritting my teeth together just
to keep them from chattering.
But the ride
afforded me plenty of time to ponder on this strange soul
who led me along the trail, this man who was a man and who
was not. Had he the ability to leave his body at will and
assume the form of another? Or could he only animate the
dead with his ghost? The whole idea shivered me on top of
the shivers already quaking my frame from head to toe.
“That man Olson,” I
said at length. “Did you cheat him?”
“What do you
care?”
“You didn’t
put up much of a fight for yourself.” It had seemed as though
Mercer wanted Olson to gun him down.
“I’m no killer.” He
glanced back at me. “You think we’re going after this swindler
to kill him, is that it?”
I swallowed. “Aren’t
we?”
“No, son. That’s
the sort of thing you don’t come back from. We’re reclaiming
your money, and that’s all.”
“And if he’s
not keen on giving it back?”
Mercer chuckled. “He
will be.”
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.
