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    After Taveres had left, Garrison made his way to the back of the wagon.
    First he circled it several times, even looked under it. Taveres thought he
was crazy with his feelings and premonitions and what not, but he trusted
implicitly in them. Most of the time they turned out to be nothing at all, but
more than once they’d saved his bacon. And those feelings were rioting in his
head. They were electric tonight and they were talking to him. You want to
stay alive, you best ride out while you still can. And it bothered him
somewhat, as you can well imagine. But if he rode out, Taveres would catch
up with him and things wouldn’t be pleasant.
    So he stayed, his feelings telling him in no uncertain terms that he was not
alone.
    Someone was close.
    He could feel their eyes crawling on him like spiders. He pulled his gun,
an 1860 Army just like Taveres’ except lacking the fancy engraving, and held
it tight in his grip which had gone decidedly greasy with sweat. He took hold
of the latch on the door and pulled it open. The door swung outward
soundlessly. A stink came wafting out. A hot and high stink that reminded
him of the straw in a monkey cage. But worse, just as black and flyblown as a
wormy body locked in an August closet.
    Garrison stepped back.
    He licked his lips and he could almost taste that noisome smell on them.
Nothing had a right to stink like that. Nothing good. Nothing that walked by
daylight. This was the smell of subcellars and drainage ditches, of dark places
and bacterial decay.
    Gun held out before him, Garrison started in. Things like boxes and sacks
were heaped on the floor and he had to crawl straight over the top of them.
Other things were hanging from the ceiling and they brushed his hat as he
moved forward. He was about six feet into that black heat when he realized
how handy a lantern would have been. It was just too murky in there. No way
he could see anything. If there was money or women, which he doubted, how
was he supposed to see them?
    His heart trembling in his throat, his mouth full of sand, he crawled
forward, gun pointing the way. It was hotter now and that stench was so bad
his stomach was filled with cold, shifting jelly. That smell was putrid. It was
mean. It was dirty. It was savage.
    He reached into his pocket and brought out a stick match. Part of him
begged not to light it, not to look, just to get out. But he scratched it with a
dirty thumbnail and the bowels of the wagon suddenly leapt out at him in
that flickering light. He saw a moth-eaten red velvet curtain drawn just
before him. Saw the patches of mildew that threaded its surface. Heard
breathing on the other side, hoarse and ragged. Then he saw what was
hanging from the timbers overhead and what decorated the walls.
    He let out an involuntary scream and the curtain suddenly parted.
    The match went out, but not before he saw what was behind that curtain,
the numerous sins it concealed. And not before one of them, a dark and
slithering shape, jumped out at him.
    He tried to bring the Army up, but something flashing and silver which
caught the moonlight sliced into his wrist and nearly cut his hand free. Then
it sank into his chest, his shoulder, his throat with a meaty thud.
    As he died, all he could hear was that whistling breathing sound and the
meat cleaver coming down again and again and again.
    Death was welcome.

                                                                  *

    When Taveres opened his eyes again, his head was throbbing.
    Whatever had hit him, hit him hard enough to give him an entirely new
hat size. That was the first thing he noticed. The second was that he was
sitting in front of the fire. And the third was that he was completely naked,
roped-up in a sitting position, back up against a barrel. Coy Farren was sitting
on the other side of the blaze.
    “Well, I see you’ve joined us,” he said and his voice was not the voice
Taveres had heard earlier at the Bullseye. This voice was cunning, nefarious.
“And how welcome you are, my dear friend. How very welcome.”
    The fire was blazing away and there was a big black pot suspended by a
folding iron tripod. Something was bubbling away in there and damned if it
didn’t smell good.
    Taveres struggled against his tethers, but it was hopeless. He was
completely at Farren’s mercy. “What the hell is this about?” he asked, trying
to keep the terror out of his voice. He was naked, defenseless. He’d been in
prison. He knew some men had a taste for exotic things, vile things. He
knew—
    “How much is your life worth to you, friend?” Farren asked of him.
    Taveres just stared, trying to find words that would easily diffuse this
situation, but none came. Either his brain was too big and he couldn’t locate
them or his mouth was too small to speak them. So he just started rambling:
“I…I…I have money. I got plenty of money and if’n you set me free…you can
have it, yes sir, it’s all yours.”
    Farren just laughed. He pulled a few onions from a sack and expertly
peeled them with a hunting knife, dropping them in the pot. “I must say that
is most kind and considerate of you, my friend. As my father was wont to say:
You are rarest of men, one of breeding and compassion. But, unfortunately, I
already have your money. I have your friend’s as well. I’m afraid you’ll have
to do better. For as you can plainly see, you are at my mercy. Yes, sir. Most
assuredly you are at my mercy.”
    Taveres was shivering, but he knew he couldn’t lose his head. He had to
think his way out of this. No easy thing for him. “At the Bullseye…there’s
money there…I can help you get it…please, Mr. Farren, please just let me
go…”
    “I must confess your pleas are moving me. Are they moving you, Lyle?”
    “Yessum,” a gravelly voice said. “Moving me, yes.”
    Taveres smelled something like old meat and a huge man moved into
view. He was bearded and filthy. He wore a sleeveless beaver coat and for a
moment, one crazy and shuddering moment, Taveres thought that it wasn’t a
coat at all, but greasy fur sprouting from his gigantic hide.
    “Did you meet my brother John Lyle?” Farren asked. “Perhaps not. Well,
now you have the honor. John Lyle is a man of few words whilst I am one of
many. But you’ll enjoy John Lyle—” Farren was smiling now, a dark and
lethal smile—“and he’ll enjoy you. Yes, sir.”
    Taveres felt like a jar of ants had been dumped on him. Everything was
crawling and trembling and prickly. And although he was not an intelligent
man, he knew he was in serious trouble here. He knew that there was
something very wrong about these two, something degenerate, something
corrupt.
    John Lyle just stood there grinning like a wooden Indian and the firelight
flickered and turned his image to a shifting orange, his face a mask of
creeping shadow. Light glimmered off his teeth and Taveres saw they were
sharpened like stakes, tools designed for rending and tearing. He recalled
stories he had heard at his grandmammy’s knee, tales of flesh-eating ogres
that lived in the black forest waiting, always waiting for lost children to fill
their stewpots with. He knew then that John Lyle Farren was one of them.
    “Did you bring the taters, brother of mine?”
    “Yessum.” He dropped a cloth sack at Coy Farren’s feet. “Taters.”
    “Excellent, excellent.” Coy examined them and sliced them carefully,
dropping them into the stew. Then he took a long fire-blackened spoon and
stirred the mixture. The odor was spicy, rich.
    “You see, I have no real interest in killing you,” Coy Farren admitted to his
prisoner. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t. Course, if you can offer me
something valuable, I might be inclined to set you free.”
    “Anything,” Taveres said in a high, whining voice. “Anything, anything!
You jes ask me, Mister Farren, you jes see what I can do for you! Ask! Ask!”
    Coy Farren laughed and it was a bad sound like a scream in a mineshaft.
“Yes, yes, yes. I can see you are a man who wishes to be of service. And why
not? When a man’s life is at stake, he’ll do just about anything to preserve
that precious commodity. And you…heh, heh, you are in a most tricky
position, sir. Would you agree with that, Lyle?”
    John Lyle made a grunting/snorting sound that might have been a laugh.
“I would agree with that, yes. I would,” he said.
    “W-What can I do for you? There must be something you want.”
    Coy Farren thought about it. He drummed his spidery fingers on his
tattered broadcloth coat, then wiped them on his pants as if there was
something unpleasant on them. “Thing is, we’re here on business. Looking
for a man name of Nathan Partridge. Do you know of him?”
    Taveres brightened. “Yes! Of course! He jes escaped from Yuma Prison.
Everyone’s looking for him…the law, bounty hunters. He’s got a good price
on his head or so I hear. I…I know something about his wife…”
    Coy Farren leaned forward, elbows on knees. “I am listening, sir. Most
attentively. Pray continue.”
    So Taveres spilled what he knew. It wasn’t much, but it was more than the
Farren brothers knew and it interested them. Interested them greatly. The
story was the same one that Sheriff Kreger told Partridge himself, except
backed-up by the facts—Partridge’s wife supposedly perished in a fire but no
body was actually found and some folks speculated that she just up and
moved and maybe, just maybe, the money had upped and moved with her.
Dead Creek was a place that was mentioned.
    “If’n any of that’s true,” Taveres said, “and it jes might be, then I bet he
went after her…her and all that money.”
    Coy Farren looked pleased. “See! See, Lyle, if you connect up with the
right sort of people, quality people that is, things begin to happen. Did I tell
you as much?”
    “You did,” John Lyle said. “Yes.”
    From inside the wagon there was a sudden bumping, thumping sound.
Then all went quiet again.
    Pale as plaster, Taveres said, “What the hell was that?”
    Coy Farren just smiled. “Just Ma, that’s all. Tending to her needs you
might say.” He stirred the stew and motioned to John Lyle. The big man
pulled out a skinning knife and cut Taveres’ hands free. “There. Consider this
an act of good faith on our part. You help us and we help you.”
    Taveres thanked him. Grateful for any little thing. He massaged his hands,
working the numbness out. He was starting to believe that he might just get
out of this. Things were definitely heading in that direction.
    Coy Farren took up a tin plate and spooned a helping of the stew onto it.
“You will, of course, join us for supper. You are our guest and we would be
terribly remiss if we did not see to your needs, if we did not satisfy your
hunger. Good friends breaking bread together. It’s a fine thing. Would you be
inclined to say that is correct, Lyle?”
    “Yes, I surely would, my brother. Yes.”
    Taveres took the plate that was offered him. Resting within a steaming clot
of grease was a slab of pale meat that was falling from the bone beneath.
Meat that he soon enough noticed had fingers attached to it.
    “Pray enjoy,” Coy Farren said.
    “Special meat,” John Lyle said. “Ever et it before?”
    Taveres was waiting for some punchline, something that would tell him
this was just some grand joke. But none was forthcoming. Just those
grinning, malefic faces and deranged eyes shining in the firelight.
    “If you want to live,” Coy Farren said, “I suggest you eat.”
    And then, something twisting up inside him and breaking down into a wet,
insane sobbing, Taveres did.

BUY THE BOOK!

GRIM RIDERS

When Nathan Partridge busted out of the Arizona Territorial
Prison at Yuma, he just wanted his money--$80,000 from a bank
job. But now his wife is dead. Her body is missing. And so is the
money. The trail leads to Dead Creek and as Partridge hunts
what was his, he is hunted. By the law, by pychotic bounty
hunters, by his homicidal father, and by a duo of deranged
brothers who came out of a Union POW camp with a taste for
murder and an appetite for human flesh. Blood will have blood...