Chapter 6 – A Sky Darkened by Swarm...
“Be best if you just left that bottle here at my end of the bar, Esther.”
Esther gave the thin man slouched atop the bar stool a sad smile. Wilbur Stutts had never been a heavy drinker. Esther's tavern supplied many a man's wants in Dry Acre. The main floor remained reserved for drinking and for gambling, but men could find sex and opium upstairs. Wilbur Stutts usually frequented Esther's tavern simply for the sound of the player piano. Yet the player piano remained silent that day as Wilbur Stutts teetered on the bar stool, slurring his request for more gin.
Esther gave Wilbur a second full pour and kept the bottle behind the bar. “Sorry, Wilbur, but I got too many of your fellow hands crowding my tavern tonight to leave any of the bottles with only one drinker.”
Wilbur poured back the first shot glass in a single gulp. He refrained from so quickly swallowing the second and instead peered into the liquor as if looking for meaning in the manner in which the light seeped through the gin.
Men crowded Esther's tavern. She thought every soul in Dry Acre had come to her that night to satisfy some kind of itch. Esther hoped she had enough liquor stocked to keep such a crowd quiet, satisfied long enough until the men turned too drunk to do much violence. Esther counted many new faces among the numbers. Something had driven even those too pious or too timid to frequent the tavern to drink from Esther's liquor cabinets. Something had turned the night strange. Esther peeked over Wilbur's shoulder and could not understand how not one game of poker, or of blackjack, or of dice failed to unfold at any of the tables. She heard none of the usual boasting. Men from the Harlington ranch had rented every room in the tavern's second story, but none of those men had been interested in any of the girls who attempted to tempt their remaining coin. The crowd drank fervently, and Esther would know good profit come the morning. Only, the crowd that flooded into her tavern lacked much any life, and Esther felt troubled whenever she struggled to understand the psyche of any mob that crowded her tavern's space.
Wilbur hiccuped. His hands trembled.
“What is it Wilbur?” Esther plied. None of the men had been willing to tell Esther of that strange something that drove so many of the men into her tavern. They had shaken their heads, or had glared their eyes at her for asking. But Esther knew Wilbur as a kind soul who usually visited her for the simple pleasure of a player piano, and so the proprietor thought Wilbur might be willing to explain that something that drove both Dry Acre's hard and soft men to so much drink. “Maybe you tell me what's troubling everyone so badly, and maybe I'll just leave the rest of that bottle with you.”
“It broke my heart, Esther,” Wilbur mumbled as he gulped down his second shot of gin.
Esther raised an eyebrow. “You tell me straight, Wilbur, if you want that bottle. This isn't simple love loss. No way every man in Dry Acre could suffer a broken heart at the same time, no way that could happen without my girls earning plenty coin upstairs. Not even Emma Harlington could break so many hearts at one time.”
Wilbur snorted and nearly fell from the stool. “Maggie Turner could.”
Esther took her own long swallow from the bottle of gin.
“Maggie Turner could break so many hearts at one time,” Wilbur repeated, and suddenly his words did not sound the least slurred. “The waste of it breaks a man's heart, Esther. Now, I've worked on that Harlington ranch for years, and I can tell you that old Randolph's got plenty of sins to answer for before the good Lord. But what I saw was none of the Lord's divine touch. What I saw didn't bother itself with atonement. It was foul. It was simple hatred. What I saw was the most awful kind of vengeance.”
Esther did not need to wait for a request from Wilbur before filling his empty glasses.
“Me and many another hand saw Maggie that first afternoon,” Wilbur continued. “We watched that ugly, white thing stomp with Wilson to one of the horse stalls. We watched that precious pearl Emma enter that same stall only a little longer. We all suspect secrets. But none of us hands know what those secrets are exactly, though there are plenty of rumors each night in the bunkhouse.
“None of us hands trust any of those Turners. The Turners have a way of making a man fear, though they look so dumb, though they hardly ever say a word. Now, none of us ranch hands are going to argue with old Randolph if the man tells us to pay no mind to Maggie Turner whenever she visits the ranch. Still, we all keep a real keen eye on her all the same, peeking at her the best we can as we tend to our duties. And we saw her enter and leave those stalls that first day. Us ranch hands might be a simple people, but we feel when something's not right, and what followed that strange Maggie Turner was wicked.
“All the animals got real uneasy as Maggie Turner walked past them. That isn't so surprising. You know as well as anyone else, Esther, how much the animals hate those Turners. But those animals didn't calm this time after Maggie went away. Their restlessness only got worse. Even Wilson, who is so good with most all the horses, couldn't throw a saddle on even the meekest mule. Randolph's hounds started barking, and we had to put that pack on their leashes before someone got mauled. You could hear the rodents scurrying for cover. Men claimed they saw those snakes we try so hard to remove from the ranch just slithering away of their own accord. The horses were kicking at their stalls by late afternoon and the dogs were howling like mad.
“We took to the bunkhouse as soon as we got all those animals tied down the best we might. Wilson showed more courage, or foolishness, than the rest of us and did what he could to tend to the animals during their distress on that first night. Wilson came back to the bunkhouse describing the worse kinds of rashes and boils tormenting those animals. We worried there must have been something wrong with the water, and we went thirsty as we got ready to take to our bunks.”
Esther nodded. “I've never seen such thirst in my tavern.”
Wilbur took a breath and steadied himself on the bar stool. “It was hard to find sleep with the sounds of all those animals howling in the dark. Some of us hands tried to start card games or songs, but we just couldn't find much enthusiasm for any of it. So we tossed and turned in our bunks. We all might have found some sleep, but late into that first night, the air outside the bunkhouse filled with a buzzing. The sounds of popping, like the noise of a hail storm, rattled on the rooftop. We peeked through the bunkhouse door, and a swarm of flies flooded through the crack, biting at us before madly rushing into the fire and into our lantern flames. We slammed that door fast and quivered as the sound of that buzz grew louder.”
Wilbur released a shot glass and stared at the way his fingers trembled. “See there, Esther, I still have the shakes. It was awful. The animals were mad by morning. The swarm of flies that filled the air with such a buzzing choked the ranch. The sun hardly shone much through that thick cloud of flies. All those flies were like a fluttering, biting, thick kind of rain. A man couldn't guess where so many flies came from. But they all descended on the ranch. It was awful bad at the bunkhouses, where we used blankets to seal the doors and windows tight. But it was horrible near the stalls. All the flies looked to swarm at the stalls. The flies bit us painfully whenever we cracked open a window or door, and we were too afraid to think what those animals suffered, braying and howling as they did that morning when we woke to see the sky covered by the swarm.
“The thought of it was too much for good Wilson. Wilson empathized with the animals on that ranch more than anybody. We could always depend on Wilson to calm a dog who turned aggressive. We could count on Wilson to tame the wildest bronco at the ranch. Wilson knew how to save a heifer when a calf was coming all wrong. Wilson just had a connection with all those animals. He wasn't the toughest on Harlington's ranch, and he was awful quiet, like he was scared of letting something slip with his bunk mates, but we were all glad to have Wilson around to turn to when the animals got too difficult for the rest of us to manage.
“So Wilson couldn't sit in his bunkhouse while that swarm buzzed and bit
those animals he cared so much for. We couldn't hold him down, couldn't keep him away from that door. He pleaded for us to let him tend to the horses. He cried he had to save them. His eyes were mad, and they burned with such conviction that the rest of us felt ashamed for not sharing Wilson's courage. So Wilson put on three layers of shirts, and coats, and jeans. We wrapped a blanket all about his face and cut holes into the cloth so that Wilson could peek through the protection. We wrapped him up as well as we could before Wilson darted through the bunkhouse door and into the swarm that buzzed outside the window. We watched him as best we could, but it didn't take long for the swarm's thickness to shroud any sight of Wilson.”
Wilbur stared at the bar's counter. His thirst apparently abated, for his hands did not drift toward that bottle of gin Esther placed in front of him. Silence ruled the tavern as the men gathered on that first floor delayed their drinking and listened to Wilbur describe the blight that descended on the Harlington ranch. Esther's eyes teared. She understood the direction such silence took a story.
“All day the swarm buzzed,” Wilbur continued. “All day the swarm buzzed while we hid in our bunkhouse, too afraid to sleep, too afraid to drink the water, too certain that judgment day had arrived, unannounced, to surprise us with flies so thick that a person couldn't breathe. The day passed with that swarm blotting out much of the sunshine. We were all thirsty, and hungry, and tired by the time night came back around. Still, the swarm continued to pop against our windows. Flies kept creeping into the bunkhouse to bite us and burn in our flames. None of us could think about sleeping. Wilson had not come back, and by then, we got to thinking that swarm would never empty from the air.”
Wilbur sighed. His shoulders slumped. Esther peeked over his shoulder at the other ranch hands who had come from the Harlington ranch to seek shelter, and whatever solace they might, in her tavern. None of those men would return her gaze. Esther felt it dreadful to imagine a swarm of flies so thick that they could turn men she knew to be otherwise strong and brave so meek and quiet.
“The quiet came all of a sudden that second night of the swarm,” Wilbur rubbed his eyes with his trembling hand. “The swarm was still popping against our bunkhouse in one moment before in a heartbeat just going silent. We peeked past the bunkhouse door, and not a single fly came buzzing inside to bite at our skin or find our flame. We donned whatever long sleeves we could find and covered our faces before we held our breath and stepped outside. Our boots crunched as we walked over the ground covered with dead flies, covered so thick that it looked like a dusting of dark snow had been left behind after a winter's day.
“Nothing stirred outside on the ranch. It didn't take us long to come across the first carcasses of chickens and cats left behind from the swarm. It didn't take us long to find the first dead dogs the swarm had picked clean down to the bone. Only our boots made any noise as we walked on that ground covered by dead flies. Only bone looked left behind by that swarm's hunger, and none of us were optimistic as we neared the stalls.
Wilbur's eyes glazed. His fingers traced atop the bar counter, trailing lines of spilled gin in quick shapes of circles, triangles and squares.
“We found the lines in front of the first stall's entrance. The flies had dropped thick in front of that stall. They popped under our boots. But those flies fell in such a strange way as to leave clean lines of shapes in the dust, strange circles and squares, weird triangles that looked to shift and distort the longer you looked at them. Something unnatural made those flies fall in such a way as to leave clean trails of shapes in the dirt. Something wicked was traced by the way those flies dropped out of the sky. None of us had to voice what we all thought. All of us remembered that Maggie Turner had come to the ranch before the coming of the swarm. All of us remembered that Maggie Turner had come to that stall. We all remembered the rumors of dark magics Thaddeus Turner pursued out at his ranch. None of us needed to point out that those lines looked like a Turner's handiwork.
“The real horror waited for us inside the stall. Not a horse survived the swarm. Each stall contained a pile of bones. The flies had picked the horses so clean of their muscle and flesh so that not even ligaments held the bones into skeleton shapes. Old man Harlington always took such pride in his horses. His horses were the grandest of beasts. Nothing was so important on the Harlington ranch as the horses. And suddenly, they were all of them devoured to nothing more than bone, clean piles of white to mark where only two nights before a magnificent and strong beast had stood.
“We found Wilson's remains in the center of the stall, covered by dead flies,” Wilbur's voice cracked as he pushed his story to its horrible conclusion. “The swarm left his clothing behind, so that his skeleton was dressed like some awful scarecrow left laying on the ground. But as with the horses, that swarm didn't leave the smallest bit of flesh behind. Wilson just couldn't sit in the bunkhouse listening to those horses panic. He couldn't stay in the bunkhouse and leave those horses alone to their fear. So Wilson joined them. So we counted Wilson's bones amongst those of the horses left behind by the hungry swarm.”
Esther shuddered as Wilbur's attention returned to the bottle of gin. She was not accustomed to drinking when her tavern was so filled with ranch hands thirsty for liquor. But Wilbur's story chilled her. A sullen and scared crowd filled her tavern, and Esther did not think she needed to ignore her own thirst such dread carried to her tongue.
“A ranch without horses,” Wilbur held two open palms towards Esther, shaking them to emphasize he held nothing. “A ranch without animals. The flies devoured the cattle as completely as anything else. So Harlington no longer needs ranch hands, Esther. So we flock into town to empty your drink before we move onward to find new work wherever we might. So we linger at your tables and sit in silence and think about Wilson before he ran into so many flies. We are thirsty men, now, but I don't know if there's a bottle that's going to satisfy me. I think I will likely look at the bottom of many bottles all the same.”
Esther leaned against the bar and let her head swim from the drink. She would collect much coin that night thanks to Harlington's suffering. Still, she could not say she felt happy for it. She suspected that hard times were coming soon enough to empty her tavern's tables.
“And what of the Turners?” Esther asked. “What do any of you plan to do with them?”
Wilbur shrugged. “How do you prove even a family that ugly responsible for flies?”
Esther's eyes flared. “Since when did that have anything to do with justice?”
Wilbur swirled the contents of another gin shot. His eyes swooned. Already, his head ached.
Esther looked at the sullen men seated at her tables and shook her head. “But there's gotta be somebody to do something about it. There's gotta be someone that's not going to sit around and do nothing.”
Wilbur nodded and pointed to the other, far end of Esther's bar.
There, Gabe Henderson sat on a stool with a bottle of whiskey, whose contents remained little touched by the gunfighter's tongue. Gabe had placed his pistols on the bar. There, he disassembled the guns in order to clean their intricate parts. It was a strange ritual for a gunfighter to perform in a tavern crowded with drinking men. Only, Gabe Henderson on that night did not feel he needed to fear an unexpected challenge. Gabe knew that Dry Acre's enmity focused only on the Turner clan.
Esther withdrew several coins from behind the counter, and walking to the other end of the bar, deposited them before Gabe Henderson, whose fingers paused in the cleaning of his guns.
“What are those for?” Gabe didn't look up from his guns.
Esther smiled at the gunfighter. “Appears to me that you're hoping to be the one that's gonna see the Turners get what they deserve.”
Gabe thought about that wild bronco lost to the flies. He thought of Wilson's skill with the wild beasts lost to the swarm. He nodded and returned to cleaning his guns.
“Well,” Esther pushed. “What are you planning to do?”
Gabe
began reassembling his pistols. “I'm not the only man going to do something about it. Old Randolph's coins attracted him a posse filled with plenty enough men.”
Esther nodded. “You planning on giving them a chance to fight?”
Gabe shook his head. “We're planning to burn them out.”
“Then why the guns?” Esther asked. “After the story Wilbur just told, you think they're going to do you any good?”
Gabe didn't know about curses, or the breaking of broncos, of flies or of black magic. “I don't know for sure after what I saw, but they're all I know.”
The weapons clicked together, and Gabe's guns were again whole and holstered on his hips. He stood from the bar, and Esther counted over a dozen ranch hands stand from their tables to assemble behind him. She gave each a free bottle of their choice and wished them well before they emptied from her tavern to spill into the night. Esther prayed them success. She was not sure that Harlington had not gotten what he deserved with that swarm of flies that fell upon his ranch. She knew that old Harlington had more than likely killed those Turner boys no matter what he and his coin claimed. Still, she hoped Gabe and his men success. For her tavern would soon suffer for the lack of men to drink from her bottles, to embrace her girls, to dream with the opium. The flies had claimed gentle Wilson, and Esther considered that hand worth many Turner brothers more. Most of all, Esther wished Gabe and that Harlington posse success because there was nothing natural about those Turners, because there was something very wicked about that abomination of an albino girl named Maggie.
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