The Beautiful Dead

6

Another day passed before the storm came raging down from the mountains. The pair had noticed the clouds, heavy and thick, like dirty grey cotton tufts, with misty grey sky around them and decided it would be best to start back for the cabin beforehand, giving them nearly a day and a half head start. Even still, the storm still caught them just shy of the cabin. To say it was a violent storm would be an understatement; the winds howled and swirled so strongly they threatened to tear what little trees there were straight from the earth, the tops of the pines jerked and bent unnaturally in every direction while thick, heavy flakes formed a cloud which twirled and slashed through the air, making it nearly impossible for the two men to see each other or their direction and any attempt to communicate moot. The two men had to rely on the instinct of their horses for the most part, hoping they would follow a straight line to the cabin.
   Richard lost track of Pete in the white, couldn't see anything except the reins and his own hands. He struggled to pull the extra horse behind, it kept jerking away and trying to run off in the blizzard, but he held tightly to it and managed to keep it on track well enough despite his frozen fingers.
   "Pete! Where you at!?" Richard called. He got no answer. Snow caked to his eyelashes, effectively blinding him, and burned against the flesh of his cheeks.
He pushed forward, to at least what he hoped was forward, with his ears filled with the mountain's roar and his mind jumbling through quick, incoherent thoughts. He wondered where the boy was, if he was now lost out in the white, as blind and dumb as Richard in it, either waiting for the cold to slowly kill him or already buried somewhere under mounds of snow and ice never to be found. He wondered if he himself was the one lost, waiting to die cold and alone--in fact the only assurance he had that he hadn't already died and found himself trapped in an icy hell was the pull of the horse he led behind him. Amidst the falling snow, obscured but glowing brightly in the darkness he could see the man's glowing eyes and wide, toothy smile.
   "Pete! Damn it boy, where are ye!?"
   Still no answer. Feeling the touch of fear in his chest and a bit of madness at the sight of the man with the crooked smile he pulled his pistol and fired at the figure, only for him to disappear in the white sheet on the wind.
   Time passed slowly for Richard, so slowly he wasn't sure how long it took for the storm to finally pass. It could have been hours, or minutes, a day even, but for all its alleged brevity it might as well have been weeks. By the time the wind had quieted down and the snow fell gentler his eyes were nearly frozen in a squint, moisture from his breath and nose had formed solid ice on the hairs of his face, and the skin was red, raw. His fingers and hands were perpetually numb with cold, the tips of his fingers having started to turn dark, and each muscle of his body stiff and aching whilst the cold seemed to have pierced straight down to the bone. He shook the snow from his shoulders and clumsily knocked it from his hat, dropping it once with his useless hands and having to retrieve it.
   What little there was to track by and navigate was gone, all that surrounded him now was clean white powder, mangled trees and the cloudy sky. He had somehow managed to get both horses through the storm, along with Forrester still tied over the palomino's back. Williams' body must have fallen off the palomino at some point, but Richard figured there were more important things to worry about presently, besides, he would never find it under all the freshly laid snow.
He decided it would be best to make a fire immediately, warm himself up and keep his fingers from becoming completely frostbit. It was slow work, his hands shook and dropped twigs and finding someplace to build it where the wind wouldn't catch it or a sudden cascade of snow from a tree limb wouldn't fall on it proved somewhat troublesome. Eventually, after many attempts, he built a little tent of sticks and filled it with some cloth. He took out the matches in his pocket and tried, one after the other, to light one, until after the fifth match a small flame burst to life at its end and he put it quickly atop the cloth. It caught fast, and soon he had a decent fire going. He added more wood and built it up larger and larger until he could sit and feel the warmth touch his entire body. He stayed there for a long while, trying to rub and pound his arms back to life, letting the ice melt off his clothes and face. Over the period, he heard the world coming back to life with the sound of snow-rabbits crunching through the ice crest over the snow mounds and wolves howling and singing far beyond the horizon and the occasional flutter of something in the trees.
Once sensation came back to his hands and feet, Richard took the saddle off his horse, laid out a blanket and wrapped himself up. As he sat there he mourned the fact he'd drank the last of his whiskey and decided to pack his pipe for a good smoke, with Pete gone it was just about the only thing left to distract him from the cold. While he smoked, in spite of his best efforts, he couldn't help thinking about Delilah. Many years ago he had buried every memory of her deep in the dark place of his subconscious where he might hope to forget her, but ever since they'd talked about it at the fireside she had come back to him like a specter in the night, haunting him, and he just couldn't seem to shake the pain of her memory. He could hear her voice, a near-whisper, coming from the shadows, speaking to him of times long ago and memories he didn't deserve to have. He tried to push them away, fearful he might find the memories he wanted never to remember, but they came as fluidly as water and carried him back to those times, back to her.
He remembered a small cottage, built from trees grown in the woods around it, with a stone fireplace burning golden light on a cold day. He remembered Delilah, her hair tied behind her head so that her face showed in the light, sitting in her rocking chair reading a book. They said something to each other, but the words were long forgotten, he only remembered watching the candlelight on her face when she spoke and the glitter in her eyes. He remembered how she would sing sometimes, her mind venturing back to her homeland in Ireland, the sweet and mellow tunes of that place echoing in her voice, pretty enough to break a man's heart and bring a tear to his face. He remembered the touch of her flesh, her warmth, remembered the taste of her kiss and the longing his heart felt for her.
Without realizing it, he had fallen sleep, drifted into the memory of her, and she came walking into the firelight, as youthful and beautiful as she ever was, her body pale like moonlight, long blonde hair draped over the top of her bosom and her eyes glistening as they reflected the flames. They didn't seem to notice the years that had worn Richard, only saw him just as young and vibrant as he saw her. He wanted to reach out and touch her, to know if she was real, but his hands wouldn't move, so they sat and looked at each other for a while, saying nothing. She gave him a smile, the kind of warm, gentle smile only she could give, but her eyes were cold.
   "Delilah...my love..." he whispered.
   "My love...my love. If but love were a truth, shared among two souls equally, rather than life's great trick," she said.
"It was once, for us."
"No, it never was. Not for me. Not for either of us. I did love you, I always did, but it was never true."
"Did?...I still do."
"Even though I'm cold and in my grave, without a beating heart? Even though you killed me?"
The words struck Richard's heart harder than a bullet. A memory flashed through his mind, a moment deeply repressed. He could see the men standing in the doorway, their hands to their pistols, waiting for him to turn from the bar and face them. One called out to him, but he couldn't remember what he said, and they stared at each other a long while, the sweat dripping down the men's faces and Richard's heart beating hard. There would be blood, maybe death. Then everything was a blur, the room exploded in gunfire, burning flashes of gunpowder, the foul stench of smoke, and before he knew it the men were on the ground, dead or dying, and he was there with his gun in his hand. Then Delilah was in his arms, his hands wet with blood, her body limp, and the three dead bounty hunters lying across the street just outside the barroom door, watching Richard's slow, endless death with their cold, blank eyes--and Richard fought back tears.
"Yes...even still," he managed.
When he looked back up at Delilah, she had changed, her face had turned dark, her skin a deep purple, nearly black like rot, and her eyes glowed red behind the flames licking her face.
"I didn't mean to..."
"But you did hurt me, didn't you?"
"Yes."
For the first time since he buried his wife beneath the great oak behind their cottage, in the grave he dug himself, Richard cried. Seeing him in tears had no effect on Delilah, her gaze was as cool and distant as before, she didn't even blink.
When he wiped away the last of his tears, Richard looked at Delilah. What beauty she had was now gone, in its place was something vile, evil. Her smile, once warm and kind, was now crooked and sinister, a smile Richard recognized well. She stared hard at him, the shadows and sharp angles of her face accentuated in the orange glow, until her eyes rolled back in her head and her mouth opened unnaturally wide, the flesh of her cheeks tearing and splitting apart, and black snakes, slick like oil, came pouring from her mouth into the snow hissing and coiling. Her eyes sunk into their sockets, the flesh around them turned black as night. Richard felt himself urging to jump and run away, to escape the horrors of what he was seeing, but his body would not move and his eyes would not look away.
The snakes writhed on the ground, hissing and creeping toward him, and kept gushing from Delilah's mouth like a sickening, black geyser. Her body convulsed and writhed with the snakes, her bare flesh peeling away like scales; it started at the head, falling away in slivers, then down to her shoulders, her breasts, her hips, down to her toes, until she was completely shed and what stood in her place was the dark man with the same crooked smile. He moved slowly, each movement a creak or a snap like dry branches, toward Richard. As the tips of the man's fingers extended, the stench of death, rot and decay surrounding him, Richard's heart beat hard and fast, so hard he felt it might jump right from its place in his chest, up his throat and straight out of his mouth. His head spun, his nostrils were afire with the man's vile stench, and he felt the cold, smooth sensation of the snakes slithering up his legs, wrapping themselves around his arms, up his torso to his neck. The man's fingers creaked as they opened unbearably close to his face, ready to grab hold. The smiling man said nothing, only smiled that crooked smile and peered down at Richard with passionless, yellow eyes. As he became certain that his time had come, knowing that the smiling man would finally catch him and bring him every misery he deserved in the afterlife down below, a sound came echoing through the air, something like a screech or a scream, only stranger. He listened to the sound, suddenly unaware of the smiling man's presence, while it grew louder and more frightful, until the dream abruptly stopped and Richard jerked awake in the wilderness.
His senses coming back to him, Richard discovered the strange screech still ringing in his ears and determined it was the horses and scanned the area and quickly found what was disturbing them. Wolves had found them. They circled the small camp, a few snipping at the horses, waiting for an opportunity to strike, three were circling Richard, growling and drawing in with teeth bared white and eyes glowing.
"Damn you!" he screamed, then drew a pistol and fired at the large beasts, wounding one, then another, and frightening the third off. The ones around the horses Richard chased off, they were stubborn ones, snarling and growling when they would back away only to return a moment later. Richard shot once, then again, the two bullets landing square in the heads of two of the beasts, then he left them wiggling in the snow as blood rushed from their skulls so as to frighten the remaining wolves into retreat.
"Go on! Git!" He fired three more times as he chased them into the snow, still yelling and cussing them, until they were gone from sight. Then Richard returned to the camp and dispatched the two wounded animals with his knife. When it was done, Richard tended to the fire. It had apparently died sometime while he was asleep, he figured that was why the wolves were so keen to come into camp, had the fire still been going, he doubted they'd have bothered them. He revived the flames and added more wood to build it up, then he went to the horses.
Richard's horse was on the ground, it's throat torn open and viscera sprawled out, steaming in the snow. The wolves had already begun to eat it. Richard felt a pang of sadness at the loss of the beast, and in the way it had passed, it had been a good horse, loyal and true, he only wished he could bury it proper. The palomino had a long cut along its rear left from the hock to the stifle and a few minor nips and scratches along its legs and side. He figured the horse might survive, given medicines and ample rest on the journey, but most likely the leg would get infected, the animal slowing, and eventually it would either die or have to be put down. Either way, Richard needed the steed for a while longer, he didn't plan on traveling onward or back to the cabin by foot with a corpse lugged over his shoulder.
Using what little supplies he had, Richard tended to the wound as best he could. The horse kicked and jerked and cried out such blood-curdling noises as he worked he'd wondered if it would be better just to shoot it. The wound was still gnarly and unstitched, but at least he had stopped the bleeding and managed to wrap it. The snow around them was red, like small, frozen rubies glistening in the early morning light, and strips of bloodied cloth littered the ground. It was hard to get his saddle off the eviscerated body of Richard's old horse, the horse must have weighed a little over eight hundred pounds, but he eventually managed to wriggle it off and strapped it on the palomino. He realized once he was done just how exhausted he was, his entire body felt leaden, his eyes burned and his mind was in a drunken-like haze. While he sat at the fireside and ate his breakfast of dried beef strips and cornbread he contemplated what he could remember of the dream. He remembered sitting at the fire, seeing Delilah, then the dark bane of his consciousness, the smiling man, ripping her away from him in a nightmarish fit. It was strange, seeing Delilah again after so many years, or rather, remembering her--it was so real he had to keep reminding himself she had only been a dream. He wanted her to be real, wanted it to be true so he might wash away his greatest mistake, but each time he recalled the smiling man's yellow eyes he was reminded it could never be.