Shades Of Cassandra ch3 part 2

                   

Chapter 3 continued

         It was approximately noon when she found herself once more standing in front of the Cougar’s Nest Hotel, staring up at the weather beaten sign. She was tired; the hike had been rather treacherous. And she had transported most of her gear up here from the cabin, including her food, beer, typewriter, and a port-a-potty. Her back was killing her. All she wanted to do was set up camp and lay down on a soft air mattress. And she intended to do just that.
         She spent the next ten minutes setting up her tent on the east side of the hotel, hoping to use the old structure as a wind block. She hadn’t initially planned to use the tent. She had merely brought it along as a precautionary measure, in case her father’s scratch built cabin hadn’t been to her liking. But now she was going to use it, not because she didn’t like her father’s cabin, but because of a dream.
         That thought struck her as ironic as she pounded in the last tent stake. She was here now because of a dream, and because of an all too familiar name written in a ledger, and because of a hallucination. What else could last night’s encounter have been? She glanced up at the side of the hotel, looking at the weather beaten wood, wondering what the odds were of a woman from the nineteenth century having nearly an identical name to her fictional character.
         By twelve-thirty she had the tent erected and her campsite all set up. She had stowed some of her gear (including the dreaded port-a-potty) into the front lobby of the hotel, deciding to use the structure as an outhouse. She managed to find a table to set the typewriter up on and commandeered what she believed to be the sheriff’s office as a writing room. And that was where she was now (despite her aching back), sitting next to a rusty iron jail cell, sending Cassandra Wilson chasing through the streets of London, conducting surveillance upon the elusive Sheila O’Malley.
         And the chase was on.
         Cassandra followed Sheila, carefully weaving her way through the foot traffic of downtown London. She kept her distance, always keeping Sheila twenty feet in front of her, and keeping several pedestrians between the two of them. If Cassie was right, Sheila would lead her right to the bad guys, to the men who had beaten Hank to near death and left him in an alley last night. And if she was right, those same men were planning something awful, something which would make the Trafalgar Square bombing seem like a church social in comparison.
         Sheila ducked into an alley.
         Sheila ducked into an alley … and then what happened? Kim sat back, groaning as her back flared up in protest. What would happen next? Would Sheila jump her in the alley? Would Cassandra follow her all the way to the terrorist hideout? What a terrible time to have writers block. What a … she glanced to her right, towards the rusty iron cage which had somehow withstood the test of time. There was something lying within it, under the bunk. It was a book, black and bound in leather, another ledger?
         She looked at the page sitting in the typewriter in front of her, half filled and lacking in the substance she was looking for. She really wasn’t getting anywhere at the moment, was she? She stood up, stretching once more, wishing she had gone with her first idea and had lain down on the air mattress for a while. Her back was killing her, feeling as if it were being constricted by a giant snake. She looked towards the cell once more, realizing now the book she had spied under the bunk was not a ledger, but a bible.
         A Bible?
         She carefully walked around to the front of the cell and pushed the rusty iron door open, flinching as the ancient hinges seemed to scream in protest. She stepped inside, her hiking boots crunching down on the rotted floor. She immediately felt claustrophobic as she stepped forward and knelt down next to the bunk; the iron bars seemed to move in on her, threatening to strangle her. She shivered for a moment and crossed herself, then reached underneath, retrieving the bible from what looked to be the nest of some burrowing animal.
         She stepped out of the cell with her prize, choosing not to resume her spot at her makeshift writing desk. Instead she stepped outside, allowing the bright sun to blanket her face. She seemed to cherish the sun quite a bit lately, ever since the divorce.
         She walked back to the hotel and took a seat on the lawn chair, crossing her legs. She then tenderly opened the front cover, careful not to tear the brittle pages, and examined the presentation page.

The Holy Bible
Presented to:
David L. Winston
By
Reverend Nathanial Fletcher

         Kim felt as if her blood had turned to ice water. There, on the presentation page, as big as life, were two names from her dream. She looked away from the bible, towards the sky, towards the sun, attempting to ascertain some viable answer. How could this be? What was God trying to tell her? She wasn’t really a religious person (unless she took into account the mild form of druidism her father had instilled in her), at yet here was evidence some force was hard at work, had lured her here.
         And what was David Winston’s bible doing in the Sheriff’s office, in a jail cell?
         She flipped through the book, careful not to tear any of the extremely brittle pages. She noticed something was stuck between two of them, toward the back of the book, in the New Testament. She carefully forwarded her browsing to those pages, and found herself staring, ironically enough, at the Psalms of David. The twenty-third psalm had been outlined in ink, the psalm which states ‘though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.’
         But the outlined psalm wasn’t what had Kim’s attention. What had her attention was the old letter which had been stuck between the pages. It was a brittle piece of parchment which showed all of its one-hundred years of age. Holding her breath she unfolded it, revealing a scripted paragraph.

         My Dear Cassandra:
         I love you more than any words can say. And I am so sorry we did not escape and make it to Missoula to be wed. Tomorrow I am to be hanged, but not by your father. I don’t blame your father for any of this. He is a frightened man, as frightened as any of us. No, I blame the troll, Roger Denton. I am convinced he is not a man, but some sort of ghoul, a denizen who has risen from Hell. I hope you still find a chance for escape. And if you do escape, go to Billings, or perhaps even Denver. Although, I fear there is no place on this good Earth which is a safe distance from Denton. I can only pray Almighty God delivers you from him and keeps you safe forever.
         Your loving fiancé
         David Winston
         P.S. I will love you until the end of time.

         Tears came to her eyes.
         And then came denial; no, not denial, a sense of disbelief. She could not believe what she was reading. How could a single man hold an entire town in a state of fear? How could good people, at least a hundred from what she could tell from the size of the town, be afraid of one man? It just didn’t seem possible.
         This had to all be a prank.
         Could it be a prank? Could Steven have set something up this elaborate to drive her insane? No, someone maybe, but not Steven. Steven didn’t know she was up here. He didn’t even know where she moved to after his ‘lawyer’ raked her over the coals, bullying her to sign away her interests in his business.
         But honestly, why would anyone set something up this elaborate? And to what end? No, she had to assume the bible and the letter to be authentic. She also had to assume her dreams and the events which occurred here in 1885 were also linked. If that were the case, she might be in extreme danger, assuming this Denton still existed, and assuming the woman she saw last night was actually real.
         Again she considered leaving and returning to Kalispell, and foolishly (she was too stubborn to leave) decided against it.
         She carefully folded the letter and stuck it back into the bible. She then stood up and walked into the hotel, placing the bible into her day pack. She wanted to look at it again later, perhaps at dinner time. But now, for now, she needed to figure out what to do with her story. Does Cassandra get jumped or does she follow Sheila to the Al-Qaeda stronghold? Perhaps a stroll through town would clear her thoughts and help her decide.
         And so she walked, not far, just a short ways, just enough to finally take a thorough tour of the town. She began by walking around the perimeter, by following the contours of the ‘bowl’. She began at the hotel and walked counter-clockwise (striking out to the right of the hotel entrance), strolling past a storage shed and what appeared to be a general store. She paused for a moment and looked in the store’s broken window, noticing most of the merchandise was still present and perched upon shelves behind a service counter, just as if the store clerk had just up and left. She found the scene disturbing and moved on.
         The next building she came to was the saloon. At least she assumed it was the saloon. It was the only other building in town which was equal in size to the hotel. It was also the only other building which had a second floor balcony, a place for the more promiscuous saloon girls to stand and lure a lonely miner inside. She stood there for a moment, imagining the balcony intact and full of red light district girls. Kim smiled as she thought about being one of those women, dragging some poor miner into her room, stripping him of his clothing and of the gold nuggets he had just extracted from the mine. Now there would be an interesting story. If only she had the time to write both it and her Cassandra Wilson adventure.
         Time.
         The image of a grandfather clock appeared in her head. Oh God, the dream!
         She walked forward, stepping up onto the wooden sidewalk, carefully treading her way across the rotten wooden planks. She paused by a window, shielding her eyes from the sun as she looked in. She could see a large number of tables draped with dust and spider webs. Some still had playing cards and poker chips strewn across them. Others were bare and turned upon their sides. Past the tables was the bar. It might have been the same as the one in her dream. She wasn’t sure. And as for the grandfather clock, if it was actually there, it was out of her field of view, as was the player piano.
         Should she go in?
         This walk had been intended to help her with her story, not confirm or deny the window dressing of some random dream. She still didn’t know whether Cassandra gets jumped in an alley. But, now that she thought about it, what was the difference? If she gets jumped, she still gets taken to the terrorist’s hideout, which would lead to a kidnapping, torture, and a possible romantic rescue by Hank. Kim smiled. That settled her dilemma. Cassandra Wilson would get kidnapped by Sheila and her friends. Situation resolved.
         Now, what about the grandfather clock?
         Did she really want to know?
         Yes, she did.
         She carefully walked over to the rotted entry door and pushed it open, stepping inside the dusty saloon. She walked in feeling as if she were Wyatt Earp, imaginary six shooters on her hips, a chip on her shoulder. Deep down she knew the feeling of authority was merely a defense mechanism against an increasingly unbelievable situation. It was the only thing keeping her from running from the saloon and hiding in her tent like a frightened little girl.
         She walked all the way over to the bar and stopped, staring at her image in the dust covered mirror, the very same mirror she had seen in her dreams. She then turned around, standing in the very same spot she had stood in the first dream, when the townsfolk had emptied out, leaving her (Cassandra) to face Denton alone. She shivered as she looked back at the entry door, expecting it to swing open at any moment, and expecting to see the Devil emerge, dressed in a black Stetson hat.
         But nothing happened. The saloon was quiet.
         She looked to the left, to the corner she couldn’t see from the window. She swallowed hard and crossed herself once, just for good measure. There it was, the one piece of furniture which confirmed the reality of the dream in her mind, the grandfather clock. And it was sitting next to an old player piano. Kim took a step forward, her eyes fixated upon the clock face. And then she took another step, and then another. The clock drew her in as if it were a magnet and she were made of iron. She kept walking forward until she was standing directly in front of the clock, her reflection staring back at her from the glass window covering the clock face. On impulse she reached up and carefully opened the window, accessing the hands. She would just set the time, that’s all. She just needed to set the time. She glanced at her watch. It was approximately Three P.M.
         She moved the hour hand to three, and then stopped. Why was she doing this?
         Why not? It was just a clock.
         She moved the minute hand to twelve, and then opened the glass door beneath the clock face, accessing the compartment housing the weights and the pendulum. There was a hand crank lying on the bottom of the compartment. She picked it up, staring once more at the clock face (and her frightened reflection). She wondered if it were possible to wind up such an old clock, to make such a weather beaten and neglected device work again. She inserted the crank handle in one of the three slots located upon the face.
         She cranked the weights up, slowly, as to not break any of the rusted mechanisms. But it seemed they weren’t really rusted. The cables suspending the weights were shiny, almost new. And the crank handle turned easily as she put it into each slot, raising each weight to the top of the pendulum compartment. And when she reached in and pushed the pendulum to the left, it moved effortlessly. And when she released it, the pendulum swung back and forth, immediately setting the inner mechanics of the clock, and the atmosphere of the saloon, in motion.
         “I told you Trent. I told you what I’d do if I ever caught you a cheating.”
         Kim spun around, alarmed at the sound of the voice. Her eyes opened wide in amazement. Her dream had come to life. The saloon was now packed with patrons, miners and general townsfolk drinking and gambling. Four saloon girls, including the young blonde haired girl from her dream, were lined up along the bar. They were practically hugging the miners as they stared in horror at one individual wearing a black hat. Kim focused her eyes upon him; on his square jaw, his handlebar mustache, and his sinister red eyes.
         Denton.
         “I aint a cheatin. I resent you even a sayin such a thing,”
         The man addressing Denton could have passed for Santa Claus, assuming old Saint Nick was younger and had a dark beard. Actually, a better comparison would have been to one of the bearded members of the rock group, ZZ Top. Trent had quite a long bird’s nest hanging from his chin. He also had a look of defiance in his dark eyes. He was not a man to be trifled with. And under normal circumstances, Trent would have nothing to fear from the likes of a man who accused him of cheating. But these weren’t normal circumstances.
         Denton stood up. His red eyes seemed to glow a bit brighter. Kim wondered if she was the only one who noticed.
         “You’re not cheating, huh?”
         Trent shifted in his seat, attempting to use as much subtlety as possible. He was apparently fondling his revolver, readying what would surely be a deadly shot into Denton’s chest. Kim stepped to the side of the grandfather clock, instinctively attempting to shield herself from any stray bullets.
         “No, I aint a cheatin. Now, you take that back. Or perhaps you’d prefer to be a buried in the mountain where they a found yah, you freak.”
         “You know, I’m not too fond of being called a freak just because I’m different.”
         Denton stepped around the table, halting within inches of Trent’s chair.
         “I heard how you caused the widow Fletcher to miscarriage. What did you do to her?”
         Denton smiled. “I enlightened her.”
         Trent suddenly shifted to his left, away from the table. His motion was immediately followed by a gun shot. A hole appeared in Denton’s chest, directly over where his heart was, should have been. The fabric of his circa 1885 suit blossomed out, forming the edges of an impact crater Kim might normally have observed when looking through a telescope at the moon. Surprisingly, no blood seeped from the wound. It was clean.
         “What the Hell?”
         Trent stood up, backing away from Denton, now clearly afraid.
         “It’s my turn, Mr. Trent.”
         What happened next was horrific. Not that Kim saw all of it. She turned away at the last moment, instinctively averting her eyes from the abominable sight occurring in front of her. But she saw enough. She saw Denton turn into something, a form other than human. And she saw something thrust out from Denton’s body, impale Trent’s chest like a spear. And she heard Trent scream. It was an unholy sound, like the howling of a wild coyote in agony. Kim squeezed her eyes shut tight and covered her ears, assaulted by its high frequency.
         The screaming stopped. Not all the noises of the scene stopped, just the screaming. It was replaced by the ticking of the grandfather clock, quiet whispers, and the sound of someone sobbing, a salon girl probably.
         “Ah, Sheriff Wilcox, it’s so nice of you to join us.”
         Kim opened her eyes, and found she was still greeted by the images of the Old West. Trent was lying dead on the saloon floor, a macabre island surrounded by a lake of his own blood. Denton was now sitting in Trent’s seat, his feet propped up on the dead man’s back. Standing on the other side of the table was a frail looking man with a whisk broom mustache. He was dressed in a vest and trousers. A Sheriff’s star hung from his right breast pocket. Kim assumed this to be Cassandra Wilcox’s father.
         “I came as soon as I heard the shot, Mr. Denton.”
         The Sheriff’s voice was that of a whipped puppy. Kim physically cringed as she heard him speak. His demeanor wasn’t much better. His shoulders were sloped, his eyes bloodshot, and his face was haggard and unshaven.
         “Would you mind removing this garbage from my saloon?”
         His saloon.
         “Yes sir, Mr. Denton. I’ll do it right away.”
         The Sheriff was definitely Denton’s humble servant, a puppet. Kim watched with a sense of pity as he and a deputy (who she hadn’t noticed before this) grabbed Trent by the arms and legs and picked him up, carrying him towards the front door.
         “Oh Sheriff.”
         Wilcox and his young, clean-shaven deputy stopped in mid-stride. “Yes sir?”
         “Is everything set for the hanging tomorrow?”
         Hanging?
         The haggard look on the Sheriff’s face actually seemed to worsen. “Yes sir, Mr. Denton. Everything is set for tomorrow.”
         “And our guest of honor, is he making peace with his God?”
         “Yes sir, Mr. Winston is preparing himself for what is to come.”
         “Ah, good. Not that it will do him much good.”
         “You could just banish him from the town.” The Sheriff replied meekly.
         “I don’t think so.” Denton picked a shot glass up from the table, fondling it as if it were some precious artifact. “Mr. Winston defied me, hoped to take my Cassandra away from me, isn’t that right Cassandra?”
         He glanced over toward the grandfather clock, making direct eye contact with her. He winked his right eye at her and gave her a lecherous smile which sent shivers down her spine.
         “No, Mr. Winston will be hung for his crimes. He will be made an example of, in case anyone else decides to defy my authority,”
         He turned and looked at the rest of the room, seeming to make eye contact with each person in turn. His gaze then finally returned to the Sheriff and his deputy. They were still standing there next to the door, the bloody body of Mr. Trent suspended between them.
         “Take that filth up to the mine. Leave it at the entrance to the number two shaft.”
         “You want us to go up into the mine, sir? Tonight, in the dark?”
         “I’m sure someone can accompany you with a lantern.” He turned back to the crowd. “You there, undertaker.”
         A tall and rather dark complected man stepped out from amongst the crowd at the bar. Kim stared in astonishment. The man wore a large and rather bushy mustache upon his upper lip and was dressed in what appeared to be a rather fine suit. But that wasn’t what Kim was astonished over. It was the fact this man bore such a striking resemblance to her father.
         “Me sir?”
         “Yes you. You deal with the disposal of the dead, do you not?”
         “Yes sir.”
         “Well then, I think you’re most qualified to escort these gentlemen to Mr. Trent’s final resting place. You will be the light which guides their way.”
         “Me sir?”
         “Yes, you sir.”
         The undertaker glanced nervously at the other patrons in the room. He was apparently looking for any moral support he could muster from them. And had Denton been an ordinary man, had he been anyone else, even Jesse James, he might have gotten it. But nothing about Denton was ordinary. He would find no support in this room.
         “Well, Mr. Undertaker, what are you waiting for? The Sheriff needs someone to hold a lantern for him. Be off with you, before I decide it’s more entertaining to watch two men swing instead of one.”
         “Yes sir.”
         The undertaker walked over to the door, reaching up for a lit lantern immediately adjacent to the door jam. He took it down with shaking hands and adjusted the flame, allowing it to become a bit brighter. He then opened the door, holding it as the Sheriff and his deputy exited the saloon with their macabre cargo. Kim watched as the three men disappeared into the night, somehow certain the townsfolk would not see these three men ever again.
         “Good riddance to bad rubbish.” Denton downed the whiskey from the shot glass he held in his hand. “And I say god riddance to Mr. David Winston.”
         He stood up, turning towards the grandfather clock which Kim now huddled beside. She pressed her body closer to the clock as he approached, pressing her ear against the wood, listening to the clicking sounds of the mechanism inside.
         “Wouldn’t you agree, my dear?”
         She looked up into his eyes, his demonically red, glowing eyes. She noticed a tinge of green upon his irises, as if they were plant stalks surrounding the roses which were his pupils. She had never seen anything like that in her life.
         “I … I guess so.” What the hell was he?
         “And once he is gone, you and I can be wed.” He leaned down, reaching close to her with his lips, his violet tinged lips. Oh God, he was going to kiss her! She shuddered and closed her eyes, slinking back into the corner formed by the wall and the back edge of the clock. She tensed up, expecting to receive the sensation of a hot poker jammed down her throat.
         The clock stopped ticking.
         The low whispers, which up to now had been background noise to Denton’s theatrics, stopped as well. The absence of sound enticed Kim to open her eyes once more. She now found herself looking at a rather empty, extremely dusty, barroom. She was alone. There were no patrons, no card games, no Roger Denton. She stepped out from the side of the grandfather clock, observing its pendulum. It had seized up in mid-swing.
         “Okay, okay, time to get back to the story. This didn’t happen.”
         Yes Kimmy, it did.
         She backed away from the grandfather clock, now eyeing it as if it were some demonic gateway to Hell. Everything about it now seemed sinister; the faded clock face, the frozen pendulum, the bronze weights. Why had she touched it? Why had she gone near it? She looked down, now realizing she was standing upon the very spot Mr. Trent had died. The wood beneath her feet had been stained a reddish-brown, what she had thought to be varnish when she first walked in.
         “This was real. Oh dear God, this was all real!”
         She ran from the saloon, nearly putting her foot through a rotted floorboard on the front porch. However, the near ankle twist didn’t deter her. She stumbled down the steps and sprinted back to the hotel, back to the perceived safety of her campsite. She was soon back sitting in her camp chair, bottle of warm Moose Drool in her hand as she attempted to calm her frail nerves. It would take the consumption of three bottles of beer before she felt numb enough, brave enough to stagger into the Sheriff’s office and retrieve her typewriter and manuscript. She intended to type somewhere else for the evening, the hotel’s reception desk seemed an ideal location. She didn’t remember seeing any grandfather clocks sitting in there.