THE STAIRS part 3

Copyright (c) 2019 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

THE STAIRS

Part 3

By R. Peterson

Collier Jagger shuddered as he watched the sheriff’s part-time deputy and another man retrieve the swaying corpse of Joseph Wright, his newly-hired night-clerk. It was obviously a suicide, but why? The unmarried Wright had seemed competent, happy, and always eager to help lodgers with their many and assorted requests, especially young women of a betrothing age. Collier couldn’t get over the way the young man’s face looked as they removed the noose from around his neck and lowered him to the floor of the hotel lobby. The coal black hair on the young man’s head was now frosted with white and his facial features, with lidless, protruding eyes, were frozen in a moment of sheer horror. Several veins had ruptured in the man’s nose and blood dripped from his chin. What had the man witnessed to make him want to take his own life?

The newly built hotel was certainly getting off to a rough start. Rumors of a ghost inhabiting the basement were gusting like wind throughout the small town. Several mining speculators with reservations for a week or more had already canceled their rooms preferring to sleep in tents by the river rather than risk a hotel with rumored ethereal room service. Now the two bullets he had shot into the floor had awakened all the hotel’s guests.

“Did you see this?” Deputy Chester Dunn removed a pin from a small note attached to Joseph Wright’s chest and handed the slip of paper to Jagger.

Collier put his spectacles on to read the single word that looked to have been written in red ink … or blood … after the hanging? “I completed the sixth grade back in St. Louis and can read most words but I don’t recall this one,” Dunn explained.

“It’s a French word: Extraconjugal,” Jagger whispered.

“What’s that mean?”

“Trouble!” Collier wiped his brow and gazed at the crowd of people gathering. Many were not even hotel guests and had come in from the street. Where was Sheriff Thomas Lang when you need him? “It means we’ve got trouble!”

-------2-------

As they drew near the building with the strange spear-point steeple Comanche began to sidestep and jerk her head against the reins. “Easy now,” Tom chided the mare. “I’m sure there’s a lot of people we don’t know in this town but this is a church … not an enemy fortress.”

Comanche snorted as if dismissing her master’s talk for foolishness.

The singing stopped just as Tom’s boots touched the ground. He wrapped the reins loosely around a hitching post and then walked toward the intricately carved and black-stained double-doors. The silence was total. The crunch of his boots on a gravel path and the jingle of his spurs seemed magnified. Tom knocked on the door. The lack of sound (silence) became even more tomblike and his unease deepened. The night breeze that always rustled leaves to announce the arrival of dawn seemed to hold its breath and the chirping of morning birds suddenly stopped.

After what seemed like several minutes but was probably only a few seconds one of the doors opened and a horse-faced man wearing a dark coat with a white shirt and black bow-tie gaped as if seeing a stranger for the first time. “Sorry for the interruption,” Tom stammered as he removed his hat and rotated it in his hands. “I’m Sheriff Thomas Lang and I have grave news concerning what I believe is one of your residents.”

The man with the long face moved back as if stunned and then opened the door wide. Tom took a hesitant step inside. All the bench seats on both sides of a center aisle were filled with men, women and children, all of whom had twisted around to stare at him. At least a dozen other worshipers leaned against the walls.

A portly man standing behind a podium stared for several seconds as if looking into the face of a ghost before smiling broadly. “Hallelujah!” he cried. “Our prayers have been answered!”

            The congregation jumped to their feet. Dozens of hands reached out to touch and pull the stranger into the fold. Tom had his back slapped by so many hands it felt like he was taking a beating. Several women kissed him with tears running down their faces. He was busy trying to shake at least some of the extended hands and didn’t see the table leg gripped in a pudgy fist strike his head from behind. There was only dark like a heavy object sinking in deep water … and the singing resumed.

-------3-------

Collier Jagger knew little about the young man he’d hired as a night clerk in his new hotel.  Joseph Wright’s family, if any, would have to be notified. Jagger sent an associate to make inquiries about town and then decided to check the basement. He went down the iron-wood stairs with two burly Irish workers one in front and another behind, each holding an oil lamp. The pistol had been re-loaded and was back in his hand. The sealed room where the singing Indian was captured was still locked and secured with heavy chain. The rest of the basement appeared to be empty. Whatever scared my night clerk into taking his own life must be hiding somewhere in these shadows Collier thought as they searched each dark corner. “What da hell are we looking for?” one of the men demanded with impatience amplifying his voice.

“Something that kills but can’t be seen,” Collier told him.

The man coughed and then whispered something but Collier Jagger could not hear what it was.

-------4-------

            Sheriff Thomas Lang opened his eyes. He appeared to be underground and his guns were missing. The room smelled of carrots, soil and cabbage. Beams of light filtered through cracks in the wood floor above and cast a faint glow on the dirt floor. A woman with dirty yellow hair leaned over him wiping his face with a damp rag. He couldn’t see her face but her voice was soothing, almost familiar, with a faint French accent.

            “Where am I?”

            “In a root cellar beneath the church,” she whispered.

            “Why?” Tom felt his head. He had a nasty bump and his hand came away sticky with blood.

            “Alistair David and his Church of the Divine Light have been praying to heaven for a man to make the sacrifice complete,” the woman said. “Looks like you arrived just in time.”

            “Who are you?”

            “My name is Paget,’ the woman said. “I was put off a Mormon wagon train when I refused to listen to God’s voice speaking through a wagon master. He wasn’t bad looking but he already had three wives!”

            “You don’t like sharing housework?” Tom moaned and then grasped his head. It was too early to start joking.

            “I’ve been looking for my older sister for years. She thinks I’m dead, and I don’t like sharing a marriage,” Paget said. “When I find out my husband has been with another woman I want to shoot him a few times, not ask if he wants more gravy on his potatoes.”

            “You sound like a few outlaws I know. How did you end up giving yourself over to God?”

            “It’s my sister who’s the outlaw. She used to rob banks and trains with a wild bunch of friends.” Paget smiled. “I’d been without whiskey or water for two days when one of Alistair David’s wagons came along. I begged for a drink and the driver asked if I was a witch. Of course I said no and they drove on. They were almost out of hearing range when I yelled that indeed I was! Surprise! They came back for me.”

            “You did right,” Tom said. “Witches always get the whiskey or the water.”

            “You’ve got a smart answer for everything, don’t you?”

Tom tried to stand up and bumped his head on the low ceiling. “I joke when I’m in pain,” Tom told her.

            “We’ve got all the water we want,” Paget pointed to a jug from which she’d been soaking the cloth. “But no whiskey. They’re keeping us alive only until they get the fire-wood collected and the gallows built.”

            “Who they gonna hang?” Tom walked to one end of the cellar where a ladder led to a trap-door in the floor/ceiling above them.

            “You,” Paget said. “And don’t bother with the ladder there’s an out-of-tune piano sitting on top of the hatch.

            “I hate those the most. What about you?”

            “A witch they burn,” Paget said. “This church has had a run of bad luck lately and their prophet Alistair David is looking for an original-sin sacrifice to make things right. It’s always a man and a woman who’ve been together outside of marriage.”

            “I don’t even know you!”

            “I told them we were lovers,” Paget confessed. “It was the only thing I could think of. If I hadn’t, they would have killed you right off. They don’t like outsiders!”

            “Thanks, I guess I owe you.”

            “I’ll collect later … but this is real trouble,” Paget smiled. “Two sweaty men passed through here a few days ago driving about twenty head of ran-to-the-bone steers and the church invited them to stay for supper.”

            “That was nice of them.”

            “The men got butchered right before the cows!”

            “I guess I don’t have to worry about tracking down my rustlers,” Tom mumbled.

            “I’m serious,” Paget said. “We’ve got to find a way out of here.”

            “How many guards do they keep upstairs?” Tom asked pushing against the floor boards over his head with his hand.

            “All of them,” Paget told him. “They have church services twice a day. The only time they aren’t singing and praying is when they’re working.”

From above, a piano began to play and dozens of voices began to sing.

            “It’s nice to know they’re up there protecting us from the devil,” Tom said. The congregation had lighted several oil lamps upstairs and with the extra light he could see some of her facial features. She looked strangely familiar.

            “This is the third meeting of the day,” Paget said. “That means their work is finished.”

            “Now what?”

            “We die in the morning,” Paget said. “And it’s not very fun. I was shot years ago and left for dead in a Louisiana swamp by my molesting uncle Etalon … but at least Elisabeth got away. This time I burn … and you hang. But at least we’ll get to see Hell together!”

TO BE CONTINUED …