THE STAIRS part 4

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 4

By R. Peterson

Collier Jagger searched through the employment records for his new hotel until he found the file on Joseph Wright. His recently deceased clerk listed his next of kin as a brother, Henry Wright, who was currently panning gold on the west bank of the Cottonmouth River. Intriguingly other than a small amount held back for living expenses Joe Wright’s entire pay was being forwarded to The Church of the Devine Light in Grace, Montana.

            Collier stood at the top of the ironwood stairs and stared into the basement. This spirit trouble all started when he installed the stairs he’d recovered from the burnt out ashes of a town called Shade. If I was a betting man I’d wager there’s a connection between my spirit, Joe Wright, these stairs and this church in Grace. Collier laughed. Of course I’m a betting man. No one ever gets rich without risk. Joseph Wright’s funeral was this afternoon. He’d show up express his condolences and find out everything he could from the Wright brother.

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

            Sheriff Thomas Lang peered into the dark in a bid to see the girl he’d been imprisoned with. She called herself Paget, and at present she was just a dark shape in the corner. “What are you doing?”

            “The good folks in this town expect to roast themselves a witch,” Paget said. “I don’t want to disappoint them.”

In one corner of the cellar stood a wood burning stove that was apparently used to heat the church in winter. As the sheriff moved closer he could see Paget rubbing ashes and charcoal on her arms and face. “You want them to believe you’re a witch?”

            “My sister and I had a black nanny when we lived in Louisiana who was an escaped slave from Jamaica. Mayna used to sing us to sleep with a black magic lullaby that she said broke the chains of her captors.”

            “So you’re going to pretend to be a black witch and use voodoo on these people?”

            “The only thing I’ve got down here is my mojo. Have you got a better idea?”

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

The funeral was held at the ranch of an African woman who called herself Rose. She’d buried so many cowboys and miners in the field adjacent to her house the locals were beginning to call the place Black Rose Cemetery.

            There wasn’t a large crowd around the open grave: two diggers and a handful of curiosity seekers. Henry Wright stood holding his hat next to a plain black coffin. A beet-faced preacher was stomping toward a buggy. Collier stopped him. “Aren’t you going to say a few words?”

            “I’m not wanted here,” the Methodist minister shook his head. “These heathens read the bible upside down and then shun the words of the one true God.” He tied a black ribbon around his bible and then slipped it into a leather pouch. “May you and your deranged brother both rot in Hell!” the preacher yelled over his shoulder.

The first shovelfuls of dirt were falling on the coffin when Collier leaned forward and whispered. “You were right to refuse a ceremony from outsiders!”

Henry Wright looked up; worry already beginning to vanish from his face.

            “Who are you?”

            “I was your dear brother’s employer and am someone who has great respect for the Church of the Devine Light.”

Henry Wright smiled.

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

            “You sure this is going to work?” Sheriff Lang and Paget stood at the bottom of the ladder that led upward into the church. Pager looked every bit the Negro with blackened hair, face arms and legs. Her dress was also covered with a mixture of mud and charcoal. Tom thought she looked like she’d just crawled from a grave.

            “No,” Paget said. “But it’s the only idea I have. There are a lot of lies in this world but one thing I know for sure is that my nanny’s magic was real. I hope my mojo is. I’ll distract the congregation and you try to get one of their guns.”

Before Tom could go over the plan in his mind the singing above them stopped. They could hear the heavy piano being rolled away from the trap door.

            “You go up first,” Paget whispered as the hatch began to open.

            “Why?”

            “I need to be able to fly!”

-------5-------

            “So you’re offering me a job?”

            “Indeed I am!” Collier Jagger told the young Henry Wright. “Your brother made a valuable addition to this hotel and you’re the best choice to replace him.”

            “I can’t believe this,” Henry gasped as he looked at the contract. “I can make more in a week than I can in two months panning!”

Jagger handed Henry a pen and the young man was just about to sign when he stopped. “There’s just one thing …”

            “The bulk of your pay will be forwarded to the Church of the Devine Light,” Collier told him.

Henry was all smiles as he signed his name. “When do I start?”

            “Right now,” Collier said.

            “What’s down here?” Henry asked as Collier took the chain off the door to the basement stairs.

            “A complete tour of the hotel starting with the foundation and moving upward,” Collier told him.

Henry smiled.

-------6-------

The congregation moved back as Tom climbed from the opening in the floor of the church. Paget was right several of the faithful held rifles in their hands. A wild-eyed Alistair David clutched a Bible as he stood at the front of his flock. “You have been brought before the judgment of God and have been found wanting,” he declared.

            “There’s a lot of things I want, namely to get out of this Hell hole,” Tom told him. “So I guess I’m pleading guilty!”

            “Don’t mock the Lord!” Rebecca David lunged forward and tried to scratch out his eyes. Several of the congregation pulled her back.

A scream came from behind. The sheriff turned just as Paget leaped from the top rung of the ladder high into the air and landed cat-like on the floor of the church. The round eyes in the blackened face looked demon-like as she danced in a wide circle. “Whose blood shall quench the thirst of my master?” she hissed.

            The congregation moved as far away from her as possible. Those who weren’t pressed tightly against the walls were fleeing out the door.

Tom lunged toward the man next to him. He knocked him to the ground and grabbed his rifle. He pointed the gun at Alistair. “You’re going to have to find another way to appease your God,” he said.

Alistair David moved toward him seemingly without fear. When the deranged preacher was three steps away Tom pulled the trigger … click. He pulled it again …. Click.

Alistair David smiled. “You didn’t think I’d allow one of my flock to bring a loaded gun into church did you?”

-------7-------

            “Who’s that?” Henry Wright pointed to the ancient Indian seated on the dirt floor of the special room in the basement.

            “That was our first hotel guest,” Collier said. “He liked this spot so much we couldn’t get him to leave!”

            “I don’t understand.” Henry Wright was just turning when one of Jagger’s men knocked him out with a club.

            “What now?” one of the men asked.

            “Tie him up on the floor next to the Indian,” Collier said. “If I’m not mistaken our little hotel spook will come down here to try to get him. When it does we close the doors and our troubles are over.”

-------8-------

Sheriff Thomas Lang’s hands and feet were bound with rope. It was just before midnight. The moon stared down from the sky like a gas-spotlight in a ghostly opera house. He stood on the gallows defiantly as Alistair David slipped a noose around his neck. “If your God demands a blood sacrifice then you’re praying in the wrong direction,” Tom told him.

Rex Morton punched the sheriff in the stomach. “Shut yer yap!” he warned.

Paget was quiet for the first time since they’d chained her to a post in the center of a huge pile of firewood. “You should have been more careful with your witch costume,” Tom called to her. “The charcoal is rubbing off and I can see streaks of white!”

-------9-------

Collier Jagger and two of his men crouched behind the desk in the lobby of the Jagger Hotel. Just as the Grandfather clock between the elevators struck midnight, the back door to the hotel opened. A shadow without form except for skeletal contours removed the chain and descended the stairs into the basement. After a moment Collier and his men followed. The door to the special room stood open.

            A gaged and wide eyed Henry Wright shook with horror as the spirit from Hell advanced toward him.

With one quick movement Collier and his two men slammed the door to the special room and secured it with a chain.

Collier Jagger smiled. “I think our troubles are over,’ he said.

-------10-------

Paget Hughes began to sing as Alistair David advanced toward her with a burning torch. “Libérer de ces chaînes qui lient nos âmes à ce royaume terrestre !” Her voice rose in volume.

            “That don’t sound much like a lullaby,” Tom called out.

            “This is the spell my nanny used to get herself free,” Paget told him. And she began to sing the same verse again.

-------11-------

Collier Jagger and his two employees were halfway up the stairs when they felt the tremendous heat. The chain that secured the door to the special room in the basement was glowing red. By the time they reached the top of the stairs and fled outside it was turning white. Moments later it fell to the dirt floor.

-------12-------

            “Spring the trap-door under the sheriff with her first scream,” Alistair told the men on the scaffold. “A witch can’t sing the praises of the Devil forever. She must answer the call of her own flesh before she perishes.”

He walked around the huge pile of wood making sure the flames created one large circle.

            “You bastards!” Tom called from the gallows. “You see a world of sin instead of love. You cling to a code of righteousness that corrupts your rotting souls.”

Paget continued to sing.

The flames were inches from her feet and the rising heat was becoming a roar when a ghostly figure darted into the burning inferno then darted out again. Returning over and over. Each time the apparition carried a portion of the fire in its wire-like hands. The stables began to burn, then the general store. A row of houses seemed to burst into flames all at once.

The congregation stared wide-eyed and then tried to run. But the village was burning in a circle. Several of the people caught fire. Alistair David screamed as the Bible in his hands burst into flames.

Paget felt the chains binding her to the post fall away. People were running everywhere but there was no escape. The air was filled with smoke as she climbed the scaffold and released the sheriff. “I don’t see a way out of this,” he told her.

            “Follow me,” Paget told him.

Sheriff Thomas Lang and Paget Hughes descended the ladder into the root cellar of the church just before the entire structure burst into flames.

-------13-------

            “I never realized how good fresh air can feel,” Paget said as they opened the trap door and climbed out into the still smoldering ruins of the church. The entire village had been turned to charcoal. Blacked bones some still clinging to bits of charred flesh appeared as grotesque statues caught in an eternal dance of agony as they searched for escape from the flames that had consumed their religion.

            “I’ll never complain about your singing again,” Tom promised as they shielded their faces and moved away from the heat.

-------14-------

They washed in a cool stream almost a mile from the destroyed village. Two roads crossed next to a clump of trees and ran like the four points on a compass. “I’m the sheriff of South Fork,” Tom told her as he spied Comanche coming toward him at a trot. “You can come back to town with me and I’ll see that you find transportation … to wherever you’re going.”

            “Thanks but I don’t think that will be necessary,” Paget said. “A cloud of dust appeared in the distance heading toward them. She smiled as she rubbed her closed fist against her sleeve showing him how lucky she was. “I’ve been on the trail of  my sister ever since I found that she’d been living in Liberty, Missouri and my mojo tells me I’m very close!”

            “Good luck to you!” Tom told her as the stagecoach driver cursed his horses and yanked on his reins.

            “And good luck to you sheriff!” Paget leaned forward and kissed him just as the stagecoach rumbled to a stop. The driver stared at the prolonged display of affection then finally blurted. “You people need a ride?”

Tom waved as the strange girl vanished in a cloud of dust. Something about her seemed familiar. “Good luck with that mojo!” he mumbled .

-------15-------

The sun was just rising over the low hills to the east when Sheriff Thomas Lang loped into the Walker ranch yard. Elisabeth banged open the kitchen door while he was tying Comanche to the hitching post. “Coffees on,” she said. “Bring a bucket of water with you and you can wash-up while I mend what’s left of that shirt.”

Tom glanced down at the scorched and torn clothing he was wearing. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were expecting me.”

            “I can hear Comanche complaining about the way you ride her a mile off and I could smell you even before those buzzards appeared over the horizon. Don’t you ever swim a river when you come to it? Or does that ornery mare have a set of wings hid under her saddle blanket?”

Tom smiled as he filled a bucket with water. A horse with wings, now wouldn’t that be something!

The coffee was hot and Tom had barely stirred in a spoon of sugar when Elisabeth surprised him and pulled a flat pan of biscuits from the oven.

            “What’s the occasion,” he muttered, wondering how he was going to get out of this new culinary danger.

            “I know my biscuits are usually hard,” she said. “So I’ve been practicing.”

Elisabeth put three large rolls on his plate and smiled as he broke off a chunk with a knife. Her tongue absently caressed her broken front tooth as she watched.  Tom stuffed a piece in his mouth and then quickly drank three gulps of coffee before he began to slowly chew.

“Mmmm … getting better,” he gasped.

“Good,” she smirked. “Jose and the other hands have already eaten and are driving a herd to the north pasture. Looks like all the rest are for you.”

“You ever been to Liberty, Missouri?” Tom asked as he unbuttoned his shirt.

“No,” Elisabeth crinkled her nose as she took the garment and turned away. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” Tom told her as he slyly slipped a rock-hard biscuit into his back-pocket. “I was just being a cat.”

THE END?