Posted by AlOmega on July 05, 2004 at 17:10:10:
Sometimes you takes it as you finds it. Sometimes not. I had been riding for nigh on a week when I got to Amarillo. I’d been there once when I was a young’n. Weren’t much then and ‘twern’t worth much now. What it needed more’n anything was a railhead. And I suspected it would happen sometime now that the War was done. A few squatters had tried to make a go of it and between them and the cattlemen here ‘bouts had made some progress in building it up. I could see it had a small church and school house and a few outbuildings. Also a hotel and general store.
Anyway I figured on getting a beer or two from the only saloon in town and traveling on. That’s what you do when you’re seventeen and Rangering. But I hadn’t rode more’n a few feet when the local storekeeper (ya could tell by the apron), grabbed at the reins. Dancer don’t take kindly to anyone messin’ with her bit so she reared up quick like. I’d had her do that before so knew what to expect. But he backed off real quick like. Dismounting and giving Dancer a few pats on the neck, I turned and gave the storekeeper a stare that woulda melted butter. But he paid me no nevermind. All he could do was stutter a few words. Seen a few like him before. Probably pretty good with the local townfolk but figures a Ranger has more power’n the local Sheriff.
Anyway, it were another local who asked me to do it. Seems they’d just discovered it and didn’t know what to do. My arrival at least gave them some guidance. Sorta strange that, but its true. Wouldn’t ask someone who’s twenty-one somthing they’d ask a Ranger. Anyhow what could I do? I agreed.
The “it” in this case was a body. Now I’d seen lots of bodies - naked bodies, too. Men, women, children. Tortured or not makes me no nevermind. Ya sees ‘em when dealing with Comanch and Mexicans. But this one were something else. Wouldn’t say she was young exactly but she was more’n just a little pretty. Sam, the bartender told me she was ‘bout twenty-eight. She was the local schoolmarm according to Sam. She’d been teaching in town ‘bout two months. Never had an unkind word for anyone. Rather nice to the kids and parents. Kept to herself mostly. But from what I saw, she’d come up hard against someone right enough. Blond hair tied into a ponytail, sorta hid a bit of cloth. Only that bit of cloth around her neck and some rope for clothing but it was enough to kill her. I turned her over and put my long coat over her body so’s to keep lecherous eyes from pawing her in their minds. The look of horror on her face shook me for a moment but I didn’t let the locals see it. Gently, I closed her eyes and pushed her tongue into her mouth. She’d been strangled right enough. ‘Course she hadn’t been given much of a chance being tied up and all.
“Who’s the Sheriff?”
“Aw him? He’s sleepin’ it off in one of his cells,” someone called out. Clearly, they didn’t think much of him. Guess that’s why I’d been asked to check it out. Happened sometimes. Found out from Sam that there weren’t no doctor in town. He sorta acted as barber and doctor while at the same time being chief bartender. That’s ‘cause he was the only one being he owned the saloon. Called it Sam’s Place.
Anyway he ‘n’ I and a couple of others lay the body in a bed in an upstairs room. Sam mentioned in passing that maybe someday he’d be able to get a woman or two to work the upstairs trade. I smiled at that. After we laid the body out, I figured the school house was next. Door was sorta open so we walked in. Nothing much here they figured. But I noticed a few things right off. Bit of rope on the floor along with some chalk dust. A clear boot print. Another hand print on the blackboard. I looked on her desk. Some old flowers there and a stale hankie. Strange bit of white cloth. Was enough for me but I figured the others needed the sayin’ of it. So I says it outright.
“Figured it happened more like this. Jane’s the local schoolmarm, alright. She’s nice n all to the folks here ‘bouts but someone wants to give her a poke. And that ‘someone’s afraid to let anyone including her know how he feels. Anyway, Miss Jane’s here grading some papers ‘n’ fixin’ everything up for the next day’s classes. She were alone. This guy - this wannabe lover - comes on her here alone. He’s left her flowers ‘n’ this here hankie. I figured she didn’t know who he was. And then he shows up last night and ‘fesses his love for her. Something happened - rejection or she laughed or somethin’. Whatever it was, he got real mad and tried to get her. She managed to get away and threw some dust at him. ‘Rasers n chalk n books, too. Anyways, that’s why the hand and boot prints. Whatever, he managed to get her down and ripped off some of her clothes. She musta passed out while he was on top of her. That got him worried. And he started thinkin’ ‘bout what he’d done. He goes outside n gets a rope off’n his horse and ties her up. He’s not use to tyin’ so he cuts the rope several times. This lets me know he’s no cowhand.” Here I pauses, lookin’ at who I know to be the killer.
“Anyway, figured he tied her to this here chair. See the rope marks? Then know’n he’s gone too far to back off now, he starts chokin’ her. But he can’t stand lookin’ at her whilest he’s chokin’ her so he gets part of her dress and uses that to kill her from behind. He had to do it that way ‘cause he’s not that strong. But he can’t just leave her here. And he can’t take her body back to his place neither. So he waits ‘til Sam closes up for the night and takes her body on his horse and drops it right in the middle of the street. I kinda figure she sorta slipped off accidental-like, though, and he’s too scared to go back after it.”
Now questions come flyin’ at me from left and right so’s for a few minutes I just shuts up. Finally they all calm down. I smile a bit rather proud of what I’d figured out. But heck. If I can figure how to track Comanch, it aint hard to figure this out. So I tells ‘em to follor me down the street smilin’ to myself knowin’ they aint gonna believe what I know anyways. I walks past Dancer and gives her a slap on the rump. She knows I was there and in a bit will have an apple or carrot for her. I continue walking with the town of Abiline in tow - well, most of ‘em. They sorta stop when I enter the church though. I knew that would surprise ‘em. And, the sight of the Preacher hanging from the rafters of his own church confirmed what I suspected.
We buried Miss Jane in a plain wooden coffin. Me and Sam were the only witnesses. He read a few words and then we did some shovelin’. Sometimes you takes it as you finds it. Sometimes not. But I wish she’da found a man before that Preacher did her in. She woulda made some feller mighty proud.
When he saw her, he knew she was the only woman for him. He not so much as looked at another woman when she stepped out of that coach. No one had to tell him she was the school teacher. He could see it in her eyes. Her intellect seemed to radiate like a moonbeam. So what if she were a couple of years older.
He had arrived in Amarillo only two months before. Nice town, he’d thought then. And it was a change for him - a drastic move actually since he had encountered a bit of trouble in Cambridge. The problem centered around his ‘strange urges.’ He didn’t know how far it went back to but it seemed all his life he had wanted to touch a girl’s neck. Upon reaching puberty, these urges became more sexual. He had bedded a couple of girls by the time he was sixteen but neither were what his parents would have considered ‘proper’. Then there were his urges to hold a girl’s neck. Though not seeming to bother the two teenage girls, he felt that ‘proper’ girls would think him weird. To master those urges, he decided to join the ministry. His parents were proud; and, after graduation, they encouraged him to remain in Cambridge. He did have a good following there since taking over after Rev. Rip had departed (seeking enlightenment from Bob something or other, he reminisced).
It was soon after his parents had died in the Fall from influenza, that the incident occurred. A young parishioner - Therese, he recalled - had tried to console him. He had put more meaning into that than she intended. Initially she was flattered by his attention but as his ardor became more intense, she pushed him away roughly. Unfortunately, he equated that with rejection. Lust changed to anger in an instant. She was bewildered when the preacher she had listened to for the last year and a half metamorphosed from a kind, giving, and caring man to this monstrosity. But that changed quickly as he began pulling up her skirts and mounting her. She started to fight and squeal. Though still in the church, he was sure her cries might be heard outside. And when she started to scream, his only recourse was to close off that outcry for help tightly. His vision glazed over for a time even though he worked ferociously as if a demon had taken him over. Later he rationalized he must have been demon-possessed. But as he finished and his senses returned, he realized Therese was dead. Her face - the distended blue-black tongue, her left eye hideously dangling down her left cheek, her impossibly contorted features - caused him to retch. He didn’t bother to cover her up but did turn her over so he wouldn’t see that horrible face now hidden by her bright red hair. She wasn’t Therese - or even a woman anymore. She was only some ‘thing’ to be rid of. And since he was the minister, there was no problem with burying her in the church graveyard.
He would have stayed but a fortnight later, Therese began haunting him. That was why soon thereafter, he was preaching in Amarillo. And though the residents of Cambridge wondered what had happened to Therese, it would be fifty years, while expanding the church, before her hastily dug grave was discovered.
So now here he was in Amarillo and seeing the most beautiful blond he’d ever seen step off of the stagecoach. He watched over the next few weeks as she taught school and mingled with the town folk. She mingled a little too freely with some, he thought seeing her again and again with Alan.
Alan was one of the local ranchers with a spread larger than most. It was apparent from the start that Alan had taken a shine to her. And she with him, he thought seeing her smiles (though the preacher failed to see that she smiled at him as well). But the preacher reasoned that subtlety would not be part of Alan’s makeup. Accordingly, he left notes proclaiming his love. And later he left gifts. Flowers at first, then a hankie, and a broach. But from the way she smiled at him, he assumed that she knew who was her secret admirer - or dare he think it - her lover? So he didn’t expect her to treat him in the same manner as Therese had a few months earlier. But while Therese was dumfounded, Jane fought back right from the start. Her only weapons were erasures, chalk dust, and books but these were used very effectively. Unfortunately, he managed to catch her clothing well enough to bring her down. As she fell, her head struck a desk. Thus when he mounted her, she was totally unaware of what he was doing.
As he finished, he saw once again the visage of Therese come to haunt him once again. Why now, he thought. Adjusting his clothing, he went outside and gathered a length of rope, returned and tied her up. He had to cut the rope several times to make it work. He used his knife to remove the rest of her clothing. As he finished removing her clothes, Jane returned to consciousness. He looked at her but the baleful. looks she bestowed, frightened him more than the vision of Therese. And he knew that he couldn’t leave her here to tell everyone what had happened so she had to die. He tried choking her manually but hadn’t the strength. Now he was truly frightened - though not as much as her seeing that he had almost choked her to death.
Jane managed on good solid scream before he took the remnants of her dress and tightened it about her neck. He pulled as hard as he could and did so for so long, that his fingers throbbed from the renewed infusion of blood. He looked at Jane’s body from behind. He couldn’t - wouldn’t - look at her face. He couldn’t face the horror he knew was there. He also knew for certain that he would not need to worry about his ‘strange urges’ again. The reality was too nauseous.
Cutting the ropes that bound her to the chair, he drug the body outside and threw it across his horse’s withers. Now if he could just get her to the church. From there, it wouldn’t be hard to bury her. He was near panic as he rode through town. It was late and with a little luck.... But Jane’s body slipped to the ground about halfway through town. And a drunk - the sheriff - stumbling out of Sam’s Place, alarmed him so much that he swiftly rode to the church hoping no one would be able to understand how she had gotten there.
The next day, the body was found in the dirty street. Like everyone else, the preacher gather around it. But he wouldn’t look neither. After he had gone to sleep, Therese’s visage had assailed him once again - and not alone either. Jane’s had joined Therese’s. But he couldn’t panic now. Give it a few days and if no one figured out what had happened....
Then the storekeeper - Jake Smith, he remembered, brought over the Ranger. He’d seen a Ranger once before when he’d arrived. This one was younger but something about him grabbed at the preacher’s guts. Like the rest of the townsfolk, he followed the Ranger to the schoolhouse and watched as he looked around. He didn’t see anything but the Ranger must have. He looked the preacher square in the eyes. And the preacher KNEW that he knew. He looked away and spied the cloth in the Ranger’s hand. His cloth. His collar. Quickly, without fanfare, the preacher left the schoolhouse. He almost ran to the church. Turning as he shut and barred the door, he saw Therese and Jane. They beckoned again and again as they called to him. It didn’t take long to fashion the noose. No, not long at all. He would be hung anyway so why wait. Why provide them with a show, he thought as he slipped the noose about his neck.
Therese and Jane were urging him on. As he heard the faint sound of a slap on horseflesh. he kicked the stool away. The noose tightened immediately. So this is what its like, he thought as the sound of footsteps chimed with the roar of blood in his ears. As red darkness took him to its bosom, he thought once more that he might have gotten away with Jane’s murder if it hadn’t been for that lone Ranger.
When she stepped off the stage, she wondered whatever had prompted her to answer that advertisement. Well she had wanted to come West but she didn’t think she would land in the middle of nowhere. Knocking the dust from her dress, she stepped out of the coach and looked around. A few outbuildings, a store, one hotel, a saloon with Sam’s Place in big bold letters, and a livery stable lined the street. At one end was what passed for a church while at the other was the school house. She would have room and board in the hotel according to the advertisement and a salary of $55 a month. While not impressive, it would do for now. She spied the Preacher. Though tall, he was a bag of bones with a beak of a nose. Reminded her of that Crane fellow from the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Well he was paying her some attention - a complement actually. He was both single and available. She could read that in his eyes.
She was an orphan without much prospects. But rather than become another nun in that ugly stone orphanage/convent where she’d been raised, she had decided that the West was for her. Lucky that the Sisters had taught her so well. Luckier that she was an excellent student. Her first teaching job was in St. Louis. She avoided the Catholic schools like the plague. But the public school was not much better. She taught grade school at first and was starting to teach the eighth grade when it happened. She knew she was pretty and played on that a bit to rise up in the school system. That was why she expected to be teaching high school rather soon and had prospects for becoming a full time tutor to one of the leading families. Those expectations were dashed when she became pregnant. The father was the superintendent of the school and that was bad enough. But rather than have the abortion like he wanted, she had confronted him in his office. Several other teachers - resentful of her quick rise in the ranks - made haste to tell the superintendent’s wife. Perhaps there were other incidents. Jane never knew about that. But he was removed quite quickly from his job and enjoyed the fruitage of a divorce and settlement at the same time. Served him right, she thought after suffering from the abortion in a back alley. She had had to go to the seedier part of St. Louis to get that. Although she lived, she never wanted to go through that again. Accordingly she was resolved never to sleep with a man nor marry unless she could marry someone who could take very good care of her. It wasn’t that she minded working, but she felt that she merited better. Knowing that her reception at the St. Louis school would be met with derision, she decided that a move West was in order. The best prospect seemed to be Amarillo so she applied and found that they were not only willing to pay well but would actually pay passage for her. Now looking at the dusty street and the equally dirty people, she wondered if she hadn’t made one of the stupidest mistakes of her life.
One of the few things she had learned while sleeping with that superintendent was that she liked being asphyxiated. Of course she didn’t learn it from him. But one time while copulating doggy style (she thought the term repugnant and quite descriptive), her face had been pushed into the pillows so hard that she couldn’t breathe. This had led to self strangulation with scarves and even one brief, albeit terrifying, experiment in hanging. Wonderful experiences all (especially since they didn’t end in death), but who could she share this with? She resolved that if she found a man that suited her, she would introduce him to the wonders of asphyxiation as soon as she could. Men were easily manipulated, she thought with a smile remembering the superintendent. Then she frowned. Who was the one who had gotten pregnant?
So now I’m here in wonderful Amarillo, she thought with a sigh. Well at least she could teach which was much better than what single women could look forward to out here. Over the next few weeks, she settled in, taught school, and mingled with the town folk. But always she kept herself aloof because of her special ‘needs’ as she termed them. Besides the Preacher, she found out quickly that there were several unattached males in town. She might as well have some fun, she thought. At least until she’d made up her mind where she wanted to go next. One of the single locals who had more money than most was Alan.
Alan had a ranch larger than most. It was apparent from the start that Alan had taken a shine to her. And she with him - at least to the casual eye. Something about the Preacher caused her more than once to flash him a smile or two. However, like herself, he remained shy and aloof. About two weeks after her arrival, she began receiving notes and letters. Some were left at the hotel; others at the school. Poetry and love letters. Wonderful notes, she thought. But who were they from? Not Alan surely. He could barely read let alone write. She knew that Sam was well educated but she knew that he was married and besides she was not too fond of his establishment and what it represented. Perhaps the Preacher? No, not him. He hardly gave her the time of day even after Sunday services. But if not them, who? She remained delightfully puzzled for several weeks. Then flowers started appearing on her desk. And one time a lace handkerchief. She was intrigued wanting to know who yet not wanting to know so that the suspense would last. She had been courted before but then she’d known who it was. This time however her suitor was unknown, mysterious. When she saw the colored paper covering a tiny box, she couldn’t wait to find its treasure. And it was so lovely. A cameo broach. Something she had seen in the storekeeper’s shop but didn’t want to waste the money to buy. The note that accompanied it was captivating.
That night she was grading papers, preparing for Friday classes. She paused once thinking again about the broach, loving it with her fingers once again. Her revere was interrupted by the slam of the front door. She was surprised to see it was the Preacher. Well perhaps not, she realized. Something - some emotion - was in his eyes that she had not seen before. At first she thought it might be love and that he was proclaiming his love to her now. But the grim set of his face forced her into the realization that what she saw was lust. Looking down, she realized that her dress was unbuttoned and a tiny bit of cleavage was exposed. Though he might be her secret admirer, now his mind was filled with lust - and rape, she realized as he ripped open her dress. That she never wanted. She fought as best she could. Erasures, chalk, dust, books - all became weapons in her tiny hands. And then she ran out of ammunition. She tried to run away but he caught her and she fell. She fought a losing battle to remain conscious but gave up as she felt the night air cover her nakedness. She didn’t feel him enter her roughly. A few moments later, she regained consciousness. She wanted him to stop, take his time, be tender like in his notes and letters. But as she faded into the blackness once again, she knew that lust had overpowered his mind. While unconscious, she seemed to see a redheaded woman smile at her and try to comfort her but this was an illusion.
But the illusion remained with her as she began recovering. She was bound hand and foot she realized. And now he was binding her to the chair she always taught from. A knife was stuck in the desk top. The thought of punishing him for that struck her as silly but such visions often come to one when in danger. He used the knife to remove the rest of her clothing. The way he did that told her he was frightened beyond reasoning. Something was driving him to do this, she knew. She tried to turn her head to see him as he went behind her. His fingers digging into her neck scared her at first. But she could gasp a bit of air easily enough so she knew he couldn’t kill her if that’s what he meant to do. What astounded her was that she felt a bit of wetness between her legs as she felt the orgasm overpower her in its intensity. Then he released her neck and she peaked at the same time. Feeling herself aroused once again, she hardly felt the softness of the scrap of dress he now tightened about her neck. Tighter and tighter he pulled. This time she could not gasp. No air could escape or be drawn in through clinched teeth. He was killing her! And she couldn’t tell him how she felt. How she longed to have him inside her. To have him as her lover. But now it was too late. She felt a soft hand take hers as she slid into dark oblivion.
Once more she saw him. He also was putting the noose around his neck. She and the Other beckoned for him though neither knew he was their lover.
This happened in the dust covered town of Amarillo many years ago. And no one knows of it unless they’ve read the old Ranger archives.
AlOmega