The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All - By Laird Barron Page 0,12

speak during breakfast and sat like a lump, chin on his chest.

“Poor bastard looks like hell warmed over,” Mr. Williams said. He dressed in long johns and gun belt. He sipped coffee from a tin cup. A cigarette fumed in his left hand. “You might’ve done him in.”

Luke Honey rolled a cigarette and lighted it. He nodded. “I saw a fight in a hostel in Cape Town between a Scottish dragoon and a big Spaniard. The dragoon carried a rifle and gave the Spaniard a butt stroke to the midsection. The Spaniard laughed, drew his gun and shot the Scot right through his head. The Spaniard died four days later. Bust a rib and it punctures the insides. Starts a bleed.”

“He probably should call it a day.”

“Landscomb’s a sawbones. He isn’t blind. Guess I’ll leave it to him.”

“Been hankerin’ to ask you, friend—how did you end up on the list?

This is a mighty exclusive event. My pappy knew the Lubbock Wellocs before I was born. Took me sixteen years to get an invite here. And a bribe or two.”

“Lubbock Wellocs?”

“Yep. Wellocs are everywhere. More of them than you shake a stick at— Nevada, Indiana, Massachusetts. Buncha foreign states too. Their granddads threw a wide loop, as my pappy used to say.”

“My parents lived east of here. Over the mountains. Dad had some cousins in Ransom Hollow. They visited occasionally. I was a kid and I only heard bits and pieces… the men all got liquored up and told tall tales. I heard about the stag, decided I’d drill it when I got older.”

“Here you are, sure enough. Why? I know you don’t give a whit about the rifle. Or the money.”

“How do you figure?”

“The look in your eyes, boy. You’re afraid. A man like you is afraid, I take stock.”

“I’ve known some fearless men. Hunted lions with them. A few of those gents forgot that Mother Nature is more of a killer than we humans will ever be and wound up getting chomped. She wants our blood, our bones, our goddamned guts. Fear is healthy.”

“Sure as hell is. Except, there’s something in you besides fear. Ain’t that right? I swear you got the weird look some guys get who play with fire. I knew this vaquero who loved to ride his pony along the canyon edge. By close, I mean rocks crumbling under its hooves and falling into nothingness. I ask myself, what’s here in these woods for you? Maybe I don’t want any part of it.”

“I reckon we all heard the same story about Mr. Blackwood. Same one my Daddy and his cousins chewed over the fire.”

“Sweet Jesus, boy. You don’t believe that cart load of manure Welloc and his crony been shovelin’? Okay then. I’ve got a whopper for you. These paths form a miles wide pattern if you see ’em from a plane. World’s biggest pentagram carved out of the countryside. Hear that one?”

Luke Honey smiled dryly and crushed the butt of his cigarette underfoot.

Mr. Williams poured out the dregs of his coffee. He hooked his thumbs in his belt. “My uncle Greg came here for the hunt in ’16. They sent him home in a fancy box. The Black Ram Lodge is first class all the way.”

“Stag get him?”

The rancher threw back his head and laughed. He grabbed Luke Honey’s arm. There were tears in his eyes. “Oh, you are a card, kid. You really do buy into that mumbo-jumbo horse pucky. Greg spotted a huge buck moving through the woods and tried to plug it from the saddle. His horse threw him and he split his head on a rock. Damned fool.”

“In other words, the stag got him.”

Mr. Williams squeezed Luke Honey’s shoulder. Then he slackened his grip and laughed again. “Yeah, maybe you’re on to something. My pappy liked to say this family is cursed. We sure had our share of untimely deaths.”

The party split again, Dr. Landscomb and the British following Scobie and the dogs; Mr. Welloc, Luke Honey and the Texans proceeding along a parallel trail. Nobody was interested in the lesser game; all were intent upon tracking down Blackwood’s Baby.

They entered the deepest, darkest part of the forest. The trees were huge and ribboned with moss and creepers and fungi. Scant light penetrated the canopy, yet brambles hemmed the path. The fog persisted.

Luke Honey had been an avid reader since childhood. Robert Louis Stevenson, M. R. James, and Ambrose Bierce had gotten him through many a miserable night in the tarpaper