Horror Palace

Jameson Roper rode north along the Cooper River.  As his horse made its way over a fallen tree branch, he reached past the gun hanging from his hip to the burlap sack tucked safely in his saddlebag.  He hated everything that the contents of the sack stood for, but orders were orders.  He didn’t agree with every one that was handed down to him, but he fulfilled them dutifully.  He hadn’t become Captain Roper by defying his superiors.  And he knew how to play the system.

He had made this trip many times over the last two years.  Each time he had left happier than the time before.  But this trip was different.  This time he would leave with clean hands.  He didn’t like clean hands.  A white man’s hands were never clean if they left the home of a redskin without blood on them.  He slapped the side of the saddlebag hard with his fist, without startling his horse who was used to it, as a last act of defiance before forcing himself to shake hands with the very savages he had sworn to eradicate.

Jameson neared the familiar bend in the river that marked the edge of the Lenape people.  One of the military historians told him that their name roughly translated to “pure man”.  Some “bullshit”, he thought to himself scoffing at the translation.  No savage was a pure man.  They were dirty, almost as dirty as the negors who worked the farms in back in Haddon.  Roper wasn’t fond of either.  They were all savages as far as he was concerned.

As he rounded the bend he was a little surprised to find that the majority of the Lenape homes were now gone.  Only one structure remained, a building he understood was much like a church.  Only they didn’t worship God like they should.  They put animals in God’s place.  That was another reason he loathed them.  A mangy dog that howls all night was no replacement for his God.

Jameson rode into the middle of the village, which seemed to be abandoned.  There were no people in sight, yet a huge fire burned in the fire pit.  The ground was covered with footprints, all of them heading toward the river.  Jameson rode over to the wood frame building, which was called a lodge, if he remembered correctly, and got down from his horse.  He tied her off to one of the lodge’s posts and walked to the edge of the Cooper River.  The mud was littered with bare footprints, all of them disappearing into the gently lapping water.

The trees on the far side of the river swayed as the wind picked up.  It was barely summer, but the leaves were already starting to turn brown and fall to the ground.  He wasn’t really surprised.  He hadn’t seen a drop of rain in weeks.  The ground was so dry it was beginning to crack, even though the news from every settlement to the east and west were reporting better crops than they’d had in years.

They’re gone, he thought to himself.  That was fine with him.  He could skip the ridiculous ceremony he had been charged with attending.  He wouldn’t have to shake hands with any of them.  The thought of touching one of them was enough to send shivers down his spine.  Jameson took his hat off and put it on a rock so he could lean down to drink from the river.  As it filled his mouth he started to cough and choke.  He wiped his mouth off and fell back into the mud.

It tasted terrible.  He had drunk from horse troths that tasted better.  The water tasted the way his men’s outhouse had smelled after they had all come down with the sickness during the past winter.  They had spent three days throwing up and crapping their brains out with fevers that nearly made them glow.  He turned to stand, wiping his mouth, and nearly ran headfirst into the old Lenape Indian woman standing next to the fire.  Startled, he stepped back.  She stood still as stone, face steadfast, as he recovered and stood up straight.

“I was sure you would not come, white man,” she said.  He hated the way they said that.  Being called a white man was only an insult when it came from a savage’s lips.

“What’s wrong with the water?” he said, still coughing under his breath.

“That’s the cause of the white man” she said.  He laughed as the coughs subsided.  They blamed everything on him and his people.  If one of their horses died they blamed it on white men.  They could believe whatever savage bullshit they wanted.  What did he care?

“Where are your people?” he asked.  “There was more than fifty of you last time I was here,” he said.

“And even fewer when you left,” she nodded.  He smiled at her.  That he couldn’t deny.  He had put hot lead ineach of four red skulls the last time he had visited.  He claimed it was because they tried attacking him as he approached the village.  The truth of it was that he had followed them along the river until they set up their fish traps, then he had simply shot them like wild game then taking their fish for his own supper.

“Don’t you reds bury your people on the river banks?  You got red man rot in your water, savage,” he said, hoping for a reaction.  She gave him none.  Stone faced she barely even blinked.  He picked his hat up and put it back on his head.  “Let’s get this over with.  I don’t want to spend the night out here.”

At this she nodded, producing a hatchet covered in their language and adorned with beads.  He walked over to his horse and pulled the sack from his saddlebag.  He reached inside and pulled out another hatchet almost identical to the one she was holding, only with different colored beads.  Hers were blue, while his were black.  It didn’t matter to him.  Their whole way of life was a joke to Jameson Roper.

“This way, white man,” she said, walking down to the river bank.  Ritualistically, she dipped the head of the hatchet into the water, then proceeded to smear dark mud of the earth on it.  He chuckled as he followed suit, only he simply dug the hatchet into the mud and then splashed it into the water.  He was careful not to get any of it on himself, though.  He didn’t want that stink following him all the way back to Haddon Township.  Or Haddonfield.  Whatever they were calling it these days.

The old woman walked over to the fire and held the hatchet over the fire, letting the smoke curl around its blade.  He followed suit, and out of boredom began taking some interest in the process.  He had barely listened while the historians told him how the ceremony was to be performed, but he was quite sure that none of this was involved.

“What are we doing, woman?” he asked.  She did not answer, she simply lowered the blade of the hatchet into the flames.  “This isn’t the way it’s done, grandma.”

“What does a white man know of our ways?” she asked.  He scoffed.

“I don’t care about your useless ways.  I just want to finish this and be on my way,” he said, laughing.

“Then touch the flame, white man.  Clean yourself so that we may cleanse this place,” she said.  He laughed, started to cough, and then stifled it as he lowered the blade into the flames.  “Och!” A shock ran up his arm, and the hatchet fell to the ground.  She jerked her head around at him with steely coal black eyes and snarled showing her teeth.

“Pick it up, dirty man,” she hissed.  He took a step back.  Until that moment he had seen her as nothing but a crazy old Indian.  But now, she was something else.  She didn’t look any different to him, but he could feel something was off about her.  He hadn’t felt fear in a long time, and never before had he been afraid of a savage.  And this was an old woman to boot.  He wanted to pick the hatchet up and bury it in her head, or keep his distance putting a bullet in her head.

But he didn’t.  He picked the hatchet back up and stuck it into the flames.  Anticipating another jolt, he flinched a little, but there was no shock this time, and he realized he had been holding his breath.  The old woman turned and walked up to a hole next to the lodge.  Beside the hole was a piece of hide covered with what he considered to be useless junk.  Beads, flowers, and bits of stuff he didn’t recognize littered the edges of the hide.  She placed her hatchet in the middle of the hide, then stepped back so he could do the same.

He put his hatchet next to hers and stepped back.  At this point he was starting to feel tired and a little sick to his stomach.  He had apparently swallowed more of the water than he thought.  He sat down on a log next to the fire and watched her fold the hide up.  She placed it in the hole and covered it over with the dirt.

“So that’s it?  Peace between our people and all that shit?” he asked.  He was starting to feel chills, and realized he would most likely be spending the next few days in bed.

“This place is clean, white man.  Our spirits will heal this land and the blood your people have shed will no longer poison these waters,” she said.  He nodded and stood up, fanning his face with his hat.  He was halfway to the lodge when he realized his horse was gone.  He spun around, but she was no longer in the clearing.

“Where’s my horse, bitch?” he screamed.

A voice behind him said, “That animal is still with the living, white man.  You won’t find her here.”

Turning around to face the voice, “What does that mean?” he asked.  She smiled her first smile, and he felt his spine melt cold.

“You and I will heal this land, white man.  We will feed it,” she said.  He pull his gun from its holster and pointed it at her.

“What the hell is going on, savage?  Where is my damned horse?” he yelled at her.  But she was gone.  He spun around once more, but she was nowhere to be seen.  From inside the lodge her voice floated through the air.  He began firing his gun at anything he could see.  Nothing.  No bang or evidence of a bullet being fired, only the recoil of the gun as he pulled off each round.

“We are alone, white man,” she said in a voice that was now inside his head.

He sat down on the ground, trying to make sense of what had happened, was happening.  He tried to cough but couldn’t.  Then he realized his illness was gone?  The same feeling came over him as when he was about to vomit, but without the urge to puke anything up.  As he looked around turning his head, the same view remained in his eyes no matter what direction he turned.  He couldn’t be dead.  If he were dead, he would be in Heaven.  Not sitting in the dirt of the savages’ village.  Surely this wasn’t how he would spend eternity.

Was it?