As you may know, this new anthology owes its title to the dying words of the great O. Henry. “Turn up the lights,” he said to the crowd gathered at his deathbed. “I don’t want to go home in the dark.” And the sole criterion for stories, aside from their excellence, was to be their positioning on the dark side of the spectrum. AHITD would be a cross-genre assemblage,with entries from the worlds of crime fiction, horror, speculative fiction…or no genre at all.
And let’s not forget western fiction. The American West has long been an enduringly compelling setting for stories and novels (and films and television programs), and if there are fewer westerns being written and read these days, the genre still has its eloquent writers and ardent fans. I knew I wanted a western in the book and I knew just the man to write it.
James Reasoner has written over a hundred western novels, including books in and out of series. In quite another genre,Civil War history, he’s the author of a 10-volume series of books that alone would constitute a substantial body of work; his Civil War Battle series amounts to a military history of the conflict, tracking a single fictional Virginia family through the entire war, from Manassas to Appomattox, The American Revolution has also inspired novels, as has the Lewis and Clark expedition. And all the while he’s been as passionate a reader as he is a writer, blogging enthusiastically and incisively across the whole range of popular fiction.
And here he brings us his take on an archetpical Western hero, a marshal making his rounds…
NIGHT ROUNDS by James Reasoner
Dave Blake grasped the doorknob and tried to twist it, but it didn’t turn. He nodded in satisfaction. Trammell’s Hardware Store was locked up tight for the night, just like it was supposed to be. Blake moved on down the boardwalk to check the door of the next business.
This was his favorite time of day and favorite part of the job of marshal. Night had fallen over Wagontongue. Most folks were in their homes and had had their supper. Some had turned in already while others sat in parlors, reading by lamplight or singing old songs with the family gathered around the piano. The Lucky Cuss, Wagontongue’s only saloon, was still open, but on a week night like this, not many customers would be there and they wouldn’t be in any mood to cause a ruckus. Sam Dorn, who owned the place, would likely call it a night and close up soon.
Peace reigned over the settlement . . . just the way Dave Blake liked it.
He’d held down the marshal’s job for a little over a year, Wagontongue being the latest in a string of towns where he had worn the badge. Some lawmen settled down in one place and stayed there most of their lives. Dave Blake had never been that way. He’d always felt too many restless stirrings after he’d been somewhere for a while, an urge telling him that he needed to get up and go somewhere else. It was hard on his wife Clarissa, he knew, but he couldn’t help it.
The job here in Wagontongue was one of the easiest he’d had. Outlaws didn’t have any interest in a sleepy little cowtown like this. The only trouble came when cowboys from the spreads between here and the Prophets rode into town, drank too much busthead at the Lucky Cuss, and got proddy enough to start fights. Blake always managed to break those up without having to resort to gunplay.
He touched his Colt’s walnut grips now. Except for target practice, knocking airtights off fence posts, he hadn’t fired the gun in five years. As tranquil as Wagontongue was, that streak was likely to continue.
He checked the door of Bennett’s saddle shop. Locked. Blake started to move on.
“Marshal, is that you?”
The voice came from behind him, made him pause and half-turn. A man-shaped patch of darkness came along the boardwalk toward him, not really hurrying but moving along pretty briskly. Blake hadn’t recognized the voice, so he said, “Yeah, it’s me. Who’s there?”
“Jack Hargis. I ride for the Circle P.”
Blake didn’t know the name, but that wasn’t surprising. Cowhands moved in and out of the area all the time. Round-up would be coming along soon, so the ranchers were taking on extra hands.
“What can I do for you, Hargis?”
The man waved a hand in the general direction of the Lucky Cuss, at the other end of town and on the opposite side of the street.
“I think some fellas down there are fixin’ to cause trouble, Marshal. You might want to go read ’em from the book.”
“My rounds will take me that way in a few minutes. I’ll look in on the place when I get there. I always do.”
Blake didn’t mention that Sam Dorn usually treated him to a short beer, and from there he went on home where Clarissa would be waiting for him with a late supper. It was a mighty nice way to finish off the day, which was another reason Blake enjoyed making these rounds. He had something to look forward to.
“I don’t know, Marshal,” Hargis said as he stepped closer. “It looked kind of serious to me. I’m not sure you should wait.”
“I appreciate you speaking up, but I’ll get to it.” Blake’s tone was a little more impatient now. He never had cared for people telling him how to do his job.
“Well, if you’re sure . . .” Hargis said as Blake turned to resume his routine.
Blake heard cloth rustle behind him, and then pain hit him in the side like a fist, driving him a step to the right. He gasped, as much surprised as hurt, and tried to turn back and fight, but Hargis crowded into him hard and knocked him to his knees. Hargis’s left arm went around Blake’s neck and closed tight. He reached down with his right hand and plucked the Colt from its holster.
Hargis put his mouth next to Blake’s ear and said, “You feel that, you son of a bitch? Feel that blood running down your side? I could’ve gutted you, but I didn’t. Just one nice clean stab wound . . . for now. Hurts like hell, doesn’t it?”
With Hargis’s forearm clamped across his throat like an iron bar, Blake couldn’t do anything except grunt. Hargis was right, though: the wound hurt clean to Blake’s core, bad enough to spread out and fill his mind and body.
“I could cut your throat,” Hargis went on. “Still might. But not yet. No, sir, not yet.”
He was a strong man. He heaved and lifted Blake back onto his feet. Blake wanted to fight, but his muscles wouldn’t do what he told them to. All he could do was stumble along as Hargis dragged him backward along the boardwalk and into an alley.
The man was going to kill him back here and leave him in the dirt and the trash, Blake thought. And he had no idea why.
Hargis didn’t stop in the alley to finish the job, though. He kept dragging Blake along, coming into one of the small side streets and then backing toward a large whitewashed building with a number of cottonwood trees around it. Blake was dizzy and disoriented, no doubt because of the blood soaking his shirt on the left side, but he saw enough of his surroundings to realize what Hargis was doing.
Hargis was dragging him toward the Baptist church.
Unlike the businesses in town, the church was never locked. Blake heard his captor fumbling at the door, then Hargis manhandled him into the sanctuary’s dark interior. A kick closed the door behind them. Their steps echoed in the big room with its stained-glass windows on the sides.
Hargis wrestled him all the way up the aisle between the rows of pews until they reached the front where the preacher’s pulpit stood. There, Hargis dropped him. Blake’s legs buckled and he sprawled on the hardwood floor.
The preacher, Timothy Foulger, was going to be mighty annoyed with him for getting blood all over the floor like this. Blake knew that was a crazy thought to be having right now, but he couldn’t help it.
A match rasped. Orange flame spurted. Hargis held it to the wick of a lantern, and when the wick caught, he lowered the chimney and set the lantern on the pulpit. Darkness swallowed the wavering yellow glow before it reached the corners, but the light was enough to reveal Blake lying there with Hargis looming over him.
Although, as Blake looked up and tried to focus his fuzzy vision on his attacker, he said, “I . . . I know you. Your name’s not Hargis. It’s . . . it’s . . .”
It couldn’t be. The face was a lot thinner, the eyes sunken, the cheekbones sharp against the skin. But the same general lines were there. Blake forced his brain to work, thought about how the man would look twenty pounds heavier and five years younger.
And a crushing burden of grief and hate lighter.
“That’s right,” the man said. “I’m Wesley Holman.”
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NIGHT ROUNDS by James Reasoner is one of 17 outstanding stories in At Home in the Dark. NB: Ebook and paperback editions are on sale now for immediate delivery. DON’T try to order the hardcover, as it’s sold out at the publisher, and while Amazon is still taking orders they’ll be unable to deliver.
