Deadman's Crossing by Joe R. Lansdale Page A

right,” Jebidiah said. “It wouldn’t be good for you to go now. It’s best to go back to the hotel.”
    They started back down the street, Jebidiah leading his horse, and as they went, a kind of dark cloud fled out of the woods and covered the quarter moon and fell on the town and came apart, shadows skittering in all directions.
    “What in hell is that?” Mary said.
    “The mantle of darkness,” Jebidiah said, and picked up his pace. “It sometimes comes when a place is full of evil.”
    “It’s cold.”
    “Odd, isn’t it? Something from the devil, from the bowels of hell, and it’s cold.”
    “I’m scared,” Mary said. “I don’t normally scare up easy, but this shit is making my asshole pucker.”
    “Best not to think about being scared,” Jebidiah said. “Best to think about survival. Let’s get back to the hotel.”
    When they got to the hotel it was full of ghosts.
    Jebidiah tried to lead his horse inside. It pulled at the reins, not wanting to enter.
    “Easy, boy,” Jebidiah said to the horse, stroked its nose, and the horse settled down, slightly. Jebidiah continued to soothe the horse as he and Mary watched the ghosts move about. There were many ghosts and they seemed not to notice Jebidiah and Mary at all. They were white and thin as clean smoke, but were identifiable shapes of cowboys and whores, and they moved across the floor and into the stalls. Women hiked their ghostly dresses, and ghostly men dropped their trousers and entered them. The bartender behind the bar walked up and down its length. He reached and took hold of bottles that were not bottles, but shapes of bottles that could be seen through. At a piano a ghostly presence sat, hatless, in striped shirt and suspenders, all of which could be seen through. The ghost moved his hands over keys that didn’t move, but the player seemed to move as if he heard the music. A few cowboys and whores were dancing about to the lively tune that was heard by them, but not the living.
    “My God,” Mary said.
    “Funny how he always gets mentioned,” Jebidiah said.
    “What?”
    “Nothing. Don’t fear these. They can’t hurt you. Most of them don’t even know you’re here.”
    “Most?”
    “They are spirits of habit. They do this over and over. It was what they were doing, or wanted to do before they died. But that one—”
    Jebidiah pointed to a ghostly, but much more distinct shape sitting in a chair against the far wall. He was a stubby cowboy in a big ghostly hat. He was almost solid, but the wall and the furniture could be seen through him. “He knows we’re here. He sees us as we see him. He has been here a while. He has begun to accept his death.”
    At that statement, the ghostly figure Jebidiah referred to, rose and crossed the room toward them, walking, but not quite touching the floor.
    Mary moved toward the door.
    Jebidiah grabbed her arm. “Best not. The street will be a far less welcome place shortly, perhaps already. There’s more out there than an oppressive cloud.”
    “Will he hurt us?” Mary asked.
    “I don’t think so.”
    The ghost sauntered toward them, and as he neared, he showed a lopsided grin, stopped, stood directly in front of Jebidiah. Beside him, Mary shook like a leaf in a high wind. Jebidiah’s horse tugged at the reins, Jebidiah pulled the horse forward slightly, glanced at it. Its visible eye rolled in its head. “Easy, boy,” Jebidiah said to the horse, then turned to the ghost, said, “Can you speak?”
    “I can,” said the spirit, and the voice was odd, as if it were climbing up to them from the bottom of a deep, dark well.
    “How did you die?”
    “Must I answer that?”
    “You are bound to answer nothing at all, or anything you wish,” Jebidiah said. “I have no control over you.”
    “I want to pass on,” the ghost said, “but for some reason, I cannot. I am here alone, because the others, they don’t know they’re dead. This town, it holds us. But I seem to be the only