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Three Nights with the Angel of Death

by Emily Ruth Verona

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Arizona, 1884—Day One

The people of Vulture City are calling him the Angel of Death. But that makes no difference to us. There’s a one-thousand-dollar reward on him, and that kind of money never comes easy. No. It comes soaked in blood. Wet and slippery. Not that it matters when all is said and done. Bloody money buys a hell of a lot more than empty pockets. I can tell you that much.

Most of the Arizona territory knows him by the name of Tom Radley, the same Tom Radley who robbed five banks in five coal mining towns in 1882. The law managed to catch up with him after that last bank in Comstock; he was rotting in Yuma Territorial Prison until about six months ago. The son of a bitch escaped. Got all the way to Clayton, New Mexico, before they snapped him up again.

That’s where the Angel of Death comes in. You see those lawmen—the ones tasked with bringing Radley back to the prison—they didn’t make it far. Started dying off one by one… in real peculiar ways too. The kind that make the skin on the back of a man’s neck shrivel and prune when he hears tell of ‘em. One fella was said to have strangled himself to death, if such a thing is possible. Another was found with his throat slit but not a drop of blood in his body or even on the ground around him.

By the time they got Radley to Vulture City, there was only one lawman left on his escort, and he was raving. Refused to take Radley any further. Said his last remaining compatriot had vanished in the night—just up and disappeared in the desert somewhere west of Wickenburg. Of course, being a mining town, Vulture wasn’t too keen on keeping Radley around for long. Put a group together as fast as it could to get him gone.

Guess that’s how we ended up here, in the very belly of the Sonoran, between Vulture City and Yuma Territorial Prison with nothing but the sky above and hell below. It’s a four-day journey, and there are five of us besides Radley, each desperate enough or stupid enough to think we can make a buck off Radley’s hide.

There’s this fella from Wyoming who keeps calling Radley a living gold mine. Gotta protect the gold mine, he says. The others exchange looks uneasily every time. We don’t like Bill Henry—that’s his name, lord knows he’s reminded us often enough—and I suspect there are one or two men who wouldn’t mind seeing him the first to be struck down out here in the desert.

It seems Bill’s a better talker than he ever was a miner, jumped at the chance to join our group when he heard what Tom Radley is worth. But Bill Henry is poorer company than a dead man. Every time he cracks a joke or slaps one of us on the back, the kid from Vulture City grimaces like he’s poked at some fantom bullet hole in the boy’s gut. The kid from Vulture City does not want to be here, more so than the rest of us. His daddy—who lost a leg in an accident at the mine and has at least six mouths to feed—was said to have beaten him into it. That’s what the ranch hand says. You can still see a bruise swelling beneath the kid’s left eye. He will make more in these four days than he ever could in town. And he knows it. But that don’t stop disdain from bubbling on his sweaty face underneath this sweltering sun. He pulls his hat down, pats his horse on the neck, and keeps to the back of the pack so as to avoid having to say much. I don’t blame him. You never know what you’re gonna get in a group like this, and Radley—hell, you’d have to be hell-bound from the start to want anything to do with him.

Day Two

The ranch hand is dead. He was the only one who could tolerate Bill Henry’s jokes, shrug them off with a smirk and a nod, but now his head is lying in the short grass beneath the early morning light like a head of cabbage ready to be picked. Mouth half-open and blonde hair fluttering in the wind. Blood from the stump of the neck has seeped into the dirt, giving the thirsty earth a dark red hue.

He wasn’t even meant to be here in the first place. The sheriff knew a rancher said to be a crack shot, asked him to join our party. Pleaded with him, in fact. The rancher went and sent the hand in his stead. Don’t know if he could shoot. Don’t know anything about him save for the fact that he’s dead now. That makes four of us left, not including the Angel of Death.

Radley hardly even blinked when he saw the head, wasn’t impressed by it in the least. Not that he would be. He’s seen worse. Once or twice now, Bill Henry has gone and tried to get him to talk about the last prison escort he’d been on, the one that had ended with a man disappearing altogether. Radley won’t say a word about it though. No. He just sits on his horse and minds his own business, eats when we say and sleeps when we say and pisses when we say. He probably thinks nothing else matters. The way he sees it, he’ll be free soon enough.

The sheriff ain’t pleased by what’s happened. It’s plain on his face. He’s a good man, I hate to say it. Honorable maybe. Or whatever counts for honorable in Vulture City. But he’s kept our party in line without waving his pistol around or swearing himself into a rage, which is more than I can say for most men in his position.

We were all standing ‘round the head this morning when the kid spoke up for what was surely the first time since he kissed his momma goodbye. “We should bury it,” he said.

Bill Henry let out a spittle-ridden laugh. “What about the rest of him?”

That was the question. See, the head was there waiting for us under the eastward sun, but the body—hell, there was no body. It was as if the ranch hand’s body had gone and rode off without him. No. Not rode off. Run off. His horse is still here, after all. How far could a dead man get on foot without a head?

No one has asked how it happened—who did it. I don’t think anyone wants to know. They just want to pretend it’s nothing. Let it be forgotten. Except for the sheriff. He doesn’t seem rattled by it like you’d suspect. I think he would’ve been more surprised if we were somehow able to deliver Radley to the prison without incident. Walk him up to the gates, collect our money and be on our way.

The sheriff is insisting we ride on though. Doesn’t want to lose daylight. Right now, the kid from Vulture City is digging a hole below the long, rigid blades of a sotol shrub. We don’t have a shovel, so he’s digging it with his knife. Would be an impossible task if there weren’t so little of the ranch hand left to bury. Bill Henry and the sheriff are readying the horses. I’ve been tasked with keeping an eye on Radley, who is lying flat on his back staring up at the big blue sky like it’s the darndest thing he’s ever seen. He’s got an ankle up on one knee, and one of the hands tied at his wrists is holding his hat. He should put it on—that fair skin of his is all freckled under patches of red hair—but Radley don’t seem bothered. The look on his face, I’d call it wondrous. I would. Like the sky is a thing of rare beauty and we should all stop to appreciate it. He probably ain’t wrong. But all that sizzling blue up there means something different to a man damned to prison than it does for other men. Men who’ve got time to look up at it whenever they please. I don’t care much for it, one way or another. It’s just the goddamn sky.

Day Three

The kid from Vulture City hasn’t even finished vomiting last night’s dinner into the dirt, and already I can smell it. Beans and stomach rot. This’ll be a long day, no question. The sheriff hasn’t said anything yet. He’s just standing there with his fingers in his beard and his eyes narrowed so tight the crow-footed lines of his face are liable to up and fly away. “We press on,” he says at last, then looks up at me like he expects an argument.

I give a shrug. “We press on,” I agree. The kid, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, is pale, skin slick and pasty. He looks scared but won’t say a word about what’s happened. Not if no one else is going to. Hell, he hasn’t said anything at all since he went and buried what was left of the ranch hand.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved. I’m not saying Bill Henry deserved what he got, but if one man had to be cut open and strangled with his own innards, that loud-talking son of a bitch got what was coming to him. At least now it’ll be quiet. As for Radley? Well, he could look a little less pleased with himself. The sheriff seems just about ready to accuse him of something, with that smug twinkle in Radley’s eye, if not for the fact that we tied Radley up twice over to a Mesquite tree last night before we put out the fire. He’s still there as a matter of fact, boots perched on those big, gnarled roots, shaking his head and chuckling to himself. Not like a madman or a man who knows his days are numbered. He’s grinning almost like a bemused father watching his little ones running ‘round, playing at something they won’t understand until they’re old enough for it to kill ‘em.

The sun is hot today. Too hot. The kind that makes it hard to swallow. The horses are restless, breathing in and out too fast. I don’t blame them. I feel the same. As if to apologize, I pet my mare’s neck—whisper in her ear, which flutters understandingly. When I look up, I see the sheriff staring out at Radley. One of us will have to untie him soon. Unless we leave him here. Something tells me our party wouldn’t mind doing a thing like that now. Only, if we do then what’s the point? The dead are already dead. And there’s still money left to be claimed. “You think he’s cursed?” I ask suddenly.

The sheriff snorts, doesn’t look at me. “No such thing as curses,” he says.

“Then how do you think he’s doing it?”

There’s no answer right away, and the longer the quiet stacks itself up between us, the more I begin to notice that the sheriff ain’t looking at Radley at all. No. He’s looking through him—past him—out into the dessert. At last, he turns his head towards me. “Tom Radley hasn’t done a damn thing.”

This is why the sheriff has been so eager to make use of daylight—get as far as we can as fast as we can. He thinks we’re being tracked. Only, tracked ain’t really the word for it. Hunted. He thinks someone—likely more than one someone—is hunting us down. Picking us off one by one, just like how they killed the lawmen bringing Radley back from Clayton. “Whoever’s out there hasn’t been building a fire,” I point out. “We would have seen that.”

A quiet nod from the sheriff. The boy from Vulture City joins us by the horses and notices straight away that something ain’t right. He looks worriedly from the sheriff to me to the sheriff again, hoping one of us will answer his unasked question. “Come on,” the sheriff says, nodding towards Radley. “Let’s get him on a horse and get moving.”

 

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It’s nearly sunset when we stop for the night. There’s only ten miles to go, but the horses won’t last another five. So, we go through what’s beginning to feel like routine now. Throw our packs on the ground, water the horses, find somewhere to stick Radley. No trees around, but we’ve set up camp alongside the edge of a rock formation—fewer points of entrance that way—and have him with his back up against the rocks and his wrists bound too tight. You can see where the rope’s slowly burning through the dirt and down to the flesh. He don’t complain though. No. He looks content as can be.

The one thing we don’t do is get a fire going. The sheriff thinks that’s how whoever’s following has been able to spot our camp. The deepening dark is making the kid from Vulture City twitchy. Nervous. I can tell he wishes we could strike something up, not just for the warmth but for the light. Never mind that it could get us all killed. That’s man for you—clinging to the known, the familiar, even when it’s as straight and true as a nail in your coffin.

Even without that fire, we’re seated ‘round like we got one. A right trio we are—might as well be the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The kid’s nibbling on a biscuit like a mouse, eyes wide and alert despite the fact that he looks about ready to fall over from exhaustion. That bruise under his left eye ain’t healing right. It’s still too swollen.

All there is to eat with no fire are biscuits. The sheriff has already had three—we’ve got extra, after all, without the ranch hand and Bill Henry. I don’t have much of an appetite for anything, not in this heat. I’ve got a rifle out and ready across my knee, mostly to put the kid at ease. We’ve decided to sleep in shifts, and I already offered to take the first watch. I steal a swig from my canteen, look over at our prisoner who is dozing quietly, still seated upright with his hands bound. Men like that, they sleep through goddamn cannon fire.

When I turn back, I see the kid looking at me for reassurance. Like I’m the one who can give it. Not the sheriff. Me. I don’t mean to sneer at his meekness, but I do. Can’t help it. That kid shouldn’t be here, and I’m starting to hate him a little for it. There’s enough to worry about as it is. “Maybe we should blindfold him,” says the kid, glancing in Radley’s direction. “Stick a sack over his head. I don’t like the idea of him waking up and watching us.”

I snort. “Who says the Angel of Death needs eyes to see?”

Day Four

There’s something about the way stars pierce the night sky that almost makes them worthwhile. Almost. I set the rifle down in the dirt and gaze across the moonlit desert towards the mountains. It’s well beyond midnight, finally cool enough to breathe right, and it’s nearly time to wake the sheriff for his shift.

It’s been quiet all night, except of course for Radley’s snoring—but the kid and the sheriff are so dog tired, it don’t seem to trouble them none. I rise to my feet, muscles sore from sitting still for so long, and roll my neck in circles until it feels less stiff. Push up my sleeves. Yawn. The kid is asleep in front of me, the sheriff opposite him facing towards Radley.

Quietly, I go over and kneel beside the sheriff. He looks younger now in the dark than he does with his hat and his duster on under the desert sun. Pity. That’s what it is. A damn pity.

I break his neck quick—it’s the least I can do, and because I’m too hungry to make a fuss. Spilling Bill Henry’s guts didn’t leave much blood left for feeding, though it had felt more than warranted at the time.

With my knife I cut a clean slit through the sheriff’s jugular and press my palm to the wound. My skin absorbs the blood with an eager hunger I know too well. It feels something like the opposite of sweating, water returning to your body instead of leaving it. My body takes blood cleanly, efficiently—not wasting a drop. It comes in useful out here, where there’d be nowhere to wash bloody hands or hide bloody clothes. I can drain a man without leaving a stain on me.

“What’s happened?”

Damn it. Feeding rattles the senses. Keeps you from noticing things you should notice. Like the kid from Vulture City waking up to take a piss.

“What’s going on?” he asks again, this time more cautiously. It’s hard for him to see even in the moonlight, which helps me some but not enough. He has my rifle. Must’ve picked it up off the ground.

I slide my bloody knife beneath the sheriff’s body to hide it, turn towards the kid. “He’s dead,” I say, trying to sound surprised.

“W-what? How?” he sputters, forgetting himself and dropping to his knees beside me. When he sees the cut across the sheriff’s throat, he shakes his head. “No… no.” I can hear his heart racing from here. “That can’t be right. Where’s—where’s the blood?”

I guess he can see enough to know the wound in the sheriff’s neck is fleshy, pink, not red or wet. Something is wrong. And he knows something is wrong. And he has my rifle. So, it’s got to be done. Damn it. “I’m sorry,” I tell him.

He looks up at me with those sad brown eyes, that bruise unchanged beneath the left. He’s waiting for an explanation. Because even now he still thinks I can help him. With both hands I lunge at him, pin him to the ground, and rip his eyes out. No need to worry about keeping my shirt bloodless no more. My skin takes in some of the mess, but he’s still alive—still screaming. I snap his neck, just like I did the sheriff’s, and drain every last drop of blood from each of their bodies before reclaiming my knife and rising almost drunkenly to my feet, stumbling under the fading moonlight. Being this full brings a stupor on, but I push through it.

Radley’s awake. Watching. Lord knows how long he’s been doing that. When I get to him, I bend down beside him, cut his ropes, and drop breathlessly onto the ground. He rubs his gritty, bloody wrists. I can smell his blood, but it doesn’t bother me. I’ve already had my fill. “About damn time,” he says before grinning. “And to think they were calling me the Angel of Death.”

He laughs. I don’t. “The kid didn’t have to die,” I tell him.

“Of course, he did.”

I’m scowling, and I know it.

“You think he would have fared better going back to the mine? You’re getting soft on me, Lucas.”

“I’m getting tired is what I am.”

He stands up, and even though I want to sleep, I know I can’t. Not here. So, I stand up with him. “There would have been no need to kill this kid if you’d killed the last one.”

That’s how we ended up in Vulture City to begin with. I hadn’t wanted to kill that baby-faced lawman, the one who kept talking about a newborn son and getting back home to him. So, after the others were dead, I took off—left him and Radley alone in the desert. Hoped the kid was smart enough to cut his losses and save himself, but that’s not what he did. No. He managed to get Radley as far as Vulture City all on his own, even if he refused to take him one inch further than that. That meant I had to come back and clean up the mess I’d made. “You’ll have to sell the horses,” says Radley.

“I’m keeping Adelaide,” I say, nodding towards the mare I’ve been riding since Clayton. Radley laughs but doesn’t argue. “Your sister still up in Montana?” I ask.

He nods.

“Good. Can’t stand the desert. Too damn hot.” Fellas like me—creatures like me—prefer dark, cool places after all. Not hot, blinding deadlands.

“She’ll pay you when you get there,” he says.

Five hundred dollars. More than I would have gotten once we split that one-thousand-dollar reward five ways. Of course, I was never interested in the reward. Radley put me on his payroll early. Soon as he got out of Yuma. Had heard tell of what I could do and how I could do it. Said he might have work for a fella like me. You could make yourself some easy money, he said. That was the selling line.

But this kind of money never comes easy. No. It comes soaked in blood. Wet and slippery. Not that it matters when all is said and done. Bloody money buys a hell of a lot more than empty pockets. I can tell you that much.

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Host Commentary

PseudoPod Episode 928

July 5th 2024

Three Nights with the Angel of Death by Emily Ruth

Narrated by Kevin Hayes

Audio Production by Chelsea Davis

Hosted by Alasdair Stuart

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Welcome to PseudoPod, the weekly horror podcast. This week’s story comes to us from Emily Ruth and first appeared in Along Harrowed Trails, an anthology published by Timber Ghost Press in July of 2023.

 

Emily Ruth Verona is the author of the novel Midnight on Beacon Street, published by Harper Perennial in 2024. She is a Pinch Literary Award winner, a Bram Stoker Awards® nominee, and a Rhysling Award Finalist with work featured in magazines and anthologies that include Under Her Eye, Under Her Skin, Mystery Tribune, The Ghastling, Coffin Bell, Rust & Moth, The Jewish Book of Horror, and Nightmare Magazine. She lives in New Jersey with a small dog.

 

Your narrator this week is Kevin M. Hayes. Kevi’s’ first real short story, “The Thithshtach Diner” won the Parsec Short Story Contest in 2001 and he was able to sell it to an e-zine called “Speculon.” He has been published in Parsec INK’s first two Triangulation anthologies in 2003 and 2004 and even had clean limericks in a chap book. He has had stories in “The Realm Beyond” and “TV Gods” both from Fortress Publishing and also a story in WorD Publishing’s first anthology: “Knee Deep in Little Devils.” He is working on another anthology for WorD called “Beer, Because Your Friends Aren’t That Interesting” and he has co-moderated the WorD writing and critique group for over ten years. He is deeply involved with Parsec and the Pittsburgh science fiction community on many levels. He has also read several stories for the podcast PseudoPod. We know those folks!

 

So, saddle up, because we’ve got a lot of ground to cover and ain’t that the truth.

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‘It’s just the damn sky.’

 

One of the hardest things any author can do is completely recontextualize a seemingly mundane statement with the end of a story. One of my favourite magicians, most of them in fact, do this but the one I’m thinking of is Derek Delgaudio. If you get the chance, watch In & Of Itself on Disney Plus which may be the best piece of magic I’ve ever seen done. The innocent given context. The banal given focus and shine. A little wonder mixed with some terror. Ruth does that here and does it in two different ways at once.

 

The first is the setting. The Old West is a story that’s been rewriting itself since people who look like me first became aware of it. It’s not a blank page, despite how desperately some folks like to present it as, but it is a very big page and that’s the first note the line plays for me. That line, the first time we read it, plays like someone being faced with the enormity of the world they live in, feeling the awe and terror we all do at times, and refusing to accept the emotional response. It’s just the damn sky sounds a lot like ‘I’m not crying.’ Or ‘Whatever’ in this instance. That psychological headspace humans reach where we’ve got too much to process so we tell ourselves there’s nothing to process.

 

The second is where the horror lies. As the story finishes and we find out the true nature of our narrator, I can’t help but turn back to that line. Because when we think about it at the end of the story it’s not a refusal to admit the scale of the world, it’s a capitulation to that scale bound up with vast self-loathing. Our narrator is convinced they’re a monster and one in service to a lesser monster. They need money to live. For them to get money someone else has to die. ‘it’s just the damn sky.’ What good does it do them? And the question inside that, why do they deserve to look at it?

 

But the tragedy of the story is here too. Because they feel remorse. They know what they’re doing. They have bigger horizons than murder and mercenary work and feeling bas as they open a young man’s throat. They’re just too scared to look up.

 

Incredible work, thanks to all.

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PseudoPod is part of the Escape Artists Foundation and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International license And PseudoPod wants you to know He’s no preacher. He’s a fraud. If a man is a killer, then that’s what he is. There’s no dishonor. But don’t let that same man suddenly tell me that’s not in his blood anymore. That’s worse than a liar.