The Vatican Gun

The Vatican Gun

Another small town lay in ruins in front of Clay Ford. The fires had mostly died out, but the black smoke still rose like mournful pillars in the dry air. As Clay rode down the single street the town had boasted, he could see the marks of their passing. It weren't no Indians what did this. It weren't no Mexicans, neither. No, it was them demonic bastards that took the lives of everyone what had lived here. Man, woman, and child; none were spared.

Clay didn't reckon there was aught worth taking other than them folks lives. Some booze and maybe the pleasures of a woman--willing or not--would be about all else. Clay's throat tightened in anger as he rode by the body of a young boy. The small body lay face-down in the dirt and Clay could see that the demons done shot the boy a number of times in the back.

Other bodies lay scattered along the street like pieces of broken pottery. A shop owner here, a rancher come into town for the last time there, whores a sprawl in their fancy dresses.

Clay didn't feel shocked anymore. He didn't even feel sorrow. He only felt a powerful hate. Hate for those spirits of hell and what they made his brother and his gang do. He could no longer even feel disbelief at the situation he reckoned he was trapped in. Forced to chase these damned souls and bring them to an almighty justice. He had no choice. He had promised his Pa. He had sworn on the old man's cross that he would lay his brother's soul to rest. Bring him back into the fold.

Clay weren't even sure if such a thing was possible. Hell, he weren't sure about a satchel worth of things anymore. His whole world was crazier than a Mexican on peyote. Thing was, though, the foreign preacher done told him he could save Clinton's tortured spirit. He said that Clinton and all his boys' bodies were already done for; turning slowly to an evil rot as the demons consumed them from the inside. That, Clay knew, were true. He had done for two of Clinton's posse when he caught them stirring up a ruckus at a small town brothel not 12 nights ago.

Clay arrived in that town leading a trail of dust he done raised in his rush to cut them demons off afore they slipped through his fingers like they did so many times before. He half killed his horse for nothing, seeing as Clinton and his gang was gone. Long gone.

All excepting one eyed Grady O'Hara and Manny Johnson. Turned out them boys weren't too keen on leaving those whores. They was having too much fun to listen to Clinton. They never was ones to use the good sense God done gave them. With them hellish beasts contaminating their very souls, all them fellers hankered for was pleasures of the body.

Clinton, now....he was always too wily for his own good. He knew his brother was coming to bring all Heaven's wrath down on him and his boys with holy lead. Clinton and them boys knew to skedaddle, knew to keep a step ahead.

It was just Clay's luck those two fools stayed behind. It weren't hard to track them down, neither. He could hear them whores screaming for mercy from down the road. Wails, which at one time had sent a right shock down Clay's spine like cold mountain water now broke powerless against him. He had become numb to their effects. Too much horror over too short a time done wrung the fear out of his very skin. Some nights Clay reckoned he lost a piece of his own humanity chasing after them devils.

All the same, Clay was rightly not prepared for what welcomed him at that brothel. Not by a long shot.