The Assassination of William Walsh by the Coward Robert Palins
You're either gonna get this one or you won't
Hi! This is a comedy piece I originally posted on my Medium account. Five years later, I don’t really use Medium and I don’t want to make people sign up for yet another New Thing to read it. I’m migrating it here and I hope you enjoy it. Also, no spoilers, but this is a…fairly referential piece of media. If you reach the end and don’t “get” it, I’ve linked a YouTube video for you. And also, I am sorry.
There was no God in Price’s Landing. There was the saloon, where even the liquor bottles had nothing left to give. There was the schoolhouse, long since abandoned by the schoolmarms and bright-eyed children, sometimes used on Sundays for worship service when the weather was bad and flooded the church. Horses grazed outside the small cemetery, the only place in Price’s Landing where no one spat or swore. There was an inn, and a general store, or at least the remains of one, but no God anywhere to be found.
When William Walsh rode into town that Tuesday, the dust of the trail mingling with the low, dusky clouds behind him, he wasn’t looking for God. He was looking for Marie, the sweet, shy girl who had worked at the Inn ever since she and William were young. A pale, Irish face, freckled and easy to blush, but with straight, dark hair that cascaded down her back, her pride and joy. After three years away from Price’s Landing, making his fortune, William had finally decided the time was come to find Marie and make her his wife.
As his horse slowed to a stop outside the cemetery, William heard the church bells start to peal. He looked over at where the old church stood, and saw the whole building shudder with every strike of the bell, chips of plaster and paint raining down from on high. William’s heart sank into his boots. Well, that certainly ain’t suitable for a wedding, he thought to himself. Guess me and Marie will have to get married outside of town. He hitched his horse to a tree, a few paces down from a jet-black mare, and strode into the town proper, marveling at the way the place had fallen to shambles. This had been his home. He’d turned from little Billy into William here, a boy to a man. Now he wandered past the shells and corpses of a childhood long ago abandoned, looking for the only thing in Price’s Landing worth salvaging: his sweet Marie.
One of the horses at the cemetery gate gave a low whinny, and then another joined in; soon, all the horses were neighing and stomping the ground in alarm. William turned to face the abandoned saloon as the doors, stiff and creaky on their hinges, shot open. Standing on the steps of the old saloon was the entity no man, woman or child south of Cape Girardeau wanted to see with their own eyes.
William spat on the ground twice, the first to clear the town’s stench from his head, and the second for luck. He leveled his gaze at the man before him.
“Robert Palins,” Walsh said, listening to the chorus of horses still huffing and grunting behind him. Palins came down the steps one at a time, both hands on his belt, a wad of tobacco in his cheek. He scanned William up and down, face blank, a shock of black hair covering one eye. Finally, Palins spat a wad of phlegm and tobacco juice out in front of him, reaching about halfway to where William stood in the middle of the street.
“I didn’t think you were stupid enough to come back here after what I done to you last time, Walsh,” said Palins, his voice rusty from — drink? Disuse? William guessed it was a combination of both, but he had no interest in playing guessing games with Robert Palins.
“Well, I’m no angel, Palins,” William responded, scuffing one boot along in the dirt. “So please forgive me my foolishness in rushing back here.” Even though the town still looked empty, William could sense the few remaining residents hovering in doorways and just outside windows, roused by the sounds of the two men speaking. A woman’s white shoulder, barely visible through a sheer curtain. A man on the far edge of his porch, not watching the altercation, but ready to move if the situation escalated.
Palins grinned then, the soft wound of his mouth opening in more of a grimace than anything. He took another two steps closer to William, his hands still not moving from his belt. The horses behind William began braying in earnest, and he could hear the wind as it whistled through the blown-out windows of the surrounding buildings. As Palins lifted his foot to take another step forward, a flash of movement from the schoolhouse caught William’s eye.
“Billy!” cried a familiar voice, high and clear. It was Marie, bursting forth from the schoolhouse alongside Rosalie, the preacher’s daughter. Both of them hiked up their skirts as they ran, heading for the center of the town where William stood.
“Billy, he’ll kill you!” Marie called, and as she came closer William could see the tears streaming down her pretty face. William wanted to run to her, to fold her up in his arms, but before he could take even a step,there was a great rattling from the cemetery, an unbearable clattering, and the horses began to run. Some were already untied, and others broke loose of their restrictions, dragging hitching posts and pieces of the iron cemetery gate behind them. William and the girls stood stock-still as the horses scattered every which way.
William watched them shoot past, some clearing the edges of town in ten seconds flat. Even then, the great noise from the cemetery didn’t stop. Robert Palins wasn’t what the horses had been trying to warn him about at all.
Now the whole town was watching without reservation, women hanging brazenly out of windows and men thundering down the stairs to come watch as the ground of the cemetery shuddered and quaked. William took a step forward, toward the cemetery, trying to get a better view of the roiling dirt. All at once, skulls gleamed in the smog, teeth chattering, and long, bony hands scraped away the soil that covered each tomb. William felt a shiver run down his spine and put one hand on his holster.
“What is this unholy revenant?” Palins whispered behind him, the first signs of fear showing on his grizzled face. More and more skeletons poured forth from the cemetery, lurching forward, propelled by some ancient, sinister energy.
Suddenly, the door to the church sanctuary flew off its hinges, with Preacher Amos running straight through, flying towards the conflict. Preacher Amos held his walking stick in one hand, and a crucifix in the other.
“Dammit, dammit, dammit!” Preacher Amos cried, stumbling over his own bum leg as he rushed toward the cemetery gates. “I knew this day was coming, but I didn’t think it would be so soon. When did this start?” Preacher Amos reached the little group that had formed in the street, sweat rolling down his brow.
“Only minutes ago,” Rosalie said, clutching Marie’s arm. “They just started comin’ from under the ground, like they were alive!”
A shot rang out. Palins stood with his pistol in his hand, and not three feet away, a pile of bones settled next to a cellar door. William figured Palins must’ve seen one of the skeletons headed their way. As he looked over his shoulder, William realized more skeletons were approaching from the south, from the west, from thin air. “They’re coming from under the ground, and from all over,” William growled.
Marie was at William’s elbow before he knew it. He wished he could draw her into his arms and take a deep breath, hold the woman he had missed for three years, but he knew it was not the right time. He could only pray there would be a chance for that.
“What could they want, Preacher?” asked Marie. “Why are the skeletons here at Price’s Landing?”
Preacher Amos hung his head, and his daughter stepped closer to him. He put one arm around her and gave Marie a grave look.
“According to my scriptures, these beings rise up every few centuries, coming to the land of the living and dragging down whoever they can take with them,” said Preacher Amos. “They’ll strip us down to bare bones, just like them, but we won’t come back to life. Instead,” said the preacher, squeezing his eyes shut, “they’ll use our skeletons to…barter with each other.”
“The bones are the skeletons’ money?” asked Rosalie, quaking in her father’s arms.
“In our world, bones equal dollars,” said Palins, handing a shotgun to the man at his left. “That’s why they’re comin’ out tonight. To get their bones from you.” The men of the town, or what remained of the town, brought out their guns, their machetes and their axes. As the skeletons approached, hobbling on thin legs and swinging their arms wildly, most of the women retreated to the stairs of the saloon.
Marie stayed by William, her face set into a defiant glare. “You don’t know that, Preacher Amos,” said Marie. “What if they’re peaceable? What if they want to live alongside you and me?”
Preacher Amos shook his head sadly, gesturing at the sea of bones. “Even is they were friendly, Marie, we just don’t have enough in the town already,” he said. “It’s hard enough for the folks here to survive, and you should know that better than anyone, seeing as your mama’s been laid up in bed at Emmy Slater’s inn since February.” Marie blanched at the mention of her mother, but stomped her foot and took a step towards the preacher.
“All they want’s another chance at life!” cried Marie. Preacher Amos shook his head again.
“Go back to the house with Rosalie, dear,” he said, touching Marie on the shoulder. “We’ll send for you just as soon as the coast is clear.”
As the women went back to the house, William trained his eyes on the legion of skeletons, trying to count them all. He reckoned there had to be at least four dozen. There was a commotion from the direction of the general store, and then three skeletons burst through the main window, holding tins of fruit and bags of flour.
A skeleton with a bum knee limped up, and handed the tallest one a clump of dirt, in exchange for a bag of apples. Palins pointed at the dirt and noted that it was wriggling. The tall skeleton pulled the thick strands from the dirt one by one, as if counting them, and then nodded at the other skeleton, who limped away with the fruit. “The bones are their money,” Palins said, “and so are the worms.”
Preacher Amos looked fascinated. Even so, he accepted the shotgun that one of the townsfolk handed over. The skeletons had broken open some jars of jam by throwing them to the ground, and were now eagerly lapping up the preserves.
“They’ve never seen so much food as this,” Preacher Amos said, loading the shotgun, his tone grim. “Underground, there’s half as much food as this.”
“So, they want our bones and our food?” Palins said, firing at a skeleton as it clambered toward them. It collapsed to the ground, but kept crawling, slowly opening and closing its jaw. William shot the skeleton twice more, but it still twitched towards them.
“How do we stop these things?” he asked, dipping out of the way so Palins could take aim at a duo of skeletons. Preacher Amos flipped through his Bible, running his finger along the margins until he found the right notes.
“According to this verse, the skeletons will pull your hair. Up, but not out,” Preacher Amos said, peering at William over his glasses. “That’s how they turn into a man and have another chance at life.”
William laughed deeply, but there was no humor in it. Slowly, he reached up and took off his hat. “Looks like it’s a good thing the Lord made me bald, then,” William said. He took the gun Preacher Amos held.
“Let me do this for you, Preacher,” William said, turning to face the skeleton menace. “I would hate for a man of the cloth to be asked to kill, even if the bastards are already dead.” Without another word, William stormed into the fray, shooting skeletons at point-blank range, elbowing them left and right. Skeletal hands grabbed for his hair and came away with nothing. Jaws snapped shut on his arms and hands, but he knocked the skeletons’ heads into one another and kicked them into the ground.
Suddenly, William felt a sharp pain in his ankle, and he looked down to see a skeleton clamped tight onto his heel. That was just enough time for another skeleton to jump onto his back, and his knees buckled under the weight. William heard Marie’s cry as he fell to the ground. “Stop!” Robert Palins cried, but William couldn’t see who Palins was yelling for — the skeletons pushed his face down into the dirt.
Then, in an instant, warm, soft hands were upon him, wrenching him up from the ground. William saw the face of his sweet Marie, but the relief he felt turned to terror as the skeletons descended upon her. They caught their spindly hands in her long, chestnut hair, her greatest treasure, and Marie screamed in pain. But as the skeletons yanked, their fingers tangled in her tresses, and came away with strands that had been freed from Marie’s scalp. As the skeletons pulled away, they collapsed into still, useless piles. Soon, the area around William and Marie was a regular boneyard, with no reanimated skeletons in sight.
“If they pull it out they turn to bones!” Marie cried. “That’s why they pull it up, but not out!” She turned to the preacher and yelled, “Please, Preacher Amos, let’s stop the violence! Let them destroy themselves!”
Before Preacher Amos could speak, Palins charged off the porch, with Rosalie in his grip, kicking and crying.
“Give them the women!” Palins shouted. “Give ’em the girls if that’s what they want, and we’ll hightail it out of here!”
Palins threw Rosalie to the ground and the skeletons seized upon her, pulling her thick, wiry hair out in clumps. He took a step towards Marie, but William stepped in front of her.
“If you think you’re going to get to Marie without going through me, Palins, you’re sorely mistaken,” William said, spreading his arms and making his body into a shield. Palins stared at him, and then a laugh rose from his throat, an ugly thing that split his mouth into a grin. Palins trained his pistol right on William.
“I think you’re the one in error here, Walsh,” Palins said, pulling the hammer back on his gun. “I never went a day where I didn’t dream of doing just that.”
The bullet ripped through William’s chest as the clouds let loose their thunder and rain. The rumbles of the storm above were drowned out by Marie, first by her scream, and then by her sobs. William fell into Marie’s arms, and she lowered him to the ground, fat tears rolling down her red cheeks.
“I swear I’ll remember you, Billy,” she said, clutching his shoulders and rocking him back and forth. “I’ll make sure the whole world knows about this day, and about what you did for our town.”
And then, William Walsh was no more.
***
“That’s where you got your name, Billy,” mother said to me, dabbing the corners of her eyes with her handkerchief. “That man was the love of my life, and your father murdered him, hung up on his foolish pride.”
I watched mother slip the little vial of laudanum back into her jewelry box. When mother got all upset like this, that bottle was the only thing that could soothe her. Just a few minutes to let it work, and she’d be herself again.
“Could you tell me more about the skeletons, mother?” I asked. “Did papa defeat them? Are all the skeletons gone? Could it happen again, here?”
Mother gave a great shuddering sigh, lifting herself off the vanity stool with a great deal of effort, despite how thin her body was. The illness that had passed through the camp weeks ago showed no mercy to her weak heart and frail bones. I helped mother into bed. Her eyes were bleary as she sought out my face.
“Sometimes,” she whimpered, “I think it all would’ve worked out better had Billy never come into my life at all.”
“Billy, as in me?” I asked. “Or Billy as in him?”
Mother didn’t hear me, her head lolling back and forth on her neck. I pulled the covers up over her chest, stroking a hand over the thin braid of her hair to soothe her.
“Don’t worry, mother,” I said softly. “Someday, I’ll tell the story of the day my pa shot Mister Walsh down. I’ll make sure everyone knows.”
I closed the canopy around mother’s bed, and sat down against the wall, cradling my old guitar in my lap. I thought of William Walsh, and the legacy I knew it was my responsibility to carry on. As I strummed, I closed my eyes and thought of that one night that had changed everything. The day my father had become a villain, the day my namesake had made the biggest sacrifice. And it was also the night that the skeletons came to life.