The Barley Witch

Weird Weird West

Editor’s Note:

Frank Kidd brings us a short tale, a Weird Western that promises to entertain our readers. Those who are loyal fans will especially be delighted as he continues to bring his energy and the unique fantastical elements that make up a “Frank Kidd story”.

Enjoy and have a great weekend.

- Frank Theodat

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Oregon, 1871

We'd spent the last three days crossing the Columbia Plateau. Rain was plentiful and, judging from the blooming land, it had been an overly wet year.

To the west of us, the Cascade Mountains loomed, their sharp edges catching and collecting clouds that rolled in off the Pacific. The sun had just began to dip below their pink tops when we drew the horses to a halt.

"We're close," I said. "Might make it after sundown."

Red Diego merely nodded, as he often did, for he was a man of few words. I had come to know him well, and trusted him with my life. He beat the dust off his faded black hat, and swept back a greasy mop of crow black hair.

I drew a cigarillo from my sheepskin coat, lit a match, and cupped the flame against a gentle summer breeze.

"Its rich country here," I said, motioning outward. I could smell the soil—a smell that made me believe grubbing a life from the dirt wouldn't be so bad, all things considered. The kind of land that made a man think on taking a wife.

Red grunted.

"You're a real conversationalist,” I said.

"You do enough talking for the both of us,” he replied.

I took a drag on the cigarillo, and leaned back in the saddle, the leather creaking beneath me.

"How big is this town?" Red asked.

"You mean is it big enough to find a bath?" I said. He shot me a look that said don't, but I continued, "You know for a red man, you take a lot of baths."

"You could use a few more," Red said.

"I smell of the land."

"You smell like a horse.”

I laughed at that and nudged the Bay back into a trot. A pygmy rabbit crossed the trail further down from us and disappeared into a stand of bitterbrush.

It was already dark when we neared the town of Rose Creek. Flames flickered and bobbed in the distance turning the plank wood town into a series of strange flickering shadows. At first, it appeared the town had caught fire, but as we neared, the dancing fires took the form of individual torches. A mob had formed outside the jailhouse.

"Watch yourself,” I said.

"Lynch mob?”

"Looks so."

We hitched our horses outside the Saloon, and watched from the shadows as the crowd milled restlessly.

The jailhouse door opened slightly, and the crowd pushed forward. Someone threw an empty bottle, and it shattered against the half-open door. Another yelled, "Give us the witch."

I exchanged a glance with Red.

The Sheriff flung the door open and stepped outside. He had a handlebar mustache, and a large crooked nose. The face of a pugilist. He cocked the Winchester and fired straight into the air. The mob jumped back, stunned silent by the Sheriff's display of will.

"Now you all get out of here," the Sheriff shouted. He glared at the mob, looking like both bulldog and gunfighter.

A second bottle flew out from the crowd, and shattered on the wall next to his head. He didn't flinch.

"Give us the witch," a voice shouted from the crowd, and then a chant went up.

The mob was no longer made up of individuals, but was a singular organism. A roiling mass of animal impulse and fear. It pumped its fists—and a few of its tentacles, holding pitchforks, stabbed them upwards at the black of night. 

I watched all of this from the steps of the saloon. The air was electric and smelled of madness.

Again the Winchester spoke, spitting flame that left a crease in the darkness, and the Sheriff said, "Now you listen here, the next time I've got to fire this thing it’s gonna be into one of ya, and I aint gonna care one bit how long I known ya."

I motioned to Red then, and we crossed the street, working our way up the boardwalk as the mob sought to rebuild its courage.

When it next vaulted forward, I fired into the air. The mob reeled, suddenly confused, and shouted angrily with one voice—but took another step back.

Three were different odds. Not much better. But different.

Red leveled his own rifle, and drew a bead on the foremost part of the crowd. We angled in sideways to join the Sheriff, keeping our backs to the jailhouse.

The Sherriff kicked the door open with his heel and we both slipped inside. The Sheriff slammed the door behind him, and another bottle shattered just on the other side. He barred the door with a heavy plank.

"Thanks," he said, extending his hand. "Floyd Randal."

"Ryker," I said, shaking it firmly, "and this is Red."

"What brings you in?" he asked.

"Passin through," I replied. "Headed north."

"Well thank you again, I don't know how much longer they're gonna hold."

"What's got 'em riled?" I asked.

The Sheriff's face darkened, and he fished a key out of the front pocket of his buckskin vest. He unlocked one of the desk drawers, and produced a bottle of Rye Whiskey, and three crystal glasses. Uncorking the bottle with his teeth, he poured us two fingers.

"I got a prisoner back there," he said, motioning to the door that led to the back of the jail house. "One of the Lacey girls. Jim Lacey's daughter."

"They want to lynch a woman?"

"Oh do they. Barely even a woman. Just a welp of a girl."

I picked up my glass and threw back the amber liquid, feeling the heat crawl to my belly.

"They're sayin she's a witch," the Sheriff continued. "Kil't her best friend, or at least that’s what it looks like. Found her covered in blood and standing over the body. Took a knife to her."

I cringed and set my glass down. He poured me another.

"Murder don't make a witch," Red said.

"No it don't," the Sheriff responded. "And I'm not sold it was murder."

"What then?"

"She's sick," the Sheriff responded.

He stood up then, and opened the door to the back of the jail house. At the far end of the cells, on a small wooden cot, lay a young girl with her back to us. Stringy chestnut hair fell in tangled waves off the side of the bed. Even from here, I could see she was young. She'd sweat straight through her yellow paisley dress and jerked violently in her sleep. She whimpered, delirious. She wasn't a sight over 17.

Through all of this, she made no sign that she knew of our presence. My heart broke for the girl as she was clearly in pain. The sheriff closed the door again.

"Has she seen a doctor?" I asked.

"Doctor won't come," the Sheriff said matter of factly. "Her best friend was his daughter."

"The one she killed?"

"The same," the Sheriff said.

Red glanced at me, and the Sheriff returned the bottle to the desk drawer. He withdrew his hand, and held two tin stars.

"Oh, no—”

"You're in this now," the Sheriff said. "I need men that can help. That girl in there is getting a trial. Witch or not, guilty or innocent, she's getting a trial."

I took the star reluctantly and before I even had it pinned, the Sheriff had declared us both Rose Creek Deputies.

***

 Two hours later, I snuck out through the back door of the jailhouse and stuck to the shadows in the alley, my head swimming with the facts of the case. I left Red behind to help Floyd.

The girl's name was Barbara Lacey, one of three daughters, and she had no brothers. The Lacey family farmed just three miles outside of town. She had been found covered in blood; ranting and raving over the body of her best friend. Her friend, one Sue Hazel, was the daughter of Ol' Doc Hazel who did double time as the town drunk. Sue was taken in by the Lacey's on account of the Doc's inability as a father.

She had sustained two massive cuts that traveled the length of her arms, and a puncture wound to her heart.

I had learned from the Sheriff that the girls had only a week earlier befriended a black cat, a cat that no one now seemed to be able to find, nor had supposedly seen before. This had of course prompted the townsfolk to talk of witchcraft.

Even more strange though, Barbara was not the only one to take ill. Most of the town had experienced various symptoms: convulsions, dizziness, vomiting, and what could only be described as hallucinations, but those were never mentioned publicly, only whispered about privately.

The Sheriff indicated the pastor of the church at the edge of town may know more, for he was the only one the townsfolk would willingly confide such things to.

From my end of it all, it looked like the whole damn town had been teetering on the brink of insanity for the better part of a month. The supposed murder had just brought it all to a boil, and the girl in that jail cell was as much a witch as a sacrificial lamb.

I worked my way away from the backside of the jail out along the back alley that ran behind the town's buildings. I made my way to my horse, still tied up outside the Saloon. The mob was thinning, for it was late by this point, and they couldn't keep it up forever, although I had no doubt they'd be back tomorrow. I undid the lead from the hitching rail, and threw myself into the saddle.

The church sat on a hill about a half mile north of town. I banged violently on the front door, raising a hell of a racket. After about five minutes, a man opened the door, wearing a white night gown, and holding a candle. Its tiny flame illuminated the space between us.

"Yes," the man said in a groggy voice.

"I need to talk to you."

The man paused, as if he was considering the offer as an offer and not a demand, so I pushed through the door past him.

"This is a House of God."

"Then all should be welcome."

"Come then," the pastor said, clearly beside himself.

He led me to a small room in the back of the church and lit a gas lamp.

"You know there's a lynch mob in town," I said.

"They got the devil in them," the pastor said. "But what brings you here at this hour?"

I opened my coat  and showed him the badge. His face contorted. "A deputy?"

"Yeah, and I want to know about these stories the Sheriff's heard whispers of?" I paused for effect, "Devils and such."

The pastor scowled, "This is not a house of gossip."

"I ain't come for gossip," I said. "I came to investigate."

The pastor remained silent.

"You know half your flock is down there right now, just itching to make a mistake that'll haunt this town for the rest of its days."

A look of shame flickered across the pastor's face, and his posture softened, "I know. I'm a man of god, not a gunfighter."

"Seems all we really need is someone good with crowds."

The Pastor smiled at that. "It’s true, I have been told things."

"When'd it start?"

"About three... no four weeks ago," the pastor said. "Miss Higgins, who runs the boarding house, came running here in the middle of the night. She was distressed. Sobbing. I took her in and sat her down.

"She told me then that a devil had been following her. All day, she'd heard him laughing. Tore her whole house apart looking for the sound and only caught sight of him once. She said he had a forked tail, but he disappeared into thin air. Never came back."

"And no one else knows about this?" I asked.

"When my parishioners come to me, they trust that their problems stay between them and God."

"Well it’s between the three of us now. Were there any other instances of this?"

"Jim Holstead, he farms up north. He came to me three week ago sayin his whole family was awful sick, finally confided that he thought they were being plagued with a terrible evil, but wouldn't say no more, just asked me to pray for him."

"You got any theories then?" I asked.

"Devils." His voice but a tremor.

I said nothing, already lost in thought.

He seemed a reasonable man, but he was shaken. Deeply shaken, and taken by fear. I'd seen it before. Courage was a thing that needed exercise, and I had a hunch it'd been a long while since he'd opportune to take his for a walk.

After that he walked me to the door, and I asked him the way to the Holstead place. When he'd finished explaining the way and hurried back inside, I paused on the steps of the church and listened to the sounds of night. Whatever was going on here, seemed larger than any one man. Larger than life itself.

***

I made it to the Holstead place when the deep gray of morn was just giving way to the pinks of a newborn sky. Dew was heavy on the ground. The Holstead place was set on a hill, and at the bottom of the hill was a line of trees, rimmed in fog, likely from some sort of creek or pond.

The farm was silent save for the rooting of hogs.

 I sat my horse and tried to think my way through an approach so as not to startle the family. It was dangerous business showing up unknown and unannounced.

Off to my left, one of the hogs snorted heavily, and then chased off another. My mind drifted as I sat there, atop the bay, watching the hogs, but mostly smelling them. I could recognize that smell anywhere. We'd had hogs back home, and it had been my job to tend them. Virginia was a lifetime ago. Like it might as well have been another life entirely. I used to carry pails of corn and kitchen scraps out to them. Always amazed me how the hogs would eat just about whatever you threw to them. I'd thrown them a dead rat once and watched in disgust as they devoured it. The image sometimes haunted me when I sat to a pork chop. Often enough, a sow would roll over on her baby and kill it. Sometimes, she'd even eat it. We'd only had a sow savage her whole litter once, and that was after a particularly stressful birth. After that, Mose, our help, took to giving them a kernel or two of ergot, to ease the labor.

I straightened in the saddle as if struck by lightning and the Bay took two steps forward beneath my shifting weight. Ergotism. That could be it. Could it be so simple? So obvious? The rains, the extremely wet year, the barley crop. The Columbia plateau was a bread basket of sorts.

I ran my fingers through the beginnings of a beard. But how come the town's doc hadn't diagnosed it? Cockspur was a common enough blight and known even in the old country. They'd called it St. Anthony's fire for the sensations of burning... and the bouts of madness.

I slid from my horse, and started up the steps of the house. But before I could knock, the door opened and I stared down both barrels of a loaded shotgun. It was barely day, so whoever held it remained a mystery to me, framed in the darkness of the doorway.

"Double 00 buck, mister," a woman's voice said. "One step closer and you're gonna meet Him."

She stood in the shadow of the door so that I couldn't put a face to the voice.

"I came to check on ya," I said.

"We don't need no checking on."

"I heard some of ya'll had taken ill."

"Mister, ya better get outta here." The barrel shifted towards me. Shifted too close to me.

I grabbed it lightning quick, the move instinctive, while simultaneously I rotated out of its line of fire. A split second later, I held the shotgun in my hand. She tried to close the door but I blocked it with a booted foot.

"I didn't come to hurt ya," I said calmly and as a show of good faith, I flicked the gun's lever and broke it in two, shaking the shells out. The shells had no sooner hit the ground when I heard the distinct mechanical click of a rifle being cocked behind me.

Slowly, I raised my hands.

From behind me, a small voice said, "No, you put it down, Mister."

I slowly leaned the gun against the side of the house, loathe to leave any piece of weaponry no matter how old flung in the dirt, and I turned. A boy no more bigger than eleven held an old cap and ball rifle. So old, I wondered if it even worked, but I wasn't trying to find out.

"I aint come to do nothin," I said slowly.

The door opened wider and the woman stepped out. Auburn hair catching the early morning light. She retrieved the shotgun and gathered the shells. When it was reloaded, she gave the boy a look of quiet pride but didn't point the shotgun at me again.

The boy eased up with his aim, and she faced me. "What do you want?”

"I'm a deputy ma'am."

"Well you might've led with that," she said, brushing a stray hair back behind her ear.

"Where's your husband?"

"Inside. Sick."

"Doc, been out to see him?"

"He'd never let that ol sawbones anywhere near him," she said.

"Can I see him?" I asked.

She looked torn, but at last relented. The boy stepped up, redrawing a bead on me, but she nodded him off and then showed me through the door.

The house was small, but well kept. I followed her to a backroom with a bedsheet hung in place of a door. A man lay on the bed, feverish and delirious. Beads of sweat causing his leathern face to shine, and had soaked his salt and pepper beard.

"How long has he been like this?"

"Better part of two days,"

"We need to get him to the doc," I said.

"I don't think so," she said. "That ol drunk aint going nowhere near this man."

"Do ya'll grow barley?"

"Who don't," she said. "That what ya come to ask us?"

"Think its what’s making everyone sick," I said. "Can I see it?"

"You rode past it, mister."

"No, what's already been harvested."

"Russel," she called for the boy. "Show this man, where we keep the barley, he wants to see it."

***

The boy showed me to a row of grain bins, in the back of the barn.

"You got a lamp?" I asked.

When he'd fetched one, I held the lamp close. I spotted nothing out of sorts with the first bin.

"Where have you been fetching the grain from?"

"From the far end," the boy pointed. "Why you care about our grain?"

I walked to the end of the row. "It’s a hunch."

I bent over the last bin, and ran my hands through the kernels. I scooped up a handful and sorted out the black kernels into my hand. They were easy to miss if you werent looking for them.

"These," I said, and placed the small black nuggets in his hand.

"You sell any of this in town?"

"Take a load to the mill when the money gets tight. Pop don't like doin it much. He's always worrying about winter."

"When'd you do it last?"
"About a month ago," the boy said sheepishly.

I dug through some more of the grain, picking out several more of the black kernels. I took out my handkerchief and dropped a few in the middle, then folded it up and pocketed it. This could be it. The place where it started. The timing lined up. Mill must've missed it and it made it into the flour.

"Do you know where the flour goes after the mill?" I asked.

The boy shrugged, "Everywhere, I s'pose."

***

I was back in town by noon. The mob was gone for the most part, but they'd left a few posted up to keep watch and make sure no one left the jailhouse. They'd be back at it this evening. It was a funny thing how mobs only seemed to form at night. The day was for working. Working was sacred.

I slid off my horse in front of the Doc's office. It was on the second story, above the saloon. I took the staircase on the outside of the building. The shingle read "Doc Hazel"

I spent the better part of ten minutes, intermittently knocking before I gave up. I rattled the door knob. It was locked. I put my shoulder into it, and someone shouted at me from down on the street.

"Keep walkin, I got a warrant."

The passerby shrugged and wandered off.  I of course did not have a warrant, but I didn't much care either. The door gave way on my next hit, and I pushed myself in. A man, who I assumed was the Doc, was slumped over, asleep on his desk, an open bottle next to him.

I tried to shake him awake, but it was no use.

I wandered back outside, found a bucket at the bottom of the steps, and filled it with water from a nearby trough. Back in the office, I dumped all of it on the sleeping doctor. He woke in a shouting fit, and ready to fight. I took two steps back out of the way of his swings, and waited until he regained his senses.

"Who are you?"

"Name's Ryker."

"What business you got busting in here like that?"

"The Sheriff deputized me."

"So?" the man rubbed his head, fighting the devil he'd chased the night before.

"You ever heard of ergot poisoning?"

The doc's brow furled.

"Cockspur, St. Anthony's Fire?" I questioned.

"No, I can't say I have,"

"I thought you were a Doc?"

"Practiced during the war."

"Sawbones, then."

The Doc squinted at me, and looked as if he wanted to take offense, but then just hung his head and went back to nursing his head.

"What happened to your daughter?"

"That Lacey girl kilt her."

"Were they friends?"

"Yeah."

"Why would she kill her then?"

"The devil is in her," the Doc motioned outward, before reaching for the bottle.

I snatched it up first and he looked like I'd just killed a puppy right there in fron of him.

"Listen here, I get the shakes."

"We all get the shakes you old drunk."

"Just tell me what you want?"

"You got any books?"

The old doc motioned to the wall behind me. A shelf with three Medical books. I grabbed the stack and slapped it down in front of him. "I want you to do your job. I think its ergot poisoning that's made the town go mad."

"Well tell them about it!"

"They won't believe me, it’s got to come from you." I pulled the handkerchief from my pocket and slowly unrolled it. "I got these from the Holstead place." I set the cloth in front of him, the black kernels scattered in the center.

He leaned forward and analyzed the kernels. "It don't change nothing."

"It changes everything. Ergot makes people go crazy, see things that aint there, makes 'em sick too."

"That Lacey girl killed my little girl."

"But why? You sure as hell can't tell me a motive."

The Doc pursed his lips, and stoked his beard thoughtfully.

"Look, I'm not asking you for much. I'm just asking you to help me call the mob off when they gather tonight. And to tell them to stop eating the flour. If it stops after that, then we'll know for sure."

"Alright, I'll do it. Now give me the bottle."

I took a step backwards. "You're doing this one sober, Old-Timer."

***

I led the Doc to the back of the jailhouse; Floyd and Red welcomed us inside. The Doc blanched at the sight of the Lacey girl, and patted the front of his coat looking for the flask I'd already relieved him of. We started past, but he reached out a hand and stopped me.

"Let me take a look at her?"

I looked to Floyd, but he just shrugged and unlocked the door to her cell. The Doc set his bag down next to her, and put a hand on her forehead.

"She's burning up," he said. "Bring me a bucket of water and a cloth."

Floyd returned with the items, and we watched as the Doc worked over her.

I pulled a chair into the cell and sat beside him.

"You know, I've known her forever," he said as he cooled her. He rung the cloth out on the stones and dipped it back into the bucket. "Never realized how grown up she was."

"Wasn't she the same age as your daughter?"

"She was... I just didn't see them often."

I stayed quiet.

"The Lacey's took her in. I wasn't much fit for a father, with my drinkin' and all."

"Well, you're here now," I said, standing up.

***

I joined Red at the front of the jailhouse. He was busy cleaning rifles. Floyd stood at the window, rifle in hand, and bathed in the suns low angled golden rays. They seemed to collect on the Sheriffs old tin star.

"They're gathering," he said.

"Well?" Red said, "what's he think it is?"

I showed them both the handkerchief with the black kernels of barley, and relayed to them the night's events.

"So he's gonna do it?" Floyd asked.

"Yeah, he's gonna talk them down."

"Will it work?"

"I don't know. It was his daughter. That's what I'm really betting on."

When night had finally fallen, and the mob had reached a proper boil. I retrieved Doc from his place at the side of the Lacey girl. Floyd led him outside, and me'n Red brought up the rear.

The mob was taken aback by the sudden appearance of the Doc.

"You sober now, Doc," someone shouted.

A bottle shattered over our heads, and the Winchester in the Sheriffs hand barked at the sky. The throng quieted down.

"All of you need to go home," the Doc started. "The barley's poisoned. It’s in the flour."

"We'll help you Doc," someone shouted. "We'll help you get justice."

"She didn't do it," the Doc shouted. "I've known that girl my whole life. Her and my daughter were closer than sisters, closer than..." the Doc waivered. "I killed my daughter. It was me don't you see.”

"You don't know that Doc!" another shouted, but a murmur erupted in the direction of the voice, telling it to shush, and I could tell the tide had turned.

“I abandoned her with my drinking and all. It tore her up. She was taken with the melancholy,” the Doc continued.

“What's that about the flour?” someone in the back shouted.

"You have to stop eating it. The flour made from Barley. We need to burn it all. This is a plague. An epidemic."

The townsfolk were silent now, and in the back I caught a few sneaking off. The Doc kept at it, admonishing them to leave, and then all at once, the crowd dispersed, and once reduced to individuals they quickly slunk off that they might plausibly deny having been there at all later. Or at least that’s what I made of it all.

***

Myself and Red left at daybreak, as we couldn't stay for the trial, on account of them only having a circuit judge that came by once a month. On the edge of town, was a pole fence, left over from what used to be a corral. A black cat watched us from atop one of the fence posts.

I rode the Bay over, and it gave out a small mew. It let me pet it and purred beneath my touch.

"Quite a mess you made," I said.

At that, the cat took offense and hopped from its place on the fencepost, and disappeared into the brush.

Floyd wrote to us later with the details. The Lacey girl fully recovered. They had a closed door preliminary hearing.

According to her, she'd found the Doc's daughter after she'd already opened her wrists. There was apparently some disagreement on where the chest wound had come from. The Lacey girl wouldn't say, but I had a feeling it was an act of mercy.

The town got rid of the corrupted Barley, and the sickness disappeared as quickly as it had come.

As for the Doc, the Sherriff reported that he'd returned to drinking shortly after the trial.

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For more of Kurt Ryker and the Weird Weird West checkout

The Mutilators

The Legend of Si-Te-Cah