I am haunted. I tell you the truth.

Like so many others before me, I found as I approached my seventeenth birthday an overwhelming desire to test my mettle, to become my own man, and so I was led by insatiable curiosity to the western frontier to see for myself that golden land of opportunity and adventure where men were made overnight, either forged in the fires of adversity or blessed by Providence with wealth beyond measure in veins of gold or winning streaks at cards. This was my aim: to prove to my father that I was more than the son of a newspaper man. There would be no ink found beneath my fingernails but rather the dirt of my own land and hard calluses from the pickax I’d wield to claim my fortune from God’s green earth.

But alas, as with all good intentions and best-laid plans, Hell more often than not is the unforeseen destination, and so one night in the sleeping town of Warner Springs, I found myself penniless with no bed, no claim, and no plans for the future other than keeping out from underfoot. The local sheriff was a hard man who did not take kindly to vagrants sitting on the stoops in front of hotels or saloons or whorehouses, unable to afford the pleasantries that teemed within their walls.

To put it plainly, I had been swindled.

As a young man of schooling from the great city of Boston, Massachusetts, I should have known better; but at first I saw this frontier through rose-colored spectacles, as the saying goes. The man who promised me a fifth share of a certain claim—a “sure thing” in his words, a site that was releasing gold nuggets “like a bitch in heat”—took my money and vanished without a trace, and there was nothing the sheriff could do about it, reticent as he already was to come to my aid. As soon as I’d opened my mouth to speak, he heard the roots of my accent, and a look of utter disdain passed through his eyes. I have never experienced such prejudice in all my life.

Abandoned by luck, I sat on the stoop of the third hotel I’d visited that night, as the sheriff made his rounds and threatened me with no more than a withering stare—but it was enough to get me moving along the muddy streets and driving rain, my frock coat tugged tightly to shield both my chest and throat from the biting wind.

Warner Springs was not the land brimming with golden opportunity I had hoped for; rather it was no more than an uncouth frontier town that would forever leave a bad taste in my mouth. Hopes dashed by one foolish mistake—trusting a man I had no right to trust with a fortune I had no right to demand from my father, I vowed to survive the night if nothing else.

And even if I had been able to afford the train fare back to Boston, how could I have faced my father again?

“I will make a name for myself,” I had told him with my chin raised high and haughty. “You will see. I shall return richer after a month than you could ever hope to be by the time you fall upon your deathbed.”

The memory itself left a strong bitterness in my mouth.

The doors behind me crashed open as a man tumbled outside head over heels. I started to my feet, stepping out of the way as another man charged outside of his own volition, right hand hovering over the holstered six-gun at his hip.

“Mercer, you no good son-of-a-bitch!” this man roared, planting his feet on the boardwalk where I’d been sitting just a moment ago. “That’s the last time you cheat me out of a fair hand!”

A game of cards gone awry, by all appearances. I noticed there was no one else watching; the townsfolk seemed to have dissolved into the dark as soon as the ruckus started. Deciding it was in my best interest to do the same, I moved out of range of the hotel’s exterior lanterns.

The man in the muddy street rose to his feet and faced both the hotel and the angry fellow on its stoop. “You want to do something about it, Olson?”

“Damn straight I do!” Olson’s hovering fingers twitched with anticipation. “I’ll give you the count of three—”

“That doesn’t seem fair to me, you counting it off.” The man in the street backed off a step, then two, three, until he was halfway to the deserted mercantile shop.

“I sure as hell ain’t alright with you doing the counting, Mercer.”

“He’ll count for us then,” the man named Mercer said, pointing straight at me.

My heart jumped up into my throat at that, and I felt a bit dizzy all of a sudden. How had he spotted me there in the dark?

“I don’t see nobody.” Olson scowled. “You better not be trying anything, Mercer. I’ll gun you down right where you stand.”

“You’ll count it off, won’t you, son?” The man Mercer looked right at me like it was as bright as day out there.

“Y-yessir,” I managed.

Olson cursed, boots shuffling at the sound of my voice. “Fine. Count it off. Do it now!”

“One.” My voice came nearly inaudible. Mercer swept his mud-splattered coat aside to bare his holstered shooter. “Two.” Olson’s fingers kept twitching; his jaw muscle did the same, glowing in the lantern light off the hotel porch. Mercer just stared at him, his eyes pinpricks of light in the darkness. I swallowed the strong urge to flee burning inside me. “Three.”

Olson cleared leather first like the gunslingers did in all the dime novels I’d ever read, and he brought over his left hand to palm back the hammer with every shell he fired, pumping lead into Mercer’s chest like it was a target at a shooting gallery. The man Mercer didn’t stand a chance; Olson was that fast.

But Mercer remained on his two feet. Sure, he fell back a step or two as the bullets punctured him and the blood spurted outward like little gushers, but he didn’t fall.

“What the—?” Olson couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. “I put all six slugs into him!” Was he talking to me? Well, I couldn’t believe it either.

Mercer coughed, spitting blood into the mud at his side. He straightened his shoulders and cracked his neck, loosening up. “You already done?”

Olson cursed, fumbling with the shells in his gun belt, slipping them into the open cylinder of his revolver and glancing up at Mercer in a frenzy.

“Feel free to have at it.” Mercer laughed, extending his arms as if to an invisible crowd. “I’ll be here all night!”

“Ain’t right, ain’t natural,” Olson murmured, sweating now, his gun reloaded.

“You count it off again, son.” Mercer was looking at me.

“Go to Hell!” Olson fired another six rounds into Mercer, who just threw back his head and laughed. Olson started crying then, calling on the name of the Lord, beseeching all of Heaven to intervene. “Why won’t you die?” Olson was shaking. His fingers wouldn’t cooperate, and his empty six-gun dropped to the boardwalk with a clatter. “What kind of devilry is this?”

Mercer took a step toward him, then another, the lantern light glowing against the wet crimson of his shirt, all twelve of the bullet holes plain to see.

“Stay back!” Olson cried out, retreating, shaking his head like he was seeing something that shouldn’t even exist.

I was seeing the same thing, and I had to remind myself to breathe.

“Go ahead and take what I owe you in blood, Olson. This fleshbag has plenty more to give,” Mercer said with a grim smile. “Load up that shooter and let’s have at it. Hot lead hurts so good!”

“You should be dead,” Olson started repeating like a fervent prayer.

Mercer nodded. “You have no idea.” He slapped at his blood-drenched chest. “C’mon now, the fun’s just getting started!”

“Stay back. Don’t you come any closer.” Olson stumbled into the hotel and slammed the door behind him, bolting it shut.

Mercer laughed again, mirthlessly. Then he looked at me. “Sticking around, son?”

I had no words for him. My legs wouldn’t move; that was the only reason I remained rooted to the ground.

“Pick it up.” He gestured to Olson’s discarded six-gun. “You might need one of those.”

“Are you…all right?” I couldn’t believe he was able to talk, let alone stand upright.

He winced, fingering one of the holes in his chest, then another. “This bag of bones won’t last much longer, and that’s a fact. I’ll have to find me another one.” Half a smile tugged at one side of his unshaven face. “But first, maybe we’ll pay a visit to that swindler who took you for all you’re worth.”

“How do you—?”

“I see things.”

Well, that much was true. He’d seen me clearly in the dark. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin to look for him.”

Mercer’s legs gave out without warning then, and he collapsed to the mud with a groan. Despite my horror, I rushed to his side.

“Guess I was a little too optimistic.” He grimaced and reached out for me, gripping my forearm. “You take my gun belt, and you meet me at the undertaker’s. We’ll ride out tonight.”

I had no response to that.

“You hear me, son? You want that money of yours?”

“Yes.”

“Then you do as I say, and you don’t ask no questions. Meet me at the coffin shop.”

“But how—?”

“I said no questions.” He unbuckled the belt and whipped it off with a splatter of mud and blood. “Here. Now go.”

I just stood there like a lost fool. “You want me to go for the doctor?”

“No good. Go!”

I took off running down the street, and for all intents and purposes I’m sure it would have appeared to the sheriff that I was up to no good, leaving a man dying in the mud behind me while I carried off his weapon. But what else could I have done? I’d seen something that night that defied all logical explanation, and the man had said to meet him at the undertaker’s. So I did. That much of it I could do.

The heavy rain pelted my face, shuddering my eyelids, and in the darkness lit only by intermittent splashes of lantern light, I stumbled and nearly fell. Lightning brightened the sky, and a few seconds later thunder shook the heavens. I felt God watching me, and I could tell He was displeased.

My mucked-up boots thumped onto the plank sidewalk at the coffin shop, and I tried the handle. Locked. There were three empty pine boxes set up inside the front window, and I knew one of them would soon be holding Mercer’s body.

Meet him there? Twelve bullets in him, and he’d still been able to stand—even if just for a little while. I’d never seen anything like it in all my life. But then again, I hadn’t been in the West for very long.

A crash came from inside the shop, followed by footsteps thudding unsteadily toward the door. The bolt slid back, and I found myself face to face with a dead body.

“You made it,” the corpse rasped, grinning at me in another flash of lightning. An emaciated hand reached out for the gun belt I carried, and I was too frozen with fear to offer resistance. “I’ll take that. You got a horse?”

“Who-who are—?”

“The name’s Mercer, son. Now pull yourself together. Haven’t you ever seen a dead man before?”

In all honesty, I hadn’t. My grandfather’s funeral service had been closed-casket. Regardless, I’d never seen nor heard of any dead person walking or talking before, and so I was understandably at quite a loss for words.

“That son-of-a-bitch who took all your money, he lit out north this afternoon. I’m willing to bet he’s headed for Dry Gulch to try the same thieving shtick on a new crop up that way. We leave now, we’ve got a chance at catching him.” The corpse chuckled. “Only fools would ride in weather like this.”

“I-I don’t understand. You—” I glanced back down the street to where Mercer’s body remained, a formless shape abandoned in the dark. “Unless I’m mistaken—” I broke off, cringing as the corpse stepped toward me in a crisp new suit.

“We could waste time jawing about what I am and what I am not, or we can go after your money. What’ll it be?”

I blinked in a sudden gust of rain-driven wind. “Why are you so keen on helping me, Mister?”

Mercer buckled the gun belt around his narrow hips and cinched it tight. “You’ve got a chance here to set things straight in your life, son.” With that, he pushed his way past me and trudged across the street to the livery stables. I followed, drenched and chilled and knowing it would be getting a whole lot colder and wetter before the night was through.

Mercer untied his mount and motioned for me to take the one next to it. Fortunately, I knew how to ride; that wasn’t the issue.

“Isn’t this stealing?”

“Got a better idea?”

I did not; so I mounted up and steered the horse out into the rain behind Mercer, and kicking our steeds into a gallop, we left Warner Springs without so much as a single soul to bid us farewell. For this I was grateful, as I had read enough about the western frontier to know that horse-thieving was a capital offense, worthy of the gallows.

But did such laws apply to me anymore? I was riding with a man who had defied the laws of nature, having died only to return in a new body—albeit the corpse of an old man. Mercer’s ghost had not been carried to Heaven nor Hell after his last breath. He was still here on the earth, wearing a different “fleshbag” as he called it. I had to accept matters as they stood; but I could not begin to comprehend them.

“Have you made some kind of deal with the devil?”

Mercer chuckled drily, half-turning in the saddle to wink back at me. “I’m sure he thought so, once upon a time. But I don’t work for that imp anymore. Only for myself.”

“What’s in this for you?” I had to shout to make my voice heard over the thunder from above and the sloshing hooves of our mounts beneath us. “Why are you helping me?”

“I was like you once, son. The whole world was mine. But I made a bad choice, one I couldn’t ever come back from.” He paused. “You’re not there yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“You can go home again. I can’t. Not ever.”

He kicked his mount hard, digging his boot heels into the horse’s flanks, and I did my best to keep up. We rode all through the night with no respite in the downpour. I had never been so wet and cold in all my life, gritting my teeth together just to keep them from chattering.

But the ride afforded me plenty of time to ponder on this strange soul who led me along the trail, this man who was a man and who was not. Had he the ability to leave his body at will and assume the form of another? Or could he only animate the dead with his ghost? The whole idea shivered me on top of the shivers already quaking my frame from head to toe.

“That man Olson,” I said at length. “Did you cheat him?”

“What do you care?”

“You didn’t put up much of a fight for yourself.” It had seemed as though Mercer wanted Olson to gun him down.

“I’m no killer.” He glanced back at me. “You think we’re going after this swindler to kill him, is that it?”

I swallowed. “Aren’t we?”

“No, son. That’s the sort of thing you don’t come back from. We’re reclaiming your money, and that’s all.”

“And if he’s not keen on giving it back?”

Mercer chuckled. “He will be.”

We rode until the break of day and beyond, and I’ll admit I was a bit saddle-sore by the time the sun broke through clouds in the east as cold as steel, warming my back with its fresh morning light. I started thinking Mercer might have had more at stake here than he was letting on. Had he been swindled by the same man as I? Is that why he’d resorted to cheating at a card game—had he been so desperate to get back some of his money? Here I was riding with a ghost of a man who seemed to think I could have back everything I’d lost, but I started to grow certain he was in it for more than reasons solely altruistic.

Mercer drew rein as we approached what looked to be a small cave in an outcropping of rock dug into a rain-slick grassy knoll. He climbed down from his horse with elderly joints that crackled and popped as he moved.

“Excuse the racket,” he muttered, drawing his six-gun to take a closer look.

I held the reins to his horse and remained mounted.

Mercer kicked at a heap of ashes just inside the cave. They sparked at the disturbance. “Somebody spent the night here. They won’t be far ahead.”

He heaved himself back into his saddle with another series of crackles and urged his mount into a gallop. We’d ridden hard all night, and it didn’t seem that we would be slowing our pace anytime soon.

“How far is it to Dry Gulch?” It couldn’t be all that dry after the past week of heavy rains.

Mercer didn’t reply. He kept his gaze fixed straight ahead, eyes narrowed to slits as the sun burned away the cloud cover and shone hot on the muddy trail. I watched him and couldn’t help wondering. What had he ever done to deserve what was obviously some kind of curse upon his soul? To never be allowed to leave this earth—

“How many times have you died?” I had to know.

“Too many to count, son.”

“How old are you?”

Again, it didn’t seem that he would respond. But then he said, “You went to school, back East.”

“Yes, I did.” All six years of it—more than enough, I’ll tell you that.

“You learned about the Roman Empire?”

“Of course.” But truth be told, I didn’t know it from Greek.

“I was there.” He paused to let that sink in. “I stopped counting the years a long while ago. Didn’t see the point.”

I swallowed. This was too much. “You’re saying you’re… immortal?” I’d read about immortals in dime novels; but they were made-up stories, nothing you’re supposed to ever find in real life.

“I’m saying I’ve lived a long time. Long enough to know when somebody has a chance at making a better life for himself.” He shook his head at me. “This one isn’t it for you, son. I hope you realize that now.”

“Just because I made one bad decision—”

“That’s all it takes sometimes. Now you listen to me. We get your money back, and you take the next train back East. You go back to your father.”

My grip tightened on the reins. How did he seem to know so much about me? “I can make a life for myself here. I just…ran into some bad luck.”

Mercer’s gaze focused on something in the distance, and again he kicked his mount hard, forcing it to give him all it had left. I soon saw the reason for our haste: up ahead, a lone rider stood out on the ravaged trail, moving along at a leisurely trot. He glanced back when he heard Mercer coming, but by then it was already too late. Mercer had his six-gun out, firing two warning shots. One round knocked the rider’s hat from his head, and the other nicked his ear with a spurt of blood.

“Dismount!” Mercer shouted as he drew rein, and at first I thought he meant me. But he had his gun aimed at the thief before him who quivered in his saddle with both arms in the air, reins trailing down from his left hand.

It was the same fellow who’d promised me a fifth share in his claim. I couldn’t believe it. Mercer had actually found him.

“I don’t have anything worth killing for!” the man cried.

“Tell us your name, and let it be true.” Mercer’s corpse looked even more horrific in daylight, the skin ashen against that fine, rain-wilted suit.

The man gulped, Adam’s apple bobbing. “Sherman. Harry Sherman.” He blinked all of a sudden as if seeing Mercer for the first time. “But you…You can’t be!” Recognition and horror traded places in Sherman’s eyes, sparkling like blue marbles in the sun. “You’re dead!

“Sure about that?” Mercer grinned.

“I-I saw it myself…” Sherman’s hands started shaking. “What the hell’s going on here, Lowell?”

Lowell—the name that had once belonged to Mercer’s current fleshbag?

“Dismount, I said.” Mercer nodded at me while keeping both his gaze and his aim trained on Sherman. “Trade horses with this scoundrel.”

I dropped to the mud; it sank beneath me, sucking at my boots. Truth be told, I was all too eager to hand off that animal I’d stolen back in town.

“So you’re a horse thief now, is that it? Back from the dead to rob honest folk?” Sherman’s voice shivered as he climbed down from his mount.

“Keep your hands where we can see them.” Mercer had said he was no killer, but he seemed good enough with a gun to keep any man in line.

“I’ve got—” Sherman reached for his saddlebags.

“We know full well what you’ve got in there. Leave it be.”

Sherman stared up at Mercer. “Y-you’re not Lowell.”

“No. I’m not.”

I handed Sherman the reins to my stolen horse. “I don’t know what he is,” I admitted. “But do you remember me?”

Sherman took a while to focus his eyes on my face. “Sorry, son. Can’t say I do.”

“You took me for all I’m worth, Mister. You stole every cent I had. And you don’t even recognize me?” My free hand tightened into a fist.

“He’s done a lot of business around these parts,” said Mercer. “But now it’s come back to bite him in the ass.”

“Hey, listen,” Sherman began, but he didn’t finish. I hit him as hard as I could, right across the mouth, and it felt like I’d broken every knuckle in my hand. Sherman staggered back, reaching for the gun at his side.

“Don’t,” Mercer warned, backing up his mount for a clear shot. “Drop it.”

Blood oozed from the corner of Sherman’s mouth, but he did as he was told, slow and real careful. “You can both go to Hell!”

“Don’t tempt me.” Mercer fired a round between the man’s boots, and Sherman nearly leapt half his height. “Get on that horse and ride back to Warner Springs. Tell the Sheriff what happened here. Tell him old man Lowell’s back from the dead, whatever you want to tell him. But you clear out of here right now.”

Cursing beneath his breath, Sherman climbed into the saddle, and I tossed him the reins, all the while under the unblinking eye of Mercer’s gun muzzle. Without a word, the man galloped off, south along the trail we’d ridden. Mercer watched him go until he was almost out of sight. Then he climbed down, popping every joint.

“Let’s take a look, shall we?” He unbuckled one of the saddlebags, steadying the horse as he did so with a low, rhythmic murmur.

I retrieved Sherman’s gun and tucked it into my belt. “What’s to keep him from bringing back a posse or something and setting out after us? It’s just my word against his, you know. He could say he runs a legitimate business or some such, that my two hundred dollars is in his possession because I signed it away—”

“There’s plenty more than your two hundred here, son.” Mercer withdrew a sheaf of bills and grinned at me. “And I’m pretty sure some of it belonged to old man Lowell, among other luckless folk. Don’t you worry about Sherman. The sheriff will most likely have other plans for him.” He winked at me. “He’s riding a stolen horse, after all.”

I took my money in the tens and twenties he doled out to me, and I stuffed them deep into the front pocket of my trousers. I watched as Mercer took the rest for himself.

“How much is that?”

He shrugged. “What’s it matter? You’ve got what’s yours.”

“I think we should split it.”

“I don’t think so.” He turned to mount up, crackling all the way into his saddle. “Now, you just go on back home to your folks where you belong. That was the deal, remember?”

“I say we split it.” I had Sherman’s gun trained on the corpse in the saddle, though I can’t recall how exactly the weapon made its way into my hand.

Mercer didn’t look surprised, only saddened. “Go ahead and shoot me, son. You’ve seen what good it can do.” He kicked his mount and took off, but not before I’d emptied my shooter after his retreating form. I got him with at least three of the rounds, but there were no spurts of blood—just hollow thuds as each bullet punctured his back. He slumped low in the saddle, but he didn’t slow down. His horse bolted, scared by the shots.

For a second there, I considered climbing into the saddle of Sherman’s horse and following suit; my blood boiled so fiercely in both my ears, the hunger burning in my gut for double, maybe triple the money my father had given me. But then Mercer’s words came to mind:

“That’s the sort of thing you don’t come back from. You’ve got a chance to set things straight in your life, son.”

This man Mercer, if what he’d said about himself was true, and if what I’d witnessed for myself was real—him moving his ghost into a body from the undertaker’s shop—then I wouldn’t really be killing him if I destroyed the fleshbag he currently wore. I’d just be setting him free to find himself another one.

So that’s how I came to find myself riding hell-bent for leather, as the dime novels called it, after Mercer with Sherman’s horse straining forward against every one of my vicious kicks, with Sherman’s reloaded pistol at the ready in my grip. It wasn’t long before I caught up to Mercer; his horse had been driven hard all night long, and mine hadn’t. I didn’t waste time on words. I emptied all six rounds, and this time most of them found their marks. Mercer’s corpse shuddered in the saddle with the impact of each bullet, and slow as molasses in winter, he pitched forward and dropped into the mud, leaving his horse to run off alone.

I jumped to the ground and went through the pockets of that fine suit he wore, tugging out wads of bills as the frail body writhed and the throat strained to speak. I kicked the gun out of his limp hand and tugged off his gun belt, buckling it around my own waist, tucking Sherman’s shooter into the holster and sliding Mercer’s behind the buckle.

“Sure you want to do this?” the corpse rasped, fixing me with a sunken-eyed stare.

“You can’t die. You told me yourself.” I shook my head at him. “I don’t know what you are, Mister. But it sure as Hell isn’t natural.”

I climbed back into the saddle of Sherman’s mount—I was already thinking of the horse as my own, as with his gun and Mercer’s, and the hundreds of dollars in my pockets. There was no way any man would ever swindle me again. I would go to Dry Gulch and get myself a room at the nicest hotel and buy me a fine new suit like the one this creature wore, and I would be the Newcomer, the Wealthy Young Man from the East, the Investor. I would make a name for myself in this golden land of opportunity. I would become my own man.

“Goodbye Mr. Mercer, or Lowell—whoever you are. Maybe we’ll meet up again someday.” But I had no intention of ever crossing his path from that day forward.

The corpse lay back, gazing up at me. I could see where my bullets had pierced him straight through; there were seven holes burned out the front of his vest. He made no reply, looking deader now than he ever had before, the eyes dull and lifeless. Had Mercer’s ghost already left the premises? Was it hovering around me now, unseen by my mortal eyes? The idea of it filled me with dread.

Then I heard words spoken to me as if they had been drawn from my own mind and whispered by the voice of another, words that left me shivering with self-loathing and despair. The last words I had ever said to my father:

“I shall return richer after a month than you could ever hope to be by the time you fall upon your deathbed.”

And I knew then and there I had not witnessed the last of Mercer’s Ghost.

# # #

Mercer's Ghost by Milo James Fowler
originally published in the Summer 2012 print edition

 

 


Milo James Fowler is a teacher by day, writer by night. Visit him anytime at www.milo-inmediasres.com.

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