I recently wrote a short horror story and would like to share it. I wouldn't say it was horror, more suspensful in a dark nature-way. The setting takes place in the mid 1800s where a group of men have just been hanged, but each one tells a story on how they got there.

My inspirations were my dreams. I hadn't really read any books before I wrote this story. I started reading books fairly recently and I am really enjoying reading other author's stories. It's better than watching a movie, to tell you the truth.

I just finished Cormac McCarthy's No Country For Old Men and I've got to tell you, that is one great and enthralling book. I could not put it down. Now, I will need to watch the Coen Brothers adaptation on this great piece of literature.

Well, enough of that rant, here is my short story and I hope you enjoy it as much as I had writing it. Thank you and I look forward to your comments. Also, the story contains mild harsh language and some violence explained in detail.

Time Of Death?

By

Enigmawriter

The blistering heat of 1856 suffocates the atmosphere on the small Mexican pueblo of Múer Te. Windows from every building all over the small town are left open for the hopes of some type of gust to penetrate through to cool off hot surfaces. A few large crows soar through the orange sky, squawking away like strangled doves, they land on newer fresh dirt trying to find some other types of food to eat. The only thing they manage to find is fire ants crawling through parched dirt on the roads. Steam rises through the cracks of the dirt streets deforming the crow’s image like carnival mirrors do when someone looks at themselves in it.

The small town seems abandoned but the help of a local rejuvenates the pueblo. The undertaker has been preparing headstones by carving the information necessary on it. His tools, a metal mallet and a few different-sized iron rods with sharp ends on them, lie on a small wooden table. The iron rods have been used many times because of their dull appearance and chipped points, the most noticeable ones are the rusted ones that probably have been left out in the rain during that time the pueblo finally had a chance of rain which is uncommon in that part of the country in Mexico.
Señor Brindel, the undertaker of the small pueblo, pulls his black hat off and wipes the bundling sweat from his balding head with a gray handkerchief as he stares at the scorching sun. His scarred right eye periodically twitches, a wound he suffered when a chunk of iron broke apart and struck him dead on the pupil as he was chiseling a name on a tombstone. His tired liver-spotted hands discontinue the hard work he had been doing since sun up. He cleans his aged hands with his dirty gray handkerchief.

When the sun begins to drift downwards behind a mountain, Sr. Brindel decides to close his business for the night. He walks past a few freshly built coffins that he had constructed out of oak wood just a few hours ago. It’s difficult to get oak wood in that part of Mexico too; a few local men who work for the judge had to ship that special wood from the United States. These freshly built coffins rest on the side of his building upright. One coffin holds the corpse of the mayor of the small town, Mayor Enrique Gutiérrez.

The bloated body of Mayor Gutiérrez leans to one side of the coffin wall very stiffly like dried unwrapped cheese left over night. Flies have begun to circle around his distend shell of a body. His head hangs down to his chest. . .cramped, collecting his coagulated liquids. The bruises where the blood stopped flowing, stands out in the crease of his neck. We know he’s human, but he looks like a stiff, leathery puppet.

Brindel examines Mayor Gutiérrez from a small distance; he stares at him for a while like watching a waterfall, amused by the structure of the life cycle. Brindel gently places his firm hand underneath the mayor’s chin; the flies scatter around nervously searching for a place to land but without any effort. He lifts the head up slowly; the cracking sound of cramped bones and skin tremble under his palm like when a fat kid steps on a thin layer of ice that had built up in the pond and cracks slowly under the pressure; but Brindel does not seem to mind it at all because of all of the years he’s worked with the dead he has grown accustomed to the stiffness even when it’s prominent figures like the mayor. He stares at the clean-shaven mayor, but what really intrigued him were his eyes; his lifeless dark eyes riddled with veins and accumulated patches of dried blood underneath the pupil. It’s like he is staring into a mirror…neither comprise an expression on their faces, just motionless time passes by. He releases his hand under the chin, but the mayor’s head does not droop down, it stays positioned on his shoulders. Brindel’s amusement fades away as he notices the sun still shining brightly, soaking his neck with sweat. He gently pulls down Mayor Gutiérrez’s eyelids like a window blind.

Brindel grabs his handkerchief and wipes his sweaty neck. A gust of wind picks up and gently blows the handkerchief away from Brindel’s fingers. The dirty gray handkerchief floats downwards to the brown dirt slowly and fades to a deck of playing cards suddenly that land on a brown oak table filled with money, mugs of beer and cigar butts on a cigar tray.

Inside a clammy saloon, three men are playing poker. On the table in front of them, they have wagered a sum of 110 pesos; a lot of money back then in Mexico. One of the men is Mayor Gutiérrez, laughing up a storm with his half smoked cigar in his thin-lipped mouth; he sometimes discards the ash from his cigar in the tray. He is a lively man sporting a full gray beard and a brown suit for his status of mayor of his pueblo. In his presence are two unlucky men, Guillermo Sánchez and Pablo Rodríguez.

Guillermo and Pablo hold their deck of cards close to them not letting anyone see their numbers. Pablo’s forehead tears with fear of losing once again. He looks down at his cards, a bead of his sweat drips down to his three of hearts soaking it. Another bead of sweat drops again and strikes a sheet of newspaper, soaking some words in Spanish that spreads the ink written on it in all directions.

Pablo, now holds a piece of tan-colored newspaper in his hands instead of the playing cards, he’s remembered something. He stares sadly at an image printed onto it. “Leticia, mi pobre Leticia.” Pablo tears up once again at his darling Leticia. The piece of paper he holds is a picture of his missing daughter.

“So you want me to help or what?” said a man in a dark suit and black hat.

His face is unrecognizable always shadowed by the brim of his hat stopping the sun from exposing his features.

“So, what’s it going to be? Yes or no.” He turns to the tearful Pablo.
“Yes. Yes,” Pablo’s voice cracking.
“It’s going to cost you.”
“How much?”
“90 pesos.”
Pablo closes his eyes in thought.
“So…,” the shadowed man persists.
“I’ll get the money. But please find her for me while I get it.”
“That’s not part of the deal. You know that.”
“Please, she’s all alone.”
“She’s with Pancho, you know that. Either you join him or pay him. It’s only fair.”

Pablo closes his eyes again as a tear rolls down his nose. He opens his eyes staring at the three of hearts he now holds.

“Well what’s it going to be?” The mayor says.
Pablo tosses his cards on the table on top of a wad of cash.
“How about you, son?” The mayor asks again.

Guillermo looks around the saloon, a large room filled with patrons drinking beer and having fun. Guillermo reaches for a mug of beer and gulps it down, trying to waste some time. He scratches his five o’clock shadow scraping it like a rake on dried leaves. He bites his lips continuously as he stares at the cards Pablo tossed on the table. As he notices the three of hearts and the covered eight of clubs, he begins to grin, but his heart continuous to pound and pound and pound.

An elderly woman relaxes her withered body on a bed, slowly dying. The air she breathes in is difficult for her lungs to contain as she continuously coughs up specs of blood. Guillermo sits next to her holding her liver-spotted bony hand.

“Mamá, please don’t go. Stay here with me.”
“Hijo, listen to me,” she slowly says.
“Don’t talk, rest.”

A medical doctor walks into the room wearing white clothing. Guillermo places his mother’s hand close to her chest and stands up to talk to the doctor. The loose boards on the floor spring up and creak as he walks to the doctor.

“Any good news, Doctor?”
“There is medicine to help your mother, but it is expensive.”
“How much?”
“You do realize that your mother is very ill, especially with her age.”
“How MUCH!”
“110 pesos.”

Guillermo shuts his eyes in grief. He turns to his mother and makes contact with her cloudy eyes. She stares back and shakes her head, “no,” as if to say, “I’m giving up, it is time for me to go.” His attention goes back to the doctor.

“Now if I buy this medicine, will she get better?”
“She’ll improve, but she will need to take it for the rest of her life. It’s expensive, Guillermo.”
“I can’t see my mother go, I can’t let her go. I will get you the money you just make sure you help her stay with us.”
“That’s over 100 pesos.” The mayor says grinning.
He inhales a large amount of smoke from his cigar making the front of the cigar light up a blood red. He releases the puff of smoke into the dense atmosphere scattering around like a manifesting ghost.

“Well, drop your cards young man. Let me see what you’ve got.” He chuckles making his belly jiggle. He points his eyes and fixes his gaze at Guillermo letting him know that he wants to know what the cards hold. He puffs once more from his half smoked cigar making the end of his cigar light up with fire; which fills the room with dense smoke.

The fire grows bigger engulfing the cigar making it fall apart as it ashes up. The fire reaches the mayor’s thin lips burning it too, his beard melts to his face as the fire becomes bigger and bigger. It reaches his whole head melting his eyeballs like rubber, but this is not the mayor, it is the burning body of a young man.

Mayor Gutiérrez stands under the lit moon in front of a burning body. The mayor pulls out a cigar and a match from his breast pocket. He places the cigar in his mouth and strikes the match on his boot heel, but the match does not light up. Mayor Gutiérrez approaches the burning body and extends the match toward some flames and the match lights up. He bites the end of the cigar and spits it out at the burning body. He smirks at the sight and lights his cigar. His smile fades down as he walks away from the heat.

He approaches two horses standing in the middle of the dirt road. Mayor Gutiérrez pats one of the horses on the rump making the horse trot a little but staying in place. A painful scream bellows out from between both horses.

“Shut up!” The mayor says.
He stares down at a woman strapped with a thick rope on both wrists and feet. The woman has been tied up to both horses.
“Why are you doing this?” The woman says.
“Because I can.”
“Please, let me go,” the desperate woman cries in pain.
“If I let you go, do you promise to die. Of course you wouldn’t. Your husband is a—I mean, was a stupid man. You see what happens when you mess with me? You die, simple as that.”

The mayor laughs again as he slaps the ass of the horse very hard. The horse jumps into the air forcefully making the other horse gallop the other way. The woman howls in pain as the straps on her tighten and pull, stretching her bones apart from their sockets. The mayor puffs away at his crusty cigar leaving tobacco cloud trails in the dark atmosphere as he walks away from his macabre deed.

The silhouette of a tall man stands before the carnage. The moon’s illumination tries to brighten his face, but the nature’s darkness prevents it. The long duster he wears sways around him like a flag from the small gusts of wind that push forward periodically. As the flames die down, the shadowed man turns and walks away into the darkness, disappearing.

Through the darkness, a few playing cards whisk by which scatter on the playing table. The mayor chuckles making his belly tremble like a Mexican jumping bean. Mayor Gutiérrez pulls his cigar from his tarred mouth and calls for whisky.

“This has got to be my lucky day. I just can’t seem to lose.” The mayor says.
“This can’t be happening. This cannot be happening!” Guillermo cries out.
“Sorry, muchachos, but that’s how the game is played. Hasta la otra, huh?”

Mayor Gutiérrez piles up all of the money on the table and stuffs it inside his vest pocket…and leaves the table.

Sheriff Rubén Calderón approaches the two disappointed players. His brown hat neatly covers his head and timidly shadows his rough, unshaven face but he looks good even in his bad days.

“Perdón, jóvenes. Mind if I sit here?” He says shallowly. “I see that you have fallen into a trap.”
“Que dices?” Pablo says.
“Yeah, what do you mean?” Guillermo says grimly.
“You two have been swindled. The mayor pulled a fast one on you two. Didn’t you notice his right hand? It was always tucked under the table. He had some cards pinned to the bottom of the table.”
“Why are you telling us this now, why not earlier when I could have stopped playing!” Pablo says. “I’m never going to see my daughter again.”
“He is going to pay big time!” Guillermo says.

He turns his attention at the mayor sitting on a stool talking to the bartender. His eyes turn dark in rage and his teeth clench together for hatred. Guillermo stands up from the table knocking over his chair not caring a bit for the tumbled ”ass” rest that has scatted in chunks on the rough wood. Pablo joins Guillermo.

“I’ll go get the son-of-a-bitch!” Pablo says.

Pablo quickly makes his way to the mayor who continuously gulps down whisky juice. Guillermo eyes the pistol in Sheriff Calderón’s holster. He steals the pistol from the holster like his life depended on it and hurries himself to the mayor. Sheriff Calderón races to stop Guillermo but he is too late. The blast from the gun penetrates through the Mayor’s bosom collapsing his right lung. And the mayor falls and Pablo falls. The bullet had penetrated through the mayor which ricocheted and clobbered Pablo in the neck.

Sheriff Calderón apprehends Guillermo leaving the mayor bleed to death on the cold wooden floor. Mayor Gutiérrez gasps for breath as he clenches his chest tightly. His blood leaks out of him like a geyser, shortening his life minute by minute.

Pablo lays on the floor, under a puddle of his own blood, limp from death.
Most of the patrons scatter their way out of the saloon leaving a mess of beer piss on the table. Some were smart enough to take their pitchers of beer with them.

“Why did you shoot him? Answer me!” the Sheriff says.
Guillermo opens his mouth in grief but no words ever come out.
“You’re coming with me.”
Brindel stares at two headstones that rest on the side of his building soaking up the heat. He picks up his old handkerchief from the parched ground and dusts it off. The streams of dust particles dissolve into the air as it leaves the old rag. The first headstone reads,

“Here Lies Mayor Enrique Gutiérrez: En páz Descanse”

The other headstone reads,

“Guillermo Sánchez: BORN 1821 – SHOT AND KILLED 1856”

Brindel walks over to a ladder leaning up against his building. He takes it, but it is too heavy for him. He searches around the pueblo but doesn’t notice anyone but bar patrons entering and leaving the saloon. No one is willing to help out. He uses his old hands and his old strength to pull the heavy ladder over to a scaffold holding one man hanging from a thick rope, poor Guillermo.

Brindel sets the ladder up reaching half way up Guilerrmo’s torso but still good enough for Brindel’s purpose. He pokes at Guillermo with his fingers making the body sway back and forth like playing solitary tetherball in a Catholic schoolyard.

“Well, you’re dead my friend.”

He reaches to untie the ropes from Guillermo’s swollen wrists. The rope around his wrists prevented his blood from circulating and has now caused his fingers and palms to bruise up with coagulated blood. The rope around his neck has tightened to the point where one of his eyes has popped outward from its socket leaving eye goo around the eyelashes. His sweat has covered his whole body, making it easier for flies to devour it. His swollen face is worse than his hands with all of the veins that have pulsated outwards from his skin.

Brindel pulls out a dagger from inside the sleeve of his boot and begins to carve the rope like he would to a turkey. Little by little, the rope strands begin to loosen by the dull edge of the blade.

“Just one more and that should do it.” He says.
Brindel notices Sheriff Calderón walking up to him.
Sheriff Calderón stops by the mortician as he passes by across the street.

“He’s going to be heavy to drag. Where’s your wheel barrel?”
“The wheel's broken.”
“Oh, well, go on then.”

The sheriff walks away, tipping his hat at some passing women heading to a saloon.

Sheriff Calderón steps on some dog turd a Labrador left behind. He curses and wipes his boot on the dirt ground. He drags his boot heel across the ground heading towards a Western Union. He rests his hand on the butt of a brown horse stationed in front of the building. Calderón checks his boot heel; he eyes some turd scraped between some grooves. He begins to wipe the boot again.

Francis Wyatt, an employee of the Western Union, steps out and stares at the Sheriff who has not yet seen him.
“What are you doing Sheriff?”
“What the hell does it look like I’m doing? You gotta stick?”
At that moment, the horse begins to relieve itself too.
“That’s all it’s been all day, shit everywhere!” The sheriff says.

Calderón shakes his leg releasing particles of turd as he walks away. He turns his whiskered face at Brindel. He notices the coffins resting upwards on the side of the parched wood of the building and the worn out paint that has been beaten up by the strong rays of the sun.

The sun has gone down now, and only the red and orange hues are seen dissolved in the sky. Sheriff Calderón sets his dark-blue eyes on one specific coffin. Mayor Gutiérrez rests uncomfortably upwards in the coffin. His body leans to one side while his head stiflingly stares at him.
"It's amazing. It's amazing how death comes to us all in different ways."
He walks to a saloon approaching the swaying doors.

When he enters the swaying small doors, a few bearded and ugly-looking drunk patrons stare up at him. Some commence playing poker, some try to finish their mugs of beer and bottles of whisky.

Calderón walks to the bar and sits on the barstool. He pats his front pockets to feel if he has any change, he does. He greets the bartender like he always does everyday at this particular time of the day. The bartender greets him back smiling at him with his tartar teeth. The bartender grabs a dirty red rag from the counter and then a mug glass from the shelves behind him. He cleans the exterior and the interior of the mug with little effort.

"So, what you want? The usual?" The bartender says gleefully.
"Yeah, better make it double this time. I feel down tonight." Sheriff Calderón says slowly.
"You got it, Sheriff."

The bartender pours some beer in the mug and then he adds bourbon and whisky to it. He shakes it around a few times to dilute the mixed liquid alcohol. The liquid appears almost similar to the sunset outside that is now dying. The bartender wipes the rim of the glass mug with his dirty wet rag and then leaves it on the counter top. He places a coaster under it so that the oak wood will not wear out. The bartender proceeds to wipe the dust and alcohol liquid on the counter.
Sheriff Calderón drinks a few times and reminisces about how the taste of the alcohol enlightens his body and his brain. He wonders to himself which man created alcohol, he wishes to thank him.

A few drunks from a table begin to wale out in screams and laughter after a poker game. One stands up and stumbles to the bar counter. He loses his balance and slams his body against Sheriff Calderón's body. The burgundy drink spills out of Calderón's mug and lands on his vest and pants, staining the fabric like dried blood.

The sheriff stands up in a menacing way and scorns the drunken man. Then a thunderous strike in the room echoes out, bouncing around the walls and floor. Calderón looks down at his hand and notices the mug he still holds has been shattered leaving only the handle gripped in his hand. It had been shattered by something that Calderón does not know. He begins to go weak, his eyesight blurring. He stares at the drunken man laughing at him. The laughter begins to fade out slowly and the sheriff goes deaf. He looks down at his belly and notices the maroon alcohol spilling out of him like a faucet left on low. The maroon color turns bright red. He stares up again at the drunken man who holds a colt revolver smoking from its barrel, pointed at him.

Calderón's mouth opens wide in disbelief, and stares at the drunken man again. Before his sight fades to black, now that his hearing is no longer working, he sees the drunken man's face blow apart to one side. Like slow motion, Calderón sees blood and eyeballs exploding onto him followed by chunks of flesh, tongue and broken teeth spurting outwards on the mahogany floor. He turns towards the bartender and sees the owner of the bar holding a sawed-off shotgun with dense smoke floating upwards from its barrel.
A patron rushes over to the downed sheriff and locates the blood pouring out quickly on the wood floor from Calderón's gut.

"Are you all right, sheriff?" The patron shockingly says.
"How strange in deed.” The sheriff says slowly, “how strange in deed." He dies slowly, his eyes still open.
Outside the saloon, in the evening sky, Brindel still struggles with the rope.
“What the hell is wrong with this stupid blade?”

The dead Guillermo kicks his legs around knocking Brindel on the hard ground. Brindel could hear his thigh bone crack under him. Tears begin to drool down his cheeks from the pain he suffered but his heart begins to quickly beat as he looks upon the struggling Guillermo trying to free himself. The gurgling sound coming from Guillermo’s mouth prevents him from talking. “Geerrttt kneerr drroun from erre!”

Brindel’s old heart pulsates slower and slower every other second until his carcass neatly rests under his broken leg with the last image imprinted into his brain, the hanging body of Guillermo struggling to breathe.