The Daughter by C.B. Cooper (best value ebook reader .txt) 📕

severed head of the man who had owned the wagon.
"I don’t know. Why don’t you go read."
"I'm not going to read it. You go read it. It's your town."
Jarvis frowned, "Thanks a lot."
Descending the stairs, he slowly walked out to the poles. The edges of the paper fluttered in the wind. At least the huge storm seemed to be over, all that was left now was the grey clouds and a strong breeze.
The townsfolk tracked him silently, their eyes glued, watching his progress. Jarvis couldn’t bare to look at the severed heads, so instead, he trained his eyes on the far side of the street. All the windows had been boarded up, and would probably be boarded up, for quite sometime. Glass was hard to come by out here. It would take months to order it and have it delivered this far into the wilderness. That pissed him off. How could he build a nice huge town with no store front windows? No windows in the resturant, or saloons either. Charlie had some in the store room at the back of the general store, but it wasn’t enough to fix all of the damage, not enough by half.
Angry now, he ripped the paper from the post, while trying not to look at the mans face above it.
He read the paper once, then read it again. Smashing it into a ball, he threw it down and ground it into the dirt with the heel of his boot.
Adams came down and met him out in the street. "What did it say?"
"It said, 'These men were killed because they were greedy bastards, just like you. Your next.'"
"Oh, that’s wonderful."
"Yeah, and you wanna know something else? It was written on a piece of paper taken from my desk— it had my letter head on it."
Jarvis turned to the crowd, "I've just upped the bounty. Twenty thousand to the man who finds that woman!"
Jarvis ground his teeth together. That bitch would pay… eventually.
That night, after a long stressful day, Jarvis sunk gratefully into bed. As an afterthought, he wished he would have sent for one of the women across the street. Preferably the red head— now she was a looker, and a pleaser. Plus, it would have been nice to have a warm body to snuggle up with.
Yawning, he thought, oh well. I'll send word first thing in the morning, so tomorrow night she'll be ready to go. Closing his eyes, he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
He woke up the next morning feeling well rested. There had been no knocks on the door in the middle of the night, no men bringing their dead wifes in an effort to claim the reward.
Stretching, he rolled over, his face brushing something on his pillow. Without opening his eyes, he felt with his hand. When he touched it, it crinkled beneath his hand. Dragging his eyes open he lifted his head to look.
A dirty piece of white paper lay on his pillow. The paper had been crumpled at one time, but now was smoothed flat. His letter head was on the top, and beneath it was the threatening words, scrolled elegantly across the paper.
"Awww!" he said jumping from his bed to the floor as if the paper was a coiled rattler, poised and ready to strike.
It was the same piece of paper that had been tacked to the post in the middle of town, that he himself, had balled up and smashed into the dirt. Who in the hell would have taken that paper and then put it on his pillow?
He got dressed quickly, then headed for the door. He'd been doing some thinking. It must have been Adam's, playing some sick trick on him. He had probably went back yesterday and got that piece paper, just to scare him with. That bastard. He was always so calm, nothing ever ruffled his feathers. So he probably thought it was funny that Jarvis was scared shitless.
Grabbing the doorknob, he mumbled, "I'm going to ring that fucker's neck," when a scream sounded from down the hall.
Swinging the door open and grabbing for his pistol at the same time, he ran out into the hallway.
The two guards that they had posted outside of their bedrooms, were already rushing through Adam's door. Jarvis ran too, running into the backs of the men just right inside the doorway where they had stopped.
"Goddamn it, get out of my way!" he shouted, pushing past them.
Adams was standing in the middle of the room, his eyes wide, his face pale, staring at his bed.
Like some crude headboard, three hearts had been pinned to the wall with knives. Above the hearts, were five names, written in blood.
Above the first heart it said, Fox, above the second and third, it read, Reed and Doyle. The next two names were written above empty spaces. They read, Adams and Jarvis.
Behind them, they heard more of their men pounding up the stairs, brought by the sound of Adams's scream.
They filed into the room, all staring at the same grotesque sight.
Beside him, Adams whispered in a quivering voice, "She was here. She was in my room."
Jarvis growled, "She was in mine, too." Turning to their men, he yelled, "How in the fuck did she get past you!" Glaring at the two men that had guarded their bedroom doors, he screamed, "You two fell asleep, didn’t you! How many fucking times do I have to …"
Above them, the ceiling creaked loudly. All eyes went to the ceiling, as the noise slowly moved along the length room, like there was someone up there tip-toeing around.
"What's up there?" Jarvis whispered.
Tom Coulter sided up to him, "I think maybe its an attic, Boss," he whispered, "Or a crawl space. I've never been up there."
"I think I know how she got in here. Get someone up there, right now. "

Johnny Belks eased himself up the ladder, poking his head into the attic. It was pitch black up there, except for a small window way down at the very end, that let in very little light.
Leaning back down he looked at all the men gathered in the hallway. "I need a light," he whispered, "It's as dark as a witches cunny up here."
One of the men ran to the other end of the hall and grabbed an oil lantern off of a side table. Lighting it, he passed it up to Johnny.
Setting the lantern in the attic, he crawled up inside. The roof was low, so he had to crawl on his hands and knees, keeping the lantern in front him with one hand, and hold his gun in the other.
He hadn't seen anything down by the little window, he so started crawling towards the other end, into the inky black darkness. He crawled past stacks of leftover lumber, laying here and there, haphazardly, and a few piles of extra cedar shake roofing.
Behind him, a dark shadow passed by the small window.
Johnny heard a noise off to his left, and swung the light on that direction.
Glowing eyes caught the light, and below them, the bared teeth were needle sharp.
Johnny cried out, his whole body tensing, then relaxing as he watched the intruder turn and run off.
One of the men down below, called out, "What is it, Johnny? What's up there?"
Hanging his head in relief, he yelled back, "It was a fucking raccoon."
Below, he heard the men grumble, then start to move off, all of them heading down stairs. Probably to have some coffee before they had to deal with the mess in Adams's room.
Sighing in relief, he turned back towards the hatch.
Johnny saw a new set of eyes catch the light. This time they glowed a brilliant red, and right below them, needle sharp teeth flashed again, right before the razor sharp blade of a knife slashed out, cutting his throat before he had a chance to scream.

It was barely eight o'clock in the morning, but the two men were already sharing a drink.
Adams grabbed his glass of whisky, his fancy gold rings chattering on the glass as his hands shook. Throwing his head back, he drained the glass in one big gulp.
Jarvis stood over next to the fireplace, leaning against the mantle, a small smile on his lips.
"What in the hell are you so happy about?"
"Nothing. Just enjoying the fact that your just as scared as me now."
Adams frowned, "I'm not scared."
"Yes you are, and you should be. I told you that woman was something to fear. Whoever she is— she aint fuckin' around."
Adams shivered as he remembered the human hearts pinned to his wall, "No, shit."
"Well, now that your properly frightened, how about we try to figure out a way to catch this bitch, or at least a way to keep us from fucking getting killed in the mean time."
Adams nodded, already deep in thought. "She got past our men, I don’t know how, but she did. What we need is more guns. I say we hire some of those miners to walk the streets at night. That way, we can keep all of our men right here. We'll put some in the front, some in the back, a few downstairs, and a few upstairs. Hell, we could have one right in our rooms, guarding our beds so we can sleep without getting our god-damn throats cut, if we want."
Jarvis smiled, suddenly feeling better than he had in days. "Now your thinking. I like it. Lets have our guys go round some of the men up."
Before they could summon Coulter, they heard shouting, then the sound of boots running, pounding across the wooden floors in the foyer.
"What the fuck is it now?" Jarvis spit, as he and Adams ran for the door.
The men were all gathered at the top of the stairs above them, watching a dark red stain, spread across the ceiling.
Panting hard at the top of the stairs, Adams asked the men, "What is that?"
"I think it's blood, sir."
Jarvis was horrified at the sight. Frowning, he asked, "Where's Johnny? I'm going to fucking kill him, for killing that raccoon. Look at the god-damn mess it's making!"
"Umm, I don’t think that’s from a raccoon, Boss."
Jarvis frowned, "What do you mean?"
Looking around at the men, Coulter shrugged, "Johnny never came back down."
"What!" Pushing his way to the ladder, Jarvis shouted, "Johnny! Are you still up there? Answer me god-damn it!"
Absolute silence followed as the men all held their breath.
"Answer me, Johnny!"
Coulter spoke quietly beside him, "I don’t think he can, Boss."
"What? Why not?"
Coulter nodded at the stain, "Because… I think that's Johnny."
Jarvis and Adam's blinked at each other. Neither could believe what was happening. One of their own men, killed right in the hotel. Right in broad daylight.
It was maddening. "What the fuck are you all doing standing here? Get up that fucking ladder!"

Sam and Zeb were sitting in front of the Gold Rush, when the front door of The Grand Hotel opened across the street, and Jarvis' and Adams' men poured out. They split up, each group running along the front, then down the sides, towards the back. They all had their guns drawn.
"Now, what do ya suppose those idiots are up to?" Zeb asked.
Sam frowned, "I don’t know. But somethings sure got them all stirred up."
They were still sitting there a while later, when a body wrapped in a bloody sheet was brought out the front door and thrown into the back of an awaiting wagon.
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