Monster Cowboys The Book

Chapter Seven (Ghost Story)

(Flash Forward 120+ years)

The graveyard was quiet... Too Quiet. The graveyard was on the outskirts of an Old West town. The town was a popular, and living, tourist attraction, as the place was both home and job for those there. While they lived and worked in a nearby city for most of the year, come summertime, when school was done for the year, the people would go to the town and dress up in mid-late nineteenth century outfits, including the children, and do things as if it was the eighteen-seventies, meaning that there were no cars, no MP3 players, no cell phones, or other such things. This was done on account of the fact that this was where their great-grandparents had lived.

The graveyard however was quiet, and one night, just after the tourist season had ended; it was very quiet, too quiet. Suddenly, the sounds of one man breathing heavily and running are heard. His name is Richard, and he is an accountant from a sales company. At the moment, he is running for his life.

"Why didn't I go for the other option?" he asked himself, as he looked back to see his pursuer coming at him with inhuman speed. "Oh please God! Send someone to help me deal with him."

Suddenly, he bumped into something. It was a man in a cowboy outfit, from the ten-gallon hat, to the spurs on his boats, and a six-gun on his waist, with a cartridge belt.

"Get behind me kid," the figure said, as the man's pursuer came into the moonlight, revealing itself to be a werewolf.

"I see that you've found my supper," the werewolf said. "Hand it over."

However, the stranger said, "Get out of my graveyard before I have to dig one for you."

"Ha, like I'm scared of a human in some cowboy outfit," the werewolf said. "I bet that those guns are loaded with blanks."

At this, the stranger pulled out his revolver and shot it, nicking the man's ear.

"While the rest may shoot blanks during the tourist season, I don't," the stranger said, cocking the gun and aiming it at the werewolf's head. "Now, get out of here before I change my mind."

With that, the werewolf started running.

"Thanks for the save," Richard said, as the strange cowboy-like man turned to face him. "I owe you man."

"Not at all," the stranger said. "I was just on my way over when I heard you cry for help. Of course, you could listen to a story that I have."

"What kind of story?" Richard asked.

"The story of Jack Clawtooth," the stranger said. "A werewolf who learned what it meant to be human."

"I've heard of him," Richard said. "Legend says that he fought a dridder to save the town when the man took it over with five thousand ex-soldiers."

At this, the stranger chuckled and said, "The number always seems to grow with each retelling. However, in actuality, there were only one hundred fourteen of them, and not all of them were soldiers. Also, he fought to regain his family, after his wife and kids left him after he killed a man in New York, and a cop at that. Well, his wife and kids lived in town for a couple of years, she supporting them by running a school, so that she could teach the children in town their numbers and letters, when the dridder showed up and took the place over. The man forced her to marry him, and sold her kids to be slaves to some of his top men. By this time, Jack came west, both to find his family and escape the noose, as killing a cop was a hanging offence in those days. Also, he'd made a promise, to never use his wolf form, not even if it meant the difference between life and death for him.

"Well, one day, he heard a rumor that his family was in town, so he and a couple of his friends, Lahorn, a Texas minotaur, and Lefleet, a Southern centaur who preferred male lovers to female ones, came to town, as they needed to get supplies for the Double D, the ranch they worked at, anyways. Well, after saving one of the whores, or prostitutes as they are called now days, Jack found out that his family was in town, but in a bad way. So, he went to the saloon, and located the ringleaders. With that, he started planning."

"Did he kill them there?" Richard asked, taking notes, as he was also a writer in his spare time.

"No, he didn't," the stranger said. "Instead, he played a game of cards with them, and cheated them out of three hundred dollars."

At this, Richard whistled. That was almost ten thousand in current times. "Impressive," he said.

"I know," the stranger said. "However, it wasn't until the next day that the dridder realized the truth. But, by then, it was too late. Jack had sent word to the tribes of Native Americans around here, including one lead by a Souix war chief called Red Horn, whose tribe had been driven from the Great Plains. Also, he had sent word to the nearby ranches, as the dridder and his men stole cattle so that they wouldn't eat too many of the townspeople. But, most importantly, he played an off-key version of 'My Darling Clementine' with a harmonica his wife had given him for their wedding anniversary"

"How was that important?" Richard asked, as he never heard about this in the stories he'd heard, and he wondered who the stranger was.

"The song lifted the spirits of the people," the man said. "The next day, when Jack made his attack, the townspeople and the Native American warriors joined in, and together, they beat most of the men. However, Jack took on the three ringleaders himself, cutting off the manhood of the one who'd been using his daughter as a sex-slave, hanging the one who'd been treating his son as a pet, and keeping him on a very tight leash. As for the dridder, whose name was Jessie, Jack shoved his fist down the man's throat and had him choke on it."

"Well, what happened after that?" Richard asked. "Did he die of his wounds or did he live? Did he stay in town with his wife or leave?"

"Oh, I'm not going to tell you that tonight," the stranger said. "After all, the sun's coming up, and I love sunrises."

At this, Richard turned around, and saw the sun coming up.

"It is nice," he said.

"I know," the stranger said. "Lefleet always watched them when we were on night watch."

"Wait, what did you say, and who are you?" Richard asked, turning around to look at the stranger. However, no one was there, and he was missing his notebook. Then, he heard something, a harmonica playing an off-key version of "My Darling Clementine".

However, when he got to town, and told them about his experience, the historian, an elderly werewolf, said, "The person you are describing is a familiar face, one that I see every morning that I get up."

With that, the old man led Richard into a room that had an old picture.

"This is Jack Clawtooth, my great-great grandfather," the werewolf said. "I've seen his face every morning for the past seventy years, since nineteen forty, when I was born. However, this morning, it was different from what it is normally."

"Why's that?" Richard asked.

"The picture never had him giving a smile like this, and he never had a journal," the werewolf said, walking away.

At this, Richard looked at the picture, and saw that the journal was really his notebook. As for the smile, it was the one he'd seen on the strange cowboy after he'd saved his life.