Cookie
A Deadlands™ Story
Shane Lacy Hensley
It was an event of momentous proportions. Some of the greatest legends of the West had gathered together in Deadwood for a single purpose. Cookie didn’t know what that purpose was. He was just the cook. Hence the name. But he was sure it was important.
He’d heard something about a “Twilight Protocol,” something that brought Texas Rangers, Union agents, and independent lawmen alike to the city, but he didn’t know much more than that. It must have been important to bring them through the fickle Sioux Nations though. Especially after the recent troubles.
But then, there were always troubles out here.
Despite all the talk of a ceasefire, the North was still at war with the South, Deseret was its own nation in what was once Utah territory, California had split not only into the Maze after the devastating Great Quake of ’68, but also into North and South territories as the nation’s wounds continued to keep it apart.
All that was fine by Cookie. Armies had to eat, and someone had to cook all that food.
He wasn’t a great cook, but he was resourceful. He could feed a company with a few pounds of turnips, chewy meat scraps, and moldy bread. He’d done it, in fact. More than once.
He’d cooked and served chow for over twenty years. From the battlefields of the East to the new ones out West. He’d served the rail bosses and enforcers at the Battle of the Cauldron of the Great Rail Wars and even made it to Alaska once—though that adventure had cost him a toe.
Today, Cookie had plenty of ingredients. The Earp boys had brought him an elk and Ranger Hank Ketchum had dragged in an antelope. Bat Masterson had come to town with a brace of conies, and “Bad Luck” Betty McGrew drove a wagon full of potatoes, carrots, and onions in from Rapid City. The always smiling Bass Reeves somehow found enough apples and molasses to make pies.
It would be a feast fit for a… well, maybe not a king… but certainly fine fair for these august personalities.
Cookie sharpened his cleaver one last time and got to work carving.
* * *
“Where you goin’, little missy?” the tall stranger sat atop a white horse. It wasn’t symbolism. It was almost exactly as it appeared. His name was Jasper Stone, and he served Death itself.
The girl scratched at her head. Flakes fell from her long, tangled black hair. She’d clearly been wandering the area around the Black Hills for days. She stopped, somewhat dazed, and looked up at the Servitor of Death. He was terrifying to behold—gaunt, white skin stretched taut by undeath, a rictus smile upon a face that wasn’t built for anything but cruelty, and dead but somehow sharp eyes. He wore a ragged brown coat and a ratty top hat with a bloody feather in it—recently taken from a Sioux brave who dared cross Stone’s path.
But Millicent wasn’t afraid. She had her own secret.
She looked up at the man on the horse with glazed eyes and rubbed down her dirty gown more out of habit than any effort to clean up or impress.
“I’m lookin’ for people,” she said, her voice dry and almost as raspy as Stone’s.
Stone looked about. “Your people?”
“Just… people,” she replied.
“You need water, little one.” Stone looked on the back of his horse to a collection of packs and other items that weren’t his. One was a canteen. He plucked it off and handed it down to the girl. He smelled her secret. Death did not speak directly to Stone, but he could sense when someone—or some thing—had common cause with his master’s aim to bring about a literal Hell on Earth.
Millicent took the canteen. Though it was covered in dirt and maybe a little caked blood, she didn’t seem to mind. She slurped it down and gazed out through the woods and over the prairie. Toward Deadwood.
“Yup. That way, little one. Go there and do what you do. It will save me some effort.” Stone looked out toward the distant speck that was Deadwood himself. “Not that I mind. But let’s see what happens. A little mayhem is right up my alley.”
* * *
The papers were there to cover the event, despite it being at least nominally secret.
Reporters from the Black Hills Weekly and even the Chicago Tribune were on hand, probably following the gunslingers or the increasingly famous Bass Reeves. Cookie was especially impressed to see the famous Lacy O’Malley of the Tombstone Epitaph in his trademark white suit and hat. Everyone knew O’Malley, but none of the big gunslingers, agents, or Rangers seemed to care for him much. That was fine by Cookie. It meant he might get a little of the renowned newsman’s time.
“Evenin’, Mr. O’Malley! Will you be joinin’ us for the dinner?” Cookie said a bit too enthusiastically. He tried to cover his eagerness by hacking at the elk’s loins again, then busily and pointlessly stirring the hot water he’d set to boiling.
Lacy O’Malley was a blonde-haired Irishman in his early forties going on untold eons. He’d seen things few others would believe in their wildest nightmares, and it showed in his tired but sparkling blue eyes.
He looked Cookie over. Every chef in the West was called “Cookie” it seemed. This one seemed no more special than any other. He was tubby with a dirty white shirt covered in blood and grease. His red face was topped by an equally red, bald pate… the former courtesy of the hot cook stove and the latter from the deceptively bright South Dakota sun. It was August, after all. Come winter, it would be just as red and cold as Hell.
“Yes. Yes, I will,” Lacy nodded as if he were considering it. Truth be told, traveling so far from his home in Tombstone, Arizona, funds were always short. If he could get in on this big feast for free, he wouldn’t complain.
“Say, Cookie, do you know…” he paused, remembering his manners. Or at least what passed close enough to get him what he wanted. “Is that your real name, Cookie?”
The chef grinned sheepishly. “Nah. It’s Milton. But no one calls me that. Cookie’s fine.”
Lacy nodded, his look of concern quickly changing to a friendly smile wide as the Great Plains. “Say, Cookie. What’s all the hubbub for? Any idea? That’s quite the gathering, isn’t it?”
Cookie nodded, eyes wide. “Most famous table I’ve ever set. Some law dogs from Kansas City. Bass Reeves. “Liver Eatin’” Johnson. The Earps. Masterson. Those dime novel folks… Lynch, “Bad Luck” Betty, Van Helter. You read those dime novels, Mr. O’Malley?”
Lacy’s grin turned slightly sardonic. “I sure have.” Memories of the trio’s adventures ran through his head. The dime novels made them sound heroic and romantic, but Lacy remembered the gore and the death and the abject terror of learning just what kinds of things lurked in the dark corners of the Earth. “I’ve… read a few.”
Lacy changed the subject. “So what have you heard? About the gathering, I mean.”
“Not much. The US agents hired me from Denver. I was workin’ at this place called the Buckhorn, and I guess they liked something they ate. Said they needed a cook for a big important meal. Pay was good and I like to get around so here I am.” O’Malley seemed to be losing interest. Cookie struggled to think of something that might keep him around a little longer. “Oh! I saw some of the Sioux puttin’ in totems around the town. Some kinda protective boundary, I reckon. The agent who hired me, Mr. Jones… though I don’t think that’s his real name… said somethin’ about ‘stayin’ within the totems.’ I don’t really understand all the politics here, but there’s a whole bunch o’ Sioux livin’ in town now. A few are joinin’ us for dinner, I hear.”
Lacy looked up Broadway and across Gold Street. He could see Sitting Bull and some of his people camped out there. He’d talk to them next. “Anything else?”
Cookie thought for a moment. Remembered something. “Oh, I did hear Wyatt… that’s one of the Earps… say something about a ‘Twilight Protocol’ when he was talkin’ to that Ranger from Texas. Ketchum, I think is his name. That mean anything to you, Mr. O’Malley?”
Lacy nodded. He knew exactly what it meant. The protocol was a truce between the North and South, who’d been engaged in a long cold war with occasional hot flashes since 1860. It was now August 1881. The public thought the hostilities had died down, but Lacy and a few others knew that was only because the two governments had finally caught on to something far more dangerous… an event they called the Reckoning. Lacy believed the Reckoners were the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse… like right out of the Bible. They’d brought magic and monsters back into the world and some said even changed history. A shaman he shared a vision quest with once told him the Civil War shouldn’t have lasted more than five years. It was already going on a decade, on and off. The movers and shakers at this gathering were almost certainly aware of all that, and they’d only gather for something momentous.
“What else is going on around here, Cookie? Anything that might have attracted such a hall of fame?”
Cookie shrugged. “Ain’t heard nothin’. Just been here a few days myself. There was that war a few months back.”
Lacy frowned and started to amble away.
“Oh wait, Mr. O’Malley.” Cookie’s enthusiasm got the better of him once more. “I guess I did hear one thing. That Injun that started the Battle of Deadwood is still on the run somewhere in the Black Hills. Maybe they’re afraid he’s gonna do it again? I dunno though… I thought the Sioux wanted his scalp more than the government did, but… well… I don’t follow these things so much. I’m just a cook.”
Lacy nodded, gave a half smile, and went off to annoy some of the more famous faces he spied around Deadwood.
Cookie didn’t mind. He’d just talked to one of the most famous people in the West. And he was gonna make O’Malley and the rest one hell of a feast.
* * *
“Hey, little girl. Are you okay?” Wyatt Barry Stapp Earp stood in the yard of Dingler’s Whirligigs. His brother Morgan eyed an autogyro and was considering a ride, but the ever-cautious Wyatt had cast his aspersions as hard and silent as death.
Wyatt had left Morg to stare at the New Science devices and headed toward a small figure east of the shop when a young girl, maybe twelve or thirteen years old had just wandered out of the woodline. Her hair was a mess, her dress was tattered and filthy, and there wasn’t a spot on her face, arms, hands, or feet that wasn’t covered in dirt.
“I said are you okay, miss?” Wyatt repeated, closer now. But he knew she wasn’t.
Morgan followed right behind. “Holy Hell! What happened to you?” The more hot-headed of the Earp brothers drew his Colt and looked around for trouble, but didn’t see any.
The girl looked up at the Earps and recognition flashed in her eyes. Then she fainted dead away. Wyatt caught her before she hit the ground.
* * *
“What’s for dinner, Cookie?”
“More like what ain’t for dinner, Mr. Johnson!” Cookie smiled. “I got elk, pheasant, taters, onions, carrots, rabbit. No liver, though.”
Johnson’s mouth curled in a snarl.
“Er, sorry, Mr. Johnson. I didn’t mean to assume nothin’.”
Johnson held the snarl for a long pause, enjoying watching Cookie squirm… then broke out in a laugh. “Haw! You think I want more liver? I’ve had enough liver to last three hundred lifetimes.”
Cookie laughed back, nervously. “I reckon you have, at that.”
There was a brief awkward silence, then the tension and the horror of “Liver Eatin’” Johnson’s tragic past broke like ice on a lake, and the two guffawed like fools.
“Tell you what I could really go for,” Johnson eventually managed. “Somethin’ sweet. Gonna have anything like that?”
Cookie smiled from ear to ear. “Sure do, Mr. Johnson. Bass Reeves brought in all the fixin’s for an apple pie. I’ve already got the crusts bakin’.”
“Liver Eatin’” Johnson leaned in and sniffed. “It’s gonna be a good day,” he grinned. “Yup. I’ve got a good feelin’ about it.”
* * *
Millicent didn’t clean up well at all. The baths were all taken—both from the illustrious guests in Deadwood and the inevitable soiled doves competing for their attention. So Doc Taylor and his assistant had to make do with sponging her down. It didn’t take much.
“She’s malnourished, Mr. Earp. She needs a good meal. And a bath. But I’ve seen worse. That hair o’ hers is gonna take some real trimmin’ to clean up, but she won’t let me touch it. We don’t know what she… what kinda… trauma… she went through out there. There are mercenaries still out on the prairies from the battle. Prospectors hidin’ from the Sioux—and the US Army—the Black Hills are off-limits, you remember. And then there’s a whole mess of Indians looking for payback despite a truce most of ’em didn’t sign on to in the first place.”
Wyatt frowned, studying her. That was all likely. There was a lot of violence and ignorance in all parts of the world, of course, but there was an extra dose of hard feelings in South Dakota territory right now.
“But… I don’t see any signs of… well, violence.” Doc put his kit away and sighed. “Physically, she seems fine. Unless she’s got a head wound. That hair’s more tangle than a briar patch. I’ll check her again after she gets a bath and we can untangle it a bit.”
Wyatt nodded. But something wasn’t right. He couldn’t quite put his trigger finger on it, but it nagged at him like his old school marm. “How long was she out there?”
“She said her parents died during the battle sometime, but that was a couple months ago now. From the look of her, I’d say she’s only been wanderin’ a week, at most. She’s thin and her color’s off, but nothin’ a young thing like her won’t recover from right quick.”
Morg pulled a piece of peppermint from his pocket, unwrapped it from a clean cloth, and handed it to the girl. “She just needs some hot food and maybe something to get her mind off whatever happened to her for a while, right, Millicent? You got any skills, girl?”
Millicent snapped her head toward Morgan Earp fast enough to startle the three men and answered instantly. “I can cook.”
* * *
“Cookie, it would be a great favor to me and my brother if this little gal could help in the preparation of the victuals.” Morgan Earp smiled. Wyatt stood behind him, rolling the cigar in his mouth back and forth, pondering.
Cookie looked Millicent over. He could use a little help with such a big feast. And a favor for the Earps? Well, that was something, wasn’t it? “I’d be happy to, Mr. Earp.”
Morgan went to pat Millicent on the head, but she pulled away quickly. “Well, I understand. Now you help Cookie here for a few hours and make sure you get yourself fed. My brother an’ I will check on you after this meeting and figure out how to help.” He flipped Cookie a double eagle and headed toward the meeting house. Wyatt stared a moment longer then followed.
Heart of gold, that one, Cookie thought about Morgan Earp. Hot-headed, if the newspapers were to be believed (and Cookie did), but that’s how it was with those passionate types, wasn’t it? Everything was Heaven or Hell with them. Not much Limbo in between. Morgan’s brother though? That one had a serious streak the size of Kansas.
Cookie looked over his new help. “Okay. I’m sorry, girl. I didn’t catch yer name.”
“Millicent. You can call me Milli.” She looked with wide eyes at the boiling pots, spitted meat on campfires, and Dutch ovens Cookie had set up in the empty lot west of Broadway. There was a house near there where all the bigwigs were talking, but it was too small to feed them inside. That would come promptly at six. The Chinese the agents hired had already set up long tables with red-and-white checkered tablecloths.
“Milli it is. So you can cook, you say. How about checkin’ on that stew then? See if the taters are soft yet. Oh, and are you hungry? Dinner’s not for another hour, but some of it’s ready. You look like you could use a little somethin’ to tide you over till then.”
Milli shook her head. “No. I’m not hungry.” She walked over to the stew and stared at it intently. She took up one of Cookie’s big wooden spoons and began to swirl it around the rich brown broth.
Her back was to him so he couldn’t see her face, but he winced a little at the debris in her hair. Cookie wasn’t the most hygienic person in the West, but he took pride in his work and tried not to let too many stray hairs wind up in his food. “Mind your hair there, girl. We don’t wanna serve up dirty grub.”
“Oh no…” she whispered. “We wouldn’t want that…”
* * *
Stone looked at the dead braves. Each one was twisted and contorted, as if something had wracked their bodies from the inside. They’d been here a few weeks. He chuckled slightly. You’d think being Death’s right hand, he’d know exactly when a man passed. But that’s not how it worked.
The bucks hadn’t been touched by animals. That was a dead giveaway that whatever had happened to them was less than natural. He sniffed. Something smelled off. Dead flesh was a constant, so he could filter that out easy enough. This was something else. Something pungent but subtle just below the surface… maybe congealed in their veins.
He poked one with a jagged fingernail, hard enough to pierce the skin. Dry black blood poked from the surface. More like dried paint sticking out of an artist’s tube than blood. He sniffed his finger.
There it was. That’s what he was looking for. The good stuff.
Stone stood. His dead knees creaked and popped as much as the dried leather of his gun belt. One of the braves had the scrap of a white dress in his belt. Maybe kept it as a souvenir. Maybe just used it to wipe the snot off his nose. But it was Milli’s. She’d been here.
It wasn’t the first group of dead Indians he’d found in the Black Hills. There were several others, all contorted and twisted up like these. Some, he could tell, had met with Milli. Others seemed to have keeled over soon after eating the local game.
This was one powerful little monster.
The gathering at Deadwood was a big nut to crack, though. There were a lot of goody-two-shoes and troublemakers down there. Some of them even had enough mojo to give Stone a little trouble.
And it was his job to be trouble. It was his job to make sure the so-called heroes didn’t foul things up for the boss. It was his job to plug ’em when they got too big for their britches.
“Let’s see what you can cook up, little girl,” whispered Stone as he climbed back on his mare. “I’ll handle the leftovers.”
* * *
Whatever the meeting was about, it turned contentious. Cookie watched as the Earps walked out of the house on Broadway and quietly talked among themselves. The Ranger sat alone on the porch, whittling a sharp stick out of pure frustration. The agents congregated in their own little clique, occasionally glancing over at the Ranger. The dime-novel heroes, Lynch, Van Helter, and McGrew, left town—Cookie shoved his worn copy of Perdition’s Daughter back in his pocket, disappointed. He was hoping to have them sign it.
“How’s them pies comin’?” asked “Liver Eatin’” Johnson, clearly starving. He was a big man. He dwarfed the table and blocked Cookie’s view of the meeting.
“They’ll be fresh and hot right after the main course, Mr. Johnson! They’re lookin’ good.”
Johnson patted his belly. “Can’t wait.” Then he noticed Millicent. “Say, who’s your new help here?”
“Her name’s Millicent. Don’t know her last name. The Earps found her wanderin’ the woods, I think. She’s helpin’ out for a while. I think maybe the Sioux… well… I don’t know what happened to her. She don’t talk much.”
Johnson sniffed the air. Leaned in closer to Milli, who was across one of several firepits and surrounded by the smells of cooking meat, boiling stew, raw onions, and more. Cookie thought he had a good sniffer, but Johnson’s senses seemed almost preternatural.
“The Sioux, you say?”
Cookie harbored no particular ill-will toward any race or creed. “Well, I don’t know. Coulda been anyone. Or, um, no one. I don’t actually know what…”
Milli said nothing. She just kept her back to the two men and stirred the stew.
Johnson took a step closer, peering at the back of her head. He frowned and looked over at his assembled peers just twenty yards away and scattered throughout the yard.
The mountain man stroked his chin. His frown switched to a sharp smile. “Y’know, I’ve got a case of something I’d like to share, given the rare nature of this meal and all these luminaries. Something of a certain vintage that’s hard to get out here in the middle of the Sioux Nations.” Johnson winked. “It’s with my mule over in the livery. Can I borrow your girl to help me haul it back?”
Cookie nodded. He could use a drink after this long hot day. “Sure thing, Mr. Johnson. Milli, would you mind helpin’ our friend here?”
Millicent turned from the stew pot and looked Johnson square in the eyes. “Not at all, Mr. Johnson. Show me the way.”
* * *
Stone sat on a little rock on the southwest side of Deadwood. There was an empty lot with several long tables and a passel of men and women standing about waiting to eat. There was also a cook manning several large pots, spits, and cook fires. But no Millicent.
Stone leaned back and rested, more out of habit than any bodily need. He knew whatever was about to happen would be interesting, at least.
* * *
“It’s right over here, girl,” Johnson said as he entered the livery. He glanced about to make sure no one else was around and headed toward the back of the large, dark building.
Milli followed, innocently.
All the animals were outside. There was nothing here but hay and horse shit. Johnson looked around for a second, then circled back around Milli, trapping her in the corner. His hand moved slowly to his belt.
* * *
A man calling himself Agent Sam Jones told Cookie to start serving. Cookie had to laugh a little at the fake mustache peeling slightly off one side of his face in the hot August afternoon, but the tone of the man’s voice wasn’t one to be trifled with.
“Yessir,” Cookie nodded. Now where’s that girl?
* * *
“Liver Eatin’” Johnson pulled a long bowie knife from his belt. “I don’t know what you are, but I know you ain’t no little girl.”
Milli blinked in confusion. “I don’t… Momma said…”
Johnson took a step toward her. “What did Momma say?”
Milli turned her head slightly. “Momma said Daddy was bad. He had to go.”
Johnson’s eyes narrowed. “An’ the war was an excuse to get rid of ’im, wasn’t it?”
Milli’s eyes snapped to the mountain man’s. “She kilt him. Kilt him dead. Pa keeled over right in his stew. Then she dragged him out and put a few bullets in him. Said the Sioux did it.”
Johnson pondered for a moment. “How’d she kill him?”
Milli smiled. “I toldja. The stew.”
“I know a lot about Injuns, little girl. I know their habits and their ways, and I know their legends.”
Now it was Milli who took a step closer. Her smile broadened, showing long, pointed teeth that had grown an inch in the last minute.
“One of them legends is about the poison woman,” He continued, never taking his eyes off the girl. “The Sioux believe that if you poison your husband, you’ll come back as some sorta…”
Milli’s eyebrows rose in anticipation… and though it was dark in there, her eyes looked clouded. Black as coal.
“Thing.”
At that Millicent’s entire jaw unhinged, revealing an unholy maw of spiny teeth!
“But I’ve killed ‘things’ before…” Johnson grunted.
Millicent’s black fingernails erupted from her fingertips, black blood dropping as they ripped apart the flesh around them.
The mountain man heard footsteps behind him, back toward the door to the livery.
“WHAT THE HELL?” Cookie yelped as he walked in on the mad scene.
Johnson turned his head to see who had interrupted his killing time, giving the thing that had been Millicent the opportunity she needed to strike. Her long dark claws ripped into “Liver Eatin’” Johnson’s thick beard and dug into his throat. They came out dripping bright red blood.
If Cookie’s jaw could unhinge like Millicent’s, it would have hit the floor. He simply gawked in fear as his senses rebelled against what his treacherous eyes told him was playing out in the darkness of the livery.
“Oh, Cookie,” it said. “I wasn’t ready for you yet. You have such a feast to serve. Guess I’ll have to do it myself now!”
Millicent leapt across the room at the cook, her jagged nails pointed like the tines of a pitchfork at his throat—and stopped in midair an inch from his flesh. “Liver Eatin’” Johnson held her ankle with one hand while his other stayed tight on his own torn throat. “Kill it…” he rasped and pointed with his eyes at Cookie’s hand.
Cookie looked down. Maybe there was a God, because he still held his meat cleaver.
The cook swung halfheartedly… he’d never harmed a living person in his life. He hated to kill what was once a little girl, but his reflexes and fear took over.
The blade bit deep into Milli’s left arm. Black blood dripped from it and hit the floor, the fresh hay sizzling beneath it.
She barely winced.
The odd scene held for what seemed an eternity… Cookie standing there with his meat cleaver in Millicent’s arm, she on one leg, her other held by Johnson, and the mountain man on his knees with one hand on his throat and the other on Milli’s ankle behind him.
Milli, or the thing that lived inside her now, laughed out loud at the absurdity of it all. Then she jerked her leg free of Johnson’s grip and danced about the livery, slashing at Cookie with her talons as she herked and jerked demonically on the blood-spattered hay.
“You’re right,” she hissed at Johnson, but kept her dead black eyes fixed on Cookie. “I am a poison woman. But not how you might think. This girl poisoned no one. Her momma did.”
Johnson rolled over on his back to face the horrid thing. Cookie backed up against the opposite railing, holding his meat cleaver hopelessly before him.
“Momma became a poison woman after she killed Daddy. But then that war with Raven came. Her supplies didn’t last a week and all the game was gone.”
Johnson sneered. Cookie’s mind reeled.
Milli danced now, twirling her gore-stained dress obscenely. She was a full-on demon now. Sunken eye sockets and obsidian eyes. Yellow, veined skin oozing pus from numerous cuts and gashes. Oversized claws. And that massive, unhinged jaw full of rotten, spiny teeth.
“Momma was always protective of this little one. That’s why she did it. And that’s why she kept the stew coming day after day. And why she walked a little funny afterwards…” Milli held up a foot… topped with scraggly black and yellow toenails.
She smiled at Cookie and licked her own toe. “Any kind of meat tastes good in a stew, doesn’t it, Cookie?”
Horror grew on the chef’s face as he realized what Milli was saying. “Your… mother… fed you her own…”
“Oh yes! Such delights!” Milli danced again, kicking the rapidly fading Johnson in the leg as she twirled about. “This little one didn’t know what was happening, but as she faded, I grew. Finally, Momma died, and she and I went out into the wilderness and became one. So many young braves tried to help me. We became one with them too!”
Milli moved with ferocious speed into Cookie’s face, her vile spittle landing on his cheeks as she spoke. “How about that? They tried to help me.” She trailed a claw down the front of his shirt. “Most of them, anyway. But they all died.”
Hot piss ran down Cookie’s leg.
“IT MUST HAVE BEEN SOMETHING THEY ATE!” Milli rushed in with her massive maw to rip Cookie’s throat open. He somehow managed to dodge, causing her to bite hard into the railing behind him.
The cook took a haphazard swipe with his cleaver… and felt it fly out of his sweaty hand. He dodged past her and ran in terror, but found himself trapped in a horse stall with Johnson.
“Kill… it…” Johnson repeated.
“WITH WHAT?” Cookie screamed in panic.
Millicent hurled herself at Cookie. He threw his arm up for protection and felt her horrid teeth sink into the bone. He grabbed the back of her head with his other hand, trying desperately to pull her off, but to his horror, felt his fingers sink deep into mush where there should have been solid skull.
Milli released her jaws and pulled back. She bent over, almost a curtsy, and let her hair fall forward, showing her prey the hideous hole in her head and the green pus dripping out of her exposed brain. “That’s where the good stuff comes from,” she laughed.
Cookie felt the world spin. How was any of this possible?
The demonic child pulled a small piece of pus-stained gray matter from the hole in her head. “That’s what I’ve been putting in the stew all day!” she cackled, delighted to finally reveal her secret ingredient. Then she roared back into Cookie’s face once more. “THEY’RE ALL GOING TO DIE! EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM!”
Cookie fell to his knees, wiped the poison off his hand onto his apron.
“The greatest heroes and those who might have been! They’re going to choke on it, Milton! They’re going to choke and dance and die in such beautiful agony!”
Something snapped in Milton’s mind. She knew his name. Of all he’d seen, somehow that was the final straw. He rose, picking up Johnson’s bowie knife as he shuffled to his feet.
“No,” he spoke softly, at first. Then with more confidence. “No one, and I mean no one, messes with my table…”
* * *
“I’ll have some of the stew,” Wyatt Earp motioned with his head at the big pot, now sitting cold by the fire it had been simmering on all day.
“I’m afraid it didn’t turn out,” Cookie smiled apologetically.
Wyatt noted Cookie’s left arm was in a sling and he had on a fresh wipe apron, far cleaner than the one he’d been wearing earlier. “That’s a shame,” Wyatt replied. “I was looking forward to it.”
“Meat spoiled. Might have killed every one of ya,” Cookie laughed nervously.
Wyatt nodded slowly. “How’s that girl? She okay.”
A thin voice came from behind Earp. “She moved on.”
Wyatt turned to see “Liver Eatin’” Johnson, a bloody bandage wrapped around his throat.
“Cut myself shavin’.” He half grinned. “A lot.”
“Mmm hmm,” Wyatt replied. “Well, what else is good?”
“Everything. Everything else is good,” Cookie said proudly. “Especially the apple pies. Have some of them elk loins, and I’ll bring you a slice in a few minutes, Mr. Earp.”
Wyatt nodded and loaded up a plate… slowly. The cautious law dog cogitated and looked carefully about for anything untoward, but nothing stood out. Finally, he decided that whatever had happened there had already played out. He even sensed it had played out right. He didn’t know how he knew that, but he did. He’d been party to some strange occurrences himself the last few years.
“Pie it is, Cookie. I’ll be waitin’.”
* * *
It was near 10 p.m. The gathering had ended, and those who were still around had moved on to the Bella Union for drinks. Cookie was still in the empty lot, preserving what he could to sell tomorrow and cleaning up his pots and pans.
“How’d you do it, cook?” came a voice like gravel from the darkness. A tall, gaunt man in a ratty brown coat stepped out of the gloom.
“Wha—” Cookie jumped. After today’s events, he was still more than a little jumpy.
Stone looked the man up and down. “How’d you kill her? Average man like you. Nothing special. Ain’t even heeled.”
“What’re—who are you?” Cookie instinctively felt for his cleaver, but it was nowhere to be found.
“Doesn’t matter. But tell me. How’d you do it? Or was it one of those… heroes.” Jasper Stone said the last word with a sneer most others usually reserved for the lowest of creation.
Cookie drew himself up. Stood straight. After today, if he was going to die, he was going to die with his spine straight. “She… it… fucked with my food. I may not be much, whoever you are, but one thing I am… I’m the cook. She had a hole in her skull just the right size for a bowie knife. An’ I know how to cut aroun’ bone.”
Stone chuckled. Then he laughed. Loud and hollow, like it was coming from the inside of a grave.
When he was done he looked at the cook all over again. “I oughtta kill you for that. She was gonna make this easy. Kill ’em or make ’em sick. Take out the whole lot at once. That’s my job, y’know. Killin’. Those who keep pesterin’ the thing that thinks it’s my master. And anyone else who gets in the way.”
Stone leaned in close across the carving table. “Or anyone else I just feel like killin’.”
Cookie stood his ground. Running really wasn’t an option anyway.
Stone pulled back. Almost relaxed. Thumbed his gun belt and thought about it for a few seconds. Then he seemed to reach a decision. “But there’s a lotta trouble a street over. And you made me laugh. So I guess today’s your lucky day, cook.”
Milton glared right back at the monster before him. A whole world of terrible things splayed open before him like the guts of a sick elk.
“It’s Cookie.”
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