Dead Man's Salute E-Book

Steve Vernon

• Herausgeber: Stark Raven Press
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

"Leave Luther's body right where we flung it," Bates said. "You aren't burying anyone today."

After Sally Mae Webster phoned me up to tell me that my Korean War buddy Luther Webster had been shot and killed by the Bates brothers I knew that I wasn't going to stop until I had righted that wrong.

I wonder just how many graves I was going to have to dig today.


WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT STEVE VERNON

"The genre needs new blood and Steve Vernon is quite a transfusion." –Edward Lee, author of FLESH GOTHIC and CITY INFERNAL

"If Harlan Ellison, Richard Matheson and Robert Bloch had a three-way sex romp in a hot tub, and then a team of scientists came in and filtered out the water and mixed the leftover DNA into a test tube, the resulting genetic experiment would most likely grow up into Steve Vernon." - Bookgasm 

"Steve Vernon is something of an anomaly in the world of horror literature. He's one of the freshest new voices in the genre although his career has spanned twenty years. Writing with a rare swagger and confidence, Steve Vernon can lead his readers through an entire gamut of emotions from outright fear and repulsion to pity and laughter." - Cemetery Dance 

"Armed with a bizarre sense of humor, a huge amount of originality, a flair for taking risks and a strong grasp of characterization - Steve's got the chops for sure." - Dark Discoveries 

"Steve Vernon was born to write. He's the real deal and we're lucky to have him." - Richard Chizmar 

My cat thinks I'm pretty cool, too.

Leseprobe

Dead

Man’s

Salute

by

Steve Vernon

Stark Raven Press

Also by Steve Vernon

Bad Valentines

Bad Valentines

Bad Valentines 2

Bigfoot Tales

Big Hairy Deal

Flash Virus

Flash Virus: Episode One

Flash Virus: Episode Two

Flash Virus: Episode Three

Flash Virus: Episode Four

Flash Virus: Episode Five - The Big Break Out

Flash Virus Omnibus

Kelpie Tales

Kelpie Christmas: A Paranormal Romantic Adventure

Kelpie Snow: A Paranormal Romantic Adventure

Steve Vernon's Sea Tales

In The Dark, In The Deep

Harry's Mermaid

I Know Why The Waters of the Sea Taste of Salt

Finbar's Story

Built For Hanging On

Sea Tales

Not Just Any Old Ghost Story

Tales of the Creep Squad

Bigfoot Tracks: A Creep Squad Collection

The Adventures of Captain Nothing

Nothing To Lose

Nothing Down

The Tatterdemon Trilogy

Revenant

Resurrection

Requiem

The Tatterdemon Omnibus

Uncle Bob's Red Flannel Bible Camp

Uncle Bob's Red Flannel Bible Camp - From Eden to the Ark

Uncle Bob's Red Flannel Bible Camp - The Book of Genesis

Uncle Bob's Red Flannel Bible Camp - The Book of Exodus

Standalone

Rueful Regret

A Fine Sacrifice

October Tales: Seven Creepy Tales

Roadside Ghosts: A Collection of Horror and Dark Fantasy

Two Fisted Nasty

Something After Saturday: A Story of Country Witchcraft

Gypsy Blood

Shotgun Christmas

Devil Tree

Tales From The Tangled Wood: Six Stories to Seriously Creep You Out

Hammurabi Road

Sudden Death Overtime - A Tale of Hockey and Vampires

A Hat Full of Stories: Three Weird West Tales

Old Spice Love Knot - A Nova Scotia Ghost Story

Do-Overs And Detours: Eighteen Eerie Tales

Special Edition Gift Pack Volume 1

The Wishing Ring of Old Queen Maab

Long Horn, Big Shaggy: A Tale of Wild West Terror and Reanimated Buffalo

Plague Monkey Spam

Midnight Hat Trick: Three Creepy Novellas

Cat Call: A Tale of Ghosts and Darker Things

Dopple Dribble: You Will NEVER Look At A Basketball the Same Way Again

The Forever Long Road of Olan Walker

Dead Man's Salute

Grandpa Hated Cats

The Boy Who Loved To Draw Cats

Watch for more at Steve Vernon’s site.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Also By Steve Vernon

Dead Man’s Salute

About the Author

Sign up for Steve Vernon's Mailing List

Further Reading: The Tatterdemon Omnibus

Also By Steve Vernon

Dead Man’s Salute

Sally Mae had married Luther Webster twenty-eight years ago and now she was washing his best clothes for his funeral.

“He shouldn’t ought to have done it,” Sally Mae Webster told me as she fished Luther Webster’s tired blue denim shirt out of the galvanized soaking tub.

She rinsed, stirred and boiled Luther’s clothes in the tub over the fire. She laid the clothes over a wooden bench and beat on them with the flat of her battling stick, pounding the dirt and soap out of the clothes. Washing by hand was that kind of work – tedious, slow and hard – but not everyone in the world could afford their own washing machine.

The whole time Sally Mae told me how her husband and my best friend, Luther Webster, had stood up against the Bates brothers.

“Them Bates boys stole our horse,” she said. “They burned down the stall.”

“Are you sure it was them?” I asked.

“We know they did it,” she answered. “They were stupid enough to leave a red hunting cap with the name JUNIOR BATES scrawled on the lining in black indelible ink.”

“That sounds like proof to me,” I said. “Did you call the sheriff?”

“The sheriff’s last name is Bates,” Sally Mae pointed out. “When Luther went and told Sheriff Bates that his best beloved nephews and stole our horse and burned our barn he didn’t say a damn thing.”

“I guess that Sheriff Bates must have been himself a deaf day,” I said. “The first chance I get I’ll go and talk to him and see if I can’t blow his ears clean out.”

“Wouldn’t do any good now, would it?” Sally Mae said.

“Wouldn’t hurt any,” I pointed out. “At least it wouldn’t hurt me one little ding dong bit.”

Sally Mae just grunted at that and turned back to her laundry.

“Luther walked up to their cabin,” she went on. “He said he’d talk some sense into them. I said that I ought to go with him but he went alone.”

I kept on listening.

“One thing led to another. The next thing I know Luther was lying dead in the dirt – shot in the back,” she said. “I told him that he ought not to go up against those Bates boys, but he did it just the same. And now he’s lying out there in the hills. I can’t even bring him home to bury him. They’ve got somebody watch that body night and day. They say they’ll shoot anyone who dares to move it.”

“What sense does that make?” I asked. “Guarding a dead body like that?”

“Who said sense had anything to do with it,” she said, giving the tub another stir. “It’s Bates sense. Nothing more than spite and meanfulness and pure-boiled hatred.”

“Well where are Luther’s friends?” I asked Sally. “Why aren’t they coming to see to his burial?”

“His friends? Right now, you’re it.”

“Nobody else?”

“Luther never really put up with other people since coming back from Korea,” Sally said. “He kept to himself, mostly. He wasn’t a lonely man so much as he was just awfully used to being alone. He would talk to me and he would talk to the cat and he would even talk to the dog on a good day but that was just about as social as life got for my man Luther. He was good to me, though – and after a while his solitary ways kind of rubbed off on me as well.”

I understood what she was telling me. There had been no crowd around me since the war. I hadn’t even talked to Luther since coming home. It wasn’t like I didn’t think of him – I just didn’t think of actually calling him.

Then two nights ago Sally woke me up from a sound sleep with a 2am telephone call for help. She’d walked the two miles into town and fed a lonely silver dime into the coin slot.

“Luther has been shot to death,” she told me over the phone.

“I’ll be there directly,” I told her. “Just as soon as I can get.”

It took me two whole days, but I got there.

“The truth is everyone in town is afraid of the Bates boys,” she went on, still working that wash tub. “They already put the word out that anyone foolish enough to try and see that Luther got a proper burial had better dig a grave of their own, first.”

“I’d about given up on the idea of burying him,” she admitted. “I figured that either some bear would drag him off or else the Bates boys would get tired of the smell of dead meat and finish off what was left of him with a tin of kerosene and a match.”

She shook the clothes out and wrung them by hand and then she hung them over the willow withe fence to dry.

“I tried to do it myself,” she said. “I walked up there and I tried to drag him home but they wouldn’t give me a chance. They pushed me down and they tore my blouse. They would have done worse if I hadn’t had a butcher knife tucked in my belt where I could grab it.”

I could see her biting the inside of her cheek hollow while she said that last bit. It was easier to ache than to grieve. She wasn’t going to let a tear fall if she could help it.

But it hurt, just the same, to watch her chew.