As Far as the Trail Goes

by Cory Andrews

So this is it. The very edge of the West. This is where all dem gold rushers traveled in hopes of strikin’ it big. Cali-forn-ia. The ocean seems endless, like we may just be at the end of the world. Our boots are sinkin’ in sand and there’s all manners of strange birds we ain’t ever seen before.

Me and my gang? The Corbitt Riders? We ain’t no gold panners. No sir. Just a ragtag bunch of whiskey drinkin’, card cheatin’, bank robbin’, stone-cold killers. 

But apparently, the last stickup job we did in this little piss-hole dump of a town called Buzzard Hill in the Northern Arizona Territory, we picked the wrong gambling hall to put on our bandannas, unholster our Colts, and tell everyone to empty their pockets.

 Place was called ‘The White Raven Social Club.’ Looked like an old Southern plantation house, sitting all alone at the northern edge of town, right before the desert turned into mountains and thick forest. 

We saw nothin but dandy folk comin’ in-n-out the place. No dirty cowpokes or sloppy drunkards allowed in. These folk was the elites. Most of ‘em dropped off by stagecoach; they wore bowler hats, gold-trim vests, expensive looking pocket watches, and had working girls on their arms too beautiful to be called whores. 

Figured it’d be an easy score. But when Lefty came to this mustachioed fella, told him to put his goods in the loot sack, the fella’s arm shot through Lefty’s chest like a Comanche arrow. I was standing a mere three feet behind Lefty. The sonofabitch held Lefty’s still-beating heart in his hand like he’d won a prize at the circus. The gambler pulled his arm back through the hole he’d created. Lefty spewed blood through his blue-checkered bandanna as he slumped to the floor. This unexpected killer took a big bite of Lefty’s ticker like it was a hunk of sourdough.

I cocked the hammer on my Colt, fired a shot dead center in the bastard’s forehead. His brow absorbed the bullet, a trickle of black blood seeped before his epidermis spit the lead out like it was a cherry pit. The projectile landed somewhere in Lefty’s chest cavity. 

With the gang caught with our chaps down, the old man working the door circled the room, opening black drapes, letting the light of the full moon flood the interior. All around us whores and gamblers alike began to shapeshift in all manners. Thick matted fur sprouting in unnatural places. Canines expanding out of mouths and past lips. Dresses and vests ripping as muscles bulged. Some levitating, others crouching on all fours. Vampiros and Lobos.

There were three of us now. We managed to shoot and stab our way towards the double doors, although none of our shots or slices proved fatal. But thank the Devil for Stick. Stick always had dynamite stashed in one of his holsters. He struck a lucifer and lit the explosive just as I opened the doors. 

The other surviving member of my gang, El Rico, commandeered a stagecoach that’d just stopped in front of the White Raven as we scurried down the steps. The dynamite exploded, sending shards of glass, wood and body parts our way. The work horses dropped a pile of turds and fled as El Rico was dumping the bodies of the travelers he’d shot. Stick and I hauled ass to catch up.

Looking back, I saw the ground shaking. That ol’ bastard who opened the drapes stood in the light of smoldering wood fire reading from a book. He looked to the sky, closed the book, then some humongous, wormlike creature rose from the dirt and began pursuing us. It didn’t move with speed like a locomotive, but it also never quit. 

We rode and rode west. Everytime we thought we lost the ugly bloody-pink segmented thing, thought we could rest, we’d wake up, take a look through binoculars and see it wasn’t too far behind. 

And that’s how we ended up here, at the ocean. The end of the trail. Maybe the end of the line for the Corbitt Riders. We abandoned the horses at the edge of a high bluff, climbed down, made a cold camp, eating the last of the rations, drinking the last of the beer stored on the stagecoach. Exhaustion took hold. The three of us slept til sunrise. 

I awoke to a light breeze on my face and the ‘kaw-kaw’ coming from a flock of seagulls. I rubbed the sleepies from my eyes, looked up, saw El Rico’s face, eyes bugged and mouth agape, ‘bout ten feet above me like he’d joined the beach birds. But no, he wasn’t taking flight. From his rib cage down was being swallowed and chewed by the worm. Up close the damned thing was as wide as a giant sequoia. Its mouth filled with spiraling rows of tiny needlike teeth stained with El Rico’s gore.

I sprung to my feet, yelled to Stick to get his ass up, but all that was left of Stick was his legs from the kneecaps down, feet still in cowboy boots, matches and the last stick of dynamite laying in the sand. 

Grabbing the loot sack turned possibles bag, I ran toward the crystal clear ocean water, swam to this here rock, say some fifty yards from the shoreline. And that’s where I sit and write this account (on the back of a wanted poster with my purdy face on it, no less) of the fate of the Corbitt Riders.

The worm, finished with El Rico, is slowly moving towards the water, its senses telling it where I’m perched. I emptied my six shooter into it for my own amusement. The bullets had no effect. One last swig of warm beer and it’s time to stuff this tale into the bottle, send it into the waves. Looking up, I see the worm is gone and there’s a ripple in the water.

— Doyle Corbitt, September 1889