Gabriel Bassett - Monster Hunter

CHAPTER ONE

The Cannibals of Jackson’s Gap

I was sitting on the porch, watching the Kwakiutl Indian, Keokuk, as he rode into the ranch yard. He had been into town running some errands and picking up a few supplies. Since he was no hand with the cattle, running errands was a big part of his job on the ranch. He walked his pony right to the bottom of the steps before stepping down.

Letter Gabriel, he said, handing me the smudged and dusty envelope.

Most of the folks around here called me Gabe by now, but not him. In fact, no Indian I’d ever known would use a familiar name if they knew your given name. They either called you by that or not at all.

Everything okay in town? I asked him.

Same, he said, no change, then he turned to go and stable his horse. In that few words he had told me that no one new had settled in town the last couple of days and there was no drifters loafing about. As the sheriff, it was my job to know these things. Over the last three months I had taught Keokuk to speak English as well as I could myself. He was simply a man of few words. He had been a trusted friend to me for these last months and if not being long on conversation was his only fault.

Well, I reckoned I could live with that. I don’t talk a lot myself most times. If either of us did, the stories we’d tell wouldn’t be believed by most folks anyway and those who did would wish they hadn’t heard ‘em. I guess I need to back up some about here and tell you how Keokuk and me had become friends in the first place. After the war, the west really began to fill up and not all those who came was looking for land and a fresh start. Lawlessness ran rampant for a while, but despite popular belief, not all of the murders that took place in the ever growing west was committed by outlaw gangs, greedy land barons or drunken cowboys shooting up a town while trying to hit each other. All over a game of dollar ante poker. My name is Gabriel Bassett and I track down and kill these other murderers. These are the stories of monsters.

You may be one of them folks who don’t believe in monsters at all, much less here in the western lands of early America. Well friends, I’ll tell it straight and you can make the decision as to whether you want to believe it or not.

I could not remember a time wanting anything more in my life than to be out of Jackson’s Gap, Wyoming. That included the three battles I had fought in during the war between the states. At least back there, I knew who my enemies was. It was pure bad luck that had brought me here to begin with and a fear of God’s wraith that kept me here.

At least them first few days. The bad luck I speak of was when my horse stepped in a prairie dog hole and busted a leg. That was a couple of miles east of town. It was a tough break for me and an even worse one for her. I knew she’d never be able to walk agin, so I took my saddle off her and put her down easy. She’d been a good horse and had served me well for nearly ten years. She deserved nothing less than to be put out of her pain. I was headed out to California at the time and had been told of the town of Jackson’s Gap by a feller back in Laramie where I had last stopped. I don’t hold him to blame none though as I’m sure now he had no idea what was going on here. As Laramie was right at three hot days ride back east and I was suddenly without a horse, I did what was needed. I cached my saddle under a rock out-cropping and lit out walking west.

I had the sun on my back and a strong hope in my heart that Jackson’s Gap was not far away. I had been much in the saddle the last few years and had lost whatever fondness I’d had for walking. The fear of God I speak of was something that had been instilled in me from youngest childhood by my ma.

Her favorite part of the Bible, it seemed had been the ten commandments. When I was very young, she mostly centered on the ones about not stealing and about respecting your ma and pa. That one I had no problem with. They was good people and did their best to raise me right and fairly.

By the time I’d reached fifteen she’d heard stories of how well I handled myself with both fist and a pistol. After that she mostly started quoting, ‘Thou shall not kill’ to me. At seventeen me and some buddies had watched a sailor win a three hundred dollar pot in a poker game in the saloon one night.

We knew his ship had docked earlier that day and we laid for him along the path back to the docks. We didn’t kill him, but he was roughed up pretty good and his money was taken. The next day we got word that there had been a witness to it all and that the New Orleans Marshal, A man named Otis Wheat would be coming for us. Wheat was said to be a hard man. My buddies lit a shuck for Texas, but not me. What I’d done already was bad enough, but I’d bring no farther shame to my folks by becoming a wanted outlaw over it. The marshal was surprised when I walked in his office and told him I was there to turn myself in.

What about your friends? he asked me.

We each have to make our own choices, I told him, they made their’s. I handed him my quarter share of the money we’d taken from the sailor. Since the sailor had not been seriously injured and I had turned myself in, the sheriff made me a deal.

Instead of going to jail I was to serve the Confederacy and the great state of Louisiana for the remainder of the war. The thought of going to war was not something I favored, but going to prison I favored even less.

At least in battle I would be armed and stand a chance of surviving. More so than in prison I figured, me not being of much size nor was I a naturally mean man. I went home to tell Ma and Pa of my deal. They was sad to see me go, but felt I’d made a good decision in it. As New Orleans is a port city and was constantly under threat from the north, I hoped I might stay right there, close to Ma and Pa. That was not the case, however. I’d done broke the commandment about not stealing and two years in the Army of the Confederacy made sure I broke the one about not killing as well. So, I figured I’d best watch myself with the rest of em from here on.

If not for that, I probably would have taken me a horse by now and been long gone. I had joined the Confederate Army in the early spring of 1863. I was still seventeen at the time. Two years later, the war was over and I made my way back home to Louisiana. There only to find that our place had been burned to the ground and both Ma and Pa was dead. With nothing left there to hold me, I headed west like many others had and I was sure more would do. In the middle of June of 1868, I was still just rambling around Texas when I got an itch to see California. I’d hunted Texas over pretty good, looking for a place that felt like home, but I’d not found one.

Gabe old boy, I said to myself, we’ll go have us a look at California.

My first name Gabriel was given to me by my Irish Catholic mother. My last name by my French- Canadian Father Andre Bassett. Before I was born, he had been a fur trapper. Mostly in the south western regions of Canada, then eventually he drifted south into the states. At the age of forty two, he’d found himself in New Orleans. It was there that he’d met my mother. A pretty twenty year old, hard working Irish girl waiting tables and washing dishes at a local eating house. She told him when she brought his meal over that her name was Abigail McGill, but that as he seemed to be a gentleman, he may call her Abby.

I reckon it was love at first sight for both of ‘em. They married within a year of their meeting and in 1846, I had been born. I had never left that farm just outside of New Orleans until the day I joined the Army. Now in these last three years I had been in so many different towns it was hard to remember the names of ‘em all. Big towns and small ones, some booming and some on the edge of going bust.

One thing I’d found in all of ‘em though was their being right happy to see a stranger ride in.

Generally, somebody new to town meant word of what was going on in other parts of the country, as well as money to be spent in the town’s business. Well, I’d never been much help to ‘em with the second one. I barely ever had enough money to keep body and soul together, but I was happy to tell ‘em what I had heard and saw in other places. That was until I came to Jackson’s Gap.

Here it was, that I had walked into this town and nobody seemed to want to know anything. Not who I was or where I was coming from. Not even how I came to be walking in and not riding. Had I had Indian trouble or had my horse been spooked by a snake and ran away, nothing. At twenty two, I didn’t figure I’d lived long enough to look so all fired dangerous and I knew there was no posters of me as a wanted outlaw nor any reputation as a gunman.

I sure as heck didn’t have the fancy duds like that of a gambler. Not like the ones I’d seen around New Orleans anyway. The fact was I wore homespun pants and shirt. My boots were scuffed and run down at the heel and my hat was the same