A Ghost In The Storm
Tempest Literature prompt
The air in the inn’s dimly lit tavern room was tinged with tobacco smoke and bourbon vapors. It was middle of the night, rain pelted the roof and the wind was howling. Through the roiling blackness and rain scarcely anything could be seen outside. At a table lit only by the soft glow of an oil lamp and cigarette cherries was John Matthews. He had only a few possessions with him, including a pair of six guns. He had been headed west where he heard the bounties on outlaws was high. He however found himself stuck in this dying frontier mining town, at present being lashed by a tempest storm.
Across the table, through a smoky haze which clung to the air sat a bedraggled man, who looked as if he hadn’t seen a good night’s sleep in some time. With thinning hair and a rough beard, he wore the plain garb of a frontier miner. One hand cradled a cigarette and the other was wrapped around a whiskey glass. “The indjian feller said it would strike with the storms” spoke the man. “Who”? John asked. “He came with the Navajo trading party”. he answered. He continued: “He was sprinkling around this white ash stuff and said if we didn’t stop digging the shafts of the mines deeper that we would wake it up”. “It”? John asked. '“Aw… some devil or another” he replied hesitantly.
“By way of it, it goes on all fours” a voice joined in. A bookish man smoking a pipe, middle aged with combed back hair and bushy brows leaned on the hand rail to the stair case leading upstairs, not far from where the two men sat. “Or as the Navajo say it in English, a skinwalker”. “And who might you be”? asked John. “Henry Bridge, a cultural anthropologist”. He carried on: “I’ve been traveling the southwest interviewing the people of the Navajo nation. “According to them the skinwalker is born of a benign magic tempted and corrupted by evil, to do harm”. “Sounds fantastical” John replied. “Mm Hm, I bid you a good evening, gentlemen.” “I must retire”. John watched Henry saunter upstairs. Despite his alibi, a man of his bearing seemed out of place here.
The man across the table introduced himself; “I’m Emmit, by the by”. “John, pleasure to make your acquaintance, Emmit”. The men imbibed their whiskey and cigarettes for a time. “It seems like each time I planned to leave this place myself one of these hellacious storms rolls in”. And ever since, each time one has another person goes missing or is found dead in a terrible state”. “Bodies have been found”? John Inquired. At that moment a lightning bolt struck, causing the entire dwelling to flash white for an instance. The thunder clapped so calamitously that both men were jolted to attention, standing where they once sat. As the thunder rolled John heard an unearthly growl echoing among the rumbling through the sky for what seemed like miles around. The wind peaked so that for a few brief moments the howling intensified to hellish shrieks before letting back off to the nominal howling of the storm winds.
Emmit sat his cigarette in the ash tray and anxiously rubbed his thinning hair before slumping back into his seat. “I’m afraid what will happen tonight”.