Half asleep, but full on dreaming of the boarding house girls back home, Barney Winthrop laid back against a soft old log with his hat pulled low over his face and his right leg turned left away from the fire as to keep the crotch rivet of his old denim Levi’s from heating up and inadvertently branding his testicles. A newer, crotch-rivet-less style was on the market, but he hadn’t turned in a bounty or taken an honest job in over a year, so he stayed to the left. His nose and mouth took turns breathing in the sweet cedar smoke from the little fire that he’d warmed some pemmican and beans over earlier in the evening, licking his lips brought a salty sweet combination of the preserved meat and tobacco that stained his overgrown mustache. It was pitch black outside the soft red glow of the fire, the moon unable to traverse the evergreen canopy overhead. Now and then a sap pocket would overheat on one of the younger logs he was burning, the crackles and pops keeping him from dozing off too far.
An unusually loud “POP” caused him to jerk awake, popping out of a dream he’d rather enjoyed where he’d been playing cards with the ladies from Chicago he’d met in a lonely bar in Oklahoma months back. They were betting articles of clothing rather than money, as per the women’s cheeky suggestion. He was just wondering to himself how best to conceal his numerous Levi’s burns when he was back in his little camp, breathing quickly and squinting into the smoky darkness.
To his shock and dismay, he was no longer alone. About twenty feet out from the fire, just within its light, there stood a disheveled soldier. Barney slowly leaned over his saddle bag, keeping an eye on the stranger and pulled out his revolver. Casually holding it against his chest he called out, “Hello there sir, please state your business.”
The soldier awkwardly took several steps forward out of the brush, walking like a newborn calf. Barney could see from the uniform that he was Army Signal Corps, possibly providing a chance for easy money. “Are you a deserter son?”
The soldier stopped and leaned against a tree. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, and he had a white ring of dehydration around his lips which started moving uncannily before words began to come out. “No sir, I am the last of my unit.” A slight German accent.
“Shit,” said Barney, spitting. “Any idea what tribe it was that got y’all?”
The soldier seemed confused for a moment and looked everywhere but directly at Barney. “It wasn’t a tribe that got us.”
Barney sighed and relaxed. Clearly the boy was in a bad way with a story to tell. It was time to turn on the ‘ol Winthrop charm that got him elected to Sheriff before the ‘ol Barney between-the-legs got him chased out of town. “Tell you what, I’ve got some cold coffee I can heat up here. Why don’t you relax and tell me what it is I’ve gotta be looking out for ‘round here.”
The soldier shifted his weight and slumped down against the tree, staring at the fire with his wide eyes, barely blinking despite the smoke.
Barney set his kettle on the edge of the fire and pulled out two tin cups, dented to all hell. He paused and shot the soldier a cheeky grin, “I’ve got a bit of whiskey as well if that’s more your flavor?”
Silence from the soldier.
Barney sighed. “Okay then, I’ll start, how’s about that? Name’s Barney Winthrop, lawman of sorts. Grew up down near Texas somewhere, don’t rightly know where. My Pa was a preacher until that damn scarlet fever got him when I was about 10. Took care of my ma and sisters until I was old enough to work. Worked contracts with different outfits as a hired gun, even made Sheriff down in Nebraska. But I’m one for the women, son, that’s what’s got me chased out here to the northwest. Word is, this is where the big money contract outlaws have all ran to. Shoot, maybe they’re dead in a ditch somewhere, but I figured I’d give it a look. I’m headed for the coast, anyhow. Now, what’s your story?”
The soldier had been nodding along to Barney’s voice and stopped at the question, looking Barney directly in the eyes for the first time. “My name, is Karl Weycht, I was born in Germany but I immigrated to America when I was twelve years old.”
Barney grinned and poured them both some coffee. He walked over and handed a cup to Karl, frowning at the man’s smell as he got close, but trying to hide his disgust as he’d finally gotten the young man talking. Where’d you move to?
Karl looked down at the cup, “Boston. There I joined the army and they trained me in telegraphy.” He looked up at Barney. “They’d had luck building telegraph lines through Texas and Chief Signal Officer Greely wanted to extend a telegraph line from the Dakotas to the West Coast.”
Barney sucked his teeth. “And I’m guessing the tribes out this way weren’t too keen on that eh?”
“They were not a problem. Actually, many of them were most helpful. I got lost in Montana and a brave gave me a ride to Billings, once we were there I taught him some telegraphy. He was fascinated!” Now the soldier was smiling, but his eyes didn’t change.
“Ah Billings! I’ve been through there. They got quite a Madam’s house there ya know, got this gal from Maine they called Saltwater Taffy. Do you know why they called her Saltwater Taffy?”
The soldier patiently shook his head no.
“Cause she tasted sweet and spoke salty and left you stickier than hell!” Barney chortled.
The soldier smiled politely.
Barney sipped his coffee, “So if it wasn’t the Indians, how come you’re out here without the rest of your unit?”
The soldier took a deep breath in and out. “It was the Evergreen.”
“The trees?”
“Yes, the forest, in a way. We’d almost made it to the coast when we ran out of the telegraph poles we’d been using so our commanding officer decided to start cutting down trees and preparing more. Men started to disappear. This didn’t make sense as the work wasn’t difficult or dangerous enough for them to desert, and the local tribes had been very kind to us.”
“I’ve heard sometimes they do that to lull you into a false sense of security.”
“No, they were peaceful. There was plenty of game and food to share. We ate like kings. But the more trees we cut down, the more men went missing. Finally we formed search parties and split up. My group was to go West, into the forest. We hiked for days, until we finally came clear of the trees and into a clearing with a village and a crystal clear river running through. They welcomed us, but had clearly not been in contact with white men before as they found our clothes and weapons fascinating. We had a reliable translator with us, but even he could not decipher their language.”
Now Barney was interested. “You’re telling me you found a new tribe? Were your lost men with them?”
The soldier shook his head, “They didn’t seem to know anything, but were very upset when they we explained we were cutting down the evergreen trees. They seemed to worship the evergreens, and showed us how they had built all of their homes out of stones instead of wood. A man in ceremonial dress made from pine needles seemed to threaten us, but indirectly. It was as though we were in danger from an unseen force. He wore a mask made of weathered pine, with eyeholes and a mouth. The only word our translator could understand was “Evergreen,” but he didn’t seem to be speaking about the evergreen trees. He spoke of “The Evergreen.”
“This must be some sort of god to them. You offended them by cutting down the trees, right?”
“There is more. We went to leave in the early morning, but as we reached the edge of the clearing one of the larger trees started to… move.”
Barney frowned, “You’re telling me this tree up and left?”
The soldier’s face wrinkled up in his difficulty to explain, “It was the bark of the tree. It became… loose. It started to move around, and then a man’s face, a face from one of our missing men appeared in the bark and the sap in between. It stretched out horribly towards us, his mouth open in a silent scream. His brother was in my search party and he ran to the tree with an axe to try and break the man free. But as his axe broke the bark the villagers came out screaming that word, “Evergreen.”
The poor man started to have difficulty breathing as he told the tale and Barney tried to calm him, telling him to have a sip of coffee. To count his breaths.
“It came from beneath us. From all around us. The earth broke and tree roots, knotted with bones and bodies and skeletons of every animal. The smell of decay was overwhelming.” The soldier looked up from the ground at Barney, “The slavs back home had a fairy tale, an old myth of a forest spirit. They called it a leshen, but those stories were nothing like this.”
Barney was sitting completely upright now, “What are you talking about? The earth broke? What did the villagers do?”
Now the soldier was visibly shaking, teeth chattering as he tried to explain. “They tried to scare it back with fire, but it wasn’t afraid. They seemed to curse us for that as well, as if we had taught it not to fear fire.”
“Slow down now, so you’re saying you got attacked by the evergreen trees?”
The soldier started sobbing and the firelight danced off of tears flowing down his cheeks, “It wasn’t the trees, it was… The Evergreen. It was, some kind of monster of the forest. I’m sorry I don’t know how to explain.” He breathed deep in and out trying to regain some composure. “It was made of roots and the bodies of animals, dead and alive. The living animals were limp, puppet-like, with eyes that were… they glowed green! It was so horrible, and the smell!”
By now Barney had lost his composure and gripped his revolver tightly. “The smell?”
“It was of decay! But not like anything I’d ever experienced. It was like a day-old battlefield’s smell of shit and guts and rot but it got into your mind! The bodies were still animated as well, they moved, they danced, they writhed!”
Barney shakily stumped to his feet and pointed the revolver at the soldier, “That’s enough! Stop damn you!”
The soldier wept and rolled back and forth against the tree. “It corrupts you! It keeps you alive to live off of your life and your mind! It only knew what the forest knew, what the animals knew, but now it has fed on men.” He stood up, supporting himself with one arm on the tree, “Mr. Winthrop, it has known so many men already, it knows us and now it fears nothing. It is wherever these evergreen trees have roots,” he took a step towards Barney, “It is BENEATH US, ALL AROUND US!”
Barney fired, three shots, directly into the chest of the soldier. The poor man crumpled down against the tree, his hands against the holes in his chest as he stared up at Barney. With his face illuminated in the flickering light of the dying fire, he whimpered as roots came spiraling out of his wounds. The roots pulled him back into the brush from within, and he moaned as he disappeared.
Barney was now sweating and shaking uncontrollably, and from the darkness where the soldier had disappeared he saw two glowing green orbs appear like eyes. He emptied his revolver at the eyes, screaming as he shot, “FUCK OFF, DAMN YOU!”
The green glowing eyes disappeared, and everything fell silent. Barney tried to take a step toward his saddle bags to grab more bullets but he found his feet stuck to the ground and looked down in horror to find dozens of small roots weaving their way up his boots. He screamed and doubled over, trying to rip the roots off of himself but as he did he heard the unmistakable sound of timber creaking and bending and as he looked up a weathered pine mask was snaking its way into the campsite, held aloft by a cord of vines, roots, branches and bones. A human body was incased within the cord, arms and legs hanging broken out to the sides, a head hanging limply with a face contorted in terror and eyes glowing bright green.
Barney threw his gun at the mask and screamed defiantly, “What the fuck are you?!”
And from all directions, the entire forest lit up with that same green light, and he saw himself surrounded by eyes, bodies, corpses. Of the Evergreen.
Half asleep, but full on dreaming of the boarding house girls back home, Barney Winthrop laid back against a soft old log with his hat pulled low over his face and his right leg turned left away from the fire as to keep the crotch rivet of his old denim Levi’s from heating up and inadvertently branding his testicles. A newer, crotch-rivet-less style was on the market, but he hadn’t turned in a bounty or taken an honest job in over a year, so he stayed to the left. His nose and mouth took turns breathing in the sweet cedar smoke from the little fire that he’d warmed some pemmican and beans over earlier in the evening, licking his lips brought a salty sweet combination of the preserved meat and tobacco that stained his overgrown mustache. It was pitch black outside the soft red glow of the fire, the moon unable to traverse the evergreen canopy overhead. Now and then a sap pocket would overheat on one of the younger logs he was burning, the crackles and pops keeping him from dozing off too far.
An unusually loud “POP” caused him to jerk awake, popping out of a dream he’d rather enjoyed where he’d been playing cards with the ladies from Chicago he’d met in a lonely bar in Oklahoma months back. They were betting articles of clothing rather than money, as per the women’s cheeky suggestion. He was just wondering to himself how best to conceal his numerous Levi’s burns when he was back in his little camp, breathing quickly and squinting into the smoky darkness.
To his shock and dismay, he was no longer alone. About twenty feet out from the fire, just within its light, there stood a disheveled soldier. Barney slowly leaned over his saddle bag, keeping an eye on the stranger and pulled out his revolver. Casually holding it against his chest he called out, “Hello there sir, please state your business.”
The soldier awkwardly took several steps forward out of the brush, walking like a newborn calf. Barney could see from the uniform that he was Army Signal Corps, possibly providing a chance for easy money. “Are you a deserter son?”
The soldier stopped and leaned against a tree. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, and he had a white ring of dehydration around his lips which started moving uncannily before words began to come out. “No sir, I am the last of my unit.” A slight German accent.
“Shit,” said Barney, spitting. “Any idea what tribe it was that got y’all?”
The soldier seemed confused for a moment and looked everywhere but directly at Barney. “It wasn’t a tribe that got us.”
Barney sighed and relaxed. Clearly the boy was in a bad way with a story to tell. It was time to turn on the ‘ol Winthrop charm that got him elected to Sheriff before the ‘ol Barney between-the-legs got him chased out of town. “Tell you what, I’ve got some cold coffee I can heat up here. Why don’t you relax and tell me what it is I’ve gotta be looking out for ‘round here.”
The soldier shifted his weight and slumped down against the tree, staring at the fire with his wide eyes, barely blinking despite the smoke.
Barney set his kettle on the edge of the fire and pulled out two tin cups, dented to all hell. He paused and shot the soldier a cheeky grin, “I’ve got a bit of whiskey as well if that’s more your flavor?”
Silence from the soldier.
Barney sighed. “Okay then, I’ll start, how’s about that? Name’s Barney Winthrop, lawman of sorts. Grew up down near Texas somewhere, don’t rightly know where. My Pa was a preacher until that damn scarlet fever got him when I was about 10. Took care of my ma and sisters until I was old enough to work. Worked contracts with different outfits as a hired gun, even made Sheriff down in Nebraska. But I’m one for the women, son, that’s what’s got me chased out here to the northwest. Word is, this is where the big money contract outlaws have all ran to. Shoot, maybe they’re dead in a ditch somewhere, but I figured I’d give it a look. I’m headed for the coast, anyhow. Now, what’s your story?”
The soldier had been nodding along to Barney’s voice and stopped at the question, looking Barney directly in the eyes for the first time. “My name, is Karl Weycht, I was born in Germany but I immigrated to America when I was twelve years old.”
Barney grinned and poured them both some coffee. He walked over and handed a cup to Karl, frowning at the man’s smell as he got close, but trying to hide his disgust as he’d finally gotten the young man talking. Where’d you move to?
Karl looked down at the cup, “Boston. There I joined the army and they trained me in telegraphy.” He looked up at Barney. “They’d had luck building telegraph lines through Texas and Chief Signal Officer Greely wanted to extend a telegraph line from the Dakotas to the West Coast.”
Barney sucked his teeth. “And I’m guessing the tribes out this way weren’t too keen on that eh?”
“They were not a problem. Actually, many of them were most helpful. I got lost in Montana and a brave gave me a ride to Billings, once we were there I taught him some telegraphy. He was fascinated!” Now the soldier was smiling, but his eyes didn’t change.
“Ah Billings! I’ve been through there. They got quite a Madam’s house there ya know, got this gal from Maine they called Saltwater Taffy. Do you know why they called her Saltwater Taffy?”
The soldier patiently shook his head no.
“Cause she tasted sweet and spoke salty and left you stickier than hell!” Barney chortled.
The soldier smiled politely.
Barney sipped his coffee, “So if it wasn’t the Indians, how come you’re out here without the rest of your unit?”
The soldier took a deep breath in and out. “It was the Evergreen.”
“The trees?”
“Yes, the forest, in a way. We’d almost made it to the coast when we ran out of the telegraph poles we’d been using so our commanding officer decided to start cutting down trees and preparing more. Men started to disappear. This didn’t make sense as the work wasn’t difficult or dangerous enough for them to desert, and the local tribes had been very kind to us.”
“I’ve heard sometimes they do that to lull you into a false sense of security.”
“No, they were peaceful. There was plenty of game and food to share. We ate like kings. But the more trees we cut down, the more men went missing. Finally we formed search parties and split up. My group was to go West, into the forest. We hiked for days, until we finally came clear of the trees and into a clearing with a village and a crystal clear river running through. They welcomed us, but had clearly not been in contact with white men before as they found our clothes and weapons fascinating. We had a reliable translator with us, but even he could not decipher their language.”
Now Barney was interested. “You’re telling me you found a new tribe? Were your lost men with them?”
The soldier shook his head, “They didn’t seem to know anything, but were very upset when they we explained we were cutting down the evergreen trees. They seemed to worship the evergreens, and showed us how they had built all of their homes out of stones instead of wood. A man in ceremonial dress made from pine needles seemed to threaten us, but indirectly. It was as though we were in danger from an unseen force. He wore a mask made of weathered pine, with eyeholes and a mouth. The only word our translator could understand was “Evergreen,” but he didn’t seem to be speaking about the evergreen trees. He spoke of “The Evergreen.”
“This must be some sort of god to them. You offended them by cutting down the trees, right?”
“There is more. We went to leave in the early morning, but as we reached the edge of the clearing one of the larger trees started to… move.”
Barney frowned, “You’re telling me this tree up and left?”
The soldier’s face wrinkled up in his difficulty to explain, “It was the bark of the tree. It became… loose. It started to move around, and then a man’s face, a face from one of our missing men appeared in the bark and the sap in between. It stretched out horribly towards us, his mouth open in a silent scream. His brother was in my search party and he ran to the tree with an axe to try and break the man free. But as his axe broke the bark the villagers came out screaming that word, “Evergreen.”
The poor man started to have difficulty breathing as he told the tale and Barney tried to calm him, telling him to have a sip of coffee. To count his breaths.
“It came from beneath us. From all around us. The earth broke and tree roots, knotted with bones and bodies and skeletons of every animal. The smell of decay was overwhelming.” The soldier looked up from the ground at Barney, “The slavs back home had a fairy tale, an old myth of a forest spirit. They called it a leshen, but those stories were nothing like this.”
Barney was sitting completely upright now, “What are you talking about? The earth broke? What did the villagers do?”
Now the soldier was visibly shaking, teeth chattering as he tried to explain. “They tried to scare it back with fire, but it wasn’t afraid. They seemed to curse us for that as well, as if we had taught it not to fear fire.”
“Slow down now, so you’re saying you got attacked by the evergreen trees?”
The soldier started sobbing and the firelight danced off of tears flowing down his cheeks, “It wasn’t the trees, it was… The Evergreen. It was, some kind of monster of the forest. I’m sorry I don’t know how to explain.” He breathed deep in and out trying to regain some composure. “It was made of roots and the bodies of animals, dead and alive. The living animals were limp, puppet-like, with eyes that were… they glowed green! It was so horrible, and the smell!”
By now Barney had lost his composure and gripped his revolver tightly. “The smell?”
“It was of decay! But not like anything I’d ever experienced. It was like a day-old battlefield’s smell of shit and guts and rot but it got into your mind! The bodies were still animated as well, they moved, they danced, they writhed!”
Barney shakily stumped to his feet and pointed the revolver at the soldier, “That’s enough! Stop damn you!”
The soldier wept and rolled back and forth against the tree. “It corrupts you! It keeps you alive to live off of your life and your mind! It only knew what the forest knew, what the animals knew, but now it has fed on men.” He stood up, supporting himself with one arm on the tree, “Mr. Winthrop, it has known so many men already, it knows us and now it fears nothing. It is wherever these evergreen trees have roots,” he took a step towards Barney, “It is BENEATH US, ALL AROUND US!”
Barney fired, three shots, directly into the chest of the soldier. The poor man crumpled down against the tree, his hands against the holes in his chest as he stared up at Barney. With his face illuminated in the flickering light of the dying fire, he whimpered as roots came spiraling out of his wounds. The roots pulled him back into the brush from within, and he moaned as he disappeared.
Barney was now sweating and shaking uncontrollably, and from the darkness where the soldier had disappeared he saw two glowing green orbs appear like eyes. He emptied his revolver at the eyes, screaming as he shot, “FUCK OFF, DAMN YOU!”
The green glowing eyes disappeared, and everything fell silent. Barney tried to take a step toward his saddle bags to grab more bullets but he found his feet stuck to the ground and looked down in horror to find dozens of small roots weaving their way up his boots. He screamed and doubled over, trying to rip the roots off of himself but as he did he heard the unmistakable sound of timber creaking and bending and as he looked up a weathered pine mask was snaking its way into the campsite, held aloft by a cord of vines, roots, branches and bones. A human body was incased within the cord, arms and legs hanging broken out to the sides, a head hanging limply with a face contorted in terror and eyes glowing bright green.
Barney threw his gun at the mask and screamed defiantly, “What the fuck are you?!”
And from all directions, the entire forest lit up with that same green light, and he saw himself surrounded by eyes, bodies, corpses. Of the Evergreen.
2 replies on “The Evergreen”
Thx!
🙂