A trickle of sweat ran down Cal Denker's face, falling onto his shirt, staining the front with a salty drip. Cal ran his hand over his face as he took off his hat with the other. He smoothed back his hair, slicking it down, enjoying the breeze that passed over his exposed head while standing atop the Mercantile, waiting for the Brody Boys, who had threatened to come back with some of their kin after being kicked out of the Durango, a small saloon in Fayetteville, Colorado.

The Brody Boys were known to be troublemakers. Brothers Mack and Slim ran wild with a gang of eight men. Some say all the members in the group were cousins. In a town like Fayetteville, there was a lot of inbreeding, so it wouldn't be surprising to find out they were all related somehow. The ten men were known for their mean constitutions and seemed to sport the same intense beady blue eyes and large noses.

Cal's eyes surveyed the vista. Heatwaves lifted from the ground obscuring his view. The hard rain last night gave fuel to the humid morning in this nearly desert area.

Distracting from the view were the cowboy's thoughts about who they were going to fend off. When Cal was in grammar school, he shared a bench seat with Slim, who was in the same grade, in a one-room schoolhouse at the edge of town. Slim never learned to read well, and he didn't go to church either. Cal thought that was where things went wrong for his former friend. Slim wasn't a God-fearing man. When you have a man who doesn't fear God, nothing is stopping him from going bad and treating people the same.

Cal, on the roof of the Mercantile, looked down on Henry Tredwater, who cradled his rifle like a baby.

"Do you see anything?" Cal's eyes rescanned the horizon. He shook his head, "No." Cal worried about what would happen if Henry was able to wipe the smirk off Mack Brody's face. The man had a temper and once unleashed there was no putting it back into the bottle.

At the saloon, no guns were allowed, now that that option was taken off the table, Henry and his friends stood armed, waiting for Mack and Slim. Henry would defend his daughter's reputation even if it meant his death.

The fight in the Durango Saloon began when Mack and Slim, who had consumed more than their fair share, discussed a certain schoolmarm by the name of Miss Clara Tredwater.

The woman was beautiful, which is an uncomfortable gift for a single gal. Mack had taken a shine to her after picking up his sister's child from the school a few weeks back. He made admiring verbal advances toward her. Miss Tredwater rebuffed him. Mack's pride had been bruised, and he sat in the saloon jack jawing about the woman and her less-than-stellar reputation, a false accusation.

Unfortunately for Mack, Miss Clara's father was playing a friendly game at a nearby table and overheard Mack's boisterous ridicule.

Henry Tredwater, a large man, as big as a chestnut tree, was usually mild in manner. But the talk of his beloved little girl was more than the man could take. He stood, knocking over the chair he sat upon, and picked it up, running toward Mac holding the chair high over his head with the intent of caving in Mack's skull

"You don't talk about my daughter that way." Several men, including Cal, wrestled the chair away from Henry, telling the brothers to leave the building. The Brody Boys left threatening to come back with their guns in the morning. As the gang exited the saloon, they bumped Coletta, a raggedy woman who stood on the boardwalk, and she shouted a curse upon them. Mack pushed the disheveled woman aside.

"Get away from me, you old hag," as Coletta bounced off the porch pole, ending on the ground, she held a figure made of sticks and feathers, sprinkling dirt over it. Cal helped her up from the ground, and she thanked him. He looked deep into her one good eye; she was angry, having been shamed in front of the town.

Coletta was crazy, but she was respected because she had the gift of sight. The kind that can tell you your future. It's how she made her money, selling fortunes to people who were afraid to venture into life without knowing what was ahead.

Cal felt something —a bolt of lightning run through his body —when he stood the small woman back on her feet. She had some kind of power and had used it on him.

"Thank you," she said and walked after the running men to the edge of town. She held the effigy in the air, sending her spell after the brothers, cursing them and the men who rode with them. Lightning flashed across the sky, heat lightning, but it was still dangerous.

The men from the bar turned from the witch and went home. Tomorrow would come soon enough, the Brody Boys would find the offended men waiting for them to defend their town, and the honor of Henry's daughter. Someone dared to stand up to them, and that was unthinkable.

All day they waited, while the sun beat down, forcing them to hide in the shade until it sat on the horizon in the west.

"I don't think they're coming," Henry said, gathering his friends together. "Everyone, get some rest, we ride at dawn to find them." The men disassembled, grumbling about losing another day of their livelihoods on a personal vendetta. If it hadn't been for the terror of the gang, they wouldn't have bothered coming today, but it was time to put those men back in their place.

Bright and early the following morning, twenty men mounted up and headed for the Brody property a few miles from town, where they planned to ambush them. Sheriff Palmer Drake led the posse. Cal was excited by the horses' pounding hooves along the dirt road that led them to Brody's ranch.

They arrived only to find the ramshackle house empty. Palmer shouted for the men to come out with their hands up, but there was no response. He was a brave man to kick the door open with his guns drawn, roll across the floor, and get up. The house was empty.

To say the deflation of the men was felt by all is an understatement.

"Where do you think they went?" Glenn Purty asked as they retreated, turning back to Fayetteville. His dog barked excitedly behind them, as if trying to get their attention.

"Shut that dog up. If the Brody Boys are near, they will come after us."

"Shep, come here, boy," Glenn called, but the dog refused. Glenn walked back to the mutt, got off his horse, and stepped into the brush where the dog was focused. A scream stopped them all in their tracks.

Palmer turned around to see what the fuss was about and dismounted, handing his reins to another rider, pushed his way through the bushes, gasping at the macabre sight before him.

Ten dead men and their horses had partially been buried in quicksand.

"Stand back," Palmer shouted. "Looks like quicksand, but how is that possible?"  As soon as he told the men to stay put, they all rushed to see what had happened. The Brody Boys members were frozen in various poses. The wet sand had dried and hardened, turning them into statues. Palmer called out.

"Anyone alive?" There was no response.

"Sheriff, should we bury them?"

"Seems to me, they are already buried." No one wanted to risk being stuck in the same predicament, and the men decided to go home from there. The Brody Boys got what was coming to them. Henry Tredwater was the first to mount up.

"I'm going home. As far as I'm concerned, justice has been served." Soon, the rest of them followed the man. There was no need for a posse anymore.

The clouds rumbled and the sky grew dark. Before the men reached Fayetteville, rain fell in sheets and the miserable men and their horses came into town going to their respective homes, or if they lived out of town into the local saloon, The Durango, for some comfort to dry off and have a few drinks to blow off steam.

The saloon, owned by Peter Salas, who was half Irish and half Mexican, was named in honor of his father, who was from the town of Durango in Mexico. To Pete, it seemed appropriate to name his drinking establishment Durango, after the Spanish name that meant "waterhole." Several men filed through the front door.

"Pete, drinks all around, on me." Henry Tredwater said. Palmer was first up to the bar.

"What do you think happened?" Henry asked the sheriff, still haunted by the vision he'd seen.

"I don't know. Maybe a sudden rainfall in one spot caused this. You saw the heat lightning when they rode away." Palmer said, thinking out loud.

"I also saw Corletta the witch with that voodoo doll, cursing them. Do you think she has the power to create quicksand in the desert?"

"Come now, Corletta is merely an entertainer. She has no power." Palmer chuckled.

"I do feel those men should have been buried. It seems wrong to leave them to rot in the sun."  Glenn said, ordering another drink, he still had trouble swallowing what Shep had discovered.

"They are buried. In sand." Palmer sipped his drink, and an uneasy titter went around the room.

"Palmer, you know it's not right to have those men exposed to the animals. No matter how bad they were, they deserve a Christian burial." Glenn said while Palmer shook his head in disagreement.

"Boys, I am not a preacher. I think the Brody Boys got what was coming to them. In a few months, that scene will have melted in the sun and will be gone."

"Look at that rain! I don't remember anything being this fierce," remarked another man. An hour later, the rain abated, and a young lad came through the saloon doors.

"Mark, you don't belong here," Pete Salas warned the boy.

"I've come to get the sheriff, you must come see this. There is an army of men coming across the brush on horses. They look like statues!" At that description, the remaining posse rushed from the saloon, down Main Street.

"Draw your guns," Palmer called. Coletta stood at the edge of town with her effigy figure in hand, commanding the Brody Boys to come and finish the job.

"Coletta, go home, this is too dangerous," Palmer told her. She stepped back onto the boardwalk of the Mercantile to watch her handiwork. Most folks say she had no power, but the men who were facing the dead Brody Gang, who raced across the desert toward them with guns drawn, thought differently.

"This is hell come to life." Glenn Purty said, while his dog Shep turned into a raging wolf. He snapped at the feet of the dead horses approaching the city limits. They barely registered the mad dog and kept moving forward.

"I don't know, Palmer, this doesn't seem right. Those men are dead, yet they rode horses back to Fayetteville. Do you think my pistol will stop them?" Glenn asked, drawing his gun.

"There's only one way to find out."  Palmer lifted his weapon and took careful aim at Mack, who appeared to be the leader. He shot at Mack's pistol raised in the air, ready to aim. The bullet took Mack's hand off at the wrist, and the gun fell to the ground behind him.

Pete Salas came with his shotgun from the bar, shooting at the oncoming apocalyptic horse riders. He pulled the trigger, and the shot sprayed across the front riders, taking bits out of the undead creatures who barely slowed.

"Everyone, fire!" Palmer shouted. Cal Denker, a God-Fearing man, raised his pistol and aimed, shooting Rick Brody in the head. His ear flew off. There wasn't a drop of blood from any of the men who had been wounded, but when the Brody Boys returned the fire, the posse suffered many injuries. Men fell back, to find places hiding behind porch posts, watering troughs, and corners of buildings.

A woman screamed and raced off the boardwalk into the Mercantile, whose owner pulled the shades and locked the door. Most everyone in the town found a place to disappear to. The ride of the dead men was more than they could bear.

"Father, please come inside," shouted Clara.

"Get back into the school, protect the children," Henry shouted. Nothing was going to stop the man from wiping out the Brody Boys. They'd been a menace to Fayetteville for years, it was now or never. Henry would have preferred they'd been alive, so he knew they'd been properly killed.

Cal Denker saw Coletta standing on the boardwalk, holding her effigy doll and whispering to it. He caught up with her.

"Miss Coletta, are you helping, or hurting, us?" The woman stopped chanting and lowered her hand.

"I am helping you, young man. That torrential rain washed all the hardened sand off before it was dry, I am blinding them with a light so bright that they cannot find anyone to shoot." She held the effigy doll and then set it on fire with a match she struck when she dragged it along the side of the building.

The fire took hold of the doll, and the men coming on horseback screamed as they exploded in flames atop their mounts. Coletta held the doll in her burning hand for as long as she could, dropping it on the boardwalk after it burned her fingers, catching her skirt on fire.

The flames licked up her dress, and she shrieked an immortal sound. No one came to her aid, afraid to approach the woman. She fell back against the mercantile window, crashing through it, and started the building on fire.

The ghostly statues burned and melted in the sun before the townspeople. Fire continued to burn the abomination that melted before them, distracting them until someone shouted, "Fire," and the people started a bucket brigade to try to save the town. It took most of the afternoon to extinguish the flames.  

Clara Tredwater meekly opened the school building, letting the children out to go home. She saw the dead woman on what was left of the boardwalk in front of the nearly gone Mercantile.

"Miss Coletta?" She put her hand on the witch and felt an electric shock go through her body. Some energy filled her.

"Clara, get away from that woman, she's a witch." Henry Tredwater shouted at his daughter.

Life as they knew it changed in Fayetteville, their fortune teller had died trying to save the town. Coletta was buried in the nearby cemetery. Sheriff Palmer Drake left the town soon after the incident, unable to believe what he'd seen. Cal Denker, who had always lived in the shadows, was changed by the power bestowed upon him by Coletta. He was duly elected the town's sheriff.

Years passed, Henry Tredwater died without ever seeing his daughter marry. Clara Tredwater spent her life dedicated to the children of Fayetteville until the school board informed her that she could no longer perform the job adequately. She then turned to fortune telling, a gift she had never known she possessed until after the fire in Fayetteville.

No one could explain the quicksand in the middle of a dry area. When the town searched for the phenomenon, it could no longer be found. Some surmised that it was Coletta who dug a swampy pit with a spell to stop the Brody Boys from hurting the townsfolk.

As the last surviving person who could remember the Fayetteville fire, Clara Tredwater, the town's crazy woman, still goes to the cemetery to lay flowers on Coletta's grave.

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