The Coffin Maker by Kristoph Kosicki

The Coffin Maker by Kristoph Kosicki

 Nobody saw the coffin maker ride into town and sure as hell nobody saw him set up shop. Despite the abnormality of his appearance, nobody believed him when he prophesied that there would be over 25 deaths in our little town. Still, the day I met the coffin maker would be one of the worst days of my life. He was a fragile old man with a deep English accent that I do not do well to imitate. And by the time I had met him, he was already well on his way to working.

“Good morning, Sir, I’m much obliged to meet you. My name is Sheriff Chandler” I told him.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to keep working. I don’t have time for introductions.” He told me.

I raised my eyebrow, and I cocked my head, then I tipped my hat. I hadn’t had much reason to deal with him at the time because I suspected him to be of little threat to our tiny town, besides there was work to be done and the law to be maintained.

“I’ll be checking back in this evening.” I told him

“Very well,” he replied.

By noon, the little birds were already chirping about what they had seen. Minds of weaker men can’t resist the temptation of talking about matters that don’t much concern them. But as I would soon learn, there’s no matter that would concern them more.

I promised to quell their worries and press the coffin maker a little bit harder about why exactly he was here. To my surprise, by the time I returned in the late afternoon, he had already doubled the number of coffins that he had made.

With a slight grin on my face, I asked him if he was preparing for the end times.

“Not exactly,” he replied.

“Sure as hell looks like it to me.”

“25” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“There will be 25 deaths in your little town. Hardly the whole world, is it?”

Admittedly, his tone made my trigger figure a little itchy and I grabbed him by the collar of his blouse, and I informed him “that 25 deaths in my little town would be the whole world to me.”

“As I’m sure it would be” he said as I released him from my grip.

“You fixing to tell me how you might know all this?” I quired and he cast me a somber gaze.

He simply looked up to the sky and he pointed to the heavens.

& & &

Later that evening I rested in my home, and I toiled over the words of the coffin maker. My mind grew anxious, and sleep was never to befall me. It wouldn’t soon matter, as my dogs altered me to the presence of a rider making his way up my lane. I clutched my rifle and holstered my sidearm and I stepped outside and waited.

From the bright light of the full moon, I was dismayed to see one of my scouts riding with great haste. Through labored breathing, he informed me that a young gang of bandits and outlaws was headed to town. It’s the young ones you have got to worry about. They’re full of piss and vinegar, and their balls are full of excitement, and they don’t know what to do with it. They’re eager to die because they haven’t found out there’s things worth living for just yet.

“Sheriff, they shot me. The Paxton boys”.

And just like that he slumped over on his horse and he died.

I wasted no time, and I wrapped the poor boy’s body in a cloth and I rode back into town. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t entirely surprised when I started towards the old jail house and found that the coffin maker’s candlelight was still burning. I jabbed my Spurs into the horse’s body and told him to yield as I pulled hard on the reins.

The coffin maker stepped outside to greet me and placed his hand on the limp sack that was on the back of my horse, and he said “that’s one”

I exhaled slowly and I said, “I think it’s time that you start talking.”

& & &

The Coffin Maker welcomed me into his shop, and it smelled of pine and tree oil. He offered me a cup of tea that I was not much in the mood to indulge in but too parched to decline, and he told me his wretched tale.

“It won’t change things, so I suppose there is no harm in indulging your curiosity. By Sundown tomorrow the rest of those pine boxes will be full, and I’ll be moving on to another town that will soon find itself in great despair, as I have been doing for more lifetimes than I can even dare to count. You see, I was once like you, when a great plague came to the village of my origins. An angel visited me one night, in the midst of my suffering and promised an end. I sometimes wonder, if perhaps this creature was a winged devil after all. As when I accepted his promise, the suffering did indeed end. My ailments were lifted, but I was left abandoned, charged with the task of burying my kinfolk.

Each night I suffer terrible visions of towns just like mine and yours, and I make their coffins as that is my purpose in this world, but I suppose there’s only one question you have, and that’s if the fate of your town can be somehow altered?”

The Coffin maker looked at me through his milky eyes and he sipped his tea and spoke

“I’ve never seen it done before, but I often wonder, had I chosen to subdue the suffering of those around me, instead of my own, would I be cursed to walk this earth, burying good people like you.”

& & &

I had little time to think about the philosophy of fate and destiny as the Paxton boys were well on their way. Before the sun could rise, I gathered up six deputies as it was all the fighting force my little town had. We Rode East into the direction we knew the Paxton boys were to be coming.

We could see them across the valley on top of the highest hill. The sun rising on their backs turning them into shadowy silhouettes. The bushwhacking prairie boy made no mention before his dying breath of exactly how many Paxton boys there were, but I audibly gasped when we laid eyes on the small militia.

“Sheriff, there must be 50 men or more.”

I nodded, there was at least that much for sure. I ain’t no yellow belly coward but this wasn’t the Alamo and there ain’t no seven men that could stand to 50 or more pissed off ex confederates.

My thoughts began to fill with exactly who all those pine coffins were meant for. If we stood to fight on that hill, at least seven of those boxes would be for us alone. And I wouldn’t imagine it to be so, that the remaining be any of them.

It was here that I was truly confronted with my own sense of cowardness. As it was my instinct, despite my training and experience, to flee. But for a moment, I still can’t be sure, I thought I saw an angel flying over that hill. Maybe, it was a vulture, but seldom do they fly alone. I looked at my men to draw their attention to it, but none of them showed any signs of noticing, and when I looked back it was gone. And I wondered if given the chance the coffin maker had, if I wouldn’t have saved my own hide too.

I wondered, maybe after all these years if the Coffin maker still has a choice.

My deputies probably thought I had lost my battle with my nerves, when I righted my horse and sped back towards town. I headed once more to the coffin maker, hoping to get to him before he finished making his last box.

He stepped out one last time to greet me, facing towards the west.

“Off to the next town?” I asked him.

“Afraid so,” he replied, tipping his cap.

“Ever think, maybe you can turn around and face the fight for a change?”

What I didn’t tell the Coffin Maker, is that if I could trade places with him, right then and there. I would have, if it meant that the innocent men, women and children in that little prairie town wouldn’t be the ones to fill those boxes.

I returned to the hill and rejoined my Deputies. “Boys, set the horses free. We ain’t getting out of this one”. And as we let them go, the Paxton boys were now within earshot, and the hooves of their own Calvary echoed like thunder in the valley. We stopped there together, preparing to die on our hill. I closed my eyes and accepted Jesus as my salvation.

When I opened them, a lone rider raced past me from behind. He sped off towards the Paxton boys and opened fire. I heard six shots ring out from the rider’s gun before the Paxton boys returned fire on the man. There was an endless barrage of bullets, so much so that the wall of smoke forced the Paxton’s to halt their horses.

When the smoke cleared, there was a man standing next to his dead stead, but for his one dead horse there were six dead Paxton boys. The man half turned to face me, and I could see his flesh was gone. Only tattered bits remained, but I was sure that the skeletal face was that of the coffin maker.

The deputies and I stepped forward to face our destiny and joined the Coffin Maker. A standstill now between our two forces. “Fire!” I ordered, laying eyes on William Paxton himself. He fell quickly and unimpressively, just a boy after all.

The bullets ripped through my Deputies, that was 6 more casualties. I started to count. With William Paxton and the Prairie boy, we were up to 14. And who knew how many fell from the deputies’ own onslaught of bullets.

When the Paxton boys finally realized they were up against supernatural forces, and that they couldn’t hurt the dead man, retreat was necessary. Without William Paxton leading their ranks, they sped off in cowardice, leaving their dead behind.

“24”. I said to the Coffin Maker, realizing now that I was bleeding out. “Tell me, who is number 25?”

“Me” he replied.

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Kristoph Kosicki 2024