Night Terror (The Trailsman No. 391)

Night Terror is a 2014 novel attributed to Jon Sharpe, no. 391 in the Trailsman series of short western novels. Created by John Joseph Messmann, who wrote the majority of the first 200 books, the series centers upon the eponymous Trailsman, Skye Fargo, and his various adventures across the nineteenth-century United States and Canada. The Trailsman series began publication in 1980 and continued through 2014, ending with no. 398, Arizona Ambushers. Various authors have contributed to the series, all writing under the name Jon Sharpe, and multiple volumes were set in Arkansas, including Arkansas Assault (no. 263), Ozarks Onslaught (no. 275), Arkansas Ambush (no. 346), Death Devil (no. 363), and Devil’s Den (no. 390).

Night Terror opens in 1861 with Skye Fargo “amid low hills at the edge of bayou country” in Arkansas, on a mission to deliver a secret packet of U.S. Army materials to General Thaddeus Canton. During a storm, he sees a man (or man-like beast) larger than any he had ever seen and then sees a disembodied human head lying on the trail. He takes the head into the nearest town, Haven, where he learns that seven such heads have been found so far (never the body) over the past two months, and locals have dubbed the killer the Night Terror. The head belonged to a Jerrod Wilkes, whose backwoods brothers—Wayland, Hosiah, and Abimelech—are determined to avenge their kinsman. Fargo later encounters General Canton, a native of the area, and learns that the contents of Canton’s dispatch pouch constitute an inventory of all military supplies and manpower available west of the Mississippi River, compiled in secret so as not to provoke paranoia in southern states preparing to secede.

After Fargo leaves the home of Sadie, a local prostitute, somebody tries to shoot him. Fargo gives chase but loses the would-be assassin and goes to warn Canton, who decides to leave that night. Fargo rides out with him, and they stay the night at an old hunting cabin belonging to the Petrie family, a once-rich family in the area. They are soon joined by Belinda and Adelade, two women who were visiting from New Orleans, and they discover that the cabin is inhabited by Eldrida Petrie, brother of Aaron Petrie, a childhood friend of Canton’s. She says that Aaron has long since left but that she lives in the lodge but does not dare go near the old family house or “the other place.” Canton asks her about “something your brother told me once,” but she refuses to talk and urges them all to flee, saying, “I don’t want more blood on my hands.” The three Wilkes brothers show up, believing that Fargo and Canton left town to try to hunt down the Night Terror.

The Night Terror soon attacks the cabin, carrying Eldrida away. Fargo and Hosiah go after it, but it seems impervious to their bullets. In the morning, Fargo heads out with Canton, Wayland, and Hosiah, tracking the creature to the edge of the swamp, where, seeing smoke in the distance, Fargo and Hosiah fell a tree, using it as a float with which they can pole through the water. They find Eldrida in a clearing, as well as the Night Terror, whom she addresses as Cain and who stands nearly eight feet tall, his body deformed and covered in various protuberances. Cain runs off, and on the way back to the lodge, Eldrida explains that Cain is her eldest brother, born deformed and reportedly discarded to the swamp by her father when he was five. Cain pursues them; stopping at an island, Eldrida tries to talk to him, but he decapitates her. Returning to where they left the others, Fargo and Hosiah find that Wayland has been stabbed, but is alive, and that Canton has vanished. Back at the lodge, they find that Abimelech has been killed.

The next day, Fargo and the two remaining Wilkes brothers ride out in pursuit of Canton and the two women, whom they find at a cabin off the road to New Orleans. They confront the group, and Belinda relates that she has converted Canton to the southern cause. Before Fargo and the Wilkes brothers can do anything, a half-dozen reinforcements, led by Captain Jefferson Fletcher, come to the aid of Belinda and Adelade. They tie up Fargo and the brothers, with plans to kill them later, but Cain appears and carries Fargo off. Fargo manages to free himself and returns to the cabin only to be taken prisoner again, but Canton shoots Adelade and knocks Belinda unconscious, revealing that he had only pretended to switch sides. While they are on the run from the others, Cain takes Belinda away. Fargo’s group joins forces with Captain Fletcher and his men in pursuit of Cain.

Deep in the swamp, they find an abandoned mansion, the apparent “other place” of which Eldrida had spoken. Inside, Cain kills Hosiah and several of Fletcher’s men before decapitating Belinda and using her head to beat Fletcher to death, and then tearing Canton’s arm from his body and beating him with it. Fargo finally manages to kill Cain. With Wayland, the only other survivor, he spends a few days looking for Canton’s horse, the general having hidden the military inventory in a bedroll tied to his saddle, but the horse apparently walked into quicksand. Fargo thus plans to report on the situation to Army authorities in New Orleans and then devote himself to “a few nights of cards and painted ladies and drinking whiskey until it comes out of my ears” before heading west.

For additional information:
Sharpe, Jon. Night Terror. New York: Signet, 2014.

Staff of the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas