He was trying to get Jim to tell the story from the beginning, knowing people always came out with details that you would never think to ask about. Or that you didn’t want to ask about in front of the concerned parties. From what the others had said, it sounded like the coach had already been inside the stockade, and Parker would have liked to know who was stretching their legs out in the yard and in sight when the man had been killed, just to settle his own mind. But Jim shuddered in his bulky coat and skipped all that, saying only, “The light was failing early because of the storm. I just got a glimpse of it, running off into the trees. I heard it howl.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s a werewolf,” Preacher Johnson said quietly, making everyone look at him in surprise. He had his hands wrapped around a mug of coffee for warmth, his eyes on the fire inside the stove’s belly. Mrs. Johnson didn’t look up at him. “There are creatures of darkness that could do this, that could curse this entire valley.”
Ignoring the interruption, Jim continued, “Dark as pitch, running like a wolf but on two legs.” He shuddered again, but Parker read malicious enjoyment in that, not fear.
Starved for entertainment, Parker thought again. “If it’s not a werewolf, then it could be somebody using craft, making a chimera of himself to make it look like he was with the others. And if that’s so, he could have killed your guard with a spell, and not his hands.”
Abernathy snorted, but Halday and Gunderson stared at him. Gunderson said, “You ask questions like a lawman. Are you a lawman?”
“I was raised by Jesuits.” It wasn’t true, but it did tend to shut people up.
“Why do you think it’s not a werewolf?” Halday asked, sounding more like he might be willing to listen to the answer. Parker chalked it up to the Jesuit thing.
“It’s not a full moon,” Parker pointed out. But it seemed like there was another reason, too. Parker’s gut was telling him that even if everybody on the coach except Halday was a werewolf, he would have still bet the whole army payroll that something else had done this.
* * *
Parker never managed to get more sense out of Jim, and nobody else had seen anything to speak of. Finally Mrs. Johnson went down the hall to one of the bunkrooms to retire. Parker thought the back of the house had to be nearly as cold as outside, but she seemed to want the privacy. Gunderson had gone out to take Halday’s place guarding the gate. The others were in the kitchen.
Parker waited for the place to get quiet, then he went out on the porch.
The storm had died away earlier while they were eating, leaving the night still and frozen. There were lamps lit out in the yard now, several hanging from the porch roof and lighting the area around the gate. In the pools of yellow light, he couldn’t see anybody moving, just the fine coating of ice. He had never been warm enough to take his coat off, and his clothes were still damp, but he stepped off the porch and walked toward the stable, ice crunching underfoot.
The sound was oddly loud in the quiet and Gunderson stepped out of the lean-to beside the gate to stare at him. Parker, determined to maintain a friendly and innocent demeanor no matter what, waved. It was too dark to see the man’s expression, but he didn’t wave back.
Since Gunderson had seen him and it would be good to have a more obvious reason for walking around in the cold, Parker stopped and opened the stable door. He held it wide enough for the lamp light outside to penetrate the darkness. The horses and mules stared curiously at him.
Then a patch of ground a few feet away exploded from a shotgun blast.
Parker bolted for the corner of the stable almost before he realized Gunderson must have shot at him. In the dark patch between the two buildings, he flattened himself against the wall and called out, “What the hell?”
“I saw it! It went this way!” Gunderson was running across the compound, out of the lamplight, toward the outbuildings.
“Don’t follow it!” Parker yelled. “That’s what it—” wants. Oh, for God’s sake. He ran after the man.
Past the barn, between two tumbledown outbuildings, Gunderson jolted to a halt, lifting the gun. Something moved in the shadows, a fast blob of darkness. Parker saw Gunderson go down and the gun go flying. He dived for it, landing in the frozen mud and snatching it up. He rolled and fired the other barrel into the dark thing standing over Gunderson. It jerked, snarled, and tore away from the body, hunkering down only a few paces away.
Parker rolled to his feet, holding the empty gun like a club, thinking, Back away slowly, then run, very very fast. Then the creature laughed, a high-pitched growl of amusement, and bolted off into the dark.
He took a step toward the body, but there was nothing to be done; Gunderson had been ripped open neck to groin, blood pooling dark on the frozen ground. Saw that one coming, Parker thought sourly. It could have gotten him, too. It obviously knew the gun was empty, having tricked Gunderson into firing the first barrel. But he figured it had done what it came to do; picked another one of them off. Then he felt a prickle along his hairline and looked up. Mrs. Johnson was standing a few paces away on the other side of the body, a neat figure in her dark coat and bonnet.
“Mr. Parker,” she said with perfect composure, drawing her skirts back from the blood.
“Mrs. Johnson,” he said. She didn’t look at all discomposed for a woman standing over steaming insides. Yep, Parker thought, Just out for a walk on an icy winter night in an isolated outpost populated by strange men and murdering werewolves. Of course, she might just be having an affair with Halday or Chipmunk Jim. He tossed the useless shotgun down next to the guard’s body. “I don’t have a gun.”
“Neither do I.”
“But I don’t think you’re unarmed.” He circled to the right, trying to get a better view of the body without touching it, keeping one eye on her. She went left, keeping one eye on him. “Did you see it?”
“I saw what I was meant to see,” she said, her voice as neat and precise as her movements. “Why did he shoot at you?”
It could have sounded like an accusation, but Parker knew it wasn’t. “He didn’t. He thought he saw it creeping up on me. But there was nothing there.” He added, “He saw what he was meant to see.”
Her fine mouth twisted in agreement. “It’s unfortunate.”
Then the door to the post banged open and hurried footsteps crunched on the snow. Mrs. Johnson vanished into the dark with a flick of her skirts. Parker yelled, “Over here!”
Abernathy, Preacher Johnson, Halday and Chipmunk Jim were running toward him from the post.
Johnson moved up beside Halday, saying with grim fear, “So it’s in here with us now.”
“Maybe it always was.” Abernathy looked white-eye scared. “This thing … it didn’t start until we got here.”
“That’s what I said,” Jim put in, not helpfully.
Ignoring him, Johnson was glaring at Abernathy. “What do you mean? You think it’s one of us? Is that what you’re saying?”
Abernathy flung his arms up in exasperation. “You heard the old man, none of this happened before we got here! It has to be one of us. I said we should all stay together, but Halday and I were alone in the bunkroom when the shots woke us. Where were you?”
“I was with my wife, where do you think?” Johnson said coldly.
* * *
Abernathy stomped back inside, but Halday held a lamp while Johnson and Parker got the body wrapped in a tarp and carried it out to a shed near the stockade wall, where the other three bundles were. If it hadn’t been for the cold, the place would have smelled like a charnel house by now. “It can’t be one of us,” Halday said as they crossed the yard on the way back. He sounded as if he was mostly talking to himself. “No one was alone, except you.” He threw a sidelong look at Parker. “And you don’t have blood on your clothes.”
“Thank you for noticing,” Parker agreed.
Johnson said, stubbornly, “It must’ve climbed the stockade, then got back out again.”
And he’ll stic
k to that story ‘til it kills us, Parker thought. He said, “I’ll take the watch. If I can have some shells for the shotgun.”
Halday stopped and eyed him. “It’s my job, I’ll do it.”
Lack of blood only went so far, apparently. As the others went into the house, he said, “I’ll check the horses, then,” and headed toward the barn. He glanced back, making sure Halday’s attention was on the gate, and stepped into the shadows between the two buildings.
He stood still a moment, feeling his feet freeze, waiting for his eyes to adjust. Now he could finally have a look for what he had originally come out here to see.
He made his way through the dark, past the rundown outbuildings. It was too dark to search without a lantern, but on this night that would be like traveling with a brass band.
He reached the stockade wall, and felt his way to the corner. He couldn’t see a damn thing and reluctantly tugged his glove off. His fingers were mostly numb, but the marks carved into the post were wide enough to feel with the back of his hand. He stepped away, pulling his glove back on. Those were some kind of hex signs, and the carving wasn’t new. They were pointing inward, meaning to protect whatever was in the compound. “Not doing such a great job at that,” he said under his breath.
Unless they were. It could be that, Parker thought. He should have gone with first impressions.
He went back to the house, moving quietly, keeping to the dark patches. The floorboards of the back porch didn’t creak, and somebody had left the latch lifted on the kitchen door. But Chipmunk Jim had been awful careless for a man who was being stalked by a werewolf or whatever the hell. Parker had thought about trying to enlist Halday’s help and already discarded the notion. Appearances aside, Johnson would probably be the one most likely to keep his head. But explanations and proof would take too long, and they would all end up with their insides steaming on the ground. And he still wasn’t certain where Mrs. Johnson fit into all this, if she was an innocent bystander or cheering from the grandstand.
He had to pass through the front room to get to rest of the house, and Johnson was in there with Abernathy, sitting on opposite sides of the room, both watching the door. Parker nodded to them as he went through to the back, down the dark hallways, past the locked doors that led to rooms for storage of supplies and beds for passengers, past the presumably locked door to the bedroom Mrs. Johnson had taken.
Halday had put the guns in a locked room in the back that did the duty of a safe for mail. Parker felt for the lock with a certain degree of confidence; he had been a safecracker before it got easier to just blow the things up. But the hasp was already broken.
Well, you should have seen this coming, he told himself wearily. He stepped back and pushed the door open with a finger.
Jim was standing inside, leaning against the cabinet where Halday had put the guns. He chuckled merrily to himself. The chipmunk teeth were now long and white and pointed on the ends. He said, “Now tell old Jim what gave him away.”
“There was hex marks protecting whatever’s inside the stockade. If you could do that, you could stop anybody with a wolf curse,” Parker said, to give himself time to think. Jim had long dirty claws now too, long sharp ones, that hadn’t been there an instant ago. His coat had fallen open to show nothing under it but a squat muscular body covered with straggly black fur soaked with blood. Jim had smelled pretty foul as it was, but the cold had disguised the worst of the odor. “But it’s not a wolf curse, is it?”
“Oh, no. That was just a joke.” Jim chuckled. “You weren’t the only one I was teasin’. Funny, huh? What’s the point of someone being a werewolf and smelling the witchery on me, and then not being able to tell anybody about it because you can’t say how you know? Now that’s funny.”
“You used a chimera to make Johnson and Abernathy think you were with them when Gunderson was killed.” Parker took a step backward, trying to think where the nearest weapon was, if he could make it all the way outside to Halday and the shotgun.
Jim shrugged. “Didn’t have to. Just gave them a little nudge to make ‘em fall asleep. I was in the yard with you the whole time, boy. When they come running up I just stepped up behind them like I’d been following them the whole time.”
Harry had always said Parker liked to make things too complicated. He took another step backward. “So you thought you’d live in the woods, eat folks, for fun?”
Jim shook his head, grinning. “I came out here to get away from the witchcatchers back east, but the damn Indians sniffed me out. The local medicine man made one of my rituals backfire and I ended up like this. I hadn’t tried any since; they’re dangerous stuff.”
Parker took the last step and slammed the door, but Jim was damn fast. He was just turning to run when the door burst open, knocking him flat. He shoved to his feet and slammed his way about seven paces down the hall when claws caught in his coat and yanked him flat.
Parker twisted around and saw Jim leering down at him. Parker kicked at his kneecap, connecting hard, and sending Jim falling forward, flailing. Parker rolled and scrambled up, lunging forward again but a set of claws wrapped around his ankle and pulled him down.
Then the nearest door flew open. It startled Jim enough that he let go when Parker scraped at his hand with his bootheel. It gave Parker just enough time to get his feet under him and throw himself through the door and into the room.
He landed on the dusty floor and realized the dark figure looming over him was Mrs. Johnson, bonnet askew and furious, holding an ax.
Jim lunged in after Parker and got the first swing right in the face. He staggered back, yowling like a wounded bear, and Parker shoved to his feet, breathing hard.
A faint line of consternation between her perfect brows, Mrs. Johnson handed him the bloody ax, saying, “Better cut his head off to make certain.”
There wasn’t much else to do under the circumstances. Parker took the ax and said, “Yes, ma’am.”
* * *
What with all the explanations of how Jim turned out to be a monster, Parker didn’t get a chance to talk to Mrs. Johnson in private until the next morning, when Halday and the others were occupied with harnessing the horses and loading the coach. They were going to take Jim’s poor packmules with them, since there was no telling when the stage company would be able to get someone to take over the post.
The sky was gray and overcast, but it didn’t smell like more rain was on the way. Mrs. Johnson was standing primly on the porch, wrapped in her dark coat, her little hands gloved again. Without looking at him she said, “You knew. About me, I mean. When?”
Standing below her on the muddy ground, Parker leaned against the post. “When you took your gloves off in the kitchen.” He thought that would have been a good moment to take her hand, but across the yard, Preacher Johnson was holding the horses for Halday and had one eye on him. It was a shame. He had never had a woman hit anybody with an ax for him before, and it had quite turned his head. He just explained, “You keep your fingernails cut back so you don’t accidentally scratch anyone. What I didn’t realize is that you were checking the food to make sure Jim didn’t put any curses on it. He looked so unhealthy, I just thought you were checking it over for rot.”
She nodded slightly, keeping her eyes on the other men across the yard. “He knew, as soon as I stepped off the coach. As I knew what he was.” She folded her hands tightly. “You haven’t said anything yet, so I assume you don’t intend to.”
“Oh no, ma’am,” Parker assured her. “My friend Harry has the same condition.”
She looked down at him then. Her face was still serious but her dark eyes were smiling. “You haven’t told me your name,” she said, not making it a question.
Considering what he knew about her, Parker couldn’t see why not. “It’s Robert Parker, ma’am.”
Parker managed to be the one to hand her into the coach, though Preacher Johnson gave him a dark look. Parker just tipped his hat and smiled.
About the Aut
hor:
Martha Wells is the author of seven fantasy novels, including Wheel of the Infinite, City of Bones, The Element of Fire, and the Nebula-nominated The Death of the Necromancer. Her most recent novels are a fantasy trilogy: The Wizard Hunters, The Ships of Air, and The Gate of Gods, all currently out in paperback from HarperCollins Eos. She has had short stories published in the magazines Realms of Fantasy, Black Gate, and Stargate Magazine, and in the anthology Elemental, edited by Steven Savile and Alethea Kontis. She also has essays published in the nonfiction anthologies Farscape Forever and Mapping the World of Harry Potter from BenBella Books. Her most recent book is a media-tie-in novel, Stargate Atlantis: Reliquary, which was published in March of 2006. Her books have been published in eight languages, including French, Spanish, German, Russian, Italian, Polish, and Dutch. You can learn more about Martha at her web site.
Story © 2006 Martha Wells.
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