by Lukens, Mark
But what about Red Moon?
Jed had an idea. He rummaged through all of their packs, collecting the things he would need to take with him: extra bullets, a small cloth sack of jerky, his canteen of water (which he had filled up all the way from Roscoe and Dobbs’ canteens). He already had his map, the compass, the wanted poster of Red Moon, and an extra pair of handcuffs in the pockets of his pants and coat. At the last moment he stuffed Roscoe’s metal whiskey flask into his inside coat pocket.
After he had gathered all the supplies he could carry, he hurried over to where their horses had been tied last night. He untied a piece of rope from one of the branches—it looked about the right length for what Jed needed. He took the rope over to Red Moon and crouched down in front of him, tying the ends of the rope around each of Red Moon’s ankles, leaving a foot of rope in between so he could still walk, but not run.
“They will not let us walk out of here,” Red Moon said.
Jed ignored Red Moon as he unlocked the chain around the trunk of the tree. He stood Red Moon up and wrapped the chain around his waist, then he locked the chain to the handcuffs; this kept Red Moon’s wrists chained to the front of his body, not giving him too much room to lift his hands up from his waist.
“Walk,” Jed told him.
Red Moon just stood there. “Shoot me.”
Jed took a deep breath, forcing himself to remain calm. It felt like a clock was ticking in his mind, counting down each minute they stayed in these God-forsaken woods. “If those skinwalkers come after us, I promise I’ll shoot you. But I can’t shoot you right now. I can’t carry you or drag your body without a horse. I need you to walk with me as far as we can.”
Red Moon still didn’t move.
“You either walk with me, or I have no choice but to leave you chained to the tree. I’ll go get help and be back as quickly as I can. You’ve got my word on that.”
Real fear crept into Red Moon’s eyes. “I will walk with you.”
They walked for hours, Jed checking his compass every so often to make sure they were still heading north. The trail pretty much went north, but it zigzagged a little in some places. But if the map was correct, they would be out of these woods in the next two hours or so, definitely before nightfall.
The walking had been slow because of Red Moon’s hobbled ankles, but he shuffled along as fast as he could, never complaining, chanting quietly.
“Is that magic you’re singing?” Jed asked him.
“Yes.”
“Is it strong magic?”
“The strongest I know.”
They were quiet for a moment as they walked, and then Jed said: “I heard rumors that you’re a medicine man.”
“I already told you that I am not a medicine man.”
“But you know magic prayers.”
“Are you able to pray?” Red Moon asked.
“Yes.”
“But you are not a priest.”
“It doesn’t matter. Anyone can pray to God. You don’t have to be a priest to pray to God.”
Red Moon said nothing, his point made.
They were quiet for a while as they walked.
“If these skinwalkers are real—” Jed began.
“They are real,” Red Moon interrupted.
“If they are real,” Jed continued, “then how could God let something like them exist?”
“They are like demons,” Red Moon said. “Your God allows angels to exist along with demons.”
Jed didn’t say anything else. He felt outmatched in a theological discussion with Red Moon who had obviously done a lot of studying, not only of his own religion but others as well.
“Why’d you kill those twenty men?” Jed asked, changing the conversation.
“They were in the way of what I wanted.”
Jed wondered what had turned Red Moon to a life of crime in the first place, but then discovered that he really didn’t care.
They walked in silence for a few minutes. Jed began to get the feeling that they were being followed. He didn’t hear any noises from the woods or see any movement, but he could feel their pursuers. And he was sure Red Moon could feel them, too.
Red Moon began to chant again, the melodic prayers uttered in whispers. Jed thought about praying. He’d never been a truly religious man, and after Clara had died he had turned his back on God for a while, angry at Him for taking the love of his life away. But Jed prayed now. A foreboding feeling was blanketing him again, a hopelessness that he couldn’t shake. He’d always been a strong and capable man. He’d always been able to tough things out, stand up to anyone, solve most problems, but he felt overwhelmed by these skinwalkers. They truly seemed magical, like they floated through the forest, waiting for the right time to appear and swoop down. And if these people were magical, if this was some demonic thing like Red Moon seemed to believe, then Jed felt it wouldn’t hurt to pray right now.
Jed felt uncomfortable praying to God. He never prayed when he confronted a wanted man. But now he was truly scared. Dobbs had been taken, but Dobbs had been a greenhorn, maybe easily tricked. Roscoe was another story—he was a seasoned bounty hunter and shouldn’t have been easily overtaken. If these skinwalkers could swoop in and take Roscoe away without a trace—or worse, cast some kind of spell on him—then Jed was no match for them. The most he could hope for was that he would be able to pick them off one by one when they finally showed themselves. He believed in God, but he also put much of his faith in guns and bullets.
The woods had gotten thicker now, the undergrowth growing over the trail. Red Moon was having an even tougher time walking with the ropes hobbling him. Jed considered untying the ropes so they could make better time, but he still couldn’t trust Red Moon completely.
An hour later they had made it through the thickest part of the woods. Now the trail had opened up, growing wide and easy to traverse. Even Red Moon was walking easier now.
And then Red Moon stopped.
The woods were darker now, the trees closer together and the brush between them thicker even though the trail was cleared in this area.
“What is it?” Jed whispered from behind Red Moon, Roscoe’s rifle in his hands.
“Up ahead,” Red Moon said.
Jed stared at the trail ahead, the path disappearing around a thick stand of trees. “What’s around the bend?”
The woods were deathly quiet.
Red Moon still hesitated.
“Keep walking,” Jed told Red Moon, nudging him forward with the barrel of the rifle.
“Remember your promise,” Red Moon said. “If they come, you said you would shoot me.”
“Get moving or I won’t waste a bullet on you.”
Red Moon began walking towards the sharp bend in the trail.
Jed knew there was something very bad waiting for them around that bend, but they had to get past it to get out of these woods.
When they were a few feet closer to the bend, Jed heard whispering from the other side of the brush. At first he thought it was Red Moon chanting again, but Red Moon was silent now.
There was another sound along with the whispering—a buzzing sound. Flies. Something had been left on the trail for them, something dead and rotting like the animal they’d seen yesterday, the one that had been turned inside out.
Jed and Red Moon stepped around the bend, and then they both froze, staring at what waited for them on the trail.
CHAPTER 6
Jed sat up, nearly drifting off to sleep as he’d been thinking about what he and Red Moon had seen waiting for them on the trail. He looked over at David and saw that he was asleep on his back with the photograph of his family on his chest. He had been holding it until he fell asleep.
Jed got up and laid a large piece of wood on the campfire. He walked over to David and picked up the photograph—he didn’t want it to blow away in the night. He went back to his bedroll and lay down, stretching out and staring at the photo. David was in the photo with his older brother and their pare
nts. There was a speck of dried blood on the edge of the photo; Jed chipped it away with his thumbnail and then shoved the photo down into his pants pocket. He would give it back to David in the morning.
He turned over onto his side and stared at the fire. He didn’t want to think about what he’d seen on that trail in the woods this morning, but he couldn’t help thinking about it—he couldn’t get it out of his mind.
*
Dobbs sat in the middle of the trail, facing north with his back to them. The red skinless flesh of Dobbs’ body glistened in the midday sunlight that shined down brighter onto this wide part of the trail. Every muscle showed on Dobbs’ body along with the small globules of yellowish fat clinging to his sides. Thick purplish-black veins crisscrossed over some of his mucus-covered, striated muscles. His skinless head was bent forward, like he was looking down at something in his lap. Jed knew Dobbs wasn’t dead because he could see the slight movement of his back as he drew in a breath and slowly exhaled.
What was in his lap? What was he holding in his hands?
“Jed,” a voice called out, but it wasn’t Dobbs speaking. Jed knew that voice—it was Roscoe’s voice.
“Jed,” Roscoe said again, drawing the word out.
“This . . . this can’t be real,” Jed whispered. He looked at Red Moon—he needed to look at the Navajo now, he needed to see something he knew was real, something to ground him in this new nightmarish world he suddenly found himself in.
Red Moon’s dark eyes were wide, bulging from his face, his mouth drawn down into a severe frown with dried spittle at the corners of his lips. “Shoot me now,” he grunted as he tried to raise his shackled hands up as far as he could. “You promised.”
Jed looked back at Dobbs who still hadn’t moved; he was still sitting in the middle of the trail and staring down at something in his lap, his hands there like he was cradling something. And Jed already knew what was in Dobbs’ hands.
“Jed,” Roscoe called out again. “They won’t let you die. They will keep you alive, and it just goes on and on and on.”
“Shoot me!” Red Moon shouted. He was still frozen in place, not even bothering to try to run, his only hope that Jed would keep his promise.
Jed ignored Red Moon. He turned back to Dobbs and it felt like his legs were moving on their own as he walked towards the creature that used to be Dobbs, giving him a wide berth and keeping his rifle aimed at the skinless man. He moved all the way around until he was in front of Dobbs—he had to see what he was cradling in his hands.
“No,” Red Moon whimpered. “Do not look at it.”
Jed had to see.
And there it was—Roscoe’s severed head was cradled in Dobbs’ skinned hands. He held the head gently like it was a baby. Roscoe’s face stared up at the sky, his head of gray hair touching the shiny slab of Dobbs’ abdomen muscles that were sectioned off with what looked like lines of gristle. The end of Roscoe’s neck ended in a ragged stump of meat. Tattered pieces of skin and a line of vertebrae trailed out like little white knuckles, the piece of spine somehow managing to stay together. There were two large holes in the stump of his neck, one where his esophagus had been severed, and the other was his windpipe, which fluttered slightly. Roscoe’s eyes were wild, his blue eyeballs flicking back and forth, his mouth twitching every time a fly landed on his face. The stink of decaying flesh was even worse now that Jed was so close.
. . . can’t be real can’t be real can’t be real . . .
The strength drained out of Jed’s body. He lowered the rifle. He felt the weapon slip out of his fingers. He heard it hit the hard-packed dirt with a thud. It didn’t matter; Jed realized that the weapon was useless now. Roscoe and Dobbs couldn’t be killed. They should already be dead. Maybe they were dead.
They get inside a person. That’s what Red Moon had said before, his words echoing so loudly in Jed’s mind that he swore Red Moon was speaking them again. They can raise the dead. Make them walk and talk again.
These skinwalkers could do anything they wanted, Jed saw that now. Were the skinwalkers approaching at that very moment, ready to attack from the woods?
Why would they need to? The skinwalkers could cast their spells from afar and perform their magic from where they hid in the woods. Why bother showing themselves now?
“Jed,” Roscoe said again, a fly crawling inside his mouth as he spoke. He rolled his eyes down, looking down his nose at Jed.
Dobbs stared straight ahead, his eyeballs like perfect round orbs in his face, ready to spill out of the sockets. His teeth looked too big in his skinned face. His ears were gone, just black holes where they used to be. He sat perfectly still, breathing slightly, his neck muscles like cords of thick rope. Flies and gnats flew around, landing and then taking off again from his body.
“Jed,” Roscoe said. “Leave your prisoner with us.”
It took a moment for Jed to understand what Roscoe was telling him to do. He could feel his mind wanting to break, and he swore he heard the cracks inside his head like an ice-covered lake suddenly thawing.
“Do what he asks,” Roscoe said. “Give him what he wants and he will let you live.”
“Jed!” Red Moon shouted, drawing his name out in a sob, like this was his one last chance to get through to him, one last plea for mercy, one last reminder of a promise.
“No,” Jed croaked. “No. This can’t be real.”
“It is real,” Roscoe snapped and then smiled, his mustache twitching up with his grin. “It’s so real. And you’ll feel it too if you don’t do what he asks of you. You have to give him what he wants. There will be other things he asks of you soon.”
Jed realized that he was backing away from Dobbs and Roscoe’s head cradled in his hands. He was backing up along the trail, heading north, the way out of these woods. He was leaving Red Moon behind.
“Marshal!” Red Moon sobbed. “You promised!”
Jed wasn’t listening to Red Moon anymore. He saw the rifle on the ground a few feet in front of Dobbs, but he didn’t go back for it. All he could think about now was getting away from this monstrosity that used to be two people he knew.
Jed turned and ran. He hadn’t run this fast since he’d been a boy. He never even turned around to see if the skinless Dobbs had gotten to his feet to chase him, carrying Roscoe’s head by his gray hair, the head swinging back and forth as he ran. He didn’t even care if he was being chased. He didn’t care if the skinwalkers were gliding through the forest like ghosts. All he cared about, all he could focus on right now, the only thing his mind could handle at this moment was running.
Fifteen minutes later Jed slowed down. He was breathing so hard he thought he might pass out. His thigh muscles burned and his feet throbbed from running in his cowboy boots. His skin was slick with sweat despite the chilly air.
When was the last time he had run like that? The last time he’d run that far?
He wanted to keep running, but he had no choice but to stop; if he didn’t, he was going to collapse. The trail was still somewhat wide, but much narrower than the clearing where Dobbs and Roscoe had been.
Once he was out of the woods, Jed rested against a tree. He took a few sips of water from his canteen and his hands were shaking so badly he spilled some of the water down his chin and onto his shirt. His feet were throbbing, his back and legs sore. He needed to rest for a few seconds; he was afraid that if he tried to run down the hill he would fall and break his leg or arm.
He checked his compass and map as he waited by the tree, making sure he was still heading north. If he followed the trail down the hill he would be heading northwest, but he would eventually veer north again. He stood up on trembling legs, looking around. There was nothing in front of him except the rolling hills and the jagged mountains in the distance. The sun was still high in the sky, but night would come quickly out here.
Realizing that his trip to Smith Junction was going to be much longer and more arduous on foot, Jed checked his map for any towns that were closer. Ther
e was only one—the town of Hope’s Spring. It was a tiny town, but it had grown quickly when silver and copper had been discovered in the nearby hills. But as quickly as the metals had been discovered and the town built, the silver and copper had dried up. Now the town was dying, and many called it Hope’s End.
Jed realized that if he couldn’t find a horse between here and Hope’s End, then that little town was going to be his best chance. He started his journey, hurrying down the hill into the valley below. He climbed the next hill, and when he was at the top of it, he saw a house in the valley below, far off to his left. There was no smoke rising from the chimney, but the place didn’t look abandoned. Near the house there was a barn, and another building inside a corral that had to be a horse stable. This would be his best chance to borrow a horse.
Hope spurred Jed on as he walked down the hill a little quicker than he should have. He lost his balance a few times on the way down, falling once and sliding down the dirt and brittle grass on his butt, but he didn’t hurt himself.
Twenty minutes later he stood at the edge of the homestead.
Everything was quiet and Jed found it odd that there weren’t any people working in the corrals or at the barn and stables. There were some sheep farther out in one of the corrals, with some cows a little closer inside another fence. There were horses in the stables, Jed could hear them nickering and snorting in there.
But where was everyone?
Maybe no one was home.
Or maybe whoever lived here had seen him coming. Maybe they were waiting inside the house with their rifles ready.
Jed started walking slowly towards the house. He didn’t want to survive the horrors he’d been through up in those woods just to be shot by some nervous ranchers now.
Everything was still quiet. He didn’t see any movement from the house, which was a large adobe structure with a porch running along the entire front of it. A stack of firewood was piled up at the side of the home, between the house and the corral fence on that side.
