by Lukens, Mark
He stood at the edge of the porch, hesitating for just a moment. Something was bothering him about the front porch and the field of dirt beyond it. And then it hit him: there wasn’t any blood on the front porch, and there were no drag marks in the dirt. How had the skinwalkers gotten the bodies out of the house without dribbling any blood? Of course there was so much blood in the house that maybe there hadn’t been any left in the bodies, but Jed didn’t think that was the answer.
For just a second it seemed like the whole world had shifted slightly, everything tilting just a bit. A wave of light-headedness washed over Jed as he stared down at the bone-dry floorboards of the front porch. For the first time in his life, he felt small and weak, like everything he’d always known was suddenly beyond his control, like he was a piece of wood floating helplessly down a raging river, carried along through this horror whether he wanted to go or not.
A noise from behind him spun Jed around with his gun aimed. David had stepped out onto the front porch with his canvas bag in his hands.
Jed exhaled a long breath. “Come on. Help me pick out two horses. Show me which one you usually ride.”
David hurried towards Jed and they walked together to the stables. Inside the stables, David walked up to a small mare that was obviously his horse. Jed didn’t have to show David how to mount the horse; David was familiar enough with them.
There were a few bedrolls on a shelf, rolled up tightly and tied with twine. Jed tied one of them to the back of David’s saddle and one to the back of the saddle of the horse he was going to take, the better of the two horses that were left. He let the other horse out into the corral and left a large pile of feed by his pen, leaving the stall door open. He wasn’t sure why the skinwalkers hadn’t taken the horses after taking David’s family, but he was sure they had a reason for it. Jed couldn’t help feeling that the skinwalkers were doing certain things purposely, like they had a plan they were laying out. He couldn’t help feeling like he was being herded somewhere . . . herded into a trap.
Jed’s horse was a little nervous, but Jed rode him around the corral for a few minutes to calm him down, and then they were ready to go.
They rode away from David’s house, north into the badlands of northern Arizona. And soon they would camp for the night.
CHAPTER 8
Jed’s eyes popped open in the darkness. Their campfire was out, but the darkness wasn’t as complete as the darkness in the woods had been; a full moon provided plenty of light for Jed to see the man seated at the other side of the dead campfire.
For a moment Jed didn’t know where he was. He had awakened in a state of grogginess, more confused than afraid at first as his conscious mind tried to catch up to what his eyes were seeing.
He wasn’t in the woods anymore—he knew that right away. He was in the desert with David. They had camped out for the night.
And now Red Moon was here by their dead campfire, sitting cross-legged and naked under the moonlight. His head was bent forward, his long hair hanging down over his shoulders, his face hidden behind his hair and the shadows.
Suddenly all of the memories of the last thirty-six hours came back to Jed: Dobbs’ skinned body, Roscoe’s severed head, David and his slaughtered and missing family. And he had left Red Moon behind in those woods.
Jed sat up on his bedroll and stared at the Navajo who sat only ten feet away from him. Jed glanced over at David who was curled up on his bedroll, his eyes closed; he was either sleeping or pretending to be asleep. Jed looked over at the stand of trees where he had tied their horses. Both of them were still there, both jittery and snorting, their legs still hobbled. He looked back at Red Moon.
Red Moon sat very still, his head still bent down like he was looking down at his lap. It looked like Red Moon’s skin was rippling, like something was moving just underneath it, little lumps sliding back and forth under his skin.
“He is going to want something from you,” Red Moon said in a deep, guttural voice. He still hadn’t looked up at Jed yet, his face still in shadows, the moonlight shining down on the top of his head and shoulders.
Jed couldn’t respond; his throat had locked up with fear. His Colt was within easy reach. He could shoot Red Moon right now if he had to. But he knew that it wouldn’t do any good, so he left his gun alone.
Save the last two bullets for me and David. I won’t let us end up like this.
“He is going to want things,” Red Moon said again in his gravelly voice. “You give him what he wants, and he will let you live.”
Jed was going to ask Red Moon what “he” wanted, but he still couldn’t get his voice to work. He had been afraid many times in his life, but never like this. He’d never faced something so powerful that it made him feel like giving up.
The lumps under Red Moon’s skin were moving around faster now, and there were more of them. One of the lumps pushed through the skin of Red Moon’s shoulder, and a black beetle wiggled out, its shell shiny in the moonlight. Once the bug was free from Red Moon’s skin, it skittered down his chest and into the shadows of his lap.
Another beetle pushed itself out of Red Moon’s skin, and then another one. And another. Dozens of beetles were pouring out of Red Moon’s skin, racing down his flesh like an army of ants. The beetles were merging together, forming into a bigger organism, an amoeba-like being.
Red Moon raised his head, his face coming out of the shadows. “Remember what I said. When the time comes, you give him what he asks for.”
How was Red Moon speaking? He had no face—there was just a deep black hole where his face should have been, a giant cavern with edges of ragged flesh and bits of torn, gleaming skull.
Jed snapped awake, jumping to his feet beside the bedroll. The sky was lightening up in the east, and it was only a half an hour until sunrise. The campfire was long dead. The air as cold, the coldest it had been all night. He was shaking, a feeling of dread blanketing him.
Red Moon.
He looked where Red Moon had been sitting next to the campfire last night.
It was just a dream, Jed told himself. Just a terrible nightmare. But he saw a slight indentation in the sand where someone had been sitting last night. Another chill ran across his skin.
They needed to get out of here.
Red Moon had told him in the woods that the skinwalkers were witches that could cast spells. Had they cast a spell on him in those woods? Had they made him see things that weren’t there? Were they still making him see things right now?
At least both of the horses were still there. And David was still asleep on his bedroll. If Red Moon had truly paid him a visit last night, then Jed felt sure the skinwalkers would have taken the horses, and maybe even David. But it felt more like Red Moon had been sent to send him a message, one last warning from the skinwalkers.
Give him what he wants.
But Jed didn’t know what he, or they, or whatever they were, wanted. And he couldn’t concentrate on that right now.
Focus on the task in front of you. He repeated the mantra in his mind that he had told himself for years.
“Just a dream,” he muttered as he gathered a few sticks of dried wood from the small group of trees the horses were tied near. It was still early morning, the world not fully lit up yet; many parts of the land were still hidden in shadows. He tore some of the bark away from a tree, peeling fibers of wood back, lighting the dry fibers with a kitchen match to get the campfire going again. He watched the flames as they spread along the kindling.
Ten minutes later he started a pot of coffee with some water from his canteen. His hands shook as he poured the water; he tried to make them stop shaking, but he couldn’t. He felt a strong urge to wake David up at that moment, pack up their camp, get on their horses and ride away as fast as they could. He had originally planned on going to Hope’s End because he’d been on foot, but now that he and David were on horseback, they could make the trip all the way to Smith Junction where they would be safe.
Nowhere is s
afe, a voice in his mind whispered. He could ride all the way to the Canadian line and it still wouldn’t be safe.
Jed woke David up after the coffee was boiling. The boy woke up easily, his eyes popping open. He didn’t smile and he didn’t say anything, he just sat up on his bedroll. Jed handed David a tin cup of coffee.
“We need to get going soon,” Jed told David. “If we get a good day of traveling in, we could be in Smith Junction by tomorrow afternoon.”
David didn’t say anything, didn’t seem to care. He didn’t even look at Jed; he just cradled the cup of coffee in his hands like he was trying to warm them up.
Jed bit off a few pieces of jerky and handed a piece to David who took the dried meat without a word. They would save the rest of the beans for tonight.
Thirty minutes later Jed and David were on horseback and riding away from the dead campfire. Jed cooed at his horse, stroking his mane, trying to get the animal relaxed. Moments later a group of coyotes began yipping on the horizon.
CHAPTER 9
The coyotes followed them throughout the day, yipping and staying out of sight most of the time.
Until now.
Now Jed saw ten of them lined up on a hill in the distance, they stood like a sentry of soldiers. Not only that, there were buzzards circling in the air above. He’d also heard the rattling of rattlesnakes several times, but he’d never seen any of them. All of this made him think of the animal noises he’d heard in the woods: the hoots of owls, the howls of wolves, the rattling of snakes.
Maybe there was something dead around here, something big enough to attract scavengers like buzzards and coyotes. But the coyotes on the hilltop in the distance didn’t seem to be hunting or scavenging—they seemed to be watching him and David as they rode by.
Jed and David rode down into a little canyon, and now the coyotes were out of sight. Jed heard the bubbling of a stream splashing across the rocks. He got off his horse to stretch his legs. He grabbed the reins and led his horse to the stream. David got off of his horse and did the same. It was almost afternoon now so Jed broke a piece of jerky apart so he and David could share it. David bit a small piece of the dried meat off and chewed, and then he walked away from the stream and looked back at the canyon floor that they had just traveled through.
Jed walked over to see what the boy was staring at.
More coyotes had gathered in the distance a few hundred yards away. The coyotes were just thin, dark shapes on the horizon, but Jed could tell that they were sitting on their haunches and watching them. A chill ran through him—animals didn’t act like that. Jed had never been afraid of coyotes—they were skittish animals and scavengers of opportunity. Even wolves didn’t scare Jed that badly, unless it was a pack of them. Wolves only became dangerous when they were more hungry than scared. Bears and cougars concerned him a little. Cougars liked to sneak up behind a man, especially at night, or attack from above, perched on a rock or a tree branch. But Jed didn’t usually see too many cougars in this area. Both cougars and bears could be scared off by loud noises or gunshots. But those coyotes at the other end of the canyon were spooking him; they weren’t acting the way coyotes were supposed to act. Skinwalkers could supposedly transform into animals. Could that line of coyotes be the skinwalkers? Could they have transformed into coyotes?
That was ridiculous, and Jed pushed that thought out of his mind. He was still jumpy and tired, his mind entertaining strange thoughts. He knew he had seen some strange things in those woods, things he couldn’t explain, perhaps hallucinations, but he wasn’t going to accept the idea of a man changing into an animal.
Yes, maybe he’d just hallucinated some of those things in those woods, the delusions created by stress. It was possible. And the visit from Red Moon last night had just been a vivid dream, nothing else. He knew stress could bring on vivid dreams. He knew a few men who had fought in the Civil War and they had admitted to horrible nightmares, some of the dreams so terrifying that they would jump out of bed and run smack into a wall, trying to flee the terror they’d seen in their sleep. One man told Jed that he had attacked his wife several times while he was asleep. He’d almost killed her once. She went back east to live with her mother’s family.
Jed hoped no more nightmares were coming for him. He didn’t want to experience any more nightmares like he’d had last night.
The horses had had their fill of water. It was time to move on. Jed looked up at the sky. Buzzards still circled in the air above the canyon walls, but they stayed above the line of coyotes in the distance. The sky was a deep blue, but storm clouds were beginning to move in quickly.
“Come on, David. We need to get moving.”
*
After they’d gotten out of the canyon, there was no doubt that a bad storm was on the horizon—a wall of black clouds rushed towards them like a tidal wave. The wind was already beginning to pick up. Maybe the storm was what had been making those coyotes and buzzards act so strangely.
Jed halted his horse and checked the map. They were only an hour or two away from the town of Hope’s End. He had planned on going as far as they could and then camping tonight, then reaching Smith Junction by tomorrow afternoon or early evening. But with the storm moving in, he really had no choice but to try to make it to the closest town. There was nothing but hilly land and scrub brush as far as he could see once they’d left the canyons behind—no shelter of any kind from the storm.
“We’re going to have to ride to the closest town,” Jed told David as he folded up his map and tucked it back into his shirt pocket. “Storm’s coming, and it’s going to kick up some sand. We’re going to have to ride fast. Okay?”
David just nodded, the reins gripped in his small hands.
“That storm comes, you pull your bandana up over your mouth and nose,” Jed told him. He pulled his own up so David understood what he was saying.
Again, David just nodded.
Jed nudged his horse forward and David fell in beside him, their horses trotting now like they could sense the dangerous storm coming.
As they raced across the desert, Jed swore he could hear the coyotes yipping somewhere in the distance. It almost sounded like the animals were laughing, like they were happy that he and David were being forced towards Hope’s End.
PART 2
HOPE’S END
CHAPTER 10
Jed and David saw the small town of Hope’s End on the horizon as the storm raged right behind them.
“Just keep my horse in sight!” Jed yelled at David over the wind as he pulled his bandana up over his face and drew the string of his hat tight underneath his chin.
David watched him as he rode his horse, doing the same thing Jed did.
“It’s going to get hard to see!” Jed told David. “You just keep my horse in sight!” he said again.
The boy didn’t nod, but he kept his horse right to the side and slightly behind Jed’s.
The storm was whipping the sand up into a frenzied swirl, a blizzard of sand all around them. Jed knew the storm was going to be bad from the looks of the clouds that had covered the horizon, but this was worse than he had expected. The wind howled and the sand stung his flesh through his shirt. He could imagine the pain and terror David was going through right now. Even though there was no rain, lightning flashed every few seconds, the ground rumbling with thunder, static electricity crackling through the air.
The edge of town was just a series of dark shapes in the blurring sandstorm, and Jed kept his horse racing towards those black blobs. He peeked to his side to make sure David was still there. The boy was keeping up just fine.
Jed had been to Hope’s End a few times, just passing through, never staying long. It was a one-street town, the street cutting a straight and wide path through the two and three story buildings lining both sides of the street. From what he remembered there was a large white church at the other end of town. But Jed wasn’t sure if they could make it all the way to the church; he remembered a hotel not too far down
the street. He steered his horse to the right after they passed the first few buildings, all of which looked dark. But at least there were lights inside the hotel windows to guide their way.
“In here,” Jed yelled at David as he turned his horse into an alley between the hotel and the building next to it. As soon as he was between the buildings, the pelting sand stopped and Jed could see again. He pulled his bandana up to his eyes and rubbed them with the cloth, trying to get the sand out of them. He opened his eyes wider after lowering the bandana back down to his neck, his eyes watering just a bit.
David was in the alley with him. Both of their horses were squeezed in close to each other, both of the animals wild-eyed and snorting, both glad to be out of the stinging sandstorm.
“Well now,” Jed said. “That was something.” He couldn’t help smiling; he was as happy as the horses to be out of the storm.
David didn’t smile or say anything. He just watched Jed.
Jed got down off of his horse and grabbed his coil of rope. He tied the horses’ leads to the rope several feet apart, pulled his bandana up over his mouth and nose, and then dashed out into the storm to tie the other end of the rope to the hitching post in front of the hotel. The length of rope kept the horses tied, but allowed them enough room to remain tucked inside the narrow alley and out of the storm.
After Jed was back inside the alley, he pulled his kerchief back down off of his face. He took his hat off and smacked it against his thigh to get the sand off of it.
David mimicked him, rubbing his own eyes and then smacking his hat against his leg.
It was all Jed could do not to laugh. “No sense getting too clean,” he told David. “We still need to get to the hotel doors.”
