by Lukens, Mark
“Rose!” Moody called out when he was in front of Room Number 10, halfway down the hall. “Rose, answer me!”
No answer from behind the door.
Moody set the lantern down on the floor next to his feet and tried the doorknob. It was locked.
The rest of them squeezed in around Moody. Jed held the other lantern and he already had his pistol out.
Moody tapped at the door with the barrel of his shotgun—it was a loud sound. “Rose!”
Still no answer. Moody tapped harder at the door with his shotgun. “Rose, if you don’t answer me, I’m going to have to unlock the door and come inside. A lot of people in town have been . . . they’ve been attacked. Killed. I need to make sure you’re unharmed.”
Still no answer.
Moody looked back at Jed like he had no other choice now than to enter the room. He slid the skeleton key into the lock below the doorknob, his hand shaking badly, the wooden tag with the number ten on it rattled as he twisted the key.
As soon as Moody pushed the door open, the smell hit Jed—the smell of blood and gore.
“Good God,” Moody said, backing up a step, almost bumping into Jed.
The room was dark, and the light from their two lanterns only reached so far into the room from the doorway.
“Wait out here,” Jed told Esmerelda, but what he was really saying was to keep an eye on David—don’t let him see what’s inside this room.
Moody picked up his lantern from the floor and stepped inside the room. Jed followed him with the other lantern and his Colt. They stopped when they were a few steps inside the room.
At first Jed thought there was only one person on the bed, but he immediately knew it couldn’t be right, because that person on the bed was larger than Rose or the cowboy had been. Had those two gotten away, and someone else was in here? The barkeep? No, this person was too large to be the barkeep.
The bed with the person on it was all the way across the room against the wall, right underneath the only window. The curtains were drawn over that window. There was a small dresser on one side of the room with a washbasin on top of it. Next to the washbasin was a silver tray with an array of small glass perfume bottles on it. A plain wood wardrobe stood against the opposite wall, one of the doors ajar. There were a few framed paintings and photos on the bare, wood-planked walls.
In the middle of the floor was a handwoven Navajo rug, and scattered across that rug and part of the floorboards were Rose and the cowboy’s boots and clothing, the clothes tossed aside in a fit of passion on the way to the bed. Both of the cowboy’s boots were lying on their side. Only one of Rose’s ankle boots was on its side, the other one standing up, just like the woman’s shoe in the church had been—the one with the shard of bone sticking up out of it.
Moody and Jed moved closer to the bed, their lanterns now lighting up the whole room. Jed glanced back and saw Billy standing in the doorway. Jed hoped he was standing there to block this sight from David and the rest of them.
Jed looked back at the bed and realized that it wasn’t one big body on the bed—it was Rose and the cowboy, both of their naked bodies twisted together like a big piece of taffy, impossibly intertwined, their flesh seemingly fused together. Bones had snapped in the twisting, sharp pieces of the shattered bones poking out through the flesh in some places.
The stench was nearly overpowering. Jed pulled his bandana up over his face. He could taste his whiskey-tainted breath; he could smell the sweat and sand imbedded in the cloth of the bandana, but it was better than the smell of dead flesh, blood, urine, and shit in front of him.
“Oh Mother of Mercy,” Moody whispered as he bent down a little to set the lantern on the floor so he could cross himself.
Jed still had his Colt aimed at the human abomination on the bed. He knew the intertwined people were dead, but he couldn’t seem to lower his weapon just yet.
There’s nobody else in this room, Jed told himself. Whoever did this, they’re gone now. They twisted these two naked people together somehow, and now they’re gone.
But not gone. No, they were out there in the desert somewhere, just outside of town—somewhere close, waiting to strike again, but not gone.
Nowhere was safe.
He’s going to ask for things. Roscoe’s voice echoed in his mind. And you need to give him what he asks for.
“How . . . how can this be possible?” Moody asked.
Jed heard Billy walk up behind them, his moccasins soft on the floor. He was whispering, chanting something in Navajo, a prayer to his gods, just like Red Moon had done in the woods.
And a lot of good it had done Red Moon.
Jed brought the lantern in his hand a little closer to the bed, the light creating strange shadows across the thing that used to be two humans.
“What are you doing?” Moody asked.
“Making sure they’re dead,” Jed answered him.
“Of course they’re dead,” Moody snapped.
You don’t know that for sure, Jed thought. He’d seen a man’s severed head talk to him not even two days ago. He’d seen a skinned man still alive, still breathing.
They won’t let you die. You just go on and on and on.
If they weren’t dead, Jed thought, if they were still moving slightly, still twitching, still moaning, he was going to put a bullet into their combined heads right here and now, he swore to God he was.
Now that he was closer, Jed saw this monstrosity more clearly. An arm of the cowboy was wrapped around the woman’s arm, shards of bone sticking out through the skin where the blood was dark and matted. Their fingers were twisted together. Their heads had combined into one large bulbous thing, both faces stretched and melted into each other. One of the mouths was wide open, teeth jutting out, the tongue swollen and purplish. There were tears along the skin where the violent twists had occurred; blood and other fluids had seeped out of those ruptures. Both sets of legs were twisted together to form two new legs, both ending with two feet at the end of each leg, the feet swollen and purple with trapped blood, the toes fat, like little sausage sections tied off from the foot. The toenails had either been torn off or turned black.
Moody rushed out of the room.
Jed followed Moody, and then Billy followed him, still chanting. Billy didn’t have his eagle feather in his hand now—he was still holding Karl’s Smith & Wesson.
Jed and Billy stepped out into the hall. Jed slammed the door shut.
“What is it?” Sanchez asked from farther down the hall. “Are they dead?”
“They’re dead,” Jed told him.
“It’s more than that,” Sanchez said. “I can see it on your faces.”
Jed imagined that his face was pure white with shock at the moment.
“There’s no hope,” Karl wailed. “They’re going to get all of us. They’re going to kill us all.”
CHAPTER 19
“We need to check the other rooms,” Jed said. He looked at Moody. “We need to make sure no one else is up here.”
“Like who?” Moody asked in a weak voice.
“Maybe your barkeep’s up here.”
Moody nodded like he hadn’t thought of that.
“Are the rest of these doors unlocked?” Jed asked Moody.
Moody hesitated for just a second, like he really had to think about it, like he was struggling to remember. “No one in the rooms except Rose. The others should all be unlocked.”
Jed didn’t wait for the others. He moved down the hall to the last room—number twelve.
He tested the doorknob. It was unlocked. He turned the knob and eased the door open.
“U.S. Marshal,” Jed said through the crack in the door. “Is anyone inside?”
No answer.
Of course there was no answer. No one was up here, no one alive anyway. And he was sure these skinwalkers, whatever creatures they were, weren’t huddled up in a room together, waiting for someone to open the door.
He didn’t need to worry about anyon
e shooting at him from the dark because from what he’d seen so far these skinwalkers hadn’t fired a single bullet or shot a single arrow. No, they killed in other ways.
Still, it made him feel better to check each of the rooms, like he was ticking off items on a list, one less thing to nag at him when they went back downstairs.
And yes, they would all be going downstairs together because who was going to stay up here in one of these rooms now after what had been done to Rose and the cowboy?
Jed opened the door to Room Number 12 wider, his lantern light flooding into the room. The room had two windows, one that looked out to the side (most likely a nice view of the building right next to the saloon) and one that looked out onto the street. Both windows were dark blue rectangles in the darkness; the glass panes reflected his lantern light back at him.
After the door was all the way open, Jed stepped inside. It only took a few steps to get to the middle of the room. There was a bed, a dresser, and an armoire. A lantern and washbasin sat on top of the dresser much like Rose’s room. There were a few touches of décor to make the room homier: a few paintings on the walls, a small rug on the floor, a quilt folded up on the bed, a cedar chest at the foot of the bed. The room smelled dusty, but Jed couldn’t get the smell of blood out of his nostrils, that reeking and rotten smell from the room right next door.
Even though the others were huddled together right outside the door in the hallway, Jed felt alone in this room, like he had just entered another world. He had an irrational fear of the bedroom door shutting by itself, slamming shut and locking him in here while his lantern went out.
That buzzing feeling of fear in his mind was proving to be too much. Jed dashed back out of the room and closed the door.
After Jed made sure the next room was empty, Esmerelda joined him inside. She swept past him and gathered up the blankets and pillows on the bed, bundling them up in her arms. Jed didn’t ask what she was doing—Esmerelda knew they were all going to spend the night downstairs in the saloon and that they would need the blankets and pillows from these rooms.
Moments later they all gathered on the balcony that overlooked the saloon below. Jed felt better now that he was out of that small hallway off to the left of the stairs; he felt better for some reason now that he had an open view of the saloon with the few lanterns burning below. He felt safer.
But it wasn’t safe; he had to keep reminding himself of that. The barkeep had been taken in the saloon. He’d been taken but Sanchez had been left behind. Why? Jed could also ask himself why he had been spared in the woods. He could ask himself why David’s whole family had been taken but David had been left behind. Was each of them being singled out for some reason that he couldn’t understand?
He wants things, and you have to give him what he wants.
Jed wondered if he had something special that the skinwalkers wanted, or what “he” wanted, whoever the skinwalkers referred to as “he.” What would he, David, and Sanchez all have that these witches would want? Because there seemed to be little doubt that the skinwalkers were leading up to something.
CHAPTER 20
They went downstairs to the saloon after all of the upstairs rooms were checked. Except for Rose’s room, the others were empty just like Moody had promised. Lawrence the barkeep wasn’t up there, and neither was anyone else. They all carried pillows and balled-up blankets downstairs with them. Even David offered to help carry some of the pillows.
Jed thought they might find the barkeep in one of those rooms, or what was left of him. Jed had been sure he would open the door to one of those rooms and find the barkeep’s mangled body, his remains twisted like a giant piece of taffy, just like Rose and the cowboy. But the barkeep was gone. Maybe he’d been taken to the church with the others. Or maybe he was being saved for something else.
They moved the tables and chairs to the back room so they could spread out blankets and pillows on the floor in the middle of the saloon, keeping all of the blankets near each other so they could stay close together. They left one table and a set of chairs closer to the saloon doors. Jed pulled a chair out for Sanchez so he could sit down.
Everyone else took a seat at the table except Karl. He had lain down on a blanket, curling up on his side. He was whispering to himself in Swedish. Maybe he was praying.
Moody set his lantern in the middle of the table next to the whiskey bottle and glasses. Jed pulled his Colt out of the holster and set it down on the table in front of him with a thud.
“I need to pee,” Sanchez said.
“Hold it,” Jed responded.
“I can’t hold it all night.”
Jed didn’t say anything.
Esmerelda stared at Jed. “You need to let him relieve himself.”
She had brought down two chamber pots along with the pillows and blankets from upstairs. Jed was glad she had thought of that because he didn’t particularly like the idea of going back upstairs to those rooms.
“I can’t cut him loose,” Jed said. “He’s an outlaw.”
“I’m no outlaw,” Sanchez said. “I killed that man in self-defense, like I already told you.”
“You can’t tie him back to that chair again all night,” Esmerelda said. “It’s against his civil rights.”
“He’s a criminal. He ain’t got no rights.”
Esmerelda sighed and sat back in her chair.
“Under normal circumstances I would’ve locked him up in your jail cell,” Jed told her. “Would you prefer that I march him down to the sheriff’s office? Leave him there?”
She didn’t respond, but she was still staring at him.
Jed tore his eyes away from Esmerelda’s brilliant green eyes. He looked at the two rooms across the saloon. “What about those rooms over there?”
“One’s my office,” Moody said. “The other one’s a storeroom.”
“Does the storeroom have a window in it?” Jed asked.
Moody shook his head no.
“I could lock him up in that room for the night if it makes you feel better.” Jed looked back at Esmerelda.
“No way you’re locking me up by myself in that room,” Sanchez said.
“You can’t do that, either,” Esmerelda finally said.
Jed stood up.
“What are you doing?” Esmerelda asked, alarmed by Jed’s sudden movement.
Jed looked at Billy. “Could you give me a hand?”
Billy didn’t even ask what Jed needed. He stood up with Karl’s gun in his hand. Jed helped Sanchez to his feet. He unlocked one wrist from the handcuffs, freeing it. The cuffs hung from his other wrist.
“Pick up the chamber pot,” Jed told Sanchez.
Sanchez followed orders.
Jed had his Colt aimed down at the floor. “Go to the storeroom.”
“You’re not locking me in there,” Sanchez warned.
“No, but I won’t have you relieving yourself in front of a woman and a child. You go in there, do your business, and then come back out.”
Sanchez stared at Jed for a moment, not sure if he was being tricked into the storeroom.
“I’m trusting you,” Jed told Sanchez. “I can trust you, can’t I?”
“Can I trust you?” Sanchez asked him.
Jed nodded. “You’ve got my word.”
Sanchez walked to the storeroom with the chamber pot. Jed and Billy followed him. They waited right outside the open storeroom door until Sanchez was finished. Sanchez left the chamber pot in the storeroom, and then Jed led him to the end of the bar.
“Sit down,” he told Sanchez.
“Here? On the floor?”
“I’m going to lock your wrist to the foot rail.”
“Marshal . . .” Sanchez began, but he didn’t bother arguing. He sat down on the floor and held his cuffed wrist to the foot rail. Jed clamped the other handcuff around the metal bar.
“There’s spit and tobacco all over the floor,” Sanchez muttered.
Jed almost told Sanchez that he was sorry h
e couldn’t make his accommodations more comfortable, but a vision of Red Moon at the base of the tree in the woods came back to him, and he said nothing. He brought Sanchez a pillow and a blanket.
Billy walked back to the table and sat down with the others. Jed joined them a moment later.
“Why don’t you just cut me loose?” Sanchez asked. He was sitting with his back against the front of the bar, his right wrist handcuffed to the foot rail right beside the end of it where it curved back into the wood so he couldn’t slide his hand out.
Jed didn’t reply, but Esmerelda watched him.
“You can keep my guns locked up,” Sanchez said. “I’m not going to run. Not with those . . . those . . . whoever’s out there doing this.”
“It is not a who,” Billy said. “It is a what. A monster. The Darkwind.”
“Do we have to listen to that again?” Moody asked. He was hunched forward over the table, his hands cupping a shot glass in front of him even though it was empty.
“I think Billy’s right,” Esmerelda said. “Whatever’s out there isn’t human.”
“Of course you agree with the Indian,” Moody said.
Esmerelda didn’t argue with him.
“You know it, too,” Billy said, staring right at Jed.
Jed felt heat flushing his face again, caught in a lie. He shifted his gaze to David. The boy was staring at him just like Billy was, interested in hearing his response.
“What did you see when your men were killed?” Billy asked.
Jed didn’t answer right away, but he saw no sense in pretending anymore that something supernatural wasn’t going on in this town, something beyond their understanding, beyond their control.
The others stared at him, waiting for his answer. Even Sanchez was watching him, his eyes saying: You felt free to interrogate me, now it’s your turn to be questioned.
