by Lukens, Mark
“It wants David,” Jed said. He looked at David who sat right next to Esmerelda.
David stopped eating, his spoon still in his hand.
“It killed David’s family, but not David,” Jed continued as he looked at Esmerelda. “Not because David was hiding, but because it couldn’t kill him. Right?” He looked at Billy. “Is that what you’re trying to say?”
Billy nodded. “It wants us to kill the boy for it.”
“I don’t think this is something we should be talking about in front of David,” Esmerelda said.
Jed nodded. “I agree, but we don’t have a choice right now. We can’t split up.” He looked at David. “We’re not going to do anything to you,” he said. “You hear me? You have my word on that. We’re not giving you to that thing out there.”
David barely nodded, still clutching his spoon and staring at Jed with wide eyes of fear.
“But why?” Moody asked, finally lifting his head up from his shot glass and looking at them through red-rimmed eyes. “That thing out there is powerful, we’ve all seen that. It killed an entire town. Why can’t it kill some little Indian boy?”
Billy stared at Moody. “Because David is a shaman.”
“Like a medicine man?” Jed asked. He really didn’t know what the difference between a shaman or a medicine man was.
Billy didn’t bother answering Jed, but he continued on: “David is a shaman, but he does not know it yet. He is able to do things that he does not understand.”
“Like a natural ability,” Esmerelda said, trying to help Billy with his explanation. “He’s a natural shaman, but he doesn’t quite know how to use those powers yet.”
Billy nodded. “Yes. There is always a balance between the dark and the light. When there is something evil and powerful, like the Ancient Enemy, there is always something to . . . to fight back.”
“And the boy can fight back,” Sanchez said.
Billy frowned. “It is not so simple.”
“How about this?” Moody said, eyeing David for a moment. “Maybe that boy’s in league with the devil out there. You ever think of that? Maybe that’s the devil and his demons out there, and that boy is part of it.”
“If that was true, we would already be dead,” Billy said.
Moody sat back in his chair, the wood creaking under his weight. He blew out a frustrated sigh.
Esmerelda stared at Moody. “Suddenly you’re religious? Suddenly you believe in God and the devil?”
He didn’t answer her.
“So, that thing out there needs us to kill David for it,” Jed said, getting back to his point.
David moved closer to Esmerelda like he was suddenly wary of everyone else in the room. She put her arm around him.
“We’re not going to do that, David,” Jed assured him. “But we need to talk about this. We need to understand what’s going on. Okay?”
David barely nodded.
Jed’s throat closed up with emotion as he thought of what David must’ve already gone through. He tried to spit the next words out, but he choked up a little. “It . . . that thing out there . . . it might have tried to get David’s ma and pa to kill him. Maybe his own brother, too. And when they wouldn’t kill him . . .” Jed let his words trail off, wondering again what horrors David had already seen. No wonder the boy hardly ever spoke, he was traumatized by what he’d already seen inside his own home.
“If all of this is true,” Moody said, “then why did it kill everyone else in town? Why not keep a lot of them alive so they can kill David for it? More people, more chances to kill the boy.”
“Because it only needs one of us,” Billy explained. “And it needs us to be so frightened that we will do anything it asks of us. Even kill a boy.”
“It drove you here,” Esmerelda said, looking right at Jed. “First it drove you to David’s house, and then it drove you here to this town.”
Jed was about to argue with Esmerelda, but then he thought back to the morning they had captured Red Moon. He thought back to when they had been about to enter the woods. He had wanted to take a shortcut through the woods that morning, but why? Why had it been so important that he travel through the woods just to save a day or two of traveling? He’d told himself at the time that he wanted to get back to Smith Junction as quickly as possible and collect the bounty. He wanted to get back to his place before winter set in.
But what had been the hurry? He didn’t have anything to go back to. Clara had been dead five years now. He had no wife, no children. His small ranch was a disaster, and if it weren’t for Chavez helping him out, all of his horses and cattle would probably be dead by now.
So what had been his hurry to go through those woods?
Red Moon had tried to warn him not to go into those woods. As soon as they were inside the woods, Jed had known something was wrong—he knew they were being watched, being followed, yet he hadn’t turned around while they still had the chance. He’d known deep down that there was something terrible waiting in those woods, but he hadn’t believed it, chalking his fears up to Red Moon’s mumbo jumbo or Red Moon’s gang trying to rescue him.
A wave of guilt washed over Jed. He’d gotten Roscoe and the Dobbs boy killed. He should’ve known better, he should’ve trusted his instincts.
“If it drove me here,” Jed finally answered Esmerelda, “if I didn’t have any control over what I was doing, then that’s a frightening thought.”
“You have control, but you also do not,” Billy said.
“More Injun nonsense,” Moody muttered as he poured himself another drink.
Jed ignored Moody and looked at Billy.
Esmerelda turned her attention to Sanchez. “You were drawn here, too.”
Sanchez shook his head. “No, señora. I came here because I saw the sandstorm on the horizon.”
“The Darkwind,” Billy said.
“You were diverted here,” Esmerelda told Sanchez. “You were drawn here because you’ve killed before.”
“That was self-defense,” Sanchez said.
“But you’ve still killed, and the Ancient Enemy wants people who have killed before.”
“Like me,” Jed said.
“But not all of us,” Moody snapped. “I’ve never killed a man.”
“But you could,” Jed argued.
Moody smirked. “You don’t know me, marshal. You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know you were willing to shoot Sanchez with your shotgun earlier,” Jed told him. “You were willing to take his tongue.”
Moody looked away.
“You were also willing to take Karl’s tongue while he was still alive.”
Moody still looked away, not bothering to respond to Jed.
Jed looked back at Esmerelda. “If the Ancient Enemy needed a killer to kill David, then why not just send Red Moon instead of me?”
“I don’t know,” Esmerelda answered. “Maybe the Ancient Enemy was afraid Red Moon would kill himself too quickly.”
They looked at Billy for an answer.
“Could be that David has something to do with it,” Billy told them. “The Ancient Enemy can only push so much against David’s pull.”
“So you’re saying David has a choice in who comes here?” Jed asked.
“No,” Billy said. He seemed to be getting frustrated, like he was having trouble expressing what he wanted to say in English. “A force works through David, a bigger and stronger force. It works with David, but it also works through David at the same time.”
“Like God,” Esmerelda said.
Jed felt that Esmerelda understood what Billy was trying to say better than he did.
“We make our own decisions,” Esmerelda continued. “But at the same time God works through all of us.”
Jed looked at David to see if he was following the conversation, but David didn’t even seem to be listening. David had pulled away from Esmerelda, staring at the saloon doors.
Jed turned towards the doors where the sharp after
noon light was coming through the windows around the shades and curtains. He looked back at David. “Is he out there now?”
David nodded.
CHAPTER 30
Jed could hear the pastor calling them now.
All of them got up from the table together, all of them walking towards the saloon doors.
Jed drew his Colt. Sanchez had his guns belted around his waist, both of them slung low; he was tense, ready to draw. Billy had Karl’s pistol tucked into his belt and he was holding Moody’s shotgun, which he had reloaded with two more shells. Jed had gotten another box of shells from Moody’s office and gave them to Billy earlier. Jed wasn’t giving the shotgun back to Moody—he couldn’t trust the saloon owner with it now.
“We all go out there together,” Jed said as they gathered in front of the saloon doors. “We keep David close to us, and we all stay together.”
Esmerelda kept her arm around David’s shoulders.
Jed opened one door, and Sanchez opened the other one. They all stepped out onto the wooden walkway underneath the porch roof of the saloon.
The pastor stood in the same spot in the street, fifteen feet away from the saloon’s walkway. There was nobody else around, only the pastor. A cold breeze blew down through the middle of the town and the sky was so blue above the buildings beyond the pastor. The sun was getting lower in the west, the shadows lengthening along the buildings.
“I’ve been calling you,” the pastor said with that strange smile on his face. His eyes were just dead shadows beneath the brim of his black hat.
Jed looked at the edge of the walkway where they had left Karl’s body. It was gone now, and there were only a few smears of blood left behind on the floorboards.
“He warned you that bad things would happen if you didn’t give him what he wanted,” the pastor said.
“We know what he wants,” Jed yelled at the pastor. “We’re not giving it to him.” He shifted his eyes to the left and then to the right, waiting for dozens of the dead to stumble out of the buildings from across the street.
The pastor stood still for a long moment, like he was deep in thought, his head slightly cocked like he was listening to something they couldn’t hear. His smile slipped into a deep frown. “Kill the boy,” he said in a deep, guttural voice. “Kill the boy and he will let all of you live. All of this will be over. He will let you live. He will let you leave. He will let you stay so you can rebuild your town.”
“You swear that’s the truth?” Moody yelled at the pastor with a hopeful look in his eyes.
“He’s lying,” Esmerelda whispered to Moody, but her eyes shifted to Jed to make sure he understood her. She still held David around his shoulders.
“You have until sunup tomorrow,” the pastor said. “Make your decision or more bad things will happen. Things you won’t believe. Things you can’t even imagine.”
The pastor turned and walked away, heading back towards the church.
Sanchez caressed the handles of his pistols, ready to draw.
“Don’t bother,” Jed told him. “He’s already dead. Won’t make a difference.”
They all went back inside and closed the saloon doors. Jed locked them and shoved the table legs under the door handles as a brace.
They all sat back down at the table.
“We need to talk about it,” Moody said after downing another drink.
“Talk about what?” Jed asked him even though he knew perfectly well what he was referencing.
“If all that thing out there wants is the boy,” Moody held his hands up, “which is not what I’m suggesting we do, then he said he would let the rest of us live.”
“He’s lying,” Esmerelda said. “If we give him . . . give it what it wants, then that thing wouldn’t have any use for us anymore. It would slaughter us just as quickly as it slaughtered the rest of the town.”
“You don’t know that for sure,” Moody said.
“Yes, I do.” She looked at Billy who nodded in agreement.
“Doesn’t matter,” Jed said. “We’re not killing David. We’re not giving him to that thing out there.”
“So what are we going to do?” Moody asked.
“David is the only thing protecting us,” Esmerelda told Moody, but she looked at the others to make sure they understood. “It’s not this saloon that has protected us, it’s not this building or the guns we have that have protected us. The only thing it’s afraid of is David.”
“But the boy doesn’t know what to do with his . . .” Moody waved a hand in the air as he searched for the right word. “His power.”
“There has to be some way we can fight back,” Jed said and looked at Billy for help. “You know more about what’s out there than any of us. Does it have a weakness besides David? Is there any way to kill it?”
“I do not know if it has a weakness besides David,” Billy answered.
“Can David kill it?” Jed asked Billy.
Billy shrugged. “I believe David can hurt it, but I do not know.”
“Well, we need to know more about that thing out there,” Jed said, still looking at Billy. “Tell us everything you know about the Ancient Enemy.”
CHAPTER 31
“The story of the Anasazi—the Ancient Enemy—is an old one,” Billy said. “A long time ago the ancient people lived in cities south and east of here. They built great cities and roads, some of them lived underground. But every one hundred years a demon came to ask for things. This demon could control the wind, animals, and sometimes even people. The demon was always changing its shape and it could inhabit dead people, making them alive again. The demon was very powerful and evil. The demon loved to kill and no one could stop it except one person. The demon would ask for things. Many in those great cities south of here thought the Ancient Enemy was a god at first, an angry god asking for offerings. They gave the god the offerings, but it did not appease the god. It always asked for more. If they refused to give offerings to the god, bad things would happen. There are stories told of whole cities being destroyed, of everyone in those cities being killed.”
“I have heard of those stories, too,” Sanchez said. “My grandmother told me similar stories even though my mother and father didn’t like her talking about those kinds of things. She used to tell me about the Maya and other ancient civilizations, people who seemed to have vanished overnight, like they walked right into the jungle and left their cities behind that they had worked so hard to build.”
Billy nodded. “Yes, the Ancient Enemy is found in many places.”
“Where did it come from?” Jed asked Billy.
Billy shrugged. “Some say the Ancient Enemy came from the stars when the Star People first came here. Others say the Ancient Enemy came after the Star People were already here. Some even say that this was the Ancient Enemy’s home long before the Star People came here and gave birth to man and woman; some say that we invaded its home, and every one hundred years we must make offerings and sacrifices to it so that we can stay here.”
“And this time that sacrifice is a little boy,” Jed said.
“It has always been a little boy,” Billy answered.
Jed felt a chill dance across his skin. “What are you trying to say, that this happens every one hundred years? That someone like David is born and this thing needs to kill it?”
Billy shrugged again and sighed. “Every one hundred years a boy is born. He will grow up to be a very powerful shaman, maybe powerful enough to kill the Ancient Enemy. The Ancient Enemy wakes up and it must kill the boy before he can grow up and become too powerful.”
“So this has happened over and over again, every one hundred years,” Esmerelda said. “How far back?”
Billy shook his head. “I do not know. A very long time.”
“How do we fight it?” Jed asked Billy. “You say David is some kind of natural shaman, but he doesn’t know how to use his powers yet. Can you teach him?”
“I am not a shaman,” Billy told him.
“But I’ve seen you praying,” Jed said without thinking about it. He remembered Red Moon explaining that a person didn’t have to be a shaman or a priest to pray to their god.
“What about your prayers and songs?” Esmerelda asked Billy. “Can they help?”
“I believe all of our faiths together could help,” Billy answered her. “But I cannot be sure.”
“What if we ran?” Jed asked, trying to steer the ideas back to practical ones. “What if we took David with us and ran? We could all stay together.”
“Where would we run to?” Billy asked. “We have no horses.”
“We could go to Smith Junction,” Jed told them. “It’s probably only a two or three days’ walk from here.”
“And then it would follow us,” Billy said. “It would kill everyone in Smith Junction when we got there.”
Jed hadn’t thought of that.
“That thing out there would probably pick us off one by one before we even got close to Smith Junction,” Sanchez said.
“You just don’t want to go anywhere near Smith Junction,” Moody said, sneering at Sanchez.
“Sanchez is right,” Jed said. “That thing would just get all of us one at a time. Just staying close to David wouldn’t be enough. It hadn’t been enough for David’s mother, father, and brother.”
“So, we can’t run,” Esmerelda said. “We have no choice but to fight. We just need to figure out how to fight.”
“I’m sure everyone in town was thinking that last night,” Moody said.
“They were taken by surprise,” Jed told him. “We know it’s coming now. And we know when it’s coming.”
“Yeah, and we know why it’s coming,” Moody said, cutting his eyes to David for a second.
David shrank back from Moody’s stare.
“I know you said you’re not a shaman,” Esmerelda said to Billy, “but there has to be something you could teach David. There must be something you could show him. Anything might help.”
Billy nodded solemnly. “I could try.”
Jed watched the old Navajo—he looked grim, like a man about to face death. But Billy wouldn’t go kicking and screaming to his death, he would be resigned to his fate, welcoming the next world that waited for him.
