by Lukens, Mark
And Jed decided right there on the spot that he would do the same; he would fight like hell, but when the time came he was going to die with dignity. He’d seen too many men crying and begging when they met their end, and he wasn’t going out like that. There wasn’t much hope of him living past tomorrow morning, and he couldn’t see any other conclusion besides all of them dying for defying that thing’s wishes. But he would save a bullet for himself. Earlier he had promised to save two bullets, one for himself and one for David, but now that he knew that the Ancient Enemy was afraid of David, then at least he wouldn’t have to take David’s life.
Maybe Esmerelda was right, maybe there was something Billy could teach David, or maybe David would instinctively know what to do when the time came. He remembered the way the tarantulas had scattered away from David, hundreds of them curling up and dying. There was no denying that David had some kind of power, maybe even as much power as that thing out there did. It was a longshot that David could beat that thing, but maybe it was possible.
Jed looked at David. The boy still looked scared, but now his attention was on the saloon doors again. Jed turned and looked at the two doors. The setting sun was shining a golden-orange light around the drawn shades. Shadows were beginning to form in the back room of the saloon and up on the balcony above them. The light was sharp but warm at the same time, a fleeting thing as the night slowly took over outside.
Sanchez was tense, his hand down by the butt of his pistol. He was half-turned in his chair, ready to spring into action.
“You hear it?” Jed asked Sanchez.
Sanchez just nodded, not bothering to waste a bit of energy on words.
Everyone else was quiet, all of their eyes on the saloon doors now.
“It sounds like a stampede out there,” Esmerelda said.
CHAPTER 32
Jed heard the sound more clearly now. It sounded a little like a stampede, but also different. There were footsteps out there, but they sounded heavy and slow, not running. More like a march of soldiers.
Sanchez got up, and Jed was right behind him. Billy popped up with Moody’s shotgun in his hands and Karl’s .44 stuck in his belt.
Jed hurried to the window to the left of the saloon doors. Sanchez was at the doors, and Billy was at the window to the right. Sanchez pulled the shade of one of the doors to the side so he could look out through the window, and then he froze.
Even though Jed already had a pretty good idea of what he was going to see out there in the street, even though he had tried to mentally prepare himself, he still wasn’t ready.
Every dead person in town was walking past the saloon like a big herd, all of them moving in the same direction, all of them heading down the street towards the church.
Jed had seen the tracks in the dirt street this morning—he’d known what those tracks were; he’d seen the footprints and the drag marks. All of those tracks had been heading in the same direction: away from the church and to the other end of town, like everyone had left the church together, left the town and walked into the desert. It had been bad seeing those tracks and imagining the dead walking, but it was worse actually seeing them walk.
The sun was still bright enough to illuminate the march of the dead. The dead kept their faces forward, their eyes towards their destination. Even the pastor was among them, at the head of the group, leading this macabre congregation back to the church. The pastor hadn’t turned towards the saloon as he walked past, hadn’t even looked their way or called out to them; he didn’t have that strange smile on his face now. All of their expressions were dead blank.
Jed saw two boys near the back of the group; neither one of them had their legs anymore. They crawled along as quickly as they could with their forearms, dragging their torsos behind them with guts trailing and glistening with dried blood. They were Karl’s boys.
A one-armed woman shambled not too far in front of the boys. She wore a plain dress that was stained with blood. Her blond hair looked sticky with blood, some of it matted to her neck and face. She stumbled forward, swinging her good arm wildly to overcompensate for the stump on her other side. That arm looked to have been torn off, leaving only ragged flesh and the splinters of bone sticking out like a broken tree branch.
Even Karl was among the dead now, the newest of them. He stumbled along with his mouth hanging wide open now, like his jaw was distended when the tarantulas had poured out of his mouth. His shirt hung down from his waist in tatters from when Billy had cut it away. Karl’s torso was pale; the horrific slit in his abdomen crusted with blood and dried mucus. His belly was swollen again now, and there were things moving inside, pushing against his skin. A spindly spider’s leg poked out from the slit in his belly, and then another leg, but these legs were huge—they belonged to a much larger spider than a tarantula.
It was almost too much for Jed to bear, but there were more sights to see. There was a headless woman who carried her head by the long hair, much of the hair tangled up in her fist.
Other dead people limped along on one leg; others had chunks of their bodies torn away. One man was missing the skin and flesh on one side of his face, the bits of skull that were exposed gleamed in the sun like bleached-white paper.
Three shirtless men with no arms walked in a line. There was a hole in the second man’s belly and a long string of his intestines had been pulled out and wrapped around the neck of the man in front of him. The third man had his intestines pulled out of his belly and wrapped round the neck of the second man like a leash.
But every dead person in town wasn’t out there, Jed told himself. There were two people missing from this march through town—Rose and the cowboy. They were still upstairs in the hotel room. Maybe they weren’t out there because they were still tied to the bed, or maybe because they might not be able to walk very well because of the way they were twisted together. But Jed couldn’t help thinking that maybe the Ancient Enemy was saving them for something special when the sun came up.
Jed heard an intake of breath beside him. He turned and saw that Esmerelda had come to stand beside him. He’d been so focused on the dead outside that he hadn’t even heard her walk up beside him.
She didn’t meet his eyes. It was like she couldn’t look away from the show the Ancient Enemy was putting on for them outside.
It’s giving us one last warning, Jed thought. One last spectacle to remember throughout the night, one last incentive to kill David.
Where was David? He wasn’t beside Esmerelda.
David screamed just as Jed turned away from the window.
Moody was behind David with a hunting knife up to the boy’s throat. He pulled David back with his other arm around David’s shoulders, pulling him back deeper into the saloon past the table and chairs.
“Don’t come any closer,” Moody said. “I’ll slit the boy’s throat.”
CHAPTER 33
Jed dropped his hand down to his Colt .45, ready to draw.
“Don’t,” Moody warned. “Don’t any of you move.” He had the Bowie knife up to David’s throat, the edge of it digging into David’s skin a little. Moody’s other arm was around David’s upper arms and chest, holding him close.
“What are you doing?” Esmerelda yelled.
Moody’s face scrunched up with emotion for just a second. He looked like he was on the verge of a sob. “You saw what’s out there. We can’t defeat that. No way. Neither can this kid. We’ve only got one choice—we need to give it what it wants.”
“Be careful,” Esmerelda said. “Moody, just stay very still and think about what you’re doing right now. You’re about to cut a child’s throat.”
“You think I want to do that? You think I want to kill a child? I don’t. But there’s nothing else we can do.”
“We can fight back,” Jed said with his hand still hovering over the butt of his pistol.
“No, we can’t,” Moody snapped at him. “And this Indian boy isn’t going to save us. Billy’s not going to train him in one n
ight to become some kind of medicine man to defeat . . . whatever that thing is out there.”
Just keep him talking, Jed thought. He’d been in negotiations like this before, and he knew the longer he kept the attacker talking, the better his chances were with either reasoning with him or finding some way to get the jump on him.
“The boy has power,” Jed told Moody. “You have to see that. You saw what happened with the spiders. If David hadn’t helped you, those spiders would’ve been all over you. All over both of us. You might have died if David hadn’t helped you.”
Moody’s face scrunched up again as he teared up. He pulled David back even deeper into the saloon, closer to the blankets laid out on the floor. “I don’t want to do it, but it’s the only thing we can do to save our lives.”
“Just let him go,” Esmerelda said. “We can talk about this.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Moody snapped, holding on to David even tighter, the knife’s blade digging in just a little more. “Let me ask you a question, Esmerelda.”
“Anything.”
“Have you seen the future? Have you laid out the cards and seen our futures? Have you seen our future in your dreams?”
Esmerelda didn’t answer.
“Because you can’t see it,” Moody said. “You haven’t dreamed about it because we don’t have a future, do we?”
Esmerelda still didn’t answer.
Moody sighed, shuddering at the same time. He stopped moving backwards with David, standing his ground at the edge of the blankets now. His eyes darted from Esmerelda to Billy. “Drop that shotgun, Billy. And take Karl’s pistol out of your belt nice and slow.” He looked at Sanchez and then at Jed. “You too, Sanchez. And you, marshal. I want your guns on the floor. Use your left hand to unbuckle your gun belts.”
Jed and the other two hesitated.
“You kill David and it will be instant death for all of us,” Esmerelda warned Moody.
“You don’t know that,” Moody answered in a soft voice.
Keep him talking, Esmerelda, Jed thought. Keep him distracted.
“I’m serious about this,” Moody said as he looked back at Jed. He held David even tighter. It was impossible for David to move without Moody cutting into his throat. “Drop your guns right now. All of you.”
“Okay,” Jed said. He was running out of ideas. “Just stay calm.”
“Now!” Moody yelled. “Right now. Three . . . two . . .”
Before Jed even started to unbuckle his gun belt, he heard the sound of metal sliding out of leather, then a gunshot. In that same instant a hole opened up in Moody’s forehead. His body went limp instantly, the knife slipping from his hand and then dropping to the floor. David bolted away from Moody.
For a few seconds Moody stood there, his face slack, his eyes glazed over already. A trickle of blood leaked out from the bullet hole in his forehead along with a tiny wisp of smoke drifting up.
The back of Moody’s head had exploded with the gunshot, the blankets behind him sprayed with a splattering of blood, hair, and bits of bone and brain. Some of the gore dripping down Moody’s back plopped down onto the floor right behind him. And then Moody collapsed like some invisible strings holding him up had just been cut. His legs splayed out and he fell forward, his arms straight out to the sides, his face hitting the floor with a sickening crunch. The back of his head looked like bloody hamburger with jagged shards of skull sticking up through the hair.
“David!” Esmerelda yelled as she ran across the room to him. She hugged him, but then pushed him back and checked his throat.
Jed was right beside Esmerelda a moment later. The wound on David’s throat looked like a red line with just a few spots of blood dripping from it, but it wasn’t deep enough to be concerned about. A sudden anger welled up inside of Jed as he turned to Sanchez who still had his pistol in his hand.
“I had to do it,” Sanchez said, his eyes wide as he stared right at Jed. “We couldn’t give our guns to Moody. He was going to kill the boy anyway.”
Jed stared at Sanchez, saying nothing, fuming.
“He is right,” Billy said.
“You might’ve missed,” Jed told Sanchez.
Sanchez gave the slightest of shrugs, but he still kept his pistol steady and his eyes on Jed. “I might have, but I didn’t.”
Jed knew he should demand Sanchez’s gun right at that moment as a U.S. Marshal, but he also knew that he no longer had any authority as a marshal. They were all in this together now; there were no laws or jurisdictions anymore, just survival.
“Are we good?” Sanchez asked.
Jed nodded. He had to admit that Sanchez had done the right thing, and he could also admit to himself that as good of a shot as he was, he never could’ve made the same shot Sanchez had just made. “Yes, you did the right thing.”
CHAPTER 34
Jed and Sanchez rolled Moody’s body onto a blanket. Billy opened the saloon doors and stepped outside to cover them with the shotgun as they dragged Moody’s body out onto the walkway. They dragged him to the far corner of the walkway, near the edge of it by the street, leaving him in the same place they had left Karl’s body.
Jed covered Moody’s body with the rest of the blanket as best he could. He stood up and looked up the street towards the church. There was no one in front of the church, no one anywhere that he could see. The sun was setting the horizon on fire with bands of red, yellow, and orange.
They went back into the saloon. Esmerelda had lit the lanterns in the wall sconces, and the two lanterns they had been carrying around with them. She had already balled up the other blanket that Moody’s blood had splattered, and it was now stuffed into a corner in the back room.
“I will need some paint,” Billy said.
They all looked at him.
“I need to paint some . . .” He tried to think of the right word in English. “Some symbols.”
“I think I saw a few cans of paint in the storeroom,” Jed said.
Jed and Billy searched the storeroom, but all they could find was a small can of red paint and a frayed paintbrush. “It will have to do,” Billy said.
Billy set the can of paint and the brush on the floor near the saloon doors. He walked back to the table with his knife out of the sheath, gripping it in his hand.
“What’s the knife for, Billy?” Esmerelda asked nervously.
“I need to take a piece of David’s hair. I need to cut a piece for all of us.”
David looked scared.
Jed nodded at David. “It’s okay.”
Billy walked over to David. The boy was tense as Billy took the end of David’s long hair in his hand and cut off a small hunk of it. He handed the piece of hair to Esmerelda. “Keep this on you somewhere,” he told her.
He cut off more small hunks of hair, handing one to Sanchez and the other to Jed. He cut the last piece of the hair off for himself and stuffed the hair into the silver charm on his necklace that opened up. He twisted the charm back into place and holstered his knife on his belt.
Billy said something in Navajo to David that Jed couldn’t understand, and then he motioned at David to follow him. They walked over to the saloon doors. Esmerelda brought them a lantern as Billy emptied a few herbs into a bowl from a leather pouch he pulled out from one of his coat pockets. “I do not have everything I need,” Billy said. “But I will have to use what I have.” He lit the herbs in the bowl on fire and dipped the brush in the can of red paint. David sat on his knees, watching Billy work. As Billy started painting the first of the symbols on the wood floor, he began talking to David in Navajo, his words rambling on and on. David only said a few words back to Billy every so often, nodding at other times, his eyes on the older man the entire time.
*
Hours later Jed sat at the table with Esmerelda and Sanchez. Esmerelda had brought them another pot of strong coffee and poured some into all of their cups. David had listened to Billy as he painted his symbols on the saloon doors and the floor, b
ut now he was exhausted and lying on a blanket.
“He needs to rest now,” Billy had said when David went to lie down. “He needs to enter the dream world to learn more.”
Now Billy sat alone near the saloon doors. He was down on his knees, his eagle feather in his fingers, waving the feather around slowly. Billy told them that he was going to perform something he called the Blessing Way ceremony, but he was also going to perform another ceremony called the Enemy Way.
Would it help? Jed wasn’t sure, but he found himself oddly comforted by the low sounds of Billy’s chanting. He looked from Billy to David, watching him for a moment as he slept. He wondered why a child would be saddled with this kind of power and responsibility.
Sanchez was toying with the gold crucifix around his neck as he sipped his coffee.
Jed looked at Esmerelda. “Can you shoot a shotgun?”
“Just point and shoot,” she said with a small smile.
“It’s got a kick to it.”
Esmerelda nodded. “I’ve shot one before. Purvis showed me how.”
Jed didn’t bother asking Esmerelda who Purvis was. “You’ll use the shotgun when the time comes. I found another box of shotgun shells in Moody’s office. Billy can use Karl’s gun.” Jed had his Colt .45, and of course Sanchez had his pair of expensive pistols.
“So that’s the plan?” Esmerelda asked. “Just shoot at them until we run out of bullets?”
Jed shrugged. “Maybe each of us should save a bullet for ourselves.”
No one said anything for a moment.
“I don’t want to be one of those things out there,” Jed explained. “I don’t want to be kept alive and made to do those things.”
“Their spirits have moved on,” Billy said.
Jed whirled around in his chair. He hadn’t heard Billy walk up to the table; he hadn’t even realized that he had stopped chanting.
