by Lukens, Mark
They backed away from the massive spinning ball, from the crackling lightning, from the screeches that came from outside.
“David!” Jed yelled.
The ball of darkness was spinning faster and faster, but it was also getting smaller and smaller. It collapsed in on itself with a blinding flash of light, and then it was gone. The Ancient Enemy was gone.
David was gone.
*
Jed woke up. He didn’t know how much time had passed, but the saloon was much brighter with the morning light streaming in through the open doors and broken windows. He sat up on the floor and saw that Esmerelda was right beside him, still unconscious. Billy and Sanchez weren’t too far away, and both of them were beginning to wake up. Sanchez sat up and grabbed his pistols that were on the floor.
Esmerelda sat bolt-upright, drawing in a quick breath. All of them got to their feet and stared at the spot where David and the Ancient Enemy used to be. There was nothing there now, no void, no hole in the floor, no black shapes, nothing.
“He’s gone,” Jed whispered. “Where did he go?”
Esmerelda didn’t answer.
Jed looked at the dead people piled up inside the saloon, many of them heaped together and blocking the doorway. A few of them were stuck in the windows, one of them folded over the window sill with his arms hanging down. But none of them were moving—they were all dead now.
“He saved us.” Esmerelda finally answered Jed’s question with tears running down her face.
Jed looked at the floor where David used to be, then he looked back at Esmerelda and the others. “He gave his life for us.”
CHAPTER 38
Jed had to walk over the dead bodies to get out through the saloon doors. Their bodies squished under Jed’s footsteps as he walked over top of them, some of them piled two or three high in the doorway. He didn’t want to walk over them, but he had no choice, and he prayed he wouldn’t trip or lose his balance. He made his way slowly, his boots sinking down into flesh. He slipped once, almost fell, but he was able to catch himself at the last second.
Once Jed was past the bulk of the dead bodies, he descended the wooden steps from the walkway down onto the dirt street. The two boys without their legs were out in the street, frozen in the action of crawling towards the steps—Karl’s boys.
As soon as Jed was in the middle of the street and far enough away from the bodies, he felt like he could breathe again. But even from this distance he could still smell the stench of blood, guts, piss, and shit.
The sun was above the horizon now, lighting up the world and driving the freezing night air away. He trembled as he stood in the wide dirt street, his pistol in his hand even though he couldn’t remember drawing it from his holster. He was still scared, still afraid that this wasn’t really over, afraid that the Ancient Enemy was tricking them, letting them believe they were safe for the moment, and then the bodies would stir, the dead would stand up, the monster would be back and they would have no protection now that David was gone.
He heard the noise from the saloon, turned that way and watched Sanchez step across the bodies with far more agility and grace than Jed had shown, stepping across the dead like he was hopping over exposed rocks in a creek bed.
“Where’s Esmerelda?” Jed asked Sanchez when he was out in the street with him.
“Billy’s with her. She’s still upset.”
Jed nodded. He was upset about David, too. He hadn’t wanted the boy to die. It had been his mission to protect David since the day he had found him, and he had failed at that mission. He stared back at the dead bodies jumbled up in front of the saloon’s doors and windows like a logjam. He looked at Sanchez.
Sanchez was tense, ready to go for his guns if Jed gave him a reason to.
“I’m not taking you in,” Jed said.
“You believe me?” Sanchez asked. “You believe that I shot that man in self-defense?”
Jed didn’t answer. He knew he was shirking his duties as a marshal now. He was thankful that Sanchez had helped them, thankful that Sanchez had shot Moody before he could slit David’s throat, even though David was gone now.
But it didn’t matter. He couldn’t outdraw Sanchez ten times out of ten, and he could see now that Sanchez was not going to let him get the jump on him again.
It was more than that, though. Jed felt old and tired. He felt different, fundamentally changed in these last few days. He didn’t want to be a marshal anymore, weary of the responsibility that weighed him down now, weary of the violence that came with the job.
Did he believe Sanchez? Yes, he did. But that wasn’t his decision to make—it was the court’s decision, a judge’s decision, a jury’s decision. Would Sanchez get a fair trial in Smith Junction, Arizona? Probably not.
Sanchez watched Jed.
“I believe you,” Jed finally said.
Sanchez relaxed a little.
“Let’s get some of these bodies out of the way of the doorway,” Jed said as he pulled a pair of gloves out of his pockets and pulled his bandana up over his face.
*
Sanchez helped Jed pull the bodies away from the saloon doors, pulling some of them farther down the walkway to the edges of it, rolling some of them down into the street. Flies were already beginning to swarm around the bodies. Lifeless eyes of dead people stared up at the sky, mouths open, stumps and wounds glistening with dried blood.
Even though it was still bitterly cold, Jed was beginning to sweat a little underneath his clothes from the work he’d done so far.
Now that the path was clear, Billy and Esmerelda left the saloon and walked out into the street.
“We can’t leave them like this,” Esmerelda said as she looked back at the scattering of bodies all over the walkway in front of the saloon, the floorboards stained dark reds and browns, the clouds of flies visible from where they stood.
“What are we supposed to do?” Jed asked. “Bury them? We’d be here for the next three days doing that. Ground’s probably frozen anyway.”
Esmerelda didn’t say anything. She looked up at the sky, noticing the buzzards that were circling. “We can’t just leave them out here to be picked apart. This wasn’t their fault.”
*
Jed and Sanchez helped Billy build a travois so they could drag the dead bodies to the church. It was the biggest building, the only one that could house all of the dead. It was a place where the dead had already been.
They searched a few of the buildings for supplies. In the livery they found some long, thin wooden poles they could use as the framing for their travois, and they pulled them up from the ground. The livery was empty—no sign of the horses; no dead horses or even any pieces of them. The horses were just gone.
After the travois was built, the three men took turns dragging a dead body or two (or sometimes just pieces) up to the church in two-man teams. As they did that, Esmerelda cleaned up the saloon as best she could and started packing bags of supplies to take with them when they left.
She went out back behind the saloon to the small house she rented and packed her own bag. There wasn’t much to take, just a few sets of clothes and shoes, the few photographs of her mother that she still had, and the stash of money she had been saving up over the last two years.
When she was back in the saloon, she finished packing the rest of their bags: one for each of them. In each bag she included a blanket, a bag of jerky, a canteen of water, a bottle of whiskey, coffee beans, a few pots and pans, matches, a metal plate, a tin coffee cup, a fork and knife. She set the bags by the door. They were a little heavy, but they would need everything in them when they left.
Once the job of filling up the church with the dead was done, they closed the doors and barred them shut with slats of wood. All four of them stood there in front of the church doors.
“Should we write something on the door?” Esmerelda suggested. “Some kind of explanation?”
“How are we supposed to explain what happened here?” Jed asked.
No one had an answer for him.
Billy walked down the street to the saloon. A few minutes later he was back with the can of red paint and the paint brush. He handed it to Esmerelda and said nothing. He just stared at her like he knew she would do the right thing.
Esmerelda dipped the paintbrush into the can and wrote words on the slats of wood barring the red doors shut: DEAD INSIDE.
She set the paint can down on the bed of gravel in front of the church steps.
“Explanation enough,” Sanchez said.
“They will probably just blame this on Indians,” Billy said.
Jed tried not to laugh, but the laughter came out. It wasn’t funny in the least and he didn’t know why he was laughing. A few seconds later Esmerelda and Sanchez joined him in his laughter. Even Billy chuckled at his own joke, but his eyes said that he hadn’t been joking.
Jed wiped at his eyes and looked up at the sky. It was only an hour and a half away from dusk now—they wouldn’t have much light left to travel by. “We’d better get going,” he told them.
*
Jed knew it was going to be a long walk, and the four of them had only made it a few miles outside of Hope’s End before they had to make camp for the night. They had plans to head in different directions tomorrow, but tonight they would stay together.
They built a fire and ate some jerky and drank coffee. The fire was warm, but not as comforting as it should have been.
“I’m going back to my family,” Sanchez told them after they were all quiet for a while. He’d never taken his gun belt off the whole time, and Jed was sure that had as much to do with him as any other threat out here. “I’ve had my share of adventure now. I’m ready to go back home.”
Jed smiled and nodded. “I think I’ve had my share of adventure, too.”
Esmerelda watched Jed, staring at him in that strange way that made him feel like she was reading his mind.
Jed tore his eyes away from Esmerelda and looked at Billy. “What about you?”
Billy stroked the silver charm hanging from his leather necklace, the charm that held the lock of David’s hair inside. Jed knew that Billy would always keep that silver charm with David’s hair in it, just like Jed knew he would always keep the photograph of David and his family with him.
“I am going home too,” Billy said, but he didn’t expound on it.
*
Jed took the first watch while the others slept, but at some point he must’ve surrendered to pure exhaustion, nodding off during the night.
He woke with a start about an hour before dawn. He knew something was wrong as soon as he sat up. The campfire was low, but not out yet. It provided a little light in the never-ending darkness, and even less warmth. Jed looked around at the other three. They were still sleeping, breathing heavy, curled up under their blankets.
Jed thought of how the Ancient Enemy had made him and Roscoe fall asleep in the woods. The thought of it sent a spike of panic through his chest.
A scuffling noise in the sand from behind Jed whirled him around. Jed had his pistol in his hand.
A shadowy figure emerged from the darkness. Even before the man sat down in front of the embers of the fire between Sanchez and Billy, Jed knew it was Red Moon. The Navajo outlaw was naked, just like he had been the last time he had paid Jed a visit. Red Moon kept his head down, his hair covering that gigantic hole where his face used to be. The dying fire barely illuminated Red Moon, keeping him in flickering shadows. Things crawled underneath Red Moon’s skin: beetles and spiders—the Ancient Enemy itself.
“What do you want?” Jed asked, aiming his Colt right at Red Moon. Jed’s arm shook so badly he wasn’t sure he would be able to put a bullet into Red Moon even if he wanted to.
Red Moon didn’t answer.
A coyote called out in the inky-black distance, then another coyote answered the first one’s call.
Red Moon reached his left hand out towards Billy who slept on his blanket five feet away. Red Moon reached his right hand towards Sanchez. Red Moon’s arms were growing impossibly long, his fingers stretching to touch each man. Bones popped away from the joints inside of Red Moon’s arms as they grew longer, muscles and skin stretching and threatening to snap.
Jed pulled the trigger and . . .
. . . he jumped awake.
It was almost dawn, the eastern sky on fire with the first rays of the morning sun. Jed sat up and looked around, his hand on his gun. The campfire was out, just a pile of ash and partially burned sticks of wood now with a weak tendril of smoke rising up.
A hand touched Jed’s arm and he whirled around.
It was David.
Jed stared at the boy, his vision blurring as tears filled his eyes. “David . . .”
“I am safe,” David said. “I am warm and safe now.” David smiled at him.
Jed went to reach for David and then . . .
. . . he woke up. He sat up and stared at the campfire. It was out just like it had been in the dream.
A hand touched Jed’s arm. He turned, expecting to see David, but he saw Esmerelda instead.
“It’s over,” Esmerelda told him. “It’s really over.”
He stared at her for a long moment.
She scooted closer to him and hugged him. She held him for a while, and he held her. It had been a long time since he’d held a woman like this.
“I had a dream,” he whispered into her hair.
She nodded.
“I had a nightmare, but then I saw David.”
“I know,” she said. And that’s all she needed to say. Jed was sure that she had seen David in her dreams, too.
*
An hour and a half later, after they had eaten a quick breakfast and broke camp, they were ready to begin their long walk.
Sanchez left them first, walking south towards Mexico. He would have the longest journey of them all. Jed figured Sanchez would buy a horse with all of the money he seemed to have. Whether he rode to Mexico or walked there, Jed was sure that he would reach his destination. Sanchez was a fighter. He was a survivor. Any obstacles he faced along his journey now would be nothing compared to what he had already seen in Hope’s End.
Billy headed east. There were few words between the three of them when they parted, and soon they had nothing left to say to each other. Jed thanked him.
Before Billy turned to walk away, he stared at Jed for a moment. “David is not dead,” he told him.
Jed didn’t respond.
“He is in a different place now,” Billy added. “He lives there now.”
Jed nodded like he already knew that. And he swore he did. He had a feeling that Billy knew he had seen David in a dream—Billy knew things like Esmerelda knew things. He shook Billy’s hand and then watched him walk away.
Jed and Esmerelda headed north to Smith Junction. Unless they could borrow a horse along the way, their walk was going to be a long one—at least three days and two nights of camping. But Esmerelda was strong, and she never complained once.
“Billy’s right,” Esmerelda said six hours later when they stopped by a large grouping of rocks that Billy had told them about, a place where they would find pools of water in the rocks to refill their canteens.
Jed didn’t answer Esmerelda as he sipped water from his canteen.
“David’s not dead,” she said. “I can feel him.”
Jed just nodded at her. He believed her.
Later that night, as they camped, Jed asked Esmerelda what her plans were.
“I’ve been saving my money for years now to get to California,” she said, and then she was quiet for a moment. “I’ve had enough money to leave for a while now. I don’t know why I was putting it off for so long.”
Jed wondered if that was true. Maybe Esmerelda knew why she had put her journey off. Maybe deep down inside she knew that she needed to be in Hope’s End—she needed to be there to help David when the Ancient Enemy showed up.
“What about you?” she asked.
&n
bsp; He shrugged. “Don’t really know. I don’t want to be a marshal anymore. I’m no good as a rancher or a farmer. I should just sell my place to Chavez.”
Esmerelda moved closer to Jed, snuggling up to him. “Go with me. We could go to California. Travel up to San Francisco. Maybe even farther north.”
Jed was quiet for a moment. And then he looked at her and smiled. “Yeah. Maybe we could.”
Esmerelda kissed Jed . . . a long, slow kiss. She backed away and stared at him. And then she kissed him again.
Jed felt better now than he had a long time. He wasn’t afraid now, and he wasn’t lonely anymore. For the first time in years he felt hope.
CHAPTER 39
Iron Springs, New Mexico—2018
David woke up, his eyes popping open in the darkness. For just a moment he wasn’t sure where he was, but then it all came to him in a rush. He was at home. Not his real home, he was at his Aunt Awenita’s house where he had been living these last seven years since his parents had been killed by the Ancient Enemy. It had been seven years since he had walked through the desert to the dig site without a memory of the journey, without really knowing how he had gotten there. He’d been in shock when Stella had found him with blood staining his hands and little flecks of blood on his face, neck, and the front of his coat. He’d known something terrible had happened to his parents, but his mind couldn’t seem to focus on it then. Or even now. The terrible things that had been done to his parents, the things they had done to each other, even now it was a red blur in his memory.
It had been seven years now since he had left that dig site with Stella, driving up into Colorado, into the blizzard, just trying to run and get as far away from the Ancient Enemy as they could.
It had been seven years since he had come back to New Mexico with Stella and Cole, seven years since they had found Joe Blackhorn and battled the Ancient Enemy in the ghost town that had once been the town of Hope’s End, a ghost town that was shunned by most Navajo, an ancient and haunted place.
