“Hey, it’s okay.” Keech kept his voice low to avoid stirring the whole house. “You’re awake now.”
The terrified look on Duck’s face suggested she might punch him square in the nose. Instead, she surprised him by reaching out and hugging him so tightly, Keech thought he might choke. He returned the embrace. She whispered in a tearful, gurgling voice, “It was awful. I never want to dream that again.”
Keech patted her shoulder. It saddened him beyond words that she should suffer so many dream terrors. “Come take a walk, and you can tell me about it.”
“Okay,” she said.
He moved out to the front porch, where the cold afternoon wind rustled a wooden chime that hung near the front door. He sat on a porch step while Duck dressed inside. Off in the barn, the ponies made occasional chuffing sounds, perhaps wondering about the strange black horse that had taken Felix’s place in the fold.
As he waited in the chill, Keech reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the wooden-headed doll, the one taken from his mother’s grave. He sat it upon his palm. He wanted to feel calm when he held the figurine, but the doll still didn’t stop the thought of monsters from invading his mind. He recalled Bad Whiskey standing over his mother’s grave, screaming A doll! when he realized the trinket had replaced the Char Stone.
Then Keech envisioned another man, this one mysterious and faceless, removing the Stone sometime before and placing the doll in his mother’s skeletal embrace.
Red Jeffreys.
Duck stepped out onto the porch and sat next to him. Shuddering from the cold, she glanced down at the figurine. “You know, I used to have a doll that looked just like that, only it had yellow britches and a blue hat.” She lifted it from Keech’s palm and tinkered with its tiny plaid dress and red bonnet. “I called her Clementine. She was a present from Nat. I played with her in the mud holes out behind the house.” Chortling lightly, she handed it back.
Keech turned the doll’s tattered frame over in his hand. “I don’t like it much.”
“Why don’t you throw it away then?”
“I don’t know. I reckon it helps me feel closer to my ma.”
As Keech stuffed the figurine back into his coat, Duck put a hand on his arm. “I’m awful sorry about Felix, Keech. I still can’t believe he’s gone.”
Keech wanted to assure her that he would be fine. He wanted to remind her that he had managed to remain focused on their mission even after losing his family. But suddenly a sound like a ragged cough spilled out, and he found himself weeping. He turned his face away, not wanting her to witness such a spectacle, but when he did, Duck simply shifted on the step to where she could see him. He wiped at his nose, and his hand came away shiny with snot. He felt his face burn red-hot with embarrassment.
“No shame at all crying over your pony,” Duck said. “I lost a pet rabbit once. Charley Dickens. Nat’s mean little hound dog Rascal attacked him. I cried for a whole year. I know how it feels.”
Dabbing his nose with his coat sleeve, Keech muttered, “Thanks.” He appreciated her words—and couldn’t fathom such courage and wisdom in a soul so young, especially given Duck’s recent night terrors—but he couldn’t stand the thought of someone seeing him so messy.
After a time, he felt hollowed out, as if there were absolutely no more tears left in that mysterious well from which they sprang. Smearing his face clean, he took a few burning breaths. His ears and nose were freezing, so he turned his coat collar up to the wind. “C’mon. Let’s take a quick walk.”
As they started across the yard, Duck asked, “Where’re we going?”
He took a breath to compose himself. “You’ll see. It’s not too far. About a mile or so.”
“But what about the Ranger’s protection line? We ain’t supposed to cross it. What if the Chamelia comes around?”
No sooner did she finish speaking than they approached the red border that Doyle had scattered around the property. Fresh snow and bits of sleet had damaged or covered the protection in places, but not enough to break the perimeter. Keech looked at the bloodroot with interest, then he bent and scooped up a small amount. The powder was wet and cold on his palm. He smeared a little on Duck’s cheeks, then rubbed the rest over his own face.
“There. If the Chamelia tries to get us, we’ll be safe.”
“I don’t know if I believe that.”
“We’ll be quick. I promise.”
They didn’t have to walk too far from the Moss farm for Duck to realize where he was leading her. “We’re headed for the bending tree, aren’t we?”
“I need to look at it again. I can’t figure things out with everyone gabbing around me.”
Their boots crunched in the snow as they backtracked over the rolling lea the gang had crossed that morning. “Tell me about your dream,” Keech said as they trudged over the alabaster ground. “It must’ve packed a wallop.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Duck said, “I was walking with my pa, and we were in a giant cave. There was wretched movement all around us, like thousands of wriggling bats or snakes on the walls. I was so scared, I couldn’t breathe. I told my pa I wanted to leave, but he wouldn’t let me. We walked toward this big light. ‘We have to get closer,’ he told me. When I tried to pull back, Pa dragged me along. The light got so bright, I couldn’t see Pa’s face anymore, just a pile of shadows. Then the light grew hot, like Pa and I was standing near the mouth of a big furnace. I tried to scream again, but Pa said, ‘Hush, girl. The Reverend has—’”
“—woken in the Palace,” Keech finished, feeling his legs almost give under him.
Startled, Duck froze in her tracks. “How do you know what Pa said?”
“Because I had the same dream. It woke me, too.”
Duck’s face turned skeptical. “You did not! Folks can’t have the same dreams. It’s impossible.”
“I’m telling you, I dreamed about the cave and the bright light, and my pa was there, too, only it was my real pa. His face was all shadows. He said, ‘The Reverend has woken in the Palace.’ I swear it, Duck. On Pa Abner’s grave.”
Duck’s face turned as pale as the snow. “How can that be?”
Keech searched for the proper answer. “I don’t know, but whatever the Reverend Rose is up to, I think his plans are heating up. I reckon we need to find Bonfire Crossing pronto.”
As they walked across the lea, Duck kept flipping her gaze to the left and right—most likely worried about the Chamelia. Keech was more concerned about the crows. He probed the skies for the Reverend’s emissaries, but not one was in sight.
The feeble sunlight had dipped a bit lower when they reached the bending tree. Keech approached the maple, his eyes taking in every detail of the curious growth. Duck followed close behind.
The dim afternoon light did nothing to improve the eerie nature of the tree. Its mangled Y formation cast a crooked shadow over the snow like a pair of cupped hands straining toward the clouds with splayed fingers. He circled the tree once, then again, and examined the four snow-covered stones that encompassed the roots.
“What are we looking for?” Duck asked.
Keech squatted to brush the powder off the stones. “I don’t rightly know, but I think these strange circles give us our strongest clue. When Doyle first brought us here, he put his foot on one. Maybe to push it down.”
“What for?”
“Perhaps the stones open up something, like the log in Floodwood opened up the cave when we used Pa’s charm as a key.”
Duck knelt near a neighboring circle and flattened a hand on the stone. Keech did the same, and they pushed down in unison on their respective stones. The surface under his palm felt as smooth as new leather, and the cut of the circle looked so perfect, it almost confounded his mind. But the stone didn’t budge.
“Mine didn’t sink down any.” Duck felt along the edges of her stone. “Hey, do you know what I think this rock is? Moss opal.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a prec
ious stone. Some folks think it holds supernatural power and helps you talk to nature spirits. When I read about the Middle Ages, I learned that some folks wrapped their moss opals in bay leaves so they could become invisible.”
Keech chuckled. “Bay leaves and nature spirits? You’ve studied some mighty weird subjects.”
“Pa taught me Latin and old medieval stories since I was a baby. I reckon that might be weird, but I always enjoyed learning such things. And maybe he knew one day all that knowledge would come in handy. Anyway, we just saw a horse walk on water and a man summon a tornado to kill river monsters, so what I study ain’t so weird by comparison.”
“Good point.” He turned his focus back to the stones. “I suppose whoever buried these circles chose moss opal for a reason.”
“But the stones don’t do anything.”
Keech stood, wiped the moisture off his hands, and planted both boots on the stone he’d been testing. The notion of keys sprang to his mind again, and he suddenly remembered their conversation with Quinn Revels about Bonfire Crossing.
“Duck, do you recall what Quinn said about a fang?”
“He said he overheard a fella tell Sheriff Strahan he wanted to find it.”
“Right. We thought he might be talking about a weapon. But what if it isn’t? What if this fang is some kind of key? What if we need it to open up Bonfire Crossing?”
Duck considered the idea. “Could be. But we don’t have it. Which means we’re back to where we started.”
Keech slumped on the stone his boots were inhabiting. “Let’s take a gander at the limbs. We have to be missing something.” He faced north on the circle, the same direction that one of the two main boughs aimed. “This limb here directs you back to the Kansas River.”
Duck placed both feet firmly on her marker, mimicking Keech, and glanced up at the tree. “The other limb points down south. I reckon to another river?”
“Or maybe toward the Santa Fe Trail,” he guessed. “Pa Abner taught me about the trail several years ago. He had a big plan to travel it for adventure when the orphans got older. The Santa Fe crosses south of here and cuts a path clear across Kansas. It used to be a buffalo path for hunters. ’Course, that don’t help us find the Crossing.” Keech gritted his teeth in frustration. He was about to lift his boots off the stone marker when a flash of movement captured his eye. The tree’s shadow—the pair of cupped hands on the ground—had begun to gather.
Keech’s body went rigid at the sight. “What in blazes?” He blinked and looked again. It was not a trick of the sunlight. The shadow was squirming on the ground, the fingers cast by the maple’s limbs and branches rumpling closer together like some kind of ghostly flower closing up for the night.
“What’s wrong?” Duck asked.
“The shadow! Look at the tree’s shadow.”
“Looks like the snout of a buffalo to me,” Duck said in amazement.
Her words surprised him, but Keech dared not glance away from the crumpling dark form. He was struck with a vivid memory of the Mercy Mission tree. He recalled how the crooked oak’s shadow had, for a brief moment, slithered away.
“It looks like a pair of hands to me,” Keech said—except now he could see it. The side view of a buffalo head. “What’s going on?”
Duck suddenly gasped. “It’s moving! Like the head is turning.”
Keech’s heart galloped across his chest when he saw the bison-like shadow swivel left and right on the ground, as though peering at the landscape. “I saw movement like this at the first tree. I thought it might just be the lightning, but the shadow of that tree slithered like a snake.”
A moment later, the phenomenon on the ground stopped. It didn’t just cease movement; it disappeared completely, leaving behind the normal, cupped-hand shadow cast by the tree’s two boughs.
“It’s gone,” Duck said.
Keech twisted his head and rubbed his eyes, but nothing he did reawakened the phantom buffalo. He recalled how Ranger Doyle had stared between the Y of the tree and shaken his head in frustration. “He was looking for the shadow,” Keech said. “Doyle was hunting for the buffalo this morning, but he couldn’t find it. That’s the code he’s trying to crack. The shadows are the secret, and he knows it.”
They watched the ground till Duck said, “We ought to get on back. If Nat wakes up and I’m gone, he’ll get his dander up.”
Keech agreed. “We’ll just have to keep our eyes peeled for other bending trees. I think we’re on the right track. But we best not say anything about this in front of the Ranger, not till we ask him a few more questions.”
They tramped their way back across the snowy field side by side, leaning against the frigid wind. Keech glanced back one last time at the mysterious maple, hoping to spy a hint of the buffalo mirage, but the bending tree stood still, its thin shadow unmoving.
CHAPTER 14
LESSONS ON THE PRAIRIE
Icy rain drizzled as Keech and Duck returned to the Moss farm. They passed through the gate and stepped over the bloodroot barrier. The property was still, the wooden chime on the front porch the only thing stirring.
“Looks like everybody’s still asleep,” Duck said. They sat again on the porch steps and cleaned the bloodroot smears off their faces.
Not long after, the front door squeaked open, and Edgar Doyle stepped out onto the porch, followed by Quinn, who carried a bundle of scarves. The Ranger lugged a bulging knapsack over his shoulder. His stubbly face looked tired and pale, as if he hadn’t rested a second. Nat and Cutter appeared after them, dozy-eyed, their hair in disarray. Cutter’s own face was red and swollen, full of a sadness that no sleep could drown.
Freshly clad in a cotton shirt and boots that fit him snugly, Quinn tipped his forage cap to Keech and Duck. “Mr. Moss had a dandy wardrobe. I found a cabinet full of these.” He tossed them a woolen scarf. “They smell a tad moldy, but they’ll come in handy on the prairie.”
Doyle marched toward the barn with his knapsack. “We move out in ten minutes. Get your ponies ready to ride.”
After the gang had saddled up and Keech took his cantle seat behind Quinn, Doyle trotted Saint Peter into the yard and gave all the young riders a grave look. He had secured his bulky knapsack with two or three ropes to the Kelpie’s cantle. “Listen up. From here we veer west. Be aware, you’ll see strange sights when we near the town.”
“Stranger than this loco weather?” Cutter asked.
“You’ll see darkness. And soldiers that ain’t rightly men no more.”
“Thralls,” Nat said, scowling.
“So you’ve heard of them,” Doyle said.
“We faced them back in Missouri,” Duck said. “A fella named Bad Whiskey raised a whole cemetery full.”
The Ranger’s expression turned both puzzled and circumspect. “Good. Then you won’t freeze up at the sight of them. I reckon you know that regular weapons won’t help, so stay out of their way and don’t draw attention.”
“We’ll stay out of their way, but not because we can’t stop them.” Duck reached into her coat and pulled out her amulet shard. “We can take thralls down with these.”
Though Keech hadn’t wanted to unveil the shards in front of Doyle, he reluctantly drew out his own, and they held the silver fragments up to the dull afternoon light. Doyle’s eyes narrowed when he saw them.
“Yes, I saw you wield one back at the river,” he said. “It took down one of those fish monsters. Good trinkets to have. But no conflict if we can avoid it. Let’s keep the mission nice and quiet.”
The young riders followed Doyle back into the white forest. They passed through a narrow gap in the low thickets and soon veered upon a deer trail that switched back and forth through lanky hickories and twisted red mulberries. The high branches swayed above them as the winds whined down from the north. After a time, they nudged their ponies out of the thickest part of the woods and started up a long slope.
Keech thought about the shared nightmare of the cavern and the stra
nge excursion to the bending tree. The buffalo phantom he and Duck had seen on the ground haunted him. Perhaps the Ranger might be willing to help them figure out what they had witnessed—but first the gang needed to know more about the man. As the troop proceeded through more brushwood, Keech said, “Ranger, I need to ask you something.”
“Fire at will.”
“What are you hoping to find at the end of the bending trees?”
When Doyle turned to look at him, his gaze penetrated into the very core of Keech’s mind. “I suspect you already know the answer, seeing how your troop is headed to the same place.”
“Bonfire Crossing,” Keech said. He had suspected the answer, of course, but he wanted the Ranger to confirm.
“Your company fascinates me, Mr. Blackwood. I’d like to know why you’re seeking such a secret place.”
The others had urged their ponies alongside Lightnin’ and Saint Peter and were listening intently to the conversation. Nat looked worried but held his tongue.
“We don’t rightly know,” Keech answered. “We were told we’d learn something there in order to find and destroy a monster named Rose. Have you ever heard that name?”
Doyle’s expression turned darker. “I have heard it, yes.”
Quinn glanced around at the gang. “So you’re all chasing after the same place—this Bonfire Crossing. But why? What do y’all expect to find?”
“Something of great worth to the Texas Rangers,” Doyle said.
“It’s the fang, isn’t it?” said Duck. “You’re looking for the fang.”
Doyle gave the girl a surprised look. “I suppose I am. And I have to warn you kids, when I find it, I’m taking it. The Fang of Barachiel isn’t some toy.”
“‘Barachiel,’” Duck said, rubbing her cheek. “Sounds like a name you’d find in the Bible.”
“Sounds like a mean liquor to me,” Cutter scoffed.
“I have no idea what it means,” Doyle said. “I’m only charged with securing it.”
Puzzle pieces tumbled into place as Keech considered the Ranger’s words. Some time ago, Sheriff Strahan and another fellow—most likely Doyle’s partner, Warren Lynch—had discussed the hidden path to Bonfire Crossing, and Quinn Revels happened upon their conversation and heard mention of the Fang. Then Friendly Williams and Rose’s gang showed up, and both men went missing, likely imprisoned somewhere in Wisdom. Competing forces were aligning to find the secret Osage encampment and seize what lay inside: the Fang of Barachiel.
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