Duck sat in the hollow, her face glimmering with fresh tears.
Keech carried the torchlight over to the ponies, checking to make sure they were still healthy. Four animals stood at the rally spot—Irving, Sally, Lightnin’, and Chantico—and Doyle’s bloodroot barrier still circled them.
But Saint Peter was no longer tied off to his tree.
“Oh no.” Keech swung the torch and noticed the bulging dark shape of the Kelpie lying a few feet from the other ponies. The creature had toppled onto his side. Doyle’s saddlebags had been torn open, and supplies were scattered across the clearing.
Keech dropped to his knees beside the horse. The Kelpie was still alive but appeared to be in a deep slumber, his bulky sides rising and falling to a peaceful-looking rhythm. Keech pushed against the beast and tried to lift his heavy head, but he couldn’t wake the stallion.
He spotted Doyle’s knapsack on the ground. The ropes that had tethered the bag to Saint Peter had been cut, and the satchel’s buckles had been unfastened. Small boot prints in the snow jogged away from it, plunging west into the woodland. It didn’t take a brilliant tracker to identify the owner of the prints.
Coward.
Keech pulled Doyle’s knapsack closer, dreading to look inside. Or rather, dreading what he wouldn’t find. An object rolled from the mouth of the bag and came to rest against his knee. Keech wheeled backward in horror.
He was staring at a human skull.
The thing looked small and delicate, as though it had belonged to a child. The dark caverns of its eyes peered up at Keech with somber curiosity. Shivering, he stepped back from the skull resting in the snow.
“Doyle, what were you up to?” he mumbled. Returning his attention to the satchel, Keech peered deeper inside and discovered more bones bundled together by small ropes. Like the skull, they looked small. “You’re carrying the remains of a kid.” He glanced back at Duck, wondering if she’d noticed Doyle’s dreadful cargo, but the girl sat in her frozen hollow, head hung low, the doll wedged in her lap, her arms wrapped around her torso.
Keech dared one more glimpse inside the knapsack, turning the bag over a little to let the bones knock any other items loose, but there appeared to be no sign of the Char Stone. He sighed bitterly and dropped the satchel. The bones clanked within.
There was nothing for it then. Coward had stolen his amulet shard and now he had claimed the Stone—the one thing that Pa Abner had warned Keech never to let happen. With the Stone reclaimed, the Reverend Rose would no doubt turn his sights on Bonfire Crossing and the mysterious Fang next.
Keech remembered the times when he had praised the work of fate in their lives. But it was all nonsense. If fate had truly been guiding the Lost Causes to victory, they would never have lost the Stone, and Nat Embry would still be alive.
He reached to fetch the skull. He didn’t want to touch the foul thing, but he knew he couldn’t leave it lying on the ground. Before he grabbed it, the sound of an approaching horse made him pause. A torchlight bobbed across the ravine, and a second later, a large patch of white appeared, galloping toward the rally point.
“It’s Quinn and Cut,” Keech said.
The boys rode up with Cutter at the reins. A glazed look darkened Quinn’s face. Though he was holding the torch, the kid looked dazed, as if someone had knocked him for a loop. “Hey, Blackwood,” Cutter said with a hectic voice. “We’ve got to light out again. It ain’t safe here.”
“What happened?”
Leaping down from Hector, Cutter helped Quinn slide off the cantle and onto the ground where Duck sat. “It was Coward.” Cutter scowled as he uttered the name. “The way Revels tells it, the man knocked him out with some kind of cough.”
“A cough?”
“Maybe not, but it sounded like one,” Quinn answered. “It was something darker, like he choked up some kind of curse on me.” The boy peeled off his forage cap and shook his head as though trying to stir from a nap. “I was over in the back alley behind the saloon, keeping watch, when that fella ran out. He jumped when he saw me, then coughed a weird noise like a sick cat, and suddenly I felt all bone weary, like I hadn’t slept in a year. I fell right over and sacked out.”
“I found him behind a crate,” Cutter explained, then looked at Quinn. “Whatever Coward did to you, amigo, I reckon it saved your life, since you dropped behind cover before the bomb went off.”
“Guess I’m lucky.” Quinn stood, but his knees were shaky.
“Maybe Coward’s cough explains this.” Keech swiveled his torch toward the sleeping mound of Saint Peter and the scattered mess from Doyle’s saddlebags. “Coward got here first and stole the Char Stone.”
“Perfect,” Cutter spat. He walked around Doyle’s belongings till he reached the skull on the ground and jerked back at the sight. “Is that what I think it is?”
“There’s a heap of bones inside the satchel. I don’t know what Doyle’s been playing at, but it’s nothing good,” Keech said.
Cutter backed away from the skull, then glanced at the distant darkness hanging over Wisdom. “I took Horner’s body off the street, like Doyle wanted, but then everything happened so fast, I only saw the explosion. How did the fight go down?”
Keech rehashed the deadly encounter quickly, not wishing to linger on the details of Nat’s death for fear that he would lose control of his emotions. When he finally got to the part about John Wesley, the boy’s name slipped out so rapidly that Keech didn’t have time to stop himself.
Cutter reeled as if Keech had just delivered a shocking blow. “What did you just say?”
“John Wesley is alive, Cut. I didn’t mean to break it to you like that.”
“That’s impossible! We saw him die.”
“No,” Keech said. “He survived.”
“But how?”
Keech paused, not exactly sure how to continue. “Because he’s different.”
“What do ya mean, different?” Cutter’s eyes burned with intensity.
“John Wesley’s changed, Cut. He started shifting in the saloon, then ran off carrying Doyle. Turns out, the Ranger’s his pa.”
Cutter’s face twisted in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“I mean Edgar Doyle is John Wesley’s father.”
“No, the other thing. You said he shifted?”
“He’s been infected, Cut. He’s turning into a Chamelia.”
Cutter fell deathly silent for a moment, then said, “My compadre is a Shifter?”
“Yeah. I’m afraid so.”
Quinn had been listening to the exchange with patience, but now he swung the torchlight about. “We should finish talking on the trail. Right now we need to move. It ain’t safe in this ravine no more.”
Keech didn’t like the look on Quinn’s face. “What is it?”
Quinn shuddered. “Just before me and Cut left the town, we turned back to get one more look at the place. We saw a pack of thralls shimmy over to the hotel wreckage, and Big Ben climbed right out of the rubble.”
Duck’s head shot up. “What?”
“He wasn’t dead. I don’t know how, but the bomb didn’t get him.”
Keech couldn’t tell if the sound that Duck made was sobbing or shocked laughter. She clutched the doll, but now she held it with clear malice.
“Then we’re finished,” she said, driving the last word like a nail. “Nathaniel died for nothing. We’ve lost.”
“No, we haven’t,” Keech said, but seeing Duck’s broken stare and the weariness on the boys’ faces, he wondered if there was anything he could say to hold this team together.
“I reckon she’s right,” Quinn said. “We have to scatter, else we’re done.”
“No! We’ve still got a mission,” Keech implored. “We can’t give up.”
Quinn’s head tilted. “Give up? No, sir. I’m heading out west to track down Auntie Ruth. I’ll never give up on her.”
Keech glanced at Cutter. “You’ll still ride, won’t you, Cut? We got a bending tree
to find. Mr. Horner gave us clues.”
Cutter peered off into the dark woodland. “I’m afraid you’re on your own, amigo. All I aim to do now is find John. If he’s turning Shifter, like you claim, I have to find a way to help him.”
Keech turned back to Duck. “You have to stick with me. We’ve come so far.”
“No, Keech.” Her voice sounded paper-thin. “I’m gonna head back home to Sainte Genevieve. Folks there know the Embry name. They’ll help me rebuild some kind of life.”
“Face it, Blackwood,” said Cutter. “We’re done. This is done.”
Keech glanced at them all desperately. “No, it’s not! We just have to believe we can get to Bonfire Crossing and finish what we started.”
“What have we started?” Duck said. “A war with the Reverend Rose we can’t hope to win?”
“But I feel like we’re one step away. We’re close to finding what we’re supposed to.”
Cutter pointed a finger at Keech’s face. “I’m tired of riding on your gut feelings, Lost Cause. That’s gonna get us killed some day, just like—” He stopped himself and suddenly veered his eyes away from Duck.
“Go ahead, say it,” Duck growled. “Like Nathaniel, you mean.”
Guilt and sadness overcame Cutter’s face. “I’m sorry, chica.”
Duck’s own face turned a seething red. “What do you know, Miguel. You’re just a liar. You’ve been hiding secrets ever since you and John took up with me and Nat.”
Cutter dropped his head.
The team was dissolving before Keech’s eyes. They only knew anger and loss now, and they aimed to travel their own directions. Even Quinn wanted no part of them. The thought of their wandering off on their own filled Keech with such frustration that he wanted to pummel the earth with his fists.
A memory stopped him.
He was standing over the charred ruins of the Home for Lost Causes, a mountain of black timbers, little Patrick’s wooden stick-and-ball toy in his hands. He made an oath to his family: Vengeance will come. I swear it on my life. The promise to his Pa Abner, his Granny Nell, his fallen siblings that he would never surrender. I have to go hunting now, he had told his lost family. I have to finish this.
Keech opened his mouth to plead his case—there was but one final chance to save the group—but suddenly a deep growl sounded at the western edge of the gorge.
Everyone spun to mark the source of the rumble.
“The Shifter!” Cutter said, reaching for his knife.
But when Keech and Quinn brandished their torches, they didn’t see the Chamelia that had besieged Mercy Mission.
They saw John Wesley, dragging a senseless Edgar Doyle through snow and mud.
The boy lumbered toward the firelight, shoving away branches in his path. His haggard boots stopped at the lip of the ravine. He looked decidedly more John than monster, even though black scales now covered his arms and neck. Narrow, sharp barbs encircled his face and jutted from the backs of his hands. His eyes no longer beamed red fury, as they had at the Big Snake Saloon, but were dark and slitted yellow. Cakes of mud matted his curly reddish hair, and his clothes were in such tatters that Keech could see his dirty knees and elbows.
As for the body in his grip, Doyle was still alive, but he looked to be on the verge of death.
John Wesley stood in grim silence, his barrel stomach rising and falling. Then he tossed the Ranger down into the ravine.
A small moan escaped the man.
“John?” Cutter mumbled.
The sound of the boy’s voice must have jarred John Wesley, for his head wiggled back and forth a bit, as if he were trying to shake water out of his ear. He glanced at Cutter with fretful eyes. “Hey, Cut.”
Cutter’s face leaped from shock to confusion to excitement within the span of a blink. “Hey, amigo! Glad to see you’re still kickin’!”
“Yep, still kickin’.” John Wesley smiled, but the parting of his lips revealed ugly rows of dark fangs. “I died for a spell, I think. But I feel better. A little turned around, I suppose.” He then gazed down at Doyle. “I couldn’t do it. I wanted to kill him, but I just couldn’t.”
Keech dared a step closer to the boy, moving with care so as not to trigger John Wesley into some kind of Chamelia rage. “It’s because you’re no killer, John, and he’s your pa. You’re decent and brave, not a monster.”
“You’re wrong, Keech.” John Wesley’s eyes flashed, and Keech thought he saw the red flare up again like tiny candles. “Look at me. I ain’t exactly civilized no more.” He regarded the strange, prickly plumage around his knuckles. “What are these things, anyhow?”
Duck had risen to her feet and moved toward him, one arm outstretched. “Come down, John. Stand with us. Let’s figure this out.”
John Wesley sniffed the air. “I know what happened to Nat. I can smell the grief on ya. I’m awful sorry, Duck.”
Quinn said, “I bet there’s a cure for what’s happening to you. Maybe we can find it.”
Peering at his quilled hands again, John Wesley said, “I reckon this ain’t your run-of-the-mill cold, Quinn. Ain’t no cure for this.”
“C’mon, hermano. Just step on down,” Cutter said. “Shifter or no, you’re my partner. We’ll lick this sickness together.”
But John Wesley was already turning back toward the forest. “Y’all just leave me alone. Don’t follow, and don’t come looking. Go find Bonfire Crossing, and kick that Reverend Rose in the tailbone. Got it?”
“No, amigo. Stay with me.” Cutter reached into his coat and pulled out John Wesley’s bullet-torn straw hat. “I’ve still got your hat, see? Come take it.”
John Wesley’s eyes sparked fiery red. “Leave me alone, Cut! Stay with the others.”
The boy scrambled back into the woodland, leaving his father in the snow.
For several moments, no one spoke. Keech knew they should be riding farther away from Wisdom, especially if Big Ben was still out there, but no one moved. Keech couldn’t imagine going on without the posse. He needed to rally them, no matter what.
“Y’all heard John Wesley. We should stay a team. I know y’all want to go your separate ways, and I can’t blame you, and I certainly can’t stop you. But here’s what I can do: I can be your friend. When my folks died, Pa Abner took me in and gave me hope that I’d never be alone again. That’s what I can offer you now: hope. We can ride on west, Quinn, and find your aunt Ruth, and Cut, maybe we can find a cure for John. But first we need to finish our mission and get to Bonfire Crossing.”
Keech paused his speech to look at Duck. Her eyes were brimming with fresh tears. “Nat’s last words to us were to keep one another safe and never stop fighting. He told us to ride on. He wanted us to stand together.”
“But we’ve got nothing,” Duck said. “No weapons, except for my shard and Cutter’s knife. We’re just a bunch of kids.”
“This bunch of kids beat Bad Whiskey. And blew Wisdom to the sky.” Keech smiled, hoping a show of confidence would give them that touch of hope. “We’ll practice Doyle’s magic. We’ll find our focus. And if things turn sour, we’ll use our training. We know better than most how to fight. Quinn, your aunt Ruth taught you a thousand ways to survive. We can do this.”
Cutter said, “We don’t even know where we’re going. We got nothing to go by.”
“Mr. Horner gave us plenty. He gave us the riddle that’ll lead us to Bonfire Crossing.” Then Keech spoke the poem that the Enforcer had taught them:
“Follow the rivers and bending trees
to the den of the moon stalker.
Gather the pack and speak his name
before the noontide shift.”
Cutter shook his head. “C’mon, Blackwood, that don’t sound like anything.”
“Back in Missouri, we solved the Bible verses and found the path to Bone Ridge,” Keech said. “We can figure this out, too. I know it.”
“What about Ranger Doyle?” asked Quinn. “We can’t just leave him to die.”
/> “We’ll take him with us and find some help. He may have lied to us about the Char Stone, but he stood tall with us in Wisdom. We won’t abandon him. And when all’s said and done with Reverend Rose, we’ll track down your auntie, Quinn.”
Behind them, something stirred on the ground. Saint Peter was waking. The Kelpie staggered up to his legs, then shook mud and snow off his body. The creature released a heavy bluster, as if telling them he was ready to forge on.
Keech grinned at the horse. “Who’s with me? Who’s gonna ride to Bonfire Crossing?”
Quinn slapped his forage cap back on. “Count me in, I suppose. Sooner we can find this Crossing, the sooner I can find Auntie Ruth. How ’bout it, Cut? We make a pretty good team.”
His face still full of doubt, Cutter shrugged. “All right, I’ll go. But we keep an eye out for John Wesley. If I have to ride off to help him, I’ll go and won’t look back.”
“Deal,” Keech said, then looked at Duck. “We need you, too. I need you. Remember what Doyle said to Horner?”
“Amicus fidelis protectio fortis,” she replied.
“Exactly so. ‘A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter.’”
Glancing back toward Wisdom, where Nat Embry had given his life, Duck whispered something under her breath—perhaps a prayer or a gentle farewell. Then she stuffed the threadbare doll into her coat pocket and wiped her eyes.
“For Nathaniel,” she said. “Let’s ride.”
CHAPTER 25
THE ENFORCER’S TALE
They decided to travel as far as possible through the night.
Before they lit out, Keech dug through the unconscious Ranger’s coat and retrieved the man’s amulet shard. The charm was triangular, with one side rounded and the other two ridged. He was sure he could have fit Pa Abner’s shard to this one, if only Coward had not absconded with it. Like the others, this charm was secured with a leather cord, which Keech slipped around his neck.
Borrowing Cutter’s knife, Quinn ripped a few strips of wool from a blanket and applied a bandage to Doyle’s leg. Plum-colored veins had webbed the flesh around the laceration, and when they all looked closer, they saw that purplish welts had also stolen up his neck, like tiny fingers intending to strangle the man. Whatever a cutting spell was, as Doyle had called it, it was surely something to avoid.
The Fang of Bonfire Crossing Page 20
