Wake of Vultures

by Lila Bowen

  She had always hated the Rangers because they killed people who looked like her. But what would she see now, if she looked at those smoking corpses? Fangs and inhuman skeletons? Or just piles of sand?

  Scanning the desert all around her, she was suddenly overcome by a body-wide shiver that struck at her very heart.

  Where had all this sand come from in the first place?

  “You saying the Rangers are friendly fellers? That they’ll take me in?”

  “I never said they were friendly, but they won’t have a choice. You can’t hunt the Cannibal Owl alone. If they’re not already aware of this creature, they must be made aware. And once they know what you’ve seen, it will become their duty to train you. They’re bound to defend those who have seen the truth, because so often those people become victims of monsters themselves. Monsters don’t like to be stared at.”

  Nettie realized she was staring and looked down. “Sorry, Dan. It’s just…”

  The horses clopped along. The coyote sneezed. Dan waited.

  “It’s just that I forget that you’re a monster.”

  Dan and the coyote beside him both snorted at the same time. “There aren’t enough words in the world to describe everything as it wishes to be known. For now, monster will have to do. It’s better than savage, at least.”

  “So why are you good and some things are bad?”

  Dan took a long drink from his water skin. A trickle leaked down from his lips. “Why is one snake deadly and another harmless? What is the difference between quicksand and mud? How is Pap different from any other man?”

  Nettie’s nose wrinkled up. “Are… are you asking me?”

  “You are asking yourself.”

  “I don’t know. I figure a critter’s born what it is.”

  Dan nodded patiently. “And then what happens?”

  “It… lives.”

  “Or dies. And if it lives, what does it do?”

  Nettie’s head hurt from all the thinking. She’d never been to school or learned her letters, never had anybody try to teach her more than how to cook eggs or skin a rabbit or sweep the floor so they wouldn’t have to do it anymore themselves. Most of the things she knew, she knew by watching. That was how she’d learned bronc breaking. Just watching what the fellers did differently who stayed on compared to those who fell off and broke something important, and then figuring out how to improve on that technique.

  “Shit, Dan. I don’t know. I never went to school.”

  Dan grinned. “There it is, Nettie. Learning. A creature learns. If a man beats you, you learn to hate him. If your mother tells you to hate dogs, or if a dog bites you, you learn to hate dogs. If you eat a berry and vomit, you don’t eat that kind of berry again.”

  Nettie closed her eyes to sort through it all. “So you’re saying… you were born a monster, but your folks taught you to be good?”

  “To rise above it, yes. To accept it. And master it.”

  “That’s why you’re helping me?”

  He waited so long to answer that Nettie got the fidgets and drank from her water skin just so she’d have a reason to stop and piss if he kept it up forever. She was getting right hungry, and lunch would not have been unwelcome, especially considering she’d upchucked most of her breakfast onto that mouthy coyote.

  “My sister and I are twins, born under a blood moon. Our mother said she was visited in the night by Coyote himself and that we were his gift. Skinwalkers are rare and celebrated in our tribe, although some bands number only the two-natured. We were raised to be special, taught by our shaman to serve the people. When our tribe was attacked, we fought and took many wounds. Our mother could not be saved. When no hope was left, the shaman urged us to transform and run away to the white men. Winifred went to a mission school, learned proper language and rules and religion.”

  Nettie’s disgust rose in her throat at the thought of wearing hoop skirts and sitting still all day when one could turn into a coyote and run wild and lawless under the sky. “Why’d your shaman tell her to do that?”

  Dan had gone all solemn now, no trace of his grin. “For revenge.”

  “She stayed with the white folks as revenge against another tribe?”

  The grin came back. “The white man has all the best weapons, and not all of them are guns.”

  “And what’d you do?”

  Nettie couldn’t imagine Coyote Dan in a schoolhouse, tying a cravat, carrying a white man’s water in a bucket. But he talked like a white man, and the firm set of his jaw told her that wherever he’d been, he hadn’t much cared for it.

  “I went to the Rangers as a scout. They have an outpost near here, one of many.”

  “Why’d you go to the Rangers?”

  His head turned to her, slow as an owl and twice as judgmental. “Same reason. Revenge. Better weapons.”

  She was just about to ask him how hunting monsters with the Rangers could help anybody get revenge when the coyote yipped and Dan yanked his horse to a stop.

  A ripple went through Nettie’s stomach, and she let out a little burp. “We stopping for supper? I’m either starving or about to upchuck again.”

  Dan unhooked his bow and knocked an arrow while Nettie fidgeted around what felt like a ball of worms in her belly.

  “That’s the ripple I told you about. Many monsters approach us. If you live through meeting them, there’s dried meat in the saddle bags.”

  Nettie exchanged the creek-soaked gun in her holster for a dry one from the saddlebag, swallowing down the collywobbles. She scanned the flat, brown land up ahead, but all she could see was more of the same nothingness broken up by scraggly gray bushes, a couple of stuck-up mesquite trees, and the usual shimmery ripples the sun made bouncing off the hard earth. When the shimmers shimmered a little darker, she focused on the same place Dan was watching. His arm didn’t waver, and his arrow didn’t shake a bit. The coyote dropped her packet and trotted back and forth nervously, watching the same spot, her hackles up as she growled.

  The dark splotch inched closer until Nettie figured it had to be some sort of low-to-the-ground animal. Not buffalo. Not men or anything that might pretend to be men. Not harpies. But… wait…

  “Law, Dan. Is it pigs?”

  “Not pigs. Javelina. Skinwalkers. An entire tribe.” He paused meaningfully and squinted. “No. Not an entire tribe. They’re missing the most important part.” Shaking his head, he lowered his bow and laid it across his saddle, a grim set to his mouth.

  The coyote sat back on her haunches and howled, all haunted-like. Nettie swallowed down the lump in her throat, trying to keep it in her belly where it belonged. Something definitely wasn’t right, and she felt edgy and vulnerable, out on the prairie.

  Up ahead, the crowd of brown, hairy pigs stopped as one. Several in the back of the herd pulled sledges loaded with bundles of leather and wood. A big feller trotted ahead, his tusks poking up like little swords. When he was just close enough for Nettie to see a queer intelligence in his black eyes, the hog bent over, snoot to the ground, and rippled like a sack of kittens. Soon, a tall, thick-built Injun man stood, nekkid but for dust, and walked toward the horses with grim determination, his hands in fists at his sides.

  “Greetings, friend,” Coyote Dan called, holding his hands up to show they were empty.

  Nettie shoved her gun back in its holster as a show of good faith but kept her hand on it as a show of not quite trusting a pig. The coyote, Winifred, trotted behind the horses and sat back, head cocked.

  “Greetings,” the man answered, his voice deep and heavily accented, as if he swallowed his words slowly and found them bitter.

  “You are far from home,” Dan said, and he didn’t sound stuck-up and preachy, not one bit. Nettie couldn’t help wondering just how many masks Dan wore, when he pleased.

  “We hunt.” The man stood tall and straight, his arms corded with muscle and his chest scarred from battle. Try as she might, Nettie couldn’t stop herself from glancing at his business and wo
ndering if it was hairy when he was a pig. The man caught her looking, and the corner of his mouth quirked up just the tiniest bit, making her flush red.

  “Pigs don’t hunt,” she blurted out, and Dan cussed under his breath.

  “We are Javelina. Not pigs. Javelina have tusk. Cut you, neck to belly.” He sneered and looked her up and down, and she felt like he saw straight through her, through her stolen clothes, her chest wrap, all the way to her shriveled black heart. He gestured at her with his chin and looked to Dan. “What is that?”

  The coyote yipped a laugh, and Dan sighed deeply. “One who has killed but remains a fool in many ways.”

  “I ain’t no fool,” Nettie muttered, slipping her hat down to hide her blush.

  “What do you hunt?” Dan asked, ignoring her.

  The man glanced back at his tribe. “Children stolen. We hunt thief.”

  Nettie opened her mouth, but Dan interrupted her. “Did you see it?”

  The man shook his head slowly. “Came at night. Silent. New mother woke at dawn, found blankets empty. Baby stolen from breast.” He shook his head, and Nettie was surprised to see tears gleaming in his eyes. “Evil monster. We end it. Take back children.”

  “How do you hunt it? Scent?”

  “The mothers know. It lives in mountains. High up.” He pointed west, toward the Aspero mountains, and Dan followed his gesture and nodded knowingly.

  “Good hunting,” he said, and he turned his horse slightly north to edge around the nervous cluster of Javelina.

  Nettie muttered, “Yeah, good luck,” and nudged Ragdoll to follow him. The coyote stayed on the far side of the horses, snatching up her bundle and jogging along, keeping her head down and easy.

  The man stared across the plains as if he could see all the way to the tallest mountain. Grunting, he put a hand to his heart before doubling over, trembling, and sprouting a back full of wiry brown hair. He shook his stubby head and squealed, and the passel of hogs hurried to join him and trot off toward the treacherous mountains on the far west edge of Durango, their sledges leaving long lines in the dirt. They were headed in exactly the same direction the Injun woman had commanded Nettie to go with her pointing finger and insistence on showing up every night as a grisly reminder.

  “So why ain’t we headed that way?” Nettie asked, voice low.

  Dan kept his horse walking. “Don’t look back. Let them go. You need the Rangers to hunt this creature. The Javelina will fail.”

  “How do you know?”

  He pointed down to the coyote—his sister, Winifred, and what a strange, oh-so-lily-white name it was for a brown girl currently walking on four black paws. “Coyotes are lone creatures. But in groups, there is always a hierarchy. You know what that means?”

  “Nope.”

  “In a herd, every horse knows his place. The stallion, the lead mare—and it goes down from there. Every day, they test each other for strength and courage. A new animal appears, they don’t accept it until they know where it will stand. That’s a hierarchy: a ladder from top to bottom, each creature in the system a rung, everyone knows where they stand. Yes?”

  “I guess.” The thought that Nettie had been the lowest on a crappy, broken ladder at Pap’s homestead surfaced in her mind, bobbed briefly, and was shoved back under. With horses, she understood it.

  “Animals are like that, people are like that, and monsters are like that. The Javelina think they’re brave and strong, and they are, but they’ve never faced werewolves or bearfolk. They don’t know Pia Mupitsi. They think that because a creature thieves in darkness, it must be a coward, easy to vanquish. And they are very, very wrong. But they must do this, and so we let them.”

  “So where do y’all stand on this ladder?”

  She didn’t call them coyote folk. It just seemed rude now.

  “We’re in a strange place. We’re not powerful hunters, but neither are we a food animal. We’re somewhere in between. Scavengers fill a unique niche, to put it in the sawbone’s terms. The bear sits where he wants, but the smaller animal never sits.”

  “And what’s the coyote do?”

  Dan grinned. “The coyote watches. And waits. And learns.”

  “But I’m not a bear or a coyote. So why’re you helping me?”

  “Ah. Finally, you ask a good question. My sister and I want revenge for our mother and our tribe. When we came back the next day to lay their souls to rest, we found everyone accounted for… except the children. We have searched for years, but no tribe claims to have taken them. Since then, many children have been stolen, and now I think Pia Mupitsi took them. Whatever this monster truly is, we can’t rest until it’s dead.”

  Nettie pulled the gun out of her holster and spun the barrel, watching the bullets flash and remembering how the metal looked when the harpy had spit one out, laughing. And the harpy was just a bird, really. “And you think I’m gonna do it for you? Hunt this thing? Why don’t you do it your own damn self? I saw your aim. You’re faster than me. Bullets don’t work. What good am I gonna do that you can’t do better? I’m just a damn cowpoke, and a green one at that.” She hated saying it, but it seemed a fine enough reason for not chasing her own death around like the Javelina did.

  Dan shook his head, shielded his eyes with a hand, and squinted across the prairie. Nettie couldn’t tell if that meant he didn’t know the answer himself or if he was just being an ass.

  “What do you know of legends?”

  The voice was close by, and Nettie’s head whipped around. It was Winifred, suddenly walking by her side, tall and graceful in her scant leathers. The older girl’s attitude was grave, her voice daring Nettie to laugh.

  “I ain’t religious, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Religion and legend aren’t always the same thing. The Comanche follow no gods. But there are legends, like Pia Mupitsi. Among our kind—monsters, as my brother calls us—it’s said that a shadow will rise to fight evil. But ‘Shadow’ is said as a name, as an unstoppable force. The Shadow moves among us but cannot be found, cannot be sensed. It can see us, find us, track us. And destroy us. The Shadow is a hunter. A weapon. A new kind of monster.”

  She looked at Nettie with slender eyebrows raised, a heavy significance falling between them.

  “And you’re saying you think that’s me?” Nettie rocked back, laughing and surprising Ragdoll into a snort and twitch. “Coyote girl, I ain’t nothin’. A vampire almost killed me, then a lizard feller nearly killed me, and then your brother barely stopped a harpy from killing me. Hell, even a chunk of mesquite nearly killed me. I ain’t a hunter. I’m barely a wrangler. I ain’t a new kind of monster.” She spit at the girl’s feet and shook her head. “I ain’t your Shadow.”

  “Listen to yourself. Almost. Nearly. Barely. You’re still alive. When you should be dead.”

  Nettie shrugged. “Most people in Durango rightly fit that bill.”

  Winifred grabbed Ragdoll’s reins and jerked the mare to a dancing stop. “Do you know what your problem is, Nettie?”

  Nettie tried to yank the reins back, but the other girl’s fist didn’t budge. “Besides you laying hands on my horse, Winifred Coyote?”

  Stroking Ragdoll’s neck to calm her, the girl looked full-on into Nettie’s eyes for the first time. Nettie expected pride and anger, but she found pleading and earnestness, which made her downright uncomfortable. “Your first problem is that you’re a fool. Just because you’ve been told your entire life that you’re nothing does not mean you are nothing. The wolf doesn’t care what the sheep think.”

  “Nice words for somebody who has family and can turn into what’s pretty much a small wolf. People look at me, they figure I’m nothing. How am I supposed to prove ’em wrong? Maybe you haven’t noticed, but my skin’s darker than yours. Most folks don’t take kindly to that around here unless it’s out back digging a well.”

  Winifred shook her head sadly. “You’re not part of that world anymore. You’re part of our world, and there are plenty col
ors of skin that contain monsters and saviors alike. Forget the people who raised you. This is your destiny. Tell her.”

  Dan gave her a solemn nod. “Your vision quest confirms it. You are the Shadow, and you’re the only one who can end the Cannibal Owl and save our children. All the children.”

  Nettie bit her lip until she tasted blood. “You think a fever dream is truth?”

  He’d stopped his horse just a bit ahead of hers as his sister spouted off her foolishness. Now he turned to face her. “That’s why I saved you, Nettie. To help you find your destiny.”

  “But if you can’t feel me, if I’m not a monster and I don’t have a ripple, how’d you find me?”

  He grinned. “It makes sense if you’re the Shadow. A monster wouldn’t sense you, nor would a Ranger or another person who had killed monsters. You’re hidden from everyone, everything. I was following the water horse after she killed my sawbones friend. I wanted to kill the mare and end her games, but something held me back. She seemed focused, like something called her. They’re peculiar, sensitive creatures that rarely stray this far from the sea. She was strangely attracted to you, even before you killed your first monster. And yet she never touched you, never let you get close enough to ride. Clever things, water horses. Now that she carries the lost mother, she’s not a threat. But I was watching you after that, curious to see what made you different. I was in Gloomy Bluebird for weeks. I watched you kill the vampire as if you knew his heart was waiting for your stake. And you did not disappoint. Did you know that you speak Comanche when you sleep?”

  “This is bullshit.”

  With a harsher kick than she meant to give, she yanked the reins free of Winifred’s hold, the mare lurching forward in a buck and galloping on past Dan. Nettie needed space to think through all their jawing, but suddenly, the prairie wasn’t big enough to hold all her feelings. A flap of the reins and an angry kick sent her horse into a dead run, hooves flying across the sand.