The snake god’s tail slipped around behind Porter. There would be no running away, no place to hide, no place to flee. He was trapped but good.
Porter didn’t have a lot of options but he would never give up. He fingered the obsidian blade and backed away until he was bumping into the tail. The snake readjusted a few times but Porter moved with it. Once the tail bumped him purposely in an attempt to make him stumble but he kept his footing.
“Well, come on! Let’s throw down!” Porter shouted.
Just past the myriad rattles the tail coiled about Porter holding him fast. Only his arms were free. Then it struck, the massive fangs dripping venom. Porter did his damndest to bring the blade up and position himself between the spear-like fangs.
The two fangs went either side of his body but the outstretched right arm with the sacrificial knife stabbed into the roof of the snake god’s mouth. It drew back in an instant with the knife still stuck to the top of its palette. Flailing wildly, the tail whipped up and down across the snows, slamming down with enough force to smash trees to kindling. It coiled and knotted, distended and spat. Porter dodged and rolled in a superhuman effort to evade the maddened reptile. The tail whomped down a number of times almost crushing him but for rolling through the snow inches away just in time.
Waving Grass called trying to distract the snake god but it was too disturbed and in pain to pay any attention.
As the snake convulsed in an effort to be rid of its insufferable thorn, Porter escaped and ranged back toward Waving Grass and the cave. “Did any horses make it?”
She shook her head, saying, “Maybe, but if they didn’t get bitten they are far away.”
“We can’t stay here, we better head off after them.” Porter motioned back to the cave, “We can look for any supplies the old man left and start hunting then.”
“What about the snakes?”
“I think we killed one with that boulder, but ain’t nothing more I can do about that other one there.”
The snake god was slowly making its way down the valley in terrible writhing motions.
“I don’t want to stay here but I don’t want to go back in there,” she said.
Porter breathed aloud. “Then wait here while I gather what I can,” he said, in a huff. He trudged back up the hill, slipping once or twice on the melty slick hillside. Once inside the cavern, he found a store of jerky and a few more caps and balls and one full cylinder he must have dropped in any number of the melee’s encountered. One of the Remington rifles was still good so he took that and searched one of the recently dead servants of Coatlicue for more ammunition.
Porter was aghast at what he found. The man had disintegrating blackened flesh from the terrible snake venom. The big one must have bit him as it exited the tunnel. He was glad now that Waving Grass didn’t have to see this.
Stepping outside he worried for a moment. Two dozen Indian warriors on horseback were at the bottom of the hill speaking with Waving Grass. The most troublesome thing was they appeared to be dressed similar enough to the servants of Coatlicue with bright feathers, jaguar skins and copper ornaments. Why weren’t they attacking? At least they didn’t seem to be wearing the sinister war paint that the servants of Coatlicue had.
She saw Porter and motioned for him to come down and that everything was all right.
He slipped down the hillside to be by her side, rather reluctantly.
She spoke rapidly in Uto-Aztecan to the Chief, then she turned to Porter. “Porter, this is Amoxtli. He is my brother.”
“Brother?”
She nodded. “I was stolen when I was a girl by Mescalero Apache and sold as a slave. I learned English from a white woman who was also a slave. When Ichtaca Eztli came north to wake the Blood Gods, he recognized me in the city of Avanyu. He bought me so I could be used as a sacrifice here. I told my brother of your bravery and facing down Ichtaca Eztli and the servants of Coatlicue.”
The brother nodded to Porter and beat his chest.
“That explains how well you can speak but now what? Will they give me a horse?”
The brother understood well enough and shouted for a someone to bring Porter and Waving Grass a horse. He spoke quickly and fiercely to Waving Grass and she reluctantly nodded.
“What is it now?”
She said, “We must follow the snake god and try to redeem it and return it to the cave.”
Porter laughed out loud. “That ain’t gonna happen. Why do they wanna do that?”
The brother looked incensed and Waving Grass said, “The snake god is one of the most powerful gods of my people. If we can contain it, we can grow in power. We don’t want it to go back to the ruins of Texocanocan and bring back the other Blood Gods. There are too many. It took Madoc years to defeat and banish them.”
“I’ve heard that story before, but I still don’t see how it can be done.”
“We must try.”
Porter rubbed at his forehead and nodded with a big sigh. “All right. I’m with you.”
Waving Grass repeated that for her brother and he and the other braves gave a mighty war whoop and together raced their horses after the wide trail of the snake god.
8. People of the Snake
Porter stared a moment at the bizarre zig-zag trail. It almost looked like someone had paddled a canoe over the snows, such was the bizarre track. The massive snake had made good time, even if it was writhing in crazed pain at the tiny blade affixed to its mouth.
Waving Grass, her brother and her people were hardy and though they came from a southern clime they were relentless in their pursuit of the snake god.
They stopped a babbling creek to water their horses and give them a much needed rest.
“So if you’re Mexica, what is your real name?” Porter asked.
Waving Grass said, “My birth name was Coaxoch, it means Serpent Flower as I am the princess of my peoples. But the Mescalero’s and then my masters in Avanyu called me Waving Grass. I never told anyone that I was the heir of Moctezuma. But Ichtaca Eztli, he recognized me and took it as sign that he was favored by the Blood Gods to find me after so many years, and he said that my blood would be spilt to awaken the new dawn of the Blood Gods.”
Porter rubbed at his beard, “All that makes sense enough to me, I suppose, but what are we gonna do when we catch up to the giant snake?”
“We must coax it to return with us. To sleep and let that dark red day come in the end of times, not now. If we have the god contained, we keep its power with us. My people will thrive again. We can drive the Spanish out of our homeland. It will be ours again.”
Porter shook his head. “It’s just a snake, the biggest damn snake in all of creation but it’s just a snake. It’s no god.”
Waving Grass’s face darkened and she snarled, “Don’t speak such things. You whites cannot understand our way. I shouldn’t have told you anything.”
“It’s no god,” said Porter. “Take my word for it.”
She shook her head. “You have your beliefs. You have your god. I have mine.”
“We aren’t gonna talk a snake into nothing but killing.”
Her brother Amoxtli rode up beside them and said what amounted to ‘what’s wrong’ and ‘we need to hurry’. Waving Grass told him something that had him frown at Porter.
Waving Grass mounted her horse, saying, “You have wrestled with the gods. You have seen Coatlicue face to face down in the underworld. You met her eyes and still you don’t believe? I do. I know. If you will not help us, then go back to your lands and your own gods.”
“Hey,” said Porter, “I’m still here to help you. I don’t want anything bad to happen, not after what you’ve already been thru.”
She sniffed and rode away followed by her brother and the other People of the Snake. They whooped like mad men as they rode on.
“Horse chips!” snarled Porter, as he mounted his horse and rode after them.
Hours went by and they had not caught up to the monster yet, the one comfort w
as that it was still moving as the trail through the snows and smashed underbrush was wide as an ox and unmistakable. This wasn’t something they couldn’t find eventually. This was something that couldn’t hide.
As they came down the mountain passes and were entering a lower valley canyon the snows were turning to mud and the creeks would soon converge into a river. Dusk was painting the sky a brilliant scarlet overhead and Porter couldn’t help but see it as a bloody sign of what might lay in store for all of them against the snake god.
Damn, even he was starting to think of it as a snake god now.
The two lead trackers for the Snake People proclaimed that it couldn’t be that far ahead of them judging by the sign across the creek bed.
“We ought to be cautious going through this canyon. That thing could be around ay one of these blind curves,” he said.
“Keep your loud white advice to yourself,” said Waving Grass, dismissively, as she urged her horse ahead.
“Women,” Port snarled, and kicked his mounts flanks to catch up to the lead.
Tiny tributaries splashed down the canyon walls catching the fading golden sunlight in their descent. Gradually they collected and the creek bed at the bottom was at least ten feet across though none too deep.
Porter had a good idea on round about where they were now and he knew a valley and river weren’t that far off, and where the river met the mountains he was pretty sure there would be a Ute village too. “We ought to hurry, I’d rather we find that thing before it finds anyone else.”
Waving Grass’s brother said something in a derogatory tone and Waving Grass didn’t bother to translate it, but glanced apologetically at Porter.
“I got the gist of that one, still we need to hurry and act on whatever it is you think we can do.”
Waving Grass gave a shrill cry and kicked her horses flanks again and they raced on following her lead. They splashed through the creek and through the marshy river bottoms and over sandy dune like hillocks. Pines were scattered thick here and there along with a few quaking aspens and willows.
The unmistakable snakes trail weaved through the bottoms like it was on the hunt. The valley opened up here at the base of the mountains and Porter could see and smell the smoke of a village not far to the east. He kicked his horse and raced ahead.
They reached the village taking in the carnage of the snake god attacking the people and horses. Dog’s fled, babes cried, and horses screamed as Ute warriors tried to shoot arrows into the monster only to be cast aside like mice. They could not stand against the leviathan.
Porter joined in, firing his six shots from the Dragoon and then reached for the rifle.
“No, we must try to coax it away!” shouted Waving Grass.
“Care to explain how?” shot back Porter. He was angered that the Snake People merely watched the frenzied attack rather than joining with the Utes against the great rattler.
Waving Grass had a faraway look on her face and seemed to Porter that she was listening to someone that wasn’t there. “I know my purpose now,” she said, serenely as she dismounted from her panting spooked horse. “I was born for this, but did not remember until the gods awoke it inside me. Thank you for sparing me that I might do this duty for my people.”
She walked purposefully toward the coiled monster. It sat within a clutch of destroyed teepee’s and ruined cook fires. Men and horse were strewn about in reckless abandon. A child cried somewhere, invisible in the gathering gloom.
“Waving Grass, no!” cried Porter, as her ran after her into the camp but her brother and another pair of warriors held him back.
They took his gun belt and knife and cursed in their foreign tongue at his struggles.
Waving Grass strode to the incredible snake god, stripping off her coat and buckskins. With her arms raised to the square on each side, she began a song as enchanting and melancholy as anything Porter had ever heard. The words were lost in the mists of time but sweet as honey and sad as a dying newborn’s last cry. Her long black hair was flowing in the wind and somewhere Porter could have sworn he heard pipes playing in rhythm along with her melodious voice.
The snake god’s forked tongue flicked out, tasting her scent, feeling her heat. It swayed back and forth in time with her bodily movements. Porter couldn’t have guessed whether beauty or the beast was the more hypnotized between the two of them.
Porter ripped free from her brother’s hold asking, “What is she doing? What is gonna happen?” And just as quickly the braves took hold of him again.
Amoxtli took a moment to answer, as he was himself transfixed at the spectacle. He stared at Porter and answered in quick staccato verse but not a word of it could Porter understand.
The snake god swayed watching with its great yellow eyes. The long black tongue jetted out and in. Its thick body was breathing in a relaxed manner and Porter wondered if Waving Grass had truly tamed the monster.
Then the rattle thrummed mightily and the snake god’s mouth wretched open with a hiss the size of the mountains.
9. God is a Bullet
“Please, take me,” cried Waving Grass. “Claim me, I am yours!”
“What the hell?” shouted Porter. “NO! Woman!” Porter tried to break free but Amoxtli and the other braves of the Snake People held him. If he could just extricate himself, he would do something. He didn’t know where his guns were any longer but a single shot rifle lay only a few steps away in a splash of river water.
“She must do it! She must sacrifice herself for our people. She knows what she is doing!” said a brave, standing beside Amoxtli.
The great snakes rattle shook beating the strangest dirge, its head rose up even higher, as the tongue flicked in and out.
“Like hell!” Porter struggled and punched and kicked to escape so that he might shoot the monster.
Waving Grass stood before the snake god pleading with it to devour her.
Porter couldn’t hear anything as he fought Amoxtli and the other Snake People. Red rage clouded over him in a thunderhead and he put everything he could into the fight. He couldn’t let Waving Grass throw her life away to the monster.
The monstrous snake brought its head down to Waving Grass’s level, til it was looking her right in the eye and its tongue nearly kissed her face.
“Please,” called Waving Grass. “Claim me, I am yours.”
Porter knocked the teeth from a brave and kicked another end over end. He took hold of the rifle that lay soaking in the puddle and swung it like a club keeping the men back.
The braves of the Snake People hit their knees in supplication, the one who spoke English crying aloud, “Please, let her sacrifice herself! It is the only way to appease the gods and have them return to us.”
Porter ignored them and brought the dripping rifle to bear as he whispered a prayer through gritted teeth that his aim might be true.
“Please, take me,” pleaded Waving Grass.
The snake suddenly turned away from her and its great slit of an eye met the gunfighter’s. Man and monster looked at one another across the field of ruin, a demon god versus a heroic cowboy king of the earth. Each must have innately known the deadliness of the other and while the snake god could call upon none higher than itself, Porter could. His stare burned like a brand into the snake’s soul and the words of his prayer raised like an incense to the heavens.
The snake god’s mouth wretched open in a furious hiss.
That’s when Porter’s eagle eyes caught sight of that sacrificial dagger still stuck to the roof of the snake’s mouth. The dagger hung like a black stalactite in its palette.
Porter pulled the trigger and the wet cartridge fizzed in a whispered hush with almost no smoke or flash.
Anyone else might not have even believed that it had fired but it did, the lead ball silently streaking through the night and finally snapping the dagger loose at the hilt. The obsidian blade fell and plunged down the snake’s gullet.
Porter could only guess, but it seemed to him t
hat the snake was quite disturbed at that sudden development. Like it was choking. Maybe that sacrificial dagger was cutting up its insides real good.
The massive snake suddenly turned away from Waving Grass and slithered into the river. The banks overflowed with brown murk as the giant slid into the dark waters. It twisted and just before it vanished into the deeps it looked like it went belly up.
Porter wondered. Did God hear his urgent prayer and aid in a silent bullet? The massive reptile vanished into the cold waters just as swiftly as the stars appeared in the sky and then it was gone.
One of the Snake People snatched the rifle away from Porter and shouted unintelligibly.
Waving Grass dropped to the ground, weeping. Porter ignored the Snake Peoples wrath and ran to her side. “The gods have rejected me. They have rejected us. We will fade away,” she said, between sobs.
Porter didn’t know what to say, what to do. He put his arm on her shoulder but she seemed unaware. Looking to the river there was no trace of the giant snake. The brown waters surged on, heedless of the death and destruction that had so recently taken place upon its shore.
Waving Grass looked to Porter asking, “Why did he reject me? Why wouldn’t he take me so I could fulfill my destiny? I was to be the sacrifice. I would have covenanted with the Blood Gods on behalf of my people. Now we shall fade away, never to regain our lands and positions. We have lost all.” Tears streamed down her face.
Amoxtli and the other Snake People were on their horses sneering down at Waving Grass. He barked something unkind at Waving Grass and the translator repeated the words in English for Porter’s benefit. “You have failed us. The Blood Gods rejected you and now we do as well. Do not come back to Texocanocan. You are not my sister.” Amoxtli spat and they rode away vanishing into the darkness.
Porter was confused to say the least. He had saved her from death that she had so freely offered herself up to and was in turn rejected by her own people. None of this was her fault as he could see it. Life sure ain’t fair. It seemed a cruel blessing but no one realized he had slain the monster; it hadn’t just given up as they all seemed to believe.
Cold Slither: and other horrors of the weird west (Dark Trails Saga) Page 5
