Pale Rider

by Alan Dean Foster

  Now he was dead, shot to pieces by cold, uncaring strangers Lahood had brought in to put an end once and for all to his argument with the settlers of Carbon Canyon.

  “It was him, wasn’t it?” Ev Gossage looked up at the Preacher. “The Marshal you warned us about?”

  The tall man turned away from the wagon to stare downstream. “Yeah. Stockburn. Stockburn and his deputies. I figured him to be here about now. That’s the way Lahood would want to work it.” He glanced back toward the wagon and its sad, solitary load. “What I didn’t figure was for Spider to go riding off into town to get drunk.”

  Teddy looked from his father’s body to the Preacher. “He said—the Marshal said to tell the Preacher to come to town in the morning. He said for you to come or else he and his men would come up here lookin’ for you.”

  Silence. Hull frowned at his friend. “I don’t figure it. Why you? It’s our claims he wants.”

  All eyes focused on the stranger in their midst, on the man who had returned to them wearing a six-gun instead of the collar. They began to drift away, distancing themselves from him. It was as if he carried some dangerous disease, and it was prudent to distance yourself from a sick man, whether he was your friend or not. The symbol of the disease was the gun that hung at his hip.

  It had nothing to do with personal feelings of friendship. The presence of the gun changed things even more than did the absence of the collar. Only Hull Barret stayed close. Barret—and Conway. No longer would they have the old man’s cagy defiance to inspire them to resist.

  “That night, the night you warned us about this Stockburn, it sounded almost like you knew him.” Jake Henderson’s voice was hushed. “Spider asked you that hisself. Is it true?”

  Everyone waited for the Preacher’s reply. He let his gaze sweep over the group, touching each man individually, and all who were so touched remembered it forever afterward.

  “The vote you took the other night showed courage. You voted to stick together. That’s what you’ve got to do. I don’t have anything to do with that. You’ve built something in this place that’s worth fighting for, but you’ve got to decide that for yourselves, and you’ve got to be ready to defend what you’ve made with something besides words.

  “Spider went in alone. That was his mistake. He went in drunk, which is worse. Something all of you’d better learn good, and you’d better learn now: only by standing together can you beat the Lahoods of this world. Whatever happens tomorrow, never forget that. If you do, you’re lost. You might as well sign your souls over now to any man that’ll pay you for ’em.” He turned his gaze on the still form outlined by the tarp.

  “You’ve got a brave man there. He deserves a proper burial. You all know how to use a shovel. You’d best get on with it.”

  An uncertain voice piped up from the back of the crowd. “Preacher, we ain’t got no proper cemetery here.”

  “There’s others buried in this canyon, ain’t there?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “It’s a man who makes the ground hallowed, not the other way around. He died for this place. It’s fitting he be buried here.” The tall man turned away and started to head upslope.

  “Preacher?” Ev Gossage spoke a little too quickly. The tall man paused and turned to face him. The miner looked to his neighbors for support but that did little to alleviate the uncomfortable knot in the pit of his stomach. “You are goin’ into town tomorrow, ain’t you?”

  The Preacher gazed back down at him for a long moment. Then he spun on his heel and strode off into the darkness without replying. Hull Barret whirled angrily on his friend.

  “How can you say that, Ev? Didn’t you hear a word of what he just said?” He looked past Gossage, at his other neighbors, “didn’t any of you hear what he just said?”

  No one replied and none of them would meet his eyes. They began to drift away, singly at first, then in twos and threes, skulking off into the darkness in the direction of their homes.

  But the night couldn’t protect them from their own fears, and their minds would not let them escape from their own burning embarrassment.

  XI

  He wanted to be alone, despite Hull’s protestations that he was still welcome in his cabin. Nothing against Hull’s hospitality, he explained. He just wanted to be alone.

  So they put him up in Ulrik Lindquist’s old place. He sat at the table sliding cartridges into the .44 one at a time, checking each one carefully. The golden light of the oil lamp was turned up all the way, the wick riding high in its holder. The coffee pot Hull had provided steamed away on the stove behind him.

  There was a creak from the front porch. The door was opened from outside. It let in the cold night air and the shawl-wrapped figure of Sarah Wheeler. She stood there for a moment, looking at him. Then she closed the door behind her.

  He turned his attention back to his work. In the soft light the pistol took on a glow of its own, the blued steel seeming to produce its own internal illumination. He spoke without looking up at her.

  “Megan feeling any better?”

  “She’s sleeping. She cried herself to sleep. I cleaned her up as best I could. Better just to leave her alone for awhile. I wanted—I wanted to come and thank you for what you did. Megan’s all I’ve got. Sometimes I forget that. Living in a place like this can make you forget what’s really important. Thank you for bringing her back to me.”

  “No need for the extra thanks. I’m just glad I happened by.”

  She watched him silently as he manipulated the engine of death. First he methodically loaded the remaining chambers, then he picked up a soiled rag and ran it over every part of the weapon, refining the already awesome shine. He held the pistol easily, handling it with a quiet familiarity that frightened her. His neck looked naked without the white collar to hide it from view.

  There was so much happening inside her that she didn’t know how to deal with, so much she needed to say that she couldn’t put into words. She moved toward the table until she was standing very close to him.

  “That first day, when Hull told me what you’d done in town, I knew you were a gunfighter.”

  He half smiled. “Really? Now how did you know that?”

  “Nobody in this country goes up against three men without a gun to back him up.”

  “They don’t?”

  “Don’t tease me.” She nodded curtly at the well-worn .44. “What about that?”

  “Lots of people carry guns. That doesn’t make them all gunfighters.”

  She mulled that over before replying. “Megan told me what you did to Josh Lahood. Right there in the middle of his camp, in front of all his men. Who but a gunfighter could do such a thing and get away with it?”

  “Seems to me I recall something about another fellow a long time ago who went up against a bunch of soldiers without much caring what might happen to him.”

  “Yes, and look what did happen to him.”

  There was silence for awhile. He made a final check of the gun, shut the cylinder with a click. Then he nodded toward the steaming coffee pot. “Cold out tonight. Want some coffee?”

  She didn’t move, couldn’t speak. The cabin was not airtight and a gentle breeze pressed in from around the door, ruffling her hair. Finally, “There’s a lot of talk going around. Everyone’s sayin’ you’re going into town to face that Marshal and his deputies. By yourself.”

  He slid the pistol into the holster that rested on the table. “Is that what they’re saying?”

  “Is it true?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t. Please.”

  He shrugged. “It’s an old score. There’s more to it than the problems of the folks in Carbon Canyon. Time’s come to settle things. Could’ve come some time before now, could’ve come later. Could’ve been some other place. It just happens to be here and now. That’s the way it’s got to be. I can’t help that.”

  “Isn’t there anything I could say, or do, to change your mind?”

 
Something in the way she said it made him look sharply up at her. He rose from the table, went to the stove, and poured two cups of coffee. She kept her back to him, unable to look him in the face as she spoke. The words she’d been trying to say every day since he’d arrived came pouring out.

  “When you left the other day without saying anything, without telling anyone, it reminded me of the other time someone left me. Left me in the same way. After that I swore I’d never let myself be hurt again because I’d never love again.

  “Then you rode into Carbon Canyon, and into our lives, and I couldn’t help the way I felt.” Her hands balled into tiny fists. “God, if only I could control the way I feel!” She inhaled deeply.

  “When you left like that I thought sure you’d gone forever. It forced me to reassess what I’d been thinking, to look at things in a new light. Sometimes you need something like that to make you appreciate what you have instead of mooning over what you want but can never have. I need a man who’ll never leave me again, who’ll stay at my side for the rest of my days. If I married again and he ran out on me it would kill me as sure as one of Stockburn’s bullets. Can you understand that?”

  He set the coffee pot back on the stove. “Yes. It’s not so very complicated, you know.”

  She nodded. “And you’d have left again one day, wouldn’t you?”

  A long pause, then, “Yes.”

  She shut her eyes tight, then opened them again. She sounded almost grateful. “I thought as much. Then this way is best. Best all around. I’m going to marry Hull.”

  “I think that’s a fine idea,” he said evenly. “Hull’s a good man. He’ll make a fine husband.”

  “I never doubted it. I just was never completely certain before—before now. Now I’m sure.” She turned and walked over to him. He turned to face her. She could handle that now, she was pleased to discover. It wasn’t so difficult, now that she was ready to face everything else.

  But there was one more thing she had to do to make sure within herself, to make it final.

  “This is just so I won’t have to wake up at night for the rest of my life, wondering . . .”

  Rising on tiptoes, she put her arms around his neck and kissed him. He did not resist, but neither was there the response she both hoped for and feared. She released him, turned, and headed for the door.

  “Goodbye,” she said softly as she opened it.

  “Goodbye, Sarah.”

  She stepped outside—and froze. It was the sound that stopped her cold, not the chill of night. It came floating down the canyon, echoing off the granite walls, a faint but comprehensible wail. A single word, long and drawn out. It did not sound entirely human.

  “Preeeaccchherrrr!”

  Sarah stood staring fearfully out into the darkness as the eerie, ephemeral call faded away.

  “Close the door,” the Preacher told her. “Mosquitoes’ll get in.”

  “It’s too cold for mosquitoes.” But she retreated and shut the heavy oak barrier behind her. “Who is it?”

  They heard it again, a high, keening moan that cried out for a response.

  “Preeeacchherrrr!”

  The wick in the lamp had been burning high. The oil had been exhausted. Now the light sputtered and died. The tall man and Sarah stood close to each other in the darkened room. Moonlight flooded in through the windows.

  She stared at his half-hidden face, trying to penetrate the veil of mystery in which he’d cloaked himself ever since he’d come among them. In some ways the moonlight was more revealing than the bright light of day. It threw everything into sharp relief: his features, his expression, that unblinking stare.

  What did they know about him, really? Not where he came from, not where he’d been going when he’d stumbled by accident into their tense little community. What did he really want with them? Was there some deeper purpose behind his actions, or was he truly just responding to events as they developed?

  “Who are you?” she murmured. “Who are you, really?”

  He smiled gently down at her. “It doesn’t really matter, does it? Not now.”

  He was right. It didn’t. Events had been set in motion. They would move to a conclusion of their own momentum. Whatever happened now was out of their hands. They could no more change what was going to happen tomorrow than they could alter the inclination of the Earth.

  “Prreeaccheerrrr!”

  That inhuman howl again, hopefully for the last time, Sarah thought. This time there was an undercurrent of frustration and uncertainty to it. She moved a little closer to the tall man.

  One by one, as if to ward off the spell the cry cast over them, the inhabitants of Carbon Canyon extinguished their fires and their lamps. Within their shacks and shanties they huddled together for warmth and reassurance. Death stalked the morrow, and each man prayed that it would not visit him or his family. And as they prayed, they tried hard to convince themselves it was common sense that ruled their actions rather than cowardice.

  The Preacher rose with the sun. There was much to do and no time to waste in getting it done, but he still took the time to observe the civilized amenities. Wash and shave, then a brief breakfast of hard bread and a little bacon. A final check of gun and shells, then one last task to perform before he set out.

  He’d checked the heavy wooden box earlier and was familiar with its contents. Now he carried it outside onto the porch and broke the seal with his knife, kicking the lid aside. The half-foot-long red cylinders the box contained were stacked neatly within the inner padding.

  His horse waited patiently as he began filling one saddlebag with the dynamite. Then he added coils of fuse, more than he was likely to need. Each fuse would have to be short and burn fast. When the box was half empty, he slung the saddlebags over the gelding’s withers, took a last look at the empty cabin, and climbed into the saddle. Mackinaw and bedroll formed a tightly wrapped bundle behind the cantle.

  A fine, warm day. The Sierras’ farewell to summer, a salutary prelude to the onrushing November. But he wouldn’t need the mackinaw today. He would not have had it on if it had been twenty degrees colder. He was going to have to be able to move as quickly as possible.

  He started away from the cabin and had gone no more than a few yards when the flash of light on metal made him halt. His fingers dipped toward the holstered .44, then relaxed.

  Hull came out from behind the cabin on his well-rested mare and grinned at him. It was apparent he’d been waiting back there for some time. An old Sharps .59-90 lay across his legs.

  The Preacher eyed him quizzically. “Morning, Barret. Little early for you, isn’t it?”

  “A little,” Hull agreed. He looked heavenward. “Nice day to be out, though. Too nice for sleepin’ in. I see you’re of the same mind.”

  “Affairs that need attending to.” The tall man nodded at the oversized rifle. “Quite a hunk of iron. Good for driving nails or hunting buffalo. Problem is, there ain’t any hereabouts. You plan on using that thing for what it was designed for, you need to be about a thousand miles east of here.”

  “Depends on what you’re hunting. Besides, it’s too nice a day to be out ridin’ alone. I’m goin’ with you.”

  The Preacher stared hard at his friend. Hull was nervous, that was clear enough for anyone to see. He was also determined.

  “No buffalo where I’m going, neither.”

  “I know.” The miner shifted the position of the huge rifle so that the barrel pointed, as if coincidentally, at his companion. It was an impressive old weapon, but bulky. Hard to bring to bear in a hurry, and a single-shot to boot.

  “Even with that cannon, you wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  The other man showed no indication of being ready to back down. “That’s for me to decide, ain’t it?”

  There was a long pause. The Preacher’s eyes burned into Hull’s. The miner met that unsparing gaze without flinching or turning away. Eventually the tall man shrugged.

  “Suit yourself.”

&nb
sp; He flicked the reins, and his horse started forward at a canter. Hull’s mare fell in alongside. Neither man spoke. There was no need. Everything that had to be said had been said.

  The sun was still rising over the walls of Cobalt Canyon. The bunkhouse door was still closed against the cold night air. From the cookhouse smoke was rising, along with the sharp odors of frying bacon and fresh bread. Soon the men would come staggering out. In less than an hour, every one of them would be hard at work.

  The machinery slept along with the men. The monitor hung slack in its gymbal, its power held in check, waiting for men to lift its nozzle to the still unblemished hillside across the creekbed, waiting for others to fill it with the power of Cobalt Creek.

  Somewhere a Stellar jay chirped, heralding the arrival of the sun. It let out a startled squawk and flew off as a red and orange flower erupted from the base of the monitor platform, to be followed instantly by a numbing earth-shaking blast. The platform exploded in a geyser of splinters. The monitor teetered drunkenly atop it for a moment before tumbling heavily to the ground. Metal bent and rivets popped free as the water cannon smashed against the boulders below.

  Moving as fast as possible over the slippery, uneven terrain, the Preacher’s gelding came flying through the dust of the explosion. A long cigar was clamped tightly between the horseman’s teeth. A pair of red tubes in his right hand, he galloped straight for the forty-foot-long iron sluice that was used to divert the creek’s flow. Each tube flicked the tip of the burning cigar and began to hiss and sputter. He dropped them as he rode on beneath the sluice.

  Two more explosions followed his passage, each close upon the other, lifting the body of the sluice off the ground. Fragments of it flew into the dry streambed and whanged off rocks, sending sparks flying.