Dead Reckoning

by Lackey, Mercedes;Edghill, Rosemary

  “Let go!” Gibbons cried a moment later. She jumped back, with Jett’s rosary swinging from her fist.

  The touch of a blessed object will break a curse. Apparently Gibbons meant to try all the things Jett had told her until she found something that worked.

  Jett let go of the zombie’s arm and staggered back clumsily. Its fingertips grazed the front of her shirt in the instant before Gibbons yanked her out of the way. She grabbed at Gibbons to keep from falling and was surprised to discover Gibbons was shaking.

  Why, she’s just as scared as I am! Jett thought. Watching Gibbons charge right up to the cell, it hadn’t occurred to Jett she was seeing bravery and not idiocy. She may be a damnyankee, but she’s got grit when it counts.

  “Are you all right?” she asked hoarsely.

  “It didn’t work!” Gibbons said in frustration. She took a deep breath. “Never mind! I’ll find something that will.”

  By now they were standing in the open doorway once more. Jett stepped out onto the sidewalk. “I still don’t see why you’re worrying so much about figuring out how to kill ’em, anyway,” she grumbled. “White Fox and me can ride back to Jerusalem’s Wall and drag Br’er Shepherd out by the ears. Or just ride out to any of the big spreads around here and tell the boss who’s got their cattle.”

  “And what if stringing him up—since I doubt the cattle barons will turn him over to the law—just sends his zombies on an uncontrolled rampage?” Gibbons demanded.

  “What if it doesn’t?” Jett answered crossly.

  “Even though that makes just as much sense, since I am currently without facts on which to base a theory, that only means Brother Shepherd’s discovery—whatever it is—remains at Jerusalem’s Wall for anyone to use. It isn’t enough to discover he’s behind this if we have no way of destroying his zombie army.”

  Jett sighed. “Guess you might be right.” Gibbons had the uncanny ability to make raving lunacy sound like absolute common sense. “What do we do after we kill off all his zombies?” The more times she said the word “zombie” aloud, the more peculiar it sounded.

  “Why, we search his laboratorium of course! It is impossible to imagine he doesn’t have one!” Gibbons said optimistically.

  The zombie rattled the bars of its prison, and her smile dimmed just a bit. She pulled the door closed behind her and followed Jett onto the sidewalk. “Here,” she said, holding out Jett’s rosary. “Thank you for loaning it to me.” Jett took it with a twinge of reluctance (even though she knew Gibbons had only touched the zombie with it briefly) and tucked it into her pocket.

  “I shall think of something,” Gibbons said firmly. “I know it.”

  * * *

  Gibbons stared morosely at the makeshift map pinned to the wall of the saloon. White Fox was out hunting, in hopes of adding some fresh meat to their diet, and Jett had gone up to the graveyard to acquire some “graveyard dust,” another of her folk remedies. Gibbons didn’t think it would be any more successful than the others, but she had to try it anyway. She was glad she was alone right now. She hated to fail, and she was currently out of new ideas.

  If the graveyard dust doesn’t work, the only thing left is to pray over the creature, though I don’t have any idea what prayers to say over a zombie! We don’t have either garlic or roses—and anyway, Father said they were for use against vampires—so I can’t try those. And all of these things are sheer hoodoo, besides—I know they are!

  She chewed on her lower lip, glancing from the notebook in her hand to the map on the wall, then made another careful “X” on her map. It was too old to show most of the recent towns—and individual homesteads wouldn’t have been indicated anyway—but White Fox had drawn careful maps of his information, and she was following them now. If she couldn’t solve the most important problem, at least she could collect more data.

  Brother Shepherd has to have used modern methods to create his legion of undead, she thought, glaring at the map in frustration. He certainly isn’t a hoodoo doctor. I even have a sample of his work. I should be able to deduce his methods and counteract them!

  She added the last marks to the map and then blinked at it in surprise. There is a pattern! she realized excitedly, and the spark of discovery was enough to make her temporarily forget her other problem.

  * * *

  “It’s obvious,” she said, waving her fork toward the map on the wall.

  White Fox had returned with a brace of rabbits, and while they’d been cooking, Jett had taken her pouch of graveyard dust down to the jail and sprinkled it over the unmoving body in the cell. Gibbons had spent that time rechecking every site on the map. She didn’t want to share her discovery until she was sure it was true.

  “Well, Jerusalem’s Wall is here. Makes sense—most of the disappearances are here, too,” Jett said.

  “They’re not just here,” Gibbons said. “They’re there!” She gestured toward the wall again.

  “Clear as mud,” Jett muttered.

  “No,” White Fox said. “Gibbons is correct. The disappearances aren’t centered around Jerusalem’s Wall as one might expect. They follow two routes. The cattle trail north—and the southern railroad route.”

  “There isn’t a southern railroad. You said so,” Jett pointed out.

  “But if the railroads did use the southern route—now—they wouldn’t have to pay to secure right of way,” Gibbons said triumphantly. “He hasn’t cleared all of it yet, but I suspect he intends to. And if there’s no one there, no one can claim ownership of the land.”

  “No,” White Fox said, sounding sad and troubled. “Before I left Fort Riley, General Custer said the Comanche have resumed their raids north of the Comancheria. They would not do that without reason.”

  “They’re being shoved north by other hostiles,” Jett guessed. “The Apache, Wichitas, and Mescalero are clearing out.”

  “Now we know why,” Gibbons said in satisfaction. “This isn’t about preparing for some ‘Jerusalem of Fire’ and it isn’t killing for killing’s sake. It’s about luring the railroads to build on the southern route because they can do it for free. And I’ll bet you anything that when they do, this Brother Shepherd is going to file claim to as much land on both sides of it as he can grab.”

  “And once he owns the land, he can ask any price he wishes for it,” White Fox said. “He’ll make a fortune.”

  “I bet he’s got”—Jett snapped her fingers as she tried to think of the word—“undated Deeds of Claim on file in Austin. Once the railroad goes through, he gets someone to backdate his claims. If the land’s empty, who’s going to argue?”

  “And so he’s chosen to kill—or terrorize—everyone in its path,” White Fox said. “With an army of undead.”

  “So which came first?” Jett asked. “The zombies? Or the Fellowship of the Blessed Resurrection?”

  “That,” Gibbons said thoughtfully, “is a very good question.”

  * * *

  White Fox couldn’t decide how a task that had seemed simple (if dangerous) had become so large and complicated in less than a week. The more they uncovered of the cause and reason for the destruction of Glory Rest and so many other settlements, the less they seemed to know. And so much of it was guesswork. They knew the settlements were being attacked by undead creatures. They knew the man calling himself “Brother” Shepherd was involved. Beyond that, what they truly knew was less substantial than a handful of wind.

  And if I hadn’t had the luck to meet both Jett Gallatin and Honoria Gibbons, I wouldn’t have known even that much. I would have been among those who died here four days ago.

  So many chance events had combined to save him. His decision to stop at Burnt Creek to watch over Gibbons. Jett’s arrival with the warning about Alsop. Gibbons’s preparation of the shelter that had saved all of them. He knew the wasichu placed little credence in omens or guardian spirits, but White Fox had to believe they had guided him to this place to do their work. And more than that, had given him allies any wa
rrior would be proud to fight beside. Gibbons’s unflagging bravery as she searched for the truth. Jett’s courage in facing her fear and allying herself with them for a cause she had no stake in.

  He stepped out of the telegraph office, a salvaged basket full of neatly rolled tapes under one arm. Gibbons wanted to go through the messages sent to Alsop to see if any of them might contain another scrap of information. Alsop hadn’t had a telegraph office for long enough for the received messages to become a nuisance; the basket was only half full.

  He was about to return to the saloon when the sound of a gunshot shattered the quiet. He turned toward the sound, and saw a tin cup balanced atop the fencepost of the livery stable corral spin into the dirt. As he walked in that direction, five more shots followed in quick succession, and five more targets disappeared. Before the last one hit the ground, Jett dropped the empty pistol into its holder and tossed her second Colt from her left hand to her right. Her long black frock-coat swirled as she moved, and six more targets followed the first.

  “What are you doing?” White Fox asked when he reached her.

  “Practicing,” Jett answered. “Nothing else to do while Gibbons is making up her mind about what to do about Br’er Shepherd.” She gestured toward the jail. “And trying to kill our houseguest.” She holstered the second gun and went to gather up the plates and dishes and set up her targets again.

  “And how long do you intend to continue … practicing?” White Fox asked.

  “Making too much noise for you?” Jett asked, pausing in the middle of setting a cup on the top of the fence. “I could go out by the church and practice there.”

  “No,” White Fox said. “I only wonder … why.”

  Jett tossed the cup to the ground and leaned back against the fencepost. She folded her arms across her chest, regarding him steadily beneath the brim of her black Stetson. The impersonation was a good one. They might have ridden the trail together for some time before he suspected the truth.

  “This rig-out saves me a lot of problems,” she said, gesturing at her clothes. “But if I can’t back up the tale I’m telling, well …”

  “A hard life, spent always at war,” White Fox said.

  “I didn’t start the war!” Jett said sharply. Her words turned his into something he hadn’t intended.

  “The war is over,” White Fox said. “Don’t you think—”

  “Jett! White Fox! I think I’ve figured out where I went wrong!” Gibbons said, running up to them.

  “Do tell,” Jett said, digging into her pocket for bullets and beginning to reload her guns.

  “I thought I was on the wrong trail when we tried the porridge,” Gibbons said excitedly. “But now I don’t.”

  “It didn’t work,” Jett said, spinning her gun’s cylinder before dropping it into its holster. Her hand was still full of bullets.

  “It didn’t eat it,” Gibbons said.

  Jett began to load the other gun. “So, you’re going to walk in there when it gets up tonight and hand-feed it?” she asked neutrally.

  “Don’t be silly!” Gibbons scoffed. “That would be unduly reckless. But the three likeliest methods of destroying a zombie all involve salt. Porridge has salt, and so does graveyard earth.”

  “Sure,” Jett answered. “Depending on the graveyard, I guess, but the river’s plenty brack around New Orleans. I guess that means the stuff I dug up today won’t work.”

  “We must wait for tonight in order to rule it out, I think,” Gibbons said kindly. “The third method involves having the zombie ingest blood from an (obviously still living) close relative, but that will be impractical as we don’t know any of Finlay Maxwell’s family. But my point is that all three folk-remedies involve salt—blood is quite saline, as I’m sure you know—so once you eliminate the obfuscatory trappings of rank superstition, it’s clear that it’s the salt that’s the important part, not any of the rest of the mumbo jumbo!”

  White Fox carefully suppressed a smile. Jett and Gibbons engaged in a constant war of words, bickering much as sisters might. He wondered if either of them even suspected their growing friendship.

  “‘Obfuscatory trappings of …,’” Jett said slowly. She spun the second Colt around her finger and dropped it into place.

  “‘Superstition,’” Gibbons supplied helpfully. “I know you grew up with zombies, Jett—”

  Jett choked and began to cough. Gibbons moved forward to pound her on the back, but Jett waved her off. “No, no, no, you just go on, I’m fine,” she said in a strangled voice.

  “—but these creatures don’t seem to be anything like your zombies.”

  “You can stop going on as if I grew up with a hope chest stuffed full of the things!” Jett protested.

  “I don’t think Mister Shepherd is practicing hoodoo at all,” Gibbons continued, ignoring her. “I think he’s some sort of scientific necromancer.”

  Jett groaned faintly.

  “And if you are right, and salt will kill one, what do you propose?” White Fox asked.

  “I want to see her hand-feed the varmint,” Jett muttered.

  “You will!” Gibbons promised. “But only if this doesn’t work!”

  * * *

  “Perhaps it would simply be best to burn it when morning comes,” White Fox said quietly. The building now reeked of decay; the cloying scent of rotting meat underlain with a sharper, more poisonous scent. In the light of the lantern, all three of them could see the thing in the cell hadn’t been destroyed by the graveyard dust. If anything, it seemed even more energetic.

  “And lose the chance to find out what actually kills one?” Gibbons demanded. “No!”

  “At least we know something else that doesn’t,” Jett said in disgust. She nodded toward the cell. “Pretty darned lively for something that hasn’t had food or drink in five days.”

  “That’s why I think it may not be—exactly—dead,” Gibbons said seriously. “I know what you saw—I saw it too! But if the process puts the creatures into some sort of animate coma—which might well explain the drop in temperature in their presence, for should this process lower their temperature to unnatural levels, proximity to one would be akin to proximity to a hundredweight of ice. … But I digress! If Brother Shepherd’s scientific necromancy does not create true death, but a deep coma, it would explain the chanting we heard that night as perhaps some form of control. Individuals in a state of coma later recount entire conversations that took place at their bedsides, you know.”

  “That’s because they’re in bed to hear them—not marauding across the Llano Estacado, killing everyone in sight,” Jett pointed out. “And it sure as anything smells dead.”

  “Obviously the two cases aren’t entirely identical,” Gibbons said hastily. “But let us see what tomorrow brings.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  According to the records kept by the Yell and Cry, the two closest ranches to Alsop were Flatfield and the Lazy J (now Jerusalem’s Wall). White Fox had ridden out before breakfast that morning for Flatfield. He said he wanted to find out what Mister Sutcliffe knew about the local disappearances—and warn him not to send any more drives by way of Alsop. And if Mister Sutcliff could spare a rider, White Fox hoped to send word to Fort Riley as well.

  Jett had wanted to be the one to go—this ghost town was making her stir-crazy—but White Fox pointed out that an army scout was likely to get a warmer reception than a suspected outlaw. I suppose he’s right, Jett thought glumly, but it’s been almost a week I’ve been cooling my heels here now, and I am fresh out of patience.

  It didn’t help matters at all that Honoria Gibbons of San Francisco had the heart and soul of a schoolmarm—and a tongue hinged in the middle and oiled at both ends, as the saying went around here. She seemed to think that just because Jett didn’t shoot her, Jett was actually interested in hearing every single theory Gibbons had about Br’er Shepherd, The Fellowship of the Divine Resurrection, and zombies.

  * * *

  “First things f
irst,” Gibbons said, bounding to her feet. “We’ve got a lot to do today.”

  “We’ve got what to do today?” Jett demanded. “Dishes?” Gibbons hadn’t even stopped to clear away their breakfast dishes, and Jett had a suspicion that left to herself, Gibbons would simply throw the dirty dishes out after each meal. Even granting that there were plenty of clean dishes and cups in Alsop, it just didn’t seem respectful somehow.

  “You do them if you care so much!” Gibbons called over her shoulder. Jett was taller than Gibbons by a good few inches, but she had to hurry to keep up with her.

  “Where are you going?” she demanded, even though she knew the answer to that. The only things down at this end of the street were the Post and Telegraph Office and the jail, and she was pretty sure Gibbons wasn’t expecting a letter.

  Of course Gibbons didn’t answer. Jett caught up with her just as she opened the door of the jailhouse.

  “Phew!” Jett said in revulsion. “We should throw some eau de cologne around in here!” She made a mental note to look for some around Alsop before she came back here again—she could at least soak a neckerchief in it and tie it over her nose.

  “Certainly we should not!” Gibbons answered (though she was making an equally disgusted face). “An unknown variable would interfere with my experiment!”

  “Exp—? Would you say something that makes sense?” Jett demanded.

  “Certainly!” Gibbons said crisply. “Finlay Maxwell didn’t become a zombie by any of the so-called traditional means. He was in perfect health, and yet he dropped dead for no particular reason and rose as a zombie!”

  “He was drunk!” Jett said.

  “If that was all it took to make a zombie, there’d be thousands of them in every city on Earth,” Gibbons replied inarguably. She walked into the jail and plucked the ring of keys off their nail. Jett hung back by the door. The sun was up, so to all intents and purposes it was a corpse in the cell—but Jett had seen that corpse get up and walk enough times that she didn’t trust it to lie dead when it ought to. Since she already knew no amount of argument could stop Gibbons once she’d taken a notion, she held her peace, her hand hovering nervously over the butt of her Colt, as Gibbons unlocked the door of the dead man’s cell and stepped inside.