by B. L. Morgan
“When that happened I knew I had to get the hell away from the girl. Only bad shit was going to happen from that romance.”
We rode on in silence after that for awhile.
Then I had to ask him, “Do you miss her any?”
“Only when my balls itch,” he told me. “She used to suck on those and she did a dandy job of that task.”
Judit glanced at us. It was obvious she’d heard our conversation. She wasn’t smiling.
“I could use some of that,” I told her.
“Never in your wildest dreams,” Judit said and spurred her horse on up ahead of us.
Me and Johnny laughed and clapped palms.
We rode all day only stopping to water the horses and take short breaks to eat small meals. Nicholai the Monk rode slightly ahead of Johnny and me.
Judit either kept slightly ahead or behind all of us. She wasn’t interested in either Johnny or me and for some reason she seemed like she didn’t want to have shit to do with the monk either.
As for the monk, he wasn’t talking very much to anyone.
So it was a strange group that we made traveling down that dirt and rock wagon trail. Me and Johnny were joking about anything that we could just to make the time go by a little faster, bookended by a silent monk and a wandering silent woman.
The road was pretty much empty.
No, let me take that back. The road was completely fucking empty.
Every since we’d left Senj we hadn’t met one wagon or even one lone horseman on this wagon trail.
The day went by. The sun traveled from East to West and then it began to sink into the evening horizon.
At that time Nicholai had been in front of us on the trail. He slowed and came back.
The terrain we’d been traveling through were hills mixed with farmland and patches of woods. Mountains were up ahead of us in the distance. We had a patch of woods on our right hand side when night began to fall.
Nicholai spoke, “We will have to get off this road and find shelter out in the woods.”
“How about there?” I asked and pointed to an open farmer’s field. “We could bed down out there”
“You forget what plagues this land,” he said. “We can hide in the woods. If we get far enough off the road we can build a fire and no one will know we are there.”
Johnny asked, “Just what the hell kind of a plague are you talking about anyway?”
“Let us find a camp and build a fire,” the monk told us. “After we are settled and safe I will tell you.”
All of this Judit watched and did not say a word.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Campfire Tales
It wasn’t dark enough when we started leading our horses off the road and into the woods for us to be completely blind. That was a good thing too because nobody likes bashing their heads into tree limbs.
After about fifteen minutes of dodging limbs and tree trunks we came to an open area where there was a space of maybe twenty feet across that was flat and free from underbrush. In a way the clearing looked like it was used for a campsite some time in the past.
If it was, all traces of a fire had been removed by time.
We stopped there and tethered our horses to trees on the edge of the clearing.
Without a word between any of us, me and Johnny set about gathering the materials for building a fire. We went around the immediate area snapping off low hanging limbs and finding dried branches lying on the ground. I tell you what, without a flashlight playing Boy Scout is not an easy thing to do. Before I knew it my face had all kinds of scratches across it from smacking myself with limbs that I was trying to rip loose.
We made a pile of everything in the center of the clearing.
Nicholai the Monk pulled out some flint and struck a spark and in no time at all we had a decent little fire going. I was glad he’d brought something to make fire with because that was the one thing that completely slipped my mind back when I was buying supplies at the village.
You’d think that eventually I’d get used to this living in centuries hundreds of years before my own, but the truth is, I probably never will. I’m the kind of guy who likes to grab a Bic from the 7-Eleven whenever I want to make a fire.
Banging rocks together to make sparks to blow on just is not a part of my basic make up.
The fire crackled. We broke out some rations to have a semi-kind of meal. I say that because the food we’d have in between villages and settlements wasn’t anything to brag about.
We just had some dried beef strips and dried pieces of fruits and vegetables. Everything was dried so that it weighed as little as possible and didn’t rot very fast.
The stuff tasted rank but it stopped your stomach from rumbling.
We sat around the fire and chewed the leathery beef and Johnny asked Judit, “How’d you end up back in Senj anyway? You don’t exactly seem like you belong there. I know you said you were born there but that don’t really tell us a whole hell of a lot.”
“I was born there,” Judit started. “I never really knew my Mother. She died giving birth to me. My Father was a craftsman and merchant. He sold good luck charms that he made himself and told fortunes. He told me that our family is originally from farther to the West. It was from my Great Grandmother that he learned how to tell fortunes.
“We were living a good life until the troubles came to Senj.”
Nicholai the Monk cut in now.
“Ah ... now I remember you. You are the daughter of the witch-man. You have changed much in twenty years.”
“You have not!” Judit spit. “You claimed to see visions and drove my father from his home. You got him tarred and feathered. We lost everything. You are a cruel, vindictive man. You had no reason to ruin my Father’s life!”
The monk smiled. It was a cold smile that reminded me of a snake.
“The Bible says, ‘Thou shalt not worship false idols and worship no gods before me.”
“We worshipped no God but the creator of the heavens and the Earth!” Judit shouted. “You falsely accused us of being witches when we did nothing.”
The monk started up again, “The Lord is the way and I am his messenger. I ...”
“Shut the fuck up!” I yelled at Nicholai. “I’ve had enough of this shit. You want to preach around me you can be like Oral Roberts and suck my dick!”
“Do not trust this one,” Judit told us and locked eyes with the monk.
“Sister,” I told her. “I don’t trust anyone, except for Johnny that is.”
“Thanks bro,” he said.
“I trust Johnny because he’s my favorite bitch,” I told them.
“Keep talking,” Johnny said. “You’re overdue for a bitch-slapping and this bitch is up for the job.”
We just sat in silence for awhile after that except for Johnny faking like he was going to slap me. And me telling him, “Watch-it bitch! Watch it! I’d hate to have to bitch-slap my favorite bitch.”
Judit looked at this and rolled her eyes like she figured we must be crazy.
Then the monk began to speak again.
“You asked about what plagues these lands. Creatures, ungodly creatures, have invaded these hills. These things of the night, drinkers of the blood of man, eaters of the flesh of man, roam the hills when the sun goes down.
“Many travelers have vanished without a trace. Indeed, many towns and villages now stand empty from the plague of the night walkers. Her kind, who turned their back on the Lord thy God and his son Christ brought this upon us.”
I halted him by shouting, “That’s enough! You say one more word on this and I’ll knock your teeth right out of your fucking head.”
Nicholai the Monk did shut up then but he sat around that campfire with a self satisfied smile until he turned in.
I felt like knocking that smile right off his face.
With what happened later, I probably should have.
We took turns keeping watch that night but I doubt any of us slept any m
ore than just a few minutes. Actually, me and Johnny kept watch.
After what happened there was no way that I wanted the have the both of us asleep while Mr. Monk was awake.
As for Judit, even if she hadn’t realized yet that all she desired in this world was the John Dark Dick she seemed OK. But the kind of guys that me and Johnny were, we wouldn’t ever willingly ask a woman to do something that might be dangerous. We might be low-down, mother-fuckers from East St. Louis but as far as we were concerned chivalry was not dead.
Johnny took first watch and when the others seemed to be snoozing away I went to him and told him that when he woke me for my watch I was going to take the rest of the night.
In answer Johnny whispered, “There is something about that guy that just don’t seem right. It’s just a feeling, but I don’t trust him either.”
As for me, I’d always found that guys who claimed to be the holiest of all are usually the ones with the most to hide.
It was probably around two in the morning when Johnny woke me up to relieve him.
I stood and stretched and felt something move on my head. Running my fingers through my hair I found a bug about the size of my thumb nesting right on top my dome. I pulled him out of my hair and since he didn’t want to let go a handful of my hair got jerked out too.
I crushed that little fucker in my hand instantly regretting it because his slimy guts squished between my fingers. Then I wiped the bug off on my leg.
What a good way to start a night shift.
Taking a drink of water seemed like a good idea so I went and got one of the bottles we had slung over the horse’s backs. The heat from the horses warmed the water making it remind me of piss. The thought of drinking piss going through my mind didn’t make the water taste any better either.
After packing the water away, I took a walk around the camp.
The fire was still burning. Looking away from the glow of the flames out into the dark of the woods everything out there was like a smear of blackness.
Overhead through the branches and leaves I could still see glimpses of stars and passing clouds lit by the bright grinning moon.
In the woods things rustled and scurried. The land itself seemed to breathe. It almost felt like the woods themselves were alive and I guess they were. Something ominous was out there, something hungry for the blood and flesh of man, something...
I stopped myself right there from thinking about that.
What that fucking monk said had got to me. I was still making a circle around the camp checking everything out, which didn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense since I couldn’t see shit, when an owl hooted and made me just about shit my drawers.
I laughed that off and went back by the fire and sat on a really big rock.
The sounds in the woods continued, pops, snaps, hoots, little rustlings through the leaves and underbrush sounds.
I didn’t have any problem at all staying away until dawn.
I decided right then and there that when we got done with this shit, the closest I was going to ever get to camping again was watching The Discovery Channel.
Chapter Forty
The Road Again
Just after dawn I woke everybody up.
If I couldn’t sleep, I sure as shit wasn’t going to let them. I wasn’t in the best of moods so nobody argued about it. Not, that I’d have given a shit anyway.
The fire was burned down to nothing and we each ate a piece of that awful tasting dried beef for breakfast.
When we were done with that I asked the monk if he’d brought a spare robe with him.
“Yes I have.” He answered.
“Let me see it,” I told him.
He went and unpacked a clean robe and handed it to me. The robe was folded and spotless. It actually smelled nice, which was a surprise in this day and age. Since we hopped through the portal I don’t think I’d seen one person with clothes on that were what we, back in the USA of my century, would have called clean. They sure didn’t have any Tide in this dam century.
“Are you considering a pious life?” The monk asked.
“Not exactly,” I told him.
I took a corner of the robe, the bottom corner and pulling out my knife cut a square out of it.
Nicholai opened his mouth to protest but I stopped him with a look that let him know I’d knock his teeth out if he said anything at all.
Then I went out into the woods and took a major league shit. I’d been holding that one for most of the day before, packing it in as I rode, so I dropped about two pounds. When I was done I wiped my ass with the cloth from the monk’s robe.
I walked back to the camp.
The monk looked at me. I didn’t like that look.
“Here, you can have this back,” I told him and flung the piece of cloth at him hitting Nicholai in the face.
Without a word the monk wiped a brown spot from his nose. There was a brown splotch on his forehead too, but I wasn’t going to tell him about it. The monk smelled of the fingers that he’d wiped the spot off his nose with. He made a face like he might heave but only got up and walked over to his horse.
Johnny looked across the camp at me.
“Something tells me you don’t like that boy,” he said.
“Now, what would ever give you that idea?” I answered.
Later on in the day we were riding along and Judit brought her horse up beside me and Johnny.
“Last night I told you something about myself,” she said. “What is it that the two of you do in your homeland?”
Johnny told her that he owned his own bar and she smiled about that.
Then Judit turned to me.
“I’m one of those guys who don’t talk much about his life,” I said. “The things I’ve done, people don’t need to know about.”
“So, you are a mystery man,” she said.
“That I am,” I answered before even thinking.
Chills passed through me. I had a very strange unnamable feeling.
“Judi?” I asked.
A look of recognition passed over her face. It faded just as fast.
“What?” she said with a perplexed look on her face that also faded as soon as it appeared.
Johnny looked across at the two of us.
“What the hell just happened here?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “Memories from different lives ... maybe?”
Judit spurred her horse on ahead of us.
“This shit’s getting stranger and stranger,” Johnny said.
“You don’t’ have to tell me that,” I answered.
All day long as we rode, every now and then, Judit would glance back over her shoulder at me. Was it a strange, misplaced, disconnected memory that she was having of a chance meeting that could never have taken place?
I’d probably never know.
We were heading into mountainous country. Hills rose steadily before us. Each one rose higher than the one before.
The going was rough. The road was rocky and the horses stumbled on loose pebbles. In front of us barren bleak jagged peaks reached up and scratched the sky.
We kept on going, covering as much territory during the daylight hours as we could, stopping at night as far from the road as was possible.
Judi was friendly with both Johnny and me. I guess it was just to pass the time that whenever she talked with us she told us more about her life.
After Judit and her father were driven from Senj they traveled to the North. They spent a period of time wandering from place to place scraping out a living however they could, then they settled in a little village named Kray.
During their wandering times, which lasted for about three years, Judit’s father developed a cough. He opened up a shop in Kray telling fortunes and the year she married a local carpenter Judit’s father died of the coughing sickness.
She was married for six years before her husband fell off a roof and was killed.
Judit had always been curious a
bout why her father was driven out of Senj and traveled there to find out why. That was when the man cracked her on the head with a rock to save his own daughter and we had a werewolf roast.
Chapter Forty-One
Gypsies
We rode on climbing ever higher into the mountains taking winding roads bringing us closer to the clouds every day. In the third week of this journey we came around a bend in the road and heard distant music drifting on the wind.
There was a faint overgrown side path of a wagon trail that led off the main road and into the thick forest of evergreens to the North.
The sky was already starting to dim and lose its color. Evening was on the way. While Judit and Johnny were decent enough company the monk had become a thorn in my side.
Every time me and Johnny got to talking about the good times like when we’d gotten wasted together or women we’d thrown a good boning to he’d give us one of those holier than thou looks and say something like, “Pleasures of the flesh will send you straight to hell.”
I’d usually answer him with something like, “I doubt you’ve ever been fucked real good in your entire life. Until you have been, you don’t have any idea what Heaven is all about.”
The music called to us promising new people to meet and share a meal and campfire with.
Me, Johnny and Judit reared our horses up simultaneously. It only took a glance passed between the three of us to know we were going to head up that trail and meet the people making the music.
The monk was just slightly ahead of us. He glanced back as we stopped.
“There are Gypsies in these hills,” he said. “They are a wild unruly people known to drink and carouse. I advise you to avoid them. They ... “
“Don’t fucking start,” I cut him off. “Those sound like my kind of people.”
We turned our horses and headed on the trail to the North.
Johnny looked back over his shoulder and shouted, “You can camp in the middle of the fucking road if you want to. We’ll see you tomorrow.”
