Deadlands--Thunder Moon Rising

by Jeffrey Mariotte

  When it was done, the mesquite blockade was still crackling. Blue and yellow flames flickered along some of the branches, but most were too soaked to burn for long. Still, they glowed and smoked, and when the wagon started rolling again, it crashed through easily. The horses followed, anxious but willing to be urged through.

  Tuck couldn’t tell if the obstacles were meant to test them or to stop them altogether. He had already given up worrying about what was impossible, and accepted that the world he had thought existed for so long wasn’t the true world, after all. He had seen too much, experienced too much, that would have been beyond the bounds of belief even a few weeks earlier. Now, he just accepted what his senses told him as the truth, or as close to it as any man could hope for. When their ever-narrower path took them into a thicket of yuccas, and the yucca stalks dropped from their bases and, upon hitting the ground, became six- and seven-foot-long rattlesnakes, he didn’t doubt, just unsheathed his rifle and started shooting. The smell of spent powder and the dull, bitter stink of dead rattler filled the air, and Tuck’s unquestioning acceptance of the preternatural scene surprised him more than the tableau itself.

  They continued to follow what was left of the trail. As they approached a wide arroyo, a thick, brown river roared into it, quickly overflowing its banks and carrying chunks of wood and whole trees along with it.

  “What do you think?” Tuck asked McKenna.

  “If we’re going to Montclair’s, we have to cross it,” the lieutenant said.

  Tuck looked at the fast-moving flood. The arroyo was four or five feet deep and maybe twelve to fifteen wide, he figured, though that estimate had been made from the crest of the hill and not up close. Horses could ford rivers, or swim them, so he didn’t think they would have a problem, but he wasn’t so sure about the wagon. Heavy as it was, it could be mired in the sandy bottom. And if it tipped over, he didn’t know how they would ever right it again.

  “I’m game,” he said. “Sergeant Delahunt, can your wagon make it through that?”

  Delahunt gave the flash flood only a brief glance. “Not a problem.” He went to Johnson’s cupola and spoke a few words. Johnson adjusted something inside, and with a metallic clank, the battlewagon’s wheels seemed to fall apart. Then Tuck realized that they were, in fact, unfurling small, pennant-shaped segments. As the segments reached their limits, they extended out and away, acting as spikes. Each one hit the ground and dug in, helping push the wagon forward. The wagon surged ahead, down the bank and into the stream.

  As it splashed in, water shoved against it, then ran under and around. The other men urged their mounts forward. Tuck’s mare hesitated at the edge, drawing back her head and whinnying, but at Tuck’s insistence she went in anyway.

  The water was ice-cold, far colder than a flash flood from a summer’s rain should be. The chill Tuck had felt in the air hadn’t dissipated, and he was already cold from riding in wet clothes. The horses objected when they felt the water. Delahunt’s tried to wheel around, and it took all the man’s strength to keep the animal heading in the right direction.

  Midstream, Johnson called out a panicked “Sarge!” Tuck looked his way and saw the battlewagon shift sideways. Just a little, at first, then more.

  “Keep her steady, Willie!” Delahunt replied. He looked like he wanted to help, but he had his own struggle to contend with.

  Anyway, there wasn’t much a man on a horse could do to haul a wagon that probably weighed a ton or more. Tuck watched in alarm as the rear of the wagon skewed yet more to the side. Through a window he could see Johnson at the controls, frantically turning dials and pulling levers. The wagon came to a dead stop in the water, and Tuck thought it was hopeless. He was starting to maneuver his horse over to it, so Johnson could climb on, when the engine chugged and a puff of smoke belched from the chimney and the thing started to roll again.

  Tuck reached the far bank and his mare scrambled out, no doubt happy to be free of the icy current. The other riders climbed it, too. The battlewagon still fought the current, but it was coming inexorably nearer to the bank, and the back end was starting to shift back into a better alignment with the front. When it hit the bank and those spiked wheels emerged from the water, digging into dry land, Johnson let out a victorious whoop.

  That did not, however, mean the way ahead was clear. Cuttrell had been to Montclair’s place on numerous occasions, and he tried to keep them on the proper course, using the unchanging profile of the Huachucas as a guideline. But he complained that the road was no longer the one he knew. Like Tuck, he and the rest had all stopped denying the evidence of their own senses. What had been reality elsewhere—just on the other side of Montclair’s property—was not that here, and expressing disbelief was too much trouble.

  For a time, the road was free of obstacles, and Cuttrell started to relax. “We’re getting close,” he said. “Another thirty minutes, no more.”

  “Good,” Delahunt said. “I’m gettin’ tired of this trip. I know Willie’d be glad to stretch out his legs.”

  “Nearly there,” the colonel replied. He gigged his horse to a faster pace.

  But before they had covered much more distance, the landscape changed again. The road had cut through the softly undulating grasslands, but coming down off a low hill, it dropped at a precipitous angle that almost sent the battlewagon careening down. At the bottom, it sliced between two rocky outcroppings. “This is new,” Cuttrell announced. “I have no idea what we’ll encounter in here.”

  “Let’s find out,” Delahunt said. “Long as it’s wide enough for the wagon.”

  They slowed to a walk and entered the space, Cuttrell and McKenna in the lead, Delahunt behind. Then the wagon went in. Cale, Kuruk, Taylor, and Tuck brought up the rear. The farther they went, the higher the walls became, until they were deep inside a winding, sheer-walled canyon. The light was thin, and in the gloom they couldn’t see the tops of the walls. Johnson did something inside his cupola, illuminating the lamps all around the battlewagon and casting a warm, yellow glow on the walls and the path ahead.

  Still, the walls went higher. “There are no canyons like this in these parts,” McKenna said. “Not even in the Huachucas.”

  “There’s one now,” Cuttrell responded. He grazed the fingers of his right hand against the wall. “It might not have been here long, but it’s here.”

  “Did you hear something?” Cale asked suddenly.

  “I can’t hear anything over all the noise that damn wagon makes,” Tuck said. “What kind of something?”

  “Behind us,” Cale said. “Like a grinding noise.”

  “We being followed?” Taylor asked.

  “Nothing would surprise me anymore,” Tuck said. “Hold up for a minute!” he called to the riders in front. “We’re going to check something.”

  “Don’t dawdle,” Cuttrell said. “We’re not far off now, but it’ll be full dark before too long.”

  “We won’t.” Tuck, Taylor, and Cale turned their mounts. Kuruk stayed with the wagon. As they rounded the first bend and were out of the wagon’s glow, Tuck heard the grinding noise. More than that, he felt it, bone-deep: a low, loud rumble. Around the second bend, Tuck had to stop, blink, rub his eyes.

  “Do you…”

  Cale was swiveling in his saddle, looking every which way. “We just came through here!”

  “Can’t argue with that,” Tuck said. “I remember it that way, too.”

  But “through” was no longer an option.

  The trail stopped up against a cliff wall, like the ones on either side. This way had become a dead end, with no way out without scaling a sheer vertical face. “Leastways it’s behind us,” Taylor said.

  “We got to make sure it’s not in front, too,” Tuck pointed out. “Come on.”

  He whipped the mare around and pushed her as fast as she could go in the tight canyon. Taylor kept pace with him, step for step. They drew even with the battlewagon and the other men, and Tuck reined his mount in. “Canyon’s clos
ed up that way!” he shouted. “We’ll make sure it’s clear ahead! Hurry it up, just in case!” Then he urged the mare on again and took off at a gallop, chasing after Taylor.

  He had rounded three sharp curves when he caught up to the other man. Taylor brought his horse around and pointed up-canyon. “The walls are closin’ in up ahead!” he said. “You can’t hardly see it—they’re not goin’ fast. But they’re goin’, jus’ the same.”

  Tuck brought his animal to a halt and eyed the canyon walls. Sure enough, even through the gloom, he could see that the slight wedge of visible sky ahead was being blocked, minute by minute. “They’d better get that wagon through here in a hurry,” he said.

  “I’ll let ’em know,” Taylor offered. He brought his mount around again and started back toward the others.

  As he did, Tuck noticed something strange about the canyon floor. Something wrong. Precious little light filtered down from the dusk sky, but he was able to make out shadows and rock faces that reflected the scant illumination. But in the center of the canyon, right where Taylor was headed, he saw a deep shadow, oval-shaped and bigger than a man on a horse.

  Looking up, he saw nothing that could have cast such a shadow.

  “Taylor!” he cried.

  Too late. Taylor screamed as he started to plummet into nothingness. He released the reins and his arms shot up, as if maybe somebody could grab one and hold on. But Tuck was too far off. All he could do was stand and watch.

  Taylor’s screams seemed to go on for a long, long time.

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Kanouse had been to Montclair’s place once, a couple of years back. The rancher had thrown a barn dance for some of the people supporting his effort to take over the vast swath of ranchland between the river and the mountains. It had been the strangest, most uncomfortable dance Kanouse ever attended. All the basic elements were there: drink and music and dancing and conversation around the edges. But it had felt a little like they were all there to bow down before the king. That’s how Montclair had carried himself, anyway, as if his family name and money made him not just richer than everyone else, but better. He was wealthy, he was educated, he owned land and controlled politicians, and he used words Kanouse couldn’t begin to understand.

  By the end of the night, Kanouse had hated him. Resented his high-and-mighty attitude. He would have been happy to put a bullet in Montclair’s brain. But the people there with him, Marshal Turville and the mayor and the rest, were people Kanouse respected—people who had higher stations in life than he did, but still treated him like a human being. They looked up to Montclair. They didn’t seem to mind the way he peered down his nose at them, the way he tried to pretend his Eastern airs didn’t exist and he was just another rancher. He didn’t think they were blind, so he figured they must have overlooked those things for good reason. And if they could, he could.

  In the end, he didn’t shoot Montclair. But for a few days after that, he felt bad about himself. Unclean, somehow. He drank a lot and spent some time with whores, and after a while he started feeling better again. But he had never liked Montclair, and after that he had liked him even less.

  On this occasion, though, he felt a surprising fondness for the man. For one thing, his own station in life had improved. He was marshal now, not Hank and not that worthless Bringloe. Montclair would still look down on him, but Kanouse could tell himself it didn’t matter. I’m the marshal, he thought. In Carmichael, what I say counts. When Bringloe had fired him, he had thought his hand was all played out, and he would wind up the way Bringloe had been—a drunk, living in the streets, a joke or an eyesore to the rest of the townsfolk. But he had been wrong. He was too much of a man to fall into a trap like that. The world had plans for him. Big ones.

  Yesterday, maybe he had been on the verge of collapse. Now, overnight, he had prospects. He had power. He had respect.

  And he meant to keep them.

  He followed a seldom-used trail, too rough and rocky for that strange wagon to travel, but that would put him well ahead of Bringloe and the others. Riding onto Broken M property, now that he too was a man of distinction, was a different experience than before. He felt a comforting coolness, as if Montclair was exempt from the ravaging heat of the Arizona summer. The hard-packed road, neat and well maintained, by all appearances, seemed to unspool before him like a welcoming presence, inviting him into the ranch’s interior.

  He was almost to the ranch headquarters—he had spotted it a couple of times, nestled there against the foot of the mountains, when topping one rise or another—when he thought he saw Montclair himself.

  Only what he thought he saw, he couldn’t have seen. He drew back on the reins a little, slowing his palomino, trying to give himself time to think. Through a gap between a pair of low hills, he had seen Montclair’s face. But that face had looked as large as if the man were standing right next to him, though clearly he was still some distance away.

  “Easy, Mo,” he said aloud. “You been thinking about him and your mind got ahead of you, is all.”

  Almost convinced, he rode on through the gap. Beyond it, in a small patch of earth and gravel, almost perfectly round and nearly devoid of plant life, Montclair waited. He had his hands behind his back, and he offered Kanouse a broad smile. “Welcome, Marshal,” he said.

  His voice boomed from him, loud as thunder. It seemed to echo off the mountains behind him. Kanouse fought the urge to cover his ears with his hand, in case Montclair spoke again.

  “Hey, Mr. Montclair,” he said.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure?” Montclair asked.

  A chill raised the hairs on Kanouse’s neck. The Montclair standing before him hadn’t moved, not a muscle. His mouth had not opened. Yet Kanouse had heard his voice. Not as painfully loud this time, but coming from behind him. He twisted in the saddle. On that side of the cleared patch stood Montclair, hands at his sides.

  Kanouse jerked his head back around. Montclair stood before him. Montclair stood behind him. Then he saw another one, off to his right. It was only then that he realized that none of the Montclairs were altogether substantial. Kanouse could see the desert through each of them, dim and indistinct, but unmistakably.

  “I … I don’t…” he said, unsure of how to answer Montclair’s question. Or whether he should. The confidence he had felt, just minutes before, was shaken by the scene before him.

  “Out with it, man,” Montclair said. This one was off to his left. When Kanouse turned his head that way, he saw three more. Each held a different pose and facial expression, though they were all dressed identically, in white shirts under vests, striped pants, boots, and a dark hat. “You came for a reason, did you not?”

  “Yeah, but…” Kanouse managed. His hands were trembling, the reins he held flicking against the horse’s neck. The palomino was uneasy, too.

  Then Montclair’s voice boomed again, louder than the last time. At the same instant that Kanouse heard it, he saw Montclair’s face in front of him. Just his face. It was at least the size of the shack Kanouse lived in, and it floated about ten feet off the ground. “Speak!” it said.

  The force of the word had an almost physical presence. Kanouse shrank from it, nearly blown out of his saddle. “I … the mayor wanted me to let you know,” he said, the words spilling out quickly in hopes of forestalling any more such sonic explosions. “That colonel from the fort, Cuttrell, he’s headed this way. He’s got some other soldiers with him, and Bringloe, and some sort of fancy wagon that don’t need horses to pull it.”

  The giant Montclair face broke into a manic grin, and started to laugh. All the other Montclairs did the same. The laughter surrounded him, terrible in its volume and its omnipresence. Kanouse knew if he sat here much longer, he would start to cry, wet his pants, or both. He tried to steel himself, and tightened his grip on the reins.

  When Montclair spoke again, the voice came from all the Montclairs at once. They all looked exactly the same now, their stance casual but their comm
on face tense and angry. “Do you think I’m unaware of that? I know who’s on my land. The land itself knows, and will deal with them as I bid it to. What you encounter is not what they find, and what meets them is not what anyone else would see. This earth defends its master.”

  Kanouse didn’t know how to answer that, or if he should even try. He had come to deliver a message. He had delivered it—if not to Montclair himself, to something, some nightmare vision, that resembled Montclair. He had done what he’d set out to do, and he didn’t plan to wear out his welcome.

  “That’s it, Mr. Montclair,” he said. “I just wanted to let you know. I’ll be on my way.”

  Before the various Montclair images responded, he jabbed his spurs into the palomino’s sides. The horse bolted. Kanouse hung on as the animal charged through the nearest Montclair. He didn’t feel any resistance, but passed through the figure as easily as through the air. He wound up on the wrong side of the clearing, and didn’t intend to go back through, so he urged the horse off the trail and cross-country. He skirted around past the cleared area—at a glance, Kanouse didn’t see any Montclairs still there, but he didn’t intend to investigate further—and found his way back to the main road.

  Once there, he gigged the horse again, and kept it going at a hard gallop, back toward town.

  He needed a drink, he told himself. Maybe two. Maybe a dozen. Maybe a fight, instead of or in addition to. Whatever it took to convince himself that he hadn’t seen what he thought he had. Whatever it took to forget it.

  If he ever could.

  * * *

  Tuck dropped from the horse and ran to the edge of what seemed to be the endless pit into which Taylor had fallen. The blackness was infinite, and reminded him of the color—no, the absolute absence of it—of the strange creatures he believed served Montclair in some way. He couldn’t see so much as an inch of the side; the pit had no more visible substance than a shadow. But if he put his hand in, it touched empty air, slightly warmer than that outside.