He looked ahead and saw Sadie standing on the dais of bones. She had spotted him, and she stared, open-mouthed. Was that a trace of a smile on her lips? He wasn’t sure.
She moved to the stand on which Montclair had placed the skull he had held up earlier. With stiff motions, as if she’d been sleeping for too long, or confined, she lifted the horrible thing.
Cuttrell’s gun was empty again, and despite his best efforts and the work of the men in the battlewagon, the enemy horde was closing in around him. Rather than reload again, he hurled the weapon at the nearest one and drew his saber. As the creatures swarmed him, he slashed down, slicing through boneless torsos and limbs. Some fell away, but others seemed to mend themselves, their flesh—or whatever it was—closing up right after his blade passed through. Others, he stabbed, with similarly mixed results.
Just the same, he made steady progress toward his goal. He would, he was certain, reach Sadie. He would sweep her off the dais and into his arms, then turn his horse around and retreat back up the hill. Sadie was the reason he had come—if the others wanted to engage Montclair after he had her, that was up to them.
She still held the skull, and had lifted it above her head, her arms fully extended. Thunder rolled overhead and lightning tore the sky. As Cuttrell watched, she turned the skull so that those dark, empty eye sockets were pointed directly at him. He didn’t understand what she was doing. Surely that wasn’t an expression of loving kindness, but what was it?
Then lightning shredded the night again. A bolt lanced toward Sadie. Cuttrell had an instant to fear that he had lost her, but she remained standing, skull held toward the heavens.
He barely had time for gratitude before lightning blasted out from both of its empty eye sockets. He saw it coming in the same strange way he had seemed able to see bullets rocket toward their targets. Every hair on his body stood on end, and his flesh felt like there were ants crawling about beneath it. Then the lightning reached him, and heat and hair and ants and Sadie were all forgotten.
Chapter Fifty-four
Tuck closed his eyes against the blinding brilliance of the twin lightning bolts. When he opened them again, Cuttrell and his mount had fallen to the ground. Smoke rose from their corpses, and the colonel wasn’t recognizably himself anymore, or—in his curled-up, blackened state—very distinguishable from the not-men swarming over him.
Looking away, Tuck swore softly. Their tiny force was being winnowed away, bit by bit, and they were no closer to reaching Little Wing. Kuruk was right about Sadie—she was on Montclair’s side in this. And probably dead, besides.
He had experienced a strange moment of absolute peace and clarity, after which his eyesight seemed to have improved, along with his aim and his command of his weapons. Watching the others, he was sure they had felt the same thing. Even Cale was firing with calm purpose.
“I’m going for Little Wing,” Kuruk said.
“I’ll go, too!” Cale cried.
“No, boy,” Kuruk said. “Stay with Mr. Bringloe. I’ll get her.”
“You saw what happened to Cuttrell,” Tuck argued. “Wait till we’ve killed more of them!”
“She can help us.”
“I think she already is.”
“More, then. Anyhow. I’m going.”
“Kuruk…” Tuck began. But the scout was already slipping down off the rock he had been shooting from. He reloaded his rifle and his pistol, checked the knife in its beaded sheath on his belt, and started down the hill without looking back.
Tuck didn’t like it, but Kuruk was his own man. He was pleased that Cale seemed willing to obey the scout; he squatted on the ground and reloaded his rifle. “Barrel’s hot,” he said.
“They’ll do that. Don’t touch it any more than you have to.”
“Reckon I’m getting used to it, though. I’m shooting better.”
“We all are,” Tuck said. “Little Wing’s doing, I think.”
“What is she?”
“I don’t know, Cale. She’s something special, but I don’t know what.”
“Will Kuruk be all right?”
“I hope so. We’ll have to do what we can to keep him safe.” He went back to the catapult and once again loosed bombs into the crowd. The wagon offered cover, but bullets from those of the not-men who were human enough to use firearms were coming closer.
“Cover Kuruk!” Tuck shouted, loading another bomb into the sling.
Delahunt flung open the hatch and leaned out. “What’d you say?”
“Kuruk’s headed—”
He stopped mid-sentence when a bullet caught Delahunt under the cheek, tore into his head and blew out the other side, misting the battlewagon with blood.
In the other cupola, Johnson was still blasting away with what seemed like a never-ending supply of explosive rounds.
“Damn it!” Tuck said. Delahunt, McKenna, and Johnson were the only ones with any training or practice with the battlewagon. But the wagon was the one weapon they had that was effective against Montclair’s abominations. “Keep shooting, Cale!” he called. “Try to hold ’em back as long as you can.”
“What are you gonna do?” Cale asked.
Tuck climbed onto the wagon. Delahunt lay half inside the cupola. Blood and brains coated the near side of the steam engine. Tuck had to muscle the big man out of the hatchway, and although Delahunt deserved respect, there was no time for it. He rolled the corpse off the side of the wagon and let it fall into the mud.
More bullets thudded into the wagon’s bed, stopped by the thick wood and ghost steel. The not-men had the range and they were getting too close. Tuck crawled into the cupola and slammed the hatch.
He had seen the controls inside the cupolas, back at the fort. He had thought it would be impossible to learn without several lessons. But as soon as he put his hands on the levers and knobs, he knew what was what and how to use everything. He peered out through the nearest window and it seemed to magnify the view. It somehow brightened the scene, too, making it look more like dusk than full dark. The first wave of not-men was almost on them. He squeezed a control lever, and a long jet of flame shot out from the fire-spitter.
Not-men burst into flames as if they were made of lamp oil. The rest fell back. Tuck shot another burst at them, to hold them away.
This was an incredible weapon, he thought. Delahunt was a genius. A mad, dead genius. He squeezed another lever and felt the thrum of the Gatling gun vibrating through him as it fired its rounds. The magnifying window showed him the not-men blowing apart as they struck.
But watching the scene through that window, he saw four not-men rush Kuruk. The scout fired two shots with his rifle, then turned it around and swung it like a club, smashing the butt into the nearest abomination. The thing grabbed the rifle, so Kuruk let it go and whipped his knife from the sheath. He stabbed the closest one several times, and it dropped away, only to be replaced by more. Kuruk killed another one, but there were too many. One came from behind and shoved an arm deep into Kuruk’s back. They swarmed around Kuruk, too close for Tuck to risk firing. One explosive round would kill Kuruk along with the not-men.
But if he didn’t act, they would kill the scout anyway.
Shoot or not? The choice ripped him apart, as surely as that blade-sharp arm sliced through Kuruk’s flesh. Either way, Kuruk was dead. If he didn’t shoot, though, the creatures that killed him would live to kill others.
Tuck hated killing. Sometimes, however, he had no choice.
He squeezed the trigger and watched as explosive rounds darted toward the abominations, then blew them apart into fiery, black chunks.
And Kuruk, too. Through eyes suddenly full of tears, Tuck saw the blast shred Kuruk’s face, open his chest, rip an arm off just below the shoulder, and hurl it ten feet away.
It was down to him, Cale, and Johnson, against nearly a hundred abominations, darkly sinister creatures that would overrun their position in minutes.
Little Wing was still a prisoner, Montclair still i
n charge.
This adventure had been a gigantic mistake, start to finish. He had convinced good men to join him on a fool’s errand, and those men had died. The only question remaining was whether he could get Johnson and Cale out of there before they fell, too, or would they all die together.
He eased off the trigger and opened the hatch again. With the fire-spitter, he believed he could hold off the abominations long enough to give the others a head start. Maybe they’d survive the night, even if he wouldn’t.
But once his head was outside the cupola, he heard something unexpected: the steady rumble of approaching riders; the creak of leather and the jingle of steel. Somebody was coming up the hill behind them, and it didn’t sound like more of Montclair’s not-men. Tuck eased back into the cupola and swung it around, ready to open up on whoever showed himself.
A few moments later, the first riders came into view. They were CSA troopers, wearing partial uniforms or full. Tuck lowered the weapon and climbed out. “What are you men doing here?” he asked. “We’ve got serious trouble down below.”
“That’s why we came,” the man in front said. He wore the single star of a major on his collar. “Figgered you might could use a hand.”
“But…” Tuck began.
“Close your mouth, Tucker,” a woman’s voice said, “unless you’re trying to catch flies.”
He thought the voice was familiar, but it wasn’t until Missy Haynes rode out from behind the major and a few other soldiers that he was certain. “Missy? What is all this?”
“Some of us noticed you weren’t around. You and a few others. We happened to know where there were plenty of troopers with nothing better to do—well, nothing better that wouldn’t cost them.”
“So you tracked us up here?” Tuck asked.
“T’weren’t hard,” the major said. “That wagon leaves a mighty clear trail.”
“How many men do you have?”
“Hunnert n’ fifty,” the major replied. “Give or take.”
“And about thirty-five women,” Missy added. “Not just from Senora Soto’s. We got girls from every house in town.”
“Armed?”
“Believe it.”
“I don’t quite know what to say.”
“Just tell us who to shoot,” the major suggested. “We’ll do the rest.”
Tuck briefly explained the situation. “Better hurry, though,” he said as he finished. “They’re coming fast. We’ve been holding them off with fire and that Gatling, but it won’t work forever.”
“Bugler,” the major said. “Sound the charge.”
Within seconds, a bugle call turned the quiet rumble of their advance into a roar of hooves and voices and gunfire. The reinforcements crested the hill at a gallop, then rode into the enemy’s midst. Tuck watched them go—soldiers and soiled doves alike, all brandishing weapons—shaking his head slowly as he did.
Chapter Fifty-five
Tuck stopped one of the troopers and had him take over inside the battlewagon. A few seconds of instruction was plenty; the young soldier took to it as if he’d been born there. Jumping down from the wagon, Tuck saw Cale still at his position by the rocks. “Take a break, son,” he said. “Let the troopers do their jobs.” He glanced down and saw that the soldiers had already engaged the abominations and were making progress. “They’ve got it well in hand, looks like.”
“But … look!” Cale said. “At that altar or whatever it is, that bone thing!”
Tuck looked. The dais was empty; even the old skull was gone. Montclair, Sadie, and Little Wing were nowhere to be seen. “Where’d they go?” Tuck asked.
“I’m not sure. I was watching those things coming up toward us, then the soldiers riding to meet them. When I looked back, I saw some of them critters grab hold of Little Wing and hoist her up over their shoulders. Mr. Montclair, he took the skeleton head and they all went back into them shadows, Mrs. Cuttrell, too. I can’t see ’em no more, and I don’t know where they’re going.”
“Let’s see if we can’t head them off,” Tuck said. “They might not be moving too fast, carrying the women like that. Especially if Little Wing can slow them down some.”
“But we don’t know which way—”
“We’ll get between them and the ranch. If we don’t see them that way, we hurry the other and try to catch up.”
“I don’t…”
Tuck had about lost patience with the boy. “Look, you want to find her, or don’t you?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Then quit wasting time. Let’s go.”
Tuck started off without waiting to see if Cale would follow. After a few seconds, he heard the crunch of the young man’s feet and the huff of his breath. At the base of the hill the eagle had led them up, another path had forked off on a lower course. Tuck was sure that one led to the clearing Montclair had used; the muddy trail had been thoroughly churned by the passage of many feet. If Montclair was heading back to his ranch headquarters or any place beyond that, he would take that route, like as not. From the fork, it was farther to the clearing than to the place among the boulders the eagle had shown them, so if they hurried they could still get ahead of Montclair and his captives.
Of course, if Montclair went deeper into the mountains, in any direction, he would be harder to find. He didn’t know what Montclair had in mind, although from what Tuck had seen it didn’t look like Little Wing would survive whatever it was. That meant time was a factor, in addition to location. They had to catch up with Montclair, and fast.
The worry had barely passed through Tuck’s mind when the screech of an eagle sounded overhead, followed by the furious flapping of wings. He looked up and saw the same eagle that had guided them before. “It’s her!” Cale shouted.
“I believe you’re right,” Tuck said. “Follow her!”
The eagle led them away from the path they had taken on the way up. For a few minutes, Tuck wondered if they had made a mistake; this way was thickly overgrown and barely passable. But then it widened into a game trail that appeared to cut a more direct path toward the ranch. This way would have been far too narrow and steep for the wagon, but a couple of people on foot could negotiate it.
“Is this the way Montclair’s going, Little Wing?” Tuck shouted at the eagle. The bird gave a short screech in seeming reply and continued to lead the way out of the mountains.
Soon, they passed between the rough dwellings of the not-men, with the ranch headquarters visible beyond, silver-edged in the moonlight. All was quiet. If Montclair was coming, he wasn’t here yet.
“Let’s take up ambush positions,” Tuck said. “We don’t know for sure as they’re coming, but if they are we want to be ready.” He pointed out a likely spot for Cale in a pool of shade beneath a stout-trunked oak, then found one for himself under one of the not-men’s lean-tos, and settled in to wait.
* * *
The wait wasn’t long. Ten minutes, maybe fifteen, Tuck judged. It seemed longer, though, on account of the stench of the not-men that lingered in the shelter. Every few minutes he stuck his head out of it to suck in some fresher air. Then he heard voices, raised in anger. Sadie’s came first, and he recognized it despite a certain flatness in her tone. “I don’t know why we have to drag her around,” she was saying. “She’s just in the way.”
“We need her,” Montclair countered.
“Why? You have me. You have Thunder Moon. You have the abominations—what’s left of them, anyway, after you let them get slaughtered.”
The voices grew louder as the speakers neared, and soon Tuck heard the sounds of their footsteps. Montclair said, “She’s too powerful to simply ignore, Sadie. Yes, I am powerful—more so, perhaps, than any man who’s ever lived. With you and Thunder Moon by my side, I am even more so. But with her … if I can harness her power, yoke it to my own, I will truly be unstoppable. That is what you want, after all, isn’t it? An all-powerful companion? To be queen to my king?”
“Yes, of course, but—what’s
that?”
“What?” Montclair asked.
“You don’t smell it? Humans. Close by.”
“Yes, perhaps. But—”
Tuck had heard enough. If they didn’t act, they would lose the slender advantage of surprise.
He lunged from the lean-to with a shout and brought his rifle up, firing three times at Montclair. The range wasn’t quite point-blank, but it was near enough, and Tuck’s aim was true. The rounds slammed into the naked man, slid off him, and dropped to the ground. Montclair didn’t bat an eye.
At the same time, Cale broke from cover and opened fire on the three not-men surrounding the one carrying Little Wing. Two rushed toward Cale, who levered and fired as fast as he could.
This wasn’t working. Those things would rip Cale to pieces, then turn on Tuck. He’d hoped that if he could put Montclair down, his minions would give up the fight. He hadn’t counted on Montclair being able to withstand close-up rifle fire. He levered another round into the chamber, fired, levered.
Empty.
Tuck hurled the rifle at Montclair, who just batted it away. Tuck had killed one of the abominations with a knife before, though Turville had wounded it first. He didn’t know if he could kill three, but he had to try. Darting to where Cale was about to be overrun, he wished Little Wing could do something to help. As he ran, he drew his knife. He barreled into the abominations without slowing, knocking the first one back into his fellows. Although the stink and the cold nearly overwhelmed him, he slashed and stabbed at anything he could reach.
One of the creatures sliced Tuck’s right side with a dagger-edged hand. Tuck bit back a cry and tried to ignore the pain. He kept fighting; he could tell his blade was cutting through something, though he didn’t know what. He fought furiously, savagely, grunting with exertion as he stabbed again and again, barely cognizant of the fact that Cale had joined in.
Then Montclair’s voice boomed. “Leave them, my abominations,” he ordered. “You have done well, but I will finish this in my own fashion.”
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