by Logan, Jake
“What cried out like that?” Ed asked as he came up alongside Slocum.
“Don’t know yet, but I think I saw some movement over by those trees.”
Ed squinted in that direction. “Something was definitely moving over yonder. Some branches were set to swaying and . . .” Pausing when he got another quick wave from Slocum, he finished his thought in a terse whisper. “And something’s creeping on the ground.”
“Yeah,” Slocum replied. “I see that, too.”
Set just over the top rise of the hills, the trees stood huddled in a small, tight group like a family relying on each other for warmth. Slocum wasn’t about to count them all, but he knew from riding past them earlier that there were more of them leading down the backside of the hills than he could see from here. Even so, he guessed there weren’t many more than a dozen or so standing trunks in all. The swaying branches had been easy enough to spot. He knew a passing breeze hadn’t gotten them moving because none of the higher branches in the trees were swaying.
The movement Ed had spotted was even tougher to explain. While some trees could very well have caught a little gust of wind that hadn’t touched any of the others, the motion of the ground at the base of some of those trees was definitely peculiar. Slocum reached down into his saddlebag to retrieve his field glasses. When he put the glasses to his eyes, the lenses were pointed at a spot fairly close to where the movement had been.
“See anything?” Ed asked.
“Not yet.”
“I can’t see it at all anymore.”
Slocum wasn’t about to write it off just yet, but was beginning to think he’d lost sight of it as well. After sweeping the glasses back and forth a few times, he became convinced that he was searching the right spot. The movement was no longer there, however. “Could have been a trick of the light,” he said.
“I guess so, but . . . I don’t know. It ain’t that bright out here.”
Slocum didn’t need to look away to verify that. A bank of think, gray clouds had rolled in to blot out most of the sun. While there didn’t seem to be a danger of rain, the sky had been turned into the color of damp stone. It was the kind of light that filtered down through the clouds to bathe everything below in washed-out hues.
“Could it have been an animal?” Ed asked.
“I don’t think so,” he sighed. “I’m starting to think it’s just some little breeze swirling around out there, kicking up dead leaves and pushing the branches around.”
Ed was hesitant to reply, but he finally gave in. “I suppose. Wait!” he snapped while stretching a hand out far enough for Slocum to see a few fingers at the edges of his lenses. “Right over there. Near the right edge of the trees. I saw it again.”
Because he was looking at a much narrower portion of the horizon, Slocum had missed it. He panned his field glasses over and caught sight of something moving on top of the ground. The longer he looked, the more he swore it could have been the ground itself writhing beneath a carpet of leaves at the feet of those trees. Wind rustled near the spot where he and Ed had come to a stop. Judging by the soft rustle of leaves close by, it could very well have been the same breeze that had gotten both men so suspicious. Just when Slocum was about to write the whole thing off as a couple of twitchy minds feeding off each other, he saw the motion among the trees again.
This time, it was different. Instead of something shifting beneath the fallen leaves, the leaves themselves were moving. Upon closer inspection, he saw it was something covered by leaves that was moving. That distinction, combined with the howl he’d heard, made whatever was crawling around out there seem much more common.
Slowly shaking his head, Slocum said, “I think it really is just some animal.”
“What about that howling? I never heard the likes of that before.”
“Could be a wounded animal. You ever hear a rabbit being eaten by a coyote? You’d swear it was singing.”
“What I heard wasn’t singing,” Ed insisted. “Surely you agree with that.”
“I’m not about to agree with anything. All I know is—” Suddenly, Slocum’s field of vision was eclipsed by a wave of rough edges and dark browns. He was still looking through the field glasses, and when he lowered them, he saw something resembling a piece of earth that had come up to swat him in the face.
A dull, thumping impact hit Slocum in the ribs, sending him reeling back in his saddle. His ears were filled with the pounding of blood rushing through his head as well as the churning of his own breaths. The howl that had brought both men up the ridge came back. Somehow, it seemed both distant and terrifyingly close at the same time. Along with that, several voices screamed and hollered in a frenzied but very human war cry.
Ed’s horse reared up and let out a loud whinny. He struggled with the reins using one hand while pulling his Smith & Wesson pistol with the other. More shapes sprang from the ground amid fluttering leaves and bits of dirt as if they’d been spat up from the earth to attack them. Slocum wasn’t able to distinguish much from where he sat because he was leaning back and to the side after getting the wind knocked out of him. He collected himself in less than three seconds, but hoped that wasn’t too late.
Straining to pull himself upright again, Slocum reached for the Colt at his side. Before he could get to the weapon, his arm brushed against something coarse and tough. It was the same flailing attacker that had knocked him back, and it was still swinging at him with limbs wrapped in filthy rags and layers of old, decaying leaves. The stench was that of rotten soil beneath an old, fungus-encrusted log. Bitter and sickeningly sweet, the odor clung to the back of his throat as he tried to draw his next breath. Ed struggled with more of them, but Slocum had to put that aside when he caught the glint of a blade coming at him.
He leaned back even farther than when he’d been knocked back a few seconds ago. A knife sliced through the air inches in front of him and came back again less than a heartbeat later. Slocum brought his free hand up to grab the mess of filth and leaves just below the knife. Sure enough, his fist closed around something that felt like an arm beneath that mess. He kept his grip to prevent the knife from being buried into his chest while swinging his gun around to fire a quick shot. The Colt barked once, hitting nothing. It had been his intention to buy himself some time and breathing room by startling his attacker. Unfortunately, this attacker wasn’t about to be startled.
Another gunshot went off, followed by Ed’s voice. “Get the hell off’a me!” he shouted.
Once again, Slocum tried to regain his balance. Just as he got his bearings, something slapped against his face to blot out the light and smother him in more of the sickening scents he’d caught earlier. Trying to breathe only made matters worse. His stomach churned and his head spun as he was not only cut off from his air, but forced from his saddle and partly off his horse.
Slocum’s feet were caught in his stirrups and his horse turned around in a nervous circle. His first instinct was to fire another shot, but Slocum held off until his gun bumped against something solid. When he heard the shooting iron scrape against dead leaves, he pulled his trigger. He must have hit the attacker while that knife was being swung because Slocum felt something scrape against his chest rather than plunge straight into it. He fired again and again, hoping to discourage his attacker from cutting his throat as he dangled from the side of his horse.
Pain lanced through Slocum’s leg as the foot caught within the stirrup became twisted at an odd angle. Somewhere along the line, he’d freed the foot from the right side, which didn’t help him much since his entire body was slipping down along the horse’s left. He couldn’t even guess how his limbs were tangled, but he knew the leg that was still wedged inside a stirrup was trapped between his body and his horse’s side. In a matter of seconds, bone would give way and he would be in even hotter water than he was now.
Slocum gritted his teeth
, collected every bit of strength at his disposal, and straightened the trapped leg as best he could. His muscles strained, pushing him away from the horse just enough to keep his leg from snapping like a dry twig. The leaf-encrusted figure with the knife came at him again. Slocum had righted himself enough to see it a little better and met the figure with the side of his Colt before it could stab him with the blade in its hand. The figure staggered away, clearing a path for Slocum to fall from his saddle.
Even after landing on his back and shoulders, his left foot was still caught in the stirrup. While upside down, at least he wasn’t about to snap in several places. He stretched out his gun hand, sighted along the top of the Colt’s barrel, and squeezed his trigger. This being the calmest shot fired so far, it hit its mark and spun the attacker around in a tight circle. Slocum still couldn’t see much more than a vaguely human shape covered in layers of rotten mulch. One particularly welcome sight was that of a knife flying from the figure’s grasp.
Another shot was fired, clipping the figure’s shoulder and sending a mess of leaves flying from its body. “Go on and git!” Ed shouted amid the metallic clatter of him levering another round into his rifle.
Slocum took advantage of the brief respite by curling his torso upward so he could pull his foot from the stirrup. The figure rustled with scurrying steps that didn’t seem to be drawing closer.
When Slocum freed himself, it was a mixed blessing. His leg was no longer trapped, but felt as if it had been put through a wringer. He didn’t allow any of the pain to show as he pulled the aching limb in close and propped himself up onto his other leg. Since his horse was still close, he grabbed on to the saddle horn for support. “How many more are there, Ed?”
“Two or three. It’s . . . hard to tell.”
Before Slocum could wonder how someone could lose count of men who had taken a run at them while in the open, he felt a dizziness that sent a shiver through his eyeballs. The harder he tried to focus, the more difficult that simple task became. The leaves attached to the closest attacker fluttered and twisted in a breeze that wasn’t there. One second, the figure seemed to be hunching down and leaning to the left, and the next, it was swaying to the right.
Another figure walked forward, carrying a staff with what looked to be a small animal’s head on top of it. The dirty, blurry figures formed a crude circle around this one and became still when the gruesome staff was lifted high.
“Who are you?” Slocum wheezed. Drawing the breath to speak had been much more painful than he’d anticipated. When he didn’t get a response, he shouted, “Why did you attack us?”
“You, white men,” the one with the staff said, “are trespassers.”
“This is open territory,” Slocum said.
“No! This ground is sacred. You insult it with the imprint of your wicked bodies. You scar it with the wheels of your wagons.”
Ed stepped around Slocum’s horse, but he wasn’t the only one to enter Slocum’s field of vision. A few other shapes came into sight and converged on the figure covered in dirt and leaves. While they were also caked in similar grime, more of their bodies could be seen. They were lean men with bare, dark-skinned chests. Rather than just being covered in dirt, they wore it more like decoration.
“We’re on our way into Colorado,” Ed insisted. “We’re not going to harm anyone and never had any intention of settling anywhere near here.”
“That is what all white men say. You will turn your wagons around and leave. Leave,” the earthen figure said, “or die.”
And then, like hazy mirages, the figures crouched down and disappeared.
6
“What were those things?” Ed gasped.
Slocum tested his aching leg by putting some weight on it. When it didn’t buckle beneath him, he tried taking a step. “They weren’t things,” he said. “They were men dressed up in some sort of getup so they wouldn’t be seen.”
“I ain’t never seen men like that. Not ever!”
“That’s all they are, Ed. Get a hold of yourself. Probably hunters or Indians or trappers.”
A howl rolled through the air. Instead of coming at them from different angles, it rolled in from the trees like a storm. Once it reached Slocum’s ears, the howl seemed to shiver and claw at him as if it were afraid of being trapped within his head.
“That wasn’t made by no man,” Ed said in a voice that became shakier with every word.
Slocum turned to look behind him and then around again to watch the trees. Feeling dizzier from the quick circular movements, he gripped his Colt tighter and fumbled to reload it. “Where the hell did they go? They were just here.”
“I’m telling you, they disappeared!” Ed wailed.
“Men don’t disappear.”
“Those weren’t men!”
After fitting the last fresh round into the cylinder and shutting it, Slocum turned on Ed and grabbed the front of his shirt. He hung on partly to rattle Ed back to his senses and partly to keep from falling over. “I saw them and they were men, damn it! They snuck up and got the drop on us, sure as hell, but they’re still men and they’ve got to be close.”
Ed was shaking his head. The rest of him started shaking when the howl rolled through the air once more.
It was a scratchy, keening sound. Slocum followed it to its source, which brought his eyes straight to those trees. He blinked away what could have been blood or sweat from his eyes, holding his gun at hip level, ready for a target to present itself. Something rustled to his right and he pivoted on the balls of his feet to aim at it. Instead of one of those leafy figures, he found only his horse. The animal was just starting to calm down after the ambush and didn’t have the sense to know how close it had come to getting shot.
“What the hell’s wrong with me?” Slocum grunted.
“You’re lucky your leg’s not busted. Or your neck, for that matter.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. There’s something wrong with my head. My ears. Hell, even my eyes.” When the howl came again, it hit Slocum like a set of claws raking along the inside of his skull. “What is making that noise?”
“I don’t know what it is . . . but I see it.”
Slocum looked over to Ed and found the other man extending a shaky finger toward the distant trees.
The little bit of light that made it through the thickening layers of clouds hurt Slocum’s eyes when he looked in the direction Ed was pointing. He used the pain as something to hold his focus. It was something steady and constant, unlike the swirling in his head or the slowly tilting ground beneath his feet. There was something else in those trees. It flowed back and forth like the shape he’d spotted earlier, but more so. He started walking in that direction when his boot knocked against the field glasses he’d dropped somewhere during the fight. When Slocum dropped down to pick them up, the dizziness he felt was almost enough to send him sprawling face first to the dirt. Ed grabbed one of Slocum’s arms and pulled him up again.
Rather than spending the breath needed to thank him, Slocum brought the field glasses to his eyes. Gazing through those lenses made him feel as if he’d accidentally pointed them at the sun. Piercing light stabbed into his eyes, causing him to drop the field glasses quicker than if they’d been dipped into a forge.
He didn’t need the glasses to see the glowing thing rise up from the ground near those trees to lift thick arms over a squat head while howling at Slocum, Ed, and the rest of the world in front of it. During the seconds when it reared up like that, the rest of the world came to a standstill. The thing’s head craned back and forth as if it were howling directly at God himself.
Slocum could do nothing but watch.
Ed took a step forward, reaching with one hand while absently swiping at his eyes.
When Slocum looked toward the horses, he wasn’t quite sure what he’d been expect
ing. Perhaps the animals would react to the sight of that thing in a different way. Maybe they could see or hear something a human being could not. But they did the very worst thing he could imagine.
Nothing.
The horses did nothing at all, apart from the normal shifting and shaking of their heads, as one might expect from an animal that was calming down after being stirred up by gunfire. Considering how much commotion had gone on around them, Slocum was grateful the horses had not bolted. On the other hand, their lack of reaction to the glowing, shifting shape out there made him feel as if he’d truly gone insane.
Perhaps thinking along those same lines, Ed asked, “Do you see that thing by them trees?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
“No,” Slocum said. “I don’t think there’s anything good about it.”
Portions of the ground rippled as though a tremor was working its way through the packed dirt or some large animals were burrowing beneath it. Compared to the sight of the tall thing with the stout head and baying howl, that wasn’t so strange. What was strange was the fact that those tremors were all converging on the howling thing before disappearing from sight.
Then, the glowing thing . . . yes, Slocum had to admit to himself, the creature or whatever it was truly seemed to be glowing . . . dropped down to all fours. It turned its back to him, shambled into the trees, and was gone.
For the next few moments, Slocum remained silent. His heart slammed against the inside of his ribs and his blood raced through his veins so quickly he thought he might explode from the pressure. No matter how hard he thought about it, he just didn’t know what to make of what he’d seen. Ed was silent as well until a metallic click caught their attention.
“What was that?” Ed asked.
