Hope's End: Ancient Enemy 3

by Mark Lukens

  ​Jed walked over to see what the boy was staring at.

  ​More coyotes had gathered in the distance a few hundred yards away. The coyotes were just thin, dark shapes on the horizon, but Jed could tell that they were sitting on their haunches and watching them. A chill ran through him—animals didn’t act like that. Jed had never been afraid of coyotes—they were skittish animals and scavengers of opportunity. Even wolves didn’t scare Jed that badly, unless it was a pack of them. Wolves only became dangerous when they were more hungry than scared. Bears and cougars concerned him a little. Cougars liked to sneak up behind a man, especially at night, or attack from above, perched on a rock or a tree branch. But Jed didn’t usually see too many cougars in this area. Both cougars and bears could be scared off by loud noises or gunshots. But those coyotes at the other end of the canyon were spooking him; they weren’t acting the way coyotes were supposed to act. Skinwalkers could supposedly transform into animals. Could that line of coyotes be the skinwalkers? Could they have transformed into coyotes?

  ​That was ridiculous, and Jed pushed that thought out of his mind. He was still jumpy and tired, his mind entertaining strange thoughts. He knew he had seen some strange things in those woods, things he couldn’t explain, perhaps hallucinations, but he wasn’t going to accept the idea of a man changing into an animal.

  ​Yes, maybe he’d just hallucinated some of those things in those woods, the delusions created by stress. It was possible. And the visit from Red Moon last night had just been a vivid dream, nothing else. He knew stress could bring on vivid dreams. He knew a few men who had fought in the Civil War and they had admitted to horrible nightmares, some of the dreams so terrifying that they would jump out of bed and run smack into a wall, trying to flee the terror they’d seen in their sleep. One man told Jed that he had attacked his wife several times while he was asleep. He’d almost killed her once. She went back east to live with her mother’s family.

  ​Jed hoped no more nightmares were coming for him. He didn’t want to experience any more nightmares like he’d had last night.

  ​The horses had had their fill of water. It was time to move on. Jed looked up at the sky. Buzzards still circled in the air above the canyon walls, but they stayed above the line of coyotes in the distance. The sky was a deep blue, but storm clouds were beginning to move in quickly.

  ​“Come on, David. We need to get moving.”

  *

  After they’d gotten out of the canyon, there was no doubt that a bad storm was on the horizon—a wall of black clouds rushed towards them like a tidal wave. The wind was already beginning to pick up. Maybe the storm was what had been making those coyotes and buzzards act so strangely.

  ​Jed halted his horse and checked the map. They were only an hour or two away from the town of Hope’s End. He had planned on going as far as they could and then camping tonight, then reaching Smith Junction by tomorrow afternoon or early evening. But with the storm moving in, he really had no choice but to try to make it to the closest town. There was nothing but hilly land and scrub brush as far as he could see once they’d left the canyons behind—no shelter of any kind from the storm.

  ​“We’re going to have to ride to the closest town,” Jed told David as he folded up his map and tucked it back into his shirt pocket. “Storm’s coming, and it’s going to kick up some sand. We’re going to have to ride fast. Okay?”

  ​David just nodded, the reins gripped in his small hands.

  ​“That storm comes, you pull your bandana up over your mouth and nose,” Jed told him. He pulled his own up so David understood what he was saying.

  ​Again, David just nodded.

  ​Jed nudged his horse forward and David fell in beside him, their horses trotting now like they could sense the dangerous storm coming.

  ​As they raced across the desert, Jed swore he could hear the coyotes yipping somewhere in the distance. It almost sounded like the animals were laughing, like they were happy that he and David were being forced towards Hope’s End.

  PART 2

  HOPE’S END

  CHAPTER 10

  Jed and David saw the small town of Hope’s End on the horizon as the storm raged right behind them.

  ​“Just keep my horse in sight!” Jed yelled at David over the wind as he pulled his bandana up over his face and drew the string of his hat tight underneath his chin.

  ​David watched him as he rode his horse, doing the same thing Jed did.

  ​“It’s going to get hard to see!” Jed told David. “You just keep my horse in sight!” he said again.

  ​The boy didn’t nod, but he kept his horse right to the side and slightly behind Jed’s.

  ​The storm was whipping the sand up into a frenzied swirl, a blizzard of sand all around them. Jed knew the storm was going to be bad from the looks of the clouds that had covered the horizon, but this was worse than he had expected. The wind howled and the sand stung his flesh through his shirt. He could imagine the pain and terror David was going through right now. Even though there was no rain, lightning flashed every few seconds, the ground rumbling with thunder, static electricity crackling through the air.

  ​The edge of town was just a series of dark shapes in the blurring sandstorm, and Jed kept his horse racing towards those black blobs. He peeked to his side to make sure David was still there. The boy was keeping up just fine.

  ​Jed had been to Hope’s End a few times, just passing through, never staying long. It was a one-street town, the street cutting a straight and wide path through the two and three story buildings lining both sides of the street. From what he remembered there was a large white church at the other end of town. But Jed wasn’t sure if they could make it all the way to the church; he remembered a hotel not too far down the street. He steered his horse to the right after they passed the first few buildings, all of which looked dark. But at least there were lights inside the hotel windows to guide their way.

  ​“In here,” Jed yelled at David as he turned his horse into an alley between the hotel and the building next to it. As soon as he was between the buildings, the pelting sand stopped and Jed could see again. He pulled his bandana up to his eyes and rubbed them with the cloth, trying to get the sand out of them. He opened his eyes wider after lowering the bandana back down to his neck, his eyes watering just a bit.

  ​David was in the alley with him. Both of their horses were squeezed in close to each other, both of the animals wild-eyed and snorting, both glad to be out of the stinging sandstorm.

  ​“Well now,” Jed said. “That was something.” He couldn’t help smiling; he was as happy as the horses to be out of the storm.

  ​David didn’t smile or say anything. He just watched Jed.

  ​Jed got down off of his horse and grabbed his coil of rope. He tied the horses’ leads to the rope several feet apart, pulled his bandana up over his mouth and nose, and then dashed out into the storm to tie the other end of the rope to the hitching post in front of the hotel. The length of rope kept the horses tied, but allowed them enough room to remain tucked inside the narrow alley and out of the storm.

  ​After Jed was back inside the alley, he pulled his kerchief back down off of his face. He took his hat off and smacked it against his thigh to get the sand off of it.

  ​David mimicked him, rubbing his own eyes and then smacking his hat against his leg.

  ​It was all Jed could do not to laugh. “No sense getting too clean,” he told David. “We still need to get to the hotel doors.”

  ​David just nodded as he put his hat back on and drew the string up underneath his chin.

  ​“You ready?”

  ​The boy nodded again.

  ​“Just follow me,” Jed said, and he was off and running, darting out of the alley and down the wood-planked walkway. At least the porch roof protected them a little from the sandstorm.

  ​Lightning struck somewhere close by, a flash seen out of the corner of Jed’s eye. Thunder rumbled two seconds later,
the ground shaking.

  ​Their boots thudded on the walkway as Jed reached the double doors of the hotel. The doors had glass panels in them with the words MOODY’S HOTEL AND SALOON painted in fancy script on them.

  ​Jed turned the brass doorknob and pushed the door open, the wind catching the door as he did so, fighting him. He held the door open so David could dart inside along with a scattering of sand and a blast of cold air. He slammed the door shut on the howling wind.

  ​The hotel lobby served as the establishment’s saloon. It was a big room with a set of stairs running up the wall to Jed’s left. The set of stairs turned sharply at a landing and then continued on up to a balcony that ran across the second story of the saloon. No one was up on the balcony right now, but there were doors that led to hotel rooms up there. Another hallway disappeared around the corner to the left at the top of the stairs.

  ​A slim woman in a green dress played a piano that was shoved up against the wall on the left side of the room by the stairs. She stopped playing for a moment when Jed and David entered the saloon. Even from the front doors of the saloon, Jed could tell the woman was attractive. She had red hair—but not a fiery red like Dobbs’ hair had been—her hair was more like a strawberry blond. She smiled at Jed and David, and then she began playing the piano again.

  ​Between the stairs to the left and the massive bar to the right, there were half a dozen tables. Only two of the tables were occupied. A cowboy or ranch hand sat at the table closer to Jed and David; he was tall and lean, his skin tanned from years under the Arizona sun. And from the way he was drooped in his chair, Jed was sure the young man was drunk. A bottle sat on the table in front of him, most of its contents gone. The bottle didn’t have a label—probably some homemade hooch that the owner of this saloon had concocted; probably watered-down whiskey cut with God knew what to cut costs and increase profits.

  ​A woman, most likely the hotel’s prostitute, hovered beside the cowboy. She wore a revealing dress and fishnet stockings. Her blond hair was pulled up into a bun, held there by a long wooden pick. Jed guessed that the woman was probably helping the cowboy with his bottle of whiskey as she tried to coax him upstairs so she could part him from more of his wages.

  ​The back of the saloon underneath the balcony and upstairs rooms looked smaller and darker because of the lower ceiling. There were a few tables back there and an older Navajo sat at one of them. Right behind the man was a window, the world outside almost as dark as night from the storm. The Navajo man didn’t look up as Jed and David entered; he seemed to be concentrating on a bowl of stew in front of him. He wore layers of clothing and a big coat dotted with different colored patches. He had a dirty white bandana wrapped around his forehead with a black felt hat over that. An eagle feather poked out of the hatband. His long hair flowed down over the shoulders of his multi-colored coat.

  ​Jed stomped his boots on the wood floor near the door where he stood, taking his hat off again and brushing the sand off as best he could.

  ​Once again David mimicked Jed’s actions, swatting at his clothes with his hat and then stomping his boots on the floor.

  ​“Take a seat over there,” Jed whispered to David, pointing at a table closer to the piano and farther away from the drunk cowboy and the prostitute.

  ​As David walked towards the table, the prostitute watched him, smiling at him and giving him a small wave of her fingers. David glanced at the woman and then he sat down at the table. The woman leaned down towards the cowboy and whispered something in his ear. They both laughed. Jed was sure the woman had made some kind of obscene comment, or perhaps an Indian joke.

  ​Jed turned his attention to the bar at the other side of the saloon; it was a mahogany behemoth, running from the windows that looked out onto the street all the way to a potbellied stove with its exhaust piped into the wall. Two doors were tucked underneath the balcony above, leading to rooms built in that far corner of the saloon. There were a few barstools in front of the bar, but all three men at the bar chose to stand there—two of the men stood close to each other by the windows. Both of them turned and faced Jed. The two men were dressed like businessmen, both in their early to mid-forties. One man was stick-thin and balding; the other man had a full head of dark hair and a protruding belly.

  ​A lone man stood at the other end of the bar with his back to Jed. He never turned around to look at Jed. He leaned on the bar with one foot propped up on the brass foot rail that ran the length of the bar. Jed didn’t like the way the man was standing, relaxed but tense at the same time. And he didn’t like the pistols that the man wore low on his hips like a gunfighter, pearl handles sticking up out of the holsters. The man’s clothes looked new and expensive. Jed caught the man’s reflection in the mirrors behind the bar, but the man kept his head down, his black hat pulled low.

  ​Three large mirrors made up most of the wall behind the bar, each mirror held against the wall in a network of ornately carved wood frames. On each side of the wall of mirrors were two wall sconces, both lit, both attached to the wall amid garish wallpaper that would have looked more at home in a New York City hotel rather than a dusty Arizona town. Shelves to the right of the mirrors held bottles of liquor, and there were more bottles and glasses lined up on the counter in front of the mirrors. To the left of the mirrors were some wooden cubbyholes for correspondence and keys to the rooms upstairs.

  ​The other wood-planked walls in the saloon not covered with the ugly wallpaper were decorated with framed photos and paintings. A stuffed buck’s head with a huge rack of antlers was fastened to the wall just below the balcony, and on another wall there was a rattlesnake skin stretched out and mounted to a wood plaque. A massive chandelier of oil lamps hung from the high ceiling above the main part of the saloon.

  ​“We don’t usually let children in here,” the larger of the two businessmen said in an Irish accent as Jed approached the bar after hanging his coat on the coatrack. “But I’ll make an exception on account of the storm.”

  ​“Much obliged,” Jed said to the man he assumed was the owner. He stepped up to the bar in a spot that was equal distance between the lone man and the two businessmen. He shifted his gaze to the mirror, focusing on the lone man’s reflection, but the man still kept his head down, the brim of his hat hiding part of his face as he cradled a shot glass in his hands.

  ​Jed knew that man, but from where?

  ​“Hell of a storm,” the thin man at the end of the bar next to the saloon owner said with a lilting, singsong Swedish accent. The man’s skin was ghostly pale which made his sapphire blue eyes stand out even more. The hair that he had left looked bleached white.

  ​“Yes it is,” Jed replied.

  ​“That storm came out of nowhere,” the Swede said.

  ​The barkeep approached Jed from behind the bar with a customer-friendly smile underneath his gigantic walrus mustache. He was dressed in a crisp white button-down shirt and a red bowtie, his uniform another attempt at trying to pretend this place was a high-class establishment and not a dusty saloon in a dead-end town. “What’ll it be?” the barkeep asked, his mustache moving as he spoke like it was a small living creature attached to his upper lip.

  ​“Whiskey,” Jed said, tapping two fingers on the battered and dented bar top, where battle scars from countless drunken patrons and bar fights covered the mahogany. “Not that house brand. I’ll take some from that bottle over there.” Jed pointed at one of the bottles on the shelves in front of the third mirror.

  ​The barkeep hesitated for a moment.

  ​Jed pulled out a coin from his pocket, and then he pulled out his U.S. Marshal badge from his shirt pocket and pinned it to his shirt.

  ​“Yes, marshal. Right away.” The barkeep dashed over to get the bottle and a shot glass.

  ​Jed glanced at the young man to his left, gauging his reaction now that he knew a lawman was in the saloon. But the man stayed relaxed, still cradling the empty shot glass in front of him on the bar
top, moving it around in a small, slow circle.

  ​The barkeep poured Jed a shot of whiskey.

  ​Jed downed the shot and tapped the bar for another drink.

  ​The barkeep poured another one.

  ​Jed drank the second shot slowly. He could already feel the warmth of the whiskey spreading in his gut, his nerves calming just a bit. He realized that he was very hungry, and he was sure David was hungry, too.

  ​The Irishman moved down the bar to Jed, proffering a hand in greeting. “A U.S. Marshal, I see. Glad to make your acquaintance.”

  ​Jed gave the man’s hand a shake—the man’s grip was firm and dry.

  ​“My name’s Allen Moody,” the Irishman said. “I’m the owner of this fine establishment.”

  ​“Jed Cartwright. What’s on the menu today, Mr. Moody?”

  ​The Irishman broke into a grin, showing good teeth for a man his age. “Please. Just call me Moody. Everybody just calls me Moody.”

  ​“What have you got on the menu today, Moody?” Jed looked to the barkeep for an answer if Moody wasn’t going to provide one.

  ​“We have lamb stew in the pot,” the barkeep said.

  ​“You got bread and butter to go with the stew?” Jed asked.

  ​“Yessir,” the bartender replied with most of his smile hidden under his gigantic mustache.

  ​“Karl’s wife made the bread,” Moody said, hitching a thumb back towards the thin Swede who was nursing a drink in front of him. “That’s Karl Andersson. He’s from Sweden. Owns the general store if you’ll be needing anything.”

  ​“I’ll take two bowls of that stew,” Jed told the barkeep. “Two hunks of bread to go with it. You got any buttermilk for the kid?”

  ​“Sorry,” the barkeep said, swallowing hard. “No buttermilk. We’ve got coffee, tea, and beer from the keg.”

  ​Beer was out of the question, and Jed was sure David was probably tired of coffee by now. “Give me a cup of tea for the kid.”