by Mark Lukens
Esmerelda looked back at Jed. “How did you find David?”
It was obviously a question she had wanted to ask for a while.
“After my men were killed in the woods, I walked out of there with just my pistol and whatever I could carry in my pockets. Like I told you earlier.”
She nodded, watching him.
“I figured I was looking at a four day walk to Smith Junction. Maybe even five days. But a few hours after I was out of the woods, I saw David’s house down below in a valley. It was a small spread with a few cows and some sheep. A house, barn, and stables with three horses.”
Jed paused and Esmerelda watched him.
“David’s ma and pa were killed,” Jed said in a low voice, almost a whisper. “His older brother, too. I found David in his bedroom, hiding behind his bed, so I took him with me. When we left, David took a photograph of his family with him, that’s how I knew who they were.” He remembered that he had stuffed David’s photograph into his pocket last night when David had fallen asleep with it on his chest next to the campfire. He pulled it out and showed Esmerelda.
She took the photograph and stared at it for a moment. She handed it back to him.
Jed knew he should give the photograph back to David, but he decided to slip it back into his pocket for safekeeping. “Their bodies were gone when I got there,” Jed told her. “But there was plenty of blood left behind. And . . . and some small pieces of them.”
“But they were taken,” she whispered. “Just like the people here.”
Jed nodded. “When I found David in his bedroom, I asked him what had happened, he didn’t say much. Still doesn’t. I couldn’t leave him there.”
“Of course not,” Esmerelda hissed, like his mentioning something like that had offended her.
“We borrowed two of his pa’s horses. I left a note. We rode north towards Smith Junction. But then that sandstorm sprang up and we had to come here.”
“What do you plan to do with him?”
“Take him to Smith Junction.”
“And then what?”
Jed shrugged. “I don’t know. I reckon the people there will try to find his kin.”
Esmerelda looked doubtful about that prospect. “You wonder why you weren’t taken in the woods? Why David was left behind in his house?”
Jed nodded. “And Sanchez. The barkeep was taken, but Sanchez was left behind. Sanchez was handcuffed and hobbled. Tied to a chair. He was easy pickings. Why not take him instead of the barkeep?”
Esmerelda nodded in agreement. “Sanchez was easy pickings like David was.”
And me, Jed thought.
“That Darkwind,” Esmerelda whispered. “The Ancient Enemy as Billy calls it. That thing, whatever it is, takes a whole town but leaves the few of us behind in this saloon.”
“This saloon isn’t any safer than any other building here. The barkeep was taken from here. And then there’s what happened to Rose and that cowboy she was with upstairs.”
“But it only did those things when we were gone,” Esmerelda said. “Not while we were here.”
“What are you getting at?” Jed asked her. If she was going somewhere with her questions, he wished she would get to the point.
Esmerelda didn’t answer him; she just stared at him like she was studying him, like she knew he was hiding information of his own.
And he was hiding something, wasn’t he? He was hiding what Roscoe’s head had told him to do.
“You tell fortunes,” Jed finally said. It almost sounded like he had accused her of something bad.
She nodded. “I read the cards. Doesn’t work all the time, but sometimes it does.”
Jed wasn’t sure if he wanted to know what those cards might say about all of their futures right now, but he asked anyway. “You can see the future without the cards?”
Esmerelda sat back, thinking for a moment. It seemed to be a question she’d never been asked before. Jed studied her in the low light of the lantern on the floor. She was a striking woman in a certain way, and he wondered why she wasn’t married.
“Sometimes I see things,” Esmerelda said. “The past. The future. Sometimes I see it in my dreams.”
“And your dream tonight? The bad dream you just had?”
She didn’t answer. She shook her head. “Just a bad dream.”
Jed felt sure she was sitting on her own information, protecting her own secrets.
“You might want to try to get some more sleep,” Jed suggested. “I’ll be waking Moody up in a few hours for his watch.”
Esmerelda stared at him like she knew that wasn’t true, like she knew that they would all be asleep and helpless when the Ancient Enemy came for them.
For a moment Jed thought she was going to tell him about her dream.
But she didn’t.
She went back to her blankets.
CHAPTER 22
Screams from outside woke Jed up. He was sitting in the chair at the table, hunched over it, his head on his arms. He jumped up when he heard the screams. He grabbed his Colt .45 off the table.
It was early morning, but light enough to see clearly inside the saloon. The double doors were wide open. The braces they had nailed in place earlier in the night were tossed aside on the floor. The screams were coming from outside.
There was movement from behind Jed, a shifting of clothing, footsteps. He turned and saw that David was sitting up on his blanket and staring at the doors. Moody, Billy, and Esmerelda were already on their feet. Sanchez was up on his knees, staring at the front of the saloon, his wrist still chained to the foot rail of the bar.
Karl was gone.
Jed bolted towards the doorway. Moody was right behind him with his shotgun, and then Billy with Karl’s Smith & Wesson.
They found Karl at the end of the walkway in front of the saloon, close to the corner of the building. He seemed uninjured, no blood, and he still had all of his limbs. He was flat on his back on the walkway, his arms up like he was trying to ward off something only he could see. Jed thought maybe the man was in the middle of a bad dream, but his eyes were wide open.
Moody crouched down beside Karl, using his shotgun like a walking stick to steady himself. Jed and Billy covered the two of them with their pistols, but there was no one in sight on the dirt street. Hope’s End looked like the ghost town that it had become overnight.
“What is the matter?” Moody asked, touching Karl’s bony shoulder.
Karl’s eyes shot to Moody, staring at him like he was trying to decide if he was real or not.
“You see someone out here?” Jed asked Karl.
Karl ignored Jed’s question, keeping his eyes right on Moody.
“Why’d you come out here?” Moody asked Karl in a softer voice.
Karl’s mouth was still wide open, his eyes bulging so badly they looked ready to pop out of his pale face. He had lowered his arms now, his hands clutching at his sunken belly.
“We should get back inside now,” Jed warned.
“My . . . my wife,” Karl finally said. “Min kvinna, Ingrid. I . . . I saw her. And my boys.” His words were coming out in a shuttering stutter, his teeth chattering. He was shaking all over. “She came to me. She reached for me with her arm, the only one she had left. The other arm was gone. Just a bloody stump. And my boys. Their legs were gone. They were crawling down the street towards me.”
Billy descended the steps to the dirt street below, studying it.
Jed followed Billy, covering him with his pistol. He watched the dark alley between the saloon and the next building.
“Why’d you come out here?” Moody asked Karl again.
“I . . . I don’t know,” Karl answered. “I . . . I don’t remember coming out here.”
Jed looked down at the dirt street, then at Billy. He was sure the Navajo saw the same thing he wa
s seeing, the tracks in the dirt. Maybe Jed wasn’t quite the tracker that Billy might be, but Jed had learned how to follow tracks over the years as a U.S. Marshal.
Moody didn’t notice Jed and Billy; he concentrated on Karl. “What do you mean, you don’t remember coming out here? You think you were walking in your sleep?”
Karl didn’t answer.
Jed backed up towards the wooden walkway, climbing the stairs backwards up onto the walkway in front of the saloon. “Moody, get Karl up on his feet. We need to get him back into the saloon.”
Billy stared up and down the street, his breath clouding up in front of his face in the cold air. He looked east towards the end of town, the sun just up above the horizon, the sky there a blaze of yellow, orange, and red. He looked towards the other end of town, towards the church where the sky was still a deep, dark blue. He turned and looked at Jed, his eyes saying: Did you see that?
Jed nodded at Billy, indicating that he had noticed it. “Moody,” Jed warned.
“Come on,” Moody told Karl. “Up you go.”
“Ingrid . . . she . . . she came to me . . .”
“We can talk about it inside,” Moody told Karl, practically tugging the man up into a sitting position, spurred not only by Jed’s words but by the tone of his voice that said: Hurry the hell up because something bad is coming.
Jed walked towards Moody and Karl, his boots clomping on the floorboards, the sound echoing on the front walkway. He helped Moody get Karl to his feet, and then they practically dragged him to the saloon doors.
Billy had backed up to the steps of the walkway. He had his eagle feather in one hand, Karl’s gun in the other, but he seemed to take more comfort in the feather than the pistol. He looked up and down the street, scanning it for movement like he was waiting for a stampede of wild horses to come at any minute. He climbed up the steps backwards just like Jed had done, afraid to take his eyes off of the street.
“Billy,” Jed snapped as he and Moody got Karl inside.
Billy hurried across the walkway and rushed inside the saloon.
“What is it?” Esmerelda asked. She was on the blanket with David, an arm around his shoulders.
Moody helped Karl to the nearest table where Jed had just woken up a few minutes ago. Jed and Billy closed the saloon doors. Jed locked the doors as Billy retrieved the table legs from the floor. Jed grabbed the hammer and can of nails, then toenailed the table legs back in place, bracing the doors shut as best he could.
“Was that Karl screaming out there?” Esmerelda asked.
Moody nodded at her. “He had a bad dream.”
Sanchez watched from the floor in front of the bar, up on his knees, his arm that was handcuffed to the foot rail stretched out behind him.
Jed met Esmerelda’s eyes for just a second when Moody mentioned the bad dream Karl supposedly had had. He turned back to his task of nailing the table legs in place.
After Jed finished hammering the nails, he took the hammer and can of nails back to the table and sat down. Billy sat down in the chair next to him.
Esmerelda got up and went to the bar. She stoked the fire in the stove and set the coffee kettle on top. She went behind the bar and poured a cup of tea and set a basket of cornbread muffins on the bar top. She put a muffin on a metal plate and brought the muffin and the tea to David.
“How did Karl get outside without us hearing him open the doors?” Esmerelda asked. “We should’ve heard him knocking those braces away.”
Moody stared at the doors, and then looked at Jed. “She’s right.” Moody looked at Karl who sat beside him, slumped down in his chair, his arms on the table in front of him. He seemed to be studying his limp hands. “Karl, do you remember removing the braces from the door? Do you remember opening the doors?”
Karl looked at Moody—a blank stare. He shook his head slowly. “I . . . I woke up out there and . . .” He let his words trail off.
Jed remembered asking Red Moon what had happened to Roscoe in the woods. Red Moon had told him that Roscoe had walked towards the trees like he’d been in a trance. He didn’t believe Red Moon at the time, he didn’t believe in the spells Red Moon said the skinwalkers could cast. But now he was beginning to believe just about anything.
“It was morning already when I woke up,” Karl said. “I saw Ingrid out there. I saw my boys.”
The saloon was quiet, all of them listening to Karl’s words. Esmerelda brought two cups of coffee to the table, setting one of them down in front of Karl. “Tell us everything you saw out there,” she told him in a surprisingly stern tone.
“My Ingrid,” Karl said, wrapping his fingers around the tin cup of coffee like he was trying to warm them up. “I saw her.”
“There was more,” Esmerelda said, almost like she was accusing Karl. “Tell us everything.”
Jed noticed the fear in Esmerelda’s eyes, but she didn’t look at him—she kept her eyes on Karl, waiting for his answer.
“Ingrid only had one arm. My boys, they didn’t have their legs. They were crawling in the dirt, crawling behind her. They looked just like they did inside the church, arms and legs gone.” His face scrunched up in agony, tears slipping from his intense blue eyes. He shook his head like he was trying to shake the images from his mind.
“What happened next?” Esmerelda prodded.
Esmerelda knows something, Jed thought. She’s hiding things just like I am.
Karl rubbed his hands on his face, turning his pale skin red in seconds from the friction and from his crying. “They were dead. I saw them inside the church.” He looked at Moody, then at Esmerelda. “You all saw them. They were all dead. But they came back to me this morning.”
“What was Ingrid doing?” Esmerelda asked Karl. “Did she say anything to you? Do anything?”
“It wasn’t real,” Moody snapped at Esmerelda, and then he looked at Jed. “It was just a bad dream, that’s all. And completely understandable considering the terror we’ve all been through.”
“What did she do to you?” Esmerelda asked Karl as she ignored Moody. “Did she touch you?”
Karl had his hands over his face again. He nodded vigorously.
“She did more than just touch you, didn’t she?” Esmerelda said.
Karl pulled his hands away and inhaled a big breath, sniffling at the same time. “She . . . she touched my shoulder. Grabbed it hard. Her fingers digging into my skin. I was on the ground. She leaned over me and . . . and she kissed me.”
“That’s quite enough!” Moody said. “He had a bad dream. No need to make the man re-live every second of it.” He glared at Esmerelda.
“She forced my mouth apart with hers,” Karl continued. “I . . . I could feel her tongue inside my mouth, going all the way to the back of my throat. Her tongue was longer than it should have been. Like some kind of . . . like a snake.”
“That’s enough,” Moody told Karl. “It wasn’t real.”
“It was real,” Billy said.
They all looked at him.
“There are tracks in the dirt,” Billy told them.
Everyone was quiet.
Moody and Esmerelda looked at Jed.
Jed nodded in agreement with Billy. “He’s right. There are a lot of tracks in the street. Looks like the whole town walked down that street.”
CHAPTER 23
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Moody asked.
“There’s a lot of foot traffic out there,” Jed said simply. “And drag marks. Like some of the people were dragged.” He looked to Billy for conformation.
Billy nodded.
“But . . . but all of that could’ve already been there,” Moody argued.
“Sandstorm would’ve blown everything clean,” Jed told him. “Those tracks out there now are fresh.”
“Then the tracks are ours,” Moody said. “We went to Karl’s
store last night, then to the church. Then we came back here. We walked right down the middle of the street.”
“There are many more tracks than ours,” Billy said.
“Which direction did the tracks come from?” Esmerelda asked, but it looked like she already knew the answer to her own question.
“From the church,” Jed told her. He had a picture in his mind of a whole town of dead people walking past the saloon, some of the people hobbling, some of them missing their arms and legs, some of them missing their heads.
“You’re trying to say those tracks are from the dead in the church?” Moody asked. “You’re trying to say dead people walked right down through the middle of town?”
Nobody answered him.
“Maybe the tracks are from whoever is doing all of this,” Moody offered. “Whoever killed your men and took Red Moon.” He stared right at Jed. “The skinwalkers you keep talking about.”
“There’s something else,” Jed said. He looked at Billy who nodded.
“What?” Moody spat out. “You two keeping secrets now?”
“The church,” Jed said. “The pastor’s body isn’t hanging from the front of it anymore.”
Moody looked suddenly twitchy, like he was about to rush to the doors and kick the braces away so he could go outside and see for himself. There was also a hint of embarrassment that he hadn’t noticed that the pastor was gone.
Karl laid his head down on his arms.
Esmerelda went back to the bar to get more cups of coffee. She gave a cup of coffee to Sanchez along with a cornbread muffin. He shoved the muffin in his mouth, eating it in two bites, chasing it down with the coffee.
She brought the basket of muffins and another cup of coffee to the table where Jed and the others sat.
Moody looked at Jed like a thought had occurred to him suddenly. “You were on watch last night. You were supposed to wake me up for the next watch.”
Jed didn’t say anything.
“You fell asleep,” Moody sneered. “You fell asleep at this table when you were supposed to be protecting us.”
