Legends of the Lost Causes

by Brad McLelland

  “Remember—work as two, succeed as one. Sam is your left hand, and you are his right. God forbid there’s trouble, but I want you to have backup in case.”

  So this excursion to Big Timber was no mere chore. It was a mission—his and Sam’s very first, outside the forest training Pa had given them—and a mixture of excitement and fear rattled Keech’s stomach at the thought of it.

  Pa Abner put a hand on Keech’s shoulder. “You’ve always been strong, son. You will accomplish great things. I can feel it. Now go fetch Sam. You two have a lot to do and little time to get it done.”

  CHAPTER 5

  THE CODE BREAKERS

  Keech rounded up Sam and then escaped the house without drawing too much attention.

  “Where are we going?” Sam asked.

  “Big Timber, to deliver a telegram.”

  “By ourselves?”

  “I’ll explain on the way,” Keech told his brother. “We best hurry. If Little Eugena finds out what we’re up to, she’ll start a mutiny.”

  Still clutching his Holy Bible, Sam nodded.

  Inside the stable, Felix and Minerva were grazing side by side on thick mounds of hay. The boys set to work saddling the ponies.

  As they finished up, Pa stepped inside the stable, holding two small bundles. “Here’s a couple of ham and egg sandwiches for the road. Granny’s afraid you’ll waste away if you don’t eat something.”

  The boys tucked the lunches into their saddlebags. Sam had a difficult time fitting his bundle inside, as he had stuffed his Bible into the bag.

  After the boys mounted up, Pa Abner asked Keech, “Remember everything I said?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Good.” Pa Abner then delved into his trouser pocket and pulled out a small leather purse, cinched at the mouth by a piece of yarn. “Here’s thirty-one cents. Normally a message is a penny a word, but I’m giving you enough in case Frosty charges for each letter.”

  He handed over the purse. Keech let the pennies join the telegram in the chest pocket of his coat. Pa added, “If there’s money left over, buy everyone a licorice wheel at Greely’s.”

  “Yessir.”

  Pa looked at them with a sad smile. “I want you to know, I’m proud of you both. And I am truly sorry I brought this cursed man down upon us.”

  Keech found he could say nothing, and neither could Sam. It was troubling to see Pa so fretful over the sudden ghost of his past.

  “Now, you two get on the road,” Pa said. “I want you back in time for supper.”

  He slapped Felix on the hind, sending a cloud of dust flying from the animal’s rear.

  As the ponies crossed their way to Big Timber Road, a strange premonition sank over Keech. He felt that things would be changed before springtime’s first bloom. He couldn’t guess what might happen, but with Bad Whiskey’s arrival and Pa Abner’s peculiar behavior, he could sense the coming of something terrible. A vicious thunderstorm blowing straight in their direction.

  * * *

  Less than half a mile down the road, Sam could not contain himself a moment longer.

  “All right, what in blazes is going on?” he said.

  “Don’t you worry about it.” Keech gazed off into the woods, pretending a deep study of the trees.

  Sam leaned across Minerva and yanked Felix’s reins out of Keech’s hands. Startled, the big horse stumbled through a large puddle.

  “Give those back!”

  “Only after you spill the beans.”

  “They’re not my beans to spill,” Keech said. “They’re Pa’s.”

  “And Pa’s back at the house, ain’t he.”

  Keech was itching to tell the secret of Pa Abner’s letter and figured Sam would find out soon enough. “All right. I reckon it won’t hurt to show you.”

  He tugged the telegram out of his pocket and passed it to Sam.

  Sam gave the paper a long look. He rotated the letter in the faint sunlight. “What’s it say?”

  “No idea,” Keech said. “But Frosty Potter has to send it.”

  “To who?”

  “Some fella named Noah Embry. Pa made me memorize the name.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “How am I supposed to know? Now give it back.”

  Sam ran his finger across the seal. “Let’s break it open.”

  “The devil we are!” Keech tried to snatch the paper, but Sam held the letter out over the gravel, as if to drop it in one of the icy puddles that pocked the road.

  “You grab after this letter, Blackwood, I’ll send it to a watery grave.”

  Keech recoiled. “Pa said no shenanigans. He’ll tan your hide.”

  “I’d say a gust of wind caught the paper out of your hand. Pa would ask why you was fooling round with it in the first place. His wrath would fall square on your shoulders.”

  Here they were, less than fifteen minutes down the path, and they were already in danger of failing their first mission.

  Sam said, “Hear me out. We’re gonna have to open it for Mr. Potter, right? Well, why not here and now?”

  “But Pa said Mr. Potter was to burn it.”

  “Which is why we ought to go ahead and read it now, while we still can.”

  Keech pondered. On the one hand, Pa had sealed and locked away the message for a reason. But how could he object to the boys knowing the contents? Besides, Pa had hidden his fair share of information. You should guard secrets only from enemies, not family.

  “Well?” Sam said.

  “You’re right. Let’s have at it.”

  Sam snapped the seal. As the scarlet wax crumbled into the boy’s lap, Keech felt a wave of guilt slam through his gut. Pa Abner had warned them to act like serious men and not give in to horseplay.

  As soon as Sam unfolded the paper, Keech leaned headlong over the space between them and yanked it back out of his hand.

  “Hey!”

  “Take it easy. I’ll give it back.”

  Allowing Felix to set his own pace, Keech read the contents of the strange telegram aloud:

  N E

  39 3:1.

  52 5:2.

  26 7:25.

  40 24:42.

  A C

  “Well, I’m up a stump,” he said. “Pa said this note was to be sent word for word, but there ain’t no words here at all. How can a pile of numbers and letters be of grave importance?”

  “My guess, it’s some kind of cipher,” Sam said.

  “Of course! A code.” It did seem probable, given Pa’s secrecy. “What do you reckon it means?” Keech asked.

  “Well, I don’t think the ‘NE’ at the top is a real word at all. I think it’s initials.”

  “For Noah Embry. That one’s easy enough.”

  “And AC stands for Abner Carson.”

  “Right. But what about the rest?”

  Sam shrugged. “Are you sure Pa didn’t say anything else?”

  “Only to make sure Mr. Potter put in all the stops.” Keech pointed to the periods behind each line of numbers.

  “So each group of numbers is a sentence.”

  “I reckon.”

  “But how can a whole sentence be said with only four or five numbers?” Sam asked.

  Properly confused, the boys pushed the ponies on to Big Timber. Keech wrapped his reins around the saddle horn, freeing his hands so his finger could move over each line of numbers.

  Soon the horses drew near Copperhead Rock, the enormous brown boulder that sat at the weedy verge of Big Timber Road. As the boys approached the rock, Keech noticed something about the telegram. He sat up straight on his saddle.

  “Wait just a second.”

  “What is it?”

  “The colons! I’ll be blasted if it’s not a message after all. Just the kind you’ve got to turn to a book to read.”

  “What book?”

  Keech grinned.

  “Confound it, Keech, what book?”

  Keech pointed at Sam’s saddlebag. “Reach back and open your pack, Sam. I�
��ll show you what book.”

  Sam retrieved his Bible from the saddlebag and rested it across his lap. He kept the tattered strip of ribbon inside marked upon the book of John, chapter 3, verse 5: “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” It was Sam’s favorite passage in the Good Book because Pa Abner, having once owned the old Bible, had underlined the verse a long time ago and penciled a big star beside it, and whatever Pa liked and thought was important must be true and good, Sam always said.

  “Okay, so what’s my Bible got to do with anything?” Sam asked now.

  “I can’t believe I didn’t see it right off,” Keech said, holding up Pa’s letter, “but all these numbers, they aren’t gibberish at all. They’re verses. That’s what the colons mean. Pa’s telling Embry to read certain passages from the Good Book.”

  “Well, I’m a regular beef-head!” Sam said. “How’d I miss that?”

  “What threw us off was the first number in each row. They must stand for books in the Bible.”

  Sam nodded in excitement. He turned to his Bible’s table of contents and began to search down the list of books. “So where Pa’s note says ‘thirty-nine,’ that’s Malachi, the thirty-ninth book, the last book in the Old Testament. Fifty-two is First Thessalonians, see. The twenty-sixth book is Ezekiel, the prophet’s book, and the fortieth is Matthew, the first gospel in the New Testament.”

  “I guess I didn’t know Pa knew so much about the Bible. So what do the verses say?” Keech called out the numbers marked in the telegram: 39 3:1.

  Sam flipped to the proper page. “This first one is Malachi 3, verse 1. It says, ‘Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.’”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Keech asked.

  “Maybe nothing, unless we keep reading the verses. What’s next?”

  Keech read off the numbers and Sam flipped through the Bible again to locate the next book. “This second passage is First Thessalonians 5, verse 2. It says, ‘For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.’”

  “That’s about the Second Coming,” Keech said.

  Sam’s fingers flew across the yellowed pages. When he got to Pa Abner’s third passage, he hesitated. “Okay, this one is worrisome.”

  “What does it say?”

  “It’s from Ezekiel 7, verse 25. ‘Destruction cometh; and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none.’ Sounds like a war.”

  Keech had long supposed the Bible was meant to offer comfort, not stir intense apprehension.

  Sam raced to find the last verse, the passage labeled 40 24:42 in the note. After he found the passage, he said, “Matthew. Chapter 24, verse 42. In this one Jesus himself spoke the words.”

  “Do you think that matters any to breaking the code?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Go ahead. Read it.”

  “‘Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.’” Sam rested the Bible on his lap. “That’s it. All the passages.”

  The more Keech thought about it, the more the verses sounded like a warning. “‘Behold, I will send my messenger,’” he told Sam. “That could be referring to Bad Whiskey. Earlier, when Pa gave me the letter, that’s what he called Whiskey: a messenger. He said Whiskey wasn’t the man to be concerned about, but another fella pulling Whiskey’s strings.”

  Sam shivered a little. “The second verse, the one that talks about the Lord coming back like a thief, could mean Whiskey might be paying another visit.”

  “Or the string-puller. Whiskey did keep talking about a reverend like he was in charge.”

  “But what kind of reverend would give a mongrel like Whiskey the time of day?”

  Keech shrugged. “Then there’s the third line. ‘Destruction cometh; and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none.’”

  “Whatever that means, it sure don’t sound good.”

  Keech remembered Bad Whiskey’s warning that Pa turn over some kind of object—the Char Stone—or face destruction.

  After a silence, Sam said, “A reverend and a messenger. Sounds downright scary.”

  Keech nodded. “‘Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.’ Sam, I think after what happened earlier, Pa Abner’s trying to warn this fella Embry of some sort of attack.”

  “I believe that, too.”

  The boys swapped a gloomy look. All around, the lanky trees rocked in the wind. Keech couldn’t help remembering all the endless hours of training in the deep woods, the lessons on tracking, course plotting, engaging enemies hand to hand. For years he and Sam had both considered Pa’s training to be nothing more than pleasant adventures. But now, the purpose of his training seemed to be preparation for coming destruction.

  “Maybe we ought to get this letter sent,” Sam said. The scar on his cheek—the result of a tomahawk wound earned during a training game a few summers back—gleamed a nervous white.

  “I think you’re right.” Keech looked again at the sky, which had turned the color of moldy clay. “With those clouds rolling in, we’ll want to hustle to get home before dark.”

  “Do you really think Pa’s in danger?” Sam asked.

  “After what he did in the yard, I think Bad Whiskey’s the one who needs to worry. Still, we ought to be there to help. Let’s get this letter on the wire.”

  Clucking at the horses in unison, they drove on to Big Timber. As they traveled, Keech returned his gaze to the fretful sky. He didn’t like the way the clouds were deepening, bunching together like the scales of a great armadillo.

  But that wasn’t the most worrisome part.

  A lone black bird was drifting high above. The bird made no sound, only traced a steady course above the road. As if watching.

  This world has many crows, Pa had warned, and those crows can see far, and take what they see to dangerous places.

  Keech kicked his heels, urging Felix to quicken his pace.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE PEG-LEG BANDIT

  After nearly an hour of riding, the boys topped a hill and saw the big weathered sign announcing:

  WELCOME TO BIG TIMBER

  A FREE TOWN FOR ONE AND ALL

  SLAVERS NOT WELCOME!

  POP. 405

  “Big Timber,” Sam said with relish.

  As they started toward the final bend, Main Street and its tall buildings appeared before them. To the north stood the town’s drugstore and barbershop, followed by the depressing front porch of Leonard’s Mortuary. On the south side, Shady’s Fruit Market burrowed inside the shadow of the lofty red building known as Greely’s General Goods. A few steps farther stood Potter’s Telegraph & Transport. Townsfolk traipsed up and down the wooden sidewalks.

  “Let’s get to Potter’s,” Keech said.

  No sooner did they round the final curve than a terrible shriek whistled up the street, as though it was coming from the heart of the settlement.

  “What in Sam Hill? Sounded like a screeching boar!” Sam gasped.

  “That was no boar.” Keech reined Felix to a careful stride. “It was a woman screaming.”

  Another furious shout echoed from the same direction.

  All along Main Street, Big Timber residents went scurrying in panic. They sidestepped the muddy potholes in the street and disappeared into buildings for cover.

  “What’s happening?”

  “A scuffle somewhere,” Keech said, studying Main Street. “Keep your eyes open.”

  Moving toward Potter’s, the boys passed a stock wagon parked outside Greely’s. The wagon was piled high with feed sacks and digging tools, and looked as if it had been recently abandoned.

  Keech was so focused on finding the source of the noise that he steered Felix right into one of Main Street’s potholes. The pony’s leg sank
into mud, and he kicked with a surprised bluster. The world tilted and Keech toppled back over the gelding’s rear. He landed with a painful thud on the wet gravel.

  “Keech!” Sam exclaimed.

  Keech shook mud off his hands. “I’m all right,” he mumbled, feeling like a fool. This was the second time today he’d taken a tumble. He hopped to his feet and thwacked his head on a square-head shovel sticking out of the stock wagon.

  Sam couldn’t hold back a snicker. “Who taught you to sit on a horse—a drunken sailor?”

  Keech rubbed his head. “You best keep this to yourself.”

  Sam reared back to laugh again, but a cracking gunshot roared across the town and the boy froze in his saddle.

  At once, Pa Abner’s lessons kicked in. Keech secured cover by ducking behind the wagon. “Sam, you’re a sitting goose!” he shouted. “Find cover. Get out of the road!”

  Sam bounded off Minerva, his boots splashing in a shallow puddle. As he hurried to join Keech, a second gunshot cracked down the street, followed by a third.

  “Where’s it coming from?” hollered Sam.

  A fourth report echoed past.

  “It’s coming from Potter’s Telegraph,” Keech said.

  He searched for a better hiding spot. In his mind he could hear Pa Abner speak one of his rules of survival: If trouble stirs, get out of the immediate danger zone.

  “We have to get these ponies off the street. Keep your head low and follow me.”

  The boys peeked around the wagon’s edge, saw that the way was clear toward Potter’s, and bolted back into the middle of Main. When they reached the ponies, Keech patted Felix’s nose, hoping to calm the skittish horse. Then he snatched up the reins and led him behind the wagon. Sam followed with Minerva.

  “The feed sacks on this wagon should stop any lead balls,” Sam said.

  The door to Mr. Potter’s office burst open and townsfolk scampered out into the street. As they fled, one man yelled, “He’s reloadin’! Every man for hisself!”

  Another man squealed, “He’s shot up the telegraph!”

  A woman hollered, “Frosty’s still inside! Frosty’s still inside!”

  Hearing that the telegraph had been destroyed filled Keech with dismay. But the fact that Mr. Potter was facing danger disturbed him more. Frosty Potter was a genial man, and the thought of his getting shot made Keech dizzy with concern.