“There,” Nat said, pointing to the middle passage, an opening shaped like the letter D. “It’s the only one that slopes up, not down.”
Just then a gigantic roar reverberated through the den. Another shower of pebbles and dust shook from the ceiling.
“Time to go,” Keech said, his chest hammering.
The young riders hurried to the D-shaped corridor. Peering inside, Keech saw a natural funnel climbing for several yards. “It’s steep, but passable.”
Nat nodded. “I’ll go first. Duck, you stay behind me.”
They started up the passage in single file. After only ten steps, Keech stopped. “Wait.” He turned back to the den.
“But that monster could be anywhere,” John Wesley murmured.
“Just hold up.”
Keech sprinted back across the bone-filled room to the fallen Osage warrior. The flies in the den swarmed his face. Swatting them, he crouched to one knee at the skeleton’s feet. His amulet piece gleamed hues of yellow and orange.
“I’m sorry about this,” he said to the corpse, “but you’ve got something I might need. If we ever meet on the spirit path, I’ll be sure to give you proper thanks.” He grabbed the longbow and the quiver and then hightailed it back to the group.
They traveled another hundred yards through the climbing passage and then stepped into another small chamber. The light from both amulets now barely illuminated the area, but Keech could see there was no exit. “Dead end,” he groaned.
“Our light’s almost gone,” Duck said. “We’re losing the outlaw.”
“That’s some luck,” John Wesley said. “When we escape, we’re blind. When we can see, we’re in danger.”
“There’s no other choice,” Nat said. “We have to head back to the den, pick another passage.”
John Wesley’s eyes widened. “What if the bear shows up?”
Keech raised the dead warrior’s longbow. “Then we put the warrior’s last arrow to good use.”
Reversing direction, they shuffled back through the corridor. After a time, Keech’s ears discerned a muffled rumbling, like steady thunder. The hollows of the cave made it impossible to tell the distance to the source, but it sounded close.
“Anyone hear that?” he asked.
“It sounds like a river,” said John Wesley.
“I don’t recollect passing a river,” said Duck.
“Because we didn’t,” Nat replied. “We made a straight line out of the den and I thought we were taking the same tunnel back. I must be turned around. I reckon we’re lost.”
“It’s the Floodwood curse,” Keech said. “We’re being led down strange passages.”
The gang quickened their pace, careful not to disturb the bats. Soon the tunnel descended drastically and the rumble of water grew louder.
“I see the next room,” Nat said.
Moments later, Keech heaved a sigh of relief when they stepped out of the tunnel and landed on a floor of smooth brown clay. The air smelled fresher here, and the amulet pieces pulsated with stronger light. “Bad Whiskey’s getting closer,” he said.
“I think we’re in a massive chamber. Shine that light around,” Nat said.
Duck and Keech held out their charms like lanterns. What stretched before them brought a hitch to Keech’s throat. The chamber was bigger than Pa Abner’s bean field. Columns of rock jutted from the cavern floor, and thick formations protruded like fangs from the boundless ceiling, which teemed and wriggled with hanging bats. In the distance, a pair of pillars stood side by side, two giant sentinels with fierce limestone faces. Between the pillars, the rumble of water crashed through the room, as loud as a tornado.
“Everyone stay sharp,” Nat said.
They walked toward the sound of flowing water.
Water dripped from the jagged ceiling, splashing on thick stone fingers that rose, some as high as a man, from the cave floor. They wove their way through the forest of formations, slipping between the stone teeth, till they came to the giant pillars.
Keech lifted his pendant. The rumbling was a subterranean river, a channel of rapid water that churned in a cradle of black rock.
Stepping carefully toward the water, he stopped where the muddy floor became wet stone. The shard cast enough light that he could see the water’s roiling body, and a few feet ahead, the low facing of rock the river slipped beneath.
“I think this is the Little Wild Boy.”
“How could that be?” asked John Wesley.
“The Little Wild Boy runs to the Platte River and cuts a line west through Whistler. I never saw the river again as I was running through Floodwood, which means it must cut underground. And as I recall, the Platte River runs north to south. If we follow the Little Wild Boy, we could find the passage to the Platte.”
“And walk right out of here,” Nat finished.
“Fellas, take a look!” Duck shouted.
She’d been shining her pendant around the room, casting sheets of light on the walls. There, on the dripping stone of the nearest pillar, was a message painted in black:
43 3:5
They gathered around the pillar, and Keech silently recited the books of the Bible. “It’s the book of John.”
“Chapter 3, verse 5,” Duck added.
Keech nodded. “Do you know it?”
“No, Pa never taught me that one. Nat?”
“Don’t look at me,” Nat said, shrugging. “I got the steady hand, remember?”
“Surely somebody knows,” John Wesley said.
A doleful silence passed.
“So that’s it, then?” Duck asked. “We can’t solve the clue?”
Keech cursed himself for always being a poor study at Bible verses. The Scripture had been Sam’s joy. It should have been Sam breaking all of Pa’s ciphers.
And all at once, the clearest, most delightful answer arrived. Keech looked at the pillar again.
“I know the verse! I know exactly how to get us out of this cave, and out of Floodwood once and for all.”
He raised his pendant so he could see Nat’s and Duck’s faces. The silver’s glow was rising in intensity.
“Remember what Sheriff Turner said about Bennett Coal—I mean your pa, Noah—coming to Big Timber ten years back to look for my pa? I think the two men weren’t just looking for a way to hide the Char Stone. I think they were setting up these clues along the way to get back to the Stone, if needed. They knew the danger they were facing if one of them was caught, so they scattered the clues between each other.”
Duck seemed to know where Keech’s next thought was going. “And over the years our fathers were planting the answers to these clues in our own heads,” she continued, her voice excited. “Each of us got a different piece, a different clue.”
Keech grinned at Duck. “Your pa gave you the verse about knocking on the door.”
“But what about this message?” Nat asked.
“He gave the clue to my brother Sam. John chapter 3, verse 5. It was one of Sam’s favorite Scriptures. ‘Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.’ Sam had memorized it because Pa Abner had it underlined in the Bible he gave to him.”
John Wesley looked more confused than ever. “But what does it mean?”
“It means”—Keech swallowed hard—“we’re supposed to be baptized.”
“What?” John Wesley barked.
“Pa Abner is telling us to jump into the Little Wild Boy River.”
John Wesley looked green. “You can’t expect us to jump in that!”
Nat glanced at the farthest end of the great room, where the whipping water slipped beneath the rock face in a diagonal line. “John’s right. That’s far too risky. We’ve got no way of knowing how far we’d have to swim underwater. We could get trapped.”
“I didn’t sign up to drown in no smelly cave,” John Wesley added.
“The river will carry us out,” Keech said. “I know it.”
Nat stepped over to t
he bank, dropped to one knee, and sank one arm deep into the sputtering water. “I can’t feel the bottom, and the water’s cold,” he said. “If we didn’t get stuck under the rock, we’d freeze to death in minutes.”
“This is Pa Abner’s plan. I trust him.”
“No, Blackwood. I won’t let you put my sister in danger on a hunch.”
Duck had been listening in silence, her amulet shard held out toward the river. Now she gave her brother an indignant snort. “Stop treating me like a baby. I ain’t in no more danger than you. Besides, Keech’s hunches have got us through plenty.”
“We’re not jumping in that river,” Nat said, his face stony. “No one’s gonna die today on a rickety plan.”
“Did somebody say die?” a grating voice echoed.
The amulets flared up as bright as lamps. Both Keech and Duck recoiled at the unexpected surge of cold in their hands.
Bad Whiskey and three of his living dead men, including Rance, staggered into the chamber. His henchmen were clutching long torches, and the flames sent shadows dancing about the vast room.
Bad Whiskey looked worse than ever. His black overcoat hung from his wasted body in ribbons, and the hand that gripped his Colt Dragoon was black with decay.
Bad Whiskey saw Keech and sneered. “It’s young Jim Bowie!” he said, as if greeting an old friend. “Yer a hard one to catch, boy. Isaiah Raines taught ya good.” He pulled his Dragoon and cocked the hammer. “But now I gotcha dead to rights.”
Keech’s first thought was to protect the shards. There was no point in denying he was holding Pa’s charm. Its orange glow was highly visible, but Duck’s charm was hidden where she stood behind Keech.
“Put your charm away,” Keech whispered. “Don’t let him see it!”
Duck quickly stuffed the fragment back into her coat. Keech heard a small whimper escape her throat as the pendant’s unnatural cold stung her skin.
The dead men lingered at the chamber’s edge. Rugged terrain stood between the thralls and the young riders, providing cover should someone start slinging lead, but with a raging river at their backs, there was nowhere to run.
“Raise yer dirty mitts,” Bad Whiskey said. “Nice and high.”
Nat pushed Duck behind him. He whispered to Keech and John Wesley, “Find cover.”
Before Keech could react, Nat drew Turner’s revolver. He pulled the trigger. Keech expected hot bullets to smash through Bad Whiskey and his nameless thralls, but nothing happened. Nat spat a curse and pulled again, but the weapon refused to work. “No, no, no!” he yelled.
Across the chamber the creatures dropped their torches and moved for cover, anticipating Turner’s gun ripping holes in them. Bad Whiskey noticed the gun’s malfunction and grinned. “It’s failed, you fools! His pistol’s packin’ duds!” He lifted his Dragoon. In response, Rance drew his own Pocket Revolver.
“Everyone, move!” Nat shouted. Keech jumped behind one of the limestone pillars. John Wesley hid behind a wide stone formation.
A hail of gunfire filled the chamber. Gunsmoke billowed through the air, creating a black, dusty fog. Disturbed from their sleep, a thousand bats took flight along the ceiling. A blessing, since their crazed exodus obscured any clear aim. The thralls were hitting nothing but stone.
Keech gripped the Osage warrior’s longbow and drew the lone arrow. He would only get one shot, but if he could use the arrow to distract the thralls, perhaps he could rush them with the pendant.
He nocked the arrow.
The gunfire ceased as the thralls stopped to reload. Nat and Duck had joined John Wesley behind his stone formation. Duck was trying to help Nat clear Turner’s revolver.
Bad Whiskey’s voice echoed through the chamber. “You got no more weapons! Throw out the shard and I’ll let ya live!”
Two thralls advanced across the cavern, snatching up their torches as they went. Bad Whiskey stood defiant where he had entered. Next to him, Rance was reloading his revolver.
The creatures would never allow Keech to get close enough to touch them with the charm. They would shoot him to pieces before he could travel half the room. The only thing to do was buy Nat some time to fix Turner’s Colt.
Keech stepped out from his cover.
“What’re you doing?” Nat hissed.
Keech lifted the bow, drew the string back, and took aim at Bad Whiskey. The outlaw’s henchmen stopped, uncertain. Bad Whiskey’s good eye fell on Keech’s amulet shard, shining like a beacon, and his withering face broke into another sly grin.
Keech said, “It’s time to end this, Bad.”
“What are ya waitin’ for, then? I ain’t gettin’ any prettier.”
Keech took a long breath, exhaled, and with a smooth motion loosed the arrow. It sang across the chamber, whistling between the stone fangs scattered throughout the room.
The arrow sank into Bad Whiskey’s heart with a dull thud. The outlaw staggered back and wavered. Keech felt a swell of hope—maybe an arrow to the heart would finish him—but then Whiskey stopped mid-stagger. He grabbed the arrow shaft and tugged the chert-stone tip out of his chest. Chuckling again, he dropped the shaft to the cave floor.
“You took yer shot, pilgrim. Now you all die. Get ’em, boys!”
The thralls lurched forward, sliding past the formations to where the young riders hid. One ghoulish man tackled John Wesley, who fell hard onto his back. Another bowled into Nat, leaving Duck momentarily exposed, but the strong rancher held his ground.
Across the chamber, Rance cocked his revolver and aimed.
Keech tossed aside the longbow and quiver. He stepped backward to the bank of the underground river.
“Stop!” he yelled.
He dangled the amulet piece over the churning water.
“Tell your scum to back off or I’ll drop it!”
Bad Whiskey’s good eye squinted. “Yer bluffin’. That shard is yer only defense.”
Keech flashed the outlaw his most vicious look. “Try me, Bad. I know the Reverend Rose wants this, like he wants the Char Stone. What happens if you don’t deliver?”
After a silence, Bad Whiskey said to his thralls, “Back off, boys,” and slipped his Dragoon back into its holster. Rance lowered his own revolver and the two thralls stopped clawing at the boys. John Wesley muttered a frightened curse, but he managed to crawl away.
Bad Whiskey raised his hands. “See, pilgrim? I can be reasoned with. All I want’s the shard. What do you want in return?”
Before Keech could consider how to respond, a colossal roar shook the very air of the chamber. Every soul in the great room, including Bad Whiskey and his henchmen, gazed around with trepidation.
“What in blazes?” Whiskey sputtered.
“It’s coming!” boomed a nearby voice.
The shout took everyone by surprise. They all turned and saw Cutter race out of the nearest passageway, gripping his knife.
“Cutter!” John Wesley exclaimed.
On Cutter’s heels lurched an enormous black shape, roaring at his back and loping on four gigantic legs.
The Wasape.
But this monster was no natural bear. As the Wasape chased Cutter into the chamber, it reared on its hind legs. Upon its paws it stood more than double the height of a Missouri black bear. Its pelt was gray and ragged, its claws as long as daggers, and its eyes burned a diabolical red. All over its misshapen body, skinny brown sticks protruded from its flesh. The Osage warrior’s arrows, Keech realized. And suddenly a memory flashed through his mind, a memory of the old Whistler mayor, speaking about the Floodwood curse:
Some folk claim they’ve heard a monster’s roar come from the heart of that forest.
The Wasape, Keech thought, remembering his dream in the evergreen ring. The Wasape contains the Floodwood curse! That’s what Pa was doing in the vision. He and the Osage were putting a blight upon the bear and tying the creature to this area.
Still in full sprint, Cutter noticed Bad Whiskey, altered his direction, and ran straight for
the outlaw. “El Ojo!” he shrieked. “You killed my friend!” He raised his long blade.
The Wasape dropped back to all four massive paws and kept after Cutter. The creature’s enormous body demolished every stone fang in its path.
Bad Whiskey and Rance leveled revolvers at their attacker. Lead balls tore into the rocks Cutter wove between, but missed the racing boy. A few of the bullets struck the Wasape in its massive shoulders. Furious, the bear roared and chomped after Cutter’s heels.
Nat, Duck, and John Wesley took advantage of Cutter’s distraction. “To the river!” Nat yelled. The trio moved toward Keech, who stepped away from the water. He didn’t know how to help Cutter, but he refused to abandon him again, especially to a cursed bear.
“Cutter!” Keech hollered. “This way!”
A lead slug smashed into a hanging stalactite near Cutter’s head, spraying rock shards in a cloud around him. His eyes locked on Keech and suddenly he altered his path again, running toward the other boys and Duck.
A low rumble shook the entire chamber. As the Wasape smashed apart stone pillars, the cave itself began to crumble. A stone the size of a fence post cracked above Keech’s head. He leaped sideways. The stone slammed into the floor where he’d been standing.
Keech lifted his amulet shard to see, but a falling chunk of rock struck his hand. The glowing fragment flew out of his grasp. “No!” he yelled. He scrambled for the charm, but already the rubble had buried it and sealed in the light.
The Wasape flailed in fury as the outlaws fired bullets into its hide. With each bat of its mighty arms, pieces of limestone soared. The creature searched the room for the source of the attack and locked in on Bad Whiskey. It loped toward the one-eyed man, growling with rage.
Showing a foolhardy bravery, Rance stepped between the bear and his master and emptied his revolver into the creature’s chest. A single swipe of the Wasape’s claws tore the thrall in half.
Bad Whiskey lost his footing and tumbled on his rump. He scampered backward. The Wasape lunged and clamped its jaws around Whiskey’s elbow. The outlaw howled.
Keech was combing the ground for his pendant when Cutter reached him.
“Let’s go, Keech. We can’t linger.”
Legends of the Lost Causes Page 18
