Legends of the Lost Causes

by Brad McLelland

  Pa took another shambling step. His cloudy eyes rolled in their sockets, as if blind. Keech scrambled back till he bumped against Abraham Nell’s tombstone. “Don’t come any closer!”

  The thrall’s face took on a pained grimace. “Keech, listen to me.” The voice was gravelly, like a man who’s hollered himself out. “I don’t have much time. Whiskey is near. He thinks he has control of me, but he doesn’t. I’ve learned to block my mind, even in death. But I won’t be able to hold out much longer.”

  His heart was pounding so hard, Keech thought he could feel it through his shirt. He stood. “Pa? Is it really you?”

  “Bad Whiskey has the telegram, Keech. If he breaks the cipher, all is lost.”

  A horrifying notion occurred to Keech. This might be some unspeakable trick. Bad Whiskey had the power to invade his thralls’ minds and steer them like dumb horses to his will. If Whiskey was controlling Pa, then the mangy dog could rascal his way into Keech’s trust and earn himself a straight shot to the Stone.

  Keech needed a surefire test to tell if Whiskey was pulling Pa’s strings.

  He recalled the glade at Swift Hollow, the way Tommy Claymore had gone blind in one eye when Bad Whiskey stepped into his body, and he realized he knew just the thing.

  “If it’s really you, Pa, then show me your left eye.”

  Grimacing, Pa lurched forward, leaning his pale face toward Keech. Both eyes wore the glaze of death, but the left eye could see. Bad Whiskey didn’t look to be riding inside Pa’s animated body.

  Relief flooded over Keech, though he remained cautious. “Pa?”

  “Yes, it’s me. Now tell me quickly, son, did the others make it out of the fire? Granny Nell? The kids?”

  Keech looked down, forlorn. “No one made it out, Pa. Everyone is gone.”

  The big man gritted his teeth as if in anguish.

  Keech said, “Pa, let’s escape this. Let’s go now, together.”

  But Pa was already glancing back toward the stone wall. He whispered, “Too late, son. He’s here.”

  The gate of Bone Ridge swung open and in rode Bad Whiskey.

  He was missing his right arm, and his left hand gripped a broken broom handle with burlap burning at the top. Keech recognized the torch as the one Duck had been holding when she came to fetch him. Keech’s breath stopped when he saw a small body draped over the cantle behind Bad Whiskey.

  “Duck!” Keech bellowed.

  Bad Whiskey chuckled as he steered his gangly horse into the graveyard. “Relax, pilgrim, she’s alive. See?” He bumped Duck with his elbow. A moan escaped the girl’s lips and she began to squirm. Keech noticed that her hands and feet had been bound by thick ropes.

  Keech hollered, “I’ll get you out of this. I’m sorry!”

  From the back of the outlaw’s saddle, Duck mumbled in a weak voice, “Ain’t your fault. I never shoulda got caught.”

  Keech wondered why Duck hadn’t used her silver shard to still the outlaw. He must have bushwhacked her before she could wield it.

  Bad Whiskey pushed his steed a few feet closer. Duck cursed him at the back of the saddle, but he paid the girl no attention. A wisp of low wind kicked across the graveyard, making the flame flutter atop the torch.

  “Listen up, pilgrim. Yer so-called pa won’t show me what I need to know.”

  Pa Abner stood silent at the foot of Abraham Nell’s grave. Pa’s face suggested he was concentrating, working hard to keep the wall inside his mind from tumbling.

  Keech glared at Bad Whiskey. “I guess my pa is smarter than you, Bad.”

  “If he’s so smart, pilgrim, then why’s he a walkin’ dead man?”

  “He’s not the only walking dead man I see.”

  Bad Whiskey offered a cruel smile. “Scoff all ya want. Yer still gonna tell me how to find the Stone.”

  Duck shouted, “We’ll never help you!”

  “You shut yer mouth,” Bad Whiskey said, “or I’ll shut it for ya.”

  “You’ll pay for it if you try,” Duck warned.

  Grunting, the outlaw dismounted, a tricky business with only one arm. He plunged the broom handle into the ground. Cinders from the fiery burlap rained on his shabby boots, but he ignored them. As the torchlight burned, he reached into his overcoat and pulled a yellowed piece of paper from his pocket. “Remember this?” he asked. He pondered Pa’s telegram with a scowl, then tossed the paper in Keech’s direction. It landed near Pa Abner’s boot. “Pick it up. Give it to yer pup,” he commanded the thrall.

  Keech and Pa locked gazes. Then Pa bent, picked up the telegram, and handed it over.

  “Break the code,” Bad Whiskey ordered. “Now.”

  “Don’t do it!” shouted Duck.

  “For the last time, hush yer maw.” The outlaw’s eye returned to Keech. “Hurry along now. I ain’t got all night.”

  “You’re nervous, Bad.”

  “I said hurry along. I didn’t stutter.”

  “I see fear on your mangy face.”

  Bad Whiskey’s entire body shook. “Yer provokin’ me, boy. Break the code or you’ll see my true face.”

  Keech crumpled the telegram into a ball and threw it on the ground. “You’ll have to kill me.”

  Bad Whiskey reached for his belt. Again, Keech expected him to pull the Dragoon, but when his hand returned, it held a brown cloth. When he loosed his grip, a leather cord appeared out of the cloth and Pa Abner’s silver charm dropped into view. Black veins rippled along Whiskey’s neck—a symptom of the amulet shard’s magic—but he continued with a grimace.

  “I don’t have to kill you,” he said. “I can do the next best thing.”

  He shoved the pendant toward Pa’s face. The magic was prompt. Murky veins bubbled to the surface of Pa’s cheeks and neck. Pa recoiled, but Whiskey’s hand followed. The smallest touch of the silver and Pa would drop like a stone, forever still.

  The sight of his pa quivering before the glowing shard sickened Keech. He couldn’t stand to watch another second of the man’s whimpering. “Stop!” Keech screamed. “The numbers are verses! From the Bible.”

  “Verses?” Bad Whiskey squawked.

  “The verses are written on tombstones.”

  “Where?”

  “How should I know?”

  Whiskey dangled the shard mere inches from Pa’s agonized face. “Find ’em.”

  “That would take days.”

  Pa lurched back a step. “Don’t help him, Keech! I’d rather be dead again!”

  Bad Whiskey laughed. “I see Raines found hisself a hidden reserve of courage. So noble! Well, no matter.” He tucked away the silver in a coat pocket. Then he pulled his Dragoon and shifted the barrel toward Duck. “Do as I say, pilgrim. Now.”

  Keech froze. “You won’t hurt her.” As he spoke, low, hurried movement caught the corner of his vision. His heart leaped and he focused on the outlaw, knowing better than to betray the coming ambush with a flick of his eye.

  “Try me—” Bad Whiskey began, but suddenly the iron of a pickax slammed down across his arm. He released a bark of surprise as the Dragoon dropped out of his hand. Nat stepped into the light, holding one of the pickaxes that had been littering the ground.

  “Step away from my sister, you filth. We’ve gotcha surrounded.”

  Growling at his wounded arm, Bad Whiskey looked north and south. “Sorry, pilgrim. I do not accept yer offer. I know there’s only three of ya. You can’t stop me.”

  “You’re outnumbered, Bad,” Duck said, delighted. “You’ve got nothing left.”

  Bad Whiskey squatted to the ground. “Oh, I’m far from finished.” The rags of his overcoat ruffled behind him like the wings of a giant bat. “I reckon I got just enough power left to take care of business.”

  Sneering, the one-eyed thrall whispered something under his breath.

  Pa convulsed, bending over and gripping his head, crying in pain. The world was still for a moment, and then Pa Abner charged at Nat.

  The rancher tried to swing hi
s pickax in self-defense, but he was too late. Pa Abner barreled into the boy, burying his shoulder into Nat’s gut. He lifted him off the ground and carried him back into the night shadows.

  “Nat!” Duck screamed.

  Keech could see what was happening, but before he could do anything, Bad Whiskey bellowed two words—“Tsi’noo! COME!”—and struck the earth with his fist.

  A low grumbling filled the air, a muffled wailing that sounded to Keech like hundreds of cicadas trapped and murmuring underground. The earth shuddered under Keech’s boots.

  “Keech, what’s happening?” Duck yelled.

  Grinning, Bad Whiskey muttered a string of the darkest, strangest words Keech had ever heard. A chant.

  As he spoke it, dozens of graves shattered open. Ancient dirt flew high into the misty air. The ground split beneath Keech and the skeletal arm of Abraham Nell reached from the depths. A rotted hand grabbed Keech’s boot and squeezed. Horrified, he kicked the hand away.

  “Tsi’noo, rise, and git to work!” Bad Whiskey roared.

  CHAPTER 25

  THE TSI’NOO

  Keech watched in dazed silence as all across Bone Ridge the victims of the Withers burst from their graves. Their wails and snarls filled the air, a nightmarish symphony. Bad Whiskey had not raised a gang to protect him—he had raised an army.

  The creatures rising weren’t fresh-bodied thralls like the ones who’d ridden with Bad Whiskey before. These were rotted monstrosities of bone and sinew, held together by the thinnest magic. Some of them wore tattered bonnets, while others shambled in ragged pinafores or torn leather buckskins. The corpse of Abraham Nell hauled itself to the surface, dressed in a threadbare waistcoat.

  The rising Tsi’noo groaned, surprised by their sudden return to life. Unspeakable faces lifted to the sky and muttered a single word in unison: “Master!”

  Keech shivered as Bad Whiskey laughed. The resurrection had drained him. His body appeared to be wasting like a rotted tree succumbing to a hard wind. However, his laughter spoke not of pain and demise, but of victory and pleasure.

  Pa Abner staggered back into the circle of torchlight. His face twisted with strain. He lurched toward Keech, opening his mouth to scream, but the sound caught in his throat. The dark power that had brought Pa back to life had corrupted his body, his mind, perhaps his very soul. The spark that had made Abner his father and protector was being snuffed out, replaced by Bad Whiskey’s will.

  Tears welled up in Keech’s eyes. “You’re strong, Pa. The strongest man I’ve ever known. Fight him.”

  “I can’t!” Pa cried, and shook his head. “Run!”

  Keech heard the sound of thralls scraping their way out of open graves. Abraham Nell staggered in a circle, fussing at the moon. Other thralls crawled toward him, gnashing rotten teeth, crying their damnation.

  But Keech could focus only on Pa, who moved with a graceless stagger, his wide eyes hollow and deadly. Keech dug into the dirt and leaped away.

  “Come on, you stupid rope!” Duck yelled.

  Keech turned and saw the girl struggling against her binds on the back of Bad Whiskey’s horse.

  The amulet shard. The silver pendant stowed in her coat could send Bad Whiskey back to whatever dark pit he’d risen from.

  A stumbling monster with no arms snapped at Keech’s neck. Keech knocked the corpse back into another thrall, sending both tumbling into a deep, dark hole. A sharp hissing noise arose behind him. Keech spun to find a creature with its mouth gaped open and black teeth chomping. He twisted away and sprinted toward Duck.

  Dozens of rotting thralls approached the bound girl as she struggled. Keech was only a few steps away but didn’t know how he could untie her before the horde dug their claws into her.

  His dreadful chant complete, Bad Whiskey bounded to his feet. “Where do ya think yer goin’?” he said, stepping into Keech’s path.

  Screaming in fury, Keech slammed into Whiskey with all his might.

  Bad Whiskey grabbed at Keech’s coat, but couldn’t secure his hold. He crashed to the ground. His hat tumbled away and his mangy head whacked into a wooden grave marker, snapping the plank in half.

  Keech stumbled over Whiskey and crossed the final few feet to Duck.

  “We gotta help Nat,” Duck cried. “He could be dying out there!”

  Keech moved to grab the girl around the waist and haul her from the horse, but Duck was already tumbling down. She rolled sideways off the stallion, and landed on her feet in the broomsedge. Her hands still bound, Duck rotated quickly and came face-to-face with an approaching thrall. The creature was small, perhaps a woman once the size of Granny Nell. Duck swerved around the thing’s fumbling arms.

  Panicked by the commotion, Bad Whiskey’s horse bucked. Its hooves struck the short thrall in the head, knocking the skull clean off its shoulders. The stallion rotated its angry hind toward Keech. He flung himself out of the way just as the animal’s leg punted the air beside his nose.

  “Let’s go!” Duck called.

  They took off running toward the area where Pa Abner had tackled Nat, dodging and shoving Whiskey’s wretched dead along the way. The fresh thralls were weak, ill-formed, their bodies putrid with time, but Whiskey’s curse had wrapped them in sinew and meat enough that they continued to creep forward.

  Under the red moonlight, Keech scanned the ground for any sign of the rancher. “I don’t see Nat.”

  “Keep looking,” Duck panted, holding her tethered hands in front of her.

  Somewhere behind them, Bad Whiskey’s desperate voice split the night. “Bring ’em to me!”

  Keech spotted a tall figure near the stone wall to the south. “I think I see him!” he gasped. “He’s alive, by the wall.”

  A swarm of thralls had clustered at the wall’s base and were crowding the rancher, who was throwing wild punches, knocking monsters off their feet. But the numbers were too great. The boy was being overwhelmed.

  Duck shouted, “We have to save him!”

  Keech threw a glance behind them. At least two dozen thralls were in pursuit.

  “The second we can stop, I’ll untie you. Then you can fetch your shard,” he said—then they both ran into a solid wall. The impact sent them tumbling back with startled grunts.

  Keech shook his head, dazed. A second later Keech’s vision settled enough for him to see what they had crashed into.

  It was no wall.

  They had been stopped by Pa Abner.

  Shambling creatures crept in on all sides. Duck lay on the ground, moaning. Not fifty yards away, Keech could see the cluster of thralls around Nat closing in. Frightened cries rose into the air as the boy fell beneath a sea of gristle and bone.

  A pair of black boots stepped into Keech’s view, spurs clattering like nails on glass. Bad Whiskey stood over him, clutching his hat. The remains of his black hair had fallen out of his scalp, leaving him bald. Even his daggerlike goatee was losing strands, exposing a pitted chin beneath.

  “Nice effort, Jim Bowie.” The outlaw kicked his boot into Keech’s gut, driving the breath out of his lungs. “Seize ’im,” Bad Whiskey ordered. A pair of large hands grabbed Keech’s shoulders and hauled him to his feet. It was Pa Abner.

  “Duck!” Keech yelled, but the girl was no longer lying where they had tumbled. Only the ropes that had bound her remained.

  Bad Whiskey turned to see what Keech had noticed.

  Cutter leaped out from behind a nearby statue of a weeping woman. “Die, El Ojo!” he bellowed, and buried his long blade into Bad Whiskey’s chest.

  Bad Whiskey barely flinched. He looked down at the knife, as though intrigued, and snickered. He shoved the boy backward. Cutter fell onto his backside, disbelief etched across his face. “It should have worked. This blade should have killed you!”

  The desperado yanked the knife out of his chest and pointed the blade at Cutter’s face. “This ol’ thing?” Bad Whiskey turned it over in his hand and examined the intricately carved bone grip. He ran a thumb ac
ross the engraving at the base. “Did you think this pigsticker was magic, Herrera?” He laughed.

  “I—I don’t understand,” Cutter cried.

  Keech noticed movement near the statue of the woman. Duck was crouching nearby, close enough to end this. “Duck, the charm!” he yelled. He couldn’t understand why she hadn’t already pulled her shard.

  Duck didn’t move, and Keech realized that by calling out, he had betrayed her meager hiding spot. A fool’s mistake.

  Bad Whiskey spotted the girl and jabbed Cutter’s knife at her. “You! You have a shard?”

  Tucked behind the statue, Duck shook her head. Thralls surrounded her, holding their positions till their master gave his next command.

  “Come to me, child,” Bad Whiskey ordered.

  Duck held her ground, her face desperate for a path.

  “Don’t make me tell ya again.”

  “Use the charm!” Keech repeated. “Take him down!”

  “Throw it to me! I’ll finish him,” Cutter called.

  “Quiet!” Bad Whiskey kicked at Cutter’s chin. The boy’s head snapped back and he slumped, dazed. The outlaw’s glazed eye darted back to Duck. “A second shard of the amulet?” He raised his eye to the dark sky, where the crows were circling. “Hear that, boss! A second shard!” His eye dropped back to Duck. “I knew I felt somethin’ strange. Hand it over. My Tsi’noo will tear you apart if ya don’t.”

  Around the boneyard, the thralls hissed. The ones surrounding Duck crept closer toward her, awaiting the order to rip and tear.

  “I’ll never do what you want!” Duck shouted.

  Bad Whiskey drew a long breath. “Pity.”

  “Look out!” Keech hollered, but it was too late. A grinning pair of thralls lunged at Duck. One of them was Granny Nell’s dead husband. Before Duck could move, the monsters seized her arms. She screamed and pulled, but she was too small to break free.

  Bad Whiskey motioned for the corpses to bring her closer. The thralls yanked her across the yard.

  “Give me the shard. Now,” he said.

  “I don’t have it!”

  Before Keech could register what she’d said, the thrall on her left side juddered and collapsed. A second later Abraham Nell followed, tumbling back to silent death.