by Philip Webb
For Graham Parker
Stories come from somewhere — this one comes from USA 1991.
Five thousand miles, two travelers, one Dodge van!
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
HELL’S COMING
A DAY LONG FORESEEN
A LAST-STAND SITUATION
FOREVER DUSK
THE DEMON WITHIN
ZONE QUIVERS
VALENTINE REFOUNDED
DEATH-WISH SMILE
THE DEADLINE SETTLERS
SINKHOLES OF THE MIND
THE INVISIBLE OCEAN
THE ONE-WAY VALLEY
THE JOURNEY TO BROKEOFF
THE DRUNKEN STEER
A BARGAIN WITH THE DEVIL
AS THREE
SLEEPING SICKNESS
GUANO MINES
OTHERNESS
ANGELS OF WAR
A SILENT TOAST
THE MAVIS PILGRIM
THE BRIDGWATER POSSE
WHERE LAND RIVERS BEGIN
A CRACKED NOTION
RAPIDS
RODEO WIPEOUT
BURIAL GROUNDS
LAST WORDS
GRAVE GOODS
WHERE THE ROCK SPLITS THE SKY
TAKER OF WORLDS
NIGHT
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT
Leaning against the doorpost of the smithy, I pretend it is a normal day. For the thousandth time in the last hour, I wonder whether I should say good-bye to Luis or just slip away. The boardwalk outside blazes as bright as the forge — it always does — under the light of a sun that sits on the horizon and refuses to set. Were farewells ever easier at night, all those years ago, when there was darkness? Before the Zone. Before the Visitors came to this world and stopped it dead on its axis. I try to picture the light of the moon. Silver, so people say.
Luis pulls the last horseshoe from the furnace, lays it on the anvil, and hammers it into shape. Cisco waits patiently, ignoring the roar of flames, the clatter of new steel.
I’m not so patient. I must go. Today. But it’s not like I’m going forever. Except I most likely am. If I’m honest.
Luis pulls up his goggles and shakes the sweat from his head, watching it sizzle on the anvil. “Is not so long since Cisco here before,” he says.
My shrug is awkward. This nonchalance game is harder than it looks.
“Maybe you like it, this place, too much.” He grins at me.
“I just don’t like leaving it ’til his shoes are worn right down.”
His shrug is genuine. “Is your dollars. These ones last good long time. Or good long journey.”
It seems to me he’s taking his sweet time about this job. He batters a clip onto the front of the shoe, then dunks it in cold water. I’ve seen him reshoe three horses in the time he’s lavishing on mine. Like he’s got something on his mind, too.
“Luis …” He looks up and my nerve fails me. “We never agreed on a price.”
He shakes his head. “Is on this house. Free for amigas.”
“That’s good of you but …” I fumble out some cash.
“De nada.” He waves me off, almost angrily, I think.
“No, it wouldn’t be right.”
He looks me in the eye. “Mañana, next time …”
I look stupid with the money in my outstretched hand. “Yes, next time.”
“Megan,” he sighs. “There’s no mañana, eh? You, Cisco — you ride into the Zone. I know this.”
“That’s not true,” I blurt out. One lie hot on the heels of another.
“To find your padre. New shoes for Cisco, supplies from Betsy’s — blankets, canned food, ammunition.”
I look at him aghast. I know Marfa is a small town, but I thought I’d been careful with my preparations, spreading them out over several months.
“I see you gaze west always. You talk many times about the Zone, but you stop this talk weeks back. So stands up to reason. You leave now.”
He waits for me to confirm or deny, but still I don’t speak.
“But no adios.” He sounds hurt.
“I wanted to. I really did but I didn’t want to make a fuss. I mean … I’m going alone. If you had any notion about tagging along, then just forget it, because it’s too dangerous, you know that.”
“More danger even than going solo?”
“Luis, I have to.”
“I know. And I am coming also.”
“Now wait just a minute!”
“They find another boy for this place. I have dollars …”
“No, Luis. I’m going alone. You don’t know the first thing about the Zone. You don’t even have a horse.”
He rolls his eyes as if these obstacles are of no concern. “I tell you, I have dollars for a horse.”
“I’m going today, just as soon as Cisco is ready, and I’m not wasting time while you bargain with a horse trader.”
“How come now? Why hurry, eh?”
It’s a good question, and one that I barely know the answer to. “I’m … just ready. That’s all. It’s time.”
“You know this from the Zone?”
I nod, unable to explain. And I’m hardly going to tell him about the strange thoughts that have been arriving, out of the blue, in my head recently. Suddenly the need to go into the Zone feels more urgent. I’ve explored the border a few times, even dipped into the periphery. And when I’ve been there, the urge comes from inside me. A powerful urge. I have no idea where my father is — I just know he’s out there somewhere, alone, waiting, in peril. So each time I ride to the edge of the Zone, the temptation to keep on riding into the unknown grows stronger and stronger.
“Zona de Diablo.” Luis touches the crucifix around his neck, then sizes the new shoe onto the base of Cisco’s hoof. “You think I watch my friend ride alone into this place?”
“It’s not up for negotiation,” I mutter.
“Conforme,” he mutters back.
The truth is I can’t decide whether his insistence is endearing or annoying. I’ve always considered this my mission, and mine alone. Having anyone else along for the ride will just cloud my thinking. The best Zone trackers operate solo, or so the wisdom goes.
“You tell your aunt?” he asks without looking up.
“Not yet. Not that it’s any of your —”
A gunshot cuts me short. Cisco tenses and his smoking shoe drops to the floor. It wasn’t that far away — a couple of blocks north toward the edge of town. Probably the saloon — though it seems a mite early for drunken arguments. I peer along the boardwalk.
Luis curses in Spanish and steadies Cisco.
Another gunshot. This time closer.
“¡Jesús y Maria!”
Still, neither of us moves. It is a common hazard of the Welcome Saloon — one that doesn’t concern law-abiding folks. The sheriff will settle it if any gamblers are still standing.
But then I hear footsteps running along the boardwalk, and a figure emerges from the dusty light. He staggers up to me — Connor Fishwick — a regular from the saloon. A man whose haggard face I know only because they throw him into the street when his credit is bad. For some moments he’s so out of breath he cannot speak.
“Jesus, you the Bridgwater child? Megan Bridgwater? Hell’s comin’ for you. They’s comin’ and they want answers!”
“Hey, slow down! Who’s coming?”
Luis steers me toward the back of the smithy. “Go, now!”
“Wait! Who’s looking for me? What do they want?”
“Does it matter a goddamn?” Connor gasps for breath. “I ain’t seen ’em before. Looked like badass cowhands but they’s maybe Vi
sitors, I reckon!”
“Visitors? Are you sure? How can you know?”
“Hell, there ain’t no guarantees! They all look the same as us, don’t they? But they sure was mean-lookin’! Been askin’ all over for Joan Bridgwater and Megan and waving round reward money. Daniel Gough acts the big man: ‘Go home,’ he says. ‘We don’t want yer dollars.’ And the head honcho, he shoots him down in cold blood. People start talkin’ then, sayin’ you’re always hangin’ round the smithy. They’s comin’, Megan.”
I wrestle free of Luis. “Finish Cisco! Do it now!”
I figure he’s going to argue, but he sets to it. I peek down the boardwalk. There are two silhouettes swaggering down the street, leading their horses, guns drawn. Throughout the neighborhood, I hear the sound of shutters and slamming doors. Connor Fishwick has already fled.
“Hurry, Luis!”
He mumbles something, his mouth full of nails. More figures tramp into view. I didn’t even think to bring Pa’s gun today — everything is back at my aunt’s shack together with my expedition pack.
Luis hammers the last nail home. I throw myself into the saddle.
“Wait!” he cries.
Trust a farrier to insist on rounding off the job when your life’s at stake. But I’ve heard him talk through his skills enough times — if the shoe isn’t seated properly, it can injure the horse.
“¡Completo!” he shouts. He tosses his tools to one side, and for a moment we stare at each other.
I should go now, straightaway. But if I do, I won’t see him again. No time for good-byes — it isn’t how I’ve imagined this at all. My departure was meant to be a dignified, heroic affair. I steal a last look at him — wiry and tall, with hair cropped close, white burn scars on his arms and shoulders, and those dark, dark eyes. Cisco paces the floor of the smithy, restless for a command.
I hold out my hand to Luis. They’ll kill him if I leave him here. He grins and swings up into the saddle behind me. A shadow falls across the entrance. Luis grabs me around the waist as I spur Cisco forward.
“Duck!”
I feel the door frame scraping my hat but we’re clear, leaping over the boardwalk rail down into the street. Three of them fall back — heavyset men brandishing rifles. Cisco misses a step but his balance is good, turning as I whip the reins around. He bucks as we tear south and west, away from the main drag toward the sharecropper fields outside of town. I lay low against Cisco’s mane, waiting for gunfire, but none comes. A quick glance over my shoulder and I can see they’re already mounted up in pursuit. I count six, but in all the dust and sunset light I’m not certain.
“Not home!” Luis yells in my ear. “They know your name!”
“Got to!” I shout back. I’ve never seen eye to eye with my aunt, but I’m not leaving her defenseless against these men. Besides, I can’t think of entering the Zone without my expedition kit. It would be nigh on suicide.
I weave Cisco through the streets, over fences and past trash cans, down tight alleyways, trying to shake off the hunters. Are they really Visitors? What do they want with me?
When the town thins out and it’s just a straight sprint to my aunt’s place over dry fields, I risk another look back. But I can’t spot anything through the clouds of dust we’ve kicked up. In less than a minute, I can see my aunt ahead, beating a threadbare rug on the porch.
“Where in God’s name have you been?” she snaps.
Luis jumps clear as I skid Cisco to a halt. Then I scramble to the hidey-hole under the decking. My aunt watches me drag the expedition pack clear. It’s all as I left it — bedroll, provisions, water bottle, Pa’s revolver, my Rand McNally map of the Zone.
“The pigs don’t muck themselves out,” she says, waving her carpet beater.
I haul the expedition pack over to Cisco and strap it on tight.
“There’s no time,” I begin. “It’s not safe here anymore. There are outlaws or worse coming for me. Your cousins at the Lomax ranch — go there until it’s safe to come back.”
My aunt’s face turns from thunder to disbelief. “Outlaws? Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m going to find Pa.”
Other families have come to stand at the edge of the patch to witness the commotion. There’s no sign yet of my pursuers.
“I’m not having you head off on your own on some fool mission into the Zone …”
“I’m not going alone. I’m going with him.”
She gawps for a second at Luis, then marches down from the porch, gripping the carpet beater firmly.
“The hell you are. Get back into the house right now. You’re not too old for the strap, my girl. I’m not arguing with you, Megan.”
“And I’m not arguing with you, Joan.” Using her name emphasizes the fact that she is not, and never can be, a substitute for my mother. “I’m going right now. And if you have any sense at all, you’ll move out while you’ve still got the chance.”
I strap on Pa’s holster belt and six-shooter.
For the first time in a long time, my aunt actually stops and listens. A tiny smile creeps onto her face. “You’re fifteen, Megan. With next to no experience of the Zone. You’re not a tracker …”
I climb into the saddle.
“I know enough. What Pa taught me.”
“You can’t go.”
“I’ve waited too long already.”
Her hands drop to her sides then. She looks unexpectedly bereft.
“I haven’t broken my back to raise you just so you can hightail it off into that godless country and get killed.”
“Megan,” murmurs Luis. “We go now!”
But suddenly it’s hard to just leave my aunt — this is an exchange that’s been brewing between us for years. “Get killed? Like Pa? Is that what you mean? Is that why you don’t go after him — because you just gave up your own brother for dead?”
“Because he made me promise!” she shouts. It is very rare for my aunt to raise her voice. It takes a moment for her words to sink in.
“Because he made me promise,” she says again, this time quietly. “There are things you don’t know, Megan.”
“Promise what?”
“To keep you safe, to not follow him where he was headed. The Zone has no pity. Your mother died there right after you were born. Your father — he couldn’t face losing you to the place, too.”
In the silence that falls then, I realize the neighbors aren’t looking at us anymore. I follow their anxious glances. And from every direction I see horsemen closing in across the fields through the withered remains of crops. They ride with slow purpose, panning the land, their rifles pointing to the sky.
I look once more at my aunt. She stares back with wild eyes. And I realize this is a day she has long foreseen, hoping and praying it would never come. And now it’s too late.
I back Cisco away, ready to make a charge for it.
“Wait!” she cries.
She scurries back to the porch and starts to root through our pitiful belongings. I stay the reins though I don’t know why.
“Megan!” warns Luis.
There is no sense of urgency from the horsemen. They saunter abreast of each other, closing off all approaches with an easy menace — west, south, north …
My aunt returns and holds something out to me with trembling fingers. It is a folded piece of paper.
“What’s this?”
“A man brought it to me. From your father. Now go.” A new resolve has entered her face.
“What man?”
From under her skirts she produces a small pistol. The way she cocks it makes me think she’s always been armed this way.
“Your only chance is to go back to town. The sheriff — he’ll protect you if anyone can. Go!”
“But Pa — you know he’s alive?”
“I … I was wrong to think him dead. Visitors mean to take this world, Megan. Your father — I think he’s the only one who can save us now.”
A fierce hope su
rges in me. I have known in my heart that my father is alive — always. Only death will break the bond between us. There’s sorrow in my aunt’s eyes as she stares at me. I think she will say something. But then a single gunshot rings out across the scrub.
She staggers to her knees and crumples to the dust.
“NO!”
Just her blood-soaked skirts move in the wind.
Only then do I react. It is raw instinct — no thought for anything apart from staying alive for a few moments more. At the edge of earshot, I hear riders whoop and urge their steeds into the chase. I wheel Cisco around. He rears and jerks at the reins, desperate to be gone. Luis keels into the dirt, yelling something at me, though I can’t make it out. He snatches up my aunt’s pistol, meaning to stay and fight. But I cannot leave him.
I dig Cisco in the flanks, lean down from the saddle and grab hold of Luis by the collar. He catches my arm, scrambles back onto Cisco’s rump, and we’re away. For the first few strides, I haven’t got a clue where I’m headed — just alongside an irrigation ditch at the back of our patch. Anywhere will do.
“Back to town!” cries Luis. “The sheriff!”
I leap the ditch up the bank and onto the road that leads into Marfa. Cisco gets into his stride and Luis clutches on to me. For a sickening moment I think I have mislaid the folded paper, but, no, I still have it, scrunched up in the reins. I stick it in my pocket.
There is only the pumping clatter of Cisco’s hooves as we charge into town. No gunfire. The streets of the center are deserted. It’s as if the place has been forewarned not to harbor us under threat of the outlaws.
We gallop unopposed into the main square, past the saddlers and the church, up to Marfa Jailhouse — a decrepit former hotel stationed close to the old courthouse.
