Beneath Ceaseless Skies #172

by E. Catherine Tobler

  * * *

  It took twenty minutes for Junior to return, which, with his fine nose guiding him, meant that Merrill must have been off in the wilds behind his fields. Maybe farming. Maybe not. Halpern pressed his hands together like a preacher-man, between his knees, and watched Eldred’s pipe-smoke waft out through the curtains made from his sister’s old dress. He knew it when Merrill arrived—the devil took the porch stairs loudly, two at a time.

  “This fool?” Merrill asked Eldred, after he passed the door. Eldred gave him a look, and he silently took up a position with his back against the opposite wall.

  “You tell us what you want now, John,” Eldred said. “Make it fast.”

  Halpern stood. “A wagon got it in the highlands.”

  “So?” Merrill said.

  “I saw your woman at the store today.” He didn’t mention that she’d had a black eye. Made him want to spit. Devils.

  “She ain’t back yet—” A deeper color flashed over Merrill’s already dark face, like a tornado funnel in a storm. “What happened to her?”

  “Nothing,” Halpern said, and began to pace the room. “My point was that your people do business in Golden Falls.”

  “We give just as much as we take,” Eldred said, arms crossed. “And we pay for the privilege.”

  Halpern waved his words away. “The town thanks you for that. But this wagon—”

  “Blackfoot? Sioux?” Merrill guessed and rolled his eyes. Golden Falls had a contract with Eldred’s people, in writing even, for the few that could read it. It was why they’d been allowed to settle in the area. Halpern had written up some of it himself, after Sarah—he stopped pacing, and faced them.

  “Neither. It was a wendigo.”

  Merrill snorted. Halpern studied Eldred’s face, unsure what his brother-in-law thought of things. He was a hard man to get. How had Sarah managed? “I’m willing to be wrong. But I don’t think I am.”

  Merrill started walking for the door. “Our kind know better than to eat our own. Sounds like a man problem to me.”

  “Your ladies like our goods and trade. It’ll be winter soon.”

  Eldred held his hand up, and Merrill paused.

  “If I’m right,” Halpern continued, “it’ll kill every wagon train coming in, until we can’t get any more supplies. We can’t eat only gold. You can’t eat just snow.”

  Eldred’s eyes narrowed. “What’d you tell them it was?”

  Them was Golden Falls, at the crotch of the valley, where gold and sin both rolled to rest. Gamblers and miners, one and the same, plus a small complement of merchants, bankers, whores. “Sioux, of course. I didn’t want to start a riot—or send idiots with loaded shotguns and half an excuse running through your fields.

  “But if it’s as I say, Eldred—it’ll take every wagon that comes through. That’s how they work. They’re always starving, you know that. Give the thing long enough, and I guarantee it’ll attack town.” He still couldn’t read Eldred’s face, and he didn’t need to look to know what Merrill thought.

  Merrill laughed. “It won’t attack us. And you don’t have a piece of paper that says we have to care.”

  Halpern ignored him. “I said I was asking for a favor.”

  Eldred was still, stone-like, lifeless, the way only a hunting animal can be. Then the wind changed and Sarah’s curtains fluttered in. He gave a subtle nod. “We’re blood, Halpern.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But moon’s coming.”

  “I know. My horse is at the crossroads, packed.”

  Eldred nodded. “Set out. We’ll catch up.”

  * * *

  It pained him to ask the devils for help, that was for sure. But he’d seen the ravages of a wendigo attack once before in his life, and Golden Falls didn’t need one nipping at its heels. Too many miners out there alone, exposed. It might already have been too late for some, and no one would know for weeks. Damn things always hungry, eating like a drunkard thirsts for drink. And whoever it was that had become one—Merrill was right on that. Fool ought to’ve known better than to eat his own kind in these hills. Indian curses all over the place. Only thing men had to curse them back with was smallpox.

  Halfway to his horse, Halpern heard the sound of a live thing snaking through the waist-high brush beside the road. He turned to face the shadow that was matching his speed.

  “What do you want, Junior?”

  “Can I come?”

  “No.”

  “Aw, why not?”

  “It’s man business.”

  “Please?”

  “Absolutely not.” There was no way Junior had asked Eldred’s permission to come. “You gotta stay behind and protect your home.”

  “Uncle Hal—”

  “Have pity on my horse, Junior, while we’re still upwind.”

  “Promise to take me into town when you get back,” Junior hissed. Perhaps if Junior had been Merrill’s son, it would have been an implied threat. Take me into town, or I can’t guarantee that I won’t.... But Halpern knew he was still Sarah’s boy for now, even if the moon turned his pa into a monster.

  “I promise. As soon as we get back. Just let me finish this alone.”

  He heard a disappointed whisper of, “All right,” then the snaking sound ran away from the road.

  * * *

  Halpern’s horse was where he’d left it, tied to the post Eldred’s few visitors used for such things. He stood beside it, hands tight on the reins. The bay knew they were there before he did, dancing like a frog on a skillet. Only a gimpy hind leg and his focused resolve kept her from going very far.

  “Why’re you bringing a nag?” Merrill asked.

  “Well, I’m bringing you,” Halpern said with a shrug. Merrill growled, and she tried to rear. Halpern held tight until she exhausted herself. His saddle clung to her sway back, loaded in the seat with supplies, fat as a tick. “It’s only two days up. I was thinking we should walk.”

  “If she’ll stand it,” Eldred said.

  “She’ll be fine.”

  “I prefer to run,” Merrill said, and Eldred gave a subtle nod.

  Merrill didn’t walk too far off. He wasn’t ashamed, not like Halpern would have been if the affliction were his own. He took off all his clothes, setting them beside the post—no one would ever steal anything that belonged to a devil-man—and then he became something else, hunching down, like he too would scamper. Maybe part of him did, the man-part, leaving just the devil-part behind.

  Watching him change made Halpern’s bile rise—he stared at his boots, until Merrill was finished. Merrill howled when he was done, and had not Halpern’s horse already resigned herself to a tragic death she would have run him down dragging Halpern with her. As it was, her eyes rolled back, showing white, like if she was not able to see the thing in front of her, it would be unable to see her back.

  “He always got to do that?” Halpern grumbled. Eldred grunted as Merrill’s wolf ran off, half the height of the horse, twice the weight of any man, quiet, black-furred, sleek.

  * * *

  Years of wagons and hooves had ground all the life out of the road Halpern and Eldred walked on. Idiot grasshoppers were thick this year, jumping out to be crushed under boots and hooves.

  They walked in silence for miles, the horse gimping beside them. Halpern took a sip of his water, a swig from his flask, and watched Eldred out of the corner of his eye.

  “I like your curtains,” he said, flat as he could.

  “Thank you.”

  Halpern hadn’t visited much after Sarah’d died. The children were still sweet on him all the same. He knew it was easier to like someone when they weren’t there. Just like it’d been easier for him to accept what went on at Eldred’s when he’d had Sarah’s word to pin it to. Halpern looked down at the dirty handprints on his shirt.

  “Either of them know how to read?”

  “Junior, some.”

  “There’s a school in town now.”

  “I bet it
’s nice,” Eldred said without a smile.

  “Goddammit, Eldred—you can’t just keep them up there their whole lives.”

  Eldred turned to look at him, and the nag tried to rise up again. “They’ll come down in good time,” he said.

  “Like Merrill’s woman? You allow that? Her black eye?”

  He paused for a step. “It’s Merrill’s business.”

  “Not if he’s your second.”

  Silence passed between them, nothing but the sound of the nag’s hooves thumping on dirt, the crunching of fool grasshoppers. It didn’t take much imagination to turn those sounds into a hand hitting flesh, the break of bone.

  “If Marna ever comes to town with a—”

  “She won’t.”

  “She’d better not. I don’t know what I’d do.” And that was a lie. Halpern knew exactly what he’d do, and who to. He inhaled deeply and forced himself to be civil. “I like Ralston better. Or Troy.” They were all devil-men, but some were less devil than others.

  “It ain’t always about the person part. There’s the wolf to think of, too.”

  “Is Merrill’s wolf-part less of an asshole than the rest of him?”

  Eldred gave a bark of a laugh. “Not by much.”

  * * *

  That night the two of them sat around an anemic fire in the middle of the road, camping as a courtesy to Halpern and a necessity for the nag. Eldred would have had no problem seeing beneath the moon, and, with whatever power it availed him, continuing strong. His eyes glittered in the firelight, and Halpern wondered exactly how well he could see.

  “How’d you know,” Eldred asked as Halpern ate his dinner, “what it is that done this?”

  “My prior post, before Sarah and I moved out here. Thing ate four wagon’s worth before we figured it out—people, horses, supplies. Town damn near starved.” He set his plate down and stared into the fire. “It killed five horses, and three men—I started out with ten of each. Drove it off a cliff, then went the long way down to kick the corpse.”

  “And this time? How did you know?”

  “I saw its sign. A lucky thing, too.” Halpern had gone out to check on the wagon once it hadn’t come in. He’d taken the path, and spotted the wagon’s remains. It didn’t take much to notice all the bodies were gone, and deep gouges clawed into the earth besides. “They can’t help but eat, anything, everything. The one we’d killed had its stomach full of horse meat and stones. This one will be wagoneers and dirt.”

  Eldred grunted, unfazed. One devil to another, of course. “So the nag’s bait?”

  “Once we get there, yeah,” Halpern said. “You ever killed one before?”

  “Never even seen one. But I’m sure we’ll be fine.” Eldred stood and took a few steps away from the fire before setting himself down on his blankets. There was a coyote howl in the distance.

  “Friends of yours?” Halpern asked, as other coyotes joined in.

  Eldred said nothing, just closed his eyes.

  * * *

  Halpern woke up at the ass end of night needing to piss. He stood, and spent a full minute figuring out how far out of camp he could step and still be safe. How long had its arms been? Surely if it were close, the horse would have startled or Eldred would have smelled it. Behind him, Eldred was snoring, his chest rising and falling with the sound. Halpern went downwind.

  He didn’t know what Sarah had seen in Eldred. He’d felt it though, when Eldred was in the room with her, like heat lightning before a storm. Townspeople said that he’d cast a spell on her. Halpern knew Eldred hadn’t had to—he knew his sister, he’d seen the adoration in her eyes.

  The thing was, Eldred’d asked Halpern for her hand. Halpern could have told him no. She was young enough then to still listen. But God, the Indians were something fierce that year, and he’d been younger too. He concentrated, and urine shot from his body in a warm stuttering stream. Piss on the devils, piss on the past, and piss on Golden Falls.

  A creature rose up out of the brush in front of him. He leapt backwards with a yelp, splashing his leg. A wolf’s sturdy head swung towards him, lips raised high to reveal black gums in the pre-dawn light. “The only thing I smell out here is you,” it said with a growl.

  “Fuck you.” Halpern grabbed his pants and set them straight.

  Merrill’s wolf stepped aside and became Merrill, fur receding, teeth pulling, going in just as smooth as they had come out. Then sharp wet sounds, like a beaver tail-slapping the top of a lake, until just a hairy naked man was left behind. Merrill stretched and walked into the campsite, naked as a newborn, and Halpern followed him back.

  “There’s nothing out there, Eldred.” Merrill helped himself to the saddlebags, pulling out packed clothing. “Even if there ever was a wendigo here, which I doubt, it’s long since gone.”

  “We’ll go until we see the wagon for ourselves,” Eldred said, sitting up with a yawn.

  “It’s a waste of time.” Merrill yanked on a shirt, pants, boots.

  Halpern looked down at his urine-stained pants. “Bringing you—that was a waste of time.”

  Merrill growled. Eldred looked between them. “Go ahead with the horse then. See if you can lure it out.”

  The nag, to her credit, tried to stove Merrill’s head in. But eventually he caught hold of her tie and dragged her up the road behind him. Halpern squatted beside his saddle and reassigned his belongings. The saddle itself could wait for his return, but—

  “Carry this.” He handed rope and an axe over to Eldred. Lifting his lightened bag, boxes of bullets jingled inside.

  “That sounds like a lot of ammo,” Eldred said.

  “That’s because it is,” Halpern said, standing up.

  * * *

  The road went around the edge of a hillside, letting them see between the trees to the valley below. Somewhere out there the Golden River ran along, cold as the ice it came from, scattering flakes of gold into a few lucky sluices; like a moody farmer’s daughter scattering grain for chosen pullets but leaving forgotten ones to starve.

  There’d been no sign of Merrill or the nag all morning. Halpern gnawed on jerky as they walked, between deep gulps of air. The mountain was robbing his breath, making his lungs work twice as hard. Eldred didn’t seem to mind.

  “When’s Junior going to change?” Halpern asked, after inhaling deep.

  “Soon.”

  “And then?”

  “He’ll be like us. One way or another.”

  Halpern waited for him to explain. Eldred waited, too. He could out wait the damn dead. “Eldred—”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  Halpern turned on him. “He’s my nephew too! If you’d been more honest when this whole thing started—”

  “I warned her.” Eldred’s eyes narrowed. “She knew.” His voice went low, and his breath came hard. “She accepted me.”

  Eldred’s wolf was coming on, and Halpern didn’t care. The thin air made things clearer, shined his anger more bright. “You were supposed to protect her,” he said, pointing at Eldred, one hand on his gun.

  A branch snapped behind them. Eldred, wolf-at-the-ready, snarled. “Who’s there?”

  “Protect her from what?” asked a timid voice, far to the right of the road.

  “Junior!” Eldred shouted.

  Junior peered out from behind a distant tree. “I did it! I snuck up here, you all didn’t smell me or nothing! I did it!”

  “You—” Eldred raced out and grabbed Junior by his arm, dragging him out.

  “See? You don’t need to leave me alone anymore. I can run—”

  Eldred wheeled back and hit Junior full across the face. Halpern made to step in, then realized if Eldred hit him that hard he wouldn’t be able to get back up. Junior stumbled but stood, sullen.

  “If you’re going to run with us, you gotta learn to listen,” Eldred said. “I told you to stay home, boy.”

  Junior nursed the side of his face. “I just wanted to show you I—”


  “There’s no excuse for disobeying.” He brought his hand up again.

  “We can’t send him home. It’s not safe,” Halpern said, interrupting. Junior heard him and nodded.

  Eldred whirled on Halpern. Halpern thought he could see fresh teeth, straining out. “There’s nothing here—”

  A horse screamed in the distance. Then again—nearer.

  “You sure?” Halpern asked, unholstering his revolver.

  Eldred looked to Halpern. “Stay here.” He ran away, leaving both nephew and uncle behind.

  * * *

  Halpern put himself in front of Junior, following Eldred up the road. “Keep close.” There were no more sounds of horses, humans, or wolves.

  “Can I have a gun?”

  “No.”

  Hoofbeats neared, then the nag bolted down the road at them. Halpern shoved Junior out of the way, felt the whip of her tail as she passed. She jumped sideways, and then around the next bend he heard her fall.

  He ran back after her, saw one leg crippled, another bent wrong. There was a raw wound on her haunch, the still-running muscles twitching inside. It matched the gouges he had seen near the wagon’s remains.

  “Shit. Junior!”

  The nag screamed.

  “Junior!”

  “I’m here!” Junior pulled himself out of the rocks Halpern’d shoved him into and trotted down. “Aren’tcha gonna shoot her?”

  “I suppose so.” Halpern drew his gun again.

  “Can I do it?”

  Halpern looked from the gun to Junior. Devil or not, his nephew was almost a man.

  “Please Uncle Hal, please.”

  “All right. Don’t miss.” He handed the revolver over and watched the boy. Junior took three shots, and all of them went wide.

  “Come here,” Halpern said, and reached out to correct Junior’s hold on the gun. “You gotta kill her to be kind.” Aiming together, a fourth shot put the nag to rest. Her blood spilled out around their boots like it was coming from a spring.

  Merrill loped down the road towards them, still wolf-formed and black. Eldred followed him, buttoning up his shirt. He spotted Junior with the gun.