The Devil's Breath

by R. R. Irvine

  Graham, holding his hook out in front of him as if such a puny piece of metal could ward off the charge of a thousand pounds of enraged bear, heard rifle bolts jerk back, followed by the satisfying click-click as new rounds were rammed into the chambers.

  While his eyes strained to penetrate the misty swirl, he willed the riflemen to shoot again. But there was no longer a target, not even so much as a shadow.

  The bear was gone. They must have hit it, knocked it right off the cliff. That had to be it. And if the bullets hadn’t killed the thing, why, then the fall would.

  “We’ve won,” Graham heard himself say.

  “I don’t see anything,” Jarman answered.

  “It probably went over the edge.”

  “I would have seen it then.”

  The flurry of snowy mist from The Devil’s Breath subsided. By contrast, the air shimmered with clarity.

  Slowly, their heads moving in a side-to-side search pattern, Benyon and Keene eased up from their firing positions.

  “Did we get him?” the mayor asked.

  Keene, still watching the gorge, said, “I never did see anything for sure.”

  “It had to be the bear,” said the mayor.

  Keene shrugged, but didn’t argue.

  The cameraman said, “I hope the hell you got him. I want out of this hunt. Jesus, berserk grizzlies and a crazy Indian. It’s no way to tape a TV program.”

  Graham looked around. “Yeba Kah’s gone.”

  The mayor levered another round into his rifle, ejecting a perfectly good cartridge. “You two should have been watching him.”

  “I forgot about him in the excitement,” Graham said.

  “Maybe that wasn’t a bear you two were shooting at,” Jarman added.

  “Shit,” Keene muttered at the mayor. “I shot because you did. The responsibility is yours.”

  Clearly, Graham remembered shouting at them to open fire.

  The five men clustered together.

  “He could have run off,” Keene suggested. “After all, he’s a murder suspect.”

  The mayor nodded.

  “Don’t you think we’d better look for him?” Graham said.

  Benyon grunted. He had taken his first step toward The Devil’s Breath when a voice called to them. As a man, they turned to see Yeba Kah emerging from the trees. He approached them unhurriedly, stopping a few yards away from the five men.

  “I went to speak to the Great One, to Koshari.” He shook his head slowly. “He is very close.”

  “Take me to him,” Keene said. It was an order.

  “If you wish to speak to him, get down on your knees and pray.”

  “To hell with him and to hell with you too. Let’s go find our bear.”

  “All right,” the mayor said. “But keep a sharp eye out.”

  The five of them crept to the edge of the canyon.

  “Jesus,” Keene moaned.

  The mayor dropped to his knees and stared at the gory mess that had been deposited on the lip of The Devil’s Breath. His head swept back and forth as if he was unable to comprehend what he was seeing.

  Choking, Graham turned away.

  “My God!” Jarman exclaimed. “Marilyn’s alone.” He sprinted toward the trees where they’d left her.

  Graham, too, felt the need to run, to get away. But he doubted if running would do any good.

  Mouthing obscenities, Keene stepped to the edge of the gorge and began firing blindly down into The Devil’s Breath. Time and again he worked the bolt action of his rifle until he ran out of ammunition.

  Graham knew exactly how he felt. It was a protest against the bloody offering that had been left there for them to find—Sheriff Alden Fisk’s genitals.

  31

  THE VOLLEY of shots sent the burros into a frenzy. Yet even though the animals frightened her, Marilyn reached out to comfort them. At her touch, Alfie’s skin rippled and twitched. The other two burros shied away from her. And the one carrying the sheriff’s body let out a pitiful bray, then snapped at the air around its head as if under attack from invisible insects.

  “Easy,” she cooed. “Everything’s all right.” She prayed, fingers crossed, that it was.

  But the animals backed away from her, straining the ropes that tied them to the tree branch. Their hoofs churned the ground into mud, but still they struggled, snapping and snorting.

  “Please,” she begged, but hesitated to grab hold of the ropes. She didn’t want to lose a finger to those wicked-looking yellow teeth.

  The branch broke. She grabbed for the ropes but missed.

  The burros, suddenly free, looked momentarily startled. Then they took off into the forest, heading away from The Devil’s Breath.

  “Damn!” she yelled after them. They had all the food and water.

  “Damn and spit.” She couldn’t let them get away.

  Without thinking, she jogged after them, moving easily because little snow had accumulated beneath the trees. To her surprise, she easily kept pace with the fleeing animals, which had settled into a trot after their initial burst of panicked speed.

  Marilyn shifted gears and went from a jog to a full run. But the burros picked up speed, too, remaining a constant twenty yards ahead of her.

  She kept running as long as possible, but finally the burning in her lungs and cramped leg muscles forced her to slow to an exhausted walk. In the relative stillness of the forest, her gasping sounded ridiculously loud, like that of a rheumy old woman.

  The thought brought tears to her eyes. More than ever, she needed to feel Boyd Jarman’s strong arms around her. Maybe then she could stop thinking about Shangri-la, and about the old woman who turned into a decaying mummy when she tried to leave.

  “Boyd,” she whispered.

  She turned the name over in her mind. He was short, heavy, almost bald, a totally different kind of man for her. But maybe he was exactly what she needed, a less glamorous, even fatherly lover who would protect her, not just use her the way Keene did.

  She stopped and waited until her gasps slowed to wheezes. The burros also stopped and began grazing a few tantalizing yards away.

  “Come to mama,” she urged them breathlessly.

  The only acknowledgment she got was a twitching of their long ears.

  “It’s time to go home.”

  She peered up through the trees. The sun, showing weakly through the thinning cloud cover, was low in the sky. Nightfall wasn’t far off. And that meant it would be getting colder soon.

  She shivered. It felt as if the temperature had dropped in just the last few minutes.

  “All right,” she said, her voice tremulous, “stay there then.”

  She took a tentative step in their direction. The three burros kept right on grazing. She took another step. Still they didn’t move.

  At her third stride, they were off again, matching her pace exactly. It was maddening.

  “By God!” she screeched at them. “Two can play that game.” She shook her fist, then followed in their wake.

  Once, when she stopped to tie the lace of her boot, they paused, too, as if waiting for her.

  “Why are you doing this to me?”

  The question frightened her.

  She jumped when she heard the echoing crack of a gunshot. It was quite distant by the sound of it. But that seemed impossible. She hadn’t come far. Surely not more than a few blocks by city measurement.

  It would be a simple matter to double back, retrace her steps, and find the men. Or would she find the bear?

  “Now you’re being foolish,” she told herself. “Bears don’t fire signal shots.”

  And that was exactly what it was, a signal, because she heard another one, then another, fired in regular cadence. Boyd wanted to let her know that he was on his way to her rescue.

  “Boyd,” she murmured, taking comfort from the sound of his name.

  Go to meet him. Forget the burros. She held her breath, waiting for the next shot. All she had to do was take a b
earing on the sound and then start walking in that direction.

  But wouldn’t it be better to retrace her steps? Follow her own footprints back through the snow. She turned to look for her path.

  Only the ground was clear where she stood. No snow; no snow at all. And no footprints.

  “Boyd,” she sobbed.

  Then she remembered the burros. They knew the way home; animals were born with that kind of instinct. Damnit, it was their fault that she was lost anyway.

  It wasn’t until she snatched a rock to throw at them that she realized they’d gone, sneaked off while she was straining to catch the sound of a signal shot.

  Damn them. They’d left her alone.

  And being alone scared her more than anything else. You were alone when you were old and dying. Her grandmother had told her so. “No one can live inside there with you.”

  Marilyn stamped her feet. Needles of pain reminded her just how cold it was.

  The sun sank out of sight behind the mountain peaks. Overhead, the clouds had thinned to mere wisps of white. A clear, cloudless night meant freezing temperatures, of that she was certain.

  “Boyd!” she yelled. “I’m here. Help me.”

  She stamped her feet again. Damnit. She wasn’t going to die, not now, not when she’d found Boyd.

  “Boyd!” she hollered. She screamed the name over and over until she ran out of breath.

  Then she listened for a long time. But she heard nothing, no answering call.

  She peered around her. The light was dying fast. Trees and rocks were turning into frightening shadows.

  “Find shelter,” she told herself. With her words came a white puff of breath, as noticeable as if she’d been smoking a cigarette.

  But where to go? Which way? She stretched back her neck to stare up at the darkening sky. The sun could have given her direction, but it, too, had left her alone.

  Marilyn shivered.

  “Boyd!” she shouted into the twilight.

  There was no answer, not so much as an echo.

  She prayed for the sound of another shot. But when it came, the sound echoed and eddied around her. Taking a bearing was impossible.

  She turned and started back the way she’d come, hoping that she was moving in a straight line. But as dark as it was now, she couldn’t be certain. The only certainty was exhaustion, which hung over her like a heavy blanket.

  Suddenly, she stopped and held on to the branches of a pine tree. Her feet tested a tempting bed of fallen needles, a bed upon which to rest. Surely a few minutes wouldn’t hurt.

  “No. Keep moving. You don’t want to freeze to death.”

  But if she kept moving, how would Boyd find her?

  She smiled. Boyd was no fool. All she had to do was keep warm until he found her.

  “Move,” she told her feet. She had to bully them into action.

  She had never felt so tired. Old and worn-out. The best she could manage was a pitiful shuffle. She was like an old woman, whose body had betrayed her spirit.

  For an instant, the wink of an eye, a wisp of cobweb touched her face. By the time her hand came up to brush it away, it was gone.

  But maybe it was in her hair, complete with spider. Cautiously her hands searched but found nothing. There’d been no spider. No self-respecting spider would be out on a night like this.

  What then? Maybe it hadn’t been a web, but a barrier.

  Her hands shook, her arms too. She felt epileptic.

  Beyond Shangri-la’s barrier there was only one thing—an ancient death. She felt it was with her now.

  Was she dying already? Was her skin old and wrinkled?

  She dared not touch her face. The best she could do was bite her lower lip.

  Dear God, it felt different. Puckered. And it made a crinkling sound, the sound of old, dried-out skin.

  She knew that sound only too well. It had accompanied each word her grandmother spoke.

  “I’m still young inside, but nobody wants me. Take my advice, young lady. Never grow old. There’s nothing worse than being trapped inside a worn-out body.”

  Marilyn shuddered. She was certain that cobweb had marked the boundary of Shangri-la, beyond which old age lay in wait.

  But no. That couldn’t be right. The people of Shangri-la really had been old, centuries old. Staying in Shangri-la kept them young.

  “Silly.” The word came out like a croak. “You’re young yet.”

  Her voice rattled anciently.

  Panic grew within her. This place had a logic all its own, a terrifying rationality.

  She would never leave, except to die.

  “Don’t be a ninny,” she whispered softly. “Feel your face. Old age is the last thing you have to worry about The cold will get you long before age does.”

  She nodded vigorously as if to reassure some reluctant part of herself.

  Slowly, like a burlesque queen beginning to strip, Marilyn peeled off a glove. Her bare fingers, chilled yet trembling with sensitivity, stretched out to find her chin. The skin—thank God—felt as soft as ever. The lips, pliant still. The nose . . .

  Her scream cut into the night.

  Running from the edge of both nostrils down to the corners of her mouth were wrinkles, creases as deep as canyons. Twin ravines into which her fingertips had strayed.

  Without any sense of direction, she ran into the night, hurling a shriek ahead of her like a beacon. Pine needles whipped at her, goading her on.

  Her brain, too, flailed her weakening body. Run you old hag. Run yourself to death.

  Her heart thundered.

  It’s a heart attack. The beginning of the end.

  She stopped screaming to concentrate on breathing. She needed oxygen, reason told her. Think. Don’t panic. This can’t he happening.

  “Boyd,” she bleated. Her voice gurgled with phlegm.

  You’re old and dying, with no one to hold your hand.

  Marilyn whimpered. Then she cried out, “This can’t be real.”

  Ha!

  “I’ll prove it.”

  How?

  “My mirror.”

  You won’t like what you see.

  “I’m young!” she shouted. “I’m young.”

  Shaking hands tore at the pocket of her sheepskin jacket where she kept her compact. Fingers fumbled with the zipper, arthritic fingers, curled and claw-like.

  When the zipper succumbed, she clutched the thin metal box with all her strength. But there was another problem: Darkness clung to her like a black cloth charged with static electricity. Without a fire, the compact’s mirror would be useless.

  Tears ran down her cheeks as she patted her pockets. Yes, she remembered bringing matches, two books, more than enough.

  But she had to find shelter out of the wind.

  Clutching the precious compact to her chest, she started walking, one arm thrust out to search the darkness for a sheltering tree. Her movements were like those of someone newly blinded.

  Doubt grew with each step. For all she knew, she might be about to topple over a cliff.

  Her courage had all but ebbed away when she touched sanctuary, a bough. She grabbed hold, crushing pine needles between her gnarled fingers. The sharp smell of resin reassured her that the tree, at least, was real.

  She dropped to her hands and knees and crawled beneath the pine. To her surprise, the needles at the base of the tree were absolutely dry, and invitingly soft. And it was so warm being out of the wind.

  She blew on her hands, hoping to ease the stiffness in her fingers. When her wheezy breath did no good, she muttered an obscenity and attacked the compact’s clasp.

  A fingernail cracked to the quick. The flash of pain gave her hope. Pain meant life.

  The clasp gave way suddenly, as if it had been child’s play all along.

  Now for a match.

  Impatiently, Marilyn thrust the fingers of one hand into her mouth and sucked for all she was worth. The taste of blood from the cracked nail was familiar, comforting
, something to think about.

  But the wet warmth failed to thaw her fingers.

  Nothing can thaw the stiffness of age.

  Bile flooded her mouth. The fingers jerked out, releasing a rush of vomit.

  For several minutes, she could manage nothing but ragged pants. Finally strength returned, and she willed her fingers to work.

  A match flared, then flickered.

  “Careful,” she cautioned herself and set the entire book on fire.

  Then, in that burst of flame, she angled the tiny mirror so she could get a look at herself.

  Breath whistled from her lungs.

  It was like one of her nightmares come true. Reflected back was the face of a mummy.

  With a retching gasp, she flung down the flaming matchbook. Her gasp continued until it died for lack of breath.

  The sound that remained was that of the crackling flames as the dry pine needles exploded to life.

  In the flare of the fire, she saw her veiny, parchmentlike hands. The image burned into her brain.

  The material of her jacket caught fire and became a torch. It was like a beacon showing her the way to old age.

  The ancient cartilage in her knees creaked and popped with protest as she grunted to her feet. But in so doing, she became entangled in the crackling branches of the tree.

  At that moment she heard voices around her.

  “Marilyn!” It was Boyd. Her lover had come to save her. The fiery beacon had led him to her.

  She swung her head violently, searching for him. But all she could see were shadows silhouetted against the white-hot flames.

  “Jesus. We’ve got to get her out of there.”

  She saw her lover then, but he was running from her. Why? Perhaps he hadn’t recognized her. She wriggled frantically.

  A branch burned away. She was free of the tree.

  She spread her flaming arms and ran after him. Fire swept out behind her like a comet’s tail lighting up the night

  ******

  Sid Norris took one look at the flames and ran in terror. He had to get away; he couldn’t bear to witness the girl’s death agonies. Sanity depended upon escape, because in her he saw his brother again.

  A man couldn’t witness that kind of horror twice.

  Norris glanced back over his shoulder, hoping he’d outdistanced, the flaming figure. But the burning girl was still pursuing him.