by R. R. Irvine
Benyon sensed movement behind him. His head turned toward the gorge. And there, emerging from The Devil’s Breath, came a pack of dogs, all foaming at the mouth, all with rabid-mad eyes, red with the lust to kill.
They began circling him.
“Come on!” he screamed at them. “Get it over with.”
He swung his rifle at the nearest beast. The dog’s skull cracked with a satisfying crunch. But the satisfaction was short-lived, because in the next instant the remaining animals were upon him.
He fell beneath their weight, doing his best to cover his face and neck with his hands. Their diseased fangs sank into his arms, his thighs. And then, as if that weren’t enough, razor-sharp teeth tore at his clothing until they’d exposed his chest, his stomach, his vitals. They chewed at him even as the mastiff had chewed at itself. He felt his very life being torn from the cavity of his body.
Yet the pain of that was nothing compared to his memory, which, like a malignant tumor, filled him with the agonies of a rabid death. He gibbered in expectation.
Cancerous images ate at him as he hurled the dogs aside in a last attempt to gain his feet.
“Sweet Christ, he ought to be put out of his misery.” The remembered words were clear. It was a whisper from childhood.
“That would be murder.”
“Is this better?”
“It’s God’s will. The disease must take its course.”
No! The word was like a white-hot brand of pain in Benyon’s inflamed mind.
Somehow, though the dogs still clung to him, he gained his feet and teetered toward the brink of The Devil’s Breath. But there, he faltered as the weight of the animals bore upon him.
He stumbled and went down, only a few feet from blessed oblivion. He tried to crawl but had no strength. The dogs sensed this and moved back from him, sitting on their haunches to wait.
34
HUNGER AND cold fought over the right to torment Jack Graham. Cold held sway over his right hand, with each frostbitten finger vying for the top spot on the hit parade of pain. At the same time, hunger chewed at his stomach, refusing to be canceled out by the insistent throbbing from five invisible fingers.
He held his left hand up toward the sun, which, despite the clear morning, had all the warming qualities of a burned-out bulb. The light, however, was excessively bright and seemed to put some of the fight back into Jimmy Keene.
He said, “We can’t waste any more time.” His jaws were clenched so his teeth wouldn’t chatter. “We have no choice but to forget the mayor and save ourselves. After all, the bastard abandoned us.”
Graham shook his head. He wasn’t ready to walk away, to leave Benyon and the Indian behind.
“Actually, the best thing we can do for either of them is to go for help.” Keene’s breath was like a white exclamation point. “The quicker professionals get on this the better. They can find them with bloodhounds.”
“The sheriff was a professional. So was . . . so is Benyon, as much as anyone else around here. And don’t forget, we need the mayor. He knows the way home. Without him or Yeba Kah we’re lost.”
“You may be,” Keene said, making a sweeping gesture toward the sky, “but I’m not. As long as I can see the sun, I know where I am. All we have to do is head southwest. Sooner or later we’ll run into Moondance or the highway.”
“We’re going back for the Indian,” Jarman said, speaking for the first time in an hour. “The poor bastard has been out there all night, alone.”
“No,” Keene said.
“We’re going back,” Graham said.
“How far can it be?” the cameraman added. “An hour. Two at the most.”
“Thirty seconds would be more like it,” Keene said smugly.
Then Graham saw the Indian coming out of the trees carrying what appeared to be Mayor Benyon’s hunting jacket. Something came to life in Graham’s stomach, grew claws, and tried to dig its way out. “What happened?” he shouted.
“There’s only one explanation,” Keene answered, bringing his rifle to bear on the Indian.
But Yeba Kah paid no attention; he kept on coming, holding out the jacket as if it were a sacrificial offering.
“Let’s hear what he has to say,” Jarman told Keene. There was a dangerous edge to the cameraman’s voice.
Keene glanced at the man. The star’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He licked his lips, then lowered the rifle.
Yeba Kah dropped the jacket at Keene’s feet. It was sodden with blood.
“The mayor is dead,” the Indian told them.
Jarman’s head snapped around as he gazed toward the low mound of rocks that now marked the place where Marilyn and Sid Norris had been buried.
“There’s nothing to be done,” Yeba Kah said. “For him, or any of us.”
Keene jabbed his rifle into Yeba Kah’s stomach. Air wooshed out. The man collapsed into the snow, where he curled into a ball.
“Our soft-hearted mayor makes a special trip in the middle of the goddamn night to release you”—Keene kicked the gasping Indian—“and what kind of thanks does he get?”
Distinctly, Graham heard the safety catch click off Keene’s rifle.
“Tonto here had better start talking,” Keene muttered. “Otherwise, it’s the happy hunting ground for him.”
Yeba Kah answered haltingly, each word obviously painful. “I did not kill him.”
Keene aimed his rifle. “Where is his body?”
“The Devil’s Breath.”
“Where you pushed him, no doubt,” Keene snapped.
“For Godsake,” Graham half shouted, “let him speak.”
“Move back,” Keene ordered. “A bullet’s the only thing he’ll understand.”
“Look at him,” Jarman hissed. “Does he look like he’s killed anybody?”
Bloodshot eyes dominated Yeba Kah’s tortured, weary face.
“Well,” the cameraman demanded, “does he?”
The rifle waivered in Keene’s hands.
Graham bent over the Indian. “Tell us what happened.”
“I don’t really know.”
“What did you see?”
“Nothing. Only the mayor saw what happened. It was his death.” Yeba Kah trembled. “Koshari’s justice is terrible.”
“You’re crazy,” Keene blurted.
“Koshari knows each man’s fear,” Yeba answered.
Keene’s head jerked up to scan the sky.
“We can’t stay here,” Graham said, hearing awe in his own voice. He helped Yeba Kah to his feet. “Lead us back to Moondance.”
Keene scowled. “We’d be crazy to trust him. A rifle slug in his guts will put an end to our troubles.”
“You can’t kill the Great Spirit.”
“The only spirits I believe in come in bottles. But it’s not a drink I need, but breakfast.”
Jarman said, “I could eat a horse.”
“How about a burro?” Keene replied, pointing in the same direction from which Yeba Kah had come.
There, not more than fifty yards away, stood the three burros, Katie, Alfie, and Clyde, contentedly nibbling at a young spruce.
“Katie,” Graham called enthusiastically. At the sound of his voice, she raised her head and looked his way, while continuing to chew soberly.
“Our food,” Keene murmured. Without preamble, he raised his rifle and snapped off a shot. Alfie and Clyde took off at a dead run, but Katie stumbled, then crumpled to her knees, braying pitifully.
“I got it,” Keene yelped as he fed another round into the breech of his .30-06.
Graham swung his hook at the rifle, smashing Keene’s trigger hand. As the weapon fell into the muddy snow, Graham was already running toward the wounded burro. But his high-speed approach panicked her. She began thrashing in the snow in a desperate attempt to get up. He immediately slowed to a walk. “It’s all right, girl,” he called to her. “It’s only me.”
After a moment her struggles weakened, but she continued to bleat. The w
ound didn’t look too bad. The bullet had ricocheted off a metal harness stud before gouging a piece of flesh from her shoulder.
He halted a yard or so from her bared yellow teeth. There was no squirting of arterial blood, only a steady ooze. So, unless she’d broken a leg in the fall, Katie had a chance to survive.
Slowly, so as not to frighten the burro, he took hold of her halter and was about to try righting her when the others arrived.
It was Jarman who now carried the .30-06. But Katie was in no danger from the rifle, because its muzzle was clogged with mud.
“You shot the wrong one,” Jarman said, while Graham loosened the straps on Katie’s pack and then eased off the sleeping bag containing the sheriff’s body.
“How was I to know which one had the food,” Keene said. “I took the easiest shot.”
“Even the beasts of burden are protected by Koshari in this, His high country,” said Yeba Kah. He patted the burro before helping Graham coax the animal to its feet.
“We’ll have to eat the donkey,” Keene said.
“No,” Graham said. “The burro goes back with us.”
“If we don’t get back soon,” Keene answered, “you’ll change your mind.” He grabbed hold of Yeba Kah and asked, “Which way to town?”
The Indian pointed toward the southwest, the same direction that Keene had suggested earlier.
“You’ll never get there,” the Indian warned.
35
“THESE MOUNTAINS are alive,” Boyd Jarman said. “I can feel it.”
Nobody answered. No doubt they were saving their breath. And who could blame them? Jarman thought. Everything had gone against them. First, it had snowed and damn near froze them all to death, and now the sun had come out with summertime vengeance.
The cameraman unbuttoned his coat. Keene’s .30-06 felt like it weighted a hundred pounds. Not only that, Jarman’s legs ached from having to propel his mud-covered boots.
Visions of cold drinks flooded his mind, drowning his thoughts of Marilyn. He was struggling with his conscience when he heard the sound of running water. Thirst was upon him instantly.
“Hold it,” he croaked to the others. “I need a drink.”
Without waiting for a reply, he loped toward the stream-sound. The creek was surprisingly narrow for the large, delightful noise it produced. It ran along a narrow cut, deep enough to hide it from sight of anyone following the trail.
Moving sideways to keep his balance, Jarman slid down the steep bank to the water. The creek wasn’t more than a yard across. He unclipped the canteen from his belt and plunged the water bottle into the icy stream. His fingers went numb on contact with the water.
Then he drank until his teeth ached with cold. After that, he plunged the canteen into the stream again, watching it fill as intently as if his life depended upon it.
And then he saw it, a reflection on the water. A cloudy eye staring at him. A milky, cataract-covered eye. He shuddered at its blindness.
When he shook his head, the white orb disappeared. In its place were two bloody eyes, sockets really, like those of the elk that the Indian had skinned.
The cameraman dropped the canteen in order to have both hands free.
Whatever was casting the reflection had to be close behind him. He pivoted to peer up the short embankment. And there, standing above him, he saw his nightmares come true.
A whimper of terror rushed from his throat as he raised the .30-06 to his shoulder.
******
Jack Graham didn’t have time to react. He had become nothing more than a captive spectator, a frozen witness to the bloody specter.
He’d been standing on the embankment directly behind the cameraman, so he saw the daytime moon, full and looking like a pale white marble, reflecting clearly in the water.
As Graham saw this, Yeba Kah started down the bank toward the cameraman. The Indian hadn’t taken more than a step when Jarman’s head jerked around.
The expression on the cameraman’s face was beyond horror, beyond sanity. What the man saw, or thought he saw, Graham couldn’t guess. But it certainly wasn’t the Indian, who now looked no more dangerous than a worn-out old man.
Yeba Kah paused in midstride. He, too, must have seen the cameraman’s wild stare.
Graham opened his mouth to shout a warning as Jarman brought the rifle to bear, the same weapon that had a mud-choked barrel. The explosion, as muted as it was, smothered his yell.
Concussion knocked the rifle from Jarman’s hands, yet somehow the bullet had managed escape velocity. The impact flattened Yeba Kah against the rocky embankment, where he lay pinned momentarily like a collector’s specimen. Then he slid down into the stream, his body briefly damming the flow.
He struggled weakly to keep his head above water.
While that was happening, Jarman was clawing at his blackened face. “I’m blind,” he cried. “I’m blind.” Then, crablike, he scuttled up the bank and started running.
Graham came to life and rushed to help Yeba Kah, whose neck muscles had played out, allowing his head to dip beneath the water’s surface.
Graham fished Yeba Kah’s head from the icy stream, then grabbed hold of the Indian’s arms and tried to pull him from the water. But the ground was slippery.
Graham needed help. “For Godsake, Keene, where are you?”
The Indian’s mouth opened. Instead of words, water coughed out.
By now, Graham was soaked and shivering. Yeba Kah’s sodden buckskin was turning red with blood escaping from the wound in his chest. A rosy froth bubbled over his lips.
“Take it easy,” Graham said. Instantly the words sounded foolish. Was that the best comfort he could offer a dying man?
The coughing subsided. “Cold,” the Indian said. His breath rattled. “So cold.”
Graham renewed his efforts to get the man out of the stream. But he was heavy and waterlogged.
“Keene!” Graham shouted. “I need your help.”
There was no reply.
Yeba Kah raised his head; his body trembled with the effort. Veins stood out on his neck like taut strings. He made a sucking sound as if he wasn’t getting enough oxygen. “They,” he gasped, “the others are Koshari’s now.”
The neck strings went slack. His head flopped against Graham, who thought the Indian had died until the next words came. “I’m sorry. I wanted to help you. I owed Lew that much.”
A distant shriek, a sound so cutting it scraped along Graham’s spine, punctuated the apology. So abruptly was the cry terminated that the resulting silence became unbearable.
Graham had to fill the void. “What was that?” he asked. But he was thinking, who was that?”
“One left,” Yeba Kah whispered. “And he is as good as mine.”
“Yours?” Graham sighed. The truth suddenly seemed so obvious: Yeba Kah was completely mad, a man who saw himself as the reincarnation of some avenging Indian god.
Graham shook his head. “It’s been you all along. Only you made a mistake. You got yourself shot. You must have thought the rifle would kill Jarman, not you.”
The Indian’s lips curled back to reveal snow-white teeth. “I did nothing. Koshari used me until I no longer served his purpose.”
“Tell me the truth before it’s too late.”
Yeba Kah shuddered. “The truth? You don’t want to believe it.”
“I’m not like the others. I want to understand. Why have you killed them?”
“I haven’t killed. My job was simple. I had to help you, all of you, see Koshari.” The rosy froth intensified around Yeba Kah’s mouth. One hand fluttered at his neck as if trying to get at something.
Beneath the buckskin shirt, Graham found a thin leather pouch that looked very much like the medicine bag that had been nailed over the doorway of his house. Inside was a soggy powder. “Peyote?”
“Yes,” the Indian wheezed. “And other things. A mixture of sacred herbs once used by the shamen of my tribe to open their minds to receive the Grea
t Spirit.”
Graham didn’t understand. “Do you want some now?”
Yeba Kah coughed, then panted before being able to continue. “I gave it to the hunting party . . . to you also. I slipped the sacred medicine into your water.”
Graham’s left hand went to his canteen.
“It will open your mind. Soon you will see Koshari. You will see him and suffer the fate you fear most.”
“No,” whispered Graham. “You’ve been using the drug to weaken us, to make us vulnerable so that you could kill us one at a time. It has to be that.”
“Young Graham, you are not listening. I am speaking the truth. I would not raise a hand against you, not my hand. Whatever happens, it is Koshari. Never me. This is Koshari’s place.”
Yeba Kah. clutched at Graham’s arm. “Believe me,” said the Indian, “I have obeyed Koshari, nothing more. As for you, I am sorry.”
A fit of coughing so weakened him that all color blanched from his face. It was as if the redness of his skin had leaked away with his blood.
“What about the town council?” Graham asked.
Yeba Kah fingered his medicine bag. “I added the sacred herbs to their well water.”
“And the first TV crew?”
“The same as with you, in their canteens. They had guns as well as cameras.”
“No.” Graham sucked in a deep breath. “When you die, it will stop. There will be an end to the killing.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I . . . I have not seen your Koshari.”
“Your turn will come.”
“Why? What have I done?”
“Killing must be done only for food or shelter. To kill for pleasure is taboo.”
“I haven’t killed,” Graham said. It came out as more of a plea.
“You allowed the hunters to use your land. You stood by and did nothing to stop them. In Koshari’s eyes, you, too, share the guilt.”
“I won’t believe it,” Graham cried.
“Talk to Koshari.” Yeba Kah coughed. “Pray to him. Maybe . . .” That was as far as the Indian got before he died.
