Legion
Southern Watch, Book 5
Robert J. Crane
Legion
Southern Watch, Book 5
Copyright © 2016 Revelen Press
All Rights Reserved.
1st Edition
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Prologue
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
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10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
Author's Note
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Other Works by Robert J. Crane
Mark 5:1 And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes. 2 And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, 3 Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains: 4 Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. 5 And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.
6 But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him, 7 And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not. 8 For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.
9 And he asked him, What is thy name?
And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.
Prologue
Yavapai County, Arizona Territory
1907
Franklin Dewitt was not a man prone to caution. When it came to charging in or hanging back, he was in up to his neck before you could say boo. He was fully aware of this fact about himself and had long ago reconciled himself to it. During the Spanish-American War it had been muchly to his credit, carrying him up Kettle Hill with Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders.
Now, a few years later, it had carried him through the long, dry deserts of Arizona and into a red canyon where he’d spent the last week digging with his partner, excavating their way through tons of rock that they hauled out of a cave by hand, sweating in the summer heat as they tried to find what they’d come here to make their fortunes on.
“Gall-damn, it’s warm,” Arthur MacFee said, sweat rolling down his unshaven face. MacFee’s upper lip was covered with a good mustache, but the rest of his cheeks and throat was catching up fast after all these days in the wilderness on their hunt. The taste of old beans was a familiar fixture on Franklin’s tongue by now, that and rough jerky they’d bought in Flagstaff when they’d gotten off the train before heading south.
“Just like every other day.” Franklin looked over at Arthur with a grin. Arthur was most assuredly the opposite of Franklin in nearly every way. Franklin had heard it said that this reason was why they were such a good fit, the two of them. Arthur wasn’t a coward by any means, but the man was cautious, feeling it was always better safe than sorry. Choosing routes for travel between the two of them was practically an adventure on its own—where Arthur would say, “It’s too steep, let’s go around,” Franklin would already have leapt off, dragging his screaming horse behind him.
“The days are getting mighty long, too,” Arthur said, mopping at his face with a soiled handkerchief. He’d washed in the nearby stream where they made their camp only last night. Franklin had watched him, bent over the cold, clear water, wringing the cloth out over and over with a brow furrowed in dissatisfaction. “Hotter and hotter.”
“That is what summer does to them, generally.” Franklin just kept a-grinnin’.
“Well, it can just go ahead and stop any time now,” Arthur said, balling up the handkerchief and shoving it back in his pocket. He stood, announcing his intent to return to work.
Franklin got up as well; it wouldn’t do to be idle while Arthur was working. Resentments tended to build that way, and Franklin liked keeping things between the two of them on a real even plane. It was probably why they’d been able to work together so well after all these years, that fair division of labor between the two of them. Franklin went out of his way to try and keep things even-steven between them.
Arthur sighed, his mustache askew from his wiping, all the bristles running to the left. Franklin knew he’d developed something of a beard at this point as well, but he hadn’t seen it even in the creek. The water ran too fast down there.
Franklin hurried to lead the way back into the cave where they were digging. Arthur sighed, lagging behind him and letting Franklin get out in front. They’d hung lamps every few feet to give them some light to work with. The cave was a natural formation, but it’d been blocked up real good less than twenty feet in. The rough walls bore marks that had been aged away with time and weathering and maybe even the efforts of man to destroy them. The marks were those of the Indians, or maybe even someone before the Yavapai tribe came to this area. Franklin wasn’t sure, but he knew what he was looking for, and they were getting mighty close, he reckoned.
Arthur went to work with his pickaxe next to Franklin, and they pulled their bandanas up as the dust filled the air from their efforts. Whoever had blocked this cave had done it proper, big rocks all piled up so that not even air could pass through. It didn’t look natural at all to Franklin, no sir, it looked like purposeful work, like someone meant to hide something here in this cave. That was what he was counting on, anyway. Why, he and Arthur had come all the way from Missouri on that very assumption.
“Gall-damned dust,” Arthur complained again, eyes wrinkling around the edges as he squinted, the lamp catching the particles of broken rock that were drifting in the cave atmosphere around them from their labors. He stopped and wiped his eyes with his sleeve, which was not nearly so recently clean as his handkerchief. He paused, looking at Franklin through narrowed eyes. “How does this not bother you?”
“Why, it does bother me.” Franklin kept tapping away at a small rock with his pickaxe. It finally shattered under his steady efforts, and he scooped up four handfuls of stone, throwing them back into the wooden barrow behind him that they used to cart the detritus of their dig to the surface for dumping. “I just don’t moan about it all the time.” He said it good-naturedly enough that Arthur just grunted and turned back to his work.
The steady tapping of the pickaxes was a maddening sound, Franklin supposed, if one were predisposed to be driven batty by it. It didn’t really bother him, though Arthur had complained often enough about them that Franklin was certainly aware of the noise, the echo down the long cave toward the bright sunlight above. Even down here in the canyon, the Arizona sun beat down hard during the hours it was overhead. He couldn’t rightly recall seeing the sun brighter anywhere he’d ever been, save perhaps in Cuba, but the thin air in this part of the world was very unlike t
hat heavy, tropical place.
“Oh,” Arthur said, as a rock shattered beneath his labors. He turned his head and spat, and Franklin knew by experience that it was due to his mouth being utterly filled with the dust that hung in the air. It was thick and chalky, and he himself spat what felt like a thousand times a day trying to get rid of it. Arthur stopped and was staring in intense concentration at the place where he’d been striking only a moment before. “I think I—why, yes, I did—I broke through, Franklin.”
Franklin straightened up, nearly dropping his pickaxe as Arthur’s words echoed through the cave’s cool darkness. The heat of the Arizona summer didn’t quite reach down this far, though he could feel it making an attempt at the back of his collar, a little breath of heat. He shuffled in the darkness, pulling the nearest lamp hung on the cave wall off its hook and making his way over to Arthur, who was stooped over and running his dirty fingers over what appeared to be a gap in the rocks in front of them.
Franklin knelt down and looked, lifting the lantern and trying to position it. Arthur took a step back out of his way, plainly content to let Franklin go first, once more. Franklin peered into the gap, trying to discern whether or not there was another rock hiding back there, perhaps wedged beneath the ones above so tightly that he just couldn’t see it. The lantern shone through, though, and it looked like nothing but darkness in the gap that Arthur had created.
“Well, dang,” Franklin said, staring into the black. “I think you did it.”
“We did it,” Arthur said, inching up behind him and placing a dirty hand on his shoulder. He knelt down just behind Franklin, and Franklin could feel his warm, fetid breath on the back of his neck as Arthur peered into the dark himself. “Well, this might just be it.” Franklin looked back and caught his compatriot’s more cautious grin, and by mutual accord they immediately went back to work.
They worked without a break, without hauling away the broken rock, just focused on tearing up the last obstacles between themselves and the darkness beyond the rock wall. They did not speak, barely even spat the chalky rock dust out, as though they feared somehow that any noise might cause another wall of rock to fall and block their efforts.
It took most of the day, and by the time that Franklin looked back to see the mouth of the cave turning red with sunset, they’d cleared enough of a space for a man to squeeze through at the top. Franklin ran his fingers over the cave roof and found it appropriately rough. Bringing his palm down to the top of the rock wall that remained between them and the open darkness ahead, he paused. There was no air stirring, and they had not once felt any breeze in their faces as they worked to clear their new path.
To Franklin, that suggested this cavern was utterly sealed off, no hidden chimneys that might lead to the surface, no spur routes that would let an animal sneak in, nothing. He sniffed; beyond the scent of the rock dust was nothing but still, stale air.
He looked into the dark, through the little window they’d carved. “I’m going in,” he decided.
Arthur just sighed behind him. “That doesn’t seem wise. What if the roof caves in?”
“You felt it, didn’t you?” Franklin asked. “The ceiling of this cave has been standing just like it is for thousands of years, maybe longer. All this,” he indicated the remainder of the barrier between them and the darkness ahead, “was put here, it didn’t collapse. If the ceiling’s going to come down now, I reckon it’s just my time, and there’s nothing for it.” He grinned again.
Arthur sighed once more. “I’ll wait here.”
“Bully for you, then.” Franklin didn’t even wait for a reply; he plunged through the gap in the rock, wriggling his way through. The last two buttons of his coat caught and tore free on the rough rock below as Arthur let out a sound of disapproval mingled with worry. Franklin wormed his way through, writhing against the places where his hips caught the sides of their carved entry. With a last ripping of fabric, he dropped, landing clumsily on his hands on the dusty cave floor and thumping his head on a poorly placed stone.
It felt like someone had thrown a boulder against the top of his head, maybe dropped one on him from the top of the canyon. His vision went wavy, and the darkness flashed with red and amber as Franklin clutched at his head. Warm liquid trickled between his fingers, and he could feel the parting of the skin, a little crevice an inch long that had carved its way into the crown of his head, a river of blood overrunning its banks.
“You all right in there?” Arthur called. There was a clink and light shone in. Franklin looked up to see his lantern shoved into the ovoid hole he’d just crammed himself through. Thank you, Arthur.
“Just landed a bit poorly,” Franklin said, mopping the blood with his sleeve as his vision cleared. He stood and grabbed the lantern by its wire handle, swinging it around slowly in the dark.
Dark was all there was ahead of him, nothing but blackness as he stood there, peering into its inky depths. He blinked a few times, but that didn’t help. The pain in his head was not receding much, persisting as a reminder not to take his own skull for granted.
“What are you going to do?” Arthur asked tentatively. “You going to come back so we can dig out the rest—”
“No.” Franklin shook his head, making it feel like he’d loosed a rock slide inside, and every boulder hurt as it moved. “Just hang on. I’m going to go take a look around.”
“I won’t dig while you’re gone,” Arthur said. “Don’t want to cause a cave-in.”
“Why don’t you just lay your worrying head aside for once and come join me in here, Arthur?” Franklin asked as he took his first step forward.
“I … well …”
“Yeah, you give it some thought,” Franklin said, easing forward again. He could see the outline of the cave itself around him, the light from the lantern giving off just enough illumination to allow him to see a few steps ahead. He peered at the uneven footing and took each step carefully. “I’ll be back before you finish thinking it over.”
Without waiting for Arthur to answer, Franklin started taking longer, more ambitious steps. Letting the light guide him, he swung the lantern back and forth in front of his face. The stone walls of the cave were a light red in this light. It reminded him of a small town they’d passed through on the way here, situated in the end of a long canyon with red rocks all around it.
His boots scuffed along on the dusty floor, the cool air prickling at his skin up his back and around his shoulders. Franklin licked his dry lips and kept steadily on, the cave widening into a larger chamber ahead. He listened, but could not hear anything except the faint drip of water somewhere ahead.
The cave widened into a larger circular chamber, lines of strata in the rock making it look like it had been shaped by a pottery wheel. Franklin leaned close to the nearest wall and frowned as he traced a bare hand over the rock wall. He felt the bumps beneath his fingers, so different than the tunnel he’d been working in up until this point. He brought the lantern around slowly and saw half a circle of the chamber illuminated and something sitting right in its center.
Franklin’s breath caught in his throat. The lantern’s handle creaked as it swung gently from his movement. He eased closer to the center of the chamber, the lamplight casting the object at the middle in brighter relief. The other side of the chamber was visible now, smooth and stratified like the one he’d just examined; the whole room was only twenty feet across, but his attention was entirely on the centerpiece.
“Arthur!” Franklin called toward the gaping darkness through which he’d come. He did not look back to see if Arthur was making his way through the gap. “I think we found it!”
Arthur did not answer, and Franklin did not wait for his reply. He moved closer to the center of the chamber, where a pedestal stood, just as shaped as the rest of the chamber, with its smooth lines as it extended out of the floor. He had a suspicion he knew what kind of power had shaped this cave to its purpose, and it caused his stomach to quiver.
Atop the sm
all pedestal of red rock sat a vase. Franklin stared at its utterly smooth sides, its very plain clay construction. A breath escaped his lungs quietly as he crept closer, now less than a foot away. This was what they’d been tunneling for, what they’d been looking for. Franklin took his free hand and let it creep down to the chain around his neck. He pulled up the crucifix hidden beneath his shirt and ran his fingers over the smooth silver, then brought it up to his lips and gave it a quick kiss before letting it fall, this time landing outside his shirt.
Franklin licked his lips dryly once more, wishing he’d brought his canteen through with him. “Arthur …” he called, but there was no answer.
He looked back, just once, and saw nothing from down the tunnel. No light, no sign of Arthur in the distance. He’d probably gone back to the creek to refill the canteens, ever-practical Arthur. It wasn’t as though they had cause to worry, after all. This was just a vessel, just a clay pot that was worth a lot of money to the right buyer.
Franklin didn’t fully believe that. He never had, and neither had Arthur. He peered at the vase, deciding what to do. Franklin never allotted too much time for a decision. He simply didn’t believe in pondering, because the first course of action was almost always the right one, he’d found. The snap decision turned out to be better in hindsight than the carefully considered one, at least in his experience.
Franklin flexed his fingers in the cool air and set the lantern at his feet. There was a clatter as its metal bottom clanked against the circular grooves that lined the chamber from floor to ceiling, extending out in perfectly symmetrical circles from the pedestal. The lantern rattled as it found its balance, and Franklin shed his coat. It was old and worn, had seen more miles than he cared to consider. It was due for replacing in any case, and for now it would serve him better than trying to climb back out to get a blanket with which to lift the vase from its resting place.
Legion (Southern Watch Book 5) Page 1
