“Do you have a weapon?” I whispered.
“My hunting rifle.” His voice was barely audible above the falling rain, the scraping steps coming closer and closer. “I’m trying to light a torch—fire is the best defense against the yayhos. They hate the light. But if it isn’t one of them…”
I reached out blindly in his direction, and my fingers encountered the rough length of wood, wrapped in cloth stinking of kerosene. “Give it to me, and get your weapon at the ready.”
He swore softly, but did so, not having much choice. Together the two of us waited in the dark. Had whatever was out there heard us? Was it standing outside even now?
The door swung inwards. Calling out the name of fire, I thrust the torch in the general direction of the interloper.
The torch exploded in flame, blindingly bright after the darkness. I looked—and almost vomited on the ground at what was revealed.
Whatever I had glimpsed before—or thought I had glimpsed—this was no monster. No thing of multiple legs and chitinous joints, of wings and reeking flesh. And yet, it was a thousand times more terrible.
In short, it was nothing more than the missing photographer, Toby Webb. But the way he moved turned my stomach, even before I consciously understood why.
Whatever stood before us retained his face and the general outlines of his aspect. He still wore shoes, but the rest of his clothing was gone, revealing lines of delicate sutures across his hips and arms. His legs bent in the wrong direction, as if they’d been removed and put on backwards. And as he reached to grab me with a ghastly, mewling sound, I saw his left and right hands had been swapped.
I froze, unable to move or think. But Hicks had no such difficulties. His rifle spoke, deafening in such close quarters. The shambling thing with Webb’s face staggered, then collapsed awkwardly, its joints all askew.
Hicks didn’t wait to see if it lived, only grabbed me by the sleeve and pulled me with him. The rain had lessened, and the torch remained lit as we rushed into the open.
I had no idea where we were going, but Hicks did, guiding me with shouts or tugs on my arm. We ran for what seemed forever, until my lungs burned and my side ached. At last, Hicks slowed to a stumbling stop.
“Here,” he said, taking the torch from me. I followed him along the fold of hillside, until we came to what at first looked like nothing more than a tumble of rocks and debris. Bending down, he shifted some of them aside, revealing an opening of sorts, into which he promptly vanished. Not wishing to be left outside in the rain with monsters, I got down on my hands and knees and crawled in after him.
From the inside, the pile turned out to be a lean-to of sorts, which took advantage of a natural crack in the rock to form a shallow cave. The torchlight revealed it to be quite dry, and nicely stocked with food and a small stack of books. A heap of blankets in one corner must have been the bed; I simply sat on the bare earth floor, my knees drawn up to my chest, and hoped the seat of my trousers would survive.
Hicks rearranged the debris covering the entrance, then lit a small lantern, before dousing the torch. The light illuminated his face from below, sparking in his dark eyes and making his features seem even harsher.
“Now,” he said, “who the hell are you?”
~ * ~
My hands shook, and a thousand questions boiled in my mind. I couldn’t stop seeing the horror Toby Webb had become, shambling and flailing. The images Christine and I had examined in the cave took on a new significance, and my stomach turned.
“Wh-what happened? To Mr. Webb?” I asked, dazed.
Hicks glared at me. “Who are you? I saw what you did with the flame!” His hand shifted to rest on his rifle. “Are you some kind of sorcerer?”
“Me? Oh, no! No, I j-just translate old languages. I mean, yes, I know a few little tricks, but nothing more. I’m no sorcerer. Er, my name is Percival Endicott Whyborne.”
“You’re not in league with the yayhos, else they wouldn’t have been chasing you through the woods,” Hicks mused, but his eyes remained suspicious. “Did the Pinkertons send you?”
“No. Certainly not. I came here with my friends to investigate the disappearances and other strange goings-on. Thus far, it seems to me you know more about what’s happening than anyone.” I spread my hands apart helplessly. “So we came to find you.”
Hicks studied me in silence, and the tips of my ears grew hot with embarrassment. How must I look, covered in mud and leaves, my hat gone and my hair sticking up in every direction? Surely, he would laugh at the idea of a man such as myself attempting to thwart creatures like the yayhos.
“This is how it was told to me as a boy,” he said at last. “The Winged Ones came down from the stars—from the Great Bear, some say. They came for the same reason people do today—to mine something they couldn’t get anywhere else.”
“Coal?”
He nodded. “No man knows when the Winged Ones first burrowed into the mountains, but my ancestors learned the hard way to steer clear of them. Hunters came here, tracking game. Sometimes they’d hear things, strange buzzing voices offering them gifts in exchange for working for the Winged Ones. Other times, though, the hunters would return home changed. As if they’d become different people altogether.”
“Like Mr. Orme.”
“Exactly.”
“But why? And why do…what they did…to Mr. Webb?”
He shrugged. “They’re curious. They want to study us. But they also fear us. Before, they’ve gone about their business, sending spies into our midst and taking anyone who got too close, but keeping to themselves, for the most part. Now the railroads have come in, with the town and the mining company, and they fear discovery more than ever. They have to know if the army realized they were up here—and I mean knew for sure, with hard enough proof to convince anybody—they’d be wiped out.”
“Then we must get proof.”
Rider shook his head, black hair gleaming in the lantern light. “Don’t you understand? The yayhos aren’t going to just wait for the army to show up. They’ll do whatever they can to keep the word from getting out in the first place. That’s why I’ve begged Bertie—my wife—to leave Threshold. Before it’s too late.”
My blood ran cold. “Too late?”
“Before they wipe out the whole damn town.” He shivered. “They hate the light, like I said. A few of them will come out when there’s only a weak moon, but most stay underground. But the new moon is in three days.”
God. We had to do something. “If I talk to Elliot—Mr. Manning—perhaps I can convince him to listen to you. We can take Mr. Webb’s body back with us as proof something horrible is going on.”
Hicks hesitated, and I glimpsed longing on his face, before he hid it quickly. No doubt he missed his wife and child terribly. “Come back with me,” I cajoled. “We can sit down and continue this discussion in more secure surroundings.”
To my disappointment, he shook his head slowly. “It isn’t safe out here. But Mr. Orme is the yayhos’ spy. He’ll order the Pinkertons to throw me in jail. I’ll be dead by dawn.”
I wanted to argue, but in truth I couldn’t. “I understand.”
“Convince Bertie to get out of Threshold, if you can. She’ll say she doesn’t want to leave me, but I’d die if anything happened to her.”
“I’ll do my best.”
He reached for the lantern. “Come with me, and I’ll get you back on the path to town.”
“My friends are still out here.” I’d managed to put aside my fear for their safety, but now my heart quickened and my stomach churned.
“We’ll never find them in the dark,” Hicks replied with a shrug. “Come on.”
We left the lean-to, Hicks holding the lantern. The rain had swept away, taking the clouds with it, and leaving behind the thin nail-paring of the waning moon. Even though I knew Hicks was right, I wanted to rush off into the night. Griffin could be anywhere on the mountain, lying injured, cold and wet—
No. As soon as I retu
rned to Threshold, I’d go to Elliot. He’d surely raise a force to men to search. Christine and Griffin would be found, confused but whole—
“Whyborne! Damn you, answer us!”
—or they would find me.
I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Christine! I’m here!”
The lantern light went out. Startled, I turned, but Hicks had vanished.
“Whyborne!” Griffin shouted. His voice sounded rough, as if he’d been yelling my name across half the mountain.
“Here!”
Within a few moments, I caught sight of their lanterns through the trees and hurried to meet them, stumbling over every branch in the accursed forest on the way. Griffin swung down off his horse, set his lantern aside, and ran to meet me.
“I thought they’d carried you off!” he exclaimed, and pulled me to him.
I returned his embrace. He held me tightly, his body trembling. I’d been worried about him and Christine, but it had never occurred to me they might be equally frantic over my fate.
“I’m quite all right,” I assured him. He smelled like sandalwood and wet horse, spiced with gunpowder. “The only thing to carry me off was the damnable horse.”
Griffin let out a shaky laugh, before letting me go. “Thank God. Christine and I were out of our minds with fear.”
“With good reason. I found Rider Hicks. And Mr. Webb.”
“Mr. Webb?”
“Yes. I-I’ll explain on the way to retrieve his…body.”
But by the time we located the old springhouse, no trace remained of the mutilated corpse, save for a few stains of blood.
Chapter 15
“So,” Elliot said slowly, “you’re saying you were attacked by the missing Mr. Webb, who had some sort of terrible surgery performed on him for inexplicable reasons, and the entire town is in danger from creatures from outer space.”
“Precisely,” Christine agreed.
Outside the small building, which served both as Elliot’s office and the company jail, the first rays of the rising sun illuminated the western peaks, although the hollow still lay in darkness. A wren began its morning song, just outside the window. Exhausted as I was, I could not help but resent its sprightly cheer.
The night before, we wandered far from our original course. It took several hours to navigate the steep ravines and unforgiving stones of the landscape, especially since we operated with only the light of our two lanterns. For my part, however, the ride back had been more pleasant, if only because the loss of my horse obliged me to sit behind Griffin on his mount. At first I started at every sound, but once the peeping of the frogs and the grating of the crickets had resumed their usual din, I’d relaxed enough to become aware of the firmness of his backside pressed against the front of my trousers.
Feeling me harden against him, he cast a wink back over his shoulder, his impertinent grin enough to make me wish we were alone. As we were not, I kept my hands quite properly to myself, and merely imagined what I might do to him once we returned to the hotel.
Alas, it was not to be. I’d assumed my horse had come to some misfortune during its mad flight, but the demonic beast had instead made straight for its own stall in Threshold. Upon seeing it return alone, the stable owner had grown worried and raised the alarm. A force of searching Pinkertons, with Elliot at their head, met us on the way down the mountain.
Now it was dawn, and sleep the only thing I felt up to doing in bed. With the maids performing their daily chores, Griffin and I couldn’t take the risk of even dozing in one another’s arms. And of course it had all been for nothing, judging by the open skepticism in Elliot’s voice.
Blast it.
In the chair beside mine, Griffin stiffened. “We all saw them, Elliot,” he said. “This was no delusion.”
Elliot held up his hand placatingly. “Of course. I do not question you saw something.”
“But?”
“But I question what you saw.” He gave us an apologetic look. “It was dark, on an almost-moonless night, in the middle of a storm. That you were attacked I have no doubt.”
“And what do you think attacked us?” I asked, not bothering to conceal my frustration.
“The McCoy gang, most likely.”
“Are you seriously suggesting we mistook a group of bandits for winged abominations?” Christine demanded.
Elliot eyed her warily, as if afraid she might reach over the desk and throttle him. “I mean no disrespect, Dr. Putnam. But in the dark, with the wind blowing, a coat or loose poncho could easily be mistaken for wings. A handkerchief tied across most of the face, in combination with a hat, might give the appearance of a monstrous head. Especially if the idea had already been implanted in your minds by the carvings you found.”
“And Webb?” I demanded. “Or did he run off and turn criminal as you claim the Kincaids did?”
Elliot’s mouth tightened. “I question if it was Mr. Webb in the first place. But even if it was, did he really attack you? Or was he stumbling around in the dark, lost and afraid? As for what happened to him after, of course he ran away once the damn Indian shot him.”
“What about the claw prints on their porch and beneath their window?”
“Those marks could have been caused by anything.”
“Then why would he have left town, to wander about in the woods?” Griffin countered. “He thought he was going to be paid a handsome sum for the photographs he offered us.”
“Unless he didn’t really have any photographs. I didn’t see them, nor did anyone else I’ve spoken to.” Elliot shook his head. “And there is the explanation for your ‘claw prints,’ Griffin. Mr. Webb promised mysterious photographs, which he attempted to fake himself in the mud beneath the window. At some point he realized they weren’t convincing enough, panicked, and fled the town, rather than confront Dr. Whyborne’s wrath at his attempted swindle.”
I closed my eyes, then forced them open again as weariness descended upon me. “You’re determined not to believe us, aren’t you? You have an answer for every argument, and nothing will change your mind.”
Elliot gave me a sympathetic look. “You must admit, it sounds rather incredible.”
I didn’t have to admit anything of the sort. Griffin, however, sighed and rubbed at his eyes. “I know it does, Elliot, but at least consider the possibility something strange happened in the woods last night.”
“I am. And I agree you were certainly attacked. I’m putting a moratorium on anyone leaving the settlement and going into the woods for any reason. It’s simply too dangerous.”
The door to the office burst open. My heart leapt into my throat, and I was on my feet almost without realizing it.
“Sir!” One of the other Pinkertons stumbled into the office, cast us an uncertain look, then focused on Elliot. “It’s Bill Swiney, sir! He’s causing trouble outside the community center—trying to tell the other men not to start their shift!”
“Excuse me,” Elliot said. “I must attend to this.”
We shuffled out, and he shut the door behind us. As he hurried off with the other Pinkerton, I exchanged a baffled gaze with Christine.
“Who the devil is Bill Swiney?” she asked.
“One of the miners,” Griffin murmured, watching Elliot stride away. “Some of the men look to him as a leader. Let’s go hear what he has to say, shall we?”
~ * ~
The community center was easily the largest building in Threshold. What it was normally used for, I had no idea. Weddings? Dances? Traveling entertainers?
At any rate, its whitewashed walls made for a commanding backdrop behind the man currently standing on the stairs leading up to its porch. My height allowed me to glimpse him despite the great press of people gathered round, most of them men dressed for a day of work in the mine, their caps perched on their heads and pickaxes in their grimy hands.
“We can’t ignore this any more! Stotz Mining knows something is going on here!” he boomed, his beard jutting out angrily in front of
him.
“Enough, Bill,” Elliot said. He and a small force of Pinkertons closed in from one side, and I noticed most of them carried visible weapons. A murmur swept through the crowd, mixing fear and anger.
“There’s no conspiracy,” Elliot went on, directing his words at the crowd more than at Swiney. “Just a lot of superstition and wild talk.”
“You lie, and there is the proof!” Swiney insisted—and pointed dramatically at me.
I shrank back as a host of unfriendly eyes swung my way. The nearest men shifted away slightly, grumbling as they took in my disheveled appearance. Griffin and Christine both moved closer to me, and I had the sudden, sickening vision of them fighting to defend me against the mob.
“Would Niles Whyborne send his son here, if he didn’t know there was something wrong in Threshold?” Swiney went on. “People are disappearing and dying, but he’s here to help cover it up!”
“Johnson died right after talking to him!” another of the miners shouted.
“Enough!” roared Elliot. One of his men fired a gun into the air, and the attention of the crowd instantly swung away from me. “You’re a drunken fool, Bill Swiney, as is anyone who listens to you. If I hear another word out of your mouth against Dr. Whyborne, I’ll take it as a threat, and toss you into jail to rot. As for the rest of you, get to work, before you’re late. The company owns your houses, and I will evict anyone who isn’t in the mine or at his station in half an hour. Have I made myself clear?”
Unsurprisingly, the men didn’t like it. A grumble ran through them, and for a moment I thought violence would erupt. Then a few men deserted the edges of the crowd, headed in the direction of the mine. Within a minute, the mob dissolved into a collection of muttering individuals.
Swiney’s eyes narrowed as he focused on Elliot. “This isn’t over, Pinkerton. Our blood has been spilled. Only fair if we get some payback.”
“I’m not your enemy,” Elliot replied coldly. “Nor is Dr. Whyborne. Go to the damned mine, or pack your things. I don’t care which. Just do it now.”
Whyborne and Griffin, Books 1-3 Page 39
