“Govie?” A soft yet firm voice caught their attention. Govie’s eyes lit up with immediate recognition.
“Sister Mary?”
The nun barely came up to Govie’s chest, but she had a stoutness about her. She had a big, easy smile with a sternness behind her green eyes that made people take to her right off. Sister Mary was an Ursuline nun for the St. Peter’s Mission. When Govie had first arrived in Cascade, Sister Mary had helped convince the bishop to hire her to haul supplies from Nicodemus to the mission. Govie made such a name for herself—facing down Indians, fending off bandits, surviving blizzards and never failing to see her cargo to its destination—that she earned her nickname.
“People treat you like some sort of Negro princess,” Bose said.
“Let me tell you a story about Govie that she’s too humble to tell herself,” Sister Mary said. “One time, the horses got spooked by wolves, and the wagon spilled on its side. Medicine that we badly needed. Govie kept the wolves away until morning, righted the wagon and reloaded it to finish her haul.”
“They probably got a look at her ugly puss, and scattered.” However, Bose’s words lacked the conviction of insult. Govie noticed the slight furrow in the Sister’s brow and the hint of sadness in her eyes. “What’s going on, Sister? You seem mighty worried.”
“Rumors, is all.”
“It got anything to do with what’s ailin’ the town?”
“It seems like we spend too much time covering up the sins of men instead of dealing with them. And innocents pay the price.”
“The bishop?” Bose was quick to ask.
“He doesn’t know much more than me. He thinks he’s helping.” Sister Mary turned back to Govie, but there was something in her eyes. Sadness. Regret. Maybe disgust. “Men and their superstitions, letting their fears get the better of them.”
“What, someone planning on looting the stage of its load?”
“I fear that the stage may not make it to its destination. That’s why I fought to get you back on, over some people’s objections.”
“Where am I taking the cargo?”
“Far away from here. Fort Laramie, Wyoming, if you can.”
That would take them across a lot of Indian territory. The job kept getting better and better.
Govie spent the morning preparing her stagecoach. Overnight, the bishop oversaw the loading of the cargo, free from prying eyes, and with specific instructions that it not be disturbed. She checked the modifications, since he had the coach windows reduced to slits and the doors reinforced, and loaded their provisions. She rubbed the noses of her horses, nuzzling them with her face, stroking them behind their ears the way they liked. Twin black horses, they were her “nightmares.” Hers was a simple belief: take care of your horses, and they will always see you home. Rumor had it that she once clubbed a man near to death for beating his horse.
Bose set his pack atop the stage. Its weight shifted, and it tumbled to the ground, splitting open. A ribboned piece of metal spilled out. Govie retrieved it, but cradled the piece of metal in her hands.
“Congressional Medal of Honor.” Bose grabbed it, tucking it into his pack.
“Is that real?” Govie asked.
“Real enough.”
“How’d you get one?”
“Don’t really like to talk about it.”
“Then why keep it around?”
“A reminder. I rode with the Ninth Cavalry. Those days are behind me, but I don’t want to forget.” He had a deep sense of obligation written into his face. Govie was slow to make friends—she never had much use for them, plus she knew that she was a hard woman—but Bose seemed mighty alright.
“Gray Cloud will be riding ahead of us. You want to ride in back?”
“I’m a good shot. Thought I’d keep you company and ride shotgun.”
“My jug of rye rides shotgun.”
“Then I’ll have to join it.” Bose took a swig, then set it in his lap.
“I’ll make a drinker of you yet.”
They rode in silence, anything they said drowned out by the rumble of the stage, the crunch of leaves and the sound of rocks spitting from under the wheels. They passed nothing except grass and sky, maybe a buffalo wallow or occasional gopher hole. Thoughts of the cargo made them brood in the silence. Govie considered herself a professional, and no amount of curiosity would make her pull the stage over just to take a gander. Bose appeared to be a good man, with more than a grain of sense in his head. Still, the way he fidgeted with his Winchester, the more she suspected that he felt the same unease gnawing at his insides.
“You ever married, Govie?” Bose asked, but she knew the small talk was more to break the tyranny of their thoughts.
“Once. To my late Mason.”
“He probably wished himself to death to get away from you.”
Their half-hearted chuckles failed to alleviate the tension. Govie reached for the rye. “You ever think about hitching up with someone?”
“Can’t do it. The way I figure, the West has too much that I want to see and do. A man’s got to find his own way and be free.”
“You don’t ask much out of life.”
“All I ever asked from life was a full belly, the occasional drink and some companions to share it with.”
“And a good horse,” Govie added.
“Damn straight.” Bose took another swig from the jug, watching the land roll and tumble alongside them. She had the feeling all the rye in the jug wouldn’t soothe their nerves.
Night settled on them, a slowly falling curtain, as they passed through a rocky promontory. Govie had planned to ride the horses to a spot out of the skyline where they could take a decent survey of the terrain before darkness fell. The horses gave a sharp whinny and reared up. Govie snapped the reins taut, but the spooked horses had ideas all their own. The stage overturned. Bose held fast to his rifle and the handrail. The jug of whiskey fell over the side, followed by Govie’s curses. She scrabbled behind the still-spinning wheels of the stagecoach, soon joined by Bose, rifle brought to bear. She drew a Colt pistol, leaning on what she’d learned from hard living: when danger came, your Colt served you better in your fist than in a holster.
“Wolves?” Govie asked, scanning the shadows.
“This happen to you a lot?” Bose asked, trying to upset her, she guessed, to keep her focus off her fear. He needn’t have bothered.
“Check the cargo. Make sure nothing’s broken, but don’t get all snoopy.”
“Where’s Gray Cloud?”
“Around. Trust me, he’ll be here if we need him.”
At first, Govie didn’t notice the silence. She was so intent on listening for what might be there, she didn’t right notice what wasn’t. No rustling of leaves, no chirping insects, not even tree branches falling. It was like the world held its breath waiting for the next move. She had an awful lost-and-empty feeling inside.
“You might want to come see this.”
Negotiating her footing with extreme caution—in part to not interrupt the silence, in part to avoid slipping on the stage or any of its contents—she made her way to the side of the coach. The spill had torn open the door, and the curtain inside had been pulled to one side by Bose. She peered in and saw a little white girl and an old man. Wide-eyed, cheeks dappled with freckles, the girl brushed strands of her red hair from her face. Thirteen, if a day, belied by her haunted, old eyes. Her dress was freshly smoothed and clean, like she was headed to church. She clung to the shadows. Dressed like a gentleman, the frail man, with his scholar’s face and erudite eyes, coughed phlegm into his immaculately groomed brush mustache. He wrapped a cross on a string of beads around his hand, kissing it, then rocked back and forth, praying in some gibberish tongue. Govie couldn’t shake the feeling of something malign and evil.
She spat.
Studying the terrain, she cursed herself for being a fool. Only half-concealed by brush, they were in a bad position: low ground, the perfect place for an ambush. The night fi
lled her with a grave disquiet. Bose must’ve felt it, too, because a low, melancholy song sprang to his lips.
“The Ninth marched out with splendid cheer,
The Bad Lands to explore
With Colonel Henry at their head
They never fear the foe”
The night ripened with sadness. Govie hadn’t noticed before how fine his voice was. He could be in a show or sing in a chorus.
“So on they rode from Christmas eve;
’Til dawn of Christmas day;
The Red Skins heard the Ninth was near
And fled in great dismay.”
Her keen ears detected a sudden rattle of hooves somewhere along the trail. She scanned the surrounding terrain, the hair raised on the back of her neck.
“Get down,” Bose yelled.
Before the old man could move, the sharp retort of a rifle rang out, leaving a spreading red stain sullying his vestments. Govie and Bose hunkered down behind the overturned stage. Shadows leaped from tree to tree. Bose fired a shot close enough to let them know they had been spotted. Moonlight glinted on a rifle barrel. A bullet whipped past Govie’s ear. Bose replied with the roar of his Winchester. Heads emerged from behind rocks and trees, closing in around them. The men, whoever they were, didn’t attack all at once. That meant that something had been taken from them that they wanted back, and maybe this would buy them some time.
“They getting set for a rush,” Govie whispered.
“What are you planning on doing?”
“I’m not going to wait for my bushwhacking.” Govie stood up, her Colt pointed to the earth, and yelled out. “You all too yellow to face me one-on-one?”
Bose pulled her down before the flurry of shots responded. “You’re a damn shade of foolish, woman. You gonna get struck full of buckshot before you’re done.”
“Had to try and draw them out. I’d guess there are five of them—”
“Seven,” Gray Cloud said, making them whirl and train their guns on him. He’d crept in like a carefree shadow. Sometimes there was no accounting for Indians, especially Seminoles. They followed their own unsettling notions.
“Three I think I recognized,” Govie said.
“How?” Bose asked, scanning the darkness.
“Don’t need much light to recognize ugly. The lead gun’s got to be that piece of Boomer trash, Bill Downey.”
“Guess he didn’t take to your ladylike disposition.”
“Two others looked to be the McCarty brothers, Wade and Josh. You can bet if he brought those wild coyotes, the rest are just as ornery.”
“Got a proposition for you, Govie,” a strained, high-pitched voice cried out with the strength of a bruised ego supported by bullying numbers.
“Go ahead with it, then, Bill.”
“We only want your cargo. Make sure it gets to where it’s supposed to. The rest of your outfit can leave without fear from us.”
“And if I say no?”
“It’s not like you have a choice.”
She grew thoughtful when she heard that. They were boxed in but good. “They’re stalling. Probably trying to get in position to rush us.”
“They don’t know what we’re carrying,” Bose whispered.
“You mean the girl?” Govie said. Gray Cloud threw her a quizzical look, but she gestured for him to check for himself. He scampered back.
“That’s no girl,” Gray Cloud said.
“What you say, Govie? We ain’t got all night,” Bill yelled.
“Wait a minute. We talking it over.” She turned to Gray Cloud. “What do you mean?”
“You see for yourself, in the light of the moon.”
Govie pushed the stage, angling the girl into the moonlight. The young girl’s skin grew mottled like that of a corpse, the light revealing flesh torn from her body by her own claws. A feral gleam in her eyes hinted at madness, but she played with her doll without a care in the world. Staring at her made Govie’s insides feel like worms burrowing through a rotted apple. She dropped the stage like it was scalding coffee.
“What the hell is that?”
“Nagual. An animal spirit forced into a person,” Gray Cloud said.
“I heard tell of that,” Bose said. “Mexican farmer spun tales of them ’round a campfire. I thought it was the tequila talking.”
“You mean to tell me this here girl’s been taken over by spirits?” Govie asked.
“Forced. Their true face is revealed by moonlight. Powerful magic’s involved.” Gray Cloud stared at the stage doors.
“What was the preacher for?”
“Keep her still until she got to wherever, I’d guess,” Bose said.
“My men are getting antsy,” Bill called out in a mocking tone.
“You know me, Bill. I’ve got . . . cargo that I’ve been charged with hauling, and I’m going to see it through.”
“ ’Fraid I can’t let you do that. You see, these parts are crawling with red devils. And I aims to see that the cargo finds its way to them.”
Only then did Govie realize that her job was meant to fail, that she was meant to be taken by Indians and the “cargo” to fall into their unsuspecting hands, like a disease-riddled blanket. A Boomer solution to the “Indian problem.”
“Let’s let them have her. Open the door, and let the moonlight take her.”
“When the sun rises, the girl returns,” Gray Cloud said with hesitance in his eyes. They turned to Bose.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Govie,” Bose said.
“If you’re yellow, say so.”
“The only thing yellow about me is my piss, which’ll be in your coffee if you sass me again. I’ll back your play,” Bose said. “She’d distract them.”
“Come and get her, Bill,” Govie yelled. Hearing the snapping of tree branches behind them, she threw open the stage doors.
Govie, Bose and Gray Cloud ducked beneath the stage, their backs to its undercarriage. Wade and Josh McCarty stumbled out of the brush. Wade was a big, raw-boned man with coarse, black hair and a woolen undershirt that didn’t quite cover his powerful arms or his thick neck. It was right smart of Bill Downey to bring along someone large enough to give Bose trouble. Josh, though wiry, was the meaner of the two and had an ugly ruthlessness writ into his face. They charged, strictly cover for the other, encircling men.
Govie started to recite the Lord’s Prayer to herself. The girl leaped from the stage with a snarl. Her lithe body belied the savagery with which she tore into the men. She landed on Wade like a mountain lion, rearing her right hand back, revealing talons that she buried in his throat. Her swipe reduced his neck to ribbons of flesh. The entwined bodies landed in a heap, with the girl burying her mouth in the rictus of his wound, snatching mouthfuls of flesh. She turned to Josh with her gore-stained face, his brother’s body still spasming beneath her.
He had time only to scream.
Govie scuttled across the side of the stage, ignoring the loud, open-mouthed smacks and snapping bones. Bose and Gray Cloud moved out to either side. She heard the boom of a gun once she hit the ground, dirt jumping not an inch from where she landed. A second shot caused a searing pain like a branding iron to jab her in the left shoulder. Warm blood ran down her arm. That arm useless, her right hand belched fire into the night. A man fell from behind a tree. She found herself on her knees, catching a second slug, like a knife wound, along her ribs. A stream of curses followed. She pushed herself up, toward a cropping of trees. Examining every boulder, every tree, she caught sight of Bose turning loose his rifle, a tuneless hum on his lips. The man in his sights fell backward, the bullet blowing away the front part of his head. An unseen gunman fired once at Bose. A second shot soon followed from the same well-hidden position. Then the gun fell silent amidst the brief sounds of struggle. A silent Gray Cloud glided out from between the trees.
Govie stumbled across Bill Downey the same time Bose did. Bill fumbled with his irons, desperately trying to reload them.
“It�
��s over,” Govie said, covering Bill with her Colt. “Why don’t you ride back into town and tell your Boomer friends that your cargo will be hauled off proper, but not ending up in the hands of no Indians.”
“Why don’t you drop your gun,” a man with a shock of blond hair and bushy eyebrows said, his gun aimed square at Bose.
Govie glanced at Bose, then the gunman, then back at Bill. She started to lower her Colt.
A shadow fell upon Bose.
The gunman gave a sputtering cough, raising his gun and firing a wild shot in the air. Bose dove for cover. The man’s shirt bulged, his body dancing in fits at the end of the nagual’s arm. A man rarely surprised, Bose was startled to immobility, but his hands soon recovered their wits.
“Bose, no!” Govie yelled before he could draw down on the girl. Her Sunday-gone-to-meeting dress sprayed with dark splotches, and the moon’s beams fully revealed her queer-colored flesh, like fruit rotting on the vine. Govie turned to Bill with the glare of an avenging seraphim. Bill, sick with fear, opened and closed his mouth. “You—run.”
He recklessly sprang, with both guns bucking.
The creature stared at Govie with cold, penetrating eyes, then loped off into the woods. Govie picked up the nearly trampled doll from the dirt and dusted it off.
Footsteps echoed hollowly on the boardwalk. Batwing doors fluttered as they passed. The odor of stale whiskey mingled with lingering cigar smoke hit them when they walked into the all-white saloon. It grew quiet as a grave. A chair grated on the floor.
“My boys are mighty hungry,” Govie said to the bartender, nodding toward Gray Cloud and Bose.
“Have a seat over there,” the bartender said.
They took a table in the far corner, back against the wall. Facing a sea of uneasy stares, Govie massaged her still-sore arm.
“Something ain’t right. I can feel it,” Govie said.
“Must be them special powers of deduction that you have. Here I was thinking that three niggers in a bar wouldn’t draw any attention,” Bose said.
Voices From The Other Side Page 29
