by Doctor Who
Nathan helped Walking Crow and the Doctor to put Martha on the back of Godlove’s wagon, and with the long riders flanking them in an uneasy convoy, the Pawnee took the reins and urged the vehicle out and away from Ironhill. The Pawnee didn’t need to be told twice the urgency of the situation. One look at Martha’s face, the way her pretty features were tight with pain, her skin pallid and sweaty, and it was clear that she would not last the day unless help could be found.
The youth couldn’t take his eyes off her. All he could think of was his own sickness, the horrible grip or the smallpox slowly strangling him.
He remembered Godlove’s arrival, and the sweet relief at awaking the next day whole and well. There was no doubt in his mind that this amazing cure-all device in the man’s possession would save Martha’s life, as it had Nathan’s – but at what cost? Would she, like him and all 115
the others, then be doomed to a lifetime of nightmares ripped from these Clade-monsters? Was it better to die than live on tormented by dreams of other people’s endless wars?
He thought of his father and stifled a sudden sob. Despite Tobias Blaine’s gruff exterior and hard edges, the sheriff had looked after his son, and his sudden death left an aching hole in Nathan’s world.
The boy glared at Kutter’s back as the outlaw rode alongside them.
He felt the pressure of something dense and heavy in his vest pocket, and for a long moment he had to clench his fist to stop from reaching for it. Not yet. Soon, though.
He glanced at Walking Crow. The Pawnee had barely said a word since the girl had been injured, the shock visible on his leathery face.
The man looked as if he had aged ten years in a moment, grim and gloomy with the dark turn of the day’s events.
The Doctor waved his glow-tipped wand over the injured woman, frowning. With a sigh, he snapped it off and put it away. ‘Decay streams in her blood,’ he said to the air, ‘and the wound won’t knit closed. I can’t stop her bleeding.’
‘Venom?’ asked Nathan. ‘I’ve heard of snakebites that don’t heal, but how’d that come from a gun?’
The other man eyed him. Those weapons are like nothing on Earth,’
he said. ‘They’re made only for inflicting pain and for killing.’ The Doctor was bitter. ‘This is my fault. I should have brought the TARDIS.’
‘The what now?’
The Doctor kept talking, ignoring him. ‘Or better yet, I shouldn’t have brought her here at all.’
Nathan reached out a hand and touched the man’s shoulder, feeling a sudden sympathy for the stranger. ‘Doc, if you hadn’t been here, who knows who else would have been ridin’ with the angels right now? Me? Miss Forrest? All the folks in Redwater?’ He nodded at Martha. ‘We’re tough out here in the West. We’re robust, and I reckon Miss Jones is too.’
‘Hope so, Nathan.’ He looked away. ‘I don’t want to lose someone else.’
∗ ∗ ∗
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They rode into the shallow, ruddy-coloured hills and came upon the deserted mining site. It wasn’t much to look at – just a scattering of tumbledown shacks and the remains of some rails fenced in by rough-hewn enclosures, clustered around a square-cut hole in the hillside.
‘There,’ called Walking Crow, pointing out the entrance. He spotted fresh tracks in the dirt from a horse, from where the animal had been ridden up to the cave mouth and then loitered before ambling away of its own accord. He had no doubt that he would find the distinctive spade-shaped prints from Godlove’s boots up around the mine works if he looked for them.
Walking Crow gently snapped the reins on the grey horse pulling the wagon and the vehicle put on a little speed as they approached.
He did it without really thinking about it, acting on a half-formed impulse. The ground rose up either side of the trail, turning quickly into a steep-walled pass.
He sensed someone at his side. ‘What are you doing?’ the Doctor asked quietly.
‘They’ll kill us all as soon as they find Godlove,’ said Walking Crow, and as the words left his mouth he knew he was right. ‘We cannot let that happen. I should have stopped him, but I did not because I was afraid.’ He shot the Doctor a loaded look. ‘You must not make the same mistake I did.’ The wagon was going faster now, rattling down the approach to the mine, the weight of the wooden vehicle giving it pace. He sucked in a breath. ‘Take Martha and the boy. I’ll hold them off.’
‘No,’ began the Doctor, but Walking Crow shook his head.
‘I have heard you speak of these Clades and I understand the great evil they represent. There is war enough already in this land between the white and the red. We do not wish more of it falling from the stars.’ He braced himself. ‘Go, Rides In Night, Brother to Coyote.
Save her. I will stay and answer to the Great Spirit.’
Nathan’s brow furrowed as the Doctor came forward and grabbed his arm. ‘Hey Doc, what’s that redskin doin’? We’re picking up speed.’
He glanced back along the narrow trail and saw Kutter and Tangleleg 117
racing to keep up with them.
‘This is going to be bumpy,’ he said, by way of explanation. ‘Help me with Martha. Keep her steady.’ Hearing her name, the girl blinked awake. ‘Are we there yet, Tish?’ she slurred. ‘Oh, good.’
From the driver’s seat, Walking Crow called out as he grabbed the wooden lever that would apply the wagon’s brakes. ‘Go now!’ The Pawnee gave the lever a hard yank and the wagon’s wheels squealed and groaned. With a sharp, juddering jerk, the vehicle skidded and the rear end swung wide, jack-knifing across the trail leading up to the mine head. The front bar and singletree rig around the grey horse was turned so tight that it tore from its mounts and for a long second the wagon tipped up onto two wheels, before gravity snatched it back and it crashed down on its axles in a cloud of thick dust, blocking the steep-walled pass.
The vehicle bounced on its suspension as the Doctor and Nathan leapt down, taking Martha with them.
Walking Crow saw them
take her, half-running, half-stumbling toward the mine entrance. The Pawnee ducked into the wagon as the two outriders came racing up towards it, sliding to a halt in the churned dust. He heard the telltale clatter of metal on leather and knew that Kutter and Tangleleg had drawn their guns.
Walking Crow fought to still a trembling in his hands and an odd kind of calm washed over him. Ever since he’d had that first inkling of what the fallen star – the Clade – had represented, he had known that this moment would come. The Great Spirit expected him to do what had to be done, and the Pawnee finally put his fears behind him.
Lightning screamed as white fire tore into the wagon, sending out waves of flame to set the wooden panels alight.
Smoke churning all around him, Walking Crow grabbed at a leather carry-roll and tore it open. Inside was a bow and a quiver full of arrows.
Holding tight to Martha, supporting her weight on his shoulder as the Doctor did the same, Nathan twitched in shock at the sound of the Clade guns.
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‘Don’t look back,’ snapped the other man. ‘Take her, get inside.’
The boy did as he was told, hauling Martha into the cool darkness of the mine. Despite what he was told, he chanced a look back and saw the Doctor crouching at the entrance, twisting the collar on his wand contraption. Nathan’s throat tightened as he saw past him, to the makeshift blockade of the medicine wagon. It was afire and burning quickly.
‘Keep going!’ shouted the Doctor. ‘Hurry!’ He aimed the glowing blue tip of the wand at the rocky ceiling and pressed a stud; the device hummed, and in concert there was a sudden and ominous groaning from the timber supports.
Walking Crow burst out of the burning wagon with an arrow nocked and ready. He released it straight and true toward Tangleleg’s head; if he could remove just one of these creatures, then he would double the chances of survival for the Doctor and the others. . .
The shot did not miss. The arrow entered Tangleleg’
s right eye and lodged there, throwing the longrider from his saddle. Walking Crow set a second arrow, but he was distracted as the outlaw got back to his feet, pausing only for a moment to snap off the length of the shaft, leaving the metal head still embedded in his skull.
The Clade gunslingers took aim at the Pawnee and sent him to meet his ancestors.
It began as a rain of dust, then a clatter of pebbles; in seconds the support pillars began to bow and flex, as rocks the size of footballs and bigger dropped from the trembling ceiling. The Doctor switched off the sonic screwdriver and ran as fast as he could down the tunnel, pulling his coat around him as sand and grit rained from above. The ground trembled like a struck drum skin, and with a monumental crash, the mine entrance came down on top of him.
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The rock fall forced a plug of heavy, dusty air in front of it. Through instinct, Nathan dropped to the floor of the tunnel and bent across Martha to protect her. The crash of tumbling stone and snapping wood washed over them and Nathan coughed as his mouth was filled with fines of sand.
The rumble died away and he wheezed and panted. What little light there was coming in through the mine entrance was suddenly gone, and he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. He listened hard, hearing the skitter of settling pebbles and Martha’s laboured breathing. At least she’s still all right.
‘Nathan?’ she said weakly. ‘Talk to me.’
‘I’m right here, Miss Martha, don’t you fret.’ He tried to say it with confidence, but in all truth he was more than a mite afraid. The longriders, then the run from the wagon, the cave-in. . . The youth felt like he’d been one step ahead of the Grim Reaper all the way; and then the girl asked the question he’d been dreading.
‘Where’s the Doctor?’
He couldn’t see her face, but he didn’t have to. The worry was right there in her words, plain and simple. ‘He’s hereabouts,’ Nathan managed, unable to get his bearings in the darkness. He patted the pockets 121
of his waistcoat, looking – for the matchbook he carried. ‘Crow-bait!
Can’t see a darn thing. . . ’
Martha moved and gasped with pain. ‘Here,’ she said, pressing something into his hands. ‘Use this. The screen lights up.’
Nathan ran his fingers over the object. Was it some kind of powder compact, a lady’s little mirror? It seemed like a piece of polished metal, but with a strange texture to it he’d never felt before. He found a hinge and a seam along the length, and opened it. All of a sudden there was light in the tunnel, a pearly white radiance emanating from the object in his hand. Nathan nearly dropped it in surprise. ‘What is this thing?
Glows like a box of fireflies. . . ’ There were raised bumps on one side and a square set above them that might have been made of glass. He pressed experimentally on one of the bumps and the object made a low chirping sound.
‘Mobile phone,’ Martha croaked. Telegraph. . . But no wires.’
‘Mow-Bile?’ He held it close to his face and frowned. He’d seen a telegraph machine in the Western Union office back home, and it was a heavy thing the size of a kitchen table, with a cable coming from it that was as thick as his thumb. He had no clue what this contraption was, but he wasn’t about to question Martha. The poor girl was probably delirious. . .
Unable to fathom any more of the device’s function, he shrugged and used the glow to find a brass lantern lying on its side. He was rewarded with the slosh of lamp oil inside, but without matches to light the wick, it was as good as useless.
Nathan’s frown deepened; how was he going to tell Martha that they were alone now? He swallowed hard. It was up to him, then. He would have to find Godlove, and when he did-Suddenly the light died and he jerked with fright. Nathan tapped the bumps again and it returned, bright enough to illuminate a dark, looming face right in front of him. The face split in a grin and Nathan stifled a yelp.
‘Hello,’ said the Doctor, brushing red dust from his coat and his skin.
‘Ugh. I feel like I’ve swallowed half the desert.’
‘The rocks. . . ’ Nathan said lamely. ‘I saw them falling on you. . . ’
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‘Nah, not me,’ the Doctor replied. ‘Too nimble by half.’ He rubbed his head, sending up a puff of dirt. ‘Did get beaned by a couple of big ones, but I’m fine. A goose-egg and a headache, but otherwise I’m copasetic.’ He knelt at Martha’s side and took her hand. ‘She all right?’ His expression turned serious again.
‘Askin’ for you,’ he said.
The girl drifted in and out of wakefulness. She blinked owlishly.
‘Doctor? Where’s Walking Crow?’
‘He’s gone,’ the Doctor said softly. ‘We’re going on, the three of us.’
Nathan waved the mow-bile. ‘We need more illumination than this.
I scared up an old lantern.’
The Doctor picked up the lamp. ‘This is too new to be a leftover from when the mine was in use,’ he noted. ‘Someone put it here more recently.’
‘Godlove,’ Nathan couldn’t help but sneer when he said the man’s name. Everything that had happened in this whole sorry mess could be laid at the con artist’s door. ‘No good if we can’t use it, though.’
‘No problem,’ said the Doctor. He aimed his wand-device at the wick and it puffed into flame. ‘Let there be light.’ He handed the lantern to Nathan with one hand and plucked Martha’s mow-bile from him with the other. ‘I’ll keep hold of this.’
Nathan looked back the way they’d come, at the pile of red boul-ders blocking the entrance from floor to ceiling. ‘You got a way of making a point, Doc. I sure hope there’s another means outta this rabbit warren.’
The other man hesitated, and took a long, deep sniff. ‘Oh, don’t worry. I can taste fresh air. There’s bound to be ventilation shafts and that sort of thing.’ His lip curled. ‘Of course, if there are other ways in –’
‘Then those trail rats out there are gonna reckon the same sooner or later.’ Nathan jerked a thumb in the direction of the entrance. ‘Guess we better move quick-like.’
The Doctor gathered up Martha in his arms and held her close.
‘Guess we better, then.’
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The teenager had not taken two steps before the Doctor called out to him. ‘Nathan.’ He froze. ‘Are you OK?’
All at once, the heavy little object Nathan had concealed in his vest pocket felt like it weighed a hundred tons. ‘Don’t worry none ’bout me,’ he replied, and walked on into the dark, a halo of flickering yellow light moving with him.
Kutter and Tangleleg dropped from their saddles and moved around the wagon. The flames had taken hold and were swiftly consuming the wood and canvas box. Both men ignored the crashes and chugs from inside the wagon as the fire shattered bottles of Godlove’s medicine.
Kutter paused just for a moment, using his scruffy boot to nudge Walking Crow where the man had fallen in a nerveless heap. The longrider snorted and turned away. The Pawnee would not be getting up again.
Tangleleg stood in front of the rockslide that blocked the mine entrance, and carefully worked the barrel on his gun, twisting it to dial down the diameter of the discharge. He studied the lay of the boul-ders, letting the power inside the pistol do the work, looking for an optimal place to start blasting.
Kutter let a short, negative-sounding buzz flick out from his lips, transmitting a situation report in a blink of noise. Combat engineering sensors warned against using brute power on the stones; moving them or blowing them apart would only trigger other collapses, and it would take too long to excavate the entrance carefully. They needed to find a different means of entry into the mine works. Their objective was in there; they could sense the faint proximity of another of their kind.
The two figures stepped back and began to survey the shallow hill in front of them, their eyes needling as the optic jelly inside them altered and changed. Vision shifted from the realms of normal light towards the infra red, and the hill became a
yellow pyramid of sun-warmed colour.
Tangleleg spotted it first and buzzed out an advisory. There, towards the crown of the hill, was a patch of ground slightly colder 124
than the rest – a chimney perhaps, cut into the mine to let fresh air enter.
Holstering their guns, silently the longriders began to climb up the hillside.
The Doctor saw the light glittering from around the curved passageway ahead of them and had Nathan take Martha’s weight while he gathered up the lantern. ‘Let me do the talking.’ He gave the youth a hard look that showed he would brook no argument, and Nathan returned a sullen nod.
Martha gave a little gasp with each footstep she took, fighting off the raging pain. She was pale and drawn, and the sputtering light of the lantern threw shadows across her pretty face. ‘I’m OK,’ she said, realising the Doctor’s scrutiny. ‘Jones girls aren’t cry-babies.’
‘This’ll be over soon,’ the Doctor promised. ‘Just hang in there.’
‘I got her, Doc,’ Nathan added. ‘Go on.’
He led them around the bend in the tunnel and they emerged inside an open area. The ceiling was low – so low in some places that the Doctor had to duck his head to get past ridges of red rock – but it was broad across the width where the miners must have chipped into the seams of long-vanished iron ore. A ramshackle lift shaft and pulley system sat in the middle of the chamber, thick with cobwebs. It appeared far too dilapidated to be workable, the ropes in coils on the floor, a rusted metal ore trolley wedged in place by fallen stones. The Doctor’s keen vision could make out the gloomy patches of blackness that had to be other tunnels leading to different parts of the excavation. When the mine was at its height, this area would have been full of men digging out the raw ore and hauling it off into the daylight.
Now it was an echoing cavern, empty of life.
Almost empty.
Off to one side was a wooden trestle table surrounded by a cluster of boxes and barrels. The source of the light, another oil lantern like the one found by Nathan, cast a sombre glow that didn’t reach all the way into the dark.
