Riders on the Storm

by Rob Blackwell

  Jules eyed him, letting that smile back onto her face.

  “I couldn’t help but notice that you used the present tense,” Jules said.

  She slid an arm around his waist, but made no move to kiss him. At least he didn’t pull away this time.

  “That’s something else I realized,” he said. “When this is over, I’ll write to Deborah and tell her—”

  “’Sorry, dear, but I’m in love with the outlaw that stole from me and my family?’”

  “That I can’t be her husband because my heart isn’t free,” Will finished.

  “That does sound better,” Jules said. “So why are you refusing my advances?”

  “Because this isn’t permanent either. I have to go back to the Army, Jules. And you—”

  “I’ll get hung if I go back,” she said.

  “Perhaps.”

  “What if you didn’t?” Jules said. “What if you rode the prairie with me? It’s not a bad life, Will. It truly isn’t.”

  She expected him to reject it immediately, but she could see the temptation on his face. God, but what a power she had over this man, without ever realizing it. He was almost willing to give up everything for her. But almost was the operative word.

  “No, Jules,” he said after a moment, shaking his head. “They’d hunt me as a deserter. I need—”

  She put a finger on his lips.

  “Okay,” she said. “You need to leave. I can’t come with you. But is there any reason we can’t enjoy each other’s company now?”

  “It wouldn’t be right.”

  “Who cares about that?” Jules asked. “I’m a fine one to give this lecture, Will Starling, but it occurs to me you spend too much of your time living the way someone else wants you to do. You joined the Army because of your father. You’re here guarding this town because of me. What do you want to do, Will? If right or wrong didn’t enter into it, what would you do?”

  The look in his eyes said everything. She wanted desperately to kiss him, but didn’t want to be rejected twice.

  “Did you love me, Jules?” he asked. “Was all that a lie too?”

  She didn’t even want to think about the question.

  “Does it matter?” she replied. “What matters is that in the eyes of the law, we’re still married.”

  “Actually, my father got it annu—”

  “Shhh,” she said, putting her finger on his lips again.

  “We’re just a married couple, facing almost certain death,” she said. “We’re running out of time. I don’t care about wrong or right or your parents or my father or any of it. Right now, all I want is to be with you. The question is—what do you want?”

  He didn’t respond with words. Instead, he pulled her in for a long kiss, which was answer enough for her.

  After a moment, she got anxious to do more than kiss. He made no objections when she gently pulled him to the floor.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “I know not what path she will take. I cannot see past her choice.”

  — Attributed to the Lady of Shadows, 1861, excerpted by Terry Jacobsen, “A History of the Supernatural,” 2013

  The rumble of thunder came just after midnight, awakening many of the townsfolk inside the church.

  Jules wasn’t one of them. She was sitting on the altar, her guns strapped to her sides and waiting. The dalliance with Will had done what Miranda suspected. She’d calmed down, but not enough to even attempt sleep. She knew what was coming.

  Once again, she wondered what had taken so long—why the Vipers hadn’t come at them faster after delivering their warning. Waiting until nighttime she understood, but this seemed to be about something else. It made her nervous.

  Will stood up at the second peal of thunder. Luke walked through the church, turning up the gas lamps and illuminating the mass of waking townspeople on the floor. For a moment, Jules had a grim vision of them as corpses, but it faded a split-second later as many rose to their feet.

  Will stood on the altar, addressing them.

  “I guess our wait is over,” Will said, his tone calm and soothing, as if they’d been expecting the Pony Express instead of a storm full of monsters. “You know the plan. Everyone without a gun heads into the crypt below. Wait there until we give the all clear.”

  As if that was going to happen. There would be no all clear. The Vipers would overrun the church. That was okay, however. She was prepared.

  “All able-bodied men with weapons line up behind the altar into the lines we discussed,” Will continued. “Young men in the front, older men to the back. If you’re confused about where to go, see me. Remember, we don’t fire until they’re close. The silver bullets are tricky. You don’t want to waste them.”

  As people began pressing down the steps into the crypt below, Jules walked to the front of the church. What bothered her most was that she couldn’t see what was coming.

  Barricading themselves in here was a smart strategy, but it left her blind. The storm still sounded a long way off, but there was no way to be sure. She wished she’d cut a view-hole, but she hadn’t thought of it until an hour ago, and Will had stopped her when she tried. She’d just have to wait, something she hated doing.

  Miranda came up behind her and squeezed her arm. “Good luck,” she said.

  Jules turned and hugged her tight.

  “Thank you for doing this,” Miranda whispered into her ear. “We’re going to win. You’ll see.”

  She was gone before Jules could retort or say goodbye. She closed her eyes. Was this what every leader felt like before a battle? She wondered if Custer had felt this way when he sent his men against the Sioux? Had he known what a colossal failure it would be?

  Jules looked back at the men getting slowly into line, watching Will direct them where to go.

  She had a sudden sense that she was forgetting something. She did a mental checklist, running through her plan and several contingencies.

  Everything checked out. She’d just seen Miranda go down into the crypt, and Luke was up near the front by Will. At her suggestion, Luke was second in command. There had been some grumbling about that from several men, which promptly ended when Jules explained how Luke had killed a horde of Vipers attacking a bank. In her telling, Luke had defeated them virtually by himself.

  She noted Dy, Grady, Gus, and most of the others from the saloon. Why was she staring at people, anyway? Surely if anything was missing, it was a strategic oversight in her plan, not a person. There was another deep boom outside. The storm was drawing closer. If something was wrong, she needed to figure it out quickly.

  Everyone was accounted for. Even Phillip, whom she’d been sure would stay at home with his wife, was here. So who was she looking for? All the important men of the town were here. And that’s when she realized who wasn’t. Someone who wasn’t important, at least not to the townsfolk.

  Crazy Pete wasn’t here.

  She realized she hadn’t seen Crazy Pete since early this afternoon. She scanned the church, hoping she was wrong.

  She ran toward the men, searching their ranks. Some gave her a curious look as they readied their weapons, but she didn’t see Pete among them.

  “What’s wrong?” said Luke, who was suddenly beside her.

  “Pete,” she said. “Have you seen him?”

  Luke’s eyes widened maybe a fraction of an inch, but for him it passed for a comical look of surprise.

  Jules ran down into the crypt, the women and children illuminated by a dim lantern. They looked tired and scared.

  “Crazy Pete?” Jules asked. “Has anyone seen Crazy Pete?”

  Some looked confused, others just shook their heads. Jules felt a stab of panic. Miranda approached her.

  “He’s not up there?” she asked.

  Jules shook her head and looked out at the faces before her. She cursed herself for losing track of him. But she’d been focused elsewhere.

  “Where would he go?” she asked. “Where does Crazy Pete like to go?�
��

  Nobody answered. Most were looking at her like she was crazy, no doubt wondering why she cared.

  “Dammit, doesn’t anyone know where he goes?” she asked.

  A voice spoke up from the darkness.

  “He likes to talk to the horses,” a voice said. Jules recognized her as Alice, the prostitute that Duggett had attacked in the street. “I see him at the stables a lot.”

  The horses were gone, of course. Jules had seen to that. She’d let them all go, insisting to the men that they were smart enough to stay away from the storm and could be rounded up later.

  Will walked down the steps behind her.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Crazy Pete’s missing.”

  There was another rumble of thunder outside, this one much closer.

  “I have to go get him,” Jules said, meeting Miranda’s eyes and then Will’s.

  “What?” Will asked. “No, Jules, it’s too late. If he’s not in here, he’s dead.”

  “And if he dies, there goes our chance to save my father. He’s the only one who can lead us to where we need to go.”

  Will lowered his voice to a whisper. “I thought you said we were all going to die anyway,” he said.

  That’s when Jules realized something important. She didn’t, in fact, think they were going to die. She kept telling herself she did, but all the while she’d been making plans, she’d shifted away from expecting certain death.

  “We need him,” Jules said. “It’s as simple as that.”

  “Then I’ll go,” Will replied.

  “No, you will not, Will Starling. If you go, those men break and we have no chance at all.”

  “They wouldn’t be listening to me if it weren’t for you,” he said.

  “Well, but they’re listening now. If you leave, it’ll look like you’re running, no matter what you say. Luke stays too. We can’t afford for all of us to be running around Hell’s half acre looking for Pete when those things get here.”

  She turned to run down the tunnel. If she left now, there was still time to get out through the trap door. If she waited any longer, she wouldn’t be able to risk it.

  Will grabbed her arm.

  “Jules—” he said.

  She met his gaze. He must have read her expression, or by now he knew exactly what kind of woman she was.

  “Be quick and be careful,” he said.

  She gave him a smile, nodded, and pulled away, running down the tunnel. She emerged into Dy’s makeshift storeroom and climbed the ladder to the trapdoor.

  She came up into Dy’s office and ran into the saloon, hoping that maybe Pete was still there. But the place was deserted. There was another large boom of thunder and she ran to the window. At first she could see nothing, but then a flash of lightning split the sky, lighting up the town.

  She gasped. She understood now why the storm had taken so long to get here. This was no ordinary cloud. Another flash of lightning confirmed her worst fears. It was a massive tempest, stretching across the entire horizon. It was the biggest storm she’d ever seen. And it was closing in fast.

  She didn’t have time to think about what kind of power could have sent that here, only that it was going to be a longer and tougher fight than she could have possibly imagined.

  She ran out the door just as the wind began to pick up around her. She ran down the street toward the stables, stopping to look for any sign of Pete.

  But she could barely see and hadn’t thought to bring a lantern with her. She shouted for Pete, but the wind snatched away any sound she made. Even if he’d been close by, she doubted he would have heard her.

  The gale blew in from the south—the same direction of the storm—and she could hear the wooden structures of many of the buildings rattling. Dirt and dust flew in her face, making it even harder to see.

  She stuck close to the side of buildings, trying to use them to block some of the wind. She used the flashes of lightning, which now happened three or four times every thirty seconds, to help guide the way.

  She was grateful there were no Vipers yet. She made her way past several more buildings, finally reaching the stables on the outskirts of town.

  “Pete!” she cried out when she was inside.

  She cursed herself for forgetting a lantern. If Pete was asleep or unconscious, there would be no way to find him unless she happened to trip over him.

  “Pete!” she called again. Outside, the wind became a mournful howl. Any minute, the rain would start, and that would make it even harder for him to hear her.

  She searched stall to stall. If he wasn’t here, she had no idea where to look next. She’d have to give him up as dead.

  But when she got to the third stall, she thought she heard knocking from the one next door. She worried it would turn out to be something banging around in the wind, but when she arrived, she clearly heard another human being with her. It was too dark to see, but she heard someone muttering.

  “Can’t find me here, can’t find me here, can’t find me here.”

  “Pete!” Jules shouted, and heard an anguish cry in response.

  “Found me!” he said. “Found me, found me, found me.”

  A lightning strike illuminated the stables briefly just as a deafening boom of thunder came a second later. The storm was right over them now. But the flash of light still gave her a chance to find Pete, who was curled up in the corner of the stables, his arms around himself. He was rocking back and forth.

  She grabbed his arm and he screamed.

  “Pete!” she hissed, putting a hand over his mouth. “I’m not a Viper. But if you don’t come with me right now, we’re both going to end up as one. Do you understand me?”

  He stopped rocking. She could no longer see him in the dark, but she heard him whisper. “Haven’t found me yet?”

  “No,” she said. “We need to get you back to the church.”

  “Not the church, oh no,” he said. “Bad things happened there. Bad things. People forget but the church remembers. Whispers. I hear whispers of the dead.”

  She didn’t know what he was talking about, but it at least explained why Pete hadn’t followed them inside. He was scared of the place.

  “Which scares you more, Pete?” she asked. “The bad things that the church remembers or the bad things in the storm? Or the bad things in the Maelstrom? You need to choose now, because right now the church is our only hope of surviving.”

  Pete stood up.

  “Church,” he said. “I will go to church.”

  Jules let out a sigh. If Pete had fought her, it would have been impossible for her to take him back by force. Even knocking him out would present practical difficulties. Would she fight off some Vipers while lugging Pete over her shoulder?

  “Great,” she said. “Good. We need to go now, Pete. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  She pulled him out of the stall and into the stable proper. The flashes of light were more frequent, but outside, the rain had started. It came in a sudden downpour. The sound of the rain pelting the stable was louder than the roaring wind.

  They had to get back to the saloon. It was the only way back into the church, short of banging down the door, which was apt to get her shot by accident. She just had to hope they could reach Dy’s place in time.

  She reached the edge of the stable and looked outside. Two more quick flashes of lightning showed her the coast was clear. Once again, she found herself hugging the edges of the building, this time to try and keep herself at least somewhat dry.

  But she might as well have been trying to keep herself from getting wet while swimming in a pond. The rain was everywhere, pelting her from above and the sides.

  With one hand on Pete’s arm, she yanked him along after her. She couldn’t afford to get separated from him again. There was another flash of lightning and the crack of thunder was so loud it left her ears ringing.

  In that brief moment of light, however, she saw that Rita’s place had already
collapsed, done in by the combination of wind and rain.

  She saw something else too, an image that was infinitely more alarming. Something large was falling from the sky. It was just a black blur in the midst of an ocean of rain and she couldn’t be sure what it was. Maybe it was part of a building. She told that lie to herself, but she didn’t really believe it.

  A minute later, there was another flash of light, and this time she saw not one but several dark shapes falling from the sky. She stopped running forward, realizing her plan had to change.

  Another streak of lightning showed her dozens more shapes in the air. Falling wasn’t the right word. The vaguely humanoid shapes had their arms extended and what might have been wings attached to them. They weren’t falling. They were flying.

  When the next flash came, she saw several hit the ground, moving on all fours like dogs straight in a single direction. She could even see flashes of color through the wind and rain. It was their red eyes.

  The Vipers had come—and they were headed directly for the church.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “Mary Fields is better known by her nickname Stagecoach Mary. She never robbed anybody, but she had a penchant for getting into trouble. She was born a slave in 1830 but eventually worked her way to Montana. If rumors are true, she fought off a pack of wild wolves single-handedly with her rifle, and was later fired from her job at a girl’s school because she dueled with another teacher who angered her.”

  — Jessie Berry, “Overlooked Women of History,” 2016

  There were now dozens, or maybe hundreds, of Vipers between her and Dy’s saloon. Jules couldn’t take Pete back that way anymore. Even if she could find a way to sneak past them, it was a huge risk. If a Viper happened to follow her in, it would undermine Jules’ plan—and everyone would die.

  But she was unsure where else to go. Back to the stables? Could she hide after all? It wasn’t exactly the bravest way to weather the storm, but she’d take it if it meant her survival. Besides, Will knew her plan. He could trigger it just as surely as her.