by Hunter Shea
“I can’t say that I did. I didn’t see much need to go digging a hole.”
“Of course you didn’t,” she spat, turning her horse around. “Where did you put it?”
“We don’t have time for this. I want to get you back to your father’s ranch and plant my ass in a bed at the inn before nightfall.”
“Then feel free to run on back to Laramie. I can take care of it myself. Teta, can you please be a gentleman and show me where you left the dog?”
He looked at me, caught between a rock and a hard place. I rolled my eyes, resigned to the fact that our return to Laramie was about to be delayed by a few minutes.
“Follow me,” he said.
The mule at first didn’t want to go, but after a few tugs, we all went back behind the crushed cabin.
Teta let out a loud, long whistle and said, “I’ll be damned. You’re not going to believe this one, Nat.”
I eased my horse between his and Selma’s and looked down.
The dog’s body wasn’t there. In its place was a pile of black, foul-smelling sludge that bore a striking resemblance to freshly sprung oil. A mass of thick-bodied bottle flies had gathered atop the ooze like bathers in a swimming hole.
“You must have put it somewhere else,” Selma said. She brought her mouth up to cover her face and nose. The air was pungent enough to put you off breakfast for life.
“Nope, this is exactly where we dropped it,” I said, pointing at the clump of sagebrush to the right of the rancid puddle. “It slipped out of our hands and dropped into that brush. See where it’s crushed a little. We picked it up and put it down right there.”
“What happened to it?”
“Whatever it was, it happened after we carted it here. I know you think I’m a cold bastard, but I’d never shoot an animal unless I had a good reason. There’s your reason.”
I didn’t add that what was left of the dog was a sight better than the way it had looked back in the house before I put an end to it.
“No sense burying that,” Teta said. He made a sign of the cross, then spit into the center of the oily mess.
“You have any objections to our leaving now?”
Selma stared at what was left of the dog and shook her head.
“Then let’s skedaddle.”
My horse didn’t need any coaxing from me. She spun right back towards the way home and picked up the pace. I had to rein her in a bit so the rest could catch up.
None of us so much as gave Hecla a parting glance as we left the town, passing the bone orchard. Every grave marker was lined with silent, dark crows. Their heads followed us as we rode by the rotted picket fence.
Teta let loose with a fine string of Spanish curses. Most of what I knew of the language had to do with swear words and he’d hit them all. He sneered at the crows and hurled insults their way.
“You shouldn’t do that,” Selma admonished him. I suddenly realized she knew full well what he was saying.
He whipped out his Colt and fired a shot in the air.
The mule gave a strangled whimper and my horse flinched. The crows didn’t even move a feather.
“Bad omen,” I said, just to rile him up. It was easy to do, now that we were leaving. I’m not so sure I would have been so cocky if we were headed in the other direction.
Selma didn’t see my humor, either.
Teta gave one last, “Sucios, hijos de putas!”
The land before us was flat and unbroken for miles. We waded through a narrow creek where the water had been reduced to a thin trickle. There was more dust than water in the creek bed.
I estimated how long it would take to get to Laramie, turn in the horses and leftover supplies, talk Selma’s father down from laying into her for leaving, get a room at the hotel and grab a nice steak. Teta and I would drink ourselves into oblivion and find a train back East tomorrow. Somewhere in there, I’d take a nice, hot bath and wash Hecla off me. If I was really lucky, Selma would be there to wash my back, among other things.
Teta had pulled ahead to take the lead while I daydreamed.
When his horse reared up on its hind legs, whinnying like the devil was about to take a bite out of him, my dream of a soft bed and warm whiskey shattered into a million pieces.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Teta’s horse tried like hell to unseat him but he held on for all he was worth. I was getting in close enough to grab his horse’s bridle and help settle him down when my own horse went wild. As my line of sight went from east to north in a hurry, I heard Selma’s horse cry out.
In fact, all of the horses were clawing at the air and behaving as if they’d lost their minds. I squeezed my thighs as hard as I could and tightened my grip on the reins. It would take a lot more than a little dance to knock me or Teta off. That didn’t mean that the effort to hold on didn’t send fire through my legs and arms.
To her credit, Selma was the first to regain control of her horse. I’m sure they’d been paired up for a good long time and were in tune with each other’s inclinations. It took a little longer for Teta and me to settle our horses down, but we did.
My hat had flown off and the wind had carried it a good twenty feet behind us. I looked down at the disturbed dirt, the surface a mess of wild hoofprints. I got Teta’s attention and pointed.
“What do you make of that?”
There was a solid line of prints that stopped at the exact same spot. “Was there a snake we didn’t see?” he said.
“Snakes leave tracks. There’s nothing on the other side of our prints.”
“Something spooked them,” Selma said. She had dismounted and was rubbing her hand up and down her horse’s muzzle. “I’ve never seen Maria act like that before.”
“Let’s move down a ways and try again. Maybe something’s under the ground that we can’t sense,” I said. The words even sounded preposterous to me. Horses reacted to things they could see and hear, not intuitions.
We skirted the area and went down a couple of hundred feet, putting good distance between us and the spot the horses refused to cross. I told Teta and Selma to move back while I moved ahead.
Again, my horse went plum crazy. I struggled to regain control and when I was done, I felt ready to turn in. The mind was willing but the flesh, well, it was a tad weaker than it’d been in years past.
“We keep this up and I’m going to end up flat on my back,” I said. A Wyoming wind cooled the sweat on my face.
“This is loco.” Teta jumped off his horse and walked over to the spot where my horse had stopped. “If we can’t ride them, we’ll just have to drag them.”
He turned, took a step, and tumbled backwards.
Selma knelt by his side. “Are you all right?” She held his arm and helped him into a sitting position. His eyes were glassy and I could see he was having a hard time bringing things into focus.
“What happened?” he said, his words slurring a bit.
“I haven’t a clue.”
“It was like I was pushed, but at the same time something pinched my head and threw ice water on my brain. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but that’s how it felt. I need a drink.”
Selma grabbed a canteen but he gently pushed it away. I tossed him a bottle of whiskey.
He fumbled and nearly dropped it.
“You are hurt,” I said, concerned by the slight tremor in his hands.
“I’ll be fine. Just need a moment.” He took a long pull from the bottle and wiped his mouth with his dirty sleeve.
“Nat, what’s going on?” Selma said. She stared at the way ahead, her eyes searching for anything that could explain what had happened to Teta and the horses.
“I’ll find out,” I growled, fed up with Hecla and its mysteries that plagued us even when we were fixing to leave. “Teta, you good enough to move on?”
He took a
nother pull and tossed the half-empty bottle to me. “Right as rain, jefe.”
“Selma, I want you and the other horses to keep at least five feet behind us. We’ll move farther up the line and try again.”
I went back to scoop my hat off the ground and we retraced our steps, passing by the spot where we’d first been brought to a halt. This time, we rode for about a quarter of a mile before stopping. I looked up at the sky and figured this little detour meant we wouldn’t get into Laramie until sundown. I’d have to skip that bath.
I whistled to call everyone to a stop. Dismounting, I scanned the ground, looking for a decent-sized rock. I found one and hefted it in my hand.
Cocking my arm back, I lofted the rock. It sailed unimpeded and bounced on the ground with a loud clack.
“That’s encouraging,” I said. “Now let’s see what happens to me.”
“Nat, be careful,” Selma said. One look at her round, tanned face gave me the needed boost to take that first step. Men were always boys just trying to impress girls. I let out a big breath.
Come on, Nat, it’s just walking. You’ve been doing it since you were a baby.
The tip of my boot moved into the seemingly empty air.
A whirlwind of stars and pain came rushing to greet me. I cried out something unintelligible. Staggering on one foot, I did manage to stay upright.
Teta was right. It did feel like something had crawled inside my head and flushed it clean, while at the same time doing its damnedest to break my skull from the outside. Dizzy, I walked uneasily until I could rest against my horse. I grabbed the saddle horn to hold myself up. I didn’t even feel Selma and Teta on either side of me.
“That put a spoke in my wheel,” I said. Teta wafted the open bottle of whiskey under my nose and I took a drink.
“We keep at this and we’re going to run out of whiskey,” he said. There was no humor in his tone.
“And sunlight,” I said, craning up to check its position in the sky. My father had taught me how to tell the time that way. Watches were a rare commodity in the Blackburn house. “I think we need to go back through Hecla and see if we can at least go west. Selma, what’s the closest town in that direction.”
She bit her lip and thought a moment. “The next rail stop would be in Centennial. If we got there, we could take the train back to Laramie.”
“I don’t suppose we’d make it there by tonight.” My scalp was peppered with pins and needles, but the fuzziness in my head was clearing. My leg felt like it had been dipped in a bonfire and pulled out before the flames could catch. I had a strong suspicion that no matter which way we went, we weren’t getting out of Hecla today.
How was it possible? What was behind it and why? Like the way the original miners had staked their claim on the Deep Rock Hills, Hecla had staked its claim on us. What worried me most was what it had in store for us.
One thing I couldn’t deny was that the way east was blocked. Me, Teta and the horses had learned that sure enough.
Selma replied, “I’m not sure. I don’t care if we have to ride all night. I want to get out of here.”
She looked close to a flat-out panic.
We rode back to Hecla and tied the mule and extra horses up by the house we’d just vacated. We packed only the supplies we absolutely needed in case we did break through the invisible barrier. I promised Selma we’d come back with an army to retrieve the horses. She looked like she didn’t believe a word, but she needed to hear it to ease her conscience, leaving them behind like that.
I shouted, “Hyah!” and we tore ass out of Hecla. We rode as clear as we could of the hills, keeping our noses due west.
When the mined-out hills were at our backs we slowed down. I had no desire to run into another one of those unseen walls with a full head of steam.
Any glimmer of hope I had was dimmed for good when all three horses pulled up short and kicked at the air.
“Well shit!” I spit into the dirt. My spit was able to cross the barrier, just not the rest of me.
“I hate to say it, but I think we’re trapped,” Teta said.
I pulled out my pistol and fired three shots dead ahead. My bullets tore into the distance, freer than us.
“What did you do that for?” Selma asked. I had no answer.
Instead, I turned south and put my spurs to my horse. Teta and Selma hurried to catch up to me.
There was no luck that direction, either. Hecla wasn’t about to let us go.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The ride back to Hecla was slow and silent and tense. Teta saying we were trapped kept playing over and over in my mind. Whatever lived in Hecla, and I was now convinced this was far from a dead, empty mining town, had something in store for us. I’m sure it wasn’t going to be pretty. It wanted to make us disappear like it had done with every other poor soul that had had the misfortune of crossing into its territory. No wonder the Indians wouldn’t set foot here.
Indians. I almost had to laugh at my worrying when we first got here that Indians may have been behind everything.
They were the smart ones. Leave it to the white man to stumble into this nightmare.
We ended up back at the house. The horses and mule looked at us lethargically. Without saying a word, we unlashed our supplies and took the saddles off our horses. Teta led them to the trough.
Selma gathered everything she needed to cook as if she were in a daze. I tried to say something a couple of times but the words twisted my tongue and wouldn’t come out. What the hell was there to say? There wasn’t anything to do except wait. It wasn’t something I was accustomed to doing.
We ate a little, had a smoke and moved everything inside the house just as night fell. I wasn’t sure what kind of protection four rickety walls would give us, but none of us felt safe outside.
Teta went back to reading Teddy’s book. “I’m not sleeping until I get through it all,” he said.
In fact, none of us slept. Selma and I passed the time watching Teta page through the book by lamplight, counting the minutes until dawn.
* * *
Even though nothing happened for the rest of the night, my nerves were on edge. The future didn’t bode well for us. The question now was, did we wait to die or go down fighting? If Selma weren’t with us, the answer would be simple. With her to consider, things weren’t quite so cut and dry.
My back was killing me when I decided the sun was up enough to go outside and look around. The strain of riding my horse when she went wild and of whatever the hell the invisible barrier did to me had taken their toll on my body.
I tipped my head back and looked up. Not a cloud in sight. The sun blazed an orange streak, dividing the night sky. Selma came out and stood beside me.
“Do you hear that?” she said.
I listened for a moment, then said, “Hear what?”
“Silence. When was the last time you faced a dawn without the sounds of birds chattering away? Do you think they’re smart enough to keep away, or is the town chasing them out?”
“If it’s the latter, I’d as soon disguise myself to look like a bird so Hecla can spit me out.”
We shared a tired, awkward laugh. I looked inside the house and saw Teta dozing, his back propped up against the wall, the book on his lap. “Well, at least one of us is getting some shut-eye.”
“Are you hungry?”
“Not at the moment.” My stomach was tied in a hangman’s knot. I couldn’t have put food into it if I tried.
“Me neither. It’s like I have to make something so I don’t feel so useless, but I don’t want to waste the food.”
“Better to wait and see if our stomachs start rumbling later.”
A strong breeze blew her hair into wavering black tentacles that covered her face. She pushed it back and stared at the Deep Rock Hills. “I feel like they’re watching us. And I’m sc
ared, thinking Franklin’s part of it. Does that sound crazy?”
I put an arm over her shoulders. “If you said that before I came to Hecla, I’d have said yes. Right now, anything is fair game. If those hills are watching us, I’d like to find their eyes and poke one out. That’d help make things right.”
With not much else to do, we walked around collecting wood, then fed what was left of the carrots to the horses.
It was then I heard an odd sort of rumbling. It wasn’t like the small earthquake we’d experienced before. It was farther off in the distance, a mechanical type of racket that had no place out here in the ass end of nowhere. Selma heard it too and looked at me with wide eyes.
“Can’t be,” I said. “Are you sure?”
“I’m not sure about anything anymore.”
I ran over to the house and turned the corner. It had to be my mind playing tricks on me.
But it was real.
And it was headed straight for us.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Teta, get up and get out here!” I shouted.
I don’t think Selma realized she had my arm in a tight grip as we watched the dust cloud tear across the plain at a speed that was hard to comprehend. Teta ran out of the house with a shotgun in his hands.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Check that out,” I replied, pointing.
Coming at us from the west was an open, black automobile. I could see two men seated behind the wheel. The car moved faster than anything I’d ever seen before. Being in New York for a few years, I’d taken a gander of my share of horseless carriages. I’d also seen quite a few cut down horses in the street, causing a bloody, horrible mess. I’d once had to put a horse down whose front legs had been wrapped up within the tire and front body of a car. It was hard to tell where the car began and the horse ended. The mare made a sound in its agony that I’ll never forget.
“What the hell is a car doing out here?” Teta said. “Out for a Sunday stroll?”
The men must have seen us because the horn blared, an ugly, long caterwaul that made me want to put a slug in the engine. The driver raised his arm and waved. We didn’t wave back.
