“I wanted the land to graze cattle on. Prior to the calamity of the Break, I had enjoyed some success with a modest cattle farm in Kansas. I confess, the idea was not mine; it was the brainchild of my late wife, Evelyn. In that, as in so many matters, my beloved was correct. I, who had spent my adult life as a soldier, had a knack for the cattle business. After the Break, my friends in the Army described the vast swathes of land standing abandoned. Naturally, there had been ranches on some of it, but their livestock had been consumed by the various beasts that had rampaged across them. I saw an opportunity. I made inquiries. I acquired properties close to the Kansas line. I placed small groups of cattle on them, as close to the local Army fort as I could. In exchange for their vigilance, I sold them my beef at a discount. There were mishaps, setbacks, but my business grew, my holdings expanded, and I accumulated a great deal of wealth.
“Of late, I’ve become interested in a new enterprise. Three years this past September, a sudden snowstorm blew in. Temperatures plunged; you couldn’t see two feet in front of you. It happens in these parts. The storm lasted a day and a night. There wasn’t much anyone could do during that time except shelter in place and stay warm. In the middle of the storm, a few dozen head of my westernmost herd became separated from the rest. It took us until a day after the storm departed to discover their absence, and another day after that to track them. All but four were dead, taken by either the weather or Dire Wolves. Each of the four surviving cattle had been wounded, but not severely enough to warrant putting down.
“You know the rules about such things, though. If there’s a risk of infection from a foreign agent—which there certainly was, not just a risk but a certainty—then the animal in question must be destroyed and the carcass burned. It’s a policy I have endorsed and followed, to a fault, the only way to keep at bay the diseases that have come through the Break. There should have been no hesitation on my part. I should have shot the cattle myself, or had the men who’d helped me track them do so. I did not. An idea had been forming in my mind for some time—well before this incident. I wondered if any of the animals injured in these kinds of attacks ever failed to succumb to the afflictions they invariably transmitted. Rumor has it there is a scattering of men and women confined to hospitals across the country who have not died of the Break illnesses. The government deems releasing them too great a risk, so they remain in quarantine. Most likely, the stories were only that, fictions, but the possibility they suggested intrigued me. Already, the cuts and bites on the cattle were beginning to heal, and none of them was showing the early symptoms of disease. I decided to hold off on their slaughter. I moved them to one of my more out-of-the-way holdings, and assigned the men who had found them with me to guard them. I gave them strict instructions to shoot any animal that sickened.
“None of the cattle did. I waited three months, and added half a dozen new animals to the group. These cattle did not fall ill as a result of their contact with the injured ones. In fact, they bred with them. Following the births of those calves, all of which were healthy, I performed another experiment. A cow from one of my other herds was showing early symptoms of the disease called the Melt. I had this sick animal transported posthaste to the trial cattle. It died, as did all six of the cattle I had introduced to the original quartet. Those cattle, however, together with their offspring, survived; in fact, they showed not the slightest indication of the sickness. It appeared I had stumbled onto something; although I have yet to determine its exact parameters. To how many of the Break illnesses are these cattle immune? Down how many generations may this immunity be passed? Can the meat from this herd bestow their immunity of those who consume it?
“You can appreciate the implications the answers to these questions may have for me, for my business. Cattle able to withstand some or all of the new sicknesses would be a tremendous asset. Cattle whose flesh could permit men and women the same benefit would be worth their weight in gold, in diamonds. Once it was safe to do so, I moved fresh cattle in with the resistant ones and set to work building my new herd in earnest.
“All was proceeding according to plan until last month. Over a succession of days and nights, what had been a thriving group of cattle was attacked by creatures the men guarding them had not seen before. They burst up from the ground without warning, killed two of the calves and dragged them back underground with them. It was the calves they preferred, though they took a cow one afternoon. Killed a bull, too, when he tried to fend them off. The men watching the herd shot at the creatures, but I selected them more for their loyalty and their ability to keep their mouths shut than I did their skill with firearms. For the same reason, I cannot ask them to pursue the things that savaged my herd.”
“Nor can you involve the Army,” Angela said, “because they might figure out what you’re up to, and put a stop to it.”
“It goes against conventional wisdom, I know, but there are limits to what money and position allow a man.”
“Why not destroy the cattle yourself? If they’re what these creatures are after, then that should stop their raids. Plus, you’d be spared worrying about the Army finding out.”
“Circumstances may yet bring me to that decision,” Hawk said, “but I prefer to exhaust other options first.”
“Such as advertising a Midas-sized bounty for whoever can halt the attacks on your livestock by ‘ferocious creatures hitherto unknown.’”
“Precisely.”
“Have you disclosed the details of your breeding experiment with the others who’ve responded to your ad?”
“No. To be blunt, none of them has impressed me as having much chance of locating the creatures, let alone living through an encounter with them. If by some miracle one of them succeeds, I’ll send them on their way with more money than they’ve ever seen before.”
“Why tell me? Because I can promise you, I stand an excellent chance of tracking and killing the creatures, and of living to tell the tale.”
“I had heard you were confident. You are also correct. Your reputation precedes you. I assume that the more information I provide you, the more it will assist you in completing this task as quickly as possible. As for placing my trust in you: I wonder if you would share with me a few details of your most recent employment?”
“I would not.”
“Yes, of course, you’re trying to prove a point, based on our conversation, but what if,” Hawk leaned away from the desk, slid open a drawer, and removed from it a tall stack of bills, which he placed on the surface of the desk between them, “I make my interest more tangible.”
“That is a lot of money.”
“Yes it is, five thousand dollars. Suppose I tell you that, if you provide me information about your last job, you can take this money, walk out of here, and to hell with me and my problems?”
“I’d tell you that was very generous, but I’d still have to decline.”
“What if I told you I already know what took place on Dmitri Grinberg’s orchard? That was his name, wasn’t it? Olga, his wife? My people located them. They were happy to relate the particulars of your work for them—what they knew of them. Something in one of their apple trees, wasn’t it? You needn’t worry: they received a fair price for their story.”
“That’s all very interesting, but it doesn’t change my answer.”
“Would my luck be any better if I asked about one of your more affluent clients? Say, Miss McIntyre? Exactly what was in her hotel’s walls?”
“I fear your luck’s going to remain the same.”
“Fair enough. You justify my faith in your discretion.”
“I’m happy to hear it. Now, I want to ask—”
—Hawk, his great desk, his study, smeared, swirled together as if they were a watercolor across which a pitcher of water had been splashed. Angela was standing in the front doorway of the house in Kansas City, facing inwards, her back to 31st street, whose residences and businesses were in flame. In her right hand, she held the pistol Clay had bought wh
en the newspapers reported the failure of the Army’s latest effort to halt the advance of the monsters spreading east from the Rockies, from a mining accident that had opened a door to a place populated by the denizens of a nightmare. At the other end of the hallway through the center of the house to the kitchen, a misshapen form stumbled on legs too thin to support the tumored mass of its torso. The only light was the red-orange glare of the fire roaring around the surrounding buildings, which cast her shadow down the hall in a long black obelisk. Despite the inferno’s noise, she could hear the steady hiss from the kitchen, as the shape moving drunkenly from side to side crumbled into fine sand. She aimed the Schofield at the figure, squeezed the trigger—
—and was gasping on the ground, in front of the cave to which she had tracked the creatures that had attacked Hawk’s cattle. To her right, the Jellied Time shuffled away, its transparent sides flickering with images from her memories: a burning house, the bar in the Gates of Perdition, the head of a wolf mounted on the wall of Hawk’s study. She fumbled for her gun. It was difficult to say how long she’d been in the Jelly’s embrace. Half an hour? The sun was still out, but had slid nearer the horizon. Long enough for Petty and his men to work their way down the ridge, cross to the boulders where she was concealed, and prepare an attack? That would have been her play, to act boldly. From everything she’d heard of Petty, he favored caution, but the amount of money at stake might be enough to incite an otherwise-careful temperament to daring. She rolled onto her stomach, raised up on her hands and knees, lifted her head to the top of the boulder, and peeked over it.
Right away, she ducked, a chorus of shots cracking the air, the bullets whizzing overhead, ricocheting off the rock. So Petty had opted to be brave. This volley had come from much closer. There was a bravo on either side of the tall boulder beyond this one, and another pair to either side of them. Petty must be sheltering behind the rock with the remaining men. Not the worst odds she’d faced, but not far from it.
She pointed her pistol straight into the air and fired three times. Whoever hadn’t shot at her yet did so now. While the air was still singing with the noise, Angela heaved to her feet and ran in a crouch for the cave. The interior sloped down at a precarious angle; she threw herself forward and slid along it head-first, riding an avalanche of dirt and stones to the bottom. She came to halt in a clatter of rocks and a cloud of dust. Coughing, she stood, the Schofield pointed at the cave mouth above, and surveyed the space into which she’d descended.
It was the size of a small church, the ceiling flat, the floor sinking to a pit in which were heaped the bones of Runyon Hawk’s cattle, in the midst of dozens of skeletons of smaller animals. The faint stink of spoiled blood hung in the air. Openings to three tunnels pierced the chamber’s walls at what Angela estimated north, west, and south. In between the entrances, the rock surface was covered in thick scratches, claw marks that almost seemed to form a pattern, characters in an alien alphabet. Her Schofield still trained on the cave mouth, she moved around the perimeter, until she was beside the north tunnel. There, she lowered her gun and reloaded it.
The rattle of stones announced Petty’s men above. “Careful!” One of them said. “You’re like to fall in and break your damn neck.”
“Any sign of her?” Petty asked.
“Not so’s I can see,” another man said. “But it looks pretty big. Could be, she’s hiding.”
“Do you think so?” Petty said. “Really? She’s hiding from us? What an observation.”
“I’m just saying is all,” the man said.
“Is that you, Mr. Petty?” Angela called.
“You know it is, Sweet Angie Tailor,” Petty called back.
“I’m afraid I’ve had an accident.”
“Oh? You don’t say.”
“I do. In trying to escape you and your friends, I’ve injured my right leg.”
“Not enough to prevent you moving.”
“It’s amazing what the fear of being shot can motivate a person to do.”
“I don’t deny it,” Petty said. “Is there a reason for you disclosing your disadvantage to me?”
From within the tunnel next to her, Angela heard a distant thrum. “I don’t reckon I can complete this job myself,” she said. “I was hoping you might be amenable to a partnership.”
“What kind of partnership, exactly?”
“Fifty-fifty.”
Petty laughed. “Fifty-fifty? For what, may I ask?”
“For leading you to this place, for one thing.”
“Two of my men are excellent trackers. We would have found the creatures’ lair without you.”
The thrumming was increasing in volume. “Maybe you would and maybe you wouldn’t have,” she said. “Join up with me for this, and I’ll let you use my name. You can call yourselves Sweet Angie’s Boys. It’ll be good for your business.”
“We pull off this job, collect Hawk’s reward, and I figure we’ll have all the business we want.”
“Would I be better appealing to your gentlemanly sentiments?”
“If I had any,” Petty said. “As I see it, Sweet Angie, your proposal entails my men and I giving you half Hawk’s money for the pleasure of not killing you.”
“Pleasure or privilege,” Angela said, “I don’t suppose you’re too far off.”
“You will understand if I decline your offer,” Petty said. “As you will understand—if not appreciate—what comes next.”
The noise from the tunnel, from the tunnels, had become the rumble of many feet pounding over earth and stone. “As will you,” Angela said.
Rifles in hand, Petty’s men began their descent into the cave, shuffle-stepping the slope in two lines of three, a pair of men remaining at the entrance with their boss. “What the hell is that sound?” one in the front line said. Angela took aim and shot him. The Schofield boomed in the cave’s confines. The man toppled forward. His fellows cringed, glancing about. One in the second line lost his balance and sat down hard. “Over there!” he shouted, pointing at her. Angela shot at him, missed. The other men brought their rifles up. Angela threw herself to the ground as the din from the tunnels became shapes rushing out of them into the cave, and into the crashing volley fired by Petty’s men.
Screams split the air. Two of the creatures fell, a third lurched, wounded. The men shouted, scrambled up the incline. Petty called at them to stay where they were as the men flanking him fired their rifles. One of the creatures collapsed, as did a man in the second line. The mass of creatures—Angela estimated twelve to fifteen of them, each the size of a pony—wheeled in the direction of the cave mouth and rushed uphill towards it. Petty’s men threw down their rifles, pulled pistols, knives, hatchets from their belts to meet the creatures’ charge. The beasts were armed with long, heavy claws set at the end of thick, powerful forelimbs. There wasn’t much to their heads—little more than domed rises between their shoulders—but their bodies were covered in dense fur. They smashed into Petty’s men, bearing one down and tearing him asunder with their claws while the man beside him emptied his pistol into their ranks. Gunshots competed with cries animal and human. The men beside Petty had reloaded their rifles; they fired at the horde moving relentlessly closer, halting one of them, then withdrew bayonets from their belts and fixed them to the ends of their weapons. Petty, whom Angela had expected to run, remained in place, aiming his long-barreled revolver at the creatures and hitting most of his shots. Blood poured down the slope, pooled at its foot around the corpses and carcasses sprawled there. Gun smoke hung under the cave’s ceiling in a gray cloud. The creatures’ numbers had been halved. Petty and the men beside him were all that remained of his company. The men speared the nearest beasts, allowing Petty to reload his pistol. The man on his left slipped in blood, fell, and was overwhelmed by a pair of the creatures. Petty shot both of the things, but it was too late for the man. His comrade missed a stab at a creature that lunged forward, taking his right leg off above the knee. Petty killed the beast, and thre
e more bearing down on him. That left a pair of the creatures struggling to reach him through the bloody remains of their fellows. Petty dropped his sidearm, picked up one of the bayoneted rifles, and drove it through the skull of the nearest beast. However, the blade lodged there, giving the remaining creature the opportunity to sweep its claws and sever his left arm at the elbow. Petty leapt back, providing Angela a clear shot at the creature, which she took.
The climb to the cave mouth was a slow process, hindered by the bodies clogging the slope, the ground muddy and slippery with blood and gore. Outside, the sky was streaked red and pink and orange with sunset. Angela found Petty propped against the same rock behind which she had sheltered prior to her leap into the cave. He had worked his belt off and employed it to tourniquet the injury to his arm. He might as well not have bothered: the amount of blood that marked his trail here was more than a man could lose and hope to survive. Already, his face was pallid as a corpse’s, his fleshy beard withered and curled against his jaw. Only his eyes showed any sign of life, blazing with whatever fuel was left him. His tongue moistened his lips, and he said, “Sweet Angie Tailor, I believe your name is misleading.”
Through a Mythos Darkly Page 7
