The Ballad of Black Hawk and Billy the Kid
Author: Michael Scott
Date: 2021-07-27 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Fiction; Magic
Description: Billy the Kid is immortal. And his long life has led him down many strange and winding paths—one of which will bring him face to face with another legendary warrior, Black Hawk, for the first time. Now, that lost story is told. . . . An immortal Anasazi sorceress is on the loose, and it’s up to Black Hawk and Billy the Kid to stop her from wreaking havoc on the Americas. The woman has already destroyed her own tribe. She’s determined to wipe out Black Hawk’s people, too. But first, she’ll have to defeat him, and that’s proving more difficult than the sorceress could have ever imagined.
Publisher: Delacorte Press

This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2021 by Michael Scott

Cover art used under license from Shutterstock.com

Cover design by Regina Flath

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

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Ebook ISBN 9780449819265

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Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Encrypted Email—512-Bit Encryption

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

About the Author

ENCRYPTED EMAIL—512-BIT ENCRYPTION

From: Billy the Kid <whbonney@█████████████████.com>

To: Niccolò Machiavelli <theprince@██████████████.com>

Subject: So I took your advice…

Niccolò,

Thank you for the email. Next time, do me a favor, use a shorter password for the encryption, and preferably one in English. Took forever to input it on my phone.

I am healing remarkably quickly, but I will probably not be able to put weight on my leg for another month. The docs keep telling me I’m lucky I didn’t lose it; I reckon I’m lucky I still have my head!

When Black Hawk asked for my help, all he said was that the crystal skull we’d be stealing from beneath the Pryor Mountains was guarded by a few little people. My parents, as you know, were both Irish, and my mother often spoke about the Little People of her homeland, and they sounded like good-natured, humorous sorts. So I sort of thought these would be like an American Leprechaun and, I mean, how scary does that sound?

These particular Little People were Nirumbee: twenty-four inches of ugliness, with the strength of ten men. The one who broke my leg picked me up like I weighed nothing and threw me from one side of a river to the other. Now, you and I have seen some things, and I still have nightmares about the Old Spider, but I have a feeling these Nirumbee would terrify Aerop-Enap herself.

Black Hawk carried me back to the van and drove me to an emergency room in Billings. We said I’d fallen while climbing. Not sure the doc believed us. He was Native American—Crow, I think—and I’m sure he recognized the little bone-tipped arrows sticking out of Black Hawk’s backpack.

Do I need to tell you that we didn’t get the crystal skull? Do I need to add that I’m not going back to try again? Next time, Marethyu can go get it himself; I’m done with the Little People!

I’m going to take your advice and spend the next couple of weeks learning a few more languages. I’ll start with Italian so you can send me even more incomprehensible passwords.

I’m also going to attempt to keep a diary, as you suggested. I’ve tried a couple of times over the years, but always gave up because, well, I always reckoned nothing really exciting ever happened to me. But then I got to thinking about it, and I remembered that time I became immortal, of course…and that time I helped fight Scathach’s old boyfriend in Vegas…and when Virginia Dare and I went into the Grand Canyon…and when…

So, okay, you win; I’ve had some exciting times.

These last weeks have given me time to think. This is probably the longest I’ve ever stayed in one place. Black Hawk comes every day (I think he feels guilty because he got me into this mess), and we’ve taken to reminiscing about our adventures. Talking to him reminded me about the wild times I’ve had, and you’re right, maybe I should write them down before someone else does. Shakespeare, probably, though Palamedes told Black Hawk recently that the bard’s got writer’s block and hasn’t written anything new in years. Even while I was still alive, there were some crazy lies told about me, and since I died in 1881, a whole industry has grown up around my name. Someone sold a picture of me recently for over two million dollars—and it wasn’t even a very good picture.

Black Hawk told me some stuff I never knew about him. Did you know he wrote a biography and had a wife, Singing Bird, and they had five children? You probably did, you’ve got everything in those secret files of yours, but I’ve been hanging around with Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak since 1880 and this was the first I’d heard about that.

I was talking to Black Hawk a couple of days ago about keeping a diary, and he thought it was a great idea. I mentioned that I hate writing because my handwriting is illegible, even to me, and I’ve destroyed too many keyboards by stabbing too hard at the keys. He suggested I record myself. He’s got a great app on his phone that turns spoken words into text. You know, when I was growing up, we’d have said that was magic, but I suppose a lot of what we do today would seem like magic to a previous generation. Black Hawk came over yesterday and we tried it out. It was a lot of fun; even brought back some stuff I’d forgotten. We started talking about the first time we met. I saved his life, but he sort of disputes that. Claims that he didn’t need saving.

I’ve attached the audio file to this email. It’s mostly me talking, but the app recorded Black Hawk’s interruptions as well. I was going to delete them, but I couldn’t work that out and in the end I decided to leave them in.

I’ll come over to France and visit as soon as I can. It would be nice to see Flamel’s house, though I’m not too keen on the creepy catacombs, so I’ll take a pass on that. I think I’ve had enough tunnels and caves for a while.

I really want to visit Disneyland, Paris! They’ve got Frontierland and a Big Thunder Mountain ride I need to go on. I also want to check out Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and see how authentic it is. I saw the real thing.

Scathach sends her regards. She called by to see how I was doing, brought me some fruit and a great pair of boots, made from some extinct dinosaur skin. (The last pair were cut off me in the hospital.) She’s living down in Taos now. She looks well. Actually, she looks exactly the same as she’s always looked.

William Bonney

Bored, in San Francisco
attached mp3 & transcribed pdf

1

Billy: Is this on? So what do I do, just talk?

Black Hawk: Yes, Billy, I’ve hit record. You just talk as normal. The app will record you and then turn your speech to text.

Billy: That’s weird.

Black Hawk: Billy, you broke your leg when you were thrown thirty feet by an eighteen-inch-tall Nirumbee when we tried to steal their sacred crystal skull. Now, that’s weird!

Billy: He was twenty-four inches. A giant of a Nirumbee. Real muscular.

Black Hawk: Eighteen inches and real skinny.

Billy: Okay. So, what will I talk about?

Black Hawk: Yesterday, we were chatting about how we first met.

Billy: Oh, that’s a great place to start. I first met you in the fall of 1880.

Black Hawk: That’s right, about seven months before you died.

Billy: My mother always told me I was born on September 17, 1859, and baptized on September 28, but my father claimed that I was born late in November. Though I never really knew my father, and my mother said he was a terrible liar, so I’m inclined to believe her. Since this story starts in November of 1880, I was twenty-one years old by either reckoning.

I was living in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, doing whatever I could to earn a living and, a lot of what I was doing was not entirely legal. I was mostly rustling cattle. Although the cattle ranches were huge, with thousands of head of cattle, the ranchers didn’t exactly look the other way when a few steers went missing. I wasn’t too scared when they hired private detectives to hunt me down, but in November 1880, Pat Garrett was elected sheriff of Lincoln County. I knew Garrett when he worked as a barman in Fort Sumner, and we got along well enough; however, he was a ruthless and dangerous man. People said we were friends, but that was not true; I think that was a story he made up.

I’d heard he was putting together a posse to come after me and a few of the others in the loose gang I rode with at the time, so I decided it would be healthier to—

Black Hawk: Billy, I’m sure all this is fascinating, but right now I’m getting bored. Get to the part where we meet.

Billy: In the summer of that year, I came into possession of a treasure map.

I know, I know. I can’t count the number of stories I’d heard about hidden treasure and lost silver mines, Spanish gold, and even pirate treasure. Barely a month went by without some new wild tale of lost cities and secret caves cropping up. But there was sort of a grain of truth to those stories. Every now and again you’d meet an old prospector who’d come into town with a bar of gold or a chunk of jewelry that was clearly ancient. Everyone in New Mexico knew about the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola, which is supposed to be somewhere around the Zuni Pueblo. And that’s a real place; I’ve been there.

Black Hawk: When you say you came into possession of a treasure map…

Billy: No, I didn’t steal it. No, sir. I bought it fair and square from a Mescalero Apache friend of mine. Traded two horses and three steers for it. It was the first and indeed the only treasure map I ever bought. Most maps of that time came on parchment or leather, or even bits of wood. The modern ones were on paper, of course. This one was different: it was on a wafer-thin sheet of silver. That’s what convinced me it was real. It was so flexible it could be rolled into a tube. I knew the moment I laid eyes on it that I had to have it. Besides, I reckoned that even if the map turned out to be worthless, I could sell it for the value of the metal.

When the deal was done, and the Apache was riding away with the traded horses and steers, he revealed that the map was cursed. Everyone who’d ever possessed it had had nothing but bad luck, he said. Then, because he was a boastful sort, he added that he would have sold the map for just one horse or maybe two steers, so he reckoned he’d done well on the deal. I didn’t begrudge the extra horses or cattle; I knew I’d bought the map cheaply. I thought I could interpret some of the scratchings and icons on the metal: a series of ragged humps had to be mountains, a curling twist was clearly a river.

I spent months poring over that map. I was careful not to show it to any of the others I associated with; none of them were what you might call trustworthy. I’ve no doubt that they would have laughed at the very idea of a treasure map, but the silver sheet itself was worth some money, and they’d have shot me down for that.

I spoke to every prospector who came into town and showed them a copy of the map I’d traced from the silver page. I wasn’t going to go flashing around the original. A few thought they recognized it, but every single one of them pointed to a different place, all across the South and West.

The year rolled on into late summer, and just when I was beginning to give up and was starting to think about melting down the metal sheet, a stranger rode into Fort Sumner.

I was sitting in a corner of the bar with a bunch of old army charts and maps, looking for anything even vaguely similar to the markings on the silver map. Sometimes I’d find a line of mountains that almost matched, but there’d be no curl of river. Or I’d find a river that curled just right, but there’d be no corresponding mountains. Also, I’d come to realize that I had no idea just how old the map was. Maybe it was hundreds or even thousands of years old, and I guessed that the mountains and rivers would have looked different back then. I had no idea if mountains could change shape, but I knew rivers twisted and curled into different paths depending on the seasons, and sudden floods could create entirely new waterways.

Raised voices distracted me and I looked up.

A fight in the bar was not unusual. Hardly a day went by without some disagreement or argument. Drink, gambling, politics, and money were the usual causes. But what caught my attention was that one of the voices was female. And this was not the voice of a refined woman: this was a raw, rasping snap, and each sentence was filled with cusswords in at least three languages and two Native American dialects.

I looked at the figure leaning back against the bar with elbows resting on the unpolished wood. From sight alone, it was not immediately apparent that it was a woman. Her face was tanned a deep leather, etched with lines, her cheeks speckled with broken veins, and the corners of her thin-lipped mouth were downturned, giving her a permanently disappointed expression. It was impossible to guess her age: she’d lived hard and could have been anywhere from thirty to fifty. The short, stocky figure was dressed in stained leather and ragged buckskin, with down-at-heel boots caked in mud and a hat that looked like it had been sat on more than once. What caught my attention was the bullwhip coiled around her shoulder and a .44-caliber Colt 1860 army revolver worn high on her right hip, with the butt facing forward. Gunfighters carry their guns that way; while you’re watching their right hand, they can reach across with their left and draw and shoot in one quick movement. Also, if you’re sitting in a wagon with the reins in your right hand, you’ll wear your gun high and butt out, so you can quickly get to it. The gun was curious; I use the more modern version, a seven-year-old .45-caliber Colt 1873, and I wondered why someone would carry a twenty-year-old weapon.

She caught me watching and turned her full attention on me. “What are you looking at?” she demanded. I knew her type. She was one of those people who loved to fight. All she needed was an excuse. And if she couldn’t find one, then she’d make one. Bars across the West were full of people like that. So were the graveyards.

The half dozen people in the bar began to sidle toward the doors. If there was going to be gunplay, they did not want to be around to catch a stray bullet. Within moments, we were the only two left.

The woman took in the empty bar, and I watched how she eased open her ragged coat to give herself access to her weapon. What she didn’t know was that I’d already gotten my gun in my hand and was pointing it at her from beneath the table.

“Are they afraid of you or afraid of me?” she asked.

“Afraid of getting themselves killed. Always wise to put as much distance as you can between yourself and a shootist.”

“You think I’m a gunfighter?” She sounded almost pleased at the idea.

“You’re carrying an interesting gun, and wearing it like someone who knows how to use it,” I noted.

“I know how to use it. And this gun was a gift to me from a man I loved.”

There was the slightest catch in her voice, and I guessed that the man was no longer alive.

“He knew his guns,” I said.

“He surely did,” she answered proudly, and in that instant her entire demeanor changed. “We’ll drink to his memory,” she said, reaching behind the bar to grab a bottle and two glasses.

Now, I tried to have a bath once a month, whether I needed it or not, but when the woman pushed in beside me, she enfolded me in a stink that was eye-watering in its intensity, a combination of human, mule, badly cured leather, and maybe half a dozen other odors I could not identify.

She sat facing the door, shrugged the whip off her shoulder, and dropped the heavy gun on the table alongside the glasses. “You can look at it if you wish.”

And while the woman was in need of a bath—or three—and her clothes were filthy and her boots stank of horse dung, the gun was pristine. It might have been twenty years old, but it showed very little wear, except that the walnut grips were polished to a high shine. “That’s a really fine piece of work,” I told her. “I see the original cap-and-ball has been converted to fire modern bullets.”

“My husband had that conversion done maybe eight years ago.”

“You talk about him as if he’s no longer with us,” I said carefully.

“He’s not,” she said with a terrible rage in her voice, and I knew immediately that he hadn’t died in his own bed of natural causes.

“We should drink to his memory, then,” I said. People rarely frightened me, but I’d learned to recognize that some folks were more dangerous than others, and the ones you really had to watch out for were those who seesawed from one emotion to another in the blink of an eye. They could be your best friend one minute and stick a knife in you the next.

She poured two large drinks and pushed one of the glasses toward me. I rarely drink, and I can honestly say I have never been drunk in my life. Drunks make mistakes, and mistakes can get you dead. However, I was not going to refuse a drink with this woman. I raised my glass. “To…?”

“To Wild Bill Hickok,” she said, and threw back the drink in one quick swallow.

And at that moment, I knew who she was. “You’re Calamity Jane,” I said, and I’m not ashamed to admit it, there was a touch of awe in my voice.

2

Black Hawk: You met Calamity Jane! You never told me that.

Billy: Well, I’m just remembering it now. Martha Jane Cannary was her full name.

Black Hawk: So the gun belonged to Wild Bill Hickok?

Billy: Well…maybe. He was shot dead in 1876 in a saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota, and he certainly used a gun like it.

Black Hawk: I didn’t know Calamity Jane was married to him.

Billy: She wasn’t! She just made up these wild stories. Funny thing is, she didn’t really have to. Her own life was just amazing: army scout, explorer, sharpshooter, nurse. Anyway, once she knew I recognized her—or at least knew of her—she was really nice to me. I introduced myself and we got to chatting.

I watched her as she poured and drank three whiskeys in quick succession. I’ve seen two of those knock a strong man clean off his feet, but they seemed to have no effect on her. I hadn’t touched mine, except to bring it to my lips and pretend to drink.

“So who would have thought it: Calamity Jane and Billy the Kid having a drink together,” she announced.

“What are you doing this far south?”

She shrugged, raising a stench so foul it made me tear up and almost throw up! “Working. Driving wagons mostly. I left Deadwood after the smallpox outbreak there a couple years ago.”

“I read about that,” I said. “You nursed the sick. Saved a lot of lives.”

She shrugged again, clearly uncomfortable with the praise. “Did what had to be done.” And then, to change the subject, she tapped the map I’d spread out over the table. “Army map. You know I rode with Custer?” she said quickly.

“I did not know that,” I said carefully. I’d never met General Custer, and who was to say if she had either.

“He told me I was his best scout,” she announced. “What are you looking for?”

I pushed the scrap of paper across the table. “Just trying to match the drawing I have here with the map,” I said, trying to keep my voice as casual as possible. “I was told it’s a great place to hide out, similar to a place up in Wyoming called the Hole-in-the-Wall.”

“I’ve heard of that place. Outlaws camp out there when things get too hot for them.” Calamity Jane leaned over my drawing, then squinted at the map. “Looks sort of familiar,” she said.

I nodded as if it was no big deal, but my heart started to thump harder. “Things might be heating up for me soon,” I said. “There’s a new sheriff in town, and I’ve heard he’s got me in his sights.”

Calamity Jane turned my scrap of paper around and around, puzzling over it. When she held it up to the light, I noticed that she had the most extraordinary blue eyes. “I know this place,” she muttered.

I focused on the table, unwilling to look her in the eyes in case she caught the excitement in mine.

And then she turned the page over and held it up to the light again. “Ah, you have it backwards. Suddenly, there was a long broad-bladed knife in her hand. I think she drew it from her boot. Holding the page to the light, she traced the outline of my drawing with the point of the knife. “See here…here…and here. I recognize those buttes.” She spun the army map on the table, pointed to the left and up with her knife, and then laid my paper drawing on top of it. Although there was a lot of white space on the map, showing that it was unexplored, a couple of the twists and lines matched almost perfectly. “That’s the Valley of the Gods in Utah.”

She must have seen the shock on my face. She grinned, revealing teeth stained almost black by chewing tobacco. “It would be a great place to hide out, but don’t even think about going there: that’s deep into Navajo country.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I muttered.

3

Billy: The following morning, I rode away from Fort Sumner heading west toward Albuquerque, where I intended to stock up on supplies before striking out northwest into Utah in search of the Valley of the Gods.

Those last few days of fall were glorious. People who’ve never been to the West think it’s nothing but deserts and rocks, but they could not be more wrong. New Mexico is beautiful at any time of the year, but…

Black Hawk: Are you going to give a travelogue, and go over every flowering bush and plant you came across? Let’s skip ahead to when you get into Albuquerque and meet me.

Billy: Okay, so Albuquerque is about two hundred miles west of Fort Sumner. I was riding my favorite bay mare, and I didn’t push her hard. You lose a horse or she throws a shoe out there, then unless you are within walking distance of civilization, you’re dead. I took it easy and I got into Albuquerque about a week later, just as the sun was setting, painting the place in red shadows.

It was a pretty Spanish town, with some ancient-looking buildings—they could have been at least two hundred years old, I reckoned. I rode past an adobe Catholic church with two bell towers, where a black-robed priest swept the steps. I tipped my hat to him and he waved at me in return. On a whim, I stopped in the middle of the dusty street and leaned over the pommel.

“Good evening, Padre.”

He rested both hands on the broom and nodded at me. He was tall and whip thin, burnt brown by the sun, face creased in a hundred different lines. The black robes suggested that he was a Jesuit, and I knew from experience that you didn’t want to tangle with them. I saw his gaze rove over me, taking in the brace of pistols tucked in my belt and the Winchester rifle in its scabbard on my saddle. “Just passing through, Padre,” I said quickly, before he got the wrong idea and thought I was there to cause trouble. “I am wondering if you could recommend some place I could get supplies. Heading out west for a few days.”

Clutching the broom in both hands, the priest came down the steps and stepped right up to me. He was even taller than I’d first thought, and hard living was written all over his face, especially his nose, which looked like it had been broken at least twice. When he spoke, his voice was surprisingly gentle, and I thought I detected a trace of a French accent.

“You’re the second person today to ask me that very question,” he said.

“Guess there’s a lot of people heading west,” I suggested.

The priest shook his head. “Not usually.”

Now, one of the reasons I’ve stayed alive so long is that I tend not to believe in coincidences. I get that from my mother. She clung to the Catholic faith she’d grown up with in Ireland. It gave her great comfort, especially in the last four months of her life, when she was bedridden, dying of consumption. I’d read the Bible to her and she’d recite her Rosary, moving the beads through stiff fingers, starting the prayers in English and finishing in the Irish of her childhood. There are no coincidences, she told me more than once. There’s only God’s plan, and sometimes that plan is revealed in what seem like coincidences. Never ignore a coincidence, Harry, she’d said to me. That’s God speaking to you.

So when the priest said that someone else was heading out west…well, that was hardly surprising. The West was opening up all the time; there was a huge movement of people from coast to coast. But when the priest said that the other person had also asked him for directions…now, that was the coincidence I didn’t quite believe.

“Friend of yours?” the Jesuit asked.

“No, Padre. I’m alone.”

“None of us are ever truly alone,” he said with a smile.

Before he could give me a lecture on God or angels, I asked him, “And did you have any advice for this other traveler?”

He pointed with the broom. “Same as I’m about to give you: go down here, then head over to the left, toward the Barelas District. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway got a line through here earlier in the year, and there’s a bunch of stores opened up around the station. Head down to Fourth Street; you’ll find everything you need there.”

“Thank you, Padre. Much obliged.”

“Nothing west of here but pain and death,” the priest said.

“I appreciate the warning.”

“Not a warning. A promise. You’re riding into Navajo territory. There’s reservations out that way, filled with people pushed off their own land and forced to settle where they do not belong. You don’t want to go and antagonize them.”

“I’ll steer well clear of trouble,” I said.

The priest smiled, and it looked as if about twenty years fell off his face. “Boy, you look like someone who’s been running toward trouble his entire life.”

“It does seem to find me,” I admitted.

“I’ll say a prayer for you,” he said, turning away. “And if you come back through Albuquerque, maybe you’ll swing on by and let me know you survived.”

“I’ll do that, Padre.”

“Take care of yourself, Billy.” He saw the look of surprise on my face. “Oh, and I’d steer clear of the sheriff’s office. There’s some Wanted posters there with your name and likeness all over them.”

“Much obliged.” I tipped my hat to him and urged my horse down the street. I wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or upset that my fame had spread so far. Pleased, I think.

4

Billy: I smelled the fight before I heard it.

Even more than the stink of unwashed men, there is a special odor to fear, a foul thin metallic stench. Before I heard the meaty thump of fists on flesh or the smack of leather—a boot, a belt?—on skin, I knew as I rode down the narrow alleyway that I would find myself in the midst of a fight. I suppose if I’d been careful or cautious, I would have turned my horse around and went the other way. But I’ve always been more curious than cautious. The padre had said I looked like I’d spent my life running toward trouble, but he was wrong—I’d just been curious.

Black Hawk: Let’s face it, Billy: curiosity always got you into trouble; you were always sticking your nose into other people’s business.

Billy: Well, I was right. When I rounded the corner, I found four men surrounding a fifth. I have only the vaguest memory of how they were dressed—I think one was wearing an old army uniform; another might have been a down-at-heel cowboy wearing a battered sombrero, and two looked like they were shopkeepers or barmen, with aprons around their waists.

Black Hawk: Are you sure there were only four? I think there may have been more. Also, you haven’t described the most interesting person there.

Billy: My eye was immediately drawn to the fifth man, in the middle of the group. He was Native American, though he wore nothing to indicate his tribe. He was not above middle height, dressed head to foot in buckskins but wearing army boots. His skin was a rich copper, turned almost metallic by the fading sunlight, his long face dominated by a hook of a nose. His head was shaved except for a knot of jet-black hair that spilled from the top of his head and fell to his spine.

Black Hawk: No mention of how handsome he was?

Billy: The four men surrounding him were armed with clubs and knives, and one had a whip curled around his shoulder. The Native American’s hands were empty.

One of the two shopkeepers darted in. He was carrying a long club, which looked like it had once been the leg of a chair. He raised his arm, but the Native American, instead of stepping back from the blow, moved forward. I didn’t see the shopkeeper’s hand move, but I heard the sound—like a breaking branch. The buckskin-wearing man’s right fist was planted solidly in the middle of the shopkeeper’s chest. He went down like a felled tree.

The second shopkeeper moved forward more cautiously. His apron had probably never been white, but it was stained and bloody. He was carrying a meat cleaver, which, along with the apron, suggested he was the local butcher. And he knew how to handle a knife. He tossed the blade from one hand to the other, spinning it so that it caught the light. I’ve seen knife fighters do that: while you’re distracted by the fancy sparkling blade, they’re moving in to stick you with it.

And while he was coming in from the front, the attacker wearing the army uniform was shuffling around to try to take a position behind the Native American. He was holding one of those long knives that looked like it had started life as a sword but had been cut down into a big chunk of metal. Jim Bowie had made them famous maybe fifty years previously, but I always through they were too big and unwieldy to be useful. The third attacker, the cowboy in the sombrero, was uncoiling the bullwhip from his shoulder.

I was watching the Native American. I could see a hatchet on his left hip and a long bone-handled knife tucked into his belt on his right, but he made no move to draw them.

The butcher moved in fast, the meat cleaver swinging before him in a deadly horizontal arc.

The Native American’s left leg shot out, the flat of his foot connecting solidly with the butcher’s knee. The pop of leather against kneecap was as loud as a gunshot, and the big man dropped to his damaged knee, knife flying from his hand. The Native American stepped in and hit him once, a closed fist just over his left ear, driving him into the dirt. He was snoring the moment he hit the ground.

The Native American turned, taking in the two men on either side of him, and then he raised his head and looked directly at me, even though I was sitting in the long shadow cast by a building. I knew, in that moment, that he was somehow aware that I was there.

Black Hawk: You had been on the road for a week, Billy. I could smell you and the horse. And one of you smelled worse than the other.

Billy: The attacker in the soiled army uniform lunged forward, leading with the point of the long knife. The Native American spun to face him, and suddenly his knife and his hatchet were in his hands. He hooked the head of the hatchet around the soldier’s knife and twisted it to one side, stepped right up close to his attacker, and hit him solidly between the eyes with his knife’s bone handle. The man grunted once and collapsed in a heap.

I heard the crack the instant the Native American’s hatchet went flying from his left hand. Another crack and his knife was snatched from his right. The attacker with the whip was clearly an expert. I’ve seen them before: cowboys and muleskinners who wielded an eight- or ten-foot length of braided cowhide with incredible skill. They could pluck a fly out of the air and slice a piece of fruit in half, or delicately peel it. It was a terrible weapon, because there was no defense against it. If you put your hands up to protect yourself, the corded tip of the whip, the cracker, would cut your fingers to the bone.

The Native American took a step back, almost stumbling on the prone body of the army soldier, trying to put as much distance between himself and the last attacker. But he wasn’t fast enough. The whip cracked and a long white tear appeared in his buckskin jerkin. The supple leather took most of the force, but I knew the blow must have stung. I watched the cowboy draw back his arm and grin, and it was an ugly sight.

I’d seen enough.

There is a distinctive click-clack sound when you work the lever on a Winchester 73. It catches people’s attention. The cowboy with the whip hadn’t realized I was there and almost jumped with fright. The Native American didn’t move. I eased my horse out of the alleyway. The rifle was resting across my saddle, pointing in the general direction of the cowboy.

“Trouble?” I asked.

“Stay out of this. It’s none of your business,” the cowboy said, and despite the sombrero, his accent was pure Louisiana.

“I see four against one,” I said. “Doesn’t seem right to me.” I leaned over my saddle to look at the three bodies on the ground. “You probably should have brought more men. What did he do?”

“Disrespected us,” the cowboy said.

“Yeah, you look like the sort of person who commands respect,” I said. I turned to look at the Native American. His head moved in a minute gesture of thanks and then his eyes dropped to the ground. I followed his gaze. Resting at his feet was the overlong knife the soldier had dropped.

“Now why don’t you back away and let me finish this,” the cowboy demanded.

“Finish what?”

“Teaching this Native American some manners.”

“Didn’t work out too well for your three companions,” I remarked.

He shifted his wrist and the whip writhed on the ground like a snake. “They just didn’t have the right tools for the job. This here bullwhip will take care of business.”

“I’ll just set back here and watch you work,” I said. The cowboy nodded, thinking I was talking to him, but I saw the Native American grin. He knew I was addressing him. I backed my mare into the alleyway and waited. If things got out of control, I’d have no hesitation in putting a bullet into the cowboy’s leg.

It was all over in a minute.

The cowboy drew back his whip, the leather hissing over the ground, and then, just as he was raising his arm to bring it forward, the Native American dug the toe of his leather boot under the long knife on the ground. A flick of his ankle sent the knife into the air. He snatched it in midair and brought it up before his face just as the whip cracked and darted toward his head.

Now, I’m quick. I’ve always been fast with a gun; I can pick a target, draw, and shoot in one smooth motion. But even I could barely follow the Native American’s hand as it moved in a quick X…and sliced away twelve inches of braided leather.

The Native American stepped toward the cowboy. I don’t think he realized he was missing the end of his whip. He cracked it again…and the Native American cut another length off the whip. Beneath the sombrero I saw the cowboy’s eyes widen in surprise and perhaps fear. He tried to crack the whip again, but the weapon was at least eighteen inches shorter than he was used to, so he missed. And as he dragged the whip back, the Native American slashed another chunk away as he darted forward astonishingly fast. I saw the butt of the knife come up, and then the thick curved handle struck the cowboy under his chin. His teeth clicked like jangling coins, and he actually rose off the ground and sailed through the air before collapsing in a cloud of dust. The remains of his whip curled around him like a dead snake.

“Just out of curiosity,” I called out, “how did you disrespect them?”

“I was buying supplies in this one’s shop…” The Native American nudged one of storekeepers with his boot. His accent was odd: cultured and educated, with perhaps a touch of the East Coast to it. “Solider boy and whippersnapper seemed to think they should be served before me. We had words.” He tossed the long knife away, retrieved his hatchet and knife from the ground, and tucked them into his belt. When he looked at me, the last of the evening sunlight turned his dark eyes to copper coins. “I didn’t really need your help, though I appreciate the offer.”

“Oh, I know that. You were doing just fine when I arrived. Whip might have stung, though.”

“He’d have caught me once or twice maybe, before I got to him.”

“Leather whip like that will leave a nasty scar.”

“I heal real quick,” he said. He nodded into the gathering shadows. “My horse and pack mule are down here, loaded up and ready to go. We should get out of here.”

“We? What makes you think I’ll be going with you?”

The Native American smiled, teeth white in the gloom. “When these four wake up, do you think they’ll admit they were beaten by someone like me? Or do you think they’ll describe someone who looks just like the Wanted posters of Billy the Kid?”

“Does everyone know me in this town?”

“You’re getting to be famous, Billy. And famous gets you dead.”

“I’m only passing through,” I said. “I just stopped to get some supplies.”

“I’m guessing neither of these shopkeepers will sell to you. Where were you headed?”

“West.”

“So am I,” he said. “Where to, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“To the Valley of the Gods, in Utah.”

“Heading in that general direction myself.”

I felt something cold and sour settle in the pit of my stomach. “There’s a coincidence,” I muttered.

“I don’t believe in coincidence,” he said.

“Neither do I.”

5

Billy: “Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak,” he said as we rode out of town.

I looked at him blankly.

“But you can call me Black Hawk of the Sauk.”

“Never heard of the Sauk,” I told him.

“From way north of here, close to Canada.”

“You’re a long way from home.”

Black Hawk didn’t even look at me. “No, I am not.” His arm swept wide, taking in the incredible landscape before me. “This land is my home. But I am far from my tribe,” he admitted.

“In my experience, a man leaves his home because he’s running from something, or he’s in search of adventure,” I said.

“Or perhaps because he is chasing something,” Black Hawk said.

I couldn’t disagree with that. I’d done all three in my time.

We rode in silence, moving down a trail running parallel to the newly laid train tracks. The sun had dipped below the horizon, and the first of the stars speckled the skies to the east. The temperature dropped as the light faded, and I pulled my horse blanket over my shoulders. Black Hawk seemed unaffected by the chill.

“There’s a sheltered hollow about a mile up the track,” Black Hawk said. “We’ll make camp there. There’s no reason to risk the horses by riding at night.”

I squinted into the gloom. I could not see anything. “How do you know there’s a hollow up ahead? Is that some Sauk tracking thing?”

“I am sure I could make up something,” Black Hawk said with a grin. “Maybe about being able to see in the dark, or being able to distinguish the ancient pathways in the earth…or I could simply tell you that I’ve been camping out here for the past few days.” He glanced sidelong at me. “You can see the sort of reception I get in town.”

“You get that a lot?”

“Often enough. People see someone like me and think I’m scouting for a war party.” He glanced at me again. “Like when they see a cowboy with two six-shooters on his hips and a rifle on his saddle, they think he means trouble. You get that a lot?”

“Often enough.” I grinned. “Though in my case, it’s usually the truth.” A sudden thought struck me. “Why didn’t those men pull guns on you?”

“Guns are no longer allowed within city limits,” he said. “You surrender them at the sheriff’s office when you ride in, collect them when you ride out.”

“I’ve heard that’s the law in Tombstone and Deadwood now.” I jerked a thumb back at the town. “Guess if they’d had guns, it might not have gone so well for you.”

Black Hawk smiled. “I’m not that easy to kill.”

Something about the way he said it—confident, but not boastful—made me believe him.

***

The hollow was exactly where he said it would be, a deep depression in the ground, surrounded and enclosed by high rocks on all sides, with just a single entrance. It would be easy to defend, but equally easy to get trapped in.

Black Hawk rode ahead of me, and I couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking: he knew he was riding with a notorious outlaw—the press loved to call me notorious—but he acted as if he had not a care in the world. He didn’t strike me as foolhardy, but no sensible man showed his back to a stranger. I spent my life sitting with my back to walls, always making sure I was the last in a line of riders. Simple precautions, but they’d kept me alive this long.

I was feeling uncomfortable, almost as if events were slipping away from me and I was losing control. I liked to think that I made my own decisions, but now I was beginning to wonder. I mean, what were the chances of Calamity Jane riding into Fort Sumner, meeting me, and knowing how to interpret my map? What were the chances of encountering the priest on the steps of the church in Albuquerque…who then directed me to the spot where Black Hawk was being attacked…. which led to me riding into the night with a man I’d only just met.

If I were a religious man, I’d have been thinking that maybe my poor mother was right and it was all God’s will. It was almost as if someone or something was directing me.

“Do you believe in God?” I asked Black Hawk as I rode through the narrow gap that led into the hollow. My voice echoed off the stone walls on either side, sounding louder than I had intended.

The Sauk slipped easily off his mount and led her and the pack mule laden down with supplies to the back of the hollow. He looked over at me as he stripped off their saddles and dug out feed bags. “That’s an odd question, Billy.”

“Reckon I’ve never asked it before,” I admitted.

“So why now, and why ask me?”

I shrugged. I knew I sounded foolish even as I said the words. “Starting to feel like I’m one of those puppets on strings. And someone is pulling my strings. It’s not a nice feeling.”

“I can give you two answers,” Black Hawk said. “Only one will be true. You can choose to believe that you have free will and that you are in charge of everything you do and say, that you are, as the English say, captain of your own ship.”

“Well, I do believe that…,” I began, but Black Hawk pressed on.

“Or I can tell you that the threads of your existence are there from the moment of your birth. As you go through life, you weave some of those threads together into the pattern of your life. However, other threads remain untouched. Call them missed opportunities, or roads not taken.”

“Sounds about the same.”

“It’s not. Because sometimes, someone—or something—will reach into that weave of threads and pluck or twist one you haven’t touched and set your life in a new direction.”

“That sort of suggests this someone or something is plucking at those threads to achieve a specific end, adding their own design to my pattern.”

He nodded, concentrating on brushing down his horse. “That’s a reasonable conclusion.”

I watched him work on the horse and then the mule while I struggled to put my thoughts into words. They say you can tell a lot about a man by the way he treats animals, but I’ve known plenty who treated horses and dogs far better than they cared for any human.

“So…so what you’re saying is that this someone or something who was plucking at those threads was doing it because they were able to see the future. And that’s just plumb impossible…”

Black Hawk laughed, a deep, mellow sound. “Billy, when you have lived as long as I have, you’ll soon come to realize that nothing is impossible.”

“You don’t look that old.”

“I’m older than I look,” he said, and I thought I saw an incredible sadness flicker across his face. “Tell me,” he asked suddenly, “did you ever come across a one-handed man on your travels?”

My breath caught in my throat. I took my time before answering, because I wanted to be sure just who Black Hawk was talking about. “Saw lots of maimed soldiers…,” I began.

He silenced me with a sly smile. “I’m talking about a young-looking man, with a hook in place of his left hand.”

The feeling of panic rolled right over me, and a sour ball bloomed a heavy weight into the pit of my stomach. “How would you know that?” I asked, mumbling because my tongue suddenly felt too thick in my mouth.

“So you saw him?”

I felt a wave of heat race up my body. For the first and only time in my life, I swayed on my horse, and I think I might have fainted right off it, but Black Hawk caught me, lifted me down, carried me as if I weighed nothing, and propped me up against the wall of tall standing stones. I distinctly felt the heat they were still radiating from the day’s sunshine. The Sauk plucked the canteen from my saddle, opened it, and poured brackish water down my dry throat.

“I’m going to take that as a yes,” he said. “If it’s any consolation, I’ve seen him also. He appears and disappears like a wraith.”

Sitting with my back against the stones, I watched Black Hawk tend to my horse and then expertly prepare a fire in a depression in the center of the stone-enclosed hollow. “I’m not going to cook tonight,” he said. “The odor will carry for miles. And who knows what it will call.” He produced a brown paper package from his saddlebag and I recognized the distinctive yellow Arbuckles’ label. “But we can have some coffee. You look like you need it.”

I nodded. “You’ve seen him too? Got a half circle of metal, like a scythe, in place of his left hand.”

“That’s him,” Black Hawk said. “I was a boy when I first encountered him. At first, I thought he was a dream; then I came to believe he was a Paissa, one of the magical forest people. In time I came to understand that he was a real person…although perhaps person is not the right word for what he is. How old were you when you first saw him?”

“I’m not sure. All my life I’d dreamed of a hooded man with a silver hook in place of his left hand. Can’t really say that they were nightmares because they never really frightened me. Growing up, moving from place to place, New York to Indianapolis, Wichita to Santa Fe and then on to Silver City, I sometimes caught sight of someone who looked like him: a figure on the other side of the street, someone passing by outside the window, a glimpse of metal. But you know, when you have little food or just bad food and stale water, you can sometimes see things.”

The rich aroma of coffee wafted across the chill night air. I breathed it in, and the normal, ordinary odor helped to settle me. I sometimes wonder if that’s what Black Hawk was trying to do.

Black Hawk: No, I was just making coffee.

Billy: “When did you meet him in person?” Black Hawk asked.

“How do you know I met him?” I asked, and then answered my own question. “Because you met him also.”

“Saved my life on more than one occasion.”

“Mine too. I was maybe fifteen when I first met him in the flesh. My mother was dead and my brother and I were starving. I was caught stealing food and sent to jail in Silver City. The hook-handed man appeared outside my cell and, without saying a word, opened the doors and helped me escape. He led me out of the jail, and when I turned to thank him, he’d vanished. Maybe two years later, he turned up in Arizona and helped me get away from Fort Grant prison. I saw him, as clear as I see you, but I’m not sure I can remember anything about him, except for his eyes, which were bright blue. He never spoke.”

Black Hawk handed over a steaming mug of coffee. I reached for it, but the cup was almost untouchably hot, though it didn’t seem to bother him. I wrapped my hands in the blanket and took it from him. I breathed in the smell, and it was strong enough to clear my head.

“Who is he?” I asked.

“What is he, is a better question,” Black Hawk said. He sipped from the scalding cup and grimaced. “Needs eggshells.”

I know a lot of cowboys added eggshells to their coffee to improve the taste, but I was never a big fan of that method; I always managed to end up with a mouthful of brittle shell.

Black Hawk: Then you’re missing a treat: eggshells makes for a sweeter cup of coffee, cuts down on the acidity.

Billy: “Who is the hook-handed man?” I asked him again.

“I’ve heard him called many things, but he calls himself Marethyu.”

I tried saying the word. I’m fluent in Spanish, I can trade in French, and I can get by in a few of the Native American dialects, but I’d never heard anything like it.

“It is an old word. It means Death,” Black Hawk said.

6

Billy: “Marethyu. Death,” I repeated, focusing on the coffee, which had cooled enough to drink. I can say, without fear of contradiction, that it was one of the best cups of coffee I’d ever tasted, or maybe it was just that in that particular moment, every sense was heightened.

Black Hawk: No, it was just a really good cup of coffee.

Billy: I tried to gather my whirling thoughts.

“You’ve got questions,” Black Hawk said. “I had the same questions. But first, there is something you should know.”

“I’ve got a feeling I’m not going to like what I’m about to hear.” My heart was starting to beat harder, but I think that might have been the coffee.

“Marethyu sent me to Albuquerque to find you.”

“Find me!” I couldn’t keep my voice even. “That’s impossible. I didn’t know I was going there until less than a week ago.”

“Remember those threads I mentioned, the ones that are occasionally twisted and woven into new patterns?”

I nodded.

“Welcome to the new pattern. Marethyu did some weaving.” Black Hawk poured himself another cup of coffee. “About ninety years ago, I set out on a mission…”

“Whoa! I think I misheard you…,” I stammered.

“No, you did not. I said ninety years ago, not nine or nineteen. Billy, I was born in 1767 or thereabouts. This year, I will be one hundred and thirteen years old. I’m not looking too bad for my age, am I?”

“One hundred and thirteen?”

“I am immortal, Billy,” he said very simply. “If I keep my head and do not suffer a catastrophic injury, I could, potentially, live forever.”

“I know what immortal means.”

Night had fallen now, and the small fire was dying. The only light in the circle of stones came from the glowing embers, and they turned Back Hawk’s eyes into red spots in the darkness. For some reason, it never even crossed my mind that maybe, just maybe, this Native American was crazy. There were a lot of really strange people in the West. Some were unhinged before they came out here, drawn by the empty spaces and the vast landscape. Others were driven into a type of insanity by the bad food, terrible drink, the loneliness, or a combination of all three. But I instinctively knew that Black Hawk was none of these.

Was I scared? Not in the slightest.

Black Hawk: Not even a little bit nervous?

Billy: Was I even surprised? Not sure about that either. At night, when you’ve got nothing else to do, cowboys gossip and tell tall tales, so you become accustomed to hearing the oddest things. And as you travel across the West, you come up against all manner of fantastic Native American lore, mixed in with stories from the English, French, Spanish, Scottish, German, Italians, Scandinavians, and Irish who’ve come here. Then you add in the African lore, South American folktales, and Chinese myth, and you get a rich stew of stories. The West is littered with myths and fragments of legends from those countries, and it all rolls together to form a new mythology.

But beyond the stories, you hear things and see things you cannot explain. You wake in the morning to find odd tracks around your camp left by a beast you cannot identify, or you discover a horse or a steer is missing, but with no track marks on the ground. Sometimes you see things in the air, birds that are bigger than any flying creature should be. There are lakes you avoid because something hungry lives in its depths, caves you don’t want to camp in because local legend tells that they’re inhabited by red-haired giants. And often, far too often, at night, you’ll hear shouts, snarls and roars from animals you cannot identify and do not want to meet. This is a vast country. Huge swaths of the land are blank and uncharted. Who knows what mysteries and terrors it holds? Why, didn’t I set out on this journey because of a map etched onto a sheet of silver?

“You’re taking it well,” he said eventually. “You didn’t pull away, or reach for your gun. Does that mean you believe me?”

“Let’s say I’m prepared to listen,” I said carefully. “So the hook-handed man sent you here to find me?”

“He sent me here to make you an offer.”

“To make me immortal?”

“No, Marethyu does not do that. But he will direct you to a creature who can grant you immortality. A long time ago, I did some work for a creature worshipped by the Aztec. Quetzalcoatl. He gifted me with life eternal. If you survive the next few days, I might introduce you to him. I think you would loathe one another on sight.”

“Why didn’t Marethyu come himself?”

I saw Black Hawk’s hand move in the night, briefly blanking out the stars. “This is not the only world. There are many others that border this one. Shadowrealms. They are all inhabited, and I believe he moves from realm to realm fighting for humanity, keeping them safe from an ancient evil. He works through agents.”

“And you are one of these agents?”

“I am. And you could be one also.”

An agent of Death. I rather liked the sound of that. “So you’re not the only one?”

“I’ve encountered others through the years. Some are aligned with Marethyu, but others act against him. They have allied themselves with darker forces who are controlled by an immortal English doctor. If you are very lucky, you will never meet him. I know there is a woman on the East Coast who is supposed to be three hundred years old, and in Europe I’ve heard there are some who have lived for many hundreds of years.”

“I think I would like to be immortal,” I said.

“There is a cost to immortality, Billy.” A note of incredible sadness touched Black Hawk’s voice. “You remain unaged while the world changes around you, and the people you know—family, friends—wither, age, and die. Is that a price you are prepared to pay?”

“I don’t have anyone,” I said, surprised by the wash of emotion that rolled over me, the abrupt realization that I really had no one in my life. “My mother, father, and stepfather are dead, and I haven’t seen my brother, Joseph, in a long time.”

“No sweetheart?” Black Hawk asked.

I shook my head. “There was a girl, Paulita Maxwell. I liked her well enough, and I think she liked me. But she came from money, and her family did not approve. I suppose we could have run away together, but a life on the road is hard and she’d grown up used to the finer things in life.”

“And friends?”

“I don’t have friends. There’s a rotating list of petty criminals, horse thieves and robbers who move in and out of my gang. Though, to be honest, it’s not really a gang.”

“Then maybe you’re just the person Marethyu is looking for.”

“I’m guessing I’ve got to do something to earn this immortality.”

“It is true that you earn eternal life by proving yourself worthy. But this mission has nothing to do with becoming immortal. This is something deeply personal to me. Something I have tried—and failed—at for the past ninety years. I believe Marethyu thinks you may able to help.” He could not quite keep the disbelief out of his voice.

“And has this Marethyu ever been wrong?”

“Often.”

“And if he is wrong about me.”

“Then you will probably be dead by the end of the week.”

“So, what were you trying to do?”

“I am hunting a Wendigo.” He said it and left a pause, almost as if he expected me to know what a wee-jee-joh was.

“I have no idea who that is,” I told him.

“Wendigo. And it’s a what, not a who. Sometimes called a Windigo or a Windago.”

“You can tell me as many versions of its name as you like, but I still have no idea who or what it is. Doesn’t matter, though. If it sets me on the road toward becoming immortal, you can count me in.”

“If you survive,” Black Hawk reminded me.

“So, what’s a Wendigo?”

“It’s a fifteen-foot-tall skeletal monster with the head and horns of a stag and a taste for human flesh.” I saw his teeth flash in a smile. “Are you still in?”

I swallowed hard, but curiosity had always been my failing. I’d never seen a Wendigo before. I figured, how bad could it be? “I’m in.”

7

Billy: Black Hawk and I rode side by side down the dusty trail, while the dawn brightened the sky behind us.

“Ninety years ago,” he told me, “a tribe of Wendigo rampaged across Canada and North America, killing and eating everyone in the path.

I felt my breakfast—coffee and fry bread—churn in my stomach. “Now, when you say eat…”

“The Wendigo are cannibals,” Black Hawk explained.” The eat one another and they’ll take animal flesh, but they really prefer humans.”

“What sort of beast are they: some type of bear or wolverine?”

“Not bears, wolves, wolverines or elk. They are a combination of human and beast and the worst of both. My people believed that a Wendigo is created when a human commits that most awful of sins and eats human flesh.”

I shuddered. Cannibalism: it is the ultimate taboo. Everyone has heard the stories of miners stuck underground, or travelers trapped by weather, or sailors lost at sea, who had no alternative but to eat one of their companions to survive.

“So did they gradually turn into flesh-eating monsters, or did it happen overnight? Do they turn into a monster with every full moon, like a loup-garou, a werewolf? I got friendly with some of the Navajo who were held in the army camp in Fort Sumner, and they told me stories about something called a skinwalker. Is it like that?”

Black Hawk’s spine stiffened. He leaned over the saddle and spat into the dirt. I’ve seen old Italian and Spanish women do the same; it’s a superstition to do with driving away bad luck. “Never use that word again in my presence. Even saying the name is enough to bring us to their attention. The…the name you just used is given to witches trained in a lore going back generations. They are not always evil—some are healers and seers—but, their dark arts change them. Nonetheless, they are still human. The Wendigo are not. I do not believe they are corrupted humans; I think they are something older, darker, a leftover from another age of man, from the Time Before Time.”

The road opened up in front of us, revealing a vast and glorious panorama. We were on a trail north and west of Albuquerque. As far as the eye could see the landscape ahead was flat, with just the blue smudge of mountains in the distance. The cloudless sky directly overhead was still purple with night, speckled with stars, but when I glanced over my shoulder, I could see the dusty pink dawn racing toward us.

Black Hawk: Very poetic. You’re talking about pink skies while I’m telling you about cannibal Wendigo.

Billy: “So these Wendigo attacked your tribe?” I asked.

“I think what happened was that the native Canadian tribes banded together and hunted the Wendigo almost to extinction. The few who survived headed south. The monsters are always ravenously hungry and have to feed to survive. They rampaged through the native tribes around the Great Lakes, killing and eating everyone in their path.”

I heard the catch in his voice and guessed these Wendigo had struck close to home.

“Entire settlements were wiped out.”

Even though I knew it had happened a long time ago, the pain in his voice was still raw. “And you weren’t there when it happened,” I guessed.

“I was in New York City listening to George Washington give his State of the Union address in Federal Hall.”

“You saw Washington!” I was impressed.

Black Hawk stared into the distance. “It was clear that the world was changing. I wanted to be there to see history being made.”

A sudden thought struck me. “What would have happened if you’d been at home with your tribe?”

“Dead and eaten, probably.”

“So I’m guessing Marethyu suggested you go to New York. Did he pluck one of those destiny threads you talked about?”

“You know, you’re not as dumb as you look.”

“Thanks. I think,” I said. “I’ve always found it’s better to be underestimated.”

“By the time I got back to my tribe, it was all over,” Black Hawk said. “Maybe a third were dead or missing.”

At that, Black Hawk raised his head and looked into the lightening skies, but I knew he wasn’t seeing the dawn. We rode in silence for a while, and when he finally spoke again, he sounded tired and lost. “I’ve lived long enough to witness some terrible things, Billy. I was there when Prophetstown burned, I was on that hillside four years ago when Custer fell at the Battle of Greasy Grass. I walked the Civil War battlefields of Gettysburg, Antietam, Shiloh, and Fredericksburg, and I witnessed firsthand the forced march on the Trail of Tears.”

I hadn’t heard of half the things he named, but I knew enough to keep my mouth shut. I don’t think he even realized that he had tears on his cheeks.

“I am old, Billy, older than most of the people on this planet. I have forgotten more than I remember. And that is a good thing, because I do not think any human could bear the weight of so much loss and suffering. All the years of the Native American wars have blended into one monumental and fruitless struggle. The Civil War horrors have rolled together in my mind into a single enormous battlefield. I don’t remember every one of the five thousand miles of the Trail of Tears, though I will always remember individual faces. But here is what I can never forget, no matter how hard I try: the aftermath of the Wendigo attack on my camp.”

There was a long silence, broken only by the horses’ hooves plodding on the hard earth. Eventually, Black Hawk took a deep, shuddering breath. “I will not tell you what I saw there that day,” he said, glancing sidelong at me. “All I will say is that it was gruesome, and the sights, the sounds, and the smells have never left me. I doubt they ever will. The following morning, I packed my weapons and some clothes and set off after the Wendigo. I have been hunting them ever since. There were twelve when I started; now, almost a hundred years later, one remains.”

“One Wendigo. One’s not so bad. You’ve killed eleven by yourself. Now you have me to help. We can do it,” I said with a confidence born out of absolute ignorance.

“The eleven I killed over the years were the weakest, the slowest, damaged by disease, and their bodies were falling apart. If the Wendigo do not eat regularly, their flesh rots and their bones begin to protrude through their skin.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“So the one who remains is the oldest, the most powerful. It has lived for centuries, and is cunning and dangerous beyond belief.”

“And, I’m guessing, hard to kill?” I asked.

“Almost impossible. I have been chasing this last surviving monster for nearly thirty years.”

“And let’s say—and this is just a wild thought—let’s say we attack this monster but don’t kill it. What happens then?”

“It will eat us. And it will take its time doing it,” he said. “You’ll be alive for most of it.”

“You really didn’t need to tell me that part,” I said.

8

Billy: We rode deep into Native American land, heading for the Valley of the Gods. We kept an easy pace, not pushing the horses hard. Black Hawk took the lead and rode a little ahead and to my left, finding us a path through the scrub. I hung back, constantly checking the landscape on either side, turning in the saddle to watch behind. There were Apache and Ute to the north, Navajo directly ahead, and Zuni to the south of us. I knew they were watching us, and even though the ground was flat and featureless, I had no doubt they’d be right on top of us before we knew it.

Black Hawk: You might not know it; I would have.

Billy: At night we slept in shifts. Or rather, I slept; I’m not sure I ever saw Black Hawk sleep. Some nights were loud with critters, and while you’d think they might keep you from sleep, it’s a pleasant, restful sound. It’s the quiet nights, when even the air itself is still, that you have to be careful of. On those nights, neither of us slept. I often wonder if something was out there in the night, watching us.

Black Hawk: There was. Apache braves creeping in close, maybe hoping to snatch one of the horses, or trying to work out why a Native American and a white man were traveling so amicably together. Billy, I’m not sure how much recording time is left on this device. Let’s get to the Wendigo part.

Billy: Maybe ten days later, we caught up with the Wendigo.

We were settling down for the night, in a natural hollow in the almost completely flat landscape. I’d just started a fire and put water on to boil. Dinner would be beans and biscuits. Again. Finished off with Arbuckles’ coffee. Again.

Black Hawk squatted with his back to me, watching the landscape, looking for grasses that didn’t move in time with the wind, or a bush that remained still when it should have been moving. His skills, honed by over a century, enabled him to read signs and tracks as easily as others read a newspaper. “I’m thinking,” he said quietly, pitching his voice low so that it wouldn’t carry on the wind, “that maybe the Wendigo is heading toward the Huerfano Mesa.” His arm rose and he pointed straight ahead, where a smudge of white was barely visible against the gathering night.

“Never heard of it,” I said.

“It is one of the four sacred mountains of the Navajo people. They believe it is the home of Áłtsé Hastiin and Áłtsé Asdzą́ą́, the First Man and the First Woman.”

“Why do you think this creature would head to such a sacred place?”

“Who knows how monsters think? But do not make the mistake of assuming that it is a dumb beast. It is intelligent and has lived long enough to have seen the world change and change again. The same intelligence keeps it away from the major cities.”

“Surely it should be drawn to heavily populated cities and towns? Lots of easy pickings,” I said. “We’re low on coffee,” I added, “and we have maybe two days of beans left.”

“We’ll make do,” he said. “What happens when a bear, a wolf, or a mountain lion starts hunting too close to civilization?” he asked.

“It is hunted to destruction.”

“If a Wendigo started killing and feasting in a town—no matter how small—how long do you think it would be before heavily armed hunting parties were formed or the army was called in?”

“Good point.” I nodded. I’d seen it happen.

Black Hawk pointed into the distance. “But if the Wendigo keeps its killing to the Native American lands, do you think the army will come out to protect us? Do you thinking anyone will even notice if a few natives go missing? Will anyone care?”

“You’re right. The Wendigo could hunt out here for years, maybe decades…”

“Unless it’s stopped…,” Black Hawk finished.

The wind changed, blowing out of the north and west, carrying with it the promise of rain…and something else. Something foul and rotting.

I quickly rose to my feet and looked to Black Hawk. His eyes were closed, nostrils flaring as he homed in on the scent. I tried to mimic him, closing my eyes and breathing deeply, but the appalling scent overwhelmed me and I spun away, gagging.

“Something’s dead out there.” I gasped.

“That is the scent of the Wendigo,” Black Hawk whispered. “It sweats when it hunts. It is rotting from the inside out, and its sweat reeks of decay.” He spun away and kicked dust over my fire, extinguishing it. Then he grabbed his rifle and vaulted onto the back of his horse. “It’s hunting now. And it’s close.” Digging his heels into the side of the horse, he galloped away at full speed.

I spun around in a complete circle, not entirely sure what to do. My horse and the pack mule looked at me, nostrils flaring, eyes wide with fright, obviously smelling the stench in the air. I tossed my saddle onto the back of my horse and cinched it quickly—Black Hawk hadn’t even bothered to saddle his mount. For a moment, I thought about freeing the pack mule, but I left it staked to the ground, alongside our supplies. If we didn’t return, someone was sure to come across it.

Sitting tall in the saddle, I looked out across the darkening landscape, searching for Black Hawk. Suddenly, in the distance, directly ahead and to my right, there was a flash of light, followed an instant later by the crack of a shot. Chambering a round into my Winchester, I set off in that direction, pushing my horse as hard as I could, hoping she was not going to step into a hole and toss me to the ground, hoping I was not going to be set upon by an Native American war party, hoping I was not going to arrive too late.

9

Billy: Although the landscape looked flat, it undulated like the slow waves on the ocean. As I crested a low rise, I spotted a glow in the distance: campfires.

There were sounds on the air—shouts, screams, the cry of a baby, the whinnying of horses, occasional gunshots. The stink of the Wendigo grew stronger, a disgusting stench of rot and wet decay, rancid meat and rotten fruit, wet hair and old leaves. It coated my lips and tongue. I desperately wanted to close my mouth and breathe through my nose, but that would have meant smelling the noxious odor, and the smell was enough to make me throw up.

With the light and sounds to guide me, I urged my horse forward. But I could feel it slowing, almost as if it was reluctant to approach the unearthly smell. I knew that at any moment, it was going to rear up and throw me. Lying forward across her withers, I whispered in her twitching ears, promising her all sorts of treats if she would take a few more steps. She did; that bay was the best horse I ever had.

We rose over another low rise in the ground and I looked down upon horror.

In the light of three low campfires, I counted perhaps fifteen people. Navajo. They were in a tight knot, with the men and women facing outward, protecting two or three elderly and some children in the center of the circle. I saw Black Hawk moving around the outside of the circle, tomahawk and knife in either hand. I wondered if he’d run out of ammunition for his rifle.

Strutting around the circle was a creature from the very depths of nightmare: the Wendigo. It was tall, maybe three times my height, with curling antlers jutting from a hairless head. I was abruptly grateful that I could not see its face. Lighting it from behind, the flickering campfires washed across gray-dead skin, revealing yellow bones and the curl of exposed ribs. Its torso jutted forward on what looked like goat legs, and unnaturally long arms were tipped with curling claws, like a bear’s. The beast moved in absolute silence.

It darted in close to the knot of Navajo, claws slashing, and was met with jabbing spears and stabbing knives. I watched a warrior loose an arrow at the monster. I distinctly heard the twang of the bow and the crack of the arrow as it struck the Wendigo’s breastplate, then snapped in half.

Black Hawk rushed forward, tomahawk a blur. The Wendigo raised a claw and the metal head of the ax struck sparks off it. The creature lashed out at Black Hawk, almost taking his head off, sending him stumbling back.

Clutching my rifle, I leapt off my horse and tried to aim into the chaos below. But the monster was moving too quickly, and the tightly packed group of people constantly shifting. I dared not risk a shot, just in case I missed.

Sliding down into the hollow, I grabbed a burning log from a fire and ran forward.

I could see the monster clearly now. I’ve come across rotting carcasses on the trail—dead horses, cows, or deer—and this creature looked like every one of those, except that it was alive, and I could see muscles moving and bones shifting through its torn skin. It was wearing scraps of fur and hide; I recognized bear and wolf, coyote and buffalo.

I came up behind the beast and jabbed at him with the burning torch. Rancid furs popped alight, and abruptly the creature was wearing a blazing poncho. Snatching off the flaming rags, it turned to look at me and its mouth moved, almost as if it was trying to form words, but nothing came out.

I was really grateful that I’d not eaten, because I’m sure I would have been sick. Even leaving aside the height, the stench and the antlers, the rotting skin and jutting bones, what made the creature even more terrifying was just how human it looked. The enormous head was a skull, with solid black eyes and ragged pointed teeth, but outlined in flaking skin, I could see the face of the man it had once been.

I jabbed with the burning log again and the Wendigo’s claw closed over it, crushing it to sparking cinders.

I was less than two feet from the creature when I opened up with the Winchester. The gun holds twenty .44-caliber rounds, which travel at over twelve hundred feet per second. I reckon I got off six or seven shots—and hit true with every one—before the Wendigo snatched the rifle from my grasp and sent it spinning into the night. The sudden blow numbed both arms, and I knew, in one heart-stopping moment, that even if I managed to draw my Colt, my fingers were too numb to pull the trigger.

I’d always known I’d die in the West. I thought I’d be shot down—probably by someone who called themselves a friend—but I never imagined I’d fall to a centuries-old monster.

I closed my eyes as something hit me and sent me flying back into the night…and opened them again when I hit the ground and discovered Black Hawk on top of me. He’d leapt out of the circle of Navajo, slamming into me to push me away from the monster’s grasp.

Black Hawk: Was that the first time I saved your life? I believe it was.

Billy: We crashed through one of the low fires in an explosion of sparks and tumbled into the scrub.

“Well, you found your Wendigo. Now what?” I asked. I was amazed to realize I still had all my limbs and nothing was broken.

“It’s grown stronger since we last fought,” Black Hawk gasped out as he clambered to his feet.

We were behind the monster now, who was still circling the group. “Who are these people?”

“Three generations of a Navajo family heading to Huerfano Mesa,” he explained. “The Wendigo came on them just as they were settling down for the night.”

“I thought I saw children…”

“There are three little ones in the middle of the circle with their grandparents.”

We watched the monster move around the group, probing its defenses.

“My bullets just bounced off it.” I raised my Colt and blew dust out of the barrel. “I can shoot at it again, maybe draw it toward us. If it chases us, maybe the people can flee into the night.”

Outlined against the firelight, I saw Black Hawk shake his head. “No, once they break out of the circle, the Wendigo will pick them off one by one. At the moment, the spears, knives, and tomahawks are keeping it at bay.”

“Will it slink away when the sun rises?” I asked.

“Not this one. Some Wendigo only hunt at night, but that’s a choice. It will be worse when the sun comes up, because the Navajo will be able to see the creature clearly and recognize it for what it is. That will make them even more terrified. Also, they’re getting tired. It’s only a matter of time before the Wendigo gets one, and then another and another. It wants the children.”

“Well, how do we stop it?”

“I don’t know,” Black Hawk said, and I could hear the despair in his voice.

“There must be something we can do,” I said desperately. “Think! You’ve been hunting these for nearly a century. What kills a Wendigo?”

“Some I shot, others I caught in traps. But you can see that this one is immune to bullets.”

“How else did you kill them? You didn’t shoot or trap all of them, did you?”

“No. Most I took by hand. A Cree shaman made me a silver tomahawk. Silver is deadly to them.”

“What happened to the silver tomahawk?”

“Lost it in a fire. Always meant to replace it. Never got around to it. What I wouldn’t give for a silver blade right now. Or even a silver bullet.”

“What about a silver page?” I asked.

Black Hawk looked at me blankly.

From my inside pocket I produced the cloth-wrapped silver map. I looked at it ruefully as I unfolded the page. “It’s supposed to show the location of a great treasure that’s somewhere around the Valley of the Gods.” I handed the rectangle of silver to Black Hawk. “Maybe you can put it to better use.”

Without a word, Black Hawk took the silver sheet, bent it in two, and then tore it in half. He pulled out his knife and wrapped the metal blade in crumpled silver. “Here’s what I’m going to do,” he said. “I’m going to get in close to the monster and let it grab me. It’ll draw me close to its mouth to take a bite and then I can stab it once or twice before it…well, before it takes a bite out of me. If I can stick the knife in, the metal will poison the creature in a couple of hours, so all you and the others have to do it to keep it busy until then.” His iron-hard fingers closed over my arm, squeezing tightly. “You must make me a promise, Billy. If the Wendigo bites me and then dies before it eats me, I will become a Wendigo. Kill me and burn my body. Don’t let me become a monster. You must promise me this.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” I said. Taking the other half of the silver page, I folded it over my own knife, smoothing away all traces of the treasure map. “Let’s see if we can do this without either of us getting bit. Two silver knives are better than one.”

Black Hawk stretched out his hand and I took it in mine. “When all this is over,” I said, “you owe me a treasure map.”

“If we survive this, Billy, I will make sure you get the greatest treasure of all: immortality. And a map of the treasure in the Valley of the Gods.”

“You know where it is?” I asked

“I don’t,” he said. “But I know a man who does!”

10

Niccolò,

So, Black Hawk’s phone ran out of memory. Apparently, you’re not supposed to record hours of audio in one sitting.

You know we survived the battle with the Wendigo because we’re both still here. Neither of us got bit, thought I was slashed with those filthy claws, and Black Hawk broke two fingers when he stabbed the monster with the silver-covered knife.

I could tell you that we fought that monster for hours. But that would be a lie. It was all over and done in a matter of minutes. The beast was focused on the Navajo, determined to get at the children. We crept up behind it. Black Hawk leapt on its back, wrapped his arms around its neck, and stabbed it. It spun around and I jabbed it in the thigh with my silver-wrapped knife. That’s when it slashed me across the chest. I had those scars for years. The beast dropped to its knees, desperately trying to shake Black Hawk off its back. It bucked and thrashed, but he hung on for dear life. The Navajo people swarmed forward, driving the beast to the ground, piling on top of it, and holding it there as the poison worked through its system. Black Hawk clung on to the bitter end, his body pressed against that rancid flesh. He stank of Wendigo for weeks afterward.

If this were a werewolf story, then the creature would have turned back into its human form before it died. But nothing like that happened. It didn’t turn to dust, and it was as ugly in death as it had been in life. We burned the body.

In the morning, the Navajo resumed their journey to their sacred mountain, and Black Hawk and I set off on the beginning of our own great adventure.

However, before I could become immortal, I had to return to Fort Sumner to die. Oh, and I did stop in Albuquerque on the way back and let that Jesuit padre know I’d survived

Oh, before I go. I managed to source some of that Black Ivory coffee you like. You do know it’s fed to elephants first and then the digested beans are collected from it droppings? I’m guessing you do…and you still drink it!

Stay safe,

William

(see, I took your advice, and started using William rather than Bill or Billy)

What is lost will be found.

Discover more Lost Stories from the world of the New York Times bestselling Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series

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Perry Hagopian

An authority on mythology and folklore, MICHAEL SCOTT is one of Ireland’s most successful authors. A master of fantasy, science fiction, horror, and folklore, Michael has been hailed by the Irish Times as “the King of Fantasy in these isles.” He is the author of the New York Times bestselling Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series: The Alchemyst, The Magician, The Sorceress, The Necromancer, The Warlock, and The Enchantress.

DillonScott.com

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