Hope's End: Ancient Enemy 3
Author: Mark Lukens Narrated Byteri Barrington
Date: 2019-07-24 00:00:00+00:00
Description: In 1891, in the badlands of northern Arizona, Jed Cartwright, a bounty hunter and U.S. Marshal, transports a dangerous prisoner back to the town of Smith Junction. As they travel through the woods, they are attacked by what they believe are skinwalkers. As Jed flees the woods, he finds a house where a family has been slaughtered. The only survivor is an eight-year-old Navajo boy, a boy traumatized by the horrors he has seen. As Jed and the Navajo boy make their way north to Smith Junction, a sudden sandstorm diverts them to the small town of Hope's End. They take refuge from the storm in the s
Publisher: Tantor Audio

HOPE’S END

ANCIENT ENEMY 3
by

MARK LUKENS

Hope’s End: Ancient Enemy 3 copyright © 2017 by Mark Lukens

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reprinted without written permission from the author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (or in any other form), business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by: Damonza.com

Special thanks to:  Jet, Ann, Kelli, Kat, and Mary Ann – your help is so valuable to me and appreciated more than you know.

BOOKS BY MARK LUKENS

ANCIENT ENEMY – www.amazon.com/dp/B00FD4SP8M

DARKWIND: ANCIENT ENEMY 2 – www.amazon.com/dp/B01K42JBGW

SIGHTINGS – www.amazon.com/dp/B00VAI31KW

DEVIL’S ISLAND – www.amazon.com/dp/B06WWJC6VD

WHAT LIES BELOW – www.amazon.com/dp/B0143LADEY

THE EXORCIST’S APPRENTICE – www.amazon.com/dp/B00YYF1E5C

NIGHT TERRORS – www.amazon.com/dp/B00M66IU3U

DESCENDANTS OF MAGIC – www.amazon.com/dp/B00FWYYYYC

THE SUMMONING – www.amazon.com/dp/B00HNEOHKU

THE DARWIN EFFECT – www.amazon.com/dp/B01G4A8ZYC

A DARK COLLECTION – www.amazon.com/dp/B00JENAGLC

GHOST TOWN – www.amazon.com/dp/B00LEZRF7G

RAZORBLADE DREAMS: HORROR STORIES – www.amazon.com/dp/B076B7W252

THE VAMPIRE GAME – www.amazon.com/dp/B07C2M72X9
FOLLOWED – www.amazon.com/dp/B078WYGMJN

PART 1

THE WOODS

CHAPTER 1

Arizona Badlands—1891

Jed Cartwright knew he and David were being followed as he rode his horse through the badlands. Scrub brush dotted the hills as far as he could see with a jagged rise of mountains lining the western horizon. The trail he followed led to a labyrinth of canyons down in the valley below. Buzzards circled the air above those canyons—there was something dead in there.

He turned around in his saddle to look behind him, the leather creaking in the silence of the desert. He didn’t see anyone, but he could feel them. They were out there somewhere in that vast wasteland, watching and following. They were skinwalkers. That’s what Red Moon had called them.

David, a Navajo boy, rode right next to Jed. He had found David in his home only a few hours ago. The boy’s entire family had been slaughtered, their bodies taken away by the murderers, leaving only blood and gore smeared all over the walls and floors of the home.

The skinwalkers had taken David’s family, the same skinwalkers that had killed Jed’s deputies and the prisoner that he had been transporting back to Smith Junction—Red Moon. And now Jed was sure those same skinwalkers were trailing them through the desert right now.

David had barely said anything except his name. He was traumatized after seeing what had happened to his family. Jed could only imagine the horrors the boy had seen—the same horrors Jed had seen up in those woods when his deputies were taken in the night, their bodies mutilated. It would take David a long time to get over the things he had seen in his own home . . . if he ever got over them at all.

Jed looked at David as he rode his horse. David stared straight ahead, his stare blank, his face expressionless; he was good with his horse, strong and confident in the saddle.

The sun hovered just above the line of mountains, there would only be a few hours of daylight left now. The air was cold, but it wasn’t freezing. They had ridden away from David’s house quickly after Jed found him hiding in his bedroom, but over the last few hours they had slowed their horses down. The horses were tired, and so was Jed. They would need to find a place to make camp soon.

Jed thought back to how this had all started—with the capture of Red Moon.

*

For eleven years now Jed had been a U.S. Marshal. He’d gone after plenty of bounties over the years, but the notorious outlaw Red Moon had to be one of the biggest bounties he’d ever chased down. Red Moon was as bad as they came; he was wanted for twenty murders, multiple robberies, and horse thievery. And he was going to bring a hefty bounty for Jed and his men: Roscoe and Dobbs.

Roscoe had worked with Jed on bounties half a dozen times, but Stephen Dobbs was a first-timer. Roscoe was much older than Dobbs, even older than Jed. His hair and mustache were completely gray. His clothes were always rumpled except where his shirt was stretched over his pot-belly. But Roscoe was quicker than most people expected, and he wasn’t afraid of much. He was an experienced tracker and a good shot. But most importantly to Jed, he was trustworthy and dependable.

Dobbs was young, only twenty-three years old. He’d come on a recommendation from one of Jed’s friends, and that was good enough for Jed. Dobbs had been nothing but respectful and eager to learn on this trip. He knew his place among Jed and Roscoe, and he’d been excited about being a part of the team that would be nabbing the notorious Red Moon. Dobbs was shorter than Jed and Roscoe, and much thinner, but he was strong for his size. He had a shock of bright red hair and a spattering of freckles across his face.

On a tip from a reliable source, Jed had found out that Red Moon was shacked up with a woman in a farmhouse. Jed, Roscoe, and Dobbs had staked the place out overnight and planned to storm the house as the sun came up.

That night, as they waited, Jed had fallen asleep. He had awoken in the darkness, biting back a scream. His skin had been covered with sweat, his muscles twitchy. He couldn’t remember the dream, but something had frightened him badly. All he could remember was the feeling of suffocating in the dream, like a living darkness had been smothering the breath out of him, holding him down so he couldn’t move.

Jed had stayed up the last few hours until morning, still shaken by the dream. He tried to tell himself that he was just nervous about apprehending Red Moon. Not scared, just nervous. Cautious. Any man who wasn’t a little nervous going up against a man like Red Moon was a fool. Yeah, maybe that nervousness—that cautiousness—had sparked the bad dream.

And maybe the rumors about Red Moon being a Navajo medicine man had spooked Jed a little, too. Some even said Red Moon was some kind of witch doctor. Jed didn’t believe in that kind of stuff, but the men who had told him about Red Moon seemed convinced of it. Jed was sure that the stories about Red Moon were just tall tales conjured up by people who didn’t even know him, rumors spread about a man whose culture they didn’t understand, a culture they didn’t want to understand. When it came to these gunslingers and bandits, some people liked to turn them into larger-than-life legends. Usually when Jed finally crossed paths with these “legends,” he found himself a little underwhelmed.

They stormed the farmhouse at dawn, kicking the door in and barging in with guns drawn. Red Moon was sleeping in bed with the woman he’d shacked up with, and he never even had a chance to go for his gun. He surrendered immediately. And Jed was glad he had surrendered so easily. Some wanted men went for their guns when they were cornered, preferring a shootout rather than facing the embarrassment of dangling from the end of a hangman’s noose in front of a town full of gawkers. Some wanted men preferred to go out in a blaze of glory.

In his years of chasing down wanted men, Jed had only faced five men who had gone for their guns rather than surrendering. He’d killed three of the men and wounded the other two. Most men though, like Red Moon, surrendered without a fight once they realized they didn’t have a chance in a shootout. Maybe they wanted those extra few days of life even if it was in a jail cell and a courtroom. They wanted to cling to those extra hours of life even though they knew the inevitable was coming soon. Maybe some of them regretted their decision of not shooting it out as they walked (or sometimes they were dragged) up the gallows steps, dishonoring themselves at the end by sobbing and begging with their hands tied behind their backs. Some of them, right up to the end, swore they had committed no crimes.

*

Jed slowed his horse down when they were closer to a group of boulders at the entrance to the narrow canyon. Buzzards still circled the air over the canyon in the distance, some of them diving down while others took flight. His horse was snorting and bucking just a little, spooked by something in that canyon, possibly picking up the scent of blood . . . and death.

“We have to ride through it,” Jed told David. “No other way around.”

David didn’t answer Jed, but he looked as nervous as the horses were.

Their horses clopped over the hard-packed dirt and rock as they made their way down into the canyon floor where the rock walls closed in, leaving a narrow passage to ride through. About halfway through the canyon, Jed saw the splashes of dried blood along the rock walls. It looked like someone had taken their blood-soaked hand and dragged their fingers along the face of the rock, the fingers leaving behind four long stripes of blood.

The blood trail on the rock wall ended, the long streaks of blood faded to nothing. On the dirt below was a severed hand, the wrist a ragged mess with a string of gristle trailing out. The end of a snapped-off bone gleamed white among the gore. The skin of the hand was light brown—like David’s skin. A little farther along the canyon floor there was a piece of flesh that was unidentifiable and riddled and pecked apart by the buzzards’ beaks.

Jed felt his stomach turning. He knew whose body parts those were—and he was sure David knew it, too.

“Come on,” Jed told David. “We need to keep moving.”

CHAPTER 2

As Jed and David rode away from the canyons, Jed thought back to when he had apprehended Red Moon, and he was suddenly there again, reliving those moments.

Red Moon showed no fear when Jed and his men captured him in the farmhouse. He showed no fear when they shackled his wrists together and sat him atop their spare horse. But after a few hours of riding, when they approached the woods, Red Moon finally showed fear and spoke his first words: “We should not go in those woods.”

Jed wasn’t going to let a prisoner dictate his travel route back to Smith Junction. When he got Red Moon there, the trial would be quick, and the justice even quicker; Red Moon would hang for his crimes.

According to Jed’s map, the woods were a shortcut—they were going to shave at least two or three days off of their trip.

The shortcut had seemed like a good idea at the time, but after a few miles into the woods Jed began to regret his decision.

Jed was sure they were being followed. He couldn’t see or hear anyone in the woods, but the feeling of being followed wouldn’t go away. He wondered if it might be claim jumpers waiting for the right time to ambush them and take Red Moon for the bounty. During his eleven years as a U.S. Marshal, Jed had never personally dealt with claim jumpers before, but he’d heard stories from other lawmen and bounty hunters about them. And the high price on Red Moon’s head would surely be a temptation.

Jed suspected that whoever was following them was part of Red Moon’s gang. Even though Jed was pretty sure Red Moon wasn’t with a gang at the moment, the outlaw had ridden with different gangs in the past.

Or it was always possible that the men following them were just run-of-the-mill bandits, highway robbers hoping to get whatever they could, ignorant of the bounty on Red Moon’s head.

Then again, maybe no one was following them. Maybe his nerves were getting to him. He didn’t usually get nervous. He’d been a lawman and a bounty hunter most of his life, beginning deputy work when he was eighteen years old. He’d worked with his father at first, but then he struck out on his own after his father had been killed a few years later. No, he didn’t usually get nervous, and he trusted his gut feelings that had been honed as sharp as a scalping knife over the years.

If he would have listened to his gut feelings in those woods, if only he would have listened to the warning from Red Moon, then maybe his men would still be alive. But Jed had been antsy to get Red Moon to Smith Junction, eager to collect his bounty and get this over with. He hadn’t even planned on spending much time in Smith Junction after he dropped Red Moon off, not even sure he would stick around long enough to watch the outlaw hang. He decided he would go back home even though no one was waiting there for him. His wife, Clara, had died five years ago from pneumonia. There was no one at his homestead now, no one except Chavez who came around a few times a week to do some work around the place, helping Jed out when he was away.

Jed glanced back at Red Moon as they rode deeper into the woods. Red Moon was a few inches shorter than Jed, but where Jed was gangly and broad-shouldered, Red Moon was thick with muscle. Red Moon wore a pair of wool pants, the bottoms of which were stuffed into a weathered pair of cowboy boots. His leather shirt was greasy and old. He wore very little jewelry except for a rawhide necklace with a silver charm dangling from it. His long dark hair was parted in the middle and hung loose down to his shoulders. He had a scraggly goatee with just the first strands of gray showing. He rode easily in the saddle, a natural horseman. He was an intimidating man, but in these woods, Red Moon was scared—Jed could see it.

They stopped their horses when Jed saw something dead in the clearing up ahead. Even from thirty feet away, he could tell that something wasn’t right about the carcass. The thing in the trail looked almost like the chopped up remains of an animal, like something on a butcher’s table. But with the sharp points of broken bones sticking out from the bloody flesh and the ribs exposed on the outside, it looked like the animal had been turned inside out somehow.

“You reckon it’s a deer?” Roscoe asked as he rode his horse up next to Jed’s.

“Maybe a cougar got to it,” Dobbs suggested.

Jed didn’t respond to either of them. There was no telling what kind of animal the thing was anymore, but he didn’t think this was something a bear or a cougar would have done. And a bear or cougar certainly wouldn’t have left this much meat behind to spoil in the sun.

“Look at the bones on the outside of it,” Roscoe said. “It looks like it was chewed up and spit out.”

“I can’t tell where . . . where its head is,” Dobbs said. “You reckon it’s gone?”

Dobbs was right. Maybe the head had been taken. Or maybe it was hidden somewhere inside that mound of glistening meat and bone.

“Someone’s following us,” Jed told the two men as he turned towards them.

Roscoe and Dobbs stiffened in their saddles. Dobbs looked around at the woods as if he might spot their pursuers.

“How do you know we’re being followed?” Roscoe asked. “You see ‘em?”

“I didn’t see anybody,” Jed told him. “But I believe we’re being followed.”

Roscoe didn’t argue.

Jed could tell that Roscoe and Dobbs were running the possible suspects through their minds like he had done earlier: claim jumpers, Red Moon’s gang, highway bandits.

“I just want you two to stay alert,” Jed told them, but he was focusing mainly on Dobbs.

Both men nodded, their faces grim.

Jed looked back at the obscene carcass down the trail.

“An animal did not do that,” Red Moon said.

Roscoe turned his horse around to face Red Moon. “You know who did?”

Red Moon didn’t answer.

Roscoe glanced at Jed. “Maybe he knows who’s on our trail.” He looked at Red Moon again. “You know who’s following us?”

Red Moon sat motionless in his saddle.

Jed didn’t think the Navajo was going to bother answering Roscoe, but then Red Moon spoke: “Yenaldooshi.”

“What the hell’s that?” Roscoe asked Red Moon.

Red Moon didn’t bother translating the word.

“I think that Injun knows who’s following us,” Roscoe said, nudging his horse closer to Jed’s. “I think it’s some of his men.”

“That true?” Jed asked Red Moon. “Are your men following us?”

“I have no men with me,” Red Moon said. “What follows us is much worse.”

“What do you mean by that?” Jed asked.

“He’s just trying to scare us is all,” Roscoe said and spit out a long stream of tobacco juice. “Whoever it is, we’ll be ready for ‘em.”

“You cannot be ready for the yenaldooshi,” Red Moon said.

“What is that?” Jed asked. “What’s that word mean in English?”

“Skinwalkers,” Red Moon answered.

CHAPTER 3

It was getting later in the day as Jed’s horse veered towards a group of rocks off to their right, the canyon with the body parts and smears of blood on the walls long behind them now. Jed allowed his horse to head towards the rocks; he looked at David who followed along. “They probably smell water over there,” Jed said, but the boy didn’t answer.

When they reached the rocks Jed spotted small pools of water, probably rainwater collected in the holes and depressions in the rocks, but the water could have come from an underground reservoir.

Jed dismounted and let his horse drink from the pool of water, patting the horse’s shoulder for a moment. This wasn’t his horse; both of these horses were from David’s home—they were his dead father’s horses. Jed’s horse had been taken in the woods last night. All of their horses had been taken.

“We’ll rest here for a few minutes,” Jed told David. “Go ahead and walk around a little. Stretch your legs.”

David dismounted while his horse drank from a pool of water among the rocks. David walked away, but not too far. He looked up at the endless blue sky—there were more buzzards circling in the air high above them.

Jed filled up his canteen. He took a few long swallows—the water was cold and clean. He held his canteen out for David. “You want some?”

David walked over to Jed and gently took the canteen from him. He used both hands to lift it to his lips, drinking the water and spilling some of it down his chin. After he was done, he handed the canteen back to Jed.

“It’ll be dark soon,” Jed said as he filled his canteen back up again. “We need to find a place to camp for the night.” He looked around. Now that they were out of the low canyons and up on higher, flatter ground, there wasn’t much in the way of cover for a camp.

A few minutes later they were back on their horses. As they rode away from the scattering of rocks and boulders, Jed’s mind began to slip back to the woods yesterday, and soon he was there again.

*

Jed and his men ventured deeper into the woods, getting farther and farther away from that strange inside-out carcass they had seen on the trail earlier. They found a large clearing to camp in; it was the biggest one they’d seen so far in the woods. The trail they had been following through the woods picked up again on the far side of the clearing. To the left of the clearing, a rock wall rose up thirty feet and ran along for at least three hundred feet. From its highest point the rock wall sloped back down to the forest floor on both sides. At the bottom of the rock wall, right in the middle, there was a dugout large enough for a man to stand up inside; the rock wall hung over the dugout like a porch roof. The dugout looked almost like the entrance to a cave, but it only went back about five feet underneath the rock wall. It would provide a nice place to camp and protect their backs; they couldn’t ask for better in the middle of these woods.

Roscoe built their campfire at the edge of the rock overhang while Dobbs tied their horses to a few trees that were bunched together where the rock wall came back down towards the ground. The horses were farther away than Jed would’ve liked, but they were still within fifty yards of their camp.

Red Moon was a little closer to them, only thirty yards away from the camp in the other direction. Jed had wrapped a length of chain around the base of a tree and locked it to Red Moon’s shackled wrists in front of him. The chain would keep the Navajo outlaw from running in the night, and Jed thought it was more humane than tying the man’s legs together all night. There was enough slack in the chain around the tree so that Red Moon could lie down if he wanted to—Jed brought him an extra blanket, a bowl of beans with jerky in it, and some coffee. But Red Moon had left the blanket rolled up beside him and he ignored the bowl of food and cup of coffee. He sat there with his back against the tree, not moving a muscle.

Jed was about to walk back to the camp, but he looked at Red Moon. “We both know what’s going to happen to you when we get to Smith Junction. No sense making things worse. If your men are following us, then just tell me now so we can be ready. You could call them off when they get close enough. I don’t see any reason for anyone to get killed tonight.”

“They are not my men,” Red Moon answered. “I told you that.”

“Skinwalkers, huh?” Jed said.

Red Moon nodded. “The same ones who turned that animal inside out on the trail. They will do the same thing to us. You cannot stop them. I cannot stop them. No one can.”

Jed was done with Red Moon’s fairy tales. He left the man alone in the darkening woods and went back to the campfire.

The horses were a little jumpy as the night fell quickly, the darkness covering everything except their little beacon of campfire light. The four horses snorted and whinnied in the dark, perhaps sensing something close by—if not Red Moon’s men, then maybe a bear or a cougar.

“What about what that Indian said earlier?” Dobbs asked after they were quiet for a moment. He had finished his beans and cradled his coffee cup in his hands like he was trying to warm his fingers up. He sat cross-legged, close to the campfire. His eyes were wide in the darkness, his skin so pale it almost seemed luminous.

“Skinwalkers?” Roscoe asked. He leaned back on his pack underneath the rock overhang, lost in the shadows it created. He took another sip from his whiskey flask.

“Yeah,” Dobbs said. “What are they supposed to be? I mean, I know they’re not real, but . . .”

“Just a legend, kid,” Roscoe said.

They were quiet for a moment. Jed watched Dobbs, and he could tell that the boy wasn’t going to let the idea of skinwalkers go. It was almost like Dobbs wanted to hear a ghost story by the campfire.

“Yeah, but what is the legend?” Dobbs finally asked.

Roscoe didn’t answer.

“If you’re too scared to talk about them—” Dobbs began.

Roscoe sat up quickly. “I ain’t scared of nothing.”

Dobbs smiled, knowing he had riled Roscoe. “So what are they?”

Roscoe shrugged.

Jed was pretty sure Roscoe was stalling because he really didn’t know what skinwalkers were. He’d heard the name before and knew that they were some kind of Navajo legend, but that was probably the extent of his knowledge on the subject.

“I heard they’re witches,” Jed said, rescuing Roscoe from stumbling through an explanation, part of which he would probably just make up anyway. “Witches that can transform into animals.”

Dobbs considered the idea for a moment.

“Like shapeshifters,” Jed went on. “You ever heard of shapeshifters?”

Dobbs just shrugged. “I guess not.”

“Shapeshifters are men that can turn into animals like wolves or bears, and then turn back into men again. Sometimes it happens during a full moon.”

Dobbs stared up at the moon at the edge of the trees, the moon not quite up over the clearing just yet.

“What about werewolves?” Jed asked Dobbs. “You ever heard of werewolves?”

“Yes,” Dobbs answered, his face brightening a little. “I heard of them.”

“Well, skinwalkers are supposed to be kind of like werewolves.”

Dobbs looked out at the darkness of the clearing, staring at the woods at the other side.

“Look at his face,” Roscoe cackled. “You got him scared of werewolves now.”

“I ain’t scared of no werewolves,” Dobbs grumbled.

“I don’t know too much else about skinwalkers,” Jed admitted. “I heard they’re like witches, though. I heard they can put curses and spells on people. Like black magic.”

“But none of that’s true,” Dobbs said almost like he was trying to reassure himself.

“It is true,” Red Moon said from the darkness, his deep voice carrying easily across the clearing. “To become a skinwalker, a man must murder his own family. He must take one of the dead bodies of his family to another skinwalker. And then he must learn to raise the dead.”

Dobbs sat very still next to the fire, his eyes wide, the cup of coffee clenched in his hands.

“Don’t listen to him,” Jed told Dobbs. “He’s just trying to scare you.”

“I know,” Dobbs said and swallowed hard, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his throat.

“Maybe his people really are skinwalkers,” Roscoe said, moving closer to Dobbs. “Maybe they’re all out there right now in the woods, watching us.” He cackled again and took another sip of whiskey from his flask.

“Skinwalkers are not my people,” Red Moon said. “Once they are skinwalkers, they are not Diné anymore. They are no longer men at all.”

Jed looked over at Red Moon, barely able to make him out at the base of the tree in the darkness. It looked like he hadn’t moved a muscle the whole time.

“Skinwalkers are monsters,” Red Moon continued. “They can raise the dead. Make them walk and talk again.”

“That’s enough,” Jed called out to Red Moon.

A coyote yipped from somewhere in the woods.

Jed tensed at the sound. Roscoe and Dobbs were motionless, both of them listening.

A wolf howled from far off in the other direction.

Roscoe moved closer to the dying fire. He had his Winchester repeater in his hands now. Jed was glad to see him alert after all of the whiskey he’d had in the last hour and a half.

“Just a wolf,” Dobbs said as if the sound needed an explanation.

“Skinwalkers can sound like animals,” Red Moon told them from the darkness. “They can sound like any animal they want to.”

A rattling sound came from the brush at the other end of the clearing—a rattlesnake.

Jed scooped a few handfuls of dirt onto the campfire, snuffing it out.

The three of them sat in the darkness for a few minutes, listening for any other sounds. The horses were snorting now, moving around as much as they could on their hobbled legs, pulling at the ropes tied to the tree trunks and branches.

An owl hooted from somewhere nearby. Another animal grunted in the brush a hundred yards away, then crashed through the undergrowth.

“It is them,” Red Moon said, his voice low but still carrying easily across the forest floor towards them.

“Just stay ready, boys,” Jed told Roscoe and Dobbs. “We’ll sleep in watches tonight. Dobbs, you take the first watch.”

Dobbs nodded.

Jed wanted to give Dobbs the first watch because he didn’t trust him to stay awake as the night grew long towards the dawn. “Wake me up in three hours, or if you see anything.”

Again, Dobbs nodded. He looked too scared and nervous to fall asleep anytime soon. He had his gun belt on, his hand down by his six-shooter.

Jed lay down with his head on his pack, tipping his hat down low to cover his eyes, resting his hands on his belly, his Colt .45 within easy reach. But he didn’t think he was going to sleep anytime soon.

CHAPTER 4

The sun was already touching the tops of the jagged mountains lining the western horizon. Jed and David needed to find somewhere to camp soon. He spotted a wash near a few boulders and copse of scraggily trees. It wasn’t the perfect place to camp, but it was the best he could find before it got dark. The boulders and trees would provide cover for their backs and help block the chilly wind. They only had an hour of daylight left now.

Jed ran a rope between two of the trees and then tied both of their horses’ leads to the line of rope. He wanted to keep their horses close to their camp tonight, especially with what had happened to his horses in the woods yesterday. After he was done hobbling the horses’ legs, he looked at David. “You want to find some kindling for a fire?”

David went to work right away, collecting sticks for the campfire. Jed arranged some round rocks in a circle for their fire pit. He pulled out a metal grate from his pack to heat the pots on. A few moments later David brought Jed some sticks and a few larger pieces of wood. Jed used the kitchen matches he’d gotten from David’s house to start the fire.

A few minutes later the flames of their campfire were dancing inside the circle of rocks, pushing the cold and darkness back a little. As Jed cooked some beans and heated a pot of coffee, he tried again to talk to David, but the boy wouldn’t talk to him. Soon, Jed’s mind slipped back to the woods again.

*

Jed snapped awake in the woods and knew right away that Dobbs was gone. It was dark with their campfire out. Roscoe was lying on his back with his rifle across his chest, snoring.

Jed woke Roscoe up, nudging him. It sounded like Roscoe had choked on an intake of breath for a moment as he woke up. But a second later he was sitting up with his rifle in his hands.

“Dobbs is gone,” Jed whispered. Their horses were gone, too. Jed looked over at the tree he had chained Red Moon to and the Navajo was still there, just a dark lump in the darkness at the base of the tree.

Jed and Roscoe hurried over to where the horses had been. A few pieces of rope hung from the tree branches. Jed studied the ends of the ropes in the moonlight; they were frayed, not cut—almost like they had been snapped.

“Maybe Dobbs took the horses,” Roscoe said.

But Jed didn’t think so. The bounty for Red Moon was worth much more than the horses. And Dobbs was no criminal—Jed’s friend had vouched for Dobbs, and that was good enough for him.

They hurried back to the dugout just beyond their dead campfire.

Roscoe nodded down at the ground. “There ain’t no blood. No sign of a fight. And look over there; his guns and gun belt are still here.”

Jed knew Dobbs hadn’t run off—it looked like he had been taken.

“Cover me,” Jed said, already looking over at Red Moon.

Roscoe wasn’t happy about Jed going to check on Red Moon, but he covered him with his rifle. Jed ran across the clearing that seemed so bright now that it was bathed in the moonlight. He felt exposed in that moonlight, tense, sure that he might feel the bullet from a rifle or the tip of an arrow stabbing into his flesh and bone any second now.

“Dobbs is gone,” Jed told Red Moon when he got to him. “Our horses are gone.”

Red Moon just stared up at Jed; he was trembling so badly that he was rattling the chain around the tree and the handcuffs on his wrists.

“Did your men do this?” Jed asked Red Moon.

“Not my men,” Red Moon answered. “I swear to you.” He lifted his hands up as far as the chains would allow. “Please. Unlock these.”

Jed felt a pang of sentiment for just a moment—Red Moon’s face was pure fear. But Jed needed to think about this rationally. It had to be Red Moon’s men out there.

“Those skinwalkers out there are not my people,” Red Moon said. “They will come for me just like they will come for you.”

“Did you see what happened to Dobbs?”

Red Moon shook his head no. “I was asleep. I just woke up now.”

Jed gave up questioning Red Moon; he went back to their camp where Roscoe was waiting with his rifle.

“What did he say?” Roscoe asked.

“He said he was asleep when Dobbs left.”

Roscoe was about to respond, but his words were cut off when they heard a long, continuous scream from the woods.

It was Dobbs.

The scream turned into what sounded like words, but the words were unintelligible, like Dobbs was trying to say something while he screamed. Maybe he didn’t even have a tongue anymore. Jed had heard stories about some of the tortures Native Americans could inflict on their prisoners.

Jed and Roscoe called out to Dobbs as they ran up into the woods beyond the rock wall that they had camped in front of. They climbed higher into the hills, aiming their weapons into the woods where the moonlight filtered down through the tree branches. And then they froze when they saw what was left of Dobbs.

It looked like a man was strung up between two thin trees, but even from where Jed stood, even in the dark, he could tell that it wasn’t a man up there . . . not a man anymore.

Jed had to force himself to put one foot in front of the other, to keep pushing forward another few feet, pushing the plants and tree branches aside. Roscoe was right behind him, stumbling through the brush, his rifle in his hands.

The only thing left of Dobbs was his skin. The entire skin of his body had been strung up between the two thin trees—each arm pulled out wide and tied to the thin trunks of the two trees with what Jed had thought at first was cord, but then realized were pieces of intestines tied around each wrist, the skin of Dobbs’ hands hanging down like white gloves. The way the skin had been tied up made it look like Dobbs was hanging between the trees with his arms out wide, like he’d been crucified, but not on a cross, just hanging there in the night air. The skin from Dobbs’ head and his entire face was being held up by something propped up inside of him. A stick maybe, but Jed thought he’d caught the gleam of bone. The features of Dobbs’ face were flattened like a mask, much of the skin sagging in some places now that they didn’t have muscle and bone to adhere to anymore. Dobbs’ skin seemed to be in one whole piece, not a slit anywhere that Jed could see—maybe there was a long slit up the back—but the front of the skin was pristine, not even a spot of blood on it, like the skin had been washed clean with care before being suspended between the two trees. Dobbs’ skin looked like a ghost floating in the woods.

Roscoe vomited. It was a noisy sound, and Jed thought he’d heard choked sobs between each round of retches.

“They . . . they took his skin off,” Roscoe said, his words coming out in a rushing, wheezy breath; it was like he had no air left in his lungs.

“Get your rifle up,” Jed snapped at Roscoe.

Roscoe sniffled and raised his rifle, aiming it at nothing in particular, but ready if something moved in the woods.

“We need to get back to camp,” Jed said. At least at the camp they had their backs protected by the dugout in the rock wall. Here in these woods, they were sitting ducks.

As they hurried back down through the woods to their camp, Jed wondered if Dobbs was still alive somehow. Could he still be alive for a while without his skin? Was he somewhere, shaking uncontrollably from shock, his heart ready to give out as his tormentors poked at his exposed muscles and nerves with sharpened sticks?

Skinwalkers, that’s what Red Moon had called them.

Maybe this group was a rogue band of Navajo that believed they were skinwalkers, believing they had special powers. Jed had heard of some tribes skinning their victims with amazing speed and skill, but what he had just seen up in those woods seemed almost impossible.

No way Dobbs could still be alive. No way.

Jed and Roscoe hurried down to the bottom of the hill, crashing through the brush, no longer worrying about making noise now. Jed just wanted to get back to the dugout. He wondered if Red Moon was gone now. He wouldn’t be surprised to find Red Moon free from his chains. And truthfully he wouldn’t even care at this point. If Red Moon was all those men in the woods wanted, then Jed would let him go if he and Roscoe could somehow survive this night.

After Clara had died, there was a long period of time where Jed didn’t care whether he lived or died. But he had gotten over that in the last few years. He still wasn’t afraid to die—he knew he would be with Clara again when he went—but he didn’t want to go through what Dobbs had just gone through. No, he’d make sure to save a last bullet for himself before he would let them do something like that to him.

Roscoe was breathing hard when they got back to their camp and the dead fire. He wiped at the last bits of vomit around his mouth, his breaths coming out in blasts of mist in the cold air, his eyes wide with shock.

“Wait here,” Jed told Roscoe as he looked over at the clearing where he had chained Red Moon to the tree. Red Moon still seemed to be there, just that same dark lump against the base of the tree.

“Where are you going?” Roscoe asked.

“I need to check on Red Moon.”

“Hell with that Injun.”

“Just cover me,” Jed told him and then he ran across the clearing in the moonlight, feeling exposed out there again.

A moment later Jed was right beside Red Moon. The Navajo was still in the same position against the tree, his knees drawn up, his hands in his lap, his head down. He was chanting softly.

“How many of them are there?” Jed snapped at Red Moon.

Red Moon looked up with tears in his eyes. “I do not know.”

“What do they want? Do they want you? Do they want the bounty on your head?”

Red Moon didn’t answer; he began chanting again, whispered words that Jed couldn’t understand.

Rage burned inside of Jed. It took everything he had not to shake Red Moon or try to beat the answers out of him.

“Please,” Red Moon said after he stopped chanting, looking up at Jed again. “Kill me.”

Jed aimed his Colt .45 at the side of Red Moon’s head. “You want me to kill you?”

Red Moon gave the slightest of nods, closing his eyes, remaining still, waiting for the bullet to enter his brain.

Jed lowered his gun a little. He realized that Red Moon was serious—he wanted to be killed. Maybe Red Moon was telling the truth; maybe whoever was out there wasn’t trying to free him. But Jed still thought he was lying.

“Who are they?” Jed asked with his gun still aimed at Red Moon.

“I already told you. They are skinwalkers. You cannot stop them. Your bullets will not kill them.”

“How do we stop them?”

“Magic.”

“What kind of magic?”

“Strong magic. Shaman magic.”

“What about you?” Jed asked. “Aren’t you a shaman? People say you’re a witch doctor.”

Red Moon shook his head and sighed. “I am not.”

Jed didn’t want to keep proceeding with this conversation. He didn’t believe Red Moon. Bullets could stop those men out there in the woods. Bullets could stop anything. “You don’t want to help me, then you can stay here and wait for your men.”

Red Moon lowered his head and began to chant again.

Jed hurried back to the camp where Roscoe waited.

He and Roscoe decided to stay awake the rest of the night and walk out of the woods in the morning with just their guns, canteens, and anything they could carry in their pockets.

CHAPTER 5

Jed sipped his coffee as he stared at the campfire. David was lying down on his bedroll now, about to go to sleep. He had the photo of his family in his hands, staring at it, his eyes glassy and his expression blank.

Jed didn’t know what to say to David, didn’t know how to comfort him. Instead, he said nothing and drank his coffee, hoping it would help him stay awake for much of the night.

As he sat there he remembered waking up this morning in the woods and finding Roscoe gone. Roscoe’s pack was still there, his rifle, even his whiskey flask, but he was gone.

Just like Dobbs.

Jed had looked over at the tree and saw that Red Moon was still there. He had rushed out to the Navajo, afraid he might already be dead, his throat cut while chained to the tree. But Red Moon was still alive when Jed got to him, still whispering his chants.

He had questioned Red Moon, threatening him, even pressing the barrel of Roscoe’s rifle against Red Moon’s drawn-up knee.

Jed finished his coffee and threw another piece of wood on the fire. He sat back down on his bedroll again, leaning back against his pack. He remembered the conversation with Red Moon this morning, and soon he was back there in those woods again.

*

“Where did Roscoe go?” Jed asked Red Moon, still aiming the barrel of Roscoe’s rifle at his knee. “What did they do to him?”

“He got up and walked into the woods,” Red Moon said.

“Why would he do that?”

“Skinwalkers can get inside some men’s minds, make them do things. Skinwalkers can . . . can call them and they will walk to them.” It seemed like Red Moon was getting frustrated as he tried to translate what he wanted to say into English.

Jed walked away from Red Moon, staring at the woods. “Roscoe!”

Roscoe didn’t answer. There were no sounds from the woods except for a few birds tweeting in the early morning light.

Jed walked back to Red Moon.

“Please,” Red Moon said. “You are taking me to a town where the people are going to hang me. Please kill me. I am going to die anyway. I am not afraid of death and what is beyond. But the skinwalkers, they will not let me die. They will not let me pass into the next world.”

Jed ignored Red Moon and yelled at the woods. “Roscoe! Bring him back!”

“You do not want him back now,” Red Moon said. “You do not want to see what he has become.”

Jed was about to ask Red Moon what he meant by that when a sudden wind shook the tree branches above them, rattling the leaves. Red Moon looked up at the tree above him. “The Darkwind,” he whispered. “It is here.”

“What’s the Darkwind?”

“Powerful magic,” Red Moon said, still looking up at the rattling leaves.

Jed had to walk away from Red Moon again before he attacked him. He went back to their camp, searching the ground for Roscoe’s tracks. He saw Roscoe’s footprints leading away from the camp and into the clearing, but then the tracks ended and there was no telling which way he had walked after that.

Roscoe was dead—Jed had to admit that now. He couldn’t wait around much longer. If he was going to get out of these woods before dark, then he would need to start walking soon.

But what about Red Moon?

Jed had an idea. He rummaged through all of their packs, collecting the things he would need to take with him: extra bullets, a small cloth sack of jerky, his canteen of water (which he had filled up all the way from Roscoe and Dobbs’ canteens). He already had his map, the compass, the wanted poster of Red Moon, and an extra pair of handcuffs in the pockets of his pants and coat. At the last moment he stuffed Roscoe’s metal whiskey flask into his inside coat pocket.

After he had gathered all the supplies he could carry, he hurried over to where their horses had been tied last night. He untied a piece of rope from one of the branches—it looked about the right length for what Jed needed. He took the rope over to Red Moon and crouched down in front of him, tying the ends of the rope around each of Red Moon’s ankles, leaving a foot of rope in between so he could still walk, but not run.

“They will not let us walk out of here,” Red Moon said.

Jed ignored Red Moon as he unlocked the chain around the trunk of the tree. He stood Red Moon up and wrapped the chain around his waist, then he locked the chain to the handcuffs; this kept Red Moon’s wrists chained to the front of his body, not giving him too much room to lift his hands up from his waist.

“Walk,” Jed told him.

Red Moon just stood there. “Shoot me.”

Jed took a deep breath, forcing himself to remain calm. It felt like a clock was ticking in his mind, counting down each minute they stayed in these God-forsaken woods. “If those skinwalkers come after us, I promise I’ll shoot you. But I can’t shoot you right now. I can’t carry you or drag your body without a horse. I need you to walk with me as far as we can.”

Red Moon still didn’t move.

“You either walk with me, or I have no choice but to leave you chained to the tree. I’ll go get help and be back as quickly as I can. You’ve got my word on that.”

Real fear crept into Red Moon’s eyes. “I will walk with you.”

They walked for hours, Jed checking his compass every so often to make sure they were still heading north. The trail pretty much went north, but it zigzagged a little in some places. But if the map was correct, they would be out of these woods in the next two hours or so, definitely before nightfall.

The walking had been slow because of Red Moon’s hobbled ankles, but he shuffled along as fast as he could, never complaining, chanting quietly.

“Is that magic you’re singing?” Jed asked him.

“Yes.”

“Is it strong magic?”

“The strongest I know.”

They were quiet for a moment as they walked, and then Jed said: “I heard rumors that you’re a medicine man.”

“I already told you that I am not a medicine man.”

“But you know magic prayers.”

“Are you able to pray?” Red Moon asked.

“Yes.”

“But you are not a priest.”

“It doesn’t matter. Anyone can pray to God. You don’t have to be a priest to pray to God.”

Red Moon said nothing, his point made.

They were quiet for a while as they walked.

“If these skinwalkers are real—” Jed began.

“They are real,” Red Moon interrupted.

“If they are real,” Jed continued, “then how could God let something like them exist?”

“They are like demons,” Red Moon said. “Your God allows angels to exist along with demons.”

Jed didn’t say anything else. He felt outmatched in a theological discussion with Red Moon who had obviously done a lot of studying, not only of his own religion but others as well.

“Why’d you kill those twenty men?” Jed asked, changing the conversation.

“They were in the way of what I wanted.”

Jed wondered what had turned Red Moon to a life of crime in the first place, but then discovered that he really didn’t care.

They walked in silence for a few minutes. Jed began to get the feeling that they were being followed. He didn’t hear any noises from the woods or see any movement, but he could feel their pursuers. And he was sure Red Moon could feel them, too.

Red Moon began to chant again, the melodic prayers uttered in whispers. Jed thought about praying. He’d never been a truly religious man, and after Clara had died he had turned his back on God for a while, angry at Him for taking the love of his life away. But Jed prayed now. A foreboding feeling was blanketing him again, a hopelessness that he couldn’t shake. He’d always been a strong and capable man. He’d always been able to tough things out, stand up to anyone, solve most problems, but he felt overwhelmed by these skinwalkers. They truly seemed magical, like they floated through the forest, waiting for the right time to appear and swoop down. And if these people were magical, if this was some demonic thing like Red Moon seemed to believe, then Jed felt it wouldn’t hurt to pray right now.

Jed felt uncomfortable praying to God. He never prayed when he confronted a wanted man. But now he was truly scared. Dobbs had been taken, but Dobbs had been a greenhorn, maybe easily tricked. Roscoe was another story—he was a seasoned bounty hunter and shouldn’t have been easily overtaken. If these skinwalkers could swoop in and take Roscoe away without a trace—or worse, cast some kind of spell on him—then Jed was no match for them. The most he could hope for was that he would be able to pick them off one by one when they finally showed themselves. He believed in God, but he also put much of his faith in guns and bullets.

The woods had gotten thicker now, the undergrowth growing over the trail. Red Moon was having an even tougher time walking with the ropes hobbling him. Jed considered untying the ropes so they could make better time, but he still couldn’t trust Red Moon completely.

An hour later they had made it through the thickest part of the woods. Now the trail had opened up, growing wide and easy to traverse. Even Red Moon was walking easier now.

And then Red Moon stopped.

The woods were darker now, the trees closer together and the brush between them thicker even though the trail was cleared in this area.

“What is it?” Jed whispered from behind Red Moon, Roscoe’s rifle in his hands.

“Up ahead,” Red Moon said.

Jed stared at the trail ahead, the path disappearing around a thick stand of trees. “What’s around the bend?”

The woods were deathly quiet.

Red Moon still hesitated.

“Keep walking,” Jed told Red Moon, nudging him forward with the barrel of the rifle.

“Remember your promise,” Red Moon said. “If they come, you said you would shoot me.”

“Get moving or I won’t waste a bullet on you.”

Red Moon began walking towards the sharp bend in the trail.

Jed knew there was something very bad waiting for them around that bend, but they had to get past it to get out of these woods.

When they were a few feet closer to the bend, Jed heard whispering from the other side of the brush. At first he thought it was Red Moon chanting again, but Red Moon was silent now.

There was another sound along with the whispering—a buzzing sound. Flies. Something had been left on the trail for them, something dead and rotting like the animal they’d seen yesterday, the one that had been turned inside out.

Jed and Red Moon stepped around the bend, and then they both froze, staring at what waited for them on the trail.

CHAPTER 6

Jed sat up, nearly drifting off to sleep as he’d been thinking about what he and Red Moon had seen waiting for them on the trail. He looked over at David and saw that he was asleep on his back with the photograph of his family on his chest. He had been holding it until he fell asleep.

Jed got up and laid a large piece of wood on the campfire. He walked over to David and picked up the photograph—he didn’t want it to blow away in the night. He went back to his bedroll and lay down, stretching out and staring at the photo. David was in the photo with his older brother and their parents. There was a speck of dried blood on the edge of the photo; Jed chipped it away with his thumbnail and then shoved the photo down into his pants pocket. He would give it back to David in the morning.

He turned over onto his side and stared at the fire. He didn’t want to think about what he’d seen on that trail in the woods this morning, but he couldn’t help thinking about it—he couldn’t get it out of his mind.

*

Dobbs sat in the middle of the trail, facing north with his back to them. The red skinless flesh of Dobbs’ body glistened in the midday sunlight that shined down brighter onto this wide part of the trail. Every muscle showed on Dobbs’ body along with the small globules of yellowish fat clinging to his sides. Thick purplish-black veins crisscrossed over some of his mucus-covered, striated muscles. His skinless head was bent forward, like he was looking down at something in his lap. Jed knew Dobbs wasn’t dead because he could see the slight movement of his back as he drew in a breath and slowly exhaled.

What was in his lap? What was he holding in his hands?

“Jed,” a voice called out, but it wasn’t Dobbs speaking. Jed knew that voice—it was Roscoe’s voice.

“Jed,” Roscoe said again, drawing the word out.

“This . . . this can’t be real,” Jed whispered. He looked at Red Moon—he needed to look at the Navajo now, he needed to see something he knew was real, something to ground him in this new nightmarish world he suddenly found himself in.

Red Moon’s dark eyes were wide, bulging from his face, his mouth drawn down into a severe frown with dried spittle at the corners of his lips. “Shoot me now,” he grunted as he tried to raise his shackled hands up as far as he could. “You promised.”

Jed looked back at Dobbs who still hadn’t moved; he was still sitting in the middle of the trail and staring down at something in his lap, his hands there like he was cradling something. And Jed already knew what was in Dobbs’ hands.

“Jed,” Roscoe called out again. “They won’t let you die. They will keep you alive, and it just goes on and on and on.”

“Shoot me!” Red Moon shouted. He was still frozen in place, not even bothering to try to run, his only hope that Jed would keep his promise.

Jed ignored Red Moon. He turned back to Dobbs and it felt like his legs were moving on their own as he walked towards the creature that used to be Dobbs, giving him a wide berth and keeping his rifle aimed at the skinless man. He moved all the way around until he was in front of Dobbs—he had to see what he was cradling in his hands.

“No,” Red Moon whimpered. “Do not look at it.”

Jed had to see.

And there it was—Roscoe’s severed head was cradled in Dobbs’ skinned hands. He held the head gently like it was a baby. Roscoe’s face stared up at the sky, his head of gray hair touching the shiny slab of Dobbs’ abdomen muscles that were sectioned off with what looked like lines of gristle. The end of Roscoe’s neck ended in a ragged stump of meat. Tattered pieces of skin and a line of vertebrae trailed out like little white knuckles, the piece of spine somehow managing to stay together. There were two large holes in the stump of his neck, one where his esophagus had been severed, and the other was his windpipe, which fluttered slightly. Roscoe’s eyes were wild, his blue eyeballs flicking back and forth, his mouth twitching every time a fly landed on his face. The stink of decaying flesh was even worse now that Jed was so close.

. . . can’t be real can’t be real can’t be real . . .

The strength drained out of Jed’s body. He lowered the rifle. He felt the weapon slip out of his fingers. He heard it hit the hard-packed dirt with a thud. It didn’t matter; Jed realized that the weapon was useless now. Roscoe and Dobbs couldn’t be killed. They should already be dead. Maybe they were dead.

They get inside a person. That’s what Red Moon had said before, his words echoing so loudly in Jed’s mind that he swore Red Moon was speaking them again. They can raise the dead. Make them walk and talk again.

These skinwalkers could do anything they wanted, Jed saw that now. Were the skinwalkers approaching at that very moment, ready to attack from the woods?

Why would they need to? The skinwalkers could cast their spells from afar and perform their magic from where they hid in the woods. Why bother showing themselves now?

“Jed,” Roscoe said again, a fly crawling inside his mouth as he spoke. He rolled his eyes down, looking down his nose at Jed.

Dobbs stared straight ahead, his eyeballs like perfect round orbs in his face, ready to spill out of the sockets. His teeth looked too big in his skinned face. His ears were gone, just black holes where they used to be. He sat perfectly still, breathing slightly, his neck muscles like cords of thick rope. Flies and gnats flew around, landing and then taking off again from his body.

“Jed,” Roscoe said. “Leave your prisoner with us.”

It took a moment for Jed to understand what Roscoe was telling him to do. He could feel his mind wanting to break, and he swore he heard the cracks inside his head like an ice-covered lake suddenly thawing.

“Do what he asks,” Roscoe said. “Give him what he wants and he will let you live.”

“Jed!” Red Moon shouted, drawing his name out in a sob, like this was his one last chance to get through to him, one last plea for mercy, one last reminder of a promise.

“No,” Jed croaked. “No. This can’t be real.”

“It is real,” Roscoe snapped and then smiled, his mustache twitching up with his grin. “It’s so real. And you’ll feel it too if you don’t do what he asks of you. You have to give him what he wants. There will be other things he asks of you soon.”

Jed realized that he was backing away from Dobbs and Roscoe’s head cradled in his hands. He was backing up along the trail, heading north, the way out of these woods. He was leaving Red Moon behind.

“Marshal!” Red Moon sobbed. “You promised!”

Jed wasn’t listening to Red Moon anymore. He saw the rifle on the ground a few feet in front of Dobbs, but he didn’t go back for it. All he could think about now was getting away from this monstrosity that used to be two people he knew.

Jed turned and ran. He hadn’t run this fast since he’d been a boy. He never even turned around to see if the skinless Dobbs had gotten to his feet to chase him, carrying Roscoe’s head by his gray hair, the head swinging back and forth as he ran. He didn’t even care if he was being chased. He didn’t care if the skinwalkers were gliding through the forest like ghosts. All he cared about, all he could focus on right now, the only thing his mind could handle at this moment was running.

Fifteen minutes later Jed slowed down. He was breathing so hard he thought he might pass out. His thigh muscles burned and his feet throbbed from running in his cowboy boots. His skin was slick with sweat despite the chilly air.

When was the last time he had run like that? The last time he’d run that far?

He wanted to keep running, but he had no choice but to stop; if he didn’t, he was going to collapse. The trail was still somewhat wide, but much narrower than the clearing where Dobbs and Roscoe had been.

Once he was out of the woods, Jed rested against a tree. He took a few sips of water from his canteen and his hands were shaking so badly he spilled some of the water down his chin and onto his shirt. His feet were throbbing, his back and legs sore. He needed to rest for a second, afraid that if he tried to run down the hill he would fall and break his leg or arm.

He checked his compass and map as he waited by the tree, making sure he was still heading north. If he followed the trail down the hill he would be heading northwest, but he would eventually veer north again. He stood up on trembling legs, looking around. There was nothing in front of him except the rolling hills and the jagged mountains in the distance. The sun was still high in the sky, but night would come quickly out here.

Realizing that his trip to Smith Junction was going to be much longer and more arduous on foot, Jed checked his map for any towns that were closer. There was only one—the town of Hope’s Spring. It was a tiny town, but it had grown quickly when silver and copper had been discovered in the nearby hills. But as quickly as the metals had been discovered and the town built, the silver and copper had dried up. Now the town was dying, and many called it Hope’s End.

Jed realized that if he couldn’t find a horse between here and Hope’s End, then that little town was going to be his best chance. He started his journey, hurrying down the hill into the valley below. He climbed the next hill, and when he was at the top of it, he saw a house in the valley below, far off to his left. There was no smoke rising from the chimney, but the place didn’t look abandoned. Near the house there was a barn, and another building inside a corral that had to be a horse stable. This would be his best chance to borrow a horse.

Hope spurred Jed on as he walked down the hill a little quicker than he should have. He lost his balance a few times on the way down, falling once and sliding down the dirt and brittle grass on his butt, but he didn’t hurt himself.

Twenty minutes later he stood at the edge of the homestead.

Everything was quiet and Jed found it odd that there weren’t any people working in the corrals or at the barn and stables. There were some sheep farther out in one of the corrals, with some cows a little closer inside another fence. There were horses in the stables, Jed could hear them nickering and snorting in there.

But where was everyone?

Maybe no one was home.

Or maybe whoever lived here had seen him coming. Maybe they were waiting inside the house with their rifles ready.

Jed started walking slowly towards the house. He didn’t want to survive the horrors he’d been through up in those woods just to be shot by some nervous ranchers now.

Everything was still quiet. He didn’t see any movement from the house, which was a large adobe structure with a porch running along the entire front of it. A stack of firewood was piled up at the side of the home, between the house and the corral fence on that side.

“Hello!” Jed called out, walking slowly towards the house.

No answer. He didn’t even hear a dog barking.

“Anyone here?” Jed called.

Still no answer. Everything was silent; no noises except the cold breeze whistling through the group of trees to his left, rattling the leaves like the scraping of thin, dry bones. A horse snorted from inside the stables.

“I’m a U.S. Marshal,” Jed said, holding up his badge that he had dug out of his pants pocket. “I’m a lawman. My name’s Jed Cartwright. My men and I were robbed by bandits. They stole my horse and pack. Killed my men.” A white lie, but the truth would be a little too complicated to explain right now.

No one answered from the house.

Jed still had his badge in his hand, both of his hands raised halfway up in surrender. “Please don’t shoot. I just need some help.”

A few moments later Jed stood in front of the porch steps. He studied the front windows, but didn’t see any movement behind the glass. There was some kind of Native American weaving attached to the front door of the home, and bone chimes hung from the edge of the porch roof on leather strings.

Jed figured the family that lived here was Navajo. Many of the Navajo had been given small plots of land by the government recently after the years of battles throughout this region. Many Navajo had built homesteads and even small villages around here—places that wouldn’t be on any map. Many Navajo herded sheep or raised cattle and traded horses.

“Hello,” Jed called out. “Ya-tah-hay,” he said, calling out the greeting in Navajo, not even sure if he was saying it correctly. It was one of the few phrases he knew how to say in Navajo. Maybe the people inside were nervous as they watched him walk up to their home with his badge in his hand—maybe being a U.S. Marshal wasn’t doing him any favors right now.

“I don’t mean you any harm,” Jed said as he stepped up onto the front porch, still looking for the glint of a rifle barrel in the windows. “I just need some help.”

Maybe there were only women and children inside, the men having gone off to tend to a herd or sell part of it. Maybe the women and children were too scared to open the door for him. Maybe they didn’t speak English.

The front door opened by itself, just a crack, the hinges creaking, the sound so loud in the silence.

Something was wrong here. At first Jed thought the feelings of fear and dread were just hangovers from what he’d felt up in those woods, and that would be perfectly understandable. But that wasn’t the case. He felt something terrible had happened here—something like what had happened up in those woods. Now that the front door was open, he could smell the blood and gore from inside the house . . . the smell of death.

CHAPTER 7

Jed jumped awake, sitting up on his bedroll. He looked around, not remembering where he was for just a second. He saw the dying fire, then he saw David sleeping nearby. He saw the shapes of the horses in the darkness just beyond the light of their campfire.

He let out a slow breath, shuddering a little. He had fallen asleep. He’d been dreaming about being inside David’s house again. He lay back down and tipped his hat down low onto his forehead, shivering a little in the cold.

A moment later he closed his eyes, and he was back on the front porch of David’s house.

*

Jed was beside the front door in a flash, staying to the right side of it in case shots were fired. He drew his Colt .45 and hugged the wall beside the door. “Everyone okay in there?”

No answer.

The smell of blood and death was stronger now, like the smell of the dead animal they’d seen on the trail in the woods, the one that had been turned inside out. Or the smell of Dobbs.

“I’m coming inside,” Jed yelled. “Please don’t shoot. I’ve got a gun with me, so don’t shoot.”

Jed kicked the door all the way open and then backed out of the way.

The smell was even stronger with the door all the way open. He heard the sound of flies buzzing around inside. He had given enough warnings to whoever was inside the house. If someone in there was hurt, then he needed to get inside to help them. He rushed in through the doorway with his Colt .45 in his hand.

The house was a wreck. Furniture was tipped over, paintings torn off the walls, a handwoven Navajo blanket ripped to shreds on the wood-planked floor. Broken bits of glass and pottery littered the floor along with the smears of bright red blood. The walls had more blood on them, splatters of it everywhere. Among the debris on the floor were what looked like small bits of meat. It seemed like someone’s body had been dragged across the floor over and over again, leaving trails of blood behind. And there were trails of blood on the walls, too.

Jed almost retched. His stomach convulsed, his mouth beginning to water as his digestive system readied itself for the vomit to come up. But he managed not to throw up. He pulled his bandana up over his mouth and nose with his left hand while still holding his gun in his right hand. The bandana only helped a little with the smell.

Several people had been murdered here. Maybe a whole family. Something had happened in this house that was as bad as what had happened up in those woods.

Jed fought against the voice in his mind screaming at him to leave. He remained in the house, taking a few steps deeper into the living room, his boots crunching over the broken bits of glass and pottery. He did his best not to step in the large swaths of blood, but it was difficult to avoid all of it.

“Hello?” Jed called out, clenching the handle of his Colt even tighter. He felt a little silly calling out to the empty house, but he had to see if someone was still alive.

The kitchen area off to the left of the living room was divided by a stone fireplace that was cold and black inside. The kitchen was as ransacked as the living area was. The kitchen table and chairs had been smashed to bits, dishes shattered. The potbelly stove was tipped over onto its side, the exhaust pipe torn from the wall leaving a circle of daylight invading the kitchen through the adobe wall.

There was more blood in the kitchen, like someone had splashed buckets of blood around.

But no bodies.

Maybe the bodies were in the bedrooms.

That creepy-crawly sensation was moving along Jed’s skin again, that sensation that he’d come to know so well. His mind was buzzing with panic, his muscles twitchy.

Jed went back to the living room, his boots thudding on the wood floor. His path towards the other side of the house disturbed the flies that hovered over the bloody smears, the flies scattering. An archway in the far living room wall led to the two bedrooms.

A wide trail of blood led into the small hall area beyond the archway. Hundreds of maggots wriggled around in the blood. The doors to two bedrooms were almost all the way shut. It was darker back here in the small hall area, colder, and the smell was just as bad.

He checked the bedroom to his right first, pushing the door open with the barrel of his gun. The room was as destroyed as the rest of the house: furniture broken apart, blankets and clothing torn to pieces, glass shattered, feathers from the pillows everywhere, some of the feathers stuck in the bloody smears like it was tar.

But there was no one hiding in the bedroom. No bodies.

He checked the other bedroom, pushing that door open slowly. This was obviously a boy’s bedroom judging from the broken bits of wooden toys all over the floor. The bed was flipped up against the wall.

There was no blood in this bedroom—the bloody smears stopped at the doorway.

Jed stood there for a moment, staring down at the floor. But he had to make himself turn away. He was sure the skinwalkers had done this—they had wiped out an entire family. It was time to leave now. He would take a few supplies and a horse and saddle.

As Jed turned to leave, he heard the whimper of a child. He turned back around and looked at the bed leaning against the wall—the place where the whimpering had come from.

Someone was still alive.

Jed took a step into the bedroom, but then he froze. He thought of the hooting owls and howling wolves in the woods; he thought of Red Moon telling him that skinwalkers could mimic any sound, transform into any animal they wished. Could it be a skinwalker behind that bed making the whimpering sound of a child? Could a skinwalker be trying to draw him closer? Were there more skinwalkers right outside the house, inhabiting the dead bodies of the family, controlling them? Were the dead stumbling towards the front door right now?

“Come on out,” Jed said, aiming his gun at the bed.

The whimpering stopped.

Jed’s blood froze in his veins. He was suddenly sure he was being tricked.

“Show yourself!”

A boy poked his head out from between the leaning bed and the wall. He looked to be eight or nine years old.

“Come on out,” Jed told the boy, still aiming his gun at him. “I don’t mean you any harm. I just need to see who you are.”

The boy just stared at him, still cowering in the shadow of the upright bed. He looked to be full-blooded Navajo, and there was a chance that he didn’t even understand English.

“I won’t hurt you,” Jed said. “I’m a U.S. Marshal.” He pulled his bandana down so the kid could see his face. He dug his badge out of his pocket and showed the boy. “See? I’m a lawman.”

The boy came all the way out from behind the bed. He was dressed in wool pants and a button-down shirt that looked too big for him, most likely a hand-me-down from an older brother.

An older brother who was dead now.

The boy’s hair came down to his shoulders, and his dark eyes were wide with fear. There was a chance the boy was too traumatized to speak.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Jed said in a softer voice. He lowered his Colt, but he didn’t holster it yet.

The boy stood very still in front of his tipped-up bed.

“What’s your name?”

The boy wouldn’t answer.

“Do you understand English?”

The boy nodded.

“What’s your name?” Jed asked again in a gentle voice.

“David,” he whispered.

Good, at least David could understand and speak English. “Who did this to your family?”

David shook his head, refusing to talk, on the verge of tears.

Jed decided on a different line of questioning. “The ones that did this to your family, are they gone now?”

David nodded.

“Okay,” Jed said more to himself than to David. “Did anyone in your family get away? Could they be hiding somewhere else around here? Hiding like you were?”

David’s chin trembled and tears pooled up in his eyes. He shook his head no.

“The bad people took your family, didn’t they?”

David nodded.

Jed sighed. He wasn’t going to get too far with this conversation with David. Jed still felt nervous—downright scared—but for some reason he felt braver now that he had someone to look after. He had no choice now but to master his own fear so he could take care of this boy. Jed had lost a lot up in those woods, but it was nothing compared to what David had gone through in this house. And those skinwalkers weren’t done yet—they could be back at any moment.

You have to give him what he wants. Roscoe’s words echoed in Jed’s mind.

Jed didn’t want to think about what he’d seen in those woods. Right now he needed to clear his mind of fear and those rambling memories, right now he needed to focus on the task at hand like he’d always done. The skinwalkers hadn’t only kept to the woods, they’d been down here in this valley at some point, slaughtering David’s family and dragging their bloody bodies throughout the house and then taking the bodies with them.

Why had the skinwalkers taken David’s family? To make grotesque trophies out of them like they’d done to Dobbs’ skin? To reanimate them? To send them back to ask for things?

Judging by how tacky the blood was Jed guessed that the murder of David’s family had happened at least twenty-four hours ago, maybe even longer. That meant that those skinwalkers might have come down to this valley to kill David’s family before they even attacked him and his deputies in the woods. Maybe there were two groups of them, one group down here and one group in the woods.

Why would they kill David’s family? David’s family had nothing to do with Red Moon, did they? And why spare David?

They spared me, Jed thought. They told me to leave Red Moon for them. And I did.

It was early afternoon now, maybe only five hours left until sundown. Staying the night in this house was out of the question. They needed to get to a town, a place where they could get some help and send men back here. But first they needed to take two horses and some supplies.

“We need to leave, David,” Jed told him. “Those people that hurt your family, they could be back at any time.”

David nodded.

“I need to take two of your pa’s horses, okay? I’m a U.S. Marshal. Remember? I’m just borrowing the horses so we can get away.” Jed wasn’t sure if the skinwalkers were mounted or not—he hadn’t heard the sound of horses in the woods at all—but at the very least he had to assume that some of them had his and his men’s horses. “I’ll leave a note behind, okay?”

The boy stared at him blankly.

“You got some paper I can write on?”

David didn’t say anything or make a move.

“You just wait here,” Jed told David. “I’m going to get us out of here. I’m going to protect us from those people that did this to your family. I’m just going to go and get a few supplies together to take with us. Do you have a pack you can get together?”

David stood there for a moment, but then he bolted over to the other side of the bedroom where shelves were built onto the wall. The shelves had been hidden by a blanket before, but the blanket and some of the shelves were down on the floor now. David pulled a canvas pack out from the mess.

Good, the boy understood him. “That’ll do fine, David. I want you to put a change of clothes in there. Just one. Don’t make your pack too heavy. If there’s something else you want to bring along, a special toy or book, you can bring that, too.” Jed glanced down at the broken and battered wood toys—nothing really looked salvageable. “Or if there’s something special you want to keep from your ma and pa.”

David gave Jed a slight nod.

“We’ll be back,” Jed said. “We’re just going to go and get some help. Bring back more lawmen like me. I can’t leave you here by yourself. You understand that, don’t you?”

David nodded again, and then he bolted to a small dresser, opening the top drawer. He was hurrying, shoving a shirt and a pair of pants down into the canvas pack—obviously ready to get as far away from this house as possible. He dropped the pack on the floor and opened up a wooden box on top of the dresser. He pulled out a fat pencil that was whittled to a point. He held it out for Jed to take.

“Thank you, David. That will help quite a bit.” Jed advanced slowly towards David, taking the pencil from his hand gently.

David followed Jed as he went through the living room and then into the kitchen. He didn’t really want the boy to see all of the blood and bits of meat inside the house, but there was going to be no shielding him from the horrors out here.

Jed looked through the pantry in the kitchen and found an old flour sack. He looked around for supplies they could use, but there wasn’t much. He found a tin can on its side that was half full of coffee. He closed the lid tightly and added it to the flour sack. He grabbed a pack of kitchen matches, a dented coffee kettle, and a small metal cooking pot. He also found a sack of dried beans and an extra canteen for David, some eating utensils, and a stack of Navajo flatbread.

The flour sack was half full but not too heavy. He used a scrap piece of butcher paper to write a note on:

Had to borrow 2 horses and some supplies. Will return them. Family murdered here.

Jed Cartwright   U.S. Marshal

Jed left the note behind, holding it down with a broken piece of pottery.

He hurried back to the living room. Even though the bodies weren’t inside the house anymore, the smell was still nauseating and Jed had his bandana up around his face again, covering his mouth and nose.

David stood in the living room with his canvas sack, which didn’t look too heavy. He bent down and picked something up from the floor amid the shattered glass—it looked like a piece of paper.

“Can I see?” Jed asked as he approached David.

The boy held out the photograph to Jed. David was in the photo along with his mother, father, and an older brother. Jed felt a pang of sorrow knife through him, his throat choking up with emotion. He handed the photo back to David who folded it in half and stuffed it down into his pants pocket.

“Did . . . does your pa have a gun?” Jed asked David as they hurried to the front door. “A rifle or a shotgun?”

David nodded.

Jed stopped and looked at David. “I didn’t see one in the house.” He thought the gun might have been taken along with the bodies, but he didn’t want to say that to David. “Does he have it stashed somewhere else?”

David didn’t answer.

Jed didn’t want to waste too much more time inquiring about a gun. There weren’t any bullet holes or shotgun blasts anywhere in the house—only blood and small pieces of flesh. Maybe David’s father kept a shotgun in the stables, hidden somewhere.

“Just wait here a few seconds while I have a look around outside,” Jed told David at the front door.

The boy looked panicky.

“I’ll be right back in. I’m not leaving you. I just want to make sure those (he almost said skinwalkers) men aren’t out there anywhere waiting for us.”

David nodded. He hadn’t spoken a word except for his name so far, but at least he was communicating.

Jed stepped out through the front door with his cloth bag in one hand and his gun in the other. He slipped all the way out onto the front porch, closing the door behind him. He walked to the end of the porch, trying to look everywhere at once. He didn’t see any movement anywhere, and he didn’t hear any noises. He still had a feeling of dread weighing him down, that creepy-crawly feeling dancing along his skin, a feeling he’d come to know so well in the last twenty-four hours.

He stood at the edge of the porch, hesitating for just a moment. Something was bothering him about the front porch and the field of dirt beyond it. And then it hit him: there wasn’t any blood on the front porch, and there were no drag marks in the dirt. How had the skinwalkers gotten the bodies out of the house without dribbling any blood? Of course there was so much blood in the house that maybe there hadn’t been any left in the bodies, but Jed didn’t think that was the answer.

For just a second it seemed like the whole world had shifted slightly, everything tilting just a bit. A wave of light-headedness washed over Jed as he stared down at the bone-dry floorboards of the front porch. For the first time in his life, he felt small and weak, like everything he’d always known was suddenly beyond his control, like he was a piece of wood floating helplessly down a raging river, carried along through this horror whether he wanted to go or not.

A noise from behind him spun Jed around with his gun aimed. David had stepped out onto the front porch with his canvas bag in his hands.

Jed exhaled a long breath. “Come on. Help me pick out two horses. Show me which one you usually ride.”

David hurried towards Jed and they walked together to the stables. Inside the stables, David walked up to a small mare that was obviously his horse. Jed didn’t have to show David how to mount the horse; David was familiar enough with them.

There were a few bedrolls on a shelf, rolled up tightly and tied with twine. Jed tied one of them to the back of David’s saddle and one to the back of the saddle of the horse he was going to take, the better of the two horses that were left. He let the other horse out into the corral and left a large pile of feed by his pen, leaving the stall door open. He wasn’t sure why the skinwalkers hadn’t taken the horses after taking David’s family, but he was sure they had a reason for it. Jed couldn’t help feeling that the skinwalkers were doing certain things purposely, like they had a plan they were laying out. He couldn’t help feeling like he was being herded somewhere . . . herded into a trap.

Jed’s horse was a little nervous, but Jed rode him around the corral for a few minutes to calm him down, and then they were ready to go.

They rode away from David’s house, north into the badlands of northern Arizona. And soon they would camp for the night.

CHAPTER 8

Jed’s eyes popped open in the darkness. Their campfire was out, but the darkness wasn’t as complete as the darkness in the woods had been; a full moon provided plenty of light for Jed to see the man seated at the other side of the dead campfire.

For a moment Jed didn’t know where he was. He had awakened in a state of grogginess, more confused than afraid at first as his conscious mind tried to catch up to what his eyes were seeing.

He wasn’t in the woods anymore—he knew that right away. He was in the desert with David. They had camped out for the night.

And now Red Moon was here by their dead campfire, sitting cross-legged and naked under the moonlight. His head was bent forward, his long hair hanging down over his shoulders, his face hidden behind his hair and the shadows.

Suddenly all of the memories of the last thirty-six hours came back to Jed: Dobbs’ skinned body, Roscoe’s severed head, David and his slaughtered and missing family. And he had left Red Moon behind in those woods.

Jed sat up on his bedroll and stared at the Navajo who sat only ten feet away from him. Jed glanced over at David who was curled up on his bedroll, his eyes closed; he was either sleeping or pretending to be asleep. Jed looked over at the stand of trees where he had tied their horses. Both of them were still there, both jittery and snorting, their legs still hobbled. He looked back at Red Moon.

Red Moon sat very still, his head still bent down like he was looking down at his lap. It looked like Red Moon’s skin was rippling, like something was moving just underneath it, little lumps sliding back and forth under his skin.

“He is going to want something from you,” Red Moon said in a deep, guttural voice. He still hadn’t looked up at Jed yet, his face still in shadows, the moonlight shining down on the top of his head and shoulders.

Jed couldn’t respond; his throat had locked up with fear. His Colt was within easy reach. He could shoot Red Moon right now if he had to. But he knew that it wouldn’t do any good, so he left his gun alone.

Save the last two bullets for me and David. I won’t let us end up like this.

“He is going to want things,” Red Moon said again in his gravelly voice. “You give him what he wants, and he will let you live.”

Jed was going to ask Red Moon what “he” wanted, but he still couldn’t get his voice to work. He had been afraid many times in his life, but never like this. He’d never faced something so powerful that it made him feel like giving up.

The lumps under Red Moon’s skin were moving around faster now, and there were more of them. One of the lumps pushed through the skin of Red Moon’s shoulder, and a black beetle wiggled out, its shell shiny in the moonlight. Once the bug was free from Red Moon’s skin, it skittered down his chest and into the shadows of his lap.

Another beetle pushed itself out of Red Moon’s skin, and then another one. And another. Dozens of beetles were pouring out of Red Moon’s skin, racing down his flesh like an army of ants. The beetles were merging together, forming into a bigger organism, an amoeba-like being.

Red Moon raised his head, his face coming out of the shadows. “Remember what I said. When the time comes, you give him what he asks for.”

How was Red Moon speaking? He had no face—there was just a deep black hole where his face should have been, a giant cavern with edges of ragged flesh and bits of torn, gleaming skull.

Jed snapped awake, jumping to his feet beside the bedroll. The sky was lightening up in the east, and it was only a half an hour until sunrise. The campfire was long dead. The air as cold, the coldest it had been all night. He was shaking, a feeling of dread blanketing him.

Red Moon.

He looked where Red Moon had been sitting next to the campfire last night.

It was just a dream, Jed told himself. Just a terrible nightmare. But he saw a slight indentation in the sand where someone had been sitting last night. Another chill ran across his skin.

They needed to get out of here.

Red Moon had told him in the woods that the skinwalkers were witches that could cast spells. Had they cast a spell on him in those woods? Had they made him see things that weren’t there? Were they still making him see things right now?

At least both of the horses were still there. And David was still asleep on his bedroll. If Red Moon had truly paid him a visit last night, then Jed felt sure the skinwalkers would have taken the horses, and maybe even David. But it felt more like Red Moon had been sent to send him a message, one last warning from the skinwalkers.

Give him what he wants.

But Jed didn’t know what he, or they, or whatever they were, wanted. And he couldn’t concentrate on that right now.

Focus on the task in front of you. He repeated the mantra in his mind that he had told himself for years.

“Just a dream,” he muttered as he gathered a few sticks of dried wood from the small group of trees the horses were tied near. It was still early morning, the world not fully lit up yet; many parts of the land were still hidden in shadows. He tore some of the bark away from a tree, peeling fibers of wood back, lighting the dry fibers with a kitchen match to get the campfire going again. He watched the flames as they spread along the kindling.

Ten minutes later he started a pot of coffee with some water from his canteen. His hands shook as he poured the water; he tried to make them stop shaking, but he couldn’t. He felt a strong urge to wake David up at that moment, pack up their camp, get on their horses and ride away as fast as they could. He had originally planned on going to Hope’s End because he’d been on foot, but now that he and David were on horseback, they could make the trip all the way to Smith Junction where they would be safe.

Nowhere is safe, a voice in his mind whispered. He could ride all the way to the Canadian line and it still wouldn’t be safe.

Jed woke David up after the coffee was boiling. The boy woke up easily, his eyes popping open. He didn’t smile and he didn’t say anything, he just sat up on his bedroll. Jed handed David a tin cup of coffee.

“We need to get going soon,” Jed told David. “If we get a good day of traveling in, we could be in Smith Junction by tomorrow afternoon.”

David didn’t say anything, didn’t seem to care. He didn’t even look at Jed; he just cradled the cup of coffee in his hands like he was trying to warm them up.

Jed bit off a few pieces of jerky and handed a piece to David who took the dried meat without a word. They would save the rest of the beans for tonight.

Thirty minutes later Jed and David were on horseback and riding away from the dead campfire. Jed cooed at his horse, stroking his mane, trying to get the animal relaxed. Moments later a group of coyotes began yipping on the horizon.

CHAPTER 9

The coyotes followed them throughout the day, yipping and staying out of sight most of the time.

Until now.

Now Jed saw ten of them lined up on a hill in the distance, they stood like a sentry of soldiers. Not only that, there were buzzards circling in the air above. He’d also heard the rattling of rattlesnakes several times, but he’d never seen any of them. All of this made him think of the animal noises he’d heard in the woods: the hoots of owls, the howls of wolves, the rattling of snakes.

Maybe there was something dead around here, something big enough to attract scavengers like buzzards and coyotes. But the coyotes on the hilltop in the distance didn’t seem to be hunting or scavenging—they seemed to be watching him and David as they rode by.

Jed and David rode down into a little canyon, and now the coyotes were out of sight. Jed heard the bubbling of a stream splashing across the rocks. He got off his horse to stretch his legs. He grabbed the reins and led his horse to the stream. David got off of his horse and did the same. It was almost afternoon now so Jed broke a piece of jerky apart so he and David could share it. David bit a small piece of the dried meat off and chewed, and then he walked away from the stream and looked back at the canyon floor that they had just traveled through.

Jed walked over to see what the boy was staring at.

More coyotes had gathered in the distance a few hundred yards away. The coyotes were just thin, dark shapes on the horizon, but Jed could tell that they were sitting on their haunches and watching them. A chill ran through him—animals didn’t act like that. Jed had never been afraid of coyotes—they were skittish animals and scavengers of opportunity. Even wolves didn’t scare Jed that badly, unless it was a pack of them. Wolves only became dangerous when they were more hungry than scared. Bears and cougars concerned him a little. Cougars liked to sneak up behind a man, especially at night, or attack from above, perched on a rock or a tree branch. But Jed didn’t usually see too many cougars in this area. Both cougars and bears could be scared off by loud noises or gunshots. But those coyotes at the other end of the canyon were spooking him; they weren’t acting the way coyotes were supposed to act. Skinwalkers could supposedly transform into animals. Could that line of coyotes be the skinwalkers? Could they have transformed into coyotes?

That was ridiculous, and Jed pushed that thought out of his mind. He was still jumpy and tired, his mind entertaining strange thoughts. He knew he had seen some strange things in those woods, things he couldn’t explain, perhaps hallucinations, but he wasn’t going to accept the idea of a man changing into an animal.

Yes, maybe he’d just hallucinated some of those things in those woods, the delusions created by stress. It was possible. And the visit from Red Moon last night had just been a vivid dream, nothing else. He knew stress could bring on vivid dreams. He knew a few men who had fought in the Civil War and they had admitted to horrible nightmares, some of the dreams so terrifying that they would jump out of bed and run smack into a wall, trying to flee the terror they’d seen in their sleep. One man told Jed that he had attacked his wife several times while he was asleep. He’d almost killed her once. She went back east to live with her mother’s family.

Jed hoped no more nightmares were coming for him. He didn’t want to experience any more nightmares like he’d had last night.

The horses had had their fill of water. It was time to move on. Jed looked up at the sky. Buzzards still circled in the air above the canyon walls, but they stayed above the line of coyotes in the distance. The sky was a deep blue, but storm clouds were beginning to move in quickly.

“Come on, David. We need to get moving.”

*

After they’d gotten out of the canyon, there was no doubt that a bad storm was on the horizon—a wall of black clouds rushed towards them like a tidal wave. The wind was already beginning to pick up. Maybe the storm was what had been making those coyotes and buzzards act so strangely.

Jed halted his horse and checked the map. They were only an hour or two away from the town of Hope’s End. He had planned on going as far as they could and then camping tonight, then reaching Smith Junction by tomorrow afternoon or early evening. But with the storm moving in, he really had no choice but to try to make it to the closest town. There was nothing but hilly land and scrub brush as far as he could see once they’d left the canyons behind—no shelter of any kind from the storm.

“We’re going to have to ride to the closest town,” Jed told David as he folded up his map and tucked it back into his shirt pocket. “Storm’s coming, and it’s going to kick up some sand. We’re going to have to ride fast. Okay?”

David just nodded, the reins gripped in his small hands.

“That storm comes, you pull your bandana up over your mouth and nose,” Jed told him. He pulled his own up so David understood what he was saying.

Again, David just nodded.

Jed nudged his horse forward and David fell in beside him, their horses trotting now like they could sense the dangerous storm coming.

As they raced across the desert, Jed swore he could hear the coyotes yipping somewhere in the distance. It almost sounded like the animals were laughing, like they were happy that he and David were being forced towards Hope’s End.

PART 2

HOPE’S END

CHAPTER 10

Jed and David saw the small town of Hope’s End on the horizon as the storm raged right behind them.

“Just keep my horse in sight!” Jed yelled at David over the wind as he pulled his bandana up over his face and drew the string of his hat tight underneath his chin.

David watched him as he rode his horse, doing the same thing Jed did.

“It’s going to get hard to see!” Jed told David. “You just keep my horse in sight!” he said again.

The boy didn’t nod, but he kept his horse right to the side and slightly behind Jed’s.

The storm was whipping the sand up into a frenzied swirl, a blizzard of sand all around them. Jed knew the storm was going to be bad from the looks of the clouds that had covered the horizon, but this was worse than he had expected. The wind howled and the sand stung his flesh through his shirt. He could imagine the pain and terror David was going through right now. Even though there was no rain, lightning flashed every few seconds, the ground rumbling with thunder, static electricity crackling through the air.

The edge of town was just a series of dark shapes in the blurring sandstorm, and Jed kept his horse racing towards those black blobs. He peeked to his side to make sure David was still there. The boy was keeping up just fine.

Jed had been to Hope’s End a few times, just passing through, never staying long. It was a one-street town, the street cutting a straight and wide path through the two and three story buildings lining both sides of the street. From what he remembered there was a large white church at the other end of town. But Jed wasn’t sure if they could make it all the way to the church; he remembered a hotel not too far down the street. He steered his horse to the right after they passed the first few buildings, all of which looked dark. But at least there were lights inside the hotel windows to guide their way.

“In here,” Jed yelled at David as he turned his horse into an alley between the hotel and the building next to it. As soon as he was between the buildings, the pelting sand stopped and Jed could see again. He pulled his bandana up to his eyes and rubbed them with the cloth, trying to get the sand out of them. He opened his eyes wider after lowering the bandana back down to his neck, his eyes watering just a bit.

David was in the alley with him. Both of their horses were squeezed in close to each other, both of the animals wild-eyed and snorting, both glad to be out of the stinging sandstorm.

“Well now,” Jed said. “That was something.” He couldn’t help smiling; he was as happy as the horses to be out of the storm.

David didn’t smile or say anything. He just watched Jed.

Jed got down off of his horse and grabbed his coil of rope. He tied the horses’ leads to the rope several feet apart, pulled his bandana up over his mouth and nose, and then dashed out into the storm to tie the other end of the rope to the hitching post in front of the hotel. The length of rope kept the horses tied, but allowed them enough room to remain tucked inside the narrow alley and out of the storm.

After Jed was back inside the alley, he pulled his kerchief back down off of his face. He took his hat off and smacked it against his thigh to get the sand off of it.

David mimicked him, rubbing his own eyes and then smacking his hat against his leg.

It was all Jed could do not to laugh. “No sense getting too clean,” he told David. “We still need to get to the hotel doors.”

David just nodded as he put his hat back on and drew the string up underneath his chin.

“You ready?”

The boy nodded again.

“Just follow me,” Jed said, and he was off and running, darting out of the alley and down the wood-planked walkway. At least the porch roof protected them a little from the sandstorm.

Lightning struck somewhere close by, a flash seen out of the corner of Jed’s eye. Thunder rumbled two seconds later, the ground shaking.

Their boots thudded on the walkway as Jed reached the double doors of the hotel. The doors had glass panels in them with the words MOODY’S HOTEL AND SALOON painted in fancy script on them.

Jed turned the brass doorknob and pushed the door open, the wind catching the door as he did so, fighting him. He held the door open so David could dart inside along with a scattering of sand and a blast of cold air. He slammed the door shut on the howling wind.

The hotel lobby served as the establishment’s saloon. It was a big room with a set of stairs running up the wall to Jed’s left. The set of stairs turned sharply at a landing and then continued on up to a balcony that ran across the second story of the saloon. No one was up on the balcony right now, but there were doors that led to hotel rooms up there. Another hallway disappeared around the corner to the left at the top of the stairs.

A slim woman in a green dress played a piano that was shoved up against the wall on the left side of the room by the stairs. She stopped playing for a moment when Jed and David entered the saloon. Even from the front doors of the saloon, Jed could tell the woman was attractive. She had red hair—but not a fiery red like Dobbs’ hair had been—her hair was more like a strawberry blond. She smiled at Jed and David, and then she began playing the piano again.

Between the stairs to the left and the massive bar to the right, there were half a dozen tables. Only two of the tables were occupied. A cowboy or ranch hand sat at the table closer to Jed and David; he was tall and lean, his skin tanned from years under the Arizona sun. And from the way he was drooped in his chair, Jed was sure the young man was drunk. A bottle sat on the table in front of him, most of its contents gone. The bottle didn’t have a label—probably some homemade hooch that the owner of this saloon had concocted; probably watered-down whiskey cut with God knew what to cut costs and increase profits.

A woman, most likely the hotel’s prostitute, hovered beside the cowboy. She wore a revealing dress and fishnet stockings. Her blond hair was pulled up into a bun, held there by a long wooden pick. Jed guessed that the woman was probably helping the cowboy with his bottle of whiskey as she tried to coax him upstairs so she could part him from more of his wages.

The back of the saloon underneath the balcony and upstairs rooms looked smaller and darker because of the lower ceiling. There were a few tables back there and an older Navajo sat at one of them. Right behind the man was a window, the world outside almost as dark as night from the storm. The Navajo man didn’t look up as Jed and David entered; he seemed to be concentrating on a bowl of stew in front of him. He wore layers of clothing and a big coat dotted with different colored patches. He had a dirty white bandana wrapped around his forehead with a black felt hat over that. An eagle feather poked out of the hatband. His long hair flowed down over the shoulders of his multi-colored coat.

Jed stomped his boots on the wood floor near the door where he stood, taking his hat off again and brushing the sand off as best he could.

Once again David mimicked Jed’s actions, swatting at his clothes with his hat and then stomping his boots on the floor.

“Take a seat over there,” Jed whispered to David, pointing at a table closer to the piano and farther away from the drunk cowboy and the prostitute.

As David walked towards the table, the prostitute watched him, smiling at him and giving him a small wave of her fingers. David glanced at the woman and then he sat down at the table. The woman leaned down towards the cowboy and whispered something in his ear. They both laughed. Jed was sure the woman had made some kind of obscene comment, or perhaps an Indian joke.

Jed turned his attention to the bar at the other side of the saloon; it was a mahogany behemoth, running from the windows that looked out onto the street all the way to a potbellied stove with its exhaust piped into the wall. Two doors were tucked underneath the balcony above, leading to rooms built in that far corner of the saloon. There were a few barstools in front of the bar, but all three men at the bar chose to stand there—two of the men stood close to each other by the windows. Both of them turned and faced Jed. The two men were dressed like businessmen, both in their early to mid-forties. One man was stick-thin and balding; the other man had a full head of dark hair and a protruding belly.

A lone man stood at the other end of the bar with his back to Jed. He never turned around to look at Jed. He leaned on the bar with one foot propped up on the brass foot rail that ran the length of the bar. Jed didn’t like the way the man was standing, relaxed but tense at the same time. And he didn’t like the pistols that the man wore low on his hips like a gunfighter, pearl handles sticking up out of the holsters. The man’s clothes looked new and expensive. Jed caught the man’s reflection in the mirrors behind the bar, but the man kept his head down, his black hat pulled low.

Three large mirrors made up most of the wall behind the bar, each mirror held against the wall in a network of ornately carved wood frames. On each side of the wall of mirrors were two wall sconces, both lit, both attached to the wall amid garish wallpaper that would have looked more at home in a New York City hotel rather than a dusty Arizona town. Shelves to the right of the mirrors held bottles of liquor, and there were more bottles and glasses lined up on the counter in front of the mirrors. To the left of the mirrors were some wooden cubbyholes for correspondence and keys to the rooms upstairs.

The other wood-planked walls in the saloon not covered with the ugly wallpaper were decorated with framed photos and paintings. A stuffed buck’s head with a huge rack of antlers was fastened to the wall just below the balcony, and on another wall there was a rattlesnake skin stretched out and mounted to a wood plaque. A massive chandelier of oil lamps hung from the high ceiling above the main part of the saloon.

“We don’t usually let children in here,” the larger of the two businessmen said in an Irish accent as Jed approached the bar after hanging his coat on the coatrack. “But I’ll make an exception on account of the storm.”

“Much obliged,” Jed said to the man he assumed was the owner. He stepped up to the bar in a spot that was equal distance between the lone man and the two businessmen. He shifted his gaze to the mirror, focusing on the lone man’s reflection, but the man still kept his head down, the brim of his hat hiding part of his face as he cradled a shot glass in his hands.

Jed knew that man, but from where?

“Hell of a storm,” the thin man at the end of the bar next to the saloon owner said with a lilting, singsong Swedish accent. The man’s skin was ghostly pale which made his sapphire blue eyes stand out even more. The hair that he had left looked bleached white.

“Yes it is,” Jed replied.

“That storm came out of nowhere,” the Swede said.

The barkeep approached Jed from behind the bar with a customer-friendly smile underneath his gigantic walrus mustache. He was dressed in a crisp white button-down shirt and a red bowtie, his uniform another attempt at trying to pretend this place was a high-class establishment and not a dusty saloon in a dead-end town. “What’ll it be?” the barkeep asked, his mustache moving as he spoke like it was a small living creature attached to his upper lip.

“Whiskey,” Jed said, tapping two fingers on the battered and dented bar top, where battle scars from countless drunken patrons and bar fights covered the mahogany. “Not that house brand. I’ll take some from that bottle over there.” Jed pointed at one of the bottles on the shelves in front of the third mirror.

The barkeep hesitated for a moment.

Jed pulled out a coin from his pocket, and then he pulled out his U.S. Marshal badge from his shirt pocket and pinned it to his shirt.

“Yes, marshal. Right away.” The barkeep dashed over to get the bottle and a shot glass.

Jed glanced at the young man to his left, gauging his reaction now that he knew a lawman was in the saloon. But the man stayed relaxed, still cradling the empty shot glass in front of him on the bar top, moving it around in a small, slow circle.

The barkeep poured Jed a shot of whiskey.

Jed downed the shot and tapped the bar for another drink.

The barkeep poured another one.

Jed drank the second shot slowly. He could already feel the warmth of the whiskey spreading in his gut, his nerves calming just a bit. He realized that he was very hungry, and he was sure David was hungry, too.

The Irishman moved down the bar to Jed, proffering a hand in greeting. “A U.S. Marshal, I see. Glad to make your acquaintance.”

Jed gave the man’s hand a shake—the man’s grip was firm and dry.

“My name’s Allen Moody,” the Irishman said. “I’m the owner of this fine establishment.”

“Jed Cartwright. What’s on the menu today, Mr. Moody?”

The Irishman broke into a grin, showing good teeth for a man his age. “Please. Just call me Moody. Everybody just calls me Moody.”

“What have you got on the menu today, Moody?” Jed looked to the barkeep for an answer if Moody wasn’t going to provide one.

“We have lamb stew in the pot,” the barkeep said.

“You got bread and butter to go with the stew?” Jed asked.

“Yessir,” the bartender replied with most of his smile hidden under his gigantic mustache.

“Karl’s wife made the bread,” Moody said, hitching a thumb back towards the thin Swede who was nursing a drink in front of him. “That’s Karl Andersson. He’s from Sweden. Owns the general store if you’ll be needing anything.”

“I’ll take two bowls of that stew,” Jed told the barkeep. “Two hunks of bread to go with it. You got any buttermilk for the kid?”

“Sorry,” the barkeep said, swallowing hard. “No buttermilk. We’ve got coffee, tea, and beer from the keg.”

Beer was out of the question, and Jed was sure David was probably tired of coffee by now. “Give me a cup of tea for the kid.”

“Right away, sir.”

“Where you headed, marshal?” Moody asked. Jed could tell the man was dying to ask him why he was traveling through a sandstorm with a Navajo kid, but he didn’t.

“Smith Junction.”

“Well, if you need to stay the night, I’ve got plenty of rooms available.”

“Good to know.”

“Rose could draw you a bath if you like,” Moody said and looked over at the woman who was still hovering beside the cowboy.

“We’re going to wait the storm out,” Jed said as he watched the barkeep ladle stew into two bowls. But Jed’s eyes kept shifting to the young man at the other end of the bar who had barely moved a muscle so far. The man made no attempt to meet Jed’s eyes.

“If you change your mind—” Moody said.

“You’ll be the first to know.”

“That’s Esmerelda playing the piano,” Moody said.

Jed didn’t bother glancing behind him at the woman at the piano. “She plays mighty fine.”

“She tells fortunes, too,” Karl said, leaning towards them, slurring his words even more.

Jed looked at Moody beside him. “You’ve introduced nearly everyone here. What about this fella at the other end of the bar here?”

Moody swallowed and smiled. “Oh, he’s just a man passing through. Taking shelter from the storm, like you.”

Jed kept his eyes on the mirror, watching the man’s reflection, waiting for him to make a move. “I know who he is.”

Before the man could even turn, Jed had his gun drawn and aimed at him. “Yes, I know who you are, Sanchez.”

CHAPTER 11

For the second time in the span of a few minutes, the piano playing stopped.

Sanchez turned towards Jed, but he froze with his hands down by his guns, only inches away from grabbing the pearl handles of his pistols when he saw that Jed had already drawn his Colt.

“Don’t do it,” Jed warned.

“What the hell are you doing?” Moody yelled from behind Jed. Karl had retreated away from the bar, knocking a barstool back, its legs scraping against the wood floor.

“This man is Juan Carlos Sanchez,” Jed announced. “He’s wanted for a murder in Smith Junction.”

“That was self-defense,” Sanchez answered. He stared at Jed, his body still tense, ready to strike like a rattlesnake.

Now that Jed saw Sanchez’s face, he realized that the man was much younger than he’d thought, maybe barely twenty-one or twenty-two years old. Jed knew he had to be careful—Sanchez would be fast even though Jed had the jump on him.

“Tell it to the judge,” Jed said as he kept his Colt aimed at him. “My job isn’t to try you, just to bring you in.”

Everyone watched them. The barkeep had moved as far back behind the bar as he could, ready to duck down when the shooting started.

For just a moment Jed was sure Sanchez was going to go for his gun, sure that he would be the sixth man he’d faced who would rather go out shooting than take that walk up the gallows steps.

But Sanchez remained still.

“You listen closely, Sanchez,” Jed said. “I want you to unbuckle your gun belts with your left hand.”

Sanchez waited a few seconds, staring at Jed. And Jed could feel the man searching his eyes, searching for a weakness, for an opening. But then Sanchez moved his left hand slowly to his belt buckle and loosened it. The gun belt, holsters, and pistols dropped to the wood floor in a crash among the sawdust and tobacco stains.

“You’re doing the right thing, Sanchez. Now take five steps back away from your guns and keep your hands up.”

Sanchez’s mouth was a straight line underneath his thin mustache. He backed up three steps, keeping his hands up in front of him in a half-hearted surrendering gesture.

Jed kept his Colt .45 aimed at Sanchez—he couldn’t relax now; Sanchez might have another pistol tucked away on him, even a two-shot Derringer.

“Moody, you got any rope?”

“Uh . . .”

“Rope.”

“Yes. I think there might be some in the storeroom.”

“Good. I need you to get me a few lengths of it.”

Jed didn’t see Moody nod at the barkeep, but a few seconds later the man with the walrus mustache bolted out from behind the bar and kept close to the wall and wood-burning stove as he made his way towards the two rooms. He ducked inside the room to the left, leaving the door wide open.

“You’re making a mistake,” Sanchez told Jed. “I shot that man in self-defense. He drew on me. I was just protecting myself.”

“I’m sorry if that’s true,” Jed said. “Like I said, you’ll have to tell that to the judge.”

“I’m certain I’ll stand a fair chance in front of a judge in Smith Junction,” Sanchez said sarcastically.

Jed didn’t answer, and Sanchez gave up on his pleas, seeing it wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

The barkeep was back with a few lengths of rope.

“You got any other pistols on you?” Jed asked Sanchez.

Sanchez gave a slight shake of his head.

“Turn around,” Jed said as he walked towards him, scooting Sanchez’s guns back even farther away on the floor with his foot. “Get down on your knees with your hands behind your back.”

Sanchez hesitated for another moment, but then did as Jed instructed.

Jed fished out the pair of handcuffs from his jacket pocket with his left hand and snapped a cuff on Sanchez’s right wrist while still holding his pistol aimed at the man, and then he cuffed the other wrist, shackling his hands together behind his back. Jed holstered his weapon. “Get on your feet.”

Sanchez stood up. Jed patted Sanchez down quickly, but the man had no other weapons on him.

“Go and sit in that chair over there.” Jed pointed at the closest table.

The cowboy sat up straight now at the next table with Rose right behind him, watching everything with wide eyes, sobering up a little. Esmerelda had turned around on the piano stool, watching. Even the Navajo in the back room was watching.

Sanchez plopped down in the chair, and Jed adjusted his arms so that they were behind the back of the chair, Sanchez winced a little as Jed forced his arms there.

“The rope,” he told the barkeep.

The barkeep snapped out of his daze and looked down at the coil of rope in his hands like he’d forgotten about it. He hurried over to Jed and handed it to him.

Jed used part of the rope to tie the chain of Sanchez’s handcuffs to the spindles at the back of the chair, and then he used the rest of the rope to tie Sanchez’s ankles together. He stood up and stared at Sanchez.

Moody rushed into action now that Sanchez was tied to the chair. He picked up Sanchez’s gun belt and pistols from the floor. “I’ll lock these in my office.”

Jed nodded at Moody and watched him head to the other doorway to the right of the storeroom where the barkeep had gotten the rope.

“You got a sheriff in this town?” Jed asked the barkeep.

“No,” the barkeep answered. “Not anymore.”

“A lot of people left after the mines around here dried up,” Karl offered. “Sheriff left, too.”

“You got a sheriff’s office with a jail cell?” Jed asked.

“Yes,” Moody answered as he came out of his office, walking towards Jed, taking over the conversation.

Jed figured he could put Sanchez in the jail cell if he had to stay the night, but he wasn’t walking him anywhere through that storm out there.

“I’ll take one more whiskey and those bowls of stew I ordered,” Jed told the barkeep.

The barkeep had remained at the end of the bar, still frozen for a moment. He jumped at Jed’s command, seemingly eager to do something. “Right away, marshal.”

After the barkeep set the bowls of stew on the bar top, Jed took a bowl of stew with a chunk of bread sunk down into it and a cup of tea to the table where David sat. “You eat up,” he told the boy.

David had taken off his coat at some point and slung it over the back of his chair. He pulled his hat back and took a bite of the stew. He tore off a piece of the bread, devouring it.

Jed went back to the bar to get the other bowl of stew.

“Uh,” Moody said, approaching Jed. He couldn’t seem to hide his curiosity. “Is there some reason you’re traveling with that Indian boy?”

Jed didn’t answer for a moment as he stood in front of the bar with the bowl of stew on it. “I found him in his home. His parents and brother were murdered.”

Moody’s eyes widened in shock. “You know who did it?”

Jed hesitated again. He shook his head. “I was taking Red Moon in for a bounty when me and my men were ambushed.”

“Red Moon?” Moody asked in a whisper of awe. “You caught Red Moon?”

“He got away. He might’ve killed that boy’s family. He killed my two deputies and stole our horses. I think his gang attacked us.”

“And Red Moon got away,” Moody whispered.

A memory of Red Moon flashed through Jed’s mind. He saw Red Moon staring at him with his bound hands shackled in front of him, arms straining, his eyes wide with fear. Shoot me. You promised.

“Red Moon and his men may be around,” Jed said as he looked at the others in the saloon. “We all need to stay alert.” He looked right at Sanchez. “What about you? You riding with Red Moon’s gang?”

Sanchez didn’t answer. He sulked in the chair.

“You hear anything about Red Moon’s gang?” Jed asked Sanchez.

“I don’t ride with any gangs,” Sanchez answered. “I’m not an outlaw. I was on my way back to Mexico. Back to my family.”

Jed turned back to the bar and downed his glass of whiskey. He left his bowl of stew at the bar as he walked past Sanchez towards the Navajo in the back room. “What about you, fella?”

The Navajo looked up at Jed, watching him approach. He was an older man, maybe in his late fifties or early sixties. His tanned face was a map of wrinkles, his dark eyes set deep under his brow.

“You know anything about Red Moon’s gang?”

“Because I am Navajo, you think I know every other Navajo in the world?”

“That’s not an answer to my question,” Jed told him.

“I have heard of Red Moon,” the Navajo man answered. “But I do not know him. Or his men.”

“That’s Nez,” Esmerelda said, standing up from the piano stool and staring at Jed. “I don’t know his full name, but everyone just calls him Billy. He comes into town a few times a month to trade.”

Jed looked at Esmerelda. Now that he was closer to her, he thought she was even more striking in a strange way. Not beautiful, but the word exotic came to mind. “Thank you, ma’am.”

Esmerelda smiled at him and sat back down on the piano stool.

Jed was about to return to the bar. He saw that David was turned around in his chair, watching him talk to Billy. Jed looked back at Billy. “You know this boy?”

Billy looked across the room at David for a long moment.

Jed swore he saw recognition in Billy’s eyes, but finally the old man shook his head. “No. I do not know him.”

Jed nodded at the Navajo man and started walking to the bar again, but this time Billy’s words stopped him.

“The Darkwind is powerful magic.”

“What did you say?” Jed asked Billy Nez as he turned back around to look at him.

“I said the Darkwind is powerful magic.”

Darkwind. Red Moon had said that same word. The wind had blown suddenly in the woods, shaking the tree he was chained to. He had looked up and called it the Darkwind.

“The Darkwind is out there now,” Billy said, nodding towards the saloon doors at the other end of the room. “And it brings something evil with it.”

“He’s right,” Esmerelda said. “I can feel something real bad out there.”

“It’s just a storm,” Jed told Esmerelda, and then he looked at Billy. “Besides, I don’t believe in that stuff.”

Billy Nez studied Jed for a long moment, and then he nodded like he’d reached some kind of conclusion he’d been internally debating. “You have already seen the Darkwind. You have seen what it can do.”

“I didn’t see anything,” Jed snapped. He could feel the skin on his face and neck heating up with the lie he was telling. “All I know is some Indians were pretending to be skinwalkers and they killed my men.”

The saloon went silent again for a moment—there was nothing but the sound of the howling wind outside.

Billy stared at Jed for a long moment, his dark eyes never looking away. “Yenaldooshi,” he whispered.

“What the hell’s a skinwalker?” the cowboy slurred as he turned around in his chair to stare at Jed with drunk eyes and a lopsided smile. Rose broke into nervous laughter beside the cowboy, spurring him on.

The tension in the room was broken by their laughter.

“Red Moon’s men might be out there,” Jed said, ignoring the cowboy’s question. He looked at Moody, Karl, and the barkeep, walking back to them. “We all need to stay alert.”

Jed pulled up a barstool and began to eat his stew.

Moody, buzzing with nervous energy, walked to the front doors of the saloon and looked out through the glass at the swirling sandstorm.

“One more,” Karl said to the barkeep.

The bartender came over and poured a shot of whiskey for Karl.

“I hope this storm lets up soon,” Karl said. “I don’t want Ingrid to get worried about me.”

“I’m sure she knows where you are,” the barkeep joked.

Jed looked back to check on David and make sure he was eating his stew. David was watching Rose and the cowboy as they giggled. Rose whispered something into the man’s ear. He nodded and jumped to his feet. She hurried for the stairs, her low-heeled ankle boots clicking on the wood floorboards. The cowboy grabbed his bottle and raced after Rose up the stairs. At the top of the steps, they disappeared down the other hall to the left and out of view from the saloon. David watched them the whole way. Upstairs, a door slammed shut.

There was a whoop from the cowboy upstairs, and Esmerelda began playing the piano again to mask the sound.

Jed turned back to his stew. The stew was good, the bread even better. He felt a little better, even though the sadness and strangeness of what had happened to Roscoe and Dobbs still weighed on him. But at least he could bring Sanchez in for a bounty, making up for some of his lost money. It was little compensation, but Jed didn’t care. He just wanted the storm to end soon so he could get Sanchez and David on the trail up to Smith Junction and put all of this behind him.

CHAPTER 12

Two hours later night had come. An hour after sunset the sandstorm died down suddenly, the wind ceasing almost instantly. For a moment the silence inside the saloon was eerie. Esmeralda had quit playing the piano an hour earlier, helping the barkeep clean up the dishes and put away the food.

The barkeep had lit more of the lanterns on the wall sconces and the ones inside the wooden chandelier as soon as night came.

Karl paid his bar tab as soon as the storm was over, slapping two coins down on the beaten-up bar top.

The only other sound inside the saloon was someone singing lowly. Jed turned and stared at Billy who was still seated at the back table. He was chanting, and his chants sounded similar to the ones Red Moon had sung in the woods. Billy had the eagle feather from his hatband in his hand, waving it around slowly in front of him with his eyes half closed.

Jed walked over to David’s table. The boy looked exhausted, ready to fall asleep right there in the chair. “Get your coat on, David. We’re heading out soon.”

“You’re leaving now?” Moody asked. “In the dark?”

“Yessir. We’ll make camp a few miles north of here.”

“I don’t know why you won’t take a room for the night,” Moody grumbled.

Jed didn’t feel like explaining himself to Moody. He looked at Sanchez who was slumped down in his chair, doing his best to get comfortable after being tied to the chair for the last three hours. “Where’s your horse?”

“Livery,” Sanchez answered.

“Where’s the livery?”

Sanchez stared at Jed, declining to answer.

Jed looked at Moody, waiting for directions to the livery.

“It’s just beyond the buildings across the street, back by the miners’ cabins.”

Karl grabbed his overcoat from the coatrack and slipped into it. His pale face was red from drinking too much. He went to the double doors to go outside.

Jed walked over to the bar. “Barkeep, I’d like one bottle of whiskey to take with me. And I’d like some of that tea for the boy. Do you have any sugar for it?”

“Certainly. I’ll put some tea and sugar in a glass jar for you.”

“Much obliged.”

The barkeep went to work pouring the tea.

“How about some hard candy and some jerky?” Esmerelda offered as she walked over to where the barkeep had just been behind the bar.

Jed glanced back at David who had a hopeful look about the hard candy. Jed turned back to Esmerelda and nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

The double doors of the saloon crashed open as Karl rushed back inside.

Jed’s hand automatically went for his pistol, ready to draw.

“What is the matter, Karl?” Moody asked.

Karl stood at the doors, one of them still open. He looked like he was confused about something. He stared at Moody. “The whole town is dark. Not a single lantern lit anywhere.”

“What do you mean?” Moody asked, already walking towards Karl.

“Every building . . . no one has a lantern lit at all. Not a sound out there, either.” Karl’s voice was rising, the pitch higher, his bright blue eyes wide.

Jed’s stomach twisted into a knot, and that now-familiar feeling of oppressive dread weighed down on him. This was the same way he’d felt when they had first entered the woods. It was the same way he’d felt when he’d woken up and found Dobbs gone. And then Roscoe. This was the same way he’d felt when he had opened the door to David’s house and smelled the stench of blood and rotting meat. It was the foreboding feeling of danger, but not just any danger, something beyond that, something so bad that he couldn’t fathom it, something beyond his understanding.

Moody brushed past Karl and stepped out onto the front porch of the saloon, leaving the door wide open. Karl followed him back outside.

Jed left his goods on the bar top, grabbed his coat, and walked to the double doors, stepping out onto the wooden walkway, pulling the door almost all the way shut behind him. An energy buzzed through him, an electrical tingling on his skin as he stood there in front of the doors to the saloon. His right hand twitched slightly, nerves already firing in his body, already preparing for danger and waiting for his mind to catch up. That same feeling he’d had in the woods came back to him, that feeling that a rifle shot or an arrow was going to stab him from the dark at any second. He felt like a man at the edge of a thunderstorm and exposed to a lightning strike. But now that lightning storm

(Darkwind)

was gone, and it had left nothing but silence and darkness in its wake.

The floorboards of the deck in front of the saloon were still scattered with sand and bits of broken twigs and dead leaves from the scrub brush shaken apart by the winds and blown down the main street of the town. Light poured out of the saloon’s front windows, the building so brightly lit compared to the other dark buildings in the town.

Karl was right—there wasn’t a single lantern or candle lit anywhere in town.

Jed looked to his left, towards the end of the wooden deck. The lights from the saloon windows along with the full moon provided enough light for Jed to see that the rope he had tied to the end of the hitching rail wasn’t stretched towards the alleyway between the two buildings anymore. Now the piece of rope hung down from the end of the hitching rail.

“Our horses are gone,” Jed said.

“You left them out in the storm?” Karl asked as he turned around to look at Jed. His words were slurred slightly.

Jed glared at Karl. “No, I had them tied to the end of that hitching rail down there, but I left enough slack so they could stand in the alley and be protected from the storm.”

Moody walked past Jed and Karl. He opened the saloon door and poked his head inside. “Get me a lantern out here!”

Jed didn’t wait for the lantern. He marched to the end of the walkway and hopped down onto the dirt, searching the darkness of the alley. But he already knew the horses were gone. He didn’t see them. He couldn’t hear them. He couldn’t smell them.

He walked the few steps to the end of the hitching rail and inspected the rope he had tied there hours ago. He picked up the end of it and studied it for a moment. The rope looked just like the one in the woods had looked, not cut but snapped. Torn apart.

A thundering of footsteps approached.

Jed looked at Moody and Karl as they hurried towards him, Moody holding an oil lantern by a wire handle.

“Horses are gone,” Jed said, still holding the remaining length of rope in his hand as evidence.

“The storm,” Moody said.

Jed shook his head. “Someone took them.” He offered the end of the rope to Moody as evidence.

Moody took the rope and looked at it for a moment, but Jed could tell the man didn’t understand what he was seeing.

“You think someone stole your horses during the storm?” Karl asked.

Moody let the rope drop out of his fingers.

“They could’ve run off,” Karl suggested. “The storm might have spooked them, and they snapped the rope.”

Jed didn’t bother answering Karl. He looked across the street at the line of dark buildings silhouetted against the night sky. There were still no lanterns or candles lit in any of the windows or outside the doors on the porches. No one was coming out of the buildings. “How many people live in this town?”

“Why do you ask, marshal?” Moody wondered.

Jed stared at Moody.

“About forty,” Moody answered and looked at Karl like he was double-checking with him. “Maybe forty-two or forty-three. I don’t know. I haven’t taken a headcount recently.”

Jed looked beyond the two men at the rest of the town that disappeared into the darkness, the line of buildings on both sides of the dirt street stretching towards the white church, its steeple a black spire pointing up at the sky. The moon’s light splashed down on the shingled roofs of the buildings and the part of the street that the buildings’ deeper shadows didn’t touch.

“The mines all shut down about nine months ago,” Moody said as if he needed to provide an explanation of why so few people lived in the town. “Silver and copper ran out. The miners and prospectors moved on, taking a fair share of the merchants with them.”

Karl nodded in agreement, his vivid blue eyes rimmed in red and moist in the lantern light.

“I couldn’t leave,” Moody continued. “I have everything I own tied up in this saloon and hotel.” He looked at Karl.

“Me too,” Karl said. He glanced down the street where Jed was still staring, itching to get down to his store and his wife and boys.

“It’s a rough situation,” Moody said. “But we get by. Help each other out. I believe prospectors will come back. Probably a bigger mining company, one that can spend the money to drill deeper into the mountain. I believe there’s still plenty of silver and copper in those hills. I’m certain of it.”

“Forty people,” Jed muttered.

“At least forty,” Moody corrected.

“Awful quiet for forty people,” Jed said.

“You mind if I borrow your lantern, Moody,” Karl asked. “I need to get down to my store.”

“I’ll go with you,” Jed told Karl.

Esmerelda and Billy Nez came out of the saloon with David. “He was worried about you,” Esmerelda explained.

David dashed over to Jed’s side.

“We’re going to check on Karl’s store,” Moody told Esmerelda. “We’re going to make sure Ingrid and Karl’s boys are okay.”

“We’re coming, too,” Esmerelda said.

“Wait a minute—” Moody began.

“Free country,” Esmerelda said, cutting his words off. “We can go where we please.”

“But the boy?” Moody asked.

“He’s staying with me,” Jed told him.

“There could be danger out here,” Moody argued with Jed. “Why, you just said yourself that Red Moon’s gang could be around.”

“Could be,” Jed agreed. “Could also be another gang of outlaws. Could also be nothing.”

“We need another lantern and another gun,” Moody said, rushing back inside the saloon.

The barkeep watched Moody as he approached.

“We’re going down to Karl’s store,” Moody told the barkeep. “Get me that lantern back there and the shotgun from behind the bar.”

The barkeep set the lit lantern on the bar top in front of Moody, then bent down and got the shotgun from underneath the bar.

“You keep an eye on the marshal’s prisoner while we’re gone,” Moody told the barkeep.

The barkeep’s eyes grew big, and they darted to Sanchez tied to his chair.

“He can’t go anywhere,” Moody grumbled as he took the lantern and shotgun with him back to the double doors.

As soon as Moody was back outside, all of them stepped down off of the wooden platform, down to the dirt street.

Six people and a child, Jed thought. One pistol and a shotgun. He didn’t like those odds . . . not after what he’d seen in the woods.

Coyotes yipped in the distance.

“Storm got the coyotes stirred up,” Moody said.

Jed didn’t like the sound of the coyotes. It sounded almost like they were communicating with each other, like they were talking in some strange language. And laughing.

The seven of them walked down the street, their boots and shoes scuffing across the sand, the glow of the lanterns lighting their way.

A few minutes later, Karl stopped in the street. He stared at the dark two-story general store. “That doesn’t make any sense at all,” he said.

CHAPTER 13

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Karl said again as he stared at the two-story building in front of them. “Ingrid would have lit a lantern by now.”

Like the saloon and hotel, the general store had a front walkway with a porch roof built over it that hid the front doors and windows in shadows so deep they reminded Jed of the bottom of a well. A hitching rail ran along in front of the porch and a wooden sign supported by a few lengths of chain hung from the edge of the roof; Jed couldn’t make out what was engraved and painted on the wood sign.

“Look at the windows upstairs,” Karl said in a shaky voice, the slur gone from his words now as he sobered up immediately. “There aren’t any lanterns lit.”

“Maybe they just fell asleep,” Moody suggested.

Jed watched the upstairs windows—they were black rectangles against the wood planked exterior wall. There was no light in those windows, no sign of movement, no sign of life.

Karl didn’t wait any longer—he took off for his store, marching across the dirt street. “Ingrid! Boys!”

No answer from inside the general store and the apartments above it.

Jed had that prickling feeling on his skin again, like a creepy-crawly sensation after a terrible nightmare. Nobody had come out into the street yet. There were still no lanterns lit inside any of the buildings. With all of the noise they were making and with Karl shouting, surely someone would have come outside by now. Or someone would have at least come outside to survey the damage done from the storm.

Jed touched David’s shoulder, nudging him forward just a little. “Let’s keep up with them.”

Karl was already at the double doors of his general store as the others were walking up the wide wooden steps. Jed noticed that all of the rocking chairs along the walkway were tipped over.

Could be from the wind, Jed thought. But then he noticed that the last chair at the far end of the porch had been smashed to pieces.

Karl froze as he reached for the door handle. Both doors to the general store were ajar, a black line of darkness between them.

“Maybe we’d better let the marshal go in first,” Moody said as Jed and David walked up the steps to the porch.

Karl didn’t wait for Jed; he exploded into motion, pushing both doors open and rushing inside the store. The top of one door struck a little bell above it when Karl opened the doors, the bell making a jarring, ringing sound. The glass panels in the doors shuddered in their frames from the force of Karl pushing them open. Karl was immersed in a bubble of light inside the darkness from the lantern he held. He was already several feet inside the store.

“Oh God,” Esmerelda whispered with her hands up to her mouth. She was still on the walkway and staring into the open doorway.

Jed saw what she was looking at. Even from the front walkway, Jed could see that the general store was a wreck inside; contents of the store had been destroyed and strewn across the floor.

Moody went in after Karl.

“No,” Karl moaned from inside the store. “No. No. No.”

Jed and David followed Moody inside the store, their boots crunching on the broken bits of glass and ceramic and smashed pieces of wood.

Tables in the store had been tipped over, wooden bins broken apart, glass panels shattered, jars and plates shattered. The floor was a mishmash of goods: ripped-up pieces of clothing, candies, soaps, candles, bits of wood. And splashed here and there among the debris were dark smears of blood. There was more blood on the walls where pictures and artwork had been knocked down.

“Ingrid!” Karl screamed. “Boys!”

No answer from Ingrid and the boys.

They were all inside the general store now, Billy stayed close to the double doors. Moody handed his lantern to Esmerelda so he could use both hands to hold his shotgun, his body tense, his eyes wide and alert.

Karl darted around a wood counter that had been splintered apart. He tripped over the destroyed contents of his store behind the counter, stumbling over the debris like he was walking across deadfalls in the woods. He headed towards a doorway where a curtain had been torn down.

Moody hurried to catch up to Karl as he disappeared into the doorway. “Wait for us, Karl. We shouldn’t split up.”

Jed felt that Moody’s warning was meant for all of them, and he and David fell in behind Moody, walking as carefully as they could over the broken and smashed bits and pieces of what used to be the goods in Karl’s general store. Billy and Esmerelda brought up the rear with the other lantern.

Moody followed Karl up the set of narrow steps, the walls close, like a claustrophobic tunnel up to the second floor.

Upstairs, they checked all three bedrooms. All of them were destroyed. There was no sign of Ingrid and her children . . . no sign except for the smears of blood everywhere.

Just like David’s house. Just like David’s family.

Ingrid!” Karl screamed even though she was obviously gone. “Ingrid!”

Billy Nez plucked the eagle feather from his hat as they all stood in what used to be Karl and Ingrid’s bedroom. He waved it back and forth, chanting softly.

Karl glared at Billy, his blue eyes rimmed in red, the little bit of bleached-blond hair he had left sticking out in wild tufts. “Stop doing that!” He rushed at Billy.

Moody stepped in between Billy and Karl, holding Karl back. Billy made no move to defend himself, and he kept his eagle feather in his fingers.

“They’re gone,” Moody whispered to Karl, still holding on to him.

Karl stopped struggling with Moody. He looked around at the wrecked bedroom as tears fell from his eyes. “How? How can this be?”

Moody looked at Jed. “Someone took them.” He stared at Jed like he was waiting to be backed up by an expert.

Jed didn’t answer.

“You think it was Red Moon’s gang?” Moody asked Jed, his words more forceful now. “You think they took Ingrid and Karl’s boys?”

Jed still didn’t answer.

Moody looked at Billy like he might have an answer for him.

Karl walked away from Moody, stopping at an overturned bureau, the drawers pulled out. He sank down to his knees and set the lantern down on the floor beside him. He searched through the clothing all over the floor. He pulled a pistol out from the clothing and checked to make sure the cylinder was loaded with bullets.

“They didn’t take anything,” Jed said.

Everyone except Karl looked at him.

“They tore everything apart,” Jed continued. “But they didn’t take Karl’s gun. And it looked like they left behind plenty of supplies downstairs.”

“They took my wife,” Karl said from the floor. “And my boys.”

“Yes,” Jed agreed. “But they weren’t robbers. They came here only to take your family.”

“And your horses,” Moody reminded him.

It sounded like an accusation to Jed, like Moody was trying to blame him for the plague that had descended upon their town. And maybe it was true.

“They came with the storm,” Esmerelda said in a whisper, her face lit up from the lantern in her hands.

Moody glanced at her but didn’t bother to ask what she meant by it. He looked back at Jed again. “We should check the other buildings.”

Jed just sighed—he already knew what they were going to find: more wreckage, more splatters of blood, but no bodies.

Moody hurried over to Karl who was still on his knees, cradling his pistol in his hands, his face a scowl, an equal mixture of rage and sorrow. “Come on, Karl. We need to search each building and look for Ingrid. Maybe she took the boys and ran. Maybe they’re hiding somewhere.”

Jed didn’t think so. He looked at the smears of blood on the walls and knew there was little hope of finding Ingrid and her sons alive. About as much hope as finding David’s family alive.

“I’ll kill them,” Karl said through clenched teeth as he wiped at his eyes. His face was red from crying, the skin underneath his eyes baggy and purple. He found a small box of bullets under some clothes and slipped it into his pants pocket.

“Let’s go back down there and look,” Moody said as he helped Karl to his feet. Moody picked up the lantern and ushered Karl towards the doorway.

“Something’s wrong here,” Esmerelda whispered to Jed as they followed Moody and Karl out to the hallway.

Jed didn’t reply.

Downstairs, Moody walked Karl out onto the front porch. The buildings across the street were still shrouded in darkness, the town still deathly quiet. Karl held the lantern in one hand and his pistol in the other. Billy and Esmerelda were the last two out of the general store, Esmerelda’s lantern adding to their little bubble of light as they gathered together on the walkway.

“No blood out here,” Billy said. At some point he’d stuck the eagle feather back into the band of his hat.

“He’s right,” Esmerelda said, shining the lantern down towards the floorboards. “No blood out here at all. How did they get the . . . how were they taken out of there without a drop of blood anywhere?”

Jed remembered thinking the same thing when he had stood on David’s front porch yesterday.

“No tracks in the dirt,” Billy announced.

“We’re not accomplishing anything by standing here,” Moody snapped, already moving towards the other end of the walkway where another set of steps led down to the dirt street. “Let’s check the dining hall next door.”

Moody and Karl were already on their way, Karl’s lantern lighting up their path to the doorway of the building next to the general store. That building was just as dark as the others.

Jed nodded at Billy and Esmerelda and then guided David towards the end of the walkway.

Moments later they all stood inside the dining hall. Like Karl’s general store, the dining hall was wrecked. Tables and chairs were smashed to pieces, even the counter at the other end was destroyed, like someone had taken an ax to it. More splashes of blood were smeared along the walls and floors, even a splatter along the ceiling ten feet above them.

“It doesn’t look like anything was taken in here either,” Esmerelda said. “Just destroyed. What kind of outlaws don’t steal anything?”

“The kind that just want to kill,” Jed said.

“Ingrid!” Karl called out, walking deeper into the darkness.

“Mary!” Moody yelled for the owners of the dining hall, following Karl. “Charlotte! Anyone here?”

No one answered from the doorways that led to the back. Moody and Karl ducked through the doorway, the light from the lantern fading as they worked their way deeper into the building, looking for any survivors.

“Look,” Esmerelda whispered to Jed. She pointed at the wall closest to them where four finger marks of blood trailed along the wall, the blood growing fainter as the streaks went along the wall boards. The streaks of blood went up and then down in another area, curving, almost like someone had tried to form letters, or words. They walked over to the wall, Esmerelda shining her lantern onto the wall so they could see better. “You think they were trying to spell something?” she asked him.

Jed stared at the bloody streaks, trying to make sense out of what the person might have been trying to spell. “That looks like it could be the letter C, and then an O.”

“Yes,” Esmerelda nodded. “I see it now. And then an L and an E. I think that word is Cole—like someone’s name. And this other one. That looks like an S and then a T.” She frowned, studying the squiggles of blood on the wall. “Maybe the name Stella.”

“Is there someone named Cole in this town?” Jed asked her. “Or Stella?”

She shook her head. “No one that I know of.”

Jed wondered why someone would write these names on a wall. Were they written by the victims? The murderers? But one of the names was a woman’s name—she wouldn’t be one of the murderers, would she? And certainly the skinwalkers wouldn’t have these names. But the names must mean something, yet it wasn’t making sense to him. He stared at the woman’s name a little longer. The letters written in blood were smeared. Maybe it wasn’t Stella, but some other word. He stared at the word for a long moment.

“I don’t understand how they took everyone out of here,” Moody said as he and Karl entered the dining hall again from the back rooms.

Jed and Esmerelda turned around and looked at Moody and Karl as they approached in their sphere of light. And then Jed noticed that David wasn’t standing near him anymore.

“Where’s your boy?” Esmerelda asked. “And Billy.”

They were gone.

CHAPTER 14

They all stared at the open door of the dining hall, the darkness outside the door seemingly impenetrable.

Panic blanketed Jed immediately, the weight of it heavy on his lungs, making it difficult to draw in a full breath. That tingly feeling of fear danced along his skin. His mind buzzed with panicky thoughts. How had David disappeared? How had he not seen David leave? Or heard him? He wondered for just a second if he had blacked out for a moment while staring at those words written in blood on the wall; he wondered if he had blacked out just long enough for David to walk out the front door.

Karl was in his own catatonic state of loss now; he stood right behind Moody. Jed wondered if Karl was in the process of blacking out at this very moment. Was Karl standing there with his mouth open, still breathing, his heart still beating, his bodily functions still working . . . but his mind was blank?

The skinwalkers can get inside a man’s mind, Red Moon had said. They can make a man do things. They can call him, make him walk towards them.

Were the skinwalkers really witches? Were they casting spells? How much was real, and how much was a hallucination?

Billy was gone. Had Billy walked away in a trance like David had? Was Billy a living puppet now, controlled by the skinwalkers? Again Jed thought of what Red Moon had said when Jed had asked him what had happened to Roscoe in the middle of the night.

He walked into the woods, Red Moon had said.

Had Billy and David just walked away like Roscoe had done? Or was Billy going to hurt David?

Jed ran for the door. Esmerelda was right behind him. Moody was trying to get Karl moving again. They shouldn’t split up, but Jed wasn’t going to wait for Moody and Karl—he couldn’t leave David outside alone.

Oh God, I’m supposed to protect him.

Jed rushed out onto the walkway in front of the dining hall and stopped cold.

Billy stood in the street ten feet beyond the dining hall’s walkway. And standing a few feet in front of Billy was David. Both of them were facing the same way, both of them staring down the street towards the white church in the distance.

Jed rushed down the steps. He passed Billy and went right for David. He grabbed the boy’s shoulders, afraid that he would see the milky eyes of a zombie rather than David’s dark eyes. But David was alert. “What’s wrong, David?”

David stared at Jed with fear in his eyes.

“What are you doing out here?” Jed snapped at David. “You can’t go off by yourself, you hear?”

David didn’t respond.

Jed let David’s shoulders go. He walked the few steps back to Billy, ready to blame Billy for David being outside. “You take him out here?”

Billy stood with his arms down by his side, his body loose. “No,” he answered simply.

The others rushed up to them, bringing the light of their lanterns with them.

“I followed David out here,” Billy said.

Jed stared at Billy. “Followed him out here?”

Billy didn’t offer an explanation. Jed looked at David who was staring at the church in the distance again. The walls of the church were ghostly white in the moonlight, its steeple the highest point in town, a cross on top, reaching up into the night sky.

“What are you two doing out here?” Moody asked Billy, moving closer to him. “We need to search the other buildings. Look for the others.”

“They are all gone,” Billy said.

“You don’t know that,” Moody answered, his face scrunched in disgust.

For just a moment Jed thought Moody was going to strike Billy with the butt of his shotgun.

“There might be some survivors,” Moody said. “There could still be some people hiding in the buildings. Maybe they’re in one of the abandoned buildings.”

“They got them all,” Billy said in his deep voice, his eyes back on the church in the distance.

“No way that’s true.” Moody barked the words out, spittle flying as he yelled. “No way they could have gotten them all.” His voice was rising, his Irish accent even thicker now.

Billy didn’t answer Moody. He walked forward to stand beside David.

Jed had his Colt .45 in his hand, his eyes darting around at the buildings, looking for any sign of movement. But he already knew he wasn’t going to see the skinwalkers. A coyote yipped and cried somewhere in the hills outside of town.

“Don’t you walk away from me, Indian!” Moody yelled at Billy.

“Moody, wait,” Esmerelda said, trying to grab Moody’s arm, trying to keep him away from Billy.

Moody brushed her off of him and stomped towards Billy.

Jed had been standing next to David, and he stepped in between Moody and Billy. “Nobody’s fighting right now,” he told him.

Moody stopped. He looked ready to explode with rage.

“We need to be careful,” Jed said. “Whoever did this could be watching us right now. They could start picking us off at any time.”

The anger melted from Moody almost instantly. He looked at the dark buildings all around them, clutching his shotgun even tighter. “So what do you suggest, marshal?”

“I think we need to get back to the saloon. It seems to be the only safe place in town so far. We hole up there for the night and wait for daylight, wait until we can see what’s going on.” He looked at Karl. “I know you want to look for your wife and sons, but we need to be cautious right now.”

Esmerelda walked up to Billy and David, standing beside Billy with the lantern in her hand.

Jed turned and watched the three of them. They were all staring at the church now.

“You see it, too?” Billy asked Esmerelda.

She just nodded.

“See what?” Moody asked.

Jed and Moody stood next to Esmerelda. Jed looked at the church in the distance for a moment, and then he finally saw it. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed it before.

“What is it?” Moody asked again, an edge of panic in his voice. He looked at Jed for an answer.

“Looks like someone’s hanging above the church doors,” Jed told him.

CHAPTER 15

They hurried down the dirt street to the church. Once they were past the last of the town buildings, Jed saw other small houses and shacks dotting the hills in the distance. Those shacks and homes had been rented to the miners and prospectors when the mines had been active. Now those abandoned buildings were just black shapes along the landscape, which was colored dark blue by the moonlight. Stands of trees stood here and there in the distance, but most of the vegetation was scrub brush. It looked like the land went on forever in every direction.

The closer they got to the church, the more Jed saw the details of the person hanging in front of it.

The “front yard” of the church was a large grassy area planted with small shrubs and flowering plants. A wide gravel pathway cut through the middle of the lawn and led to a large gravel area in front of the wide steps that led up to a landing, and then to the double doors of the church, both doors painted red. Above the doors, hanging upside down by his feet, was a man dressed in a black coat and pants. His arms weren’t bound, they just dangled down. The man’s head was mostly bald, and Jed couldn’t see his face. But the man was wounded somewhere because blood trickled down from underneath his coat sleeves, dripping down his hands and onto the floorboards of the wood platform.

“It’s Pastor Starke,” Esmerelda said in a whisper.

“Who would do this?” Moody asked.

Karl brushed past them with his gun in one hand and the lantern in the other, his face set in grim determination. “We need to look inside. Ingrid and my boys could be in there.”

Jed turned to Billy and Esmerelda. “Let me use that lantern,” he asked Esmerelda, and then he looked at Billy. “You and Esmerelda stay out here with David.”

Billy nodded as Esmerelda handed the lantern to Jed.

Karl had already opened both doors of the church, pushing them all the way open, the light from his lantern only penetrating so far into the darkness. He was about to rush into the darkness, but Moody’s words stopped him.

“Maybe we should let the marshal go inside first.”

Karl waited beside the doorway.

Moody was halfway up the steps with his shotgun aimed at the doorway, skirting the puddle of blood from the pastor.

Jed could already smell the stench of blood and flesh from where he stood. He had the lantern in one hand, his Colt in the other. He already knew what they were going to find. He pulled his bandana up over his mouth and nose as he followed Moody up the steps and to the doorway.

Karl didn’t wait for Jed; he rushed inside the church, plunging into the darkness, murmuring to himself.

Moody waited just to the side of the doorway where Karl had been a moment ago as Jed entered the church next. Jed walked a few steps inside, his boots clomping on the wood floor. “Whoever’s in here, show yourself!” he yelled. “I’m a U.S. Marshal!”

There was no one in here . . . no one alive. The lantern light was weak, but it provided plenty of light to see the horrors that waited just a few feet away where the last row of pews began.

The smell was worse now that he was inside the building, like an invisible wall assaulting him. It was the same smell he’d noticed at David’s house when he had opened the front door—that scent of blood and rotting flesh. But the smell inside the church was much worse.

Forty times worse.

Jed held his lantern out in front of him, his hand trembling, the glass in the metal frame jiggling just a little from his tremors. He crouched down slowly and set the lantern on the floor right beside a large smudge of dried blood. His breaths were rapid and loud in his ears even though his breaths were muffled slightly by his bandana.

In front of him, all over the pews and in the aisle between them, were bodies. At least forty of them. Many of the bodies were naked, but some still had their clothing on, most of the clothing torn to shreds, just tatters and rags hanging down from their pale bodies.

Jed kept his Colt aimed forward. He looked at the sea of dead bodies in front of him.

Karl darted ahead of Jed, rushing down the aisle between the pews, searching for the bodies of his wife and sons.

The whole town was inside the church: men, women, and children. Their bodies looked like children’s toys thrown about, discarded things. A few bodies and pieces of the bodies were in the aisle that ran down through the middle of the pews towards the other end of the church where the pulpit was. A stained-glass window, the only stained-glass window in the church, was built into the wall above the pulpit. Moonlight filtered in from the windows at the sides of the church, but the light that came in through the stained-glass window was colorful with hues of yellow, orange, green, and red. To the left of the pulpit was a dark shape that must be a piano.

Esmerelda probably plays that piano during services, Jed thought. He didn’t know why that thought had popped into his head.

He took another step forward.

Jed had seen dead bodies plenty of times in his life, but never anything like this. He’d heard stories from the old-timers about massacres, whole families of settlers found dead, their bodies sprawled out and naked along the prairie grass, bloody, some chopped to pieces as the remnants of their covered wagons smoldered in the background. Everything that the families had taken with them from the east was either dead or burning, all of the horses gone. Jed had never seen a massacre of people before, never could’ve imagined the sight, the smell, the coppery taste of blood on his tongue.

He didn’t want to, but Jed took a few steps closer to the pews. He stared at an older man who had been slung over the last pew, his naked body bent backwards over the back of it, his exposed skin so pale in the darkness. His face looked long and thin, his cheeks and eyes sunken in, eyeballs white and glassy, mouth open. It didn’t look like the man had any teeth—either he’d lost them through the fifty-odd years he’d lived or they had been taken. The man’s ribs stuck up inside his torso from where he had been bent backwards over the pew, the ribs snapped in the violent act, poking up at his flesh like poles inside a tent. His thin arms hung down, one hand nearly touching the floor, the other hand gone, ripped off at the wrist, just the end of two forearm bones sticking out of the shredded mess of flesh there. A strand of skin hung down from the end of his wrist like a loose string. A puddle of dark blood had formed underneath the man like a big oil slick.

There were other sights just like the older man, other people bent violently backwards over the pews. There were pieces of people on the seats, an arm here, a leg there. A woman’s button-up shoe sat by itself in the middle of the aisle with a shard of bone poking out of it like a broken stick—the rest of the foot probably still inside the shoe.

Jed heard the sound of footsteps behind him—Moody approaching slowly, but he didn’t stand beside Jed; he waited right behind him.

“Oh . . . God,” Moody whispered.

Karl gave a muted cry from halfway down the aisle. The cry was something a wounded animal might make, a cry of anguish and fear, a moan of sorrow so hopeless that it made Jed’s soul ache. Jed knew Karl had found Ingrid and his boys . . . what was left of them.

Jed caught a glimpse of Karl’s ghostly-white face as he stared down at Ingrid and his boys. He stood so still, holding the lantern by the wire handle, his mouth open like a sob was stuck in his throat.

Jed pulled his bandana down from his mouth and nose as he looked back at Moody. “Don’t let David in here.” He was about to add that David had already seen enough horror, but his throat locked up with emotion and he didn’t dare attempt to utter the words.

“They’re still out by the steps,” Moody said.

“Keep an eye on them, but don’t let them come inside,” Jed instructed.

Karl was still moaning, saying something in Swedish that Jed didn’t understand, a mumbling of words mixed with a gut-wrenching sob.

“Who could’ve done something like this?” Moody asked in a whisper, his voice thick, like he was doing his best to hold down the surge of vomit that was surely threatening.

Jed didn’t answer.

“This . . . this is impossible.”

“They’re all dead,” Jed told Moody without turning around, still watching Karl as he bent over the dead bodies of his family with his gun in his hand. “We need to get back to the saloon.”

“The other buildings—” Moody began.

“Nobody’s left,” Jed said as he holstered his Colt .45. He turned around and looked at Moody. “Everyone in your town is in here.”

“But there could be a few of them left. A few still hiding.” Moody’s voice trailed down to a whisper, his face falling into a frown like he couldn’t even convince himself of that.

Jed didn’t want to argue about it.

Karl was still lowing out moan after moan, still mumbling to himself in Swedish. Jed didn’t think it was a good idea for him to have a gun right now.

Light footsteps turned Jed to the doorway where Billy Nez stood, a motionless silhouette with an eagle feather poking up from his hat.

“We need to leave,” Jed told Moody who stared at the display of dead bodies. “Whoever did this is most likely still around. Probably watching us right now. We need to get Karl out of here.”

“There is something you need to see,” Billy said.

Jed’s heart fluttered in his chest. What now? he wondered. His anxiety was bordering on panic now. “Karl,” he barked. “We need to go. Right now.”

“Min Ingrid,” Karl moaned. “Min älskling.”

“What is it?” Moody turned to look at Billy.

“Come outside and see,” Billy said and turned. He walked away, shuffling down the church steps.

“Get Karl out of here,” Jed told Moody, and then he rushed for the door, drawing his Peacemaker again.

Outside, Jed rushed down the steps, skirting around the large puddle of blood from the hanging pastor.

Billy was with David and Esmerelda now, all three of them huddling together on the gravel. Jed should have seen it right away, but he was too concerned with David, not paying enough attention to his surroundings.

All three of them were staring down the street at the town. The whole town was dark now—not even the lanterns in the saloon were shining anymore.

CHAPTER 16

Moody had to practically drag Karl out of the church. “It’s not safe in there,” Moody growled at the Swede as he ushered him down the stairs. Moody was much larger than Karl, but Karl seemed unwilling to be led away from the terrible sight of his wife and children inside the church. Karl struggled with Moody, nearly dropping the lantern he held in the process. As soon as they were outside the church, Karl stopped resisting; his shoulders slumped, his arms hung down by his sides, his gun held loosely in his hand.

Jed turned and watched Moody and Karl approach. “He’s in no shape to hold a gun right now,” he whispered to Moody.

Moody nodded and easily pried the gun out of Karl’s hand. He held it out to Jed.

Jed took Karl’s gun and slipped it down into his holster.

Moody took the lantern from Karl’s other hand and handed it to Billy. Now Esmerelda and Billy each held a lantern, freeing up Moody’s hands to hold his shotgun.

“What did you want us to see?” Moody asked Billy.

Billy pointed at the dark town. “The lanterns in the saloon are out.”

Moody exhaled a wheezy breath. “Good God.”

No more words were exchanged. All of them hurried down the dirt street. Even Karl had snapped out of his mourning, his sense of preservation taking over now as he kept up with them, not wanting to be left behind.

They hurried past the line of buildings on both sides of the street that were swallowed in shadows. Another coyote yipped in the night. Another answered. Jed swore again that the animals were talking to each other somehow in some secret language.

They gathered in front of the saloon.

“Wait over there,” Jed told Esmerelda and David, taking the lantern from her. He pointed at the corner of the saloon. “Get down low in case there’s any shooting.”

Esmerelda took David with her to the corner of the building at the edge of the walkway and crouched down with him.

Jed had the lantern in his left hand, his Colt in his right. He looked at Moody, then at Billy. “You open the doors,” he told Billy. “I’ll go in.” He looked at Moody. “You get ready with your shotgun, but don’t fire unless I tell you to. It’s dark in there and I don’t want to be hit with buckshot.”

Moody nodded.

A moment later they were standing on the saloon’s walkway. Moody waited at the side of the left door with his shotgun while Billy opened the door on the right, pushing it all the way open. He backed out of the way as Jed rushed inside, shining his lantern and aiming his pistol.

There was no smell of blood or flesh—a good sign—but the saloon was quiet. And it was so dark, not a single lantern lit. He couldn’t even see the red glow of embers behind the slits in the metal door of the wood stove from where he stood.

“Is someone in here?” Jed called out.

No answer.

“Barkeep! Sanchez!”

As Jed ventured deeper into the darkness, moving towards the bar, a table and a set of chairs materialized from the blackness in the light of the lantern. His mind swam with nightmarish images of skinwalkers transforming themselves into animals, some kind of human/animal hybrid waiting in the dark, breathing silently through an opened, bloodstained mouth of sharp teeth. He imagined that they had eyes that could see in the dark, eyes that were watching him right now. He imagined the things were waiting in the dark until he was close enough for them to reach out with their claws. Jed wasn’t an imaginative man, and these horrors he pictured were just at the edge of his capabilities to conjure up in his mind, unnamable and indescribable beings that floated in the air, defying reality—sights that would drive him mad if he saw them.

Jed’s breaths quickened as he took a few more steps towards the bar that he still couldn’t see. He waited for that first touch of cold flesh against his face. He kept his Colt aimed in front of him, his hand trembling. The weapon felt silly now, a weapon he had always trusted and relied upon, a weapon he had trained himself to be an expert with, and now that weapon felt like a mere toy against these creatures that Red Moon called skinwalkers.

For the last twenty-four hours Jed had tried to convince himself that a lot of what he’d seen in the woods hadn’t been real—they’d been the result of a nervous breakdown, hallucinations brought on by extreme stress. But now, here in the darkness, he was a believer once again, even wondering if Red Moon had been right about the skinwalkers’ ability to cast spells.

The memory of Dobbs and Roscoe waiting for him on the trail in the woods popped into his mind; Dobbs sitting patiently with Roscoe’s head in his lap. Were they waiting for him now by the bar? Would Jed’s lantern shine on Dobbs’ skinless body, the muscles glistening in the lantern light? Would Dobbs be holding Roscoe’s head by his gray hair like a suitcase, Roscoe’s eyes bulging, his mouth pulled up into that severe smile, the strings of gore and knuckles of vertebrae hanging down from the bottom of his raggedly severed neck?

Jed tried to push that image out of his mind.

Even though panic was threatening to take over, Jed moved deeper into the saloon. The others outside the saloon doors were counting on him. Besides, if he ran right now, where would he go? Outside? Into the desert? Into those endless, brush-covered hills? There was nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide. Nowhere was safe. Not even this saloon was truly safe.

A few steps farther . . . and then Jed stopped. He looked down at the floor, seeing what he’d been afraid of—blood. Only this wasn’t the splash or smears of blood he’d been expecting; this was just a few dark spots of blood, like someone had cut themselves or had a nosebleed.

But even though there wasn’t much blood, Jed knew the men were gone. The barkeep, whatever his name had been, he was gone. And Sanchez, he was—

Movement from Jed’s left, a rustle of clothing, a grunt.

Jed turned to his left, aiming both his Colt and the lantern in that direction. He was a second away from pulling the trigger and firing blindly into the darkness.

“It’s me,” a voice called from the dark. “It’s Sanchez.”

Jed moved towards the voice, moving past the table he stood near. The next table and chairs materialized out of the dark in the lantern light. Sanchez was at the other end of the table, tied to the chair just where Jed had left him. He was sitting as far up in the chair as his bonds would allow, his arms straining behind him, his eyes wide, his hat on the floor like he had knocked it off while thrashing.

“Where’s the barkeep?” Jed asked.

“Untie me.”

“Where is he? Is he dead?”

“You have to untie me. You can’t leave me in this chair.”

Jed’s heartbeat and breathing were beginning to slow down a little. He could hear the others at the saloon’s doors. A lantern was there now, lighting up the doorway. Moody and Billy were entering the saloon.

“Is there anyone else in here?” Jed asked as he turned back to Sanchez.
Sanchez swallowed hard and shook his head. “I don’t know.” His words came out in a rush of breath.

“How did all the lanterns go out?”

Sanchez shook his head again, more vigorously this time, his face scrunched up in frustration. “I don’t know.”

Moody and Billy were at Jed’s side now.

“Where’s Lawrence?” Moody asked.

“Is that the barkeep’s name?” Jed asked.

Moody nodded. “Yes.”

“I don’t know,” Jed answered. “Sanchez here hasn’t been much help with information so far.” He glanced up at the chandelier of lanterns hanging above them from the ceiling. “We need to get these lanterns lit again. Get everyone inside.”

Moody went to work on that, hurrying to the bar with his lantern. He went around to the other side and looked through some wooden boxes until he found a few long kitchen matches. He lit a lantern on the wall sconce to the left of the mirrors behind the bar, and then he lit the other lantern on the other side of the mirrors.

The saloon was brightening up now with four lanterns lit. Jed could see most of the saloon now—only the back room, the stairs, and part of the balcony above were still hidden in shadows.

“Is your barkeep back there behind the bar?” Jed called out to Moody.

“No.”

“Any blood?”

Moody looked around at the floor behind the bar, studying it for a moment. “I think there might be a few spots. Can’t tell if it’s blood or dirt.”

Jed looked at Billy while Moody grabbed a long wooden pole with a wick on the end to light the lanterns in the chandeliers. “Take my lantern and get the others in here. Then close the doors. Lock them if you can.”

Billy nodded and took the lantern. He hurried across the saloon to the open door.

Jed watched as Billy ushered Esmerelda, Karl, and David into the saloon. Billy closed the doors once everyone was inside, and then he locked the doors and pulled down the shades over the windows. He hurried to both windows and drew the curtains shut.

Esmerelda led David to the same table he’d sat at before, whispering at him to sit down. Karl followed like a zombie and sat down at another table by himself, laying his head down on his arms, emitting a low moan.

Moody had the chandelier lit, all of the lanterns brightening the whole saloon up now. He took the pole back to the bar and extinguished the flame on the wick. He set the pole against the wall near the stove, and then he added a few pieces of wood to the stove, lighting a piece of paper to get them started. The flames flared up inside the stove, and Moody closed the little metal door on the front, the hinges squeaking slightly.

Jed pulled Karl’s gun from his holster and walked over to the table where Billy and David sat. He checked Karl’s gun for bullets, opening the cylinder. Each chamber was loaded with a bullet. He snapped it shut. It was an older gun, an 1870 Smith & Wesson .44 caliber, but it looked clean and well taken care of. He handed the pistol to Billy. “You know how to use this?”

Billy nodded and accepted the pistol from Jed, laying it down on the table in front of him with a thunk.

Jed walked back to Sanchez. “Tell us what happened in here. What happened to the barkeep?”

“Untie me. You can’t keep me like this. Not with . . .”

“Not with what?”

Sanchez snapped his mouth closed. He swallowed hard.

Esmerelda went behind the bar.

Moody, still tending to the fire in the stove, watched her. “What are you doing?”

She didn’t answer as she grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the shelf. She lined up some shot glasses on the bar near the pile of supplies the barkeep had put together for Jed earlier. She poured shots of whiskey into each glass.

Jed walked away from Sanchez, giving himself a chance to think. He walked over to where he’d seen the spots of blood on the floor. Just a few spots. They seemed to lead over to the bar. These were spots of blood, not splashes or smears like they’d seen before in the general store and the dining hall . . . and in David’s house. He followed the spots of blood over to the bar. Two more spots of blood dotted the top of the bar. And Moody had already said there might be a few spots of blood behind the bar.

Esmerelda watched Jed with a shot glass in her hand. She downed the drink and poured another. She picked up the jar of tea and the shot of whiskey. She brought the jar of tea to David and set it down in front of him. “Here, David. You must be thirsty.”

He nodded and whispered a thank you.

Esmerelda brought the shot glass of whiskey to Sanchez. “You want a drink?” she asked him.

Sanchez nodded. “Could you get my hat from the floor?”

Esmerelda picked up Sanchez’s hat and dusted it off. She placed his black cowboy hat on his head and then positioned the shot glass in front of his mouth, ready to pour. “Open up,” she told him.

Sanchez opened his mouth and tilted his head back a little. She poured the whiskey into his mouth slowly. He swallowed the liquid down and then sighed, closing his eyes for a moment.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Moody asked, stomping over to Esmerelda and Sanchez.

“He needs a drink,” Esmerelda said. “We all do.”

“Well, the drinks aren’t free, just so you know.”

“I’ve got money,” Sanchez said, addressing Esmerelda rather than Moody. “Inside my coat pocket.” He glanced at Jed who was still by the bar. “I won’t be needing the money much longer.”

Esmerelda reached into Sanchez’s coat pocket and pulled out a long leather billfold. She opened it and pulled out a bill. She handed it to Moody.

Moody’s eyes lit up—it seemed like the bill would be enough to cover the rounds of whiskeys. He shoved the bill down into his pants pocket.

“You want another drink?” Esmerelda asked Sanchez.

“Yes. Por favor.”

Esmerelda grabbed another shot glass full of whiskey. She was about to bring it back to Sanchez when Jed put his hand out in front of her, stopping her.

“Wait a minute, please,” Jed told her and took the glass of whiskey gently from her hand. He sat down at Sanchez’s table and set the glass of whiskey in the middle of it. “You can have this drink. But first you’re going to tell us what you saw.”

Sanchez stared at Jed defiantly.

“If you’ll be honest with us,” Jed said. “If you’ll help us, I’ll be sure to put in a good word for you with the judge. You’ve got my word on that.”

Sanchez looked at Esmerelda who was still by the bar, then he looked over at David and Billy, then at Karl beyond them sitting at the next table with his head still down on his arms like he was sleeping. He looked back at Jed, but he didn’t say anything.

“Please, Sanchez,” Esmerelda said. “We’re all in trouble here. We need to know what you saw.”

Sanchez stared at Esmerelda for a moment, and then he looked at Jed.

“Just tell us what you saw,” Jed said.

“Give me that drink and I’ll tell you,” Sanchez said.

CHAPTER 17

Esmerelda helped Sanchez with his drink again, holding the shot glass for him while he drank the whiskey down in two swallows. He sighed softly and then closed his eyes, looking a little more relaxed now.

Billy had pulled his chair around so he faced Sanchez, watching him. Moody brought Karl a shot of whiskey, but he didn’t drink it. Moody left him alone and sat down at Billy and David’s table, facing Sanchez. Esmerelda sat down near Jed.

They were all waiting for Sanchez to speak. The saloon was quiet—no wind from outside, no sounds except for their breathing and the occasional creak of a chair or the rustling of cloth from fidgeting.

Jed was sure Sanchez was going to back out on his promise now that he’d gotten his whiskey, or maybe even hold out for another drink, or bargain for his legs to be untied so he could stretch them. But Sanchez stayed true to his word and began talking.

“After you left the saloon, me and the barkeep were alone in here. He stayed behind the bar. He was nervous. He wasn’t talking. We didn’t hear anything outside. And then, about ten or fifteen minutes after you were gone, all of the lanterns blew out. All of them at the same time.”

“How?” Jed asked.

Sanchez shrugged. “I don’t know. There was this . . . this wind. Like a sudden wind was inside the saloon, and then all of the lanterns went out.”

“Darkwind,” Billy whispered.

Sanchez looked at Billy, but he didn’t say anything to him.

Jed ignored Billy, focusing on Sanchez. “You say this wind blew all of the lanterns out. And you felt this wind?”

Sanchez shook his head no. He looked a little frustrated again, like he was having difficulty putting his thoughts into words. “No. I don’t remember feeling it. I heard a rushing sound, like the wind. And then the lanterns were out, and it was dark.”

“And what happened after the lanterns went out?” Jed asked.

“Right away, the barkeep screamed. At first I thought he was screaming because it was dark, like a child scared at night. But then I knew that something was happening to him.”
“What?”

“I don’t know. His scream was cut short. And then it sounded like he was choking. Like someone was choking him.”

“Did you see anyone?”

“It was dark.”

“Did you hear anyone besides the barkeep? Did anyone say anything? Did you hear other people walking around?”

“No. Just the barkeep choking.”

“That’s the only thing you heard?” Jed asked, leaning forward a little. “Think, Sanchez. Think back to that moment. Anything could help. You didn’t hear any other sounds?”

Esmerelda got up and went to the bar. She grabbed the bottle of whiskey and a few more glasses.

Moody grabbed the bottle when she set it down on the table, serving himself a shot first and downing it quickly. “For Lawrence,” he said, lifting his empty glass up in salute.

Jed grabbed the bottle after Moody was finished with it and his toast. He poured another shot and slid it towards Sanchez, but he didn’t lift it up to him yet. “What else did you hear?”

Sanchez shook his head slightly, his face still scrunched a little in concentration. “I think his feet were kicking at the floor. Like when a man gets hanged, his feet kick while he’s choking to death.” Sanchez stared right at Jed. “You’ve seen that before, am I correct?”

Jed wondered if Sanchez was lying, concocting these details because he knew he would be hanging from the end of a rope soon. “Maybe the barkeep ran away,” Jed suggested to Sanchez.

Moody looked suddenly hopeful. “You think there’s a chance he ran away?” He stared at Sanchez. “Maybe that’s what you heard, a man running, not thrashing.”

“No. His feet were kicking at the floor.”

“But things can sound tricky in the dark,” Moody said. “Your mind can play tricks on you.”

“I know the difference between a man running and a man’s feet kicking at the floor,” Sanchez said, eyeing Moody for a moment. He looked back at Jed. “You wanted to know what I heard, that’s what I heard.”

Moody turned his attention to Jed, not willing to give up the hope that had been kindled in him now. “You think it’s possible that Lawrence ran? Maybe he got away somehow.”

Jed glanced at the bar, then down at the floor with the spots of blood on it. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s strange. Your barkeep is gone like the others were, maybe taken. But the saloon hasn’t been torn apart like the general store and the dining hall were.”

Moody’s eyes lit up with surprise. “Yes, that’s true. There is a difference.”

The church hadn’t been torn apart either, Jed thought. The church’s pews, podium, and piano hadn’t been destroyed, only the bodies that had been piled on them had been damaged. But he didn’t think he needed to mention that detail right now.

“But there are the spots of blood on the floor to consider,” Jed said. “And there are a few spots on top of the bar. The line of blood leads from behind the bar, over the bar, and then towards the saloon doors.” He looked at the saloon doors. “But the trail of blood stops well before the doors.”

“Maybe he hurt himself in the dark,” Moody suggested. “Maybe he panicked. Went looking for us. He wouldn’t stay here to protect the likes of him.” Moody nodded at Sanchez.

“But how did all of the lanterns go out?” Esmerelda asked.

Moody shook his head. “I don’t know. He said it was the wind. Maybe the doors blew open, a draft came in, blew the lanterns out.”

“That ever happen before?” Jed asked.

Moody didn’t need to answer.

“There was no wind,” Esmerelda said. “No wind at all since that storm died down.”

“Maybe Lawrence extinguished all of the lanterns himself,” Moody said.

“That’s not what Sanchez said,” Jed reminded him.

“Maybe he’s lying through his teeth,” Moody answered. “He’s an outlaw. A gunfighter. You said a band of outlaws killed your men. Maybe Sanchez is in that same gang of outlaws. You said that gang might have rescued Red Moon. Well maybe they’ve come here for another member of their gang. Him.”

“If that’s so, then why didn’t they take him instead of your barkeep?”

“I’m in no gang,” Sanchez said.

“Maybe Red Moon is after you,” Moody told Jed, ignoring Sanchez. “Maybe he’s after you and that Navajo boy you’ve been riding around with. Maybe they are trying to kill off all of the witnesses.”

“An entire town?” Esmerelda asked.

Moody looked at her. “Red Moon killed twenty men, I don’t think forty more would bother him any.”

“Men did not do this,” Billy said.

Moody stared at Billy. “We’ve enough worries without your mumbo jumbo adding to it.”

“You think men did this?” Billy asked with a smirk. “You think men took everyone in town to the church without leaving a drop of blood in the dirt? Without leaving a track in the sand? You think men pulled everyone apart like that?”

Karl let out another low moan from the far table.

“I don’t think some of us need reminding of the damage done,” Moody said and poured another shot of whiskey. He got up and took it to Karl, sitting down beside him, coaxing him into drinking it. Karl still didn’t take the drink; he looked close to passing out.

Jed looked beyond Moody and Karl at the stairs that led up to the balcony and second floor. He looked back at Sanchez. “You didn’t hear the barkeep go upstairs?”

Moody looked at the steps ascending into darkness.

Esmerelda’s eyes grew wide with horror.

“I told you what I heard,” Sanchez grumbled. “If I heard someone go upstairs, then I would’ve told you that.”

“And you didn’t hear anyone come downstairs, either?” Esmerelda asked.

“I didn’t hear anyone on the stairs,” Sanchez said.

Esmerelda and Moody locked eyes from across the room, both realizing the same thing at the same time.

“Rose,” Esmerelda said. “We forgot that Rose was up there. She went up to her room with that cowboy earlier.”

CHAPTER 18

“Oh God, Rose,” Esmerelda whispered. “How could we have forgotten about Rose?”

All of them watched the stairs that led up into darkness.

Moody got to his feet with his shotgun in his hands. “We need to go up there and make sure she’s unharmed.” He rushed across the saloon and hurried around the bar to the wooden cubbyholes next to the mirrors. He pulled out a skeleton key attached to a flat wooden tab and hurried back to them.

“We shouldn’t split up,” Jed said as he got to his feet.

“Agreed,” Moody said as he joined them again at the tables.

“What about me?” Sanchez asked. “You can’t leave me here.”

“We can’t take him up there,” Jed said.

“You can’t just leave him here,” Esmerelda said. “He’ll be taken while we’re upstairs.”

“They didn’t take him before,” Jed argued.

“Well, this time it could be different,” she said. “You said so yourself that we shouldn’t split up.”

“You could untie his legs,” Moody suggested. “Leave his hands shackled, but untie his legs so he can follow us up there.”

Jed nodded. “Fair enough.” He crouched down in front of Sanchez. He looked up at him. “You kick me or try to get away . . .” He let his warning trail off.

Sanchez didn’t respond.

Jed untied Sanchez’s legs. Then he untied the rope attached to Sanchez’s handcuffs. Sanchez got to his feet quickly.

Moody had Karl on his feet. The thin Swede still looked like he was walking around in a stupor, living in a cocoon of sorrow and misery now. Moody had his lantern in one hand and his shotgun in the other, the barrel pointed down at the floor, his finger on the trigger. He went to the foot of the stairs. “Rose!”

No answer from upstairs.

“Rose! It’s Moody! Answer me!”

Still no answer from upstairs—no sounds at all.

That queasy feeling was back in Jed’s stomach. He already had a pretty good idea of what they were going to find up there in Rose’s room—but, like a bad dream, he seemed to have no choice but to move forward, to go up those stairs and see the terrible sights that were waiting for him . . . waiting for all of them.

Jed caught Billy watching him, but he ignored him, nudging Sanchez forward in front of him.

Moody went up the stairs first, followed by Sanchez and Jed. Esmerelda and David were right behind Jed, and Billy and Karl brought up the rear. Karl was mumbling something in Swedish.

The lanterns Moody and Jed held lit up the upstairs hallway when they were at the top of the stairs. Moody took a left, walking down the hall that ran towards the front of the building. There were three rooms down this hall, all of them on the same side of the hall. Each door had an even room number on them: eight, then ten, then twelve. All of the numbers were fancy brass pieces, probably ordered out of a catalogue. The doors were freshly painted, and there was more of the garish wallpaper covering the walls up here. The wall on the left-hand side had a few lanterns in sconces along with some framed paintings of desert landscapes. Moody didn’t bother lighting any of the lanterns up here.

“Rose!” Moody called out when he was in front of Room Number 10, halfway down the hall. “Rose, answer me!”

No answer from behind the door.

Moody set the lantern down on the floor next to his feet and tried the doorknob. It was locked.

The rest of them squeezed in around Moody. Jed held the other lantern and he already had his pistol out.

Moody tapped at the door with the barrel of his shotgun—it was a loud sound. “Rose!”

Still no answer. Moody tapped harder at the door with his shotgun. “Rose, if you don’t answer me, I’m going to have to unlock the door and come inside. A lot of people in town have been . . . they’ve been attacked. Killed. I need to make sure you’re unharmed.”

Still no answer.

Moody looked back at Jed like he had no other choice now than to enter the room. He slid the skeleton key into the lock below the doorknob, his hand shaking badly, the wooden tag with the number ten on it rattled as he twisted the key.

As soon as Moody pushed the door open, the smell hit Jed—the smell of blood and gore.

“Good God,” Moody said, backing up a step, almost bumping into Jed.

The room was dark, and the light from their two lanterns only reached so far into the room from the doorway.

“Wait out here,” Jed told Esmerelda, but what he was really saying was to keep an eye on David—don’t let him see what’s inside this room.

Moody picked up his lantern from the floor and stepped inside the room. Jed followed him with the other lantern and his Colt. They stopped when they were a few steps inside the room.

At first Jed thought there was only one person on the bed, but he immediately knew it couldn’t be right, because that person on the bed was larger than Rose or the cowboy had been. Had those two gotten away, and someone else was in here? The barkeep? No, this person was too large to be the barkeep.

The bed with the person on it was all the way across the room against the wall, right underneath the only window. The curtains were drawn over that window. There was a small dresser on one side of the room with a washbasin on top of it. Next to the washbasin was a silver tray with an array of small glass perfume bottles on it. A plain wood wardrobe stood against the opposite wall, one of the doors ajar. There were a few framed paintings and photos on the bare, wood-planked walls.

In the middle of the floor was a handwoven Navajo rug, and scattered across that rug and part of the floorboards were Rose and the cowboy’s boots and clothing, the clothes tossed aside in a fit of passion on the way to the bed. Both of the cowboy’s boots were lying on their side. Only one of Rose’s ankle boots was on its side, the other one standing up, just like the woman’s shoe in the church had been—the one with the shard of bone sticking up out of it.

Moody and Jed moved closer to the bed, their lanterns now lighting up the whole room. Jed glanced back and saw Billy standing in the doorway. Jed hoped he was standing there to block this sight from David and the rest of them.

Jed looked back at the bed and realized that it wasn’t one big body on the bed—it was Rose and the cowboy, both of their naked bodies twisted together like a big piece of taffy, impossibly intertwined, their flesh seemingly fused together. Bones had snapped in the twisting, sharp pieces of the shattered bones poking out through the flesh in some places.

The stench was nearly overpowering. Jed pulled his bandana up over his face. He could taste his whiskey-tainted breath; he could smell the sweat and sand imbedded in the cloth of the bandana, but it was better than the smell of dead flesh, blood, urine, and shit in front of him.

“Oh Mother of Mercy,” Moody whispered as he bent down a little to set the lantern on the floor so he could cross himself.

Jed still had his Colt aimed at the human abomination on the bed. He knew the intertwined people were dead, but he couldn’t seem to lower his weapon just yet.

There’s nobody else in this room, Jed told himself. Whoever did this, they’re gone now. They twisted these two naked people together somehow, and now they’re gone.

But not gone. No, they were out there in the desert somewhere, just outside of town—somewhere close, waiting to strike again, but not gone.

Nowhere was safe.

He’s going to ask for things. Roscoe’s voice echoed in his mind. And you need to give him what he asks for.

“How . . . how can this be possible?” Moody asked.

Jed heard Billy walk up behind them, his moccasins soft on the floor. He was whispering, chanting something in Navajo, a prayer to his gods, just like Red Moon had done in the woods.

And a lot of good it had done Red Moon.

Jed brought the lantern in his hand a little closer to the bed, the light creating strange shadows across the thing that used to be two humans.

“What are you doing?” Moody asked.

“Making sure they’re dead,” Jed answered him.

“Of course they’re dead,” Moody snapped.

You don’t know that for sure, Jed thought. He’d seen a man’s severed head talk to him not even two days ago. He’d seen a skinned man still alive, still breathing.

They won’t let you die. You just go on and on and on.

If they weren’t dead, Jed thought, if they were still moving slightly, still twitching, still moaning, he was going to put a bullet into their combined heads right here and now, he swore to God he was.

Now that he was closer, Jed saw this monstrosity more clearly. An arm of the cowboy was wrapped around the woman’s arm, shards of bone sticking out through the skin where the blood was dark and matted. Their fingers were twisted together. Their heads had combined into one large bulbous thing, both faces stretched and melted into each other. One of the mouths was wide open, teeth jutting out, the tongue swollen and purplish. There were tears along the skin where the violent twists had occurred; blood and other fluids had seeped out of those ruptures. Both sets of legs were twisted together to form two new legs, both ending with two feet at the end of each leg, the feet swollen and purple with trapped blood, the toes fat, like little sausage sections tied off from the foot. The toenails had either been torn off or turned black.

Moody rushed out of the room.

Jed followed Moody, and then Billy followed him, still chanting. Billy didn’t have his eagle feather in his hand now—he was still holding Karl’s Smith & Wesson.

Jed and Billy stepped out into the hall. Jed slammed the door shut.

“What is it?” Sanchez asked from farther down the hall. “Are they dead?”

“They’re dead,” Jed told him.

“It’s more than that,” Sanchez said. “I can see it on your faces.”

Jed imagined that his face was pure white with shock at the moment.

“There’s no hope,” Karl wailed. “They’re going to get all of us. They’re going to kill us all.”

CHAPTER 19

“We need to check the other rooms,” Jed said. He looked at Moody. “We need to make sure no one else is up here.”

“Like who?” Moody asked in a weak voice.

“Maybe your barkeep’s up here.”

Moody nodded like he hadn’t thought of that.

“Are the rest of these doors unlocked?” Jed asked Moody.

Moody hesitated for just a second, like he really had to think about it, like he was struggling to remember. “No one in the rooms except Rose. The others should all be unlocked.”

Jed didn’t wait for the others. He moved down the hall to the last room—number twelve.

He tested the doorknob. It was unlocked. He turned the knob and eased the door open.

“U.S. Marshal,” Jed said through the crack in the door. “Is anyone inside?”

No answer.

Of course there was no answer. No one was up here, no one alive anyway. And he was sure these skinwalkers, whatever creatures they were, weren’t huddled up in a room together, waiting for someone to open the door.

He didn’t need to worry about anyone shooting at him from the dark because from what he’d seen so far these skinwalkers hadn’t fired a single bullet or shot a single arrow. No, they killed in other ways.

Still, it made him feel better to check each of the rooms, like he was ticking off items on a list, one less thing to nag at him when they went back downstairs.

And yes, they would all be going downstairs together because who was going to stay up here in one of these rooms now after what had been done to Rose and the cowboy?

Jed opened the door to Room Number 12 wider, his lantern light flooding into the room. The room had two windows, one that looked out to the side (most likely a nice view of the building right next to the saloon) and one that looked out onto the street. Both windows were dark blue rectangles in the darkness; the glass panes reflected his lantern light back at him.

After the door was all the way open, Jed stepped inside. It only took a few steps to get to the middle of the room. There was a bed, a dresser, and an armoire. A lantern and washbasin sat on top of the dresser much like Rose’s room. There were a few touches of décor to make the room homier: a few paintings on the walls, a small rug on the floor, a quilt folded up on the bed, a cedar chest at the foot of the bed. The room smelled dusty, but Jed couldn’t get the smell of blood out of his nostrils, that reeking and rotten smell from the room right next door.

Even though the others were huddled together right outside the door in the hallway, Jed felt alone in this room, like he had just entered another world. He had an irrational fear of the bedroom door shutting by itself, slamming shut and locking him in here while his lantern went out.

That buzzing feeling of fear in his mind was proving to be too much. Jed dashed back out of the room and closed the door.

After Jed made sure the next room was empty, Esmerelda joined him inside. She swept past him and gathered up the blankets and pillows on the bed, bundling them up in her arms. Jed didn’t ask what she was doing—Esmerelda knew they were all going to spend the night downstairs in the saloon and that they would need the blankets and pillows from these rooms.

Moments later they all gathered on the balcony that overlooked the saloon below. Jed felt better now that he was out of that small hallway off to the left of the stairs; he felt better for some reason now that he had an open view of the saloon with the few lanterns burning below. He felt safer.

But it wasn’t safe; he had to keep reminding himself of that. The barkeep had been taken in the saloon. He’d been taken but Sanchez had been left behind. Why? Jed could also ask himself why he had been spared in the woods. He could ask himself why David’s whole family had been taken but David had been left behind. Was each of them being singled out for some reason that he couldn’t understand?

He wants things, and you have to give him what he wants.

Jed wondered if he had something special that the skinwalkers wanted, or what “he” wanted, whoever the skinwalkers referred to as “he.” What would he, David, and Sanchez all have that these witches would want? Because there seemed to be little doubt that the skinwalkers were leading up to something.

CHAPTER 20

They went downstairs to the saloon after all of the upstairs rooms were checked. Except for Rose’s room, the others were empty just like Moody had promised. Lawrence the barkeep wasn’t up there, and neither was anyone else. They all carried pillows and balled-up blankets downstairs with them. Even David offered to help carry some of the pillows.

Jed thought they might find the barkeep in one of those rooms, or what was left of him. Jed had been sure he would open the door to one of those rooms and find the barkeep’s mangled body, his remains twisted like a giant piece of taffy, just like Rose and the cowboy. But the barkeep was gone. Maybe he’d been taken to the church with the others. Or maybe he was being saved for something else.

They moved the tables and chairs to the back room so they could spread out blankets and pillows on the floor in the middle of the saloon, keeping all of the blankets near each other so they could stay close together. They left one table and a set of chairs closer to the saloon doors. Jed pulled a chair out for Sanchez so he could sit down.

Everyone else took a seat at the table except Karl. He had lain down on a blanket, curling up on his side. He was whispering to himself in Swedish. Maybe he was praying.

Moody set his lantern in the middle of the table next to the whiskey bottle and glasses. Jed pulled his Colt out of the holster and set it down on the table in front of him with a thud.

“I need to pee,” Sanchez said.

“Hold it,” Jed responded.

“I can’t hold it all night.”

Jed didn’t say anything.

Esmerelda stared at Jed. “You need to let him relieve himself.”

She had brought down two chamber pots along with the pillows and blankets from upstairs. Jed was glad she had thought of that because he didn’t particularly like the idea of going back upstairs to those rooms.

“I can’t cut him loose,” Jed said. “He’s an outlaw.”

“I’m no outlaw,” Sanchez said. “I killed that man in self-defense, like I already told you.”

“You can’t tie him back to that chair again all night,” Esmerelda said. “It’s against his civil rights.”

“He’s a criminal. He ain’t got no rights.”

Esmerelda sighed and sat back in her chair.

“Under normal circumstances I would’ve locked him up in your jail cell,” Jed told her. “Would you prefer that I march him down to the sheriff’s office? Leave him there?”

She didn’t respond, but she was still staring at him.

Jed tore his eyes away from Esmerelda’s brilliant green eyes. He looked at the two rooms across the saloon. “What about those rooms over there?”

“One’s my office,” Moody said. “The other one’s a storeroom.”

“Does the storeroom have a window in it?” Jed asked.

Moody shook his head no.

“I could lock him up in that room for the night if it makes you feel better.” Jed looked back at Esmerelda.

“No way you’re locking me up by myself in that room,” Sanchez said.

“You can’t do that, either,” Esmerelda finally said.

Jed stood up.

“What are you doing?” Esmerelda asked, alarmed by Jed’s sudden movement.

Jed looked at Billy. “Could you give me a hand?”

Billy didn’t even ask what Jed needed. He stood up with Karl’s gun in his hand. Jed helped Sanchez to his feet. He unlocked one wrist from the handcuffs, freeing it. The cuffs hung from his other wrist.

“Pick up the chamber pot,” Jed told Sanchez.

Sanchez followed orders.

Jed had his Colt aimed down at the floor. “Go to the storeroom.”

“You’re not locking me in there,” Sanchez warned.

“No, but I won’t have you relieving yourself in front of a woman and a child. You go in there, do your business, and then come back out.”

Sanchez stared at Jed for a moment, not sure if he was being tricked into the storeroom.

“I’m trusting you,” Jed told Sanchez. “I can trust you, can’t I?”

“Can I trust you?” Sanchez asked him.

Jed nodded. “You’ve got my word.”

Sanchez walked to the storeroom with the chamber pot. Jed and Billy followed him. They waited right outside the open storeroom door until Sanchez was finished. Sanchez left the chamber pot in the storeroom, and then Jed led him to the end of the bar.

“Sit down,” he told Sanchez.

“Here? On the floor?”

“I’m going to lock your wrist to the foot rail.”

“Marshal . . .” Sanchez began, but he didn’t bother arguing. He sat down on the floor and held his cuffed wrist to the foot rail. Jed clamped the other handcuff around the metal bar.

“There’s spit and tobacco all over the floor,” Sanchez muttered.

Jed almost told Sanchez that he was sorry he couldn’t make his accommodations more comfortable, but a vision of Red Moon at the base of the tree in the woods came back to him, and he said nothing. He brought Sanchez a pillow and a blanket.

Billy walked back to the table and sat down with the others. Jed joined them a moment later.

“Why don’t you just cut me loose?” Sanchez asked. He was sitting with his back against the front of the bar, his right wrist handcuffed to the foot rail right beside the end of it where it curved back into the wood so he couldn’t slide his hand out.

Jed didn’t reply, but Esmerelda watched him.

“You can keep my guns locked up,” Sanchez said. “I’m not going to run. Not with those . . . those . . . whoever’s out there doing this.”

“It is not a who,” Billy said. “It is a what. A monster. The Darkwind.”

“Do we have to listen to that again?” Moody asked. He was hunched forward over the table, his hands cupping a shot glass in front of him even though it was empty.

“I think Billy’s right,” Esmerelda said. “Whatever’s out there isn’t human.”

“Of course you agree with the Indian,” Moody said.

Esmerelda didn’t argue with him.

“You know it, too,” Billy said, staring right at Jed.

Jed felt heat flushing his face again, caught in a lie. He shifted his gaze to David. The boy was staring at him just like Billy was, interested in hearing his response.

“What did you see when your men were killed?” Billy asked.

Jed didn’t answer right away, but he saw no sense in pretending anymore that something supernatural wasn’t going on in this town, something beyond their understanding, beyond their control.

The others stared at him, waiting for his answer. Even Sanchez was watching him, his eyes saying: You felt free to interrogate me, now it’s your turn to be questioned.

“I didn’t see them,” Jed finally answered. “I never saw the skinwalkers.”

“You never saw any of them?” Moody asked with a sarcastic smirk and suspicion in his eyes.

Jed locked eyes with Moody. “I didn’t see any of them.”

“Your two deputies were taken, and you didn’t see who did it?” Moody asked, his voice rising a few octaves.

“They were both taken when we were in the woods,” Jed explained. “They were taken like Lawrence was. Like everyone in this town was.”

“But you said Red Moon got away,” Moody reminded Jed, reminding everyone else.

Jed glanced at Billy, then at Esmerelda. “I wasn’t being completely truthful about that.” Before Moody could protest, Jed went on. “Red Moon told me, promised me, that the men in the woods weren’t his men. He said they weren’t coming to rescue him. Of course I didn’t believe him. And when my men were taken, I thought for sure Red Moon was in on the whole thing.”

“You found your men,” Billy said. It wasn’t a question; it was a statement of fact. “It wanted you to find them.”

Jed nodded.

“What happened to your men?” Esmerelda asked.

Jed made a show of glancing at David, letting them know that the details weren’t proper for a young boy’s ears. “They were killed. Mutilated. A lot like your townsfolks were.” He hoped that was explanation enough.

“What about Red Moon?” Moody asked.

Jed wasn’t sure how much to tell. How could he tell them that he had left Red Moon behind? How could he tell them that his good friend Roscoe (only his head) had told him to leave Red Moon behind like an offering? How was he supposed to tell them that Roscoe said that “he” would want more things?

So he didn’t tell them any of that.

“They got Red Moon,” Jed finally said. “They had already taken our horses. I had my gun belt, my pistol, and whatever I could carry in my pockets. Then I ran.”

“Did you see Red Moon get killed?” Moody asked, that suspicion still burning in his eyes. “Did you actually see his dead body?”

Jed could feel his temper rising, getting close to boiling over. “I just told you they got him, didn’t I?”

Moody didn’t seem satisfied with the answer.

Jed reached for the bottle and a shot glass. He poured himself a drink and swallowed it down.

“Let’s not accuse anyone of anything,” Esmerelda said, trying to calm both of the men down.

“I’m not accusing anyone of anything,” Moody said. “I’m just saying that if our U.S. Marshal here didn’t actually see Red Moon’s body after he was taken, it could be Red Moon out there with his gang doing this.”

“Red Moon was scared to death,” Jed said. “He said those skinwalkers in the woods weren’t his gang.”

“Skinwalkers are no longer Diné,” Billy said. He was lightly caressing the silver charm hanging from his leather necklace. “Skinwalkers are no longer men. They are monsters.”

“That’s the same thing Red Moon said,” Jed told everyone. “He said the skinwalkers were no longer his people.”

“He could’ve been lying to you so he could get away,” Moody said.

“You can’t still think it’s Red Moon and his gang out there,” Jed said, looking at Moody. “After what you’ve seen tonight? After what you just saw up there in your own hotel room, Rose and that cowboy tangled and twisted together, their heads and faces melted together?”

Moody looked away.

Jed could tell that Moody was wrestling with the same feelings he’d had earlier, trying to rationalize, trying to come up with any other explanation rather than admitting the truth—that something unbelievable and unexplainable was happening.

“I’ve heard of skinwalkers,” Sanchez said. “Never seen one myself, but old women used to talk about them. They’re witches. They can cast spells and they can turn into animals.”

“But what is out there now are not skinwalkers,” Billy said.

Everyone looked at him.

“It is the Anasazi out there—the Ancient Enemy. Some call it the Darkwind.”

“What is the Ancient Enemy?” Esmerelda asked. “A demon?”

Billy shrugged. “You could call it a demon. A god. Something ancient and powerful. There are stories of the ancient people that vanished. There are stories of the ancient people eating each other, of bones crushed, bodies twisted together. No signs of attack from another tribe. There are stories of cities built into the sides of rock mountains, stories of all of the people disappearing.”

“We have those stories, too,” Sanchez said. “In Mexico, and farther south. They tell stories of old cities swallowed up by the jungle. Some say the people abandoned those cities that they built. But others say all of them were taken.”

CHAPTER 21

The saloon doors and windows were all locked, but Jed suggested that they barricade the doors and the windows as best they could. Moody grabbed a hammer and a can of nails from his office, but he didn’t have much in the way of spare wood. His office was a cramped little room with one small window, a desk, a chair, and a couch that Moody slept on most nights instead of sleeping in his home a mile away.

“We’ll have to use the tables,” Jed told everyone.

Moody wasn’t happy about that idea, but he knew they needed to do something about the doors and windows, something to protect themselves.

They broke the legs off some of the tables and used those as braces against the front doors, toenailing the ends of them to the wood floor. It wasn’t the most secure bracing, but it was better than nothing. They flipped four of the tables up onto their sides and shoved them against the windows. The tables were round and didn’t cover the windows completely, but they offered some kind of obstacle if anyone wanted to come through the windows.

“We’ll sleep in watches tonight,” Jed told them after they were finished barricading the windows and doors. “I’ll take the first watch.”

“Who’s going to be able to sleep?” Moody muttered.

*

Two hours later all of them were sleeping as Jed sat alone at the table, on watch. He had a cold cup of coffee in front of him. He wanted a few more shots of whiskey, something to take the edge off of his fear, but he couldn’t risk getting sleepy from the alcohol.

They had turned down most of the lanterns to save the fuel. Jed had a lantern on the floor closer to the door so he could see the doors clearly. The wood stove was still burning and provided just a red glow from that side of the saloon, but most of the saloon was hidden in shadows now.

Jed was getting tired of sitting in the chair. His back was beginning to ache, his muscles stiffening up from the cold. The saloon was quiet except for Moody’s snores and the heavy breathing of the others. There was a stale smell of body odor in the room, and the faint smells of piss and shit coming from the chamber pots just inside the storeroom. There were no noises coming from outside.

He knew there was a good chance he might fall asleep without even remembering it. Even as frightened as he’d been, he had fallen asleep twice in the woods.

Jed looked down at his Colt sitting on the table in front of him. The gun seemed like a foolish and useless thing now against whatever was out there, the Ancient Enemy as Billy called it.

All of this felt useless, but he couldn’t allow himself to wallow in despair—that was dangerous. If he gave up now then he might as well go outside and offer himself up to that thing out there. No, he needed to fight; it’s what he had always done. He was a lawman with a duty to protect these citizens in this saloon, and most of all David. The boy gave him a kind of strength, and he wondered if this is how a father would feel about his own son.

Someone was materializing out of the darkness, walking towards the table. At first Jed thought it was David, maybe because he’d just been thinking about him, but it was Esmerelda. She sat down in the chair next to him.

“I had a bad dream,” she said as if Jed had asked for an explanation. “It woke me up.”

Jed didn’t say anything.

Esmerelda looked back at the others hidden in shadows, all of them sleeping near each other in a big group except Sanchez who was curled up in front of the bar, his right wrist cuffed to the foot rail. Every once in a while, when Sanchez moved around in his sleep, the handcuff would clink against the metal foot rail.

Esmerelda looked back at Jed. “How did you find David?”

It was obviously a question she had wanted to ask for a while.

“After my men were killed in the woods, I walked out of there with just my pistol and whatever I could carry in my pockets. Like I told you earlier.”

She nodded, watching him.

“I figured I was looking at a four day walk to Smith Junction. Maybe even five days. But a few hours after I was out of the woods, I saw David’s house down below in a valley. It was a small spread with a few cows and some sheep. A house, barn, and stables with three horses.”

Jed paused and Esmerelda watched him.

“David’s ma and pa were killed,” Jed said in a low voice, almost a whisper. “His older brother, too. I found David in his bedroom, hiding behind his bed, so I took him with me. When we left, David took a photograph of his family with him, that’s how I knew who they were.” He remembered that he had stuffed David’s photograph into his pocket last night when David had fallen asleep with it on his chest next to the campfire. He pulled it out and showed Esmerelda.

She took the photograph and stared at it for a moment. She handed it back to him.

Jed knew he should give the photograph back to David, but he decided to slip it back into his pocket for safekeeping. “Their bodies were gone when I got there,” Jed told her. “But there was plenty of blood left behind. And . . . and some small pieces of them.”

“But they were taken,” she whispered. “Just like the people here.”

Jed nodded. “When I found David in his bedroom, I asked him what had happened, he didn’t say much. Still doesn’t. I couldn’t leave him there.”

“Of course not,” Esmerelda hissed, like his mentioning something like that had offended her.

“We borrowed two of his pa’s horses. I left a note. We rode north towards Smith Junction. But then that sandstorm sprang up and we had to come here.”

“What do you plan to do with him?”

“Take him to Smith Junction.”

“And then what?”

Jed shrugged. “I don’t know. I reckon the people there will try to find his kin.”

Esmerelda looked doubtful about that prospect. “You wonder why you weren’t taken in the woods? Why David was left behind in his house?”

Jed nodded. “And Sanchez. The barkeep was taken, but Sanchez was left behind. Sanchez was handcuffed and hobbled. Tied to a chair. He was easy pickings. Why not take him instead of the barkeep?”

Esmerelda nodded in agreement. “Sanchez was easy pickings like David was.”

And me, Jed thought.

“That Darkwind,” Esmerelda whispered. “The Ancient Enemy as Billy calls it. That thing, whatever it is, takes a whole town but leaves the few of us behind in this saloon.”

“This saloon isn’t any safer than any other building here. The barkeep was taken from here. And then there’s what happened to Rose and that cowboy she was with upstairs.”

“But it only did those things when we were gone,” Esmerelda said. “Not while we were here.”

“What are you getting at?” Jed asked her. If she was going somewhere with her questions, he wished she would get to the point.

Esmerelda didn’t answer him; she just stared at him like she was studying him, like she knew he was hiding information of his own.

And he was hiding something, wasn’t he? He was hiding what Roscoe’s head had told him to do.

“You tell fortunes,” Jed finally said. It almost sounded like he had accused her of something bad.

She nodded. “I read the cards. Doesn’t work all the time, but sometimes it does.”

Jed wasn’t sure if he wanted to know what those cards might say about all of their futures right now, but he asked anyway. “You can see the future without the cards?”

Esmerelda sat back, thinking for a moment. It seemed to be a question she’d never been asked before. Jed studied her in the low light of the lantern on the floor. She was a striking woman in a certain way, and he wondered why she wasn’t married.

“Sometimes I see things,” Esmerelda said. “The past. The future. Sometimes I see it in my dreams.”

“And your dream tonight? The bad dream you just had?”

She didn’t answer. She shook her head. “Just a bad dream.”

Jed felt sure she was sitting on her own information, protecting her own secrets.

“You might want to try to get some more sleep,” Jed suggested. “I’ll be waking Moody up in a few hours for his watch.”

Esmerelda stared at him like she knew that wasn’t true, like she knew that they would all be asleep and helpless when the Ancient Enemy came for them.

For a moment Jed thought she was going to tell him about her dream.

But she didn’t.

She went back to her blankets.

CHAPTER 22

Screams from outside woke Jed up. He was sitting in the chair at the table, hunched over it, his head on his arms. He jumped up when he heard the screams. He grabbed his Colt .45 off the table.

It was early morning, but light enough to see clearly inside the saloon. The double doors were wide open. The braces they had nailed in place earlier in the night were tossed aside on the floor. The screams were coming from outside.

There was movement from behind Jed, a shifting of clothing, footsteps. He turned and saw that David was sitting up on his blanket and staring at the doors. Moody, Billy, and Esmerelda were already on their feet. Sanchez was up on his knees, staring at the front of the saloon, his wrist still chained to the foot rail of the bar.

Karl was gone.

Jed bolted towards the doorway. Moody was right behind him with his shotgun, and then Billy with Karl’s Smith & Wesson.

They found Karl at the end of the walkway in front of the saloon, close to the corner of the building. He seemed uninjured, no blood, and he still had all of his limbs. He was flat on his back on the walkway, his arms up like he was trying to ward off something only he could see. Jed thought maybe the man was in the middle of a bad dream, but his eyes were wide open.

Moody crouched down beside Karl, using his shotgun like a walking stick to steady himself. Jed and Billy covered the two of them with their pistols, but there was no one in sight on the dirt street. Hope’s End looked like the ghost town that it had become overnight.

“What is the matter?” Moody asked, touching Karl’s bony shoulder.

Karl’s eyes shot to Moody, staring at him like he was trying to decide if he was real or not.

“You see someone out here?” Jed asked Karl.

Karl ignored Jed’s question, keeping his eyes right on Moody.

“Why’d you come out here?” Moody asked Karl in a softer voice.

Karl’s mouth was still wide open, his eyes bulging so badly they looked ready to pop out of his pale face. He had lowered his arms now, his hands clutching at his sunken belly.

“We should get back inside now,” Jed warned.

“My . . . my wife,” Karl finally said. “Min kvinna, Ingrid. I . . . I saw her. And my boys.” His words were coming out in a shuttering stutter, his teeth chattering. He was shaking all over. “She came to me. She reached for me with her arm, the only one she had left. The other arm was gone. Just a bloody stump. And my boys. Their legs were gone. They were crawling down the street towards me.”

Billy descended the steps to the dirt street below, studying it.

Jed followed Billy, covering him with his pistol. He watched the dark alley between the saloon and the next building.

“Why’d you come out here?” Moody asked Karl again.

“I . . . I don’t know,” Karl answered. “I . . . I don’t remember coming out here.”

Jed looked down at the dirt street, then at Billy. He was sure the Navajo saw the same thing he was seeing, the tracks in the dirt. Maybe Jed wasn’t quite the tracker that Billy might be, but Jed had learned how to follow tracks over the years as a U.S. Marshal.

Moody didn’t notice Jed and Billy; he concentrated on Karl. “What do you mean, you don’t remember coming out here? You think you were walking in your sleep?”

Karl didn’t answer.

Jed backed up towards the wooden walkway, climbing the stairs backwards up onto the walkway in front of the saloon. “Moody, get Karl up on his feet. We need to get him back into the saloon.”

Billy stared up and down the street, his breath clouding up in front of his face in the cold air. He looked east towards the end of town, the sun just up above the horizon, the sky there a blaze of yellow, orange, and red. He looked towards the other end of town, towards the church where the sky was still a deep, dark blue. He turned and looked at Jed, his eyes saying: Did you see that?

Jed nodded at Billy, indicating that he had noticed it. “Moody,” Jed warned.

“Come on,” Moody told Karl. “Up you go.”

“Ingrid . . . she . . . she came to me . . .”

“We can talk about it inside,” Moody told Karl, practically tugging the man up into a sitting position, spurred not only by Jed’s words but by the tone of his voice that said: Hurry the hell up because something bad is coming.

Jed walked towards Moody and Karl, his boots clomping on the floorboards, the sound echoing on the front walkway. He helped Moody get Karl to his feet, and then they practically dragged him to the saloon doors.

Billy had backed up to the steps of the walkway. He had his eagle feather in one hand, Karl’s gun in the other, but he seemed to take more comfort in the feather than the pistol. He looked up and down the street, scanning it for movement like he was waiting for a stampede of wild horses to come at any minute. He climbed up the steps backwards just like Jed had done, afraid to take his eyes off of the street.

“Billy,” Jed snapped as he and Moody got Karl inside.

Billy hurried across the walkway and rushed inside the saloon.

“What is it?” Esmerelda asked. She was on the blanket with David, an arm around his shoulders.

Moody helped Karl to the nearest table where Jed had just woken up a few minutes ago. Jed and Billy closed the saloon doors. Jed locked the doors as Billy retrieved the table legs from the floor. Jed grabbed the hammer and can of nails, then toenailed the table legs back in place, bracing the doors shut as best he could.

“Was that Karl screaming out there?” Esmerelda asked.

Moody nodded at her. “He had a bad dream.”

Sanchez watched from the floor in front of the bar, up on his knees, his arm that was handcuffed to the foot rail stretched out behind him.

Jed met Esmerelda’s eyes for just a second when Moody mentioned the bad dream Karl supposedly had had. He turned back to his task of nailing the table legs in place.

After Jed finished hammering the nails, he took the hammer and can of nails back to the table and sat down. Billy sat down in the chair next to him.

Esmerelda got up and went to the bar. She stoked the fire in the stove and set the coffee kettle on top. She went behind the bar and poured a cup of tea and set a basket of cornbread muffins on the bar top. She put a muffin on a metal plate and brought the muffin and the tea to David.

“How did Karl get outside without us hearing him open the doors?” Esmerelda asked. “We should’ve heard him knocking those braces away.”

Moody stared at the doors, and then looked at Jed. “She’s right.” Moody looked at Karl who sat beside him, slumped down in his chair, his arms on the table in front of him. He seemed to be studying his limp hands. “Karl, do you remember removing the braces from the door? Do you remember opening the doors?”

Karl looked at Moody—a blank stare. He shook his head slowly. “I . . . I woke up out there and . . .” He let his words trail off.

Jed remembered asking Red Moon what had happened to Roscoe in the woods. Red Moon had told him that Roscoe had walked towards the trees like he’d been in a trance. He didn’t believe Red Moon at the time, he didn’t believe in the spells Red Moon said the skinwalkers could cast. But now he was beginning to believe just about anything.

“It was morning already when I woke up,” Karl said. “I saw Ingrid out there. I saw my boys.”

The saloon was quiet, all of them listening to Karl’s words. Esmerelda brought two cups of coffee to the table, setting one of them down in front of Karl. “Tell us everything you saw out there,” she told him in a surprisingly stern tone.

“My Ingrid,” Karl said, wrapping his fingers around the tin cup of coffee like he was trying to warm them up. “I saw her.”

“There was more,” Esmerelda said, almost like she was accusing Karl. “Tell us everything.”

Jed noticed the fear in Esmerelda’s eyes, but she didn’t look at him—she kept her eyes on Karl, waiting for his answer.

“Ingrid only had one arm. My boys, they didn’t have their legs. They were crawling in the dirt, crawling behind her. They looked just like they did inside the church, arms and legs gone.” His face scrunched up in agony, tears slipping from his intense blue eyes. He shook his head like he was trying to shake the images from his mind.

“What happened next?” Esmerelda prodded.

Esmerelda knows something, Jed thought. She’s hiding things just like I am.

Karl rubbed his hands on his face, turning his pale skin red in seconds from the friction and from his crying. “They were dead. I saw them inside the church.” He looked at Moody, then at Esmerelda. “You all saw them. They were all dead. But they came back to me this morning.”

“What was Ingrid doing?” Esmerelda asked Karl. “Did she say anything to you? Do anything?”

“It wasn’t real,” Moody snapped at Esmerelda, and then he looked at Jed. “It was just a bad dream, that’s all. And completely understandable considering the terror we’ve all been through.”

“What did she do to you?” Esmerelda asked Karl as she ignored Moody. “Did she touch you?”

Karl had his hands over his face again. He nodded vigorously.

“She did more than just touch you, didn’t she?” Esmerelda said.

Karl pulled his hands away and inhaled a big breath, sniffling at the same time. “She . . . she touched my shoulder. Grabbed it hard. Her fingers digging into my skin. I was on the ground. She leaned over me and . . . and she kissed me.”

“That’s quite enough!” Moody said. “He had a bad dream. No need to make the man re-live every second of it.” He glared at Esmerelda.

“She forced my mouth apart with hers,” Karl continued. “I . . . I could feel her tongue inside my mouth, going all the way to the back of my throat. Her tongue was longer than it should have been. Like some kind of . . . like a snake.”

“That’s enough,” Moody told Karl. “It wasn’t real.”

“It was real,” Billy said.

They all looked at him.

“There are tracks in the dirt,” Billy told them.

Everyone was quiet.

Moody and Esmerelda looked at Jed.

Jed nodded in agreement with Billy. “He’s right. There are a lot of tracks in the street. Looks like the whole town walked down that street.”

CHAPTER 23

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Moody asked.

“There’s a lot of foot traffic out there,” Jed said simply. “And drag marks. Like some of the people were dragged.” He looked to Billy for conformation.

Billy nodded.

“But . . . but all of that could’ve already been there,” Moody argued.

“Sandstorm would’ve blown everything clean,” Jed told him. “Those tracks out there now are fresh.”

“Then the tracks are ours,” Moody said. “We went to Karl’s store last night, then to the church. Then we came back here. We walked right down the middle of the street.”

“There are many more tracks than ours,” Billy said.

“Which direction did the tracks come from?” Esmerelda asked, but it looked like she already knew the answer to her own question.

“From the church,” Jed told her. He had a picture in his mind of a whole town of dead people walking past the saloon, some of the people hobbling, some of them missing their arms and legs, some of them missing their heads.

“You’re trying to say those tracks are from the dead in the church?” Moody asked. “You’re trying to say dead people walked right down through the middle of town?”

Nobody answered him.

“Maybe the tracks are from whoever is doing all of this,” Moody offered. “Whoever killed your men and took Red Moon.” He stared right at Jed. “The skinwalkers you keep talking about.”

“There’s something else,” Jed said. He looked at Billy who nodded.

“What?” Moody spat out. “You two keeping secrets now?”

“The church,” Jed said. “The pastor’s body isn’t hanging from the front of it anymore.”

Moody looked suddenly twitchy, like he was about to rush to the doors and kick the braces away so he could go outside and see for himself. There was also a hint of embarrassment that he hadn’t noticed that the pastor was gone.

Karl laid his head down on his arms.

Esmerelda went back to the bar to get more cups of coffee. She gave a cup of coffee to Sanchez along with a cornbread muffin. He shoved the muffin in his mouth, eating it in two bites, chasing it down with the coffee.

She brought the basket of muffins and another cup of coffee to the table where Jed and the others sat.

Moody looked at Jed like a thought had occurred to him suddenly. “You were on watch last night. You were supposed to wake me up for the next watch.”

Jed didn’t say anything.

“You fell asleep,” Moody sneered. “You fell asleep at this table when you were supposed to be protecting us.”

“We all fell asleep,” Esmerelda reminded him.

“No,” Moody snapped and then looked back at Jed. “You fell asleep on your post.”

“A sleeping spell,” Billy said. “The Ancient Enemy is a powerful force.”

“I don’t believe in that,” Moody grumbled.

“You will,” Billy told him.

Karl moaned. He kept his head on the table but moved his hands below it, holding his stomach.

“What’s wrong?” Moody asked.

“My . . . stomach . . . it hurts.”

Moody got up and gently pulled Karl up onto his feet. “Come on, let’s get you lying down on your blanket.”

Karl stood up, but not all the way; he was hunched over and wincing in pain. He shuffled over to his blanket and lay down with some effort, Moody guiding him all the way.

Jed watched as Allen Moody tried to soothe his Swedish friend who had curled up in a ball on his side as he did so often lately, only now he was groaning lowly in pain, his red face shiny with perspiration even though it was cold in the saloon.

And then Jed’s eyes shifted to David when he heard a hiss of air and David’s cup of tea fall down onto his blanket where the crumbs from his cornbread muffin were scattered. But David didn’t seem concerned about the crumbs or the spilled tea—his eyes were on the saloon doors. Now it seemed like David was holding his breath as he stared at the doors.

Esmerelda noticed David staring at the doors; she was beside him in a flash, not bothering with the cup of spilled tea—her eyes were on the doors, just like David.

Jed’s skin prickled with fear, the nerves just under the skin buzzing with energy—an all-too-familiar feeling these days. He glanced at the doors, then at Billy. The Navajo stared at the doors just like David and Esmerelda were—he could feel something out there, too.

“What’s wrong?” Jed asked as he drew his pistol from his holster. He didn’t cock it yet, but he wanted it in his hand. He looked at David, directing his question to the boy. “What is it?”

“He’s out there,” David whispered.

“Who?”

“The one who wants things.”

Moody was on his feet, leaving Karl in his fetal position. He was across the room in a flash, his shotgun in his hands. “What’s that mean?” he asked, but he kept his eyes on the doors.

You know what it means, Jed almost said, but he remained quiet; no use wasting breath on words right now.

Everyone except Karl was watching the double doors now, even Sanchez who was up on his knees, his right arm stretched out behind him. “Uncuff me, marshal,” he snapped. “Give me my guns. I can help you.”

Esmerelda met Jed’s eyes. “Maybe he can.”

Jed didn’t bother answering her. He rushed to the window, the one to the left of the saloon doors. He feared a burst of gunfire, but at the same time he knew it wasn’t coming.

They don’t need to shoot at us—they can do so many other things.

Jed looked out the window at what was in the street, and then he looked over at Moody who was already at the other window with his shotgun ready. The Irishman stared out the window for a long moment, his face falling slack in both fear and confusion. His body seemed to go limp, his arm dropping down as he barely held on to the shotgun. Jed thought Moody was going to drop his weapon, maybe even faint. Moody shook his head, muttering to himself as he stared out the window.

“Hey!” a strong, deep voice called to them from outside. “Come outside!”

“Who’s out there?” Esmerelda asked.

Jed looked at her, and he swore she already knew the answer. Chances were she recognized the voice, but he was convinced she already knew who it was before she even heard him speak.

“It’s Pastor Starke,” Moody answered without turning around to look at Esmerelda.

CHAPTER 24

“He was dead,” Moody muttered to himself. “Pastor Starke was dead. We all saw it.”

Jed remained by the window to the left of the doors, his Colt .45 in his hand, but the pastor wasn’t coming towards the saloon. Pastor Starke didn’t have a weapon, he wasn’t making any kind of a threatening gesture—he was just standing patiently in the dirt street. But Jed could feel that there was little patience in the being that stood out there.

“Who else is with him?” Esmerelda asked. She was still beside David on the blanket.

Billy seemed to appear right beside Jed with Karl’s Smith & Wesson in his hand; Jed hadn’t even heard him walk across the room.

“He’s alone,” Jed told Esmerelda. “Nobody else is out there with him.” He looked at Moody who still hadn’t torn his eyes away from the window he stood in front of. Jed knew Moody was wrestling with what he was seeing out there in the street, trying to understand it.

“Maybe he wasn’t dead,” Moody said, and he seemed to be talking to himself, trying to convince himself. He looked Jed’s way, hoping for agreement. He turned around and looked at Esmerelda.

“He is dead,” Billy said as if he’d been asked personally.

“We all saw him,” Esmerelda nodded in agreement with Billy. “We saw him hanging upside down in front of the church. We saw his face, the blood. His eyes were wide open. He wasn’t breathing.”

Jed felt that seductive pull of rationalization trying to tug at him. He wanted so badly to believe that the pastor hadn’t been dead, only injured and in shock. He’d heard of men surviving hangings, gunshot wounds, and falls. Maybe the pastor had untied his legs from the rope that suspended him in front of the church, maybe he’d gotten down somehow. Maybe he’d come to the saloon looking for help.

But deep down inside Jed knew none of that was true. There was a dead man standing out there in the street right now, a puppet controlled by the dark thing Billy called the Ancient Enemy.

“Hey!” Another sharp yell from the pastor. “Come outside. We need to talk.”

The one who asks for things, that’s what David had just called him. He, or it, whatever it was, had asked for Red Moon when Jed had been in the woods. What would it ask for now?

Jed looked back out the window. “What do you want?” he yelled through the window at the pastor.

The pastor didn’t answer. He didn’t move. He remained fifteen feet away from the steps of the saloon’s walkway. A cold breeze ruffled the pastor’s suitcoat flaps and pants legs, even though they seemed stiff with dried blood. The pastor’s face was deathly pale underneath a black hat pulled down low. His eyes were sunken into his face, just dark shadows from this distance. His face was long and narrow, his body thin, with a malnourished look to it even though he was a tall man with broad shoulders. His arms looked a little too long, his hands a little too large, and those hands were covered with dried blood that looked like mud.

“I want to let you live,” Pastor Starke finally said. “He wants to let you live. He wants most of you to live.”

Most?

“But first there is a test you have to pass,” Pastor Starke said.

Esmerelda joined Jed and Billy at the window. Jed moved to the side a little so she could look out through the glass over the table top they had nailed to the bottom half of the window.

Sanchez rattled his handcuff against the foot rail again, pulling on the cuff, grunting with effort as he tried to break the metal rail away from the bar. He looked back at Jed. “Cut me loose. I can help.”

Jed didn’t answer Sanchez; he looked at Moody and saw the glimmer of hope in the man’s eyes, a look that said there could be a way out of this, a way to survive. But Jed also saw that Moody was still struggling to convince himself that Pastor Starke was alive, that he was some kind of messenger sent by Red Moon and his skinwalkers.

A skinwalker—that’s what Pastor Starke was now. Something had invaded the pastor’s body, walking around in his skin, using the dead man like a puppet.

“We should hear him out,” Moody said, looking right at Jed. “He said he’ll let us live.”

“He said most,” Jed reminded him.

“Does that mean he wants one of us?” Esmerelda asked.

“I won’t wait much longer!” Pastor Starke called out. His voice sounded so deep and loud, gravelly. “He won’t wait much longer. Either you give him what he wants, or bad things are going to happen to all of you.”

Everyone was quiet in the saloon now—even Sanchez had stopped rattling his handcuff against the foot rail, and Karl had stopped rocking and moaning on his blanket.

Jed stood close to Esmerelda. He could smell the faint scent of her perfume. It was a normal smell, a smell of nostalgia for a normal world far removed from this hell they were trapped in now. He looked back out the window and watched the pastor.

The pastor hadn’t moved an inch; he was still in the same spot as before. There was nobody else within sight, nobody on the rooftops across the street, no one inside the buildings beyond the dark windows. Nobody anywhere . . . only the pastor.

“You have three seconds to decide,” Pastor Starke said.

In the silence of the saloon, a noise sounded from upstairs: the creaking of wood. There was a loud stomp up there, then another, then another, like something heavy was walking around up there.

It’s heavy because it’s two people twisted together, walking together, and it’s coming down here now.

Jed wasn’t going to watch that thing come down the steps. He kicked the table leg off of the door, the leg knocking loose easily. He kicked the other one free, pulling it loose from the saloon door. He had made everyone’s decision for them. He unlocked the saloon doors, opened them, and stepped outside. Esmerelda, Billy, and Moody followed him.

“We’re here,” Jed told Pastor Starke when the four of them had gathered on the front walkway. “Call off that thing upstairs.”

Pastor Starke smiled; it was a quick, emotionless smile, the same smile Jed had seen on Roscoe’s severed head, like invisible strings had jerked the corners of his mouth up.

Jed was tempted to stick his head back inside the saloon to make sure Rose and the cowboy weren’t coming down the steps, but he didn’t. He was sure the pastor (the Ancient Enemy) would keep his word, and he was also sure that if something like that was coming down the stairs, David would be out here in a flash.

Moody still had his shotgun and Billy still had Karl’s pistol, but both men kept their weapons down by their sides like they knew the guns were useless against what inhabited the pastor. Jed holstered his Colt.

“What did they do to you, pastor?” Moody called out to the man. “Are . . . are you dead?”

The pastor’s smile was still plastered on his face, the smile of a dummy controlled by a ventriloquist. “I’m both. I’m dead but still somehow alive. He keeps you alive for as long as he needs to. You feel the pain and the terror and the suffering. And it goes on and on and on. He won’t let you go.”

“You said you would let us live,” Moody said. His voice was shaky, and he seemed to be on the verge of tears.

The pastor’s smile drooped down into a frown, his face blank for a moment. Then the smile reappeared, the corners of his mouth jerking up, his dead eyes hidden under the shadow of his hat. “Yes. But you must give him an offering first.”

“And then we’ll live?” Moody asked.

“First the offering, and then he will decide.”

“What kind of offering do you want?” Jed asked.

“Before noon today, he wants a human tongue out here on the floorboards. It doesn’t matter whose tongue it is, as long as it is from a live person. If you don’t have the offering out here by noon, then bad things are going to happen. Such bad things.”

PART 3

BAD THINGS

CHAPTER 25

Two hours later they weren’t any closer to making a decision about the human tongue that Pastor Starke wanted in front of the saloon before noon, but at least they hadn’t heard any more shuffling sounds coming from upstairs. An hour ago they had gone upstairs and entered the room where the abomination that used to be Rose and her cowboy customer lay. Billy looped a rope around one of the twisted ankles and tied the other end to the leg of the bed while Jed kept his Colt .45 aimed at the double-headed thing in case it moved. Billy then looped another rope around the two arms twisted together, pulling it tight at the wrists, then he secured that end to the bed leg underneath the headboard.

“I don’t know if that will be enough to hold them here,” Jed said.

But it was all Billy was willing to do, as close as he or any of them were willing to get to the thing on the bed.

“Maybe we could nail the door shut,” Esmerelda suggested. “Bar it shut somehow.”

After getting the hammer and can of nails, Jed managed to toenail a few nails into the door and then into the frame. He also nailed a few slats of spare wood they’d gotten from some large crates in the storeroom across the door.

Jed still didn’t think it was enough to keep that monstrosity inside the room, but it was going to have to do.

Now Jed, David, Billy, Esmerelda, and Moody were all seated at the table. Karl was lying on his side on his blanket, moaning softly in a fitful sleep. Sanchez had switched positions on the floor in front of the bar he was chained to, but he still looked uncomfortable.

Moody poured his second shot of whiskey, but instead of drinking it, he curled his hands around the shot glass like he had a habit of doing, like the feel of the glass in his hands was as comforting as the whiskey inside of it was. He had taken his pocket watch out earlier and laid it on the table. “We have to do it,” he said, staring at his pocket watch. “You heard Pastor Starke, or whatever it is. It won’t let us live if we don’t give it what it wants.”

“We’re not giving it a tongue,” Esmerelda said.

Moody glanced at her like her opinion didn’t matter, then he looked at Sanchez.

Sanchez stared right back at Moody.

Moody turned back around and spoke in a low voice. “There’s only one person we can use, only one person we would all agree on.”

“No,” Jed said softly.

Esmerelda let out a long, slow breath of relief. She seemed worried for a few seconds that Jed might agree with Moody’s suggestion.

“Why not?” Moody asked, slapping a hand down on the table, making David jump. “You said yourself that Sanchez is an outlaw. A criminal. A killer. You’re taking him to Smith Junction where he’ll surely hang.”

“No,” Jed said again without much force, but it had a ring of finality to it.

“He’s going to die anyway,” Moody said. “We could use him now to save us all.”

“We don’t know if he’ll hang,” Jed said. “He hasn’t been convicted yet. He hasn’t been in front of a judge or a jury.”

Moody sighed like he and all of the others knew which way an Arizona judge and jury were going to side in a case against a Mexican outlaw.

“Maybe we could use Rose upstairs,” Esmerelda said. “Or the cowboy’s tongue.”

Jed saw their melted faces in his mind, their mouths melted together as one, bits of teeth and glistening meat twisted together, their tongues somewhere in that mass of flesh.

“The pastor said it had to be the tongue from a living person,” Moody reminded her.

Esmerelda sighed and everyone was quiet for a moment.

“So that’s it?” Moody finally asked. “Everyone’s made their decision? Everyone’s agreeing to just give up? We’re all going to put our lives at risk to save some murderer’s tongue?”

Jed looked over at Sanchez who was watching them intently. He didn’t look scared, he looked ready to fight to the death rather than let them carve his tongue out of his mouth.

“We could vote,” Esmerelda said.

Moody sighed loudly again.

Jed nodded. “That sounds good. Let’s vote. All who agree not to give that thing out there one of our tongues, raise your hand.”

Jed raised his hand, and he looked around the table. Esmerelda, Billy, and David raised their hands. He looked over at Sanchez who had his free hand raised. Karl was still in and out of consciousness, rocking and moaning in pain right now, not even listening to them.

“The boy doesn’t get a vote,” Moody grumbled. “And neither does the outlaw.”

“He’s got rights like any of us do,” Esmerelda said.

“Even if you discount David and Sanchez,” Jed told Moody, “and even if Karl could wake up and agree with you, then it would still be three to two against you.”

“Fine,” Moody said, throwing his hands up in disgust. “It’s getting close to noon. I suppose we’ll just sit back, relax, and see what bad things are coming for us.”

They were all quiet again. Moody poured his third drink, but he didn’t pick it up yet. He stared at the glass of whiskey as he spoke. “Why a tongue, anyway? What would that thing want with a tongue? It has all of those other bodies in the church to use.”

“It does not want a tongue,” Billy said.

They all looked at him.

“How do you know that?” Moody asked.

“It wants to see how far we will go,” Billy said.

“If it’s so powerful, if it can bring the dead back, then why doesn’t it just come in here and take us?” Moody asked.

“It wants us to do something for it,” Billy said.

“What?”

“It will tell us,” Billy answered him.

Jed watched Billy, and in that moment he was sure that Billy knew what that thing out there really wanted.

“It’s probably not going to tell us anything now,” Moody sulked. “Not if we’re not doing what it tells us to.” He checked his pocket watch again on the table. “Quarter to noon,” he announced.

Jed got up and walked to the windows. They had braced the doors shut again, but it probably didn’t matter anymore now if they did or not. He knew he was taking a chance by not following the Ancient Enemy’s orders, but he just couldn’t allow himself to tear someone’s tongue out of their mouth, whether they were a murderer or not.

In fifteen minutes they would find out. In fifteen minutes the monstrosity from upstairs might snap the ropes, crash through the door, and come down here. Or the dead townspeople might come crashing through the saloon doors and windows.

How could they stop that thing upstairs or the dead people in town? They couldn’t shoot them, that wouldn’t slow them down—they were already dead. Chop them up? Burn them? Maybe they could splash lantern oil on them and light them on fire. But they would probably burn the saloon down at the same time. Maybe even the whole damn town. And that creature would still be out there. The Ancient Enemy would just bring more dead people. Somewhere out there in the desert, Red Moon was waiting. And Dobbs. And Roscoe. And David’s family.

The saloon was safe for now, but deep down inside Jed knew it wasn’t. Esmerelda had said as much. What did she know that he didn’t? What did Billy know about this that he was keeping hidden?

The answer seemed close. It seemed like Jed should be able to see the answer. He was overlooking a vital clue or two, a piece of the puzzle that would bring the whole picture into view.

If Esmerelda and Billy really knew what was going on, if they really knew what that Ancient Enemy was after, then why were they keeping it to themselves? Why not talk about it so they could all put their heads together and come up with a plan to beat that thing out there? The Ancient Enemy was powerful, there was no doubt about that, but it was also hesitant about coming inside the saloon. Something in here scared the Ancient Enemy.

Jed felt like the answer was almost there, like something was materializing out of a fog and he could almost make out the edges of it, almost see it.

“No!” Esmerelda screamed.

Jed heard the clatter of the shotgun, the scraping of a chair on the floorboards, the chair tipping over and crashing to the floor. He turned around and saw Moody running at Sanchez with the shotgun in his hands, the weapon aimed at the outlaw.

CHAPTER 26

Jed drew his Colt and pointed it at the back of Moody’s head.

Moody stood in front of Sanchez, his shotgun aimed down at the man, his finger on the trigger.

“Don’t do it,” Jed growled at him. “What you’re doing right now is murder, and I’ve got the legal right to gun you down for it.” Jed felt a moment of calmness washing over him, a feeling he hadn’t felt in days. He was back in his element now, dealing with a problem he knew well, dealing with a problem he knew how to solve.

Moody trembled a little, but he still aimed the shotgun at Sanchez. “We need to do this,” he said without turning around to look at Jed.

“You kill him and we can’t use his tongue anyway,” Esmerelda said. “Don’t you see that?”

Jed figured Esmerelda was trying to rationalize with Moody. He didn’t look at her, but he could tell by the sound of her voice that she was still a few feet away from them. He also heard the sly movements of Billy getting into position with Karl’s Smith & Wesson. Jed knew Billy could be as silent as a cat if he wanted to, but he was letting his movements be heard not only by Jed, but by Moody.

“I’ll just shoot him in the legs until he lets us take his tongue,” Moody said.

“You fire that shotgun and you’ll have to reload,” Jed reminded him. “I’ll put a bullet through your brain before you can do that.”

Sanchez drew his legs up close to his body so Moody would have no choice but to kill him if he pulled the trigger.

That was smart, Jed thought.

Sanchez waited there, still showing no fear as he stared up at Moody without blinking, his dark eyes never wavering. He didn’t beg or cry; he just watched Moody. Jed wondered if Sanchez would walk up the gallows steps like that, silent and cold, confident that he’d done nothing wrong.

“We have to do this,” Moody said. He was trembling more now, beginning to cry.

“Just lower the shotgun,” Jed said in a softer tone of voice. “We’re all under a lot of pressure. We’re all scared.”

Moody started crying harder, lowering the shotgun in defeat. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I don’t know what else to do. I—”

Moody’s words were cut off as Jed struck him in the back of his head with the butt of his Colt. Moody dropped to the floor with a thud, already unconscious.

Esmerelda stifled a scream. Jed glanced back at her and saw that she had her arm around David, both protecting him and comforting him.

Billy stood a few feet away, backing Jed up with Karl’s pistol. He swooped in and grabbed Moody’s shotgun from the floor.

Jed hadn’t hit Moody that hard; Moody would be waking up in a few minutes so Jed went to work quickly. He dug the key to the handcuffs out of his pants pocket and unlocked the cuff from the foot rail of the bar, and then he unlocked the cuff from Sanchez’s wrist.

Sanchez looked shocked, but he didn’t say anything. He remained seated there in front of the bar.

Jed turned Moody over onto his stomach, wrenching both of his hands behind his back. Moody was already waking up, grumbling, but still too weak and stunned to fight back as Jed shackled his hands together. Jed stood up and holstered his Colt.

Moody flipped over onto his side, fully awake now and panicking, blinking in shock as he stared up at Jed. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Placing you under arrest for attempted murder,” Jed told him.

“I wasn’t trying to kill him, just wound him,” Moody argued. “I was trying to save our lives!”

Jed looked at Billy. The Navajo seemed to know what Jed wanted from him—he helped Jed get Moody up to his feet. They walked him to the table and sat him down in his chair.

“This is outrageous,” Moody said. “You can’t do this. I’m going to get a lawyer in Smith Junction and bring charges against you.”

Jed didn’t reply.

“This is my saloon,” Moody said. “My hotel.”

“It’s also American soil,” Jed told him. “American land with American laws.”

“He’s a murderer!” Moody yelled, rocking in his chair, nearly tipping it over as he turned around to stare at Jed.

“Do I need to tie you to the chair?” Jed asked him.

Moody stared at Jed like he was ready to catapult up out of the chair at him, but he remained seated and quiet, breathing heavily, his fleshy face red with rage and exertion. There was no blood in his hair from the blow Jed had landed from the butt of his pistol.

“Good,” Jed told Moody and then turned his attention to Sanchez who was still in the same spot in front of the bar even though he was free now. “You going to be trouble?”

“No,” Sanchez answered.

“Good,” Jed said again. “We’re all in this together. We’re not hurting each other or killing each other. Agreed?”

Sanchez nodded. Jed looked at the others. Billy and Esmerelda nodded.

“You,” Jed said, turning back to Sanchez. “Come over here and sit down at the table. You’re still a wanted man.”

Sanchez got up slowly. He stood for a moment on unsteady legs, like he was trying to get the circulation going in them again. Then he walked over to the table, pulled out a chair and sat down.

Jed wasn’t sure if Sanchez would be trouble or not, but at this moment he felt that he could trust Sanchez more than he could trust Moody. As long as Sanchez didn’t get a gun in his hands or run. But it didn’t look like Sanchez had any intention of running outside with that thing out there.

“Marshal,” Esmerelda said.

Jed looked at her. She had Moody’s pocket watch in her hand. “It’s noon.”

The saloon was silent.

Jed walked over to the window to the left of the door. Billy had slipped Karl’s pistol down into his belt among the layers of his clothing, and he still had Moody’s shotgun in his hands. He went to the other window and looked outside.

“What is it?” Moody asked. “What do you see out there?”

Jed stared out the window, keeping to the side of it as much as possible. He looked out at the street, at the buildings on the other side of the street, up and down the street as much as possible, but there was no one out there.

“You see anything?” Moody asked.

Jed turned around and looked at Moody, then at Esmerelda. “Nothing yet.”

“Unchain me!” Moody snapped. “You can’t leave me like this. I have a right to defend myself, damn it. This is my saloon.”

Jed looked back out the window, his hand on the butt of his Colt.

“I’m better now,” Moody said in a softer voice, turning to Esmerelda. “I swear it.” He looked at Sanchez across the table who was watching him with an expressionless face and cold eyes. “That outlaw’s going to grab a gun and shoot me.”

Several minutes passed as Jed stared out the window, watching for any sign of movement, listening for any sounds from out there. He also listened for any sounds coming from upstairs. But there was nothing but silence and stillness. He continued watching the street. When the pastor showed up, or whatever else might show up, Jed wanted to see which direction they came from. He wanted to see where they were hiding right now. Were they in the church down the street? He couldn’t see the church from the saloon windows, but he watched that direction, waiting for someone or something to come walking down the dirt street.

The saloon was silent again. No sounds except for Karl who had started moaning louder, rolling back and forth on his blanket.

“Something’s wrong with Karl,” Moody said.

Jed hated to move away from the window, but he walked back to the table. Billy followed him, standing beside him with the shotgun. They all stared at the Swede as he tossed and turned on the blankets, his eyes squeezed shut, his hands on his belly, his face redder now, sweatier.

David jumped to his feet from the chair beside Esmerelda. He ran around the table to Jed, clinging to him.

“What’s wrong, David?” Jed asked.

The boy didn’t answer. He stared across the room, watching Karl like he was afraid of him, like he was waiting for something to happen.

“Moody’s right,” Esmerelda said, standing up from her chair and backing away from all of the blankets spread out across the floor. “Something’s wrong with Karl. Look at his belly.”

Jed saw it now. Karl was a thin man. When he’d been out on the walkway this morning, his abdomen had looked sunken in while he held it. But now it looked bloated.

“Help him!” Moody shouted.

Esmerelda walked around the table, joining Jed and David, getting as far away from the moaning man on the blankets. She looked at Billy.

Billy walked past the table and crouched down beside Karl. He laid Moody’s shotgun down on the floor.

Karl was moaning louder, a scream caught in his throat. He thrashed back and forth, his hands clutching at his swollen belly.

As he drew a knife from the sheath on his belt, Billy whispered words in Navajo that sounded like a prayer.

“What the hell are you doing, Injun!” Moody screamed. He looked at Jed. “Get that savage away from Karl!”

For just a moment Jed thought Billy meant to scalp the Swede, even though the Navajo weren’t known for scalping. Besides, Karl didn’t have much hair left to scalp.

“We need to see,” Billy said without turning to any of them. He kept his head down, his eyes on Karl.

Jed started towards Billy and Karl, but then he felt a tug at his waist. He looked down at David who stared up at him—the boy shook his head no slowly.

“You keep away from him!” Moody yelled at Billy as he stood up from his chair, knocking it backwards onto the floor.

Jed was about to tell David that he needed to go and help Karl, but David kept his small hand on Jed’s belt, his fingers curled around it, trying to hold him back.

Billy used his knife to cut Karl’s shirt open, pulling the torn fabric aside to reveal Karl’s distended belly. It looked like Karl was pregnant.

There was something moving around inside of Karl’s belly, things moving around just underneath his skin . . . lots of things.

CHAPTER 27

“You keep your filthy hands off of him!” Moody roared as he stood beside the table, right in front of his tipped-over chair.

Billy continued whispering in his language, but he had backed away from Karl as he slid his knife back into the sheath on his belt.

Karl was still on his back on top of the blankets. He thrashed, but it seemed like it was too painful for him to roll over onto either side anymore. His belly swung back and forth with each movement like it was full of liquid. The pain seemed unbearable to Karl now as he groaned and grunted. Veins and tendons stood out on the sides of his thin neck like cords. His eyes bulged, threatening to pop out of his face. He gritted his teeth, spittle flying out from between his lips. He tried to form words in his groans—they sounded like gibberish, a mixture of English and Swedish.

Jed couldn’t take his eyes off of Karl’s belly—that distended mound of pale flesh. The skin of his belly rippled, sucking in for a moment in some places and then pushing back out, like rats were squirming around under there.

And Jed knew what might be underneath Karl’s skin because he’d seen this before when Red Moon had come to visit him in the desert. He’d seen Red Moon sitting there in the darkness as the beetles moved underneath his skin; he’d watched those beetles bore out through holes, dropping down into his lap, melting together, becoming some other kind of animal, forming into something much bigger.

“Help him!” Moody screamed again, but he backed up a step.

“I don’t know what to do!” Esmerelda yelled back, close to tears.

With a roar, Karl sat straight up, his eyes wide, his mouth open in a scream. Then he flopped back down onto his blankets, his head crashing onto the floor, the blankets barely buffeting the back of his head. The movement inside of his belly was now traveling up to his chest, then up to his neck which bulged like an overfilled sausage casing. Karl’s mouth opened wide again, and even his face seemed fatter now, like pressure was building up inside of his head, pushing against his flesh. His eyeballs were close to popping out. He no longer made a noise, unable to scream because something was blocking his throat. Karl retched, his mouth open so wide it looked like his bottom jaw had come unhinged and was ready to detach from the rest of his face. There were loud popping sounds of snapping joints and bones, a sound like dry chicken bones breaking. A clear, foamy fluid spilled out of Karl’s mouth followed by large dark wriggling shapes in the thick liquid. The shapes unfurled their legs as they escaped his mouth in a torrent, becoming tarantulas as they crawled all over each other in the mucus. Some of the spiders landed on Karl’s chest, others on the blankets, and then they skittered away, leaving trails of shiny ooze behind.

Esmerelda screamed and backed away from Jed and David.

Sanchez shot up to his feet, knocking his chair backwards. He backed away from the table, joining Billy who was near the window now with Moody’s shotgun in his hands.

“Help me!” Moody yelled as the spiders darted across the blankets towards him. He tried to back up, but he tripped over his fallen chair and crashed down to the floor onto his side. He kicked his legs, trying to push himself back as dozens of spiders raced towards him.

For a moment Jed was paralyzed with shock, unable to take his eyes off of Karl. The Swede’s belly was small now, but still a lot bigger than it should have been. There were still more tarantulas inside of him—maybe hundreds more.

Karl had passed out, or maybe even died. His eyes had rolled back, only showing the whites. His head was turned to the side as more mucus and spiders poured out of his wide-open mouth. There was a wet ripping sound as Karl’s belly split open from the waist of his pants almost up to his sternum, like an invisible knife had cut his flesh open from the inside. Through that large slit, hundreds of tarantulas squirmed out, crawling all over each other and dropping down his sides to the blanket, crawling down his pants legs.

“Help me!” Moody cried. He’d given up on trying to stand with his hands cuffed behind his back; he was still trying to push himself away, kicking at the floor as the wave of spiders crawled towards him.

Jed sprang into action. He raced over to Moody and got behind him, grabbing him underneath his armpits and pulling him backwards across the floor away from the quickly advancing spiders.

Moody struggled in Jed’s hands, kicking at the first of the spiders that had reached him. Some of the spiders crawled all over his shoes, and a few of them crawled up underneath his pants legs. Moody kicked his legs, stamping his feet, managing to crush a few of the spiders, but there were too many of them. The spiders seemed to be working together like a hive mind, like ants or bees, all of them with a singular purpose.

The other spiders skittered across the floor towards Esmerelda, Sanchez, and Billy.

“Hold still,” Jed told Moody.

“Help me,” Moody squealed, still kicking his legs at the floor.

Jed had the key to the handcuffs in his hand, trying to unlock one of the cuffs to free Moody’s hands, but the man was thrashing and panicking too much.

“One’s under my pants leg,” Moody screamed. “It’s biting me!”

Jed almost lost the key in his fingers as Moody bucked back against him, but he held on to it. He managed to stick the key into the handcuff on Moody’s right wrist, unlocking it. Moody’s hand sprang away like an uncoiled snake striking.

Esmerelda had backed up towards the doors, stomping on the floor with her low-heeled ankle boots as the first of the tarantulas reached her.

Billy fired his shotgun down at the floor, killing a few of the spiders, but also blasting a huge hole in the floor. The shotgun was out of shells and he dropped it, pulling Karl’s pistol out and shooting a few more of the spiders, creating a few more holes in the floorboards.

Where was David?

Jed was about to yell for David, but then he saw him walk right in front of him and Moody. The boy stood there among the sea of spiders, but that sea of tarantulas suddenly halted, and then all of the spiders backed away from David in all directions at the same time. The spiders were going crazy, many of them curling up immediately into a ball and dying, their hairy bodies shriveling up. Many of the spiders raced to the holes that Billy had made in the floor with the shotgun and the pistol, crawling down into the holes and disappearing underneath the floor to escape.

David walked towards the table, then towards the double doors, the wave of spiders staying in front of him, trying to flee from him.

“Open the doors!” Jed yelled.

Billy and Sanchez were at the doors already, the wave of spiders racing towards them. They each grabbed a door handle and opened the doors wide. Sanchez ran back towards the bar where Esmerelda had retreated to, and Billy went to the foot of the stairs.

David walked past the table towards the doors. The wave of spiders in front of him backed up towards the doors, spilling out onto the walkway.

Jed looked over at Karl. His belly was sunken in again, his head turned to the side, his eyes and mouth still wide open. Blood and mucus were dribbling out of his mouth, and even more blood was leaking from the slit in his abdomen. But the spiders were gone. Many of them were curled up and dead on the blankets and floor, but most of the spiders had scurried out through the doorway as David slowly moved towards them.

David was driving the spiders away. They were afraid of him.

Moments later the spiders were gone. David stood a few feet away from the open doorway to the saloon, his eyes glazed over like he was in a trance.

“The doors!” Jed yelled as he pulled Moody up to his feet.

Billy and Sanchez hurried to the saloon doors, slamming them shut. Billy grabbed the table leg from the floor and jammed it up underneath the door handle and kicked it into place, keeping the door shut.

“How the hell did he do that?” Moody asked as he stood next to Jed, breathing hard and staring at David in shock.

CHAPTER 28

“How’d that boy do that?” Moody asked again. He stomped his feet, then he bent over and pulled his pants leg up, checking for spiders.

Jed looked down at Moody’s bare legs—there were two lumps already forming on his shins from spider bites.

David stood between the table and the saloon doors. He looked shocked and confused, like he had just woken up from a dream and he wasn’t sure where he was or what he had been doing.

“How’d he make those spiders go away?” Moody yelled again, letting his pants legs drop back down.

Karl groaned and puked up more clear mucus with globs of dark blood mixed in. He rolled over onto his side and moaned again.

“We need to tend to him,” Esmerelda said and raced over to Karl.

Billy and Sanchez were right behind Esmerelda as she knelt down beside him.

Karl still retched, vomiting up more thick globules of blood mixed in with the slimy mucus. His belly was flat again, but the tear in the middle of it was leaking more blood down onto the blanket . . . too much blood. His breaths were shallow, his skin paler than ever and glistening, his blond-white hair slicked back with sweat. His eyes were closed now, and he was trembling uncontrollably.

“He’s not going to make it,” Jed told them as he walked up to them. Moody was right beside him now. Jed knew this merchant was their friend, but there was no hope for the man now. He was losing too much blood, and God knew what had been done to his insides from those spiders. God knew how many organs were damaged or ruptured.

Billy nodded in agreement.

“We could use him,” Moody said.

They all looked at Moody.

“We could use Karl before he dies,” Moody said. “We could take his tongue out.”

Esmerelda stared at Moody in horror. It looked like she wanted to respond, but she couldn’t seem to get the words out, too shocked for a moment to speak.

“He’s going to die,” Moody said. “Like the marshal just said. But he’s not dead yet. We could still use him while he’s alive.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Esmerelda asked Moody.

“I’m just trying to save us,” Moody snapped at her. He looked at Jed beside him, then at Billy and Sanchez, and then finally at David. He looked back at Esmerelda. “That thing out there can do anything it wants to. We should’ve listened. We should’ve given him the tongue. And we could still do it. I know it’s after noon now, past the deadline, but maybe it will still accept the offering. Maybe it will realize that we’ve learned our lesson.”

“Our lesson?” Esmerelda asked, her face scrunched up in disgust.

“Yes,” Moody said. “We were supposed to give it an offering, or bad things were going to happen.” He glanced down at Karl who moaned softly. Karl seemed too weak to even writhe in pain anymore.

“You don’t understand, do you?” Esmerelda said with pity.

“I understand plenty now.”

“I don’t think you do,” Esmerelda said. “These spiders were already inside Karl since early this morning. Ingrid put them inside of him when she kissed him.”

“You . . . you don’t know that.”

“How do you think they got inside of him?” she asked him. “This bad thing was going to happen to Karl whether we gave that monster a tongue or not.”

“It does not want a tongue,” Billy said. “It will keep trying to frighten us so badly that we will do anything it wants. That is the story of the Ancient Enemy.”

“And you know what it wants,” Jed said to Billy. “Don’t you? You know what it really wants.”

Billy didn’t answer; he just stared right back at Jed.

Jed looked at Esmerelda. “And so do you. You and Billy, the two of you have known all along what that thing has wanted.” Jed suddenly saw the answer that he’d been missing the entire time, and maybe he had been trying to avoid the answer because he didn’t want to face the truth—the monster out there wanted David.

Esmerelda nodded slightly at Jed like she knew he had finally seen the truth.

“He’s dead,” Sanchez said, nodding down at Karl.

They all looked down at Karl. His body was still, his eyes half open, a line of bloody drool leaking out of the corner of his mouth.

“We need to get him outside,” Jed said.

Moody stared at Jed. “We shouldn’t open those doors right now.”

“We’ve got two dead people upstairs to deal with,” Jed reminded him. “We don’t need another one right here in the middle of the saloon that can turn against us.”

“He is right,” Billy said as he moved towards Karl.

Esmerelda got up and moved out of the way as Sanchez helped Billy with Karl’s blanket.

“Move back,” Jed told Moody. “Let them get Karl out of here.”

Moody tried to stare Jed down, but he gave in and moved out of the way. “We should say something for him,” he said. “He was a Christian.”

Sanchez pulled out a gold crucifix from under his shirt and held it in his fingers. He began praying in Spanish. Everyone was quiet as Sanchez finished the prayers. He tucked the crucifix back inside his shirt.

“Thank you,” Esmerelda told him.

Billy grabbed one corner of the blanket at the end of it, and Sanchez grabbed the other corner. Jed opened the saloon doors for them so they could drag Karl outside. He had his Colt in his hand, ready to cover them as they dragged Karl’s body down the walkway to the edge of it. Billy folded the rest of the blanket over Karl’s body, covering him up, whispering his own set of prayers as he did so.

Jed looked up and down the street, but he didn’t see the pastor or anyone else around. He didn’t see any of the spiders out here either.

After they went back inside the saloon, Billy helped Jed brace the doors shut again. The table legs braced in front of the doors seemed like a joke; if the Ancient Enemy wanted to get inside of the saloon, then it would.

Esmerelda already had a broom and a bucket of water, cleaning up the dead spiders all over the floor.

“We should get those holes in the floor patched up,” Jed said.

Billy and Sanchez followed Jed to the storeroom to find a few more pieces of wood from the crates that they could use on the floor. After Jed had handed a few scraps of wood to Billy, he went into Moody’s office and came back out with Sanchez’s guns and gun belt in his hands. He handed them to Sanchez. “Can I trust you with these?”

Sanchez nodded and took his guns and belt.

“You’re giving that criminal his guns back?” Moody asked, shaking his head.

“We’re all in this together now,” Jed told Moody, then he looked back at Sanchez, hoping he wasn’t making a mistake. “We all need to help each other.”

CHAPTER 29

David helped Esmerelda clean up the dead spiders, and then he helped her carry the bucket of water so she could get as much of the blood cleaned up on the floor. Most of Karl’s blood had been soaked in his blanket, but there was still some on the floor. After they had cleaned up as best they could, David helped Esmerelda get some food ready for supper. She heated the leftover pot of stew on top of the stove.

Jed watched David as he helped Esmerelda, and he swore he saw a smile on the boy’s face a few times after she had whispered something to him. David seemed more at ease now that he had a chore to do, something for his mind to focus on besides the horrors that waited outside the saloon doors.

After the stew was warm, Esmerelda and David dished up bowls and brought them to the table along with the rest of the cornbread muffins. David drank another cup of tea while the rest of them sipped on coffee.

Moody declined the food, opting to drink two more shots of whiskey instead. After he had drained the two whiskeys, he cradled the glass in front of him like he usually did, staring down at it.

None of them felt like eating, and only Billy and Sanchez ate half of their meals. Esmerelda barely touched her bowl of stew, but she tried to encourage David to eat his. He slurped down a few bites of stew and nibbled at the muffin.

They were all quiet now for a moment as they sat at the table. Moody was brooding, and Jed watched him for a moment, but Jed was thinking about the Ancient Enemy and what it really wanted—David.

“It wants David,” Jed said. He looked at David who sat right next to Esmerelda.

David stopped eating, his spoon still in his hand.

“It killed David’s family, but not David,” Jed continued as he looked at Esmerelda. “Not because David was hiding, but because it couldn’t kill him. Right?” He looked at Billy. “Is that what you’re trying to say?”

Billy nodded. “It wants us to kill the boy for it.”

“I don’t think this is something we should be talking about in front of David,” Esmerelda said.

Jed nodded. “I agree, but we don’t have a choice right now. We can’t split up.” He looked at David. “We’re not going to do anything to you,” he said. “You hear me? You have my word on that. We’re not giving you to that thing out there.”

David barely nodded, still clutching his spoon and staring at Jed with wide eyes of fear.

“But why?” Moody asked, finally lifting his head up from his shot glass and looking at them through red-rimmed eyes. “That thing out there is powerful, we’ve all seen that. It killed an entire town. Why can’t it kill some little Indian boy?”

Billy stared at Moody. “Because David is a shaman.”

“Like a medicine man?” Jed asked. He really didn’t know what the difference between a shaman or a medicine man was.

Billy didn’t bother answering Jed, but he continued on: “David is a shaman, but he does not know it yet. He is able to do things that he does not understand.”

“Like a natural ability,” Esmerelda said, trying to help Billy with his explanation. “He’s a natural shaman, but he doesn’t quite know how to use those powers yet.”

Billy nodded. “Yes. There is always a balance between the dark and the light. When there is something evil and powerful, like the Ancient Enemy, there is always something to . . . to fight back.”

“And the boy can fight back,” Sanchez said.

Billy frowned. “It is not so simple.”

“How about this?” Moody said, eyeing David for a moment. “Maybe that boy’s in league with the devil out there. You ever think of that? Maybe that’s the devil and his demons out there, and that boy is part of it.”

“If that was true, we would already be dead,” Billy said.

Moody sat back in his chair, the wood creaking under his weight. He blew out a frustrated sigh.

Esmerelda stared at Moody. “Suddenly you’re religious? Suddenly you believe in God and the devil?”

He didn’t answer her.

“So, that thing out there needs us to kill David for it,” Jed said, getting back to his point.

David moved closer to Esmerelda like he was suddenly wary of everyone else in the room. She put her arm around him.

“We’re not going to do that, David,” Jed assured him. “But we need to talk about this. We need to understand what’s going on. Okay?”

David barely nodded.

Jed’s throat closed up with emotion as he thought of what David must’ve already gone through. He tried to spit the next words out, but he choked up a little. “It . . . that thing out there . . . it might have tried to get David’s ma and pa to kill him. Maybe his own brother, too. And when they wouldn’t kill him . . .” Jed let his words trail off, wondering again what horrors David had already seen. No wonder the boy hardly ever spoke, he was traumatized by what he’d already seen inside his own home.

“If all of this is true,” Moody said, “then why did it kill everyone else in town? Why not keep a lot of them alive so they can kill David for it? More people, more chances to kill the boy.”

“Because it only needs one of us,” Billy explained. “And it needs us to be so frightened that we will do anything it asks of us. Even kill a boy.”

“It drove you here,” Esmerelda said, looking right at Jed. “First it drove you to David’s house, and then it drove you here to this town.”

Jed was about to argue with Esmerelda, but then he thought back to the morning they had captured Red Moon. He thought back to when they had been about to enter the woods. He had wanted to take a shortcut through the woods that morning, but why? Why had it been so important that he travel through the woods just to save a day or two of traveling? He’d told himself at the time that he wanted to get back to Smith Junction as quickly as possible and collect the bounty. He wanted to get back to his place before winter set in.

But what had been the hurry? He didn’t have anything to go back to. Clara had been dead five years now. He had no wife, no children. His small ranch was a disaster, and if it weren’t for Chavez helping him out, all of his horses and cattle would probably be dead by now.

So what had been his hurry to go through those woods?

Red Moon had tried to warn him not to go into those woods. As soon as they were inside the woods, Jed had known something was wrong—he knew they were being watched, being followed, yet he hadn’t turned around while they still had the chance. He’d known deep down that there was something terrible waiting in those woods, but he hadn’t believed it, chalking his fears up to Red Moon’s mumbo jumbo or Red Moon’s gang trying to rescue him.

A wave of guilt washed over Jed. He’d gotten Roscoe and the Dobbs boy killed. He should’ve known better, he should’ve trusted his instincts.

“If it drove me here,” Jed finally answered Esmerelda, “if I didn’t have any control over what I was doing, then that’s a frightening thought.”

“You have control, but you also do not,” Billy said.

“More Injun nonsense,” Moody muttered as he poured himself another drink.

Jed ignored Moody and looked at Billy.

Esmerelda turned her attention to Sanchez. “You were drawn here, too.”

Sanchez shook his head. “No, señora. I came here because I saw the sandstorm on the horizon.”

“The Darkwind,” Billy said.

“You were diverted here,” Esmerelda told Sanchez. “You were drawn here because you’ve killed before.”

“That was self-defense,” Sanchez said.

“But you’ve still killed, and the Ancient Enemy wants people who have killed before.”

“Like me,” Jed said.

“But not all of us,” Moody snapped. “I’ve never killed a man.”

“But you could,” Jed argued.

Moody smirked. “You don’t know me, marshal. You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know you were willing to shoot Sanchez with your shotgun earlier,” Jed told him. “You were willing to take his tongue.”

Moody looked away.

“You were also willing to take Karl’s tongue while he was still alive.”

Moody still looked away, not bothering to respond to Jed.

Jed looked back at Esmerelda. “If the Ancient Enemy needed a killer to kill David, then why not just send Red Moon instead of me?”

“I don’t know,” Esmerelda answered. “Maybe the Ancient Enemy was afraid Red Moon would kill himself too quickly.”

They looked at Billy for an answer.

“Could be that David has something to do with it,” Billy told them. “The Ancient Enemy can only push so much against David’s pull.”

“So you’re saying David has a choice in who comes here?” Jed asked.

“No,” Billy said. He seemed to be getting frustrated, like he was having trouble expressing what he wanted to say in English. “A force works through David, a bigger and stronger force. It works with David, but it also works through David at the same time.”

“Like God,” Esmerelda said.

Jed felt that Esmerelda understood what Billy was trying to say better than he did.

“We make our own decisions,” Esmerelda continued. “But at the same time God works through all of us.”

Jed looked at David to see if he was following the conversation, but David didn’t even seem to be listening. David had pulled away from Esmerelda, staring at the saloon doors.

Jed turned towards the doors where the sharp afternoon light was coming through the windows around the shades and curtains. He looked back at David. “Is he out there now?”

David nodded.

CHAPTER 30

Jed could hear the pastor calling them now.

All of them got up from the table together, all of them walking towards the saloon doors.

Jed drew his Colt. Sanchez had his guns belted around his waist, both of them slung low; he was tense, ready to draw. Billy had Karl’s pistol tucked into his belt and he was holding Moody’s shotgun, which he had reloaded with two more shells. Jed had gotten another box of shells from Moody’s office and gave them to Billy earlier. Jed wasn’t giving the shotgun back to Moody—he couldn’t trust the saloon owner with it now.

“We all go out there together,” Jed said as they gathered in front of the saloon doors. “We keep David close to us, and we all stay together.”

Esmerelda kept her arm around David’s shoulders.

Jed opened one door, and Sanchez opened the other one. They all stepped out onto the wooden walkway underneath the porch roof of the saloon.

The pastor stood in the same spot in the street, fifteen feet away from the saloon’s walkway. There was nobody else around, only the pastor. A cold breeze blew down through the middle of the town and the sky was so blue above the buildings beyond the pastor. The sun was getting lower in the west, the shadows lengthening along the buildings.

“I’ve been calling you,” the pastor said with that strange smile on his face. His eyes were just dead shadows beneath the brim of his black hat.

Jed looked at the edge of the walkway where they had left Karl’s body. It was gone now, and there were only a few smears of blood left behind on the floorboards.

“He warned you that bad things would happen if you didn’t give him what he wanted,” the pastor said.

“We know what he wants,” Jed yelled at the pastor. “We’re not giving it to him.” He shifted his eyes to the left and then to the right, waiting for dozens of the dead to stumble out of the buildings from across the street.

The pastor stood still for a long moment, like he was deep in thought, his head slightly cocked like he was listening to something they couldn’t hear. His smile slipped into a deep frown. “Kill the boy,” he said in a deep, guttural voice. “Kill the boy and he will let all of you live. All of this will be over. He will let you live. He will let you leave. He will let you stay so you can rebuild your town.”

“You swear that’s the truth?” Moody yelled at the pastor with a hopeful look in his eyes.

“He’s lying,” Esmerelda whispered to Moody, but her eyes shifted to Jed to make sure he understood her. She still held David around his shoulders.

“You have until sunup tomorrow,” the pastor said. “Make your decision or more bad things will happen. Things you won’t believe. Things you can’t even imagine.”

The pastor turned and walked away, heading back towards the church.

Sanchez caressed the handles of his pistols, ready to draw.

“Don’t bother,” Jed told him. “He’s already dead. Won’t make a difference.”

They all went back inside and closed the saloon doors. Jed locked them and shoved the table legs under the door handles as a brace.

They all sat back down at the table.

“We need to talk about it,” Moody said after downing another drink.

“Talk about what?” Jed asked him even though he knew perfectly well what he was referencing.

“If all that thing out there wants is the boy,” Moody held his hands up, “which is not what I’m suggesting we do, then he said he would let the rest of us live.”

“He’s lying,” Esmerelda said. “If we give him . . . give it what it wants, then that thing wouldn’t have any use for us anymore. It would slaughter us just as quickly as it slaughtered the rest of the town.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” Moody said.

“Yes, I do.” She looked at Billy who nodded in agreement.

“Doesn’t matter,” Jed said. “We’re not killing David. We’re not giving him to that thing out there.”

“So what are we going to do?” Moody asked.

“David is the only thing protecting us,” Esmerelda told Moody, but she looked at the others to make sure they understood. “It’s not this saloon that has protected us, it’s not this building or the guns we have that have protected us. The only thing it’s afraid of is David.”

“But the boy doesn’t know what to do with his . . .” Moody waved a hand in the air as he searched for the right word. “His power.”

“There has to be some way we can fight back,” Jed said and looked at Billy for help. “You know more about what’s out there than any of us. Does it have a weakness besides David? Is there any way to kill it?”

“I do not know if it has a weakness besides David,” Billy answered.

“Can David kill it?” Jed asked Billy.

Billy shrugged. “I believe David can hurt it, but I do not know.”

“Well, we need to know more about that thing out there,” Jed said, still looking at Billy. “Tell us everything you know about the Ancient Enemy.”

CHAPTER 31

“The story of the Anasazi—the Ancient Enemy—is an old one,” Billy said. “A long time ago the ancient people lived in cities south and east of here. They built great cities and roads, some of them lived underground. But every one hundred years a demon came to ask for things. This demon could control the wind, animals, and sometimes even people. The demon was always changing its shape and it could inhabit dead people, making them alive again. The demon was very powerful and evil. The demon loved to kill and no one could stop it except one person. The demon would ask for things. Many in those great cities south of here thought the Ancient Enemy was a god at first, an angry god asking for offerings. They gave the god the offerings, but it did not appease the god. It always asked for more. If they refused to give offerings to the god, bad things would happen. There are stories told of whole cities being destroyed, of everyone in those cities being killed.”

“I have heard of those stories, too,” Sanchez said. “My grandmother told me similar stories even though my mother and father didn’t like her talking about those kinds of things. She used to tell me about the Maya and other ancient civilizations, people who seemed to have vanished overnight, like they walked right into the jungle and left their cities behind that they had worked so hard to build.”

Billy nodded. “Yes, the Ancient Enemy is found in many places.”

“Where did it come from?” Jed asked Billy.

Billy shrugged. “Some say the Ancient Enemy came from the stars when the Star People first came here. Others say the Ancient Enemy came after the Star People were already here. Some even say that this was the Ancient Enemy’s home long before the Star People came here and gave birth to man and woman; some say that we invaded its home, and every one hundred years we must make offerings and sacrifices to it so that we can stay here.”

“And this time that sacrifice is a little boy,” Jed said.

“It has always been a little boy,” Billy answered.

Jed felt a chill dance across his skin. “What are you trying to say, that this happens every one hundred years? That someone like David is born and this thing needs to kill it?”

Billy shrugged again and sighed. “Every one hundred years a boy is born. He will grow up to be a very powerful shaman, maybe powerful enough to kill the Ancient Enemy. The Ancient Enemy wakes up and it must kill the boy before he can grow up and become too powerful.”

“So this has happened over and over again, every one hundred years,” Esmerelda said. “How far back?”

Billy shook his head. “I do not know. A very long time.”

“How do we fight it?” Jed asked Billy. “You say David is some kind of natural shaman, but he doesn’t know how to use his powers yet. Can you teach him?”

“I am not a shaman,” Billy told him.

“But I’ve seen you praying,” Jed said without thinking about it. He remembered Red Moon explaining that a person didn’t have to be a shaman or a priest to pray to their god.

“What about your prayers and songs?” Esmerelda asked Billy. “Can they help?”

“I believe all of our faiths together could help,” Billy answered her. “But I cannot be sure.”

“What if we ran?” Jed asked, trying to steer the ideas back to practical ones. “What if we took David with us and ran? We could all stay together.”

“Where would we run to?” Billy asked. “We have no horses.”

“We could go to Smith Junction,” Jed told them. “It’s probably only a two or three days’ walk from here.”

“And then it would follow us,” Billy said. “It would kill everyone in Smith Junction when we got there.”

Jed hadn’t thought of that.

“That thing out there would probably pick us off one by one before we even got close to Smith Junction,” Sanchez said.

“You just don’t want to go anywhere near Smith Junction,” Moody said, sneering at Sanchez.

“Sanchez is right,” Jed said. “That thing would just get all of us one at a time. Just staying close to David wouldn’t be enough. It hadn’t been enough for David’s mother, father, and brother.”

“So, we can’t run,” Esmerelda said. “We have no choice but to fight. We just need to figure out how to fight.”

“I’m sure everyone in town was thinking that last night,” Moody said.

“They were taken by surprise,” Jed told him. “We know it’s coming now. And we know when it’s coming.”

“Yeah, and we know why it’s coming,” Moody said, cutting his eyes to David for a second.

David shrank back from Moody’s stare.

“I know you said you’re not a shaman,” Esmerelda said to Billy, “but there has to be something you could teach David. There must be something you could show him. Anything might help.”

Billy nodded solemnly. “I could try.”

Jed watched the old Navajo—he looked grim, like a man about to face death. But Billy wouldn’t go kicking and screaming to his death, he would be resigned to his fate, welcoming the next world that waited for him.

And Jed decided right there on the spot that he would do the same; he would fight like hell, but when the time came he was going to die with dignity. He’d seen too many men crying and begging when they met their end, and he wasn’t going out like that. There wasn’t much hope of him living past tomorrow morning, and he couldn’t see any other conclusion besides all of them dying for defying that thing’s wishes. But he would save a bullet for himself. Earlier he had promised to save two bullets, one for himself and one for David, but now that he knew that the Ancient Enemy was afraid of David, then at least he wouldn’t have to take David’s life.

Maybe Esmerelda was right, maybe there was something Billy could teach David, or maybe David would instinctively know what to do when the time came. He remembered the way the tarantulas had scattered away from David, hundreds of them curling up and dying. There was no denying that David had some kind of power, maybe even as much power as that thing out there did. It was a longshot that David could beat that thing, but maybe it was possible.

Jed looked at David. The boy still looked scared, but now his attention was on the saloon doors again. Jed turned and looked at the two doors. The setting sun was shining a golden-orange light around the drawn shades. Shadows were beginning to form in the back room of the saloon and up on the balcony above them. The light was sharp but warm at the same time, a fleeting thing as the night slowly took over outside.

Sanchez was tense, his hand down by the butt of his pistol. He was half-turned in his chair, ready to spring into action.

“You hear it?” Jed asked Sanchez.

Sanchez just nodded, not bothering to waste a bit of energy on words.

Everyone else was quiet, all of their eyes on the saloon doors now.

“It sounds like a stampede out there,” Esmerelda said.

CHAPTER 32

Jed heard the sound more clearly now. It sounded a little like a stampede, but also different. There were footsteps out there, but they sounded heavy and slow, not running. More like a march of soldiers.

Sanchez got up, and Jed was right behind him. Billy popped up with Moody’s shotgun in his hands and Karl’s .44 stuck in his belt.

Jed hurried to the window to the left of the saloon doors. Sanchez was at the doors, and Billy was at the window to the right. Sanchez pulled the shade of one of the doors to the side so he could look out through the window, and then he froze.

Even though Jed already had a pretty good idea of what he was going to see out there in the street, even though he had tried to mentally prepare himself, he still wasn’t ready.

Every dead person in town was walking past the saloon like a big herd, all of them moving in the same direction, all of them heading down the street towards the church.

Jed had seen the tracks in the dirt street this morning—he’d known what those tracks were; he’d seen the footprints and the drag marks. All of those tracks had been heading in the same direction: away from the church and to the other end of town, like everyone had left the church together, left the town and walked into the desert. It had been bad seeing those tracks and imagining the dead walking, but it was worse actually seeing them walk.

The sun was still bright enough to illuminate the march of the dead. The dead kept their faces forward, their eyes towards their destination. Even the pastor was among them, at the head of the group, leading this macabre congregation back to the church. The pastor hadn’t turned towards the saloon as he walked past, hadn’t even looked their way or called out to them; he didn’t have that strange smile on his face now. All of their expressions were dead blank.

Jed saw two boys near the back of the group; neither one of them had their legs anymore. They crawled along as quickly as they could with their forearms, dragging their torsos behind them with guts trailing and glistening with dried blood. They were Karl’s boys.

A one-armed woman shambled not too far in front of the boys. She wore a plain dress that was stained with blood. Her blond hair looked sticky with blood, some of it matted to her neck and face. She stumbled forward, swinging her good arm wildly to overcompensate for the stump on her other side. That arm looked to have been torn off, leaving only ragged flesh and the splinters of bone sticking out like a broken tree branch.

Even Karl was among the dead now, the newest of them. He stumbled along with his mouth hanging wide open now, like his jaw was distended when the tarantulas had poured out of his mouth. His shirt hung down from his waist in tatters from when Billy had cut it away. Karl’s torso was pale; the horrific slit in his abdomen crusted with blood and dried mucus. His belly was swollen again now, and there were things moving inside, pushing against his skin. A spindly spider’s leg poked out from the slit in his belly, and then another leg, but these legs were huge—they belonged to a much larger spider than a tarantula.

It was almost too much for Jed to bear, but there were more sights to see. There was a headless woman who carried her head by the long hair, much of the hair tangled up in her fist.

Other dead people limped along on one leg; others had chunks of their bodies torn away. One man was missing the skin and flesh on one side of his face, the bits of skull that were exposed gleamed in the sun like bleached-white paper.

Three shirtless men with no arms walked in a line. There was a hole in the second man’s belly and a long string of his intestines had been pulled out and wrapped around the neck of the man in front of him. The third man had his intestines pulled out of his belly and wrapped round the neck of the second man like a leash.

But every dead person in town wasn’t out there, Jed told himself. There were two people missing from this march through town—Rose and the cowboy. They were still upstairs in the hotel room. Maybe they weren’t out there because they were still tied to the bed, or maybe because they might not be able to walk very well because of the way they were twisted together. But Jed couldn’t help thinking that maybe the Ancient Enemy was saving them for something special when the sun came up.

Jed heard an intake of breath beside him. He turned and saw that Esmerelda had come to stand beside him. He’d been so focused on the dead outside that he hadn’t even heard her walk up beside him.

She didn’t meet his eyes. It was like she couldn’t look away from the show the Ancient Enemy was putting on for them outside.

It’s giving us one last warning, Jed thought. One last spectacle to remember throughout the night, one last incentive to kill David.

Where was David? He wasn’t beside Esmerelda.

David screamed just as Jed turned away from the window.

Moody was behind David with a hunting knife up to the boy’s throat. He pulled David back with his other arm around David’s shoulders, pulling him back deeper into the saloon past the table and chairs.

“Don’t come any closer,” Moody said. “I’ll slit the boy’s throat.”

CHAPTER 33

Jed dropped his hand down to his Colt .45, ready to draw.

“Don’t,” Moody warned. “Don’t any of you move.” He had the Bowie knife up to David’s throat, the edge of it digging into David’s skin a little. Moody’s other arm was around David’s upper arms and chest, holding him close.

“What are you doing?” Esmerelda yelled.

Moody’s face scrunched up with emotion for just a second. He looked like he was on the verge of a sob. “You saw what’s out there. We can’t defeat that. No way. Neither can this kid. We’ve only got one choice—we need to give it what it wants.”

“Be careful,” Esmerelda said. “Moody, just stay very still and think about what you’re doing right now. You’re about to cut a child’s throat.”

“You think I want to do that? You think I want to kill a child? I don’t. But there’s nothing else we can do.”

“We can fight back,” Jed said with his hand still hovering over the butt of his pistol.

“No, we can’t,” Moody snapped at him. “And this Indian boy isn’t going to save us. Billy’s not going to train him in one night to become some kind of medicine man to defeat . . . whatever that thing is out there.”

Just keep him talking, Jed thought. He’d been in negotiations like this before, and he knew the longer he kept the attacker talking, the better his chances were with either reasoning with him or finding some way to get the jump on him. “The boy has power,” he told Moody. “You have to see that. You saw what happened with the spiders. If David hadn’t helped you, those spiders would’ve been all over you. All over both of us. You might have died if David hadn’t helped you.”

Moody’s face scrunched up again as he teared up. He pulled David back even deeper into the saloon, closer to the blankets laid out on the floor. “I don’t want to do it, but it’s the only thing we can do to save our lives.”

“Just let him go,” Esmerelda said. “We can talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Moody snapped, holding on to David even tighter, the knife’s blade digging in just a little more. “Let me ask you a question, Esmerelda.”

“Anything.”

“Have you seen the future? Have you laid out the cards and seen our futures? Have you seen our future in your dreams?”

Esmerelda didn’t answer.

“Because you can’t see it,” Moody said. “You haven’t dreamed about it because we don’t have a future, do we?”

Esmerelda still didn’t answer.

Moody sighed, shuddering at the same time. He stopped moving backwards with David, standing his ground at the edge of the blankets now. His eyes darted from Esmerelda to Billy. “Drop that shotgun, Billy. And take Karl’s pistol out of your belt nice and slow.” He looked at Sanchez and then at Jed. “You too, Sanchez. And you, marshal. I want your guns on the floor. Use your left hand to unbuckle your gun belts.”

Jed and the other two hesitated.

“You kill David and it will be instant death for all of us,” Esmerelda warned Moody.

“You don’t know that,” Moody answered in a soft voice.

Keep him talking, Esmerelda, Jed thought. Keep him distracted.

“I’m serious about this,” Moody said as he looked back at Jed. He held David even tighter. It was impossible for David to move without Moody cutting into his throat. “Drop your guns right now. All of you.”

“Okay,” Jed said. He was running out of ideas. “Just stay calm.”

“Now!” Moody yelled. “Right now. Three . . . two . . .”

Before Jed even started to unbuckle his gun belt, he heard the sound of metal sliding out of leather, then a gunshot. In that same instant a hole opened up in Moody’s forehead. His body went limp instantly, the knife slipping from his hand and then dropping to the floor. David bolted away from Moody.

For a few seconds Moody stood there, his face slack, his eyes glazed over already. A trickle of blood leaked out from the bullet hole in his forehead along with a tiny wisp of smoke drifting up.

The back of Moody’s head had exploded with the gunshot, the blankets behind him sprayed with a splattering of blood, hair, and bits of bone and brain. Some of the gore dripping down Moody’s back plopped down onto the floor right behind him. And then Moody collapsed like some invisible strings holding him up had just been cut. His legs splayed out and he fell forward, his arms straight out to the sides, his face hitting the floor with a sickening crunch. The back of his head looked like bloody hamburger with jagged shards of skull sticking up through the hair.

“David!” Esmerelda yelled as she ran across the room to him. She hugged him, but then pushed him back and checked his throat.

Jed was right beside Esmerelda a moment later. The wound on David’s throat looked like a red line with just a few spots of blood dripping from it, but it wasn’t deep enough to be concerned about. A sudden anger welled up inside of Jed as he turned to Sanchez who still had his pistol in his hand.

“I had to do it,” Sanchez said, his eyes wide as he stared right at Jed. “We couldn’t give our guns to Moody. He was going to kill the boy anyway.”

Jed stared at Sanchez, saying nothing, fuming.

“He is right,” Billy said.

“You might’ve missed,” Jed told Sanchez.

Sanchez gave the slightest of shrugs, but he still kept his pistol steady and his eyes on Jed. “I might have, but I didn’t.”

Jed knew he should demand Sanchez’s gun right at that moment as a U.S. Marshal, but he also knew that he no longer had any authority as a marshal. They were all in this together now; there were no laws or jurisdictions anymore, just survival.

“Are we good?” Sanchez asked.

Jed nodded. He had to admit that Sanchez had done the right thing, and he could also admit to himself that as good of a shot as he was, he never could’ve made the same shot Sanchez had just made. “Yes, you did the right thing.”

CHAPTER 34

Jed and Sanchez rolled Moody’s body onto a blanket. Billy opened the saloon doors and stepped outside to cover them with the shotgun as they dragged Moody’s body out onto the walkway. They dragged him to the far corner of the walkway, near the edge of it by the street, leaving him in the same place they had left Karl’s body.

Jed covered Moody’s body with the rest of the blanket as best he could. He stood up and looked up the street towards the church. There was no one in front of the church, no one anywhere that he could see. The sun was setting the horizon on fire with bands of red, yellow, and orange.

They went back into the saloon. Esmerelda had lit the lanterns in the wall sconces, and the two lanterns they had been carrying around with them. She had already balled up the other blanket that Moody’s blood had splattered, and it was now stuffed into a corner in the back room.

“I will need some paint,” Billy said.

They all looked at him.

“I need to paint some . . .” He tried to think of the right word in English. “Some symbols.”

“I think I saw a few cans of paint in the storeroom,” Jed said.

Jed and Billy searched the storeroom, but all they could find was a small can of red paint and a frayed paintbrush. “It will have to do,” Billy said.

Billy set the can of paint and the brush on the floor near the saloon doors. He walked back to the table with his knife out of the sheath, gripping it in his hand.

“What’s the knife for, Billy?” Esmerelda asked nervously.

“I need to take a piece of David’s hair. I need to cut a piece for all of us.”

David looked scared.

Jed nodded at David. “It’s okay.”

Billy walked over to David. The boy was tense as Billy took the end of David’s long hair in his hand and cut off a small hunk of it. He handed the piece of hair to Esmerelda. “Keep this on you somewhere,” he told her.

He cut off more small hunks of hair, handing one to Sanchez and the other to Jed. He cut the last piece of the hair off for himself and stuffed the hair into the silver charm on his necklace that opened up. He twisted the charm back into place and holstered his knife on his belt.

Billy said something in Navajo to David that Jed couldn’t understand, and then he motioned at David to follow him. They walked over to the saloon doors. Esmerelda brought them a lantern as Billy emptied a few herbs into a bowl from a leather pouch he pulled out from one of his coat pockets. “I do not have everything I need,” Billy said. “But I will have to use what I have.” He lit the herbs in the bowl on fire and dipped the brush in the can of red paint. David sat on his knees, watching Billy work. As Billy started painting the first of the symbols on the wood floor, he began talking to David in Navajo, his words rambling on and on. David only said a few words back to Billy every so often, nodding at other times, his eyes on the older man the entire time.

*

Hours later Jed sat at the table with Esmerelda and Sanchez. Esmerelda had brought them another pot of strong coffee and poured some into all of their cups. David had listened to Billy as he painted his symbols on the saloon doors and the floor, but now he was exhausted and lying on a blanket.

“He needs to rest now,” Billy had said when David went to lie down. “He needs to enter the dream world to learn more.”

Now Billy sat alone near the saloon doors. He was down on his knees, his eagle feather in his fingers, waving the feather around slowly. Billy told them that he was going to perform something he called the Blessing Way ceremony, but he was also going to perform another ceremony called the Enemy Way.

Would it help? Jed wasn’t sure, but he found himself oddly comforted by the low sounds of Billy’s chanting. He looked from Billy to David, watching him for a moment as he slept. He wondered why a child would be saddled with this kind of power and responsibility.

Sanchez was toying with the gold crucifix around his neck as he sipped his coffee.

Jed looked at Esmerelda. “Can you shoot a shotgun?”

“Just point and shoot,” she said with a small smile.

“It’s got a kick to it.”

Esmerelda nodded. “I’ve shot one before. Purvis showed me how.”

Jed didn’t bother asking Esmerelda who Purvis was. “You’ll use the shotgun when the time comes. I found another box of shotgun shells in Moody’s office. Billy can use Karl’s gun.” Jed had his Colt .45, and of course Sanchez had his pair of expensive pistols.

“So that’s the plan?” Esmerelda asked. “Just shoot at them until we run out of bullets?”

Jed shrugged. “Maybe each of us should save a bullet for ourselves.”

No one said anything for a moment.

“I don’t want to be one of those things out there,” Jed explained. “I don’t want to be kept alive and made to do those things.”

“Their spirits have moved on,” Billy said.

Jed whirled around in his chair. He hadn’t heard Billy walk up to the table; he hadn’t even realized that he had stopped chanting.

“They are not alive anymore,” Billy said.

“I agree,” Esmerelda added. “I don’t think anyone out there is alive anymore. I can’t . . . I can’t feel anything from them except . . .” She hesitated.

“Except what?” Jed asked her.

“Nothing except darkness from them. A void. Nothingness. But there’s something else out there, an evil like I’ve never felt before.”

“Like the devil,” Sanchez said, still rubbing his crucifix with two fingers.

“They’re just empty bodies now,” Esmerelda said. “Empty shells to be filled with that thing’s evil. They are puppets in every sense of the word. That thing controls all of them, bits of itself inside each one of them. It wants us to believe they are still alive and suffering. It wants us terrified of being trapped between life and death, but it’s all a lie. Billy’s right, everyone out there is already dead.”

“We don’t save a bullet for ourselves,” Sanchez said. “We all fight to the death.”

Jed felt a twinge of anger at Sanchez’s words, feeling slighted in some way like Sanchez was calling him a coward for suggesting that they take themselves out. Saving a bullet for oneself had been a common practice for some time now instead of being captured alive by a tribe like the Apache or Comanche. A bullet in the brain was much preferable to a torturous death that could last for days or even weeks.

But Jed let his anger slip away. He held Sanchez’s stare for a moment and then nodded. “Then we fight. We use every last bullet.”

“I want to see my family again,” Sanchez said. “I want to go back home to Mexico and see my mother and father again, and my brothers. But I came here on this adventure knowing that I may not make it back, knowing that I could die at any time.” He shrugged. “I’m ready to die if it comes to that.”

Sanchez had already been facing a certain death swinging from the hangman’s noose in Smith Junction, Jed thought. Even if none of this would have happened here in this town and Jed had turned Sanchez in, he could see that Sanchez would not have gone to his death kicking and screaming, crying and begging. He pictured Sanchez on his walk to the gallows through an angry crowd of townspeople, Sanchez stoic and calm as people shouted and spat at him. He could imagine Sanchez climbing the gallows steps with his back straight and head held high above the hatred, not willing to make a fool of himself in front of the crowd, not willing to give them that satisfaction.

Billy went back to his lantern near the front door and the bowl of herbs that was still smoking and sending a slightly pungent odor their way. He crouched down with his eagle feather again, chanting softly.

“I guess you found your adventure,” Esmerelda told Sanchez, drawing Jed’s attention back to them.

Sanchez smiled at her. “My father is a very wealthy man, as was his father before him. My family owns ranches, farms, and mines. We employ hundreds of people. I am to inherit that fortune, along with my brothers. But first, I wanted to travel and find adventure before I found a woman to marry and settle down in that life.”

“Where’d you learn to shoot like that?” Jed asked.

Sanchez took a sip of coffee, taking his time before he answered. “When I was seventeen years old, my father hired a gringo to help protect him. The man was tall and thin. He looked like he was maybe forty years old. He didn’t look . . . what’s the word I’m looking for?”

“Intimidating?” Esmerelda offered.

Sanchez snapped his fingers and smiled. “That’s the word. He didn’t look intimidating, but there was this darkness about the man, something that made men shrink back without knowing what it really was. It was like everyone could tell that this gringo was dangerous, and that he had seen death. Not only seen death, but dealt it out many times during his life. I saw him practicing with his pistol one day and I approached him. I had heard rumors that the gringo used to be a lawman and a gunslinger before, and the way he was shooting, I could believe it. Some of my father’s men even said there was a bounty on the gringo’s head. But of course none of my father’s workers would dare cross my father by turning the gringo in, so he knew he was safe. He was an important man to my father, traveling with my father to protect him like a . . .” Again, Sanchez searched for the right word.

“Like a bodyguard,” Esmerelda said.

Sanchez smiled, bowing his head slightly. “That’s it exactly. Like a bodyguard. I was around the gringo often, and I asked him to teach me to shoot like he did. Of course he said no, but eventually my father allowed the gringo to teach me to shoot. But the gringo told me that he would only teach me if I agreed to one condition—I had to promise that I would only use my skill for good and self-defense. I made the promise and the gringo taught me and my brothers. My brothers grew bored quickly, but I was . . . fascinated. Obsessed. I listened to the gringo’s stories about his adventures in many places, from Texas to Montana. He told me stories about the famous lawmen he had worked with. And he told other stories of robberies and gunfights. Those stories seemed like fairy tales to me, beyond belief, but I told myself that I would one day travel north to see those lands and have those kinds of adventures.”

Jed was getting an idea of who the old man might be, but it couldn’t be possible, could it? “What was the gringo’s name?” he asked Sanchez. “Was his name Dave Mather? Mysterious Dave Mather?”

Sanchez smiled and shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter now, does it? The name he used in Mexico wasn’t his real name.”

“Who’s Mysterious Dave Mather?” Esmerelda asked.

“He was a lawman in Montana and Kansas,” Jed said. “He even worked with Wyatt Earp for a short time. But he was also a gunslinger and a criminal. Many claimed he got away with a lot of crimes through the years. He jumped bail around ’85 and was never heard from again.” Jed looked right at Sanchez.

Sanchez just smiled. “I kept my promise to the gringo,” he said like he was trying to change the subject. “I only used my skills for self-defense.”

Jed stared at him. He knew Sanchez wasn’t going to admit to who the gringo really was down in Mexico. Maybe the man was still there under the employ of his father. “What really happened in that shootout in Smith Junction?”

Sanchez sighed. He gave a wave of his hand. “What does it matter now?”

“Tell us,” Esmerelda implored.

Jed waited.

“A man was going to kill me,” Sanchez said.

“Why?” Jed asked him.

“For just being Mexican,” Sanchez answered. “He wanted my pistols. My boots. My silver coins. He wanted anything of value I had. He said a filthy Mexican didn’t deserve to have the things I had. He insulted me, and I challenged him on it.” Sanchez paused for a moment. “The man was drunk, but he took my challenge. We stepped out into the street. It was over in a few seconds. But the townspeople rushed at me, many of them already yelling that I had killed the man in cold blood. Others were running to get the sheriff and his deputies. My horse was nearby. I had no choice but to ride away. I rode east for a few days, staying in some small towns, and then camping out in the desert. I waited a few weeks until I was sure I had thrown them off my trail, and then I started heading south. And that’s when that sandstorm came. I saw this town on the horizon and here I am now.”

Jed nodded. “Yes, here we are now.”

CHAPTER 35

A few hours later Sanchez was asleep on his blanket. Jed wasn’t sure how the man could sleep when they might only have a few more hours of life left, but he was breathing deeply, curled up on his side, facing away from the table. David was still asleep. Even Billy looked like he had fallen asleep even though he was still sitting up on the floor. His head was slumped forward and he had stopped chanting. His bowl of herbs had burned out hours ago, but his lantern was still lit.

Jed took another sip of his coffee. It was cold, but it still tasted good and strong. The other lantern they had was sitting on top of the bar, lighting up that side of the saloon just a little, the lantern’s glow reflecting back at him from the mirror behind the bar. Esmerelda had stoked the wood stove before lying down on her blanket to try to get some sleep. The stove was still burning, but it didn’t seem to put out much heat. The rest of the saloon was swallowed up in darkness, the stairs just a shadow, the back room shrouded in impenetrable blackness. Everything was quiet; the only sounds were the heavy breathing and the occasional popping and creaking of the wood floors and walls. But at least there were no rustling sounds of movement from upstairs or any sounds from outside.

For a moment Jed thought that he might actually be asleep and dreaming all of this. Maybe the Ancient Enemy had put another sleeping spell on all of them. Maybe he was dreaming of being awake and sitting at this table right now. The thought of it terrified him for a reason he couldn’t explain, like he was helpless against those gods waiting out there—the Ancient Enemy, or maybe it was Billy’s Great Spirit, or Sanchez’s Christian God, or Esmerelda’s spiritual beliefs.

Jed took another sip of coffee just to prove to himself that he was still awake and in full control of his actions.

A shifting of cloth from the blankets alerted Jed. A moment later Esmerelda walked towards the table from the darkness. She sat down across from him. She looked tired, but still beautiful.

“Can’t sleep?” he asked her in a low voice.

She shook her head. “I guess you can’t, either.”

Jed shrugged. “I felt like I was close to nodding off a few times.”

They were quiet for a few minutes.

“You want some coffee?” Jed asked her.

She shook her head no.

Jed wanted to ask Esmerelda a question, and he could feel the urge building up inside of him. She had been looking towards the bar, deep in thought, but then she looked right at him like she was waiting patiently for him to speak.

“Was it true what Moody said?” he asked.

Esmerelda stared at him without answering.

“Moody said you didn’t read our futures because you already knew we didn’t have a future.”

“I . . . I don’t know. I haven’t read the cards.”

“You—”

“I don’t want to read them,” she said, cutting off his words.

Jed remained quiet.

Esmerelda’s face softened a little. “I’m sorry.”

“But you don’t have any feelings about what’s going to happen?” he asked, pressing. He needed to know. “You haven’t had any dreams or anything like that?”

Esmerelda didn’t answer for a long moment. She finally inhaled a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “I don’t see anything,” she finally said and shrugged. “I don’t feel anything.”

“So that means—”

“I didn’t say that,” she interrupted. “It just means that I feel like my . . . my senses are blocked somehow. I don’t know if that thing out there is interfering with my sense or not. Or maybe David might be interfering. Although he wouldn’t know it, just like he doesn’t know how he’s doing so many other things. Or maybe it’s both of them.” She let out a frustrated sigh.

Jed didn’t push any further. He took another sip of his coffee. His eyes burned like sand had been rubbed into them.

“I was just dreaming before I woke up,” Esmerelda said.

Jed stared at her, waiting for her to continue.

She glanced back at Sanchez and David like she was making sure they were still asleep, then she looked over at Billy who was still seated cross-legged on the floor, his head slumped forward, his hands in his lap. “I can’t explain the dreams,” she said when she looked back at Jed. “I saw strange things. I think they might have been from the future.”

“Our future?”

She shook her head no. “The far future. I saw what looked like these metal carriages that drove by themselves.”

Jed had heard rumors of inventors trying to put engines onto carriages and on bicycles, but he felt that kind of technology wouldn’t happen in his lifetime, maybe not even for another hundred years.

“And I saw flying machines,” Esmerelda said. “Metal machines. Like big metal pie plates in the sky.”

Jed just nodded, not knowing what to say.

“The dream was just bits and pieces,” she said. “None of it really made any sense. It moved from image to image. I saw a woman and a man. I think the man may have been some kind of outlaw. He had a gun, but his gun looked different.”

Jed didn’t interrupt her—she seemed like she was leading up to something.

“David was there.”

“In your dream?”

“Yes. He was with the man and the woman.”

“What were they doing?”

“They were scared. They were in a log cabin. And then the man and woman were in a small house in the jungle without David. The house was near the ocean. But even though David wasn’t there anymore, it wasn’t like he was dead.” She paused for just a second, staring at Jed. “You remember those names we saw written in blood in the dining hall?”

Jed nodded. He remembered.

“Cole and Stella,” Esmerelda said. “I think the man and woman I saw in the dream were Cole and Stella. I don’t know how that’s possible, but it felt so real in the dream. It still feels so real.”

“So you think those names on the wall are two people from the future?” Jed asked.

Esmerelda shook her head slightly, growing frustrated. “I’m sorry. I know it doesn’t make any sense. There were these feelings I had in the dream, feelings of darkness. I can’t remember exactly, but I think I saw a glimpse into a different world, a world so strange that if I stared at it too long I would go mad. That’s when I woke up.”

Esmerelda was trembling now.

Jed moved closer to her. He put his arm around her and it seemed to calm her down a little. “It was just a dream,” he told her, not knowing what else to say.

She nodded.

“How about that cup of coffee now?” he asked her.

Again, she nodded.

Jed got up and walked to the stove. He grabbed a ceramic cup and poured some coffee for her. He brought it back and set it down in front of her.

“Thank you,” she whispered and took a sip.

Jed sat back down in his chair, the wood creaking a little from his weight. “Who’s Purvis?”

Esmerelda smiled. “Oh, that was a few years ago.”

Jed waited—all they had right now was time.

“I grew up in Philadelphia,” she told him.

“I figured you were from back east.”

She nodded. “My mother died when I was very young. I barely remember her. According to my father, my mother was a medium and she could contact the spirits. He saw that same ability in me when I was a child, and he decided to profit off of it like he had done with my mother. We went from town to town, up and down the east coast. My father charged a pretty hefty fee for my services.”

Esmerelda paused for a moment like the rest of her story was difficult to tell. “I couldn’t always just summon my powers at will. After a few embarrassing séances, my father beat me. He never touched my face or hands, only places where the ‘rubes,’ as he liked to call them, couldn’t see my bruises. He told me that if I couldn’t see the rubes’ dead relatives, then I needed to learn how to make things up. Over the next few years I became adept at questioning the rubes and deciphering the clues they unknowingly gave me. Most times, if the questions were just right, the rubes would tell me everything I needed to know. I would ask a leading question and they would give me the answers that I needed.”

“But sometimes you could really contact the dead,” Jed said.

Esmerelda shrugged. “Sometimes. Not as often as my father would’ve liked or as much as he professed to people.”

“When you do contact the dead,” Jed started, and then his throat closed up a little. “What do they say to you?”

Esmerelda stared at him. “Clara.”

He nodded. “My wife. She died five years ago. She got sick for a few weeks. It got harder and harder for her to breathe. I . . . I tried everything I could think of. The doc tried everything. I was ready to haul her in the wagon up to Denver or down to Santa Fe if I needed to, anywhere where someone might know how to save her.”

“I’m sorry,” Esmerelda whispered.

“We never had any children. We always wanted children, especially Clara, but we just never did.” He took another sip of his coffee. “I used to be a god-fearing man. Used to believe. After Clara died . . .” He let his words hang in the cold air. “But now. After the things I’ve seen these last few days, there must be something.”

“There is,” she told him. She touched his hand, laying her small hand over his big one, her smooth skin touching his rough skin, her pale flesh contrasting his tanned flesh.

The touch from her felt good, and Jed was quiet again. He found it difficult to articulate what he wanted to say, that he had turned his back on God, on any supernatural things in the world. He realized now that he had been traveling through the world blind these last five years, blinded from reality by his grief and anger.

“The dead come to me from the light,” Esmerelda said as she pulled her hand away from his.

Jed stared at her.

“They’re in a good place,” she told him with a smile. There were unshed tears forming in her eyes. “There’s this feeling around them of warmth and safety. Of happiness. They want to see their families again, their loved ones, but they know that they will be with them soon enough.”

Jed was tempted to ask Esmerelda to contact Clara, but she just said that her powers were blocked right now. It made him feel good that the spirits she contacted were in a happy and safe place; it gave him an odd sense of hope that he might see Clara again in that place.

“Was Purvis your father?” Jed asked.

“No. I left my father when I was eighteen years old. He was getting more and more abusive. Drinking more—among his many other bad habits. He threatened to kill me if I ever left him, but I went far enough away so that he could never find me. My father controlled all of the money we made, but I managed to save up some over the years, hiding my stash until I had enough to leave. I’m sure it angered him that his source of income had abandoned him. I’m sure it also scared him, and I relished that fact. I could imagine him riding from place to place, asking everyone about me, his mind frantic as he wondered where the money was going to come from now, the money that he’d never bothered to save, the money that he had squandered on card games and prostitutes and drinking. Nothing left to show for it.”

Esmerelda took a sip of her coffee, thinking for a moment. “No,” she finally said. “Purvis came later. I made it as far as Ohio on the money I had saved. I started doing the only thing I knew how to do, giving readings and séances. After a few months I got the itch to move farther west, afraid that somehow my father would track me down. I met a man named Purvis at one of my readings. He was amazed at my ability, and he seemed fascinated with me. He was at least fifteen years older than I was, but he was handsome and dashing in his own way. He ran a traveling carnival and invited me to go with him. They were working their way to California. That sounded good to me—California seemed to be just about as far as I could get from Philadelphia. But as soon as we reached the next town, I realized that Purvis was not the man he pretended to be. I had joined a traveling carnival with a man just like my father. Worse than my father. He beat me. Abused me. Raped me. He kept all of the money that I made while I did as many showings as possible as we moved from town to town. Purvis went a few steps beyond my father. He rigged the table to shake and ectoplasm to form in the air around me. It became a theater show then, not spiritual contact anymore. Again, like history was repeating itself, I saved any tips I got until I had enough to leave. On the night I left, I stole more money from Purvis—money that was rightfully mine—and then I rode a horse into town. A woman at a hotel helped me get a stagecoach the next day. The stagecoach was headed for Denver, but I wouldn’t have cared where it was heading as long as it wasn’t east again. I had still planned to go to California from Denver even though Purvis’ traveling show was heading to California.”

“But you didn’t make it there,” Jed said.

“No,” Esmerelda sighed. “I ran out of money and ended up here. I started working with Moody, helping him with his saloon and hotel, mostly cooking and cleaning the rooms. I even started doing readings again, but I wasn’t going to part with all of my money this time. I only gave Moody his fair share.”

She stopped like she’d seen a reaction on Jed’s face that she didn’t like.

“Moody was nothing like Purvis or my father. He took his share and never treated me with anything but respect. That madman you saw, that wasn’t Moody. I just wanted you to know that.”

Jed nodded.

“This town had been thriving when I first got here, before the mines dried up. There were rumors of the railroad laying tracks through here, but those rumors died along with the mines.”

“Do you still want to go to California?” Jed asked.

Esmerelda nodded. “Yes, I would. I would love to see Los Angeles and San Francisco. Travel up the coast all the way to Canada. I’ve been saving the money I made here, waiting for the right time to leave.”

“Maybe you’ll still get your chance to see California,” Jed told her.

But Esmerelda didn’t look so sure about that.

CHAPTER 36

Jed snapped awake. He was still sitting at the table, leaning to the side in his chair, his chin on his fist. He had fallen asleep sitting at the table. It wasn’t morning yet, still dark. Very dark. Only the lantern at the bar was still lit, but the flame was low and it looked ready to wink out at any moment. Jed could barely make out the sleeping forms of David, Esmerelda, and Sanchez on the blankets.

Esmerelda must have gone back to sleep, but Jed couldn’t remember exactly when she had left the table. Had he fallen asleep in front of her? The last thing he could remember was that they were drinking coffee and talking. She had been telling him about her childhood, and then the traveling carnival with Purvis. And then . . .

He couldn’t remember anything after that. Maybe he had fallen asleep, drifted off right in this chair.

Something had roused him from sleep, but he wasn’t sure what it had been. Maybe a noise. A noise from outside. He felt jittery, his skin crawling, a nervous pit of nausea in his stomach, his mouth dry.

He was afraid of something in the darkness, he was sure of that. He looked over at the stairs, barely making out the sharp incline of the railing in the dark.

A noise outside the saloon startled him—it was like something had scraped against one of the windows, like tree branches scratching at the glass. His hand flew to the butt of his pistol as he turned around in his chair, staring at the saloon doors.

Footsteps out on the walkway, just beyond those doors. But those couldn’t be someone’s footsteps, they were too heavy. It sounded like a horse was walking around out there, but a horse on two legs—something massive with hooves. The footsteps were slow and deliberate, the sound thundering in through the glass of the windows and the doors.

The scratching noise was at the windows again, and then there was a scratching sound at the wood, like gigantic claws were pawing at the wood siding.

Jed looked back at the blankets again. None of them had moved in their sleep.

He got up and hurried to the bar, grabbing the only lantern left that was still lit. He brought it with him as he walked towards the saloon doors that swam out of the darkness the closer he got to them with the light.

When he was a few feet away from the saloon doors, the noises were louder, more frenzied. The locked doorknobs jiggled slightly, like someone was testing them.

It wasn’t supposed to come for us until sunup, Jed thought. It told us we had until sunup.

He went towards the window instead of the door, about to peek out and see what was out there, but Billy popped up in front of him, his face blank, his eyes cold, his breath warm and rotten. “Do not look out there,” Billy told him.

Jed froze in mid-step.

For just a moment Jed thought Billy was dead. He thought Billy had been killed in the night and now that thing was inside of him, controlling him. Jed’s fingers twitched, and he was ready to draw his pistol.

“If you look at it,” Billy continued in his low, monotone voice, “if you see what it truly looks like, you will go crazy.”

Jed took a step back from Billy. He heard a noise from the saloon doors and then saw a movement underneath them. Something long, thin, and black was wriggling underneath the door, squeezing in through the cracks like a flattened snake. The snakelike thing squirmed farther inside, thrashing from side to side on the floor for a moment and then rising up like a cobra. But it wasn’t a snake—there were no eyes, nose, or mouth, just a black shape that seemed to change form as soon as it was inside the saloon, growing bigger and rounder now.

“What is that?” Jed whispered to Billy. “Is that what the Ancient Enemy really looks like?”

“Only a small part of it,” Billy answered. “It is always changing.”

Both of them stepped back. Billy had his lantern in his hand, but the flame had been out for a while now. The wick in Jed’s lamp was very low. They needed to get the lamps lit again.

Jed heard sounds in the darkness behind them.

“What is it?” Esmerelda asked.

Jed turned and looked at her. He handed Esmerelda his lantern while keeping his right hand on the butt of his Colt, ready to draw at any moment if he needed to. “We need to get these lit.”

Esmerelda took Jed’s lantern, but her eyes had shifted to the tentacle flailing around underneath the doors. Another thinner tentacle had joined the first one, both of them whipping around blindly. The heavy footsteps still thudded from outside, stomping around on the walkway out there with no discernable pattern. The scraping at the wood walls and the windows was getting faster and louder.

“That’s . . . that’s what it looks like?” Esmerelda asked as she stared at the tentacles, but it sounded more like a statement than a question.

“Go,” Jed told her.

Sanchez hurried up to them, his body tense. He was ready to draw his guns, his eyes sharp even though he’d just woken up. “Is it dawn already?”

Jed shrugged. “Sun might be coming up now.”

Esmerelda stopped at the table on her way to the bar to check Moody’s pocket watch they had left there. She picked up the watch and brought it up close to the lantern so she could see it. “It’s dawn,” she told them. “Close enough anyway.”

“We need to have some more light,” Jed told Esmerelda, trying not to shout at her. The lamp was almost out now and she stood in the little circle of light now, almost everything else in the saloon had faded away into darkness the farther she moved away with the dim light. Jed didn’t want to be trapped in this saloon in the dark, not with those tentacles thrashing around, pushing their way in more and more, whipping themselves against the bottom of the door where Billy had carefully painted his symbols.

David went with Esmerelda to the bar as she lit the two lanterns. She also lighted the ones on the wall behind the bar.

Now that it was brighter in the saloon, Jed looked back at the saloon doors. The two thin tentacles were still flailing around, and now they glistened in the light like they were coated with some kind of mucus—the film on the tentacles reminded Jed of the mucus Karl had thrown up with all of the tarantulas in it.

“The symbols,” Sanchez said as he stared at the saloon doors. The doors and the floor in front of it were covered in ancient writing that Billy had painted there.

“Those symbols aren’t working,” Jed said, glancing at Billy.

“Maybe they keep it from coming all the way in,” Billy said, defending his ceremony.

All of the noises outside stopped. The tentacles pulled back, disappearing underneath the door, back outside again. Everything was quiet for a moment.

“The boy,” a voice called from right outside the saloon doors. “Kill the boy!” It was Moody’s voice.

Sanchez drew his guns, lightning-quick.

“Wait,” Billy told Sanchez.

Sanchez cocked both pistols.

A loud crash came from upstairs. It sounded like the intertwined bodies of Rose and the cowboy had just torn free from the ropes and fallen out of the bed.

They all looked up at the ceiling.

Footsteps stomped across the hotel room floor above them.

“It’s coming,” Jed told them.

“Quick,” Esmerelda said as she reached for Jed. “We need to hold hands. We need to make a circle with David in the middle.”

The crashing from upstairs was louder now. The thing was busting through the door they had barricaded with the slats of wood.

Jed took Esmerelda’s hand and then he held Billy’s hand. Billy grabbed Sanchez’s hand after he had holstered his pistols. Sanchez grabbed Esmerelda’s hand, and now they formed a complete circle. It was like they were playing some kind of children’s game with David in the middle.

“We pray now,” Esmerelda told them, yelling over the sounds of the thumps and crashes coming from upstairs and outside.

“Kill the boy!” Moody’s voice screamed at them from outside.

Other voices were joining in with Moody as he chanted, only a few of the dead townspeople at first.

“Kill the boy!”

“Kill the boy!” More voices were joining in now outside the saloon doors.

“Kill the boy!” The whole town was yelling now, chanting the same three words over and over again.

The thumping sounds were in the upstairs hallway now—the door had broken free and the monstrosity was working its way to the top of the stairs.

“Kill the boy!”

One of the front windows shattered, then the other one. Arms reached in through the broken windows, hands grabbing at the air, hands formed into claws. Bodies thudded against the saloon doors, the weight of the bodies about to force the doors open.

“Kill the boy!”

Jed looked at Esmerelda—her eyes were squeezed tight, and she was whispering. Billy and Sanchez were doing the same thing in their own faiths. Jed looked down at David and locked eyes with the frightened boy.

God, Jed thought. Save us if you can, but please save David. Please let David live.

CHAPTER 37

“We’ve done enough praying,” Jed said, pulling his hands out of Esmerelda’s hand and Billy’s hand. “Now it’s time to fight.” He turned toward the saloon doors and drew his Colt, cocking it.

The monstrosity from upstairs was halfway down the steps now, still hidden in the early-morning shadows. As it descended, it was somehow untwisting itself back into two bodies, flesh pulling apart, skin stretching and snapping, blood oozing, bones and joints popping—the thing was forming back into two separate people, back into Rose and the cowboy, but now their bodies were shredded mounds of gore with blood running down the stairs like a river—yet the abominations were somehow still maneuvering down the steps.

The saloon doors gave way, crashing open. Wood splintered and glass shattered.

“You can’t have him!” Jed yelled at the approaching horde of the dead. A stench of rotting flesh and dried blood drifted towards him like a cloud of dust.

The pastor was the first one through the saloon doors, the whole town behind him, others crawling in through the broken windows, crawling right over the jagged shards of glass and pieces of broken wood, pushing the table tops away that blocked their way.

“One last chance,” the pastor said as he waited in front of the dozens of dead and mutilated people behind him. “Kill the boy.”

Jed didn’t bother glancing to his right and left, or at David behind him. He heard the windows in the back room and in Moody’s office shattering, wood splintering. The other dead townspeople were crawling in through those windows, pushing the tables away that were barricaded there. Jed kept his eyes on the pastor, his gun aimed right at the dead man’s chest. “No,” Jed told him. “We won’t kill David.”

The pastor’s smile slipped, his face blank for just a moment. All of the dead people had stopped, frozen for a moment in their tracks, all of their expressions blank. Then the pastor smiled, the corners of his mouth jerking up violently. “Then we will kill all of you. We will find others to kill the boy. We always have before.”

The pastor rushed at them, the others following.

Esmerelda was facing towards the back of the saloon. The ones who had gotten in through those windows were rushing towards her. She fired the shotgun at the closest man, the blast blowing off the lower half of one of his legs. The man fell forward, crashing down to the floor, but he began to crawl towards Esmerelda, leaving a trail of dark blood behind him.

Billy shot at the two things that used to be Rose and the cowboy. They were almost unrecognizable now, just shuddering mounds of flesh and snapped bones—they looked like they had been turned inside out. Billy emptied the bullets from Karl’s gun into those two things, but the bullets didn’t slow them down. He dropped the gun and pulled the eagle feather from his hat, waving it in front of him, chanting and singing, preparing for his journey into the next world.

Sanchez fired all of the bullets in both of his guns in less than ten seconds. They were all clean headshots that rocked the targets back. But those bullets didn’t kill them. The dead snapped their heads forward again and they kept coming.

Jed shot six times into the pastor’s head, blowing part of his face away. But he kept coming.

This was it, Jed thought. The dead were all around them now, reaching for them, about to tear them apart. He could try to reload his gun with the bullets in his belt, but why bother? They were seconds away from death now, all of them in a circle around David, but with their backs to David now, protecting him as best they could in these last few seconds.

“No!” David screamed and ran out from their circle, standing in front of Jed and Billy.

The dead stopped, some of them collapsing, their bodies contorting as things moved underneath their skin. A wind seemed to build up around them, spinning around them, Jed could feel the force of the wind blasting them. The dead seemed to be trying to back up, but it was like they couldn’t move.

David stood in front of Jed, his body trembling, his eyes rolling back in his head. Filaments were being pulled out of the townspeople’s bodies like iron filings being drawn towards a magnet.

Everything around them began to swirl, everything around them turning into a blur, like they were all in the middle of a huge tornado.

Esmerelda held Jed back as he tried to move forward to help David. “No,” she whispered into his ear. “We can’t help him. Not anymore. Let him do this.”

The black snake-like tendrils were pulled out of the people, the tendrils collapsing into black shapes that were constantly changing. The tendrils swirled around them like black streaks in the air, twisting and turning, intertwining with each other, trying to form shapes, trying to form arms and hands with claws, faces with open mouths of sharp teeth. But the shapes didn’t hold for long, disappearing back into the black ooze that swirled all around them in the air, moving up and over them, forming over top of them like some rapidly spinning dark cloud.

“Look,” Sanchez said, backing away.

Underneath David, a black space was opening in the floor. It looked like a black circle at first, then a deep hole. He stood over that hole like he was floating above the darkness. The spinning mass of darkness, the Ancient Enemy in front of him, was floating towards David as he stared at it, his hair blowing around, his mouth opening wide, his eyes entirely white now, the pupils gone. David levitated up above the black hole in the floor, that fathomless void. As he rose up higher into the air with his arms out wide, the black mass of the Ancient Enemy lowered down to meet him, beginning to swirl around David.

The thing screeched and screamed as it swirled around David, the hole from the floor rising up to engulf both the Ancient Enemy and David. Now David could barely be seen, there was only a black ball of energy spinning around above the hole in the floor, crackling with blue lightning.

They backed away from the massive spinning ball, from the crackling lightning, from the screeches that came from outside.

“David!” Jed yelled.

The ball of darkness was spinning faster and faster, but it was also getting smaller and smaller. It collapsed in on itself with a blinding flash of light, and then it was gone. The Ancient Enemy was gone.

David was gone.

*

Jed woke up. He didn’t know how much time had passed, but the saloon was much brighter with the morning light streaming in through the open doors and broken windows. He sat up on the floor and saw that Esmerelda was right beside him, still unconscious. Billy and Sanchez weren’t too far away, and both of them were beginning to wake up. Sanchez sat up and grabbed his pistols that were on the floor.

Esmerelda sat bolt-upright, drawing in a quick breath. All of them got to their feet and stared at the spot where David and the Ancient Enemy used to be. There was nothing there now, no void, no hole in the floor, no black shapes, nothing.

“He’s gone,” Jed whispered. “Where did he go?”

Esmerelda didn’t answer.

Jed looked at the dead people piled up inside the saloon, many of them heaped together and blocking the doorway. A few of them were stuck in the windows, one of them folded over the window sill with his arms hanging down. But none of them were moving—they were all dead now.

“He saved us.” Esmerelda finally answered Jed’s question with tears running down her face.

Jed looked at the floor where David used to be, then he looked back at Esmerelda and the others. “He gave his life for us.”

CHAPTER 38

Jed had to walk over the dead bodies to get out through the saloon doors. Their bodies squished under Jed’s footsteps as he walked over top of them, some of them piled two or three high in the doorway. He didn’t want to walk over them, but he had no choice, and he prayed he wouldn’t trip or lose his balance. He made his way slowly, his boots sinking down into flesh. He slipped once, almost fell, but he was able to catch himself at the last second.

Once Jed was past the bulk of the dead bodies, he descended the wooden steps from the walkway down onto the dirt street. The two boys without their legs were out in the street, frozen in the action of crawling towards the steps—Karl’s boys.

As soon as Jed was in the middle of the street and far enough away from the bodies, he felt like he could breathe again. But even from this distance he could still smell the stench of blood, guts, piss, and shit.

The sun was above the horizon now, lighting up the world and driving the freezing night air away. He trembled as he stood in the wide dirt street, his pistol in his hand even though he couldn’t remember drawing it from his holster. He was still scared, still afraid that this wasn’t really over, afraid that the Ancient Enemy was tricking them, letting them believe they were safe for the moment, and then the bodies would stir, the dead would stand up, the monster would be back and they would have no protection now that David was gone.

He heard the noise from the saloon, turned that way and watched Sanchez step across the bodies with far more agility and grace than Jed had shown, stepping across the dead like he was hopping over exposed rocks in a creek bed.

“Where’s Esmerelda?” Jed asked Sanchez when he was out in the street with him.

“Billy’s with her. She’s still upset.”

Jed nodded. He was upset about David, too. He hadn’t wanted the boy to die. It had been his mission to protect David since the day he had found him, and he had failed at that mission. He stared back at the dead bodies jumbled up in front of the saloon’s doors and windows like a logjam. He looked at Sanchez.

Sanchez was tense, ready to go for his guns if Jed gave him a reason to.

“I’m not taking you in,” Jed said.

“You believe me?” Sanchez asked. “You believe that I shot that man in self-defense?”

Jed didn’t answer. He knew he was shirking his duties as a marshal now. He was thankful that Sanchez had helped them, thankful that Sanchez had shot Moody before he could slit David’s throat, even though David was gone now.

But it didn’t matter. He couldn’t outdraw Sanchez ten times out of ten, and he could see now that Sanchez was not going to let him get the jump on him again.

It was more than that, though. Jed felt old and tired. He felt different, fundamentally changed in these last few days. He didn’t want to be a marshal anymore, weary of the responsibility that weighed him down now, weary of the violence that came with the job.

Did he believe Sanchez? Yes, he did. But that wasn’t his decision to make—it was the court’s decision, a judge’s decision, a jury’s decision. Would Sanchez get a fair trial in Smith Junction, Arizona? Probably not.

Sanchez watched Jed.

“I believe you,” Jed finally said.

Sanchez relaxed a little.

“Let’s get some of these bodies out of the way of the doorway,” Jed said as he pulled a pair of gloves out of his pockets and pulled his bandana up over his face.

*

Sanchez helped Jed pull the bodies away from the saloon doors, pulling some of them farther down the walkway to the edges of it, rolling some of them down into the street. Flies were already beginning to swarm around the bodies. Lifeless eyes of dead people stared up at the sky, mouths open, stumps and wounds glistening with dried blood.

Even though it was still bitterly cold, Jed was beginning to sweat a little underneath his clothes from the work he’d done so far.

Now that the path was clear, Billy and Esmerelda left the saloon and walked out into the street.

“We can’t leave them like this,” Esmerelda said as she looked back at the scattering of bodies all over the walkway in front of the saloon, the floorboards stained dark reds and browns, the clouds of flies visible from where they stood.

“What are we supposed to do?” Jed asked. “Bury them? We’d be here for the next three days doing that. Ground’s probably frozen anyway.”

Esmerelda didn’t say anything. She looked up at the sky, noticing the buzzards that were circling. “We can’t just leave them out here to be picked apart. This wasn’t their fault.”

*

Jed and Sanchez helped Billy build a travois so they could drag the dead bodies to the church. It was the biggest building, the only one that could house all of the dead. It was a place where the dead had already been.

They searched a few of the buildings for supplies. In the livery they found some long, thin wooden poles they could use as the framing for their travois, and they pulled them up from the ground. The livery was empty—no sign of the horses; no dead horses or even any pieces of them. The horses were just gone.

After the travois was built, the three men took turns dragging a dead body or two (or sometimes just pieces) up to the church in two-man teams. As they did that, Esmerelda cleaned up the saloon as best she could and started packing bags of supplies to take with them when they left.

She went out back behind the saloon to the small house she rented and packed her own bag. There wasn’t much to take, just a few sets of clothes and shoes, the few photographs of her mother that she still had, and the stash of money she had been saving up over the last two years.

When she was back in the saloon, she finished packing the rest of their bags: one for each of them. In each bag she included a blanket, a bag of jerky, a canteen of water, a bottle of whiskey, coffee beans, a few pots and pans, matches, a metal plate, a tin coffee cup, a fork and knife. She set the bags by the door. They were a little heavy, but they would need everything in them when they left.

Once the job of filling up the church with the dead was done, they closed the doors and barred them shut with slats of wood. All four of them stood there in front of the church doors.

“Should we write something on the door?” Esmerelda suggested. “Some kind of explanation?”

“How are we supposed to explain what happened here?” Jed asked.

No one had an answer for him.

Billy walked down the street to the saloon. A few minutes later he was back with the can of red paint and the paint brush. He handed it to Esmerelda and said nothing. He just stared at her like he knew she would do the right thing.

Esmerelda dipped the paintbrush into the can and wrote words on the slats of wood barring the red doors shut: DEAD INSIDE.

She set the paint can down on the bed of gravel in front of the church steps.

“Explanation enough,” Sanchez said.

“They will probably just blame this on Indians,” Billy said.

Jed tried not to laugh, but the laughter came out. It wasn’t funny in the least and he didn’t know why he was laughing. A few seconds later Esmerelda and Sanchez joined him in his laughter. Even Billy chuckled at his own joke, but his eyes said that he hadn’t been joking.

Jed wiped at his eyes and looked up at the sky. It was only an hour and a half away from dusk now—they wouldn’t have much light left to travel by. “We’d better get going,” he told them.

*

Jed knew it was going to be a long walk, and the four of them had only made it a few miles outside of Hope’s End before they had to make camp for the night. They had plans to head in different directions tomorrow, but tonight they would stay together.

They built a fire and ate some jerky and drank coffee. The fire was warm, but not as comforting as it should have been.

“I’m going back to my family,” Sanchez told them after they were all quiet for a while. He’d never taken his gun belt off the whole time, and Jed was sure that had as much to do with him as any other threat out here. “I’ve had my share of adventure now. I’m ready to go back home.”

Jed smiled and nodded. “I think I’ve had my share of adventure, too.”

Esmerelda watched Jed, staring at him in that strange way that made him feel like she was reading his mind.

Jed tore his eyes away from Esmerelda and looked at Billy. “What about you?”

Billy stroked the silver charm hanging from his leather necklace, the charm that held the lock of David’s hair inside. Jed knew that Billy would always keep that silver charm with David’s hair in it, just like Jed knew he would always keep the photograph of David and his family with him.

“I am going home too,” Billy said, but he didn’t expound on it.

*

Jed took the first watch while the others slept, but at some point he must’ve surrendered to pure exhaustion, nodding off during the night.

He woke with a start about an hour before dawn. He knew something was wrong as soon as he sat up. The campfire was low, but not out yet. It provided a little light in the never-ending darkness, and even less warmth. Jed looked around at the other three. They were still sleeping, breathing heavy, curled up under their blankets.

Jed thought of how the Ancient Enemy had made him and Roscoe fall asleep in the woods. The thought of it sent a spike of panic through his chest.

A scuffling noise in the sand from behind Jed whirled him around. Jed had his pistol in his hand.

A shadowy figure emerged from the darkness. Even before the man sat down in front of the embers of the fire between Sanchez and Billy, Jed knew it was Red Moon. The Navajo outlaw was naked, just like he had been the last time he had paid Jed a visit. Red Moon kept his head down, his hair covering that gigantic hole where his face used to be. The dying fire barely illuminated Red Moon, keeping him in flickering shadows. Things crawled underneath Red Moon’s skin: beetles and spiders—the Ancient Enemy itself.

“What do you want?” Jed asked, aiming his Colt right at Red Moon. Jed’s arm shook so badly he wasn’t sure he would be able to put a bullet into Red Moon even if he wanted to.

Red Moon didn’t answer.

A coyote called out in the inky-black distance, then another coyote answered the first one’s call.

Red Moon reached his left hand out towards Billy who slept on his blanket five feet away. Red Moon reached his right hand towards Sanchez. Red Moon’s arms were growing impossibly long, his fingers stretching to touch each man. Bones popped away from the joints inside of Red Moon’s arms as they grew longer, muscles and skin stretching and threatening to snap.

Jed pulled the trigger and . . .

. . . he jumped awake.

It was almost dawn, the eastern sky on fire with the first rays of the morning sun. Jed sat up and looked around, his hand on his gun. The campfire was out, just a pile of ash and partially burned sticks of wood now with a weak tendril of smoke rising up.

A hand touched Jed’s arm and he whirled around.

It was David.

Jed stared at the boy, his vision blurring as tears filled his eyes. “David . . .”

“I am safe,” David said. “I am warm and safe now.” David smiled at him.

Jed went to reach for David and then . . .

. . . he woke up. He sat up and stared at the campfire. It was out just like it had been in the dream.

A hand touched Jed’s arm. He turned, expecting to see David, but he saw Esmerelda instead.

“It’s over,” Esmerelda told him. “It’s really over.”

He stared at her for a long moment.

She scooted closer to him and hugged him. She held him for a while, and he held her. It had been a long time since he’d held a woman like this.

“I had a dream,” he whispered into her hair.

She nodded.

“I had a nightmare, but then I saw David.”

“I know,” she said. And that’s all she needed to say. Jed was sure that she had seen David in her dreams, too.

*

An hour and a half later, after they had eaten a quick breakfast and broke camp, they were ready to begin their long walk.

Sanchez left them first, walking south towards Mexico. He would have the longest journey of them all. Jed figured Sanchez would buy a horse with all of the money he seemed to have. Whether he rode to Mexico or walked there, Jed was sure that he would reach his destination. Sanchez was a fighter. He was a survivor. Any obstacles he faced along his journey now would be nothing compared to what he had already seen in Hope’s End.

Billy headed east. There were few words between the three of them when they parted, and soon they had nothing left to say to each other. Jed thanked him.

Before Billy turned to walk away, he stared at Jed for a moment. “David is not dead,” he told him.

Jed didn’t respond.

“He is in a different place now,” Billy added. “He lives there now.”

Jed nodded like he already knew that. And he swore he did. He had a feeling that Billy knew he had seen David in a dream—Billy knew things like Esmerelda knew things. He shook Billy’s hand and then watched him walk away.

Jed and Esmerelda headed north to Smith Junction. Unless they could borrow a horse along the way, their walk was going to be a long one—at least three days and two nights of camping. But Esmerelda was strong, and she never complained once.

“Billy’s right,” Esmerelda said six hours later when they stopped by a large grouping of rocks that Billy had told them about, a place where they would find pools of water in the rocks to refill their canteens.

Jed didn’t answer Esmerelda as he sipped water from his canteen.

“David’s not dead,” she said. “I can feel him.”

Jed just nodded at her. He believed her.

Later that night, as they camped, Jed asked Esmerelda what her plans were.

“I’ve been saving my money for years now to get to California,” she said, and then she was quiet for a moment. “I’ve had enough money to leave for a while now. I don’t know why I was putting it off for so long.”

Jed wondered if that was true. Maybe Esmerelda knew why she had put her journey off. Maybe deep down inside she knew that she needed to be in Hope’s End—she needed to be there to help David when the Ancient Enemy showed up.

“What about you?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Don’t really know. I don’t want to be a marshal anymore. I’m no good as a rancher or a farmer. I should just sell my place to Chavez.”

Esmerelda moved closer to Jed, snuggling up to him. “Go with me. We could go to California. Travel up to San Francisco. Maybe even farther north.”

Jed was quiet for a moment. And then he looked at her and smiled. “Yeah. Maybe we could.”

Esmerelda kissed Jed . . . a long, slow kiss. She backed away and stared at him. And then she kissed him again.

Jed felt better now than he had a long time. He wasn’t afraid now, and he wasn’t lonely anymore. For the first time in years he felt hope.

CHAPTER 39

New Mexico—2018

David snapped awake in bed. For just a second he wasn’t sure where he was, but then he knew he was in his Aunt Awenita’s house, where he had lived the last seven years. It had been seven years since he had battled the Ancient Enemy in the ghost town that had once been the small town of Hope’s End so long ago. It had been seven years since he had traveled through Colorado, New Mexico, and then into Arizona with Stella and Cole. It had been seven years since he had first met Joe Blackhorn.

He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of his bed, breathing out a long sigh. He was about to turn on the lamp next to his bed, but he didn’t. A shaft of moonlight shined in through the window and provided just enough light for him to see.

He’d been dreaming, but it was more than that. Those weren’t dreams; they were memories . . . memories of Jed and Esmerelda, of Sanchez and Billy. Those memories were as real to him as the memories of Stella and Cole.

And the memories of the Ancient Enemy.

David felt like two people right now. It felt like one life had ended and a split second later he was here in this life. Yet when he slept, he was back in one of his old lives. Each time he woke up in a new life, the Ancient Enemy followed him.

But not this time. No, this time the Ancient Enemy had been defeated in that ghost town.

Hadn’t it?

David took a sip from a bottle of water beside his lamp on the table next to his bed. He grabbed his cell phone and lay back down. He scrolled to an internet article he had come across a few days ago, one he had saved.

The memories of his dream came flooding back as he stared at his phone. He remembered every one of them now: Jed, Esmerelda, Billy, and Sanchez. He remembered Moody holding a knife to his throat. He remembered his mother and father and his brother; he remembered what had happened to them in that house. He remembered the saloon and the church. He remembered Hope’s End when it was still a town, and not the ghost town it was now.

And there were other memories, ones that went further back into the past. How far back? How many lives?

He couldn’t think about that. When he woke up from these dreams, he had to think about something else or it would drive him crazy.

He looked at the internet article he had saved on his phone. He’d been looking up any articles or news he could find about Costa Rica for a few years now. Mostly the articles were about tourism or local stories, but a few days ago he’d come across a frightening article about a village where everyone had been slaughtered. The people in the village had been mutilated beyond belief, a savagery so brutal it was almost unimaginable.

The news article made him think of Billy Nez, the Navajo he’d known in another life. He remembered Billy telling them that there were other Ancient Enemies in other places. He also thought of Sanchez and the story he had told about an Ancient Enemy in the south among the Maya and Inca people, and the mass disappearances that had happened there in the past.

David read the news article again. The local authorities were blaming the massacre on a drug cartel, but David couldn’t help thinking that it was something worse. He couldn’t help thinking about how close Stella and Cole were to that village. Stella had stayed in contact with him through the years. They had exchanged letters and texts, even talked to each other on Skype a few times. Stella and Cole were doing well, and David was happy about that. She and Cole were living down there under different names, and she was back to doing what she loved again, archaeology. She was working with a university down there on a dig site.

But even though she seemed happy, David always saw just the hint of fear in her eyes when he talked with her through the computer. She tried to hide it, but he could see it. He told himself that she was just traumatized—like he had been and still was—but it was more than that, it was like she was waiting for all of it to start again, for the Ancient Enemy to find them again.

And now, after reading the article about the slaughter in the village thirty miles away from where Stella and Cole lived, David couldn’t help thinking that they might be in danger.

David stared up at the ceiling in the darkness, wondering what he should do. Should he text her? Warn her? But what if it wasn’t the Ancient Enemy? What if it really was some drug cartel? Or a madman, some crazy serial killer? David had seen a killer in his dreams, a man who seemed like a living shadow, a man who prowled the darkness and killed, a man who couldn’t be caught by the police.

He sat up with his phone, Stella’s contact page already on the screen. His finger hovered over the keyboard, ready to type a message.

CHAPTER 40

“Get up!” Stella yelled at Cole, pulling the bedsheet off of the bed.

Cole sat bolt-upright in bed. Stella had the overhead light on and their two battered suitcases sat on the tiled floor near the doorway. He had no idea what time it was. It was still dark outside, and it felt like he’d only been asleep for a few minutes. But when he looked at the alarm clock he saw that it was almost dawn.

Stella was dressed in jeans and a button down shirt, the sleeves rolled up. Her blond hair was tied back into a tight ponytail and she had her hiking boots on. Her eyes were wide with fear, her tanned skin paler than he’d seen it in years. He hadn’t seen her this frightened since . . .

Cole jumped out of bed, wearing only a pair of underwear. He grabbed his clothes from the chair. It was hot in the bedroom, the ceiling fan barely pushing the heat away. They didn’t have any air conditioning in this house, but usually the ocean breeze was enough to cool them off. But even though it was hot, Cole felt cold. A chill danced across his skin, raising goose pimples. He felt like he was back in Colorado again, back in that freezing cold with something dangerous and unimaginable waiting outside, something approaching their front porch, something about to knock on their front door and ask for things.

He was dressed in a few seconds, slipping his feet into a pair of boots, buckling the belt on his jeans, pulling a T-shirt over his head. He shoved his gun down into the waistband of his pants, making sure he had an extra magazine with him.

Stella was somewhere else in the house. It sounded like she was throwing a few of their possessions into a cardboard box, taking only the bare necessities with them. And Cole knew what those necessities were. They had talked about being prepared many times during the seven years they had lived down here in Costa Rica. They had talked about keeping two suitcases ready in case they needed to leave suddenly. They had talked about the preparations they needed to make, the weapons they needed to have, the traps they needed to set. And now it was time to act.

Cole darted towards the door where their suitcases waited, and Stella was hurrying down the hall to him. She was still scared, running around with nervous energy buzzing through her. She stopped when she saw him in the doorway.

She didn’t need to say the words because Cole already knew, but she said them anyway: “It’s happening again.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

Thank you so much for buying and reading my book. I hope you enjoyed it. I’m in the process of writing the next book in the series—the final book and the final showdown. There will be some familiar faces in the new book, and some new ones, some surprises and twists. I hope you’ll look for it when it’s available.

Being an author is a dream come true for me, and it only happens because of readers like you. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Please feel free to follow my blog for updates, sales, articles, and more. Just click on the link below and select the Follow button.

www.marklukensbooks.wordpress.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Mark Lukens has been writing since the second grade when his teacher called his parents in for a conference because the ghost story he’d written had her a little concerned.

Since then he’s had several stories published and four screenplays optioned by producers in Hollywood. One script is in development to become a film. He’s the author of many bestselling books including: Ancient Enemy, Sightings, The Exorcist’s Apprentice, Devil’s Island, Followed, and many others. He’s a proud member of the Horror Writers Association.

He grew up in Daytona Beach, Florida. But after many travels and adventures, he settled down near Tampa, Florida with his wonderful wife and son . . . and a stray cat they adopted.

He loves to hear from readers!

You can find him on Facebook here:

https://www.facebook.com/Mark-Lukens-Books-670337796318510/

You can follow him on Twitter @marklukensbooks

His blog is: www.marklukensbooks.wordpress.com

He can be reached via email at mark@marklukensbooks.com and marklukensbooks@yahoo.com

Ancient Enemy . . . it wants things. You have to give it what it wants.

www.amazon.com/dp/B00FD4SP8M

The next book in the Ancient Enemy series.

www.amazon.com/dp/B01K42JBGW

Four film school students investigate a remote cabin where an alien abduction reportedly took place many years ago . . . but they encounter much more than they ever could have imagined.

www.amazon.com/dp/B00VAI31KW

A billionaire assembles a team of ghost hunters to investigate an abandoned Caribbean island with a dark and bloody past.

www.amazon.com/dp/B06WWJC6VD

After a tragic accident, seventeen-year-old Danny goes to live with his father who is an exorcist . . . but their first case together may kill them.

www.amazon.com/dp/B00YYF1E5C

How do you hide from a psychic serial killer? That’s just what Tara must do when the killer who slaughtered her family finds her again.

www.amazon.com/dp/B00M66IU3U

Twelve horror stories . . . one for each month of the year.

www.amazon.com/dp/B00JENAGLC

A collection of twelve more horror tales.

www.amazon.com/dp/B076B7W252

Ryan wakes up in a motel room with a bag of stolen money, bullet hole scars on his chest, and no memory of his past. His only clue is an address in a small Oregon town where all of the horrifying answers are waiting for him.

www.amazon.com/dp/B00HNEOHKU

Six strangers wake up in a ghost town where they must figure out the rules in a twisted game before it’s too late.

www.amazon.com/dp/B00LEZRF7G

After suffering from debilitating nightmares, Pam returns to her father’s estate to uncover the horrifying source of those dreams.

www.amazon.com/dp/B0143LADEY

As a stalker terrorizes Phil and Cathy, dark clues surface from Phil’s past that makes Cathy believe Phil may know who their stalker is and what he really wants.

www.amazon.com/dp/B078WYGMJN