Standing next to it was a man who was either thirty or eighty—it was hard to tell by his face, which had been severely weathered by the winds and harsh climate of the plains. Had he been without teeth, he would have resembled one of the dried-apple dolls children played with. Although his face looked prematurely aged, my host was powerfully built, with wide shoulders and big, callused hands.

  “The name’s McCarthy. Who might you be, stranger?” he said.

  “Skillet. Billy Skillet.”

  This seemed to amuse him and he smiled, “Is that a fact? Well, Billy Skillet, why don’t you go put up your poor horse before it freezes, eh? The stable’s around back. When you’re done, you can join me by the fire for a chat.”

  “Sounds mighty good to me.”

  I lead Erebus around the back of the adobe and put him inside the stable, quickly hiding Sundown’s shroud under a mound of hay. I then unhitched the pony drag and unsaddled the horse. As I worked, McCarthy’s own horses watched me nervously. Like most animals, they knew an unnatural thing when they smelled it.

  By the time I made it back to the main hut, McCarthy was already seated in front of the open hearth, sipping coffee from a tin cup. “Brewed you some mud,” he said, pointing to a second dented cup sitting on the table. It was black as goddamn and had a bite like a rattlesnake.

  “That’s damn good coffee!” I said through my teeth.

  “Set yourself down and warm your stumps, Billy,” he said, gesturing for me to sit on a stool placed next to the hearth.

  I did so and, without much in the way of prompting or preliminaries, McCarthy set about telling me the story of how he came to be stuck in the “devil’s bunghole,” as he put it.

  “My parents came to this country from Scotland. They started out in Baltimore—that’s where I was born. My father worked as a clerk in a bank, tending other folks’ money every day of his life, bless him.

  “Me, I never had much love for banks, or working jobs that killed a man from the inside out. I was the adventurous type. So I hired on with the U.S. Navy. I was a good enough sailor—until the day my captain ordered me striped for insubordination. I didn’t take to having the cat on my back, that’s certain. So I jumped ship—deserted, if you will—and ended up in Mexico. I met a lovely young woman there”—his eyes flickered over to the shrine beside the door—“and I fell in love with her. And she with me. Her family did not approve, however, since I was nothing but a lowly gringo. What could I possibly offer her?

  “They were right and I knew it. I guess I could have put the pressure on Carmelita—that was her name—and had her insist on having me as her husband, but I was proud. I wanted to prove to both her and her family that I was sincere—that I was something beside an opportunistic yanquis. So I agreed to work for her family, who had considerable land both in Mexico and America.

  “Her family used my willingness to serve them by sending me to the farthest reaches of their holdings, to oversee their herds on the high plains and operate a trading outpost. It was their way of washing their hands of me without resorting to killing me themselves. That’s why I call this place Pilate’s Basin.

  “I’ve been out here close to ten years. During that time I’ve turned my place of exile into an unofficial traveler’s rest for those who come my way. All I ask in way of payment is news of the outside world.”

  “What about the girl—Carmelita?” I asked, warming my hands as I spoke.

  McCarthy smiled sadly and sighed. “She was very young. Younger than me by a few years, at least. After a couple of months, perhaps a year, she forgot about me. She ended up marrying some fellow her family approved of. I didn’t know about it until I’d been out here, oh, six or seven years. By that time she’d had a couple of young’uns and was fat as mud—or so I was told.”

  “If she went and married someone else, why are you still stuck out here?”

  McCarthy shrugged. “I’d gotten used to it, I reckon. Even though it can be mighty lonesome out on the high plains, least I’m my own boss out here. There ain’t anybody to beat me or order me around. After all this time, I probably wouldn’t know how to deal with a town full of people, all running around and getting into each other’s business.”

  I found myself liking McCarthy, who had willingly exiled himself for the love of a fickle young girl. It was a shame he was going to die.

  McCarthy got up to prod the fire with a poker as a particularly strong gust of wind slammed against the hut, rattling the shutters. He glanced in the direction of the door, as if expecting it to open. “It’ll be dark soon. I hope that fellow didn’t get lost out there.”

  “Fellow? What fellow?” I said, my scalp tightening. For a second I imagined McCarthy knew about Sundown and our plans to ambush him.

  “Another traveler, such as yourself, that’s all. He showed up a couple of days ago, just as the storm was getting ready to hit. He goes by the name of Jones. But don’t they all? He headed out a few hours ago to look for some game. Hope he can find his way back.”

  As if on cue, there was the sound of heavy boots on the front porch and the front door swung open, letting in a chill blast of air. I turned around to get a look at McCarthy’s house guest, and that’s when I set eyes on my private demon for the first time.

  He was huge, covered with hair, and had two heads—one of which was horned. Then I realized I was staring at a man dressed in a full-length buffalo skin coat with a dead antelope tossed over one shoulder. He stepped inside the house and slammed the door shut behind him, shrugging the antelope onto the floor as if it was a woman’s stole.

  McCarthy bent over the carcass, shaking his head in awe. “I didn’t believe you when you said you’d bring back venison! But, by damn, you done it!”

  Jones removed his heavy buffalo-skin coat and tossed it in the corner. Underneath the coat he was wearing a shirt made from what looked to be timber wolf or coyote skin. This he did not offer to remove.

  “Hunting is in my blood.” His voice was deep, like that of a pipe organ, with a slight Slavic accent. As he turned to face me, I was struck by his bristling beard the color of McCarthy’s coffee, which seemed to start at his cheekbones, and eyebrows so thick and bushy they literally covered his brow-ridge from temple to temple.

  Jones fixed me with piercing eyes the color of a coming storm and scowled. “I saw a strange horse in the manger. Who are you?”

  Before I could answer, McCarthy piped in; “This here’s Billy Skillet. He showed up just an hour or two back. Got himself lost in the storm.

  “Have we met before?” he asked, staring at me even harder.

  “I don’t think so.”

  Jones grunted and brushed past me to stand in front of the fire. As he warmed his hands and stomped his feet to restore circulation, I found myself staring at his wolf-fur jacket. There was something…familiar about it. Something I couldn’t place. Maybe I had met this hairy-faced giant before. Perhaps he was one of Professor Praetorius’ erstwhile customers.

  “That’s a fine shirt you got there, mister. How many wolves did you have to kill for it?”

  “Just one.”

  “Must have been a damn big wolf!” McCarthy snorted.

  “It was. Big as a man.”

  I cleared my throat. “Excuse me, sir. I don’t believe I caught your name…?”

  “They call me Jones.” The giant didn’t even dignify me by glancing in my direction.

  “Jones? Is that all?”

  There was a pause, as if he was deciding on whether or not to reply, then he slowly turned his head and fixed me with those gray eyes and said, “Witchfinder. Witchfinder Jones.”

  “Unusual handle. How you come by it?”

  The big man returned his gaze to the fire. “I hunt things.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “I hunt things. Vampires. Witches. Warlocks. Ghosts. Werewolves,”

  “That’s plum silly! There ain’t no such things! Ain’t that right, McCarthy?” I laughed nervously, glancing over at the older man for support.

  However, McCarthy was shaking his head. “I wouldn’t say that, Billy. I seen a lot of things that couldn’t be explained, both here and when I was at sea. Snakes with wings, women with the tails of fish, serpents that chased down and ate killer whales…”

  I was starting to feel dizzy. There was a scent rising from Jones’ jacket as the frost clinging to it melted away. I found myself needing to sit down. I looked over at McCarthy, to see if he’d noticed, but he was busy hacking off one of the antelope’s haunches with a cleaver in order to prepare the night’s meal. The smell of the animal’s blood made my stomach knot with hunger. It’d been a couple of days since I’d finished the last of my old horse.

  With a deep, guttural sound, almost a growl, Jones lowered himself onto a chair next to the fire. Without looking at me, he fished a hand-carved briarwood pipe and a drawstring pouch out off his wolfskin shirt. For some reason I could not take my eyes from the leather sack that held his tobacco.

  “That’s—um—a mighty unusual tobacco pouch you got there.”

  Jones smiled then—it was an ugly sight, believe me. “This is the only one of its kind. It is a trophy. Just like my shirt.” He leaned forward and held the pouch out to me. As if in a daze, I reached out and took it. Some faint memory squirmed in the back of my brain like a blind grub. A memory of warmth, the smell of flesh, the taste of milk…

  “I took the pelt for my shirt off a werewolf seventeen years ago…just as I took his mate’s left tit for a tobacco pouch. I keep the whore’s vulva in a box in my saddlebag…salted, of course.”

  I stared at my ma’s breast, trying to summon further memories beyond those of a blind, suckling pup—but none came. I looked up at the man responsible for the slaughter of my family, meeting and holding his gaze. Although I realized he knew what—if not who—I was, I refused to let him rattle me.

  “What you say is all very well and good,” I remarked, handing back what remained of my ma’s breast to her murderer. “But how am I to know you’re not just flat-out crazy? For all I know, you took that off some poor Indian gal. And as for the shirt—well, a wolf skin is a wolf skin.”

  Jones shrugged his indifference. “It doesn’t matter to me if you believe me or not. I know what I know. I do what I do.” He produced a buck-knife, its blade shining in the light from the fire. It was silver. “I use my knife and I use my silver bullets. Nothing unnatural can survive a wound dealt by silver. There are plenty who believe me—and pay me to rid them of these monsters.”

  “Is that what you’re doing out in the middle of nowhere? Hunting monsters?”

  Jones re-sheathed the knife and turned back to the fire. “I was hired to kill a vampire.”

  I felt my stomach hitch itself even tighter. “Vampire?”

  “Aye. One I have been tracking since New Orleans. There was a young girl the creature—outraged—in the city of Boston. Her family is of some stature, and they hired me to track the fiend down and bring back his head. I first found him in New Orleans, in a fancy Basin Street whorehouse. I would have claimed my bounty then, except for the interference of his servant. The bastard shot me in the shoulder. It wasn’t much of a wound, really, but it was enough to make me lose my prey. I dealt with the manservant, though. I put the silver bullet I had reserved for his master right between his eyes.”

  Jones was describing the demise of my predecessor. The knowledge made the sweat rise on my brow and upper lip.

  “It took me a couple of days to recover from my wound, but by then the fiend had fled the city. He had a head start, but not enough of one that I could not track him. I have since seen evidence of his passing: Indian raiding parties slaughtered to the man as they tended their campfires; isolated farm houses where the family members were drained white at the dinner table; hotels where, after the stranger checked in for the night, half the residents were found dead in their beds the next morning.

  “Somewhere along the line the monster found someone else to serve him. Someone to hide and transport his body during the daylight hours. Someone else to help him do his dirty work… Or should I say, some thing!”

  He was staring at me, the storm clouds in his eyes looking as if they were about to break. I could tell by his body language he was getting ready to lunge at me. I knew I should try to get up, move away from him, prepare my own counter-attack, but my dizziness had grown worse. Sweat was pouring down my back and my head ached horribly.

  Witchfinder Jones leaned even closer, until his hairy face was inches from my own. His wide nostrils flared like those of an animal scenting blood. “I can smell an unnatural thing from a mile away, boy.”

  Before I had a chance to respond, there was the sound of something heavy striking meat and Jones’ eyes rolled up in their sockets and he pitched sideways out of his chair, narrowly missing landing in the open fire. I stared for a long moment at the big man sprawled on the floor, a halo of blood forming about his skull, then turned to look up at McCarthy, who stood over the body, a hammer clutched in one hand.

  McCarthy’s eyes gleamed strangely in the light from the fire. They reminded me, in a way, of Sundown’s eyes when he got the hunger on him.

  “Had to wait him out. Wait until he wasn’t paying so much attention to me and what I was doin’.” McCarthy rubbed at his mouth with his sleeve. “Tried slippin’ the stuff in his coffee the first night, like I did with you, but he was too big. Too tough. It didn’t take.”

  “Wh-what did you do—?” I tried to get up from where I was sitting, but my legs gave out and I found myself on the floor. McCarthy squatted down next to me, peering down into my face.

  “I don’t like using force. Usually I just dose their coffee, then they go to sleep and don’t feel nothing—not even when I brain ‘em with the hammer. But this one—and you, for that matter—just ain’t respondin’ properly. I hate it when that happens. I don’t like using violence. I’m a peaceable man, by nature.”

  I tried to change then, to slip from my human form into my faster, stronger vargr skin, but I couldn’t focus. The room was swimming and everything seemed to be pulsing with a rhythm all its own. I watched, helpless, as McCarthy raised his hammer on high.

  There was a rush of cold air and something black struck McCarthy head-on, knocking him backwards. I heard the exile scream as my savior tore into his throat. I didn’t feel so sorry for McCarthy anymore.

  The next thing I knew Sundown, his mouth wet with fresh blood, was helping me to my feet. “You alright, Billy?”

  “He—he must have drugged me…” was all I could mumble.

  “He put enough laudanum in your drink to kill a normal human three times over. I woke shortly after you placed me in the stable. I decided to check the other buildings, in case there were more humans about. There are. But they are all dead. There must be over a dozen corpses stashed in the out-buildings, all in various stages of decay. I’d say the oldest was five years old.” Sundown shook his head in disgust. “Humans! And they accuse us of being monsters! But at least the mad man did us the favor of ridding us of that wretched bounty hunter!”

  A groaning sound came from the direction of Jones’ body. Sundown and I stared, open-mouthed, as Witchfinder Jones sat up. His hair and beard were sodden with blood, and part of his brain bulged outward through the crack in his head. His left eye was so full of blood it leaked from the corners like crimson tears. His right eye was as clear as before—only angrier.

  “I got you now, you stinking whore-son!” the bounty hunter bellowed, pulling out a revolver.

  “Run, Billy!” Sundown yelled, propelling me towards the open door. “Run!”

  I stumbled forward, my limbs still numb from whatever drug McCarthy had slipped me. I turned to see what was happening, only to slam into Sundown just as Jones released his initial volley.

  The first shot went wild of its target. The second did not. Sundown opened his mouth and vented an ultra-sonic shriek of pain. I caught my friend as he pitched forward and dragged him out of the hut as Jones struggled to get to his feet, his boots slipping in a pool of his own blood. I didn’t look at Sundown or ask him if he was okay. I was too scared to do anything but run with him to the stable, where—reverting to my boyhood—I hopped on Erebus bareback and simply fled, clinging to the horse’s neck with my right arm while I cradled Sundown to my breast with my left. As we charged past the front of McCarthy’s hut, I glimpsed Witchfinder Jones slumped in the doorway, taking aim at me. I dug my heels deep into Erebus’ flanks just as a silver bullet whizzed past my ear. I heard Jones bellow something into the storm that might have been a name, but it was quickly snatched up by the wind and made meaningless.

  It was close to a half-hour later before I was willing to slow my pace enough to check on Sundown’s condition. I had him pressed between me and the horse’s neck to keep him from falling off.

  “Sundown? Sundown—? Are you alright?”

  No answer.

  “Saltykov?” I said, hoping he wasn’t in such a bad way that he would not respond to his true name.

  No answer.

  I touched my friend’s shoulder gingerly, hoping to rouse him enough to at least groan. To my horror, I felt the bone and flesh inside his shirt crumble at my touch.

  I howled as the wind caught the dust that had, until a few minutes ago, been my friend and tossed it skyward. I howled for my father, whose pelt now covered his killer’s back. I howled for my mother, whose breast now served to carry her murderer’s tobacco. I howled for my friend, now reduced to nothing but flakes of decayed skin and powdered bone. But most of all, I howled for myself, lost in the wilderness.

  * * *

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  After the death of the Sundown Kid at the hands of Witchfinder Jones, I went a little crazy for awhile. I fled the carnage at Pilate’s Basin and wandered the high plains for several days, in a feverish delirium. At times I thought Medicine Dog rode beside me, his blind eyes undaunted by the snow. Other times I fancied I saw Sundown standing on the horizon, waving me on. Other times I imagined I could hear Whatisit?‘s moronic laughter echoing from the darkness.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17