by SA Sidor
I would like to say I never wished ill of any person beyond a normal twinge of spite. But frankly, if the Beast were going to tear apart any of the remaining members of this hunting party and devour their smoking hot innards while the devoured individual observed the eager, lip-smacking devourer emptying their body cavity of strings of offal, organ tubes unbundled and consumed like fat blood sausages from a butcher’s case – I hoped it would be Gavin Earl.
This appallingly macabre daydream oddly made my mouth water. My stomach gurgled.
“Something warms your thoughts, Dr Hardy?” Earl asked.
Jauntily, he threw the flask at a spoon-eared jackrabbit hopping between two stumps.
“I only pray we find our reward, each accordingly.”
“Me too, Doctor Egypt. Damned Smoke Eel will regret his schemes. I’ll skin his iodine hide. This night holds promise for revenge. And I’ll fetch my reward one way or another.”
“I hope so,” I said. “Sincerely, I do.”
Under a slate canopy shaped rather like a question mark we waited out of the wind for Hodgson to bring the coach. The snow continued to melt under a climbing sun. A small cataract spilled over the canopy. Stepping through it we’d entered a space of dampness and moldy leaf matter. But the wind was kept out. The smell of the place was not altogether unpleasant but it did suggest mice. A few darting motions near the ground confirmed rodent life. There were boulders to sit on.
Gavin Earl retreated to the back of the question mark and lit his pipe. He had regained his bravado, which had crumbled a bit during the night. I think losing his horse and the pack mule disturbed him. Did Claude take them for a fright and some quick meat? I wasn’t sure he had the time. It wasn’t wolves. The Beast, a real Beast – not Frenchy’s giant in a buffalo mask and elk horns – that’s what had Earl shaken, whether he realized it consciously or not.
Men weren’t the masters of this mountain. To comprehend that loss of dominance was more than many could tolerate. It filled them with dread. I had never made much of dominating over things in life, other than my books; mastering a theory here and grappling with an unwieldy concept there. I only felt I was top dog when I walked the ancient ruins of a dead civilization. I brought it back to life in my mind. I imagined myself transported. I cheated time. In my own way. What greater destroyer is there than Time? I flitted back and forth between the present and the past like a warlock. But I always knew I was more of a sly, crouching margin creeper – like these mice we had scared away – than a chest-thrusting bully with a gun. Finding out I could be eaten at any moment was nothing new to me. The world is an open maw. I danced between the teeth. Mousy Rom Hardy.
I found a boulder as far from Earl as I could. I lit my own pipe. Using my knife, I cut a strip from the tail of my shirt and folded the material into a square. Carefully, I peeled away my clothing to check my wound. It was gory mess under there. I stuffed the square against the worst of it and fastened myself back up.
Evangeline joined me inside the shelter.
McTroy stayed outside, sitting on the rum barrel, staring at the sky. Squinting into the sun. What was he seeing up there? I worried about him. His crippled hand was like a dead crab stranded in his lap. He’d taken it out of his fur mitten and smacked it against his thigh absently. He could learn to shoot with the other hand. In time. But it was a reminder of his own mortality: the day Gavin Earl killed him in a gunfight in the woods high above Raton. He’d never be the same man. Not inside. Even if we got him squared away with the peculiar, almond-eyed decapitation he now sat upon.
Wu hit him with a snowball. McTroy turned slowly from his sun-gazing. With his good hand he packed a handful of snow and launched it at the boy. Wu raced over the road and lay in the ditch. He stacked his munitions in a pyramid like cannonballs.
Evangeline cleared her throat.
I turned as if I hadn’t been watching her for the entire time out of the corner of my eye.
“Oh, it’s you,” I said, scooting over so she had room to sit beside me.
She smiled.
Maybe she did know I was watching her. Maybe she was always ahead of me.
“What are we going to do about Cassi?” she said, quietly. We were far enough from Earl that he couldn’t hear.
“What do you mean?”
“Hardy. You know,” she said. She lowered her chin, and her eyes were cool green.
I shrugged and scratched my ankle. “Telling her about Claude? I suppose I’ll do it.”
“Not only about Claude. About herself – that we are aware.”
I said nothing. I gazed through the cataract. The clear mountain water falling like rain.
“She is the black jaguar. In the cave, I found her clothes on the other side of the trunk. They both used the cave when they were changed. Who knows what else they did together. It is a lonely place here on the mountain. Nightfall must’ve seemed like Devil’s Island to them. You can’t blame them entirely. In isolation people do strange things they would not do otherwise.”
“Like turn into werecats?”
Evangeline waited for me to go on. But I had no more to say.
She said, “Cassi will take Claude’s death badly. I am unsure of how she will react. In the end, she’s a predator. Unpredictable.”
“More than you?” My pipe fizzled. I knocked the dottle out and repacked it. “We don’t know for certain that she is the black cat. It might be… just a big jungle feline that Oscar brought over to give his Claude a companion when he changed. I won’t rush to judgment. If she is a werecat, what difference does that make? She’s still a strong young woman. She has qualities, good ones.”
“Hardy, she can’t leave here. That’s probably why Oscar built this retreat for them. Is she going to live in New York? Think about it. Part of her is wild and will always stay that way.”
“Are there no cats in New York?”
Evangeline’s smile was sad. She rolled herself a cigarette with Claude’s supplies.
“You took those?” I said.
She shrugged. Claude wouldn’t be needing them, would he? “Have a light?”
I struck a match. She cupped the flame, turning into it like she would a kiss.
“I like you, Hardy.” Her lips pressed tight. She had a pink scrape on her cheek. Her hair fell over one of her eyes and she didn’t bother to brush it back. Her coat opened into a long “V” that dragged on the ground; its bottom drenched, muddy. She stretched out her legs. Her burgundy boots were pointy.
“Let’s get married then,” I blurted out. “We’re business partners already. It wouldn’t be that difficult. We enjoy the same things. I am devoted to you. And you are… friendly toward me.”
Her look of shock would’ve been comical had I not been the one asking the question.
I gazed out at McTroy.
Wu had hit him with so many snowballs that the front of his coat was white. He was sun-gazing again. His hat tipped onto the back of his head. His mouth hung open. The falling water from the melt on the canopy shone like a wavering mirror, but I could not see myself in it. I only saw him through it. In the gaps.
Evangeline took my hand. I turned back to her. Sorry I had said anything.
“I can’t give you an answer to that question, Hardy. Maybe another time, another place.”
I nodded. “That is an answer.”
Mice skittered in the leaf litter. They made tiny crashing sounds.
A hawk cried out. McTroy shielded his eyes from the sun. He followed the raptor as it glided thermals above the canyon. I couldn’t see the hawk from where I was. A knife-like shadow passed over him quickly. Wu waved at someone up the trail and came running, shouting.
“The coach is here!”
Evangeline stood. Dropping and crushing the cigarette under her heel.
“We’d better go,” she said.
“Yes, an excellent idea,” I said. She took my elbow.
We stepped through the fallin
g water together.
26
Who Will Eat Whom?
I don’t know if places are capable of going insane. I hadn’t felt anything the first time I rode up to Nightfall in the coach, but this time was different. Or it might’ve been me. Maybe I had changed. I couldn’t help but look around and wonder if the mountain was real. Were the trees really trees? And all this wet, sloppy snow seemed somehow put there by design, arranged for a purpose. What caused this estrangement? Certainly I felt disappointed that Evangeline had not accepted my proposal. But that alone would not make my skin turn to gooseflesh. No, it was an alteration in atmosphere. Almost like a switch in the weather. But instead of rain or snow I perceived malevolence. A palpable violence that touched me as physically as raindrops would. What was even worse was that I seemed to welcome the corruption. Gleefully.
Hodgson arrived surlier than the last time we had seen him. Perhaps he’d had enough of the Adderly dramatics, or maybe the oddities and various monsters were getting to him. His black caterpillar eyebrows twitched and he sucked the chill air through his teeth, like a man who has something to say but can’t say it and stay employed for very long. McTroy climbed up into the driver’s box with him. Hodgson bristled. McTroy grabbed the dwarf’s double-barrel shotgun from its scabbard and pulled back on the hammers.
Click-click.
McTroy stared ahead without uttering a word. He put the rum barrel beside him in the box.
Hodgson swore under his breath and barked at us to climb aboard. Gavin Earl went up top too. There wasn’t any room in the front bench so he sat cross-legged where the luggage was usually secured. He wanted to keep an eye on McTroy. His former partner made him nervous, even though he’d killed him once already.
As I was saying, I don’t know if places lose their grip on sanity, but this mountain gave me the most horrible case of jitters.
I won’t tell you it was alive, but evilness cloaked it like a fog.
There was real fog too. At least, I’m assuming it was real. The rising temperatures coaxed a mist out of the snowy ground. Everything was wet, wet, wet. I felt it on my face like a clammy hand; it didn’t grip or slap but lay there coolly, oozing a vile residue that wouldn’t rub off. It stuffed up your nose. Put a film over whatever you were seeing. I caught myself smiling for no reason as I took a window seat. I tried not to speak because I was afraid I’d jabber like a monkey.
Oh, this was not right. Not right by any stretch of the imagination.
Evangeline, Wu, and I sat side-by-side like school children at church.
I giggled and covered my mouth to hide the outburst. Evangeline flicked her gaze over me quickly and then looked out her window again. But Wu, who sat between us, studied me. I wanted ever-so-much to slam his head into the floor of the coach. To stomp him until he slid under my boot like a bag of damp laundry. Damn Chinese. Orphan rice-eater. Who was he to look at me with those dark little eyes?
I gasped.
What was wrong with me? I cared for Yong Wu like a brother. Even a son. What were these prejudices vomiting into my mind? I dug my fingernails into my palms and stuck my face outside the coach. But the air… the air was bad. It had an awful rotten smell. Like seepage from a sewer. I breathed through my mouth so as not to smell it. Spoiled meat. Chunks of bloody chewy flesh covered with hair… human hair. I stuck out my tongue and brushed it with my fingertips.
Nothing.
I was so hungry. I might eat anything. I bit my fingernails. Too hard, tearing too deeply, and the skin bled and so I sucked my own blood. The salty morsels. Saliva leaked from the corners of my mouth. My fingers slipped in and out while my teeth rasped against them. Yummy.
Wu whispered to Evangeline.
I snapped my face at them. Didn’t she look succulent? The boy would be an appetizer.
Who am I?
I scoured my brain but could not recall my name.
I nodded at them. They made faces at me. Were they afraid? Or did they plan to eat me?
Who are they?
Meat. They are meat for my table. The coach floor is my table today. They are prime cuts of steak. Ribs to pick and suck the bones. The juicy bones. Organ meats are sweet and rich if not overcooked. Rump roasts are delightful. These two don’t need much seasoning. Or cooking for that matter. Good the way they are. Fresh. I smelled her fats. The boy had lean, tender cuts. He’d go first. Maybe she’d join me in my meal. Then I’d get her too. Bend her supple neck back and…
I opened the coach door and threw myself out.
“Hardy!” Evangeline screamed.
I hit the road. My perforated shoulder slammed into the ground. The pain was unspeakable. But it broke the spell of whatever had descended over my soul. The eater spirit.
Wendigo.
I rolled several times. Finally I lay on my back in the slush. The ruts from the coach wheels jammed under my back. I saw fog above. The dark wedge of the mountain looming in the background. The sun was a lamp wrapped in thick cotton gauze. My muddy clothes smelled sour.
The wound in my shoulder howled. New blood gushed from my sleeve.
The coach had stopped. Evangeline, McTroy, and Wu stood over me, concerned.
“I am not dead,” I said. My chin was bleeding. I felt a lump on my forehead too.
“Why did you do that, Hardy?” Evangeline said. “You might’ve been killed.”
I groaned as McTroy helped me to my feet.
“Easy, pard,” he said. “Give yourself time. Your eyes are still spinnin’.”
“Evangeline saw me. She and Wu recoiled from what I had become. A monster.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “We saw no such thing. I was resting with my eyes closed, in fact. Wu had his head on my arm. No one was watching you.”
Wu took my hand. He and McTroy led me back to the coach. “Dr Hardy, I swear I did not see any change. You only looked a little sad. But sometimes that is how you are,” Wu said.
I stumbled. The ground tilted, rushing at me. McTroy straightened me up.
“We need to get you mended,” Evangeline said. “You’ve lost blood. It’s making you lightheaded. You’re confused. Can you walk up these steps?”
I willed my leg to rise up onto the coach. McTroy boosted me into the passenger compartment. Wu had gone in the other side. He caught me before I could topple over. I sank against the upholstery. I was sweating, bloody, and mud-spattered. The cut on my chin hurt.
“Too bad he lived,” I heard Gavin Earl say. “We might’ve stuck a spit through him and turned him over a bed of coals. Better than a hog. That’s what the cannibals say.” He cackled.
I grabbed Evangeline’s hands as the coach took off again.
“There is an evil here. Invading our minds. Smoke Eel said the Wendigo influences those who are around him. They become like the Wendigo. It is happening right now. The way I saw you and Wu just a while ago… it was unspeakable… I was possessed. I might’ve hurt you.”
Evangeline caressed my cheek. She pinched it lightly.
Then harder, so that I winced.
“Who will eat whom, Hardy?” She grinned, showing her teeth that had grown too sharp.
Wu poked me in the belly. His eyes glowed red.
“I get the liver. Please, may I have the liver, Miss?”
27
Oddities
I rolled away from them, pulling my coat tight around me. If I believed in God I would’ve prayed. Instead I concentrated on keeping my mind clear. I counted back from a thousand. I hoped I would not have to fight them off. But they were rocking in their seats, whispering and occasionally tapping me with their boots or leaning over me to smack their lips and chuckle.
The boy and the beautiful independent woman I loved.
When the coach pulled up to Nightfall, I grabbed the vehicle door and exited. Orcus was standing off to the side of the path at the edge of the fog, watching us disembark.
Evangeline
and Wu climbed out behind me. Innocent and quizzical, returning my haunted gaze.
“Hardy, you are pale. Let us walk you in,” she said. Wu reached for my arm.
“Get away from me. I’ll do it myself.” I backed away from them, walking sideways through the doors of the lodge, like a fearful crab scrabbling across a beach at low tide.
Evangeline pulled Wu away from me.
“We will let you get settled inside,” she said.
McTroy did not seem affected by the Wendigo influence. I supposed this was the result of the elixir and his telepathic connection to the inhuman severed head. Whatever it was, the mental bond it created with McTroy prevented the Wendigo from invading him, running a sort of interference. Take your luck where you find it. I asked McTroy to help me stay on my feet. He tucked the rum barrel under one arm and gave me the other for support.
Gavin Earl rushed into the lodge and disappeared down the hallway toward his room.
In the entryway, Oscar greeted us. He’d shed his coat, and his shirtsleeves were rolled back. He carried a hammer and an inch-thick pine board. Four ten-penny nails stuck out from between his thinly pressed lips. He spit the nails into his hand.
“Good. Now that you’re here, you can help me board the windows in the trophy room.”
“Where is Cassi?” I asked. “I need to speak to her immediately.”
“She’s either with her mother or in her bedroom. I haven’t seen her since I got back. Say, you’re bleeding profusely. I have a medical field kit. McTroy, can you sew him?”
“Not with this.” He held up his disfigured right hand. “Evangeline might though.”
“Excellent. I’ll fetch it for her. When you’ve finished, I’ll be in the trophy room.”
“Where is Smoke Eel?” I asked.
“Gone up the mountain. Above the fog. He’s scouting. It’s why I hired him.”