by David Boop
Alice came trotting toward them through the trees on her horse—spotted Red Hawk, and pulled up her mare short.
Red Hawk recovered himself before she could bolt or reach for a weapon, as the three Sylphs hovered above her, looking from him to her and back again, uncertainly. “Do you know this woman, Earth Chief?” he asked.
Andy shook off his own bemusement. “Alice Brown, this is Red Hawk. He is the local equivalent of a Master. Red Hawk, this is Alice Brown, another kind of Medicine Chief.”
“Ah.” Red Hawk eyed the Sylphs again. “These—flying maidens are not something I have seen.”
“They came with my mother’s mother when she came from across the ocean,” Alice told him, losing her wariness. Then she turned to Andy. “The rest aren’t far behind me. They spread out quite a bit, and I am sure many of them stopped at the first unclaimed stake they found, but it won’t be long before you—”
“—we,” he said firmly.
The tense anxiety faded a little and she smiled. “We have to fight off the claim jumpers.”
“No,” Red Hawk said firmly. “You are not fighting off claim jumpers. This man and I will. You are going to take his horse, which is faster than yours, and ride to the place where claims are made.”
“Registration office,” said Andy, nodding, although his qualms assailed him. What if she registered the claim in her own name? What if she sold it to someone else? His heart said to trust her, but his mind—
“You think I’m not as good a fighter as you?” Alice shot back, her eyes flashing.
Red Hawk raised an eyebrow. “I think nothing of the kind. I think that I would be shot trying to register a claim. I think that you are the smaller of the two pale-skins, and the horse will carry you faster. And I think before you go, I should bind you as mates so that you may truly say that you are registering for him.”
Alice flushed a bright crimson, but Andy couldn’t tell if it was from embarrassment at her mistake, or because Red Hawk had said he was going to marry them.
All he could think was that he was having a little trouble breathing now.
“Come down,” Red Hawk commanded. “This will take little time.”
Alice dismounted and held the reins of her horse in her left hand. Red Hawk took her right, Andy’s right, and bound them together with a rawhide thong he took from the belt holding his breechcloth, chanting something in his own language as he did so. Andy’s flesh tingled where it touched hers, and he couldn’t look away from her eyes.
Then, on the last word, something flashed between them. It was definitely magic, but more than that. It was as if the world turned inside out for a moment, and when it settled again, everything settled into a pattern that felt absolutely right in some indefinable way.
“There,” Red Hawk said, matter-of-factly, when he was done. “You are mated.” He unbound their hands and tucked the thong away. “Now, woman, go. The sooner you arrive, the better.”
“Leave everything but one of the canteens,” Andy said as she handed him the reins of her mare and mounted Prinz. “The lighter you travel, the better. Water Prinz, but not too much.”
She nodded, tossed down the saddlebags and one of the canteens and trotted the stallion to the creek. She let him drink almost exactly as much as Andy would have, then pulled his head up, turned it in the direction of the registry office, and urged him into a canter. In moments, she was gone.
“What weapons have we?” Red Hawk asked, practically.
“Your rifle and mine. My revolver.” He checked Daisy’s saddlebags. “Alice’s revolver.” He pulled out a holstered Colt and an ammunition belt. While neither were new, they looked significantly newer than Daisy’s tack. He checked to make sure it was unloaded, spun the cylinder, checked the action. All in good working order and recently cleaned. Satisfied, he loaded it and handed it and the belt to Red Hawk.
Then he got his own rifle and revolver, loaded both, and looked to the Indian expectantly. Red Hawk made a careful survey of the area around them with narrowed eyes. “I knew whoever was in the race would have to be coming from the north,” he said, finally. “Claim jumpers could be coming from anywhere.”
“That’s true,” Andy replied. “But they’ll have to come here, looking for the survey stake, and to stake their own claim.” He looked around as well. “I’ll stay out in the open, at the stake. You go into hiding. They’ll concentrate on me, and if they won’t see reason—”
Red Hawk nodded. He faded back into the undergrowth, and in a moment, was gone.
Andy cleared ground near the stake and made a small fire. While he waited, he finally got a chance to look over this land he had claimed.
The first thing he noticed was that the trees were not going to be good enough to make a conventional wooden house out of. Many were cottonwood, which was notoriously poor for almost every purpose except kindling and shade, and his Earth senses told him the others were mostly of a sort of oak that was full of knots and twisted grain. Clearly, he would need to find some other way to build a house.
But there was water here, and decent land for growing things. He thought he remembered something about the natives here making large, multifamily lodges, somehow—
Then he heard the sound of a horse’s hooves, coming out of the west. He stood up, rifle held down at his side, but ready to be brought up at a moment’s notice, and waited.
At the sight of him, the rider abruptly pulled up his horse. They stared at each other for a long moment. Andy didn’t like what he saw. He brought the rifle up, just a little more.
“This’s my claim,” the man stated.
“My stake says otherwise,” Andy replied, as the man took his right hand off the reins, and held it near his holstered revolver.
“Reckon you can get a shot off afore I can?” Beneath his bowler, the man had hard eyes in a face that seemed set in a perpetual snarl. Andy lifted the rifle enough to take a shot.
“Reckon I can,” he stated. “And I reckon I’ll kill your horse with it. You’ll have a hard time aiming with your nag going down under you. Then if I feel kindly, I’ll let you walk out, if you can walk. And if I don’t, the second shot will be at close range between your eyes.”
Could he do that? He didn’t know, actually. He’d never shot anything bigger than a jackrabbit.
But this man didn’t know that, and Andy hoped that the calm way he stated his position would convince him that Andy could, and would.
The man’s eyes widened with shock, then narrowed with anger. Without another word, he reined his horse around and galloped off, spurring it roughly.
“He’ll be back,” came Red Hawk’s voice drifting out of the trees. “And he will bring more.”
Andy sighed. “I was afraid of that. Maybe if I find a good tree to—”
“Lend me your power,” Red Hawk demanded. “We are not far from the gods’ dancing ground. There may be something I can do.”
If Andy knew which direction the claim jumpers would be coming from, he could soften the earth enough to turn it into something like quicksand—
“Let me do something else first,” he said, and backed away from the stake, putting his back to a grove of trees. Kneeling down, he put one hand on the ground and let his power flow into it, until the entire area around the stake was as soft as waterlogged mud. He’d positioned himself so the claim jumpers would have to cross that stretch in order to get to him, no matter which direction they came from.
“Good! Good!” Red Hawk exclaimed, at his elbow. “Very good! If you have power left—”
He held out his hand to the native, who clasped his wrist; he did the same, and he let the remainder of his magic flow into the old man. It was not an inconsiderable amount. “You are the Master here,” he said, simply. “Tell me what to do.”
“Wait for them, as you planned,” Red Hawk said. “And fear nothing. I will take the mare to safety.”
With his back to the grove of trees, he set his rifle within reach and unholstered his
Colt, and waited.
He wondered where Alice was. He wondered how long she would have to wait in line. Those who had decided to grab the first available parcels, no matter how poor, would be at the office first, but surely she would be in the pack of those who—
He heard hoofbeats again, but just a single horse. Too fast to be Alice, who could not have gotten registered this quickly. He waited. Through the trees came a Federal Trooper, who, on seeing him, pulled up his horse short of the danger zone.
“That your claim stake?” he called, tugging on his hat by way of a neutral “hello” and to show his gun hand was empty.
“Yes, sir, it is. Sent my wife to the registry office with the survey stake.” Those words, “my wife,” put an electric thrill up his spine. “Just had one claim jumper I ran off, and I’m expecting more.”
The trooper looked around. “Not surprised. Good land.” He looked back at Andy. “We’re spread mighty thin out here, and things are known to happen. You do what you have to do, son. I’ll check back on you soon as I can. Just make sure I don’t have to tell your wife she’s a widow. If you disappear and someone else is holding your stake, that’ll be all I can do.” And with that, he turned and rode off again.
Well, that gave him tacit permission to do more than shoot a warning bullet. He just hoped it wouldn’t come to that—hoped Red Hawk had something up his nonexistent sleeve.
More time passed. The shadows cast by the trees moved slowly across the open stretch in front of him. He took time for a sip of water from his canteen; his stomach was too knotted to try gnawing on one of those ration biscuits. “You need water, Red Hawk?” he called.
“I am well,” came the reply, although he could not have told where it came from for the life of him.
Then, finally, the sound he was waiting for carried over the buzz and whirs of insects and the different calls of unfamiliar birds. Hoofbeats. Many.
He braced himself. And through the brush they came. Seven of them, all of them armed, all of them with guns in their hands, and all at the canter. “There he is!” shouted one, and they all spurred their tired horses into a gallop, clearly intending to rush him and cut him down in the proverbial hail of bullets.
And that was when their horses hit the softened earth.
He’d basically turned it to powder to a depth of about four feet in a stretch twenty feet long and six feet wide. As he’d expected, when the horses hit it, the powdered earth erupted in a cloud of blinding, choking dust. What he hadn’t expected was that the front halves of the horses would plunge in while the rear remained on solid ground.
With screams of fear and pain, the horses somersaulted into the trench, sending their riders flying.
A couple of guns went off, and he ducked, but none of the whizzing bullets came near him. The dust rose in a great cloud as horses continued to flail and scream and choke in the trench. He heard at least one man’s screams that were suddenly cut off. And coughing. He felt a little sick, yet filled with relief—
But the relief vanished, as he heard more hoofbeats coming from his right. He turned, and saw a dozen more men also with guns out, who reigned in their horses and stopped short of danger.
The leader—the man he had first run off—narrowed his eyes and lifted his lip. “That’s a mighty slick trick you pulled there, stranger,” he snarled. “Too bad you ain’t gonna live to appreciate how clever you was.”
“This is just one stake,” he said, knowing that there wasn’t anything more in his budget of magic, and that not even he and Red Hawk together could win against a dozen men. “There’s plenty more unclaimed land up and down this creek. Why contest me for this piece?”
The man sat back in his saddle, smirking, sure now that he had the upper hand. “I already got the rest of this creek staked, and I aim to have all of it. This’s the best land nearest where the railroad’s coming. Creek never runs dry. I’ll be gettin’ top dollar for this land, and I aim to ride out of here a rich man. Now, if you’ve got two hundred dollars in gold on ya, I might forgive ya for killin’ my boys, and sell an acre or two back to ya.”
Andy had heard plenty about men like this one—speculators who had bribed the surveyors to show them the best stakes. And even if Andy had money, he had no doubt the man would just kill him and rob him. There was nothing to stop him. The trooper had warned him of just that.
“No gold?” The leader laughed. “Well, that’s too bad. I’d have been inclined to let you start running, but not after you ambushed my men. Now yer just a bug, and I aim to squash ya.”
Half of the men raised their guns and sighted on him.
And that was when the giant spider rose up from behind the trees to his left, a strange, sharp odor wafting from it.
The horses whipped their heads around, caught sight of it, reared, and tried to bolt. Seven escaped, their horses running with such terror that not all the sawing at their bits in the world was going to keep them from running until they either stopped out of exhaustion or killed themselves and their riders. Four of the men were thrown, one hitting the ground headfirst with a crack that told Andy he wasn’t getting up again. The leader kept his seat, but looked up at the giant spider head gazing down at him and screamed.
And then the spider’s whole body dipped, seizing the claim jumper in mandibles the size of his arm and bit. The leader went limp. As Andy watched in horrified fascination, the body suddenly bloated until all the seams on the man’s clothing popped. And then, just as suddenly, it shrunk to skin and bones.
The spider dropped the dry carcass into Andy’s dust trench, then dipped and picked up the first man that had been thrown but was still alive, and repeated her actions. She did this two more times. The dead man she unceremoniously nudged into the trench with the end of one leg.
Then she looked down at Andy.
Fear nothing, Red Hawk had said. So Andy stood his ground, though he shook like a leaf in the wind, and looked up into those strange eyes.
“You have chosen the guardian well, my son,” said an odd, sweet, gentle voice that came from that head.
“Thank you, Grandmother Spider,” replied Red Hawk, who had suddenly appeared at Andy’s side. “He was not my first choice, but I think he is the better of the two.”
“Please make the land solid again, Guardian,” said Grandmother Spider, and to Andy’s astonishment, she shrank, and power flowed from her into him. He knelt and touched his hand to the ground, asking all the dust to settle back down and become solid earth again. The air cleared, and the screaming of the injured beasts stopped, and there was nothing but silence.
And the spider was now roughly his height, and they stood eye to eye. “I am Grandmother Spider,” she repeated. “All things come to my web, and break their necks therein. You will be the land’s Guardian when Red Hawk walks the paths of his ancestors. But before he does, he will teach you of us, of Bear and Cougar, of Beaver and Hawk, of Eagle and of me. And you and your children, and your children’s children will keep our dancing ground safe, as long as grass shall grow. You may call on us at need.”
“Yes, Grandmother Spider. As long as grass shall grow,” he said, a little breathless, understanding now that these were the American equivalent of the Greater Elementals he knew, but had never actually seen. Grandmother Spider was obviously Earth, Beaver—water, Eagle and Hawk—air…
His head spun a little. You did not summon the Greater Elementals. They were, in effect, gods. The ones that you could honor, as long as you kept Jehovah first. And this one had come to help Red Hawk.
And him.
“The honor is too great, Grandmother Spider,” he stammered.
A silvery laugh came from the creature. “I will determine whether or not it is an honor, child.” And then, she shrank and shrank until she was the size of a silver dollar, and ran off into the grass.
* * *
Alice returned at midday the next day, looking tired, but satisfied. Clearly she had gotten Prinz fed and watered somehow, as he looked in fi
ne fettle and ready for another run. As they ran to meet her, she swung herself off Prinz and pulled papers out of her dress pocket. “Here are—” she began, when Andy enveloped her in his arms and kissed her.
When they were both breathless, he finally broke it off. She could only look up at him, unable to speak for a moment.
“There is a lot to tell you,” he said. “But the most important is—welcome home, wife.”
A Simple Pine Box
JAMES VAN PELT
Emmanuel Sprig set up his wagon on the busiest street, Bennett Avenue, hoping that it had been a tragic week in Cripple Creek. Picturesque mountains surrounded the mining town on all sides, but he only paid attention to men coming from the bank, women carrying parasols, and well-dressed pedestrians. He’d heard the mines overflowed with gold here. People had money. Sprig blocked the wheels, paid a boy his last dollar to stable the horses, then flopped his billboards over the wagon’s side.
“Sprig’s Professional Photography, Specializing in Family and Memorial Portraiture.”
He whistled as he set up a table. Traveling agreed with him, he figured. Ever since he’d found the fancy coffin, he’d been feeling better. His back quit aching. The raspy scratch in his throat cleared up. Even his sore tooth had faded. Sleeping in its padded interior did him well. Better than sleeping on the ground.
Street dust coated his jacket, and he wanted a drink. He looked longingly at the saloon a few steps away, but he’d need paying customers before he could go in, and if he didn’t collect deposits for portrait sessions to take place in the next few days, he’d be begging door to door for table scraps.
A pert woman in a calico dress stepped off the boardwalk and marched toward him.
“I am the widow Mrs. Molly Armundson,” she said, putting out her hand. “My neighbor’s son, Timkins, passed a couple days ago. Can I arrange a sitting with you?” She carried a covered basket that smelled of fresh-baked bread. “I’d like to give her an image to remember him by. His mother is my friend, and since my husband died, leaving me comfortably situated, I want to do this for her.” She coughed primly into her hand. Color high in her cheeks hinted that she might have a touch of fever herself. Illness was endemic in the mining towns.