“He goes by Coward,” Doyle explained. “No other name fits him, and it’s a name he wears with pride. The Rangers have a bad history with that scoundrel.”
“He looked like he was sniffing the air,” Duck said.
Doyle appeared to shudder. “He’s got a … let’s call it unique sense of smell. He can track a man over a hundred miles. If not for my incantations, he would have sniffed us up here on the hill.”
“You mean he’s like a bloodhound?” Quinn asked.
“If a bloodhound had the Devil’s purpose.”
“We should stay out of his way,” Cutter said.
“I agree. We should all do our best to avoid Coward,” Doyle said. “But we still have a mission to attend. Now, I think it’s high time you show us the way into town, Mr. Revels.”
Quinn pointed to a spot beyond the northwest watchtower, where the Wisdom wall curved along the creek bed. “It’s just there. If we can find a way to slip past that guard tower, the rest of the way there should be clear.”
Keech peered across the distance. The ramshackle watchtower stood at least twenty feet high, and a dead man in an army uniform leaned against the tower’s railing, looking out. A torch burned on a post inside the thrall’s lookout, puffing black smoke into the forest.
“Leave that to me.” The Ranger looked at the young riders with a steely gaze. “Silence from here on out, kids. Stay close and keep low.”
The Ranger gestured for Quinn to lead the way, and the boy slipped down the hill, keeping his steps soft and measured on the snowy ground. Keech and the others followed, and the company moved closer to Wisdom under cover of sinister night.
CHAPTER 16
UNDER THE WALL
Quinn led them down through heavy thickets toward the northwest corner of the wall. As they drew closer to the tower lookout, Doyle motioned for them to gather into a close huddle behind a column of tall thistle.
Reaching into one of the pouches tied to his belt, the Ranger drew forth a pinch of black dust. He mumbled a few indistinct words, another one of his mystical chants, then poured the dust into his mouth. After swirling the dark powder around in his mouth for a moment, he extended his tongue, which was now an inky black, and curled it as if preparing to hawk a mighty gob. Instead of spitting, he puffed, like a child blowing out birthday candles.
Keech watched in fascination as a murky fog snaked out of the Ranger’s lungs and swirled through the air, winding upward. The vapor coiled around the watchtower, deepening the night shadows, and obscured any view of the thrall standing guard.
When the black haze finally broke from his lips, Doyle dabbed his mouth with a sleeve. “We’ve only a few minutes before the smoke thins. Let’s move.” He gestured at Quinn to lead on, then started back on his unnatural humming.
The young riders quickened their pace till they reached the moat that ran parallel to the north wall. The ditch had been dug in a haphazard manner, broad in some places, pitifully narrow in others. Quinn hopped across. The others followed close behind, moving as silently as possible beneath Doyle’s smoky veil.
Keech glanced up as they scooted around the watchtower. Again, no supernatural cold sparked upon his chest. He figured that, as Doyle had claimed, his incantation was concealing the shard’s energy.
The group skirted the log wall in single file. Keech moved with the quiet precision taught to him by Pa Abner, and the other kids’ footfalls were so discreet that not even a nervous deer would have noticed. But Edgar Doyle was the very definition of stealth. Much like his Kelpie horse, the Ranger’s moccasins made no sound.
Somewhere inside Wisdom, laughter filled the night, rattling to the croon of a badly tuned piano. The melody sounded to Keech like “Camptown Races,” a song that Little Eugena always tried to play on her bugle. The goons inside the town were apparently enjoying a party. Keech shivered at the thought of Big Ben nestled up on a bar stool beside that unsettling man, Coward, drinking rotgut whiskey while discussing the Reverend Rose’s wicked schemes.
As the company neared the narrow creek, Quinn whispered, “This is it.”
“What are we looking for?” asked Doyle.
Quinn beckoned for them to gather closer to the wall. “A few days before me and Auntie Ruth ran, one of Friendly’s men loaded me up with buckets of fish fins and guts and told me to pour them out near the wall. I carried the buckets behind a big warehouse. Right about here.” He pointed to the log barrier. “My feet sank in the ground all the way up to my knees. I thought I might get swallowed whole, but I managed to dig myself out. I realized the creek had washed out the dirt along this entire stretch. There’s a gap here to crawl under.”
“Big enough for somebody my size?” Nat asked.
“If you don’t mind getting muddy up to your eyeballs.”
“I’ll go first, make sure the way’s clear on the other side,” Cutter said. He skulked to the wall, pulled off his tan hat, and stuffed it into his coat. Dropping onto his belly, he pushed deep into the black murk.
Once he had passed beneath the logs, Cutter peeked back under the gap, his cheeks covered in dark sludge. “That was powerful gross. Your turn, Duck.”
Duck coasted as easily as a grass snake through the furrow, and when she made it to the other side, her grinning, mud-stained face reappeared in the gap. “C’mon, fellas, stop loafing.”
Keech and the other kids followed soon after, spitting dirt and mumbling curses.
Finally, the Ranger himself pushed up from the wall’s base, stood, and pulled a kerchief from his deerskin coat. After wiping his face, he grumbled, “That was unpleasant.”
They were behind the warehouse Quinn had mentioned, a rectangular storeroom with a series of mismatched canvas swatches nailed up to make walls. A threadbare tarp had been thrown over the wooden supports to create a sagging tent roof. Keech peeled back one of the cloth walls and peered inside. The makeshift warehouse was full of horse equipment and range saddles. Yellow crates, some stacked as high as the floppy ceiling, filled half the room. The entire west side of the depository was open to the night.
A kerosene lamppost stood on the sidewalk of the nearby street, illuminating the interior of the tented building with dull light. A pair of figures, likely a thrall patrol, wandered away down the street. They didn’t glance back and soon disappeared around a corner.
“Why is there so much horse tackle?” Keech asked.
“All this stuff wasn’t in here before,” Quinn noted.
Keech stole inside the warehouse and held the flap open for the others. Doyle checked one of the crate lids and found it open. He slid the lid off, and the gang peeked inside and saw folded clothing.
“What are they?” Quinn asked.
The Ranger gazed around at the dozens of crates around them. “Soldier uniforms.”
“But Wisdom ain’t a military base, is it?” wondered Nat.
“No. The closest garrison from here is Fort Riley up by the Kansas River,” Doyle said. “The outlaws are up to something bad here. They’ve turned a regular town into a fortress.”
A terrible thought rattled Keech. He wondered if the Reverend Rose was building a legion of thralls to attack every state and territory in the country. The more victims Rose’s brood piled up, the more troops they could raise up for their militia. Death spawned life for the Reverend and his followers. With enough gear and supplies, there would be no stopping them.
“Over here,” Duck murmured. “I found something.”
The group stepped over to a dark corner where Duck squatted next to a bundle of horse blankets. She was holding up the corner of the cloth, revealing a box filled with straw and four oily black spheres.
Nat hunkered closer. “Whistle bombs?”
Quinn answered, “Sure looks like it.”
Doyle carefully scooped up two of the bombs. “This is good news. Means we have a powerful defense should something go skew-whiff.”
“How did these get here?” Cutter asked.
“As I su
spected, my partner hid stashes around the town.” The Ranger slipped the shiny dark orbs into his coat. “Looks like he intended to blow up these supplies.”
Duck lifted a bomb out of the hay and held it in front of her. Her face screwed up in disgust. “They feel like butter. Should we take these with us?”
Doyle mulled over the question. “Normally, I’d say children should keep far away from such deadly devices. But you ain’t quite normal kids, and these are far from normal times. Have at it, but be careful.”
Quinn took the fourth ball from the crate and slipped it into his pocket. When the others looked at him with surprise, he said, “I planned to blow up this town all along, if you recall.”
Duck slid the bomb she was holding into her coat, but Nat grabbed her wrist. “No. I don’t want you carrying one. Give it to Keech if he wants it.”
“But I can handle it.”
“I know you can handle plenty, but if something happened—if you tripped and that thing went off—I’d never be able to face another day.”
Duck handed the bomb to Keech.
Keech smiled nervously. “Thanks. I think.” He tucked the black orb into his coat pocket. He didn’t relish the idea of carrying raw ordnance in his jacket, but he said nothing more.
“We should move,” Nat said.
“Not just yet,” Doyle replied, and glanced at Quinn. “Mr. Revels, give us the layout of this cursed place.”
Quinn closed his eyes. “There are three big buildings where they held all the townsfolk prisoners down to the south. To the east, you’ll find stockyards and pens where they keep all the livestock, and the place where Friendly built a run of holding cells for folks who fussed. If Auntie Ruth and the others you’re looking for ain’t in the south quarters, I’d say Friendly would’ve took them to the cells, as punishment for my escape.”
“The holding cells,” Doyle said. “Are they the only ones in town?”
“There’s a jail on Main Street inside the sheriff’s office. But Friendly boarded that place up, like they didn’t want it used no more.”
Doyle’s dark eyes narrowed. “From here on, I suggest we split up.”
“No, sir, I don’t like that idea none,” Nat said.
Doyle smiled, but the look that attended it was more stern than friendly. “I understand your hesitation, son, but this town’s too large for the group to move together. Your aim is to find the sheriff. Mr. Revels aims to rescue his aunt. My own mission is to find my partner, Lynch, and get him to safety. We cannot accomplish all these things if we stay clustered together. When stealth is involved, large numbers invite sloppiness. We’ll set a time to meet up at the ravine.”
Keech couldn’t believe how much the Texas Ranger sounded like Pa Abner. The tactical manner in which Doyle discussed teamwork and stealth all suggested a mastery of training.
Keech shrugged at Nat. “He’s right, I’m afraid. Chances are good we’ll be spotted if we clump together. A pair can hug to shadows easier than half a dozen. I propose Nat, Duck, and myself scout for the sheriff at the town jail. Quinn, Cutter, you two could head to the south quarters and look for Quinn’s aunt.”
“And I’ll search for the holding cells east,” Doyle finished.
Cutter held up a muddy hand. “Now hang on, amigos. If we split up, we should split the amulets, too. Doyle said they would still kill the dead men. I don’t fancy sneaking about this foul place without proper defense. I ain’t carrying no bomb, and my knife don’t work on thralls.”
Duck pulled the silver fragment from her coat. “Take this one. Keech can protect me and Nat with his.”
Cutter looked surprised by the girl’s offer, but he hung the fragment around his neck anyway. “I’ll take good care of it. I swear.”
“Once you’ve accomplished your mission, don’t linger,” Doyle said. “Retreat outside the walls and get Miss Ruth and Sheriff Strahan to the rally point.”
“What’s our cutoff?” Nat asked.
Doyle reached inside one of his pockets and extracted a watch. He looked at the time and said, “Let’s say one hour. If we can’t locate our friends within that time, regroup at the ravine and we’ll design another strategy.” Doyle wished them good luck, then slipped out of the warehouse, disappearing behind a stand of low buildings.
Nat studied each of the young riders, his stark blue eyes looking fretful. “All right, Lost Causes, we have our marching orders. Quinn, Cutter, be danged careful. Watch for crows and thralls, and run like scalded dogs if you spot the Chamelia.”
Cutter scowled. “You just had to go and say that, didn’t ya?”
“Quinn, find your aunt Ruth and hurry her out of this godforsaken town.”
“You can count on it.” Quinn gingerly tapped on his coat pocket, where he’d stowed the whistle bomb. “And I’ll leave Friendly a little something to remember Quinn Revels by.”
“Wait, I almost forgot,” Keech said. “How do we recognize Strahan?”
“He’ll be a fella with gray whiskers,” Quinn replied. “But you’ll know him ’cause he’s missing his right hand. It got pinched off a while back in a wagon pileup.”
“One-handed. Gray whiskers. Got it.”
Watching Cutter and their new friend creep off to the south, Keech tried to calm the beating of his nervous heart. He had agreed to Doyle’s plan of splitting the group, but as he watched them slip away, he began to second-guess his own reasoning.
The night Bad Whiskey had attacked the Home for Lost Causes, Keech told Sam they should split up. I have a plan, he told his little brother. Find Granny Nell and the others and lead them out to safety. Sam had done just as he was told. He ran into the burning house to rescue the family, only to be overwhelmed by flames.
CHAPTER 17
THE GRIM CIRCUS
Wisdom was a haphazard sprawl of shoddy buildings and lean-to shanties. With its bewildering checkerboard of streets and footpaths, the town had no general order to its layout. It was as if some mad farmer had tossed a handful of seeds into the wind, and tangles of shops and cabins had sprouted up from the mud.
Drunken laughter and piano music continued to plague the air as Keech and the siblings crept across the settlement. At one point, Nat held up a fist to halt them, and the trio melted deeper into the shadows. A solitary thrall wearing a shabby blue-and-white uniform shuffled past them. It stopped for a second, slanting its head. With a sudden panic, Keech wondered if it might be sensing the shard, but then the dead soldier muttered something and resumed its walk. Kicking at a pebble, it turned a corner and disappeared from sight.
“Doyle’s incantation,” Keech murmured, relieved. “Looks like it’s still working.”
Duck pointed ahead of them. “Let’s head toward Main Street.”
Their circuit sent them down an alleyway that turned into a skinny footpath. They followed in single file till it spat them onto a tiny plot of land, a square parcel just wide enough for a small log cabin, a stable house, and a putrid-smelling pigpen. Icicles dangled from the stable house roof, and snowy rime covered the pen’s wooden fence. Following the Embrys, Keech sidled along the fence line, careful not to slip in the half-frozen mud puddles.
A mammoth dark shape squealed inside the pen, then bolted straight for him and slammed into the fence rails, shuddering the wood. Keech wheeled backward, struggling to keep his balance. He put a hand over his coat pocket to secure the whistle bomb.
The thing that had charged him was a giant black boar.
The animal raked its curled yellow tusks across the fence. Its dark eyes reflected nearby lamplight, glimmering a feral kind of savagery.
“Filthy animal,” Keech grumbled.
Suddenly, he was yanked through the open door of the stable house. He spun around and realized that Nat was pulling at his coat. The rancher shoved him down onto the stable’s hay-scattered floor, next to a vacant horse stall, and threw a finger up to his lips: Shhh.
Duck pointed out the door to the log cabin. Lantern light flickered with
in. “I think we woke up somebody,” she whispered.
A lanky cowpuncher stepped out, wearing grubby long underwear and a pair of muddy boots. He held a kerosene lantern. The boar in the pigpen loosed another screech, and the man shambled across the yard. “Henrietta? What’s got you worked up, m’lovely?”
From the darkness at the back of the stable, a rowdy huff startled Keech. The skinny cowpoke trudged closer to the stable, tugging at his underwear. “Hector, you hush it up in there, you miserable brute!”
The trio pressed themselves deeper into the shadows, holding as still as marble statues.
As the scrawny man paused at the stable doorway, Keech made out a dark spiral shape on the side of his neck: the brand of the Reverend Rose. The fellow raised his lantern toward the aisle. “Don’t you be spookin’ Henrietta with your huffin’ and puffin’!” he shouted. “I’ve a mind to feed you to her!”
The man lumbered back to his cabin and slammed the door. A minute later, the light winked out. The nervous trio waited till a loud snore sounded from the cabin.
“That was close,” Keech muttered.
“Henrietta?” Duck shook her head. “That fella don’t even realize his pig’s a boy.”
“Did y’all see the brand on his neck?” Nat asked.
Duck wondered, “Why would Rose have a person branded?”
“I don’t know, but I sure don’t like it none,” Nat answered.
A loud huff sounded again from the back of the stable. Curiosity itched at Keech. He slipped down the aisle.
A massive stallion was crowded into the far compartment, watching him. The horse stood at least eighteen hands high from the floor to the top of his withers. His mane and tail were as white as dove feathers, and his fur was a beautiful cream shade, the color of freshly churned butter. Keech gestured at Nat and Duck, and they joined him to get a closer look.
“That’s the prettiest horse I ever saw,” Duck said.
Nat smiled. “A cremello stud. Rare in these parts.”
The Fang of Bonfire Crossing Page 13