“We need to talk to Garrett. See if there is a treatment for it. Maybe I can—”
“No! There’s no tellin’ anyone. You hear me? I won’t have them put me down like a dog.”
I smiled. “Well, technically...”
“Shut up, Billy! Now is not the time for your tension humor.”
I wiped the smile off my face and stepped over to him. “You’re right. But let’s find someone who knows about this. Let’s go talk to one a medicine man of The People. We won’t say it’s for you. How long until the next full moon?”
Dick sat down on the stump. “It’s a week away. I’ve got a week to live, Billy. I just...I just want to be on my farm and enjoy my last days. Can you not just let me do that?”
What if he was right? What if what I’d seen in Baker’s eyes had been my imagination? He should be able to spend his last week how he wished.
“I can do both. If anyone asks, you say I’m in San Pat with the Regulators. I’m gonna try to find answers.”
“In six days’ time you’re just gonna find all the answers? Not even you can do that, Billy. You’re a lot of things, and resourceful is one of them, but today is the twelfth of March. The full moon is the eighteenth.”
“All right, so I have six days. I’ve escaped from jail in less time, so I think I can do this. Don’t you give up though...and for God’s sake, don’t use the silver shit anymore. That’s just makin’ it worse.”
“Or it’s killin’ the virus,” he said.
I sighed. He could be right, what the hell did I know? “Fine, here.” I reached into my pocket and handed him the next bottle. “Don’t overuse it. Maybe cut back. How often have you been using it?”
“Four times a day.”
“Cut it to two and see if it feels a bit better. You’ll still be gettin’ the silver in there, but maybe you won’t feel or look so damn sick. Have you seen yourself in the mirror lately?”
Dick shoved the waves of hair out of his eyes. “I feel like hell.”
“You look like it, too.”
A small smile touched his lips. “Don’t sugarcoat it for me or anythin’.”
“I’d never dream of it.”
He laughed lightly, eyes on the ground. Silence lingered for a few seconds between us, and I was about to go when he said, “It’s okay if you can’t, you know.”
“Can’t what?”
Looking up at me, he said, “Save the day.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He stood, a stupid grin on his face. “You’re always tryin’ to ride in and save the day. I’m just sayin’ that it’s okay if you can’t this time.”
“I do not try to ride in and...look, I’m not out to save the day, ever. I will try to save you. I’ll be back no later than early mornin’ on the fifteenth. Pack a bag, prep your best horse, and be ready to go.”
“Where to?”
“Far from here so you don’t hurt anyone else that night. I’ll take you out to that cave I was trapped in that one time, with the Indians outside. Remember that story?”
“Who can forget? You tell it all the time,” he teased, walking toward the ax he’d thrown.
“Shut up, I do not.”
He looked over his shoulder and squinched an eyebrow down in a way that said I was full of crap.
“Even if I do...that’s not the point.”
“What is, then?”
“The point is that it’s far from here. A two-day ride for sure. I’ll take you way out there so if you do change, you won’t hurt anyone, and no one will kill you.”
He picked up the axe. “Except you.”
“I’m not going to kill you.”
“You don’t know that.”
I turned and started to leave. “I’m not gonna have to. I’m goin’ to figure out how to...what was it you said? Save the day? I’m gonna try to do that right now. Don’t go do anythin’ stupid, all right?”
The big man walked over, picked up a log, and set it on the chopping stump. “I already am. I’m lettin’ you try this.”
“You’re funny. But seriously...I’m goin’ to do all I can, okay?”
His face became serious again, and he nodded. “Okay.”
With a nod, I left him to curse and take out his aggression on the firewood once more. I just prayed there wasn’t as much aggression as before. That is the one thing Garrett was right about. Having a friend to share in your troubles did make a difference. Dick was there for me when I found out about my curse, and he’d not blinked an eye at it or treated me any different. I wasn’t about to deny him the same courtesy.
Now shouldering some of Dick’s worry on my shoulders, I mounted Colonel and headed off to see if I could get an audience with the medicine man of the Mescalero Apache over on their territory. If I approached this wrong, it would be my life on the line. I had to be careful.
Mescalero Apache were prevalent in New Mexico. It so happened that I knew a few of The Nit’ahéndé, the People Who Live Against the Mountains. They lived along the Rio Bonito and the Rio Hondo rivers, as well as in both the Capitan and Sacramento Mountains. Their chief, San Juan, and a few members of his Tribe had needed help once when I’d come across their path and lent my assistance. If I was lucky, they’d remember they owed me one.
Riding toward their territory, I had my rifle resting across my lap while I chatted with Colonel. “If you see a deer before me, do tell. Only way we’re getting past the Chief’s guards is with a gift.”
It wasn’t San Juan I need to speak with though; it was his medicine man, Dasan. He and I’d crossed paths before Tunstall hired me. Back when I rode with Jessie Evans’ gang, which I’d hated every minute of, but it was money and protection. During that time is when I came across a member of The Nit’ahéndé and ended up saving Dasan’s life. He told me he owed me a life boon. So now I would collect on that. The life he’d be saving wasn’t mine, but that was fine by me. In fact, in my opinion, it was a life worth more than mine ever would be.
Thankfully, it didn’t take long to hunt a deer, load him up, and deliver him to San Juan as a gift. I requested to speak to Dasan and was taken to where he sat by a fire, tending to a young boy’s cut leg. When his eyes landed on me, he didn’t smile, but he didn’t order me away either. Instead, he told them to leave me there and go.
I took a seat by the fire and waited.
Once finished with the boy, who ran off to play again, Dasan turned to me. “I did not think I would see you so soon, Williamson. I believe I told you to send word. You are not word. You are white eyes in the flesh on our land. The reason you come must be very important to take a risk such as this.”
“It is, and private. Is there somewhere we can talk?”
“We are talking now.”
“Don’t be difficult with me, Dasan. You know what I mean. This is a private issue.” I pulled out a bag from my inside jacket pocket. It contained half of the tobacco I had left. “Smoke and talk. Yes? If you can’t help me, I’ll leave.”
He considered this, and then with a simple nod, he stood and motioned me to follow him. As we left, I noticed two members of the tribe come to tend to the fire we left behind. Where they’d come from I didn’t know since it had appeared as if he and I’d been alone, making me feel like I was being watched, even now. I did my best to shake it off and followed him to a teepee on the outskirts of camp.
“Remove your boots,” he instructed, as he took off his hand-sewn leather slippers.
I complied without question, hopping about to get them off before stepping inside. Many teepees are similar to tents the army uses, sleeping three or four people. This one was different, though, as it was the same size but only housed Dasan.
The floor was covered in animal fur, mainly deer and buffalo, which felt good on my feet after a day in boots. He instructed me to start a fire, and I selected a few pieces of wood from the pile to the left of the entrance and sat by the ring of stones at center. The base of the fire pit was filled with sand, and
he placed some dry moss in the center of the circle.
Setting up a triangular build of wood over the moss, I did my best to use the flint rocks to get a spark to light the kindling. While I did this, I glanced around the cozy surroundings. The area directly across from the entrance lay Dasan’s bedding. Near the wood pile, I saw a Dutch oven pot and a few other cooking items, and along the wall were books, many of them.
I looked over my shoulder to see the medicine man select a small wooden box that sat beside what appeared to be a woven mat attached to an x-crossed set of vertical wooden poles. This created a seat and backrest, which I found fascinating and inventive. Coming over to sit next to me, he opened the box and showed me its contents, a grin on his face.
“You could’ve just said you have matches, Dasan,” I chided, happy to set the flint rocks down and light the moss with one of his matches, which took the flame and lit the thin wood pieces above it in an instant.
“Maybe I wanted to watch you try the old way first.”
I laughed. “I am capable enough the old way, but this is much better, faster.”
“And I feel time is of an issue for you,” he said, setting the box down between us, which also held a pipe and the instruments for cleaning and packing it.
“Yes, or I’d not have come and bothered you.”
Dasan took the pipe in one hand while putting out his other toward me. “I understand.”
I handed him the tobacco. “I won that from a man in the southeast of the country, fresh from his tobacco plants.”
Dasan only nodded in appreciation and began to pack the pipe as I tended to the fire, which warmed the round room quickly, smoke traveling upward and out the top perfectly. Once he finished, he selected a thin piece of wood from his box and set the tip of it in the fire. The flames discovered it immediately and fire overtook the end of it. Pulling it back out, Dasan used it to light the tobacco in his pipe.
After a few draws to light it, he blew out the smoke while sticking the thin wood into the sand to extinguish the fire on the tip. “This is good tobacco. You came well prepared, Williamson. Ask your question.”
How was I supposed to explain this? What if he didn’t believe in werewolves? I’d be right where I started, and Dick would be no closer to a cure, if there was one.
“Do you believe in magic?”
In the firelight, I saw the surprise on his face at my question before he replied. “I may be but an apprentice of our medicine man, but I believe in the magic of the earth, of what it provides, and of the spirits of our people.” He handed me the pipe. “Why do you ask?”
“Because what I’m about to ask you next is gonna sound impossible.” When he said nothing, I took a puff on the pipe and slowly let out the smoke. “Do you believe in the lycanthrope?”
Dasan stood and backed away from me. “You come to talk of dark spirit magic to me? In my home? On my land? Get out!”
“I wish I could just walk away. But I have a friend in need of help, a man I respect like you do your chief, and I cannot let him down. Please, Dasan, listen to me. If you cannot help, then I’ll go. But hear me out.”
Cautiously, he walked around the fire pit, sitting across from me this time, his back against a large trunk with a flat top, where he displayed photographs that he’d affixed to pieces of smoothed wood. “Tell me and then you must go.”
I kept it vague and hoped he didn’t press for more. He didn’t seem to want to know anything he didn’t need to, so that was on my side.
“There is nothing you can do. If what I’ve heard about this myth is true, your friend is infected, and he will change as of the next full moon and be dead to you. The best thing you can do is put a silver bullet in his brain.”
“That’s not gonna happen if I can help it. There has to be somethin’ to pull this poison from his body. Leeches or colloidal silver or hell, I don’t know, somethin’. There’s magic in the world, Dasan. Because of that, I feel there’s somethin’ I’m missing that can help him.”
He stared at me for a moment, then said, “I am not educated about such things, but I know of someone who is more...aware, shall we say. She used to be a medicine apprentice like me, but many began to call her a witch, and she left the tribe. She’s not far though. I’ll tell you where, but you’ll need to have payment. She is not free, and unlike me, she doesn’t owe you a life debt.”
“Does she believe in this type of magic?”
“She does.”
“Then I have payment for her enough.”
He handed me a large skeleton key. “You’ll need this.”
Placing the key in my pocket, I said, “Okay. Where do I go?”
It would be easy to miss unless you were looking for it: an apple orchard along the side of a tall mountain rock. Dasan told me to find a door in the side of the wall of stone, not far from a creek that carried water from the reservation past the orchards that camouflaged the hillside.
Riding through, I plucked an apple from one of the trees and was about to take a bite when a voice, somewhere near but seemingly all around, spoke to me.
“Is that your apple?”
Remembering Dasan’s words, I said, “It is if you’ll let me eat it, my lady. I can pay for it and your guidance. Dasan sent me.”
“Prove it,” the voice said.
I pulled out the key Dasan had given me. “He gave me this.”
Movement caught my eye to my right, and soon an Indian woman, very likely in her mid-to-late forties, stepped around a tree and up to my horse, apple in hand. Feeding it to him, her eyes of gold looked up at me, a stark contrast to her dark skin and hair that hung to her waist. She was a beautiful woman, and for a moment, I felt entranced by her and could see why some might call her a witch.
Shaking it off, I tore my eyes away from her to my stallion, happily munching his apple as she stroked his neck, her fingers swollen and knobby.
“He is a beautiful horse,” she said.
“And he knows it,” I told her.
“We all know our worth, do we not?” she said, her voice a silky purr.
I patted his neck. “He seems to like you.”
“You are not human,” she said so matter of fact like that I almost agreed with her.
“Well, that’s changin’ the subject, isn’t it?” I said. When she said nothing, I added, “I am actually human. Why would you say I’m not?”
“My magic works on humans. If it doesn’t work on you and you’re human, there’s some sort of magic in you.”
I visibly relaxed in the saddle and said, “Yes.”
“You intrigue me, magical human. What is your name?”
I paused for a split second to choose which name to give her. “Henry Antrim,” I told her. “And you are...?”
She said nothing aloud, but inside my head, I heard the name Zahara as if whispered on the wind, and my stomach twisted. This was the woman Scáthach thought was dead, the one whose magic she smelled on Colonel.
“You’re the witch who spelled the stable for Colonel, aren’t you? That’s why he likes you, he knows you!”
She stopped and stared. “You seem rather informed for a human who has just entered my magical grove, Mr. Antrim. Tell me what you are in need of.”
“Knowledge on the lycanthrope.”
Her eyes grew, and a smile of intrigue lit behind them. “I can help you. For I know much about the lycanthrope...and Scáthach’s other children. But what magic have you come to share with me in return?”
“Share?”
“Yes. For you want information on this so badly that you are prepared to do whatever it takes to get it. That I can read plainly. The question is, what will you pay for it?”
“I will do whatever it takes and pay you all I can, dependin’ on the information you share. If you hold back, so will I.”
“I see, Mr. Antrim, you do like to play the game.”
I smiled at her. “You can call me Henry, and yes, I do like a good game. But I’ll warn you, Zahara, I ten
d to win.”
“Mmmm...” She hummed as she nuzzled my stallion’s neck. Laying her cheek on it, her eyes looked up at me. “But you see, Henry of the blue eyes and human magic, so do I.”
Electric silence bounced between us, and suddenly I felt a desperate need for the information she knew. If I played it right, tonight I could learn more than just how to save Dick. I might learn how to save myself.
13
The Witch Of Scáthach
With no urging required, Colonel followed her like she was made of peppermints and apples. He either was in love with her or her magics held him in thrall. Laying low, I draped across his neck to avoid the apple tree boughs from smacking me in the face until we reached the wall of the mountain, not far from a painted-on door.
The wall here appeared to be covered in vines, yet as I dismounted and approached the curious sight, I noted that it was a wall of interwoven plants, black in pigment and covered in thorns. They writhed when she approached and coiled back without a second thought, revealing an opening and a path beyond it.
I’d seen enough traps in my time to become wary. “You are a child of Scáthach yourself, are you not?”
Zahara turned to me. “I am one of the few she blessed with the gift of magic, that is true. In fact, I am the first one on this continent she bestowed the gift upon. However, I am no longer her child. I earned my freedom and hold no allegiance to her.”
I stared her down, debating what I was to do. Garrett said we were to kill all Scáthach’s demon children. But I wasn’t about to kill Dick, so did I need to kill Zahara?
“Oh, I see now,” she said with a laugh and a smile. “You’re one of her warriors. Are you here to kill me, Henry?”
“Should I?”
“It would be interesting to see you try,” she said, raising her hands, causing the thorned vines to writhe about and a few to slither toward me.
“I didn’t come here to fight you. I came for answers to help a friend.”
The Curse of Billy the Kid: Untold Legends Volume One Page 15