“Sun’s coming up. A new day means a new chance to make a difference. That’s what my mom would say. I used to think that was hogwash until recently. Now let’s take a look atcha.”
Moving the light around him, I saw his right eye was destroyed, as well as his right wing, broken for sure. As was a foot.
“You’re a mess, little one. Let’s see what I can do.”
I set the light down and rested the black bird on his back in my cupped palms. First, I sent energy into his foot, then his wing. As they healed, he tried to flutter.
“Shhh...I got one more thing. This’ll take the longest. But, being as you’re so small, it might not be so bad.”
Laying a hand on his head, careful not to press hard, I pictured the eye of a raven and all it saw from above. I imagined myself high in the air with him, seeing all he saw as I pushed healing energy into him, just as the sun came up over the horizon.
Suddenly the air around me changed, as if my energy expounded, sending a swirling of gray mist around us that felt static-like, flashing like lightning bugs were zooming about inside it. Still connected to healing the raven’s right eye, I felt a tug on my own. The force pulled my face toward the bird, as if connecting us like a rubber band.
Opening my mouth to cry out in pain, I removed my fingers from his eye, and my vision changed. I saw myself from the bird’s point of view. I was enormous and obviously in pain. Afraid of my power and yet determined to save this bird’s eye and life, I tried to give one more push of healing energy.
The sun slid over the horizon, bathing us both in golden light. The clarity of vision I had through the bird’s eyes became perfectly clear, letting me know his sight was repaired. I pulled my energy back, and the connection between us snapped. My sight returned, and I opened both of my eyes in time to watch the raven jump from my hands, good as new.
Happiness filled me and then, the next second, the raven was gone, and before me sat a naked Indian boy, no more than twelve or thirteen. He wore nothing but a leather necklace strung with what looked like bird bones. He inspected me, head tilting like a bird, as the flashing gray swirled around us for a moment longer before fading away like fog with the morning light. Heavy silence filled the air as the boy and I stared at one another for a moment until he placed a hand on his chest and uttered one word.
“Gaax,” he said, the word coming out sounding like, “Gawkh.”
It took a moment to understand he was giving me his name. I touched my chest and gave the name I always uttered to strangers. “Henry.”
He looked over his shoulder at Brewer, sleeping sound in the dirt where he’d fallen.
“That’s Richard,” I said. “He is not on my Christmas list at the moment. What are you?”
Gaax looked back at me, an eyebrow raised.
“Damn, you may not speak English. Sadly, I don’t speak any language of The People. I do know Spanish.”
The boy smiled. “I know language of the white man. One cannot survive these days without that knowledge. I stare at you because you survived the magical place of shift. What are you?”
“What am I? What are you?”
The boy smiled. “Zahara said you were different, that you and your companion were special. But she didn’t explain how.”
Now it all made sense. The sense of being followed from her place. The raven following us from Brewer’s to here. She’d sent a spy.
“You’re a witch too then? Sent to what, watch us and report to her?” I said, standing, blazing anger roaring up from the depths of my gut.
The boy stood as well, calm and controlled, standing just under five feet tall. “No. I was sent to keep you safe. I am a shiftshaper. My people call them skinwalkers. I take the shape of the raven, as it is a sacred bird to my people. My job was watcher and protector of my tribe. But my family are long dead, so I work with Zahara.” The boy, dark eyes old beyond his years, motioned toward me, insinuating it was my turn.
Holding my anger at bay, I said, “I’m a cursed warrior of Scáthach.”
Eyes wide, a smile spread across his face. “Why, I’ve not seen one of you in many moons. That must mean she is here, causing trouble again.”
“You could say that. How long?”
“Since before you were born, that is for sure. You’re a new warrior then.”
“Why would you say that?”
Gaax walked over to what was left of our fire and sat on Dick’s sleeping mat. “Zahara wouldn’t have sent me to a seasoned warrior, for he’d not have need of my help. And to be truthful, she’d not have sent me at all if she didn’t care what happens to you.”
“I see,” was all I could say.
“Do you have any food? I’m starving.”
“Yeah, I think we have enough breakfast to add you in, if Dick isn’t still eatin’ for two.” I stepped over and sat on my bed roll. “I’ll restart this fire if you’ll find me some wood.”
“Of course,” he said, standing.
“Would you like clothes?”
“Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know, so your privates don’t get caught on sharp plants or get sunburned.”
He sighed. “I hate clothes about as much as I hate being tied to the land. I would not have transformed back into this form if I’d not needed to heal.”
“I thought I’d healed you.”
“By sunrise you’d not completed, so my body automatically began the shift while we were connected. No one has ever been in the gray space with me before and gone unharmed. You are a powerful man, warrior-Henry, even if you do not know it yet.”
With that, he walked off to find wood while I contemplated my situation and began to prepare breakfast. When he returned with the wood, he begrudgingly asked for some clothes. I found him a pair of my smallest pants and a belt to cinch them. Once on, he rolled up the bottoms before plopping down on Brewer’s bedroll.
Once the fire was ready, I cooked up some bacon, hoping the smell would wake the big lug snoring in dirt like he’d drunk the night away. Thankfully, it did.
With a groan, Dick sat up and looked around. “What the hell am I doing over here, and why does my head hurt? And uh...who is this?”
Gaax waved. “Good morning.”
“This is Gaax. He saved our lives last night, you almost shot me, and I knocked you out with the butt of your rifle.”
“You what? Why? What smells?”
“If it smells good, it’s bacon; if it smells bad, it’s one of the two dead wolves, now humans,” I said, placing two crispy pieces of bacon on a tin plate with some oatmeal flat-cakes I’d mixed up the night before, and handed it to Gaax.
“You knocked me out and left me over here? Really, now?”
“Do you want to keep bitchin’ or have breakfast?”
Dick stopped, eased himself up onto his long yet sturdy legs, and headed toward the campfire like a hungover drunkard. Sitting down next to Gaax, he just stared at him. “Why are you all alone out here...and why are you wearin’ Billy’s pants?”
“Funny story... We’ll eat, and I’ll fill you in.”
“Why do I have a feelin’ that you say funny, but you don’t mean it?” Dick said.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Because, you sleep-walkin’ fool, I did not find your gun in my face funny. Now eat and I’ll explain.”
Once I had caught our resident soon-to-be werewolf up to date, he apologized profusely; as if he got paid each time he said he was sorry. Finally, I had no choice but to forgive the big galoot and just ask he not sleep with a gun for a bit.
After breakfast was done, we packed the wagon for the last leg of the journey up to the caves. I wanted us to be there before sundown.
Looking at our new travel companion, I said, “Are ya comin’ with us?”
“I am unable to shift until sunset, or I’ll be too tired to fly, so you’re stuck with me.”
Dick and I shared a look.
“We might want to tell him where we’re goin’ and why, then,” Dick said.
“I already know. Zahara told me that much.”
“Well, great,” I said, not really meaning it. “Let’s all hop up into the wagon and get goin’.” Climbing up into the wagon, our teenage guardian found room in the back, right behind the bench, between us so he could see the road.
With a chuckle, I said, “A cursed son of a bitch, a soon-to-be werewolf, and a skinwalker walk into a bar. What could possibly go wrong?”
“We’re going to a bar?” Gaax asked.
“No, just a turn of phrase,” I said, snapping the reins on Colonel and Mattie. As they began to pull us back onto the road, I added, “Besides, aren’t you a bit young to be goin’ to a saloon?”
“I am well over sixty years old. I can go wherever I wish.”
“What?” Dick sputtered, almost choking on his sip of water from the canteen.
“We don’t age as long as we shift...I’ve only ever stopped shifting once, when sorrow drove me away from my homeland sixteen years ago. That is when I flew far away from the white man disease that annihilated my people.”
“Smallpox,” Dick said.
He nodded. “How did you know?”
“Your people aren’t the only ones to have died from the disease,” I said. “Hell, Dick here was sick with it for a while.”
“And you survived?” Gaax asked, obviously stunned.
“So it would seem,” Dick replied.
“You must be a hearty and healthy man.”
“Well, he did have the help of his mom,” I teased.
“Oh, shut it,” Dick said.
“The love of a mother is to be cherished. I’m glad she was able to help you survive such a horrible disease.”
This sobered my humor. “Yes, yes, they are to be cherished.”
“We were plagued with three large outbreaks of this disease, and it killed a fourth of my people, taking all of my family. My father, before he died, ordered me to fly far from the plague, so I did. Unfortunately, I was injured and had to shift back and was found by a member of the Navajo tribe on their trudge to Fort Sumner. I did my best to help them there. I hated seeing our kind treated like cattle. I stayed with them for three years, aging physically to thirteen.”
“So that’s how you ended up in Lincoln,” I said.
“Yes, and I’d have stayed with the family who’d taken me in, but they, too, died, and so I shifted and flew away from that horrible place. When I did, I realized how much I’d missed the sky, and I’ve not been on land for more than a day here or there since.”
Brewer turned to face Gaax, his focus steady on the boy. “You chose to be the raven from the beginning then. This isn’t a curse set upon you or an infection?”
“No. My family, a part of the Tsimshian Tribe, have always been shifters.”
“Where is the Tsimshian Tribe from?” Brewer asked, doing his best to repeat how Gaax had said the tribe name.
Gaax laughed. “That was a good try, Mr. Richard, but it’s Tsimshian,” he said, pronouncing it, t’SHim-SHen. “To answer your question, my family once resided in what is now British Columbia. We lived off the sea and flourished...until the white man came.”
He was silent, and neither Dick nor I felt we could do or say much to make him feel better for that, both of us being what killed his family, in a way.
Dick turned back around to face the front and handed me the canteen and I waved it off.
Gaax yawned. “But then I found Zahara’s orchard, and I’ve been with her ever since.”
“There is room to lie down back there if you want to take a nap,” I said.
The boy hummed in agreement and made himself comfortable on the hay in the bed of the wagon. In no time at all, he fell asleep, and we all headed for an area of the desert that I prayed would be far enough away from people that if Dick lost his soul and I couldn’t bring myself to shoot him, that he didn’t kill anyone, including me or Gaax.
This was getting more and more complicated by the minute. To hide my growing fear, I sang songs to pass the time. However, Dick was looking worse and worse as we drove. After we’d stopped at a river to fill our canteens, eat, and wash up, Dick swapped out places with Gaax and curled up in the wagon, moaning in pain every now and again.
“The river didn’t lower his fever enough. He is still in great discomfort,” Gaax said as he climbed onto the wagon seat with me.
I pulled out the pocket watch John had given me. “It’s five hours until sunset, so I’m not surprised. If we’re lucky, we’ll be at our destination in the next two hours.”
“Why do the hours to sunset matter?” Gaax asked.
I clicked at the horses as I lightly snapped the reins, urging them forward. “Because tonight the full moon will rise about fifteen minutes after the sun sets, and that is when my friend will change for the first time.”
“And you will use what Zahara taught you to try and save his soul,” Gaax offered.
“Yes.”
“It has never been done before,” Gaax explained to me.
“I know, but I like to be the one who breaks the rules, and dammit, I plan to break this one tonight or...” I let my thought fade away and began to whistle a tune instead. But Gaax wasn’t one to accept less than all the information.
“Or what?” he prodded.
I stopped whistling but continued to stare ahead as we headed down the empty, rarely traveled road. Finally, I said, “Or die trying.”
And I meant it.
16
Full Moon
Sweat poured down Brewer’s face as I attached the tenth set of chains around his body. “It won’t be enough.”
“You don’t even know if you’ll change,” I pointed out as I tugged on the chains I’d wrapped around, and slightly under, a boulder. “Do you feel homicidal?”
“At you, maybe.”
I stepped back from him and attempted to determine how honest that was.
He laughed. “No, I don’t feel homicidal. I just feel...off. Like when I had smallpox. Like I want to scratch my skin off.”
“That’s disturbing enough.”
“Hey, I could want to peel your skin off and eat it, so there’s that difference.”
“Point taken,” I said, and did the one thing he wasn’t aware of in the so-called plan: I pulled both guns and sat down.
“What are you doin’?”
“I’m gonna knit a sweater, Dick. What’s it look like I’m gonna do?”
“The plan was for you to leave.”
“No, that was your plan. My plan has always been to see you through all of it.”
Dick opened his mouth to tell me off, but pain ripped through him so harshly that I could follow the trajectory from beginning to end. Eyes shut, head thrown back, he bellowed out a guttural sound that, if it were something visceral, would’ve ripped through flesh and bone, piercing my heart. As it was, mine currently felt as if it beat in my throat, making it hard to breathe. Recognizing my fear, I swallowed it down and waited for him to stop.
Moments later he slumped forward. I rushed to him and again picked up the cloth, soaked it in water, and wrung it out. When I lay it across the back of his neck, he sighed.
“Water,” he whispered.
“Sure thing, champ. Hang on.” I went to the canteen and poured a mug of water. Bringing it over, I held it to his mouth and helped him drink. He downed the entire thing, and I stepped back. “More?”
He shook his head slightly, still staring down. Drops of sweat fell to the rocky ground from the tips of his drenched waves of hair. I set the mug on a flat rock near the canteen and was about to sit back down when he spoke. Unable to understand him, I moved closer. “What was that?”
“Kill me.”
I normally would’ve had a witty comeback for anyone who said that to me, but not Dick. Instead, I just stood there, flabbergasted. “What? No!”
“Please kill me.”
“Yes, now that you said please, I’ll get right on that,” I said, my voice heavy with sarc
asm. “Maybe you didn’t hear me. I said no. No way in hell, to be specific, and that’s where I’m probably headed but no, no, and no.”
“Why?” he shouted, his head snapping up, wild eyes staring at me. “I know you know how! Just put the barrel of that silver bullet filled gun to my head and pull the trigger.”
“No. That’s the end of this discussion.”
“Please, William, God, please?” he begged, his voice breaking, tears streaming down his face, now red from exertion. “Please. If I was ever your friend, put a bullet in my brain.”
I approached him again, and squatting down in front of him, I lay my hand on his shoulder. “Brother, I’d as soon take my own life as take yours, and we all know I’m not ready to go. I gots me some demons, both figuratively and literally, to deal with first. It’s not my time or yours.”
After a moment, he nodded. “Just remember, you gave me your word. When I change, if it’s not me anymore, if I lose my soul, you don’t hesitate. You put a bullet in me. You hear me?”
In no way was I going to kill him. Not unless I had no choice. “I promised then, and I promise now.” God help me, I was such a liar.
Not hearing my reservation in that statement, he nodded again. “Good. Good to know.”
Silence hung heavy, and I sat down.
“Why are you doin’ this?” Dick asked finally. “I’m about to become a demon, a monster you as a warrior of Scáthach are bound to kill on sight. That’s the balance.”
I picked up a small rock and rolled it about in my hand as I spoke. “Who says these men are demons? Fuckin’ Garrett? Does he know for sure? When Charlie shot Baker, you remember he wasn’t dead yet.”
“I know.”
“Well, his eyes looked at me in fear and knowledge as I lifted my gun on him. I think his human mind was present in that form.” I threw a rock, still feeling the anguish from pulling the trigger that day. “Damn it, Dick. I think it’s a curse, not a possession. I’m not killin’ demons so much as men cursed...I’m killin’ men like me.”
“Not like you. I’m not about to be like you. I’m about to become a monster from storybooks and you...you just get to live forever!”
The Curse of Billy the Kid: Untold Legends Volume One Page 18