Cold Slither: and other horrors of the weird west (Dark Trails Saga)

by David J. West

  “Wheat. You’re here.”

  Walking Bear grunted. “I came to warn you. Let us get back to the ranch.” He tugged on Port’s reins and swung his head in a demanding fashion.

  “Take it easy old man. We were about to head back anyhow.”

  The old man grunted again.

  “Kid, let him get on with you.”

  The boy fidgeted in his saddle and slid back a hand’s breath.

  Walking Bear shrugged and said, “I can walk as fast as you can trot.”

  “Suit yourself. Let’s get back into the trees and be on our way.”

  They slipped through the aspens but not before all looked to the jagged cleft one last time. The stillness seemed to echo and the foreboding was palpable.

  “It is not safe to be near Unktehi ’s lair,” repeated Walking Bear, after they were beyond the aspens.

  “Didn’t figure it was, but I wanted to learn all I could for myself. I saw his tracks, he’s a big ’un,” said Port, as he bit the end of a cigar and fumbled for a match.

  “He is large, but he is not yet full grown.”

  Port’s eyebrows raised and he neglected to light his cigar, letting the match burn out. “Not full grown?” He muttered through his teeth clenching the cigar. “Whad’ya mean? How do you know that?”

  “Unktehi dwelt with his mother once and she was greater still.”

  “You mean there is two of ‘em?”

  The old shaman nodded. “I saw them hunting the buffalo many moons past, before the white cattle men came, when I was a boy. They and the thunderbirds dwelt here, but like all things they change and return to the earth.”

  “But those two are still here?”

  “Perhaps, but perhaps the mother has gone the way of all things and sleeps forever in the earth.”

  “You almost sound disappointed.”

  He moved his hand across the horizon and down. “I am sorry to see any creature’s time pass. My time comes soon as well. It is as the Great Spirit moves in all things. There is a season for all.”

  “Even these monsters?” asked Port, indignant as he lit another match.

  “They had their place. But as the white man encroaches a deadly struggle comes. The other white men do not know how to kill Unktehi, but you are blessed by the Great Spirit. You have the blessing way of doom, the instinct of killing and will surely find a way.”

  “Thanks, I suppose. You don’t have any more direct pointers though do ya?”

  The old man took Port’s cigar and puffed a moment before answering, “Look and you will find. The way of the gun is not the way to succeed. As you made a boast, you shall be tested. Trust not in the arm of flesh but have faith in yourself and the Great Spirit’s guidance.”

  Frowning, Port mumbled, “You can keep the cigar. Something tells me, I ain’t gonna be able relax yet.”

  “No, you won’t,” agreed Walking Bear, with a wry grin.

  “With all you just told me, did you really come all the way out here just to warn me off?”

  Walking Bear shrugged, grinning, “I also wanted the cigar.”

  Night fell black as coal and ten times as hard. The last of the ranch hands threw a few cords of wood beside what was now Porter’s bonfire, then they too disappeared to whatever shelter they could find for the night. Only the kid and Walking Bear remained beside the long-haired gunman.

  Garfield made a brief appearance. “I’m offering my sincere thanks Porter. If you can take care of this, I’ll be forever in your debt.”

  “I know,” Porter said, tossing a log on the fire. “How about a drink?”

  Garfield nodded and went back inside the manor house.

  Port heard the bolt slam down and shook his head. “You two can get some sleep or whatever you want. Sure don’t gotta stay by me.”

  The kid nodded to Port, but pointed at a barrel beside the manor house. “I’ll be in there.”

  “Why not? It’ll give a good view. Now, Walking Bear, I’d rather not wait all night. Anything we can do to get Render to come sooner than later?”

  The old man produced a skin kettle drum from his deerskin bag. “Unktehi does not like the noise the white man make. This drum will annoy and draw him near in anger. And in anger you can perhaps defeat him as he shall make mistakes, for he is clever but anger clouds the mind of all creatures it touches.”

  Port said, “I’ll take you at your word for that.” He sat on a stump facing out and away from the fire so he wouldn’t be night-blind. He loaded his three pistols and checked his Sharps buffalo gun.

  Walking Bear sat in the dirt before the fire, heedless of the danger that would surely creep up from behind.

  The kid sat slumped over the rim of the barrel, with a dirty blanket across his shoulders. He crunched into an apple and Port signaled that he wanted one too. The kid however wouldn’t leave his barrel and threw the apple to Port, who narrowly caught it before it landed in the roaring fire.

  Walking Bear began drumming and chanting a song of his people, an old song that called out in the night, noble and fierce. His voice was clear and proud, timed to the steady throb of the drum, calling out the demon, Unktehi.

  “Waiting is always the hard part,” Port lamented to himself. “But being hungry makes the food taste that much better.”

  The drums beat echoed and they were answered. An awful roar like angry cracking thunder swung out of the night and made the ranch dogs yip and bark in fear.

  Walking Bear continued his steady primal beat. To Porter it matched his heart. Upon hearing the terrible roar his heart thumped, boom, boom, boom, boom, fast as it could.

  The Render, Unktehi, was coming.

  Porter felt the bowie knife at his side; the blessed blade gave him cold comfort. He watched the clouds clearing out as the storm moved on south east. The bleak stars appeared and twinkled. They seemed unfeeling and cold, their light frail.

  Walking Bear never relaxed and perhaps even drummed a half-beat faster.

  Port stared at the open range toward the cleft, though he could only see a hundred yards at best. A cat or raccoon stole through the edge of the corrals. A night hawk swooped low, briefly illuminated by the firelight. The smell of the pines off the mountain was stronger now after the rain and the light tremble of every fourth beat rocked Port upon his stump. Every fourth beat was stronger, shaking the ground harder.

  Every fourth beat?

  The kid screamed.

  Port swung around to see colossal darkness looming behind. It blocked the stars from view and coalesced into a twenty foot, mottled grey tooth ridden horror.

  Jaws agape, its massive head tilted slightly as it snapped at Porter who narrowly dodged and rolled away.

  On his back, Porter drew two Navy Colt thirty-six caliber pistols and emptied them into the monster’s underbelly as it passed over him. The bullets ricocheted off the scaly hide. The monster hardly acknowledged the attack at all, giving its lightest roar yet.

  Port rolled again as the swampy tail thrashed where he had just lain. It sent the heavy stump Porter had been sitting on sailing across the yard like a skipping stone.

  Grabbing his Sharps rifle, Port attempted to get a bead on the monster’s eye or failing that, a nostril. But the behemoth swung around with such speed, Port’s one shot was a glancing mark to the monster’s impervious jaw line.

  The great taloned feet slammed down and Port felt the rifle torn from his grasp. He heard the crack of wood and twisted steel as the monster’s step destroyed the Sharps.

  The heavy step crashed behind Porter. The snapping of the titanic maw gave such fear as he had ever known. He weaved as he ran, dropping near a water trough for cover.

  The drumming, if not the chant of Walking Bear continued and Port reeled at the thought of the old man still singing what could only be his death song.

  Was it a distraction? The monster nudged at the trough, as if to coax Porter into revealing himself to be run down and eaten. But the drumming worked. The monster having lost sight
of Porter, wheeled to go after Walking Bear.

  Unktehi cleared half the distance as Port rose and drew his final pistol. Aiming at the back of its head, he emptied the thirty-six caliber balls at the base of the monster’s skull and as close to its predatory eyes as he could.

  Walking Bear drummed and chanted without fear.

  The monster hesitated looking at both men. Walking Bear retreated a few paces, still banging the drum and giving his loud throaty chant. Porter attempted to reload the cap and ball pistol, cursing at the loss of the Sharps.

  Port was struck at how tiny the monster’s arms were. It was as Garfield had told him. It killed with its mouth or feet, the arms were virtually useless. For as large as Unktehi was, the arms were no bigger than Port’s.

  The killer instinct within Porter awoke. The red ballad of death sang and Port knew the tune. Whether it was helped along by the Great Spirit mattered not, because the man in his struggle against death answered the call.

  As the monster threatened Walking Bear, Porter dropped his useless pistol and charged bare handed at the brute. “Wheat!” he roared like a madman.

  The drum beat louder as Unktehi salivated.

  Porter leapt up the monster’s knee and grasped the left arm. He twisted it back against the monster itself.

  For the first time ever, Unktehi knew fear. This man, this insect was hurting it. He snapped at the man but could not even come close to grasping the tenacious foe.

  Porter swung back and taking hold at the monster’s elbow, slammed it backward until the bone cracked and Unktehi screamed.

  The monster panicked, considering trying to fall over on the man, but feared what would happen if it was on the ground and unable to get up. Instead it swung its massive body in circles hoping to toss or shake the man aside like a dog scratching fleas.

  Port hung on for dear life as he was dizzied by the spinning monster. Like the bull of the gods, Porter rode the demon, shouting, “Wheat!”

  Unktehi jerked and twisted, snorting til blood foamed pink at his nostrils and still the bear of a man would not let go.

  Bracing himself, Porter used the momentum to wrench the arm back at the shoulder and break it.

  Unktehi screamed again and vomited in terror. Never had anything caused such dire pain. And the drum beat on.

  Porter took the limp arm and twisted it and flexed against the steely scales until a spur of jagged bone from the inside, bit through. Port worked the tear until he could turn the arm about again and again. He tore as Unktehi raged. Muscle and sinew gave way as the hard scales flexed and buckled, revealing soft flesh. Hot blood flowed freely cascading in rivulets down Ports straining arms.

  One last twist and pull.

  The arm came loose and Porter fell to the ground still clutching the scaly arm and two finger like claws.

  Deep scarlet splashed across Porter’s face as Unktehi ran into the darkness, bawling more like a crippled goat rather than the thunder lizard he was.

  Porter held the bloody clawed arm aloft and shouted the primal barbaric cry of victory. This time it was his voice that rocked the night and made the beasts fall silent.

  Walking Bear ceased his drumming and the ranch folk stepped out from their shadows and hidey holes. Garfield came out marveling at the gory sight.

  “Get my horse,” ordered Porter. “Things got a blood trail like the Colorado. We need to finish this tonight.”

  “You heard him,” shouted Garfield, “Mount up!”

  A dozen men rode into the darkness after the monster following the blood trail across the meadows and through the aspens all the way to the marsh. Even upon the inky waters, crimson swirled toward the cleft.

  “Maybe we should wait to the break of day,” suggested Ferdie.

  Port’s eyes flashed and the instinct was on him too strong to wait, too strong to let things go. It was too strong to deny. He walked into the waters alone until he was swimming through the murk, his feet unable to touch bottom. He trudged out of the cool waters and still the blood trail beckoned him on into the darkness like the promise of a cooing lover.

  The cleft wound around through a copse of trees and finally into a sheltering overhang of rock where the bones of monstrous generations rotted and the last of its kind came to die.

  Render, or Unktehi as the Dakotah named him, lay upon its belly, snorting blood as it breathed heavily. Its great amber eyes blinked. The wound of its stolen arm spurt jets of blood in time with its dying heartbeat. Porter ran his hand across the face of the monster and felt pity for a thing that knew nothing but how to kill. Was he the same? He told himself he wasn’t, while still wondering in his own primal beating heart.

  Porter put the muzzle of his Navy Colt to the great amber eye and said, “You’re done killing.”

  Unktehi snorted in response, as if resigned to his fate.

  “But I ain’t.”

  The shot echoed off the canyon walls and the beast was still. Morning’s light washed over the mountains and the others finally dared to venture inside the cleft.

  Porter had fallen asleep beside his grim prize. It took four strong men to lift Unktehi’s gory head and they marveled at the last of the thunder lizards. They spoke of the wealth such a find could bring and stories they could tell in the taverns on lonely cold nights.

  Garfield patted Porter on the back, “What can I possibly do to thank you? You’re a hero, like those legends of old. How can I repay you?”

  Porter stretched, took stock of his bloody garments, broken guns shook his head and answered, “I still need that drink.”

  Right Hand Man

  Account written by George D. Watt in January of 1870 and left in the possession of Daniel Bonelli in St. Thomas, Nevada.

  We had only been in St. Thomas proper for but a few hours and already Brother Brigham’s de facto and oft times drunken bodyguard, the gunslinger Orrin Porter Rockwell, was embroiled in the middle of quite a ruckus with the local red natives.

  It seems that the Paiutes, who camp alongside the ‘Big Ditch’ – a canal that flows through St. Thomas to irrigate the fields therein, began to have a dispute over a woman. Supposedly one man decided to claim the wife of another man and the two began to scrap over her and gradually a large number of the restless braves took sides.

  They did have the civility to lay aside their weapons and duel using only their bodies until one alone could claim victory and thus gain the woman. But of other such barbarities in the fight they had many, especially in the way they treated the squaw during the conflict.

  She, unfortunately had no say in the matter, but such is the way of the savage. The two sides did beat each other furiously wrestling and boxing one another after a fashion and it did sway each way in an undefinable manner as far as I could perceive.

  When they weren’t beating each other over the head, they would then grab the woman by the arms and pull her each way in a veritable tug of war virtually killing the poor creature.

  Now some of the Saints did try to intervene and thus save the woman but they were largely beat back by the strong willed natives whose blood was up in the heat of the moment. And of course Brother Rockwell’s intervention was especially misconstrued as he has all the subtlety of a pair of brass knuckles.

  He approached them when they were pulling hard on the young squaw and he admonished them to let her go and settle the dispute without harming her. They however took it to mean that he was saying he wished to join in the fight and he, being a white man, was the instant focus of their wild aggressions.

  Rockwell suddenly had some twenty braves assaulting him and while for a moment one might have thought that the bearded gunslinger would be overwhelmed, Rockwell who has always been a hard man to handle, proved himself to be the meanest, toughest man I have ever seen.

  I should add that at this point in the evening, Mr. Rockwell had already had a fair amount of drink in him and could not nearly have been at his full wits and capabilities.

  At one point the braves had all t
aken hold of Rockwell by his arms and legs, picking up fully off of the ground and having him stretched out like a Christmas goose, but he ferociously kicked his legs until they were forced to drop him and he struck them with his fists until all tumbled down and then all at once he was punching them into submission. He whipped the lot of them and they did concede and allow him full access to the squaw. She herself was more than resigned to such a grim fate as that.

  The braves having fully accepted that he was the victor, now cheered that the conflict was resolved and that he was the ‘wyno’ Mormon. I was amused as though ‘wyno’ means good in Paiute the double entendre for our alcoholic Brother could not be missed.

  Rockwell then did try and turn her over to that man whom he believed had the legitimate claim to her, but she did refuse such saying that he [Rockwell] was the man who had fairly won her hand and that she did belong with him now.

  This put Rockwell in more of a fix that he had anticipated even facing off against twenty men. He told her he was already married and she only brought up the LDS custom of plural wives. Rockwell said that he did not wish to take her from her people and upset her family and that she should stay with her first husband.

  To this she reluctantly agreed, though she said she was still truly his squaw and would only stay with her first husband on Rockwell’s permission and that when he should desire her, she should come to him by and by.

  She did also give him a small beaded medicine pouch she said she had made and placed sacred items inside. She said it was enchanted and would protect him from the great evil and ghosts he would soon encounter in this red country. Rockwell reluctantly put it around his neck, wearing it with apparent chagrin. But I must add that he did never take it off so long as we were in the Muddy Mission.

  And so ended our first night in St. Thomas, which I must say ended up being the lightest of the conflicts of the visit to the Muddy Mission.