Dust of the Damned (9781101554005)

by Brandvold, Peter

  Angel turned to Jesse. She had her rifle on her shoulder. “James, you an’ me need to get somethin’ straight, because it’s been gallin’ me ever since we left Tucson.”

  The Missouri outlaw turned to her with that lascivious grin he reserved especially for the buxom, redheaded deputy marshal. “How can I help, Miss Coffin?”

  Her hands and arms moving in a blur, she swept her rifle off her shoulder and rammed the butt hard into the outlaw’s belly. Jesse gave a great, pained whoosh of expelled air and dropped to his knees, kicking up a dust cloud.

  “What…in Christ…?” he grunted, making a face while pressing the heels of both his hands to his battered midsection.

  “That ain’t much, but that’s for all the trains you robbed and all the people, including badge toters, you killed over these years since the War. And that’s my promise to you that when our mission here is over, you’ll be accompanyin’ me back to Denver in cuffs and shackles.”

  She spat into the trail beside the grunting, panting Jesse, gave his dislodged hat a kick, and turned toward her horse.

  “Feel better?” Zane inquired.

  “I do.”

  As Angel mounted her horse and Hathaway shook his head, choking back snickers, Zane crouched over the damaged outlaw and grabbed one of his arms. “You all right, there, Jesse?”

  He helped the man to his feet and gave him his hat.

  “Law, law,” Jesse said, shaking his head as if to clear the cobwebs, limping over to his horse, “she is a caution!”

  They camped that night about seventy miles southwest of Tucson, having made good time and seeing enough of the Hell’s Angels’ sign as well as that of the posse behind them to convince them all, including Angel, that the outlaw was indeed leading them in the right direction—pretty much on a cross-country beeline toward the Lobo Negros.

  They rose well before dawn and traveled by the light of the large moon still high in the western sky and shedding nearly as much light as the dawn sun would. They followed arroyos and shallow canyons, crossed two low jogs of dun-brown hills, and found a bowl in the hills where Apaches had once camped, the jacales still standing and waiting for the wandering hunters and warriors to return. Five horses had been picketed nearby, and there was a pile of fresh ashes in the middle of the camp.

  Without a doubt, Hondo’s group had camped here.

  The posse from Tucson had followed about three hours later but did not camp. As it turned out, they would never camp again, for as Zane’s party headed into a deep, narrow canyon between two shelving escarpments of cracked sandstone boulders, they found seven of the nine posse riders and their horses lying smashed to bloody pulps beneath the rocks and boulders that had been loosed from one of the ridges.

  The killings had occurred about a day ago, judging by the state of the carcasses after the carrion eaters had been at them. They were still at them. The canyon was aswarm with quarreling buzzards and coyotes that pranced among the rocks on the sides of the ridges, tongues hanging, eyes bright with the feeding frenzy. They’d likely been hard at work in the canyon bottom, fighting with the buzzards, before they’d heard the approach of the four riders and scrambled away.

  The buzzards were more persistent. Some refused to leave the bodies, flapping their ragged, dusty black wings in challenge, or flying awkwardly onto boulders nearby to bark and curse the interlopers, their proprietary eyes sharp and wicked.

  No one said anything as they weaved their horses around the dead men and their dead mounts and the boulders now nearly jamming the canyon. Zane’s casket-carrying coffin scraped against the rocks, occasionally getting hung up until Zane clucked to General Lee and nudged it free. He was riding point, the others riding Indian-file behind him, when he jerked back on the palomino’s reins, slid his cross-draw pistol from its holster, and raised the piece, clicking back the hammer.

  He loosened his trigger finger. A man sat atop a flat-topped boulder with his back to the scarp behind him. His legs were stretched straight out before him, the badly worn, pointed toes of his boots tipped slightly to each side. He was dressed in dusty denims and a canvas coat.

  His head had been hacked off of his shoulders.

  The head was now resting in his lap, cradled in his arms as though its owner was afraid he might lose it.

  Chapter 28

  THE WINGED DEMON RETURNS

  The eyes of the disembodied head, still wide in horror, stared out over Zane as though at the dead man’s own killers among the rocks on the other side of the canyon. The head’s thick, chapped lips were stretched back from scraggly teeth. He was missing one eyetooth. He wore a three-day growth of black beard and a deep gash below his left eye.

  He also wore a dusty, faded-yellow Stetson with the front brim pinned to the crown. Several buzzards and a lone hawk circled above the corpse. One buzzard was perched atop the man’s shoulders, probing the gap where the man’s head had been and where now only blood and viscera shone. The bird turned its ugly eyes on Zane and gave a challenging squawk, splaying one wing and shifting its weight from one foot to the other.

  “Mother of God,” Hathaway said behind Zane.

  “No, it’s Day Summerville,” said Jesse. “Ghoul hunter from over Nevada way.” He clucked fatefully. “Told me as he was leavin’ the Rincon just before that puta bitch came in and turned into a mountain lion that he was fixin’ to settle down, go back home to Winnemucca, and get himself hitched to a half-Mojave gal with big, pillowy teats.”

  The Missourian spat a runny quid against the face of the boulder on which Day Summerville sat.

  Zane nudged General Lee ahead, and they rode down the twisting corridor and up a steep grade where the walls drew back and they were suddenly out on a broad flat once more, heading for the cut in the mountain range that would take them to the next valley and the Lobo Negros beyond.

  They came to an old lava field with what appeared to be an ancient Indian trail cut through it, angling toward the Negros rearing blackly and jaggedly in the west. It appeared the only route through the field of sharp-edged and jumbled boulders that had likely spewed from the top of the Negros millions of years ago, when the volcanic cones had blown their proverbial stacks. Zane put General Lee onto the trail, looking around cautiously, caressing the trigger of his Henry repeater that he held across his saddlebow. His crossbow and quivers hung from lanyards down his saddle skirt.

  When they approached a keyhole-like notch in a low ridge, Zane checked General Lee down again sharply and grimaced. The others rode up around him, following his gaze to the man tied to a gnarled paloverde along the right side of the trail, just before the trail entered the tunnel-like canyon.

  The man was naked and sun-seared a bright, blazing pink. His hands were tied behind the tree, as were his ankles. He’d been cut up bad—long, deep, torturous slices. It was hard to tell for all the blood, but he appeared to be missing his privates, and he’d been gutted.

  “Well, well, well—what have we here?” Angel said grimly. “Another warning to anyone dusting those killers’ trail?”

  “Looks that way, sweet Marshal,” Jesse said. “If you need comforting, I’d like to be the first to volunteer my services.”

  “Shut up, James.”

  “Hold on.” Zane swung down from General Lee’s back

  “What is it?” Hathaway said.

  “Thought I seen him move.”

  The big ghoul hunter tramped up the steep, short trail to the ledge of sand and rocks upon which the paloverde grew, its thin, slender leaves flashing silver in the breeze, which also blew the tied man’s straw-yellow, coarse blond hair about his forehead, his chin tipped to his thin, bloody chest.

  Zane stood before the man, whose age it was impossible to tell. He reeked heavily of blood and viscera and urine. He’d been cut up bad, but most of the cuts except the one that had disemboweled him were only an inch or so deep. He was about five and a half feet tall, and Zane could see chin whiskers a shade darker than his hair, though he couldn’t s
ee much else about his face until he reached up with his right hand and used his index finger to shove the man’s head back against the tree.

  The head jerked. The skinny, blood-matted chest rose slightly. The eyes fluttered, opened to slits. They were cobalt blue and dark and pain-racked.

  “Pl…please,” he rasped, barely loudly enough for Zane to hear. “Kill me…!”

  Zane grimaced and took one involuntary step back. He turned to Angel, who sat her paint beside General Lee. “Crossbow!” A gunshot would have been heard for miles around.

  She reached over and grabbed his bow, nocked an arrow to it, and tossed the weapon up to Zane. He grabbed it one-handed, aimed, and drilled the silver-tipped shaft through the man’s chest and into the tree behind him. The missile crunched through the man’s breastbone. The fletched tip quivered.

  The man’s head shook as though he’d caught a sudden chill, coarse hair sliding this way and that across his eyes. His chin dipped one last time to his chest.

  “Those fucking killers,” said Hathaway. “I sure can’t wait to drill some forty-four slugs through those bastards’ cold, black hearts.” He cast his molasses-eyed gaze at Zane. “What was the point of that? Huh? Will you tell me? I know ’Paches do it, but…” He let his voice trail off in bitter frustration.

  “They did it for the same reason the Apaches do it,” Zane said, long-striding down the slope and lashing the crossbow to his saddle. “To scare the hell out of us, make us think hard about following. Which means,” he added, peering through the keyhole notch, “that we must be damn close to the Angels’ destination. Best proceed with extra caution.”

  He swung back into the leather and nudged General Lee ahead once more, Angel falling in behind the bouncing, rattling casket, Hathaway behind her, and Jesse bringing up the rear. As the Missouri outlaw entered the keyhole notch, he lifted his Spencer’s barrel to scratch his cheeks, his pale eyes bright with eager anticipation. To Zane glancing back at him, he almost looked as though he were about to break out in hysterical laughter.

  Zane turned his head forward again as General Lee carried him out the other side of the keyhole and they found themselves in another canyon cut into the side of a steep slope rising to the left and straight ahead, on the canyon’s other side. A narrow trail hugged the side of the slope to Zane’s left. The trail followed the rim of the canyon to the other side, then switchbacked up the far side to the edge of a massive block of steeply shelving sandstone crowning the ridge crest.

  Zane gigged the palo on into the broad canyon, saw several steep, rocky hills around him, between him and the mountain’s far side. Another trail snaked off across the canyon floor to Zane’s right, rising and falling out of sight for a time before reappearing in the far-northeastern distance, curling around the base of the steep ridge and disappearing around its side.

  Nearby, a roadrunner made a red flash as it darted out from behind a low, rocky knoll covered in greasewood, and crossed the trail before disappearing into a patch of Spanish bayonet and rocks on the other side.

  Zane swung down from General Lee’s back. Hathaway dismounted his mule, and the two strode around, looking for spoor. Hathaway crouched, grabbed a chunk of horse dung, and sniffed it.

  “Rained last night here, likely compromised the Angels’ sign. Musta come through here, though, as I found a couple horse apples like this one along our backtrail a ways.”

  “Split up,” Zane said, remounting and turning General Lee down the canyon floor to the right.

  Hathaway followed him. Angel turned to follow the trail hugging the slope and switchbacking up the far ridge, and Jesse reluctantly followed the marshal. “Don’t see why I have to follow her,” he groused, “when she could so easily shoot me out of my saddle and say I was beggin’ for it.”

  “Wouldn’t put it past her,” Zane agreed.

  “What the hell’s that?” Hathaway said behind him.

  Zane had heard it, too—a heavy whooshing that sounded all too familiar, and which caused a cold hand to reach into Zane’s belly and twist his stomach hard. He looked up. A winged creature, little larger than a golden eagle from this distance, curved around the far-right side of the ridge crest and began descending. Quickly, it grew larger, its large wings flapping slowly, heavily, long tail curling out behind it like a rudder.

  “Ah, no,” Zane complained as the dragon rushed toward them.

  He glanced behind him at Angel and Jesse following the trail along the side of the canyon. “Take cover! Our winged friend is back!” As Angel and Jesse looked toward where the big ghoul hunter had been pointing, Zane pointed down canyon ahead of him and to his right, where a pile of cabin-sized boulders all jumbled together offered the only cover for him and Hathaway.

  “Come on, Al—let’s head for them rocks!”

  Hathaway glanced once more at the dragon that was now within two hundred yards and winging toward him and Zane fast, eyes blazing like sunlit gold. “I’ll race ye!”

  Zane pulled General Lee off the trail and down the grade toward the boulders. Hathaway’s mule brayed indignantly and thumped along toward Zane on the ghoul hunter’s left. They gained the rocks at nearly the same time, leaping down from their saddles. Quickly, they led their mounts into a narrow notch between the boulders and the southern ridge, tying them both to spindly shrubs.

  Zane ran back and grabbed his Gatling gun and a cartridge belt out of the casket. Hathaway was climbing up the rocks, breathing hard and hauling himself up one boulder at a time.

  Zane climbed frantically up behind him. The whooshing was growing louder. The big beast’s wings were creaking and flapping like giant flags.

  As Zane scrambled up into the rocks that afforded plenty of niches to hide from the dragon’s flames, he saw the beast itself as it bore down on the escarpment, its gold eyes blinking slowly, fiercely, flames beginning to spiral out of its mouth and nostrils. Zane shoved Hathaway into a notch between two of the stacked boulders. As he threw himself into the same notch, he felt the rush of heat behind him, heard the beast’s enraged bugling. Belly down in the gravel between two slab-sided boulders, his Gatling beside him, he saw the orange bursts of flame hammering just outside his and Hathaway’s hiding place.

  Fifty feet below, General Lee whinnied shrilly though the horse was likely safe in his and the mule’s deep, well-protected gap. The mule brayed raucously.

  Outside the notch, flames leaped and coiled. Tendrils licked a couple of feet into the gap, like living things trying to reach Zane and the Army scout. They disappeared as suddenly as they’d appeared, leaving only smoke and the heavy smell of charred rock and foliage.

  Zane looked at Hathaway. The scout’s eyes were large as he stared back out of the notch. He’d lost his hat, and sweat trickled down his dark forehead and bearded cheeks. “That hydrophobic polecat with wings nearly cooked us like spitted jackrabbits!”

  Zane grabbed the Gatling gun. He caught a glimpse of the bandolier he’d slung around his neck and shoulder, and cursed. He’d meant to grab a bandolier of silver, but in his haste he’d grabbed one with lead slugs. What the hell, he thought. Dragons weren’t his trade. He had no idea if any kind of slug would kill one.

  Sliding the big gun behind him, he scrambled back out of the notch.

  “Best stay in here!” Hathaway warned. “You ain’t never gonna kill it even with that bullet belcher!”

  Outside of the notch, Zane rose to his knees and perused the sky. The dragon was just then winging over the southern ridge, over and beyond the keyhole through which he and the others had entered the canyon. A second later, it disappeared on the ridge’s other side.

  Most likely, it would be back.

  Zane shouldered the Gatling gun and began crawling up the boulders above him, grabbing the edges of the rocks and hoisting himself, grunting and groaning and using his legs to push, his arms to pull. Finally, he gained the top rock that was slightly slanted but that offered a good view of the canyon and the ridges all around.

  H
e glanced to his left, saw the dragon banking steeply in the southwest and beginning to wing back toward him. He couldn’t see either Angel or Jesse. A limestone knob jutted out of the western ridge, with towers and parapets of wind-sculpted rock. Likely they’d holed up in there.

  Quickly, keeping an eye on the fast-approaching dragon, Zane set up the tripod, spreading the wooden legs and mounting the gun atop the platform. He twisted the locking nut in place and rammed a cartridge belt into the cylinder, hearing the satisfying hollow click of the first cartridge slipping neatly into the breech.

  Zane swung the gun to the west and crouched low, aiming over the barrel. Gatling guns sacrificed distance and accuracy for the volume of shots and power they expelled in a short amount of time. He had to wait for the critter to get in close enough to do some damage, but not so close it would turn Zane into a roasted coffee bean before he could kill it.

  If bullets of any kind could even kill such a hellish monstrosity…

  The dragon winged toward him, black smoke curling from its nostrils. The wings flapped, making their sinewy sounds, like unoiled door hinges. A bugling cry rose from the long, down-canted snout, and the gold eyes pulsated, drilling straight across the hundred-yard gap now between itself and its quarry.

  “Ugliest damn bird I ever seen,” Zane muttered through gritted teeth as he began turning the wooden crank furiously.

  Chapter 29

  DRAGON SLAYER

  The Gatling fairly exploded, leaping on its legs as the roaring canister spit smoke and fire at the great beast closing on it fast. Echoes hammered off the surrounding peaks.

  Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam!

  Zane cursed as the beast kept coming. The bullets seemed to bounce off its nose and forehead and even the two golden eyes. Determined, Zane kept cranking as the dragon winged in, dangerously close.

  Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam-bam!

  “Get down!” Hathaway shouted from below, the scout’s voice barely audible above the beast’s angry wails and the whoosh of its giant wings. As it drew within thirty yards, the smoke curling from its nostrils, there was an orange flash and then fire began jetting from its nose and mouth. Zane had already grabbed the Gatling gun and fairly hurled himself over the side of the crag, his boot slipping on a stone ledge below. As the fire leaped like an orange blanket onto the slanted rock he’d just vacated, he rolled off the ledge and hit the boulder below it hard on his left shoulder, the Gatling crashing down beside him.