Dead Men's Dust

by Matt Hilton

  Finally satisfied that this wasn’t part of Cain’s ambush, I stepped forward. A quick inspection showed that the dirt and gravel at the side of the road had been disturbed. More concerning, I saw a damp patch of blood where a body had been dragged across the earth. I guessed that John had made some effort at escape, only to be captured and forced back into the Dodge. Cain had John, yes, but he hadn’t noticed the briefcase that was hung up in the bushes farther along the trail.

  I trotted over and snatched the Samsonite case from the brush. I was in no doubt that it was the one I’d seen John clinging to at the beach house. Chance could have dumped a briefcase way out here in the desert, but not one glistening with sticky blood. I didn’t spare the time to check its contents, noting only that it was heavy before I stuffed it under my arm and headed back to the SUV.

  When I was back in the car, Rink set off again after Cain. He asked, “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Money,” I said. I opened the case on my lap. Bundle upon bundle of bills filled the case. Rink gave a low whistle.

  “Counterfeit?”

  I checked.

  “No. The real thing.”

  “So that’s what this is all about,” Rink said.

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so, Rink. It was never about the money. Cain wants blood. That’s all it’s ever been about.”

  “Bones,” Rink corrected.

  “But I do think this is what it’s all been about for John.”

  “Goddamn greedy fool.”

  I shook my head. “Believe it or not, I don’t think he did this out of greed. I think he sees it as a way to put things right.”

  “Yeah,” Rink said with no conviction. I shrugged. I knew John better than that. I believed that he’d changed. The old John wouldn’t have jeopardized his safety for the old woman; he wouldn’t have risked lifting the cell phone from my pocket for fear that Cain saw him. To me, John had turned a corner in his life, where more than his next bet meant something to him.

  Even what we’d just come across back there on the trail now made sense to me. He hadn’t attempted to escape at all; he’d jumped from the Dodge so he could leave the cash for me to find. The money wasn’t for him; it was for Louise, it was for Jenny, it was for his children. Stuffing the case beneath my seat, I put the money to the back of my mind. I could see to it later.

  39

  “HOW DO YOU LIKE THE PLACE?”

  Oblivious to Cain, John slumped against the wooden support-beam, smearing it with blood as he forced himself upright. His head lolled on his shoulders and he mumbled something incoherent.

  “You could act a little more enthusiastic than that,” Cain said. “I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to get the place just right for my brother. Put a lot of time and effort into the decor. Don’t you think the ambience is just right?”

  John staggered. Cain clutched him under an arm, mindless of the way his fingers dug into flesh. “Watch that first step; it can be a real bitch.”

  Then, with a shove, he pressed John forward. Watched as his captive tumbled down the short flight of steps into darkness. Only semiconscious, John made little noise. He fell as if constructed from rags that made only soft contact with the steps. A grunt was all that marked his resting place.

  “That’ll teach you to pay attention,” Cain said. He wasn’t happy that John had lost the case of money, but neither was he unnecessarily concerned. Either Joe Hunter would fetch the money for him, or he could backtrack and collect it when all this was over. Concern was unnecessary, but a little necessary cruelty would remind John Telfer what it meant to cross Tubal Cain. Taking one last glance behind him, Cain followed John into the darkness.

  Fifteen feet down, the steps leveled out on a floor made of bedrock. Last time Cain had been here he had swept the desert sand away, but already he could feel windblown dust beneath his feet; it was the main downside to his hideaway that he had to continually maintain it by brushing and sweeping to keep the desert at bay.

  He prodded John with a foot, moving him aside as he reached out in the dark and clutched for the padlock that held the metal door shut. Holding the lock in one hand, he traced the fingers of the other up the near wall, found a narrow niche he’d dug into the sandstone, and pulled out the concealed key. The key opened the lock with little resistance. Cain pushed and the door swung inward on well-maintained hinges.

  The smell buffeted him.

  He smiled.

  Even in his semiunconscious state, John gagged at the stench.

  “What the fu…?” John groaned.

  Cain didn’t comment; he bent down and grabbed John’s shirt, hauling him to his feet and pushing him into the room before him, urging him into the charnel stink. John gave some resistance, refusing to breathe, steeling his shoulders as he attempted to ward off the sickening stench of rotted meat.

  “Get inside,” Cain said, almost a whisper.

  “No,” John gasped.

  “Yes.” Cain pushed him into the cloying darkness.

  Cain entered the room with a breezy exuberance. He fairly skipped over to the nearest lamp, scratched around until he found the butane lighter beside it, then set flame to wick, casting writhing shadows around the room. That done, he emptied his pockets of the bones he’d garnered during his latest trip. They made quite a mound. Then, hands on hips, he surveyed the space before him.

  “Now what do you think, John? Do you think Jubal would be pleased?”

  On the floor, John was curled into a fetal ball. One arm covered his face, but Cain could see the whites of his eyes reflected in the lamplight, searching the room with a mix of fascination and revulsion. His pupils were like pinpricks in yellowed snow. Yes, Cain decided, John was very impressed.

  40

  “REMIND ME NOT TO INVEST IN A HOLIDAY HOME OUT HERE,” Rink said. “Could be a bitch lettin’ it out during the winter season.”

  “It’d be a bitch in any season,” I told him.

  The Mojave Desert occupies more than 22,000 square miles, bordering California and portions of Arizona, Utah, and Nevada. Where we were at that given moment I couldn’t even begin to guess. I was only pleased that we had a vehicle. If we’d had to walk out of there in the daytime, I didn’t think much of our chances for survival.

  Not that it was a desert in the true sense of the word. It wasn’t made up of mile after mile of dunes like I’d experienced in the Sahara. But one look at the blasted landscape told me it was every bit as arid.

  We were climbing higher into the foothills. All around us the night sky was torn along the horizon by weird shapes that I knew were Joshua trees. In my imagination, they appeared to be misshapen giants waving us on to our doom. The road was now all but gone, and what Rink followed was the faint trail Cain’s Dodge had left upon the earth.

  During the day, this area was hot, and through the middle hours of the night the temperature could drop uncomfortably low, but we were driving during those hours when the heat stored during the daylight hours still radiated from the rocks and gravel. Still, even with the heat on in the SUV, I felt the first hint of the cold. I shivered, found myself tightening in reflex.

  “You okay, Hunter?” Rink asked.

  I mumbled assent.

  “Everything’s gonna go fine, you just mark my words.”

  “I’m okay, Rink,” I reassured him. “Just felt like someone walked over my grave.”

  Rink fell silent. Maybe my words were too prophetic for his liking. He concentrated on guiding the SUV up an incline toward a pass into the foothills marked by two gargantuan crags. Nearing the summit, he turned to me. “It’s Cain who’s gonna die.”

  I exhaled. “I hope it’s all over tonight.”

  I looked at him. He coughed deep in his throat, a low grumble. “Cain’s number’s up. That part’ll be finished. But what about the rest?”

  “What rest?” I asked, but already the question was rhetorical. He was referring to John, to Louise Blake, Petoskey and Hendrickson, Walter, the Se
cret Service. All the victims and the families of the Harvestman. Maybe Cain would die tonight, but how long would the repercussions last? There were other deaths—Cain’s victims aside—involved along the way. In particular, the hit man killed at Louise’s house, the other I’d killed back at the beach house. How were those going to be resolved?

  “We’re gonna have us a three-ring circus out here,” Rink said.

  I stared straight ahead. The two gigantic pillars of rock dominated the skyline. Against the purple sky, they looked like monoliths, stones to mark the tombs of twin giants. And we had to pass between them.

  Driving between the huge crags, I knew we’d just gone beyond the point of no return. Clichéd, yes, but true. Once more, I checked my weapons. They were still prepared, just as they’d been minutes earlier. Momentarily I wondered if they would be enough.

  Beyond the rock gates was a flat expanse of sandstone. It sloped gently toward the horizon, shelf built upon shelf of petrified sand. Millions of years ago, this area had been the bed of a prehistoric ocean, teeming with weird and astonishing life forms. But now, hundreds of feet above present sea level, the huge rock was devoid of life. Only dust devils moved here, tiny zephyrs plucking and whirling particles of grit across the unresponsive land.

  “Looks like we just touched down on Mars,” Rink breathed.

  It was apparent by the way the table of rock disappeared into the night that we were on a massive shelf of land, and I cautioned Rink, urged him to slow down. Just something about the color of the night beyond the scope of our vision gave me pause, as though we were standing at the edge of the world and an unwary step would pitch us over the edge.

  Rink pulled the SUV to a halt. We leaned forward, craning our necks to look down on the mist-shrouded valley below us. We shared a look. If Rink hadn’t stopped when he did, we would’ve dropped two hundred feet to our deaths.

  “Which way now, Daniel Boone?” Rink asked.

  “Any way but forward,” I said and we both laughed.

  Careful not to slip us over the rim of the cliff, Rink edged the SUV to the left, then drove with the caution of someone suddenly struck blind. Here the rock became rutted with deep crevasses, and Rink drove back inland, did a complete U-turn, then swung back the way we’d come. Out of the night loomed queer shapes. Only as we drew alongside them did I realize that we were traveling amid the husks of burned-out vehicles. Predominantly they were camper vans and Winnebagos, the occasional minivan. Cain, it seemed, had a major gripe with the drivers of those vehicles. Then we found the Dodge abandoned. Both front doors stood open and the interior light was a yellow glow against the night sky.

  Nothing stirred inside the car. Cain could’ve been stretched out across the backseat, waiting for us to blunder over and poke our heads inside so that he could shoot us. Or he could’ve been hunkered down behind the car. I dismissed both ideas.

  What fun would that be?

  He hadn’t brought us all the way out here just so he could hit us with potshots while we were out in the open. Cain had planned a more interesting game than that.

  But we still had to check.

  We got out of the SUV fifty feet shy of the Dodge. Cautiously we moved to the Dodge and checked it out. While I trained my barrel on the interior of the car, Rink moved in closer and checked the rear seat.

  “Clear?” I asked.

  Rink nodded me in closer.

  “Check it out, Hunter.”

  I did. And I could do nothing but groan. The backseat was covered with blood. Not pools of the stuff, but enough streaks and smears to indicate that John didn’t have much time left on this earth.

  While I continued to stare at the mess in the car, Rink quickly checked the trunk of the Dodge, finding it locked. Cain wasn’t about to slip out from inside it while our backs were turned. Rink came to stand beside me and nodded to where patches of scuffed rock marked someone’s passing. So did the periodic droplets of blood that glistened darkly against the paler surface.

  We were off again. Fanning out so that a dozen paces separated us, we edged forward. Then no more than a hundred yards from the parked car, we reached the brink of the cliff. Out of the confines of the SUV, we could approach nearer to the cliff than before, so the void below us no longer appeared so empty. The cliff fell more than two hundred feet to a sloping embankment of shale and sand before leveling out into a natural amphitheater that extended farther than I could see. It was a great bowl shape, alkaline white, with gathering mist hanging over it like a multitude of specters. The sun-bleached basin reminded me of only one thing: the scooped-out, hollow interior of a human skull. I hissed. If Cain could call any place home, this would be it.

  Outlined on the escarpment’s rim, we made easy targets for anyone positioned below. We stepped back.

  “Over there.” Rink motioned. “Looks like a way down. Has to be the way they went.”

  I saw the fissure in the earth and nodded. Moving toward it, I peered over the edge. A casual glance probably wouldn’t have revealed the fabricated steps leading down the cliffside, but they were what I’d been looking for. Cain had been here many times in the past; the steps were testimony to that.

  “I’ll take point,” I told Rink. Then I set off. The steps weren’t as sheer as they first appeared, and surprisingly, you wouldn’t have had to be mountain-goat nimble to climb down. However, burdened with John, I did wonder how Cain managed to make his way down without tripping and carrying them both to their deaths. It gave me a healthy new respect for what the man was capable of.

  I reminded myself that he was a trained Secret Service agent, that he was probably whalebone-tough beneath the unassuming exterior. Now I had to credit him with above-average strength and determination. He wouldn’t be easy to take out in a chest-to-chest fight.

  Rink didn’t need guidance on how to handle our descent. He waited until I’d hit the bottom before he set off.

  While he descended, I covered him. When he reached bottom, I stalked forward. Rink followed, scanning left and right, periodically behind. We traversed the slope of the bone-white hollow in that fashion until we found level footing. The ground was no longer as treacherous as it had been on the descent, but the mist rose up before us, obscuring our view. That was bad enough, but it also played tricks on our ears. As I stepped out on the sand, I could’ve sworn I heard the tinkle of music. I paused, turned back to Rink.

  “You hear that?”

  Rink’s eyebrows knitted. “That a radio playing?” he whispered.

  I shrugged, stepped forward. Between patches of mist, I thought I saw something move. In response, my hand swung toward it, fingertip caressing the trigger of my SIG. Again the tinkle of music. Then the mist writhed and the shape I’d glimpsed was gone.

  “What the hell was that?” Rink hissed at me. Which confirmed I wasn’t hallucinating.

  “Don’t know,” I replied.

  “Freakin’ ghost,” Rink muttered under his breath.

  Music tinkled from in front of me. Like the dissonant chimes of a musically challenged orchestra. Once more I snatched a glimpse of the conductor waving his baton. And inured to horror as I’d become, even I cringed back from what stood before me.

  “Crap,” I breathed.

  Rink had been right; the monstrosity before me was indeed best described as a ghost.

  41

  CAIN WHISTLED WHILE HE WORKED. HE KEPT HARMONY WITH every wince of agony from John, exhaled loudly in time with every grunt of pain, laughed when John ground his body against the rock wall in an effort to pull away from his slicing administrations.

  “The pain will go away soon,” Cain reassured John. “Once I’m through the dermis, as far down as the bone, I’ll be beyond the nerve endings.”

  John howled.

  Cain stepped in closer, eyes like lasers, guiding the scaling knife with a surgeon’s precision. In such deep concentration, the tip of his tongue poked from beneath the slash of his lips, writhing like a fat worm as he plied his tool. Beyond f
lesh was bone, and that would require effort. His whistling stopped, and now he moaned more often than John did.

  John was beyond agony now, beyond the point of human endurance. Cain sighed. His work wasn’t the same, didn’t hold the same satisfaction, if his subject wasn’t around to appreciate it. Shaking his head, he stepped away. Then, hands on hips, he surveyed his work of art.

  Not bad, I suppose, he told himself. Though it still lacked a certain flamboyant statement to finish it off. If this was to be the magnum opus of both Jubal and Tubal Cain, he required a truly magnificent centerpiece to finalize it.

  He slipped the scaling knife into his waistband, retrieved the empty gun from where he’d laid it on the floor, and headed out into the night.

  42

  I’VE OFTEN WONDERED IF THERE’S ANYONE MORE SUPERSTITIOUS than a soldier. You’d think that with such a reliance on fact, science, and technology, the basis of modern warfare, there’d be no room for a belief in the supernatural. But there is the firm belief in many a soldier’s mind that paranormal skills are often within the warrior’s arsenal. I am a believer in a sixth sense, the heightened ability to detect the unseen watcher, the sniper on the rooftop or the tiger hidden in the long grass. It’s so widely believed that it has even been given a term: Rapid Intuitive Experience, the soldier’s very own ESP.

  I accept that the proof of such a thing is subjective, but it has saved my life enough times that I give it full credence. But up until now, despite my fanciful notions during the assault on Petoskey’s building, I hadn’t given the existence of ghosts much credibility. How could I? The number of men I’ve killed, I would go insane if I dwelled on the number who must haunt me.