“This morning Stone Knife brought me a couple medicine bags that he says will keep the ghosts or spirits away. They’re only for a couple horses, and I don’t know how well they’ll work.” Shell took a sip of coffee. He didn’t see any questioning looks, so he went on.
“I’m going to have you cut out about twenty head from the herd and I’ll try to take them across with the Bell Mare. I put one medicine bag on her and the other on my horse.” He was still working out the plan in his head as he went. “If we get a running start from back here a ways maybe we can run the bunch through the village to the water before they can turn back or scatter. At least that’s what I think we might be able to do.” Shell looked at the quiet men staring at him.
“Well shit, let’s see if this works.” He threw the rest of the coffee from his cup into the fire and walked to his horse and swung up into the saddle.
“Cut me out a bunch, boys, and some of you ride along on each side of them. I want to get the bunch moving fast and straight into the place where the Indian went.” Shell was taking down his rope again to use it to haze the mares along.
“Get the Bell Mare out front so the others will follow her. Johnny, get a short piece of rope from the cook wagon to snub the Bell Mare up close to you.” Shell had men moving in every direction and his nerves were calming down.
“Just before you get to the markers turn her loose and get out of the way.” With his hands Shell was showing Johnny how he wanted things to work.
Riding up to the cook wagon Shell dismounted, unbuckled his gun belt, and put it in the wagon. Next he pulled his Winchester from its scabbard and laid it in the wagon also.
Anything to help me go faster, Shell thought, anything at all will help. Taking a minute to catch his breath, Shell would have said a prayer, if he had been a praying kind of man.
Johnny had the Bell Mare snubbed up to his horse and the other men had cut out about twenty head. They had worked them over to where Shell wanted to get a start from. The area of the village wasn’t in sight from where they all were but Shell wasn’t worried about the horses getting away from them because there was no place to go but ahead to the water, or back to them.
“Johnny, you get moving!” Shell shouted from the back of the small herd.
“I’m gone!” He and the Bell Mare took off at a lope.
“Bunch ’em up behind her!” Shell was waving his hat and yelling at the other hands to move the horses in behind Johnny.
“Get-up! Get-up! Yip! Yip!” Shell and the men urged the horses into a gallop around the bend in the canyon.
When they were almost to the markers, Johnny turned the Bell Mare loose and swung off to the left. With Shell pushing from behind and the rest of the men yelling and hollering, the horses headed for the spring on the other side of the village site.
Shell could see from the back of the small herd that they were all running straight and not shying or dodging or acting like anything was bothering them. Then he got to the edge of the village site and his world came apart.
Suddenly, he was surrounded by wailing and crying ghosts. They were hitting him and throwing sticks and rocks at him. He could feel every one that struck him. His horse was acting like it was deaf and blind, giving no indication anything was going on. As he moved through the village site more and more ghosts screamed and assaulted Shell. The dust cleared for a moment and Shell recognized that these were the ghosts of the people who had lived in this village and had died here twenty years ago. They stayed with Shell the whole time he was in the village area but left him at its edge.
Finally leaving the village and reaching the spring Shell again heard loud voices. He spun around, and saw his men yelling and waving their hats on the other side of the village. They were excited he’d made it, but had no idea what he’d gone through.
Now Shell had two new problems. He had to get some of the men over here to watch the horses he had brought over. He also had to get back to the other side of the village. His shirt was soaked with sweat and his hands were shaking. He didn’t know if his legs would hold him upright if he dismounted, but he needed a drink of water.
“You did well,” Stone Knife’s voice scared Shell and he jumped and almost fell down as he was walking to the spring.
“Damn it! Don’t you ever give a person a warning you’re close?” Shell snapped.
“Guess you couldn’t see me in all the dust you kicked up.” Stone Knife answered.
Shell just shook his head and continued to a pool of water fed by the spring. He knelt and lifted a cupped handful of water to his dry lips.
Now, what do I do next, Shell’s mind was racing. Send some hands over, or keep bringing horses and hope they stay by the spring? I’ll need the cook wagon sometime, maybe bring it next in with a bunch of horses. Just slow down and catch your breath, then get the Bell Mare and ride back to the herd. Damn, but I hurt everywhere those ghosts hit me. I don’t know how much of this I’m going to be able to take. It’s looking like a long day.
Every time Shell went through the village site, from either direction, he was attacked by the ghosts of the villagers. They screamed, they yelled, and they threw things that hit Shell on the arms, chest, back, and face. He was white as a ghost himself and hollow eyed by the time he had made four trips.
The cook wagon and two of the wranglers went with the second bunch of horses. He sent them in the middle of the bunch and they didn’t seem to be bothered during the crossing. Two of the horses from his string along with most of the wranglers’ horses went over next.
The Bell Mare was about winded and Shell thought he’d try using one of the saddle horses from the wranglers’ horses as a lead horse. The saddle horses were used to being together and one by itself would try to find its buddies. Back and forth, back and forth, he’d lost track of how many times he’d made the trip.
The last time he changed horses Shell’s arms hurt so bad he could hardly lift them so one of the men saddled it for him. He couldn’t pick the saddle up off the ground after he’d removed it from the horse he’d been riding.
We’ll be done before dark, he kept telling himself, we’ll be done before dark.
Shell had noticed that when he came back through the village with the Bell Mare snubbed to his horse the ghosts couldn’t get to him very well on that side. The next time he came back he put the mare on his other side and the same thing happened. Moving her from side to side helped him keep the ghosts from hurting one side more than the other. Two horses would keep them away, he thought, but got busy getting another bunch ready to go and forgot about it.
Going back through the village for the next to the last bunch of horses, Stone Knife rode up alongside Shell. With the lead horse on one side of him and the Indian on the other, Shell was not bothered much by the ghosts.
When they reached the horses that still had to be driven through the village Shell dismounted and walked into the brush to catch his breath and calm down. When he came back to his horse the Indian was still sitting where he was when Shell left. As Shell swung into the saddle and turned his horse to ride off, Stone Knife stopped him.
“How old were you when you were here before?”
“How do you know I was here?” Shell was looking at the Kiowa with disbelief.
“The ghosts have told me,” Stone Knife replied.
“Too young to know what I was doing,” Shell snapped and rode off to get another bunch ready to take across.
When Shell returned for the last bunch Stone Knife was still in the same place waiting for him.
“Give me your tobacco pouch, Shell Green,” Stone Knife had his hand out.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Shell growled. “Go find the next water hole.”
“Those ghosts are from when you were here before. Give me the pouch.” Stone Knife’s voice was quiet and calm.
“What’s that have to do with me?” Shell was about burned out and this was not anything he felt like listening to.
“Those
ghosts are from the people killed here and scalped. They can’t cross over to the other side unless they are whole so they have to stay here and suffer.” Stone Knife was looking Shell in the eyes. “We can hear the pouch crying.”
“I didn’t kill anyone here that day,” Shell answered with a tired voice, “Why are you bothering me?”
“Because your tobacco pouch was made from one of these women’s breasts and it needs to be buried so one more part of her is returned.” Stone Knife’s voice had dropped to almost a whisper.
Shell sat for a couple moments, then dismounted. He unbuckled the strap on his saddlebag and took out a folded piece of cloth. Turning around he walked to Stone Knife and handed him the folded cloth.
“Louis, one of the older fighters back then, gave this to me a few weeks after we were here. He was always laughing about how his pouches would keep you warm at night,” Shell said. “I didn’t feel right about what happened here. That’s why I never used it, and I didn’t know what to do with it.”
“I’ll bury it where some of the people are buried.” Stone Knife turned and rode back down the canyon.
Shell took the last bunch of horses through the village site at a walk. Nothing was thrown at him, no yelling, no screaming. From the corners of his eyes he could see things moving around. Quiet ghosts.
About the Authors
Steve Hockensmith’s mystery-solving cowboys, Big Red and Old Red Amlingmeyer, first appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and later starred in Hockensmith’s debut novel, Holmes on the Range, which was nominated for the Edgar, Dilys, Shamus, and Anthony Awards. Three sequels (On the Wrong Track, The Black Dove, and The Crack in the Lens) followed, and a fifth book in the series is in the works. Hockensmith’s latest novel is Dawn of the Dreadfuls, a prequel to the horror/romance “mash-up” Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
William W. Johnstone is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over 125 books published over the last 25 years, with more than 10,000,000 copies in print. J. A. Johnstone is the frequent collaborator of his uncle, Bill Johnstone, and is also the author of The Loner series.
Margaret Coel is the New York Times bestselling author of the Wind River mystery series set among the Arapahos in Wyoming. She is widely considered the most accomplished heir to Tony Hillerman’s legacy. The fourteenth novel in her series, The Silent Spring, was published in September 2009, and her stand-alone novel, Blood Memory, appeared in 2008. Margaret is a recipient of the Willa [Cather] Award for best novel on the West. She is also the author of four non-fiction books on the West. A fourth-generation Coloradan, Margaret lives in Boulder with her husband, George.
Johnny D. Boggs has four Spur Awards from Western Writers of America, a Western Heritage Wrangler Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, and has been called “among the best western writers at work today” by Booklist magazine. The author of more than twenty-five Western novels, three nonfiction books, and scores of articles for magazines such as True West, Wild West and Persimmon Hill, Boggs has covered a wide array of subjects in fiction and nonfiction. Recent novels include Northfield, Camp Ford, and Walk Proud, Stand Tall. A native of South Carolina and former newspaper journalist in Texas, Boggs lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with his wife and son. His website is www.johnnydboggs.com.
Bill Brooks has written more than twenty novels dealing with the American West, including The Stone Garden: The Epic Life of Billy the Kid and many others. He works as a full-time writer and lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Appalachia, the ancestral home of his father’s people. He lived and wrote in Arizona for six years, which gave him a chance to explore the West and its history. He hopes that someday the “Western” will make a comeback and that it will be recognized for the true literary form that it is.
Candy Moulton has written a dozen Western history books including Roadside History of Wyoming and the Spur-winning biography Chief Joseph: Guardian of the People. As a reporter for the Casper Star-Tribune, she has written about many Wyoming crimes, including the reinvestigation of the Willie Nickell killing. She writes regularly for a number of magazines and newspapers, and edits the Roundup Magazine for Western Writers of America. She makes her home near Encampment, Wyoming.
Louis L’Amour (1908–1988) was the most successful western writer of all time, selling fifteen to twenty thousand books a day at the height of his popularity. He wrote the kind of action fiction beloved by so many generations of Americans, with strong heroes, evil villains, proud, energetic heroines, and all of the excitement and danger that the West represented. His novels include such masterpieces as Hondo, Shalako, Down the Long Hills, The Cherokee Trail, and Last of the Breed. His most famous series was the Sacketts saga, later made into several excellent television movies.
Sandy Whiting resides along a Kansas section of the Chisholm Trail. Although no cattle currently tread outside the door, an occasional horse and rider will trek up the paved street, and there are buffalo grazing in a pen about a mile and a half away. Sandy’s first work of fiction appeared in the Louis L’Amour Western Magazine. That story won the Spur Award for best short fiction. In addition, she’s published several fiction stories as well as nonfiction articles. She’s also reviewed music CDs fresh out of the chute and headed to the public’s ears.
Larry D. Sweazy (www.larrydsweazy.com) won the WWA Spur award for Best Short Fiction in 2005, and was nominated for a Derringer award in 2007. His other short stories have appeared in, or will appear in, The Adventure of the Missing Detective: And 25 of the Year’s Finest Crime and Mystery Stories!, Boy’s Life, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Amazon Shorts, and other publications. He is also author of the Josiah Wolfe, Texas Ranger series (Berkley). Larry owns WordWise Publishing Services, LLC, and as a freelance indexer, he has written over five hundred back-of-the-book indexes for publishers such as Cisco Press, Addison-Wesley, O’Reilly, and Thomson-Gale. He lives in Noblesville, Indiana, with his wife, Rose, two dogs, and a cat.
Lori Van Pelt won the Western Writers of America Spur Award for Best Short Fiction in 2006 for the lead tale in her short story collection, Pecker’s Revenge and Other Stories from the Frontier’s Edge (University of New Mexico Press, 2005). Her biography, Amelia Earhart: The Sky’s No Limit (Forge, American Heroes Series, 2005), was one of three in the nation named to the New York Public Library’s “Best Books for the Teen Age 2006” list. The author of the Wyoming-based nonfiction Dreamers and Schemers series published by High Plains Press, her award-winning nonfiction articles have appeared in a variety of publications ranging from the WREN (Wyoming Rural Electric News) magazine to the WOLA (Western Outlaw and Lawman Association) Journal. Lori lives with her husband, Eugene Walck, Jr., on his ranch near Saratoga, Wyoming. She recently completed her second collection of western short fiction.
Deborah Morgan writes in both the western and mystery genres. Her first short fiction appeared in Louis L’Amour Western Magazine. Raised on a ranch in Oklahoma, she was named Roundup Club Rodeo Queen in her hometown when she was fifteen. Morgan was managing editor of two national treasure hunting magazines, and later of a biweekly newspaper in southeast Kansas before moving to Michigan. She admits that something western usually finds its way into her antique-lover’s mystery novel series. A former Western Writers of America Spur Awards Chair, she’s currently writing her first historical western novel.
Former Western Writers of America president Loren D. Estleman has written more than sixty novels and a couple of hundred short stories, including the U.S. Deputy Marshal Page Murdock series, many stand-alone historical westerns, and the Detroit Detective Amos Walker mysteries. Estleman has been nominated for the National Book Award and the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award. He is the recipient of sixteen national writing awards, including five Spurs and two Stirrups from the WWA, three Western Heritage Awards from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, and four Shamus Awards from the Private Eye Writers of America.
Jeff Mariotte is the award-winning auth
or of more than thirty novels, most set in the contemporary West, including River Runs Red, Missing White Girl (both as Jeffrey J. Mariotte), The Slab, and the teen horror quartet Witch Season. He lives in southern Arizona.
Born in Andrews County, Texas, Elmer Kelton graduated from the University of Texas in 1948. He has won seven Spur Awards and three Western Heritage Awards, and his novels have included such critically acclaimed work as The Time It Never Rained, The Man Who Rode Midnight, and Way of the Coyote. His memoir, Sandhills Boy, was published in 2007.
James “Jim” Fischer is an Ohio native and has been around horses most of his life. Both of Jim’s grandfathers made their living with horses, one as a farmer, and the other as a teamster. Jim is an associate member of the Western Writers of America and co-author of the book Custer’s Horses, Wolfe Publishing, 2001. Jim has had articles published in Buckskin Report and Cowboy Magazine, and his story “Snow Angels” is one of the stories in the collection Tales from Cowboy Country, Range Writer, Inc., 2005. Jim belongs to The National Bit, Spur & Saddle Collectors Association, the Single Action Shooting Society, the Custer Battlefield Historical & Museum Association, and is a Life Member of the National Rifle Association. Jim and his wife Candy live in Vermilion, Ohio, on the south shore of Lake Erie.
About the Editors
Martin H. Greenberg has edited more than two thousand books in every genre imaginable, including many western titles, such as Desperadoes, Texas Rangers, Guns of the West, The Best of the American West, and The Best of the West anthology series with Bill Pronzini, as well as the Double-Action Western novel series for Tor. He was the 1995 recipient of the Ellery Queen Award from the Mystery Writers of America, the Milford Award for Lifetime Achievement in Science Fiction Publishing and Editing, and the HWA Grand Master Award, the only person in publishing history to receive all three of these honors.
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