by Tim Marquitz
“Kind is probably not the right word for Father Mathias. Good, perhaps. But good people are not always kind. Sometimes good people have to make the hardest decisions.”
“My pa’s that way too.” Nina paused and looked askance at the Indian warrior. “You know, brother, I'll listen if you have burdens to share, too. Especially concerning the good father.”
Red Thunder put his shovel down, lit some kindling, and tossed it into the hole. He waved his hand over the second hole, driving currents of air in to fuel the flames. “Sister, some burdens are not meant to be shared.”
A sense of pride at his acknowledgment of her heritage surprised Nina. She had always been proud, of course, but being called sister by Red Thunder seemed like something special. “I have seen Father Mathias do strange things; things I find hard to believe.”
“How can you be a sister of mine when you do not believe?”
Nina clamped her teeth, pursing her lips as she picked up a few pieces of ash bark and felt the papery texture. She wasn’t sure how to respond.
After a couple seconds, Red Thunder peered at her and asked, “What do you believe in, sister?”
“Not the white man's god, that’s for damn sure.” Nina didn’t give a shit if it offended him, it was true.
Red Thunder looked away. He placed some large slivers of ash bark into the fire, and they ignited quickly under his expert care. “When I first met this strange man in black robes, I believed only in the religion of my people, in the spirits of earth and sky, the eagle, the fox, the bear. But after seeing Mathias work…miracles…” He stared into her eyes again. “It isn't that I believe in his god more than the weyekin. It is just that there are many higher things we do not understand, and may never understand, even after we pass into the shadow lands. The higher powers may even be connected; Father Mathias's god to my own guardian spirit. I have come to understand power comes through faith, and Father Mathias has much of that.”
Nina found it interesting the warrior spoke so intently about Christianity in light of his own heritage, for the Nez Perce kept their connection to their weyekin, their guardian spirits, very secret and personal. “And you have faith in him? Father Mathias?”
Red Thunder nodded. He took the wispy ash bark from Nina and put it in the fire, watching the flames flare. “I do.”
Nina picked up a few pieces of shagbark then, tearing at its roughness with her fingers. “Does he mean us any harm? I mean, me and Pa. And Mister Manning?”
“He has no malice toward those who walk a righteous path. But if you walk with dark spirits, then be warned. You would be wise to listen to him. He understands what is happening here.”
“And just what is happening here, brother?”
Red Thunder looked at her, and she saw his light brown eyes looked almost golden. “The end of the world,” he said.
An ear-shattering wail ripped through the quiet. Nina jerked to her feet. “Rachel.”
Chapter Eight
Chaos ensued in the darkness Over There. Figures pushing and pulling and shoving. More screaming, this time a man. Nina ran into No Man’s Land where she was nearly run over by a terrified Jasmine. The black girl careened into Nina, and then tumbled to the dirt.
Nina cast a quick glance her direction. Making sure Jasmine was all right, she looked to find big Marshal Oden and Father Mathias.
Mister Strobridge held a lantern, fiddling with the dial. Once found, he turned it up and bathed the corner in light.
Grover Buell was screaming, arms flailing. A deadun had punched through the wall and was bashing him against it, trying to pull the shopkeeper through the fist-sized hole it had created. The Daggetts struck at the arm with the stocks of their Spencers, but they might as well have been hitting a piece of lead. The deadun’s grip was a vice, its arm a skinless cord of tough, dead meat.
Rachel and Clara wailed for all they were worth, the sounds of their screams sending spikes through Nina’s brain.
Grover tried to cover his head with his arm, but to no avail. Nina heard the sickening crunch of his skull against the wall, and he screamed no more. For a brief instant, the deadun let go, and then found Grover’s wrist, pulling it out through the hole. There was low snap, a dry twig pop, and Grover exploded to life, his eyes wide with terror and pain. He ripped his bloody arm back through the hole and flopped over on the floor, clutching at it.
Wood and stone blew apart next to Nina’s head. A fist punched through and knocked her aside. She pulled her Colt and shoved it into the face of the dead bastard climbing in the window. She blew its brains out, and two more behind it, then she heard the familiar hiss of a burning wick.
One of Woodie’s ‘Bang Balls’ whizzed past her ear, trailing smoke and ricocheting off the top part of the busted window, striking the sill, then bouncing off a deadun’s shoulder to fall back into the room. Nina’s heart battered her ribs, but there wasn’t time to be scared.
She picked up that fucking clay orb of death, expecting it to go off in her hand, and readied to blindly fling it through the window. She stopped herself instead, leapt up, and tossed the sizzler through one of the gaps in the ceiling. She knelt and covered her ears, hoping to hell she’d thrown it hard enough.
A moment later, an explosion cracked the air, a rain of debris impacting the wall outside, pieces of flesh-bloody shrapnel flying in through the window. Nina spun on Woodie, her gun gripped tight at her side. She wasn’t sure what she’d do if she lifted it.
“You cut that fuckin’ wick down. I saw it,” she accused. He wasn’t weaseling his way out of this. “You coulda killed us.”
Woodie only smiled that warped grin of his and shrugged.
The sketchy bastard hadn’t said two words since they’d met up, but now Nina wanted to smash his face with the butt of her gun. She started in on him but was knocked aside by Manning, who fell on Woodie and pinned him to the ground. The batshit-crazy foreman whimpered as Manning drew back and socked him in the face.
Nina felt a sudden presence behind her. A hand reached under her arm and cupped her breast over her bloody shirt. Another set of fingers slid down the crack of her ass and swept between her legs. Nina yelped and threw an elbow.
“Oof,” Strobridge gasped, released Nina, and clutched his stomach. As she turned, he put his fingers to his nose and sniffed them like they were a fancy cigar. His grin was as shit-licking as they came.
Nina raised her Colt, ready to put a bullet into Strobridge’s bastard face. Danger was always possible on the trail, but no one had ever gotten close enough to touch her like that. Ever.
She glanced at Manning cleaning Woodie’s plow but good, the ball-flingin’ foreman’s face a mess of blood. Maybe between the two of them they could finish these troublemakers once and for all. She wondered who would miss the railroad boss given the circumstances? Easy enough to put the blame on the dead for claiming a couple more.
“Alright, that’s enough,” Marshal Oden said, pulling James off Woodie after letting him take one more punch. “You made your point.”
Woodie lay dazed on the ground, half giggling and half whimpering as he spit out a tooth.
“Hey, ya’ll done? We got fucking problems!” George Daggett shouted, firing his Spencer through the wide-open window. Deaduns groaned with urgent hunger, sensing a way in.
Nina didn’t give a shit. Let them come. She kept her weapon trained on Strobridge.
“Think on what you’re doing, young lady.” Father Mathias’s voice soothed the chaos. “I’m sure whatever offense Mister Strobridge caused can be amended with an apology. Right, Mister Strobridge?”
“You know me, Father,” Strobridge said, grinning. “I admit my own mistakes. I do apologize, ma’am.”
Nina cocked her Colt. A hint of doubt flittered in Strobridge’s eyes. Just another white man who’d have his way at anyone else’s expense, like when they’d come for Ma. And they called her people heathens, the goddamned white devils...
“It’s still murder,” the p
riest added, gently laying his hand on her shoulder. Strobridge kept staring, sober-faced, as George hollered and popped off another shot.
Nina liked Mathias, and she certainly wanted to trust him as much as Red Thunder did, but that didn’t mean she had to agree with him. “Ain’t no such thing out here... not no more.” Nina uncocked her pistol and lowered it. “Why waste the lead? Rather see a deadun get hold of you anyway.”
Strobridge’s smirk returned. “Now we’re back on friendly terms.”
Nina shrugged the priest’s hand off and turned away. To hell with ‘em. If they couldn’t hold this side, then they could be vittles for the dead for all she cared. She wasn’t saving them from that maniac Woodruff again. Her only concern now was getting Pa and herself out of this bedlam.
She approached their end of the building and stopped cold. In the firelight, the crates stacked in front of the window moved, scooting out from the wall and teetering. Red Thunder had been watching Nina’s engagement with Strobridge from the threshold. He caught Nina’s expression and turned just as the crates toppled.
Two deaduns crawled through the window and landed in a heap just feet from Pa. The old man fired, shooting one in the shoulder, blowing most its arm off.
Nina rushed forward as Pa crawled away on his belly, the one-armed deadun lurching after him. Red Thunder was there, pushing the corpse down from behind, leaping on its back, and burying his tomahawk in the thing’s head.
Meanwhile, Buck slid from the shadows, huge pistol in hand. The remaining deadun—a dapper fellow wearing a gore-stained frocked coat—gave a hungry yawn only to find the barrel of Buck’s gun in its mouth. The bullet blew brains and blood to the rafters, putting a fist-sized hole in the wooden shingles above. A four-inch plate of thin, hoary bone spun through the air and landed at Nina’s feet.
It was the biggest wallop Nina had ever heard, short of Woodie’s balls.
Footsteps made her turn. George and Mason Daggett were on their way over. They must have felt like guardian fucking angels after the bang-up job they’d done saving Grover Buell.
A thought crossed Nina’s mind. “Wait! Go back.” She waved them away.
George scowled. “Don’t tell us what to do, Injun bitch.”
“Fine,” Nina said, turning to see about Pa. “Stand here like idiots while they slaughter your people. Can’t you see what they’re up to?”
Father Mathias seemed to get it. “Everyone stay your posts! Stay vigilant. I know what this means.”
“I’ll be,” Marshal Oden said, putting his ear to one set of double doors in No Man’s Land. “They’re coordinating. Drawing us from one side to the other.”
Another smash came from Over There, followed by more screaming.
George turned to face the new threat, one hand on his hip. The barrel of his Spencer dragged the ground. “That’s just fuckin’ great. Deaduns workin’ together now? Fuckin’ figures.”
“Come on,” Mason said, pulling George along.
~
It was a few hours past midnight, nearly half a day since it had all started, and Nina couldn't catch a wink of sleep. Whenever she nodded off, something would slam against one of the wooden barricades or howl at the stars.
Or Grover. The poor fellow moaned and caterwauled non-stop on the other side, still delirious from the pounding he'd took.
Nina rolled to her right, peering Over There. She couldn't tell what else was happening, nor did she want to know, but things were at least quiet. She did care about the womenfolk, but their fates had been sealed soon as they’d chose them.
Mathias and Strobridge sat in two brittle chairs in No Man's Land, probably working out some mysterious bullshit deal, some holdover from the earlier argument. Marshal Oden lay stretched out on the threshold between here and No Man's, tossing and turning with only a rock as a pillow.
The two deaduns who’d fallen through the window Over Here had been shoved out by Buck and Red Thunder, and the crates pushed back in place. Buck had taken some stones from the well wall and put them on top to weigh the crates down. Wouldn't be so easy to push them over next time.
“It's like they're trying to spook us,” Pa said from where he and Nina rested against the east-side wall. They’d been forced to move due to the ooze dripping from the rafters where Buck had shot the last deadun. Seemed the safest place next to the well room’s entrance. “I tell ya, girl. They’re working together to wear us down, waiting till we close our eyes to make some noise. It’s going to be a long night. I'm tempted to agree with tossing that idiot Woodruff outside and letting him take a couple hundred of those bastards down with him.”
Nina shook her head, too addled to think. Maybe he was right.
“Girl,” Pa said. “Help your old man over to the fire. Getting cold.”
Manning, Red Thunder, and Buck made room for Nina and Pa as they shuffled over. Pa stretched out on his side, leaning on his elbow, and Nina situated his foot before sitting down. Everyone was reloading and checking their weapons, tossing out ideas about what prospects they had for provisions.
“We got nothing, fellas,” Manning said. “Except for what y’all gave us.”
“And we thank you for it,” Pa added.
Buck shrugged. “Between me and Red, I reckon we got enough vittles to last a few days. Had planned on riding straight through anyway, before we got stuck here.” He nodded toward Over There. “Can’t say those peckerwoods won’t try and take it...”
“They can try.” Manning set his jaw.
Nina was curious. “Riding through? Where are your horses?”
“They caught us with our britches round our boots down by some crick. Them things got betwixt us and our mounts, herded us up here. Red noticed they move downhill a mite better’n up. Tried circling round, but found this here fort instead. Good thing, reckon, elsewise might o’got our butts surrounded in the flats.”
“Too bad. Would be nice to ride the hell out of here.”
Manning nodded. “Shit yeah.”
“We could eat the bastards,” Buck said, spitting juice into the fire.
“What?” Manning pointed outside. “Eat them?”
“We got a fire, plenty o’ water. I say we drag one in here, chop the biter to bits and cook it.” Buck wrinkled his mustache, his coal black eyes filled with mirth, although Nina had no doubt he was deadly serious. “No one would know the difference between that and some o’ the slop they serve in these trailside watering holes.”
Pa chuckled just before Red Thunder cut in, “Their meat is tainted.” His voice was a whisper, yet somehow loud. “If you eat it, the flesh will consume your spirit, and you’ll end up just like them.”
“Even cooked up good?”
Red Thunder glanced at his friend. “It will consume your spirit.”
“Damn. Red’s always got rules to things.”
“You sayin’ you need rules about not eatin’ people, Buck?” Nina said. “That’s not right.”
“I hear tell it’s been the going thing around these parts for years. Besides, long as they’re seasoned proper...” Buck left off after drawing Red Thunder’s stony gaze.
Buck gave a chuckle, “Just tryin’ to lighten the mood is all.”
They shifted their feet and Manning obliged with a conciliatory snort, but the oppressive fact remained; they wouldn’t last very long without food.
Pa laid all the way flat, using his arm as a pillow. His face was red from the warm fire. “One thing’s got me worried, boys. I don’t think the cavalry is coming. What I mean is, there ain’t no militia anywhere near here. And none of our native friends are coming, unless Red Thunder here knows something we don’t.”
The Indian shook his head and stoked the fire with one of his arrows.
“What do we do then?” Buck toyed with one of the red feathers hanging from his hat.
“Best thing we can do is try to get some sleep,” Manning suggested.
“Good luck on that count.”
The sounds of gr
oping hands along the walls remained constant, and for a moment, Nina could imagine it driving her crazy if that was all she heard. Then Red Thunder was handing her something around the fire. “What’s this?”
“A salve for your father’s foot. It will help with the swelling.”
Nina took the small wooden box and thanked him. She opened the top and sniffed at the mixture. Herbs and grasses. Fresh and powerful, her mother would have called it. “Thank you,” she told Red Thunder as she scooted down.
Nina scooped some of the lime green salve out with her finger and held it poised over Pa’s swollen ankle. “This might hurt, Pa.”
“Go ahead, girl. If it’s half as good as what your mother used to concoct, I’ll be right as rain in no time.”
Nina rubbed the poultice on Pa’s tight, shiny skin, careful to avoid pressing too hard. It was true. Her mother had been a powerful healer, curing everything from simple colds to stomach flu, from joint aches to raw wounds. She’d shared much of what she’d known, even though Nina had forgotten most of it. A sudden tear stung her eyes when she realized her mother’s medicine kit had burned in the wagon.
“What’s wrong, Nina?” Pa sounded sleepy.
“Nothin’. Just thinkin’ of Ma.”
“She was a wonderful woman. More mysterious than the very sky, I tell ya. I never quite figured her out, and I think she liked it that way.”
It was sad to think she had nothing left of her mother’s. Nina tried to toughen up. Thinking about dead folks was no good when you had to save your hide, and it didn’t bring them back none either, nor do their memories justice. If she and Pa got out of this alive, they’d head straight back to Boa Ogoi and visit Ma’s grave. All the graves.
Nina covered his foot completely, the slimy gunk drying into a flaky powder on his skin. “How’s that feel?”
Pa snored in reply.
Chapter Nine
Something burned Nina's forehead, and her face was wet with sweat. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to remember where she was. Her ears still rang from all the gunfire. Darkness, death, and blood were all she remembered. All good reasons to let this moment ride on by and fall back into a stupor.