Sunstone

by RW Krpoun

  “We won’t be long,” I told Captain, who sketched a salute.

  The streets were eerily silent, more like midnight than mid-morning. No black-clad older women sweeping or fussing about, no children yelling or running, not even many dogs. There was a damp fog and the occasional drops of rain, but such weather would only quiet a place down, not stop it completely. I thought of the Judge’s rumor of plague and my skin crawled.

  The houses were shuttered and closed, as was the church, which was a little relief: if there had been plague running loose there would be a Mass or at least it would be open for prayers.

  “Blood,” Mac dropped to a knee.

  “What? Where?”

  “Here.” He pointed to a couple blackish drops on the cobblestones.

  “So?”

  “Human.” He lifted a long dark hair that had been trapped in a drop.

  “Humans live here.” I tried to keep an eye on all the houses that encircled the little plaza in front of the church.

  “It’s been raining so the blood must be thoroughly clotted to have lasted so long.”

  “OK, fine, let’s go.”

  “Seth, they hauled a corpse through here not a long time ago.”

  “Yeah, there’s the church. Next to last stop for a corpse.”

  “Corpses don’t go to a church while they’re still leaking. And the church is closed,” Mac stood but angled off. “Plus they are heading away from the church.”

  “Forget it,” I was getting impatient. “We don’t have time for puzzles.”

  Mac didn’t quit, which surprised me. He was so quiet it was easy to forget how smart he was, and even how big he was. Now as he moved slowly across the wet stones, stooping a bit to study the ground, it struck me he was like a grizzly bear with a brain. Where that image came from I had no idea.

  “You know, I’ve killed men for smaller irritations,” I observed to the world at large.

  “I don’t doubt it,” Mac murmured. “Not one body-more like two or three. Weird thing is that they’re moving sort of in a group.”

  “They weren’t moving, they were being moved. Corpses are pretty still, barring the odd twitch or gas eruption. I saw one sit up, once-something to do with the muscles.” I had stopped trying to watch in all four directions at once. “That’s a handprint.”

  “What?”

  “A handprint. Looks like blood.” I walked over to the small fountain in the plaza’s center. “See? Right above the…sonofabitch!”

  I had the Colt out and cocked out of sheer instinct-it probably says a lot about me that when startled my first response is to aim a revolver. My mother certainly raised me differently, bless her soul, but I have walked hard roads since I left her supervision.

  “What?” Mac had his Smith & Wesson out.

  Leaning gingerly over the narrow lip of the fountain, I studied the evidence as I holstered. “A dead kid, girl, maybe ten. Torn up bad.” I prodded her cold, stiffening hand with the muzzle of my Colt. “Been a little while. Before dawn for certain.”

  Mac joined me and studied the sad little corpse. “What is going on? Looks like…hell, I don’t know what it looks like. That wasn’t a weapon that did that, not even an animal, I think.”

  “Come on,” I slapped his shoulder. “This is bad and getting worse. We need to get done and get gone.”

  Sibley’s house was a nice two-story whose upper floor boasted a walkway with a wrought iron rail. It was closed up securely up front, so we slipped around back.

  “Well, well, well,” I muttered, catching sight of two saddled horses hitched to a ring next to the back door. “The rat is about to bolt.”

  “Fine animals,” Mac observed, making friends. “One side-saddle.” He indicated a chestnut mare with a look of speed about her.

  “Yeah.” The other horse had a cunning double holster that went across the front of the saddle, the horn going through a hole in the center, and fastening down with ties at either end. One holster held a double-barreled shotgun with the tubes trimmed down to the forearm and the stock replaced by a mahogany hand grip, the other a Cavalry model Colt Peacemaker with the seven and a half inch barrel. A dozen revolver cartridges and six shotgun shells rode in loops on the central part. Neither horse had a scabbard for a long gun. “Check the saddlebags for weapons.”

  The back door was locked by a simple latch; I worked a length of stiff wire from my tool-roll between the door and jamb, and managed to jiggle it out of its slot.

  “No weapons. Man’s bags had ammunition for the saddle guns plus a few boxes of .32 auto-our boy is carrying a Browning.”

  “The more I learn about him, the less I like him.” I eased the door open and stepped into a kitchen that didn’t see a lot of cooking.

  The house was dark and shuttered-we navigated through it by feel and what gray light leaked in between the shutter slats. And by the sound of a man’s voice, speaking quietly but urgently overhead.

  The conversation ended abruptly in three rapid gunshots as we were easing up the stairs towards a door outlined by soft yellow light within.

  We took up position seconds before the door opened and a tall man clutching a carpet bag walked straight into Mac’s forearm.

  I scooted past the abruptly prone man and into what turned out to be a bedroom done in feminine style which displayed the signs of hurried departure. A red-haired woman in a green riding dress was slumped against the wall opposite the door, blood staining the front of her frilly white blouse, a nickel-plated pocket revolver in her lap.

  Swatting the revolver away, I felt the woman’s neck, but if there was a pulse, it was faint and fading. She had been pretty, I saw, ivory-skinned and fine-boned, with eyes that had been emerald green going dull in death.

  After a quick look around out of habit I returned to the doorway where Mac had the man back on his feet, in hand irons and searched. “James Arthur Sibley at last. I am Seth Peak of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency and the large gentleman going through your bag is Richard McDonald of the same agency. We’ve been following you for a while.”

  Sibley was red-faced and gasping after that sudden blow but wasn’t as cowed as some might be. He was tall and lean, his short dark hair gone gray at the sides, with the sort of long, thoughtful face that Lincoln had had, except with better-crafted features. He had the appearance of an educated man, a thinker who was likely capable of action if needful.

  I jerked a thumb at the body. “What happened?”

  His breathing was getting steadier. “She…panicked. She wouldn’t leave, and refused to let me leave. I had no choice.”

  “Not a problem,” I shrugged. “This is Mexico. We’re bringing you back to America regarding a large sum of missing money and various misdemeanors.” I looked over at Mac. “Anything?”

  He held up a Browning Model 1900 pistol. “Three missing, still warm. There’s a lot of pesos and some greenbacks in the bag, more bills and some gold in the money belt he’s wearing.”

  “You knew we were close, eh?” I shook a finger at Sibley. “You can’t outrun the eye that never sleeps.”

  “I had no idea,” his breathing was still ragged, his voice hoarse from the blow. “This town has gone…crazy.”

  That caught our attention. “Plague?”

  “No.” Sibley shrugged. “Crazy people.”

  “People we can deal with. Do I need to tell you what happens if you try to stir up a ruckus? Good, let’s go.”

  While Mac helped Sibley into the saddle I stripped off the holster rig and stuffed it into the carpet bag along with my tool roll.

  “Take the mare?” Mac was unbuckling Sibley’s spurs to prevent him from making a sudden bolt.

  Holding up a hand for silence, I walked around the corner of the house and into the street in pursuit of a noise. Pelting down the street towards me, coming from the direction of the center of town, was a pretty young woman in a Novitiate’s habit. She had her head down, concentrating on speed and getting commendable results; she
would have run squarely into me had I not hopped aside and called out to her.

  She gave a little shriek when she noticed me, but she was running out of wind and had the presence of mind not to waste too much of it. Sliding to a stop, she seized my arm and hit me with a volley of Spanish. I can speak some of the language but not at the speed she was rattling it off. Some words were popping up amidst the flood like logs in a riptide. She was being chased, needed help, flee at once, and something green.

  She gave a louder shriek as I was trying to calm her down, and would have taken to her heels if I hadn’t gotten my left arm around her waist; as it was she jerked me off-balance and we staggered a couple steps down the street. It was a trim and warm waist, and I had to struggle to keep unacceptable thoughts out of my head. She wasn’t a nun, but she wasn’t a free traveler either.

  The subject of her second scream was a peon trudging down the street, apparently part of a very sluggish pursuit. He wore the white tunic and trousers that was the uniform of the rural poor of Mexico, although he was bare-headed and bare-footed. He was walking funny, like a drunk when the booze starts to bite in, a mix of slightly unsteady and stiff-legged. His face was slack, jaw sagging open, and his eyes were glassy, almost dead-looking.

  The girl buried her face in my shoulder, shaking. “Get lost,” I told the peon in Spanish, and when he kept coming I barked it in best parade-field style.

  He kept trudging on, face registering nothing, which shocked me. Your average peon wouldn’t cross a person in authority, much less an armed and hostile gringo.

  “Run away, friend,” I warned as he closed to within twenty feet. Behind me I heard Mac lead the horses into the street.

  “I said, go away,” I barked, drawing and leveling my Colt.

  He kept on, blank-faced as a slab of tin and for a moment I wondered if he was blind. At ten feet I cocked my revolver and repeated my command, but I might as well have been talking to a rock. At five feet I shot him square in the center chest, punching him backwards so that he tumbled awkwardly to the ground.

  “Crazy ba…peon,” I finished clumsily as I turned the Novitiate towards Mac. “Sister can you ride…Mac, what’s the Spanish for side-saddle?”

  “Seth!”

  I spun back around as the peon got fully upright. I could see the hole in his shirt right over the sternum, and through it I could see part of the wound itself, although he didn’t seem to be bleeding. “What the hell?”

  Back on his feet the peon gave a breathy growl and lunged forward. Moving as if in a dream, I shot him again, hitting high in the left side, a lung hit. He staggered into the wall of Sibley’s house and slid down it, leaving a smear of blackish blood on the whitewash.

  “Damnedest thing I’ve seen in a while…” I started to turn back to Mac.

  “He’s not dead!” Sibley yelled.

  Glancing back, I was shocked to see that the peon was laboriously gathering his limbs underneath him preparatory to standing, as if two .45 Long Colts through major organs was nothing for an able-bodied man to concern himself with.

  Shocked was a pale word for what I felt-it was unreal, as if a horse had started speaking. I had seen leaf-chewing Moros take incredible damage and keep coming, but you could see that they were mortally wounded, it was just that the frenzy the leaf-chewing put them in gave them an extra span of action before the effects of the wound caught up with them.

  This man, on the other hand, was getting back up as if I had simply slapped him down. He hadn’t looked good to begin with, but the two shots hadn’t diminished him at all.

  The yelling behind me was just background noise-I thumbed back the hammer, wondering if blowing out a kneecap would work when Mac’s .38 barked and the peon’s head snapped back, a black hole neatly stamped above his left eye. Soundlessly he dropped like a sack of potatoes.

  I waited a moment, then moved up and gingerly nudged him with the toe of my boot.

  “Is he dead?” Mac asked, his voice tight.

  “Yeah. Definitely dead.” He had almost no blood loss from any of his wounds, I noticed. “Nice shot.”

  “That’s what she was yelling,” Mac lifted the Novitiate into the sidesaddle as if she was a child. “To aim for the head.”

  I realized I still had the carpet bag in hand and dropped it to reload. I had just finished when Mac swore under his breath. “Company.”

  Four more peons, three men and a woman, had just turned the corner, all with the same slack, dead-eyed faces and shambling walk.

  I grabbed up the bag. “We’ll circle around.”

  I led Sibley’s horse while Mac stayed close to the Noviate, Sister Celeste, calming her as best he could. His Spanish was far better than mine.

  “What in the hell is wrong with those people?” I asked the engineer.

  “I have no idea,” he answered with heart-felt sincerity. “I knew things were getting unsettled in town-that’s why I was leaving.”

  Mac and I had to move at a trot because the peons had picked up the pace. One of them let loose with a long breathy warbling howl that rattled around in my spine and drew a high-pitched scream from Sister Celeste, who began to babble about ‘more’.

  Cutting down a side-street, our pursuers lagging behind, we saw a group of about twenty townsfolk standing in a herd-like crowd, all with that strange slack body posture. As we darted across the street one of them let go with that same sort of thin wail, and they started in after us as well. We picked up the pace, and so did they.

  The first rule when being pursued is to ensure that you are not being herded in a direction the pursuer desires. The second is to watch your front and flanks more than your rear, because you know you are being pursued-the real danger is any unknowns. The truth of this was borne out when, a hundred yards from Captain’s post, we turned a corner and found ourselves heading towards three more strange-acting locals.

  “Keep going!” I yelled, throwing Mac the lead rope and racing forward. I heaved the carpet bag into the nearest man’s face, knocking him back, and shot the next, habit putting two into his torso before I caught myself and shot him in the brain pan.

  The third had a hatchet and seemed a bit more spry than the others; I missed him clean before putting a round into his temple as the horses clattered past with an echoing shriek from Sister Celeste, and like the others he collapsed like a sack of flour the instant his brains saw daylight.

  Headshots do not work like that-they certainly take the fight out of the recipient, but I have seen men stagger about with half their skull gone, out of the battle but still taking a last couple reflexive steps.

  I wasn’t pondering this subject, however, as the first one whom I had hit with the carpet bag, a lean man in a faded suit, had grabbed me from my left side and was trying to bite me. I had my left forearm braced against his chest, pushing back while I leaned away from those snapping yellow teeth set in gray gums. The sour smell of unwashed body and the start of decay filled my nose, slightly overlaid by a perfume-like odor. Jamming the muzzle of my Colt up into the unhealthy jowls to force his head back, I fired my last shot.

  As with the others he instantly let go and dropped without a twitch, and again I didn’t waste time pondering it, grabbing up the carpet bag as I holstered the Colt and pulled the M1911. The nearest of our pursuers was five feet away as I came around; I shot her squarely in the forehead and dropped two others before taking to my heels.

  Captain, mounted and the wooden stock of his smoking Mauser braced against his hip, met me thirty yards short of his original position, Pork Chop in tow. “What in hell is going on here?”

  “I’m not sure,” I swung up into the saddle, hooking the carpet bag’s handles over my saddle horn. “But aim for the head-nothing else works.”

  “You’re telling me-there’s a weird-looking local with nine rounds in his chest crawling around back there. Had to kneecap him to get him to slow down. Where did you find the nun?”

  “Running from more of those, and what ‘those’ are
, I have no idea.” I inserted a fresh magazine into the M1911 and dropped the partial mag inside my shirt before holstering the pistol.

  We caught up with Mac and the others at the foot of the ridge. Seeing no point in subterfuge, I led our group up across the slope, heading north in full view of the town.

  We were halfway up the slope when Mac barked a curse and Sister Celeste shrieked yet once again; I looked up from reloading my Colt and saw a mob of locals on the road just out of the town, perhaps a hundred or so. They were unmoving, their blank faces turned up towards us, and in the faint dregs of the fog they looked like a cluster of dandelions gone to puffballs, blurry gray ovals.

  Some of the mob were pulling a wagon, and standing on its canvas-covered load was a tall figure in a strangely-cut long green coat, an untidy mass of gray hair spilling out from beneath a drab hat, across the tall collar and down nearly to the waist. The coat gleamed like the only color in a lifeless landscape, catching and holding the eye with a hypnotic quality.

  As I looked the figure in green raised its left arm and pointed, seemingly directly at me, and for an instant I thought we locked eyes across the distance even though I couldn’t see the person well enough to tell if it was male or female. The instant lasted a heartbeat and an hour, the way time in the jungle had seemed to hang motionless just after the Moros started their war cries but before they exploded out of the underbrush.

  Then the entire mob let loose with that breathless moaning wail in unison, as if they were a finely trained choir, and the moment ended. I holstered the Colt and leaned to the right, reaching for my Krag as the figure turned and gracefully dropped into the ranks of the crowd.

  “Did you see that?” Mac demanded. “Green Coat isn’t…whatever is going on with the others.”

  “Green Coat is in charge,” I nodded. Sister Celeste was rattling away again, spitting out words like a Maxim gun firing, but no one was listening. Urging Pork Chop over to Sibley, I grabbed his jacket. “Who the blazes was that?”