Sunstone

by RW Krpoun

  Captain nodded. “I dunno if I buy the whole story, but we’re not in a hurry.”

  “All right, then. Let’s get some food first, though.”

  We ate in a large room filled with trestle tables; children occupied the other tables, each table of an age and gender. The children were well-behaved for the most part, although there was some noise and considerable cheer.

  After the meal a detail of children cleared and cleaned the tables while the rest trooped out; Brother Andrew approached our table with two Indian boys, trailed by a very small Mexican girl clutching a corn husk doll.

  “Good day, my friends.” Recognizing a tough audience, he continued. “This is Red Hawk,” he gestured to a lean Indian boy about fifteen in doeskin leggings and undyed cotton tunic, a machete at one hip and a hatchet on the other. “One of our better transport leaders.” The boy remained impassive, but he stood a fraction taller. “He will trail you with a string of mules.”

  The little girl, clad in a worn man’s blue work shirt that had been skillfully cut down into a dress, circled the group, eyeing us warily. Coming to Mac she halted and subjected him to intense scrutiny.

  Brother Andrew rapped his knuckles against the skull of the boy to his left, who winced but grinned, a wiry twelve-year old of mixed blood, dressed as the older boy, but armed with only a belt knife. A flat canvas case six inches wide and eight high hung on his chest, and two lengths of thick dowel were slung on his back. “This is Tobias, an imp from the very bowels of Hades, released upon the world as a scourge to organized education. He is also the surest of our signalers, and will travel with you to serve as a go-between with Red Hawk.” Tobias’ grin widened.

  A Mexican girl of around nine years looked in the door, saw the little girl and trotted over. Smiling absently at us she gathered up the child and hefted her onto her hip. The child pointed to Mac and spoke in high-pitched Spanish, lisping a bit around missing front teeth. The older girl nodded and carried her outside.

  The monk laid a crudely-drawn strip map upon the table. “Our orphanage is here,” he tapped the sheet with one long finger. “To the southwest of here is the establishment of a Chinese gentleman named Wai, his family and some workers. Your task is to secure Wai and his people and bring them here, along with his tools and supplies for the manufacture of fireworks. Red Hawk will deal with the transport issues-he will trail you by an hour’s march, and Tobias will serve as your signaler and guide. Wai will welcome you-we had planned for his coming here, but events have overtaken us. It is a journey of some eleven miles,” the monk traced a line, “less as the crow flies, but this route follows the high ground.”

  Captain traced the route with the shaft of his spoon. “Not too bad.”

  A Mexican girl of ten or so entered the room, a wicker cage slung across her back on a strap. A glossy pigeon sat proudly on her hand; she stroked its back with a finger and whispered to it. Catching sight of her Red Hawk stepped over and lifted the cage off her shoulders. Opening the hatch, he held it out.

  The girl gave him an unhappy look and whispered something to the bird before sadly lifting it into the cage. Stepping back, she spoke sharply to Red Hawk in Spanish, one finger jabbing for emphasis. The older boy nodded in the manner of a man accepting unwanted instructions. He tucked the cage under his arm and stepped back in place. The girl tried to walk out with dignity, but turned at the door to look back at the cage, worry stamped on her face.

  “Do you have any questions?”

  I jerked a thumb at Sibley. “We need to leave him behind. Do you have a place that has a good lock?”

  “Clever,” Mac nodded at the two small leather-jacketed books, each no more than twice the size of a postage stamp that we had recovered from hiding places in Sibley’s clothing and belongings before stripping him of his boots and locking him in a windowless storeroom.

  “He had to have the account numbers written down somewhere,” I shrugged, stuffing the money back into the belt we had also taken from the engineer. “I’m sure he has another copy stashed in El Paso or someplace else-he’s too careful by half. But with these the railroad can get their money back even if we lose Sibley.” I handed the belt to Mac and one of the books to Captain. “Copy the numbers when you get a chance and give them to Mac. No matter what, we have to get the account numbers to the Agency.”

  “Wish we could get some decent rifles for this place,” Captain observed as we mounted. “Half the pieces they’ve got are muzzle-loaders. Decent weapons would do a lot more good than a Chink fireworks mechanic.”

  “We pass a store or an arsenal, we’ll check on bulk rates,” I waved to Sister Celeste as we trotted towards the gate, Tobias and our mules in tow; the Noviate, escorting a gaggle of girls, waved back. “Remind me how the world went so crazy, again?”

  “The Agency’s gonna want a report on this business,” Mac pointed out, ever-practical. “Ought to be a bonus in it.”

  “That’s something,” Captain grinned.

  Captain was too soft-hearted to leave the kids un-helped, and Mac wasn’t one to run from a fight; as for me, I was in deep enough that I wanted to find out what was actually going on. Brother Andrew’s mad ramblings couldn’t be the whole truth-the dead don’t walk simply because some book worm wanted them to. There was more to this than I currently knew, and I was determined to get to the bottom of it. I suspected that this day’s excursion should go a good ways to turning madness into the mundane. It was probably just some form of rabies.

  And, as Captain had pointed out, there would likely be a bonus in it.

  Wai’s place consisted of a flat-roofed adobe house of considerable size and age, albeit in good repair. Across the rutted track there were a series of pole sheds which apparently protected his production and storage areas. The rough trestle-tables were empty, however, and a group of Chinese men, women, and children were busily sorting bundles and packs.

  “This is going to be great, speaking Spanish to a Chinese,” I muttered to Mac, who nodded thoughtfully.

  “Red Wolf says dead men coming along road, four miles, mister,” Tobias reported, pulling a flat steel mirror out of his chest pouch. Holding the hole drilled in its center to his right eye, he sent flashes in answer.

  The boy’s English was perfect-other than a bit of a twang he must have picked up from the European staff he could pass for a native. Brother Andrew had mentioned that they taught the children both English and Spanish, and that most of the Indian children were mad for all things American. It said a lot about how the Mexicans had treated them that an Indian would prefer Americans.

  We had come over high ground without seeing anyone, a bit slower but a great deal safer. The kid hadn’t said an unsolicited word during the trip which had surprised me-he looked like the sort to get into mischief.

  “How many?”

  “Maybe forty, mister.”

  “Tell him to close up.”

  “Forty over open ground,” Captain turned in his saddle to survey the terrain. “Not much problem there. Maybe they use that little creekbed, but it’s not much.”

  He was right- besides the ridgeline we had taken it was pretty flat through here, some clumps of mesquite and a creek whose erosion had cut about six feet into the soil. “Why don’t you take Tobias as a runner and find yourself a nice spot, give our friends a little gringo welcome when they come into range.”

  He grinned and turned his horse north.

  “I thought Brother Andrew said there would be crazy men already here,” I observed to Mac.

  “Lotta things don’t add up.”

  My concerns were groundless as it turned out that Wai had an English-speaking mouthpiece, a Chinese girl with Anglo blood, pretty, with eyes that looked green in the right light and a face like stone. She wore trousers, the sort you see Chinese women wear with a loose tunic, the whole thing kind of like what peons wear, except they were blue trimmed in green and cut better. A green and white checked sash woven around her waist had two hatchets thrust into it a
nd a sword was slung across her back, not the clumsy Chinese cleavers with a ring instead of a pommel, but one of the ones that looked like a graceful cutlass. Her hair was tucked under a turban of green and white checked silk.

  “Pretty little thing,” Mac observed as she relayed our explanation to Wai, who was scared, old, and wearing that fancy dress-robe that rich Chinese men think is stylish.

  “Pretty much trouble,” I kept my voice low. “I’ve seen this before-not the exact colors, but she’s dressed like a Tong soldier. They fight with sticks and bare hands if they don’t have steel handy. Some Boxers were like that, too. Makes bare knuckle bouts look clumsy.”

  “Huh.” Mac wasn’t impressed, but as big as he was a five-foot girl who needed her sword to weigh a hundred pounds wouldn’t seem like much. I hoped he wouldn’t get a first-hand lesson the hard way-I had learned a lot in China, amongst which was a respect for their way of unarmed fighting.

  She didn’t look exactly Chinese, but it could have been the mixed blood. I sat and waited while Mac explained through the girl that we would escort Wai and his people to the orphanage. When the message finally got through and Wai had finished thanking us, something that always takes the Chinese forever, I climbed down and got Pork Chop some water.

  Krag in hand, I walked south along the track past the house and a couple of small outbuildings to where a derelict windmill thrust up against the overcast sky. After kicking its legs a few times to test its stability, I climbed up to the narrow plank walkway that would allow a workman to fix the blades of the propeller, if the propeller hadn’t been lying on the ground.

  To the north Red Wolf and his helpers were leading the mule train in, while to the south the ruts that passed as a road wove drunkenly across the easiest folds of the ground, empty.

  A sixth sense made me look down: the mouthpiece was standing there looking up at me. We stared at each other for a moment, and then I climbed down. Up close she was even prettier than I had initially thought. “You need something?”

  She glanced south. “No one.”

  “Yeah. So?” I wasn’t in the mood for company-even Mac, quiet as he was, got on my nerves sometimes. I wasn’t ever a social type, but since the hauntings started I preferred to be alone in case they showed up.

  “We hear shooting last night.” She jerked her chin to the southwest. “No one comes here. Strange.” She had her hands palms down on her stomach, one atop the other. It looked demure but it had them close to the hatchets, which the Chinese like to throw.

  “Lots of strange things going on.” I hesitated. “Brother Andrew says the dead walk.”

  She shrugged. “Men of God do not lie.”

  “You’re a Christian?”

  She nodded. “I am Nhi, my people are Nung from the French colony. I study Jin Wu in Shanghai, serve as interpreter and bodyguard.”

  I had no idea what chin woo was, but I bet it had more to do with the sword and hatchets than the tea ceremony. “Seth Peak. We’re Pinkerton men, hired guns sent to recover a thief. We’re helping Brother Andrew…just because, I guess. Whose body are you guarding?”

  “No one.” She stared pensively down the road. “I guard Master Andre, who came here to sell Lebel rifles to those who would buy. Fever took him two weeks ago, and I am without direction.”

  I recalled how far China had seemed when I was there, and felt a pang of sympathy-like me, she was soldiering in a strange land for unclear reasons. I started to say something when a rifle shot made me jump.

  She spun, the sword clearing leather with a sound like a bullwhip popping. Her speed startled me so much that I had the Krag half lifted before I caught myself.

  “Easy-that’s Captain, one of my men. The crazies are coming down the road from the north.”

  “We should go?” She sheathed the sword,

  “No, he shoots at long range. He’ll drop back when they’re getting close.” The rolling block barked again with that echoing quality a high-velocity round has when heard at a moderate distance. “He is a shooter of distinction.”

  She gestured to the Krag. “And you?”

  I looked down at the carbine. “I’m more a general-purpose man. I solve problems.” I met her eye. “I was a soldier, fought Boxers in China.”

  She made a gesture that was a sort of chop towards her nose. “I was young, but I remember. They were bad men, hate Christians, but they understood swords.”

  “They weren’t afraid to fight,” I agreed, noticing that she wasn’t as stone-faced now.

  She nodded thoughtfully. “These mad men, they use no weapons?”

  “Not the ones I saw-wait, one had a hatchet, I think. They look,” I struggled for a moment. “Like opium-smokers when they have finished a pipe-full. Whatever is wrong with them makes them ignore a lot of pain. Hitting them in the head seems to be the best way to put them down.”

  She cocked an eyebrow at that, a skill I admired.

  “Seriously. I shot one squarely in the chest twice,” I tapped the butt of my Colt. “Not much further than you from me, and both times he climbed back onto his feet.”

  It was a struggle, this conversation: other than whores I seldom speak to women, much less a Chinese woman wearing a sword. She stood wrong, too: women stand a certain way and fidget with parasols or hand bags or hair. She stood squarely, balanced, and rested her hands on her stomach like you see some pregnant women do, except that her stomach was flat. She was short, but it wasn’t so obvious on her-she stood taller with attitude.

  Then she bounced onto her tiptoes with a shocked yelp, going for her sword. I jumped back, for an instant thinking she was going for me, but just as quickly I realized she was staring past me.

  To the southeast upwards of forty figures were stumbling out of the brush and that wailing cry I had heard at Sinaloa rattled inside my marrow.

  The crazies had found us again.

  Chapter Five

  My first shot hit center mass out of long habit, bowling a husky young Mexican dressed in a battered khaki uniform off his feet; working the bolt, I put my next shot squarely into the skull of a blank-faced, slack-jawed pudgy whore, dropping her into a boneless heap.

  Beside me Nhi had produced one of those toggle-action German automatic pistols and was firing a little too fast for real accuracy.

  They came on like sleepwalkers, as if the gunfire was nothing. I have seen charging enemy lean forward into incoming fire, hunching like men advancing into heavy rain as they came, but never someone who did not react at all. It was unnerving-it made me feel like I was powerless.

  “Come on,” I slapped Nhi’s back. “Back to the others.” Stuffing cartridges into the Krag’s side-gate, I snapped the steel cover closed and shouldered the weapon as I side-stepped back towards the house. Part of me was wondering where the blazes these had come from, but that wasn’t really important at the moment-for now I needed to reach Pork Chop and my men.

  I split another madman’s skull and worked the bolt as I stepped back, paused to set the sights on another lumbering walker and squeezed the trigger, then stepped back as I worked the action again. Part of me wanted to set my feet and show these freaks what a marksman could do, but there were too many and I had no defensive terrain.

  Fourth shot and reload, keeping one locked in the chamber against sudden need. The Moros, who had fought Mauser-armed Spaniards before they fought us, had lost a lot of eager young bucks before they learned that the Krag could be reloaded with the bolt closed and a live round in the chamber.

  The dead, if they were that, were deceptive in their speed-they were closing faster than we were backing despite losing a third of their numbers. They advanced silently, emotionlessly, not fast but with a terrible, slack-jawed determination, more like a machine than a living thing, coming on until a bullet punched through their skull.

  Firing and moving I came around to the front of the house, Nhi in tow. She had emptied all her magazines and was sticking close, a hatchet in each hand. The crazies were twenty yards a
nd closing steadily.

  We arrived into pure pandemonium: Red Hawk and his helpers were struggling to get the last loads onto increasingly agitated mules, Wai and his people were piling into a wagon drawn by four big bays and screeching at each other all the while, Captain was kneeling in the center of the road coolly picking off crazies coming from the north, and Mac was trying to create order out of Chaos with minimal results.

  I spotted Pork Chop standing a bit away from the pole sheds watching the events with interest, and made a beeline for her at best speed, trying to yell loud enough for Mac to hear. The big man spotted the crazies as they poured around the house and started working his lever-action in deadly earnest. I kept going-normally I prefer to fight on foot, but these damned crazies could just roll over one man on flat ground.

  Pork Chop was concerned enough to have moved from where I had grounded her reins, but was not spooked as so many horses get when things get excited. Swinging aboard, I shoved the Krag into its scabbard and urged her forward.

  The appearance of the southern group of crazies sent the Chinese pounding down the road, the wagon rocking crazily on its springs, clothes and household goods spilling out behind it.

  Nhi chopped a crazy behind the knee, spilling it to the ground, and then split another’s skull with the other hatchet before turning and sprinting towards a saddled mule.

  Spurring Pork Chop between the south bunch and Red Hawk’s mules, I pulled the saddle Colt and got off six fast shots, getting two head hits and four torso, the knocked-down crazies tangling up the bulk of the crowd, although the south bunch did catch one Chinese worker, a young man, and tore him apart.

  “Time to get the hell out of here!” Mac yelled as he pulled his horse alongside me, thumbing rounds into his rifle’s loading gate.

  I missed an easy shot with my M1911, swore, and nodded. “Red Hawk! Let’s go, high ground!” Pork Chop abruptly bucked, nearly unseating me, kicking a crazy so hard he went airborne. “Dammit, horse, don’t do that!”