Hope's End

by Mark Lukens

  Jed thought they might find the barkeep in one of those rooms, or what was left of him. Jed had been sure he would open the door to one of those rooms and find the barkeep’s mangled body, his remains twisted like a giant piece of taffy, just like Rose and the cowboy. But the barkeep was gone. Maybe he’d been taken to the church with the others. Or maybe he was being saved for something else.

  They moved the tables and chairs to the back room so they could spread out blankets and pillows on the floor in the middle of the saloon, keeping all of the blankets near each other so they could stay close together. They left one table and a set of chairs closer to the saloon doors. Jed pulled a chair out for Sanchez so he could sit down.

  Everyone else took a seat at the table except Karl. He had lain down on a blanket, curling up on his side. He was whispering to himself in Swedish. Maybe he was praying.

  Moody set his lantern in the middle of the table next to the whiskey bottle and glasses. Jed pulled his Colt out of the holster and set it down on the table in front of him with a thud.

  “I need to pee,” Sanchez said.

  “Hold it,” Jed responded.

  “I can’t hold it all night.”

  Jed didn’t say anything.

  Esmerelda stared at Jed. “You need to let him relieve himself.”

  She had brought down two chamber pots along with the pillows and blankets from upstairs. Jed was glad she had thought of that because he didn’t particularly like the idea of going back upstairs to those rooms.

  “I can’t cut him loose,” Jed said. “He’s an outlaw.”

  “I’m no outlaw,” Sanchez said. “I killed that man in self-defense, like I already told you.”

  “You can’t tie him back to that chair again all night,” Esmerelda said. “It’s against his civil rights.”

  “He’s a criminal. He ain’t got no rights.”

  Esmerelda sighed and sat back in her chair.

  “Under normal circumstances I would’ve locked him up in your jail cell,” Jed told her. “Would you prefer that I march him down to the sheriff’s office? Leave him there?”

  She didn’t respond, but she was still staring at him.

  Jed tore his eyes away from Esmerelda’s brilliant green eyes. He looked at the two rooms across the saloon. “What about those rooms over there?”

  “One’s my office,” Moody said. “The other one’s a storeroom.”

  “Does the storeroom have a window in it?” Jed asked.

  Moody shook his head no.

  “I could lock him up in that room for the night if it makes you feel better.” Jed looked back at Esmerelda.

  “No way you’re locking me up by myself in that room,” Sanchez said.

  “You can’t do that, either,” Esmerelda finally said.

  Jed stood up.

  “What are you doing?” Esmerelda asked, alarmed by Jed’s sudden movement.

  Jed looked at Billy. “Could you give me a hand?”

  Billy didn’t even ask what Jed needed. He stood up with Karl’s gun in his hand. Jed helped Sanchez to his feet. He unlocked one wrist from the handcuffs, freeing it. The cuffs hung from his other wrist.

  “Pick up the chamber pot,” Jed told Sanchez.

  Sanchez followed orders.

  Jed had his Colt aimed down at the floor. “Go to the storeroom.”

  “You’re not locking me in there,” Sanchez warned.

  “No, but I won’t have you relieving yourself in front of a woman and a child. You go in there, do your business, and then come back out.”

  Sanchez stared at Jed for a moment, not sure if he was being tricked into the storeroom.

  “I’m trusting you,” Jed told Sanchez. “I can trust you, can’t I?”

  “Can I trust you?” Sanchez asked him.

  Jed nodded. “You’ve got my word.”

  Sanchez walked to the storeroom with the chamber pot. Jed and Billy followed him. They waited right outside the open storeroom door until Sanchez was finished. Sanchez left the chamber pot in the storeroom, and then Jed led him to the end of the bar.

  “Sit down,” he told Sanchez.

  “Here? On the floor?”

  “I’m going to lock your wrist to the foot rail.”

  “Marshal . . .” Sanchez began, but he didn’t bother arguing. He sat down on the floor and held his cuffed wrist to the foot rail. Jed clamped the other handcuff around the metal bar.

  “There’s spit and tobacco all over the floor,” Sanchez muttered.

  Jed almost told Sanchez that he was sorry he couldn’t make his accommodations more comfortable, but a vision of Red Moon at the base of the tree in the woods came back to him, and he said nothing. He brought Sanchez a pillow and a blanket.

  Billy walked back to the table and sat down with the others. Jed joined them a moment later.

  “Why don’t you just cut me loose?” Sanchez asked. He was sitting with his back against the front of the bar, his right wrist handcuffed to the foot rail right beside the end of it where it curved back into the wood so he couldn’t slide his hand out.

  Jed didn’t reply, but Esmerelda watched him.

  “You can keep my guns locked up,” Sanchez said. “I’m not going to run. Not with those . . . those . . . whoever’s out there doing this.”

  “It is not a who,” Billy said. “It is a what. A monster. The Darkwind.”

  “Do we have to listen to that again?” Moody asked. He was hunched forward over the table, his hands cupping a shot glass in front of him even though it was empty.

  “I think Billy’s right,” Esmerelda said. “Whatever’s out there isn’t human.”

  “Of course you agree with the Indian,” Moody said.

  Esmerelda didn’t argue with him.

  “You know it, too,” Billy said, staring right at Jed.

  Jed felt heat flushing his face again, caught in a lie. He shifted his gaze to David. The boy was staring at him just like Billy was, interested in hearing his response.

  “What did you see when your men were killed?” Billy asked.

  Jed didn’t answer right away, but he saw no sense in pretending anymore that something supernatural wasn’t going on in this town, something beyond their understanding, beyond their control.

  The others stared at him, waiting for his answer. Even Sanchez was watching him, his eyes saying: You felt free to interrogate me, now it’s your turn to be questioned.

  “I didn’t see them,” Jed finally answered. “I never saw the skinwalkers.”

  “You never saw any of them?” Moody asked with a sarcastic smirk and suspicion in his eyes.

  Jed locked eyes with Moody. “I didn’t see any of them.”

  “Your two deputies were taken, and you didn’t see who did it?” Moody asked, his voice rising a few octaves.

  “They were both taken when we were in the woods,” Jed explained. “They were taken like Lawrence was. Like everyone in this town was.”

  “But you said Red Moon got away,” Moody reminded Jed, reminding everyone else.

  Jed glanced at Billy, then at Esmerelda. “I wasn’t being completely truthful about that.” Before Moody could protest, Jed went on. “Red Moon told me, promised me, that the men in the woods weren’t his men. He said they weren’t coming to rescue him. Of course I didn’t believe him. And when my men were taken, I thought for sure Red Moon was in on the whole thing.”

  “You found your men,” Billy said. It wasn’t a question; it was a statement of fact. “It wanted you to find them.”

  Jed nodded.

  “What happened to your men?” Esmerelda asked.

  Jed made a show of glancing at David, letting them know that the details weren’t proper for a young boy’s ears. “They were killed. Mutilated. A lot like your townsfolks were.” He hoped that was explanation enough.

  “What about Red Moon?” Moody asked.

  Jed wasn’t sure how much to tell. How could he tell them that he had left Red Moon behind? How could he tell them that his
good friend Roscoe (only his head) had told him to leave Red Moon behind like an offering? How was he supposed to tell them that Roscoe said that “he” would want more things?

  So he didn’t tell them any of that.

  “They got Red Moon,” Jed finally said. “They had already taken our horses. I had my gun belt, my pistol, and whatever I could carry in my pockets. Then I ran.”

  “Did you see Red Moon get killed?” Moody asked, that suspicion still burning in his eyes. “Did you actually see his dead body?”

  Jed could feel his temper rising, getting close to boiling over. “I just told you they got him, didn’t I?”

  Moody didn’t seem satisfied with the answer.

  Jed reached for the bottle and a shot glass. He poured himself a drink and swallowed it down.

  “Let’s not accuse anyone of anything,” Esmerelda said, trying to calm both of the men down.

  “I’m not accusing anyone of anything,” Moody said. “I’m just saying that if our U.S. Marshal here didn’t actually see Red Moon’s body after he was taken, it could be Red Moon out there with his gang doing this.”

  “Red Moon was scared to death,” Jed said. “He said those skinwalkers in the woods weren’t his gang.”

  “Skinwalkers are no longer Diné,” Billy said. He was lightly caressing the silver charm hanging from his leather necklace. “Skinwalkers are no longer men. They are monsters.”

  “That’s the same thing Red Moon said,” Jed told everyone. “He said the skinwalkers were no longer his people.”

  “He could’ve been lying to you so he could get away,” Moody said.

  “You can’t still think it’s Red Moon and his gang out there,” Jed said, looking at Moody. “After what you’ve seen tonight? After what you just saw up there in your own hotel room, Rose and that cowboy tangled and twisted together, their heads and faces melted together?”

  Moody looked away.

  Jed could tell that Moody was wrestling with the same feelings he’d had earlier, trying to rationalize, trying to come up with any other explanation rather than admitting the truth—that something unbelievable and unexplainable was happening.

  “I’ve heard of skinwalkers,” Sanchez said. “Never seen one myself, but old women used to talk about them. They’re witches. They can cast spells and they can turn into animals.”

  “But what is out there now are not skinwalkers,” Billy said.

  Everyone looked at him.

  “It is the Anasazi out there—the Ancient Enemy. Some call it the Darkwind.”

  “What is the Ancient Enemy?” Esmerelda asked. “A demon?”

  Billy shrugged. “You could call it a demon. A god. Something ancient and powerful. There are stories of the ancient people that vanished. There are stories of the ancient people eating each other, of bones crushed, bodies twisted together. No signs of attack from another tribe. There are stories of cities built into the sides of rock mountains, stories of all of the people disappearing.”

  “We have those stories, too,” Sanchez said. “In Mexico, and farther south. They tell stories of old cities swallowed up by the jungle. Some say the people abandoned those cities that they built. But others say all of them were taken.”

  CHAPTER 21

  The saloon doors and windows were all locked, but Jed suggested that they barricade the doors and the windows as best they could. Moody grabbed a hammer and a can of nails from his office, but he didn’t have much in the way of spare wood. His office was a cramped little room with one small window, a desk, a chair, and a couch that Moody slept on most nights instead of sleeping in his home a mile away.

  “We’ll have to use the tables,” Jed told everyone.

  Moody wasn’t happy about that idea, but he knew they needed to do something about the doors and windows, something to protect themselves.

  They broke the legs off some of the tables and used those as braces against the front doors, toenailing the ends of them to the wood floor. It wasn’t the most secure bracing, but it was better than nothing. They flipped four of the tables up onto their sides and shoved them against the windows. The tables were round and didn’t cover the windows completely, but they offered some kind of obstacle if anyone wanted to come through the windows.

  “We’ll sleep in watches tonight,” Jed told them after they were finished barricading the windows and doors. “I’ll take the first watch.”

  “Who’s going to be able to sleep?” Moody muttered.

  *

  Two hours later all of them were sleeping as Jed sat alone at the table, on watch. He had a cold cup of coffee in front of him. He wanted a few more shots of whiskey, something to take the edge off of his fear, but he couldn’t risk getting sleepy from the alcohol.

  They had turned down most of the lanterns to save the fuel. Jed had a lantern on the floor closer to the door so he could see the doors clearly. The wood stove was still burning and provided just a red glow from that side of the saloon, but most of the saloon was hidden in shadows now.

  Jed was getting tired of sitting in the chair. His back was beginning to ache, his muscles stiffening up from the cold. The saloon was quiet except for Moody’s snores and the heavy breathing of the others. There was a stale smell of body odor in the room, and the faint smells of piss and shit coming from the chamber pots just inside the storeroom. There were no noises coming from outside.

  He knew there was a good chance he might fall asleep without even remembering it. Even as frightened as he’d been, he had fallen asleep twice in the woods.

  Jed looked down at his Colt sitting on the table in front of him. The gun seemed like a foolish and useless thing now against whatever was out there, the Ancient Enemy as Billy called it.

  All of this felt useless, but he couldn’t allow himself to wallow in despair—that was dangerous. If he gave up now then he might as well go outside and offer himself up to that thing out there. No, he needed to fight; it’s what he had always done. He was a lawman with a duty to protect these citizens in this saloon, and most of all David. The boy gave him a kind of strength, and he wondered if this is how a father would feel about his own son.

  Someone was materializing out of the darkness, walking towards the table. At first Jed thought it was David, maybe because he’d just been thinking about him, but it was Esmerelda. She sat down in the chair next to him.

  “I had a bad dream,” she said as if Jed had asked for an explanation. “It woke me up.”

  Jed didn’t say anything.

  Esmerelda looked back at the others hidden in shadows, all of them sleeping near each other in a big group except Sanchez who was curled up in front of the bar, his right wrist cuffed to the foot rail. Every once in a while, when Sanchez moved around in his sleep, the handcuff would clink against the metal foot rail.

  Esmerelda looked back at Jed. “How did you find David?”

  It was obviously a question she had wanted to ask for a while.

  “After my men were killed in the woods, I walked out of there with just my pistol and whatever I could carry in my pockets. Like I told you earlier.”

  She nodded, watching him.

  “I figured I was looking at a four day walk to Smith Junction. Maybe even five days. But a few hours after I was out of the woods, I saw David’s house down below in a valley. It was a small spread with a few cows and some sheep. A house, barn, and stables with three horses.”

  Jed paused and Esmerelda watched him.

  “David’s ma and pa were killed,” Jed said in a low voice, almost a whisper. “His older brother, too. I found David in his bedroom, hiding behind his bed, so I took him with me. When we left, David took a photograph of his family with him, that’s how I knew who they were.” He remembered that he had stuffed David’s photograph into his pocket last night when David had fallen asleep with it on his chest next to the campfire. He pulled it out and showed Esmerelda.

  She took the photograph and stared at it for a moment. She handed it back to him.

  Jed
knew he should give the photograph back to David, but he decided to slip it back into his pocket for safekeeping. “Their bodies were gone when I got there,” Jed told her. “But there was plenty of blood left behind. And . . . and some small pieces of them.”

  “But they were taken,” she whispered. “Just like the people here.”

  Jed nodded. “When I found David in his bedroom, I asked him what had happened, he didn’t say much. Still doesn’t. I couldn’t leave him there.”

  “Of course not,” Esmerelda hissed, like his mentioning something like that had offended her.

  “We borrowed two of his pa’s horses. I left a note. We rode north towards Smith Junction. But then that sandstorm sprang up and we had to come here.”

  “What do you plan to do with him?”

  “Take him to Smith Junction.”

  “And then what?”

  Jed shrugged. “I don’t know. I reckon the people there will try to find his kin.”

  Esmerelda looked doubtful about that prospect. “You wonder why you weren’t taken in the woods? Why David was left behind in his house?”

  Jed nodded. “And Sanchez. The barkeep was taken, but Sanchez was left behind. Sanchez was handcuffed and hobbled. Tied to a chair. He was easy pickings. Why not take him instead of the barkeep?”

  Esmerelda nodded in agreement. “Sanchez was easy pickings like David was.”

  And me, Jed thought.

  “That Darkwind,” Esmerelda whispered. “The Ancient Enemy as Billy calls it. That thing, whatever it is, takes a whole town but leaves the few of us behind in this saloon.”

  “This saloon isn’t any safer than any other building here. The barkeep was taken from here. And then there’s what happened to Rose and that cowboy she was with upstairs.”

  “But it only did those things when we were gone,” Esmerelda said. “Not while we were here.”

  “What are you getting at?” Jed asked her. If she was going somewhere with her questions, he wished she would get to the point.

  Esmerelda didn’t answer him; she just stared at him like she was studying him, like she knew he was hiding information of his own.