Days had passed since Malone had seen another human being. Bears and elk, yes. Fox and beaver, in plenty. Even wolves, who came close, perhaps drawn by the prospect of prey, perhaps by the wolf’s-skull cap that adorned Malone’s head. When that cap winked back at them, the paralleling pack hesitated. When it threw back its half head and howled, they took off running so fast they left more than one unintentional longitudinal marker behind them in the shallow snow.
It wasn’t yet deep. Too early in the season for that. But if the party Malone had been deputed to find didn’t get out quick, they’d be trapped by some of the coldest, snowiest weather on the continent. That was what Malone had been hired to do: find ’em, and bring them out. Difficult work, given the first snow and the absence of much in the way of trail spoor. If anyone could do it, he and Worthless could. The unicorn was not pleased with the undertaking. This time of year, he much preferred the company of a warm stable and compliant mares. Or, not being particularly particular, t’ other way around.
The faint tracks of those who had preceded them eventually led man and mount down into a valley furiously alive with the Earth’s breath. Intermittent geysers spewed hissing whale spouts of water into the crystal-clear air of morning. Noxious gases vented from fumaroles while mud pits bubbled and stewed like the paint pots of the maddest of damned artists. Lush evergreens blanketed the surrounding mountainsides. High overhead, an eagle screamed. Searching diligently for prey, it saw only a lone rider on horseback: too big to carry off, too big to ignore.
Sympathetic to the plight of any creature whose daily foraging amounted to endless searching for moving needles in a geologic haystack, Malone threw back his head and screamed a reply. This so startled the eagle that it banked in midair sharply enough to shed a feather. In the way of eagles and hawks, their consequent conversation was shorter than Hawthorne or Melville would have countenanced.
Eagle: Seen any vermin?
Malone: Nope.
Eagle: Bye.
Malone continued on, moving ever deeper into the valley of mist and ground-hugging fog. The trail of the party he was tracking grew fainter and fainter, until even he had trouble telling the difference between particles of soil that had been disturbed by man and horse and those that had simply been roiled by the unsettled Earth. It was when he was turning back, with an eye toward retracing part of the trail already traversed, that a noise most peculiar made him pause and look to his right.
Worthless was plodding gingerly around the fringe of a vast bubbling and popping mud pit. Nothing out of the locally ordinary there. It was only when a portion of the pit studdenly rose up and assumed human shape to confront Malone that he took serious notice.
The mountain man thought he was more than middling familiar with the general panoply of demonic manifestations, but this was the first time he had ever seen a mudunculus. Point of fact, he’d never even heard of a mudunculus. But that surely was one looming there before him, its feet sunk deep in the bubbling gunk and its distorted, lopsided, coffee-hued head flashing fangs at him from the midst of a mouth of muck. It had heavy, muscular mud arms that reached all the way to the ground, a tapering, wickedly whiplike tail, a bald, slick skull, long ears that drooped like those of a bloodhound from the sides of its head, penetrating eyes of blazing brown, and a nose that was as pointed as its glare. It grinned down at Malone from a very great height indeed. Strong men would have panicked at the sight, and women fainted.
Not Mad Amos Malone. He’d done seen quite a bit.
The mudunculus was certainly impressive. Steam rose and curled from its huge body, which, though quite naked, was covered in thick searing sludge that contributed a thankful modesty.
“Oho!” it burbled delightedly. “Another surveyor. And just in time for breakfast.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Sliding down out of the saddle, Malone commenced to rummaging in one of the hefty saddlebacks that was slung across Worthless’s back. As the creature of the depths stared, the mountain man unlimbered skillet, spoon, and fixin’s.
Instant insanity the demon expected. Insouciance was not a reaction to which it was accustomed.
“You pathetic human, I was not issuing an invitation. You are to be breakfast! You, and that toothsome-looking nag you rode in on.”
Busy setting up his skillet and accoutrements, Malone glanced idly in his mount’s direction, then back at the mudunculus. “I’ve heard Worthless called a sight many things. I’ve called him more names than most, myself. But I reckon ‘toothsome’ is a new one.” Using kit from his saddlebags, he carefully began to build a fire under the skillet, making a cooking pit of stones to contain it. “I believe I rightly heard you call me ‘another’ surveyor. By that I’m supposin’ you have some knowledge o’ them that come here afore me?”
The mountain man’s curiosity restored the demon’s grin. “Truthfully, I do. They were not welcome.” Dripping mud of different colors and extreme temperature, enormous arms spread wide, as if to encompass all that man and demon alike could see. “This is my home. None may come here without my permission. All who trespass are doomed to meet the same end.” One long, thick finger pointed meaningfully toward a nearby geyser mound. “Behold the fate that is to be yours, master of some small courage.”
Leaning slightly forward as he crouched by his skillet, Malone was just able to see around the edge of the built-up mound of sulfates and silicates and such. It shaded a pile of bones. Human bones, roughly disarticulated and bleached white as chalk. At least three skulls stared back at him. There might have been more. He nodded slowly to himself.
He had found the missing party of surveyors.
Showing foot-long fangs, the mudunculus leaned forward. “Do you not tremble at the sight? Are you not melting with fear? You have but a moment longer to live before your flesh is boiled from your living bones, as was theirs!”
Having stood, Malone returned to hunting through a saddlebag. “Y’know,” he declared absently, “there’s a real trick t’ transportin’ eggs on horseback.” One hand full of henfruit, he headed back to the skillet. “Takes jest the right kind o’ packin’, and the right kind o’ horse.”
“Unworthy one! You have no respect. I think perhaps you are already mad.” A great sucking sound ensued as the demon took a giant step forward. Not toward Malone, but past him, to his left. “Watch then, as I consume first your beloved animal, so that you may see what is in store for your own body!”
Eggs sizzling in the cast-iron skillet, Malone glanced up. “Wouldn’t try thet if I were you.”
The progeny of the pit ignored him. Leaning forward, mouth agape, it brought its jaws down hard on Worthless’s hindquarters. Turning its head, the horse looked back and, as usual, squinted.
There was a snapping, crunching sound. But it came not from Worthless’s legs or pelvis, nor from his spine. Rather the sound was of one fang snapping. Letting out a cry of hurt and surprise, the demon drew back sharply. One massive hand felt of its upper jaw. A great tooth had broken in half, and its orthodontic companions were throbbing painfully.
“What manner of monstrous beast is this?”
Malone eyed Worthless, who had gone back to nibbling at the ground. “A tough one.” His gaze shifted to the still-stunned demon. “I reckon y’would have figured that out if you’d taken the time t’ notice thet he’s croppin’ calcite, not grass.” Eggs well on their way to cooking in the skillet, he added bacon. “Settles his stomach, it does.” His gaze narrowed. When Amos Malone’s gaze narrowed, anything in the vicinity that had an ounce of sense turned and fled. It did not speak well for the demon that it remained where it was.
Malone continued. “Now you harken to me, Mr. Mud-Face. This here piece o’ ground has been declared the first national park o’ this young country by none other than President Grant himself. It’s to be open to all.” With one powerful, callused hand, he gestured at the seething, stea
ming landscape spread out before him. “Myself, I don’t have no problem with you keepin’ your house here. I pride myself on gettin’ along with every sort o’ critter, no matter how disagreeable their personal habits. But this here consumin’ o’ visitors, that’s gonna have t’ stop.”
Used to being feared, the mudunculus was so furious at the mountain man’s words that he forgot the loss of his half a fang.
“Miserable little human! Worthless worm that burrows in dung! You dare to dictate to Nagaroth, Lord of Heat and Fire? I have changed my mind. I will not boil you alive. I will melt the meat from your bones, slowly, leaving your vitals for last, and begin consuming them while you are still alive!” Reaching down into the swirling stew of boiling earth and water at his feet, he dragged up a handful of blazing, glowing dust. “The flesh of your face will be first to burn!” Drawing back its arm, it flung the handful straight at Malone.
Putting up a fair-sized hand of his own, the mountain man caught the flaming dust before it could strike him. Carefully, he deposited a pinch or two in his skillet before dumping the rest aside. Smoke rose briefly from his thick-skinned palm.
“Thankee fer the brimstone. ’Tain’t good Mexican spice, but it’ll do. I like a little zest in my eggs.”
Eyes bulging with barely controlled fury, the demon took a long, deep breath. Then it pursed its ugly lips, and spat. A stream of boiling water shot right for Malone. Though the spray was hot enough to sear the paint off the front of an unlicensed saloon, he leaned only slightly to his left.
The water struck him face on. For a moment, he was completely obscured by the resulting gush of steam. Nagaroth’s grin, which had been absent for a number of minutes, now returned as he waited to see the results of his scalding aqueous assault. When the steam cleared, his face fell in full-featured flabbergastment—fell literally and almost to his chest, in fact, as it oozed downward.
Malone sat, intact and sturdy, behind his skillet. Steam rose from his fringed leather jacket, from his pants, from his boots, and from his face. Turning his head to his right, he sniffed one underarm before looking back at the astonished demon.
“Thanks, there. First time in a month this outfit’s been proper clean, and that I’ve had a decent bath.” Leaning forward, he squinted down at the top of one boot. “Even killed the lice, I do believe.”
It was at that point that the demon Nagaroth went slightly berserk, thrashing the mud in which its feet were immersed, howling at the sky, beating its broad chest, and causing huge bubbles of mud to rise and burst all around it. Geysers erupted and fumaroles belched, while the very earth underfoot quivered fit to echo the great Missouri quake of 1811.
The demon threw fire at Malone. It only made his bacon cook faster. He threw hot stones. The mountain man effortlessly dodged them, save one nicely shaped one he grabbed to employ as a seat. Only then did the thwarted, frustrated fiend do something so horrific, so terrible, that it finally drew Amos Malone’s undivided attention.
Leaning far forward and reaching out, it roughly slapped the skillet to one side.
Worthless looked up immediately. Normally utterly unflappable, the half-horse, half-unicorn’s eyes grew wide. It began backing up, away from the scene of the tragedy. High above, a certain eagle looked down sharply, took notice of something singularly unpleasant, and hightailed it for the biggest tree it could find.
His gaze fixed on his ruined breakfast, Malone slowly rose. Not as high as the demon, but high enough. He eyed the ruins of the nearly crisp bacon and the almost ready eggs for a long moment. Then he turned his attention wholly to the one who had committed the unforgivable sin.
You can shoot a mountain man, more than once. You can cut him with a knife, or filch his goods, or impune his ancestry, or question his manhood. But you do not, not ever, mess with his breakfast.
“That,” Malone declared in a low tone of voice that similarly caused the earth underfoot to tremble slightly, “was a dang near impolite thing to do.”
“Suffer!” Pleased (and perhaps a mite relieved) to have finally unsettled his unexpectedly unimpressed victim, Nagaroth shook a fist in the mountain man’s direction. “Soon you too will be part of the soil, and no more.”
“Now you lookee here, my overheated unhygienic friend. Because I were raised polite, I’m givin’ you one last chance t’ agree to the requirement I’ve laid down. Otherwise, it’s banishment forever from this valley, and to a place where I guarantee you’ll get no rest.”
Nagaroth shook his head slowly. “You are a fit opponent, I avow. Yet you are but mortal, while I am one with the eternal elements. You will die here, as will all who come after you: man, woman, or child.” The demon raised both arms skyward. “I will build terraces of their bones.”
“Have it your way, then.” It was Malone’s turn to shake his head. “I swan, but demons are stubborn folk.” As the mountain man lifted one foot high, Nagaroth prepared to parry what it expected to be a blow of feeble and futile mortal strength.
But Malone did not kick out. Instead, he brought his foot down hard; once, twice, several times in succession. Rattled, the earth shook underfoot, and the resulting concussion knocked bewildered squirrels out of their trees for a mile around.
Six times Malone stamped the ground, then six times again. By the third set of six, Nagaroth was sensing the imminency of his coming triumph. If kicking dirt was the best this insolent human could muster by way of a defense, then their confrontation was nearing an end before it had even begun. Lifting first one leg out of the mud, then the other, he started forward, great hands outstretched. No slow boiling for this one, he decided. He would smother it, fill its impudent mouth with hot mud, until it choked.
A fountain of flame erupted between Malone and the oncoming demon. So hot was it that the very rocks themselves seemed to draw back in fear. A blast of sulfur corrupted the clean mountain air. Worthless looked on a moment, then dropped his head and went back to nibbling calcite.
Out of the fire and the heat and the flame stepped a singular figure. It was impeccably garbed in the oufit of a professional gambler, and a successful one at that. Ruffled white shirt with neatly looped black string tie, gleaming black vest beneath black jacket, black pants and boots, all shone as if just lifted from the haberdasher’s shelf. The narrow, vulturine face featured a small, perfectly pointed goatee complemented by a thin mustache, the end curls of which defied logic as well as gravity. The teeth were pointed, as was the switching, ever-moving tail that protruded from the seat of the black pants, and the two small horns on its head punched neatly through the custom-tailored, wide-brimmed black hat. As it approached the mountain man, smiling a smile of immaculate, eternal evil, it extended a hand.
Malone did not shake it. Instead, he nodded a curt greeting.
“Mornin’, Nick.”
“Good morning, Mr. Malone. Good to see you again.”
“Wish I could say the same. You remember that little scrape I got you out of not long these many years ago?”
“Ah yes.” The figure in the gambler’s outfit murmured softly. “I never forget such things. Could have been most personally embarrassing.”
“Well, I’m callin’ in that card today.” Lifting his gaze, he nodded at the still figure of the demon Nagaroth, who had been shocked into immobility. “This ’ere property is now a park. It’s plenty big, with room enough fer all manner o’ critters—but the nature o’ the real estate notwithstandin’, I reckon there jest ain’t no room fer bone-scourin’ demonics.” He smiled thinly. “His is a presence that might have a tendency to dissuade folks who might otherwise be inclined t’ come a-visitin’.”
The gambler turned to confront the demon, who quailed visibly.
“Sire, I was only being myself. By all the sacrosanct laws that govern—”
“Shut up.” Eyes no ordinary human could meet and survive locked on the now-quaking demon. Their
owner sighed. “This is what comes of giving the immortal impious a measure of individual independence. They invariably overreach themselves.” He raised a hand, the nails of which, while pointed and sharp as knives, were exquisitely manicured.
“Sire, no, I beg of you, I…!”
Thunder, dark and nasty, rolled across the valley. By the time it had died away, so had the formerly invincible demon Nagaroth. Using both hands to give a little tug-down on the hem of his fine vest, the gambler turned back to the one who had summoned him forth.
“You’re a piece of work, you are, Amos Malone.” Eyes flashed. “I now consider my old debt to you to be repaid. The next time we meet…” His expression, which had begun to darken, was once more replaced by a smile of suave iniquity. “I look forward to the day when our respective positions of strength are reversed, and I can summon you—for a visit to my place of dwelling.”
Malone snorted. “Good thing you’re immortal, ’cause I reckon that’s about how long you’ll have t’ wait. And even when that time cometh, I plan on plantin’ my backside elsewhere.” He glanced skyward. “Still, it’s a fine morning, if a bit chilly. Would be ill-mannered o’ me not t’ offer to share breakfast with a fellow traveler’s acquaintance, however mean and rotten be his immortal self.” He indicated the overturned skillet. “Have to start all over agin, though. Your minion made a mess o’ things.”
Taking a seat on the ground, the gambler indicated his acceptance. “I’m always chilly, up thisaway. I like my bacon and eggs well done, if you please, and my toast—”
“—burnt. I know.” Malone started back for his saddlebags. As he did so, the Devil called after him.
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