Shadow Soldier (The Gunsmith Book 2)

by C. K. Crigger

  But he did know the animal had saved him, and he also saw the man had gained the upper hand. The enemy soldier’s revolver was poised to destroy the . . . the dog, for it was a dog, Caleb realized. He couldn’t let that happen. The creature had probably saved his life.

  “Yo, Fritz.” Caleb yelled, still sick and dizzy and breathing hard from his run. “Surrender.”

  The revolver swerved, moving from the dog to point instead at him. The German’s face was crazy, wild and angry with no surrender in him. Their two shots sounded almost in unison; if Caleb’s was not the faster, it was certainly the more accurate. Still, the German didn’t do so badly considering he was fighting off the dog at the same time he was trying to kill his human adversary.

  Thrown back as the 30-06 bullet struck, the German’s last missile winged past Caleb’s head. He fell, landing heavily on his rear in the bloody mess in the gun pit. He didn’t realize he’d been hit until a wash of hot blood coursed down his neck. Funny, he thought, dazed by an onrush of fear. I’m going to die now, and it doesn’ t hurt after all—or not much.

  After a bit, when he didn’t immediately die or pass out, Caleb reached up a tentative finger and felt the wound. Half his earlobe had been shot away, he discovered, and the remnant was bleeding like hell. He stared at his bloody fingers in wonder. Nothing serious.

  A breathless chuckle rose in his chest. He guessed he wouldn’t be wearing his gold hoop earring anytime soon, but maybe he wouldn’t die here after all. Later perhaps, infection might set in—he had experience with that—but not in this exact moment.

  As his brain began humming on a couple of cylinders again, he decided there was no time to coddle himself because, since the machine gun appeared to be undamaged, he’d best set it back up and see what he could do about using the Huns’ own weapon against them. He’d hit them from behind their own lines. Take some of the pressure off the American Expeditionary Force boys who were in danger of being overrun by the advancing German army.

  He would not think of the tally of death. First things first. He rolled the dead German off the dog. The animal, skinny as a rail though still weighing around eighty pounds, was no match for the big, strapping man who’d fallen on top of him. Struggle how he might, the dog was hampered by an obviously broken leg and was harnessed to another dog to boot. The other animal, almost identical in looks, lay as still as death.

  The dog’s rough, wavy coat was grimy with ash and dirt. Hair fell over his forehead like bangs. When freed, he scrambled to stand on his three good legs, and Caleb noticed his tail had a peculiar upward curl at the end.

  “Whoa, boy,” Caleb said, as if he were speaking to a fractious horse. He’d learned a lot about horses the last time Boothenay’s magic had propelled him into the past. “Good dog. I reckon I owe you my life.”

  He kept his voice low and gentle, avoided looking directly into the dog’s eyes and held out a fist for the dog to smell. The curly tail twitched.

  “Damn Huns haven’t been treating you right, have they, boy? Well, let’s see if I can do any better.”

  Taking out his bayonet, he cut the dog loose from the traces hooking the team together, both of them hitched to a cart roomy enough to carry the machine gun, water and ammunition. Much to his surprise, as he tore away the harness, the animal he’d thought was dead, quivered and made a sound in its throat.

  Concussion, he suspected, when he found no wound on the quickly reviving dog. His grenade must have knocked the poor critter out. The broken leg on the dog who’d saved him was an older ill, within the last day or two at an estimate, but not from anything that had happened within these last few minutes. He suspected the German of having kicked the animal; reason enough for the dog to attack when it got a chance. Imagine forcing any beast of burden with a broken leg to pull a heavy gun cart.

  Caleb found one of the German’s water bottles intact and poured a dented helmet full for the dogs. He doubted they’d had water for some time by the way they went after it. He sucked down the last mouthful out of his own canteen, nearly as thirsty as they.

  The dogs kept him company while he tidied the gun crater, which meant arranging the enemy’s bodies up on the edge of the pit as an extra bulwark, tossing a thin layer of dirt over the slippery blood, and setting the machine gun straight.

  “Shag out of here,” he told the dogs when they sat still, watching him with dark, intelligent eyes. “I’m not your master and fact of the matter is, I don’t know what the brass would say about a common soldier keeping two big dogs.” Likely as not, he was turning them out to be shot or to starve. Not much of a reward for their service.

  Settling in behind the gun, he rested a hand gently on the injured dog’s head and relented enough to say, “Sorry, pal. Looks like that leg of yours is going to have to wait ’til we get back to our own lines. If we all live long enough.”

  He let rip with the Maxim, catching the enemy in a killer crossfire with the American line. It appeared fairly obvious by now the magic hadn’t tasted the right blood as yet, the blood that would bring him home. He would have to wait—and endure.

  CHAPTER 8

  I’ve met my share of borderline people. By that, I mean people on the border between good and evil, on the line between heaven and hell. They all, so far as I know, belonged in the family of man, not being demons or such, though their deeds may have caused some doubt. I’ve got my own opinion on which way some of them should have gone, too, when their time ended, although I don’t pretend to know what the Head Honcho finally decided.

  Maybe my assessment of them can only be formed on the basis of my own place in the cosmos. Could be not everyone would judge them so harshly as I. Of course, it could also be they’d judge them more harshly.

  I can only say that, when I grabbed hold of Will Mueller’s arm, I was almost inundated by a deluge of chaotic feeling—his power was as out of control as a river in flood. I thought he’d made a choice in his life and there was no question of his standing on the borderline. He’d gone over the edge. Anguish, hate, loss, rage—you name it, he had it.

  He was dangerously strong, and made stronger by his memories of the past, barely a fraction of which he’d shared with me. He was letting— no, urging—his emotions to feed the power. The anger in him resonated out loud at my touch.

  If I couldn’t get Mueller to focus, I despaired of finding Caleb, let alone bringing him home. I had to make the old man help someone, for once, rather than drag them down. I saw into his story far enough to learn that was his usual mode of operation.

  Actually, it didn’t matter to me whether he wanted to help or not. My magic was stronger than his small talent—more determined, too— and I’d force him to provide the locus if necessary. I knew I could do that. The thing was, I couldn’t depend on his being truthful. I dreaded to question him on why I couldn’t access the gun. Why could Caleb, and not I?

  Or, for all his sense of evil, did Mueller know such things were possible? Was he aware of what the gun could do? He hinted that he knew and he must. He wouldn’t have tried to rid himself of it otherwise.

  Then he’d tried to get it back, I remembered. Why?

  “Let go of me,” he said, trying to throw off my hand.

  Pictures moved at the edge of my vision, scenes of nearly incomprehensible conflict and horror. He had brought me to a world of black and gray and mud brown, splashed here and there with the brilliance of blood. Red was the only real color in the landscape. Men were dying in this world. Lots of men. A war zone, I realized in dismay.

  My fingers pressed harder into the ropey muscle of his arm. “Where are we, mister? What place is this?”

  He was panting as he gave up trying to shake me off, working instead to pry my fingers loose with his free hand. “What are you? How can you . . .” His voice suddenly lost strength, sounding now like an old man’s, quavering with age. He’d gone beyond anger. Now I heard fear.

  “No. No! Let me be. I don’t want to go back. I escaped once. I escaped for all
time. Let me be.”

  “Where are we, Will Mueller? When are we?” My voice rose over his, hard and loud, almost a shout. And it rose over the crackle of gunfire and reverberation of heavy guns I heard in the distance as well.

  The old man howled like a soul in torment. “Take me away from here. Take me away!”

  All at once I had the most amazing sense of Caleb’s presence, as if I had only to reach out and draw him to me, to kiss his lips and smell the scent of his Armani. To be safe in his arms.

  It had worked! “I’ve found him,” I cried aloud on a wave of triumph and relief.

  I let go of the old man, the better to grab for Caleb, not realizing my mistake until too late. Like a ghost revealed in the light of day, Caleb faded, receding into the sounds of war, until both were beyond claiming.

  We couldn’ t go back I discovered as I once again snagged Mueller’s arm. The power had drained like water through a sieve. The boundary of Mueller’s room settled around us once more.

  I nearly wept with fear and frustration. Only when I’d managed to swallow these things down did what he’d said register in my brain.

  “What did you say?” I demanded. “You escaped? Just what does that mean?”

  Like a chameleon, he changed again. Gone was the weak, old man. He vibrated with hostility and the desire to one-up me. “Escaped, ran away, deserted, if you like. Saw my chance and took it.”

  He was such an awful old man with his cold, flat eyes. I found him repulsive. From what he’d said earlier—about the glory—this new revelation took me by surprise.

  “I thought you were in your element,” I said. “The fighting, the dying. You said all that was right up your alley. “

  “Yes, I know I did.” His yellowed teeth flashed like those of a hungry shark. “No one was as surprised as I when I ran. But you might say there were extenuating circumstances. The war had been going for four years by then. Things had changed—I had changed.”

  He had a talent for permutation, I angrily conceded. “I must say you sounded plenty scared.”

  He shot me a dirty look and waved one hand as though to erase all of this from an invisible board. The hand still trembled. “You found someone there, sis. Who was that? More important, how did you do whatever it was you did?”

  Don’ t tell him. The decision came to me like advice from out of the blue. Pretty easy to follow, too, since I hadn’t a clue how I’d done it. Somehow I’d just known I could.

  Don’t give away anything for free, the counsel continued. Determine what you’re getting before you actuate any trades. That seemed easy enough, also. I’d simply make sure he gave me something first.

  “Huh-uh,” I said, getting to my feet and moving over to where I could examine more closely the artifacts making up the collage on his wall. “I asked first, Mr. Mueller. Tit for tat, that’s my bag.”

  He was silent until I reached out, my hand hovering, palm up— palm down, first over one, then another of the items, as if indecisive on which to pluck from a hook and examine first.

  “Sit down, sis,” he said abruptly. “You bother me with your pacing.”

  Breathing deeply, I turned my back on the so very fascinating assemblage. I hadn’t been pacing.

  “Where?” I asked, my voice as soft and quiet as could be. I wanted to scream and only with utmost control did I keep my flaming temper banked. Still, I had him now. I sat. “When? Talk to me, mister.”

  “You must have some idea, or you wouldn’t be here. I guess you know I didn’t start out American.” He growled the words, as truculent as a pugnacious schoolboy, still unwilling to commit to a mutual exchange of information.

  If he expected kid glove treatment from me because of his age, he was sadly mistaken. It did occur to me that I’d been thinking only of Caleb and the trouble he was in, but this old man had begun the strange odyssey by throwing away the Colt. Maybe I was asking the wrong questions. Maybe I should ask if I could help him, a solution from which my soul cringed.

  “All right,” I said, realizing I’d have to compromise. “In general, then, we paid a visit to World War I, a fact I know as much from the Colt as I do from anything I saw there. I have an impression of Europe because I thought I heard shouting in German and French as well as English. If this was the Eastern Front, I would expect to hear other languages. Is this clear enough for you?”

  He stared at me from under bushy dark brows. “I’m having trouble with the idea a girl like you ever heard of the Great War—period. “

  “I told you I’m a gunsmith, Mr. Mueller. I specialize in antiques and their history. Of course I’ve heard of it. Now, what I want is for you to share what you know and help pinpoint things for me. And then tell me how you came by this knowledge. Tell me about the Colt.” My voice rose dangerously again.

  He sighed. “I was there, sis. How could I not know?”

  I blew a wayward curl off my forehead. “You were there? Oh, come on. I don’t think so. You can’t possibly have been born then. A power takes you there and lets you see what’s going on, the same as it does me.”

  He tensed, as if he wanted to dispute my words, before shrugging and bringing forth a smile that was probably meant to look genial. “If you had to put a number of years on me, how large would the number be?”

  “I don’t know. You’re about my dad’s age, I suppose. Seventy-five or so.” Impatience made me short, wondering what difference this made.

  His smile grew wider. “My birth day is April 24, 1895. Do the math.”

  Stunned, my breath caught. And then I turned angry. “I told you before. Don’t bother lying to me—I’ll soon learn the truth. My first duty is to find and extricate someone who has gotten trapped in that history and doesn’t belong there. I don’t have time to play games, Mr. Mueller.”

  “You can do that?” he asked with rising wonder, and hope, and oddly, belief. “You can go there and change things?”

  Caution put a belated checkrein on my runaway tongue, cooling my annoyance a degree. I must remember I still needed his help. “I don’t know about changing anything. Maybe. Mostly I just hope I can get to the right place at the right time. At least I’m going to try. But I need your help, you see, because the history is somehow locked within the Colt. I thought it would be easier, quicker, too, if I had someone to point the way.”

  I wasn’t about to acknowledge the gun’s magic was denied me.

  Mueller was visibly agitated by something I’d said and, as his tension grew, his voice took on a foreign intonation, changing him until his accent sounded a lot like that old-time bore, Henry Kissinger, who is forever being shown on old TV news clips. Well, less mellifluous than Kissinger, perhaps.

  “No lies and no games,” he said. “I don’t play games either. Believe me or not, I don’t care. I can tell you none of us thought we belonged there. Not then and not now. Death waited for everyone who ventured into war’s realm⏤everyone except me. I’m still waiting.”

  What did he mean? Was he expressing a death wish? Good God! That’s all I needed. A psychotic villain more than a century old.

  I peeked at the display on Mueller’s clock radio, an expensive Bose, and saw I’d been here for less than an hour. Not long in ordinary terms, though a sense of urgency picked at me. How long had it been for Caleb? Time wasn’t measured in the same way when you were sent into the past. What might only be minutes in the present could lengthen into hours, maybe even days in the reality where time laid its trap. But however it was measured, a second was long enough to die—and I still didn’t know whether it was or wasn’t possible for death to claim a lost traveler.

  So far I’d learned exactly zilch. Except Will Mueller said he was considerably more than a hundred years old and the evidence of my own eyesight to the contrary, I believed he was telling the truth. Well, I’d said I would spend as long as necessary to worm the background story out of this old bugger. It looked as if I might be in for a lengthy session.

  And it was.

 
But finally, finally, he agreed to cooperate.

  If, he said, nearly shocking me out of my pants, I’d take him back with me and leave him there.

  “GOD DAMN IT, Ned,” said Major Page, “what did you think you were doing? You could have gotten yourself killed. What in hell possessed you to think you had to go after that machine gun alone? That’s what people like Walsh, and Palmer and the rest are here for. Your job is to take care of the dadgummed horses.”

  “Yes, sir.” Caleb, known as Ned in this time, took care to keep his face expressionless. He paused in his scrutiny of a mule with a chunk of flesh as large as two of his fists gouged out of a hip. No maggots infested the wound, he noted with satisfaction. Not yet, at any rate, and never would if it was in his power to prevent.

  He forbore to mention that if he’d stayed with the horses he’d most likely be as dead as they were right now. Or dead like Palmer, caught in a crossfire and shot to pieces. “Sorry, sir. I don’t know what came over me.”

  Major Page’s handmade boots stomped the hard-packed ground, his rolling horseman’s gait carrying him on a rapid inspection of the pathetically depleted horse lines. He continued with his tirade as he cast a knowledgeable eye over the animals. There were barely a dozen out of the hundred or so dray animals under Sergeant Ned Smith’s care that were unbloodied, unbandaged or not otherwise wounded, but for now, the string was calm, stolidly munching their rations and resting.

  By the next battle, they’d be fit enough to haul troops, guns and ammunition to the front once more, whereupon only a fraction would come back whole. Their casualty quotient compared with that of the troops. Both were dismal. Still, as everyone knew, Sergeant Smith’s horses had a better survival rate than those from other battalions. If he had a hundred left, the other units might have only fifty.

  Caleb suspected that was why Page was upset. Half-trained horses or mules were hell to handle. Get them near the guns and you were apt to have as big a catastrophe on your hands as a shelling by the Boche. Somehow he knew he’d seen runaway teams wreak every bit as much havoc as a full-blown enemy attack. And after four years of war, trained replacements—any kind of replacements, really—were almost impossible to come by, whether shipped over from the States or obtained in Europe, so it only made sense to care for what you had.