Buried Treasure: A Jericho Sims Tale (The Adventures of Jericho Sims Book 2)

by T. Mike McCurley

  “I have never seen a head that size.”

  “Yeah. It’s a monster for sure,” Jericho agreed, crouching beside the fire and lighting a cigarro. He gave one to Akocha, and the two men sat by the fire and smoked, reflecting on what had happened.

  “If we have destroyed the Lofa, it could be said that we no longer need the necklace,” Akocha offered. “I would not hold you to it if you wished to leave.”

  Jericho pursed his lips, spat into the fire and shook his head.

  “I ain’t skinning out on you. Seems I remember a time when y’all coulda have left me behind, too. Wasn’t anything keeping you there with a crazy white man. You or your unit.”

  “It would have been your death if you had gone alone.”

  “Back then I wouldn’t have minded.”

  “And that is why the Spirits brought us to you. They knew one day you would be needed for a task such as this. They marked you as an aid to the People. When we needed help we cried out and the Spirits pointed us to you.”

  “I ain’t one to put stock in all that mystical mumbo-jumbo, but I’ll tell ya this: We’re gonna get back that necklace and we’re gonna put it back in your graveyard. Even if it ain’t necessary for the Lofa’s sake, we’re gonna make damned sure that the men who took it know they’d be better off fighting one of them big critters than stealing from your people.”

  Akocha laughed. “You are a true friend,” he said.

  “You and yours have been there when I needed them. Makes sense I’d help where I can.”

  “Good thinking with the whiskey,” Akocha noted, pointing a finger at the fire.

  “Yeah, except now I’m out,” Jericho said with a sad shake of the head. “Need to refill it, next time we find someplace. Come to think of it, it ain’t just the flask needing topped up.”

  Standing, Jericho stretched his back until the joints popped. He took a slow walk over to where the horses were tied and pulled a half dozen shotgun shells from Gideon’s saddlebags, stuffing the fat cylinders into his vest pocket. He poured a handful of .45 rounds into his palm and refilled the slots on his belt that he had slipped replacements from during the lulls of the fight, and then slipped a few spares into a pocket for Akocha. He ruffled the mane of his best friend, bumping his forehead against that of the Appaloosa.

  “Been a busy night, Gideon. Sorry you’re not getting to sleep.”

  The quiet whicker of response brought a smile to Jericho’s face and he patted Gideon on the nose. “Never a dull moment, is there?”

  He checked on the other two horses, taking the moment to snatch the container of fresh blackberries that Nanoka had sent along. Each of the horses received one of the plump berries as a treat before he wandered back to the camp proper. He sat near the fire and extended the small wooden box to Akocha. The Chickasaw grinned as he saw inside the box.

  “She knows how to make a trip pleasurable,” he said. The quiet words of praise brought a wistful grin to Jericho’s face, and he remembered packages of his own, sent by a woman with shining eyes that sparkled at him. In his mind’s eye, he saw them watching him over a spoon filled with a bit of peach and topped with fresh cream.

  “Magdalene used to put a mint leaf in my canteen when I went out to work in the field,” he said. His words had a faraway, drifting quality to them as he let the memory wash over him. “Run a plow for half a morning and that first drink of water would be so sweet.”

  “It is shameful that the bluebellies took her from you.”

  “That it is,” Jericho said.

  “There are many ladies in the tribe who would make a pleasant —”

  Jericho smiled grimly and waved a hand at his friend, cutting him off in mid-stream. “Not for me,” he said in a rasp of sound that carried sorrow and pain. “Ain’t nothing left in this heart any more. I got a whole mess of mean and dark, but that’s about all. My life’s got a purpose, and I’ll keep going ‘til I get there.”

  “The faceless one.”

  There was no reply.

  “And what happens once you kill him? What then?”

  Jericho stared into the fire for a moment, wondering what indeed awaited him after he fulfilled his oath, but the thoughts waited just outside his reach, and when he tried to bring them close they dissolved into smoke and blood.

  “Maybe once I get my hands on that bastard we can revisit this topic.”

  Akocha reached across with the box of berries, offering them to Jericho. The gunslinger stretched out a hand to take them, but the box was falling toward the ground. Jericho looked up to see a sudden flare of nostrils, a widening of the eyes, and a berry-filled mouth dropping open in shock.

  The visual cues were enough. Jericho needed no spoken words to tell him something was behind him. He threw himself aside, rolling across the sand of the campsite until he was on his back, the gaping snout of his Colt pointing down between his feet in the direction of whatever had caught Akocha’s attention. What he saw sent a chill down his spine.

  The Lofa stood near the edge of their camp, firelight reflecting from the eyes that had been so unresponsive moments before. It still showed evidence of their enthusiastic gunfire, but the holes seemed somehow smaller in the light. Jericho swore he could see them actually knitting themselves back together, and that thought was not a pleasant one. Lips peeled back from surprisingly human teeth, baring them in an obvious threat display. From deep in its chest a rumbling growl started.

  Before it could fully sound, both revolvers spoke with authority. Akocha was no master of the weapon he carried, and certainly not skilled to the level that Jericho practiced, but at the range they were, neither man was going to miss their target unless they tried to. A dozen bullets lanced into the night and the Lofa jerked as if dancing as the slugs hit home.

  Jericho leaped from the ground as his sixth round thundered. The Colt slid back into the holster without even a whisper of sound and he reached back to jerk the .36-caliber from the small of his back. Taking advantage of the lull in the gunfire, the Lofa began to fall back. It dropped to one knee and then staggered back to its feet. With a surprising amount of speed and endurance considering what had happened to it in the past half hour, the Lofa pivoted on one heel and sprinted into the dark, diving into the cover of the trees and running through them with no concern for how much noise it made. After the fusillade of shots in the campsite, it was doubtful that either of the men could have heard enough to distinguish anything of value if they tried to figure out where the creature was.

  “What the hell was that?” Jericho demanded. “We killed that thing!”

  Akocha made no attempt to speak, instead concentrating on jamming fresh cartridges in his Smith and Wesson. Empty cases fell to sparkle in the sand.

  “If it keeps coming we’ll run out of bullets before daybreak,” Jericho muttered.

  The next five hours were a harrowing blur of no sleep and jumping at sounds. The shotgun was Jericho’s constant companion and Akocha had upgraded to his rifle. Even the horses had been moved to a position closer to the fire for fear that the beast would circle the camp and attack their transportation. When the sun finally poked its head over the horizon and false dawn gave way to the first bits of real light, the two men began to break camp. They did not bother with making coffee, focusing their energies instead on getting out of the area with all haste. Neither of them would speak the words aloud, but the fear that the Lofa would return, even in the light of day, was weighing heavily on their minds. They returned what supplies they had moved to their rightful locations and mounted their horses. In short order they had left the campsite behind them.

  “We gotta get that necklace,” Jericho said as they rode. “I tell you what, I’m gonna make that damn thing chase its tail like a crazy dog before I bury it.”

  “It takes a shaman of no small water to control the beast,” Akocha told him. Jericho spat.

  “That figures. Fine. We’ll just kill it again. Three or four times, maybe, just to be sure.”

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nbsp; They rode hard, pausing only for short rests and to water the horses, filling their personal canteens and waterskins from streams and creeks as their mounts drank deep of the cool water. Each of the men drank until they felt near to bursting, helping not only to hydrate their systems but also to stretch what water supplies they carried.

  They rode on, skirting the edges of small villages and encampments of locals, knowing that their prey would not be in any hurry to make contact with anyone, lest they be recognized. They did meet with a wagon-driving peddler of various merchandises, his pots and pans clanking like a steam train as they neared him. He advised them that he had not met Snider or his crew, and warned them of a bear that rampaged through his camp just before daybreak. The two men looked at one another knowingly, and Jericho forked over a few silver coins in exchange for extra shotgun shells, an oil-stained box of .45 cartridges, and a cloth bag full of salted jerked beef. Just before the peddler left, Jericho caught his arm and pointed at a canister he had glimpsed inside the wagon. Moments later he was the proud owner of a pint of oil and a wool scarf from the man’s collection of clothing.

  “A bear, huh?” Jericho mused as they rode on. He paused to hack some small branches from an oak growing near the trail they traveled. Cutting the scarf into strips, he began wrapping lengths of wool around the sticks and tying them off in preparation for their use as torches.

  “It is a good sign. Bear is the enemy of the Lofa. He will protect us.”

  “That bear he claimed came through his camp probably was the Lofa.”

  “Or it is Bear and He has come to save us.”

  “Been my experience nothing comes to save you so much as you get to do it your own self.”

  “My people see if differently. Our ancestors and sacred spirits send us aid when we need it. It may be that we think we are doing something alone when in fact they are helping us.”

  Jericho stuck a cigarro in the corner of his mouth and fired it. “Well then, let’s hope that Bear comes to help us when we need it.”

  “When next we see the Lofa He will be there.”

  “With any luck that’ll be ten minutes past never.”

  Akocha chuckled. “Never did I think I would come face to face with such a creature.”

  “Stick around,” Jericho said, smoke drifting from his nostrils. He jerked a thumb toward the sky. “Seems whoever is upstairs is entertaining themselves at my expense. You just got caught in the stampede of weird shit, is all.”

  The sun began to dip low on the horizon and the two men began to wonder what would happen given another night in the woods. Even with Jericho’s torches their vision would be compromised. They had passed the last decent town a few hours back, and stopping at a farmhouse had benefits that might well be outweighed by bringing the Lofa down upon innocent farmers. In the end they decided that the stability of a structure provided more security and allowed them the shielding aspect of walls. A couple of dollars to a weatherbeaten old farmer got them the promise of a night in a run-down building that had once been a barn. His newer barn was occupied with his hay supplies, and Jericho and Akocha were relegated to staying with a rather impressive collection of angry cats that apparently kept themselves from starving by eating the mice around the farm. Jericho decided after nearly being bitten by two of them that without mice, the animals might well subsist on raw hatred. The building reeked of ammonia and decay, and there were more holes in the roof than solid wood, but it beat sleeping fully exposed again. They brought both horses inside with them, and fed them fresh alfalfa hay Akocha carried over from the other barn. As the sun truly dropped, they kindled a tiny campfire just outside the barn and cooked a pot of coffee for the night.

  There was an oil lantern hanging just inside the door of their barn, and although it had seen better days, it did still light and produced a steady glow. It provided scant illumination, but the psychological effect of having a lantern made the tiny circle of light feel much more important. Torches were oiled and set aside for immediate use. Weapons were close at hand.

  After a short time spent eating, the pair took turns trying to rest. Neither of them managed more than a few fitful snatches of sleep here and there, as the many sounds and noises common to a farm took on a menacing feel. Even the cats that prowled around the barn created just enough noise to intrude on sleep in men that had come face to face with a monster of legend. Jericho began to wonder if this was in fact how the Lofa killed its prey: set upon them once and then watch as exhaustion took hold before pouncing on men stumbling and struggling just to stay awake.

  By the time the sun rose, both men had been fully awake for some time, sitting quietly and smoking as they scanned the shadows for movement. Jericho stood from his seat on a grimy wooden box that exploration had shown to be full of random bits of metal that might be useful to a home owner. He stretched in a prodigious yawn, feeling and hearing the joints of his back protest the move with cracking sounds.

  “Long night,” Akocha said, drinking the last dregs of the cold coffee from his cup.

  “Next time we stop in a town and get a room,” Jericho said. He rubbed tired eyes. “Let the sheriff deal with the Lofa if it comes to town.”

  Within the hour they were packed and riding again, hoping to cut the lead that Snider and his crew had on them. They passed through the morning wending their way through one trail after another, but never truly leaving the woods. Trees seemed to be their constant companions, and both men longed for a large open space where the thought of a creature leaping from the shadows might not be such a detriment to their progress.

  It was early afternoon when they saw the smoke. On the horizon, nearly an hour in the distance, but evidence of a fire. It was something solid they could hold on to in the frantic search. Even the half-dozen or so small farms they had passed had been relatively smokeless.

  “Green wood,” Akocha noted with a smile. His hand caressed the butt of his rifle, running a finger over the tacks driven into its surface.

  They drove harder now, trees flashing by them as they raced toward the smoke. Each of the men tried to imagine what they might find when they arrived at the camp, and numerous scenarios of how things would play out ran through their minds. As they neared it, they slowed to a trot. Overrunning the site, or entering into it without foreknowledge of what was there, could prove disastrous.

  “We’ll leave the horses here,” Jericho said as they dismounted some distance from the smoke. “Lead in on foot. If it’s them, we’ll deal with them there. If not, we’ll just slip on back here and keep riding. We’ll find them eventual-like.”

  “You are faster with the draw,” Akocha said. He held out a hand. “Let me take the shotgun.”

  Jericho nodded and passed over the short weapon along with a fistful of spare shells that Akocha then pocketed.

  Together they started a quick march through the woods, passing between trees in short bursts of movement. They ducked under limbs and weaved around standing boles. They were making quick progress, and both men could smell the fire from the camp ahead of them.

  It was the revolver pointed at his midsection that brought Jericho to a sudden halt. Held in the powerful hand of the frock-coated thief, it promised a quick and painful demise if things went awry. Akocha took an extra half-step before he, too, saw the gun in Snider’s hand. A second later, the other three robbers emerged from the trees, each man smiling and holding a weapon of their own. Jericho recognized one man in brown who carried a battered old .44 as Langford, the man who had kicked sand into Boyd’s face. There was another man in a red shirt checked with white, and the third was an angry-looking youth with a long-barreled Schofield revolver.

  “You couldn’t figure out that the camp was a trap?” Snider taunted. He looked disappointed. “Even with the fire?”

  “I was kinda hoping otherwise,” said Jericho. “Thought maybe y’all might be dumb enough to be sitting around telling stories of how you done knocked off a payroll but ran away from a talking head.”


  “Well, we can all see that is not the case. I believe I told you there would be a reckoning, did I not?” Snider asked. The muzzle of the revolver did not waver.

  “Why’s everybody always want a reckoning? Can’t we just shake hands or play checkers or mumblety-peg or some such? It’s always gotta end in blood.”

  “Don’t you fret. This time it’s all gonna be your blood, so you won’t be here for the end.”

  Jericho started to respond and then paused, a puzzled look on his face. “How does that work? You’re gonna spill my blood but I won’t be here for the end? How am I gonna be somewhere else if I’m bleeding here?”

  “I could go be somewhere else if you want,” Akocha put in, his comment a rare joke from the warrior. Jericho laughed aloud.

  “So you chased me here to do what?” Snider asked. “Other than die, I mean.”

  “At this point, all I want is what you took from Akocha’s folks. Y’all taking some cash from some rich man and his bank don’t confront me none, but what you took from them? That’s a different bucket of worms.”

  Snider’s lip curled back in a sneer that flashed his teeth. “Now, Mister, y’all are making some pretty mean accusations. If I knew what you were talking about then I might have something to say.”

  “Your boy Boyd gave up everything he knew. How do you think we found you?”

  “I figured your pet redskin tracked me.”

  The hammers cranking back on the ten-gauge seemed almost to echo. Jericho half-raised a hand to Akocha to signal him to be calm. The insult cut his friend but this was not the moment to overreact. Jericho had never seen Snider drawing in a hurry from the shoulder rig he wore, but at the moment the crook was already holding the gleaming revolver and his speed wasn’t in question. Jericho knew how fast he could get his own Colt into play and it would not be fast enough against someone already cocked and ready. Akocha was holding the shotgun at a port-arms position, and Jericho figured he would be quicker bringing out the Colt than the Chickasaw would be getting the barrels on target. It was a hard play, and Snider wasn’t taking his eyes off Jericho. Reaching for a weapon would be a fast track to having a gut full of lead.