by David Boop
A respected attorney, Fountain had been in Lincoln County investigating a messy affair involving ranchers, feed store owners, and murder which shook territorial politics right up to the governor’s office in Santa Fe. Most called the fifteen-year feud an outright war.
Near the beginning of the whole mess, Billy worked for one of the ranchers. One day, armed men ambushed the rancher. Billy gunned them down, saving his boss, but he faced murder charges. Fountain defended Billy and the two became friends. Billy left Lincoln County, but Fountain continued investigating the murders and rustlings in the area. After fifteen years, Fountain almost had enough evidence to bring indictments against those responsible. He’d just spent a few days in Lincoln conducting interviews and collecting affidavits.
Fountain hired Billy to be his bodyguard for the trip. That part made sense. Billy was good with a gun and knew all the players. What Billy didn’t understand was what possessed the man to bring his eight-year-old son into such a dangerous situation.
The boy pulled on his boots, Fountain grabbed a duffel bag and Billy closed the door behind them as they made their way out to the buckboard waiting in front of the hotel. Soon they rolled out of Tularosa where they’d stopped for the night and began the trek through the barren dune field known as White Sands on the way home to Las Cruces.
A full moon hung low to the west—a mixed blessing. It provided plenty of light, but the tall dunes cast long shadows. Billy held a rifle in his lap while Fountain drove the horses.
“Look at that! A white rabbit!”
The sudden exclamation startled Billy and he lifted his rifle by instinct. A white jack rabbit hopped away, startled by the squeaking, rattling buckboard.
“Those rabbits have lived here so long they’ve turned white to match the sands,” explained Mr. Fountain.
Billy never knew his own pa, and he shook off a brief pang of jealousy as he lowered the rifle and held his finger to his lips. “Let’s stay quiet right now and let ol’ Billy concentrate, all right, pardner?”
The boy wilted as though whipped.
“If you stay quiet until the sun comes up, I promise I’ll let you hold my six-gun when we get to Aguirre Springs.”
“Really!” The boy perked up.
“Really.” Billy winked.
Henry settled back and wrapped himself in one of his mother’s quilts.
“Thank you,” said Mr. Fountain. “I appreciate the attention you give him. It’s not easy being a father so late in life.”
“You’re a busy man, Mr. Fountain. You have a lot of demands on your time.”
“Still…”
Whatever Fountain intended to say was never spoken. He pulled back on the reins. A stranger stood in their path, arms folded, a wild shock of red hair blowing in the wind. Billy lifted his rifle and aimed right between the stranger’s eyes. “Whoever you are, step aside. We don’t want no—”
Before Billy finished the sentence, the stranger dashed forward. The rifle flew from Billy’s hands and he sailed through the air. He had just enough time to hear Henry scream and notice the stars above before his head hit the ground and everything went black.
* * *
Billy awoke lying in the sand, looking up at a blue sky, his neck in pain. He reached up and winced as he touched ragged, wet tissue. His fingers came away covered in blood. Struggling to his feet, he looked around. The buckboard stood before him but there was no sign of Mr. Fountain or Henry, just reddened sand on the far side of the wagon. One of the horses pawed the ground, bored, while the other munched on a tuft of grass. Billy found his rifle undamaged near where he fell. The wind blew as he walked around the buckboard. Sand already covered the wagon’s tracks and any footprints were long gone.
He opened the water barrel mounted to the buckboard’s side, dipped his hand in, and gently patted his neck, cleaning the grit and blood from the wound as best he could. Once done, he unfolded a bandana and tied it around his neck. Had some varmint taken a bite out of him? If so, what scared it off?
He took a drink from the barrel and considered what to do next. With no trail, he only had two options, return to Tularosa and talk to the sheriff or continue on into Las Cruces and contact the U.S. Marshal. He worried about the boy, but couldn’t imagine those behind the ambush would hurt a kid. The sheriff in Tularosa sided with the faction Fountain investigated, so going forward seemed the better plan. Billy climbed onto the seat and continued on his way.
As he traveled, Billy tried to piece together what happened. The stranger had no weapon drawn and his own rifle suffered no damage. No bullet holes punctured the buckboard. The blood on the ground seemed to indicate Fountain, the boy, or both were dead, or at least seriously wounded, but where had they gone? He worried he was abandoning Henry, but he had no clue where to start looking.
By the time Billy reached Las Cruces, the sun had already dropped below the horizon. Billy was exhausted and didn’t think the marshal would appreciate him banging on the door this late. His pockets bulged with money Fountain paid him in advance, so he rode to Mesquite Street. After stabling the horses, he ambled down to the Long Dobé, hoping no one had purchased an evening with Marcella. Only she could help him forget such a terrible day.
Marcella was the Dobé’s most beautiful dove, hardly soiled at all, or so it seemed. The Cajun woman from Louisiana had lustrous black hair and porcelain-smooth skin that showed no more age than when he first met her over a decade before.
As he stepped through the door into the Dobé’s smoke-filled lobby, Marcella emerged from the back, leading a dazed farmhand. Billy held up a wad of cash and she motioned for him to come on back. Once they were alone in her immaculate room, decorated in shades of dusty rose, she penetrated him with her fierce blue eyes. “It’s been a long time, Billy. What brings you to Marcella?”
“This has been a rotten day.” He sat on Marcella’s pristine bed, hardly rumpled even though she’d apparently finished with a client. He was sure sand fell out of his britches onto the white coverlet.
“Let’s see if Marcella can make it better.” She untied his bandana and eyed the wound with almost clinical interest. She leaned over and brushed the wound with her lips and tongue. The pain dimmed to a dull throb, but she sat back, eyes wide. “Who did this to you?”
Billy blinked. “I didn’t exactly get a good look.”
Marcella stood and strode to a dresser. Opening it, she retrieved a dime novel and tossed it onto the bed next to Billy. “Have you read that?”
He picked up the book called Carmilla by some dude named Sheridan Le Fanu. “Sounds like some Frenchy book.” He idly thumbed through the pages.
“Actually, he’s Irish,” said Marcella. “It’s a story about a creature called a vampire who looks like a human, but never ages and subsists on human blood.”
“Sounds like a fairy story if you ask me.” Billy tossed the book on the bed. He hadn’t stopped at the Dobé to solve the mystery of what happened that morning. He wanted to take his mind off the mystery before he went looking for more trouble.
“It’s no fairy tale.” Marcella shook her head and sat down next to Billy. “I think the man that attacked you was kindred.”
Billy narrowed his gaze. “Kindred? You mean he’s kinfolk to you?”
“You could say that,” she said. “Take the book when you go. It may help. In the meantime, let Marcella help you feel better.” She leaned in and licked the wound again. It went numb. A moment later, needle-sharp pain made him sit up, but before he could protest, the room spun and went black.
* * *
A rude shove sent Billy tumbling out of the perfumed sheets to the hardwood floor. He reached for his six-gun on the end table, but a voice stopped him.
“If I were here to kill you, Billy, you’d be dead already.”
Larissa Seaton was the only woman marshal he knew. The president himself appointed the former bounty hunter to the job after she used newfangled gadgets to bring some bad hombres to justice over in Arizona. He r
eached for the sheets to cover himself only to realize he still wore his britches.
“Why, Marshal, I was hoping to see you today.” Billy flashed a smile he thought charming.
“Is that so?” Larissa took out a pocket watch and eyed it critically. Unlike most ladies, she didn’t wear a dress. Instead, she wore black trousers and a matching jacket. Except for the Army cap she affected, she could almost pass for a sister of those Earps over in Tombstone. “It’s almost ten in the morning. You sure ain’t in much of a hurry.”
“I’ve had a rough couple of days.” Billy looked for his shirt.
“You were hired to protect Albert Fountain, but his wife Mariana says he’s late returning from a meeting up in Lincoln. And here, I happen to be walking by, and I see his buckboard stabled just a few doors down from the Long Dobé. I know Mr. Fountain well enough to know he ain’t the philanderin’ type. So what’s going on?”
Billy buttoned his shirt. “We got ambushed.”
Larissa reached out to the wound on Billy’s neck and he flinched away. “That ain’t no bullet graze. More like some animal gotcha.”
“It’s all a blur,” admitted Billy. “We were out on the White Sands when some red-headed stranger confronted us. He musta had friends. All I know is that I got knocked out cold. When I woke both Mr. Fountain and his son were gone. The wind already blew the tracks clear. I really did mean to get up early and come find you.”
Larissa pursed her lips. “Word is, Mr. Fountain was investigating some of your old buddies up there in Lincoln. Sure you weren’t doin’ someone a favor?”
“No, ma’am. Albert Fountain saved my life when he defended me. Nothin’ could get me to betray him.” He clenched his teeth. “And you can bet I’d never do anything to hurt his son, Henry.”
Larissa folded her arms and nodded. “All right, but I want you to show me where this ambush happened. Maybe I can find some clues.”
“Just give me a little bit to get my horse ready.”
“Daylight’s burnin’ fast. We’ll take the wolf.” She referred to one of those gadgets that brought her to the president’s attention.
Calling the wolf a motorized bicycle did it a disservice, especially now that she’d tinkered and worked on it for several years. Billy had seen pictures of motorcars they’d been developing back East. They weren’t as powerful as Larissa’s so-called wolf. She turned to leave. “It’ll take me about an hour to get everything ready for the trip. Meet me at my office.” She pulled out the pocket watch again. “And don’t be late!” With that, she strode out the door.
Billy finished dressing. As he did, he wondered where Marcella went. He tried to remember what happened after she nuzzled his neck. It was all a blur, but as usual he had the giddy sensation that he’d just spent the best night ever with a woman. As he grabbed his six-gun, he saw the dime novel. He wondered whether there was anything to Marcella’s talk of immortal blood drinkers—what did she call them? Vampires.
Larissa didn’t seem in the mood to contemplate supernatural creatures, but Billy wanted more information. He knew just the man who would entertain a few wild ideas.
* * *
Once cleaned up and dressed, Billy walked a few blocks to a small bungalow just down from a humble two-room schoolhouse with the high-fallutin’ name of the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. The man living in the bungalow taught both biology and engineering at the new college.
Billy knocked and hoped Professor Maravilla was home and not out in the desert somewhere studying the behavior of some snake or skunk or whatever else caught his interest. He breathed a sigh of relief when the professor opened the door. He wore a white lab coat over a silk waistcoat and striped trousers. “Ah, Billy, what brings you here this fine day?”
Billy held up the book Marcella left on the nightstand. “Have you ever read this?”
“Carmilla?” The professor invited Billy inside. “Yes, a rather engaging fantasy, I thought.”
“So you’ve heard of vampires, then.”
“Heard of them? Yes. Believe they exist?” He shrugged.
“I need to know what you know, even if it’s just hearsay. A little boy’s life might be in danger.”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Maravilla waved hastily at a chair, indicating Billy should sit while he walked over to a shelf and grabbed an old notebook. He passed it to Billy as he took a seat in a leather-bound armchair.
Billy thumbed through the notebook’s yellowed pages. It contained scribblings and detailed drawings—an open mouth with fangs, a bat, a cross. “So you do know something about vampires.”
Maravilla shook his head. “Just legends and stories, but I find them compelling. Perhaps vampires exist and they are some strange relative of man, but most tales, like your Carmilla, are just ghost stories. Wild superstitions to account for plague running rampant. They tell of people who come back from the dead and sustain themselves on the blood of the living.”
Billy shuddered. Marcella didn’t say anything about creatures coming back from the dead. “We’ve seen some awful strange things over the years, Professor. If these vampires exist, how would you kill one?”
The professor shrugged again. “If they exist, they’re a creature that looks much like a man, but has the teeth of an animal. Such a predator might be very strong and move quite fast. It would be a dangerous adversary. Like most predators, a bullet to the head or heart might suffice.” Maravilla stood and began pacing. “Most of the legends say a vampire must be decapitated, staked to the ground or burned. All of those would kill an ordinary living being.”
“Would lightning kill a vampire?”
“If a vampire is dead, its heart is already stopped, but the cellular disruption and burns might suffice. Of course you’d have to lure the vampire out into a storm.”
“I was thinkin’ there might be a way of bringing the storm to the vampire.”
The professor’s mouth ticked upward. “Ah, you must be thinking of Marshal Seaton’s arsenal. That still involves luring the vampire out of the shadows into the open…”
As the professor spoke, Billy turned a page in the notebook and gasped. A drawing of Marcella stared back at him, her mouth open, revealing fangs. The caption read “Mircalla.”
“You know Marcella over at the Long Dobé?” Billy asked.
The professor laughed. “Hardly. I drew that after reading Carmilla a few years ago. The vampire changes names all through the story. One name is Mircalla.”
Billy swallowed and closed the notebook. Catching sight of the professor’s clock, he leapt to his feet. The book fell to the floor with a thud. “I need to get over to Marshal Seaton’s. You’ve been a big help.”
“Billy, be careful. If you do encounter a vampire, it could be quite dangerous. Also be sure to bring me back any observations for my notes.” The professor patted Billy indulgently on the back and led him to the door.
Billy ran all the way to the marshal’s office. There he found Larissa loading spare fuel cells into the wolf’s saddlebags. The wolf was a two-wheeled machine of black anodized steel and shiny brass, propelled by a chemical-reaction steam engine designed by Professor Maravilla. Mounted between the handlebars on a pivot was a strange weapon consisting of a long, narrow cylinder, like a small-caliber rifle barrel. His eyes played along the strange device from the concentric glass disks in the front, to the thick rings of wire hugging the cylinder in the middle, to the wooden handgrip at the end.
Marshal Seaton climbed onto the leather saddle and used a key to bring the fuel cells together, jarring the machine to life in an explosive exhalation. “You ready to go?”
Billy nodded and climbed on the saddle behind Larissa as she lowered a pair of goggles. He cinched the strap on his hat as Larissa turned the throttle, roaring out of town trailing a cloud of smoke and dust.
* * *
Larissa and Billy rumbled over the San Augustin Pass and sped across the Tularosa Basin. The wolf sputtered to a stop near the Lucero Ranch, ju
st in sight of White Sands. Billy pointed to a tall snow-capped mountain in the distance. “Just keep your eyes on Sierra Blanca and go straight through the dune field.”
Larissa squinted at the distant mountain. “You better be right.” She inserted a fresh pair of fuel rods. Billy nearly tumbled off as she turned the throttle and they shot forward.
Half an hour later they reached the dunes and slowed. He looked around, trying to identify some kind of landmark. Soon a dark patch in the sand near a line of rabbit tracks caught his eye. “There! I think that’s the place.”
Larissa pulled up to an uncharacteristic patch of deep brown sand in the middle of the white gypsum. She killed the wolf’s engine, climbed off, and knelt down. “Stained with blood.”
Thankful the wind had eased, Billy scanned the area.
A set of footprints led away from the dune’s far side. Billy ran ahead to investigate and Larissa followed. Behind the dune, they found three holes, like shallow graves.
“Looks like someone was buried here, then dug up.” Larissa removed her hat and wiped sweat from her brow.
The sun rested near the horizon, casting a pink glow across the dune field. Billy shook his head. “There’s only one trail, and it leads away from the holes.”
Larissa knelt down beside Billy and studied the footprints. “Three people—two adults and a child. They went to Tularosa. Could you have missed these tracks when you woke up?”
Billy scratched his head. “These are plain as day and it looks like they’re side by side, like they’re all friends.” Billy followed the trail a few more yards. “Here, the smaller footprints are further apart. It’s like the boy was skipping or running.” Billy continued walking. “He skittered to a stop here.”
“Maybe the boy tried to run and the gunman ordered him to a halt.”
“Or his pa.” Billy nodded, but dared to hope Henry might be okay after all. He turned his head and spit. “But what about those graves?”