by James Davis
They landed in the parking lot of the Castle Valley Inn and were immediately surrounded by Wrynd. Jodi sent the wing to hover over the city and calmly smoothed her uniform over her body as if she was getting ready for a business meeting. She glanced around as the zombies gathered. She had 49 deputies at her disposal since the death of Deputy Shelley. She had considered calling on them but had decided she would handle this issue on her own. She didn’t regret her decision but hadn’t expected to see quite so many Wrynd in the parking lot. Orrin had far more than 200 zombies at his disposal.
A skinny young female Wrynd aimed a blaster at Jodi and fired. Jodi deflected the blast easily with her scye and then sent it to strike the young woman in the side of the head. The zombie fell dead on the pavement and Jodi cast a glance around her.
“Stop wasting my time. Where is Orrin?”
“King Orrin!” A crying young man roared as he bent to lift the dead woman.
“Whatever.” Jodi was mildly surprised to see the man crying over the dead Wrynd. Even drug addicted cannibals can love, she guessed.
Night was settling in fast and with it came the smoke from the mountains. In the distance you could see the fires burning, roaring, consuming the university and surrounding homes and Harley didn’t give it long before breathing in Price became something of a chore. The fire was not likely to stop until it had taken the city. He didn’t think it would be that much of a loss, all things considered.
Another slim Wrynd rushed into the hotel and a short, attractive woman with a sadistic smile sidled up to Harley but did not dare touch him. “Looks like I might get me some man jerky after all,” Nina purred.
Harley narrowed a gaze at her. “Not sure you could digest me girly.” The young woman snarled and stepped away.
A roar erupted from the upper floors of the hotel and Harley felt the slightest twinge of anticipation.
“He sounds excited to see me.” Harley muttered to Jodi.
Jodi nodded. “If you have help coming your way, you might want to ask it to hurry.”
The big Wrynd King stormed out of the front door of the hotel and cast a murderous glance toward Harley. The lights of the parking lot were shining brightly but not bright enough for him to see a way out of this.
“Harley Nearwater!” Orrin cursed and raced toward him, his clawed hands raised above his head. His tribe parted for him.
At the instant before he laid hands on him Jodi stepped between the two and her scye hummed menacingly. Orrin batted her scye away with his own but before he could take another step Jodi pulled her blaster and pointed it between the big man’s eyes.
“Hold.” She said it softly but with the greatest of authority and Harley found himself grinning. She really was quite good.
Orrin took a deep breath and lowered his hands. “You bring him to me Marshal and then won’t let me kill him?”
"You'll have your chance to kill him." She lowered her blaster but did not holster it. The Wrynd King had showered and wore clean clothes and his wounds were cleaned and bandaged. He held his shoulder as if it no longer bothered him. Harley realized he now looked considerably worse for wear than a maniacal cannibal. He wasn't sure what to make of that.
“What are we waiting for?” Orrin took another step forward and Jodi brandished her scye. Orrin raised his own to counter, but they did not engage.
“I was hoping to see something of this old man and the Gray Walker.”
“The Gray Walker will not help him!”
“You say that with some authority. How can you be so sure?”
“He told me so!” Orrin roared.
If Jodi was surprised she did an admirable job concealing it. Harley detected only the slightest quiver on her lovely lips. “You have met the Gray Walker?”
“We have met. He has no interest in Harley Nearwater.”
Harley sighed. “Told you.”
“But the old man might.”
Orrin paced in front of the marshal and Harley, his clawed hands clenching and unclenching. “You really think this one has friends out there who will ride to his rescue?”
“They did before.”
“Ahh! He was just in a fortuitous location. Looking at him now, I realize what a fool I was to think anyone of power would befriend a man like Harley Nearwater.” Orrin stepped toward the smaller man and hovered over him. “What say you drifter? Do you have any friends, any friends at all in this great big world?”
Harley returned his gaze, smiled up at him. “Well, I used to count you as a friend, until I put a blade through your zombie whore’s heart, I mean.”
He grinned up at the Wrynd and watched as the veins in the big man’s neck began to pulse. A vein in his forehead was also now on prominent display. It looked like a lightning bolt. Jodi tried to get between the two of them and Orrin roared and lashed out with his massive right arm, throwing Jodi to the side. He grabbed Harley by his shirt collar and lifted him off the ground. He tried to raise his left fist and grimaced in pain and Harley tried to shrug, which was no easy task being suspended in midair by your shirt. Orrin head-butted Harley and he fell to the ground, seeing stars.
Harley scrambled under the semi-truck and as Orrin reached for him, a scream of panic and fear pierced the night air at the back of the parking lot.
“Rages!”
Harley looked up and the sea of Wrynd parted, scrambling for cover as wave after wave of animals exploded through the parking lot. It wasn’t a rage, not truly, he realized. It was a stampede of every animal that called the mountains home as they fled from the fury of the firestorm, trampling anything in their path.
Jodi dove under the truck beside him and they both curled into a ball as a herd of elk numbering in the hundreds dashed through the parking lot. Even a larger herd of deer, then cattle, sheep, coyote, bear and thousands of other animals followed and together they made a giant, writhing ribbon of nature with a common destination – away from the fire. At the sight of the Wrynd, some of the animals attacked, but it wasn’t anything organized like it had been with the old man on the highway. The animals attacked because humans were there, not because of a Rage. But there were so many of them that it didn’t need to be organized to be effective. As Harley watched dozens of Wrynd fell and the rest scrambled for the hotel. Orrin had disappeared.
“Was that a moose?” Jodi screamed beside him and Harley looked up. There were three moose trampling through the parking lot. A Wrynd made a mistake of trying to rush by them and was walked over.
“Yep. Moose. It wouldn’t surprise me to see a couple of giraffe, an elephant or two and some trained monkeys come through next.” Harley was grinning as he shouted, but since he thought he would be dead by now to find himself not only alive but sharing space with Marshal Jodi Tempest beneath a semi-truck as another animal attack decimated the plans of the Wrynd king was a pleasant alternative.
The screams of the Wrynd and the animals combined into a furious roar through the parking lot and smoke billowed down from the ever closing fires. It was chaos. Harley looked across at Jodi in the darkness and the smoke and held up his bound hands.
“They’re not coming for you are they?” Jodi asked.
Harley shook his head. “Would you?”
Jodi released the binders with a thought and Harley handed them to her. He looked to her sidearm and she shook her head.
“No chance.”
Harley shrugged and cast her one last glance, then scrambled out from under the truck and into the cab. When the last of the animals raced through the parking lot and continued down Main Street, he started the engine and followed them out of town.
As the Wrynd who had escaped to the hotel dared to step back out, Jodi stood in the parking lot and watched Harley drive away. She found that she was smiling.
The man with the gray eyes had learned over the years of his life not to be terribly surprised by anything. He had seen too much, been witness to too many miracles to not know they were true and all too often completely without direc
tion. They simply happened from time to time and those caught in their path could be pleasantly surprised or destroyed.
He had watched Harley Nearwater escape death a number of times during the past few days. The first time had been because whether you saw anything of value in the man or not, you could not deny he had skill and a certain animal instinct that kept him one step ahead of his own bad luck. The other two times had been because of his association with Quinlan Bowden and his children. The young father had been a particular concern to the man with the gray eyes, but no longer was because he had returned to the Hub. Quinlan Bowden and his children were back where they belonged. For now.
Harley had shown a change in character of late that was disturbing. He had shown a change in character when he let Quinlan and his children live after their first encounter with the Wrynd. He had even given the young man his sword! He had shown a change in character when he stopped to help the old man and his wife and Quinlan and the children. The fact that his actions resulted in the death of the old woman was the only thing of value the man with the gray eyes could see coming out of the whole ordeal. Then he waited to help the old man, to try and save him even though he knew the Wrynd were coming and that the old man wanted him dead. Why would Harley Nearwater do something like that?
The Gray Walker sat and stared in amazement from the roof of a discount store across the street from the hotel as the animals rampaged through town, a mass of nature fleeing the forces of nature. That they were all running in the same direction gave him a moment of pause to test the air and see if the old man might not be playing a part. He was surprised when he could feel nothing of his presence. Surprised, but not terribly so. It was simply a miracle and Harley Nearwater just happened to be one of the benefactors. So were the surviving non-Wrynd residents of Price, who used the opportunity to head south as well and escape the dead city by whatever means they could. That most of them would become a victim to the animals they now followed did not in the least diminish the glory of the miracle taking place.
He was also not surprised when the marshal released Harley, he knew she had the mettle to kill him, but lacked any real desire, even if not doing so was against the wishes of her master. When Harley drove into the night, the man with the gray eyes followed him with senses he had developed over countless years. The semi turned and went up the canyon toward mountains that would burn and the Gray Walker leapt from the roof of the two-story building and landed nimbly on his feet, his boots making no sound at all as they touched the ground.
He walked south humming softly to himself, as he sometimes did, wondering what he should do about Harley Nearwater.
Twenty-Three
Into the Dark
Once outside of Price the animals scattered, most of them running west into the desert, some of them turning and going south, even more simply stopping in the fields outside of the city to rest. Harley continued down the old highway, a sense of urgency building within him. He was still hunted. He had no weapons and was driving a truck that was groaning with every mile. He was running out of options.
West of him was his pickup and his weapons. Southwest of him was home and a life he once had taken for granted but no longer did. He could continue going southeast and eventually reach Kayenta and perhaps even find his mother. But the road was long and fraught with danger and he had no way to protect her. He had no way to protect himself and if he did find his way there the Wrynd would be right behind him. He had to find another place to hide and wait for the Wrynd to lose interest, or at least lose his scent. All he needed was an opportunity to double back and reach his weapons. Then he could make a stand.
He stopped the old semi in the middle of the highway outside of the ghost town of Wellington. If he kept going southeast, he might be able to find weapons in Green River or Moab, but doubted it. Green River was already robbed of what had been there worth taking. Moab was a better choice, but it was almost barren as well and the Wrynd from the Colorado Hub were known to go there. He could find himself trapped between two tribes of Wrynd without a weapon. And to the southwest was the desert. He could take Ridge Road in Wellington and double back. The road traveled west and then linked with SR-10. It would lead him home. Harley shook his head and ruled it out. Orrin would expect as much.
Sitting in the middle of the road in a dying semi Harley turned his eyes to the mountain of the north and a smile curled his lips. Now that, they wouldn’t expect.
He turned the big truck and headed up Nine Mile Canyon, toward a burning mountain.
Jodi watched Harley drive away in the rattling semi. The wind shifted directions and the smoke billowed behind her, clearing her line of sight, and she caught movement out of the corner of her eye, a shadow dancing in the night. She was careful not to move her head, but kept straining her eyes to see better.
There was something sitting on top of the building across the street. Something watching. It dropped off the two-story building and landed easily enough as if the drop of more than 20 feet was of little consequence. As it walked south down the middle of the street, it came more clearly into Jodi’s field of vision. It was a man of average height, wearing a long coat in the middle of summer. In the darkness she could make out none of his features, but she knew who he was.
“The Gray Walker.” Her voice was a hush in the night. The Wrynd were starting to come out of the hotel and were making a racket but above their din she thought she might have heard humming, pleasant humming of someone quite pleased. The figure in shadows walking just out of reach of the street lights might have turned to her when she whispered, might have flicked her a wave as he walked out of sight. She could not be sure. What she was sure of was that he wanted her to see him.
Orrin pushed aside his stumbling Wrynd as he made his way outside. He was bleeding from the forehead and a gash across his abdomen. The herd of elk had trampled him to the ground and he had somehow managed to roll out of the way and crawl into the hotel lobby without being killed.
Harley had stolen away in the semi and standing in the parking lot with her hands on her hips and a smile on her lovely face was Marshal Tempest. She had let him escape.
“Where is he?” Orrin spoke softly, coolly, but there was no mistaking the menace in his voice. Jodi didn’t seem to notice.
“Not here.” She turned to face him and she was still smiling.
In a flash, Orrin drew his sidearm and fired. The pulse blast should have cut a hole through Jodi’s chest, but her scye deflected it and the blast went wide, through a window in the hotel. Somebody screamed. Orrin’s scye dove at her head and Jodi did a summersault while her scye countered, coming up on her feet and drawing her own blaster. But she did not fire. Orrin fired again and again and each blast was countered by Jodi’s scye. The other Wrynd watched in silence as their king attacked and the marshal parried and with each attack Orrin realized the young woman was faster than him, faster than he had ever been.
“You can keep trying to kill me Orrin,” Jodi said calmly as she flipped out of the place where he had just fired. “Or we can go and get them.”
Orrin stopped firing. “Them?”
Jodi strode toward him. A lock of golden hair had escaped her ponytail and she brushed it away from her face. “Harley and the Gray Walker. He was watching from across the street.”
Orrin looked puzzled for a moment and then he smiled. “So Harley does have a friend.”
“Who’d of thunk it?”
Orrin stared into the dancing smoke, his eyes far away and his face blank and Jodi snapped her fingers. “Rally your zombies. Let’s go.”
“We’re not zombies,” hissed the woman who had wanted to make man jerky out of Harley. “We are the Wrynd.”
Jodi chuckled. “Are you sure? You look like a zombie, you eat like a zombie and you smell like a zombie. Are you sure you’re not a zombie?”
Orrin gave Jodi a sidelong glance and barked for one of his minions. “Ralph!”
The skinny young man who had summoned him when
Jodi and Harley arrived pushed through the crowd. He was filthy and it looked like one of the animals, perhaps a cow, had defecated on his face. Otherwise, he appeared unharmed. Jodi marveled.
“We need transportation for the Wrynd.”
“How many of us?”
“All of us.”
Ralph puzzled for a moment and then grinned, slapped his hands together like a happy child and pointed at Orrin. “School buses.”
Orrin nodded. “Go get them.”
Jodi sighed and looked about the parking lot. Some of Orrin’s Wrynd looked like they had seen better days. There were middle-aged, overweight men and women in the group and youth who looked no older than 12 or 13. They stumbled into each other, milling around like the mindless zombies she said they were. The only reason they were there was because they knew this was the only place they might get another taste of ink. She didn’t see how they would be of any great help in their quest.
“Do you really want to take everyone for this?”
Orrin grinned, showing his fanged teeth and Jodi scowled. He used to be a marshal she reminded herself. He had been asked to do this by their mutual master and he had obeyed. She was not sure she could do the same. She was struggling with something as simple as killing a drifter. She would not allow herself to consider the reasons why.
“I want them all. We were defeated by a little old man. What if this Gray Walker’s power exceeds his? We attack as a tribe.”
Ralph gathered up five other Wrynd and they scrambled into a truck and disappeared into the smoke-filled night.
“Whatever you say King Orrin.” Jodi strolled through the hotel doors in search of something to drink. Her scye trailed after.
Harley drove toward Nine Mile Canyon with the headlights off. Twice he had almost driven off the road and down a ravine into a dry wash. He slowed the semi to a crawl and squinted into the moonlight to make his way. The fires were behind him now and the wind had shifted, pointing them south rather than east and buying him some time. The inferno pointed toward Price and he grunted in satisfaction.