Whispers Out Of The Dust: A Haunted Journey Through The Lost American West (Dark Trails Saga)

by David J. West

  It was agreed that we should depart in the morning and that evening as I shared dinner with the Bonelli family I was told of some of the more sinister happenings in the area that were attributed to this Toohoo-emmi. He told me that the goings on in St. Thomas have been eerie as of late. That it is not meet to go out at night as strange things have been seen in the hills at night and some folk have been known to disappear. He said that the call of wolves has been terrible close and that he and others have taken to melting down silverware for the sake of keeping the pure metal as bullets close at hand. Brother Bonelli did give me a handful of the precious cartridges should I need them on this adventure.

  We did have the good fortune of Chief John speaking good English as he would be our translator if needed along the way. Neither Rockwell nor I speaking Paiute with any proficiency. We took the afore mentioned flat boat down the river to gain entrance to Toohoo-emmi’s abode. It was said he ruled from an ancient cliff palace that sat atop Kai’Enepi, the Demon Mountain. Our respective leaders bid that we should float downriver until we arriving at the trail leading to his mountain. Take the fight to him and force a resolution of some kind.

  It was a pleasant enough trip down the river and Chief John did tell us a number of things about our antagonist. It seemed that this Toohoo-emmi, whose name meant ‘The Black Hand’, had once been the chief medicine man for the Paiutes but had recently been deposed since he began dabbling in black magic and being far too removed from the Great Spirit. He had been seen going into trances with his eyes only showing their whites and talking with unseen forces. All of this may very well have been fine except that firstly some animals [horses] had gone missing and then finally people started to go missing and it was assumed that Toohoo-emmi was sacrificing them after the manner of the Old Ones.

  Chief John was the one who had exposed this horrible crime and was then made medicine man for the tribes. This was a dubious honor because he had not been trying to take that position but merely right the wrongs that had been done. He had at first expected to exonerate Toohoo-emmi of the wild rumors and accusations but instead found indisputable evidence to condemn him. This certainly put a strain on things as I understood they had been quite close at some time.

  Rockwell was rather indifferent toward all of this, spending a lot of his time using his saddle as a pillow and drinking Valley-Tan, letting his hand trail lazily in the warm river. He expressed no interest in Chief John’s tale and I felt it would be up to me to make peace once we found Toohoo-emmi and had the maiden returned. I hoped that by expressing Brother Brigham’s annoyance at this behavior we could peaceably conclude the matter. I should have recognized Chief John’s worry earlier on but I was ignorant of such things then.

  It is true that sometimes we become blind to our own world outlook and standing, we can become complacent and forget outside views and I have stood in that place far too many times.

  We had travelled some distance downriver when Chef John pointed out we were being followed and I was horrified to find out by whom or what he meant.

  A trio of great black snakes swam in the river pursuing us. They dipped their heads every now and again and when they did I saw their scaly tails twist in the water a good ten paces behind where their head had been, I estimated these reptiles to be in excess of twenty feet long!

  I woke Rockwell and asked him to look and be wary. He casually took a drink of his whiskey and blinking, answered that it was but beavers, and true these heads were near as large as or even larger than a beavers head, but I assure you, they were indeed snakes of enormous size.

  Chief John explained these serpents were servants of the Toohoo-emmi and would protect his domain from the likes of us. I took hold of a paddle as I had no gun and I again urged Rockwell to take up arms against this impending threat. He laughed and said there were no such snakes so large nor in this part of the desert. Granted, he did use much more colorful language than I shall repeat here.

  The other five braves were in a panic, crying out “Nooyooadu!”[26] But they did utilize their bows and rifles to prepare for the coming assault.

  The serpents made a swift reconnoiter of us aboard the flat boat and did strike almost simultaneously panicking the horses into breaking their tethers and flinging themselves off the flat boat and into the river and very nearly cap-sizing us in the process. I regret that it took such dire action to bring Rockwell’s attention to our situation.

  Rockwell was up in a flash and had his snub-nosed Navy Colts firing like the devil’s own cannons, and I must admit I did wonder about a house divided against itself. It seemed that for now the devil did protect his own as the snakes dodged his bullets and ducked back under the waters no harm done to them but we had lost all of our horses and one of the braves already.

  Then the snakes did launch themselves at us once again. I did batter one of them with a paddle dazing it, I suspect for it dropped back down into the murky waters but it certainly was not yet deceased.

  One brave shot a pair of arrows into a serpent and it remained sluggish though it did not halt its attack. Another brave was knocked off the flat boat but Chief John managed to sink his tomahawk into the sluggish one’s head slaying it, though in its convulsion it hit him in the chest and fell back into the river.

  Rockwell watched swinging his pistols whichever direction he did look and it saved him, as one snake reared from the waters suddenly and was met with both barrels full into the mouth. This blasted beast also slid back into the river with a splash of gore across the flat boat. I tried to remain steadfast in the face of such horrific violence and felt it was near beyond me.

  With but one serpent left, we all kept vigil and also did rescue the one brave who had been knocked into the waters. We had absolutely lost the horses as they did not rise from the surface and we did suspect the serpents had grabbed their legs and drowned them along with the first brave who was knocked overboard.

  There was some swirling in the murky brown waters but nothing came of it but our own fears.

  When the final serpent did not attack, Chief John said he suspected that it had been Toohoo-emmi himself and that without help the wicked shaman would not attack as fierce a foe as we few again by himself, and that Toohoo-emmi had many other resources to fight and wear us down including other black magic’s that did bring much fear into the braves though I am quite sure that it was not his intent to worry them.

  Chief John said we were floating nearer to the abode of Toohoo-emmi and bid us be watchful.

  We floated to a spot in the river where a small canyon opened giving us but a very narrow view like unto a doorway to another realm. Beyond the cliff walls we saw in the distance some verdant greenery while a small reddish stream flowed into the Virgin River. I expressed some surprise that this stream and canyon were not on the maps that had been supplied me by either George Brimhall or Anson Call[27] but then neither did they mark a map with any place known as Kai’Enepi either. As near as I could understand Chief John’s explanation, he seemed to be trying to find the English words to tell us there was a ‘glamour’ over this place and that what was once a sacred place of the Paiutes was now polluted and held in thrall by this Toohoo-emmi and his wicked band.

  Rockwell guided the flat boat into the sandy beach area of the canyon and we did ground the vessel and pull it as far onto shore as we could muster now lacking the horses. We staked and roped it to some boulders though it would be no small feat for someone else to come along and dislodge it, even perhaps a large wake of the river could do the deed, but we were resolved to continue on despite the potential loss. None of us thought leaving a lone man behind to guard the flat boat was a worthwhile venture in this dangerous country.

  We had not gone far beyond the shoreline when we found two dead men. One had his head blasted away by gunshots and the other had no head, as if cleaved by a tomahawk. Two arrow wounds were also in his backside. It took my getting some used to the idea but Chief John insisted these two men had been changelings or shape s
hifters and were in actuality the serpents we had so recently encountered. This was the wildest explanation I had ever heard but I could not deny the bloody truth at my feet as much as I truly wished I could.

  Porter was silent at this revelation, but neither did he say it was as impossible as I had first pronounced.

  We hiked along the narrow cliff walls always with an eye to the sky above which gave us but a sliver of light in this dark canyon. Thrice rocks tumbled from somewhere far above nearly braining us in the process. Chief John said this was the work of the Nimerigar, or little people. He said they were cannibals and allied with Toohoo-emmi. Again I scoffed but felt a grim fear well up in my breast as I thought I saw some dark child dash behind a boulder. Sure that my eyes were playing tricks on me or that perhaps I had seen a child rather than a tiny man I expressed as much to Chief John who bid we prepare for an attack.

  Rockwell spit out a curse and I told him to remember who we were and what we represented and he looked at me with those deep killers’ eyes and I found myself unable to continue speaking.

  A shrill high-pitched cry echoed from the cliffs and the sharp twanging of bows announced the attack of the vicious Nimerigar. Tiny arrows filled the clearing before us and the miniscule shafts caught one of our braves in the knee. He had time but to shout in terrible searing pain and then he passed away while convulsing and foaming at the mouth like a mad beast.

  Poison! A treachery most foul! Chief John warned us to avoid even a scratch from the deadly missiles. The tiny needle like armaments bounced and ricocheted from the boulders about us and soon enough it was clear that the diminutive assassins were flanking us as our cover from the storm diminished.

  Porter cursed again and said something to the effect of having enough and he would test his mettle here and now.

  He stepped out into the barrage and yet, none of the cursed darts struck him, it was as if he bore the wake of a great airship before him and the missiles did swirl out and around him on a peculiar breeze, such could not be said of his bullets though—as he took aim at the Nimerigar and shot a score of them before they fled in terror.

  Rockwell even captured one, who was no larger than a babe in arms, though fully grown according to Chief John. The little man had an ugly head that was quite large by comparison though all of his tools, clothing and moccasins and the like were similar in fashion to the Paiutes, though just the size for a doll. I should add that he had wretched teeth and did spit and hiss furiously as Rockwell held him by the nape of the neck.

  Chief John was quite taken aback but did proceed to try and question the Nimerigar, who as Chief John later told us had never before been captured by any man, let alone a white man to whom they were usually invisible.

  Bitter though he was, the Nimerigar, whose name he said was Pu’wihi, said he and his war party were to defend against the enemies of Toohoo-emmi, as he was now their true Lord and master.

  I sensed that I was witness to the dying of a race that would soon be no more, as I understood some small amount of the exchange between Chief John and Pu’wihi that there were no longer any women left to the Nimerigar and that it made Chief John sad though they were his ancestral enemies. I felt I was uniquely disposed to feel that pain, as that very loss and decay is a part of my own religion and belief.

  Bargaining with Pu’wihi seemed to make little headway but finally we were able to work an exchange of the tiny man showing us the traps his people had left on the trail balanced upon our word that we should no more harm his folk if they too left us alone. To this he agreed and he then did call out a sharp cat-like cry and yipping that was met some miles down the canyon and we saw no more of the tiny people. We did however keep Pu’wihi a prisoner accorded good treatment. His curious presence was unnerving to me.

  We made camp for the night against an overhang in the rock, that would not allow any enemy to sneak up behind us and even gave good cover should enemies try and shoot at us.

  Rockwell said he did not like the place but it was getting dark and there was no way to get the braves to continue on with us in the gloom. Not that I wanted to myself as this was a truly dark and frightful place. Strange calls filled the night and even Pu’wihi said he did not know all the creatures that made such awful cries.

  Chief John blessed our spot and bid we always keep two men on vigil all night to ward against any evil dreams that might befall us.

  I found it a hard place to go to sleep as the sandstone was both hard and cold and the eerie feeling of doom hung upon me thicker than my wet blanket. But sleep I did for some time in the early hours Rockwell shook me awake saying to hold onto something solid and try to get to the highest point beneath the overhang.

  I was confused and groggy with sleep but I heard an awful roaring that filled me with such terror, I wondered at what wretched demon was tearing down the canyon toward us with the speed of a locomotive. It must have been a giant for I heard the snapping and twisting tree trunks shattered at its very passage and I wondered aloud how we could possibly fight this devil.

  Rockwell answered there was no fighting it, we should simply weather it out in the high ground.

  I did not understand, but he had been so very nonchalant about all of our trials and now as a giant was thundering toward us he simply moved to the upper edge of the hollow and grabbed hold of a boulder. I shouted at him over the approaching din, that perhaps no bullet or blade could harm him but what was I to do against this new foe and who I asked was it?

  Flash flood was his taciturn reply, and then a mowing demon of crunching twisted roots, brambles and tree branches’ turned end over end pushed by deep brown waters. We were all huddled up against the far side of the overlook as the scraping hands of the wood and water monster pawed at us, spit in our faces and took hold.

  One of the braves was stuck through the gut and carried away into the morass, churned, chewed and swallowed before he could even scream. Pu’wihi had leapt onto Chief John’s shoulders and was the highest among us, not that it was entirely safe. Brambles crashed among us and clawed deep gouges in the stone and our flesh.

  Then it got worse. I heard an even deeper sound of cracking stone as hairline fractures above our very heads spread like black lightning.

  This is Toohoo-emmi’s black magic at work, shouted Chief John.

  What could we do? Be crushed by a hundred tons of rock above us or eaten alive by the flash flood below?

  You a praying man? asked Rockwell, better pray now, he said over the thunder.

  We all did pray in whatever tongue was ours at birth. The cracks in the stone above our heads grew in size and the flood did not cease in intensity. I was praying with all my might and yet I did doubt that I would come thru this crushing predicament.

  The waters were still churning like a death roll but what should fling itself at us but a massive log. Rockwell and Chief John each instantly seized hold of the upturned thing and jammed it against our roof.

  The other braves helped and we all did hold it steady against the great load bearing down upon our collective heads.

  The grating force of thundering doom did not cease but the mighty trunk held but a few moments longer.

  Pu’wihi cried aloud saying the waters were receding and in truth they were. Rockwell cried that we all had to dive into the waters despite the torrent and make for just upstream as he gauged the cliff above us would fall the other direction. It meant trying to go against the current but that would be our only escape.

  We dived into the dark muddy waters and I instantly felt dragged away. It took all my strength to simply stop being pulled downstream. I caught a hand and felt myself yanked toward the far side. One of the braves had a handhold in stone and was pulling me toward him.

  Rockwell was the last to jump away just as the trunk was snapped like a match stick against the stupendous crumbling cliff face. I couldn’t see for the splashing water and freed dust behind. I thought him surely dead.

  Chief John and Pu’wihi had made it to the upper
edge and called for the rest of us to make it to them.

  The brave and I struggled but made it to waters only a couple feet deep and we trudged on, albeit on the opposite side of the torrent. It was then I realized I had lost every single possession I had brought with me. Even my shoes were stolen by the river in flood.

  Calling out, we found that we had only lost that gutted brave and Rockwell. We gathered about a small rocky knob and tried to start a fire. There were now only Chief John, Pu’wihi, myself and three braves. I wanted to be happy I had lived but given the circumstances I was now hit with incredible despair. Surely this wicked man Toohoo-emmi would come for us now that we were beaten, disheveled and largely unarmed in his canyon. The wave of fear and anxious trepidation was staggering.

  Then Rockwell burst from the waters like the Kraken himself. His eyes glowed fiercely and I did not doubt any longer that he meant to kill this Toohoo-emmi and he was surely the man to do it.

  Rockwell still had one of his pistols although he said his ammunition was soaked and may or may not be any good. He also had his bowie knife. One of the braves still had a spear, another a bow with a few arrows and Chief John had a knife. It was a pitiful armory for what we meant to do but there was no turning back now.

  Chief John explained that the sudden wave of despair I felt was more of Toohoo-emmi’s black magic and that I should resolve to will it away the next time it came. I wanted to believe that as strange as it may sound to those of a rational thought process, as I did not wish to admit that I could be responsible for my own melancholy arrest, but alas I did think it was likely my own self and not some black magician casting it at me from the great beyond. Too often that blanket of misery has rested upon my shoulders and caused sleepless night and gloomy days. I should overcome such but it is a road one must walk alone.