Dead Man’s Hand

by John Joseph Adams

  At the noise of the shot, the creature snapped its head to one side as though startled, but I saw a spray of blood before it dove down into the water again. I truly hoped I had not given it a mortal wound, but I was relieved I had stopped it. The boys’ father was running down the beach toward us—a beach that had not been there when he went to bed the night before, beside an ocean that had never existed in Arizona during the memory of man—and he let out a terrible cry of fear as the creature sent the water splashing high into the air. A moment later his fearful shout turned into a cry of gladness as he saw his other two sons staggering out of the water, the older carrying the six-year-old, who was, most understandably, crying loudly.

  Sheriff Hayslip, who had been one of the men watching, waved to me and called, “God bless you, sir. It’s good to have you back.”

  The worst over, I felt even more strongly that Edward Billinger and I needed to get back to the Denslow women. As we hurried across pasture land toward the Denslows’ side of town, we saw many other strange animals, some of them so big as to beggar imagination, although I still hadn’t seen anything likely to have been Karl Dahler’s Leviathan. The closest was something that had smashed through John Pratt’s fence, a giant that looked like a cross between a tortoise and a pile of rocks. It went on four legs and was bigger than a Wells Fargo coach, but like Dahler’s Biblical beast, it seemed to have caused the damage without intending to; when we spotted it, it was grazing contentedly, mowing down grass as swiftly as an army of field hands while Pratt watched it from horseback beside his broken fence. He had wisely decided to let the creature do what it wished.

  Deeper in the field next door, out at the edge of the town and almost on the edge of a low forest of huge ferns, we encountered a whole group of long-horned creatures, each big as a house, also grazers from what we could see. They had beaked noses like turtles, and their heads were protected not just by the impressive sweep of horns, but also by a raised shield of skin-covered bone that protected their necks. We got close enough to see that some of them had young—I could only think of the little ones as “calves,” despite their reptilian skin and tails. I was glad that they seemed harmless, because even a buffalo gun seemed unlikely to stop such a huge beast, or even slow it. In all seriousness, I believe it would have stamped an African rhinoceros flat.

  As I gazed at these wondrous creatures, I saw a stir of movement in the nearby forest and realized something else was watching the horned giants. It only made sense, of course: where grazing animals were, there also would be predators. The buffalo of America’s plains had been hunted by catamount and wolf long before the Indians arrived, and on the prairies of Africa the aforementioned rhinoceros would be watched by hungry lions. But even a lion found a rhinoceros difficult prey, and from what I knew would only attack the sick ones, even when the lions had numbers. What could possibly be fierce enough to prey on something like these giant, horned cattle-lizards?

  I caught a momentary glimpse—only a flash—of the massive, toothy thing in the low forest, but that was enough. I turned to Billinger and said in a quiet voice, “We need to make more speed, Mr. Billinger.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “Don’t move suddenly, but look over there. These giants are being hunted by another giant.”

  For a moment, he saw the predator clear between the trees. He blanched and almost dropped his gun. “Oh, merciful Lord,” he said. “What kind of horror is that?”

  “I could not tell you,” I said. “But I have just remembered that we left the bloodied carcass of one of those winged monstrosities dangling from the Denslows’ roof.” I did not mention that he was the one who had shot it, quite unnecessarily. “And I imagine that both the hunting creatures and the scavengers will eventually come to smell it, if they haven’t already.”

  Billinger turned white in a way that even the most terrifying events of the day had not accomplished.

  “Oh, my sweet Lord,” he said. “Hurry!”

  We did not dare run, not with that huge thing crouched bright-eyed in the trees nearby, but we walked away quickly. A little farther on, a pack of what looked at first like some kind of terrible bird had surrounded a cow in the Vandeleurs’ pasture, the property next to the Denslows’. These creatures were nothing like the size of the monster we had just seen, but they were still terrifying: they were covered in feathers, and went on their hind legs like roadrunners, but were bigger than any earthly bird except perhaps an African ostrich, and they had the toothy mouths of lizards. The poor cow was already bellowing in pain as the creatures nipped at it like a pack of pariah dogs, but then one of them jumped up onto the cow’s back, extending its stubby, clawed wings for balance like a man riding an unbroken horse. This small murderer darted its head down to bite at the back of the cow’s neck, and blood ran down the lowing beast’s shoulders. As if the blood had set them off, two more of the creatures leaped onto the cow, which was running in circles now, making terrible sounds of despair as it was bitten to death by the feathered wolves.

  As we hurried toward the Denslows’ gate, we nearly ran into another group of the terrible pack-hunting lizard birds as they feasted on the remains of another cow, their mouths covered in blood so that they looked like a troop of deranged circus clowns. It was all I could do to restrain Edward Billinger from shooting at them. I was afraid we would need all the ammunition that remained to us.

  I was right to be fearful.

  As we ran around the edge of the Denslow house, we saw a huge shape, a twin to the thing I’d seen in the swampy forest, crouched only a few yards from the front door. When it heard Ned’s shout of alarm, the monster turned toward us, the stringy remains of Billinger’s reptile-bird dangling from its jaws. To our horror, we saw that the creature had trapped young Catherine Denslow on the porch.

  The beast was more awful than anything a modern human can imagine, I am certain. I have no name for it, but it was as if one of the feathered beasts of Vandeleur’s field had been made many times larger by some cruel god, some deity more interested in the limits of grotesquerie than common sense. It must have stretched twelve yards or more from the tip of its great tail to the end of its fanged snout, and it had a raised, spiny ridge along the top of its back that reached higher than the Denslows’ roofline. Just its head alone was as long as a man is tall, with rows of knifelike teeth in its jaws that would have done any shark proud. Like the feathered lizards, the monster went on its hind legs, which were massive things, since they had to hold so much weight. Its front limbs looked scarcely useful at all, but even those small legs ended in claws as long as my head.

  “Catherine!” shouted Billinger. “Don’t move!” Before he could charge forward (to almost certain death), a loud report echoed from the front door of the house, and I heard the hiss of pellets flying past me. Marie Denslow stood there with a very old rifle, a blunderbuss that had almost certainly belonged to her grandfather, and which looked like it might last have been fired at British tax collectors. Her courage was advanced far beyond her aim: I am not certain that even one bit of shot touched the monster, but she had definitely singed me in a few places with hot metal.

  “Mrs. Denslow, don’t shoot!” I cried. “Edward Billinger and I are out here!”

  For some reason, the sound of my voice did something that our appearance and even the old woman’s blunderbuss had failed to do, which was excite the monster to action. It tossed its head back, swallowing the bony remains of the flying creature with a single gulp, then sprang heavily toward Billinger and me where we stood at the edge of the garden. The young man immediately began firing his pistol, but although I saw at least two of his shots strike its thick hide, the wounds barely bled and did not slow the monster reptile down. As he retreated, Billinger stumbled, which meant I had no time to aim, load, and fire my long Springfield. Instead, I dropped the rifle on the ground and ran toward the thing, shooting my pistol in the air to attract its attention, which distracted it just long enough for me
to hack at its leg with the fire ax. This drew an impressive splash of blood, and the creature’s bone-rattling bellow assured me that I had caused it pain. I did not want to injure these strange beasts, let alone kill them, but neither could I let them harm those I was bound to protect.

  I swept up Ned, who was a bit surprised by how easily I lifted him, then hurried with him back to the porch. “Get Catherine inside!” I said. “I need to go back for my rifle.”

  The monster, which had been watching our retreat with sour suspicion and sniffing at its own bleeding ankle, roared when I left the shelter of the porch but hesitated before attacking me (perhaps because of the injury I’d just dealt it), which allowed me to snatch up my Springfield and hightail it back toward the Denslow house.

  If it had ended there, all would have been satisfactory, since the wound I had given the great beast was thin and clean and would likely heal. The massive creature remained near the house, but for the moment did not seem inclined to attack again. It was clear, though, that the downstairs rooms were no protection against something that could easily push its entire head through a window and grab anything in those rooms in its grisly jaws, so I herded Mrs. Denslow, Billinger, and Catherine upstairs to the second floor landing, where we all huddled. Catherine was crying, not from fear so much as a sort of exhaustion. Mrs. Denslow told us that the girl had gone outside because she thought she heard us coming back, and had been caught on the porch by the unexpected arrival of the monster. She had spent the best part of an hour huddled there, too terrified to move, while her grandmother tried to find the powder to load the old blunderbuss. I told Catherine she had done the right thing by remaining still, and she composed herself enough to thank me, then remembered to thank Billinger too, which restored a great deal of the young man’s spirit.

  After an hour or so, I snuck back downstairs to get some food from the kitchen for the others. It was growing dark outside, but I could still see the shape of the monster outside the house, moving restively back and forth, huge head held low to the ground as if it were still trying to puzzle out where we had gone.

  Those who were up to eating made a joyless supper out of bread and some cold bacon. I could not help wondering how many other families in Medicine Dance were huddled in their own houses this way, terrified and helpless, like people waiting for a cyclone to strike. At least Medicine Dance’s strange Midsummer phenomenon would end sometime near dawn. Frustrated by my own uselessness, certain that Noah Lyman would have been disappointed by my failures, I could only hope that all the townsfolk would survive the night.

  Somewhere in the last hour before dawn, when the other three had finally dropped into ragged sleep and my only company was the shuddering light of a lantern nearly empty of kerosene, I heard a strange and ominous sound from downstairs, a scratching as of some very large dog asking to be let indoors. Since the only dog, Miss Catherine’s Galahad, was still under the bed in her room, I knew that hunger had finally overwhelmed caution for the great killer we had fought in front of the house.

  An instant later, there came a great splintering crash from downstairs, followed by the tinkle and click of falling glass. The creature had clearly decided to come through the front room window, although I felt sure that opening wasn’t large enough for it.

  “Oh, merciful Lord, what now?” cried Mrs. Denslow, who had been startled awake with the others.

  “Stay here.” I climbed to my feet. The noise of destruction grew louder as the creature shoved its head and more of its body through the space it had made. I couldn’t imagine it would find the downstairs parlor very comfortable, since the creature itself was fully as large as the room, and indeed I could hear its oversized body reducing everything in the room to splinters—furniture, pictures, and Mrs. Denslow’s fancy china that had been displayed on the mantle. But this creature had more on its mind than destruction, and despite the half-terrified, half-outraged cries of the two women, I knew that the worst was yet to come.

  “Billinger! Take the ladies and barricade yourselves in Miss Denslow’s room,” I ordered. That way everyone, including the dog, would be in one place, which would make things easier on me.

  He argued, but I pointed out that his gun had already proved too small to stop such a beast, and at last he reluctantly agreed to go with the women. “But what will you do?”

  “Try to stop it,” I said. “But I doubt I will succeed. I hoped the Springfield would stop anything we might encounter, but clearly Professor Denslow’s effect will bring us dangers even he could not entirely foresee. Next time, I must prepare better.”

  “Next time? What are you talking about?” he demanded, but I was busy breech-loading my rifle and did not have time to satisfy his curiosity, even had I wished to.

  As soon as Billinger and the ladies disappeared into the bedroom and I could hear them piling furniture against the door, I put my back against the frame and lifted the rifle to my shoulder. I guessed I would get two shots at the most. I knew very little about the monster reptiles, but the thing’s narrow, horse-like skull made me cautious—who could guess how much bone lay between me and the creature’s brain? But I also knew that shooting even a large animal such as a bison or elephant in the heart might not stop it for several steps, which meant that even if I somehow managed a mortal shot to the chest, its two or three tons were still likely to land on me, or perhaps even crash through into the room where the others hid. If I did have time for two shots, I decided I would try both head and chest and hope for the best.

  Like the dragon Fafnir of Germanic legend, the monster suddenly poked its great, grinning head into the stairwell, darting it forward and back as if it did not know what it might find waiting there. I held my fire until the nightmare had swung back into the light of the dying lantern again, its mouth opening as it peered at what must have been a blinding glare. I pulled the trigger. The Springfield roared, and the monster jerked back with an answering bellow. I could hear it smashing things at the base of the stairs, where it could scarcely have room to turn, but instead of the thing falling dead with a four hundred and five grain bullet in its skull, it began trying to climb to the landing to destroy the annoying gnat that had just stung its face. I could see a tattered flap of skin and a crude, bloody hole below its eye, but otherwise it seemed unmoved by my first shot.

  As it got its massive, clawed foot up onto the first few steps, and just as I finished loading the second cartridge and slammed the breech shut, the stairs cracked and broke beneath it, canting the creature sideways as it struggled for balance in the wreckage. I took advantage of its loss of balance and fired again, right into the exposed ribcage. This time I saw black blood pulsing strongly from the wound, but I also saw that the injury was by no means fatal. The thing splintered the remains of the steps and a good deal of the stairwell as it struggled for footing, but even if it couldn’t climb, it was still tall enough to reach me with those immense, snapping jaws. Before I could fumble another cartridge into the long rifle, I was snagged by the toothy mouth and the gun was thrown from my hand. It shook me like a terrier with a rat, smashing me against the wall, then tossed me down to the first floor, where I landed like a pigeon full of birdshot.

  The deadly beast put one of its massive hind feet on me, pinning me flat and helpless. I could feel my ribs buckling as the snarling mouth turned sideways and tilted down toward me, a vast bear trap full of carrion stink, its teeth as big as skinner’s knives, then suddenly the massive thing grew faint and shadowy. For a moment I thought life was fleeing me as my organs ceased working, but then, only a few seconds later, the creature simply vanished, and I was lying by myself in the soft pink light of dawn as it streamed uninhibited through the shattered wall of the house. With the rising of the sun, Midsummer’s Day had finally ended.

  * * *

  Medicine Dance had been lucky—very lucky. Despite the extent of the catastrophe, there had been no deaths other than livestock, though a few other families had suffered damage as great as the Denslows. So
me of the houses had been knocked entirely from their foundations by Dahler’s Leviathans, huge grazing creatures with serpentine necks that some excited souls swore were almost a hundred feet long. Determined not to be driven out, even by such bizarre happenings, the rest of the townsfolk immediately began to rebuild. Everyone chipped in, whether their own houses had been damaged or not. Even the preacher did his best to help his flock during this trying time, but everyone could tell that the man’s faith had been severely tested. (Indeed I later learned that he did not last the year in Medicine Dance and was gone long before the next summer came, taking himself to Tombstone to ply his trade, a place whose sins were many and whose problems, though grave, were more familiar.)

  Two days after Midsummer, Mrs. Denslow brought a pitcher of lemonade out to me and Ned Billinger and the local men who were helping repair her house. As the rest of the men shared it, she took me aside. We paused in the shade of the very lemon tree that had supplied the fruit.

  “I remember that distracted look from last time, Custos,” she said to me. “You’re going to be on your way soon. I don’t suppose it would do any good to ask where you’re headed?”

  “I’m afraid not, Ma’am.”

  “Will we see you again? I mean, before thirty-nine more years pass?” She smiled sadly. “Because I don’t suppose I’ll still be around when that happens.”

  “Don’t underestimate yourself,” I told her. “You Lymans have a rugged constitution.”

  “Which means no. I hope you said goodbye to Catherine. She’s become quite fond of you.”

  I looked out to where Catherine had brought a glass of lemonade to Ned Billinger, who had taken personal charge of the rebuilding of the Denslow house. “She’s fonder of him—and that’s the way it should be.”