Revenge and the Wild

by Michelle Modesto

  The Undying had been slow, but there was a church of them and they liked to congregate. They were also hard to kill. Only way to keep them down was to cut off their heads. It took a lot of strength to sever one’s neck from its body.

  She remembered those days vividly. Her mother hadn’t wanted to leave, holding out hope for a cure. But there was no true cure. It was only after Westie moved to Rogue City that she learned from Bena that magic was the only thing that could keep the disease at bay if caught in its early stages. It wouldn’t have helped those in the valley though; the settlers had decimated the only tribes on the prairie who could’ve conjured that magic.

  At Westie’s father’s insistence, they cut their suspenders and braved the wagon trail to get to California.

  Westie took a wavering breath. We should’ve stayed.

  Westie sat taller in her saddle when she saw Bena come out of the forest. The Wintu hunter’s expression was as difficult to translate as her native language.

  “What happened? What’d you see?” Westie asked.

  Bena shook her head. Despite the unmoving wall of her features, there was tension in her gaze.

  “It’s abandoned. Looks like the old man who used to live here has been gone for some time, but there have been others.”

  Westie slid off her saddle and tied Henry to the closest tree. Bena dismounted behind her. She was just as short as Isabelle, but Westie never thought of her that way. Bena was strong and sturdy, which made her seem bigger than she really was.

  “I counted six different sets of horse tracks, and manure piles still warm nearby. It could be outlaws,” Bena said.

  “Let’s make it quick then,” Westie said as she pushed through the dilapidated door of the cabin, which hung on by a desiccated leather hinge. Birds erupted from nests hidden in the rafters, bouncing around the room until they found escape through the holes in the roof. Westie walked into the middle of the room. Dust glittered in shafts of dingy light.

  It was there, in the middle of the room, that the cannibals had invited her family to sup with them.

  Westie remembered how delighted she’d been to see the family. The fire shed a yolky glow across their faces, giving their features the soft lines of dreams. There was a female toddler with a tangle of golden curls, a woman her mother’s age or maybe a bit younger, and a teenage boy. He had a greasy complexion and a deep voice that cracked when he spoke.

  The woman smiled at Westie. She wore a tattered light-blue dress exactly like one a woman from the caravan wore. She had a long hooked nose and a bony face, and she wore her dark hair pulled back so tight that it made her brown eyes slant.

  The man’s face was covered in hair. He looked strong. He was double her father’s weight, and nearly double his height as well. He didn’t give their names, nor did her father offer theirs.

  “Come share our meal,” the woman had said. The sharp angles of her face didn’t match her friendly voice. “I’ve made plenty of stew. You must be famished.”

  Westie’s mouth watered. The food smelled like home, like hugs and laughter and all the good things that came before the voyage west. It had been days since their last meal, which had been horse grain.

  “The hunting must be good,” her father had said.

  The bearded man seemed put off by small talk. Shadows from the firelight danced behind him. “The mountain provides,” he grumbled.

  They sat on the floor in the middle of the main room, and Westie watched the woman deliver heaping ladles of stew into her wood bowl.

  Her first bite was a taste of heaven. The tang of wild onions popped on her tongue, the potatoes were soft and gritty with the skins still attached, and pine nuts gave the stew a sweet crunch. There was plenty of meat. Some of the chunks were tough and stringy and others were mushy like liver or duck. She guessed it to be bear, or horse. It had an odd gamy flavor, fungal like a mushroom past its prime. She ate it anyway. Even Tripp ate some, the pink blush coming back into his cheeks.

  Westie pushed the memory away and focused on the present. The cabin no longer held the scent of food. Instead it smelled musty and old. Her gaze shifted. There, in front of the fireplace, was where her family had died. That same familiar fear from her nightmares twisted her stomach.

  Tins and jars of moldy food had been left behind by either the old man or those who’d sought shelter in the cabin since his departure. Westie kicked at a heap of rusted tins, looking for anything that might lead her in the right direction. She headed toward the only bedroom. When she stepped across the threshold, her boot fell through a plank of rotting wood.

  Pain shot through her calf. She cried out as the jagged edges of broken boards ripped through her pant leg, dragging down her flesh. Bena and Alistair rushed to her side.

  “Are you hurt?” Alistair asked. He took her by the arm, his lids peeled back around wide, frightened eyes.

  Westie clung to the floorboards to hold her weight. She moved her foot around, feeling cold, empty space beneath. “I don’t think so. Just stuck.”

  Bena grabbed her other arm and they pulled. Westie closed her eyes and crushed her teeth together as exposed pegs cut into her skin. Blood trickled from several spots on her leg, but they were just flesh wounds, not even deep enough for stitching.

  She looked back at the hole where she’d fallen and saw a small speck of white through the gloom and spiderwebs. “There’s something in there,” she said.

  Reaching into the dark hole, she moved her hand around. The earth below the floorboards was damp, and she tried not to think about spiders and other things with fangs whose homes she might’ve been destroying. Her fingers swept across something coarse, and she had to fight the urge to pull away. She grabbed the thing and pulled it from its hiding spot.

  It was a scarf.

  Twelve

  All three of them stared down at the wisp of fabric in Westie’s trembling hand.

  “This was my momma’s.”

  “Are you sure?” Bena said. “We found many clothes in this cabin.”

  Bena and some of the Wintu scouts had gone back to the cabin to hunt for the cannibals after Westie was found. The family had fled by then but left the evidence of their carnage behind. The scouts had taken the bones and clothing of the dead and buried them after the ground thawed in a private ceremony nearby, knowing if they took them to the church for a Christian burial, the natives might’ve been blamed for their deaths.

  They’d tried to burn the cabin after, but the wood was too wet and the fire had fizzled out. Instead they left woven dolls hanging from trees and painted symbols on the door warning travelers of the haunted cabin. Judging by the trash scattered across the floor, not many had heeded that warning.

  Westie nodded. She was sure. The cannibals had used the scarf to tie her mother’s hands together.

  “She was wearing it that night. She always wore this scarf. It was a gift from my pa on their anniversary.”

  Westie ran her fingers across the intricate pattern. She imagined she could still smell her mother: lilac and honey. The only thing she really remembered was the smell of blood and the faces of those who killed her family.

  Tears glittered in the corners of her eyes when she remembered waking up to her mother’s screams. She’d blinked several times, eyes blurry with sleep, and found her mother and father sitting on the floor beside her, their hands and feet bound with items of clothing. She looked around for Tripp but didn’t see him.

  “Run!” her mother had cried.

  Westie had imagined an attack: vampires, the Undying, werewolves, or ghouls, but saw nothing.

  “What? Why?” She looked around. The nice family she’d shared her meal with earlier stood in the room watching her.

  “Go!” her mother shouted again.

  The other family surged toward her like a machine, different parts of a single structure working together for a single purpose, to tie her up too. She was drunk on fear and confusion. She did what her mother demanded of her and ran. The boy, m
uch bigger than her, moved in front of the door leading to the woods, so she turned and ran toward the only bedroom. The woman moved to block her way. Westie turned again, slipped on a grimy rug, and nearly went down before recovering and rushing toward the kitchen. She heard the heavy boots of the bearded man as he chased after her.

  When Westie reached the small kitchenette, she saw bare cupboards, a stove, a pump for water, and a butcher block in the middle of the room, with a bloody stump of a human leg on it. The skin on the leg was smooth and soft, and the foot was small. A child’s leg.

  Tripp . . .

  Beside the leg was a fresh pot of stew.

  A scream stuck to the sides of her throat and burned like medicine. She felt herself start to retch when the fetid smell of decay reached her nose. Despite the cold winter month, flies buzzed around a lake of congealed blood pooled on the floor below the block. Westie bent at the waist, and when she did, she saw a pile of clothes and bones behind the butcher block. She recognized the clothes. They belonged to members of the caravan.

  Her family had been warned of cannibals on the wagon trail before they left Kansas. Stories were told of folks who had been ill-prepared for the mountainous terrain and would turn on one another for nourishment when the food ran out. It wasn’t prairie sickness, the illness that turned one into the Undying, but to eat one’s own kind seemed far worse. Westie’s father had said it was a bunch of lies shopkeepers told to prevent money from leaving town. He was wrong.

  When Westie heard the floor creak behind her, she spun around to face the bearded man. In his hand was a knife that winked in the candlelight. As he swung down on her, she raised an arm to ward off the blow. The knife sliced clean through her bone at her elbow, leaving her arm attached by skin and tendon.

  There was hardly any pain, only pressure and a dull ache. It took her a moment to get her breath. When the man lifted his knife once more, she slipped past him. The wife and son of the bearded man seemed confused when they saw Westie come into the room, as if they hadn’t expected her to make it out alive. She was able to get past them too.

  Westie’s mother was screaming. Her father struggled with his ties. “Leave her be,” he growled in a voice that frightened her. “Run,” he said to her. “Run and don’t look back.”

  So Westie did. She ran out into the dark woods, through the snow without coat or shoes. She could hear the man’s heavy footfalls behind her. Her breath was a death shroud around her face. Petals of blood floated behind her as if she were a flower girl at a wedding until her body became so cold it stanched the flow. The man’s footsteps had been close at first. She ran and ran without looking back, until the steps slowed and finally stopped. Even then she ran. Soon her battered arm was in so much pain that she could no longer move. She slumped to her knees in the snow. The pain was razor sharp, but she dared not scream. There were moments she wanted to look at the damage but was too afraid of what she might find.

  Several times she leaned over and retched, because of the pain, and because she knew she had eaten the flesh of travel companions whose children she had played with. And because she had left her entire family to be slaughtered.

  Something moved in the snow. Her breath halted as she listened. She prayed the cold would take her before a hungry mouth.

  Her vision had begun to gray. Good, she thought, I’m dying. She thought the same thing again when she saw the rider atop his painted pony in front of her. It was a beautiful horse, red with white shapes on its hide. Upon its rump were blue handprints, and in its mane feathers and beads. Westie wished she had a pony like that to ride. Its gallop would be so fast they could outrun the pain.

  The rider dismounted. The person was too small to be the bearded man, or his wife—the boy, maybe. As the figure got closer and the face became clear, Westie saw the skin was too brown and the hair too long and dark to be anyone from the cannibal family. An Indian, she realized, a woman. Westie tried to speak, but then her gray vision turned black.

  Thirteen

  Westie dropped the scarf, not wanting to touch it any longer. It was hardly proof. She was the only one who knew it had belonged to her mother.

  They left the cabin after Westie had turned the floors to kindling and pulled down entire walls in search of evidence. But if there were ever pictures or papers bearing the Fairfield name, they were long gone.

  When they were outside the cabin, Bena said, “We need to hurry.”

  But it was too late, for a train of outlaws appeared from behind the trees.

  The first to show himself was a man. The only thing she was certain of was the malice she saw in the way he watched her troupe.

  The next to show himself was not a man but a leprechaun. Fear kneaded at Westie’s stomach when she saw it was the old buzzard she’d played cards with in the saloon. He had a tobacco-pregnant lower lip and boasted cuts and bruises from a previous quarrel. Each outlaw who showed himself afterward had a unique look about him, except his intentions. Those were all the same.

  There were six of them all together. Westie’s head was no place for a lady when the last outlaw was in view, for all that came to mind were curse words. It was the young leprechaun from the saloon. He wore a sling on his arm and a harder look upon his face than when she had seen him last.

  She pulled the parasol from its leather holster across her back and pointed it toward the gang. Alistair stood at her side with his hands resting on the revolvers at his hips.

  The young leprechaun slid off his horse and the others followed. He wore an amused look on his face and raised his hands in a parody of surrender.

  “You plan to beat me to death with your parasol, tart?”

  Westie assessed each outlaw, taking inventory of their weapons. Each had a revolver on his hip and a rifle on his saddle. “I reckon I might have me a try,” she said, happy to be sober.

  When the young leprechaun moved, there was a shimmer beneath his vest.

  “Ace in the hole,” she whispered to Alistair, knowing he would be counting guns as well. He nodded without taking his eyes off the gang.

  Westie had one bullet secured in the chamber of her hidden gun. All she had to do was pull the trigger and hope the young lep caught a case of slow. Once she did, it was up to Alistair and Bena to finish the others before they fired their weapons. She prayed it wouldn’t come to that. Last thing she wanted was to find herself in a hailstorm of gunfire. If she could just get off one shot and frighten the outlaws’ horses, they could make a getaway, though she doubted the horses of outlaws would be gun-shy.

  She had to make a choice. It was a corpse-and-carriage event no matter which way she looked at it. She just hoped she and her friends weren’t the ones taking the long ride home in boxes.

  She took a deep breath and aimed between the young leprechaun’s eyes. She pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened, not even a click. Her heart sputtered. She tried again and again. The gun was jammed.

  The outlaws were restless, and the young leprechaun was no longer amused by her display of bravery. Their stallions, each one as dark and fearsome as the riders, had also grown impatient. They pawed at the earth and nipped at one another.

  Alistair fidgeted with the pistols at his hips. The young leprechaun turned to Alley.

  “You half vampire under there?” the young leprechaun said with hooded eyes and a dry smile. “Take off your mask, boy. Let’s see your pretty face.”

  Alistair showed no hint of fear.

  “You don’t want to see what’s under this mask,” he said.

  The outlaws’ horses were startled by Alistair’s metal voice. They whinnied and stepped back.

  “You’re a metal freak just like she is,” the young leprechaun cried in a high keen.

  The leprechaun fumbled with the six-shooter beneath his vest but dropped it on the ground. He turned to the holster keeping his rifle strapped to his saddle.

  Before he could reach it, Alistair put a window in his skull, and two more bullets in the men on
either side of him.

  Gunpowder filled Westie’s nose and stung her eyes, the screams of the old leprechaun pulsed in her ears. Alistair put a bullet in his chest, shutting him up for good.

  One of the outlaws turned his gun on Bena. She darted around to confuse his aim, then reached for her pony’s mane and swung onto his saddleless back to get above the man. She leaped from her horse with a battle cry, her knife in her grip, two graceful ladies dancing through the air. A violent pink mist dappled her skin as she hacked through the man’s neck before he could get his shot off.

  Another of the outlaws took aim at Alistair and fired.

  The bullet hit Alistair in the face and threw him back against a tree, where he crumpled to the ground like a discarded jacket.

  “Alley!” Westie cried as she unsheathed the blade in her parasol.

  She lunged at the outlaw who’d shot Alistair, her sword high over her head, gripped in both her hands. She brought it down upon his head where he was bent on one knee, reloading. He didn’t look up until she was right in front of him. The blade cut through the air with the full force of her machine and sliced the man clean through from skull to groin. His twin halves fell apart with a sticky sound.

  Westie’s breath was erratic as she looked around at the six dead bandits lying in pools of blood and loosed bowels. She turned her desperate gaze to Alistair.

  Bena was by his side. Westie was afraid to go to him, afraid of what she would see. Bena dabbled in gore and could stomach such things, but Westie wasn’t sure if she had it in her.

  “Is he . . . ,” Westie started to say, but her voice shut off before she could get the words out.