The Romance of Certain Old Bones

by Holly Messinger

  Boz took out his tobacco pouch and rolled a neat coffin-nail, while Stanley nicked Jacob’s palm and added his blood to the cup. Then he poured in a generous measure of whiskey and swirled it around. He took the cigarette from Boz, held it into the match flame Jacob produced, and inhaled like a thirty-year veteran. He tilted his head back, eyes half-closed.

  A curious stillness gathered around the boy—a sense of void, like the ringing of the ears after a gunshot. Jacob glanced at Boz, wondering if he felt it too, and found Boz was looking back at him, his face drawn in solemn consideration. This ritual might’ve started at a joke but it felt suddenly weighty.

  Stanley leaned forward and breathed tobacco smoke over the whiskey and blood in the cup. “This isn’t Sacred Tobacco,” he said, holding out the cigarette to Boz, “but it’ll do for this. The power is in the vow you make between you. If you both believe in it and trust each other, then no one else can come between you.”

  Boz took the cigarette and drew a lungful. “I trust you,” he said flatly, holding out the fag to Jacob. “I wouldn’t still be here if I didn’t.”

  “And I trust you cause you’re still here.” Jacob took his own drag on the smoke, feeling the familiar welcome tingle in his throat and lungs, the almost-instant feeling of his senses becoming brighter, his skin tighter and more alive. It was not unlike the prickle of his curse, in which case it was no wonder the Indians saw tobacco as sacred. He wondered if there was some truth to Stanley’s assertion that Boz’s skepticism made him immune to the curse. He allowed himself to hope.

  Stanley took the cigarette back and blew smoke over their hands and faces. Finally he handed over the cup. Boz drank his share with a cough and a wince, and passed it to Jacob, who drained it.

  For a minute he thought his eyes would melt out of his head. The stuff was as raw as turpentine. Boz and Stanley laughed at his expression and the somber mood was broken, while the liquor spread through Jacob’s belly and chest like a warm hug.

  “Now we just need warrior names,” he gasped, when he could speak again. “Mine can be Shit-for-Luck.”

  “Wouldn’t that be Shit-for-Brains?” Boz said, grinning. He offered his bleeding left hand and Jacob seized it with his own, smearing their palms together like a couple of young boys reveling in the nastiness of bodily functions.

  “Trace,” Boz said abruptly. “You’ll be Trace. Cause I ain’t callin you Darlin or Buttercup or nothin like that.”

  “That’s Darlin Buttercup to you,” Jacob retorted, but inside he felt lighter than he had in a long, long time. Happy, almost.

  Then there was a loud whack! against the side of the tent that made them all jump. A hair-raising shriek rose outside the canvas wall, and then footsteps pounded away into the dark.

  Jacob found he was crouching slightly, spine and scalp tingling from fright. Boz and Stanley looked back at him, big-eyed with alarm.

  Other whoops echoed from across the butte, followed by shrill laughter that tightened Jacob’s already fiddlestring nerves, before falling away into silence.

  Without a word Boz leaned over and blew out the lamp.

  “Stanley, get your kit together,” Jacob whispered. “We ain’t stayin here.”

  The words were barely out of his mouth when there was another assault to the outside of the tent, hands beating rapidly along its length, producing a sound like thunder. As the rumble died away, there were more war-whoops and cat-calls through the dark.

  Jacob heard the distinct fleshy sound of Bosley’s pistol leaving its holster, the hammer ratcheting back.

  “Stanley,” he said softly, “is there another way off this butte besides the trail?”

  “Ye-s,” the boy said, his voice shaking. “But it’s tight and steep. Bad going in the dark.”

  “Take Boz,” Jacob ordered. “You two get out of here.”

  “Where’re you goin?” Boz hissed.

  “I gotta get Hope.”

  “Bullshit! They ain’t gonna hurt him. For all you know he’s behind it—”

  “He’s not and they might,” Jacob said, but before he could argue further there was a crash and a crack, and the ridge-pole of the tent dropped sharply at the back. Jacob felt the space close up, the abrupt weight of canvas falling around their shoulders, and heard Stanley’s yelp of pain. He reached out and grabbed for the boy, caught hold of his shirt with one hand and drew his own Colt with the other. He fired one quick shot through the open front flap of the tent, heard shouts of surprise and feet pounding away, before he walked out into the starlight, dragging Stanley with him.

  Boz fought his way clear behind them, both guns in hand, turning immediately to sweep their rear flank. “Move, goddammit!” he hissed. “Get our backs against somethin solid.”

  Jacob moved, legs raking through the trampled long grass, the Colt pointed forward but close to his chest. Stanley stumbled along at his heels, one hand clutching Jacob’s gunbelt. Jacob heard more of that weird laughter rippling across the prairie, but the wind broke it up, carried it away, buffeting his chest like an undertow pushing him from shore. He was aware of figures circling in the darkness, looming at the edge of vision before suddenly darting past to lash his face and arms with something light but stinging, like long braids of grass. He checked the impulse to shoot, knowing they were taunting, trying to draw his fire.

  “Hope!” he called, as they drew close to the professor’s tent. The man’s lamp was still lit, and he could see Hope huddled motionless within, a fool in silhouette. “Hope, get your ass out here!”

  A moment of frozen shock, long enough for Jacob to wonder if the man was dead already, and then Hope breached the flaps of his tent, bristling with indignation. “Really, Mr. Tracy, I don’t think there’s any call for that kind of— aah!”

  Hope’s words cut off in surprise and pain, as a dark shape darted between him and the tent. Hope grabbed for his buttock, his left leg buckling almost comically, and as the professor started to go down Ebury wheeled in his attack, one arm arcing out with the razor in his hand—

  Boz shot him. Ebury staggered, grabbed for his shoulder with a short breathless scream, doubled over and dropped the blade. Hope toppled sideways into Jacob’s arms. Boz was there in a heartbeat, and they dragged the professor away from his feral student as Ebury whipped around, eyes widening in sudden awareness as the others appeared in the half-circle of lamplight.

  “No—” he whimpered, but they didn’t even hesitate. They closed on him, flailing, pounding, snarling, tearing. Ebury’s shriek was primal, agonized. Hope bleated in horror, Jacob felt Stanley’s yank on his belt, and he and Boz hoisted the professor under the armpits and made for the trail. Jacob was grateful for the wind, then, that it blotted out the sounds behind them. With Stanley in the lead they slid and skidded down the trail from the butte, stumbling along the rough wash-out floors in the dark, raking knuckles, knees, and elbows against the craggy walls. Hope kept falling into Jacob from behind; once the professor fell and Boz tripped over him, cursing fluently.

  Jacob had to turn back and untangle them while Stanley stood atop the next rise, an elfin shadow against the sandstone, beckoning impatiently.

  “Up here,” the boy said, and they hoisted Hope up and shoved him head-first through the keyhole opening where Stanley had gone. They heard a scuffle and thud from within, and then Boz went up and over, and then Jacob.

  The space proved to be another of those hollowed-out caves, this one relatively smooth on the bottom and long enough for them all to lie down in. Hope lay groaning and complaining and whining until Boz told him to shut the hell up or he’d shut him up. Jacob heard Stanley moving around in the pitch-black; the cave’s opening was so narrow and crooked not even starlight could get through. There was the scrape of wood on rock, and then the sounds of swallowing, before a canteen was pressed into Jacob’s hands.

  “Good boy,” Jacob whispered. He drank and passed it on.

  Then they all lay in the dark and listened to the wind, the whoops and yelp
s bouncing off the canyon walls, and the eventual screams and gunshots in the distance. After a while he felt Stanley move up closer against his side, shivering a little, and remembered that despite the boy’s knowledge and fortitude he was only fifteen, and almost as alone in the world as Jacob himself. And then after another while he felt Boz’s hand knock against his and clasp it hard, and he could not have said if his blood-brother was offering comfort or seeking it.

  Either way, he was grateful.

  15

  “Trace,” Boz said quietly in the gray dawn, and Jacob breached shallow sleep to the warm dry bowl of their hidey-hole and the stillness of the prairie. The wind and the lunacy had died down in the night. Hope snored gently on his left. Stanley was gone.

  “We all right?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

  “All quiet now. Those Hidatsa scouts from March’s camp are up here talkin to Stanley. He said to wake you.”

  “All right.” Jacob dragged himself up, staggering a little, and scuffled up the narrow foot-holds to climb out of the keyhole. He made it out and down without breaking his head. There was an unusual heavy damp in the air and the deep canyons were cool.

  Stanley and the Hidatsa boys were crouched a few yards away, in a wide spot next to one of those fossilized beaver-burrows in the wall. They ceased speaking as Jacob came near. Stanley motioned him to sit and he hunkered down as they were. Not cross-legged; this would be a short meeting.

  A book lay on the ground in their midst. Stanley waved a hand over it, and Jacob drew it toward himself; at the boy’s nod he opened the cover. Several pages came up with it, making the binding fall open to an engraving so obscene that Jacob recoiled and slammed the book closed again.

  “Mother,” he said, shaken, and looked at all their somber faces, questioning.

  “You asked me to find the murder weapon,” Stanley said, and pointed at the book. “Charlie Blackwater found that, in the hole where Carruthers and Ryan hid it. Together with the medicine-bundles they made of the others’ stolen things. Charlie saw Carruthers and Ryan meet there many times, near Red Beard’s camp, until the night Ryan killed Carruthers.”

  “What were they tryin to do?”

  “I don’t know. That’s white man’s medicine.” Stanley hesitated. “And I don’t read Latin.”

  Jacob sneaked another peek inside the book, avoiding the illustrations. The text had been written by many hands, in many different inks, and not all of it was Latin. Jacob had heard rumors of such magical books but never seen one. God only knew where Ryan had got this one.

  “He killed Carruthers the night he cut his finger off,” Jacob said. It felt very strange to be voicing these suspicions out loud. “That was the first night I dreamed of the bulukse’e. That was the night the water-monster took Ryan, because Ryan let it eat his heart. He gave Carruthers to the mosasaur as a sacrifice.”

  One of the Hidatsa said something to Stanley, who nodded. “He says you’re smarter than you look,” the latter reported, and the other Indian boys smirked.

  Jacob took the compliment, but he was too tired and frightened to smile much. “So what about the others? Can they be saved?”

  “Every man follows his heart,” Stanley said. “Most white men are like dogs—they bare their throats to the strongest and follow his footsteps.”

  Jacob couldn’t argue with that. “But their hearts aren’t their own anymore. Those medicine bundles—they’re called poppets. White man’s magic. Witches use them to make a man do what the witch wants.”

  “But it’s not just what Ryan wants anymore,” Stanley said. “It’s what the bulukse’e wants.”

  Jacob did not have to ask what the mosasaur wanted. Just thinking about it put the taste of blood in his mouth.

  “They kill two men, in Red Beard camp,” Charlie Blackwater said haltingly, and the other two Hidatsa nodded, looking scared. “Red Beard is fool—” His lip curled in scorn as he pantomimed scattering with both hands. “Men run. Like rabbits. Slow rabbits they catch, kill.” He made an evocative ripping gesture.

  “You were wise to get away,” Jacob said, meeting the eyes of the boy on his right, whom he judged to be no more than fourteen. They were all younger than he had supposed when he’d first seen them, all painted up. Charlie Blackwater was maybe eighteen, but all four of them were too young to be alone in the world and working for blow-hards like March and Hope.

  Charlie Blackwater stood up and the others followed suit. After a moment’s hesitation, Jacob picked up the book and stood as well. The Hidatsa boys shouldered packs, and Charlie spoke a few words to Stanley.

  Stanley looked at Jacob. “They say we can go with them. They will take us north, to their tribe’s lands, or at least as far out of here as you want to go.”

  “Thanks but no,” Jacob said to Charlie. “I gotta get those boys safe, if I can.”

  Charlie nodded, once. “Good-luck.”

  “You too,” Jacob said. “Be careful.”

  The three Hidatsa boys turned and made their way down the canyon, single file and without looking back. Jacob looked down at Stanley, but before he could say anything there was a scuff of boots on stone, and they turned to see Boz had joined them.

  “What’s that?” Boz jerked his chin at the book.

  “Ryan’s lesson-book in black magic, evidently,” Jacob said.

  “Huh. About that… I think I know what got into our boys last night.” Boz held out a palm, in which lay a dried seed-pod, brown and prickly all over like a hedgehog. One end of it had split open, to reveal a multitude of shiny black seeds.

  Jacob recognized it, of course. Any cow-hand worth his salt knew to watch out for loco-weed and root it out of grazing land, but he hadn’t noticed any growing around here. “Where’d you get that?”

  “Found it stuck to the cuff of Hope’s pants. He said Ryan had a stash of them, that he used it to help his sleepwalking fits. Thing is, it don’t just make horses crazy when they eat it. Medicine men use it to get visions. And when I was in with the Tenth we heard of the Cheyenne smokin loco-weed before a battle, to put ‘em in a frenzy.”

  Jacob glanced at Stanley, who was undoubtedly drawing in breath to say it didn’t work that way, but when he caught Jacob’s slight head-shake he exhaled without saying anything. Jacob was well familiar with the weed’s dream-inducing properties—he’d smoked it himself, several years ago when he’d still been seeking out shamans and Spiritualist quacks in hopes one of them could help him get a rein on his curse. The stuff had given him nightmares worse than any of his visions, not to mention the shakes and dry-heaves and a whanging headache. And he had seen men get combative under its effects, though their scuffles had been panicky and defensive, not the focused, pack-hunting savagery of the Yalies.

  But there was no point in telling Boz any of that. Everyone had his own understanding of how the world worked, and trying to force a different truth down someone’s throat would only inspire distrust, if not outright contempt. Boz understood Ryan had done something to the boys to make them dangerous; that was enough.

  So Jacob said, “Let’s hope it’s wore off by now. They can tear each other to pieces if they want, but I ain’t leavin without my horse. None of us are gettin out of here without provisions and a mount.”

  Boz nodded. “I ventured up the trail aways. It’s pretty quiet up there.”

  “Professor fit to walk?”

  “He’s fine. Whinin and carryin on like a calf with a new brand, but he’ll live.”

  Hope was indeed limping and grimacing over his wound. The slice across his right buttock wasn’t deep, but it had bled a good bit and Jacob could bet it stung. He was lucky Ebury hadn’t cut through any tendons and permanently lamed him.

  The night’s terrors seemed to have wrung some of the hubris out of him. He made no protest when Jacob told him they were going back for their horses and supplies. “I suppose it would be best to be away from here before they come back,” Hope said.

  “They who comes back?” Jacob said
.

  “It was the Sioux who attacked us, was it not?” Hope looked from Jacob to Boz. “I didn’t get a good look but I heard them whooping…”

  “Sure,” Boz said, ignoring Stanley’s grunt of disgust. “They was Sioux. And we gotta get packed up and out of here ’fore nightfall.”

  “And the specimens,” Hope insisted. “We must have the specimens.”

  “We’ll see,” Jacob said.

  16

  Jacob figured he was prepared for any horror upon their climb back to the dig site. He half-expected to find the Yalies lounging about with flesh in their teeth, or else all of them dead with each other’s mangled limbs clutched in their hands.

  He didn’t quite know what to make of them all working quietly, white-faced and sickly in the gray morning.

  They were building crates, packing the excavated fossils in dried prairie grass and sawdust. They worked like ants, intense and efficient without words exchanged, seeming not to notice Jacob and the others approaching until Clark straightened from settling a specimen in its bed and saw them.

  “Professor!” he said, startled, and the others looked up from their chore, red-eyed and wary. “Mr. Tracy…”

  “You’re all right,” Matheson said, after a pause in which they all stared at each other. “We were worried the Sioux had got you, too.”

  “I am relieved to find you all whole and hearty,” Hope replied, stiffly. “We heard the attack last night. Mr. Tracy got me to safety but I feared for the rest of you. Was no one lost?”

  Matheson swallowed. “They got Ebury,” he said, to slow nods and dodgy glances. “Hacked him to pieces, the dirty bastards.”

  They were not really lying, Jacob realized, to his fascinated horror. They didn’t actually believe that Indians had killed their friend, but he guessed that scenario was preferable to their own hazy memories. “Where’d you bury him?”