Despite still being shrouded in the darkness, the man saw Porter, and Porter saw it. Horror! It was the Uninvited. He looked much the same, dressed in rags, greasy, gray hair that stood out wildly, the penetrating stink of death and those wicked, inhuman black eyes.
A girl with dark hair struggled on the altar, Kimama, Redbone’s daughter. Her face was black and blue from beatings, her clothes torn and ripped.
“Too long, you have kept me from what is mine.”
Porter watched the ridge, hoping to catch some sign of Quincy, but saw nothing. He didn’t see any one in support of the Uninvited either, but he still didn’t put his guard or his pistol down.
“You stole sacrifices that belonged to me. Matamoros was bringing me much blood.”
Porter stepped closer, keeping his pistol trained on the Uninvited. “I ain’t sorry to disappoint a demon.”
The Uninvited gave a smirk and stepped aside the fire to come closer. “They are coming, your friends. I can see it. I will covenant with all of your blood. You came willingly, they will come willingly. Put down your weapon.”
“Like Hell,” growled Porter. But staring into those bottomless black eyes weakened something in Porter’s resolve. Some spell, some enchantment gripped Porter, and he unwillingly lowered his weapon.
“I will feast on her, you and your friends, just like I have on all the others that fall into my domain.”
It was them that Porter realized the horror of how many bodies were strewn about the area. The cast off remains of dozens was piled into corners and crevices. Then to his revolting surprise, some of the corpses stood up.
“My children,” said the Uninvited, motioning to the half dozen shambling figures.
“So, you’re Senor Mala Cosa?” Porter asked.
“Some call me that,” said the sorcerer. “I have many names in this country.”
Porter struggled to bring his gun to bear, to spare the world from this cannibal sorcerer, but his guts failed him. He doubled over in disgust and pain, pummeling him from some unknown abysmal gulf.
“My power is greatest here in my home, where you,” Mala Cosa pointed a finger accusingly, “are the uninvited.” The horde of dark skeletal figures ambled forth in a rotten mockery of life. “My sons will feast upon your flesh and my daughters will wear your long scalp.”
Six grim figures with faces painted like death stepped closer. Younger than Mala Cosa, they each held his foul reek. Hands with fingers like claws scoured over Porter, tearing at him. He couldn’t fight back, just survive their attack.
A shot rang out. One of the son’s eyes rolled up as the bullet took the top of his skull. The others backed away staring into the darkness.
“There on the edge!” cried Mala Cosa, pointing at the ridge where Quincy lay.
Strange cries erupted from dank spider-haunted corners, and Porter could only guess that there were more of Mala Cosa’s children than had initially been revealed.
The brief distraction brought Porter’s will back. He raised his pistol and shot one of the ghouls in the chest, then another and another. The rest scattered but Quincy fired at them too and they dropped in death throes.
Then Quincy was crying out as white and black skeletal forms assaulted his position on the ridge. Porter was on his own in the canyon.
Wave after wave of leering hungry mouths came at Porter. When he ran out of ammunition, he drew his blessed Bowie knife. The horde came on with a wailing and gnashing of teeth. Porter went to town on them like he was cutting like hogs at market.
***
Quincy shot a half dozen attackers, then, as they crawled through the tumbled stone bricks of the ruin, he bashed them with his rifle like a club. Until there were no more. He quickly reloaded and gingerly looked about.
One reared up and bit at his leg, Quincy put the end of the barrel to its skull and fired. A terrible wailing ruckus echoed in the canyon so he scrambled out to see. Porter was there cutting down two dozen of the skeletal monsters. The sight of it made even a veteran like Quincy aghast.
***
More than a dozen mangled bodies were spread out before Porter and still more of the walking demons came. He bashed one aside only to have another take its place. The wave of gruesome kept coming until Port cut the wolf inside loose and brought the attack to them. A frenzied mound of death grew at his feet as the bodies piled up. He roared at them and for an instant the demons faltered.
A stone struck Porter and he reeled away. One of the last sons held a spear about to skewer Porter, when a gunshot took the death mask between the eyes and he fell backward.
Quincy, waved, then looked for any other attackers. Seeing none, he scrambled down the slope to assist Porter on the canyon floor.
Catching his breath with a reprieve from the onslaught, Porter found a spare cylinder for his Colt .45 loaded it and brought it to bear. Mala Cosa stood beside the fire, holding Kimama with an obsidian dagger to her delicate throat. While he was disturbed at what had been done to his clan, he would not give up.
Quincy came racing up with his rifle at the ready. He stared at Porter in revulsion. His friend was covered in gore. But, Porter didn’t notice, in this moment he was focused solely on Mala Cosa.
“You and your friend will leave my valley. You will forget you were ever here. You will not remember this place. You will forget. Leave!”
Quincy blinked and immediately retched. The very suggestion brought him to his knees. Sickness clenched his guts and he wasn’t sure he could breathe if he didn’t get away from this demon in human form. He scrambled back and away.
“You must obey me,” said Mala Cosa.
Taken to his knees, Porter was equally struck and the pistol faltered in his hand, drooping and pointing at the ground though his trigger finger still held the gun.
“You will end your own life!”
Shaking uncontrollably, Porter brought his gun up toward his own head. The barrel shook in his hand. Sweat poured down his face. His thumb pulled back the hammer.
“You cannot resist my power!” thundered Mala Cosa.
The girl, trapped between the mad man and his knife cried out, powerless to escape his wicked grasp. It was enough of a distraction to put a hairline fracture in the sorcerer’s sinister urge.
That tiny spark of disruption, granted the briefest respite for Porter’s resistance and he broke through the enchantment.
Porter grasped the barrel of his pistol and threw it with all the force he could muster at Mala Cosa’s face.
The sorcerer pushed the girl aside and tried to block the flying gun with his knife.
Wheeling through the air, the gun pointed death in an arc of doom. Until it connected. The obsidian blade shattered at the gun’s impact.
With Mala Cosa’s concentrated mesmerism broken, Porter was up and rejuvenated in an instant. He leapt and tackled Mala Cosa, pummeling the sorcerer before he could utter another spellbinding word.
Quincy gathered himself and took in the gruesome scene. “Let’s get outta here.”
Porter rained a few more blows on the sorcerer until the dirty man stopped moving.
“I think you’ve got him,” said Quincy.
Porter looked at his friend with eyes ablaze. Quincy stepped back in fear.
“I ain’t never had anyone get into my head like that. It ain’t happening again.”
“Did you kill him?” Quincy asked.
“No.”
“Then why don’t we just shoot him here and now?”
Porter shook his head. “No, this scum is going to atone for his crimes. We are going to find out how many lives perished at his hands. We take him alive and get answers.”
“Who us?”
“No, lawyers, judges, and newspapermen, anyone with more skills at words than I have. More people must know about this. I expect lots of folks are wanting answers about loved ones who never came home.”
They bound Mala Cosa up with the ropes that had been holding Kimama. They also tied a bandana aro
und his mouth then found a sack to cinch over his head. They dragged him out of the canyon and up the hill to make a camp. No one could stand to stay the night in that bloody canyon.
“Port, what were all those things? Men? Or demons?”
Porter shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess they could have been a bit of both.”
“I don’t want to ever talk about this night again,” Quincy said, tossing some twigs on the fire.
***
In the morning, they began back, but were surprised and overjoyed to find Roxy leading a horse with Redbone slumped over it. Emily, Chief Dan and a pair of his sons followed behind the pair.
“He couldn’t wait to come for his daughter,” Roxy said.
“We understand,” said Quincy.
Kimama ran to her father and took him in her arms. He grimaced and gently climbed down from his horse. “Thank you, my friends. Thank you.”
“What happened in there?” asked Roxy.
Quincy and Porter looked to each other with world weary eyes. Quincy answered, “We don’t want to talk about it, suffice to say, it’s over.”
Pointing at the bound and sacked Mala Cosa, Roxy asked, “Is that who I think it is? He stinks.”
Porter agreed, “Yes, he does.”
“And what happened to you? You look like you became a butcher for the evening.”
“Maybe I did.”
“We have to get you cleaned up.”
“I hear you. I’ll take care of it as best I can.”
Chief Dan rode up and said, “You have done us many favors, taking care of great evils that nested in our lands.”
“Seems like you all could have taken care of this yourselves,” said Quincy.
“Yes, but why not get a white man to do the dirty work,” he laughed.
“Too right,” laughed Quincy.
28. Affliction
Porter held his breath while he bound the old sorcerer up like he was rolling up a map. Once Porter was sure the bindings were secure, he picked the dirty man up and stuck him on top of a mule. The animal was none too happy to have the smelly man upon his back, but being old and tired, it didn’t put up too much of a fight either.
Roxy insisted they take the sack off his head, but agreed to let them keep his mouth suppressed with the bandana.
“We make our way due northwest and skirt alongside these mountains. Then we’ll get back on the Old Spanish Trail and that will take us overland back to the Elk Mountain Mission—I mean Negro Bill’s fort and from there back to Ferry-Town, Price and Salt Lake City. I’m anxious to see what Brother Brigham has to say about this wicked old scut.”
Quincy agreed, “I’ve never seen old Brother Brigham but I’ve heard tales. I’d like to see what he says to this thing.”
“Well, let’s get a move on, we still have a long way to go.”
They traversed the deserts rolling grasslands with ease this time, only occasionally having to move through a few rocky hills, until they were beside the mountains and had some shelter from the sun. They passed by various streams every now and again, making water not as much of an issue as it had been earlier that week on the lower sections of the Spanish Trail.
It was strange, but as they moved along in a train of horses, Porter began feeling sore. A lot more bodily sore than usual. Sure, he was getting older he figured, but why was this hitting him now? Especially when the trail was relatively easy, he was on a good horse and he wasn’t dehydrated.
They made good progress, but by mid-afternoon Porter found himself sitting gingerly in the saddle and falling farther behind the others. He had to ease over rocky outcroppings and make his horse slow down for each possible stirring jog on the path.
The others noticed his hesitancy and slow nature. He assured them he was all right and urged them to keep going and not wait up for him. By evening, he had fallen nearly a mile behind and when he caught up to them at the bottom of a red butte, they were already making camp.
Roxy brought him supper and gave him a warm drink. She put a cool hand to his forehead. “You feel all right, I don’t think you have a fever,” she said.
“I’m fine, just saddle sore I suppose. Maybe the last couple days have caught up to me is all.”
She gave him a disbelieving look, but went back to see to the others. Redbone was still in a terrible way himself, but he had been able to keep up on the trail. That grated at Porter, but he couldn’t push himself any harder than he was.
He glanced across the camp and saw Senor Mala Cosa staring balefires at him. Porter frowned and gave him a dirty look and the old sorcerer finally turned away. But what really got Port’s goat was the old man seemed to be smiling beneath his bandana, as if he was pleased at Port’s discomfort.
The next morning, they roused themselves and prepared for the rest of the journey. Porter thought for a moment that someone had bound him up in rawhide, his body was so sore and stiff. “What the deuce?”
It was all he could do, to just rouse himself from his bedroll. His eyes ached and his hands felt like the blood had been drawn from them. He got to his knees and flexed his hands, making fists with them and stretching them in and out and back again.
“You all right?” asked Roxy.
“I’m right as rain,” he said, barely able to stand erect. “Just make sure everyone else is getting ready, we’re burning daylight.”
“Are you sure? Did you get some kind of wound that you aren’t telling me about?”
“I don’t have a scratch on me.”
Roxy grunted, but went off to see to the others.
“You look awful pale, Mr. Rockwell,” said Emily.
“Tain’t nothing I haven’t been through before,” he said, with a smile. “I’m just feeling a little chill.” That was a lie, but he wasn’t one to complain or show any amount of weakness. Especially since old Mala Cosa was still staring at him like a jaybird. Porter was tempted to shoot that smirk of his face then and there, but, realizing the company he was with, he refrained.
They were on the trail and passing through a brilliant red land. Here and there high mesas dropped up and down and even a great arch loomed beside the trail, catching the moon within its center like a great eye.
Porter again found himself riding so gingerly in the saddle that he was far behind the rest of them. His bones ached, his hands shook and a dizzying wave of nausea rode roughshod in his stomach. He imagined miners with dying canaries, crying aloud that something was about to give. Pain throbbed at his guts and more than once he nearly lost his grip on the reins. If they had been attacked by hostiles of any kind, he wasn’t sure he would be capable of even drawing his gun.
This was a strange, maddening fear a helplessness he was altogether unfamiliar with. It was an alien realm he now rode through and the gnawing fear was that Mala Cosa was somehow behind it. But how?
It was dusk and Quincy rode up. “I was worried. Thought I’d have to pick you up and bring you back.”
All Porter could do was grunt at him. Quincy wheeled his horse about and hollered something to the others.
From what senses Porter could discern, they had found a good place with a few trees beside a swift moving brook. High red cliffs behind them gave a sense of shelter and the wind was peaceful and just the right kind of cool. But Porter didn’t feel cool, he hardly felt anything. It was sheer will and determination which kept him in the saddle at all. He nodded to Quincy who was still nearby.
“You don’t look too good. I’m going to go get you some tonic,” said Quincy.
Porter was sure now that he was knocking at death’s door. A proud man, he didn’t want to be pitied at his last moments, he didn’t want to be thought of as weak. No, he would lie down and pass in his sleep. This seemed like a nice place. He wouldn’t mind it being his last resting place. Too bad he couldn’t tell the family back home goodbye, but life was what it was. The thought came to him that the blessing he had received from Joseph so long ago was still true. He had never been shot, never been stabbed
. Of course, it would be some kind of sorcery that would finally lay him low like this. What else could it be?
He dropped from his horse and wasn’t sure how he had even remained standing. It bought him time as Roxy, Emily and Kimama, glanced at him but no one approached yet. One of them called that they would bring him supper soon, but Porter couldn’t even tell who had said it. His eyes were partially swollen shut and he couldn’t see any better than he could hear.
He dropped down beside a tree and pondered closing his eyes forever. Then he looked and saw that Mala Cosa asleep, not more than twenty paces away. He was still bound hand and foot, but the bandana had slipped from his mouth. Considering he was asleep no one else had noticed yet. The black-hearted, old man was snoring beside a tree, not far from the babbling brook. Sure now the old sorcerer was the source of his woes, Porter crawled toward the old man, thinking he would wring the life from him with his last vestiges of strength.
Inch by inch, Porter crawled, using his elbows and knees. He could barely open his hands, they were of almost no use at all. His fingers were swollen and he had trouble even making a fist. Still he thought he would become the wild savage one last time to eradicate this paragon of evil.
Mala Cosa was laying on his back, asleep. His coarse, stringy hair splayed out about him like the branches of a dead tree. The deep wrinkles about his face held dirt and grime. While Porter’s other senses were failing him, unfortunately, scent was not one of those. The old wizards reek was something to behold. He smelled of death and carnage, mayhem and brimstone, offal and rot. A more despicable person, Porter could not imagine.
Still, as Porter crawled forth at him, the old man turned in his sleep, revealing a piece of leather string from a hidden pocket beneath his poncho.
Thinking that it might be Mala Cosa’s medicine pouch, Porter grabbed it. Near as he could tell, it felt like it had small hard things inside maybe pebbles or even teeth, and most disturbing of all, a few long black hairs peeked from the top where it was cinched shut. Porter was positive they were his very own hairs that the sorcerer had collected to work some kind of devilish black magic upon him. He flung it as far away from himself as he could manage. It landed in the babbling brook.
CRAZY HORSES: A Porter Rockwell Adventure (Dark Trails Saga Book 2) Page 12