"Reckon we need torches?" Brower asked.
"We should have brought them with us if we did," Anderson said.
"And risked awakening the whole camp, as well as announcin' our presence for every step between here and there?" Lightman asked.
"Let's see if the light of the moon reaches inside," Carter suggested. He touched his pendant once. Did he really believe
*
that thing would protect him? Lightman wondered. He suspected not-Carter seemed to have no real fear of death, or no good reason to live, which could amount to the same thing. He was always volunteering for dangerous missions, always first into battle. Luck had been with him so far, though. He was still here. He stepped into the cave's mouth. "You men comin'?"
"Right with you," Anderson said. He drew his Colt from its holster. The other three carried rifles, Brower and Carter Winchesters, Lightman a Henry Repeating Rifle he'd had for years.
The mouth of the cave was wide, and the moonlight did shine inside. Lightman almost wished it didn't. It illuminated weird markings on the walls of the cave-paintings of beasts the likes of which he'd never seen: creatures with many heads, with skittering spidery legs, with dozens of mouths biting and snapping, with so many eyeballs they grew atop one another.
Above the paintings, so high a human hand couldn't reach, there were odd parallel striations in the cave wall, as if huge claws had, over time, worn grooves in the solid rock.
The back of the cave couldn't be seen, though. The moonlight only reached so far, and behind that was impenetrable blackness. The far wall could be right there, or the cave could reach under the mountain for another mile.
Lightman believed the cave continued, though, for the closer he walked toward moonlight's sharp silver edge, the more he became aware of a pungent odor. It reminded him of his family's home, a farm back in Pennsylvania. They'd raised sheep and goats on the rocky hillsides, and once in a while slaughtered them for meat. One especially cold winter, they'd slaughtered a couple of animals, but the weather had been too cold to thoroughly wash down the slaughtering pen—water had frozen as soon as it was splashed on the hard ground. When spring came and thawed the farm, the stench of blood and rotting goat that had been under the ice brought tears to his eyes. He'd had to go in with cloths wrapped around his nose and mouth, and clean the sticky pen with boiling water, lime, and a scrub brush. Working at fifteen minute stretches, it had taken hours, and he'd been sick several times during the process.
This smell was like that. Sweet and sour and ripe and earthy all at the same time. He felt his gorge rise.
"I think maybe this ain't such a good idea," he said. "I don't see no gold."
"Hold on." The voice was Carter's, though Lightman couldn't see him. "Anybody got matches?"
"I have a couple," Anderson said. "Don't waste them."
"I think I got somethin'," Carter said. "Bring me a match."
Lightman saw them both then, as Anderson struck a wooden match and it flared to bright life. Carter had found something—a stack of metal boxes, strongboxes such as a bank would use to transport money in.
The legend was true.
The match went out and the cave seemed darker than ever, after the matchlight.
"Another one," Carter said. "Let me get one open."
Anderson lit a match and Carter went to work hammering on the box with the butt of his Merwin and Hulbert. Lightman knew the revolver—it had carved ivory grips. He figured Carter had a real case of gold fever if he was willing to risk chipping those.
The match went out.
"One more, dammit!" Carter shouted. "I got it open!"
Anderson struck another match. "This is my last one," he said. "And I was wanting a cigar on the ride back."
"Damn your cigars," Carter said. He held a brick up into the circle of light from Anderson's match. "This here's gold."
And it was. Lightman could see it from here. He felt himself being drawn to it. Carter held a brick of solid gold, and there were more in the box and there were more boxes, at least a dozen of them, besides that, and one brick alone would be enough to put his ma and pa into a new house, a decent one in town, and get them away from that hardscrabble farm with the rocky hills and cold winters. And a whole box of it, no three boxes because there were four of them-
The match went out, blown out this time by a sudden breeze, and the smell was back but stronger.
And there was a sound.
A scraping sound, high in the shadows, echoing in the cave's inner depths.
The shadows moved.
"Let's go!" Lightman called. He stepped back out of the darkness into the ring of moonlight. But it was too late to run.
He could see it now, a great beast, as black as the shadows or else formed from them. But there was a liquid glint in its eyes that caught the faint light, and even through the blackness he could see the shifting of its muscles as it stalked forward into the chamber on four hooves like some kind of demonic steer, and he could see now what had made those parallel grooves on the rock wall of the cave.
Horns, two sets of them, wider across than a man is tall.
Bringing its head full into the light, it opened its mouth. Black inside there, too, except for double rows of teeth, sharp as blades.
Brower was the first to move.
"Die, you son of a bitch!" he shouted, aiming his Winchester at the thing's head. He emptied it. The bullets flew toward the creature, should have hit it, and if they hadn't they should have slammed into the cave walls beyond. But they simply disappeared, as if the thing absorbed them. It kept coming.
Brower cursed and hurled the Winchester. The beast ducked its head, swatting the weapon away with one of its big horns.
Brower drew his Navy Colt and fired. The other men joined in, and four guns blasted at the guardian.
It didn't seem to notice. Lowering its head, it exhaled a whiff of fetid air and swung its horns toward Brower. The higher one caught him in the throat, the lower gored his midsection. Blood, black in the moonlight, bubbled out of him and ran down the beast's horns. Whipping its head, it tossed Brower against the cave wall. He struck with a limp, wet sound.
Lightman and Carter were still shooting. But the bullets had no effect, and Lightman noticed that Anderson was no longer firing with them.
Then he saw why. Anderson was dragging a strongbox toward the cave's entrance. Anderson's eyes met his.
"Grab a handle," Anderson said. "Let's get out of this with something to show!"
Lightman turned away, fired two more shots at the creature. Then his weapons were empty.
He turned to see Anderson almost at the mouth of the cave, and Carter still standing by the strongboxes. The guardian seemed torn, like it wanted to get to Carter but didn't know how.
The cat's eye?
Movement out of the corner of his eye attracted Lightman's attention. Anderson was on the move again, back into the cave instead of away from it. In the sudden quiet his footfalls were loud. He went back to the strongboxes and tugged another one off the pile. He began to drag it, faster than he'd moved the first time. He passed Lightman and was almost to the entrance.
"Help me, damn you!" he said.
Lightman opened his mouth to reply but he didn't get a chance. Sidestepping around Carter and Lightman, the beast swung its huge head, and a horn-tip protruded from Anderson's belly The other horn ripped his ear off as it whistled past his head.
Now it was between them and the mouth of the cave.
Lightman took two steps away from it and grabbed Carter by the arm.
"Come on, Carter," he said. "Let's go!"
Carter ignored him, standing there as if immobilized. By fear or what, Lightman didn't know. He only knew that Carter wasn't budging and the beast would be coming for him next.
He snatched up the cat's eye, yanking hard enough to snap the thin chain that held it around Carter's neck.
"Hey!" Carter yelled, as if suddenly free of his paralysis. "What are you-"
The guardian gave out another cry. It fell to its front knees, hind hooves scrabbling for purchase. Then those legs gave out, and the whole thing sank back into the shadows.
"Best hand of cards you ever played," Lightman said. "Let's light a shuck outta here."
Carter followed him this time. On the way out, they had to step over the first strongbox Anderson had taken to the mouth.
"Let's bring it," Carter said. "What the Hell, that thing's dead anyway."
"I don't know," Lightman said.
"Don't be a damn fool," Carter said. "Might as well bring somethin' home with us."
"All right," Lightman said. He grabbed one of the box's handles while Carter took the other. They hauled the box down the slope as fast as they could to the riverbank.
The horses were gone.
"Smell of that thing must've spooked 'em," Lightman said. Carter held up a hand and they stood in silence for a moment.
"They're long gone," he said. "Appears we're walkin' back. You got a good grip?"
"We're bringin' the box?" "Course we are," Carter said. "We lost two men and four horses. We show up empty-handed, they're as like to string us up as let us back in. We bring this box back, we'll be welcomed like heroes."
The weight wasn't too bad, Lightman thought, as long as there were two of them carrying it.
They struck out for camp.
"That important to you, Carter?" Lightman asked after a spell.
"What?"
"Bein' a hero."
"Makes you say that?"
"Seems you's always tryin' to be a hero, one way or another."
"Reckon I just don't think about the danger," Carter said. "Not much point in bein' ascared all the time."
"Sometimes seems you don't care whether you live or die," Lightman said. The box was getting heavier. They'd walked about a mile now, which left a little more than two miles to go.
His arm was hurting, and he was sweating despite the night's chill. But he reckoned they could make two more miles, easy.
"That ain't exactly true," Carter said. "I had my druthers, I'd pick livin'. But Hell, cain't live frozen stiff with fear somethin' might happen to you."
"You were pretty frozen in that cave."
Carter adjusted his grip. "Damn, my hand's gettin' sore," he said. "And I weren't frozen. I was tryin' to stand still. People movin' was what was drawin' that thing's attention."
"Didn't look like that. Looked like you was too scared to move a muscle."
"Looks can fool you, Avery. Them others held still, they'd most likely still be alive."
"You don't think it was your cat's eye?"
With his free hand, Carter touched his chest where the cat's eye had hung. "Could'a been."
"You'd thought of throwin' it at that thing sooner, we might all be alive."
"It was my cat's eye. Why should I throw it away? I didn't know it'd kill the thing in the first place."
"I didn't either, but you gotta figger there's some reason it's afraid of such a little trinket."
"Weren't a trinket," Carter said. "And I don't 'predate losin' it."
"I'm just sayin'," Lightman said, "seems like you could've saved everyone. Maybe you hadn't opened that box inside the cave, the thing wouldn't even have woke up."
"And mebbe we'd be walkin' back to camp carrying a strongbox full of lead."
"Wouldn't be walkin', our horses hadn't'a been spooked."
Carter dropped his end of the box. It banged against the side of Lightman's leg. He set his end down, rubbed his leg. When he looked up, Carter was holding a knife.
"Whyn't you make this whole thing my fault?" he said.
"Seems to me it is," Lightman answered. "Your idea to go in the first place. Your idea to light matches and hammer on that lock. Your idea to open the box. There was a curse on it, that'd be enough to wake up whatever's guardin' it."
"Then I guess you don't want none of this gold."
"I been carryin' it, haven't I?"
"And you can keep right on carryin' it. But since you're so disturbed about the whole thing, I reckon when we get to camp you don't get any."
"Listen, Carter," Lightman said. "You put that sticker away."
"Not till I'm sure I don't need it."
"Why you think you'd need it?"
"Mebbe 'cause you're standin' there accusin' me of gettin' two troopers killed."
"Ain't no other way to see it." Lightman said. "Come on, let's keep goin'."
Carter bent as if to pick up his end of the box, but when Lightman did the same, Carter thrust at him with the knife. Lightman dodged, twisting on his sore leg. He fell down in the dust.
Carter came at him again, knife still clutched in his fist. Lightman scrambled to his feet, tugging at his belt for his bayonet.
"Carter," he said.
But Carter didn't answer. He circled around Lightman, making abbreviated thrusts at him. Lightman freed his bayonet and filled his fist with it.
"This is stupid, Carter."
"Could be," Carter agreed. "But I ain't goin' back to camp with someone goin' to say I got my friends killed."
"Just remember," Lightman said. "You dealt the hand."
He waited until the next time Carter thrust, and then instead of backing away, he dove inside Carter's reach. With his left hand he caught Carter's wrist. He thrust with the bayonet, but Carter caught his fist with his own left. Standoff.
Until Lightman lowered his head and rammed it into Carter's mouth. The other man rocked back a step, spat blood and teeth. While he was reeling, Lightman moved in, the bayonet flashing white in the moonlight right before it tore through Carter's tunic, buried itself between his ribs.
Lightman twisted it once, felt it scrape bone, pulled it out.
Blood splashed his hand. Carter's mouth opened and closed, blood trickling from the corners. He fell.
Alone, the box was much heavier.
Lightman reckoned he had about a mile to go. He could make that. He held the box up against his chest, using his belt buckle to help bear the weight.
After half a mile he had to dump some of the gold.
Lighter by a third, he figured he could carry it the rest of the way.
Another quarter mile, he emptied more out.
Still, he thought, half a box. Make me rich enough to share some with the other boys in the troop and still be a wealthy man.
He had images of a fine house in New York. Servants. His ma and pa living there with him. He'd find himself a nice wife.
With these thoughts in his head, he finally stumbled into the camp.
Set the box down.
Something wasn't right.
A familiar smell filled the air.
Blood. Lots of it.
In the first light of dawn, he walked from tent to tent. Looked inside each one.
They were dead, all of them. Torn to pieces. Lightman backed out of a tent, nearly tripped on something, kicked it away. It rolled five feet before he realized it was Captain Lawrence's head.
Everywhere he looked body parts littered the camp. In the sun's first rays he could see sprays of blood on the sides of tents. A pair of boots stood at the opening to one tent, but when he got up close he could see that there were still feet and ankles inside them. He glanced at the corral, but it was just as bad. Every horse was dead, torn apart, flesh shredded.
What had done this?
Whatever it was, it seemed to be gone.
Didn't mean it mightn't come back.
Lightman returned to where he'd left the strongbox.
Someone was sitting in the dirt, leaning his back against it. Sergeant Holder.
Holder was a big, ruddy-faced man with a deep chest and b
road shoulders. He was the strongest man in the troop and the best fighter. Lightman had always respected him.
Holder was covered in blood, and even from twenty feet away, in uncertain light, Lightman could see a dozen wounds that would be fatal for anyone else.
Holder opened one eye—the other was gone, gored out—and looked at him.
"Was hoping you'd come back," Holder said. He coughed blood.
"Sergeant," Lightman said. "What the Hell happened here?"
"Don't know what you'd call 'em," Holder said with another cough. "Big, hairy bastards. Teeth and claws and like that -bloodthirsty, they was."
"I can see that." "Best I can figger," Holder went on, "they come into camp when most everyone was sleeping. Ripping troopers apart in their bedrolls. Eating their innards like some kinda treat."
"No alarm was raised?" *
"After a few seconds people started hearing the screams and waking up," Holder said. "We started shooting, and scared some of them off. But it was too late. Too many of us was already dead, and they just kept coming and coming until we all was. Ever' last motherless one of us."
"God," Lightman said.
"See, way I reckon, we might could've had a chance, we was warned before they already killed half the troop in their sleep. But the sentry wasn't on duty, so there was no alarm until it was too late."
"I see," Lightman said. And of course, he was the sentry. The Army had always taken care of him, and he'd let it down when it mattered.
"Figgered you would." Holder raised his fist to his mouth, coughed again.
"What's in the box?" he asked.
"Gold," Lightman said. "You and me, Holder, we can be rich men."
"Too late for me," Holder said. He raised a pistol, pointed it at Lightman. "I'm a dead man. Just made myself live long enough to see if you'd come back."
"You fixin' to kill me too?" Lightman asked.
"Nope," Holder said. "You missed it. You get to live knowing your whole troop's dead on account of you being gone from your post. I just don't aim to make it easy on you."
"What's that mean?" Lightman started to back away. He could keep out of range, find a gun that still had some bullets in it, finish Holder off-
Holder fired. Lightman felt the ball burn into his left arm.
A Fist Full O' Dead Guys Page 17