“Are these the bad men Desimonde was after?” Matilda asked me, gazing at them with pity from the saddle.
“They are on their way to being bad men,” I answered, taking one of the rifles off the grass. “Perhaps this will set them on a better path.”
I didn’t care one bit if the brothers heard me talking to “no one.”
“They look cold there on the ground,” she said.
I wanted to ignore her, but could not bring myself to do it, so I went over to the pile of saddles and pulled two blankets out. Then I laid a blanket over each of the brothers, avoiding their grateful eyes.
Matilda smiled at me as I climbed back on Pony.
“Snug as two bugs in a rug,” she said sweetly.
It took us no time at all to reach the same bend around which Sheriff Chalfont and Deputy Beautyman had disappeared earlier. There was about twenty feet of embankment between the cliff wall and the creek. Large round rocks, slick with wet moss, covered every inch. Down here, the creek looked so much bigger than it had from above. Wilder, like a raging river. It was not deep, but swift, and the waves slapped loudly, almost like the sound of a million hands clapping together.
“Mittenwool,” I called out.
He stopped, not more than ten feet in front of us, and turned.
“Can you cross over to the other side of the creek and signal me when I’m nearing the cave?” I asked.
Mittenwool looked across the creek, which the brothers had shown us was only waist-high at its deepest, and shook his head. “I’d rather stay with you, if that’s all right.”
His eyes got shiny. And suddenly it occurred to me that he was afraid of the water. It seemed impossible that I had never known that about him before.
“Of course,” I said, trying not to show how puzzling I found this.
Was it reasonable for a ghost to be afraid of water? It wasn’t as if he could drown, after all. But then I thought, Maybe he can. We don’t know the rules. Either way, it is enough to have died once. That much was evident from the look on Mittenwool’s face, the quiver of his chin.
“I’m sorry, Silas,” he said meekly, afraid of disappointing me.
“Silly billy,” I replied gently, and for the first time in our lives together, I felt like I was the older of us.
“I can go across!” said Matilda cheerfully. “I like the water.” And just like that, she jumped off Pony, ran into the creek, and dove into the current. I lost sight of her immediately.
We walked on for about another quarter of a mile. I had some sense of where we were from having seen it earlier from above. It was hard to believe that it was only this morning that I had been up there with Marshal Farmer, peering down over the edge of the chasm, my knees wobbly. From down here, there was no sign of the trees and shrubs up there. All I could see was the sharp steep walls rising into the sky. They had looked yellow, like clay. But now they were bright purple, the color of dusk. And everywhere above me, the whole sky, was lavender.
Somewhere far away, the sun was setting. Its light was reflected in the glistening overhangs at the top of the cliffs, sparkling like orange jewels. But the sunset itself seemed to belong to another world right now, one far beyond my reach. Here, there was no west or east or north or south. There wasn’t even up or down. There was only the winding of the creek. Forward and backward. And the looming walls that kept out that other world, the one with cardinal points and towns and oceans. I thought of Scylla and Charybdis, and how Ulysses—
“You should leave Pony here,” Mittenwool whispered. “It wouldn’t be good if he whinnied or made any noise….”
I blinked hard, snapped out of my musings.
“And you’ve got to concentrate, Silas!” he admonished. “There’s no time for daydreaming right now. You have to be wide awake and alert.”
I nodded. He was right, of course. It was like he had splashed cold water on me.
Silas, awake now!
I dismounted and hitched Pony to a large rock on the creek bed. I was afraid that he might try to follow me, but he seemed to understand that he was to stay put. Really, if I could find the words to explain how sure I was that this creature could read my thoughts, I would! But I can’t.
Nor can I explain why I had brought him down to the creek with me. I really hadn’t needed to. All I can think is that somewhere inside me, from that place as ancient as these rock walls, I knew Pony would have a part to play in the events that were about to unfold.
5
IT WAS NOW FULL-ON DUSK. The air felt thick, the shadows had taken on the dark blue cast of night, and the edges of everything blurred into one another. There is something that happens at this time of day, those minutes between light and night, that has always seemed dreamlike to me. It is the hour of redcaps and powries, Pa used to say, demon elves and goblin kings. And this is how it seemed to me now, like I was watching myself walking from somewhere far above, a knight-errant on a quest. I was not me, but he.
Here I was, doing it again! Letting my mind travel. I don’t know why my thoughts kept wandering! Mittenwool was right. I needed to concentrate. Banish the whirling thoughts.
Mittenwool elbowed me.
“I’m awake!” I replied.
“Shh!”
He pointed to where, on the near side of the sharp bend of the creek just ahead of us, lay the first of the decoys that Sheriff Chalfont and Deputy Beautyman had placed. It was leaning on its elbows over the top of a large rock, a long stick in its arms that looked like a rifle pointed at the cave. Just ahead of it was the second decoy, similarly deployed. They were quite effective, I must admit. I had thought it a silly plan before, but they looked like sharpshooters from where I stood, which was a good sixty feet closer to them than the cave was.
I could tell from the direction the decoys were pointing their “rifles” that the mouth of the cave was not too far ahead. I remembered how the walls here looked like billowing curtains, and the cave was tucked deep inside where two large folds converged.
I slowed down and hugged the wall as I rounded the first bend. Once on the other side of it, I could see the two lawmen clearly, walking about a hundred feet ahead. They were ambling side by side, their feet splashing in the water, making no attempt to be quiet or secretive in their approach to the cave. Their heads were down and they were feigning easy discourse with each other, laughing amiably, trying to look like the Morton brothers. Draped over their shoulders were the dead rabbits. In their hands, casually held, were their rifles. In the indigo air of twilight, they looked just like the twins coming back from the hunt. The ruse was working!
Ahead of them, about thirty feet, was the entrance to the cave. It was a little bigger than I remembered it looking from across the chasm. Two burly men were sitting by the entrance, smoking, their legs hanging off the sides. These were the Plugs, I imagined. They took little notice of the lawmen as they approached, even when Deputy Beautyman (who was a brazen man, for sure!) had the audacity to wave to them. Neither of the Plugs became suspicious.
The lawmen were just a dozen feet away from the cave now, and I could hear one of the Plugs say to them from the ledge, “It’s about time you came back!”
And then Sheriff Chalfont, without looking up, said, “We’ll toss you the rabbits so we can climb up easier.” He even pitched his voice higher, to sound like the brothers.
The Plugs lowered their rifles to prepare to catch the rabbits, but at that moment, a man with a blanket over his shoulders came out of the cave. He hollered down at them, “Just climb up the ladder, you white-livered sapheads!”
I recognized the voice immediately. It was Rufe Jones. And I think the moment I recognized him was the exact same moment he recognized that the lawmen were not the brothers. Quicker than my mind could absorb, the lawmen snapped their rifles upward and shot at the Plugs
from below. The crack of gunfire echoed in the chasm, and one of the Plugs tumbled headfirst down the side of the cliff onto the creek bed. The other stumbled back, hit but not dead. Rufe Jones dropped to the floor and crawled back into the cave.
From inside the cave could be heard a great commotion, and I saw the two lawmen scramble for cover against the wall. Deputy Beautyman sprinted across the narrow beach to the bend on the other side of the cave.
The wind had picked up, and there was a sudden chill in the air.
“Listen up!” Sheriff Chalfont shouted to the men in the cave. “Roscoe Ollerenshaw! We have you surrounded! Come out with your hands in the air!”
He had not even finished his sentence when several rifle shots ricocheted near him and he snapped back against the wall. Deputy Beautyman returned fire from the bend he was hiding behind.
“It’s no use, you’re surrounded!” yelled Sheriff Chalfont.
As he shouted this, he shot a couple of rounds at the cliff wall across the creek, in the direction of the decoys. The sound ricocheted through the ravine, and the men in the cave instantly started shooting at the decoys. This gave the lawmen cover to fire into the cave, which was good, of course, but I could see clearly from my vantage point that they were too close and too low to get off a good shot inside. They could only hit the roof of the cave near the entrance. The Plug must have realized this, too, because he got down on his stomach and started crawling toward the front ledge of the cave. Neither of the lawmen could see him, but I could, since I was far enough away.
“Rufe Jones! We know who you are!” Sheriff Chalfont called out, reloading his rifle. “We’re after Ollerenshaw, not you! So drop your gun and come out, and you’ll be given—”
The Plug had reached the edge and shot his gun from under the lip of the cave floor. Sheriff Chalfont once again snapped back against the wall, but not fast enough this time. I could tell from the grunt he made that he had taken a hit. Deputy Beautyman leapt in front of the cave now and took out the Plug with one well-placed shot.
“Desi?” he shouted, jumping back against the wall.
“I’m fine, just grazed my arm!” Sheriff Chalfont called back.
By now, there was barely any light left in the sky, and the sound of distant thunder could be heard. The wind was at our backs, swooping in and howling. A storm was coming in fast.
“Ollerenshaw!” Sheriff Chalfont yelled, stepping away from the wall, rifle shouldered, arm bleeding from the forearm. “Another man down! Just one to go. The jig is up, you see! Come out and let’s end this!”
“The jig is not up!” replied a deep voice from inside the cave, which must have been Ollerenshaw. “Not by a long shot.”
Just then, I noticed Matilda across the creek, waving her arms at me wildly, and I followed her line of vision to the top of the wall above the cave entrance, where I spotted a man with bright blue fingers pointing his rifle at the sheriff below.
“Sheriff, above you!” I screamed. He looked up just as a flash of lightning lit the sky and everything beneath it went to pieces.
NINE
That was the river,
this is the sea!
—The Waterboys This Is the Sea
1
I DON’T REMEMBER FIRING my rifle, but the shot came from the rifle I was holding. The man who was about to kill Sheriff Chalfont jerked forward and went flat on the ground just as the thunderclap that followed the lightning broke, and the recoil from the rifle hurled me backward into the creek. I rolled farther than I thought I would into the water, for the wind had whipped the current into rapids, and I could not for the life of me grab hold of anything to keep myself from being carried away. What I remember most of my sloshing and sliding under the water is feeling like I was being pulled down by a giant sea monster, and wondering if I had just killed the blue-fingered man. I prayed to Mama, Let me not have killed him! for I didn’t want that to be my last action on this earth. I also prayed to her that she come meet me on the other side, if it was to be my time, for I sorely missed her. I was thinking all these things at once when a fierce hand gripped the top of my head and pulled me out by my hair like a fish on a line. Gunshots were ringing in the air as I gulped my first breath, though it felt like my lungs had been crushed. It was Deputy Beautyman who had pulled me out, his left hand latched on my head while his right hand kept shooting his rifle. He hurled me to safety against the cliff wall just as the top part of his left ear was blown off by a bullet.
Deputy Beautyman stumbled backward, covering his bleeding ear with his left hand, but continued shooting with his right. The rain only added to the chaos, for it was coming down in buckets now, and it had become night almost in the blink of an eye. It was too dark to see anything except when lightning flashed and lit the air with explosions of luminous yellow.
There was a brief reprieve of gunfire as Deputy Beautyman sprang back against the wall to reload. With another explosion of light, I saw that Sheriff Chalfont was looking at us from the other side of the cave. The deputy gave him the all-clear sign as he finished reloading. Then another flash of illumination revealed the sheriff slowly inching his way to a spot under the entrance of the cave. This part of the embankment was almost all gone now, as the creek had swollen so quickly from the rain that the water lapped directly against sections of the cliff wall.
It was clear that we were at a standstill. We were too close to the cave itself, the angle of our shots too steep, to be able to shoot inside the cave. Nor could they get a clear shot at us. It was simple geometry.
Deputy Beautyman slid down onto his haunches to reload both his rifles.
“Thank you for saving me,” I said, having coughed up all the water that I had swallowed.
“Not now, Runt.”
I nodded, and leaned against the wall next to him. His ear was bleeding all over his neck and shoulders.
“Want me to try to bandage your—”
“Shut up.”
I imagine he felt bad then, because without looking at me, he said, “That was a good shot. You saved Desi’s life.”
“I hope I didn’t kill the man.”
“Well, I hope you did!” he spat. “But I don’t think you did, if it’s any consolation. That’s him firing at us right now.”
“I think it’s Rufe Jones.”
“It’s both of them,” he corrected, handing me one of his rifles. “Which is why, if anyone comes down here, you have to shoot them, you hear me? None of this Gosh, I hope I didn’t kill anyone nonsense. This isn’t a game, Runt. No magical ponies are going to come rescue us, you got that?”
“Yes.”
“Roscoe Ollerenshaw!” Sheriff Chalfont shouted, his voice booming over the rainstorm like a thunderclap. “Come on out. Give yourself up. There’s nowhere for you to go, as you must know. All we have to do is wait you out. You’re going to run out of food and water eventually. Might as well just give up now, save us all the trouble.”
“Save us all?” came the reply. “There are only three of you, by my count. Those are decoys across the creek. You think I’m an idiot?”
“Yes, we do!” Deputy Beautyman taunted gleefully.
“More of my men are coming any minute now!” bellowed Ollerenshaw. “They’ll make mincemeat out of you!”
“Do you mean the two baby boys we got roped up on the creek?” the sheriff replied. “Or are you talking about the blue-fingered man up there on the cliff, who’s probably bleeding to death as I speak?”
“I have a proposition for you!” shouted Ollerenshaw.
“If it’s about trying to bribe us, don’t bother!” answered the sheriff.
“Hear me out! There’s enough money at stake to make you and your friends out there rich beyond your wildest dreams,” said Ollerenshaw.
“If I cared that much about money,” answered the sheriff, “I’d be di
gging for gold out in California.”
The deputy nudged me. “We actually did go digging for gold once.”
“What I’m talking about is gold!” answered Ollerenshaw. “Not counterfeit bills, either. But real gold! Twenty thousand dollars’ worth! Hidden away somewhere. The man I have with me here is none other than Mac Boat, and he said he’s going to tell me where it is!”
My heart froze.
2
A LONG SILENCE FOLLOWED. The sheriff glanced over at me, maybe because he was thinking about what to say next. The rainstorm that had flooded our senses had suddenly quieted, if only for a while, and the silence gave us all the opportunity to think our thoughts through. The sky had cleared. Things sparkled in the moonlight.
“I’m not sure how to tell you this,” the sheriff answered matter-of-factly, “but that’s not Mac Boat you got there! I’ll tell you what, though. You let that man go, and I’ll make sure the judge hears about it. You might even get a couple of years lopped off for cooperating with us. Rufe Jones, you listening? That goes for you, too!” As he talked, he signaled something to Deputy Beautyman, walked his fingers in the air.
“You stay here, Runt,” Deputy Beautyman whispered to me, pushing his finger into my forehead to keep me back against the wall. “Don’t move from this spot.”
Then, pressing himself as flat as he could against the rock face, cheek squished against the stone, he started scaling the rock face. I thought about how afraid he’d been on the cliff earlier, and how brave he was being now to clamber up like that.
“So you’re telling me you’re not interested in twenty thousand dollars in gold!” Ollerenshaw screamed from inside the cave.
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