Of Grave Concern (18 page)

Katie Bender placed the point of the knife beneath my right ear.

“Beg,” she taunted. “I want to hear you beg until your words are just bloody bubbles oozing from your neck.”

“
Bon Dieu
and all my ancestors,” I mumbled, recalling the first prayer that Tanté Marie had taught me. “Give me breath to vanquish those who torment me.”

Then I blew in her face.

There was the crack of a rifle from across the creek and something hit Katie Bender like a hammer. She was knocked off her feet and the bone-handled knife spun from her fingers and skittered on the gravel.

She sat up slowly.

Her black silk robe was parted, revealing an ugly hole between her breasts, with blood and gore spilling from it.

“This can be fixed,” she said weakly.

Then the whackers, smelling the blood, began clustering around. They were on all fours, sniffing and snarling.

“Malleus!” she called. “There is little time.”

Then the first whacker lunged, and I could not tell if it was in the form of a man or a wolf, but I could see bright teeth tearing at her throat. Then the others were on her, and one of them that was still a man snatched up the bone-handled knife and began slashing with it.

Katie Bender's screams died amid a geyser of blood.

I looked away.

33

Vanderslice released my arms and backed away from the horror.

“Stop right there!” Calder shouted.

Calder was wading from the creek onto the gravel bar. The big rifle was held at waist level in both of his hands. The unlit cigar was still jammed in the corner of his mouth.

Vanderslice pulled his six-shooter and turned.

“Drop the iron,” Calder said. “You're under arrest for murder.”

“Jack Calder,” the whiskey trader sneered. “Always the vigilante, aren't you?”

“I aim to take you back to stand trial,” Calder said. “But I'd settle for putting a five-hundred-grain bullet down your throat. What'll it be?”

Vanderslice let the pistol fall.

“Get down,” Calder ordered, pulling his own big revolver while placing the rifle on the gravel. “On your knees. Turn around. Do it, damn you.”

Vanderslice fell to his knees, and Calder kicked him between the shoulders, sending him stomach-first on the gravel. He aimed the revolver at the back of Vanderslice's head.

“Maybe I ought to settle things here,” Calder said. “Save the Ford County taxpayers the cost of a trial. How do you feel about a slug in the back of your head? That's a lot kinder than what you did to that poor Russian girl.”

Vanderslice's eyes were wide with fear.

“No, Jack!” I shouted.

“Why not? He would have killed you. You know what he is.”

“I know,” I said. “The question is, what are we?”

“Damn it,” Calder said, and pulled a pair of iron handcuffs from his pocket.

“Put these on him,” he said, tossing me the cuffs. “Just clamp them to his wrists and make sure they lock. Make 'em real tight.”

In a moment, I had the whiskey trader's hands locked behind his back.

The frenzied whackers were still working on Katie Bender.

“What the hell is that?” Calder asked me.

“You got the hell part right,” I said.

“Are they men or something else?”

“Something else,” I said. “These, you should kill.”

Calder raised the revolver and emptied it into the pack, sending dead wolves flying. The rest backed away, snarling, while Calder reloaded his revolver from cartridges in his shirt pocket. There wasn't much left on the ground of Katie Bender—parts of one hand and a foot, some chunks of meat and splintered bones.

Crows called raucously from a tree on top of the bluff.

Calder again emptied the revolver at the pack. Again he reloaded. Two of his rounds had missed their mark and pierced the barrels behind. Whiskey ran on the ground toward the steps.

A whacker came around and tried to get at us from the creek side, but Calder turned and put a bullet in the wild man's chest. He fell back, and by the time he reached the water, he was a dead wolf.

“Where's the demon?” Calder asked.

“Here,” Malleus said. He was standing at the top of the steps, the ancient pistol upraised in his right hand. “Your next question is whether this
amateur
has recovered her aura. I'm sorry to disappoint, but it is still safe in my collection.”

“Hand it over,” Calder said.

His pistol was leveled at Malleus.

“No.”

Calder fired.

Malleus shrugged.

Calder fired twice more. The bullets passed through the creature and pierced the barrels behind him. More whiskey gurgled to the ground.

“This is a forty-four-caliber Russian,” Calder said. “It should have killed him.”

“Told you,” I said.

“Guns have no effect on me,” Malleus said. “But I can certainly make use of them. Observe.”

He whistled and called the last of the whackers. The wild man slunk over, low to the ground, his head down in submission. Malleus urged him to stand. When he did, the demon fired the pistol at him.

The whacker's chest exploded with a flash that looked like lightning and sounded like thunder.

Pieces of dead wolf littered the gravel.

Smoke curled from the barrel of the antique pistol. The crows were flitting overhead, made bold by the smell of carrion.

“Impressive, isn't it?” Malleus asked, sloshing powder from a flask into the muzzle of the pistol. Then he reached into his bag and came out with a fistful of auras.

“Let's see which of the bright ones we have here,” he said.

He opened his palm, revealing six auras of varying sizes and colors. They glittered like jewels in his palm. The largest was violet and yellow and blue, swirling in harmony.

“That's mine,” I cried.

“Give it to her,” Calder said.

“This one?” he asked. He tossed the other auras on the gravel and held mine between his pale thumb and forefinger, lifting his hand to the sun. “It is my favorite. Oh, look how it shines!”

Then a black bird wheeled and dove and plucked the aura from his fingers.

“Pahghh!”
Malleus cried. “The raven!”

It was Eddie.

Malleus raised the pistol and fired impotently. He had not yet loaded an aura into it. He dropped the gun and ran, with surprising speed, to where the woman and child were cowering near the wagon.

He snatched the child from the woman's arms and made a waddling run for the steps.

“Come after me,” he said, “and I'll kill the child—then I'll eat his soul.”

The woman dropped to her knees and began to wail.

Then Malleus ran down the steps.

Calder reloaded. Then he picked up Vanderslice's pistol and put it in his belt.

“Jack, what are you doing?”

“Going after him.”

“But the boy,” I said.

“What about the little bastard?” Calder asked. “
Comanchitos
grow up to be warriors, and warriors kill innocent women and children. Best to stop them now, before they get the chance.”

“He's just a boy.”

The mother was crying even louder, on her knees, begging for her son.

“We should kill the mother, too. She could produce more young.”

“Jack, they didn't kill Sarah and Johnnie. They didn't kill your family. You're blinded by hate. It's Malleus, Jack. He's making you act this way. He feeds off misery, and he's using your grief against you.”

“They should die,” he said.

“Remember how you love justice, Jack?” I asked. “Do you remember how the whiskey trader put the body of the dead girl on the meridian marker to show his contempt for justice? His contempt for
you
?”

Calder rubbed his eyes. “These aren't the Indians that killed Sarah and Johnnie?”

“No, Jack. Fight the hate.”

“All right,” he said. “I'm all right now.”

“You're sure?”

He nodded. “What now?” Calder asked. “How do you kill a demon?”

“Don't know,” I said. “But I'd better figure it out soon, because I'm going back down there. Lead doesn't work, so we have to try something else—after we get the boy out.”

“You can't.”

“I must,” I said.

“Okay, then,” he said. “Let's go.”

We walked down the steps, following the trail of whiskey that had leaked from the barrels. It had pooled at the bottom, and rivulets were spreading across the stone floor.

Malleus was on his throne, the frightened boy on his lap.

I stopped twenty feet away, on the near side of the fire pit, and placed a hand on Calder's forearm.

“No closer,” I said. “Don't get near the demon's hands.”

“Enough!” Malleus said. “I am nothing if not a businessman, and it is time to strike a bargain. I'll let the boy go in exchange for you, Ophelia Wylde.”

“Not on your life,” Calder said.

A finger of whiskey inched across the floor toward the throne. Malleus made an ugly sound and moved away, dragging the boy with him. His yellow eyes kept glancing down at the whiskey.

“Bothered by something?” I asked.

“You for the boy,” Malleus said. “Quick, quick!”

He was sidling around toward us.

I stepped across one of the rivulets of whiskey and pulled Calder across with me. Malleus stopped.

“What are you afraid of?” I asked.

“Trade!” he said, and squeezed the boy until he cried out in pain.

I knelt down, dipped my fingers in the growing puddle, and smelled it.

“Whoa,” I said. “It's not like the bourbon my father drank, but it must be at least eighty proof. Is that what you're afraid of, the alcohol?”

Malleus said nothing.

“Give us the boy,” I said.

I stepped forward, following the streams of whiskey.

Malleus backed away.

There was a puddle of whiskey in the depression near the fire pit, and I knelt and cupped some in my right hand. Then I stood and flung the stuff at Malleus. He cried out, his hands going up to protect his face. Drops of whiskey sizzled and burned where they landed on his skin.

“Run!” I cried, but the boy was already in motion.

Malleus ran after him, but the boy jumped over a wet patch in the floor and landed in Calder's arms. Malleus stopped on the other side of the whiskey like he'd hit a stone wall.

I flung more whiskey at Malleus while Calder ran up the steps with the boy. Then I got a double handful from the puddle and flung it at him.

Then I ran as well.

“No,” Malleus called. “Mercy! I will grant you anything. . . .”

At the top, the boy was already in his mother's arms. Calder was rolling a barrel over, and as soon as I was clear, he kicked it down the steps. We could hear it bound and skip down and then crash open on the floor. Then the flood of whiskey must have hit the fire pit, because there was a
whoosh
followed by a great blue flash and waves of heat.

“More,” I said.

We both wrestled barrels over and let them roll down the steps.

“Please,” Malleus cried. “The world is yours for the asking!”

Now the Indian woman and the boy were helping to roll barrels over and letting them tumble down the steps, adding to the conflagration. Flames belched up from the steps and twisted toward the sky.

Malleus began to beg in Enigma.

“What language is that?” Calder asked.

“Nobody alive knows,” I said.

Now Malleus was screaming in Enigma.

Three more barrels and we had used up all the whiskey, except for the full bottles, which the woman and the child were tossing into the flames. Then there was a furious popping, like firecrackers going off, and there shot from the flames rays of glittering color: red and brown and green and blue. The colors rocketed over our heads and shot into the sky.

“Was that him?” Calder asked.

“The auras,” I said. “They'll find their owners . . . eventually.”

“What about the ones he dropped?”

We found the five others on the gravel and threw them down the steps into the blaze. We watched as they shot over our heads in streaks of red and orange and yellow.

Then the earth trembled and Calder pulled me back. There was a great cracking sound and the bluff face collapsed, sealing inside whatever was left of Malleus.

The dust from the collapse rolled toward us, like a fog.

I stood a moment, shaking.

Then Eddie flapped down, wheeled around us once, and landed on the seat of the wagon. He still had my aura in his beak. I walked over to him and he jumped up on my shoulder. I held out my right hand and he dropped the aura in my palm.

I stared at the swirling colors.

“That's you?” Calder asked.

“That's me,” I said.

Then the aura began to shine even more brilliantly—and melted into my palm. It coursed down my arm and into my chest, where it made a tight, warm glow beneath my heart.

34

Calder dug a grave and buried what was left of Castor Adams, but he left the remains of Katie Bender for the crows. We found my Arabian and Calder's bay and hitched them to the wagon. We put Vanderslice in the back of the buckboard, his hands still cuffed, and asked his Comanche wife and child if they wanted to return with us to Dodge City. The woman shook her head, took the child by the hand, and began walking down the creek to the west.

“Where are they going?” I asked.

“I don't know,” Calder said. “But anywhere has to be better than here.”

Three days later, we crossed the wooden toll bridge over the Arkansas River and drove up Bridge Street. Calder pulled the buckboard to a stop in front of the city offices, where Tom the Jailer was sitting outside, his chair tipped back and his red-flecked boots propped on a rain barrel. He was drinking coffee from an enameled tin cup.

“What do you have there?” Tom called.

“The murderer Vanderslice,” Calder said. “We arrested him on a federal warrant for peddling whiskey in the territory, but I expect that Judge Grout will want him held for the murder of the girl found on the meridian marker.”

“Thunder,” Tom said, pitching the coffee and rising from the chair. “You must have caught him not far out of town. Give him to me. I've got just the place for him.”

Vanderslice had gone insane in the middle of No Man's Land. He was babbling about demons and wolves as Tom helped him down from the rear of the wagon. Then he began to describe how the weremen had eaten up Katie Bender after Calder shot her.

“What's he talking about?” Tom asked.

“Damned if I know,” Calder said.

“What day is today?” I asked.

“Monday,” Tom said.

“We've been gone a whole week,” I said.

“What do you mean?” Tom asked. “You were here yesterday morning, when Doc McCarty ordered the Russian girl dug up from Boot Hill. I loaned you some clothes, remember?”

Calder and I exchanged puzzled looks.

“It's the twenty-first, right?” Calder asked.

“You're a week off.” Tom laughed. “Today's the fourteenth.”

Calder turned to me.

“But how is that possible?” he asked.

“You two are sure acting strange,” Tom said. “Are you sure you didn't catch some crazy from the whiskey trader?”

“It seems like a whole week has passed,” I said. “That's what Jack means.”

“All righty,” Tom said, shaking his head.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Well, the westbound train has just pulled into the depot,” Tom said. “That means it must be a quarter to nine, give or take.”

“The hearing,” Calder said. “Let's hope the train is early.”

“Where can I find a dress?” I asked.

I bought a dress—a white dress—at Rath's mercantile, and ducked in the back of the store to pull it on. When I emerged, and Calder expressed his approval, I told him not to get used to it. While I rushed to the courthouse, Calder went to find Doc McCarty and tell him about the capture of Vanderslice.

In the courtroom, I found Potete already at the defense table. On the other side, Sutton was talking in low tones with a white-haired gentleman.

Judge Grout was on the bench, with his pocket watch out.

“I'm glad you could join us, Miss Wylde,” Grout said, snapping the watch shut. “It is now eight fifty-nine. You had exactly one minute to spare.”

“I apologize, Your Honor.”

I took my seat next to Potete.

Calder took a bench in the back.

Then Grout told Sutton to get on with it.

“A moment, Your Honor,” Sutton said, and turned back to the white-haired man. The man was looking over at me, and he and Sutton exchanged some furious whispers.

“I told you to get on with it,” Grout said. “I won't ask again.”

Sutton nodded and then made a show of straightening the papers on his side of the desk. Next he cleared his throat and announced that the state was dropping the charges.

“What?” Grout asked.

“The state is dropping the complaint,” Sutton said, then coughed. “We move for dismissal.”

“Why?” Grout demanded.

“Insufficient evidence,” Sutton said.

“All right, drop the lawyering,” Grout said, shaking the handle of the gavel at Sutton. “Just tell me straight what is going on here. Who's that gentleman with you?”

“Your Honor, I'm Colonel Alexander York,” the man said, standing, and he suddenly seemed imposing. Even though he had white hair, he wasn't that old—forty or forty-five, perhaps. “I'm a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and a former state senator from Independence. I was summoned here by an urgent telegram from the county attorney to identify the fugitive murderess, Katie Bender.”

Sutton was looking down at the desk.

“You are in a position to do so?” Grout asked.

“I met the woman in 1874 while searching for my late brother, Dr. William York, who disappeared on the Osage Trail—may he rest in peace.”

“Go on.”

“This woman is
not
Kate Bender.”

Grout crossed his arms.

“But you have to admit,” Sutton said, “that she bears a striking resemblance.”

“I'll admit to nothing of the sort,” Colonel York said. “I would recognize the murderess who killed my brother—her image is burned into my brain. If this woman is Kate Bender . . . why, I'm the queen of England!”

“What do you have to say for yourself, Coun- *selor?” Grout asked.

“I apologize,” Sutton said. “It was an honest mistake.”

“You'll do more than apologize to Colonel York and Miss Wylde,” Grout said. “You'll make sure that all their expenses are covered, and from your own pocket. I don't want this fiasco to cost the citizens of Ford County one thin dime. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“This case is dismissed—with extreme prejudice.”

Grout banged his gavel so hard I thought it would break.

“So that's it,” I said. “I'm free.”

Potete leaned over to whisper in my ear. “There is just one more thing,” he said.

I told him I couldn't imagine what it would be.

“Armbruster,” he said. “He's waiting for you.”