Red Moon (4 page)

He walked back to the roan, took down a coiled rope and moved forward in the darkness, catching another glimpse of the animal in the next flash of lightning. When he reached the horse, he heard its iron-rimmed hoof take a wary step away from him, closer to the raging water below the ledge behind it.

“Easy, boy, you don't want to go that way,” he whispered soothingly, moving forward slow and steady, not stopping to ask the horse's permission.

By the time the horse took another step away, the Ranger had his wet gloved hand flat on its neck, a loop uncoiled and ready to slip over its head. The big horse was calm enough. But the animal wasn't taking up with him, and Sam knew this was no place to argue the matter. He lowered the loop away from the horse; the horse tossed his head away from his hand. Sam watched him shuffle off through the pouring rain. A few feet away, the big animal stopped and looked back from the mouth of the ledge Long had told him ran around the length of the deep, narrow hill canyon. The horse blew a nose full of steam, turned and walked out of sight.

“All right, you lead,” Sam said, unheard in the pouring rain. He followed the horse onto the ledge and walked out twenty feet, judging the width of the ledge against that of the stagecoach, seeing the edge, seeing the rain flicker silver, falling out of sight into the black raging water below.

Turning from the edge, he saw not one but two dark steaming horses in the next flicker of light. Then he saw a third as he turned and walked closer.

“Well, now, look at you,” he said, low, evenly as he let out three coils from the wet rope and stepped forward slowly. “I'm betting all three of you would like to get out of here . . . get back with your pards?” Lightning flashed. He stopped and stood in the pouring rain, rope in hand. The horses gathered and start walking to him.

“That's what I thought,” he said quietly as the rain turned sidelong on a rising gust of wind.

By the time the Ranger led the three coach horses around the mouth of the ledge onto the trail, the wind had come back howling and strong. Gray lashing sheets of rain blew the tails of the Ranger's slicker sideways along with the horses' manes and tails as man and animals struggled toward the stagecoach, where the other two team horses and the roan stood in the howling darkness, their heads ducked low.

Hearing the sound of the horses' hooves clomping toward them beneath the howl of wind and the rip of rain across the coach roof, Dawson pulled the window canvas back an inch with his hand and squinted into the squalling storm.

“I'll be dipped in duck fat,” he said, seeing the black forms of the Ranger and horses against the gray sheets of rain.

“What's wrong?” Jenny Lynn asked from the other seat, the sleeping drummer's head on her lap.

“Nothing at all's wrong, little lady,” said Dawson with a beard-shrouded grin. “Ranger Burrack has gone and found our horses for us!”

“You must be crazy,” said Long, leaping over to the window beside him. The two stared out through the turbulence for a second. Then they looked at each other. “No, you're right, Maynard!” he corrected quickly.

“Dang right I'm right,” said Dawson, pulling his wet hat down tight and hugging his collar up around his cheeks.

“I've got to . . . get up from here,” the sleeping drummer said through blue swollen lips. “Papers need signing. . . .”

“No, you don't, Mr. Weir,” said the young dove. She pressed him back down as his arms flailed aimlessly. “You stay right there and go back to sleep.” She leaned down close to his battered face and spoke sternly. “Do you understand me, mister?”

“I do . . . now,” said the groggy man. “Wake me in St. Louis. . . .”

“He's babbling like an idiot,” said Dawson, the two wet coachmen looking down at the purple swollen face in the woman's lap. They both shook their heads in sympathy.

“Come on, pard, we've got a job of work to do,” Dawson said finally. He threw open the door and splashed down into the mud to help Sam with the horses. Long noticed the concerned look in the young woman's eyes.

“Don't you worry, ma'am,” he said. “With our horses back, we'll lie low till first light and get on up out of here.”

“But—but will we be all right, I mean, up here on the hillside?” the woman asked. “What if the trail washes out from under us?”

“We're better off up here, for now, ma'am,” said Long, tugging his wet hat down tight around his head. “Lower lands are already flooded out down there. “No, we'll be all right here.” He gave her a smile that looked strained as he backed out of the coach in a crouch, splashed down into the mud and forced the door shut behind him.

“The hell is . . . he talking about?” the battered drummer asked in a half-conscious voice. He swung his head back and forth on the young dove's lap.

“Shhh, easy, Mr. Weir, don't worry about that,” Jenny Lynn said soothingly.

“Who—who am I . . . ?” he asked, his words trailing as they left his poorly performing lips.

“You are Mr. Tunis Weir,” Jenny Lynn said evenly, distinctly, as if teaching a slow student. “Remember . . . ?” She pressed a hand on his chest. “It's important you remember as much as you can—your name, who you are, where you're from.”

“I am Tunis Weir . . . ,” the drummer recited groggily. “I am Tunis Weir, from . . .” He stopped, a blank expression on his face, his mental capacity failing him.

Jesus. . . .

Jenny Lynn bit her lower lip and held back a tear. Patiently she took a deep breath and started all over.

“Illinois, Mr. Weir,” she said. “You are Tunis Weir from Chicago, Illinois. You sell hardware supplies across the Western frontier.”

“And we . . . know each other, then?” he asked.

“No. I read a letter from inside your coat pocket,” Jenny Lynn replied.

“Oh yes, I do . . . I remember now,” the drummer said, his recall coming back at her prompting. He managed to pat a bruised hand on his lapel pocket. “I'm a
hardware drummer.
” He tried to open his swollen eyes a little wider. “And you are a dove?” He tried to form a smile, but his swollen lips wouldn't allow it.

“Yes, I am a dove,” Jenny Lynn said acceptingly.

“Then we could . . . ?” His words trailed again, but his hand tried to reach her bosom.

“Please don't, Mr. Weir,” she said, pressing his hand down away from her. “This is no time to be fooling around. My only concern this night is to get you back on your feet. We're on a bad spot here.” She scooted around beneath him and tugged upward on his shoulders. “Since you are coming around some, maybe it's best you sit up on your own for a while—clear your head a little?”

“I—I believe you're right, Jenny Lynn,” he said, sitting up with her help and slumping against the back of the seat. “I certainly took a bad beating, didn't I?” He let out a long sigh.

“Yes, you did, Mr. Weir,” the woman said. “I'm glad you're starting to remember that much, at least.”

“Things will come back to me,” the drummer said, closing his swollen eyes.

“I know they will sooner or later,” the woman said, straightening her dress on her lap where he'd been resting his head.

•   •   •

Outside in the wind-whipped rain, the Ranger and the two coachmen began hitching the three horses back into their places. Sam unhitched the roan and led it aside so he could rehitch it in the front spot. From there he could sit atop it and lead the coach forward around the mouth of the ledge. Along the ledge he'd find a place close up against the rocky wall that would provide some shelter from the hard brunt of the storm.

In a lingering flash of lightning, Sam stared into the two coachmen's wet dripping faces as they hitched the fifth horse into position.

“Ready for your roan, Ranger,” Long shouted through the wind and rain. Thunder crashed loud and hard up above them in the flooded ravine. The earth shook hard beneath their feet.

“Holy cats!” Long shouted with a start. “That one had some muscle and claws in it!”

Sam stood still, listening intently beyond the roar of wind, rain and rushing water. Even in the raging storm, the horses grew skittish at the feel of the earth trembling violently.

“Easy, now, easy,” Dawson said, settling the animals. To Sam, he shouted, “How'd you manage to find these boys anyway?”

“I didn't find them,” Sam shouted in reply. “They found me.”

“Still, you must've done something right,” Dawson said as the Ranger pulled the reluctant roan over into place.

“Just lucky,” Sam said, listening in the direction of the last hard slam of thunder. The sound seemed to be holding on, still grumbling far up the ravine atop the raging runoff water.

“If it's luck, I hope you don't run out of it,” Long shouted.

“Here's hoping,” Sam replied, still listening, not liking the sound of whatever was going on up in the ravine.

With the roan in place, the two coachmen started to turn and trot back to the coach. Sam had stepped up in the stirrups and started to swing his leg over the roan's wet saddle when he heard the rumble he'd been listening to grow louder, deeper. As he stopped and stood in the stirrups, another hard crash caused the earth to shake violently beneath them. But this time there was no thunder, only the hard slam of earth against earth, followed by the same terrible sound resounding far up the ravine.

“Hold it!” Sam shouted, stepping down from the frightened roan's side.

The two coachmen had heard and felt the same thing. They froze in place.

“What in God's name is that?” said Long, almost to himself.

No sooner had he spoken than the three heard a terrifying ripping and breaking of trees and rock barreling toward them down the ravine ledge. As they stared into the black darkness, twenty feet away they saw the black rocky edge of their trail rip away and fall crashing into the raging flooded ravine.

“Holy
God
!” shouted Dawson, he and Long staggering to keep from falling, seeing even in the rain and darkness the trail width lessen by a full five feet as if carved away by some large unseen saber. “The trail's washed out on us! The whole cut's collapsing!”

Seeing quickly that the trail had suddenly become too narrow to turn the coach, Sam shouted, “Get the people out! We've got to make a run for it!” Even as he spoke, he stooped and jerked a long knife from his boot well. With no time to unhitch the spooked and rearing horses, he sliced wildly, freeing them from every tether he could find. As the team of horses reared and stepped in place in spite of their fear, the roan tried to turn and bolt away. But Sam held its reins tight.

Looking back toward the coach through the blowing rain, Sam saw the coach door fly open and the man and woman spill out into the mud just as the two coachmen made it to them.

“Hurry!” he shouted back at them as the two coachmen helped Weir and Jenny onto their feet. “Get a horse, get yourselves out of here, fast!”

Even as Sam spoke, another hard cracking sound ran along the crumbling edge of the trail. Two more feet of trail dropped thunderously out of sight. The roan whinnied and reared as the woman came running, the two coachmen right beside her supporting the drummer between them. Sam held the roan by its reins as he shoved the woman up onto one of the coach horses. Sam reached for the drummer as the coachmen approached.

“Get out of here yourself, Ranger!” shouted Dawson, he and Long shoving the man up over a coach horse's back. Dawson turned the big horse and slapped it soundly. Water splashed on its rump. As soon as the man took off right behind the woman, Dawson turned to the Ranger and shouted, “Long and I are gone, Ranger! Don't worry about us! Get out of here!”

Sam saw the two of them jump atop two coach horses and turn them quickly. As they rode away through the blowing rain, Sam slapped the fifth coach horse on its rump and sent it running along behind them. Farther up the ravine, another loud ripping of wood and crack of rock resounded. A hard surge of roiling black water splashed high in a powerful spray above the ravine cut.

“Let's go, horse,” he said to the roan, jerking its head down sharply enough to get control and jump up into the wet saddle. The roan spun two full circles before Sam got it focused and straightened and racing away alongside the high slapping spray of water rising above the edge of the washed-out trail. Twenty yards along he heard the hard wrenching sound of earth tearing away from the hillside.

Looking back over his shoulder, even in the gray rain-whipped darkness, Sam saw a wide swath of trail fall away from beneath the stagecoach. As the coach fell out of sight, he saw the ledge trail crumbling, falling away, the jagged edge drawing closer behind him and the roan. In the black, angry darkness ahead of him, he heard the terrified whinny of one of the coach horses and the long, deep-toned scream of one of the men. Yet he saw a trace of neither as the roan raced along ahead of the crumbling trail that appeared determined to consume them.

As wind and rain seemed to stop and collect itself for another hard round, beneath the Ranger the roan suddenly made a terrified and enraged sound like none he'd ever heard. He felt the horse attempt to stop by backpedaling, sliding, lowering onto its rear shanks, its rear hooves still pumping and kicking against the broiling floodwater replacing the crumbling land behind it.

To their front, rear and right, the trail was gone except for the few yards breaking away beneath the roan's wildly flailing hooves. The Ranger saw the only way to go. In desperation he jerked the roan's reins hard, putting the animal onto the rising rocky hillside to their left. The animal whinnied in fear and rage, but followed the Ranger's demands.

Sam slapped his reins back and forth on the horse's withers; he pounded his boots to its side, goading it upward, the horse belly-crawling, digging, Sam feeling the rock ground at his boot toes. The horse bawled loudly but kept climbing, inch by inch, up the steep wet hillside, the floodwater raging, licking at them from behind.

As the horse turned quarterwise onto its side, Sam saw his chance to roll free of the saddle onto his feet and keep climbing forward beside the animal, pulling on its reins until the horse righted itself on its belly and half rose on its hooves.

“That's it, get up, climb! Climb!” the Ranger shouted, seeing the roan begin to make headway on the hillside. Yet no sooner had the horse started to gain its footing than the water and dirt at its hooves fell away. Sam felt one rein break in his hand, the other slide from his grasp. He saw terror in the roan's eyes as the horse reared high in a broad flash of lightning, spilled backward, pawing at the black sky, and whinnied loud and long as the raging water swept it away.

Sam looked on, shocked.