Slocum and the Spirit Bear (9781101618790) (6 page)

Slocum gritted his teeth, collected every bit of strength at his disposal, and straightened the trapped leg as best he could. His muscles strained, pushing him away from the horse just enough to keep his leg from snapping like a dry twig. The leaf-encrusted figure with the knife came at him again. Slocum had righted himself enough to see it a little better and met the figure with the side of his Colt before it could stab him with the blade in its hand. The figure staggered away, clearing a path for Slocum to fall from his saddle.

Even after landing on his back and shoulders, his left foot was still caught in the stirrup. While upside down, at least he wasn't about to snap in several places. He stretched out his gun hand, sighted along the top of the Colt's barrel, and squeezed his trigger. This being the calmest shot fired so far, it hit its mark and spun the attacker around in a tight circle. Slocum still couldn't see much more than a vaguely human shape covered in layers of rotten mulch. One particularly welcome sight was that of a knife flying from the figure's grasp.

Another shot was fired, clipping the figure's shoulder and sending a mess of leaves flying from its body. “Go on and git!” Ed shouted amid the metallic clatter of him levering another round into his rifle.

Slocum took advantage of the brief respite by curling his torso upward so he could pull his foot from the stirrup. The figure rustled with scurrying steps that didn't seem to be drawing closer.

When Slocum freed himself, it was a mixed blessing. His leg was no longer trapped, but felt as if it had been put through a wringer. He didn't allow any of the pain to show as he pulled the aching limb in close and propped himself up onto his other leg. Since his horse was still close, he grabbed on to the saddle horn for support. “How many more are there, Ed?”

“Two or three. It's . . . hard to tell.”

Before Slocum could wonder how someone could lose count of men who had taken a run at them while in the open, he felt a dizziness that sent a shiver through his eyeballs. The harder he tried to focus, the more difficult that simple task became. The leaves attached to the closest attacker fluttered and twisted in a breeze that wasn't there. One second, the figure seemed to be hunching down and leaning to the left, and the next, it was swaying to the right.

Another figure walked forward, carrying a staff with what looked to be a small animal's head on top of it. The dirty, blurry figures formed a crude circle around this one and became still when the gruesome staff was lifted high.

“Who are you?” Slocum wheezed. Drawing the breath to speak had been much more painful than he'd anticipated. When he didn't get a response, he shouted, “Why did you attack us?”

“You, white men,” the one with the staff said,
“are trespassers.”

“This is open territory,” Slocum said.

“
No!
This ground is sacred. You insult it with the imprint of your wicked bodies. You scar it with the wheels of your wagons.”

Ed stepped around Slocum's horse, but he wasn't the only one to enter Slocum's field of vision. A few other shapes came into sight and converged on the figure covered in dirt and leaves. While they were also caked in similar grime, more of their bodies could be seen. They were lean men with bare, dark-skinned chests. Rather than just being covered in dirt, they wore it more like decoration.

“We're on our way into Colorado,” Ed insisted. “We're not going to harm anyone and never had any intention of settling anywhere near here.”

“That is what all white men say. You will turn your wagons around and leave.
Leave
,”
the earthen figure said, “or
die
.”

And then, like hazy mirages, the figures crouched down and disappeared.

6

“What were those things?” Ed gasped.

Slocum tested his aching leg by putting some weight on it. When it didn't buckle beneath him, he tried taking a step. “They weren't things,” he said. “They were men dressed up in some sort of getup so they wouldn't be seen.”

“I ain't never seen men like that. Not ever!”

“That's all they are, Ed. Get a hold of yourself. Probably hunters or Indians or trappers.”

A howl rolled through the air. Instead of coming at them from different angles, it rolled in from the trees like a storm. Once it reached Slocum's ears, the howl seemed to shiver and claw at him as if it were afraid of being trapped within his head.

“That wasn't made by no man,” Ed said in a voice that became shakier with every word.

Slocum turned to look behind him and then around again to watch the trees. Feeling dizzier from the quick circular movements, he gripped his Colt tighter and fumbled to reload it. “Where the hell did they go? They were
just here
.”

“I'm telling you, they disappeared!” Ed wailed.

“Men don't disappear.”

“Those weren't men!”

After fitting the last fresh round into the cylinder and shutting it, Slocum turned on Ed and grabbed the front of his shirt. He hung on partly to rattle Ed back to his senses and partly to keep from falling over. “I saw them and they were men, damn it! They snuck up and got the drop on us, sure as hell, but they're still men and they've got to be close.”

Ed was shaking his head. The rest of him started shaking when the howl rolled through the air once more.

It was a scratchy, keening sound. Slocum followed it to its source, which brought his eyes straight to those trees. He blinked away what could have been blood or sweat from his eyes, holding his gun at hip level, ready for a target to present itself. Something rustled to his right and he pivoted on the balls of his feet to aim at it. Instead of one of those leafy figures, he found only his horse. The animal was just starting to calm down after the ambush and didn't have the sense to know how close it had come to getting shot.

“What the hell's wrong with me?” Slocum grunted.

“You're lucky your leg's not busted. Or your neck, for that matter.”

“That's not what I'm talking about. There's something wrong with my head. My ears. Hell, even my eyes.” When the howl came again, it hit Slocum like a set of claws raking along the inside of his skull. “What is making that noise?”

“I don't know what it is . . . but I see it.”

Slocum looked over to Ed and found the other man extending a shaky finger toward the distant trees.

The little bit of light that made it through the thickening layers of clouds hurt Slocum's eyes when he looked in the direction Ed was pointing. He used the pain as something to hold his focus. It was something steady and constant, unlike the swirling in his head or the slowly tilting ground beneath his feet. There was something else in those trees. It flowed back and forth like the shape he'd spotted earlier, but more so. He started walking in that direction when his boot knocked against the field glasses he'd dropped somewhere during the fight. When Slocum dropped down to pick them up, the dizziness he felt was almost enough to send him sprawling face first to the dirt. Ed grabbed one of Slocum's arms and pulled him up again.

Rather than spending the breath needed to thank him, Slocum brought the field glasses to his eyes. Gazing through those lenses made him feel as if he'd accidentally pointed them at the sun. Piercing light stabbed into his eyes, causing him to drop the field glasses quicker than if they'd been dipped into a forge.

He didn't need the glasses to see the glowing thing rise up from the ground near those trees to lift thick arms over a squat head while howling at Slocum, Ed, and the rest of the world in front of it. During the seconds when it reared up like that, the rest of the world came to a standstill. The thing's head craned back and forth as if it were howling directly at God himself.

Slocum could do nothing but watch.

Ed took a step forward, reaching with one hand while absently swiping at his eyes.

When Slocum looked toward the horses, he wasn't quite sure what he'd been expecting. Perhaps the animals would react to the sight of that thing in a different way. Maybe they could see or hear something a human being could not. But they did the very worst thing he could imagine.

Nothing.

The horses did nothing at all, apart from the normal shifting and shaking of their heads, as one might expect from an animal that was calming down after being stirred up by gunfire. Considering how much commotion had gone on around them, Slocum was grateful the horses had not bolted. On the other hand, their lack of reaction to the glowing, shifting shape out there made him feel as if he'd truly gone insane.

Perhaps thinking along those same lines, Ed asked, “Do you see that thing by them trees?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

“No,” Slocum said. “I don't think there's anything good about it.”

Portions of the ground rippled as though a tremor was working its way through the packed dirt or some large animals were burrowing beneath it. Compared to the sight of the tall thing with the stout head and baying howl, that wasn't so strange. What was strange was the fact that those tremors were all converging on the howling thing before disappearing from sight.

Then, the glowing thing . . . yes, Slocum had to admit to himself, the creature or whatever it was truly seemed to be glowing . . . dropped down to all fours. It turned its back to him, shambled into the trees, and was gone.

For the next few moments, Slocum remained silent. His heart slammed against the inside of his ribs and his blood raced through his veins so quickly he thought he might explode from the pressure. No matter how hard he thought about it, he just didn't know what to make of what he'd seen. Ed was silent as well until a metallic click caught their attention.

“What was that?” Ed asked.

Slocum was about to say he didn't know. Then he looked down to see he'd just thumbed back the hammer of his Colt. “That was me,” he said while forcing himself to ease the hammer of the Colt back down into place. As he walked over to collect his field glasses, the pain from his twisted leg jabbed through his knee, ankle, and hip. It was better than a splash of cold water in the face to get him back on track. “Pick up your rifle.”

“I . . . don't know if I can.”

“Go on, Ed. Whatever it is, it's a long ways out by now.”

“But where are those other things? We never saw them coming!”

Slocum pounced on him almost as quickly as the attackers had. He grabbed the front of Ed's shirt and shook him as he snarled, “You want to turn to jelly when something comes along to frighten you? Then you've got no damn business venturing past your own front porch! And if you don't pick up your goddamn rifle right now and help me find those things that bushwhacked us, you've certainly got no excuse leading those good folks down at the wagons.”

Ed glanced in the general direction of the wagons as if he'd forgotten they were there. He tried to pull away from Slocum, but wasn't able to break his grip. His second attempt was much more forceful, and he turned his back to both Slocum and the wagons so he could swipe the back of his hand across his eyes.

More than anything at all, Slocum wanted to knock him onto his ass. One good punch. That's all it would have taken.

“I've got my rifle,” Ed said after stooping down to pick it up.

“Now get on your horse so we can ride out to those trees.” Slocum didn't wait to see if his orders would be obeyed or not. He went to his horse, grabbed the saddle horn, and climbed up. It was something he'd done so many times that he hardly had to think about it. This time, Slocum was reminded of exactly which muscles he used and what joints were bending when pain from his leg damn near set his whole body on fire.

“You all right?” Ed asked when Slocum lowered himself down and stayed put. “Need some help?”

“I'm fine,” Slocum said in a sharp tone. “And I don't need any help.”

Despite the warning and the daggers shooting from Slocum's eyes, Ed still wanted to help. He refrained from extending his hand all the way, however, and stayed a few steps back until Slocum was fully in his saddle. Only then did the other man climb back onto his horse.

“Come on,” Slocum said before snapping his reins.

Ed fell into step a little ways behind him. From there, he shouted, “You sure we should just charge straight in like this?”

“You know where those men went?”

“No.”

“Then we go where we saw them last. Something tells me they were expecting to frighten us off. If that's so, they won't be expecting us to come at them so soon.”

They rode without another word passing between them. It wasn't far to those trees, but felt like several miles to Slocum's spinning head. While he wasn't dizzy enough to fall from his horse, the faster Slocum moved, the more light-headed he became. He wanted to glance back to see if Ed was having the same trouble, but was concerned that doing so might cause him to wobble even more. He'd taken knocks to the head before and knew he just had to push through until he felt better. In fact, he was feeling better by the time he pulled back on the reins and climbed down from his saddle. Of course, that could have just been the fact that his feet were once more on solid ground.

The trees loomed over them, silently watching both men who stooped beneath branches stripped bare of their leaves to inspect the ground as if worshipping at their roots. Slocum stayed on one knee as he scooped up some twigs and lifted them to his nose. “Smell that?” he asked.

“Smells like a swamp.”

“Exactly. Here,” Slocum said while handing over the twigs. “Smell this and tell me if it's familiar.”

At first, Ed was skeptical. When he took the twigs and grudgingly smelled them, his face brightened. “Yes! It smells like those things . . . those men that jumped us. This must be where they were hiding.”

Slocum picked up another twig and ran it between his thumb and forefinger. “I'm guessing this is the spot where we saw that howling . . . thing.”

“You mean that spirit?”

Now it was Slocum who wore the skeptical look.

“All right, then,” Ed snapped. “What would you have me call it?”

“It wasn't no spirit.”

“Monster, then?”

“We don't know what it was,” Slocum said definitively while straightening up and tossing the twig. “But whatever it is, it looks to be gone now. We'll ride through these trees to make sure it's gone and then head back to the wagons. Enough time's been wasted as it is.”

Ed waited until they were both in their saddles before asking, “What about what that thing said? It warned us not to come here.”

“We're already here,” Slocum said. “Not much to be done about that now but leave and we're fixing to do that anyway.”

“It probably wants for us to turn back.”

Rather than twisting in his saddle, Slocum pulled hard on the reins to bring his horse around to face him. “Is that what
you
want, Ed? You want to come all this way and then turn tail and run just because some assholes jumped you? Didn't you tell me that members of your party died when you were jumped before? You lost a wagon and many of your possessions.”

“I could hardly forget it,” Ed snapped angrily. “And I appreciate you not talking about it as if it was some small thing.”

“You and your people not only came back from that, you picked yourself up by your bootstraps and moved on when damn near anyone would have told you to stay put. That kind of gumption is part of the reason why I signed on to ride with you and yours. Hearing you talk the way you do about these crazy bandits that bushwhacked us, hearing the fear in your voice, makes me wonder if I was wise to follow you anywhere.”

The anger on Ed's face slowly dissolved into confusion. “Those men, if that's what they were . . .”

“It
is
what they were,” Slocum was quick to add.

“They weren't after our money. They were just out to hurt us. Maybe kill us. What purpose would be served in that?”

“Looks like they made off in this direction,” Slocum said while waving toward the rest of the trees. “Doesn't look like they circled back to the wagons, though.”

Ed shook his head and rubbed his eyes. “I didn't see where they went. They could be anywhere by now.”

Both men brought their horses back around so they were facing the direction from which they'd come. Without another word, they snapped their reins and tapped their heels against the horses' sides.

Slocum grew more worried by the second. How could he have ridden this far, leaving the wagons behind?

Whoever those crazy, filthy attackers had been, they could very well have been meaning to draw away the wagons' protection so more men could ambush them. It was an old tactic, but if Slocum had allowed it to work, he would have a hard time looking at himself in a mirror again.