The Lady in the Mist (The Western Werewolf Legend #1) (3 page)

Hortence fretted over a large, black cooking pot hanging above the fire in the hearth.  Raising her gnarled fingers high above her head, she closed her eyes and mumbled some unintelligible chant.  As if in response, the smoke in the pot rose up in a ghostly green spiral resembling an otherworldly creature.

“Come closer, my child.”  The old woman’s voice broke over the command.  “I need a snippet of your hair.”

Swallowing hard, Sonja slipped closer.  Tales of this place and what Hortence did here, raced through her mind.  Still fretting, she moved near the old woman and her bubbling pot.

Hortence took a rusty knife and sliced off a blond curl, tossing the golden lock into the gurgling pot.

Still irritated, but now more bemused than ever by the witch’s curious behavior, Sonja stepped closer before asking as politely as she could, “What’s in the pot?”

The witch turned her beady, watery eye on Sonja.  Her faded, ancient face stood out in stark relief against the backdrop of the green smoke.  Sonja stepped back, deciding she’d made grave mistake in coming.  The old woman could be no more than a magician, a conjurer.  She probably wanted money or whatever she considered Sonja had of worth.  A trick made the woman’s eyes glow green.

“You need a spell.  The spell is the reason you’ve come, isn’t that so?”  Shuffling over to a rough, wooden table, she scrounged through the items cluttering the scared surface. Snatching up a bag of tattered burlap, she tossed the bag over her shoulder and into the pot.  The ragged bag hit its mark.

The green smoke enveloped the olden sack with a loud crackle as the pot’s fire sputtered.  Bright flames of orange and red flared before settling once more.

Sonja blinked in horror.

Did crusted, hairy fingers really slip out of the burlap to encircle the worn-out cloth, drawing the bag under the bubbling brew?  A tremor of trepidation gripped her.  Sonja swallowed hard.  She’d definitely stayed too long.

The witch began to laugh, a course, calloused sound making the hairs on Sonja’s neck stand at attention.  Again, mumbling something indecipherable, she pointed at Sonja, and then at the pot. With a fierce flailing, she waved her hands above her head before calling out, “Powers of protection, hear me!  I seek the one called Guardian.  Show yourself.”

The brew hissed and spewed upward in great gurgling plops while the witch continued to wave her hands, swaying in a trance like state.

Sonja stepped back in defense.  What a crazy woman!  Sonja turned for the door.  Berating herself for a fool, she reached for the handle.

Suddenly, a strong, hand gripped her with sharp points of pain digging into her shoulder.  When she dared look back, a hairy hand with talons similar to her own anchored her in place.  Wheeling with the force of the grip, Sonja had the misfortune to come face to face with a beast as black as pitch.  The mouth of the creature jutted out from hair-covered jowls.  Opening his mouth, Sonja could see his surprisingly white teeth ran in a ragged line until pointed incisors gleamed right below a crusted, bulging nose.  The beast’s nostrils were far too big in his hairy face. His bluish tongue ran out, licking against the side of the creature’s snout in a slobbering, snarling smack.

One scream erupted, which sounded very much like her own.  The sensation of spiraling downward sluiced over her in a sickening wash of panic.  The room spun out of control before everything went black.

Chapter 2

Cannons erupted in the distance.  Lieutenant Tyler Loflin opened his eyes and glanced around once more.  A smoky haze drifted over everything like a fog in a dream.  Vaguely he remembered where he lay.  He’d fallen amid the murky water of a southern Pennsylvania swamp.  The dampness seeped into his bones, numbing them but not the pain.  Ty remained motionless, though the heat radiating from the burning wagons loaded with supplies resembled hell’s own.  His efforts to remain conscious wavered.  Fighting the encroaching darkness, Ty finally succumbed to the pain of his wounds again.

Behind his closed lids stood the old, rambling whitewashed house of his home, Shooter Creek.  The gentle hills’ quiet peace beckoned to him.  Returning in his mind to the pastures where his horses roamed untouched by the cruelty of war, Ty moaned as the pain in his leg reminded him the scene lived only in his head.  Using the back of his faded, gray uniform sleeve, he wiped at the sweat on his forehead.

Those days seemed to be from someone else’s life now.  There, in his mind’s eye stood the family he’d left behind his brother, John, standing ramrod straight on the steps of the family’s home.  Ty resembled John in many ways.  His brother’s fierce determination and code of honor anchored Ty these days while his own happy-go-lucky nature remained buried, all but forgotten in the throes of war.

Then, Cloe, the half-breed Comanche and John’s wife, stood stoically on their front porch.  Her deep green eyes didn’t miss a thing.  She held John’s heart in the palm of her lovely hand.  In her arms, she cradled their newest baby, Billie.  Laura Loflin, John’s mother, would’ve said the baby favored her grandmother.  Ty agreed.

A strapping, dark-haired boy of five stood beside Cloe.  His name was James, after John and Ty’s father.  Ty would admit the boy played havoc with Ty’s affections.  The twins, Sara and Mattie, played happily on their palette while Maggie McVey, the family’s housekeeper turned adopted matriarch, took care of them with pride. She’d been a fixture at the ranch as long as Ty could remember.  Since the death of his mother, Running Deer, she’d been his rock in the storm.

The picture of them seemed so real. Ty couldn’t help reaching up to grasping at the thin wisps of haze as the fog floated over him.  He hated to cause them so much pain.  Damn the Yankee bastards to hell and back.  If he could get up, he’d shoot every one of the blood thirsty bastards in the heart for what they’d done!  Another cannon erupted.  This time the explosion sounded closer.  Ty licked his parched lips and wiped the fever’s perspiration from his temple.  Only vaguely annoyed now, he errantly blinked at the picture of his family.  He would miss them so much.

Visualizing them on those steps, Ty focused on his family instead of the melee around him.  He remembered how much he had enjoyed getting under John’s skin about wasting no time in increasing the family linage immediately following his marriage to the eastern educated, half-breed with the sparkling green eyes.  He smiled.  One day, he’d like to increase his own linage.

The late evening sky lit up once more with the explosion of yet another cannon ball.

Ty blinked before coming back from inside his head.  He gritted his teeth as pain radiated down his leg.  He cut his gaze around at the destruction.  After the initial attack, he and his men had taken cover in the swamp.  With the addition of the smoke, which hung thick and unyielding, the land resembled the marshes back in Louisiana instead of the hollows of Pennsylvania.

Refusing to acknowledge the blood mixed with the muddy water could be his own, Ty chose instead to focus on the circumstances around him.  The desire to sleep tempted him.  He struggled against the strong pull of unconsciousness.  Vigilance remained imperative.  Confederate Major General Jeb Stewart, his commander, expected nothing less.

Have to stay alert!  Ty bore down hard on the encroaching dizziness. His peripheral vision started to close in.

“Must stay awake,” he whispered to the dead men scattered like broken toy soldiers all around him.  Have to report to headquarters, he reminded himself as his eyes closed of their own volition.

Guns discharged.  Men screamed.  The battle had been more of a massacre than a conflict.  Ty was lucky to be alive.  Able to recall few of the details of the ambush, Ty’s head lolled to one side.  Explosion after explosion erupted before the pain brought him back to the present.

His mission had been top-secret.  His cavalry unit was given orders to report to Major Jeb Stewart with their supplies destined for the vast wasteland simply known as “The Wilderness”.  His unit had traveled within twelve miles of Richmond before the Yankees attacked them in the foothills surrounding Spotsylvania.  Retreating to the cover of a nearby bog, the Rebels hunkered down.  The Yankees continued their assault.  At first, hope of reinforcements had bolstered the men’s courage.  But the long hours of waiting for help, which never arrived, proved most disheartening.  Darkness fell.  The burning of the wagons had been the final blow.  His men didn’t have a chance of escape.  Most died where they’d fought so bravely.  The rapid fire of the Yankees’ repeating rifles sang overhead.  Fierce, uncontrollable flames broke out almost immediately as his men tried frantically to reverse the wagons loaded with ammunitions to a safer distance.

Then came the explosions.

Desperately, Ty tried to backtrack in order to protect as much of his supply loads as possible before they fell into enemy hands.  Few of the wagons or Ty’s men survived as the sharpshooters picked off the Rebel soldiers like ducks on a pond.

While wagons blazed, shouts of warning rolled over him.  Ty’s men fled past his position and directly into the path of more snipers’ fire.  In the commotion, his commands to “hold their positions” had been mute.  He would never forget the pitying, erratic dance of his men, their bodies already dead before they met the ground.

In the dregs of unconscious, he relived the fighting again.  Sniper fire sounded overhead, Ty’s flight or fight instinct jerked him to attention, his pistol waving wildly about.  The effort proved to be too much for him and he fell back into the water.

Wiping his eyes, Ty glanced around amid the mangled bodies of his comrades.  His throat burned, the heat from the flames scorching the tender skin of his esophagus.  He’d give a month’s pay for a drink of water, he mused.  Firelight flickered all around him, brilliant and bold.  The flames licked greedily at the ammunitions boxes as they erupted, their explosions echoed through the crags and bluffs of the valley.  Trees stood like blackened sentinels, a bleak reminder of the brutality of man.  Ty glanced down at the shrapnel protruding from his thigh with detached interest as if he were looking at someone else’s leg.  He was bleeding out.  The reinforcements wouldn’t get there in time.  Tugging a medallion hanging on a long, silver chain beneath his woolen jacket, he rubbed the precious metal.  Months would pass before John got word of his death, he worried, but at least the medallion would give those who buried him a name to put on his stone.  Weakening rapidly, he realized his time must be drawing near because he couldn’t work up the strength to care that he would never see home again.  He loved his home.  Death was the only reason he could fathom that would take his concern for what he loved.  In the distance through the fire and the darkness, he saw his long dead father and mother.  He would be with them very soon.  Still unable to give the idea the attention it deserved, he glanced about the ruins absently.  Almost time to go.

Another explosion sent more shrapnel raining down.  His men lay strewn at awkward angles in death.  Soon the Yankees would descend like the plague.  He’d witnessed the scavengers going through the belongings of the dead or dying searching for whatever they could carry off the bodies.  His men.  The idea tore at his gut.

Wiping the blood out of his eyes, Ty gathered his last ounce of strength.  He was gonna die anyway,  so taking as many Yankees with him as possible would be a fitting way to go.  At least the loss of his men’s lives wouldn’t be for nothing.  With all the strength he had left, Ty struggled to stand.  Slowly dragging himself upright, he stumbled once before bracing himself against a nearby tree.  His breath came ragged and weak.  Stars floated in front of his eyes.  Ty gave his head a good shake.  The stars spun behind his eyes, while he checked his revolver.  No need to ponder his fate, so he’d go out with guns blazing.  It’s what cowboys did.

The sound of the Yankees advancing caused ripples in the murky water as the horses hooves pounding in the earth grew nearer.  With his back against the tree, Ty strained hard to see the blue-bellied killers.  Here they come!  Their blue coats standing out in stark relief against the smoke and flames.  Like haints of the souls unable to cross over because of crimes done on earth, the Yankees came marching in unison toward the bodies of his men.  Ty refused to watch the despicable act happen to the men he served with.  His vision clouded again.  Gotta stay awake.  Damn their immoral souls, he swore under his breath, “They’ll pay!”  He struggled to lift the revolver.

Footsteps sounded from behind him.  They sounded too small to be a man’s.  The ground didn’t crunch and grind with the shifting of rocks, he mused.  Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a movement as another thieving Yankee took Ty’s sergeant’s pocket watch.  Curse their wretched lives!  More would come, he snarled to the smoke and fire.  Let them come.