Part 24 (2/2)

”That one's easy,” I said. ”His smell.”

31.

In the morning, we pulled on our cold and wet clothes and rode along the creek in the direction of Ciudad Perdida. The water snaked through a series of rolling hills, and gradually the bluffs got steeper, and soon we were riding right down the middle of the shallow creek.

In an hour, we came upon the broken body of Pollux Adams tangled up in the branches of a willow tree. His neck was bent at an angle that was painful to look at.

”Wonder what it felt like,” I mused.

”Which part?” Calder asked. ”The flying or the dying?”

”The flying.”

”Why don't you ask him?”

”Ghosts can't answer a direct question,” I said. ”Besides, I don't hear anything. His spirit isn't here. Back at the cabin, maybe.”

We urged our horses on.

The banks along the river became steeper, and there began to appear square and rectangular holes here and there-windows and doorways leading to rooms filled with dirt and debris. At the back of my mind, I could hear murmuring voices, but I couldn't make out what they were saying.

”We're getting close,” Calder said.

”Do you have a plan?”

”Nope,” he said. ”I was hoping you'd have one. After all, you're the one who talks to the dead.”

I shrugged. ”I can hear voices, but they're very old voices,” I said. ”I don't know what they're saying. They just sound sad, mostly.”

We went another quarter of a mile, and the bluff dwellings became thicker along the north side of the creek. In some places, the walls had collapsed, revealing steps going down and rooms that were so big they hadn't been all filled in with dirt yet.

”How many people could have lived here?” I asked.

In my head, the voices had become a chorus of loss.

”Thousands,” Calder said. ”You've got fresh water here, you're protected from the worst of the winter wind, and there had to be plenty of buffalo and other game. It must not have been a bad life. You could raise a family here.”

He was staring at the silver trunk of a cottonwood when he said it, and I knew he was thinking about when he had his own family, not so long ago in Presidio County.

”Come back, Jack.”

”I'm here,” he said, standing in the saddle and peering down the creek. ”There's smoke there, through the trees. I think we are upon the whiskey trader's hideout.”

”I see it. And it smells like they're roasting some kind of meat.”

”Okay, here's the plan,” Calder said decisively. ”I am going to ride on in by myself and kill the sonuvab.i.t.c.h, and you're going to wait here. If I don't come back in an hour, you turn that Arabian around and head back toward the trail.”

”That's the dumbest plan I ever heard, Jack. First off, we want to bring the whiskey trader back for trial. Second off, if you get in trouble, I'm no good to come in and get you out of it. So it's obvious that I'm the one who has to go in by myself, and you wait here. And if I don't come back soon, then you shoot your way in.”

”I don't like it,” Calder said. ”Maybe we should try to smoke them out first.”

”If we were after ordinary criminals, that might work,” I said. ”But Vanderslice is something there's not even a word for yet, and Malleus isn't even human. I don't think smoke is going to bother them.”

”But if you walk in there first, they have you as a hostage.”

”I'm only good as a hostage as long as I'm not willing to die,” I said. ”Jack, you know that I'm not expecting to come out of this alive. Unless I get my aura back, there's no point in my coming out alive. I'll just turn into something more and more ugly. You have to promise that if they threaten to kill me to get you to throw down your guns, that you won't do it. Shoot me if you have to, to prove the point.”

”I won't shoot you.”

”That's sweet, but not helpful.”

Calder smiled.

”Jack,” I said. ”There's something I need to tell you.”

”Well,” he said, ”me too. But you first.”

”There's a thousand-dollar reward out for my capture, dead or alive, in Ohio. I conned a pork baron there out of a few thousand dollars and he squealed pretty loud. So I'm not Kate Bender, but there is a pretty price on my head. If I'm dead when this is over, you ought to s.h.i.+p my body back to Cincinnati and ask for the reward.”

He looked a bit odd.

”Now, why the h.e.l.l would you tell me that?” he asked.

”I'd rather you get the money than County Attorney Sutton,” I said. ”Now, what is it you want to tell me?”

”It was nothing,” he said.

”Nothing?”

”Just that when we get out of this, you should stop cussing in French. It disturbs people. That's all.”

Calder dismounted and tied the reins of the horse to a bush. Then he checked his revolver and pulled the rifle from the saddle scabbard and cradled it in one arm. Finally he pulled a cigar from his vest pocket and stuck it in the corner of his mouth.

”All right,” he said, ”I'm ready. Let's kill us a demon.”

I dismounted and handed Fatima's reins over to Calder. Then I closed my eyes, said a silent prayer to whomever or whatever good might listen, and began walking toward the smoke. I was nervous, but I walked deliberately. My head was high, and the breeze trailed the black ribbon behind my hat. They had to hear me coming, because my ankle-high shoes made an awful racket sc.r.a.ping against the gravel and slos.h.i.+ng in the water.

When I rounded a bend in the creek, I saw the hideout, a big complex of ancient rooms tucked into the bluff. The rooms and the stairs going down to them had been cleared of mud, and I could see shadows moving inside.

Outside, on the broad sandbar in front of the complex, stood Vanderslice surrounded by at least a dozen of the wild whackers I had seen before. Some of the whackers were dressed in rags, and others had no clothes at all. They were cl.u.s.tered around a hunk of browned meat being turned on a spit over a fire, and Vanderslice had the bone-handled skinning knife in his hand. He was carving off slices of meat and throwing them to the whackers, who snapped and snarled at one another.

”Down, boys,” Vanderslice said. ”There's plenty for everyone.”

Also on the sandbar was a farm wagon, a buckboard, unhitched but with barrels of whiskey in the back. More barrels were on the sandbar, not far from the stairs leading down into the ancient rooms. Around the barrels were bottles of all shapes and sizes, ready to be filled and corked. An Indian woman and a boy of about twelve were working to fill the bottles, ladling whiskey from the barrels and pouring it into metal funnels in the necks of the bottles, and then stopping the bottles with a cork.

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