Thanks to my betas Linda and Judy. Disclaimer can be found on the fanfic page If you haven't read Coyote Waiting of this story then you should go back and do so now. Comments welcome.
Coyote Calling
- Second Part of the Coyote Chronicles -
Size: Approx. 220K
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~~ Vin ~~
It always starts the same way. I can see it get nearer and nearer until I can count every thread in the noose that's gonna hang me. I've dreamed this a thousand times in the past couple of years but I used to wake up when they put it around my neck or just before the drop. Now that ain't so anymore. Memories have collided with my dreams and somehow got caught up in them.
Twice now since I came to Four Corners I've come closer to a hangin' than I'd ever like to get. The first was when Chanu whipped up a rawhide string in the jail and cut off my air until everything went dark, that's a whole nightmare in itself. The second was when Eli Joe, the man who framed me for murder, tried to tie me up like just another loose end so he could vanish without fear of justice catchin' up.
Something like that can set a man to thinking and after Eli Joe my dreams started to change until they got to be real bad. I no longer woke up at the place in my dreams when they dropped me. I no longer dreamed of the town gallows. I dreamed of a tree and a lynch mob that pulled me up slowly until I just hanged there, kicking and struggling for air for an eternity or more. Just choking - without ever dying.
The third night in row I had this dream I felt that maybe someone was trying to tell me something. The comanches would have said it was the Spirits. I even asked Josiah what he thought about dreaming the same dream over and over. He said that it could be a memory or a message and if so it was most likely from the Lord.
I don't think I'd rate a visit from that up high so I suspected it might have been the Devil, trying to lure me in. Whatever it was I got the feeling that I was down to three choices. To stay in Four Corners and slowly go stir crazy, to settle this in Tascosa once and for all or just plain get away from it all and clear my head.Of the three choices the last one seemed the most appealing to me. Time was when I'd have been itchin' to get back to Tascosa to prove myself, but that was when Eli Joe had still been around. Now that he was dead I was gonna have to find someone else who knew what had really happened and I didn't know where to start looking. Maybe I'd never find someone to testify for me and I'd always be a wanted man. I was gonna have to be more careful in the future. Last year I wouldn't have thought so much about this but everything seemed to be changing and I was changing along with it. Eli Joe was just one more warning that I had gotten too comfortable here and it just didn't set right with me no more to ignore the fact that I was a wanted man. A man like that could get his friends into real trouble. Maybe the dreams were sent as a warning that trouble was coming.
But it weren't just the dreams that made me feel all jumpy. There was a longing in me that was stronger than ever before. To just get out and look at what was beyond the horizon. When I looked around the saloon one night there were few familiar faces and too many strangers in there and suddenly I felt like a stranger myself. I needed to think on this and I couldn't do it in town, with all its distractions. I had to get out in the wild and run free for a while.
The only thing left to do was to leave Four Corners.
So I did.
~~
Chris didn't look surprised when I told him I was heading out, it was almost as if he had been expecting me to say something like that. What he wasn't expecting me to do was to leave as soon as I'd told him, he wanted me to hang around for one more day. But I was ready to go and I felt like I couldn't hold back for one second more. I said goodbye to the boys and gave one more look around town and then I was off.
It was getting real dark now but I knew the surroundings so well that I didn't need any light to find the place I was looking for. I set up camp near a small river not far from town. The moon was rising above the horizon and its light made the water sparkle. It looked so cool and fresh that I just took off my clothes and dived right in. It felt good to rinse off the dust and sweat, made me feel all new. There's nothing like a cool bath when you're hot, just as there's nothing like a hot bath to warm you up when you're freezing. Thinking about how hot the weather had been lately I longed for snow.
I floated in the river for a while and thought about where I should go in the morning. Fall was on it's way up north but snow was still some ways away. Only one place I could think of that had some snow now and it weren't that far away either. It was called Whisper Ridge and located up in Ghost Country. I'd only been through there once and it had been a long time ago but it was a place that was hard to forget. It was beautiful and wild, had just about any kind of wild beast there was roaming around in there but I had never gone after them and they had never bothered me. I had just come across their tracks and nothing more except for that one time when I had come across the wolf.
I'd gone into Ghost Country alone and I was years younger than JD then. I'd only seen a live wolf that up close once before and hadn't even loaded my rifle when I'd left camp that morning. I don't know why, I wasn't usually so careless, even young as I was. But that day, for some reason, my rifle was empty and that was the moment I came across the wolf. She was lying in the sun up on a rock and no more than a few feet away from me. My heart was thumping so loudly in my ears I think she must have heard it. She turned her head towards me but she barely gave me a look. It was like she didn't care that I was there at all and I felt that there was something wrong with her. Then she looked right at the sun with her eyes open wide and I realized that she must be blind. She was weak too, starving to death right in front of my eyes. Someone must have cared for her until then, probably her momma since she was almost grown, but that someone had finally given her up and she was helpless now.
I sat down on the rock some distance away from her and studied her for a long while as she lay there basking in the sun. Close up she didn't look at all like I had expected from all the stories I had heard about how ferocious they could be. The one time I had seen a live wolf up close before had been in the split second between the time it tried to jump a friend of mine and the moment he shot it dead. It had growled and howled and its face had been all twisted up, all wild and dangerous.
This one was still wild and I took no chances even though I guessed she was too weak to do anything. If she had been able to hunt for herself she would have been a magnificent animal. The fur looked so smooth that I longed to touch it and I reached out towards it, seeing the muscles shift underneath as she moved a bit. She turned towards me as she felt me come nearer and I looked at her face and into her eyes. She accepted a quick stroke over her warm fur and didn't warn me off, maybe she wanted the company. She had probably never felt a human so close by, she couldn't see me and didn't know that we were enemies so she stayed calm and unafraid. Seeing her from a distance you wouldn't know that anything was wrong at all. But all I could see was how she lay there in peace and waited for death. Did she know it was coming? Did she care?
I felt real bad that I couldn't ease her suffering by giving her a quicker death. There was nothing I could do to save her, I knew that much. A blind wolf couldn't hunt and a wolf that couldn't hunt was doomed. All that strength and beauty wasted. Nature would take care of it without much mercy but I so wanted to save her. In the end I lay some of my own food in front of her before I left. She sniffed at it but I never saw her touch it. When I came back the next day the food was gone and so was she but I don't know where she went.
She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and I could never forget the way her eyes looked that day just as I couldn't forget the wolf that had been killing livestock near the small farms around town just some months back. I had caught him and killed him, it needed to be done and I was the one who had to do it. But I never should have looked into his eyes before I shot him because now I couldn't forget them either. It made my heart ache a bit, thinking about it. Maybe if I could return to Ghost Country I'd be able to put it behind me. Things don't look the same to you when you're grown-up as they do when you're a boy. I hoped this was one of them things.
I got out of the water and back into my clothes and lay down and pulled the blankets over me. It would be a long ride to get to Ghost Country and I was pretty tired. Needed the rest but the moment I fell asleep I started to dream.
I could see a tree outlined against the cloud filled sky and there were dark shapes around me that I couldn't quite make out. They held my arms and I struggled to break free of that grip but it was impossible. I could see a rope thrown over one of the branches. It ended in a dangling noose and they dragged me towards it and put it over my head. Someone was saying something to me.
"We warned you," they said. "You should have listened." I made one last attempt to break free but the noose was tightening around my neck and my body was getting real heavy and then I was hurting and dying-I woke suddenly, cold and shaking and gasping for breath. I looked at the sky and reckoned that there was at least one more hour till daylight but there was no way I was getting any more sleep tonight. Instead I looked at the stars and let my mind drift.
Never used to think much about dying. You die and then you're gone and that's pretty much it. It's always been living that's been giving me trouble. I thought about dying more nowadays, maybe it was on account of getting older. I hadn't paid any notice to it before, until I'd met JD. We weren't that far apart in years but I don't think I had ever been as young as him. Sometimes I felt like there was a hundred years of experience separating him and me. I had no fear of dying but there were ways I really didn't want to go and strung up like a dog was one of them.
The stars were fading now and the moon had long since gone below the horizon. I liked looking at the stars, no matter where you went they always looked the same and they could help you find your way home if you were lost. When my ma had just died I had asked where she was and they had taken me out and pointed to the stars and said that ma was in heaven now. Sometimes when I looked at the stars I thought that maybe the preachers were right and she was somewhere beyond the stars and looking back at me. I wondered what she would think of the man I was now. Somehow I didn't think she'd like the way I'd made my living so maybe it was just as well that she never saw me grow up and turn into a wanted man.
I felt something damp against my cheek and almost reached for my gun before I realized that it was Peso, butting his muzzle against my face. Must have fallen asleep again but this time I hadn't dreamed anything. Peso made soft impatient sounds until I could find his oats and shut him up. Dawn was on its way now and I ate a cold breakfast and washed it down with some water before I started to strike camp. Without looking back I started on the way to Ghost Country.
Three days later I urged Peso on over the last rise and stopped to look at the valley spreading out down below. It was as beautiful as I remembered it and there was a sweet smelling wind swirling up from the grasslands below. It smelled better to me than any perfume and as soon as we got down there I let Peso run free. He was as glad as me to be out in the wild again. He hadn't been with me the last time I had been through here but he had no trouble making himself at home.
I hadn't dreamed any more dreams about getting hanged since that night by the river but another strange thing happened on my first night in Ghost Country. I was just about to fall asleep but not quite there yet when I felt as if there was someone watching me and I opened my eyes a crack to see a black shape cross the face of the moon above. It looked like a crow and I wondered what it was doing awake at this hour but I was too tired to think much on it and closed my eyes again. Now someone seemed to be whispering in my ear and I tried to hear what they were saying. It was just one voice and I felt I knew it but I couldn't quite recognize who it belonged to. "Vin, where are you?" the voice said and I sleepily mumbled back that I was in Ghost Country. Then I fell deep asleep and didn't wake until the next morning.
The weather was just right with warm sun, blue skies and cool winds as I set out towards Whisper Ridge. If there was one thing I had learnt the last time I'd been here was the strange way the valley seemed to take twists and turns at the most unexpected places so it always took much longer to get where you were going than you had figured. So it was this time too. No matter how I tried I couldn't find a good place to cross the river and when I tried any trail it was always blocked by a tree or a boulder. Trying to find a way around a landslide I got so far out of my way that I was now riding away from Whisper Ridge instead of getting closer to it. I had no choice but to follow the track and I soon found a way that was easier to travel. The trail weaved in and out of the woods and over small hills and fields until I rode up a really steep hill and came to a sudden stop.
I blinked, not quite believing what was in front of my eyes. There it was, the tree from my dream. The hangin' tree. Only thing different from my dream was that it was already occupied. A man was swinging at the end of a rope, his feet almost touching the ground. As I watched I could suddenly see him twitch and I realized with a start that he must still be alive.
He'd be dead in a second if I didn't help him and I wasted no time. I spurred Peso on towards the tree and took hold of the man's clothes with one hand to ease up on the rope before I swiftly cut him loose with the other. He fell heavily to the ground and landed in a heap with a small groan but that showed me that I had been right and that he was still alive.
I jumped down beside him and pulled the noose from his neck so he could breathe again. That taken care of I got my gun out and looked around to see if company was coming. They couldn't be long gone, no more than minutes probably. If they found out he was still alive they might come back to finish the job. The man did nothing but lay there gasping like a fish out of water while I walked around some and looked for tracks. It looked like just two men and two horses, the guy they'd hanged must have walked or been dragged here. I closed my eyes and listened carefully for a while but I could hear nothing that said anyone was near. Looked like they really were gone.
I went over to the man I had rescued and looked him over more carefully this time. He was old and grizzled, his back was bent almost like an old tree and he hardly looked strong enough to whup a kitten. Someone had set him up to die slowly ... what could he have done to make them hate him so much? On the other hand I knew full well that there wasn't always a reason for hatred.
I'd have to make camp here, he'd never survive if I tried to move him. The day was only half gone but I wasn't sure he'd make it to nightfall even. The rope had chafed a bloody ring around his neck and I cleaned and bandaged it as good as I could and he seemed to wake up some when I did. His eyes were full of pain but he didn't look the least bit scared. Full of grit and tough as they come, that old timer.
"You know them who did this?" I asked him and he nodded, even though I could see it hurt him to move.
"Think they're coming back?"
He shook his head for no.
"Know where they went?" he nodded again and tried to speak but nothing came out but a wheeze.
"Easy," I said quickly. As long as they weren't coming back it didn't much matter where they had gone but he seemed to think otherwise because he fought to speak again and this time the wheeze sounded more like a word.
"Sorrows," I thought he said and then his eyes closed and he fainted dead away.
I put some blankets around him before I went about making camp and then I settled down with my back to the hangin' tree. There was nothing I could do right now but wait and think. I wanted coffee but didn't dare risk even a small fire so I had to make do with just water.
Sorrows ... yeah, I knew about it, way up yonder and not far from Whisper Ridge. It was where they had first settled, the families that had died there. Some overgrown graves and one or two ramshackle houses were up there still. When the wind blew westerly you could sometimes hear the sound of crying women, reminding everyone of the lingering sorrow that gave the place its name.
The old timer looked familiar, even his voice, what little I'd heard of it, sounded familiar. I frowned as I tried to recall where I'd heard it in my past. What better place could there be to look for ghosts in my memory than this place.
It came to me quickly and clearly. I did know him. I could even see it in my mind what he had looked like last time I'd met him. It was as if it had happened yesterday.
He had been past middle age but not old and worn down as he was now. Me - I'd been a boy back then who thought he was a man. Not yet fifteen years old but I could set snares and hunt and I could hold my own against any grown man when it came to shooting. Men not much older than me had been fighting and dying in the war and I had seen my share of sorrows. I was alone in the world with no one to think of but myself and I owned nothing except for my name, my horse and the clothes I wore. That was all I needed to get by.
I'd heard the tales about Ghost Country just as anyone but I'd seen enough dead people to know that when you're gone you don't come back again. I wasn't scared. Huh - not me. Wishing or thinking about folks didn't bring them back. Ma had taught me that if nothing else. All my terrible longing for her hadn't brought her back for even a fraction of a heartbeat.
I'd come into the valley full of confidence and the first few days had been fine. Then Ghost Country had shown me that I still had some growing up to do. The rabbits avoided my snares and if I went hunting some strange sound in the woods always managed to warn the deers so I missed my shot. That hadn't happened to me since I'd been big enough to pick up a rifle. I'd become a sharpshooter out of necessity, bullets cost money and every shot had to count.
I loved that sure shot, to lose myself in gazing at the target and hitting it dead center every time. Pulling that trigger without even thinking about it. Choosing the moment, waiting for it and then making that choice to hold back or to take the chance in a split second. There was a beauty to it, but I'd learned later how it could also be used for ugly things.
My story could have ended in Ghost Country all those years ago. I was still a growing boy and hungry all the time and I got even hungrier when I lost what little food I had brought with me as I tried to cross the river. I wasn't choosy when I went hunting after that, a squirrel or a snake would have been fine but I had no luck, even the fish avoided me. I was starting to think that I might have to kill my horse for food but alone in a strange land it might just be that I'd be sealing my fate that way.
That's when he turned up, walking into my camp as if he owned it and sitting down by the fire without an invitation. He nodded at me as if we were old friends and said, "Hello there."
"Howdy, Mister," I said, not trusting him one bit even though he tried to look as harmless as can be.
"Saw the fire and thought I might get myself some coffee."
"Ain't got no coffee," I answered quickly and hoped he would take the hint and leave but he wasn't put off the slightest.
"Would you have some of mine then?" and without waiting for an answer he rustled up a coffeepot and rummaged around in his pack until he found some coffee grounds. It was real cowboy coffee, strong enough to float a horseshoe. He looked at me kindly over the rim of his tin mug and said, "What's your name, boy?"
"Vin." I told him, as polite as I could. Since he had given me coffee I figure I owed him at least that much. "Vin Tanner."
"Good to meet you, Vin Tanner. I'm Jeb Tyler."
We shook hands briefly over the fire.
"Would you perhaps be interested in sharing a meal with me this evening?"
He sounded friendly enough but I was immediately suspicious again when he suggested we eat together.
"What for?" I asked. Maybe he was after my horse too.
"I have more food than I need right now and you're the first soul I've seen in here for more than a year. I'd be glad for the company."
I shrugged and accepted his invitation. He was quite good as a campfire cook, in fact I've never tasted better food. It could've been because I was so hungry by that time that my stomach was starting to think my throat had been cut. I threw myself at the meal and couldn't help but wolf it down like the starving man I was. Jeb looked a bit surprised at the amount of food I could put away but didn't say anything about my manners.
The rest of the evening we talked, him more than me since he had been isolated there for so long. He'd been a school teacher back east twenty years earlier but then he'd left and never looked back. He never said why but there was something in his eyes when he spoke, a sadness. I guessed he'd gone out west to forget something.
I stayed with him for the better part of two weeks or rather he agreed to share my camp until I got the urge to be on the move again and explore other parts of the country. I was no babe in the woods but he knew Ghost Country like no one else and more importantly - he had food. He could walk out and come back two hours later with some rabbits or a dozen fish. I still had nothing but bad luck.
"How come you can get meat when I can't even trap a rat?" I asked him one day.
"Maybe you're doing it wrong," he said cheerfully.
"Like hell!" I said and walked off in a huff. I knew I wasn't doing anything wrong when I set my snares. I still couldn't find anything to eat though, not even roots and berries this time so I had to return to camp pretty soon. When I came back he handed me a piece of bread without a word and I ate it quickly.
"Say ... if'n I'm doing something wrong - then what is it?" I had to ask him finally.
"Maybe ... you should listen a little bit more."
"Listen? For what?"
"For what you don't hear," he said and that was it. I didn't have an inkling what he meant.
"Maybe you should learn to ask too," Jeb added a bit later.
"Ask what?" I said.
"Ask for permission. And forgiveness."
I must have looked as confused as I felt and he smiled in a way that made me sure he was silently laughing at me inside.
"Don't worry, boy. I didn't understand when I first heard it either."
I hated it when he called me boy. "And now you do?"
He nodded, looked at the fish he had caught that morning and said, "Now I do."
~~
He tried to explain it to me when we went fishing together the next morning.
"I had about as much luck as you with hunting when I first came here. I'd expected the land to provide me with plenty of game. Trouble was I hadn't counted on the land thinking otherwise. I was just one predator among many in here and not as skilled as those born to hunt. It took some time to figure things out."
"Like what?" I asked. I looked with dismay at the way my fishing line was trailing empty in the water even though there seemed to be plenty of hungry fish in the creek over where Jeb sat.
"I've already told you what," Jeb said.
"You mean that asking for forgiveness?"
"Can't hurt. They've got as much right to live and eat as you've got. Someone's bound to get disappointed, either them or you."
I thought on this for a while. I didn't really know if he was right or not but it didn't seem like such a hardship.
"I gotta say something out loud?"
"Only if you want to." I got the feeling he was silently laughing at me again. "Important thing is that you know it in your heart. That you realize the price you pay for living here, it's always at the expense of something else. Be it wildlife or plants."
"Yeah ... but wolves and bears and such ...wouldn't they eat me if they got the chance?"
"Maybe," he shrugged. "Probably."
"Well, they wouldn't say something like that if they up and ate me, now would they?"
He gave me a long and serious look. "How do you know they wouldn't say something like that?"
Now I decided he was just pulling my leg and after a while I could see the corner of his mouth twitch slightly.
"They probably wouldn't think that there was enough meat on you to give thanks for," he finally said and splashed some water in my face. I splashed some back and we ended up scaring all the fish away when we both fell laughing into the creek.
Seeing how he had already caught enough fish for our evening meal we stayed on the riverbank and just basked in the warm sun until our clothes were dry once more.
"What do you think this place is?" I asked as I looked up at the white clouds sailing by. I was real curious to hear what he would say. There was a long silence between us before he answered me.
"When I first came here I felt that this valley was like the beginning of all things. You've got it all in here, everything that's in the world outside. I think it was always meant to stay unchanged. I do what I can to see that it does."
He taught me a lot those weeks when I followed him around in Ghost Country. He was easy to get along with and treated me much as a younger brother. Sometimes I caught him looking at me with such sorrow in his eyes that I guessed I must be reminding him of someone he'd lost, a friend or brother or maybe even a son. He never talked about it and I didn't ask. When my bad luck in hunting finally started to turn he stopped me one time as I was about to shoot my third rabbit.
"Don't," he said firmly. "You've got what you need already. It's enough for both of us."
"But I can get us one more," I insisted and he nodded.
"I know you can but it isn't wrong to show some mercy and let one get away once in a while."
Mercy? Weren't much of that floating around out in nature. I hadn't even been knee-high when I'd first seen the ugly side of things. It was a year or so before momma died and I was still a small child. Three wild dogs had attacked our one sheep and her new lamb. Them dogs must have been pets before turning wild and weren't good hunters. They didn't know how to make a clean kill and that sheep cried out helplessly in pain until ma came running out of the house with a gun and shot one of the dogs dead. The rest of them ran away then but it was too late to save our sheep.
"Don't look, Vin," ma had said but I had looked anyway as she put the sheep out of its misery. She had shown me how to care for the motherless lamb and it had followed me everywhere for a little while until we had it sold off. Hadn't ever kept sheep after that.I knew enough about the world not to expect any mercy for my ownself from anyone or anything so why should I show it?
"If'n I'm just as you say, just one more wild hunter in here... then why should I show mercy as you call it?"
"Because you can, Vin," he said quietly.
I still didn't quite grasp it but it was probably in the back of my mind when I met that blind wolf some days later. I'd given her what bread and meat I had with me and when I went back and told Jeb that he had smiled at me almost as if I had done something he approved of. The day after that I told him I had decided to leave.
"Well then," he said, taking it in his stride as always. "I'll take you to the end of the valley and follow you out."
"What for?" I suspected he'd only said it because he wanted to make sure I got out of the valley and wasn't sneaking around on my own in here. Or maybe he thought I couldn't handle finding the way out on my own.
"Need flour," he explained and smiled until his eyes twinkled. "You gave away the last of my bread to that wolf, boy."
And since I had done just that, there wasn't much I could say but I still suspected that his real reason for travelling along with me was to watch over me. We'd parted company outside the valley and I'd never been back here or seen him again until now.
As the years went by I'd forgotten most of what I'd learned in here. I'd hunted the buffalo for a while and I'd been proud of my skills until I saw how I'd helped in destroying both animals and people. The senseless killings had sickened me and so I'd quit and started hunting men that could defend themselves instead. I'd been skilled at that too and had never thought much on whether the warrants were fair or not. Now I was a hunted man myself and for a murder I'd never done. I guessed that someone somewhere must sure be laughing at me.
I looked around sharply as I heard a branch crack somewhere behind me. Something moved in the woods and I raised my gun but when it came into view I found that it was only a coyote. It looked like a curious critter for it studied me for a long minute until it suddenly turned and disappeared into the brush again.
I relaxed once more and fell back into thinking. The dreams had lead me to Ghost Country and then here. It was clear that I must have figured it all wrong, the hangin' I'd seen in my dreams wasn't mine. I must have been brought here because of Jeb.
It was strange how I could have so completely forgotten things that had meant so much to me. But now it was all back in my memory like it had happened just yesterday.
The sun was setting and I made a small fire and boiled water together with some dried bark I carried with me in my saddlebags. It was an old cure I'd used sometimes to help against pain and ward off fever. I only carried a handful of herbs and such with me and only knew of simple ways to use them but I hoped this would help some, could hardly hurt anyway. I made a poultice and dressed his neck wounds again. When I saw him stirring slightly I poured some of the brew into a cup.
"Drink this," I said and held the cup to his lips until he had drained it. He opened his eyes briefly.
"Who?" he asked in a broken voice that was hardly more than a whisper.
"It's Vin Tanner. We met some years ago."
He squeezed his eyes shut against the pain for a while but when he opened them again they were clear and alert and I could see that he knew me.
"You've changed," he spoke slowly. "All grown up now. Almost fifteen years ago ago, wasn't it, boy?
"Reckon so," I agreed. "Who did this?"
"Never said their names. Followed me from outside into Ghost Country and grabbed me before I could get to Sorrows. I sent them up there. They thought I had gold. Couldn't see no other reason for anyone to live up there. But you know. Don't you, boy?"
"Yeah, Jeb," I nodded. "I know."
I thought about the sweeping fields and the sun setting beyond the mountain ridge. The green, cool grass underneath the blue sky. It was always the same but always changing. You could only live it, never put it in words. Myself, I liked to sit somewhere high up and just watch. No matter how long I sat there and let the world go by I could never get enough of its beauty. But I wasn't like Jeb, he'd never needed no one else. I got lonely sometimes and longed for company when I had been out in the wild for weeks on end. When I was in town I liked to drink and such and that took money. Money needed to be earned some way and you usually had to stay put for a while until you had enough that you could drift again. I couldn't choose between the wild and town life, I hadn't ever tried to. It was two different worlds and I liked them both.
Jeb spoke again in halting whispers. I could see it hurt him a lot both to speak and to breathe and he was starting to get a fever. I tried to get him to be silent and rest easy but there was something that drove him to talk. An urge to set records straight while he still could.
"I never tried to take anything from here except what the earth gave me. The past couple of years I've lived in one of the houses up in Sorrows but there's not much there. Never wanted to own many things but I've got money. I inherited it when my father died back east years ago. I've got no relatives back there now. My dear wife and child were lost so long ago... there's no one left. Last year I started to hear them calling me home. I started to make arrangements to buy this land so it can stay as it is. I even had an attorney draw up some papers so someone else could finish what I started in case something happened."
His shaking hands fumbled with the buttons of his coat and I had to help him reach the papers that were sewn into the lining of his coat. Hidden in a pocket was a thin silver case with a pen and a small flask half-filled with ink. Them killers must have been so interested in the gold they thought Jeb had hidden that the small silver case hadn't interested them. I looked at them papers and couldn't tell which way was up or down but they looked important enough. Jeb must have seen my confusion and told me what it said.
"It says that I'm Jeb Tyler and that I entrust the bearer of this paper the use of my money, all of it. To act according to my will in case I'm unable to do so myself. That's the gist of it anyway. It just needs to be signed, by you and me. Take it, boy."
"I cain't," I protested. "It should be someone else."
"I trust you, Vin. And even if you should take the money for yourself I don't really mind. I'm afraid they might come back and get this paper when they find nothing in Sorrows. Do with it what you want, boy. Just as long as they don't get it."
I knew how he felt, I'd said the same thing to Chris before the battle in the Seminole village, telling him he should collect the bounty on my head if I died so I could get the last laugh if a friend got the money.
But this was different. I couldn't sign it because I didn't know how.
"I cain't write," I said, regretting with all my heart the truth of my words.
"Just set a mark where I tell you, it'll hold up good. I made sure of that. Just please sign it. Then I can go in peace."
"I won't let you," I said firmly. "Come morning I'll get us some help."
"How?"
"I don't know yet," I had to admit.
In the end I had to sign it just so he would calm down enough to get some rest. Over the years I've learned to write a sort of signature that they said looked like my name, to sign for bounties and such. That was what I put down on that paper now. It looked like a child's scrawl compared to the other writing but Jeb said it looked fine and seemed more at peace when I'd done it.
He closed his eyes and rested and I must have dozed off too where I was leaning against the tree. I woke as he called my name what must have been some hours later and I immediately moved to his side.
"Vin...." His voice sounded different than it had before, distant and strange. He had his eyes fixed on something I couldn't see.
"Jeb." I shook his shoulder slightly to snap him out of it. "Jeb!"
"I'm goin' now..." he whispered faintly. "I'm goin' now..."
"No Jeb," I tried to convince him not to leave me. "Stay with me. Just hang on til mornin' and I'll get some help."
But as I said that I could feel that death was only a step away now and I wished for Nathan to be there with me. I didn't think even he could halt death in this case but he'd have known what to do so Jeb wouldn't suffer much.
That old man had given me nothing but kindness and I owed him. He had saved my life when I'd been a boy but I had been too late now to really save his. There wasn't much I could do for him but stay with him till the end. A wave of sorrow flowed through my whole body as I saw him fading. I'm not a crying man and I didn't cry now either but my heart got awful heavy.
"Jeb. Jeb, look at me," I asked him and this time he reacted. He turned his eyes to me again and I could see pain in them but there was also a spark that told me he hadn't given up yet.
"Just don't leave me, son," he whispered and reached for my hand but his grip was so faint now that I could hardly feel it. It was no more than the feeling of a butterfly landing on your skin.
"I promise, Jeb," I told him. "I won't leave you."
And I never did, not for one second the whole dark night but it was all for nothing. Just as dawn was breaking over the hills Jeb left me and I never even heard it happen. I'd turned around for just one second to put another branch on the fire and when I turned back I found his vacant eyes staring into heaven.
I buried him that morning underneath another tree nearby. Man should rest in a proper place, not the one where he was strung up, so I chose a location up on a soft rise where there was a nice view down the valley. I even said a few words. Just wish I could've remembered more of them.
With one last look back at the grave I set out for Sorrows with Jeb's papers safely tucked inside my coat. They were at least two days ahead of me now but if they were looking for something they'd have to stay and search and then I could catch up with them.
I could feel the rage burning in my gut as I thought about rounding them up. We were far from the law up here and they'd probably counted on that. It would be hard for me to try and prove that something had happened in Ghost Country with no other witnesses. No warrant would ever be sworn out against them for murdering Jeb.
But you didn't need a warrant to hunt down a pair of mad dogs and that's exactly what they were. Anyone who could do what they'd done to an old man who posed them no threat - well, let's just say that one way or the other Jeb's killers wouldn't ever leave this place, not if I could help it. It might not be right by way of the law but it would be justice and I wouldn't regret it.
When I made camp that evening I was so close to Sorrows that I could've seen it if there'd been enough daylight left. They hadn't bothered to hide their trail, a blind man could have followed it. Probably didn't think they needed to hide it. It made me mad, thinking how sure they must be that they would get away with it. I made my fire two times bigger than I really needed so they might get a glimpse of it up there in the Sorrows. To let them know someone was coming. Let them think and wait and sweat for a while.
I made my bed near the fire and then put my hat down and some stones underneath the blanket to make it look like someone was sleeping soundly there. When that was done I slipped off into the dark and found a sheltered place nearby where it wouldn't be too uncomfortable to get some shut eye. Just in case they were closer than I figured and tried to sneak up on me in the night. I sat down with my back against a rock and a blanket around me. With my gun in my lap I soon fell into uneasy slumber.
In the middle of the night I was wakened by the sound of someone carefully moving in on my camp and I was immediately on the move. I circled around quiet-like until I was sure it was only one man and that I had him covered. Then I spoke up.
"I know you're out there," I said. "I've got you dead to center. If you're friendly come right on in. If you're not - then this is your last chance to light a shuck and get out of here."
Everything got real quiet for a while and then a voice replied from out of the darkness.
"If you'd be so kind as to point that in another direction, Mr Tanner. I'm quite fond of this coat and would like to keep it as it is for a while. That means without any unseemly holes in it, if you please."
I lowered the gun in surprise and stepped out into the light. I knew that voice. The way he put them words together it could hardly be anyone but Ezra.
"Ezra?" I said, not quite believing it.
The shadows seemed to flow together to take the shape of a man as he stepped out of the darkness and into the warm circle cast by the fire. It was him all right, without his horse but with not even a speck of dust on his fancy clothes. He rubbed his hands together as if they were chilled and then moved to warm them over the fire. If there was one thing I had never counted on seeing it was Ezra Standish out here and on foot. Where the heck had he come from?
"No words of greeting?" Ezra said. I was just about to say something in return when he looked up for a second and watched me from across the fire. His eyes looked funny, almost as if they glowed deep within, like embers. Then he blinked and his eyes shifted from yellow back to green again. It was there and then gone so quickly that I could only think that it must have been some strange reflection of the flames in his eyes.
"Well, Mr Tanner..." Ezra gave me a slight smile. "I do believe I've managed to surprise you this time."
Peso spoke up behind my back and he sounded uneasy so I turned to check on him. He was pacing back and forth and neighing softly as if there was something nearby that he didn't like. Last time I'd seen him that upset had been when he'd smelled a pack of wolves on the hunt a few years back. He must have sensed some wild thing out in the dark now but I sure couldn't see or hear anything.
My eyes went back to Ezra. Surprise wasn't the word for it. Him - out here, alone? Ezra could hardly find his way out of a barn by hisself. There was no way he could've come into Ghost Country alone. The only way I could see him finding his way in here would be if I tied a rope to his horse and led it in myself. But here he was.
He couldn't have have followed me all the way from town without me knowing about it. Chanu probably could have. Chris maybe, though I doubted it, but not Ezra. Not in a lifetime.
It didn't ring true. None of it.
He'd have needed a horse to keep up with me - where was it now? Didn't look like Ezra had been thrown but it was too dark to say for sure. The clouds that had waited under the horizon during the day now covered the whole sky and shut out any light from the moon and stars, my lonely fire seemed to be the only light for miles around.
Peso spoke up again and I went over to him. He was still mighty skittish and for no good reason that I could find.
"Easy, boy, easy...." He finally seemed to calm down some when he heard my voice but at first he shied away from my touch. I patted him gently until he stopped his pacing and stood still but he was as tense as a bow string under my hands. Underneath his mane I could feel long tremors run down his neck.
"What's the matter with you?" I asked him but he only shook his head. He didn't want to stand still, he wanted to run, as far away from here as he could get. After a while I got him to quiet down a bit but he kept looking at something like it made him uneasy and it wasn't something outside camp. I followed his line of sight but all I could see in that direction was-
It was Ezra. There was something about Ezra that scared Peso. What was it? Some scent? Or something else....
Ezra didn't seem to feel that anything was wrong. He was making himself right at home there on the other side of the fire. He leaned his back against a stone and moved around until he was settled comfortably. Then he looked up at me but this time he didn't say anything.
I learned early on that you can find out a whole lot if you just stay still and listen and watch. Helps if you know what's going on before you make up your mind and take sides. I've always been more of a watcher than a talker and for all his smooth talk Ezra's something of a watcher too. Sometimes, though, he just ain't seeing what's right in front of his eyes.
I think Ezra likes the sound of his own voice too much to shut up for long and he ain't too particular with the rights and wrongs of things. He uses words to confuse or attack but I've seen him a few times when he's sizing someone up and he can be real quiet then. He'll sit and watch in silence for as long as it takes until he can figure out his target's weakness. When he's found it he goes for it, just like a rattler striking. And just like with a rattler you sometimes have to move carefully around him.
I moved to sit down on a spot where I could see him clearly but where the fire was still between us. We just sat and watched each other quiet-like for a while, both of us sizing the other up. There was something different about him but I couldn't quite say what it was. I was quite sure that he wasn't going to tell me either, if I wanted to know I'd have to ask.
"How'd you get out here by yourself?" I said to him.
"You must think me terribly inept to ask such a question, Mr Tanner. I was out of luck in town and bored out of my skull. So I just decided to go looking for more stimulating company."
"And you left all the others behind ... just like that?"
"I had a question to ask you about something that concerns us both. Care for a game of cards, Mr Tanner?
"You came all this way just for a game of chance?"
"There's no such thing as chance."
He hadn't answered my questions, he'd talked around them but he hadn't answered them. There was nothing in his words to alarm me but I could feel the hairs rise on the back of my neck all the same. Danger. I smelled it, just like Peso.
My mouth went dry, my heart beat faster and my senses got real sharp. Something was about to happen. Time seemed to move slower, like it did in a dream. Maybe this was a dream.
I didn't like the shape of the thought that was now in my mind. It was crazy what I was thinking.
Ezra couldn't be here - so maybe it wasn't Ezra.
Someone else in Ezra's skin, looking out from behind his eyes, speaking almost with his voice.... It was impossible and I couldn't explain how I knew but I felt in my gut that it was so.
"Who are you?" I asked.
The second I asked him something flashed in his eyes. I could see that he knew what I was talking about but he pretended he didn't.
"What a curious question, Mr Tanner. I can assure you that I am no other than your faithful companion Ezra Stan-"
"No," I interrupted him. "You ain't him. I don't know who you are but you ain't him."
I pulled my gun and pointed it straight at his heart. "So, I ask you again...." My finger rested against the trigger. "Who - are - you?"
He smiled at me suddenly but it was a feral smile without any real joy in it. Something shifted in his face and eyes, he didn't look half as much as Ezra as he had a second ago but he still sounded a bit like him when he spoke.
"I'm me," he said. "Nothing else."
My hand went to my knife. Cold steel can protect you from the unholy, or so I've heard. Never had to put it to the test. Never believed I would have to.
"What've you done to Ezra?"
"Nothing." The thing wearing Ezra's skin sounded unconcerned. "When I saw him in town earlier tonight he was safe and sound. He'll probably have a grand headache when he wakes, though."
"What town?"
"The one you came from, of course."
Of course he said, but that town was several days ride away from here. I wondered again if this was a dream but it felt real enough. Was he a ghost or some other kind of spirit?
Through the years I've heard a lot about what folks from all kinds of places think roam the night but I'd never thought I'd meet up with anything like this. Naming held great power, I wished I could name the one that was with me now.