Coyote Waiting
~~ Josiah ~~
I looked at the doorway, not knowing what to expect next, but it stayed empty. After what had just happened in the church I needed a drink. I walked over to Ezra and borrowed his flask, I didn't think he'd mind under the circumstances.
I was still feeling a little shaky so I sat down by the table, drank what was left in the flask and rested a while. Barely twenty minutes had passed when I got another shock. Buck was back and this time he had JD with him, or maybe JD weren't JD either, I could no longer be sure of anything. Reacting without conscious thought I suddenly felt the reassuring weight of my gun in my hand.
"Josiah, it's us, Buck and me," the boy told me and I could see he was frightened but I could pay it no mind right now, not before I knew what was really going on.
"I can see that," I told him to try and reassure him a bit that I thought that he at least was who he gave himself out to be. I searched Buck's face but saw nothing amiss. It's not for nothing they call the eyes the windows of the soul and now I searched Buck's eyes but saw only the man I knew. This time there was nothing strange about him, nothing slightly different or wrong but rather the opposite. This was Buck - solid and real. I lowered my gun.
"I just wasn't sure who you were for a minute," I said by way of explanation but Buck didn't seem to be interested. Instead he asked me to tell JD that he hadn't been inside the church all night. When I replied that I couldn't do that he practically gaped at me in surprise before he asked me why that was. I told him the truth, that I had indeed seen him. As I spoke I could see a gleam of recognition in JD's eyes at my words but before I could ask him about it Ezra woke up and he was not at all happy.
While Buck helped Ezra outside JD asked me if I had really seen Buck in the church earlier.
"Yes, or rather someone who looked like Buck but wasn't him. It's hard to explain-"
"I knew it," JD said triumphantly. "I knew I hadn't dreamt it."
"You saw him too?"
"Not only that," the boy lowered his voice. "I saw Vin too."
"You did?" I lowered my voice too in reaction. A strange feeling had come over me, like we were being watched, but when I glanced around there was just the two of us in the church.
"Yeah," JD nodded. "But he disappeared like a ghost before I could talk to him. That reminds me, Nathan wants you to meet him at the jail right now. He had something important to tell you."
"Let's go," I told JD and we collected the other two outside and continued towards the jail.
My mind was full of random thoughts leading in all directions at once and my feelings were the same way, all jumbled up. I didn't know if I wanted to make sense out of it any more. I wasn't sure that I would like the result.
As soon as I entered the room Nathan looked up and grinned as he said,
"Josiah, I remembered. I know now.""Know what?" I asked.
"Ghost Country." Nathan said. "I know where it is."
Startled, I just blurted out, "What?" and Nathan immediately started to explain.
"It was old Marty, see, he's the one that told me that before but I didn't remember until I saw him tonight. A few months ago or so there was a big fight over at the saloon and Marty got hit by a chair on the head so I had to stitch him up. You remember, JD? Good. Well, since he didn't have any money he asked if he couldn't tell me a true story in payment instead and I thought why not, I couldn't turn down a bleeding man. So he told me about this place he had been through when he was a youngster, a strange place he said. It had a name long ago but that name was lost now and no one was living there so those living nearby just called it Ghost Country. It's supposed to be a beautiful valley, big enough for several families to settle in if they want farm land but you can't grow nothing there. The crops wither or freeze and you can't raise cattle either cause it goes astray and is never found again. Ghost Country is surrounded by high mountains on all sides and the snow never melts, neither on the peaks nor in the deep, shaded ravine where the river runs down. It's like a cold spot surrounded by desert and woodlands and the peaks hold the clouds there all year long so it sometimes snows there even in the summertime. Marty told me that he met some families, long before the war, that were on the way to California to look for gold. They took a wrong turn and ended up in Ghost Country instead. They were warned beforehand not to settle there by an old indian who's people knew of the place but they didn't listen, guess they thought they had found paradise. They soon found out that wasn't so."
Nathan's face got more sombre the further he got into the story. He looked once at Marty who was stretched out on the bunk in the cell and sleeping like the dead. I could see through the window that the sun had started its climb over the horizon but it was obvious that it would be some time before Marty could be questioned. The story must have made a real impression on Nathan when he's first heard it though, because he never hesitated as he told it to us now. Everyone was silent and listening with rapt attention, even Buck.
"Three years later," Nathan continued, "Marty passed through a small town way south of Ghost Country and he recognized a man in the local cantina. It was the son to one of the men who had gone into that valley but he looked like he had aged ten, twenty years and he was all alone. Marty asked him what had happened to the rest of them and he got the answer that they were all dead, every last one of them. Some had been taken by sickness, others by animals. Some had just plain vanished. They never even got around to planting crops and they had to rely on hunting for game but game were scarce that year for some reason. Could be because the wild beasts were plentiful. Strange beasts, unlike what you normally see, and they scared the women with the noises they made in the night. Soon the littelest ones died from sickness and that made the grown ups lose heart completely, but before they could leave fever got most of them too. The man Marty talked to had survived together with his pa, he had lost his ma and two young sisters. The two men left right after the burials and on the way out of that place his pa had walked a short ways away from their final camp at night and never made it back. The son could find no trace of him, none at all. Out of twenty-seven people only one made it out of Ghost Country alive. And that's where Marty ended his tale and he could see that I didn't believe a word of it, but then - something happened...."
"I remember this," JD broke in. "I was there when Marty told that story, and Vin too."
Nathan nodded. "Yeah. When I said to Marty that there was no such place Vin came right up and said that he had been through Ghost Country once himself. He'd been just a kid then and met an old man who lived there and who had been kind to him. I asked Vin later if Ghost Country really was such a terrible place but he just said that it was a strange place and left it at that."
"Why would he go back there?" I wondered aloud to myself and then I decided to explain to the others about the dreams I had been having about Vin in Ghost Country.
"This just keeps getting better and better," Buck muttered when I finished. "First it was ghosts and then tales told by a drunk and now we're talking about dreams. Is there anyone here that can tell me something that they can prove actually happened?"
"Don't you feel it, Buck?" JD asked.
"Feel what? All I know is that when I rode out of town last night everything was like it should be and now that it's morning you've gone plain loco. All of you."
"Something happened long before that," JD persisted. "It's like we've been waiting every day for something bad to happen and the waiting has gone to our heads and made us act strange. I mean, take Ezra getting drunk after that bird nearly attacked him in the saloon and-"
"Ah beg your pardon," Ezra broke in sharply. He had been slumped in a chair by the desk but now he suddenly sat up straight. "Do you accuse me of becoming inebriated because I lack intestinal fortitude?"
"Huh?" JD said and looked totally lost.
"You telling him he got drunk because he lacks guts, JD?" I translated.
"No!" JD looked shocked that we would think this. "That's not what I meant at all."
"Of course not." Buck came to his defence. "JD wouldn't say that. He knows them's shooting words."
"Yeah," JD said and looked very unhappy. "I just meant that something has been happening to all of us and we're not ourselves. Ezra, you can't say you haven't felt that something was wrong because you have."
"So what if I have," Ezra said and gave us all an uneasy glance. "It's no one's business but my own."
"That's where you're wrong," I said. "I think it's quite clear now that this affects all of us. JD is right. Look at us, the sun has barely been up an hour and except for Chris we're all here."
"Somebody mention my name?" a familiar voice sounded from the door and I turned just in time to see Chris step into the sheriff's office.
"When you speak of the devil," Ezra broke the silence with a soft mutter.
Chris gave Ezra a long, indecipherable look. "Good morning to you too, Ezra."
"You wouldn't say that if you'd had the same night we've all had," Ezra replied and rubbed his hands over his face and eyes. His skin still had a green sheen to it.
"What you complaining about," Buck grumbled. "At least you got some sleep."
"And in that sleep what dreams may come-" Ezra recited, but so quietly that it was almost as if he was talking just to himself. He suddenly shuddered and looked up at Chris and asked the question that was on all our minds.
"What brings you here so early then?"
Chris pulled up a chair and set it so he could survey the room and everyone in it.
"I woke early cause I heard some animal sniffing around the shack. Found some tracks circling the place and I think I spotted it in the distance. Followed it for a while but I lost it when I got closer to town. I looked but couldn't find any more tracks so I thought I'd take a look at what you're all doing."
"Was it a coyote?" I asked.
"No, think it was a wolf. Why?"
"No reason. Just wondering," I said. "Kinda strange for a lonesome wolf to be so close to town."
Chris frowned as he thought this over and then he shrugged and said, "Maybe. Could be a real old one that's lost its pack and is trying to survive by killing livestock."
"Could be," I agreed but I was remembering the story about Wolf and Coyote.
Chris frowned as he looked at me, he must have sensed that there was something I wasn't saying. He looked around the room, at Nathan in the open jailcell by Marty's side and at Buck leaning against the bars. Last of all he studied JD and Ezra. JD was sitting on one corner of the beat up old desk near the wall and Ezra was behind the same desk with his feet resting on the opposite corner to where JD was sitting.
"What is this about, Josiah?" Chris Larabee asked and I looked to Nathan and he nodded - it was time. So I told Chris and the others interrupted me from time to time and told their own stories that seemed to fit right into mine. Now that I could see a pattern emerging I found I had been correct when I thought that I wouldn't like the result. One event had led to another in a way that went far beyond mere coincidence. It certainly confirmed my impression that something was making us move in a certain direction.
Buck continued to watch all of us as we spoke and there was a look of complete disbelief written all over his face by now. It looked like nothing short of a visit by the Lord himself would convince Buck but Chris was another matter. He just narrowed his eyes as he looked at me.
"Explain to me how both you and JD could see someone who looked and sounded exactly like Buck when you both say that it wasn't him."
"I can't," I told him. Since there was no way I could conjure up a believable explanation I didn't even bother to try.
"JD, you say you saw Vin but you're sure it wasn't really him."
"Yeah, he was just - wrong," JD said and Chris looked even more thoughtful.
"Sounds like we've got an unbelievable amount of coincidences here," Chris stated and looked me square in the eye. "Most of them center around you, Josiah."
Again I could find nothing to say against that. "I agree but I can't say why that is," I finally told him. "It's not something I've done. Maybe it's because I sometimes see things that others don't."
"What about the papers?" Ezra suddenly spoke."I mean as long as we're talking about strange happenings in town, I think that qualifies."
This was something new. "What papers?" Chris asked.
"Scraps of papers with a strange verse written on them. JD has one."
JD looked surprised and his hand flew to his waistcoat pocket. He pulled out a small paper and looked at it. "I forgot that was there. It says - Now this is the Law of the Jungle, as old and as true as the sky."
"That's all?" Chris asked and JD nodded.
"I found it in my deck after the crow had flown through the saloon," Ezra explained. "And then I found another, equally incomprehensible, while I was sitting on the church steps. Surely I can't have been the only one to find these verses .... " His voice trailed off and he looked at me.
"I haven't received any," I said and it was clear that none of the others had either.
"I don't understand why I am the only recipient." Ezra frowned.
"Maybe it's because you use them big words all the time," Buck said but Ezra ignored the barb.
"We don't know that you are the only one," Nathan said. "Two papers ain't much. Could be more that we haven't found yet."
"Nathan's right," Chris said. "Buck, you and JD go and search all our rooms. Josiah and I will search Nathan's clinic, the church and the saloon. Nathan, you and Ezra stay here and keep and eye on things. If someone wants us to find these papers they'll probably be out in plain sight so this shouldn't take long."
Less than an hour had gone by when we returned to the saloon. JD and Buck had already returned ahead of us and JD was a bit out of breath, like he had run all the way back to the jail. Their quest must have been successful, ours had turned up nothing more than dust.
"We found two more papers in Ezra's room," JD said. The boy was nearly jumping up and down from excitement and impatience.
"Well, what do they say?" I asked them. JD looked down at his scrap and read for all of us to hear, "And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper."
With a face as serious as I've ever seen on him Buck handed JD the other piece of paper and JD's voice sank almost to an uneasy whisper as he continued,
"But the Wolf that shall break it must die."Ezra pulled out the note he had found out of his pocket and read,
"As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back - That's all then. Told you it was incomprehensible," he said."There's more," I said. Up until now I had kept silent about what the being in the church had said to me in parting.
"There's what -" I stopped and shot an apologetic look towards Buck as I gave it his name, "-what Buck's double said also. I can't remember all of it word for word but it was something about fighting one wolf at a time away from the pack. What I do remember clearly is what he said to me last and it fits right in with the other verses. For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.""Josiah," Chris Larabee barked at me. He wanted an answer to this riddle but I had none to give him. I could make a pretty good guess though. Ezra was quicker than me, however. His mind moved like lightning, probably used as it was to being one step ahead of the game.
"We are the Pack," Ezra said softly.
Chris was not far behind. "And Vin is the Wolf?" He was still looking at me to answer.
"Could be," I said, in fact I had never considered any other possibility. I had to add, "But all the signs so far point to it involving all of us, not just Vin. We've all felt or been shown things. The last thing that man asked me was what the pack would do if the wolf was in trouble, if it should fight or not. He also said that we had until the new moon to find Vin. I guess that after that it won't matter."
The one question left to ask now was who could be behind all this, but no one asked it. Everything that had happened so far suggested actions that went far beyond what any mortal man could do. If that was the enemy we were up against it could only mean trouble. I didn't want to think further than that.
"Do you think we're in danger?" Chris asked me.
"I don't know," I answered truthfully.
"Do you really think something has happened to Vin?"
The look Chris gave me told me that he would base his next decision on my reply and I suddenly hesitated over what to say and felt doubt crawling into my mind. I felt exhausted now, as if I hadn't slept in days which in reality I hadn't. Maybe my judgment was flawed. What if Buck was right and I was reading too much into what could all be just some coincidences, no matter how unlikely. Now I wondered ... did I really have the right to set something in motion that might lead all of us into trouble, just because I personally wanted to keep us together?
The movement of a black-feathered wing against the faint morning sun caught my eye and I could see a single crow sitting on the empty rail outside the jail and stare in through the window right at me. Trust me, its dark eyes seemed to say. Gazing back at that bird I knew the truth, I could feel it in my very bones.
"Yes," I said into the silence."I'm afraid so."
~~ Buck ~~
Crazy. They were all talking crazy. Was I the only one with a level head suddenly?
Josiah saw things in a dream, JD saw things on the street, Nathan saw the crows and told some loco tale about ghosts and Ezra had definitely drunk too much. And worst of all - Chris seemed to believe them! They must all have lost their minds."Excuse me but - Signs? Clues? What clues?" I said in a last attempt to set them straight. "You're all talking about there being some danger just because you've found scraps of verse. This is probably a joke that someone is playing on you!"
Ezra suddenly laughed. "I never thought I'd see the day when Mr Wilmington tries to be the voice of reason among us," he said and that got me kinda angry.
"Shut up Ezra before I tell Nathan to amputate your head." I gave him a dirty look to back up my threat but he just raised his eyebrows and gave me a bored look back.
"A rather crude suggestion that I find quite appealing in my present predicament."
JD looked completely lost again and looked to Josiah for a translation.
"He's hung over," Josiah told JD. Ezra looked like he was sick to his stomach again. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard before he nodded and said, "Quite."
I felt some small satisfaction from seeing Ezra go pale but that soon ended as Chris suddenly turned on me.
"If it's a joke...." he said. "It's skillfully done by someone who knows us well. So what do you know about it, Buck?"
"Nothing," I quickly said and put on my most sincere face before I continued. "I didn't mean anything, I just-"
But Chris was already turning away from me and talking to Josiah again and I knew that he had been swayed by what Josiah had said. Whatever they decided I would have to go along with it or be left behind. Darn thing was that I was starting to believe myself that something was going on. They all seemed to have felt something, so why hadn't I? Was it because I didn't want to know? Was it because I had stayed out of town? Was it because it had to do with Vin? No, that last thing couldn't be it, I had nothing against him. Or did I? Deep down where I didn't even know it myself? No! Maybe JD was right and I wasn't myself either, both Josiah and JD seemed to think I was someone else, or had been someone else. It was all quite bewildering. I needed a drink and soft arms around my neck to make me forget my troubles. Right about now would be fine.
"Seems like we've been given a challenge," Chris said and looked at all of us in turn. "I don't know about you but I've never backed down from a challenge in my life and I ain't about to start now. If Vin is in trouble I want to find out what it is and help him out if I can, he'd do no less for any of us. If someone has done something to him, I want to make that person pay, no matter who it is. So I'm going after Vin. In this I can't speak for all of us, it just goes for me but you're all welcome to join me."
Josiah was the first to step forward, as all of us had expected.
"We started out as seven," he said. "I'd like to keep it that way."
"You might need a doctor when you get to Ghost Country," Nathan said next. "Business has been kinda slow around here, I don't think they'll miss me all that much."
Chris then turned to Ezra and looked at him and Ezra sighed.
"Well," he said. "I do like to gamble, and it seems to me that there can be no bigger gamble than all of us making it back to Four Corners alive. Maybe I can change the odds to our advantage. Besides, the way my head feels right now the possibility of death in the near future is but a minor concern."
Now it was just the kid and me left and JD looked at me as determined as all that.
"Well, I'm going," he said defiantly as if I had challenged him when I hadn't said a word for or against.
"Buck?" Chris asked.
"Don't you think us all going away at once will leave this town wide open to all kinds of trouble?" I said, not ready to give in just yet. "We were all hired to protect this town, weren't we?"
"If Josiah is right this town will be in more trouble if we stay," Chris answered. "I'm gonna send a message to the judge and ask the sheriff in Bitter Creek to come over and keep an eye on things for a few weeks. I know he's good and he's got a competent deputy to keep an eye on things in his own town. Besides, things have been quiet for weeks now and if Mary keeps our going out of the papers then hopefully nobody'll be the wiser. Can I count on you, Buck?"
He held out his hand towards me and pinned me down with his eyes and I gave up.
"You know you can always count on me," I said and met his hand with my own in a firm shake.
It was decided that we should travel by first light the next day or as soon after that as was possible. That way we could make all necessary preparations and make sure that Marty was awake enough to give us proper directions on how to reach Ghost Country. He was still sleeping like the dead but Nathan assured us that all was as it should be. As the meeting came to an end it was clear that the first stop on everyone's list was the saloon and the boys all went in that direction as soon as they stepped out on the street.
That just left me and Chris now in the sheriff's office and I grabbed a hold of Chris just as he passed me on his way to the door.
"Chris .. " I said." What if...?" I couldn't finish what I had started to say but we both knew it anyway. What if something had happened? What if Vin was dead?
When he looked at me he had a look on his face that I hadn't seen in a while. I could see that he knew exactly what I was talking about, that he had seen it all in his head already. Then he shut me out, it was like a door sliding into place and his eyes turned hard as flint and impossible to read. I had seen that look before too and I had hoped it was gone forever. No such luck.
"We'll deal with that when we get there," Chris said firmly and that was that. There was no pain in his voice. Not even a bit of it. There was nothing at all. I've heard him talk about the weather with more emotion and it worried me.
I had lost Chris once before and he hadn't really come back to his old self again, not all the way to how he had been before Sarah and Adam were killed. I wasn't exactly the same either. It had been a long hard road since then, a struggle that I thought neither of us had the strength to go through again. Chris, Sarah and Adam ... that had been such a perfect dream - but it had shattered and we were still picking up the pieces. A man don't dream more than one such dream in a lifetime but you could dream about other things, smaller things, and Chris had picked up enough pieces of his old self to find a new purpose for his life in defending this town. And Vin was a part of it somehow. I didn't quite understand how it was all tied together but there was no way I could deny that it somehow was.
I stayed behind for a while and looked at Chris as he walked towards the saloon. When I could see him no more I went over to the desk and opened the middle drawer. There it was, I knew JD would have put it there for safekeeping. Just two months earlier a photographer had come to Four Corners and most of the town residents had dressed up as fancy as they could and gone to have their picture taken. JD had pestered the rest of us until we had all agreed to take one too, even though it would cost a lot.
For posterity as Ezra put it but I mostly think he was glad to show off his new fancy waistcoat. He'd just had that made from a bundle of silk cloth he had won from a travelling salesman. In that outfit he looked like a rich man and us his hired help and I think that was what he wanted it to look like. Vin had been the most reluctant to have his picture taken, probably because he had only seen pictures like that on wanted posters before, heck maybe even on his own wanted poster. But JD had managed somehow to talk him into it.
I looked at that picture now and smiled as I saw JD look into the camera with his most serious expression on his face, trying to look like he had twice the experience and age but not quite living up to that look. A hundred years from now they might be fooled but for us who knew him it was just JD as the kid. Chris looked as unsmiling as ever and Ezra was looking stiff and had his eyes somewhere above the camera. Josiah just looked like Josiah and Nathan and I were the only ones who couldn't help grinning a bit, even when the photographer told us not to. Last of all I looked at Vin standing to the far right with his right hand resting on the butt of his holstered mare's leg and clutching something in his left hand. I couldn't quite make it out but I guessed it was his harmonica. He looked uncomfortable as he stood there and the brim of his hat was shading his face a bit but he was there all the same. For our sake.
What if he hadn't been there? What if he had never been with us? What if that place in the photograph was empty and there was just the six of us? I tried to picture it and it felt wrong. Vin was a man who didn't say much but he had a presence that was even more obvious when he wasn't around. And now something was just plain missing. Seven was an odd number but it had beaten all odds so far.
I made myself a promise then, a promise that I would have to keep no matter what.
We were going to find Vin. Dead or alive we would find him and then we would bring him home.
~~ CHRIS ~~
Now this is the Law of the Jungle -
as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper,
but the Wolf that shall break it must die.As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk
the Law runneth forward and back -
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf,
and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.
--
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.
What Josiah had said kept echoing in my head as I walked across the dusty street towards the saloon. I doubted very much that the writer had had us in mind when he thought it up but it described us pretty well, all the same. Most of us could be seen as lone wolves and we were pretty much unbeatable as a pack. That meant also that every time one of us was away it made us weaker. If someone wanted to test our strength then what better way than to divide us first and test us one by one. Was that it? No one was more of a lone wolf than Vin. Was that why he had been chosen first?
The way Josiah put it all together made it sound as if he thought there was some higher power involved in all of this. The way the others talked most of them seemed to think that too, well - except for Buck. Myself, I had a hard time believing in something that I hadn't seen with my own two eyes and I wasn't quite sure what really had been happening in town.
Still ... I couldn't forget, no matter how much I tried, the feeling I'd had when I saw Vin ride away. Knowing that he wouldn't come back. That feeling was like a heavy weight on my heart now but I fought it as best I could. I couldn't afford to start doubting that Vin was still alive. If there was any way to find out the truth about what had happened I would find it.
I talked to Mary and she was more understanding than I had expected and didn't protest all that much. She was a good woman and she knew that some things just had to be done, no matter what the cost. Maybe she was calmed by the fact that the sheriff from Bitter Creek would do fine as a temporary replacement.
So things were set in motion and early next morning we were on the way. The directions that Marty had given us told us to go northwest towards the mountains and that's what we did for several days. We went as fast as we could without straining our horses and kept away from towns, preferring instead to stay out in the open. None of us spoke more than necessary during this time, not even Ezra or JD who were normally hard to shut up. When we started to speak about something it usually turned into Vin stories in the end. The kind of stories where you start out by saying 'Remember the time when Vin- '
The first night as we made camp I listened to the others as they kept bantering and interrupting each other and telling tall tales about Vin. JD was quiet too and he listened for a long while before saying, "You know what you're doing? You talk about Vin as if he's already dead and gone."
They all fell quiet and then Buck said somberly, "That's not true, JD." But as soon as JD said it we all knew it was true anyway. Josiah's eyes met mine across the fire and he smiled and turned to JD.
"Vin's got more sand than anyone I've ever met," he told the boy quietly. "He's the kind of man who'd charge hell with a bucket of water if he felt like it. He'd probably manage to put out a fire or two along the way too. I feel confident that we'll find him alive, JD. Men like him are hard to kill."
Josiah looked at me as he said the last words and I think he was trying to reassure me as well as JD. Sometimes I got the feeling that Josiah could see right through all of us, including me.
"Yeah," Buck said and reached out to squeeze JD's shoulder. "If there's anyone who can take care of himself out there it's Vin so don't you fret, JD. He'll be all right."
It was getting late and we would have to start out early the next day. There was no way of telling what would happen when we got to Ghost country but for now there was no need to keep a man up on guard so we all settled down into our blankets.
"Got sand," Ezra muttered from his nest of blankets. Somehow he seemed to have gotten hold of more blankets than the rest of us had put together. "Got any more quaint western expressions at hand, Mr Sanchez?"
"I'll think one up just for you, brother Ezra," Josiah replied immediately and the rest of us all burst out laughing as Ezra sniffed and flipped his hat down over his eyes so he could no longer see us or the fire.
Three days later we got our first glance of Ghost Country. The entrance to the valley was hard to find even with Marty's directions, at first we even went past it and had to re-trace our steps. There was a trail, if you could call it that, that looked mostly unused and led up a steep mountainside. It had to have been near impossible to make it up there with a wagon. A man had to be desperate or truly convinced that the effort was worth it to make that drive. Riding over the ridge and looking down on the land spread out below I began to understand. It was no wonder the settlers Nathan had spoken about thought they had found paradise, I'm not sure I've ever seen greener, prettier land. It looked like an ocean of the greenest of grazing land with islands of gently rolling hills. Far in the distance there was the telltale glitter that spoke of a lazy river and then there were the mountains that surrounded us. Gentle slopes and steep falls, patches of white snow and peaks covered by green pine trees. Everywhere you looked there was something new to be seen and it was beautiful, and much bigger than I ever could have guessed. In a strange way it looked as if the valley was much bigger on the inside than it looked from the outside. You never would have guessed there would be this bounty hidden within the mountain range.
"Chris," Buck had come up beside me and stopped to see the sights as well. There was awe in his voice when he spoke.
"This is beautiful. But so big. Chris, we ain't gonna have time to search through it all...""I know," I said, that thought had stuck me also with my first glance into Ghost Country. It would most likely take weeks to search through it all and it was time we just didn't have.
The rest of the boys were coming up behind us and we started on our way down and it took the rest of daylight just to make it to the river where we decided to make camp.
A grim silence had settled over us. At one time or the other during that evening I could see all of the boys stop what they were doing for a second and just look and listen out into the dark to see if anything was there. When twilight was finally gone I walked some ways away from the fire into the darkness and looked around. There shouldn't have been enough light for me to see the contours of the woods ahead of us but I could see them all the same. It wasn't hard to imagine Vin moving around these woods like a ghost among the shadows. He could be out there watching and we would never know it, he was that good at what he did. Worst thing was that Vin was the best tracker among us and we sorely needed a man with his knowledge right about now.
Ghost Country lay silent and mist was starting to creep up from the river so I hurried back the short way to camp and lay down to restless sleep. Once I woke up as the horses softly whinnied at each other but it didn't sound like danger. I knew Buck was on guard and he didn't say anything so I soon fell asleep again.
I had a dream that night, a strange one. I dreamt that I was following a trail in the darkness up the mountainside. It was so real that I could feel the ground against the soles of my feet and I could feel the leaves brush against me as I got higher and higher. Then the undergrowth gave way to just big pine trees and I could run free up towards the mountain top. Running like that made me realize that I had more than just two legs. I stopped and looked down on myself and I could see that I was a wolf. Being a wolf didn't feel as strange to me as you might expect, it was still me deep inside. I looked up at the moon and it was the same moon that was above us now, but then it shifted and grew fuller. It looked like it must have when Vin had come here a week ago.
My eyes were much keener as a wolf and I had no trouble spotting the campfire up on the mountainside, far in the distance. I ran towards it but before I got there I could hear shooting and when I got near enough to look the camp was already abandoned. I wanted to move around it but something held me back and I sat down and waited instead. It seemed like I only blinked or maybe the whole world turned because suddenly everything was changed. It was daytime, the fire was out and there was snow on the ground. I looked up at the heavens and could see the moon as a pale sliver against the blue sky. I stood up and found that I was back to being me again but the wolf hadn't left me completely. It was sitting on the ground across from me and looking at me with its strange yellow eyes. It didn't look dangerous, more like it was curious, and I felt no fear. Then it spoke to me and I took a step back in surprise. I can't tell you what kind of voice it was, it was more like hearing your own voice inside your head but the words coming from somewhere outside.
*You do not belong here,* it said.*This place is ours. Go back.*
*I'm looking for someone,* I started to say but it interrupted me with *Go back,* once again. Then the wolf turned and ran away.Suddenly I was looking at the dark sky and I realized that I was awake and the dream was over. I hadn't woken by my own self either, someone was shaking my shoulder and I looked up to see that it was Josiah who had waked me so I could take his place as a guard. He signalled me that everything was quiet and I nodded and swept the blanket closer around me against the chilly night air. Picking up my rifle I took my place as guard.
Being out there on my lonesome while the others were sleeping gave me plenty of time to think on what the dream could mean. It had to be a warning, it felt like one but also as if someone was trying to give me a helping hand in a way that I couldn't understand. Having got that far I gave up and just waited for the morning that came ever so slowly.
The boys seemed to have slept about as well as I had and when the grey dawn was breaking we were already packing up our camp. Islands of mists floating just above the ground softened all shapes and muffled the sounds of gently jingling metal as we saddled our horses.
"Dear Lord!" I suddenly heard Ezra exclaim and we all flocked to where he was standing by his horse furthest away from the fire. Near to Ezra's horse stood another. There had been six horses in the group when we'd set camp and now there were seven. Another horse must have joined our party in the night and it was no stranger either. It was Vin's horse, Peso.
I walked over to him and looked him over. He was saddled and bridled and looked unharmed. Had the fool horse thrown Vin somewhere?
"Hey boy," I told it softly so as not to spook it and walked over to it and slowly took its reins. It nickered in greeting and rested it's muzzle against my shoulder for a while as I looked it over more closely. It was sure glad to see us, even before I gave it some of the sugar I kept in my pocket for Pony. Peso could be a real ornery critter if he wanted to but Vin and him had an understanding. He wouldn't leave Vin and run away without good reason. Something must have spooked him real bad and he looked almost relieved at finding someone he knew out here. Looking closer at the reins I could see that the ends were unevenly cut. Peso must have been tied to something and Vin or someone else had cut him loose to free him.
"Where's Vin?" I asked him but he just lifted his head and shook it as if to say that he didn't know. Vin had told me one time that he was trying to teach Peso to respond to his whistle but I realized that I had no idea whether or not he had managed to actually teach the horse that trick. Maybe Vin hadn't had time to whistle for Peso to come back after the horse had run off, but why had Peso done that in the first place? The second possibility I didn't want to think to deeply on, that Vin hadn't called or whistled for Peso because he was no longer able to do so. Whatever the reason Vin was out there somewhere on foot and that wasn't good. The odds just kept shifting and never in our favor.
The morning sun was starting to burn off the mist and it was time to start our search. At first we tried to backtrack Peso's tracks but they seemed to get lost among other tracks and the springy grass made them disappear at times. Maybe Vin could have found a clear track but none of us was that good. The others gathered around me and we decided to divide into two groups. Josiah, Nathan and Ezra were to search the grasslands and everything to the east and south while Buck, JD and I would search the wood covered mountainsides to the west and north.
"If any of us finds Vin-" I told them. "-or any traces of him, we signal the others with one shot then a pause and then two more. Understood?"
It was a simple enough signal to remember and they all nodded so I continued. "If we haven't found anything at all in 48 hours, or something else has happened, then we meet back here to re-think things."
I tied Peso to Pony's saddle and we rode off towards the woods I had looked at last night. Six hours later we stopped at the foot of the mountain to eat something and try to find a trail of some kind that would lead us up.
"You know-" JD said and then paused to put a large piece of bread in his mouth. "I had a funny dream last night. I dreamt I was a wolf."
I nearly choked on the gulp of water I was just about to swallow and I started to cough. Buck looked at me strangely but JD jumped up and patted me on the back until I could breathe freely once again. I thanked him and by then he seemed to have forgotten what he had started to talk about and went back to concentrating on his food instead. I could see Buck give him odd little glances but JD didn't seem to notice. I got the feeling that Buck knew as well as I what JD had dreamt about but I knew I would never get him to admit it.
We soon found what looked like a trail leading upwards and the further up we went the more familiar the surroundings seemed to me. The higher up we got the more the temperature dropped until we had to stop and put on some more clothes to keep from freezing. I was sure we were on the right trail now. I stopped and looked up into the sky at one point and the moon was there, just as I had dreamt it. Finally I saw a trail that was as familiar to me as if I had already gone through here once before.
"This is just like in the dream!" JD exclaimed, confirming my suspicions.
Buck and I looked at each other but we said nothing. A silent agreement was passed between us and Buck turned around and told JD to take Peso and wait further down at the beginning of the trail. The boy must have been freezing cause he turned around without so much as a complaint. I had the strangest feeling and I guessed that Buck had it too, that we would find something up there. Something I wasn't sure that JD should see.
Buck and I continued higher up and soon came upon more level ground. There we found the snow-covered remains of a small camp that looked hastily abandoned. A coffeepot lay overturned and I could see gun shells glimmer like rare metals underneath the shallow snow in the stray rays of sunshine that broke through the treetops.
And right there, in the middle of the camp, lay a hat that had been left behind. I recognized it right away. It belonged to Vin.
~~ Buck ~~
The higher up we went the colder it got. The thing about Ghost Country was that everything seemed turned around in here. The seasons, the lights and even the animals. It had been curiously quiet in the night and I had yet to hear birds singing, t'weren't natural. The mountains weren't the highest I've seen but there was a bitter wind sweeping over them and higher up it looked like the snow never melted all year round. Soon my breath was freezing in sharp ice needles in my mustache and JD's skin was turning blue.
He had really thrown me with saying he had dreamt about being a wolf. I had dreamt the same dream and from the way Chris was choking on a simple drink of water I guessed he knew what JD was talking about too. Three men having the same dream at the same time - it was impossible. All this unnatural stuff was making my skin crawl.
When JD said that the trail was the same as in the dream I knew he was right. The whole place looked as familiar to me as if I had been through here once before. I looked at Chris and he looked at me and we both came to a silent agreement that whatever was up there JD would be best left out of it. I had expected more in ways of protest when I asked JD to take Peso and go down the trail and wait for us there but he hardly said a word. I guess he was trying to keep his teeth from chattering, the poor kid was freezing.
So it was just Chris and me left now as we went up the mountain trail and we had barely ridden for more than an hour when we came across a small camp.
There was a thin layer of snow covering the ground in soft waves made by the wind. It wasn't enough to completely cover the remains of a small camp that must have been suddenly abandoned. I took the horses and tied their reins to a branch while Chris carefully walked into the camp, studying the ground all the way. I stayed on the outskirts while he walked round it twice, stopping to pick up small things, like spent shells and parts of a broken knife, that had been buried underneath the snow. A coffeepot was laying thrown on its side with the spilled contents frozen in a puddle the color of dried blood. Finally Chris stopped and picked up the one thing he had barely glanced at until then. It was a hat.
"It's Vin's," he said with absolute certainty.
"You sure?" I asked him even though I knew what the answer would be.
"You know it is," he replied. And I did, it was hard to mistake that hat.
Chris took the hat and slapped it against his leg to make snow fall off and then he studied it in silence. He held it up against the sky and I could see the light shining through a small round hole in the crown. A brand new bullet-hole.
I walked over to where I could see traces of soot mixed in with the snow near the coffeepot. I kicked a bit at the fire before I bent down and put my hand in the ashes to confirm what was obvious. They were cold. The snow cover was so thick over the dead fire that I needn't have bothered but I guess I needed something to do. Whoever had been here was long gone. Two-three days at least.
I looked over at Chris who was studying the hat with such intensity that I was surprised his eyes didn't bore a hole straight through it. Suddenly he looked up, took a deep breath and let it out slowly in a cloud of white mist.
"No blood," he said without showing any emotion and then he walked away to the edge of the trees and turned his back on me and studied the surroundings instead.
~~ Chris ~~
I looked down at Vin's hat and brushed off the last remaining flecks of snow from the crown. Vin had been here, it was as clear as day. Where had he gone to? He wouldn't have left without his things if it hadn't been absolutely necessary.
The signs of a battle that we had found here worried me no end. I had never worried about Vin before, it felt strange. If there was one man I knew could take care of himself in a fight, it was Vin. I trusted him more than I trusted myself even. JD was another matter. You had to keep an eye on him all the time to make sure he didn't get in anyone's way or left himself without cover. The kid was learning and what he didn't have in way of instincts he made up for in plain stubbornness, he just kept trying until he got it right. Still, it only took one careless move and one bullet so we all looked out for JD when we could. But I never looked to see where Vin was in a fight 'cause I knew he would be where he did us the most good. It came as natural to him as breathing.
At least we hadn't found his gun. He must still have that with him and that meant he had the means to defend himself. That was what I wanted to believe anyway.
I looked around further, searching for something out of place that could tell me where to go next. The wind and the snow had long since erased any tracks near the camp and I saw nothing. For the first time I could feel my hope fade into nothing and coldness squeezed my heart. Vin could be lying injured somewhere out there. He could already be lost to us and we'd never know what happened to him. It was not an uncommon fate up here.
"Vin!" I called out but the wind snatched the name right out of my mouth and carried it away before I could even hear the faintest echo. I stayed silent for some time and listened anyway, hoping to hear something. Some response other than the howling wind in the treetops.
Somewhere out in the wild a coyote was calling.
It was a lonely sound.
END of Coyote Waiting
CONTINUED in Coyote Calling