Vultures' Moon Read online

  “What did you do that for?” he snapped. Horse was standing over him, with an empty flask in his mouth. It dropped it to the dirt.

  “I heard the laughter,” Horse said quietly. “Welcome back.”

  “I was just getting somewhere!” Jed pulled off his wet shirt and fished out a dry one from his pack.

  “You were gone too long,” said Horse, unrepentant.

  “I was getting close.”

  “Really? I doubt our mutual friend would have laughed if that was true.”

  Jed buttoned his shirt and tucked it behind his belt. Horse was just too damned clever.

  “I couldn’t get a fix on him,” he admitted. “I’m going to try again.”

  “Oh dear,” Horse somehow managed to look amused. “I’m afraid the rest of the pods got trampled and tossed into the fire.”

  Jed glared at it.

  “Oops?” Horse offered.

  Jed said nothing. He bedded down for the night, leaving his more than capable Horse to tend to itself.

  ***

  The next morning they descended to the valley floor. Horse picked his way carefully, making a winding path down the stony slope. Where it was too steep, Horse hovered but that measure was draining on its reserves of energy so Horse adopted it sparingly.

  The destruction of the pods forgotten - or at least forgiven - Jed rode straight-backed in the saddle, trusting Horse’s footing, and looking around at the blighted landscape. Almost the whole valley was spoiled. The dark dust was banked in places, like drifted snow. How quickly it takes over, Jed mused. How fragile our hold on life!

  The creek was little more than a sluggish snake of sludge, carrying the dark dust slowly but surely further south. It would spread and poison the land beyond.

  “Going to have to dam this creek,” he murmured.

  “Damn it to Hell!” Horse quipped.

  “Don’t try to be funny,” Jed told it.

  They followed the creek’s meandering progress along the valley floor for a couple of miles. At last Jed found a spot where the surrounding walls of rock crowded in. It would take a little effort but a few boulders could be persuaded, with explosives, to block the tainted water and keep it in the valley.

  Jed unearthed some bundles of dynamite from his pack and calculated the optimum place to set the charge. He climbed up the rocky face of a cliff, planting sticks of the explosive at intervals and linking them with a line of fuse wire.

  “You can get just about everything at Clem’s,” Horse observed, unheeded.

  With the dynamite in place, Jed and Horse withdrew to a safe distance. Jed stood in his stirrups and took aim. It took just one blast from his revolver, straight and true, to ignite the fuse. A chain of explosions ensued and before they were all detonated, the air was filled with smoke and dust.

  Jed waited until the noise abated and the air cleared before he dismounted to survey his handiwork. A wall of broken rocks now blocked the path of the creek. Already the dust was beginning to build up at its base as the water met with impenetrable resistance.

  “Nice job,” said Horse, trotting behind him. “Folks downstream won’t be happy you cut off their water supply.”

  “Better that than the dark dust,” Jed said simply. “They’ll adapt; folks always do.”

  They retraced their steps. Jed decided against his plan to give the poor folks a decent burial; their bodies were too far gone, claimed by the dark dust. Better to leave them where they lay although Jed was concerned the poisonous powder was also acting as a cloak for those among the ranchers Plisp and his men had murdered. But hadn’t the whole lot been murdered? By taking their sheep Plisp had doomed them all to the dust. It was a fate slower and crueller than a gun blast.

  Horse was silent, focussed on plodding up the slope. In the sky, buzzards circled lazily. No pickings for them today - Jed was almost sorry. One beakful of dust and they’d be goners too. And it’s no use hanging around for me and my Horse; not much meat on us either.

  He gave the reins a gentle tug. Come on, Horse; let’s not dawdle. We’re no closer to finding Plisp but we can be closer to Tarnation.

  Rifle barrels greeted their ascent from the valley. Half a dozen men on horseback were training their weapons on the gunslinger and his steed. Their faces were masked by kerchiefs and their eyes shadowed by hats.

  Horse’s nostrils widened imperceptibly. He tasted the scent coming off these hellions. He twitched his left ear: No. They had not encountered these men before.

  “Hands where we can see them?” one of them barked.

  Slowly, Jed complied. The men indicated that Horse was to come no closer. Jed saw how it would go down. They would shoot him and let his body drop into the valley. The dark dust would cover him and no one would ever know.

  Suddenly, one of the masked men’s hats flew off as a bullet zinged through it from behind. The man cried out. It was enough of a distraction. Jed’s hands flew to his revolvers and he plugged each of the riders in a torrent of blasts. Only one blast came in his direction; it whizzed past his ear, hot and sharp. The gunslinger, having suffered worse in the past, ignored the pain. The hoodlums slumped in their saddles and tumbled to the ground, their lives over before they knew what was happening and their horses had chance to buck.

  Jed dismounted.

  “I don’t get it,” Horse whispered. “Who...?”

  “You can come out now, Deputy,” Jed called out.

  The slight figure of Deputy Dawson dropped down from the rocks and hurried towards the gunslinger.

  “We got them!” the young man was amazed. He eyed the bodies as he passed but kept his distance, fearing any of them might grab his ankle.

  “Thanks for your help,” Jed tipped his hat. “I’d be obliged if you’d assist me with these hosses too.”

  “Shootin’ them?”

  “No, no; rounding them up and taking them back to town. These men too.”

  Jed wasn’t going to leave the corpses to the same fate they had picked out for him. He checked their pockets. There was enough cash to pay Nathaniel for his troubles.

  Each man was strapped across his saddle and each horse was tethered to the next. Dawson led the line and Jed brought up the rear.

  “How did he know?” Horse murmured.

  “How did who know what?”

  “The kid,” Horse tossed his mane. “How did he know where to find us?”

  “He told me there’d been rustling here. The question is how did that welcoming party know where to find us?”

  Horse thought about this.

  “Who did you tell? Did you get a little loose-lipped in the saloon?”

  Jed grunted. Horse knew damn well the gunslinger was always guarded with his words, whether booze had passed his lips or not.

  “It’s something to think about,” Horse concluded. “Your ear’s bleeding, by the way.”

  “I know,” said Jed.

  They made the rest of their way back to Tarnation in silence.

  Double Cross!

  “You’ve lost a chunk of meat off your ear,” Doc Brandy assessed the damage. “I can tidy it up or I can fix you a new one. Of course, it won’t match the other, ‘less you get a new pair.”

  Jed shook his head.

  “Don’t seem right, lopping off a good ear just to match a new one. I’ll bear my scars, Doc. A man shouldn’t be afraid to show what life has done to him.”

  “Rich words for a nicked ear!” Brandy chuckled. “But it’s up to you. Your hair mostly covers it anyway.”

  “So there’s no need for surgery.” Jed jumped down from Doc’s table. “How much do I owe you?”

  “I keep telling you: your money’s no good here.” Doc tidied away his gauze and surgical spirit.

  Jed shook his head. Every time
the doc refused payment, the gunslinger felt uncomfortable. He hated being beholden to anyone. He hated the notion that free medical treatment was somehow his reward for all the troubleshooting. Jed would prefer just to carry on, like any other patient and pay his way, rather than this feeling of obligation to the doc, to the good folks of Tarnation, every time he caught a nick or a scratch.

  “Mighty fine passel of horses you brought back,” Doc changed the subject before Jed could get his money out. “How’d you come by them?”

  Jed looked at his friend - He supposed he could call Doc Brandy ‘friend’; well, he was the nearest to that category of acquaintance Jed had. Apart from Horse. He thought about not telling him - someone round here could not be trusted.

  “I reckon Plisp will want them back,” he shrugged. “If he comes to collect, I’ll be waiting.”

  “And if he don’t?”

  “Then I’ll put them up for auction and the proceeds can go to Turpin’s widow. I’ll see you, Doc.”

  He put his hat on, mindful not to graze his patched ear and left.

  “You’re a good man, Jed,” Brandy said to the empty room.

  ***

  The sheriff’s office was at the other end of the street, which probably added to the free and easy atmosphere in the Last Gasp. It was little more than a wooden shack with a more substantial jailhouse of stone behind it. Deputy Dawson was on the porch, whittling wood. Jed tipped his hat in greeting.

  “Horses are all stabled,” Dawson got to his feet and shifted his gun belt on his skinny hips. “You reckon Plisp’ll make his move today?”

  Jed’s eyes darted sideways, cautiously.

  “I don’t care to discuss it in the street,” he said sternly. He walked past the younger man. Dawson followed, his cheeks red.

  “Sheriff not around?”

  “Ah, he rode up to Wheelhub a few days since,” Dawson explained. “Business.”

  “Now what kind of business would take a sheriff away from his jurisdiction and all the way to the capital...” Jed was thinking out loud. The deputy gaped, unable to provide an answer.

  “Sheriff reckoned things was quiet enough around here.”

  “Did he go before or after the rustlings started? I’m guessing before.”

  “I couldn’t say. Sheriff Marshall was called away. Telegram came.”

  “Who from?”

  “I cain’t say. But off he went.”

  Jed could see the lad was trying to help as best he could. He gave him a tight-lipped smile and left, promising to return to discuss plans for the horses. He strode across the street, his long legs avoiding the worst of the mud and leavings, to the telegraph office. As he stepped inside, a bell rang out above the door. Jed turned the sign hanging in the window from ‘Yes, We’re Open’ to ‘Sorry, We’re Closed’.

  He glanced around, taking in the counter that bisected the room; behind it shiny brass equipment stood proudly on a leather-topped desk. Rows of pigeonholes lined the walls with papers of various sizes poking out from most of them. A chalkboard displayed a tariff. Ten words a cent. Jed didn’t know enough about it to determine whether this was a bargain.

  He cleared his throat. A man with stooped shoulders emerged from a back room. He wore a waistcoat and his shirtsleeves were rolled and pinned at his elbows. Sweat beaded his bald head and his sunken cheeks were framed by bushy sideburns. He peered at the gunslinger through half-moon glasses.

  “Ten words a cent,” he gestured at the tariff with his thumb.

  “I’m here to send a message, right enough,” Jed leaned an arm on the counter. The telegraph operator grabbed a pad and pencil. Jed snatched the pencil from him. “But not by telegraph.”

  The man shrank back.

  “There’s no money here,” he stammered. “I’ve just taken it to the bank.”

  “I don’t want your money,” Jed tried to reassure him. “I just want you to get word to whomever it is that contacts you, that I have the horses in the Double Cross stables. They’re awaiting collection.”

  “I don’t understand...”

  “It makes not a lick of difference. Just deliver the message.”

  “But - who - and how -“

  “Either you’ll go to them or they’ll come to you. Whichever. You make sure you tell them.”

  The man dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief. Jed turned to go but startled the man by turning around again.

  “One more thing. Sheriff Marshall got a telegram a couple of days back. Who sent it?”

  The man looked affronted.

  “I could never divulge...” he blurted.

  “The message came in to yonder contraption? You would have written it out. What did it say?”

  The man backed from the counter lest this frightening interloper reach out and seize him. “I couldn’t possibly reveal that.”

  “Did it come from Wheelhub?”

  The man’s unruly eyebrows dipped in a frown. That answered the question. Sheriff Marshall hadn’t been summoned to the capital. Perhaps he’d been sent there on a wild goose chase, leaving Tarnation and the surrounding districts without a lawman. Clearly, and no disrespect to the young feller, but Deputy Dawson was not a threat to the likes of Farkin Plisp.

  Jed placed the pencil, unbroken, gently on the counter.

  “Horses. Double Cross,” he reminded the quivering clerk. His departure was fanfared by the merry little bell. As soon as it stopped ringing, the telegraph operator fell to his machine and began to tap out an urgent message.

  Jed could hear it from the street. He smiled to himself; the skittish little feller had already tapped out a dollar’s worth.

  He went back to the jailhouse where Dawson was fixing a pot of coffee. Jed accepted a tin mug of the pungent black liquid but set it aside rather than drink it.

  “I found this.” The deputy held out a piece of paper. Jed took it. His face broke out into a rare grin. It was the telegram Sheriff Marshall had received.

  “’Daddy...come quick...I’m frightened...Want to come home...Please, Daddy...Love, Lilimae.”

  “I reckon it’s from his daughter.”

  “I reckon you’re right.”

  So, it was family trouble that pulled Sheriff Marshall away...Jed rubbed his stubbly chin.

  Where had he heard the name Lilimae before?

  He would have to ask Horse. That critter’s memory was infallible. He instructed the deputy to meet him at the Double Cross at sundown. The deputy didn’t baulk at taking orders from an outsider. In fact, he seemed relieved to have someone to tell him what to do.

  Jed went to consult Horse, in his humbler accommodation in a corral behind the saloon.

  ***

  “Of course!” Jed exclaimed when Horse told him. One of the two girls with the old man had been called Lilimae.

  “You reckon it’s the same girl?”

  “Could be...” Jed scratched his chin. “I figure Lilimae Marshall, if it was her, could have made her way to Wheelhub and got herself into trouble by now. Quick message home to Daddy and he goes running.”

  “You don’t approve,” Horse observed. “A man puts his personal life ahead of his professional duty. You never had family.”

  Jed thought this over.

  “It just all seems a bit fishy to me. Now, are you going to be all right here a mite longer? I don’t want you near the Double Cross tonight.”

  Horse looked at the sky.

  “I reckon it might not rain,” it said, with an air of self-pity.

  “And how’s the grub?”

  “Passable. Not quite the oat cuisine of the Double Cross...”

  “What have I told you about making jokes?” Jed adjusted Horse’s blanket and checked the feeding tubes were securely attached. “I want you to conserve yo
ur energy for flight.”

  “I’m getting an upgrade?”

  “I mean a quick escape. Not ready to get you fixed with a pair of wings just yet awhile.”

  Horse snorted derisively but Jed could tell it didn’t mean it. He gave it a pat and left it in the corral.

  The sun was on the slant; the afternoon was drawing on. Jed decided against dining at the Last Gasp. Miss Kitty would be there. It wasn’t that Jed didn’t like Miss Kitty but the way things were playing out, he couldn’t afford to trust anyone. He opted instead for Ma Purdee’s coffee shop, for a pot that was more palatable than the deputy’s sorry excuse for a brew, and a generous slice of her pecan pie.

  ***

  Jed was pleased to see the young deputy was already at the Double Cross stables well before sundown. The boy had the makings of a good lawman; he was just a bit of a greenhorn.

  The Double Cross had stalls to house up to two dozen horses or Horses, depending on the customer’s needs. Along one side, the stalls were piped into a tank of Horse fodder, with tubes and attachments, some of which were in use by Horses - of an earlier model than Jed’s own, he was pleased to note. The other side, the smellier side, was heaving with natural horses. Here the floor was strewn with straw and their manure. A hand was shovelling in vain, fighting a losing battle against the apparently ceaseless supply. Good for the vegetables, Jed mused. The shoveller would have to be dismissed to get him out of harm’s way. Above these steaming stalls was a hayloft. Up there would be a good spot for the deputy. He’d be able to see everything below - and he’d be out of danger too, as long as he kept himself covered.

  Jed preferred to work alone but keeping the local law enforcers involved gave his actions legitimacy in the eyes of others. Not that that concerned him unduly. He had his reasons for doing what he did - although he would be hard pressed at that moment to divulge what those reasons were. There were gaps in Jed’s memory that troubled him. Fortunately, folks didn’t seem to question the interference of a lone gunslinger in their affairs. Jed was regarded as one of the good guys. Folk don’t tend to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  He dispelled these thoughts and beckoned the stable hand over. The boy - younger even than the deputy - ambled up, covered in muck but beaming. Jed handed him a ten-spot. The boy’s grin turned to astonishment.