Under the Vultures Moon Read online

  “What is it, Jed?” Horse tramped around. Blood was gushing from the gunslinger’s left eye.

  “Somebody’s shooting at us! Take cover!”

  “What? Who?” Horse followed Jed to an alley between a pool hall and an undertaker’s. Jed drew his revolver and flattened his back against the wall. “Your eye, Jed. Look at your eye.”

  “How do you propose I do that? Where’s the shooter? Can you see him?”

  Horse hummed a little as he scanned the vicinity for signs of life. “I can’t detect any firearms... Are you sure?”

  “Look at my eye!” Jed snapped. “Sure I’m sure.”

  Horse whispered. “He’s up high. The old water tower on the corner.”

  “He alone?”

  “Yes...”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes!”

  “Cover me.”

  “But Jed, your eye!”

  “It don’t hurt much.” Jed darted down the alley and around the back of the pool hall. Stealing along the back street he was able to reach the foot of the water tower unseen. He climbed the ladder, gun in hand.

  His first thought was Horse had got it wrong. There was no one up there. He was about to cuss when his revolver flew from his hand and down to the street below.

  “Don’t you move!” said a voice from nowhere. Jed’s hand hesitated at his second holster.

  “Who’s there?”

  “This is my town; I’ll ask the questions.” The air in front of Jed shimmered. The gunslinger’s jaw dropped. A chameleote? Up here? A talking chameleote that can fire a catapult?

  A shock of white hair appeared and then an old man’s face and shoulders. The whole body was soon in view as the catapult-firer shucked off his hooded coat.

  “Chameleote skin,” Jed marvelled out loud.

  “You got that right,” said the old man with a toothless grin deep in his unruly beard. “Ornery critters. As difficult to catch as they are to skin.”

  “I’ve had dealings with them myself,” said Jed.

  “That eye looks nasty,” the old man’s beard moved as he pouted. “Sorry about that. I thought at first you was one of them danged glass heads.”

  Jed’s blood ran cold. No... it couldn’t be.

  “It ain’t the first eye I’ve lost, old timer. What say you and me get down from here and have us a powwow?”

  “Who is it, Jed?” Horse hovered up. Startled, the old man spun around and fired. “Ouch!”

  Jed wrested the catapult from the old man’s grasp. “My eye is one thing, but to shoot a man’s Horse.”

  They climbed down. Jed carried the chameleote coat, unwilling to let the old man slip away. Horse sniffed at it and shuddered.

  “I hate those things,” he said. “Invisible wolves! Whatever next?”

  “A talking horse?” said Jed wryly.

  He and the old man sat on the stoop of the abandoned saloon. The old man couldn’t stop apologising for shooting Jed’s eye out. Jed, meanwhile, tore up his neckerchief and fashioned a patch.

  “They call me Zeke,” the old man said, “well, at least they did, when they was here. Ain’t nobody left in town no more.”

  “Where did they all go?” said Horse. The old man bristled. He asked Jed to not let ‘that thing’ address him directly. Horse rolled his eyes and stepped away.

  “The question is,” said Jed, “why did they all leave? You mentioned something about glass heads?”

  Horse’s ears pricked up. Jed sent a silent warning not to speak.

  “At first nobody’d believe me. Said I was crazy as a loon. But I told them, I seen him, man made of glass, coming down from the hills, and poisoning the well. And mutilating the livestock and carrying off babies.”

  “Wait - what?” said Jed. “They carried off babies?”

  “Well, sure, why not? I heard they took one. But his folks got him back so that was all right. But those glass heads kept coming. Getting bolder every time. Folks began to catch on. Plenty of them up and left, and with them gone, the businesses started dying off and so they shut up shop and took off as well. Within six months this place was deader than a dodo’s doornail. Been that way ever since. Just me left now. Just old Zeke Palmer, keeping an eye out - I beg your pardon - less’n those glass heads come back.”

  “Palmer...”

  “That’s right, son. My family founded this here town and I ain’t ready to quit on it just yet a while.”

  “Must be mighty lonesome...”

  “I never cared much for folks no how. Don’t you worry about me, son; I got everything I need here. I’m king of this here town and don’t you forget it.” His eyes wrinkled as he laughed. Then his amusement dropped away and he leaned closer. Lowering his voice so Jed had to strain to here, he rasped, “Don’t set too much store in your four-legged friend, my friend. There’s something not right about him. Ain’t natural, the way he carries on. Ain’t horse-like.”

  Jed cleared his throat. “Those hills - which direction?”

  “West,” said Zeke, pointing a scrawny arm vaguely in that direction. “Over yonder, on the way to Hellion’s Grove.”

  Jed thanked the old timer and offered him some money. Zeke cackled wildly.

  “Guess my money’s no good here either,” said Jed.

  Zeke’s finger pointed at Jed’s gun belt. “I reckon one of them there shooters’d come in mighty handy for when the glass heads come back...”

  “I cain’t do that,” Jed shook his head. “Beg your pardon, old timer.”

  He touched the brim of his hat in salute and went over to Horse. As he climbed into the saddle, Horse muttered. “You’re not going to leave that crazy old coot unprotected, are you?”

  “What do you mean? He’s got his catapult and he’s got a chameleote coat. I’ve a feeling he’s better protected than we are.”

  “If he can remember where he put it.” Horse laughed. “How do you suppose an old jackass like him caught and skinned an invisible wolf?”

  “I don’t know but I sure as hell would have liked to see it.”

  They both laughed. The tension between them seemed to have dissipated. Horse asked where they were going. Jed pointed out a row of foreboding hills in the distance.

  “What was that about the boy?” said Horse. “And glass heads - you don’t think...?”

  “Nah,” said Jed. “I reckon this town started dying when the stage stopped coming.”

  But a chill ran down his spine.

  It couldn’t be! It wasn’t possible. Farkin Plisp had been the last of his kind and he was dead. Farkin Plisp was dead - Jed had made certain of that, deputising a captured chameleote to do the job.

  The old man was just confused. Who knows what things look like when you’re covered in an invisible wolf’s pelt?

  I’m lying to myself and I know it.

  Keeping close to the ground, Jed and Horse headed for the hills.

  ***

  Night was drawing in by the time they reached the foothills. Jed suggested they set up camp for the night - nothing fancy: no fire. They would take turns to watch over each other, sleeping in shifts.

  “I’d look good in a shift,” said Horse.

  “You’re not funny,” said Jed, smiling despite himself.

  A supper of cold beans for the gunslinger and a cursory browse of the local grasses for Horse - they were a long way from anything as sophisticated as fodder tubes - and then Jed bedded down, laying his hat across his face.

  The land was quiet. It was as though as well as all the folks quitting Palmerston, the local critters and things that crawl had also upped sticks and gone. It gave Jed an uneasy feeling; he strained to hear a cricket, just one solitary cricket, but there was none.

  I got enough to worry about, he
told himself. What with devil boys and glass heads... With these thoughts churning around, making a whirlpool of his mind and the pain in his eye a constant throb, Jed sank into a fitful sleep.

  When he woke up a couple of hours later, Horse was gone.

  Chapter Six

  The Hill!

  Jed cast around for hoof prints but it was too dark to see. And, of course, if Horse had hovered or flown away there would be nothing to see at all. He could fashion a torch but something told him he oughtn’t to attract attention, miles though he was from anywhere. There was something about the place, with the foreboding shadows of the hills deepening the darkness that made Jed ill at ease.

  Horse!

  Jed thought as loud and as hard as he could. If Horse was within a certain radius he would come back. Some men whistle for their steeds but not Jed. He and Horse had had a unique connection right from the start.

  He tried to tell himself the dang fool of a critter was just roaming around and probably hadn’t realised how far from camp he’d gone. Nah, Horse doesn’t do that, he answered himself. If’n you tell him to stay put, put is where he’ll stay. Yeah... but on the other hand, he’s not been quite right lately; there ain’t no telling what he might do.

  Jed shivered. The night was growing chilly, true enough, but there was also a finger of fear a-tickling of his spine.

  Something has happened to Horse! Jed was convinced of it.

  He cussed the night sky for being so danged dark. The search would have to wait until morning.

  He couldn’t keep still. He was too agitated and concerned. Treading carefully, groping the air ahead of him like a completely blind (rather than a one-eyed) man, Jed climbed the nearest hill. Having to concentrate on every move he made distracted him from his fears a little bit. He stumbled over unseen rocks now and again and once tripped forwards onto his hands and knees; cussing his own clumsiness, he picked himself up and carried on.

  Dang me for a one-eyed fool! He wiped his hands on his pants.

  The ground levelled out beneath his boots. A shadowy shape looming ahead turned out to be a boulder. Jed leant against it, enjoying the rough, cool surface next to his cheek. It soothed the throbbing in his eye socket.

  He lowered himself to the grass and, with his back against the boulder and his hat over his face, he caught some shuteye at last.

  “Mehh!”

  Jed woke with a start. He lifted his hat. A pair of yellow eyes with black slashes for pupils was staring at him.

  The devil boy!

  Jed tried to back away but the boulder was in his path.

  The goat ripped another mouthful of grass from the ground between Jed’s legs and moved on. Jed laughed. Was I really afraid of a lonesome goat?

  He was reminded of the saloon back at Crosspatch Hill and wondered whether Wilbur had had any patrons since Jed left.

  He got to his feet and stretched. Early morning light was spreading across the plain below. Jed could make out the trail almost all the way back to Palmerston - if that place had still been a living town, the road below would not now be looking so overgrown and neglected as though the prairie was absorbing it back into itself until, before long, there’d be no sign the settlers were ever there.

  But never mind all that. It was signs of Horse Jed needed to find. He tried another mental call in case the fool critter was merely lost.

  HORSE!

  Along with the word, Jed sent an image of his present location. If Horse was in any condition to receive the transmission, he would know exactly where to come.

  Tentatively, Jed removed the makeshift patch from his injured eye. Gingerly, he felt around the damage to the socket. Wincing, he saw with his one good eye that his fingertips came away bloody.

  Going to need me a new peeper, he self-diagnosed. Perhaps a better match this time - there was always a bright side but, with Doc Brandy dead and buried, who would perform the transplant?

  He re-tied the patch. Better get used to it - for the time being, at least.

  He moved around the boulder, away from the prying eyes of the lonesome goat and urinated against the stone.

  Clearly, there was no trace of Horse back the way he had come. Jed’s only recourse was to try the other side of the hill but, he figured, with the dawning day and it being downhill this time, he should have an easier time of it.

  He paused at the summit to get the lie of the land. There was less grass and more stones on this side of the range. The ground was cracked and parched for miles ahead - at least the road ain’t overgrown, he thought. He’d never thought Hellion’s Grove had been built in such a desert. Perhaps the founders had discovered an oasis... He tried to remember what he knew about the town.

  Gold.

  It was gold the founders had discovered. They could afford all the technology they needed to make the desert habitable, if not downright comfortable. Hellion’s Grove had been a boomtown but natural resources are not inexhaustible. With the gold gone, the town fell into a rapid decline. Remote and isolated, it had gained a reputation for being a small-minded, out-of-date place, the last outpost of a former age at the end of the world.

  It was no surprise that folk there would believe and spread like wildfire tales of a demon child. What was surprising to Jed was how easily those tales were propagated in the so-called savvier world beyond.

  It was going to be a long walk into town.

  Jed descended the hill’s gentle slope to the plain. He wondered how the road got beyond the hills. They weren’t mountainously steep but land transport would have a tough time on any path that might wind around the peaks. If he had been building a place so far off the grid, Jed would have blasted those hills off the map - or at least, a tunnel through them...

  That was it! A quarter of a mile from where he had spent the night, the gaping mouth of a tunnel with the road running through it, yawned out onto the desert. Jed felt foolish - but reminded himself it had been too dark to find such a place by night. But perhaps Horse, with his superior eyesight and scanning capabilities had found the entrance. Perhaps Horse had been holed up in the tunnel all along... Jed picked up the pace.

  Horse Horse Horse!

  But the tunnel was empty, save for the darkness that filled it. A few hundred yards away, a circle of light from the far side of the hills, hung in the blackness like a distant star.

  Dang it, Horse!

  Jed’s belly complained. Dang it again! Horse had all the supplies. There was not even a strip of cured jaw-weed to curb the pangs of hunger.

  All the more reason to get moving, Jed prompted himself. Backwards though they might be, the folks of Hellion’s Grove would be sure to have foodstuffs he might buy. As for what the Moon had to offer, the barren landscape was hardly bristling with offerings. There was not as much as a cactus to provide moisture. Jed kept his good eye peeled for signs of vegetation as he walked, the brim of his hat low on his brow against the glare of the sun.

  Heat haze shimmered in the distance. Jed couldn’t tell how far he had walked. It looked as though he was walking on the spot. Nothing seemed to change. Onward he trudged, with his mouth dry and his shirt sticking to his back. His feet protested every step. They wanted to be free of his boots and out from under the weight of his body but Jed kept going. His lips dried out and cracked. His throat was sore and his arms hung like broken pendulums but he could not stop. Stopping would mean death. The buzzards wheeling overhead knew this. They watched and they waited for their walking buffet to collapse and give up the ghost.

  Jed’s thinking became confused and surreal. Faces he had met flashed before him. “Devil boy” they said and “glass heads”. Jed tried to ignore them and focus on every footstep, willing himself to keep going.

  The sun beat down on his head, relentless, until finally it subdued him. Jed dropped to his knees and keeled over onto his s
ide. The last thing he saw before heatstroke overwhelmed him was a tiny red scorpion skittering away, its pronged tail high as though the little critter was in a huff.

  Jed tried to make a sound - perhaps he was trying to invite the scorpion back for brunch - but unconsciousness consumed him.

  ***

  Movement woke him. The sun was still high and the sky a cruelly unbroken blue. I’m on the back of a wagon, he realised. Last I heard buzzards didn’t drive around in wagons... I am saved, then!

  He hitched himself up onto his elbows and craned his neck to see who, if not a buzzard, was in the driving seat. A hooded figure, swathed in thick robes, held the reins. The reins in turn were attached to a pair of dun horses, plodding slowly in the heat of the desert.

  The driver stirred and called over his or her shoulder - Jed couldn’t determine which.

  “Don’t you move, stranger. Best rest up, I’m a-reckoning. Road is long ahead.”

  Jed found he couldn’t utter a reply. His throat was too sore from dehydration. His eyelid flickered and dreamless sleep claimed him again.

  ***

  Water - life-giving, restorative water brought him back to consciousness. His eye opened to comparative darkness: the wagon was no longer outside in the afternoon sun. Some kind of barn, Jed reckoned although he couldn’t see much of it beyond the hooded faces that were surrounding him.

  “Where’d you get it?” said one.

  “Out in the be-yond,” said a voice Jed recognised as the driver’s. “He was just lying there, plum tuckered out.”

  This gave rise to an outburst of amazed gasps and further questions.

  “Who is he?”

  “Don’t matter none who he is. It’s a sign!”

  “A sign!” several voices chorused. Jed was trying to lick the water they’d thrown over him off his face. Someone read this correctly as a sign that he was thirsty and handed him a skin. Jed guzzled the contents, not caring if it was poison. His dry throat was grateful but his empty stomach was not. It pinched him with cramps and he doubled up.

  “A sign of what?” said someone from the back.