Vultures' Moon Page 4

  “Stables closed,” Jed intoned. “You got the night off. Go and eat. Get yourself a bath. Whatever.”

  The stable boy looked forlornly around the stable. Jed snatched his shovel from him.

  “Get!” he snapped. The boy got.

  “Reckon up yonder’ll be a good spot for a stakeout.” Deputy Dawson had arrived and was craning his neck at the hayloft.

  “I reckon you might be right,” said Jed. “Up you go.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m going to stay down here. Plain sight. Whites of their eyes kind of a deal.”

  “Really?”

  “No; not really. I’ll be in the stall at the end, biding my time. You remember: don’t give yourself away by shooting first.”

  “I won’t. I mean, I will. I will remember but I won’t shoot first, I mean.”

  The deputy flushed red, anxious to do right in the gunslinger’s eyes.

  “Sun’s going down,” Jed pointed out. Young Dawson took this as his cue to climb the wooden ladder up to the loft.

  Jed realised he was still holding the stinking shovel. He was about to lay it aside when he got an idea. He set to shovelling the grassy spheres of horse ordure. He even whistled while he worked.

  ***

  The sun was well and truly gone to bed before anything happened. Jed had worked his way along the line of stalls; he reckoned the place had never been cleaner. It was a man’s job, not a boy’s.

  The doors creaked as they closed behind a group of half a dozen men in the long coats and broad brimmed hats of the militia. Shotguns were crooked in their arms. One, at the forefront, had his cocked and ready.

  “Hey, boy!” he called to the stooped figure working at the far end. “Looking for a no-account, lowdown, yellow-bellied gunslinger goes by the name of Jed. You seen him.”

  The hunched figure continued his labours. For a few seconds there was only the sound of the shovel scraping along the floor. A horse, one of the half dozen brought back from Spit Valley, snorted. The foremost gunman turned and fired but one of his companions nudged his arm, sending the shot blast into a post, splintering the wood.

  “Them’s our hosses,” the nudger hissed.

  The ‘hosses’ themselves were stamping in their stalls. A couple of them reared up, kicking at the air and the doors that confined them. In contrast, the Horses opposite watched without blinking.

  “Hey, where’d he go?”

  The shovelling figure was no longer visible. The group of men spread out and made cautious progress between the stalls. All weapons were now at the ready.

  “What say we take the hosses and make tracks,” whispered one.

  This suggestion was ignored. The men split up to check the stalls, wary of the startled horses, disturbed by the impassive Horses.

  “He ain’t here!” wailed one, sounding like a child denied a treat.

  “Keep looking!”

  The men’s nerves were beginning to show. The stable hand seemed to have disappeared, leaving nothing but his shovel and a steaming heap of horse-apples.

  “Say...”

  The men signalled to each other. One had spotted the hayloft. They all understood each other. Three trained their weapons on the hay. Three more headed to the foot of the ladder. One of these three began to climb.

  A hole appeared right through his torso and he fell backwards onto his confederates. Two more blasts despatched the other two. The remaining three wheeled around and were surprised to see a hellish figure, a man of manure with his pistols aimed directly at them.

  Jed spat out a mouthful of dung.

  “Where’s Plisp?” he grumbled.

  “There’s three of us and only one of him,” one of the men leaned towards the apparent leader’s ear. Jed shot his hat off, whirled his pistol around in his hand and aimed it again.

  It was a standoff.

  Jed could see in the edge of his vision the hay stirring in the loft. Good boy, he thought. With the deputy behind him, he might be able to get somewhere with these men rather than just blasting them to oblivion.

  Unseen by the men, Deputy Dawson stood up, straw dropping from him. He raised his weapon.

  But he aimed it at the gunslinger.

  “I’m sorry, Jed,” the young man stammered. “You’re under arrest.”

  Getting In!

  Jed sat on the bunk in Tarnation’s jailhouse, watching the young deputy like a buzzard eyeballing a dying mule. Dawson kept his back to the wall of iron bars while he dismissed the men in long coats with his thanks. They had helped to apprehend the gunslinger, wary of getting manure on their clothes, and frogmarch him into custody.

  When they were alone, the lad risked a look at his prisoner. Jed met his gaze and spat loudly onto the dirt floor.

  “I’m sorry, Jed. I had no alternative.” Dawson’s face looked ready to collapse into sobbing at any second. “At least I saved your skin.”

  Jed continued to stare at him.

  “Those men,” he growled. “You’re in cahoots with them.”

  “Well,” the deputy grimaced, “I wouldn’t say cahoots exactly. They came to me and, well, sort of leant on me - what’s the word?”

  “Coerced.”

  “Yeah, that’s the one. They coerced me into double-crossing you. But I got one over on them, didn’t I? They were hankering to take you to the fort and I sort of took the, um...”

  “Initiative.”

  “Initiative, that’s right. I took - that - and jumped right in and said to bring you here. Well, they couldn’t object none, because you’re under lock and key. So I’ve saved your hide. And you’re welcome.”

  Jed mulled this over.

  He got to his feet and approached the bars.

  “Only now I’m a sitting duck, more like. They can go about doing whatever they want, knowing I’m holed up in here, and they can drop by any time to plug me - and don’t think they won’t do the same for you.”

  The deputy cast a worried glance to the door.

  “Oh, you’re safe for a couple of hours,” Jed said flatly. “They’ll go back to the fort, get their orders - from Plisp himself maybe. They might even wait until morning before they come back.”

  The young man was perplexed. He fumbled with the keys on his belt.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m - I’m going to let you out!” He dropped the keys but before he could crouch to pick them up, Jed’s hand shot through the bars and grabbed him by the shirtfront.

  “Now, how’s that going to look? You just let me out and they’ll pop you full of lead for sure.”

  “Then - then...?” Dawson’s eyes were rolling. He still looked as though he might cry.

  “So I’m going to escape, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m sorry about this, son. I truly am.”

  Before the deputy could ask him what he was apologising for, Jed withdrew his arm sharply, bashing Dawson’s forehead against the bars. He let the unconscious lawman drop, picked up the keys and unlocked the cell. He retrieved his hat and gun belt from the sheriff’s desk, put them on and, casting one last look at the crumpled young man, went out into the night. He hoped that would be the last of the deputy’s dealings with those varmints.

  Jed aimed to get to the fort and put a stop to them before they came back to finish the job.

  He whistled and Horse appeared.

  “It’s late,” it grumbled. “I was on downtime.”

  Jed ignored the complaints and hopped up into the saddle. Horse trotted down the street, muttering to itself. There was no one about. The only lights were from the saloons and the hotel rooms. Behind those panes of glass, folk were drinking and laughing and arguing just like any other night in Tarnation.

  “Where we headed?” Horse cocke
d an ear. “If I’m allowed to know.”

  “You sure are ornery when you ain’t rested,” Jed laughed.

  “Well, whose fault’s that? We’re running out of town and the Last Gasp’s in the other direction.”

  “All right; we’re going to Fort Knightly, if you must know.”

  “Joining the army?”

  “Not exactly. More like disbanding it.”

  “Oh?”

  Jed didn’t elaborate. Horse gave up waiting for a reply. It supposed all would be become clear once they arrived.

  As soon as they were outside the town limits, Horse picked up the pace. Its legs elongated and it pronked across the landscape in leaps and bounds of increasing size. Jed held onto his hat.

  Eventually the dark silhouette of the garrison loomed ahead like a patch of starless sky. Horse came to a halt some way off, where a couple of cacti would mask their shape from any lookout. Jed dismounted.

  “My reckoning is that place is chock-full of Plisp’s men. Not regular soldiers at all. Or else, if’n they are, they’ve been turned. Farkin Plisp can be very...persuasive.”

  An involuntary shudder ran along Horse’s back. Jed patted its neck.

  “You wait here. Catch up on that beauty sleep.” This quip earned him a snort from Horse’s nostrils. “I’m going around the perimeter; get the lie of the land. See if I can get in.”

  “It is a fort, you realise,” Horse pointed out. “They’re not likely to leave a window open.”

  “Just be ready,” Jed told it. He moved off towards the high walls, hunched low to the ground. He even took his hat off. Any sentry able to see would take him for a critter, prowling around for dirt rats.

  Horse might be sarcastic but it did have a point. Getting in was going to be no cakewalk. Jed zigzagged his way closer. He still had a couple of hours before sun-up. Plenty of thinking time.

  But it’s not thinking I should be doing, Jed reflected; it’s doing.

  ***

  Jed skirted around the wall, keeping close. The fort had originally been a wooden stockade but had recently been surrounded by a high stone wall with sentry posts at regular intervals. There were gates to the north, south, east and west, all of them barred and bolted. The wall was too sheer to climb. Jed was going to have to face it: there was no way in.

  He leant against the rough stone, defeated. A sharp ache in his hands pulled him from his despair. He held up his hands and examined them from all angles until the pain became too much and he lowered them again. He had heard about limb rejection. Sometimes it could be countered with elixirs; other times, you had to get rid. The tendons in his fingers throbbed. Jed slumped against the wall and sank to the ground. He folded his arms and pressed them to his chest, trying to squeeze away the agony. What was happening? Doc Brandy would know. But Doc Brandy was miles away, back in Tarnation.

  And then, just has suddenly as it had struck, the pain abated. Jed was able to wipe the sheen of sweat from his face and breathe again in relief. He got to his feet and looked at his hands again. They were back to normal. A passing thing, then. A one-off? Jed was concerned the pain might strike again at any moment and he would be crippled, possibly in a dangerous situation.

  Willing his hands to behave themselves, Jed did another tour of the perimeter. The darkness was thinning. The surrounding scrubland was showing itself in shades of grey. The increased light meant Jed was able to spot, several feet along from the west gate, a door. To the unsuspecting and casual observer, it appeared nothing more than a rectangle etched into the stone but up close and personal inspection revealed it to be made of wood, expertly painted to trick the eye.

  What was it for, this secret door? Jed supposed sometimes you don’t want your comings and goings to come and go through the main gates. Sometimes you might want to slip out unnoticed. Or you might want to sneak somebody in.

  How convenient a discovery! Jed supposed he should thank his lucky stars. Quashing any notion that he might be breaking his way into a trap, he took out his knife and set to work on the hinges.

  ***

  Jed eased himself through and for a moment thought he was back in the Double Cross stables. Horses and horses were in stalls, emitting their familiar smell or their eerie stillness as the case may be. The hellions who had helped Dawson arrest Jed must have emptied out the Double Cross as soon as Jed was behind bars, adding the critters to their already sizeable collection. The army conscripting horses... Wasn’t that in the government’s purview? But then, those men may have been dressed like cavalrymen but their conduct fell way short of expectations.

  Jed wondered what he was getting into. He pulled the door closed behind him and crept along, head low, trying not to disturb the critters.

  A dark Horse whinnied at the end of the row. It levitated out of its stall and came to rest in front of the exit, barring Jed’s path. Jed froze while the critter scanned him. An ear twitched. It was surprised by something it detected in this intruder.

  “Easy now,” Jed said, calmly. “Go back to bed.”

  The Horse considered this. Then its eyes flashed and it began to emit a steady pulse of sound. An alarm!

  Jed’s shoulders slumped.

  “Aw, now why did you go and do a thing like that?” He made horned finger signs with both hands and, approaching very slowly, hypnotised the critter. Quick as a gun blast, he seized the Horse around the snout and swivelled its head upside down with a sharp twist. There was the sound of something snapping and the Horse shuddered before collapsing in a useless heap. The alarm stopped. Jed shook his head at the waste of a good critter. Then he turned and raised his hands high above his head. Half a dozen cavalrymen had come in behind him, their shotguns aimed at his chest.

  “Morning, gentlemen,” Jed said pleasantly. In an instant, he drew his pistols. He tried to blast the men to oblivion but nothing happened. The triggers clicked uselessly; the guns would not fire. More than one of the men smirked. Jed re-holstered his weapons and gave a philosophical shrug. “Guess this makes me your prisoner.”

  The Old Man!

  The men marched Jed across the courtyard - rather stiff legged, Jed noticed. He tried to look around as best as he could but the fort was silhouetted against the lightening sky and two of his captors kept pushing his head down. They don’t want me spotting escape routes, he realised. This cheered him; it meant there must be escape routes.

  They shoved him into a barracks even though Jed was certain that in a place like this there would be a perfectly serviceable guardhouse. This long, low hut was full of bunks, stacked in twos and threes and all of them containing a man. There was the stench of rotting meat and carbolic soap. Jed was forced to sit on a lower bunk and his hands were tied to a bedpost. Satisfied their prisoner was secure the soldiers left him. None of them had uttered a word.

  The morning sun stabbed its way through the slats of the window shutters, illuminating dust motes in the air, but also affording Jed a better look at his new roommates.

  Some of them were waking and although it didn’t look like any of them were bound to their beds, none of them moved. Those nearest to him looked in a bad way; pallor and sweat were the least of their troubles. Livid wounds untidily stitched together ran around their throats or down their faces or circled their eyes. One fellow had a gash running down the centre of his face from forehead to chin via the bridge of his nose - it looked like two halves of different faces had been botched together.

  The place was more of an infirmary than a dormitory. No, Jed amended the thought; more of a laboratory. A shudder ran through him. He’d been brought here for the same reason. They were going to chop him up and put him back together again.

  Good luck with that, he thought bitterly. There ain’t much of me left that hasn’t already been swapped with someone else’s.

  This was an exaggeration. The hands were the biggest
operation he’d undergone. The skin of his back and legs was a patchwork of grafts. Most of them were a perfect match in tone but if he caught the sun, a couple of places would remain defiantly pale. His left eye had belonged to someone else, although - and this was true of all of his operations - Jed had no memory of the incidents or accidents that had led to these replacements. He could have had a new ear or two if he hadn’t declined Doc Brandy’s offer. Why had he declined? Jed concluded the reason for that was the same as the reason he wanted to escape from these butcher’s barracks: he was afraid of losing himself, the real, original him that made him who he was.

  He rubbed the rope that bound his wrists up and down the bedpost, hoping its rough-hewn edge would cut through. Or the friction would generate enough heat to burn through. Or - he gave up when he realised all he was doing was wearing away the bedpost. The rope must be reinforced with something stronger... Where had these soldiers come across such rope? It was another gap in the picture.

  There most likely wasn’t time enough to use the enhanced rope to wear away the bedpost completely. Jed slumped against it, trying to think.

  The poor fellow in the next bunk stirred. His eyes, one pale and clouded, the other bright and piercing, fell on the newcomer. He raised a hand from under his blanket and pointed a finger that was clearly not one he had been born with, at Jed. The effort exhausted him. He swooned and collapsed into unconsciousness.

  “What?” Jed frowned, with the uncomfortable suspicion he had something on his nose. With his hands tied to the post, he couldn’t touch it to find out. He cast his gaze around. And above.

  On the upper bunk lay a fellow, unconscious and scarred like the rest. What was significant was he was wearing boots. One of them was hanging over the edge. Jed saw what the fellow with the new finger had been pointing at: On the heel of the boot was a spur, a sharp-pointed wheel. Jed couldn’t reach his own and they were blunt anyway; Horse responded to other forms of persuasion. He was mighty pleased to see his bunkmate was not so squeamish about cruelty to critters.