1875, Arizona Territory.
There was something in the coffee. It smelled ok, but there was a hint of something sweet in it. We were camped for the night at the base of one of them huge, flat-top rocks sticking out the Arizona desert. Bob called it Coyote Butte. I didn’t know he’d ever come this way before.
I looked at the voodoo man. He’d been riding with us since New Orleans. He was the first black man I ever saw, and sure gave me a great case of the spooks. It was still a mystery to me why Robert Preacher wanted him along, Voodoo man was no tracker, that was sure. Looking at the dotted tattoos on his dark face sent shivers up my spine. They looked even scarier in the glow of the campfire. He had some sort of fish bone stabbed through his ears that made him look like he came out of some ghost story.
“Hey, Bob, your friend there sure makes a rotten cup of coffee,” I says.
Bob turned his hard eyes my way. He had the look of a hard man, eyes that saw the darkness in everyone. He had a weathered face. The scar across his forehead turned down over his right eye reflected the red firelight. Stringy hair hung down over his left eye. His Stetson rested back of his head. His custom navy colt was a leftover from the war. Running his fingers over the initials R.P. on the chestnut brown handle he holstered it. He plucked the stub of a cigar from his lips and flicked it into the fire. Embers shot through the sky. They seemed to do a strange dance, blurring in and out as I watched them rise. Bob pulled the poncho off his shoulder and stood up.
“His coffee is just fine,” he told me. His voice was more gruff than usual. Too many cigars I’d told him on more than one occasion.
“Not to my taste,” I says. I stood myself and tossed the rest of my cup after the cigar butt. The fire flared a ghostly blue. That wasn’t right. My eyes must have been playing tricks on me. It sure set my heart pumping like a horse racing from a barn blaze. My legs abandoned me then and I sat back down on the stone I was using as a seat. I looked over to our horses and the one stubbornest mule you ever laid eyes on. Next to her lay what she’d been carrying half way across the Arizona Territory.
“Say, Bob, that coffin ain’t for me is it?” I says. “I thought it was for the man what murdered your wife.” It was a joke, but nobody laughed.
“I’ll go on and look for him myself, son,” Bob said. “I brought you along for another reason.”
“Yah, what’s that?”
“You’re gonna save my wife.”
“What? She’s dead. How can I save a dead woman?” My head was getting foggier than a morning in Maine on a windless day. The wind shifted the smoke from the fire my way. I coughed.
“I don’t know the how’s nor the wherefores’,” Bob said, “but voodoo man there says you can do it.”
“Why me? Why can’t you do it?” My words came out all slurred.
“Cause, Tom Wiley, you’re a good man. Never done nothin’ to be ashamed of.” Bob bowed his head. There was sadness in his eyes. “Me on the other hand, I’m not. I done some things the devil himself is going to want to shake my hand for in person.”
I fell off my seat. Every muscle in my body just went limp. Like I was dead, but I wasn’t. I tried to speak. I wanted to tell Bob Preacher that he was wrong, that he was a good man, but I couldn’t move my lips. Being wide awake but not able to turn my head, let alone twitch a finger was as helpless a feeling as ever I could imagine. I was scared as a dog-chased jack rabbit.
There I lay looking up at the sky. I heard voodoo man dragging something wooden across the sand. He was chanting some mumbo jumbo. The stars above, millions of them, were clearer, brighter than I remembered. The wood smoke of the campfire smelled more crisp than ever before. Something was happening to me that threw me in a panic. My breath came hard and short. Bob stood over me.
“Voodoo man says you can’t speak on account of you being paralyzed and such So, you just listen. It weren’t no man what killed my wife, Tom. It were something else. When she screamed that night, I ran out of the house, just like I said I did. I thought I saw a man standing over her with a big knife stuck in her belly. He looked like he was going to bite her throat. I turned to fetch my rifle. When I turned back, it was running away past the barn. What I didn’t tell folks, cause they would of thought I was stone cold crazy, is that he was running on all fours, like a hound.
“I found its tracks by the well where she died. Followed them for a spell in the dark. Those tracks were big, bigger than a wolf’s, but strange, not like a wolf’s. After a while, they began to change. By the time I reached the ridge up by the dead oak overlooking my ranch house, it was walking on two feet. Feet, Tom, like a man. It got on a horse and took off.
“Voodoo man says that it don’t belong here. He says that it’s called a Shoyabba. They jump around, so to speak. Makes them hard to find. I don’t understand it all, but voodoo man had a vision. After what I saw, who was I to argue? To catch them he says, you gotta be dead for a while.
That’s where you come in, Tom. You won’t really be dead, I don’t know for sure. All I know is that I need this thing to be killed, But he says it has to be killed in two places. I get it here and now, and you get it wherever you are going to. I hope you understand all this cause I sure don’t.”
I didn’t, but what could I do, and what in blazes was a Shoyabba?
Bob picked me up in his arms, cradling me like a babe. I was always amazed by his strength. My head lolled back and sideways. As he carried me towards the voodoo man, I saw that the inside of the coffin had some strange markings all over. I’m sure they was drawn in blood. That explained the bandanna voodoo man always had wrapped around his left hand.
I saw my pair of colt .45’s and all of my bullets laying on the ground in front of voodoo man. He sat cross legged in the dirt. I didn’t feel it when Bob must have taken them from me as he talked. Voodoo man was still chanting that mumbo jumbo, swaying back and forth with something in each hand. A big feather, blue, black and red in one hand and a chicken foot in the other. I lost sight of him when Bob laid me inside the coffin.
I could hear them moving around. It wasn’t long before they rolled me in the coffin. They must have been putting my peacemakers and bullets back in my gun belt. Where was I going that I would need them? I was dying, of that I was sure. They put the lid on and nailed it down. When I couldn’t see the stars any more, I panicked again. Dying was one thing, but to never see such beauty again was another.
The hammering of the nails echoed in my head like a smith’s forge pounding out horseshoes in a big cave. It was getting harder still to breathe. I rocked as the coffin was picked up and put down again. I don’t know how much time had passed, long enough for them to have dug a grave, I expect. As the first shovel-full of dirt hit the lid I lost consciousness.
***
2022, Arizona.
The next thing I heard were muffled voices. I came aware that I was moving again.
“What have you got there,” a man’s voice said. “We come here looking for dinosaur bones and you find a coffin?”
“You should have left it where you found it and called the police.” That was a woman’s voice. What was a po-leece?
“Nonsense, this thing is well over a hundred years old,” another woman said. It sounded like she was right next to me. “Let’s put it up on the examination table. By the decay of the wood, I put it around eighteen seventy-five to eighteen eighty.”
“You considered the dryness of the territory?”
“Of course I did, Perry. This isn’t my first dig.”
“Hey, just asking. I know how excited you can get when we find something unexpected.”
“What’s it doing out here in the middle of nowhere?” That was a different man, one with some sort of accent. He sounded younger that the other man.
“Who knows,” said the woman close to me. “Let’s open it up and see if we can find out.”
Another woman joined their talk. She had an accent too, one I ain’t never heard afore. They continued speaking as they pried the nails from the coffin’s lid.
“Where did you find it, Professor?”
“Close to the hip bone of the Ceracinops. I was looking for the ribs. Be careful not to splinter the wood.”
They were quiet for a bit as they took the last of the nails out and opened the lid. The inside of my eyelids got brighter so I opened them.
A woman screamed. I lay there staring up at the inside of a canvas tent. It was large, like in one of them pictures of an Arabian prince’s, only this one had only one colour, tan. The air smelled dry and hot.
My body must have forgot how to move. I ached all over. It took a while for me to move my hand. I grabbed the edge of the coffin to help me sit up.
Three men and two women stood staring at me. Most of them pale. Their eyes were as wide as moons, their mouths hung open. One woman, with long, black, curly hair and darker skin, a petite little thing, fainted right off. First thing I noticed was that they were all hardly wearing any clothes at all. I turned away out of respect.
“For the lord’s sake, lady, put some clothes on,” I said, or at least I tried to. My throat seemed to have lost all spit and it came out more like a croak.
The tent had no sides, just a roof. I thought, they must be mighty rich to use tent poles made of silver. No, they weren’t silver, but they sure looked like they was. There were tables made from some shiny iron or such. They had some strange tools and brushes on them and bones from something bigger than a horse.
I got out of the coffin. I moved like a rusted-up, stuck water pump. The younger man had a glass of water in his hand. It was a good thing the top of it was shaped like a funnel or he would have spilled it all over the ground the way he was holding it. I stepped over to him trying to keep my eyes off the women. They wore only their undergarments! The boy said nothing as I reached for the water and took it. It weren’t glass at all. It felt squishy in my hand, but I drank from it anyway.
“Is this some kind of joke?” The woman what didn’t faint said. She sounded like my mother when she was mad with me.
“Ah, hell ma’am, I ain’t laughin’ neither,” I croaked.
“Perry, did you do this? You know better than to contaminate a dig like this.”
“Of course not.”
I turned to her but used my hat to block my view of everything but her face.
“Everything looks authentic,” the older man said. He had a new bandage wrapped around his left wrist. “His hat, his duster, the vest, even the gun belt has the right stitching, and it’s all well-worn in. The smell is about right too. Whew! Look at those boots, they can’t be comfortable.”
“Mister, I trained these boots myself. They’re plenty comfortable.”
“Chao, get the shotgun!” the woman yelled. There was no doubt she was in charge.
“We keep it around for the coyote’s,” the older man told me, shrugging a shoulder.
“Who the hell are you and what gives you the right to mess up my dig?” Boy, she sure was irate. Then it struck me. She was Robert Preacher’s wife, or the spitting image of her. My jaw must have dropped to my knees.
“Ma’am,” I says. “I thought you was dead. It’s good to see you again.”
“I don’t know you,” she said. “Are you one of my students?”
“Nah, I ain’t never been to school, ma’am. Wait now, when did you become a teacher?” If she had been a teacher I just might have gone to learn from her. She was a handsome woman.
“It’s miss,” she said.
“Don’t you remember me, Mrs. Preacher. You’re Sandra Preacher and I’m Tom Wiley. I grew up on the ranch next to yours and Bob’s.”
“My name is Sandra all right, but it’s Sandra Cochrane. How do you know me? What the hell is going on! Put your hat down, you look like an idiot.”
“But you ain’t wearin’ nothing.”
“A t-shirt and shorts? Get over yourself.”
A Chinaman came in carrying a double barrel shotgun, ten gauge. He didn’t seem to know what to do with it.
“Holy crap,” he said in perfect English. “Where did he come from?”
“Good question,” said Mrs… I mean Miss Sandra.
“You ain’t gonna need that scatter gun,” I says. “I won’t hurt no one. Where’s Bob Preacher then?”
They regarded each other, curious like.
“We have no idea what you’re talking about,” Miss Sandra said. “Who’s Bob Preacher?”
I told them the story of how I came to be in the coffin. They looked at me as if I was plumb nuts.
“That’s some story,” said the older man. He stepped closer to me and extended his hand. I took it and we shook. “I’m Perry Hunt. I must say you are quite a good actor. You play the part extremely well. Who hired you?”
“No, sir. I ain’t no actor. I make an honest living.”
“I’m the dean of archeology at ASU,” Perry said. He waved a hand at the others in turn. “This is David Krauss. That young man is Alexi Stolov and the woman on the ground next to him is Prisha Khanna. They are some of our students. This is Professor Sandra Cochrane of course, but you already know that. Oh, and the young man with the shotgun is Chao Yin. He is professor Cochrane’s teaching assistant. The others are outside.”
“Preevyeht. Um, hello,” Alexi said. His accent was foreign.
“Is the girl all right,” I asked.
“She will be fine,” said Alexi. He was more calm than the others. “She has just fainted.”
“I’m sorry to put a fright in you all.”
“You have some questions to answer for, young man,” Miss Sandra said.
“I recon I have some questions of my own.”
“Chao,” said Miss Sandra, “Go to town and get the sheriff.”
“I don’t know why you’re so sore at me, Miss Sandra,” I said. “I ain’t done nothin’.”
“He’s right,” Perry said. “No crime has been committed and I’m sure he has permits for those antique guns.”
“What happened?” the girl on the ground groaned. Alexi helped her to her feet and gave her some water.
“We have a trespasser on the dig site,” said Miss Sandra. “That is a crime. Go, Chao, now.” Chao handed the shotgun to David Krauss and walked out.
“Ah, I don’t mean to be trespassing.”
“It will be getting dark soon, son,” Perry said. “Why don’t you have some supper with us?” He put an arm around me and led me out from under the tent.
The Dark-haired girl, the one what fainted, took a look inside the coffin. I thought she was going to pass out again, she was so surprised at what she saw. She rubbed a hand over the voodoo markings. I expect to see if they was real. She lifted the lid where it lay on the ground and saw more markings there. She dropped it like she found a rattler underneath.
Chao was getting into the oddest-looking coach I ever did see.
“You can’t drive a stagecoach from the inside,” I yelled at him, “and you gotta hook up your horses first. Mister, you ain’t all there, are you? Where are your horses?” I asked Perry.
“We don’t have any horses here,” he said.
Just then the coach roared like some wild, vicious beast. It scared the daylights out of me. I spun, drew and fired afore I could think. I hit it right between the eyes. No blood came out. It just sputtered and stopped. Everyone around me ducked down or took cover. Right they should have.
Chao got out of the coach and came around to look at the front of it. He put his hands on top of his head.
“He shot the SUV,” he said.
“You mean to tell me that was your pet?”
“He’s a crazy man!”
“Did you see how fast he was?” Alexi asked.
David pointed the shotgun at me, but I could tell by the way he was holding it, he never held one afore then. I snatched it from his hands. “Give me that, boy. You’ll hurt someone with it. I’m sorry I shot your whatchacallit. It startled me is all.” I handed the scattergun to Perry.
“Well, the guns are real,” Alexi said.
Chao lifted the scalp off the coach and looked inside, if you can believe that. Some blood, black as night spurt out when he did.
“Oil line’s cut. This isn’t going anywhere,” he said.
“We’ll have to wait for Jim to come back in the morning with the supplies,” said Miss Sandra. “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing? You could have killed Chao.”
“I thought I was saving him.” In my defense, I truly believed the boy was in danger; the rest of us too for that matter. The dang metal thing came alive, I tell you. “Besides, I generally hit what I aims for.”
“Generally,” said Miss Sandra, “you generally…” She threw up her hands and turned away, pacing.
“Come on,” Perry said as he put his arm around my shoulder again. “Let’s get something to eat.”
We passed crates and barrels, at least I think they was crates and barrels. Perry leaned the shotgun up against one as we passed. I ain’t never seen ones made from metal in my life, but these ones were, and some other kind of white material. My forehead got sore all crinkled up thinking about the odd stuff I was looking at. He led me to another tent. There a young miss was by a table with a cook pot on it.
The girl was about the same age as the other students. Truth be told so was I. She stood there behind the table, her mouth agape, staring at me.
“Why is everyone looking at me like that?” I asked.
“Megan, this is Tom Wiley,” Perry told her. “We could use some supper now.”
“Yah, sure,” Megan said. She snapped out of her daze and grabbed a tin plate to put some stew on. She handed it to me and then did the same for Perry. It smelled mighty good.
“We can eat over here.” Perry offered me a seat by another table. Even the chairs were some shiny tin. I scratched my head and sat down.
Their camp was at the base of the same flat-top rock Bob and the voodoo man took me to. “Yep, this is Coyote Butte sure enough. Who are you folks? I mean besides your names and all.”
“We’re archeologists and paleontologists,” explained Perry.
“I don’t know what those words mean,” I said.
Miss Sandra and some of the others joined us with plates of stew of their own. They eyed me all suspicious like, especially the darker skinned girl with the curly hair, Prisha.
“I sent an email to the sheriff,” said Miss Sandra. “He’ll get it eventually.”
Perry regarded me with more patience than my ma ever did. “Let’s say, for a minute, that I believe you. When were you buried?”
“It seems like only a few minutes ago, but it must have taken some time for you all to haul this stuff out here. It looks like you’ve been here awhile.”
“No, no. What year was it when you were buried?”
“I don’t rightly know. I don’t really keep track of that sort of thing. Let me see.” I scratched my cheek as I thought. “The war ended when I was about ten, I remember that. Now I’m twenty, I think.”
“What war would that be?” Perry asked.
“Why the only war there was,” I says. “The war that ended slavery.”
“That would make it 1875 when you were put into that coffin.” It were Miss Prisha what said that. “Approximately.”
“You all use some strange words,” I says. I tried smiling at her. I thought I had a way with the ladies. She frowned at me and looked away. I guess I was wrong on that account. “You have a different accent, miss. I mean no offense by that, I just never heard it afore.”
“She’s from India,” Miss Sandra said. “She came all this way to study real archeology and you’ve screwed that up.”
“I ain’t never heard of that place. Is that what they call the reservation they put all the Indians at? I heard tell they was gonna round them up.”
“No, idiot,” said Miss Sandra. “She’s from… never mind. You’re a real piece of work, aren’t you? Did acting class teach you how to be such an asshole or does that come naturally?”
I was taken aback. I never heard such language come from a lady. I had no idea what it was I did to upset her so. I thought it best to keep my trap shut, except to eat of course. The beef tasted funny, the bread too, but I was famished. I cleaned up my serving anyhow. Mom taught me that I should eat everything that was put on my plate, cause I might never know when my next meal might be.
“What happened to your arm?” I tried to change the subject and Perry’s bandage gave me the opportunity.
“A coyote bit me a couple of days ago,” he told me.
“Was it rabid? Them’s is skittish critters normally. They usually don’t come near folk.”
“We are waiting on test results, but he’s already started the treatment anyway,” Miss Sandra said.
“Far as I know about that, you just shoot him. It’s the humane thing to do.”
“That’s not the way we do things now,” Perry said. “Medicine has come a long way.”
“Glad to hear that,” I says, “I don’t like shooting people.”
Miss Prisha pointed at me with her fingers. “Wait a minute. How did you survive in that coffin? We’ve been here for weeks and we would have noticed someone digging a grave and burying someone right under our noses.”
“Good point,” said Miss Sandra. “How did you survive?” She looked right at me with judging eyes. I remember those same eyes locked upon me when she caught me trying to steal a blueberry pie as a boy.
“Um. I ah…. Well, if you could tell me what’s going on, I’d be obliged.”
“Fine. I’ll dig around where we found you and locate your oxygen and water tanks.”
“There are no holes in the coffin for tubes or anything,” Miss Prisha said.
Over her shoulder, off in the rocks I saw a coyote peaking at us. Its head disappeared when it saw me looking at it. There was another on the other side. It likewise vamoosed. I recon they must have smelled the stew.
Miss Prisha wanted to know my story. I told it again on account of her being passed out the first time. The whole camp was there by then and there was others what didn’t hear it the first time too.
As I spoke the sun started to set. Another student, named Deshawn lit some lanterns. He was a young black man, or African American as I was corrected to say, made no never mind to me. He didn’t use fire though, he just touched them and like magic, they lit up. More than once in the glow of the those lanterns I saw coyote eyes gleaming at the dark edges of the light. I thought they had a strange sort of yellow to them.
After a while, bright light came rolling up to the camp. I thought it were ghosts or some such at first. Then the lights turned so I could see that they shone like bullseye lanterns miners use sometimes. These ones was on one of them horseless coaches. It stopped, and the lights went out.
A man got out, kinda cubby with a ten-gallon hat, a rig on his hip and a star on his chest. The law was there to take me away. Just when I thought Miss Prisha was warming up to me too.
“Hello, Sheriff,” Perry said. The others greeted him too.
“You got my email already?” asked Miss Sandra.
“Good evening, folks,” the sheriff said. “Trinny got it and radioed me. What’s this all about?”
“This man is trespassing on our dig.” Miss Sandra walked over and offered the sheriff some water. “He insists innocence, but we found him buried in a fake coffin right where we were working.”
“Is that true, son?”
“Miss Sandra don’t lie. I am sorry for all this Sheriff. I meant no offence.” I stood up.
The Sheriff must have seen my rigs then. He drew his gun and pointed it at me.
“Don’t move!”
Thems behind me rushed to get clear. I froze. I had no reason to draw back at the sheriff.
“It’s no problem, Sheriff,” I says.
“Drop the guns.”
With my left hand I unbuckled my gun belt and let it fall. I didn’t mean to let them fall. Sand’ll get in them.
“Step forward, slowly.”
I did so.
“Get those for me, would you, professor?”
Perry picked up my belt and handed it the sheriff. He put it over his shoulder, then used his shackles on me.
“Do you have a permit for these guns?” He asked.
“Permit?”
“I thought so. What’s your name, son?”
“Wiley, sir. Tom Wiley. I’m from Texas, down Albany way.”
“Okay, I’ll take him to the station for the night, check things out. Can one of you come by in the morning to give a statement?”
“Sure thing, Sheriff. Just as soon as our other vehicle gets back,” said Miss Sandra. “Tom here put a hole in the radiator of this one.”
“All right then. Trespassing, damage of property, unlawful possession of a firearm, the list is getting longer.”
The Sheriff escorted me to his coach and put me in the back. The seats all faced the same way! And they were separated by thick, strong looking chicken wire. He got in the front behind a funny wheel.
He picked up this little tethered thing and spoke at it.
“Trinny, I’m brining in a trespasser from that college dig site out at Coyote Butte. Have some coffee ready for me, will ya?”
Then the coach spoke! It spoke! I kid you not!
“You got it, Sheriff. See you in a bit.” It female too.
“Just sit tight, son,” the sheriff said. “It’s about an hour’s drive.”
We rode in the dark for a ways. How long, I couldn’t recon. Never was much good at tracking time. I was expecting to get cold, it being night time and all. But that weren’t the case. I stayed nice and cozy. Least wise until the we flipped off the trail.
A coyote came scooting across in the lights ahead. The Sheriff stomped on something I took to be the brake. He swerved too. Then there was tumbling and crashing head over heels.
When we came to rest we was upside down. Glass lay everywhere. I called for the sheriff, but he didn’t answer. It were dark except for the moon light shining on the outside. There was the most God-awful smell the like I never whiffed afore. It were kinda like kerosene, but much worse.
The sheriff got dragged out through the window. Growls and barks and screaming. I tried crawling out, but a coyote poked it nose in and took a snap at me. I punched at it, missing. I gave it another try and smacked its eye. Another one chomped a jaw full of my pant leg.
It would have drug me out, but kicked at it and shooed it off. They was all over the outside of the coach. One clambered in the front. My gun was up there. That chicken cage stuff had come loose when we spilled over, so I kicked at it. The third try pushed through. It hit the coyote and it run out.
I reached for my colts and started shooting. Turned out there was only a few of them. I shot three and the rest scampered off.
The sheriff was all tore up. He lay bleeding in the sand next to a Silverberry bush. He tried to say something, but his throat had been ripped open. He was going to die, but he the pain ‘til then was going to be mighty great.
“Do you want me to end your suffering, sheriff?”
He nodded.
“I ain’t never killed a man afore.” My hands shook so much, I could hardly pull the hammer back. “I’m so sorry, sheriff. I sure didn’t mean to cause such a fuss.”
My eyes started stinging. I sniffled and wiped my nose. I admit, a tear or two ran down my face. I put the colt up next to his head and squeezed the trigger.
***
Normal coyotes don’t come near folk. These ones with the yellow eyes weren’t acting normal. I started running. I might trip over a rattler in the night, but hoped I was going fast enough to get by without getting bit.
When I got there, Miss Sandra and the others was in a heated debate. She and Miss Prisha were standing just out from under the canvas. The rest of them was sharing a bottle or too. I presumed it were whisky.
“Enough wild theories, Prisha,” Miss Sandra was saying. “You’re a scientist, or will be soon. You cannot subscribe to religious folktales and fanciful ideas of magic. I don’t want you infecting the others with this nonsense.”
“But there is basis for my beliefs,” Miss Prisha said. “The Hindu religion—”
“— has no place in science. No religion does.”
“My apologies for interrupting,” I says.
They near jumped out of their skin. I never heard even Bob Preacher spew such cussing as Miss Sandra.
“Why are you back here? What happened to the sheriff? Did you kill him?” She said it all in rush once she caught her breath again.
“No. I didn’t. I mean, well yeah, but he was gonna die anyways.”
“You killed the sheriff?” That was almost a scream.
The others came out from under the canvas. They had so many questions tossed at me all at once, I couldn’t keep track.
“The coyotes run us off the trail. We was beset by them after. They got the sheriff and tore him up bad. I had to end his suffering.”
“Come,” said Miss Prisha. Step into the light.”
“Are you here to kill us too?” DeShawn said that eyeing up the scattergun.
“I wouldn’t do that. You all are not safe out here.”
“Not with people like you around,” said Miss Sandra.
“Not me, ma’am. The coyotes.”
We all went back under the tent where there was more light. I was a little shaky. Miss Prisha looked me in the eye.
“You have seen something horrible,” she said. “This man means us no harm.”
“Here, have something to drink,” said Perry.
He poured me a shot of some clear liquor into a glass. I drank it up like I seen grown men do in the saloon in Albany. My mistake. It tasted like swamp water and liniment. Once I was done coughing, I asked him what it was.
“Vodka,” he said.
Out and about, pairs of yellow eyes caught the light. They was getting bold to come so close.
Perry’s arm, the one what got bit, became powerful itchy. Miss Sandra scolded him to stop scratching at it, but it got worse.
“Them coyotes is out there,” I says.
Three coyotes were inside the camp. There was more just on the outskirts. Everyone tensed up when they saw them. Megan and Chao got up and walked around to the far side of the table they was at.
“Do they all have rabies?” David asked.
I saw a dog once that was rabid. It was slavering at the mouth and otherwise sickly looking. These weren’t slavering, they weren’t even drooling, but they did have a vicious look to them.
Their teeth were bared. Their eyes took me aback. I got a good look at one. It’s eyes weren’t reflecting the light of the lanterns, like I thought. They was glowing on their own accord. The black parts in the middle weren’t round like they should be, they was lined, like a snake’s. Their growling sounded like it came from inside a tunnel in the rock. It was deep and loud. Then they grew. I thought I was hallucinating, but the surprised reactions from the others suggested they saw the same thing. The coyotes doubled in size like magic. Their gray and brown fur flattened out and turned into green and red scales.
Megan screamed.
I looked to Deshawn. “Can you use that scattergun?” I nodded towards where it still rested up against the crate.
He nodded affirmation.
“I’ll cover you whilst you get it.”
Perry stood straight up, sudden like. He yelled bloody murder though no one touched him. The bandage on his arm bulged then split open. A bone grew out of it, sharp and pointed like a knife. He was in some pain, that was sure. Another bone grew out of his other wrist, and he howled again. Everyone backed away from him. His whole body twitched. His insides was pushing everything out. His skin stretched and didn’t break. His jaw snapped out and his skull reshaped. He looked like some monstrous form of the coyotes around us. They crept nearer as this was going on.
What used to be Perry leaped atop David. He went down screaming. The monster jabbed both its wrist bones into David’s ribs. His screams was cut short by his throat being ripped out.
Everyone else scattered. The coyotes bounded in pursuit. Deshawn ran for the shotgun. Two coyotes went for him. They would have got him too, but I shot them dead.
Blood and flesh flew from the monster as it wrenched its head back from David’s neck. It looked around for someone else to ravage. Blood dripped from its jowls. He came straight at me. The shotgun fired. Pellets bounced off the creature, not hurting it. It stopped him for a moment. He looked at Deshawn and growled.
“Bullets can’t hurt it?” I looked at the colt in my hand. I was helpless.
Megan screamed from somewhere. I heard the ripping and gnawing of coyotes as they tore her apart.
The beast tossed aside the table between us as if it were no heavier than a twig. I reached behind me under my duster and drew my knife. It crouched, ready to spring.
“Use your guns,” Miss Prisha said. “You said the voodoo man did something to them!”
The monster leaped. I drew with my left hand and shot. My aim was knocked askew by one of its bone knives. It knocked me down and landed atop of me. My bullet drew blood on its shoulder. It yowled in pain, and it took off running.
“Run! There’s a cave at the dig sight,” Miss Sandra said. “We can hold them off from there!” She hefted a big book. Used it to fend off one of the beasts. It chomped down on it and tore it from her. She turned and ran whilst the creature gnawed it to sheds.
Deshawn pumped some lead into a that one. The blast knocked it down, but it was otherwise unhurt. Deshawn got up and bolted after Miss Sandra. Alexi ran past me, chased by one. I threw my knife at it but the blade bounced off it. I redrew my other pistol and fired. The one that Deshawn hit got in the way as it leaped for Alexi. It fell short, bleeding from the head. The other one nipped at Alexi. I fired with my left and dropped it.
The big beast that was Perry stopped running. With a colt in each hand, I walked toward it.
The air around it shimmered and got blurry. Three circles in the air surrounded it, white, black and blue. The blue part let out small bolts of lightning that danced over the monster. They widened ‘til they was as big as it was. Then, afore I could shoot, it collapsed into itself and vanished, taking the monster with it.
Miss Prisha ran up to me and grabbed my arm. “This way,” she said. She had a tin plate in her other hand that she threw at one of them.
The coyotes hounded us as we ran towards the butte. They never came close enough to take a bite though. She led me to a cave entrance. Miss Sandra, Alexi, Chao and Deshawn were already there. There was blood on one of Alexi’s legs where he got bit. The coyotes did not follow us. They stood outside growling and barking. Once we caught our breath, Miss Prisha grabbed me and spun me round to face her.
“You said the voodoo man called it a Shoyabba?”
“That’s what Bob said he said.”
“In my culture, we call them panis,” she told us all. “They are demons. They want to get revenge on Sarama, the dog of the gods, for hunting them all eternity.”
“Oh, come on. You’re not seriously buying into this are you?” Chao said.
He rose up into the air, screaming. The back of the cave lit up with fire. Chao suspended twenty feet above us. A hand as big as he was held on to him. Black claws what dug into him. Something black and red took shape behind him. It were big, bigger than a house. It had horns, curled like a rams. It looked like a man otherwise, a man surrounded by fire and liking it.
“Holy sh…”
The demon squeezed its hand. Chao squished into jelly. I think one of his eyeballs hit my hat.
I fired both my colts ’til they was empty. The behemoth reeled back as my bullets hit it. It managed to sweep an arm towards us, knocking Miss Sandra, Deshawn and myself crashing into the cave wall. I lost both my guns. Deshawn’s leg was broke and Miss Sandra lay not moving. Miss Prisha and Alexi tried to leave, but the coyotes was blocking their way.
I had a feeling my little bullets weren’t going to do much but annoy this thing. I looked around for my guns regardless. Blood ran through me like a burning wave.
In a wedge against the wall beside where I was scrambling, I found a skeleton. It was dressed in rags that looked familiar. In a boney hand was an old navy colt covered in dust. I grabbed it just afore the demon snatched me up.
It held me in front of its face and squinted at me. It was burning hot in its grip. The fire around him threatened to consume me. I took a breath, but got a chest full of Sulphur. It opened its mouth. The teeth were like sabers. I aimed the navy colt, praying that it would work and that there was a bullet in the cylinder. I pulled the trigger.
There was a god-awful spark as the powder touched off. I was blinded for a flash of a second. I must have shot its eye, for it filled up with black blood and its head jerked back. The roaring of the fire died as the flames went out.
The beast froze, relaxed the grip it held me with. I fell to the ground, twisting my ankle. I was ready to fire again. I had to cover my own eyes as it burst apart into flakes of black embers.
There was no sound but for the groans of Deshawn and my own heavy breathing. I looked around, ready for more danger. Everyone else was staring at me.
“The coyotes have gone,” Alexi said. “They shrunk back to normal and ran off. You killed that monster?”
I looked at the gun in my hand. Dirt encrusted initials was there on the handle. R.P. they read. I wondered about the skeleton where I found the gun.
“Like killing them in two places,” I said.
“What?” asked Alexi .
“Something I heard once.” I started laughing. I couldn’t help myself, it just came out of me. I was right giddy at being alive.
“What are you laughing for!” Miss Prisha asked. Her eyes were big as moons and she held her lips tight.
“I was so scared, I peed myself a little.”
“So did I,” she said.
Alexi said nothing, but he tugged on the butt of his pants like he was trying to make room for something. He helped me to my feet. Miss Prisha checked on Miss Sandra and told us she was ok, but unconscious. We set Deshawn’s leg. Prisha and I went back to the camp to get a stretcher for Miss Sandra.
It was a mess. From the coyote’s running through everything and us scrambling to escape, pretty much everything was overturned. I stared at David’s body, then at one of the dead coyote’s. It looked normal again, like it never was a monster.
Prisha put a shaking hand on my shoulder. One thing was for sure, my life just got turned upside down. I had no idea where I was going to go from there.
***
Perry Hunt road a horse he stole up to a ridge near an old dead oak overlooking a ranch house. Below him a woman drew water from a well…
*****