Jonathan Maberry - SNAFU - An Anthology of Military Horror

A man standing a few feet away from him was speaking. The man was short, stout, and stank. He needed a bath far more than he needed a whiskey, but the drink was what he was after and what he was enjoying.

“Big as a bear,” Stinky said, “and white as snow, and looking around like he’s waiting to kill something.”

Crowley could guess whom the man was speaking about.

The man pouring whiskey was taller, leaner and looked about as friendly as an executioner. Still, he nodded and poured and listened.

“Thing is, all the Indians is looking at him like he’s gonna kill ‘em and cook them up for dinner.” The thickset man smacked his lips noisily and slurped down his whiskey like it was water. His mustache, desperately in need of a trimming, trembled as he spoke. “Far as I can see that would be an improvement.”

Crowley kept his tongue. Ultimately, he didn’t much see a need to involve himself in the discussion. Still, it was interesting to hear.

When the bartender finally spoke it was softly, but with an edge. “Don’t much care for the Indians, but I’m just fine keeping the army out of here, too.”

“Oh to be sure,” Stinky said. He had a sloppy smile on his face and he nodded his head so hard Crowley wondered how it managed to stay attached. “Any ways you look at this situation, I prefer to avoid having a hundred soldiers coming along and shooting the hell out of everything again. I already had that problem in Maryland, Virginia, and in Alabama. I’m done with men in uniform.”

Crowley snorted at that, not even trying to suppress the noise.

Stinky looked his way. His brow knitted. “You think soldiers are a good idea, mister?”

“No. I just don’t think men in uniform will ever go away.”

“How you figure?”

Crowley cut a piece of beef and chewed on it for a moment before answering. “You have silver mines here. People are staking claims and digging and some of them are making money. Those people are going to want to protect what is theirs, so they’ll either hire men in uniforms to protect it, or they’ll demand men in uniforms to protect it. Either way, you’re going to get men in uniforms. Then you have your Indians, who maybe don’t care about the silver and maybe do, but either way probably don’t like getting pushed from place to place. They’re going to get upset sooner or later and they’re going to push back, and sure enough, more men in uniforms will come along to stop that from happening. I believe that’s why you currently have men in uniforms heading in this direction.”

Stinky looked at him for a long moment and then a smile broke on his face. He had a good smile. It made his face round and cheery. “Mister I like you. Let me buy you a drink.”

“By all means,” Crowley said. “But I’d ask you to do me the kindness of standing downwind. I’m still eating and you have a ripe odor on you.”

Might be that some people would have taken offense to that, but stinky did not. Instead he laughed. “It’s been a long few days riding to get here. Haven’t found the baths yet.”

The bartender pointed. “That way. Three doors down.”

Crowley finished his meal and Stinky, who had forgotten all about the offer of a drink, went to get himself cleaned up. Really, that was better for everyone involved.

Captain Henry Folsom looked around the settlement and glowered from under the brim of his Hardee hat. The men with him were tired and hungry and they needed supplies. He wasn’t overly fond of the way the place looked, but they would simply have to work with what they had available.

There were Indians moving among the people in the camp and he didn’t much care for that. His job was to make sure the Apache stayed where they belonged and that was a task he took very seriously.

“Sergeant Barnes.” Folsom spoke clearly, with a hard, barking note in his voice that perfectly matched his disposition. “Find stables and a spot upwind from this filth.”

“Upwind, sir?” Barnes asked.

Barnes was one of those people Folsom always found offensive: they’d all been on the road just as long, but Barnes was neat and clean and not a hair was out of place.

“I have no desire to smell the people here if they reek as badly as the area looks.”

Barnes snapped off a hard salute and broke away from the men.

When Folsom slid from his horse’s saddle and landed, it was with remarkable agility. “Sergeant Fowler?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Take your squad and ride a circuit around this cesspool. I want to know how many Indians are here and why they are here.”

“Yes, sir!”

A moment later the commander of the Seventh Battalion strutted toward one of the only solid structures he could find in the town. It was two stories of wood rot and sagging boards, but it was an actual building and that had to stand for something. The man who walked beside him was not Indian, yet he was not a proper white man, either. He said he was from China. All Folsom knew for certain was that Chi Chul Song was a better tracker than anyone else he’d met and that the fellow worked hard for a small wage. He did not speak to Song and the Chinaman returned the favor, but Folsom was happier with the man beside him than he was without. Song stood next to him with his muscular arms crossed over his broad chest and continued to say nothing while Folsom commandeered the Silver Springs Hotel for himself and his soldiers.

Lucas Slate felt the tugging at his body and soul like iron shavings might feel the pull from a magnet just exactly too far away to make them move. He could have resisted, but part of him did not want to. Part of him wanted this, needed to know what was behind the silent summons. What bothered him was he couldn’t decide if that part was what he liked to think of as himself, or as the thing that was changing him. There had been a time when he could tell the difference with ease, but familiarity was not being kind to him.

What had once been a distant voice inside his soul was now a part of him, much as he hated the notion. The endless whispering influence that had already changed his body was now better positioned for chipping away at his mind. He still knew who he was, but recent events argued that he might not stay that way too much longer.

One nameless town, one odd beastie — odd enough that Crowley had never heard of it before — and the thing inside him had taken over, nearly drowning him in the dark waters of his mind. The change had happened so quickly that he couldn’t fight it off. One moment he was himself and the next something else had controlled his actions. It had worked out to the benefit of Slate and Crowley alike, but it had put a strain on their relationship, and though Crowley did his best to act as if nothing was different, Slate’s mother hadn’t raised any fools.

His horse clomped along as calmly as ever. The dogs in the area, and there were a goodly number of strays, barked and raged and backed away. The horse didn't care. It wasn’t really a horse anymore, of course. It had been snakebit a while back, when he and Crowley were in the middle of the badlands. The horse had reared up and run a hundred yards and then fallen on its side. By the time he’d reached the thing, it was dying. The muscles in its body were shuddering and the beast was soaked in sweat, surely as good as dead. Crowley had come along, moving at a leisurely pace. He’d stopped long enough to shoot the snake dead and then followed, but the look on his lean face said he knew what Slate knew: the horse was a goner.

And for only an instant, that dark whispering voice that seldom spoke loudly enough to be noticed on a conscious level had reached out and taken control. Slate had leaned down and grabbed the dying horse’s head, wrenching it roughly around until the animal’s open mouth was aimed at his face. He’d leaned down and exhaled a powerful breath into the horse’s mouth and then held it closed with his hand.