Alex Scarrow - October skies

‘So, they thought this man had some sort of devil possessing him?’

‘Well, like I say, I’d rather use the term cursed, it’s less provocative,’ he said, sipping his drink before continuing. ‘So… they thought this man was cursed in some way. There were those who thought it was some kind of Indian thing, thinking the man had trespassed on burial grounds or something. Anyway, the point is, whilst he was with them, bad things happened.’

‘Bad things?’

‘Bad things,’ he echoed with no elaboration. ‘Then it finally came to a head when a child went missing. The next morning the man was gone. Never saw him again.’

‘That’s pretty creepy,’ she whispered.

Aaron nodded. ‘The man was evil; well that’s what they thought — that he had evil in him. And just maybe he picked it up in those mountains.’

‘What do you think?’

Aaron finished his coffee with several quick gulps as he pondered an answer. ‘I’m not a churchgoer, you understand? Nor am I some dumb sap who’ll believe any old conspiracy or ghost story doing the rounds. I think Ouija boards are a load of crap. I think mediums and spiritual healers and their type are a bunch of crooks. Okay? I’m telling you this just so’s we can be clear that I’m not some sort of whacked-out small-town hokey. Are we clear?’

Rose nodded.

‘But, I think there is stuff out there that we don’t have the tools to measure and explain and quantify.’ He looked at her with grey, keen and intelligent eyes. ‘And, yes… I think maybe there’s something out there in those woods that can do something to a man. Change him somehow.’

‘Change him?’

He shrugged. ‘Turn a good man bad.’

She finished her coffee. ‘Tell me, Mr Pohenz, is there any record of this man’s name?’

‘Because it started as a verbal tale, no one really remembers if he did give a name. The Rag Man is the only name people remember. It’s kind of catchy,’ he said with a smile.

‘And would you know roughly what year that happened?’

He smiled. ‘I know exactly; it was the spring of 1857.’

17 October, 1856

‘I heard it again!’ said Zimmerman. He lowered the bundle of kindling in his arms to the ground and reached for the rifle slung across his broad shoulders.

The group stopped dead in their tracks. Keats swung his long-barrelled Kentucky rifle down, gently half-cocking the hammer and readying a percussion cap. He turned to Zimmerman.

‘Same thing?’ he muttered under his breath.

The man nodded. ‘Whispering again. I’m sure I heard whispering ahead of us.’

Keats looked to the others. ‘Anyone else hear that this time?’

Bowen and the other Mormon, Hearst, shook their heads in silence.

‘I’m certain I heard someone whispering ahead,’ said Zimmerman again with a hushed voice. ‘There’s definitely somebody here, besides us.’

They remained frozen, listening to the subtle rustling of the snow-covered forest. Echoing from the far distance, they could hear a metal cooking skillet being banged and the steady rap, rap, rap of someone’s axe on wood, noises from their camp… but no sounds from close by, except for the rasping, fluttering sound of their breathing.

‘I ain’t hearing nothing,’ muttered Keats uneasily.

‘I believe he’s right,’ said Weyland, nodding at Zimmerman, ‘there is most definitely something or someone out there. It’s been following us for a while.’

Ten minutes earlier, Weyland had set them on edge by claiming he thought he’d seen a pair of eyes staring out at him from low down in the undergrowth.

Now Zimmerman.

‘You sure?’ asked Keats.

The man pointed to the trees ahead of them. ‘I’m sure I heard it come from over there. Quiet talking… whispering.’

Keats swivelled his Kentucky towards where the man was pointing, squinting down the long barrel at the low-hanging, snow-covered branches ahead. The others fixed their attention on the same place. He looked beneath the trees, thick with ferns and bracken poking through the deep and lumpy carpet of snow. His eyes picked out nothing untoward, no movement at all.

And then he caught a flash of pale brown — the colour of cowhide; a colour out of place in this twin-hued world of white snow and dark green pine needles. He stared intently through the dark web of branches, his keen sight picking out another incongruous detail: a dark horizontal strip and two pale ovals within.

The ovals blinked.

Eyes!

‘I see it now,’ Keats whispered over his shoulder to them. ‘Nobody do nothin’,’ he hissed. ‘Remain… completely… still.’

He studied the eyes, staring out at them, perfectly motionless until they blinked again and then vanished. He looked from side to side, beneath the low branches, trying to find them again.

And then spotted another pair of eyes.

And another… and another.

‘Others… see ’em?’ hissed Keats quietly.

Zimmerman nodded.

‘Reckon I owe you a ’pology there, Zimmerman.’

Zimmerman swallowed nervously. ‘Uhh, don’t worry.’

The eyes glided smoothly behind the fir trees a dozen yards in front of them.

‘God preserve us,’ muttered Hearst, his voice trembling, ‘what devils are these?’ His hold on his rifle tightened.

‘We’re bein’ stalked,’ Keats said quietly.

‘They’re demons,’ whispered Hearst. ‘Satan has tracked us down out here.’

Keats’s eyes narrowed. ‘Ain’t demons, Hearst. It’s worse than that.’

All of a sudden one of the low-hanging branches was yanked to one side, dislodging a cascade of powder snow from the tree. Through the momentary blizzard something emerged, crouching low, coiled with enough energy to launch forward onto them at a moment’s notice: a dark face, painted still darker around wide unblinking eyes, and grasping in one hand a tamahakan, a war-club with a vicious-looking hooked blade, in the other a short bow.

‘Far worse…’ Keats muttered.

There was movement to the left and the others turned to see several more emerge from the trees and foliage, and more to their right.

‘They’re Paiute.’

Weyland leaned forward. ‘Would they be the-?’

‘Yeah… the ones you don’t want to run into,’ Keats replied evenly and quietly, his eyes locked on them.

Some of the Paiute carried older flintlock muskets, acquired hand-me-downs from another era. Others carried bows — but all of them held in the other hand hunting knives, or war-clubs of one sort or another, ready to be used with lethal efficiency at close quarters. Keats counted six of them. Six he could see, that is.

Even if the other men with him were all loaded, ready to fire and managed each to bring down a target with their first and only shot, he suspected there’d be more who would be in amongst them within seconds, wielding the serrated edges of their tamahakan to lethal effect. It would be a bloody and brutal fight that Keats suspected would be over even before their powder smoke cleared.

‘Look at their skin,’ muttered Hearst. ‘Scorched by God… they’re demons!’

‘Shut up and be still!’ Keats hissed through clenched teeth.

Dark skin — Keats had heard the Mormons refer to that as the mark of evil.

He studied the Paiute, coiled and perfectly still. The bone piercings and the shrivelled leathery tokens that dangled from their necks served to make them look more demonic.

The Indian who had first emerged from the trees spoke. The language was sharp and guttural, but one Keats recognised as the common tongue loosely shared by the Paiute, the Shoshone, the Bannock

… he was speaking Ute.

‘Trapper, you lead these white-face here?’