Алан Дин Фостер: Mad Amos Malone

Ma-Hok-Naweh’s age was unknown save to himself and a few intimate friends. A true shaman keeps his real age private, which is understandable since it’s the age not of his body but of his soul. Malone held Ma-Hok-Naweh in high regard. He was a true medicine man, not an accomplished fake like Broken Water of the Ute.

A few ribbed saguaros stood sentinel behind the old man, guarding him from the night. At their bases, lines ran through the sandstone, across his face, to continue down into the stone on which they sat.

“The Ancient Ones are restless. They are restless because they are frightened for their house in this world.”

As Ma-Hok-Naweh spoke, his grandson Cheshey sat cross-legged nearby, watching and listening without comment. A wise boy. Like his grandfather and like Malone, he wore only a breechcloth and the ever-present headband.

“How will the Ancient Ones make their fear known?” Malone asked.

“I cannot tell, my friend.” The shaman studied the sand pictures before them, watching as the wind played with the granules stained that afternoon with fresh vegetable dyes. As the sand shifted, the earth shifted with it, for the sand is of the earth and knows its ways. “All I know is that it will take the form of the white man’s own medicine, but seen through the eyes of the Ancient Ones.”

“Will many die?”

Again the old eyes examined the play of wind and sand. “It may be. I am saddened. Though I argue with the white man’s steel trail, I do not wish to see him die. There are many who are like well-meaning but ignorant braves, who only follow the orders of their chief, he who makes war upon the land, and question not what he says.”

Now the moon was hidden by dark clouds, and the rumble of approaching thunder rolled over the paloverde and the thornbushes.

“Can nothing be done?”

“Not by this old one. Perhaps by you, if you would wish to try. You know the white man’s ways as well as our ways. The spirits might look kindly on you as an intermediary. With help and will, you might do something.”

Carefully he reached down and collected a handful of green sand and put it in a small leather sack. He did the same with a palmful of ocher grains. Malone accepted both sacks and put them aside.

“Keep them apart, for they contain both life and death,” Ma-Hok-Naweh admonished him. “You know the words. Use the sand and the words together and you may turn the unrest of the Ancient Ones. Do not be startled by what you may see. Remember that it is only white man’s medicine as seen through the eyes of my ancestors. And if you cannot work this thing, get out, get out quickly, my friend!”

Malone rose, his near-naked body massive against the ancient wall behind him. “Don’t worry about that, old teacher. I don’t aim to die fer no damn-fool railroad man. But maybe I kin save his braves in spite of themselves.”

Ma-Hok-Naweh stared worriedly at the sands as his friend dressed, mounted, and rode off toward the south, toward the railhead. After a while his grandson spoke for the first time all evening, his voice a whisper as befitted the enormity of the occasion.

“Do you think he can do anything, Grandfather?”

“No, I do not think so. But he is a strange man, this Amos Malone, even for a white man. It may be that I am wrong and that he can do something. Also, you must always remember that he is crazy, and that is a great help in dealing with the spirits.” Ma-Hok-Naweh looked to the ground. Dark spots began to appear on the dirt. “Now help me inside the Big House, grandson. It is the best place now for me to be.”

The boy looked around uneasily. “Because the wrath of the Ancient Ones is upon us?”

“No, you young fool. Because it is starting to rain.”

Worthless was breathing hard when Malone rode into the railhead camp. But Worthless always breathed hard, whether he’d been ridden ten miles or ten feet. It was his form of protest at being subjected to the indignity of having a man on his back.

The foreman had a tent all to himself, set apart from those shared in common by the laborers. Malone strode inside, reached into the bed, and yanked the foreman to a sitting position. The man weighed well over two hundred pounds, but that didn’t keep Malone from shaking him like a child.

“Wake up, Dungannon! Wake up, you son of a spastic leprechaun, or I’ll leave you to die in your bed!”

“Huh? Whuzza… You! Let go of me, you bloody trespassing madman. I’ll see you hung in Tucson if I can’t have you lynched on the spot! Let go of me, or I’ll…” He paused, and his voice changed. “What’s that?”

“What’s what?” So mad was Malone, so intent was he on shaking some sense into this fool, that he’d tuned everything else out. Now he let his senses roam.

Sure enough, there it was. Whatever it was.

He let go of the foreman’s nightshirt. Dungannon pulled on his boots and in nightshirt and peaked cap followed the mountain man toward the doorway of the tent.

Dungannon sounded confused when he spoke. “Sounds like a train coming,” he said. “Don’t know why they’d be bringing in extra supplies at night. Funny they’re not sounding a whistle. Guess they don’t want to wake us…. No, there’s the whistle, all right.”

Malone strained his senses at the night. There was more outside the tent than the smell and sounds of rain falling steadily, more than the suggestion of metal coming closer. He could sense it, and it wasn’t good.

“That’s no train a-comin’, Dungannon, and that weren’t no whistle you heard.”

“Sure and it was, you great deaf amadán. There, hear it again?”

“Listen, man!” Malone was running out of patience and he knew they were running out of time. “That’s no train whistle. That’s a whinny, though like none I ever heard before.”

He knew what he knew, and so did Worthless. He’d seen his docked unicorn fight off a wounded grizzly with his front hooves and dance neatly around a whole den of jittery rattlers without bucking or getting himself bit. But now Worthless was pulling frantically at the hitching rail where he’d been tied, eyes wild like with locoweed—even the squinty one with the white circle around it—bucking and yelling hoarsely. Worthless, who was usually afraid of nothing.

The wind rose, bringing mournful thunder with it. Malone and Dungannon stepped out into the blowing rain and shielded their eyes. Finally Malone had to put a big hand on the foreman’s shoulder and spin him around.

“You’re lookin’ the wrong way!” the mountain man shouted against the wind.

“But the line ends here” was the reply. Already Dungannon was soaked to the skin. “It has to be coming up from the south. There’re no rails north of here!”

“What makes you think it’s coming down rails?” Malone yelled at him.

At the same time Dungannon saw it coming. His face turned pale as whitewash, and he turned and bolted. Malone let him go, stood his ground, and made sure the two leather pouches were close at hand while he fought to keep the rain out of his eyes.

Worthless was brave and loyal but no equine fool. With an astonishing heave on his bridle, he wrenched both posts out of the ground and went bounding off like blazes to the west, the hitching rail bouncing wildly along behind him.

“I’ll be hornswoggled,” Malone muttered as he stared northward. Ma-Hok-Naweh had been right: white man’s medicine seen through Indian eyes.

Thundering down out of the scrub-covered hills came the Iron Horse. Lightning flashed on its metallic flanks. It breathed no smoke and whistled no greeting. Its eyes were the fiery orange of the wood box, and the spirits of the dead kept its engine well stoked. It rattled and banged as it ran, and there was a blind indifference about it that was more terrifying than any overt sense of purpose could have been. Looking at it, you’d think it had no more sense in its iron skull, no more care for what it was trampling underfoot, than did a train.