Michael Spradlin: Blood Riders

She secreted the blade in her boot and rushed to his side. Dog came to then, standing on unsteady feet and shaking his head. He went to Chee and licked his face, but Chee didn’t seem to respond much.

Shaniah held Hollister’s face in her hands. He was gravely wounded, but she knew a way to save him. The blade Malachi had stabbed him with lay on the ground a few inches away. She picked it up, and drawing it across her palm, she opened a cut.

“I thought you told me your blade was all you needed,” he said.

“I lied,” she said.

“Hmm. Lied about a couple of other things too, apparently?” he said. “You forgot to mention the whole married to the evil mastermind thing.”

“Would it have mattered?” she asked him, putting her hand on his cheek.

He tried to focus on her face but it was hard. It seemed like someone was taking great pleasure in making the world spin. He finally found her, with one eye closed. She was still beautiful.

“No, it wouldn’t have made an ounce of difference,” he said.

She held her hand, the cut seeping blood up to Hollister’s face.

“You need to drink this,” she said.

Without warning there was a gun against the side of her head. Chee stood there, his Colt pressed against her temple. Dog was next to him, growling. How she hated that goddamned dog. Chee pulled back the hammer on the pistol.

“What are you doing?” Shaniah said.

“Don’t move,” Chee said.

“He’s going to die,” she said.

“He might not,” Chee answered back.

Hollister was losing blood and getting the giddy, nearly drunken feeling one can only experience with too much blood loss.

“What are you two doing? You need to stop arguing and start getting along. And stop calling each other witches. I mean it,” he said. Then he giggled, slightly delirious.

“Archaic blood can heal him. He only needs a little,” she said.

“Better he dies than turns into one of you,” Chee said.

“He won’t. He can’t become… he won’t turn. He has to be bitten first, then he has to drink the blood of the one who bit him, the sire. That’s the only way it works. But this will keep him alive, it has healing powers.”

“I don’t believe you, Brujana,” he said.

“Chee,” Hollister said. His voice was weak. “It’s all right. Let her do it. It might work, it might not, but I’m done otherwise.”

Chee stared at Shaniah hard. Dog still looked like he wanted to see if he could fit her entire head in his mouth.

Finally, he lowered the gun. “Dog, off,” he said. Dog stopped growling instantly and sat on his haunches.

Shaniah pushed her bleeding hand to Hollister’s mouth. She pulled open his lips and squeezed blood into his mouth. She kept at it until his face was covered with it. He slipped into unconsciousness.

“What now?” Chee asked.

“We wait,” Shaniah said. They waited several minutes. Chee checked Hollister’s pulse.

“Shit,” Hollister said, his eyes open again. He had slumped over onto the floor when he had gone unconscious, and now he came to, staring face to face with Malachi’s dismembered head. Staring at the head locked in a death grimace, he said, “Remind me never to make you angry.”

“You’re alive,” she said, falling to the ground beside him and taking his head in her hands.

“Either that, or we’re all dead. Can dead people talk to each other? Chee, you know a lot about dead people.”

Chee shook his head. “I don’t know, Major.” But he smiled. Glad that Hollister was alive.

The color slowly returned to Hollister’s face. “All right. I think we’ve killed everyone we were supposed to, so let’s get out of here. Help me up.”

Chee and Shaniah lifted him slowly to his feet.

“Getting stabbed sure does hurt,” he said. “Got stabbed a couple times in the war and it always hurt more than getting shot. Which always surprises me.” Hollister realized he was babbling, but he was so happy to be among the living he didn’t care.

Shaniah laughed. They slowly left the chamber behind, Dog in the lead, Chee and Shaniah on either side of Hollister, holding him up.

“Wait, I forgot something.” He reached into the pocket of his duster and pulled out the two bundles of dynamite. There were six sticks in each bundle and the fuses were wrapped around the bundles.

“What do you say we make sure old Malachi stays put?” Hollister said.

“Keep going, I’ll back up and set the charges,” Chee said.

Every step brought Hollister searing pain, but he could also tell he wasn’t going to die anymore. Shaniah’s blood was bringing him some relief. They were a few feet away from the entrance when Chee came sprinting back.

“Probably best if we hurry,” he said. He took Hollister’s other arm and they picked up the pace, wanting to be outside before the dynamite went off. Twenty yards or so ahead of them, Dog starting barking and growling, sniffing the air ahead of him, the hair on his neck standing up.

Chee racked a round into the chamber of his Henry. Shaniah took hold of her blade with her free hand. “You think some Archaics survived out there?” Hollister asked.

“Don’t know,” said Chee. “That’s not his Archaic bark.”

Even though it hurt, Hollister had to laugh. “He has different barks?”

“Yes, sir,” Chee said. “That is his ‘bad man’ bark.”

They finally cleared the entrance and found why Dog was barking. It wasn’t Archaics. Standing just outside the mine was Slater, holding the Fire Shooter Hollister had abandoned before he entered the mine.

“Howdy,” Slater said. “Good to see you survived.”

Slater was standing in front of six mounted horsemen, deployed in a semicircle behind him. Some of them held torches, painting the area in a flickering orange-blue light. Slater was pointing the barrel of the Fire Shooter at the ground but in their general direction. All six of his men had their guns pointed at the three of them.

“Mr. Slater,” Hollister said, trying not to grimace as he spoke. “It’s awfully nice of the senator to send you here as our backup. But as you can see we managed to put these things down and everything’s fine, so your service is no longer required in this campaign.”

Slater lifted the barrel of the Fire Shooter, studying it, running his free hand over the barrel if he were inspecting a horse he wanted to buy. He smiled an ugly smile and looked at Hollister.

“I think you know he didn’t send me here for no backup,” Slater said. “You don’t look so good, by the way.”

Hollister could only imagine what he did look like, his shirt and face covered in blood and his body battered from being tossed around by Malachi inside a room made entirely of rock.

“Never better, actually,” Hollister said. “We got a lot of paperwork needs doing after all the shooting and exploding we did here. And Pinkerton and his men are on the way. So we’re going to get to it, if you’ll excuse us.”

Slater snorted. “I don’t think you got any backup coming. And even if what you’re saying is true, it’ll take Pinkerton a while to get here. And you’ll be dead and we’ll be long gone before he arrives.”

“Chee, why the hell hasn’t the dynamite gone off yet?” Hollister muttered quietly.

“What’s that? Didn’t quite catch it,” Slater said.

Chee had his Henry held at port arms and would never be able to get a shot off before one of Slater’s gun thugs shot him down.

“I was just telling Sergeant Chee here to shoot you first, once the shooting starts,” Hollister lied, trying to buy time until he could think of a way to stall Slater and his men. He tried to stand up straighter, but his wound sent another wave of pain through him and he bent forward again. The dynamite must have been duds, because there was no explosion.