Саймон Бествик - The Devil and the Deep - Horror Stories of the Sea

Joshua looked back at Red-beard again. “He says it’s wabí and pahú .”

Red-beard grunted.

“Good to know,” he said.

Joshua twitched his mare’s reins so she moved closer to Bird King.

“Don’t worry,” Joshua whispered. “They scalped some abolitionists in the war, and then a few Injuns after. But you ain’t an abolitionist, and you ain’t a full-blood Injun. So they ain’t going to kill you.”

Charley didn’t try to answer. His breath was starting to tremble along with his hands.

“I’m pretty sure, anyway,” Joshua said.

As they came over the last hill, heat lightning began to flash in the darkening sky to the south. And now Charley could see the source of the smoke in the gully below. He could smell it, too. It reeked like river mud that had somehow been set ablaze. The gray plume was spewing from a hole at the apex of a hammered-tin dome set over a circular cast-iron grate that, in turn, was set over a bed of hot coals. The grate was five feet wide, and the dome covered all but the outer few inches. The coals underneath were beginning to glow with a red light as the sun dropped behind a hill to the west.

“Good Lord, that’s odiferous,” Red-beard said.

But despite the smoke and its stench, Charley’s attention was drawn several yards past the bed of coals to an enormous wooden contraption that sat on a patch of flattened dirt. It was built in the style of a curved-bottom overland wagon, but it had no canopy. And it was larger than any wagon Charley had ever seen. At least thirty feet long and ten feet wide, it sat atop four iron-clad wheels that were each a dozen feet in diameter. The wagon and the spokes of the wheels had been painted ochre, but the paint had flaked and faded with age.

Charley glimpsed piles of canvas and a few barrels inside the wagon. But those didn’t seem odd. What did seem odd was a fifteen-foot-tall post rising from the wagon’s center, fitted with a seven-foot crossbeam near the top… and a shorter post-and-crossbeam that rose midway between the center post and the wagon’s narrowed front end. Both posts were strung with a baffling network of ropes. Charley couldn’t tell whether the posts were meant to be Christian crosses or secular gallows.

As the five riders came down into the gully, a lone figure, stooping, stepped out from the shadow under the high belly of the wagon. When the figure drew near to the glowing coals, Charley saw that he was a tall, broad-shouldered man with long, tangled gray hair and a beard that hung even lower than Black-beard’s. He was wearing a dark blue coat with a double row of brass buttons, closed up tight. Charley thought it must be far too warm inside that coat, but the man didn’t seem to mind. His trousers were dark and heavy, too. But his feet were bare, and they glowed pink in the light from the coals.

The man held a staff that appeared to be made of ivory affixed to a short length of polished wood capped with brass at its base. Charley thought it must be ivory because it was the same color as the keys of a piano he had seen in Topeka. But this ivory spiraled up around itself like tight coils of rope, tapering tighter and tighter as it rose. It was at least eight feet long, ending in a sharp point.

For a moment, Charley almost forgot that he and Uncle JoJim were in the company of embittered Missouri bushwhackers. Everything he was looking at now was a fascination and a puzzle. But one thing he was sure of was that the tall man with the wild gray hair and the spiraled ivory staff was the same man Uncle JoJim had told him about less than an hour earlier. This was the man who had appeared on the ridge during the Comanche attack, years ago. And the huge wagon behind him might be the same wagon he had ridden then, too.

But Charley didn’t see any horses or mules that could be used to pull it. It would have to take ten or twelve. So maybe the man was just using the wagon as his house now, living alone in an isolated gully. With nothing but a bad-smelling fire for company.

Uncle JoJim was still riding in front. And as Calico Girl’s front hooves touched the rocky dirt of the gully, thirty feet from the wild-haired man and his glowing coals, Uncle JoJim raised his hand.

“Hallo,” he called. “Captain William Thomas! Are you well, sir?”

The tall man scowled, stepped around the fire, then stopped and struck the dirt with the base of his staff.

“That’s far enough,” he said. His voice was a deep, wet growl.

Uncle JoJim stopped Calico Girl fifteen feet from the man. Black-beard came up until his horse was abreast of Calico Girl, then also raised a hand and stopped. So Charley stopped Bird King, and Joshua stopped his roan. But Red-beard brought his gelding around the boys and up alongside Black-beard. And Charley saw that Red-beard’s hand was on the butt of his pistol.

“Hell if that ain’t some kind of Federal coat,” Red-beard muttered.

Black-beard glanced at Red-beard. “Stay quiet for now.”

“I am sorry to disturb you, Captain Thomas,” Uncle JoJim continued. “But my nephew and I encountered these gentlemen, Mister Clark and Mister Barnett, out on the prairie. They wish to confer with you, as they are in need of provisions for their journey.”

Captain Thomas remained stock-still and scowling.

“You appear to be a savage,” he said. “How is it that you know my name?”

Uncle JoJim removed his hat, hanging it on Calico Girl’s saddle horn. His hair, dark and straight like Charley’s, was plastered tight against his head.

“We met some twenty years ago,” Uncle JoJim said, “in the far southwest of Kansas. Perhaps three hundred miles from this spot. I was with soldiers under attack from Comanches.”

Captain Thomas’s expression did not change.

“I recall the incident,” he said. “It was my first exposure to the fact that the Army is a pack of goddamned fools.”

Red-beard chuckled. “On that, we are in agreement.”

Black-beard glared at him. “What did I say?”

Red-beard glared back. “Wasn’t speaking to you.”

Beside Charley, Joshua said, “Pa?” in a worried tone. Both Red-beard and Black-beard looked back at him.

At that, Uncle JoJim lowered his hand, and it brushed the shotgun scabbard behind his leg. Charley took a sharp breath.

But Black-beard turned back toward Uncle JoJim. “Careful there, Injun,” he said. And Uncle JoJim’s hand moved away from the shotgun again.

Captain Thomas did not seem to hear either Black-beard or Red-beard, or to notice what had just transpired. He remained focused on Uncle JoJim, who now spoke again.

“The Army should have paid attention when you demonstrated your ship at Fort Leavenworth,” Uncle JoJim said. “Had they allowed you to build your fleet, their war might have been prevented. Or greatly shortened.”

Captain Thomas was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Dismount and come closer.”

Uncle JoJim obeyed, leaving his hat on the saddle horn. He murmured to Calico Girl, then stepped forward until he was five or six feet from Captain Thomas.

“You have no right arm,” Captain Thomas said.

Uncle JoJim said nothing.

Captain Thomas gave a slow shake of his head, and the slight wind that came down into the gully lifted his long, wild gray hair for an instant.

“I am sorry about that,” he said. “I thought you were a Comanche.” He scratched his jaw. “But at least I left you the other one.”

Captain Thomas pointed his staff toward the wagon. “Come and sit. I have no chairs, but there are a few kegs. You’ll soon be glad of the shelter, as a storm is coming. Oh, and my dinner is just about cooked. There will be enough for all of us, as I was preparing for several days in advance.”