Blood Riders Page 4

  Jonas recognized the name. James Declan had discovered the second-largest silver lode in the country. He was wealthy and powerful. Jonas understood things a little more clearly.

  “I still don’t understand. If there were no bodies, no evidence . . .” Jonas’s words trailed off.

  “You’re wondering why attention is being paid to this attack when yours was ignored?” Pinkerton suggested.

  Hollister nodded.

  “Senator Declan has enormous financial holdings in Colorado. Mining, land, ranching. He started with a small herd of cattle, became a big rancher, then the silver strike happened and he was rich,” Pinkerton said.

  “And since he is now a U.S. senator whose position is compromised, the president dispatched me to Colorado to investigate personally. Based on my observation of the scene, I concluded the story the survivor is telling is true. The senator is claiming it’s nothing more than an Indian attack. Utes who are tired of the miners taking more and more land. He is doing this for a variety of reasons; to force the president to send more troops to Colorado, to keep the citizens calm, and Indian attacks are a much easier sell than telling the world what really happened. And then, of course, there are the creatures. People there are in danger, Captain Hollister. Grave danger. The senator doesn’t care about them, but if people were to learn the truth and flee the state? What would happen to his finances? It would be a disaster.”

  “But what if the senator is right?” Hollister said. “Utes know how to fight. I’ve fought a few of them in my day.”

  “True, but this was not an Indian attack,” Pinkerton said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Had it been Utes, there would still be bodies left. Scalped and mutilated, but left there to instill terror and inform the local populace that they are back on the ‘warpath.’ And there was almost no blood, Captain. With that many men, shot or scalped by Indians, there would be blood everywhere. I found hardly any.”

  “Maybe they were rounded up and killed elsewhere,” Hollister suggested, knowing that wasn’t the case. He could fill the fear rising in him again: the same feeling he had felt when he spotted the camp through his spyglass. Something wasn’t right, and trying to poke holes in the detective’s theories was the only way he could quell the rising terror.

  Pinkerton reached into his satchel and removed a small glass tube with a cork stopper in one end. It held something white, long, and sharp, and when Pinkerton handed it to him and he looked at it closely, he nearly dropped it in alarm.

  “I thought as you did, until I found this,” Pinkerton said.

  It was a fang. Hollister recognized it immediately. He had seen them on the creatures that’d attacked his men. He handed it back to Pinkerton like it was something hot.

  “Might be from a bear or cougar,” Hollister muttered, knowing it wasn’t but feeling like he needed to say it anyway.

  “It’s not, Captain. You know it. It must have been knocked loose in the struggle. My examination of the scene was more . . . thorough. I found it in between the floorboards of the camp saloon.”

  Hollister was quiet a moment while he absorbed the details of Pinkerton’s story. He saw the tall white-haired thing standing in the advancing sunlight, his clothes and skin beginning to smoke. Heard the voice speak to him. He shook his head to drive the memory away.

  “Still doesn’t answer my second question. Why me? You could send anyone after these things. Why do you believe me now?” Hollister asked.

  “There are a few reasons. Aside from young Mr. Declan—”

  “Wait,” Hollister interrupted. “The survivor of the attack is the senator’s son?”

  “Yes. I thought I mentioned that.”

  “No, you didn’t. So, the good senator doesn’t believe his own son?”

  Pinkerton shook his head. “The senator and his son are . . . estranged. And given what he considers to be the young man’s ‘wild tale,’ the president has some concerns. Those concerns must be addressed.”

  “I’ve been locked up for four years, Mr. Pinkerton. Explain it to me,” Hollister said.

  “Senator Declan is trying to convince the local population that this was nothing more than an Indian attack. I . . . we know differently. If word gets out about these ‘flesh eaters,’ we’ll have panic everywhere and the good senator will lose a great deal of money. Whatever these things are, this is the first documented evidence we have that they have killed again. We need someone who has seen what they are capable of to find them. And find a way to kill them. Does that answer your questions, Captain?”

  It did. As usual, it was about money. Nobody cared that Jonas was telling the truth. Only that they didn’t lose money. He could be bitter about it, but what Pinkerton was offering was a way out. A chance to find the things that killed his men. Vengeance. Redemption. Vindication. All wrapped up in a neat little bow and handed to him with a big fat paycheck. Whatever the reason for Pinkerton’s springing him from Leavenworth, this was his chance.

  “Major,” Hollister said.

  “I beg your pardon?” Pinkerton replied.

  “If I agree, it will be Major Hollister. It will also be a salary of five hundred a month. Plus all of my back pay at captain’s grade since I’ve been in this hole. The back pay will be wired immediately to John and Nancy Hollister in Tecumseh, Michigan. All of it. I’ll want a telegram back from my father confirming he received the money. In the telegram, he’s also to reply with the year I broke my arm in the thresher on the farm. That way, I’ll know he really received it . . .”

  “Captain, this is outrageous! I don’t have the autho—”

  “It’s Major Hollister and I’m not finished,” Hollister went on. “I may report directly to you, but I make the decisions as to how, where, and when we take on these things. Eleven of my troopers were killed in a matter of minutes. I’ve replayed that day a thousand times in my head and I think these things might have some weaknesses, but not many. I don’t want anyone questioning me, or my methods. Are we clear?”

  Pinkerton slumped back in his chair, a man not used to being outmaneuvered.

  “And one more thing. There’s an inmate in here named Chee. This morning he got thrown in the box for getting the bulge on a tub named McAfee. Whatever he’s in for, he’s to be granted a full pardon, released immediately, and promoted to sergeant major. He will also receive his back pay, to be distributed at his discretion, and is to be placed under my command.”

  Pinkerton’s shoulders slumped. “Is there anything else, Captain Hollister?”

  “Major Hollister. And no, I think that about covers it.”

  “All right. I’ll agree to your terms. But I will need your colonel’s clerk to redraw these papers. It will take some time,” Pinkerton said.

  “Fine. I’ve got nothing but time,” Jonas replied.

  “Very well.” Pinkerton stuck out his hand. “Do we have a deal?”

  Hollister shook his hand, surprised at the strength of the elderly man’s grip. He didn’t see the pistol until it was right up under his chin and he felt his fingers start to hurt as the grip turned to iron.

  “Just two more things, Major Hollister. You may think you have the upper hand here, and given the gravity of this situation, you might be right. But never forget who is in charge. And never, ever, mention President Lincoln to me again. Are we clear?”

  Hollister’s eyes rolled downward, looking at the pistol jammed against his flesh.

  “Yes. We’re clear,” Hollister said.

  “Excellent,” Pinkerton replied, the pistol vanishing as quickly as it appeared. “Excellent. Now excuse me, Major, while I call upon Colonel Whitman’s clerk to make a few changes in these documents.”

  Hollister watched the stooped older man gather up the papers and scurry out of the room.

  “Huh . . .” he said to the empty room.

  Chapter Five

  Chee shuffled along until he cleared the gates of the prison and stopped while one of the guards bent down to undo
the irons binding his legs. Pinkerton’s papers had made him a free man, something he didn’t understand yet, but the colonel had insisted on proper protocol for the release of the prisoner, and that meant leg irons until he left the Leavenworth grounds.

  Chee felt a massive weight fall away when the last padlock was undone. The guard said nothing, merely gathered up the chains and returned inside the prison. Chee heard the giant doors shut and the steel bar snap into place, and for the first time in months felt as if he could take a deep breath. He looked down at the sergeant major’s stripes on his blue blouse and brushed away a piece of lint on his left arm. One more thing he didn’t understand. He’d gone into Leavenworth busted all the way down to private but he‘d only been a corporal when he was arrested and court-martialed in the first place. Now he was Sergeant Major Chee. White people are strange, he thought.

  He walked up the main street of Leavenworth, not bothering to look at the shops or glance in the windows. No one paid any attention to him. He looked like a normal soldier on some errand, not a man who had been locked away in a hole for the last nineteen months. He picked up his pace, hoping to meet up with Major Hollister before Colonel Whitman, the army, or whoever was responsible for his freedom changed their mind and locked him up again.

  Chee had been thrown in the box after the fight with McAfee. The temperature inside the all-steel four-foot-square box was well over one hundred degrees and it was just about big enough for Chee to sit in if he didn’t stretch out his legs. Chee wasn’t afraid of much, but he didn’t like cramped spaces. A few hours later Hollister had come with two guards to tell him that they were both being released. He thought it might be a cruel joke Hollister was playing on him. Maybe he was a rat bastard like the rest of the inmates. But it seemed to be true. It was like a miracle, and though he hadn’t understood much of what Hollister had said, he agreed right away.

  Chee caught a glimpse of black-and-brown fur darting across the far end of an alley off Leavenworth’s main street and smiled to himself. It was Dog. He had waited in the countryside surrounding Leavenworth for him to be released. Dog had no doubt been living off the land, hunting the prairie and scrounging for food while Chee was incarcerated. But each night Chee had heard his familiar howl, a signal from Dog that he was still there, and while he might not have understood why Chee was locked up, he would wait there until he got out.

  Dog was a variety of unknown breeds. He was big, with a crazy twist of brown-and-black fur. He looked more like a wolf than a dog, and as a result, his presence tended to make folks uncomfortable. He had learned to keep to the shadows, avoiding contact with most humans. He’d been shot at more than a few times, but never hit, and it was enough to make him dislike guns a great deal.

  Chee darted down the alleyway, calling out quietly, “Dog! Dog!” and was nearly bowled over when the giant beast burst out from behind a stack of crates lined up near the back door of a general store. He jumped up, putting his paws on Chee’s shoulders, and licked his face enthusiastically.

  “It’s good to see you too, boy,” Chee said, rubbing the animal’s chest. He cradled the mutt’s head in his hands and looked him over. There was a slight tear in his left ear that hadn’t been there when Chee had gone to prison, a scar from the hard living Dog had done the last year and a half.

  When Chee had joined the army at age nineteen, he’d been stationed at Fort Sill in Oklahoma. While off duty he liked to ride across the surrounding countryside. On one of his rides in the late spring he had found Dog as a young pup, wandering alone, half starved and nearly dying of thirst. Chee gave him water and some jerky from his saddlebags and carried the pup back to Fort Sill with him.

  Fort Sill was an open post on the frontier, and Chee was able to keep the pup in a small overturned crate behind his barracks. With regular food and water Dog grew quickly and in a few months weighed well over one hundred pounds. He took to roaming the countryside around the fort but was always outside Chee’s barracks in the morning. Chee’s sergeant overlooked the fact that soldiers weren’t allowed to keep pets, mainly because he was a little scared of both the solitary Chee and the dog.

  One night three troopers returned to the barracks too drunk to know better, when one of them pulled his pistol and fired a couple of rounds at Dog. Neither shot hit him, but Chee heard the shots and came bursting out the back door of the barracks to investigate. He arrived in time to see the trooper point his pistol at Dog again, and with great speed and efficiency removed the pistol from the trooper’s hand. The man slumped to the ground, unconscious.

  It could have ended there. Chee was a corporal, the three troopers were privates. But the other two men took exception to Chee’s intervention and attacked him. The drunks were hardly a challenge for Chee, given that his father was half-Chinese and his grandfather had taught him Shaolin kung fu. But one of the men pulled a bowie knife from his boot, and when Chee threw the man across his hip without removing the blade from his attacker’s hand first, the man fell on it and bled out before they could get him to the post’s surgeon.

  The remaining two men testified against Chee, saying he went crazy and attacked all three of them. Even though Chee had an exemplary record, he was a mixed-race loner and was found guilty of manslaughter and sent to Leavenworth. Chee remembered riding in the prison wagon all the way to Kansas, watching Dog follow along, mostly keeping out of sight.

  And here he was, nineteen months later. “Come on Dog,” Chee said. “We got somewhere to be.” He took the alley east and stayed off the main street. As a “mixed mutt” himself, Chee knew enough about people to realize even his army uniform wouldn’t give him a free pass if some bully decided to make trouble. Chee could handle himself, but he didn’t want to be late meeting the major.

  Not when there were so many questions he needed to ask.

  Chapter Six

  Torson City Mining Camp, Colorado

  The deserted mining camp (Shaniah found it humorous that the humans had called it a city) lay less than half a mile below her. She sat astride Demeter in a stand of quaking aspen trees lining the small canyon rim above the “city.” It was nothing more than a few buildings, hastily constructed: a general store, a saloon, three sheds filled with mining equipment, and a few low-slung structures that looked to be barracks or bunkhouses in which the miners slept.

  The sun had just set and the western sky had taken on a rust tone, which probably meant rain was coming. Archaics like Shaniah were not comfortable with water. In almost any form it made them weak. When her race was cursed, back in the ancient days, they were technically rendered soulless and therefore burned by the touch of consecrated holy water. Over the centuries her people had learned to tolerate unconsecrated water, but Malachi and his band, now partaking of human blood, would be severely burned by water and even killed by enough holy water.

  The Council of Elders had made arrangements with a Russian shipping company to carry her to America, and the voyage had been difficult. They were paid in advance in gold and asked no questions, even though their passenger spent most of her nights in her cabin violently, deathly ill. The prolonged smell of salt water—the very proximity of it—had weakened her and nearly driven her mad. But she had survived. Upon her arrival in Philadelphia she was already several weeks behind Malachi and the others, who had commandeered a ship from the main port of Romania.

  Shaniah shuddered to think of what had happened to the crew of the ship as Malachi and his then small band fed on them one by one, leaving only enough crew alive to pilot the ship to the American shore. Shaniah guessed Malachi would have forced the captain to sail the ship up a river until finding a spot to go ashore unnoticed. After landing, he likely killed everyone remaining and burned the ship.

  It was only conjecture, but it is how she would have done it if she had gone mad like Malachi, defying centuries of Archaic laws and feeding on humans again.

  Weakened and sick from her journey, she left Philadelphia as soon as possible and moved to the countryside. S
he found an abandoned farmhouse and rested there for several weeks. She stayed hidden, and hunted deer, feral pigs, and even a few wild dogs, until she regained her strength. Demeter had traveled with her aboard the Russian vessel and had survived the trip in fine shape.

  She and Malachi had lived for centuries, and every one of her people agreed: one or the other would one day lead the Archaics. There would come a day when Shaniah, like the rest of the Old Ones, would live long enough to become an Eternal. But the process took centuries. Shaniah had become an Archaic during the Middle Ages, but in the human world she passed for a woman in her twenties.

  And when the previous leader of her people, Genevieve, had been killed—in an accident, many thought, that Malachi had arranged—the Council of Elders made it clear the choice was between Shaniah and Malachi. There were weeks of private deliberation, dissecting the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate. It was generally agreed among her tribe that where Malachi was aggressive, headstrong and vain, Shaniah was thoughtful and deliberate. He embraced his animal nature. Shaniah knew the survival of her people depended on remaining hidden, separate from humans. It was her steadiness and courage that drew her people to her. Many centuries ago, Archaics had fought against humans and while they possessed greater strength and other attributes that humans did not have, the war between them had been disastrous.

  Human beings, the Archaics had learned, were not without their own strengths. Men could be devious and clever, and used technology to their advantage. Their civilization had grown and progressed, while the Archaics’ remained stagnant. Soon they were vastly outnumbered and finally retreated deep into the mountains of Eastern Europe, where few humans traveled, and it became their law to avoid contact with humanity at all costs.

  There were many in the tribe who disagreed with the decision, and from time to time there had been Archaics who reigned terror on the people nearby. But for the past few centuries her people had lived in peace, hidden high in the mountain passes.