James Axler – Demons of Eden

Lifting a hand to her stinging, reddening face, the woman fluttered her eyelids, her eyes darting wildly back and forth. They suddenly brimmed with tears. Bowing her head, she began to weep in a racking, dry-heave sob.

Mildred murmured to her, and Krysty kneeled beside her, massaging her neck and shoulders, trying to knead the tension out of them. She had been trained long ago in massage therapy, of how to use subtle pressures to block pain and allow rigid muscles to relax.

Ryan rose and left the woman to the gentle ministrations of Mildred and Krysty. Doc joined him, commenting quietly, “I do not believe your bedside manner met with Dr. Wyeth’s approval.”

“Got no time to coddle someone who can walk and talk.”

Jak was gazing out over the valley. His exceptionally keen sight picked out details of the ruts dug by the wind wag’s wheels.

“Came from southeast,” he declared. “Could backtrack them.”

“No time for a recce before sundown,” Ryan replied. “The Cadre might miss these four and send out a search party. I don’t much like the idea of meeting them in the dark.”

He returned to the three women. “She found her tongue yet?”

“Says her name is Felicity,” Krysty answered.

“Did she tell you how far it is to Amicus?”

The woman looked up. She was no longer sobbing, but tears glistened on her face. “No need to treat me like a jolt-brain. I can talk.”

“Then do it,” Ryan replied. “We don’t have much time.”

Felicity tried to stand, then groaned and allowed Mildred to help her to her feet. She looked at Ryan with a half sneer on her lips. She was still very close to hysteria, but she was successfully controlling it.

Gesturing with one hand, holding the blanket closed with the other, she said, “Amicus is about twenty miles that way. My husband” she hesitated, almost gagging on the word. “and me came out here to hunt buffalo. We were attacked before we could start the butchering. About two hours ago, I reckon.”

“Your husband was the Indian?” Ryan asked.

“Spotted Hawk. A lot of the Cheyenne and the Lakota Sioux live in Amicus.”

“Will you guide us there?”

The woman nodded once, her lips tight.

Jak approached him, handing over a small packet bound by oilcloth and twine. “One had this on him.”

Ryan untied the twine and withdrew a square of paper. He opened it, careful not to tear it along the creases. The sheet of parchment seemed ready to fall apart with age and use. He looked over the drawings it bore and realized it was some kind of map. The written words were unpronounceable.

Lips unconsciously moving as he struggled to read the words, he studied a dotted line leading north from a squiggly area labeled Jaune-roc to a jagged region labeled Mystere Montagneux .

“French,” Jak announced, looking over his shoulder.

Having been raised in Louisiana Cajun country, Jak was familiar with the language.

“What’s it say?”

Touching the wavy lines with a skinny forefinger, the teenager said, “Yellowstone. Must mean river. Other words mean Mystery Mountains or Mountains of Mystery.”

Ryan refolded the paper and slid it into a shirt pocket. “Probably a map of prime hunting grounds. Let’s move out. We’re wasting daylight.”

Doc and Ryan unsaddled the horses and piled the tack in the stern of the wind wag. The bridles were left on, but Mildred insisted the bits be removed from their mouths. Jak fashioned a long lead from the reins and a length of rawhide he found in the wag, securing one end to a cleat at the rear of the craft. The body of Spotted Hawk was placed in the bow. The corpses of the pirates were left to the scavengers.

After everyone was aboard, J.B. manned the engine block. He jerked the starting cord, but nothing happened. Grimacing, he made a couple of adjustments and yanked again. And again.

After the third failure, he went back to tinkering, checking the plugs, the coil wires and the oil level. Then he grasped the cord, took and held a deep breath, obviously steeling himself for another failure. Despite his impatience to get moving, Ryan couldn’t help but smile.