Dead Reckoning (11 page)

“I do not think that would be prudent,” White Fox said. “Without the key, the doors in the bunkhouse floor will remain locked. It is true that you might shoot the lock off,” he added with a faint smile, “but that would be certain to attract just the attention we both hope to avoid.”

“True enough,” Jett said. “Back to town, then. If that fool Yankee hasn’t either blown it up or burned it to the ground by accident.”

“I believe you’re wrong, Gibbons,” White Fox said
mildly. “If she has done any such thing, it will be with all deliberate intent.”

* * *

The telegraph machine began chattering precisely at the appointed hour. But even though Jacob Gibbons’s communication filled several dozen yards of recording tape, it didn’t provide much enlightenment to his daughter. It seemed there was blessed little in the way of useful information to be had. It was said a hoodoo doctor or hoodoo queen could cause a newly dead corpse to rise up and do his or her will. Some said the body had to belong to a suicide, others that it had to be someone who’d died of a curse. Some said a zombie could be killed by feeding it something containing salt. Other means of zombie destruction included feeding them holy water, or blessed wafers, or bringing them within the sound of church bells on a Sunday morning. But Jacob could tell his daughter little more than that.

All useless
, Gibbons thought in exasperation.
I am willing to believe without a scrap of further investigation that there is not one hoodoo sorcerer within a thousand miles of where I’m standing. And I am not dealing with a story of
one
zombie, but of an entire zombie army!

She wondered if there was any practical hope of getting a reliable count of the Alsop “zombies” out of either Jett or Mister Maxwell. The
Llano Estacado
wasn’t particularly well-settled. It would be hard to hide an army of any size here—let alone a
zombie
army, which (logic insisted) would need to be replenished at frequent intervals as decay and putrefaction rendered its members useless.

Oh, what nonsense! Dead is dead, and the dead don’t just get up and walk around!

Papa hadn’t stopped with zombies, of course. He’d gone on to acquaint her with every type of fantastic creature that had a claim to the name “undead.” But vampires were also solitary creatures, nor had there been an unexplained rash of anemia or disease in the area. Ghouls would disturb fresh graves. Liches were skeletal. Ghosts were often invisible and always incorporeal.

Jacob had concluded by saying he’d recently received unimpeachable scientific proof from one of his European correspondents that the Earth was hollow and urging her to seek out any deep caves or open wells in the area, for: “should the race of sub-Terrans be disturbed by human encroachment I feel certain they would react forcefully.” And of course by urging her to seek out any phantom airships in the vicinity, for: “interrogating their captain or crew is likely to be a fruitful source of information.”

Oh, that’s all I need!
Gibbons thought in frustration.
Now Father will wish to go on an expedition to the center
of the Earth to meet these “sub-Terrans,” and I am certain he can find someone willing to guide him there—for a fat fee! At least Doctor Gordon has a certain amount of sense. He will know better than to let Father go off on such a—a wild goose chase! At least until I have gone first …

Fortunately, telegraphic communication lent itself to mendacious tactfulness. Gibbons was able to thank her Papa for the great help he had given her without letting him suspect how very irritated she was with him. She promised to let him know how her investigations proceeded—“
if the telegraph lines do not go down
,” she added carefully, for she had every reason to think that a possibility. Bad weather, high winds, and sabotage could all interrupt communication, and if Alsop had been attacked to conceal some dastardly plot by a person or persons unknown, their next move would be to cut the telegraph wires before some outsider arrived.
I am fortunate they have not been cut already
, she told herself.
Perhaps when Jett and White Fox return, they will have answers for me
.

But until they arrived, she had another task to occupy her.

* * *

Gibbons pushed open the door to the jail with a stack of blankets in her arms. She dropped the blankets on the nearest bunk and regarded her preparations with
satisfaction. The general store had contained nearly everything she needed. A fine Winchester lever-action repeating rifle. The .44 ammunition both Jett and White Fox’s pistols used. Cartridges for her own coach gun. Kerosene lanterns and a tin of paraffin oil. Tin pails to hold drinking water. Last of all, she entered the rooming house. In the kitchen she found tinned butter, loaves of bread only a little stale, a roast of beef that was still good, and most of an apple pie. She made a dozen sandwiches and wrapped them in oilcloth for safe keeping, and put the sandwiches, the pie, and plates and utensils into a hamper she’d also liberated from the general store. She doubted any of this would be necessary, but she also knew if Alsop’s attackers hadn’t been able to enter the jail last night, they’d be equally confounded tonight—if they returned at all. If they didn’t, well, the jail was comfortable enough to spend the night in. And because she didn’t care to trust that the drunken actor wouldn’t stumble upon her vehicle by accident and break something, she had locked it. It would take a cannon to break into it.

On her way back from the rooming house Gibbons stopped at the saloon. It took her several minutes of hunting behind and beneath the bar to unearth a dusty and still-sealed bottle of “French” brandy (though she doubted it had been any closer to Paris than Chicago). While she didn’t approve of spirits for intoxicating
purposes, Gibbons had a great respect for their powers of revivification, and it was only prudent to prepare for every possibility. Finlay Maxwell was still in residence, although he’d apparently been defeated at last by the “water of life”: he was asleep in a corner, a bottle clutched protectively to his chest.

Gibbons was heading in the direction of the jail to add the basket to the rest of her supplies when she saw Jett and White Fox heading up the street at a brisk trot.

“Come on!” Jett shouted, as soon as she saw her. “Get your buggy and fire it up! They’re coming this way!”

* * *

It was later than Jett liked when she and White Fox started back to Alsop. She comforted herself with the reminder that it was still daylight. She knew zombies were helpless during the day. But as they rode, the shadows began to lengthen. The edge of town was a couple of miles distant when the wind shifted.

The wind was cold.

Nightingale raised his head, his nostrils flaring as he tasted the air. A moment later, Jett smelled what he had.

Rotting flesh.

“They’re coming back!” she cried to White Fox.
Neither of them had to urge their animals to gallop. The horses obviously wanted to get far away from whatever they smelled.

As they approached Alsop, Jett saw Gibbons walking up the empty street lugging a large basket. She shouted out her warning, but instead of running toward wherever she’d tucked her steam-wagon, Gibbons stopped dead.

“If by ‘they’ you mean your
zombies
, I certainly hope so! You obviously haven’t brought one back for me to study!”

“You—You—You—” Jett sputtered in disbelief.

“You must heed Jett’s warning,” White Fox said. “Unless this unknown enemy intends to assault Fort San Antonio instead, Alsop is their destination.”

“Then my preparations can be put to good use,” Gibbons said briskly. “I’ve equipped the jail with everything we’ll need, and I am pleased to tell you I locked my vehicle against tampering. I suggest you take your animals to the livery stable, and then join me there. And bring Mister Maxwell with you—he’s unconscious on the floor of the saloon!” she shouted over her shoulder as she walked on.

“She’s crazy,” Jett said flatly.

“Perhaps,” White Fox said. “But she’s also right. A jailhouse is designed to withstand attack from within
and without.” He swung down off his mare’s back and tossed her rein to Jett. “I will see to Mister Maxwell. Take Deerfoot with you. If she must flee to protect herself she will come when I whistle for her.”

“Any varmint living or dead that tries to make off with Nightingale will think better of the notion before he’s much older,” Jett answered grimly.

At the livery stable Jett saw Gibbons’s wagon parked in the back.
Reckon that contraption wouldn’t get far in the dark
, she told herself reluctantly. She’d still have preferred to make a run for it, but she had to admit there were more than a few hitches in that rope. What if the creatures decided to encircle the town this time? She might ride right into them …

It was the work of only a few moments to untack both horses. She led them into stalls at the front of the barn and left them loose. She left the stable door open, too. White Fox was right. Their ability to run was the best protection the animals could have. With their saddlebags slung over one shoulder—and Nightingale’s tack, for there was enough silver on saddle and bridle to make it an attractive target—she headed for the jail at a quick jog. On the way she caught up to White Fox. He had Finlay Maxwell slung over one shoulder.

“Is he dead?” she asked.

“Dead
drunk
,” White Fox answered succinctly.

As they entered the jailhouse, Gibbons dropped the
bar across the door to seal them in. Two of the cells were filled with her store of provisions. White Fox carried Finlay Maxwell to the third. It was one of the end ones. He laid Maxwell on the bunk and covered him with a blanket. Jett dropped her saddle with a grunt of relief and carried bridle and saddlebags to the cell at the opposite end from Maxwell.

* * *

“Well, here we are,” Gibbons said brightly, lighting two of the lamps. Their warm, incongruously cheery glow filled all three cells. The two on the ends had a solid back wall and one side wall. The one in the center had bars on both sides and a tiny window above head height. The window was barred and too small for anyone to climb through even if it hadn’t been.

“Caught like rats in a trap,” Jett grumbled, dropping her saddlebags to the floor.

“You may make yourself useful, Mister Fox,” Gibbons added, ignoring Jett. She picked up two of the blankets and handed them to him. “Your room is next door.”

White Fox smiled faintly and carried the blankets into the adjoining cell. He returned for one of the unlit lanterns and set it on the floor of the cell he was to occupy.

Jett sat down on the cot by the wall, pulling off her
hat and setting it aside. She stared toward the back wall of the cell as if it were a window, and in the soft glow of the lamplight Gibbons could see Jett was some years younger than she’d originally thought her to be. She wondered how Jett Gallatin had come to live as a man.
I’ll probably get these walls to talk before she does!
she told herself with a mental snort.

“While we’re waiting to be overrun by your zombies,” Gibbons said, “why don’t we have something to eat? A cold supper is better than no supper. And you can tell me where that trail of yours led.”

“Nowhere that made a darned bit of sense,” Jett grumbled. “And I don’t figure I want to listen to you tell me about how nothing I saw was so.”

Gibbons blinked in surprise at the hostility she heard in Jett’s voice. Certainly she didn’t believe Jett had seen zombies here in Alsop last night. But neither did she think Jett had made up some story. “It’s true I find the possibility of zombies unlikely in the extreme,” she said slowly, “but it is not your
account
I dispute, merely your interpretation of it. It is very easy to be mistaken. If we discover you are right and I am wrong, I will assuredly tell you so. But meanwhile, I am investigating similar disappearances. I need all the data I can collect to make sense of them, and your report is vitally important.”

Jett stared at her for a moment. “That is the
long-windedest ‘sorry’ I’ve ever heard. But I guess I wouldn’t mind some of your cold supper while I tell you my part of the tale.”

The three of them gathered in the cell Gibbons had turned into her temporary home, and over sandwiches and pie White Fox and Jett told Gibbons about tracing the trail back to Jerusalem’s Gate, and what each of them had found there. Gibbons frowned as she considered the new information. It didn’t fit into what she’d learned this afternoon, but she was too good a scientist to concern herself with that. In turn, she told them all she’d found in Sherriff Mitchell’s Charge Book and the newspaper archives.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Jett protested. “If the cattlemen wanted everybody else to clear off their range, why leave Jerusalem’s Wall alone? Or”—she frowned, thinking hard—“if the ranchers
weren’t
running the settlers off, why didn’t the paper complain about Jerusalem’s Wall as much as about the rest of the settlements?”

“I really don’t know what to tell you,” Gibbons said with a shrug. “I have a number of facts, but so far they don’t suggest a theory—and there’s absolutely no point in coming up with a theory and looking for facts to support it. Some of the things about this Fellowship could be just oddities or coincidence, but I
would
like to know how this Brother Shepherd knew something
had happened to Alsop. And what’s in that double-locked bunkhouse, too.”

Jett snorted. “White Fox wouldn’t let me shoot the padlock off. But …
what
other disappearances? You said none of the stories in the
Yell and Cry
made any of the Eastern papers.”

“No,” Gibbons agreed. “Nor the Pacific ones. But there’ve been more inexplicable vanishings than just those few the
Yell and Cry
mentions. I investigate such outlandish happenings.” Just as she’d done for White Fox, Gibbons told her story to Jett. “—so I came east on the trail of Father’s ‘phantom airships’—though I doubt their existence very much—and I met Mr. Fox, here. And he’s on the trail of the same thing.”