Dead Reckoning (16 page)

“Sure,” Jett answered. “Depending on the graveyard, I guess, but the river’s plenty brack around New Orleans. I guess that means the stuff I dug up today won’t work.”

“We must wait for tonight in order to rule it out, I think,” Gibbons said kindly. “The third method involves having the zombie ingest blood from an (obviously still living) close relative, but that will be impractical as we don’t know any of Finlay Maxwell’s family. But my point is that all three folk-remedies involve salt—blood is quite saline, as I’m sure you know—so once you eliminate the obfuscatory trappings of rank superstition, it’s clear
that it’s the salt that’s the important part, not any of the rest of the mumbo jumbo!”

White Fox carefully suppressed a smile. Jett and Gibbons engaged in a constant war of words, bickering much as sisters might. He wondered if either of them even suspected their growing friendship.

“‘Obfuscatory trappings of …,’” Jett said slowly. She spun the second Colt around her finger and dropped it into place.

“‘Superstition,’” Gibbons supplied helpfully. “I know you grew up with zombies, Jett—”

Jett choked and began to cough. Gibbons moved forward to pound her on the back, but Jett waved her off. “No, no, no, you just go on, I’m fine,” she said in a strangled voice.

“—but these creatures don’t seem to be anything like
your
zombies.”

“You can stop going on as if I grew up with a hope chest stuffed full of the things!” Jett protested.

“I don’t think Mister Shepherd is practicing hoodoo at all,” Gibbons continued, ignoring her. “I think he’s some sort of scientific necromancer.”

Jett groaned faintly.

“And if you are right, and salt will kill one, what do you propose?” White Fox asked.

“
I
want to see her hand-feed the varmint,” Jett muttered.

“You will!” Gibbons promised. “But only if this doesn’t work!”

* * *

“Perhaps it would simply be best to burn it when morning comes,” White Fox said quietly. The building now reeked of decay; the cloying scent of rotting meat underlain with a sharper, more poisonous scent. In the light of the lantern, all three of them could see the thing in the cell hadn’t been destroyed by the graveyard dust. If anything, it seemed even more energetic.

“And lose the chance to find out what actually kills one?” Gibbons demanded. “No!”

“At least we know something else that
doesn’t
,” Jett said in disgust. She nodded toward the cell. “Pretty darned lively for something that hasn’t had food or drink in five days.”

“That’s why I think it may not be—exactly—dead,” Gibbons said seriously. “I know what you saw—I saw it too! But if the process puts the creatures into some sort of animate coma—which might well explain the drop in temperature in their presence, for should this process lower their temperature to unnatural levels, proximity to one would be akin to proximity to a hundredweight of ice. … But I digress! If Brother Shepherd’s scientific necromancy does not create true death, but a deep coma, it would explain the chanting we heard
that night as perhaps some form of control. Individuals in a state of coma later recount entire conversations that took place at their bedsides, you know.”

“That’s because they’re in bed to hear them—not marauding across the
Llano Estacado
, killing everyone in sight,” Jett pointed out. “And it sure as anything
smells
dead.”

“Obviously the two cases aren’t entirely identical,” Gibbons said hastily. “But let us see what tomorrow brings.”

According to the records kept by the
Yell and Cry
, the two closest ranches to Alsop were Flatfield and the Lazy J (now Jerusalem’s Wall). White Fox had ridden out before breakfast that morning for Flatfield. He said he wanted to find out what Mister Sutcliffe knew about the local disappearances—and warn him not to send any more drives by way of Alsop. And if Mister Sutcliff could spare a rider, White Fox hoped to send word to Fort Riley as well.

Jett had wanted to be the one to go—this ghost town was making her stir-crazy—but White Fox pointed out that an army scout was likely to get a warmer reception than a suspected outlaw.
I suppose he’s right
, Jett thought
glumly,
but it’s been almost a week I’ve been cooling my heels here now, and I am fresh out of patience.

It didn’t help matters at all that Honoria Gibbons of San Francisco had the heart and soul of a schoolmarm—and a tongue hinged in the middle and oiled at both ends, as the saying went around here. She seemed to think that just because Jett didn’t shoot her, Jett was actually interested in hearing every single theory Gibbons had about Br’er Shepherd, The Fellowship of the Divine Resurrection, and zombies.

* * *

“First things first,” Gibbons said, bounding to her feet. “We’ve got a lot to do today.”

“We’ve got
what
to do today?” Jett demanded. “Dishes?” Gibbons hadn’t even stopped to clear away their breakfast dishes, and Jett had a suspicion that left to herself, Gibbons would simply throw the dirty dishes out after each meal. Even granting that there were plenty of clean dishes and cups in Alsop, it just didn’t seem respectful somehow.

“You do them if you care so much!” Gibbons called over her shoulder. Jett was taller than Gibbons by a good few inches, but she had to hurry to keep up with her.

“Where are you going?” she demanded, even though she knew the answer to that. The only things down at
this end of the street were the Post and Telegraph Office and the jail, and she was pretty sure Gibbons wasn’t expecting a letter.

Of course Gibbons didn’t answer. Jett caught up with her just as she opened the door of the jailhouse.

“Phew!” Jett said in revulsion. “We should throw some eau de cologne around in here!” She made a mental note to look for some around Alsop before she came back here again—she could at least soak a neckerchief in it and tie it over her nose.

“Certainly we should not!” Gibbons answered (though she was making an equally disgusted face). “An unknown variable would interfere with my experiment!”

“Exp—? Would you say something that makes sense?” Jett demanded.

“Certainly!” Gibbons said crisply. “Finlay Maxwell didn’t become a zombie by any of the so-called traditional means. He was in perfect health, and yet he dropped dead for no particular reason and rose as a zombie!”

“He was
drunk
!” Jett said.

“If that was all it took to make a zombie, there’d be thousands of them in every city on Earth,” Gibbons replied inarguably. She walked into the jail and plucked the ring of keys off their nail. Jett hung back by the door. The sun was up, so to all intents and purposes it
was a corpse in the cell—but Jett had seen that corpse get up and walk enough times that she didn’t trust it to lie dead when it ought to. Since she already knew no amount of argument could stop Gibbons once she’d taken a notion, she held her peace, her hand hovering nervously over the butt of her Colt, as Gibbons unlocked the door of the dead man’s cell and stepped inside.

Gibbons knelt down beside the corpse and dug something Jett couldn’t see out of a pocket. Then she pried its mouth open. (Jett made a small unhappy sound of protest. Gibbons ignored her.) She tipped the bag over “Maxwell’s” mouth and poured.

“Salt is salt,” she said matter-of-factly, tucking the little bag back into her pocket and getting to her feet.

“Will it work?” Jett asked.

“Time will tell!” Gibbons answered. Cheerfully.

* * *

It was just before dusk. Gibbons had spent part of the day shooting the sun with a sextant (to determine the latitude and longitude of Alsop, she explained) in order to make sure they’d be back at the jail in plenty of time to watch Gibbons’s subject revive.

This time, both of them reeked of cologne.

One of the things Gibbons had wanted was a list of the townspeople so their next of kin could be notified. Jett didn’t feel right about picking over things
belonging to dead people, but she’d found a big bottle of Florida Water among Dr. Butler’s things, and, well … Meade Butler wasn’t going to be needing it. She hadn’t bothered to mention to Gibbons the two of them would probably be on that list themselves soon. Brother Shepherd might be done with Alsop, but he wasn’t done with Texas.

That’s what worries me. By the time anyone believes Br’er Shepherd can raise the dead, they’re likely to be dead themselves
.

She leaned back against the rough-hewn newel post and pulled out her watch. It was big and heavy and silver, like the one Father had owned. His was in some damnyankee’s pocket now. She’d won hers at cards. She flicked the case open.

“Seven minutes to sundown.”

The sky was still bright, but night came swiftly in the desert—once the sun made up its mind to set, down it went, and day became night before you could hit the ground with your hat.

Gibbons opened the door of the jailhouse. With a blue silk handkerchief tied over her nose and mouth, she looked like the world’s most eccentric outlaw. She stepped inside just long enough to hang her lantern on its hook. In the light of the lamp, they could both see … exactly nothing happening inside the cell.

“Five minutes,” Jett said.

“It might not be so … close … in there if we left the door open,” Gibbons said in distaste. The rotting meat smell was strong enough to pierce through the scent of Florida Water, and the two mingled unpleasantly.

“And have every vulture in the Territories roosting on the roof,” Jett said. “I don’t know why they haven’t showed up already.”

“Because no matter what this smells like to us, it obviously doesn’t smell like carrion to
Cathartes aura
,” Gibbons said grandly. “The turkey vulture has a keen sense of smell and can locate prey up to a mile away, you know.”

“Is there
anything
—” Jett began.

The corpse of Finlay Maxwell flung itself at the door of its prison.

It had moved so fast neither Jett nor Gibbons saw it get to its feet. The zombies they’d seen before moved with deliberation. Jett thought they couldn’t move any faster.

She’d been wrong.

Its body hit the bars of the cell door hard enough that air was forced from its throat in an unearthly moan. The air in the jail had turned cold every time it rose—something Gibbons couldn’t entirely explain, though she’d offered Jett half a dozen theories—but now the air pouring through the open doorway was as chill as the inside of an icehouse. Maxwell’s mouth
was open in a horrible silent scream, and Jett thought of every hideous story she’d ever heard about people who woke from illness only to find themselves in the darkness of a coffin, accidentally buried alive. How much more horrible would it be if life—if
awareness
—were called back into a body truly dead?

It drew back momentarily, but only to grip the bars in its hands and rattle the door in a frenzy.

“There was rust on the hinges,” Gibbons whispered in a small voice.

For a moment Jett didn’t understand. Then she did. Rusted hinges might give way.

“Get back,” she said, drawing one of her pistols. “If it gets out, I’ll shoot out the lamp.” If she could spray the zombie with burning kerosene, its clothes would catch fire, and maybe that would slow it down. Jett didn’t mention that even she might not be fast enough to get a shot off before it reached them.

“There’s more kerosene in the saloon,” Gibbons whispered, still in that dreadful airless voice.

Before Jett could say a word, Gibbons was off, running through the deepening shadows. Jett stood, so still she was barely aware of her own body, and watched the zombie tear and batter at the bars. It went from shaking the door to hammering the bars with its fists. Soon Jett couldn’t hear the door rattling any longer,
and she knew it was because the metal was lodged fast and starting to bend.

It was only a few steps to the stable. She could ride Nightingale bareback, come back for her saddle when it was safe to do so. She wished she was gutless enough to run. She knew she wouldn’t.

“Here,” Gibbons whispered in between gasps for breath. She had a wooden keg of kerosene in her arms.

“Pull the bung,” Jett said. “Kick it through the door when I fire.” Jett didn’t know if Gibbons would be fast enough to do what she’d asked. If either of them would be. But she knew they weren’t fast enough to get away from Maxwell.

Gibbons knelt on the boards of the sidewalk and began worrying at the stopper. The zombie had stopped beating at the bars of its prison and was now throwing its entire body at the bars. Jett imagined she could hear the protesting creak of the metal as it slowly gave way.

The popping sound as the bung finally came free was loud enough to make Jett jump. An instant later, she realized why: there was silence inside the jailhouse. The zombie had stopped moving, and now hung limply from the bars.

“Goodness!” Gibbons said, looking up. “That was close!”

“It’s dead,” Jett said in disbelief. “You killed it.”

As Jett watched, the body sagged at the knees, slipped down the bars, and fell over. The night air was already starting to warm.

“I certainly hope so,” Gibbons said fervently. She pulled the kerchief off and wiped her face with it, then sniffed the air. “It doesn’t smell quite as bad now,” she said analytically. With an expert whack, she set the stopper back into the keg.

“I guess one part of the legend isn’t a legend,” Jett said, drawing a shaky breath. “Whether it’s ‘scientific necromancy’ or not.”

“I guess it isn’t,” Gibbons said, sounding uncharacteristically subdued. She dug in her pockets until she found her little silver flask, and offered it to Jett wordlessly. Jett took a long swallow before handing it back. Gibbons drained it. “You did say when a zombie is released from the power binding it, its last act is to slay—or attempt to slay—whoever created it. I suppose you’re going to say we should have just let it out.”

“Not me!” Jett denied. “Even if we’d known that, all it’d do is tell Shepherd there’s a posse after him.”

“We’re not much of a posse, I suppose,” Gibbons said thoughtfully. “Still, we’re here. And now I can start trying to find out how he creates the creatures.”