Ghostwalkers (28 page)

“But…,” she said, glancing at the boy from the stable and then past him to the center of town.

“But,” he agreed. He smiled at her, but her returning smile was filled with so many emotions that Grey couldn't catalog them all. Doubt and anger, passion and compassion. Love, too? He didn't know if he saw it or merely wished for it.

Looks Away glanced from Grey to Jenny and then down at his fingernails as if suddenly finding them deeply fascinating.

“We're burning daylight,” he said quietly.

“Be off with you, then,” said Jenny, stepping back. “You boys come back quick and you come back safe, you hear?”

“Yes, ma'am,” said Grey, and Looks Away pretended to doff a hat that he wasn't wearing.

“As your ladyship commands,” he said, “so shall it be.”

They tugged the reins to turn their horses toward the road that led past the Pearl farm and out toward the east. But Jenny suddenly ran up to Picky and took the bridle, stopping the animal. Then she tugged the ribbon from her hair and tied the blue length of it to the head collar.

“For luck,” she said.

Grey smiled at her. “Thank you.”

“A lady's favor on the steed of a knight aboard on a mission of errantry,” said Looks Away, rolling his eyes. “Good Lord save me from romantic fools.”

He kicked his horse into a gallop.

Grey winked at Jenny and cantered after.

 

Chapter Forty-Four

They rode in silence for much of the way.

Grey pointedly ignored the occasional amused glances aimed his way by his companion. The one time Looks Away tried to open a conversation about Jenny, Grey laid his callused hand on the butt of his holstered Colt.

“Point taken,” said Looks Away.

The miles fell away beneath their horses' hooves.

The land was clearly broken and in places it still looked raw. A game trail through a grove of trees would suddenly end at a jagged cliff to which the fractured trunks of dead trees still clung. Then they'd have to pick their way through boulders and rotting logs and between towers of splintered granite. At one point they crossed a gorge along a slat bridge that was so new the lumber was still green.

“Grey,” said Looks Away during one of the times they had to dismount and lead the horses, “I'm sure you recognized some of those walking corpses that night.”

“You mean Perkins and the deputies? Sure.”

“I can't rough out any scenario where that makes sense. I mean … we're going on the assumption that Deray created the undead, or controlled them, with these magic bits of ghost rock. Right?”

“Yup.”

“But Perkins
worked
for Deray. We saw him less than half a day before those deputies turned up dead and reanimated. What happened to them? How did they die?
Why
did they die? And why were they brought back?”

“All important questions,” agreed Grey. “And my considered opinion is that it beats the shit out of me.”

“Ah.”

They remounted and rode along a deep cleft at the bottom of which lay the smashed remains of a farmhouse, barn, and corn silo. The bleached bones of at least a dozen cattle were scattered among the splintered wood.

Grey was about to ask if Looks Away knew if the farmer family had survived the Quake, but then they passed a line of crudely made crosses standing in a row. The paint was faded after all these years, but Grey could see that everyone buried there had the same last name. From the birth and death dates it looked like grandparents, parents and young kids. Eleven graves in all.

He wondered why any of the survivors would stay in such a place as this. Death, the wrath of an insane planet, and the villains who mingled science with sorcery. What could make someone like Lucky Bob and his daughter think this land was worth fighting for?

The nomad in Grey's soul was so practiced at riding away whenever troubles got too big that he no longer felt able to understand any other choice.

As if reading his thoughts, Looks Away said, “It's hard to walk away penniless from something you've put your whole life into.”

“What?”

“Jenny. It's why she stayed after her father died. It's why most of the families here want to fight this out. If they left, where could they go? And how could they start something new without funds or resources?”

“That's not a decision, it's a trap.”

“It's a choice for some,” said Looks Away. “They love this land. Their family members are buried here. That ties them to the land.”

“Is that Sioux wisdom?”

“It's human nature, Grey. People want to put down roots.”

“Not everyone.”

Looks Away nodded, but he wore a knowing smile.

A mile later Grey said, “I take it you and Chesterfield's wife—.”

“Veronica.”

“—Veronica, are friends?”

Their horses walked nearly a dozen paces before Looks Away answered. “There are a lot of lonely people in this world, my friend. Is it wrong to offer comfort? Is it wrong to provide a shoulder to cry upon or an ear to listen? Is that a moral crime? Is that a sin in your world?”

“You're asking the wrong fellow. I don't study on sin very much. Not anyone else's. My own sins—and they are many—provide me with enough to think about.”

“So you don't judge?”

Grey sucked a tooth. “I'm not saying I can't or won't form opinions. For example I'm of the opinion that Nolan Chesterfield and Aleksander Deray would do the world a power of good if they stood in front of a fast-moving train.”

“We're of a mind in that regard.”

“Beyond that?” Grey shook his head. “It's a cold, hard world and if someone can find a little warmth and comfort, then good on 'em.”

That seemed to satisfy Looks Away, and he said no more on the subject.

They reached the top of a series of broken foothills, and there they paused. Beyond the ridge, stretching out for miles, was a green and lovely valley. Long, broad fields of blowing grass, orderly groves of fruit trees, and a stream as blue as Jenny's ribbon wandering through it all. Beyond the stream was a dirt road that ran in a slow curve toward a mansion that would have fit better on a Georgia peach plantation. Three stories tall, with a row of white columns along a deep porch.

“By the Queen's sacred knickers,” said Looks Away, even though he had presumably visited the place before.

“Is that the Chesterfield place?” asked Grey.

“It is.”

“Oh shit.”

“Indeed.”

It was not the obvious wealth or the ostentatious splendor that made them both stiffen in their saddles. It was not the nearness of a potential enemy that made their hands stray toward their guns.

It was the state of the place.

The trees lining the driveway were nothing but blackened stumps. Some had fallen, their trunks split by what looked like lightning strikes. Horses and cattle lay everywhere.

Dead.

All dead.

There were long, black trenches running back and forth across the grounds. They looked like the kind of mark Grey made when he scraped a match on a doorpost. Except these were a yard wide and some of them ran for a hundred feet across the lawn, through hedges, and even through parts of the house's big slope roof. Anything in the path of those burns had been incinerated.

The front of the house was blackened with soot and part of the shingled roof had collapsed inward. A thin curl of smoke rose into the wind and was dissipated into nothingness by a steady breeze blowing inland.

“What the hell could have done that?” demanded Grey.

Looks Away said nothing, but his face was pale and he stared with naked horror. He silently mouthed a word. A name.

Veronica.

 

Chapter Forty-Five

Looks Away started forward but Grey clapped a hand on his arm and held him in place.

“She's in there,” insisted Looks Away, trying to tear his arm free.

“Okay, we'll go in and find her,” said Grey as he drew his pistol. “But let's do it the smart way. Not the I-want-to-be-dead-way. You understand me? We do it smart or we go back to Jenny's place.”

Looks Away glared at him, but then he snorted air out of his nostrils and nodded. “Very well, damn you.”

“Good. Let's go, but keep your eyes open.”

They rode down the slope into the green valley. The closer they got the worse it all was. There were huge burn spots on the grass, and most of the dead animals had been charred. Some had burst apart, or been torn asunder. Some of the trees looked like they had been torn from the ground by some force Grey could not comprehend. They lay on their sides trailing roots that snaked away into the troubled dirt.

Looks Away touched Grey's arm and nodded to something that glinted in the trampled grass.

“Shell casings,” he said. “Lots of them.”

“Heavy caliber. Gatling gun?”

Looks Away nodded. “Or something with a heavy rate of fire. There are two or three weapons manufacturers with newer, faster models than the Gatling. Want to guess what makes them work so fast?”

Grey sighed. “Makes me long for the old days. I mean … is anyone trying to use ghost rock for something other than war?”

“Of course they are, but science tends toward warfare first and humanitarian purposes later. Airships and faster trains will carry food, goods, and people as easily as guns and cannons.”

“Mm. Nothing humanitarian about what happened here.”

They dismounted and studied the house.

“You see any bodies?” asked Grey. “People, I mean.”

“None.” And under his breath the Sioux added, “Thank god.”

“Under any other circumstances that could be a good thing,” said Grey. “It won't be here.”

“No,” agreed Looks Away glumly. He slung the Kingdom rifle over his shoulder and slid the chunky sawed-off shotgun from its hip holster. They tied Picky and Queenie in the shade of one of the few remaining unburned trees, nodded to each other, and approached the house. Grey checked the loads in his Colt, and then held it down at his side as they moved in.

As they did so, Looks Away shifted off to the left of the main entrance and Grey went right, both of them moving without haste and making maximum use of cover. Aside from smoke and heat-withered grass, nothing moved at all.

Grey gestured to indicate that Looks Away should cover him as he approached the door. The Sioux ran low and fast to the front wall and knelt beneath one of the fire-blackened windows, holding the shotgun in both hands. Once he was in position Grey walked straight up to the door and only angled to one side as he got within twenty feet. The big oak doors were pocked with bullet holes and splashed with blood. Grey used the toe of his boot to ease the door open. It swung inward with sluggish reluctance.

Grey waited.

Nothing. No voices. No shots.

He nodded to Looks Away, steeled himself against whatever might be waiting, and then went in low and fast, the Colt held out in a firm two-handed grip. He immediately cut right and swept the room with the gun, his eyes tracking in concert with the barrel. Looks Away dashed in a heartbeat later and went right, the shotgun stock braced against his hip.

The entrance foyer had been smashed apart and was open to the hall on Grey's side and to a drawing room on Looks Away's left. The walls were shattered. Bricks were shattered, exposing the wooden bones of the house. The red foyer carpet was singed black by ash and a figure lay half in the hall and half in the drawing room. Perhaps it had once been human, though whether man or woman was beyond telling. It was a set of bones wreathed in crisp layers of ash. The tendons, shrunk by heat, had contracted and pulled the corpse into a fetal position. Though clearly an adult, the posture called to mind one of the cruelest aspects of death. To Grey it looked like a dead infant rather than a grown man or woman, and in his mind he imagined he saw the newborn baby, the tottering first steps, the simple joy of a toddler at play, the full potential of a life unsullied by influences, choices, or actions. Snuffed out now like a match, and discarded by whoever had done this.

Even though this was the house of a probable enemy, Grey felt a small stab of grief and another deeper one of anger.

“It's not her,” said Looks Away, and the sound of his voice almost made Grey jump.

“What?”

“That body—I think it was a woman named Anna Maria. See the right foot? It's clubbed. Anna Maria Ramirez had a club foot.”

“Was she another friend of yours?”

“Anna Maria was a shit,” said Looks Away. “Nolan hired her as a maid, but she was really there to spy on his wife. Veronica was a virtual prisoner in this place.”

“Are there places Veronica could have hidden during all of this?”

“God, I hope so. But, Grey, there's something else. Anna Maria is the first body we've seen. Don't you find that strange? I mean, there are forty people working for Chesterfield. House staff and hired guns. More if you count the wranglers and yard servants. But, there's clearly been a war here, and except for livestock this is the first body we've found. Human body, I mean. I dare say that Chesterfield lost this particular engagement. Do you agree?”

“It's a goddamn slaughter. But … you're right, where are the other bodies?”

Looks Away crossed to the doorway to the connecting room. “No one here, either. Should we search the whole place?”

“I think we have to at this point.”

They were talking in hushed voices, and in the same hushed tone he added, “Shall we do this stealthily or like bravados?” His smile was small and wicked.

“Much as I'd love to kick doors and take names, friend, until we know who—or what—did all this, I think we should creep around like mice. Then we find Veronica and get the hell out of here. How's that for a plan?”