Less Than Human (17 page)

"Damn it, Lefty, this ain't no time to be fooling around." Amos tried to nudge Amanda closer, but the mare refused to go any nearer. She began dancing sideways and Amos was hard pressed to hold her. Real alarm began burning through the haze of alcohol that clouded his mind.

The figure raised up completely from behind the fence.

Amos struggled to make out who was back there. The figure clung to the shadows along the pine trees, making it impossible to get a clear look. Something was wrong about the figure, the way it moved. Too quiet. Too quick. Amos strained to hear any trace of movement. There wasn't any. And there should be.

The graveyard was mostly loose stones. Christ, he'd almost fallen on them the last time he'd been out here.

The interloper began moving out of the shadows, toward the white stone cross that caught the moonlight. This time the cross wasn't bare. Tied to it was a man. He had been motionless and that was why Amos hadn't seen him.

Amos's eyes darted back to the moving figure, watching its shadowy progress toward the cross.

The figure emerged into the light.

It was unreal, a thing of myth.

Amos's eyes refused to accept that and he looked back at the cross, at the man slumped there. The old Indian could still see incredibly well. Something was familiar about the unconscious figure despite the black shiny substance covering his face. And yet Amos couldn't place the man. Or maybe he didn't want to.

The man on the cross moved and the moonlight flashed off something shiny around his stomach. It was a belt with a silver-plated buckle, common as dirt around these parts—except this one had an eagle on it. Amos recognized his own handiwork, even though he hadn't done anything like that in fifteen years.

The last one had been a wedding present for Martin Strickland.

The ranch foreman was slumped forward, held only by the ropes around his wrists. The wind shifted, bringing a smell Amos was familiar with. Blood.

"Martin," Amos called out. He tried to urge Amanda forward but the Appaloosa mare was having no part of whatever was in the graveyard. She squealed, a high-pitched, almost human sound, as she began dancing sideways. Amos managed to calm her enough to slide off. His feet hit the ground and his knees almost buckled. He fought the sudden overpowering urge to throw up.

The man on the cross stirred and weakly raised his head from his chest. "Amos," he asked in a puzzled voice, "what are you doing here? Ain't you supposed to be out chasing off my horses?" He smiled and then, as though the effort of speaking had cost him more than he could afford, Martin Strickland again slumped against the ropes. This time he didn't move.

The shadowy figure pulled something shiny from concealment, and Amos saw it was a knife. Before Amos could scream a warning that he knew would do no good, the knife flashed over Martin Strickland's head.

The shadow raised something high, something black and wet, and gave it a shake.

Amos didn't want to know what the figure held in its hand but he did—it was Martin Strickland's scalp.

A scream of unholy glee undulated through the night, rising higher and higher, until Amos was forced to clap his hands over his ears. Amos felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. The cry stirred some memory too ancient to recall, only the fear remained.

Unable to control the roiling of his stomach, Amos spewed out a geyser of soured whiskey. He had to grab onto the rock wall to keep from falling. The rough texture of the stones bit into his skin, keeping him from passing out. His knees were weak and he felt as if someone had kicked him in the stomach, yet his eyes never left the shadow standing near Martin.

The only thing Amos could compare it to… was a horned devil.

And then, appearing as though by magic, the five Ridge-backs gathered in a semicircle around the strange figure, standing perfectly still, their heads cocked toward it as though awaiting some kind of signal.

Amos hurled his bottle. The horned devil easily dodged it and the glass shattered with a loud pop.

The signal must have come, though Amos neither saw nor heard anything. The Ridgebacks began moving toward him. He wouldn't have believed anything so big could move so fast. They reached the fence in a few powerful strides, moving as though controlled by a single mind. It was an eerie sight and it had the quality of some old grainy black-and-white movie, ghostly images on a dark screen. Not real. Not real. The movie seemed to be out of sync, jumping forward too quickly.

The dogs reached the fence.

Now Amos could hear them breathing as they sucked in the night air and spewed it back in clouds of thin, vaporous white. There was no other sound.

The dogs scrambled up onto the fence. They paused, frozen statues in the night.

Amos backed away.

The dogs watched him, their tongues lolling from their mouths. They weren't angry or even excited.

"A war chant would be good right here, Amanda," Amos said. He gripped the machete tied around his neck and raised his voice in defiance. "I damned sure wished I could remember one."

The first dog leaped from the fence. It looked like the animal was going straight at his face.

Chapter 10

A
mos knew there was no way the dog could miss him as it launched itself from the stone wall.

He threw up his arm, trying to keep the Ridgeback from his throat. His effort was only partially successful. The animal wasn't able to sink its teeth into him; instead it hit him high on the chest and knocked him back. A string of saliva hit Amos in the face, making him think he had been bitten.

The animal's breath smelled of rotten meat and blood.

The dog landed on the ground, ran past him. Then it turned and came back. Slowly. Almost playfully.

It didn't even growl.

Still reeling from the blow, Amos staggered back a few steps, fighting for balance. He lost the fight and landed hard on his back among the stones that he had stacked there last year. A clatter came when they were dislodged and showered down on him. A couple of his ribs went with audible snaps, like twigs being broken up for kindling.

The pain took his breath away.

His machete was still clutched tightly in his hand, and even though everything turned black, he still somehow managed to hold on to it.

Damned stones, for the last two years he had meant to fix the wall with them. The ghost of a smile drifted across his face and vanished. The odds were he wouldn't be getting around to the job this year either. Maybe never. He felt a little bit sad about that.

There were so many things in his life left undone.

The blackness ebbed away.

The rest of the Ridgebacks made no move toward him. They calmly watched from the fence, four black statues breathing in the night, blowing it back white.

The blackness ebbed back in and this time Amos felt himself sinking into it.

The scratching of the dogs' nails on the stones carried to Amos as he struggled to move. He felt like something heavy was sitting on his chest, crushing the breath from him. Swimming up from the darkness, Amos swung the machete at the sound. And got lucky. He was rewarded with a yelp of pain.

The Ridgeback scrambled back, one eye a pulpy mess where the blade had caught it. The single yelp was the only indication the dog had felt the blow.

Amos rose to his knees. The injured dog began circling him and, one by one, the rest of the Ridgebacks jumped down from the stone wall. They did it leisurely, as though they were coming to Amos to have their ears scratched. They padded quietly over and joined the injured dog, circling Amos, just outside the reach of the machete.

The absurdity of the situation wasn't lost on Amos—the dogs were circling him like celluloid Indians in some old fifties B Western. "I'll be damned," Amos said, unable to stifle the laugh that burst from him. It held a slight touch of hysteria.

In all those fifties Westerns, the cavalry always showed up in the last reel to save the day, their bugles sounding the charge.

Amos didn't hear any bugles, just the wheezing sound of his own breath as he tried to hold off the dogs.

Each time the Ridgebacks made a trip around the old Indian, the circle grew a little smaller. Maybe just a few inches, but definitely smaller, and Amos knew that sooner or later they would close the circle. He might get one or two with the machete, but not all five of them. They were taking their time. Biding their time. Wearing him down. Each time he raised the blade, his movements were a little slower than before. He touched his mouth with the back of his hand and saw the bloody froth on it. He was bleeding from a punctured lung.

As if to test him, one of the dogs lunged forward, and Amos swung the machete. The dog danced back out of the way. A rivulet of sweat trickled down Amos's forehead, running into his eyes, causing them to bum. He wanted to wipe the sweat away, but he needed both hands for the knife that had grown nearly too heavy to lift. He figured he could stand off two, maybe three more attempts before he collapsed.

This was the strangest thing Amos had ever seen. The dogs were somehow being controlled by the horned devil who had scalped Martin Strickland. Amos risked a look to see if he could spot the strange figure. He wished he hadn't.

The homed devil was sitting on the stone fence with its legs dangling over the edge, idly swinging its feet back and forth while it watched the dogs edge closer and closer to Amos. The strange figure was dressed in jeans, a denim jacket over a stained white shirt, with expensive snakeskin boots adorning its feet. This was no devil. It was a man in a mask, Amos saw that clearly now. And yet the truth brought no comfort.

The mask was unlike anything Amos had ever encountered in his seventy-three years; part animal, part human, part nightmare. It was large, ornate, covered on top with multicolored tufts of hair that streamed down the back. The hair looked human. Mixed in with the hair were long red feathers that sprouted upward in a fierce crest like some bird of prey. Part of a human skull came down over the cheeks of the man who wore the mask. The face beneath had been stained white, giving the entire head the look of a skeleton. The horns that Amos had seen were two serpents rising above the mask. They were red, covered with feathers, and Amos would bet his life they were carved from human bone. The man in the mask also wore an elaborate white necklace made up of small white lumps that on first appearance seemed to be stones strung together.

A closer examination revealed they were bones. Small hand bones. Those of children.

"You don't think this outfit is too gauche, do you?" the man in the mask asked. He idly fingered the necklace on his neck. "Accessories are so important. They can make or break an outfit, don't you think?"

"Who are you?" Amos asked, trying to get some air into his burning lungs. When he tried to move toward the fence, all of the dogs shifted as one, putting themselves in front of their new master.

"I guess you could say I'm a traveling man," the figure answered conversationally. He laughed at Amos's blank look. "I'm an old friend of the family. Your grandfather, to be exact. How is he? I haven't seen him in a long time."

Amos tried to get his mind around that question and couldn't. "My grandfather has been dead nearly sixty years." A small froth of blood bubbled on his lips as he tried another question. "Why are you here?"

The man in the mask considered the question for a moment; tapping the knife he still held in his hand against the stone wall with measured strokes, "Let's just say I'm exercising my rights as a property owner." He saw the quizzical look on Amos's face and laughed again, a merry sound, "This property," he said, sweeping his arm back to indicate the graveyard, "was mine a long time ago and I don't care much for the way it's being taken care of now. Things are missing."

Amos followed the gesture, taking his eyes off the dogs, and one of the Ridgebacks darted in. This time Amos was a little slow in answering the charge. Teeth raked down his arm and the pain was beyond anything Amos had expected. It filled his whole being, making his cracked ribs seem like nothing. He raised the machete, almost as an afterthought, and swung, but the dog moved back into the circle, content to wait. They all edged a little closer.

Blood slid down the old man's arm, making the handle of the machete slippery.

"Call off the dogs," Amos said. "I won't come near this place again. You have my word."

"No can do," the man in the mask answered. He seemed almost apologetic as he explained, "This place was my home and you have been pilfering from it. I've got to make an example out of you. One that your people will understand."

"I've never taken anything from here," Amos said.

"Something is missing. A knife, a very special knife."

"Why do you blame me?" Amos asked.

"Your scent is all over this place."

Amos snorted with contempt. "That's some nose you got there, mister. I ain't been in this graveyard in over a year."

"But your friend here comes to this place often." He indicated the slumped body of Martin Strickland hanging from the cross.

"Is that why you hurt Martin, you bastard?" Amos said. "Because he came here?"

"No, not exactly, Amos. You don't mind if call you Amos, do you? Your friend Martin has been coming here for quite a while now. He's been riffling the graves for souvenirs and selling them." The snakeskin boots beat a slow, rhythmic tattoo against the stone wall. "I had to make an example out of him, too."

The dogs had edged closer while Amos had been talking. One of them feinted in, making Amos take a swing with the machete. Too late he saw the move was a fake to make him commit. Before he could draw back, one of the Ridgebacks behind him darted in. Amos managed to alter the arc of the blade, guiding it toward the dog that seemed to be leisurely reaching out for him, but Amos was too slow. More pain. This time in his leg. The dog danced back, its red-toothed smile glinting in the moonlight.

Amos supported his weight on the machete, fighting for balance. His right leg had quit working.

The man in the mask raised his head to the night breeze, and Amos had the distinct feeling he had caught scent of something. "You ever get down to Mexico anymore, Amos? You ever see Amanda Oliveros?"