Redheads (47 page)

Westfield came into the thing’s abandoned dining chamber and watched as Chris lowered the ladder from the mouth of the tunnel. He came over to the base of the wall and helped position the grooved rubber feet on the floor. He looked up and saw Julissa. She was just fine. A little blood on her forehead, but that was all.

“The creature?” he said.

“We’ll show you,” she said. “We got it.”

He nodded.

“Forget that for now,” he said. “There’s a girl back there, in the cavern. She’s alive.”

Chapter Sixty-Two

Julissa dove off the side of the boat into the clear water of the inner lagoon, and then turned back to the boat. She was treading water with her feet while she checked to make sure her bikini hadn’t slipped off in the dive. The water was wonderfully warm. And there was no one here. She took off her bikini top and tossed it back onto the
Sailfish
, then swam around behind the boat.

They’d sailed nine hundred and fifty nautical miles south of Molokai, dropping anchor in Palmyra’s inner lagoon five days after returning to Molokai by chartered jet. Palmyra was perfect: an uninhabited U.S. possession controlled by a conservation group that couldn’t afford to keep a permanent staff. They’d arrived in the night and had sailed back and forth offshore, waiting until first light to navigate the coral-strewn channel from the open Pacific into the lagoon. She put her head under the water, and even without goggles could see the corals and bright orange urchins, dozens of reef fish.

There was plenty to do. Mainly, they needed to figure out where they stood. They could be wanted by the F.B.I., the Honolulu Police, the Galveston Police, the San Francisco Police, Interpol, Scotland Yard. Or none of the above. It would take some delicate hacking to find out who was looking for them and how much they knew. And then erase it all.

Their funds were safe, anyway. She had seen to that before they left Edinburgh, had taken care of Aaron’s too. But she was still traveling on Cheryl’s old passport, and Chris was using an I.D. that could be compromised.

But the
Sailfish
had everything, including Inmarsat satellite internet reception. She looked up at the white dome encasing the antenna at the back of the boat. Then Chris came out in a pair of board shorts and stood at the rail, looking down at her.

“Swimming ashore?”

“I’ll wait for you. So we can explore together.”

He nodded and took a sip from his glass of orange juice. One of the things they needed to do ashore was see if they could find some fresh fruit. They had spent all of ten minutes in a store on Molokai before setting sail, just piling things in a cart. There would be coconuts here for sure. And fish.

“Got an email from Westfield,” Chris said.

“What’s up?”

“Rachel’s coming along okay. She’s still staying with him, and he’s still in Edinburgh. Chiseling out the skeletons he found in the cave. See what he can figure out.”

“What’s to figure out?”

Chris shrugged. He’d felt the same as her: their job was done when the creature was dead. But Westfield had been unable to leave Edinburgh. He was keeping the creature’s house under surveillance, exploring the tunnel network, rooting through files. He’d been upset when they learned the creature had killed Stark. He’d been looking forward to another round with the attorney, without drugs. The police had been all over the law firm’s offices, so Westfield hadn’t gotten a chance to go back in to examine the files kept there. But Julissa and Chris both believed if there was anything to find, he would eventually find it. He was stubborn that way.

If he found a spaceship down there in the caverns, that would be different. She would probably need to go back. But in her heart she didn’t think it was like that. She thought Chevalier had been right: the creature was something old, something that branched off long ago. Chris thought so too.

Julissa floated on her back, her hands behind her head.

“You think Aaron’s gonna find what he needs to find?”

“I don’t know,” Chris said. “I think sometimes there’s no satisfaction. You just have to let it go.”

“That’s what I think,” she said. “Jump in. The water’s great.”

“In a minute.”

“Why wait?”

“Because I’m looking at you. You’re beautiful.”

She smiled and stretched out in the warm water, kicking lazily. She closed her eyes and listened to the water lapping against the boat. Even this early, the sun was hot on her face, a red dazzle behind her closed eyelids. There would be plenty of time here to take care of everything. Time to find out where they stood in the world, to fix whatever needed fixing. At least she didn’t need to find out where she stood with Chris. That much was certain now. She heard the splash when he hit the water, and opened her eyes.

About the Author

Jonathan Moore and his wife, Maria Wang, live in Hawaii. When he’s not writing, or fixing his boat, Jonathan is an attorney at the Honolulu firm of Kobayashi, Sugita & Goda. Before completing law school in New Orleans, he was an English teacher, a whitewater raft guide on the Rio Grande, a counselor at a Texas wilderness camp for juvenile delinquents, and an investigator for a criminal defense attorney in Washington, D.C.
 

Connect with Jonathan at
www.jonathanmoorefiction.com
.

Six-guns vs. werewolves in the Old West!

The Guns of Santa Sangre

© 2013 Eric Red

They’re hired guns. The best at what they do. They’ve left bodies in their wake across the West. But this job is different. It’ll take all their skill and courage. And very special bullets. Because their targets this time won’t be shooting back. They’ll fight back with ripping claws, tearing fangs and animal cunning. They’re werewolves. A pack of bloodthirsty wolfmen has taken over a small Mexican village, and the gunmen are the villagers’ last hope. The light of the full moon will reveal the deadliest showdown the West has ever seen—three men with six-shooters facing off against snarling, inhuman monsters.
 

Enjoy the following excerpt for
The Guns of Santa Sangre:

John Whistler reckoned he was within thirty miles of the wanted men when they lost the wheel. Now the stagecoach was out of commission, the bounty hunter stranded to hell in the bowels of the Mexican desert, with nobody but two damn do-nothing stage drivers and the Sonoma rental wench. It was the gloaming, the sky getting dark, but the edge was off the terrible heat, so he figured they’d picked a good time to break down as any.
 

The big mustached man in duster and ten gallon hat stood impatiently rotating and clicking the cylinder of his Colt Dragoon pistol about two hundred feet from the disabled wagon. Whistler stared out at the forbidding, craggy Durango canyon country and vast canopy of turquoise and purple and rose-streaked late evening sky. He listened to the two Wells Fargo men arguing and cussing and the sounds of banging and creaking as the men finished the repairs on the broken slats of the right rear wheel they were fitting back into place. The weathered brown carriage was tilted at an obtuse angle. The team of four horses stood bored in their harness at the front of the chassis, tails flitting at flies.

Whistler looked over the where the sweat-soaked 15 year old prostitute in the black velvet corset and petticoat stood fanning herself. She winked at him. Eyes of violet, red hair spilling down her shoulders, she smelt sweetly of rose water and sex. Her name she’d told him was Daisy and she had herself a going concern riding the stage line back and forth, servicing passengers and kicking back a few bucks to the driver. A sweet little set up. The whore had been knee to knee with him the whole trip from Sonoma in the cramped and jouncing stage, bouncing pale freckled breasts spilling out of her corset a few feet from his face on the opposite seat.
 

The bounty hunter took out his silver pocket watch on the chain from his vest and snapped it open. His name “John Whistler” was engraved in elegant lettering inside the lid. The hands of the clock read, “7:53.” Annoyed at being behind schedule, the man gruffly closed the watch and pocketed it.

The stagecoach junction was supposed to be just twenty miles from here, the old driver told him. Damn bit of luck. Whistler would have been there already, should have made it by dusk but for the stage mishap. Hell, he had those bad men he hunted dead to rights. They might not be there tomorrow morning. No matter, he was right on their ass and would catch up with them soon enough. The bounty hunter took out the folded wanted poster in his pocket and regarded it. The crudely sketched faces of the three outlaws stared back at him from the crumpled paper in the red hue of twilight.
 

Samuel Tucker.

John Fix.

Lars Bodie.

Notorious names in bold block type lettering just above the $1,000.00 reward notice on each of their heads. Gunfighters and killers with lots of bodies strewn in their wake. These men were good, but he was better. The bounty hunter had gotten his lead on their current whereabouts from a Mexican ramrod who had seen them just the evening before in a small outpost thirty miles east from where Whistler now stood. The trail was coming to an end. Their bodies would be slung over saddles. Or his would.

He’d be out of Mexico one way or the other. He drew and admired his Smith & Wesson Scoffield 45. It had no trigger guard. Made it faster to draw and fire unimpeded by such inconveniences. A saguaro cactus sat like an upright fork a few hundred yards away, the tines poking black spokes against the glowing rust of the end of the day. He contemplated a little target practice on the plant to kill the time, but reckoned he better save his bullets. The formidable men he was hunting knew how to place theirs.

Mostly, he just wanted the hell out of Mexico.

From the sound of things behind him, they were getting that wheel fixed, and it was about time. He turned around to see the fat, bearded stage driver and his young Mexican shotgunner in the scarf and vest tightening the bolts on the displaced wagon wheel and using wrenches to adjust the torque on the axle. Any time now they’d be back on the road. But he’d lost a day.

“How you boys doing on that wheel?” Whistler called over.

“It’s repaired, but you best settle in mister,” the old stage driver grumbled. “Because we’re here for the night and pulling out at dawn.”

“That does not suit me.”

“It doesn’t matter. We’re not driving this stage in the dark, not through this kind of terrain.”

“But—”

“There be cliffs and ruts and ravines everywhere along the trail ‘twixt here and the junction and stage could take a plunge with one wrong turn.”

The four people grouped by the carriage in the failing light.
 

A huge full moon hung in the sky, clouded with haze.

They heard the wolves.

Not like any Whistler heard before. A keening, yipping lupine chorus came from all sides out in the canyons. The howls began low but rose in strident pitch and timber until they became a high shrieking bay. It was a sound to freeze your blood. The bounty hunter looked at the stage driver, who was looking at the Mexican guard with the shotgun, who looked like he was about to soil himself.
 

“Coyotes?” Whistler asked, staring out into the near total darkness that began about three hundred feet from where they stood. The desert spaces that in daylight spread so vast were now claustrophobic and invisible beyond. The full moon was high and bright, obstructed by clouds and oddly cast no light. A tiny trickle of moonlight showed a crag of mountain peak in the gloom.
 

“Sure,” said the old Wells Fargo guy.

“
Niente
,” whispered the guard.

“What then?”
 

The guard didn’t answer.

The big wolves, or whatever they were, roared in unison, a sonic garrote of cacophonic sound tightening around them. Closing in. The hooker was shivering in fear, her eyes huge as her dainty hands covered her ears against the bellowing growls. “Something’s out there. We got to get out of here,” she whimpered.

“I’m with her,” Whistler confronted the driver. “We best be on our way directly.”
 

The old timer threw down, yelling in the bounty hunter’s face, spattering saliva. “I told you tain’t driving this rig at night on this trail or the stagecoach will crash because I cain’t see!”
 

By now the four horses were starting to panic, pawing the ground with their hooves, long snouts whipping back and forth in their bridles and bits, eyes marbles and ears pinned back at the horrific music in the hills.

The monstrous roaring echoing around the canyons continued unabated and drew nearer and nearer. The guard, pale and face pouring with sweat, started babbling to the driver in Spanish, and the old man yelled back at him in the local tongue that Whistler barely understood. One thing was obvious. The Mexican knew what those sounds belonged to and wanted out of there. The argument became a shoving match, and the younger man won, clambering desperately up into the driver’s bench by the luggage roof rack, grabbing the reins and gesturing madly for the bounty hunter and the hooker to get into the stagecoach and hurry it up.