Shadow Falls: Badlands (2 page)

That morning they descended below the rim. William told the others he thought the “guide the fool.” Another man was convinced the supposedly one-eyed guide had been a drunkard, though no one recalled ever seeing him take a single drop of spirits. That first day they made a fair amount of distance from their previous night's camp. Come evening, as the wagon train came to a halt, two of the men who had spotted ruffed grouse a few meters back separated from the group with their guns to hunt for supper. One kissed his wife and promised her fresh fowl for dinner.

By nightfall, neither of the two men had returned.

Their families grew concerned as the hours passed. Several others volunteered to go searching for the missing pair.

“No,” William told them. “A night with no moon was not one to go on a search party. We can't afford to have more go lost.”

He reassured the others the hunters had just gotten misdirected. With the sun missing from the sky, it would be difficult to see into what you were heading. Lawton said he knew these men—they were smart enough to stay in one place until sunrise, when they would be able to find their way back to camp where a good ribbing by all awaited.

The disappearance of these two men was the talk, albeit hushed, of the entire camp. It was Corrine who forbade her boys to speak of it at all, which is precisely why Thomas quietly turned to Miles in the night as the two boys pretended to sleep.

“I never told you what I saw back on the ship.” His voice trembled as he whispered into Miles's ear. “But I must because, though I try to remember, it is like this memory seeks to evaporate from my brain like morning dew drops. If I don’t tell you, I fear I may forget entirely.”

Several nights after the elder of the two old men died on board the Majestyk, Thomas had awoken in the middle of the night with an urgent need to relieve himself. From his berth he crawled out and carefully felt a path toward the gangway to the upper deck. It was not uncommon the men on ship to urinate overboard, although always taking care to be both on the leeward side away from the wind and out of view of female folk. Thomas relished this as being the only good thing about life aboard a ship: the ability to pee freely into the sea. As Thomas settled at the stern rail, hidden behind several casks of fresh water, he froze in mid-act. Several yards away was his father, pushing a young woman over the starboard side rail. The woman appeared relenting—not even protesting—and fell like a lifeless doll into the darkness of the water below. Struck with fear, Thomas crouched behind the large barrel and watched as his father looked around and descended back below deck, wiping his hands on his coat, as if dirty.

Thomas's voice hitched. His body was shaking. With both hands he clutched Miles's arm, digging his nails into his brother's skin. “I think father killed her.”

Miles froze as if dumbstruck, and then began battering Thomas with blows from his tiny fists.

“Take that back!”

Thomas grabbed the younger boy's wrists. “Hush!” he hissed quickly.

“You lie.”

“Why would I lie? Have I ever lied to you?”

It was a question Miles had only one response to: “No.” His brother had always been truthful with him. Not once had he ever told even a fib to Miles. His brother had always been a very serious boy, a fact not lost on anyone in the family. Now, with something as grave as two men missing, their families worried—everyone had become serious. And with the deaths of several passengers aboard the Majestyk, this was not the time to think Thomas had softened his ways.

“How do you know it was father?” Miles asked, growing more scared. “It could have been one of the ruffian sailors who pushed that woman overboard.”

Thomas shook his head. Everyone on board was quite familiar with the attire of the ship's crew: loose duck trousers, checked shirts and tarpaulin hats. Their father, with his frock coat, would have borne a completely different silhouette than your average jack-tar.

“For what reason would he have to cause her harm?” Miles asked, his voice raising too much, causing Thomas to react as if struck.

“Boys!” A voice growled. It was their father. “Get to sleep.” William had been only a few feet away, cradling a gun in the crook of his arm, much like the guide used to. He waited until Thomas had lain back down and closed his eyes before turning away. A closer look would have revealed Thomas' body trembling in fear, wondering just how much his father had heard.

By daybreak the two missing men had not yet returned to camp; thus William organized a search party consisting of himself and three other men. Taking four of their best horses, they set out back through the valley in the direction the others had vanished. William promised they would find the missing men.

They didn't have to look very long.

Less than a league from camp, they came across the first man. He initially appeared to be standing in a hole up to his chest, slumped over onto the dirt, fast asleep. It wasn't until the search party got closer that one of the men on horseback realized there had been no hole. The missing man, a young carpenter who had come over to the new world with his young wife, had been severed in twain, his body shredded at mid-chest. Trailing behind what was left of the man's body were viscera and blood—a dreadful quantity of blood.

“Looks as if he was dragged,” one of the men posited. Indeed it did, and all eyes followed the line of ground-soaked blood toward the bramble where it disappeared.

“We must look for the other man—” William cut himself off in mid sentence. A crackling sound had come from the thicket. It was a sound a hunter would never mistake for anything else than what it was: a footstep.

Quickly, the men of the search party dismounted. William drew a musket pistol from his belt and put a finger to his lips. An older man to his left cocked his head to the side and sniffed the air. It was even in the breeze—something bad, coming from the bramble ahead. At his feet, William could see the line blood would lead them to whatever was hiding in the thicket. With a slight movement of his hand, William gestured for them to proceed quietly. As he stepped closer he could hear it—growling, feral, and unafraid. The gun, which had been loaded and primed back at camp, came up to his shoulder as William thumbed back the hammer.

The older man to his left nodded. He would flush whatever it was out of hiding. “Yah! Yah!” he yelled, waving his arms.

From the bramble it came, baring teeth, the throaty growl blaring from its mouth making no mistake of its intention. The older man recoiled but it was no use. The beast's bloodshot eyes locked upon its prey as it launched from its rear haunches into the air.

Time stood still with the blast—the shot from the musket found its mark in the skull of the beast and it dropped like a stone onto the dirt, its shattered head lolling backwards.

The older man turned, his face ashen. “Good Lord!” His hands shook furiously as he turned, stumbled against a tree, and purged his breakfast onto the ground.

One of the other men approached the prone lump of black fur on the ground. The great beast was no bigger than a large dog.

“Don't touch it!” William commanded. He approached slowly and poked it with the barrel of his musket.

“Nice shot, William,” the young man said to him.

The fourth man in the party looked at the dead beast. “What is it?”

“Wolf,” William said. “We must have surprised it.”

“William!” The older man was calling to them. The others rushed to the sound of his voice. He pointed. In a pile next to his sickness was unmistakable: “It's— it’s a leg.”

It was obvious to all—the leg belonged to the dead man they had found on the path. Upon further inspection, it was also obvious the wolf had been chewing on what was left of it. Talk turned to the one man still missing. The consensus was that wolves may have gotten the first man, but that left the question of what had happened to the second. Even the horses were gone without sign.

“I am no expert,” the older man said, pointing to the upper half of the dead man's torso still on the path, “but I have never heard of wolves doing that.”

They knew back at camp that the mood would be somber. It was agreed by the men of the search party that William would inform the wife of the halved man, but not of their suspicions of how he had died. “Best not to alarm the women and children,” he said. The others knew he was right. The second man, William would say, was still missing and he hoped all would pray for his safe return. He knew different though: the second man was not coming back either and the longer they stayed, the more chance there was that whatever was out there might decide to visit again.

That night, Miles slept poorly, thinking of the dead man in the woods covered in darkness. At one point, the exhaustion overcame him and his eyes finally closed, only to be jarred out of slumber by the feeling of something hovering over him.

Breathless, he opened his eyes, his heart pounding. Before he could make a sound, a hand clamped over his mouth. Leaning over him was his father, who brought his mouth to Miles's ear and whispered:

“Listen to every word I tell you and don't make a sound, or you will perish tonight like the others.”

Miles was so struck with fear that he couldn’t even blink; he just stared into the night.

The boy nodded as his father continued to whisper. What he said seemed impossible—but this was his father speaking. Miles glanced over toward his brother, but Thomas was fast asleep. As far as he could tell, his mother and baby sister, Alyson, were inside the wagon as usual and in perfect slumber. There was nobody watching them. Miles considered what Thomas had told him—the story of his father tossing the woman overboard. He refused to believe it at the time but the things his father was now telling him—well, they amounted to murder.

His own father: a killer.

“Please, Miles, you must trust me,” William said. “There are lives in great peril. You must get dressed now. I will explain more as we walk.”

Miles wanted to scream—to warn the others. His father had become—at what point he wasn't sure—a complete and raving lunatic, subject to the influence of the moon. It was his father's hand on his shoulder, the hand of a disciplinarian, which prevented him from doing so. If he screamed he was sure his father would kill him as well. In the dark, he slipped on his clothes, hoping, praying that his brother would wake up and see him—but Thomas lay still.

“We must go. Hurry!” his father whispered.

And under the cloak of night, with only the sounds of the valley and woods around them, Miles and William Lawton crept off into the darkness. At the edge of camp, Miles turned to look back at his brother. It would be the last time he would see Thomas as he remembered him.

Miles decided that once in the woods he would flee from his father under the cover of night; but as they ventured further down the trail, he became aware of sounds coming from the surrounding woods and brush. Scurrying. Breathing. Footsteps lighting just outside the illumination of his father’s torch. The journey the past couple of weeks and sleeping outside had rendered his ears accustomed to the noises of the outdoors, especially those after sundown—crickets; owls; the occasional bump in the night—but this was different. With every step the noises grew louder, a cacophony of movement unseen, until the sound grew so great Miles thought he would surely go mad.

In the darkness ahead, Miles would see small glints of light appearing briefly, then disappearing.

Nothing but fireflies
, he thought. But part of him knew better. The glints in the darkness always appeared in horizontal pairs.

They were eyes.

Eyes staring back at him.

Watching him.

Sizing him up from ahead in the dark.

Run!
his brain commanded him, finally breaking through to consciousness. He pulled away from his father, about to flee when the old man's hand wrapped around the back of his neck—his father's rough skin feeling hot as a flame against his soft, bare flesh.

“Do not pull away from me,” his father hissed. “You do not want what is beyond this path.”

Miles's eyes fell upon the pistol secured in his father's belt. William then took his hand off the boy's neck and put it back on the butt of the gun, as if ready to draw.

Miles fell back into step; he dared not disobey. If there was a chance to escape the clutches of his murderous father, this was not it—especially not with the gun at his old man's side. He would wait and when the time came he would run as if being chased by lightning.

They walked down the path for what seemed like ages until coming to another clearing. Up ahead in the rim of dim light from his father's torch, Miles could see something on the ground. It looked like—

A hand. A disembodied hand.

“Do not look,” his father said, though it was impossible. Given the choice of looking around at the eyeballs glinting in the darkness or ahead on the path, Miles decided on the latter.

As they got closer, Miles gasped.

William attempted to shield him but there was no keeping the boy from seeing the man torn in half—the same man William himself had found earlier. William clamped his hand over the boy's mouth.

“Do not scream,” he whispered. “If you must look, do not scream.”

The man, whom Miles had remembered from the months they had all spent on the Majestyk in close quarters, did not resemble a human being anymore—for his body had been mostly stripped of skin and flesh. From the man's face came the grimace of bone and teeth.