The Curse of Jacob Tracy: A Novel (47 page)

And he had to live. Because he knew now what he had to do.

“Hey Preacher,” said Red’s voice, and Trace startled, looked around to see the young cowboy standing there, saddle over his shoulder, rope in hand. He was as transparent as stained glass in the dull sunlight. “Where is everybody? Aren’t we gonna round up the yearlings this morning?”

Trace swallowed around the ache in his throat. “No, son, we’re not doin any roundups today. What’re you doin here anyway? Thought you’d be with Hanky and the others.”

“Couldn’t find ’em,” Red said. “Figured Hanky was playing one of his tricks.”

“No, it’s no trick, son. He just figured you’d catch up, is all.”

“Where’d he go?”

Trace beckoned the boy toward him, laid a hand on Red’s nape, and turned him toward the morning sun. His hand tingled at the contact of that phantom flesh, and his power welled up and enfolded both of them, transforming the overcast summer morning into a flat, fog-banked landscape, devoid of landmarks, restful in its lack of time or urgency. Where the weak coin of the sun had been, there was another kind of light—steady-shining and somehow
aware.
Trace was unable to look at it directly, but Red stared for a good long moment, head cocked to one side as if listening to a far-off call.

“Golly,” he said. “I guess I oughtta go, then, huh?”

“I guess you ought,” Trace said. “Give my best to the others.”

“I will.” Red shifted his saddle higher on his shoulder and stuck out a hand. “See ya, Preacher.”

“Hope I will,” Trace said.

They shook once and the boy gave him a cheery grin before turning toward the horizon. He had only taken a step or two before he was gone completely, and the spirit-sight faded out of Trace’s vision, leaving him facing a mild summer day, and a yard full of corpses.

Trace turned and went back to the house. He was straining the coffee when Remy came down into the kitchen. He folded his arms in the doorway, wearing some of Miller’s oversized clothes, and a thoughtful expression.

“Well?” Trace said.

“He gonna live,” Remy said slowly. “It too soon to know if he gonna change.”

*   *   *

“Y
E GODS,
”
MISS
Fairweather interrupted, her voice soft with horror. “Mr. Bosley survived?”

“He was feverish most of a week. Remy knew what to do. We dosed him with silver nitrate.”

She winced, much as Remy had. “But that would only treat the wounds … I never heard of it fighting off the infection. You
do
understand that lycanthropy is communicated through saliva, like hydrophobia?”

“I knew,” Trace said. “We all did.”

*   *   *

T
RACE KNEW THEY
couldn’t stay at the ranch any longer. Even if he’d had any doubts about Mereck’s ability to regroup, it was only a matter of time until someone came to call on Miller, or some territorial marshal came looking for the Kid.

He took Blackjack and rounded up six extra horses, while Remy vanished into the trees on the north boundary and came back dragging two ash saplings about twenty feet long. Between these two poles Trace lashed the buffalo-hide robe from the Millers’ bedroom, to make a long stretcher. He lined it with a couple of wool blankets from Boz’s bed.

They raided the house and the cook-shack for supplies, and loaded up the spare horses. Trace cleared the foreman’s house of his and Boz’s personal possessions, and though it made him sick to do it, he rifled through the bunk-houses and the Millers’ house, took what money and valuables he could find. As bizarre as the carnage at the ranch would appear to any investigators, robbery would at least provide a motive. If there was any justice in the world, roving bushwhackers would be blamed, rather than the nearest Indian scapegoats.

As a last balm to his conscience, while Remy was pouring laudanum down Boz’s throat and making him ready to be moved, Trace went around the yard and did last rites on all the bodies. He found Old Walt’s spirit still lingering in the remuda corral, and sent him on toward the horizon.

At last they loaded Boz into the travois, slung between two pack horses, and set out north. It was late afternoon by the time they did, but Remy knew all the back-trails and game-trails, like any good hunter, and they rode until well after dark, through streams and over rough terrain, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the ranch.

Along the way, Trace scattered the personal valuables he had taken from the ranch, dropping them into holes, behind rocks, into fast-moving streams.

For five days, they moved steadily north and east, keeping to the wilds, avoiding fences and homesteaders. Sleeping in the saddle during the day, keeping one eye on the gray space, sitting up nights with Boz, who writhed in fever and opium dreams.

Boz’s bites and lacerations healed with alarming speed, but everywhere the silver nitrate had been applied, his skin broke out in pale leprous patches, which split at a touch, revealing matted fur that fell out in clumps. Pus and silver nitrate dribbled out of these cysts, leaving black-and-yellow stains on the blankets.

Trace and Remy took turns coaxing water and medicine down Boz’s throat. He wouldn’t take any food, not even beef broth, until Remy came back in the dusk with a freshly killed rabbit, and slit its throat over a bowl. Boz’s eyes cracked open for the first time in four days, gleaming golden in the low light, nostrils flaring at the scent. Remy lifted the bowl to Boz’s eager lips and Trace had to walk away from the camp.

On the morning of the sixth day, Trace woke to gray dawn and the sound of men’s voices in low conversation. He sat up in his bedroll and saw that both Boz’s and Remy’s were empty.

He found them a few yards away, sitting on an outcropping of rock, facing into the wind and smoking. Boz had only pants on, the suspenders over his bare shoulders. Remy had his shirt rucked up, showing off one of the myriad scars that raked his stocky frame. Boz’s dark skin was marred by scabby rashes and matted stubble the color of rust. As Trace watched, Boz shook his head and ran a hand over his hair, in a gesture of disgust and resignation that Trace knew well.

They both turned as Trace drew near, and he was struck by the similarity in their movements—a certain rippling tension of the shoulders that eased as soon as they recognized him. Then Boz turned his face away, scowling, and Remy got up and jumped down from the rock.

“Remy gonna let you vaqueros talk for a bit,” he said, and swished away through the prairie grass.

Boz took a long draw on his smoke, and looked up through heavy-lidded eyes that had taken on an odd golden cast—almost copper-colored. “You don’t look too much worse for wear.”

Trace considered Boz’s face and frame, upright for the first time in a week. He looked gaunt, with hollows under his eyes that had not been there before, but the cut above his brow had vanished without a scar. “You look a helluva lot better than you did. I thought you were a goner.”

“Yeah, well. Joke’s on both of us.” Boz exhaled smoke, and held up his cheroot. “Y’know, these things taste a lot better than they smell.”

“What is it?”

“Monkshood.”

“Jesus, Boz, that stuff’s poisonous.”

“Not to werewolves, it ain’t.” Boz looked him in the eye, but slantwise, as if expecting an ambush. “Remy says it keeps the wolf asleep. Says the other name for the stuff is wolfsbane—just like in the stories. You know that?”

“No.”

“Me either. I seen it up in the mountains plenty of times, never knew what it was. Just knew not to let my horse eat it.” He ran his tongue over his gums, contemplatively, and curled his lip to reveal a flash of canine. “Remy says you got the Kid?”

“I got him.”

“Good. You get Mereck?”

“I ran him off. I reckon it’ll take more muscle than I got, to kill him.”

“Well, I reckon she can teach you. Or she’ll claim she can, at any rate.” Boz gave him another of those side-eye looks, while Trace stood there, mute and miserable. “And I reckon now you’re tryin to figure how to get me to come back with you, so she can fix me up. Right?”

“Boz…” He spread his hands helplessly. “I tried. Goddamn it, I tried to tell you—”

“Yeah. You did. And I reckon you got a right to say so.” Boz threw down the stub of his smoke, ground it out with his heel. “You know, I figured
you’d
be the one losin a life over this. I figured she’d use you up, or Mereck would. But the fact is, you’re the same as both of ’em. Your curse don’t eat you up—it eats everyone around you, and you just get stronger for it.” He slid down off the rock on bare feet. “Far as I can tell, you all deserve each other.”

Boz walked away across the prairie. He bypassed their camp, side-stepping Remy’s inquiry, and kept going until he crested a small rise in the earth and went down the other side of it, disappearing from view.

Trace trailed back to the camp, stood there looking at the cold fire, the packs and bedrolls, the horses standing patiently nearby. All the familiar things he and Boz had used for years. He had to strain to remember what belonged to whom, what he could take, what he should leave.

“He jus’ … you know, he have a shock,” Remy said, gesturing awkwardly with his cheroot. “Is bad news to hear you gonna turn into monster next full moon. Be hunted rest of your life. Mebbe easier for a black man—they already hunted in this country.” That sounded like a weak attempt at humor, but if anything it made Trace feel worse. “Mitchie Boz, he already good tracker, got good mountain sense. He figure how to control it, mebbe decide it not such a bad thing.”

Trace lifted his head with a sigh. “Where will you go? When you leave here?”

Remy shrugged. “Got other ranches, other business. More pelts to find.”

“You know where there are others like you?”

“Some. Mostly move round a lot.”

Trace nodded. “Stay away from cities for a while. I’ll make sure Boz has the bill of sale for those horses, but don’t take risks. Don’t make friends with any strangers.”

“Bien sûr,” Remy agreed. “You go to Saint Louie, n’est-ce pas?”

“Yeah.” Trace hesitated, and offered a hand. “Thank you. You saved our lives out here.”

Remy nodded, shook. Gestured toward the rise, where Boz had gone. “Don’ worry bout him. He one of my kind, now.”

*   *   *

T
HERE WAS A
long silence when Trace had finished his recitation. He felt Miss Fairweather’s gaze on him, her short, distressed breaths, her sympathy. He had not expected that, but he was grateful.

“And that was the end of it?” she said. “You didn’t try to persuade him to return with you?”

“Couldn’t see the point of it. Boz had his mind made up he wasn’t comin back, even before he got bit. And he was right. My curse eats up the people I care about. I knew it, but I couldn’t make myself—” He had to quit speaking, before he was completely unmanned in front of her. After a minute he added, “Besides, it made sense, if Mereck was still huntin me, to get as far away as I could. So I packed up and left that same hour. Caught the train in Cheyenne the next day. Came straight here.”

Miss Fairweather made busy with the tools she had used to clean his hand, put away needles, swept away bits of catgut and cotton wadding. She had closed the wound with tiny black stitches, and applied a numbing ointment that was surely a mercy from heaven.

After a moment her hands came to rest, and her head bowed, over her tool kit. “I feel responsible,” she said in a low voice. “I have had time to realize, these past weeks, that I should have been more forthcoming about the threat Mereck posed to you.”

“Yeah. You should have,” Trace said, and her head came up, lips compressed in annoyance. “But I guess that’s what you meant with that séance—to let me see him with all his masks stripped away.”

She looked down again, pale lashes fanning over paler cheeks, and he had the impression that most of
her
masks had been stripped away, as well. There was a softness, and an uncertainty, in her face that he’d never seen before. “You must know, it was never my intention to let him harm you. I took every precaution I knew to protect you during that séance, and it should have been enough. But Mereck has apparently been monitoring my activities more closely than I realized. And you proved more … aggressive than I anticipated.”

Trace felt the back of his neck getting hot. “I’m sorry for that. It wasn’t—I never in my life raised my hand to a woman. It won’t happen again.”

Her blue eyes lifted to his. “I believe you,” she said quietly. “But I meant only, you have kept your power suppressed for so long, I never supposed you would embrace it so quickly, or have the strength of character to control it. You have surprised me, Mr. Tracy. Many times over.”

Considering the source, that was probably the best compliment he’d ever had. He didn’t know what to say.

“And now I must ask, have you seen any indication you were followed here? Any sign of Mereck or his minions since you left Wyoming?” Trace shook his head, and her shoulders relaxed a fraction. “Then may I assume your presence here indicates an acceptance of my offer? Will you remain here and allow me to tutor you? I’m sure you must realize, much of what I could teach you will offend both your faith and your sensibilities.”

“You don’t know much about my sensibilities,” he said. “And my faith has got nothin to do with it.”

“I wonder.” Her lips pursed again as her cool gaze assessed him. She really did have fine eyes, he thought, they were her best feature. “I had a brother much like you.”

That was a surprise, on several fronts. “A psychic? Or a trail guide?”

“Not psychic, no. He was a physician, which is not unlike shepherding fools through the wilderness. His crusade was in the London slums and charity wards, trying to educate the masses on the necessities of clean water and basic sanitation. Quite an uphill battle, considering half the doctors at his hospital didn’t believe in those amenities, either.” She gazed across the room, squinting slightly, as if the memory were too distant to make out. “He died, during a mysterious outbreak of fever at the hospital.”

“Mereck’s work?” Trace guessed.