We were almost on top of them now, and I didn’t trust Goldman to steer. I nocked another bolt, then reached down to haul on the reins.
“Jesu-Christe!” yelped Goldman. Sounded like a legitimate prayer to me.
The team swerved sharply left, sweeping by the blaze and the beasts. Just as we completed our end-around, I clipped the bow to my belt, leapt Goldman and went overboard.
Mom always said I acted without thinking-used my gut instead of my brains. It was meant to be an insult. But since it usually followed the words, “You’re just like your father,” it was hard to take it that way. She was dead right, of course. I realized that as I hit the ground-hard.
I tucked and rolled to my feet. Doc was about fifteen feet away, crouched with a large shard of the shattered lantern clutched in both hands. I dashed the remaining distance, keeping my crossbow aimed at the fire.
“Hurt?” I asked.
He shook his head, eyes wild behind a veil of dark hair. But his voice came out, as always, rock steady. “Terrified.”
Me, too. That fire was all that stood between us and a pack of demons that melted into the smoke and shadow like black cats on tar paper. Only the one I’d set on fire was solid. It rolled on the ground about twenty feet away, making a sound that will haunt me till the day I die. The stench of burning hair and flesh made my stomach heave.
Shadows don’t have hair and flesh.
I sucked up close to Doc. Heat beat against my face. Somewhere, the dog bayed. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Which way?”
I grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the road to Grave Creek, praying the shadows wouldn’t realize what their charbroiled buddy had-that fire can be outflanked if you half try.
We hadn’t gotten far when they figured out the fire’s limits. They did an end-around, steering clear of the burning husk, flowing to the rim of flame and around.
“Bozhyeh moy,” Doc murmured. The shard quivered in his hand, firelight dancing over the broken edges.
Cold wind nipped at us, and the air was getting soggier with the threat of rain. I didn’t want rain. I did want the wind-it whipped the flames, churned dust and smoke, and made us harder for the tweaks to see (I hoped).
They oozed like oil, glowing eyes sinking toward the ground. I had no idea how many there were-four, maybe five. I had exactly three doctored bolts.
“They… are they singing?” Doc asked.
It was unmusical and weird, but singing was the only way to describe it. Down in my gut I knew what it meant. I brought out the lighter, flicked it open, and lit the bolt in my crossbow. It blazed bravely. The singing stopped. Not good. I steeled myself for the attack.
There was a dull rumbling, and a bizarre, yodeling wail cut through the smoky air and stopped all of us-people and nonpeople-in our tracks. Sounded like a damn cartoon Indian. Then the wagon swept into my field of vision with someone standing straight up in the driver’s box like Ben Hur, wildly waving a torch.
Goldman. Bloody, frigging Goldman. The idiot was going to yodel his way right between me and a clean shot.
Horses are scared shitless of fire-not that I’d’ve expected Goldman to know that-and he was trying to drive the team straight into hell.
“Run!” I told Doc, and shoved him toward the crossroads.
He ran.
Goldman was fighting the horses for all he was worth, trying to get control of their heads. An experienced driver stands about a fifty-fifty chance of winning these little battles. Someone like Herman Goldman stands no chance at all. The horses revolted and he tumbled out of the driver’s box, landing almost at my feet with the torch miraculously still in his hand. The wagon rumbled away toward the western woods.
I dodged the banner of torch flame and raised my bow.
The arrowhead had gone out, alcohol exhausted. I cursed, flipped it out of the cradle and pulled another one from the clip. I’d just gotten it seated when they started singing again.
At my feet, Goldman howled and waved his torch practically in my face. I thrust the bow into the flame, burning my hand but lighting the barb. They were so close I imagined the heat I felt was from their eyes. Those horrible, flaming eyes were the only part of them that seemed not to move when you looked at them. Small comfort, but they made a good target. Knowing I wasn’t going to get off more than one shot, I aimed at the closest tweak.
The singing stopped and there was a sudden, dense stillness.
Here it comes.
But the volcanic eyes turned westward, and then winked out-one, two, three, four pairs-as the tweaks turned tail and vanished behind the veil of flame and smoke. I caught a glimpse of solid forms, then there was nothing moving but real smoke and dry grass. Beyond the flames the dog’s yapping faded.
I don’t know how long I stood there like that, crossbow aimed at the dying blaze, Goldman quivering at my knees. Rain came softly, pattering on the top of my head and running down my face.
He moved first, getting slowly to his feet and taking about five steps toward the wall of fire, peering through its growing gaps.
I lowered the crossbow and set the safety. My hands shook. “Goldman, you nitwit! Where are you going?”
He turned to me, his face pale in the light of his torch. His lips moved, but if he said anything, I didn’t hear it. Right about then, someone yanked me off my feet and dragged me up and across a saddle. Upside down, I caught a glimpse of blue-jeaned leg and a battered leather scabbard. Cal.
He rode away from the flames, and I was well-chilled by the time he set me on my feet several yards past the crossroads. He dismounted beside me while I grabbed stirrup leather and tried not to look as unsteady as I felt.
He gripped my shoulders, eyes scouring me for signs of injury. “Are you all right?”
I nodded, glad the early twilight hid my face. “How about Goldman?”
“He’s okay. One of the refugees snagged Doc’s mare and went out with me to get him. What spooked them? Was it the fire?”
I shook my head. “They were scared of the fire, but they were working out how to get around it when they… they just took off.”
“Except for the one you shot.”
He looked down the slope to where one of our new acquaintances led the exhausted wagon team back toward the crossroads. Beyond them the dying flames cast a strange glow over the meadow. You could still see the single corpse lying there, solid, unmoving… still smoking.
Cal turned, started to mount up again.
I grabbed his arm. “Where’re you going?”
“I want to know what that was, don’t you?”
“Not especially.”
He looked down at me, rain dripping down his cheeks, matting his hair to his head. “I’m sorry, Colleen. You didn’t really have a choice, though, did you? It would’ve killed Doc if you hadn’t shot it.”
I waved that aside. “Forget it. Let’s get these people off the road before those sons of bitches come back.”
There was just enough room in our covered wagon for our new friends. Cal had carried the kids a ways up the road and stashed them in an outcropping of rocks. That was where we loaded everyone up, lit every lantern and torch we had between us, and headed for Grave Creek. We hadn’t gone far when the dog showed up, exhausted but grinning in canine bliss. He rode in the back, behind the driver’s box, and panted happily in my ear.
The obvious leader of our refugees was a white-haired guy with a young face and glacier-blue eyes. His name was Jim-Jim Gossett. The pregnant woman was his wife, Emily. Two of the kids were theirs-a boy and a girl. The oldest girl belonged to the other couple-Stan and Felicia Beecher. Stan’s leg was splinted, broken when they’d lost their wagon to what Jim’s boy, Gil, called “pirates.” That explained how they came to be wandering the outback so ill-equipped.