Then it came for Malone.
The wind and lightning and rain had drowned out its approach and kept the men in their warm beds, but when a locomotive flies a hundred yards through the air and lands hard on the ground, it makes a good bit of noise. A few sleepy-eyed, tough-skinned laborers began stumbling out of their tents.
Malone could smell steel breath and squinted against the iron filings that were spit his way. Taking a deep breath, he spoke in a voice as large as any the clouds overhead could muster:
“WHOA!”
That brought the iron monster up short for just an instant, more startled than intimidated. It was long enough for Malone to take aim and fling the two handsful of colored sand he held. Somehow, in spite of the wind and rain, that sand stayed compacted long enough to strike the broad iron chest.
Without pausing to see if he’d thrown true, Malone began to recite in booming tones:”Hey-ah-hey-hey, ah-wha-tey-ah, hey-hey-oh-ta-hoh-neh,” and added for good, if unscholarly, measure: “Now git!”
A few shouts sounded dimly from those workers awake enough to see something towering over the camp there in the rain, but by the time they reached the place where Malone stood standing, hands on hips, staring off into the storm, the mountain man was all alone.
“What happened, mister?” one man yelled.
Another stuck his head into the foreman’s tent. “Mr. Dungannon? Mr. Dungannon, sir!” He emerged a moment later. “He ain’t here.”
“Who’re you?” Malone asked.
“Harold Sipes, sir. I’m tie and spike supervisor for this section of line. What the devil happened here, sir? I thought I saw something… something impossible.”
“That you did, Harold.”
“Where’s Mr. Dungannon?”
Malone turned back southward. He thought he could still hear a distant clanking through the wind, but he couldn’t be sure. His ears were full of rainwater and iron filings. “Mr. Dungannon told me he’s tired o’ the railroad business and that he’s gone south fer his health. Before he left, he did tell me one thing to pass on to his immediate subordinate. I guess that’d be you, Harold. He said to be sure to tell you t’ move the track a couple o’ miles east of here before you start northwest up toward the Salt River. Said to be sure the company stays well clear of those old ruins the Indians call the Big House.”
“He did?” The supervisor wiped water from his head. “He never said nothing like that to me before.”
“Mr. Dungannon took a sudden interest in the culture of the local people. It were his last wish before he left.”
Sipes looked uncertain. “Well, sir, I don’t know as how I have the authority to alter the recommendations of the survey.”
“Harold, remember what you think you saw out here when you came stumblin’ out o’ your warm bed? Somethin’ a mite impossible, you said?”
“Yes, I…” He paused and found himself staring into black eyes so deep that they just went right on through into that big hirsute head, never really stopping anywhere, just fading on and on into dark nothingness. “Actually, sir, maybe I didn’t see much of anything. It was awful dark. Still is. Leastwise, I don’t think I’d write my missus I saw it.”
“Or your superiors, either. They wouldn’t take well to such a tale, I think. Be a good idea to shift that line.”
“Um, maybe it would at that, sir. Now that you put it clear like you have, I expect it would be the sensible thing to do, especially seeing as how it was Mr. Dungannon’s last request.”
“Before he left to go south,” Malone added.
“Yes, sir. Before he left to go south. I’ll see to it.”
“Good man, Sipes.” Malone turned from him. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a date with a clean bed and new linen. But first I’ve got to run down my fool horse.” He gestured toward two holes in the ground nearby, now half-full of water. “Went and took off with the whole damn hitchin’ rail, he did.”
Sipes glanced at the holes and smiled. “Not arguing with you, mister, but there ain’t a horse alive strong enough to pull that hitching rail out of that rock. I saw them posts set in myself. There was talk of putting a small station here someday and they were put in to last.”
Malone was already wandering out of earshot, a sour expression on his face. “Then where d’you expect that rail’s got to, Harold? Worthless ain’t no normal horse.” As the rain began to close in around him, he raised his voice. “You hear that, you good-for-nothing, four-legged, useless hunk o’ coyote bait! Wait till I get my hands on you, you lily-livered, swaybacked equine coward!”
Supervisor Sipes listened until the falling rain swallowed up sight and sound of the mountain man. No, he thought, that wouldn’t be no normal horse, mister. And you sure ain’t no normal human being. Then he saw the torn-up section of track and wondered how the wind had done that, and then his eyes lit on the laying locomotive lying on its side like a dead mammoth a good hundred yards away, and he knew the wind hadn’t done that.
Then he thought back to what he’d half maybe glimpsed through the storm and decided it would be a good time to get back into bed under the covers where it was safe. But by now there might be scorpions crawled in there to get out of the rain, and he hesitated.
Until something far way, but not far enough away, went clank and the supervisor decided that for the remainder of this night, anyways, it would be smarter to bed down with the scorpions….
Witchen Woes
I think that once writers have decided to put the word “witch” into a story, they should be able to go in any direction they choose and produce something of interest. My wife introduced me to the fable of the kitchen witch, who keeps watch over that part of the home. But in my mind, “benign” and “witch” are not words that play well together.
What if a kitchen witch turns out to be more witch than kitchen? Worlds might not be at stake, empires might not tremble: after all, your average kitchen witch tends to run to the diminutive. But even a characteristically small one could, if so inclined, make a lot of trouble in a household. Malone always being ready to lend a helping hand, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant the problem, I thought I’d present him with a conundrum more irritating than earthshaking.
Not much of a problem, you might say. But then, it’s not your kitchen that’s under siege.
Amos Malone was sipping at his fourth whiskey when the distraught woman wandered into the saloon. Her mere presence served to indicate the degree of her distress, for no female citizen of good repute would enter a hard-core drinking establishment unescorted unless her motivation arose from intentions indecent or insane.
Her arrival distracted several pairs of eyes from cards, drinks, and the unwholesome hostesses who were the only other non-males present that afternoon in the Piccadilly. Several hands groped for her, and her country prettiness provoked more than one lascivious proposal. She ran the gauntlet of hopeful debauchery as she searched the crowd for someone in particular, twisting out of one grasp after another, skirt and hair flying, yanking her shawl free of the grimy, rum-slick fingers that clutched at it.
One ex-miner was more persistent (or less drunk and therefore more accurate) than the rest, for he soon had her in a firm grip with both hands. “Now, don’t be so contrary, little lady.” He leaned close and spoke with breath that was borderline flammable. “Howsabout a little kiss?”