Barnes snapped off a hard salute and broke away from the men.
When Folsom slid from his horse’s saddle and landed, it was with remarkable agility. “Sergeant Fowler?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Take your squad and ride a circuit around this cesspool. I want to know how many Indians are here and why they are here.”
“Yes, sir!”
A moment later the commander of the Seventh Battalion strutted toward one of the only solid structures he could find in the town. It was two stories of wood rot and sagging boards, but it was an actual building and that had to stand for something. The man who walked beside him was not Indian, yet he was not a proper white man, either. He said he was from China. All Folsom knew for certain was that Chi Chul Song was a better tracker than anyone else he’d met and that the fellow worked hard for a small wage. He did not speak to Song and the Chinaman returned the favor, but Folsom was happier with the man beside him than he was without. Song stood next to him with his muscular arms crossed over his broad chest and continued to say nothing while Folsom commandeered the Silver Springs Hotel for himself and his soldiers.
Lucas Slate felt the tugging at his body and soul like iron shavings might feel the pull from a magnet just exactly too far away to make them move. He could have resisted, but part of him did not want to. Part of him wanted this, needed to know what was behind the silent summons. What bothered him was he couldn’t decide if that part was what he liked to think of as himself, or as the thing that was changing him. There had been a time when he could tell the difference with ease, but familiarity was not being kind to him.
What had once been a distant voice inside his soul was now a part of him, much as he hated the notion. The endless whispering influence that had already changed his body was now better positioned for chipping away at his mind. He still knew who he was, but recent events argued that he might not stay that way too much longer.
One nameless town, one odd beastie — odd enough that Crowley had never heard of it before — and the thing inside him had taken over, nearly drowning him in the dark waters of his mind. The change had happened so quickly that he couldn’t fight it off. One moment he was himself and the next something else had controlled his actions. It had worked out to the benefit of Slate and Crowley alike, but it had put a strain on their relationship, and though Crowley did his best to act as if nothing was different, Slate’s mother hadn’t raised any fools.
His horse clomped along as calmly as ever. The dogs in the area, and there were a goodly number of strays, barked and raged and backed away. The horse didn't care. It wasn’t really a horse anymore, of course. It had been snakebit a while back, when he and Crowley were in the middle of the badlands. The horse had reared up and run a hundred yards and then fallen on its side. By the time he’d reached the thing, it was dying. The muscles in its body were shuddering and the beast was soaked in sweat, surely as good as dead. Crowley had come along, moving at a leisurely pace. He’d stopped long enough to shoot the snake dead and then followed, but the look on his lean face said he knew what Slate knew: the horse was a goner.
And for only an instant, that dark whispering voice that seldom spoke loudly enough to be noticed on a conscious level had reached out and taken control. Slate had leaned down and grabbed the dying horse’s head, wrenching it roughly around until the animal’s open mouth was aimed at his face. He’d leaned down and exhaled a powerful breath into the horse’s mouth and then held it closed with his hand.
He stayed that way until the animal shuddered and then shook him off. A minute, perhaps two, and the horse was up and fine and Crowley was looking at him with a calm that was even worse than the man’s damnable smile.
Something needed to be done about what was happening inside Slate’s body and his soul. He had no idea what that something might be, but he believed with every fiber of his being that the answers were somewhere near him, somewhere in this place. Just then he saw the palest man he had ever seen. Deathly white, actually. An Indian, that was obvious, but there was nothing natural about his hue or his demeanor. The man walked past him in the middle of a crowd, hunched over to the point where he looked easily a foot shorter than he should have. He had a shawl drawn over his head and if Slate hadn’t felt that something was wrong, he’d likely have dismissed the shape as an old squaw.
The face that peered from under that shawl was drawn and ancient, thin and angular. The eyes were hidden in shadow, but he could feel them scrutinizing him just the same. The man stood up quickly and let the old cloth fall from his head and his shoulders, dropping it to the ground. Around them, most of the people paid no mind, but every Indian backed away as surely as if they’d been hit with boiling water. A few of them screamed, to boot.
When he smiled, it was worse than Crowley’s. He spoke words that were not English. Slate should not have been able to understand them, but he did.
The old man said, “I know you.”
Slate shook his head. He spoke in English but knew the man understood every word. “I have never met you before. I’d remember you.”
“You will know me better soon.”
It was at that moment the Cavalry riders broke through the crowd. Slate had been so busy looking at the pale man that he’d lost track of everything else. The soldiers came on horses trained to bull their way through crowds. One of them had an old Indian woman by the wrist and was dragging her along beside him. Another had rope around the wrists of three younger women, also Indians, who were crying and trying to keep up with the rider and his horse.
Slate felt that other presence slither through his mind, but did not take the time to pay it any attention. He had other concerns. He was not fond of men who mishandled women. As a half-breed himself, he didn’t much care what race they were.
He rode his horse four paces toward the first of the riders and allowed himself a very small grin of satisfaction when the horse reared up and threw the rider. The horse didn’t like Slate’s mount. Most animals didn't. As he rode forward a little more the rest of the horses grew skittish and backed up, despite their riders’ urgings. The first of the soldiers looked up from where he’d landed on his tail end and glowered at Slate. Slate looked back down and kept his face deliberately expressionless.
“Watch where you’re going, you damn fool,” the soldier said. The old woman backed into the crowd as the soldier stood. Slate supposed he should have known the man’s rank in the Cavalry, but he did not. He had never much cared for the soldiers he’d met and the feeling had always been mutual.
“I did nothing, sir, but continue on my way.”
The man had risen to his feet and was still scowling, at least until he saw Slate’s face a little better. As he shaved himself when he needed and looked at the changes in his features with a sick fascination, he knew what the man saw and that it was not particularly pretty.
“Well you’ve interfered in a military operation!”
“Wrangling squaws is a soldier’s business these days?” Slate kept his voice as calm and soft as ever. Oh, he’d been riding with Crowley far too long. “I’d have thought you might actually try to find a few braves to fight instead of simply stealing their women.”
“Get off of that horse, you bastard. You’ll be coming with us.”
Slate looked at him for a long moment and rested his hand on the grip of his rifle. “As I am neither a squaw nor a brave, I believe I will stay exactly where I am.”
In the distance the other cavalrymen had managed to calm their horses — while successfully moving several feet back — and were carefully watching what happened. Apparently the man who dragged old women around was in charge.