The Dead of Winter

TWO



From atop Our Lady of Virginia, Cora Oglesby surveyed what remained of the scene. Above them, the noonday sun filtered through the evergreens, dappling the mare's chestnut coat. Our Lady snorted and flicked an ear. Despite the marshal's warnings of carnage, both horse and rider were unconcerned by the clearing spread out before them.

Then again, there wasn't much to be concerned about.

Cora pounded the saddle horn and cursed. "That Mart Duggan is a damn fool," she said.

"How's that?" Ben asked, nudging his gelding up beside her to see for himself.

"If he'd led us out here when we first asked him to, there might have been something to see," she said. "A trail of blood, or footprints, or some leftover guts, or something. But no, he has us sit in our hotel room a full week while he runs our story past that good-for-nothing sheriff Jim Barnes. 'Can't associate with no criminals,' he says while he lets the real monster just slip away."

"No use worrying about that now," Ben said.

"I'll fret about it if I want to." Cora sighed and dismounted.

She gave Our Lady a pat on the neck, then looked up at her husband. "Don't fall asleep, now."

Ben nodded. Cora pulled her rifle from the saddle scabbard and stepped toward the clearing. Scavengers had picked the area clean, leaving only a few rust-colored stains behind. She made a full circle around the area without finding much of anything. Another sigh filled the cold air around her. If only they could have gotten here sooner. Still, even with the scavenger's tracks, she could tell that nothing big enough to kill the wolfers had been through the clearing. It was as if the men just vanished in a bloody mist.

She was intrigued.

A crow's call broke the silence. Cora scowled up at the interruption. The black bird perched about fifteen feet above her head, its feathers gleaming in a patch of sunlight. It crowed again, turning to stare at her through one beady black eye. She considered blowing the smug look off of its face with her rifle, then thought better of it. Her bullets were too valuable to waste on animals, no matter how irritating they might be.

Rocks, however, were much cheaper. She slipped the rifle into her shoulder scabbard, knelt down and began digging through the snow. She rejected several stones before finding one that felt right. Standing up, she was glad to see that the offending bird hadn't moved from its perch. She smiled and drew her arm back, ready to see feathers fly, when she noticed something.

"Hey, Ben," she said over her shoulder, "come have a look at this."

Ben tossed his reins onto a nearby branch and walked up next to her. "What am I looking at?"

Cora pointed at the crow's perch. The branch the bird sat on was broken, jutting out from the pine's trunk like a snapped bone. From what she could see, the break was still white and clean. A single black feather drifted down and settled on the snow at the tree's base. Acting on instinct, Cora walked over and picked it up. It was about as long as her gloved hand and boasted a glossy sheen, but there wasn't anything unusual about it.

Frustrated, she let the feather drop from her fingers. It floated off to her left, lighting on a branch sticking out from the snow. Cora's brow furrowed as she leaned down for a closer look. The scent of pine sap drifted up to meet her from the fresh break in the wood. She lifted the branch out of the drift, grunting from the effort. Shaking the snow from its needles, she hoisted it upright and leaned it against the tree's trunk. The branch was nearly as tall as she was and too thick for the fingers of one hand to wrap around.

"Here's this," she said.

Ben came over to inspect the branch. After a few moments, he nodded to himself. "Something broke this off, and it wasn't no snowfall. Limb's too thick for that." Looking back up at the bird, he took an estimate of the height, then looked back toward the clearing. Smiling, he nodded again. "I reckon our killer was perched right up there, just waiting for those poor fools to wander too close."

Cora crouched down, turning the broken branch this way and that. "Sure didn't leave much by way of sign. Ain't no claw marks or hairs or nothing."

"Guess that means it wasn't no werewolf or hellhound," Ben said.

"That's too bad," Cora said. "I was hoping for something easy. All them dog monsters is alike: line them up and put them down. Hellhounds is our specialty, besides. How many have we bagged in all?"

"Half a dozen, I reckon."

"Well, we ain't adding to that count today." Straightening up, Cora made to brush her gloves on her coat when a white blob splattered on the branch in front of her. Startled, she took a step backward. The crow let out a satisfied croak, which she answered with a glare. Her hand dropped to her revolver when the bird took wing in a flurry of black. Her heart sank a little as she watched it disappear into the trees.

"We ain't killing nothing at this rate," Ben said, a smile spreading beneath his trim mustache. "You're too old and slow."

Cora glared at him. "I've bagged me more than my share of critters, thank you kindly."

"Guess we're lucky none of them was evil birds." He dodged the punch she aimed at him, his blue eyes sparkling.

"Well, fine," Cora said, crossing her arms. "We got us an escaped crow and a broken branch with no good reason for being broken. Ain't much to go on, but we've made do with less." Her brown eyes swept over the clearing once more, then she nodded. "Let's get on back to town."

Ben followed her back to the horses without a word. Our Lady whinnied as they approached, stretching her neck out for a pat. Cora obliged her and was rewarded with a snort of hot, moist air. She smiled, running her hand down the horse's mane before slipping the Winchester back into the saddle scabbard. She placed her boot in the stirrup and swung herself up. Our Lady tossed her head and nickered, but Cora didn't share her enthusiasm.

"What do you reckon that prickly marshal will have to say when we tell him we ain't got nothing?" she asked.

Ben sighed through his nose. "Five dollars says he'll run us out of town."

"I'll make it ten."

"Think we still ought to find this critter even if he does?"

Cora shook her head. "He can rot along with his little town," she said. "He's already wasted a week of our time. We ought to head for Carson City or somewhere without all this damn snow."

Cora pulled on the reins, turning Our Lady away from the clearing. They trotted through the trees until they reached the meadow. Squinting against the blinding glare of the sun, it took her a few moments to spot the mountain Marshal Duggan had pointed out to her. She finally picked it out, its peak thrusting toward the blue sky like a crooked gunsight. Mount Something-or-Other, her guide back to the silver boom town of Leadville, Colorado.

Pulling her bandana over her nose, she lifted her boots on either side of Our Lady to give her a kick when she paused. Her breath warmed her face and neck, but she could feel a chill creeping into her fingers through her gloves. She glanced skyward and held her hands out beneath the sun. Clenching her fists a few times, she tried to drive the cold out, but it persisted. She could feel it flowing up toward her elbows. Her fingers became hard to move, a feeling which always gave her a slight panic. Cold fingers meant a slow draw and a slow trigger, and neither was good for staying alive.

Ben rode up beside her. "What's wrong?"

Cora held up her hand, and he fell silent. She pulled the Colt revolver from her belt and cocked the hammer. Turning her head, she looked back into the mess of evergreens. The sunlight still fell in patches through gaps in the branches. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, but the chill in her blood kept moving. It was past her elbows now, working its way up to her shoulders. Uneasy, she lifted her gaze toward the treetops, sifting through the branches with her keen brown eyes. The blue sky winked at her from between clusters of green needles. Her fingers began to throb, the chill digging in toward her bones.

A sudden breeze pulled at her hat and caused Our Lady to shift her weight. Cora felt the horse roll and pitch beneath her, but her gaze never left the trees. The branches were swaying with the wind, but something didn't look right. Deep in the maze of prickly limbs, she could see a gray shadow in the branches that lagged behind the motion of the trees. She couldn't make out a recognizable shape at this distance, but that hardly mattered. Maybe it was a bird or a confused bear, or maybe it was something else. Whatever it was, she blamed it for the unnatural chill in her veins.

Forcing her cold arms into action, she leveled her revolver at the shadow. It was a long shot for a pistol, but she didn't want to waste time pulling out the Winchester. The pain in her fingers made it hard to hold the gun steady. She gripped her gun arm with her other hand and closed one eye, sighting down the barrel. The gunshot clapped her ears and rolled through the winter forest. Our Lady flinched at the noise. The kickback stung Cora's fingers, but she forced her thumb to pull the hammer back a second time.

When the smoke cleared, the gray shape had vanished from the branch. Cora's eyes darted to the base of the tree. Nothing. Keeping her gun raised, she checked the surrounding trees. Seconds passed, but the only movement was the breeze through the branches. Her gun hand began tingling. Looking down, she flexed her fingers around the grip. They were still cold, but feeling was returning.

"Did you see anything?" Ben asked.

Cora replied with a shrug. She holstered her revolver, turned her back on the forest and punched Our Lady's sides with her heels. The mare sprang into motion. Ben spurred his own horse after her, giving the trees one last look as they rode across the meadow.

"Refresh my memory, marshal. What time did you and your deputy find that clearing again?"

Mart Duggan looked up from the newspaper, annoyed to find this woman standing in his office. Where the hell was Sanchez? Why hadn't he stopped her from barging in like this? Looking past her into the front room of the station, he could see the deputy's boots propped up on the desk. If Victor wasn't asleep yet, he would be in the next fifteen minutes. Duggan cursed under his breath and looked back at the strange woman, his patience that much shorter.

"Sometime in the morning," he answered.

"I remember that part." Cora helped herself to the chair facing the marshal. "But how early or late was it?"

Duggan folded the paper in a messy heap and leaned his elbows on the desk. "Early. No more than an hour past sunup."

Cora's brow furrowed. "You're sure? It wasn't still night?"

"Yes, I'm sure, Mrs Oglesby. Jack and I was following up on a report we got first thing that morning. Somebody had been out on a morning ride when they came across that spot and high-tailed it back to town to tell us about it."

"Who was it that told you about it?"

"Bill Hicks."

"Who's Bill Hicks?"

The marshal leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. "Look, Mrs Oglesby, I ought to thank you for being so eager to look into this for me, but I ain't got time to discuss the townsfolk with you. I'm a busy man, and Leadville is a busy town. Until you got any real results for me, please leave me to my business."

"Is that right?" Cora stomped her boots on the floor.

"It is."

"Well then, it just so happens that I may have caught me a glimpse of your culprit."

The marshal picked up the newspaper. "What did he look like?"

"Can't say, really," Cora replied. "It wasn't a very good glimpse."

"So it wasn't the spook you thought it was, then?" Duggan said, not looking up.

"I ain't the only one who thinks it's a spook. Your deputy Jack thinks the same as me."

"I can't help hiring idiots from time to time."

Cora snorted a laugh through her nose. "Seems to me you can't help being one, either."

Duggan's boots slammed on the wooden floor as he stood to his feet, the newspaper scattering. He planted one hand on his desk and pointed the other in her face. "Now you listen to me! You and your husband is only here because Sheriff Barnes thinks you're worth a damn. If I had my way, you'd have till sundown to clear out of my town before I ran you out. It still ain't settled in my mind that you ain't drifters looking to turn a quick dollar before moving on to some other fool town. Lord help you if that's true. I won't stand to be made a fool of."

Cora let him finish, a small grin playing at the corners of her mouth. "Ain't no fool I've ever met that needed help being made, marshal. I know you got to keep this town together, and that ain't no mean feat. Last time I was through here, why, you could have thrown a stone from one end of town to the other without hitting a single head. Now the only thing you got more of than saloons and brothels is the miners that use them."

The marshal's finger sank to his desk as she talked, and she took that as her cue to stand. "As I said before, we're looking to make your life a bit easier," she said. "You're a right fine lawman, but you're green when it comes to handling any sort of monsters. Me and Ben happen to be experts in that area, and as experts, we're fixing to lend you our expertise. If you choose not to take it, that's your business. We'll be on our way, no hard feelings. You and that sleepy Mexican in the front room and all your other little deputies can have this town to yourselves."

"But." She planted her own palms on the desk and leaned toward the marshal until their hats touched. "When that thing in the woods finishes picking them wolfers out of its teeth, you can bet your badge it'll come back for more. Creatures like that can't never get their fill. If it can't find any idiots like them wolfers out in the forest, it'll start prowling around your streets. Pretty soon, you'll hear stories of lonely miners disappearing between brothels. Maybe that vaquero out there won't show up one morning." She grinned at him, her brown eyes colder than the frost on the windows. "Could be your office here ends up looking like that clearing, only instead of you cleaning up some unlucky saps, it's your wife cleaning strips of you off the windows."

Cora straightened up and rested her right hand on the hilt of her cavalry saber. "Of course, your monster could take a fancy to none of that. Maybe killing the wolfers was a one-time thing. I wouldn't bet an entire town on it, but it ain't my town. Ain't no piss in my soup if Leadville gets torn apart and dragged to hell bit by bit. Me and Ben can kill this thing for you, but not without your help. So it's your call, marshal."

Duggan stood silent for a moment. This woman had a way of getting under his skin that few could manage. The hot-headed Leadville marshal was known for his temper, but it usually took longer than a few minutes to whip him up into a fury. A self-proclaimed woman spook hunter with enough lip to call him a fool in his own office was a new thing for him, and he hated every bit of it.

Her words unsettled him down to his bones, though he would never admit it. In his four years as Leadville marshal, he'd jailed more than his fair share of ruffians, rowdies, and crooks. Most were drunk enough that a good smack on the head and a night behind bars would clear them up, but he'd settled a few high-profile troublemakers as well. He'd even faced down the mayor a time or two, refusing to let a rich friend of his walk free until the man sobered up. Duggan feared no man, but what this woman described wasn't a man, and he knew it. As much as he hated to even think it, he couldn't pistol-whip something that could shred two grown men in seconds and disappear without a trace. He could shoot it, maybe, but one of the wolfers had done the same thing and ended up dead anyway.

He rose to his full height and looked across his desk at this strange bounty hunter. Duggan was not a tall man, and his eyes were level with hers. As she said, there was a chance that this thing would keep to the woods or even move elsewhere, but he didn't trust the notion. What he had seen in the clearing had been the work of something savage. He'd never heard of the animal that was satisfied with just a taste of human blood. Bears, wolves, and cougars all became regular man-killers once they'd whetted their appetites for a man's flesh. That thing out there wasn't any of those, but it was an animal just the same. Better than any of them, when it came right down to it. More dangerous. If this woman wanted to throw herself in its way, he shouldn't try to stop her. If she actually managed to kill the thing, so much the better.

"All right," he said at last, extending his hand. "You got yourself a deal."

Cora took his hand and shook it, another grin bearing the gap in her front teeth. "Glad to see you ain't a fool after all."

"That Duggan is a damned fool."

A loud bang echoed in the hotel room as Cora slammed the door behind her. Ben was stretched out on the bed with a book in front of him, a kerosene lamp casting its dim light over his shoulder. He didn't look up or even flinch at the sound of the slamming door.

"Why is that?" he asked.

"I had to sit in his office and tell him that his own wife would be cleaning his guts off his windows before he could bring himself to help us out." Cora's boots thudded her indignation into the worn hide rug as she walked across the room. She set her pistol on the wooden table that stood between the room's two windows and rolled her head around on her shoulders. "Seems to me that a man with any kind of sense would be begging us to chase that thing off after seeing the clearing."

"Didn't seem that bad to me."

"Sure, when we was there," she said, sitting down and pulling off her boots. "Critters had picked it pretty clean by then. Not much left to go on."

"Then what did you shoot at?" Ben finally looked up from his book.

"A gray something hiding itself up in the trees."

The book's spine crackled as Ben closed it. "So you did see something."

Cora told him of the strange shadow she'd seen in the trees and of the chill she'd felt. When she finished, he leaned his head back against the headboard and smoothed down his mustache.

"Ring any bells?" she asked.

Ben shook his head. "Can't say it does. I've never heard of something that can cause a chill like that."

"Sure wasn't no hellhound." Cora propped her feet up on the other chair. Ben nodded his agreement, his eyes tracing the thick pine logs that framed the room.

Cora's gaze settled on her toes, and she gave each set a stretch. Like the rest of her feet, they were thick and hard from long years trapped in boots. The second toe on each foot stuck out beyond the others, the nails worn small. When she was a little girl, her father had told her that having long middle toes meant she was born to ride. Their tiny farm on the Shenandoah hadn't housed more than the two horses needed to plow the furrows. They were big and thick with shaggy brown hair, four-legged giants in her young eyes, but they weren't for riding. Her father had promised that he'd make enough one day to buy her a real riding horse. Then he'd show her how to sit and ride like a real lady, he said.

Of course, that was before the blue coats had come through the valley and burned them out, leaving nothing but blackened earth behind them. She had been a young woman then, gangly and freckled, not the pretty Southern belle she had pictured herself growing into when her father had made his promise.

"Don't seem like a hell beast to me," Ben said, pulling her out of her thoughts.

"What do you mean? Anything that can whip two wolfers that quick sure ain't no angel."

"Course not, but most of the things old Hades spits out have the feel of that place about them, you know? All fire and flames and pain, like the good book says. That unnatural chill you felt out there don't sound like Hell to me."

"Well, maybe Hell has a patch of cold for those that enjoy the warm," Cora said. "Folks living out in Carson City or Santa Fe wouldn't be all that uncomfortable in the regular parts of Hell, and that ain't no kind of punishment. Maybe Lucifer made some part of his kingdom like Montana in the winter-time to put them off their feed."

"Could be," Ben said. "Still, you'd think the good Lord would've mentioned something like that if it was so."

"If the good Lord wanted us to be prepared for everything in life, He'd have put us in the womb with one of these." Cora picked up her Colt from the table, admiring the nickel shine in the lamplight. She wore her holster cross-style, the butt of the gun pointing toward her right arm from the front of her left hip. Every now and again, some pudding-headed cowboy would call her out for it, saying she carried like a Mexican whore instead of a proper white woman. Most of the time, she was too involved with a card game or a glass of whiskey to pay them much notice, but they'd sometimes catch her in a foul temper and end up in the street with a fresh bruise. If they were still sore about it, she'd challenge them to a shooting contest. Used to be that she could win a month's wages with a few rounds, but her reputation started calling ahead of her, turning the gunmen yellow about facing her. Not much of a loss, really. She and Ben were set for cash from the jobs they did, and the quiet left her more time for gambling. Hearsay still couldn't keep the occasional young buck from trying to make a name for himself by besting her in a match, though.

"I doubt even the Lord's rich enough to give every new baby a silver shooter," Ben said, picking up his book.

"Good thing He ain't, or we'd have to settle for regular work like tilling a farm or digging in a mountain somewhere."

Ben grunted in agreement. "Speaking of, did that marshal say anything useful?"

"Mentioned some feller named Bill Hicks. Said he was the one that told him and the deputy about the killings that morning. Seems this Hicks is one of those retired miner types, like old Jules Bartlett from a few years back."

"Which one was he?"

"He's the one that made Sheriff Jim Barnes jump out of his boots for fear of vampires last time we was through here."

"That's right," Ben said. His memory was sharp except when it came to names. "Took a liking to lurking around at night for his meat instead of during the day like most folk. Good thing he had himself that full beard, or you'd have shot him for a vampire anyway."

"Hunting at night ain't natural for any folk except the unnatural ones."

"You damn near pulled that beard off the poor ass when you dragged him in to the sheriff."

"Shouldn't have been about at that hour, plain and simple," Cora said with a small shrug. The revolver clicked as she turned the cylinder with her fingers. "He's damn lucky we found him before something else did. Never did thank us for that, now that I think about it."

"Thank us?" Ben raised an eyebrow as he looked at her. "He looked right ready to put his pick through your hat with your head still in it."

Cora could still see the miner's face, his eyes blazing above his gray beard as he stood next to her at the door of the sheriff's station. The sheriff himself was disheveled, having been roused from a good sleep by the pounding on his door. When he opened up, Cora had Jules Bartlett in one hand and the miner's big Henry rifle in the other. Marching past the bewildered lawman, she had set the rifle on the desk before propping the miner up like a prize stag.

Jules had balked when Cora told the sheriff she'd found his vampire, but Jim Barnes looked as though he couldn't decide whether to laugh or apologize. The miner's confusion turned to anger, and he'd demanded that Barnes arrest her for making sport of him. Cora had laughed at that notion, telling the old man that he was lucky she'd left Ben with the horses or he'd have laid him out for such talk. Both men flushed red, and Cora had left them to it after telling the sheriff she'd settle accounts with him the next morning.

"All the same, I reckon we should look him up and get our due gratitude," she said. "For all he knew, Barnes could have been right about a vampire in the area. A sucker would've made a short meal of that old codger, though I'm not sure it would've bothered. He didn't look like he had more than a pint of blood in the whole of himself."

Ben nodded. He was sinking back into his book when a thought hit him, bringing his head up again. "Maybe Barnes was right all along and we just dragged in the wrong fool. What if there is a real vampire around here, and it's started acting up again? Think a vampire could've done those wolfers in?"

"Not a chance," Cora replied, shaking her head. "A vampire could've done that kind of damage, sure, but the sign was all wrong. Wouldn't do one any good to spill that much blood on the ground. Besides, that fool marshal said the bodies was torn to bits, so much that he couldn't find anything recognizable. Vampires usually leave shriveled stiffs behind, all curled up and panicky-looking."

"At least until the dead folk start moving around again," Ben said. "Still, maybe this is some new kind of vampire."

"They is all the same from what I've seen. Savage, mindless blood-suckers the lot of them. Remind me of them Yankees, to be honest."

"Couldn't be because the first vampire we killed was wearing a Union jacket," Ben said, his blue eyes alight with amusement.

"Well, can't say I was surprised the Union had actual monsters working with the human ones in their army. Damn shame we can't blame their tactics on the undead, but there ain't no vampire that can make battle plans."

"Can't imagine what would happen if there was," Ben said. "We would have a serious problem on our hands."

"Well, that's one of the advantages the good Lord does give us, I guess. He may not see fit to give us all peacemakers and blessed silver bullets, but at least He gave us the brains to make them." She replaced her Colt on the table. Looking out the window, she considered the remaining daylight, then she turned to her husband. "Sun's about set for the night, meaning a shift of miners will be coming through the Pioneer soon. I've a mind to go fleece them for their earnings and get me a few drinks in the meantime. You up for a game?"

A smile bloomed beneath Ben's mustache. "Think I'll stay in. You know I hate to watch you lose half our money in a single night. Besides, one of us needs to come up with a plan for tracking this monster down, and I don't reckon the king of hearts will have any good ideas."

Cora picked up one of her boots and threw it at him. He caught it in one hand without looking up from his book, the grin never leaving his lips. She pulled the other boot over her toes, then step-thumped her way over to the bed and held out her hand. Ben dropped the boot on her palm and looked up at her. She returned his smile as she put the boot on, then leaned over and kissed his forehead.