Blood Riders (10 page)

Chapter Fifteen

H
ollister needed to walk. It was getting close to midnight. Winchester had left a couple of hours ago, after giving them a dizzying array of weapons, and Chee had remained behind at the . . . Hollister couldn’t think of anything else to call it but headquarters. It was far more than a warehouse or storage depot. The upper level, reached by a stairway, had rooms for all of them as well as a kitchen, sitting room, and armory.

Jonas was confused. There was obviously money and power behind Pinkerton, Van Helsing, Winchester, and the others. He wondered if the setup was for him specifically or just something set in motion that he happened to be a part of. He was going after some deadly things, these vampires, as Van Helsing had called them. Looking at everything that had gone into preparing him for the task, he still couldn’t help but feel a little bit like cannon fodder.

He walked on, fingering his Colts. Winchester had concentrated mostly on long guns during his demonstrations, but his gunsmiths had made some modifications to an array of pistols as well. They had been similarly altered and now could fire a multitude of ammunition. Some of the bullets had small holes drilled into them, the hole filled with holy water and then sealed with wax. One of the most interesting weapons, besides the “Ass-Kicker,” of course, had been a large-bore single-barrel shotgun that shot a net weighted down with lead balls attached to its edges. It deployed in the air and could capture a man or a beast “with apparent ease,” as Winchester had put it. Hollister snorted at the word
ease
. He didn’t think there would be anything easy about catching any of these monsters.

Hollister couldn’t help but laugh at that. But he could see the tactical applications of the weapon.

He drew the Colt on his right hip and tested the weight of it in his hands. It felt good to him and he realized again how much he had missed his former life. He missed the army, guns, and sabers, and the trappings of being an officer. Commanding men and fighting and even the rigid structure of the army had been his passion, and he had longed for it.

The Colt slipped back into its slot on the tooled leather holster he’d been given. He had made sure the belt was full of extra rounds, and two speed loaders were strapped securely to each leg. When it came to facing down whatever he’d met on that hillside so many years before, he knew he wanted as much firepower as he could muster.

A light misting of rain started to fall. He felt all jangled up and jumpy and put it off to the fact that until yesterday, he’d been in a jail cell. Walking around like this made him feel out of sorts. Like most cities though, Denver had a rowdy part of town close to the rail yard, and before long he heard noise and pianos and banjos playing from a variety of saloons. He kept going. Denver was a place he’d never visited, and he couldn’t see much of it at night, but the freedom of walking, the fresh air, and even the rain felt good.

Before long, he had passed by the saloons and whorehouses and into a quieter place again, lined with shops and businesses long closed at this hour. Jonas wasn’t sure when he felt the first prickle of alarm along his neck. Growing up, working on the farm, going to West Point, the constant marching and drilling had kept him fit and he moved quietly and well, even when there was no reason to do so. He had learned on the plains that noise could mean death. And when he reached the next street corner, he left the wooden walkway and stepped out onto the dirt street, his strides much quieter in the rain soaked ground.

He meandered across the street at a long angle, pulling back his duster and resting both hands on his pistols. When he reached the walkway, he paused momentarily, pretending he was unsure which direction to take. In the few seconds of quiet, he heard the clump of a boot on wood and the squeak of leather coming from across the street. Not reacting, he stepped carefully up on the wooden sidewalk and walked on. It was dark, and whoever followed him would have a hard time seeing him fingering his Colts. Unless of course, whoever was watching had excellent night vision—inhuman vision—like one of those things.

“Jesus,” he muttered to himself. “Snap out of it, Hollister. No goddamn ‘vampire’ is going to jump you right in the middle of Denver.”

Yet his grip on the Colts remained firm.

He strolled silently down the street, stepping as lightly as he could, pretending to be interested in the shop windows dimly illuminated by the gaslight street lamps. At the next intersection, he turned the corner and put his back against the wall. He drew the Colt from his right holster and waited, counting to ten. Then, removing his hat with his other hand so as not to cast a shadow, he leaned forward and peered around the corner.

Nothing.

Or something.

For a moment, he could have sworn he saw a black-clad figure dart into the alleyway two blocks back the way he had come. The movement was so quick, he wasn’t sure he had seen it and he would have discounted it immediately but for the flash of blond hair. Long blond hair, and wearing a black duster. Now he was sure of it. Without moving, and scarcely breathing, he scanned the street but caught sight of nothing else.

Four years of prison had dulled Hollister’s sense of smell. He was used to the stink of unwashed men and the other disgusting smells of daily prison life. But men who reeked of cologne were another matter. He spun around, bringing his gun hand up, putting the Colt almost on the nose of a tall, thin man wearing a black Stetson, with a scraggly beard over a pockmarked face. The man didn’t flinch, barely moved a muscle in fact, and Hollister found that odd. He moved his hand to his other gun when he saw the dim shadows of three other men behind the first one.

“A very good way to get yourself killed, sneaking up like that,” Hollister said.

The man barely shrugged and asked, “Your name Hollister?” Jonas thought he had a voice like a saw on wood, but so far Jonas had moved the Colt an inch closer and the man barely acknowledged it.

“Who wants to know?” he said. And just so each of them understood he was not in the mood for games, he drew back the hammer on the gun. The click sounded like a cannon shot in the quiet street.

“Mister, I’m raising my hands up real slow. And I’d appreciate if you’d drop the hammer on that smoke wagon real gentle-like. You got the jump on me for sure. It ain’t right, me coming up on you like this in the dark, and I’m sorry fer it.” The man slowly lifted his arms until they were bent at the elbows, his hands floating near his shoulders, the move so nonchalant that Jonas began to worry one of those creatures had found him after all. He kept the gun cocked.

“Mighty generous of you,” he said. “Who are you and what do you want?”

“Name is Slater. These fellas here work fer me. And I work fer a man who’d like to talk to you,” Slater said.

“The man have a name?”

“You ever hear of a senator named Declan? James Declan?” Slater asked, his preternatural calm beginning to unnerve Jonas somewhat.

“No,” he lied.

“Well, I reckon you ain’t from around here, then. What matters is he’s a-heard o’ you and he’d like to talk to you. Right quick-like,” Slater said.

“What about?” Hollister asked.

“Don’t reckon I know. Just do what I’m told. Just like you, if you are Major Jonas Hollister, United States Army. That is you, ain’t it?” Slater asked, his dark eyes darting momentarily as if his knowledge of Jonas’s identity had given him some temporary advantage.

“No dice,” Hollister said. “I don’t take orders from you or any so-called senators. Especially not from ones who send gun hands to request my presence, sneaking up on me like a bunch of Kiowa. You’re damn lucky you didn’t lose your head. You tell the senator, if he wants to talk, Major Jonas Hollister will meet him at the Oriental Hotel tomorrow morning at nine
A.M.
sharp. You got that?”

“Listen, Mr. . . . Major Hollister, the senator, he’s an impatient man, he wants to talk to you tonight, and if I don’t . . .” Slater stopped talking when Hollister pushed the Colt forward till it rested directly on the tip of Slater’s nose.

“Tomorrow. Nine
A.M.
Oriental Hotel,” Hollister said. “Is that clear?”

Slater’s eyes changed then. Hollister had done a tour at a Fort in Florida right after the war and living there, he’d seen plenty of gators. Right then, Slater’s eyes reminded him of an alligator, dark and dangerous and peering out of the water, ready to snap.

Slowly and with great deliberation, Slater took a step back and then another. He kept his arms up. His voice was even more tense when he said, “Nine
A.M.
it is then.” He backed away a few more paces, then turned and walked up the street, his men following along. Hollister held the Colt ready until they turned the corner and disappeared.

Declan. How did he know Jonas was in Denver? Pinkerton had said no one knew except him, the president, and a few members of the Order. Obviously, that was no longer true. He slipped the Colt back into the holster, but not before peering around the side of the building again and looking for any sign of blond hair and a black leather duster. The street was empty.

He headed back the way he had come, eager to report this news to Chee and Pinkerton, wondering one thing with each step:
What in the hell was going on?

“Huh,” he muttered to himself.

S
haniah watched the altercation of the men in the Denver street from a rooftop. She had returned to Denver having lost Malachi’s trail again. She couldn’t understand how, but he was growing more and more devious and better able to hide his scent from her. What had he learned in his odyssey from their homeland? Was it the altitude? Unlikely, since they had lived in a high altitude in their homeland. Perhaps the air here was different in some way. Had he uncovered a solution to the natural Archaic fear of water and learned a new way to cross rivers and streams? Or had she lived so long in her high mountain stronghold she had just lost the skills of a hunter?

Then, out of nowhere, she had encountered the man from the Wyoming ridge four years earlier. It was a chance encounter since she had rented a room at a hotel near the tracks. It was not a high-class establishment; it was a place that would not draw attention, run by a Chinese family who asked few questions, but instinctively and respectfully feared her.

She caught his scent as he walked by and there was no doubt it was him: the tall, dark-haired soldier who had survived his encounter with Malachi so many years before. Though she seemed unable to keep Malachi in her sights, her Archaic senses had heightened enough in the months she had been in America, and in a matter of seconds, his walk, his smell, and even the sound of his voice, which she had heard carried on the wind, told her it was him.

Why was this man here? Back then she had traveled near Camp Sturgis and the mining camps at Deadwood a few weeks after Hollister had met his fate, and she’d heard people talking. A captain in the army had lost his platoon—to the Sioux—it was said, and had lied to cover it up. He was going to prison. Shaniah knew this is not what occurred, but understood that the soldier would have had a hard time convincing his human masters what had actually happened. Now the very same man was here in Denver.

Instinct told Shaniah it was not a coincidence. The man may have been released from prison, but with Malachi and his band having slaughtered the miners in the nearby camp, it was unlikely that he was here for another reason. America, she had learned, was too big a place, with too many other places to go. People were talking about what had happened at Torson City; word was leaking out that a survivor of the attack was telling wild tales of monsters and demons on the loose. A local powerful politician—the humans called him a senator—was trying to quell the panic, saying it was only a band of renegade Indians who had attacked the miners. If the soldier had heard these rumors, maybe he had come here seeking revenge. If that was true, the man was foolish.

Shaniah did not believe he was foolish though. She had learned never to make snap judgments. Especially when it came to humans. That day on the Wyoming ridge, the soldier had stood up to Malachi. He had been cautious and even fearful at first, but when Malachi attacked, he’d fought bravely and tried desperately to save his men.

It was odd to see him out at this time of night, so heavily armed and alone. Human men were creatures of the flesh, and at first she thought he might be on his way to find a companion for the night, but when he passed by the brothels without a glance, she became even more intrigued.

After following him a few blocks, she knew he had become aware of the fact that he was being followed. Yet Shaniah was willing to bet that he had no idea he was being stalked by her and four other men. Her curiosity nearly revealed her presence when the soldier stopped and turned suddenly, and were it not for her superior reflexes he might have caught more than a glimpse of her. And a few minutes later, as he encountered the four ruffians in the alley, he likely thought it had been one of those men who had been following him.

She watched the man deal with the men and his behavior intrigued her further. He did not show fear, only the calmness that comes from a healthy dose of self-assurance. By then she was on a rooftop above the confrontation below, two buildings south of them, and could easily hear the entire conversation. It confirmed her suspicions: he was here because of Malachi.

When the man turned away from the intersection and started back the way he had come, Shaniah followed him, this time from the rooftops. As far as she knew, this soldier walking in the streets below her was the only human who had survived an encounter with Malachi. He was following Malachi’s trail as well. So she would follow him.

She had nothing to lose.

Chapter Sixteen

J
ames Declan was a rounded oak tree of a man. Medium height and close to three hundred pounds: solid. His hands were the size of frying pans and his face was round and puffy, his bright white hair sitting on his head like a small bush. He had a thick mustache planted in the middle of his face, which always looked as if it were ready to explode in a display of his volcanic temper. He sat at a table near the window in the main dining room of the Oriental Hotel, waiting for Jonas Hollister to arrive and growing angrier with each passing moment.

Declan was self-made in every way. Most of his money had come from cattle. He’d started as a drover on the Goodnight-Loving Trail, bringing beeves up from Texas and into Denver. He wasn’t like most cowhands, who collected wages at the end of a drive and blew them all on whores and gambling. He was smart and took his money to the bank. After a few years of drives he had a small stake, and one thing about Declan, he saw the future. Denver was going to grow, no question. Colorado would become a state and once it did and the railroads came, Denver would be the next big boomtown of the many boomtowns on the American move westward.

He started buying land far outside of Denver, where it was still cheap. He found good water and grazing land and then he stopped driving cattle and started buying them. He’d ride out to meet the herds before they got to the city railheads and offer the trail boss a few dollars for a few of the scrawniest, mangiest cows in the herd. Knowing they wouldn’t get top dollar for their scrubs in Denver, the bosses usually complied and when Declan led the cattle onto his well-watered grassland, they prospered. Nature took its course, and in a few years, for very little money, he was able to grow his herd to several hundred, then thousand head. He sold off his mature beef, used the money to buy more land and before long he was one of the wealthiest landowners in the territory.

Then had come the silver strike. It had been pure luck. Found on the land of a small rancher he’d run off years ago, it was at the time the second richest strike in history. Combined with his land and cattle, the silver made Declan one of the wealthiest men in America.

Declan though, was dishonest by nature. There wasn’t a moment or defining event in his life that turned him that way, it’s just how he was. He had come out of the womb a cheat. He pressured smaller ranchers, keeping them from their water rights, even burning them out if necessary. He had brought many a smaller rancher to the brink of ruin, then swooped in with a cash offer of ten percent, or less, of the full value of his land or herd.

When he’d found Slater, he’d managed to remove himself from the dirtier, rougher stuff and clean up his image somewhat. He was loathed in the ranching community, but as the years went by, found his money more than welcome in political circles. When he helped get the governor elected, he was appointed Colorado’s first senator when Colorado entered the Union in 1876.

Now he sat cooling his heels, waiting for some goddamn army reject named Hollister to show up at a meeting where Hollister had set the time, place, and agenda. Declan didn’t like that, he didn’t like it at all. Senator James Declan established the parameters and made the rules, and by God, heads would roll over this when he got back to Washington.

Slater was sequestered in the coat-check room, just to the left of the entrance to the dining room. Just in case this Hollister needed to be taught a lesson, although the senator had to admit he didn’t like what he’d heard from Slater; how the man had gotten a clean jump on him in the street the other night. With Slater that never had happened, and the thought that it had was nibbling away at a corner of Declan’s thoughts. Just one more thing to make him uneasy.

He had intended for his hired thug to drag the man to his Denver mansion if it was necessary, but Slater said it was like Hollister had eyes in the back of his head. They didn’t have a chance to even get close before he skinned his smoke wagon, and from then on, he was in charge. Declan knew Pinkerton by reputation, and when all this trouble started at Torson City, he used his contacts and found out what Pinkerton was up to. There were no secrets in Washington, and he’d found out when the great detective (nothing more than a highly paid thug, in Declan’s opinion) had gotten Hollister out of Leavenworth.

The tiny white hairs were standing up in the back of Declan’s neck and he didn’t know why, though he blamed his goddamn son James Junior and his wild stories. The boy had been nothing but a disappointment to him practically since the day he was born. Then he had come back from his latest venture, running a mining claim in Torson City, with a ridiculous fable about creatures who had killed everyone and drunk their blood. Declan had been angry beyond anything he had ever experienced, and thought for certain he would kill the boy. If it weren’t for his wife and Slater’s intervention, he might have.

A posse had been sent to the camp immediately after young James had staggered back into Denver, delirious and half mad with thirst. He’d told the local sheriff his story before Declan or Slater could get hold of him and word started to spread. When the posse returned from the camp, they reported some blood and signs of a struggle, but no bodies, and nothing that would corroborate James’s story.

It was a wild tale, and Declan had immediately discounted it when he’d first heard about it. He tried shaking young James out of it. It had to be Indians, probably Utes, or else a group of rogue bandits who preyed on mining camps. But when Slater came back and reported to him what he’d seen, Declan began to worry.

Now all the boy did was stay in his room at the mansion. The servants brought him food and emptied his chamber pot and he spent most of his time curled on his bed blathering on and on about blood-drinking savages. James never changed his version of events. The sheriff or one of his deputies had no doubt repeated it, the news spread further, and people began to talk and worry. If Declan didn’t get a lid on this fast, it would be a full-fledged panic.

Through it all, Declan had refused to believe any of it. But now this Hollister was in town, brought here by Pinkerton on a fancy train the likes of which no one had ever seen. And Jonas Hollister had told a similar story to what young James had reported and it had gotten him court-martialed and sent to prison four years ago. Things were starting to add up in a way Declan didn’t like. And then there were the little hairs on the back of his neck, still standing on end. Why was that? He felt like he was no longer the one in charge of things. Ridiculous. Senator James Declan was always in charge.

Restless and out of sorts, he checked his pocket watch. It was ten minutes past nine and Hollister still wasn’t here. He pounded his fist on the table and the china coffee cup jumped in its saucer and splashed a dark stain on the tablecloth. He was about to stand and leave, when Hollister strode into the dining room. Declan had requested a seat near the window and asked the maitre de to keep the tables around them clear so they could talk in private. The room was nearly empty, with only a few tables occupied, as most diners had finished their breakfasts long ago.

Hollister approached the table and sat down in a chair across from the senator, ignoring his outstretched hand. The lack of the handshake further rattled Declan, and he felt an overwhelming urge to throttle Hollister, but he noticed the two nickel-plated, pearl-handled Colts at his waist and the look on his face, which said an attempted thrashing would be a truly bad idea.

“You must be Hollister.”

“I am.”

“You’re late.”

Hollister shrugged.

“Are you always late?”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether I happen to be running late or not.”

“Is that some kind of joke? You think you’re a jokester?”

“No joke, just a fact.”

“Hmm. Well you might want to be a little more punctual when a United States senator requests a meeting.”

“And you might want to refrain from sending gun hands to
invite
me to talk. First, I don’t usually eat breakfast so you’re lucky I even agreed to meet, and second, you want to meet with me, you ask me yourself or send a wire. Next time one of your men sneaks up on me in an alley, I’ll put ’em down. We understand each other, Senator?”

The senator’s face went red, in embarrassment, not anger, and try as he might he could not will it away. He started to speak, but Hollister interrupted.

“One other thing, your gun hand—told me last night his name is Slater—is waiting in the cloakroom over there. I don’t like that. You tell him to come out real slow-like, with his hands clear.”

Declan was now nearly crazed with anger, but trying every trick he knew not to show it. How the hell had Hollister figured everything out?

“Slater. You heard the man. Come on out. Slowly, if I were you.”

Hollister watched as Slater stepped out of the cloakroom across the dining room. He’d smelled the man’s cologne again as he’d passed it by. After last night, he figured Declan, if he were the type to use a man like Slater, wasn’t going to leave the horse in the barn. He’d be close by, in case he was needed.

Slater had a better poker face than his boss. He kept the emotion out of it. He came out with his thumbs hooked in his gun belt. Nice and easy so Hollister didn’t get jumpy and shoot him, but not out to his sides or up in the air, which is what Hollister had asked for. He took note of this moment and filed it in the back of his mind. Slater now knew he was good. He would still kill him, whenever the senator gave the word. But it wouldn’t be as easy as it usually was.

“Now look out the window, Senator,” Hollister said.

“What?”

“The window.”

Declan looked out the window and saw Chee standing on the sidewalk, leaning slightly against a pillar in front of the hotel. Chee had his eyes on Slater, ignoring the senator altogether.

“Who is that?”

“Master Sergeant Chee. He works for me. He is here to watch Mr. Slater and make sure he doesn’t make any sudden moves. If he does, Sergeant Chee will shoot him in the head no less than four times before he hits the ground. Believe me, I’ve seen him shoot. And if you’re thinking about sending your thugs after Chee, maybe to take him out so you can focus on me, you’re going to need a lot more men. The sergeant likes to kick people in the face. Hard. He also has a very large dog. I’ve only just met the dog, but I’m fairly certain it likes to eat people. We left the dog at our offices this morning as it really shouldn’t be out during the day where it might scare small children. I say these things not by way of confrontation or hyperbole, merely statements of fact,” Hollister said.

“Hyperbole?” Declan snorted.

“What can I say? I went to West Point. Officer and a gentleman and all that. I simply want you to understand me.”

There was a silver pot of coffee on the table and Hollister took the handle and filled his own cup, without asking permission. The senator took several deep breaths. Finally getting his color back to normal.

“Are you working for Allan Pinkerton?” Declan demanded, trying to get some measure of control back.

“Why would that matter?”

“Yes or no?”

“Why don’t you tell me what happened in the mining camp, Senator? That’s what this
meeting
is all about, right?”

“It’s nothing really, just some savages raided the camp and killed everyone. My son survived. He’s . . . not a strong boy . . . never been well really . . . has a weak constitution, but somehow he managed to get away. But he mis . . . he got things wrong, told some wild tale to cover up his cowardice and now everyone in the territory is spreading rumors and panic.”

“I heard though, you were willing to raise an army of volunteers to go after these ‘savages.’ You were putting pressure on the president to do something.”

“Where did you hear that? Pinkerton?”

“I hear things.”

“I . . . yes. I suggested to the president the army be sent out to scout and find the Indians responsible for this horrible crime. I would imagine it’s Utes. They’ve been restless lately . . . but I never said anything about any . . . creatures . . . I . . .”

“Wasn’t Utes.”

“And you know this how, exactly?”

“First, I’ve fought Utes before. This ain’t their style. Second, your boy says he saw what happened?”

“Yes.”

“He say anything about a big fella, close to seven feet tall, maybe taller, with white hair, talks with kind of a lisp and an accent, makes him sound sort of like a snake trying to speak?”

Declan thought his heart would stop. Young James had mentioned just such a man, several times in fact. It was real. Dear God. What would happen now? He saw his only son and worse, the Declan name dragged through the mud in what would undoubtedly become a feeding frenzy for the papers once word got out.

He could
not
be associated with this. If Hollister discovered the truth, that there was some type of sinister creatures roaming the mountainsides of Colorado, and the papers got wind of it, Declan would lose everything. The damn Indians were bad enough when they went on the warpath, keeping the settlers away, but this. If word about this got out, not only would new settlers stay away, but people would pack up and flee the state. With no one to deposit money in his bank, buy up his cattle, and lease his farmlands, he faced utter ruin. He had to contain this now. And something else no one knew, not even Slater, was the silver was nearly mined out. He’d lost a lot of the silver money in the financial panic a few years back. He was still wealthy. But not if people started fleeing the territory.

“What are you doing here, Mr. Hollister?” Declan asked.

“Senator, I have been sent to investigate.”

“I don’t like your damn casual attitude.”

“And I don’t give a damn what you like. Two days ago I was stuck in Leavenworth Military Prison digging wells, with six more years on my sentence left to go. What happened to your boy also happened to me. But you already knew that. Finding these things and killing them is going to keep me from going back to Leavenworth. And that is what I will do. I will kill them or they will kill me. But I ain’t going back to prison. Now. You want to tell me where I can find your son?”