Dead Reckoning (14 page)

The prospect of an army of reanimated corpses sweeping through the West, killing everything in its path was enough to cause all three of them to fall silent. White Fox was the first to speak. Throughout the meal and the discussion that had accompanied it, he’d been looking more and more troubled. At last he reached into his shirt and pulled out a beaded buckskin pouch. Most people called them “medicine pouches” but Jett had one herself: plain or fancy, they were used as often to hold tobacco and small valuables as for any kind of Indian magic.

White Fox extracted an oilcloth bundle little larger than a deck of cards from the pouch. “I promised Caleb Lincoln I wouldn’t show this to anyone, as its disclosure could get him and his family into trouble,” White Fox said. He unwrapped the bundle, revealing a small handmade book. Its leather covers were stained and worn. “His mother sent this to him in her last letter. It was why he was so anxious to see how matters stood at Glory Rest. He told me it was a treasured family heirloom and said I was to return it to his mother if I found her and his family safe and well. And to rely upon it for help if they were not.”

“A prayer book?” Jett asked in disbelief. It was the size and thickness of the breviary her mama had conducted the Sheridan family’s evening prayers from.

Gibbons plucked the book from White Fox’s hands and riffled through it. Its pages were covered edge to edge in cramped time-faded writing. “No,” she said. “A spell book.”

* * *

Someone who knew of Gibbons’s love of logic and her devotion to Science would find it odd that she was as familiar with the principles of sorcery as she was with the principles of physics. But such was the case. While many disciplines were freighted with such a weight of past ignorance and historical irrationality that rendered new research difficult if not impossible, others could be considered as useful records of phenomena observed but imperfectly understood. As such, these “parasciences” were able to illuminate many aspects of the physical world.

“I see now why Trooper Lincoln warned you,” Gibbons said as she skimmed the small volume. “This could be quite inflammatory in the wrong hands.”

“I can’t see how a spelling book could be trouble,” Jett said, grabbing for the book.

Gibbons twisted sideways, holding the book out of
Jett’s reach. “Not a spelling book. A
spell book
. It’s a
grimoire
,” she said. “A manual of
Conjure
.”

Jett recoiled as if she’d been told the little book was made of red-hot iron.

“Conjure is folk magic,” Gibbons began pedantically. “One part Dahomeyan Vodun, one part Catholicism, one part Indian practices, and one part folklore.”

“You don’t have to tell
me
what it is!” Jett snapped. “You think we never knew about the dances they held down at—”

“Then don’t behave as if I’m suggesting you take up
Satanism
!” Gibbons said irritably.

Jett sat back with an aggrieved sigh. “What does it say about zombies?” she asked after a pause.

“I have no idea—yet,” Gibbons said, brandishing the book in emphasis. “It took only a quick glance to tell what the book is, but it will be another matter entirely to extract actual information. Everything has been written down in bits and pieces. I’ll need to comb through the entire text to see if there’s anything about zombies. And if it’s of any use.”

“I suppose I might be some help with that,” Jett said reluctantly. “I can help you match it up with what I know, anyhow.”

Gibbons smiled at her radiantly. “Thank you! That will be very useful! But first,” she said, getting to her
feet and tucking the little book into the pocket of her pantaloons, “we must search the town for clues.”

* * *

Jett sat on the corral fence down at the livery stable, her boot-heels hooked over the center board. The sun was high, and heat-haze danced and shimmered, blurring the horizon. There wasn’t much to see, anyway—just desert, desert, and more desert, from here to the Rio Grande.

Two days without sleep had begun to take their toll, and Gibbons had ordered her to take herself off to rest. Jett had been too weary and heartsick to rip up at Gibbons about her high-handed dictates, but she didn’t rest, either. She went back to the livery.

This morning the three of them had spent hours searching every building in the town, and all they’d found were new mysteries. Jett was more than familiar with the look of a place that had been looted by an invading army. Alsop didn’t look like that. Even if you assumed zombies couldn’t climb stairs, they’d had plenty of time to cart off everything at ground level Br’er Shepherd could possibly want—and smash what could make trouble for him. Gibbons expected to find the telegraph lines down. Jett expected the bank to have been robbed. Gibbons was right—the lines were
down, and the machinery had been smashed—but the bank was untouched, much to Jett’s surprise. Most of what had been taken was food. Food for livestock, food for people—anything available in bulk that could be easily carried away. Maybe a few other items, but while it was obvious the General Store and the livery had both been hit hard, the destruction made it less obvious what was missing, particularly in the case of the former. And the destruction looked to have been caused by accident rather than intentionally.

Jett’d thought she’d be able to get White Fox to track the missing horses after that, but Gibbons had a long list of errands she wanted him to run. Gibbons had decided to make the saloon into her base of operations, and Jett had helped carry all the broken furniture into the street, then swept the saloon floor clear of sawdust and scrubbed it down with lye and water. It wasn’t much cleaner than it’d been when she started, but at least the bloodstains had been bleached away. But there was plenty more fetching and carrying that Gibbons had in mind, and Jett didn’t really have the heart to drag White Fox away from that task. She was afraid of what he might find. If Nightingale had been panicked enough to gallop until he was winded, he might have broken his leg—or his neck. He might have run into a Comanche scouting party—Alsop was on the southern border of the
Comancheria
, but since the
whites didn’t honor the border, the Comanche saw no reason to, either.

He might have been killed by the zombies after all. Or shot.

Or he could be down by Burnt Creek this very minute wondering where the devil I’ve gotten to!
she told herself irritably. She’d go and check, only Burnt Creek was a day’s walk from Alsop. It was only a few hours away by horse, but she was fresh out of equines. And Gibbons didn’t seem inclined to take her steam buggy out for a spin. Right now she and White Fox were busily converting the saloon into something Gibbons called her “laboratorium.” Whatever that might be.

She’d promised to help Gibbons with her research later, but Jett wasn’t convinced Gibbons needed help—not hers at least. The thought of stepping back into the jailhouse with the zombie gave her a cold grue, let alone the thought of facing a whole army of the things.
This isn’t my fight. It’s nothing to do with me. I’m looking for my brother. Phillip needs me. If I don’t look for him, who will?

Jett tilted her Stetson further down over her eyes and sighed, wishing she were anyplace else.
Only you can’t run out on White Fox and that fool Yankee and you know it. If she’s right about what Br’er Shepherd is planning, he won’t leave anyone aboveground from the Mississippi to California—and that includes Philip. If I couldn’t
convince Gibbons until she saw for herself, I sure can’t convince the United States Army. So—

Suddenly a dark splotch appeared in the heat-shimmer of the horizon. Jett stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled shrilly, hoping her eyes—and her heart—weren’t playing tricks on her. But a moment later Nightingale came trotting toward her, Deerfoot behind him. She jumped down from the rail and a moment later she was running her hands all over him—neck and chest and legs—looking for injuries as Nightingale tried to grab her hat. He finally succeeded, gripping the brim in his teeth and pulling it off her head as she laughed and grabbed for it.

“You fool nag! Don’t you know I was worried sick about you? Where have you been?” She rose to her feet and swung an arm across his withers.

As Deerfoot trotted past her, Jett turned to look up the street. White Fox was standing outside the saloon. He’d obviously heard her whistle. She blushed hotly. He’d heard her slopping Nightingale all over with sugar like a—like a
girl
. To the world, she was
Mister
Jett Gallatin: gunslinger, cardsharp, drifter. She had to remember that. It didn’t matter if she slipped up here and now—but she wouldn’t always be surrounded by folks who knew the truth.

Maybe someday
, she thought wistfully.
When I’ve got Philip back, when we settle down somewhere.

White Fox led Deerfoot back in Jett’s direction. She stepped away from Nightingale to retrieve her hat and the stallion followed her, nudging at her hopefully.

“You think I carry sugar around with me all the time on the chance you’ll turn up?” she demanded gruffly. She dug around in her pockets until she turned up a piece. Having received his treat, the stallion turned away and walked sedately into the barn, obviously expecting breakfast.

“Fool,” Jett repeated, and followed him.

She’d tossed some hay into the stall Nightingale had chosen and was looking around for a water pail when White Fox entered the barn. “They seem to have taken no hurt,” he said. “Once we have tended to their needs, Gibbons requests your assistance.”

Jett restrained herself from snorting in derision. It didn’t seem to her that Honoria Gibbons needed anybody’s assistance with anything.

* * *

But less than an hour later Jett was standing in the saloon gazing at a makeshift map tacked to the wall of the saloon. It had been assembled from pages removed from an atlas, and showed Texas and a good bit of the Territories: all of Kansas and part of Nebraska, west into Utah and Arizona. There was a bright red wax-pencil “X” to mark Alsop, and a number of smaller
“Xs” in pencil both clustered around Alsop and dotted across the rest of the map. Crossing the map from east to west were three meandering pencil lines. Jett wasn’t sure what they were. Wagon-train routes? Cattle-drive trails?

“This is why I wanted your help,” Gibbons said. She crossed the room holding an open atlas in her arms, obviously the one that had been sacrificed to create the map. “I hoped if I charted all the disappearances, the pattern would tell me something. Anything you can add will help.”

“I can tell you plenty about disappearances east of here,” Jett said. “Don’t need to wonder why they went missing, though.”

“Show me.” Gibbons walked over to the bar and set down the atlas. “Don’t assume you know why someone disappeared. I’m looking for a pattern.”

Jett stepped closer to the map and peered at the penciled marks. Now she could see there was a date written faintly beside many of them. “Each of these is where somebody went missing,” she said, puzzling it out. She frowned. “Isn’t that one going to Mexico?” she asked, pointing at the southernmost of the three jagged lines. “What are they, anyway?”

“Railroads,” Gibbons said succinctly. “And that isn’t Mexico.”

“Sure looks like it to me,” Jett said. She pointed at a
word at the bottom of the map. “Mexico. Says it right here.”

Gibbons gave an annoyed huff. “It might
say
Mexico, but it isn’t Mexico. These pages are from an old atlas. That area’s been part of the U.S. for four years.”

“Says who?” Jett scoffed.

“
Says
Mister James Gadsen, the United States Ambassador to Mexico, that’s who,” Gibbons said. “He bought it from Mexico.”

“Must’ve cost him a pretty penny,” Jett said. She inspected the map for a few more seconds. “Those aren’t railroads. There aren’t any lines west of Kansas.”

“Not yet,” Gibbons said, sounding even more annoyed. “But there will be! There are already telegraph lines. The railroads will follow. And the first
transcontinental
railroad will take one of these three routes.” She gestured at the map.

“Which one?” Jett asked with interest.

“This one,” Gibbons said, pointing at the center line. “The Union Pacific’s laid track almost all the way across the Sierra Nevadas, and they won’t stop there. The Central Pacific is coming west. They’re going to meet the Union Pacific halfway.”

“Well, if they’ve already made up their minds, why put in all three of them?” Jett asked.

“Because you don’t need just
one
railway line!” Gibbons said. “And … the Central Pacific still might go
south. Everybody’s worried about snow on the central route.”

“No snow in Texas,” Jett agreed. “Don’t know what railroads have to do with zombies, though.”

“Probably nothing,” Gibbons admitted. “But the more information we can collect in one place, the more likely we’ll see some connection. And of course there are more settlements along the path of the railroad.”

“Whether it’s there or not,” Jett pointed out.

“It’s
going
to be there,” Gibbons insisted. “And that’s why towns are being built along the route. Being on the railroad line means faster growth, better transport—if you order something from New York or even Chicago, it can take three months—or longer—for it to get here by wagon.”

“Or for something from here to get there,” White Fox pointed out. “Now that the railroad has reached Abilene, the ranchers drive their cattle there to sell. They, too, are becoming wealthy from the railroad.”

Jett turned to him, looking puzzled. “Too?” she asked.

“The railroad companies must purchase the rights of way before they can lay their track,” White Fox said. “Those who own land along those rights of way stand to enrich themselves greatly.”

“Or be left holding the bag if they guess wrong, but that isn’t pertinent to our current problem!” Gibbons
said briskly. She advanced on Jett, flourishing a pencil. “Everything you can remember, please.”

* * *

By the time Jett had charted every disappearance she’d ever heard of, the shadows were beginning to lengthen. She’d added twenty or so possible locations to the map, and White Fox had promised to send a message to Fort Riley to see what he could add as well. Gibbons had suggested they spend the night in the jail once again, since it was the safest place to be if the zombies returned, but Jett had flatly refused. The moment Gibbons had opened the jailhouse door, the zombie had flung itself at the door to its cell, reaching through the bars in a vain attempt to reach
them
.