The Wind Through The Keyhole (11 page)

“Yes. Alone. But I’m not sending you up there just to get you and the others away. If you travel fast enough, and they have a remuda, you may still be able to spot a horse that’s been rode hard.”

Under the bandanna, he might have smiled. “I doubt it.”

I did, too. It would have been more likely but for the wind—what Peavy had called the simoom. It would dry the sweat on a horse, even one that had been ridden hard, in short order. Jamie might spot one that was dustier than the rest, one with burdocks and bits of jugweed in its tail, but if we were right about the skin-man knowing what he was, he would have given his mount a complete rubdown and curry, from hooves to mane, as soon as he got back.

“Someone may have seen him ride in.”

“Yes . . . unless he went to Little Debaria first, cleaned up, and came back to the saltie encampment from there. A clever man might do that.”

“Even so, you and the sheriff should be able to find out how many of them own horses.”

“And how many of them can ride, even if they don’t own,” Jamie said. “Aye, we can do that.”

“Round that bunch up,” I told him, “or as many of them as you can, and bring them back to town. Any who protests, remind them that they’ll be helping to catch the monster that’s been terrorizing Debaria . . . Little Debaria . . . the whole Barony. You won’t have to tell them that any who still refuse will be looked at with extra suspicion; even the dumbest of them will know.”

Jamie nodded, then grabbed the fencerail as an especially strong gust of wind blasted us. I turned to face him.

“And one other thing. You’re going to pull a cosy, and Kellin’s son, Vikka, will be your cat’s-paw. They’ll believe a kid might run off at the mouth, even if he’s been told not to.
Especially
if he’s been told not to.”

Jamie waited, but I felt sure he knew what I was going to say, for his eyes were troubled. It was a thing he’d never have done himself, even if he thought of it. Which was why my father had put me in charge. Not because I’d done well in Mejis—I hadn’t, not really—and not because I was his son, either. Although in a way, I suppose that was it. My mind was like his: cold.

“You’ll tell the salties who know about horses that there was a witness to the murders at the ranch. You’ll say you can’t tell them who it was—naturally—but that he saw the skin-man in his human form.”

“You don’t know that Young Bill actually saw him, Roland. And even if he did, he might not have seen the face. He was hiding in a pile of tack, for your father’s sake.”

“That’s true, but the skin-man won’t know it’s true. All the skin-man will know is that it
might
be true, because he was human when he left the ranch.”

I began to walk again, and Jamie walked beside me.

“Now here’s where Vikka comes in. He’ll get separated from you and the others a bit and whisper to someone—another kid, one his own age, would be best—that the survivor was the cook’s boy. Bill Streeter by name.”

“The boy just lost his father and you want to use him as bait.”

“It may not come to that. If the story gets to the right ears, the one we’re looking for may bolt on the way to town. Then you’ll know. And none of it matters if we’re wrong about the skin-man being a saltie. We could be, you know.”

“What if we’re right, and the fellow decides to face it out?”

“Bring them all to the jail. I’ll have the boy in a cell—a locked one, you ken—and you can walk the horsemen past, one by one. I’ll tell Young Bill to say nothing, one way or the other, until they’re gone. You’re right, he may not be able to pick our man out, even if I can help him remember some of what happened last night. But our man won’t know that, either.”

“It’s risky,” said Jamie. “Risky for the kid.”

“Small risk,” I said. “It’ll be daylight, with the skin-man in his human shape. And Jamie . . .” I grasped his arm. “I’ll be in the cell, too. The bastard will have to go through me if he wants to get to the boy.”

* * *

Peavy liked my plan better than Jamie had. I wasn’t a bit surprised. It was his town, after all. And what was Young Bill to him? Only the son of a dead cook. Not much in the great scheme of things.

Once the little expedition to Saltie Town was on its way, I woke the boy and told him we were going to Debaria. He agreed without asking questions. He was distant and dazed. Every now and then he rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. As we walked out to the corral, he asked me again if I was sure his da’ was dead. I told him I was. He fetched a deep sigh, lowered his head, and put his hands on his knees. I gave him time, then asked if he’d like me to saddle a horse for him.

“If it’s all right to ride Millie, I can saddle her myself. I feed her, and she’s my special friend. People say mules ain’t smart, but Millie is.”

“Let’s see if you can do it without getting kicked,” I said.

It turned out he could, and smartly. He mounted up and said, “I guess I’m ready.” He even tried to give me a smile. It was awful to look at. I was sorry for the plan I’d set in motion, but all I had to do was think of the carnage we were leaving behind and Sister Fortuna’s ruined face to remind myself of what the stakes were.

“Will she skit in the wind?” I asked, nodding at the trim little mule. Sitting on her back, Young Bill’s feet came almost down to the ground. In another year, he’d be too big for her, but of course in another year, he’d probably be far from Debaria, just another wanderer on the face of a fading world. Millie would be a memory.

“Not Millie,” he said. “She’s as solid as a dromedary.”

“Aye, and what’s a dromedary?”

“Dunno, do I? It’s just something my da’ says. One time I asked him, and he didn’t know, either.”

“Come on, then,” I said. “The sooner we get to town, the sooner we’ll get out of this grit.” But I intended to make one stop before we got to town. I had something to show the boy while we were still alone.

* * *

About halfway between the ranch and Debaria, I spied a deserted sheepherder’s lean-to, and suggested we shelter in there for a bit and have a bite. Bill Streeter agreed willingly enough. He had lost his da’ and everyone else he’d known, but he was still a growing boy and he’d had nothing to eat since his dinner the night before.

We tethered our mounts away from the wind and sat on the floor inside the lean-to with our backs against the wall. I had dried beef wrapped in leaves in my saddlebag. The meat was salty, but my waterskin was full. The boy ate half a dozen chunks of the meat, tearing off big bites and washing them down with water.

A strong gust of wind shook the lean-to. Millie blatted a protest and fell silent.

“It’ll be a full-going simoom by dark,” Young Bill said. “You watch and see if it ain’t.”

“I like the sound of the wind,” I said. “It makes me think of a story my mother read to me when I was a sma’ one. ‘The Wind Through the Keyhole,’ it was called. Does thee know it?”

Young Bill shook his head. “Mister, are you really a gunslinger? Say true?”

“I am.”

“Can I hold one of your guns for a minute?”

“Never in life,” I said, “but you can look at one of these, if you’d like.” I took a shell from my belt and handed it to him.

He examined it closely, from brass base to lead tip. “Gods, it’s heavy! Long, too! I bet if you shot someone with one of these, he’d stay down.”

“Yes. A shell’s a dangerous thing. But it can be pretty, too. Would you like to see a trick I can do with this one?”

“Sure.”

I took it back and began to dance it from knuckle to knuckle, my fingers rising and falling in waves. Young Bill watched, wide-eyed. “How does thee do it?”

“The same way anyone does anything,” I said. “Practice.”

“Will you show me the trick?”

“If you watch close, you may see it for yourself,” I said. “Here it is . . . and here it isn’t.” I palmed the shell so fast it disappeared, thinking of Susan Delgado, as I supposed I always would when I did this trick. “Now here it is again.”

The shell danced fast . . . then slow . . . then fast again.

“Follow it with your eyes, Bill, and see if you can make out how I get it to disappear. Don’t take your eyes off it.” I dropped my voice to a lulling murmur. “Watch . . . and watch . . . and watch. Does it make you sleepy?”

“A little,” he said. His eyes slipped slowly closed, then the lids rose again. “I didn’t sleep much last night.”

“Did you not? Watch it go. Watch it slow. See it disappear and then . . . see it as it speeds up again.”

Back and forth the shell went. The wind blew, as lulling to me as my voice was to him.

“Sleep if you want, Bill. Listen to the wind and sleep. But listen to my voice, too.”

“I hear you, gunslinger.” His eyes closed again and this time didn’t reopen. His hands were clasped limply in his lap. “I hear you very well.”

“You can still see the shell, can’t you? Even with your eyes closed.”

“Yes . . . but it’s bigger now. It flashes like gold.”

“Do you say so?”

“Yes . . .”

“Go deeper, Bill, but hear my voice.”

“I hear.”

“I want you to turn your mind back to last night. Your mind and your eyes and your ears. Will you do that?”

A frown creased his brow. “I don’t want to.”

“It’s safe. All that’s happened, and besides, I’m with you.”

“You’re with me. And you have guns.”

“So I do. Nothing will happen to you as long as you can hear my voice, because we’re together. I’ll keep thee safe. Do you understand that?”

“Yes.”

“Your da’ told you to sleep out under the stars, didn’t he?”

“Aye. It was to be a warm night.”

“But that wasn’t the real reason, was it?”

“No. It was because of Elrod. Once he twirled the bunkhouse cat by her tail, and she never came back. Sometimes he pulls me around by my hair and sings ‘The Boy Who Loved Jenny.’ My da’ can’t stop him, because Elrod’s bigger. Also, he has a knife in his boot. He could cut with it. But he couldn’t cut the beast, could he?” His clasped hands twitched. “Elrod’s dead and I’m glad. I’m sorry about all the others . . . and my da’, I don’t know what I’ll do wi’out my da’ . . . but I’m glad about Elrod. He won’t tease me nummore. He won’t scare me nummore. I seen it, aye.”

So he
did
know more than the top of his mind had let him remember.

“Now you’re out on the graze.”

“On the graze.”

“Wrapped up in your blanket and shinnie.”

“Shaddie.”

“Your blanket and shaddie. You’re awake, maybe looking up at the stars, at Old Star and Old Mother—”

“No, no, asleep,” Bill said. “But the screams wake me up. The screams from the bunkhouse. And the sounds of fighting. Things are breaking. And something’s
roaring.
”

“What do you do, Bill?”

“I go down. I’m afraid to, but my da’ . . . my da’s in there. I look in the window at the far end. It’s greasepaper, but I can see through it well enough. More than I want to see. Because I see . . . I see . . . mister, can I wake up?”

“Not yet. Remember that I’m with you.”

“Have you drawn your guns, mister?” He was shivering.

“I have. To protect you. What do you see?”

“Blood. And a beast.”

“What kind, can you tell?”

“A bear. One so tall its head reaches the ceiling. It goes up the middle of the bunkhouse . . . between the cots, ye ken, and on its back legs . . . and it grabs the men . . . it grabs the men and pulls them to pieces with its great long claws.” Tears began to escape his closed lids and roll down his cheeks. “The last one was Elrod. He ran for the back door . . . where the woodpile is just outside, ye ken . . . and when he understood it would have him before he could open the door and dash out, he turned around to fight. He had his knife. He went to stab it. . . .”

Slowly, as if underwater, the boy’s right hand rose from his lap. It was curled into a fist. He made a stabbing motion with it.

“The bear grabbed his arm and tore it off his shoulder. Elrod screamed. He sounded like a horse I saw one time, after it stepped in a gompa hole and broke its leg. The thing . . . it hit Elrod in the face with ’is own arm. The blood flew. There was gristle that flapped and wound around the skin like strings. Elrod fell against the door and started to slide down. The bear grabbed him and lifted him up and bit into his neck and there was a
sound
 . . . mister, it bit Elrod’s head right off his neck. I want to wake up now.
Please.
”

“Soon. What did you do then?”

“I ran. I meant to go to the big house, but sai Jefferson . . . he . . . he . . .”

“He what?”

“He
shot
at me! I don’t think he meant to. I think he just saw me out of the corner of his eye and thought . . . I heard the bullet go by me.
Wishhh!
That’s how close it was. So I ran for the corral instead. I went between the poles. While I was crossing, I heard two more shots. Then there was more screaming. I didn’t look to see, but I knew it was sai Jefferson screaming that time.”

This part we knew from the tracks and leavings: how the thing had come charging out of the bunkhouse, how it had grabbed away the four-shot pistol and bent the barrel, how it had unzipped the rancher’s guts and thrown him into the bunkhouse with his proddies. The shot Jefferson had thrown at Young Bill had saved the boy’s life. If not for that, he would have run straight to the big house and been slaughtered with the Jefferson womenfolk.

“You go into the old hostelry where we found you.”

“Aye, so I do. And hide under the tack. But then I hear it . . . coming.”

He had gone back to the
now
way of remembering, and his words came more slowly. They were broken by bursts of weeping. I knew it was hurting him, remembering terrible things always hurts, but I pressed on. I had to, for what happened in that abandoned hostelry was the important part, and Young Bill was the only one who had been there. Twice he tried to come back to the
then
way of remembering, the
ago.
This was a sign that he was trying to struggle free of his trance, so I took him deeper. In the end I got it all.