Patrick E. McLean

If Dance only looked at one side of the street it could almost appear that Grantham had gotten back to normal. There had been a rough few days after the fire, but they’d buried the dead, said words over them, and moved on.

That didn’t mean that things were good but they could've been a hell of a lot worse. Food and supplies were dwindling, but since Dance had organized hunting parties, supplies were dwindling nice and slow. Sure, they'd have to do something about it, but right now the 203 surviving souls of the Town of Grantham were in need of a respite.

If they could keep from getting wiped out by the wildlife or savage tribes – and if the coffee lasted long enough — they just might be O.K.

Having given himself over to a philosophical turn of mind Dance could see how their predicament wasn't any different than any other frontier town. They were on the edge of the unknown struggling to survive. They had plenty of water and the weather, at least so far, was nice. He savored another sip of coffee and he resolved to enjoy what he could while he could.

Walking up the street and taking his own sweet time about it, Speedy Pete was headed towards the jail. When he got close Dance asked, "Pete, how in the hell is it that you ain't dead? I mean I ain't complaining. I'm just saying, I know which way I lay the odds on that one…”

Speedy Pete smiled slow and pushed his hat back. “Well sir, my Mama always said I'd be late to my own funeral. So what I reckon is… Death just shows up to where I'm supposed to be and when I’m not there, all punctual-lie, he get sick of waiting around. Goes off finds somebody else to do business with."

Dance was so stumped by the unexpected elegance of his Deputy’s explanation all he could say was, “Fair enough, Pete.”

"We step inside so I can make my report?"

"No, Pete she's in there schooling up them kids. Did you know that little girl can read?"

"School? But that school Ma’rm ran off. I mean afore we even… wound up here."

“I know Pete. But the Widow Miller is intent on her children getting an education. And I have reconciled myself to the fact that it's wise to stay clear of the entire enterprise so I don't get my head mixed up with any book larnin’. Somebody’s gotta think straight around here,” Dance said with a wink.

Pete missed the joke entirely and said, “You takin’ up with that Widder is one thing, but I’m not sure I'm OK with children living in a jail cell."

“Makes ‘em easy to contain,” said Dance, blowing another joke right by Pete. “Besides, we ain’t got no other use for them cells. They’re for holding people for the Judge, and as the Judge ain’t coming no more. Miscreants are getting fined or hanged.” Dance looked in his coffee and said, “Well, I suppose you could say the one’s gettin’ hanged are just getting fined everything.”

Pete puzzled on this for a moment then shook his head to clear it of philosophical speculations the same way that people will beat a rug to rid it of dust. Then he said,“Well, we got the watches all figured out, and I think them Polacks know where to be and when. But I can't understand a goddamn word they're saying most of the time.”

Dance said, “That's OK Pete, nobody can."

"They was jibber jabberin’ away about laundry! Something about that the Chinaman wasn't doing it for free no more. But I don’t think I heard it right. I mean why would a Chinaman watch a bunch of Polack’s laundry for free? Don't make no damn sense."

"And anything else around here does?" asked Dance.

“Well iffn I’m gettin’ any say in the matter, Sheriff, I'll take my mysteries in a language I can understand.”

Dance finished his coffee and said,”Let’s go down and see what the fuss with the Chinaman is all about.”

He took his cup into the jail and lifted a rifle from the rack. Penelope was sounding out words from a book and Mac looked up from a calculating slate to glare at the Sheriff. Dance couldn’t blame the boy much for his animosity. He reckoned he’d feel much the same. But Laura smiled at him and that was all that mattered.

Then she saw the rifle in his hand and her smile faded. Dance said, “Just have to see about a crazy Chinaman,” by way of reassurance, but Laura’s smile did not reappear.

By the time Dance got back outside the commotion had poured into the middle of the street and was headed right for him. Five thick-necked miners were following the Chinaman as he led a heavily-ladened mule up the middle of the street.

Dance asked, “Now just where in the hell does he think he's going?"

Pete said nothing, which, when Pete could manage it, was how Dance liked him best.

One of the miners, looking about as at home in the sunlight as a freshly upturned mole, seized the mule’s reins. This upset the Chinaman and he shoved the miner, and tried to regain control of his animal. This angered the rest of the miners, and they piled on. Dance had to respect to the little Oriental fella. He didn’t go quietly. He kicked the first one square in the nuts and then started jumping and gesticulating like he had a bad case of the St. Vitus’. It worked well enough at first but there were just too many miners and too few pounds of Chinaman for him to have any real chance.

The Chinaman dropped a second one with a chop to the throat and got a third with a kick to the kneecap. But then somebody got a hold of the Chinaman’s ponytail and gave it a yank and down everyone went into the dust.

Dance shook his head at the whole mess. He wasn't getting mixed up in that crap, no sir. Beside him, Pete started forward, eager to do his duty. The Sheriff stopped him with his left hand and raised the rifle over his head with his right and fired. As the report died away all eyes in the pile of men looked to the Sheriff. Dance said, “All right! That's enough rolling around in the horseshit for one day."

The pileup slowly disengaged revealing the Chinaman at the bottom. He seemed relatively unharmed. He barked a singsong phrase at the men around him and then started to walk off after his well-ladened mule. One of the Miners grabbed his ponytail and yanked him off his feet once again.

Dance lifted his rifle from his shoulder, stepped in, and clubbed the miner in the back of the head. As the large, fleshy man collapsed to the earth Dance said, "I said enough! And, by God, I meant enough. Now what the hell is going on here?"

The air was filled with languages that the Sheriff did not understand. He yelled for everyone to speak in English but, everyone could not. The one miner who spoke some English had a dislocated jaw, so Dance couldn’t understand him, even thought he was trying his best. The Chinaman stood with his arms crossed, not saying a word, and managed to be the most dignified party in the entire matter. Excepting the mule.

As Dance was trying to sort out the mess, Pete went after the Mule, that was quietly plodding up the street, wisely trying to distance himself from this human foolishness. Then, Pete stopped in his tracks. Coming from the East, silhouetted by the morning sun, was a stranger coming in from the wilderness.

“Sheriff…” said Pete.

The commotion of men arguing and incompatible languages continued behind him, so Pete tried again, louder.

"Sheriff!"

This time everyone looked up and saw the figure in his strange red robes, strolling into town as if he did it every day. All argument ceased. The Chinaman helped the clubbed miner to his feet. The miner, thinking that this meant the fight was still on, raised his fist to attempt a wobbly blow. The Chinaman slapped the fist away and pointed at the stranger coming into town. The miner forgot all about the fight.

Dance, held his rifle loose in both hands, stood beside Pete and squinted at what was coming. He said, “Pete, run go get that Englishman. He's gonna wanna see this."

Pete looked at the Sheriff, then at the stranger, then back to the Sheriff. He tried to get the sheriff the reins of the mule, but the Sheriff didn't take his eyes off the stranger. So Pete just dropped the reins and headed off with all the hurry he could manage.

* * *

By the time Archie arrived, limping in on his bad foot as fast as he could manage, the Stranger was standing at the end of main street. He was dressed in red robes and held a staff of plain wood in this right hand. Around his shoulder we wore a satchel, something like half a saddlebag on a leather strap. He had sandals and if he was scared by the crowd of townspeople that had assembled, he did not show it. His face was worn and his beard and hair were flecked with grey. He could have been anywhere from 50 to 80 years old.

Archie said, “What do we do now?”

The Sheriff said, “We go see if you and he have any languages in common.”

“I’m not much of a translator,” said Archie, “Especially when I’m nervous.”

“Relax. I’ve about half made up my mind to shoot him anyway,” said the Sheriff, and started walking.

Archie hobbled along behind.

As the Sheriff came closer the Stranger smiled and raised his hand in greeting. Dance gave him a thousand-yard stare.

The Stranger said something that no one understood. Archie said something back in a different language. In response, the stranger reached into his satchel and pulled out a skin of water. He took a swig and then offered the bag to the Sheriff and Archie. When no one moved, the stranger shrugged. Then he said, “Orlap Bechtanar thrunce dak.”

Archie shrugged.

The stranger repeated the words then nodded to himself. From his satchel he removed a cut red gemstone, the size of a small melon. The Sun glinted off its facets and as he held in front of him it seemed a thing made of light rather than mineral.

The Stranger took another step forward. Dance cocked the rifle and stepped forward to meet him.

The stranger stopped and smiled again. Then he slowly set his satchel and staff on the ground. He removed his robes and revealed his weathered body, as gnarled as piece of long-dried driftwood. And written in scar tissue across his chest were the remnants of a cruel wound. The ribs of one side of his chest were partially caved in and gave the old man a disturbing asymmetry.

Dance remained unmoved by any of this. And only moved his eyes to scan the horizon in case this was some kind of prelude to an ambush.

Clad in only a loincloth the stranger held the red stone out in front of him with both hands and walked slowly towards the men.

Beside him, Sheriff Dance felt more than saw people reaching for weapons in the crowd behind him. “Easy,” said Dance, “Ain’t no showdown. Worst he’s tried to do is kill us with a bad striptease.” He said it so well he almost managed to convince himself.

The stranger spoke again. This time just a single word, “Mobruk. Mobruk. Morbruk.” He held the stone out to the Sheriff, encouraging him to take it, using the same tone of voice a Mother might use to get a toddler to take a mouthful of food. He looked directly into Sheriff Dance’s eyes and nodded encouragingly. “Mobruk.”

The Sheriff reached out his hand and took the stone. He felt a shiver run up his arm and into his brain. He shook his head and then he understood what the man was saying.

“Take. Take.”

“What the hell!?!” said the Sheriff.

“Good, we have connection,” said the Stranger. “We can now understand each other.”

“But, I…” said Dance. He looked back to Archie and asked, “Can you understand him?”

“Not a word. You can?”

“I can. I don’t know how, but I can.”

“Please share the gift of Ba-El with others. So that all may understand and peace may be on the world."

The Sheriff looked at the stranger in his loincloth and said, “Yeah, I got a peacemaker too. Never seems to work like I want it to though."

Archie said, “What does he say? If you can understand him, you must translate."

Sheriff Dance handed Archie the glowing orb. Archie touched it and his eyes went wide.

"Yes," said the stranger, "you see now, his peace will spread. Glory be to Ba-El father of Harmony!"

Archie said, “Wait. Run that by me one more time. Ba-El is some kind of deity? What is this then?” He asked holding up the orb,“and by what source is this powered?”

The Priest of Ba-El said, “Please, I will answer all questions in time, but first spread Ba-El's gift, so that all may speak the same language."

Dance took the orb back from Archie and asked, “You think everybody knowing what people are really sayin’ is going to bring peace?"

"It is a consummation devoutly wished," said the Priest of Ba-El.

"Well, let's just see about that.” Dance turned to the battered Miners and beleaguered Chinaman. He threw the orb to the Chinaman who caught it deftly. Dance said, “Pass it round!”

The Chinaman’s eyes went wide with the shock of understanding the words. He looked at the orb, then back to the Sheriff. "How can you be speaking Chinese?!?"

"I don't know, how are you speaking English?"

"It is Ba-El’s gift,” said the Priest of Ba-El as he smiled at the wonder of shared understanding.

“Yes you’ve said that,” said Archie.

“Chinaman, give it over to them Polacks,” said Dance.

“My name is not Chinaman, it is Liu Sung.”

“Alright Loose Un’, give it over.”

Liu Sung offered the orb to the Polish Miners. First, none of them wanted it, but finally the man Dance had hit with the rifle stretched out his hands and took the orb. Dance asked “Can you understand us?”

“He stole our silver!!!” said the Miner

“I did not. You try to rob me!" countered Liu.

As the argument continued, Sheriff Dance looked back at the Red Priest and said, “Yeah, all sorted out. Happily ever after.”

The Miner said, “His mule is full of silver. This crazy Chinaman was washing clothes for free. We didn’t pay him no silver. He didn’t mine no silver. The only way for him to get it was to steal it.”

“Ah,” said Archie, “Deduction.”

“I never steal,” said Liu.

“Then how’d you get it, Chinaman!”

“Liu. Liu Sung!”

Dance stepped between them. “Easy Loose Un’! Let’s just take it one step at a time. Pete, fetch that mule over here.”

The mule, who somehow was the most even-tempered party in the whole matter, was freighted with heavy panniers on each of his flanks. Sheriff Dance looked inside and found them filled with small leather sacks. He opened one of the sacks and found it filled with silver dust.

“Alright. He’s got a shitload of silver. Mr. Chinam— I mean Loose ‘Un, you want to explain how you got all this silver?”

“I did not steal,” said Liu Sung.

“And I ain't saying that you did, but I am curious as to where it came from, and where you think you might be going out into that savage wasteland with it?”

“I go back to the middle kingdom, back to civilization."

"Ain't no civilization left, or ain't you noticed? We're on our own son,” said the Sheriff.

"Sung, Liu Sung. Sung is a proud name. The Sung do not steal.”

“If I may promote harmony...” said the Priest of Ba-El.

“Little harmony be real nice for a change around here,” offered Pete.

“He looks as if he comes from the Kithai people, a vast empire far to the NorthEast of here.”

Liu Sung said, “There has always been a middle kingdom. There will always be a middle kingdom."

"An empire you say?” asked Archie. “There is a civilization? More than one? Then why? And who attacked us? And the tower that he saw?”

The Priest of Ba-El smiled again and asked, “Which question would you have me answer first?”

Dance said, “Now, just hang on. Let's get one thing straight before we go bending all the rest. Loose Un, where did the damn silver come from?”

“These men work in the mine, chip, chip, chip, all day. They bring clothes to Liu Sung,” he said with particular emphasis on Sung, “and I wash them. End of day I pour out the water and save all the little pieces of silver I find. Why else I no charge them for laundry.”

“We just though you vere crazy,” said one of the Miners.

“I told you that was our silver!” said another.

“If it's anybody silver it's DuMonts’, and that useless son of a b***h is dead. Loose Song,” said Dance, sincerely trying to get his name right. “You ain’t broken any law and as far as I’m concerned I wish you’d stick around. We need all the smart people we can get. But I suggest you stick around long enough to see what we can learn from our new friend." Dance turned to the Priest of Ba-El and said, "and you, new friend, you're gonna draw us a map.”

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit patrickemclean.substack.com

Laura looked out over what was left of the Town of Grantham. Smoldering buildings. Bodies scattered across the street. She realized that this was the reality. This was the natural state. There would be no rescue. Not by Virgil nor anyone else. She felt an urge to lay down with the dead and be at peace. Then she looked back to her children, asleep in each other's arms, huddled against the wall of Saloon #3. She resolved to go in search of hope even if she no longer believed in it.

She walked around the corner of the building and entered the saloon. The dead and the wounded lay scattered on tables and on the dirt floor. The place smelled of blood and whiskey and tobacco. On a table in the middle of the room lay John Dance, his legs dangling off the end.

In the darkness, the Doctor staggered around drunk and covered with blood, seeming like another one of the wounded. She touched his arm. He shook his head and came back to his senses, shamed by her loveliness in this awful place. He wiped his bloody hands on his bloody shirt and straightened his collar. "You're not hurt, are you?" He asked with real concern.

"The Sheriff?”

"Gutshot,” said the doctor, "and at least one of the bullets is still in him.” He pressed his lips together and said, "there's nothing I can do."

She went to Dance and laid her hand on his face. She felt his strong jaw, noticed the wrinkles from smiling in the corners of his eyes, and felt the fever raging through him. Dance moaned and turned uncomfortably on the table. "Is there nothing that can be done?" she asked.

The Doctor shook his head and looked away. He stepped to the bar and took another pull from a bottle of brown liquor that was covered in bloody handprints. He swallowed hard and then looked at the wounded around him. The burned and the crushed and the shot and said, "God dammit… There's nothing to be done. Nothing to be done for any of ‘em.”

Laura realized he was wrong and walked out of the grisly saloon.

She headed South to where the freight yard had been. The flames had ravaged the wagons and their cargoes. All that was left was the metal of the wheel hubs and tackle and whatever metal implements have been in the cargo. Scattered here and there were the charred bodies of the unfortunate who had not escaped the flames. What she sought was gone.

She had not forgotten the miracle that it saved her child from the arrow wound. The snake oil salesman and his seemingly worthless product had somehow become the elixir of life itself. Now it seemed lost forever. Except for DuMont.

She had overlooked it in the chaos, but now she remembered DuMont. He had not been bent over coughing in pain. He had stood straight with vigor in his spine and spoke with a thunder in his voice. Somehow he had become a healthy man. And Laura had never known or heard of a man with consumption who had been cured.

She walked up the hill, her sights set on DuMont’s strange Victorian house that stood untouched on the rise above her. She shuddered as she approached through the carnage of the night before, but it did not stop her from checking the bodies. Many of their wounds seemed small and innocuous, blood stains in the shirt, more to be fretted over in the washing rather than a cause of death. But after the shock of looking at dead men had passed, she found them to be peaceful and they generated feelings of love and acceptance rather than pity or fear. A strange thought, born of fatigue: she preferred men this way. How much more docile and well-mannered, they were, non-threatening.

But among the dead she could not find the man she was searching for. She continued up the hill and found DuMont slumped on his own porch, bloody like the rest but unlike them, with a shattered bottle of Ol’ Bartloeermere the 2nd’s Magic Elixir next to him on the steps. Nothing more than a few pieces of shattered brown glass held together by paper and the glue on the back of the label.

At first, She thought he was dead, but then he coughed and rolled to his side. "Inside," he said, pointing at the fragments of the bottle. "Inside, another bottle."

As Laura looked down on him, the whole story became clear. There was a bullet hole, right through his breast pocket, into his chest. Right, where one might keep a small bottle. What a particularly inconvenient place to get shot.

He held the fragments of the bottle out towards her like a talisman. "You stupid woman," DuMont rasped, "on my desk, a bottle like this…" He gasped.

Laura smiled. “You're saying that you have another bottle of magic elixir. And you're asking me to get it for you so that I can use it to save you just like it was used to save my daughter. Do I have that right?" He nodded and waved his hand as if to say, get on with it.

"All right. I'll go fetch it.”

In a moment she returned with the bottle. DuMont managed to smile through the pain of his body shutting down.

“Now,” said Laura, “What will you give me for it?"

“Anything, money, silver. anything…"

"Well Mr. DuMont, that certainly would've been a tempting offer a few days back, but we're fresh out of places to spend money. I can't even imagine who I would send silver ore to."

“That’s mine," rasped DuMont, pointing at the bottle.

"You come and take it then, otherwise we're in a negotiation. You got anything I might want? No, that ain't hardly a fair question to put a man in your condition. I’ll just tell you what I do want. A man who is a good enough neighbor to put aside petty differences during emergencies. One who could be counted upon to help with hands needed for a bucket brigade. One that would've known better than to start a fight in the middle of an out-of-control fire. Save you from death? I ain’t a thief. I wouldn't dream of taking something from you you worked so hard to earn."

And then she lifted the hem of her dress, stepped carefully over the pool of blood leaking from DuMont, and left him to die.

She took the bottle of elixir and walked back to Saloon #3. She checked to see that the children were still sleeping. Then she paused in the doorway and passed the elixir from hand to hand. It was a miraculous and unlikely thing she held – a second chance.

She wondered if she should keep it for herself. Or hide it away until she or Mack or Pen were badly hurt. But it was a false sense of security. Unless the sad, struggling little town pulled together it would soon be whisked out of existence in this great unknown nowhere where they found themselves. The fools, the madman, fighting amongst themselves as the town burned. Everyone who was left needed to work together, and for that, they needed the Sheriff.

She had been tempted to do a bad thing with him once. The sin of that was on her, she thought. But the fact remained, Dance was a man who had tried to do the right thing when others wouldn't. He wasn’t a good man. But he was good enough. She hoped.

—

Archie coughed himself awake. The sound was explosive in the confined space and even before he could open his eyes the headache came. The air was thick with dust and when he tried to see his eyes burned and he shut them again. There was no point to sight, he was in utter darkness.

Fear grabbed ahold of him and he thrashed about, throwing his body from side to side against the rubble. His left foot was pinned and pain spiked through his knee as he rolled.

He was aware, logically, that he was out of control, but logic could obtain no grasp on his psyche. He screamed at the top of his lungs and beat his fists against the rock. With anger alone he tried to stable his fear and master his mind.

Memories came flooding back to him. That horrible bat, the presence of it in his mind, the raw power of the creature as it broke forth from the vault of stone, dropping the roof upon him.

He grabbed the rubble beneath his hands until the pain of clenching it brought him back to his senses. He found himself clutching a flat rock, nearly a foot in length in his right hand, and a vaguely triangular rock in his left.

With some difficulty he worked himself onto his side and curled in a ball. He felt around his trapped foot and ankle to get a picture of the stone that pinned it. He wedged the flat rock into the gap between the stone and the floor then he slid the triangular stone underneath it, forming a fulcrum. He pressed down on the lever as hard as he could and the rock holding his foot moved — infinitesimally, but it had moved!

He worked patiently, pressing the lever until he could advance the fulcrum, and little by little the pressure on his foot diminished. He could feel the rock lifting from his leg, but when he tried to pull his leg free, it ground cruelly against the stone. He thrashed in frustration this time hitting his head on the slab that formed the roof of his prison. When he regained consciousness again, returning to his task and trying not to be alarmed by the powerful and rising thirst that he could do nothing about.

Laura stood over John Dance watching him die, surprised that he didn't look the least bit concerned about it. So unlike Virgil. Her husband worried about everything. She had almost forgotten there were men who would joyfully throw the chip of their existence around in the game of life.

Dance was unconscious but looked peaceful enough despite his horrible and poorly bandaged wounds. Flies swarmed in the lone shaft of Sunlight that had dared to enter Saloon # 3. As the day wore on sunbeam would lose its courage, and realize that this was not a place where the light was welcome and retreat with the coming of night.

John Dance, that damnable man, thought Laura. He looked so carefree as he lay in his own blood that she wondered if she should let him go. But the town needed him if it was to survive. And if her children were to stand any chance at all they needed to town. And finally yes, she needed him. She wanted him and that was the sharpest pain of all.

She put her hand to his face and caressed him. Then she shook him but he did not wake. So she uncorked the bottle and poured the elixir between his lips. Then she kissed him, pressing her mouth to his so that he would not spill even a drop. At least that's what she told herself as she felt the life stir in him and her hot tears baptized his battered face.

After hours of trying, Archie had still not freed his foot. His primitive lever was long enough to move the stone that had trapped his ankle but not long enough for him to get free. But since contemplating his full predicament was horrifying, he had devoted himself to his hopeless task. Then the stone broke into three useless shards.

Archie slumped in defeat, too tired to even sob.

He felt his breath stir the dust next to his cheek. He let his whole body go as if it were a burden that someone else had asked him to carry that he was now glad to be rid of. Now Death, he thought.

And from the depths, something answered.

He felt a distant pulsing in the rock, the intimation of mighty roaring subterranean engines, far, far below.

A sense of power filled him and he underwent a dizzying shift of scale. The horrible bat creature had called to him, trying to draw him out, trying to drain him, but this was something else. A pure sending – a gift of… what it was, he could not say. It felt like a gift from God, but it came from below.

He seemed mighty to himself, not in the way of giants but mighty in knowledge of the secrets of the world. His thirst, hunger, and cold were gone. He saw his predicament as a silly thing: A man trapped inside a room, thinking the door was locked when all he needed to do was to stop pulling and push instead.

He felt the rocks beneath him grow less substantial. It started as a buzzing feeling in his fingertips. He opened his eyes and saw that the darkness had been replaced. What had been so solid, now revealed itself to be glowing infinitesimals around which tiny particles revolved at fantastic speeds. These particles moved so fast that each iota of rock only seemed solid, but was in fact, nothing more than the pressure of frantically whirling tendencies.

He saw, for the first time, that had been foolish to think of stone as solid and weighty. Even more foolish to be trapped by stone. In time with this thought, his leg slipped free and drifted upward through what had been solid rock. And then Archie swam through the rubble of the collapsed vault, surprised to find that it was a kind of water and even more surprised to learn that he was a kind of fish.

Among the angular shapes that he passed through Archie was surprised to find a sleeping form of MacAllister, encased in the sandy rubble of the collapsed mine tunnel. He gathered the large Scotsman in a wave before him and carried him from the mine.

They coalesced onto the ground in the open air amid the charred rubble of the mine yard. MacAllister settled to the ground and Archie landed on his feet. A sharp pain spiked up his leg and he fell to the the sooty ground next to the large Scotsman. MacAllister coughed and spit sand on him.

"Bloody hell,” said Archie.

MacAllister open his eyes and asked, “We are named dead yet?"

Archie stared at him fascinated and terrified at the absurdity of seeing very whirling infinitesimals that the man was composed of.

As his vision faded back to normal, Archie answered, "I don't know what we are."

"I'll tell you what we are lad," MacAllister said with a wink, "we're thirsty!" MacAllister rose and helped Archie to his feet. By leaning against the Scotsman, Archie was able to ease the weight of his injured foot. And so they staggered together, into what was left of the town.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit patrickemclean.substack.com

The town burned through the night and when the glow of dawn finally overpowered the glow of the embers, the townspeople who were still alive collapsed to the Earth from weariness. Exhaustion granted a temporary reprieve from the crush of defeat.

Half of the town had burned. The north side was spared only by the direction of the wind and the unusual width of the main street. The Morning Star mine works, the Morning Star Saloon, The First Baptist Church, the Miller General store and countless odd shanties, tents and hovels had been incinerated. In the grim dawn, no one picked through the ashes to find the bodies.

Somehow, Saloon #3 had survived. And, grateful for it, Laura Miller slumped against its east wall, clutching Mac and Penelope to her. The children slept, but Laura’s worries would not let her sleep. She leaned against the wall, feeling the air warm as the sun rose, and tried not to move. Let the children sleep, she thought. That they were still alive was victory enough… for now.

Mac shifted in his sleep and the rifle he clutched to his chest pressed into Laura’s cheek. She pushed it away and shifted. But that upset the delicate equilibrium. Pen’s weight shifted off Laura’s leg and it tingled back to painful life. She groaned and moved out from underneath the children. Pen muttered something, wrapped her arms around her brother, and fell back to sleep. Mack lolled his head to the side and began to snore.

As they slept they looked so innocent, but Laura feared that innocence had been lost. What they had seen last night — things as horrible as what she had seen during the war and on the run — the things that she and Virgil had tried to protect them — these things could never be unseen.

Mack had grown so big, yet in some ways, he was still just a foolish, beautiful boy. When the mine exploded, they had all come out into the street to see what happened. Then they realized the church was also ablaze. As they watched the flames jumped to the saloon and then the mine. The next time they looked they saw the store, their home, was on fire.

Then Mac was away, running into the burning building. Laura screamed, the one time in that whole night that she did. But she could not reach Mack to stop him. He plunged into the building and she clutched Penelope to her and waited in terror. In those long seconds, the roof caved in and flames rushed forth from the second-story windows. She said her jaw and willed – willed – that foolish boy to emerge from the flames.

There was a clatter of hooves and the rattle of an empty wagon coming down the hill. A woman bellowing like a man for everyone to get out of the way. Laura turned to see Jane Siskin, the woman who hauled much of their freight, standing in the bed of a cargo wagon, reins in one hand, whip in the other, driving a team of oxen hard towards the river.

When the wagon had passed, she saw Mac, his hair badly singed, running towards her clutching the ancient buffalo rifle that had decorated the wall above the weapons rack.

She shrieked at him, then slapped him, then clasped him, gun and all, in a powerful hug.

“Pa’s coming back, and he's going to need it!"

Laura nodded, not giving a damn about the gun, tears welling up in her eyes. And then the tears burst forth as she realized, with the town ablaze around them, the Virgil was never coming back.

"He's gonna need it to put things right. Don't you worry Ma, you'll see.”

When the fire had started John Dance had forgotten all about the Burdock’s. They had scattered into the smoke and chaos. Dance organized a bucket brigade even though it seemed hopeless. But then that crazy Siskin woman had come driving up the hill with a wagon full of water.

"Drove it right into the damn river," she proclaimed proudly. Buckets and hats and spittoons and any other damn thing they could find to hold water went in and were used to try and douse the flames. The Church was a total loss, so they had focused their efforts on the Morning Star saloon. But it was no use. It went up like a match. Rats, drunks, gamblers, and w****s poured forth coughing from the smoke.

Dance diverted the brigade to the next building. "Wet it down! Keep the fire from spreading!” But soon the wagon was dry and Jane rode off to the river again. Everyone stood around looking at each other, looking hopeless. From out of the darkness a figure wearing a suit, and flourishing a cane like a dandy, emerged into the light of the burning town. It was Jean Dumont, followed by a large contingent of miners. But he was not stooped or coughing. He stood ramrod straight and his voice was clear and commanding when he said, “how dare you abandon my building to the flames! I demand that you…"

Dance said, “What! What exactly do you want me to do? We ain't got no water at the moment!"

DuMont had no response.

“That Saloon is a lost cause. What we need are men and buckets to stop the spread. Lend us your men, DuMont.”

“That is your affair!”

“My AFFAIR! For Christ’s sake DuMont, the town is burning!”

From the dark, on the other side of John Dance, Burdock rode his horse into the light of the flames. The shadowed forms of his cowboys were visible behind him.

“Burdock, get buckets in them men’s hands!” said Dance.

“No,” said Burdock, “I don’t think I will.”

Dance, silhouetted against the flames, looked back and forth between the two of them. "Good God! Can’t either of you see?"

"I see a town problem,” said Burdock.

Dance pleaded, “But we’re all we have left! You’ve been out there. You’ve seen! The world, everything we knew… it’s gone!”

Burdock sneered, “Civilization is gone, with its weakness and its decadence. If you can't live out here in the frontier, you shouldn’tve come. Hell of a way to larn it.”

From somewhere in the burning chaos a man screamed in pain. It was a sharp noise followed by a grunt and a bellow ending in a higher pitch scream. Then, entering like a chorus, the sobbing of a woman, the timeless song of grief.

From down the road, John Dance heard Jane Siskin cursing at her oxen as she drove them back from the river. He looked and saw the axle break and all the water slosh from the wagon.

Dance turned to DuMont and said, “Give me your Miners at least! Please!”

"This town has been nothing but an obstacle to my operations. My silver remains safe underground, and my men are employed in protecting what remains of Company property.”

Burdock snarled, “You always was a greedy, shortsighted, Son-of-a-B***h,” as what was left of the saloon collapsed behind him, “Ain’t even willing to defend the town you blighted this fine landscape with!”

The haggard people waiting for the wagon to return with water stood with their buckets dangling from their hands, staring at this conflict in disbelief.

Dance held his arms outstretched, imploring them both. “Maybe more of us survive when we work together. That’s all I’m saying.”

“You should have thought of that before you framed my poor boy Charlie for murder,” said Burdock.

“You should have thought of that before harassing my miners and taxing our operations,” said DuMont

Nearly in tears, Dance cried, “For the Love of God, do you men have no souls!”

Up the street, Laura Miller had stopped to watch the confrontation, clutching her children to her. As Dance held his hands high, and pleaded with the stubborn Rancher and the greedy Miner, she saw Charlie Burdock emerge from an alley on the North side of the street. He raised his pistol. As Laura cried “No!” he fired several times, hitting Sheriff Dance in the back.

Dance grunted and fell forward to his knees. Charlie fired again.

Dance coughed once, looked at all of them, and said, “You stupid sons-of-b*****s. You know not what you do.” Then he felt forward into the street.

Another shot rang out — Laura could not see who fired it — and Charlie was knocked off his feet. Then both the Miners and the Cowboys opened fire.

Laura fled with her children, as gunfire rang out and the town burned.

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Virgil had sat in the Nothing with the Shaman for an amount of time he could not identify. He asked, "I saw you dead. How is any of this possible?”

“It would be more polite if you asked me a question I could answer,” said Shaman, running his colorless fingers through the colorless grass on which they sat. “I am what you see, but I am not what you see. Your mind makes sense of it with the symbols it has.”

Virgil stared at him in mute confusion.

The old Shaman that was No One tried again. “All things have a symbol or a name, all things but me. I am no one. I am no thing. I am only that I am."

"Is this a riddle?"

"No,” said No One. “But because the truth is the wrong shape to fit into your head, you try to make it into a riddle. Some men try paradoxes. I like those best of all, they never go anywhere either."

"My wife… I came seeking…"

“Yes,” said No One, “I've tasted your desire on the smoke now for seven days – but here it feels like forever and still just an instant. See, paradox!"

“Where have they gone?” demanded Virgil, his hand on his gun.

"They have gone out of this world, to another. I think this not often done. Someone made a bridge. Someone made a tunnel. Someone made a tunnel through a bridge."

"Who? And how do I find this bridge?"

"Tunnel."

"Fine, tunnel…"

“It’s a bridge, you look up. But if it’s not a bridge, it’s a tunnel!” The old man who was No One laughed. “At least I’m pretty sure it is.

With an effort, Virgil removed his hand from his gun. He tried again, saying, “Who has done this?"

"One from here, one from there. From here the ones dug the tunnel to escape. From there, I think they built a bridge. No One shrugged. “Jave you seen anyone strange? Travelers, I mean?"

Virgil shook his head, no.

"Then perhaps someone has set a trap on the other side."

"How do I get there?"

"You would run into a trap?"

"I would ride into hell."

The Indian shrugged, “It is somewhere, I guess. But it all becomes nothing in the end.”

Virgil turned his head and spit. No One was shocked at this. He stared at the moisture hanging from the pigmentless grass and dripping on the colorless earth.

Virgil asked more questions and the Indian gave more unsatisfactory answers. This went on for an hour or an eternity, and Virgil had no way of knowing which it was. Virgil left, feeling that the Indian in the colorless place hadn't told him anything worth knowing.

Virgil did not remember leaving or even deciding to leave. It seemed that he had simply closed his eyes one moment, and opened them the next, to find himself riding on his horse, blinking against the profusion of colors he saw in the muted, eastern Arizona desert.

As he rode back from the Nothing to Nowhere the old Shaman’s words rang in his head, nothing could pass from one place to another without leaving a connection. But where would this connection be? What form would it take? A bridge, a tunnel? How might Virgil use it to return to his family?

He remembered the old Indian’s lopsided grin as he told him that the world was filled with women and that Virgil should go find another wife and have some more children. The Shaman said he was too old to try himself, but he had never stopped wanting to.

Virgil had cursed him then, saying, “If you can't do anything to help me then what are you good for?"

The old Indian had told him that People weren't supposed to be *for* anything. They’re just supposed to be. And added that people forgetting this fact was the source of most of the problems in the world.

He remembered setting seven fires to get to the Nothing. It only took him one night to return. The next afternoon, he spotted smoke on the horizon.

As he urged more speed out of his horse, he realized the shapes of the hills were familiar. He dropped the pack horse and spurs his tired mount into a weary gallop. But when he crested the hill and looked down at the spot where Grantham had been he saw that it still wasn't there. But he was faced with an even more puzzling sight. From the hill where the Morning Star mine had been, a column of black smoke rose into the sky.

At first, Virgil thought that the hill was somehow on fire, but when he approached he realized, even though the smoke smelled of burning hair and flesh, that it was no flame or even heat. The smoke emerged cool and thick, from the dirt itself. He scratched some of the dirt away until he got to rock. And from a crack in the rock itself, the smoke poured forth.

The next day, Virgil began to dig.

The loose dirt on the face of the hill fell away with ease and he had his first cave-in before he had cleared away the bedrock, a simple, but demoralizing landslide. He dismantled the wagon and used its wood to shore up the entrance.

That night he slept under the stars instead of under the wagon and as he fell asleep he whispered a message to his wife Laura. "I know not which one of these bright specs of light you might be by hiding behind, but if I have to search every one I am coming for you all the same. Tell the children I am coming.” Then weariness overtook him.

The next day he took a bag filled with ore and dirt and rode off to Bisbee. There he filed a mining claim. When the registrar asked him if the claim was in Grantham, he said “No,” explaining no further. The ore was rich and the assayer said the claim was promising. Virgil grunted and went on his way.

He bought a wagon and loaded it with mining equipment. Then he made the trek back to the town that wasn’t there anymore. When he arrived, he took a plank, painted the word “Nowhere” on it, then nailed it to a post.

The next day his work began in earnest. He dug with pickax and shovel. And before him as he worked was the always tantalizing crack. It rose and fell, widened and narrowed, but never opened. He got no more whiffs of smoke but by the guttering light of his miner's candle, he could see a thin layer of soot lining the bottom of the fissure.

At the end of each day, he would fill sacks with what he dug and carry them to the wagon. At the end of the first month, the wagon was full and he took it to the mills in Bisbee. It was assayed and sold and with the money, he bought more supplies and hired men. By the end of spring, a new settlement of tents had sprung up around the Nowhere sign.

Now, instead of digging, he supervised. He ran two shifts of miners and eventually hired a foreman. Another outfit came into town and filed a claim off to the South. Men built houses and saloons and stores and warehouses, but Virgil, the richest man in town still slept in a tent. And he might've stayed in that tent until the sun and wind had shredded the canvas.

But it was not to be. One night two desperados thought Rob him as he slept. The next morning, as Virgil stood over their bodies, his six-gun hanging hot and heavy on his hip, he decided it was time to build a house. But moving indoors changed nothing. He rose before dawn, worked all day, ate dinner, and then, as the last of the minors left, he would take a lamp and inspect the day’s progress.

When the Foreman, a barrel-chested man from Aberdeen, had first arrived, he expected Virgil would meddle in the mine operations. But when he asked Virgil if he had any instructions, Virgil turned to him with hollow-eye intensity and said, "I don't know anything about mining, but follow that crack wherever it leads." The foreman had raised an eyebrow, but since that crackled through the richest seam of ore, there was no point in arguing.

In five years, the Lost Girl mine was played out and Virgil had become a very wealthy man. So had the foreman, a few miners, store owners, saloon keepers, and w****s. But even as the mine waned in productive output, Virgil ordered the men to keep digging. The foreman, whose compensation was based on the output of the mind, moved to another Silver Mine farther north.

Yet still, Virgil paid the man to dig. The mills in Bisbee stopped buying the wagonloads of dirt and ore, so they just piled it up on the surface. The Lost Girl mine became surrounded by an ever-growing field of tailings and rubble. Someone named it "Miller's Castle" in mockery of the waste and foolishness. But as Virgil was willing to expend his considerable fortune to keep the mind operating, the Castle continue to grow.

The digging continued for years and men in the last open saloon placed wagers on how deep the useless mine would go before crazy old Virgil Miller's fortune ran out. But even the boldest wag held his tongue every evening when Virgil made his nightly walk to the mine.

In another three years, the money was all gone, the saloon was closed and Nowhere had become a ghost town. But still, Virgil rose every morning and went to the mine. He worked with pick and shovel, digging deeper and deeper into the earth, still following hope of a crack in the rock that had yet to open yet still hadn’t closed.

When he had first struck the earth, years before, he had swung his pick in anger. When he had men working for him, he swung his pick with confidence. When the silver had played out, he had tried to strike with confidence but had lashed out at the rock in fear and desperation. But now that he alone worked the empty seam, Virgil Miller struck the rock as if he was trying to ring the Earth like a bell. He swung with the patience of the wind wearing away rock. Digging not for a certainty, but for a chance.

And for Virgil, a chance was enough.

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Dance crawled until he passed out. He couldn’t say how long he slept, but he was brought back to consciousness by the peaceful sound of his horse cropping grass close to his head.

At this he spasmed in fear, rolled onto his back and crab-walked backwards, scrambling for his pistol. His horse looked at him evenly, knowing him for the fool that he was. When Dance realized his situation, he replaced his half–unholstered pistol and said a prayer of gratitude. Then he started looking for his hat.

He saw it a few hundred yards out on the prairie next to a burned black circle. He raised his eyes to the horizon and saw the black tower stabbing into the sky. He shook his head and said, “I never did like that hat, anyway.” Then he caught his horse and rode back to town.

With Archie in the lead McAllister and ten of the Teamsters crossed the street and made for the Morning Star mine. But before they could get to the mine yard, Jane Siskin stormed into their path. Gone was the dress of the night before and now she was in dusty leathers again. She planted her hands on her hips and said, “Now just where in the hell do you think you're going!?!”

Archie said, “And just whom in the hell you imagine you are addressing?"

"Oh, I ain't talking to you, your highness. These boys in on my payroll and that means they should have the courtesy to inform me before they go off getting in some foolishness. I mean, Clod there don't know no better, but I expected more from you MacAllister."

"Enough wi’ your haverin’ woman! My head’s not havin’ ’t this mornin. It’s bright and loud already and your man here is invited us to go for a walk in a nice, cool, quiet cave. So we've decided on a wee stroll."

Jane turned her skeptical eye towards Archie.

Archie told her of the disappearance of the silver deposits and their replacement with an ancient temple of unknown origin. Jane tried to look tough and unfeeling as he explained, but the memory of the darkness and the vision he had seen there were so fresh in Archie's mind she was captured by his retelling.

"Besides," concluded Archie, “since the road to Bisbee, and for all we know the entirely of the outside world, is gone, it appears you are out of the freight business and must seek a new line of employment. Might I suggest Archaeology?”

"Oh my sweet prince," at Jane with a smile. “It's you who don't get how the world works. Roads and towns come and go, but there is always – always – something that needs hauling. But let's have a look at what's in your root cellar. Then she hooked her arm through his and Archie escorted her across the street as if she had been a guest at the season’s finest ball.

As they assembled torches in the yard, Archie looked askance at the miners who stood around in small groups, muttering to themselves, “Bloody fools.”

“Why are you so angry at them,” Jane asked, “they're just afraid.”

“Superstition offends me. Right to my very core."

"You mean to tell me you don't believe in ghosts and spirits?" Asked Jane.

"Certainly not. I am a natural philosopher. I believe in what I can see with my own eyes, what I can verify with my own senses."

“What of God, ye English heathen? Have you seen him?” Asked McAllister good-naturedly as he tied a rag around a length of shattered board.

“Carefully recording the wonder of his creation so that we can better understand it, is that not worship?” asked Archie.

MacAllister smiled and answered, “Laddie, I’m just grateful when I walk in a church that the roof doesn’t fall in on top of me.

They filled a wagon with torches and rolled it as far as the mine tracks would go, then they all lit two torches a piece and advanced into the chamber. The twelve of them spread out in an attempt to fill the chamber with light. But there was something about the darkness. It retreated, but begrudgingly, stubbornly, as if still fighting to clock the secrets of the ancient Temple.

Jane asked, "then what was that nasty ol’ DuMont digging up this whole time?"

Archie said, "the Miners assure me that there was silver here yesterday.”

Jayne said, “Just like the river."

McAllister said, “I’ll take a clean river over a foul pit any day."

Archie walked along the edge of the room where a great arch opened onto nothing but dark, natural stone. "The curvature of this vault is quite sophisticated, and the interlocking arches would be quite unnecessary if this was merely an underground structure. Which is to say…" Archie trailed off in thought.

McAllister chimed in, “Which is to say nothing makes sense to me."

Archie outlined what parts of the arch she could reach with his torch and asked, “Doesn't this seem more like a window to you?"

“Aye, but it’s daft to build a window underground.”

“But it’s not quite underground, is it? Or at least it might not have been when it was built. If we dig away the rock here, this would be open to the sky. We have merely gone into the hill without descending appreciably.”

Jane said, “Darling, I love the way your brain is always working, but I don't see why it matters. There ain't no silver here, ain't nothing of value. Just a room we're savages used to kill other savages."

"Oh no," at Archie, “Here there is the most valuable commodity of all. Knowledge. And the entertainment of a true mystery. And if your only concern is avarice then what I am saying is that this structure must assuredly have lower levels."

"And we’ve a s**t–ton of useless miners out there," said MacAllister.

"Exactly, now let me see if I can catch a glimpse of the ceiling." Archie strode over to the center of the room and, with a shudder, stepped up on the sacrificial altar. He lifted the torch as high as he could above his head. At first, he thought the darkness was stubbornly congealed above him, like some strange pool of evil night, but as he moved the torch and looked at the shape of the darkness from different angles, he began to see that there was a large mass hanging in the center of the room.

“Scaffold, ladders, something to stand on!” cried Archie.

Two wooden ladders were brought and lashed together at the top and tethered by rope at the sides. Teamsters held the feet of the ladder on either side of the altar. Torch in his right hand, Archie ascended the shaky, makeshift ladder, white-knuckling the rungs with his left.

Perversely, the shape seemed to recede into the darkness above. And Archie felt queasy. He had the feeling that the scale and geometry of this space were wrong, somehow becoming larger the more he advanced into it.

“What is it?” cried Jane from below.

Weakness washed over Archie and he swayed on the ladder, nearly losing his grip. He pulled himself close to the rungs, and ground his teeth together, forcing his breath through his nose.

Without looking up, he climbed the last three rungs and lifted the torch again. The shape was bigger now, and he could almost make it out — almost understand the meaning of its silhouette. If only he could get closer. He stepped even higher on the ladder and now his hips and center of gravity were above the top of the improvised a-frame. His bent knees shook with fear, but he forced himself to stand, holding the torch as high as he could above his head.

It started to make sense. There were two long triangles on the bottom, black and covered with tendrils of mold — or was they fur? it was difficult to know because the blackness of this thing swallow the light. He swung a leg over the top of the ladder and put his foot on the topmost rung on the other side.

“Be careful!” cried Jane.

“I’ve almost made it out…” said Archie as he stood on the wobbling ladder, raising his torch as high as possible into the darkness. The flames from the torch licked one of the corners of the triangles, and there was a sizzling noise, then aroar as the thing caught fire.

Flamed rippled up the side of it, and, with a creaking noise, the thing turned its face at Archie and screamed. By the light of his torch and the light of the creature’s own immolation, Archie made out that the thing hanging in the center of the vault was a gigantic bat.

It let go of its perch and spread its burning wings, crashing into Archie, shattering the ladder, and sending all of it crashing to the stone below.

The Preacher had done a brisk trade all day. Townspeople were flat rattled by the appearance of a river from nothing, then the attack, and the disappearance of the outside world. By now reports had come in of a line surrounding the town beyond which the terrain was different. What was the meaning of this? Was this God’s work or the Devil’s? The End of Days or an unfathomable beginning?

In ones and twos they had trickled into his small church all day and by the late afternoon his conversation had turned into an impromptu sermon. The Preacher had never had an experience like this before and can only attribute the words that flowed forth from him as inspired by the Holy Spirit itself. Where there was fear, he sowed hope. Where there was doubt, he sowed faith.

"Even the Devil is doing the work of the Lord," he began. "For what can exist without it serving God? That's a hard truth to accept sometimes — may be hard to accept all the time. But God gives us troubles so we can grow. It's might be the end of the world but it’s not the end of God’s plan for you. And you don’t want the end of days to catch you and you be unsaved. ‘Cause you want to be in that number, Lord, when the Saints come a marchin’ in!”

“What do you think is going to happen to us?” asked a young woman whose brazen clothing contrasted with her timid manner. A young Magdalene thought the Preacher, cowed by the majesty of a simple chapel.

“in this life? Trial, pain, suffering, and death. All that is guaranteed. What is not guaranteed is that you find love and fellowship in the model of Christ. But you can have it. You grow in the world and in Christ to have a full life. But what is an absolute certainty is that you will be tested and then you will die. And after that, well, what happens it's up to you. Eternal damnation or eternal salvation. And as Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.’

“so the question to ask, my lost and bewildered sheep is not, are we going to die? The question is what happens after that. Are you saved? Have you been saved? Do you want to be saved?"

And so it was the Preacher led a procession down to the river’s edge to baptize 13 new souls for the Lord. As he did, he felt proud to be a mighty warrior for Christ.

He took off his jacket and waded right through the weeds into the depths of the river. There he raised his hands and cried, "Brothers and sisters, don’t be afraid of the water! Who among ye will go first?" But no one followed. So the Preacher said, "for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that you might have life eternal. Compared to that wondrous miracle, that most stupendous of gifts, I ask you, why would God not send a river into the desert so that your soul and your soul and your soul might be saved.”

The young Magdalene stepped forward shyly then stopped.

The Preacher beckoned her, “Come closer dear. There’s no reason to be afraid. The good Lord parted the Red Sea, saved Moses from the Pharaoh, and he said water into the desert that you might not die, but live eternal."

Then Preacher looked down at his leg with some alarm, something had brushed by him under the water – a large something, but conscious of the eyes of his flock upon him, he tried to be brave. With a confidence he didn't feel, he called out to the young Magdalene again. "Come on down here, time to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. He’s ready for you darlin’ I promise,” said the Preacher, forcing a smile across his face.

She made her way through the reeds and the cold, sucking mud, smiling at the crowd on the bank, then looking down and frowning at what the river was doing to her expensive dress. When she finally stood next to the Preacher he said, “Cross your arms across your chest darlin’.” Then put a hand on her forehead and another hand on the small of her back. “Are you ready to receive Jesus Christ as your personal savior? To receive the gift of Life Everlasting and the eternal love of God?”

She nodded.

“Are you ready to be born again in the Holy Spirit?”

“I am — ahhhhhhhh!” She screamed as something in the water grabbed her leg and dragged her under.

In the silence after that horrible scream, the Preacher stood in the water, not knowing what to say. He looked to the believers on shore and saw that they did not understand. And why should they? They had never seen a river baptism. Maybe this was what was supposed to happen. For a moment the preacher found himself, like any desperate performer trying to figure out how to salvage a bit from disaster. Then the creature in the river surfaced in its death roll, flinging the young woman's body into the air for long enough for her to scream in agony and for all to see her broken body washed with a thin mixture of blood and river water. As the screaming began, the Preacher splashed for the shore.

Dance had given his horse his head and slumped weakly against the animal’s neck, drifting in and out of consciousness as the horse found his way home. All Dance wanted from the world was to eat some of Speedy Pete’s beans, crawl into the number two cell, lock the door, and sleep secure in the knowledge that the iron bars were enough to protect him from the giant bear of his nightmares. But as he rounded the corner on the main street he saw a group of cowboys on horses in front of the jail.

At the head of them sat Nathan Burdock with his hands crossed over his saddlehorn. He yelled into the jail, ”You let my boy out, or this is gonna turn ugly.”

Well, thought Dance, at least the jail ain’t on fire.

From inside he heard Sleepy Pete's slow drawl, "the sheriff will be back anytime now, you'll see. Then you'll be in all kinds of trouble."

"Paw, you get me out of here!" Came Charlie Burdock’s thin cry.

“Now, Pete, the Sheriff’s just one man and I don't…" said Nathan Burdock, trailing off when he saw what was left of Dance.

Without a word, and without his hat, the Sheriff rode right through the Cowboys, right past Burdock and hitched his horse to the post.

“Jesus Christ,” said one of the cowboys.

“Fresh from the tomb,” said another, because Dance looked like 20 miles of bad road.

Dance paid them none of them any mind. He dunked his head in the horse trough, shook like a dog, then slurped greedily at the water.

Nathan Burdock cleared his throat. Then he drew his pistol, cocked the hammer and said, “Sheriff?”

Dance turned slowly, holding his hands away from his sides and said, “Why Nathan, I didn’t see you there.”

Nathan Burdock smiled and said, “You got my boy in there and I'll be having him."

"Don't worry Sheriff, I got a bead on him,” said Sleepy Pete from inside the jail.

“Pete, that ain’t reassuring, I know what kinda shot you are,” Dance yelled back at the jail. Then he turned wearily back to Nathan Burdock and said, “Sorry for the interruption, I didn’t want to get accidentally shot.” He swept his gaze across Nathan’s sour-faced ranch hands in front of the jail. “Or on purpose shot, either.”

“Just give me my boy and nobody gets shot.” Dance, swayed a little with fatigue and added, “I don’t know what you want that kid for. He’s a real a*****e, I can tell you that.”

Nathan Burdock said, “My line’s not long on charm, but I’ll be havin’ him all the same.”

“Well, the thing is, I’m supposed to hold him until the circuit court judge comes through from Tuscon. But seeing as Tuscon ain’t there anymore, I guess… s**t… you can have him.”

“Whaaaaaaat?” drawled Speedy Pete from inside the jail.

“Pete, go on and bring the prisoner out here!”

“Sheriff, I don’t think…”

“Deputy, it has been a long day and I’m in no mood for an argument.”

Burdock lowered his pistol. He looked confused and slightly disappointed to have gotten his way so easily. He was all keyed up for a fight that hadn’t come. He said, “You know, and I know my boy ain’t gonna see no justice from a crooked judge from big-city Tuscon.

“Jesus Nate. Take yes for an answer why’dontcha?”

“That’s Mr. Burdock to you.”

Dance nodded, waving a dismissive hand and said, “Pete, hurry up in there.” Then back to Burdock, “You see, his nickname is of an ironical nature.”

Pete unbarred the door. It was a hollow, violent thump that caused the horses and men jump. Burdock’s men were especially skittish with their easy victory, wondering if all this weren’t some kind of strange trick.

Pete emerged from the jail with a shotgun and Charlie Burdock in handcuffs. "You sure about this Sheriff? It don't seem right."

"Pete, Miguel is dead. And we are in Arizona no more."

"Oh no how do you die?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you. So if this old hatchet face b*****d wants to take his jackass kid and ride out of town to get killed – well, saves us tying a noose.”

"What are you carrying on about?" asked one of Burdock’s men.

"Don't pay no mind to his foolishness boys,” said Burdock, not sure what the play was here.

"I want to hear what he has to say," said another adding, "maybe he can tell us why the little bunkhouse disappeared."

"If I had answers, I wouldn't share them with a pack of thugs like you," said the sheriff and he took the shackles from Charlie Burdock's wrists. Charlie grinned at Dance and said, I told you that so I wouldn't hold me, Sheriff." Then he started down the steps.

Sheriff Dance’s kick got Charlie square in the right ass cheek and sent him sprawling flat in the street. He turned in the dirt and got up with his fist clenched, mad as hell. But dance just stood on the top of the steps with his hands held out from his sides, smiling like he had won a prize at the fair.

"Easy boy," said Nathan Burdock.

"Yeah boy, easy,” said Dance.

"That's enough out of you!" Burdock snapped at Dance.

“Somebody lend me a gun," Charlie said his face red with embarrassment.

"No,” said Nathan, trying to put a final word to it.

One of the ranch hands brought a saddled horse to the front for Charlie.

“Sheriff, you cain’t just let him go!”

“Pete, there’s no point. There’s no Judge comin’ from Tuscon.”

“But he killed a man in cold blood. You cain’t let him get away with that!”

Why not, Dance wondered? Hadn’t the man who became John Dance gotten away with it? He's gotten away with killing men all the way here. To this town where everybody smiled when they saw him. Where he had respect and found a way to use violent talents for good. This town and these people, even the roughest of them, generally weren't bad men, and they were still ignorant of how the world had changed around them. Of what they were facing and how lost they really were. This town was gonna fall apart when the truth landed.

Charlie snarled, “I didn’t kill nobody in cold blood, he drew first and I shot him.”

“You’re that fast, hunh?” asked Dance.

“Yes sir, I am! And iff’n you hadn’t blindsided me, I woulda got you too!” said Charlie, ignoring the waiting horse.

"Let's go home,” said Nathan Burdock.

Dance said, “’ cause it's one thing to be steady shooting a man in the back, as you did. But it's another thing entirely to aim and fire when they're shooting back."

"They don't get a chance to fire back on account I'm so fast."

"Oh boy, you're real scary."

"Enough," said Nathan Burdock

"Mister, you're lucky I don't have a gun."

“is that a fact?" Asked the sheriff. Then he reached out to Speedy Pete’s belt pulled out his pistol.

“I forbid this,” said Nathan Burdock.

“Forbid what? He’s a free man, just like you wanted. If you got some regrets about his unfortunate character, it's far too late to start raising him now. Here you go, little Burdock,” said Dance as tossed the pistol to the boy.

As it flew through the air, there was a tremendous explosion and everyone flinched. Forgotten, the pistol landed in the dirt as everyone turned to see a tremendous cloud of smoke rising up from the Morning Star Mine.

The congregation at the water’s edge had recoiled in horror at the gruesome spectacle of the young girl who had tried to give her life to God, but instead had wound up being food for some horrible and still unseen river monster. They pulled the preacher ashore and looked to him for answers, but he had gave none. He ran right through the crowd and kept running up the hill towards the church lost in terror and despair.

What was this? The preacher wondered. Oh God, why hast thou forsaken me? That young girl, so beautiful, not innocent of course, but not deserving of this. He remembered the feel of her flesh beneath her dress as she was torn from his grasp. The whole of it was incomprehensible to him. He saw the humble church and ran towards it seeking to take refuge in prayer in the house of the Lord.

There was a peal of thunder and black smoke filled the sky. Behind him he heard the screams and cries of the faithful. A cloud of roiling black smoke filled the air and threw it rose a conflagration with wings. As it rose it screamed hatred at all of God's creation. With two mighty wing beats it climbed towards the heavens like something from John of Patmos’ nightmares. On the third beat one of its wings shredded to ash and it spun downwards, out of control, headed right for them.

The preacher stopped running thinking that his doom was upon him. He cast his arms out to his side and cried aloud “Take me Lord,” ready to meet his maker.

The fiery beast crashed into the church in front of him, pulverizing the chapel with furious beats of its ruined wings. As the steeple fell it burst into flames. The agony of its death throes it screamed at the sky and thrashed what remained of the church to splinters. The scream was so loud it drove the preacher and his followers to their knees, where they clutched their heads against the noise and pain.

The bat fell dead in the ruins of the destroyed church. In the silence that followed the smell of burning hair and flesh filled the Preacher’s nostrils.

Then the fire leapt to the next building.

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As Sheriff John Dance rode down to the river, Miguel, the Stagecoach agent, came up beside him. Dance gave him a skeptical look, and didn’t have time to get to the question before Miguel said, “I have responsibilities…”

Fair enough thought Dance. He cast an eye over Miguel’s horse and rig. It was packed light and well, and Miguel sat his horse easy. He looked like he knew what doing. Probably more than Dance did. Dance was no frontier hand or Indian fighter by nature. But the misadventures of his youth had taught him to travel fast and leave as little trace as possible. 

When they got to the river Dance reined, and without taking his eyes off the other side, Dance said, “We’ll head north along the river, see if we can find a place to ford, and any sign of that ship. First sign of trouble, I’m cuttin’ and runnin’. You understand? This is a scout.” 

Miguel nodded and said, “If I find a way across, I have to go to Bisbee.”

Dance said, “Miguel, you see any telegraph poles on the other side of that river?” 

Miguel shook his head. “It makes no difference, I must go anyway. It is my duty.” 

“It ain’t a duty, Miguelito, it’s just a job.” 

“I may not have a Star like you,” said Miguel, “But I have my duties.” 

Dance shook his head and decided he wouldn’t share his opinions about Duty and Bisbee with Miguel. Duty was just some horseshit made up by powerful people to get the little people to sacrifice themselves when it was convenient. And Bisbee? There weren’t no f****n’ Bisbee there anymore. 

Give it a few more days, and everybody would see that. It was just that most people, normal people with their settled lives, were slow to adapt to change. They ignored it, argued against it, and tried to resist it. But it was all foolishness. Things changed, the man who changed the fastest was the one who made the best of them. That’s how Dance had wound up as Sheriff in the first place.

Everything on this side of the river was normal for the first mile and even though the opposite bank was an unknown land, the river was peaceful and cool and Dance found himself thinking of the day he had come to Grantham, three years ago. 

He had ridden into town dragging a different name and a streak of bad luck that had felt a mile wide. If Dance was honest, right now, it felt like he was draggin’ something wider and worse. 

At the livery stable, Eli Johnson hadn’t known what to make of him when he handed off the reins to a battered old nag and said, “Take good care of her.” 

“Why?” asked Eli, not afraid of offending this stranger ‘cause any damn fool could see this horse wasn’t fit for anything but the glue factory. 

Dance had flipped him a newly minted silver dollar and said, “‘Cause I owe her.” That settled, he nodded his battered hat at the building made of thick, irregular stone across the street and asked, “Would I be right in thinking that’s the Sheriff’s office?” 

“Yessir, says so right on the sign,” answered Eli, thinking that this man had been out in the sun too long to have retained a grip on the obvious. 

The Sheriff’s office had a wide porch and awning of unpainted, rough-cut lumber. The windows, such as they were were in those rough stone walls, were long and horizontal, with the occasional cross openings. The place was a fortress, gunportd and all. 

Dance glided up the steps and pushed through the door without knocking. 

Inside were two desks - a rolltop stuffed with correspondence and a leather-topped one on the left of the door. There was a table, a few chairs, a half-full rack of long guns on the wall and a pot-bellied stove. What Dance didn’t see were any deputies, or anybody at all. At first. 

On the wall by the door was a collection of wanted posters, and as Dance was checking to see if his face was on any of them he heard the muffled cry of someone calling out through a gag. 

The back of the room was a wall of thick steel bars that was further divided into two cells. In the cell on the right, a man with his hands bound behind his back and a bandanna tied through his mouth looked frantically at him and cried out again. “Mmmmmmm!”

Dance looked around to see if someone was playing some kind of trick on him, but the room was still empty. The man in the cell waved him over with his head. Dance eased across the room. 

The prisoner waggled his head around, trying to indicate the gag with his eyes. Then he thrust the side of his face up to the bars. Dance took another look around the room, then hooked a finger through the bandanna. Still not taking any chances, he kicked the man's shin hard with his boot. The prisoner grunted in pain and slumped against the cell bars, all balance taken from him. 

As Dance held the man up by the bandanna, he slid his knife under the fabric, along the man’s face, and cut it away with a jerk. The prisoner fell to one knee and spit out the gag. “Jesus Christ Mister, you didn’t have to do that!”

“Didn’t seem right to shoot it off,” said Dance. 

“Are you with THEM?” 

Dance didn’t answer the question. He considered the angry man in the cell who still had his hands bound behind his back. He was lean and sleepy-eyed, with stoop shoulders and a handlebar mustache. He looked strong enough but something about his skin and the set of his chin spoke of a weak constitution. 

His eyes were wide with fear and anger when he spoke, but when he listened they drooped heavy and he might have been mistaken for being on the verge of sleep. Dance thought, he’s some kind of madman. Then he asked. “Where’s the Deputies?” 

“Don’t you know anything?”

“I know I care much for your manners,” said Dance. 

“Deputy. There’s only one deputy left and I’m him. Pete. I’m the DEPUTY, now let me out of this cell. They’re robbin’ the bank.”

“Well Pete, if you’re the Deputy Sheriff, then what on earth are you doing in there?” asked Dance, enjoying himself.

“They got the drop on me,” he said, looking down and away. “And I’m ashamed to say they locked me in my own cell. That enough for you to let me out?”

“How many were there?” asked Dance. 

“Must have been five. Maybe more!”

“Five,” asked Dance, with a raised eyebrow.

“Maybe more!” said Pete, “Now get me outta here. I’ve gotta go stop them from robbing the bank.”

“You?!?” said Dance. “One man against at least five hardened criminals? Dangerous men? Outlaws?” Dance shook his head and sucked his teeth at the thought. 

“Not one man,” said Pete, “one Deputy,” his chest puffing out with pride. 

“Well, I’d like to see that Pete. I surely would. Just one thing. You gotta key to this cell?" 

Pete rolled his eyes and cursed. “I only had the one. T’other was on the Sheriff when he got killed…” he trailed off, wide-eyed as if he had said something he shouldn’t have. 

Dance didn’t bite. He said, “Tell me which bank?”

“Bank of Grantham. Only bank in town. Other end of Main Street. By the wash. 

“I think I’ll go down there and have me a lil’ look. Count up these desperados for you. But I gotta warn you, I’m stopping at 10. That’s all the fingers I got to count on.” 

As Dance strode down the street he whistled tunelessly and checked the load in his pistols, pulling back the hammer and spinning the cylinders to reassure himself that all twelve cartridges were present and accounted for. 

A passerby looked at him with fear, and he holstered a pistol and tipped his hat, breaking neither stride nor musical performance.

From the outside, the First Bank of Grantham seemed just as sleepy as the rest of town on that sunny afternoon. But before John Dance could mount the steps, he heard a series of gunshots and two men exploded out of the front door into the street, carrying what looked to be very heavy saddlebags over their shoulders. 

Dance stood very still as one of them whirled and pointed a pistol right at him. But when the desperado looked at the man in front of him, his eyebrows raised in surprise so much that his hat lifted more than an inch. “John-John, look who it is!”

John-John, who was scanning the other end of the street for trouble, turned quickly and said, “Well, I’ll be damned!” he said as he broke into a smile and let his pistol drop. “Ain’t seen you since that dance back in Albequ-”

But John-John never made it to the end of that sentence. John Dance’s hands blurred into motion and he shot them both down, two bullets apiece just to be sure.

He holstered his guns and the good townspeople came out and declared him a hero. Jean DuMont, the man who had the most to lose from his bank being robbed, gave him a reward of $50, for doing the right thing. 

They rescued old Speedy Pete from his own jail and all repaired to the Morning Star Saloon, where hands were shook, backs were slapped and nobody thought to question where this man had come from. Everybody was just glad that “John” had stepped up and done the right thing. 

The man who brought him his third whiskey said, “Mister, just so happens we’re short a Sheriff.”

“Just so happens, I’m looking for work.” 

“What’s your name? Your full name, I mean. So we can swear you in.” 

Of course, John couldn’t give his real name. He was trying to outrun that name; the name of a man with a price on his head who, among other things, had robbed a dance back in Albuquerque with a nefarious character known as John-John and the Allen-Elder gang. 

So he smiled his best smile and said, “Dance, John Dance.” Sometime that evening, somebody pinned a star on him, and from that moment on, he was the Sheriff.

What better place to avoid the law than to be the law itself? 

At first, he thought he'd stay six months, maybe a year, but it had been three years since he’d stopped the bank robbery. He'd become accustomed to sleeping indoors and people smiling when they saw him on the street. Sure, Speedy Pete was enough to drive any man crazy, but though he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the sack he was loyal and honest and that made up for a lot. 

But as much as he liked the town and the people he hated the feeling of being trapped. It was one thing to choose to stay when he knew he could just melt away at any time. But to stay when you weren’t allowed to leave, that was prison. And Dance figured the whole point was to stay the hell out of prison.

Dance was jerked away from his memories by the sight of an abrupt line up ahead. On one side of this line the ground was the harsh, rocky desert of Eastern Arizona. On the other side was lush thick grass. He and Miguel stopped just short of this strange line and looked at it for a long while. To his right, Dance could see where the line had split a rock in half. He said, "Miguel…" and pointed.

“Estoy perdido,” answered Miguel, not even aware he was speaking Spanish.

Dance’s horse lowered his head and took a bite of the grass. The horse didn't keel over dead or burst into flames. He just nibbled the grass is if he did it every day. It was thicker and crawlier than any grass Dance ever seen. But if it tasted all right to the horse, Dance supposed it might be OK.

Dance caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. He looked up and about 200 yards away he saw a giant, bear-like creature, rise up out of the grassland and grab a hold of a tree branch with a paw impossibly long fingernails twisted and turned in wild, unpredictable ways. Like a gypsy woman's fingernails he once seen in Galveston. 

The creature lifted its long, teardrop-shaped head and began stripping the wide leaves from the tree and eating them. Dance looked to Miguel. Miguel stared at the strange creature with his jaw hanging open. In a voice that he hoped wouldn't carry, Dance asked, “You ever seen one of them before?"

"Nunca. ¿Quieres ir a ver?"

“No I do not,” said Dance, easing his rifle out of the saddle scabbard. 

The sight of the weapon gleaming in the sunshine snapped Miguel back to himself. He said, “You are going to shoot it? It eats plants.”

“I’m just being cautious. I been known to eat vegetables from time to time, but we all know what I prefer.”

Miguel nodded. Then, before Dance could say no, he spurred his horse towards the strange creature. Dance cursed under his breath and touched his horse with his heels and followed. 

“I think he likes that tree,” said Miguel of the gigantic creature, which was happily munching away. With chomp and a sweep of its neck, it denuded half the tree, taking no notice of them. As it ate, it made low, whuffing grunts. 

“Can we go now?”

“Is there no wonder in your soul Sheriff Dance?"

"Oh there's plenty of wonder Miguel," he said, surveying his surroundings. "Right now I'm wondering what the hell we're doing provoking this animal?”

"Don't be like that. I think he's friendly."

"If you put that to the test, I'll shoot both of you and ride off I swear."

"I think you did not grow up on a farm or a ranch, Sheriff Dance. Maybe you did not grow up in nature."

Suddenly, the creature jerked its head up. It looked at the two men on horses and made a sharp bark of alarm, showing more and sharper teeth than John Dance felt a herbivore ought to be allowed. Dance brought the rifle to his shoulder, but the creature did not charge. It looked around frantically, sniffing the air so rapidly its long snout seem to vibrate. Dance, in fact, had not grown up outdoors or on a ranch, but he didn’t need to be a native guide to see that this thing was goddamned terrified. 

"Come on, let's ease back,” said Dance.

Miguel nodded without taking his eyes off the creature. From fifty yards to the right, something came rushing through the tall grass. The air was shattered by a tremendous roar. The sound was so loud Dance felt like a great hand had reached into his chest and squeezed the air out of his lungs. The horses reared and screamed. As Dance fought to stay in the saddle he heard the creature that was eating the tree make a frightened, bleat-like sound. 

In fear, it leapt onto the tree and climbed. Leaves and small branches and hunks of bark showered down as it scrabbled up the tree with its strange claws. 

Behind the tree, Dance saw a bear rise from the grass. It rose until it was the size of a large grizzly, and it still kept coming. It stood on its hind legs, dangled its claws at the end of its too-long arms, threw its strange bulldog-like face back and and roared at its prey.

Miguel wheeled his horse around and cursed in Spanish. Dance could feel that his own horse was on the verge of bolting. In the interest of staying in the saddle, he fought to stay calm, but wheeled to the right and let the animal have his head. 

When they had gained some distance, Dance reined up on a small rise. As they watched Miguel said, “You see, now the bear, he will climb the tree and eat our tree-eating friend.”

Dance spit. “Ain’t no friends of mine.” 

The bear roared again, and reached up and placed its paw on the tree trunk. Above him, nearly at the top of the tree, the sad-faced herbivore clutched the trunk and bleated in distress. 

But the bear did not climb. He put his forepaws on the trunk and by heaving his bulk forward and back, began to rock the trunk. High above, the top of the tree swung back and forth wildly. The herbivore tried to hold tight to the trunk, but with each swing, it seemed that a new appendage came free just as it had replaced the last one. 

The tree trunk snapped off about 2 feet above the ground. The trunk fell over, slowly at first, but by the time the top of the trunk hit the ground, the herbivore was slammed into the earth at a hideous speed. Even at this distance Dance felt the impact in the seat of his saddle.

The poor creature tried to raise up and flee but fell to the ground after a single wobbly step. In a flurry of claws and teeth, the bear was on it, its short, punched–in snout, rooting deep into the creature's soft white underbelly. The bear pulled its bloody snout and face out from the still-living animal which was screaming in pain. The bear raised its head to the sky and roared again.

"Magnificent animal," said Miguel.

Then, and Dance would swear to this until the end of his days, the bear looked right at them and roared.

"Is that thing gonna follow us?" asked Dance.

"No, don't be silly. He has just killed and will eat his fill and take a nap, for a few days most likely."

"He's looking right at us." 

Miguel considered this for a moment, then said, "No, Senor, his eyesight cannot be that good."

They headed north away and when they had put a hill between them and the carnage, they eased up on the horses. They decided to head farther north before circling back to town. "One more rise between us and…" said Dance.

Miguel nodded in a way that said he knew nothing about the great outdoors, and they rode on.

As the crest of the next rise, the grassland ended in front of them in a steep drop. The slope was steeper than anybody not being chased by bloodthirsty savages would want to ride down, thought Dance. But then he was torn from his geological and equestrian considerations by Miguel's soft gasp, "Madre de Dios."

Dance raised his eyes to the horizon. The plain before him was marked by irregular black circles in the green as if the land itself had been afflicted with some kind of pox. He could see the river cutting back in from the left, and following its course, he's could see a harbor of sorts that had been cut into the riverbank. And above it, on a small hill was a tall tower of dark stone that taper to a point high above the plain. It made Dance feel uneasy to look directly at it. Resting in the river, in the shadow of the tower, was the warship that had attacked the Town of Grantham. 

Dance grunted. At least something had gone right about this scout. But the thought was interrupted by a strange, snuffling grunt. Dance looked over his shoulder and there, perhaps 30 yards away was the bear that was supposed to be sleeping off his meal. Before he could say anything to Miguel, the beast roared and charged them.

When dance saw the bloody maw of the bear rushing towards them, he realized they were not going to escape. He yanked his horse around and together they plunged over the edge.

The descent was so steep Dance had to lean back in his saddle -- stirrups jutting out alongside the animal's neck -- to keep from going over the horse's head. Dance thought the only way to descend faster would be to fall, but then Miguel came galloping past him on the left side.

As they hit the plain below, he heard the roaring of the Bear on the hill behind them, and his horse needed no encouragement to gallop. Dance chanced a look over his shoulder and saw the bear coming down the crumbling dirt hill behind him. The bear tried to slow, but he could not keep his weight off his front paws. He slowly came over, crashed into the slope and started to roll.

That ought to slow him down, thought Dance but when the bear reached the bottom, it rolled to its feet and kept running. Some days you et the bear and other days, well the bear et you. Dance was afraid he knew which one of those days this was going to be. 

He heard the bear getting closer behind him and could smell the hot copper of the blood on his breath. He tensed his back anticipating the swipe of a claw, but it did not come. Instead, his horse stumbled and he fell hard onto the prairie. The bear continued on in pursuit of Miguel and his horse. Dance struggled to his hands and knees and realized he was in a blackened area of the plain, a shallow crater, the lip of which had caused his horse to tumble. The burned area in the prairie was about 10 feet across and on the other side of it, he could see his horse getting back to its feet.

He looked beyond his horse, hoping to see that Miguel had gotten away. But he was not surprised to see the monstrous bear pursued him still. 

There was a strange crackling noise in the air, from far away yet from all around. In the distance, he noticed the tower was shimmering. Waves of crackling electricity swept up the sides of the spire and gathered at the top in furious bands. 

In the distance Miguel still rode for all he was worth, trying to outrun the monstrous bear, but still, the bear gained. Miguel cut the horse hard around a crater, and the bear couldn't make the turn. It had to veer off and go the long way around the depression. Dance clenched his fist in excitement. It was a longshot, but with a few moves like that, Miguel might just survive. The bear was fast, but it didn't have endurance and it certainly couldn't turn like Miguel's fine quarter horse. Maybe, just maybe Miguel would get away.

There was a blinding flash, a bolt of lightning seared an arc from the tower to the plain in front of him. It came to rest directly on Miguel and his horse. After the sizzle and flash came a clap of thunder so deafening Dance thought his teeth had been turned to powder. Then the ground where Miguel and his horse had been erupted in chunks of burning earth. Hunks of dirt and grass rain downed all around him, but Dance heard nothing but the ringing in his ears.

His vision came back slowly and he did not like what he saw. There was nothing left of Miguel. The bear was off to one side, dazed, sitting over on his haunches, shaking his head like an old man who had gotten a hold of some bad moonshine. 

Dance turned and walked away.

He had gone a few steps when he heard the bear running towards him. This time he did not turn. He thought to himself, Welp this is how I die. 

He resigned himself to it, lowering his head as he walked, but then he thought of Laura and the promise he had made to her. He thought of Mac and the angry spirit in that boy, the courage to defend his mother against a full-grown man. He wasn't sure that all the fighting he had done in his life had gotten him anywhere he had wanted to go, but inside him, the fear turned to anger once again.

He spun on his boot heel and pulled his pistol with a fluid, long-practiced motion. The bear was now moving slower than before, but somehow it was more horrifying. The hair had been burned off half its face and snout and now it howled in rage and pain as it advanced.

"Yep," said Dance as he raised his pistol, "f**k you too." Dance took his time with the shots cocking the trigger with his thumb and carefully sighting before each pull. All six shots went home. The last one hit the bear in the head and glanced off the beast’s skull, leaving a red, angry canal along its brainpan. And still, the beast came. 

That was the moment he knew he was done for. He dropped his pistol and put a hand to his knife. Then he heard it again – that strange, sizzling, crackling sound – now coming from all around him close by. The beast was there charging not more than 10 feet away. At the last moment John Dance threw himself to the ground. The bear stopped short and reared up on its hind legs, roaring in triumph. It raised its paws, each as big as an anvil, and Dance had time to see the strings of carrion dangling from its claws. 

The world went white again. 

Dance’s body convulsed with electricity as hunks of bear meat rained down upon him. When it was over he lay very still and moaned quietly for a long time. The bear had been disintegrated by the lightning. From where Jon Dance lay he could see the burn marks in the grass where the bear’s feet had touched the earth. 

Without lifting his head, he scanned the horizon as best he could. There was nothing but open prairie, and when the wind blew the stench of cooked bear away he could smell the river. The tower on the horizon remained dark and motionless.

He crawled like a snake, very slowly back towards the bluff. For an hour or so, he inched way along the ground in mortal tear of that sizzling sound he was certain would be his end.

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Dr. Krupp was terrified. In all his years of selling snake oil throughout the frontier — a figure he often exaggerated, but in truth amounted to no more than three years — he had seen many remarkable things but never had he seen Dr. Bartoleermere the Second’s Magic Elixir actually work. But it had happened. He had seen the little girl’s wound heal! And Dr. Krupp had no idea what to do next.

As townspeople rushed about, frantic with news of the attack, Dr. Krupp walked in a circle in the center of town talking to himself. First, he wanted a drink but then he turned sharply and walked towards the livery stable and his wagon full of elixir. Then he looked around him in terror, certain he was being followed. Grantham, like all frontier towns, was filled with desperate characters; gamblers, miners, drovers, and cowboys down on their luck. What he had was absolutely priceless. Worth more than silver or gold.

The patter sprang into his mind unbidden, "the Elixir of life itself… Freedom from man’s age-old enemies, pain, and death. The lauded and once mythical Panacea now made available through the miracles of the modern age.” What a pitch! And all the better for actually being true. He smiled to himself, then he frowned and changed directions once again.

His wagon had elaborately painted canvas tarps on either side that proclaimed the value and wonder of Dr. Bartoleermere the Second’s Magic Elixir. The idea was to make it so a passerby couldn't help but notice such a magnificent example of the sign-maker’s art. And that cinched the argument. In a fright, he hastened to the freight yard knowing he must remove the signs and disguise his wagon.

Along the way, he passed the Preacher crying out to the people of Grantham as he stood upon an overturned bucket. He was telling the people that these strange happenings were the work of the Lord. These signs and portents were meant to call the faithful to arms. Dr. Krupp avoided the Preacher’s gaze as he pushed his way through the crowd, afraid that the man might call him out… afraid of what that man might say.

He crossed the main street, ducked through a narrow alley, and emerged on the edge of the freight yard. Wagons of all shapes and sizes crowded the dusty lot, but from the street, he could not see his wagon and sighed in relief. For the first time in his life, he was grateful that his advertising was obscured from the public.

He checked to see that he was not being followed and then hurried in among the wagons with surprising speed for a man of his girth. Behind two battered Conestoga wagons, he found his rig with its colorful signs. He had paid five dollars a side to get them done in San Francisco and they were worth every penny. In fact, he had paid more for the signs than he had to get the patent medicine brewed, bottled, and labeled.

In truth, the contents of the bottles had never been important. Grain alcohol, some hop, and something bitter would do it. Bitter because everyone knew that good-tasting things never made good medicine. And that was the secret, no one ever bought or sold a chemical formula. They paid for the prospect of relief from their ailments. And luckily for Dr. Krupp, the western territories were an endless wellspring of ailments. Wrenched backs, aching teeth, consumption, dysentery, hangover, boils, the pox, snakebite, yellow fever, tuberculosis, argue, gout, la grippa –- if you name a man's pain in detail he will believe that you have the cure for him. The secret wasn't in the bottle and never had been. It was in the *salesmanship.*

At least it had been. But now… He shuttered to think what a working formula meant. If the one thing he was certain was fake turned out to be real… then was anything real? Was everything fake? Had he been the one being conned all along. He was lost in his own understanding.

He climbed up on the side of the wagon and started untying the painted tarpaulin. As he worked he heard a strained cough behind him. He turned in terror, nearly falling off the wagon, but caught himself and dropped awkwardly to the ground. Off-guard and looking more like a thief than a proprietor he stared wide-eyed at the figure before him.

Jean DuMont tapped his heavy cane on the ground, coughed into his handkerchief said, “I believe you have the medicine that I require.”

Dr. Krupp opened and closed his mouth several times, looking more like a fish straining water through his gills, than the sharp-eyed huckster that he had been. Finally, his instincts kicked in and he said, “Well sir, you have come to the right place. The miraculous properties of the long-lost Panacea can be yours, for a price, of course.”

“I assure you, money is no object,” said DuMont, playing along, “I am as rich as Croesus.” He was overcome by a coughing fit, then continued, “And eager to pay. But there is but one consideration. What guarantee of efficacy do I have?”

“You have not heard of the remarkable transformation that Dr. Bartloleermere’s Elixir effected in the young girl who was mortally wounded at the river?”

“Yes,” said DuMont, “But I did not see it.”

“I assure you, as a gentleman, that this marvelous elixir,” he said, patting the side of his wagon, “will cure what ails you, or,” and he cringed to hear himself saying the words, “Or your money back. Would that be acceptable?”

“Usually, your terms would be quite favorable, but these are… unusual times… so I will need a demonstration,” said DuMont. And then shot Dr. Krupp in the stomach with his derringer.

It happened so fast that, Krupp didn’t understand that he had been shot. The barrels of the gun went off with a sound that seemed a little louder than the popping of the cork from a champagne bottle. There was no pain, but he felt a wetness on his abdomen, and when he touched his hand to his belly, it came away covered with blood. Dr. Krupp grew light-headed and slumped to the ground, still confused.

Jean DuMont looked down at the smoking gun in his hand. Its pearl handles and etched barrel glittered. He said, “One of a matched set. Pretty isn’t it?” he put the still smoking gun into his coat pocket. When Dr. Krupp didn’t rise, DuMont shook his head and said, “Ahch, must I do everything myself?” He stumped over to the wagon with his cane, opened the side panel, and removed one of the bottles of medicine. He opened it, sniffed it, then handed it down to Dr. Krupp.

Dr. Krupp looked up at DuMont and said, “You shot me!”

“Yes, we are past that,” said DuMont, “You need to keep pace with the moment.” Krupp looked at the bottle, then back at DuMont. Then back to the bottle. He sucked it down in two gulps.

Before Archie could make it back to the mine, one of the miners spotted him and came running. The man, Jablonski was his name was wide-eyed with madness, “Dere you are! You gotta help us! He’s gonna kill us sure!”

“What? Whatever are you talking about? Calm down man, what is it.”

“He gonna beat me to death with that heavy black cane of his. And it’s not my fault. Nonna dis is my fault. You gotta help me. You gotta get it back somehow or I gotta get outta town.”

Archie grabbed Jablonski by his shoulders and shook him vigorously. Then he slapped him across the face. “Get a hold of yourself, man.”

Instead of growing angry, or coming to his senses, Jablonski’s face dropped and his eyes went blank with a passive hopelessness that Archie found more terrifying than his previous ravings. A tear welled in Jablonski’s eye and he looked fearfully around him, whispering something that Archie could not make out.

“What is that?” Archie asked gently.

“The mine is gone.”

“What?”

“Gone… it’s not there anymore. It’s… it’s…” A tear streaked down the red handprint that Archie had left on his face and he felt guilty for slapping the man.

When they got to the mine, a crowd of flinty-faced men, pale from long hours in the depths, stood in clumps stealing glances at the mine entrance and muttering evil things in German and Polish.

From the outside, the mine was clearly there. Archie turned to a few of the miners and asked, “What has happened here? Is someone hurt?” The men shook their heads sullenly and turned away. Jablonski said, “It’s just gone…”

“What do you mean GONE!” said Archie. “You mean there’s been a cave-in? Is someone hurt?”

“No, Mister, sir. It’s something else. Something else in there I mean. In its place. None of us want to go in there. It’s… an unholy place.”

“What do you mean an unholy place? Have you lost your mind? For God’s sake man, start talking sense,” Archie asked, but he could see by the fear on the men’s faces that Jablonski believed what he was saying, and the men did too.

“Not for God’s sake, Mr. Sir,” said Jablonski. “You go see.”

“Superstitious b******s,” said Pulaski, the Foreman, as he burst out of his office, “You’d scarcely even call them civilized Christians if they weren’t crossing themselves all the time. Good workers, for the most part — more trustworthy than the Chinee we run on the second shift. But the damned Popery is what does it. All the costumes and incense and Latin mumbo jumbo.”

“Ah Pulaski,” said Archie, happy to see a relatively sane man, “What is going on here?”

“I can’t get ‘em to come to work, and when I do round enough of ‘em up to put together a shift, they go in and come right back out again.”

“It does appear to be there to you, doesn’t it? The mine, I mean,” asked Archie.

Pulaski looked at Archie like he was the crazy one. “The damn entrance is right there. Come on!” said the Foreman, “Let’s go see what Jablonski is so afraid of.” And he handed Archie a fine brass miner’s lamp. As they walked to the mine, the pale-faced men parted silently and let them pass.

Archie followed Pulaski into the mine, stepping carefully along the minecart rails. For the first twenty feet it seemed like every other mine Archie had ever been in, but soon the walls changed composition. The bare rock gave way to huge blocks of greenish-grey stone set without benefit of mortar. The minecart rails stopped suddenly and he was walking on a floor paved with the same stone.

“What the hell?” asked Pulaski.

Archie, a fine Anglican, fought off an urge to cross himself.

The passage they were in opened up into a gigantic, vaulted hall, that the lamplight could not reach the top of.

“Jesus Christ,” said Pulaski.

Archie said, “By the look of it, I would say this was a temple to a far older God.”

They played their lamps along the walls, but the feeble light didn’t allow them to make out the carvings or decorations there. What Archie could make out disturbed him. Glimpses of hideous flying creatures snatching up tiny human figures.

Pulaski muttered, “We need light.” He strode back to the hallway and yelled, “Jablonski! Bring all the lamps!”

“No Mister, Sir!” came Jablonski’s voice echoing back through the tunnel.

“I need light, you superstitious Polack!”

“It’s not natural boss, you come out of dere.”

Archie stepped further into the room and played his flickering lamp along the walls. In the gloom, he saw strange, bas-relief carvings. Human figures warring with bestial, ape-like creatures in one frieze. In the next, another band of humanoids were beset by creatures that seemed little more than masses of tentacles.

The argument in the tunnel reached a fever pitch. “Jablonski, I swear. If I have to come out there and get those damn lamps…”

“Lamps, amps, mps, ps…” the word echoed in the depths of the mine. Mine? Chamber? Temple? City? Whatever this was, it was built on a gigantic scale and with painstaking craftsmanship. What was it for? How did it come to be here? Feeling immeasurably ancient and yet… somehow.

Archie’s curiosity drew him deeper into the darkness of the massive room.

“Goddamn it Jablonski! If you don’t fill that minecart with lamps and wheel it in here right now…” cried the Pulaski.

“Ow ow ow ow…” echoed strangely through the chamber. And underneath it, Archie thought he heard something else, An answering sound from deep in the darkness. He could not be sure because it was obscured by Pulaski muttering, “And if there’s not some goddamn silver somewhere in here, Jablonski is going break the news to DuMont.”

Archie looked back towards the entrance. Pulaski was silhouetted against the last feeble remnants of daylight that struggled in from the mine opening. Behind him, he heard a hollow clomp from deep below, but when turned back around, the sound did not repeat.

At the edge of the feeble light cast by his mining lantern, Archie made out a large, static shape looming in the darkness. Even as fear pulled him backward, his curiosity drove him forward. Shaking a little, he advanced into the darkness.

There he found what he thought to be a large sarcophagus, or perhaps altar, in the center of the room. He moved closer and saw that there were chips and deep gouges in the surface of the ancient, evil-looking stone. Large rings were fitted in the sides which were covered with incomprehensible lettering and horrifying pictographs. A few threads of rotting hemp rope dangled from one of the rings.

He walked around to the long end of the stone altar and it all became horrifyingly clear to him. He saw where the grooves in the top led to a single downspout. He saw where the container would have been placed to collect the blood of a sacrificial victim. What unholy god or demon was this place consecrated to?

Even as his emotions recoiled from what he saw, his scientific training kept him asking questions and gathering data. In a bizarre act of crumbling sanity, he started counting the marks in the surface of the altar. There were hundreds. But surely every sacrifice hadn’t left a mark. Many, many people had died on this altar.

He stood, swaying with the horror of it all, yet still curious. He tried to read the characters carved into the side of the altar. The runes and glyphs were unknown to him but seemed tantalizingly on the edge of his understanding. And the more of the carvings he saw the closer comprehension seemed to be. It was like a word stuck on the tip of his tongue that he wished to spit forth into the world with a scream.

Archie broke out in a sweat, spiking a fever from nowhere. Then he heard a chant as if the entire room was filled with unseen worshipers. He looked around and no one was there. Yet he heard them, crowding in close around him, the chant little more than a whisper, yet massive from the number of people crowded around him, fervently praying. Praying to what? Praying for what? The sound surrounded him. Smothered him. He felt unable to move.

“Hey, Mister. What you got there?” he heard the Pulaski ask him from a long, long way off. Then Archie went blind. He could feel the warmth of his lamp still burning in his hand, but all he could see was darkness. And, in the darkness, he had a vision of a monstrous creature, a power of the Earth before the time of Man. It was mostly bat, but among its leathery features, Archie could make out a glimpse of sentience in its strangely human eyes. Was it a chimera? Or a horrid beast that evolution had forgot?

He felt the pull of this creature, its immense mind, its burning eyes, an ancient, undying thing that whispered the promise of secret knowledge, life eternal, and power in exchange for blood.

“Mister are you okay?” asked Pulaski, shaking his shoulder.

Archie struggled to answer the question. When he opened his mouth to speak he heard the sound of claws on stone and the rush of stale air across leathery wings.

“I… I… I’m fine” lied Archie, “I think I just need some fresh air.“

Archie was proud that he had not run screaming to the sunlight at the end of the tunnel. When reached the outside the world seemed bright and normal yet somehow smaller than the vast, hungry darkness inside the temple.

He staggered through the dusty yard and the miners looked at him with fear and concern. He could still hear the sound of wings. He looked around him frantically and realized that this too was hallucination or vision — as the vision of the sacrifice had been. But knowing something intellectually and getting rid of fear are two very different things.

He plunged his head deep into a water trough. It was still frigid from the high desert evening and he felt the bones in his skull pop with the cold. But the ache he felt was real and it blocked out the visions of death and leathery wings. He held his head under the water until his lungs screamed for air. He flung his head up, shaking and flinging water all around him as he struggled to regain his breath.

Pulaski, Jablonski, and the rest of the miners watched him with fear.

“Mr. Croyton, are you all right?” asked Pulaski.

Archie ignored the question. He stared at the black hole of the mine entrance like a duelist and said, “Torches! We need torches. And men to carry them.”

He saw many of the miners recoil in horror. And who could blame them? Horror was what lay beneath that hill. Ancient, unknown evil. But it was not the remnants of a bestial faith that Archie found terrifying, but The same irrational, superstitious, darkness that had held humanity back since the dawn of time. And now that he was faced with it in its purest, most powerful form, he decided that he would not be afraid. There was a truth to it and it could be brought to daylight. And he would do it. Archimedes decided that whatever the cost, he would rather know, than fear blindly.

When Pulaski hesitated, Archie took charge. He pointed at the men and then to the shoring timber. “You men, split that wood into f*****s, three feet long should be enough, and find rags, fabric, anything we can soak with oil. Mr. Pulaski, no one goes into that mine until I get back.”

Pulaksi looked at the terrified miners and said, “I don’t think that’s going to be an issue.” As Archie turned and walked away, Pulaski asked, “Where are you going?”

“To assemble a company.”

Archie walked across the street and into the staging yard where the teamsters were camped. A few of the teamsters had pitched tents, but MacAllister, true to his word, was passed out under his own wagon, still drunk from the night before.

“Gentlemen,” Archie barked, the horror in him driven off by the joy of the words growing inside him, “And such unfortunate ladies as there may be. Stand and be counted. Adventure awaits.”

He was greeted by a litany groans and of curses. From beneath the wagon MacAllister, said, “The horses are done in. The women have been rode hard and put up wet. The squadroon is in no condition to haul. Begging your poxy, arse-riddled pardon, sir.”

“The only cargo I require to be moved is your insolent carcass across the street. I’ve need of men to explore a ruined temple.”

“Ruined temple,” asked MacAllister, opening one bloodshot eye into the light of a new day. Is there treasure then?”

Dr. Krupp was certain that he was going to die. Slowly, painfully, most likely when his gunshot wounds became infected, but certainly, it would be death. He drank Dr. Bartoleermere the Second’s Magic Elixir as a desperate man clutches at fragments of his wrecked ship. Even after he had seen the miraculous recovery of Penelope Miller on the riverbank, even though his life depended on it, the snake oil salesman could not bring himself to believe that his elixir actually worked.

He swallowed the foul-tasting liquid and sighed hopelessly.

Standing above him, Jean DuMont watched all this with detached fascination.

“Why did you shoot me?” asked Dr. Krupp.

“I need to know how much of a fraud you were.”

“You coulda just asked,” said Dr. Krupp, almost breaking into sob at the end.

“I prefer to take my chances with other people’s lives.”

“Jesus, this hurts!”

“Ah,” said DuMont, hitting Krupp in the leg with his cane, “So it does not work and you are a fraud after all.”

Krupp nodded once, tears streaming down his face, but then his eyes grew wide. He felt a warming sensation in his stomach, and a light, euphoric feeling all over. He giggled, then tore his shirt open. He wiped the pooled blood away and found that the wound had healed. He laughed again and stood up, smiling at Jean DuMont.

“I’m okay. I’m okay! I’m going to live.”

“Quite remarkable,” said Jean DuMont. “What is the formula?”

“I don’t even know. I just bought it from a brewery in San Francisco,” said Dr. Krupp, just giddy from being alive.

“Ah,” said Jean Dumont, “Pity.”

“But I still have plenty of bottles to sell you! Though I’m going to charge you more since you shot me.”

DuMont produced his other derringer from his right coat pocket and shot Dr, Krupp again. This time in the head. Krupp died instantly and fell to the ground.

Not giving Krupp another thought, DuMont removed another bottle of elixir from the wagon and drank it. He was immediately overcome with a coughing fit. He hacked and hacked and hacked, bringing forth hunks of diseased, black lung tissue and spitting them onto the ground like strange, foul-smelling mushrooms

He fell to his knees, wracked with pain, and vomited blood into the dirt. Then he tried to rise, staggered a few steps, and fell down. He rolled onto his back and drew his coat sleeve across the bloody mess of his mouth.

Then he took a deep breath, exhaled it, and smiled. His lungs were clear and free of consumption. He rose, laughing like a madman.

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Virgil sat for two days while the strange grass around him died in the heat. At night he slept on the ground and in the daytime he sat once again. At some point, he remembered not when, he unhitched the horses from the wagon and hobbled them. When he drank the last of the water from his canteen they had crowded close, pitiful with dehydration. It was only his sympathy for the horses that got him up and moving again.

Where the well had once been in the town of Grantham, he found the barest seep of water. It was muddy and brackish, but when he dug it out it refilled gradually.

When the horses had drunk, he strained muddy water through his neckerchief into a canteen.

On the next day, he heard the lowing of cattle and soon cowboys drove a herd into view. These were some of the hands from the Bar D, and their north herd. They looked at Virgil's face and saw their madness mirrored in his eyes. They asked him where the town had gone and Virgil told him that he did not know, but that it had taken his family with it.

They told him how they had awoken to find the other bunkhouse, the corrals, barns, and ranch house missing. And all the other hands and the Burdocks.

"I had wife and children," said Virgil. No one spoke after that.

They sat a long time as the afternoon turned to night, bereft of an explanation. Finally, the setting sun moved some of the cowboys to go out in search of firewood. As one of them saddled up he asked, "if this isn't Grantham, then what is this place?"

Virgil said, "Nowhere."

"Hunh,” said the cowboy, “a town called Nowhere,” and rode on.

The Cowboys stayed that night, slaughtering one of the beeves for dinner. Virgil got some flour from his wagon and they had steak and biscuits. Even though his heart was broken and he was adrift in a cruel world that he could not force to make sense, the easy way of the Cowboys lifted his spirits. They were free and unencumbered by family or attachment. They joked and sang and carried on as young men always had. And their pranks and cocky banter brought a smile to Virgil's face.

In the morning, they rode back north to graze the herd. They said they'd get through the calving and the fattening, then drive the herd to the railhead in Tucson, sell the stock and head their separate ways. What would Virgil do, they wondered? He had no answer for them. He did not know himself. As they rode off, the youngest said, "Put up a saloon in this town of Nowhere and we’ll visit more often.”

Virgil thought long and hard about what he could do. Could he give his old life up for lost -- be as accepting and carefree as those Cowboys? Maybe he could head down to Mexico. Hell, he might drift back to Bisbee, and kill Fetterman just for the enjoyment of it.

In this incomprehensible situation, he could see how Fetterman was the reasonable person to blame. If that shifty b*****d had honored his contract, Virgil would've been in town when whatever had happened had happened. He would still be with Laura and Mac and Pen. It hurt to think of them. It hurt to close his eyes at night and see their sweet faces. Hear their squeals of delight, and Laura's whisper in his ear. Remember the light in Mac's eye when he looked up at him with pride, even though Virgil knew the boy would feel differently if he knew the truth of his father's past.

He vowed he would be with them again, no matter what it took.

What if they were dead? He shook his head to rid himself such an evil thought. They lived yet, he could feel it. With furious anger, he willed it to be so. For if they were dead, where were the bodies? But then, where hadthey gone? And how have they managed to take the buildings with them? The questions circled endlessly in spirals. Where were the people? Where were the buildings? But where were the people? But where were the buildings?

The next day he was sick of drinking muddy water, and even sicker of questions that had no answers. He spent all day gathering wood. That night he made a bonfire. The smoke from the fire rose straight into the air, up to the cold and indifferent stars that twinkled down on one man's problems from so impossibly far away.

He remembered an old Indian and the smoke of another fire in the Oklahoma Territory years ago. After Chickamauga, he had fallen in with guerrilla fighters. Murderous men who fought from ambush and showed no mercy. Virgil had wanted to have done with the war, but it wasn't safe to ride the lawless territories alone.

But since a man named Grundy had deserted their rough company he had spend more and more time thinking about it. The rumor had gone around the camp that Grundy had been a Union spy. Virgil had thought nothing of it, there were a million rumors in war and this was just one more. Bill Crawford, the leader of the 5th Arkansas Irregulars had taken a different view.

They had ridden a day out of their way, deep into the mountains, to an abandoned Indian encampment. Abandoned except for one old man, living in a badly patched army tent.

The old Indian stood in the door of his tent and said nothing as they rode up.

From his horse Crawford said, "I know you're not a good Christian man, but it doesn't seem too much to ask for a word of greeting."

"I thought maybe you had come to shoot me, so I wasn't wasting my breath," said the Indian.

Crawford acted like he was genuinely hurt by this, even though they were, for all intents and purposes, a band of outlaws. He asked, "Now why would you think such a thing?"

The old Indian shrugged and said, "that's what happened to everyone else," indicating the crumbling wigwams and the abandoned fire rings of the settlement.

"I thought maybe they left on account of your poor manners,” Crawford said.

The Indian shook his head sadly and said, "They are still here. You see the wildflowers?" And only then did they notice the patches of brilliant color scattered throughout the settlement. Bright mounds where the prairie had grown up into and around the bodies of the fallen.

"Jesus Christ, why do you stay here?"

With a strange light in his eye, the old Indian said, “It’s quiet here and I hope the spirits will come visit.”

Uncomfortable with this whole line of questioning Crawford got to it. "They told me you track men."

"I send after them, I don't go get them." And then Crawford nodded and they talked price. When the Indian had settled his fee he nodded again, as if resigning himself to an unpleasant task, and gathered sticks. None of the Arkansas Irregulars helped him. They all watched, most smoking pipes, laying on the ground, but none speaking.

The old Indian made a fire and the smoke from it rose in a thin line. He muttered to himself in Cherokee, then turned to the white man and said, "not enough smoke." He walked into the abandoned village and soon came back with more wood and a handful of moldy rags that had once been a tunic. He built up the fire and threw the damp fabric on top. Soon smoke roiled from the blaze. Then the old Indian asked for an article of clothing from the man Crawford wish to hunt. Crawford handed him a battered hat that Grundy had left behind when he fled. The Indian cut a strip of the felt and added it to the foul-smelling blaze. Then he began to chant.

The smoke formed into a dense column that rose straight into the sky. So high that it hurt Virgil's neck to seek the top of it. Then, as if a wind had sprung up, the smoke curved off to the southeast, but Virgil felt no breeze.

Crawford looked at Virgil and said, “You stay here and watch him. See he doesn't put out the fire and run off.”

Virgil nodded. It was OK with him, he'd always liked Grundy. Well, at least as much as he had liked any of these boys. The Irregulars rode on and Virgil sat down.

When old Indian stopped chanting Virgil pulled his gun and asked, “Don't you have to keep that up?"

The Indian said, “No, that's not how it's done. The chanting is mostly for show, so the secret can't be stolen by a rival tribe or evil shaman. That kind of thing. But there are hardly any more tribes and no more shaman. You can shoot me if you want to, I have lived long enough. Just don't let the fire go out."

Virgil felt foolish and put his gun away. "I wasn't gonna kill you. I… I just been riding with bad men so long I guess I became one."

"You don't like them much,” said the Indian.

"No, I guess I don't."

"But they are your tribe," said the old Indian.

"I'm a white man, we don't have tribes."

"Everybody has tribes,” said the old Indian. Then he asked, “Do you want something to eat?"

After a long pause, Virgil nodded and the Indian went into his tent. Virgil followed. The Old Indian laughed at Virgil and said, "I'm too old to run away."

Virgil said, "You got tricks and secrets, just like everybody else." The Indian nodded at this and smiled. Then he got some jerky and some acorn flour and went back to the fire. He mixed the acorn flour with water and made flatbread using an iron skillet. He gave the first piece to Virgil. It was bitter, but good. Virgil went to his horse and got some apples and a piece of rock candy that he broke in half to shared with the Indian. They had a meal.

When he had gnawed his fill of deer jerky, Virgil stared up at the smoke that still trailed off to the Southeast. As he watched, he saw it head around to the South a little. He said, "It's moving. Do you need to do something?"

The old Indian sucked on the rock candy and said, "The man it is seeking is moving."

"That's a neat trick," said Virgil.

"Do you want to know how to do it?"

"Why would you tell me that?"

The Indian looked around and sighed. “because there's nobody else left to pass it on to. And where the other ones tried to scare and bully me, you shared your food with me."

"You shared your food with me," said Virgil.

"Those bad men are not your tribe. You should leave them before they bring you to a bad end."

"It's hard to go out on your own. These are bad times and rough hombres."

The old Indian sucked his piece of rock candy and sighed contentedly. He said, "I have never had rock candy before. It's good. Doesn't taste like rock at all." Then he smiled. And Virgil smiled too.

"You have a destiny, I think. You will need this knowledge."

As Virgil watched, the old Indian gathered up broken twigs and arranged them in a place he cleared on the ground. At first, Virgil thought this was stupid folklore, but the more the man worked the more that the pattern seemed to be saying something to him. Something that couldn't be put into any tongue. Something about the seasons and the night, about the mother of all things and what a man should do with his time on the earth. About the ties that bind things together and how a man could be followed, even when he hadn’t left tracks. The old Indian hummed to himself as he worked and the tune of the song was a part of it too.

Virgil didn't understand it, it just became like something he had always known. He heard the rock candy clacking against the old man's remaining teeth and that was part of it too. Then his eyes were drawn to the empty patch in the middle of the pattern of sticks.

The Indian spat the rock candy into that empty spot on the ground. Where it landed, Virgil saw a flash of light. The sticks moved and weaved themselves together. The light shrank, gathering in on itself. Then it rushed outward engulfing Virgil in its brilliance and for a while there was no Virgil, there was only light.

When Virgil came back to himself, the old man was lying on the ground and the fire was going out. Now giving only smoke. Virgil rose on shaky legs and gathered more wood. In a daze, he scavenged small branches and twigs. Then he dragged two poles from a collapsed teepee and placed the ends in the fire.

Only when the blaze was rekindled again, did he think of the old Indian.

The old man was face down in the design of sticks, the piece of rock candy in the dirt next to his head. Then Virgil knew he was dead, and wondered why he had not seen it right away. Virgil knew other things too, but did not know how he knew them. Nor could he say how he felt the magic of the smoke pushing through the sky behind him. He felt it wane and then the smoke released and drifted aimlessly in the sky. He knew that they had found Grundy and he knew also what they had done with him.

He sat alone with the dead Indian and waited. He waited until he could no longer understand the meaning of the wind, until the pattern of sticks 0n the ground lost its movement and became just more twigs for the fire.

When Crawford and his men returned they asked him if he killed the Indian. Virgil said no. And he said nothing of what he had seen in the pattern, or what he had heard on the wind, or what he had learned in the light. He mounted his horse and rode on, the way a normal man would.

He had forgotten about the old Indian's gift until his memory had been jogged by one of the Cowboys asking, “Why do you stay here?”

And the Indian’s words had answered through him, “It’s quiet here and I hope the spirits will come visit.”

As he sat in front of his bonfire he fixed his mind on his wife Laura. It would have been easier to work with a piece of her clothing, or a lock of her hair, but just like the chanting, it wasn't the important part. The important part was the desire.

He found it hard to picture her face, but he had an image of her hair blowing in the wind as he as she had driven the wagon and he had ridden behind her. In this moment, she was scanning the horizon ahead, her body eagerly leaning against the wind, straining with excitement and impatience to be at their destination. This memory was from the trip they had made to Grantham to open the store. And that day had been pure and brilliant in a way that only days in the high desert could be. He had loved her then, and had even managed to love himself a little, thinking that the evils of their past were behind them. Later, he would realize, she had been pregnant with Mac on that trip.

He yearned for her, letting loose the strings of the bag deep inside that held his emotions. The terrible longing washed out of him and into the fire. It rose into the smoke, and the smoke, like water finding the easiest path to the sea, found the quickest path to his desire.

He saddled the horses, loading one with provisions, then followed the smoke and its high, unwavering arc to the northeast. For seven days and seven nights he rode until he could not see the smoke anymore. Then he would stop, build another fire, and ride on again.

He climbed mountains and crossed rivers, until at last, he found himself on a featureless plane. He traveled so far onto the plane that he could no longer see the mountains behind him. And but for the rising and setting of the sun, he could not tell the directions of the compass. The stars above were unknown to him, and every place he looked on this grass-swept plain looked the same as every other place looked. Finally, he came to the center of nothing. Here, the smoke arced downward and pooled to form a cloud bank, a sooty fog in the featureless nowhere.

Without hesitation, he rode into the smoke.

From the outside it roiled like a fog bank, but inside the smoke became thinner and somehow luminescent. The featureless plane became a featureless space. He was weary, weary beyond belief and he dropped the reins, giving his horse his head. The hoofbeats against the prairie grass were dull and heavy, coming from a long way away, as if he journeyed through wool instead of smoke.

He looked behind him and he could not see the pack horse, just the arc of the lead rope disappearing into nothing. Then he was afraid. He feared that he would dissolve into the featureless nothing. Trapped inside smooth walls that yielded infinitely, but would never let him pass. Searching for a door in a place where he was not shut in, but from which he could never leave.

Ahead of him he heard a cough.

The horse’s head jerked up, and Virgil clawed for the reins. As he drew the horse to a stop he heard the cough again and a voice asked "how many fires did you burn?"

"Seven," said Virgil, for it did not seem the time or place to hold back the truth. There was a loud clap and the smoke was pushed back in a rush of air.

There was the old shaman sitting cross-legged on the pigmentless grass with his palms held together out in front of him. He looked at Virgil with a smile on his face and said, "seven days, that is how many days it should take. Well, you've come all this way, you might as well rest a while,” he said with a shrug, "after all, time doesn't pass here."

Virgil dismounted and moved to hobble his horse with a strip of rawhide. The old Indian said, “Don't bother, there's there's only nowhere they can go."

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As the Sheriff and Pete walked back through town, they could all but smell the fear. Gone was the carelessness of rough men when they weren’t working. Wide eyes peeped out from behind dirty curtains. The piano player in the Occidental Saloon was going at it hammer and tongs, sounding more strained than celebratory.

The noisiest place in town was Saloon #3 and that wasn’t a good sign. If Dance didn’t know better he’d say this town felt like it had a showdown comin’. Maybe? Who the hell knew?

That was the problem. The damnable uncertainty of it all.

Pete peeled off at the jail and Dance tipped his hat to the deputy and kept walking. But before he got to the livery, he stopped in front of the Miller General Store. He knew he shouldn’t, but couldn’t think of a way around it. And he stood there trying to think of a reason not to go in for a good long while.

Ah hell, he thought, might not be back this way again.

From the doorway, he saw Laura Miller standing in the back, looking out the window. The sound of Penelope signing drifted down the staircase. She sounded as if nothing bad would or could ever happen to her.

Mack came down the stairs before John got three steps inside and said, “Morning Sheriff, what can I help you with?”

Dance looked back to Laura at the window. She had not turned around to acknowledge his presence in the store. He thought he saw her shoulders shaking. Was she crying?

Mack said, "I can get you whatever you need."

This annoyed Dance. He didn't like being pushed or goaded or directed. He gave the boy a flat look and said, "I need some cartridge, .44.”

The boy took two cardboard boxes from a shelf well-stocked with ammunition and placed them on the counter. The green labels read “Winchester Repeating Arms Co. New Haven, Conn., U.S.A.”

Dance was looking at Laura again, and this time Mack said, “Anything else I can get you?"

They were polite enough words but the boy didn't say them that way. A thought leapt unbidden into Dance’s mind. For all the rough things I done in my time, I never robbed a store.

"Laura," said Dance, a little louder than he meant to.

"Sheriff?" asked Mack, giving whatever he was trying one last attempt.

"Put it on the tab," said Dance, and then he strode to the back of the store. Laura turned to look at him and her eyes were filled with tears. In her hands she was twisting and twisting her pretty bonnet, looking like she might worry it clean in half.

They stood looking at each other, Dance now ashamed of the feelings that he had brought to this place. Above them Penelope's voice rang out clear and perfect as she sang, “May the red rose live always, To smile upon the earth and sky”

At a loss, Dance said, “She sounds fine."

"Yes," said Laura, “She is… It's a miracle." She waved a hand, unable to explain what none of them understood.

"Sheriff, I got your bullets here."

"Go upstairs and look after your sister," said Laura.

“She's fine,” protested Mack.

“She was fine this morning when I placed her in your charge," Laura said. The boy turned and walked away in shame.

Laura added, “No more backtalk, you hear, young man!”

"Yes ma'am,” he said and then climbed the stairs.

“John," she whispered, "John, what am I to do?"

John Dance stepped closer, thinking to comfort Laura. As he opened his arms to take her in a hug, she slapped him across the face.

"Not that." Laura said quietly, "I'll not do that. Not again."

Dance tried to shrug it off and forced a smile, “I didn't mean nothing by it. You just seemed low, is all."

"John Dance," she said with the first smile he’d seen from her in as long as he could remember; a sad smile, but a smile all the same. “You always mean something." She looked down at the wrinkled and absurd bonnet in your hands and made a disapproving noise. "Now what is it you want here that you can have and are willing to pay for?"

"Laura, I'm riding out for a scout.”

"But what about the town?"

"The town is having a meeting to figure out what to do. Which is plain foolishness, you ask me. We ain’t got no idea what's going on, so how can we make a plan? But one thing is sure. Whatever happened, that road to Bisbee is gone. And I can’t see an easy way across that river."

“What about the savages who attacked?"

"I got no answer about that either, but they weren't savages. Savages don't build warships.”

"Then who, what were they?”

“I got absolutely no idea. But I'm going to find out. But if I don't come back I just wanted to say…"

"You can't say that," Laura said, “Not to me. You don't have that right. Now take your bullets and go."

"Now hold fire, you contrary woman. There's more to it than that," said Sheriff Dance, realizing, not for the first time how hard it was to do the right thing. "Dammit, I'm sorry. The roads gone, maybe Bisbee's gone."

"Virgil is gone, is that what you're saying?"

"That ain’t the point." He stomped across the store and picked the bullets up off the counter. “Where did these come from?"

“Connecticut. Says so right on the box.”

“And how they get here? On a wagon from Bisbee.”

Laura nodded.

“Hell, you're the Shopkeeper. Tell me what that means?"

"Virgil went to Bisbee for flour.”

"And if he can't get back?” asked Dance.

“Then we don't have any more flour. Maybe Greeley has some, or the Morningstar or the Occidental. There’ll be some food with miners and camps but the point is…"

"The Town of Grantham is about to run out of flour. And everything else but dust, silver, and foolishness.” John stepped in close and put his hand on Laura's arm. Her eyes grew wide with the forwardness of it but she did not strike him.

“Whatever you’re worried about with me, with him, with anybody… None of it matters. Anything you want to keep, you hide it. Because they're gonna come and try to take it from you."

"But you're the Sheriff!" she protested, "it's your job to stop them."

"No one man can stop a panic. I'm riding out. I'm gonna see if I can find a way out. And if I can you're packing up and coming with me."

"But Virgil…”

"You're an angel surrounded by wolves. He’d want you to be safe and you know that."

Her face grew stern, "Mr. Dance, this is my store – our store that we have invested with all our efforts, hopes, and dreams. And I will not… I will not abandon it in a moment of panic!” She took his hand from her arm and continued, "Especially not without a fight."

"A fight," scoffed Dance. "What do you know of fighting?”

“More’n you might think,” said Mack, from the third step of the stairway, as he pointed a small pistol at the Sheriff. His hands shook — but not much — and his eyes were hard with anger. "Now step away from my mother," he said. His words all the more threatening for being delivered in high tones of a prepubescent boy.

"Mark, put that gun away before somebody gets hurt!" said Laura.

Dance said, “Keep the gun. you got the right idea. Only don't point it this way. Maybe you get me and maybe you don't, but…”

“You're not that fast," blurted Mac.

"But you don't have to miss me by hardly anything to hit your mother. So how good a shot are you?"

Mac pointed the gun at the floor. "Go upstairs, Mac!" Yelled Laura.

"Wait," said Dance stepping towards the boy, his hands held up and away from his sides. “She's not hearing me, but maybe you will. You take all that ammo and them guns in the case and you get them outta site. Put them away somewhere safe with anything else you want to keep. Don't argue, don't offer, you just say it’s all sold out." Then Dance turned and tipped his hat to Laura, took the bullets, and walked out the front door.

Laura thought, for a man that was in love with her, he really didn't know much about her at all.

Upstairs Penelope’s pure voice sang on. “Why should the beautiful ever weep? Why should the beautiful ever die?”

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For a long time, nobody said anything. They just stood on the bank of the strange new river with the wounded as if the whispering of the water would explain what had happened. All in all, Dance thought, it could have been a whole lot worse and it probably would be before the end.

Pete asked, “You want to get up a posse and go after them, Sheriff?”

Dance shook his head. “Let’s figure out what we’d be raiding into before we go a-raidin’. Besides, if that boat went upriver, it will come back down. Next time we’ll be ready for target practice.

As Dance thumbed rounds into his Winchester the Englishman walked up and stood next to him. Dance looked him over and said, “You got sand, Mister. But if you’re gonna pass the time out West, you best get heeled.”

“Archimedes Croryton, but my friend call me Archie,” he said, holding out his hand.

“Good for them,” said the Sheriff, “John Dance. What was that you were barking at them?”

“Aramaic, Syriac, Latin, some Attic Greek. Anything I could think of really.”

“You know what the hell they was?”

“Not a clue,” answered Archie. He nodded at the body of an archer floating in the river he said, “But I know how to find out.” And started stripping off his clothes.

When he reached his underwear, Archie waded into the river and swam out to the dead archer. His silken garment had billowed out around him, trapping air and giving the corpse buoyancy. Archie grabbed a handful of fabric and dragged the body back ashore. When Archie got to the mud, Dance helped him land his strange fish. As Archie caught his breath, Dance asked, “Anything familiar about this to you?”

“I was hoping you would know, you’re the native.” Archie rolled the body over on its back and brushed the mud off the face. The man had a dark, olive complexion with a large, hooked nose and strange characters tattooed on his cheeks. Out of respect, Archie closed his eyes.

The man’s silk garments were held at the waist with a thick belt of bronze plates. Archie asked for the Sheriff’s knife and used it to cut the shirt open. It was surprisingly tough. The man’s chest was tattooed in the same diamond pattern as his face. Archie made a close examination of the man’s hands.

Dance asked, “Mr. Croryton, how’s a man like you, an educated man, wind up here?”

“Sheriff, if you can tell me where here is, I’ll answer your question.”

“Hell, you’re in Grantham, Arizona Territory.”

Archie said, “Last night, I was reasonably certain that I arrived in Grantham. But now, I am not so sure.”

“Fair enough,” said the Sheriff, “What do you make of our guest?”

“My guess is this man has done little else in his life but fire a bow.”

“Professional military?”

“No, I am saying, this man was not merely in the army. His entire body and one might well say his being, has conformed to being an archer.” He gently turned the dead man over in the mud and pointed to the imbalance in the musculature of shoulders and arms. The right arm with a noticeably bigger biceps muscle, the left with a well-defined triceps from extending the bow. And the muscles between the shoulder blades stood out in almost chiseled detail. “He is a professional warrior. Like a Spartan or a Myrmidon.”

Dance said, “I ain’t never heard of them, but were they too dumb to duck too?”

“Yes, they did not react like men who had ever seen a firearm before. The question is where did they come from?”

Dance spit and said, “No idea. Not yet,” as he looked grimly up the river.

“Well, then you’ve got bigger questions. Who is this military power on your doorstep?”

“Hardly call them military if they don’t have guns.”

Archie said, “Did you not see how cool they were under attack? How they continued to nock and fire even as their commander was struck down and their comrades were dying around them?”

Dance rubbed his chin. “Yeah, fair point. I was at Shiloh and others besides, and I never saw any company, North or South, that stood that straight under fire.”

“Yes, your Civil War was fought by volunteer soldiers. These were warriors,” said Archie as he buttoned his shirt.

Dance said, “Maybe he was a rower?” looking for a way out of the mess he was in.

“A rower’s back is different,” said Archie.

“How do you know that?”

Archie removed his shirt once again and turned around. “I rowed crew for Oxford.” He made a rowing motion and Dance could see the imbalance in his musculature and the curve of his spine.

“Mostly with the right,” said Dance.

Archie flipped his shirt back up and nodded. “This man’s arms are different lengths. His left is shorter than his right. He could have been at Agincourt. But that was 1415. What’s he doing in 1888?”

“In America,” added Dance.

“I do just wonder about that…” said Archie.

Dance bristled. “What do you mean? We took this land from the Mexicans. Maybe not so fair and square, but we signed a treaty on it.”

“No, no, it’s not that. Plant whatever flag you like. I care not. What I’m saying is, if a river appeared last night to the West of Town, then what awaits us to the East? Or the North or the South?”

They looked at each other for a while in the hopes that somebody would have the answer. Finally, Speedy Pete said, “Mister, you think somebody done stole Mexico?”

“You mean since the Spanish?” asked Archie.

“Mr. Croryton!” cried a rasping voice, “Whatever are you doing with that corpse? And where did he come from?” Archie looked up and saw Jean DuMont, strutting towards them with the aid of his nurse.

Archie straightened up and tugged the bottom of his waistcoat and buttoned his suit jacket in an effort to appear presentable.

“I was conducting an examination, of sorts, M. DuMont.”

DuMont looked at the river and the fertile plain beyond. “Damned odd, wouldn’t you say, Mr. Croryton. A river from nowhere?”

“Yes, sir.”

“A lake collapsed in the mountains, you think?” asked DuMont.

“Sir, I do not. This mud is of a different composition than your native soil.”

“Come now, sir. Mud is mud. We will make advantage of this river and hope it lasts. Construct a silver mill, a ferry for travelers from Bisbee, charing a modest fee of course, but as for the rest… ” He nudged the dead man with his boot and said, “Just another tribe of savages.”

“Sir, I must —“

“I appreciate your excitement, Mr. Croryton, but I am not paying you to examine the savages. Whatever tourism you engage in will be on your own time. I have a mine that is filling with water, and I am paying for you and your marvelous pumping engine to pump them out.”

Archie said, “But with this unexpected development. This new… frontier… of possibility…”

“The Frontier is not your business. And I assured you all those who come from Bisbee,” he nodded his head and indicated where the road to Bisbee had once been, “will be coming for my silver, not, your corpse. That is, provided the Sheriff here lets them live long enough.”

“A man shoots at me, I shoot him back,” said Dance, not looking at DuMont.

“I don’t pay you to philosophize, Sheriff.”

“That’s O.K. Johnny,” said Dance, “You don’t pay me. The town does.”

“I am this town,” said DuMont, as he checked the time on a gold pocket watch. He snapped the watch shut sharply and said, “Mr. Croryton, mining has commenced for the day, and I expect you to do the same. There is much work to be done.”

DuMont walked back toward town without waiting for an answer. Giving one last look to the far side of the river, Archie said, “As you say, sir,” and followed his employer.

Pete looked at Sheriff Dance. Dance said, “Pete, get on back to the jail and lock yourself in there with young Burdock.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Pete.

“I’m going see if that John Bull was right.”

“About what?” asked Pete.

He nodded at the river, “It’s one thing to be faced with the unknown. Another thing to be surrounded by it.”

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