Airship Hunters Page 5

  He collected the reins of his rented horse and asked, “What else can you think of I should know?”

  Walker shrugged. “Other than that third scene...”

  “Third scene? A third murder?”

  Walker nodded. “You didn’t know?”

  “Barker only said two.”

  “These two—the Smiths and Kelly—they’re close enough to town the Chief was willing to consider them under his jurisdiction. But Rash Howard was found fifteen miles away, and that’s Sheriff Brohm’s territory, and he works out of the county seat. Barker let him have that one.”

  Cabot questioned Walker for whatever information he could pull out. Then the Treasury agent mounted and rode north. Walker headed back to Broken Toe after saying he was sure his boss wouldn’t want him tinkering with county business, no matter Washington’s interest.

  Cabot followed Walker’s directions to the Howard home, where he interviewed Mrs. Howard. She wore black and, over that, her widow’s grief.

  She knew very little. Only what her husband had told her about Samuel Brecker’s story involving a remarkable cow and a gold coin.

  “I don’t know why someone did that to my Rash,” the woman said. “He wasn’t just killed, he was—was—destroyed.” Cabot saw the meek spark that still animated the woman’s eyes dull a fraction more. “Mizzus Gaines told me something. She didn’t want to, I could tell, but she couldn’t keep it from me, either. She said the gossips talk about something—a thing, out there running loose in the county. Something like a man, but not. Bigger, on two legs, or four. The people out on the farms, their stock gets spooked at night. If they see anything, they can’t make it out in the bad light of the evening. But they find signs in the fields, on the prairies in the morning. Maybe around their barn-lot, and maybe a chicken or a pig is gone missing.”

  She stopped and peered at Cabot as if hoping to hear him say something that would make sense come back to her world.

  Cabot had nothing to offer her. He expressed his condolences, left behind a card with his name and address, and rode his horse toward the Brecker homestead.

  Walker’s directions were accurate. Cabot followed the same trail Rash Howard had taken the day of his death.

  As he rode into the dooryard, the agent felt Walker’s absence like an acute pain. He was alone here, where a man had been murdered—torn apart, ripped from life. The woman who lived here with her son—both were missing. The structures that once had been a home imparted a tremendous sense of loss to Cabot. He felt very alone.

  And he thought about Mrs. Howard’s words. Her description of a monster that wandered the wilderness, terrorized farms, and killed unsuspecting people like her husband—the rise of such tales was normal after the sort of horrible events that had shaken the scattered inhabitants of this community. Not so long ago, this had still been the frontier. Violent death wasn’t unknown here; Barker had noted how grudges left from before the War Between the States still broke out among people in this part of the country. But the inexplicable savagery inflicted on the bodies of the murder victims would make anyone wonder if some wild thing still existed hidden yet alongside the works of civilization.

  Cabot shook his mind away from this line of thought. From the saddle, he surveyed the scene. He didn’t have Walker to point out where Rash Howard’s parts had been found, but he knew the man had met a violent end. The particular details about locating limbs weren’t really important. That Howard’s mule also had been slain and gutted was a point Cabot noted, but didn’t dwell upon.

  He stepped down from his mount. It was a piebald, the same horse he’d ridden yesterday. He watered the horse and hitched her to a fence rail so she could crop grass while he looked around. Clouds had been filling the sky during his trip from the Howard home, and the light would be failing soon. Best look for clues, then return to town.

  Cabot began by walking his methodical spiral, the house at its center. The ground had been scored by the shod feet of horses and men, but no sign remained—if any had been made—of such remarkable prints as those he’d found at the Smith home.

  He glanced at the sky. The clouds were thicker, taking on a cobbled look. The breeze was picking up. Cabot had heard about Kansas storms, and this had the appearance of one kicking into action. He stepped toward the sod house.

  The door was intact, not like at the Smith and Kelly houses. Intact and latched. Cabot entered. The front door opened into the kitchen. A stench of something rotten filled the room. He covered his mouth and nose with his handkerchief, breathed through that. Tears still came to his eyes.

  The sunlight had subsided enough that Cabot needed to locate a lamp. Once lit, he saw the disarray that had marked the Smith and Kelly homes. But some unformed thought fluttered at the back of Cabot’s mind. He grabbed at it, impatient, but whatever was just beyond sight of his mind’s eye flitted from his grasp.

  He focused again on the soddy’s interior.

  Something was different here. Different from the Smith and Kelly houses.

  Tables and chairs overturned, yes. Broken crockery in a pile in a corner.

  Cabot felt a tingle behind his eyes.

  The center of the room was clear.

  The floors of both the Smith and Kelly homes were scattered with the debris of a violent attack: shattered household goods thrown about, underfoot where they had fallen.

  Here, anything that might have been flung onto the floor had been pushed to the sides of the room, against the walls. The floors were cleared. Perhaps the sheriff’s men had done that?

  Why?

  Cabot walked the edge of the room, peering at what had been pushed there. He found the source of the heavy, oppressive smell: an enamel pail filled with something pale, its surface a pocked skin. Where the skin met the wall of the bucket, a black ring of mold grew. A crusted dipper lay beside the pail. Milk from the remarkable cow? Cabot wondered. He squinted against the burning tears in his eyes to be sure of what he saw: the surface of the milk was moving, apparently stirred from below. Maggots? Or maybe the stinking milk was aging into some sort of volatile cheese.

  He ducked through a doorless opening to a second room. Again, whatever had been tossed to the floor had been pushed up against the walls.

  Cabot entered the third and last room of the house. The rotten smell wasn’t so strong here, but there was another odor. Like in the other rooms, the center of this one was cleared. But something was different here. What? He looked about. He returned to the first two rooms. He heard Yankee Bligh’s voice resonating in the bones behind his ears: When you don’t know what you’re looking for, don’t think. Just look.

  So he stood in the first room, then the second, the lamp raised, and just peered about.

  In the third room, Cabot let his gaze wander over the walls, along the lines where the walls met the floor.

  Then he had it.

  No furniture. Nothing broken.

  All tables, chairs, utensils—broken and whole—were in the other rooms. In the third room, only linens—clothing, bed clothes, rags—were pushed up against the walls.

  And in one corner was a larger pile. Cabot kneeled and examined the tangled quilts and sheets, blankets and emptied flour sacks. The center of the pile had been hollowed out, depressed as by a great weight.

  Someone’s been sleeping here.

  He recognized the odor he’d noticed in this room. It was the mustiness of an unwashed body coming off the linens. Strong. The pile—the bed, Cabot thought—was large enough to encompass someone bigger than the Treasury agent. Really, he decided, someone the size of a small bull.

  Someone? Some thing?

  It came to him: the floors were cleared for walking through the house. Someone had been living here since Rash Howard’s murder.

  Maybe before. Maybe whoever had been staying here had been Howard’s killer.

  The Breckers hadn’t been seen since a day or two before Howard’s body had been found. What if Rash Howard had discovered the murderer in the
house and been killed as a result?

  Cabot thought about the condition of the bodies—ripped to parts. What kind of person could do that to a human being? What kind of beast?

  Something the size of whatever had been sleeping in this pile of linens.

  Still kneeling, Cabot shone the lamplight onto the walls just above the nest. Twigs had been driven into the sod to act like nails, and items hung from them: a locket with the photograph of a young woman and a pocket watch on a leather fob. The arrangement on the wall was such that the two could be seen by whomever lay in the tangle of linens.

  He took the watch down and looked it over. Whatever engraving had once decorated the case had been worn nearly away by carrying and handling. Cabot pressed the latch so the cover over the crystal opened. Scratched on its inside surface was a name: Tom Brecker.

  He examined the locket. No name. A plain young woman, sober-faced. No name or other identifying signs. Mrs. Brecker?

  Cabot stood and placed the watch and locket in his jacket pockets. As he did so, his shoe disturbed the edge of the nest, and an object rolled out, glinted in the lamplight.

  A coin. Gold.

  The Treasury agent held the lamp close and examined his find. As Chief Barker had said, a quick glance might fool someone into thinking it was an old double eagle. And while the surface was worn nearly smooth, Cabot’s scrutiny made clear the coin’s details weren’t quite right. If the two coins Barker had collected were in the same shape as this one, the police chief had a sharp eye to have suspected counterfeiting.

  A cry shook Cabot from his reverie. The piebald. The horse had a calm nature, so anything that could frighten her was worth Cabot’s worry.

  He pocketed the coin, darted to the soddy’s door. He opened it a crack and peered out.

  The thickening sky had brought an early dusk. In the gathering darkness, Cabot saw the horse rear and pull against the reins, which he had hitched to a fence rail. The piebald continued to squeal in fright.

  Was it a wild animal? Or something else?

  The thing that had been nesting in the back room and had killed the Breckers and Rash Howard?

  The thing—or something like the thing—that had ripped apart Smith and Kelly, and flung Mrs. Smith high into a tree?

  Cabot was surprised by an image that flashed in his mind: that of Howard’s gutted mule. The Treasury agent hadn’t seen the beast, but he’d seen enough animals injured in accidents to imagine the scene.

  Cabot flung open the door and dashed to the piebald. He dodged the rearing horse’s hooves and loosened the two half-hitches he’d used on the reins, then danced around the skittish beast as he tried to climb up.

  The piebald’s screams filled Cabot’s ears as he grabbed the pommel and pulled himself up. The horse spun, and Cabot saw a hulking figure come around the back corner of the soddy, loping on four long legs, its broad back arched sharply. In the lowering light and the momentary flash from the corner of his eye as he was whipped around, Cabot couldn’t catch particular features other than the thing’s shape. Then the piebald dug in its hooves and took off.

  The reins were loose and ineffective, clutched in the same hands that still clung to the pommel. Cabot had his left foot in a stirrup, the other leg flew free, and he had yet to find his balance and his seat in the saddle. The piebald galloped in maddened fright. Cabot’s fear of falling made his blood thunder in his ears.

  And he heard something else—a deep-throated roar. From behind, from whatever thing he’d seen near the soddy, from whatever now pursued him.

  Cabot couldn’t look back. He scrambled, tried to gain purchase and pull himself into the saddle as he was thumped along by the piebald. He was nearly in place, but still off balance, when the horse shied to the right, and Cabot found himself in space, clutching only the reins.

  He had been jarred by the floundering ride, but Cabot had enough sense to release the reins so he wouldn’t be pulled along by the horse’s flight. He tucked into a ball before he slammed into the ground and bounced along for several feet.

  Adrenaline-spiked blood thrummed through his limbs, and Cabot scrambled to his feet without feeling the pains that lanced through his body. The piebald’s hooves sounded distant already. The Treasury agent dashed forward, spotting against the growing darkness the blacker mass of a wooded area just ahead. He entered the trees and ducked and twisted to avoid the larger branches as they came into sight. Smaller limbs and vines swatted his face and hands as he swam into the dense body of the forest.

  He paused in his headlong flight only once to glance back for any sign of pursuit. He didn’t see anything, but he heard the crackle of limbs and leaves when the thing—whatever it was—entered the timber. Cabot took off again.

  He rushed as best he could for two minutes. Then he slowed and tried to go more carefully and with less noise, but the darkness made taking cautious steps difficult. Cabot leaned his back against the trunk of a large tree. He made an effort to control the rush of his breathing and listened for sounds of pursuit.

  He heard them. The crackling, the breaking of deadwood. But whatever was behind him was moving more slowly than it had out in the open.

  Cabot looked at the branches above him. He jumped, grabbed a large limb, and pulled up. He began to climb into the tree, moving slowly and reducing noise as best he could. He hoped the sounds of the thing’s progress were enough to cover those of Cabot’s vertical flight.

  Thirty feet above the forest floor he stopped. The thing—Cabot tried to avoid thinking the word monster—continued getting closer, though the noise of its passage suggested it was not tracking the Treasury agent directly to his hiding spot.

  Cabot still couldn’t see what was following him. His tree, and those all around, were beginning to sway in the breeze. The clouds were thicker, and the darkness was complete. He could see no moon, no stars.

  He began to hear the creaking of wood. He thought this was from the trees moving in the wind, then felt differently. The wind wasn’t so insistent that it could move the trees that much. But the creaking continued and increased.

  He felt some sort of presence. A moment of panic had him peering downward, but he saw no sign of his pursuer. And the sounds of pursuit had ceased.

  Cabot realized the presence he felt came from above.

  He looked up. Through the limbs, the sky was a smooth, featureless black.

  In that moment a blaze of cold shot along his spine and clutched the back of his neck. He realized those weren’t clouds he saw. Something was above the trees. Something huge, blotting out any sight of the sky.

  The creaking was coming from whatever held itself above him. Perhaps it brushed the treetops, causing the slight sounds. But otherwise, it was silent.

  Cabot fought his panic, rejected the urge that pushed him to clamber to the ground. That’s where the monster waited.

  Cabot heard the creature on the ground moving again. The noises were those of a large figure moving quickly. Away from Cabot’s tree, but apparently deeper into the timber.

  The creaking increased, followed by the sharp crack of large branches shattering. The sounds of crackling, breaking wood grew louder. Cabot heard the roar of his pursuer again—a long, bellowing noise that rose to a shriek as the source of the cry seemed to move from the ground and up through the interlaced branches.

  Cabot poured his energies toward peering through the dark to see what was happening to the creature, to get a glimpse of whatever floated above the trees. But a great burst of light blinded him, and the shock nearly tumbled the Treasury agent from his perch. Cabot opened his eyes but saw nothing except flashing blobs of color that danced across his retinas. A deep thump sounded above him, several yards away, and the cries from the beast—whatever it was—ceased.

  The clatter of breaking limbs also ended. A rush of wind swayed the treetops. The presence Cabot had felt overhead was gone.

  The Treasury agent clutched his tree until his vision improved. He made his way down, moving quickly
, in the process tearing his coat and pants and skinning his knuckles. He staggered back to the edge of the timber, adding scrapes and cuts to his face and hands.

  At the moment Cabot stepped out from the trees, a blast rocked the air. He saw no flash or blaze of explosives, but he placed the sound as coming from the Brecker soddy. The shock wave rolled through the ground, strong enough to drop Cabot to his knees.

  He stood. His knees shook. He made his way back along the path the piebald had carried him earlier—not so long ago, he realized. Cabot’s limbs trembled, drained of the adrenaline that had kept him moving during the chase.

  When he finally reached what had been the Brecker dooryard, he found only destruction. The soddy dwelling, the sod-and-timber outbuilding, the fenced pig lot—all were flattened into splinters and clods of dirt. Whatever had been inside the house was now shards and dust.

  Except for what remained in Cabot’s pockets.

  He reached, felt the watch, the locket.

  And the coin.

  There might be clues to be seen in the daylight. Cabot ached with a number of pains, and new ones were making themselves known with each step. But he had no interest in bedding down in this area tonight. And he had no desire to be caught asleep in this vicinity if any of the mysterious whatevers came back—the thing that had chased him or the thing that moved through the air.

  Cabot turned his back on what had been the Brecker home. It was a long walk to the Widow Howard’s door.

  The children remained missing.

  The adults were all found. Even Mrs. Brecker.

  After his long walk back to the Howard place, Cabot had slept—collapsed into an unconscious void, he thought—in the shed rather than frighten the widow after midnight by appearing beaten and bedraggled at her door. She’d found him there the next morning. In the swamp of her grief, the woman showed no surprise at finding the Treasury agent sleeping beside her Brinly plow.

  She’d tended his minor injuries, fed him breakfast, and loaned her remaining mule for him to ride to Broken Toe. He’d returned on another mount—not the piebald—leading the mule.