Fury From the Tomb Read online

  “No, I didn’t know. About the choice of general stores or the lady’s gold coins,” I said.

  “She paid me,” Shirl said. “I do a bit of sewing and dressmaking. She looks real pretty in the one she picked today for your ride.”

  “Wait here, please,” I said.

  I went to my bedroom and searched inside my satchel. When I came back, McTroy was there. Blue shirtsleeves, gray vest, guns strapped. Black hat low on his head.

  “Morning, Sunshine, how’d you sleep?” he asked.

  “What little I had refreshed me.”

  “That’s what the circus dwarf’s wife said, ain’t it?”

  I ignored him. Black Shirl was smiling. I made her my offering.

  “This is a unique sample of tobacco I purchased in New Orleans, and a fine cigar. I hope you enjoy them. You have been most hospitable in our time of need.”

  She accepted and showed her appreciation by clapping me vigorously on the shoulder.

  “Come back anytime.”

  McTroy nudged her. “See there, Shirley, Doc isn’t a puritan after all.”

  “Where is Miss Evangeline?” I asked.

  “Why, she better be in her room. I’ve got one search on my plate already.”

  I had not noticed that Evangeline’s door was shut, which is but a single reason I would not make a good lawman. I approached her room and knocked.

  “Enter,” she said.

  I did as I was told and saw she had been writing, by candlelight, a note.

  “I was wondering where you were. McTroy is in a hurry to go.”

  “Sending a telegram to Father to tell him I am alive, the mummies are stolen, we are Mexico bound, we’ve hired a professional to get them back, can he please talk to the railroad owner about rewards, and we need more money, et cetera.”

  “We have your bag of gold,” I said.

  “That won’t get us far.”

  “Anything else hiding in your purse that I don’t know about?”

  “I suppose most of what’s inside.”

  “Right, then. So much for building up trust between us.”

  “Do you really want to rifle through my purse, Hardy? It’s there on the bed. Have your way with it.” She gestured broadly toward the bed.

  Heat rushed into my face. “I don’t like secrets, is what I’m trying to say.”

  “All men like secrets, Hardy. If it weren’t for secrets what a bore life would be.”

  “I’m not arguing philosophy with you. You know what I mean.”

  “I bought something at the store today. Would you like to see it?”

  She thrust her hand under the desk. Playfulness marked her. Her knees bounced eagerly in their nook. The change in conversational direction threw me.

  “What is it?”

  “What is what?” She returned to her telegram, reading over the lines.

  “What did you buy at the store?”

  She slid her chair back, and from between her knees brought out a hat. Wide-brimmed and chocolate brown, of the slouch style favored by soldiers during the war; hers was edged in ribbon. She put it on. “What do you think? Does the color favor me?”

  I could hardly think of a color that wouldn’t favor her. But I didn’t say that.

  “It looks… good on you. You will require a hat under the cruel sun.”

  “I’m glad you like it. There’s no reason a thing cannot be both functional and attractive.” She left the hat on, tilting her head at charming angles, checking the fit.

  “I agree.” What were we discussing here? I lost my place so often when we spoke.

  She shooed me away. “I need to finish this telegram. You’re not helping.”

  I closed her door.

  “Is she in there, Doc?”

  “She is writing a telegram to her father about your reward.”

  “Good deal,” he said. “I like a woman who is organized.”

  “Do you really?”

  “Damned straight.” He grabbed up a bag of vittles from the table. “No time for breakfast. We eat on the hoof. You and the boy get acquainted with your horse. She’s the browner of the two. Her name’s Penny. She’s a good animal. If there’s a problem, you know it’s you, not her. I saw riders gathering at the territorial prison. Word has likely gotten out that your train never arrived. Curious parties will go looking. That’ll be our competition. But they’ll be sleepy and stupid at the start. We’ve got an advantage or two. Saddle up. Don’t forget to say goodbye to Shirl. You might not guess it, but she’s sensitive when it comes to farewells.”

  Mid-morning: the sun was on us. Penny had proved to be a congenial beast. Wu, on the other hand, was not accustomed to traveling via horseback. He feared many outcomes, falling off being his topmost concern. He hugged my waist like an anaconda. An hour earlier I had fought for my breath and persuaded him to loosen his grip, but the slow pressure returned. I conjectured that the towering column of smoke accumulating like a thundercloud before us was no small factor in his hugging me close.

  Something terrible had happened.

  Evangeline extracted a spyglass from her purse of wonders and scanned the calamity. Her gelding, Neptune, remained steady underneath her as she swept her lens over the landscape. “The boiler must have exploded,” she said. “Oily black smoke, and I see wreckage blown from the hole. Oh dear, I see bodies.”

  Here Wu’s arms began tightening again. I could feel his forehead pressed against my spine. He clearly did not want to see anything at all concerning the dead. I did not blame him. The scene was beyond all description and impossible to ignore. If there were a Hell, this was it.

  Evangeline put away her glass. She combed her fingers through Neptune’s mane.

  McTroy kept silent.

  I guessed that any doubts he had about our story were gone.

  We rode up to within a hundred yards of the inferno.

  “Wait here,” McTroy said.

  He tied a scarf over his nose and mouth and galloped a swift circumference of that red region. When he rejoined us, his bare skin had turned smutty black. “This is a mighty sinkhole. I’ll give you that,” McTroy said. He lifted himself up in his stirrups and peered back toward the pit where the ruptured train combusted. The wind shifted. Smoke particles and unimaginable roasting smells overwhelmed us. Moonlight wagged her head in displeasure, and he steered her around in a half-circle away from the worst of it.

  We followed him.

  “We’ll go around,” he said. He motioned at a course westward and then south.

  I knew then that even the slightest hope of tracking the worm’s path into the tunnel was now impossible. So, I made no mention of it.

  McTroy said, “I saw tracks on the Mexico side of the hole. Can’t hardly believe they dug that beauty, the bastards. Must’ve taken fifty or a hundred men all night and still I don’t see how they did it. But you say only a dozen robbed you?”

  I nodded.

  “Makes no sense.” He shook his head. “There’s nobody alive in that perdition. The corpses are pretty chewed on. Parts burned, parts scattered. Must be lobos and coyotes picking up the death scent. Moonlight doesn’t like it.”

  “We should press on then,” I said.

  I didn’t want him examining the improbable scenario too closely.

  “Right, that posse will be here in no time. They’ll ponder this for a good while.”

  Evangeline had taken out her spyglass, scouring the horizon in all directions.

  “We are, as far as I can see, quite alone for the moment,” she said.

  “Let’s make time, hens.” McTroy snapped his reins and we navigated south.

  The tracks were clear enough in the sand, though the wind would erase them as far as my inexpert eyes could tell. I was glad we rode hard for the better part of what was left of the morning. But as the noontime heat intensified, McTroy slowed the horses.

  I rode up parallel.

  “Have you given any thought to the mummies?”

  “L
ike what?” he said.

  “How will we bring them back? They are precious cargo. You can’t sling them over your saddle like a dead horse thief.”

  “I can’t track with a wagon either. How’d the banditos get that big coffin sprung anyway? No wagon in this group we’re following. You said the bugger’s heavy. Heavy leaves a mark.”

  He gave me a dubious stare.

  “They used a tunnel in the bottom of the pit.”

  “Crashed the train then took the treasure out? Where’d the other end of that tunnel pop up, d’you suppose? In them hills back there? Where the caves are?”

  “Maybe…”

  “Don’t matter. We got a trail right here and I know where they’re headed.”

  “Where’s that?” I asked.

  “El Camino Del Diablo. You know what that means, Mr Jake Chinese?”

  “His name is Yong Wu,” I said.

  “Know what that means, Yongwu?”

  “No, sir,” Wu said.

  “The Devil’s Highway.” McTroy smiled. He rode relaxed, like the best camel drivers. “We’ll stop soon. Water the horses. Sit in the shade. Get going again when the sun drops. There’s usually water in those mountains. If there isn’t, we won’t need to worry about any coffin wagons but our own.”

  “You’ll need to think about it sometime,” I said.

  I dropped my pace and slid back in line behind him.

  “Find the mummies first,” he called out. “Worry about cartage later.”

  Gila Desert, 10 miles NW of the Tinajas Atlas Mountains

  We camped that night in a valley of mesquite and creosote bushes. The land lay dead flat and our position on it felt vulnerable as darkness fell. McTroy was unperturbed. He built a small fire and cooked coffee and beans. Evangeline, who had ridden the last miles in unusual silence, struck up a conversation, and McTroy, for his part, welcomed it.

  She told him how she was trained as a librarian.

  “I studied at the Boston Anthenaeum,” she said. “And I have conversed privately with Melvil Dewey, chief librarian at Columbia College in New York, who was more interested with what was under my corset than inside my head. But, nonetheless, his ideas concerning cataloging are revolutionary.”

  “Never trust a Melvil.” McTroy cut a piece of jerky with an elk horn-handled knife. He passed it to Wu.

  “Want some, Doc?” he said.

  I accepted a strip of chewy meat that came from an unknown animal. Evangeline declined his offer. It tasted gamey and of wood smoke and peppercorns. As soon as I ate my piece I wished I had another, but no more offers came my way this evening.

  “Books are my life,” Evangeline said.

  “You and the doc liked school?”

  We both agreed we did.

  “How about you?” he asked Wu.

  The boy shrugged. “I liked my parents teaching me things. But I don’t remember school.”

  “You’re lucky. I couldn’t wait to leave. Bored stiff. Wish my arithmetic was better as I am sure I have been cheated by numbers men. Reading seems a poor substitute for doing.”

  “Reading is doing,” I said.

  McTroy laughed. “Good one, Doc. You’re funnier when you’re tired.”

  He broke out the blankets and loosened the horses’ loads. I noticed him sipping occasionally from a flask, but he took his drink in private, in the shadows away from the fire, behind the horses.

  As we bedded down, hand-sized black shapes flitted over the horses and our heads.

  Bats.

  That reminded me of something.

  “Did you know they discovered bats deep inside the Great Pyramid?”

  “Really?” Evangeline said, yawning.

  She lay on her back under the stars. I could hear the exhaustion in her voice.

  I bent toward the fire and tossed in a twig. “It’s fascinating. The passages were full of guano. Just imagine climbing your way inside those tight, airless tunnels with only a torch to light your way, and then hordes of bats start flying out.” I spread my fingers and wiggled them near the flames. “I’m no lover of small spaces. And frankly will admit to trembling a bit at the idea of sharing them with wild animals.” Smiling, I glanced at Evangeline to see her reaction.

  She had turned away from the firelight. Her blanket rose and fell steadily.

  Reclining next to her, a fully awake Yong Wu shuddered and pulled his covers higher.

  A scrimshaw moon rose above us.

  The desert is a noisy place when the sun goes down. Nightjars called out their watery tremolo. A great horned owl hooted from a nearby saguaro. He pivoted his ample head and I saw him there, perched on a cactus arm. He blinked twice at me.

  Then flew off.

  McTroy tucked away his flask and banked the fire.

  In the hills – a howling, not far away at all. Wu’s eyes grew alert.

  “You worried about the lobos?” McTroy said.

  The boy hesitated for a moment and then nodded.

  McTroy said, “The Mex she-wolf littered. The pack is out hunting on her behalf. It’s a good way. They take care of theirs. Our fire will keep them cautious. They’ll watch though, and that’s what I like. You can see the lobos thinking right here.” He pointed to his own glittering eyes. “Spooky critters – the desert has its fill. You get used to it.”

  He rolled on his side just outside the fire’s glow.

  Yong Wu pulled his blanket under his chin. He watched the sky.

  My eyes were heavy but I didn’t want to sleep. Not yet.

  I looked at Wu who seemed highly vigilant despite the late hour.

  I knew this – he wasn’t worried about any wolves.

  23

  Touch of Evil

  Reader, let me assure you that what follows was no dream. I did not sleep that night, not after what I saw, so how could I have been dreaming? Was it a trance? A hypnotic state? Perhaps an example of long-distance mesmerism? Can such a feat be carried out by the dead upon the living? You may have your opinion on the subject. I certainly have mine.

  What I can do is tell you this: I watched Yong Wu who was busy watching the skies. He did not seem to be searching the constellations, but looking more immediately in the mid-air above our camp, where the bats had been flitting. He cocked his head as one does when one is listening for a familiar call that is expected. I was about to ask him who exactly he was looking and listening for, but then I thought better of it. That line of questioning would yield nothing. He hadn’t told me who his hopping friends were before and he wasn’t going to tell me now – they had to be the ones he was expecting. So instead of asking, I waited to see if anyone entered our bubble of light in the dark desert.

  I switched my gaze from Yong Wu’s face to the burning wood.

  That is when I noticed two things simultaneously.

  One: I was now transfixed on the fire. I could not look away, though my peripheral vision worked without hindrance. My eyes would not shift from the flames.

  Two: someone had stepped into the firelight.

  The shape was tall and wide and dragging behind it a trail of bandages.

  Here was the vision I had mistaken for a sailor aboard the Derceto days ago when I happened upon him at the rail, staring forlornly into the waves. The mystery man who disappeared and yet who lingered, whose presence below decks caused odd vibrations in my legs. Here was a nightmare come alive, or coming alive, piece by piece.

  Here, I knew as surely as I knew anything, was Amun Odji-Kek.

  Sorcerer of Set.

  He Who Disturbs the Balance.

  Plague Bringer.

  Corruptor of the Land.

  Slayer from the South.

  Lord of Demons.

  The evil priest walked toward our fire. He put his hands out over the red coals.

  As my eyes were fixed in place at the core of the conflagration, I saw the figure standing near it with clarity. He did not look like any man I ever knew in life. He moved like a man does, but more slowly, more
deliberately, as if he were newly reacquainted with his body, a man waking from a long sickbed slumber, one who has been brought back from the brink of death. Or perhaps from beyond the brink of death, I thought. I could, here and there, spottily, through the holes and tears in the bandages, see the fire dancing. What living man is perforated through like a moth-eaten blanket? No man.

  It was an added shock to me then, when he spoke.

  “I cannot feel it,” he said. “The heat of this fire… does not reach me.”

  Knowing that I was suffering from some partial paralysis, I wondered if I was capable of speaking. I did not know what I would say to him. But I tried to test my voice and only heard a low moan escape my lips.

  “Don’t speak,” he said. “Think and I will hear your words as you hear mine, though you and I never learned the same tongue.”

  “Who are you?” I thought, and it was like hearing my voice inside a barrel.

  “You know who I am. Do not insult me.”

  “You are Amun Odji-Kek, Sorcerer of Set.”

  He turned.

  I could not raise my eyes to his, though in the periphery I saw they glowed not with the firelight but crystal-hard and yellow. I was glad not to look into them directly.

  “You should be glad. Men have died at the sight of me.”

  I will have to be careful here, I was thinking.

  “No care you take will make any difference, dog.”

  Conversing with a resurrected demigod is not as easy as one might imagine.

  Small, thudding steps brought him closer to where I reclined on one elbow in my blankets. For an entity that was a good bit hollow and in parts altogether missing, he appeared alarmingly massive. When he stopped advancing, his thighs were at my eye level.

  “You are the one who found me in the sands.”

  “Yes, I am an Egyptologist. I study the ancient history of your people–”

  “Silence, dog. You are nothing. Do you know where I have been? What I have seen in my years underground?”

  “How could I?”

  “They buried me alive. They sent me to the Land of the Dead lost, hungry, and thirsty, without provisions, without guides. I had nothing. I was ravaged by monsters.”