Walk the Sky (2 page)

2.

They stood side by side out of earshot from the boy, staring off toward the mountains.
 

“My vote?” George said. “I think we should check it out.”
 

“You saw what he wrote. He wrote
dead
.”
 

“He wrote three letters in the dirt. They might not mean what we think they mean.”
 

“What if they do?”
 

“Then there’s nothing we can do to change it. But right now we need supplies. Especially water.”
 

Clay glanced over his shoulder at the boy, who now stood in the shade of the tree, looking scared out of his wits. The boy’s arms were long and thin, his face narrow and painted thick with dirt. His hair was long and brown and looked as if it had been washed in mud. Clay figured the boy was twelve, maybe thirteen years old.
 

“I don’t like it.”
 

“You got another idea?”
 

“Let’s just keep riding. Sooner or later we’ll cross another town.”
 

“And if we don’t?”
 

Clay glanced over his shoulder again. “Something made that boy very afraid.”
 

“Nothing to lose by taking a look. We don’t like what we find, we keep moving. But remember, we need water. What was in that canteen? That was our last.”
 

They returned to their horses and walked them back to the boy. The horses, though still slightly spooked, were not as obstinate this time.
 

George mounted his horse and extended his hand to the boy. “You can ride with me.”
 

The boy’s eyes grew wide. He shook his head and took a step back.
 

“See?” Clay said. “The kid’s scared.”
 

George crossed his hands over the horn of his saddle and stared down at the boy. “We’re not going to leave you here. But neither can we stay here. Me and my friend, we need to keep riding for our own sake. But we’ll protect you. I promise you that.”
 

The boy didn’t move at first. He stared back up at George for several long seconds before regarding Clay. Then, after some thought, the boy made the only choice a man could make under the circumstances: he took George’s hand.
 

George pulled the boy up onto the back of his horse, made sure he was secure. Then he looked at Clay.
 

“Ready?”

*
 
*
 
*

The desert could play tricks on you if you weren’t careful. It could make you believe it wasn’t nearly as hot as it felt. It could shimmer with the sight of water that wasn’t really there. It could fool you into thinking the next mountain was just an hour away when it was no closer than a full day’s ride.
 

It was truthful this time.
 

They entered the outskirts of town in just under an hour.
 

The first building they passed was the schoolhouse. It may not have been apparent to the occasional passerby—it certainly wasn’t to George, who rode past the weathered building without giving it so much as a glance—but Clay noticed. After all, he was a schoolteacher.
Had
been a schoolteacher, he reminded himself, back in his past life. Back before everything had fallen apart.
 

But Clay didn’t want to think about that. There wasn’t much he could do about it now anyway. Their current situation, however, weighed heavily on his mind.
 

The boy had written DED in the dirt.
 

So where were the bodies?
 

Where was the blood?
 

If they weren’t dead, where were the townsfolk?
 

They rode past the Liberty Stables and Blacksmith Services. They rode past the Red Queen Saloon. They rode past the Dover’s Creek Bank. The office of Malcolm Jenkins, M.D. The assayer’s office. Even the jailhouse.
 

Not a soul in sight.
 

Not a sound in the air except the whisper of the wind.
 

George pulled up in front of Goodman’s Mercantile, dismounted, and helped the boy off the back of the horse.
 

“Where is everybody?” Clay asked.
 

“Dead, I suppose.” George hitched his horse to the post, nodded at the boy. “Isn’t that what he wrote?”
 

“Then where are the bodies?”
 

“We won’t stay more than an hour. We’ll get what we need here and be on our way.”
 

Clay dismounted, tied his horse to the post, and kept the boy in front of him as they followed George into the mercantile.
 

With the daylight at their backs it was an easy glance around the place to get a feel for the layout. Wooden display cases formed three aisles. To the left, there were foodstuffs and cooking utensils. Down the middle were racks of clothing, shoes and boots. Down the right were tools and riding gear, leading to the very back of the store where Mr. Goodman sold guns and ammunition.
 

“Is this a mining town?” Clay asked.
 

“Not sure. Why?”
 

“In that crate over there. Isn’t that dynamite?”
 

George came over and took a peek. “I believe it is. Stay away from it. That stuff can be unpredictable.”
 

As George drifted toward the foodstuffs, Clay went down the far right aisle looking for canteens. The longer they were going to be traveling through the desert, the more water they would need to carry.
 

Some five minutes later, Clay had four canteens over one shoulder and was giving close look at a couple of kerosene lanterns. He straightened and stretched, and noticed George at the front register, the counter piled high with beans and jerky, hard cheese and buckwheat. Clay gave the mercantile a once over, and called out to George, “Where’s the boy?”
 

“Thought he was with you.”
 

“Was,” Clay said. He drifted out to the middle aisle and gave a long look toward the back of the store, then back to the front. It was odd and more than a little unsettling that the boy had gone and disappeared on them. “Not anymore.”
 

“Maybe he’s outside.”
 

Clay came out of the dusty wash of light carrying the four canteens, and two lanterns. “Now all we need to do is find some water and we’ll be set.”
 

George nodded. He returned to the counter, loaded a gunnysack with the foodstuffs, and slung it over his shoulder. Before he stepped away, he placed a ten dollar gold piece on the counter.
 

“Best be on our way,” he said.
 

They went through the front door of Goodman’s Mercantile, their arms loaded, and made it as far as the edge of the plank walkway before stopping.
 

The boy hadn’t gone far after all. He stood in the dry, dusty bed of the town’s main street, his hands tied behind his back, looking like a ghost of himself. Next to him was the first of four horses. Sitting on the four horses were four men Clay had never seen before. And in the hands of each of the men was a drawn gun.
 

The man on the horse next to the boy said, “Ain’t in no rush now, are you?”

3.

The men bound their hands behind their backs and tied dusty kerchiefs in their mouths. Two of the men took their supplies back into the mercantile, and when they returned minutes later one of them was holding up the ten dollar gold piece George had left behind.
 

“Look what we found,” the man said with a grin.
 

“Yeah,” said the other one, “they must be tryin’ to pay their way into heaven.”
 

The fourth man—the one who hadn’t spoken yet—said, “Put it back.”
 

The first man’s grin faded. “Huh?”
 

“We have no need for gold, especially when it’s not our own. Put it back where you found it.”
 

“But—”
 

“Do it now.”
 

The man’s shoulders dropped. His eyes lowered. He nodded and turned and hurried back into the mercantile, only to emerge twenty seconds later with a somber look on his face.
 

“You know what God does to liars and thieves?” The leader—this was how Clay saw him, tall and heavy-bearded with deep authority in his voice—did not wait for a reply. “Now let’s get these men back to town. The Reverend will be happy with this latest bounty the Lord has given us.”
 

*
 
*
 
*

The men placed Clay on George’s horse, George on Clay’s horse. The boy they placed behind George. It was awkward riding like this with your hands tied behind your back, the threat of losing your balance a constant worry, but the men took them at a modest pace and they arrived at the next town less than two hours later.
 

Just like the last town, this one wasn’t large, only a couple buildings along the main street. Unlike the last town, this one contained people. Just a few, all men standing along the street watching them, but still there was life here. This town wasn’t, as the boy had crudely written in the dirt, DED.
 

They eventually came to the jailhouse. The men dismounted. They took the boy down from George’s horse, then took down George. They left Clay where he was for a minute, and Clay had the crazy notion that they were going to kill him right there on the horse. The leader—the one with the heavy beard and deep voice—would pull out his gun and shoot Clay right between the eyes.
 

Clay even lowered his head and closed his eyes, said a quick prayer, in case this was the plan.
 

Then, before he knew it, the men were taking him off the horse, their strong hands gripping his arms and legs. It would have been so much easier had the men at least freed his hands, allowed him to dismount the horse himself, but instead they went through the rigmarole until he had his two feet planted on the ground.
 

“All right then,” said the leader, “take ’em inside.”
 

They were ushered into the jailhouse. Here there was nothing more than a desk with a lamp on top. Three separate cells took up the rest of the space. Each cell had a short bench against the brick wall barely wide enough to support a grown man.
 

The door of the cell on the left was jerked open, its hinges screeching loudly. They shoved George inside. The boy went in the middle cell, Clay in the last.
 

“Listen,” the leader said. “Roy is going to stay here and keep an eye on you. He has orders to shoot you if you do something he don’t like. Understood?”
 

Clay and George didn’t answer.
 

The leader cleared his throat. “I said,
understood?
”
 

They nodded.
 

“Now all of you turn around so Roy can take off those ropes.”
 

Both Clay and George did as the man said. The boy did not. He stood at the bars and began to mewl.
 

Roy stepped forward and shouted, “Shut up!” He kicked at the bars, his boot up high toward the boy’s face. The boy skittered back and stumbled over his own feet and went down hard. “That’s what you get,” Roy said with a laugh. Then, staring down at the boy: “Joe, does this one look familiar to you?”
 

The leader didn’t step forward for a closer look. He just shook his head and said, “Don’t matter either way. Now, do as I say and take off those ropes.”
 

Roy went first to George and undid the ropes around George’s wrists. Then he went to Clay and did the same. Both men took the kerchiefs out of their mouths.
 

“What about the boy?” George asked.
 

Roy said, “What about him?”
 

“You just can’t leave him in there like that.”
 

Roy seemed to find this quite funny. Joe just stood there, his mouth a tight line. When Roy’s laughter quieted, Joe turned and started toward the door. “Nothing foolish now, you hear?”
 

Neither Clay nor George made a response. Even when Joe walked through the door and left them with Roy they said nothing. They just stood at the bars in their separate cells, while the boy lay crying on the floor in his own cell between them, and watched Roy leaning against the desk, a grin on his face, his hand resting on the holster of his gun.

*
 
*
 
*

How much longer before the door opened again, Clay didn’t know. Time had seemed to take on a strange quality inside the jailhouse. A minute could have passed. An hour could have passed. All he knew for certain was the sun was still in the sky and that he and George and the boy were now sitting on their individual benches in their individual cells. Then the door opened and they all looked up, expecting to see Joe again.
 

Only it wasn’t Joe.
 

Walking toward them, a jug in one hand and two tin cups in the other, was Clay’s dead daughter.

4.

At once Clay and George stood up from their individual benches and approached the bars of their individual cells. Clay exchanged a glance with George, and knew his friend saw the same thing he did.
 

The resemblance was remarkable.
 

This woman had the same blond hair that turned an autumn reddish brown when Ellie was out of the sun. The same winter-blue eyes. A similar summer white dress to the one Ellie loved to wear all year round.