Author's Note: Set late season 9-early season 10. Post "To Die in Darkness." Pre "Salute to Yesterday."
This story is completely written. I will be uploading one chapter per day. Thank you for your time, and I hope you enjoy the story.
The horses knew what stalked the darkness beyond the campfire's light. Horses do not have words for such things, nor should men. But they do. To give name to a thing is to feel a certain power over it, to claim a bit of ownership merely by possessing its label. The name of a thing brings forth the delusion of control, of comprehension. Thus, to name a thing that is incomprehensible, that defies the very laws of nature, which is utterly unknowable, is a fool's errand. Yet men do it. Many have named that dark and otherworldly thing, and in doing so succumbed to their own hubris. Horses know better.
The men were there because of a promise one of them had made to a dead man. The horses were there because they belonged to the men. The woman was there because the fulfillment of the promise hinged on her, and the little girl was there because she belonged to the woman.
The darkness was always home to danger, but what lurked there now made them nervous, one and all, even the spirited pinto whom some had expressed doubt feared anything. Smaller than the other four horses, the little black and white was nonetheless the fiercest of them, and had never been afraid to nip any unruly or ill-mannered horse in his vicinity. In the wrong hands, he would've been a fractious bully. But this horse, called Cochise, was in the hands of Joseph Cartwright and, like his master, had learned when and where to apply his fiery temper. Normally, he would have nipped any restiveness on the part of the other horses in the bud. He was a cow horse, trained to assert calm but firm control over whatever animal his master aimed him at. In his mind, that included any horses he was tied next to. Tonight, however, his eyes rolled and his ears flipped back and forth along with the rest of them. He shifted from foot to foot uneasily, tensed to kick anything that happened up on his flanks, which were faced towards that vast and not-so-empty darkness.
Cochise's nostril's were filled with the scent of death out there in the night, his pricked ears heard tell of the killing on the wind. Were it up to him, they would never have come here. This sagebrush strewn hill country was agreeable enough to him, but the land on which they had trod belonged to something that welcomed neither man nor horse. Of his own accord, Cochise would have refused to go here, and so would the rest of the horses, for they knew what land they were trespassing on. They could feel it in their bones, even before their other senses confirmed the suspicion that they were on evil ground. But, though his spirit was never broken, Cochise's will had long ago been bent to serve that of his master. The other horses were much the same in this regard. Cochise did not know why his master had turned his steps towards this place, but he was accustomed to not understanding his master's plans and it did not occur to him that his master did not fully realize in this instance what he had asked of his faithful horse, because his human instincts were much duller than a horse's and he had not yet become conscious of his own unease, much less aware of its source.
One of the draft horses whinnied fearfully. The three cow horses knew better. Broadly experienced, they had been out on the range where wolves and mountain lions roamed. More than this, however, they had been in the midst of wars and skirmishes between men. They knew not to trust strangers, especially the pinto, who was prepared to resist nearly any rider besides his master. And they knew not to attract the attention of the predators of darkness, be they man or beast, until it was obvious those predators had seen and were coming for them. This was especially true of the chestnut, whose own master had selected him more for his quietness than anything as the man preferred to come and go unnoticed and that was easiest with a horse that didn't kick up a noisy fuss about being saddled or led towards or away from other horses. The draft horses, on the other hand, were work animals not well-used to being outside their ranch, for a draft horse isn't much use during a fast ride or gunfight.
Unable to reach the offending animal, Cochise irritably snapped at the horse next to him. The chestnut gelding shied, bumping the shoulder of the massive blue roan beside him. This horse snorted in protest, for it was not he that had whinnied, but his nearly identical partner standing on his other side. Though he was enormous, the draft horse was docile by nature and so he did not pass along the pinto's temperamental rebuke, nor push back against the chestnut.
An objecting groan came from one of the men, for he had been half-asleep and didn't much care for having been roused by one of the others, who said, "It's your turn to check on the horses, Candy."
Candy had just been getting warm and comfortable in his bedroll, and was loath to venture out into the frosty night air to deal with some nervous nags. The horses had been nervous the night before too, and Joe had spent much of the night soothing them.
Candy waited a moment to see if the horses would settle down by themselves, but he dutifully (and unhappily) crawled out of bed when he heard the restless stamping of hooves.
He shivered as he crossed the camp to where the horses were tied in a row, thinking curses to himself but not speaking them aloud. He was not a man who took well to having his rest disturbed, nor did he have the best luck when it came to horses. But it was his turn to deal with them, and when he'd invited himself along on this journey, it had been with the intention of doing his share of the work. And, apparently, that work was going to include nurse-maiding frightened horses that were probably spooking at their own shadows or some such.
"Easy," Candy whispered to the blue roan at the end of the line, the one whose fear seemed to be setting off the others, "Easy, big fellow," he laid a hand on the trembling horse's neck and stroked it gently, "Come on, now. You're the size of a house. What've you got to be scared of, huh?"
The horse rolled his eyes and tossed his head, snorting. Candy felt a damp patch of sweat on the animal's broad shoulders, though the animal had been cooled out and rubbed down before being tied for the night. The sweat was a sign of how agitated the animal truly was, and it wasn't a good one.
All three men out here were experienced trail riders, but Candy was a touch closer to the wild than the other two. Unlike the horses, he didn't know what lay in wait for them, but he did feel a prickle of fear along the back of his neck that he knew wasn't his imagination.
Candy stared past the horses at the surrounding night, trusting his instincts without understanding them. He'd heard rumors about this area. He'd always taken them with a grain of salt, because drifters were often inclined to exaggerate, particularly if they were telling campfire stories or tall tales in a bar.
The storytellers had several contradictory and largely unbelievable tales. Some had spoken of ghosts that whispered a man's name and lured him into the dark, and in the morning his companions would wake to find him gone, his tracks vanished in the sand. Others had talked about wolves the size of grizzlies or baying hounds that you couldn't see but that would nonetheless rip you to shreds. Still others spun fanciful yarns about hill dwelling cannibals that struck in the night.
Not being particularly superstitious, Candy discounted most of the stories. Certainly he wasn't ready to put much faith in phantasms luring men to their deaths by calling their names. Now, a man pretending to be a ghost calling somebody by name in order to lure them out where they could be killed and then covering his tracks, that was a story that held some water.
He wasn't ready to believe in any packs of gigantic wolves, invisible or otherwise. However, a rabid wolf he could believe, for he had met more than one of those, and the havoc such a beast could wreak on unsuspecting men and animals was tremendous, especially when you considered that it was a single animal that usually only weighed thirty or forty pounds. But the quickness of the crazy, typically half-starved beast practically begged for exaggeration. Such a small creature, and only one, doing so much damage seemed embarrassing to tell to men who had yet to match themselves against the diseased strength, frenetic determination and rending teeth of such a creature. A single rabid wolf could bring death to a half dozen men with its teeth, or instead spook their horses into doing the killing for it before anyone managed a shot that brought it down. Wolves were tough critters to begin with, and rabid ones had exchanged their innate fearful caution for aggressive boldness, and their ability to feel pain for a vicious drive to spread their sickness to everyone and everything they could get their teeth into before they themselves succumbed to its deadly effects.
As for cannibals… well, Candy had met his share of lunatic men out in the hills, but generally such men plotted and acted alone, because other men had more sanity or sense than to go along with them. He also happened to know a man was capable of doing just about anything if he got hungry enough. Still, he'd been in his share of fights, mad scrambles and camps that were raided in the night, and he was confident of his own prowess against any ordinary foe.
And too, he knew that many of the stories about invisible enemies that made men disappear in the night could best be attributed to Indians, who were masters of stealth, and making quick, noiseless kills with a knife, then leaving no traces of their presence behind. He knew, because he'd spent much of his life alternately learning from and fighting the Indians, Paiutes in particular. He had immense respect for their abilities. Far less respect for the men who told stories about them, because those stories tended to either make men reckless and arrogant, thinking themselves better and smarter than the Indians, or else convinced them that Indians of all tribes were devils that should be wiped out before they had the chance to do their worst as described in these wildly unbelievable stories.
Yes, Candy knew about Indians, knew which of the stories were truth and which were pure myth. And too, he knew which stories applied to which tribes, knew that something said about the Paiutes was not necessarily true of the Apaches, for each tribe largely lived by its own rules, hence why there were different tribes. Candy respected the abilities of these warriors, regardless of their tribe, and was prepared to regard them as fierce enemies as need be. But he did not fear them, for they were only men, no less and certainly no more, and taken as individuals were no more inherently good or bad, clever or foolish than any man. And until he saw for himself a reason to do so, Candy feared no man.
But now, as his eyes adjusted to the night beyond the camp yet still saw nothing and his ears strained to listen for something inaudible, he felt that there was something different out there. Something dangerous. Something deadly. Something… Evil. Something not animal or man, yet as real as either one. He felt… hunted. Hunted by something he couldn't see, and had heretofore not believed in, but hunted just the same. Without understanding why, without being able to offer proof or reason for it, he had no means of bringing it to light, or explaining it to himself or to anyone else.
Perhaps, had Ben Cartwright been along, Candy might have spoken of his concerns to the older man. He and Mr. Cartwright had come to understand each other pretty well of late, in fact had been given a lot of time in a very deep, very dark hole to do just that. They'd had nothing else besides each other in that hole, a fact that had scared Candy. As first boredom and then despair had set in, Candy had found himself relying on Mr. Cartwright just to keep a grim hold on his sanity, which had slipped through his grasp more than once during the ordeal.
However, the boys, Joe and Hoss, had been treating both their father and Candy with kid gloves since then. After so long in the closed darkness, where the silence was deeper than a grave, both Mr. Cartwright and Candy had taken some time to adjust back into the world of the light and the living. They were alright now, but Joe and Hoss didn't seem to entirely believe that.
They would never believe in the unknown something Candy could not hope to describe or explain. Instead, they would humor him and pretend to go along with his story, while casting knowing looks at one another when they didn't think he saw them. They would go along gently with him, and take any strenuous or risky jobs for themselves without admitting to doing so.
Candy was sick of being treated like he was made of glass, like he was fragile and broken. It only brought the memories back, and deepened the wounds that had already been inflicted, wounds that he was hoping were finally starting to heal.
But he also could see that the boys themselves had been grievously injured by what had happened. They had believed their father dead, disappeared forever without a trace. They had gone through a process of gut-wrenching fear, all the way to sad resignation and grief over their loss, and all that pain hadn't just evaporated because their father was returned to them. In fact, it was somehow amplified, for they were terrified of losing him again. For days and weeks after, they had followed their father room to room like anxious dogs, and certainly they had not allowed him to leave the house without one or both of them going with him, even if it was only out to the barn. In fact, this was the first time in months the boys had been willing to both leave their father's side at the same time.
Unlike Mr. Cartwright and Candy, however, the boys had not acknowledged that they had been at all damaged by the experience. Their denial was coming out in bursts of paranoia, mostly about their father being in danger or possibly missing again, but it was also showing itself in flashes of volatile tempers and even rage that had no clear direction. There's not much more more dangerous than a wounded animal, excepting maybe a man who's hurting and too bullheaded to realize it.
And the thing in the dark. That, Candy's instincts warned him, was the most dangerous thing of all.