I wrote this a long time ago as non-fanfiction. But in my head, I always knew that this story's protagonist was Fox Mulder. So after almost two decades on various hard-drives, I decided to finally make the conversion of fanfic and post it. I hope you enjoy the story.
HORSEMAN
The old man had been born, raised, and lived most of his life on a ranch. A lifetime outdoors had burned him permanently tan and deepened the wrinkles on his hands and face to a point that was almost grotesque. Age had faded his once-formidable body into frailty, but while his voice was raspy and harsh, it was still stronger and steadier than his appearance. It had taken weeks to track him down and I was hoping it would be worth the effort. If I was right, he was the only man still alive who'd seen... whatever he'd seen
"You said your name is Mulder?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," I said as I opened a package of sugar and stirred it into my coffee. Mundane actions like that are important when you're interviewing someone. It humanizes you.
"Are you with the government?" the old man asked. There was a trace of suspicion in his voice that I could tell he was trying to hide.
I shook my head. "I used to be. But now I'm a writer."
Actually, I'm not sure a blog with about a thousand hits a month really counted as being a 'writer'. But it was close enough, and I've found that saying you're an ex-FBI agent is more intimidating.
The old man seemed to study me. Then he sighed.
"You gotta understand, Mr. Mulder, that was a long time ago."
"That's fine, sir," I replied politely. "I just want to hear what you have to say."
The old man gave me another long and skeptical look.
"All these years..." the old man finally continued with a slow, unbelieving shake of his head. "I kept waiting for someone from the Army or the FBI to come calling. Or for a shrink to stop by and want to x-ray my head. Or for a reporter to show up and start asking questions I didn't want to answer. But nothing happened. At least, not 'til now."
We were sitting at a table in a gas station-convenience store. It was located more-or-less in the middle of nowhere, at the intersection of a pair of sparsely-traveled Nevada highways. There was almost nothing else at that location - just an almost forgotten 'town' that consisted of about a dozen wind-blown and crumbling houses. Otherwise, the bare desert stretched out in every direction towards distant, rocky hills. Offhand, I would have to say that it had been a mistake to put a gas station there. I'd been there for some time and nobody else had stopped. And most of the merchandise on the shelves had a slightly dusty look.
The old man had lost his ranch a few years ago. He now rented a room in a forlorn house that was located just a couple dozen yards down the road. Apparently, he was supplementing his Social Security check by working the night shift. I found myself hoping that he would be okay when the gas station finally closed.
"Why are you interested in all this?" the old man probed. He tried to sound casual, but I could hear the wariness in his voice.
"I'm a researcher," I told him, "and while I was doing some research for an article, I kept hearing stories about something odd that happened just after the first atomic bomb test. At first, I figured the stories were just modern myth. That kind of thing builds up around any significant event and I've run into it before. But..."
I paused.
"But?" the old man asked as he peered into my face.
"But something about this just didn't sound like the usual nonsense," I finished awkwardly. If only the old man knew how much 'nonsense' I'd seen. And how much of it had turned out to be true.
That made him chuckle. "So what have you heard?"
I shrugged, "That men guarding the first atomic bomb test site went missing."
He nodded and took a sip from a chipped coffee cup that was probably older than I was. "And that's all?"
"I've also heard something about a horse," I added.
The old man actually flinched. Then he slowly shook his head. "I'll be damned," he said softly. "I was never sure if anyone else knew about that."
I took a long drink from my coffee. I wasn't particularly thirsty. I was just killing a few seconds as he adjusted to the idea that I knew more than I actually did.
"So what happened?" I asked.
His eyes shifted slightly as he seemed to peer back across the decades. I've done a lot of interviews with older folks and that's a good sign. It means they're actually trying to recall the past, rather than just spinning a tale.
"You know, there's a lot of things the history books don't talk about," the old man began thoughtfully. "Simple stuff. Not really important, I suppose. But things that stick in your mind if you were actually there. What did we have for dinner in the mess-hall the night of the bomb test? What songs were playing on the barracks radio? Who was up and who was down in the nightly poker game?"
I nodded, not saying anything. Yes, he wasn't exactly starting where I wanted him to, but it would be better if I let him tell the story his own way.
"After the bomb test, we were detailed to do guard duty on the site," he continued. "I mean... think about it. Of course the test site was guarded. Yeah, it was basically just a hole in the ground, but it was a top-secret hole in the ground. That kind of place is guarded, right? But have you ever heard anything about who guarded the site? Their names? Their unit? Whether they were MPs or infantry or maybe just guys from the motor-pool who were given guns and told to watch the trails leading into the bomb site?"
I didn't respond. He didn't really seem to want an answer.
He sighed and ran a thin hand through his sparse, white hair. "Our guard posts weren't really that far from where the bomb went off. Not far enough, as it turned out. After the war, I kept track of some of the guys from my unit. We didn't have reunions, but the guys I kept up with talked to the guys I didn't know so well. So I have a decent idea of what happened to us after the war. As near as I can tell, the first ones to die were the ones who were posted down-wind from the test site. They passed on in the early '50s. The last guy I knew died in the '70s. It was cancer, of course. It got them all and I'm not sure why it never got me. I don't know for sure, but I think I'm the last one still around."
I didn't say anything, but he was right. I'd come across a roster of the soldiers who had been on guard duty at the test site on the night after the test. Then I did the research. He was the last man left alive.
"Tell me about the horse," I said quietly.
He gave me a thin smile before continuing.
"They divided us into two-man teams and gave each of us a jeep and a radio. We had Thompson sub-machine guns, which was kind of dumb since most of us had never even fired one. We used Garands back in basic training. And a Garand would have made more sense in the open desert anyway. Typical Army."
"We were almost twenty miles north of the test site. I was a corporal at the time. I bounced between private and sergeant a couple of times. That happens when you're good at doing whatever job they give you, but bad at kissing ass."
"Our radios were all on the same frequency and at first we used them to shoot the breeze back and forth. Then Lieutenant Terrence - he was the kind of officer who never lost a chance to be a jackass - told us to cut it out. I was with a fellow from Chicago named Kovalenko. He was a dependable kid, but not that bright. A couple miles south and west of us were two more of our guys. They were Reiter and Hume. Reiter was a buck sergeant from Colorado. He was kind of a hard-ass but tried to be fair. Hume was a PFC from Kentucky. A serious, steady guy. Sort of a religious fellow."
The old man paused, thinking about what to say next. Then he went on.
"Around midnight, Reiter got on the radio. He sounded nervous and he was trying to report to Lieutenant Terrence. He said he could see something moving. Terrence didn't reply. Anyway, Reiter was on the radio, still trying to get hold of Lieutenant Terrence, when I heard Hume yell in the background, 'Jesus fucking Christ!'"
The old man paused, and then laughed, "You know, it's funny the things that people get delicate about. We were all sure that we were a bunch of hard-asses, but when we were questioned later on, half the guys said they heard Hume yell, 'Jesus Christ!' But I know what I heard. It stuck in my mind because it was the only time I'd ever heard Hume cuss."
"Then Reiter must have let go of the radio key. There was nothing more on the radio, but Kovalenko and I could hear weapons fire coming from where Reiter and Hume were posted. Two Thompson's firing full auto. No screwing around with bursts. I think they both emptied their magazines all at once."
"Lieutenant Terrence finally got to his radio and tried to get Reiter to report. Reiter didn't respond. I called in and told Terrence that we could hear gunfire from Reiter and Hume's position. Terrence didn't give us any orders, but I decided we had to do something. So we started up our Jeep and headed out. We'd just started moving when Reiter got back on the radio. I could tell that Reiter was scared, but he was still trying to report. He said that something was coming out of the test site."
"Out of the site?" I repeated automatically.
The old man let out a mirthless snort. "Yeah. Coming out of the site. Anyhow, Reiter kept trying to report, but that damned idiot Terrence kept interrupting. By the time Terrence finally got smart and shut-up, Hume must have reloaded, because a Thompson went off as Reiter finally started talking again - you could hear the gunfire both over the radio and off in the distance at the same time. Hume was screaming something as he fired. I heard Reiter yell at Hume to run. Then the radio cut out."
The old man paused and sighed. His eyes were on his now-empty coffee cup as he aimlessly manipulated it with his hands.
"I drove as fast as I could, but it was night and we were on a two-track trail. It took us maybe fifteen minutes to find Reiter and Hume's Jeep. They were nowhere to be seen."
"Me and Kovalenko checked out the area as best we could - remember, it was night. We yelled and yelled for Reiter and Hume, but there was no answer. The ground was hard-packed, so there wasn't much in the way of tracks. There were cartridge cases from the Thompsons - lots of them - scattered in and around Reiter and Hume's Jeep. I found a helmet and an empty Thompson about fifty yards from the Jeep. They were covered with blood. I tried to start Reiter's Jeep, figuring that we could use its lights, but it wouldn't start."
"Eventually, some of the other guys showed up. They helped us look for Reiter and Hume. Most of us searched on foot, while some other guys drove the trails. I had another Jeep back-track to the base, figuring - hoping - that Reiter and Hume were trying to walk home. But we never found them."
The old man paused, staring out past me at something only he could see. "We never found them," he repeated quietly.
Then he seemed to wake up and go back to his story. "After sunrise, Lieutenant Terrence put in an appearance. He had more men with him and they helped with the search. By noon, serious brass started showing up. Some two-star general who I didn't recognize was the highest-ranked of them. There were also some guys in suits. They had that look Feds had even back then - high and mighty and sure that they were untouchable."
"We were ordered back to base, confined to barracks, and told not to talk to each other about what had happened. They started questioning us the next morning. Since Kovalenko and I were closest to the scene and got there first, they really got on us. But I guess we must have said the right things because, after a couple of days of the third degree, they ordered us to never tell a soul what had happened and let us go. And after a few more days, they started transferring everyone who'd been on guard duty that night to other units. No two of us went to the same place - they split us up."
The old man stopped talking, got up, and walked over to the coffee maker to refill his cup. I waited until he came back. He seemed wrung-out from telling his story, but he still had more to say.
"A few years later I got curious and asked a friend who had stayed in the service to check on what the Army had to say about Reiter and Hume."
Decades-old outrage suddenly flickered across the old man's face. "They're listed as deserters. You have no damned idea how much that pisses me off. Reiter and Hume died doing what the Army ordered them to do - guarding their damned post. They don't deserve to be remembered as deserters just because... just because that's the simplest explanation anyone can come up with."
His face hard and bitter, the old man ground to an angry halt. I waited to see if he had anything else to say, but he seemed to be done.
"What about the horse?" I asked softly.
The old man's eyes met mine. He seemed to be trying to calculate just what he could - or should - tell me. I met his gaze calmly, trying to keep my expression and body language neutral and attentive.
"So somebody else heard what Hume yelled?" he replied just as softly. "What he was screaming in the background while Terrence and Reiter were talking over one another on the radio?"
I nodded.
"Then I guess you know about the horse," he said with a shrug.
Keeping my voice low-key, I replied, "I would appreciate it if you told me in your own words."
The old man paused, thinking over what I had said. Then he shrugged again. It was the gesture of a man who was so close to the end of his days that he was losing any reason to be cautious.
"It was a pretty dark night," he said. "There was no moon and the test put a lot of dust in the air that blocked out the stars. I mean... yeah... we had flashlights and there was the light from our headlights, but... look, a lot had happened and I was excited and scared. And what Hume had been yelling was in my head. I just can't swear to what I think I saw. That's why I never told anyone about it. Not even the Feds when they asked me all those questions."
I nodded. "I understand."
He grimaced before proceeding. It was like the words were being painfully dragged out the old man. "I told you about the helmet and the Thompson I found? Covered with blood?"
I nodded again.
"There was blood all over the ground where I found that gear. Lots of blood - a big patch that the desert wasn't done swallowing up yet."
The old man paused to consider his words before going on, "And right on one edge of all that blood, there was a hoof-print. An unshod horse's hoof. And it was really big. Bigger than a draft horse. The biggest I ever saw. And the blood in and around the hoof print was burnt black. It was still steaming when I found it, and when I got down to take a closer look, I could feel the heat coming off it."
"I didn't tell Kovalenko about the print. I'm not sure why... I think I was hoping that we'd find something else that would explain it. But by sunrise, the blood had dried up and the hoof-print was just a strange, burnt-looking spot about the size of a dinner plate. By then I'd decided that maybe I'd best not be telling people about it. Someone might decide that a guy seeing crazy stuff like that needed a nice long stay in a room with rubber walls."
The old man stopped. He seemed almost surprised by what he'd told me. After all, he'd been holding it in for longer than I'd been alive.
"You wanted to know what I saw," he said distantly. "That's what I saw... and it didn't make any damn sense."
As neutrally as possible, I said, "Thank you."
He just smiled crookedly.
"I'm sorry, but there's one more thing," I continued carefully.
The old man gave me a look that suggested his patience was running thin.
I held a hand up, trying to be conciliatory. "What Hume said. What he yelled while all the shooting was going on. Exactly what did you hear?"
The old man's eyes narrowed, "You said you knew about that."
"You're the best witness I've got," I said quietly. "I just need you to confirm what I've heard from other sources."
The old man pursed his lips, then he said, "It was tough to make it out over the radio, what with the gunfire and Terrence and Reiter both trying to talk at the same time. But Hume was a lay preacher back in Kentucky and he had a strong voice."
"He kept yelling it over and over again: 'On a pale horse. On a pale horse. On a pale horse.'"
The old man fell silent and stared at me bleakly. Neither of us said anything for awhile.
"Why do you think Hume said that?" I finally asked.
That was a question too far. The old man's face suddenly closed down. He was done talking and he was done with me.
"I've got work to do, young fellow," he said flatly. "I can't sit here and gab all night long."
That was obviously the end of the interview. I gave the old man my card even though I knew I'd never see him again. Then I walked out the door.
It was a cool Nevada night, with just enough of a breeze that I had to zip up my jacket. Out in the parking lot, the station smelled of gasoline, oil, exhaust, stale popcorn, and over-cooked hotdogs. A badly maintained neon sign seemed to buzz irritably at me as a truck roared past on the highway. The test site actually wasn't too far away - a little over a hundred miles. The old man hadn't been too far from home when he served there. And I guess he never really got away.
I pulled out my phone. Despite how late it was, she answered on the third ring.
"Sorry," I said into the phone. "But you said to call as soon as I was done."
"How'd it go?" Scully asked.
I hesitated before answering. "Fine. I've got a lot to think about."
She let my non-response of a response go. Scully always seems to know when to get pushy and when to let things alone.
"Find a place to stay for the night," she warned me. "It's too late to be on the highway."
"I saw a hotel about fifty miles back. I'll give them a try."
We exchanged a few more words. Then we hung up.
Before getting in my car, I paused and looked around. A full moon illuminated the surrounding desert. It seemed timeless and empty.
I wondered what had happened to the Horseman. Did he go back to where he came from - wherever that was? Or was he still out there somewhere, riding the wild and empty places, staying out of sight while he waited until his companions joined him?
And how long did we have until that day finally arrived?
I took a long, deep breath and then let it out. Whatever might come, I just had to make sure I was with Scully when it happened.
I started my car and pulled out onto the highway. The news was playing on the radio.
There was some fighting in the Middle East.