Old West.
As he woke up, the man was physically exhausted and he was left confused as he looked around the room, and for a moment he even questioned himself about who he was and what had happened to him. He saw the white wallpapered walls, the simply embroidered armchair and the dresser with the china jug and the matching bowl next to it, but he had no memory of getting here; everything he had gone through had been a dream. A fantastic, terrible, frightening dream.
The door opened and a plump man walked in. "Ah, you're awake," he stated the obvious.
The man blinked up at him in confusion before a piece of memory of seeing this man and a few other people surfaced in his mind. "I saw you before," he whispered.
The plump man smiled. "Try not to worry, you were in a bad way. We gave you enough water and medicine over the last couple of days."
"You….you did?" The man asked. "I don't remember."
"You were too out of it, you've been starved and thirsty for a while. I don't know how you managed to live through all that," the plump man took off his spectacles and wiped them before putting them back on, "The good news is you are getting better."
"I…I am?" The man asked. "Can I have some water?"
The plump man was already at a jug and was pouring water into a large mug. "Here," he helped the man sit up in the bed and he helped him drink the water. He did this three times before he set the man back into the bed. "You're coming along nicely, but you're still too weak. I'll be back to check on you soon, Mr Dobbs, have no fear."
Dobbs?
Suddenly the man remembered; his discharge from the army, becoming a mercenary, getting himself hired by a railroad company and being given the task of surveying the landscape in preparation for a new railroad link with the hope of building a string of towns and farms and mines. He remembered his last survey mission and how it had gone, dealing with petty arguments, and a few usual bad jokes before everything went totally wrong.
"I remember," he whispered as the whole terrifying mess began coalescing in his mind.
"You do?" The doctor asked.
"Just about. A lot of it feels like a bad dream….except it's not," Dobbs stared at the doctor thoughtfully. "I take it you've found the body and the head?"
"Yes, we have. The sheriff and the deputies want to talk to you about it."
Dobbs wasn't surprised. Part of the reason he had brought back the head and body was to give proof to his story even though his body was shattered and covered with so many injuries the Indians couldn't have inflicted on him in a million years. But he wasn't in the mood. He was still too tired, and while he remembered what had happened to him he was still too exhausted to really make sense of what happened to him and the others. "Sorry, doc, but I'm not really up to talking, not right now," he said.
The doctor nodded. "I figured as much. You're too tired and I think you should rest a bit longer."
Dobbs nodded, but as he watched the doctor leave the room he wondered if he could actually tell the sheriff and the deputy what they wanted to know.
X
A few days later, Dobbs was feeding himself some soup and freshly baked bread slowly when the sheriff walked in. Quietly he continued eating after giving the two men and the doctor a respectful nod.
The sheriff was a bit embarrassed they had walked in on the man when he was eating but Dobbs waved them in and put the food tray away for the time being. After wiping his mouth, Dobbs stared at the sheriff. "Hello, Sheriff," he said respectfully.
"The names' Jack, this is Marcus," the sheriff said. "We've been waiting for a chance to speak to you."
"I know, I was just waiting for a chance to feel stronger. I was forced to travel back for a long time," Dobbs was barely able to recall just how long he had been left travelling after he had killed that thing. Days of exposure to the sun without much food or too much water had blurred his mind.
"D you feel up to talking now?"
"Yeah, just about. But I guarantee you won't believe a lot of it. Some of it seems so weird to me looking back," Dobbs said.
"I'll bet. What was the head of that thing?" Marcus asked.
"I'll get to that. Let me start from the beginning," Dobbs said with a sigh.
X
Mr Dobbs was an employee of the railroad. He had once been a soldier, but he had been discharged and he had found it hard to find work. After months of searching, he was finally employed by the railroad as a bodyguard along with other ex-soldiers who were assigned to go with survey teams to study the terrain of a large area, to see if it was possible to open them up to railroads for the growth of new towns and mines. In recent years, more and more railroads and lines had been spreading in waves. Dobbs had been on several such expeditions in the past, and thanks to his military experience he had managed to come out safely.
7 months ago, Dobbs had been given another such assignment to protect a group of surveyors despatched by the railroad company. For a long time, the company had been receiving reports of large open peninsulas and provinces that would make excellent farmland and had the potential to have new towns and settlements, and potentially open up new connections to the West and to the North. Dobbs hadn't seen anything particularly wrong with the assignment, he had merely felt it would be another easy paycheck.
The survey work was straightforward enough; he would escort with some of his men several surveyors who would take measurements of different locations to determine the gradients and the amount of work needed to lay down tracks and other railway infrastructure. But Dobbs had been ordered to keep watch; the railroad company had made sure he was taking more men with guns as they'd heard rumours there were dangerous Indian tribes out there. Unlike many other people, Dobbs understood why the Indians were constantly attacking the settlers and the men responsible for the construction of the railway lines, the infrastructure; bridges, junctions, water towers and stations and towns, and the mines and the supply networks; it was because the lands were Indian lands originally far as the eye could see or comprehend, and the settlers disturbed the traditional hunting grounds, and the Indians didn't like it.
Dobbs made the mental experiment; if a bunch of soldiers came and messed up a farm, then the farmer would be well within his rights to shoot to protect his property. For a month, the survey party had begun exploring the route, taking careful measurements and recording them on maps and in notebooks which would be part of the final reports, and along the way, they encountered several Indian tribes, noted down where they were, and tried to estimate their size and strengths. Occasionally there was trouble with Indians, but they were driven off; most of the Indians they encountered in the first months were just small parties, that changed as they went deeper and deeper into Indian territory.
Surveying the landscape was relatively simple and the group spoke of how the railway could be run here, and there was the potential for new parts of the continent to be opened up, new homes and towns and mines following in their wake; that kind of talk had always bothered Dobbs for the simple reason the more people who came out here, the more angry Indian tribes there would be.
But then something happened.
The group came across a coyote. The animal's head was sliced off. At first, they had assumed it was the Indians, who were hunters, but they wouldn't have left the coyote's whole body behind since its fur and bones could have had some use. But no, it had been abandoned and left to rot, but it hadn't been dead long. Also, there were signs of massive footprints left behind, strange and weird. Dobbs and the other ex-soldiers couldn't recognise it, but they knew that whatever it had been, was larger than a man. At first, they assumed it was a larger-than-normal Indian, but something made them doubt that belief, and then there was the fact the coyote's body was still intact barring the missing skull. Indians had weird ways, but they had never heard of any Indian doing that before.
As they moved on, continuing the survey they discovered a group of men who'd been skinned alive, and had been left hanging from a tree, being pecked by vultures. Dobbs and his men had examined the remains, and discovered they were a group of soldiers and Indians; further analysis of the area had revealed there were the remains of arrows and spears intermingled with spent bullet shells. The soldiers and the group of Indians had been firing in all directions, but there was no sign of what they had been shooting at.
And then they were killed and skinned. Dobbs and his men had been mystified until a search of the area showed a journal belonging to a lieutenant in the US army, who had been sent by a merchant's company to find out what happened to a waggon train to the area; the company were aware the railroad company were planning on expanding into the area and were taking advantage of it, but they wanted to make sure it was an absolutely safe region in the meantime, but they had lost a few of them in six months, and they were becoming worried. This lieutenant went into the unexplored provinces Dobbs and his survey team were in, and they discovered a war party of Indians had been skinned alive as well, and some even had their skulls removed.
One day, a small group of soldiers came across a group of Indian warriors. After the initial suspicion and trigger-happy tension was over, the lieutenant and the leader of the warriors spoke; the Indians had been part of a hunting party but were attacked by a bear, only it was then killed by what they called a demon, and then it began hunting them; the party had started with 9 men, but they had lost 4 of their own since. The Indians left the soldiers since the lieutenant could see how worn out they were, but in the morning they discovered one of their own was dead. Angrily thinking the Indians were behind it, the soldiers went after them, but they found two of their own were slaughtered like animals….but they were attacked by something they couldn't see, and it slaughtered them all from all around, forcing the soldiers and Indians to fight side-by-side, but their numbers fell. The lieutenant wrote a final note in the journal, warning anyone passing by of what was out there; an enemy they couldn't see, one who moved like lightning, and would kill them all.
And then the journal ended completely, with a splatter of dried blood that was still red.
Naturally, Dobbs and the rest of the survey party found the journal's account too fantastic, but they didn't have many alternatives to dismiss it since it explained why there had been Indians involved and why they'd fought alongside the soldiers. For days afterwards, while the team continued their work and noted down places where laying down tracks would prove difficult, Dobbs would continually think about the journal, but as they moved on, he and several of his men became more and more worried about what was out there. There seemed to be an eerie calm over the landscape.
And then, one day, a group of Indians attacked the party; they appeared out of nowhere and Dobbs and his fellow ex-soldiers were hard-pressed to keep them from killing them, but Dobbs hadn't become a soldier for anything. He managed to get passed the Indians with two others, and they took them on two fronts. But looking back, he knew that was what sealed their fate.