car. He pushed his nose into Van Helsing’s lap, forcing the doctor to stop his writing. Van Helsing laughed and scratched him behind the ears.
“Very sorry, sir,” Chee said, stepping forward and nudging Dog away with his hip. “He’s not usually so rude.”
“Ach. No troubles, sergeant, he is a fine beast. Magnificent animal.”
“Thank you, sir. Come on, Dog,” he mumbled, following Pinkerton to the rear of the car. Hollister stood and was about to follow Chee, when Van Helsing put up his hand, stopping him momentarily.
“Major, you are sure you are ready for this assignment? It will be quite dangerous, I assure you.” Van Helsing studied him.
Hollister considered the man a moment, wondering when he had ever seen such piercing black eyes. It was unsettling. But Hollister had learned to read eyes in the war, on the plains, and in prison. The eyes said everything. Who would fight and who would run, who told the truth and who lied, who was scared and who was without fear. Van Helsing, he decided, was without fear. Whatever these things were, he was determined to kill them.
“No, Doctor, I’m not. I’m not ready at all.” He reached out to the gun rack and removed one of the short- barreled Greener ten-gauges. He snapped it open, confirmed it was loaded then flipped the breech shut again.
Hefting the gun, he sighted down the barrel. Then he looked at Van Helsing.
“But I will be,” he said. “I will be.”
Chapter Ten
Chee sat on the bunk in his sleeping quarters. He had grabbed some beef jerky from the galley, and Dog sat on his haunches, gratefully chewing away at the hard scraps of meat. His cabin on the train held a bed, a small desk along the wall, and a dresser at the opposite end with a washbasin atop it. Hooks on the walls held several changes of uniform and other suits of clothes, each complete with a hat and different set of boots. Chee had never had much beyond his uniform in the way of clothing, so he didn’t want to assume the clothes were for him. But the major was a bigger man. Six feet four at least, and none of these looked his size. It was as if everything had been tailored for Chee. How could Pinkerton have gotten so much clothing for him so quickly?
Chee rose and sat at the desk, placed the silver coin Van Helsing had given him on top, and he stared hard at it. Deathwalkers. What had he gotten himself into? He had heard the major’s story not long after he’d arrived at Leavenworth. Hollister had already been in prison for more than two years by then. The army ran on gossip and even before he’d been sentenced, Chee heard about an officer out in Montana or Wyoming, no one was exactly sure, who claimed that “strange creatures” had wiped out his platoon.
Chee had put no stock in the rumor. Alcoholism was rampant in the army and he assumed it was just another drunk white man who had run into a passel of angry Sioux or Crow and gotten what he deserved for being drunk on duty. And who’d then made up some wild story in order to cover his ass.
Then Chee had met Hollister in prison. He didn’t seem like a drunk. As far as Chee knew, Hollister stayed out of the black market, and there had been plenty of opportunities for such activity in a place as rampant with corruption as Leavenworth. After watching him around the yard for a while, Chee realized no one bothered Hollister-not even the bullies like McAfee. Whether it was because of Hollister’s no-nonsense demeanor, or because there was a fear he might be crazy and thus a little dangerous. Then Hollister had intervened on his behalf with McAfee’s thugs at the well. There were three of them down in the pit with Hollister when it had started. Yet a single look from the major had kept them all there instead of coming to McAfee’s aid. Why? He would need to think about this.
He kept the silver coin in its spot on the desk, like a specimen of something he might be afraid to touch. When Van Helsing had mentioned the Order of Saint Ignatius, Chee had nearly jumped. He had often heard his grandmother speak of the Saint. She claimed he had cursed all Deathwalkers, in the years shortly after Christ died on the cross. Before Ignatius died at the hands of Deathwalkers, he brought down the righteous fury of God upon them. From that point on, the souls of the Deathwalkers were damned and they faded away to the darkness of human history. Chee had thought it was just a story. A fable, meant to scare people and keep little mixed-breed children like him on the straight and narrow.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small cloth bag. It held a few things he had kept hidden inside his mattress in his cell, and it was all he’d taken with him when Major Hollister came to get him from the box. He loosened the string on the bag and poured the contents out on the desk: a small French coin with a length of twine running through it, a pair of tiny bones from the foot of a badger, a dried garlic clove, and a small plant with a dried, blue flower on top of it.
Chee removed his boot and sock and tied the coin around his ankle. A trick his grandmother had taught him. It would keep evil spirits from sneaking up on him and entering his body from the ground. He took a new white handkerchief he’d purchased in town and folded it into a small square on the desk. He placed the bones, the garlic, and the dried wolfsbane in the center of the handkerchief, and then folded the corners up one at a time and placed the small bundle back in the cloth bag, which he tied around his neck.
He prayed to the north wind in Creek, the language of his father’s mother. The north wind kept evil away. He patted the medicine bundle over his chest. It felt reassuring. With Cajun, Chinese, Creek, and Negro grandparents, Chee’s spiritual upbringing had been a crazy quilt of customs, rituals, and beliefs. He took his comfort from whatever branch of the family tree was most… comforting. At the time at least.
Dog had finished his meal and now sat staring expectantly at Chee.
“I know, boy,” he said quietly. He tried again to wrap his mind around what he had seen today. Everything had changed so rapidly. The major getting him sprung from Leavenworth, the way he’d treated Chee in the restaurant like an equal. The curious little doctor fellow and, of course Pinkerton. He had heard of Pinkerton and his men, they were well known by reputation, even on the plains. But they mostly went after bank and train robbers. What was Allan Pinkerton himself doing wrapped up in something like this?
Chee removed his other boot and stretched out on the bunk. He was unprepared when Dog jumped up on the bed, landing on his chest, the air rushing from his lungs.
“All right, boy,” Chee grumbled, sliding over and turning on his side to give Dog more room. The great beast licked his face once and Chee couldn’t help but laugh. He thought of Van Helsing, Pinkerton, and Hollister still wandering about the train car, and wondered again why white people were so strange before he drifted off to sleep, Dog already snoring softly.
Chapter Eleven
Hollister felt the train slowly start moving. He lay on his bunk in the darkness, the sensation making him feel as if he needed to put his foot on the floor to keep the world still. After four years of staring at a gray ceiling in his tiny cell, the motion was unsettling.
The flask of whiskey was in his hand, but he hadn’t remembered pulling it from his pocket. He fingered it, wondering why he even bothered buying it. He was no drinker. He sat up and put the flask on the small desk. For some reason, given the speed and insanity of the day’s events, he’d felt compelled to bring whiskey with him. Like nothing would make sense unless he was drunk.
After digging wells and stumbling through day after day of mind-numbing boredom, he was suddenly a free man, conditionally at least. All he had to do was go find some thing-man… beast… he still wasn’t sure-that couldn’t be killed and find a way to kill it.
Sure. Should be easy. Locate some men-things that weren’t men, who hadn’t been seen by a living soul for years at a time, and could apparently appear on a whim to wipe out an entire platoon of armed men and disappear without a trace. What have you gotten yourself into, Jonas? he thought. You didn’t take the time to think. Just like always.
Hollister had been posted to the Michigan 7 th Cavalry, right out of West Point in 1864. His father, Thomas, was a well-to-do farmer in Michigan, and a prominent member of the state Republican party. It had been no
