eggs and coffee sat on a small table nearby.
“Master Declan, suh. I’m very sorry to disturb you, but you have visitors,” Silas said.
There was no movement. Hollister glanced at Chee, who stood with his feet spread, his thumbs hooked over his gun belt. He looked uncomfortable and Hollister wanted to ask him why.
“Young James… come on now… you need to get up and speak to these gentlemen,” Silas prodded.
A low murmur came from beneath the bedclothes but Hollister could not make it out.
Silas bent over next to the head of the bed and whispered to the pillows. Finally, a head emerged, covered in shoulder-length black hair that had not been washed in some time. A bearded face turned and one eye opened, squinting to focus on the two men. The familiar fetid aroma of drunken sweat reached Hollister. Declan was trying to deal with what he had seen by living inside a bottle.
“You must be James Junior,” Hollister said.
“Don’t call me that,” the young man groused. “Silas, what are they doing here?” Declan asked with an aching groan in his voice.
Silas had moved to a spot at the foot of the bed, his white-gloved hands crossed in front of him. His stance said he was not listening to the details, but stood ready to intercede on young Declan’s behalf, if need be. Hollister thought back to his meeting with the senator and wondered what such a man could have done to inspire this kind of loyalty. But then he had known officers like Custer, who did not deserve the dignity or the honor of the men who served them.
“Master Declan, your father sent them. They just want to talk is all, suh,” he said quietly.
“No,” James said, burrowing back under the covers.
“I saw them too,” Hollister said.
Declan’s head reappeared.
“What you saw in the mining camp… I saw them before… they were in Wyoming then. But I saw them. They killed my men,” Hollister said quietly.
Declan stared at Hollister a long time, his eyes wild. Finally, he twisted his way out of the sheets and sat on the side of the bed. He was dressed only in long johns. He was skinny and looked like he hadn’t eaten in months, and his chest and arms were streaked with sweat and grime.
“They were fast and strong,” Hollister said. “One of them was big, with long white hair… he…”
“Blood devils!” Declan shrieked, interrupting Hollister.
Hollister flinched. He remembered the young girl, starving and nearly dead from thirst, and how she had cried over and over, mumbling “blood devils… blood devils…”
“Yes, the blood devils,” Hollister said. “I saw them too.”
“They killed… everyone. Chauncey. Faulkner. Reynolds. Marin. Ole Mack. Red eye. Doyle. Nickerson. Frederick. D’Agostino. Miller. Spencer. Quarles.”
Hollister was confused for a moment. After a second he realized what Declan had said and he remembered his own men. “Sergeant Lemaire. Corporal Rogg. Private Whittaker. Private Trammel. Harker, Scully, Runyan, McCord, Franklin, Dexter, Jefferson, and Pope. Those were the men in my unit that those things killed. I can’t get them out of my mind.”
His words had no effect on the young man, who rolled back into the bed and buried himself in the bedclothes. “Mine,” he said quietly. “Mine.”
“What’s that?” Chee asked.
“Nothing, I don’t think. He’s just lost. He lost his men. He was in charge. He lost what was his. I know the feeling,” Hollister answered.
Young Declan was quiet again. Knowing there was nothing more for them there, Chee and Hollister left.
Chapter Twenty-two
Chee lay on his bunk, his eyes closed but not sleeping. He stood again on the street in front of the hotel as he had that morning. The hooded figure was reflected in the dining-room window. With his breathing slow and deep, he closed out further distractions from his memory, focusing until all else had dropped away and nothing but the mysterious stranger remained.
Slowly he studied the person who had tried and nearly succeeded in staying hidden. His grandfather’s stern but melodious voice spoke to him from the mists of his memory. “Concentrate, sun jai,” he said. “There is only you and the other.”
Chee circled the figure in his mind, searching for anything to identify who might have followed them.
There was little to see, as if this person wished to travel as anonymously as possible. The duster was long, below the knees, hooded, and covered in a fine layer of dirt. It had no identifying markings that Chee could see.
“Invisibility is not possible, sun jai,” he heard his grandfather say. “We cannot see the wind, but we feel it on our faces. You must look deeper.”
Chee felt the image floating away, and forced more air into his lungs. He circled the black-clad figure again, starting at the head with the face covered completely by the cloak. His eyes traveled downward slowly, looking for anything, a small rip or tear in the fabric, a stain. But he saw nothing until he reached the boots.
In and of themselves, the boots were nothing. Black leather riding boots scuffed by the hundreds of times they had been placed into and pulled out of the stirrups. But they were small. Very small.
Chee knew then, it was a woman following them. The black duster could hide the size of the body. The hat and hood even added height. But the boots could not be disguised. In truth, a small man could be hidden behind the black outfit, but instinctively, Chee knew this was not the case. It was a woman, he was sure of it.
Dog was on the floor next to the bunk when he sat up and alerted, a low growl sounding in his throat. Chee had heard it also. Someone was walking very quietly along the roof of the train.
His holster hung on a peg next to the door of his berth. He slipped the double rig around his waist, buckling it quickly. Quiet again, he listened. There was no sound, but Dog pawed at the door, his ears still straight up. There was an intruder. Someone had gotten past Pinkerton’s guards and into the warehouse where the train was waiting. He opened the door, and Dog charged silently down the hallway, past Hollister’s berth and the galley, to the rear door of the car. He waited, body coiled, until Chee reached the door. Drawing his pistol, he lifted the latch, hoping the door opened with little noise.
“Dog… hunt,” he said.
Dog slipped out the door into the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-three
The man-witch knew she was here. He was awake and moving in the car below. Shaniah stood on the roof of the train and heard the door open and the sound of something moving in the night. She smelled a dog immediately and silently cursed. This man who watched over Hollister had a beast at his disposal. With its superior sense of hearing and smell, it would make her task of killing the man-witch much more difficult.
She stepped over to the very edge of the car, looking down. It was nearly pitch-black inside the warehouse, but Archaics see well in the night.
The dog came around the side of the car, its nose to the ground, body tense and rigid. It paused directly below her and stood on its hind legs, front paws against the side of the train, locking eyes with her. But the great animal did not bark and Shaniah wondered why. It was huge: standing as it did, she guessed it was at least six feet tall.
The door opened wider and the man-witch stepped out onto the small metal porch at the back of the train. Time to leave. With the dog watching, Shaniah bent at the knees and leapt high into the air, grabbing a beam in the roof above and climbing up and out of sight. She had come in through a loose soffit vent in the side of the building, but now she waited high above the train, wondering what the man-witch would do. The dog dropped to all fours
