Human hair tickled his fingers, and he snatched them back with an exclamation. Then he dug in his pocket, brought out a match, and snapped it aglow on the edge of his thumbnail.
He gazed downward for a full second before he dropped the light. It went out before it touched the bottom of the hole. But Lanark had seen enough.
Two human skins lay there—white, empty human skins. The legs of them sprawled like discarded court stockings, the hands of them like forgotten gauntlets. And tousled hair covered the collapsed heads of them. …
He felt lightheaded and sick. Frantically he struggled up out of that grave, and barely had he come to his knees on the ground above, when his horse snorted and jerked its bridle free from his grasp. Lanark sprang up, tingling all over. Across the trench, black and broad, stood a human—or semi-human—figure.
Lanark felt a certain draining cold at cheek and brow. Yet his voice was steady as he spoke, challengingly:
“What do you want?”
The creature opposite stooped, then bent its thick legs. It was going to jump across the ditch. Lanark took a quick backward step toward his horse—an old Colt’s revolver was tucked into his right saddlebag.
But the sudden move on his part was too much for the jangled nerves of the beast. It whickered, squealed, and jerked around. A moment later it bolted away toward the east.
At the same time, the form on the other side of the open grave lunged forward, cleared the space, and came at Lanark.
But it was attacking one who had been in close fights before, and emerged the victor. Lanark, though partially a cripple, had lost nothing of a cavalryman’s toughness and resolution. He sprang backward, let his assailant’s charge slow before it reached him, then lashed out with his left fist. His gloved knuckles touched soft flesh at what seemed to be the side of the face, flesh that gave under them. Lanark brought over his right, missed with it, and fell violently against the body of the other. For a moment he smelled corruption, and then found his feet and retreated again.
The black shape drew itself stoopingly down, as though to muster and concentrate its volume of vigor. It launched itself at Lanark’s legs, with two arms extended. The veteran tried to dodge again, this time sidewise, but his lameness made him slow. Hands reached and fastened upon him, one clutching his thigh, the other clawing at the left-hand pocket of his coat.
But in the moment of capture, the foul-smelling thing seemed to shudder and snatch itself away, as though the touch of Lanark had burned it. A moan came from somewhere in its direction. The crouched body straightened, the arms lifted in cringing protection of the face. Lanark, mystified but desperately glad, himself advanced to the attack. As he came close he threw his weight. It bowled the other backward and over, and he fell hard upon it. His own hands, sinewy and sure, groped quickly upon dank, sticky-seeming garments, found a rumpled collar and then a throat.
That throat appeared to be muddy, or at any rate slippery and foul. With an effort Lanark sank his fingertips into it, throttling grimly and with honest intention to kill. There was no resistance, only a quivering of the body under his knee. The arms that screened the face fell quivering away to either side. At that moment a bright moon shimmered from behind a passing veil of cloud. Lanark gazed down into the face of his enemy.
A puffy, livid, filth-clotted face—but he knew it. Those spiked mustaches, those bulging eyes, the shape, contour and complexion. …
“You’re one of Quantrill’s—” accused Lanark between clenched teeth. Then his voice blocked itself, and his hands jerked away from their strangle hold. His mouth gaped open.
“I killed you once!” he cried.
Between him and the body he had pinned down there drifted a wild whirl of vision. He saw again the fight in the blue fireglow, the assailant who spurred against him, the flash of his own revolver, the limp collapse of the other. He saw, too, the burial next morning—blue-coated troopers shoveling loam down upon a silent row of figures; and, ere clods hid it, a face peeping through a disarranged blanket, a face with staring eyes and mustaches like twin knife-points.
Then his eyes were clear again, and he was on his feet and running. His stiff leg gave him pain, but he slackened speed no whit. Once he looked back. A strange blueness, like a dim reflection of the fire long ago, hung around the base of Fearful Rock. In the midst of it, he saw not one but several figures. They were not moving—not walking, anyway—but he could swear that they gazed after him.
Something tripped him, a root or a fallen branch. He rose, neither quickly nor confidently, aching in all his limbs. The moon had come up, he took time to realize. Then he suddenly turned dizzy and faint all over, as never in any battle he had seen, not even Pea Ridge and Westport; for something bulky and dark was moving toward and against him.
Then it whinnied softly, and his heart stole down from his throat—it was his runaway horse.
Lanark was fain to stand for long seconds, with his arm across the saddle, before he mounted. Then he turned the animal’s head southward and shook the bridle to make it walk. At last he was able to examine himself for injuries.
Though winded, he was not bruised or hurt, but he was covered with earth and mold, and his side pocket had been almost ripped from his coat.
