The Spirit Trail

My ears are still ringing from the blast. It is like I am holding two pillows over my ears. I stumble behind Lou who is bleeding from somewhere. I can see it dripping from his right arm as he holds the lantern.

"Hey."
I might as well be shouting into a mattress. I reach up and put a hand on his shoulder. When he stops and turns I point to his arm. He shakes his head... what a bother. With his other hand he probes around until I see him wince. Then he pulls a long piece of splintered wood from below his collar bone and throws it to the floor of Ole' Crystal. With a few select words he turns and proceeds into the darkness with me on his heels.

The glitter of quartz is gone and now this is just a dark hole. Not even a cool dark hole. It is hot and the sweat is beginning to sting my eyes. We hike along about a half a mile and then start up at an angle. It isn't too long before we see the preverbial light at the end of the tunnel.

"This couldn't have gotten us too far from town." Lou's voice is a whisper as it echoes in the tunnel. Our ears have adjusted from the blast.

We see the opening ahead. The light of day has the three or so feet of this end of the tunnel illuminated. As we approach we tuck up against the side of this exit until we can get a good view of what is outside.

Nothing.

No one, no horses, no townsfolk, no cover of any kind. I poke my head out and back in like a fucking squirrel or something, waiting for the shot that might be waiting. A few seconds pass and we emerge from the shaft, guns drawn and our heads on a swivel. The tunnel opens into a slight canyon or wash. We will be easy targets for anyone up on the sides.

"What the fuck?"
Where did they...
There is a slight whistle ahead and to the left. Then we see Ollie peek around the corner and wave us over.

"Mire lo que encontramos." Ollie whispers. As we round the corner we see our horses.
"No shit. That's a neat trick." I grab the reigns to my horse and give him a couple of pats on the side of his neck. Ollie tells Lou that he found them near a patch of green grass about a hundred yards further down the trail.

I nod, "Orlis must have planted a little of their favorite seed so they would come running if they got separated. Some kind of reverse "Pavlov's Dog" kind of thing."

"Let's mount up." Lou says quietly. He winces as he yanks himself up into the saddle. He starts bleeding even worse. He motions to the saddle bag on my horse.
"Hand me that rag, Jake."

I look... it is an old bloody shirt that someone didn't want to get rid of. I pull it out and find a semi-clean spot. With a couple of tears I hand him a good piece of it. He stuffs it in over the wound. We are all up on our horses, Mike sprawled over the back of Andy's steed.

"Where to?" Chris asks, looking at the arroyo.
"Well... anywhere away from here is good. We've been east, let's go west." Lou says as he sets his horse in motion.

We go slow at first, making sure not to kick up too much dust. This arroyo is just deep enough to cover a horse and rider to anyone looking our way. It isn't until we have been riding for a good five minutes that we slope upward to the desert floor and are exposed. By this time we are out of sight of the trading post and at the base of a small range of crags cut with narrow canyons and caves.

"I'd be willing to bet they had another hide-out up here." Chris says, taking his hat off to wipe his brow. The heat of day is building and the sun is climbing. We have very little water, and no food. Even more than that... we have Mike with a gunshot wound.

"What are we going to do with Mike. We need help. Maybe I ought to take him to the Fort back there so he can see a doctor."

Lou cuts to me with a narrowed gaze, "Jake... this isn't the fucking movies. There isn't a doctor in that Fort that is going to take care of an "outlaw" that those fuckers at the trading post have already reported shooting." He shakes his head and calms himself a bit, "they would throw the both of you in the stockade until the noose was up, then they'd hang you sure as shit."

"This sucks." Andy says, then silence for a moment and a tisk that follows. "Let's just get the hell out of here and get back to the boat. I'm done playing cowboys and Indians." He gestures with a tip of his head to Mike sprawled out behind him, "How am I going to explain this to his wife?"

"He's okay, it is only a deep graze. The worse for him is over. He is still alive and it looks like the bleeding has stopped. He just needs that wound cleaned and dressed... a few stitches." Lou says while he checks on his own condition. As he pulls the wadding from the area below his collar bone he nods and throws it to the ground. Must be okay, I would assume.

Without another word we head up the larger of the canyons. The trail is well used. Lou points out that most of the tracks are unshod. Only a few of the tracks show the familiar horseshoe pattern in the soil.

"So?" Andy seems indifferent.
"Indians?" Chris asks. Lou nods and then pays a little more attention to our surroundings as we proceed.

As we go, Lou starts to see things and begins pointing them out. At first I think he is full of shit, pointing out plants and little piles of rocks, claiming that they have been placed there by Apache. We tell him he's stoned, or fucked up from loss of blood, Ollie calls him a homo... if I heard that mother-tongue correctly.

He stops in front of us and turns in the saddle. "Look, you idiots, we may be in some trouble here. I think we are riding on a spirit trail. It leads to where ever they bury their dead. They usually aren't to receptive to a bunch of dumbasses riding up to desecrate their most sacred land. So from here on out, let's ride in silence."

With that he turns and heads off up the canyon and we follow. I am thinking we should probably cut and run at this point. This little trip has already seen us robbed, shot at, nearly hung, blown up, and now we are marching straight into an Apache burial ground. I think I will fire my travel agent.

It is Andy that sees it first. Ollie is behind him, bringing up the rear. When Andy sees the shadow of a figure on the ridge above us, he whispers to Ollie without turning around. Then Ollie calls up to Chris, who is ahead of me, and tells him in mother-tongue that we have visitors. That information is passed to Lou who is on point. None of us give away the fact that we have seen this. But now all of us are looking at the shadows as we ride.

The one shadow turns into three, then eight, then twelve. Oh shit. I am waiting for the sound of an arrow or some blood curdling war cry. But instead I just see movement from somewhere above us.

Ahead of us is another pile of rock, this one with two black feathers protruding at odd angles and a pile of what might be moss. Lou stops and dismounts.
"Follow my lead." He whispers back to us.

We all dismount and remove our hats. When Lou takes a knee, we follow. He puts his hands in the pockets of his vest and comes up with that old knife that Seedling gave him before we took Orlis' gang at the Keep. He grabs some hair between his fingers and cuts the locks with the knife, setting them at the base of the make-shift alter on the pile of "moss". Without looking he passes the knife back to Chris. Now Chris' head isn't shaved, mind you, but the hair is barely long enough to grab between his fingers. He does his best to look like he cut some off and placed it with Lou's before passing the blade back. Before long we have all done the same and are waiting for our next cue.

Lou takes reigns of his horse and leads him on foot. We follow, making sure to do exactly what he does. The trail is different here. It seems... cleaner? There is no loose rock, almost as though it had been swept. Lou stops and we all remove our boots. I am thinking this isn't fooling anyone, but is seems to be working for our shadows on the ridge. They haven't attacked us yet.

Now, with boots off and hats on saddle horns, except for Mike, we walk up the trail leading our horses. There are small clutches of "offerings" here and there... rock piles adorned with feathers, some beads. But now the feathers are white, not black. This has some significance. Everything is turning an ashen grey/white as we proceed, as though it has been drained of color. Even the scrub sage and smaller scattered desert plants are the same color as the trail.

Lou bends down and runs a finger across the rocks. There is a streak of color where his finger passed. He is quick to wipe the track away and cover the spot once again.
"It's ash of some kind, they have spread it out on this entire area."
"Why don't we turn around and get the hell out of here." Chris whispers from behind.
"It's too late for that."

The canyon walls climb high around us. The worry of attack from the shadows from above abates just a little. Unless they start rolling rocks down on top of us, they won't be a threat. That thought scares me even more. I hope they don't start with the rocks.

As the canyon walls climb the light gets dimmer and the effect of the ash becomes more and more surreal. Everything around us is painted in this grey/white. We are a splash of color in the dimming light. The canyon starts to turn and twist, the angles so tight that the horse ahead disappears as it takes the corner. And now the smell of smoke, but not wood smoke... or not only wood smoke. There is an acrid edge to it.

Where Chris was following Lou, I see no one but the bleached stone of the canyon. They are swallowed up in the tightening maze of angles that this trail has become. When I finally see them again, they are standing side by side at the entrance to a huge hollowed out area... like a naturally formed amphitheater at the end of this canyon. A fire lights the scene, a thin spire of smoke makes it's way to the small openining fifty feet above our heads. In this pale light I can make out a man, a slight figure, painted in this same ash. It is not an Indian, or at least I don't think so.

The little man tosses something into the fire. It has to be gunpowder from the look of the effect. In that flash we see that he is not alone. There must be a dozen sets of eyes watching the man work. Their bodies covered in this same ash, kneeling with their backs to the canyon wall that is covered in that same ash. They are almost indistinguishable from their surroundings.

We all take a knee and try to look respectful... humbled to the ceremony that is taking place. One by one we take a small bit of ash and wipe it on our faces. Another flash from the fire, and now a little dance. It isn't until we hear the voice that we know who it is. Seedling.

Ole' Crystal

As I stand in the doorway, ears ringing from the gunfire, I feel footsteps behind me as Ollie and the storekeeper carry Mike from the front of the store.

"This man needs a doctor." The storekeeper's voice is faint... almost a whisper. Mike had lost quite a bit of blood, but his temporary nurse had managed to stop the flow with pressure and then bandaged him as best she could.

"Yeah... " It is all I can muster.

Chris hands the reigns of the horses to Andy and loads both of his pistols.
"Where's Lou."
I look at Ollie, who nods back to the store. Antonelli and I run back inside and toward the front of the store. Lou is alongside one of the windows.

"Lou? What's going on out there?"
"Two of them went around back... "
"We got 'em."
"There's still two out front here. The rest of the town's folk seem to be happy holding back behind those wagons they were going to hang you from."

I look out through the window from where I am standing behind the counter. There are a good twenty or thirty people out there, all of them men now, and most with guns. They are smart, though, not willing to expose themselves to "Orlis Keene" and his legendary gun.

"We better get the hell out of here before the rest of them find their balls, don't you think?"

Lou get's that narrow look to him... the one he get's where there is a plan in the making. But when he finally turns to me, that look is gone and there is something else there.

"I got us into a helluva fix, Jake."
"Like you never have before? What the... we need to go, Lou. Now."

The storekeeper's wife, who has been hiding under the counter at my feet, clears her throat. I nearly shoot her.
"Mr. Keene? You... you forget about ole' Crystal?" She speaks from her place under the counter.
"Stand up, Miss, you have nothing to fear from me."
She is visibly shaking when she appears from beneath my feet.
"Ole' Crystal, it is just out back up behind the dynamite shed."

"And what is Ole' Crystal?"
She makes a clucking noise in the back of her throat, I think it might just be nervous laughter.
"Ole' Crystal... you've used it before."

She stops there, not believing that she needs to explain further. Surely reminding Orlis Keene about something he knows already will bring his vengance down upon her.

"Chris, go see what she is talking about."
With that Chris moves out of the room and heads toward the dynamite shed.

"What about them?" I gesture to the men out front. The brave two with rifles drawing a bead on anything they can see moving inside the store. Almost on cue, a shot rings out and a hole opens up on the opposite side of the window Lou is standing next to. He moves away quickly and joins me behind the counter. The shot has seamed Lou's thoughts together into a plan.
"Go... out back. Tell Chris to bring in a couple of those packs of dynamite."

I start out back.
"From the shed, not the horses." Lou calls after me.
With a quick stop at the door to check for any more brave souls, I run out to the dynamite shed. Off to the right Andy and Ollie are securing Mike to the back of Andy's horse. Ollie's head is on a swivel for anyone that might try to take a shot at them.

The key is still in the door of the dynamite shed, the door cracked open. I start around back to see what this Ole' Crystal might be, but see nothing rocky hillside that butts up against the shed.
"What the fuck is she talking about." I say to myself.
"It's not outside, it's inside." Chris says behind me. I turn and he waves me inside of the dynamite shed.

I hadn't gone inside when we retrieved the dynamite earlier, just grabbed what was handed out the door. Now that I am inside, I see what she is referring to. The shed is actually covering the entrance to a cave in which they have stored the dynamite. The remaining dynamite is within steps of the doorway so that the light of day will illuminate their location. The smell of wood smoke is heavy in here.

"Help me move this shit out of here." Chris grabs one of the wooden crates that hold the burlap wrapped dynamite. There are only four crates and we have them outside in no time at all.

"Lou wants one of these inside." I start for the store with the last case I am holding.
"Wait." Chris runs back inside the store and then returns with a hand held oil lantern and some wooden matches. Inside the emptied dynamite shed we light the thing and step through the cave entrance. The lantern's light reflects from a thousand surfaces, reflected by crystals in the side of this small cave.
"What the fuck is this?"
"Quartz?"
"Could be quartz."

There are some iron hooks that had been tapped into the side walls of the cavern. The naturally coolness of this chamber must have been a perfect place to hang meat before they put the dynamite shed out front. As the crystals diminish the tunnel continues.

"She can't be talking about using this."
"Sure as hell can't take any horses in here."
"It's got to be a fucking trap. She's... "
"I doubt it. She fears for her life from this Orlis Keene. No one has killed him yet as far as she knows, so she wouldn't be saying this if she thought we would make it back to town some time down the road."
"So what? We go down the shaft and end up on foot in the middle of the desert?"

I take pause for a moment and then try to put the pieces together.
"What if Keene has fresh mounts at the end of this tunnel... or maybe there is a ranch house or something."
"Great. We can have lemonade and sit on the porch."
"No, asswipe, Keene wouldn't use this escape on foot without having horses at the end of it."

We leave the mystery of Ole' Crystal for the moment and bring a case of dynamite back into the store. The men outside the front of the store are trying to secure our surrender without any shots being fired. They are calling out demands and getting silence in return.

The storekeeper's wife sees the dynamite and all of a sudden she's Chatty Cathy.
"Oh please, please Mr. Keene don't blow up our store. It's the only thing we have. It's everything." She falls into her husband's arms and begins to weep.

Lou trys to calm her.
"Ma'am, I have no intention of blowing up your store. We are going to toss a few sticks into the town square out front just to cause a diversion. I apologize in advance for the windows."

As we work to separate sticks of dynamite, I figure this would be a good time to get a few answers.
"That tunnel out back, where does it end up?"

She cocks her head like a dog, "Well... I don't rightly know. Don't you know?"
I look at her and she averts her eyes.
I turn to Lou, "You can't take a horse through there, too low."
He looks her way, "Ma'am... the last time that tunnel was used what did we do with the horses?"
Nothing.
"Ma'am?"
"You loosed those horses and they just ran."

"We loosed the horses and they just ran. Some how this plan sounds like we end up in Boot Hill." I say, separating the bundled fuses.
"Hey, it comes out somewhere. These horses might know what to do. They aren't stupid animals." Lou tries to convince me... but I don't think he is convinced himself.
"No, we're the stupid animals."
"We don't have time for this. Either we try to kill all of these people, or we make a run for it in the tunnel. I, personally, have seen enough killing for awhile."

With the dynamite separated, we have Ollie go out and tell the boys what we are going to do. They are to take the oil lamp and get a head start with Mike up the tunnel. We are going to drive any of the posse back with gunfire and then launch a few sticks of dynamite out into the street to try to minimize any damage to the store. We will make our escape into the tunnel while their ears are still ringing.

Lou checks his weapons and me my rifle and pistol.
"Dear lady, you and your husband have seen us take this escape before and we always manage to make it back to town. This will be our little secret." The veiled threat seems to find it's mark. The two of them respond with a quick nod.

I make a quick run to the back off the store. I see nothing but horses. The boys have started into the tunnel. Gunfire from the street out front draws me back into the store.

"They're making a run on the place."
I join Lou's side and see that more of the men from behind the wagons have now joined the few out on the street and more are following. There are two dozen men now, all of them getting ready to rush the place.
"You throw and I will give you some cover fire. I have cut the fuses short so as soon as you heave them, we run."

I look down at the three sticks of dynamite and the maybe two inches of fuse on each of them.
"Short?"
"Don't be a pussy. Just light and throw, one after the other. We need to beat feet before they go off."

I look back at the storekeeper. "You, light that oil lamp and take the glass off of it."
He scrambles to ablige me and brings the lamp over with trembling hands. Once delivered, he and the wife lay down behind the counter.
I move by the door. Better to throw from there than take a chance of hitting the window frame and blowing us all up. I have the oil lamp on the floor at my feet and the three sticks in my right hand. I tip the fuses in toward each other until they touch.

"Ready?"
I nod.
"Here we go."
Lou starts to fire. I don't move at first, not sure when to... "
"DO IT."
I extend my arm down toward the flame and wait until the fuses sputter to life. As Lou fires, the front of the store is peppered with gunfire. Rifle shot tears through the wood, pistol shot buries into storefront. All hell breaks loose as I open the door and heave the sticks out thirty or so feet into the dirt street.
Lou fires one last shot and then we turn and run.

Two inches of fuse, a half of second to realize they are lit, the next second spent throwing, then next in mid air... I'm thinking it was a three second fuse. All of the sticks must have remained close together. The explosion hurls us to the back wall of the store, the front wall falling inward from the concussion. We try not to stop moving and scramble for the door. We are pursued by a cloud of dust and dirt, the screams from the storekeeper's wife putting an edge on it. She isn't injured, but I am sure she has never been in such close proximaty to an explosion of this size.

Out back we stumble toward the dynamite shed and fall inside. I stand and pull the key from the lock, closing the door and using it from the inside to lock the door. The horses were no longer outside and I am hoping that they might have made their way out before the explosion scared them half to death.
A second oil lamp burns inside. Thank God one of the boys were thinking or we would be standing here in complete darkness.

We are at the mercy of Ole' Crystal, where ever it leads, whatever is on the other side. I am strangely hopeful that we will find our way to safety.