For a moment Keech thought he’d gone blind, but when he lifted his head, he realized the heavy snowpack had buried him. Hector slowed to a trot and circled back, but when Keech spotted the bandit reloading his musket, he yelled, “Run, Hector, get outta here!”
Blustering, Hector turned and raced away.
Keech raised up to his elbows but dropped when a screaming pain cascaded through his left forearm. A ragged hole poked through his coat sleeve. Wet darkness grew around the space.
“Not again,” he muttered, remembering the time when Bad Whiskey’s thralls, Scurvy and Bull, had nicked his arm with a musket shot at Floodwood. No matter; he had to push on and try to forget the ache.
He peered over the snow mound at the bandits. The kneeling man was packing his musket bore with a fresh lead ball.
The desperado with the musket aimed again. Keech ducked below the mound as musket fire cracked again.
A gruff voice echoed across the expanse. “Yer a goner, kid!”
Keech dared to lift his head again. The man was reloading, but worse, the other two bandits reappeared with their revolvers drawn. The fellow wearing the bandoliers yelled, “Yer done if you run, boy! Alfy’s a crack shot with that musket.”
The bowlegged bandit added, “That’s a grand stallion you got! Once yer worm food, I’m gonna take him for my own.”
A new level of rage flooded Keech’s veins, but the pain in his forearm was too distracting for him to form a solid plan. He tried to remember Pa’s training, but tears blurred his vision and his lungs rattled for breath.
An approaching noise touched his ears. A muffled rumble rolled across the plain, a steady thunder that refused to fade. He risked another peek at the approaching men. They had stopped moving and were peering to the east.
The bandolier-clad bandit asked his partner, “Are they headed this way?”
There was a quick silence, then the man shouted, “They sure is! Run!”
All three desperadoes turned on their heels and beat a retreat into the junipers.
Keech glanced back at what was creating the roar.
The entire buffalo herd was headed in his direction—thousands of heavy hooves pounding the wet ground, dashing up snow and mud, sending a constant vibration through the earth. The raw power of the charge seemed to chomp up the land. Anything caught in the stampede would find itself as flat as one of Granny Nell’s flapjacks.
Keech struggled up to his boots. Bitter fear pulsed through his blood, momentarily dulling the pain in his forearm, as he tramped through the snow. The details of the stampede surged into view—the shaggy brown coats, the snorting nostrils, the upturned horns. Calves ran alongside their mothers, and hulking bulls stomped over stones and bushes. Within seconds, he would be overtaken.
Then suddenly Hector was trotting beside him. Keech gripped the saddle horn with one hand. Swinging himself up onto the horse’s back, he shouted, “Hiyahh!” but Hector was already moving at a serious gallop.
Not too far ahead, the bandits burst out of the juniper trees on their frightened horses. They rode back toward the high ridge, away from the wagons, hoping to clear the path of the onrushing buffalo.
The ferocious rumble behind Keech grew to a near-deafening roar. In his panic, he tugged at Hector’s reins to veer left toward the hill, but Hector refused the command. Instead, the stallion matched the direction of the raging assembly.
The congregation of snorting, rumbling brutes flowed past Keech on each side. Bristly hides brushed his legs, and the power of each passing animal left him feeling like a paper doll in the hands of an irate toddler. Both thrilled and terrified, he discovered he was screaming with glee along with the terrible thunder surrounding him.
The bandits had reached the grade and were racing uphill, away from the stampede. Standing at the top was the bearded man, Ian, and he was firing his revolver down at Keech. The distance was too far for accuracy, but his stray slugs were hitting the buffalo.
Keech’s laughter jammed in his throat as anger surged through him again. “Not the buffalo!” Surely he could do something to defend the poor bison.
Doyle’s journal sprang back to mind—the Black Verse once taught by the Reverend. Duck would scold him for even considering the words, but he had to try to help the animals.
“Let’s see how you like it,” Keech grumbled at the roughneck, and pointed at one of the angry bulls galloping at the head of the herd. Once again he muttered a dark phrase—the Invocation to Distort Natural Creations, the spell that had turned a normal cottonmouth snake into an abomination in 1833. He shouted, “Ahthro’don-’u-Ruyon!” The noise was terrible in his ears, and the uncanny garble focused his anger down his arm, through his finger, and toward the big leader of the herd.
The bull tumbled and rolled, tossing up a spray of slush as the members of his herd leaped over him. An unearthly wail poured from the critter, a sound of sorrow and pain. Keech felt a pinch of fear as the beast climbed back onto his hooves and shook froth from his black mouth. The bull had grown to nearly twice his original size, all in the span of a few seconds. The monstrous thing snorted and huffed, then started moving away from the herd. The towering beast rushed up the slope, chasing after the bandits.
The rest of the bison veered from their corrupted sibling. The animals stumbled past juniper trees and headed up into the canyon, leaving behind a swath of upturned ground and trampled brush. Hector kept pace with the herd till the panicked beasts eased off their mad charge.
Keech’s fear vanished, replaced by a sense of strength. “Take that!” he called to the outlaws, though he knew they couldn’t hear.
Keech steered Hector back toward the valley, the tangled mass of nervous buffalo allowing him to pass unprovoked. As he rode, sharp twinges of pain cascaded through his forearm. He glanced down to examine the wound and noticed tendrils of gray smoke rising from his fingertips.
He knew he should leave the Black Verse alone—the words were ugly and distorted and made his flesh crawl—but sometimes serving the greater good required thrusting your hands into the muck. As Pa Abner had once said, Even the gentlest critter in the woods will bite to protect her young.
Back to the east, Quinn and Duck were coming his way. He waved his good arm, and the pair waved back. Once they had ridden closer, Quinn pulled Lightnin’ to a slow trot. “Sorry about that stampede, Keech. When we saw you was under attack, we had to do something. So I rode down behind the herd and kicked up a ruckus.”
“You stirred them up?”
Quinn simply shrugged.
“I told him it was risky, but boys are stubborn,” Duck said.
Just then a solitary figure sprinted over the slope where the bandits had retreated, running with wild abandon, screaming in terror. Keech recognized the figure as Ian, the bearded man. The fellow stumbled down the slope and fell to his knees. “Help!” He waved at them, then scrambled back to his boots.
A massive cloud of snow exploded on the ridge, and from the eruption burst the behemoth buffalo. The bull charged after Ian, releasing a roar that echoed across the valley. The scampering bandit made a hopeless attempt to dodge the buffalo’s path, but the monster’s swinging horns smashed into his back, sending Ian flying like a rag doll.
“What is that thing?” Duck asked.
The bull lifted his head and bellowed, a harrowing mixture of pain and confusion, then burst forward, snorting as he bounded down the hill.
“It’s coming right for us!” Quinn cried.
“It has to be Rose’s work.” Duck yanked Irving’s reins, hauling him around. “Burn the breeze, fellas!”
As they fled the oncoming monster, Keech couldn’t help flinching at Duck’s words. He may have felt desperate and angry while unleashing Doyle’s phrase, but his intentions had been far from evil. Sam had told him everything depended on saving the wagons, and Keech had simply employed the most effective weapon in his arsenal.
“I gotta turn it back to normal,” Keech murmured to himself.
“What?” said Duck.
“You two ride for the caravan. I got a plan.”
To the northwest, the five wagons continued to struggle through the snow. If Duck and Quinn hid safely behind the train, he was sure he could draw the monster’s attention, then use the proper words of the Black Verse to shrink the bull back to regular size.
“Dang it, Keech, what are you up to now?” Duck shouted.
“Go! Take cover!”
As soon as they peeled away to join the caravan, Keech turned his attention back to the bull. Twisting around in Hector’s saddle, he flapped his one good arm. “This way! Follow me!”
But the charging buffalo ignored his taunts, heading straight for Duck and Quinn.
Keech’s stomach clenched with fright. The behemoth was going to crash through the wagons and trample his trailmates. The drivers were abandoning their seats, hopping down into the snow and scattering. And it was all his fault.
He aimed his finger at the bull.
The moment Duck and Quinn galloped past the last wagon, Keech hollered the spell that Rose had cast upon the cottonmouth to reverse its terrible size: “Ahthro’don-’il-Yon!” The words took instant effect, swelling Keech’s throat with nausea and making the inside of his skull creep with spidery dread.
As the behemoth buffalo shrank, the creature lost his balance. The bull’s momentum carried him forward, skidding through mud and slush, till he slammed full force into the back of the final wagon.
Fiery waves ruptured the evening as the crushed wagon exploded.
Flames leaped into the sky, painting the winter clouds the color of hot coals. The incineration tossed the dwindling buffalo several feet over the ground. The bull crashed into a snow mound, tried to regain his legs, and tumbled back down. Whooshing out a heavy breath, the creature completed his transformation back to normal, then flopped onto his hooves. Rattling cinders and snow off his shaggy coat, he trotted back toward his herd as if nothing had happened.
A second blast tore through the wagon, splintering the sideboards into hundreds of pieces. The wagon’s dray horses broke free of the shattering load and bolted away. Thick smoke billowed into the dusky heavens.
On the far side of the blaze, Keech spotted Duck and Quinn, looking dazed. He galloped across the field to reach them. The fire’s heat poured over his skin, shoving back the cold. The wagon attendants regrouped and huddled together.
“What in blazes happened?” Quinn asked. “Why’d the wagon blow up?”
Keech scrutinized the remaining wagons. “No idea.”
“They don’t seem none too happy,” Duck said, gesturing at the travelers. Then something over her features darkened. “What did you do to the buffalo?”
Keech’s fingers were smoldering again; he tucked his hands down where Duck couldn’t see. “They must’ve been hauling some sort of explosive,” he said, hoping to divert her question.
“We should head over and tell the wagon drivers they’re safe,” Quinn said.
The wagoners were stomping toward them, all but one of them boasting the same oddly bronzed faces like Ian’s gang. The only fellow without a deep tan walked ahead of the others—the captain of the crew, Keech reckoned. The man’s face beamed a phantasmal white. He wore a floppy dark hat over thick eyebrows and heavy black muttonchop sideburns. When he spoke, his words carried the musical accent of a Frenchman. “Bonsoir, kids! Pleasant day.”
The captain gripped a Colt Revolving Navy Pistol in his chubby hand. At Hook’s Fort, the bandits had claimed the wagon train was unarmed, yet this fellow was packing some mean artillery. Surveying the fellow’s men, Keech saw weapons belted to each of their hips. “Something ain’t right,” he muttered to Duck and Quinn.
Smiling, the Frenchman lifted his Colt. “Off those ’orses.”
“Now hold on, mister.” Quinn raised his hands. “We’re on your side!”
The captain looked amused. “Is that so?”
A too-familiar squawk reverberated across the evening.
A massive black crow descended from the sky and landed on the shoulder of the pistol-toting captain. The other wagoners drew their revolvers and surrounded the Lost Causes. One man’s coat fluttered open in the wind, and Keech spotted a brown paste smudged across his shirt. The man’s golden neck appeared to be dappled with pale white splotches, and Keech realized the pasty flesh was the fellow’s real skin, concealed under a thick layer of tan paint.
“You’re thralls,” he groaned, feeling his stomach twist.
The Frenchman spoke to the crow perched on his shoulder. “The trap worked like a charm, Reverend. We ’ave them.”