The freezing drizzle had stopped by the time the young riders began their search. Cutter stood watch atop the embankment as the rest of them started north, exploring the red wall around the painted code. The stone wall was too solid to offer any kind of door, so they turned toward the west, where a long row of sumac made a natural circle around the outcropping. The sumac bled down to a heavy stand of hawthorn trees that carpeted the hillside all the way down to level ground. At the edge of the tree line the group paused, and Nat looked glumly at the thicket.
“We’d be foolish to push into that,” he said. “The forest could scatter us to kingdom come.”
“You’re right. Let’s double back and search the east,” Keech said.
The gang started back the way they had come. They found Cutter sitting on his knees at the muddy edge of the embankment, fidgeting with his bone-handled knife. He said nothing as they passed, only shook his head as if he couldn’t believe they were on such a harebrained mission.
To the east the gang found a small critter path and followed it up the mountain for several yards, till they came to a tall, jagged slope of wet boulders, a treacherous mound that stretched upward at least two hundred feet or more. From all appearances, the higher point of this entire peak had tumbled loose a long time ago, creating a pelt of precarious rock that sat on the skin of the mountain. Toward the middle of this pile—at least a hundred feet up from the critter path—a colossal boulder jutted severely outward, shiny from the drizzle. It was almost twice the size of Copperhead Rock, and its rounded surface reminded Keech of a hunchback giant. Another hundred feet beyond, a long, thin mantel of stone capped the whole ensemble, as if the hunchback were wearing a brimmed hat made of granite.
“Pa’s door could be up there somewhere, beyond that top ledge,” Keech said.
Nat gave him a skeptical look. “Those rocks would go catawampus the first step.”
“It’s not straight up. The climb wouldn’t be bad. We have to try.”
“Fellas, I can’t climb that,” John Wesley said. “I’d topple the whole dang thing. Or just tumble down the hill and die. I don’t reckon I’d like to do neither.”
Nat surveyed the pile again and wagged his head. “John’s right. It’s a fool’s errand.”
“Oh, bully on that,” said Duck, and sprang past them. Before Nat could stop her, she hopped onto the boulders and started scurrying up the rain-slick mound.
“Duck, stop!” Nat scolded. He reached out to grab her leg, but Duck was already several stones up. Nimble as a cricket, she hurtled up the untidy slope, not once looking down, planting her feet on moss-covered stones that appeared to sit only by threads and blind faith. In this fashion, she covered four wagons’ lengths in no time.
“I demand you come down at once!” Nat yelled, as Duck clambered higher.
Duck shouted down, “It ain’t so bad as it looks! Mighty slippery, but not too steep. Stop being chickens and come on.”
Nat grumbled crossly and started to climb, but the slimy stones were too wobbly. He tried again, but a plate-sized rock tore out of his grip and landed with a crash beside John Wesley. He glanced at Keech with concern. “This was your idea, Blackwood. If something happens to her—”
“I’m almost halfway!” Duck called. To Keech’s astonishment, she had already made it to the hunchback, the vast plump stone bulging midway up the pile. “I think I can make the top. Wait there and I’ll scout the rest of the mountain.”
“No, you will not!” Nat yelled. “I don’t want you out of my sight!” He turned to Keech again, his face now a world of worry. “If the forest leads her off somewhere strange, I might not ever find her.”
It was a valid fear, but when they looked up again, Keech saw it was too late to remind Duck of the curse. She scrambled over the top ledge, the final hurdle. Bits of granite chunked off the shelf and peppered the slope, but the ledge was firm enough to let Duck gain her feet.
As she stood on the crest, which appeared to be level ground again, she wiped her hands on her trousers and waved her big hat at them. “I’ll be back in two shakes!” She turned and ran.
After she had disappeared, Nat stood rigid on the path and stared up at the ledge. He tapped two fingers nervously on the grip of Turner’s pistol.
“Don’t worry, Nat, she’ll be back,” John Wesley said.
The rancher shook his head. “You don’t understand. She’s all I got. If something happened to her, I’d never forgive myself.”
A cooing noise, like a mourning dove, echoed in the distance. Keech cocked his head. “Did y’all hear that?”
The sound came again: coo-COO. coo-COO.
John Wesley pointed back to the northern side of the mountain. “I’d know that signal anywhere. It’s Cutter!”
“We have to go back,” Keech said. “He could be in danger.”
“Not without Duck,” Nat said.
But when the cooing noise came a third time, John Wesley started back down the critter path. Keech followed, then paused when he saw Nat tarry at the mound.
“Go ahead, Blackwood. I ain’t leaving Duck.”
“John Wesley’s right,” Keech said. “She’ll be okay.”
“I ain’t leaving her. Go. I’ll keep a lookout for the crows.”
“All right.” Keech hurried after John Wesley.
When the boys reached the embankment, they saw Cutter stretched out on his stomach and squinting down the long slope. Trouble had surely found them again.
“We got company,” Cutter said, his voice muted.
Keech and John Wesley joined him on the ground and peered down the hill.
At the bottom stood a lean figure cloaked in black. A flock of roughly thirty dead men encircled him. The outlaw’s dark overcoat rippled in the wind, and he was clutching his Colt Dragoon. A team of five horses, loaded with gear, waited behind the thralls.
Bad Whiskey knelt to inspect the still corpse of his thrall Scurvy.
As soon as Keech had seen Whiskey’s dead men, the amulet shard inside his shirt reacted. A pulse of cold went seeping through the cloth and seared upon his chest.
“We can’t linger here,” he whispered. “Those thralls will feel the charm. They might sense Duck’s, too.”
“I ain’t running,” Cutter hissed. “Not when I’m this close to El Ojo.” Without warning he raised up on both elbows.
John Wesley shoved him back to the ground. “Watch out! He’ll gun you down!”
Cutter scowled. “Look at him. He looks sick. My knife can drop him easy.”
Even from this distance, Keech could see that Bad Whiskey did look dreadful. His yellowed skin had wrinkled and begun to crack like rotting leather, and his cheeks looked sunken around the bones. Truth told, he looked like one of his own walking corpses.
A bullet spark of memory slammed through Keech’s mind. Something Pa Abner had told the outlaw back at the Home, when they had first confronted each other:
Your standing here tells me the Reverend’s woken …
Keech’s breath hitched in his lungs.
“What’s wrong?” asked John Wesley.
Keech finished Pa’s words aloud: “‘Some devils just don’t know when to stay down.’”
The other boys looked bewildered.
Pa Abner had almost revealed the secret in the study. The outlaw looked like a corpse because he was one.
“Bad Whiskey Nelson is not a man,” Keech said. “He’s a thrall.”
Cutter’s eyes darkened. “You mean he’s already dead?”
No wonder Bad Whiskey had panicked when Pa held the shard near. He was as vulnerable to the charm’s power as his rotting goons were.
Cutter scowled with clear disappointment. “No matter. I can end him twice, I reckon.”
John Wesley pointed. “Fellas, we’re found!”
All three boys flattened on their bellies, but it was too late. Bad Whiskey’s horde was staring up the embankment, directly at them.
“Hello, the hill!” the outlaw bellowed. He then hollered a command and the dead army started up the muddy slope. At least a dozen thralls yanked revolvers as they climbed. The ground was loose and rugged, but within minutes they would be close enough to fling lead.
“We have to get out of here!” said John Wesley.
“No, we have to kill them,” Cutter said. He stood rebelliously and flicked his knife back and forth.
Bad Whiskey shouted to his goons. “No need to be friendly, boys! Take ’em down!”
A few gunshots crackled up the embankment. The bullets came nowhere close, but Cutter dropped back to his stomach anyway.
“We can’t stop them,” John Wesley said.
A sour wind swirled up from below, carrying the scent of the dead, while high above, a pair of crows orbited the mountain in chaotic loops.
Keech thought about the stony climb Duck had just accomplished, the thousands of rocks and boulders that speckled the perilous incline.
“There’s only one option,” he said. “Follow me.”
Keech leaped to his feet and took off running.