“Miguel! Time to go,” Bishop mutters in the dark. “Rattle your hocks, hermano.” A vigorous hand shakes his shoulder.
Miguel turns over with a grumble. “Few more minutes, Bish.”
“C’mon, we got work to do. The rancher’s gonna be up at dawn. We’ll lose our chance if we don’t snag them Trotters now.”
Even on the cooler side of morning, the oppressive Missouri heat smothers Miguel’s skin when he gazes bleary-eyed around their hidden riverbank camp. The previous evening’s fire smolders low, but the sky’s vivid moonlight shows that Bishop is already dressed, boots and all, and sipping coffee from a tin cup. For a boy of fifteen, Frank Bishop is the most dedicated horse thief this side of the Mississippi. The first to rise, the first to cook breakfast, the first to plan their next job. Miguel has ridden with Bish for two years now, and the boy has never let him down. There is no better trailmate, no truer amigo. Bish even knows the best places to sell the rustled horses to get top dollar.
After saddling their ponies, Miguel follows Bishop through the forest to the edge of the ranch they’ve been scouting. It’s a sizable piece of property, stretching over three hundred acres. A few days ago they spotted a pair of Fox Trotters in the pasture, a handsome combo that Bish guaranteed would fetch a substantial sum down in Arkansas. The big ranch also boasts a proper head of Texas longhorns, but Bishop never wants to go for the cattle. “The real dinero is in the bangtails,” he says. Miguel has heard that other cattlemen are racking up pesos running longhorns over to West Texas, but he keeps his ideas on the business to himself.
The boys approach the property’s long perimeter, stepping out of a dense patch of pin oaks. The morning moonlight falls bright on the ranch’s back forty, a shimmering silver pasture that reminds Miguel of his family’s small piece of land in New Mexico. Suddenly he hears footsteps approaching.
“It’s the rancher!” Bishop whispers. “He’s out too early.”
The boys scramble to hide their horses in the pin oaks as a tall man in dark clothes rambles on foot through the back field, clambers over the fence, and trudges past. He’s heading west, toward the river, walking at a hectic pace. Though Miguel can’t make out his features, the moonlight reveals that the man is holding a long musket.
“What do we do?” Miguel asks.
“Wait here, keep a lookout. I’m gonna follow him. He’s up to somethin’.”
Before Miguel can protest, Bishop scurries off, holding to the pin oaks for cover. Miguel soon feels alone, abandoned. He spends a few minutes keeping his attention on the ranch, but after a while, his eyelids begin to weigh heavy. He props his head against a stump to rest, intending to steal a few minutes of shut-eye.
But then Bishop is shaking him awake. “Git up! We gotta skedaddle.”
Miguel sits upright. The morning sun has broken over the horizon. He feels embarrassed that he catnapped while he was supposed to be on lookout. “Lo siento, Bish. I didn’t mean to nap, but I got bored waiting.”
Bishop waves away the excuse. “I gotta show ya somethin’. C’mon.”
They ride back to their riverside camp, Miguel struggling to keep up. Along the way, he begs to know why Bishop is so excited, but his partner won’t say.
As soon as they reach the camp, Bishop draws a red cloth out of his coat pocket. Something long and flat is wrapped inside.
“What’s that?”
Bishop unwraps the cloth and reveals a huge knife, a blade almost as long as Miguel’s forearm, its bone handle carved with intricate symbols. It looks like a cursed relic from some ancient fairy tale. Bish beams. “This here is a special knife.”
“Special how?” But even as Miguel asks, he wonders if he wants to know.
Bishop squats by the embers of their fire, settling in to tell a story. “I followed the rancher to a strange hut out in the woods. Creepiest shack I ever saw. You won’t believe it when I say it, but a witch lives there.”
Miguel shudders. “A witch, like a bruja?” He hadn’t heard that word in a long time, not since leaving Culpa to travel with Bishop.
“Somethin’ like that, yeah. The rancher went inside for a spell. I got curious, so I crept over and listened by the front door.”
“You could’ve been caught!”
“I’m too lucky to get caught. Anyway, they said a few peculiar things, so I crept over to a window and snuck a peek. That’s when I saw the witch.”
“What’d she look like?”Miguel asks.
“Not a she. He was an old man with wild gray hair down to his shoulders. But he called himself a witch. Said his name was Artemas Ward. The rancher tossed him a bag of coins, and the witch held up this knife.” Bishop appears even more excited as he raises the blade. “He said this chopper was magical and would someday kill the Eye.” The steel in Bish’s hand catches glints of the early sun and sparks like a giant diamond.
None of what Bishop is saying makes any sense. “Eye?” To make sure he understands, Miguel points to his own eye.
“Well, no, not just any eye, but like a name. As in El Ojo.”
Miguel’s skin grows cold. “What happened then?”
Bishop hesitates, perhaps considering what to share. “I found a hidin’ spot where I could wait. The rancher finally left, telling the witch he’d be back for the knife a day later. After he was gone, I peeked inside the hut again. The knife was on the table, right there beggin’ to be snatched up. The witch-man spotted me and threatened a hex, but I reached in and grabbed it.”
Hearing the story makes Miguel’s heart beat faster. A brujo named Artemus Ward. A spellbound knife. It all sounded so dream-like, but Miguel had never known Bishop to make up tall tales. “Then you ran?”
“You bet I did. Straight back to ya.” A conniving smile stretches across Bishop’s face. “Here’s the new plan. We hide this knife under a tree, then we head back to that ranch and liberate us a pair of bangtails. Once we’ve sold ’em, we come back here, dig it up, then see what kinda mischief we can get up to with this here magical blade. If it don’t work, we’ll sell it, too. I imagine it’ll fetch a price as fine as cream gravy.”
They bury the blade beneath a pin oak, marking the location so they can find the treasure upon returning. Miguel never thinks of the blade as his own. Bishop stole it from the brujo, and as far as Miguel is concerned, his partner can keep it. He wants nothing to do with cursed things. He’d leave it buried. If they came back for it, perhaps old Artemas Ward would come searching for it. Perhaps the brujo would stalk them wherever they rode, and Miguel would awaken one lonely night to see an ancient, wrinkled face staring down at him from the darkness.
Miguel sat up with a jolt, a terrified scream on the cusp of letting loose. He’d been dreaming about Bishop again. His first true friend, now deceased for months. Killed by a man named Bad Whiskey Nelson, El Ojo, after the one-eyed scoundrel had broken Coward out of the Arkansas prison.
It wasn’t unusual for Miguel to dream about Bish. He often dreamed about their old days on the open range, just as he would dream about John Wesley. Dreams of his amigos, Miguel could handle, but he hated the memories of the prison. He tried to settle back to sleep and dream of nicer days before Barrenpoint prison and Coward and El Ojo.
Sleep refused to come, so Miguel sat by the campfire, huddled under his blanket, and watched the small man who had brought death into his life. Seeking comfort, Miguel let his hand venture into his coat and graze the straw of John Wesley’s hat. John’s voice whispered in his head. Don’t you fret. I’ll find ya. Till then, ride tall.
“I wish I could stop him, but I can’t,” Miguel muttered to himself.
Why not? John’s voice argued. He’s asleep and you’re not.
Curled up beneath his furs, Coward snored. He slept in the quiet comfort of knowing that when he wanted Miguel to do something, all the small man had to do was tap the charred brand on his own palm, and the angry, spiral-like mark on Miguel’s forehead would flare, sending shocks of pain through his entire body. The pain seemed to sear his soul and blunt his mind, so that pools of blackness overtook him, and when his senses recovered, Miguel would find himself miles away, unaware of where he’d been and what he’d been doing. After a few such incidents, Miguel had decided it was better if he simply obeyed Coward’s requests rather than risk his body being controlled like a puppet.
Coward continued to snore.
This was the moment Miguel had been biding. He had no chance when the man was awake and could activate the Devil’s mark, but if he hustled, he could attack Coward and free himself. The thought sent fear coursing through his veins, but an opportunity like this might never present itself again.
Miguel reached down to his belt and wrapped his fingers around the bone hilt of his prized blade. After recovering the knife, he had taken on the name Cutter. He’d never used the blade to kill anyone, but Miguel was determined to show the world he was a dangerous man who would remove anyone who stood in his way.
Drawing the blade out of its sheath, Miguel rose to his feet.
The lump of the little man’s body beneath his fur lifted with each ragged snore. He was so close, so unaware. An easy lunge with the blade, a quick thrust, and Miguel could be free.
Beneath his fur, Coward snorted, his steady breathing interrupted. He was waking.
There was no choice now but to act. Miguel lunged, stabbing the needle-sharp blade into the fur blanket.
Coward sat up, panic twisting his face. A ribbon-thin cut across his shoulder glistened with fresh blood. “Get back! Get back!”
Miguel pulled back, freeing the knife. He shifted his stance, ready to stab again. He had only a second to attack again. El diablito wasn’t thinking straight, but when he recovered his senses, he would touch his brand and render Miguel helpless.
Screaming, Miguel charged.
Coward rolled to his side, flailing. He spun around and lifted a small, square object in front of him out of blind protection. The silver chest that contained the Char Stone.
Miguel’s knife pierced the metal lid.
A nightmarish cacophony drove into his ears like the sound of a thousand screeching bats. A pulse of lightning coursed through the knife. Miguel’s hand went numb. He dropped the blade and staggered back, feeling as if he’d been pelted by heavy stones, his muscles frozen in place.
Coward dropped his hand to the brand on his opposite palm, ready to trigger the Devil’s mark. “What were you thinking, Miguel? You could’ve killed me!” he shrieked—then Coward’s gaze fell upon the bone-handled blade lying on the ground. The steel visibly trembled from its contact with the Char Stone. Coward’s mouth tumbled open.
Dropping to his hands and knees, Coward hovered his nose over the knife and sniffed deeply. Miguel watched with confusion, his body rumbling with pain. Whatever happened to the blade, the Char Stone seemed to be the cause.
“This can’t be,” Coward said, the tiniest smirk parting his lips. The fear on Coward’s face evaporated as he lifted the knife gently from the snow. He sniffed it again, turning the steel over and over as though sampling a fine cut of meat.
“Miguel, the prophecy is real,” Coward said, holding the blade up to the campfire light. “I always doubted, but now I know. I know.” He gazed at Miguel with clear exhilaration. “Pack up camp. We have a peak to reach. Ignatio is waiting.”