“Tell me, Mr. Morrison, what do you make of all this business?” Thomas asked. “What are we likely to find out there?”
The foreman was silent a moment, his features inscrutable in the dark. “Whatever it is, I’d stay out of its way if I was you. I seen my share of blood and guts—begging your pardon, ma’am—but what that thing done to young Gareth Wilson…” He shook his head. “Best keep a shotgun on you, is all I can say.”
“Sound advice. We’ll procure one first thing in the morning.”
“Sleep well.” The foreman touched his hat and was on his way.
The mention of sleep hit me like a spell. Suddenly, it was all I could do to keep my eyes open. Thomas and I headed into the hotel, and about half an hour later, I was curled up on a sagging bed, dozing off.
I dreamed of monsters.
* * *
“A lion,” I told Thomas over breakfast the next morning. We sat in the small dining room on the ground floor of the hotel, pushing vaguely oatmeal-shaped sludge around in our bowls. “A lion the size of a mountain.”
“Indeed? I didn’t realize mountain lion was quite so literal.”
“Easy to make fun when you’re well rested.” I reached for the sugar, but decided against it when I saw the line of ants marching up and down the side of the bowl. I followed the procession with my gaze, tracing it across the ill-fitted floorboards all the way to a crack in the wall. From the look of it, ants weren’t the only thing coming and going through that crack, and I resolved to make sure my trunk stayed tightly sealed.
“Actually,” Thomas said, “I couldn’t sleep either. I spent much of the night on the balcony, taking in the night air.”
“Balcony?” I frowned. “My room barely has a window.”
“Yes, it would appear that aside from being haunted, my room has the additional distinction of being the Presidential Suite.” Thomas’s eyes twinkled with amusement. “Apparently, there was some hope of President Cleveland stopping here at one point, so they erected a balcony for him to oversee the parade they were planning. Alas, the townspeople were disappointed. He never came. A great shame for Cleveland, too, I should think. That parade would have been something to witness.”
I glanced around the dining room, packed with whiskered ruffians who hadn’t seen a bath this side of Easter. “I think you’re right about that.”
“Ah, here’s Roosevelt’s man.” Thomas waved at a figure in the doorway.
We abandoned our breakfast without regret and headed outside, where Charlie Morrison waited with the buckboard and an extra horse. By the light of day, our guide revealed himself to be just the sort of hard-bitten fellow you’d expect of a cowboy, with craggy features and a bushy mustache that hid a great deal from the world.
“Nice-looking bit of iron you got there,” he said, inclining his head at Thomas’s shiny new 12-gauge shotgun. “That the new repeater folks is all lathered up about?”
“Indeed.” Thomas hefted the weapon, looking pleased. “It seems the gunsmith is moving on as well, so he was keen to unload his inventory. I made a number of splendid purchases.”
“Lucky you. Anyways, we oughta hit the trail. You two take the wagon. I got Fletch here.” Morrison patted his horse and mounted up. Thomas took the reins of the buckboard, and we were off.
We’d arrived in the dark, so I had yet to form much of an impression of the town, but the morning light revealed a glum scene. Medora lay scattered across a flat expanse of dust and sagebrush, hemmed in on either side by looming walls of rock. The main street was a muddy track flanked by false-front buildings, many of them boarded up. Behind them, chickens and the occasional stray hog picked their way between scruffy shacks of graying wood. Some of those looked abandoned too. Medora is in danger of becoming a ghost town, Mr. Roosevelt had said, and he hadn’t been exaggerating.
The picture improved as we passed the outskirts of town, following the gentle arch of the Little Missouri River. Tufts of green started to appear in the parched earth, and the muck of the main road gave way to a hard-packed wagon trail. The cliffs blocked much of our view, but as we passed beyond their embrace, the landscape erupted into violent relief. Towering bluffs of rock and clay studded the horizon, forming a chaotic tableau of gold and green and rust. Rugged peaks glowed white under the sun, while shadows carved deep troughs in the clay. Coulees lined with cottonwood and willow cut between the buttes, carving a million branching pathways through a maze of stone and sagebrush. I’d grown up in a different kind of maze, one of brick and peeling paint stuffed with so many people that it could be hard to breathe. This vast, empty country was vaguely terrifying—and exhilarating in a way I can hardly describe. I’d never seen such a wild place. It made me want to unhitch the horse from the wagon and ride, just ride, until both of us were exhausted.
“It’s quite remarkable,” Thomas said, his lean frame swaying along with the wagon. “If there’s any trace of civilization out there, I can’t see it.”
“There’s a few ranches nearby,” Morrison said. “Normally, we’d be coming across some cattle by and by, but things is pretty quiet nowadays, what with the Great Die-Up.”
The Great Die-Up. Like roundup, only deader. I recognized only too well the bleak humor of the destitute. We Irish practically invented it. “Were you here during the winter?” I asked.
He nodded. “Worst I ever saw. Lost a lotta good folks.”
Thomas and I exchanged a look. How could we ask more pointed questions about the winter without sounding strange? By the way, did it seem supernatural at all?
“Was there a particular storm?” Thomas asked. “Or was it just generally very cold?”
“Both. Mercury fell below fifty more ’n once. And there was this blizzard in January…” He shook his head. “Three full days, wind screaming like demons unleashed.”
Demons. As analogies went, it seemed eerily on the nose.
“Wind wasn’t the only thing screaming, neither.” Morrison’s gaze had taken on a faraway look. “Every night, you could hear the cows bellowing. Like they was begging for help. Until they wasn’t. After that it was so quiet. Quiet enough to drive you mad. Some folks decided they preferred the business end of a rifle rather than go on with it.”
I shuddered. Suddenly, the rugged landscape didn’t seem quite so inviting.
We continued on in silence, hugging the riverbank for several miles until eventually we came to a shallows. “Cougar Ranch is just over yonder,” Morrison said, indicating the far side of the river with a nod of his head. “We can cross here. Normally, I’d’ve done it a ways back, but the Little Misery is high this time of year.”
Little Misery. More bleak humor, or was that just the local pronunciation of Missouri? I figured it would be rude to ask.
We splashed across into a lush meadow. Squinting, I could just make out the bulky outlines of cattle scattered across the green. Even from a distance, they looked thin and listless. “These are the strong ones,” Morrison said. “Those as could hold up through the weather. Or at least, they was.”
A few minutes later, the ranch house came into view, a long bungalow sheltered in a stand of cottonwood trees. Behind it, the working part of the ranch was a hive of activity. Men crisscrossed the yard like ants, ferrying wheelbarrows and pails and bushels of feed. Someone was shoeing a horse in front of the barn, while another man loaded his pony with rope and branding irons. Meanwhile, on the far side of the yard, a young stallion pranced nervously in a riding arena, while a colored fellow in worn leather chaps approached the animal slowly, murmuring something consoling. A pair of ranch hands leaned against the fence, watching; Morrison rode over, and they chatted for a spell, their laughter carrying on the wind. Money was exchanged, and then Morrison headed back to us, calling, “Good luck to you, John,” over his shoulder. The cowboy in the arena nodded, but his eyes never left the stallion. The animal was watching him too, hooves stuttering against the hard earth.