Brad Johnston stepped down from his horse, slapping the reins around the hitching post. He adjusted his gun belt on his waist. Taking his hat off, he slapped the dust from his clothes and went over to the water trough. He dipped his hat into the cool water and walked back over to his horse. He looked at the horse while it drank from his hat.

"You're one dusty cayuse, Dobe," he said, noticing how the road dust had turned the horse's coat from light brown to grey.

He took his bandanna off, dipped it into the remaining water, wrung it out, and wiped the dust from the horse's nostrils.

"As soon as I take care of my thirst, we'll get you cleaned up and fed, Dobe."

Dobe tossed his head in response and snorted.

When the bartender brought the mug of beer over to him, Johnston flipped him a silver dollar.

"I don't know if I can make change for this, mister. It's still kinda early."

Johnston looked at him over the rim of the beer mug. "Consider it payment for the beer -- give yourself one -- maybe two beers, and some information."

"You a bounty hunter?" the bartender asked, looking at Johnston's tied-down Colt .44.

"Nah. I'm just passing through. I hear they're gonna have a Round-Up over in Pendleton."

"Yes, sir. That'll be next month, though."

"Anyway, I'm looking for a half breed, name of Adobe Jack."

"Adobe Jack? Sure, I know of him. He lives in a shack at the east end of town."

"He still raise horses?"

"Nah. He raised his last herd and took part of 'em to Pendleton for the first Round-Up. Made hisself a killin' and he's sort of retired now."

"He only took part of them to Pendleton?"

"Yeah. He's still got about forty head over behind his place."

"Thanks for the information. Keep the change," Johnston said as he climbed off the stool and left the saloon.

Johnston brought his horse to a stop in front of the house. It could be considered just a shack, but it had recently received a coat of whitewash, as had the picket fence in front of it. Outside of the new paint job, there didn't seem to be any evidence that anyone even lived there.

As he climbed down from his horse and tied the reins to one of the pickets, an Indian came around the side of the house. Johnston had never seen the man before and he appeared to be in his late forties. The Indian approached Johnston and stopped just on the other side of the fence.

Johnston touched the rim of his hat in salutation and said, "Howdy. I'm lookin' for Adobe Jack. Is this his place?"

The Indian just grunted and then motioned for Johnston to follow him. They went back around the side of the house from which the Indian had originally appeared, and continued toward a small barn approximately 200 yards behind the house. As they approached the barn he could see there was a fenced-in enclosure behind the barn and he could hear the sound of horses.

As the two men approached the open doorway to the barn's interior, a man stepped through the doorway and stopped. The man was obviously a half-breed Indian, what with his black hair and sky-blue eyes. And he didn't really have the high cheekbones of an Indian, either.

"Brad Johnston? Is that really you?" he said as he stepped up and wrapped his arms around Johnston, giving him a severe bear hug.

"You can let go of me just about any time now, Jack," Johnston managed to get out.

Adobe Jack released Johnston from his bear hug and looked him up and down. "You don't seem to be much for wear and tear, huh? You do have my horse, don't you? Been takin' good care of it? I assume you didn't walk here."

"It's out front you old half-breed. And you gave me that horse in exchange for the money you owed me from that poker game."

"Yeah, half-breeds should never play poker with a white man." He chuckled to himself and slapped Johnston on the arm. "Stalking Wolf," he directed at the Indian standing there watching them, "go get the man's horse. It probably needs a dusting down and some water and feed."

"I gave him some water in town," Johnston said as the Indian went off to retrieve his horse.

"C'mon in the house and set a spell. I think I can dig up something for us to wet our whistles with."

"Well, Jack, how have you been doin' for y'rself? I've heard you've been doing okay selling horses up in Pendleton for the Round-Up," Johnston said as he tipped the glass back and let the fiery whiskey go down his throat, coughing once or twice. "Strong stuff."

"It's all right. Yeah, I've been selling stock in Pendleton since 'eleven. It was 1910 when they had the first one, but they didn't call it a Round-Up then. Anyway, I've sold stock to those ranchers up there for four years now."

"Made a good price on 'em"

"Sure did. In fact, the price was so good, I only took half my herd up last year."

"Saving the other half for this year?"

Jack's face paled somewhat, although the temperature in the house had remained constant. His eyes looked around the one room of his home, searching for something that shouldn't be there.

"Somethin' wrong, Jack?"

There was a pause while Jack took another swallow of his whiskey and cleared his throat. "Brad, what I about to tell you, you're not goin' to believe. I know this just as sure as the two of us are sitting here in my house. But I'm goin' to tell you anyway.

"Pendleton's not that far from here, 'bout seven, eight miles. But it's all desert and hotter than hell at this time of year. So me an Stalking Wolf have our work cut out for us herding fifty head of horses over that distance. And not a spot of water anywhere in between.

"There's not a hell of a lot for horses to eat around here, so I can let them go where they will, but they'll be back because they know I'll feed them. Anyway, it was about nine or ten before the last of them showed up for their feed. After they finished, we cut the herd in half, cozied up the half we were takin' -- about fifty head -- and herded them out onto the road.

"'Cause there's no water between here and Pendleton, you have to take it a mite slow, so the horse's don't start sweatin' just from the heat. This means that you don't get into Pendleton until after dark.

"We were about three miles outside of Pendleton went the sun set. I'd never really noticed the desert too much when the sun was setting, 'specially up by Pendleton, but it seemed that the ground stretchin' back from the road had holes here an' there. Now these weren't prairie dog holes, these holes were big, big enough for a man to get into." Adobe Jack's face seemed to pale even more as he paused and took another swig of whiskey. "It was then that we noticed some things seemed to be crawling out of those holes. At first it was just one or two of 'em, but then it seemed that things were crawlin' out of all of them. There must have been at least fifty of those holes around us.

"Now, you know me, Brad, I'm not a sceered of nothin', but those things . . . they warn't natural. I didn't get to watch 'em much more, because just about then the horses got wind of those things and stampeded. At least they were headed in the right direction. And Stalking Wolf and me was right behind 'em.

"We lost about six head there in the desert, but made a good price on the remainder of the herd. And then we stayed in Pendleton until the sun came up the next day. I wouldn't want to be caught out there on foot at night, not with them things around."

Johnston took a sip of his whiskey. He looked at his friend of many a year and knew that whatever he had run into out in the desert, he wasn't making it up.

"What did they look like, Jack?"

"Why, I don't know how to describe them. They seemed to be part gila monster and part human and part . . . somethin' else. And they was big as a full-grown man, Brad. Stalkin' Wolf could corroborate my story, but he didn't see 'em. He was ridin' along and the next thing he knew the horses were stampedin'."

Adobe Jack seemed to get himself under control as Stalking Wolf entered the house.

"Well, enough about me," Jack began, "what's been happenin' with you?"

"Oh, you know. A little work here, a little there. Just enough to keep me goin', just enough so that I can see this fine country we live in without having to run into someone else. But things have been a little slim lately. And I recall as how you still owe me some money."

Jack laughed and slapped his knee. "Brad, you know you're my best friend and I would do anythin' for ya. But what with buying supplies and the whitewash for the house and fence, I'm just about tapped out. But," he paused while he thought, "seein' as how I could see in your face that you didn't believe me about them things out there, I'll make you a deal. You 'n' Stalkin' Wolf take the forty head into Pendleton and I'll give you one-third of whatever you can get. Sound fair enough?"

Johnston smiled at the half-breed before finishing off his whiskey. "I'll take you up on your offer, Jack, and not just because you think there's somethin' out there that you don't want to run into. I figure we should get at least twenty dollars a head, and that comes out to about eight hundred dollars. My third would be a mite over two fifty. That's nowhere near what you still owe me, Jack, but I'll call us square.

Johnston stuck out his hand and Adobe Jack took it in his own weathered hand. "Thanks, Brad. Oh, and watch out for those new-fangled awty-mobiles they got in Pendleton. Them damn fools make enough noise to spook the entire herd.

"Oh! Are you still carrying that Sharps .50?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

Jack handed him his Winchester .44-70, repeating action rifle. "Leave the Sharps and take this one."

"The Sharps will do just fine, Jack."

"Humor me, white man," Adobe Jack said as Johnston reluctantly took the rifle.

The two men smiled at each other. Even though one owed the other money, they would have given the shirt off their back to the other.

The herd of forty horses moved lazily down the road leading to Pendleton, Johnston and Stalking Wolf moving behind them. The drive so far had been completely uneventful. Not even a prairie dog had come out of his burrow to spook the herd.

The sky was the clearest blue Johnston had ever seen, the only clouds were lowering on the western horizon, which the sun was just starting to dip behind. From Adobe Jack's estimation, they should be about three miles from Pendleton, although there was nothing on the horizon to show that it was there. The desert was flat, flat, flat, he should have been able to see for miles in all directions.

As the sun dipped lower behind the clouds, reddish streaks lit up the sky above the clouds. It wouldn't be long until it started getting dark.

Johnston looked around and began noticing indications of burrows that were completely invisible when the sun was higher in the sky. Adobe Jack was right about the burrows. A man could fall into one of them and probably not even touch the sides. A chill ran up his back as he thought of Jack's story. Nah, it couldn't be. Jack's just an old half-breed that thought he saw something out here in the desert.

He spurred his horse to a faster gait to come up alongside Stalking Wolf. He looked over at the weather-beaten Indian. After several moments, the Indian looked back at him. His eyes did not stray from Johnston's face, except now and again to look at the rear of the herd.

"You know, don't you, Stalking Wolf? You know what Jack saw out here in the desert."

"Yes, I know," the Indian replied. Johnston was surprised at the timbre of the man's voice, still as strong as a young brave's.

"What did he see?"

"Maybe he saw what he wanted to see."

"Don't give me that hogwash, Stalking Wolf! Just tell me what you know."

Stalking Wolf appeared to be deep in thought, as if to tell this white man of the legends of his people would be a violation of their trust. But did his people really deserve that trust, after banishing him? The corners of his mouth turned up slightly. He looked at the rear of the herd moving down the road and then back at Brad Johnston.

"My people, the Umpqua," and he gestured to the west, "have many legends that have been handed down from father to son, since time began. Sometimes these legends originated with another tribe and the Umpqua thought they were important enough to remember. I do not know if this is actually one of our own legends or one of the legends of another tribe.

"The legend states that two young braves were vying for the position of medicine man of the tribe. This happens so seldomly that the tribal chief decided that they should each use their magic against the other until one of them was triumphant. He would be the new medicine man. It is said that the challenge went on for weeks, possibly months. Eventually, the one known as Ma-no-wah succeeded against his challenger. He had called up a fiery god from the depths of the sky and the god feasted upon the loser's soul. And thus Ma-no-wah became the tribe's medicine man and acted as such until his death at a very old age."

"What has this got to do with what inhabits those burrows out there and what Adobe Jack saw?"

"I did not see what Adobe Jack saw. But from how he described these creatures, they would be the same as those of Ma-no-wah's god. He referred to his god as That Which Relentlessly Waits Outside and said that his god had allies to the east in the harsh desert that were called Rhygntu. And that is not an Indian word, nor have I ever heard anything similar to it."

Johnston noticed that an eerie silent had settled over the desert landscape. A silence that was all encompassing . . . until the sound of claws scrabbling on sand reached his ears. He looked out into the desert to see that there was motion in the burrows that surrounded them.

"I think the time has come to cease talking," Stalking Wolf said as he unlimbered his rifle from its scabbard.

Johnston did the same, levering a round into the chamber. He would have felt more comfortable with the punch from the Sharps, but he decided having more than one shot would definitely be an advantage in this situation.

He watched as a creature emerged from a burrow less than a dozen yards from them. Adobe Jack was right. It was a combination of "part gila monster and part human and part . . . somethin' else." He sat his horse, transfixed, wondering how a creature like this could even exit.

And then there was a loud noise and one of its eyes was no longer there, but leaked blood to the thirsty sand. He turned to see Stalking Wolf levering another round into the chamber of his rifle. He realized that they were going to have to fight their way out of this, and somehow save the herd of horses at the same time.

The horses had already gotten wind of the creatures and stampeded on down the road. The two men rode after them, firing at any creatures who came within their sights. It was the longest three miles and the longest twilight they had ever lived . . . until they ran out of bullets. Even Johnston's Colt .44 was empty. They held on to the reins of their mounts and urged them to greater speed.

At a full gallop, Johnston saw several of the creatures coming ever closer to him. When one of them cam up alongside, he swung the Winchester at its head, hearing a sharp crack. With the impact he had lost hold of the rifle so he didn't know whether the crack was the splitting of the creature's head or the breaking of the rifle's stock. He heard his horse cry out in pain and horror as something slapping him alongside the head, knocking him from his horse. He landed on his back and the wind was knocked out of him.

He slowly raised up to see the creatures slowly surrounding him . . . until the unearthly sound came to his ears from above him. He looked up to see a flaming circle with three flaming inner-petals. It was from this that the roaring sound issued. And then it was gone . . . and so were the creatures.

He got to his feet and looked around. He saw the herd of horses farther down the road, but there was no sign of Stalking Wolf. There was no sign of the creatures either. Where had they gone?

Johnston dusted himself up and put his hat back on his head. He walked over to his horse who stood waiting for him. There were four furrows in the horse's flank, slowly oozing blood. He remembered the blow that had knocked him from his horse and put his hand to his head. When he took it away he saw that his hand was covered with blood.

He stroked the horse's muzzle while he waited for his ears to quit ringing.

"Seems we made it through, Dobe. We'll sell those horses in Pendleton and then we need to go back and see Adobe Jack. Seems we're not even after all."

© 1998 by E. P. Berglund

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