At last Zac Smith could call himself a cowboy. Though no-one else seemed to want to.
Zac was barely in his teens, and for the first time had been taken out at midnight, to help catch a buffalo. For some reason he didn't quite understand, they were easier to catch after dark. He was sitting around a campfire with half a dozen men, out in the woods beyond his hometown, Skeleton Creek. Usually Zac's father would be there in his place, but on the last hunt one of his big toes had been bitten off by a bobcat, so he kindly suggested Zac should go instead. It would be good experience, he'd said. Zac wasn't sure about the idea, and was feeling even less sure now. The only other person he really knew in the group was Hank Fester, the oldest and smelliest cowboy in the West, and he was stuck in yet another one of his crazy rants.
'He's too young. No bigger than a critter,' Hank barked, spitting a huge gooey glob of black spit into the fire. It fizzled and popped, and a murky wisp of brown gas spiralled up into the air. He pulled something out of his huge dirty beard and threw that in too, then pointed at Zac. 'How are you gonna help bag us a buffalo?'
One of the other men spoke. 'You gotta start somewhere, Hank.'
'Plus we keep losing men,' another said. 'We need all the help we can get, Hank.'
'So now we're bringing kids out to catch buffalo. Once they've all been eaten I guess we'll start bringing out the babies, just to watch them get munched up in their cots!'
Zac thought it best not to tell Hank that they had little chance of catching anything with a nose as long as he was in the area.
Hank lifted a huge cast iron pot of beans and hung it from a tripod that sat over the fire. He gave it a stir with a big wooden spoon. 'We need some more wood,' he declared. 'Or these ain't gonna cook up anytime soon.'
Zac noticed that, without moving their heads, the other men cut a sideways glance at him, and he wanted to know what that meant. But, just as he opened his mouth to speak, the trees rustled up above them and there was a strange noise that Zac had never heard before. A noise that is almost impossible to describe. If you can imagine someone whispering underwater, it sounded like the complete opposite of that, but not quite.
Along with the weird noise, Zac was sure he saw a red glow, darting amongst the branches, but almost as soon as he saw it, it disappeared into the darkness, and Zac became aware of the sound of the horses tied up nearby, stomping and whining, clearly spooked. He stared upwards for a while longer, hoping to see more, and when he returned his gaze to the camp he saw that everyone was busy rummaging through their saddlebags.
'What are you doing?' Zac asked, to no-one in particular.
No-one in particular answered, as everyone except Zac pulled an object out of their saddlebag. Each object appeared to be a small amulet or charm, threaded with a leather necklace. The men pulled them over their heads and each held their ornament to the sky. Zac looked up to see the red glow had returned.
'Away!' one of the men said. The others said the same in quick succession. Zac heard a shrill noise like a squeal, and then the glow disappeared once more.
'Where's yours, boy?' Hank said.
'My what?' Zac responded.
'Your talisman. You can't come out into the wild without a talisman!'
'What's a talis - ' Zac began.
'It's what you need if you don't wanna end up like the others,' Hank interrupted. 'You'll need a talisman to keep them Injun spirits away.’
‘Hang on there,' said one of the men, who fished around in his bag and pulled out a leather string, and tossed it to Zac.
Zac picked up the leather string and examined it. 'Thanks, but there's nothing on it,' he said.
'You don't know much about the wild, do you boy?' said Hank, spitting out another black blob. This time it seemed to explode before it left his mouth, and he wiped off the mess from his beard with his sleeve. At the same time he decided it would be a good time to let out a long, wet burp.
'This is my first time out here,' Zac explained, trying not to sound irritated, but failing. 'No-one told me about Indian spirits, or that I'd need a talisman.'
'Yeah, your Dad didn't really believe in that stuff. I hope you ain't a fool like he is. Well now's as good a time as any to tell you about them Injun spirits,' said Hank. He took a metal flask from his waistcoat pocket and took a glug from it.
'I was like you once, boy,' Hank began.
The thought of looking and smelling like Hank one day sent a shiver along Zac's spine. That fear became worse as Hank lifted a thigh, grimaced, and then let out a loud rumbling fart. A group of moths dancing in the light of the fire seemed to stop in mid-air before plummeting to their deaths. One landed in the pot of beans, so Hank stood up, dipped his hand in and fished it out. Zac wondered what lived under Hank's fingernails, and whether it would have been more hygienic to just let the moth drown and dissolve.
'I didn't know nothin' about the Injun spirits,' Hank continued, retaking his place, not noticing the two men closest to him moving out of range of the poisonous gas cloud he had just squeezed out, 'until strange things started to happen. Cowboys, some of 'em good cowboys, brave cowboys too, went out into these woods. Some never came back, and some that did come back had gone crazy. Eyes poppin' out of their sockets, hair standing on end, talking jibberish. We just locked 'em up, hoped they'd come to their senses, but they never did. Couldn't get any sense out of 'em.'
'We had cowboys dropping like flies, and it got that every man and boy was too scared to leave town. We needed wood to burn, critters and buffalo to eat, and there’s gold in them rivers and them hills. We couldn't get the stuff we needed just shakin' and sittin' on our butts, scared of whatever it was the Sam Hill we were scared of.'
‘What did the spirits do to them?’ Zac asked.
‘If one of ‘em gets close, it can turn a man crazy, or even scare him to death. Just like that!’ said Hank. ‘But them’s the lucky ones.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It if don’t scare you to death, it’ll go right through you and get inside you. There’s somethin’ in ‘em, someth’ pure evil, and once it knots itself around your insides, your heart stops. Then it bursts. Pop! And you’re a gonner. But that’s Injuns for ya. Can’t trust ‘em, not even after they’re dead!’
‘How do you know all this?’ Zac asked.
‘I read it in a book.’
‘You can read?’
‘It had lots of pictures in it,’ one of the men said. The others stifled giggles.
‘If it weren’t for me, we’d all be dead!’ said Hank, scowling. ‘Don’t you forget that,’ he added, jabbing his finger at each of the men in turn, ‘All of ya!’
‘How did the book help?’ Zac asked.
‘In the book I saw a cowboy using a talisman against a spirit. I took the book to the old wise woman, who could read proper. It was all written in gobbledegook, see? And I found out how to keep them away, boy, and passed it on to all the men in the town.’
‘So why are they still going mad?’ Zac asked.
‘Scaredy-cats, I reckon,’ said Hank. ‘Talisman ain’t enough on its own I guess, you need a backbone too. Anyway, it's somethin' we all do now, boy, and it's somethin' you're gonna do now. Make yoursel' a talisman.'
‘Ok,' said Zak. 'What do I make it out of?'
'Anything you can find,' said one of the other men, 'as long as you make it. Here, this'll get you started.' The man poured some water on the ground and dug out a lump of wet clay, then handed it to Zac. 'Do something with that, then put it around your neck.'
Zac looked at the other men’s' talismans for clues. One was just a ball of mud with four twigs sticking out of it, and Hank’s looked like a big bobcat poo.
'Don't have to be pretty, boy,' Hank said, noticing Zac's stare. 'Just make it your own.'
Zac decided to make a small round pendant, and divided his lump of clay in half and squashed it flat. Taking his knife from his belt, he cut it into a circle, then made a pattern of triangles around the edge. In the centre he decided to carve an image of the sun. When done, he flipped the pendant over and did the same on the other side. Then he took another piece of clay and made a ringlet to thread his leather necklace through. When he’d finished he noticed that all of the men had been watching him. A couple of them looked at their own efforts with apparent disappointment.
'That's pretty good,' said one. 'Put it on the fire to help dry it out.'
'Then you can go get us some more wood,' said Hank.
Hank was looking into the fire as he said this, so Zac wasn't sure which men he was talking to.
'You want me to go too?' he asked, confused.
'Too?' said Hank, raising his head. 'You're going on your own.'
'On - my - own?' Zak asked, looking around at the others for support. None of them seemed particularly keen to join him.
'Yep,' said Hank, driving an axe into the ground.
'On my own?' Zak repeated.
'It's something you've gotta do,' said Hank. 'We've all done it. Right of passage kinda thing.'
Some of the men stared down at the ground in response to what Zac suspected was a lie.
'But what if - ,' Zac started.
'Just keep hold of your talisman, Zac, you'll be ok,' one of the other men said, still staring at the ground.
'Does yours work?' Zac asked, looking at the man's rather pathetic attempt, dangling from his neck. His looked like a false rubber nose, and Zac wondered whether the reason men were going mad or missing was because their talismans were basically rubbish.
'Uh-huh,' the man replied.
'Well I'll use yours then.'
'No, that's not the way boy,' said Hank. 'You've got to make it yourself. It'll only work for the cowboy that made it. If you do that, you'll be ok and you’ll make it back.'
'Does it work on coyotes and bobcats too then?' Zac asked, with a hint of annoyance in his voice.
'You'll have a lamp,' said one of the other men. 'They won't go near that.'
Zac looked at each of the men in turn, in a last ditch attempt to get some help, but only Hank returned his stare. When Zac caught it, Hank smiled a nasty smile, revealing his black, yellow and green teeth (he had one of each). Then he nodded and laughed, before spitting out another glob of spit into the fire.
'Hurry up,' he barked. 'Fire'll be out soon. Them beans won't cook 'emselves.'
Zac took his still damp talisman from the fire, threaded it and put it around his neck, then picked up the lantern and pulled the axe from the ground, placing it in his bag, which he pulled up onto his back.
'You'll come back a man, and a cowboy,' said Hank, as Zac wandered into the darkness. He thought that sounded a bit stupid.
The lamp didn't help much, casting a pale yellow glow that hardly seemed to penetrate the pitch-black darkness that surrounded Zac. As he moved deeper into the woods, the sounds of the men around the campfire slowly faded away.
It suddenly occurred to Zac that he wasn't sure where he was going to find wood. That didn't make a lot of sense, as trees surrounded him, but he didn't think he'd be able to chop one down. He'd have to find one that had already been felled, or blown over in a storm, he thought. But it was difficult enough following the path he was on in the darkness, let alone finding fuel for the fire. Every so often he would hear rustling coming from somewhere amongst the trees, but he wasn't sure whether he was just imagining the growling that went with it.
Soon Zac reached a clearing, where there was dull light cast by what seemed like millions of stars in the sky. Forgetting about what it was he supposed to be doing he stared upwards in awe.
Then his imagination became reality, as a shadow leapt from the trees and bounded towards him on all fours. This time the growling wasn't just inside Zac's head.
Instinctively he threw himself to one side, and the animal ran past and kicked up dust as it made a U-turn. Zac ran further into the clearing, up and over a high mound of dirt as the creature sped towards him. At the top Zac could see that the ground beneath him suddenly ended in steep drop. He looked behind, holding the lamp up in the hope that it would scare the creature away as he'd been told it would. But the dark shadow kept approaching, and as it reached the base of the mound it ran up without any drop in speed, then leapt, its forelegs, paws and claws extended. For a moment Zac caught the reflection of the lamp in its determined eyes and saw the white of its teeth.
Zac had no choice but to jump.
He hit the ground hard, except that it wasn't real ground. It felt like wood shaking beneath him. Planks of wood that rattled then split apart, allowing him to fall even further. Then the fall stopped. The lamp shattered and went out, and all of a sudden everything was quiet except for the gentle sound of grit settling around him.
Once he'd caught his breath back, Zac picked himself up off the floor. Up above he saw the starlit sky though the hole he'd just made, and could tell that it would be difficult to reach. Extending his arms and feeling around, he sensed that he was in a narrow tunnel. With his feet he could tell that he was standing on train tracks.
Although you don't really get shades of black, Zac thought that the blackness around him was blacker than the blackness of the woods. With the lamp broken, his best option was to try to climb back out, and hope that whatever had tried to attack him had gone.
The problem was that Zac couldn't find anything to get a proper foothold on. All he could do was try to move up the hole by pushing his feet and hands against the sides as hard as he could while talking very small steps. That is even more difficult than it sounds, and he almost immediately fell back down in a heap.
Zac knew then that he'd have to move along the tunnel, and he widened his eyes and peered into the darkness in the vain hope that he'd be able to see something.
And he did. A faint red glow.
Zac felt his heart jump in his chest. He wasn't sure whether his eyes were just playing tricks on him, until the glow became gradually brighter, and it became clear that it was travelling along the tunnel towards him. It was an Indian spirit, Zac knew, like the one he’d seen earlier. Instinctively he grabbed his chest for his talisman, but it must have snapped off in the fall. He scrambled around on the floor for it, as the spirit came close and swirled around him. An apple-sized ball of bright red light, it made the same indescribable sound it had earlier, casting crazy dancing shadows on the walls of the tunnel.
Zac desperately scrabbled around on the ground and, with the help of the now bright red light cast by the spirit, managed to find his talisman and necklace nestled between two railway sleepers. He grabbed it, hurriedly tied the broken ends together and pulled it over his head, then held it up in a trembling hand before the spirit.
'Away,' he shouted. 'Away!'
The sound of the spirit immediately turned into a squeal as it darted away, back along the tunnel, returning Zac to the silence, apart from the thud, thud, thud of his heart pounding inside his chest.
Blinded by the darkness again, Zac realised that he had to find a way out as quickly as he could. Deciding that he'd be safer moving away from the spirit, he began to walk slowly through the blackness in the opposite direction.
Then he heard the sound of the spirit again. Even before he could grab his talisman, it whooshed over his shoulder and stopped further along the tunnel in front of him. It hovered silently in the air, then gave out a low, almost menacing tone.
Zac stepped backwards slowly, now with talisman in hand, his eye on the spirit the whole time. He hoped it was the same spirit he'd already seen, and that there weren't a group of them closing in. He remembered what Hank had said, and was already feeling that he could be scared enough to go mad in a heartbeat. He held his talisman up once more.
'Away!' he said.
The spirit squealed again and moved further into the tunnel before stopping.
Then something strange happened. The spirit performed what looked like a gesture. It span from side to side a few times, and reminded Zac of a shaking head, as if to say 'no.'
Then something even stranger happened. The spirit said 'no.'
That's what it sounded like to Zac, but the noise was indistinct and echoey. Confused, he lowered his talisman and the spirit immediately shot past him in the other direction. Zac span around. Now the spirit made another gesture, this spinning up and down, as if to nod.
'Aya!' it said. 'Aya!'.
Then it moved away along the tunnel before returning.
'Aya!'
Zac realised the spirit wanted him to follow. Initially wary, he wondered whether the spirit was trying to help. If it was, and seeing as Zac needed any help he could get, he took a few tentative steps towards the spirit, still holding his talisman against his chest, just in case.
With the red light guiding him, Zac walked for what seemed like a long time, as the sprit danced up ahead of him. If there was a way out at the end of this, he knew he'd be a long way from the camp.
Eventually the spirit stopped and hovered in the air once more. Zac stopped too, still wary of getting too close, before realising that he had little choice but to approach. As he did, he made out the indistinct shape of a railway cart, bathed in the red glow of the spirit. Zac knew he was supposed to get in, so that's what he did, though were no levers of any kind that would make it move. It was just a lone cart that was once part of a longer train, he guessed.
Now it was time for the next strange thing to happen. The spirit disappeared beneath the cart, and then Zac could feel it starting to move. It steadily picked up speed, moving back in the direction that Zac had followed the spirit. It continued to pick up speed, now rattling violently, and Zac hoped it wouldn't shake itself to pieces. With the spirit hidden beneath the cart, Zac couldn't make out anything ahead, and as it got faster and faster he wondered whether the spirit just wanted to harm him after all.
Then the cart smashed into something; a wall of wooden planks that cracked and splintered, and the spirit shot out from underneath the cart and pushed against it to slow it down. Sparks flew out from the wheels beneath, and Zac put his hands to his ears as the deafening screeching threatened to make them explode.
Then it stopped. Zac looked up and saw the stars. He was outside and above ground.
Zac breathed in a lungful of fresh air through his nostrils, and felt relief at being out in the open again, followed by concern that he had no idea where he now was.
But, luckily for him, the spirit hadn't finished. It continued to beckon him, so Zac climbed out of the cart and followed along a track between the dark silhouettes of tall trees. As he walked, the sprit snaked amongst the trees and shot up into the air then dived down again, performing the occasional loop-the-loop.
Then the spirit stopped briefly, and darted off the track and disappeared amongst the trees. Feeling a little apprehensive once more, Zac checked his talisman was still dangling from his neck, just in case, and followed the red glow, bouncing off the closely nestled tree trunks ahead.
Before long Zac entered a clearing. The spirit was waiting, hovering in the centre, above a pile of logs.
'How did the spirit know he had been out to gather wood?', Zac thought to himself.
As if Zac hadn't quite got the message, the spirit dropped down towards the ground and span a circle above the logs before returning to its original position.
Zac took hold of his talisman, and the spirit moved away. Then Zac wrenched it from his neck, breaking the leather strap, and stuffed it into his pocket. He took his bag from his back and, axe in hand, started chopping.
The spirit returned and hovered still in the air, making its peculiar sound and casting a red glow over the logs while Zac chopped as much wood that would fit into his bag. When finished, the spirit returned Zac to the route they had been taking along the path, and before long he could make out the sounds of the camp ahead.
The spirit stopped.
Zac approached the spirit, closer than ever, as it hovered before him, casting a red glow on his face.
'Thank you,' he said.
He didn't expect the spirit to reply properly, but instead it did something even better. It began to spin in a tight circle, so fast that it became a blur. The blur grew upwards and downwards, then Zac saw a face, then a body appear inside it. Zac could make out the indistinct figure of an old man, dressed in cloth, with a feather headdress on his head. The expression on his face though, was quite clear. His eyes somehow twinkled, and he smiled the smallest but biggest smile Zac had ever seen.
Then from the blur an arm emerged. The ghostly figure placed its hand on Zac’s forehead. Zac instinctively closed his eyes, and felt something he knew he would never be able to explain, something he knew he would probably never even try to describe, but he knew that it was something good. Then the red light disappeared, and when Zac opened his eyes again it was dark once more.
The sounds of the men around the campfire bled into Zac's consciousness and he returned to them.
'Where have you been, boy?' Hank barked. ‘Fire’s almost out!’
'Away with the fairies, by the look of it,' said another of the men.
Zac wasn't at all sure what kind of expression he had on his face, but it was clearly creating some suspicion.
'You been at the moonshine, boy?
'No,' said Zac, removing his backpack and taking out the wood.
'That's some good chopping,' said one of the men.
'It's all getting burned, don't make no difference how well it's chopped,' Hank said. 'Put some o' that on the fire, boy, before it goes out.'
Zac threw some of the wood onto the fire, then sat down and stared into it, wondering whether what he'd seen had been a dream, caused by a knock on the head when he fell. But in his heart he knew it wasn't.
'Hey, where's your talisman, boy?' said Hank. 'And what happened to the lamp?'
'The lamp broke. Those critters out there aren't so scared of it,' said Zac, fishing out his talisman and necklace from his pocket.
'You want to be more careful with that, boy; you can't make another one that'll work. And put it around your neck, unless you want to get spooked by one of them nasty Injun spirits. You wanna go crazy, huh?'
Zac frowned, wondering how many times Hank had been frightened by a spirit. Quite a few times, he imagined. Then he screwed up his necklace with his talisman and tossed it into the fire. All of the men let out a simultaneous gasp.
'I don't think I'll be needing it,' said Zac. 'Can I have some beans now please?'