You Only Hang Once by David J. West

Author:David J. West [West, David J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lost Realms Press
Published: 2022-03-23T22:00:00+00:00

16. Haunted Mesa

Where they expected the trail to turn right, it went left, and Redbone cursed in Ute.

“What is it?” Porter asked.

“I don’t want to go this way.”

“Why?”

“It doesn’t feel right.”

Porter asked, “You think they’re bluffing and will return to the lower trail riding along the ridgeline toward Price?”

Redbone shook his head. “They went this way, but it feels wrong. The spirits don’t want us to come here.”

“Maybe.” Porter scanned the landscape. “But for now they’re heading up that mountain path. Signs are plain as day, and we need to follow.”

Redbone scowled but said nothing more. He let Porter lead as they made their way up a zigzagging trail along a ravine. Pines, bare and stunted, grew about one per acre, hugging the corners of the trail, their needles orange and desiccated from the heat and dryness. Scrub oak fared a little better and a little thicker but was sparser than back home. This land was parched.

A terrible moaning echoed across the mountain pass, unlike anything Porter had ever heard before. He swung in the saddle to determine its origin, but the sound seemed to come from all directions before dying away just as the wind did.

Redbone panicked and waved his rifle in every direction, looking for a target.

“Easy. Whatever that is, it’s still a long way off.”

Redbone continued to look about, eyes wide. “Yana-Glooshi.”

“What?”

“Skinwalker.”

Porter shook his head. “Keep a lookout before you go half-cocked.” He urged his horse on, and Redbone reluctantly followed. Porter could sense the Ute wanted no more of this.

They came around a hairpin turn, and Porter raised his gun in a flash, thinking he saw a dark man barring their path, but soon enough realized it was but a scarecrow made of blackened wood. A crude sheep’s horn was mounted upon its head, which the wind out of the canyon blew through. They’d found the source of the wretched moaning.

“See that? It’s nothing but a scarecrow.”

“I was wrong. We cannot go this way. Let us ride around the mountain,” suggested Redbone.

“They would not have made that unless they were up here.”

“They didn’t make that, the Anasazi did, to warn others away.”

Porter eyed him with a narrowed gaze. “What are you drinking? They clearly rode this way. Look at those tracks. Only a day old.”

“This way has bad spirits guarding it. Furry people.” He shook his head with zeal. “We never come here. Dark trails. This is the path of the Skinwalker.”

Redbone was dead serious, Porter could see that plainly. The Indian was no coward, not by a long shot, but his way was not to mess with the supernatural.

“Dark trails? Furry people? Maybe they can share the trail with us for just a little while.” Porter grinned.

“I have learned that some spirits don’t want to share their spaces,” Redbone said.

“You want us to lose at least another day going around the mountain? What if they are staying up a draw here exactly because you think it’s haunted?”

“I don’t think it is haunted, I know it is.

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