“But there are times when the spirit of such things, instead of going away, lingers in a kind of limbo that is neither of reality nor of nonexistence, between life and death. ’Tis true of aspects o’ Nature as well as man, and more so of the wind than rock or cloud. Thus trapped twixt the Here and the Not, between the Going and the Coming or the Actual and the Imagined, such spirits become frustrated, angry, and at the final, furious. Settling score with such angry manifestations and pacifying them is the job o’ certain exorcists, diviners, seers, and witchery folk.”
Stanton harrumphed. “Are you claiming, Mr. Malone, sir, to count yourself among such practitioners of the fictional arts in this modern era of science and learning?” He was still trying to extract his needle from the depths of the bag. “I must remind you that it is the nineteenth century, and those of us with a claim to learning have no truck with such superstitious nonsense.”
Malone nodded, sniffled massively, and headed for the doorway, where the owner of the hotel and the gambler with whom he shared less than ethical earnings made haste to remove themselves from his path.
“Then you won’t mind, son of Hygeia, if I attempt to preserve your town from that which you insist cannot exist.”
It was not hard to follow the mountain man at a distance, as the sound of his descending the stairs from the hotel’s second floor to the ground below echoed with the booming of his passage. They would have followed him out onto the street as well, had not the breeze that had been blowing outside all morning risen to such force as to leave them to believe that a tempest of biblical proportions had suddenly and inexplicably descended on the town.
Huddled just inside the hotel’s entrance, the three men had no difficulty peering without, since the rising gale had ripped the door from its hinges. Their curiosity as to the mountain man’s intentions notwithstanding, they were careful to remain within sturdy wooden walls that had begun to rattle and shake. Off to their right, windows brought by wagon from Denver blew out with a musical crackle. Unable to turn away quite in time, Doland winced as a flying shard scored his right cheek. Automatically, Doc Stanton proceeded to treat the resulting trickle of blood, leaving Barker to report on what could be seen outside. The hotel owner’s observations were not encouraging.
“Sounds like a tornado!” He had to shout to make himself heard above the rising gusts. “But I don’t see no funnel cloud!”
Tending to the injured gambler, Stanton yelled without turning from his ministrations. “What do you see, Bales?”
Squinting into the howling, blowing grit that was now streaming down the street parallel to the ground, Barker allowed as how the clanging and banging they were currently hearing was due to the windmill from the Spencer place being blown straight down Main Street. This was soon followed by the Spencer place itself, intact and complete down to front porch and back barn. Leaning out farther and shielding his eyes as best he was able, the hotel owner could see that the street was cleared and vacant. As soon as the storm had struck, anyone with an ounce of common sense had retreated to the shelter of the nearest solid structure. Upper Main Street, the lifeline of the town, was completely deserted.
Looking in the other direction, with the wind now at his back, Barker saw that this was not entirely so.
All other mounts having fled or been driven away, a single horse remained on the street. He recognized it immediately as the one belonging to the mountain man. From the time Malone had rode up on his singular mount, its ancestry had been the subject of some discussion among those who had passed it by. Of dimensions proportionate to its owner, it was theorized to be part Percheron and part Appaloosa, with the rest derivative of an equine bloodline that remained resolutely indeterminate even among those townsfolk who considered themselves a good judge of such matters. There was also considerable discussion of the leather patch that was affixed to its forehead, as this appeared to cover a tumor or protruding bone the true identity of which curious onlookers were unable to discern from casual observation.
“Name’s Worthless,” the mountain man had announced while positioning the animal in front of the hitching rail. “Keep away from him. He can spit hard enough to knock a man down.”
Though where this claim was concerned general dubiousness reigned, no one availed themselves of the opportunity to put it to the test. Now, as a wide-eyed Barker looked on, the horse slowly shifted its stance until it was facing away from the bellowing wind. By exposing only its hindquarters to the shrieking gale, it assured protection for its face and minimized its exposure to the flying dirt and sand. In his time Barker had seen many a horse’s ass, not all of which were running for Congress, and as the walls of his hotel shuddered and trembled around him he had to admit that in the annals of equine butts the one that was presented to him now was of genuinely monumental proportions. It was an epic backside, a truly prodigious rear end—one might even go far as to say Gibraltarian. And it defied the wind that had swept all else before it. All else except the horse and its owner.
Displaying a boldness that bordered on recklessness, Malone had stumbled out into the street. As an astonished Barker beckoned for his companions, one with forehead bandaged and the other clutching his medical bag, to join him, the mountain man turned deliberately to face directly into the wind. It seemed certain that if naught else, the wolf’s-head cap he wore must surely be blown off and carried toward Pikes Peak, but nothing of the sort happened. Perhaps because, though difficult to make out through the blowing dust and grit, it looked as if the drooping legs of the wolfskin had clamped down on the head and neck of their owner in order to hold on tight.
Facing down the tempest, Malone staggered a couple of times, coughed once, wiped his nose with the back of a treelike forearm, and inhaled. Continued to inhale. Sucked in air so that his chest, already barrel-like, expanded until it seemed to double in size. An openmouthed Doc Stanton avowed as how such an expansion was physically impossible. Unaware of the nearby physician’s lightning-quick evaluation of his prodigious lung capacity, Malone proceeded to exhale directly into the teeth of the wind.
The hurricane that was blowing down the center of Main Street halted. It just stopped plum dead, as Doland pointed out. For a moment all was calm, quiet, peaceful as a Sunday morning on a September day. Malone horked up something unspeakable and spat it out, started to turn back to the hotel—and flinched visibly as the wind resumed its assault. It had backed off, yes, but it had not gone away. It had not been defused or defeated. The mountain man’s blow had sent it spinning, but not to eternity. Boreas still infused it, still drove it, still maintained it. It swirled, broke apart, regrouped, and bore down once more on the center of the helpless town.
Again Malone drew in an impossible quantity of air and again he exhaled right into the center of the gale. For a second time there was quiet, and for a second time the wind collated and re-formed itself to blast down the middle of the street. For a third time the indefatigable mountain man began to suck in an impossible breath preparatory to confronting the wind on its own terms. Only this time he managed but a partial volume before he broke down in a spasm of coughing. Giant though he was, he was a sick man, and the minor but still undeniable affliction from which he was suffering conspired to prevent him from mustering the full respiratory resolution of which he would ordinarily have been capable.