Colonel Duvall scanned the western horizon for danger, shielding his eyes from the setting sun. The Rangers weren’t fondly regarded in these parts, and he feared an ambush — if not by the Comanche, then by Reardon’s gang itself. But there was no ambush; only the vast expanse of West Texas, the distant Rio Grande gently carving the land in two.
From his vantage high on the slopes of the Black Mesa, Duvall could see his men returning from their scout. He spurred his horse and rode down to meet them; only five men in all, plus their Tonkawa guide. Their pursuit thus far had been uneventful, and for that Duvall thanked the Almighty. Such a small force could scarcely protect its own self in these hostile lands, let alone apprehend the most dangerous gang of outlaws in all of Texas. He hardly thought it a coincidence that Bill Reardon’s most audacious robberies had occurred in the months since half of Duvall’s company had been sent east to help defend the Sabine. The Rangers were spread too thin, and Reardon knew it.
He chased his worries away as his men approached. Lieutenant Ross, who’d led the scouting party, brought his horse abreast of the Colonel’s. “Tracks split at the river bank,” Ross reported. “Looks’s though one of ’em crossed, while the rest rode deeper into Comanche territory.”
Duvall turned his gaze westward once more, tilting his hat back to wipe the sweat from his brow. The terrain that lay on the far side of the Rio Grande looked no different than that which lay behind them; the endless wasteland of patchy scrub brush and flesh-colored hardpan stretched to every horizon. And yet the Colonel knew that it was an illusion. Those lands beyond the river were very different indeed.
“Shall we pursue?” asked the Lieutenant.
There was a long silence as Duvall mulled the situation over. One of ‘em crossed... To Duvall it seemed an act of madness. Of course, robbing the First Bank of El Paso was itself an act of unbridled lunacy. But somehow the simple act of crossing the Rio Grande seemed even more so. Not that it was a particularly dangerous river to traverse — especially now that a drought had caused its banks to recede to such an extent that the river’s name seemed comically inappropriate. No, it was the places that lay beyond the river that turned Duvall’s stomach in knots. Why would one of these bandits ride into that accursed territory? Several possibilities presented themselves, but one theory pushed its way to the fore: Reardon was sending a direct challenge to Duvall: I ride alone into the place that you fear. Follow me if you dare.
The men began to glance at one another; their commanding officer had prolonged his silence far longer than any man had a right to, regardless of his rank. Duvall seemed frozen on his mount, his eyes fixed on the western bank of the Rio Grande. Finally Lieutenant Ross swung his horse around, bringing his back to the men so he could speak with the Colonel privately.
“Sir, if you intend to turn back, we best do it now if we’re to reach Santa Fe by nightfall.”
Duvall’s only response was to grit his teeth, his eyes never once straying from the riverbank. He couldn’t bear to let Reardon escape again. And yet he could hardly cross the Rio Grande and continue the pursuit, either. Five Texas Rangers waited for him to provide a solution to this riddle, but he had none to offer.
“Shall we pursue, Colonel?” Ross repeated.
Duvall finally managed to tear his gaze away from the distant shore and looked at Ross, doing his best to put a fire in his eyes. He worried that the men could see right through it.
“Lieutenant, I would pursue Bill Reardon to the very gates of hell if I deemed it necessary... but I would pursue no further.”
The men exchanged more uncertain glances. Duvall hardly noticed — his eyes were again fixed on the lands to the west. The next time he spoke, it was more to himself than anyone.
“To continue onward would be to entrust our fate to the clemency of godless men.”
Miller, the youngest Ranger in the company, chortled. “We’re turnin’ back? Since when is Henry Duvall afeared of a few Comanches?”
One hard stare from the Colonel was enough to silence the boy — the fire in his eyes was real enough this time. Duvall resettled his hat in its proper place once more, casting a deep shadow across his face.
“I ain’t talkin’ about the Comanche.”
***
Bill Reardon had never been in an argument with a horse before, but there’s a first time for everything.
“Yer crazy,” he told the horse. “The river’s this way, I’m tellin’ you. Just over the next ridge. You’ll see.”
The exhausted gelding glanced back at its rider. As Reardon looked into its eyes, he swore he could read its thoughts. You said that about the last ridge, the horse’s eyes said. And I smell water that way.
Somehow Reardon knew which direction his horse meant. “That’s back where we come from, dammit!”
I know what I smell.
“Look, I’m in charge here. I got the map, and I’m the only one ‘tween the two of us can read it. And I say we go thattaway.” For emphasis he pointed towards a pair of red sandstone buttes in the distance, far beyond the ridge line. The two towering pillars of stone were similarly shaped, each exhibiting a single natural chimney that protruded vertically like a thumb. To Reardon they looked like two enormous gloved hands come up from Hades to drag him, his horse, and half the frontier down with them. He had a sudden urge to reconsider his route, but he kept the thought to himself. He didn’t want to give that equine know-it-all the satisfaction.
It’d been eight days since he’d forded the Rio Grande, rounded the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and ridden headlong into the desert. Reardon’s canteens had run dry the morning of the eighth day, and his throat hadn’t felt a drop of moisture since. He hardly noticed it now, so engrossed in the argument with his belligerent horse that he couldn’t be bothered with trivial matters like his own physical well-being. If he’d been more vigilant, he might’ve realized that he was succumbing to the delirium of sunstroke. But who could concentrate on such things, when even your own nag won’t quit its damned nagging?
Yessir, you’re in charge alright. And look where it’s got us.
“The San Juan runs right beyond that ridge. When I’m proved right, yer gonna look mighty foolish.”
No more than you look now, I expect.
“You shut yer mouth!” The words traveled up his parched throat like shards of broken glass, and it wasn’t until after the brief agony had passed that it occurred to him the horse hadn’t opened its mouth once. Reardon brought his hand to his neck and rubbed. The pain wasn’t enough to jolt him completely back to his senses, but it did clear his mind enough to allow a moment’s reflection on his current state of affairs.
Why had he ever entered into this hellish wasteland in the first place? He couldn’t remember anymore. He’d had a grand plan at some point; he was certain of that. He just hoped he would regain enough of his wits at the end of his journey to recall what that plan was. For now, he had more immediate concerns.
Finding water was foremost on his mind, to be sure. He’d expected to reach the San Juan River by now — at least, that was what the Mexicans had called it, and the Spanish before them. He didn’t know what it was called now. Regardless, Reardon had never known a river to be so elusive in all his life. For the hundredth time he reached into the pocket of his saddlebag and unfolded the map that White Eagle had drawn on the back of one of Reardon’s own “Wanted” posters. It was no wonder he was lost. The Comanche medicine man wasn’t much of a cartographer, and a week’s worth of sweat had smudged his charcoal markings to near-illegibility — though that was less of a problem now that Reardon’s desiccated body had lost all ability to perspire. He studied the crooked smear that was supposed to represent the San Juan, and wondered if it was possible the Mexicans had taken the river along with them all those years ago when they’d fled.
The horse stumbled, struggling to trudge up the gentle slope to the ridge line. That brought into focus Reardon’s second concern: as bad a shape as he was in, his horse was much worse. Where Reardon had the benefit of his canteens to sustain him for a while, his gelding had had only five opportunities to drink in eight days, the most recent being at a muddy creek they’d found the previous afternoon. Now the horse trembled more and more with each step, and Reardon knew if they didn’t find water soon he’d have to put him down. The thought made him squirm in his saddle, and it wasn’t just the prospect of being stranded in the desert that did it.
Reardon had never given much thought to his horses in the past. He’d gone through at least a dozen prior to this one; it was easy for him and his gang to acquire replacements, operating out of Comancheria as they did. Horseflesh was about the only commodity that you could rely on the Comanche having in abundance — provided, of course, you weren’t a stickler for quality. The Comanche typically kept their best breeding horses for themselves, and traded the rest away once they’d gelded them. That was just fine with him; a steady supply of cheap, expendable mounts was just what he and his men required. But now, Reardon began to reflect upon just how exceptionally this particular horse had performed since he’d traded six smoothbore flintlocks for him a few months prior. A grade horse of questionable breeding, he’d once outrun an entire Ranger unit of purebred Morgans and Quarter Horses after a botched stagecoach robbery outside of Las Cruces. He was a loyal and obedient animal with a cast-iron constitution, never once shying away from the gunfire that was so commonplace in Reardon’s line of work. In all, the creature had survived over twenty armed robberies, which distinguished him from his predecessors by a wide margin. Hands down, he was the best horse Reardon ever had. And he’d never even bothered to give him a name.
“Aw, hell…” Reardon croaked, “I didn’t mean to holler at’cha. You carried me this far, for all your backtalk. I won’t soon forget it.”
You won’t hardly remember much of anything once the buzzards pick us clean.
Reardon glanced up. He hadn’t noticed the buzzards till now.
“Don’t you talk like that. I’ve gotten us outta plenty’a tight spots before.”
None more tight than this, I reckon.
“Hey. I said no more’a that.”
They travelled up the hill in silence for a while, the ridge line still a good quarter-mile away. Reardon folded the map and put it back in his saddlebag. To the rear of the saddlebag were four canvas sacks, tied to one another with twine and slung across the horse’s back. Reardon’s arm brushed against one of them, and a muffled clinking sound emerged from the sack. Reardon frowned. He reached back and jostled the canvas pouches one by one, and each produced the same metallic noise. He couldn’t remember what was in those bags, and he really didn’t care. Whatever it was, it was heavy — easily sixty pounds per bag — and he could see that it was adding to the horse’s burden. He removed his Arkansas knife from its sheath; surely it would be best if he cut all four of the pouches loose…
Something in the back of his mind screamed “No!” It came from the part of his brain that didn’t normally quarrel with horses. After a moment’s indecision, Reardon re-sheathed the knife and let the bags be.
Onward they walked across the red desert soil. Those two massive stone hands were still ahead, and beyond them a third butte was just now coming into view as well. There was something odd about the shape of this third butte, but before Reardon could get a good look at it, his horse stumbled again, this time dropping his front-left knee to the ground. Struggling to stand, he shuddered so hard he almost bucked Reardon right out of his saddle. Finally he got all four hooves beneath himself and stood. There was barely a pause before the horse continued onward, not bothering to wait for Reardon’s spurs.
The animal’s breathing was becoming louder and more ragged now. Reardon saw a momentary panic flash across those enormous eyes, but it soon melted away, replaced by a weary resignation.
I ain’t gonna make it, Bill.
Reardon clenched his jaw. With his left hand, he patted the horse on the neck. With his right hand, he quietly pulled his Remington .44-caliber from its holster.
“Let’s just get ourselves over that ridge.”
It’s too far.
“Who’s gonna call me a fool when turns out there’s no river on the other side?”
The revolver cleared the holster. Reardon pulled the hammer off the safety notch with his thumb, half-cocking it.
…I’ll try.
Reardon glanced down at the pistol to inspect the percussion caps. He spun the cylinder with his middle finger until he was satisfied that all six were present, then thumbed the hammer back again, bringing it fully cocked. He’d shot plenty of horses before (men too, he reminded himself), but this was different somehow. This horse had been his only companion for the last eight days, and he didn’t relish the thought of putting a bullet in its brain. Still, Reardon knew it needed to be done — the animal had outlived its usefulness. He figured he could probably walk at a faster clip than the horse at this point, and if the contents of those canvas bags were so important, he could always bury them and come back later. If it turned out there was nothing on the far side of this ridge but more desert, Reardon intended to get the deed over with right then and there, on that hilltop.
“Come on boy. Not much farther now.”
An eternity passed as they climbed the last few hundred yards to the broad ridge. Overhead, the buzzards continued to circle, much to Reardon’s annoyance. His Remington still in hand, he was tempted to take aim at the sky and start shooting. It took him a moment to realize that the vultures weren’t circling him; at least, not exclusively. Most of them drifted around the three buttes that lay ahead, particularly the one in the distance that had stuck him as peculiar before. It wasn’t until he got a good look at it that he finally understood why.
They reached the crest of the ridge, and Reardon pulled the horse to a halt without thinking, a chill running down his spine; the view literally stopped him cold. The broad panorama of the valley was spread out beneath them, but Reardon hardly noticed it. He was more preoccupied with the red pillar of stone in the center of the valley, just as those vultures were. The butte was nearly a thousand feet tall, mostly flat on top, its cliffs nearly vertical on all sides, forming a shape that was vaguely cylindrical like a stove pipe. Its enormous size made those hand-shaped formations alongside it look like a pair of child’s mittens by comparison. But it wasn’t just the scale of the great stone column that was so astonishing. It was the structure perched atop it that made Reardon’s blood run cold.
“Mother of God…”
The castle was unlike anything he’d ever seen. Rising proudly from the top of the butte was its central tower, built in classical Japanese style, eight or nine stories tall — Reardon had trouble making sense of its unfamiliar architecture. Each of the tower’s tiers had a slightly smaller footprint than the one below it, with dozens of glassless windows dotting its wooden walls, every square inch of the exterior painted a brilliant, blinding white — the only exception being the intricate set of rooftops, gables and overhangs, which were all colored a deep red, each curled upwards at its corners like a well-waxed moustache. All in all, the tapered shape of the tower reminded Reardon of an elaborately tiered wedding cake he’d once seen in a baker’s window in Galveston.
There were a handful of smaller structures scattered across the top of the butte, all built in a similar Japanese style. A set of red stone walls prevented Reardon from seeing into the grounds themselves. The ramparts extended all the way to the edge of the cliff face, contiguous with the butte’s existing contours so that you could hardly tell where natural stone ended and defensive walls began. The castle was so well integrated into the topography, and it seemed like such an impossible marvel of construction, that it hardly looked like something that had been built at all. It was as if the fortress had simply sprung up from the butte of its own accord.
A sizable town was spread across the floor of the valley between the castle and the two stone mittens. Reardon could see villagers moving here and there through the dusty streets, most of them giving a wide berth to the massive wooden gates that guarded a tunnel carved into the base of the butte. Even from this distance, he thought he could make out a handful of armored pikemen guarding the gates — the ground-level entrance to the castle, Reardon figured.
He holstered his Remington, careful to place the hammer back onto its safety notch. He hadn’t found the San Juan River, but that was alright. This fortress — Akaishi Castle, it was called — had been his destination all along. White Eagle’s instructions had been to follow the San Juan until it became a deep ravine, then to turn southward towards the castle. That meant the ravine was still miles away — they never would’ve made it if they hadn’t stumbled across Akaishi Castle by blind chance. Reardon didn’t believe in divine providence, but if there was some higher authority dictating the course of these events, he couldn’t imagine what a thieving bandit like him could’ve possibly done to get into its good graces.
He smiled for the first time in days, despite the pain it caused his cracked lips, and slapped his horse on its side in jubilation. “Goddamn, would you look at that! We made it!”
This time the horse didn’t respond. How could it? It was just a horse.
* * *
The rumor reached the guard post an hour before sundown, and it wasn’t long before the sentries at the castle gates had witnessed it with their own eyes: a ghost had arrived in town.
They couldn’t see the ghost at first, their view obscured by the throng of curious onlookers who filled the streets, hoping to catch a glimpse of the supposed phantasm, mocking the very idea to one another while they jostled for a better view. But their nervous excitement dissipated when they spotted the interloper, and the crowd fell into a horrified silence. The villagers backed away, parting like a curtain to reveal a shambling corpse of a man. He led his horse through the streets of Daiza as if enjoying an evening stroll, indifferent to the gawkers melting away from him.
Yoshio gripped his polearm with both hands, bringing it to bear. It was a silly thing to do, the gruesome figure was still so far away. But somehow he couldn’t help himself. He was hardly a superstitious man, and while he enjoyed a good ghost story now and then, he’d never given the tales much credence. But it was difficult to deny what he now saw: a dead man was coming straight towards him.
Many of the other samurai also held their weapons at the ready, and he could hear the clattering of the musketmen behind their embrasures, moving themselves into position. The ghost continued toward the sentries, unfazed by their weapons. He was a pale red color from head to toe: his clothes, his skin, everything but the ragged mange of black hair that whipped around his head, obscuring his face. The fury with which that hair moved, like the thrashing of a trapped and angry animal, stood in contrast to the careful stillness with which the man walked. Yoshio knew it was only the wind, but nevertheless it unsettled him, the way that tangle of hair seemed to have a life of its own.
The figure led his horse right up to the gates and stopped. With one hand he swept the hair out of his eyes, revealing a pallid, sun-baked face. Yoshio relaxed his guard, chiding himself for being so gullible. A dead man walking through the town of Daiza, now that would’ve truly been cause for alarm. But this man was only half-dead.
The stranger was dressed in the clothing of a white man, though he was so caked in dust that it was impossible to judge his ancestry with any degree of certainty. Most of his flesh was cracked and bleeding, especially around his mouth, which was lined with deep red fissures. But it was the stranger’s eyes that Yoshio would always remember: half-lidded and bloodshot, but full of a swaggering intensity. It was as if the man’s body had already died, but his spirit was too stubborn to acknowledge it.
The cadaverous man stood there for a moment in front of the castle guards, swaying like a drunkard, holding the reins of his horse for support. Then he smiled, and Yoshio began to wonder if he was indeed a spectre after all. No living creature could possibly smile in that condition.
“Konnichi wa, fellas,” the stranger wheezed. He looked straight up at the impressive cliff face before him, and the even-more-impressive castle that sat atop it. He took a moment to admire its enormity before glancing back down at the guards again, their various weapons still trained upon him. His delirious smile grew broader. “I’d like to speak to the man of the house, please.”