Lodestar (A Story in Three Parts)

markwildyr.com, Post #83

Courtesy of Brillo

Time for the second installment of our story. In case you are confused, Lodai’s name mean Lodestar in English. And lodestar is another name for the North Star. Again, this installment is longer than usual for a blog, but I hope you’ll stick with it.

So here we go on the morning after Jim Tobar and his two companions capture an injured Indian following the assault of White Hair’s band by the militia.

*****

LODESTAR

(Part Two)

In the morning, the Indian’s calm eyes studied me carefully as I hand-fed him breakfast and a cup of water. After that, we resumed our trek with the prisoner’s ankles tied by a length of rope below his pinto’s belly.

We were headed for some scalawag trader’s camp along the trail, but I had not realized we were so close. Mid-afternoon we approached the post situated in a grove of cottonwoods on a small, fast stream. The paint-starved main building—which leaned drunkenly windward—was flanked by a smaller outhouse and a sagging necessary situated downwind. Our party caused a minor commotion. The trader, a one-eyed, greasy man named Tate, greeted my companions by name, as did the customer at the bar, a jadish character who went by the handle of Hoover.

“Damnation, Auslander,” Trader Tate said, squinting at our captive. “Whut ya doin’ with White Hair’s son?”

“Who?” Hap asked.

“That Injun ya got tussled up. He’s White Hair’s kid. Name’s Lodai.”

“Be damned,” Nettles said. “We come across him on the trail. Figger he pulled it when the troopers hit.”

“Heard ‘bout that. Apt to bring more trouble than profit. Old White Hair was all right.” Tate turned to the captive. “Yer old man make it out, Lodai?”

The Indian made a noise low in his throat. “No.”

Hap turned on him abruptly. “You talk English?”

Tate laughed. “An old papist priest went to live with them years back. Taught the young’uns to talk it. Whut’cha doing with him, anyhow?”

“Commanding officer a that militia commissioned us to kill any stragglers we come across.”

“So how come he ain’t dead?” Hoover asked from the end of the bar.

Auslander didn’t answer the question directly. “You got women close by?”

From the look on the man's face, Hoover caught on immediately. “No closer’n White Hair’s camp, and them won’t do nobody no good.”

Hap turned to Tate. “You got objections?”

“Not ‘less you gonna be hoggish,” the trader said, proving himself a false friend to the dead White Hair.

Auslander laughed, a sound not pleasant to the ear. “Plenty for everbody. Right now, I wanna wet down the idea.”

“Lock him in the outbuilding.” Tate suggested.

Seeking escape, I headed for the necessary, alert for the rattlesnakes Tate had cautioned about. I encountered no cold-blooded reptiles, but if I had, they would have been preferable to the four drinking inside the trading post. I exited the foul one-hole shack as Auslander and Nettles started for the trading post after locking Lodai in the outhouse. When they were safely inside, I eased over to the building, lifted the wooden latch, and slipped inside.

“You all right?” I asked, pulling a hog-tied Lodai to his feet.

“You will help?” His deep voice sent gooseflesh down my back.

“If I can figure a way without getting myself in trouble.”

“You can come with me,” he said, a frown of worry creasing his brow. “My hands are dead, and I will need them to work when the time comes.”

It took overlong to cut the cruel knot without slicing into his flesh. Lodai almost cried aloud as the blood rushed back into his hands.

“I will be back. I want to see what they’re up to,” I whispered, beginning to realize the consequences of my actions.

All conversation died abruptly when I entered the post. The room was unnaturally quiet; evil emanated like a green miasma from the table where the four men huddled. In that instant I determined my better chance lay with the Indian.

Hap boomed in an overly loud voice. “Thought you fell in.” The other three laughed. The spell was broken, and they resumed talking.

I interrupted, hoping my voice sounded normal. “I’m gonna water the horses. Can I use your stock tank, Mr. Tate?”

“That what it’s for.”

“Want me to water yours, too, Mr. Hoover?”

“Right kind a you, son.”

The hot animals eagerly dipped thirsty muzzles into the big tank. After transferring Lodai’s rifle and bow to his pony, along with some supplies from our packs, I hid our two mounts behind the outbuilding, leaving the others to over-fill their stomachs. It was cruel, but better than hamstringing them.

Lodai stood ready to fight when I slipped through the door. “I’ve got horses and weapons and food to sustain us for a while.”

“Good,” he grunted, starting for the door. I stayed him with a hand on his arm; his firm, silken flesh set my fingers to trembling.

“I need your promise, Lodai.”

He looked me level in the eye. “You have my promise.”

“N-no,” I stuttered, thrilled by the reaffirmation. “I want your promise not to kill them.”

He frowned. Clearly, this was not his wish. Then his expression eased. “This promise I give. We will run away like children.” He started for the door. “Unless they catch us. Then I will kill.”

I dropped the latch on the door, hoping it would be some time before the men in the post discovered we were gone. Lodai eyed the three horses around the water tank.

“Don’t worry, they’re bloated,” I said, tugging him around the corner of the outbuilding. We mounted and headed back down the same trail we had traveled earlier in the day, keeping the outbuilding between the trading post and ourselves. Once over the rise, Lodai slowed his pony to a walk.

“Don’t wind them.”

“Lodai,” I spoke my unease openly, “I’m lost if you betray me.”

“I will not betray you,” he answered. “Give me some of that pack in case we have to run for it.”

Night fell with no sign of pursuers, but Lodai traveled deep into the darkness. We sheltered for a short while in a small wash but were on the move again by dawn. We stayed horseback all day. When the light began to fail, Lodai drew Red Hand, his pony, around and searched the distance behind us.

“They come,” he said, resuming a leisurely pace. “They are far behind. They will keep coming tonight, but not gain much ground. Tomorrow is the time to hurry.”

We traveled the night through. Under a bright hunting moon, Lodai halted in the middle of a broad, shallow stream and instructed me to dismount. Taking only my rifle and blankets, I waded to the northwest, trying to reassure myself he was traveling south—with my Nellie’s reins in his hand—to lay a false trail, not to abandon me on this broad, lonesome prairie. The icy water soon bent my fears into concern for my numbed feet, but I resisted the temptation to walk the bank. Draping the blankets around me helped until I fell headlong into the water.

Slogging along against the current made the journey seem longer, but sometime in mid-morning, I found the pile of big boulders Lodai had described and designated as our meeting place. Climbing into the midst of the stones, I dozed on the sun-drenched rocks like a cold-blooded creature, moving with the sun until I was dry, then seeking the cool shade. Only then did I begin to despair. Had I played the fool by handing over my mare to Lodai?

*****

Has Jim Tobar been abandoned by, Lodai? Tricked into handing over his pony and left to fend for himself afoot on the prairie? The next installment will tell all.

Amazon permits you to read a short passage of my novels, Cut Hand and Johnny Two-Guns. I also believe the STARbooks-published River Otter, Echoes of the Flute, and Medicine Hair are still up. I sure would like to get the final book in the Cut Hand Series, Wastelakapi… Beloved, published, but it’ll take some help from readers to get Dreamspinner interested.

My contact information is provided below in case anyone wants to drop me a line:

Website and blog: markwildyr.com

Email: markwildyr@aol.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.wildyr

Twitter: @markwildyr

The following are buy links for CUT HAND:

DSP Publications: https://www.dsppublications.com/books/cut-hand-by-mark-wildyr-420-b

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Cut-Hand-Mark-Wildyr-ebook/dp/B073D86RWV

iBooks: https://itunes.apple.com/book/cut-hand/id1256084273

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/cut-hand-2

And now my mantra: Keep on reading. Keep on writing. You have something to say, so say it!

Until next time.

Mark

New posts at 6:00 a.m. on the first and third Thursdays of each month.

Lodestar (A Story in Three Parts)

markwildyr.com, Post #82

  

Courtesy of Brillo

Let’s go for a short story this time. Not a short, short story, but one that will take us three installments to finish. I first wrote Lodestar years ago and sold it to the editor of an anthology. I came across it again and decided I’d like to shorten it and see if it flies today. So here’s the first part of the story It’s far longer than usual for a blog, but I hope you’ll stick with it.

*****

LODESTAR

( Part One)

A penetrating chill pulled me from my sleep as the distant rumble of thunder and ghostly flashes broke the half-light of dawn. I abandoned the bedroll to find my two companions scanning the Little Humps, a line of low hills to the west.

“Rain?” I asked, scratching my bum where a rock had rendered it sore.

“Ain’t thunder,” Hap Auslander replied. “Somebody gittin’ the crap stomped outa ‘em.”

“Military guns. Big ones,” Henry Nettles added. “They’s a Injun town over yonder.”

Hap tied his bedroll on Speckles, the Appaloosa he rode. “Best be moving. Keep a sharp eye out. Stragglers is apt to be tetchy.”

We took the trail in single file with me bringing up the rear. Half a day on the trail passed before Nettles hauled up and pointed west.

“By, God, it’s the troopers that done it!” Hap shouted as horsemen appeared on the horizon. We waited silently while the blue column approached. As the riders passed, a man broke ranks and rode over to us. Two others fell in behind him. The fella in front, a runty man with gold all over his hat and on his shoulders pulled up and gave us the once over.

“Major Elijah Raintree, commander of the Southfork Militia at your service. Who might you be?”

“Hap Auslander of St. Jo. This here’s Henry Nettles outa Independence. The young’un’s Jim Tobar, a eastern man. We be bound for Ft. Johnson. You fellers wallop ‘em good?”

“Old White Hair’s outfit won’t give no more problems.”

“White Hair?” Nettles asked in surprise. “White Hair was under paint?”

The major’s eyes went flat. “They’re all under paint, far’s we’re concerned.”

The major favored us with a personal account of his heroic attack on the red heathens while his column of two hundred or so blue-clad soldiers and four wheel-mounted guns passed, leaving a broad trail on the prairie flats. His parting words sent a chill through my heart and left me wondering what this popinjay did for a living when he wasn’t murdering human beings.

“Should you encounter any survivors, you have my authority to dispatch them forthwith. I want no living heathens left between the Bent Fork and Elk River.”

After the major and his aides were out of earshot, Nettles turned to us. “Hell, White Hair wasn’t no war chief. That’s why them bluebellies had such a easy time.”

“A Injun’s a Injun, Nettles. Wouldn’t go ‘round takin’ the red man’s side, I was you,” Auslander cautioned. “Let’s be on our way.”

As we crossed the trampled earth marking the column’s passing, Henry Nettles’s head wobbled on his thin, wrinkled neck. Auslander, a thick, squat man of grizzled hair and beard, gave me the nasty eye, making me wonder once again why I was in the company of these men. I had never contemplated the frontier until events conspired to place me here.

Too young to fight in the War Between the States, I watched helplessly as that bloody conflict destroyed my family. It killed my brother outright and maimed my father into a grave two long years coming. My Aunt Bella, a well-settled widow, took me in when the fever carried off Ma’am. Perversely, life grew easier, but Providence has a fine set of scales and knows how to balance them.

I would likely have married Mistress Penelope Greenstem, to my eternal regret, had not her brother John pursued me into the hayloft where we learned that males can pleasure one another without benefit of the opposite gender. In time, we were discovered, and I was loudly proclaimed a pederast—one of Satan’s foulest demons. Aunt Bella hastily sent me on my way with a small packet of coins, the law and the rector of the Puritan Church dusting my heels. That was near onto a twelve-month past.

The fabled Santa Fe Trail beckoned until a chance encounter with skinny-shanked, pot-bellied Henry Nettles inclined me toward accompanying him to Ft. Johnson where opportunities abounded for industrious young men. Twice my twenty years, Nettles was not totally disagreeable, although his manners and morals required a smidgen of understanding. But who was I to complain about morals? It is not clear why he craved my company since my obvious assets were limited to a few silver and copper discs, an excellent repeating rifle, and Nellie, my good mare.

A week out of Independence, Hap Auslander, an old associate of Nettles’s joined us on the trail. I neither liked nor trusted the grum ruffian. To make matters worse, Nettles coarsened under Auslander’s influence. The deeper we penetrated the plains, the more uneasy I became, especially when the galoot cast an ugly, speculating glance my way, leaving me to wonder if I trailed the stench of sodomy in my wake.

Two hours down the trail Nettles hauled his horse to a stop. The hair on my neck bristled. Even to my tenderfoot eyes, the pony grazing on the trail ahead was an Indian horse. Small, spotted, and haltered with buffalo hide, it had a bright blanket tied across its back and a vivid red hand painted on one rump. Rifle in hand, Nettles reined to the right as Auslander continued up the trail, leaving the left to me. My mouth went dry as we crept through belly-high grass. My heart tumbled into my bowels when Nellie broke the pinto’s trail. Something lay on the ground. I dismounted and crept forward. An Indian lay face down, his head obscured by long, black hair. I judged him to be tall and slender, yet well-built. Suddenly, someone shoved me roughly aside. I struggled to bring my rifle to bear.

“Hold it!” Hap snarled, kneeling beside the body. “I ain’t no red devil.”

“Damn, Hap!” I gasped, indulging in a rare vulgarity. “Give a body some warning.”

“A man gives warning in this country, he’s apt to meet his maker.” He turned the body over, drawing a gasp from both of us. “This heathen’s still breathin’.”

The Indian was young and comely. I would have thought him a beautiful woman, but his manhood was scarcely concealed by a loincloth. The only other articles of clothing were short, deerskin moccasins. A bloody bruise marred the right side of his broad forehead.

“Hellfire and damnation!” Nettles exclaimed as he joined us. “He alive?”

“Yep,” Auslander replied, his piggish eyes sweeping the inert form. My examination was little better. I was seized by the same emotion as when John first exposed himself to me.

“Lordy! He’s purty as a woman!” Nettles chortled.

Auslander’s stubby fingers prodded the youth’s breast. One finger rested on a dark brown aureole. “Help me get him on that pinto.”

“Ain’t ya gonna scalp him?” Nettles asked as they bound the unconscious Indian and slung him belly down on his pony. Auslander made no reply.

We traveled perhaps another hour before a grove of trees in the distance signaled water. Hap led the pinto to a shallow pool and shoved the Indian over the side. He hit the water on his back and sat up without uttering a sound.

“Playin’ possum, you miserable whoreson! I oughta take your scalp right now!”

The bronzed youth sitting in a foot of water held his tongue.

“He don’t talk American, Hap,” Nettles opined.

Auslander waded into the water and grabbed a handful of the Indian’s hair, placing his knife to the scalp. “Ya unnerstand this?”

The young man sat absolutely motionless. Overcoming his blood lust, Hap hauled his prisoner onto the bank. The bound Indian fell against a tree, opening the bruised cut on his forehead. I rushed forward and pulled him upright, feeling the strength in the muscles beneath my hands as I worked to staunch the flow of blood.

“How come we ain’t killing him?” The longer Henry Nettles was around Hap Auslander, the more offensive he became. Only a few hours back, he was concerned by the attack on White Hair’s camp. Now he seemed anxious to kill one of the chief’s people.

“I aim to take his crown, Henry. And I’m gonna make a traveling bag outa that pretty hide. But I got plans for him first. Like you said, he’s looks womanly.”

“That I did,” Nettles said. “A pretty woman was what I said. We gonna leap him, Hap?”

“I reckon that’s the idea in my head. But I ain’t in no hurry.”

I looked down at my patient. My hand still held a tattered rag against his forehead. My leg touched his shoulder. “I gotta get that head wound to stop bleeding.”

“That you do. I don’t want him bleeding all over me.”

Nettles stepped in before things deteriorated further, declaring he wasn’t having a cold cap tonight, Indians or no Indians. He wanted hot food even if it was the death of him. The fire he laid cooked victuals but provided scant protection from the elements.

I spread my blankets on the far side of a little rise in the glen to put distance between me and a probable rape. Wrapped in my blankets, I peered over the hillock and recoiled. Auslander had laid the Indian directly on the other side; I stared into his alert black eyes from a distance of less than two feet. Unsettled, I lay back on my blankets. I don’t know how long I slept before a persistent hiss woke me. Cautiously, I lifted my head. A stray shaft of moonlight reflected in the Indian’s eyes.

“Help me, and I will lie with you,” he whispered

My mouth was open in shock when Auslander’s voice called out. “Whut’s goin’ on?” The Indian immediately uttered something in his own tongue.

“He’s a prayin’,” Nettles ventured.

Auslander moved on his prisoner. There was the sound of a struggle, harsh blows on naked flesh. The Indian began to chant.

“Miserable bastard,” Hap cursed. “What’s he doing that for?”

Nettles cackled. “That’s his death song, Hap. He’s telling you you’ll have ta kill him ‘fore you can fuck him.”

The Indian’s chant faltered as Auslander struck him repeatedly. Without thinking, I rose and rushed through the darkness, butting into the bully with a loud grunt. Nettles intervened before the enraged man assaulted me.

“Damnation, Hap. The kid was coming to help and tripped. Didn’t mean no harm. Let’s get some sleep. You can cover the Injun later. Better in the daylight anyways.”

The danger past for the moment, I covered our prisoner’s nearly naked body with one of my own blankets and lay back on my bedding. The Indian had spoken in English! He understood what was in store for him. That made him dangerous. I should have told my companions but did not. This was different from John and me. This was evil! Nonetheless, the handsome heathen’s words rattled around in my head. Help me, and I will lie with you.

*****

What happens when a young man’s sense of decency and fair play collides with his carnal desires? And how did the young prisoner know what bait to cast? Let’s see what happens next time.

Amazon permits you to read a short passage of my novels, Cut Hand and Johnny Two-Guns. I also believe the STARbooks-published River Otter, Echoes of the Flute, and Medicine Hair are still up. I sure would like to get the final book in the Cut Hand Series, Wastelakapi… Beloved, published, but it’ll take some help from readers to get Dreamspinner interested.

My contact information is provided below in case anyone wants to drop me a line:

Website and blog: markwildyr.com

Email: markwildyr@aol.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.wildyr

Twitter: @markwildyr

The following are buy links for CUT HAND:

DSP Publications: https://www.dsppublications.com/books/cut-hand-by-mark-wildyr-420-b

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Cut-Hand-Mark-Wildyr-ebook/dp/B073D86RWV

iBooks: https://itunes.apple.com/book/cut-hand/id1256084273

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/cut-hand-2

And now my mantra: Keep on reading. Keep on writing. You have something to say, so say it!

Until next time.

Mark

New posts at 6:00 a.m. on the first and third Thursdays of each month.

THE PRESCIENT

For this post, I excerpted the beginning of a short story that was originally published in a Bold Strokes anthology called Erotica/Exotica, Tales of Sex, Magic, and the Supernatural, edited by Richard Labonte. If you like the story, perhaps I will give you some more of it. But you have to let me know your wishes.

*****

THE PRESCIENT

     From a park bench cloaked in the deep shadow of night, I observed the progress of the quasi-organized brawl these people called baseball, a neighborhood game of frequent bawdy disputes, usually resolved just short of mayhem. Despite the throbbing pain occasioned by bright, glaring lights mounted atop poles, only marginally eased by heavily smoked glasses, the raucous vigor and raw emotions of the participants were ambrosia, feeding my vortex, easing the gnawing of a voracious hunger and restoring my pranic energy sufficiently to dull the edge of my depression, a condition I often suffer.

     Yet, even the massed force of those straining, sweating, cursing young men on the field did not sate my appetite—not completely. For that, I required an intimate confrontation with the tall, wiry young man with the broad Magyar brow generations of New World blood had not significantly altered. This youth, whose towering aura occasionally flickered in my direction, surpassed the collective beauty of all who cavorted on the field.

     My name is Tancready, although that is not the appellation bestowed at my birth in 1047 Anno Domini. While not my first alias, Tancready is the one that has served for the last two hundred years. I am an Eternal, or if you prefer, a Vampire; not the idiotic caricature of fiction or the loathsome, bloody fiend of legend who stalks the unwary with deadly intent, but one of a miniscule elite who escape the usual constraints of humanity. I exercise an eccentric lifestyle and develop unorthodox relationships, such as that I seek from the most uncommonly beautiful human I have encountered since the Italian Renaissance, the youth I patiently stalk.

     Over virtually a millennium, I have endured many lifetimes, embracing death often over the centuries, but true to my ilk, I endlessly return from the earth to assume another name, another persona. I endured Vlad the Impaler’s tortured reign. I died at Hastings with the Conqueror’s army and attended Henry’s knights as they slew Thomas à Becket at Canterbury, fought with the Mongols on the Steppes when Temujin became Genghis Khan. I battled the Emperor in Russia and again at Waterloo. I died at the hands of German Nazis at Stalingrad. I have seen … lived … momentous history!

     The game on the sports grounds ended in a pungent burst of sweaty enthusiasm as redolent as a potent Russian brew. The field cleared and the terrible lights slowly died, allowing my photosensitive eyesight to regain its sharpness. Body vibrating, nimbus soaring, the boy approached on the paved walkway, his corded arm riding the shoulders of a young lady. The easy, comfortable companionship between the two elicited an instant burst of energy. His rich luminescence, yellow with affection and friendship for the creature under his arm, suddenly flashed red as he crossed the path in front of my sheltered bench. Tentacles reached toward me uncertainly. I quickly reined in my raging jealousy and sent a more benign form of kinetic energy toward him, seeking to block his unconscious curiosity. I overdid it, as was frequently the case; he visibly staggered, but recovered and continued across the park, his aura drawn close against his body. His flesh, I knew, would be puckered in a case of ‘heebie-jeebies,’ in today’s pedestrian vernacular.

    The boy was aware of me now, too much so at this point, although he had no real understanding of that fact. Nonetheless, I would need to proceed carefully. His name was Boris Balint, a good Hungarian patronymic miraculously not yet Anglicized into Valentine. Born in the northern New Mexico mountains twenty years past, he now attended classes at the university in Albuquerque. His passions were chess and photography. All this and more, I knew from clandestine midnight visits to the university records room. Chess, I decided, would be my gateway into his life.

     As my quarry passed from sight, my energy level dropped precipitously. Edginess and irritability, frequent companions, returned until I focused on a distant figure on the field. My need honed to a keen edge, I moved toward the sleek young Hispanic putting away the game equipment. Anticipating the touch of his smooth, dark flesh, I literally salivated. He was at that brief age when adolescent mestizos were as pretty as girls, yet exuded the budding machismo of their elders. Delicious!

     Although he had not yet seen me, the youth demonstrated a sharp alertness as he slowly turned from the equipment shed to nervously scan the darkened pathway. I flooded his slender form in tentacles of friendship yellow and purple desire, overpowering the fearful red of his suspicion. His resolve faltered, and enveloped in my powerful sexuality, the boy obediently trailed me into the deep shadows behind the equipment shed. Without physically touching him, I pulled him to a halt before me. He swallowed hard.

     “What is your name, my beautiful young friend?”

     “Car…Carlos.”

     “Ah, Carlos. You bear a noble name.”

     He flinched at my hand on his cheek; no sign of a beard. Beautiful. The boy stood hypnotized while I stripped him naked in the cool, high-desert air. My sensitive fingers traced the broad, bony shoulders, the curve of the chest. His heart raced at my touch. I inhaled the push of air from his diaphragm as I slid down the gently bowed belly. He awakened at my touch. Well-endowed for one so young and slight, the boy responded readily.

     Young Carlos moaned, torn between fright and desire. I wrapped my physical arms around his buttocks and pulled him to me, allowing the salt of recent sweat, the aroma of strenuous exercise and sexual arousal to tease my nostrils pleasantly. His hands closed on my head; his hips twitched. He was lost, and I was greedy for his fresh young semen.

     The youth’s thin frame jerked in the throes of an orgasm he would fruitlessly strive to match for the remainder of his days. Shuddering, this fledgling Carlos, this namesake of powerful kings and emperors, would have fallen had I not eased his weight to the ground. I contemplated arousing him again, but he was drained beyond quick recovery. Satisfied for the moment, I disappeared into the night, leaving the boy naked and spent. I smiled to myself. The boy’s seed, while sweet, had yet to reach the peak of potency. The lad was an immature eighteen; in a year or two, his sperm would ripen.

*****

Well, well, well. Will Tancready find a way to connect with young Boris Balint? Has the hungry Eternal realized at this point his target is a Prescient, one who has an awareness of and affinity for vampires? Sometimes they are companions and willing victims, but sometimes they are dreaded hunters of the Eternals. Let me know if you want to hear more of this story by contacting me at markwildyr@aol.com.

Thanks for being a reader.

New blogs posted at 6:00 a.m. on the first of each month.