The Adventures of Ryder Montaigne
By: Stephen M. Tomic
Tags: Short Story, Short Fiction, Fiction, Survival, Western

A twig snaps somewhere in the forest. Ryder stirs from a light slumber. His right hand reaches instinctively for the revolver in his holster. Probably just a deer, he thinks and settles back into place. He’s leaning against a tree and staring at the fire. It’s only been burning for a little while. Some of the loose wood he found nearby is still green and hisses and pops every few minutes.

It’s early spring. Frost still clings to the land in places. Distant mountains wear white crowns of winter, a stark reminder of the journey yet to come. He’s already been on this trail for several days, hoping to avoid any run-ins with the law or other less savory characters. His horse, a purloined gray mare he named Telulah, whinnies for attention. Her saddlebags are weighed down with over a hundred pounds of gold nuggets.

“All right, all right, I’m coming,” he says, rising and raising his hands to warm them above the fire, then bending down to add a few more sticks.

Telulah is tied to a nearby tree. Ryder runs his hand along her neck, and speaks softly the few words of Spanish he knows. He found her grazing in a field near the hacienda belonging to Juan Marcos, who has surely put out a reward for her safe return. But that reward wouldn’t be enough to pay for the bounty out on his head.

There are times when Ryder is certain he is being followed. Other times, he feels sure he is in the clear. With a heave, he pulls the saddlebags off Telulah’s haunches. They land on the grassy ground with a thud.

“Hear that, girl?” Ryder pats her and points at the small fortune. “Once we make it beyond the border, we’ll be…” His voice trails off when he sees the mare’s tail whip to and fro. He unclasps the holster and places his palm on the ivory butt of the revolver.

It’s pitch black beyond the halo of orange and yellow emanating from the fire.

He doesn’t speak, knowing it will give away his position. Experience has taught him how to swallow fear. He remembers the lessons learned from his teenage years as a trapper, long before he became a criminal. Wait and listen.

Sure enough, after a few minutes, Ryder hears a crunch underfoot. He recedes deeper into the darkness to spy upon his own campsite. A thin string of smoke snakes up into the cloudy night skies. There are two rabbits waiting to be skinned in a leather satchel hanging from a branch. His knife rests next to the place where he was sitting. He draws the revolver, ready to pounce upon the intruder.

There’s the unmistakable thwack of a branch hitting someone square in the face. A female voice cries out in pain, then stumbles through the bushes before spilling out onto the ground beside the fire like a torn sack of grain.

It takes her a moment to collect herself and take in her surroundings.

“Is someone there? Please?” She shifts to her knees in a display of supplication. Her voice is frail and desperate.

Ryder continues to observe. This could be a trap, he reasons. This woman looks like she fell off a stagecoach, though. Her brunette hair resembles a frazzled nest. Her light blue dress is splotched with dirt and torn around the shoulders and knees. He sees that she is shoeless as well, which is good as hopeless when it comes to surviving in this terrain.

“What’s a lady like you doing way out here?” Ryder calls from the shadows.

She spins around, eyes huge, unsure which direction to look.

“We were ambushed,” she says, pausing. “I don’t think anyone else survived.”

Ryder leads with the revolver, stepping into the halo of light. “State your name and business, ma’am.”

She’s too exhausted to raise her hands above her head. “My name is Ophelia but everyone calls me Pearl. I’m a scientist. We were on our way…”

Ryder cocks the gun. “What in tarnation is a scientist?” He grew up on stories of witchcraft and has his own stories to tell of mysterious women he’d met down in the bayou. Experience has taught him to be careful and trust no one.

“I study biology…life!” she blurts. “Except all I’ve seen since I came to this land is death.”

Her accent is familiar, so Ryder switches to the language his grandmother Lucretia spoke.

“This land was built upon the dead,” he says, releasing the hammer of the gun and lowering it to his side. So much for a relaxing evening by the campfire.

Pearl nods and lies onto her back. Her chest heaves beneath the bodice. Ryder can see that she’s been running, but from who? Ryder’s stomach grumbles. In spite of everything, he thinks of the two rabbits in his satchel. Though he is wary of adding a travel companion, Lucretia would rise up out of her grave if he didn’t do anything to help someone in need. He knows hunger and what it can do to the mind.

“Come sit by the fire,” he tells her, removing the dangling satchel from the branch.

Pearl shifts forward and silently watches Ryder skin and gut the rabbits in quick order. He fashions skewers out of sticks and slides the meat on them, then hands her one. It’s a meager offering but it’s the best he can do for now. They eat, but neither is in the mood for small talk. Ryder keeps an eye on Talulah, knowing she’s grazing next to two big bags of gold. His gold.

“It’s not safe here,” Pearl says. “We should go.”

“This is the safest place to be right now. You’re free to do what you want, but I’ll be gone by first light.”

“Are you heading for the coast?”

Ryder shakes his head. He points up with his knife at the brightest star in the sky. “North.”

“Home?”

“Hideout.”

The light from the fire gives Pearl a chiaroscuro effect, her comely figure obscured and illuminated by light and shadow. Her eyes are pure hellfire. Birds rustle, a frog croaks.

“Why?” she asks, barely above a whisper.

“I made the mistake of double-crossing the greatest gunslinger I’ve ever known.”

“And now he wants you dead.”

“If he ever catches me.” Ryder smiles and taps the rim of his hat. “Until then…”

Belly full, and beat after a day of hard riding, he can barely keep his eyes open.

Pearl, on the other hand, finds a wellspring of words and begins to unspool an intricate journey that began with the crossing of an ocean.

Ryder quickly slips beneath the waves of sleep. Pearl’s unfamiliar vocabulary infiltrates his ensuing dreams. Strange words like “experiment” and “mutation” give him an uneasy feeling.

He awakes in a cold sweat in the violet mist before dawn. The remains of the campfire still smolder, surrounded by a ring of ash. Pearl is curled up on the ground and snoring. Ryder ventures out into the brush to empty his bowels. A woodpecker knocks.

“Monsieur!” Ryder made sure not to tell her his name. You could never be too cautious in his line of work. “Where are you? S’il vous plaît!”

He’s about to wipe with some gathered leaves when Pearl utters an ear-piercing shriek. Ryder hoists up his pants and rushes back to the campsite, gun drawn. At first, Pearl is nowhere to be found. Then, he spots her over by Telulah in a pushing match with a bedraggled looking man dressed like a desperado.

“What the hell is this?” Ryder fires a round into the air but they continue to struggle.

Something seems off about the desperado. The only sound he makes is an unearthly groan as if he’s just fallen off a horse and can’t breathe. The two of them trip and fall over. Pearl is pinned and it looks like the desperado is trying to bite her. Ryder runs over to them.

“Knock it off!” he shouts, gripping the man by shoulders and yanking as hard as he can. He hits the ground and Ryder gets a good clean look at what used to be the man’s face. It’s bloody and mangled and looks like it got kicked by a mule. The flesh is a grotesque hue of black and purple.

Ryder points the revolver at the desperado’s chest. He’s a thief, not a murderer. But this…

“Mon dieu. What the hell is this?”

“It’s what I was telling you about,” Pearl says, panting. “They’ve come.”

Ryder aims for the head and pulls the trigger. The shot echoes for miles. There’s a moment of silence before the forest reanimates.

“It’s time to go,” he says, not one for prayers or deep reflection.

Pearl, however, is bent over the corpse, examining it. “I knew this man,” she says. “I saw him die.”

Ryder spits. “Well, now he’s dead again.” He extends a hand to help her up. “And we will be too if we don’t get moving.”

“How can I help?”

Before he can tell her to go roll up the blankets, three more men galumph through the brush. Ryder wastes no time putting bullets in them. Except they keep coming.

“We’re surrounded!” Pearl cries as more and more of the undead circle in.

Ryder races over to Talulah and undoes the rope tying her to the tree. He gets his foot in the stirrup and pulls himself up. The saddlebags still sit on the ground. Pearl sees them for the first time. All that gold…

“There’s no time,” Ryder says. “Give me your — ”

Hands grasp Pearl from behind. She tries to break free but her screams are muffled. Ryder doesn’t want to leave her but what other choice does he have? He can only watch in speechless horror as they begin to tear her limb from limb.

Talulah rears up, majestic, and Ryder issues a command.

“Run, girl! Run.” She bolts through a clearing, heading towards the rising sun. Ryder remembers the countless other occasions he’s managed to slip away. This time, it takes everything in his power to not look back.