Free The Trailsman #388 by Jon Sharpe Page B

lived in an abandoned shack at the edge of the pueblo, and no one knew how he supported himself but he always had money—white man’s gold and silver. He had no friends, spoke to no one, and was suspected in the brutal murders of several locals—all strangled to death and found with their broken necks so swollen their chins seemed to have disappeared. But Mankiller was never charged because no man had the courage to try to arrest him.
    He crossed the huge plaza slowly, head turning neither left nor right. As he walked he rhythmically squeezed two solid, India rubber balls to keep his hands and wrists strong. At the far side of the plaza he stopped in front of a mud-brick dwelling, still squeezing the balls.
    Inside, an old Mexican woman named Maria Santos was stirring a pot of posole. She was known as a
curandero
who mixed herbal potions and gathered medicinal plants in the surrounding valley. It was also believed that she was a soothsayer who possessed the “third eye” that allowed her to see the future.
    She had just begun to taste the stew when a shadow fell over the entire doorway, blocking out the sun. Instantly her blood seemed to stop and flow backward in her veins.
    â€œYou,” she said without turning around. She made the sign of the cross.
    Mankiller bent forward to clear the doorway and took one step inside. The voice that spoke to the old woman was guttural and labored, as if badly rusted from lack of use.
    â€œThrow the bones,
vieja
.”
    Trembling in every limb, still refusing to look at the visitor, Maria rose from her kneeling position in front of the baked-clay hearth. She reached toward a shelf made of crossed sticks and picked up a wooden box. Inside the box were, among other magical items, a dozen small animal bones, brightly painted in red, black and yellow: the “pointing bones” said to divine future events.
    Sweat poured profusely from her face, and her hands trembled so violently that she almost dropped the box. She moved to the center of the rammed earth floor and outlined a circle with evenly spaced animal claws and teeth taken from the box. When she was finished she drew out a silver necklace, from which hung a single charm in the image of a bluebird. This she draped around her neck.
    Steadfastly avoiding Mankiller’s steady, unblinking gaze, she dipped a shallow wooden bowl into a pail of water and added a pinch of salt, setting it near the circle of claws and teeth.
    Her voice echoed deep and resonant in the silent room.
    â€œWater and salt! Water and salt! Make the bones speak true.”
    Her scrawny old arm flipped the box upside down and spilled the bones into the circle, scattering them. Mankiller waited, steady and silent as a rock monolith, for a full five minutes as she studied them intently.
    â€œSoon,” she finally told him, “you will be summoned to the south country. To
la
frontera
.”
    â€œTo kill?” said the rusted voice.
    â€œYes, to kill. You will go up against a worthy opponent—a man with eyes the clear blue of a mountain lake. It will be the hardest fight of your life.”
    â€œI will kill him?”
    Again she studied the bones intently. “The bones will not tell me.”
    Mankiller took another step into the room. “Throw them again. Make them tell you, or I will kill you.”
    Soaked in perspiration by now, so frightened that her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, Maria gathered up the bones and scattered them again. Again she studied them closely.
    â€œIt will be the hardest fight of your life,” she finally repeated. “He is a strong man, a cunning man. Terror was his midwife, vengeance his first cry. Killing spawned this man.
    â€œYou must attack under a full moon, in the darkest part of the night, at a place where two worlds meet. A lone coyote will howl, and that is when you must strike.”
    Mankiller took his third step into the room and raised those monstrous hands,