Captain Mark Halloway's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

The creature moved fast. Halloway swung the old saber, and the rusted blade bit into its arm. No blood came. The thing hissed and drove its fingers into his side. Pain tore through him. Halloway staggered back against the cave wall. His hand pressed the wound. It came away hot and red. Tim shouted his name from the floor. The creature did not finish him. It stood over him and smiled with red teeth. When it spoke, its voice was dry, like wind over stone. "Montgomery Hemsworth," it said. "That was my name, once. Fifty winters I have eaten alone." It looked at Tim, then at Halloway. "I am tired, Captain. I would give this to another and die." Halloway held his side and said nothing. The thing crouched close. "Eat the boy. His flesh. His blood. The curse passes to you, and I am free to rot. Refuse, and I take you both tonight." It tilted its head. "Live forever, or die in this hole. Choose." Tim had dragged himself to the wall. His twisted leg bent wrong under him. He heard every word. His face was white, but his eyes were steady. "Don't," Tim said. "Captain. Don't you do it." He pressed his back to the stone. "I came out here for Daniel. I knew what might be waiting. You don't trade me. You don't." Halloway looked at the boy he had sent north alone. He had filed the creature as folklore. He had been wrong about everything but this. He would not be wrong about this. "No," Halloway said. The creature's smile dropped. "Then you both feed me." It lunged. Halloway was ready. He let his wounded side fold, dropping low, and brought the saber up with both hands. The rusted point took the creature under the jaw and drove up through its skull. The thing froze. Its pale fingers clawed the air. Halloway twisted the blade the way he'd been trained to twist it, and leaned his whole weight in. Steel was not enough to kill the old hunger alone. He knew that. But the Blackfeet said fire was the thing it feared. Halloway reached into his coat with his free hand and found the flint and the oil-soaked rag he carried for his lamp. He struck sparks against the rag until it caught. "Burn," he said, and pressed the flame to the creature's ancient coat. The dry cloth took like paper. Fire ran up the old uniform, over the pale chest, into the open mouth. The creature screamed, and the scream was almost a word. It beat at the flames and could not stop them. Halloway pulled the saber free and shoved the burning thing away, toward the back of the cave. It fell among the bones it had left there. The fire ate it down to black. Then it stopped moving, and the smell of old smoke filled the cave. Halloway dropped to his knees beside Tim. The wound in his side ran steady. He packed snow against it with a shaking hand. Tim gripped his arm. "You didn't do it," Tim said. "You didn't." He kept saying it, like he needed to hear it out loud. "No," Halloway said. "I didn't." He bound his wound with a strip torn from his shirt. Daniel was dead and buried in the snow outside, and there was nothing to carry home but his journal and his name. But Tim was alive. Halloway got the boy's arm over his shoulders and lifted him. The leg was broken, not the boy. They went out of the cave into the white glare. Halloway's horse still waited at the tree line. He set Tim across the saddle and walked beside him, one hand on the boy, one hand on his wound. The pines closed behind them. The cave and its black bones fell out of sight. It was dark when Fort Henry rose out of the snow, its timber walls and the flag stiff on the pole above the gate. Men ran out with lanterns. They took Tim down gentle and carried him to the surgeon. Halloway stood a moment in the open gate, bleeding and cold, and looked north at the country he had been sent to tame. He had written the creature off as a story. He had sent two men into it, and one came back. He would write the truth in his report this time, and let the officer who sent him here read it. Then he walked inside, and the gate swung shut against the dark behind him.