By Ian McDaniel

Sam Owl Feather looked out over the burning landscape, and pleasure surged from the back of his eyes, down his spinal cord, and into the tips of his toes. The fire destroyed with such a rage, a beautiful, powerful rage, unlike any he had ever witnessed…and it excited him. The experience could only be more perfect if he were back on the rez with his Indian crew rather than here. But it had to be this way, at least for a while.

He looked towards the horizon, now shining the color of blood as the setting sun filtered through the smoke, and nervousness tempered his excitement; how like a dream the afternoon had segued into evening; how like a fluid the shadows now dissolve the last remnants of light; how like death the sun shone with wavering light, as if it had been dragged down from the sky and smothered. Something didn’t feel right, like some powerful magic at work, and it distracted him from his private pleasure.

The feeling reminded him of the stories his grandmother had told him as a child, the stories about Too Soon the Darkness, the stories that had always haunted his dreams. As he thought this, he realized that it was not the dieing light that set him ill at ease but the encroaching night. “Beware of the shadows that come too early,” his grandmother would say. “Light retreats in fear of him. And when he is ready to feed, like a two faced dog he will deceive you.”

Grandmother, he thought. How I miss you – even if you were a superstitious old bag.

He drank from his canteen then poured water onto his handkerchief to wipe the sweat and soot from his face. He had to get it right this time…for her sake as well as his. He was sick of always promising to get it right next time. Always next time. Next time.

Then

The Reverend looked up at the sky: storm clouds of the deepest gray lay on the horizon, their undersides spackled with the red light of the setting sun, like a sponges dipped in blood.

They appeared so incongruous in this land of dust and cactus, but then the land itself was also somehow out of place. Even now he felt it, as if it were not a place at all but a wild creature – watching, waiting.

Soon the storm would arrive, but for now the sun beat mercilessly down upon his wagons. The few church members who could manage, sang hymnals as they labored on, their song rising with the dust only to be scattered by the battalion of small whirlwinds which followed…obliterating all tracks…leaving only the sound of the agitated locusts in the empty desert.

He rode his horse up the hill along the canyon wall where he could observe his parish unnoticed. At the summit, he stopped beneath the shade of a large cedar tree. They must not know that he is watching; they must be completely unaware in order for the nightly disciplines to be effective.

As they often did, his eyes fell upon Kimberly who rode upfront in the lead wagon – her young shapely breasts and immodestly long, red hair commanding his attention. God how he loved her beautiful hair – how good it would feel to rub it across his face and mouth, to smell it, to taste it. He closed his eyes and brought a hand to his mouth as if grasping her hair within it and, with his other hand, treated his crotch to a quick squeeze.

Riding next to Kimberly and speaking to her openly - in utter defiance of church rules - was Morgan, their hired guide. The Reverend shifted uncomfortably in his saddle as Kimberly laughed at something Morgan had said. He grit his teeth. This flirtatiousness would be dealt with tonight at the discipline.

Now

The sounds of metal hitting rock and the sporadic whine of the chainsaws filled the air as the crew picked up the pace to close the line around the cedar grove. Night had swallowed the last traces of daylight and Sam focused on the work at hand. He wasn’t going to think about grandmother anymore, he wasn’t going to think about ‘Too Soon the Darkness.’

After a while, the voice of Dennis – the crew boss – squawked over the radio on his chest: “All right everybody, listen up. Finish what you’re working on then walk with your secondary to the clearing. We’re going to regroup before we start in on tonight’s fire line.”

Sam walked over to where Kristen, his secondary, worked at searching for hot-spots in the ashes. Kristen was the only friend he had made since leaving the reservation, the only one that liked him at all, the only person he felt comfortable talking to, confiding in. He liked her. He liked her a lot. And even though she was dating that red-neck Travis, he couldn’t help but think that she might like him too.

He walked up behind her, but she didn’t notice. She just kept on working; so he stood for a moment just watching her.

As he watched her, she paused from her work to sit up. She stretched with a cat-like motion then removed her hardhat and gloves to run her fingers through her hair. It was more than Sam could stand. Hair possessed a special erogeny for him, and to watch her now like this, in secret, running her fingers through her hair, was better than if he had caught her masturbating. How lucky he was that she hadn’t heard him come up behind her.

But what if she had heard him? What if she was just pretending not to know? Maybe she was putting on a secret show for him – a private show. Women always do that sort of thing when they like a guy: tease and seduce, play games and pose, hint and flirt, and then when you finally call their hand, they pretend not to know what you’re talking about. They leave it up to the guy to make the first move, to be aggressive, to take charge. It’s their way of giving the O.K.

As he was thinking this, Kristen spun around and spotted him ogling her. “What are you looking at?” she asked, looking surprised and angry. Sam just stood there, smiling. You know exactly what I’m looking at, he thought. But that’s all right; I’ll play your little game.

“Nothing,” he said. “I just came to tell you that everybody is meeting back at the clearing for a break.”

Kristen stood and began brushing herself off.

“Here, let me give you a hand,” he said, walking up to her. He brushed at her shoulders then her lower back, then moved lower until he reached the curve of her butt where he let his hand linger.

Kristen spun around. “Sam!”

He just smiled. “Come on Kristen, let’s stop with the games.” Then he took her in his arms and kissed her.

She tried to push him away, but Sam held her, and grabbed a handful of her hair. Ah her hair!

Suddenly, pain shot through his stomach, and he looked down to find her knee in his groin.

Sam doubled over and could only raise his head high enough to see her running for the clearing.

Oh shit! he thought.

* * *

When he arrived at the clearing, he found the crew sitting in groups, sharpening their tools and eating MREs. Everything was oddly quiet – nobody spoke. Travis stood beside the trail…waiting for him.

Sam cringed; oh shit, he thought again as he attempted to walk past. As he did, Travis placed a hard finger against his chest.

“Wait a minute chief; I’ve got something to say to you. You’re going to apologize to Kristen, and then your going to keep as far away from her as possible. Got it?”

“Shows you how little you know about me,” replied Sam, avoiding Travis’s eyes.

“I know more about you than you think, you sick low life; Kristen told me all about you: burning down your own grandmother’s house…with her still in it, kicked off your old fire crew for starting fires just to watch them burn, theft, alcoholism, and then booted off your own reservation. I wish I didn’t know so much about you.”

Sam heard chuckles from a few of the people gathered around. He looked at Kristen. She had told Travis everything, betrayed his deepest confidences, and now the whole crew knew.

That fucking bitch! So much for fresh starts, he thought, then turned and he walked away.

Then

The night offered no respite from the heat and the Reverend wiped sweat from his brow as he watched Kimberly from his personal wagon.

She knelt over a bucket on the far end of the wagon circle, scrubbing his clothes while the few members of the church crawled into their wagons to sleep.

His breath quickened as he watched her chest rise and fall, the soft light of the fire casting rhythmic shadows of her body on the wagon behind her, the motion of her body sending soft waves rolling down her hair. He looked around for Morgan who was nowhere to be seen – off drinking himself to oblivion no doubt. It had to be now.

He climbed out of his wagon and walked over to where Kimberly knelt at her labor.

“Are you ready for sleep young lady?” he asked.

She stopped her scrubbing but refused to look at him. “Yes Reverend.”

“Good, then there is just one more task required of you to complete your discipline. Come with me.”

* * *

“We’re almost there,” he said over and over again. “Stay close.” She shivered as she looked back at the light of the campfire growing smaller as they walked further and further away from the group. Oh God! she thought. Please don’t make me sleep out in the woods tonight.

Finally, the Reverend came to the lip of a dry wash and continued down, sidestepping his way to the bottom until the night concealed him completely.

“Down here Kimberly.”

“Please Reverend, it’s so dark, please don’t make me sleep out here tonight. I swear I wont flirt again.”

“Silly girl,” replied the Reverend. “I wouldn’t leave you out here with the wild animals. Come now, this will only take a moment.”

She breathed a sigh of relief, and walked down the wash, now unable to see the Reverend for the dark.

Before she could find him, he was upon her, trapping her in his arms. “Reverend? What are you doing…? Please stop! Don’t! GOD, NOOO!”

He forced his mouth on hers and groped roughly at her chest.

Terrified, she spun in his arms, found the edge of the hill and attempted to claw her way up the embankment.

Rocks and dust flew as the Reverend held her by the waist with one arm and pulled up her dress with the other.

“You must not fight Kimberly! It’s time you learn your place.”

But suddenly, the air stopped in the Reverend’s throat, and pain like an iron vice gripped the soft tissue of his neck. His hold on Kimberly’s waist failed and she scrambled back up the wash. Gasping for breath, he fell to his knees.

“I wondered what business the church had with young girls at this time of night,” came Morgan’s voice, and he released his grip, allowing the Reverend to fall to the ground.

The sounds of Kimberly’s footfalls faded in the direction of the wagons as he struggled for air.

“Now you listen to me!” said the Reverend in gasps. “How dare you presume to know our ways. What we do is none of your concern. You are nothing more than a hired hand.”

Morgan flicked the butt of his cigarette off to the side where it struck a rock and tumbled to the ground in a small spray of embers. “That may be Reverend, but if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay away from Kimberly.” Then he turned and walked up the embankment.

Now

Sam worked alone on a piece of line away from the rest of the crew. “Fine!” he said aloud to himself, sending his Pulaski through a tree root that had somehow managed to curl around his boot. “If that’s the way they feel, to hell with them.”

He thought then of what his grandmother had said before he left the rez, before she had died: “When you turn your back to your people Sam, your people and your spirit will turn their back to you.”

How right she had been.

“But Grandmother,” he had replied, “I can’t stay. I’m like a outcast now.” He remembered how grave her face had become when he said this, a look that accentuated her injuries from the fire, the patches of hairless scalp, the drooping flesh beneath her vacant eye socket, her ear withered from the heat like a leaf in winter.

“Sam, listen to me, there is something I haven’t told you, something you need to know: danger waits for you. It’s been waiting for you for a long, long time. You must stay here.”

She had always been so melodramatic. He smiled, kissed her. “Don’t worry Grandmother. Everything will be all right. You’ll see.” And he left. But everything hadn’t been all right. Trouble had been waiting for him.

He had fucked up again, and now he was paying the price. But no more. As soon as he could get off this damn fire, he would quit the crew and return to the reservation where he belonged, where he would be safe. Where he could finally get it right. Next time.

He sat down on a rock and he began to sob. I’m sorry I didn’t listen. Just then, a movement within the burning trees caught his attention. He took a couple steps closer to the blaze, enduring the incredible heat to get a better look, and his eyes slowly widened.

He spotted it when it moved again and he could not believe his eyes. There, in the middle of the inferno, walked two coyotes, side by side. They looked unconcerned with the flames around them, but there was something not right in the way they moved - it was too…synchronized.

Sam gasped as he realized what he was seeing, not two dogs, but one - with two heads: one head normal, the other head, jutting from the dog’s neck like a tuber – small, hairless, and wizened.

He froze, unable to turn away from the two sets of eyes.

The dog stopped and looked back at him with something that felt like recognition. After a long, repulsing moment of eye contact, the smaller head snapped with vicious authority at the larger, more normal looking head, and the dog scampered away.

Sam released his breath. He couldn’t believe what he had just seen. It was a sign. It had to be.

He realized then that he had forgotten about Too Soon. Of course! It had to be Too Soon! Grandmother had been right. His pride and fear had prevented him from admitting it before. The crew was on sacred ground. They would all have to leave immediately. Morning would be too late.

But the crew would never listen to him. They would all laugh in his face if he told them about his vision.

He looked again into the fire; the dog stared back from a distance. And he realized what he had to do.

Then

The rising sun outlined the Reverend’s body with a deep red haze as he delivered the morning sermon. He always faced the congregation directly into the sun so they couldn’t see where he was looking. He liked how everyone winced while trying to show him their full attention – as if they were physically unable to behold him.

He lectured from the top of his personal wagon, looking down upon his people assembled on the ground among the rocks and brush, his words falling upon them like pearls before swine. How he loved the morning sermons.

As he spoke, he noticed one woman at the back of the group sitting with her head down, her shoulders shaking ever so softly, long strands of red hair covering her face – Kimberly.

The older ladies sitting around her looked concerned. They kept glancing from Kimberly to one another, looks of confusion and pity on their faces.

The Reverend began to worry. After the sermon, the women would take Kimberly aside. They would wipe the tears from her eyes and ask her what was wrong. Kimberly would be too ashamed to talk – perhaps say that she simply missed her parents who had been taken earlier by the Comanche - but the older women would know. Somehow they always knew these things.

Something had to be done.

Now

Sam walked back to the staging area where the chainsaw supplies were kept. After he found what he was looking for, he shut off his headlamp and walked deep into the cedar grove, lugging the fuel containers in both arms.

He picked a spot in the protected grove where he could take out most of the trees and avoid any back-burn. It was a shame to waste the trees they had worked so hard to protect, but he could think of no other way.

He opened the containers and began to pour. Smiling as he worked, he wove a path through the stand then out to the clearing where he lit a match and – pausing briefly to enjoy the anticipation – dropped it.

The gasoline ignited with a whoosh. The grove immediately caught fire, and as the flames grew, so did a feeling of identity inside him – a connectedness hundreds of years old that replaced the anger and embarrassment. No need to worry about the white man any longer. The crew would be taken off the fire, and he could go back to his people.

He imagined his Grandmother smiling down on him and he looked up. He stared into the high branches of the grove and watched the flames dancing from every limb. There was something odd in the way the flames moved, and he fell back as a wisp of fire struck out like a whip towards his face. Tendrils of flame shot spastically from tree to tree, like blazing monkeys. The breeze, which had been gentle until now, began to gust, sending debris whipping across his face and fanning the flames.

Suddenly, the wind switched directions. The fire obeyed, and Sam watched in horror as waves of flame filled the canopy, grew until they licked the sky, and began moving like a brilliant river away from the grove and towards the crew.

Then

“Dour words I have for God’s children this morning,” said the Reverend atop his wagon. “It has been revealed to me that a demon walks among us. From his mouth, speech sweet as honey; across his shoulders, a cloak of competence. But he is a demon I tell you – a DEMON!”

People whispered. They glanced around suspiciously at one another then back at the Reverend.

“Under the pretense of service this demon has come to us, but, he is a drunkard, a coward, and a RAPIST!”

Kimberly raised her head at this word. Her sobbing had stopped and she looked at him directly in the eye, a vacuous expression glazing over her face.

“While we slept, this demon attacked one of our women. But God called to me in the night, and before it was too late, I caught him at his evil deed. Yes my family, this demon – like a blight upon the body – had been found; and today we lance this boil from our skin.

Then the Reverend pointed directly at Morgan. “YOU! You have plagued this family of God long enough. Purged you are from the list of heaven and the sight of this church!” Then, from somewhere in his wagon, the Reverend produced a pistol.

The congregation gasped and turned in shock towards Morgan.

Morgan remained disarmingly calm; he knew what was coming when the Reverend began to speak. Now he understood why these people followed him. He was clever, very clever - and held them as if in a spell.

“Listen,” he said to the people on the ground, knowing his efforts were pointless. “He’s lying. He tried to rape Kimberly; I stopped him.

“LIER!” yelled the Reverend, spittle flying from his mouth. “In the name of GOD, bite your forked tongue!” Then he pulled back the pistol’s hammer and took aim.

There was nothing he could say. Without further word, Morgan dumped out his coffee and walked to his horse. He mounted, but before riding off, he turned towards the Reverend. “This storm is going to send floods racing through here before nightfall. You need to take the wagons to higher ground.”

“MORE LIES!” shouted the Reverend and he fired a shot into the air. From atop his horse, Morgan took one last look at Kimberly. “God help you all,” he said, and rode off.

Now

The fire raced at the crew like a locomotive.

Dennis had been measuring air humidity on top of a small rise above the clearing when, in the heart of the protected grove, he saw a new fire pierce the night. It sputtered around at first, and then spread as if a rift had cracked open into hell itself. Abruptly, the wind shifted and the fire began to move towards the crew, snaking its way through the grove like a sidewinder, gaining momentum until it threatened to crash down like a tidal wave of flame.

At first, the words wouldn’t come, and his mouth just moved silently up and down. Then he caught his breath. “Everybody listen up!” he shouted over the radio. “We got a situation! Grab your tool and your fire-shelter! LEAVE YOUR PACKS!”

Like an ant’s nest under attack, the crew became a blur of movement as they looked around, saw the fire racing towards them, and panicked. Barking orders on his radio, Dennis ran down he hill. “Grab your secondary and line up by me! Shout out if you can’t find your secondary.”

Somewhere from the middle of the chaos came Kristen’s voice, “I don’t see Sam. I can’t find him.”

Embers began raining down upon the crew as they lined up and prepared to move to the safety-zone.

“There’s no time now. He’s on his own. Everybody stay calm and remember your training. Lets double-time it to the cave.”

Then

He was lost. Rain, driven by the torrential wind, filled his eyes and scoured his face. Behind him, the terrified sounds of the horses and the yells of the wagon drivers sounded distant though they were only paces behind. He peered into the rain and darkness, searching for shelter, a trail, anything.

Out of nowhere, lightning shot down and wrapped around a cedar tree like an electric snake. The tree burst to splinters with a crack, and in the light of the brief flame, he spotted a figure on top of a horse.

The Reverend stopped. He couldn’t believe his eyes.

The wagon drivers pulled up along side the Reverend, looking hard into the night to see what had caught his attention. Nothing could be seen or heard except the darkness and the wind.

Then the figure spoke: “There's a cave about a hundred yards back this way!” said Morgan. “We can fit everyone inside but we’ll have to loose the horses.”

"YOU!” shouted the reverend. “YOU have brought this upon us! You want to strand us here, but we will not fall for your treachery again.”

Kimberly jumped from one of the wagons and ran to Morgan’s side. He smiled at her and pulled her up behind him.

“You’re sentencing them to death. Now follow me if you want to live!” And he turned his horse and started towards the cave.

Then, to the Reverend’s shock, the wagons followed after Morgan. One-by-one they passed him by, and with each wagon his anger grew.

“CURSE YOU! Curse you all! You’ll rot in hell with him. But nobody was listening.

* * *

The Reverend arrived outside the entrance to the cave, slumped in the saddle and drenched to the bone. He hid behind an ocotillo and watched as Morgan revealed a stack of firewood to the parish inside. Morgan touched a match to the heart of the mound, and Fire began to lick the wood to cries of “HALLELUIAH” from the parish.

Rain fell into the Reverend’s face and regret began to erupt through his anger. Why didn’t he shoot the heathen when he had the chance? And his own parish, abandoning him at the outset of hardship, they deserved no better. May you all rot in hell! he thought as he pulled his revolver from its holster and placed it against his temple.

Bereft of his church and his dignity, shaking with cold and exhaustion, he pulled back the hammer and then –

Something large moved across the rock face in front of him.

Frightened, the Reverend switched the aim of the revolver towards the hill. It moved and looked like lizard, scampering and jerking across the wall beside the cave, but larger – much larger. It was like something out of the book of Revelations – a creature of nightmares, cursed, malevolent, evil –

But not unfamiliar.

He recognized it at once. He had sensed it for a long time now, ever since they had first arrived in this god-forsaken land. It had followed him, waited for him.

The creature fixed him with enormous obsidian-like eyes. The Reverend looked into those eyes and felt as if all the air had left his lungs. Slowly, his arm lowered until it rested limply at his side. His body became light and he no longer felt the cold and rain. His gaze remained locked into the black ether of the creature’s stare, and the revolver dropped unnoticed from his hand.

Within those empty eyes, he saw a vision, a possibility, an offering. He saw Morgan lying in the dirt, incised from crotch to neck so that his legs and abdomen splayed out around his head like a rag doll’s. He saw his parish begging for mercy at his own feet as the Master’s children divorced them of their entrails and limbs. He saw all inside the cave receive their rightful penance of death and pain, all but one: Kimberly, who would be saved (at least for a short while) for him to do with as he pleased. He saw a vision of Justice, of glory, of revenge. But there would be a price.

The master crouched at the rim of the entrance, waiting for an answer. “Yes!” shouted the Reverend. “Yes. Make them pay, and give the girl to me.”

Now

His heart beat, beat, beat, with each stride as he ran through the grove, unable to see where he was going, his clothes catching on branches and brush as he followed the sounds of the screams.

Soon the tangle of brush and limbs gave way to a rocky hill surrounded by squat leafless plants, their branches writhing on the ground as if to pull themselves free from their anchor.

At the end of the clearing, he spotted the mouth of the cave. Darkness, like a thick black liquid, filled the entrance until he walked inside and a phosphoric light began to glow, revealing the inside.

He froze at the sight of the slaughter. Travis, who had been cowering with a small group against the wall, screamed as a winged creature swooped down from the ceiling and opened his neck with a surgeon’s precision.

While the creature commenced to eviscerate Travis, Dennis made a run for it. Halfway to the mouth of the cave, he slipped in a pool of blood, and a shadow that had been crouching in a nearby corner pounced.

One by one the creature, along with its brethren, harvested the crew. It’s not too late, Sam thought to himself. They don’t see me. I can still escape, and he began to back out slowly. But then, from behind him, blocking any escape, was the master.

Sam sensed his presence even before turning around – it was a fever in his soul that he had felt many times but could not place. But when he finally turned and looked into the oily globes that were the master’s eyes, the memories came flooding back, merciless, ageless, horrifying.

He remembered the many times he had come to the cave: the time as a guide leading a wilderness group, purposefully leading them away from their destination; the time as a pilot faking an emergency landing, stumbling across the cave as if by miracle; and the first time, the time he had come as a preacher, moving his church in wagons across the desert – each time, making the sacrifice to his master for the love of a woman, for revenge, but never remembering his bargain until he was hot with need, promising to himself to resist the next time. And next time had come again.

Disgusted and terrified, Sam turned from the master and ran deeper inside the cave. He stopped where he found Kimberly pinned to the ground by creatures at her legs and arms, her clothes stripped away, her cries for mercy echoing through the endless caverns. They had been waiting for him.

He looked back at the master. No words were spoken for the master was beast, only understanding passed between them. He had a choice – the same choice he had been given so many times before.

He turned back towards Kristen and, with trickles of warmth running down his cheek, he made his choice, the same choice he always made. Next time, he thought. I’ll get it right next time.




Ian McDaniel is a secular humanist and previously unpublished writer living in Boise, Idaho where he works as an R&D engineer during the day and writes dark fiction at night. .

He can be contacted at ikmcdaniel2003@yahoo.com