Chapter 1

Late night

State Highway 62 near

Craigmont, Idaho

The steering wheel was slick with sweat and Donna could smell the acrid taint of her fear sharp against the slightly musty interior of her old Ford Taurus. She nervously flipped a damp strand of her long dark hair over her shoulder as she checked her review mirror yet again. A sigh of relief shook her slender shoulders as she saw no sign of the headlights that had been behind her on the desolate stretch of road for the last hour.

“What’s wrong momma?” said a small sleepy voice from the rear car seat.

“Nothing baby, momma was just thinking about how much fun we are going to have in our new place,” Donna replied to her 5-year-old daughter Daisy.

Truthfully, she had no idea where they were going. It had been all she could do to gather a few things and scoop Daisy into the car before they caught her alone on her small homestead. She knew she had gone too far in her defiance this time.

Now she just prayed that they could make it across the state line into Washington and out of reach of her pursuers before her decrepit car gave up the ghost. She didn’t know for sure but it seemed unlikely that the brothers and the ‘Family’ had any influence across the state line. The last of her money had gone to buy enough gas to make it to Pullman. She didn’t know what would happen when she got there but anything was better than what they would do to her and her daughter if she stayed at the compound.

She was so desperate that as a last resort, she sent prayers to the gods of her people, even though she hadn’t felt close to them since her wáay’atin vision quest as a young girl. None of the normal church-taught prayers had done any good whatsoever in these last years. Donna was no longer even sure that any god or gods were listening, or if they even existed. If they were how could they have permitted any of the things she had seen, and gone through? None of her prayers included any thought for her survival, she just wanted to get her bright, beautiful Daisy somewhere safe.

The cable wire tightness in her shoulders had just started to unwind when two things happened nearly simultaneously. Her ancient car sputtered as the engine stopped responding to the gas pedal and the dreaded lights reappeared in her review mirror like the eyes of a dark predator bearing down on her in the night.

“Shit!” said Donna under her breath. She struggled to pull the sluggish car off onto the shoulder, a sense of dread pulling her heart into the pit of her stomach.

“You said a bad word Mommy!” said Daisy.

“Mommy did, honey, but she shouldn’t have,” replied Donna as the engine shut down completely. She was at a loss. Her only hope was that maybe those headlights weren’t her pursuers. She wasn’t sure how close the nearest town was but it had to be several miles away. She and Daisy could walk it if necessary. If this wasn’t the brothers coming after her, just maybe they could make it. Surely there had to be people somewhere that would dare to help them?

It was not to be. Donna heard the throaty growl of a big diesel engine approaching and seconds later a dark silver Chevy dual-wheeled truck slid onto the shoulder in front of her blocking her escape.

Donna felt a primal howl of despair clawing its way out of her heart. She just wanted to give in to the darkness and immerse herself in it. But she couldn’t. Her Daisy needed her, so she shoved the scream down and refused to let her tears flow.

“Quick like a bunny, jump out of your seat and hide under the blanket sweetie,” said Donna.

“But momma, what’s happening?” said Daisy

“No time for questions love bug. Just listen to momma. Get under the blanket and no matter what you hear stay in the car and be as still as the little deer. Remember our story about how the little deer stays hidden when the mommy deer is away?”

“Okay momma,” whispered Daisy as she unbuckled herself from her car seat and clambered under the blanket in the rear seat.

Daisy was such a good girl thought Donna. Much too good to have to deal with all of this. Any child was. She steeled herself for what was next as she heard the doors in the precariously parked truck slam open and the snarly sneer of men’s voices erupt as her greatest fear emerged.

“Get out here slut!” yelled Jonah, the oldest brother.

“Don’t make us grab you outa there, Donna. You’ll just make it worse on yourself,” warned Saul the youngest brother.

“Time to take your licks you snotty bitch,” said Jeremiah, now the sole middle brother since her Caleb had passed.

For an instant, Donna was struck yet again by how different her sweet husband Caleb had been from his monstrous brothers. His lanky blond-haired, blue-eyed presence was sunlight to their darkness. If only he hadn’t been taken so young, events would have spun their lives into a different weave. That was neither here nor there though, and Donna steeled herself for what was to come. Maybe she could persuade them that she had run without her daughter and they would not look for her. Maybe she could drag it out long enough that a passerby would happen onto this lonely road and call the authorities in time to save her daughter. No matter, It was now time to pay the piper.

He loved horses. Of all the things that humans had ever dreamed up, riding horses had to be the most entertaining. He sometimes thought about the first inspired idiot who jumped on the back of a beast that outweighed him ten times over and then somehow managed to get the thundering behemoth to go where the man wanted. Human beings were sometimes just plain insane.

His love of riding and working with horses was how he ended up along this lonesome stretch of Idaho’s high desert road. He had just finished working a roundup as an itinerant cowhand on the Nez Pearce rez and rather than stick around and cause trouble decided to see what was happening to the south. He never really needed sleep so an all-night drive in his restored 1957 Chevy short-bed pickup perfectly suited his wandering wants at the moment. The smell of sagebrush drifting through the open window and the dime-bright light of a full moon had helped him relax and release his awareness far into the cool night air.

He’d only been driving half an hour or so when he began getting a pin-prick sensation at the back of his expanded mind. At the next junction in the narrow road, he impulsively turned left toward the east determined to see if he could locate the origin of the itch he was feeling.

Donna cracked the rusty door and then slammed it shut as she strode to the front of her car to confront her tormentors. She had to keep their attention drawn away from the precious cargo in the back seat.

“What do you fuckwits want?” she snarled as the 3 brothers formed a loose arc in front of her silhouetted by the lights of her car.

She flung her raven wing hair back as she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin in defiance. She wasn’t going to let them see her fear or her tears no matter what they did to her. She knew they fed on the terror of others and she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

“You know what you did Darlin’ and you know what we are going to do to you,” said Jonah in a low growl through his thick dark beard as he grabbed the crotch of his greasy jeans.

“Who knows maybe if you are really good we’ll let you live for a while after. Mebbe even long enough that we can have seconds?” said Jeremiah with a twitch of his fat, liver-colored lips.

“Ssssorry about this Donna, but you know we have ta do this. You shouldn’t oughta hurt pappa like that,” stuttered Saul apologetically.

Maybe a hay hook to the nutsack had been a tad bit of an overreaction thought Donna, but the old pervert had laid hands on Daisy and no matter that practically the whole family had been abusing Donna for months, no one messed with her daughter at least not while she still drew breath. The 18-inch long steel shaft with the wicked hook on its end hadn’t quite gutted the old man as she drove it up through his scrotum but it was unlikely that he’d be feeling frisky ever again.

“That old fucker shoulda kept his snot pickers to himself then and not been trying to feel up a five-year-old. Hey, but at least I had a target with him. With you three I’d probably need a microscope before I could find your man parts,” Donna replied with a defiant sneer.

“Hah! Finding our personal parts is not going to be a problem for you sweetheart. Maybe we should have your lil darlin watch. She might learn something. Where is she anyway?” said Jonah trying to peer into the dark interior of her car.

I knew you numbnuts would be after me, you think I’d bring her along? I left her with friends where you can’t get your hands on her. Truthfully, Donna had no friends brave enough to stand up to the ‘Family’, but maybe these geniuses didn’t know that.

“Ah well that’s too bad, She’s going to miss quite a show,” said Jonah.

“What show would that be? Me trying to avoid vomiting from your stench or you trying to find those microdicks you three call penises. I bet if all 3 of pooled together you might come up with one almost man-sized dick.”

The brothers were so stunned that they just froze in place for a second, except for the flapping of their mouths as they gasped at her insults like fish out of water. Donna could tell this was not the reaction they were hoping for from her. Good, she thought. She only wished her mouth wasn’t so dry or she’d spit on them too.

“I’m going to enjoy making you scream you stupid injun twat!” said Jeremiah as he stepped forward and drew back a ham-sized fist. Of all of them, he was the one she really feared the most. The others were cruel assholes but Donna was certain that Jeremiah was a full-blown psychopath who only truly got off by inflicting pain.

Just then with a rattling roar, an ancient pickup soared around the corner from the west and with a spray of gravel neatly slotted into place just behind Donna’s car. A couple of more feet and the old Chevy would have gone right over the steep embankment. the driver must have been either crazy or crazy good.

Either way, they were all astonished as a man as ancient as the old pickup disembarked with a spritely step.

“Howdy miss, howdy gents. Car trouble?” The old fellow said cheerily as he doffed his beat-up rolled-brim straw hat and settled it back down around his long gray braided hair.

Donna had seen his kind before. His age could be anywhere from 50 to 80 with a wiry build that meant he was likely to be as tough as an old saddle strap that had been left out in the sun for decades. As a girl and a young woman growing up in cattle country Donna had seen others just like him. The dipshit brothers standing before her always pretended to be cowboys with their $400 dollar hats and $1000 dollar boots, but they were really just farmers and criminals who had a few hobby cattle. This old gent was the real deal, Donna could tell by his rocking, slightly bowlegged walk and his work-worn boots and gnarled hands.

Yep, Donna knew the type and it worried her. She’d spent some of her time before Caleb in honky tonks where the sign out front didn’t list a closing time, just ‘Open 8 pm till fist fight’. Younger men always tended to underestimate these old boys, but Donna knew they had not an ounce of ‘back down’ in them and displayed a gallantry that was sadly missing from most men of a younger generation.

Donna didn’t want this old guy hurt and she instinctively knew that if the 3 huge brothers started in on him there’d be 2 dead bodies thrown over the embankment before the night was through.

“Why don’t you just mind your own damn business you old fart!” growled Jonah.

“Everything’s okay sir, really it will be fine, but thank you for stopping,” said Donna.

He could smell the stench of Darkness the second he stepped out of the truck. He truly tried not to take sides in the eternal battle but he could never understand why those of the Dark always smelled so damn bad to him- like a roadkill milkshake left out in the heat for a month. In any case, this was definitely what that tickle in the back of his mind was all about.

He smiled slightly to himself at the sight of the slim dark woman standing defiantly hipshot in front of her rattletrap car, illuminated only by the wavering headlights and the full moon. All this time and he still had an affinity for certain groups of humans he thought. The fiery-eyed woman surrounded by mouthbreathers was one of the People. With even the most tentative mind touch he could feel the history embedded in her ancestral DNA. Her people had been great warriors and had fought for their freedom against impossible odds. After defeating the white-eyes in many battles they had lost the final struggle just a few miles short of their goal, not far from this very spot in fact. He had ridden a glorious big-hearted war horse alongside Looking Glass for many of those battles. What days those were! He was forbidden from interfering on that final fateful day as cannon tore apart men, women, and children, but here and now maybe he could help this one warrior woman fight for her life and the life of the child he could sense hiding quietly in the car.

It wouldn’t take much really. He wasn’t as powerful as he once had been but even so, a tiny fraction of his power could strip the flesh from their mortal bones in the withering wind of an instant. But what fun would that be? Much better to tweak the in-between spaces of perception and probability and let these fools do unto each other. Now that would be entertaining!

A few instants of calculation and then a gentle push and it was ready to begin.

The old man just gave Donna a surprisingly bright smile, as if letting her in on a secret. She couldn’t see his eyes in the pool of deep shadow under his battered straw hat but somehow she knew they were twinkling. He must either be brave as hell or nuttier than squirrel turds she thought to herself as the old man paused, turned fully toward Jonah, and then lifted a gnarled hand in the universal one-fingered salute.

“Suck it, monkey boy,” the old man said to Jonah matter-of-factly, with a craggy grin.

Donna could see Jonah’s face fill with blood as he turned nearly purple with rage and took a step toward the old cowboy. ‘Shitfire, here it comes’ she thought, but then Jonah paused as his grasping hand once again sought his greasy crotch.

“What the...?” said Jonah as his rage turned to terror in a microsecond.

Both hands were now grasping his man package and he began jumping up and down just as they all heard the unmistakable clattering hiss of a very large, very annoyed, Western rattlesnake.

“Get it off me! GET IT OFF!” he began yelling hysterically.

Donna could see a squirming large mass moving about inside of Jonah’s jeans but that just didn’t seem possible. How the hell had a rattlesnake managed to make its way up Jonah’s pant leg undetected until just now? No matter what her logical mind was telling her, Jonah was a believer and neither of his two brothers had the reasoning capacity to doubt it either.