Blood Oath, Blood River.

By Michael Richan.

Preface.

Blood Oath, Blood River is a work of fiction, set in a real place and culture. Local Mormon vernacular is used in the story to keep the characters authentic. People not familiar with the local and cultural terms might find some of them unusual and confusing. While the novel itself defines most of the important and relevant terms within the context of the story, a glossary is offered for those who would like to have the terms better defined. The type of definitions offered in the glossary (along with references to outside sources and more information) would have been too disruptive to include in the narrative.

On Kindles and Kindle readers you can access the Glossary by choosing the "Table of Contents" from the "Go To" menu.

Chapter One.

Deem pressed herself tightly to the cold stone wall. She looked up she couldn't see the top of the winze, which was good it meant the ghosts up there couldn't see her, looking down. She could hear the moaning of more ghosts down the adit to her left from where she'd just come. They'd be on her soon. She only had moments.

Trapped! she thought. How'd I let myself get into this?

"Whatever you do, don't get cornered in here," she remembered her father saying when they'd enter a cave or an abandoned mine together. He'd been gone for a couple of years now, but the things he used to say were still vivid in her mind. He'd be p.i.s.sed at me right now, Deem thought, letting myself get caught like this.

She thought she was being nice. It was Erin's birthday next week, and she thought she'd get her good friend a rare and exotic birthday present iridium. And not just any iridium, but the stuff from the Tillburton mine near the Utah-Arizona border. The Tillburton had seen some of the most intense radiation fallout from the nuclear testing years ago, and everything in it was f.u.c.ked up, including the iridium. It was also one of the most haunted abandoned mines in the area.

Erin's worth it, Deem thought as she started into the mine a half-hour ago. Won't she be surprised? Iridium was rare, and this f.u.c.ked up iridium was a dream: special attributes that exhibited themselves only in the River. The perfect birthday present for someone who's gifted, like Erin.

Yeah, right, Deem thought now, as she pressed herself against the rock. Getting in had been a breeze, and thanks to a device she'd borrowed from Winn, she was able to locate and remove a small piece of iridium easily enough but getting out was now a nightmare. She carefully removed her canteen and took three large gulps. The concoction stung as it pa.s.sed the delicate linings of her throat and made its way to her stomach, where it would radiate out and hopefully provide some additional protection for the next few minutes.

The moaning was close now, and she knew the ghosts would be upon her within seconds. She reached up, turned off her headlight, and tried to take shallow breaths.

Total darkness surrounded her. Her ears p.r.i.c.ked up, attempting to compensate for her lack of sight. She badly wanted to drop into the River, that flowing, invisible stream of knowledge that most people couldn't see, but "gifted" people like herself could enter. She knew if she did it would only give her away. Downwind, in the wake of the nuclear testing, the radiation from the fallout changed the things in the River, the same way it changed people. The humans developed cancers and mutations, but the ghosts mutated in bizarre, stranger ways. She couldn't take the risk that these ghosts might be the kind that get angry if they see someone in the River, or worse, could become corporeal and attack. Not all ghosts downwind could do it, but if these could, she'd be f.u.c.ked. You had to a.s.sume the worst. Best to try and hide.

The moaning increased, and Deem knew they entered the part of the tunnel she was in. Several voices arrived and slowly moved past her, their moaning sending a chill down her spine as they drifted next to her.

"Darla?" one said, calling into the dark.

"You're a dark horse," another said, pa.s.sing by her face.

The room slowly filled with voices and moans. She tried to ignore them. The voices were easier to ignore; the moans were not.

"Mouth to ear!" one kept saying.

She felt their coldness brush her face as they pa.s.sed by. She wanted to whimper, but she knew better. The voices swirled around her, different timbres and tones, an old woman, a young man, everything in between.

"Darla, is that you?"

"I'll rip you open!"

"Hand to back...mouth to ear..."

The room reached a peak of noise, and Deem was unable to make sense of anything. She pressed her eyes closed and wished she could close her ears too.

After several painful minutes the sounds began to diminish. Some were going up the winze, some were returning back down the adit.

After all the sounds had left, Deem let herself exhale and step away from the rock wall. She could still hear the moaning above her in the pa.s.sageway the winze led to but it was diminishing. She turned on her headlamp.

The adit she was in was empty and silent. She looked up the winze. Silence up there, too.

Time to move, she thought.

She grabbed the wooden ladder and began climbing up the winze. It was a twenty foot climb, and she emerged onto the rock floor of another adit running in two directions.

Let's hope they went deeper into the mine and not the way I need to go! she thought as she took the route that led to the exit.

She had been trapped by ghosts in mines before. Her father showed her how to hide from them, but he was insistent she not put herself in harm's way by making sure they were distracted or not active when she went into a mine. Deem thought she had followed his advice, and she grabbed the pulsebox from the floor of the pa.s.sage as she pa.s.sed it, heading out. All the good this thing did me, she thought.

The pulsebox was something she and her father developed. It sent out a signal that could be used to either attract or repel ghosts in a mine. This time she placed it near the top of the winze before she descended, hoping it would keep the ghosts away from this junction, an area she knew she had to return through in order to get out of the mine. They must have mutated again, she thought. She would have to fine-tune the box to work against their new state.

Mutations were a constant problem in the River. The congenital malformations humans suffered from the fallout of the testing seemed to diminish after several generations, but in the River, they were still happening, as though the half-life of the radiation didn't matter. It was one of the reasons she never felt the need to carry one of Winn's EM guns, although he was constantly offering one to her. She felt carrying one was a waste of time, since there was a good chance the ghost you attempted to use it on might have mutated to the point where the gun wouldn't work on them. Winn was forever adjusting the guns, trying to make them effective on the widest range of ghosts they were likely to encounter. But what good are they if they'll fail ten percent of the time? Deem thought. Not good enough odds for me to carry one.

She tossed the pulsebox into her backpack and picked up her pace, turning at the next junction to take an adit running to the right. It soon joined up with a major pa.s.sageway. Three hundred feet and I'm outta here, Deem thought. Erin better like this present. If she doesn't, I'm going to be p.i.s.sed.

Erin was a good friend of hers, maybe her best friend. They'd grown up together in Mesquite. When she was fourteen Deem learned that Erin was gifted too. The two had been inseparable until Erin's mother, Jenny, took a new job in Kingman, moving her three hours away. Now that she was out of high school and had her own truck, Deem drove down to visit Erin once a month or so. The only downside to visiting Erin was driving through Las Vegas to get there. She hated Vegas.

Once Erin moved, it left a hole in Deem's life that Winn later filled. He was gifted too, and smart and they worked together a lot of the time. Winn was almost ten years older than Deem, and she couldn't stand his approach to relationships and s.e.x, but he had been a reliable ally in some scary situations they faced in the past couple of years since Deem's father pa.s.sed away. And beggars couldn't be choosers there weren't a lot of gifteds around in the downwind area. The River was too twisted and strange for most of them. Once they took a trip to California or Oregon and saw what normal ghosts were like, the gifteds moved. Deem counted herself lucky to have Winn and Erin around. She knew she could rely on them.

Deem emerged from the mine shaft and walked into the bright desert sunlight. She pulled her sungla.s.ses from her shirt, put them on, and kept walking toward her truck. She checked her watch ten-thirty. She told Winn she'd meet him at noon; just enough time to get home and get cleaned up.

Deem pulled her truck up to Winn's trailer and honked twice. Winn's trailer was on a four acre lot, and neighbors were scarce. There was an unfamiliar car parked outside the trailer next to Winn's Jeep. Deem knew what this meant; he was entertaining someone. She looked at her watch. She was ten minutes early, but she didn't feel like sitting out in her hot truck until Winn was finished, so she honked again, a signal to Winn that she arrived and would be knocking on the door in a few seconds. It gave him time to get dressed and to get whoever was in there with him dressed as well.

Deem grabbed her Big Gulp from the cup holder and hopped out of her truck. She walked up to the door of the trailer. When she was ten feet from it, it burst open and a girl about Deem's age spilled out, pulling a t-shirt over her head as she walked down the steps.

"See 'ya," she heard Winn call from inside.

The girl adjusted the shirt on her body as she walked past Deem and toward her car. "Next!" she said as she pa.s.sed, and began giggling.

Deem stopped walking and rolled her eyes. She hated that anyone might think she was visiting Winn for a fling. She liked Winn, and she respected him as a fellow gifted who knew his s.h.i.t, but she hated how he ran his personal life, which seemed to be a perpetual stream of conquests. She considered yelling something back at the girl, like "I'm not here for that!" or "I'm just a friend!" but she knew it wouldn't matter, so she just kept walking to the door.

Winn appeared in the doorway, wearing nothing but a pair of thin Nike shorts. He propped his hands up against the top of the doorway and leaned out.

"Geez, can't you dress?" Deem said.

"It's a hundred degrees," Winn said. "Why should I?"

"At least a shirt?" Deem asked.

"Is my chest bothering you?" he asked her teasingly. He flexed his pecs.

"Stop," Deem said. "Just stop."

"If you'd hadn't shown up early," Winn said, "you wouldn't have had to see her leave and you wouldn't be so p.i.s.sy. That's your fault."

"Please don't suggest I'm jealous," Deem said, putting a hand on her hip and staring him down. "Ever since Steven and Roy left, there's someone you're banging every time I come over."

"Banging?" he interjected. "You learned a new word for it."

"I realize you've lost St. Thomas as a project," Deem said. "But filling the void with cheap s.e.x isn't very productive."

"Sez you!"

He walked from the trailer doorway and flopped into an outdoor chair next to an overturned cable spindle that served as a table. He lit up a cigarette.

"You gonna tell me why I'm here?" Deem asked, sitting in a chair next to him.

"Friend of mine in St. George," Winn said. "He runs a tour operation. He has an interesting little problem."

"I hate those outfits," Deem said.

"Hear me out," Winn said. "He shuttles groups from the tour office to wherever they're going for the day. Some days it's ghost towns, some days it's Native American ruins."

"All the more reason to hate them," Deem said.

"Twice now, driving back from Pipe Springs at night, he says they were followed."

"Followed?"

"By a man, running as fast as their bus, a hundred feet out in the brush. His eyes were glowing."

"Bulls.h.i.t," Deem said.

"Twice, both times in the same spot. People on his bus saw it too."

"So what does it have to do with us?" Deem asked.

"He wanted to know if we'd figure out what it is."

"Does your friend drink?"

"Nope, straight-laced Mormon through and through."

"Why do I want to help a tour operator?" Deem asked. "They make money marching people all over sacred ruins."

"He was worried it might be something dangerous," Winn said, reaching into his shorts and adjusting himself.

"Would you please not do that in front of me?" Deem asked.

"I've got an itch."

"Can't imagine why."

"You've really got to lighten up," Winn said. "You're way too uptight about s.e.x and stuff. People have junk, and they like to use it. Everybody does. Don't freak out over it."

"I'm not freaking out," Deem said. "It just seems to me you could wait to do that in private."

"I just do it naturally, I don't think about it. So, he invited us to come along, tonight. What do you say?"

"You go," Deem said. "I'm really not interested."

"Oh, come on!" Winn said. "It'll be fun. Bus leaves at three from St. George, we'll be back by ten. The bus is big enough for fifty, and Dave says there's not even ten reservations, so it won't be crowded. Maybe we'll get to see it!"

"See what?" Deem asked.

"The man who runs by the bus!" Winn said. "Weren't you listening? He said the guy's got yellow-green eyes, and they shine in the dark."

Deem had to admit it sounded intriguing, but she wasn't really inclined to help anyone who ran a tour outfit. The tourists were always interfering with the places where she tried to work, and she didn't like the idea of anyone profiting off ruins.

"Come on," Winn begged. "It'll be fun."

"If this is the best you can do to replace St. Thomas work, I'm not impressed," Deem said. "Seems kinda lame."

Winn furrowed his brow. "Don't be that way," he said. "I'll reach into my shorts and scratch myself again."

"Alright!" Deem said, a small smile cracking her lips. "Don't reach. I'll go."

"That's what I wanted to hear!" Winn said. He stood up and smashed his cigarette into an ashtray. "Be at their place on Bluff right at quarter to three."

As Deem approached the tour office, she saw Winn standing out front, looking for her. Winn's smile quickly faded when he saw that Deem was not alone.

"Mom, I think you know Winn," Deem said, making introductions. "Aunt Virginia, this is my friend Winthrop James."

Deem's aunt held out her hand to Winn. "Nice to meet you," she said. Deem could tell she was taken with Winn's good looks. He was tall and his hair was cut short in a military style. He had put on a t-shirt that showed every muscle in his chest.

"Guess we'll need two more tickets," Winn said, forcing a smile. "I only bought two, sorry, I didn't know you were coming."

"Oh, that's no problem," Deem's mother said. "I'll go get us another two." She stepped away and walked into the tour office.

"So," Virginia said, "Deem tells us we're going on a tour to some ruins?"

"Yes," Winn said, "it's Anasazi ruins in northern Arizona." He smiled, not really wanting to make small talk, and wondering why Deem had brought people along.