We stood side by side on a dirt area rich in tall saguaro cactuses, pale blue silhouette of mountains ahead. It was the threshold to the cemetery. We each carried a weapon: Dunbar carried his pistol, Owl, a golden bow, Chip, a six-gun shooter, Diamond, a sniper rifle, I, a kit and musket.

  A trail took us to a forest with a boneyard garden inside. We stalked through the garden’s muggy smog to a river on our right that let off a gurgling sound. To our left, dispersed yellow desert dandelions, orange marigold, pink ornamentals, and sharp leafed trees left equal spaces of mountains barren.

  Over in the stream, a frog floated on a leaf and a-ribbited a song. Dunbar fired and killed it.

  “What in dad’s name is the matter with you,” I said.

  “Gone shoot any thang that moves,” he replied.

  I’m ashamed to write this, but we were all as paranoid. We all— knowing the speed of these Ana things and the power of dark entities—aimed at one rustle in the trees or another.

  A winding turn brought us to fallen crosses on either side. Ahead of that, branches of a nearby tree shook violently, sounded like a coconut dropped out. Chip rushed up on it and gagged, head of an Apache Indian at his feet.

  Familiar, ominous rattling began. We looked up and around. “Come on, you sons of bitches,” Chip yelled. Diamond’s eyes were icy, her weapon drawn. Owl picked the head up and dangled it by its hair. “This all you got? I not like Apache, anyway.”

  We heard a horse neigh from an aloft cliff. The mustang kicked up on its hind legs and when it came forward, I recognized the young pimply face rider. Nerves rose up my gullet.

  Diamond gasped, hiked her skirt up, and darted up the hills. “Dylan. Wait.” Halfway up, she tripped to her knees. She scurried to pull together, but he had turned the horse and vanished into the atmosphere.

  Chip and I both took an arm to gently lift her. Knees skinned, she hollered “Dylan, where’d you go?”

  Three oak trees stood one higher up than the next. Behind each one, a separate vest and cowboy wearing boy emerged. They joined up and sang, “Diamond and Dylan sitting in the tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g. First comes love, then comes marriage.”

  Tears streamed down Diamond’s face. “They were Dylan’s and my schoolmates. How can this be?”

  The boys ran off into the fog. There appeared to be spectral evidence of dark entities at play. My beating pulse drowned out any clarity I would conjure.

  Before Chip or I could get any words formed, rattling ensued. Ana beasts came running from mountains and forest, high and low.

  All of us had one strategy derived from our experience with them—fire as fast as possible. We took them down as soon as they could flash their furry faces and fangs and roar. Dunbar shot and cussed from beneath. Chip, Diamond, and I hit them from every angle above.

  The gun smoke merged with the fog, until we could see no more, but somehow, we hit every last target that still came. When their animalistic yelps finished and the smoke cleared, we moved up and onward, until we reached the cliff where Dylan had been.

  I leaped back at what was ahead, couldn’t make out the rich forest area from the monster engulfing it. “Goddamn, no warning,” I exclaimed.

  The large, fiery colored Ana beast soared forward. This is the one that had run out of town with Dylan. Dodging its flame, we scattered to either side. I didn’t see Diamond at all, anymore, and her pink rifle lay abandoned on the ground. “Goddamn it,” I cried.

  The chief shot arrows, and the rest of us, bullets. But the damn thing got out the way and bulldozed through the forest. After it zoomed back out and hovered, it breathed a flame that sent us all for the trees.

  Those woods caught hell. The heat was melting.

  I couldn’t find Chip or Owl through the infernos. Of all people, I came across Dunbar lying on his back. Branches snapped underneath my steps toward him.

  His sweat slid down from forehead to mustache. “We gone burn to death.”

  “No, I won’t allow myself to die next to a scallywag like you.”

  “Listen, I’m panicking. Might have a heart attack.”

  “Goddammit. Shut up.” I wanted to leave him to die, but my responsibility arrested me. I extracted a bottle of whiskey from my bag and fed him to calm his nerves.

  “Thank ya.”

  “Please, don’t mention it. I assure you that I’m only doing my duty.”

  A twang came from a nearby bent tree. “Doc Apollo, get me my rifle,” Diamond said.

  I trembled in my speech. “What you say?”

  The pink Whitworth lay out in the open where the beast roared and rolled about.

  “Doc Apollo, stop shaking. Them flames are spreading, and that’s that.”

  I hurried out and took hold of it then screwed my face, palms downward on the horizontal gun, I braced for the worst. Black liquid from the thing’s human lips dripped.

  I imagined Bet’s stare luring me in. When I came to, I had dodged the miry fluid, but the Ana beast had drooped down and taken me up on its tooth. All I could do was toss the gun out and let the hands of fate do what they would.

  Years of decisions rushed before me: cheating on Aminda, leaving Bet, much drinking and many arguments, trusting Calamity, tilting over a glass of whiskey on my porch to say farewell to my alcoholism and the pain it caused. I didn’t know what to make of the thoughts, but they sure were a-flooding my soul, one after the other. Instinctively as I did so few things, I prayed without scrutiny to what may or may not exist. It’d been a long time. “Please, not like this.”

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  Bet’s face smiled behind the spreading fire.

  After I shut my eyes, everything went black.

  The Whitworth sent a bullet, the beast howled, and from the bent over tree, Diamond yelled, “I got you this time.”

  My eyes opened to a fire that had turned to black smoke then, quickly, dissipated.

  Chip came a-running. “Doc, you alright?”

  A giant hand pulled me up by my coat. “He alright,” Big Owl said.

  Diamond came down and over.

  I was a-breathing hard. “Goddamn, what have we gotten ourselves into.”

  “Look around. We’re winning,” Chip said. Ana beasts that had joined to create the monster lay dead in the dirt. “There can’t be many more.”

  “Winning what?” Then, I turned to Diamond, who was staring off. “And how the hell did you get up that tree?”

  “Dylan and I use to climb.” She walked away and called out his name. The desperation could be heard in her echo.

  Before I could complete my breathing exercises, the mustang and rider darted through, nearly trampling over us.

  Diamond chased after. “Dylan, stawp!”

  Chip clenched his teeth, trailing behind. “Diamond, slow down. You don’t know where that horse is going.” Right when we’d pick up speed, more beasts were a-coming.

  “Me and Dummy bar will hold them off,” Chief said. “Go take care of girl.”

  Dunbar replied, “What you call me?” They set their differences aside; they had to. They stood ready for the last of the beasts, while Chip and I hurried for Diamond.

  The horror of decapitated Apache corpses along the trail slowed us down. “These people are sick,” Chip said. Just as he finished, we heard a beast scurrying through the branches. We tried to outrun it, but it moved too fiercely.

  Out came Ana Ahote to cut us off, wielding an axe and crouching. We aimed our weapons, only for him to hop up and spread his arms in superiority.

  Our bullets ricocheted off his chest. “What in tarnation,” I declared.

  His voice sounded like that of many. “You cannot kill me like you did the rest of my tribe.” He swayed forward, leering.

  After cracking out a final round, we stopped wasting bullets.

  He went on. “We are shadows of the Nagawitchi children and are made strong by the level of forbidden beliefs and forbidden lusts our specific humans’ carried.” More bullets rapping off him, he kept swaying up on us. “When we killed our humans, we—they became free. The other Ana’s humans were too weak in their desires. Those beasts never reveled in pure awesomeness as I do. Unfortunately for you, my human was all powerful in his wants. No weapon made with mortal hands can conquer me!”

  Right when he steamrolled forward, Giant Chief emerged behind us with his golden bow and arrow drawn.

  “Father,” the beast cried, braking in the black dirt.

  Owl froze as Ahote took to the woods, leaving the axe plunged down in the ground. Giant Chief acquired it and chopped his way down the direction Ahote went. With every branch he beat to the ground, he yelled, “You no my son.” The chief came back, bellowing out a cry and breaking the axe handle in half. “He no my son.”

  Chip nodded. “Sorry, Owl, but we have to find Diamond, right now.”

  Chip and I consoled the chief a last time but had to regrettably leave him alone with his grief.

  We took a path on the right that led to fields of ornamentals on either side of a river bank. We trotted onward through blinding mist, until we found Dylan and Diamond conversing by his mustang.

  She reached for him, but he leaped away, while skipping a rock into the water. As she prowled forward, he said “Don’t. You don’t know what they did to me.”

  “Nothing will change how I feel.”

  “Really? Then come see.” He made eye contact with Chip and me. “You, too. Come see.”

  When he mounted his horse, he let Diamond join.

  “We never road like this,” Diamond said.

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “You feel so—so cold.”

  After winding down a long road, we came to an open wooded area with a tarp covering a large portion of ground. A ray of sunlight broke through the fog and shone on the horse. The mustang allowed Diamond and Dylan to dismount, and she glistened like an angel, smiling with that birthmark over her lip. “Dylan.”

  He kept a cold expression. “Diamond, I have a surprise.”

  She blushed, as he whipped back the tarp.

  A headstone hovered over a large hole in the ground. We moved up on it and read, “Herin, lies Dylan King. A brave soldier and casualty of Calamity’s misery.”

  Diamond looked down the hole and shrieked. Dylan’s lifeless body lay there.

  Poor boy put it all on the line for our country and died like this? A shiver went through me. If he lay there, who was this rider?

  The entity, who’d impersonated Dylan, and its demon mustang faded in front of our eyes.

  Diamond gripped her chest, dropped to the ground, and screamed.

  Drumming, rattling, and chanting took the air. Who could it be? Seemed we’d picked off the bulk of the Ana tribe, already.

  I surveyed all around, while Chip dashed in circles, blasting.

  I hollered, “Diamond’s been through enough.”

  Through it all, Diamond didn’t stop gazing down at Dylan while crying, until a flickering figure rose out from where the soldier’s corpse lay.

  Standing behind this form, I recognized its long, flowing silver locks and pointy witch hat. She turned and stepped toward me, walking on air. I implemented our only strategy and fired my musket without hesitation, but Calamity caught the bullet and chuckled.

  She warned us in her snobbish tone. “This is Calamity Dyer, communicating to you through an entity and servant of Sam Hill that has taken my likeness. Don’t bother trying to kill it; your human weapons are futile.”

  I whispered, “How can any of this be real?”

  “Oh, so pragmatic, Doctor. They should have listened. There’s no way you can win. It’s quite amusing watching the Chip Blaze show, though, isn’t it? One of a buffoon running in circles?” At this statement, Chip came charging, but she tossed him to the ground with the strength of devils, knocking him out.

  Wiping off her hands, she said, “And that big oaf, Owl, is all-in apple-pie order, isn’t he? Right now, he’s using the axe we left for him to chop and chop and – he doesn’t know Ahote and I departed for Mexico, moments ago. Doc Apollo, you’ve been right all along. The mule train will never keep up. This posse has failed.”

  “Ploise,” Diamond cried, “Give Dylan back. Let him hunt and fish and tame horses and climb trees and go out to eat. Don’t you remember how it felt when you lost your mother?”

  “I see you’ve done your research. The answer is, I don’t. Forgetting is what makes you strong. I’ve done you a favor, honey. Men only make you miserable.”

  “No. give him back. Ploise. Give him back!”

  “I will not. This is on you. You made the decision not to save him. You should have been there for him when he needed you most.”

  Diamond sunk to a fallen position as if the air had been released out of her then surrendered her countenance to the earth.

  Calamity laughed at me. “You thought she was strong?”

  I opened my mouth, and no words came through.

  “Think of all you did accomplish. I was amazed when I got the report that you and the Comanche not only didn’t kill one another, but you joined forces.” She gestured at Chip’s unconscious body. “You followed this narcissist and took out all my Ana beasts except Ahote. Problem for you is they are much weaker than he is, and his power is still with me.” She sneered. “I’ve made it one-hundred-seventy-eight years with only the entities that follow Sam Hill at my disposal…I don’t need those beasts, anyway. You know, I could have ended all of you today, but the game of suffering is much more fun in long form. Your hope is gone. The death of your mission is the most horrific one I could render to you. I pronounce right now that it is dead!”

  Chanting from principalities and powers of the air ensued. The dark entity, which carried Calamity’s form and message, shimmered up and turned to smoke like a blown out candleflame.