High Moon

2: Coaxoch

Dust paled the black gleam of Gracie's hooves. The mare stood left of a long wooden bridge, ears flipped toward the pleasant burble of water below. By now the sun had sank to an angry seam on the curtain of twilight. Stars peppered the darkening sky. The last rays bounced off ruddy dirt and juniper scrubland as the shadows in a carved signpost deepened.

Opposite the sun, the moon was on the rise.

The sign sat at the edge of a river's waterfall, marking the entrance to the only town within a day's ride of the cliff palace. The waterfall never roared, not unless the previous winter had brought heavy snows. The most it did was pour onto the rocks below like a heavy rainstorm. It gathered into a deep, spring-fed pool that curved around the town's tall island then bled out into the scrub. 

The town itself—well, there was little to see from shore, only high walls of wood and rusted steel with a singular drawbridge. From Diego's vantage point near that bridge, there was nothing but strung lanterns in the town's entrance, flashing yellow flames that leered out at the dying sun. Only way in was by crossing this bridge, and every night around this time it swung up and wouldn't swing back down, not for no one, until sunrise. 

It was still flat tonight, soaked and slippery from the day's ventures.

Diego glanced back at the red horizon. A few more minutes and they might have missed the bridge completely. He swatted flies off Gracie's hindquarters, looped her reins in one gloved hand, and walked closer to the sign.

"Green Grotto. Happiest place in earth," he read, chapped lips working out the letters. Reading had been a novelty introduced to him by the English big game hunters. Though he didn't like to admit it, he practiced when he could, usually out in the wilderness beside a crackling fire. Bibles and dead men's letters mostly.  Never was much more reading material around than that.

Men like Diego knew how to count things like coins and bullets, knew how to fight and survive. That was why he always ended up with the contents of other men's pockets. He never bought one of those printed newspapers or shopped for books.

But reading was enjoyable in the right circumstance, and he hadn't read these words on this sign in quite some years.

Taking tender steps, Gracie headed down the rocky embankment for the running water.

"Drink soon," he promised the mare, guiding her back onto the slick bridge in slow, measured steps. Old planks shuddered, groaned, and held. He glanced over his shoulder. The short brush was still, but the night insects buzzed louder than the water.

Out in these wild nights, it wasn't safe to lower your head for a drink or a piss.  You needed that deep water, like what cut around the small town, if you wanted to do anything in peace. The Demon was rumored to be afraid of the substance, never crossing anything that ran over its chest. Long as that water kept falling and the town's inner spring kept filling, the inhabitants spent their nights in relative safety. Summer droughts always had them clutching their guns a bit tighter underneath the glow of a full moon, though.

Walking up to the glare of the first lantern, he saw evidence of why. Massive claws raked across sections of wood and steel. Every tear looked weathered, made in the early fall he guessed, when the water would've been lowest. He took a long look at the water's dim surface, wondering how deep it ran tonight.

Diego knew animals,  and he knew the demon weighed far more than any north American bear, larger even than the grizzled predators of the new state of California. It wasn't afraid of water: it was far more likely that the damned thing couldn't swim well.

At the far end of the bridge he stood Gracie beside the entrance and walked down to the rushing edge. He filled the brim of his hat with substance then carried it back up to the mare to wash the dust from her pretty face. Water dripped from the brim as he set it back on his head.