Tale of the Spectral Kite

By Jeff Gard

“In the tales of them that came before, there’s talk of the otherworldly, spectral kite.” Pop’s cybernetic eye stared down the empty barrel of his gun. The rest of the parts stretched across his lap. “The settlers said you could see clean through the bird’s skin, past its bones, straight to its beating heart. It had a wingspan wider than two steeds, claws that could crush boulders.”

My blistered feet throbbed, and my back hurt from a long day on the trail. I just wanted a few winks before we rose at the butt crack of dawn. “I’m getting a little old for tales.”

Pop slid the shiny cylinder on the ejector rod. “They say the predator only showed when someone was about to die. The last sighting was somewhere out this way.”

I yawned. “Whatever you say, Pop.”

Frowning, he loaded his gun. “I can see your ears won’t be bent by this tale.”

“Not tonight,” I said but glanced up anyhow.

Pop breathed heavily, hand clamped over his side. Nearby, his electro-steed lay sideways, pistons pumping slowly as hoofs pawed the air. Steam rose where the slugs had torn through its shoulder.

I squinted up the path. “You see where them shots come from?”

Pop gritted his teeth. “Naw. They got the drop on us.”

I frowned at my own arrogance. Pop had wanted to take it slow, but I’d insisted we take this path. We’d tracked Taggert Squelch and his gang of poachers for nearly a month down the Hesperia Trail, deep into the Sombra Mountains. They’d left scores of dead black-throated shoats, minus the horns that curl from their shaggy heads. The magistrate had offered a handsome bounty to them that brought the Squelch gang to justice, and I’d got impatient for the reward. I should’ve seen the trap before it was sprung.

Rocks scuttled ahead, and I tracked the sound with my rifle until I saw the flanges of leather chaps passing through a clearing of sage and sweet pine.

The rifle kicked in my hands, and a poacher cried out.

“Nice shot, Son.” A red stain spread across Pop’s shirt just beneath his fingertips.

There were med-bots in my saddlebag, but my mount kept going when I’d hopped off the saddle after the first shots. The stupid contraption was somewhere up the trail.

Pop nodded up at twisted vegetation clinging to bedrock. “If you climb to the top, you’ll gain the high ground. Might be able to get behind them.”

A shot rang out, and rock fragments sprayed my shoulder. Before I could turn, Pop fired three times. The second poacher fell a few paces behind me.

Two down. Two to go, including Taggert. I could live with those odds.

“Go!” implored Pop. “Now, Reginald!”

I tossed him the rifle, pulled out my pistol, and scrambled up the rocky slope. My boots dislodged scree and sand while he covered me, rifle cracking like thunder. One shot. Another shot. Silence.

I tried not to dwell on what all the quiet might mean as I climbed. Wiry bushes scraped my face and arms, but I paid them no mind.

“Where you going?” Taggert’s amused voice echoed off the granite walls. “There’s nowhere you can hide from a tracker.”

A firefly-sized drone buzzed my head. It weren’t armed, but its camera could give away my position. I swatted it out of the air. “Big words from a man who poaches at night when no one’s looking.”

I clambered onto an overlook. The valley yawned below, coated in the honeyed light of late afternoon. An immense shape eclipsed the sun momentarily, but I was too blinded by sunshine to notice the specifics.

Twigs snapped.

A bullet bit me in the shoulder, spinning me around. Faltering, I dropped my gun and fell to my knees. In front of me, a balding man flashed two gold teeth as he smiled.

“Told you, you can’t outrun a tracker.” Taggert spat out rancid tobacco juice.

My shoulder burned where I’d been hit. “Yeah, well, we got the rest of your crew. Good luck hauling in your score by yourself.”

Taggert shrugged. “Them’s just the help. More profit for me.”

My gun was just beyond my reach.

“Any last words?” Taggert asked, cocking his revolver.

A bloodcurdling shriek tore the air. A large shadow enveloped the overlook, and the ground seemed to buckle where an enormous bird landed. It turned its head to face us sideways, a blood-red eye daring us to move.

The spectral kite was larger than a barn. I could see all the bones and ligaments straining against its thin skin, waiting to strike. Its heart was a dark, fluttering cloud of moths trapped just below its ribcage.

Taggert and I gaped at the creature.

The kite’s head snapped forward, and we both rolled out of the way. I gathered my gun and fired. Taggert clutched his stomach and crumbled in front of the predator. The creature bobbed its head once, as if to thank me for this offering, then scooped up Taggert with one talon.

With a mighty flap that knocked my hat clean off my head, the spectral kite launched skyward. I stared at it, gobsmacked, until I remembered Pop.

I needn’t have worried, though.

Pop was waiting for me below, leaning into my electro-steed’s flank. He peeled back his bloody shirt and spread a handful of med-bots across the entry wound. Nearby, the last dead poacher lay face down.

“I saw it,” I blurted out. “The spectral kite.”

He winced as bullet fragments bubbled out of his skin and fell to the ground. “Sure you did, son.”

“For truth,” I swore.

Fresh skin spiderwebbed across his wound. “That’s just a campfire tale, Reginald.”

I spread bots on my wounded shoulder. “It ain’t no tale. Tell me the rest.”

“I thought you were too old for that.” A smile kicked at the corners of his mouth.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jeff Gard is an assistant professor of English at Briar Cliff University in Sioux City, Iowa. When he isn’t writing or teaching, he enjoys board games, disc golf, binge-worthy television shows, music, and procrastination (see above). Many of his fiction ideas arise from random thoughts that strike in the middle of the night when he should be asleep. His stories have appeared in Every Day Fiction, The Arcanist, Daily Science Fiction, and Flash Fiction Magazine.

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