The Stag Lord Read online

  The Stag Lord

  Darby Kaye

  Spence City

  © 2014 Darby Karchut

  Sale of the paperback edition of this book without its cover is unauthorized.

  Spencer Hill Press

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Contact: Spence City, an imprint of Spencer Hill Press, PO Box 247, Contoocook, NH 03229, USA

  Please visit our website at www.spencecity.com

  First Edition: December 2014

  Darby Kaye

  The Stag Lord/by Darby Kaye–1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary:

  Description: A Celtic warrior and his young son go hand-to-horn with a New World shapeshifter in modern day Colorado, aided by a beautiful Healer, her loyal-unto-death dog, and a clan of immortal Fey.

  The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this fiction: The Avengers, Broncos, Charmin, Coors, Dumbo, Fat Tire, Formica, Glenlivet, Guinness, Hallmark, Harry Potter, Hummer, Lucky Charms, Rambo, Sigg The Lion King, This Old House, Tilt-A-Whirl, Transformers, Trojan, Tylenol, Tyrconnell, Vise-Grip, X-Men

  Cover design by Errick A. Nunnally

  Interior layout by Errick A. Nunnally

  978-1-939392-41-1 (paperback)

  978-1-939392-42-8 (e-book)

  Printed in the United States of America

  Also by Darby Karchuc

  (Darby Kaye)

  Middle Grade Books:

  Finn Finnegan

  (Spencer Hill Middle Grade)

  Gideon’s Spear

  (Spencer Hill Middle Grade)

  The Hound at the Gate

  (Spencer Hill Middle Grade—January 2015)

  Young Adult Books:

  Griffin Rising

  Griffin’s Fire

  Griffin’s Storm

  Nonfiction Books:

  Money and Teens: Savvy Money Skills

  (Copper Square Studios)

  Essential Money Guidebook: Simple, Sustainable Personal Finance for Real People

  (Copper Square Studios)

  Words and Phrases

  Tuatha Dé Danaan (TWA day dhanna) - an ancient warrior race of mythical beings from Ireland

  Amandán (AH-mon dahn) - goblin-like creatures

  bodhran (BOW-rawn) - Irish frame drum played with a doubled-headed stick

  Céad mile fáilte (kad MEEL-a FALL sha) - A hundred thousand welcomes

  Codladh sumh (culla SOVH) - Sleep well

  Fáilte (FALL-sha) - Welcome

  Faugh a ballagh (FOW-an BALL-ah) - “Clear the way!”

  Gle mhaith (GLAY moth) - Very good

  Long-son -A descendant

  Mo chara (muh KAR-uh) - My friend

  Poc sídhe (POKE shee) - fey or fairy stroke

  Sláinte (SLAWN-cha) - health

  Tír na nÓg (TEER Nah Noe-g) - Eternal Land of Youth/Afterworld

  “It is in the shelter of each other that the people live.”

  —Irish proverb

  1

  THE STORE CLERK EYED the dark-haired boy who was staring at the deer head that was mounted behind the counter just above her head. She never liked where her late husband’s trophy had been hung—it always made her feel like the thing would topple off the wall and impale her as she rang up a purchase at the cash register. Once, a customer to her curio shop, which was barely a level above a tourist trap, had joked that it looked like she was wearing the thing on her head, like a costume from a second-rate production of The Lion King. After that, she had moved the register a foot to the left.

  There was something in the boy’s stare and rigid stance, the way his right hand hovered near the pocket of his grimy hoodie. It reminded her of a dog standing tense and alert when it sensed things that go shit in the night. Things with unconsecrated faces that stared in from the other side of a black windowpane.

  “Cor?”

  Both the boy and the clerk looked over at the tall man walking toward them from the display rack at the front of the store. He held a map of Colorado and a pamphlet advertising the nearby nature park and campground. The clerk noticed he had the same too-blue-to-be-true eyes as the boy, eyes that were accentuated with sweeping lashes that, on a less rugged man, would have looked feminine. On this man, they just made his blue eyes bluer. His thick, chestnut-brown hair was swept back to reveal a stern but handsome face, jaw dark with a day’s worth of stubble. Just like the boy’s messier mop, a few strands flopped over one eye.

  Father and son, she guessed.

  “Are you all right?” The man’s deep voice held the whiff of an accent, as if he was working hard to cover it with a flat-as-the-Platte Midwestern inflection. The boy nodded, his focus back on the deer head. “Fetch yourself a treat, then. No more than a dollar.” The man gave the boy a nudge toward the nearby rack of candy bars. “Off you go.”

  It’s the way he says his r’s, the clerk decided. And something else. A lilt? It took her back to the memory of her great-grandmother, a woman she scarcely remembered, who had emigrated from Ireland in the early part of the twentieth century to escape religious persecution for being Roman Catholic. The clerk recalled Great-Granny complaining about all the Irish Need Not Apply signs on too many businesses’ doors.

  Reaching the counter, the man placed the map on the wooden surface and slid the park brochure closer to her. His hands had the look of someone who knew their way around a toolbox—clean, but ropy with muscles and veins and tendons, and sans a wedding ring. Not even a faint cheater’s ring. He tapped the brochure. “Would you kindly tell me how to find this place?”

  Kindly? thought the woman. Who talks like that anymore? “Sure. It’s easy—just stay on this street and go west two more blocks, then turn right on Kissing Camels Road.”

  “Kissing Camels?”

  “You’ll understand when you see the rock formations. Now, you’ll go through a neighborhood, but just keep following the signs north and they’ll take you to the main entrance.”

  “Right. Thank you.” Studying the brochure’s list of campsite facilities, he spoke over his shoulder. “Cor. Come along.”

  The boy lingered in front of the rack, feet never still as he jiggled back and forth in a way that suggested too many hours in a car and not enough breaks. He flipped a few more bars over, checking the prices, than gave up and joined the man. The clerk noticed the silent question from the man and a shake of the head from the boy.

  Something in the practiced it doesn’t matter expression on the boy’s face made the clerk blurt out. “Everything on that rack is seventy-five cents. Today only. Forgot to put up a sign earlier. Guess I’m getting old.”

  While the boy dashed away, the man caught the woman’s eye. “Today only, eh?”

  She found herself blushing. For being caught in the lie as well as other reasons she thought she was too old to even think about.

  He leaned closer as he dug through a pocket for the change. “I thank you for your generosity.” The formal tone contrasted with the man’s cheap long-sleeved T-shirt, faded jeans, and the don’t-fuck-with-me hunting knife the length of his forearm he carried at his hip in a leather sheath.

  “You’re welcome.” The clerk leaned an elbow on the counter and studied them as they left. The boy was already half-finished with his Three Musketeers bar by the time they reached the door. A smile tugged at her lips when he held up the remainder of the treat to the man, who took a small bite, then han
ded it back before ushering his son outside. Moving over to the store’s display window, she watched as they climbed into a beat-to-the-gates-of-hell truck pulling an even more beat-up camper behind it. The rig eased away from the curb, merging into the late-afternoon traffic under a sky sullen with clouds, a rarity in early October in Colorado.

  “How much for one night?” Drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, the man waited as the park attendant standing next to their truck checked a sheet of paper on his clipboard. The truck idled, complaining about how many miles it had covered today while dragging that fat-ass camper behind. A faint reek of gasoline wafting through the open windows of the cab reminded the man to check the carburetor. Again.

  Next to him, Cor leaned out the passenger window, craning his head around to stare up at the red sandstone cliffs forming a towering gateway. Hoodoo rocks, tall sandstone formations that looked like upright spires of frozen pink cotton candy or soft-serve ice cream, were scattered along both sides of the gravel road leading into the park. To the west, mountains formed a rampart, protecting the city of High Springs.

  Standing on the seat, the boy twisted around, his wiry torso disappearing out the window to get a better view. One foot kicked a much-loved, much-read copy of Shiloh onto the floor.

  With a growl, the man reached over and grabbed the back of his son’s jeans. “Sit your arse down.” He reeled Cor in with one hand, careful not to whack the boy’s head on the frame.

  “Dad, I was just looking at—”

  The man raised an eyebrow. “Arguing with me. Now, would that be prudent?”

  Cor shrugged. “I don’t know. What does prudent mean?”

  It means I’m weary to the point of insanity after driving this bleedin’ truck for eleven hours straight. “What do you think it means?”

  “Some kind of fruit?”

  The man hid a grin. “That would be prune. Think about the way I used it in the sentence.”

  Cor rubbed a hand back and forth through his hair, rumpling it even more. “Um…smart?”

  “Or wise. Sensible. Practical.”

  The attendant cleared his throat, interrupting the impromptu vocabulary lesson. About all the schooling he’s gotten this past week, the man thought. He glanced down at the book on the floor by the eight-year-old boy’s foot. Although I should be grateful for a son who will read anything, as long as it’s about dogs.

  “Well, it’s cheaper if you stay two nights,” the attendant continued. “We’ve got a special rate for after the tourist season.” He handed the man a pen and a form with the words Garden of the Gods Park and Campground, High Springs, Colorado printed across the top of it, with a list of amenities and fees.

  The man studied the paper, then began filling it out. “Will cash be acceptable?” he asked as he wrote.

  “Sure.” The attendant took the clipboard as the man reached behind him for his wallet, then glanced down at it. “‘Bann Boru,’” he read. “Unusual name.”

  “Yes.”

  “See you’re from Pennsylvania. A long way from home.”

  “Yes.”

  “School vacation?”

  “Yes.”

  “In October?”

  “Yes.”

  The attendant gave up. “Well, you should have the place to yourself. I’ll be here until six if you have any questions.” He motioned at the gatehouse behind him, then eyed their rig. “But it looks like you know what you’re doing.”

  “We do.” Bann gave a nod, then passed the campground map and stamped permit over to the boy.

  He drove westward into the rocky labyrinth, the gravel crunching under the tires and pinging against the belly of the truck. In between the slabs of sandstone, junipers, pines, and spruces, mixed with scrub oak sporting balaclavas of bronze and gold, fought for room wherever they could take root.

  Ten minutes later, Bann spotted their assigned camp. He pulled off the road, wincing when the trailer hitch grated along the ground as they bucked and rolled into the vacant site. A piney-spicy aroma, like sweetened turpentine, wafted through the cab’s half-open windows from the juniper trees fencing the site on three sides. A picnic table and a fire grill were located in the most sheltered corner of the site. Across the street and down a slight incline, a tiny cinderblock outhouse, clearly a one-holer, squatted in shame behind another screen of junipers and man-high chamisa bushes the same shade of tarnished gold as the aspens dotting the sides of the mountains.

  Without speaking, father and son climbed out. A growing breeze ruffled their hair and sent a dust devil whirligigging through the campsite, inviting them to play. They eyed each other over the bed of the truck.

  “Not in your wildest dreams, m’lad.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  A pause. Then, without warning, the boy sprinted toward the camper. Bann matched him stride for stride. Reaching the back of the truck a second before his son, he pretended to stumble.

  “Yes!” Cor slapped his hand on the metal ball. “I win!”

  “You cheated.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Why, how else could you have beaten me?”

  “Yeah, right.”

  Bending over the hitch to hide his amusement, Bann began removing the safety chains. Cor unfolded the aluminum steps of their just-a-step-above-atent camper, which was scarcely big enough to hold the man’s six-foot-plus frame, with a clang, then climbed inside, leaving the door ajar. After unhitching, Bann climbed back in the truck—quite certain that if he had to drive another mile today, he’d cut his own throat—and maneuvered it around, making sure to park the vehicle nose-first toward the road.

  Just in case.

  With one eye on the cloudy sky, he rolled up both windows and stepped out. Taking a moment to stretch his back, he grunted in satisfaction at the spinal pop. He sighed. What would I give for a home for the two of us? A moment later, Cor appeared at the camper door, a roll of toilet paper in one hand. He waved it at his father, the loose end fluttering.

  “Hurry, Dad. It’s starting to poke out.”

  With a proper loo.

  Bann led the way across the road to the outhouse. As they approached, he slid his knife free of its leather sheath. They had stumbled across the blade a year ago during their first month on the road, both of them too stunned from the sucker-punch the universe had nailed them with to do more than drive aimlessly from state to state. The West Virginia junk shop had been filled with locals whose expressions had made the spot between Bann’s shoulder blades prickle. He still couldn’t believe their luck in finding a knife of its size made of iron instead of steel.

  Cor had christened it Rambo. It had been the first joke the boy had cracked since The Day. Hell, he would’ve been happy if Cor had named it Dumbo, just so long as his son was talking.

  Anything was better than the silence. Or the tears, which had finally faded. Or the nightmares, which had not.

  Cor wasn’t the only one still having nightmares.

  Bann eased the door open with his foot, keeping both hands free. A chemical smell, worse than human waste in his opinion, burned his nose. A toilet and a sink and just enough room for two if they were either related or really close friends. After a check, including the ceiling and the tiny window covered with a wire mesh, he motioned the boy inside, then joined him.

  Cor stood there, clenching both his teeth and the toilet paper roll. “I have to go. Now.”

  “Well, get on with it, then.” Bann gestured toward the boy’s middle region. “It’s not like I haven’t seen you pantless before—”

  “Dad!”

  “—when changing your nappies. Which, I might remind you, was not that many years ago.”

  “I’m going to explode!” Cor’s voice rose higher. “All over the place!”

  Bann backed out. A smile so rare he was surprised the facial muscles still worked tugged at the corner of his mouth. He waited a few seconds, then opened the door again. “Are you finished?” He ducked when the roll of toilet paper saile
d past his head and into the nearby tree. “I take it you’re not.” Still smiling, he closed the door, then strolled over and fished the roll from the branches.

  The scent of juniper clung to his fingers like incense. He lifted a hand to his nose and breathed deeply. One of nature’s most exquisite perfumes mingled with the chemical smell from the outhouse.

  The sublime and the profane.

  “Um, Dad? Can I have the roll back now?”

  He started toward to the outhouse when a gray-brown blur of movement out of the corner of his eye made him freeze. The chamisa bush trembled, then stilled. “Oh, shite.”

  “That’s for sure,” Cor said from inside the building. “Why do you think I need—oh, wait. There’s some in here—”

  “Bolt the door. Now.” Silence. Then, a chunk-chink as a latch was slid into place.

  Knowing his son wouldn’t so much as twitch or make a sound until the command was given, Bann squinted at the hedge. With a flick of his wrist, he lobbed the roll of toilet paper at it.

  A leggy form exploded from within, as if the bush had come alive. Dried bits of vegetation drifted into the air as a deer bounded away. It paused once to glance back at Bann; its black eyes seemed wide with embarrassment at having been scared away from a favorite grazing spot by a roll of Charmin.

  “Dad?” A whisper.

  “Just a doe.” He wished he would have said fawn.

  A breath sucked in. “A-are you sure? Like really sure?”

  “Quite certain. Cernunnos could not have—” He bit down on the name, praying Cor wouldn’t catch it. The gasp from the other side of the door made that prayer, along with every other prayer, a complete waste of time. “Damn me to Hell,” he breathed. He closed his eyes, knowing what was coming next.

  Knowing his son was going to Lose. It.

  Again.

  Bann envied him the luxury.

  “Don’t say his name!” Cor’s voice rose to a shriek. “We’re not supposed to say his name—he finds us if we say it.” Fingers scrabbled at the bolt. The door shuddered when feet began kicking it in frustration. “It won’t open.” Another kick. “Dad, I can’t get out!”