— The Devil Rode Beside Her

- Bones In The Prairie

Part 2- The Haunted Prairie

The farther north they traveled, the quieter the land became—not peaceful quiet, but the kind that felt listened to.

Rudy kept glancing over his shoulder, every few minutes whispering the same thing under his breath:

“Somethin’s followin’ us. I can feel it. I can feel it.”

“It’s the wind,” she said.

“It ain’t the damn wind,” he snapped. Then, meekly: “Sorry.”

She didn’t blame him.

The plains were changing.

Grass that should’ve whispered in the breeze stood still.

Crows perched on fence posts—but none called.

Shadows stretched too long, too thin, even at noon.

It was a land holding its breath.

They reached a stretch of prairie where the wind gathered teeth—cold, sharp, biting. The ground looked normal enough… but the horses refused to pass.

Rudy’s mule brayed, shaking its head like something invisible was tugging its ears.

Her gelding stamped, ears pinned.

“What now?” Rudy asked, voice trembling. “Why won’t they go?”

She dismounted without answering.

The wind died instantly.

Completely.

Too completely.

She crouched beside a patch of grass—golden, brittle, ordinary on the surface. But when she parted it…

Skulls.

Dozens of them.

Small.

Large.

Some still wearing tatters of flesh.

Bones buried shallow, packed tight together—like the earth had swallowed a mass grave and tried to spit it back out.

Rudy let out a strangled noise. “Saints preserve us…”

“These are fresh,” she murmured.

“How—you mean—how fresh?”

She sifted the top layer of dirt between her fingers.

“Days,” she said. “Maybe less.”

Rudy gagged. “What monster does this?”

She stood slowly, eyes sweeping the horizon.

“The Shepherd don’t do this.”

“Then who?”

She pressed her lips into a thin line.

“Ask the preacher’s God. See if he answers.”

Rudy shuddered violently. “Lady, if you’re tryin’ to comfort me—”

“I’m not.”

She scanned the grass again, noticing something strange:

The bones were arranged—intentionally, purposefully.

Circular.

Concentric.

Like a ritual site buried under the prairie.

Her shadow stretched forward, sliding over the circle—changing shape, rising, darkening.

Not a man.

Not an animal.

A silhouette with its head tilted as if listening.

Rudy swallowed audibly. “It’s… reactin’.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Means this place is older than the Shepherd. Somethin’ woke long before he got here.”

Rudy backed away from the bone-circle. “Shouldn’t we leave? Shouldn’t we—”

The wind hit them all at once—hard, howling, full of voices that weren’t voices.

The prairie grass rippled violently inward, toward the bone circle’s center—like the earth inhaling.

Rudy clutched her arm. “WHAT IS THAT?!”

She didn’t answer.

She stepped into the circle.

The wind died.

The world went still.

The bones hummed.

A faint vibration beneath her boots—like the land itself speaking through dead teeth.

Then she heard it—soft, faint, but unmistakable:

A whisper.

Her name.

Not the one she gave strangers.

The one she hadn’t heard since the night of ash.

She stiffened.

“No,” she muttered. “Not here. Not now.”

Rudy trembled. “What—what did it say?!”

“Nothing you need to worry about.”

She stepped out of the circle.

Behind her, the shadow followed—but not smoothly. It flickered, stuttered, as if the edges of it were being pulled by something unseen.

Rudy nearly fainted. “It’s—glitchin’. Like it’s bein’ tugged.”

“It’s being challenged,” she said.

“By what?”

She mounted her horse. “Something that doesn’t like competition.”

Rudy scrambled onto his mule. “You mean there’s—there’s more than one of those things out here?”

“No,” she said.

Rudy exhaled in shaky relief.

“There’s many.”

His relief died a hard death.

They rode fast, leaving the bone field behind them—but not the feeling of eyes in the grass, nor the sense that something beneath the earth had been awakened too soon.

By sunset, the sky had bled into violet, and the wind carried a new smell—one she hated.

Incense.

Oil.

Burning sage twisted wrong.

Rudy sniffed. “What is that?”

“Faith,” she said darkly.

“The Shepherd’s kind.”

Boot prints appeared beside her.

Faster.

Heavier.

Her shadow was restless.

And in the last streaks of dying daylight, she saw it—far ahead on the horizon:

A flicker.

A bonfire.

And silhouettes moving around it.

She felt her stomach drop.

“He’s close,” she said.

Rudy choked. “How close?”

She narrowed her eyes.

“Close enough the dead can smell us.”

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Say “Continue” and I’ll deliver Chapter Seven — The Widow and the Gunsmith, where they reach the next settlement—one with secrets, weapons, and a woman who knows the Shadow on sight.