Hell Come Sundown by Nancy A. Collins

woman did not respond, he asked the question haltingly in her own language.
    â€œI will speak in your own tongue,” she replied. “Your Comanche hurts my ears. I am called Pretty Woman.”
    â€œHow long have I been asleep?”
    â€œYou have been dead three days.”
    â€œYou mean unconscious.”
    She gave him a look that would wither an apple on the branch. “I know dead when I see it.”
    â€œHow can I be dead if I am talking to you?”
    â€œHow can a rattlesnake bite after it is no longer alive?”
    Yoakum blinked. “I had a dream where someone said that to me. But how—?”
    Pretty Woman shrugged her shoulders and went back to poking at the fire with a stick. “Dreams tell us many things. My dream told me where to find you, and to protect you from the sun.”
    â€œI don’t understand.”
    â€œI don’t, either. For now it is enough that I saw you in my dream and found you before you burned with the rising sun.”
    â€œAnd you sat with me this whole time? Three days?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI am a shaman. As was my grandfather and his mother before him. My medicine is strong, but I am still young. I am—unseasoned,” she spoke in a way that told Yoakum she was quoting someone else’s words. “So I was sent out into the wilderness to seek a vision, and make its medicine my own.
    â€œFor four days and four nights I wandered without food or drink, or sleep. Then, on the fifth night, I looked up and saw the moon weeping blood. The bloody teardrops fell upon the land, and from them sprang forth a man with eyes of fire and the heart of a devil. I saw the devil-man go forth and bring pestilence and death to the Whites and the Mexicans, and to my people as well. I saw towns and villages laid to waste, filled with the dead who are not dead. I saw the fire that burned in the devil-man’s eyes glowing in the eyes of all those he tainted—including my own kin.
    â€œThe vision frightened me beyond any fear I have ever known. I looked back to the moon for guidance, but it was no longer there. In its place was a man whose face was whiter than a cloud, and whose eyes blazed red, but not with the same fire that burns within the devil-man. That face was yours.”
    â€œThe devil-man you saw in your vision—he is real. His name is Sangre.” He put his hand to his throat, a baffled look on his face. “But if I am, indeed, dead—how is it I still have my wits about me? I’ve seen what happens to those he bites. They’re little more than animals, driven by the need for blood.”
    â€œThe charm you wear protects you,” Pretty Woman said, pointing at the medallion still looped about his neck. “I do not know the medicine that worked it, but it is very old and very strong.”
    He looked down at the pendant hanging against his chest, taking the stone in the palm of his hand. His flesh tingled and burned for a few seconds, as if reacting to the silver, before the pain was replaced by a familiar numbness. Where the stone had previously appeared red laced with skeins of black, now it resembled a glass filled with red and black ink that swirled together, yet never mixed.
    â€œAll I know about this necklace is that Sangre had it on him when he was found, and he didn’t come back to life until it was removed. And I know that he, and the others like him, are scared of it.”
    â€œAh!” Pretty Woman said, nodding her head as if it all suddenly made sense. “It is a containment charm. Its medicine holds and binds evil spirits that dwell within the flesh of the walking dead. It has placed the demon inside you under a spell, so it can not control your flesh.”
    â€œWhat would happen if I took it off?”
    â€œThe evil spirits would be free to do as they like.”
    â€œI have to go back to the place where this all began. It’s my job to ride the range