“He’ll come back when he’s hungry,” Captain Oset said reassuringly “I don’t think the Broncos care about dogs crossing the Line. And if they find him first, well, they like dogs. I’m sure they’ll take care of him.”
“He won’t come back,” I said. “He’s got a Locative Sigil on his collar. He won’t stop until he’s found the jaguar. He can’t stand against a jaguar. He’s as good as dead.”
“Fike, I’m sorry Nini,” Captain Oset said, but so what her sorrow?
I shouted again, but my cry was pointless. Flynn was gone. Swallowed up by the brittle brilliant landscape.
Captain Oset ordered the detail back to the post, but when I clicked my reins, Evil Murdoch refused to budge. I hammered my heels against his sides and whacked at his head, but he just flicked his ears, dropped his nose, and stayed rooted to the ground.
“Go, you fiker! Go!” I shouted, and still he did not move.
Captain Oset drew around and jogged toward us, her swagger stick held at striking level. But before she reached him, Evil Murdoch bounced straight up into the air and gave a little kick. Suddenly I was lying on the ground. I rolled over, grit burning my hands, and saw Evil Murdoch bouncing across the wash, kicking joyfully The troopers were shouting; a private jumped down to hoist me to my feet.
I wished I could have lain in the dust forever.
THIRTY-THREE
Waiting. Rain. A Visitor.
DUTY GOES ON, despite your own personal sorrows. When we got back to Sandy, I discovered that an unfortunate side effect of impersonating an officer is that everyone expects you to act like one. All I wanted was to go back to the UOQ. curl up in a ball, and howl. Instead, I found myself assisting Captain Oset at sick-call, helping her hand out bandages to privates with hangnails and doses of calomel to corporals with the polka. After sick call came stable call, and after stable call I was ordered to supervise the completion of the forage returns. I had come a thousand miles and was stuck in the same old dull routine.
Only now, instead of worrying about my future, I was worrying about Flynn. He’d be safe until sundown, when Espejo crawled out of whatever hole he was hunkered down in. But the desert is full of dangers above and beyond a Birdie nahual. Rattlesnakes and thirst and javalinas and holes and Goddess-knows-what else. Flynn had heart, but he lacked the sense that would keep him from investigating a rattler or falling into a prairie-dog hole. Seeing my worry, Captain Oset tried to console me with stories of miraculous dogs who had miraculously survived floods, shipwrecks, avalanches.
“And, anyway,” she said, “maybe Evil Murdoch stuck with him. I once saw a mule stomp a mountain lion to death.”
I appreciated her effort, but somehow I didn’t think Evil Murdoch would be much help to Flynn. Or to anyone.
Flynn had trusted me, had followed me willingly, and I had sent him to his death. I knew now I would never be a good officer. Nini Mo said that to win, an officer must sacrifice for that which she loves most—her soldiers. I didn’t have the stomach for such sacrifices. I would have let Espejo live a thousand years if only Flynn were back with me.
After the forage returns were completed, Captain Oset tried to get me to help her with water call, but I played the shirker’s card, pled a horrible headache, and so was dismissed back to the UOQ_I could not go one minute longer without bursting into howls of regret and sorrow. When had I last slept—really slept? It was so long ago, I couldn’t even remember. But when I lay down, my nerves were like little wires, razor sharp and humming, and they would not let me rest. I took a big swig of the Tum-O and that did the trick, darkly.
When I awoke, hours later, the roof of the UOQ was groaning and moaning and a chill wind was worming its way in through the chinks around the doors and windows. Outside, it was dark. I had slept the afternoon away, slept through Retreat, slept through everything. Hard to believe that only a few hours ago I’d been sweltering. Now I felt as though I might freeze to death.
I put my buckskin jacket on and went into the parlor to close the dampers on the stove, cutting off the flow of cold air from the ice elemental. There was no firewood, no kindling, nothing to burn in the fireplace. I was wondering if Captain Oset would be really pissed if I burned her collection of old beedle novels, when I heard a soft scratching at the door.
Maybe it was Flynn? For a second, I felt so hopeful that I could have yelped. But Flynn would bark to be let in, not scratch. A jaguar, however ... I crept over to the settee and took down Oset’s shotgun from the gun rack. Snapped the breech and slid in two sigil shells. If it was Espejo, he was in for a fike of a surprise. As a series of sharp knocks rapped out the first few notes of “Califa’s Glory,” I raised the shotgun to my shoulder and hollered, “Enter!”
A small figure bundled in a blanket stood in the doorway; it pushed past me, unconcerned about the shotgun. I recognized the Bronco boy I had seen by the river the day we had ridden into Sandy.
“Stop right there,” I ordered as the figure behind him took a step toward me. “Don’t make another move.”
“It’s fiking freezing out here,” the figure complained.
I recognized her voice instantly.
She sounded exactly the same as when I had last seen her: one year for me, forty-four years for her. I let the barrel of the shotgun drop, and she came into the room and shut the door.
“Nice jacket,” said Tiny Doom.
“Give me some chocolate, por favor,” the boy said.
“I don’t have any more chocolate,” I said.
“Then damelo that.” He pointed to the pink ribband tied in the buttonhole of my jacket.
“Don’t be rude, Pecos,” Tiny Doom said to him, and then to me, “Although I have to say, I could use a bite of chocolate myself.”
She wore a buckskin jacket almost identical to the one I was wearing, though hers was deep red and had beading on the shoulders. When she took off her hat, I saw she had hardly aged at all. Her curly red hair was gray at the temples and there was a deep line between her eyes. Otherwise, she looked almost as she had at fifteen.
Tiny Doom looked around the room. “Pigface, Oset has the worst taste in décor I’ve ever seen. And it must have cost her a fortune to ship this fiking crap out here, too.”
“Who’s the kid?” I asked, as the boy vanished into the kitchen. If he was looking for chow, I wished him luck. I’d already looked myself and found nothing but stale hard crackers and a jar of moldy pickles. Oset wasn’t much of an eater.
“Pecos? Oh, he’s a friend of mine. Keeps his eyes peeled when I cannot. Come on, let’s sit a spell and chat.”
Like a Sonoran Zombie, I sat. For weeks I had imagined what I would say when I saw her, and now I was struck into silence. But I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
Tiny Doom threw herself down on Oset’s red sofa and bounced once or twice. “Buck didn’t send you, I’ll wager. But you are here, and with some urgency. Why is that?”
“I came to warn you. Espejo, the nahual, is on your track. He knows you are alive, and he aims to kill you.”
I hadn’t exactly expected Tiny Doom to shriek with horror at this news, but I also hadn’t expected her to laugh. But she did laugh. Long and loud. “Ah, dear Xava. Dear, dear Xava. I rather thought he’d catch up to me one day Alas, today He does have the worst timing.”
“I will take care of the nahual,” the Bronco boy said. He’d returned from the kitchen chewing on a hard cracker.
“Never mind about Espejo, Pecos. I’ll deal with him,” Tiny Doom said sharply Then to me, she said, “But I am wondering how he found me. And how you found me, too. I was pretty well hidden.”
“You can’t hide from me,” I said. “I did a Blood Working.”
“Pigface. Well, no fiking wonder Espejo found me!” Tiny Doom said impatiently. “Why didn’t you take out an advert in the newspaper? Found: One long-lost dead traitor?”
I protested, “I was very careful. No one discovered my Working. He caught me later and was suspicious of who I was
, but I wouldn’t tell him. So...” I realized I did not want to tell Tiny Doom what Espejo had done to me. I did not want to tell anyone. “Anyway, he found the map I used in the Working and figured it out.”
“You weren’t even supposed to know I was your mother,” Tiny Doom said. “Buck swore she’d never tell you.”
She had glossed over the danger from Espejo, moved right into accusation, and this irked me. I said sharply, “Buck didn’t tell me. Lord Axacaya did—when he was getting ready to kill me so he could free the Loliga. Did you forget that? The Loliga hidden under the City? The one tearing the City apart? The one who could only be freed when the last Haðraaða was killed? Which happened to be me, not that I knew it at the time. But I sure found out later, when Axacaya put his knife to my throat.”
“Fiking Axacaya,” Tiny Doom said. “I should have killed him when I had a chance. I’m sorry about the whole Loliga thing, but I guess I can’t think of everything. And anyway, didn’t I leave you a plan? And ain’t you still alive and the City still standing? So obviously it all worked out in the end.”
“Ayah, I’m still alive, and the City still stands. But I had to die to make it so. It was a great plan. The Ultimate Ranger Dare. How did you expect me to pull off that one?”
“You did, didn’t you?” she said. “I knew when I first met you that you were a tough little biscuit. Anyway, we can hash it all out later. I don’t have the time now. I’ve got important stuff going on.”
“You mean the jade?”
“You are a nosy little thing, eh? Ayah, the jade. And if you’ve sussed that out, you understand how important it is. I can’t afford to have a nahual sniffing around that. If word of the jade gets out to the Birdies, we are fiked. I need you to stay put, here, where you are safe, until we get all this settled, Flora.”
“Nyana,” I said. “You named me Nyana. Remember?”
Suddenly she did not look fifteen anymore, but sixty She said softly, “So I did. Will you sit tight, Nyana? You’ll be safe as long as you remain on the post. Right now he’s after me. He won’t come after you until he’s got me, and he’s not going to. I’ve got to draw him away from both you and the jade.”
“I can help you. Let me help you.”
“Thank you. It’s best if I handle Espejo alone.”
Pecos said something in Bronco through a mouthful of crackers, and Tiny Doom nodded in response. “We have to go. Will you do as I ask?”
“I suppose,” I said mulishly.
“Thanks.” She stood up and put her hat back on. She was leaving. All this way to find her, at so much cost, and this was all I got—a few short words and orders. What if Espejo got her before she got him? This would be all I’d ever have.
I leaped to my feet. “Wait! Wait!”
Tiny Doom halted at the door and turned back to look at me.
I said, “I’m sorry I left you behind. Really sorry.”
For a moment she looked confused, and then she laughed. “Oh, you mean when we last met? When you left me behind for dear old ghoulish grandmamma to eat? Ah, don’t worry about it. She didn’t eat me; that honor was saved for someone else. And I’m sorry about the Loliga. I guess I should have planned ahead a bit better, but there was a lot going on.”
“We must go,” the boy said urgently, pulling on Tiny Doom’s hand.
“I’m coming,” she answered, but she didn’t move. “Does your father know you are here?”
“No.”
“Does he know I am here?”
I shook my head.
Her shoulders sagged in relief. “Thank the Goddess.” She turned back to the door; the boy had already gone out.
“Wait!” I cried again. “You are going across the Line?”
“Ayah.”
“My dog, Flynn. I tried to use him to track Espejo. He went across the Line. If you see him, or hear of him—he’s a red dog, he’s silly but really good, please—”
“I’ll find him,” she promised. “I’ll find him.”
The door banged shut behind her. I ran to the window and pushed aside the drape. Tiny Doom had already vanished into the night.
THIRTY-FOUR
Cows. A Confession. Steak.
THE REST OF THE NIGHT, I paced the frigid room, growing more and more angry. Tiny Doom had abandoned my infant self, walked away, and never given me another thought. But she had still managed to ruin my life. Because of her, I had to hide in the shadows, I had to sneak and pretend. Because I hadn’t known who I really was, Axacaya had been able to use me, manipulate me, make a fool out of me, and almost kill me.
I wasn’t the only one she had almost destroyed. The Loliga had been her responsibility, and by ignoring this, she had put the entire City in jeopardy. Because of her poor judgment, Poppy had been imprisoned, tortured, crippled, and even now, though his body was free, his spirit remained in chains. Because of her, Flora Primera had been lost to the Birdies. Because of her, the War with the Birdies had been lost as well. Butcher was a good nickname for her; she left a trail of blood and corpses in her path. She lived, and yet so many of the people who had loved her, trusted her, followed her, were dead, broken, or worse.
I had come so far and risked so much, and she had spoken to me as though I were a child. She expected me to just sit back and wait for her to handle things. Well, fike that. Let Espejo have her. What did I care? For years I’d never even known she was alive, so why would it matter if now she was dead?
And so what if he then came after me? Let him try He wouldn’t find me so easy to compel this time. My blood burned with Gramatica; angry Words pounded in my head, choked my throat. Finally I took a nip of the Tum-O to calm myself down, and I must have overdone it, because the next thing I knew, the striker was shaking my arm. I sat up and found myself on the overstuffed settee, neck stiff, fully dressed.
“Major Rucker wants to see you, sir,” she said, offering me a coffee cup.
“Is there any milk?” I asked blearily. The coffee was burned.
“I cry your pardon, but the chupa ate the goat.”
I’ll bet he fiking did, I thought.
“Major Rucker said it was urgent, sir.”
Urgent wasn’t good. Rucker had either arranged the meeting to discuss the treaty with the Broncos—bad—or he had discovered that I was a fraud—worse. For a moment I considered scarpering, but I doubted I’d get far. Anyway, I’d come to the end of the line. My anger had died down into fatalism. Whatever was going to happen would happen. Let’s get it over with.
“I’ll be there directly” I went to wash up and change into another very loud shirt. This La Bruja person had very colorful taste. Her quarry must see her coming a mile away.
A RODEO WAS taking place on the parade ground. Cowboys on scrawny ponies were shouting and yawing at a scrimmage of irritated cows. On the sidelines, by the corral, a line of soldiers cheered the lively scene. Maj or Rucker and Captain Oset stood on the porch of the COQ talking to a man in a cowboy hat. The little dog Sally sat at their feet. They broke off their conversation as we approached.
“Your servant, Major,” I said, saluting. “Captain Oset.”
“Ah, there you are, Captain Romney I’m terribly sorry about your dog,” Major Rucker said. “But he may still turn up. One of my pointers ran off and was gone a full week before he came home. It happens. Don’t give up hope.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Captain Romney I’d like to introduce you to Sieur Taylor. He runs a ranch down south of here, has the beef contract for Sandy. He just brought in this month’s allotment.”
“Pleased to meet you, Captain Romney. Welcome to Arivaipa.” Sieur Taylor was a big man, almost as big as Tharyn, but weightier. He wore high-heeled boots, fringy leather leggings, and a heavy black leather jacket over a red-and-white checked shirt. His grip, when he accepted my outstretched hand, was crushing. I tried to be crushing in return, but failed.
“The troopers will be glad to see the beef,” Oset said. “They’re tired of salt
pork.”
“Salt pork beats canned carrots,” a lazy voice said. “I don’t know how ya can live on canned carrots, Bea.”
I saw that Taylor’s bulk had been hiding someone lounging on a folding chair, smoking a vile-smelling cigarillo. For one heart-skipping moment the cigarillo made me think it was Tiny Doom; when I’d met her in Bilskinir’s past, shed smoked them incessantly But I was wearing my Charmed sunshades. The woman had no Glamour and she didn’t look a thing like Tiny Doom. She had dark hair, flat and straight, and even when she was sitting down, I could see that she was tall. I felt sour and angry again.
“Sorry Bruja,” Oset said, laughing. “I don’t want animals eating me, so why should I eat them? Carrots do me well enough.”
“Bea doesn’t eat meat,” Major Rucker said to me. “She takes a lot of ribbing for it, but she stands firm.”
“It’s the principle of the thing. I don’t believe in killing things just to eat them.”
“Good thing you ain’t a Birdie, then. You gonna introduce us, Pow?” The woman rolled the cigarillo into the corner of her mouth and shot a spurt of tobacco juice over the side of the porch, narrowly missing the dog that lounged there in the shade. She had to be the grubbiest person I’d ever seen. Her skin was crusted with dirt, her buckskins were greasy, and her teeth, when she grinned, were greenish.
“I cry your pardon. Captain Romney, may I present La Bruja? She scouts for us sometimes. Other times she just eats our chow and drinks our bug juice.”
“And mighty poor bug juice it is. They say ya kin tell a man by the quality of his likker. By them standards, Pow, ya ain’t doing so well.” La Bruja spat again, this time hitting the dog directly on the hinder. The dog jerked up and found another place to lie, out of range.
La Bruja took another swig from the tin cup she held; even from this distance and through the cigarillo smoke, I could smell the burn of alcohol. “I like yer shirt, Captain. Kinda flash, but pretty Suits ya. Hope ya found the drawers that ditto.”
Flora's Fury: How a Girl of Spirit and a Red Dog Confound Their Friends, Astound Their Enemies, and Learn the Impo Page 28
