by Alex Bledsoe
I ducked out of sight behind the fallen tree and pulled a branch down over me. The dead man’s horse went past first at a leisurely trot, smugly unconcerned with the huge drop to its left. Then my gray mare followed, far more slowly, and actually turned my way as if she could see me. If she’d given me away I’d have pushed her off the cliff with my bare hands, but she went past without a sound.
My man had to be next, so I got ready. I heard him approaching slowly, letting his horse set the pace. He would be alert for pursuit, not ambush. I hoped. Then he was right in front of me.
He wore another one of the camouflage cloaks, but appeared taller and older than the man hanging dead back in the shack. I could see only his chin and its sandy-colored beard. His bow hung from his saddle, beside the quiver of arrows. No way he could nock one quickly.
I waited until he passed, then jumped over the fallen tree and grabbed a handful of the cloak. He was too surprised to resist and I yanked him easily from the saddle onto the rocky trail. He landed with a startled, “ OW! ”
I jumped onto him and pinned him with my weight and the cloak’s material. He struggled to get his hands free, and I punched him in the face. He grunted and stopped wriggling, so at least it got his attention. He glared up at me with fury that he knew, for the moment, he had to control.
“Nice shooting back there,” I said. “Now why don’t you tell me about Lumina?”
“Go to hell,” he hissed, and with a sudden burst of energy threw me aside. I rolled toward the edge of the cliff, but flattened myself and clutched the ground before I went over.
The guy jumped to his feet and threw off the cloak. He wore modified leather armor, the kind used as a status symbol by a certain type of criminal. It was covered with sword nicks and little pockmarks made by arrowheads, testifying to the wearer’s supposed history of violence. They were easy to fake, of course, but my gut told me he’d come by his honestly.
He drew his sword and attacked. I rolled out of the way just in time and the sword buried itself in the rocky ground. I got to my feet and drew my own sword, wishing now I hadn’t punched so many people that day. My grip was pathetic when I parried his next blow, and he damn near knocked the hilt right out of my hand. I responded by kicking at his groin. He turned and caught the blow on his hip, but it still made him grunt because my boots had metal toe caps for just such contingencies. His leg nearly buckled, and I jabbed with my sword, forcing him to awkwardly back away. I feinted, he moved to block it and I jumped inside his guard. I slammed the blade of my own sword into his chest and slid it up until the edge was horizontal against his throat, just biting into the skin.
We’d ended up closer to the cliff than I liked. “Tell me about Lumina,” I repeated. “And why you want to know so bad you’d kill some poor girl over it.”
He laughed. This close I saw the little patches of white hair that had grown from sword cuts on his scalp. He’d done his time, apparently. “Some ‘poor girl’? Pal, you don’t know who you’re talking about.”
A shudder went through me. I recognized his voice from that night: he’d been the torturer defending his professional skill. The dead man at the cabin had called him Frankie. That cold rage came again as I said, “I know she died being peeled alive by you.”
“Who are you working for, tough guy?” he demanded; suddenly he was now interrogating me. “You know Marantz doesn’t like strange noses poking into his business.”
“Then Marantz should’ve hired better people,” I said as if the name meant nothing. But it did; in my business, you got to know all about people like Marantz.
He laughed. “Okay, to tell you the truth, we were-” Then he head-butted me in the forehead. I reflexively slashed with the sword and cut the skin of his throat as I fell back, but not deep enough to do any real damage. I sat heavily on the fallen tree and my sword fell from my limp hand. I shook my head hard, and my vision cleared in time for me to see the man’s weapon glint in the sun as he brought it around in a wide, full-power slice at my neck. I leaned back so that it swished over my chest, then jumped up so that in one move I pushed him back and punched him in the jaw. He dropped his sword and, with an annoyed cry of, “Oh, god damn it!” fell backward over the edge of the cliff.
Almost.
I grabbed the front of his tunic, dug my boots into the dirt and managed to hold him with just his heels barely on the edge. The drop below was about forty feet, onto the same hard rocks that had so gently cradled me and his other victims. It might not be fatal; it definitely would leave a mark.
He froze, his arms flung wide for balance. All I had to do was open my hand. “Ready to talk now, smart-ass?” I said.
He glared at me. “I got nothing to say to you. You shouldn’t have been there that night, and we should’ve made sure you were dead. Mistakes all around.”
“Who is Lumina?” I asked.
He laughed. “The fire dreams are made of, pal.”
Dirt crumbled under his feet and he slipped a little. I couldn’t hold him balanced like this much longer. “What’s Marantz after?”
More rock fell. Somewhere a crow signaled to its brethren. “You are in so much trouble. Once Marantz hears about this, you and everyone you know will be mutton on the fire. You get me?”
I had to admire the guy’s balls for trying to talk his way off the edge of a cliff. “I get you.”
“Now if you let me go, we might be able to work this out. I can talk to Marantz for you. I mean, yeah, you killed Jimmy up at the cabin, but he was a kid and he wasn’t too smart, so he’s no loss. Marantz won’t give a shit.”
“ You killed Jimmy, Frankie. Remember? And does Marantz give a shit about you?”
He grinned. “Hey, we’re family.”
I didn’t know if he meant it metaphorically or literally, and really didn’t care. The chill was back: the image of Laura’s dead face in the moonlight loomed vividly before me. “You tortured a helpless girl to death. You damn near killed me, and you did kill the best horse in the world.”
“The horse?” he said in real surprise. “You’re upset about the horse?”
“Not anymore,” I said, and let him go.
His last words were something like, “No, wait!” But we were way past negotiating.
I watched him bounce off the side of the cliff about halfway down and land with the kind of limp thud that said he wouldn’t be getting up. Still, I sat down and waited to make sure he wasn’t faking. When something thick and crimson seeped out from under his head I was pretty sure, but after two crows landed and began pecking at the skin of his hands with no response, I knew he was really dead.
Killing him had felt good, but not smart. He might’ve said more if I’d kept at him. But hopefully he said enough: Marantz. That one name told me an awful lot. With a sigh, I got to my feet and walked down the trail toward the cut.
SEVEN
It was dark by the time I got back to Neceda riding my loaner horse and leading the other two I’d acquired. It had not been hard to catch them: once they weren’t being herded, they stopped and began grazing on whatever pitiful scrub they could find at the top of the cut. The two bad guys’ horses were placid and much easier to handle than my gray curse.
After collecting them, I returned to the shack, but a search of the hanging man’s corpse revealed nothing of interest. The same was true of the man I’d dropped off the cliff, who his late friend referred to as “Frankie.” His pockets were empty, his clothes contained nothing of use and his sword had all identifying marks, even the smith’s name, filed off. The leather armor was genuine Muscodian government issue, although that didn’t really mean anything: old soldiers were always selling off their mementos for spare change or more ale. Still, he’d learned archery marksmanship somewhere, so maybe this was a clue. If so, it was the only one either corpse provided.
Their saddlebags, though, were a treasure trove. Jimmy, the man at the shack, carried a big map of the whole Black River Hills area marked with random “x” symbo
ls. There was no legend to explain their meaning, but there were dozens of them. He also had a knife identical to the one Bella Lou had given me. It looked brand-new; was it a replacement for the one Bella Lou had snatched? Were the dragons the symbols of some bandit gang? I knew most of the outfits that worked the river and surrounding countryside, but it didn’t mean a new one might not be trying to move in.
Frankie’s bags revealed even more. He had a tool kit that at first glance seemed to be for leather-working, but the dried blood on the instruments told a different story. Now I knew exactly how he’d removed those strips of skin from Laura Lesperitt, and felt even less remorse for letting him take the fast trail to the canyon floor. He also carried a healthy bag of gold, all in small-denomination coins. Most odd was a long strip of bright red cloth, like a head scarf. In fact, it was exactly like the scarves I’d glimpsed on those people moving into the former Lizard’s Kiss whorehouse.
But the day’s big clue was the name Marantz.
In Muscodia, all trails of vice and illegality eventually led to Gordon Marantz, who’d moved here after escaping Trasketania one step ahead of the gallows. He gained the favor of King Archibald’s court, and so officialdom looked the other way when he began eliminating his competition along the Gusay from Tacketville to Pema. In no time he controlled all the ale, girls, gambling and protection rackets. Many places worked directly for him while others, like Angelina’s, paid him protection. He was smart enough to be hard to find, but easy to run afoul of if you tried to cut into his action. In my years in Muscodia I’d only seen him once, leaving a gambling house late one night surrounded by his goons. In his forties, with black hair worn slicked back from his broad, mean face, he looked like a guy who could still get his hands dirty if the occasion demanded it. I wasn’t sorry our professional paths had never crossed.
I looked over the shack a second time, but found nothing I’d missed. I left Jimmy hanging, along with the strange padded box. Then, with the two new horses in tow, I descended the cut and retraced my steps up the canyon as the sun began to set.
We scared a fat buzzard away from Frankie’s corpse, then reached the spot where I’d left Buddy on grave digger duty. The little bozo was nowhere to be found. As I expected, he’d dug about half a hole and then vanished, probably sure I’d been ambushed. I wondered if he’d actually been on Frankie’s payroll, or if he just knew I was walking into a trap and hadn’t bothered to mention it.
All the horses balked at the scent of decay. I hated to leave Lola exposed and undignified, but ultimately had no choice. Maybe Buddy’s conscience would get the best of him and he’d return to do the job right. It beat facing his wife; I doubted he wanted both me and Bella Lou on his case. Besides, this was nothing but a pile of rotted horse meat; if there were a Summerlands, then Lola’s spirit now galloped across its smooth plains toward unending grazing.
I arrived at the livery stable after dark. Liz’s office was still closed, but I didn’t know if that meant she was at home awaiting me, or had not returned from her day’s deliveries. I was too tired and sore to worry about it, and she could certainly take care of herself. I knew the noise I made opening the doors and leading the horses inside would alert Hank, who lived with his family in an add-on at the back of the barn.
Sure enough, his napkin from dinner still tucked into the neck of his tunic, Hank came into the barn accompanied by one of his young sons, Howie. Both stopped dead when they saw me. Hank turned up the lamp he carried until I squinted from the glare.
I was a mess. I was covered in scratches, cuts, dirt and blood, and on top of that was so tired I could barely stand, so I understood why Howie slid slowly behind his father’s legs at the sight of me. I dropped from the saddle, leaned on the horse and held the reins out toward Hank.
“Cut yourself shaving?” Hank said drily.
I nodded. “With a hawthorn forest.”
“You too good to take a man’s horse?” Hank said gruffly, and Howie reluctantly took the reins from me. Hank looked over the two additional horses, his expert eyes missing nothing. Their saddles and other gear were expensive, if trail worn, and the animals were clearly well cared for. “Didn’t know you were a horse trader, Mr. LaCrosse,” he said, his flat voice masking most of his suspicion.
“They just fell into my lap,” I said as I waited for the knots to loosen in my lower back. “Ever seen ’em before?”
“Nope.”
“Ever seen any like ’em?”
Hank took the bridle of Frankie’s horse and looked her over. He lifted one foot and inspected the shoe. “Howie, get over here.”
The boy dropped the gray horse’s reins and moved up beside his father. “Hot or cold shoe?” Hank asked.
The boy’s face scrunched up as he studied the foot. “Hot,” he said finally.
“How can you tell?” Hank pressed.
“The line from the old shoe,” he said, and pointed to something I couldn’t see.
“Attaboy,” Hank said proudly, and released the horse’s foot. “Hell, if I don’t teach him, how’s he gonna know?”
“True fact,” I agreed. “Well, if anybody comes to claim them, don’t give them a hard time about it. Just try to get a name for me.”
Suspicion swallowed his fatherly pride. “Is somebody likely to be upset about them being here?”
“Not with you,” I assured him.
“Uh-huh,” he said dubiously. “I don’t handle stolen horses, Mr. LaCrosse. People tend to feel pretty strongly about things like that.”
“These aren’t stolen, Hank. I promise. And I guarantee the previous rightful owners won’t show up to get them back.”
He thoughtfully chewed his lip for a moment. Gravy stained his chin. Then he said to Howie, “Put the two new ones in the stall up front, and then take the mare out to the corral.” To me he said, “If they’re here for more than two days, somebody’ll have to pay for their keep.”
“If they’re here more than two days, you can have them.” I turned, then stopped and faced him again. “And if you ever try to pawn that gray manure pile off on me again, you’ll get back a load of horse meat and glue.”
The gray mare looked back at us with all the equine innocence in the world. “I swear, nobody else has complained about her,” Hank said. “I think you’re just bad with horses.”
I snorted, then waved toward Liz’s office. “Has she come back yet?”
“No, but somebody else came looking for you.”
“The guy with the gloves?”
“No, a woman. Said she was a Mother up at the moon priestess hospital. Her name was… Banner?”
“Bennings,” I corrected. “What did she say?”
“To tell you to come see her as soon as you could.”
“What about?
He shook his head. “She didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. Don’t care for them priestesses.”
I understood; one of his children had died under a drunken priestess’ care before they came to Neceda. “That’s exactly how I feel about horses.”
I tried the door to Liz’s office on my way out, but it was still locked. I had a key, but this late she’d probably just drop off her horses and wagon and return home. I could wait for her in far more comfort there.
The traffic was sparse as I walked up the street. The taverns, whorehouses and gambling establishments glowed with light and life, and their noise filled the air. As I passed Ditch Street, I paused and looked over the Lizard’s Kiss building. It was dark and apparently lifeless. Tomorrow I’d have to find out who bought it, what was up with the red scarf brigade and how it tied to Marantz.
Now, though, I wanted a quick drink before going home. As I approached the tavern, a man staggered out, one hand to his head. He leaned against the wall and hunched over, and something dark dripped from between the fingers pressed to his skull.
“Hey,” I said, “you all right?”
He looked up. He was in his late teens, and dressed like a Muscodian farmer. He bled from
a fresh cut over his right eye, and still had that slightly dazed post-punch demeanor. He stared at me, and it took me a moment to remember how bad I looked. “Wow,” he said raggedly, “did he kick your ass, too?”
I helped him sit on the ground and lean back against the wall. “Did who kick my ass?”
“Some soldier from Sevlow. He was talking to my girl, and I asked him to stop. Next thing I knew I was staring up at the rafters.”
I pulled his fingers away from the cut. The damage wasn’t bad, certainly not permanent. “Let me guess. Big guy, little eyes, not a smiler?”
The farm boy nodded. “That’s him. When my head stops dancing-”
“You’ll go have a drink across town at Long Billy’s,” I said. “I’ve seen this guy, and believe me, he was being generous leaving your head attached to your shoulders.” I wasn’t that impressed by Argoset’s backup, but if this poor kid had been laid out with one punch, he was really out of his league. Better to overscare than underscare.
I helped him to his feet, pressed a coin into his hand and gave him a shove in the right direction. “Thanks, mister,” he said, holding his head with one hand, the money with the other. I sighed at my own idiocy; if I didn’t stop with the charity, I’d soon be so broke I’d have to go squat with Buddy and Bella Lou. There was no question of dipping into the money I’d scavenged from Frankie, either; that had way too much blood on it.
I entered Angelina’s and found the place packed, with a minstrel duo pounding out tunes onstage. The floor vibrated to the peculiar stomp-dancing popular in Muscodia. I went behind the bar, grabbed the stool I kept stashed there for occasions like this and found enough space at the bar for one elbow.
Angelina did a double take when she saw me. “You need a drink,” she said without asking, and put a tankard originally meant for someone else in front of me. When the original customer protested from down the bar she fired back, “Keep your jerkin on!” I nodded gratefully and took a long swallow. There was too much noise for us to talk, but if she’d needed to tell me something, she would’ve found a way. To my relief, she simply went back to work. No news was definitely good news at the moment.
