Swords & Steam Short Stories

by S. T. Joshi

  Naja felt the girl’s burning forehead. At her gentle touch the girl’s eyes flew open, sharp with terror. Magic buzzed through Naja’s body and she instinctively yanked her hand away.

  “What’s her name?” Naja kept her voice low.

  “Sadie.”

  “Sadie, can you hear me?”

  The girl’s body remained relaxed, unmoving, eyes wide and unblinking. Naja lifted the false bottom of her medical bag and extracted her hidden gear – a shallow oaken bowl, amate paper, a satchel of corpse dust, a bone needle.

  Naja paused, it’d been a long time since she’d cast a real spell. No one burned witches any more, but it was still dangerous, never knew when folks would turn on you. She spared a glance at the young man. Would he blame her if Sadie didn’t survive?

  Naja let herself picture the mountain cabin she’d spent the last five years building. Her small medical practice back in Seven Pines. Life out here on the edges of the world suited her just fine and it didn’t take a divination for her to know things here in Brodie would be the end of that peace. If she wanted a quiet life she should walk away now, leave this little girl and all the other children of Brodie to die.

  Damn it.

  With a resigned sigh, Naja flattened a crackling sheet of bark paper onto the cot. She lifted the bone needle and pricked her finger. Using the bloody tip of the needle she wrote on the paper, dipping the needle again and again into the crimson ink flowing from her finger.

  As she toiled, the young man backed slowly out of the room, fear radiating off him like heat.

  Finally happy with the sigil, Naja put her finger in her mouth and let the slow trickle of blood coat her tongue.

  She gently rolled the paper into a tight scroll and placed it in the bowl. Pulling flint from her pocket, Naja lit the paper.

  As it burned, she sprinkled a pinch of corpse dust over the flame. Smoke poured from the bowl, filling the room with the scent of death like ancient creosote.

  “Will this fix Sadie?”

  “No, this will just reveal any magic being used against her. I need to know what we’re dealing with before I can help.”

  Once the embers cooled, Naja took a calming breath.

  “Don’t let any of this get on you.”

  The young man nodded vigorously and stepped even further away till only his head peeked around the door.

  She held the bowl up to her mouth and took a long breath in. Pulp, blood, and magic entered her lungs. Above the girl Naja blew out sharply. The ash swirled into the air and then floated down.

  A figure emerged beneath the black dust – the sinewy corpse crouched over Sadie like an animal, bony hands around her throat, writhing body pressing her to the cot.

  “What the hell is it!” the young man cried out.

  Naja stumbled back, covering her mouth.

  As the ash drifted to the ground the figure disappeared leaving only the girl, eyes wide open, heart fluttering her little chest like a butterfly.

  “It’s Sadie’s own death come to claim her,” Naja croaked.

  “Can you …save her?”

  The question snapped Naja out of her horrified reverie. Her medical training took over – analyze the problem, come up with a solution, implement the solution.

  “Everyone’s death is always with them,” she said clinically, packing her gear. “It might brush up against you, but for most of our lives death hovers in the distance like an aura, getting slowly closer as your time approaches.”

  She hefted her bag.

  “But this is no brush with death. Powerful witches can manipulate the dead around us, can call it up, control it.”

  “So how do we …?”

  “How do we stop it? First I have to figure out who or what’s doing this. To control the dead, you have to take a small piece of it inside yourself. The most powerful witch I’ve ever known could bring the dead onto one person. One. To fell all the children here at once …well that’s got to be twenty kids. I’ve never even heard of someone that powerful.”

  “What do I do?”

  “You stay here. Don’t let anyone touch her.” Naja strode past him, boots echoing on the rough hewn floor.

  “And you?” he called after her.

  Without glancing back she growled, “I’m going to hunt a monster.”

  * * *

  Naja’s long skirt dragged in the red dust as she walked up Main Street. She squinted in the hazy afternoon, thinking. Who hated these people enough to curse their children?

  Skeletal horses nickered as she passed, hoping for a sugar cube. A woman glared from the window above the boarded-up general store. Two men sat out front of the saloon, eyeing her with open hostility. Suspicion fell over the town like a shroud and she was an outsider come just after their kids fell sick. For all they knew, Naja was to blame for that.

  For all they knew, she was to blame for everything gone wrong in Brodie over the past few years – the dry mine, the dying town.

  She straightened her back and tromped toward Angel’s Rest Saloon. Maybe someone there could answer her question.

  Inside, two groups of men hunched around pockmarked tables. They looked up, chatter dying off as she crossed the room.

  A plump native woman nodded to her from behind the bar.

  “Get you something to drink?”

  “You have any cold beer?”

  The woman snorted. “I’ll make you a gin ‘n ginger.” She filled a gritty glass and slid it to Naja. “You the witch doctor the Lintons asked to come about the girls?”

  Naja inclined her head in agreement and sipped the warm drink. Back when she started her practice, she’d sold simple charms to make extra cash. Seemed harmless at the time but now she regretted letting people know about being a witch. Dammed fool thing to do.

  “I’m Naja.”

  “Genevieve, though most call me Genny. Run Angel’s Rest for Mr. Linton, all that entails …”

  The two let a moment of silence pass between them, the unspoken camaraderie of lone women like them living in places like this.

  “Thing makin’ those kids sick ain’t natural,” Genny said, more a comment than question.

  “Agreed. I’m hoping to figure out who’d hate Brodie enough to curse their kids.”

  “Well, not many folks left here at all. The miners all gone. Just a few squatters in the old mine offices. All their kids’er sick too so can’t be them. All the girls that worked here left last year. I stayed ‘cause I got family nearby, plus there’s still some blood to squeeze from this stone.” She laughed, eyeing the men in the saloon with a mixture of amusement and malice.

  “What about those three?” Naja raised her chin toward the closest group of men.

  Genny frowned. “Tall one’s Billy Linton, Mr. Linton’s brother. Ran the hard-rock mine before it dried up. The two with him are Hence and Carl Cobb. Used to run the general store before it closed. Now they mostly run up tabs here.” She smiled revealing nubby yellow teeth.

  Naja considered Billy Linton and the Cobb brothers, men with the soft boyishness of those used to easy work and getting their way.

  “And those two in the far corner?”

  Two men silently sipped drinks in the shadows. Unlike Linton and his crew, the two men wore travel-worn clothes and wind-scarred faces.

  “They weren’t even here when the kids got sick. Just slave catchers chasing some caravan of escape slaves. Say they’ll split the $2000 reward if we help nab all of ’em that got away.”

  Naja stared down at her drink and steadied her voice. “Thought California was freeland. Slaves made it here were safe.”

  “Used to be, but some new law passed few years back.”

  Naja had passed as white for so long she almost never felt nervous about her past, but the day left her defenses low. Her breath came fast, heart began to
roar in her ears, hands began to tremor.

  She stood up too quickly sending the stool shrieking across the floor. “The outhouse out back?”

  “Yeah, you okay?”

  “Fine, just need a moment.”

  She stumbled to the outhouse seeking privacy while the memories had hold of her.

  It’s just fear making you sick. Get it together. Naja tried to clear her mind. It’d been a long time since she’d had a flashback. Not even six years old, she hadn’t fully understood what was happening as her family made their escape. But she’d understood the fear in her mother’s as Naja was left behind with the white couple that agreed to take pale little Naja in and pretend she was their own.

  What a terrible mistake coming to Brodie had been. Could she run back to Seven Pines?

  Naja wiped sweat from her lip and stepped out into the evening light. Run or fight? What kind of woman are you, Naja?

  Naja was about to head back in when the saloon door banged open. The Cobb brothers exited behind Billy to form a semi-circle. Testosterone and anger crackled in the juniper air.

  “Hear you’se a witch.”

  Naja squared her shoulders. “I’m a doctor.” Her voice sounded stronger than she expected.

  “Nah, I heard you did some magic to Sadie. You know what happened out there at Brimstone, you bitch?” Billy took an unsteady half step toward her.

  Fiery spikes of adrenaline clouded Naja’s vision.

  The saloon door banged open again.

  “What’s going on out here?” Genny stepped out with Valkyrie eyes.

  “Just asking the witch what she done to our kids,” Billy slurred.

  “Now Billy, you know for a fact that your brother asked her here to help. She wasn’t even in town when the kids got sick.”

  “Far as we know,” he took another step toward Naja.

  Naja smelled sour whisky on his breath.

  Genny’s voice sharpened. “Don’t be a fool. You want to explain to Henry why you’re bothering the doctor he brought to help the girls?” Her voice softened into a caress. “Listen, you lot are drunk. Let her do her job.”

  The men stopped their advance, lulled by gentle reason.

  Genny gestured Naja inside.

  Naja skirted the men and slid through the door. Fear shuddered and arced between the two women as the door swiffed shut.

  “Thank you,” Naja squeezed Genny’s hand.

  “Best go up to your room.” She pressed a key into Naja’s palm. “The Lintons paid for it, sent your bag up. The boys’ll calm down once you’re out of sight.”

  As Naja hurried up the stairs, Genny whispered after her, “You want to save the kids, you go see what Billy Linton’s got in his barn. He’s hiding somethin out there.”

  * * *

  In her room, Naja stared at the vial in her shaking hand. One potion.

  Damn it.

  She held the vial to the candlelight and tapped the glass. Flakes of crimson cinnabar. Chunks of poplar ash. Thick black globs of menstrual blood. A protection potion that should shield someone from just about anything …assuming it still even worked. She’d made the potion years ago.

  Damn it all to hell. She’d fought her way into medical school to avoid this kind of thing.

  Naja cinched the vial onto her belt and took a long swig of whiskey from the flask in her travel bag.

  Night transformed her windows into black voids.

  Time to see what Billy Linton was hiding.

  * * *

  Naja paused so her eyes could adjust to the maze of shadows. The barn smelled of barley and dried leather. Moonlight cut a silver streak across the hay-scattered floor.

  Farm tools hung by her head and five stalls lined the back wall. The shuffling of hooves and horse breath came from the first four. Moaning echoed from the fifth stall – garbled sounds that built on each other like some fel orchestra tuning instruments.

  One hand on the potion, Naja unlatched the gate and pulled.

  Naja’s breath caught. “Chloe?”

  A small girl slept among the hay. No more than three or four years old, the girl’s narrow lips parted in peaceful slumber. Her skin, dark as midnight, stood out against the yellow straw.

  Black wisps roiled around the girl in knots of shrieking agony.

  After a moment of wild longing, Naja realized the little girl was not really her dead sister.

  Not Chloe then, but this girl was clearly at the heart of whatever was happening in Brodie. No way she was the witch. No child that young had so much power. Maybe some kind of possession?

  Naja hugged her arms to her sides, contemplating what to do when footsteps approached.

  She pulled up her skirt and leaped into the fourth stall, landing next to a grey stallion that snorted at her arrival.

  Heavy boots thudded into the barn.

  “It’s still the same.”

  Billy Linton’s boozy scent filled the stall.

  “We got to do something, Billy. Henry’ll kill you if he finds out what we done.”

  “Yeah, you might be right.” Billy spoke a wood’s-width away from Naja.

  A shudder ran through her body. She balled her fists trying to still herself.

  “You think the witch can really fix them kids?”

  “Nah, she can’t fix what we done out at Brimstone Gulch. We’ve got to kill this thing. Never should’a brought it here. So much for free merchandise.”

  “But, what if killin’ that thing kills all the Brodie kids too?”

  “Then we blame the witch and never tell anyone. You understand?”

  “Billy, we can’t just let all them kids die. Your nieces for God’s sake.”

  “What choice we got? You want to be hanged for what we done? Plus, maybe it won’t kill ’em. Maybe killing this thing’s how we free ’em.”

  Silence stretched so long Naja thought for sure they could hear her heart pounding against the gate.

  “God forgive us,” one of the Cobb brothers finally whispered.

  “Ain’t no God here,” Billy grunted back then cleared his throat. “It’s decided. We can dump it down the mine later.”

  The three men left the barn. Naja collapsed to the floor, muscles quailing.

  After a few shaky breaths she pulled herself up to contemplate the child.

  “Analyze the problem, come up with a solution, implement the solution,” Naja murmured trying to calm herself down.

  The problem – she couldn’t leave the girl here but couldn’t pick her up without protection against whatever possessed her. Solution – she needed a sigil. Implement the solution …without pausing to overthink, Naja slid her finger along the blade of a rusty scythe. She sketched a protection symbol directly onto her cotton blouse, sticky blood soaking to her skin. With the flint from her pocket she lit a fistful of straw and pressed the burning clump against her chest.

  Naja let out a low moan at the pain.

  She scooped up the girl and paused to see what would happen. A shiver swept up her arms like pulling back a trigger to where the hammer’s just about to fall, that sense of destructive potential in the tiniest movement, but then a tingling spread from the sigil at her chest, pushing it back.

  “Well I’ll be,” Naja said surprised that the damned thing even worked.

  Naja pulled them both onto the waiting stallion. Arms wrapped around the girl, hands tangled in the horse’s mane, Naja kicked hard and they shot from the barn into the night.

  They galloped toward Brimstone Gulch, a slot canyon not five miles west of Brodie. Naja would ride through the canyon, see what she could find, then continue on to the flats where she could circle back to Seven Pines. Get the girl far enough from Brodie and the curse would break, freeing the kids there. Maybe at home Naja could rid the girl of this demon possession.

&nb
sp; She glanced back. In the distance three riders pursued them under the full moon. The dust they kicked up rose like a ghost lured home to the milky road of stars.

  With saddles and no girl to keep ahold of, the men were gaining ground.

  Naja leaned forward, legs quivering from riding bareback. The throaty huffing of the horse at full gallop replaced the sound of blood roaring in her ears. The cold snap of desert sage burned her nose.

  They reached the base of the mountain and the sure-footed stallion slowed as the path climbed along narrow switchbacks. An opening appeared between two boulders and they entered Brimstone Gulch. Cold rock walls rose until the moon disappeared leaving nothing but a narrow band of stars to light the way.

  Naja could no longer see the men but the sharp cracks of their reins echoed along the canyon until the sound folded back on itself. The staccato fugue triggered vivid flashbacks that took hold of her reason – running through the bayou, baying hounds and men on horseback running them down. Guns cracking. Papa crying out, white bone and red blood. The stench of stagnant water. Mama and aunt Cass dragging papa onward. Naja carrying Chloe, desperately trying to quiet her cries.

  Like the little girl she was that night, Naja’s world collapsed into one thought – escape.

  They rounded a sharp curve. Lost in panic, Naja didn’t see the rockfall until it was too late. The horse reared back but they still slammed into the rubble. Unseated, Naja cradled the girl as they crashed to the ground. The impact slammed her head to the ground.

  Panting and dazed, she stared up at the rubble. Where the rocks had rolled away a flash of pale blue shone against the red rocks.

  Some kind of cloth.

  Confused, Naja crawled over to tug on the material.

  A human arm flopped out of the debris, palm open to the sky.

  Shuddering, she pushed aside more rocks. A torso emerged. Then the head of a woman, skull crushed, eyes closed. Naja wiped sand away from the dead woman’s face revealing black skin. Naja’s vision blurred and jumped. The face morphed into an image Naja conjured with the fragmented memory of a child.

  “Mama?”

  Tears running free, she clawed at the rubble. A woman’s arm. Aunt Cass? A child’s foot. Little Chloe? Body after body emerged, bone and flesh. Blood and stagnant water. Cracking guns.