Days on the silent trail with the three of them, casting her mind about for something else to contemplate. Then she found it. Found it so completely, she remained distracted from memories of Silver City for days and nights. Now she shivers as the last rays of the sun dim. Her empty stomach flops over against her throat as she wishes it would rain again.
Grip pulls her to his horse. El Cohete stands like stone, rope hanging in dirt, as Grip transfers Ivy’s hands from his arm to the buckskin stallion’s neck. He spreads his bedroll between brush, then helps her to it. As she sits back, breathing hard, he brings her his water bottle.
“Melchior needs water,” she says, unable to repress the bitterness. “He’s hallucinating. He needs ... assistance.”
“Él necesita algo,” Grip mutters, placing heavy emphasis on the last word.
Ivy’s mind is too fogged to try translating in her head, though the words sound familiar from Rosalía’s lessons.
“We’ve more water,” Grip tells her. “Don’t worry about them.”
Who them? How can she not worry about both horses and humans in her company, for many and varied reasons?
Ivy lifts the bottle to her parched lips and drinks as slowly as she can, almost choking as liquid touches her burning throat.
Grip returns to the other two, seizing Melchior’s elbow as he clings to Sam. “Let go, tonto. He’s broken his arm.”
“It is ... all right,” Sam whispers again. “Though he should lie down.”
Warm breath puffs into Ivy’s ear as she sips. She reaches blindly to stroke Luck’s muzzle.
Grip and Sam get Melchior lying back on his own blanket before Sam brings him water and Grip begins stripping the horses. Melchior shoves Sam’s hand away with the bottle several times, telling him it is all tainted, before Sam can convince him to drink. When he does taste the water, he gags and clutches his hair, cursing as he curls in a ball on his side.
“Don’t let him rock his head back and forth,” Ivy says. She lies motionless, staring at newly visible stars, breath shallow, every expansion of her lungs sending pain through her sternum.
Sam tries to ease Melchior back on the blanket with his good hand, speaking in a low voice as if to a feverish child. “Lie still, old man. You will do yourself more harm.”
“Walked and walked....”
“I know. We are all here now.”
“Sent alone. Do that for? Down in there, all along, you were. Then I’d be there and you weren’t—”
Sam holds the water bottle for him and, after a long drink, he tips warm water onto a dirty handkerchief. Melchior swallows and starts to curl up again.
“Mel, please—”
Grip drops a saddle beside Sam, stepping past him. Hand on Melchior’s shoulder, he shoves him onto his back on the blanket.
“¡Basta!” Grip snaps. “Tu amigo está tratando de ayudarte. Mantente quieto.”
Melchior does not move, breath ragged, the back of one hand over his eyes.
“And you”—Grip turns to Sam, on his knees beside Melchior—“desist your cleaning. What has dried in place will keep out further contamination. Only make him stay there.”
Sam says nothing as Grip moves to Luck, pulling loose her cinch, then dragging off the saddle and fixing hobbles with his one hand.
Ivy watches him kneel by her, at Luck’s forefeet. She smiles a little in gloom as pain in her side eases by stillness.
“You have a beautiful bedside manner,” she says.
He snugs up a rawhide strap, then looks at her. “Your father would be impressed?”
“Might offer you a job.”
“I will be sure to ride by Boston one day. I have been a niñera ever since I met all you.”
“I do not know what that means, though I’m certain it is uncomplimentary, so ... I must suspect it is also true. I beg your pardon.”
He watches her below light of the rising moon for a moment. Luck lowers her head to graze nonexistent vegetation. Grip rests his hand on her crest.
“Granted,” he says at last, then pulls the bit from Luck’s mouth and stands.
Ivy tugs the fold of his blanket over herself, smelling leather and tobacco and horse in the wool, looking again toward stars, glad to know he is as pleased—in his own way—to discover she is still alive as she is to find them.
She drinks again, two swallows, then two more, careful. She caps the bottle and takes another breath, closing her eyes.
“Ivy...?” Sam has shifted to face her, his voice worried, uneasy. Perhaps he wonders if she still will not speak to him.
She does feel a deep, smoldering twinge in her stomach at him having the nerve to still use her given name, but she says, “I’m fine. We will ... take stock in the morning.”
Grip brings her and Melchior each a rice cake, Sam again having to encourage Melchior to eat, as he seems convinced the food is toxic. Ivy nibbles and sips and soon falls asleep on the ground with Sam’s voice sounding softly in her ears—“I shall go first. I can wake you after midnight.”—and the water bottle, securely capped, still half-full, clutched against her chest.
She next opens her eyes to a lifting sun and light smoke from a new fire. For a moment bewildered to see Grip with a small iron pot and their one long-handled cooking spoon, Ivy recalls only Chucklehead and Elsewhere’s packs were emptied or removed by the current. Luck and El Cohete will still have provisions for humans and horses.
Ivy starts to sit, at once reminded by pain to remain where she is. She watches, lying on her good side, while Grip drops a slab of lard into the pot. As this sizzles and pops, he follows it with cylindrical chunks of pale meat. These he stirs about with the spoon, then rests the pot in the middle of the tiny fire, where it smokes and crackles.
He looks up. “May I?”
She stares at his grubby hand before flushing and hurriedly handing over his water bottle. “Sorry.”
He drinks, gives it back, then offers her another rice cake.
“How is Melchior?” She did not mean his name to be the first thing on her lips in the morning.
Grip glances to the other side of the fire. “Asleep, unconscious, expired?” He shrugs.
Ivy pushes herself gingerly to a sitting position, his blanket wrapped around her. Her head throbs. Her mouth feels like straw. Her side sears. It seems every inch of her is bruised or sunburnt or torn, yet she feels so much better than she did last evening she smiles as she sips from the bottle and starts on sweet rice.
Grip sits on a saddle blanket, prodding sizzling lumps in the pot with the spoon, looking into flames, his hat tipped low on the left side against rising sun. Also to his left, across the little fire from Ivy, Melchior lies wrapped in his blanket beside Sam. Ivy cannot see his face against Sam’s shoulder, but he appears to be asleep. Sam lies on his back, left arm still in the sling across his chest. He too would seem to be sleeping, yet Ivy has never seen anyone sleep so tensely.
“Where did you find aloe?” Grip asks, glancing from his fire to Ivy.
Ivy looks blankly at him. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You smell of aloe vera and you have your wounds bound in it. The bay’s leg was wrapped in it. How did you find it?”
“I ... do not even know what that is. Someone helped me.”
His one eye narrows as he looks at her. “How is that?”
Ivy swallows. “I was washed down the gorge with Chucklehead. He got us out, but I don’t know what happened to Melchior. I only found him again last afternoon.”
“And the steps in between?”
“I ... said I would not tell.”
“Chiricahua found you, didn’t they?”
“What?”
“Chiricahua Indians. They lived all through these parts until those bastards—until they were moved to a reservation ’round about Arizona Territory. They’ll be killed if found.”
Another careful swallow. “I told them I wouldn’t tell where they were. They were scared of me. You won’t tell anyone about t
hem? Please. They saved my life. They took care of the horses too.”
Grip shakes his head. “How many?”
“Grip—”
“They’ll die regardless. They slip out with nothing. Rather take chances against their home with only their own skins than die in those places.”
“They were starving,” Ivy says softly. “I didn’t ... did not know. Why would they leave? They are safe on the reservations. And so are settlers this way. They have agents who take care of them. They shouldn’t run into the desert if—”
“Enough.” Grip’s voice is a growl, bitter as acid. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ivy watches her own shaking, scabbed, bruised hands clutching his water bottle.
When he says nothing more, only stirring with the spoon, jaw set, she finally says, “I left them my gun. I hope I did the right thing. They had nothing. They knew about risers, about fire and light.”
After another pause, he looks at her. His expression has changed, though she is unsure how to read it. He still looks upset. Now, however ... perhaps more sad than angry.
“You did the right thing,” he says.
Ivy nods, her face downcast once more, distressed by the sting of tears in her eyes as she remembers the expressions in theirs.
“They looked after you until you left to find the gorge and hunt us?” Grip lifts a tin plate to roll a chunk from the pot onto it. He sets it aside to cool, rolls the next onto their only other plate—all generally carrying their own dishes in their own bags—and adds two more chunks to the pot with another lump of lard.
“I didn’t know where I was going. Chucklehead took me to Melchior. He is ... I don’t know. I have never known an animal like that. I’m not sure what I would have done without him.”
“Then you begin to understand the life.”
“The life?”
“The cowpuncher, the range rider, the Westerner. We have no life without our horse, Miss Jerinson.”
She nods, for the first time understanding why Sam’s bail for supposedly stealing a horse was a staggering two hundred and fifty dollars.
“I suppose so.” She watches the horses, all four close around camp.
Yesterday, she decided water was the most important thing. Ironic, she thinks, watching the blue roan stallion chew: she managed to get here without water.
She gives Grip back the bottle as he hands her a tin plate.
“Is that ... snake?”
“Eat with your fingers. No use with a fork—got to pluck bones as you go. Just let it cool a spell.”
“Is it safe?”
“You assume they keep bane in their stomachs?”
Ivy takes a deep breath. Really, it does not look bad. If he handed her a plate of fish eyes and roaches and desert sand, she feels sure she is hungry enough to give it all a try.
She is half through the greasy fried snake—startlingly delicious and bordering on the best thing she has ever eaten, reminding her of both chicken and pork—when she remembers she has many pressing questions.
“What happened to you two? It has been at least a few days, hasn’t it? I could not keep track. Last thing I knew, you were near the top of the trail in the dark. I caught hold of Chucklehead, but that was it. What happened?”
“Your mare got her feet knocked from under her while we were mostly clear. I threw a rope on her and Mr. Samuelson kept her on the ledge, which she blessed by snapping his arm, fighting him in the dark with the riada tearing into them.”
“Luck broke his arm? Why did he not let her go?” Ivy recalls both Sam and Melchior lecturing her about the dangers of this very predicament.
“I do not suppose he could.” Grip picks bones from his rattlesnake section and drops them in the fire. “Too many ropes involved.”
“It was better than losing the horse to the flood,” Sam says without having moved or opened his eyes.
Grip looks down at him. “Man has a right to rest a price on his own bones.”
“Have you set it?” Ivy asks.
Grip shakes his head.
Sam slowly sits up, inching away from Melchior as if to avoid waking him, though unintentionally waking a man with a concussion should be the least of their worries. He grits his teeth as he shifts, supporting himself with his right hand, then rubbing his eyes and pushing the hand through his hair, darkened with dirt and smoke.
“It will have to wait for Dr. Hintzen,” he says, looking into their small fire.
“We are days from Santa Fé,” Ivy says. “And it broke days ago. It must be set.”
Grip looks at her. “This is no country for smooth, straight braces.”
Ivy glances around to sparse scrub tangles. She cannot see a single tree. Her gaze falls on the long-handled spoon balanced on Grip’s knee.
“We can find something. If we do not set it, it may have to be re-broken by the time we reach the city.”
Sam closes his eyes, face still turned to the fire. “Add it to the account.”
Ivy almost smiles.
“Do you know, we ride for miles through the countryside in England without spotting a single creature or element which attempts bodily harm toward us?”
Silence.
Then Melchior’s muffled voice: “Sounds powerful boring.”
Sam shifts to look at him.
Ivy feels a flutter of relief in her stomach. Not in a coma.
“How’d you stand it, Sam?” Melchior’s eyes are closed, face screwed up in pain as he lies motionless on the blood- and dirt-crusted blanket.
“Mel?” Sam lifts his hand and, for a moment, Ivy thinks he is going to touch Melchior’s face. His fingers come to rest on Melchior’s arm. “How do you feel?”
“Hell’s that supposed to mean?”
Sam smiles.
“Is hard—give you that,” Melchior says thickly. “Fellow rides desert weeks on end. Meets a shady stretch, dodge sneaking Plague-sick. For once finds canyon trail. Then rain. All spring we’ve scarce seen a drop. But that’s the night. Who’s aiming this shotgun?”
“What else would you expect?” Ivy asks as she picks apart the last of her rattlesnake. “It seems ... I don’t know ... normal here.”
“Riding with all you it is,” Grip says. He shakes bones off his plate to roll the next chunk onto it for Sam.
“Happened to you two?” Melchior asks, opening his eyes to squint at Sam before holding a hand over them. “Looked for you.”
“We rode to Smoke Junction,” Grip says.
Melchior momentarily lifts his shielding hand. “We near there?”
“Farther than I surmised.”
“We attempted to find you that night,” Sam says. His eyes are closed, voice soft. He sits very still.
“Sam?” Ivy’s gaze shifts from Sam to Grip as she speaks. “We must set your arm. It will feel better stable.”
Sam smiles weakly. “Do you know how to do that?”
“Yes.”
“Have you done it?” Melchior asks, hand again over his eyes.
“I’ve seen bones set since I was a child. I can do it.”
Grip glances at her. She feels sure he is going to tell her she is still a child. Equally sure he almost smiles at her. Then he stands, having done neither, and walks to Sam’s saddle.
“Tie?” Grip asks. “You rapined my dressing supplies.”
“If you have a knife, I can make them,” Ivy says.
Sam leans over to push the blanket off Melchior’s feet and pull a slim knife from his boot. He passes it to Ivy.
“What happened to your side?”
A javelin. “Something struck me in the water.” She scrubs a streak of rust on one side of the blade with a fold of her filthy skirt.
“It appears to need stitches.”
“Certainly does.”
He falls silent.
Ivy clumsily cuts long strips from her already destroyed chemise.
Grip steps back to the fire with the cleaning rod off the Henry rifle. It is t
oo long, while the cooking spoon is too short, but they will have to do. He rubs the spoon through sand while Ivy builds two slip knots and lays these ready with the stabilizers. Grip brings an inch square from the end of a heavy leather strap. He hands this to Sam, scanning the horizon.
“Not savvy to stir a din in these parts.”
Ivy also looks around. “Have you seen more risers out here?”
“Oh, yes,” Grip says softly. “Most of the reason we were delayed.”
“Roll up your sleeve,” Ivy says, looping another slip knot.
“Rode all the way to Smoke Junction?” Melchior asks.
“We could not remain at the gorge,” Grip says. “An attempt to hunt you that night invited too much company to continue.”
“They were caught in the flood?” Ivy looks up.
“Indeed. We called for you, black as pitch, raining snakes....” He pauses, glaring at Sam, who has pulled the sling over his head and is gingerly rolling back the sleeves of shirt and undershirt. “Conjecturing she can reach you here?”
Without a word, Sam moves around the fire to sit beside Ivy.
“The forearm?” she asks.
Sam nods. He looks so pale, she again recalls the saloon in Silver City. She clears her throat. It does not matter. This is professional. Her father treated everyone when he was more involved in practice and less in research. It did not matter if he disagreed with them, if they held opposing views, even if they were criminals. Professional.
“Moving along the top,” Grip goes on, “we encountered difficulties beginning with a fresh panic in the horses and Mr. Samuelson walking into one.”
“He what?” Ivy glances between them.
“After which, we deduced they were climbing from the still flooded barranca in the dark.”
“What is a barranca?”
“They were less than adroit as they made their way into our path, else I am unsure we would be sitting here now.”
“They do not do well in cold and dark,” Ivy says, wondering why she bothers, since he ignores her. “They are cold-blooded: the reason we see them out in the sun.”
Grip offers Sam his flask.
Sam leans away. “Fool me once.”
Lightfall Three: Luck, Lost, Lady (Lightfall, Book 3) Page 3
