“Why the horsehair?” she asks Rosalía as the two of them trail behind.
Rosalía watches Grip and the buckskin ahead, squinting as morning sun soaks her left side. “People we knew then—” she pauses. “Make us who we are now. Remind us where we came from and keep us on the trail. Because of them, we journey on when we might otherwise give up ... admitiremos derrota. Here, that goes for horses as well.”
Ahead, El Cohete halts, ears flicking back to Grip, who must have given him some sign, though the rope on his rawhide bosal appears slack as ever.
Grip lifts his left hand, twitching his first fingers forward, beckoning without looking around. Rosalía rolls her eyes at this mode of communication, but both push their horses up. Ivy lifts Winter’s hat, which she did not mean to wear out of town, to pull on her sungoggles as Correcaminos halts in line with the other two.
Far ahead, just off the trail and toppled on its side, a former stagecoach lies in brush.
Rosalía laughs. “We camped two hundred yards off without seeing it.”
“Less.” Grip scowls as El Cohete starts on.
They find the coach in poor shape, both wheels on the left side splintered, an axle broken, a door torn off. Bags and crates of cargo lie about the ground beside and scattered behind the load. A single horse still lies in the traces, already little more than bleaching bones and hide. Flies burst around the carcass in clouds. A coyote flees in alarm as they approach. The bones are chipped from many teeth and claw marks. The rest of the traces have been cut or broken.
Their own mounts refuse to approach too near, but stop, tossing their heads, Correcaminos planting her feet as she keeps her body sideways to the wreck. Even the apparently disinterested dog hangs back.
All seven of them scan the site, listening, waiting for anything to move besides flies and maggots and a coyote.
Grip and Rosalía look at Ivy.
Ivy shakes her head. “We’d see them. There’s no cover. Unless they’re inside the coach ... but they wouldn’t be. They seek sun, not shelter.”
“Unless they aimed to cover from an approaching meal?” Grip asks.
“These are not that intelligent yet, I don’t think. They haven’t learned how to hunt people as well as those in Boston or New York City. They would already be basking in morning sun if they were about.”
Grip looks unconvinced, particularly as he glances down at his horse, head high, nostrils flared. “Remain here.” He dismounts, drops his rope reins at his horse’s hooves, then draws his revolver as he walks to the wreck.
Rosalía pulls her carbine from the sheath at her saddle and the two of them wait in silence as Grip circles the coach, studying what must be a mix of tracks in dust. Yap-Rat ambles forward to sniff horse bones, keeping his distance from the coach.
Ivy swallows. Is she wrong? Surely not. The risers out here, like so many of the living humans, do not seem as intelligent as those back East. They have not adapted. Sunbathing and random hunting consumes their time. No lying in wait or stalking prey. No packs waiting in ambush in dockside warehouses or lying still in the street to pretend they have already been destroyed—no, the people of New Mexico Territory have never seen smart ones.
Grip studies crates and sacks. He upends a sealed barrel to read what is written on the side, then crouches to gaze into the damaged coach through panels torn free of the top in the crash. He walks up to it and peers in the window, now at the roof’s location.
Ivy holds her breath.
He looks around once more, squints inside, checking in all directions, unstraps buckles at the cargo space in the back to look in there, then faces them. He gives no sign beyond a stare. They both dismount, also leaving their horses with their reins on the ground. Ivy has never been able to do this with Luck, but Rosalía assures her Correcaminos is trained.
Yap-Rat bites a rib and gives an experimental tug. Ivy and Rosalía step past him, Ivy covering her face below the goggles with the ABC’s napkin as flies swarm.
Ivy feels surprised to discover how little is with the coach once they begin dragging together crates and bags. Mostly provisions for horses and humans, including one unbroken barrel which Grip righted, full of water. He drags this back to their three mounts, pries the top off with a knife, and the three drink—Correcaminos first, then El Cohete and Volar snapping before El Cohete wins the argument.
There are half a dozen sacks of cocoa beans, another half dozen of crystal sugar at fifty pounds apiece. From under the driver’s seat, two small pouches full of gold dust and another of tiny nuggets have spilled. This, at least, is a welcome sight and worth the trip, yet Ivy expected more. Little more here than what their employer owed them in the first place.
She tries to conceal her disappointment as Rosalía seems overawed by the gold. It is, hopefully, enough to repay Oliver with her share—although she is used to thinking of Sam and Melchior when she thinks of her share. All three have contributed to the steamcoach.
Ivy bites her lip and gazes south: scattered bags and unopened crates.
“What about these?” she asks Grip as he returns from the horses.
He uses his knife to pry up a crate lid at her feet, Rosalía also approaching to look inside. Grip pulls back the top with a grind of wood and nails. Sunlight reflects off what Ivy first takes to be glass, blinding her momentarily even through sungoggles. All three look away, then back.
Ivy gasps as Rosalía crosses herself.
A solid row of neatly packed silver bars, all refined, all stamped with an ounce number and mint mark, look back at them from the crate. Below these, another row lies. And another.
A search through the remaining crates reveals three more packed full of silver bars, all so heavy it takes them some time to drag them together.
Then they study their horses.
Grip turns to Rosalía.
“I know,” she says before he opens his mouth. “We should have brought a pack horse. They only have nags at that stable and charge grandes sumas—not that we couldn’t afford it now—and Galleta is too old for this kind of work.” She studies the three animals. “We’ll take traces from the coach and fashion a pack saddle off the sidesaddle. It has a stabilizing strap and leg brace to work off of.”
“You suppose Correcaminos will take well to being a pack horse?” Grip asks.
Rosalía bites her lip. “We could....”
“We will have to leave the silver and send them out from the city for it.”
Both Rosalía and Ivy stare at him.
“Excuse me?” Rosalía says.
“Who ‘them’?” Ivy asks.
“The authorities.”
“Authorities?” Ivy blinks. “There haven’t been any ‘authorities’ in Santa Fé since I arrived there in May.”
Grip frowns. “This metal is not—”
“Don’t say it’s not ours,” Rosalía cuts him off. “We rode out for it.”
“Not ours?” Ivy wants to shake him. “That man owed us. We were almost killed bringing him to Silver City. All of us. He never would have made it without us. Then we left with nothing. He’s dead. We came for it. It’s ours.”
“It is not. The share he owed us by rights for the work, perhaps. But that is more than covered in the gold. The silver we can leave and tell—”
“Who?” Ivy is almost shouting. “Thurman? Brownlow? He seems to be working up a following. The city is in chaos. You’re talking about an anarchic society. The mayor is gone. The marshal and real sheriff are gone. Why not give it to Mrs. Acker at the boarding house? To Shannon at the saloon? You’re thinking about this as if you live in civilization.”
To her surprise, Grip does not answer right away, but gazes at the crates, then north past the horses. Rosalía looks from Ivy to her brother.
At last, Grip says, “You propose we allocate something which does not belong to us, which we have no claim to, and behave as if we’ve been paid for a legitimate service?” He looks at her, his voice soft. “As if Kiedrid owed us sev
eral thousand rather than several hundred? Does it belonging to no one else in Santa Fé make it more ours? If we had means to contact Kiedrid’s kin, we may attempt it. Barring that, this is stolen property the moment it is removed from the coach.”
Ivy glares back into his eye, but soon looks away. How can everything be so black and white to him? She recalls Rosalía saying his opinions were second only to God. Yet, when that which cannot be shifted encounters that which cannot be stopped, something must happen.
She takes a deep breath. “We’ll give it to Oliver.”
“The maker? For your transportation efforts?”
“Not for the steamcoach. That’s only my share. Oliver and Isaiah are managing the protection of the city ahead of Brownlow or Thurman or Zamorano. I went to see the maker and he has elaborate plans for defenses, besides the wall itself. If Santa Fé is to be saved, Oliver is the only one who can do it. For that, he will need to buy out any relevant supplies which make it to the city. He can also employ men to assist beyond Isaiah. We’ll take it to them.”
Grip says nothing, again looking about at the crates.
“She’s right,” Rosalía says after a silence. “The maker is doing more for Santa Fé now than anyone. There is no authority, Grip. What would we do? Hide it all until another cavalry dispatch returns to the city? Then turn it over to them? At what benefit to people at home who need it?”
Grip glares at the crates, the horses, the northern horizon. He rubs his neck. “And the matter of hauling it back?”
Ivy lets out her breath. “We’ll think of something.”
Forty-Ninth
The Committee
“Something” turns out to involve three hours of work in which Volar’s and Correcaminos’s saddles are switched, then yards of harness built from coach traces and ropes. In the end, Volar, turning his head often to study what is strapped to him, is fitted with three crates and the sidesaddle. Correcaminos carries Rosalía with Ivy sitting sideways behind. El Cohete takes Grip and a single crate strapped awkwardly across his saddlebags.
They eat a sparse lunch of rice cakes and leftover bacon, offer the horses another drink, then start out at a slow pace past noon. They stop several times in the first hour to make adjustments, finally managing the rest of the day without incident until near sundown.
Ivy has just opened her mouth to ask if they can push on and reach Santa Fé by the middle of the night when Correcaminos freezes on the road, head up, snorting. The other two halt behind her as Rosalía scans the blank horizon. Ivy leans around, also trying to see.
When Correcaminos leaps forward, striking out with both forefeet to something on the ground, Ivy feels a sensation of open air envelop her, weightlessness, then she plunges, all in the same instant, a terribly long way to the ground. She has only enough time to wonder why anyone would ever ride a tall horse by choice before she hits on knee and thigh, followed by back and head. Hooves flash inches from her face. Correcaminos lets out a shrill neigh. Volar springs backward, his leading rein, which was in Ivy’s hand, trailing. She scarcely has time to roll away from hooves, breath knocked from her, grabbing her head, shooting pain splitting her side below false ribs, before Grip is on his feet beside her, gun in his hand, aiming at ... something. The black mare’s feet?
Choking on dust and trembling, Ivy scrambles away, hindered more by her own tangled skirts than bruises. Correcaminos jumps aside, nostrils flared, raking the ground with a forehoof.
Grip lowers his revolver as Rosalía calls out, “Are you all right? I’m sorry, Ivy. I didn’t see it.”
Still coughing, Ivy squints through dust billowing against her sungoggles to spot the antagonist. A diamondback, nearly five feet in length, lies in a twirl across one side of the road, the body still writhing, rattling, though it has been half crushed by the horse, head severed and smashed into dust. Ivy recalls Melchior being thrown when Chucklehead panicked at a rattler’s buzz, but Chucklehead did not fight back.
She looks up at Grip, who has holstered the gun to offer his hand.
“How did she know to do that?” She accepts, though her free hand goes from her aching head to her stinging side as she stands, trying to breathe.
“We’ll make camp,” he says, watching the motion. “Late anyway.”
“Couldn’t we get a bit—?” She stops, nods.
Rosalía swings down from Correcaminos to help Ivy off the road to a sandy stretch for their bedrolls and fire. Ivy tries not to limp as Rosalía apologizes again, as if she did something wrong, but it is all Ivy can do not to hop on one leg and a steady walk proves impossible.
By the time Grip and Rosalía spread their bedrolls and build a fire for a thick rattlesnake and corn stew with salty bacon and young, unflowered yucca stalks Rosalía peels and chops into the mix, Ivy’s right leg is too sore to bend the knee. At least pain in her side fades. No sign of blood through fabric. The wound still closed.
The fire must be extinguished before their stew is properly done, yet firm pintos and tough yucca stalks do not trouble Ivy. At least it is hot as well as filling. And she did not have to cook it—now, apparently, deserving of bed rest.
By morning she discovers how very hard she fell. Her head throbs as she wakes. Her back and shoulders ache, her side hurts, her leg is so stiff she needs Rosalía’s assistance to stand.
It takes them another two hours this morning to repack. Ivy pulls herself up with dread—plus help from both her companions—behind Rosalía. At least the leg will bend as she settles herself, though it is swollen and tender. She needs to soak in a warm bath. Winter will help when she gets home.
Which stops her. Again. She has thought of Santa Fé as home. No family, no place to stay at night unless taking charity or paying for a room in a boarding house, no anything. But almost home.
She watches Grip past Rosalía, moving ahead of them. Where does he think of as home? Surely Santa Fé, though Sam said he means to return to Ireland. Had, in fact, saved for passage before the rails closed. How would he leave if he will not let the matter with Everette rest? And what about Winter?
Rosalía sings children’s rhymes in Spanish, explaining what they mean. She has a light, attractive voice and the words are beautiful, but Ivy’s head pounds and she wishes Rosalía would stop.
By mid-afternoon they reach the gateless south gate into Santa Fé. A few men stand about in a semi-organized manner, one with a shotgun and two with revolvers.
A particularly ambitious fellow, no older than her, steps out into the road as they ride up to call, “Halt! Who goes there?”
Ivy cannot help chuckling. Like a school recital in which the young performers do their best yet make all manner of cute mistakes.
Grip, still ahead, does not condescend to answer. He must be recognized on his buckskin mount before many more strides because, after squinting a moment, all three leap back against adobe, each one trying to look at nothing and in no particular direction.
Inside, they turn left to skirt the skeletal wall, taking side roads to the maker’s. Here, they find the adobe, timber, metal workshop’s front open, though no one is about.
Grip dismounts. Rosalía calls a hello as she helps Ivy ease down the mare’s side. The impact to her feet of touching down makes her hop on her left leg, trying not to make a spectacle of herself. Rosalía swings down like a bird off a branch and leads Volar into the workshop. It is quite large enough to accommodate several horses, though this would be made difficult by the massive amounts of what has always looked to Ivy like mostly junk. The contents range from stray clock hands and rusted springs, to clockwork animals and a whole arm. Many gadgets which the maker is occasionally able to sell also litter the long tables: sungoggles, handguns, a weapon which looks like an ordinary shotgun, a mechanical tea set, a knife which folds out in various places to become a lever, a screw driver, a file, a fork, a spoon.
Once inside, Rosalía drops Volar’s rein on the cluttered floor and waves a finger in his face. “Quédate ahí.”
&
nbsp; She follows a path to the door leading into the main house, noticing the long construct to her left as she goes. “Is that your vehicle, Ivy?”
“Eventually.” Ivy feels she should assist Grip to remove the crate from El Cohete’s back.
Rosalía knocks. “El Hombre Inventar? Are you in?”
“Isaiah may be about,” Ivy says from the open wall beside Correcaminos. Seeing the maker’s assistant is less tiring than a conversation with the genius himself.
“He’ll be with the work party at the wall,” Rosalía says, looking around the shop. “I don’t believe Mr. Kjellstedt has actually been on the site one—”
The door flies open. “How may I help you?” Oliver smiles at Rosalía, then past her to the dark horse standing in his workshop as she bids him good day.
“Miss Ruiz, isn’t it?” He steps past, making for the horse. “I see the problem.” Nodding, beaming. “The construction of the saddle, construction of the baggage—the whole apparatus. Why, miss, I could build you a harness and case for the animal in a week’s time that would far surpass—”
“Oh, no, Mr. Kjellstedt, I haven’t brought him for—”
But Oliver has reached the horse and holds out his hand. “How do you do, sir?”
Volar places his nose in the hand.
“Yes, yes, yes, you see this—”
“We’ve only brought you something—”
“May have the necessary on hand. Could give you a bargain—”
“—don’t need—”
“Fourteen dollars? Completely custom to the animal? He must remain for the measurements and fittings, of course—”
“Mr. Kjellstedt—”
“All right, nine.” He wrings his hands, glancing around at Rosalía, tense as ever when money is brought up. “You won’t be disappointed.”
“We don’t need a harness, Mr. Kjellstedt.”
Oliver turns with raised eyebrows back to the horse, his expression now baffled, many silver chains and watches swinging about his person. He lifts his spectacles from his nose and gives them a polish with a handkerchief.
Lightfall Three: Luck, Lost, Lady (Lightfall, Book 3) Page 15
