Lightfall Three: Luck, Lost, Lady (Lightfall, Book 3)

by Taylor, Jordan

  Ivy holds her hand out over her head to encourage her fox back.

  Melchior drizzles water onto his bandana to scrub hands and face, chipping away dry blood with dirt-blackened fingernails. Sam leans past him to grab the small Dutch oven, then half turns as he sits beside Ivy, studying their saddlebags.

  “There is bacon in mine,” Ivy says. “And a can of peaches I was saving.”

  As he cuts off strips into the pot, Melchior poking the fire into a blaze, Es Feroz returns to stick her nose in the bacon wrapper. Ivy tries to grab her. She slips around to Sam’s left like water and crawls beneath his arm to seize an edge of fat in her canine teeth.

  “Never had fox for breakfast.” Melchior snatches her by the scruff of the neck and lifts her into the air, still clutching two pounds of bacon, dragging it with her as Sam tries to hold it through paper.

  While Es Feroz growls at Melchior and Sam’s attempts to cut away the edge of bacon so she can have it and leave the rest, Ivy telling Melchior not to hurt her, Grip walks back up from the horses.

  He pauses on the slope to look at the three of them in the same blankets, struggling with the snarling fox swinging over their Dutch oven. “Easier if you’d skin it first.”

  Ivy thinks of heaving a dirt clod at him, but she feels no desire to become the butt of jokes regarding her throwing arm.

  Melchior tries to rip the meat from sharp teeth with his free hand, telling Sam they need it and not to give grub away. When Sam gets the knife through the end he unwillingly drops the struggling animal. She darts up the slope, clutching a chunk of bacon the size of her skull.

  “Takes enough for two of us with her.” Melchior glares after Es Feroz as she leaps to a high vantage before gnawing her prize. “Hardly bigger than a ferret and gets half a pound of good bacon.”

  “I am afraid it was that or the whole package,” Sam says. “We can manage.”

  Grip frowns at the battle-scarred pork as he walks to his saddle. “While what remains had his filthy paws all over it.”

  “She’s a vixen,” Ivy says.

  Grip looks over his shoulder, squinting at Melchior. “¿Es eso lo que la llamas?”

  Melchior shoves the skillet onto the edge of the fire. “Apenas me limpie mis manos. Wish we had a proper beef steak and eggs.”

  “To cremate?” Grip has his back to them, sorting through his bags.

  On his knees by the fire, Melchior shifts to face him. “There some reason you take offense with everything I do?”

  “Is there a reason you expect us to eat charcoal while heaping praise upon you?”

  “Aim to cook? ’Cause I’m hearing a lot of bull and not a lot of fixes.”

  “I should not have to cook in order to avoid being poisoned.”

  “Perhaps your standards are too high,” Ivy says, smiling as she watches her fox gulp down bacon.

  “A tragic possibility,” Sam says.

  “My standards are what have kept me alive.” Grip pulls a small sack from his saddlebags. “A man can only go so far breakfasting on carbon and carrying a Colt.”

  Melchior starts to stand but Sam leans forward to catch his arm.

  Grip walks behind them. He holds his linen bundle out to Ivy. She lifts out a rice cake. Grip next offers them to Sam, who releases Melchior and thanks him. Then he holds them out to Melchior by the fire.

  Melchior ignores him, scowling at the sizzling skillet.

  “¿Heri tus sentimientos, Zorra?”

  Melchior looks even angrier as he snatches one of the dry cakes without looking at Grip. When Grip walks away, Melchior snaps, Llámame eso una vez mas, y te disparo.”

  Ivy looks up at Sam. “Nous devons parler français et de voir comment ils l’aiment.”

  “En riant que nous regardons vers eux,” Sam says.

  Ivy sputters and almost chokes on her first bite of rice. “Est-ce que son père enseigne lui le français?”

  Now that it does occur to her, Ivy cannot believe she did not think of talking to Sam in French months ago. She still finds lapses into Spanish irritating, despite beginning to grasp some vocabulary. This feels remarkably liberating.

  Sam shakes his head, assuring her Melchior does not know French from his father: Charles L’Heureux scarcely spoke the language once he became an American citizen. He asks her what she wants to talk about, and has she read any good books recently.

  Ivy laughs, admitting she has been passing quiet hours with the Bible and old catalogues loaned from Winter. To her surprise, Sam perks up considerably. He tells her he has not seen a book in months and asks if she thinks Miss Night would mind her passing on the loan to him. And does she have any Wordsworth or Blake?

  His accent is much better than hers and she must think a moment as she formulates each sentence, though considering how long it has been since she had the opportunity, she hopes her mother and Mrs. Cloutier would be proud.

  By this time Melchior is even surlier and Grip, who had been ignoring them, has looked over since they mentioned Winter’s name. Sam shakes his head and proposes they give it up for now. Ivy promises him shared reading rights, trying to ignore a stab of guilt. If she had been on speaking terms with Sam over the past month he would have already known about her spending time with Winter and been able to benefit.

  He thanks her.

  Ivy smiles at Melchior. “Is the bacon ready?”

  Melchior frowns, but holds out his hand for her plate.

  Fifty-Fifth

  The Storm

  They do not depart the rocky, sloping campsite until past noon.

  El Cohete is so savage to other horses near him that Grip cannot lead pack animals, which, as Melchior says, is convenient for him. Grip mutters and frowns over the poor fit of harness and sorry conditions of the pack horses, saying he will be having a word with that livery man—making Ivy feel more sorry for Mr. Quiles than the horses—while Melchior manages to convince Chucklehead he can travel beside them. With Melchior holding the pack horse ropes, Sam takes the sunken-eyed riding horse: a dusty brown gelding with a staring coat and a suspicious look about him.

  “What will we do with him?” Sam asks once mounted on Elsewhere and holding the brown’s reins. “Give him to the livery with the return of their own?”

  “Can’t sell him for much,” Melchior says, irritably pulling Chucklehead’s face away from snapping at the nearest pack horse. “Can we drift along?”

  “He is not old,” Grip says as El Cohete starts off, Ivy next on Correcaminos. “Only ill-used. We could give him to my little brother to nurse. He is sensiblero for all animals, but he can make damaged horses trust again.”

  “Íñigo?” Ivy asks. “We should if he would want him. He let me borrow her again.”

  Grip glances back at Correcaminos. “Yes. Which I would not have thought possible. That mare’s his special pet. He expects valuable foals from her, despite being black as midnight and over-tall.”

  “Temperamento?” Ivy smiles.

  “Indeed.” He stares ahead.

  The rest follow, Melchior still having trouble with Chucklehead while the pack horses balk from the hostile stallion.

  Ivy looks back once, up to the slope far to the left of camp where she has not allowed herself to look all morning. No sign of any disturbance, no dark heap. From this distance, she cannot even see bloodstains. As if ... nothing happened.

  “What did you do with the body?” she asks Grip, still looking back.

  “Threw it over the top. Likely rolled clear down that side. Carrion beasts appreciate it.”

  “And we don’t know where or how far the mine is, do we?” She looks at him.

  Grip shrugs. “Never cared for mines anyway.”

  “No, I don’t suppose I would either. I wish you would not light those objects when I am riding by you.”

  “Ride ahead.” He strikes the match across his saddle horn.

  “I do not know the way back to Santa Fé.”

  Grip jerks his head at the black mare. “She d
oes.”

  They follow narrow trails, or no trail at all for the rest of that day, winding through forests of stunted trees and past red rock formations with jet black striations running horizontally throughout. Across high desert ridges where summer creeks still flow in trickles, squirrels chatter and ravens remark over their passing. Low mountains roll away in every direction, colors of their peaks changing from green to gold to indigo.

  Only once do they shift from their path to avoid a visible riser standing motionless in an open patch of dazzling sunlight among red and black rocks. Melchior lifts his Colt, but Sam, riding beside him, catches his wrist.

  “We don’t know what may be behind,” Ivy says.

  “Nothing in the venture regardless,” Grip says as they swing out and away. “Thurman quit offering bounty once so many others caught on.”

  Another potential income lost. Ivy glances back, but says nothing.

  Sam and Melchior go on riding side by side, leading their charges, for the remainder of the afternoon. Though they ride a good distance behind Ivy and Grip, she can tell they are talking as they have not done on the trail since the return from Raton Pass two months previously. And she is glad. And honestly does not mind not being part of the conversation. For which understanding, she is even more glad.

  For dinner, after pork and beans cook, Ivy mixes biscuit dough out of lard, flour, bicarbonate of soda, and a little water. She covers the bottom of the Dutch oven in her peaches, then drops handfuls of dough across the top until the peaches are nearly covered. A further search through their provisions reveals sugar. She sprinkles that liberally over the top before placing the iron lid on the skillet. Then, using their only cooking spoon, she covers the whole thing in burning ashes and chunks of glowing bark.

  To her amazement as much as everyone else’s, the cobbler turns out stupendous: biscuits light, browned on top with a crisp, sweet crust, peaches juicy, hot and unburnt. Not as good as Winter’s cobblers and pies at home, but by far the best meal they have eaten on the trail.

  “Can we always travel with pack horses?” Ivy asks. “We could even carry more canned goods with them.”

  “One takes pack animals in summertime to feed the horses themselves,” Grip says. “Not spoil the riders.”

  “Feather beds and silk sheets, a house full of servants, a stable full of grooms and coachmen, hired cooks from the finest culinary institutes in Paris spoil a man, Grip,” Sam says softly. “I believe we can all handle the occasional baked good on the trail without it going to our heads.”

  “Have to buy one,” Melchior says, his mouth full. “Horses for sale are scarce as hen’s teeth around Santa Fé lately.”

  “Could you win one in cards?” Ivy asks, glancing at the Colt on his belt.

  Melchior shrugs and swallows. “Win anything if you play long enough. ’Specially if everyone’s roostered so they don’t notice a bilk. Could get us a house in the city if we wanted one.”

  It sounds like a decent proposition to Ivy, but Sam appears tense, frowning at his plate. She changes the subject to what they will have for breakfast.

  The following day they remain in no hurry, arriving in town by late afternoon. Dark clouds pursue them out of the north with distant thunder just audible. Ivy has hardly seen rain since the night of the flash flood and silently thanks God that, this time, it follows to high ground and roofs over their heads.

  She shudders as they pass through the north gate, opened for them once they are recognized, looking neither to right nor left, hearing screams as if from ghosts, hands tight on her reins. Grip glances at her, but says nothing.

  At the livery they disperse. Sam invites Grip with them for dinner, but he shakes his head, saying he must dine with Winter to avoid a public spectacle when she discovers he was in the city two minutes without telling her. Still mounted, he takes the reins of the brown gelding from Sam and those of Correcaminos from Ivy after she slides to the ground. Melchior pulls the sidesaddle off her and Grip touches his hat in goodbye before turning El Cohete.

  Ivy watches Correcaminos walk away, feeling lonely again. Not good to be without one’s own horse out here. Too much like being trapped. Being helpless.

  She has no reason to wait around the livery, but tells Sam she is going to clean up and will meet them for dinner at El Rio. By the time she emerges from the boarding house, somewhat scrubbed and dusted down, the first heavy raindrops pepper the road. She watches every pop of brown dust burst upward. The ground is so parched, it seems unable to cope with the situation, as if exploding one bit at a time as water nips it.

  Barefoot children dash into the street, spinning around, chattering in Spanish, their mouths wide, heads tipped back. Rosalía’s four- and five-year-old niece and nephew, Buen and Sofía, dance in the mix.

  Others walk to El Rio, glancing to the sky as they go, looks of relief on their faces as thunder murmurs to the north and east.

  A solitary horse stands at the hitching post, one hind leg knuckled up, chin drooped onto the crossbar, sores visible on the sides just back of the stirrups where blood has clotted and flies, heedless of rain, flock in profusion.

  Ivy recalls the brown they just sent with Grip. Why are some men so horrible to horses out here? Where your horse is your life.

  She pauses before climbing the porch steps to rub the wide, white blaze down the delicate chestnut face. And catches her breath.

  The animal’s eyes open, limp ears pricking toward her.

  “Luck?” Ivy whispers, tears starting in her eyes. “What happened to you?”

  The dusty head lifts, muzzle stretching to her face, sniffing. Ivy blows gently into the nose as she has seen Melchior do. The little chestnut horse takes a deep breath with a coughing hitch and catch in her lungs, then lets it out in a long sigh. Ivy rests her forehead against the muzzle, her hands on Luck’s cheeks as thick raindrops plop around them.

  They will buy her back or steal her back—whatever one must do to reclaim a horse in the West. And she will have her Luck again. She will take Luck to Íñigo, who apparently has more patience than Melchior. She and Luck will work together to stop the nightmares, silence the screams, remember who they are and where they are going.

  “I’m so sorry.” Ivy kisses the white blaze, once shining and bright, now faded as old parchment. “You’ll be all right, Luck.”

  “Get away from that animal, girl.”

  The harsh voice makes Ivy whip around to see a hunch-shouldered man with a revolver at his belt and four-point roller spurs on his high boots. He slouches down the few steps from the saloon to the hitching post.

  “What the hell do you mean? Git.”

  “This is my horse, sir.” Ivy squares her shoulders, balling her hands into fists so their shaking will not be visible. “She was stolen in July.”

  “Stolen?” The eyes narrow in the lean face. “You calling me a horse thief, girl?”

  “I haven’t any idea who stole her. Nor am I making any accusation. For all I know, you bought her from the party who stole her just for that purpose. And I will buy her back.”

  “Now, now, that’s mighty sweet of you. A girl and her horse. But there’s two difficulties with your story. Firstly, you say this horse was ‘stolen’ last month. But I’ve had her over two years. A piece for starts. Then there’s you saying you’ll buy her. Only, she ain’t for sale. Do you know how hard it is to find a riding horse these days? Like waiting for a she-cat to have pups. So I recommend you go on your way and hunt your horse somewhere else.” He steps around the post to swing the reins free.

  “That is a lie, sir.” Body trembling now, heart pounding. “This is my horse and I will be taking her back.”

  He turns slowly to face her, Luck’s reins now in his hand, dark stains appearing on his hat as raindrops strike it. “What did you call me, girl?”

  “A liar,” Ivy says through set teeth.

  Boot steps thump on boards behind her and she hears Sam. “What is going on here?”

  They have
seen her from inside, Sam and Melchior stepping down to join Ivy.

  “It’s Luck.” Ivy turns to them. “I told him we would buy her back.” Her pleading gaze goes from Sam to Melchior. “She cannot breathe properly.”

  Melchior moves past them and the man glaring at him, looking the horse up and down. “How long you had that animal, mister?”

  “As I was telling the girl, over two years. And she’s not for sale.”

  “Anyone confirm that?”

  “Plenty in Albuquerque.”

  “Only, Albuquerque ain’t rightly there anymore, is it? Torched the place.” Melchior rests his hand on Luck’s ribs behind the saddle and she flinches.

  “Of little consequence—take your hands off her. She’s not for sale.” He turns to lead Luck past Melchior.

  Melchior steps in his path. “That horse has been treated mighty hard. Wind’s broke. You can hear it.”

  “And we do have witnesses, here in town, as to ownership,” Sam says, standing between them and Ivy. “If you will bring her to the livery just up—”

  “The hell I will. What is this? You corner a man, call him a liar, a cheat—”

  “Buy the horse from you, mister,” Melchior says. “And drop the whole difficulty, despite her having been stolen. Don’t know that was you—”

  “Yet you behave as if you are sure. I would rather shoot the animal than see you with her. Now get the hell out of my way or I shall take the matter to the sheriff.”

  Rain pounds harder, drops falling thick as the sky darkens. Children have vanished from the streets, as well as dogs, chickens, burros, even flies.

  “Go ahead,” Melchior says. “He’s inside now.” He tips his head toward the saloon door. “Just walked past him. He saw us with this horse months back.”

  “Why are you so bent on causing trouble, cowboy?”

  “Why you so bent on sneaking? Mighty odd for a man knowing he’s in the right.”

  Thunder rolls and pops, still far off, but looming now, oppressive, as the sun sinks invisibly behind storm clouds now blotting out the sky in every direction.