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

by Taylor, Jordan

  “Man got to prove he’s right each day in court in this city? Had the horse over two years! Bought her from a rancher in Texas. Mustang stock—”

  “Give you twenty for her,” Melchior says. “Twice what she’s worth in this condition.”

  “Damnation! I wouldn’t take a hundred cash! Not from you or your slandering, no-account friends! For the last time, get out of my way!” He shoves past Melchior, jerking Luck’s bridle with him.

  Melchior’s hand drops to his revolver but he does not draw.

  “No!” Ivy starts after. “She’s my horse! You cannot—”

  Sam catches her arm. “Surely we can come to some kind of understanding. We will pay you enough to replace her from a horse at the livery. With enough cash you shall be able to find a horse for sale.”

  “I told you, I would not sell her to you if I were a penniless destitute—”

  Melchior is again in his face, walking backward. “Everything’s got a price, mister. What do you—?”

  “Don’t take her out of the city,” Ivy is fighting tears, trying to pull away from Sam. “Please, she’s—”

  “Fine.” The man stops, snapping Luck to a halt by the bit. “You all want this damn horse so much?” He steps to her side and yanks the cinch loose, then drags the wet saddle off by the horn as he returns to her face, looking from Melchior to Ivy. “Keep her.”

  Ivy screams as he whips his six-shooter from his belt—Sam jumping in front of her, Melchior springing backward, drawing at the same time—but the explosive crack is too fast for any of them to do more. Saddle in hand, the man has already turned down the road as Luck drops like a load of lumber to wet ground, legs bent, bloody head thrown out.

  Ivy hammers on Sam’s fingers, screaming at him until she rips away and races to her horse, motionless in pounding rain.

  Saloon doors crash back and Sheriff Thurman runs past. “If you shoot an animal in this city you will tend to the mess, sir!”

  Ivy drops on her knees in mud and blood by Luck, bowing over the beautiful head. “No, no, no, no—” Crying against wet fur, tangling her fingers in the red mane, pressing her face to Luck’s cheek.

  She can scarcely hear Thurman and the man with the saddle shout at each other half a block away as her own sobs and thunder fill her ears: a great, rolling brrrooo-rrrr-boom.

  “Luck—” Rain streaming down her hair, her face, her dress, she pulls the bridle off and lifts the bit from Luck’s mouth, swollen and raw at the corners. “I’m so, so sorry.” Her face against the mare’s, shaking violently, she strokes the muzzle, the cheek, caresses the long, thin neck splattered with mud. But never the ears. “I’m sorry, Luck.”

  An arm across her shoulders, someone on his knees in mud beside her, bent over Luck’s neck with her. But not Sam.

  “She was hurting,” Melchior’s voice in her ear. “Don’t know if we could’ve brought her back with her wind broke like that, Ivy. Could be nothing to be done—”

  “Then I shouldn’t have let her be taken in the first place. I should have protected her.”

  “Nothing you could do. Happens. Just nothing you could do.” Rain flows off his hat, onto her shoulder, until he removes it to rest on her soaked hair. “Come on.”

  Ivy drops her face to kiss Luck’s cheek, tears falling on fur.

  The red-gray city around them lights in a burst like a million fireworks. A world-shattering boom rolls through, rattling windows, setting dogs barking and horses shrieking in their stalls.

  Melchior’s hand tightens on her shoulder. “Ivy.” Voice urgent now, raised above hammering rain. “Got to shift off the road.”

  She follows him, half lifting her, back toward the boarding house, hugging herself as water weighs down her dress and chemise, running into her stockings, flowing off his hat on her head.

  “Have anything to change into?”

  The unfinished dress stored in her room. Ivy shakes her head.

  “We’ll bring some supper, all right?”

  She does not care. She does not want to change, does not want food, does not want her room, does not want to live.

  The only thing in the world she wants lies in mud behind her.

  Fifty-Sixth

  Lightfall

  Ivy sits on the boarding house porch in the dark, knees drawn to her chest, arms around soaked skirts, watching rain below the overhanging roof.

  They brought her a plate of pinto beans and rice from Xochitl. Rosalía came by to ask if she wanted to talk and leave a dry chemise and light blue dress she previously borrowed from Winter. Sam even brought her a tiny glass of milk, which she did manage to stomach, though she could not face the meal or Rosalía. They left one by one without her opening the door.

  The city slept by the time she stood up from the bedroom floor, shivering, clothed in her old, wet dress and chemise, to slip outside and watch rain.

  She does not cry now, or shake, except with cold. The crying never seems to do any good. She only sits and hugs her legs and watches rain in the faint light from a few windows showing black on black outlines of the city’s flat buildings with glints and shimmers of rain.

  She watches and does not move, does not respond.

  She got up after the horde. After the outlaws. After Silver City. After the flood. After the Indians. After Highless Wriyn.

  She does not want to get up anymore. Not in a place which seeks to break you, end you, day after day after day. A place which kicks you when you are down and laughs and waits for you to turn your back so it can strike again. She cannot be who she must be out here in order to live. Beyond the travel, the steamcoach, reaching home, the risers, there is the day-to-day which she is not strong enough to face.

  You must be superhuman to survive this place, godlike to come out ahead. And you must be male. If you are found wanting in nerve or skill or the thickness of your skin, you cannot look the West in the eye.

  She should have known the day she saw the horde approach the ranch she could not beat this place, could not compromise, could not survive. Better she had never made it out at all. Better to be there, with Aunt Abigail and Uncle Charles, and not have ridden away a thousand times in her nightmares since.

  Ivy looks up as a shadow moves past light from a window across the street. A boarder coming in late. A tall man, limping, wide-brimmed hat bowed as rain streams off it. She follows the outline with her eyes as he reaches the boarding house steps, then glances up. But she knows long before he does that he is no boarder.

  He watches her in the dark, as if trying to confirm what he believes he sees, then walks along in front of the porch to her.

  Was he also coming to see her? Another story?

  But she is sick of being preached to. Sick of all of them telling her what she does wrong. Don’t they think she knows everything she does out here is wrong?

  He pauses beside her, standing in mud with rain running off the fringe of his buckskin sleeve, trickling off the front and back of the hat. He lifts his hat, bowing his head as if meeting a lady in the street, though he has never done this to her before, then replaces it and holds his left hand out to her in silence.

  Ivy does not stir, trying to see what he holds. When he does not move or speak, she finally reaches out to feel the leathery object on his palm. As she lifts the tassel, he walks away, limping back down the road through town.

  Ivy runs her fingers along coarse, wet horsehair, feeling a leather loop, the cord knotted in some way to hold it all together.

  She strokes the lock of Luck’s mane across her cheek—remind us where we came from and keep us on the trail. When she looks up, the shifting shadow has vanished into rain.

  She closes both hands around the tassel, dropping her forehead against her fists which rest on her knees, muscles tight with the force of her hold, heart beating fast.

  Ivy wakes. She opens her eyes to sunlight flowing through the tiny windows of her room. No sound of rain or thunder. No smell of wood or tobacco smoke. She does not recall getting i
n bed last night, though she remembers toweling her hair and changing into the dry chemise to sleep, never releasing her death hold on that tassel.

  Now she lifts her hands to her face to find the tassel still in her fingers. A thick lock of chestnut hair fixed into a knot and soft leather tie. Ivy strokes the hair—because of them, we journey on—running strands between her fingers, everything from the night before returning in a blizzard of thoughts.

  She splashes water on her face, fights the little blue dress on, laces her boots, then hurries downstairs, the tassel still looped in her fingers.

  She runs through muddy, nearly deserted roads, down streets of adobe houses to Rosalía’s door. She knocks softly, wondering if her parents may still be in bed, though she feels sure Rosalía is up by now starting breakfast.

  As she opens the door, Rosalía does not seem surprised to see her. She hugs Ivy. “I’m sorry.”

  “I ... can I talk to you?”

  “In my room. I’ll be right there. They’re just getting up and I don’t have water on yet.”

  Ivy slips through the tiny living and kitchen space to the door against the back right wall. She sits on Rosalía’s bed, rubbing the tassel through her fingers—admitir la derrota—inhaling fragrances of yucca blossoms, leather, wool, lingering cooking odors.

  Rosalía slips inside, closes the door, and sits beside Ivy, looking at the tassel in her hands. “Did Grip make that? It looks like his for Fuego. His first horse was also a chestnut mustang.”

  Ivy nods. “Rose, how do you be like them without ... being like them? I’m not ready to die out here ... like this. But I don’t know how to ... beat it. You do better.... You do everything so much better than I can. How do you be like them, ride and shoot like a man, without compromising everything you are?

  “I was ready to give up before—just wait here ... to die. But I only have going home to cling to. That’s what’s left for me. Getting home. If I drive a steamcoach or ride or walk or fly or crawl, there is nothing else for me to live for. I cannot keep needing everything from everyone. I cannot keep this up and live here and ever imagine I will get home while I am the most helpless person I’ve seen out West. I had to rely on my cousin’s horse to find the way for me. Your four-year-old nephew seems savvier than I.”

  “If you did not need others, you wouldn’t be human.” Rosalía does not sound disturbed or alarmed, only sad.

  “How far can one compromise one’s principles before one would be better dead?”

  “Why must you compromise?”

  “Because the people who have the skills and ... attitudes to survive here are people I do not ever want to imitate—no offense to your brother.”

  “None taken, I’m sure.”

  “But you are good at living here, even on the trail, even shooting.”

  “So you don’t have to lower yourself to be like them if you’re like me?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Ivy, your sight is narrow. Lift yourself. Do not lower. With your skills, your knowledge, your beliefs. There’s no reason to be ‘like them.’” Rosalía smiles, head on one side. “You can be so much more. So much better. The tools are before you, but you must be willing to ask for help. You ride with one of the best draws in the country, one of the best horsemen, and a man so skilled with a rifle he emptied the chamber in entirely successful shots the first time he ever used a new and foreign weapon. You’re asking me, but you can do better.”

  Rosalía glances to the door. She stands, taking Ivy’s hand in both of hers. “I must get breakfast. Tell me: second to home, while you remain here, what is it you want?”

  Ivy knows she does not mean “want from me” or “want to do,” but so much more.

  Ivy swallows. “Respect.”

  Rosalía looks into her eyes a moment. “You will never get respect from men of this town, or any West, for riding astride and carrying a weapon. They will mock you, insult you, laugh at you. Nor for being a lady. Then you are pampered, soft, ignorant. Only your friends might respect you for your abilities. But you can have next best: men in these parts do not respect Grip because he is a dead shot and astute observer. They’re scared of him.

  “Beat them, Ivy. If you must fight for your freedom, your transport, your life, do it better. When a man is afraid to meet your eyes, you have found your respect.” She pauses, watching Ivy. “Will you stay for breakfast?”

  “What? No, thank you, Rose.”

  Ivy lets herself out while Rosalía hurries to start tortillas on the wood block counter.

  The sun is still scarcely up as Ivy walks back to the boarding house, running the tassel through her fingers—here, that goes for horses as well.

  When she arrives in her room, she pulls the mess of light cotton fabric and sewing things from the trunk, but can only stare, mind churning.

  She leaves, spends the day out, calls at Winter’s to help with dishes, then borrows a wide range of patterns—all styles and ages and climates, male and female. With the last bit of gold she saved from the coach in hand, she stops by the general store for yards of thick, soft wool and their best quality cotton canvas.

  Arms full, Ivy reenters the boarding house before sunset. She spreads fabric on her bed, patterns across the floor, then hangs her tassel on the bedpost.

  At lightfall, she strikes a match for a single candle and turns to her work. To start over.

  To Be Continued In

  Book Four

  Thank you for reading Lightfall Three: Luck, Lost, Lady. If you enjoyed this book, please leave a quick review on Amazon to let others know! Your support makes independent authors and series like Lightfall possible.

  Continue the journey with Lightfall Four: Risk, Rise, Rebel.

  About the Author

  Author of fiction from short stories to epics, designer of award-winning book covers, lover of travel and ice cream, Jordan wrote her first novel at age sixteen and has found it easier to write a book than remember to keep up a blog ever since.

  She lives near Seattle with two dogs and a vast array of people who speak in her head until she turns their voices into novels.

  Find more Lightfall titles, leave reviews, or get in touch on Jordan’s Amazon Author Page and at www.jordantaylorbooks.com.