by Ginn Hale
It wasn’t as if he’d been fearless back then—he felt scared sometimes even now. But Lawrence’s friendship and company had meant more to him than the safety of solitude. These days most everyone had more to worry about than who kept each other company.
“Even if it’s dangerous, sometimes a man has to obey his own heart,” Grover said, and Lawrence nodded.
“I do know that now. But it took getting engaged and running off into the middle of a war for me to realize just how stupid I’d been and how much I’d ruined… I made so many terrible mistakes.” Lawrence’s eyes flicked down briefly to his ivory hand. He looked to Grover with a resigned expression. “I know I can’t put anything back the way it was. But I have to try to make it as right as I can.”
Grover frowned, recognizing that Lawrence was talking about far more than just their broken romance. A notion, not quite formed but still disquieting, fluttered through Grover’s mind.
“So if you have to have the truth then this is it.” Lawrence paused and seemed to struggle to make himself speak. “I suspected that the rift opened at Fire Springs because I was involved in creating it…in creating them all.”
“You?” The enormity of Lawrence’s confession stunned Grover so completely that he hardly registered the second much-closer crow from a ridingbird. Beneath him Betty stiffened and swiveled her head towards the call.
“Creating the rifts wasn’t our intention,” Lawrence said quickly. “We were trying to manufacture new seams of alchemic stone.”
“Like the Tuckers are after now?”
“Yes.” Fatigue and desolation resonated through Lawrence’s voice. He stared past Grover in the direction of Fire Springs. “Tucker designed the spell and picked three of us from the mage corps to ground and power it outside the Beijing Palace. We didn’t know he’d already failed once himself, and none of us understood what it would do when we pitted ourselves against an earth mage as powerful as Cixi.”
Suddenly a third ridingbird call rang out loud and sharp. Much too close.
Lawrence’s hands came up fast, ready to unleash deadly curses. Grover lifted his rifle but could hardly hold it steady for Betty prancing back and forth as she let out a string of high-pitched whistles.
“What on earth is she—” Lawrence began to ask.
A flashy male ridingbird strutted out from between two lodgepole pines some fifty feet ahead of them. He fluffed up his brilliant gold-and-blue plumes and flashed his tail like some exotic fan dancer as he turned in a slow circle. Then he spread his arms to reveal the iridescent feathers cascading down his chest. He strutted round and round, pausing only briefly to waggle his head and tail.
Betty gawked at him with the slack-jawed appreciation of a prospector just down from the hills and taking in a dancing girl. She crooned and gave a low whistle, while the bright-colored male batted his lashes and shimmied his gaudy tail back and forth.
Grover attempted to retain his dignity when Betty began dancing from foot to foot. But then she wheeled around to flash the male a full view of her ass and hiked her tail up over Grover’s head.
“Betty,” Grover groaned. “You don’t even know who that yahoo is. For God’s sake, have some pride!”
Lawrence burst into laughter while his stallion appeared about as mortified by the display as a horse could look.
“You could scare him off,” Grover suggested, as Betty’s gyrations swung him back and forth. “Flash some lights or some such, like you did that night with the bear.”
“Aw, but Grove, how could I come between two lovers?” Lawrence wiped his eyes but kept on grinning. “They’re clearly taken with each other.”
“They just met!” Grover shot the male bird a disapproving glance, which only seemed to amuse Lawrence all the more. “He’s a flashy showman on the make. Betty could do better than Mr. Burlesque here!”
Thankfully the huge shadow of a thunderbird swept over them. Though the pterosaur likely glided a mile above, it was enough to spook Betty’s suitor, and in an instant he disappeared back into the dark green shadows of the forest. Betty crooned after him a couple times but then heaved a sigh and settled down to preening her breast feathers.
“I told you he was fickle,” Grover murmured.
“Me or Betty?” Lawrence asked.
“Both of you.” Grover tugged lightly at the leather lead, and Betty started along the trail. Lawrence fell in beside them. Grover wasn’t certain of what exactly had changed, but as they continued riding, Lawrence seemed to relax. He grinned boyishly when Grover pointed out the obscene profile of the stone outcropping that the two of them had dubbed “cock rock” nearly a decade ago.
“Well, it seems someone’s happy to see me again.” Lawrence gave the stones an absurdly flirtatious smile and Grover laughed.
As they rode higher up the mountain ridge, the tree cover thinned and wide breaks of spring grass, horsemint and columbine covered the ground.
“Not so much cactus as there used to be,” Lawrence commented.
“More ferns though. We get a lot more rain now,” Grover replied. High up overhead he caught the glint of gold and red that colored the head crests of big male thunderbirds. Grover stilled Betty and narrowed his gaze up into the drifts of white clouds. Lawrence drew his horse to a halt as well.
After a moment Grover picked out a single huge wingbeat. He made out the profile of the silver-white thunderbird. From the crooked tear in its left wing and that crest—bright as a monarch butterfly—Grover knew him at once.
“Up there,” he pointed. “That’s King Douglass.”
“Douglass?” Peering skyward, Lawrence appeared suitably impressed by the immense wingspan of the pterosaur. “After Frederick Douglass?”
“That’s right.” The Christmas before he left, Lawrence had gifted Grover with a handsomely bound copy of My Bondage and My Freedom. They’d spent winter afternoons with a blanket wrapped around them, reading the book together. The prose hadn’t been sensational—nothing like the poems in Leaves of Grass—but several times Lawrence had wept while Grover had pretended that his eyes weren’t too glassy with unshed tears to go on reading. When he finally reached the end—that powerful, heartbreaking letter from the author to his former master—Grover had felt almost overcome. So much of Douglass’s character roused old memories of his father. So much of his history reminded Grover of his departed mother’s desperate flight for her freedom. He hadn’t been able to summon words to express to Lawrence how moved he’d felt. But after that day he’d been more determined than ever to live his life as courageously as Frederick Douglass had.
“He’s completely free and the whole sky is his kingdom,” Grover said. “King Douglass, I mean.”
Lawrence nodded but tensed as the thunderbird drifted closer. Sunlight played through the vast expanses of his membranous wings as if it were shining through cloud breaks.
“I’ve seen one of those creatures kill a whole team of horses,” Lawrence commented. “Shouldn’t we get to cover?”
Grover didn’t answer at once but continued to watch King Douglass as he wheeled slowly overhead. He shifted a wingtip, arched his long fingers against the swift, cold wind and turned a perfect loop. Grover almost felt the thunderbird’s pleasure in simply flying. He’d eaten recently—his belly full and fat with mutton—and now as he winged back to his roost, he enjoyed the liberty of the skies and the warmth of the sun spreading across his long wings. For a moment Grover thought King Douglass cocked his head, taking note of him. Grover offered the thunderbird a smile and indulged himself in thinking that the huge creature acknowledged him with the faintest nod of his crested head.
“He’s just looking us over as he passes,” Grover assured Lawrence. “Bet he’s already filled up on bighorn sheep from the El Dorado Ridge.”
“He told you as much, did he?” Lawrence raised his brows and continued to watch the thunderbird with su
spicion.
“No, but…” Grover shrugged. “Sometimes I just know… Sort of like how you can look at a book and read the title without having to sound it out or nothing. It’s like that.”
Lawrence glanced between Grover and King Douglass with a puzzled expression. “You read him like a book?”
“I don’t know how else to describe it. I think he can read me as well, so we understand each other, in a way,” Grover replied, though putting his experience of the thunderbird into words made it sound strange. “He knows I don’t mean him any harm, and right now I know he won’t cause us any trouble. He’s on his way back up west. He’s got flaplings to feed.” As if to prove Grover’s words, King Douglass angled his body upward and suddenly rose, winging fast into the cloudy west. Lawrence watched the thunderbird for several moments then turned to Grover and glanced to Betty.
“In all my travels across China, France and England, I haven’t ever met anyone who could understand a giant pterosaur at a glance much less charm an avemosaur into carrying him about.”
“Maybe none of them ever tried,” Grover answered, because it was surprising how timid some folk could be even in desperate times. He nudged Betty and they continued across the rocky meadow. Small lizards scattered from the tops of sunbaked rocks, and Betty eyed them but didn’t snap after them.
“Perhaps,” Lawrence agreed. “Or maybe you’re just the most charming man alive.”
Grover laughed. He had his ways with animals but when it came to people he usually grew self-conscious and awkward.
“I wouldn’t bet money on that being the case, if I were you.”
“Well, Cora seems to think you’ve won the heart of at least one girl. Susan?” Lawrence’s tone sounded off. Grover peered over, but Lawrence bowed his head into the deep shadow of his hat, seemingly studying little sprays of buttercups surrounding them.
“She mentioned that you’d even met with the girl’s father. So something must be going right,” Lawrence added.
“Land sakes.” Grover couldn’t keep from laughing at the thought of asking Frank for little Susan’s hand in marriage. The fact that she was nine was only one of a multitude of reasons he found the idea absurd. “Cora was having you on. Susan and her pa are my ma’s people. My cousins. They escaped from Bynum when the floods came. I helped Frank find a house and work as a carpenter.”
“Oh.” Lawrence said nothing more for a few moments, though glancing at him Grover could see there was still something on his mind. “So, there isn’t anyone you’re…keeping company with just now?”
“Not just now,” Grover replied calmly, though his pulse kicked up at the thought of Lawrence wondering. “You?”
“There was someone, but it wasn’t—” Lawrence shook his head and gave the stand of white fir ahead of them a glower. “He was married. And from France, so…”
Recollecting how often Lawrence had abandoned his French lessons for their wanders, he suspected that conversation hadn’t likely been the attraction.
“Doux mais brève?” Grover had learned the phrase from a Creole fellow he’d spent a few hours with. When Lawrence looked at him with puzzlement, Grover translated, “Sweet but brief?”
“Near enough.” Lawrence gave a short laugh. “I suppose I could have fought a little harder to make the arrangement work, but my heart wasn’t really in it.”
Grover almost asked where Lawrence’s heart might have really been, but he wasn’t certain he wanted to hear an honest answer. If it had been with him, Lawrence wouldn’t have left in the first place. He wouldn’t have let him go on thinking he was dead for years.
“Well, sometimes a bit of distraction is a fine thing. It can’t all be for better or worse and until death do we part.” Grover knew that well enough, himself.
Lawrence nodded, and they continued riding between the stands of trees and breaks of meadows that made up the ridge. The quiet between them felt peaceable and comfortable. The sun rose high above them, and their shadows burned away to tiny pools of blue shade.
After they passed the first of the Two Guides—Long’s Peak as Lawrence called it—they stopped at Mirror Lake to allow the animals to drink and graze while they shared a portion of Grover’s dried three-horn pemmican. To Grover’s surprise Lawrence didn’t complain about having to eat the hunk of meat, fat and berries cold. Eight years ago he’d have groused after each mouthful. Instead he thanked Grover and wolfed his portion down, only pausing once to ask if it was chokecherry that Grover had added to the mix.
“That and wild strawberries I dried last summer.” Grover tried not to be too obvious in watching Lawrence suck the grease from his fingers. A little oil lent a sheen to his lips and reminded Grover of all the lovely things Lawrence had done for him with that handsome mouth of his.
Eight years back, they’d been easy and playful, turning wrestling matches, foot races and card games into friendly sex without either of them ever saying much about it before or after. But now, Grover realized, they’d both grown up, fucked other men, and learned that it wasn’t all sloppy grins and harmless fun.
Bottom truth was that until Lawrence left him, Grover couldn’t have imagined what it would do to him to mourn so deeply while hiding his loss from every single soul around him. Even after his ma died he hadn’t felt so utterly isolated and estranged. He’d had a right and a reason to grieve as far as other folks knew. Friends and family had been able to understand. But when he lost Lawrence there’d been no comfort offered, no understanding, no sympathy. Little surprise that he’d withdrawn to the wilds, he supposed. Despite the years that had passed, the awareness that he didn’t truly belong among other people—that he wasn’t quite one of them—still haunted Grover.
He turned his gaze from Lawrence to the rolling hills ahead. They’d made good time, and if they kept up this pace they might even reach the shelter of the temple rocks before sundown. Far off he could just discern the dark forms of a small herd of buffalo. Four juvenile whiptails stood grazing in their midst along with five red-crested three-horns. Wolves and cougars would certainly think twice before taking on that bunch.
“Looks like Romeo isn’t dissuaded as easily as you thought.” Lawrence pointed across the meadow. Sashaying out from the pines came the male ridingbird that had fled earlier. He flashed his bright tail like an overgrown peacock, and Betty pranced closer to him. Lawrence’s horse edged away from them both.
“Betty.” Grover pinned her with a hard stare when she looked to him. He pushed all of his determination into his voice. “Come here. Now.”
Betty hunched her feathered arms like a sullen youth and pecked at a clump of chickweed. Grover drew in a breath to call again but she immediately slunk to him, making the same little chirps she’d uttered as a chick. He caught her lead and petted her head gently. She leaned into him, and Grover braced himself. She weighed as much as Lawrence’s stallion but seemed to think she was still light as a bundle of feathers.
“It’s for your own good, Betty,” Grover told her softly. “You don’t want no part of that philanderer, I promise you.”
“Who’d suspect you’d make such a parochial guardian.” Lawrence laughed as he strolled to his own mount and caught the horse’s reins. “You aren’t going to make her hold out until her Romeo asks your permission, are you?”
Grover didn’t know why but the question annoyed him. He didn’t expect wild animals to put on the airs of romance and marriage. But Romeo—as Lawrence called him—was a big beast, and Betty was in Grover’s care. He wanted to keep her safe. Though saying as much would probably only make Lawrence laugh all the harder.
“We don’t have time to waste on a ridingbird romance.” Grover swung up into his saddle. “Unless you aren’t serious about reaching the rift before the Tuckers.”
“Of course I am.” Lawrence’s expression turned grim at the mention of the rift. He tipped his hat to Grover. “Lead on. I and Rom
eo will follow.”
Chapter Four
Lawrence wasn’t wrong about Romeo. The ridingbird stuck with them like a burr in a wool sock—easy to feel but hard to pick out. Just the way Betty trotted and held her head, Grover could tell when the male ridingbird edged alongside them through the pine forest. But his presence worried Grover less than did the markings high up on the trunks of the blue spruce. Branches and bark had been scraped away, and deep three-toed furrows gaped open at the base of each tree.
Riding near, Grover caught a faint musky, sweet smell. Sap sealed the deepest gouges, and pinecones littered the ruts in the ground. The bigtooth that had marked the territory last summer hadn’t yet returned. But chances were good it would head back to its hunting ground after wintering on the other side of the rift.
“Liè lóng?” Lawrence asked with a gesture to the nearest spruce.
Grover nodded and signaled Lawrence to silence.
They rode on in a hush. Grover studied the ground and brush for tracks or fresh markings, while Lawrence kept his head up watching farther ahead. Soon enough they left behind the last of the buffeted spruce and took to higher ground. As sunset colors spilled across the sky, they reached a rise where three huge rust-red boulders leaned into each other, creating a natural alcove. Over the last few years, Grover had further dug out and reinforced the shelter. To his pleasure he found the cords of wood he’d stashed there largely undisturbed. A few weeds poked up between the stones of his fire pit, but those were easily cleared.
Lawrence built a fire for them while Grover unloaded their saddles and hitched their mounts to nearby trees, where they could graze in sight of the fire. By the time he dropped his and Lawrence’s bedrolls to the ground, bright orange flames blazed from the pit. Just the sight and scent of their shabby hearth put Grover more at ease. Most wild animals didn’t like fire, but the old ones like bigtooth were particularly fearful. Even the smell of smoke could sometimes clear one off.
Lawrence crouched by the fire. The warm light softened the hard lines of his face and erased his jagged white scars. His ivory hand gleamed like gold, though he tucked it into his coat pocket the moment he noticed Grover coming near.
