The Alchemy of Desire

by Crista McHugh

  “You know, if we were back East, I’d go about this in a different way. Maybe I’d start by asking if I could walk you home from church. Then, once I got up enough nerve, I’d come to call on you and sit in your front parlor with a chaperone present while we talked. After about a year, I’d ask you to go on a carriage ride with me.”

  Her laughter silenced him. “Is that really how you court a woman back East?”

  “Yes.”

  “No wonder you’re still single. It sounds like it takes ten years of playing parlor games before you get up the nerve to propose.”

  Annoyance gnawed at his gut and he started to turn his horse around.

  “No, stay, Diah. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh at you. It’s just amusing how different things are over there compared to here.” She rode in silence for half a minute before adding, “I’m not like your delicate Eastern women. You don’t have to play those tedious games with me, although I like the fact you think you should.”

  “What’s courtship like among your people?”

  Oni lifted her eyes to the scant white clouds overhead. “It depends on who you are. Some marriages are arranged between the ruling families, and the children have little say in their parents’ decisions. But for most of the Lakota, it’s much simpler. A boy sees a girl he likes and speaks with her. If she returns his interest, she usually gives him some small token like a bracelet or a necklace, maybe even an article of clothing. He then asks her father for her hand in marriage. If the man is worthy, the father usually agrees. But we don’t see the need to wait until the marriage ceremony before we lie with someone. There are too many cold winter nights.”

  He pictured her lying naked with some Sioux warrior, and jealousy threatened to consume him. He shouldn’t feel things like that. After all, he had no claim on her.

  Yet.

  It was the yet that bothered him. Why was he having thoughts of her being his and his alone?

  “Hey, is that smoke ahead?” Cager asked behind them.

  Diah squinted against the afternoon sun and saw multiple plumes drifting up into the sky.

  “That’s Fort Pierre,” Oni said in a flat voice. “You’ll find saddles there.”

  “Thank God! I’m tired of my ass bumping along this old nag’s back.” The horse whinnied almost in protest when Cager kicked her forward.

  “And I’m sure she’s tired of your uncoordinated ass trying to break her back,” Oni replied.

  As they came closer to the fort, Cager rode ahead but Oni slowed her horse and frowned at the gates.

  Diah pulled on the reins so his horse matched her pace. “What’s the matter?”

  “I hate these places. You two go on. I’ll wait out here for you.”

  Now it was his turn to frown. What was she hiding? Was she worried someone would recognize her from a wanted poster? “What do you hate about it?”

  “Let’s just say they aren’t very friendly to people like me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She sighed and nudged her horse forward. “Watch and see.”

  As soon as they entered the fort, he felt hundreds of eyes on them. It took him a few seconds to realize the people were not staring at him. They were staring at Oni. Mothers shooed their children into the houses as they passed. Men reflexively reached for their guns. He couldn’t understand why they would be so suspicious of an unarmed woman.

  “See what I mean,” she hissed.

  “Don’t worry. You’re with me, and I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  She snorted. “That’s very noble of you, Diah, but I doubt you could take on the entire fort.”

  Cager was already negotiating the price for two saddles when they found him in front of the stables. Diah cast a worried glance in her direction. “Are you going to be all right if I join him?”

  “The sooner we’re away from here, the better I’ll feel.” She tightened her grip on the reins and stared straight ahead

  Diah nodded and dismounted. “I’ll try and keep this quick, then.”

  “So how much for two of them?” He overheard Cager asking the man as he approached them.

  “Fifty dollars.”

  “Fifty dollars? That’s highway robbery. Thirty is more than fair for two used saddles.”

  “But these are in almost pristine condition.”

  “Except for the bullet hole here.” Cager poked his finger through the small, singed defect in the leather. “You can’t tell me you paid a lot of money for these, considering their previous owners probably weren’t alive to collect any money from you.”

  “Reynolds, is that you?”

  Diah flinched. Sweet Jesus, what kind of trouble had followed Cager all the way out here? But when he turned, the man was looking at him and not his brother. His face was familiar, especially the neatly trimmed moustache, but the uniform wasn’t the same one his artillery unit had worn. “Major Hinkle?”

  “It’s Colonel now, Reynolds.”

  A grin split his face as he shook his former officer’s hand. “It’s good to see you again, sir, although it’s a bit of a surprise to see you in that uniform.”

  Hinkle rubbed the horse on his wool coat and laughed. “I’m a soldier by trade. After the war, I just exchanged artillery for cavalry. You still tinkering with that black fire stuff?”

  “Yeah, still an alchemist.”

  “And what brings you out this way?”

  Cager cleared his throat and Diah stumbled to make introductions. “Forgive me. Colonel Hinkle, this is my brother, Cager, and our guide, Oni.”

  Hinkle reached out and shook Cager’s hand with vigor, but he glared at Oni through narrowed eyes.

  “Diah’s following me out west,” Cager replied. “We stopped by here to get some new saddles for our horses.”

  “What happened to your old ones?”

  Diah inched closer to Oni, wanting to shield her from the suspicion that oozed from Hinkle and other men around him. “They got burned up when the boiler blew on the Big Sky Belle.”

  Hinkle rubbed his chin. “So that explains why she didn’t come in yesterday. I wondered why she was running late.” He turned to the man in the barn. “You’re going to give my friends here a fair deal, aren’t you, Charley?”

  “Yes, sir.” Charley’s mouth formed a tight line. “So does thirty dollars sound fair to you?”

  Cager grinned and pulled out a few bills from his wallet. “Fair enough.”

  Colonel Hinkle clapped Diah on the shoulder. “Why don’t you and your brother stay at my place tonight? I’d be honored to have you join me at my table to let me know what you’ve been doing all these years. I haven’t seen you since Chickamauga. I was worried those Wielders had killed you.”

  “Nah, my brother pulled me out of that mess. We’ll be glad to take you up on that offer for dinner.” But as they walked past Oni’s horse, he remembered her desire to leave here as soon as possible. “What about Oni?”

  Hinkle looked at her. “Don’t worry about her. I’ll see that she’s taken care of. I doubt she wants to listen to a bunch of men talk about the war, if she even understands what we’re saying. Most of them Injuns aren’t too bright, you know.”

  The scowl on her face made it clear she understood every word he said, but when Diah opened his mouth to correct him, she shook her head. She said something in a language he didn’t understand—he could only guess it was Lakota—and dismounted.

  “See? She knows her place. Nothing worse than an uppity Injun. Abrams!” A young soldier ran up to them. “Take Mr. Reynolds’ Injun here and make sure she’s taken care of for the night.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now you see why I hate this place,” she whispered as she passed him.

  “Hold on a moment, Colonel Hinkle.” Diah jogged after her. “Oni, why are you letting him talk about you this way?”

  “Why are you?”

  Shame gnawed at his gut and he cursed under his breath. “Sorry, Oni. Come with me and we’ll show h
im how wrong he is about you and make him apologize.” He took her hand, but she yanked it out.

  “Use your head if you want to stay out of trouble. He’s in charge here and he’s watching everything you’re doing with me. I suppose I can tolerate this treatment for one night, but I want to be gone from here before the sun rises. You got that?”

  “But you shouldn’t have to tolerate it.”

  She gave him a weak smile. “That’s what makes you different from him and most other white men. You’re the only person I would do this for. I don’t want you crossing him and getting hurt, Diah. I’ll be fine once I’m away from him. Enjoy your evening and I’ll see you in the morning.” She turned and followed Abrams to a small wooden building along the fort walls.

  “You seem pretty worried about your little Injun, Reynolds.” Hinkle winked at him when he returned. “She must be something in the sack to have you acting that way.”

  Diah’s anger seethed under the surface of his skin. He was now beginning to understand what Oni meant when she said most men treated her like cattle. “Please don’t talk about her that way. It’s disrespectful.”

  Hinkle laughed. “You talk about her like she has feelings worth bothering over.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell him.” Cager fell into step with them. “But you know Diah—always trying to be a gentleman, even to a fault.”

  “Yeah, he was always a good kid.”

  “Sometimes too good.”

  Diah frowned as Hinkle and Cager began swapping stories. He cast a quick glance over his shoulder at the small building where Oni was. He hoped she’d be safe tonight.

  Diah studied the cards in his hand and listened as the other men laughed at a raunchy joke. Two other officers had joined them for dinner, and now they were sitting around the table, sipping whiskey and playing poker. After this hand, he’d be ready to call it a night and go to bed.

  “Where are you going from here?” Hinkle lit his pipe and puffed a series of sweet-smelling clouds of smoke from its opening.

  “We’re going to hunt for buffalo. I always said I wanted to kill one before my thirtieth birthday.” The same rehearsed story Cager had given before.

  “So that’s why you have your little Injun guide, huh? Most of the good hunting is in Sioux country, and I bet she knows exactly where all those places are. Or if she doesn’t, I bet she could find out.”

  “If she doesn’t stab you in the back while you’re sleeping,” added one of the younger officers, Kline. “Those Sioux are a bloodthirsty bunch.”

  Diah lowered his cards and bunched his brows together. “Why do you say that?”

  Hinkle pulled the pipe from his mouth. “Maybe you don’t hear about it much back East, but they’ve been giving us a fair amount of trouble lately. We’re trying to force the Sioux on the reservation. Some of them aren’t too keen on that idea. A few years ago, one of their chiefs named Red Cloud decided to give us a bit of trouble and ordered the slaughter of over a hundred of our men. You need eyes in the back of your head when dealing with them.”

  “Earlier today I thought you said they weren’t too bright.”

  Hinkle frowned. “Most of them aren’t. But their leaders are a wily bunch, and you never know how far you can trust them. Even their women can give you fits of trouble. That’s why I made sure your guide was placed under supervision tonight.”

  “Oni’s harmless,” Cager said as he shuffled his cards.

  “If you say so, but I’m not taking any chances in my fort.”

  Diah ran his finger along his collar. His throat tightened like he was being choked. He looked at his empty glass and wondered if was due to too much whiskey.

  Cager threw his cards down. “I’m out of this hand. Good a time as any to take a piss.”

  As soon as he left the room, Hinkle refilled Diah’s glass. “Buffalo hunting, huh? Seems like an odd time of the year to be doing that. You wouldn’t be after the White Buffalo, would you?”

  Diah’s hand stopped inches from his glass. “What makes you think that?”

  “If you stay here long enough, you hear the legends. So, your little guide says she knows where to find it?”

  Diah saw a shadow move out of the corner of his eye. Now he wished he hadn’t left his rifle by the door.

  Hinkle’s voice lowered. “You don’t mind if I steal her from you?”

  “What the fuck?” Cager said in the next room. The sounds of scuffling followed.

  Diah stood to go to his brother’s aid, but something hard cracked against the back of his head, and everything went black.

  Chapter Eight

  Oni stared at the moon through the small window high above her. Very clever of Hinkle, to lock her in this storehouse. Plenty of food, but nothing to keep her warm. There was plenty to burn, though, if she wanted heat. She rubbed her hand over her dagger, thankful the dumb private had overlooked it when he’d tossed her in here. Fire flowed through its veins, illuminating the orichalcum core.

  Voices broke the silence of the night. She pushed a crate against the wall and climbed up to the window. A group of soldiers carried two bodies across the grounds. Her heart stuck in her throat as the moonlight illuminated the bright red hair of the larger one. Diah.

  “Put them in the jail,” one of the men ordered.

  Shit! What had they done now? Gotten into a fight? At least they were still alive, if they needed to be locked up.

  Footsteps sounded on the other side of the storehouse door, and the lock rattled. She jumped down from the crate just before Hinkle entered the room and closed the door behind him.

  “Good evening. Oni, was it?”

  She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of an answer. Let him go on thinking she was little more than a “dumb Injun.”

  “Don’t play games with me, girl. I know you understand what I’m saying.” He crept toward her like a wolf stalking its prey. The lantern light barely reflected off the dull metal hilt of revolver at his side.

  She kept her voice steady, even though a tendril of alarm curled in her stomach. “What did you do to Diah and Cager?”

  “That’s better. I’m glad to know you have such good command of the English language.”

  “You didn’t answer my question, you son of a bitch.”

  His eyes widened. “A very good command.” He paced the floor in front of her, inching closer each time he passed her. “It seems your former employers are going to be detained for a while. You’re going to be working for me now.”

  She glanced at the door behind him and wondered if she could escape without shifting. “What makes you think I’d agree to work for you?”

  Hinkle pulled out the revolver and checked the chambers. “Because if you don’t, I’ll put a bullet in Diah’s head.”

  “Go ahead.” She strained to keep her face blank while her heart pounded.

  He closed the chambers with a click. “Nice try, Oni, but I saw your little exchange earlier today. I think you’d be quite upset if I had to kill him.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I believe you know where to find the White Buffalo.”

  Not another one. “What is the wasichu’s obsession with the White Buffalo? It’s just a legend, nothing more.”

  “That’s not what I’ve heard. There’s a reason why the Sioux revere it. It’s a god incarnate. And if you kill it, you gain control of its powers. Imagine what it would be like to be a god.”

  Oni snorted. “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. It makes me wonder who’s been filling your head with these lies. But I’m not surprised that you’re stupid enough to believe them.”

  Hinkle cocked the gun and leveled it in front of her face. “I’d watch your tongue if I were you, you ignorant savage.”

  She laughed to cover her fear. “You won’t kill me. I’m too valuable to you. After all, I know where to find it and you don’t.”

  “That doesn’t mean I can
’t beat it out of you.” But he lowered the revolver. Another click signaled that he had released the hammer.

  She mentally breathed a sigh of relief. “You want to know what it feels like to be a Wielder, don’t you? Is that why you want the White Buffalo hide?”

  “It’s more than that. The government filled us with so many dreams when they won the war. They promised that the age of technology would take us to new levels of enlightenment that would never have been achieved under the Wielders. But the Machinists let us down. They’ve proven to be no better than their predecessors. If I had the power of your Injun god at my command, all that would change.”

  “No, you’re just trying to join their club. Who’s to say you’ll be any different than any other Wielder?” She glanced at the door behind him and wondered if the same blinding spell would work on him like it had on Bradley. It’s times like these I wish I was a better Wielder.

  “I could be the king of America.”

  “Do you realize how insane you sound? I’m surprised they even gave you the command of this fort.” She reached for her dagger.

  The crack of Hinkle’s gun shattered the silence. His hand clamped down over her right hand. “Naughty, naughty.” He waved his gun front of her like a wagging finger.

  Oni looked down at the hole in the crate behind her. “You missed.”

  “Consider it a warning.”

  A knock sounded at the door. “Sir, we heard a gunshot. Are you all right?”

  He looked over his shoulder. “I’m fine. Wait outside like I ordered.”

  This was the opportunity she was waiting for. She reached across her body and drew the dagger. Hinkle’s head turned as she brought it up to slice his throat, but the blade missed, cutting his earlobe instead.

  He cried out and swung his revolver at her. The barrel caught her squarely in the mouth, the force of the blow knocking her to the ground. She tasted blood, and several of her teeth felt loose. She ran her tongue over them to make sure they weren’t broken.