“Go,” Grip says in a growl.
“At once,” the woman answers, tone changing. “And you come with me.”
“Rosalía—”
“Hasn’t it been long enough—?”
“Esto no te importa.”
“I wish that were true.” Her horse tosses his head, prancing in place as if awaiting a starting pistol.
Ivy stares at the slight woman on the large animal with her own cheeks burning. She averts her eyes to the buckskin between as soon as she realizes what she is doing. The Mexican woman rides astride in an old vaquero saddle with wide horn and tapaderos. More astonishing, she wears heavy wool trousers and a split overcoat which falls to each side. On her head rests a bluish gray Stetson. A carbine hangs in a leather sheath from her saddle.
Horrified, breath shallow, Ivy keeps her gaze fixed on the black mane of Grip’s horse as the young woman goes on, now looking past him to Melchior:
“You know why you’re here, don’t you? Bullet lodestones. Grip won’t ride with anyone anymore. Gets his feelings hurt too easy to partner.”
“Return to town and remain—”
“What’s he paying?” She talks over Grip, calling to the three behind him. “Something generous? Fifty percent? Because he doesn’t hunt them for dinero and doesn’t expect you back alive. You’re here to draw fire. He doesn’t need any—”
“I’m honored, Rosalía,” Grip interrupts, knuckles of his left fist white on the rope running to his stallion’s bosal. “Vete a casa.”
“Can’t you stay away from him?” Her horse fidgets at the once more sharp voice. “Now you lead lambs to the slaughter because you won’t let anything rest—nunca.”
“Yet here you are.” Grip’s tone is vitriolic. “As if holding a moral advantage—”
“I can talk with Everette! You cannot!”
He shifts the buckskin, starting northwest toward the misty pine forest of the mountains, blue, gray, gold in dawn light.
“Stay away from them, Grip. Please....”
He does not look around. Silently, the dog trots behind.
Rosalía watches him go. Fast breaths steam about her face to mix with receding fog. Her horse, which Ivy took to be black but is a seal brown with golden fuzz about his velvet nose, remains still, also watching the single rider away. His ears flick back to his rider, then forward as if in question.
“Don’t be fools,” the young woman mutters at last. She no longer sounds angry, only tired and grieved as she looks at them. “He’s using you. He can hunt them alone ... if he must.” Again she stares after the retreating figure, her voice dropping to little more than a whisper: “It won’t be the first time.”
No one answers. Even Luck hardly stirs, leaving a hush about them in spreading morning light and fading mist. Melchior and Samuelson exchange a glance.
The woman looks at the three of them. “Yes?” Her tone holds an edge once more.
“Beg pardon, miss.” Samuelson drops his gaze.
She frowns, stares at Ivy, taking in the sunhat, dirty skirts, and sidesaddle, her frown deepening, then turns her horse and starts north, not following Grip’s invisible trail.
Melchior returns his revolver to the holster at his hip, nudging Chucklehead forward. Elsewhere and Luck follow the stallion of their own volition.
“Strangest damn place I ever saw,” Melchior mutters as they go.
Samuelson glances at Ivy, then rides up to Melchior. “Do you suppose we should listen to her?”
“Who?” Melchior looks at him. “Belle Starr? Didn’t say anything we don’t know. If I asked to partner in a bounty hunt, what’d it be for? Catching lead. Go alone, you’re the only thing to shoot. He figures we’ll draw fire and she’ll inform him about risers, just in case.” Jerking his head at Ivy.
“I ... do not like this. It does not sound like a ride we wish to join, Mel.”
“Worrying too much. Expected a risk-free manhunt?”
“I was expecting less personal attachment to the chore and more transparency from the man leading us.”
Melchior grins. “Talking foolish. Only transparent man’s one shot full of holes. If you’re meaning a fellow to walk up and strike an honest deal with you, you haven’t been West long enough.”
“A distressing possibility.”
“Ivy.” Melchior twists in his saddle. “Want to drift back? Find some other way of getting a few thousand dollars for a couple days’ work?”
She rides on, staring past him.
Melchior chuckles and faces forward. “Didn’t reckon so.”
The sun climbs as they do, first across a wagon road, then up narrow trails through pines as the last of the fog burns off. Tension makes Ivy’s head ache, her back sore, her throat tight. The chestnut mare shies at every dancing leaf, every swaying branch, tossing her nose high, then dropping it to her knees, nearly yanking reins from Ivy’s sore hands. When not balking, she sidles up to Chucklehead, who prances and tries to face her, prompting Melchior to curse all three.
She spends so much time fighting Luck, herself jumping and looking about at every sound through the pine forest, waiting for an attack, by an hour into the ride, Ivy feels as if she has been on the trail a week. Hungry, stiff, sore all over, left leg more painful by the moment, hands burning from leather ripped through her fingers, she once more jabs Luck away from Chucklehead with her left heel. Luck steps on a branch with a violent snap. She bolts alongside Elsewhere, crashing into Samuelson’s knee with her shoulder, as Ivy, tears in her eyes, fights her mouth.
Elsewhere does not even turn his head, only flicking back his ears and plodding on.
“I am sorry, Mr. Samuelson.” Ivy must pant her words through a constricted throat. “I don’t know what is wrong with her.”
“Quite all right, miss.” Samuelson pulls his bashed foot from the stirrup to stretch it gingerly. “Perhaps she has never traveled through forest?”
Behind them, Melchior snorts. “What ails that mare is her rider.”
Ivy twists toward him, face hot. “I do not know what I have done to so offend you, Melchior, but I—”
“Ain’t kicking up a row with you.” He raises his voice to cut her off. “God’s truth, you’re like a scared pup carried by the slack hide of its neck, aggravating your horse and wearing yourself to a nub.”
“You are the one who mostly taught me to ride!” Trying to face him, Ivy pulls her reins so short Luck backs several steps.
“In a corral on a patient old horse. You’re on a filly in strange country. Don’t retain your lessons, besides.”
Ivy fights to control her voice with limited success. “Perhaps you should be offering advice instead of criticizing everything—”
“Drop your hands. Throw you if you hold like—”
“Goddamn it, people!” Fifty yards ahead, Grip has turned his horse to face them. “Are you out to stir the deceased? Hobble your sarding lips and move along. If you remain incapable of such, shift yourselves to whence you came.”
Ivy slacks her reins before the mare’s backing plunges can turn into a full rear. “If you have nothing helpful to say,” she starts in an angry hiss.
Melchior knees Chucklehead past her, moving after Grip.
Shaking, Ivy digs her heel into the mare’s left side to make her follow. Her reins are still short and Luck backs, lashing her tail.
“Miss...?” Samuelson remains motionless on Elsewhere.
“Are you full of advice as well?”As soon as the words are out, Ivy longs to apologize, yet pride and anger trip her tongue.
He goes on as if she had not spoken: “Would you care to trade mounts for a time?”
Worse. How is it that all three men make her feel ten times worse with everything they say? Still, neither Melchior nor Grip made her feel as bad as Samuelson.
“I rode colts from the remuda on the drive,” he goes on. “I am no expert—the reason I purchased this sedate creature from the foremen. But I would be glad to see if I can do anything wi
th Luck.”
Ivy says nothing, her throat burning, head pounding. She looks to Melchior, vanishing among the trees. Grip and his ugly dog are already out of sight.
“We’ll be left behind,” she mumbles at last.
“We can catch up.” He dismounts while Elsewhere snatches a mouthful of aspen leaves.
Samuelson takes the mare’s reins, stroking her neck as Luck stretches past him to see what Elsewhere chews.
Ivy blinks at her horse’s mane. “Thank you, Mr. Samuelson.”
He helps her down, then steps back as Ivy finds her feet, taking all her weight on her right. “You may call me Sam.”
She looks up.
“I am unsure why, but many Americans do.” He smiles, gray eyes like quartz in sunlight.
She cannot return his smile, but nods, tears still in her eyes, before he turns to change their saddles.
“I should not fret too greatly over those outlaws just yet,” he says as he works. “Our guide seems to be going somewhere. We will know when it is prudent to worry.”
By the time he helps her back into the sidesaddle on the munching bay, Ivy still has said nothing. He hands her the reins before mounting the fidgety mare.
Ivy reminds herself that they also have no reason to believe risers might be in their shadow yet. She remembers her teaching from Frantzisko and Melchior. She sits up tall, supported by her corset, heel down in her one stirrup, trying to relax, making her hands easy. Elsewhere walks with his neck extended, ears level with his spine. She strokes his black mane, lying a stray lock over on the correct side.
Samuelson rides beside her. “All right, miss?”
She glances at him. Still smiling at her. As if she did something to deserve it. She still looks down.
“Ivy,” she whispers. “Thank you.”
He touches his hat.
When they reach Melchior, thirty yards behind Grip and looking around for them, he nearly succeeds in spoiling her feelings by greeting them with, “The hell, Sam?”
Samuelson grins. “This one will not throw me. I assure you.”
Melchior looks away. “Should never have touched that High Noon colt. Cowhand’s got to see a fellow thrown to feel superior. Only reason Carter and Sidlow wanted you on him.”
“This country has a peculiar sense of humor.”
They go on talking about the cattle drive, the reprobate High Noon, and other horses with whom they worked, as Ivy follows in silence. The blue roan stallion and chestnut mare walk side by side—him with his neck arched and extra spring in his step, her still with a high head, snapping for leaves.
Ivy and Elsewhere trail, Ivy taking long, slow breaths. Trying not to think of the pain in her knee. They will not die out here. The one-eyed man knows what he is about. Likely no risers in this region yet. She is only along to stay in the background. Out of the way. She does not even have a gun—which, all at once, seems incredibly stupid.
Eighth
Under the Stars
By nightfall, Sam has not asked for the return of his horse and Ivy has not offered. No outlaws, nor risers, have been seen all day. The air feels thin as ever, the temperature plunging, the horses tired, their riders sore, Ivy’s leg in agony.
She is scared to light a fire, compounding tensions of evening camp. Grip keeps some distance from the rest, not saying a word, eating from his own rations. Melchior grumbles about coffee until Ivy tells him to go ahead and build a fire, as long as it’s a mile away.
As her hands tremble on saddle leather and blankets to construct a bed, teeth chattering, breath puffing silver in faint twilight about her face, even Ivy feels she would rather be seen by both risers and outlaws than not get a single hot meal or drink all day. She says nothing, eats tough pork and cold peaches and water for dinner, and faces the worse task of going to bed.
Never has she been so sore as she eases back flat, corset smashing her lungs, on that unforgiving ground with a bedroll and cloak for comfort. Not when she fell down stairs as a child and her father placed her wrist in a brace. Not when she was knocked down in the human stampede during the Great Fire. Not when she rode days and nights in a bumping stagecoach. Not when she made the journey north on horseback with her cousin and Sam. As if every muscle, every bone, every inch of skin, right down to her eyelids and the tips of her fingers, has been beaten, bruised, or broken.
With grit in her eyes and dirt in her nose and ears and mouth, hair dirty, muscles cramped, corset binding her, she lies on her back, staring at silver stars, listening to the hobbled horses graze nearby and Melchior and Sam build their beds.
She sees Kitty Norris’s face in stars, laughing, calling her attention in a whisper to the wonderful novel she found.
“I should be ashamed to be seen reading it, Kitty,” Ivy whispered back in the little shop.
“You are never seen reading it. You place it inside a great work and read anytime you like with a firm, interested look on your face.”
Despite their agreeing on nearly every subject, Ivy never could understand Kitty reading those dime novels. She told Ivy of the ridiculously handsome and talented heroes and their brilliant steeds, rescuing young ladies from Indians or charting new courses through unknown lands. Boys’ books, yet Kitty was not the only young lady who read them.
How is Kitty now? The Norris family did not have people out West as Ivy’s did. They packed up months before Ivy left Boston and started north for Canada. Ivy had not been able to send a letter to her since arriving. Few even to her father. Can mail go out from Santa Fé with rails closed? Does Santa Fé even have a telegraph operator?
Slow breath out: sharp pain. Slow breath in: worse pain. Stars wink, dance, blur, shifting into the face of her father, glinting spectacles, dark beard flecked with gray, leaning over to point something out to her: “Until blood clots it will flow unchecked. This is how one bleeds to death and why a tourniquet or pressure must often be used. If there is dangerous infection to an extremity, tourniquet and immediate amputation may also save a life. Now—”
“Arthur, really. Teaching a young lady about veins and arteries. What are you thinking?” Her mother sweeping in.
“Mother, I think it is fascinating.”
“There is nothing more fascinating than the study of science, Elizabeth.”
“Each man imagines his own hobbies to be the most interesting. Ivy, have you finished your lessons?”
“All save piano. And this one.”
“Then along to the piano, my dear. Scoot.”
Gleaming mahogany, perfectly tuned. Mother would soon be in with pecan drop cookies and light tea with milk when she heard Ivy hitting every note.
The moon rises, making stars seem weak and distant. Itself nearly blotted out by the electric lamp in Ivy’s room, throwing the whole place into day if she wakes from a nightmare and her father rushes in, kissing her forehead. In minutes, he has her laughing, telling her a story of eager wool growing up on the backs of lambs which become sheep, sheered for garments, carpets, bedclothes, horse blankets.
Lying back, falling asleep with the lamp off, only a candle burning, him telling her of the lamb who wished to grow one hundred rugs of wool. Soft, deep bed, packed with a million goose feathers—fluffed and straightened by Dolly, the housemaid, a confidant of Ivy’s in her youth, who understood monsters under beds and curiosity about things like clotting blood.
How many years ago? How many lifetimes?
Flat on her back, held stiffly in place, unable to curl into a ball, Ivy closes her eyes on stars and moon blurred to silver pools, feeling cold tears run down her face.
She would not have thought morning could be worse than night. Not until her eyes snap open to dawn, her body numb and trembling. She knows at once she cannot sit up. How can it be this cold at the end of May?
Rigid as a plank, she tries to take deep breaths only to find her ribs will not expand. A choking feeling adds to her panic. She rolls sideways with a terrified, clawing effort, gripping weeds over moist, frigid
rocks until she can push herself up on one searing, aching elbow. Her left knee feels smashed, her head aching, her back a knot of pain running from the base of her neck all the way down her legs. Breathe. A frantic struggle for the smallest wisp.
Boots crunch over stones, leather creaks, something bumps across earth. A man’s voice speaks in a murmur.
Ivy looks up.
Grip stands twenty yards away, saddling his buckskin stallion, talking to the animal in Spanish. He leaves the cinch loose—there is only one, though Melchior and Sam have roping saddles with both flank and girth cinch—and fits a hackamore over the buckskin’s head.
“Can’t shift without coffee first,” Melchior mutters nearby.
“It appears you will be left if you insist upon such luxuries.”
“Smoke at the very least. Look, bastard’s packing up.”
“Melchior—”
“She’s asleep.”
“She is not. Unless she sleepwalks.”
“Sorry.” A grudging grunt only, and to Sam, not her. “Need a quirley if he’s in too da—too much of a hurry to light a fire.”
Ivy pulls herself to her knees, still wrapped in blanket, cloak, and skirts. From this position she can see Sam and Melchior, their boots near her own. Melchior lies on his back, his head on saddlebags, propped up enough to see as he rolls a cigarette. Beside him, Sam is on his feet, shaking out his own bedroll before folding it over, then rolling it up on top of Melchior’s blankets to avoid laying it back in dirt.
Ivy tries again to catch her breath. So, so cold. And damp. Everything damp. She fumbles for her soiled handkerchief to wipe her wet, grimy, frozen face. Grip’s words in the saloon add shame to intolerable tears.
“Stop past dark, get nothing done, didn’t even check my damn—”
“Mel—”
“Didn’t check the Colt last night. Can’t see a thing and no sar—no fire. Now he’ll ride off and leave us if we’re not up. What the—what’s he eating? Cold rice? Snails, what kind of grub is that for the trail?”
“I would rather have one of those rice cakes than cold salt pork. Get up. I can roll your blanket. Perhaps we can stop earlier tonight.”
Lightfall One: Clock, Cloak, Candle (Lightfall, Book 1) Page 9
