Lightfall One: Clock, Cloak, Candle (Lightfall, Book 1)

by Jordan Taylor

  He hopped around the mare’s quarters and, hissing his breath through his teeth, seized the leg brace at the top of the saddle and tried to lift his injured foot to the stirrup. He dropped it just as quickly. With nothing more notable in the landscape than tumbleweed or dust devils in this dry land south of Santa Fé, they were a mile from anything that might serve as mounting block. He clenched his teeth and, to Ivy’s amazement, jumped onto the mare’s back with his right leg only. Not a graceful performance, but she could not have done it herself in a million years with four good limbs.

  Sitting astride, he clutched the leg brace and panted. Ivy started off, leading Luck after the runaway stallion.

  “Are you certain it is not broken?”

  “Had broken bones. It’s not.”

  “You’ve at least sprained your ankle.”

  He said nothing.

  She stopped. “We must remove your boot. The ankle will swell so much it won’t come off.”

  “Ain’t taking off my boots.”

  “Do you want it cut off later?”

  “Be fine.”

  “You are riding upright with your foot dangling. You should be prone with the foot elevated. Since there is nothing we can do about that, you can at least remove your boot. In half an hour you will not be able to.”

  He still has not removed the boot. And Chucklehead never did return for them. It took three or four hours at Ivy’s best guess to find him. Another half-hour to catch him by using Luck as bait until Ivy could reach a trailing rein—Melchior’s lariat being on the saddle on Chucklehead’s back.

  More hours later, the sun is growing low in the sky, dinner time has passed, no fire is built, no meeting at the butte has taken place.

  “Melchior, they said they will be here and they will.”

  “You were aiming to check—”

  “I changed my mind. What about a fire? All this sagebrush? We can get smoke showing. It’s still light enough. If they are turned around, they can see that and find us. More likely, they are on their way here right now and we can have something hot to eat waiting for them.”

  He reins in Chucklehead, still looking south. After a moment, he glances at her.

  “If I was lost,” Ivy says, “I would look for smoke or some sign of people. They will assume it’s us if they see it.”

  He sits still.

  “I know you are worried about him.” She almost says “them” but catches herself. “But this is where they are supposed to be. The best we can do is remain here. We will be heading back to town after this—no more splitting up.”

  Melchior rubs the back of his neck, looking around. “Sage doesn’t send much smoke.”

  “Won’t tumbleweed burn? I will manage. You get off of that horse and see if you can prop your foot up.”

  He sniffs.

  Ivy watches him until he turns back toward them, still looking in all directions. She is glad to dismount, having had enough of horses for the day. There is little for them to eat and Melchior remains twitchy about pulling off their saddles just yet, so Ivy only ties them and begins gathering tumbleweed and grass for him to start a fire. She has a pair of gloves now, thankfully, though she wishes they were twice as thick as she tugs thistles.

  Desert breeze throws sparks and dust, nearly blasting the thing out several times. As the sun sinks, so does the wind. They have a strong blaze going by the time only one hour of daylight remains. They may be hunting for risers all day, but attracting them in the night out here is nothing Ivy can feel too eager about.

  Melchior frets and mutters and looks around at every little sound.

  Ivy unpacks their dinner from Luck’s saddlebags, welcoming pork and beans and weak coffee gladly after skipping lunch.

  Es Feroz pokes around until Ivy gives her a bite of cold pork while Melchior complains that they can’t give the best part of their food to wild animals. Ivy fishes out another bite of pork for the fox, tempted to offer her the whole pot, while Melchior grinds his teeth.

  A coyote yaps in the distance. Another howls. The eery yowl of a monkat makes Ivy shiver. Es Feroz looks up, ears twisting, then trots away, back up the butte for a vantage.

  “How is your foot?”

  Melchior says nothing.

  She looks at him. Even through the boot, she can tell his ankle is swollen, bulging heavy leather.

  They are no more than a day or two from Santa Fé, staying close to the city as they patrol in wide circles. Four or five days then, and nothing to show?

  Perhaps they need more human bounties to chase. Perhaps the horde that struck the ranch is long dispersed. Could those they already met have been the only ones to run north? Perhaps she has been overreacting and the sheriff is right....

  “How much is a new pair of boots?” Ivy asks.

  “Why?” He glances sharply at her as she dishes up their dinner.

  “You will need them now that you wouldn’t remove yours.”

  “No one’s cutting off my boot.” He glares as he takes the tin plate she offers in silence, sitting up with his left foot on packs.

  “Fine. Let the circulation be cut off, the blood clot and stagnate, gangrene set in. Once your whole foot has rotted away, they could chop that off, boot and all, and your boot would be protected. Or, you could keep the whole mess until the infection moves through your blood stream, reaches your heart and brain, and you die. Some people might feel it’s a dramatic end, but they would not understand a cowhand’s dedication to his boot.”

  Melchior fishes out chunks of pork to eat first, not looking at her. Eating close to the fire despite the heat—the smoke drives off flies and other insects—Ivy gazes across the horizon, looking east and south. No riders appear. No one answers the smoke summons.

  By the time he has cleaned his plate, in slow fashion by Melchior’s standards, he is even more restless, glancing skyward, looking around, pressing his palm into sand to feel for approaching vibrations.

  Sun dropping to the edge of the world. Air beginning to cool. They have more ready in the tiny Dutch oven for their companions. Time to let the fire go.

  “Got to look for them,” Melchior says. “Something’s happened.”

  Ivy sits with her knees drawn up to her chin below skirts, tossing slow handfuls of dry earth into the fire. Her cloak is wrapped on Luck’s saddle with her bedroll. Now she wishes she had it. And the horses must be unsaddled and hobbled.

  Melchior shifts, pressing his hands on packs and rocks to stand. Ivy watches, unmoving, as he curses, sliding back to the ground, face shining with sweat. Breathing hard through his nose, he sits back, both feet out in front of him, eyes closed.

  Ivy remembers being thrown herself, the doorway, the corset, the ripped arm. He needs a doctor. And they need their companions.

  Finally, she stands, beginning to put out the fire in earnest.

  “Shhh,” Melchior says.

  He holds his breath, hands pressed to dirt. Ivy drops her handfuls and hurries to the edge of the butte for a clear look south. No more than one hundred yards away, two riders canter toward them, one mount dark, the other sand-colored.

  “It’s them.” Ivy’s heart leaps.

  Melchior whispers something.

  Ivy runs forward, now shielding her eyes against final glint of the sun with her goggles removed.

  They slow to jogs at the last thirty yards.

  “What happened? Are you both all right?” Ivy calls.

  “Sidetracked,” Sam says. “We are fine. You two?”

  “Well enough.”

  Elsewhere subsides to a walk. Sam slides down. Grip and El Cohete pass them.

  Ivy hugs Sam, feeling dusty waistcoat, boney shoulders and back, solidity of muscles. She releases quickly.

  He leaves an arm lightly across her back as they start toward the dying fire. “I am sorry we kept you wondering. Grip found a trail. We went hours and I am certain we were near. We even smelled them, but no other sign. We may not have found our way back without your fire.”r />
  She cannot tug her gaze from his face, smiling, surprised by the lump in her throat. “We hoped you might find that useful. I must put it out, but if you wish a hot dinner—”

  “Please.”

  Ivy laughs, starting past the butte with him to Melchior and the horses. She is reveling in the amazing warmth of his touch at her back when Sam vanishes. She blinks as he hurries away, his arm sliding from her as quickly and effortlessly as his hand drops from Elsewhere’s reins. Like the bay gelding, Ivy stops in her tracks, both of them watching Sam go.

  “What happened?” he sounds concerned, distressed.

  Grip is already standing beside ashes with his horse, looking down at the glaring Melchior.

  Sam rushes to them. “Were you attacked?”

  Melchior shakes his head irritably. “Happened to you? Hellish late.”

  “Banged up his foot,” Grip tells Sam, then goes on with his horse to start stripping off tack one-handed. Ivy is often amazed by how quickly he can do this.

  “I apologize.” Sam kneels by Melchior, staring at the swollen leg. “We were hung up on a trail. And never did find risers. What about you?” He reaches to touch the boot.

  Melchior recoils. “Nothing all day.”

  “I mean your foot. What happened?”

  “Fell.”

  “Fell?” Sam stares at him. He looks up the rocky outcrop above them.

  “Off my horse,” Melchior snaps, apparently even more irritated by Sam’s ignorance.

  “You what?” Sam asks, sitting back on his heels, as if Melchior said he jumped over the moon on his horse.

  Melchior shrugs, looking away. “Thought we’d have to fetch you here.”

  “I told you, I am sorry.” Now Sam sounds irritated. “Were you attacked? You did not even fall off your horse when he crashed into the ravine after that droop-horn steer in the storm in Kansas.”

  Ivy waits for Melchior to admit he was being an ass and it was his own fault and he did not fall. He was thrown. Melchior only grumbles and mutters and says he’s maybe sprained his ankle but it will surely be fine in a day or two. Sam starts at once insisting he needs to get his boot off. Which, Ivy feels, is something, though she is having a hard time getting past the way he dropped her like a sack of corn when he spotted the invalid.

  “Sam,” Ivy cuts in at last, rooted to the spot beside his horse. “Do you want dinner? It’s still warm beside the coals.”

  “Yes, please, Ivy. And thank you. I do appreciate it.” He hardly glances at her.

  Ivy stares. It is not like him to misinterpret. But it is also not like him to be obtuse. Fine. She can be groom and cook and scullery maid and housewife. What else is she out here for?

  Snatching Elsewhere’s reins, she leads the startled animal to the other horses and fishes for Sam’s plate.

  For a second, she feels a gaze on her and turns. Sam still frets over the cripple. But she could have sworn she caught Grip looking away from her. What does he think of all this? Was he just watching her? Now he will not look at her, kneeling to hobble his horse.

  The boot argument proceeds while she returns to the coals. Precious pal Sam, with wheedling and insistence, is allowed to remove the boot—the trouble now being that it will not budge. Melchior swears horribly when Sam tries to pull the thing off, making Ivy smile over her pot. When Sam tells him it must be cut away, Melchior informs the company at large that anyone taking a knife to that boot will be running a lead tightrope.

  Death threats do not endear even Sam in wanting to assist. He subsides, shaking his head, saying they should not have split up.

  This is too much.

  “I tried to get his boot off the moment it happened,” Ivy snaps, facing Sam over failing light. “I told him exactly what would happen and that he needed the boot off, the foot raised. First we had to catch his horse, a problem in itself, but he still could have taken off that boot right away because he rode Luck. He does whatever he wants and had we all been—”

  “Ivy, please.” Sam is holding up his hands, looking alarmed. “I beg pardon. That is not at all what I meant. I was not blaming you for anything. I only mean this sort of accident is less likely to happen if we stay in a group. You have done nothing wrong.”

  Ivy sits in silence, scooping from the pot, finally telling Grip he must produce a cup if he wants anything.

  While they eat, covering the coals, and Melchior mumbles about the prices and wait time for new boots, Ivy sees to Luck, pulling off saddle and bridle, halter still fixed below that, after hobbling her forefeet.

  She plans to leave Chucklehead and Elsewhere. Sam can tend to both if Melchior is so precious. But her heart softens as the blue roan and bay watch her with their heads down in the twilight, both struggling to chew half-dry grass around their bits.

  Ivy hobbles them, then drags the enormously heavy saddles and packs from their backs, staggering under the weight, provoking a flash of pain in her left arm. She drops each heap in dust at the horses’ feet. Last, she pulls off bridles and the two shuffle away after Luck and El Cohete, already grazing.

  She leaves saddles where they fell, dragging her own back to camp to make her bed with bedroll under and around, cloak as top layer, and saddle for pillow to keep her head away from scorpions.

  She should be grateful they are together and mostly all right. And grateful they will be heading back to the city tomorrow. Grateful she has seen nothing more terrible than a rattlesnake and a ringtail cat today. But she lies awake as Sam carries over his and Melchior’s saddle gear to make their beds, and thinks of Sam’s arm around her, the disappearance of it, of her own unjust treatment, of having no additional cash to return to Oliver. With a freighter from Chicago due any day. For some reason, gratitude is not pouring off her tonight.

  By morning, Melchior’s leg is so stiff and swollen he can bend neither ankle nor knee and can only stand on the right leg by hanging onto Sam. Sam calls him a fool for not listening to Ivy in the first place about removing his boot and getting the foot elevated. To which Melchior calls him a termagant and as bad as she is, making even Ivy laugh.

  The sun is well up by the time all four horses are tacked and Sam has been able to help Melchior into his saddle. Ivy has never heard such language as she has these two days, finally appreciating that Melchior normally does curb his speech in her presence.

  They ride at fast walks and easy canters throughout the day, Melchior refusing to jog or trot with the jarring pain in his leg. But Ivy knows Chucklehead to have a lovely long, smooth canter. Quite different from Luck’s choppy, short stride.

  They pass two deserted settlements. Ivy feels glad to see no one in residence and no sign of deaths or bodies. People who have gotten out for Santa Fé.

  By nightfall they debate the distance in, their situation, and finally go on, following Grip north toward the city, which he claims they can reach in three or four hours. Riding in nearly pitch dark with scattered clouds and a quarter moon makes Ivy regret not making camp. Luck, even tired, is worse than ever and Ivy rides every step in terror that the mare will trip in a hole, walk across a snake, into a rock, or right off an invisible cliff.

  In another two hours, they begin to spot the first dark, outlying homes and ranches of Santa Fé, still an hour from the city itself. And stop.

  Far ahead, fire leaps and dances in shimmering elegance through black sky. Smoke rises in puffs and billows, blotting out stars. The burning wood smell Ivy has been vaguely aware of for some miles grows to overpowering proportions.

  Stopped abreast, Ivy glances sideways to Sam and Melchior, who look back, their eyes reflecting distant firelight.

  Ahead, Grip shifts the rope reins of his hackamore so he can draw his revolver with the same hand.

  The horses paw the earth, tossing their heads. Luck trembles, nostrils flaring, fighting her bit. The yellow cur, who most often trots out in front of the group, darts back down the trail at them, the hair down his back on end, his tail between his legs.

 
; Ivy looks again to Grip as Melchior, breath fast and shallow, draws his Colt and Sam, closest to her, lifts his own French revolver. Grip nudges his horse on.

  As they close, something moves, shifting through firelight. Shapes materialize like spiders sliding down their silk here, there, from every branch. With them, washed along on smoke from the blaze, the harsh, ugly smell of rot, and damp, dark places.

  Trembling from head to boots, Ivy draws her own revolver, feeling, as she swallows and silently prays, that she is taking a toothpick to a bear hunt.

  As they approach the bonfire, she feels heat batter her, drawing with it the reek of smoke and putrefaction. Luck quivers and starts at every step, jarring Ivy as she clutches short reins in her left hand, her Colt Lightning in the right.

  More movement, more shapes, approaching the fire, around the fire, in the fire. She glances over her shoulder to see figures coming up to the wagon road, shuffling behind. Silent shapes with no light reflecting from dead eyes. No turning around.

  At fifty yards, they can see clearly what is on fire: a settler’s timber house, likely a beautiful spot in daylight with clear skies.

  Not coming for them, not reaching out, not running. Not yet. So fixated on fire, the risers do not even respond as four very meaty horses and four equally edible humans ride up.

  What they have come for. But not tonight. Not in the dark. Not this many.

  “Keep going,” Ivy whispers through the bursting, cracking, rushing sound of the blazing house. “Do not shoot. Not while we are surrounded. They may not spare us a glance beside such a blaze unless we demand it.”

  Ahead, outlined in flame, she sees Grip’s hat jerk to indicate he heard. Sam and Melchior ride beside her in equal silence. Chucklehead carries his crest so high, eyes rolling and nostrils flared, Ivy wonders that Melchior can see much at all.

  Heat hammers her face like a forge. Fire leaps twenty feet in the air, spraying upward in fresh bouts at each falling timber. Ivy stares ahead as they begin to pass by on the road, keeping her gaze off flames so as not to dazzle her eyes, looking instead for risers who may have noticed the feast. Even so, she cannot help seeing as flames leap out, closing in on risers reaching for it, stepping inside, almost snuggling up to it. They crowd forward, pushing one another in. A dozen, twenty, forty. They reach, embrace the fire, their ravaged skin blistering, tattered clothes bursting into light. Never screaming, never running away, though they stop when their faces begin to be consumed, reaching up, patting burning skin and rupturing eyeballs. Finally to stagger back, falling, writhing, trying to stop the spread over hair and neck. All in silence besides the crackling fire, the puffing horses, and fast breaths of four riders.