Peacemaker (9780698140820)

by Stewart, K. A.

  The flames roared back to reclaim their territory and then some, and Caleb felt his brows and eyelashes singe to nothing as he staggered for the stairs. It followed him, drawing in a breath deep enough to flutter the tatters of his shirtsleeves, then bellowed out a gout of flame and ash that would easily incinerate him.

  A shield sprang up around him, and the fire whipped around the globe, raging when it could not find entry. Caleb breathed the artificially pure air in great gulping lungfuls until he staggered into the street, collapsing at Rufus’s feet. Ernst appeared right next to him, the tip of his long black tail smoking.

  The blond Peacemaker, whose hair had long gone as dark as Caleb’s own with soot and sweat, dropped the shield he’d put around his partner and yanked him to his feet. “This block is lost, Caleb. We have to go!”

  Reluctantly, Caleb let Rufus drag him from the scene, and the building gave a ponderous groan as it collapsed behind them. There were other men moving in the smoke around them, passing buckets, and sparks of power flared where people tried futilely to direct the flames around their homes or businesses.

  “George! George, over here!” Rufus waved to two other Peacemakers as they crossed the street a block away. “Where are we supposed to be making a fire break? We got separated from Daws about an hour ago.”

  George was supporting his partner with one arm, the other man sporting a vicious gash over one eye. He barely paused to answer. “It jumped the river. We’re pulling back! It’s lost!”

  “Dear God . . .” Rufus’s eyes were wide and staring, the whites showing brilliantly against his ash-blackened face. “They can’t just let it burn. . . .”

  “There’s no letting it, man. It’s going to do it whether we want it to or not!” George staggered off as fast as he could with an injured man in tow, leaving Rufus and Caleb alone in the middle of the charred wreckage. Even the hardy water brigade had abandoned their positions, leaving their buckets lying next to empty water barrels.

  Chicago was burning.

  Caleb knew they had to move. He knew, as with the rest of his dreamed memories, that the building to their right was going to collapse in another moment, the rain of debris trapping Rufus beneath it. He knew that the beam would crush his partner’s life from his lungs, and that he would be forced to leave the body or burn along with him.

  He knew it, and he could not prevent it, could neither move nor speak a warning. Such was the way of dreams.

  In the alley to their left, a woman’s voice wafted forth, humming softly. It was a soothing melody, lilting, and it had no place amid this frequent terror of Caleb’s nights. Even in the dream, he was able to frown in puzzlement.

  The shadows moved in the alley, at first easily mistaken for the swirls and eddies of smoke. But there was no mistaking the dark eyes he found looking back at him, framed by twin black braids.

  The Indian woman tilted her head curiously, her skin and clothing remarkably free of ash and char.

  “No . . . no, you can’t be here. . . . The building is going to fall. You have to run!” She obviously didn’t understand him, and she smiled softly. “No, don’t smile! Run! You have to . . .” He suddenly remembered Rufus, realized that he could speak again. “Rufus, you have to run!”

  But Rufus was gone. There was no one standing in the street beside him. The flames seemed to have halted their inexorable advance and merely flickered in the windows and rooftops, waiting.

  “Ernst?” The black cat was gone, too, and there was no sense of his presence nearby. “What . . . ?” He blinked, wiping sweat and blood from his face as he stared around in confusion. “What’s happening?”

  The Indian woman never answered, merely turning to walk down the street in the opposite direction, humming softly. Every so often, she glanced back to see if he was following.

  Numb, perplexed, he did. In his daze, he stumbled over the rubble in the street, fell . . .

  And opened his eyes to find himself lying flat on his back, staring up at a high ceiling. There was a low sound of life around him, the constant quiet bustle as people passed by with hushed conversations. The blanket beneath his hands was warm, dry, but scratchy, and the smell of antiseptic stung his nostrils. The calming blue lantern on the table beside him cast a soothing aura, but, trapped beneath a heavy bandage, his right eye saw nothing. He explored it with his fingers, recognizing the careful folds of gauze and linen.

  He knew where he was. This was the hospital outside Washington. How long ago had Cold Harbor been now? For four days, the dead and injured had lain on the field, waiting for the cease-fire. But he was safe now. . . . Why was he dreaming of the hospital? He never dreamed of what came after.

  The heavy weight on his chest stirred, and he realized a large ferret was curled up with him, watching him with heavy-lidded eyes.

  “He won’t leave your side, you know.” One of the nurses smiled as she came to sit on the chair next to his bed. “He’s been most adamant about waiting for you to wake. He was the only one who was certain you would.”

  He reached to stroke the creature’s ears and was rewarded with a deep vibrating purr, a sound a real ferret shouldn’t be able to make. “He . . . ?”

  “He says his name is Ernst.” The nurse patted his shoulder. “I’m going to go tell the doctor you’re awake.”

  Caleb dropped his head to his pillow, trying to grasp what was happening. Why was he back in the hospital? And why did he feel like he’d been following someone? And where was that humming coming from?

  A woman was humming softly, no doubt to one of the other injured soldiers, but he couldn’t remember ever hearing that before in this particular memory. As he craned his neck to locate the source of the lullaby, he caught a glimpse of a tall woman with raven black hair walking past the doorway at the end of the ward. Her knee-high boots made no sound on the floor, but even from a distance, he could hear the rustle of the beads on her leather dress. And stranger still, no one else seemed to notice the Indian woman walking calmly in their midst.

  “This isn’t right. This isn’t how it happened.” When he looked down for the ferret’s confirmation, Ernst was gone. As were the people in the beds on either side, and the nurses who had been patrolling the aisles. Only the humming remained, soft and delicate.

  “Why are you doing this?” he called, without really expecting an answer. “You have no right to just walk through my memories like this!” Because that was what she was doing. Somehow, with a power he could not fathom, the Indian woman had walked into his dreams and was sorting through them, sorting through him.

  She appeared at the end of the walkway, tilting her head to the side.

  “You can’t do this. You have no right.” Caleb sat up in his hospital bed. He was, after all, injured only in memory. “I don’t know what you’re looking for, but you can’t just do this. These are my memories. You’ve no right to them.”

  Perhaps she understood him. Her eyes grew sad, and she offered him her hand, inviting him to take it.

  “No. I’m not going anywhere with you. Go away now. Leave me in peace.”

  She stood with her hand out for a long moment before finally deciding he meant it, and then she dropped it with a sigh. She pointed to herself, then out the door, and Caleb nodded.

  “Yes. Go. Please.”

  A look of frustration crossed her face, and she actually stamped her leather-clad foot. Stubborn as a mule himself, when he felt the need, Caleb crossed his arms over his chest and glared back at her. For one moment, he thought she would relent, but instead of leaving, she took a few quick strides toward him, reaching out to touch his face. Though he flinched back, somehow she caught him, resting her warm palm against his cheek.

  He blinked. . . .

  The wind blew through his long hair as he rode on horseback through the tall prairie. The sharp grass slipped past his leather leggings without hurting him, but it would h
ave cut his bare chest to ribbons at this speed. His horse’s legs were already flayed and bleeding, and still the loyal animal raced toward the column of black greasy smoke that rose on the horizon. Sick dread settled in his stomach; he already knew what he would find.

  The village was gone, the teepees reduced to smoldering heaps. Cookfires were scattered, drying racks lying in jumbled messes, the precious meat on them ground into the dust. Everywhere the bodies of men, women, and children lay where they’d fallen. Black hair was dull with thick clotted blood. Dark eyes were glazed and cloudy, their spirits long fled.

  “No . . . Oh, please, no . . .” He slipped from the horse’s back before it had even stopped, falling to his knees next to the body of a young woman. Her head lolled on a broken neck. “Oh, no . . . Little Raven, oh, no . . .”

  Tears burned his eyes as he gathered her into his arms, rocking her gently. His little sister, his beautiful beloved Little Raven . . .

  In the churned mud, the perfect circle tracks of the skyfire horses were visible. How many had come, with their skyfire guns and mechanical monsters? How many of his people had been cut down trying to flee, shot in the back or trampled into the earth?

  A roar of rage built in his chest, rising from his throat as a scream of primal agony. Why!? They’d been peaceful! They had refused the Dog Soldiers; they had avoided the white towns and homesteads. Why would the white men do this?

  Hot tears streamed down his face as he laid his sister down, arranging her body peacefully. He was no medicine man, but he would perform the rites for them. Then he would find his weapons in the ruins of his home, and he would go join the Dog Soldiers. The white men would pay.

  Soft humming caught his ear, and he snatched his knife from his belt, turning with full intent to fight to the death if need be.

  A young woman stepped from the trees, her eyes full of sorrow as she gazed over the carnage. And though he knew he had never seen her before, he felt he should know her. “Will you . . . help me? I cannot do this alone.”

  She nodded with a sad smile, and made a sweeping gesture with her right hand.

  Caleb woke. For a few brief moments, he was uncomfortable in his own skin. He ran his hands over his bare chest, finding it unchanged. His trousers were still the same cloth they’d always been, no leather or beads to be found. His hair was still shorn close to his head, and the thick scar still graced the right side of his face. The thin thread of power that tied him to Ernst told him that his familiar was still downstairs, so he couldn’t have been asleep very long.

  His body could still feel the sensation of the horse moving beneath him, though, its sensitive hide responding to every pressure from his knees, something he’d never done in his life. The hot tears of grief and rage still lingered at the back of his throat, threatening to choke him until he swallowed them down. He could still recall the weight of the dead woman in his arms, the grayish pallor that had taken over her dark skin, and the stench of charred leather and ozone lingered in his nostrils.

  “Dear God, what is happening to me?” he asked the darkened room.

  Chapter 7

  Sleep after that was obviously not an option. Caleb felt decidedly unclean, like all the events of his life had been rifled through. And the last dream . . . that had not been his, and that disturbed him, too. He had no right to walk through other people’s thoughts, either.

  A small voice inside chided him for superstitious nonsense. Dreams were dreams, and nothing more. No doubt the plight of the Indian family had plagued his mind as he drifted off, resulting in the strangeness of his dreams. “That’ll teach me to eat haggis an hour before bed.”

  “Haggis isn’t actually food, you know.” Ernst hopped from the windowsill to the bed in one graceful bound. “It’s what you eat when there isn’t any food.”

  “How would you know? You don’t eat.” Caleb buttoned his shirt and carefully pinned his badge over his heart. “Besides, it was kind of Teddy to make us one of his traditional dishes. He was being hospitable.”

  The jackalope snorted and scratched furiously at one ear with his hind foot. “He fed it to you because no one else in this town will eat it.”

  Caleb went about the mundane business of gathering his belongings for the day, letting the silence drag out as he sorted through his own thoughts. “Ernst? Can I ask you a question?”

  “You can ask anything you want. But you know I don’t always know the answer.”

  “Can you walk into people’s dreams?”

  The little creature seemed a bit taken aback by the question, and it took a long time for him to formulate an answer. “No. I could see yours, if I wanted, but that’s because you’re mine. But I couldn’t see anyone else’s, and I couldn’t walk into them.”

  “Do you know of anyone who can?”

  Again, it took a long time for him to answer. A familiar’s origin was often shrouded in mystery, even to the creature itself, and sometimes it took a while for Ernst to sort through the myriad of knowledge he held in his furry little head. Finally, he sighed. “I have met no one, personally, who has that ability. But that does not mean it doesn’t exist.” He shrugged his furry shoulders. “I am part of you. My powers are limited to the breadth and scope of yours. Other cultures, other peoples . . . who knows?”

  Caleb nodded. It was no less than he’d expected. He holstered his gun and gathered up his staff, leaving his heavy coat behind in deference to the already sweltering heat.

  “Caleb?” He stopped at the door and looked back. Ernst hadn’t budged from the bed. “They’re your dreams. If you don’t like them, you have the power to change them.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” He put his hat on, pulling it low over his eyes. “You coming?”

  Ernst hopped off the bed and followed him out into the hallway.

  Teddy had made good on his word, and packed several meals’ worth of food up for Caleb’s excursion, along with a small flask that was clearly meant for Ernst. “Watch yerself in the sun, Agent Marcus. Ye’ll get heat sick before ye realize.”

  “Thank you, Teddy.”

  His next stop before actually leaving town was the smithy, where he was informed in no uncertain terms that he was early.

  “I tell you come back in one week! Not four days! You count, ja? All fingers and toes?” Sven glowered at him, not even bothering to come out from behind the forge to berate the Peacemaker.

  Caleb eyed his transport. The rear end was in some chaotic state of disassembly, with gears and wires and bearings all hanging out for the world to see. The thing had been reduced to simple hunks of metal held together with hopeful thoughts. The transparent windows were dark and still. He couldn’t help but wonder how the scoured man had managed to safely bleed off all the energy so he could open the casing to make repairs.

  “Hi, Agent Marcus!” On the far side of the transport, Jimmy’s head popped up, a smudge of grease near his hairline (and probably in his hair, too, judging by how it stuck up at erratic angles). “I found the problem!”

  He flipped something silver to Caleb, who caught it by reflex. The Peacemaker examined the tiny gear, finding two teeth chewed to mangled nubs, and smirked. “This one tiny thing caused all that trouble. Figures.”

  Jimmy came out of the shop wiping his grubby hands on a rag. “It was way down in there. Mr. Isby needed me ta get it, ’cause my hands are smaller.” He took the broken gear back, rolling it over the backs of his knuckles with a grin.

  “Do you help Mr. Isby often?”

  The boy nodded. “Yup. I got the spark, he’s got the know-how.”

  Caleb raised his head at the smith, who just shrugged and said, “Boy has gift. Should learn honest trade with it.”

  Eyeing the disabled transport, Caleb suddenly had a chilling thought. “You don’t let him . . . I mean, that’s a lot of power to be grounded. You didn’t let this boy . . .”

 
Sven snorted, his white-blond brows furrowing over his eyes. “I look stupid? Boy risk being scoured like that. No, that I leave to others who help now and then. Adults.” He muttered to himself in Swedish, no doubt saying some very uncomplimentary things about Caleb, and returned to his work.

  Jimmy snickered. “Mr. Isby’s a grump, but he treats me good, and he pays me.” Fishing in his pocket, he displayed two shiny quarters. “He says I could be a good arcanosmith someday.”

  Caleb nodded his agreement. “He’s right, if you get the right education. You should tell Miss Sinclair; she could guide your studies in that direction.”

  The boy shrugged, blushing faintly. “I might keep goin’ ta see her. Might not. Depends on how busy I am.”

  Caleb managed to hide his amusement. “Of course.”

  Jimmy eyed the hauler, laden with Caleb’s staff and the packs of food. “You going somewhere, Agent Marcus?”

  “Just out for a ride.” He winked at the boy. “But if anyone asks, you didn’t see me today, all right?”

  “All right!” That seemed to perk the kid up, and Caleb could see visions of a vast and secret conspiracy whirling in his eyes.

  With Ernst perched on the hauler’s rump, Caleb lit out at a choppy canter to the south, intent on investigating the first two places on his haphazard map.

  The first was a few miles outside of town, just off what passed for a main road between Hope and the A-bar-W. Perhaps it had once been part of an army of towering oaks marching across the plains, but now it was merely a solitary dead tree adrift in a sea of tall grass. The old roots had long since given way on one side, causing it to list until the branches themselves touched the ground. The floor of the resulting cave had been trampled free of grass years ago by many tiny feet as they clambered in and around the half-fallen giant. How many wars and battles had been fought there, with all the combatants cheerfully going home for dinner at the end of the day?