by A. M. Burns
A short distance from the canyon rim, Trey and Sarah stopped and dismounted. They left the horses to graze in the small meadow there. Sarah assured them her horse would stay there and graze contentedly, and they knew Spot wouldn’t wander off. He’d been trained with the other Comanche horses and would wait for days for Trey to return.
“Okay, it gets tricky from here,” said Gray Talon after shifting back to his human form.
“We’ll be fine.” Trey pulled his father’s rifle from the saddle. “Lead on.”
Not liking the hard set of his partner’s face, Gray Talon shifted to a mountain lion and set off down the game trail that would lead them to the rim of the canyon. He didn’t think Trey or Sarah would be able to make it down the narrow sheep path he’d found earlier, but the mage would be able to float them both down to the canyon floor while he flew down.
“Being around him takes some getting used to, doesn’t it?” Sarah whispered to Trey, not realizing how sensitive Gray Talon’s cat ears were.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve never been around Indians before. I’d heard they were skinwalkers or some such, but it’s strange to actually see it.”
“I was raised with it,” Trey replied. “Most of the Comanches are shape-shifters. Skinwalkers are actually people who can’t change shape naturally, so they kill animals and then use the bloody skin to let them assume the animal’s shape. It’s a very dark kind of magic that we shun when we encounter it.” Gray Talon found it interesting that Trey didn’t tell the woman that the Comanche actually killed skinwalkers. They were viewed as a disruption of the natural order of things and not permitted to spread their evil to the rest of the tribe.
“So they can all change into whatever they want?”
“No, most are like Cunning Bird, limited to one form. It is the form that they first change into when they’re young. Gray Talon is the only member of the Comanche, right now, who can change into multiple shapes. There are legends of others. Most of them were great chiefs.”
“So Gray Talon is a Comanche chief?”
“Not yet. Even with his ability, he still has to earn the chief’s place. It’ll take him many years to do that.” Trey didn’t add that his multiple forms would give Gray Talon a step up when his time to sit on the chief’s council arose. He was pleased Trey didn’t reveal too many secrets. Although they all liked Sarah, they’d just met her. She was an unknown quantity. The woman hadn’t grieved much for her lost husband, but then, many pioneer women were as hard as the land they came to. The softer women stayed back east, or at least in the towns that sprouted up along the trails west. The strong, hard women were the ones who ventured into the unknown with their families. That hardness might have been why she only recently married her husband. From what Gray Talon could tell, she was of an age when she should’ve had several children running around her skirt tails.
They reached the edge of the canyon. The narrow expanse stretched like a dark wound between two hills. From far below came the babble of the creek that ran along the south wall and behind the cabins. Gray Talon shifted back to his human form.
“Okay, Trey, see the lights in the cabin windows down there?” He pointed to where a faint flicker shone in the darkness.
“Yeah.”
“That’s where we’re heading. Cunning Bird is going to take out the guard on the trail, and I’m going to take out the one at the barn. You get down there, and we’ll meet at the barn. You’re sure you can carry Sarah and Copperpot?”
Trey gave a grim nod. “He’s not as heavy as he looks, and I practiced this afternoon with him. He knows to stay still.” He slung the rifle over his shoulder and reached for the construct’s hand. “Now, Sarah, take my hand.” He reached for the woman. “Whatever you do, don’t scream.”
Her reach was tentative. “What?”
As he took her hand, Trey moved the three of them off the cliff face and slowly floated them down toward the canyon floor. Gray Talon waited until they were well underway before he shifted to an owl and flew down toward the barn.
The man guarding the barn had his chair leaned back against the wall with his feet up on a bucket. His snores filled the night. On silent wings Gray Talon swooped down and drove his powerful talons into the man’s face, through his closed eyelids, and into his brain. He died before he finished his next snore. The hunter shifted back to his human form and caught the dead man before his collapse could cause any noise. He carried the man around to the side of the barn and laid him quietly on the ground.
Seconds later Trey arrived. Sarah clung to his waist, her face buried in his chest. The mage set Copperpot down first, then eased himself and the woman to the ground. “We’re down,” he said to Sarah.
She moved her head from his chest and slowly released him as her feet found the earth. “That was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done.”
“It’s another thing you get used to after a while,” he replied.
Cunning Bird appeared out of the darkness. “The guard on the path is down.”
“Good,” Gray Talon replied. “Now let’s move quickly. Our best hope is to keep quiet as long as possible. If we can take out each cabin full of men one at a time, without the others hearing anything, that would be best. But that means no guns until they start shooting.” He looked at Sarah. The moonlight glinted off her eyes as she pulled out her bowie knife.
The door to the closest cabin opened. A lone man walked out. They pressed themselves into the shadows against the barn. Gray Talon recognized the tingle of Trey’s magic as his partner made them fade into the shadows. The man would have to bump into them to actually know they were there. He walked toward the outhouse that sat between the barn and the cabins. As soon as the door closed, Gray Talon stepped away from the barn and headed toward the small building. He didn’t have any weapons on him. Stepping silently, he settled in next to the wooden structure. After several minutes a jingle from the man pulling up his pants rang out. Gray Talon held his breath when the man’s spurs jangled as he stepped toward the door. It seemed to take the man forever to open the door and step out.
Gray Talon reached for the man as he walked away from the outhouse. He wrapped his right hand around the man’s face from behind as his left arm embraced him across the chest. With a quick twist, he snapped the man’s neck, and the thief slumped soundlessly in his arms. He carried him the few feet to where the guard lay next to the barn. They’d been lucky he hadn’t been spotted, but even the dead men’s boots were deep in shadows.
“Well, that’s three out of ten,” Trey whispered, appearing at his side. “Odds are getting better.”
“Yeah, but they still outnumber us. Let’s get this first cabin cleaned out.” Gray Talon walked over to where the others waited in the shadows. “Come on. Let’s see what’s in there.”
As they moved away from the barn, even Copperpot was silent.
Cunning Bird peered through the candlelit window. “There is only one that I can see,” he whispered.
Gray Talon’s voice was as low. “Copperpot, watch our backs.” He pushed open the door.
“Hey, Bud, what took you so long? I was about to blow out the candle,” the man said with his back to the door.
Trey kept the door open as Sarah rushed in and drove her knife savagely through the back of the man’s skull. He fell forward without a sound. She pulled the knife out, wiped the blood off on the man’s red flannel shirt, and left him lying there. Gray Talon blew out the candle.
“That wasn’t him,” Trey said as the shadows engulfed them.
12
THE NEXT two cabins were already dark when Trey and the others entered and slew the sleeping men. He tried not to share Sarah’s apparent enjoyment of the slaughter, but all their information said they were the same men who killed his parents ten years ago. These men had been raining death and chaos down on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains for years. They deserved to die. But with each death, Trey’s disappointment grew that it wasn�
�t the man who’d shot his father. The man his father scarred. He recognized one of the men in the first cabin. The man was older and the years had not been kind, but he knew the face from the new memories he’d opened up.
“Looks like someone’s still awake in the next one,” Gray Talon said as they regrouped in the shadows after clearing out the third cabin.
“There’s still only one door and one window.” Sarah ran her finger along the edge of the knife she so carefully cleaned after each kill.
Gray Talon nodded. “Copperpot, you take point this time. I’ll slip in and try to disarm them before anyone gets shot. Trey, you get the door. Sarah and Cunning Bird, watch the window.”
Trey gave the barest nod of understanding. The magical energy of the world around them buzzed in his fingertips. He stood ready to unleash it. He yanked the door open. The smell of tobacco and stale whiskey rolled out into the night. Copperpot surged in while Gray Talon, in the shape of a weasel, scurried past. The Comanche used surprise tactics to get in and cause as much chaos as possible among their foes. Three men sat at a small, square wooden table playing cards. One man’s reflexes were impressive. Before the door was fully open, he’d drawn his pistol and fired at the door. His dark black hands shook as the bullets bounced off Copperpot’s chest and ricocheted around the room.
“Shit, I thought McNair said he was going to leave us alone after he had the girl!” the man shouted.
“He did,” said a skinny white man. He turned around and drew his pistol and leveled it at the door.
“Lights on in the next cabin,” Sarah shouted from the far side of the window.
Trey turned and saw the window that had been dark was now lit. He lost track of Gray Talon as Copperpot plowed into the closest man.
“We don’t work for McNair!” the construct screamed. There was a new note in the thing’s voice. A desperate edge that hadn’t been there before. His copper-plated fingers rolled into a fist and slammed into the side of the skinny man’s head. Blood and brains flew across the room.
The other man at the table, a well-fed Hispanic, fired his pistol as he clumsily pulled it from its holster. Gray Talon appeared right beside the man’s chair and snatched the gun out of his hands.
“You almost hit me with that.” Gray Talon clubbed the man in the temple with the pistol grip. The man slumped onto the table, scattering cards and chips as he hit. The nearly empty bottle of whiskey shattered as it struck the floor.
“Shit, injuns!” the black man screamed and turned his gun on Gray Talon.
Power surged out of Trey. “Talon!” His partner was in trouble. From out of nowhere, wind howled through the small cabin. Magical energy cascaded across the room. It blew everything but Copperpot against the far wall. Gray Talon looked surprised but recovered before his opponent could. He punched the man in the face. The sound of bones breaking reached Trey standing in the doorway. The black man collapsed at Gray Talon’s feet.
“We have someone running this way.” Sarah cocked her rifle. Trey spun around and saw the man change course and run for the far side of the cabin he’d emerged from.
“Come on!” he shouted. None of the men in this cabin had been the one he was after. They were running out of outlaws. The odds of this man being the one he wanted were getting higher. Trey ran after the man. He would’ve used a bit of magic to stop him, but if he used too much, he’d start to feel tired and they might need more before the end of the night, particularly if there were more than the ten men Gray Talon counted.
Trey ran after the fleeing man. Behind him, Sarah’s soft treads and Copperpot’s louder ones covered the sounds of Cunning Bird’s haste.
“I’ll cut the other direction,” the Crow warrior shouted and disappeared around the close side of the cabin.
Trey slowed as they reached the distant cabin’s far corner. He knew better than to go running around a building at full tilt. He stopped and peered into the empty shadows on the far side. The full moon above them gave enough light that it was obvious no one waited for them.
A shot rang out. Trey’s heart pounded. “This way!” He charged down the side of the building. Another shot, and something hit the ground.
Trey knew neither of the Indians carried a firearm. He ran on with his heart in his throat. Not pausing at the corner this time, he caught a glimpse of a man disappearing into the trees a short distance from the cabin. A dark pool of shadow lay just off his trail. Trey knelt at the still form of Cunning Bird. His narrow chest leaked blood and half his face was missing from the close firing of the second bullet. Trey’s anger flared at the thief. How dare the man kill one of his friends? It was too similar to the way Trey’s father had died.
“No!” he screamed. The winds whipped around him, charged by his grief. He’d only known Cunning Bird a few days but had seen how much loss the man’s tribe had already endured at the hands of the white men. It wasn’t fair that this thief, who had caused so much death and destruction, was allowed to take another life.
“He’s up there!” Sarah shouted right before her gun fired. The sound of a bullet striking a tree rather than flesh rolled down the canyon wall seconds later.
“I’m on him,” Gray Talon said as a sleek mountain lion raced up the hill. Trey sprang to his feet and followed him. Behind them Sarah and Copperpot tried to keep up.
The trees closed around them, and Trey realized that they should’ve finished checking out the cabins. The man with the scar might still be there. They couldn’t be sure they were after the right person.
“Can you two go back and make sure we got everyone else?” He paused at the side of a large rock.
Sarah stopped next to him. “If the recon was correct, I think this guy should be the last.”
“But we need to make sure. We don’t need any of them getting away while we chase this guy down.”
“We will complete the killing, Master Trey,” Copperpot replied, turning back toward the cabins. Sarah grimly followed the construct back down the hill.
“Talon, where are you?” Trey called after listening for some sound of either his partner or the thief.
“Trying to find his trail again,” Gray Talon’s replied grimly. “He dropped a couple of bags of chili powder over here. I think they had an escape route planned.”
“Shit! Let me see if I can find him magically.” Trey sat down on the boulder. He knew how to become one with the world around him. He’d done it many times before. It had been part of his basic training. But he was new to this particular forest. The creatures and plants were different from the ones he knew. With a supreme effort, he reached out to the energies of the living world around him. Every plant and animal had to be categorized. Sleeping day birds were sorted from hunting owls that were smaller than the ones he was familiar with. Gray Talon shone as the only familiar thing in the canyon. The now recognizable energies of Sarah and Copperpot were back down among the horses, but he couldn’t find any other human signs. It was as if the thief had just vanished into the canyon. Trey continued to search until sweat soaked his brow, and Gray Talon sat down next to him on the rock.
“I think we lost him,” Gray Talon said bluntly. “We can stay here and search more after sunrise. Maybe I can find his tracks in better light.”
Trey blinked the sweat out of his eyes as he looked at Gray Talon. “You were in cat form. Why would you need better light?”
Gray Talon shrugged his broad shoulders, then hugged Trey. “Trying to give you some hope.”
“We’ll find him,” Trey said softly. His heart turned colder than the fall breeze that chilled the night around them. Yes, they would find the man, and he would fire his father’s rifle into the man’s face, completing the job the previous bullet failed to do. And now that the bandits killed Cunning Bird, they had another life to avenge.
“I know we will, but we have other things to take care of now. First thing we have to do is give Cunning Bird a proper burial, and you’re the only one who can sing the right songs.”
> 13
“SO ARE you guys still heading to Cheyenne?” Sarah asked as Gray Talon helped Trey get their bedroll situated behind Spot’s saddle.
“That’s the plan,” he replied. “We need to find Rockwall McNair, his boss Dabinshire, and hopefully, the dragon’s daughter. It might be next spring before we try to find the scarred man again.”
“Have you given any more thought to my idea of turning these men in for any bounty that might be on them?” she asked. The previous night, after they’d given up trying to find the outlaws’ leader and sung Cunning Bird into Crow’s wings, she pointed out that there were probably bounties on most of the men in the gang. It was a strange concept for him to think of, removing the head of an enemy to get money for it. He understood the idea of scalping and carrying the hair of a kill with you as a trophy, but to take the whole head and turn it into the authorities for money seemed a gross desecration of the bodies.
“I still don’t like it,” he said. “Were we currently at war with your people, their scalps would make excellent trophies to hang in our tipi.”
“Actually we might want to.” Trey walked out of the cabin where they’d found some of the gang’s loot and plans.
“Why?” Gray Talon asked.
“It’ll help folks in the territory rest a bit easier knowing that this gang is one less thing they need to worry about.” He carried a couple of bags with him. From the jingle as he walked, at least one of them had coins in it.
Sarah had claimed a few items that she said belonged to her and her husband. It was obvious that more than four members of the gang had attacked her home. The ones they’d left to claim her belongings must have returned with the goods. Like Trey, she wanted the leader dead too, but their start satisfied her.
