by Lila Bowen
The railroad itself was a daunting beast of a venture. Even in bird form, Rhett knew not to fly so close as to attract undue attention. They still hadn’t figured out what sort of bird he was, but he was unusual enough as to arouse suspicion.
A long way out in front were wagons and tiny figures with sticks. Then came fellers with shovels and axes, making the way even. There were carts and mules and machines laboring up and down the path. At one point, he flew high over a group of figures that scattered quickly, right before a little hill exploded. The bird squawked and climbed higher, wheeling on. Then came the tracks for miles and miles, scurrying with sweaty laborers. And at long last he found the train itself, a metal snake belching black smoke and carrying its own wood and metal and coal, the whole thing surrounded by a city of tents and a clutter of clapboard buildings. The last car of the train stood out as peculiar, clean and shiny while everything else was coated in powder and muck. It made no sense to the bird, but when Rhett returned to camp, landed, and changed, it made perfect sense to him. That was Trevisan’s car, the one where fingers and toes disappeared. Fellers, too.
He relayed all this information to his posse as they ate around the fire, well after dark. Rhett had been gone much longer than he’d planned. Earl was twitchy as hell, his eyes darting in the direction that made them all uneasy.
“So we need to discuss the plan,” Dan started, licking the meat juice off his fingers.
“I thought we already had a plan,” Rhett answered. “I go in and kill Trevisan.”
Earl snorted, and Dan gave his lopsided smile that meant he figured Rhett for an idjit.
“It’s not that simple. It never is. You need to talk to the people already in the camp and find out more about how Trevisan’s magic works. Find out if he has any weaknesses. You need to talk to the sawbones who might know how to heal Winifred’s foot. And you need to do all that while making Trevisan and his men think you’re a fool and never letting them see you as a bird. When you have a firm grasp of Trevisan’s true nature, you let us know your plan. And then we strike.”
“I don’t want you-all involved,” Rhett muttered, his eyes shooting to Sam.
Sweet, easily killed Sam. As easily killed as Monty.
“You do,” Dan started, but Winifred interrupted.
“Rhett, did you ever try to pull the queen out of an ant nest?”
“What the Sam Hill do ants have to do with this?”
She grinned darkly. “Ants are peaceable creatures, mostly. But if you go for their young or their queen, they all join together to attack you blindly. Warlocks can be like that, too. Their magic is what powers their lair. We already know Trevisan can command ravens. What if he has traps or other powers? What if he can command bigger creatures, too?”
“Then I’ll kill them.”
“What if they’re monsters who don’t want to die?” Dan said.
“Then I’ll just keep killing. It’s what I do.”
Winifred shook her head mockingly. “It’s what you do until someone else turns you to sand. You lost your eye last time, but there’s plenty still to take.”
At the mention of his missing eye, the damn thing began to itch horribly. He wouldn’t let himself reach under the kerch to worry at it.
“Fine. If you’re all agreed that I need to shake hands like a damn mayor before I get on with the killing, then I reckon that’s what I’ll do. Any more hellfire rules?”
“You need to change clothes,” Dan said.
Rhett sat up straight, affronted and furious that they might suggest he go into the camp in Prospera’s old skirts. “Why the hell would I need to do that?”
“Because if he can see by using the birds, then he might not recognize your face, but he might recognize your hat and shirt.” Dan held up a hand. “Just switch with me. If you’re worried I’ll taint you, we can go wash everything out in the creek first.”
And it made sense, to be sure, but Rhett mightily hated the thought of wearing another feller’s clothes when he had his own. He was comfortable as he was, and he’d spent most of his life previous in various forms of discomfort, so he wasn’t much ready to change his ways.
“I’ll switch hats with you, Rhett,” Sam said, holding out his oiled leather hat. “I ain’t got nits, if you’re worried.”
Shyly, Rhett pulled off his own hat and handed it to Sam. “I ain’t got nits, either, other Hennessy, and thank you kindly.” Sam’s hat felt strange on his head, not at all molded to his shape by sun and sweat, as his own was. But it smelled deeply of Sam, as personal as tasting a feller’s breath, and he took undue interest in watching Sam put on his own beat-up hat and wiggle it around until it sat right.
“Now, if you don’t mind a bit of sweat, let’s go change clothes,” Dan said, standing up and dusting off his britches. Rhett stood, too, glad at least that his courses were over and he’d since washed his pants. That was one shame he’d prefer to keep completely secret. Just because Dan knew it happened didn’t mean he needed a reminder.
They set off for a couple of trees, and Dan inclined his head for Rhett to head behind the biggest one. Rhett shot him the sort of glare the lead mare gives an uppity stallion before putting two hoof-shaped indentations in his belly, but he went behind the indicated tree and hurriedly tossed Dan his faded red shirt and britches. Before he was done, Dan had tossed back his own pile of clothes, and Rhett dove into that old blue shirt like nobody’s business. At least he still had his chest wrapped tightly—no reason for him to give that up.
Rhett expected Dan’s shirt to feel peculiar—crispy, maybe, or stretched out across the shoulders, as Dan was a stockier man than he was. But it fit about like any shirt did, and the pants were maybe even softer, and Rhett slipped his arms through Dan’s suspenders and buckled on his own gun belt and stepped into his boots and reasoned that maybe tomorrow wouldn’t be so horrible.
Well, except for the part where he walked into a railroad camp run by a bone-stealing warlock.
Dan was sitting at the fire and eating more meat as Rhett moseyed back out, his buffalo coat over his arm. Sam and Winifred both stopped whatever they’d been doing to take his measure.
Sam smiled like the Fourth of July. “You look right fine, man.”
“Blue suits you.” Winifred’s smile was altogether too knowing for Rhett’s taste.
“So what else do I need to know?” Rhett asked, ducking his head to cover his blush.
Earl leaned back and stroked his bristly orange chin. “Well, for one, whatever group you’re put in, you’d best get in good with the leader. Me brother Shaun’s with the Irish, so if you get lumped in with my people, he’ll have your back. The Afrikan fellers won’t like you much, but the Injuns might. Feller in charge of them is by all accounts fairer than most. Wherever you go, do your best to fit in. You need protection from your own or you’ll get abused, see?”
Rhett considered it. “Find some big feller and make nice. Got it.”
Earl’s sigh was meant to sound patient but failed utterly. “You can’t just rush at Trevisan with a rock the moment you’re in his camp, lad. Much as I hate to say it, you’ve got to get the lay of the land.”
“What would happen if I did rush at him with a rock, though?”
“Well, I once saw a lad run at Trevisan with a railroad spike in his hand as a weapon. Trevisan pays his bosses well and gives favors to workers who prove useful. The lad with the spike was shortly a pile of sand, and the crew that killed him had whisky and double helpings at dinner. But also remember you’re supposed to be excited at a new job opportunity. You’re not supposed to be scared, at first. Most of the lads who arrive will be acting like Trevisan might be their savior, hat in hands and all. Like the sun shines out of his fancy-britch ass. The pay is rumored to be good. So do your best to act inferior and hopeful.”
“Unlikely, but I’ll try.”
Earl cleared his throat and twitched his fingers into and out of fists like he still aimed for a fight but was trying to hold ba
ck. His voice had a deadly, sweet calm about it. “Listen, then. You’ll catch on to the rhythms of the camp fast enough. You won’t be in irons, but there are sharp-eyed, well-trained scouts on top of the cars and stationed at intervals along the outside of the camp. Men with long-shot rifles and men with repeater pistols. They won’t aim for your heart, though. They’ll go for your legs and try to take you back alive. That’s when the chains come in, see?”
“So how’d you escape, if it’s so goddamn impossible?”
For once, Earl’s face went hard and tough. “Didn’t say it was easy, did I? All the Irish were in on it. Saw two of me mates get turned to sand. I took a bullet in the ass, another in me back leg. Only thing that saved me is how awkward it is to shoot a donkey. And that I kept running even when they screamed for me to stop.” Standing in a huff, Earl stomped over to the horses and rummaged about until he found the last bottle of Buck’s wine. He pulled the cork out with his teeth and drank deeply, the red liquid running down his chin like blood.
“I’ll have my guns,” Rhett started, but Earl waved a hand.
“Like hell you will. You think you can walk into a labor camp and keep your bloody weapons? No, fool. They take them away. For your own good, they say. To keep everyone safe. But nobody ever gets to leave, so nobody ever gets ’em back.” He drank again and shook his head. “If you value something, best not take it in at all.”
Rhett’s hand went for the leather pouch that hung at his belt. The objects within might seem useless to another person, but he’d been collecting them since before he was really aware he was doing it. Since killing that first stranger with a piece of Pap’s twig fence, he’d added weight to the small bag: vampire teeth, his first earned coin, the silver bullet that had taken his eye, a little curly feather from his own bird body. The thought of handing it over to some other feller and possibly never seeing it again pained him mightily. He untied the strings and handed it to Winifred, who’d taken care to bring it down from the Cannibal Owl’s lair. She accepted it with a solemn nod, not even a smirk.
His gun belt was just as hard to take off. He stood, unbuckled it, and handed it over to Sam, who’d kept it safe during the Lobo attack. Sam, too, nodded. Rhett’s Bowie knife and pocket watch went to Dan, just so the feller wouldn’t feel left out. Standing there, wearing nothing but his clothes and boots, Rhett felt nekkid and light as an eggshell.
“Well, I reckon that’s it, then.” Rhett rocked back on his heels.
“I’ve been thinking,” Dan started. “We have the surgeon’s kit. What if you go in saying you’ve worked with a sawbones? Then you’d maybe get close to the feller who does the doctoring.”
“Grandpa Z,” Earl said. “And he already has an assistant. His granddaughter, Cora.”
Rhett scoffed. “But I don’t know shit about doctoring. And what the Sam Hill kinda Chine name is Cora?”
Earl just about choked on his meat, spit out a wad of fat, and pointed at Rhett from across the fire. “It’s always something else with you, isn’t it? What, you think I had time to stop and ask her while they put me under to fix up me damn toe stumps? You think we had acres of time to take tea and discuss why our mams named us stupid things? I know no more of the Chine than you do of the Irish, so you can stop it with the rude little comments.”
“Rude?” Rhett’s hand went to where his gun should’ve been. “You calling me rude, donkey-boy?”
“Come on, now, Rhett,” Sam said, standing and putting a hand on his arm. “Tensions are high, but there’s no use to fighting.”
“No. No, Sam. I want to know why. Why Earl thinks he can talk to me like I’m a child or an idjit and not the only person in the goddamn territory who can go into this godforsaken devil camp and save his brother? Isn’t that the whole reason why you’re here, Earl O’Bannon?”
Earl launched to his feet, his hands in fists. “Oh, it is, lad, to be sure, but I don’t think you’re the right man for the job. I’ve no faith in you! How could I? I expected the celebrated Durango Rangers, world-renowned fighters of monsters! Strong, determined men with a good moral compass. I imagined them hearing my plea and riding off into the sunset, a hundred brave lads with guns a-blazing, dead set on doing what’s right! I never dreamed in all my life that I’d end up here in the bloody desert, camped close enough to almost hear me old friends and me brother singing their sadness. But now here I am, supposed to have faith that some mixed-up, hot-blooded vulture-girl can go in and save them all. What kind of fool do you take me for?”
“A pretty damn big one!” Rhett launched himself at Earl, but Dan tripped him, and Sam still had his arm in a strong grip. All he managed to do was stumble in the dust and feel the rage burn up the back of his neck, along with embarrassment.
“Earl,” Dan said, soft and deadly. “In your haste to lash out, I think you struck some unnecessary targets. Rhett is the Shadow. He’s a legend. He’s the right man for the job. And if you don’t believe that, if you’re not willing to have some faith in that, then walk away from this campfire and don’t come into my sight again or I’ll shoot you myself, because you’re insulting all of us who stand with him.”
Sam let go of Rhett’s biceps, crossed his arms, and nodded. “That’s right.”
“If anyone can defeat the warlock, it’s Rhett,” Winifred added.
Rhett lifted his chin, feeling like a million damn dollars. “Like it or not, I’m all we’ve got.”
“I don’t like it, but I’ll shut me trap. Worst thing that happens is you die and leave me in peace, eh?” He tipped the bottle at Rhett like a toast and drank again.
Rhett sat back down and cocked his head, watching Earl. “We got along fine for a while there, didn’t we? What’s got you so riled against me? What’d I ever do to you?”
Earl sat back down, too, seeming half his size again now that his anger had drained. “You’re hard to get along with, harder still with more folks around. You know that, right?” Rhett nodded grudgingly. “Aye, well, then take me. I’m not made for the trail. I’m not a cowpoke, as you call it. The food’s bad, the sun’s hot, there’s no whisky, and there’s only one woman among us who acts like a woman, and who’s the one up her skirts? You.”
Even the fire seemed to stop crackling, so complete was the silence.
“Rhett?” Sam asked, looking half-lost and half-disgusted.
Winifred and Dan remained stubbornly stone-faced.
“All right, then,” Rhett said. “I’ll see you on the other side or not at all.”
He tossed his buffalo coat on the ground, walked to the horses, grabbed the Captain’s doctor’s bag and a full canteen of water, and kept on walking.
Chapter
18
Rhett had done some dumb things in the past, but this might’ve been the dumbest one. To avoid the simple truth that pretty much everyone already knew, and to save himself the pain of meeting Sam Hennessy’s eyes, he’d walked off into the darkness, alone and unarmed. He didn’t even have a horse under him. All he had was a goddamn sawbones kit, which at least meant that if he had to cut something out of his own stupid skin, he probably could. Not that he’d need to sew himself up, considering his skin could just squish back together. When he recalled what it had been like, not so long ago, sewing Mam’s ripped nightgown or darning Pap’s threadbare sock, knowing he’d be beaten whether he did a good job or not, he still would’ve chosen to be here, now, walking toward his doom in the cloudy night.
It didn’t pay to show up somewhere new after dark. Folks were right jumpy, their trigger fingers sleepy or well lubricated. A man hunting a job would arrive in the morning. Better to find some quiet place to curl up and sleep as best he could until the sun was up. Never had he missed his saddle and blanket more. Hell, even Winifred’s wagon and knowing smile would’ve been welcome. More than welcome, truth be told. He licked his lips, feeling oddly thirsty for something that wasn’t water. Why’d Earl have to go and open his fool mouth, anyway? Everything was easier when Sam just kept on not
knowing the truth of things, walking like a fool off a cliff, blind to the tomfoolery happening around him.
For just one moment there, Rhett had considered telling Earl what he remembered of their night in Buck’s orchard. Of the red-haired man servicing Winifred Coyote from the back like a horse, wine dripping down his throat and onto her honey-gold skin. Earl had been rough, crazed, drunk. He wouldn’t know how to please that girl, how to move softly in the darkness and urge her to quieted screams behind his hand. Rhett himself hadn’t known, just a few days ago. But now he did. And he wouldn’t have minded throwing it in Earl’s face. But he didn’t want to hurt Winifred, and he didn’t want Sam to know it had happened, and that if he had any say, it would happen again. But he wasn’t sorry for it, neither.
Dan had warned Rhett away from Winifred for Rhett’s sake, but if Rhett left off, it would be for Sam and Sam alone. Complicated as his feelings had been back in the Cannibal Owl’s cave, cradled against Winifred’s nekkid chest, it was pretty easy to figure out his feelings once he was sliding around in the wagon with her. And that was: good. It felt damn good. Even if it didn’t mean anything.
Especially because it didn’t mean anything.
And yet part of why he was doing this, walking off alone without proper farewells, was to save her the trouble of losing her brother, who would still try to join Rhett if he could. If Rhett ran off alone, nobody else had to get hurt. Nobody else had to lose anything. And what did Rhett have to lose, himself? Not a damn thing. It was better, this way.
