The men continued to talk in low tones. He was a good teacher, and his care and concern for his charge did him credit. Had they misjudged the Cursed—Fevered? Jimmy preferred the term Fevered. The words reminded her of the illness which transformed them, an illness they couldn’t cure. When the Fever struck, it ravaged the body and, in some cases, the mind. On the three occasions she’d tended the ill at her grandfather’s side…
A shudder rode her spine. They’d tended no survivors. A mercy, her grandfather said. When she’d asked him why, his words haunted her.
“Those who survive do not care why. They know they are changed. The changes will eat at their soul. The kindness is to kill them before the change destroys them.”
Then, after one long winter in the south, her grandfather returned to her changed himself. Not by fever, but by something he’d witnessed. He never spoke of slaying the cursed again, and she knew he’d rescued one, though he told their chief and the council of elders none survived She’d seen the young boy.
A boy her grandfather gifted with a horse and supplies, then sent away. The child came from a town of the whites so ravaged by Fever, the child was the only survivor. He had not killed him.
That was her last summer with her grandfather. He left the earth the following winter, tumbling into sleep and never awaking. Had her grandfather learned of Fevered who could train others? Had he discovered Fevered like Jimmy and Shane?
Onsi sensed him a moment before his hand closed around her braid. Jimmy gave it the faintest tug. “Do you ever undo these?”
“Yes,” she answered. “Though I have combs or quills to take away the tangles. When I travel as I have, it is easier to leave them braided.”
He rubbed the end between his thumb and forefinger. “I’d like to see it loose.”
If she took it down now, she would have to use her fingers to comb it out which might not let her tame it properly back into braids. “Perhaps when we make camp tonight.”
“I would like that,” he said, still holding her braid. “Blue, what you said earlier, about as long as we traveled together… Where are you planning to go?”
“To answer your question, I must ask you a question.” So she would begin with permission. “If you would have an answer, will you give one?”
“Yes,” he replied without hesitation or doubt. “What’s your question?”
“You were in the hills and you shot those men.” The reference was important to her question. “Why?” She’d been following them. They hadn’t attacked Jimmy or given him cause to attack. Yet, he’d cut them down so cleanly and swiftly.
“They planned to shoot the eagle.” The corners of his mouth dipped, then he sighed and studied the ends of her hair. Why it fascinated him, she didn’t know. “My father came to me in a dream. He told me to find the eagle and to keep it safe.”
A sudden chill invaded her veins. His father sent him to protect an eagle. His father, the dreamwalker. The vision of the eagle angling south and directing her to follow a path the shaman in her dreams said she must travel—and she’d come south in pursuit of those who killed her tribe then collided with Jimmy…who’d been sent to protect an eagle.
As signs went, she would have to be deaf, dumb, blind and slow to not grasp those offered to her. “So, now you will return south, since you rescued the eagle?”
“I don’t know if I did or not, but I didn’t let them shoot the bird. After they went down, the eagle vanished.” Jimmy still toyed with the end of her braid. “As for where I’m headed, I’m trying to decide that now. It’s why I asked where you are going.” He paused, then released her hair to face her fully. “Shane and I are hunting a Fevered. He hurt people I care about—shot the husband of my sister and, with the help of other Fevered, they infected a whole town.”
His gaze flicked to where Shane packed away the bedrolls.
“Because of them, Shane is Fevered. So are about twenty-some-odd other children.”
Onsi’s heart squeezed.
“I can’t let This Man get away, but he is days ahead and I may have lost his trail entirely. If I have lost him, I need to warn my family…because he worked for another, far more dangerous, man.” He released a soft sigh then he rubbed his chin. “Truth be told, I’d rather get you and Shane somewhere safe, but if I choose to give up the chase, I risk This Man carrying valuable knowledge of my family and those children to someone who wants to hurt all of us.”
His tribe was in danger, and he didn’t want to have to make a choice. A terrible decision weighed upon him and, in this, Onsi sympathized a great deal. When the shaman told her to go south, she’d dismissed his requests. Her people needed her, and they needed her with them. Had he known? Is it possible he had a vision?
If so, why wouldn’t he have told her as much?
“This Man you hunt, do you know where he journeys?”
Perhaps they could get ahead of him. In the hunt, one had an advantage if one could predict the path.
“North. Ohio. Lots of paths between here and Ohio.”
The word meant rivers, if she wasn’t wrong. “There are many rivers north.” Though they’d also been traveling east, toward the rising sun.
“It’s a state,” he said, then shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. He has a four-day lead. We would have to angle our path to intersect his, and then only if he’s traveling in a straight line—which makes no damn sense when I say it out loud.”
They did not need to give up his search. They simply must find a way to narrow the line of their pursuit. “This Man you hunt, what does he look like?” If he had distinctive markings or coloring, she could…
“He can look like anyone.” Jimmy hesitated on the last word. “He’s looked like me before.”
Unsettling. Onsi frowned. “This is his cu—Fevered ability?”
He directed a faint smile at her for the self-correction. “Yes, they call him a doppelganger.” The word meant nothing. “He can look like anyone.”
“Then how do you track him?” The question burst from her before she could swallow it. Already she asked too many, but if the quarry could appear as anyone… “He could be me.”
“No, sweetheart. He’s definitely not you.” He seemed very firm in his belief. “I don’t know if he can look like women, as I only ever saw him pretend to be other men. He was hurting the last time, the changes starting to make him stick in one form or another. And…call it instinct, but he’s traveling alone. He’ll avoid large gatherings where he would stand out as a stranger. He doesn’t want to draw attention to himself, won’t travel by train or coach, but on horseback so he can disappear if he needs to.”
“He can become unseen?” The very idea made her skin crawl.
“No, he just doesn’t want to be noticed. I followed solitary tracks.”
“You need a way to get ahead of him, and we need to draw the pursuers away from you.” To offer would be to reveal a secret none living knew and only two knew before. Her grandfather and Minninnewah understood her gift. Understood, and respected her ability. “To travel many miles in one day to scout.”
“If it were possible—”
She raised her hand, and touched her palm to his chest. “It is possible. I will scout ahead for you, be your eyes, and bring you back word.”
He locked her hand to him. “I cannot ask you to do that and, even as light as you are Blue, the horse might get you ten miles and then she’d need a break and you would be alone and exposed.”
“I will not need the horse.” She tugged her hand free. “This one will do this for you because you are a good man, a fierce warrior, and—a good teacher to Shane. I will share with you the gift of an answer no one else knows. Will you accept?”
“Blue, you’re not going out there alone. We don’t know how many are after you and you don’t know what the doppelganger looks like.”
“Nor do you, but you say he travels alone and you say you were three days east and to the south before you found me two days ago. He has a five-da
y lead. That is many miles, more than the horses can travel. But I know this land, and I know many trails and bypasses. I also know how to circle the white settlements and avoid my cousins and the other people. Let me find him for you.”
He frowned, unhappiness rolling off him in waves. “Are you going to ask for a vision?”
“No,” she said, then held up a hand. “Patience. I must show. I am not a dreamwalker, but a skinwalker, and I can take flight.”
She backed away from him and then stripped off her dress. Shane made a strangled noise and Jimmy’s expression alternated between admiration and consternation. Wasting no time on any more explanations, she reached for the medicine pouch at her neck. Inside was a single feather. Touching her finger to it, she closed her eyes and let the eagle fill her soul. The transformation took seconds, and when she opened her eyes, the world’s dimensions changed.
“Holy. Hell.”
Extending her wings, she tested them. The first time she flew, she’d paid little attention to her wings and nearly tumbled from the sky. Trial and error and a very patient spirit taught her much. Raising her head, she made a trilling noise and he grinned.
“I’ll be a son of a bitch.” Delight creased his face, and he studied her, bent down on one knee. “You in there Blue?”
Another vocalization, and he laughed. “That’s some trick.”
“She’s Fevered?” Shane’s boots thumped against the rock as he circled her. She pivoted, keeping both in her line of dual sight.
“No,” Jimmy said. “She’s a shaman—and very special.” He focused on her. “You come back before sundown and if you see gunmen pointing at you, fly away.”
His easy acceptance of her talent buoyed her soul. She made a noise of acknowledgement.
“I’m serious, if they have scatterguns or rifles like I have, don’t you try to dive. They have a longer range and can kill you. Promise me, Blue.” And he had no problem trying to impose his will.
She inclined her head and flapped her wings then, without waiting for further instructions, gave a powerful wingbeat to push herself into the air. With sure strokes, she took the sky. Aiming for the higher elevations, where she could ride the thermals, she turned east and north. A man traveling alone would be difficult to find, no matter what she’d said.
Unless… She didn’t want to ask for herself, but for Jimmy? She could ask for him. Catching the tail of a thermal, she flared her wings and followed it. Great Spirit, guide my hunt. Help me help those whom I would have once forsaken.
Chapter 12
Buck, The Mountain
Perched on the edge of the hearth, Buck stared at the cup in his hands. Breakfast had been eggs and hard bacon, all cooked by Delilah. After eating, she’d excused herself to go for a walk…after ascertaining Wyatt would remain at the house. His eldest brother made his wife uncomfortable, a justifiable discomfort considering he’d once tried to kill her.
When Buck would have gone with her, she’d placed a hand on his arm and said in a soft voice, “Your father wants to talk to you, Buck, and he wants to do so in privacy. I don’t mind excusing myself. I want to see the place where you grew up.” Then she pressed a kiss to his cheek and leaned into him. The trust and affection between them grew stronger each day.
Once she exited, his father murmured, “You chose well, son. She is a wonderful wife.”
“She is,” he agreed, then steeled himself to study the man who, as his father, raised him, taught him, and guided him throughout his life. Age had not been kind to Quanto. Though he’d always been older, Buck couldn’t believe the change wrought in him in just the few years since he and his brothers left the mountain. Has he always seemed so old? Yet I didn’t see it before? Did distance given him a perspective?
When Quanto arrived at the cabin he shared with Delilah, his haggard appearance shocked Buck. The frailness in his hands when he’d gripped Buck’s shoulder revealed a shaky weakness. His father’s health failed him.
“I should go back to the ranch for Noah.” His father should have sent for Noah before coming to fetch him and Delilah. When the old Shaman stepped through the dreaming and onto the ranch, his haggard appearance alone caused concern. Under the guise of teaching, he’d guided Buck into leading them back into the dreaming. The sheer pull on his abilities left him with a blinding headache by the time he’d escorted his father and wife back to the mountain.
Delilah’s presence provided balm and encouragement. Traveling through the dreaming in his sleep was one thing—to do so physically and to bring others with him proved more torturous than he ever imagined. If he hadn’t worried about Delilah’s reaction to Wyatt, he would have let sleep take him the moment they arrived. Only once they were secure in his room, did he give in to his exhaustion.
If it labored him so mightily, what did it do to his father?
“Noah cannot cure the ills of age,” Quanto chided him. “He is where he is needed, son. Where the children of my children will be born.” A sad smile touched his wizened visage. “Scarlett is a good mother.”
“She is.” Buck didn’t know why it surprised him, but a part of him would always think of Scarlett as the temperamental child who railed at them when she didn’t get her way and the sweet girl who came for cuddles when she was sad. A woman grown with two children and a third on the way? The piece did not fit his family portrait, yet she’d managed to be a capable and loving parent. One only had to see her with her children to understand.
“Cody, he is handling his mate’s pregnancy well?” Mischief twinkled in Quanto’s eyes, and Buck chuckled.
“More or less. He’s more protective than ever, but Mariska doesn’t let him smother her. She’s tough, and she is more than a match for him. I think Anthony and Ben help, as well, since he’s getting practice with younger shifters.”
“Good. I knew he would be a capable teacher if he and his wolf could ever truly unite.” Satisfaction resonated beneath the words. “And what of you and Delilah? Will you give me grandchildren?”
Not caring to be put on the spot, Buck still paid consideration to the question. “We are waiting,” he said carefully. “If we’re blessed, we’re blessed, but she is still coming into who she can be. I think she would love a child, as I would, but I worry.” Until he gave voice to the words, he hadn’t realized the depth of his concern. “The world grows less friendly with every passing day. Secession talk is on the rise again, arguments with the Federals—the whites continue to expand west, and though Dorado welcomes us, other towns are not so friendly. Even the army looks at me askance and it is worse for Noah.” Then there were the others. The petty prejudices, he could ignore, but those who hunted the Fevered?
“Never give up hope, Buck. If I taught you nothing else, hold fast to it, keep it close to your heart. With hope, you find other solutions. Solutions to protect and preserve the family.”
“Wise Father, we’re raising nearly twenty-eight Fevered children on the ranch and, though we split the duties between us, I worry we will fail some of them. I worry we have no answers to give them, yet the dangers grow with every day. The man from the north who hunts us, who sent Miller and his men…I worry this is only the beginning.” In the dark quiet hours of the night, he and his brothers discussed the very topic. Usually they kept it from the women. “Delilah’s father was a cruel man. Whoever he is, he knows of Fevered and he seeks to use them. Our children will be Fevered, Evelyn is proof of that. How do we justify consigning our children to being hunted?”
“By building a stronger, safer world for them.” His father studied him. Even with rheumy eyes and exhaustion graying his skin, he missed nothing. “Your children will not be Fevered.”
“Of course they will be, Delilah is…I am. Evelyn only had one Fevered parent. My children will have two.”
“No,” Quanto said slowly, then set his cup aside. “It is time you learned a truth, son. One I did not give you sooner, not to hide it from you or to deny you, but to protect and foster you so you would never feel d
ifferent from your siblings.”
His gut churned at the admission. “Tell me Father, so I may learn.” Too many years of respect and understanding existed between them for him to be anything other than respectful for the words his father would offer.
“You are not Fevered, Buck. You never have been.”
Shock didn’t begin to describe the sensation rippling through him.
“When you assumed you were, I let you believe it because I did not want you to feel different from your siblings. You never resented the children I gathered on the mountain, never objected to sharing your home or family with them.” Quiet and firm were the words, though a hint of regret tinged his tone. “You are something more. You are the son of my body in a way the others never could be—and you are one of The Blood.”
Struggling to absorb the revelation left him with more questions. “What is The Blood?”
Settling deeper into his chair, his father seemed to stare into the distance. “Once there were many, a line of heritage stretching back into the days of our ancestors. Stories are told of The Blood in every tribe of every people. They are the shamans, the wise men, wise women, medicine women—the gifted who use their Blood to see, to dream, to fly, and to fight. Each of The Blood is gifted with some great strength, usually attributed to their bloodline. In ours, we are dreamers. We walk the dreaming, venturing where no one else may go, and altering the unalterable.”
The unalterable…what did that mean? Buck rubbed a hand against his forehead. Not Fevered… “When the Fever came to Dorado, it didn’t affect me just as it didn’t affect any of the others. Why did I not get sick?”
The Quick and the Fevered Page 18
