by Kyra Halland
“I don’t need to cheat,” Lainie said. She held out her arms in their close-fitting, elbow-length sleeves. “Look – nothing up my sleeves.”
Silas hooked a finger in the neckline of her dress and peered down. “Nothin’ down there either, ’cept –”
“Silas!” She brushed his hand away. “Well?”
“I don’t sit at the card table with gods-damned wizards,” Landstrom repeated.
“Afraid of losing to a girl?” Lainie gave him another big smile.
The other players chuckled. Mr. Nikalsdon said, “Come on, Landstrom. Mr. Coltor thinks they’re solid. What’s the harm in letting the little lady play a game or two?”
No one else offered any objections, and Landstrom finally grumbled agreement. Lainie grabbed a handful of coins from Silas’s duster pocket and took a chair offered to her by one of the other players, who announced that he had lost enough for now and was going in search of more congenial entertainment. He left arm in arm with a house lady. Silas took a long swig from his bottle and announced to everyone and no one in particular, “This is gonna be good.”
The dealer passed out the cards. When the one hundred and five cards in the deck had been dealt out evenly to the eight players, there was one card left over, which the dealer set aside face-down on the table. As well, each player had four sets of three cards plus one extra. Part of the challenge for the players would be trying to figure out which card was the discard and which cards were being held back by the other players.
Lainie took up her hand. It was decent; good enough for starting out. Smiling widely, she put all the money she had taken from Silas’s pocket, seventeen gildings, onto the pewter serving platter in the center of the table and started randomly rearranging her cards. The other players would assume that, being a girl, she couldn’t keep a blank face, and they would also try to guess what sort of hand she held based on her bet and how she handled her cards.
She started slow, losing the first round, winning the next, putting down threes that weren’t bad but could have been much better. She let the other players think that, as they would expect of a young woman, she would mostly play easy and obvious threes of cards in the same house, even though it was possible to score much higher points from combinations of different houses and ranks.
With each round, the colored pebbles used to tally the points piled up, along with the money on the tray as the players adjusted their bets. In the last round, Lainie put down a somewhat surprising but still unspectacular combo to win a decent portion of the money on the tray, enough that the others would want her to play again so they could win the money back but not enough to make them afraid of losing even more.
While the winnings were divided and the cards and pebbles collected, a house lady went around the table pouring drinks into shotglasses for the men. Landstrom chomped at the end of his cigar, then leaned over to spit out pieces of tobacco and paper. Lainie heard more than one player and onlooker remark that the little lady wasn’t a bad player, but she should quit while she was ahead. She smiled to herself; that was exactly what she wanted them to think.
Silas offered Lainie his bottle. “Drink, darlin’?”
“Not that stuff. Would you go get me another cup of lemonade, please?”
He wandered off, weaving so badly she was afraid he might never make his way back. But he returned shortly with a tin cup of lemonade, and hadn’t even spilled hardly any at all.
The dealer dealt out the cards for the next game and set aside the spare card face-down. Lainie’s draw for this game was a little better than the last one. Again she started out slow, putting down easy and predictable threes. The other players were likewise pretty predictable; the only one who showed much imagination at all was Mr. Nikalsdon. He seemed like a nice man, Lainie thought, not like that son of a bitch Storts who had blatantly cheated her out of that big win in Bentwood Gulch. Though that had worked out well enough in the end, with her and Silas getting hired by Mr. Coltor for far more than she had lost, so she supposed she could forgive him.
She lost the second game on purpose, then played the third game in a similar manner to the first. By now, she had a good feel for the other players’ patterns of play and how to lay down better combos and score more points in each round. When the cards for the fourth game were dealt, she was pleased to see some very interesting combinations in her hand, including at least one sure game winner. Frowning as though dissatisfied with her cards, she shuffled them around in her hand while her mind went to work figuring combinations and point values and the chances of the other players having better-scoring combos.
Over the first two rounds, the tray built up slowly and the game passed in a fairly unremarkable manner. Then, with two threes left in her hand plus a spare, Lainie made her move. She put most of her winnings back into the pot and played a very respectable straight, Moon Queen, Moon Priest, and Moon Demon. That got the others to play what were probably their best hands, and she came in low in that round, though not by much.
For the last round, she put a single gilding on the overflowing tray, showing a lack of confidence. The others made correspondingly larger bets, Landstrom’s largest of all. The players all laid their final threes face-down on the table, then turned them over to show the cards. With a wide smile, Lainie revealed her game-winning three, which, to her great satisfaction, included a Fire Dragon, the very card Storts had cheated her with in Bentwood Gulch.
“Cheating wizard!” Landstrom exploded. “That’s a fake card!”
The table and onlookers went silent. At her back, Lainie felt Silas go for his gun. “Wait,” she told him.
She handed her Fire Dragon to the dealer, who inspected it closely. “It’s real, from this deck,” he said. “Anyone else got a Fire Dragon among their cards?”
The other players showed him their cards. No one had it, of course; neither was it the discard.
“Sorry, Landstrom,” Nikalsdon said, grinning. “Looks like you just got out-played. By a girl.”
Landstrom’s face went red and seemed to swell. He sputtered out curses as the other players laughed. The dealer pushed Lainie’s share of the money on the tray, which was most of it, over to her. She took back her original wager of seventeen gildings, then counted out more until she got the amount she wanted. “Does that look about right?” she asked Silas.
“Right?” He bent forward, leaning hard on her shoulder. She couldn’t tell if he was trying to count the money or look down her dress again.
“Does that look like about how much Mr. Landstrom cheated us out of?”
Dead silence dropped over the table again. “Cheated, Landstrom?” asked one of the other players; Lainie thought he was the Fairbank co-op manager.
“I didn’t cheat anybody!” Landstrom protested.
“Mr. Landstrom refused to pay me my full wages on account of I didn’t work in the grub wagon for the last month,” Lainie said. “The reason I didn’t was because the cook, Mrs. Bington, took a dislike to me and wouldn’t let me near the wagon, not even when the hands were complaining about her cooking and asking to have me back. And I was still helping with the herd the whole time. He wouldn’t pay us our bonuses, either.”
“That so, Landstrom?” Mr. Nikalsdon asked.
“They – you know what they are! They’re wizards! That’s why Mrs. Bington didn’t want her around the grub wagon!”
“That may be,” another man said. Lainie didn’t know him; he must have been with the southern herd. “Though from what I hear, they haven’t done any harm, even if they are wizards. In fact, I understand they saved the northern herd from a wizardly storm – from their own kind. What’s putting a burr in my boot, Landstrom, is the stain you’re casting on our profession. If a co-op manager cheats the hired hands, don’t you think the ranchers might think that manager will cheat them too? And that all other managers might be suspect as well?”
“One dishonest manager can give us all a bad name,” the Fairbank manager said. “Wizards or no wi
zards.”
Landstrom spluttered and tried to argue, but no one paid any more mind to his excuses. Instead, they turned their attention to their own winnings and the fresh drinks the attending house lady was pouring. Lainie counted out her money again: seventeen gildings for her original stake, thirty-five for her last month’s pay, three hundred gildings – a hundred and fifty each – for their bonuses, and an extra thirty for her trouble. She put the rest of her winnings, no small amount, back on the tray. “I think I’ll call it a night, gentlemen. Enjoy the rest of this with the compliments of me and Mr. Vendine. Silas, honey, let me have your hat.”
“My hat?” he protested as she stood and took it from his head. She scooped her winnings into the crown and cradled the hat securely in her arms. The weight of it was satisfying.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” she said to the men at the table. “It’s been a pleasure.”
Back in the tent, in the light of the lantern, Lainie divided up the money she’d won among the packs and saddlebags while Silas worked his bottle into the dirt in a corner of the tent so it wouldn’t tip over and spill. Then they collapsed together, lying back on the blankets.
“The look on Mr. Landstrom’s face when Mr. Nikalsdon said, ‘You just got out-played by a girl’,” Lainie said, giggling at the memory.
Silas snorted. “That was worth as much as every penny you won.”
They lay there and kissed for a long time. Then Silas sat up and moved Lainie to sit with her back to him. With surprisingly deft fingers, especially considering how much he’d had to drink, he undid the buttons down the back of her dress, then eased the dress down off her shoulders and over her head. She leaned back against him as he ran his hands along her bare arms and shoulders, then he reached around front and started on the lacing of the petticoat bodice. He also managed that with surprising skill; he had certainly had prior experience with such garments, but Lainie didn’t care. She was the woman he was with now, the one he loved, the one he had married.
He worked the petticoat off, then the chemise. He freed her hair from the coiled braid on top of her head, letting it spill loose down her shoulders and back. Then he lowered her back onto the blankets and pulled off her drawers, shoes, and, finally, the stockings. By now, Lainie was trembling with eagerness for the feel of his body against her bare skin. She put her arms around him and tried to pull him down to her, but he resisted. “Just give me a little time to appreciate how beautiful you are, darlin’.”
Slowly and thoroughly, he “appreciated” her from head to toe, front and back. Lovely sensations, almost too delicious to bear, swept through her in powerful waves; she even had to beg him a few times, when she was overwhelmed by the intense feelings, to let up just a moment so she could catch her breath. Kind and thoughtful as he always was, he did whatever she asked.
Finally, when he had done everything he could do while keeping himself separate from her, he undressed and lay down with her and took her to him. Lainie clung to him, never wanting to let him go. Together they made something strong and powerful and beautiful, that nothing else could compare to, that nothing could destroy.
Later, when Lainie could speak again, she said, “I should let you get drunk more often.” Then she giggled at how silly that was. She was so happy and had had so much fun, she felt filled with sparkling light.
Silas held her close and chuckled, his laugh deep and resonant against her ear. “We should dance more often,” he said.
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
And they would. He always kept his promises to her. She pushed him over onto his back and sat up. “Now,” she said, “it’s my turn to appreciate you.”
He flung his arms wide open and gave her a big, sloppy grin. “I’m all yours, darlin’.”
* * *
IN THE MORNING, Lainie left Silas to deal with his hangover on his own, which was to say not well at all, while she washed out the clothes she had borrowed from Flania and went to return them. The camps were breaking up, most of the drive hands getting ready to return home except for those who would be helping to drive the cattle through the Gap. She picked her way among wagons and animals and people milling around as they prepared to leave, past the great stockade filled with cattle waiting to head up into the pass, over to where Flania’s crew was camped.
As she approached the camp, keeping an eye out for Flania, a dozen or more men walked towards her and stopped, blocking her way. The man at the front of the group was holding a rifle; Lainie recognized him as Flania’s husband, Mr. Gralen. The gun and the hostile look on his face sent a shiver of fear through her. She held out the armful of clothing and forced herself to speak calmly. “I was just –”
“You stay away from my wife.”
Lainie saw now that another man in the group was holding a coiled length of rope with a loop at one end. Her heart started pounding hard and fast, and all at once, she couldn’t breathe. Again she spoke, trying to sound as non-threatening as she could. “I just wanted to return the clothes your wife loaned me.”
“You probably put curses on them. We know what you are, we heard the rumors an’ found out they’re true. The boys from Bitterbush Valley said so. I won’t have no wizards going near my wife an’ son.”
“Yeah,” the man with the rope said. “We heard the stories, how you fought that storm with magic. For all we know, you was the ones that brought it on. Nothin’ any wizard does is to any good end.”
“So we’re tellin’ you, right here an’ now,” Gralen said, “you an’ Vendine got one hour to get a head start out of the camp. We can’t kill you here, not with all these other wizards around. But as soon as we’re out of here, you better watch yourselves. We don’t care if Coltor’s man or the boys from the Double B said not to touch you. They got no say over us, an’ there’s more of us than them. If we can’t hang you we’ll shoot you, an’ you can use all the magic you want but one way or another we’ll get you.”
Lainie looked at the rope again, and felt a sick twist in her stomach at the memory of the noose tightening around her neck back in Bitterbush Springs. She would be a fool to try to fight this gang, even if some of her Pa’s men were there to help. She didn’t want to put innocent people in danger or attract the attention of the Mage Council enforcers.
She tore her eyes away from the man holding the noose and saw Flania standing a short distance behind the men, holding her baby boy in her arms. Their eyes met. Flania gathered her child closer to her and turned away from Lainie.
Still clutching the borrowed clothing, Lainie turned and fled, unable to hold back her tears as she ran. She had been a fool to ever think she and Silas could live peacefully in the Wildings. No matter how much good they did, no matter how friendly she tried to be, it would never be enough. They would always be hated and feared, would always be in danger.
While she was at it, she might as well admit she was also a fool for thinking they could ever get right with the Mage Council. Not with all the laws they had broken, not with the Hidden Council outlawed and purged, not with her being too powerful and able to do too many things that weren’t allowed. She remembered the messages Silas had told her about, Don’t trust anyone. And, Take the girl and get as far away as you can. Granadaia was as closed off to them as the Wildings. Which left –
She couldn’t bear to think of it. Leaving her Pa behind forever, giving up all hope of ever being able to birth a baby of her own, leaving behind the place of her birth, turning their backs on everything they believed in and stood for… To think of leaving the Wildings and going to the other side of the world was like cutting out her own heart twice over.
Silas was taking down their tent when she stormed over. He let the canvas drop to the ground and caught her by the arm. “Darlin’?”
She looked up at him, tears streaming down her cheeks. The lump in her throat blocked the words that she didn’t know how to say. He looked at the bundle of clothes she was still carrying, and sorrowful understanding filled his
face. He brushed tears from her cheeks. “I’m sorry, darlin’,” he whispered.
“Let’s get out of here,” was all she could say.
He nodded, and they hurried on about packing up and getting ready to leave.
Chapter 14
LATE IN THE morning the next day, Silas and Lainie approached a small, neat house on the edge of the town of Piney Ridge, tucked into the foothills forty leagues north of the Gap. It hadn’t been hard to find Adelin Horden once they arrived in the town where her letters to her husband had been posted from; it turned out she had lived there her whole life.
“Ready, darlin’?” Silas asked Lainie.
She gave him a wan smile. Neither of them wanted to be here, but, though he had never met the living man, Garis Horden had been Silas’s fellow mage hunter and Hidden Council ally, and Silas considered it a matter of honor to personally inform Horden’s widow of his death. Lainie, struck with deep sympathy for the woman who had been left to wonder for so long what had happened to her husband, had insisted on coming with. “Ready as I can be,” she answered.
“Let’s get this done, then.” The sooner they got it over with, the sooner he could stop dreading it, and the sooner they could put more distance between themselves and the Gap. Now that they weren’t hiding among a hundred or more drive hands, with his shields lost among the copious amounts of magical power being freely used by the mages at the market, he felt dangerously exposed. Lainie had warned him about her friend’s husband’s threats, but he was less worried about a gang of Plains than he was about the large number of mages still at the Gap.
They rode up to the house and dismounted, looping Mala’s and Abenar’s reins around a fence post. Silas took his knapsack from where it hung from his saddle, then they went to the front door and knocked.
A moment later, the door opened to reveal a short woman with a compact, curvy figure, wearing a spotless white apron over a neat blue print dress. Her dark brown hair, done up in a tidy bun, had a few strands of gray, and faint lines marked the corners of her eyes and mouth, but Silas guessed she wasn’t older than thirty or so. Life in the Wildings was hard on women.
