Forged in Fire

by J. A. Pitts

  “Sleep on it,” I said.

  He climbed in his truck, executed a three-point turn, and drove down the drive. Stuart drove partway down the drive and waited. There was a quiet pop and Bub appeared again. He climbed in the truck and they drove off.

  Gunther hugged me once and started his Harley.

  It had been a long day. Julie came out on the porch as they drove away.

  “What’s the plan?” she asked.

  “I have a list,” I said, turning to her. “Think Mary’ll let all of us camp out here for a day or two?”

  She put her arm across my shoulder. “I think she’d love it.”

  “Good. Tomorrow, the vet will send a truck to take away the remains. If you can work with the insurance company, I’ll see to the horses and getting the barn cleared up.”

  She looked at me with a smirk. “Does that involve cleaning, or will there be other forms of activities?”

  “Nothing super difficult,” I assured her. “A bit of this, a bit of that.”

  “Leave the horses out?”

  I looked across the yard to the paddock. The horses were settling in for the night, huddled together away from the barn.

  “No way you’re getting them back inside tonight,” I said. “We’ll get them settled tomorrow.”

  “Good, let’s tell Mary the plan.”

  She turned to go into the house, but I stood there a minute longer, looking at the barn. The horse was still in there, still watching out of the ritual circle.

  How had my life gotten this psychotic?

  Sixteen

  I was up before dawn. No one had slept well, but they were all asleep for the first thirty minutes or so I was up. The farm had a quietness to it that reminded me of home. But it was also lonely. Mary had kept a dynamic household, but the loss of her husband had been hard. And the betrayal of her most trusted hands this year didn’t do anything to make things easier. I tried not to feel guilty about Jack and Steve leaving Mary high and dry. At least they waited until after foaling season. Guys were assholes in any case. She was better off without them. I’m fairly sure my tussle with them was only part of the reason they left. Probably.

  Maybe we needed to combine forces here. This land was good, the energy felt right, except, of course, where the taint was near the barn. Felt like pain that you anticipate, a known blow that had yet to land. I sipped my coffee and watched the barn, making sure nothing went in or came out without my seeing it.

  By the time the sun was up and everyone in the house was nursing their first cup of coffee—my third—I went out to move the horses. It had gotten chilly in the night, and by morning the air was crisper than I wanted the horses to be in all day.

  I was able to move them over to the other barns. Circle Q didn’t need three barns these days.

  The truck arrived at 8:00 A.M. sharp to dispose of the horse, so Julie and I were in the barn with high-power hoses and buckets of bleach water before Katie was at school. She had a fund-raiser meeting in the morning and was going to be grading papers in the afternoon.

  She’s been a trooper once I explained how things went down. She was safer with me away from her at the moment, and, until we got the magic cleared from the barn, I didn’t want to risk her showing up here and being influenced by any residue.

  She agreed to come out to Circle Q for dinner. Mary was delighted. Five women around the dinner table should shake any of the negative energy that lingered after we cleaned things up.

  We took our time in the barn, making sure to scrub every nook and cranny. Even if we couldn’t see anything foul. With the hidden runes and pain writing, I didn’t want to take any chances we missed something else.

  While we were on our hands and knees scrubbing with good, stiff brushes, Julie began to open up about some plans.

  “I’m thinking about working for Mary some,” she said, wiping the sweat off her forehead with the back of her wrist. “She needs the help, and I need a good launching pad.”

  I let her talk, nodding and grunting where appropriate, but I wanted her to talk it out.

  “I had the idea,” she went on, watching me like I was gonna shy away or something. “What if we took the regular customer list and split it, giving you the lion’s share of solo work.”

  I started to protest, but caught myself. If she saw me flinch, she didn’t let on. She’d built this business, damn it. It was her client list, her sweat and tears.

  “You and I can work the bigger farms, do the big work together, but if you take all the little places, the ones you already know, it will give me time to work on the ranch here. I already know I can’t rebuild on my land until the fireweed we planted has a couple of years to grow and leach away the dragon taint.”

  “That’s true,” I interjected. Wanted her to know I was paying attention.

  “Besides,” she said, sitting back on her haunches and looking at me. “You’re damn good at farrier work. And we both know you could use the money.”

  I nodded, pleased with the compliment. “Thanks.”

  “I’ve been thinking on it. Maybe I’ll get a couple of horses. Do some riding again. I used to ride all the time as a kid. That’s why I got into the farrier gig, you know.”

  I smiled, making sure to keep scrubbing. She rarely talked about her childhood in Texas.

  “My old man kept a couple hundred head of cattle as a hobby,” she went on. “But really he worked as a geologist for the oil companies.”

  I wondered how she got on with her old man. She never gave any indication she had trouble of any kind, but sometimes benign neglect is just as painful in the long run.

  “I assume you’ve talked to Mary about this?”

  She nodded. “Some of this came from her, sure. I’ve been thinking I needed to get back on my feet for a while now. Mary just gave me a good excuse to quit stalling. And this.” She waved her brush through the air, taking in the entirety of the stall, barn, whole dragon-infested world. “We need to band together against the crazy bastards.”

  “Amen,” I said, slopping my brush into the bucket of sudsy water. I stood up, stretching my back and rubbing my knees. “Sounds like a good plan.”

  She stood as well, leaning against the wall, but doing a damn sight better than I’d figured she’d do. The femur break and muscle trauma from where the giants had tortured her had me worried, but she was a fighter. Her physical therapist said she was stubborn as a mule and strong as an ox.

  And she thought she was going soft.

  “Reminds me,” I said, picking up the bucket to pour the sudsy water down the big barn sink. “I want to put together a small forge out at Black Briar. Something to allow Anezka a chance to get back to the hammering and metalwork.”

  She studied me a bit, cogitating on it. “You think she’s ready?”

  I thought about the last four months and about how for most of it Julie had been holed up in my apartment, afraid of the world. “How do you feel? Are you itching to have a hammer in your hand? Need the heat from the forge, to smell the sharp tang of hot metal?”

  “Like a drug,” she admitted with a rattling sigh. “I miss the ringing of steel on steel and the way the forge glows as the coal is banked just right.” She gave a little shudder, like she was shaking off something hard. “I get that. She’s a smith, like you and me. But can she handle the fire?”

  “Bub will help her, for sure, as will most of the others out at Black Briar.”

  “Seems like you have a handle on the situation. Why are you asking?”

  I scuffed my boots on the floor, letting the anxiety rise up from my belly and out through my fingers. Deep breath. “I didn’t want you to think I was leaving you, that I’d abandoned you.”

  She studied me the way she does, with a critical eye tempered with compassion. “Sarah Jane Beauhall,” she said, her voice a little too throaty. “You are a piece of work.”

  I tried to read her, see if she was mad or something, but she had a look on her face I hadn’t seen before. �
�Yeah, I guess I am.”

  She stepped forward and pulled me to her, wrapping her arms around me and squeezing. “Thank you,” she said into my shoulder. “Thank you for being my friend.”

  I hugged her back, blinking away the stinging tears.

  We finally broke apart, and each pretended not to notice the other one was crying. “Let’s get this barn finished,” she said, wiping her face. “If we don’t jump in to help, Edith will have cabbage boiling.”

  “I take it that’s Mrs. Sorenson,” I said, grinning.

  “Lose enough rummy to her and she’ll let you call her Edith,” she said, returning my smile. “Got a big heart, that one.”

  “Excellent. Guess we’ll have to keep her, then.”

  The rest of the work went along faster. I don’t know if it was the fact that we’d obliterated all the heavy magic that had corrupted the place or, more likely, that we’d let a lot of angst about our relationship go. I dearly loved Julie. She was the best teacher I’d ever had. And the fact that she thought of us as friends just made it all the better.

  Katie arrived just after five. Julie was in the kitchen, bickering with Edith and Mary over the concept of too many jalapeños in chili.

  I met Katie at her car, let her scold me for all the wrongness in the recent days, then let her hold me until she felt safe again. We might have made out a bit, leaning against the car. Could’ve happened.

  She opened the trunk of her Miata and brought out several large bundles of sage and lavender. “Sage is good,” she said, pushing fragrant bunches into my arms. “But lavender is just as important. Helps keep the negative energy from reforming.”

  I didn’t argue with her. I’d dismissed her fantasy theories most of the time we’d known each other. The funny thing was, in spite of Jimmy’s keeping so many of the family secrets from her, she’d been closer to the truth than all of us.

  We set up three small hibachis in the barn, one in the middle and the other two halfway down each of the long rows of stalls. We burned the sage first. It was interesting the way it drew down the length of the stalls, flitting into each one, as if directed.

  Next we burned the lavender, and while the sage cleansed the place, stripped the last vestiges of hoodoo, the lavender brought an easing to the barn. Like a deep sigh after a fright or a good long stretch when you’re tired.

  Before dinner we got the horses back into their stalls, and while they sensed where the death had occurred by memory, they weren’t agitated. The lavender calmed them, allowed them to settle in.

  She’s a smart one, that Katie Cornett. I grabbed her ass on the way to the house, and she squealed. Yep, the lavender was the right thing.

  Dinner was full of laughter and warmth. It was almost as if Justin and his twisted, sick shit hadn’t gone down at all.

  Seventeen

  Trisha waited at the University Bookstore near the coffee shop, fidgeting with her purse. She’d gotten there a little early since the traffic gods had been kind. She was excited to see Efrain again. They’d been getting along well so far. He had a nice voice, and their phone calls were great.

  It had been his idea to go to the book signing. She’d never read much beyond what she had to for school. It gave her a thrill to discuss things like literature, politics, and psychology with someone who really cared about what she had to say.

  “You look lovely this evening.” Efrain approached her from the front of the store, a small bunch of carnations held out to her.

  She took the flowers. When their hands touched, a tingle ran through her—a shiver of joy. “Thanks,” she said, smiling. “It’s been a while since a fella brought me flowers.”

  He flashed his best smile, all teeth and sunshine. “There are so few who appreciate beauty these days.” He held his elbow out to her. “Shall we go up?”

  She took his elbow and sighed. “Sure. I’ve been pretty psyched about this all week.”

  They made their way up the stairs to where the bookstore had chairs set up for the author event. Efrain let her sit down first, then took the seat next to her. Her mind was alight with the fact that his thigh was pressed against hers in the close arrangement.

  The author discussed her recent trip to the Middle East and how she’d been welcomed into several homes of women who’d lost their husbands in the revolution. Trisha thought she may have said Egypt, but it could’ve been something else. She had a hard time concentrating when her mind kept wandering around to the way Efrain was casting sidelong glances at her.

  It had been a long damn time since someone had paid that kind of attention to her, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Part of her was wary, cautious, looking out for the danger, but another part of her brain wanted her to let him be nice to her.

  Afterward, he bought a copy of the woman’s book and had it autographed to Trisha. She took the book graciously but insisted on buying dinner after. She had to keep this on equal footing.

  They ended up at a little Greek place down on the Ave. The moussaka was heavenly, and the wine wasn’t too bad.

  “Tell me again why you are so guarded,” he said as they shared a dish of garlic-stuffed olives.

  She felt freer with him than she had since getting out of the hospital. It was like a block of ice in her chest had begun to melt. All he did was look at her, listen to her, but really, isn’t that what everyone needed?

  “Life is just too out of control,” she said. “I wake up some days totally freaked, just wishing that someone else would make the decisions, you know?”

  He smiled at her, rolling an olive between his thumb and forefinger. “It takes a very strong person to give up control like that, you realize?”

  Trisha shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I know I’m strong, physically. I can knock out a hundred push-ups without breaking a sweat.” She looked at him to see if he’d have a reaction, but he just nodded. “So, yeah, I’ve got strength. But there are moments I’d like to stop worrying, let someone else take the reins.”

  She was watching him. That book she’d picked up, the one about bondage, had intrigued her. After they’d had coffee that first day, she’d gone back and bought the book. It had some interesting ideas, some things she thought maybe she’d like to try.

  He popped the olive in his mouth and chewed slowly, staring at her. “There are many forms of power,” he said, finally. “Allowing someone else to control things for a while can be quite liberating.”

  She took a long drink of wine, emptying her glass. “That could be hot,” she said, setting the glass on the table. Her head was swimming a little.

  He reached out and touched her hand on the glass, steadying it as he poured her more wine. There was a flash of heat at his touch.

  “Is it getting warm in here?” she asked, lifting the glass to her smile.

  “Maybe we should take a walk,” he offered. “Clear our heads.”

  He let her pay, as she’d insisted, but when he slipped his hand in hers on the way out the door, she didn’t argue.

  They were several blocks from their cars when she pulled him into an alley and kissed him, pushing him against the brick wall, pressing her body against his.

  She didn’t know if it was the stimulating conversation or the wine, but at that moment she wanted him more than she wanted anything else in the world.

  Eighteen

  Jimmy had a meeting over in Pasco on the following Saturday, so Katie agreed to go out to Black Briar to see Deidre. I don’t know what I would’ve done if she said no again. Likely knock her on the head and put her in the trunk.

  When we got out there, the place was practically deserted. Well, compared to normal days. Most of the troops were in town, leaving a skeleton crew on the farm. Deidre and I sat out on the porch, enjoying the unseasonably sunny sky, while Frick and Frack trundled after Bub, who was having the time of his life.

  “He visits them every day,” Deidre said, sipping her coffee. “Been a real help to Trisha. She’s totally loving the mom thing and dam
n good at it, mind.” She looked at me as if I’d argue. “You never know who’ll end up making a good parent.”

  I laughed. No telling indeed. Some of us just know before we start. There are some mistakes made by my parents that I’d rather end with them.

  “Trisha had been pretty depressed,” she told me, watching the kids. “Frick and Frack were a strong pull back to the light, but,” she lowered her voice, like anyone could hear. “She’s been seeing this guy. Gaga all of a sudden.”

  “Really?” I asked. “That’s great.”

  “We all think so. She’s keeping up her shifts with the troops, keeping the kids on a regular bedtime, and even making time for a little nookie break.”

  I choked on my coffee, spewing a wide spray across the wood of the deck.

  “Jesus, Deidre. Don’t say shit like that. You’re gonna kill me.”

  She was laughing when Katie came out of the house with a fresh carafe of coffee. “She torturing you about something?” she asked.

  I gave Deidre an evil look and leaned over to kiss Katie in front of her. I’d show her.

  Katie was surprised, but kissed me back.

  “Trisha has a boyfriend,” I said, sitting back.

  Deidre shrugged. “Hey, we all need to get laid from time to time.”

  Katie moaned and covered her face. Deidre had practically raised her and was married to her brother. Anytime she talked about sex Katie got squicked out. Ever since Deidre had been hurt and confined to a wheelchair, neither of us had gotten around to thinking about how the sex was impacted. I know I didn’t want to know.

  “How’d you get Jimmy out of the house?” Katie asked, carefully watching Deidre for some ploy or other.

  “He and the twins have been locked in the basement, researching that ring and the code all week,” she said. “I finally convinced Stuart that Jim was getting buggy. He worked on Gunther, and before you know it they were all going out to Spokane for a day of research and kicking back.”

  She sure knew how to manipulate all of us. Like an evil overlord or something. I’d be sure to watch her for telltale signs of interference with Katie. Not a woman you’d want to be on the wrong side of.