They are guided to the spot by a thin trail of smoke still curling into the sky from fading fire. A mile off, Ivy smells it. Closer still and more odors mix in: rot, disease, death.
Socks pauses, lifting his head, then swings toward home. Chapo, who has not seemed alarmed, turns with him.
Sam fights the chestnut’s head, finally shifting him with a short rein and kicks in the ribs which the gelding seems hardly to notice.
“These horses are used to spurs,” Ivy says as she drags the dun’s head around.
“And iron fists,” Sam says, still fighting Socks.
With both animals moving the right way, their riders keep reins drawn up, Sam talking about the cruelty of ruining a horse by making it this hard-mouthed, Ivy watching smoke. She glances to Sam’s saddle. He has on his gun belt and the Henry repeating rifle in its attached sheath, though she has still never seen him fire either.
“Sam? We might want to leave the horses here. They will spook worse than ever at the scene of the fire.”
“And if we run into trouble? We may need them to withdraw.”
Ivy chuckles. “Is that what you call it in England? No retreating or surrendering, I’m sure.”
“Never.” With a firm shake of his head, staring forward.
“We can manage.” She grins at him. “There may be none around and, if there are, the horses would only attract attention. We can slip in quietly on foot.”
With the burnt settlement still out of sight below a hill, they tie the hired animals to saplings. Sam pulls the rifle from its sheath and a leather bag and knife from his saddlebags. He hands Ivy his revolver, which she is not at all sure she wants.
The fire spread to a corncrib, garden, and second room of the conjoined ranch house and dogtrot, but not to surrounding brush, being stopped by bare earth. As smoking ashes come into view, Ivy and Sam pause, watching. Gray and black, burnt and bloody bodies strewn about the site, thick on the ground as leaves in November.
Even at this distance, Ivy feels heat rising off black, crumbled buildings. The smell almost drowns out the sight: a livid swarm of decay, burnt flesh, and smoke.
She stands a long time, seeing images of the Great Fire, packs swarming the streets at midday, her mother’s face....
A dust devil of ash, sand, and human hair lifts and twirls. A bit off a silk dress flutters and ripples. Smoke wafts toward them, dancing upward in an unbroken stream from the ground.
Squinting toward wreckage, Sam shoulders the rifle and pulls the red bandana up over his nose before handing Ivy a handkerchief. Ivy ties the cloth about her nose and mouth as they go, tucking the top edge below her sungoggles. Some protection at least from ash and dust, if not the smell.
“Likelihood of more being around?” he asks softly.
“High. But we will only be a minute. You brought gloves?”
He holds a pair up from his belt.
“Collect whatever souvenir Thurman agreed upon—left thumbs? And I—”
“You should remain here.”
Ivy pulls on her own gloves. “There is no more or less danger at the fire site than a quarter mile out. They will not rise right up from ashes. You find the ones they shot. I will get the Colts.”
He nods, though he appears unwilling.
“And Sam.” She looks at him and he meets her eyes through her goggles. “Do not allow yourself to be bitten. You know that. No matter what, at any price, do not get bitten. I should rather shoot myself, drown, burn at the—”
“All right, Ivy. I know. We shall keep alert.”
She nods.
They continue forward, onto the scorched farm.
Twenty-First
A Lovely Dance
Ivy expects the two dropped revolvers to be obvious: gleaming silver in the sun, calling to be picked up. As she reaches a ring of fallen risers, she sees a layer of ash so thick it covers the toes of her boots like new snow. Ash lifts, swirls, darts about on the breeze, making Ivy cough despite the cloth over her mouth. She fights to stifle the sound, holding her breath, pressing a hand to her face.
Trying hard not to look at motionless, burnt, bloated figures lying in ridiculous positions, she steps gingerly through ash, looking for any distinguishing lump to show the outline of a revolver. She nudges aside several ash mounds to find only stones, then—something long, a lump at the end. She pushes it with her toe. Silver. She grabs Melchior’s Colt .45, sending a puff of ash northward.
Then her own Colt Lightning should be....
Ivy turns in a half-circle, facing, by best guess, the place she dropped her revolver. Everything looks different in daylight. Glad for her sungoggles, wishing she had the grace to offer the loan of them to Sam—he would refuse, so she could have the satisfaction of both wearing them and being polite—she steps carefully toward the spot.
To her right, Sam shoves away ash with his boots, checking for risers with bullets to the skull as source of destruction rather than from burning. She would not mind if he was less meticulous, yet she has already learned from Melchior that Sam will not lie. Perhaps even negotiatory exaggeration is beyond him.
There. Another shape. No, only a stone.
Fear nibbles at her with every extra minute. They should be away by now. Sam is at least making progress. But her gun.... Chill creeps over her. She keeps interrupting her search to glance in all directions.
Something moves—only the wind. A sound—Sam’s knife.
Find the gun and get out.
She turns back to her search. There. A lump with shape, gleam of silver visible below ash as the breeze lifts and stirs it.
Something else moves. The wind. Yet she looks up, even as she steps toward the lump.
Not the wind.
A gray, unsteady figure, one arm burnt black. Just one. Or two. A child in a bloody nightgown. Perhaps nine or ten years old. It is all right. She expected some about. They are seen, but no one is running. The pair move hesitantly toward them from around trees, necks craned forward.
“Sam,” Ivy whispers, her foot poised above the spot of the ash mound. “We’ve been seen. Do not look around. Do not meet their eyes. Pick up the bag and walk slowly to me. Very slowly.”
He freezes, bent over a body with the knife, black with thick blood, in one gloved hand. She feels sure he will turn. Sure he will do exactly what he must not. He only stands perfectly still for a moment, eyes fixed on his bag, taking in her words. Then he straightens carefully. He walks to her, easing the rifle into his hands from his shoulder, as Ivy nudges ash off her Colt.
Glancing back, from the corner of her eye only. Many shapes. Moving slow, turning their gray, blotchy, rotting faces like dogs hearing a strange sound. The first shaky figures halt, child and adult. They waver, others walking up to join them. All in a deadly hush which races up and down Ivy’s spine like ice, making her teeth chatter, fine hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, hands tremble.
“Should we shoot?” Sam’s voice is a breath in her ear.
“No.” Ivy bends slowly, half kneeling, to lift the ashy Colt. She is able to wedge Melchior’s long .45 into the small holster for her Lightning, then gingerly draw back the hammer on the Lightning as she starts to walk away, up the road.
“Stay close to me.” She drops the French revolver back into Sam’s holster. “They are thinking us over. Only a little pack. They’ve been sunning themselves and will not rush unless they think there’s something for it.”
Sam moves beside her, slightly behind, the rifle in his hands. He sounds alarmed as he whispers, “I did not know they thought quite so much.”
“Oh, yes. They’re thinking right now. Just keep walking.”
“Ivy—”
One has broken away, moving past black-arm and child, leaning forward, even reaching out as if all depth perception has fled.
“Shhh ... I know. Do not shoot. Not unless they run. That will only excite the rest. How many rounds does your rifle hold?”
“I cannot recall.”
&nbs
p; “How many are in it?”
“I am ... not sure about that either. Melchior cleaned it last.”
“I see. You are a lovely dancer.”
“Are you saying we cannot all be good at everything, or planning what to engrave on my tombstone?”
“Sam?”
“Ivy?”
“Keep your face downturned and look ahead.”
“There is ... something in the road.”
“Yes, that’s what I thought.”
“Only one? Can we walk past without it noticing if we move slowly?”
Ivy almost chuckles. She turns her head, not looking up, but seeing shifting figures in fragments through goggles without glancing at any.
The one which broke away, a slender female form, almost completely naked save for tatters of skirt still hanging from burnt black hips, is leading the rest after them. The pace has increased to a steady walk.
The one ahead, shuffling down the middle of the road, pauses, leaning one way, then the other, getting a good look.
“Drag your feet, hunch your shoulders, keep your head down. Do not present the image of a healthy human.” Ivy’s breaths are so fast the handkerchief over her mouth is drawn against parted lips with each gasp.
All painfully, intensely, terrifyingly silent. If only they made noise. If they grunted or groaned or even cursed and shouted....
“I am sorry, Ivy. I do not know what—”
“I wanted to come. Even if you had insisted against it.”
“Neither of us should have. You said they may be about.”
“Being about and being blocked in by many are two different matters.”
“Ivy, the one in the road ahead—”
“I know. You must shoot it.”
“Will that draw the others?”
“I don’t know what else to do, Sam. We cannot walk past. We cannot leave the road—that’s where they are emerging. We’re running out of time.”
“If I shoot, the ones behind will ... attack.”
“Yes. But we have a good head start. If we can reach the horses—”
“The horses are far.”
“What is your plan then? Because I haven’t a better one.”
She can hear his breath trembling. For the first time ever, Ivy wishes her cousin was beside her.
“Tell me when,” he whispers, slowly bringing the rifle to his shoulder, still walking, aiming at the one in the road shuffling uncertainly toward them.
“Can you hit it with that? We are getting awfully close for a rifle.”
“I can hit it.”
“Sam? If I’m bitten, you will shoot me, won’t you?”
“What?”
“I would do the same for you, of course.”
“You what? I will not shoot you, Ivy.”
“You will,” she says. “After you have seen one turn. You won’t hesitate the next time.”
Sam looks at her, a fresh unease in the already alarmed eyes.
“Now,” Ivy whispers.
He is just squeezing the shot off when she starts to run. The blast of the Henry disrupts deathly silence like dynamite in a graveyard. To her amazement, the bullet rips through the riser’s skull. The gray figure flies backward to dust, twitching, still reaching out.
Clutching her Colt Lightning, the other hand lifting her skirts, Ivy runs so fast she feels the muscles in her legs may rip. Up the hill, horses far ahead, dust. Have they been kicking up dust?
Something moves. Fast, dark, teeth and hands: wham. An enormous riser in farmer’s cotton shirt and suspenders crashes into her side, running to tackle her from pines at the edge of the road. Her skirt rips. Her skin rips. She is screaming, gun clutched in her right hand, unable to turn fast enough to reach the face before teeth will sink into her arm.
Crack. The huge riser is hurled sideways, crashing beside Ivy into dust with the force of the rifle’s discharge a few feet away. Sam pivots back to the right, jerking down the lever, the gun still at his shoulder, and shoots again as a companion of the huge farmer rushes them.
Ivy fights to her feet, choking, all the breath knocked from her lungs, fresh blood streaking her skirts.
Sam faces the pack now charging them, ten or fifteen strong, that tall, reaching female in the lead, eyes wide to take them in, mouth gaping. He shoots, catches her just above the eye. Struck in the head at a run, her body flips into the air, feet forward, head back, crashing to the ground, knocking two more with her.
“No! Run!” Ivy is running again, but looking back, screaming at him.
Sam fires twice more, dropping others, then follows, drawing his revolver. Too late now. She knows. The horses are scarcely shapes from here, the cold fingers of the pack almost upon them. And there. Another figure in the road. Three. Four.
No, please no. Tears in her eyes, clouding the goggles. Please.
Six in the road ahead, attracted by gun shots. Already running for them. She lifts her Colt and fires. The little gun slams back in her hand and the bullet goes who knows where. She draws back the hammer, shoots again. And again. Now both sides are almost upon them. The sound of Sam’s revolver blasts in her ears and this time one, then two, drop from ahead. So close, in a moment she shall be able to press the muzzle of her gun to a cold skull. And more. Even more of them, more dust, something running down the road toward them—their horses broken loose?
Crash, again someone hits her. This time from the left. The Colt fires, the ground vanishes below her. She is thrown clear of the road in a tangle of dust and sagebrush, crashing and rolling down the slope.
Crack, crack, crack.
Impossible sounds. How can Sam shoot so fast? Like fireworks. Like....
Sam beside her, almost on top of her, not shooting at all. Revolver in his hand, rifle on its strap at his shoulder. And she understands he hit her this time. He threw them both off the road and down this bank. But it did not work—looking up as risers stream down, still reaching for them. Only one more delay. All her life has been since the sickness first spread when she was a girl: a delay. All it has been for any of them since then. For all human kind. A long delay.
Crack, crack, crack. Still.
Risers falling, crashing around them, black blood the consistency of soft oatmeal spattering from their heads.
Sam shoves her away, firing the revolver, his back to her as he pushes her down the slope. Ivy draws back the hammer of her own gun. Another shot misses.
Horses. Horses before and above them on the road, rearing, shrieking, lashing out with forefeet as the night before. How can those insensitive brutes from the livery have become so lively? Even in panic? And why did they not run?
Through tears inside goggles, dust clouds, gun smoke, wild motion, she sees those are no livery horses. And they are not alone. Two riders face down the risers, blasting through those on the road, Sam still firing at ones turning down the slope. His gun clicks. He catches his breath. Ivy shoves her Colt into his hand. One more. Then that gun also clicks.
Another still coming at them, reaching for them. Does Melchior’s .45, jammed in the small holster, have bullets left from the night before? No. Ivy grabs for it anyway. The barrel has been rammed all the way through the holster and the cylinder is lodged in place.
Sam pushes her back. The child. Burnt and ragged in that shambles of a nightgown. Mouth wide, reaching out in silence, as if for an embrace.
Crack. It drops.
A man is yelling, curses or summons or warnings, she is not sure—all in Spanish. A seal brown horse plunges down the slope before them.
“Ivy! Give me your hand! Get up behind!” Rosalía shouts at her, reaching, catching her arm.
Ivy grabs, jumps, feels Sam’s hands lifting at her waist, and she is up on the dark horse’s back. She clutches Rosalía as Volar kicks off, lunging back up the slope onto the road. And off. Without a second’s pause, they’re flying up the road toward the tied horses. But the livery horses are not there anymore. Ivy sees snapped branches and churned dust. N
o more. So they did have some spirit when push came to shove.
Rosalía draws Volar up, slowing to a jog, then turning him to face south. Ivy struggles to pull herself into a better seat, clutching overcoat and saddle leather, unable to speak with her gasping, shaking, tearing breaths, the handkerchief somehow still fixed to her face.
“Their horses are gone!” Rosalía calls to someone.
“He can take us both.” Grip.
Ivy looks up to see the buckskin racing toward them, Grip in the saddle and Sam behind.
“They still follow,” Grip calls. “¡Quítate!”
She wheels Volar once more.
“We may lead them to town!” From Sam.
Damn the town. Good chance for them to learn to protect themselves.
With a fresh gasp, Ivy finds her voice, “It’s miles away! We will lose any before then.”
And, if they are lucky, any pack following will come upon a nice, meaty livery horse and forget about these four humans and the city beyond.
Twenty-Second
Little Girls
Despite being unable to keep up a gallop long with two riders per horse, Ivy feels almost disappointed to see the walleyed dun and white-legged chestnut a quarter-mile away. Rosalía pulls a rope off her saddle horn as they slow. Reins tangled with snapped-off branches trail about the pair’s hooves, though neither have been tripped by these burdens.
Ivy slides off Volar, struggling to keep skirts from bunching around her ribs. Socks strides up to the company, sniffing El Cohete while the stallion, ears back as he scars the ground with a forehoof, wickers menacingly. The chestnut is either dense or has no social skills in the horse world: as Sam dismounts, Socks moves on until El Cohete bites him on the neck. Fur and saliva fly. The chestnut wheels. Rosalía’s houlihan drops over his head. He manages ten feet before being yanked to a stop against Volar’s saddle horn and four planted hooves.
Rosalía chuckles. “Menso caballo.”
“Cheapest they had?” Grip asks as Ivy catches Chapo and Sam approaches the shying Socks.
What did he expect? At least they stopped here. Unlike Chucklehead, who seems to have fled the Territory last night.
Lightfall Two: Fox, Flight, Fire (Lightfall, Book 2) Page 3
