by Lila Bowen
He finally said, “It’s just a direction. The ultimate goal is the same.”
“It’s more than a direction,” Cora said, quiet as a viper.
“When the Shadow calls, I have to answer.”
“When it’s convenient,” Winifred hissed.
“This is what I got to do,” he finally shouted, all raging with desperation.
“You say that with suspicious frequency, especially when it means you don’t have to explain yourself,” Earl said, then spit in the dirt for emphasis.
Rhett wouldn’t let his head duck down, wouldn’t let his shoulders cave in like they had, long ago, when Pap was yelling his worst. There were no lies in what he’d said, no shame in what he was doing. The long and short of it was that folks wanted him to do their business first, and he knew damn well what his own business was. And his business was just more goddamn important.
“Right. So I’ll go saddle up, then. If you’re with me, you’re with me. If you’re not…”
It came out all ragged with a little break, almost a sniffle, damn his female vocal chords.
He didn’t finish the sentence.
Rhett stomped right back into the train car and slammed the door shut. As if it were in cahoots with everyone else in the camp, the damn thing clanked right back open. He gathered up his saddle and blanket, bridle and bags, and stopped to stare, for just a moment, at the puddle of blankets on the narrow bed. Such comfort could only ever be a fleeting thing. Better the hard ground and smoky fire, tough meat and tougher enemies. At least then he knew where he stood, and it was behind the trigger end of a gun.
It wasn’t as if he’d promised Cora anything. Not like he’d lain beside her, whispering pretty dreams of a ranch house and tidy board fences and a snow-white milk cow cropping green grass in the afternoon sun. They’d never spoken of the future. He’d barely known her a few days. And yet he knew, down to his bones, that he was saying good-bye to something of value, something that he might not get the chance to reject a second time. Well, then. As he’d already stated, destiny wasn’t a biddable thing, and neither was Rhett Walker. At least now he knew who his true friends were.
He hopped out of the train car with determination and headed for the little knot of horses, where Sam and Dan were already busy with their saddles. Earl, in donkey form and therefore vastly preferable in outlook, waited nearby, ears laid back and tail twitching irritably. Rhett noted that Cora’s draft horse, Samson, was gone, and when he looked to the dilapidated open wagon Cora had taken from the train camp originally, he found it abandoned and already lightly dusted with sand, as if it were slowly being consumed by the prairie. Cora was backing the big gelding into place between the traces of Winifred’s colorful, cozy purple wagon, once the property of a witch and taken over her dead body. That made sense – Rhett knew the closed-top purple wagon was altogether more comfortable, especially if there was any kind of weather. Winifred was nearby, tossing her saddle onto Kachina’s back.
So that’s how it was? His women splitting off? Ranging against him?
No. That wasn’t right. They weren’t his. They only belonged to themselves. And that’s why they were about to go and do something stupid. Because it might’ve been the right thing to do, but it was damn well the wrong time to do it.
He walked toward Cora, trying to make his face look mild, or kind, or something that wasn’t his usual rough, brutish, angry expression.
“Cora, I know I can’t tell you what to do, but I got a bad feeling about you going off alone, and —”
“I won’t be alone. Winifred will go with me. We are quite capable.”
“Honey, I know you think that, but —”
“Don’t call me honey.”
He looked down, struggled to pull his thoughts together in an intelligent and persuasive manner, which had never been his strong point.
“Look. Cora. You go south now without me, chances are you’ll die. Both of you.” He looked at Winifred’s still-flat belly. “All three of you. You got to trust me on this.”
Cora looked back to Winifred and shook her head. “Men. They’ll tell you anything to get what they want.”
“Yes, except Rhett actually believes what he’s saying,” Winifred responded. Then, looking daggers at Rhett, she tightened her girth, hard, making Kachina squeal. “You have to do the things you have to do, and the rest of us are left to choose. I choose to help Cora save her sister. She’s worried and scared, and that will only get worse with every mile west, every mile that takes you farther away from Meimei. Can you tell us anything about where Trevisan is going besides south?”
His hands made fists at his sides. Asking the Shadow for information was like asking a storm cloud the time of day. But he could feel the answer churning up. “The gulf. He’s going to the sea.”
Rhett could almost see the wheels turning behind Winifred’s dark eyes. “Yes. A ship. It’s the fastest way to get… would he go east or west?”
“East,” Rhett said without thinking.
“Where the money is. Where the railroads start. He could get a new engine there and just follow his tracks right back to where you found him and start all over again with a new crop of monster slaves. So we have to stop him before he reaches the sea.”
“Stop her,” Cora added softly, her hand on Samson’s soft nose.
Rhett wasn’t sure how much her was left in Meimei’s body, but he wasn’t about to add to Cora’s sadness – or make her hate him any more.
“Y’all got guns? Ammunition? A spare horse?”
Winifred’s smile was wry, and it made Rhett feel a right fool. “I knew how to travel and fight before you did, Rhett Walker. And we women have our secret weapons.” Rhett’s eyes strayed to the girl’s chest, and she laughed her old, carefree laugh. “I become a sneaky coyote, and she becomes a gigantic dragon, from what I understand. Fool.”
She swung up into the saddle and checked her bags with an easy grace, her hair whipping back in the wind. Once she was up there, it was like she became one with her horse, and Rhett couldn’t even remember which foot wasn’t quite right. He’d once thought women soft, foolish, useless things, but not this woman. Not either of them. Cora finished buckling Samson’s harness and climbed up to the wagon seat before Rhett could offer her a hand. She clicked her tongue and urged the big gelding on, the wagon wheels creaking free of the now dry dirt.
Neither girl told Rhett good-bye. Or that they were sorry.
No one said a thing.
Rhett watched them for longer than he should have, feeling a peculiar ache in his bound chest. He didn’t love either of the women. Wasn’t even sure he liked Winifred that much. Didn’t know Cora half as well as he would’ve liked to. But they had become part of his chosen family, his posse, the few people in the whole goddamn world he’d take a bullet for. He’d give ten of Earl for either of ’em.
Winifred led on Kachina with Cora following behind in the wagon, one of Dan’s old chestnut geldings ponied off the back and walking calmly enough. They needed nothing from Rhett, and he didn’t necessarily need them, but he didn’t like the thought of them out there on their own. The world was unkind to women, especially those without male protection, and doubly so for women who weren’t lily white and wearing fine dresses and hoopskirts. Turning into a coyote wouldn’t do you any good around a feller who’d just as soon shoot a coyote as an Injun if either creature looked at him wrong. Just the thought of it made Rhett quiver up with anger again. He needed something to do besides burn to follow the women, so he hitched up his gun belt and walked on over to the little herd of horses and the men pretending not to watch him like he was a keg of gunpowder sitting too near a messy fire.
“It’ll be good to see the Rangers again,” Sam said, his usual cheerful self.
“I wonder what trophies can be had on a sand wyrm. Perhaps Jiddy has worm guts hanging from his belt.” Dan chuckled, and Rhett joined him. Hating Jiddy was one of the few things they completely agreed upon.
Earl
just switched his tail and took a few impatient steps westward.
“I know, I know,” Rhett grumbled as he tossed his blanket on Ragdoll’s skinny back.
Dan’s hand landed on his shoulder. “Choice is what defines life. I agree that they made the wrong one. We both know your choice is right. Let’s move on.”
“You ain’t worried about your sister and her get?”
“Not until there’s a reason to worry. I trust her. You should trust her, too. We must all move forward.”
“Feels like we’re just running back and forth to the Outpost. Like we’re asking the Captain for permission to do the right thing.”
“Just because you have a feeling doesn’t mean it’s real,” Dan said.
Rhett didn’t know if that was good sense or an insult, so he focused on getting his saddle in place and cinched and sliding the dried-out bridle over Ragdoll’s fuzzy forelock. He could use a day at the Outpost, oiling his gear and replenishing his bullets among the men. No fractious women goading him on. Nobody working him to death or trying to cut on him or… inhabit him. Whatever Trevisan had tried that had landed the alchemist in the body of the six-year-old Chine girl Cora was now chasing, brave fool that she apparently was.
The men were soon in the saddle and checking their kits for the last time before leaving, Sam and Dan just as ready to hit the trail as Rhett was. Cora’s wagon was a bright purple smudge against the glowing orange prairie, headed dead south. Rhett look west, and the air tasted better that way. When he looked south again, the air tasted… wrong. Like poison and dust, and… something almost metallic and powdery… something so familiar…
He turned Ragdoll’s head south and kicked her hard as all get-out. She sprung awake, furious, and leaped into an angry gallop. Before Dan and Sam could join in, Rhett heard the women screaming.
For a fast horse, it felt like Ragdoll ran forever, time stretching out with her scraggly mane as Rhett lay low and clobbered her ribs with his heels. The purple wagon was stopped up ahead, and the ponied chestnut gelding was pulling back against his rope, digging his heels into the dirt to escape.
“What is it?” Rhett shouted as he drew his pony up near Winifred and held on tight as Ragdoll jigged and struggled to back away.
“The ground,” she yelled, jerking her chin since both her hands were struggling to keep Kachina from rearing.
Just ahead, the dirt was collapsing in, sand dribbling down the sides of a new sinkhole. Plants pulled free from the earth and tumbled hellward, and Cora hollered at Samson in her own language, no doubt begging the big feller to back up, to back away from the ever-widening hole. Rhett jumped down off Ragdoll, swatted her rump with his hat to urge her away, and hurried to take Samson’s traces in hand, snapping the leather to make the big bastard move. Inch by inch, step by step, his rump nearly against the wagon seat, Samson pushed Cora farther from the danger. Even still, Rhett felt the ground trembling under his boots. The air smelled like evil, like poison, like something Rhett had smelled only once before, in the alchemist’s car.
“Get away!” he yelled to Winifred. “It’s Trevisan —”
As if the evil bastard had heard his name called and had a trap ready to answer, the air filled with a clicking sound as the hole in the earth bubbled up with a mass of wriggling scorpions. Rhett watched it as he bullied Samson backward, but his brain still didn’t quite believe it. Hundreds, thousands, millions of scorpions boiled up and crawled out onto the prairie in a writhing mass of murder. Claws clicked, tails snapped, and the horses made noises Rhett had never heard come out of horses before, a mix of rage, terror, and desperation. His eye flashed down to his boots in caution. For all the times he’d shaken them carefully to avoid a single scorpion, now he was facing an entire cyclone of the damned things, and all he wanted to do was run.
But this was alchemist magic, and he knew running wouldn’t goddamn work.
Especially for folks who weren’t the Shadow.
The first thing he did was hurry to Winifred and use her dangling lariat to swat Kachina on the rump, sending the surprised horse into a leaping spin and a gallop.
“But —” was all Winifred managed before she was half a mile away, clinging to a fast-as-lightning horse that looked like she’d be all too happy to never turn around again.
Then Rhett was going after Samson and the wagon, pulling the big horse down from his stomping and rearing and carefully walking him around in a circle to avoid breaking the poles holding him to the wagon. Another swat, and Samson was running away, dragging a screaming Cora, a bumping purple wagon, and a terrified chestnut pony with him. Hopefully the big horse would run straight and not cause the wagon to topple over, crushing Cora perhaps beyond what her dragon magic could fix. Rhett’s throat whimpered without his consent, and he turned, wholly unburdened by people and horses, to face whatever trap Trevisan must’ve left for him.
Rhett’s fingers itched for his weapons, but it wasn’t like a piddly ol’ knife or two fine guns could take down a thousand separate, wiggling critters. They aimed for him now, swirling over and around one another like a twister, buzzing and clicking as they came. A low hum started up somewhere, a sound Rhett had only heard one time before, in Trevisan’s car. The scorpions glopped together in a big ball, and Rhett went to rip off his clothes to turn into the bird, who could at least eat these little bastards like he had Trevisan’s ravens. But his fingers froze on his shirt buttons.
The ball of scorpions was… changing. Shifting. Becoming something else.
Because of course fighting the alchemist’s magic, even without the alchemist present, wasn’t going to be easy.
“What are you gonna be, you dumb son of a bitch?” Rhett murmured to himself, whipping out his Bowie knife.
The scorpions swarmed and clicked and melded, fusing together into a giant black carapace the size of a shack with pincers as long as a man and six horse-tall legs.
“That’s a big scorpion,” Dan commented from atop his dancing chestnut.
“Get out of here, Dan. This thing only wants to fight with me.”
“Rangers don’t let Rangers fight alone,” Sam added from his blue roan.
“Goddammit, Sam! Get out of here. This don’t concern you,” Rhett shouted, worried for the first time. “It’ll chop you in half, if it can.”
“Then I’ll stay out of reach.” With a mad grin, Sam maneuvered his horse out of range and started taking potshots at the giant scorpion with his repeater pistols.
“What’s your plan, Shadow?” Dan asked.
Rhett looked up at him, briefly, before refocusing on the approaching critter.
“I reckon you can’t kill a thing that’s not dead, so we just need to stop it and… take it apart. You two keep it occupied.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Shut up and watch, Dan.”
Rhett ran out of range and finished stripping out of his clothes, dropping everything in a pile. He left the knife on top and stared at it hard while he transformed into the big bird. The lammergeier, the lambhawk, the grandpappy of buzzards. None of those words meant anything to the ugly, red-eyed bird now clutching a Bowie knife’s hilt in one clawed foot as it hobbled and flapped up into the sky.
To the bird, the scorpion wasn’t an animal, a natural thing. It was a man-thing, cobbled together of trash and poison and sticky strings of magic, but Rhett’s will clung to the bird, urging it to fly up behind the scorpion as it snapped at Dan’s dancing horse with giant pincers. Although Rhett’s first transformation had occurred in midair as he fell from the Cannibal Owl’s lair, turning him from man to bird (or girl to bird, then), this was the first time that the transformation had reversed in midair. Rhett popped into his human skin and fell, arms flailing, almost dropping the knife. Naked as the day he was born, he landed right on top of the curve of the scorpion’s tail and dug his fingers and nine toes into the little gaps between the plating.
The tail started to whip around, once the critter felt him there. It curle
d and uncurled its tail before striking the ground, mere feet away from Dan. All the while, a buck-nekkid Rhett clung to the monster like it was a wild bronc he was determined to tame. Even amid the pandemonium, it did not escape Rhett that Dan almost laughed at his predicament, and he swore he’d make him pay, later, for that indignity.
As the tail rose back up and paused, Rhett was able to focus, hold tight with his left hand, and slash off the poisoned barb at the tail’s tip with his Bowie knife. It took some sawing, and hot black ichor splashed over his wrist, burning like hellfire. But he didn’t stop.
“Aim for its legs!” he shouted before pushing himself off backward into the air, where he pinwheeled for a moment before turning himself inside out and into the ugly, one-eyed bird. He lost track of the knife while he found his wings, damn his clumsy talons, and it clattered to the ground covered in poison tar.
The bird flapped hard for where Ragdoll stood, closer than where any horse with sense would be to such a creature. His mare watched him, canny and disapproving, and didn’t so much as stamp a hoof when he landed on the ground and transformed again into a bedraggled man with an arm still slightly smoking and splashed with black.
“If I don’t scare you, I reckon you’re dumber than you look,” he said, but kindly.
The mare just snorted.
He walked up to her barefoot, picking his way around the prickly bits of scrub as quickly as possible, and pulled his lariat off his saddle. For just a moment, he considered swinging up into the saddle in his altogether and running back into the fray, but he wouldn’t put the mare at risk. Like Sam, Ragdoll was all too mortal, too easily broken. And Rhett couldn’t do without her.
“Stay here,” he warned her, and then he was running back to where Dan and Sam were harrying the pissed-off scorpion with their guns.
Out of six legs, two were plum gone, and one was threatening to fall off, dripping black goop into the dirt. An arrow stuck out of one of its great pincers, which couldn’t pinch anymore but still made an effective club. Sam shot the critter again, snapping off that dangling leg and making the huge scorpion list to the side.
