Malice of Crows: The Shadow, Book Three

by Lila Bowen

  “I got your horses ready,” Rhett said, trying to sound casual.

  “Is this because I limp now? Do you think we’re helpless?” Winifred shot back.

  “Of course not. I seen you both in action. I just… well, I ain’t by nature particularly thoughtful, as your brother has been kind enough to point out, so I thought I’d give it a try.”

  Winifred just glared, but Cora softened and smiled. “Thank you, Rhett,” she said, taking Samson’s bridle and backing him between the traces. “The sooner we’re on the road, the better.”

  “This doesn’t fix things,” Winifred said finally, snatching the mare’s reins from Rhett.

  “Well, what would, then?”

  Winifred mounted up, ignoring the hand Rhett held out to her, like he even knew how to help an angry woman into a saddle.

  “Talk to your Captain and take me with you to find Cora’s sister. That’s to start.”

  Rhett’s jaw flat-out dropped. “Take you, a breeding woman, on an adventure to kill an alchemist that’s cut toes off goddamn dragons? Your brother would stab me himself if I tried that.”

  Dan walked up just then with his usual fantastic timing. “Much as I’d like to stab you a few times, supporting my sister means letting her make her own decisions. The last time I tried to take care of her by leaving her behind in a proper town with a proper job, she escaped and hunted me down and tore me a new one. It’s her body. It’s her baby. It’s her life. If she wants to join the hunt, it’s her decision.”

  “Well, I reckon I won’t stop her, then. Why’s she so goddamn mad at me?”

  Dan’s smile was wry and vexful. “Women talk, Rhett. She knows what you’ve been up to.”

  “And that’s my own goddamn decision!”

  “I told you this would happen.”

  Winifred snorted and looked down her nose at them. “The two of you are so kind and gentlemanly, talking about me like I’m not here.”

  Dan shrugged. “Breeding women can be… sensitive.”

  “I’ll sensitive your damn hide,” Winifred hissed.

  With a long sigh, Rhett shook his head. “I will never in my life figure out what it is you two want me to be.” He turned to walk back to the horses, who he at least understood and who didn’t talk back.

  “Sensible, Rhett,” Dan shouted. “We just want you to be sensible.”

  “And smart,” Winifred added. “Loyal, too.”

  “Goddamn coyotes,” Rhett muttered, tightening his cinch and swinging into the saddle. They wanted a hell of a lot more than that, but damned if he knew what it was.

  “Don’t let ’em get to you,” Sam said. “He’s right. Breeding women are always frachetty, and I reckon Dan feels like he’s got to protect her.”

  “What do you think, Sam? Am I doing things wrong?”

  Sam shook his shaggy blond hair. “Nobody’s ever done it before, so I reckon there’s no wrong way. No leader can make all his followers happy. Look at the Rangers. Captain’s a fair man, but Jiddy and the Scarsdales question everything he says and grumble afterward. A good leader needs folks to speak up and keep him walking the straight and narrow, or else he just becomes a tyrant.”

  As they trotted up ahead to where Earl waited, switching his tail impatiently, Rhett considered.

  “That’s pretty fancy talk, Sam,” he admitted. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  “I had some schooling,” Sam said, chest puffed up. “But I mostly learned it from this older feller on a ranch where I worked one summer. His name was Monty, and he had a lot of fine thoughts. Helped me grow up, Monty did. Wonder what ever happened to that old coot?”

  Rhett’s breath stopped in his chest, but he tried to hide the terror on his face. He knew what had happened to Monty. He’d held Monty as the kind old feller had died, ripped up by chupacabras and a stray bullet – from Rhett’s gun. But Sam didn’t know about that part of his life, didn’t know Rhett used to be Nettie Lonesome, couldn’t ever know it was Rhett’s fault that Monty was dead. By the time Nettie had taken her place at the Double TK Ranch under the name Nat, Sam had already been a Ranger. Monty had helped her along just as he’d helped Sam along. And Monty’s death was the thing that had sent Nettie and Ragdoll on the run – to the Rangers, and to becoming Rhett and the Shadow.

  “He sounds like a right fine feller,” Rhett said, his voice husky.

  “He was. I learned a lot that summer. Nobody knew more about gentling colts.” He looked at Rhett, eyes sparkling. “’Cept you, I reckon.”

  They rode on in silence, and soon the clop of hooves and the creak of the wagon followed. Rhett was their compass, always in front, always following the Shadow’s tug. Their path hadn’t wavered, but there was an… urgency to the pull. Whatever needed to be done, Rhett reckoned, was now on a timetable. Although every step toward his goal lessened the tightness in his gut, every step also carried increased dread. What had happened to the Rangers that had such a powerful call? What fight could be more important and more terrible than the fight against Trevisan?

  Rhett tried to swallow down the ball of worry, replace it with optimism, or something like it.

  “Good weather, plenty of water,” he shouted. “Let’s get some miles while the getting’s good!” Turning to Sam with a grin, he took off his hat, whooped, and slapped Ragdoll’s rump. She felt it, too, that electric thrill in the air, and the appaloosa mare eagerly sprung into her gallop, low and flat to the prairie, ears tight to her skull. Sam caught up a few moments later on his blue roan, whooping and hollering, his grin a mad and vibrant thing. Dan and Winifred joined them, likewise urging their mounts in the race, their troubles momentarily forgotten. This joy and peace – it was what kept Rhett going even when things seemed especially hopeless. No darkness could take it from him, the feeling of flying, of freedom, of blue sky and a swift horse. It didn’t matter what he was running from or toward, there were moments of mercy that reminded him that being alive was a gift, and that folks experiencing joy didn’t stop to bellyache about it.

  A wobble up ahead made Rhett rein Ragdoll down to a trot and throw out a hand in warning, and his friends fell back behind him. They knew, by now, that look. The one that said there might be trouble up ahead. Following his belly, he saw a black smear on the prairie, far off. From here, it might’ve been anything: Rangers, chupacabras, a winged buffalo, maybe even Bill the Sasquatch. Rhett didn’t sense malevolence – more just curiosity.

  “Let me trot up first,” he said, shooing them back. Then his eye met Dan’s. “Keep ’em safe.”

  “But Rhett,” Sam started.

  Rhett gave him a grin. “Don’t worry. There’s enough room out here for more sand. Just stay back so I won’t worry for you.”

  Sam gave him a nod, and Rhett trotted on out toward the monstery black blot.

  As he drew closer, he felt something familiar about whatever waited up ahead. Two figures stood from where they’d been hunched over something on the ground. Rhett squinted, hunting for the sun’s gleam on a six-shooter or the flicker of an arrow being nocked, but the two figures just stood there, leaning in like they were whispering. Like they were worried, too.

  A little closer, and he recognized them and breathed out a sigh of relief. Taking his hand off his gun, he cantered the rest of the way.

  “Beans and Notch! Well, this is a fine howdy-do.”

  “Red-Eye Ned,” Beans said, using Rhett’s alias and nickname from the train camp and giving a respectful nod that Notch copied. “What’re you doing out here?”

  “Getting my people to safety back west,” Rhett said, not sure how far he could trust these two fellers who had been part of his work detail at Trevisan’s hellhole. Spending time with a large group in a small train car meant that Rhett knew the scent of their unwashed bodies, knew if they were costive, knew what they murmured in their sleep, yet he had no idea to whom their allegiance lay when they were out from under Trevisan’s thumb and Digby Freeman’s management of their crew. “Where are you-
all headed?”

  Beans waved an arm over a young buffalo torn jaggedly open. “We were headed west, looking for our people. We lost our mule among the buffalo, but at least we got enough food now. Pretty tough to butcher without proper knives, but Notch’s claws came in handy.”

  Rhett saw now that the buffalo’s belly had been scored open by four sharp slices. He looked at Notch with a new respect and interest. The man had never struck him as a predator, twitchy and proud and skulky as he was, but he had enough power to slice open a carcass and a strong enough sort of mind to focus it in animal form – and not to eat Beans. He wanted to ask what Notch was but knew by now that such things were beyond personal and couldn’t just be asked outright like he was inquiring about the weather.

  “You want some buffalo, Ned?” Notch asked.

  The rest of Rhett’s posse rode up just then, reining their horses in at a respectful distance. Quick as a blink, Beans had a heavy stone in hand, seemingly out of nowhere, and Notch had a railroad spike held like a knife.

  “Easy, fellers,” Rhett said, hands in the air. “These are my friends. They ain’t gonna hurt you.”

  “But he’s a Ranger,” Notch said, pointing to the shiny upside-down star on Sam’s shirt. “Oh, shit my britches, so’s he.” His shaking finger swung to Dan.

  Rhett took a deep breath. “Well, as it so happens, so am I.” He moved his vest aside to show his own star, the one the Captain had given him special when naming him Scout. “But we ain’t here on official business. And if you’re accustomed to the ways of the Lamartine Outpost, you’ll find Captain Walker and the men of the Las Moras Outpost farther west to be more than fair. We want no trouble, and we mean you no harm.” Neither feller had put down his impromptu weapon, though, so Rhett added, “And if you mean us trouble, for whatever godforsaken reason, know that we’ve got enough firepower to turn you into dust.” He sunk his thumbs into his gun belt to highlight this fact, in case his old carmates had any doubts.

  Notch and Beans looked at each other, and the air seemed to squeak out of them both.

  “Well, shit, Ned,” Beans said. “We don’t want trouble. We just want to get home alive.”

  “That’s all we want, too.” Rhett looked in turn at Sam, Dan, and Winifred, then made a decision they very well might hate. “If you need safe passage, you can ride with us, at least to Las Moras. We got a wagon and a few spare horses. Even an ornery, bony old mule, if you’re missing yours too much. Long as you’ll mind your manners, pull your share, and…” Here he looked at Beans in particular. “Sleep downwind.”

  It was telling, how Beans and Notch both looked to Sam as if hunting for his agreement. He gaped at them, somewhat bewildered. “He’s the boss,” Sam said, pointing at Rhett. “Don’t look to me.”

  Rhett nearly swallowed his tongue, hearing a white man say that.

  “We got to talk a minute,” Beans said, and he and Notch hurried a bit away, around a skinny little tree that didn’t do a damn thing to hide them as they whispered and gesticulated. From back here, they looked even scrawnier and more run-down that Rhett recalled. How quickly he’d bounced back from his own hell on wheels, once he was surrounded by his friends.

  “Taking in more strays,” Winifred mused. “Rhett, you’re getting soft.”

  Rhett blushed and fiddled with his saddle strings. “Well, Dan wanted me to do more than kill, and I reckon taking in Trevisan’s lost folks is the right thing to do.” Rhett shifted in the saddle, uneasy. “Y’all don’t mind, do you? They’re peaceable enough fellers, and they deserve a chance.”

  Dan nudged his horse closer. “It’s good of you to offer them passage, and I won’t argue. But it would be best if they found a stop before Las Moras. The Captain took to you, and he tolerates me, but he’s not as kind as we’d both hope to Injuns without our particular skills. He’s not as bad as Haskell, but he’s still a white man with a job to do. The Durango Rangers as a whole are more prone to shoot Injun shifters than invite them in for tea, you know. That’s their job. We’re lucky our Captain uses his conscience more than his Henry, but he won’t owe any respect to brown fellers he can’t use.”

  That made Rhett grit his teeth; he hated hearing anything bad said against the Captain, even if he knew in his heart it was probably true. Tolerance only went so deep, in most men.

  “Any other thoughts?” Rhett asked, his eye on Notch and Beans.

  “If they try to touch me, I’ll knife them,” Winifred said coldly. Rhett raised a surprised eyebrow at her, and she sniffed and added, “Men without tribes forget their manners sometimes, especially after they’ve been prisoners.”

  “Well, obviously that’d be your right,” Rhett allowed. “It’s only fair. Hell, I’d be second in line with a knife to finish ’em off if they dared. Sam?”

  “We’re starting to run low on ponies, I guess, but they could maybe double up. Or ride in the wagon, if Cora don’t mind.”

  “Then let me speak for Earl, since he hasn’t bothered to ride out.” Rhett played at Earl’s thick Irish brogue. “Oh, and so you’ll be taking on more mouths to feed, lad, and that’s two more jobs gone in whatever city we find. Perhaps you could start a collection of injured puppies and hungry vipers. That sound about like him?”

  Sam chuckled, and even Dan smiled. About that time, Beans and Notch returned, looking as hangdog as Rhett remembered them, like they’d forgotten how to hold up their heads and like their arms had forgotten what it was like not being weighed down by a dull pickax.

  “We’d be glad to travel with you awhile, but we’ll earn our keep,” Beans said, chin up and scrawny bird-chest out. “Like you said.”

  Rhett held his hand out and slipped his boot from his stirrup. “Well, come on, then. We got miles to ride yet, a fire to build, and supper to cook, and none of it will wait.” Beans took his hand and landed in the saddle behind him. The man was so slight, Ragdoll didn’t even dance or snort. Rhett was glad to see Dan putting a hand down to Notch, who was agile enough to hop up on the chestnut gelding, even though Dan preferred to ride without a saddle. Turning to find the wagon and Earl not too far off, Rhett kicked his mare on and followed the wobble in his stomach until they were back on track, having gone a little off course to pick up the fellers.

  “Good to see you, Ned,” Beans said.

  “Call me Rhett.”

  “Rhett, then. And why ain’t your eye red anymore?”

  Rhett sighed. It was a long story, but he didn’t like to have lies on his tally count, so he told it, and loud enough for Notch to hear, too. His friends listened quietly as they rode across the wide prairie in a loose bunch, and he realized that in their haste to return to the train camp and then get on the road to Las Moras, he’d neglected to tell them the full story of his time in Trevisan’s camp, living and working and suffering alongside these men as they carved land and laid tracks for a monster. They didn’t ask any questions, thank goodness, and Notch and Beans didn’t seem to mind too much that he’d lied to them about his name and station, considering those lies had been in service to their freedom.

  “So you don’t know if you’re even Comanche?” Beans asked.

  Rhett shook his head. “Not for certain, but a feller can hope. This is my original pouch, the one I’ve had as long as I can remember.” He pulled the pouch out from under his shirt and held it over his back to Beans, who considered it briefly before handing it back.

  “Reckon it’s not your fault if you don’t know,” he said. Then, to Dan, he murmured a string of syllables, but Dan just shook his head.

  “Different tribe,” Dan said. Then he said something in his language.

  Both Beans and Notch shook their heads this time.

  “At least we all got English,” Notch noted. “Who’s the lady?”

  Rhett realized that he’d forgotten introductions and felt like a right ass. “Well, that’s Winifred, and you’re riding with her brother, Dan. This up here is Sam Hennessy, and my full name is Rhett Walker. You’ll see Earl and
Cora soon. Me and these two fellers are Durango Rangers of the Las Moras Outpost, and we’re headed back there to report to our Captain.”

  “I never heard of Rangers taking on folks with Injun blood,” Beans said.

  “The world is changing,” Dan said again and more forcefully.

  “Reckon it’s up to us to make sure it’s always for the better,” Rhett added.

  They rode on toward the setting sun, quiet and maybe hopeful.

  They rode as far and as long as they could, stopping near the usual sort of scraggly little creek and setting up camp at dusk. Notch and Beans were not bold men, and watching them skulk around the campfire like beaten dogs, Rhett doubted they had ever been so. Their clothes were the color of soot, and they clearly hadn’t stopped to wash since Rhett had watched them depart the camp, perched double on the swayback of an old mule.

  As the wagon rode up and they saw Cora, both fellers took on a look of terror and held their hats against their chests like shields. Rhett wasn’t sure if that was because they knew she could saw parts of them off at will and magically seal the stumps over or because they’d heard all the camp’s stories about the eventual revenge of dragons held hostage. Still, it was a relief that they wouldn’t be chasing after the women. Beans even asked Winifred, softly, if he could fetch her anything and seemed relatively in awe of the girl, despite her grouchiness.

  “Got any dice?” Notch asked, settling down by the fire Earl was building out of twigs, and the Irishman jabbed him in the side with a stout stick.

  “No dice. Work or get out,” he grunted. “Not that anyone asked me if we needed more mouths to feed.”

  “Well, with all the hunting you do, we naturally have more than enough meat already,” Rhett drawled.

  In response, Earl growled, and Rhett moved over to Sam and Dan. “You fellers want to go scare up some grub?” he asked.

  Dan looked at him like he was a damn fool. “All three of us go off and leave my breeding sister alone with strangers? They’re your friends, Rhett. You stay behind with the women. Sam and I will go.” He jerked his chin at Sam and began walking away, and Sam gave Rhett a sheepish shrug, took up his rifle, and followed. Without a word, Winifred unwound her sling and hurried to catch up with them.