Riders on the Storm

by Rob Blackwell

  “My sister has a special medicine to her,” Miranda said, her voice so serious it made Jules want to laugh.

  “Don’t fall for her Indian mumbo jumbo,” Jules said. “Her people often put faith in ‘special medicine.’ You’ve heard of Crazy Horse, right? He was a warrior from her tribe. He followed a special ritual that he claimed meant he couldn’t be hit by bullets. What was it again, Mira? He had to tie his hair a certain way, couldn’t take anything for himself? It’s why he didn’t take scalps, supposedly.”

  Miranda was scowling at her in the firelight.

  “It’s best not to make fun of things you don’t understand, sister,” she said. “And Crazy Horse wasn’t killed by any bullet. He died in the custody of the Army.”

  She spat on the ground after she said it.

  “He was quite a leader,” Will said. “I’m sorry for what happened. It wasn’t supposed to go that way.”

  Miranda made a clucking sound. “Warrior? Yes. Leader? No. He was no chief. Our warriors followed him because he was brave and strong. He and my sister have that in common.”

  “And you’re saying she has the same magic to her?” Luke asked, his eyes narrowed.

  “I thought you were too smart for such things,” Jules chided him.

  He gazed at her. “Your sister is right. It’s unwise to mock what you don’t understand.”

  “There’s no magic in this world, believe me,” Jules said. “My father said it was stupid to put faith in such tales.”

  “Oh, really?” Luke asked. “Did my eyes deceive me, or were we chased by a storm yesterday? One that changed course to follow us? And we’ve encountered those Vipers. That and much more can be found in these parts. Isn’t that magic?”

  Jules shook her head. “That’s different. It’s just something we don’t understand, not magic.”

  “Is there a difference?” Will asked.

  “Damn straight there is,” Jules replied. “Some of Mira’s ancestors never saw a gun before our people traded weapons with some of their enemies. They didn’t understand it when they got shot. Doesn’t make it magic.”

  Miranda grunted.

  “My sister is lying to you both,” she said. “She knows she has the medicine. She just pretends it does not exist. She bears a mark on her—”

  “Shut that chatty little mouth of yours right now, Mira.”

  But Will was looking at Miranda in surprise. “You talking about her birthmark?”

  “Good God, here we go,” Jules said.

  “That’s no birthmark,” Miranda said.

  “She said it was a birthmark,” Will said, looking from Jules to Miranda.

  “She told you a lot of things that weren’t true, Will Starling,” Miranda said. “That was the least of them.”

  Jules stood up. “Can we drop it now, Miranda? I don’t want to hear this story.”

  Her sister glared at her. “They deserve to know.”

  “Why? It was just some crazy old woman. It has nothing to do with anything.”

  “Doesn’t it? Will was right. You rode straight at Rezzor’s men and walked away without a scratch. Then you strode toward six bandits and shot them all dead and they never touched you.”

  “That was skill, not magic,” Jules replied.

  “I never said you lacked skill,” Miranda said. “But don’t those odds seem unfavorable to you?”

  Jules scowled.

  “Tell us the story already,” Will said, still looking between Jules and her sister. “I should have known it wasn’t a birthmark.”

  “It’s a tattoo,” Miranda said.

  “You let a man put ink on you in that spot?” Will asked. Even in the dim light of the fire, Jules could see Will blushing. Jules looked at Luke.

  “It’s not that bad,” she said. “It’s on my lower back. You’d think it was on my milky white thighs the way Will talks about it. And no, it wasn’t a man that did it.”

  Luke appeared nonplussed, but Will’s blush deepened further. She’d forgotten how sensitive he was. That wasn’t it, exactly. She’d forgotten how sensitive polite society was. She’d been raised around bandits all her life, and only taught proper etiquette so she could pass among the right kind of people as part of a job. Will, of course, had been raised right. It was rather fun to watch his embarrassment.

  “What is the tattoo of?” Luke asked.

  “It’s a squiggle of lines,” Jules said.

  “Let me see,” he said.

  She laughed, but Luke stared at her, deadly serious.

  “If you think she’s just going to—” Will started.

  Jules stood up, walked over to Luke and turned around, pushing up her shirt in the process. She didn’t have to push it very far.

  “Sally!” Will said, sounding thoroughly scandalized.

  “That’s not my name,” she said, eying him evenly. In truth, she hadn’t been about to show Luke anything until Will objected. Something about him speaking for her just pushed her in the other direction. She wasn’t his property. She didn’t belong to anyone.

  And the tattoo truly was just a bunch of squiggles that meant nothing to her. There was a line in the center that ended in a circle, and two that linked up in the center and spread out into different designs. On the right, it looked vaguely like the claw of a crab, while on the left it formed an upside-down T. It was nothing to look at.

  Luke looked at it quickly and then turned away. “Who gave it to you?”

  “An Oriental woman,” Jules said, walking back to where she’d been standing earlier. “Miranda and I met her when we were children.”

  “We went to see a traveling show,” Miranda said. “We were there to see the cowboys do tricks and take part in a sharpshooting competition. While we were waiting, we found the woman in a tent toward the back. She practically forced us inside.”

  “Let me guess,” Will said. “She had an accent, spoke of ancient wisdoms and the like? I’ve seen a few of that ilk in Chicago.”

  Miranda shook her head. “No, if anything she was… refined. She spoke English flawlessly. She had jet black hair and her teeth were straight and white. She was like no one I’d ever seen. As soon as she saw Jules, she insisted on telling her fortune.”

  “What did she tell you?” Luke asked.

  “Stuff and nonsense,” Jules said dismissively.

  But Luke didn’t look like he thought it was a joke. He watched her with his careful eyes as Jules sat back on her rock.

  “She knew who you were,” Miranda said, sounding defensive. “She said you were the daughter of a legendary outlaw.”

  “She probably heard that from gossip,” Jules replied.

  “And she said you were destined to be a great hero,” Miranda said. “It was your destiny to help others.”

  Jules laughed out loud. “I told you it was nonsense. I’m not a hero and saving others is not in my repertoire.”

  “Tell that to my men you came back for,” Will said.

  “Well, I would, Will, but seeing as how they’re all dead, it would be a might bit impractical at this juncture,” Jules said, her amusement turning to annoyance. “Mira, let it go.”

  “She begged Jules to let her give the tattoo,” Miranda said. “She said Jules needed it to face what was coming.”

  Jules remembered the day well. As Miranda talked, she could practically smell the scents of the fair—the musky odor of nearby horses and people, and exotic food being sold by the vendors nearby. Miranda’s recollection was good, but Jules knew it exactly.

  “You must let me give you this, child,” the old woman had said. “You will need it to face the storm that is coming.”

  Storm. Had she really said the word storm or was that an invention of her memory, given what had just happened? She distinctly recalled her using the word storm. She hadn’t thought anything of it until now.

  She remembered the way the woman’s eyes had bored into her. It reminded her of how Luke was staring at her now.

  “If you didn’t
believe in it, why did you let her give you the mark?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Jules said. “She was insistent, I guess.”

  Miranda was shaking her head again. Jules was beginning to regret bringing her sister along on this trip.

  “No, no, no,” Miranda said. “Don’t lie to them. She promised you something if you got the mark.”

  Jules stared at her. If she could have killed with her look, she would have done so. But Miranda didn’t back off.

  “Something that didn’t come true,” Jules said. “I don’t know why you want to trouble them with this tomfoolery, but I don’t have to listen to it any longer.”

  With that, she did what she should have in the beginning. She stomped off into the prairie. She remembered the old woman’s words well enough without Miranda making her relive them.

  “Come, child, this is important,” she said. “If you get this mark, you will receive a great boon. And you will learn many important things.”

  “Like what?” Jules had said, her hand on her hip, skeptical even as a ten-year-old girl. Miranda had stood silently behind her, her wide eyes taking in all the trinkets and totems in the woman’s tent.

  “What do you most want to know?”

  There was one thing, a subject she couldn’t broach with her father. When she’d tried, he’d become surly and unresponsive. She’d long ago stopped trying.

  “Can you tell me who my mother is?” the young Jules had asked.

  “Yes, yes,” the old woman replied. “If you get this tattoo, you will find out the truth about your family. You will learn.”

  So, reluctantly, Jules had agreed to the mark and hidden it as best she could from her father. But there had been no sudden revelations from him about her mother, nor had the old woman had anything to say on the matter. Of course not. It had been foolish to think otherwise.

  It was stupid, but she was still angry about it all. What was the purpose of trying to trick a child in such a cruel way?

  She’d been ashamed of the mark ever since, a strange reminder of her willingness to put her faith in other people—a mistake she took great pains not to repeat. But no amount of washing it away would help.

  Her thoughts were disturbed by the scuff of a boot nearby. She turned, expecting to find Will, or maybe Miranda. Instead it was Luke, looking as grave as ever.

  “I hope you’re happy,” she said. “Not sure why we had to dredge up this particular memory when there’s so much else to do.”

  He held up his hands, as if he was surrendering.

  “I understand your skepticism,” he said. “But I want you to think on something.”

  “If it’ll make you drop the topic, sure,” Jules said.

  “That woman you met,” Luke said. “I know of her. She’s called the ‘Lady of Shadows.’”

  Jules gave a short bark of a laugh. “Sounds about right. A name like that would help her earn more.”

  “The way your sister tells it, she didn’t ask you for money.”

  Jules sighed. “Maybe she was doing it for fun. It’s not mine to say.”

  “Whatever her reasons, you need to know something about that tattoo. I’ve seen it before. I know what it means.”

  “I’m surprised it means anything at all.”

  “It’s a symbol of protection.”

  She shivered. It was probably the cold air that had done it.

  “If you’re saying that tattoo stopped those bullets—”

  “Didn’t stop them, diverted them,” Luke said. “I saw those men firing at you. You should be dead, or wounded at the least.”

  “You’re being dramatic.”

  “I wasn’t finished,” he said. “The symbol may be tied to other events. That’s not just any symbol of protection. It’s aimed at guarding you against something specific.”

  “It’s clearly not a guard against nosy bounty hunters.”

  He turned away from her and began walking back to the fire. She thought she’d offended him, but he spoke to her over his shoulder.

  “No,” he said. “It’s a guard against demons.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “I have found scraps of the Lady of Shadow’s predictions. The first, in 1861, was simply: ‘It is coming. A black cloud that covers the entire Earth.’”

  — Terry Jacobsen, “A History of the Supernatural,” 2013

  Luke spotted the smoke coming from Stanton when they were still a few miles north. Jules spurred Onyx into a gallop, feeling guilty for pushing her so hard after what she’d just been through.

  When they reached the town, they found the windows boarded up and the doors shut. Jules saw with relief that there were still some signs of life—someone was watching through the curtain of one of the houses along the main street. It wasn’t Vipers that had done this, but something had clearly happened to spook all the residents indoors.

  “Guns out,” she called back, as she drew her own revolver and trotted slowly down the street.

  She spotted the body a moment later. He was lying near the door of the jail, a gun still in his hand.

  Jules jumped off her horse and ran over to Sheriff Garrett. He’d likely only been dead for a couple hours at most. He had a gunshot in his throat, and dried blood running down his chest. Flies buzzed around his face.

  Jules cursed and checked inside the jail to find nobody inside. Could it have been a jail-break? The cells didn’t look like they’d had occupants recently, and the rest of the area appeared undisturbed.

  She turned to find Luke waiting in the doorway. He nodded his head in a direction down the street.

  “Smoke’s coming from the whorehouse,” he said.

  Jules exited the building, hopped on Onyx and rode the rest of the way through town. She saw scared eyes peering out from behind windows at her, but nobody dared to emerge.

  They reached Rita’s to find another body lying in the dirt nearby the front door. Jules recognized it as Matthew, one of Garrett’s deputies.

  She gestured for Luke and Will to form up behind her and gave Miranda a warning look to stay back. She nodded.

  Jules went in cautiously, her pistol out in front and ready to fire. The downstairs was deserted.

  Rita was nowhere to be seen. There were some chairs turned over, however, and a smashed table. Though it was daylight outside, the inside was dark and gloomy.

  Jules swore under her breath and proceeded to the back room. She found a dead man who’d been shot through the eye sitting in one of the chairs of the Faro table, but it wasn’t someone she recognized.

  As she turned around, she heard a noise from the second level, where the prostitutes’ rooms were. Luke clearly heard it as well, and pointed up. Jules nodded, left the gaming room and crossed to the stairs in the corner.

  When she reached the second level, she opened the first door on the right. A dead man was lying on the bed wearing only his undergarments. There was no woman with him, but he looked like he’d been shot while doing business in the place.

  Jules proceeded to the next door carefully. She stuck her hand in—and yanked it back when a gunshot rang out. She jumped behind the door frame as another shot splintered the door.

  “You come back for more, you bastards?” called a familiar voice with an English accent. It was Ethan Graves, the man who’d hired her to steal the vase and who she’d expected to meet for their trip to the Maelstrom.

  “Graves?” Jules said. “Is that you?”

  There was a long pause. “Jules Castle? Have you come to gloat?”

  “Don’t know what I’d be gloating about, Graves,” she said. “Came back just now. I’m a might bit confused over what happened.”

  “Sure you are,” he said. “You were working together, weren’t you? Did you come back when—”

  He cut off amid a burst of coughing from inside the room.

  “Whatever happened, it wasn’t me,” Jules said when the coughing finished. “I’ve been working with nobody but you.”

  Th
ere was more coughing. Graves didn’t sound good.

  “Not sure I believe you, but come in here so you can see your handiwork,” he said.

  She stepped forward and Will called for her to stop, but she ignored him and pushed open the door.

  Graves lay propped on the bed, his face ashen. He was cradling a revolver in his hand, but she was surprised he had the strength to use it. He’d been shot in the gut. A red flecked handkerchief lay next to him and she knew he didn’t have long to live.

  He was still pointing his gun at her, but she holstered her own.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  He sneered at her. “As if you don’t—”

  “I don’t know, Graves. Whoever did this, it wasn’t me or mine.”

  Graves coughed again, holding the handkerchief to his lips. “You’ll excuse me if I have trouble believing that,” he said. “They told me you were fighting with him in the street. I should’ve known that was just a ruse—”

  For a moment, Jules didn’t know what he was talking about. Seen fighting with someone in the street? Then she thought of the man who’d accosted the prostitute. What was his name?

  “Duggett?” she asked, plucking it from memory. “Is that who did this to you?”

  Graves nodded slowly. Jules swore. Why had Duggett attacked Graves? It didn’t make any sense.

  “Why? What did he want?”

  “What do you think he wanted?” Graves said. “The vase! It’s worth a fortune. I assumed you told him about it.”

  Jules shook her head. She hadn’t mentioned the vase to anyone but Miranda and Luke. And neither of them had been out of her sight since she talked to Graves.

  Was it possible someone else had found out? Dy knew that Graves had come to town, had even pointed out to Jules where to find him. And he traded in information. But even he didn’t know anything about the vase, and if he had, she doubted Duggett would be the type of man Dy would tell.

  But there were other, more disturbing, possibilities. One in particular stood out in her mind.

  “Did you mention this job to anyone else?” she asked.

  He coughed into the handkerchief, and she saw more splashes of blood there. His face was pale. She didn’t think he’d survive much longer.