Laura Anne Gilman - [Devil's West ss] - Gabriel's Road

by Gilman

  "Occasionally he preaches," someone from the table he'd taken the stool from said, and his companions there laughed, while Henry hid a smile behind one hand and even Zacarías huffed in amusement. Whatever hesitations Gabriel had about the monk remaining in the Territory, the people here were clearly fond of him.

  "Occasionally, yes, I may speak of la Sagrada Escritura. But they allow me my idiosincraias. My, ah...particularities?"

  "We all have our own peculiarness," Henry agreed. "But you wield a hoe as well as anyone else, and keep us company while we guard the well, so we'll keep you for as long as you choose to stay."

  Gabriel’s attention was caught by part of that sentence. "Guard the well?"

  Both men lost their amused expressions at that, and Zacarías gave another shrug, this one not quite as nonchalant, bending his no-longer-tonsured head toward Henry as though to cede the explanation to him.

  "Despite your experiences today, we’re not exactly in the land of free-flowing water, once winter’s rainy season ends."

  Gabriel grunted agreement at the understatement, and Henry’s mouth quirked in a half-smile.

  "So, the story goes that the ones who came first to Rabbit’s Kick, Old John and his kin, they nearly died one summer when the land went dry and hot and the creek disappeared. They made it through with the help of some of the Tua, the local tribe they’d come to Agreement with, but Old John wasn't one to be beholden to another soul if he could avoid it. He called in all his kin and put them to work digging a well deep into the bones, deep enough that even in the driest days there'd still be water to find."

  Gabriel waited; that was clearly only the opening of the story, not the point.

  "Well's never run dry, never gone sour. Old John had the Touch, you see; water came to him natural as breathing and listened when he asked it to stay. Most years, we never have to worry. Rains like the one outside, snows in the winter, the creek is enough. We're careful. But there's no sweeter water to be found, not for days."

  To find and pull water in this arid land was not the simple matter Henry made it sound, but it explained how the town had been able to thrive here, rather than moving camp every season. But it still did not explain the words that had first caught his attention. "And it needs to be guarded...?"

  Zacarías pursed his mouth as though he'd tasted something sour. "There are other folk who are less careful with their using."

  "They're lazy, pure and simple," Henry corrected. "Rather take than make, and they don't see a need to pay for what they take. Water, sheep, rugs… it’s all the same to them."

  "Bandits," Gabriel guessed, and when both men nodded, he sighed. "I ran into one of theirs a few days back, I think. She didn't give me any trouble, but I'd been hoping I was heading away from their camp, not toward."

  "They're well northeast of us most of the time, keeping to where the Road passes. Most time, they leave us be," Zacarías said. "But the well holds a fascination for them I do not understand."

  "We told you why," Henry said, and either didn't see or ignored the expression on Zacarías' face, a faint sniff of disbelief, or doubt. "The purity of the water isn’t by chance," he explained to Gabriel. "Old John wasn't one to take chances, so when they started digging, and again when the water came in, he got an elder and some of his water-dancers to come in and bless it. Supposed to keep the haints from spoiling the water, making anyone sick. And yes, I saw you make that face, Zacarías. Old John would've had you do a pass over it as well, if you'd been here then. He didn’t play favorites. There's no wisdom in taking chances, not with water. Not out here."

  Gabriel hrmmmed his agreement. He'd never had to worry about the water he drank; a simple touch told him if it was unsafe, and he'd never really paused to think about it, even when he was teaching Isobel to do the same. But not everyone had the Touch, and in a town of any size, even with a creek nearby.... Too many things could go wrong, too many people could die quickly, if the well went bad.

  A town—or a large enough camp.

  "So, the bandits, they want access to your well."

  Henry’s face twisted unpleasantly, his sharp-pointed beard twitching. "If it were that simple, we’d share with them and no begrudging. They want the entire town."

  6

  After he’d finished his meal, as though putting down his bowl was a silent signal, other residents of Rabbit’s Mound came over, singly and in pairs, occasionally accompanied by children, to be introduced. Gabriel did his best to greet them politely, struggling to remember names with the faces. But once warm, fed, and dried, exhaustion set in, and when a yawn escaped him, practically cracking his jaw, the old man who’d been recounting a story of the early days of the town stopped, then slapped a surprisingly strong hand on his shoulder.

  "And there's the hind leg of a donkey talked off, just like my momma warned."

  Gabriel felt himself blushing. "I'm sorry, I—"

  "No, no, you're a guest and we’re showing pitiful hospitality, jawing at you while you’re nearly dead on your feet."

  He looked around the hall, summoning Henry back from where he was talking with another man. Gabriel noted that most of the folk had cleared their tables and left, only a few adults and the scattering of dogs remaining.

  "Your boy needs his bed," the old man said to Henry. Gabriel might have been offended at the demotion to boy at his age, but they both had at least a decade on him, and likely more, so he let it pass.

  "Too late to try and foist you onto someone," Henry decided. "We've not guesthouses as such, but there's a loft over where we left your beast, should be dry and warm and comfortable enough if you don't mind the smell of horse and hay. You being a Rider, I'm suspecting you don't."

  He did not.

  They said goodnight to the older man and walked back to the shed, where Henry pointed out the ladder to the loft, and left him with a promise of a fresh-cooked breakfast in the morning.

  The other horse had been taken somewhere while they were eating dinner, and Steady seemed almost pathetically glad to see him, shoving his blunt head against Gabriel's shoulder, then lipping at his hair.

  "Stop that, you idiot." Gabriel ran a hand through his hair and grimaced at the slight slobbers that came away in his fingers. "Look like they took good care of you." There was fresh water in the trough, and the remains of grain, and Steady had that sleepy look in his eye he got after a full meal. "Not your usual accommodations, hey? Not mine either, truth be told. But it seems well enough, and it's dry, which is more than I was expecting a few hours ago."

  He gave the horse another once-over with his hands, making sure there wasn't any swelling or lumps he might've missed when unsaddling him earlier.

  "All right, you look fine. I'm going to crawl up there," and he jerked a thumb at the ladder built into the wall, "and get some shuteye. Anyone comes knocking, probably best you don't trample them, okay?"

  The loft wasn't quite high enough for him to stand upright, with an unprotected edge overlooking the lower level that gave him pause, but there was a small oil lamp that cast a pleasant glow, and the floor was layered with more worn rugs for sleeping, with room for him to stash his pack and lay out his bedroll.

  "I need to find out what they're wanting for one of these rugs," he said, pulling off his boots and settling in for the night. "Maybe two." Never mind that carrying one would be useless excess, even if he’d kept the mule.

  Comfortably settled, Gabriel turned down the lamp and closed his eyes. The events of the past day swirled in his head, but he had trained himself to put aside things he could do nothing about, and the sound of the rain still pelting against the roof slowly swept him to sleep.

  Lights shimmered in the darkness, tiny dots shifting like mouche à feu on a summer's night, blue and green.

  "There are too many." A woman's voice, low and husky. "More than before."

  "That was always a risk. That was always the risk."

  If the woman's voice was vaguely familiar, Gabriel would have known the
man's voice on his deathbed. Isobel's 'boss’, the Master of the Territory.

  "Can you stop them?" The woman again, and Gabriel could almost see her, tall and slender, hair silver as a coin under lamplight. Marie, that was who, the Right Hand to Isobel's Left.

  "You can damn a river, divert its flow, but you cannot stop it. This is what was always going to happen, Marie. The only question was when. And now we have the answer."

  "Then the Territory is doomed."

  "The Territory was always doomed, as it was. Nothing remains, when water has its way. So now we will see what comes."

  "And Isobel? And us?"

  A low chuckle, and the faint flickerthwack of cards being shuffled. "We do what we have always done. Change is not the end; doom is not disaster."

  There was a distinctly feminine sigh, then the clink of glasses. "You're very annoying."

  A door opened, then closed.

  "Doom is not disaster," the devil said again, and Gabriel knew, somehow, that he was speaking directly to him. "The river runs, the mountains rise and fall, the winds shatter, and the bones... the bones remain. Remember that. The bones remain."

  "GABRIEL!"

  Brother Zacarías was far too cheerful, and far too loud. Gabriel groaned, draping his arm over his eyes as though that could block the other man's voice out.

  "It's well past dawn, Gabriel. Arise!"

  "I'm not one of your initiates, to need morning prayers and soul-scouring," he muttered, but threw back the blanket and sat up carefully, remembering the low ceiling overhead and sudden drop to his left. His body ached, but nowhere near as much as it would have sleeping on the ground, in the rain, and for that he was willing to be thankful.

  "There's coffee and fresh bread waiting," the monk called up, and then there was the sound of the door opening and shutting again behind him.

  Gabriel rubbed a hand over his face, feeling the rough bristles on his chin and cheeks. "And hot water for shaving, hopefully." He didn't mind looking a vagabond on the Road, but in civilized quarters it was best to look civilized, as much as he could.

  He pulled on his clothes and boots and slid down the ladder, noting this morning the details he'd missed the night before: the smoothness of the wood under his hands, the evenness of the rungs, and how carefully it was set into the wall with metal pegs. They were careful with details, here in Rabbit's Mound.

  Someone had brought in a fresh fodder for Steady while he slept—Zacarías, or someone else—and the horse was munching his way through it as though he'd never been stabled anywhere else.

  "Don't get too used to it," he warned the horse. "We're back on the Road soon."

  Steady flicked one ear dismissively and continued chewing.

  SEEN IN DAYLIGHT, under a clouded-over sky, Rabbit's Mound did not look like any town he'd seen, either in the Territory or the States. The baker's dozen of houses were all small, solidly built of baked clay, with rounded corners and flat roofs, and seemed to have been scattered like a handful of grain rather than placed in any logical pattern. Not even the hunting camps he'd visited had been this... random. That seemed at odds with the details he had noted with the ladder, and the way Henry had spoken about the town’ founding.

  A handful of chickens pecked their way along a path, seemingly unconcerned by the human walking toward them. In the near distance he could hear voices calling, interspersed by the sharp barks of dogs, and beneath that the mutter of livestock being herded out for the day. He winced, imagining what sort of draw the animals must be for everything from coyote to Reaper hawks, and hoped their pens were well-guarded, and their shepherds well-armed.

  A woman came out of one of the houses, a rope basket balanced on her hip and a floppy cloth hat perched on her head. She saw him and raised her free hand in greeting, then walked between two houses and out of sight.

  "In here."

  The voice came from behind him, and he turned to see Zacarías standing outside the main hall. "If you stand out there like a cow, someone will come by and milk you," the monk warned. "Come inside!"

  Where the night before the hall had been crowded, this morning it was nearly empty, the tables bare and clean, the fire-pit cool, the ashes from the night before swept into a neat corner at the edge. But the kitchen was clearly still in use, from the clatter and crash he could hear from beyond the arched doorway.

  "Too much went undone yesterday, because of the rains," the monk said, leading Gabriel to a table where two tin mugs waited, curls of steam rising from within. "And a few roofs were discovered to be in need of repair. I don't suppose you have any skills in that direction?"

  "None whatsoever," Gabriel admitted, taking a sip of the sweetly bitter brew. It wasn't bad, although after a year of drinking Isobel's attempts at campfire coffee, his standards were no longer high. "But I'm willing to do what I can to help, in exchange for last night's boarding." He would have offered coin, but he had little left, and suspected they had little use for it out here.

  Zacarías grinned, the change of expression making him look far younger than his years. "How are you at cleaning dishes?"

  WHICH WAS HOW, after the promised breakfast of bread and surprisingly spicy sausage and greens, Gabriel found himself standing at a deep tub, dipping plates and cups into the water to rinse, and then handing them to a skinny, brown-haired girl to dry.

  The girl looked at him sideways, then stared back intently at the towel in her hands. "Where you from?"

  "I’ve been all over, but I was born in the North."

  "Where it snows all the time?" She sounded as though she doubted that it did, in fact, snow at all, much less all the time.

  "Not all the time, but... yes, it gets very cold and snowy in the winter."

  "And there are bears?"

  Gabriel felt his lip twitch and repressed it sternly. "Many bears."

  "We got coyotes," she said, in the tone of someone confiding a secret. "Big ones. They'll take a sheep, iffin' we don't watch out."

  "Is that so?"

  "Mmmhmmm."

  He tried to imagine Isobel at this age and found it surprisingly easy. She would have been just as serious-eyed, just as certain of herself. Doubts wouldn't come until later.

  "I'd like to see a bear," the girl said.

  "Maybe someday you will," he said, and handed her the last dish.

  "But not until you are older, Mercy." Zacarías had left them to do their work but returned with suspicious timing just as they finished up. "Now, go, it's time for school."

  Gabriel wiped his hands on the towel, and nodded in response to Mercy's hurried farewell, then raised an eyebrow at the monk.

  "She's only eleven," Zacarías said. "Please do not fill her head with too many stories of the Road."

  Gabriel laughed and shook his head. "Eleven's just the right age to start dreaming. But it's not for everyone." He'd not wanted it, himself. Not until he came back, and it had been his only option.

  The monk tilted his head sideways, and in the reflecting sunlight from the open door Gabriel could see where the hair on the top of his head was shorter than the rest, his tonsure still growing in. "She has a gift for soothing those in pain. We have hopes of apprenticing her to Joseph, our chirurgeon, or a medicine woman, not lose her to wandering the Dust Roads."

  The asperity in his tone startled a laugh out of Gabriel. "Take off that robe, lose the accent, there's not a thing separating you from Territory-born."

  "There is part of me that is offended by that," Zacarías said. "But... I did choose to remain."

  Gabriel folded the abandoned dishtowel over the sink's edge to dry, and crossed his arms, leaning against the wall. "Why did you? Last we saw of your folk, you were heading back over the Knife, disgusted by the ways and mores of us dissolute Territory folk. And yet, here you are. Don't tell me you thought you could save the souls of the Territory all by yourself?"

  Zacarías affected a most pious expression, folding his hands together as though in prayer. "I would not be by myself, but the
Lord, whose words I carry."

  "Mmmm." Gabriel put all his skepticism into that single noise.

  "And," Zacarías admitted, dropping his hands, "there may have been a suspicion that the Crown would not be pleased with us when we returned. While the Church protects her own, that protection is not absolute."

  Considering the monks had entered the Territory without formal permission, seeking to put an end to the spell their king had ordered loosed on the Territory, Gabriel didn't doubt that there would be cause for concern.

  "And your brothers?" The ones who had survived the beast, anyway.

  "They..." Zacarías sighed, and shrugged, lifting his hands as though to disavow all responsibility for his former companions. "They had more faith than I. Or more foolishness. They are often two flips of the same coin, you say?"

  "Sides. Two sides of the same coin."

  "Ah. They returned home, and I did not. And perhaps it was God's will, after all. That I remain here, and share my faith with those who will listen, in their times of doubt and need. Just as it was God's will that we meet with you and young Isobel, to jointly finish what was needed against that hellspawn beast. And now we are together again, and perhaps there is a reason for that as well." He paused. "You scoff? Do you not believe in fate, Gabriel?"

  "I really don't." Not the fate Zacarías spoke of, anyway. "But you do?"

  "God works in mysterious ways, and it is not for the likes of us to question, merely obey."

  Gabriel suspected his expression said what he thought of that, saving him from the rudeness of saying it. But Zacarías smiled gently, as though he’d expected nothing else from Gabriel, and was not offended.

  "And your devil, he does not care that I speak of God."

  "He really doesn't," Gabriel agreed to that without hesitation. The Old Man didn't care about much of anything folk did, so long as they stayed out of his hair, and didn't cause a fuss he had to deal with—or send his Hand to deal with. "You know he’s not actually the devil, right?"