West Winds' Fool and Other Stories of the Devil's West

by Laura Anne Gilman

  She would not follow the winds, not in the manner of a magician, but often enough, they offered suggestion. Some might find that of concern; she had learned to accept it. They were uncanny; but so too was she.

  The thought still made her smile, even as she considered her surroundings. If an ambush were to come, it would likely come now. The high plains that had been her home for months had slowly given way to wind-struck foothills and worryingly-shaped pillars of rock, capable of hiding a multitude of threats, and she still had to contend with the tall grasses that made every road a risk, offering cover to whatever might prowl alongside.

  She feared nothing, welcomed violence, but that did not make her incautious.

  The molly’s sides heaved, a sure sign that it was unhappy staying still, and she pressed her legs against its sides more firmly, reminding it who made the decisions. She preferred the mule to human company; it heeded her, without argument, unhappy but compliant.

  Although the sound was not repeated, she still slipped the rib-knife from the sheath under her jacket. She had another at her thigh, and a longer one on the molly’s saddle, but they would be useless on horseback. The rib-knife was better for throwing. The Territory was unforgiving of fools; best always be ready.

  No sooner had the thought come than there was a burst of motion in the tall grass to her left. The knife flicked into her palm, her muscles tensing even as the molly shifted, still wanting to run but waiting for a signal.

  A tussle of limbs and tails fell out of the grasses, nearly at the molly’s hooves, and it did dance back then, ears twitching until she laid a firmer hand on the reins with one hand, the other still balancing the knife.

  The limbs resolved themselves into a young man, dark haired and tawny-skinned, and a demon, ash-grey and scale-green, its tail whipping furiously enough she forgave herself for thinking there was more than one.

  She studied the figures, noting that they seemed evenly matched, and wondered if she was supposed to intervene. People did odd things for odd reasons….

  But she was not people. She was herself, and she had no coin in this game. But neither could she ride on, until they were out of her way.

  There was a flash of metala knife in the boy’s hand, or maybe a demon’s claw, and a spray of bloodred, human, she notedsplashed onto the dirt. They scuffled a few seconds longer, silent save for the grunts she had heard earlier, until the demon landed on top, claws reaching for the boy’s face.

  It might not kill the boy, but it would leave a nasty and permanent scar, if he survived.

  At the last second, the boy turned sharply, knocking the demon off-balance enough that he could eel out of its grasp, wiggling to momentary safety a few feet away while they both tried to catch their breath. She chuckled, andeither because it heard her, or smelled her, the demon noted her presence. It turned its head slantways and bared its teeth at hera threat or a warning, she couldn’t be certain. The molly shifted uneasily, wanting to either run or kick, and she silently told it to stay, using her legs and weight to calm it down, then tilted her own head, waiting for the demon to decide its next action.

  She did not fear the demon, nor the youth, though in other moments he might have taken her mule, her knives, mayhap even her life, if he thought it would earn him acclaim, and some coin. She would not have begrudged it of him, if he had succeeded. Nor would she begrudge the demon if it chose to attack, though she would assuredly kill it. That was their nature, its and hers.

  The demon’s snarl flickered into something she might have called uncertainty under her poised regard, flat nostrils flaring as though scenting the faint brimstone she’d been told still lingered on her, then its wide-set eyes narrowed, and it lurchednot at her, but the boy, whoignoring her entirelyhad used its brief distraction to rise into a crouch. They collided with a meaty thunk, grappling for control, and disappeared into the grasses on the other side of the road, the tall stalks quivering in their passing until the grunting and rustling faded back to silence.

  Her mouth twitched slightly, the ghost of laughter in her ears. No-one knew what demon got from these encounters, if they had some ritual purpose, or simply to amuse themselves in the endless roll of days, or if there was no intent, only reaction. But if the boy survived, he would go home with enough of a story to earn himself a new name.

  She wondered if the white woman and the spotted mule would play a role, if she would be an earth-spirit, another demon, or overlooked entirely in the retelling.

  Perhaps he would assign her a new name, to replace the one she had Bargained away. If so, she would never know, would never be called by it. Never called to heel by it.

  Names claimed, identified. Bound and obligated. Names had power.

  All that was behind her, now.

  The devil had taken her name, and set her free to follow the west winds.

  She pushed her hat back, and looked up at the sky. Overhead, only two pairs of dark wings curved in widening circles, looking for prey, or something already dead to feast upon. Larger than the earlier hawks, but too small to be Reapers. She was almost disappointed; she’d heard stories of the beasts, but never seen one.

  Not yet, anyhow. It had only been seven months since she rode out of Flood, nameless and free, and there was much still to discover. A lifetime of discovery.

  The mule’s ears flicked forward, then back as though to say “well? Are we going to go, or not?”

  “Cha, go then,” she said, and they went on.

  And enjoy a preview of Gabriel’s Road, coming in Winter 2019!

  It took the man too long to build a fire, his hands stiff and chilled, his mind waterlogged and reluctant. The flint seemed equally reluctant to catch, the kindling branches he had gathered reluctant to burn, as though the printed skin of his fingertips made them damp as well, despite their crackling dryness. He was rain and river, creek and spring, and fire fled from him as though he might douse it.

  He looked down at his hands, half-expecting them to flow like water, blue-clear and liquid, rather than bone and flesh. But he saw only skin under the bright moonlight, tanned and rough, the nails smooth, the beds below them clean and pink.

  He flexed the fingers holding the flint, noting the way the way the knucklebones shifted. There was something about bones he was supposed to remember …

  Behind him, something moved, and he stilled, before something still in memory recognized it as not-a-threat, familiar, belonging.

  Horse. The warm shape moving behind him was a horse. His mind’s eye described the gelding without having to look back, square head and low haunch, along with the knowing that the horse was his, and that it would alert him if danger came from behind.

  He was not alone. That thought focused his hands enough to strike tinder properly, a tiny red spark dropping onto the kindling, and he moved without conscious thought, cradling the infant flame until it spread, placing larger pieces of kindling in a pattern until they caught in return, then carefully placing small branches around it, gaging the proper moment to place more over the flame, until the fire leapt up, embracing the fuel, and settling itself into a steady blaze.

  He held his hands out to the flame, letting warmth slowly return. How long had he been cold? Not long, not because the cold felt like a new thing, but rather because he had not been aware of being cold, before. Before what, he was not certain, and he shied away from that gap. But damp, the damp he had been aware of, and that awareness made him shiver in revulsion, although he could not entirely remember why, only that the need to be dry, bone to skin, suddenly rode him.

  But when he went to remove his clothing, thinking the cloth must be sodden, he discovered that no moisture lingered, that even his fingers, water-pruned though they looked, had no drops clinging to them.

  But he had been damp. Had been soaked, drenched, as though he’d been submerged

  Let it come and let it go a voice said, and he thought for a crazed instant it had been the horse, before recognizing it as a memory. A memory of
/>   Old Woman Who Never Dies.

  And as though the medicine woman had placed her hands on him once again, he remembered.

  His horse, Steady, was behind him, and the fire was before him, and his name was Gabriel, Gabriel Kasun, also known as Two Voices.

  And he had left Isobel in Red Stick.

  * * *

  … He should have been by her side, at her back, ready to lend whatever support she needed. Instead, he had ridden out to face the Mudwater. Had ridden to the edge of the river, and …

  And done what?

  The gap remained there, red-hazed and terrifying, and he stepped back from it, not yet ready to look deeper.

  He had left Isobel. That thought returned to him, laden with the iron weight of guilt. Never mind that she was well-equipped to deal with the situation, that she was the only one who was equipped to deal with it, never mind that he knew he had taught her and taken her as far as he could. Never mind that he had not left her alone, that the marshal was with her, that …

  He had left her without a word, without a warning, driven by his own weakness and fear, and he had no sense of how long ago that had been, or where he was, now.

  That thought, finally, made him look around.

  He was in a shallow meadow, a hill rising directly to his left, the grass silvered under the full moon and starlight, a ridge of trees standing showed sentinel halfway up, while to his right and front, the meadow sloped gently before rising again. And behind him ….

  He took a deep breath before turning to look.

  The wide, flat ribbon of the Mudwater lay behind him, glimmering distant enough that he thought there must be two, three day’s steady ride between them, and no road to tell him how he had gotten there, although, when he reached down, he could feel the steady thrum of the Road somewhere nearby. He might have ridden madcap across the valley, or found some trail, or

  His thoughts swerved away from how he had gotten there to what he had left behind. Isobel. Izzy. She had been his responsibility, and he had abandoned her.

  The guilt dug its iron weight claws into his chest, but with it also a sense of sick relief. He did not know how long it had been since he left Red Stick, but he knew that it had been long enough that there was no going back. Whatever had happened was long done, and if she had succeeded or failed, it was her story now, not his.

  The devil could do what he would with him, if he felt the Bargain had not been upheld. Gabriel could not find the strength in him to object.

  And the Devil’s Hand?

  Something made the corner of his lip tick up, in what almost might have been a smile. She would rail at him, no doubt, when they encountered each other again. But he thought mayhap she would forgive him. Eventually.

  If she survived.

  That made the smile disappear, and he pressed a clenched fist against his chest, hard enough the bone underneath ached.

  She lived. He knew it, once he thought to ask, rock-solid and certain as he knew the Road beneath him and the moon overhead.

  “Thank you,” he whispered to whatever had brought him that news, and let his hand fall back down to his lap.

  Memories filtered back to him, slowly, and he knew they were not yet complete. But he had done his duty by Isobel. His Bargain with the devil was done.

  You would be in my debt, if you did this, the devil had said. But there was no debt when you made Bargain with the devil, only payment. And while Gabriel had ridden into the town of Flood thinking to test himself against the Master of the Territory, facing him across the green felt of his own card table, in the end he had not wanted anything the devil had to offer.

  And his offer to mentor the young girl he’d met in that salon, she of the strong-boned face and fine eyes, should she choose the way of the Road? That offer had been made not to the devil but Isobel herself; that the Old Man had accepted on her behalf should not change that. Gabriel had assumed that any payment the devil might intend would be made only whenifGabriel returned to Flood with her, presented her mentorship ride as completed.

  But if the devil never lied, he was neither obligated to tell all the truth. And Gabriel had begun to suspect, far too late, that payment would be made far before return, far before he was readyor willingto accept.

  They had ridden into Red Stick because that was where Isobel needed to be. But the moment he had come within sight of the Mudwater, Gabriel had been ill at ease, restless in bone and blood, and if he had told himself at first it was due to the unease within the Territory itself, the dis-ease Isobel Devil’s Hand had been called to purge, he had known, at the end, that it was more.

  He had been born with water-sensedowsing, they called it elsewhere. He could feel the flow of fresh water, be it deep under his feet or running the surface of the earth. And he had resented it, not for the advantage it gave him, but the hold it claimed on him, the way it tied him to the Territory when his ambitions had fared elsewhere. Those the Territory claimed with its gifts, it did not easily let go.

  He had come back when it called him, when it cursed him with blood-sick. But he had never forgiven it, for all that he had relearned to love it. For all that he was able to show Isobel how to survive within it.

  And if he were wracked by that unease, he was useless to Isobel. Worthless to himself. And so he had gone to the river’s edge, and….

  The water had lapped at his toes, brackish-brown, not the red of his walking-dreams, the familiar stink of rotting logs settling at the base of his nostrils, and he had felt it reach out and up, an unrelenting roll that would take and drown him, if he let it.

  Old Woman had told him to let it come, and let it go. Instead, he had buried himself deep under resignation and inevitability, under the knowledge that the Territory was stronger than he, would always be strong; that the only resistance he could make would be to refuse to let it own him entirely. And that kernel he kept, it was his alone. So long as he held onto it, he could remain his own man.

  But the Territory itself was under siege, from enemies without, and dissension within. The Agreement teetered on the frail strength of human will, and he could do nothing more than stand by and let Isobelbarely grown, barely done with her mentorship rideshoulder that weight alone.

  He could not see the Devil’s Hand, in that moment, only the girl-child he had willingly, willfully taken responsibility for.

  He would have failed. Again.

  “Have done with me,” he had told the power that was the River, not shouting in anger nor crying in fear, but calmly, in the voice of a man who had gone as far as he could, until the rope of his mortality caught him and he could strain no more. “Have done with me, once and for all, either let me go or finally drown me, once and for all.”

  And the River had ….

  The sensation of damp chill settled within him once again. He could not recall anything beyond that moment, save that the River had called him, andfor once, against his willhe had gone.

  “What have you done to me,” he whispered, and thought he heard the devil’s laughter, not cruel or mocking, but amused at the thought that a mortal could avoid payment, once their Bargain was done.

  He forced himself to breathe, once and then twice, inhaling deeply and then exhaling slowly, until the fluttering panic subsided, and he was back firmly within his own flesh again. The fire crackled warm at his front, the air was night-cool and still on his skin, and he felt neither hunger not exhaustion, despite having no memory of the past few days of eating or sleeping, or anything at all.

  He had thoughthad believedthat if he did not return to claim his reward from the devil, it would not be awarded. He wondered, now, what sort of fool he had been, to think it would be that simple.

  And yet …

  He wiggled his toes within his boots, shook out his shoulders, straightened his spine and then let it curve forward again, reaching inward for the sense that had always dogged him, the water-sense that had driven him for as long as he could remember, and likely the times he could not remember
, as well.

  Nothing had changed. It was still contained, still controlled. Whatever had happened when he confronted the Mudwater, whatever had crept within him, nothing of him had changed.

  That was a relief, and yet.

  And yet nothing in his life let him believe it was that simple.

  Suddenly, he wanted nothing more than to swing into the saddle, to ride as far and as fast as he could, to leave the Mudwater so far behind no-one he spoke to had ever seen it.

  Even as he thought that, Gabriel mocked himself. He had tried that once, crossing it and heading east, into the States, to lose himself in the teeming cities, keeping his back to the indifferent Atlantic, his mind on the foibles of human Law and nature. And he had suffered for it, becoming so ill he’d no choice but to return.

  “I belong to nothing and no-one save myself.”

  A memory surfaced, spreading circles around it. He had told Grandmother River that, and Grandmother River had …

  His mind shied away, as though a rattlesnake had lifted its tail in warning, and his stomach tilted and churned in upset.

  Something had happened, when he’d gone to confront the Mudwater, and he knew he should remember, knew that it was important that he remember. And that was the very last thing he wanted to do.

  About the Author

  Laura Anne Gilman’s work has been hailed as “a true American myth being found” by NPR, praised for her “deft plotting and first-class characters” by Publishers Weekly, and has been shortlisted for the Nebula Award, the Endeavor Award, and the Washington State Book Awards. Her novels include the Locus-bestselling weird western series, (Silver On The Road, The Cold Eye, and Red Waters Rising), the long-running Cosa Nostradamus urban fantasy series, and the “Vineart War” trilogy, as well as as well as the short story collection Darkly Human. Her short fiction has recently appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Lightspeed, and The Underwater Ballroom Society.