I couldn't blame her on that one either.
I stood and folded into her embrace.
"He's put a reward out for you," she said into my ear.
"That didn't take him long," I said, pulling away and searching her face. "What kind of reward?"
"According to the wanted poster, it's more about what he won't give than what he will."
She pulled out a piece of paper from another pocket in her vest and unfolded it onto the wooden bench. It wasn't a great likeness, but it captured the tilt of my head perfectly. And with the scar that ran down the middle of my forehead, made my likeness unmistakable.
"Wanted for murder," I read out loud. "Harboring this fugitive comes at deadly consequence."
My stomach knotted up.
"Why?" I said, painfully aware that both Gal and Lance were looking over Sadie's shoulder at the poster.
"You've been here too long," she said. "You've got no idea what's been going on outside of New Denver."
Riding as a pony could be dangerous business. There were desperate people in the wilds and even more desperate people in the townships. Bartering for goods was an easy way out only if you had the goods in the first place. Far too many people nowadays had precious little, and were more than willing to trade blood for food.
That meant the ponies met more than their share of humanity both good and bad, and they had a network that could be counted on to learn the things that were happening all over the nation. They were a nervous sort. They had every reason to be so.
"Hunter has been running all over the country murdering people in the name of justice. He's building his new order. I guess that means he doesn't want anything or anyone standing in his way."
I knew all about that new order, but I hadn't expected it to actually come to pass.
"You've seen it?"
"I've seen more. Everyone is afraid of them. The Ruby Skulls have become a plague and everyone is scared. The only people who seem immune are the people of New Denver."
"No doubt that's about to change," I said. I took another look at the wanted poster in the light of the gaslamp. I turned up the glow so I could read it.
Hunter was making it impossible for the residents of New Denver to see me in the streets and say nothing.
"I'm as good as toast, then," I said.
I saw all of my chances for leaving town evaporate. I mentally counted the people who had seen me enter in the last hour. Ten? Fifteen?
I squirreled a look upward at Lance. Had he already sent someone to inform Hunter? Maybe his offer of the katanas was just to keep me here.
"I have to go," I said.
Lance's laid his hand on my shoulder. "No, you don't."
Instinct and reaction had me sweeping for his foot to throw him off balance. The adrenaline that made me nauseous earlier came back with enough energy to put me into high drive. When my foot sweep failed, I threw a punch. Lightening fast.
Quick as a heartbeat, he had me wrapped in his arms, my back against his chest.
I fought. Kicking backwards onto his instep. His heart hammered against my spine.
"You're safe," he said into my neck. "No one here will turn you in."
He tightened his grip, holding my arms down along my sides and wrapping his leg around mine.
"Safe," he repeated.
And then as quick as that, he released me.
I caught Sadie's eye and realized she wasn't the least bit unnerved. She hadn't stepped forward to save me or backward to escape. Gal had started to peel an apple with a large knife, letting the peelings curl toward her toes.
Maybe no one did care.
I rubbed my arms where Lance's hands had been. He'd not been rough, only firm, but instinct made me want to touch the areas his hands had been. I cleared my throat, trying to reclaim some dignity in face of the casual postures around me.
"If someone doesn't turn me in, it's just because they don't know Hunter or what he's capable of."
Sadie shook her head. "You saw how they reacted when he entered town. They know about him. They know all about the Ruby Skulls. I'm surprised you don't know that."
"So what do you suppose is the reason?"
"You," Lance said.
That was ridiculous and I said so.
You don't know what you're talking about."
"You don't think?" Lance said. "You've only been here a few months. We've been here a lifetime. Hunter has been this way before."
"He's been everywhere," Sadie said. "Even my ponies have had a hard time with his judges."
"You might think you've been incognito here, Skye, but people have been watching you," Lance said. "Most of us who know of you give you your space because you seem to want it that way, but don't mistake our distance for disinterest. New Denver isn't that big a town. And Dallas has been spreading rumours."
Dallas. He wasn't exactly the poster boy for honesty. I imagined he either warned the town about me to let me keep some sort of distance or he'd regaled them with the tale of our introduction.
To hear Dallas tell it, I was a hero of some sort, but I remember it differently. I'm sure the man I talked out of beating his wife to death did too. I'd nearly swung my sword at his hands but the look on the woman's face had stopped me. She was terrified. Not of the man, but of me.
I hadn't liked the look on her face. I'd talked the man down, instead. Calmed his temper when I wanted to run him through. He'd been one of Dallas's street rats, a muscled and awful looking man, but I'd not known it then. I just knew I had to face down yet another enemy.
There were so many in those days. Real or imagined didn't matter.
"The wife-beater story," I said out loud, guessing that was the one that might impress these two muscled blacksmiths.
"He said you're a hero," Gal said and the apple peeling dropped finally to her feet in one long coil.
I laughed and rolled my eyes as I wrestled the shameful memory back into its mental box. The last thing I wanted was to pull it out and inspect it when it had taken me a year to bury it.
"A hero doesn't do the things I did," I said.
"What was that?" Gal asked and I caught her eye, deadly serious.
"I killed that woman."
-6-
"Not true," Sadie said. "You know it's not true."
I swung on her. "It might as well be," I said. "He killed her. I left him to deliver the final blow later, so it might as well have been me."
I choked on the last words, furious that I had to think about it again. I'd followed them home, waiting for the moment I could sneak in and secret her away.
"She had a baby," I said without realizing I planned to say anything at all. "That's why she let him beat her. She was afraid he'd hurt the infant."
I turned away, gathering my expression into its normal calm facade. I stomped down the memory and breathed in the smell of smoke and hot iron to ground me to the present.
"Skye," Sadie said, placing a hand on my shoulder.
"Don't," I said. "It doesn't matter." I squared my shoulders, marshaling in the emotion and tamping it down.
"I've never understood that about you, Skye," she said. "You just shut it all down inside."
"Call it a gift," I said.
"May the Lord never bless me with it," she said.
Sure I could shut it all down if I wanted. Most times it was when I didn't want. I pushed things to the side as though they were insects to examine, but it wasn't a pleasant feeling. The cost was immeasurable to someone who didn't have that keen ability to detach at the level I did. Each time I pulled away from an emotion or an event, I felt my humanity die a little more and yet that detachment had been a means to protect the vulnerable human spirit.
I'd done it so often over the years, it was almost an autonomic response by now, something fostered in those early years.
Hunter liked that about me. He said it made me valuable. He wanted me to be cold and calculating. He didn't understand that detachment and calculated willful callousness wer
e two different things.
The biggest difference between the two of us was that he was sociopathic and I was just unwilling to feel.
"She isn't dead," Sadie said. "It's just the story Dallas got us to spread so he wouldn't look for her."
"Dallas?"
"Yes," she said. "He exiled the bloke and we transplanted her and the baby safely elsewhere."
Something lifted from my chest. I looked from Sadie to Lance and then to Gal. All of them were staring at me with something akin to awe.
"Well bravo for Dallas," I said. "That man was his best earner."
I pulled my arms together over my chest, cupping the elbows as I considered Dallas and his street rats. They had a network so large, it could stretch across counties. Maybe he could find this Marlin fellow or whomever had spelled Hunter's blade.
"Dallas might be the answer to everything," I mused.
I knew he didn't just employ men and women in his street rats. He also employed children. Like in a Dickensian tale, Dallas trained them in the fine art of information gathering as well as picking pockets.
But the comparison stopped there. Dallas protected his street rats like a mother hen. They were well-clothed and as well-fed as he could manage. The bath I chided him on truly was a monthly affair, mostly because he bartered his own share of soap for food for the kids in his care.
They would all die for him, I knew. And he made sure they didn't have to.
"Dallas will know where to find that Marlin fellow," I said. "Maybe he can unspell Hunter's blade. Make him less untouchable."
If they were in agreement, I didn't notice. I was already formulating a means to undo the rot that was Hunter Wolfe. One that didn't rely on me sticking around but left my conscience clear.
"Once he's just a regular man with a regular sword, the town can run him out. Raise up. Take back your city."
I just needed to find one of those kids. Not an easy task no matter how many roamed the streets. If it were, Colton Musk and the entire town would have infiltrated and broken up the street rats long ago. Barter was priceless and no one liked having their pockets violated. That invasion was one not long-suffered and no one—not even me—were immune from the rats' light fingers.
If Colton could, he would round up every single rat and Dallas would have suffered the justice of the Ruby Skulls by way of Musk's connections.
But I had one ace up my sleeve that most didn't.
Dallas made it his business to know where I was even if I didn't see him.
All I had to do was hang a bit of barter out as bait and wait for a rat to nibble. Then when the urchin carried it back home, I'd follow on the little darling's heels.
The prospect of actually finding where the street rats hung out was more than a little alluring if not a bit dangerous. They always seemed to evaporate just like Dallas did and while I enjoyed Dallas's good humor and interest, it wasn't enough for him to allow me to know where they roosted.
You had to be a rat to enjoy that privilege.
"The katanas?" I said to Lance. "I'll take them now."
He seesawed his hand back and forth. "They need better leather on the grip," he said. "Now that I've felt your weakness, I need to make sure they're balanced for your stance."
"How long do you think it will be before you can have them ready?" I said to Lance.
He shrugged. "Couple hours."
I faced Sadie. "I'll pay you back," I said to her. "As soon as I find the right barter."
I knew she'd been looking for ledgers of some sort, and that given the right forage, I just might come across them. I didn't know what Sadie would want with a ledger but I suspected it had something to do with tracking the cache of pistols she pretended she'd never found.
She slapped her big hat on my head.
"I'll put them on your tab," she said.
I nodded briskly to both of them from beneath the broad brim. "I'll be back in the morning," I said. "Think you can have it done by then?"
"I imagine it won't be done anytime before noon, but I'd be happy to get a thermos of coffee should you stop by in the morning. Might make things go a little faster."
I cringed. A thermos was one thing; there were still a few old world metal containers left over from when folks realized the tech wasn't coming back on and they began rounding up anything that could make life a bit easier.
A steaming cup of coffee was quite another. Once technology went down, the beans that had once circled the world because of a robust trade had become as rare as hen's teeth because people saw exactly how useful they were as barter. If you had some, you hoarded them.
"Deal," I said with more confidence than I felt. It would be tricky getting coffee out of anyone and I wasn't exactly sure who might have beans in their larders except for maybe Colton Musk.
Seemed I might just have to appear for his summons after all.
"Be careful, Skye," Sadie said. "Hunter might be busy right now finding a place to set up court, but he'll have eyes out looking for you."
"Not to mention the whole town," I said.
She shook her head. "Don't count on that."
"Suspicion is about the only thing I count on anymore," I said.
Lance asked me to wait and paced to the back of his shop where he pulled out a wooden crate filled with leather pouches. He hefted one into his hand and tossed it up before catching it in the other.
"Take these," he said.
When I reached for his hand, my fingers brushed his and I caught his eye. Damn but he had gorgeous eyes. Enough to make a girl remember she was a girl and not a fugitive.
"Nails?" I said, peering into the bag.
"Hand hammered with perfect heads."
He jammed his hands beneath his overall bibs and rocked back on his heels. "There are more than a few folks who'd pay good barter to have those. I'd say a street rat would be "
I wasn't sure what to say. It wasn't unusual for people to pass me things of value, and I always guessed they knew I passed them onto someone else who needed it. It had become part of my routine to distribute barter throughout New Denver and it gained me some good will here and there, good will I'd come to count on because I knew if folks felt they had been well done by, they were less apt to make nasty work of you later.
Not always. But most times.
So it wasn't just a sense of philanthropy that drove that habit, but self-preservation. Yet here were two people giving me things of value and yet without a hint of malicious motivation.
I couldn't trust my voice to thank them so I gave a brief, but what I hoped was a genuine, smile before heading back out onto the street.
The market stalls were emptying. There were only a few holdouts, hoping for one last barter before they pulled their wares back into their shops and closed up. If I wanted to make any progress, I needed to act fast.
I gripped the bag of nails Lance had given me in a light hand. My best bet was to weave in and out of stalls, swinging the bag of nails as I went. If one of Dallas's Street rats was anywhere near, the bag would be irresistible. Lance was right; nails made good barter.
I was weaving around the market, careful to keep my head down with Sadie's hat pulled down far enough to obliterate most of my face. I caught sight of a teenager watching me. He was two stalls over and was making a big show of checking out a basket of apples. I wondered closer, laid down the bag just within reach on top of a basket of payers.
When he reached for it, my hand snaked out and my fingers circled his wrist.
I yanked him close and quick but without aggression. I didn't know him and I didn't want to spook him.
"You can have those nails, but you have to tell Dallas I want him."
The kid didn't bother to look into my eyes. He nodded quickly, lanky hair swinging back and forth over his face. He grabbed the bag, and then was gone.
I was so busy watching him that I wasn't paying much attention to anything else. I had my eye on the boy, and then on the hooded figure browsing at a stall of blan
kets. A thread of dreadlock peeked out from beneath the garment and I was about to laugh and head over with a 'caught ya' on my tongue when a hand clamped around my own wrist.
"Hey," I complained and swung around to elbow whoever it was who had me out of reaction.
Colton Musk leaned in close.
"I would have thought to find you at my office and not in the market," he said.
Something about his tone of voice bothered me. It held a note of possession that I didn't like. A sense of self-importance that irritated me.
Despite my earlier decision to seek him out, I felt especially spiteful.
"You don't own me, Musk," I said. "I take the gigs I want when I want them and right now I'm busy."
"Busy running from Hunter?"
I gaped at him.
In those few seconds I knew it had been no accident that the Lead Justice decided to teach the town how to be law-abiding. Colton who had told Hunter I was here.
I wrenched my hand out of his grip.
"You should know," I said. "You're the informant."
He crossed his hands over his chest.
"I don't work for the Ruby Skulls anymore," he said.
That note of self-importance still colored his tone. Maybe he didn't work for Hunter but he wouldn't give up the chance to use the connection and my landing in the town to further his own ambitions. We went way back, Colton and I, back to the time we both worked in the Ruby Skulls. He'd made it known early on when I'd returned that he had no intentions of informing Hunter I was here so long as I kept doing the little jobs he had for me.
So far, those jobs had proved simple enough: forage at nearby towns, pick up barter no one else had. Pass on information he might use.
I'd always been careful to pass on just enough intel and just enough barter to keep him a benign presence in my exile, but I'd always known he might turn on me. I should have guessed he'd been keeping me busy to keep me feeling safe. That he'd eventually find my presence the best sort of barter.
I tried not to beat myself up about not expecting it to be so soon. I was disappointed I hadn't got more than a few months out of him, but I was resigned to have to use my own kompromat on him already.
Queen of Skye and Shadow complete box set : Queen of Skye and Shadow Omnibus books 1-3 Page 5