Sinners and Saints

by Jennifer Roberson

  Which is why Remi dug into his gearbag, took out rope complete with climbing ratchet, fastened it around the trunk of a thick pine and paid out the bulk of it down over the edge. We’d decided against going full climbing harness because the creekbed was not that far down, and the ratchet would be enough for a controlled descent.

  I looked around, trying to scope out the best route for a truck to get in so we could hook up the bike and winch it to the top. But the trees were pretty close-grown, and there were stumps and fallen trees galore as well as plenty of low branches of substantial size. We were going to have to check around, see if we could find easier access for the winch-truck.

  Remi went over the edge, gearbag hooked over his shoulder. It didn’t take him long to hit bottom. Then I pulled the rope up, repositioned the climbing ratchet, dropped the rope over the edge again and worked my way down.

  And discovered that the bike was not where it had been. “Ohhh man . . .”

  Remi gestured expansively. “I swear it was right here.”

  “It was!”

  “Well, where’d it go?”

  I stood creekside, hands on hips. The last time we’d been here we’d killed a woman and her two ghost children. In the midst of that, the fate of my bike was not at the forefront of my mind. But I was certain this spot was where it had ended up.

  I watched the noisy creek as it ran over and around stones, splashed against aged boulders. It smelled like home, with trees, moisture, foliage all around. “How many people would go to the trouble to pull a very heavy, possibly very damaged motorcycle out of a creek? I mean besides, you know, the owner?”

  Remi looked upstream, contemplated something. Then he nodded. “Let’s go downstream a ways.” When I looked at him, frowning a question, he explained, “We got us a shit-ton of rain this morning, not to mention hail. Got lots of water running right down through here.”

  “You think it floated downstream?”

  He started picking his way along the creek. “It doesn’t take that much water under a car to move it, if the water’s running fast enough, and a bike weighs less. You’ve seen video of vehicles being washed away, haven’t you?”

  I had. And within a few minutes of gingerly making our way over rocks jutting out of the earth and avoiding loose river stones, we did indeed find my bike maybe twenty yards downstream.

  Lying cockeyed on its left side, it had hitched up against some boulders. Most of the gas tank was exposed now, and the front wheel kissed the bank. My right saddlebag stuck up in the air. Because of its position I couldn’t tally all the damage, but the lights were broken out, the handlebars were probably out of alignment, and for all I knew the frame was destroyed. I hoped like hell it wasn’t totaled.

  I could buy a new bike. But you can’t buy memories. And this one had a million associated with it.

  I blew out a noisy breath. “Okay, let’s do what we can to get it up on its wheels, try to roll it out of the water so I can take a closer look, and then we can decide how to do this.” I perched my ass on a boulder, removed boots and socks, rolled up my pants. No way of doing this without getting in the water, and Remi did the same. We picked our way out into the creek, risking broken toes and ankles on slick river stones blurred by running water.

  Bikes are damn heavy. But we numbered two, and from one side we heaved the bike mostly upright, then hung onto it for all we were worth so it wouldn’t unbalance itself and go over on the other side or come back down on us. Once we had it upright, I told Remi to be ready and I eased my way around the back end to the handlebars.

  Bikes are not difficult to roll when they’re upright, not even for one guy, and we had two. But that’s on inflated tires with a frame that’s nicely aligned and well-balanced.

  Well, shit. “Assume it’s destroyed,” I said. “Assume it will try like hell to fall over. Assume it will take far more effort to move it than rolling it somewhere.”

  Remi nodded. “Assume it’s a bronc bound and determined to pitch me off.”

  “Whatever floats your boat. Okay, see that white rock over there?” I pointed. “The quartz that’s half buried? Aim for that. Once we get there, we’ll see if the kickstand will hold it.”

  “But assume it won’t.”

  “Assume it won’t.”

  Naturally, rolling it out of a stone-choked, hard-running creek with God knows how much damage done to the bike made things much more difficult, even for two men. We wrestled with it, finally got it to the big quartz formation I’d indicated.

  The front wheel rim was actually in good shape. The rear was another matter. So the front end rolled while the back end was pretty much dragged. When I went over the bike I found flat tires, a snapped off foot peg, bent rear wheel rim, dents galore, some punctures, all lights shattered, mirrors snapped off, the saddle badly scuffed, ruptured gas tank. But until it was taken apart, I couldn’t truly grasp how much damage had been done.

  I did grasp that the kickstand was bent and thus the bike wouldn’t stand upright without one of us physically holding it in place.

  I stared at the side of the ravine. We’d climbed down okay, but from our present location couldn’t tell if there was a navigable way up—or down. And no handy ropes.

  “Well,” Remi said, “I propose that I climb back up, look around for truck access, bring the blankets, and we’ll get her wrapped up and ready to go for the shop guy.”

  “Okay, hang on.” I eased a leg over the saddle and straddled the bike as one would normally, hands gripping handlebars, though I had to work a little harder at keeping it upright. “See if you can find a few flat rocks around yay big.” I used both hands to approximate what I needed. “Let’s stack them under the kickstand, see if we can counterbalance the bike.”

  Remi nodded, went off to hunt up the appropriate rocks. He came back with four and squatted down to pack the damp sand and soil, carefully stack the stones. It took two tries, but finally I eased the bike leftward a little, rested the kickstand carefully, then rose until I was standing with the bike between my legs. So far, so good. I brought a leg over, stood on the one side, let the bike’s weight settle on the propped up kickstand without me making physical contact.

  I nodded at him. “Okay.”

  Remi headed back upstream while I contemplated my poor bike. It was possible the cost of rebuilding would outstrip the cost of a new bike. I had no insurance, since the bike had been sitting at home for eighteen months while I was in prison. So it was all on me.

  I squinted across the creek, speaking to the air. “I should ask Grandaddy if this job pays anything. I mean, what does it cost to save the world?” We had credit cards provided by whoever was running things but had been specifically cautioned not to use them on “frivolous expenditures.” I wasn’t sure if bike repairs entered into that.

  Something bounced off the back of my neck. Thinking of insects. I slapped at it. Then again. I turned in irritation, and was astonished to see Molly, she of the bright red glasses and a demon riding her.

  “Boo!” she shouted. She sat above me at the ravine’s edge, skinny jeans-clad legs dangling, and continued to toss pebbles at me. “Dare you!” she called, grinning widely. “Dare you to come up here and stop me!”

  “Don’t have to,” I called back, and pulled the Taurus from my holster. “I can shoot just fine from down here.”

  And I did.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I didn’t shoot her. She was a demon riding a human.

  I shot dead center between her swinging legs. Stone chips flew.

  “Hey!” She was wide-eyed in shock as she wrenched her legs apart, then grinned broadly. “You shoot the host to get to me, you’ve got a dead host.”

  I grinned back at her. “I don’t have to shoot to kill. It might not be convenient for the host to be winged, maybe, but it would rid the world of you.”

  “Nuh-uhhh.”
She sounded just like a young kid. “You can wound the host, sure, but I can heal her. You’ve got to kill her to get me out.”

  “The bullets have been washed in holy oil and holy water.”

  “Oh, ow. I’m all aquiver with terror.” She sprang up from the edge of the ravine and brushed off the seat of her pants. As she stared down at me dark hair was loose around her shoulders and the red glasses frames glowed brightly in the sun. She was slim, on the short side, looked about seventeen. And she was apparently whip-smart. Blue-eyed, as I recalled from Dr. Hickman’s office. It was an immature girl-next-door look; give her another year or two and she might blossom nicely.

  Well, if the demon ever departed.

  I raised my voice, let it ring throughout the trees above the sound of running water. “Exorcisamus te . . . omnis immundus spiritus . . .” And then I had to stop, because I didn’t remember any more of the Rituale Romanum. I’d been hoping just the beginning would start the process of expulsion from the host.

  Molly laughed very like a hyena, loud and delighted, and it echoed through the trees. “Oh, it’s going to be fun playing with you noobs!” Then she blew into a flattened palm, closed up thumb and fingers as if to hold the breath, then rolled her hand over and snapped the digits forward sharply.

  She pointed at me, and I dropped my gun. Then I fell over. She pointed at my bike, and it fell over. By the time I was on my feet again and my Taurus was recovered, she was gone.

  Remi, gun in hand, broke out of the trees and foliage and brought himself up short at the edge of the ravine, directly above me. “Gabe—you okay? What was the shooting about?”

  I waved him off. “She’s gone.”

  “She who? What happened?”

  “The girl we chased on campus. Or, well, the demon we chased on campus. Apparently we have a fan. She dropped by just to give us a hard time. Or, well, me.” I motioned. “Can you come back down? The bitch knocked over my bike.” And me, but I left that part out.

  Remi safed his revolver home in its holster. “I gotta go back and pick everything else up. I dropped it all and ran when I heard the shot.” He began to turn, swung back. “Oh, and the guy with the truck can’t be here after all. Some family emergency. First thing come morning, he said. But we can at least get the bike all wrapped up so it’s ready to go tomorrow. Hang on; I’ll be down directly.”

  While I waited, I examined my gun. Apparently she’d mojo’d either it or me, because it just flat fell out of my hand. Which meant one of two things, I decided: One, she really was just screwing with us; or two, bullets washed in holy water and holy oil could do a number on the demon inside the host, and she meant only to distract me from that realization.

  Nonetheless, I needed to find out how she’d done it so it wouldn’t happen again.

  * * *

  —

  Once back in boots, pants unrolled, I recovered my saddlebags— one water-logged, the other mostly okay—and Remi and I heaved up the bike once more, replaced the stacked stones, eased the kickstand down onto them, and refound the balance point. I finally stepped away from the bike, hands set and arms outstretched in case it wobbled, but all looked good.

  “You said she knocked it over?” Remi asked. “Did she come down here?”

  “No. She was still up top. Did a weird little thing with breath and hand, and it fell over.” I kicked a stone aside. “And, well, me, too.”

  “You too, what?”

  “Fell over.”

  He could make no sense of it. “With her up there?”

  I felt warmth in my face. “I would like to remind you that she’s a demon. Demons can do things.”

  “But she didn’t kill you.”

  “Apparently not, since here I am in front of you all alive and everything.”

  He scowled. “It might could be handy to know what she did, and how she did it.”

  “It might could,” I agreed, “but I’ve got no answer for you. I just—fell over. As if tackled on the football field.” I paused. “By an invisible player.”

  Remi’s expression was inscrutable. But finally he mentioned we ought to try and pin Grandaddy down on a few things. “In the meantime,” he said, “we’d better . . .”

  But he didn’t finish. He trailed off, staring over my shoulder, then muttered, “Now this ol’ boy has seen a few hard winters, I reckon.”

  I turned, discovered a man on horseback approaching. Cowboy hat, boots, coiled rope at his saddlehorn, and he wore roughout chaps somewhat similar to biker chaps, but belled out wide at the bottom. He also wore a gunbelt with what I was betting, by its grip and barrel length, was a Colt .45 in the holster. He was mustachioed with a thick brown brush that hid even his bottom lip, and wore a black scarf that hung down in draped folds to mid-chest over a dark bib-fronted shirt. He rode a red horse with three white stockings.

  “Howdy!” the cowboy called, still a distance away.

  Remi dipped his head. “Come ahead.”

  “Oh my God,” I said, grinning. “Is this a thing? A cowboy to cowboy thing?”

  The man came on, actually said “Whoa” when he was about twelve feet away. The horse stopped.

  “Oh, it’s a thing,” I said.

  “You got some manners, mind ’em. This man’s seen three times the years we have.” He nodded at the old cowboy. “Howdy.”

  “Your pony looks a mite stove up.” There was grit in his voice, but he didn’t pitch down to actor Sam Elliott’s famous rumble.

  “She’s had a hard couple of days,” Remi agreed.

  “Burton Mossman,” the cowboy said.

  “Remi McCue, and this here’s Gabe Harlan.”

  I shot an amused glance at Remi, wondering if he realized his drawl had gotten broader.

  “What do you propose to do about it?” Mossman asked.

  “We’ve got to get her up the ravine,” Remi told him. “We had a truck and a winch lined up, but he’ll be out tomorrow instead of today.”

  The cowboy checked out the ravine walls. “Can you move her some?”

  “Some,” Remi answered. “But she’s broke down in her rear.”

  I swear, the two of them spoke like my bike was a horse.

  Mossman nodded. “How far downstream you been?”

  “This far,” Remi told him.

  The cowboy shifted in his saddle. “Well, if you want her out today, I can get it done for you.”

  My brows shot up. “You have access to a winch?”

  His deep-set brown eyes were rimmed by a network of crows-feet. “I got me a horse and a rope.”

  “Uhhhh,” was all I could manage. Low-voiced, I asked Remi, “What are we doing, now?”

  He was grinning. “If we’re doing what I think we’re doin,’ it will make a fine tale.”

  “But what are we doing?”

  The old cowboy took his rope, slung the loop end at Remi. “I reckon you know what to do.”

  Remi caught it. “Yessir, I do at that.” And he proceeded to tell me to make sure the bike didn’t fall over, and he ran the loop over the handlebars, did a few things here, a few things there, then nodded up at the cowboy. “I reckon we’re ready, sir.” To me, he said, “Hang onto it. Be ready to walk it. He’s gonna pull it on out of here.”

  “He’s what?” I looked up at the cowboy. “I’m sorry—what are we doing?”

  With that big brush of a mustache, I couldn’t tell if he was smiling or not. “Just around that corner back yonder is a path leadin’ to the top. You keep her in line, and Jehosaphat and I’ll get her up there.”

  “Jehosaphat’s the horse?” I asked Remi.

  “I reckon so.”

  Whole lot of reckons being thrown around here. “He’s going to drag my bike?”

  “He’s not fixin’ to drag your bike, no. That’s a cowpony he’s riding.”

 
“So?”

  “Guess you’ve never been to a rodeo or ranch, seen stock bein’ worked.”

  “That’s a fair observation,” I agreed dryly. “Do I look like I have?”

  “The cowboy ropes the steer or calf, and the horse holds it in place, keeps slack out of the rope. Horse’ll stay put like a four-legged anchor and let that steer or calf tucker itself out and quit, and he’ll back up long as it takes while we keep the bike upright.”

  “If you say so.”

  Remi rolled his eyes. “Okay, one hand on the handle bar, one hand on the seat. Keep it on its wheels, walk beside it. Let the horse do the work.”

  I didn’t see how this would not result in my bike being dragged, but I was willing to try.

  Remi’s smile was amused. “Cowboy winch.”

  The old man wrapped rope around the saddle horn a couple of times, lifted long, loose reins, clicked his tongue at the horse. “Go on, then. Get along.”

  The horse . . . backed up. It took up all the slack in the rope, and stopped. Another couple of words from the cowboy and the horse began backing up again. And pulled the bike.

  “Why is he backing up?” I asked.

  “If he turned,” Remi said, “that rope would cut right across his thigh. Chaps help, but it hurts like a son of a gun.”

  I began to see what Remi meant. As we steadied the bike and kept it moving straight as we could with a wonky rear wheel, that horse backed us slowly downstream a short distance to where I saw the pathway up the ravine’s edge spilling into the creekside. It was well-beaten earth.

  “Can he pull us all the way uphill?” I asked. “I mean, it’s a motorcycle. They’re not exactly light.”

  “How much did you say this one weighs?”

  “Seven hundred pounds or so.”

  “And how much do you figure a steer weighs?”