Fike. Had he left town? He couldn’t possibly be gone already. The livery clerk at the stage stop informed me there had been no stage today, nor had anyone hired a horse. But then hadn’t Sieur Wraathmyr said he didn’t ride? Maybe he’d gone back to Valdosta’s to try to find the missing dispatch. I did not relish the idea of following him back there.
What if I couldn’t find him? I could try to deliver the dispatch myself, but I wasn’t sure where it was going. Surely he wasn’t taking it all the way to the Kulani Islands; they were several weeks’ journey, even by fast clipper ship, and the dispatch had made the timeline sound urgent.
I walked down Main Street again, trying to swallow my panic. A thin rain was beginning to fall. The streets looked muddy and gray, hopeless. Flynn nudged my knee; he was damp and starting to shiver. I ducked into Toby’s Coffee Shack. Toby, the coffee jerk, hadn’t seen Sieur Wraathmyr, either. When you need to think, drink more coffee, Nini Mo said.
I was waiting for Toby to finish making my mocha when I heard a commotion outside. I looked out the window and saw a crowd gathering, their excited murmurs loud enough to be heard through the glass. The door flung open and a girl rushed in.
“Hey, Toby You gotta come quick. The sheriff’s caught an outlaw!”
“What kind of an outlaw?” Toby squirted a giant pile of whip on my mocha and pushed it across the counter toward me. He didn’t look terribly excited, although considering all the fuss, this could not be an everyday occurrence.
“A big one!” the girl said.
“The last time Cletie said she caught a big outlaw,” Toby said, “he turned out to be nothing but an egg thief. Where I come from, an egg thief don’t qualify as a big outlaw. Twenty-two glories.”
I handed Toby the money and dropped five glories in his tip jar. He nodded at me and went over to the sandwich board, where he began to slice bread.
“Naw, this one is really big. I saw the poster myself!” An old lady had followed the girl in. Her hat was shaped exactly like a plush toy horse. In fact, it was a plush toy horse. The horse’s mournful face flopped over the lady’s forehead, and a plush hoof dangled over each ear. She said, hooves bobbing with excitement, “Wanted for larceny, thievery, and cupidity!”
“That’s a busy outlaw.” Toby continued with his sandwich-making.
“Aren’t larceny and thievery the same thing?” I asked.
The old lady peered at me suspiciously, the horse-hat quivering. “It ain’t funny, girl. He’s a dangerous outlaw!” She waved a piece of paper: a WANTED sign. I had vaguely noticed the WANTED signs hanging outside the sheriff’s as I had passed by, but I hadn’t looked at them closely. Now I took the sign, and as I read it, all the air rushed out of my lungs.
WANTED: T. N. WRAATHMYR! Wanted for larceny, thievery, and cupidity: FIFTEEN-HUNDRED DIVAS IN JADE. DEAD OR ALIVE. Offered by the Sheriff of Pudding Pie, Califa. The drawing illustrating the poster was rough, but clearly Sieur Wraathmyr. The artist had caught his stuck-up attitude perfectly.
Pigface! How many people were looking for Sieur Wraathmyr, anyway? First the guy at the lodge, now the sheriff. He was more popular than the Man in Pink Bloomers. I could imagine Sieur Wraathmyr doing many illegal things, but larceny and thievery were not among them, and I wasn’t even sure what cupidity was, but I doubted that, too. It must be a set-up.
I abandoned my mocha on the counter and followed the horse lady outside. The crowd in front of the jail was swelling with people eager to see the big outlaw. I pushed my way forward, ignoring the dirty looks that the liberal use of my pointy elbows got me.
Inside the jail, the sheriff sat with her feet propped up on her desk, a rancid-smelling seegar in her mouth, telling her admiring audience how she had captured such a terribly dangerous criminal. “...recognized his shifty face immediately. I said, 'Throw-down, Mug,’ and he reached for his gun, but I reached faster and buffaloed him good!”
The crowd was hanging on her every lie; I knew that Sieur Wraathmyr did not carry a gun. Even the drunk in the first cell was quiet, leaning on the iron bars, staring in wobbly-eyed admiration. In the second cell, Sieur Wraathmyr was sitting on the edge of the iron cot, looking bearishly angry His left eye was swollen almost shut. My exclamation of dismay must have been pretty loud, because suddenly everyone, including Sieur Wraathmyr, was looking at me.
The sheriff glared at my interruption. “Can I help you, citizen?”
“Uh, ah—” I stuttered.
“You got something to say?” The sheriff stood up. She was a very large woman, at least a foot taller than me and a foot wider.
“Uh—” Flynn saved me. He had wiggled through the crowd with me and was now sniffing around the spittoon. Out the corner of my eye, I saw his leg lift, and I gave a shout. Flynn dropped his leg and flashed over to me, hiding behind my legs.
“Sorry,” I said. “I was yelling at the dog.”
“Get that dog out of here!” the sheriff roared. “Before I arrest you both.”
That dog and I retreated to Toby’s, where I reclaimed my abandoned mocha and tried desperately—and quickly—to think of a plan. Regardless of the merits of the sheriff of Pudding Pie’s accusations, I had to spring Sieur Wraathmyr somehow. Buck’s dispatch had to be delivered, pronto. And, with a shiver, I remembered Valdosta’s friend. At some point he would return to the lodge and find us gone. If he tracked Sieur Wraathmyr to Cambria and told the sheriff that Sieur Wraathmyr was a wer-bear ... I had a sudden vision of Sieur Wraathmyr, a noose around his neck, being harried to a tree by a lynch mob waving torches.
This was not a pleasant vision.
My dispatch case was squirming and heaving.
“Do you have a bathroom?” I asked Toby hurriedly, clutching the case to my chest, hoping no one would notice its squirms. He pointed toward the back. The bathroom was tiny and dark, but it was clean. I pushed Flynn in ahead of me and shut and locked the door. A plan was beginning to come together in my head, but I was going to need Octohands’s help.
As soon as I unlatched the dispatch case, a tentacle whipped out and fastened on my wrist. You can’t let them take him, girlie!
I thought you thought he was bad news.
Ayah, I did, but that was before I saw him in action. He’s magnificent! Wonderful! As your almost father, I say that I heartily approve. What a shot to the bloodline he’ll give! We’ve never had a skinwalker, except for Great Uncle Peter, but he was just a wer-flamingo, pretty but totally useless in a fight. Think of the little Hadraada bear cubs! You couldn’t have made a better choice!
I realized what he was saying and almost choked. No! It’s nothing like that at all! Oh Pigface, no! Goddess, are you insane?
Don’t be coy with me, madama, I can read your every thought, remember. Protest all you want, but I know the truth —
We’ll discuss this later, I answered hastily Now, this is what we are going to do...
NINETEEN
Keys. Confusion. Escape.
YOU AGAIN!” the sheriff said when I arrived back at the jail a little while later. She and the deputy were sitting comfortably in front of the stove, drinking hot toddies. “Did you think of what you wanted to say? Keep that dog away from my spittoon!”
“Sit, Flynn,” I ordered, and Flynn obediently sat. “I would like to see the prisoner, please.” As I spoke, I glanced around. The door to the first cell stood open; the drunk was gone. A large ring of keys lay in a pile on the sheriff’s desk, next to a half-eaten sandwie. Very sloppy, but good for me.
“That so? Well, he’s being held in-communi-cado,” the sheriff said with a sneer.
“But he’s right there, looking at us. Ave!”
“Ave,” Sieur Wraathmyr said, somewhat warily. He had been lying on the cot. Now he got up and stood against the bars. He still looked mighty pissed, though whether it was at his circumstances or my arrival, I couldn’t tell.
“How can he be incommunicado if he’s standing right there?” I asked.
“If you can’t
talk to him, he’s incommunicado,” the sheriff said triumphantly.
“But I can talk to him. I brought you a cinnamon roll, honey.” I walked toward the cell, bag in hand. As I passed the sheriff’s desk, I dropped my dispatch case. When I leaned over to pick it up, Octohands slithered out and undulated under the desk, out of sight. “I know you love cinnamon rolls!”
Sieur Wraathmyr looked bewildered, but he said, “Thank you!”
“Hey, now, one minute. You can’t just waltz in here and give my prisoner a cinnamon roll,” the sheriff protested. “Who are you?”
“I’m his lawyer. Did you feed him?”
“Well, no, but—”
I handed Sieur Wraathmyr the cinnamon roll through the bars. “Under Califa law, you have to feed a prisoner. You can’t just lock him in a cell and throw away the keys. A prisoner has rights, you know. You can’t let him starve.”
“He’s only been my prisoner for two hours. And dinner won’t be here until six—”
“I don’t see any water, either. Did she give you any water?” I asked Sieur Wraathmyr.
“Not a drop,” he answered. Out the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of red movement: Octohands had made it up to the surface of the desk and was now creeping across it.
I said quickly, to keep the sheriff’s and deputy’s attention, “Under Califa Penal Code, Section 15, Paragraph 12, water, or a comparable liquid, must be made available to all prisoners at all times and may only be withheld by a judge’s order. Do you have a judge’s order to withhold water from this prisoner?”
“Well, no, but—” Now I had the sheriff good and flustered. I pressed my advantage by complaining about the lack of a window in Sieur Wraathmyr’s cell, the fact that he had been given no blanket, and that he had a black eye. All those court-martial reports I had copied were coming in handy I knew more about the law than the sheriff did.
While I blabbered and the sheriff blinked in confusion, Octohands grabbed the keys with one tentacle and the sandwie in another, then disappeared back under the desk. Under my barrage of complaints, the sheriff completely wilted. Finally I pulled out my trump card. “And how do you know this man is indeed Sieur Wraathmyr?”
“I recognized his picture. Here, see—” The sheriff flourished the WANTED poster at me. I made a great show of looking at it and then looking at Sieur Wraathmyr—back and forth, back and forth. Then I looked at the deputy. Octohands was scuttling across the floor behind the deputy’s boot, but the deputy was staring at me in too much slack-jawed befuddlement to notice.
"Seems to me that your poster looks more like this man here.” With a sneer of disdain, I let the poster waft to the floor. The sheriff picked it up and looked at it again—then looked at Sieur Wraathmyr and back at the deputy
"Me? I’m not full of cupidity!” the deputy protested. "You know that, Cletie. I’m married to your mother!”
I said quickly, "You can’t prove this man is T. N. Wraathmyr.” Or at least I hope you can’t, I thought. "And I am here to tell you that this man is not T. N. Wraathmyr.”
"He did say he weren’t this Sieur Wraathmyr,” the deputy said. "I mean, I ain’t him either, but he said he weren’t, too.”
"But if he isn’t this Wraathmyr, who is he?” the sheriff asked.
"I told you,” Sieur Wraathmyr rattled the bars in indignation. We all turned toward him. There was no sign now of Octohands or the keys. "My name is Oddvar Huenca! I’ve never heard of this T. N. Wraathmyr fellow!”
"Who is Oddvar Huenca?” the deputy asked.
"He’s my fiancé!” I said triumphantly. "He thought he could run off and leave me, after making all sorts of promises, but I tracked him down. I’ll bet he thought he escaped me, pretending to be this Wraathmyr, so as to be arrested, thinking he can hide behind bars—” The sheriff and the deputy were staring at me, mesmerized. Octohands slithered into the cell, and Sieur Wraathmyr bent down and grabbed the keys from him.
“I thought you said you was his lawyer,” the sheriff said in bewilderment.
“I am, and his fiancée, too! And I’m gonna sue him for breach of promise!”
Sieur Wraathmyr said to the sheriff, “I swear that lady is crazy—I’ve never seen her before in my life!”
“You just try that, Oddvar! You think you can get away from me, but you cannot. You made a promise and you are going to keep it, if I have to have you locked up to do it! Sheriff, I demand that you release this man so that he may honor his obligations to me!”
“I am T N. Wraathmyr!” Sieur Wraathmyr said frantically. “And I’ll take my medicine—”
“You’ll take my medicine and like it, too!” I turned to the sheriff. “Under the Califa Penal Code, Section 56, Paragraph 91, if you can’t show due cause for detaining a prisoner, then you must release him. I demand to know what charges you are holding him under.”
“If he is this Wraathmyr fella—” the sheriff began.
“I am! I am!”
I turned on Sieur Wraathmyr in a fury “I swear, Oddvar, I’m going to boot you into the middle of next week. How could you do this to me? After all I’ve done for you? Saved you from the gutter and lent you a hundred divas—”
“Now, wait one fiking minute,” the sheriff protested. “You can’t be his girl and his lawyer. That’s a conflict of interest.”
I turned on her. “How dare you slander me in such a way? I’ll sue you for harassing my good name! If you don’t want to make matters worse for yourself, I suggest you retract that accusation. And since you have no proof that this man is T. N. Wraathmyr, I demand that you release him to me.”
“I swear I’m T. N. Wraathmyr,” Sieur Wraathmyr said desperately. “I swear I am. Don’t give me over to this crazy lady”
“Can you prove it?” the sheriff asked.
“Well, no, but you have my word.”
“You’d take his word over mine?” I demanded. “A criminal over a solid citizen! You can keep him, then! I don’t care if he rots in that cell forever!”
The sheriff took a large handkerchief out of her pocket and mopped up the sheen of sweat that had sprung out on her temples. “You know what? I don’t care if you are T. N. Wraathmyr, or are not T. N. Wraathmyr, or are even the dæmon Choronzon himself. You can sit in that jail and rot, and you, madama, can sit with him. You are under arrest, and the fiking dog, too—”
She advanced upon me, but Sieur Wraathmyr swung the cell door open and charged through, hitting her like a sack of bricks. Down she went. The deputy stood gaping, and was still gaping when I picked up the truncheon from the sheriff’s desk and bashed him on the head with it. He went down, too. Flynn, who’d sprawled out by the stove during our conversation, sprang to his feet and barked in triumph.
We dragged the two lawdogs into the cell, laid each out on a bunk, and locked them in, dropping the cell key into the spittoon, where it would take a long time for any potential rescuers to find it. And then we skedaddled, as fast we could skedaddle, pausing only long enough for me to scoop up Octohands and settle him on my shoulder and for Sieur Wraathmyr to reclaim his satchel. Out the back door, into the driving rain, past the privy, down the alley, and the fike out of Cambria.
We didn’t pause until we were well out of town. Then we took shelter under a large pine tree. The rain was tapering off into a soggy mist, which, hopefully, would also foil any pursuit. Poor Flynn was soaked to the skin, and I wasn’t that far off. Sieur Wraathmyr’s fur coat looked damp, but inside it, he looked disgustingly dry.
“Where did that octopus come from?” Sieur Wraathmyr asked.
“It’s a long story” I found a dry part of my kilt and tried to dry Snapperdog off. He was starting to shiver.
“I owe you thanks,” Sieur Wraathmyr said, and then blew it by adding, “though I did not actually need your help.”
I stared at him incredulously “Are you fiking kidding me?”
Almost Daughter, don’t be an imbecile! Tamp it down! You’ll piss him off and lose him. He’s too good to let go
—
Shut up! Shut up or I’ll turn you into fish bait!
Sieur Wraathmyr said loftily, “I could have busted out on my own later tonight, once the sheriff went home. I would have shifted, and then the cell would not have been able to hold me.”
“Ayah, and ended up with a lynch mob on your tail! Well, I didn’t bail you out for your own good, let me tell you. I know what’s at stake here. Here’s your dispatch. It was mixed in with my map. I know you are an express agent. If I were you, I’d quit standing there gaping like a broken window and get hot on your job. It’s rather urgent.”
I thrust the dispatch at him, and he took it, saying, “You read the dispatch?”
“It’s in my mother’s handwriting.”
“It is a diplomatic communication!”
“Oh, ayah, well, sorry. Look, you don’t have time to stand around and discuss this. The fate of Califa depends on its safe delivery and you are a wanted man. I’d get moving if I were you. Good luck! Come on, Flynn!”
I turned and marched away, out of the shelter and into the driving rain, hardly able to see for the tears—of anger, I swear—that had sprung to my eyes. A good deed never goes unpunished, Nini Mo said. I should have let Sieur Arrogance stay in his cozy little jail and take care of his own snobby self. Why had I even bothered? For Califa I had bothered. For him, no. He was free, and he had his dispatch back and I hoped I never saw him again. Octohands roared at me to go back, to beg Sieur Wraathmyr’s pardon. I pried him off my shoulder and stuffed him back into the dispatch case, vowing to find a way to banish him once and for all.
“Where are you going?” Sieur Wraathmyr loomed over me.
“What the fike do you care? To jump off the nearest cliff! Leave me alone!”
“That’s a stupid thing to do.”
“No, a stupid thing is trying to help some arrogant snapperhead who doesn’t need your help, and a stupider thing is falling for a stupid enchantment that makes you spill your guts to that stupid snapperhead, and to think you actually like him, and to think he likes you, too, and then kissing him, and then the enchantment wears off and he won’t look you in the eye. How’s that for stupidity? Leave me alone!”
Flora's Fury: How a Girl of Spirit and a Red Dog Confound Their Friends, Astound Their Enemies, and Learn the Impo Page 16