by Lila Bowen
He speared another piece of snake on his knife. “I was with a ranch over in Arteaga. We got in a fight with some nasty vaqueros over some stolen horses one night. They shot most of our mounts out from under us and kept shooting. Our bullets didn’t stop ’em, though. Got down to four of us fellers holed up behind dead mounts, and I figured we were goners. I was out of bullets, and they quit shooting, so I played dead with my hand on my knife. Soon as one of them bastards came to rootle me, I stabbed him in the heart. Just before he turned to sand, I saw what was really there. Chupacabra. You seen one?”
Nettie’s memory served up a flash of Chuck as a scaly reptile monster with bug-eyes and acid spit, his teeth snapping for her. “Yep. I seen one.”
“He went sandy and blew away, as they do, and I had no idea what-all had just happened. Didn’t know what to do, as I could hear his crew rifling my dead friends and then… eating ’em. So I laid back down and kept playing dead. Guess they took whatever they wanted and got full bellies. Pretty soon, they rounded up the herd of horses and left. Captain and the Rangers found me a few hours later at sun-up, trying to dig six graves with a Bowie knife. They’d heard tell of the chupa gang, but they were too late.”
“So the Rangers just took you on?”
A bitter laugh. Sam picked his teeth with his knife and ended with a grin. “’Course not. Rangers ain’t a hotel. They told me what had happened, told me my best bet was to head east or north, away from the chupas and rogue werewolves. Said to either find some civilized place full of white people and lawmen or be a mountain man, where all I’d have to worry about was Sasquatches and the occasional bored skinwalker. Instead, I followed ’em on foot, all the way here. Figured I’d rather fight them things than run away and pretend they don’t exist.” He tossed his knife, and it sunk into the ground. “What about you?”
“Accidentally killed a vampire.”
“Well, sure. But why were you with Dan? And what’s this thing you got to kill?”
Talking about her past made Nettie downright uncomfortable. It was hard enough to pretend to be a boy named Rhett, but now she also had to pretend she’d never seen Hennessy before, that she wasn’t from Gloomy Bluebird, and that she hadn’t worked for a few blissful days at the Double TK with Hennessy’s old friends, one of whom was now dead by her own hand. Standing, she yanked Hennessy’s knife out of the dirt and wiped it on her pants, then held it out, hilt first. He took it, giving her a probing look that made her yank her hat down over her eyes and scratch the itchy scruff at the back of her neck where her hair had been inexpertly slashed by her old jackknife.
“If I knew what it was or why I got to kill it, I wouldn’t need the Rangers at all. Now don’t we got business to do?” Without thinking, she held out a hand to help pull Hennessy up. He clasped her palm warmly, popped to his feet, and gave her a good-natured shrug.
“There’s always business to do, other Hennessy. But I want you to know I’ll help you if I can. You remind me of somebody I used to know, I reckon.”
Nettie went stone-cold all the way down to her feet. Did he recognize her? If he did, that meant trouble, because no way would the Rangers let a girl live among ’em. But it also meant he’d noticed her the first time around, which felt damn good for someone who’d always figured she might as well be invisible to anyone that mattered. It was nice, too, the way he looked full at her, smiled at her, asked her real questions… even if she blushed fiercely and he made her all rough and tongue-tied.
“Do I remind you of… somebody from home?” she asked, as he picked up the arm’s length of snake still steaming on the skewer and kicked dirt over the fire.
He shook his head, took the snake, and dumped the meat in a leather bag at his waist before he started walking. “Feller I lost to the chupas. Ricky. Plucky little half-Aztecan sumbitch. He helped me out when I was first on the trail.”
Nettie’s heart dove and resurfaced before sinking again. So she was safe, probably. For now. And she reminded him of a dead half-breed boy who’d been his friend, which he could admit without spitting in the dirt. Accustomed as she was to wanting more things than there were stars in the sky, it galled a bit, both needing to be assumed a boy and hating to be seen as anything other than exactly what she was. What was so horrible about being a girl that everyone felt the need to force them into skirts and tether them to ovens and children? Who had decided that women couldn’t ride astride and proud and still be women?
Probably fellers who were scared of competition, far as she could reckon.
Nettie didn’t feel much like a girl, but she didn’t feel much like a boy, either. She just… was.
A hand landed on her wrist. “You need bullets, Rhett?”
“What?” She’d been imagining riding double with Hennessy on a unicorn, and shook the silly fancy from her head.
“Bullets. We carry regular and a couple of silver, each.” When she stared at his hand a beat longer, he pulled it away and added, “For werewolves. Damn, that sounds right stupid. But it’s the only thing that’ll slow ’em down.”
By the end of the day, Nettie knew how to mold her own silver bullets, how to turn just about anything into a stake, and that she should never try to eat any part of a monster, no matter how hungry she was or how dead she figured it was. The damn things weren’t gone until they were sand, and whatever was left of ’em until that point would try right hard to keep going. The fanged rabbits were dangerous while alive but not actually magical monsters, just predators, according to what Sam knew—and they tasted mighty fine, as Nettie had learned herself. But anything that could walk on two legs or talk was bad news. Fortunately, most of the monsters looked like predators, scavengers, or creatures white folks didn’t want to eat even if they could find ’em, like the Javelina. “And remember,” Sam said sternly, “don’t ever eat a rooster, just hens.”
“Begging your pardon, but what’s wrong with roosters?”
“Go on, Rench. Show ’im.”
A red-headed feller lifted up his shirt to show a scar on his belly. “Ate a bad batch of rooster-foot soup in a train camp. Chunk of cockatrice burrowed its way right out of my gut. I nearly died.”
That story, of course, came right before dinner, as they all lined up for beans on the porch steps where she’d first seen them last week. They’d been angry shapes then, shadows with guns. Now she knew their names, their horses, what each man’s specialty in killing monsters was. Nettie stood beside Hennessy, her head down, feeling jittery. She could sense at least one other monster feller in the area, and although she was pretty sure it was Jiddy, there was this sort of constant buzz that grated on her nerves and made her stomach flop over. Not that she could ask about it without sounding like a goddamn fool. It wasn’t until she was sitting at the table with a dented tin plate of beans and goat that she finally discovered the source of her unease.
The Captain came in, and the fellers stood up and nodded, all deferential-like. He went straight for the beans, and Delgado scraped up the last big chunks of goat meat as if he’d been saving them for the boss. It was clear the big chair with arms was reserved for the Captain, but instead, he sat down his plate and came over to where Nettie stood next to Hennessy.
“You gettin’ on, Rhett?”
“Yes, Captain.”
The Captain nodded and pulled a pocket watch from his beat-up vest. Nettie’s stomach rippled, and she coughed up a couple of half-chewed beans and swallowed them back where they belonged. She caught a flash of movement in the Captain’s hands and looked down in time to see a snake-like eyeball blink at her from tarnished silver, set into the curved watch case opposite the clock face. She nearly dropped her plate as the Captain wound the watch and poked it back into his pocket as if it wasn’t half alive.
“That’s one of Juan de Blanco’s eyes,” he said, taking up his plate. “He don’t shoot so good, now.” He took a few bites, gulping his food down like it was serious work. “Reckon we’ll set out at dawn for this Cannibal Owl of yours. You s
aid it’s west?” Nettie nodded but couldn’t speak. “Fine. The boys teach you enough to kill whatever you find?” She nodded. “Good. Whatever else you need to know, you’ll learn on the road. From what Dan said, you can hold your own, and we got to find it before the new moon. So we need to hurry. That right?”
Nettie swallowed down her revolting beans and stuck out her chin. “Yes, Captain.”
“You helping him along, Hennessy?”
Hennessy smiled like a loyal dog. “Yes, Captain. Rhett’s doing right good. Taught me how to skin a snake today.”
The Captain swallowed a mouthful of meat without chewing. “I ain’t impressed with skinning snakes unless they’re attached to a gorgon’s head, boy. You all better focus on killing things that are as smart as you are. Not that a snake ain’t close.”
Hennessy’s head didn’t fall, but Nettie felt him deflate a bit as he said, “Yes, Captain.”
When the Captain tucked a napkin into his collar and went for seconds, the men were free to eat again, although Nettie had lost much of her appetite. Delgado’s cooking was inferior to the Double TK’s offerings and what Nettie could scavenge for herself on the prairie. And the cook didn’t seem to like her, either, judging by the sloppy way he tossed mostly beans and not much goat on her plate. She still had a few gritty beans left when the Captain belched and stood.
As the older man moved around the room from man to man, giving orders about the days to come, Nettie watched him, sly-like. The Captain knew how to speak to each Ranger, how to reach him. Some fellers, he put a hand on their shoulder and looked ’em in the eye. Some, like Jiddy, he just nodded at and muttered something too low for anyone else to hear. Some fellers, he laughed with and grinned at. But in the end, he’d spoken to every man at the table, given him a job. Best Nettie could tell, of the two dozen fellers, most of ’em were coming along on the hunt for the Cannibal Owl, leaving only the oldest and most infirm behind to guard the outfit. On one hand, it was awful comforting, knowing she wasn’t alone. But on the other hand, it was her hunt, and she didn’t care to share it with a bunch of strange fellers. Would the Injun woman be satisfied if Hennessy or Jiddy took down the monster? Or did it have to be Nettie herself?
There had to be some way to make sure the Cannibal Owl fell only to her. And that she had some quiet time, before it died, to question it at gunpoint about her past.
After dinner, the bunkhouse was lively and rife with talk as the men packed up their things and cleaned their guns. Nettie learned that since they weren’t paid well, regular-like, their only hope of making any money was to plunder. Whatever monsters they killed, they got to keep that creature’s things. And if the monster they killed was an old or a rich one, that meant a man could make his fortune with one well-placed stake. Much was said about a Ranger named Bloomfield who’d personally taken down a vampire mayor who’d stuffed his mattress full of gold. Bloomfield had moved to New York City to buy a newspaper and had a personal bodyguard with a crossbow that shot stakes, just in case the ex-mayor’s vamp friends wanted revenge. All the young rangers wanted to be the next Bloomfield.
Nettie didn’t have much to pack, but she opened up her saddlebags and laid out all her things just the same. One set of clothes, stained with blood and worse, but that was normal for the Rangers, from what she’d seen. The men wore bloodstains like medals of honor.
Two holsters, three pistols. The one she currently wore on her hip was the most reliable, but the other two might be the difference between life and death in a fight. One Bowie knife, considerably sharper after Dan had whetted it, and two she hadn’t yet had cause to test. A few silver bullets and enough regular shot to take down a herd of buffalo. A lariat and an old bullwhip they’d given her, once she’d shown her skill with it, as she’d lost her old one in the desert. Add in her water skins, saddle, blanket, headstall, treasure pouch, more money than she should’ve had, and Ragdoll, and that was the sum total of her belongings.
Not bad for two weeks on her own, and much better than a one-eyed mule… that she still missed.
With all the bunks taken, Nettie had claimed a space by the door on her second night with the Rangers. At least the ranch house was up off the dirt, which mean the bugs would favor the dark, cool space under the wood boards. She unrolled her blanket and flopped down on her back, keeping her boots on just in case. What with all the excitement of tomorrow’s trip and the musical snores of two dozen fellers, she was pretty sure she’d never get to sleep before dawn.
She was wrong.
Sleep claimed her, and with it came the Injun woman.
CHAPTER
15
The whistle came from outside, long and low. No one else stirred, but Nettie felt the ripple deep in her belly. She rolled on her side and squinted out the open door and into the starlight. It was brighter out there than it was inside, and she could see a shadowy shape waiting just beyond the main corral. A seated figure, wrapped in a blanket, atop a dark horse.
A dark horse that smelled of salt and dripped water, even in the middle of the plains.
The whistle came again, and the figure turned and began to ride away, a slow and stately walk. Nettie scrambled to her knees, strapped on her gun, checked her knife, and crept out.
She walked, then trotted, then jogged, but she couldn’t quite catch up. The black horse never changed speed, and yet it moved ahead with slow grace as if gliding, always just too far away. When the horse finally stopped, a fire sprang up, red and wild with spiraling, white smoke in exactly the place where Winifred had lain as the Captain brought her back to life. The figure was already off the horse, fingers outstretched to warm before the fire.
Nettie sat across from her, noting that the Injun woman’s hands were normal hands, not what she expected from a ghost or a drowned corpse. Nettie held out her hands, too, but the fire gave no warmth. Something soft and hairy brushed the back of her neck, but when she startled and turned around nothing was there. All she heard was the ghost of a laughing whinny. Wet hoofprints marked the dirt, inches from where she sat.
“Moon ain’t new yet,” Nettie observed.
A low chuckle. “That’s why you’re still alive, Nettie Lonesome. Best hurry.”
“Then why are you here now? What do you-all want?” she said carefully.
“Revenge.”
The Injun woman’s blanket was wrapped up over her head, her face hidden from the light. Deep within, two white stars shined.
“What are you?” Nettie asked.
“Revenge.”
“And why does the Cannibal Owl take children?”
Nettie wasn’t surprised when the disembodied voice answered, “Hunger. And revenge.”
Standing, Nettie kicked dirt over the red fire, but the flames didn’t so much as flicker. Deep within the blaze, she saw, crystal clear, a leather pouch very much like her own but tied with long, gray feathers, so familiar that her heart hurt. When she stretched out a hand to grab it, she felt no warmth. She reached deep into the fire and felt nothing, nothing but the cold suck of starlight and emptiness. No matter how hard she clutched it, she couldn’t grasp the leather bag or its long, worn ties.
Withdrawing her hand, she stared at the callused fingers and pink palms that had served others all her life. They weren’t burned. They were shriveled with water, and as she watched, the skin dripped off, leaving stark white bones. Holding her bone-hand up to the starlight, she asked the bundled figure one last question, one she was too scared to ask in waking life.
“What am I?”
The fire went out, and the voice said one last word.
“Revenge.”
Nettie woke up the next morning with a dry mouth rimmed in scratchy salt. She went straight for her water skin and gulped half the tepid liquid down as the first of the men began to stir.
“Time to head out, boys!” Hennessy called, hopping to his feet and dusting off his britches, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Nettie hurried to be the first to the outhouse. So far, nobody had qu
estioned the fact that she hadn’t joined them to piss off the back of the cookhouse after dinner. They probably figured Delgado’s food wasn’t sitting right, and she didn’t care what they thought so long as nobody tried to compare himself to a pizzle she didn’t have.
The morning went by fast, but not fast enough. After last night’s warning, Nettie was ready to be on the road. She blinked, and she was gulping down her beans. She blinked again, and Hennessy was giving her another water skin and a greasy handful of jerky for the ride—not that she entirely trusted Delgado’s jerky, but Sam swore none of the fellers had died from it. Yet.
One more blink, and she was picking out a second mount from the small herd. Rangers rode fast, often without stopping to eat or sleep, and always ponied a spare horse. She went for the smallest, hardiest, steadiest-looking pony, figuring the little paint would hold up well in the heat, eat less than the bigger horses, and not require much work if she had to remount on the run. As most of the men were too proud to ride a short horse with a bald cow face, no one seemed to mind, even when she named him Puddin’. Once they were all ponied up and mounted, the Captain whistled high and raised a hand, and they struck west, the new-risen sun at their backs and Delgado’s cook wagon trundling along in the rear.
“Are we headed the right way?” Hennessy asked, riding up behind her on a showy dappled palomino with a leggy black dancing on the end of his rope, the fool.
She could only shrug and recall the brush of cold, whiskered lips on the back of her neck. “If not, I’ll let you know.” He rode beside her for a minute, and she added, “That palomino’s hooves are gonna crack, you mark my words.”
Sam’s smile didn’t waver. “You just watch, Rhett. I’ve got the devil’s own luck.”
And, Lord, but if she didn’t believe him.
A couple of times as they rode, the Injun woman appeared in the corner of Nettie’s vision, a wavering figure pointing and then disappearing much like the mirages she’d heard about that affected men left in the desert too long. Whenever it happened, Nettie trotted up to the Captain to correct his route, then allowed her mount to drop back with Hennessy and the younger hands. Far as she could tell, the order in which the men rode corresponded to their experience and importance, or at least their number of scars and the comparative bushiness of their facial hair. The fellers who rode near the Captain looked like they were carved of old logs and raccoon pelts and got mighty twitchy and proud-looking when Ragdoll and Puddin’ approached their larger, handsomer mounts. As if ugly was catching. Lord, what would they say if they knew Nettie was a girl? She pulled her bandanna up and her hat down, hoping she wouldn’t have to find out.