by Ellie Cypher
And no matter what no one said, for that I could blame myself. I could have gone out hunting with him that morning. But I didn’t. I hadn’t. That’s what caring for people got you. Pain. And avoiding Dev meant avoiding all of that. Of thinking about that day. Of thinking about Pa. So I stayed away. Till now.
Outside, the wind began to shake. Clattering the loose glass windows in their splintering frames. A racket not unlike the rattling of broken teeth. Behind me, Dev cleared his throat.
I turned to him. “I need information.”
Dev raised an eyebrow. “Don’t we all.”
“You know I wouldn’t be asking if it weren’t important.” I gave Dev what I hoped to be a grin.
Dev took one look at me and, grunting, placed a glass on the bar in front of me. The measure he poured weren’t short. He set the flask down on the bar. I took a long, deep swallow of the sweet amber liquid from my cup. Heat flooded my guts. And for something with no liquor it sure did a good job of making a girl feel warm. A syrupy mix of Dev’s own imagining, it had been known to keep a man alive out on the ice when little else could.
I set the glass down and took the rest of the flask, sliding it into my pocket. I’d be needing it.
In the yard out back, Dev’s pack of snow hounds began barking. A right howling chorus, their calls filled the stillness of the bar. Again a little twist of unease fluttered in my stomach. Time, like the weather, were not on my side.
Without meaning to, I brushed the scar on my face. My hand came down shaky. “I need to know about a man.”
“There plenty of them about, Jorie. Don’t know that there are any worth knowing here right now,” Dev said, running a heavy hand through his long graying beard, rings glinting. The silver one clear broken, the setting empty and gaping wide. Dev tilted his head. We stared at each other. “Why?”
“Because they took something important from me. And I aim to take it back.”
My words had the expected effect. Dev froze mid-pour.
“When?” Dev asked, eyes turning hard. Had to give Dev credit. He had always been, if not kind, then well at least helpful. But Della were the only person left I could trust. Much as I liked Dev, he’d always had enough.
Enough food. Enough drink. Enough money. When no one round here ever had enough. Not if they were honest.
“Two days past,” I kept my voice calm as Dev digested the information. He filled my glass before picking up a dirty one.
“And you think they brought it here?” Dev glanced around the inn, looking confused. “Jorie, no one brings things to Shadow Springs. They take ’em.”
I know that all too well. “That ain’t what I’m sayin, Dev. What I want to know is if there’s been any strangers in town. Recent, mind. Big strangers. Scary ones. Like, say, Rovers.”
Dev’s smooth cleaning hitched just for the barest of seconds, so short I didn’t right know if I’d actually seen the hesitation before he picked it up again. “Now, why would you be askin after men like that?” He fixed me with what could be considered an uninterested stare. Only I knew it weren’t.
“I wouldn’t be asking if it weren’t important.” I wanted to shake him. “And you know it.”
Dev let low a whistle. “Strictly speaking, no.”
That wasn’t an answer. I opened my mouth. But he cut me off with a grunt, holding up a hand.
“I haven’t, Jorie, and that’s the truth. I would tell you if I had. Though…” Dev inclined his head at the slumped boy. “Far as I’m concerned, if you want to ask about trouble, you could do worse than starting right there.”
My eyebrows shot up. “I ain’t interested in shaking down your customers for tips, Dev. This is important.”
Dev gave a snort. “I’ve always found unassuming packages the most surprising. Though I ain’t sure you want to open this one, Jorie. You think real hard on it before you get yourself into more trouble than it’s worth.”
Great. Cryptic. Thanks, Dev. I turned my gaze between Dev and the boy. Who began to murmur incoherent like. And then belch. Nice. Real classy.
“He ain’t no Rover, Dev. What’s there to worry about?” I stared. “He’s just a boy.” Strange, true, but near enough my age I weren’t too worried ’bout who’d get the upper hand. He didn’t right look like much I couldn’t handle.
“Be careful, is all I’m saying,” Dev said. “And don’t trust no one, you hear me, Jorie? People aren’t always who they seem to be.” A brief flash of something I could swear were regret filled his eyes before it were gone, his expression hardening. “There’s just too much your pa ain’t never got a chance to tell you before he died. Before he and your ma—”
Irritation bloomed hot on my cheeks, and I cut him off. I knew exactly where this were going, and I didn’t care for it. “I ain’t here to talk about my pa, Dev,” I said, shiftin on the barstool, pulling my coat tighter round me. “So you can spare me the ‘you never know what you don’t know’ speech. I sure can handle some simple, jelly-legged—”
Before I could say anything else, the boy shot up off his barstool, crashing hard to his knees. Cups scattering everywhere. I blinked real rapid.
“Don’t you touch me!” The boy came up swinging. “Don’t you dare touch me.”
Both me and Dev looked at him, surprised. Dev recovered first.
“If he carries on like that, he ain’t gonna be a problem for too much longer. Yours or mine,” Dev said, seeming oddly relieved by the idea. I frowned. Took a special kind of stupid to be getting drunk out here, especially if you were alone.
The boy lurched to his left, crashing into his barstool, sending it spiraling out into the room. He spun, arms out. But there weren’t no one harrying him. I gawked, disbelieving, as with the last of his listless punches he took a few empty bottles down to the dust-coated floor with him.
He was like as to wreck himself carrying on like that. Out of the corner of my eye I saw some of the other men in the bar finally stir, reaching for their sides.
Drunk men. What was it about them and fighting? One whiff of testosterone and they was like hungry bears to the hive.
Behind the bar Dev was already reaching under the counter where he stored his gun. One that ain’t never missed its target yet. Human or otherwise.
I stood up and walked over to where the boy had fallen to his knees, curled in on himself. If Dev were right, the boy might be worth a question or two sobered up. If. “You’d better be right, Dev.”
“I am.” Dev slid the key to the boy’s rooms along the bar. “Two things I know. First, there ain’t such things as coincidence. And two? No one skips out of here without paying.” I looked between him and the key before finally nodding.
Dev wouldn’t run me on a false trail. If he said there were something, there were something.
“And Jorie.” He twisted a warning look at the other guests. The drunkards rumbled themselves to a belligerent stop. “You make sure to ask him about the other one was with him.”
CHAPTER 6 Honey Like Lies
The other one?” I asked, confused. “Other who?”
But before Dev could answer, the boy bent double and heaved. It weren’t dry neither. I took a step back to avoid the splatter. The smell of half-eaten fish and rotten apples hit me like a squall. I cupped a hand over my face.
Right. Maybe a day of sleeping it off with Dev’s dogs out back was needed. For most of the men round here it were usually the ticket.
As I reached out to take his arm, the boy jolted his face upward. This time his eyes weren’t stuck in the corner, but right on mine. Green and bright, they were faultless. An aurora across a midnight sky.
The boy bent forward, eyes still locked on mine, and raised his hand. The soft flesh of his fingers brushing against the exposed cold of my wrist, moving toward my face. His face rose level with mine. The white curl of his breath rushing cool past the red of my flushed cheek.
“I don’t… your eyes, that scar… it’s…” Light as the press of a summer breeze, h
is fingers fluttered over my face. He leaned in, but instead of words, he chucked up the rest of his gut. All over my shoes.
Sharp, I snapped away, blinking back the dim light of the inn, staring down at the top of his cap.
Below me, the boy’s shoulders tightened as he retched what little were still left. I glanced at Dev. Fingers fiddling with the empty setting on his silver ring, he gave me a deep frown. His mutterings only mostly obscured by his thick beard.
“I’ll take care of it,” I said. My eyes hard I looked over the boy. “Outside for you it is.”
I grabbed the key in one hand and the boy in the other and dragged him out toward the yard. The boy let out a low groan as I pulled him over the threshold and into the cold. Only noise he made. Otherwise he put up no fight. Just let me haul him out back. When I released my grip, he slumped down awkward against the cluttered porch. He listed dangerous to the right. Sighing, I propped him back into sitting.
The boy’s lips were a nasty shade of blue, but he weren’t shivering. Drink did that to you. Made your body as much a fool as your wits. But if he couldn’t walk, there was little chance I’d be able to get him up to his rooms.
I twisted my hair into a knot at the base of my neck and strode across the low-roofed porch. He might not have been a Rover, but he sure weren’t from around here. Two Southerners in near as many days.… Dev was right, we didn’t believe in coincidences. Not round here. So we’d just see what this stranger had to say.
I drug over one of the big wood barrels. Rolling to a stop right at the boy’s feet. The guts of the drum sloshed about wet inside.
Though it weren’t their food bucket, Dev’s dogs picked up their barking. Reckon someone had to be optimistic around here. I gave the dogs a sharp whistle. The barking cut off. Grinning, I wedged up the barrel’s lid.
There were two ways to keep your water from freezing up round here: make it salty or make it drink. Excepting, of course, this one trick.
Standing on my tiptoes, I reached into the barrel and pulled out a black glass orb about the size of my fist. The sphere was warm, and though there were ice crystals humming round the edges of the water, it weren’t froze like everything else round here. Just cold. They scuttled around the water, some only half submerged and others—the empty ones—clear sunk to the bottom.
That was cause the inside of the orbs was filled with tiny bubbles of gas, and as the hot gas escaped, the orbs sunk. Putting the hot gas into the orb had been my pa’s trick. Once. It was the same gas that gurgled up out of ice ’bout a mile into the Flats from our house, where the white of the snow turned yellow. The waters grew thick with the smell of sulfur and the ice became littered with the bones of animals driven mad enough with thirst to try and drink it.
Scrunching up my nose, I gripped the black orb. We’d soon find out what he knew about Bren. With one fast motion, I pulled the stopper open and stuck it right under the boy’s nose.
He was on his feet faster than an adder skidding on ice. Did the trick every time. Scurrying back and wicked off-balance, he pressed his spine deep into the pillar behind him, blinking and rubbing violent like at his nose. It didn’t hurt. Just smelled. Real bad.
I took a step toward him, closing the space between us.
“Don’t know about you, and don’t care to,” I said, advancing, porch boards creaking under my feet, ice crystals breaking between the grains. The wind picked up.
The boy turned his gaze back to me. When it landed, it was like a blow. Not like I ain’t never seen a good-looking boy before, but they was usually looking at Bren. Not me.
I moved closer, blood warm in my veins. I leaned in tight. And going by the wide, puffy black patches under his eyes, I weren’t the only one not sleeping.
“Ain’t no use trying to run.” I placed one finger slow and careful right over his heart. And tapped. “Cause there ain’t anyone here but you and me.”
CHAPTER 7 Nightmares and Shades
Name?” I demanded.
The boy swallowed, staring numb up at me. I tossed a hand in the air. Every moment here were a moment longer I weren’t with Bren. And I really weren’t great at patience. I tried again.
“Come on now, everybody’s got a name.” I looked him up and down. “Even if it ain’t a good one. Here, I’m Jorie.” I took a step closer, leaning down. “What’s yours?”
He cleared his throat. “Cody. Cody Colburn.” His head bobbed. “Excuse me, but do I know you?”
“Do you?” I asked, my eyes narrowing. The boy shifted. After a long moment, he cleared his throat, pulling at the pale green of his high-collared shirt.
“I—no.” He blinked slowly as his eyes focused first on the gathering clouds, then on Dev’s dogs. “Do you live out here?”
I stared at him with disbelief. “Do you think I live here?”
He followed my gaze, the scrap metal, the broken wood. The kennels. The lack of anything remotely like a house. “I—right, sorry. Of course not. That was rude of me.”
Oh good. The boy had manners. Soft Southern manners. Too bad those wouldn’t get him anything out here but dead.
I curled a stray stand of hair out of my face. Spoiled Southerners. They deserved all the bad luck they got, seeing as how it was their greed that kept the North so poor and the South so rich. It weren’t even like we got the good weather—though we had once. A soft white blanket of snow began to fall from the gray sky, flakes swirling up and around the roof caught in a hard wind, too shy yet to land.
In front of me the boy’s lips were turning a deeper, more alarming shade of blue; he needed to get warm. It weren’t my problem whether a man drank too much and didn’t wake up. Never had been. Never would be. Trouble were, I actually wanted something from this one.
“Well, Cody Colburn, I guess it’s your lucky day.” I spread my arms wide.
“Why is that?” Cody blinked lazy at me, eyes half closed.
“Cause it ain’t every day a Southern boy like you gets to be helpful.” Usually you just get yourselves killed. My mind briefly flashed back to the richly-but-poorly-dressed body in the shed. Fools, the lot of ’em. Arrogant, entitled, useless. A perfect trifecta. I placed a hand over my heart. “Lucky you.”
It were a sentiment not dislodged when, rather than reply, Cody began to laugh. And not like something were funny. But hard. Like something hurt. Something deep down and buried.
“Help you?” His whole body shaking. “You want me to help you?”
My face flushed hot. “You heard me.” I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “If this is cause I’m a girl, I can assure you I can tear your…”
His laughter only got louder. I bit back the rest of my words. Right. I hauled him to his feet, none too gentle. “You seem sober enough to me. Where’s your rooms?”
Cody regarded me through long, rose-tinged lashes. Like feathers. I had the oddest urge to run my fingers across them. Don’t be an idiot, Jorie.
Cody quirked pale lips and raised a finger toward the stairway at the back of the inn. “Top floor,” he said. “I think.”
“Of course it is.” Grinding my jaw, I set his arm over my shoulders, and I half walked, half drug him up the short flight of back stairs. We made it, just.
“My rooms,” he said, twisting his arm from my grip, and with a dogged effort fumbled about his pockets. Only I had the key. I held it up. He beamed.
“I really ain’t got time for this,” I muttered, turning and sliding the key into the lock. A dead bolt with fresh gouge marks all over the wood. Seems I weren’t the first interested party to pay a visit. I shoved open the door.
Inside the well-lit room, the smell of a low-burning fire filled the air. As did the thick odor of mold and some other scent I couldn’t quite place. Light filtered down cold and gray from the snow-covered skylights.
In the far corner, near the stone fireplace, a large telescope sat blind, its lens covered by thick black cloth. And like scattered constellations, expensive silks and gilded m
etal and exotic wood boxes littered the floor around it. Facing this were two leather armchairs. One toppled over, the other’s fabric split down the back. Books were tossed everywhere, their spines cracked and broken, pages torn out, strewn across the floor.
Whoever had paid a visit before me, they weren’t none too gentle.
Cody moved to right the fallen chair, indicating I should sit in the other. I stayed by the door.
“Oh no you don’t,” I said. “You’ve got questions to answer for. Starting now.”
Cody lowered his way into the leather seat and let out a long sigh, dragging a bearskin blanket over him as he sat.
“I do not feel so well. And you are rude,” he said.
I fixed him with a dark look. “The faster you answer me, the sooner I leave.”
Cody mumbled something I couldn’t hear. I took a step toward him. But he held up a hand. “Just give me a moment is all,” he said, taking out an engraved metal dosette box from his pocket. The sharp tang of black cohosh spiked the air as Cody pulled a pinch from the inside and began to chew it. Not that the bitter herb was even gonna touch the headache he was about to have. “I promise to help, but only if you promise not to be mean to me again.”
I stared at him. Bren were missing and this drunk were worried that I was rude? I clamped my first reply behind my lips. This were for Bren. I could be nice for Bren. “Fine, but don’t take too long about it.” I crossed my arms. “I ain’t gonna wait nice forever.”
Cody yawned, running a hand over his face before giving me a half-hearted smile. I was not moved. I began a careful survey round the room, taking it in. Pa had always told me that if you knew how to look, a girl could learn more about a person by what they kept round them than what they said. I stopped at the desk and picked up a fine blue metal pen, a stone of something that shone like glass, only it weren’t, and a series of—old harbor maps? I weren’t sure. All of ’em for countries I didn’t know.
A broken brass sextant and an overturned inkwell—the pooled black ink long dried—bout made the rest of what covered the desk. But other than rich and careless, I didn’t see what this half-ransacked room said about the boy in the chair. Other than… I stopped. Cody had taken off his cap. Red hair rustled down over his face. Now that were certain something.