Laura Anne Gilman - West Wind's Fool: and Other Stories of the Devil's West

by Gilman

  Once they’d fled, he had no quarrel with them. With luck and common sense, they would flee far, and warn others that this mountain was not for settling on.

  But luck and common sense seemed in small supply among these folk. Not a month later, when the streams were full-throated with snowmelt, he heard the sound of axes and shovels once again.

  “Old Bear.” This time the intruder stepped forward when he emerged into the clearing, rather than shying away. His Nuhwa was not perfect, but fluent enough to be understood, and his hand moved in the trade sign Old Bear had taught them generations ago. “We come with the consent of the Nuwa elders and the devil’s advice, to bring the silver from the deep, that others may bend it to use. We have no desire to disrupt your peace, and offer no insult to your ancient self. Whatever gifts you require for our presence, we will do our best to offer.”

  The man spoke with the diffident straightforwardness of truth, and Old Bear found himself unwillingly paused. He felt the urge to tear them out of the clearing, to erase them from the land, but they had spoken fairly, without fear. He would give them that much respect.

  “I do not know this devil you speak of, and I desire no gifts. You have nothing I need, nothing I’ve wish for.” He wanted quiet, and solitude, and they could give him that only by going away. And yet. If they spoke true, and he thought they did, the Nuhwa had given them leave to be here. That was something new. What game did their cubs play at now?

  There were eleven of them this time, well-formed men with the weight of hard work on their shoulders and hips. Their clothing rough and dirtied, but they carried themselves well, unlike thieves skulking in the night, and he sank to his haunches and waited for their leader to do the same opposite him.

  “You plan to … dig the earth, scrape at the silver?”

  “Yes ….” The man looked puzzled, as though there was no reason to question their actions. Old Bear resisted the urge to growl.

  He supposed he could, if he wished, understand the elders’ thinking: Nuggets of pure silver were valued for their ability to warn of danger, to clear the paths and ease dreaming, and the mountains were stingy with what they let slip into the streams. Allowing these fools to disturb the mountains, while taking the benefit of their work…. Cunning, to use the Agreement to their favor. But no. He would be no part of this. If the Nuhwa had forgotten what would happen, he had not.

  “You will die here, if you dig too deep. This land is not tame,” no more than he was, “and it will not give up itself to you so easily.”

  “We know the risks, and the … rewards.” He used the wrong word, but Old Bear knew men well enough to hear what he meant. And he had listened, now, to what the Agreement required of the whites who crossed the Grandmother, who sought a place here.

  His words were a rumbling growl, filled with intent. “I do not consent.”

  The man shifted, for a moment looking uncomfortable, but his chin was set and his eyes were hard. “The elders say you place no claim on this land. Your consent is not needed. We will do this.”

  Old Bear looked down at his hands, where the claws had quietly pushed through the skin. “You will not.”

  There had been more men seeking to dig the bones, and he had sent them away, but now a marshal sat by his fire, his long legs stretched before him, the dusty dullness of his boot leather a reminder that the road now led to Old Bear’s door. And a marshal had protections against even such as he.

  “Graciendo.” The Spanish had named him that. It did not bother him, particularly; he had many names, and they all meant the same thing. “You can’t keep doing this.”

  Old Bear looked at the marshal, and did not speak. He could, and he would. All they needed to do to stop him was stop sending fools here to die.

  The fire cracked and popped, and the birds finished their dusk-song, falling silent before the time of night-hunters. Something dropped onto the roof, a low, hollow sound, and then there was silence.

  The marshal rubbed his hands over his face, then exhaled through his fingers. “Graciendo. You are ancient. And no-one gets to be ancient without also losing their foolishness. The Territory needs the silver the mountains hold.”

  “The mountains hold it for us.” Parceled out bit by bit, carried in streams and rivers, not far, but far enough, and picked up and carried further in belts and knives, braids and boots, around necks and wrists and the ceremonial gear of societies.

  “That worked when there were fewer of us. Better now that we control it, maintain it, than fools rush in and take it without understanding.”

  “Fools always rush. And end badly.” He could still remember the taste of grit and gristle in his teeth, the feel of solid flesh under his paw, and wrinkled his lip at the memory. But he had given fair warning. The insult was not his. “Better to not let them near at all. Let them die somewhere else.” Let them do damage elsewhere, far away from his home.

  “My parents were fools once, too,” the marshal said, his tone mild once again. “They crossed the Mudwater, looking for something they couldn’t name, couldn’t explain. It found them, taught them. Kept them alive until they understood.”

  The marshal’s skin was pale, but he wore his hair like a warrior, and carried the sigil on his breast. Silver at his heart. He knew what he asked of Old Bear, knew what he asked of the mountain.

  “These fools do not understand what they dig for.” The blood of the bones was dangerous. Washed by the rivers, it calmed; taken from the birthstone, it shared a certain madness with the winds.

  “Then teach them. That’s what the devil’s sending them for.”

  Old Bear blinked at the man, for the first time feeling a touch of surprise.

  “Sweet River Jordan, you didn’t….” The marshal lifted his chin, staring at the ceiling as though asking the winds for patience. Old Bear could have told him the winds did not know the meaning of the word, and even if they did, the price they would demand would be far too high.

  “You thought I would teach them?”

  “We didn’t think you’d eat them.”

  “More fool you, then,” Old Bear grumbled, feeling the skin under his whiskers flush. “And more fool your devil, thinking to send fools to dig the bones. Young or not, they should know better.”

  There was a flash of something in the marshal’s eyes, a glint of sunlight despite the roof over their head, or the reflection of the fire, or something carried deep within, and then it was gone.

  “There’s no choice.” The marshal’s voice was deeper, darker than breath before, and Old Bear’s head jerked up, eyes narrowing and nostrils flaring as though to catch the scent of something new-entered into his home. But it was only them; even the crows had left off eaves-dropping and settled into their roosts for the night.

  “More men will come,” the marshal went on. “The devil can only keep them out for so long, can only filter their greed so fine. They crowd the shores, push their way in, spread and increase. It will happen, it is happening. The Mudwater is not enough, alone, to keep them out. The devil himself is not enough, not forever. They will come, and they will be too many to eat.

  “The Agreement buys time, offers the chance to make them ours, rather the other way around. But we need to use that time.”

  Old Bear grumbled deep in his chest, fingers raking hair off his forehead, lingering at the back of his neck where a knot was beginning to form. He didn’t like talking, didn’t like thinking. He just wanted to be left alone.

  “And bothering the bones? How does that better things?”

  The look the marshal gave him suggested the man thought Old Bear was playing the fool. “Silver is power. More, silver is protection.”

  “You think I⏤”

  “I think you see only what you want to see. What is comfortable for you to see.” The marshal was still seated, still slumped in his chair, but there was a tension in his body Old Bear did not mistake. The sigil on his chest glinted in the firelight.

  “The river and the devil wil
l not hold them forever,” the marshal repeated. “And you know what will happen then.”

  There was a stillness, even the fire pausing in its crackle, the settling of something thick and heavy in the air, sucking itself into Old Bear’s lungs.

  Deep in the bones, silver did not merely glint in stillness the way the sigil did. It flowed, living⏤and dangerous. To pull it, unwilling, into the air….

  “Graciendo. For what is still human in you. Help us.”

  The marshal left in the dawn, his mule trailing behind, strands of grass still hanging from its mouth as it chewed.

  “What will you do?” one of the crows asked, perching sideways on a branch, peering cock-headed at the figure below.

  Old Bear let his face slip through, lips pulling back from teeth, snout wrinkling, ears flattening against his head, but the crow did not flinch nor fly off, waiting, attentive, for news to spread.

  “The devil’s hope is doomed,” Old Bear said. “I’ll have no part of it.” He sighed, letting his face slip away, features smoothing back to facade. “But I won’t eat them any more. If they’ve a hope, these humans, they will have the chance to earn it.”

  West Winds’ Fool

  Grace Olcott stood in the middle of the road, palm sweaty around the handle of her bag, all her earthy belongings tucked within, and wondered what on earth she was doing.

  “This is madness.”

  As though impatient with her hesitation, the wind belled her skirts and tangled it in her steps like an unruly cat, pushing her forward. She had only been cross-river for a handful of weeks, but already she knew to be wary of the winds, mercurial and magical in ways that made her skin prickle and her heart race unforgivably.

  Wary, but not afraid. Fools died in the Territory, she had been told, and she was perhaps many things, few of them good, but no fool.

  No matter what they had told her, back home.

  Home. The word had always felt stiff to her, too ready to crack if she leaned upon it. It had not taken courage to leave everything she knew behind, despite what others said. Nor had it been foolishness, or desperation. She had simply woken one morning and understood that there was no reason to remain.

  Everything after that had been simple logic: where could she go, that might be better?

  West.

  West was where you went when there was nothing else.

  The first leg of the journey had been uncomplicated, despite the sideways looks and quiet murmurs that greeted her at every stop. She had cast her eyes down and kept to herself, two decades’ worth of learned quiet protecting her from overt censure; they could not scold what they would not notice. The second leg had been even simpler: the French had only recently abandoned their holdings in the wake of the war, and the remaining inhabitants of those half-empty towns seemed more worried about incoming British rule than who might be passing through.

  And the closer they came to the River, she noted, the fewer sideways looks there had been, at all. Those who lived and worked along the Mississippi’s banks were accustomed to oddity, she supposed, and those who crossed it … well, they were odd in and of themselves.

  She didn’t mind. She was odd, herself.

  They had to wait two days in the small fort on the banks of the river before the captain would ready a crossing. She had watched him, testing the winds each morning as though the smell of it could tell him something, until he was satisfied, and the slender green flag was run up a pole to alert those waiting.

  There had not been many: she had been one of only three passengers on the flat, unwieldy craft that carried them across; the other two had been men, aged and rugged, who kept to themselves, hands in pockets, staring at the far shore as though afraid to look back.

  She had not looked back either.

  When she'd paid her coins, the captain had eyes her carefully, and she’d thought for half a breath that he would refuse her fare, but then the coins had disappeared into his case, and his chin had jerked in the direction of the boarding ramp.

  Neither captain nor crew nor her fellow passengers spoke to her during the passage, but as the tow-ropes were hauled in and tied to wooden stumps on the other side, a hand come down softly on her shoulder, hard fingers gripping the fabric of her dress.

  “Sir?” She could remember her manners, even when those about her had discarded them.

  “Beware things uncanny,” the captain said, not meeting her eyes. “If you’re bound and determined to do this.”

  He had not explained what he meant nor waited for a response, but took her bag from her without courtesy, tossing it to a man on the shore who caught it with ease. And then there was nothing for it but to follow, stepping off the wooden plans and onto strange new shores.

  “Welcome to the Landing,” the man with her bag said, his cheerfulness almost offensive in contrast to the captain’s brusque behavior. “Head on straightaway, they’ll sort you out.”

  The Landing was barely worth the name, despite obvious years of use; a half-circle of road leading to a plain hostel with a handful of rooms and a single clerk who did not bother to write her name down before telling her a room number, a mercantile for purchasing whatever goods might be needed, either overlooked or lost before arrival, and a livery stable where one might find a horse, or cattle to pull a wagon, also for sale through the mercantile.

  She was the only woman to be seen, from dock to hostel. She had known⏤had suspected, from the stories⏤that this would be so. The men loading a wagon mid-street glanced at her, then went back to their work without comment. Civilized men on the other side of the river had behaved worse.

  She left her bag in the hostel room, washed her face and hands in the basin, and then stepped back out into the dust and quiet bustle. She bypassed the mercantile and instead leaned on the fence outside the livery, where several beasts were grazing the sparse grass underfoot, waiting until someone came out to see what she might want.

  When they did, she learned that the cost of buying new was twice that of the obscene price charged to ferry a wagon across the river, but she had expected nothing less. Nor was any horse for offer worth the silver they were asking: those that had been sound once were now old, and the young ones already swaybacked or mean-eyed. The sole mule they offered had lashmarks on its flanks that spoke of either mistreatment or mean temper, and neither was something she was prepared to accommodate.

  Grace was in no hurry, no rush to arrive anywhere. She could wait.

  She extended her stay at the hostel, shaking her head at every offer she received, both polite and less so, until a family of seven invited her to join them when they rode out. She had observed that they were quiet folk, not prone to conversation, and wanted her only to help with the chores, not for her company.

  She said yes.

  The family was heading west and south, to where they’d heard there was good farming. Grace learned little more of them than that, and did not offer anything of herself⏤nor did they ask. The three older children walked with their father, the mother and two babes-in-arms resting in the wagon. Grace held one of the babies when it was given to her, awkwardly competent, then took her turn leading the cattle.

  Her hands slowly hardened in new places from the slip of leather through her fingers, her forearms aching with new muscles, the bump and rattle of the wheels over rough road leaving her head sore when they paused each evening.

  Slowly, they moved further away from everything they had known.

  The days were long and exhausting. Meals were simple things, and at night the children and woman bundled themselves inside the wagon, while she and the man slept outside. She could have slept within, she supposed, but the cold ground was more than compensated for by the sky spread out overhead, purple-black clouds obscuring the changing shapes of the moon, the shadows lit by more stars than she had ever imagined before, and one night, a bright plume of fire that crossed the sky, causing her to gasp.

  The man slept through it all.

  Mornings, her back
ached and the fabric of her clothing became soiled with dirt and sweat; the water they had was for drinking, and the streams they passed were too shallow and cold for bathing. They saw no-one as they traveled save deer they had not the skill to hunt, and rabbits they did, heard nothing save the susurration of the wind as it ripped past them, and the eerie calls of things hunting, or being hunted, at dusk and dawn.

  The stories she’d heard, the warnings she’d been given, fell flat under the unfolding truth. Rather than the hordes of savages roaming the land, or the bountiful farmlands wanting only people to populate them, each day brought nothing but wide, rolling hills and rocky outcroppings, the sky spread out overhead either pale blue or brilliantly black, and the only living things they encountered carried on four legs, or two wings.

  Grace would have found the emptiness peaceful, save that with each day the mother grew more and more fretful, the children more wild, and the man unhappily caught between them, until she thought she might smother them all in their sleep simply for a moment’s peace.

  She did not say any such thing, did not let her irritation show. It would be different here, she told herself. It had to be different here.

  She slept less well each night, and woke more sore, less content.

  And then one day, they came to a place where a fainter trail crossed the one they were on. The father stopped them, pausing a moment.

  “Crossroads,” he said, as though that meant something.

  Grace stood beside him, and looked curiously at where the trails crossed. The wind lifted itself around her, prickling her skin. Behind them, the cattle balked and complained, and she turned her head, eyes straining to see something on the horizon that was not there.

  Something scratched within her, faint and hot.

  Uncanny, she thought, and then, why not?

  She gathered her few belongings, and stood by the side of the road, watching as they moved on, the older children turning to wave farewell.