“I don’t think it rightly knew itself,” said Thornton. “I call that kind of mix-up a scarum. Not too troublesome, but they can’t be killed with plain lead or a steel blade. They need the silver-death, like a lot of the critters here, and some of the folk as well.”
“The silver-death?” asked Rose and this time she did look away, at the knife she held, in the same instant knowing it for a bad mistake and then in another instant feeling an intense relief as she snapped back and Thornton hadn’t moved, smiling down at her peaceably with a glint in his eye that told her those weren’t all sun-lines creasing up his face: the man had a sense of humor as well.
“Your knife has a silver wash over the blade,” said Thornton. “Speaking of knives, if you’d allow me to dip into my pocket without plugging me …”
“Go on,” said Rose.
Thornton reached under his coat and drew out the slender knife Bucon had given Rose. Holding it up, he said, “I gave this to a feller a long time ago, told him how to use it if he had to come this way and needed help. Seems to me he gave it to someone else, on account of it was a woman’s voice I heard whispered through the trees this morning. So I was wondering, you being the first lady I’ve seen in some time around these parts, if it was you used the knife, requesting the assistance of the duly constituted authority of this part of the border, meaning myself.”
“Yes,” said Rose. She let some of the tension out of her body, starting to feel a bit tremblesome, the shock of the attack, the weight of her weapons. “Sheriff Bucon gave me that knife, and I used it. He didn’t tell me how it would work, or that a marshal would come.”
“Sheriff Bucon?” asked Thornton. “How about that? I wasn’t sure what direction that boy would go. Now, as I said, being the duly constituted authority around here, marshal and warden, both ways and both sides, afore I can help you I need to be sure you ain’t up to no good yourself. Why did you come through the desert gate?”
“I came after Laramay, my daughter!” protested Rose. “Kidnapped and taken from my ranch by a man called Alhambra, who rode straight for that gate, and what else could any mother do but follow?”
“Alhambra?” asked Thornton. “Kind of funny-looking, head too round?”
“Yep,” said Rose. “Now, you happy with my bonafides? Because I want to get after him before something happens to my Laramay and I ain’t got time to stand around jawing with you!”
“True enough,” said Thornton. “We had best get after them. Alhambra’s a Carver, and if he can get enough meat, he’ll be at work before sundown. By the bye, I missed your name before, ma’am, when we was doing introductions.”
“Rose Jackson. What’s a Carver? What’s that about meat? His horse, he left it … a skeleton fresh outside the gate, the meat stripped from its bones—”
Thornton whistled, a rueful whistle that suddenly gave Rose cause to register that she hadn’t heard a single bird since she’d come through the gate. Not a one, and none seen neither, which made the whole place seem even more unnatural, all over again.
“That’s bad, Mrs. Jackson,” he said, turning on his heel and taking a couple of lanky strides up the slope before pausing to half-turn back and beckon her on. She noted that he had a real long knife in a scabbard tied diagonal across his back, almost a sword, though broader in the blade than the cavalry sabers she’d had a swing with from time to time. “Real bad. I’ve an inkling where he’s headed, but we have to catch him before sundown. Come on!”
Rose holstered her pistol, bent quickly and wiped her knife clean on a big broad-leafed weed, both sides, real fast, sliding it back home before she started to scramble on. She left the Sharps, seeing at once it was bent beyond use.
She caught up with the marshal ten yards on, him crashing along without any attempt to be quiet, clear indication that speed really was of the essence.
“What’s a Carver?” panted Rose, skipping over a slippery patch where Thornton’s heavier step had cut through to bare the mud below.
“Guess you’d best understand it as a kind of demon, an evil spirit,” said Thornton, talking out the side of his mouth as his clear blue eyes watched ahead, flickering across and up and side to side as he chose the best way between the trees. “They ain’t got human bodies as such: they have to make their own from time to time, gather up a lot of meat and carve one out. Only they ain’t got an eye for it neither, so they waste a lot of flesh; that’d be why he stripped a whole horse … and they need what you might call an artistic model to get it even halfway right.”
“An artistic model? My Laramay? She’s kind of short.”
“But I’m guessing she’s pretty; they like to try for the best, even if they can’t reproduce it too well.”
“She’s pretty,” said Rose grimly. “Can’t we go any faster?”
“Maybe a little,” allowed the marshal, and stepped up his pace, leaning forward with his long, loose limbs so that within a minute Rose was very hard put to keep up and Thornton, without saying anything, slowed down a little again.
“What … what’ll they do with their … models?” panted Rose.
“They kill ’em,” said Thornton. “To finish the piece. They hope to take in their talents that way, though it hardly ever works. Your Laramay got any talents?”
“She sings,” said Rose. “Prettier than anything you ever heard. Brings the birds right down from the trees.”
“Sings the birds down?” asked Thornton, with a quizzical backward glance. “What’s your husband’s name, ma’am?”
“He was Broad Bill Jackson, may he rest in peace,” said Rose. “But Bill couldn’t sing worth spit, nor me neither. I don’t know where Laramay gets her music from.”
“Broad Bill, huh? If he was the feller I’m thinking of, it’d be his mother had the music, and it’s a good thing, because it might mean a little extra help for your daughter, ma’am, and when we see her, you yell out to her to sing, straight off, don’t wait for nothing else.”
“I will,” said Rose. “But I figured more on shooting that Alhambra than shouting at my daughter.”
“Carvers are mighty difficult to kill,” said Thornton. “Need silver-death and plenty of it, so don’t waste your lead. Singing can be a powerful thing here, and if I’m right in my recollections, might serve your Laramay well. You call out to her while I keep that Alhambra distracted. I doubt they’re more than five minutes ahead, judging by the signs. You be ready now: we’ll come out of the trees, they’ll be right ahead, by the big stone in the clear place.”
“I’m ready,” said Rose, though she didn’t know what to be ready for, and she couldn’t believe that they were going to come out of the trees, for the pines were as thick and tall as ever, and no clear sky above or sun coming through where the forest might be winnowing, but then all of a sudden there was sunshine, not warm, but bright on her face, and she squinted hard, refusing to blink in case in that moment she missed the chance to do something, and they burst from the tree line like gophers smoked out of their holes and there was a great flat stretch of tableland ahead, of short grass and dotted saplings and right in front a stone the size of the Star-Circle’s bunkhouse, only up on its end, gray and stark and casting a shadow sharp and dark like some evil finger, and at its very point in the sunshine there was Laramay sitting on the grass, picking the little blue wildflowers, and across from her was Alhambra wielding a mirror-bright knife, a-cutting at a great hunk of horsemeat, this way and that, up and down and across, blood and gobbets flying though nothing touched the girl.
“Sing, Laramay, sing!” shouted Rose, running behind her words as fast as she could, almost overtaking them in her urgency, and beside her one of the big Remingtons boomed as the marshal ran forward too, firing as he went, fanning the hammer, dropping the first gun as it emptied and drawing the next, and Rose saw the silver bullets hitting home, heard them strike with a sound like a boiled pudding dropped in a big pot of steaming water, but Alhambra didn’t fall back or seem even indisposed. He lifted his
bright knife and ran straight for Thornton, who drew that big knife of his own and the two met in a clash of blades and fury, and Rose ran past to Laramay, who was smiling prettily at her ma and the show the menfolk were putting on and wasn’t singing.
“Sing!” screamed Rose, reaching her daughter and dashing the flowers from her hand. “Sing something, Laramay!”
Laramay opened her mouth obediently and began to sing. Rose whirled to see what was happening with Thornton and Alhambra, seeing them slash and feint and stab, jumping and twisting, turning this way and that, like no knife-fight she’d ever seen, not least because it was still going and no blood to see, whereas normally by now there’d be someone on the ground with gore all over, maybe both parties down, and plenty of screaming and sobbing and last regrets; but all that could be heard here was Laramay’s voice, warm, clear and bright like the first full sun of the day, so it was no wonder the birds themselves came down from the sky to listen.
Only here it wasn’t the birds that came. Something came up from the ground near the girl’s feet: an intense blue flame busting out in a spume of dirt, with a shadowed, vaguely human-shaped figure at its core. Laramay laughed and became a blue flame too, still singing, and swung out her arms so that a trailing edge of fire brushed Rose’s face, not hot at all, but warm, so warm and kind that it made her laugh with a surprised joy that brought hot tears and a flush of warmth through her whole body, exiting through toes that jangled as if they’d never been fully alive before.
The two flame-wrapped figures bent together, the shadows within falling into an embrace, Laramay’s voice still singing high and clear, Rose only just then realizing that her daughter wasn’t singing words in any language either of them had ever spoke before.
“No!” roared Alhambra, leaving his fight to rush toward the shining two, but as he sped the marshal leaped after him, swinging his knife at that fat neck and snicker-snack the over-round head came tumbling off and rolled across the ground, the body flailing onwards till it ran smack into the big stone and tumbled over, kicking and bucking like a swatted bug.
The head kept rolling, straight toward Laramay, till Thornton caught up with it and stamped down with his foot, pinning it under his boot-heel. The mouth was working, teeth gnashing, tongue lashing, but only a hissing sound came out. The different-colored eyes were open and unclouded, and looked to Rose as alive as ever.
“I got to be going, Ma,” said Laramay. Her voice sounded different. More direct, not dreamy like normal, as if she was all present for once, and not half somewhere else.
“Go where?” asked Rose desperately. All the sudden happiness she’d felt was gone in an instant, replaced by dread. Her daughter lost after all? She shielded her face with her arm and tried to look at Laramay, but the girl was too bright, too close. “I ain’t come all this way to let some bright critter carry you off like that Alhambra tried to do!”
“I got too big a part of Pa’s family in me to live right on the regular side,” said Laramay. “More of the old blood than he did, just waiting to be woken. You knew where he came from, didn’t you, Ma?”
“I s’pose I did,” said Rose. “We didn’t talk about it, but … I knew.”
“Pa would’ve brought me across the line if he could’ve,” said Laramay. “Soon as I was of age. That Alhambra just hurried things up a few months, is all.”
“So that’s it?” asked Rose, drawing herself up, sniffing back whatever was itching at her nose, and blinking back a little irritation that was forming in her eyes. “You go off with this here candle flame and I never see you again?”
Fingers clicked inside the flames and the bright blue fire went out, leaving an unassuming young man with a strong physical resemblance to Broad Bill Jackson, though perhaps only one and a half ax handles across the shoulders rather than two complete, and almost exactly the same height as Laramay. He was dressed foreign, in a shirt of iron rings over a kind of nightdress, and his legs were wrapped in leather cords above boots that looked to be also iron, and danged uncomfortable.
“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Jackson,” said the young man. “Guess you can call me … Robert’s close enough. I’m a kind of cousin of your husband’s; I had the honor to be nearest when Laramay called. She will be very welcome amongst our kin and be held in honor, for it is long since we have had such a singer in our hall.”
“And of course you’ll see me, Ma, if you want to. This side of the line.”
“Easier said than done,” muttered Rose.
“You were going to take me east,” said Laramay. “To some hospital or such. It is far better I be here, where I was always meant to be.”
“I weren’t going to leave you in a hospital!” snapped Rose, but she did not dispute the fact further. This was a new Laramay to her, one that could put some thoughts together about the future and suchlike. “Besides, that’s neither—”
“You got a silver dollar on you, Mrs. Jackson?” interrupted Thornton. “This here head is getting restless.”
Rose looked over to where the marshal was having trouble keeping Alhambra’s head in place. It kept trying to rise up off the ground, as if propelled by an invisible body, and Thornton had to put all his weight onto his boot to keep it down. She felt in the pockets of her skirt and, sure enough, there was a silver dollar in one of them. She took it out, wondering what he wanted it for.
Alhambra’s head seemed to know. It made a sudden lunge and got out from under Thornton’s boot, streaking into the air with a thin scream of hatred. Rose watched it climb, higher and higher, and even before it faltered and slowed a couple of hundred feet up she knew it was going to come back down, fast and deadly.
“Throw the dollar!” shouted Thornton. “Shoot it into the head!”
Alhambra screamed again and dropped like a hawk upon its prey, straight down, mouth gaping open wider than wide. Rose flicked the silver dollar up, a flash tumbling end over end as it rose, head and coin accelerating together as she drew the Colt and fired, bullet striking the coin, the coin driving into the strangely round head, right between the eyes, Rose stepping aside as the head smacked into the ground and burst like an overripe pumpkin too long forgotten after Halloween.
“Good shooting,” said Thornton.
“Thanks,” said Rose. She wrinkled her nose at the ugly remains, but truth to tell it didn’t look so much like a crushed head as just a pile of old scraps of meat, like you might feed to a hog, there being nothing left of its roundness, or any human features, not even eyes, matching or otherwise.
“Now, young lady—” she started to say, but there was no young lady there, nor a young man neither, just the great standing stone and its shadow, and the marshal with the sun beginning to set behind him, all red and bloody, and the chill of the night coming on.
“Guess they couldn’t wait to tell the rest of the family the good news,” said Thornton. “That’s young folks, always in a hurry.”
“But … but … I’m her mother! Where did they go?”
The marshal pointed at the ground.
“Like she said, she takes after your husband. Mountain-folk can go where we can’t, that’s the truth of it. And the fact is, you can’t stay this side too long anyhow, not all at once. If you allow me, ma’am, I’ll just pick up my pistol and I’ll walk you home.”
“I’ll have something to say to that girl when I see her next!” snapped Rose, following after him. “The ingratitude, after all I’ve done!”
“It’s the natural order of things,” said Thornton, carefully reloading both pistols from his belt. “Here and the other side. Still, I expect she’ll have other things to talk about next time you do see her. A wedding, like as not, or maybe grandchildren. Time runs strange when you cross the line.”
Rose was silent, thinking about this, putting all her thoughts in order, setting them down like sorting a larder after a trip into town. She’d always been one to make her dinner from what she had, rather than dreaming about what she didn’t. If that meant a griddle cake
and a cup of water because that’s all there was, she saw no point drooling after steak and bacon pie and coffee.
“He looked a good lad,” she acknowledged as Thornton offered her his arm.
“And she’s a fine-looking young woman,” said Thornton. “Though I’d have to say not a patch on her ma.”
“You’d say that to an old widow-woman, would you?” asked Rose. She looked ahead to the empty ground and added, “And where are we going, anyway? Ain’t the gate back down the mountain?”
“There’s gates a-plenty, if you know how to see them,” said Thornton. “Means that for a feller in the know, or a woman, say, it ain’t that much a matter to cross the line. Not so dangerous neither, if you choose when and where. So if there’s call to be visiting, either here or there, it can be arranged.”
“Well, that’s something to think on,” said Rose. “But didn’t you say something when we first run together about needing a reason to go crossing the line? So there’d only be visiting there, not here?”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Thornton. “I was thinking when you knifed that scarum, and another one when you shot that dollar so straight, that I couldn’t do better myself, and that being the case, and me the duly constituted authority on both sides, marshal and warden, that I might be looking at someone else of the same nature.”
Rose stopped, turned in toward Thornton and flipped back the brim of her hat a little, to see him clear. He was fumbling in his waistcoat pocket, this time not for the little knife but a shiny metal star. This one was not a star in a circle, and the writing on it was not English and did not say U.S. MARSHAL, but she knew it was kin to the one Thornton wore, in nature if not in name. She stood very straight as he pinned it on her shirt, the backs of his fingers touching her bare skin just below the collarbone, so that they both shivered, not from the cold, which the man and woman had not felt for some time.
“You going to walk me all the way home to the Star-Circle, Marshal?” asked Rose, linking her arm once again through his, but not too tight, because she might need room to draw, though she was already thinking ahead about carrying on the left, and practicing her off-hand shooting.
Fearie Tales Page 7