Joe’s gaze lingered for a long morbid moment on his body, his head cradled in Cassie’s lap. The blood from his wound had made a mess of her clothes, but she didn’t seem to care. She just held him in the crook of one arm while she stroked his hair with her free hand, avoiding the area that had been bashed in. Zia and Maida sat on either side of his body—more still and serious than he could ever remember seeing that pair of crow girls. Raven stood behind Cassie, his gaze fixed on the cliffs on the far side of the plains. He, too, was still, but in him, it was as though he’d turned to stone. He seemed more statue than corbae.
Beyond Raven he saw the humans—the three musicians he’d met back at the hotel in Sweetwater when he went to find Cassie. They stood in an uneasy group, the two men on either side of the woman, protective, though there was no longer a threat in evidence. But that was from Joe’s own viewpoint.
Their anxiety probably came from the cousins that still remained. Unlike Raven and the crow girls, the cousins wore their animal heritage on their human shapes. Walker and Ayabe both had their tall racks of antlers, lifting up into the sky. Jack was a coyote’s head on a man’s body, his dark, unblinking gaze on Minisino’s body as though he expected the dead cerva to get up at any moment.
“This is depressing,” Joe said, turning to Anwatan.
It was too much like watching his own funeral.
The deer woman nodded. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. Go ahead. Just climb back into that body of yours.”
“Climb back into it, huh? Just like that.”
She gave him another nod. “Can’t you feel it reaching for you?”
That immobile, dead thing? Joe thought. It wasn’t reaching for anything. It just lay there with its head in Cassie’s lap, a limp, lifeless thing.
But as soon as she’d said it, he realized Anwatan was right. He could feel a pull and then he saw the loose, silvery thread that ran from where he stood to the corpse Cassie was holding.
He glanced back at Anwatan.
“You’ll get back to me on this business with your bogan?” he asked.
“Soon,” she told him. She looked past him to where her father stood. “Will you . . . will you tell him goodbye?”
“You don’t want to do it yourself?”
She shook her head. “It’s why I brought us here like this. I don’t want him to see me again. It hurts him too much, and I feel every ache that lies in his heart.”
“It hurts him not to see you, too.”
“I know. But he has to get used to it.”
“I’ll give him your message,” Joe said.
And then she was gone.
He stood for a long moment, staring at the dead body in Cassie’s arms. His dead body.
It was funny, he realized. He could accept it. He didn’t feel any personal need for another chance at life.
But his time on this wheel wasn’t done. He could feel it straining to turn. He could sense all the connections, all the lives that were a part of this turning that needed him to be here before he could go on to see what the next world held for him.
Never thought getting killed could be a selfish act, he thought.
And then he let himself go. The silver thread went tight and reeled him back toward his body. A moment later and the corpse shivered in Cassie’s arms. He opened eyes that were caked shut with dust and salt. The first thing he saw was the blurry image of Cassie’s face as she leaned down to kiss him.
“Don’t you ever scare me like that again,” she whispered.
He sensed movement on either side and realized it was the crow girls dancing around when he heard their voices.
“He’s back, he’s back!”
“Should we fix him, Lucius?”
“Should we, should we?”
“Oh, say we can!”
And then there was Raven’s gruff voice: “Didn’t I bring you here to do just that?”
“Well, yes.”
“But what if you’d changed your mind?”
“Then there’d be shouting.”
“It’d be all bad Maida. Bad Zia.”
“Would you just get to it,” Raven told them.
Cassie’s face left his field of vision, replaced by the merry faces of the crow girls.
“Hello, crow dog,” Maida said.
Zia nodded. “Hello, hello.”
They put their hands on his head, running their fingers through his hair to where his scalp was split open. He winced when they touched the open wound.
He was about to complain. He heard Cassie warning them off. But then he felt the wound close, the flesh knit. The sharp ache in his head vanished.
He didn’t just feel healed. He felt renewed.
His vision cleared and the crow girls came into sharp focus above him. Zia winked before they pulled their faces away.
“Careful,” Cassie said as he started to sit up.
“Don’t have to be,” he said. “There’s not a damn thing wrong with me anymore.”
Zia smirked.
“Better than new,” Maida said.
Joe sat all the way up and nodded. “No kidding. What did you do to me?”
His gaze went from one to the other.
“Filled you with a bit of Grace,” Zia said.
Maida just stuck out her tongue. The pair of them bounced to their feet and did a little stomp dance around him and Cassie, then they leapt into the air and two crows sped off, vanishing before they’d gone more than a few dozen yards into the sky.
“You really okay?” Jack asked.
Joe stood and gave Cassie a hand up. He put his arm around her shoulders.
“Like Maida said: better than new.”
Jack wore a man’s face again, and a big grin like he’d just drawn a fourth ace to match the three in his hand.
“Man,” he said. “I could’ve used those girls that time Zella’s old man beat the crap out of me. It took me weeks to get back on my feet.”
“Zella’s that puma girl Jack can’t stay away from,” Joe said to Cassie.
“I remember.”
But the desire to crack jokes fled Joe when he saw Walker approaching him.
“Did you see my daughter?” he asked.
Joe nodded. “She showed me the way back to my body, but . . . “ He hesitated, then added the lie: “She’s gone on. She told me to say goodbye for her and to give you her love.”
The cerva sighed, the ache plain in his eyes.
“There’s blood between us now,” Joe told him. “You, your family—they’re my family now. You ever need anything, all you have to do is say the word.”
“Goes for me, too,” Jack said.
“I just want my daughter back. I want to see her running with the herd. I want to hear her voice.”
Joe glanced at Raven.
It was too late for her, the gruff voice said in his mind. You know that.
Joe turned back to Walker and put his hands on the cerva’s shoulders.
“That’s the one thing I can’t do,” he said, “though it’s the one thing I would do if I could.”
Walker nodded. “I know.”
There was so much hurt in his voice, in his eyes. Joe felt a pang of guilt. Why should he come back when she couldn’t? But he knew the answer. Never mind whether your time on the wheel was done or not. If you had to die, do it while helping power players like Raven and Ayabe who could see that you were brought back again, better than new. Anwatan had died alone, and there hadn’t been enough left of her body before anyone knew she was dead.
Thinking of the cerva spirit who’d shown him the way back reminded him of what she’d told him when they were still in the holding ground.
Joe returned his gaze to Raven.
“Anwatan told me something on the other side,” he said. “She says there was a cousin running with those bogans—giving them safe passage through our territories and teaching them how to shapechange.”
Raven nodded. “I know. Odawajameg of the salmon clan.”
What, now he chose to be omnipresent? Why couldn’t he have played that card before all of this began?
“How’d you know?” he had to ask.
“Grey brought him to us. I have him in custody at my roost. He will go up before a council of air and water cousins.”
Standing beside Joe, Jack started to roll a cigarette, pulling out that Zippo lighter of his when he was done.
“How do you think that’s going to work out?” Jack asked.
“It’s not for me to say,” Raven said. “But if I had my way . . . “ He sighed. “There’s history between Odawa and the corbae—old, unhappy history in which we’re not entirely blameless. But it should have been finished by now. And I should probably learn a cerva’s ability to forgive, but I can’t find it in me.”
“Everybody’s got their own nature,” Jack said, “and what you’re talking about, well, right there you’ve got the big difference between herbivores and carnivores.”
It looked like Raven was going to argue the point, but after a moment, he simply nodded.
“We need to close the door on this,” Jack said.
He put the cigarette he’d rolled between his lips. A flick of his Zippo got it lit. Taking a drag, he passed it around, sharing the tobacco smoke, sealing the moment among them all. Everybody had a drag, even the humans who probably only had the barest inkling of what it meant. But Joe knew he shouldn’t be too hard on them. They’d come here to stand with Cassie and him when none of them thought they’d survive the day.
When the cigarette was done and the butt stowed in Jack’s pocket, Ayabe put his arm around Walker’s shoulders.
“You should come with me,” he said. “There are quiet places of retreat by my lake—places to let your sorrow run its course without interference or distraction from the world at large. You can stay on any of them for as long as you need.”
“I . . .”
Walker’s gaze went to Minisino’s body, then returned to the moose lord’s face. He straightened his shoulders and nodded.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’d appreciate that.”
Ayabe pointed a finger at Jack.
“You’d better have a brother,” he said.
Then he led Walker away, and the pair of them were gone.
“What was that about?” Joe asked.
“Long story. The short version is my brother Jim’s left me holding the short end of the stick again.”
“You should let him take your place the next time Zella’s old man comes looking for you.”
Jack smiled. “Yeah, my mother’d really like that. You know how she is about Jimmy.”
Joe nodded. Jack’s mother doted on his brother. It was that old “the kid could do no wrong,” even when the proof was staring her in the face. He supposed there were worse things than loyalty, even when it was misguided.
“I have to see about this council,” Raven said.
“I won’t be coming,” Joe told him before there could be any talk of him showing up as a witness. “I’ve had my fill of this business.”
Raven smiled. “I think we’ll manage without you.”
Before he could step away as the cerva had, Grey moved toward him.
“I’d like to come with you,” he said. “If it’s okay. That old history between Odawa and me still needs to be resolved.”
Raven nodded and then the two of them were gone, as well.
“Well, that’s that,” Jack said. “But tell me. Am I the only one who thinks we shouldn’t have to go through this kind of crap in the first place?”
Cassie smiled. “If that were the case, the two of you wouldn’t be who you are.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Let me put it another way,” she said. “You’d die of boredom.”
“Right now, I’ll take a little boredom,” Jack said. “Hell, I’ll take a lot.”
Joe glanced at where the humans still stood in a cluster together. Hearing everything, understanding maybe a third of it, just wanting to go home and get back to their lives.
“We should get them home,” he said.
Cassie nodded.
“What about that sister of yours?” Jack asked. “Aren’t we going to look for her now?”
Joe couldn’t believe that he’d let that slide. That’s what happened when you died and then got brought back to life again. You lost all perspective on the things that mattered.
He lifted his head, casting for scent, though it was more Jilly’s familiar presence he sought. It was something that had nothing to do with physical senses, but he could always find it.
Except for now.
“Damn,” he said. “She’s gone again. Cassie . . . ?”
He looked at the humans, knowing they couldn’t just be left here to their own devices.
“I’ll take them back to the hotel,” Cassie said. “But you’d better be careful.”
“I’m just going to see Honey—find out what happened.”
“You want company?” Jack asked.
Joe nodded, but he glanced at Cassie. She came up to him and gave him a fierce hug.
“Just go,” she said when she stepped back. “Both of you. And—”
“We’ll be careful,” Joe promised her.
“Don’t worry,” Jack added as they stepped away out of the between. “I’ll have his back.”
“Why does that not comfort me?” Joe thought he heard Cassie mutter.
But by then they’d already left the plains behind.
Geordie
I had the mesa to myself.
I thought the time alone would help me feel a little balanced, but it wasn’t helping at all. The problem wasn’t my being here, in the middle of nowhere and farther from home than I’d ever imagined I could be. I won’t say it wasn’t dislocating and strange, but it ran deeper than that.
The problem was inside me, and being alone just made me focus on it without distractions.
I was on my own because Jilly still wasn’t back, Honey hadn’t returned, and Lizzie and the doonie had gone to fetch my fiddle from that fog-bound seashore where he and I’d first met. When I was pulled into Jilly’s world, it had happened so quickly that I hadn’t been able to bring it with me. I didn’t even know I was going anywhere until I was already there. Later, when we came to the mesa, Timony hadn’t thought to bring it along with us and it wasn’t exactly a priority for me, considering I was nothing more than some changeling creature made up of seaweed and flotsam at the time.
It was a very odd feeling, when I realized that I’d left the fiddle behind. Considering how I’ve been pretty much inseparable from the instrument for as long as I can remember, you’d think it would have occurred to me much sooner, but I hadn’t even missed it.
I was that worried about Jilly.
It had taken Lizzie’s mentioning that it was too bad we didn’t have our fiddles for me to remember my own, and even then it didn’t seem nearly as important as Jilly’s continued absence.
I wasn’t going to say no when Timony offered to get it for me, but neither was I about to leave the mesa until Jilly got back. Lizzie went along to keep him company—though I’m sure it was as much from her wanting a change of scenery.
So off they went.
While they were gone, I tried to focus on my surroundings in an attempt to shut up the panicked voice of worry yammering away in the back of my head. It should have been easy. The landscape around me was stark, but incredibly beautiful. No matter where I turned, ranges of mountains lifted from each horizon, with a gorgeous light show starting up in the west as the sun began to dip below those distant peaks.
All I could do was worry.
And when I wasn’t worrying about Jilly being away for so long, I worried about what would happen when she got back.
We’d made promises to each other before she left. I know we said we had to talk, but we both knew it meant more than that. Now I couldn’t help but wonder: did we do the right thing? If it was going to work with us,
wouldn’t we already have been together by now?
What if it had only been something born out of the heat of the moment? She’d thought I was dead. People say things—feel things—in times of crisis that don’t necessarily hold when the real world comes back into focus.
God knows I loved her. She was my best friend and weren’t best friends supposed to make the best couples? I can’t remember how many times I’ve heard of a pair of old folks celebrating some incredible anniversary—you know, they’ve been together for fifty years, sixty years—and when they’re asked how it lasted so long, as often as not, the answer was that they’re each other’s best friend.
So we’ve got that totally going for us.
But I’ve never been able to hold a relationship together, and neither has Jilly. So what happens if we break up? Do I lose my best friend?
I can’t imagine a life without Jilly in it.
I know we’ve drifted apart these past few years—we used to see each other every day. We did that for years. Years. And if for some reason we weren’t in the same city—like when I moved to L.A. with Tanya—we’d write. There’d be phone calls.
Granted, it hadn’t been quite the same since she had the accident and I got back. But the thing was, even these days, whenever we did get together, there was never any awkwardness. We’d just fall back into our old comfortable ways with each other as though nothing had ever changed.
That wasn’t any big surprise, because inside each of us, nothing had changed. We still cared for each other.
But now we were going to make a change, and the truth was, it scared the crap out of me.
I sighed and turned to look at the spot where she’d disappeared.
After awhile, I got up and wandered down the trail that Honey had taken, collecting bits of wood and lengths of dried up cactus. It was going to get dark soon and we’d probably want a fire.
I managed to kill a half-hour with that and had a good pile gathered by the time the sun went down. Then I realized I didn’t have either a lighter or matches to get a fire started. Hopefully Timony could work some of his magic.
But it wasn’t as dark as I’d expected it to be. Back home, if you were anywhere beyond the city’s light pollution, you could have trouble seeing past the length of your arm. Unless there was a moon.
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