by Sean Platt
So the three humans, the giant, and the unicorn set off with two horses — the same two they’d rode in on, except that now Mai rode Leroy and Rigo rode Socks. The horses seemed to notice the difference in riders after so much time under Sly Stone and Buckaroo, but they were horses, and they did as they were told.
They headed up into the hills, following a confused and scattered trail left by El Feo’s men. Edward said that this proved it, that El Feo and his remaining Teedawges were riding with the help of black magic. Nothing else could twist a trail so thorough.
One hour passed with no sign. Then another. They reached the ravine, and both Edward and Rigo confirmed the last place they’d seen the girl. Rigo argued that they should continue searching between ravine and village, but Edward asserted that they should keep moving toward Elf Meadows since that was where El Feo came from, and where their ultimate quarry was located. He said he could feel it more and more with every passing hour — an oppressive black sensation from the north. And, finally again, the presence of the unicorn of a different color, Cerberus.
They searched the site and soon found a note, pinned to a tree with a small knife. It read: WE HAVE THE GIRL. SEND THE MARSHAL INTO THE VALLEY ALONE. NO WEAPONS.
Mai snatched the note from the tree, leaving the knife in place. She read it again, shaking her head.
“So he knew,” said Clint. “He knew we’d follow.”
“Yar,” said Edward.
“This was a final ploy. To get me.”
“Kold wants you,” Edward corrected. “You will know that to be true when El Feo places you in Realm shackles, and when he takes your bullets from your pouch but handles them with a rag. Kold will have told him that if he touches a marshal’s bullets with his commoner’s hands, he’ll find himself killt.”
“So what do I do?”
Edward looked almost amused. “You go, of course.”
“If they’re in the valley, we could set an ambush. We could…”
“You go, of course,” Edward repeated.
Clint was too tired to argue with anyone, especially Edward. If he marched alone into the valley, the worst that could happen would be his own death by El Feo’s hands. But after everything he’d been through — nearly five years of wandering and hardship — he’d managed to do the most important thing he’d set out to do by rescuing Mai. Now, truth be told, he longed for rest. It was only Edward’s insistence that there was much work ahead for the gunslinger that kept him plodding painfully along.
So he took off his gun belt and placed it in the only other place in the world where it felt right: buckled around the unicorn’s neck.
“Don’t worry,” said Edward. “I won’t eat the jerky you keep in the place where you once kept extra shackles.” Then he magicked the jerky out and ate it right there, in front of Clint. Mai couldn’t suppress a giggle.
Clint walked out of the rocky, tree-strewn hill region, over the crest of the next hill, and into a dry valley.
The descent to the valley’s bottom was long, and in the open. He felt alone and exposed. His hips felt light; he missed the comforting presence of iron. His hands wanted to hang at his sides, but he held them up, mostly crossed. The absence where his guns should be was too much to bear.
When he reached the bottom and dipped his walk into the center of the valley, he found a cluster of several large boulders. Behind these was El Feo. He had with him seven horses and six Gringos — far from his original gross. But he also had Paloma.
“Hey, you made it!” said El Feo, standing and waving as if greeting a long-lost friend. “How are you doing, amigo?”
Clint said nothing.
“So you decided to give yourself up for the girl, eh? That’s not too smart. You just taught a whole village to sacrifice itself for your cause. That’s not selfless. And this is the time you chose to be selfless? When it’s one girl versus your entire mission?”
“My unicorn told me to come.”
“Ah. And you always do what your horse says? Hey, I understand. Me too.” He leaned close to the nearest horse’s mouth and put a hand behind his ear as if listening. Then he straightened, said, “Okay, whatever you say, Freddie,” and slugged Clint across the jaw.
El Feo struck hard, but Clint bore the pain and gave him no satisfaction by flinching.
The bandit pointed his thumb toward the horse. “Freddie here, he didn’t like the way you killed one hundred and thirty-eight of our friends and ruined our livelihood.”
“Dumb horse,” said Clint.
El Feo hit him again. “Aren’t you going to fight back, lawman?” he said.
“I don’t want to hurt my hands,” said Clint. “I’m going to need them to kill you later.”
El Feo laughed, then glanced around the circle at the Gringos, sending them a message to join in his laughter. They did.
“Big man. Well. I will take you to see a bigger man.” From behind his back, El Feo pulled out a pair of Realm shackles, then used them to bind Clint’s wrists.
“Dharma Kold.”
El Feo’s brow wrinkled. “Diamante. I don’t know a Kold.”
“Well, he wouldn’t tell you his real name. He’d lie to everyone unimportant.”
El Feo hit him again. Clint’s lip was bleeding and he could already feel his skin starting to swell. Still he said nothing.
“Let the girl go,” said Clint.
“ ‘Let the girl go,’ ” El Feo mocked. “Always the hero. Do you ever say anything that isn’t cold and heroic, hero?”
“Here’s one: you’re ugly.”
One of the Gringos laughed. El Feo shot him a look.
“I was going to release her anyway, but you’re making me want to keep her, just for spite.” He stared at Clint for a long moment. Then he shrugged, put another insulting smile on his lips, and said, “Eh, it’s okay. I can’t argue with a hero like you. She can go. I don’t need her, and I’m too kind to kill a pretty girl for no reason. And besides, now I have my real prize.” He gestured toward a rock, urging Clint to sit. The hand on his six-shot revolver said that if Clint didn’t sit, he’d make him.
Clint sat. One of the Gringos freed Paloma, and she ran up the hill the way Clint had come, toward her brother and beau. Clint’s eyes followed her. The valley was wide open with nowhere to hide. Nowhere for a kid fighter and a giant, anyway.
“So now I tell you, sí?” said El Feo.
“Tell me?”
“This is the part where I tell you my plans. So here they are: I will take you to Señor Diamante, then I will find new Gringos and I will return. Your friends won’t bother to protect the village this time, because they will be off trying to free you. But they won’t be able.”
“Why are you robbing the village?” said Clint.
El Feo stabbed a scarred finger at one of his men. “Because this fat man needs to eat, and eats a lot!” he blurted, then laughed as if it was the most hysterical thing anyone had ever said. The man he’d pointed to was identical to the other five. All were thin.
“Because this ‘Diamante’ tells you to,” said Clint. “That’s all you know, is how to do what you’re told. But now you must split what you take with him. So how does that help you? And why are you so weak as to take such a poor bargain, seeing as you’ve been robbing that village yourself for so many years?”
El Feo frowned. “You think you’re smart, don’t you, amigo? Think I’m dumb and that you know it all. But you are wrong; I don’t split what I take. Diamante lets me keep everything, and I burn what I don’t need. He pays me to do it. He gives me protection, and men, and guns.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know!” El Feo threw up his hands as if annoyed by the gunslinger’s query. “But he does. And he traffics in magic. Magic that’s building Meadowlands into something like you’ve never seen. You know how they speak of The Realm, sí? Well, Meadowlands is like that now, only better since it’s in unfractured land. There are roads to Meadowlands, even though there are none to The Realm
. And soon, a railroad. You can find it. You can get there. The Realm’s days are finished, my friend. Meadowlands will quickly eclipse it.”
Clint took mental notes, comparing what he was hearing now with what Edward and Stone had said about the city in Elf Meadows. What Edward described was less impressive than the picture painted by El Feo, but El Feo was a man of the land, and perhaps more easily impressed. And of course, impressions of The Realm were just that: impressions. Nobody knew what it actually looked like. Well, except for Clint and Kold, though Clint’s memories were mostly gone.
“Sounds like a pretty fantasy,” said Clint.
El Feo chuckled. “So brave. But you may chatter all you want, because I find you entertaining. These six are boring. You know? I think you did me a favor. Six are a bore, but a gross were terrible. And all those creepy eyes always watching me. So thank you for clearing my extras, hero.”
Without warning, the six Gringos around the circle collapsed. Somewhere off to the right, there was the sound of something wet being caught in a mitt. El Feo looked from the Gringos to the sound, then to the gunslinger.
“You’re welcome,” said Clint.
“What are you doing?” El Feo stood, now jerking his head nervously around. “How are you doing this? Who is with you?” He turned to the valley and shouted. “Where are you?”
The bandit looked down at Clint, who hadn’t moved, still sitting motionless on the rock, hands still bound behind his back. Clint looked up innocently at El Feo.
“Where are your friends?” He turned and shouted again, but there was no answer. He pressed his gun’s barrel to Clint’s forehead, then looked around with small jerking motions of his head, trying to see something that wasn’t there.
“I will shoot him dead!” he shouted to the empty valley. “You hear me?” He cocked the hammer, pressed his finger against the trigger. “You hear me? My gun is cocked, amigos! My finger is on the trigger! One light touch and he’s dead. Do you hear me?”
Clint, placid, rolled his eyes upward. He saw the barrel, then El Feo’s stubbly, panicked face.
“Who are you talking to?”
“Don’t play stupid with me!”
“What makes you think that those six men didn’t simply have heart attacks?”
El Feo fogged heavy breath from his lungs as his finger jittered on the trigger. It was entirely possible that he might kill Clint by accident.
“Have they shot at us? There is no way! We are protected! There is no line of sight! What voodoo do you deal in?”
The gun left El Feo’s hand. It flew behind him, into Mai’s hand, as she stepped out from under Edward’s umbrella. The barrel settled against the back of El Feo’s head. The trigger settled under her finger.
“We deal in lead, friend,” she said.
A shot sounded across the valley. A group of birds took flight, startled by the sound.
Baracho Gulch’s worries flew away with them.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
ACRES OF GREEN
Rigo was relieved to see his sister alive, but Pompi was even more so. When the giant saw her, he crushed her in a hug so severe that the girl was left moaning, and Edward had to heal three cracked ribs. Their tearful reunion, however, was short. Pompi felt duty-bound to remain with Clint, Mai, and Edward — not only to deal with the Darkness he’d felt during his days in Meadowlands and his lingering guilt over his desertion, but also to avenge those he’d ridden alongside. If he could use his hammer to fight beside Stone and Buckaroo, he said, then he owed it to their memories to use it to avenge them. So he had to go. Paloma couldn’t ride with them, and none of the party — especially Clint and Edward — would allow it. The gunslinger and the unicorn were exhausted. Their refusal had less to do with protecting the girl and more to do with not wanting to be annoyed as they rode. So Paloma remained, and Pompi prepared to leave, with promises to return when his task was complete.
Rigo had planned to ride to Elf Meadows with Clint, Edward, Mai, and Pompi, but with Paloma found, he had purpose and a mission back in Barucho. And with her beloved Pompi riding in the opposite direction, Rigo was also required to pull Paloma, kicking and screaming, back toward the village. So he did, thanking the party as they left.
“I am eternally grateful to you for stopping,” Rigo said. “We all are. You have saved us.”
“It was our duty,” said Clint, feeling grizzled. “Go out. Serve your pueblo. Make us proud.”
The boy gave a sideways smile. “I will do what I can,” he said. “But I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.”
“Be well,” said Clint, nodding at the appropriately noncommittal nature of Rigo’s reply.
“Vaya con Dios,” he said.
So they rode. Clint was exhausted to the pit of his soul. Edward, who was magic, seemed to be entirely his jerky, normal self, and tried bolstering Clint when he could. But short of putting him inside another bubble of glee — something the gunslinger loathed — Clint would simply have to ride out his weariness. So he ate the guacamole and traveling packs of invigorating chili supplied by the villagers, and little by little, as they crossed into Elf Meadows, he felt his vigor and purpose returning.
Mai was tireless. While being entirely back to herself, she was simultaneously very different. Purified, almost. The magnetic species of magic she now wielded grew stronger by the day. She could lift ferrous minerals from the earth. She could weave alloys into art. And she could kill like a marshal, as she’d shown when she’d ended the threat of El Feo forever.
“What did you do to the Gringos?” Clint had asked her back on that day as the three of them had climbed out of the valley to rejoin Rigo, Paloma, and Pompi.
“I pulled the iron from their blood,” she’d said, showing him her left palm. It was coated with a slick, metallic residue.
They walked for a week after using Rigo’s uncle’s boat to cross the Rio’s western tributary. They were now in Elf Meadows, Edward explained. They could say goodbye to shifting lands forever. And, he added with a heavy dose of sarcasm, they could say hello to prosperity and magic.
“And hello to Dharma Kold,” Clint added.
“Yar, and that,” Edward agreed.
But the dark specter ahead seemed distant and unreal as the land spooled out in front of them, becoming less desolate by the mile. Brush became weeds. Scrubby pines became leafy trees. And eventually, as they cleared a rise, they found themselves entering an area with rolling hills covered in short, grazed grass that was new and thick and as green as emeralds.
They tied Mai’s horse to a tree and sat in its shade. A few paces off, the big unicorn lowered himself and began rolling in the dirt to scratch, moaning with what sounded like nostalgia. When he came back up, he looked almost pleased. Almost.
“It’s been so long since I’ve seen grass,” he said. He gained his feet and looked at Clint for a long moment, seeming to decide something. Then with a warning look, he said, “Don’t you say a dagged word.” He bent down and tore off a hunk of grass with his big teeth. He swallowed, then spat as best as he was able.
“Okay, it’s official,” he said. “I may be nostalgic, but I’m still not a horse.”
Leroy, tied to the tree, whinnied and bent his neck down to show that he still was.
“Sly would have wanted to see this,” said Mai. “He seemed so interested in the magic.”
“Beyond interested,” said Edward. “He was a savant.”
Clint was chewing on a piece of jerky. He looked up at the unicorn.
“A mnemonic agent. Like a living library. He had vast stores of recorded knowledge about the history of The Realm, the Sands, the Great Cataclysm, magic — everything — coded into his genetic material. His whole line does. You’ve heard of a Rosetta Stone?”
“Yar.”
“She was the first. She’s where the expression comes from. Their line was one of the original seven. Much, much older than humans realize.”<
br />
“Sounds like a noble line,” said Mai. Noble like her own, Clint added in his head.
“Yar.”
“So how did he end up as an outlaw?”
“Because there was a leak. Genes drift, but the archive sequence was protected and was never supposed to purge unless deliberately accessed by an archivist. Savants aren’t supposed to know the information’s there. Sly did. He began having suspicions about why the Cataclysm happened, suspecting The Realm wasn’t just a paradise where magic was still plentiful, but rather that The Realm was the reason magic had vanished from everywhere else.”
“Like the Conspiricists.”
“Yar. Except that Stone wasn’t believing. He was remembering.”
They sat on the hill, chewing jerky, enjoying the feeling of the soft grass beneath them after so much time spent amongst rock and sand and dust.
“He knew another thing, too,” said Edward. “He didn’t tell you, because you were human and wouldn’t understand. You’d try to stop it.”
Mai and Clint looked over.
“He knew he was going to die before reaching Elf Meadows.”
“We should have protected him,” said Mai, her voice regretful, chastising the unicorn. “We would have protected him, had we known.”
Edward sucked on his chili packet. “And that’s why neither of us told you.”
There was nothing more to be said, so they finished their rest and food, then moved on.
Green hills rolled into more green hills. It took days to cross Elf Meadows’ southern apron, but none of them minded the time spent. The land was lush and beautiful and scented fresh, unlike the death and decay they’d been smelling for so long. They could all feel the magic working inside of them. Pompi said that being in the Meadows was like going home, which for him was literally true.
Three weeks after crossing the Rio Verde, they came to the top of a hill and stopped. Clint’s mouth hung open. Beside him, Mai looked like she’d been slapped. Even Edward looked taken aback, though he quickly tried to brush it off. Only Pompi appeared completely nonplussed.