Moon Runner 01 Under the Shadow

by Jane Toombs

  Seven months later, on a bright June morning, Nick jumped down from the train at the Monroe station and hurried to the Jenkins farm. To his surprise, houses dotted the

  the acreage. The farmhouse and the barn remained, surrounded by perhaps a half-acre of ground where vegetables sprouted in neat rows.

  After her startled but enthusiastic welcome and her telling him how glad she was the war was over, Mrs. Jenkins admitted she'd sold off most of the land.

  "The town's growing by leaps and bounds," she said.

  "I asked myself, what did I need a farm for? For no good reason, that's what. Peggy and me can't do the work by ourselves and the two girls aren't much help. Young John's no farmer, never was, he plans to stay in the Army. Besides, the money comes in mighty handy. We kept two cows, the horses and a few chickens, that's all."

  "I was hoping you'd lend me a horse," Nick said, glad enough to see her but eager to get to Nogadata.

  "Course I will, you know that." Her smile faded. "I suppose you let your wife know you're coming home?"

  "No, I thought I'd surprise her."

  Mrs. Jenkins glanced at her daughter and then away, refusing to meet Nick's eyes. Peggy looked down at the floor.

  Nick stared from one to the other, unease flaring.

  "Is something wrong with Liisi? Mima?"

  Mrs. Jenkins folded her arms across her ample bosom.

  "So far's we know, your wife's all right. Mima, too. That's all I mean to say, so don't bother to ask any more questions. My advice is to saddle up and ride home."

  Peggy, never much of a talker, nodded solemnly.

  Nick, alarmed by now, hurried to the barn. A few minutes later he trotted down the drive on a dappled gray gelding, waved to the women watching from the front porch and struck out for the Nogadata road.

  As he urged the gray into a lope, he was vaguely aware the road had been widened and also corduroyed over the low spots. There was considerable traffic, too. Carts, wagons and carriages rumbled over the horizontally-laid logs, some going into Monroe, some toward Nogadata.

  By the time he reached the town, he had no eye for any changes and little for the people he passed who, recognizing him, called greetings. His entire attention was fixed on getting home. He breathed a sigh of relief when he came in sight of the house and saw the place was intact, looking much as it had when he left.

  Mima was leaning on the front porch rail, staring down the street as though expecting him. He waved but when she didn't respond he kicked the gray into a last burst of speed, then reined in at the front and dismounted.

  "Mima!" he cried, running up the stairs, his arms held out to her.

  She burst into tears and turned away. Conscious of passersby stopping to gawk, Nick grasped her wrist and led her into the house.

  "What in God's name is the matter?" he demanded as soon as the door closed behind them. "Where's Liisi? Is she all right?"

  "Don't know," Mima wailed.

  Nick's heart stood still. He gripped Mima's shoulders. "You don't know where she is?"

  "Don't know how she is." Tears ran down Mima's cheeks. "I been real scared."

  "Is Liisi in the house?"

  Mima shook her head, beyond speech.

  He took a deep breath, controlling his urge to shake her into making sense. Instead, he pulled her against his shoulder and patted her back. "Calm yourself," he soothed as best he could, apprehensive as he was. "I'm here, there's no need to be frightened. Stop crying and tell me what's happened."

  "You be mad," Mima mumbled between sobs, sounding like the nine-year-old he'd first befriended.

  "I won't be angry with you." He held her away from him. "Wipe your eyes, that's a good girl."

  Mima pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and mopped her wet face. "Liisi, she told me I had to stay here till you came home, said the house needed to be taken care of, said somebody had to be here when you came."

  "Where the hell is she?"

  Mima bit her lip. "In California."

  "California?" Nick's voice rose to a shout. "What in damnation is she doing there?"

  Mima sniffled. "I knew you'd be mad."

  Nick tried to calm himself. "Look, I know this wasn't your fault. Here, sit down." He motioned her into the parlor where she perched on the edge of a chair. He leaned against the fireplace mantel. "Start at the beginning and tell me everything."

  "You remember how Liisi, she told you they don't like her in this town? She was right, they don't. They don't care much for me, neither, but they mostly leave me alone." Nick straightened, his hands clenching. "What did they do to her?"

  "It seemed like she lost her only friends when the Lindenblatts moved to Detroit. None of the other ladies would talk to Liisi. Then some of the stores, they wouldn't sell her what she tried to buy. After while they began leaving notes on the door about her being a witch and she'd better get out of town. She decided to go after they killed one of the dogs. Her favorite." Mima looked at him, her eyes brimming.

  "Don't start crying again," he said firmly. "What happened next?"

  She swallowed. "Liisi, she showed me these papers about land in California. She said she'd been paying taxes on the land with her own money and she was going there to wait for you. Going to build a house. She said I had to stay here till you came, then you'd bring me with you to California and we'd all be together again. Only it took you so long. I knew you weren't killed cause I'd feel it if you died and I didn't. But I thought maybe you forgot about us."

  Nick closed his eyes for an instant. "I'd never forget about you, Mima. And certainly not about Liisi. Didn't she get my letters?"

  Mima nodded. "Some letters came after she left. I saved them, didn't open them cause they were to her."

  "Why in hell didn't she write and let me know what she meant to do?"

  Mima hunched her shoulders. "She said I had to tell you."

  "You should have written me, then."

  "She made me promise not to."

  Nick threw up his hands. "What's the use of talking? I suppose there's no choice but to go after her. To California, of all places. She knew I didn't want to go back there. I told her why."

  "Liisi, she said she won't ever set foot in this town again."

  Nick shook his head. Knowing Liisi, she'd never change her mind. Might as well sell the house before he and Mima left. He'd grown a beard on Sherman's final march from Atlanta to the sea but shaved it off before coming home.

  Best to grow one again, maybe the Californios wouldn't recognize a bearded Nick Deplacer as the shapeshifter they sought to kill. After all, it had been over fifteen years ago.

  But he sure as hell didn't mean to stay in California any more than Liisi meant to return here. And he wouldn't soon forgive her for the secretive way she'd left.

  Anger burned in his gut. He felt betrayed--by Liisi, by Mima, and by the townspeople of Nogadata who'd professed eternal gratitude when he healed them. He should have learned by now to trust no one but himself.

  The knock on the door startled Nick. As he strode to answer it, he scowled. Under the circumstances it could hardly be one of the townspeople welcoming him. No doubt someone needed his services. Damned if he'd provide any!

  He grasped the knob and flung open the door.

  Hank Ulrich's one good eye stared at him from the marred face. "'Tis me. captain. Thought you might could use my services again."

  Chapter 19

  Shortly before sundown on a late October afternoon in '67, three riders crested an oak dotted hill and paused at the top to gaze at the valley below.

  "'Tis a God-damned castle!" Hank Ulrich exclaimed.

  Nick stared in disbelief at the gray stone mansion, complete with a three story tower, turrets, dormers, balconies and seven chimneys. Had they come to the wrong place? He knew Liisi had money of her own--but this much? "Liisi said she meant to build a big house." Mima's voice held awe.

  Nick remained silent as he brought binoculars to his eyes. He swept over the valley--the
castle and its outbuildings, a few cultivated fields, grassland, and a large pine grove. No other houses. No neighbors.

  Far-off, beyond the low hills hemming in the valley, rose snow-capped Sierra peaks. This was definitely the land he'd bought, the surveyor's map he carried pinpointed the location. According to the map, he owned this hill and those hills on the other side of the valley. He owned the entire valley except for a portion that curved to the east behind the southern hills.

  Something white fluttered from the tower balcony and

  and Nick zeroed in. Through the magnifying lenses he saw a woman waving a white scarf. At him. He caught a faint crackle of blue energy.

  Liisi!

  For an instant something deep within him rebelled, resenting her witch's ability to foresee, to know in advance he was coming. For a second or two he had difficulty separating Liisi's welcome of him from Wenda's entrapment of him in Pennsylvania.

  Damn it, Liisi was his wife, not a conniving hexer! "She's waving at us from the tower," he told the others and urged his black into motion, suddenly unable to control his eagerness to hold Liisi again, despite his fury at what she'd done.

  When she met him outside in the drive, he enfolded her in his arms, the sharp edge of his anger blunted. Nothing, he vowed, would ever separate him and Liisi again.

  Later that night, softened by their lovemaking, he lay beside her the new and large mahogany four-poster with no anger at all left inside him.

  "Why a twenty-room castle?" he asked, idly twisting a strand of her pale hair between his fingers. "You've only furnished seven of the rooms."

  "When I cast the stones they told me to think of the future."

  Nick didn't see how the future would affect the size of the house they'd need since Liisi well knew there'd never be children. But, at the moment, he was too content to argue. "You might have written me," he said.

  "What was the use? You would never have agreed to come to California even if I'd told you the stones and Mima's foreseeing said we must. Do you know Mima saw this very valley in her vision?"

  "How could I know? The two of you conspire to keep secrets from me."

  Liisi touched his lips with her fingers. "Will you swear you've never kept a secret from me?"

  Instead of replying, he leaned over and kissed her, ending the conversation.

  Because he'd had to travel to the valley from San Francisco, where their ship docked, Nick had seen for himself that the day of the Californios was over. The vast ranchos were gone, broken up into American-owned farms. He hadn't spotted even one don or vacquero on his journey and so he'd assured himself it was safe, after all, to remain in California.

  As the days passed, Nick felt happy and at peace in his valley, more so outdoors than in the elaborate stone mansion with its peaked roofs and unfurnished rooms. Liisi had insisted all the rooms be panelled in walnut, oak or

  mahogany so, despite the many windows, he found the vast castle a bit gloomy. She'd chosen the site well. Though in the valley, the house sat on a rise with a fine view of their property. Tramping the golden hills with their scattering of trees in the clefts where rainwater collected, he realized he never wanted to leave these lands. Was it possible he'd at last found his home?

  He even liked their nearest neighbor, separated from them by about five miles. Paul McQuade had built an two- story adobe house in the part of the valley that curved out of sight behind the hills. McQuade raised cattle on the hills and vegetables and fruit on his valley acreage.

  "He and his wife, Adele, have been kind to me," Liisi said. "Unlike others I could mention in Michigan. She's going to have a baby soon--I assured her you'd be here in time to help."

  Though Nick had no desire to take up the practice of medicine again--he'd seen enough injured men for a lifetime-- one week after his arrival, Paul McQuade rode in to ask for Dr. DePlacer's services. Just after midnight Nick delivered Adele of a healthy son, sandy-haired and square-shouldered like his father.

  By the following spring, because Paul's fields produced a surplus of vegetables and fruit and Nick had money for financing, the two of them decided to set up a canning business in the closest community, a hamlet called Thompsonville some thirty miles to the east. Hank Ulrich was hired as manager.

  The business thrived from the first and one year later they were doing well enough to buy produce from other small ranchers in the area. By the third year they'd doubled the size of the plant. Early in '72 Nick made up his mind to travel to San Francisco to increase the market for their products.

  To his surprise, both Liisi and Mima protested.

  "I've ridden to Sacramento a dozen times," he said.

  "Not once did either of you worry. What's so different about a trip to San Francisco?"

  "Water," Mima said.

  He stared at her in surprise. "Sacramento's on the American River--that's water, isn't it?"

  "Mima saw the ocean, not a river," Liisi put in.

  Nick turned to Mima. "You didn't mention a foreseeing. What was it?"

  "Water and death," Mima said slowly. "A big ship, bigger than the one we sailed on. And drowning."

  Nick smiled. "I promise I'll keep away from the bay and from ships. And I'm not a likely candidate for getting shanghaied."

  "We warned you not to go to war," Liisi reminded him.

  "I came back intact, didn't I?" he countered, beginning to feel testy.

  Liisi's gray eyes held his. "Did you?" she asked.

  He blinked. What did she mean? The saber slash had healed and he'd never admitted to her how close he'd come to shapeshifting during that battle. And it was true Hank Ulrich had saved him from that crazed private. His only other perilous encounter had been with the hex witch.

  How could she know about that? Impossible.

  Nick shook his head. "I'll be careful but I'm riding to San Francisco."

  He set off a week later on a soft April morning, riding his favorite black stallion, Nochi. He stopped in Thompsonville, spending the night at Ulrich's.

  Hank, now in his fifties, had married a widow with grown children and was, he claimed, happier than he'd ever been in his life.

  "I thought General Custer was the lucky one," he said to Nick as the two of them sat over coffee. "Yes, sir, I did. "But there's no doubt in my mind, Doc, as to how you were my piece of luck. Smartest thing I ever did was head for Michigan 'n find you 'stead of going home to Pennsylvania." Hearing the state mentioned reminded Nick of Wenda.

  Ever since Liisi's implication that he hadn't come back from the war intact, the witch and her spells had been on his mind. He set down his coffee cup and leaned forward. "I think you told me once your folks were German."

  "Pennsylvania Dutch, that's me."

  "They're the ones with the hex signs on the barns."

  Hank shook his head. "Not my folks. They wanted no truck with such foolishness. Didn't believe in hexing." He grinned. "Leastways, not out loud."

  "Do you know anything about hex witches?"

  Hank shrugged. "Some. People do talk."

  "Is it true a hex witch can appear to someone without actually being there in person?"

  "You mean sending a spirit like? Jesus, I don't know. Never heard one could. Mostly they stick pins in dolls and curse folks, all's I ever was told."

  Damn it, Nick told himself, Wenda couldn't have really lain with me. Not in that meadow of the dead.

  It was time to put her from his mind once and for all. Two days later, at Sacramento, Nick boarded a riverboat for San Francisco. It wasn't until he reached his room at the Baldwin Hotel on the corner of Powell and Market that he realized he wasn't wearing his amulet. Not that it made any real difference--he often left it off when the moon wasn't full. The dark of the moon had just passed, he'd be home long before the next full moon. Besides, the chant was enough to keep him safe.

  In the hotel dining room that evening he overheard

  talk of a ship in port.

  "A big hulking three master," the man said to h
is dining companion. "Painted and gilded like a parlor house madam. Those Russians don't do things by halves. Their officers wear as much braid as a Mexican general."

  Russia. The word echoed in Nick's head. Where he'd come from, if Liisi was right about the language he spoke-- and he had no reason to think she wasn't. He'd been a Russian before he became an American. Did he have family there? Would he ever find out?

  The questions teased him through the meal, taking away his appetite. His increasing desire to have a look at the Russian ship finally made him push away from the table. He left the hotel, setting off for the docks through a twilight haze.

  In his eagerness to reach the ship, Nick scarcely noticed the suffocating sensation of so many energies crowding about him. He'd suffered the feeling throughout the war years without ever really growing accustomed to it and he usually found cities even worse than army camps.

  On the wharf, he stopped a passing roustabout to ask where the Russian ship was moored.

  The man pointed. "Out there she be. Can't miss her." When he spotted the three-master, Nick walked to the end of the pier and stared across the darkening water at the ship from his homeland. Sharp though his night vision was, he wasn't sure of the name on her bow. Nachornaya, he thought the first word was. Black.

  Will I ever sail to Russia? he wondered. Is there any use? I don't even know my--

  Belatedly, he sensed the rapid movement of energy behind him, someone rushing toward him. He whirled, throwing up his arm too late to deflect the blow. An iron bar caught him hard across the head, sending him to his knees, stunned. "Diablo!" the man cried as he flung himself at Nick. "Lobombre! I knew you'd return one day."

  Don Rafael! Dazedly, Nick struggled to throw off the Californio. He heard the unmistakable swish of metal against leather and realized Don Rafael had pulled a knife. Frantically he tried to twist free. Failed. Felt a burning pain along his side, unadulterated agony.

  Silver, he thought dimly. Don Rafael's learned to use silver against me. He'll kill me with his silver knife. In desperation, Nick gripped the don's arm and threw himself over the edge of the pier, carrying the Californio with him. As they splashed into the chill water of the bay, Nick felt his guts wrench so violently he screamed. Then his head struck a piling and he knew no more.