Silver on the Road

by Laura Anne Gilman

  She was right; she knew she was. She had to be right.

  He leaned back, his left index finger tapping thoughtfully at his lips, his gaze unblinking as ever as they regarded her, looking bone-deep in that way he had.

  “Marie runs this house,” he said. “She is my steady right hand and will continue to be so for many more years.”

  Izzy refused to let her shoulders slump, but inwardly, all of her hopes and courage crumbled. If he had no need of her, then what?

  The boss sighed, then brought both of his hands up in front of him and held them up, turning them back and forth as though to show he held nothing in his palm, nothing up his sleeve. He had strong hands, long-fingered and supple, and his right hand was unadorned, while his left bore a silver-and-black signet ring on his index finger. She had never seen that ring before—but a similar one, with a clear stone, encircled Maria’s right thumb.

  “We each have two hands, of equal strength and dexterity. Each with things it does well, better than the other. All this time, you’ve seen the day-to-day business, the gathering-in and the granting, the bargaining and the dealing, the work of my right hand.” His voice changed again, slipping to a soft growl she had never heard before. “Did you never think beyond that, Isobel? Did you never wonder what the other hand held?”

  “I . . . No.” She never had.

  “Most don’t. I prefer it that way.” He let his hands fall, resting them palm-down on the desk, graceful even in stillness. The growl was gone, but his voice remained sharp. “The States see us as some empty wilderness to be claimed and tamed, while Spain and their holdings call us evil, a cluster of heathens and sinners in need of cleansing—by sword and fire, if they had their way. Both sides press on us, coveting us. Those who leave their homes and come here, who cross into our borders in search of something, even if they never make their way to Flood, they see more clearly what the Territory means, but even so, they see only the one side . . . until they need the other. Then they grab onto it, with desperate strength.

  “The right hand gathers and gives, visible to all. But the left hand, Isobel, the manu sinistra? It moves in shadows, unseen, unheard . . . until I deem it time for it to be seen and heard. And when it moves, its work cannot be undone. It is the strength of the Territory, the quick knife in the darkness, the cold eye and the final word.”

  She looked up, away from his hands, and was caught by a gaze the burnt gold of the morning sun.

  “I have been lacking a left hand for too long. Are you strong enough for that, Isobel née Lacoyo Távora? Is the iron in your spine, the fire in your blood, ready for my forging?”

  Née? Marie was née too when she introduced herself. Marie née Aubertin. Izzy didn’t let herself hesitate, didn’t let herself feel fear. “Yes.”

  “And what do you have to offer in return?”

  She had nothing. Everything she owned, everything she carried, belonged to him. “Myself,” she said. “All I have is myself.”

  “I accept your terms,” he said abruptly. “Marie will write up your new papers.”

  Then his eyes faded to the more soothing, familiar brownish-gold, and the smile in them was familiar, and fond. “They won’t be ready for several hours. You have this day of freedom, dearling. Go, enjoy it.”

  Marie, doing her predawn rounds, had seen Izzy go downstairs dressed as though for battle, her hair braided and coiled, and her boots laced. She had leaned over the railing and watched as the girl paused, then found her courage, and went to the boss’s office, not bothering to knock. Despite her worries, Marie smiled. It wasn’t guts the girl lacked, for certain.

  She went back into her room and finished her morning preparations, keeping an eye on the sunlight rising through her window. When she thought enough time had gone by, she draped a shawl around her shoulders and went to check on how things were progressing.

  The office door was still closed. Normally by then, she would be meeting with the boss, discussing the day over her first cup of coffee, but that could wait a bit yet. There would be another pot of coffee in the kitchen, and Ree wouldn’t dare smack her fingers if she snitched a piece of the fry bread she could smell cooking. But even as she thought that, the door opened and Izzy walked out.

  Marie studied the girl’s face. She didn’t look angry, or happy for that matter. She looked as though a horse had kicked her, and she wasn’t yet sure if it hurt. Her heart ached for the girl, but she held her tongue as Alice came out of the kitchen, an apron two sizes too large for her wrapped around her middle. Clearly, Ree had her in search of something, because Izzy directed the child to look behind the bar before the older girl pushed open the front door and disappeared outside.

  Marie waited a hand’s count to make sure that the girl wasn’t coming back before descending the stairs herself, nodding to Alice in passing, and entering the office without knocking. The boss was writing, his fountain pen making faint noises as it scratched its way across the paper. He didn’t look up, but he didn’t tell her to go away, either.

  She gathered her skirt in one hand, sorting it out of the way, and perched herself on the edge of the desk. “Are you sure about this?”

  He didn’t bother asking how she knew; he’d trained her to know what went on within the walls of the saloon, given her the ears to hear, and had only himself to blame when she used those skills on him. “The only question was if she was certain. And she was.”

  Marie frowned at him, unable to argue and yet unsatisfied with the response. “I know she’s not a child any more, not legally, but she’s still so young.”

  “Old enough. And she came to me, quite clear in what she desired.” He looked up from the ledger and studied his Right Hand. “You doubt her capabilities?”

  “She is quick-witted and steady-minded,” Marie said, taking the question seriously. “And her heart is neither tender nor cold. She listens as well as any girl her age and has a healthy dose of doubt for what she hears. She was born to the Territory, feels it in her blood and bones. No, I don’t doubt her capabilities or her desire.” How could she, when she too had quietly fed and encouraged it all these years?

  “And yet you question my decision?”

  Marie leaned past him, picking up the paperwork, buying herself time. She looked at the cream-colored paper, reading the words inked there with an odd expression, part resignation, part hope, and then handed the sheet back. “I suppose I’m too fond of the girl,” she said. “I may have hoped that she’d find a nice farmer, or maybe the blacksmith’s boy, and settle down somewhere nearby.”

  The boss laughed. “Our Izzy? Woman, get out of my office; stop wasting my time. And if that boy is still around, the northern cardsharp from last night? Find him for me.”

  She knew better than to ask what he had in mind. Whatever it was, they’d all learn soon enough.

  When the young boy knocked on the door of his hired room about midmorning, Gabriel was already packed and ready to ride out.

  “Sir? The boss would like to see you. Right now, if’n it’s convenient.”

  “The boss?” Even as he asked, Gabriel knew. The master of the saloon. The master of this town. The Master of the Territory, some said.

  Gabriel hadn’t moved to the main table the night before, although that had been his intention when he arrived. Every man jack thought, in his heart of hearts, that he could face the devil across the green felt and come out the winner, or at least hold his own long enough for bragging rights. Gabriel had played out his hands and waited for the tables to shift, for his turn to come along, but somewhere midway through the evening, he’d discovered that it was enough to be there, to see the way the man worked, to feel the power that shimmered around him, steady as the wind and old as the stone.

  Gabriel had questions; there wasn’t a man alive as didn’t. But he’d realized the last night that he could find the answers on his own or he’d never know, and that w
ould have to do. The devil, it turned out, had nothing he would bargain for.

  So, to be summoned now, when he was preparing to leave? That was . . . disturbing.

  “Give me a minute,” he told the boy, and got his hat and coat from the rack, leaving his bags on the bed.

  The boardinghouse was only a few steps down from the saloon, and in that time, Gabriel considered and rejected half a dozen reasons why he might have been summoned. The only one that held water was his conversation with the girl the night before; what had been her name? Isobel, that was it. A cheeky smile and a serious eye, and he’d made the offer without thinking, but surely that wouldn’t be enough to bring him to such notice? If the girl was thinking of riding out, there was no reason she shouldn’t, unless she’d made a Bargain preventing it. He couldn’t have given offense just for offering, if he hadn’t known. Could he?

  His blood chilled, but he kept his hat at a jaunty angle, the brim shading his eyes from the sun but also keeping them from view. The weight of the knife in his boot was no comfort, for once. Weapons of steel and bone couldn’t defend him here. Still, he’d noted that the devil kept an honest house, and he had no reason to doubt that yet.

  Gabriel had never been in a saloon or gambling house before opening hours. To his surprise, it was busy even in the daylight, as innocuous as a storefront, with a handful of youngsters underfoot sweeping the floor and washing glassware, carrying linens and laundry to and from, and generally keeping busy. An older woman, dressed in her night-wrapper, was seated at the bar, swinging her legs gently, a hint of bare flesh showing as she moved. She winked at him, and Gabriel felt himself blush like a schoolboy, but he touched the brim of his hat in acknowledgment and was rewarded with a laugh.

  The boy didn’t pause but led him across the main floor to a door in the back and knocked once on the frame.

  “Send him in, Aaron,” a voice called.

  The door opened, and Gabriel walked into the devil’s lair.

  The man behind the desk had blond hair and a square, clean-shaven chin that did not match Gabriel’s memory of the man he had seen at the tables the night before, but by the time he took the indicated seat, removed his hat, and looked up again, that first impression changed again, angular features softening, chin and lip now covered with morning stubble, although the eyes, keen and golden brown, remained the same.

  Riding the Territory, Gabriel had encountered odder in his time; he let the shift go without comment.

  “You are, no doubt, wondering why your presence has been requested.”

  “No doubt.”

  The devil leaned back in his chair and tilted his head, studying Gabriel. “You spoke with Izzy last night while at the card table.”

  “I did.” Gabriel knew when he was being studied—and judged. He waited, his hat in his lap, boots on the floor, conscious again of the knife in its sheath, and how utterly useless it would be if the judgment went against him.

  “She’s a comely girl, serving drinks; most would flirt, perhaps tease her, or try for something more. But you spoke to her seriously; you took her seriously, despite her youth and gender. And then you left. Before your turn at my table came around. You did not feel the need to play against me.”

  “No.”

  Gabriel had been born to the Territory, but he had trained back East to face judges and juries with men’s liberty on the line. He wasn’t afraid of silence, nor the moment before the storm. And if his stomach muscles tensed or his shoulders drew back, his lead hand kept still against his thigh, neither of them remarked on it.

  Those eyes brightened to pure gold, the skin tone darkening from native bronze to near black, the cheekbones sharpening. Gabriel waited, his gaze steady, his hands resting on his knees, his hat on his lap.

  “You’re an advocate, not a cardsharp.”

  “A man mightn’t pursue two distinct interests in his time?” He hadn’t meant for it to sound so much like a question.

  “I have an offer to make you,” the devil said, as casual as he might deal out a new hand, all friends around the table, no cards up his sleeve. “Or perhaps I am accepting your offer. Either way, I think it may be of interest, and of worth, for you to accept.”

  He had made no offer to the devil, only Isobel, but Gabriel was not fool enough to argue the point. A cautious man thought out his plan, and his price, before he went to the devil. If the devil came to you . . .

  Gabriel raised a hand to indicate that he was listening, but he would not speak again, not until he’d heard the offer out.

  Izzy felt lost. She stood on the wooden steps of the saloon, the door closing firmly behind her, and was filled with an unfamiliar, unwanted sensation of having nowhere to go, nothing to do. She had no place in the daily routine anymore, her old chores would have already been reassigned, and despite her meeting with the boss, she had no idea of what her new status, her new role might be.

  The uncertainty made her uncomfortable. The boss had told her to enjoy herself. . . . But her mind went blank at the thought. She didn’t want to go back inside, waiting in her room like a scolded child anticipating her punishment, as though she had done something wrong.

  She took a deep breath, letting the dry air fill her lungs. The sky was blue overhead, the breeze a cool counterpoint to the sun rising bright and warm. A walk along the river would take her away from questions she could not answer, and perhaps clear her head a little.

  Resolved, she stepped along the planked sidewalk, walking toward the edge of town. Flood, for all its importance, was not large, and there were few people out and about this early, save an older man heading toward her, down the middle of the street. A small wagon trundled behind him, piled high with burlap bags, the wooden wheels making a rattleclack noise as they turned. “Good morning, Miz Izzy,” he said, tipping the brim of his hat to her.

  “Morning, Mister Dash.” He and his son, Samuel, grew enough on their farmstead a few miles out of town to support themselves, and contracted to sell what remained. Molly said that outside the Territory, a black man couldn’t enter into a contract, nor a native, nor a woman of any race, in most places. The boss didn’t seem to care so much about that, so long as they stuck to their terms and didn’t cause troubles.

  She had no contract, no agreement, no terms sealed and signed. The thought made Izzy’s skin itch. Not that there weren’t folk who did just fine without them, she supposed, here and elsewhere. It just felt strange. Uncertain.

  The planked sidewalk ended just before the smithy, and Izzy stepped down onto the road, puffs of dirt rising around her ankles. It hadn’t rained in nearly a week; that wasn’t good. The smithy’s door was open, but there was no steady clank-clank-clank of the hammer, just the slow breath of the fire, waiting.

  Past the smithy, there was only the icehouse, a low-slung building built into the rise, and then the grasslands that led down to the ­river’s edge. The low ridge of hills to the west was only a faint purple smudge in the far distance. The river itself was as high as it’d ever be, and old Duarte’s boys would be bringing his cattle through soon enough, heading for summer pasture. The saloon was always busy then, with Duarte’s oldest son paying a visit to the boss, the hired hands spilling their cash on the tables, although few of them sat at the boss’s table.

  She had never been allowed to work the cattle drive; the boss thought the hired men were too unpredictable and prone to abusing their drink, so the younger girls never worked those days. She’d spent the last year’s drive in the kitchen, sneaking peeks when there was a lull, before Ree slapped the flat of a wooden spoon on her backside, herding her back to chores.

  “He’ll have to let me work out front this year, won’t he?” Marie did, but the boss had said that the left hand was different from the right, hadn’t he? She tried to remember exactly what he had said, but the words were blurred in her memory now. Something about having the last word?

 
; Despite herself, Izzy laughed. Nobody ever got the last word with the boss. Even if he let you speak last, he always had the final say.

  Birds chirped overhead, and a pair of rabbits disappeared into the tall grass as she approached the river, but otherwise she might have been the only living thing for miles, the town quiet and invisible behind her. Suddenly, Izzy wasn’t so sure that this walk had been a good idea. She paused, then licked her lips and forced herself to continue. She was perfectly safe here, so long as she didn’t try to cross the river, and she had no intention of doing anything so foolish.

  Izzy paused when she reached the edge of the river, listening to the water flowing over rocks, a pleasant, steady gurgling sound. She felt too restless still to sit quietly, so she kept walking along the riverbank, letting the morning sun gentle her skin and the sound of the water ease her worries, until she came to a section of the bank that was too steep, the footing too uncertain. She dug the toe of her boot into the dirt and considered working her way around it, then shook her head and turned around. She had gone far enough; there was no need to tempt fate.

  Despite that soothing of the creek and sun, the unease that weighed on Izzy’s shoulders remained. How long could papers take to write up? Should she go back now, or would the boss think she was hovering, that she didn’t have the patience to do the job? Might he change his mind? The worries chased each other until she determined that going back would be no worse than staying here and fretting herself into a state.

  The path seemed longer going in than walking out, and she paused when she reached the border of town, feeling the ground rumble faintly through the soles of her boots, part warning, part welcome.

  “It’s me, Izzy,” she said quietly. It wasn’t necessary: the town knew her, had known her since she was knee-high. But this was the first time she’d crossed the border without belonging. Better to be cautious.