Silver on the Road

by Laura Anne Gilman

  The deep red tea was bitter, but the warmth felt even better in her throat than it had in her hands, and if she was drinking, she didn’t have to think about how uncivilized she must seem. She’d been raised in a saloon; she’d seen drunk, half-naked men reeling through the halls before one of the girls could corral them or Iktan toss them out on their ear; she’d been raised among women who were as comfortable in their skins as a bird was in its feathers. If he thought she needed to be treated like a delicate town flower . . .

  She scowled down into the tea. If he thought that was what she was, he was gravely mistaken.

  “That should help,” Gabriel said, and she startled, then realized he was talking about the tea. She’d finished it, even the bitter dregs, without noticing. He took the mug from her, stepping back a bit. But was looking directly at her now, which was a relief. “Wash up and get dressed. I’ll settle the bill and meet you outside for breakfast.”

  It might have been the tea, or simply that she was more awake now, but getting out of the bed was easier, although she was still stiff and sore, particularly in her shoulders and hips.

  It made her slightly dizzy to realize, as she fastened ties and laced her boots, that only a day had passed since they left Flood. That two days before, she had been serving drinks and folding linens, worrying over what her future would bring, impossibly confident that once she turned sixteen, everything would be easier.

  Izzy sat down on the edge of the cot to braid her hair, fingers moving in familiar patterns, the motion soothing her thoughts, until the braid was tied off with a leather thong. She started to pin it up, the way a grown woman should, then remembered the feel of sweat on her scalp the day before, how heavy her hair had felt, and left it down instead. It felt strange, but when she turned her head and felt the weight of the braid brush against her back, it made her almost smile.

  Gabriel met her in the hallway. He was wearing a different shirt this morning, this one brown and open at the neck. The dust had been cleaned off his boots and long coat, but there were still mud splatters on his trousers from where they’d forded the creek. The memory of him as the casual, flirtatious cardsharp was so at odds with the man standing in front of her, that first man might as well not have existed.

  Maybe the girl she’d been, Izzy-as-was, didn’t exist anymore, either? It would explain the way she felt, confused and hazy.

  “Feeling better?”

  She nodded, attempting to hide her aches, but must not have been convincing enough.

  “Don’t worry. Food will help.”

  Food did help, even though the bread was nowhere as good as Ree’s, and the meat too greasy. The coffee was strong enough to singe her tongue, and the familiar note of chicory washed away the grease and the last lingering taste of the willow bark tea. The dining room was far busier than it had been the night before, the long tables seating men filling their stomachs as though they wouldn’t see another meal for days, intent on their own thoughts, or reading a broadsheet boasting the latest news. There were two women at another table, apart from the others. They ate more delicately, their heads together, speaking quietly. Izzy watched them, curious. One wore a brown traveling dress, high-necked and demure, with a small leather case on the ground next to her feet. The other woman was older, with silvering hair tucked into a neat coil, but she was wearing trousers and a collared shirt much like Gabriel’s, a leather coat folded across the back of the chair next to her. They, and she, were the only females in the room. Izzy wondered if the woman in trousers was local, or also a traveler, and if so, had she stayed at the roadhouse as well? But asking such questions without an introduction would be rude.

  “We’ll be leaving after breakfast?” she asked Gabriel instead, hoping to get some detail of where they would be heading once they left town. She was like the mule, trotting along in Gabriel’s trail. Her entire life, she’d done exactly that, taking orders without hesitation or doubt; it should not itch at her now. And yet it did.

  “Soon enough,” Gabriel said. He’d been watching the people, too, and she wondered who had caught his attention and why. She didn’t know how to ask, though; the easy comfort of the day before was gone, like morning mist once the sun rose. Her stomach felt tight, and she pushed the remains of her meal away, no longer hungry.

  Although anything to put off getting into the saddle again seemed a good idea to her, the insides of her thighs and her shoulders still aching, she couldn’t imagine why they would delay longer in Patch Junction.

  “What are we doing, then?”

  Gabriel grinned at her, and the spark of mischief in his eyes both reassured and alarmed her. “Shopping.”

  The look of relief on Isobel’s face when she realized she wouldn’t have to saddle up just yet made her look very young, and Gabriel was annoyed at his reaction—he needed to toughen her up, not coddle her. But the faint pink burn on her nose had rebuked him this morning, a reminder that she needed a hat before she spent another day on the road, and there were items he’d need as well, things that the devil’s Right Hand, however efficient, hadn’t considered.

  Fortunately, he’d been given enough coin to deal with that as well.

  Gabriel finished his breakfast, tucking payment under the plate before leading Isobel back out on the street. There were more people about by then, the sun full over the horizon, and the bustle was enough to make her flinch slightly. He supposed it was louder than Flood ever was on a normal day, though nowhere near his memories of Williamsburg, much less the city of Philadelphia, with its constant rattle and creak of commerce.

  He raised his face to the morning sky and breathed in deep. He might have resented coming home, but he couldn’t regret it. Not when the air smelled of milkweed and tall grass and honest earth underfoot, and the sunlight stretched without interruption, turning dark to pale blue, not a cloud in the sky.

  He hated the Territory some days, but leaving it had been worse.

  “Come on, then,” he said, and led her down the main street to the mercantile. No sign announced its purpose, but the single glass window with its display of dry goods around a too-ornate saddle made no mistake of its purpose.

  “That’s a very large store,” Isobel said, her voice faint.

  He scanned the building—a single story, but twice the width of any other storefront—and nodded. “Patch Junction earned its name by growing out of an old crossroads,” he told her. “Used to be smack on top of it, in fact.”

  She blinked at him, unsure if he were joking or not.

  “That’s what they say, anyway.” He shrugged. “The second road’s long gone now; not sure it was ever more than a track to begin with, but Junction’s still where folk come for supplies.”

  That was why they had a badgehouse here, too. The crossroads itself might be long gone, but marshals were known to be cautious. Where there was power, there was usually trouble, too.

  He could almost see her brain taking that fact in, looking around her with different eyes. He wondered what she saw, if there was some trace of Patch Junction’s past lingering in the decades of wood and iron built up over it.

  If there was, she gave no sign of seeing it, and he felt an odd pang of disappointment. To cover it, he gestured for her to precede him up the stairs and into the store.

  The clerk looked up as they entered, the bell over the door jangling sharply, and gave them a professional once-over. “Morning.”

  “Morning,” he said in return, hearing Isobel echo him, and cast an eye over the dry goods displayed up front. He wasn’t the sort to need for much, but the money he’d been given weighed heavily in his wallet, the devil’s lucre, and he was eager to have it be gone. Isobel needed a trail hat, and he wanted to try another saddle pad for her, and while they were at it, a new coffeepot would not be amiss. The one he’d been using was right-sized for one man, but the way she’d put the brew down this morning told him she was no delica
te tea-sipper. Not unless it was medicinal, anyway.

  “Iz.” He got her attention away from the soaps and lotions, and pointed toward the display of hats. “Nothing frilly,” he warned her, and smiled at the face she made, as though offended that he thought she might opt for a cap of lace or something bedecked with feathers. “Practical, to keep the sun off your face and the rain out of your eyes.”

  She nodded and moved over to the display, reaching for a severe-­looking black gambler that he could tell would be too large for her. But a hat was a personal choice; he wouldn’t interfere.

  Gabriel did his own shopping and then picked up a broadsheet from the pile on the counter and skimmed the bold print headlines, thinking he should pick up some more shot and powder, too. The broadsheet was two weeks old, but the news was not the sort that would blow over anytime soon: the Spanish protectorate was rumbling again about heretics and salvation, while the Métis and British were snapping at each other over trapping and timber up north, and the States tried to play each side for a better advantage.

  Reading between the lines on that last, of course, since the paper’d come straight out of Philadelphia, home of the fine upstanding leaders of said States. Twenty-five years, they’d been trying to see where an advantage lay and never once gotten anything for it save more war. Gabriel pushed down the wave of disgust he felt, the memories he was trying to forget, and dropped the broadsheet back down on the counter.

  Isobel appeared at his side with a simple tan hat, wide-brimmed and low-crowned, the only ornamentation a black fur band around the crown. “This one,” she said, as though expecting him to disagree. He picked it up out of her hands and tested the work, feeling the weight and the nap of the felt. “That’ll do,” he said, giving her an approving nod.

  He paid for the items they’d collected, seeing the coins go into another man’s hands with something like relief. He kept half of the quartered pieces in his pocket and handed the rest to Isobel. “Not that we’ll have much use for these the next few weeks, but it’s always best to have pocket money in case.”

  And better it rest in her pockets than his.

  Izzy waited nearby while Gabriel paid for their purchases, unable to shake the feeling that people were looking at her, no matter that Gabriel’d said that the town was used to strangers. Had the marshal told someone who she was, and they’d told others? Or was she imagin­ing the side looks, the quick glances away?

  Maybe she was. She felt itchy all over again, exposed and oddly vulnerable, and she didn’t like it. What had the boss said? That the Left Hand wasn’t to be seen until he wanted it to be seen? But who’d listen to her unless they knew who she was? How could she be invisible without being ignored?

  She took the coins Gabriel handed her without thinking, staring at them a moment before slipping the quartered bits into her jacket pocket. Having the coins made her feel slightly better, more solid somehow, but not enough. She didn’t know why she had been sent away, what she was supposed to be learning, and the frustration added to the itchiness and the discomfort until she wanted to stamp her foot, knock things off shelves, scream at the top of her lungs to be noticed; at the same time, she wanted to disappear, to run back to Flood and beg to be allowed to stay, to be Izzy the saloon girl again, where everything was familiar and made sense.

  “Here you go.” And Gabriel was standing in front of her, the hat in his hands. She took it from him, feeling the smooth felt slide under her fingertips, the leather tie and beaver fur band inviting touch.

  It was only a hat, nothing special, but it was hers, something she’d chosen, bought for her to wear, to keep the dust and the sun away. Eventually, the glossy finish would become battered like Gabriel’s, her jacket would be covered in dust, her boots scuffed and muddy, and people would look at her with respect, too.

  He ushered her out of the store with two fingers gentle on her shoulder, but as they stepped back into the sunlight, he stopped her, turning to look into her face as though he’d seen something that disturbed him. “You all right, girl?”

  “Yes. Yes, I’m fine.” She wouldn’t take offense at him calling her girl, not with coin in her pocket and this new hat in her hands, the felted brim smooth under her fingers and a shiver in her bones that she couldn’t explain.

  He gestured for her to step down the sidewalk, falling into step beside her. “We’ve one more errand to take care of, then, and—”

  “Izzy?”

  A woman’s voice calling her name, so unexpected in this place that it was as though someone had touched a piece of ice to the nape of her neck, making her jump, before she saw who was coming toward them, hands outstretched.

  “Oh.” Izzy clutched the brim of her new hat more tightly. She had forgotten entirely that she knew someone in this town, caught up in the newness of . . . everything. Or not forgotten, exactly, but Izzy had figured the odds of them seeing each other had been so slim. . . . She wasn’t prepared.

  Only the house can play the odds safely. The boss liked to say that, usually when someone had done something stupid.

  “April! I wasn’t sure if we’d run into each other while we were here.” If you can avoid lying, you should. Gabriel’s voice-memory this time, not the boss’s. She stepped forward into the other girl’s embrace, a brush of a kiss on her cheek before they were apart again, taking stock of each other. April was older than Izzy, her once-pale complexion now browned by the sun, her light brown hair artfully curling from under a simple bonnet. She had gone off to marry a farmer, although Izzy could not remember his name.

  “I saw you across the street and I thought I was dreaming at first.” April’s outward appearance might have changed, but her eyes were the same wide brown, and her voice was still the older-sister-scolding that Izzy remembered. “Why didn’t you let me know you were coming to visit?”

  Izzy licked her lips and forced herself to smile. “It’s not a visit exactly. . . .”

  Gabriel stepped forward then, and she turned to make the introductions, welcoming the time to gather her thoughts. “April, this is Gabriel Kasun. He’s mentoring me on the road. Gabriel, this is April . . .” She couldn’t remember April’s married name.

  “April Cortez,” the woman said, offering her hand to Gabriel. He took it with a smile, the easy warmth Izzy had seen the first night in the saloon rising to the surface again, as though he’d no other purpose in his life save be charming. She was not proof against that smile but kept her attention focused on the other girl. “Izzy, you’re taking the road? Truly? I would never have thought it of you.”

  Never mind that Izzy had never thought it of herself either, April’s tone rankled something inside. “You thought I would be a saloon girl the rest of my life?” Even as the words came out, she wanted to slap herself. There was no shame in that. Simply because she wanted more . . .

  But she did want more. There was no shame in that, either.

  “No, but . . . Oh, this is no place for such a discussion,” April said, exasperated. “Come, join me for a cup of tea. You have time for that, certainly? We may not be fancy here, but we have a tearoom that would be the envy of ladies even in Fort Cahokia.”

  There was no room allowed for argument; April shifted her basket to the other arm and slid her right into Izzy’s, towing her along. Gabriel, rather than objecting, offered to take April’s basket for her and followed at their heels, an obedient, if amused, dog.

  The tearoom was in fact a room off the baker’s, with a shaded porch and cloth-draped tables. Gabriel held the chair out for April and then sat down himself, arranging his longer legs carefully under the table. Izzy glanced at him under her eyelashes and tried not to smile. He might be able to charm, but any fool could see he was better suited for a saloon than a tearoom.

  But then, so was she. Izzy placed her hat on her lap and settled her skirt, imagining how Peggy would act. Calm, reserved, and slightly amused, she decided.


  A young woman came over, offering them tea in a fancy china pot, and a platter of biscuits, which she placed on the table when April nodded.

  There was a little posy of flowers on the table as well, the blue petals drooping slightly. April touched them with a finger, lifting them from underneath, and when she took her hand away, the posy looked fresh-cut, the petals firmer and the colors more vibrant.

  “You’ve gotten better at that,” Izzy noted, glad of something to say. April had a gift for living things; she’d been in charge of the herbs Ree grew for the kitchen, and they’d always survived the cold and heat when she tended them, although nothing like the touch she’d just casually displayed.

  “Living on a farm will do that,” April agreed. “Skills only grow if you use them. But you already know about me”—and Izzy had a moment of guilt that she hadn’t stayed to listen when the girls read April’s last few letters out loud—“now tell me about you, Izzy! How on earth did you take the road?”

  “Taking the road” could mean different things—marshals took the road. So did peddlers and traveling men like curanderos and law’s advocates—Gabriel said that he’d chosen to ride rather than set out a shingle. But she wasn’t going to stay a rider forever. She’d go home.

  “I haven’t,” she said to April. “Not truly. When I go home, I’ll be working with Marie.” April had grown up in the saloon, same as Izzy. She should understand what that meant. “But first, the boss wanted me to see the Territory.” Izzy lifted her hand, palm down, and moved it from right to left, as though fanning cards out on a table, ending with her thumb pointed in toward her rib cage. It was the boss’s gesture when he spoke about the Territory, all the places and people who lived at his sufferance, and Izzy used it intentionally, to drive her point home. April’s eyes widened a little, and her mouth made an O shape before she recovered, sipping her tea. Then: “You mean you work for him.”