Silver on the Road

by Laura Anne Gilman

  Izzy worried her upper lip between her teeth, realizing that she hadn’t tried to read the marshal. She hadn’t tried to read April, either, come to think of it. She’d been distracted, surprised—had assumed that both would speak truthfully to her, not hide anything.

  “Presumption gets a body killed,” she said out loud, and Uvnee’s ears twitched back, as though the mare thought she’d been speaking to her. “Iktan always says that,” she told the mare. “That you can’t presume someone wants to cause trouble, but you can’t presume they don’t, neither.”

  If the boss had only told her what to do, what was expected . . . She felt a surge of indignation rise in her chest, just as quickly tamped down. If the boss didn’t tell her something, it was because she was supposed to learn it on her own. She’d pay better attention, read Gabriel, read everything she saw, and figure it out herself. Be like Marie, who didn’t go running to the boss every time there was a problem.

  Huh. Izzy caught her lower lip between her teeth again, her forehead creased at that thought. Had Marie been sent away, too? Or was the Right Hand kept close and only the Left sent away?

  Caught up in those musings, Izzy barely noticed the faint rumble rising underneath the now-familiar sounds of horses and mule until she heard Gabriel call her name. “Isobel. Look up.”

  Her head lifted and she saw he was pointing north, across the grasses. She squinted but could see nothing save a smudge on the horizon, a smear of black between the grey-green and pale blue.

  Then the rumbling noise resolved into a mighty thumping, and the smudge became thicker, and her breath caught in her chest even as the thumping found its way into her bones, making her heart speed as though to catch up. “Oh.”

  She had heard the stories, of course, about the great herds. She had seen the dark, shaggy pelts, thick enough to dig your fingers into, warm enough to laugh at a winter’s storm, but a pelt did not move, did not thunder, did not fill the world until there was nothing else but the immense, incalculable swarm of creatures moving across the land, dust raised for leagues in their wake.

  They were too far away to pick out individual details, the long black smudge and golden dust behind spreading seemingly forever, and she thought that maybe the herd would never end, that it would continue forever, even after they had ridden on, pouring from the horizon until the sun set again, thick hooves setting their medicine into the dirt and stone.

  “Can you feel it?” Gabriel asked her, and she nodded, unable to speak. Like the river when it was in full flood, or the boss when he was angry, restrained but powerful, pressing against her until she couldn’t breathe and didn’t need to breathe. The thundering of their hooves was her heartbeat, the beat of the stone beneath their feet, the air heated by the snort of their breath, and the warmth of their shaggy hides the pulse of blood under her skin. . . .

  And then the herd let go of her, so suddenly that she fell back into the saddle, not even aware that she’d risen in her stirrups, trying to see better.

  “Breathe,” Gabriel said. “Your first time, it can be overwhelming.”

  She nodded, her left hand pressed against her chest, watching as the herd shifted and moved away, fading again into a near-silent smudge in the distance. “Oh,” she said again, unable to find more words than that.

  Gabriel rode close enough for their legs to brush against each other, reaching out to press his fingers around the silver band on her finger. “If you’re ever any closer, hold hard to any silver you’ve got. It should keep you safe.”

  She wasn’t sure there was enough silver between the two of them to keep that much power at bay. “How does anyone manage to hunt them?” she wondered, feeling her heartbeat return to herself again.

  “You don’t charge in and start shooting, that’s for certain, although some fools have tried. There are rituals. You speak of your hunger and your need, and ask the herd to give what is needed. I’ve never seen it performed myself.” He chuckled. “I’m a decent enough shot with the gun but hopeless with the bow, and you don’t have time to stop and reload when you’re in the middle of a hunt.”

  Izzy touched the sheath of the knife strapped to her saddle and thought about the fact that she didn’t own a gun and had no idea how to shoot a bow, and decided that she would rather observe buffalo from a distance as well.

  “Ways to go yet,” he said, and moved his gelding back into motion. She pressed her knees into Uvnee’s side to get the mare to move, and they continued west, following the sun as it arched overhead and down. The road was well-traveled enough to be packed hard, and wide enough for them to ride alongside each other with room to spare, the mule bringing up the rear. A solitary hawk soared overhead, and the wuffle and snort of the horses was matched by the occasional yip of something hunting in the tall grasses around them.

  “How far until the next town?” she asked finally.

  “A ways.”

  Izzy rolled her eyes, hard enough he must have felt it.

  “I told you, places like Patch and Flood, they’re rare enough and mostly alongside rivers. Out here . . . Nothing’s permanent. Season changes, hunting camps move, villages shift when the soil gets tired. You’re town-bred, used to people about, things staying in one place. It will take a while to accustom yourself. But you will. Or you won’t.”

  “Is that a challenge?” Her chin lifted, even though he couldn’t see it.

  “A fact,” he said, and looked over his shoulder at her, eyes shaded under the brim of his hat, impossible to read. “Which in and of itself is enough of a challenge.”

  Izzy tugged her own hat farther over her forehead and urged Uvnee to a slightly faster pace, passing Gabriel and Steady just enough to claim the lead. Never mind that she didn’t know where they were going; the road stretched ahead of them, and if he wanted her to stop, he could call out and say so.

  Behind her, he began to sing softly, in a language she didn’t recognize, rolling syllables that weren’t quite nonsense, rising and falling more like a chant than a song.

  They rode like that for another handful of hours, the sun glaring down from in front of them, and just as she was beginning to think that the road would roll on forever without a single change, they came to a small stand of trees, stunted against the landscape but still taller than anything they’d seen all day. Gabriel took the lead again and turned them south just after, leaving the wide road for a narrow track, barely visible through the grass under the horses’ hooves. She could hear the mule behind her, muttering its own opinion about this turn of events. Old Elias at the livery stable used to claim that mules were wiser than horses, and most people, too. It was certainly opinionated enough.

  “What’s it saying, Uvnee?” she asked the mare. “Does it think we should have stayed on the road?” One pointed ear flicked backward, as though to say, “I never listen to mules.” Izzy laughed and then looked around again, trying to understand why her mentor had chosen this route. The flowers she had noticed the day before, the tiny blue ones, were thicker here, competing with the taller grasses, and a low brush grew in almost a hedge to their right. She couldn’t identify anything, although she noted some bramble that might have been blackberry, and her mouth watered a little. If it were later in the season, she might have suggested they stop and pick some, bring them back for Ree to use.

  That thought gave her pause. It would be a while before she tasted one of Ree’s pies again. She knew that, had known that, and yet the sense of loss struck her again, displacing any contentment she had found.

  She looked at the brush, and then back at the stand of trees they’d turned at, thinking of the taller, thicker cottonwoods growing by the creek back home, the sagebrush they’d seen outside the town, and frowned, trying to see what made the difference here. Why had Gabriel turned there?

  She needed to ask things, she reminded herself, even if it meant exposing her ignorance. “What happened here? Why does
it look . . .” She stumbled for a word. “Different?”

  “Good eye,” Gabriel said, not bothering to look back, and she felt a flush of satisfaction at his approval. “Was a farmstead. Fire raged through here a few years back. Nobody’ll live here now, so the grass is taking it back.”

  Once land’d been cleared and planted, it generally didn’t get abandoned, not if there wasn’t a strong reason. Izzy looked more carefully. She didn’t see the remains of a house anywhere, but there was a shape to their left as they rode by that might have been a well once. That would explain why nobody took the land once the original settlers were gone: easier to build closer to a creek, where there was fresh water, and not have to rely on a well year-round.

  Or . . . “Someone died?”

  “Entire family, plus an indentured boy.”

  “Oh.” Izzy didn’t shiver; she had no fear of haints, and they’d no reason to be angry at her. Still, the grounds were tinged with a melancholy knowing. She touched the silver of her ring and thought of the wardings on Flood’s boneyard that kept the dead at rest.

  Gabriel didn’t tell her anything more, just sang a few more lines of those chant-sounding words under his breath, and then asked, “You see anything useful?”

  This was a test, then. Izzy looked around again, trying to see it in a purely practical manner. “Berries are only just starting to ripen. Probably serviceberries growing now, though, if you want to hunt for them. That’s elderbow; it’s edible if you’re real hungry. Coneflower for illness, and the stems make a useable dye. There’s . . .” Her gaze was caught on something and she brightened. “There’s the remains of an old chimney over there if we needed to make a fire, cook dinner.” She was sure there were things she was missing, a hundred and ten things her mentor must see without half trying. It was just experience, she told herself. She could learn to do that, too. Every new rider had to, right?

  “And the path we’re on?” His voice came over his shoulder; she couldn’t see his face but he sounded amused, and her cheeks flamed at the thought that she’d missed something obvious. Izzy looked down past Uvnee’s neck at the dirt churned up by the mare’s hooves, and then looked behind her.

  “It’s . . .” It was narrow—she had already noted that—and barely visible through the wild profusion of grasses, but there was something else there too. Something she hadn’t seen before. She looked, and listened, and licked her lips before she finished the sentence. “It’s maintained.”

  Once she saw that, it was painfully obvious, same as reading a person. She’d never thought about reading a place before; how could she, when she’d been in the same place near her entire life?

  “Maintained?” Gabriel’s voice didn’t tell her if she was right or wrong, but she knew she was right.

  She held the reins in her left hand and gestured with her right. “Everything else is growing back, but the brush and the taller grasses, they don’t cross it. This was a road once.”

  “Still is, only not much in use now that the farm’s gone. That’s a thing to remember, Isobel. No true road ever disappears entirely. You just have to know how to find them.”

  Her curiosity flared at the idea of a true road versus what—a false road? A temporary one? “How?” How did you find them, she meant, but more how did you know true from false?

  He was laughing at her now, or perhaps only laughing. “The same way you do anything.”

  “Experience,” she muttered, pulling her hat down more firmly on her head and glaring at the spot between his shoulder blades. He sounded like the boss just then, all hint and nothing solid, and the frustration was a real thing, hot under her breastbone. “I—

  Whatever she meant to say was cut off by a harsh scream overhead, and they both looked up into the sky, Gabriel pushing his hat back to see better. Izzy’s breath caught in her throat, somewhere between fear and awe at the outline of a massive bird floating overhead, wings coming between them and the sun, all other birds suddenly gone from sight. She couldn’t see distinctive markings, but she didn’t need to: only one thing could be that size.

  “Reaper hawk,” Gabriel told her, reining in his horse to take a better look. “They don’t usually call unless they’re hunting. I wonder what brought them out here.” He cast a glance at her, as though to gauge her reaction, then looked back at the sky. “Gorgeous, aren’t they?”

  That was one word for it, although not the one she might have chosen. Izzy had never seen a Reaper before, but she’d heard about them. People said they were large enough to take a human the way a regular hawk would catch a rabbit. Looking up at the creature soaring overhead, she could believe it. Like the buffalo herd, there was something powerful in the creature, powerful and disturbing.

  “Some of the native tribes claim they’re strong medicine, that a feather from one in the fletching leads an arrow straight to prey.”

  She could believe that, too; it seemed impossible to think the creature could ever miss once it stooped.

  “Only some tribes?”

  He shrugged, that one-shoulder rise that told her to take it or leave it as she saw fit. “And some tribes think they’re ill omens. Death­bringers, like owls.”

  Despite the narrowness of the path, the mule had sidled up closer to Uvnee again, seeking comfort against the predator overhead. “It’s not hunting us, is it?” She felt a fool for asking, but anything that worried the mule worried her.

  He cast another look overhead. “They generally know better than to go after people, particularly on horseback.” Before she could breathe a sigh of relief, he added, “But be careful when you’re alone, especially if you’re knelt down. You look smaller to them then, and they might take a dive before they realize their mistake.”

  He might have been joking with her, but she couldn’t tell. Another hawk joined the first one. She could see that this one was slightly smaller, circling just below the first. “Its mate?”

  “That’s the male. Prettier but less fierce.”

  He was mocking her then, she was certain, but she bit her lip and nodded. “Is there a nest nearby? Are we threatening their chicks?” It was spring; they’d have chicks somewhere. But looking around, she couldn’t see anywhere that might have hosted a nest for a scrub jay, much less a creature that size.

  “They nest higher up in the hills, come down to hunt. Bit far to see ’em here,” he said thoughtfully, looking up at the sky again. “Probably looking for a pronghorn that wandered off, maybe tracking something injured. I’ve been told they’ll sometimes take on a bear, but I’m not sure as I’d believe it.”

  Izzy had seen the trophy belts some marshals wore, bear claws hanging from them like polished bone daggers, each twice as long as a man’s finger. She looked into the sky again, trying to imagine the clash between the two, and shuddered. She had always thought of Flood as being protected from attack from the ground—winter-hungry wolves, or a would-be bandit new to the Territory who didn’t know yet who lived there and thought it would be easy pickings. Not death from the sky.

  The two birds circled again, then, finding nothing of interest, wheeled again and disappeared into the sun’s rays. When they emerged, much farther away, Izzy found she could breathe easily again, like a rabbit when the shadow passed.

  Ill omen? The boss didn’t believe in any such, said man made their own fate, sometimes good, sometimes ill, but always their own decision. But Iktan always carried a jet carving of a cat, what he said was a jaguar, to ward off ill-wishings, and Molly would rub her rosary when she was worried something would go wrong. . . .

  She shook herself, even as Uvnee shuddered under the saddle, and shifted her gaze from the sky back to her surroundings. The tall grasses, scattered with tiny flowers as far as her eye could see, the grit of the dust on her skin and in her mouth, the stink of warm horseflesh and leather, the flat, warm taste of the water she’d been drinking; it reconnected her to herself, shoo
k off the unease the birds had left behind. She reached her right hand to touch the silver band on her left, rubbing the shining metal gently. Like the buffalo, she didn’t think it could do much if a creature like that turned its attention to her. Hopefully, she would never find out.

  “Seeing them’s a good reminder,” Gabriel said, urging Steady forward along the path, forcing both Uvnee and the mule to follow or be left behind. “What other than a Reaper do you need to worry about on the road?”

  “Bears,” she said promptly, relieved to be on more familiar ground. Every child knew about bears: the grizzly could knock you dead with one blow, and the black was smaller but still fierce. “Wolf packs. And cougars.” There were none near Flood, the plains too open and low for the big cats’ liking, but she’d heard stories from men passing through the saloon, about the solitary hunters called ghosts, who were heard but rarely seen save for glowing eyes in the dark and the blood they left behind.

  “And how do you fend them off?”

  She knew that, too. “By not being where they’re hunting.”

  That time, Gabriel was laughing with her, she was pretty sure.

  “Wise, but not always enough. Your boss said you were a fair shot with a blunderbuss, and fair enough’s likely all you’ll ever need for the big cats or bears. They don’t like loud noises and they don’t like the smell of powder; most times, they’ll scatter in favor of something that won’t fight back. When we stop tonight, if there’s light, we’ll see how you handle the carbine.” He looked back at her, his face shadowed once again by the brim of his hat. “And your knife,” he said. She touched the blade sheathed against the side of her saddle, then nodded. Ree had taught them all how to use smaller knives, both for cooking and defense, but she’d never thought of it as a weapon, not truly.