by Ivanna Roze
"Is it usually so windy here?"
He looked up at the mountain, then toward the south, where the wind was blowing from, then back at her. "Not normally, no, Miss Little."
She liked that. Manners. "You don't think it's anything to worry about, Mr. Littlefeather?"
"I don't reckon so, ma'am."
"Thank you, Mr. Littlefeather. I'm sorry if I've distracted you."
"No distraction, ma'am."
He went on ahead again, watching for something, though what it might be she couldn't say. The whole thing was making her nervous. She didn't like it one bit. No, she would rather have been home safe, but that wasn't an option. Not when her mother finally needed her enough to write.
If there was something wrong, or even something very right, then she was going to be there for her mother, come hell or high water, and no storm was going to stop her, however scary it might be. She adjusted herself in the saddle and tried to summon up every bit of self-control. It wasn't so scary up here, she thought. It wasn't so bad riding. She was becoming a regular cow-girl at this rate. Arthur might not have approved of the trip, but he would surely get some amusement out of her new-found ability to ride a horse, at least, surely.
As they rode the sun sank. She shouted up the line, "How much further, do you think?"
Martin let his horse fall back to talk with her again.
"How much further will we go, do you think, Martin?"
"We're about where we should be, ma'am. We'll make camp for the night under that outcropping over there, you see it? And then tomorrow, we'll start looking for it."
"Very good. Thank you, Mr. Littlefeather."
"You're very welcome, ma'am."
He turned a little ways and pointed the horse at the outcropping he had pointed out. Cora still wasn't used to these horses, but at least she could get them turned where she wanted them to go. She guided him in about the right direction and let him walk.
Martin helped her off the horse, started a small fire, and set about grooming the horses for the night. Once the fire had grown, he started on supper.
It was basically edible, thought Cora, which was mighty impressive for something that they had fixed without a kitchen in sight. She took in another deep breath.
She was right. They had been spreading stories about the frontier back east because they were afraid of the place. Looking down on Salt Lake City, she thought the entire frontier seemed beautiful. What could possibly scare someone about a place like this? So peaceful. So beautiful.
Martin came over, waiting at a respectful distance as she ate, and when she looked up it was to notice that he had finished assembling the tent.
"Begging your pardon, ma'am, but I've got the tent ready for you. You've got a sleeping bag inside. Once you're ready to turn in for the night, you can go on in. If you need anything, I'll be right out here. Tomorrow we get up good and early to get the rest of the way up the mountain."
"Thank you," she told him again, for what seemed like the hundredth time. The man was every bit the picture of good manners and good service. She had chosen the right man for the job, she thought. The recommendation had been a very good one. She made a point to find that concierge again and thank him personally. Perhaps a note would suffice, if she were in a hurry.
She finished the supper and thanked him, complimented the excellent food. It was, perhaps, not completely excellent, but she wasn't going to be so gauche as to say so. After all, without manners, what difference was there between men and animals?
Then she settled into the tent for the evening, lighting the oil lamp and pulling her mother's diary from her bag. It was from before Cora was born, and the spine was badly broken from reading it too many times as a younger girl, when she didn't know nearly so well how to take care of her things.
That didn't mean that it was less appreciated, though. She let herself settle in, turned to the next page, and started reading. Her mother had led an exciting life, if the diary held true. But then, like so many stories, they seemed impossible, and the more that she got to know the frontier the less plausible those stories seemed.
Just a bunch of folk stories and myths. Well, she was no fool. She wasn't going to just believe any sort of hokum because it was written down in a book.
But the sort of hokum her mother wrote, well, that was permissible. She might not believe it herself when her mother talked about wolf-men who shed their skin like snakes. But this was the hokum that her mother had wanted to write down, and that made it important all by itself.
Cora didn't know when she had fallen asleep, but when she woke up it was dark. The lamp had been turned off at some point—it must have been her, because the tent showed no signs of being tampered with. There was, of course, no breeze to blow it out, and Martin was not the sort of man who would have looked in on a sleeping woman. He was the picture of professionalism in every respect.
The wind outside, though, seemed to have picked up, blowing a feverish wail through the air. The way it cut through the framing on the tent, made it sound as if it was a voice, screaming out it's fury or its terror for the entire mountain to hear.
She undid the latches on the tent, hoping to wake Martin and get some reassurance. He was already up, though, she saw. It wasn't until a moment later that she saw the other figure. There was a long moment where she wasn't sure what she was looking at.
One instant, it looked like a man stood there, but it was too tall. Perhaps seven foot tall, towering over Martin. At others, it looked like nothing at all—a bit of frontier dust blown into a rough facsimile, but that was all it was.
Martin was reaching back for a knife she hadn't realized he carried, on the back of his hip. He yanked it free a moment before his arm fell, limp at his side. The rest of his body went similarly limp a moment later. Like he were a puppet and someone had just cut his string.
Then, as suddenly as the creature had been there, it was gone. Cora's heart was pounding in her ears. Was this one of those horror-creatures that she had heard so much about? Her shaking hands did their best to fit the latches closed again.
Martin had been so confident that there was no danger. Now he was lying there, dead. What was she going to be able to do? Now that she was so far outside of town, though, could she afford to turn back?
Five
Ashton followed behind a ways. They had left a trail. Even with the heavy wind whipping around him, they weren't so far ahead. A day at most. If Cora Little were anything like the horseman he imagined that she was, perhaps they were less. What was better, though, was that they were following the map he had in his head almost exactly.
The trail, where he could see it, was rarely more than a hundred yards from the straightest path. With that knowledge, he just stopped watching the ground, except every few minutes to make sure that he hadn't taken a completely wrong turn.
A gentle slope turned steep, and then steeper. An easy ascent, though, for the horse. Ash might have been tired making it, but he let the horse take it at a comfortable pace, and they were making good time.
The trail, he realized after a moment, had stopped. He shrugged. They had most likely stopped for a while. He could see a space where he would make camp, if he intended to, but he didn't. After all, there were still hours left in the day. For that matter, he hadn't particularly provisioned for it.
He kept following the map in his head. Up, jogging south a little way. There was, according to the map, a little cliff that blocked you off if you tried to go up any further, anywhere but there. Only fifteen feet, but too tall to climb unless you were on foot. It was nice to know, since he wouldn't have seen it until he'd already wasted too much time. The efficient route came from knowing the mountain, or having the map. Or both.
He turned southward. As he did, he got a better view of the camp, a few hundred yards off. A tent still standing, no fire. One horse. Perhaps it wasn't the camp he was looking for. Perhaps this Martin Littlefeather had rode off without her, or perhaps she without him.
Ash shivered again. He pulled his coat tighter and started to follow the tracks. The coat wasn't going to help this kind of cold, but he couldn't help himself, either. He knew better than to hope that the coat was going to keep an unnatural chill at bay, but he was still human.
As he closed in on the pass, he could see a woman riding up a ridge. She was side-saddle and looked as if she might fall off the damn horse at any minute. When she saw him, her eyes went wide, and she whipped the reins. The horse picked up the pace.
He couldn't get a good look at her from this distance, but there wasn't much doubt who it was. It was too much of a coincidence to believe that some other woman was fool enough to come out here, unaccompanied, to head up the mountain.
He kicked the horse into moving faster. It didn't complain, and Ashton liked that. Just did what he asked. He followed behind. The chase wasn't going to last long, but he couldn't let himself hurry too much, either. It was damned dangerous to be going up the mountain at these speeds, and whatever Cora Little hoped to get out of their little race, he didn't intend to die on this mountain.
He could see now, the ridge was more like a path through the rough part of the mountain. The cold was getting to be more severe, too. Not just from the wind, but from the March air at this height. Some of the snow from the last season still hadn't melted quite yet, barely hanging on in the branches of tall, thick pines too high up to justify logging.
Ashton rode the winding path, getting only occasional glimpses of Cora. But they were longer each time. He was getting closer. Twenty minutes behind, perhaps. Then fifteen. Then ten. The path opened up into a broad, flat area. He could see a good way up the mountain, now, and when he turned back the other way, Salt Lake City was barely bigger than its spot on the map.
Ashton sucked in a breath of air and pressed the flanks of his horse, a gentle reminder to hurry it up. Cora was in sight, now, far off on the horizon. Her horse seemed, now, to have decided to ignore her whipping the reins.
Naturally, she was doing it repeatedly, as if it might not have noticed the first time. He rode the girl down easily, then.
"You alright, miss?"
"Leave me be, mister." Cora's voice was surly, but Ashton could hear something under it that he liked. Something vaguely attractive about it. He put the thought out of his head. Same as he put the thought of her pretty face out of his head.
Her clothes were a little too nice for the road he was on, but then he couldn't criticize a woman for having nice clothes. After all, he had spent more than a few paychecks on fashion himself. Looking back, was it worth it?
He didn't need to ask. It had been, of course. The price of looking good, yet being practical. He had written it off a long time ago, and he wasn't about to re-evaluate. It didn't mean that he didn't notice, though. He couldn't afford to sacrifice practicality, not in his line of work. She had. she probably hadn't even realized she had done it.
"I'm sorry. I can't do that. I've got to take you down the mountain. It ain't safe up here."
Ash expected an argument. She looked like the argumentative type. She turned to him, afraid. "I—have to."
"You have to? I can take you down, safe as can be. You need to go up the mountain, at least do it safe-like."
She looked at him. "I know what I'm doing."
"Obviously," he agreed. "But I'm just worried that you might get into trouble out here. There's more than wolves up here, and this wind is making me nervous."
She gave him that same scared look. Like she was trying to deny that she was frightened, but couldn't quite make it stick.
"Is it something to be worried about?"
Ash cocked his head. "I figure so."
"Are you sure? Mr. Littlefeather—my guide, I mean—he said it was nothing to worry about."
"Where's he now?"
"He… died."
"So you agree with me?"
The wind picked up and carried off what she said. He didn't like this wind. Not one bit. Not one tiny bit. He relied on it to carry the sound of his voice to her.
"Follow me, we need to get out of this wind before something turns bad. We'll talk then."
Ash recalled the map in his head. There were marks all up and down the mountain, covering most of the area. Every little flat spot had one, and all he had to do was remember where this one was.
A little ways west, against a rock wall. If he didn't miss his guess, they were shelter, and that was what they needed now.
Ash took hold of her reins without asking and headed both of the horses that direction. It was only a quarter-mile, but he didn't want to be in this wind one second longer than they had to.
Six
The shelter here was a bit more complete, she thought. More like a proper shelter. She wondered to herself why Martin hadn't chosen it. It gave almost complete shelter from the wind, after all.
As they crossed in, the man who had come to get her reached into a bag and pulled out a little piece of wood. She could see something carved into it, but it was only a few inches high and perhaps an inch across, and the scratches were too small to read.
Then he pulled out a hammer and pitons, and with a hard smack he had the toggle pinned to the wall. Then he did the same on the other side.
"What are you doing? What are those?"
Once that was done, Cora hoped the mystery man might explain himself. Or at least, tell her who he was, and how he had known to find her. He was good-looking, now that she had a good look at him. His clothes were nice, and reminded him of Arthur's in how well they fit.
It was the only thing about the man that reminded her of her brother. He was built like a man whose body only contained the bare essentials, but made up for the difference by making the parts that were there better.
Defined cheeks, broad shoulders, narrow waist. He undid a button on his shirt, but he was moving too fast to be stripping. Then he pulled out a book of matches, struck one, and used it to light a candle. It was only then that she noticed the gun on his hip, as he pulled it loose.
The man stalked deeper into the cave, then disappeared around a corner, the only reminder of his presence the fading light of his candle from around the corner. When he came back, the gun was back in the holster on his leg.
Cora reached into her own bag, feeling the comforting handle of her derringer. If he thought he was going to waylay her because she was some sort of defenseless girl, then he had another thing coming to him entirely.
Cora looked at him expectantly and waited for an explanation. Finally he settled down and looked up at her.
"Cora Little?"
Cora had always liked to try to keep her expression neutral or happy. She prided herself on her ability to keep distaste off her face, and no one had ever told her that she looked angry. Well, now she felt frustrated enough to let him have a small taste of it.
"And who, exactly, are you? Some stranger, coming here, telling me what I'm to do, and you refuse to even give your name?"
"My name is Ashton Lowe. I'm a devil hunter, and your brother sent me to look after you."
She ignored the job description. Whatever he really did, it was not hunting Devils. They were only children's stories, after all. "Arthur did?"
"Big guy?" Ashton made a shape with his hands that was not flattering to her brother, but didn't miss the mark.
"That's him. I told him I would be alright. Why must he interfere?"
"Don't be too hard on the man. He's worried about you, and from what I saw, he's right to be. Running off alone like that? You should have gone straight back down the mountain."
"I had a feeling it was only a little way more," Cora said. She had, and she couldn't shake it. Not even now. So she had taken the risk. She could see Ashton's lips purse. "What is it now?"
; "That's exactly how it always starts. It's just a little way more, then a little way more, and then you're lost. Don't you listen to any of the stories?"
"Of course not. I'm not ten years old any more."
Ashton looked at her with eyes she didn't like. The look was not respectful. But he was the first man to look at her that way in a long time, and she didn't want to admit that she liked it more than she should have.
"Well, you better start listening to them. This isn't Detroit, Miss Little. You're in it now, and things aren't going to be pretty until we get you back east."
"I'm not going back."
He had a sour expression that Cora didn't like. She took it as a challenge, and if there was one thing that she couldn't stand in it was someone who was going to be a challenge. It was rude to fight a person, and she had never let herself knowingly be rude. Not if she knew better.
For Ashton Lowe, she might have to make an exception on that rule. Of all the men she had ever known, he was the one most desperately in need of being challenged. Once she had shown him that she wasn't to be trifled with, then she could start to think about making amends for her rudeness, but not before.
He shifted against the wall. "From the look of things, we're going to be stuck here for the night. Once that's done, we'll be making our way back down the mountain. If you're that insistent on going up the mountain, then we'll send a telegram out and wait for permission from your brother."
"I'm a grown woman, and he won't be in charge of me."
"He's the one paying my salary, so what he says goes."
"Then I'll pay you. What did he offer?"
"Fifteen thousand." She wasn't surprised that he would offer so much, but she didn't like it. That much money wasn't the sort of thing that came by easily, not even for her. After a moment he continued. "You got that kind of money?"
She pursed her lips. "I don't like your tone."
"I'm very sorry for that, ma'am."
No manners, and he seemed to think that he could boss her around. As if she were a child. It made her angrier than it should have.