He tells them a long story about a man striking a deep gold strain, then taking ill. Each man who worked the claim in succession was taken ill and died within a fortnight. Ivy is just wishing Wriyn worked the strike himself when he gets to the conclusion: it turned out the place hosted ancient Indian burial grounds and vengeful spirits killed off the miners.
Seething, hands shaking as she takes a plate from Sam, Ivy distances herself from the rest to sit among scattered rocks, watching the horses graze lines of feed.
She does not care if Correcaminos is proud and intelligent and behaves. She wants Luck. She wants Rosalía. She would rather have Winter out here on the trail than feel this alone.
Fifty-Third
Nightmares
Ivy wakes to pressure of fabric over her face, crushing nose and mouth, choking her. As she tries to push from under the weight, grabbing for her own face in the dark to remove the heavy force, someone catches her arm in a vise-like hold. Eyes wide, yet blind, she opens her mouth to scream. Foul, bitter fabric, tasting of tobacco, stiff with dirt and sweat, is shoved between her teeth around thick fingers. She thrashes, gagging, jaws stretched unbearably wide, airways flattened, throat blocked.
Make a noise, make any noise. She kicks out, fighting to scream while no sound escapes her throat. She bangs her head back into her own saddle, sound muffled, her legs unable to get leverage to kick, right arm pinned into dirt by a crushing elbow, left held in a thick hand.
They’ll hear—they hear everything. Grip is always sitting up. Sam wakes extremely easily. But she distanced herself. Why did she come out here by the horses? They cannot stay up around the clock to watch her. Even Grip sleeps occasionally. The miner had midnight watch. He would have waited....
A cord drops around her wrist, hands yanked together. She jerks her head forward to feel contact between his nose and her skull. Stifled cursing, a cloth over her eyes falling away. It does little good. Stars blur beyond a black bulk.
Don’t panic. But she is. Cannot breathe around the wad in her mouth, cannot scream, feels as if her throat has been cut. Only make noise. They’ll wake. Even the dog. The dog will hear and bark or defend her. That is what they do, isn’t it? But she has never heard that animal bark, never known him to take any interest in humans, sullen as his master.
Weight shifts. She kicks again, catching a boot. A crushing jab against her own shin makes her recoil into her bedroll. Hand on her jaw, arm around her arms, dragging her upright. She tries to stomp a heel into his toe, missing. Tries to slam a knee into his groin as he drags her sideways, while her own skirts hinder and trip her. Tries to bite his fingers but they are too thickly padded in her mouth around disgusting fabric.
Pulling her, dragging her, heaving her away. Away from the horses, up the bluff to pines. Away from camp.
Now panic. She twists and contorts her body, fights for any strangled noise from her throat, slams her boots into earth, kicking for rocks, branches to break, a human leg to hammer. Ramming her head sideways, trying to twist out of the gag, she jerks her bound hands upward, sideways, to lash out with everything—all she is.
More whispered oaths, but he is laughing. Hot, reeking breath in her face, stubble scraping her forehead as she tries to bash his jaw with her head. Tearing her skirt, he lifts her feet clear of the earth, silencing the few shifting rocks she has been able to kick, carrying her up the slope as she thrashes like a hooked eel, pounding his legs with her heels.
Still laughing, breathless, hushed, calling her a whore. “They do what you want because they get what they want? Don’t know why we never thought of it at the mines. Which do you like best?”
Sensation of open air, flying backward into blackness, slamming against rocks and earth. The blow to her head sends stars popping in front of her eyes. Or lack of oxygen. Or fear. She does not feel the pain, but the force of being thrown to ground flattens her lungs and shocks her system until she is almost blind again. He follows, on top of her, his legs crushing hers, still laughing under his breath, one hand clamped across her face to keep the gag in, the other tearing her chemise, ripping at her skirts.
She slams bound hands upward into his arm at her face, stabbing short fingernails into the skin of his wrist. He smothers a shout of pain, twisting away, then slaps her. He catches her thrashing hands, pinned together, and holds them against her own face, crushing her head into loose gravel of the slope.
A rattlesnake, a riser, a flood. Anything.
Stars popping in her eyes are replaced with black as she still cannot breathe. Her lungs are on fire, feeling they will split in two, burst through her chest wall.
He tugs her skirt, tears at his own trouser buttons, and something strikes his face.
She can take in only a dark blur making contact with the man’s head. Weight vanishes from her body as he is thrown sideways into rocks.
“Jesus Christ!” Not whispering anymore—screaming as he clutches his own face.
Ivy fights the gag from her mouth in a second and vomits as someone follows the shouting man, stepping over her while she scrambles sideways, gasping for any wisp of precious air. Melchior bends to grab the man’s hair. He must have kicked him hard enough in the face to knock out several teeth because something dark gushes from the miner’s mouth and nose as he holds his own face, still able to scream curses through the flow.
Someone catches her hands. Ivy jumps, recoiling into rocky ground, fighting for breath. Sam cuts through the rawhide cord binding her wrists, then his arms are around her, lifting her.
She sees the outline of Grip approaching Melchior and the miner. Melchior uses the man’s arm as a knee rest, pinning him by arm and hair, which Melchior holds in a closed fist to press the bloody head against rock. Grip draws his revolver as he walks up.
She sees no more, clutching Sam, her face pressed into his shoulder, as he carries her down the bluff.
The explosion bursts in her ears, smell of gunpowder reaching her a moment later, while the voices of the two behind are muffled by her own sobs. Sam says nothing, returning her to camp. Here, he kneels and she folds her legs below her, shaking so violently and crying so hard she can only remain sitting up by hanging onto him, gagging, choking as if something still clogs her throat.
His arms loosen as he leans away, on his knees beside her in the dark. He does not want her more upset by him touching her, she knows. One does not touch a lady unless by invitation: she offers her hand in greeting if she wishes, never he his; she takes his arm; he respects her space; both wear gloves to dance. These are the rules. So, so many rules. Except here. Here there are not less—there are none at all.
Damn him. How can he think he will let her sit alone on his bedroll to sob? If even she can figure this out, so can he.
Ivy clutches Sam’s shirt, keeping him there, crying against his chest, coughing, shuddering as she again cannot breathe. He stops easing away, wrapping his arms around her, one hand at her back, the other in her hair, finally holding her close. He bows his head against hers, nose and cheekbone along her temple.
He does not say everything is all right, or she is all right, since he will not lie. But he whispers, lips brushing her brow, “I am here.”
She weeps harder, holding tighter, because she does not need him to say the rest to know the rest, and because she had no one for the nightmares and no one for the monsters and has no right to have him now.
Fifty-Fourth
Fox for Breakfast
Ivy wakes again.
A bird sings once, twice, another answers. Her heartbeat thuds in her ears. Warm cotton presses her face, though she knows she is on the trail, not in the boarding house. Hard saddle leather should cushion her cheek. Or ... is she in town after all? She feels so wonderfully warm she is ... comfortable. She has never woken on the trail and been comfortable enough to notice birdsong. And peppermint. She smells peppermint and woodsmoke and cannot recall eating a peppermint recently, sure she has not been sitting over a fire.
Rocky camp
at the base of a mountain bluff, boulders and low pines. Suffocating, trying to make a noise in the dark. Sam’s arms around her.
Not her heartbeat at all.
Ivy opens her eyes. Her face rests against Sam’s white shirt, a button almost touching her nose, her ear over his heart. She feels the rise and fall of his breath as if her own. Remarkable, to wake warm, covered ... relaxed. She should not feel relaxed after last night. But she is as limp and weak as a worn bit of parchment, having sobbed herself to sleep in his arms after minutes or hours, as if to make up for every nightmare and every hurt to pass without anyone to embrace her.
Melchior must have brought her blankets because she is wrapped above and below with wool bedrolls, certain Sam never moved from her last night.
Her lungs seem frail, filling less than they should in thin air. She takes a long, slow breath and turns her head marginally to see treetops highlighted in golden sunlight. They are often up before the sun’s first appearance, Ivy the last to be ready, Grip infinitely impatient. Now she hears none of them move, no voices or boot steps or saddle leather creaking. No fire crackles. She cannot even smell tobacco smoke.
A pine branch shudders as a bird springs off to vanish from her narrow view past the bedroll over Sam. His left arm rests across her back, hand at her shoulder blade. So warm. Being able to sleep by Rosalía on the trail is some ease, but Rosalía is small and they do not exactly curl up together.
She shifts, face once more against his shirt, closing her eyes, unable to think of a reason to leave her bed, expose herself to frigid mountain air. As she moves, she realizes she lies on his right arm, her own arms tucked against his chest. This cannot be healthy. Gingerly, she inches away, lifting her weight off his bicep.
He withdraws the left arm from her back as she moves: awake. She looks up to see him watching her.
“Sorry,” Ivy whispers, looking at his arm.
He must not have any feeling in it because he grabs his right elbow with his left hand to pull it from under her. He smiles as he massages the wrist. Ivy lies on her side, facing him, her own hands together below her head on the wool blanket.
“What is it?” she asks.
“Nothing.” But Sam is fairly grinning, holding the cold hand to his chest as he tries to get blood flowing. “Only ... something I would say. Despite any absurdity, given the circumstances.”
Ivy drops her gaze. “I am sorry. It’s not a healthy practice to cut off circulation to any limb for several hours.”
“Not several.” He leans his head off saddlebags to lightly kiss her temple. “How do you feel this morning?”
“Warm.” Eyes closed, smiling, she presses her forehead against his shoulder. “Do you know, I have not been warm in a bedroll ... ever?”
“Remarkable what a difference these things make, is it not? One feels one cannot cope without a comfortable bed and roof and fire. Then lowers oneself to thinking any bed will do with roof and fire. Then at least a fire and a few thick blankets. Then one bedroll and a sandy patch of ground will do. At last, one wakes to the fact that any bed without a tarantula in residence is a blessing and being warm enough that one’s teeth do not chatter is one of this life’s greatest miracles.”
“That is terribly sad,” Ivy says, grinning against his shirt. “Because it is true and you speak of a single example among thousands.”
“Do you know, the young lady at the hotel served me coffee some mornings back which was the consistency of water?”
“No.”
“Yes. I wondered if it was fit to drink. I even stirred in milk without difficulty.”
“Disgusting.” Melchior’s muffled voice from just behind Sam. “Not coffee unless a fellow can drop a horseshoe in the pot and it don’t sink.”
“Which returns us to standards,” Sam murmurs while Ivy laughs.
“First drive I was on, our chuck wagon cook had to slice the stuff out of the pot like wedges of pie,” Melchior says.
“Now you are exaggerating,” Sam says.
“No—God’s truth. Reckon he added molasses or pine sap or tar and sawdust. Had to chew it right good. Swear it’s true.”
Sam shudders.
“Here was me thinking the four of us were bad cooks,” Ivy says.
“Should have tasted his coffee rub rack of ribs and the drippings with coffee grounds for slathering trail biscuits. Would not call that man a no-account cook if you had. Ate like kings all the way to Oklahoma.”
“Did he make anything without coffee?” Sam asks, turning his head in an effort to see Melchior behind him.
“Don’t recall. Never had such energy on a trail. Up all night, singing to the herd, didn’t bother me a bit on that ride.”
“I can imagine.”
Ivy does not want to.
“Wish we could reproduce his recipes,” Melchior says. “Man was a genius. Wouldn’t share tricks.”
“That is quite all right,” Sam says. “We would be grateful if you could only start the fire.”
“Can’t feel my legs.”
“Your boots are too tight. Take them off.”
“Boots are ace-high. Leave them out of this. Got a varmint on my knees.”
“I beg your pardon?” Sam turns onto his back to see the alleged varmint as Ivy props herself on one elbow to look over him.
She is startled to see that, indeed, a ball of gold and gray fur is curled on Melchior’s legs where he lies against Sam’s left side.
“Es Feroz,” Ivy breathes. “What are you doing here?”
The vixen lifts her sharp little muzzle from her brush to regard them with sienna eyes. Ivy feels she looks smug. Where is the dog?
“Enjoying that warm bed you all are so fond of.” Melchior sounds irritated, but Ivy notices he has not evicted her—an easy task since she feels sure the fox does not weigh more than five or six pounds.
“Come here.” Ivy holds out a hand across Sam, crooking her fingers, shivering as morning air strikes her.
Es Feroz yawns in their faces, tiny pink tongue curling upward in an arch between rows of needle teeth as a squeaking, chirping sound comes from her throat. The swift fox oozes from her curled position to stretch across their blankets, bowing, spreading her toes, ears pinned down with a second yawn, then arching her back to an extraordinary angle. She shakes, glances about as if someone might be stalking her, then slips across Sam to crawl below the bedroll edge Ivy lifts for her. Finding herself in a dark, warm nest of wool against Ivy’s stomach, she flops on her side, rubbing her chin across Ivy’s dress, biting the blanket.
Watching her with the bedroll pulled up to her face, Ivy grins.
Sam starts to sit up but Melchior drags him back by his shoulder. “I’ll get it. Since some rip can’t be bothered.”
Shivering, he throws his already shared blanket onto Sam and scrambles to pile the kindling and few sticks extra they brought the evening before for the morning’s fire. Spots of dry, rusty blood dot his hands and the left side of his face where he was not able to clean them off in the dark.
Ivy looks up from her wallowing fox, across Sam to find Grip sitting with his back at the rocky bluff, leaning on a boulder. He rolls a cigarette, hat pulled low, watching them expressionlessly. Ivy is surprised he is hardly ten feet away. By Grip’s standards, practically in bed with them. She feels honored, though unsure why.
“Wouldn’t aim to lend, would you?” Melchior snaps.
Grip shifts his gaze to Melchior’s fire project without moving his head. “Mr. L’Heureux, I was informed, by yourself, the previous morning that I took too long setting a fire. Why would I deny you the indulgence of proving your own opinion?”
“Sitting there like a torp for my benefit?”
“You are welcome.”
“What is a ‘torp’?” Ivy asks, noting trees up the ridge are now illuminated in golden light. And “mudsill” and “Cripe,” and several other things she has heard them call each other? What is “snails” supposed to mean anyway? The way Melchior uses
it, she feels certain it has nothing to do with the mollusk.
“A means for a lazy-tongued individual to shorten the word ‘torpid’ and make a noun of it,” Grip says.
“Torpidity is a noun,” Sam says, also looking upward.
“I expect that would require too many syllables for your friend to trouble himself over,” Grip says, lifting the cigarette to his lips. “Speaking of torpidity.”
“This while no one else works?” Melchior has the kindling glowing after three matches and blows across it. “All aiming to give fire and grub a miss this morning?”
Ivy recalls Melchior calling her supercilious, mentally counting its syllables, but decides not to mention the matter. Still, not as if her cousin’s vocabulary is limited, even if ... odd.
Melchior scrambles, shivering, back into his blankets beside Sam as Grip stands, rolling his blankets, using his right arm as a stabilizer while his left hand does the work.
Melchior directs a glare after him. “Going to break out some bacon?”
“You will manage.” Grip does not look at him, speaking around the lit cigarette in his mouth. “I have full confidence in your ability to cinderize all manner of meat or biscuit and stew coffee in which no horseshoe could sink, Mr. L’Heureux. I am feeding the horses.”
“Peculiar. Look as if you’re rolling wool.”
“And you look as if you set your bedroll alight in your zeal to rekindle the blaze nearby, but that is only one man’s opinion.”
Melchior leaps back, unmeaningly jerking the smoldering edge of his blanket onto Sam’s bedroll where a tiny flame begins to dance. As Grip walks away and Sam scrambles out from under the wool, Melchior, cursing, bunches the blanket over itself to smother the glow.
The motion and noise sends Es Feroz bolting from her nest, darting several yards up the slope when she sees Grip going past her. A trickle of gray smoke lifts from the blankets as Melchior presses them into the ground.
Lightfall Three: Luck, Lost, Lady (Lightfall, Book 3) Page 21