River Marked

by Briggs, Patricia

  Adam watched from the grill. His eyes rested on the old man with cool yellow dispassion. I sucked in a breath and tried not to get mad—or let this stranger hurt me with a story older than I was. Emotions seemed to pass easier through the mating ties than words or thoughts. I was learning to control myself a little more now that Adam could feel them, too.

  “Yes,” said Gordon gently. “I am sure that you are right, of course. Joe Old Coyote died thirty-three years ago on a stretch of highway in eastern Montana.” He looked up. “Ah, here they are.”

  I got the keycard out of the truck. “I’ll let them in,” I said, and escaped at a jog.

  What the old man implied was wrong. If I was tempted for a moment to believe—to believe that my father might still be alive because Coyote died all the time only to be reborn the next morning—then I had only to remember that I had seen his ghost dance for me. My father was dead. I stretched out and turned my jog into a flat-out run, letting the speed clear my head.

  I opened the gate for Jim, who did indeed have Fred and Hank Owens sitting next to him.

  “Hop in the back,” suggested Jim, once the truck was on the campground side of the gate. “I’ll give you a ride on down.”

  I hadn’t ridden in the back of a pickup since I was a kid, and it was still fun. I jumped out before he stopped, just to see if I still could. I landed on my feet but let the momentum roll me backward and carry me back onto my feet again. It was a matter of timing. My foster father had taught me how to do that after he caught me trying to imitate him.

  “Teaching her how to do it right, so she doesn’t break her fool neck,” he’d growled, while my foster mother, Evelyn, fussed, “is likely to be less fatal than forbidding her to do it, because that doesn’t work at all.”

  He had been awesome.

  So what if an old Indian thought my father was Coyote? My father had really been Bryan, the man who’d raised me. He’d been there for me when I needed him, until Evelyn died and he hadn’t been able to survive the loss. After that, I’d had Bran.

  If Bran and Coyote battled it out, I’d put my money on Bran. The thought restored my usual cheery outlook.

  I dusted off my backside, and Adam rolled his eyes at me, looking remarkably like his daughter when he did so. “I bet Bran yelled at you for doing stuff like that,” he said, but he didn’t sound too upset.

  “I haven’t done it in a long time,” I admitted. “Does it still look cool?”

  He laughed, ruffled my hair, and welcomed our guests.

  We ate hamburgers, chips, and macaroni salad. We made small talk about the weather, the river, living in Washington, living in Montana, living in the military, and thereby gaining a little bit of a fix on the character of people who had been strangers a few hours ago. Eating has been a ritual between allies for nearly as long as there have been people, and all of us were well aware of the subtext.

  Gordon Seeker, I noticed, didn’t talk much. Just leaned back on a camp chair and watched with an avid gaze that reminded me a little of the river devil. He caught me looking and smiled like the Cheshire cat.

  “I think,” said Jim finally as he dumped his empty paper plate in the garbage can, “we should introduce ourselves again. To know our allies is a good thing. I am Jim Alvin of the Yakama Nation. My mother was Wish-ram, my father Yakama, and I possess a little magic of the people.” He took his seat on the picnic-table bench where he’d eaten and turned to the Owens brothers.

  “Fred Owens,” said Fred, though his brother was the one who sat next to Jim. “USMC retired.” He glanced at Adam and smiled. “Red-tailed hawk when it suits me. Rancher.”

  “Hank Owens,” his brother said. “USMC retired. Rancher. Welder. Red-tailed hawk when it suits him.” He tilted his head at his brother. Evidently it was a family joke because his brother smiled a little. “It was Fred who couldn’t let Calvin handle the job on his own.”

  “We left Calvin—” Jim began to explain, but Gordon interrupted him.

  “—at the hospital. I told them.”

  There was a little strain between Jim and Gordon that reminded me of when there were two Alphas in the room. They might be allies, even friends, but they were waiting for the slightest sign of weakness or aggression.

  “Adam Hauptman,” said my husband, who was sitting in the second of our camp chairs. “Alpha of the Columbia Basin Pack. Army, honorably discharged 1973. Mate and husband of Mercedes Thompson Hauptman. In my spare time, I run a security firm.”

  Jim gave him a startled look. I was surprised myself. Werewolves might be out, but the public doesn’t know everything. And one of the things that Bran was not telling the public about werewolves was that they were immortal.

  “Long time ago,” observed Fred.

  “Vietnam,” said Hank. “You were a ranger in Vietnam.”

  From my observation post on the ice chest, I watched Adam’s face. He’d offered the chair—but I hate the camp chairs. Ten minutes, and my feet are falling asleep.

  What was he up to? If Bran found out, he wouldn’t be pleased. But Adam always had a reason for what he did. I usually figured it out about five years after the fact. He seemed to be watching Gordon. Maybe it was something as simple as acknowledging that we were all going to be sharing secrets before this was over.

  “Nasty time,” said Jim.

  Adam tipped his water bottle toward Jim, then brought it up to tip his imaginary hat. He looked at me.

  “Mercedes Thompson Hauptman,” I said, obedient to the look that told me he wanted to move things along. “VW mechanic. Coyote walker mated to Adam Hauptman.”

  “Gordon Seeker,” said Gordon. “But Indian names change from time to time. I have had others. I work a little healing, a little magic, a little of this and that. When I was young, I was a mighty hunter, but it has been a long time since I was young.” He eyed Adam. “Maybe even longer ago than when this one was as young as he looks.”

  “All right,” said Adam, when it became obvious that the old man had said all he intended to. “Jim and Calvin told us a few things this afternoon. Namely that we have a monster in the river that has killed at least one person—though the tally is unlikely to stop with Benny’s sister. Let me tell you some things you don’t know—some of which might not have anything to do with our current problem at all.” He told them about the faes’ redirection of our honeymoon, including Yo-yo Girl Edythe’s prophecy and the otterkin who had been relocated to the Columbia.

  Fred frowned and glanced at Jim. “I told you those otters we saw looked odd. Their heads are the wrong shape.”

  “I have seen them,” said Gordon, his voice dismissing their importance. “Prophecy is a weak crutch to lean on.”

  “Have you met Edythe?” I asked in an interested voice. “Short. Usually looks about ten?”

  Gordon raised his eyebrows, and I thought that the answer might have been yes.

  I smiled cheerfully at him. “Fae are deceptive. The weaker and more harmless they appear, the more dangerous they are likely to be. Edythe is probably the scariest monster in a raft of scary monsters. I’m not inclined to discount anything she said. And I’m not sure relegating the otterkin to harmless—even though our contact with the fae seemed to be doing it—is very smart.”

  “They aren’t eating people,” observed Fred.

  “That you know of,” I said at the same time that Adam said, “Yet.”

  He smiled at me. “I’ll admit that they don’t appear to be part of this—but I don’t like that they are here. They were watching Mercy when she pulled Benny out of the water.”

  “I have a few more things to add,” I said. And just then the wind picked up a little, and Benny’s sister, Faith, sat down beside me on the edge of the ice chest. I looked at the others—at Fred, Hank, and Gordon, who were supposed to be like me—expecting . . . I don’t know. Some sort of recognition, I suppose. But no one jumped up and exclaimed the dead woman’s name—or even seemed to see her. Not even Gordon Seeker.

  �
��It wants him,” she said. She wasn’t looking at me; she was looking at Hank.

  “Him who?” I asked.

  “Benny.” She sighed. “Stupid. I know better than to lean out over the water like that. But he was stupid, too. I can swim. He should have stayed in the boat. But now . . . it’s like the crocodile in Peter Pan. It’s had a bite of him and wants the whole meal.”

  “We’ll keep him safe,” I told her.

  Everyone was watching us—or me at least. Adam had stood and was holding up his hand, keeping the others from interrupting. It might not be important—sometimes ghosts could be incredibly stubborn. But sometimes a loud noise or a sudden move, and they disappeared like rabbits.

  “I don’t know if you can keep him safe,” she said sadly. “You know, in the story, all the first people the river monster ate came back to life after it was dead.”

  “I thought Coyote left it alive?”

  She turned toward me, finally, and smiled. It didn’t look like a smile that should be on the face of a dead woman. She had a good smile. “There are several versions of that story. When he was a little boy, Calvin always did like the ones in which everyone lived.”

  She stood up and wandered over to the grill, her fingers passing through the grating, and pressed on the coals beyond.

  “Be careful,” she told me, her gaze on the coal. “When it marks someone, they belong to it.” She looked at Hank again.

  “It was always him for me, you know? Ever since high school. But he never had eyes for me.” She turned to me in sudden alarm. “Don’t tell him that. He doesn’t deserve to feel guilty.”

  “I won’t,” I assured her.

  “And don’t believe Jim’s mysterious-Indian schtick, either. He’s got a Ph.D. in psychology and taught over at UW in Seattle until he retired last year.”

  She put her hands back on the grill, but this time she didn’t go through the grating but kept them on top of the hot metal, tapping her fingers lightly on the grill as if it fascinated her that she could do that without burning herself. I wanted to go and pull them off, even though I knew it couldn’t hurt her anymore.

  She glanced at the Owens brothers. “And Fred trains cuttin’ horses. He’s starting to make a name for himself. Hank works with him on the business side, then does welding to help balance the books.”

  “Why are you telling me all this?” I asked.

  “So I remember,” she whispered. “Tell them not to call my name. I don’t want to stay here like this. Tell Benny I’m okay. Tell him to pick a flower for me and put it on Mama’s grave this year for me.”

  I had never dealt with a ghost quite this coherent before. Usually, they don’t even notice me. The few that do don’t really seem to be aware that they are dead.

  “I’ll tell them,” I promised, helpless to do anything to make this easier on anyone.

  She looked up and met my eyes—and in hers I could see a flicker of violent green, the color of the river devil’s eyes. “See that you do.”

  And she was gone.

  Adam, watching me, dropped his hand when I met his eyes.

  “Thanks,” I told him.

  “What the hell is that?” growled Hank. “Who were you talking to?”

  “I thought that all walkers could see the dead,” I said. “It’s why the vampires don’t like us.”

  “Vampires?” said Fred. “There are vampires?”

  Jim laughed. “Not all walkers are alike, Mercy. No more than two men wear the same shirt at the same time.”

  I looked at Gordon.

  “That is not my burden,” Gordon told me. “Besides, I’m not a walker. Who did you see?”

  Calvin had said that Gordon could take animal form, and he hadn’t been lying. Still, there were other people who could shift shapes in the Native American stories I’d read. Instead of pursuing what he was, I answered his question.

  “She didn’t want you to use her name, but could you give me a description of Benny’s sister? Before I tell you what she told me, I’d like to make sure I’m talking about the right person.”

  “No,” said Jim coolly. “You tell us what she looked like, and we’ll tell you if you get it right.”

  Okay. I could deal with that. “She’s a little shorter than I am and she has muscle. Not casual muscle but the kind that comes from some sort of hard work or sport. She has a little scar just in front of her left ear.” I put my finger where the scar was.

  “She has a Web site,” said Hank hostilely. “Her photo is up on it.”

  “This,” Adam said abruptly, “isn’t going to work that way. If you don’t believe Mercy saw Benny’s sister, nothing she tells you is going to convince you.”

  “She told Calvin that there was a woman following them at Horsethief Lake.” Jim scuffed his boot in the dirt. “She told him that the woman was wearing a dark blue shirt with a pair of macaws on the back before he told her that Benny’s sister had been with him on the boat. Beyond that, I don’t see what pretending she could see Fai—” He stuttered a little as he switched words. “Benny’s sister gains her at this point.”

  “She loved that shirt,” Hank muttered. “Got herself a new sewing machine, one that could do fancy embroidery. That shirt was the first thing she made on it.”

  “Benny gave her a bad time about the damned parrots,” said Fred. “White cockatoos.” He laughed and shook his head.

  I thought I would have liked Faith if I’d known her while she was alive.

  “What did she say?” Adam asked.

  “She said that it had a taste of Benny and wanted the rest. I told her that we could keep him safe, but she wasn’t convinced of it.” I glanced at the men sitting on the bench of the picnic table. “Other than that it was just a few things—and a message to Benny. She wants him to know she’s okay, and she wants him to put a flower on her mother’s grave for her this year.”

  I rolled up my pant leg to show everyone the mark I had on my leg. The blood and pus were gone, but it still was a dark brown scab circling my leg. It itched mildly, but I didn’t touch it.

  “River marked, you said,” I told Gordon. “What does it mean?”

  He crossed one scarlet boot over his opposite knee and pursed his lips. But before he could say anything, there was the sharp crack of a pistol, and, beside me, Adam jerked.

  8

  HANK HELD THE GUN LIKE HE KNEW WHAT HE WAS doing with it. I bolted for him, but no matter how fast I moved, I had to cross twelve feet, and he only had to pull the trigger. But I wasn’t the only one moving—his brother hit Hank’s gun hand as he shot a second time.

  Fred grabbed the gun and jerked it down toward the ground, where Hank spent his third shot. “What are you doing? Hank? Stop it.”

  Hank didn’t get a fourth shot because I grabbed the stick I’d almost tripped over like a baseball bat and hit him in the back of the head, knocking him cold.

  I wouldn’t have cared if I killed him—and I might well have because the stick I’d grabbed was the fairy walking stick that had followed me—however it follows me—ever since I’d first encountered it.

  No matter that it didn’t have feet and wasn’t alive, it was old fairy magic, and that was apparently enough for it to trail after me like a faithful dog. Though it was graceful and slender, the end was shod in silver and heavy. I might as well have hit Hank in the back of the head with a lead pipe.

  Lugh never made anything that couldn’t be used as a weapon, the oakman had told me just before he’d used the stick to kill a very nasty vampire. Lugh was an ancient hero of the Tuatha de Danann—I’d looked him up later. If the oakman had been right about the walking stick’s origins, it predated Christ’s birth and then some. It might even be older than Bran.

  I dropped the artifact that had been old when Columbus first set foot on the Bahamas on the ground as if it were garbage and returned to my mate’s side before anybody else moved.

  Hank had shot Adam.

  Adam hadn’t even moved. He’d just slumped over
on the stupid camp chair. That told me it was bad. Very bad. I could smell his blood.

  As I reached Adam, Gordon was on the other side, plucking Adam off the chair with an ease no old man would ever be able to imitate. Adam was solid muscle and heavy, even in his human form, and Gordon couldn’t weigh half what Adam did.

  It didn’t seem to slow him down, though.

  I ripped Adam’s shirt open so I could see the damage.

  There was a neat hole with a sliver of bone sticking out of his chest. The good news was that his heart was still beating because the blood was pulsing. The bad news was there was no exit hole in his back, and there was too much blood.

  “There’s no exit wound,” Gordon muttered.

  “Noticed that,” I said shortly. “Got to get it out yesterday.” No telling if it was silver or lead, but I had to assume the worst. They all knew Adam was a werewolf, and the silver-bullet stuff was common lore.

  I bolted for the truck and the supercomprehensive-when-hell-breaks-out first-aid kit stored behind the backseat in three backpacks. One of them had a surgical kit. One had bandages of all sizes. Another had various ointments and miscellaneous first-aid paraphernalia. I didn’t stop to try to figure out which one was which, though they were color-coded. I grabbed them all and hauled them back to Adam.

  I dropped them down beside him and knelt by his head—just as Gordon used a very small but wicked-looking black blade to slice into skin because the entry wound had already started to close. That could be good news; wounds made by silver tended to heal as slowly as they did for the rest of us.

  “Hold him,” grunted Gordon. “Jim, Fred—Hank will keep. He’s not dead. Get over here. If he wakes up, we’re going to need you all.”

  “He’s awake,” I told them. “He’ll keep still. Probably better off if everyone else stays back. He’ll sense them, essentially strangers, and come up fighting—and the four of us wouldn’t be able to hold him if he decides he needs to.”