Lightfall One: Clock, Cloak, Candle (Lightfall, Book 1)

by Jordan Taylor

  As snow fell and the horses wandered open range in search of food, Melchior often saddled his bad-tempered blue roan, Chucklehead, and rode to check them. He would be gone a day or two with never a word of goodbye or announcement of his plan, leaving his mother worried and his father irritated that he did not know Melchior’s ride plan to check another part of the ranch himself.

  To throw a saddle on a horse and ride away.... No word, no compass. Ride and go wherever you liked....

  These vanishings of Melchior made Ivy more homesick than ever, dreaming day and night of New England. Of saddling her own favorite riding horse, a bay gelding named Gambit, taking off north and east, never looking back.

  He turned nineteen in November. Ivy wondered when he would pack up and leave for good. Much as his father needed his help, Melchior should have been married by then. At least he should be courting, but the nearest settlement, with a general store, mission, and young females, was half a day’s ride away. Even had any of them wanted to go calling that winter, it was not the time.

  Deep snow set in. The coldest winds and thickest snow since Uncle Charles and Aunt Abigail first settled in New Mexico Territory when Melchior was little more than newborn. That had been 1860, or 1861, when buffalo roamed as far as the eye could see and Indians would not stay bound to reservations.

  As snow fell, Ivy felt she would go stir crazy. With temperatures below zero, she could no longer sit in her favorite hayloft haunt with a book from her single trunk of possessions. Instead she had to remain indoors near the stove, unable to read as that would be rude in company.

  Aunt Abigail gave her a worn but beautiful moss green cloak with a hood which she kept herself wrapped in day and night. She huddled alongside Lucy, the cow, telling her of vast bridges spanning wide rivers, dirigibles sailing above the city skyline, clockwork beasts guarding great manors, fresh fish and glistening bright oranges. As she lay in bed at night, she spoke to Es Feroz about steam engines strong enough to pull one hundred full train cars, libraries with so many books a person could not read them all if she did nothing else for her whole life, and hot, electric Christmas lights created by the makers to illuminate downtown.

  She could not talk to her aunt and uncle and cousin about these things. She was their guest. Their grateful guest. By having her, they were almost certainly saving her life. But she tried not to think of that part. Of the sickness. Of her father still there, fighting for answers with the rest of the nation’s top doctors ever since Dr. William G. Daray discovered Daray’s disease years before.

  Spring erupted through patches of snow, bright, clear, shimmering in every blade of grass and ray of sun. Ivy unwillingly pushed back the hood of her soft cloak.

  With a day’s notice, Melchior saddled the blue roan, filled his saddlebags with dry biscuits and salt pork, tobacco and paper for rolling cigarettes, a deck of cards, and a few extra items of clothing and coins. He tied a bedroll over the top, hung his lariat and water bottles from the saddle horn, strapped on his gun belt, said goodbye to his mother, and rode away, heading east.

  Ivy sat in the barn loft, watching him go while Es Feroz hunted mice behind her. She would not let him travel that way again without taking her along.

  This time it was little over two months, May, when Melchior returned. He rode in pale one day to meet his father at the barn, who waited for him with hands on hips. Ivy saw from the house, yet refrained from calling her aunt. She watched as Melchior gestured eastward, sliding off his sweating stallion, shaking his head and wiping his brow with a new bandana—this one royal blue and finer, apparently silk—as Uncle Charles seemed to be asking him something. Her uncle’s posture had relaxed. Still, Ivy imagined he looked alarmed. She turned away to tell Aunt Abigail the wanderer had returned.

  At dinner, which the family called supper, Uncle Charles told them what had happened. “Rumors say Plague is spreading west.”

  Melchior looked up. “Not rumors. God’s truth—”

  “Mel, please.” Aunt Abigail spoke sharply. “Not at the table.”

  Melchior ignored her. “Are Plague-sick in Texas. Met three men who’d seen them.”

  Ivy could not breathe. Tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, blood so cold it seemed winter wind had returned to burst through the little timber and mud house.

  “Now,” Uncle Charles said in his slow, deliberate way, tinged with his faint French accent. “Don’t scare the ladies, Melchior. Texas is a long way from here.” He lifted a mouthful of jackalope stew to his lips and chewed solemnly.

  How could he continue eating? Even Aunt Abigail, who appeared pale, went on drizzling honey over a slice of golden cornbread before lifting it to her mouth.

  Melchior shook his head, glaring from one of his parents to the other. “Best pull up, go north to Santa Fé, see what they’re making of it. Least for a spell.”

  Uncle Charles still ate, though a hard gleam showed in his dark eyes.

  “It cannot be as bad as all that,” Aunt Abigail said. Her hand trembled as she took another bite of cornbread with sweet cream butter and honey. “This is the first we have heard of any such thing. If there was real danger, I expect the government would send cavalry down, just like they did in Florida, getting everyone evacuated.”

  Ivy wanted to speak, to shout, to scream. But her throat felt as big around as a blade of grass and her mouth mirrored the desert. Why did they not understand? Why did they not leap from the table and run, flee, set fire to the ranch, never look back? How could they keep sitting here as if in church?

  But how could they understand? Not one had ever seen Daray’s disease firsthand. None had experienced the sheer terror of looking into the soulless eyes of what once was a human being, now bent only on your destruction.

  She said nothing, finally going to bed early with a headache.

  The next day, Ivy sat in the hayloft, skirts tucked in around her legs to protect them, gazing out the hatch to the east. Beside her, Es Feroz sat upright, large ears alert, also gazing out the window as her nose quivered, black-tipped tail curled around forepaws like a cat.

  All morning, Ivy carried her handbag, seldom removed from her trunk since her arrival West. A crushing sense of urgency, even doom, lay upon her. She clasped and unclasped the silver fastener on her bag, running the chain handle through her fingers. She removed the chipped tintype of her mother, gazing for a long time into the unhelpful pale eyes. Ivy had her father’s brown eyes. Her mother and Aunt Abigail had dazzling blue ones.

  She returned the image to her bag with her mother’s ring and a few coins, snapped it shut, then pressed it to her chest. Lace of her dark teal dress felt soft and smooth, sun-faded, worn nearly to threadbare after so much use here. She had only a few changes of clothes. Aunt Abigail had promised a shopping trip tomorrow to the settlement for fabric. Perhaps all the way to Albuquerque or Santa Fé for a store-made dress this summer. Offers like this told her that Aunt Abigail, who had not owned such a dress herself in many years, understood those things Ivy held back.

  Ivy looked from the pricked ears of her fox, away east to rolling hills. The lowering sun meant she should be in helping Aunt Abigail with dinner. She could not move. Something wrong, something terrible, hammered through her.

  Es Feroz sat stiff, motionless even as Ivy reached to stroke her back. Staring east. Usually, she had several dead mice and a rat to play with by now. She would carry a living rodent up the loft steps with Ivy, then throw it, watching it crash to hay, leap upon it, toss it again.

  Today, despite a scramble of little bodies when Ivy and Es Feroz stepped inside, the vixen only followed her to the loft and sat looking east. Ivy again felt chilled as she watched her fox.

  Melchior had been insistent that they load the wagon, saddle horses, and head north until they could be sure there was no danger to their territory. Beyond this, he had to meet a friend in Albuquerque. He only rode back so fast and early to deliver them warning. That did not mean he could wait around.

  Ivy glanced a
gain at the fox. Golden ears pricked, waiting, listening.

  Ivy stood, the chain of her bag around her wrist, brushing last winter’s dry hay fragments from her skirts, picking more off the laces of her boots.

  Es Feroz did not stir.

  The house bell rang. “Suppertime!”

  Ivy had not even been in to help her aunt. She straightened her petticoats and skirt, then looked again out the loft to the horizon.

  For a moment, she thought she saw smoke. She blinked. Something far away, across the plain, off in the hills, lifted and billowed about. Ivy watched, thinking of trapping risers in burning buildings, the Great Fire, the city black with ash.

  But it was not smoke.

  Squinting, straining her eyes, she knew. Dust.

  Cavalry coming after all. Evacuating ranchers and homesteaders, sending everyone north to cities with some chance of protection in numbers. A force of dozens, maybe hundreds of riders to send up such dust. Yet she knew, knew in the same way she knew it was not smoke, that the dust did not come from soldiers. It did not come from horses. It did not come from anyone trying to help.

  Ivy whirled, running for the loft ladder. “Uncle Charles! Melchior!”

  She scrambled down, kicking skirts aside, missing a step and falling the last few feet. Up at once, running, screaming with as much breath as her corset would allow, calling for her cousin and uncle.

  Melchior met her at the corrals. He had just turned in Chucklehead, his blue roan, answering his mother’s summons. Uncle Charles rode in from the south. Aunt Abigail stood in the doorway, hand lifted to shield her eyes from low sun to see what alarmed her niece.

  “Melchior.” Ivy gripped his arm, shaking, suffocating. “They’re coming. Dust—risers—many—”

  He looked, hat shading his face as he squinted east. She could hardly see it from down here. A wisp of dust stretching across the hills. But he saw and, for the first time since she had known him, he did exactly what she wished.

  “Skin for the house. Pack food, cash, the shotgun. Grab my gun belt. Don’t listen to Ma—just shift her out the door.”

  She ran, skirts lifted, tears in her eyes, as Melchior raced the opposite way, flying to fetch the cart horses put up in a corral that afternoon for tomorrow’s trip, shouting to his father as he went.

  “They’re coming!” Ivy screamed at her aunt, pulling her inside. “Fill a sack with food and cash and a water bottle.”

  “What? For pity’s sake, child—”

  “Now!” Ivy shouted in the poor woman’s face and Aunt Abigail jumped. “We are going now!”

  Her flushed aunt snatched an empty flour sack and threw in salt pork, flour, lard, preserves. She emptied their few coins and paper bills into a dish towel.

  Ivy grabbed the shotgun off hooks over the window, then Melchior’s gun belt and revolver off their peg at the door. Cloak around her shoulders, box of shotgun shells in a second towel before placing it inside a burlap sack with the money and Aunt Abigail’s own tiny treasure box: her grandfather’s pocket watch, a few pieces of jewelry.

  Outside, Uncle Charles rode up with Gambit, the cart horse, fitted in the sidesaddle. He swung down from his own chestnut to help Ivy up.

  “You take the sidesaddle, dear. Your aunt can ride astride.”

  It was not until Ivy had mounted with his help and set her right leg in the brace that she again looked east. And caught her breath.

  No distant strip of dust. A gray-brown cloud descended upon them above a mass of moving forms, approaching fast.

  “Uncle Charles—” Ivy gasped, twisting back to him, drawing her reins so short Gambit backed several steps, tossing his head. “You must burn the buildings.”

  “Ivy—”

  “Listen to me! Set the house on fire, the barn, all of it!”

  Melchior rode up, leading the second saddled bay.

  Uncle Charles shook his head. “We’ll just push out, see what happens.”

  See what happens? Like they would come back. Like they were not all about to die.

  “No!” she screamed, her throat feeling as if it ripped. “Burn them! Burn all the buildings!”

  Her aunt and uncle stood, sacks in their hands, telling her everything would be all right.

  She faced Melchior as he drew level with her on Chucklehead, pushing his gun belt at him. “You must set everything on fire. It’s the only way we have a chance. Melchior, please, listen to me.” Tears ran down her cheeks as she shook violently in the saddle.

  Gambit backed and tossed his head below her.

  The dogs barked, the cow’s jingling bell sounded a long way off as she jogged away. Ivy caught a streak of gold out of the corner of her eye and knew Es Feroz ran northwest, toward Albuquerque—where they should all be fleeing long since.

  Melchior jumped from the saddle, pressing both animals’ reins to his father as he ran past into the cabin. By the time Uncle Charles pushed the shotgun into a sheath on his saddle and helped Aunt Abigail mount the second cart horse, each of them with a sack, Melchior was back in the doorway. He held a flaming stick of firewood and pan of glowing coals from the iron stove, running toward the barn.

  Aunt Abigail clapped a hand over her mouth as she saw the stream of smoke emanating from the ranch house.

  “Charles, please—”

  “Melchior.” Uncle Charles swung back onto his chestnut—the single horse who seemed calm, perhaps because Uncle Charles was so horribly calm. But he did not lead his wife and niece away. Still holding Chucklehead’s reins, he cantered the chestnut back toward the barn. “No more timber in this territory. We can’t afford—”

  No. Too much. Head pounding, body soaked in sweat, airways crushed, vision narrowed to a bright center surrounded by black. Ivy grabbed Aunt Abigail’s near rein, slapped Gambit with the tail of her own, and the two nervous geldings burst away as if released from a starting gate.

  “Wait, child! We can’t leave them!” Aunt Abigail clutched sack and reins, nearly unseated by the bounding start.

  Blood hammered so hard in Ivy’s ears, she could hardly hear the shouts. Gambit stretched out his neck, ears pinned, nostrils flared. She had become an acceptable horsewoman in the past year. Even Uncle Charles said she looked well on a horse. But she had never ridden at a headlong gallop. Not as easy as the men made it look. Every stride slammed her forward, then back, crashing into her saddle, skirts whipping against her, breath jarred from her lungs, feeling she would fall forward off the left side or backward off the right with each impact.

  She released the second bay’s rein to focus her energy to holding Gambit, clutching reins and mane. Hat gone, along with several hair pins, long hair streaming behind, her tiny handbag still swinging from the chain at the crook of her arm, she half-closed her eyes in the current of wind and dust, praying. They would make it. They were safe. That mass may be able to outrun a human, but not a horse.

  “The family records!” Aunt Abigail shrieked, her mount flying over the ground shoulder to flank with Gambit. “Our Bible—he set the house on fire!”

  Words were jarred from her, gasping out more that Ivy could not hear. It did not matter. None of it mattered. Things, possessions, never mattered against risers. Ivy had learned that the hard way. Only the people you loved mattered. Half the time, you could not even save them....

  Her aunt dropped behind, the second horse vanishing from their side.

  Ivy desperately threw a glance behind, feeling she was about to topple from the saddle.

  Aunt Abigail reined in, turning her horse at a canter in a circle through the prairie.

  “No! Do not go back!”

  As Gambit raced on, Aunt Abigail dashed away along the road to the ranch.

  Madness—such madness—impossible. They should be halfway out of the county by now. For a Bible. It did not matter if the book held records of every family member back to Adam and Eve. It did not matter if it was worth a fortune in gold.

  She struggled to rein in Gambit, trying to turn his hea
d, leaning her weight into pulling his mouth. He slowed, staggered, and came almost to a stop, turning in place, pivoting on his hind legs, rearing a few inches as he tossed his head to fight the bit.

  She tried to stroke his neck, gasping and shaking. “Wait a moment, wait.”

  Smoke streamed from buildings. She heard shouts of all three, though words lacked meaning. Melchior and Chucklehead galloped toward her, his father following. Aunt Abigail met them.

  Behind, around, coming from the east, only one hundred yards away, a cloud of dust and a horde of running figures descended upon the ranch. They came in silence, barefooted or shod, some in evening tailcoats, some in lacy dresses, some in laborers’ clothes or simple skirts or aprons. A good many wore only tatters of ragged fabric that once contained a human being. Others ran bare, clothed in dirt and blood. They were all skin colors, all ages, as long as they were old enough to run. All blank-eyed, open-mouthed, reaching forward as they drew closer, ready to catch their prey.

  “The family records, Charles!” Aunt Abigail’s horse balked, digging in his heels.

  “Take care of your cousin, Melchior! Get her out of here!” Uncle Charles shouted.

  Gambit reared in earnest, letting out a cry that was part neigh, part scream as Ivy clutched his mane.

  When she again saw the ranch, Aunt Abigail lay in dust, her horse bursting away in a dark streak to the west, split reins flying.

  Melchior and his stallion were almost upon them, thundering up the road. He had not seen his mother being thrown. Behind him, Uncle Charles leapt down to help her. They could both ride the chestnut: a powerful horse, one of Uncle Charles’s favorites, but for how long and how fast?

  “Go!” Melchior shouted at her.

  He did not know his parents were not just behind. That Uncle Charles did not catch Aunt Abigail’s reins to turn her to follow. He doesn’t know they’re going to die.