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

by Jordan Taylor

  Ivy looks up and down the street. A few banks in town, yet wouldn’t they have noticed? An outcry been raised? Two-hundred and fifty dollars. A fortune. Enough to buy a modest home in Massachusetts. Or, likely, a ten thousand acre spread in New Mexico Territory. No contest there.

  She stares at Chucklehead as the dark stallion grinds his front teeth over the wood hitching post like a beaver. Her mind is still racing when the door bangs open and Melchior steps out, pulling another man by the arm.

  Ivy feels too startled for a moment to take in the newcomer as she looks at her smiling cousin. He is fairly grinning while he yanks the door shut behind them.

  “Reckoned I couldn’t do it? No one round here believes a fellow—”

  “I believed when you insisted you would return.” An accented voice, well-bred. “Only the sum kept me apprehensive.” The convict shifts his own smile from Melchior as he catches sight of Ivy. He shuffles his armload of possessions, which must have been released to him by the sheriff, to whip off his broad-brimmed hat, dropping his gaze to boards at their feet. “Miss.”

  Melchior also notices her. “Oh—cousin I mentioned. Ivy. Got enough to pay board on Elsewhere?”

  Ivy stares, not offering the stranger her hand.

  Flushed, the young man glances sideways at Melchior.

  “Ivy Jerinson,” Melchior goes on, smile lost, once more sounding irritated. To her: “Conrad Samuelson. Rode with me on the drive. Our way back through the Territory, meaning to warn all you, when some Cripes framed him for horse thieving. Then I had to shin out on account of Sheriff Frim taking a dislike to me. Got to grab his horse from the livery.” He steps away to untie his own post-chewing stallion.

  “How do you do, Miss Jerinson,” Samuelson murmurs, staring at the hat, frock coat, chaps, gun belt, rifle, and satchel in his arms.

  “How do you do.” But Ivy can hardly get the words out and she turns away, breath still fast.

  Yes, apparently her cousin means her to keep this man’s company. Only to Santa Fé. Then she can get a coach. And get out.

  She follows them to the livery stable, then fans away flies and spider webs while Melchior negotiates with the nearly catatonic stable man over settling board and releasing Conrad Samuelson’s bay mustang. The man, who looks as if he has suffered smallpox at least once, shakes his head repeatedly as Melchior grows more and more cross at the price demanded.

  “The hell you been feeding him?” Melchior asks at last. “Gold blocks packed in ivory crates? Cheaper to get another horse than pay this.”

  The ravaged man’s expression does not change.

  Samuelson catches Melchior’s arm. “Thank you, Mr. Hail, for looking after him.” And removes coins from his satchel.

  English, Ivy decides from the accent, though the flies sound louder about her ears than his soft voice. She heard other English, and more Irish accents on her trip West in the first place, but none like this. Those people were from working classes, likely coming to America for opportunity years before Daray’s disease began frightening immigrants away from the New World. This voice reminds her of an English colleague of her father’s: a gentleman.

  Still muttering, Melchior drops Chucklehead’s reins at his forehooves and fetches a roping saddle with saddle bags, bedroll, and rifle sheath attached from the tack room.

  “Settle and let’s get out of here,” he says as he passes the two men. “No account, nackling, sorry bastard ...” fades with him down the alley. He locates the bay and slips between the stall partition and the horse to saddle him.

  Samuelson, face again flushed, finishes counting out coins while Chucklehead knocks the lid off a tall barrel. He crunches away on bran within, his bit not seeming to trouble him.

  Resting his possessions on saddle trees, rifle leaned against the wall, Samuelson buckles on his chaps, then fixes the belt over these. Such additions of worn leather diminish from the man’s appearance in a way they never do for Melchior, who seems born for gun belts and spurs. Not that the appearances of horse thieves makes the slightest difference to Ivy one way or the other. Yet his white linen shirt, black waistcoat, red cotton bandana, and exquisite boots, which may have found a place in society if not cut with high heels and pointed toes for riding, make him look altogether neater than anyone else out here. Even his hat looks hardly dusty, jet black and well-made.

  “The hell!”

  Ivy jumps, looking at Melchior, who was returning with the sedate gelding. He shoves the reins at Samuelson as he darts past to yank Chucklehead’s face away from the bran barrel.

  “Couldn’t’ve any of you stopped him? Colic on a full bait a bran.”

  Samuelson looks even more abashed. “I beg your pardon, Melchior. I did not notice him.”

  The stable man lifts a cigarette to his lips and says nothing.

  “Your horse is our responsibility now?” Ivy asks. “He eats everything he can—”

  “What’d you ride here?” Melchior rounds on her after slamming the barrel lid in place. “Got some other turnout to keep your eye on?”

  “I didn’t know it could make him ill to eat bran. Horses eat bran—”

  “Not a gut-full.”

  Samuelson, who has not moved to pack his rifle or kit, but stands at his mustang’s head, looking anxiously between the two of them, asks, “You have no horse, Miss Jerinson?”

  Ivy opens her mouth, bites her tongue, looks away. Perhaps he would like to steal one for her?

  “Rode Chucklehead up here,” Melchior says, throwing his reins over the stallion’s black mane. “Reckon she still can.”

  The Englishman again glances between them, neither looking at him or one another, then turns to the stable man. “Have you any horses for sale, Mr. Hail?”

  Mr. Hail gestures with his cigarette to the end of the row nearest the open double doors, across from Ivy. “Fellow boarding that mare’s selling her.”

  “Not taking a mare,” Melchior interrupts, looking toward the little chestnut. “Nothing but trouble on a trail.”

  Ivy sets her teeth.

  The stable man goes on smoking. “All we got.”

  Another half-hour of argument and dickering follows the examination of the mare, which Melchior calls a filly, though Mr. Hail claims she is five years old and well broke. Next, a circular debate over price, and does the stable have a sidesaddle to fit her? Melchior complains about her being head-shy, spooky, too young, too small, until Samuelson finally pays the stable man thirty dollars, sidesaddle, bridle, and Chucklehead’s “board” included. He nearly has to drag Melchior away from the impassive Mr. Hail.

  Finally, before the stable, Melchior presses the chestnut mare’s reins into Ivy’s hands, saying, “Your lucky day.”

  Ivy hardly hears his tone—for an instant almost forgetting flies and dust and her own aches and pains, filthy condition and the small matter of her company and situation. A half smile cracks her dry lips as she strokes the pretty red mare’s nose, down a wide, white blaze. She has never had a horse of her own. Even if not for long, it could take weeks to leave Santa Fé if stages are sparse.

  “How do you do, Luck,” Ivy murmurs, rubbing the mare’s chin before she tosses her face out of reach.

  When Melchior lifts Ivy to the sidesaddle, Luck whips her head around to bite Ivy’s elbow. Ivy jumps, nearly tipping off backward as she reaches the saddle, grabbing at Melchior’s arm and the horse’s mane. This commotion makes the mare start forward, dashing out from under Ivy and turning a circle as she hits the end of the split rein in Melchior’s hand.

  To her surprise, Melchior does not curse the animal. He looks a bit smug—which she finds far more upsetting than her horse’s behavior.

  It takes Samuelson holding the head and Melchior once more lifting Ivy to the saddle before the company gets underway.

  Her jog is too fast, her walk too slow, her canter a slamming, whap-whap-whap rather than Gambit’s gentle rocking horse motion and easy strides. She shies at birds and shadows. She cannot keep
a consistent pace, or move in a straight line, without ceaseless direction from her rider. She fights the bit, speeds up when Ivy wishes her to slow down, and lies back her ears at the other horses. But she does not buck. And she seems strong and healthy. She can reach Santa Fé.

  By sunset, sore in every muscle from fighting the fractious mare, Ivy sinks almost in a stupor to her bedroll, leaving Melchior to untack her horse.

  Most of the day the men rode ahead of her in conversation inaudible to Ivy. Her cousin’s readiness to speak to this Englishman from the drive—despite the fact he had hardly said a word to her for days—seems to have eased some nerves. Melchior makes no comment over having to tend Ivy’s horse, then passes her bread and smoked venison before sitting down with his friend and their own dinner several feet from her on prairie grass.

  Ivy wraps herself in cloak and bedroll, watching the three horses graze in their hobbles as twilight fades. Samuelson’s bay, Elsewhere, minds his own business, but Chucklehead follows the mare around in his cross-hobbles until Luck snaps at him and tries to kick. Ivy has some idea of what Melchior means by a mare causing trouble on the trail now, and an even greater sense of the injustice in the remark. Again, she holds her tongue, though her jaw works and her face feels hot.

  Melchior lights a last cigarette for the evening, explaining to Samuelson that they cannot have even a match lit after dark—as if he is the authority and rule abider all of a sudden.

  Ivy pulls up her hood, wondering if she might try lying on her back in the blankets with the corset on. Samuelson rolls Elsewhere’s saddle blanket for a pillow.

  A shadow flits through grass, black on deep blue and slate gray. Ivy blinks in darkness, breath catching. Nothing. Only a rabbit or something ... something tiny. Or a snake. A rattlesnake. No, not that tiny.

  Another shift, silent. Melchior catches the movement from the corner of his eye and his hand drops to his holster.

  Buffalo grass rustles. Something small, light, moves toward her. Ivy lets out her breath in a rush as Es Feroz, sniffing nervously, steps to the edge of her blanket.

  In a moment, Samuelson has his French revolver in his hand.

  “No!” Ivy starts to her knees.

  Es Feroz springs away.

  Melchior grabs Samuelson’s wrist.

  Ivy coaxes the fox back. After many nervous glances to the men, she creeps into Ivy’s lap, rubbing her body and chin across Ivy’s arms like a cat, standing on her hind paws to burrow her sharp muzzle in Ivy’s hair.

  Ivy hugs her, unable to speak, tears falling on gold and gray fur.

  “Her pet,” Melchior mutters to Samuelson and drops back on his bedroll. “She’d powerful appreciate if you’d not shoot it, Sam.”

  “I beg your pardon, Miss Jerinson,” Samuelson says, still staring at the little animal in her arms.

  Ivy does finally lie back on her bedroll, the worn sidesaddle at her head, and, after an inspection of camp and everyone present, the vixen curls up in the hollow of her neck and shoulder.

  With darkness, visions of the ranch, the horde, screams, cries, revolver shots again crash around her like a tornado. Ivy shivers, tears starting again as the magnitude of both her own and her cousin’s situation faces her like the nightmares. But she buries her fingers in warm fur, listening to a coyote’s cry, falling asleep thinking of what she rides toward rather than what lies behind.

  The next day, as they ride north to Santa Fé, Samuelson tells her he learned horsemanship fox hunting in Somerset. It never occurred to him anyone would make a pet of one.

  “’Spect it makes sense to people in the States,” Melchior says. “Never known anyone West to do such a thing.”

  “New Mexico Territory is part of the United States of America,” Ivy says. “I am not ‘from the States’ while you are ‘from New Mexico.’”

  “Showed up here first day and didn’t feel you was in a different country than you’d been in before?”

  Ivy has no answer besides setting her teeth. The exchange puts an end to Samuelson attempting conversation with her. Still, her spirits lift all morning with Es Feroz trotting in and out of sight on the trail and Santa Fé just ahead in those mountains.

  The air feels so thin, Ivy struggles to draw breath if she dismounts to lead her flighty mare. She takes shallow comfort to see Samuelson also suffers at the steadily increasing altitude. Only Melchior appears not to notice, having lived his whole life in high country. A couple thousand more feet seem unimportant.

  Hours later, they begin passing the farthest outlying ranches and settlements around the ancient city. Yet the sun is low in the west before they cross the little Santa Fé River and turn onto San Francisco Street. Up this main thoroughfare, the three halt beside the same bright plaza where the stage deposited passengers one year earlier.

  Ivy stares from the boarded doorway of the Second National Bank of New Mexico to blossoming cottonwood trees, taller than squat buildings around them. A few dusty men stand around a saloon. A few more talk in the shade of the long government building across the Plaza. A few dogs look up at the newcomers from the shade of cottonwoods. A burro wanders down the middle of the wide street, swishing its tail against flies.

  Not as if she expected brass bands and flag waving. Not that the governor should run out to greet them or the marshal rush to hear their story. Yet....

  Sunburnt, filthy, parched, lips chapped and hair tangled, every bone and muscle aching, right leg in intense pain from being set in the saddle brace for hours on end, Ivy looks around to her companions.

  Melchior, squinting, nods northward. “Livery behind the casas reales—Governor’s Palace,” he adds as Ivy stares at the long, low, apparently deserted adobe structure he calls a palace.

  At the livery, he gets a recommendation for a local boarding house, along with the assurance that the Palace Hotel has the highest prices in town.

  Melchior, who seems to know his way around the “city,” leads them to the house on the east side of town, not far from the cathedral. The stark, two-story building is a timber-framed, eastern-style structure rather than the predominant adobe, with tattered rugs, dusty drapes, and a single hand pump for water to the scullery off the kitchen—no proper plumbing, much less electricity.

  Mrs. Acker, the Englishwoman who owns the place, brusquely indicates these features, points out the resident girl of all work, whose name Ivy cannot catch, and asks them if they want rooms with the air of someone who has already wasted hours of her day on their thoughtless extravagances.

  “A single and we can share if you’ve got anything with two,” Melchior says, jerking his thumb at Samuelson. “Not sure how long though. Know what the stage schedule is these days?”

  Mrs. Acker, graying hair in a tight bun, arrayed in practical homespuns, cigarette dangling between her lips, narrows her eyes as if she feels they are being deliberately thick. “No stage has left Santa Fé since September.”

  Ivy catches her breath, feeling slapped.

  Melchior glances around to her and Samuelson, both silent in the dim front sitting room shared by moth-eaten cushions on rough wooden furnishings and one calico-covered sofa which, ten or twenty years ago, must have been a handsome addition. The hearth is black and cold, though the house feels chill. Flies buzz and tap against the grimy glass window. At least there are real windows. And no obvious cobwebs.

  “Nowhere to go, is there?” the owner goes on. “No trains. Rail line was never expanded past Raton Pass, as promised. They used to say end of this year, or start of next, they’d be in Santa Fé.” Mrs. Acker shakes her head, chewing the cigarette. “That track’s not budged an inch since the border.”

  “But,” Ivy interrupts, hands trembling, “what do you mean, no trains? Only the Transcontinental Railway is wholly shut down, isn’t it?”

  “Where’ve you been, girl? Trains all over the nation are closed. All east-west shut, besides nearly all north-south. Quarantine’s coast to coast. Everyone scared over this bloody Plague. Not supposed to cr
oss state lines or travel much at all without official leave. Military outposts from Fort Clark to Fort Abraham Lincoln imposing blockade. Our Fort Marcy’s shut—the lot of them called north.”

  “Just rode back here from Kansas,” Melchior says. “We weren’t stopped and they still had rails hauling beef cattle. Didn’t see so much as a lone cavalry rider guarding a border.”

  Mrs. Acker shrugs. “What I’ve heard, that’s all. No stages, no trains, no one meant to be traveling until something’s been done about the sickness. If you wanted a lift so bad you should’ve stepped aboard with those cattle.” For the first time, she pulls the dwindling cigarette from her lips. “Want those rooms or not?”

  Fourth

  A Proper Cup of Tea

  This time, Ivy knows before she has woken that she dreams of the station, the ranch, the horde. She forces herself awake in a sweat, sitting up in bed. Gray and lavender light fills her room. Sounds of roosters and the livery stable door rattling far off drift through the open window.

  Trembling, she climbs from bed to perform what washing is possible with a single stagnant basin, combat another nosebleed, then brush and pin long hair. Dressing proves an even greater challenge: besides bruises, sore muscles, and burnt skin, she must face putting back on the same trail-tattered garments of the day before without a real wash for either them or herself.

  She may have learned to do all her own dressing, even lacing and fixing her hair, at the ranch over the past year, but at least Aunt Abigail had a small looking glass. Plus wood bathing tub. Neither luxury is evident here—only a tiny privy out back and the one inside pump downstairs.

  Ivy is first down to breakfast, meeting the girl of all work in the dining room, which seems to accommodate any meals offered. This girl, perhaps fourteen or fifteen, finishes setting the breakfast table and looks up.