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

by Jordan Taylor

Being seen by the men, living souls and armed to the teeth, all at once seems highly appealing.

  “Rosalía,” Ivy starts, swallowing, hands trembling as she pulls cloak and blanket close. “Do you think we could—?”

  A light: tiny, bobbing candlelight, sheltered by a hand. Ivy wants to cry with relief as she sees the slender figure walking toward them up the slope.

  “What happened?” He pauses at a respectful distance.

  “Sam, bring your candle. There was something here.”

  “You know, you two may join our camp. We shall not crowd you.”

  “There.”

  “What?”

  “I saw something. Move your hand from the light.”

  As Sam, kneeling a few feet from the two women’s bedrolls, uncovers the stub of candle and holds it over his head, Ivy sees a flash of green and yellow light: star-like orbs through darkness.

  “An animal,” Rosalía whispers. “Why didn’t it leave the country when you shouted?” She again lifts the carbine. “It could have hydrophobia.”

  Ivy sags back in her blankets with a rush of relief and giddy excitement. “No,” she whispers. “She’s not rabid. Come here. I’m sorry I scared you.”

  She holds out her arms. After a pause, with quick steps, darting glances, then a final slink forward, Es Feroz crawls into them. Only whiskers and a cold nose after all.

  Rosalía stares, carbine sagging in her hands.

  Sam smiles. He rubs the vixen’s chin with his fingertips after she sniffs over his hand, then leaves candle and matches with Ivy.

  Ivy lifts the cloak and bedroll. The swift fox plunges among covers like a den, digging with tiny paws. For a nocturnal hunter, she adores a human nest. Ivy finds herself almost laughing as the vixen rearranges and slides through blankets in the dark.

  As she curls herself down once more with Es Feroz, Ivy strokes the little body, feeling warmth across her chest and arm. Tears again on her face, whispering, then thinking, thank you, again and again, Ivy holds tight to the only animal she has ever seen able to sense risers miles away.

  Twelfth

  Dead Silence

  Ivy’s worries rush back at dawn when Rosalía wakes her with a burning cup of coffee and says they must be off.

  Trying to let the tin cool, having already learned how dangerous it can be to fingers and lips, Ivy watches Es Feroz slink away.

  After rolling her own blankets, then finding Ivy still unmoved, Rosalía says, “I’ll help you lace your dress tight. And you can keep that cloak about yourself all day.”

  Ivy shakes her head over her coffee, already missing her fox. “I cannot be seen.”

  “You haven’t a choice.” Tone stern again. “I know you want those bones back, but this is what you have. Forgive me for saying you need not be as troubled as you behave. You’re little more than a girl and will hardly appear indecent with your dress laced in well and the cloak about your shoulders.”

  Ivy scowls into her mug. She is not that flat-chested. But what else can she do? Ask Rosalía to bring Luck up here? Presumably after she has first asked Melchior to saddle and bridle her, then ride one hundred yards behind the company all the way back to Santa Fé? What of ... well, bears for example? Mountain lions or monkats? Outlaws? Risers?

  Getting to her feet with aching muscles, she allows Rosalía to help her with her laces. Though she struggles more over this “Thank you,” than she did on the one to Melchior on their way out of Santa Fé.

  She is settling her cloak, taking a few experimental steps and deep breaths, when Yap-Rat jogs up their slope. He pauses, regarding them steadily from twenty paces.

  “Go,” Rosalía calls, waving her arm at him. “Git! Tell Grip we’re coming. Don’t be so impatient.” She shakes her head as the cur trots away.

  Ivy takes blankets while Rosalía carries her saddle and kit down to more open ground of the men’s camp. Ivy can see why Grip is impatient. He has already mounted, along with the tied outlaws, whose horses Grip’s buckskin walks around like a sheepdog.

  Melchior saddles Chucklehead. Sam ties his bedroll on Elsewhere’s saddle, holding the saddled Luck’s reins. Only Rosalía’s seal brown mount, looking black in misty morning light, stands hobbled and grazing, unadorned, thirty yards down the slope.

  “Thank you.” Ivy offers Sam back his candle, taking Luck’s reins. Someone has knotted the end of the cut one to tie on a length of hemp cord, extending the rein a few feet.

  He smiles. “Melchior dressed her for you. But you are, of course, welcome. Do you feel any better? You look well.”

  Does she? She can breathe this morning. Perhaps it makes a greater difference than she realized. Rosalía glances at her, nearly smirking. Ivy only nods, face warm as she avoids his eyes.

  She packs her bedroll over saddlebags, keeping her cloak as close about as possible while struggling with leather ties on the saddle. No one seems to notice her. Sam has gone back to his own packs. Melchior buckles his loose flank cinch. The outlaws are morose, not looking at anything beyond the necks of their horses. Grip watches Rosalía heave her heavy saddle on her horse and remove his hobbles.

  Ivy tries another deep breath before Melchior walks over to lift her to her saddle. He does not even bother bidding her good morning. Much less gape at her. Perhaps ... not such a sight. It would not be like him to avoid comment or staring out of politeness, after all.

  They move out, Ivy and Rosalía trailing, Grip leading, with the sun hardly risen. Feeling more than ever that she has grown an accordion spine, Ivy cannot sit up straight for more than a few minutes without her accustomed support. Arm aching and stiff, back and ribs sore, even if limber, she must fight to keep upright as the first trail hour slips by.

  They stop for lunch, building a real fire, enjoying more venison. Ivy sits away from the men—Rosalía staying with them now—feeling barbaric with a plate of nothing but roast meat. She still has a bit of flour in her saddlebags. That’s all from the Santa Fé provisions. It never crossed her mind bounty hunting could be so time-consuming.

  They turn in after dark with no fire, only cooked meat and cold water for dinner. In dense, high forest of ponderosa pines, with little for the horses to eat and not much open space for eight people to make camp. Rosalía and Ivy hardly move away from the men to find their own spot. Sitting up against a tree, chewing cold venison, her stomach shouting for more, Ivy watches and listens for Es Feroz.

  The fox does not appear, but footsteps from the men’s camp approach. Ivy looks up, expecting—hoping—for Sam.

  She can just make out the swinging rainwater fringe of Grip’s old buckskin sleeve in shadows as he stops above them. He holds his left arm out to her.

  Ivy smells something sweet and reaches to find one of his small, flat rice cakes pressed into her hand.

  “Thank you,” she says.

  He walks away.

  So they have been thinking of her after all. Ivy feels as churned as a bowl of bread dough.

  “He likes you more than me,” Rosalía mutters.

  Not an amused tone, though Ivy smiles as she breaks the dry cake in half and passes one to Rosalía in the dark. It is not hard, as it appears, but light, almost fluffy, and easy to chew. Tastes of sweet, wild honey, cinnamon, a spicy, savory bite in the background, wash over her tongue. Heaven. The most wonderful food—the only wonderful food—Ivy has tasted since she left the ranch and Aunt Abigail’s and her own cooking.

  She chews with her burning eyes closed, swallowing each small bite with regret.

  At last, she says, “Or he assumes I need more help.”

  By the next day, her arm is stiffer than ever, left hip badly bruised from the fall. Yet the rest of her feels alive again. She finds Luck almost easy to manage all day. Although this could be from the mare’s exhaustion. Also, at last, the mountain air does not feel quite so thin.

  They fix savory pancakes with lard and salt, even a relatively pleasant texture accomplished by the baking soda in Rosalía’s possession, along
with more meat and coffee. Rosalía provides edible herbs and some kind of white, extremely bitter root for a touch of variety. Now the horses are in poorer shape for feed than they are, out of packed grain, scavenging for grasses and leaves, unable to find enough to eat in these mountains at night, losing condition. Besides this, the gun-shot man, Hoyt, develops a fever with his wound all but untreated.

  Once more, Ivy beds away with Rosalía, watching for her fox long past sunset, finally curling down in wool alone.

  Remarkable how quickly she can fall asleep on the ground, in the cold, in pain these days. Sheer exhaustion of the trail leaves her nearly able to drift off in the saddle.

  Tonight, however, she cannot be certain if she just dozed off, or wakes to the ear-splitting sound of a scream seconds after curling up. Either way, she is back on her feet as if yanked there by wires, cloak around her, every nerve vibrating until her teeth chatter and chills race up her spine. Rosalía is also on her feet, carbine in hand.

  Screaming. Not only screaming—a tiny light in camp, match or candle.

  Ivy runs toward them, turns, crashes into Rosalía, nearly knocks both flat.

  “Do not shoot,” Ivy gasps, catching Rosalía’s shoulders. “Do not call out. Remain as silent as you can. No matter what.” Even as she speaks, a revolver shot from one of the men rings out through their camp.

  Running. Light flaring up, the match knocked from the careless hand, miniature golden flames bursting knee-high among underbrush.

  Horses neighing, calling from their hobbles nearby, trying to bolt, tripping and stumbling in brush and their binds.

  Crack of a revolver from Grip, jumping backward as a dark shape flies past him, leaping like a panther onto the screaming man, already set upon by a black figure. Silent. Them silent, only eating, tearing, one with Billy’s arm nearly torn off in its teeth, the other biting into his face. Sam clubbing one with the butt of his rifle. Hoyt pulling Billy with bound hands. All a dark blur with the sparking point of light spreading. More coming.

  All in a second as Ivy reaches Grip, catches his arm, “Out.” Voice tight, panicked, but not a shout. Never a shout. “Away. Do not shoot. Do not speak. Now. Or we will die.”

  Black shape, running, rushing for flames, snapping brush, clicking teeth. Hot, powerful, rotten odor filling her nose, filling the camp, taking her breath.

  Wham—something smashes past her as she grabs for Melchior, trying to deliver the same message. She pitches against him, both thrown to earth as the cold form smashes into Hoyt. Billy’s scream rises to a single, piercing note which sets every fine hair on her body on end.

  “Do not shoot—” Again the message, the panic, controlled. Control the panic to act, get out, or die.

  Another figure races over the top of them, kicking Ivy’s shoulder, falling, then lunging forward with open mouth and arms. Hoyt’s agonized scream lifts as Billy’s is cut short. More feet around them, more forms rushing in.

  Rosalía pulls Sam back, eyes huge in reflecting firelight. Grip grabs Lagarto. Melchior, scrambling to his knees, catches his saddle horn and heaves it with packs attached out toward the horses, then two others in quick succession. Rosalía and Sam stagger backward, her clutching his rifle, trying to pull it away from him, or else keeping him with her. Grip drags Lagarto, hands and feet bound, by an arm, the slighter man hopping and falling against him.

  Ivy backs toward the horses, breath fast, so shallow it seems each one comes at the speed of her racing heart. More black figures, dead eyes, lightning motions. Dashing in, sinking teeth into the thrashing, screaming Hoyt, who beats in a frenzy at cold, clammy backs and heads and hands with his own two bound.

  Grip passes her with Lagarto. All this side, herself now the closest, still backing, still watching, still silent. Gasps, leather creaking, horses snorting, throwing saddles onto frightened animals in the dark. Panting breaths, faint whispers.

  “Shhh,” Ivy hisses like the breeze, gaze never leaving the fire, the frenzied, scrabbling shapes, diving in for more mouthfuls.

  The flailing Hoyt thrashes his way into brush flames, emitting another shriek as he is followed, pinned there, twisting and writhing. In the next second, the fire is smothered. Light vanishes. A smell of smoke fills the air as thick as that of rotten flesh.

  Blackness.

  More screams, cries, then this too is cut off.

  Teeth ripping, bodies shifting against one another, pressing, forcing in, snapping down, fabric and flesh tearing away in chunks. No human voice. No earthly noise. Chewing, grinding, slide and press of dead flesh across dead flesh.

  Cinches tightened in darkness behind her. Horses snort, paw. A bit jingles.

  Ivy steps backward, moving slowly, setting down each heel with infinite care, one arm extended behind. Her hand runs into a butter-soft hide and seam of a breast pocket. Grip.

  “Up the trail, where Rosalía and I camped.” A breath, hardly a sound. “Then you know our course toward Santa Fé?”

  He shifts away at her directions, leading his horse, walking with great care, though only so much may be done about movement of the horses. Ivy hears huffing breaths, snapping twigs, heavy hooves, as the company moves by inches from the spot.

  Again she waits, never turning, never taking her eyes from the dark spot of motion. With the fire gone, her vision can take in the faintest silver outlines by starlight, shifting, heaving backs and arms and heads, all feeding.

  Strong fingers press into her shoulder, the hand trembling as violently as she does. Ivy half turns, taking Luck’s lead rope from Melchior, walking with him and Chucklehead, slowly, carefully, up the trail, holding his hand with her free one so she can keep her gaze fixed back on the spot of the camp as she departs.

  Ahead, Rosalía finds their two saddles. She tacks her horse while Sam brings Luck’s. She can tell he is about to speak, but again whispers, “Shhh,” and no one makes a noise beyond the gentle saddling, then mounting, just as carefully as they walked up here.

  With Grip in the lead, then Rosalía and Lagarto, Ivy, Sam, and Melchior, they ride at a slow walk through the darkness of their valley camp, into tall pines, up a hidden trail through a black forest, all in dead silence.

  Thirteenth

  Like a Regular Fine City

  The candle: three captives kept up late in a bunch by the feverish Hoyt. Melchior, being the responsible party on watch, thoughtfully lit Sam’s candle stub for them, allowing them light enough to roll cigarettes with tied hands. Lagarto corroborates the story that Billy refused to return the candle once they were all smoking, or blow it out. He warmed his hands, cradling the stub between his knees until Melchior grew suspicious that he may try burning through his rope bonds. Then he was struck, the screaming began, and the flame was knocked into grass, where it took.

  All for a candle and a smoke.

  Ivy tries not to think of the loss of five hundred dollars, two-fifty once split with Grip, as they ride the next day toward Santa Fé. On their final afternoon, with the adobe city visible a mile off, riding down a slope among sparse pines, she keeps her thoughts on her horse, her posture, steamcoaches, blue skies.

  Two human lives. Not two-hundred and fifty dollars. Two lives.

  Would they have been hanged anyway? If that was the case....

  Hot water. Surely she can have a bath somewhere. She must find a way to communicate her need to the girl of all work.

  The sun is still well up, the afternoon hot, as their horses find the grooved road leading into Santa Fé from the north. Ivy feels a rush of mixed emotions for the place. On one hand, a cage. On the other, relief. Not exactly riding home but—hungry, exhausted, filthy, arm burning, horse tired, still feeling half-naked—the next best thing.

  Ivy and Sam turn for the livery stable while Rosalía heads the other way and Melchior and Grip go on through the center of town to take Lagarto to Sheriff Thurman.

  “Grip!”

  Ivy starts, though Luck hardly lifts her sagging head.

  An Anglo w
oman in eastern-style homespun dress dashes from a side street toward the buckskin rider now nearing the Plaza.

  Ivy and Sam pause, watching, and Ivy notices Rosalía turning Volar.

  “Not a word!” the woman goes on, racing to reach El Cohete. “I was so worried—thank the Lord—”

  Grip leans away in his saddle as if a savage dog leaps at his knee.

  Melchior and Lagarto only stare, but Rosalía pushes Volar to a trot and hurries after them.

  Several spectators, mostly men and children, turn from their business along porches and portals before adobe buildings to watch with evident appreciation for the diversion.

  Ivy can no longer hear what the woman says as she reaches her quarry and no longer shouts.

  Grip seems to be mumbling replies, head bowed below his hat, his horse sidestepping, which Ivy suspects is at a signal.

  As Rosalía dismounts to take the woman’s hand, Sam nudges Elsewhere on and Ivy reluctantly allows Luck to follow. She glances back several times. Grip and the two men move on while Rosalía, one hand on her horse’s reins, the other arm around the young woman’s back, turns off once more.

  Ivy catches hints of their words before they vanish.

  “—thought I’d never see him again.”

  “How is your mother, Winter?”

  Bath. Ivy hears the magical word in her head as she leads Luck to a stall, feels the water around her as she helps Sam fight the headstall off her ears, smells lavender soap as she waves away flies. Sam talks about doctors, telling her to sit down, he will take her. Ivy hardly hears him over the gentle sloshing water on the sides of a porcelain tub.

  They are on their way out when Melchior arrives, leading Chucklehead.

  “If you can see about our rooms, I shall take Ivy to the doctor,” Sam tells him. “Any idea where there is one?”

  “Dr. Hintzen. Near the river. ’Specting he could be the only fellow left in town.”

  “Then let us hope he remains in good health himself. Ivy?”

  She has started past them, toward the boarding house.