Lightfall Four: Risk, Rise, Rebel (Lightfall, Book 4)

by Taylor, Jordan

  “What do you do at the ball?” Rosalía asked, admiring the box with Ivy.

  “Dance.” In gloves. But Ivy felt more dazed than a moment before and could scarcely think what ball Rosalía meant.

  “Isn’t that what they’re all for?”

  “I suppose. It’s for ... coming out to society as a lady. A grown woman. Her parents can begin considering suitors and she may be courted at the ball and after.”

  “Not before seventeen?” Rosalía offered her the bread plate but Ivy felt too disoriented to eat yet.

  She shook her head. “Twenty is the youngest many respectable families in Boston wish their daughters to marry these days.”

  Rosalía looked even more startled.

  Winter brought Ivy a ceramic mug of cold horchata. “Are you all right, Ivy? You look pale. I am so sorry if we upset you.”

  “No, Winter. I only—you surprised me—of course. Thank you so much for doing this.”

  Winter’s worried gaze lingered on her, taking in duster, pants, belted, dark red tunic, now her Stetson, until Ivy felt certain her own face was no longer pale.

  “You did a wonderful job, Ivy. Your work is lovely.” Her smile was strained, but she did smile.

  “Thank you.” Ivy flushed.

  Rosalía kicked Ivy’s shin as Winter hurried back to the table before Buen, already being scolded by Sofía, got his tiny fingers in the cake.

  “See? Lovely,” Rosalía said.

  “She does not approve,” Ivy said.

  Rosalía cocked her head. “Proving?”

  “That I made a mistake?”

  Rosalía let out her breath. “Really, Ivy. You can do better. Sometimes you don’t even try.”

  Ivy sipped the cold drink, wishing her heart-rate would slow. She knew Winter was kind—and a good friend and raised to say nothing if she had nothing agreeable to say—without Rosalía trying to get her to find morals in a few seconds of conversation.

  She thought of asking where all the food came from, but suspected she knew. Winter kept a garden and milk cow. Sam knew every soul in town, even new arrivals.

  She tried on the hat instead of attempting conversation.

  Rosalía caught Melchior by the elbow as he stepped past them for chicken. “Cabeza Hueca and English have your best gift.” She smiled around at Melchior.

  “Sam wanted to.” Melchior wedged his thumbs into his belt.

  “To throw the party?” Ivy looked up at him.

  “That also. Arranged it with Miss Night. No.” Glaring at the woven mat. “He ... we ... paid for your horse.”

  “You what?”

  “We paid Íñigo for that—for the black mare. She’s yours.”

  Pressing her mug on Rosalía and leaving the rest behind, Ivy leapt up to hug him.

  “All right,” he mumbled, pushing her gingerly away by her shoulders.

  Ivy released him to embrace Sam, whispering, “Thank you,” again and again.

  No ball gown. Forget white gloves. But she knew enough by then to appreciate she needed wonderful friends and her own horse far more than a suitor anyway.

  Sixtieth

  Crossing Moonlight

  Moonlight reflected off the surface of the river in millions of dancing fragments. Rush of powerful water filled the night with a roar magnified by darkness and an otherwise motionless landscape.

  Standing on the rocky bank, watching silver lights skip across black, Ivy shivered. Corra touched her shoulder with a warm nose, blowing against Ivy’s sleeve. Ivy reached to stroke velvet fur with her knuckles, not taking her eyes from the Rio Grande.

  Finally moving again, on their way, the first days of October, hardly out from Santa Fé, and this.

  A fish jumped: long, silver, gleaming like steel in moonlight, more ghost than living creature.

  A second horse snorted beside them. Melchior and Chucklehead stood to their left, smooth shapes of darkness outlined by dancing light.

  Melchior glanced at her.

  Ivy nodded.

  Chucklehead tossed his head, lifting a fretful forefoot to stomp. Silently, Melchior waved a finger in the stallion’s face, dragging his head down by the chin strap. Chucklehead flattened his ears, but desisted.

  They mounted to move north along the rocky bank, going at a walk, keeping silent themselves, though able to do nothing about the noise of hooves on stone and sand. Ivy could smell the faint reek of rot even here, as if faded into the earth.

  Fifty yards up, they saw shadows of two riders with two pack horses coming to meet them. A large, short-haired dog was also just visible at the river’s edge. As they drew up to the pair, Grip waved for them and held out his left arm, gesturing to the water he and Sam faced. Ivy and Melchior studied the current, Melchior already shaking his head.

  Whitewater burst above a stretch of boulders just north of the spot, creating a lull immediately to this side, though the current was still savage.

  Ivy glanced at Melchior. He lifted a hand to get Grip’s attention, indicating the speed, then pointing in the direction they came from. He nodded and moved his hand slowly. Ivy agreed with her own nods.

  Grip shook his head. He held up his right arm horizontally, left hand flat, three inches above it. He pointed downstream and lifted his hand to ten inches over the arm.

  Ivy bit her lip, sitting back in the saddle. Corra twitched one ear, waiting.

  Fast current or deep water?

  She looked again to the whitewater leaping before them. Was it not absurd enough that they were considering this in the dark? In the heart of the lion’s den? In silence? She could not see herself pushing her mount into that spray. Better to swim than break their horses’ legs and their own necks.

  Ivy pointed downriver with Melchior’s silent but animated support.

  Grip jabbed a finger toward the opposite bank.

  Sam, with the two pack horses and Elsewhere, remained motionless on Grip’s right, watching them.

  Each second added danger.

  Ivy neck-reined Corra around to start back, Chucklehead beside them.

  She heard El Cohete, Elsewhere, Little Bird, and Two Pair follow, though she was sure only Grip’s desire to avoid being eaten kept him from shouting after her.

  Back to the deep but relatively still spot of jumping fish and rippling moonlight. Melchior tossed the loop of his lariat to Sam, who caught it and turned Elsewhere, giving the pack animals slack, to locate something to tie onto.

  Corra snorted. El Cohete’s head lifted. The dog growled, hardly loud enough to be heard over the river. Chucklehead started forward into dark water.

  Ivy drew in her reins, fine hair at the back of her neck prickling. Something moved. Something clear: a head by moonlight, shifting crunch of rock. Close.

  No time for ropes. Catching her breath, heart leaping into her throat, Ivy clapped her heels to the mare’s sides and leaned forward as Corra plunged into the black and silver river.

  Water sprayed Ivy’s legs, filled her boots, reached her knees. Corra rushed ahead in darkness, lifting her forefeet to strike out with each bound, neck arched, head up, water bursting past her ears, splashing Ivy’s face, soaking her duster to her shoulders. She could not see if Melchior was ahead, to the side, or behind, nor hear anything but roaring water.

  The mare beat her hooves into river rock and pushed against the bottom, the current halfway up her shoulder. She kicked off, lunged, then plummeted into a hidden drop.

  All summer with hardly any rain. Still only a few days’ precipitation in September. How could the river possibly be deep enough, anywhere along its length, to swallow a horse? But Ivy hadn’t a second to contemplate the matter as her head went under.

  Her duster billowed in her face. The strap on her Stetson bit into her throat. Kicking free of stirrups, thrashing with both arms, still holding her reins, Ivy fought upward in the dark while pressure of current and horse sucked her toward the bottom. The coat dragged her back, mouth and nose and eyes filled with frigid, muddy water.
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  Something heavy smashed her face, Corra surged against her, then Ivy’s head broke the surface with an explosion in her ears like gunpowder. The rein pulled tight with a snap in her hand as she was hurled downstream. How could moonlit water have looked so sluggish from the bank?

  Ivy clawed for purchase higher up on the leather strap, fighting to pull herself toward Corra. The horse’s head plunged below the surface, then up, striking out, struggling to swim while Ivy’s weight dragged her head downstream. Ivy lunged for the saddle horn. Her numb fingers slipped across wet leather and she was buffeted down like a paper boat, taking in a mouthful of river.

  Completely underwater, pitch black, choking, panicking, she kicked, pulled herself on the rein, and caught Corra’s mane. Another grab and she reached pommel and horn, at last able to release the mare’s head so she could fight toward the Rio’s west bank.

  Still they traveled sideways, Corra kicking into bottom rock, then being tossed as she tried to strike out.

  Crash. “Got you!”

  Water knocked from her lungs, Ivy smashed into someone at her back as she clung onto Corra. Sam and Elsewhere might have been downriver, but this was not Sam’s voice.

  An arm in hers, pulling her with another powerfully swimming horse, this rider still in the saddle even as the horse was nearly submerged. Ivy kicked, swimming with them for the bank.

  All eight hooves struck rocky river bottom. Horses surged upward as the rider slipped off against Ivy. Her own boots kicked into mud. Choking, gagging up water, shaking from head to toe, Ivy staggered to dry sand and rock, Corra’s rein still twisted around her fist.

  Someone behind her was coughing and gasping just as much. “What happened? You all took off—” More choking and spitting.

  Ivy turned, bent almost double. “Rose? What in the—?” Ivy choked up more water, grabbing a dripping stirrup to avoid dropping to hands and knees. “How did you get here?”

  “Ivy!” Sam’s voice, calling from upriver, searching for her.

  A surge of fear raced down her spine. “Quiet!” Then she dropped her voice once more, grabbing Rosalía’s elbow in darkness. “We must get out of here. Did everyone make it? What is that?”

  A third dark bulk staggered from the river after them. A pack horse?

  “Quickly,” she caught and pulled herself up into the soaking saddle as Corra snorted and shuddered.

  Eyes stinging, still coughing, Ivy blinked into darkness for her companions. Shapes of horses, one or two still coming into the bank. It seemed all three men were upriver from them. Except ... there were not three men with their horses. There were several.

  Ivy squeezed both soaked legs against stirrup leather. Corra sprang up along the bank, head tossing.

  “Go!” Ivy shouted, reaching for her own gun belt, safe at her side, but would the four-round work? Would any of their guns work without attention and drying first?

  All three men were in their saddles, Ivy trusting to Rosalía’s speed behind her, the pack horse’s tugged along on their halters, as the group of them charged up the bank. Dark figures were knocked aside as they started around brush and rocks. But subdued—slowed after all night in cool darkness, startled by the sudden sound of a feast they could hardly see or follow as it whirled about them.

  Corra thundered past outstretched arms, reaching fingers, snapping teeth. Knocking two aside, head tossing, wet mane slapping Ivy’s arms and face. She burst through a stand of brush, smashed past another figure, dashed onto the flat country west of the river, and extended her stride.

  In seconds, the black mare had her head down, legs flying, reins loose as Ivy stood up in her stirrups, fingers twined through wet mane. Force of cold air made her soaked duster flap against her arms, puffing out at her back. She had never ridden a horse at a gallop in the dead of night across open country with no one leading. Holes, rocks, even brush were killers at this speed. But what ahead could be as frightening as what came behind?

  Sixty-First

  Sunrise

  “What happened?” Grip sounded angry. “Why did you follow?”

  “What happened to you?” Rosalía asked. “What could possess you to cross the Rio in the middle of the night? Didn’t you know it was crawling—?”

  “We had the matter under control. Until your appearance spooked the—”

  “That’s what happened,” Melchior said. “Didn’t swagger we’d stirred up a nest, then seeing shadows after us. Snails, you could’ve got us killed—”

  “I could have? Maybe you shouldn’t ride to the river in the middle of—”

  “Under control,” Grip said. “Before your aid. What are you—?”

  “Quiet,” Ivy said, reining back. “Look.”

  The company behind her stopped, all looking silently back as they watched the first rays of sunlight crest the purple horizon.

  Ivy let out her breath. Camp.

  With teeth chattering, still wet all over, often glancing eastward as if to hurry the sun, the five of them were at last able to strip their horses and drag together a sizable sagebrush fire.

  Grip started in again while El Cohete rolled in the dirt as soon as his saddle was removed. “What are you doing out here?”

  Rosalía pulled off Volar’s bridle. The seal brown horse rubbed his damp brow up and down her arm. “We thought we’d come with you.”

  “No.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You are not going to Monument,” Grip said.

  “And you are not my father.” Rosalía turned to fix hobbles on the second horse she brought along to pack: the rundown brown gelding which they gave Íñigo in August after the death of the previous rider.

  “You have responsibilities at home—”

  “Sarita and Amaya and Íñigo will look after Mamá and Papá. I can be gone a fortnight out of a season. I want to see the Kaibab.”

  “You will return to Santa Fé after breakfast.” El Cohete stood to shake himself while Grip ignored him.

  “It will take longer than breakfast for us to dry and ride anywhere. I’m not traveling a night and a day in a soaking saddle.”

  “Why did you follow?”

  “See you’re held up,” Melchior snapped from several yards away, fighting with wet pack saddle traces, “but there won’t be breakfast if half don’t make a hand.”

  Rosalía hurried to strip the brown pack horse. Grip fetched more brush. Sam and Melchior tended the horses. Ivy spread all she could as close to the growing blaze as possible.

  Saddles, blankets, bedrolls, ropes, compressed hay and sacks of oats and corn for the horses. Beans and cornmeal for the riders. A few canned goods and other small luxuries. Pack saddles, canvas, handkerchiefs, pouches of tobacco and tiny papers. The only object among their kit not soaked were matches in a watertight tin.

  By the time the rest were through with their tasks, a blazing fire crackled below the rising sun. Everyone turned to the spreading of their outfit, opening sacks of grain in an effort to air in the sun, hanging garments on lariat lines strung on sagebrush, pulling off outer coats and waistcoats, chaps, boots, and hats as they shivered. Six handguns, one rifle, one carbine, one fire-shooter, and an assortment of knives and sheaths were also in need of attention. Other metallic objects were lined up in the sun: Ivy’s telescope, Sam’s silver pocket watch and compass, Melchior’s spurs, Rosalía’s rosary, three pairs of sungoggles, tin dishes.

  Standing in her unbelted tunic and loose pants, her damp hair tangled in a mess, barefoot on someone’s wet bedroll, Ivy gazed about the fire circle as Rosalía threw on more fuel.

  Sam leaned his boots as near the blaze as possible, also looking around. He appeared alarmed as he glanced at gleaming metal. “I had not realized we became such a military operation.”

  “Traveling carnival is what you are thinking of, Sam,” Ivy said.

  “If the routine shifts more south we’ll have to pay folks to attend,” Melchior said, stringing a second rope from one Russian thistle to another.
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  “Who wants to start breakfast?” Ivy turned her face into the sun, eyes closed.

  “¡Fuera!” Rosalía shouted.

  Ivy looked and joined her in waving her arms. Two Pair had walked almost up to the flames, despite his hobbles, pushing his way in among their packs and clothes, snuffling grain sacks.

  At the human assault, the pinto hopped back unsteadily, tried to wheel, but crashed into Melchior’s lariat. He tangled his hind hooves in a bedroll, bounced into the thistle, snapping branches, and was knocked on his haunches, grinding Ivy’s saddle into dirt. As he struggled to his feet, Melchior threw one arm and his waistcoat across the gelding’s head to lead him, blindfolded, away.

  A tarantula, apparently routed from its hole by the commotion, dashed across the bedroll keeping Ivy’s feet from prairie floor. She leapt clear of its path, striking Sam, who caught her shoulders and scarcely managed to avoid falling in the fire. Rosalía kicked the fuzzy arachnid with the toe of her boot, sending it soaring fifty feet into an overgrown thistle.

  Grip, on his knees by the fire, dragging Dutch oven and small iron skillet from hemp sacks, never looked up as Ivy apologized to Sam for hitting him and he to her for grabbing her and Rosalía watched the path of the tarantula.

  “What did you say?” Ivy rounded on Grip.

  He shook his head, looking around for lard or coffee or bacon. He held the skillet out to Rosalía. “Make yourself useful before you return home.”

  She stared at him, opened her mouth, closed it, then stepped past the fire. She bent to wrap her arms around his shoulders, kissing his damp hair.

  “What the hell, Rose?” Grip recoiled as if she dumped a basket of cottonmouths on him.

  She released him to grab the skillet.

  “What do you mean by it?” He still leaned away.

  “If I can practice restraint, so can you,” Rosalía said. “I mostly do. You do not. What do you want? Bacon and coffee or coffee and bacon?”

  “I can make cornbread,” Ivy said, looking around as Melchior returned, muttering about their rabbit-brained pack horse.