The Stories: Five Years of Original Fiction on Tor.com

by Various

  Maria snapped hers on the table char up like the high card in a hand of poker, pulled back fingers dusted black.

  Faye wasn’t surprised. Anyone can be run off once, but roots take stronger, sometimes, on strange soil.

  (They were around this table, weren’t they?)

  Fa Liang sighed, and scratched at the back of his neck, and set down his chit with the pale side up.

  Joseph was quiet for a little while before he spoke.

  “I’m a free man, and if any man questions me, I have his answer. But I don’t know as I want any more fighting.”

  His bark went on the table, the pale side up.

  Frank sat forward, slid the black chit into the center of the table.

  Elijah pressed a fist to the wall behind him. “This won’t bring any peace,” he said.

  “Expect not,” said Frank.

  Then everyone at the table turned to look at Faye.

  Frank didn’t. Frank had closed his eyes, laced his hands tight against his stomach.

  He did that, sometimes, when he was frightened.

  Faye wished Elijah hadn’t asked her.

  She’d wanted to leave three winters back, as soon as they could walk, but Frank asked to stay the night, and then they’d met the others, and the dogs.

  Despite everything, Frank loved this place, where their ancestors might have lived, and somehow she had tricked herself that if they were happy, this was home; but it never had been, and it couldn’t be.

  Home was a safe place. That was gone.

  Now there was only Frank, fingers curled against the necklace he’d bought in River Pass from a trader, because it was what he remembered of their father, long white strands looped like armor.

  She tossed the bark back into the fire.

  “No vote,” Elijah said, trying to hide a smile.

  When she looked at Frank’s face, her heart broke.

  Don’t doubt me, she thought, more angry at him than at the men who’d tried to burn them out.

  She’d freed them from the school; she’d led them to homeland again; she’d trained gangly boys to ride the dogs and never been so far as the summit by herself, because he’d asked her not to go, and she’d promised.

  If she didn’t want them fighting, he should know why; they’d seen what happened when you were outnumbered.

  She let the wind slam the door behind her.

  Faye remembered being young, when the land was the earth and the marks of antelope and the horizon that told you what was coming and plants growing in the shadow of the rocks.

  At the school, she’d learned about barren. Barren was what happened to bad women, to the crops of people who did wrong. In the prayers they repeated until their tongues were numb, there was the hope of plenty, the fear of the blank land.

  She found the path to their cabin without really looking, set herself on the hard-packed dirt that marked three years of habit.

  There was a chill on the breeze, the edge of a winter that was still far off.

  She knew why Frank wanted to make a stand. She just couldn’t risk it.

  If he would only leave, she’d go tonight, head for the mountains, never stop moving.

  Their cabin was on a little rise, and she could tell its shape by the way it blocked the stars.

  It was close enough to home, sometimes.

  Of all the things that had been taken from her, she missed most the days when she looked across the place that had been home, and hadn’t yet learned what empty was.

  She was still awake at dawn, looking across the plain to the disappearing stars, when Frank found her.

  “What’s happened?”

  “Elijah’s gone to speak to the mayor.” He sat with her. “How are your burns?”

  “I’ll live.”

  “I was calling for you.”

  “I know,” she said.

  They sat that way, not talking, just together and awake, until there was enough light to start work on the barn.

  They worked all day, hacking out dead boards and scavenging replacements, trying to fit a home for the dogs.

  “We could board them with the horses,” Joseph said.

  Maria frowned. “Absolutely not. Those dogs will go in the sitting room first.”

  “I’d beat you in a race through the house,” Fa Liang said, and across Dog 2, Faye gave him a look until he laughed.

  They worked until the supper bell, and ate quickly, too sore and tired to make conversation.

  It wasn’t until Maria was pouring coffee that the empty chair occurred to Faye.

  “What time did Elijah leave this morning?”

  Maria paused.

  Then she pulled back with the pot in her hands, counting his hours, her knuckles going white.

  “Oh please no,” she said.

  They stood up so fast they knocked their chairs over, a clatter that echoed as they ran for the dogs.

  Because the land was what it was, Faye and Fa Liang saw the horse two miles before they reached him.

  Whoever did it had waited until Elijah was on his own ground to shoot him.

  His horse was loyal, and stood only a few yards from where his body had fallen—just past his property line, crossed by the long shadow of the sign for Western Fleet.

  Fa Liang was the one who lifted the body and carried him to the dog.

  (Faye couldn’t imagine touching him; he was the sort who hadn’t presumed.)

  When Father Jake came to consecrate the ground, Susannah Pell came with him.

  They all went up the hill in a ragged procession behind the cart that held Elijah’s coffin, and they stood in a line beside the grave as the father said things that didn’t matter.

  After it was over, Father Jake walked with Maria to the house, and Fa Liang and Joseph began to cover the coffin.

  The dirt landed with heavy thuds, as if their fear and sorrow had cracked the land, and Elijah was sinking into a place that would never be quiet again.

  Frank took the harness of the cart horse. Faye fell into step with him.

  So did Susannah Pell.

  “I have her papers,” Miss Pell told Faye. “Let’s hope she can keep the land.”

  So it was theirs to defend; the law would never freely give.

  “Not with the railroad men coming,” Faye muttered.

  “They’re afraid of you,” Miss Pell said.

  Faye looked over. “What?”

  “They’re cowards,” Miss Pell said, with too much feeling for someone at the county clerk’s. “Grant calls you awful names in town, makes out like you’re trying to rob them of a chance.”

  “What are they saying?” Faye asked.

  “Things no one should believe. Joseph’s a drunk, he says. Fa Liang worked for opium traders.”

  Frank raised his eyebrows. “And?”

  After a moment she admitted, “They say you have dark magic—you raise ghosts.”

  Faye flinched.

  Frank reached out for her absently, pulled back. He wasn’t a man of much comfort.

  “If I could raise ghosts,” said Frank, “they would be right to be afraid.”

  Miss Pell smiled tightly, moved faster to catch up with Father Jake and Maria.

  “We should leave here,” Faye said.

  Frank looked at her.

  “Where would we go?”

  He sounded as if he was thinking it over. Her chest went tight with hope.

  Twice before, he’d run when she asked him to.

  “Someplace quiet,” she said. “Free of people. Free. I want to look at the sky and know there’s no one else for fifty miles.”

  He put his hands in his pockets and looked sidelong at the horizon.

  (For a moment he looked like the little boy he’d been the first time the schoolmaster had accused them of black magic, for speaking their language.)

  “I’d feel like a coward if I ran.”

  “Then feel like a coward,” she said, “and live.”

  After a moment, he turne
d and led the horse and cart toward the stable, on the far side of the big house.

  For all she ached for home, she knew Frank’s anger. The whites had done things that shouldn’t even be spoken, yet they’d forgiven themselves. And now the train was trying to stretch an iron road across the land between them.

  You just can’t be dead enough for some people. They want to burn your footprints right off the earth.

  They slept in the big house together—it was safer to take watches through the day.

  There was no one left to speak for them. The town had done what was right, on paper. It was waiting to see if the railroad overcame, now that the man who mattered was dead.

  By evening they were awake, preparing for the worst.

  “We should fit up the dogs,” Faye said as they loaded rifles at the table.

  “What with?” asked Fa Liang.

  “Claws,” she said. “Blades. Something that can kill.”

  “They’re mounts,” said Joseph.

  “They’re weapons,” she said. “Arm them.”

  Maria, who was distributing bullets, looked up.

  “One blade,” she said. “Under the turn of the ankle. They won’t see it until you use it.”

  Joseph looked at her.

  But Frank and Fa Liang and Faye rose, to take blades from the kitchen and start their work.

  Grant and the railroad men waited until deep night before they came.

  As the cloud of orange dust rose behind their horses in the light of the torches they carried, Faye realized they must have been waiting to see if help arrived. They were sure, now, that it wouldn’t; there was no hurry.

  “We’ll lead them away from the house,” said Joseph.

  He was too tall for a good dog rider, but he’d brought Elijah’s horse from the barn, and had a rifle in one hand.

  “Stay here,” said Faye. “Maria will defend the house. Don’t leave her alone.”

  Joseph looked at them, loading up their dogs with weapons and water.

  “She’s right,” said Fa Liang. “Good luck.”

  After a beat, Joseph nodded, and turned for the house.

  Faye mounted Dog 2, slung her rifle in the holster and her pistol at her side.

  “Make for the hills,” she said. “Fa Liang, flank them. We’ll take them out from the rocks. Frank, with me.”

  “Of course,” said Frank, and grinned, his mouth a bright sliver of white in the dark.

  “You’re a fool,” she said, smiling.

  “Ride out,” said Fa Liang, and three engines started with a clunk and a shriek and a roar.

  The dogs ate up ground toward the hills, which were easy enough to hide in and take shots while you could.

  “How many are there?” Frank asked once.

  She risked a look, in between the pistons of her dog’s left legs, but behind them was only thunder and a soft glow, dimmer, as if some had broken off to burn the big house instead.

  “Hope you brought plenty of bullets,” she said.

  Frank laughed, which numbed her fear a little; it was dark, and they knew the ground better than a stranger could, and any minute they’d reach the hills.

  She’d forgotten about the barn fire, in the chaos; when two left ankles on Frank’s dog snapped, it took a moment too long to remember what happens to metal tempered in haste.

  “Frank!” she called as soon as he dropped from sight. She gripped the rings and pulled; Dog 2 spun with a screech, circling back to him. “Quick, take the middle leg from mine. There’s time if we move.”

  “There’s no time,” he said. His dog limped a few paces. It was slow, but the joints might hold long enough to reach the rocks.

  The men were gaining; she could see two men with torches, two more in shadow.

  “Get to the hills,” she said.

  He was testing the broken legs, finding a gait that could support him.

  “Go on,” he said through gritted teeth. “Fast as you can.”

  She hesitated. Her heart was pounding so hard it sounded like another horse coming after them.

  One of the silhouettes, she could see, was Grant.

  Her throat was dry.

  “No,” she said, “no, come now, come on, Frank—”

  “Faye,” he said, turned to her with a look she’d never seen. “Go on. I’m right behind you, soon as I can.”

  (She’d said the same to him, a long time ago, just before the soldiers reached them.)

  The horses were coming into sight.

  “Go on!” Frank shouted, gunned the engine, aimed the limping dog to follow her.

  A gun went off, close, too close.

  Faye took the hill.

  It was slick and steep, and a struggle even for the dog, and she was fifty feet up before she realized there was no sound behind her but the thunder of the horses.

  Frank, she thought, with a stab of guilt and sorrow sharp enough to tear her open; Frank, I would have stayed with you.

  She didn’t need to look to know what he’d done so she could escape; before she could turn, she heard two shots crossing and a sharp cry.

  (It was a voice she’d know among a hundred voices.)

  A body landed in the dirt.

  She spun, hardly breathing, her hands white-knuckle on the shifts, and tilted back so the dog’s front talons rose high, blades out.

  The rifle appeared at her shoulder, two shots in quick succession. Someone shouted; there was a clatter of hooves on the rocks.

  She’d take the hillside screaming, and kill who she could, before Grant got her.

  She dropped the rifle in her lap, gunned the engine.

  She never made it.

  The rider who crested the hill on her right flank was one of Grant’s railroaders.

  He’d cast a wide net, she thought. He hadn’t wanted survivors.

  The man must have been nervous going up a rock face so sheer; it took a moment before he looked up and caught his first and last glimpse of a dog of the Western Fleet.

  By the time she reached the bottom of the hill, Grant and his men had vanished.

  Frank was already gone.

  She sat with him for a little while, pushed his hair from his forehead and closed his eyes.

  She didn’t know any songs. (There was so little left).

  So she told him the story he’d loved as a child, of the warrior who sought his stolen wife in the enemy camp, and the old grandmother who advised him and called him from the dead when he was torn to pieces, and when the man had his wife he brought the grandmother home as well, because it’s good not to leave behind those who care for you.

  Her fingers were slick; she’d pulled at the rings until they bled.

  When the worst of her trembling was over, she carried him to the dog, for his last journey home.

  The others were in the yard, shouting plans to find them—Joseph was the fastest draw, Maria was on horseback, and Fa Liang had broken Dog 1 but was changing mounts, and knew how long it took railroad men to regroup.

  Three men were scattered, dead, in the pool of light from the house.

  Good, she thought dimly.

  When Fa Liang saw Faye, his arms dropped as if grief had knocked him in the chest.

  When Maria saw them, she dismounted and went inside, to clear the table for the dead.

  Joseph reached for Frank, but hesitated, so Faye could object if she wanted to.

  She didn’t. Her strength was coming and going. She could barely walk.

  (Joseph could carry him, they had built the water pump in the yard together, they’d been clever and now Frank never would be, never again, her hands were cold.)

  They laid him on the table in the front room. Faye smoothed his hair down his shoulders, wiped blood from his face, laced his hands across his stomach in his old habit.

  He’d wanted so much to fight for home, and win.

  She yanked her hair out of its plaits, dragged her fingers through it, just for something to do with her hands.

  Ou
tside, she heard horses and engines, and people calling. Maria was riding for town to demand the sheriff honor her claim. Joseph was going with her, as armed guard.

  There was a clatter as Fa Liang set the dog on watch.

  When Faye looked into the hanging mirror on the far wall, there were two doubles in the frame; the weeping one reached out, took the cool hand of the other.

  Maria and Joseph came back with grim faces, and spoke to Fa Liang. Then they came into the sitting room.

  “To pay respects,” Maria said.

  Faye wanted to ask what had happened, but her throat was dry.

  Through the window she could see down the flats to the horizon. She’d watched that open line a long time.

  “They’re debating if it’s legal to interfere,” Maria said, as if to Frank, before she left.

  “You don’t have to stay,” Fa Liang told Faye, when it was his turn.

  That was cruel, she thought; he had to know how hard it was to part from a brother.

  There should be something, she thought, when the others had gone. There should be someone here who could prepare Frank for a good journey home.

  But there wasn’t. Grant and his men would be back. There was no time, even if she knew what should be done.

  She couldn’t even dress him the way he should be dressed; he had only the one necklace. The rest of it was any man’s clothes.

  She sat beside him for a long time, wishing she could cut her hair.

  Frank had made her promise never to, after they cut his at the school. She’d given her word. He’d grown his hair out, since—it was as long as hers—but still, she’d never touched it.

  Her hands ached for a pair of shears.

  She thought about the people in River Pass, who wanted the railroad, and worried Frank would raise the dead against them.

  To the north, if she could swing wide of prospectors, she’d be free. Shoshone territory had been eaten whole, but if she left this behind, she could look for land they might not yet have thought to steal.

  All that had kept her here was Frank—his hope of making a safe place, his belief in holding firm.

  It seemed a betrayal to go on alone.

  She sat beside him, thinking about what it meant to stay here, about how much she was willing to fight.

  Then she rose, and took what she needed, and kissed him good-bye.

  What Grant and the Union Pacific see, when they come to lay claim to Elijah Pike’s lands, is a campfire burning high behind a six-legged metal dog, front legs raised with blades out, bearing a single rider.