by Lila Bowen
Rhett drew a thumb over his badge and smiled. “Mr. Rhett Walker. I like the sound of that, although I do wonder what made the Captain choose it.”
Sam looked at him funny. “You don’t know? That’s the Captain’s name. Captain Abraham Walker.” His eyes went soft and his smile lopsided. “He must like you quite a bit, to give you use of his name like that. I reckon he figured it would raise suspicion, two Hennessy boys that look so unalike, traveling together. Rhett Walker’s a good name.”
“Show me.” Rhett edged closer to Sam and allowed himself to appreciate the warmth of the boy’s shoulder.
Sam pointed to a particularly clear bit of scribble. “Right here. See, this is an M, for Mister, and this is Rhett. R-H-E-T-T.”
“Why’s it need two t’s?”
Sam scratched his head. “I don’t rightly. But Hennessy’s got two s’s and two n’s, so I reckon it’s useful for something.” He handed the paper to Rhett, and his voice went low and whisper-quiet. “I could try to teach you your letters, Rhett. All this time we got on the prairie, we might as well. A learned man’s always respected, you know.”
Rhett swallowed hard, overcome with peculiar emotions. He felt the familiar rage that bubbled up every time someone took the trouble to point out one of his deficiencies, but that was mostly smothered out by the lovely dream of being able to read, of being any man’s equal. And the thought of cozy evenings by the fire, his hair touching Sam’s as they leaned together and puzzled over letters…well, he wouldn’t deny himself that pleasure, if nothing else. But he made his voice gruff, just so Sam wouldn’t think him weak.
“I reckon that’d be fine, Sam.”
Sam turned the full force of his grin on Rhett, whose knees went wobbly. “We’ll start tonight. But I reckon we ought to get on the road now, before Earl gets mad enough to spit.”
Rhett nodded, checked Ragdoll’s girth, and swung up into the saddle. There was a certain sensation, every time he mounted, that would never get old: his horse and his saddle and his guns, won honest. Of all the things he’d ever dared to dream of, these simple things that every other cowpoke took for granted would never lose their shine. He checked his watch as Dan gave Winifred a leg up onto her horse and helped her secure her crutch to her saddle. Earl undressed and transformed into donkey mode, and Sam calmed down his dancing palomino with whispered words of kindness.
This was Rhett’s company, and they were back on the road.
Nothing of any interest occurred that day, much to Rhett’s satisfaction. He was painfully relieved to dismount by a convenient creek for dinner and thoroughly vexed to discover just how saddle sore he felt. Then again, he’d been a bird for most of his last journey, and that served to make him feel fit and healthy when his feet touched ground again rather than achy and tender.
As if he were truly a captain, Rhett doled out work according to each person’s strengths. Sam was set to make the fire, Dan helped Winifred to a rock before going hunting, and Earl helped Rhett with the horses. As if sensing that this man was the same amicable donkey that had plodded by their sides, the horses took to him more than the annoying feller had any right to expect, and Rhett was more than happy to train him in their proper care. As Winifred sat, she sorted through the Captain’s black bag by the light of the sunset, exclaiming and humming over what she found and more than glad to have needle and thread. It took so little, Rhett supposed, to make women happy.
By the time the stars came out full force, they all sat around the fire in companionable silence, eating bits of steaming hot jackrabbit and greasy prairie chicken along with cold corn dodgers from Conchita’s bag. Rhett was pleased with his first day heading a small crew, grateful that everyone knew their place and no one caused trouble. He would’ve greatly preferred to ride out with the Rangers, but it was a stark pleasure not to be cheek by jowl with fellers who, whatever their reasons, disliked Rhett. He was soon fat-bellied and licking grease off his fingers, anticipating the sweet comfort of bedding down next to Sam, a pistol under each of the saddles that pillowed their heads.
But first, Rhett gestured them together to discuss tomorrow’s plans. Far as they could figure, looking at the Captain’s map, it was going to take around two weeks to hit Lamartine, if they didn’t run into too much trouble on the way. As Dan held the paper, Rhett studied the various lines and demarcations, wishing he knew what it all meant. Sam was kind enough to point out the sand wyrms that the Captain was hell-bent on curbing, as well as the place where someone among the Rangers had marked off the Cannibal Owl’s lair. Some fool had allowed his coffee cup to leave its mark, and Rhett felt sure that Mr. DePaul, who Sam read off as the map’s artist, would not have appreciated such carelessness.
“We keep heading northeast, and we’ll be there,” Rhett said out loud, feeling manly.
Dan’s grin was like sand in his eye. “You think it’ll be easy, don’t you?”
Rhett shrugged. “I reckon I deserve easy, for once. Don’t you?”
Taking the map away and carefully refolding it, Dan sighed. “You forget, my friend. The Shadow is called to trouble, and trouble is called to the Shadow. Something strange is coming. I can feel it in the air. Can’t you?”
Standing with a sigh, Rhett sniffed the air. “Unless trouble smells like Earl’s feet and rabbit fat, I do believe you’re mistaken, with that coyote nose of yours.”
“Let us hope, for once, that you’re right.”
But Dan didn’t look like he believed it. He never did.
The days slid past, and Rhett felt like thunderclouds dogged his every step. Waiting.
Chapter
7
Nettie woke up to a feeling she never wanted to feel again: a man’s expectant, probing, curious hand sliding up her knee, the thin cotton night rail not nearly enough armor to protect what she held dear. Her hand snicked for cold metal under the saddle that pillowed her head, but instead of her trusty pistol, she pulled out…an embroidery hoop? The bitty needle wasn’t even enough to poke a scorpion. There was nothing else there—no knife, no gun, no palm-sized rock to bash a man’s brains in. A shiver of utter helplessness pinged throughout her body, and she sat up, drawing her bare legs together under the shift, her arms protectively hugging her middle and her long braids over her shoulders.
“Please, mister,” she said, her voice high and quavering. “Don’t hurt me.”
The man sitting beside her was a stranger, just a shadow in the night with his black hat pulled down low to hide his face.
“I wouldn’t hurt you, honey. I just want to make you feel good.”
Nettie bared her teeth. “Bullshit,” she hissed. “No man who ever said that was thinking of anything but himself.”
The fingers withdrew to stroke a bearded chin. “Is it a girl you want, then?” He gestured with a big hand, and a pretty blond girl in a floaty white shift hurried in from the darkness to kneel on Nettie’s other side. The girl’s eyes were wide and innocent, her rosebud lips smiling sweetly, her yellow-gold hair half-tumbling in long curls bedecked with flowers. Her soft, moon-pale hand reached for Nettie’s shoulder, stroking softly along her arm in a way that made the nightgown slither down, exposing brown skin to the firelight.
Quick as a snake, Nettie slapped the girl’s hand away and leaped to her feet, ready to run.
“Sam? Dan? Earl? Where is everybody?”
“Nobody here but us chickens,” the man said. His voice was a deep, confident rumble, pleasant-like, if a body didn’t feel like it owed him anything. Nettie, for some reason, felt like the man had expectations of her aplenty.
“If you’re a chicken, then I’m a monkey’s uncle,” Nettie said. “What the hell do you want?”
The man made a low hum, like he was considering the question. “To test your mettle. Stripped down, what are you? Even in dreams, you’re not what you seem. Peculiar little puzzle of a girl.”
“Not a girl,” Nettie growled. “And this ain’t my dress.” Her fingers bunched in the nightgown’s flo
wy fabric as if she longed to rip it off and toss it on the fire but knew that to do so would leave her even more bared than she already was.
She couldn’t see the man’s eyes, but she could feel them, probing her as if for weakness. The blond girl had disappeared, and even though her two good eyes had adjusted to the darkness and she was leaning forward, all avid, Nettie still couldn’t see much of the man. He was a well-built feller, muscular and clad in all black and as hairy as a bear. Nettie could feel that old, familiar wobble about him, meaning that he was some sort of monster. If she’d been a betting creature, she’d have put money that he was something like Jiddy, a bear shifter, or maybe a Lobo who played at acting civilized. The only thing she knew was that everything occurring right now was deeply wrong, down to her bones. This man was not civilized, not at all. And he radiated power as some men radiated stink.
“You got to pay the toll if you want to cross my land,” he warned.
“Durango’s still free,” she shot back.
“Not my part of it.”
With a grunt, the man stood and stretched, hairy knuckles seeming to brush the clouds. He turned without a word and walked away, the night gulping him down in one bite.
“What the hell was that?” Nettie asked the emptiness.
“You’ll see,” the man said from somewhere far off.
A gentle hand grasped Rhett’s shoulder, and he swung a fist before he knew what was real.
“Stand down, man! You were crying out in your sleep. Figured you were having a nightmare.”
Rhett blinked and found a shadow shaped like Sam Hennessy blocking the starlight, holding Rhett’s trembling fist. The fire had worn down, but Rhett knew this man beside him and was glad that, this time, he hadn’t bruised the handsome face.
They shared a look so deep Rhett was pretty certain he saw Sam’s soul, and Sam released his fist. The moment broke, and both men had to look away.
“Was it the Lobos you were dreaming of? I…I mean, it would be understandable.”
Sitting up on one elbow, Rhett took stock. There was Sam, being a good friend. Dan and Winifred slept side by side on their backs, still as corpses. Earl was in donkey form and flopped out in the dust, his wide nostrils flaring with tiny donkey snores. The horses stood loosely in a circle, heads down and tails twitching as they dreamed of whatever horses dreamed.
And Nettie—
No.
Rhett.
He shook his head. That dream had thrown him harder than usual. Its particular tang stank of the same magic that had plagued him as he hunted the Cannibal Owl, the Injun woman showing up after dark to speak words she never had in waking life and alternately beg and threaten.
That was all. It had been a dream. An unpleasant and strange dream, in which Rhett was again trapped in a woman’s mind-set and skirts, a thing to be touched and frightened and acted upon. But who was the man at the center of the shadows, hiding his eyes under a dark hat? Could it be this Mr. Trevisan that Earl was running back toward? Or another monster? Come morning, Rhett would have some pointed questions for Dan and Earl about whatever the hell had happened. He wasn’t going to mention the dress, though, or the shivers raised by the soft fingertips of the girl stroking down his bared shoulder.
“It wasn’t the Lobos,” he said, just to reassure Sam.
“What, then?”
Rhett shook his head and settled back down on the hard ground.
“I don’t rightly, Sam. But I thank you for waking me.”
“Anytime, Rhett. I reckon you’d do the same for me, was I to suffer a nightmare.”
Rhett nodded, and they turned their backs to each other to seek sleep. The thought of Sam having a nightmare amused him. How could the sunshine ever experience darkness? Sam probably dreamed of puppies and pies and other pleasant things. But that was too personal a question to ask, and Sam was already snoring softly. Rhett rolled to his other side and matched his breaths to Sam’s until he fell asleep. Wherever Rhett’s dreams went, the shadowy man and his girl couldn’t follow.
After taking a piss the next morning, Rhett walked up to Coyote Dan, all casual-like.
“You have any peculiar dreams last night, Dan?”
Dan looked up from where he was roasting a rattlesnake over the fire and cocked his head. “Describe peculiar. Because I think peculiar means more than usual for you.”
Rhett huffed and dug up a rock with the toe of his boot. “Burly feller sitting by the fire, asking personal questions. Wondering what I was.”
“Burly?”
“In the way of looks. Lots of black hair everywhere. Like Jiddy. But wearing a hat pulled down to hide his eyes. Dressed like a gambler, maybe. The kind who never loses a hand.”
Dan whistled through his teeth and rocked back on his heels. “Did he say who or what he was?”
“Only that you had to pay a toll to cross his land. That I would see. You’ll see, he said. But it sounded right threatening.”
“Was he a cattleman, maybe?”
“How the hell should I know? He wasn’t sitting on a damn cow.”
“Do you remember anything else about the dream?”
It was Rhett’s turn to try whistling, a skill he hadn’t yet honed. The sound came out like wind through a reed, worried and fidgety. “Hellfire, Dan. I don’t know. He had a girl with him. And he called me a girl. And it was all downright unpleasant, if you catch my drift. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Turning on his heel, Rhett stormed away, wishing he’d never asked the damn coyote a thing. The feller had said he would see, and Rhett reckoned he would, like it or not, which he didn’t like a bit. He could feel everybody’s eyes on him, and he didn’t like that either. So he did what came natural: got around a boulder, shucked his clothes and boots and hat, and lurched off into the sky, where nobody caused him trouble.
He pushed the human thoughts out of his mind and focused on the ground below him, circling outward to get the lay of the land in the direction they’d be traveling today on the way to Lamartine. Here was a convenient creek, there was an arroyo that would be difficult going for the horses, and just there was a better crossing. Higher and higher he soared, effortlessly riding the thermals, his shadow swirling over the hard ground far below.
There—far off. Farther than he wanted to fly right now. He saw the marking of a town sketched out but not yet grown big. Curls of white smoke, a deliciously rancid trash heap and latrine, enough buildings to harbor the saloon, general store, and bordello every damn town needed to function. Strangely, he also noted rich gardens, an orchard, a sweet river that would soon be polluted. The town was new but on its way to prosperous, and it might have a doc for Winifred. He marked its location, turned, and flew back to the place that called him.
There. A line of horses on the road, his clothes laid out on one of the saddles. Once, a grubby red shirt had been the thing that pulled him back to earth and skin. Now, it was maybe the horses, maybe the clothes, maybe the badge, maybe the people. Hell, maybe all of it. But it drew him like lesser buzzards to blood, and he was soon on two clumsy feet, pulling Ragdoll off to the side and using her body to block anyone’s view of his own bareness. Stepping back into his britches, he was glad for something to talk about besides dreams nobody else remembered and he’d rather forget.
The day passed on, as days did. The ground flashed brown and green, the sky going over gray and threatening to rain at any given moment. Thunder waited, just beyond a heavy barrier of thick, dark clouds. Rhett couldn’t quite say how far the town was, nor why they might want to aim for it. Being among civilized people wasn’t one of his favorite pastimes. And yet it pulled him, tugging at his bones. There was something in that town that needed seeing to, something that made his belly swoop and gurgle, even in bird form. He didn’t tell his posse they were headed for it. He didn’t say anything, really. His feelings, much like the thunder behind the clouds, were pinned back by a grim frown that no one dared puncture. He simply led, and they followed.
They stopped at the creek he’d found for lunch. Winifred picked some berries, and there was still some snake left over from breakfast. Rhett hadn’t eaten then, and he’d filled his belly full of whatever dead things he’d found in flight. He didn’t much like the taste on his tongue, after, but it reminded him to drink water along the way, a necessity he often forgot on the trails. His body ached with a familiar, hated feeling, a warm tightness in thighs and belly, and he cursed the unruly innards he’d been given. If only calling himself a man had made his body fall in line. The next time they came across some cover, he yanked his rags from his saddlebag and huffed into the brush to rig them up and prepare for what was certainly bound to happen by nightfall.
Winifred said nothing, but her mouth turned down knowingly. Rhett scowled and looked away. She saw too much, that damn coyote.
“There’s a town ahead,” Dan said, shading his eyes and squinting.
“You going in?” Winifred asked.
Dan was silent for a blessed moment before shaking his head. “The last town was not kind to me. I’ll scout ahead. I’m unfamiliar with this area and would rather get the smell of it first. Rhett, Sam. I can count on you, yes?” His sharp eyes darted to his wounded sister.
“Of course, Dan. You know you can count on us,” Sam answered, earnest as hell.
Rhett just nodded. Earl, still in donkey form, did nothing useful.
Dan pulled his chestnut geldings to a halt and handed his lead lines over, one to Sam and one to Winifred. He slipped out of his clothes as easily as a fall tree shucked leaves and stuffed them tidily into his saddlebags, the bulk of his horse hiding his skin. Soon a lean, dust-brown coyote gave a low yip of farewell and loped away toward the hills.
Winifred sighed and clucked her bay into a walk. “He chafes so in a city. I used to think he’d change, but…”
“But they only seem to get worse, and he stays just as stubborn,” Rhett finished for her. Remembering his nod to Dan, he kicked Ragdoll ahead so that whatever came at them came at him, first.