Conspiracy of Ravens

by Lila Bowen

Dan’s jaw worked with rage. “You and Earl are staying here.”

  Winifred snorted a laugh. “What, so he won’t scalp me?”

  “So I won’t have to kill him when he insults you.”

  Rhett expected Winifred to have something to say about that, but she just nodded and walked Kachina around behind the wagon, and that’s how he knew things were serious.

  “So we’re going in with one and a half Injuns, then?” Rhett said. “Why, that’s seventy-five cents.”

  “We’re going in with three proven, badge-wearing Durango Rangers,” Sam said. “Even Haskell can’t bring us harm.” He spit on his thumb and rubbed it over his badge, and Rhett and Dan did the same.

  “You got your papers, Rhett?” Dan asked.

  Rhett poked around in his saddlebag and pulled out the packet from the Captain. He’d hoped to make some progress learning his letters on this trip, but after those two frustrating sessions, he’d been too busy fighting, flying, and…spending time in Winifred’s wagon. Still, he could point to his name, at least.

  Rhett Walker.

  And it was time for Rhett Walker, Ranger Scout, to speak man-to-man with his nearest superior.

  “Let’s go,” he said, pitching his voice low.

  Sam led on his palomino with Rhett on Puddin’ next and Dan on one of his too-dull-to-tell-apart chestnut geldings. A cabin with a long porch and a row of shiny glass windows perched on the trail like a monster waiting to gobble them all up. It was so similar to the Las Moras Outpost, and yet to Rhett’s eye, it radiated menace.

  “Don’t get scalped,” Winifred called behind them, but not too loud.

  At that, an unholy racket started up, and all three horses spooked as a hell of a big black dog burst out from around the side of the cabin. Rhett had his gun out and ready, but the thing hit the end of its rope and stopped. The barking and growling didn’t let up, and the horses didn’t stop dancing and gnawing their bits, but since it was tethered out of biting reach, Rhett didn’t have to shoot it, at least.

  Well, and no wonder it was so damn loud. It had three heads, all of them built like a shovel and packed with teeth.

  “You’ll have to forgive Ol’ Debil. He don’t take kindly to strangers.”

  The voice came from behind them, and Rhett felt like he’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book. He spun his horse around and found a mean-looking man in a beat-to-hell gray uniform standing there with a shotgun over his shoulder and his finger on the trigger.

  Before Rhett could say something that got them all shot, Dan said, “We’re on business from the Las Moras Outpost, here to see Captain Haskell.”

  “I don’t speak Injun,” the man said, spitting a glob of tobacco on the chestnut gelding’s hoof and making the horse dance back. “You’re in Rascal country now.”

  “If you spoke Ranger, you might’ve understood me,” Dan said. He sounded calm and wry, but Rhett knew him well enough to note the tension in his jaw and the hand on his knife.

  The man ignored him and turned to Sam. “You don’t keep a tidy company,” he observed with a shit-eating grin.

  Sam looked down on the man with a sneer. “Well, I ain’t the Captain, and I ain’t in charge. We’re of equal footing, as all Rangers under a Captain are. Now, would you be so kind as to take us to Captain Haskell?”

  The man snorted and walked around them toward the cabin. “Major Haskell. Figure I have to take you around, seeing as how we’re all Rangers together. Of equal footing.” He shook his head. “You boys from out west got low standards, is all I’m saying.”

  They followed him on horseback, and Rhett didn’t take his hand off his gun. The dog had stopped barking to lick its biscuits, at least, and no other rude sons-of-bitches showed up to give any lip. The man led them to a water trough, within which lounged a feller in a fine hat, only his head above the water, smoking a cigar.

  “And who the hell is disturbing my cogitationals?” the man barked. Under the hat, he had a wide, gnarled face like a knot of old wood and a mustache as thick as a horse brush. Rhett immediately disliked him, but that was more about the look of disdain and disgust than the man’s lack of appealing features.

  “We’re on business from the Las Moras Outpost,” Sam started, but the man held up a hand.

  “Don’t much care for your Captain, then,” he said. “Tell me your business and get the hell out of my territory.”

  Rhett reached into his saddlebags for his papers and heard guns drawn behind him.

  “Easy, boy,” Haskell said. “Wouldn’t want you to get accidentally shot full of holes.”

  “This one’s a monster, Major.”

  Rhett looked down to find a beanpole of a white boy close enough to kick in the teeth. But the scout wasn’t looking at Rhett; he was focusing on Coyote Dan. And at his words, the guns cocked.

  “You can see my badge plain enough,” Dan said, failing entirely to hold up his hands or show any weakness. “All our badges.”

  “Badges can be stolened or sold. Road agents, outlaws. I’ll need real proof.”

  “Considering my guns are on my hips, it should be clear I’m reaching back in my bag for my papers,” Rhett said. “Unless anyone objects to paper?”

  “Get on with it,” Haskell muttered, the cigar clenched between his teeth.

  Rhett slowly fetched out the packet of papers and nudged his horse forward, close enough to lean over and hand the Captain—no, the Major?—his papers. Haskell took them in a wet hand and scanned whatever he saw there. Rhett winced as he noted water from the man’s hand carelessly bleeding the ink in places.

  “Fine. So you’re apparamently who you say you are. What is it you’re hoping to gain by coming here? Because I make it well known I don’t take on Injuns or…” He stared Rhett up and down and held out his papers. “Whatever the hell you are.”

  “We’re here scouting—” Sam started, but Rhett stopped him with a cough.

  He’d just noticed something right peculiar as he took back the papers. There was a heavy gold ring on the Major’s fat ring finger with a design that would’ve meant nothing to him just a few short days ago. But Rhett didn’t need his letters to recognize the seal of Bernard Trevisan, exactly the same initials as the image pressed into the black wax balls, albeit now backward.

  Sam looked to him, and Rhett said, “We’re here trailing a Sasquatch, but it looks like he cut north. We just wanted to stop in and pay our dues before we left. Wanted to make sure you didn’t feel we’d trespassed if you heard tell of us later.”

  Everyone stared at him.

  “So we’ll be going now. Headed north for a bit and then back home. Thanks kindly for your time. Fellers?”

  With a tip of his hat, Rhett turned Puddin’ and rode back around the cabin, his spine straight and his hand off his gun but damn anxious to return to it. After a few moments of awkward silence, Dan and Sam caught up at a trot. Rhett waited for one of the fools to open his goddamn mouth, but they apparently knew him well enough now to trust that he wouldn’t do something that cowardly and stupid unless he had a good reason.

  “You turn on around and go home. And tell that milksop Walker to keep his boys out of my territory,” Haskell shouted in their wake. “And tell that woman of yours out front that if she can’t walk, she’s welcome to work for us lying down.”

  He and his men burst into rude laughter, and not turning around and murdering everybody was possibly the hardest thing Rhett had ever done. He’d had trouble getting over killing his first human, but he reckoned there’d be no guilt attached to ridding the world of this vile bunch.

  “You holding up, Dan?” Rhett asked.

  “Long as I don’t turn around and see their faces, I hope so.”

  “Just for the record,” Sam added, “I got your backs if you should decide in that direction.”

  Rhett kicked his horse into a trot, then a lope back to the road. Ol’ Debil barked like crazy and strained at his rope, and the guards and sentries who’d been watching them s
tepped briefly out of the brush to nod their smug satisfaction at the hurried leave-taking. Earl and Winifred were parked a bit away and began turning around as soon as Dan twirled a finger in the air. As much as Rhett hated the road, he was damn glad to see it and even more glad to be headed back south on it. For a moment, he let himself pretend they were truly headed back to Las Moras and the Captain and the simple everyday pleasure of getting on Jiddy’s nerves. The burly scout was a snoot, but he would be a welcome sight after Haskell’s Rascals and their bastard of a leader.

  “How’d it go?” Winifred asked, riding up on Kachina. “And why—”

  “We’ll tell you later,” Dan snapped. “For now, let’s see how fast that new pony of yours can go.” He kicked his chestnut into a canter, and Winifred whooped and urged her paint to join him.

  “And what about all these ponies?” Earl asked, gesturing to the string of horses and mules tied up to his wagon. “I can’t keep up with that sort of a gallop, never mind that they’re going the wrong—”

  “They’re going damn fast,” Rhett finished for him. “You just keep on going yourself, fast as you think’s safe. Me and Sam’ll stay with you. We got to get back home to Las Moras and report to the Captain.” He gave Earl a significant look and hoped for once the feller would prove smarter than a pile of bricks. “And we got to hurry.”

  Earl’s eyes narrowed, and he clicked his tongue at the horses and shook their traces. “Oh, to be sure. Let’s hurry home.”

  They rode for half an hour before they caught up with Dan and Winifred, who sat companionably as their lathered horses drank from a pretty little pond.

  “We safe here?” Rhett asked.

  Dan nodded. “I reckon so. Unless you were followed?”

  Rhett spit. “Hell, no. They think we’re idiots headed home. Why would they bother to follow us? No need to send those fine, upstanding fellers after us when we’ve been put in our place and swept out the door. Not when there’s bathing to do in the horse trough.”

  Dan snorted, then started shaking, then started full-on laughing. Rhett had never seen him do so before, and it was downright contagious. Soon they were all laughing like fools, even if they didn’t know why. It fell off to chuckles, and Rhett rubbed a hand over his laugh-sore belly.

  “You gonna tell us what happened back there now?” Sam asked. “Because that wasn’t what was supposed to happen. It wasn’t going well, but…”

  “But the Shadow sensed something,” Dan finished for him, back to owl-like solemnity.

  “Hellfire, Dan. The Shadow didn’t sense shit. I saw Haskell’s ring when I gave him my papers. It’s gold, and it’s got the same letters on it as those wax balls I yarked up. Bernard Trevisan’s letters. So I reckon him and Haskell…”

  “Are in league together,” Sam said. “Damn, Rhett. It’s lucky you saw that and got us out of there before we mentioned it.”

  Dan nodded thoughtfully. “There’s sense in it. Dastardly sense, but sense. Only thing Haskell hates more than monsters is Injuns, and he probably isn’t a big fan of any color other than white. Trevisan comes through and puts the monsters all in chains, works ’em to death. That’s a lot less work for Haskell, but he looks like he’s cleaned up his territory. Like he’s keeping his cities safe.”

  “I reckon that’s why they kept calling him Major,” Sam said. “He must’ve gotten promoted.”

  “Well I’m just glad such an upright feller’s in charge,” Rhett said. “Makes me downright pleased to be in Lamartine.” He looked around. “Or just outside it, since there’s no thoroughfare full of wagons hereabouts.”

  “Time is wasting,” Earl snapped. “Let’s get on with it. On to the railroad. Stop skulking around in the road.”

  Dan shook his head. “We’re off the road now. We can’t pass the outpost again or go through Lamartine. We’ll have to travel north and head the railroad off.”

  Rhett’s eye was drawn to the sky, which was currently blue and wide as all get-out. With no buttes or mountains, there was nothing to hold it all in. It made him feel breathless and strange, that the sky could be so big and he was just a tiny thing under it, trying to do his tiny work. Far off, across the pond and near the edge of the world, he saw a black line. Smoke, coiling into the air.

  “I reckon we found the railroad,” he said, pointing.

  “Now we just need to get there in one piece,” Earl snapped.

  Chapter

  17

  It felt good, to be off that goddamn road. No more Muellers. No more chance of something worse than Muellers. No three-headed dogs. No hateful Rangers, hopefully. Just a tolerable handful of familiar folks and horses, striking out across the prairie.

  They made it across the stream, wagon and all, and the grassland spread out before them, less prickly and lumpy than what Rhett was used to, first in Gloomy Bluebird and then up throughout the Captain’s range. Blue sky everywhere, green underfoot. His blood was zipping through his veins, his spirits high.

  “Hey, Sam,” he said.

  “Yeah, Rhett?”

  “I’ll race you to that tree!”

  With a whoop and a holler, Rhett yanked off his hat, kicked Puddin’, and streaked across the prairie. Sam followed suit on his leggy palomino, and soon they were neck and neck, the horses putting their heads down once they realized it was a race. Fat little Puddin’ wasn’t as fat as he’d been, his gut made lean by the road. Rhett had never ridden him like this before, and the black-and-white mustang had a hell of a dead run, sure-footed and flat and smooth. Sam’s horse almost seemed to dance, his long legs stretching like swans’ necks. Rhett again felt that peace, that joy that only came at full tilt on horseback when he rode for the feeling of flying. Once, he’d raced like this back home and wondered what it would be like to be a bird.

  Now he knew.

  He liked this better.

  Not only because bird thoughts were tiresome and mostly involved eating rotten carcasses, but also and mostly because he could share this moment with Samuel Hennessy.

  They passed by the tree at the exact same time with another whoop and let the horses slow of their own accord.

  “That’s some mighty fine riding, other Hennessy,” Rhett said, a little out of breath himself.

  “That fat pony of yours has some heart,” Sam responded. His cheeks were red and their time in the sun had browned his skin and lightened his hair, making his blue eyes all the brighter. Rhett’s heart could’ve burst with his feelings for this good-hearted cowpoke, but they were getting along so well as it was, and it wasn’t worth risking such a beautiful moment to say something dumb and have everything go all cattywampus again.

  “And your palomino’s legs haven’t snapped like toothpicks, so I reckon he can hold his own.”

  Hoofbeats pounded toward them, breaking the calm as Winifred rode up on Kachina, the girl’s hair streaming behind her and the horse’s elegant neck stretched long.

  “Third in the race. That’s what I get for starting late,” she said, wearing a radiant smile. At times like these, Rhett completely forgot that she was missing a foot and had to be in near-constant pain. She trotted her mare in a circle and slowed.

  Looking from one to the other, her eyebrow went up. “Am I interrupting something?”

  “Hell, no, coyote-girl. Just enjoying the day.”

  Winifred laughed lightly. “I bet you are. The day is so much more cheerful than the night.”

  Rhett’s smile went flat. Winifred was bad about giving him sly looks around Sam, and he always carried the worry that she would say something, whether about Rhett’s continued feelings for Sam or, more recently, their time spent in the dark wagon together, figuring things out with fumbling fingers. Was it…could it possibly be that the girl was jealous?

  No. That was just plain ridiculous.

  But Dan had warned Rhett about her, and Rhett didn’t want Dan to be right.

  Rhett let Puddin’s head go so the paint could graze a little. This area was pretty and green,
and as he looked beyond, out toward the column of black smoke, it only got greener.

  “I reckon there’s a stream down there,” he said, pointing at a lush ribbon of trees. “Maybe an offshoot of the Brazos. Might be a good place for you-all to make camp.”

  Sam looked, too, and nodded. “Close enough to ride there within a day but far enough away where they wouldn’t find us. Normal enough for folks to camp out next to a stream. Durango’s still a free country, ain’t it?”

  “Depends on who you ask,” Rhett muttered. “But the plan seems sound. Winifred, why don’t you ride back and direct the wagon to follow us? Me and Sam’ll scout ahead. Make sure there’s no ambushes lying in wait.”

  Winifred’s eyes danced with mischief and amusement. “Yeah, you’d better check all those bushes real good, Rhett. Keep us all safe from something in the bush.”

  Wheeling her pretty mare with a laugh, she loped back the way they’d come.

  “Women make no goddamn sense,” Sam muttered.

  Rhett waited for him to say something like, “Present company excluded,” but he didn’t, which made Rhett so happy he could jig. Whatever Sam had thought about him when he first found out what Rhett was, he’d apparently come to terms with what Rhett had decided to be.

  “Let’s go on, then,” Rhett said. “Find a nice place for a camp. Maybe hunt up something edible that ain’t a snake.”

  “I like the way you think, other Hennessy.” Sam beamed and nudged his horse forward.

  For once, Rhett didn’t mind following someone else’s lead.

  It was a good day. Sam got a white-tailed deer, and Rhett took down a strange, fat bird that was horribly ugly but promisingly meaty. They found a sunny little clearing by the stream and set about cleaning their game, collecting firewood, and generally being manly and useful. They didn’t talk much. They didn’t need to. Working side by side on a beautiful day was pleasant enough, even if a feller was up to his elbows in deer guts.

  By the time the wagon bumped in with a herd of bugling horses and mules strung out behind it, Rhett was about as close as he got to relaxed. Meat was strung up and cooking over the fire, and Sam had headed off for a quick bath. Rhett had wanted to accompany him for various reasons but knew well enough that such was not a task to which men invited themselves. For his part, Rhett had used that time to transform, take to the air, and quickly scan the land around their camp, just to be sure there was nothing dangerous nearby and to gauge how close they were to Trevisan’s railroad. It was closer than he would’ve guessed, but headed in a direction that wouldn’t bring anyone within hailing or viewing distance of the camp, and out here, travelers were a regular-enough thing.