The Quick and the Fevered

by Long, Heather

  Stumbling in a circle, Shane checked the cave interior again. Making his way back to the fire, he found Mrs. Davis’ clothes laying in a discarded stack. Beneath the cloth was Jimmy’s rifle.

  Claiming it, Shane searched the cave. A tin cup lay near where the horses had been. His cup, maybe? Inside, a fine white coated the tin. Chicory didn’t do that to a cup and no tea he knew left that kind of mark.

  Mrs. Davis made the chicory, so she was in on it. We don’t trust anyone… Jimmy’s voice reminded him. Strangers are dangerous.

  Hating himself for having been fooled by the kindly old woman, Shane retraced his steps to the entrance. The temperature was bitter, but heat surged through him along with strength. Whatever she’d given him had made him sleep and kept him paralyzed. The effects lingered, but Shane was angry.

  When he got angry, he got stronger.

  Relying on his gift for the first time since he’d been cursed with it, he started after the cracked hoof prints in the ice.

  He had to find them.

  He had to.

  Chapter 18

  Noah, Haven, Flying K

  Three days since the McKennas shared their we’re witches revelation and Noah still didn’t quite know what to make of it. With the consent of Royce McKenna, however, he’d been studying what the man could do. Witches, as it turned out, had healing magic. Or at least Royce possessed a gift for spells of the healing variety. From his description, it was similar and altogether unlike Noah’s own gift.

  “Magic requires three components—the words of the spell, the ingredients of the spell and the will to make it happen.” Royce made the description sound commonplace. With willow bark, for example, he could brew a tea to relieve fever and pain. Since willow bark contained those natural properties, Noah couldn’t quite reconcile the word magic with herbalism.

  The McKenna witch countered with the information that willow bark tinctures were common, but could one tincture cure a fever entirely? Or remove pain from an injured limb permanently? No, the tincture couldn’t perform that.

  “So you can ease pain with a spell, how does that heal?” Removing discomfort did not repair the source of the discomfort. Noah’s ability allowed him to repair the injury, though his healing could be painful at times particularly when it came to knitting a bone back together.

  “It takes a couple of spells. I can seal skin, and encourage muscle to repair, bones take a lot longer. So removing the pain helps them cope while it heals properly. We’re better with illnesses than injuries.”

  He could work with both, but found injuries far more simple than illness. Whatever the Kanes had said to the McKennas during their dinner had persuaded two of the three siblings to come clean. The eldest, Mitchell, remained silent on the subject. They’d returned to their home and the livery stable in Dorado. When they made no move to leave the town, Noah had sent a note.

  Royce answered with his arrival. He seemed perfectly comfortable discussing magic and spells. An idea, Noah continued to try and wrap his mind around. “How does it work? The will, the words, and the ingredients—how do you combine them?”

  With a shrug, the other man tapped his chest. “In here. The heart and the mind are powerful tools. We can use them to work our will with the components.”

  “And if you don’t have the components?” Were they essentially powerless without their tools and items?

  “That would be telling, wouldn’t it?” The half-smile and cheery disposition aside, Royce wouldn’t answer the question. “I appreciate you wanting to know, Mr. Morning Star…”

  “Noah, too many Morning Stars to stand on ceremony. I appreciate you wanting to protect yourselves. I’m not asking to cause harm, I’m asking because I want to understand. Do you believe your sister will answer some questions? You said you were talented with healing spells. Is she the same?”

  The swift shake of his head began before Noah completed the question. “I’d prefer if you let me answer. Jenny is excited to learn everything she can about the Fevered as you seem to be about us. Excitement and impetuousness go hand-in-hand.”

  “When Scarlett was younger, she was furious when we wouldn’t let her go on rides with us,” Noah wanted the other man to see he understood. “She’s our sister, and an open, giving soul most of the time. She likes to think the best of people.”

  “Exactly. Mitchell won’t answer your questions and I don’t mind acting as a buffer. Leave Jenny alone.”

  A not unreasonable request, however, he said. “You do realize she has been back to the ranch twice since the supper to see Olivia?”

  Royce frowned. “She likes her.” Something odd echoed in his voice. Noah had heard all about Royce reading Olivia at the dinner. “Olivia is—a good person. She won’t hurt my sister.”

  “You sound very certain?”

  Chuckling, Royce rose. “I am certain. You want to know what I did that makes me so certain?”

  Seeing no point in lying on the subject, Noah nodded once. “You had no components and no one heard you chant anything.”

  Extending his hand, the witch raised his eyebrows. “I can show you. It wasn’t a spell.”

  Trusting his instincts, Noah gripped his hand and watched him with both his gift and his physical eyes. Eyes dilating, the other man focused on him. The intensity was unnerving.

  “You’re a good man, a lot of green and blue in your aura—a healer by talent and by nature. You give, asking for very little in return.” His pupils shrank, and he squeezed Noah’s hand once before releasing him. “You’ve killed, but never for malice and never for personal gain. You blame yourself for deaths that you were not able to heal.”

  “How the hell do you know any of that?” He’d felt no sensation of mental or emotional invasion, but then Kid left no tell-tale mental fingerprints either. Jason could skim surface thoughts without trying.

  Another flash of a grin. “Your aura—it’s like a field around you, comes in all kinds of colors. It usually matches a mood or a personality. Every action you take, every strong emotion you experience is reflected in the aura. Most of you are hard to read. Olivia wasn’t—she is the most open of any person I’ve ever seen or she was—until whatever her husband did.”

  Noah didn’t miss the sly look. “I’d prefer to let him answer the question, if you really want to know.”

  Retrieving his coat, the other man slid it on. “I think I’ll skip asking him. His aura is diamond hard and opaque. I didn’t even like shaking his hand.”

  Watching him head to the door, Noah considered how much further to push. “Are you ready to tell us what you were running from back east?” Not a difficult supposition to make. They possessed power—they were running because they’d made a mistake or because they were afraid.

  “We’re talking to you, but we’re not ready to trust you yet.” The admission echoed the feelings of everyone on the ranch, so Noah couldn’t find fault with it. “I don’t think you’re ready to trust us, either. One day at a time?”

  Damn if he didn’t like the man with his copper hair and pale green eyes. “One day a time.”

  Royce slid a hat onto his head and despite wearing the Stetson, he didn’t quite appear comfortable with it no matter how well it suited him. “Until next time then, Noah.”

  “Royce.”

  The door closed behind him. After turning back to the table, Noah leaned on his knuckles and waited for the backdoor to open. Kid didn’t make him wait long. “Thoughts?”

  “He’s being honest.” The younger Kane seemed pensive. “He’s scared, a lot of the charm and smiles were bravado.”

  “The healing spells were meant to engage me.” He didn’t care for being played.

  “Yes, and no. I think they can do a lot more than they’re letting on and they’re the testing the waters with us. We haven’t been totally upfront either, and right now I think their intentions are good. Mitchell refuses to play because he’s worried for both of his siblings.” No one had to explain this to either he or
Kid. “That said, I think Royce really likes you because he was having trouble reconciling the like with his need to protect. I may not know all the emotions going on inside of him, but on the surface, he’s got a lot of conflict.”

  “So we keep doing what we’re doing. Build trust with them.”

  Kid nodded. “You’re good with him, and he trusts you a bit like he trusts Olivia.” At the mention of his sister-in-law’s name, Kid shook his head. “Let’s not bring that subject up with Jason.”

  “Feeling territorial is he?” Noah grinned. The most remote of the Kane brothers, Jason didn’t seem to have the effortless charm of his brothers. His gift, however, let him pull thoughts straight from a man and he could kill one the same way.

  “More than a little.” Laughter softened the criticism. “I can’t blame him. They didn’t lay hands on Evelyn or Scarlett or Jo, and I can imagine if they try, I’d feel the same way.”

  “But Jenny likes Olivia and Olivia may be our best in to find out their secrets.”

  With a sigh, Kid rubbed his hands against his face. “I’ll talk to him. She’s going to do what she wants, and Jason will indulge her, but if he comes down on them…”

  Noah nodded. “I’ll work with Royce, I don’t mind.”

  The corner of Kid’s mouth kicked up. “He likes you, too.”

  Shock rippled through him once and he narrowed his eyes. “I’d appreciate it if you kept some pieces of information between us.”

  Raising his hands, Kid’s smile turned apologetic. “You have my word. Have you heard from Buck?”

  Grasping the change in subject, Noah shook his head. “Cody’s real quiet, too.”

  “He’s upset, but he won’t talk to me. Mariska told me to leave it alone for now.” Which meant Kid had been concerned enough to talk to her in the first place.

  “Maybe he’ll talk to me.”

  “Maybe.” They shared a look. “I’m going to back to my wife now, I have a headache. And no, before you ask, I don’t need healing. I need sleep. I’ve been pushing my limits the last few days.”

  “Good night, Kid.”

  “Night.”

  The younger Kane let himself out the way he’d come in and Noah glanced around the kitchen of the Haven house he used. Across the street, the younger Fevered were all tucked away in their houses. Micah and Jo were back in residence along with Cody and Mariska. He didn’t have to stay in Haven, he could head back to his own cabin which lay closer to the main house.

  He and his siblings were drifting apart. Not far, but still drifting. Once they’d have all piled into one place and made do with the cramped quarters. Wives and children changed his brothers as a husband and children changed his sister. They were all moving forward and he was…waiting. Annoyed with the melancholy direction of his thoughts, he turned down the kerosene lamps and dragged the pallet out to in front of the fire. Rain had fallen at various intervals over the last couple of days and dropped the temperature as well. Preferring to stay warm, he’d take advantage of the emptiness to sleep by the fire.

  Despite his inner turmoil, he’d barely taken his boots off and stretched out when exhaustion swamped him. Smothering a yawn, he rolled onto his side. Then the room seemed to change between one blink and the next.

  Twilight peered through the walls. The shadows cast by the fire stretched and danced with an unnatural precision. Considering his last two visitors, Noah sat slowly and scanned the room. His father sat at the table, patient wisdom in his aged expression.

  “Quanto.” The milky light passing through the walls was the dreaming. It seemed months since the last time his father checked in on him. Longer than months—his father had spent several nights after the spirit fever raged through Dorado, killing nearly all it touched. Only a handful survived, and most had taken every ounce of Noah’s strength to bring out the other side.

  “Your surprise reminds me I have neglected you, son.”

  Shaking his head, Noah climbed to his feet, then crossed the room to greet his father. The old man stood, and seemed smaller somehow, his shoulders more hunched. Embracing him with care, he wanted to check his health but the dreaming gave him no insight.

  “You haven’t neglected me, Father.” Far from it, he’d learned all he knew about healing the body from the shaman. While he couldn’t tend the soul or the heart, he understood how integral they were to the healing process. With Kid and Jason on the ranch, Noah knew they could handle nearly any injury.

  “You are kind to forgive, but I have neglected you. Unlike your brothers, you have never wrestled with your talent—only in your inability to save everyone.” Which was why Quanto came to him when Noah couldn’t shake the inescapable pit of failure that had been the death of Dorado and over half the population of the ranch.

  “I still believe if I am stronger, more aware, I can save more.” He’d learned what worked and didn’t with spirit fever. Should he ever encounter it again, he would be more prepared.

  “You will give and give until nothing is left of you son, have a care with yourself.”

  “Things are easier now.” Though he was likely the only one who would say so. “Kid can tend to the emotionally damaged. I can take care of the injuries and the ill. Jason has skill to draw out the bad memories and Kid helps them face it. They can be hard on each other…” Then there was the combination of gifts, something Kid and Jason experimented with time permitting, but they had to be in lockstep agreement.

  A harder proposition than it sounded when it came to the stubborn brothers.

  “Father you don’t look well.” Normally, he would have respected Quanto’s boundaries and not interfered. Age and distance had done the man no kindness. His hair had whitened completely, and his normally bronzed ruddiness had paled. His eyes had a rheumy quality and when Noah hugged him, he’d felt the frailness of his bones—even the dreaming couldn’t disguise the changes in him.

  “Time comes for all men,” Quanto said.

  His gut tightened and seemed to drop away. “Are you ill? I can leave for the mountain at first light. Be there in ten days if I ride hard…”

  “No,” Quanto shook his head, then moved to Noah’s abandoned bedroll and took a seat on the hearth. “Even were you on the mountain already, you cannot wage your gift against the ravage of a life well-lived.”

  Grief sucked all the oxygen from his lungs and he sat heavily on the edge of the stonework. “You’re not supposed to die.”

  “You’ve been talking to Wyatt,” but even the gentle tease could not alleviate the pain.

  “Father—you have always been there. You were there before I was old enough to realize who you were.” Born on a plantation, Noah’s life had been mapped out for him before he took his first breath. As his mother and father’s lives had been. While they’d been traded away before he could even remember their faces, his grandmother had been with him. The wise old woman used to sing him to sleep. She worked in the house proper, so he’d grown up around the little masters and mistresses as their playmate. When his grandmother grew ill, they’d been sent away from the house. Most of the slaves had gotten sick—only Noah survived.

  Only six years old and not sure whether to go to the master and tell him or to run, he’d stayed at his grandmother’s little shack. Exactly where Quanto found him. So tall and forbidding, he’d terrified Noah. Then he smiled, and sat down in the mud as though he did it all the time. Without a care for his clothing, he sat and talked for a long time.

  Noah couldn’t even remember the words, he just remembered how good it sounded to hear someone else’s voice. When he’d held out his hand, Noah had taken it. Together they’d visited all the shacks, and Quanto did a blessing over them. When they left, all of the shacks had been burning.

  He’d never seen the plantation or the people again, the next day, he woke up on the mountain with a blond haired brother who bossed him around and more who wanted him to play.

  “Life is a journey, son. I am nearing the end of mine. Don’t grieve for me�
��I have lived a good life.” He squeezed Noah’s shoulder. “A full one. My children filled it with love and laughter and good memories.”

  Sniffing once, Noah ran the back of his hand against his eyes to strain away the tears. “You have some pretty rotten ones of us, too.”

  Quanto laughed. “Mischief and mayhem go hand in hand with children. You fought. You argued. Yet, you would all die for each other and I know in my heart, you would do anything for your siblings.”

  Without hesitation. They’d left the mountain to save it, then left it again when Scarlett married. “Cody’s going to be a father. I’d almost feel sorry for him if I wasn’t going to enjoy watching him go a little crazy.”

  Another chuckle rumbled in the older man’s chest, it held a note of raspiness and Noah wanted to curse. If he were there… “I can come home, Father.”

  “No son, this is where you need to be. You have children to help train. You’ve been testing them for healing gifts. You’ve been working with Kid and with Jason. You’re looking after your sister and the woman called Jo and now Mariska. They all need you. New life, Noah—new life comes before old. These are my grandchildren, not all but most and they are the children of my children. I would have you care for them.”

  “I don’t—I don’t know how to thank you.” His life had been mapped out for him from birth. Quanto had given him a chance at a better life, a life he loved.

  “You never have to. Now tell me, what of your Lena? The red headed man in your dreams…” Nothing escaped his father.

  Wiping away his tears again, Noah fought to be strong. If this was the last conversation they would have… “When you ask a question, you usually already know the answer.”

  “True. It is also true when you discuss what ails you, you can alleviate the power it has over you.”

  “At least you didn’t answer with a question.” At his half-hearted chuckle, Quanto patted him on the back.

  “Would you have preferred a question?”

  No, he would have preferred forever, but he would make do with the time he had. “How long?”