by Kyra Halland
Most of all, he needed to know that she had a place for him in her life, and that she wouldn’t rather be back in her old life even if it meant they weren’t together.
The evening passed with no chance for them to exchange more than a word or two. Most of the hands took the opportunity to go into town for supper and an hour or so of recreation, but their numbers were made up for by the Forn’s Crossing hands who came sniffing around the Windy Valley grub wagon in hopes of getting some handouts. Word had it that the new Forn’s Crossing cook, a man working alone, was a bad cook and had an equally bad temper. The new men flirted outrageously with both Lainie and Mrs. Bington, who, maybe because she was flattered by the flirting and maybe because she couldn’t pass up the chance to show up another cook, took charge of her kitchen again and welcomed the newcomers with open arms.
Lainie helped cook and serve while fending off the Forn’s Crossing men’s advances. When Silas left for his usual shift on watch, she was still cleaning up, and by the time he got off watch, she was long asleep. The next stop at a town was nearly a month away; Silas rolled himself up in his lonely blankets, wondering how he was going to manage to wait another month for a night with her.
* * *
THE COMBINED WINDY Valley and Forn’s Crossing herd started out early the next morning. Lainie never did join Silas to ride with the herd that day; the Bingtons kept her busy at the wagons, sorting out the supplies they had picked up in town. With no prospect of being able to spend any time alone with her for another month, Silas’s mood darkened throughout the day.
It didn’t get any better at the end of the day. The Forn’s Crossing hands, as ill-mannered, lazy, and bad-tempered a bunch of men as Silas had ever seen, crowded up to the Windy Valley grub wagon again for supper, pushing in front of him and the other Windy Valley hands. “Hey, Miss Lainie!” one of the Forn’s Crossing fellows shouted over the grumbling of the Windy Valley men. “When the drive’s over, you want to come home and cook for me?”
Silas scowled. What made them think they were allowed to call her by name?
“Hey, I already asked her to marry me!” another man protested.
Lainie cast a rather strained grin in the general direction of the marriage proposals, and showed them the ring on her left hand. “I told you, I’m already married.”
“I don’t mind!” the first man answered.
“What you’ll mind is your manners if you want to eat at this wagon,” Lainie retorted even as Mrs. Bington gave the man a plate and shooed him away. Lainie handed Silas a plate of beans and bacon, passing up several Forn’s Crossing men who were trying to crowd him out. “Something wrong, baby?”
“Just thinking that some of these fellas ought to show some respect for another man’s wife,” Silas grumbled.
She gave him a teasing smile. “You’re not jealous, are you?”
He snorted. “Of these beef brains?” He certainly wasn’t jealous. Not in the least.
“You can heat my meat for me any time, darlin’!” another Forn’s Crossing man called out.
Lainie’s smile disappeared. She made a growling noise down in her throat, and her eyes narrowed. Then she grabbed Silas by the bandana around his neck, pulled him to her, and kissed him good and hard.
Silas’s knees went weak and he nearly dropped his plate. He set it down and leaned hard on the table to support himself. The kiss went on, deep and wet and messy, and Silas started to heat up in response. Damn, it had been way too long since he’d had more than a quick kiss in passing. Around them, the Windy Valley men laughed and whistled and shouted insults at the Forn’s Crossing hands.
Finally, when he was starting to wonder if she was ever going to let him come up for air, she let go. He stood leaning on the table for support, trying to catch his breath, his thoughts flailing around in a haze of surprise, pleasure, and frustrated lust. Lainie perched one of her fluffy biscuits on the edge of his plate and smiled brightly at him. “Enjoy your meal, honey.”
With an effort, he collected himself enough to tip his hat and say, “I surely will, Miss Lainie.” He walked away to find a place to eat, his mood considerably improved. If only he could get a chance to follow up on that kiss, life would be much better indeed.
* * *
AFTER SUPPER, LAINIE returned to the grub wagon with an armload of dishes that the Forn’s Crossing hands had left scattered around the camp. Mrs. Bington was helping with the cleanup for once, scraping leftovers from the dirty plates onto the ground for the cattlehounds crowding eagerly around her skirts. “You handled those boys well, Mrs. Velsing,” she said.
Lainie almost reminded Mrs. Bington to just call her Lainie, then stopped. Being addressed by her married name, even if it was the wrong name, was a rare and unexpected mark of respect from her boss. “Thanks. But shouldn’t we send them back to their own wagon instead of letting them eat all our food?”
“Well, now,” Mrs. Bington said, “I won’t turn away hungry cowhands from my kitchen. If that new cook of theirs ain’t feeding them properly, someone has to. We’ll just bill the Forn’s Crossing association for the extra food. But, I agree, it wouldn’t hurt them to learn some manners.”
“Or to pick up after themselves,” Lainie sighed as she dumped the dirty dishes onto the washing board.
While Mrs. Bington finished putting away the remaining food, Lainie poured hot water from the kettle into the dishpan and set the first stack of plates to soaking. She sighed, thinking wistfully about that kiss and wondering when she and Silas were finally going to get some time alone. She had been so disappointed about missing their night in town last night she had almost cried. She needed some loving so bad she was starting to ache from it, and she was worried about Silas. He seemed so moody lately.
She reached into the dishpan and started scrubbing the plates. There were things on his mind, that was clear. The matter of going out west to Amber Bay, no doubt, and worry about mages catching them or the drive crew finding out they were wizards, and maybe other things as well. She hoped he wasn’t jealous of the hands who’d been flirting with her; she had done her best to show him he had no cause to be jealous.
It wasn’t good for them, this never having enough time alone to really talk, never mind make love. One of these nights, instead of falling into a dead sleep as soon as she was finished with her chores, she would make sure she stayed awake until Silas got off his night watch shift.
An enormous yawn nearly cracked her jaw, and she stretched and rubbed her aching back. Unfortunately, it looked like tonight wasn’t going to be that night.
As usual, by the time the evening cleanup was finished, Silas was already out on his turn on the night guard. Lainie retreated to the privacy and quiet of her bunk in one of the wagons, glad to finally get off her feet and lie down. Like every night, she fell asleep as soon as she hit the blankets, before she could even remind herself she wanted to stay awake.
The next thing she knew, someone was climbing up beneath the canvas covering on the wagon. Startled, she sat up and grabbed her revolver from beside her bedroll; she knew better than to sleep unarmed in a camp full of lonely men.
“Don’t shoot, darlin’! It’s just me!”
“Silas!” A smile broke out on her face, and she put the gun back. “Is your night shift over?”
Silas hauled himself the rest of the way into the wagon and pulled off his kerchief and duster. “Paslund is on the next shift; he relieved me an hour early.” He started unbuttoning his shirt. “Said it’s the least he can do after I saved his life. So here I am. I’ve got the rest of the night free.”
Lainie undid the top few buttons of her own shirt, then hesitated. “But… everyone will know.” The wagon was private, but now she felt uncomfortably aware that it wasn’t really that private.
“So? We’re married. Nothing wrong with it.” He pulled his shirt off. The dim light that filtered into the wagon from the moon and the campfires illuminated the lean, muscled lines of his chest and arms. The scars fr
om where Oferdon had shot him were still livid against his brown skin. “Anyhow,” he went on as he continued undressing, “you should see the Bingtons’ wagon, just about every night when I finish my shift. They’re going at it like rabbits in there.”
Portly, mild-mannered Mr. Bington and plump, bossy Mrs. Bington, knocking like rabbits? The image came unbidden to Lainie’s mind, and she pushed it away. “But they’re so… old.” They had to be fifty, at least.
Silas grinned at her as he shuffled off his pants and drawers. “You’re never too old to be in love, darlin’.”
Well. If the Bingtons could do it in a wagon, then so could she and Silas. Eagerly, she finished undressing. Silas set his hat aside and bore her down beneath him onto the blankets. She liked having him with her like this, his body stretched out full length along hers, solid and warm. It felt so good, so comfortable and familiar after their long forced abstinence. He kissed her mouth, long and hungrily. “Now,” he growled into her ear, “let’s see how hard we can rock this wagon.”
* * *
AFTERWARDS, LAINIE LAY with her head pillowed on Silas’s shoulder, tracing a fingertip through the hair on his chest while he slowly trailed his hand along her side and hip. All the difficult things they needed to talk about, all the questions she had been meaning to ask, the things she had been meaning to say, drifted through her mind. She felt too good right now to ruin the moment by bringing them up, so she turned her thoughts to something else, something silly that nevertheless teased at her curiosity. “Silas?” she murmured.
“Hmm?”
“What was your first time?”
He raised himself up on one elbow and looked down at her. His hair had come out of the leather thong he used to tie it back, and now it fell loose around his face. “What do you want to know a thing like that for, darlin’?” he asked.
She pushed his hair back behind his ear. “I was just wondering… It’s something you know about me that I don’t know about you, and that don’t seem fair.”
He laughed a little. “All right.” Then he went on, more seriously. “But first I want you to understand something. I love you. I don’t think about anyone else, and I don’t want anyone else. It’s you I want, and you I think about. So I don’t want you worrying that I’m remembering someone else and comparing you to her or wishing you were her.”
“I’m not.” He had settled her mind on that score months ago, in that cave in the Bads, when he had reminded her that no one had the power to force him to be with her if he didn’t want to be.
“All right, then.” He hesitated. “It’s stupid.”
“I’m sure it isn’t.”
“It is.”
“Tell me, and I’ll decide if it’s stupid.”
He sighed. “All right, then. It was with my older sister’s best friend, when I was fifteen, out on the terrace during my sister’s twentieth birthday ball.” He paused. “My sister was so embarrassed she wouldn’t come out of her room for a full nineday.”
Lainie suppressed a laugh at the thought of the outraged older sister. “That’s… not what I was expecting, but I guess it sounds about right.”
He chuckled as he lay back down. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You never do things the ordinary way.” She pushed herself up to look him full in the face. “And that’s part of what I love about you.”
He pulled her down to him, holding her close and tight. “By all the gods, Lainie, I love you so much. I can’t wait to take you away somewhere where you’ll be safe.”
A bit of her contentment fled. She didn’t want to have that discussion now. They finally had a night to spend together, and she didn’t want to ruin it. Instead, she straddled him and made love to him, fiercely and passionately, to remind him that together they made something strong and wonderful, stronger than any trouble that tried to tear them apart.
* * *
THE COMBINED HERD moved down into the broad, grassy valley of the mighty Gap River. Some thirty leagues to the north, the horizon rose in ranges of hills and mountains; farther to the south, the grasslands dropped off into bluffs overlooking the river. Farms and settlements lay scattered along the way, but mostly the path the herd followed was open prairie.
Beneath a cloudless blue sky that seemed to stretch on forever, Silas, on his dun mare, was riding along the left-hand side of the enormous herd, watching to make sure no cattle tried to stray off to the side. The Forn’s Crossing hands were a lazy bunch, preferring to gossip, smoke, and hang around the grub wagons rather than keep an eye on their cattle. Making matters worse, the Forn’s Crossing trail boss played favorites, with more regard for who toadied up to him than for who was doing their job, which led to arguments and ill-feelings among his men. The result was that the Windy Valley hands had to take on the work the Forn’s Crossing men should have been doing but weren’t. Fortunately, the spring grass was sprouting up fresh, thick, and green across the valley in the wake of the winter rains, and the cattle grazed contentedly as they meandered along and didn’t seem inclined to go wandering off.
Silas’s night with Lainie a few nights ago had done him a world of good. His doubts about his place in her life had been settled, and seemed foolish now. But nothing else had been resolved, neither where they would go after the drive nor Lainie’s part in dealing with any trouble that might come up.
He still hadn’t found any sign of the mages Lainie had detected back by the White Rock. In the brief chances he’d had to ask her about it since then, she’d told him they were still up ahead but weren’t getting any closer. From this, he guessed that they were moving east ahead of the herd, looking for a place where they could make their move. In the long, uneventful days that had followed the crossing of the White Rock, it had been easy to get complacent about the danger that could be lying in wait along the trail. Just to remind himself to stay on the alert, Silas did a careful scan for power and shields closer to the herd. Again, he found nothing.
Shouts and laughter caught his attention. A couple of hands from the Windy Valley outfit, Deevish and Benner, were riding together some distance up ahead, and now two Forn’s Crossing men joined them. The four men, who seemed to know each other, greeted each other with joking insults, then fell into conversation. Bored with watching cows walk and graze, Silas rode up a little closer to listen in.
“Yep, we had a stampede first Darknight out,” Deevish was saying to the Forn’s Crossing hands. “Coyote started it.”
“That weren’t no coyote howlin’,” Benner said, “not the way it sent a chill to my very bones. That were a spirit, or even a demon.”
“Spirit?” one of the Forn’s Crossing hands scoffed. “I don’t believe in spirits. Or demons. I’d lay money it was a wizard.”
At the mention of wizards, Silas’s hearing pricked up. He doubted these men knew anything he didn’t, but he had learned long ago not to dismiss any possible source of information. And, in any case, it would be wise to get the measure of what the men he was working with really thought of wizards. To hide his interest, he kept a studious watch on the nearest cattle.
“Think about it,” the Forn’s Crossing man went on. “You heard the rumors someone wants to take control of the herd for themselves this year. Who’d do that but a wizard?”
“That ain’t how we heard it,” Benner said. “We just heard there was more danger from rustlers this year, on account of the high prices they say the Granadaians are gonna pay at market.”
“Greedy sheepknockers, wizards are,” the other Forn’s Crossing hand said. “Every last one of ‘em. I helped hang one just a couple ninedays ago.”
Anger flared to life inside Silas. Blazing clear, the image came into his mind of Lainie’s terrified struggle as the people of Bitterbush Springs, the people she’d been born and raised among, put the noose around her neck and tried to string her up. Certain that his face would betray his reaction, he turned aside, gripping his reins so tightly his knuckles turned white.
“A
real wizard?” Benner asked in awe. “How could you tell?”
“He was always goin’ around muttering to himself. Things no one could understand. Who’d do that but a wizard, always muttering his spells?”
A sick feeling joined Silas’s anger. While words were helpful in many spells, they usually weren’t essential, and no mage with any sense at all would do spoken spellwork within hearing of Plain folk. The man who had been hanged was more likely some poor, innocent half-wit or lunatic, not a mage at all.
“We strung up a wizard in my hometown winter before last,” Deevish said. “Tried to cast a spell on us while we was puttin’ the noose on him, so my brother shot his hands off. You take off their hands, they can’t work magic. Still deserve hanging, though. Damned sheepknockers.” He spat at the ground. “Hey, Shark!”
After Silas rescued Paslund from the river, the hands had started calling him Shark, after the legendary swimming beasts of the sea around the Islands, which he considered a definite improvement over his old nickname, Greenie. He pushed back his roiling emotions and carefully schooled his expression. “What?”
“You ever help hang a wizard?”
Silas took a deep breath, willing himself to remain calm. No Plain man would take exception to that question. “Can’t say that I have. I’m not fond of killing men, wizard or no.”
“Why not?” demanded the Forn’s Crossing man who had bragged about hanging a wizard. “You a coward or something?”
In an instant, Silas’s revolver was in his hand, aimed at the man. “You want to come a little closer and say that?” He didn’t want a fight, but, in the Wildings, only a fool called an armed man a coward, and if you let him get away with it, that same fool and others like him would keep pushing to see how far they could go. He only hoped the man would back down and he wouldn’t really have to shoot; a shooting would lead to an inquiry by the trail bosses and possibly even with the sheriff in the next town they came to, which would only bring unwanted attention to him and, by extension, to Lainie.