by Kyra Halland
Silas gave a muffled gasp of surprise, but the power didn’t seem to be doing him any harm. Bit by bit, she increased the amount of power she was feeding him. As the power flowed into him, his stance became straighter and more vigorous, and the faint blue glow of power around his gun and left hand brightened with an amber tinge. Despite his gunshot wound, his left hand was steady now as he aimed his gun at the Forn’s Crossing man. “Gods damn you, my wife and I risked our lives to save your cattle and your gods-damned lives! Don’t make me sorry we did it.” The wind he had stirred up, which had nearly died, came to life again and whipped around him and Lainie and through the mob. The ground shook harder with the force of his anger and the Wildings power inside him.
“What’s going on here?” A tall man with a gray mustache came striding through the crowd. Lainie recognized him as one of the bosses with the northeastern herd, but didn’t know his name. He was followed closely by Endis. The two men walked up to Landstrom. “What are you fellas doing that’s more important than seeing to the herds?” the gray-mustached boss demanded.
“These two – they’re wizards!” Landstrom went red in the face again as he pointed a shaking finger at Lainie and Silas. “You saw what he did!”
The northeastern boss sighed, then walked over to Silas and Lainie and gave them a long, close look. “You’d be the Vendines, right?”
How did he know their name, Lainie wondered, when she and Silas had been so careful with the nameslip charms and hadn’t even been introduced to him anyhow?
“Yeah, that’s us,” Silas said. “Got a problem with it?”
The man turned back to Landstrom. “You know me, Landstrom. Tell everyone who I am.”
“You’re Nikalsdon, Brin Coltor’s foreman,” Landstrom answered.
Lainie caught her breath. Brin Coltor. A number of the men in the mob exchanged surprised whispers; it looked like most of them hadn’t known either that this man was foreman for the richest, most respected rancher in the Wildings.
“That’s right,” Mr. Nikalsdon said. “And if you hired Vendine and his wife, you must have seen their letter of reference from Mr. Coltor.”
“Well, yes, I did see a letter,” Landstrom said. “But they’re wizards! If Coltor had known that, he never would have given them that letter, or even hired them!”
“It was in their capacity as wizards that Mr. Coltor hired them in the first place,” Nikalsdon said.
Dead silence met this, followed by more shocked muttering. “You expect me to believe that Brin Coltor did business with wizards?” Landstrom demanded.
“Mr. Coltor had a dangerous and sensitive situation come up with the blueskins in the mountains near his spread last winter, that involved the blueskins’ magic. Plain folk couldn’t have handled it, only wizards. Mr. and Mrs. Vendine risked their lives to solve Mr. Coltor’s difficulty, and did him a great favor. He’ll speak to their character any time, to anyone.
“Now,” Nikalsdon went on, “you boys are being a bunch of fools. You’ve seen for yourselves what powerful wizards Vendine and his wife are. He stopped a tornado, by the gods! And it’s clear they beat the wizards that caused that cursed storm. But here you are, threatening them when they’ve done nothing but good towards you. Any fool should be able to see that if they did mean to kill you, you wouldn’t be alive right now. And, frankly, I wouldn’t blame them if they decided they don’t have to stand here and take what you’re giving them without fighting back. And here’s another thing. How do you think Mr. Coltor is going to look on anyone who does harm to the folks who saved his herd? Especially you Bentwood Valley men. If you still want jobs when this is over, never mind staying alive, you’ll stand down right now.”
A number of the trail hands shuffled nervously and whispered to each other, and a few of them holstered their guns. Then the Forn’s Crossing mage-killer shouted, “You can tell that high and mighty Coltor what to do with his herd!”
“We don’t answer to Coltor!” someone else called out.
“He can’t tell us what to do!”
The mood turned ugly again. Lainie was leaning as hard on Silas as he was on her, both of them fighting to stay upright. Their displays of magic were fading. She pulled in a little more earth-power and fed some to Silas, but she didn’t want to overdo it; she had come to grief before, doing things with magic that she didn’t fully understand. Anyhow, pretty soon their sheer physical exhaustion would make using magic impossible. If Mr. Nikalsdon couldn’t turn the crowd soon, she and Silas wouldn’t be able to hide their weakness any longer, and that would be the end of that.
Now Paslund pushed his way forward through the crowd. Lainie watched anxiously, wondering if it was too much to hope that he would speak up for them. He came to stand next to Nikalsdon. “You Windy Valley boys, you listen to me, now.” His face was beaded with sweat and his voice shook, but he didn’t falter. “You know how Shark here – Vendine – saved my life in that flooded river. Swam after me, no matter the danger to himself, and pulled me from the river, and pushed the water from my lungs and stayed with me till he knew I would be all right. Vendine, a wizard, risked his life to save me! It’s because of him that I’ll get to go home to my wife and sons.”
As he went on speaking, his voice got stronger. “And today, Shark and his wife stopped that magical storm. I reckon that couldn’t have been easy, but they still came back and helped with the roundup. And now you want to kill them? Here’s how I figure. Wizards are just like regular people – there’s good ones and bad ones, and Mr. and Mrs. Vendine are two of the good ones. And it seems to me there’s Plain folk as wicked as any wizard, and some of them are standing right here. Now, maybe Shark welcomes my help, and maybe he don’t, but whether he does or not, I’m saying right here and now that if any of you got a problem with Shark and his wife, and what they do and who they are, you’re welcome to take it up with me.”
“And me, as well,” Endis said. “I’ve no fondness for wizards myself, but the Vendines have worked hard and done their fair share and more. I won’t condemn a man based on what folk say about him instead of what my own eyes have seen him do.”
Now a fourth man, squat and muscular with straw-colored hair, came forward; it was the Thornwood trail boss, Deklund. “You men on the Path, listen to me. You know it isn’t what a man is born as that offends the gods, but his deeds and his desires. And you all know, or should know, that it’s an offense before the gods to do harm to someone who’s done good to you. So I’ll add my voice to these other fellows; you Thornwood men who walk the Path, think what you’re doing by having a part in this.”
“Anyone who has a problem with these fellas or anyone else who stands with the Vendines can take it up with me and Mr. Brin Coltor,” Nikalsdon added. “Is anyone having trouble understanding me?”
His question was met with silence.
“Now,” he went on, “those steaks smell pretty damned good. I suggest you boys stop this nonsense, go get yourselves some supper, and get back to work. We got a herd to get to the Gap in less than a month.”
Nikalsdon, Deklund, Endis, and Paslund stood where they were, with Silas and Lainie, while the gathered hands slowly reholstered their guns and wandered away to the grub wagons. Finally, only Landstrom and the Forn’s Crossing man were left of the mob.
“Got anything else to say, Landstrom?” Nikalsdon asked.
Landstrom looked like he still had plenty to say, but he just snapped, “No.” He turned his back and stalked away. The Forn’s Crossing man shot one more poisonous glare at Silas and Lainie, then retreated as well.
“Thank you, Mr. Nikalsdon, sir,” Lainie said. “Mr. Endis, Mr. Paslund, Mr. Deklund. Thank you.”
“We’re much obliged to all of you,” Silas added.
“I’d have stood up for the two of you just out of respect for Mr. Coltor,” Nikalsdon answered. “He thinks the sun, moon, and stars of you two. But I’ve seen for myself that you’re good folks.” He tipped his hat to Lainie and Silas and walked awa
y, and Deklund and Endis likewise took their leave.
“That was gutsy of you, speaking up in front of everyone,” Silas said to Paslund.
“Gotta live with myself,” Paslund said. “Can’t do that if I turn on the man who saved my life, or stand aside and leave him to harm. I’m gonna go get one of those steaks now.” He clapped Silas on the shoulder, and left.
Now that they were alone, Silas let the last traces of his display of power die and pulled Lainie into his arms. They stood there in an embrace, holding each other up. Lainie didn’t think she could move a single step, she was so tired. The last of the earth-power she had taken in drained away, and cramps and shivers rippled through her body as the cravings returned. But if the sickness didn’t get any worse than this, she wouldn’t complain.
“When did you learn that little trick, darlin’?” Silas asked.
She didn’t have to ask what trick he meant. “When I was trying to send the Sh’kimech back, they had the mage’s body and I was almost out of power and the cravings were coming on, so I figured I had nothing to lose by trying to use the power from the ground. Then I thought, if it helped me, why couldn’t it help you? It isn’t the first impossible thing I’ve tried to do.”
“That it isn’t,” he said, a weary chuckle in his voice. “It worked; I think you saved us. Those sheepknocking sons of bitches would have finished us off if they’d known how weak I was.”
She shuddered, as much from thinking about what could have happened as from the cravings. “I know.” A warm wetness on his sleeve against her right cheek made her pull back. She scrubbed at her cheek; her hand came away smeared with blood. “They still got a shot at you.”
“Oh, that.” He glanced down at his left shoulder, where the bullet had ripped through his duster. “It’s just a scratch. I’ll need you to mend my coat, though.”
“Huh.” She didn’t know if it was a laugh that escaped her, or a sob, or both. “You keep getting yourself shot, Vendine, and one of these days that thing’s going to be more mending than coat.”
He laughed again as he gave her another hug. “Those steaks smell good, and I’m so hungry I could eat a cow.”
“Me too. Good thing there’s plenty of them around.”
They got in line at the Windy Valley grub wagon. Mrs. Bington stood at the table, handing out plates of food and looking harried as Mr. Bington tended the steaks over the fire. “I’ll be right there to help,” Lainie said to Mrs. Bington when she got to the front of the line.
“I don’t need your help,” Mrs. Bington snapped. She plopped a spoonful of beans onto a plate next to a piece of steak and handed the plate to the man in line behind Lainie and Silas.
“Oh.” At a loss for what to do or say, Lainie stood at the table, her face burning, as Mrs. Bington, who prided herself on never turning away a hungry, hard-working hand, went on serving everyone but her and Silas. A lump swelled in her throat and she blinked to keep the tears that were pricking at her eyes from spilling over. She had worked so hard these last four months, and had been as polite and friendly as she could no matter how bossy and hard to please Mrs. Bington was, and she had really thought she had finally won her over. But now that Mrs. Bington knew she was a mage, nothing else mattered.
Beside her, Silas stood rigid with anger. She wondered if he would say something to Mrs. Bington; she had plenty she wanted to say herself if she wasn’t afraid she would start bawling as soon as she opened her mouth to say it. After a moment, though, Silas put an arm around her shoulders and said, “Come on, darlin’. Let’s go find someplace more friendly.”
They tried all the other grub wagons, but none of the other cooks would serve them until they came to the Bentwood Gulch wagon. “Out of respect for Mr. Coltor,” the cook made a point of telling them as he handed them a couple of plates, as though otherwise he wouldn’t have fed them, either.
Silas tipped his hat. “Appreciate it.”
It galled Lainie to see him being so polite in the face of so much rudeness, but she also couldn’t help admiring him for rising above the level of everyone who was treating them so badly. She wasn’t sure she could manage it, herself. She forced herself to smile at the Bentwood Gulch cook and say, “Thanks.”
They took their plates of steak and beans and a spoonful of canned peaches and found a place to sit by themselves. In spite of the nausea from the cravings, Lainie inhaled her meal, and Silas made quick work of his as well. She could have eaten four or five plates like that, and she was sure Silas could have eaten even more. “I’m still hungry,” she said, then wished she could bite the words back. It was shameful and childish to complain, and they’d been lucky enough to get one helping.
Gently, Silas brushed some stray hairs from her face. “Me too. I’ll come to you after night watch.”
A shiver of fear went through her. “I don’t think you should go on watch. I don’t want you out there in the dark with those sons of bitches who want to kill you.”
“I’ll be fine. They might not be feeling friendly, but I don’t think they’ll try anything, not knowing what I can do and not with Coltor’s man and those other bosses on our side. I won’t have anyone saying I’m not doing my fair share of the work.”
“But what about your shoulder?” she pled.
“It’s fine. Like I said, just a scratch.”
“At least let me tend it first. And then I’ll go on watch with you.”
Before Silas could argue with this, Paslund came over and squatted down beside them. “You look done for, Shark. I’ll take double shifts tonight.”
“You’ve done plenty already,” Silas said. “I can’t ask more of you.”
“It’s because of you I’ll get to see my family again. I can never do enough.”
“All right, then.” Silas shook his hand. “Thanks.”
There was one Plain, at least, Lainie thought, who could see past the hate and fear, who could see her and Silas for the people they were and the things they did. Him, and Nikalsdon, though his support might just have been out of loyalty to his boss, and Deklund, trying to walk right before the gods, and Endis, who, if nothing else, respected her and Silas’s hard work these last months. If more Plain folk could be like them instead of like Landstrom and Mrs. Bington and the Forn’s Crossing man and all those others, maybe it would be possible some day for mages and Plains to live peacefully alongside each other in the Wildings.
* * *
SILAS AND LAINIE returned to the Windy Valley camp. Next to the wagon where Lainie had been sleeping, their belongings lay in a heap on the muddy ground. Lainie went absolutely still at the sight, her expression growing closed in and hard. Silas’s heart ached for her at this new humiliation.
“Looks like I’ve been kicked out,” she finally said. Her careless words didn’t quite hide the tremor of hurt in her voice.
“We’ve got the tent.” Silas tried to sound encouraging, for her sake as well as for his own. “It’ll be more private, anyhow.”
They pitched the tent just beyond the fringes of the camp. Inside, Silas took off his coat and his shirt so Lainie could tend the crease the bullet had left in the skin and muscle of his left shoulder. The hunger of magical depletion, barely eased by the meal, hounded him. He held himself rigid, trying to rein in his need long enough to let Lainie treat the wound, but the gentle touch of her hands on his bare skin sent a deep shiver of desire through him.
She pulled her hands away. “Did I hurt you?”
As it had that other time, on that starlit night in that mountain meadow deep in the Great Sky Mountains, the sweet sound of her voice shattered his self-control. He turned to her and pulled her into his arms, covering her mouth in a starving kiss, trying to get his fill of her all at once. He bore her down beneath him, wrestling the rest of their clothing out of the way. She clung to him, pulling him closer, as desperate for him as he was for her, and he gave himself, body and mind, heart and spirit, completely to her soft, eager warmth. Fed by growing sensation and his love
for her, his power flickered to life again, and swelled and brightened, until magic and pleasure burst into brilliance, completely filling him.
Afterwards, he lay drowsy and content, with Lainie resting on his chest. She was the strongest woman he had ever known, and tougher than a lot of men, but in his arms she felt as fragile as a bird. He could have lost her today in any one of half a dozen ways, but he hadn’t. The gods had smiled on them and preserved them, and she had chosen –
He still found it hard to believe. “Why’d you do it, darlin’?”
“Do what?” she murmured, her lips and breath a caress on his chest.
“Reveal yourself. It was me they were set against; they didn’t know about you. You could have just kept quiet and –”
“And left you to hang alone? No.”
“But – what Landstrom said, he could have taken you home to your Pa.” It felt like he was cutting his heart out, to say what he was thinking, but he couldn’t go on torturing himself over it. Better to get everything out in the open. “He could have taken you home, and then you could tell our witnesses that – that you’re done with me, and marry Dobay or some other fellow and have kids and live on your ranch with him and your kids and your Pa the rest of your life.”
“Is that really what you think I want?” She propped herself up with her forearms on his chest and looked down at him. “Did you really think I was going to take Mr. Landstrom’s offer? Do you really think I’d leave you?”
“I see you in this life, on the drive, and you’re happy. This is the life you were meant for, not the life of an outlaw, running and hiding and always in danger. And when we talked about going away, you said –”
“Hush.” She stopped his words with a kiss. “I love this work. I love my Pa. But I don’t want any life that doesn’t have you in it. And I don’t want no other man’s seed. If I’m going to have babies, I want them to be yours.”