The Devil's Revolver

by V. S. McGrath

  “How’d you escape from Hawksville?” Walker demanded as Uncle stirred the fire to life.

  “I may be old, but I still know a few tricks. And Stubby’s easier to predict than a deck of twos. I managed to give them the slip, and they went back through the Zoom when it reopened. None of ’em wanted to get stuck walking home.”

  “I’m surprised they didn’t stay to hunt you down,” Ling said.

  “Bunch of dandies like them wouldn’t deign to stick around in this heat and get a little dust on their boots. Besides, they’re not smart enough to take maps and compasses out with them. They’ll come better prepared next time, though.” Uncle cut him a look. “What are you doing out here, Tsang? Or are you just here for a lark?”

  “It’s a long story,” Hettie interrupted. “Did you see any sign of the Pinkertons on the way here?”

  “Would I have come straight here if I saw the Pinks?”

  Walker slung his rifle over his shoulder. “We should probably leave.”

  “No need. Not yet. We’re safe for a while. Interesting place you chose to pitch your tent.” Jeremiah peered around the canyon, and his gaze landed on Walker. “I take it I have you to thank for getting Hettie out of that trouble in Hawksville?”

  “Walker Woodroffe, at your service.” He gave a mocking tip of his hat.

  “Yeah, I know who you are. What you are is another matter.” He glared at him head to toe. “Borrowed magic, eh?”

  A muscle in the bounty hunter’s jaw jumped. Stunned, Hettie exchanged glances with Ling. All that magic was borrowed? How was it even possible? Magic could only be passed around in small amounts, and not permanently, either. Siphoning off any magic—or juice, as some folks called it—from a sorcerer weakened the source. When the borrower used power, it only took half of the strength it would normally take, but it meant the lender also assumed half the cost of the spell.

  Walker had displayed a full range of power. If he was borrowing magic, the lender must be more powerful than anyone she’d ever known.

  Jeremiah poked the fire. “Not that hard to figure out, since you cast some pretty mean spells back there. Most men I know would be flat on their back for a week after raining down a fiery apocalypse like that. You must be pretty juiced up.”

  “That explains it,” Ling murmured. “You’re channeling all that power through a lender.” He wrinkled his nose disdainfully. “I hope you know your limits. The last thing we want is for you to blow your power source and die.”

  “It’s not something you need to worry about,” Walker reassured tightly.

  “I suggest we all get some rest, leave at daybreak, and head east,” Uncle said, changing topics abruptly. “We’ll get you somewhere safe until we figure things out.”

  Hettie glowered. “Nothing’s changed, old man. I’m still going after Abby. Mr. Woodroffe and Mr. Tsang here have both promised to help.”

  He glared at the three. “It’s too dangerous. You’ve seen what Stubbs is willing to do, and Butch Crowe, for that matter. You really want to face either of them again for your sister who may not even be alive?”

  She set her teeth against the tightness in her chest. “She’s alive, and she’s somewhere near the border in Arizona. And if we find her … I think we’re going to find a lot of other missing children, too.”

  The men exchanged glances. “How do you figure that?” Walker asked.

  “I had a…” Dream wasn’t quite the word, and it had been so much more than a vision—she wasn’t exactly sure what she could call her visit to the in-between. “This Indian woman”—she gestured around her—“while I was sleeping she told me the tribe’s children were taken years ago. The same thing is happening now—kids are being taken from the road. Why kids? Why Abby? The Crowe gang has something to do with all of this, and the answers and my sister are somewhere near the border. On top of that, I’ve seen them, in a dungeon, in cages—”

  “Hettie.” Uncle reached out to squeeze her shoulder, and she pulled out of his grip. She didn’t trust him not to manipulate her again. “You’re grieving. It’s normal for you to have dreams like this. You feel guilty, so your mind comes up with all kinds of crazy ideas…”

  She balled her fists, heat suffusing her. “I’m not making this up. It’s real.” She wanted to stomp her foot.

  Uncle spoke to her the way one would coax a frightened calf. “You’ve been through a lot. What’s important now is that we get you and Diablo to safety.”

  “Safety?” Walker scoffed. “Nowhere’s safe from the Pinks.”

  “Stay out of this, Woodroffe.”

  “If there’s a chance that Miss Abby is alive, we should find her,” Ling said. “I’ve already been through her memories, Mr. Bassett. She’s telling the truth. Abby is alive, and we’re certain she’s in Arizona.”

  “The woman told me the children were taken to the place of red sand,” Hettie added. “That can’t be a coincidence.”

  “All of you, knock it off. I’m the last of Hettie’s kin, you hear? She’s my responsibility.”

  “We’re not kin,” she said. “You used me and lied to me and manipulated me. I’m not going anywhere with you. Not until I find Abby.”

  Ling stood closer to her and folded his arms. “Where Miss Hettie goes, I follow.”

  “And seeing as I’ve been hired and we’ve got ourselves a little contract spell, I’m inclined to follow the young lady,” Walker added primly. “Looks like it’s three against one, Bassett.”

  Cymon barked and sat at Hettie’s feet, panting his agreement.

  Uncle swore, grabbed his hat, and slapped it across his thigh. “You’ll be changing your tune soon enough,” he said, pointing at Hettie. “Once you see the desert, you’ll know what I know. Abby’s gone, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  At first light, they set out for Barney’s Rock and the Zoom tunnel that would take them south. There was a chance that the Pinkertons would station men in the town to wait for them, but it was a risk they were willing to take. They needed to resupply, and besides, the faster they found Abby, the more likely she’d still be alive.

  The prospect of being back in a town worried and excited Hettie. She wanted a bath and meal that didn’t consist of hardtack and stringy game. The long days of riding were wearing her down, and while the landscape was beautiful, there was only so much of it and her companions’ company she could handle. Being surrounded by smelly, brooding, taciturn men was tiresome.

  She looked forward to finding tack for Blackie. Ling had fashioned a rough saddle with ropes and blankets, which Blackie chaffed under. But she was so sore from riding bareback, she didn’t care that the blanket slid or that the ropes bit into her hands. In truth, she felt worse for the horse than she did for herself.

  It was another week’s ride to Barney’s Rock, but with Blackie, the journey was much faster. While Jezebel had initially accepted him as the lead horse, it was becoming clear that the old mare was jealous of Hettie’s adopted mount. She shied from Hettie’s touch and ignored her pampering when they rested. The mare became devoted to Ling instead, nuzzling him affectionately and earning a lot of extra grooming from her rider.

  Meanwhile, Blackie was impervious to any attention Hettie lavished upon him. He ignored everyone and accepted only the minimum of care. He had a mind of his own, and even looked as if he resented ever helping them. The others speculated that the enchanted stallion must have escaped a previous owner—he was far too smart and haughty to be a newly broken mustang.

  When they made camp, the men would hunt. Scraggly peahens, hares, and raccoons made regular appearances at dinnertime, though there was hardly enough to fill their stomachs. Walker’s provisions had to be saved for more desperate times, when game was scarce. Hettie knew she could bring in more game if Walker would lend her his rifle, but the men refused to let her hunt.

  “It’s not wom
en’s work,” Uncle told her point-blank, which infuriated her since she’d regularly brought home dinner while hunting with Pa. “We can handle the hunting. You need to stay and tend the fire.”

  “Let someone else do it for once.” She didn’t want to whine, but she was out of practice and needed to feel like she was doing something useful. A week was a long time to be worrying over Abby, imagining the worst, and she found herself craving distraction.

  Jeremiah gave a long, grumbling sigh. “Hettie, you can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  He and Walker exchanged looks. With reluctance, Walker unwrapped his rifle from the oilcloth and held it out to her.

  She reached for the butt stock. A million searing needles plunged into her palm as it made contact, and she yelped. When she looked down at her hand, gripping her wrist, she found herself clutching the Devil’s Revolver.

  “You ever wonder why the stories about Elias Blackthorn never featured him using a different weapon?” Uncle said as the pain slowly subsided. “That there’s a jealous piece, almost as petty and vindictive as Jezebel.” He nodded. “So long as you’re bonded with it, Diablo won’t let you use any other gun.”

  Hettie dropped the revolver back into her pocket, rubbing her still-stinging palm against her hip. It seemed the legendary revolver was causing her more trouble than it was worth. “I could set up snares,” she said, focusing on dinner once more.

  He shook his head. “It’s too risky. I don’t want to leave a trail for the Pinks.” She thought Uncle was being overly cautious, but the others deferred to him. A tiny part of Hettie wondered if they were all in cahoots, considering the way they camped and traveled and treated her, as if she were the one who needed rescuing instead of Abby.

  In the end, she gave up asking to hunt and stuck to her assigned chores. It was too exhausting to fight at the end of a long day of riding. It irked her that she had to rely on Uncle, Walker, and Ling to provide for her. It bothered her more than she cared to admit. But at least she got good at kindling the campfire. She quickly discovered the rate at which certain grasses and bits of wood burned, how much smoke they gave off, what they smelled like. Keeping the flames leaping to a certain height became a game to her.

  At night, she would sometimes stare into the hearth, seeing visions of her parents as they’d been in life, smiling and laughing, Ma singing as she weeded the vegetable patch, Pa smoking a pipe. But the memories brought her no comfort, no nostalgia or even sadness. Her parents’ lives were like ash to her, and in the morning, when the fire had burned down, she watched the lifeless char float away on the wind as she kicked it out and scattered the remains.

  It didn’t rain once on their way to Barney’s Rock, but that was hardly a blessing. The sun glared mercilessly down on their necks and shoulders. The horizon rippled, teasing them with visions of a cool, deep lake that wasn’t there. The grasses went from soft and green to tough gold husks that rustled and crunched as they cut through fields untouched by man or beast. Uncle cautioned them all to be on the lookout—for what, Hettie wasn’t sure, but she grew uneasy as the grass thickened, the stalks reaching up toward them like millions of skeletal fingers, brushing their boot tips, then their ankles, and in some places their knees. The horses plowed on, panting with the effort as the grasses swarmed around their legs and grasped at their bodies. Cymon pushed through, his body breaching the field periodically as he leaped through the sea of grass.

  “This ain’t right, Bassett,” Walker said as Lilith huffed and stumbled. They’d been wading through the grass for nearly an hour, and it only seemed to be growing thicker. “Since when does this much grass grow in a drought in Wyoming?”

  “It ain’t natural, that’s for sure.” His gray mustang weaved side to side in search of a path.

  “It’s a grass trap,” Ling said suddenly. “It’s to slow down buffalo and other game.”

  “We’ve been slogging through this for hours. Who can cast a trap spell this big?”

  “The Pinkertons could,” Uncle muttered. “Don’t stop moving, or the grass will take hold.”

  As hard as they pushed the horses, though, it was clear they were tiring. Blackie plowed ahead of the others. Steam rose off his sleek black hair and matted in damp streaks, but he pressed forward.

  “We can’t keep on like this,” Ling said as Jezebel gave a panicked whinny.

  “Get off and pull the horses if you have to, but don’t stop. Hettie, stay on Blackie, y’hear? Just keep moving.” Uncle slid off his horse. The gray mustang thrashed and complained as Uncle pulled on the lead, drawing his bowie knife and hacking at the grass. “Damn, this stuff is tough.”

  Walker grimaced. “We need a counterspell.”

  “I’ve been trying,” Jeremiah called back. “But I can’t get this stuff to stop growing.”

  “What if we make a path?”

  “Do I look like Moses to you? I can’t part the damn sea.” Uncle’s mount stopped and wouldn’t be pulled any farther. The golden grass twined up its legs like insidious tentacles. Uncle cursed and waded around the horse, slashing and slicing in an effort to keep the mustang from being consumed.

  Ling cried out as Jezebel squealed and stumbled to her kneels. The grass reached up for both of them. Ling rolled off and tore at the vegetation climbing up his shoulders.

  Blackie’s eyes widened until the whites showed. He shied and lifted his legs high, stomping down hard and pulling ahead of the mired travelers. Hettie tried to turn him around, but he stayed focused on moving.

  A few feet away, Hettie spotted Cymon chewing at his shoulder where the grass clung. Uncle, Walker, and Ling were all on the ground now, fighting against the field.

  “Stop, Blackie, we need to do something!” She drew Diablo. It had put a hole through Teddy’s chest and blown a horse’s head clean away. It would surely clear a path for them…

  “No, Hettie.” Ling rolled and pulled grass off Jezebel, who struggled to stand. “That’s what they want. If the Pinkertons find us out here, we’ll be sitting ducks.”

  Hettie couldn’t let everyone get eaten by the magic weeds. If only they could make a small clearing…

  She scrambled for the matches and tinder box in her pocket, then slid off Blackie.

  “Damnation, Hettie, I told you to stay on that horse!”

  She didn’t reply as she waded quick as she could in a wide circle around her companions, snatching handfuls of dry and dead grass as she went. It was like wading through the hayloft at its fullest. The grass caught at her clothes, clung like the toughest spider web, and reached for her hair. She twisted what she’d gathered in her hands into a braid, struck a match, and lit the end. It caught almost immediately. She sent up a prayer and held the makeshift torch toward the gold weeds grasping for her.

  A high-pitched hissing sound emitted from the singed grass. It recoiled as it caught fire, writhing as it charred to black ash. Hettie waved the torch around her, and the grass bent away as if a strong breeze were bowing it. Some of the stalks didn’t move quickly enough. Shrieking, popping noises filled the air as the fire spread. A breeze picked up the feather-light embers and let them drift farther out. Soon, patches of the land were smoking, then blazing. Hettie made her sluggish way back to her companions, holding the torch in front of her.

  “This can’t be good.” Walker watched the brush fire race across the tinder-dry land. Thick gray smoke filled the air, and the horses thrashed, nostrils flaring.

  Hettie waved her torch around the horses and her friends, and the grass let go. Blackie let out a throaty neigh as a flock of birds suddenly rushed up from the ground, darkening the sky. Hettie looked around for Cymon, spotting the dog loping toward her.

  “Everyone, mount up!” She raced back toward Blackie and climbed on. “Cymon! Fetch!” She threw him the burning bundle. The dog snatched it midair and streaked ahead, away from Hettie. He never had been good at
fetch.

  The grasses bent away from him, clearing a path. “Let’s go!” Blackie galloped up the narrow, fire-reamed trail her beloved mutt cut for them. The others followed, the grasses closing behind them, still clawing at their legs and clothes.

  The field of grass finally thinned out. Cymon dropped the drool-doused torch, tail wagging in victory. A great, sweeping gray-and-black murmuration of starlings whooshed through the sky like living smoke and then evaporated.

  “You could’ve got us all killed, you pyromaniac.” Uncle coughed and hacked noisily. Ling offered to ease his breathing, but the old man waved him off as he spat a dark wad.

  Hettie planted a fist against her hip. “Better than letting you become plant food.”

  Walker watched the grass burn. “We need to get out of here,” he said tersely. “If this was a Pinkerton trap, they’ll know it’s been set off, and they’ll arrive soon.”

  Hettie huffed. So much for gratitude.

  Just past noon two days later, the four riders crested a ridge and halted. Barney’s Rock spread below them, a dark stain in the bowl between the hills.

  The town was symmetrical, roughly circular around its borders. The Zoom tunnel station resided within a large domed building that sat squarely in the center of a relatively flat field. Wagon-choked roads radiated outward to rings of warehouses and smaller buildings housing customs agencies and delivery businesses.

  Hettie had studied Zoom tunnels in school. There were twelve naturally occurring Zoom apertures scattered across the country, located in places that, for reasons no one had figured out, focused magical energies, which could be tapped to open the portals. Several different Indian tribes had mastered the apertures long before settlers had arrived, though few of them used them for travel—they’d been considered sacred. When the white man had spread across the land, a few enterprising companies “purchased” the rights to the apertures with a few beads and casks of whiskey. Those companies eventually consolidated their resources and started the Zoom Union.