The Cold Eye

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “You interrupted a duel?” There was surprise in the judge’s voice then, surprise and astonishment that they were still alive after that, much less able to affect anything.

  Tousey raised his glance to the daub ceiling, then shook his head, the resignation of a man who saw no more point in arguing, convinced he was the only rational soul left among the mad. “I saw two men circling each other, chanting nonsense. Andersen told me that they were magicians, men who had some power in this land, that they did not kowtow to your . . . devil. I thought they might be useful to cultivate as potential allies.”

  Isobel pressed her thumb harder into her palm, forcing herself to listen not only to the words but what snaked underneath. Fools die. The first thing a child learned in the Territory. But Tousey had not died. Not a fool, then, or his luck had been stronger than his foolishness.

  Luck was medicine of a sort for some. A man with luck could beat the devil with his own cards.

  “And what did you use as bait to entice them to listen to you?” Gabriel’s tone tore her attention away from the marshal; she had never heard his voice that cold, not since . . . not since that first day on the Road, when they’d encountered a posse who’d looked at her wrongly.

  He was angry at the wrong thing, the wrong person. She knew that, but she didn’t know why—or who.

  “What does it matter? You’ve already judged me and measured the rope.”

  Gabriel could move like a ghost cat when he chose to. Tousey and he had seemed evenly matched, but the rider had him up against the far wall, a hand wrapped around his neck, before any of the others could react. “What. Did. You. Use?”

  “Mister Kasun.” The judge’s voice wasn’t as cold as Gabriel’s, but it carried a distinct chill. “This is my bench, if you please.”

  She could see the muscles bunching under the back of Gabriel’s shirt, but then, slowly, they eased, and he released the other man, stepping back just enough that he could still lunge again, easily. She couldn’t read most people from behind, but Isobel had spent enough time riding behind him to learn Gabriel front and back. He wasn’t angry. He was afraid.

  Of what?

  “There is no rope,” the judge said, stepping forward so that Gabriel had to take another step back or be pushed aside. “That is not how it works in the Territory.”

  “What, a knife? A bullet? Or was Anderson right; do you turn us over to the savages?” Tousey didn’t spit the word the way Anderson had, but it still tasted sour in the air, anger and fear and disdain mixing with the lingering smell of sweat and blood to make Isobel’s stomach churn with upset.

  “We would be well within our rights to do so,” the judge replied. “Your actions caused them direct harm, and this would show them that we took that harm seriously.”

  “Well, that’s just lovely,” Anderson muttered, still sitting on the bench. He hadn’t so much as flinched when Gabriel attacked Tousey, slumped against the wall, still staring at his boots. “We’ll end up stretched on poles and shucked into stewpots, then. Tell them where you got the damned idea, Tousey, and maybe they’ll kill us outright instead. That’d be a better fate.”

  The American’s jaw clenched, the muscle in his jaw twitching hard enough to make his eyes squint half-shut. “I was told, if I encountered a magician, that the only thing they respected, the only thing they coveted, was power . . . and the only thing they wanted and didn’t have was freedom.” He exhaled, his chin lifting not in defiance but an odd sort of . . . pride? “I was authorized to offer them passage across the Mississippi if they so desired —”

  “You are mad.” Gabriel’s voice was flat, brooking no dispute.

  “The United States Government—”

  “Has no idea what they were offering. And you—you told them what? That they would have free range there? What would they have to give you first?”

  “To bring down the boss.” Isobel knew she was right, felt it in her bones. “That was it, wasn’t it?”

  Tousey’s gaze flickered sideways. “That was not in my orders.”

  “No.” She stepped closer, but where Gabriel had attacked, she slid, winding herself around him, until there was barely a handbreadth between them. Rosa taught the new girls how to do that, to distract and set a man back on his heels when he got too rowdy. If you could confuse them, she’d said, you could control them.

  Isobel knew she wasn’t Rosa, didn’t have the swing of hips or perfumed hair, in her worn traveling dress, her hair a mess, stinking of blood and sweat. But his breath caught and his gaze flicked down at her, then away anywhere else, discomfort writ in his face. She refused to allow sympathy to soften her, pushing forward, her hands flat on his chest, the flesh under her skin pulsing with that flowing, hot power.

  She could feel his heart beating under her hands, feel the quickly indrawn breath, the panicked scurrying of his thoughts, wondering what sort of witch she was, suddenly realizing, remembering that it had not been Gabriel who had bound the magicians but her, that she was the dangerous one. . . .

  She stepped back, her hands pressed together, palm to palm, touching fingertips to her mouth.

  “He was told to offer them whatever it took,” she said, not looking away from his eyes. “If they could bring down the boss, make people doubt his ability to keep them safe. It was an open pot with no limit. With that much of a lure . . . they were willing to work together to achieve it.”

  She tried to imagine it, seven versions of Farron, agreeing long enough to not try to destroy one another to gain greater power. . . .

  Yes. Enough of a lure, and they would. And they would not stop—would not be able to stop and consider if the bait were true or empty, the way LaFlesche’s crossroads trap had been empty.

  We tell you nothing you do not already know.

  “But they couldn’t hold it, could they. It wasn’t only that what they were trying to do was too powerful . . . they turned on each other the moment they had the ancient spirit in hand.”

  The churn in her stomach worsened, disgusted by the thought of what must have followed, the raging madness of the spirits, of an ancient being thrust back into flesh only to be trapped once again, of the frothing, possessive madness of the two surviving magicians the judge was determined to let loose back into the Territory. All because of this man.

  No. A chill settled over the heat in her bones, and she could see the threads that wove to make the cloth, one pattern overlaid on another. The Americans were fools, but they were not the ones to blame.

  Isobel turned her face away, the hall suddenly too close, the air filled with the memory of burnt flesh and soured blood, rage and loss. The magicians had killed the buffalo for power, betrayed the Territory with their greed. Everything the boss fought to keep in check—they’d ripped open.

  She could sense Gabriel near her, the feel of him like running water, easing the press of rage. She opened her eyes, forcing herself to observe, the way the boss would expect, to give nothing away.

  The judge was speaking again—to Anderson and Tousey, not her. “Acting on behalf of a foreign government, to create dissent and trouble within the Territory.” The judge pursed his lips, shook his head. “Your own words, your own admission. That seems clear enough, however a fool’s way you chose to do it.”

  The marshal’s face was still again, his body likewise. “And the punishment?”

  “Had you foolishly chosen a settlement to stir, we would have ridden you back to your border and pushed you, naked as a babe, back to the trouble that spawned you. But it was not us you gave insult to.”

  “Tolja,” Anderson spat, still slumped against the wall. “They’re gonna hand us over to the savages.”

  “Would you rather I chose the mágicos to punish you?” the judge asked, his voice coolly amused. “Creatures of madness and whim?” He turned back to Tousey. “The Kohogue or the Sutaio, they might kill you, they might keep you, but you are a warrior, and while you were foolish, you have not behaved dishonorably. They would treat
you with respect.”

  The look he gave the guide suggested that the judge didn’t expect so much on Anderson’s behalf.

  “You will be given shelter here overnight. In the morning, I will request the presence of the elders of the nearby tribes. They will say what your fate may be.” The judge stepped back to his bench and rapped once on the wooden surface with a fist-sized mallet.

  Someone outside must have been anticipating that signal, because the door opened and a shadow filled the doorway even as, in the corner of her eye, Isobel saw LaFlesche step forward, the silver wrist-cuffs dangling from her hand.

  Anderson must have seen the cuffs too, or like a cornered animal sensed the trap, because he lashed out, coming off the wall like a storm, head-butting LaFlesche hard enough to send her staggering backward, his left arm swinging up and slapping into her torso.

  Isobel saw the glint of metal, heard the sharp gasp of indrawn breath before the road marshal dropped to her knees.

  A fight had broken out in the saloon once, when the boss wasn’t there. Someone had gotten too familiar with one of the girls against her wishes, and Iktan had stepped in. The man had thought that because Iktan was old, he wasn’t a threat.

  That fight had been fast, over before she was even aware it had started. But this time she saw all of it as though every motion were slowed down, her heartbeat taking forever to go thump-thump-thump. The tang of blood reached her nose, and Gabriel lunged past her to tackle Anderson, Tousey diving for the man’s legs and yanking them back, the judge yelling something garbled over her head.

  It took forever to happen, a hundred counts in one beat of her heart, and then Isobel moved, with each step her heels clicking on the planking, cutting through the noise of the scuffle and the yelling like thunder cutting into a storm, crouching next to the wounded marshal and pulling her upright, searching for where the wound had been made, where the blood was coming from.

  It all snapped back, and then things moved too quickly.

  “Stupid son of a bitch.” LaFlesche’s face was pale, but her eyes were bright with anger, even as her hands pressed against her abdomen, trying to staunch the wound. “I didn’t think to check for an arm sheath; thrice a fool.” She rasped once, a harsh sound deep in her chest. “Is it bad? I don’t want to look; if I look I’ll likely faint, and the judge will never let me forget it.”

  “Let me see. Come on, let me see.” Isobel coaxed her hands away, gently. More blood soaked the cloth of LaFlesche’s shirt, accompanied by the smell of shit and urine. She pulled her own knife from her belt and cut the cloth away as carefully as she could.

  “How bad?”

  “Bad.” Worse than bad; Isobel caught a glimpse of something pink and pulsing under the wound: the source of the smell. The knife had been yanked out so hard, it had tried to take her insides with it. “Gabriel!”

  She could hear the noise of the fight going on behind her, though she couldn’t take her eyes away from the wound, pressing her hands against it as though to stop the bleeding through sheer willpower.

  “Boss, help me,” she said despairingly. “Please.”

  Then Gabriel was there, his hands over hers, pressing down, and the marshal started to swear, the shock wearing off and the pain setting in. “Son of a bitch, oh damn Anderson you quivering pustulent sack I’ll—oh!” LaFlesche arched away from their hands, cursing fit to curl Isobel’s hair, and she looked at Gabriel, hoping he would tell her what to do.

  He shook his head side to side, forehead creased, his eyes sorrowful.

  “He cut you something fierce,” Isobel said, surprising herself at how light her tone sounded, as though she were talking about a broken leg, something that might heal. “Please tell me there’s a curandero in this town; otherwise, we’ll have to rely on me for the stitching, and mine are never as neat as they should be.”

  That got what might have been a laugh from the marshal, a gasping, dry noise. “I still got a nose, girl. I can tell when my gut’s been ripped open. Your finest hand won’t do much save make me pretty for the night birds.”

  Gabriel’s lips pressed tight, his hands still holding torn flesh in place. “Can you . . .” His eyes asked the question his mouth couldn’t complete. Isobel pressed her hand down harder against the wound, letting her palm slip against the slick surface, not flinching from the unpleasant texture.

  “Iz?”

  She felt the pulse of flesh underneath stutter, then begin to slow.

  “I’m sorry.” She wasn’t sure who she was saying it to, Gabriel or the woman dying under their hands. “I’m so sorry.”

  She had been warned before she left Flood: the Left Hand did not carry mercy but judgment.

  There was no bench observance for murder committed in front of witnesses. The knife, a viciously sharp skinning knife, light enough to be overlooked and slid up a sleeve, had been clenched in Anderson’s hand, slicked with blood, when they finally wrestled him down to the floor, still flopping like a fresh-caught fish.

  Tousey had been the one to subdue him finally, they were told, with a boot to the neck of his former companion. The US Marshal was solemn-faced now, his shirt bloodied, standing off to the side, nearly forgotten as judgment was carried out. The small sounds of a blunderbuss being primed were too loud in the air, the crowd who had gathered to watch quiet save for their breathing and the rustle of their coats as they shifted. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked and birds called, and farther off Isobel thought she could hear the lowing of cattle, but then the tamping rod was inserted, and the faint clicking noise seemed to overwhelm all else.

  Anderson stood, sulkily defiant, scowling at his executioner. “Didn’t mean t’kill her,” he said, given the option to say last words. “But I’ll be damned if I’ll be handed over to savages.”

  “You’d be damned either way,” the judge said, and nodded to the man with the blunderbuss. A square block of a man, he raised the gun to his shoulder, braced, and pulled the trigger.

  Isobel closed her eyes, the echoes of the shot knocking against the walls of the town until it faded back into silence, the smell of black powder chasing the tang of blood from her nose.

  “It’s done,” Gabriel said.

  They laid the marshal to her rest after sunset, when the winds were still and the bright blue points of the Eagle barely visible in the darkening sky, the moon’s circle dimmed, as though it, too, grieved. The same thick planked wood they used for the walls made up the platform, higher overhead than Gabriel could reach, wide enough to rest two bodies side by side. There were thick gouges in the supports where something with claws had stretched, but they went only halfway up; Gabriel’s people had encaved their dead, and even then, burrowing scavengers had made their feasts. Back east, he’d seen, they buried the bodies whole and never looked at them again.

  Dead was dead, he supposed, and the dead cared not for flesh. But the thought of a body decomposing below ground, locked in a wooden box, made his own flesh crawl. Time enough to be interred once your bones were clean and warded.

  She had been washed and dressed in clothing from her packs, her sigil repinned inside her lapel, the silver resting over her breast, her hair washed and left loose, a heavy leather band placed over her eyes. She rested on a fine woven blanket, her arms stiff at her side, her weapons and saddle next to her on the platform.

  When they took the ladder away, the judge stood there, half-lit by torchlight, and looked up at the platform.

  “She was not a friend. She was not my family. I did not know her well. I cannot speak for her, but there are none here who may better, and so I must. I never heard it said she made a promise she did not keep, or gave insult where none was earned, nor was she cruel or petty. And she was gentle when she could be. More than this I cannot say.”

  Someone else should speak for her, Gabriel thought. That alone was not enough of an epitaph. But they were far from any people she might have had, and he could not think of anything; he had not known her either.

  �
��She did not deserve this death.”

  Isobel, standing beside him, her voice low and steady.

  “She did not ask for this death. And yet, the day she took the Tree into her hands, the day she pinned the sigil to her cloth, she chose this death.” A brief gulping swallow, so faint only he could hear it. “To walk the road of justice. To cleanse the road and make it safe for all. Those are the oaths they make. I did not know this marshal, but I rode with her. She was strong and honest, and saw clear where others perceived shadows. She died in service of the Tree. The Territory honors her for that.”

  There was weight in her words, warm in the cool night air, and in the silence afterward, he felt her hand reach for his own, fingers curling for comfort and reassurance. Gabriel squeezed once, and then they turned around and followed the others back along the narrow trail, through the gate, within the safety of the palisade walls, leaving the dead behind.

  In Flood, when someone died, there was a gathering in the saloon after. The tables were put up, and the boss hosted the first round, and even though no one mentioned the dead person’s name, it was almost as though they were there, until morning came and it was time to bury the bones. Andreas was more solemn, or perhaps it had been because the marshal was a visitor, a stranger, and they could not bring themselves to care.

  It made Isobel wonder where she would die, if there would be anyone there who would know enough to speak for her.

  “Stop that,” Gabriel said.

  “What?”

  “You’re thinking on your own death. Don’t. It comes when it comes, where it comes, and that’s the only certainty we have.”

  They’d been given a small cabin for the night, two rooms, with a square chimney in the center for heat, the same plain wooden planking they’d seen elsewhere. The beds were covered with blankets woven with colored bands of different widths, like Gabriel’s, only unfaded, and feather-stuffed pillows that had Isobel immediately wondering if she could possibly shove one into her pack when they left. Gabriel had put his kit on one bed and dropped his jacket over the single straight-back chair. “The dead are dead,” he added. “Let them go.”