Malice of Crows

by Lila Bowen

  The Captain’s badge went right into Rhett’s pouch. He couldn’t wear it. He couldn’t tell anybody the truth of what the old man had entrusted him to do. But he could keep it with him always to help remember another fine man who had died fighting the good fight. From now on, Rhett would be a Ranger Scout, even if he knew in his heart he was the goddamn Captain. He’d found his own badge still on the Captain’s side table and would continue to wear it with pride.

  “It’s right pretty,” Sam said, sounding all hangdog. “For a pyre.”

  Rhett squeezed Sam’s shoulder. “A pyre should be pretty. It’s got the best fuel.”

  “The Captain was a good man.” This from Dan, whose face was hard, set in lines like it’d been carved from wood.

  “Jiddy wasn’t,” Rhett admitted. “Never was too fond of them Scarsdale boys, neither.”

  “I reckon the fellers would’ve followed you if not for those three. They were trouble before you ever showed up. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but Virgil caught me…” Sam trailed off and fidgeted about. “Well, doing something he didn’t like, once… and he about thrashed me bloody.”

  Seeing the red of Sam’s face, Rhett had a pretty good idea what Virgil had caught him doing, and he wondered briefly if the other guilty party was currently on fire, too, or if it had been someone already long gone. Rangers seemed to die at a fast clip, and Rhett at least reckoned these fellers knew what they were in for when they signed up for the job. Monsters were everywhere in Durango, whether they wore human skin or showed their true colors on the outside.

  “Then good riddance,” Rhett said. “I can’t abide rudeness. And there’s nothing ruder than a feller who don’t like somebody for all the wrong reasons.” He looked down at the jar in his hands and sighed. “Speaking of rude fellers, anybody know how the Irish do their funerals? I scraped up as much of donkey-boy as I could and put most of him in with his brother’s remains, and it feels like somebody ought to say something or sing something or, I don’t know, get drunk and yell at me.”

  “I know the Irish like to sing,” Sam said. “But I don’t know any of their songs.”

  Much to Rhett’s surprise, Winifred’s voice rang loud in the valley, rising over the crackle of the fire. Rhett had heard the song before, something about amazing grace. They’d sung it in the church in Gloomy Bluebird, from time to time. It didn’t sound particularly Irish to him, but it did sound sad and talked a good bit about being lost and a wretch, which he figured Earl could relate to, wherever he was now. Winifred had a fine voice, sweet and tremulous, and Rhett took off his hat and held it over his heart. Sam and Dan did the same. Cora crept up beside Rhett, took the jar from him, and said something before throwing the sand into the wind, as she had with her grandfather. When Winifred’s song came to a close, Rhett cleared his throat.

  “Earl, you were a vexful feller. From the first time I saw you, I knew you were gonna be trouble, and you did not disappoint. But you taught me a lesson I sorely needed, and for that I’ll be eternally grateful. You had a fine sense of humor, and a love of good fun. I won’t say you were a pleasant companion, but you were stubborn and loyal, and that goes a far piece. Wherever you are, I hope you found your brother Shaunie, and I hope between the two of you, you found a bottle of something to celebrate with. I hope you find what you were looking for, whatever it is. I hope you find peace.”

  “Amen,” Sam murmured.

  But Rhett still felt antsy. “What about the Captain? Shouldn’t we say something for him, too?”

  Dan stepped forward, to Rhett’s surprise. He was in his Ranger get-up, patched-up navy shirt and butternut pants, his hands folded in front of him. “The Captain took me in when I was in a dark place. My heart was filled with revenge, but he saw light in the darkness. He called me useful, said it would be a sin to squander such aptitude. He pulled me back from the edge of a cliff, and today I’m glad I never found what waited at the bottom of that chasm. He stood up for me, fought for me, defended me. When Jiddy tried to beat me, the Captain struck him in the face with his quirt. That’s when I gave him my allegiance, because if a white man will strike a mostly white man for the sake of a brown man, that means something. I am sorry he is gone. For myself, and for the world. His Rangers were something more because he was something more. Without him, they became squabbling children, but squabbling children with many bullets. What happened this morning was justice. Many lives will be spared because those men did not ride forth, empty of judgment and kindness. Any man who looks at me and sees an animal instead of a man deserves to die like an animal. May the Captain rest in peace, and may the rest of his Rangers haunt this valley, forever denied what they seek.” He spit on the ground, turned, and walked toward the horses.

  “Well, shit, Dan. Tell us how you really feel,” Rhett muttered, but he watched Dan check the saddles and stare grimly into the fire and realized that for all that Dan had tried to teach him, the man had revealed very little about himself. Now that they understood each other better, Rhett owed it to Dan to treat him less like an annoyance and more like a goddamn equal. He realized, to his own consternation, that he’d fallen into the same trap and had seen Dan as less than a person somehow. The flames felt hot on his cheeks, and he followed Dan to the horses with the others in his wake.

  “So where’d he find you, Dan?” he asked.

  Dan looked up and gave his old, cocky grin. “Sneaking up to kill him. I’d found the remains of a band of skinwalkers, or so I thought. Followed the horses here and planned to take down the Captain after dark. But Jiddy found me, and when I confronted the Captain, he tried to convince me that it had been a band of Lobos, which had recently preyed upon another tribe. Gave me directions to where he’d left the survivors, and I went there myself and saw that he’d given the Lobo horses to the band, plus their coin. I realized that maybe the Rangers, his Rangers at least, weren’t what I’d been told.”

  The horses milled uneasily in their paddock, pricking their ears and snorting at the unwelcome invasion of the fire’s smoke. There had to be a hundred of ’em just now, divided into three pens for the Rangers’ regular mounts, secondary mounts, and miscellaneous broncs, mules, and unrideable beasts. Dan had two halters in hand and slipped into the main pen, whickering to his chestnut and selecting another chestnut, considering he’d given one of his horses away. Ragdoll met Rhett at the fence, butting his shoulder with her long nose for a proper rub. He looked over the herd, hunting for the sort of horse that would suit him, now that Puddin’ was gone.

  His gaze landed on the Captain’s mount, a gelded unicorn named Big Bastard, called BB. BB was a sturdy, friendly, courageous critter, at least seventeen hands and built like a brick shithouse. Rhett hated to think of him roaming free on the prairie, which is what would happen to any horses they didn’t take. Wild unicorns wouldn’t accept him, since his horn and balls were gone, and wild horses probably wouldn’t cotton to him, either. Rhett knew what it was like to have a foot in both worlds and a friendly smile in neither.

  “Dan, you reckon anyone will complain if I take on BB here?” he asked.

  Dan shook his head. “He ain’t a chestnut, so you’ll see no complaint from me.”

  “The Captain would’ve wanted you to have him,” Sam said. “He’d want BB to be with you. He’s a Captain’s mount, sure enough.”

  Rhett jogged out to the barn and brought an armful of halters, dumping them on the ground. As he waded into the first-string pen, Ragdoll was hot on his heels, nudging him with her nose as if to suggest he didn’t need another pony. When he reached BB, the great beast blinked down at him with long, white eyelashes and gentle, intelligent dark eyes. He was one of the finest mounts Rhett had ever seen, and his dappled white coat and elegant lion’s tail never seemed to get dirty, or maybe the dirt just magically fell off.

  “What do you say, feller? You want to go on an adventure?”

  The unicorn seemed to take the question seriously, so Rhett held out a sugar cube from the Captain�
��s personal stash. BB ate the offering and whuffed as if to suggest he’d think about it, and Rhett slipped the halter over his head and led him to the gate. BB followed willingly with Ragdoll trying to nudge ahead, and soon both horses were tied up side by side with Blue the mule, noses touching as they got to know each other. Ragdoll didn’t dislike him, which was fine enough for Rhett.

  Sam haltered his blue roan and picked out his usual flashy sort, a curly-haired black that one of the newer Rangers had brought. Winifred chose a sturdy little paint, almost a pony, and Rhett reckoned swinging up onto a sixteen-hand beast was soon going to be beyond the girl’s abilities, once her belly started growing. Then again, if he knew anything about Buck and Kachina by now, he’d have bet good money that the mare would go back to kneeling whenever Winifred went to mount, just as she had when the girl’s foot had been a bleeding stump.

  Rhett went back into the herd to check the largest horse they had, a draft even bigger than Samson who should have no trouble pulling Cora’s wagon, even now that it was loaded up with everything they could carry from the outpost. They’d taken every bullet, every arrow, every knife, and most of the books that were readable. They’d plundered bunks for clean shirts and pants and socks. The blue and purple wagon that had once housed a witch was now a rolling armory and library, the narrow bed inside crowded by bags and crates and stacks of heavy leather-bound books.

  It still didn’t feel like enough to Rhett. He’d been a fool to think the Rangers would ride out with him against Trevisan. It hadn’t happened last time, when the Captain was still in charge, and it wasn’t going to happen this time, now that everybody was dead. Rhett couldn’t figure out if he was the best thing to happen to the Las Moras Outpost or the worst. It didn’t really matter. The Shadow had no time for bellyaching or wishy-washying, so neither did Rhett. Sure enough, the wobble in his belly pulled east, toward San Anton and maybe the sea. Tomorrow morning, they’d head out. Or maybe…

  “Let’s leave now. Put some miles on these new ponies.”

  Dan looked up from saddling his mare and grinned. “I thought you might say that.”

  “Why don’t we wait overnight?” Sam asked, massaging the patched-up wound on his shoulder.

  The feeling that made Rhett’s head duck down between his shoulders had to be guilt.

  “Because I don’t want to smell those assholes burning,” he muttered.

  The more air Rhett put between his back and the smoking ranch house, the lighter he felt – at least as far as the Shadow was concerned. Part of him longed to shuck his clothes and his life and his feelings and his heart’s desolation and take to the sky. But the rest of him felt weighed down with the Captain’s star in his pouch and the responsibility dogging his every step. Being a bird meant he could forget the Captain and Earl. Being human meant he had to deal with how he’d failed them both. Being a bird also meant he could forget about his promise to his brother. If Revenge learned English and came here seeking Rhett, all he’d find were ashes. Rhett might never see his brother and mother again, and that was a hell of a blow on top of the rest of life’s recent gut punches. Burning bridges, it seemed, sometimes meant you could never cross the goddamn river again.

  He started out on BB, his rump rattling around in the Captain’s bigger and far nicer saddle, which even had a side holster for the Henry rifle. Is this what the Captain had felt like, riding out with his posse? Unsure, guilty, worried that he wouldn’t be up to the next task? The Captain had looked decades older in just a few weeks, and Rhett figured that the next time he looked in a mirror, he’d see time’s toll in the curve of his shoulders and the worry wrinkles worming across his forehead.

  The saddle would’ve made him sore no matter what, thanks to the healing wound from the silver bullet some bastard had shot in his rump. It had been humiliating, lying on his face with his buttocks bare in the air, letting his former lover dig around in his meat with a tweezer. But it was out now, and his other wounds were healing, if hurting. His body had just poked all those other bullets back out to fall one by one with a little plop in the sand. Sam was all patched up, and Rhett would gladly take a sting in the ass if it meant they could get on the road. The piss pan and bible he’d taken from the Captain’s room stayed with him, though, tucked into a saddlebag. For a feller who could pretty much only die if he got shot straight in the heart, a little armor during a fight was not a bad thing.

  They made good time in the crisp weather, all the horses trotting out with their heads up and hooves dancing high. First came Rhett, then Sam, then Winifred beside Cora’s wagon with the ponies and Blue the mule tied alongside. Behind that… well, they’d brought the entire herd. Leaving a herd of horses penned up near a fire meant somebody was going to get hurt, and Rhett reckoned that some of the horses had never been wild and might’ve lost their instincts. That was a little how he’d felt, sitting at the fire with his mother and brother. He’d lost his chance to roam free and would chafe and fret at any bonds that kept him from his destiny. The herd was running loose now, which meant that any horses who felt the call could gallop right off and seek their own goddamn horse fortune, and welcome to it. Otherwise, they’d mostly stay bunched together, following the lead mare and the wagon containing their grain. Dan rode behind the herd, doing and thinking whatever the strange feller did and thought. Which Rhett didn’t mind, as it meant he had Sam all to himself.

  They didn’t talk much. Rhett figured Sam was feeling the loss of the Captain and his fellow Ranger brothers pretty deep. Although Jiddy and the Scarsdales and their cronies had never approved of Rhett, they’d been just fine with Sam – at least in public. Everybody had. And Sam had killed some of ’em, all while they were firing on him.

  “You doing okay, Sam?” Rhett asked.

  Sam looked up, his kind blue eyes showing raw pain. “Hell no, I’m not. I never had my own people shooting at me. Never had to shoot folks when I wasn’t sure if they needed killing at all. It got crazy in there. The feller who shot my shoulder, we trained up together. His name was Gene. He said he was sorry, kinda like he was surprised he’d hit me, and then I killed him.” A sob broke, and Sam dashed at his eyes. “I killed him, Rhett. And I don’t even think I did the wrong thing. We got to be better than that, than Jiddy and the Scarsdales. We got to be like the Captain, always.”

  “That’s right.”

  “We got to get Trevisan. Captain should’ve done more about it. Should’ve known Haskell had gone bad. It’s like he couldn’t see that not all Rangers are good like him.”

  “Well, Sam, I reckon most folks think they’re the good guys, even when they’re dead wrong.”

  Sam’s eyes met Rhett’s. “We’re the good guys now, Rhett. We got to be.”

  Rhett nodded. “It ain’t fun and it ain’t easy, but that’s the way it is.”

  They rode on until evening, and Rhett fell into trail thoughts, his brain sort of floating away. The terrain was fine enough, rolling hills and scrub brush and rocks, familiar as the back of Rhett’s hand. Dan shot a couple of rabbits with his bow, and they dangled from the back of the wagon, waiting to become supper and a winter hat, maybe. The posse had to go a little farther than Rhett would’ve liked to find decent grass and water, but the herd settled down to the trail peaceably enough. It felt good, going in the right direction at last. Still, the Shadow dogged him, making his heels dig into BB’s sides, urging him to get east, and fast.

  The hard part came when the posse went about their nightly chores and Rhett realized that no one was gathering the kindling for the fire. It might’ve been the job of the lowliest feller, but now their low feller was gone. Rhett left Sam to the horses and stumbled around in the dark, angrily yanking twigs and sticks and bunches of dried grass to put in the pile.

  He hated it. He hated every goddamn moment of it. He hated the rasp of cold bark on rein-bruised palms, despised the wincing rip of a fingernail tearing. It wasn’t until he’d dropped off his second armful of kindling that he realized he was crying. He
dashed at his eye with his knuckles and went back out for more. Usually he was wary of snakes and scorpions and all the dangerous wild things that lurked in the desert, but just now, he would’ve welcomed a fight, or pain, or anything that didn’t feel like Earl had chosen to die rather than keep on going with Rhett.

  “Rhett.”

  Dan’s hand landed on Rhett’s shoulder, and Rhett dropped his load of sticks and swung wild. Dan stepped back, his hands up in peace. Rhett’s failed punch took him into moron territory as he flailed around and regained his balance, ending up with his hands on his knees, feeling like he wanted to vomit.

  “There’s enough, Rhett. You brought enough kindling for three fires. You need to sit. Rest. Drink.” In the low light, Rhett could feel Dan looking him over. “You don’t look well,” he finally said.

  “How the hell would I be well when I killed a bunch of my own folks this morning? Goddammit, Dan. How could anybody be well after that?”

  Dan nodded and squatted to start the fire. With his back to Rhett, Rhett found it easier to recompose himself and stand, although he was full of nervous energy and paced around, kicking stones with his dusty boots.

  “Anyone who feels good after what happened this morning is a true monster. But we have to find a way to go on,” Dan observed.