by Lila Bowen
And so Rhett ate the strange German foods set before him and drank the dark German beer until he was full and punchy, and by the time Sam and Dan showed up, he was singing a German song with his arm around Mr. Marko, hefting his beer stein and grinning.
The newcomers were easily absorbed and fed, and Rhett enjoyed Sam’s hip pressed close to his on the bench and the warm giddiness inspired by the drink. He’d only ever had the rotgut liquor served in saloons and stolen from Lobos who had probably stolen it from saloons, plus Buck’s heady wine full of who-knows-what, but the German beer was a right friendly sort of drink, and it made him love everybody. Sitting at that long table with his friends, surrounded by folks who seemed happy just to be alive, he kept on drinking and eating until he just about couldn’t move and crawled upstairs to the room he was set to share with Sam and Dan, as Frau Schafer wouldn’t dream of letting genders mix in nightclothes. Good thing that little old lady couldn’t see into the hearts of the degenerates she was renting to. Meaningless gender lines didn’t slow their dirty thoughts down a bit.
The room had only two beds, so Dan chose to sleep on the floor. Before he settled in, he gave Rhett a grim frown, and Rhett knew he was in for some of Dan’s signature preachin’.
“You look happy for a man about to chase down his destiny,” Dan observed.
“Beer agrees with me, even if you don’t,” Rhett answered. “Did you get a good price for the herd?”
“Good enough,” Dan allowed. “Sam did well. Once Trevisan is destroyed, we should have enough to keep our people fed for a good, long time.”
“I’m gonna miss the Rangers, though,” Sam said, all hangdog.
“Me, too, Sam. But we can’t go back. Only way is forward, holding a gun.”
The way Dan was looking at him just now, Rhett felt like a little baby caught soiling itself again. “I have asked you this question many times, Rhett, and your answer has never satisfied me, but I will ask again: What is your plan for tomorrow?”
Rhett shucked off his boots and lay back on his bed, marveling at the softness of the freshly fluffed mattress. “Well, Dan, I been thinking about it a long time, and I got me a good plan this time. See, I’m gonna get all my weapons loaded, and I’m gonna eat my breakfast, and I’m gonna get on my ugly horse, and I’m gonna follow the Shadow to wherever the hell Trevisan is hiding, and I’m gonna gag him and drag him out of town. Then I’m gonna say some fancy words Inés taught me to kick him out of Meimei’s body, and then he’ll be dead. Or at least gone.”
Dan ran a hand over his grimace. “There are so many loose ends in that plan that it’s got to be doomed to fail.”
“Except I’m the Shadow.”
“Except you’re the Shadow,” Dan agreed. “But you’ll still have a better chance of succeeding if you take us with you. We don’t know how Trevisan is living, whether he’s alone and hiding or if he’s got associates. Don’t tell Cora I said so, but it’s very possible he’s already abandoned Meimei’s body for a better vehicle. He might run, he might throw spells. The local sheriff might see you dragging a child away and interfere, and a diversion would come in handy. We’re going with you.”
“Except Sam,” Rhett said sharply.
“And except Winifred,” Dan added with a nod.
“Why not me?”
The hurt in Sam’s voice just about made Rhett’s eye tear up. He sat up and turned sideways on the bed to face Sam, their knees nearly touching in the confines of the small room. “Because like I already told you a hundred times, you’re the only one of us that can get killed easy, and I can’t fight my best if I’m worried about you.”
“I don’t need to be protected,” Sam snapped. “I rode with the Rangers for years before I ever met you. I’m trained, I’m deadly. Captain said I was a man he could count on in a fight.”
Rhett leaned close. “Yeah, and the Captain didn’t feel about you the way I do. You were just one of his men, but you’re more than that to me, okay? So just stay back and protect Winifred so me and Dan can take care of business.” When Sam just glared hurt at him, Rhett did the unthinkable and added, “Please.”
Dan stared from one to the other, stood, and walked out the door without saying a word. Rhett liked him more in that moment than in all previous moments combined.
Sam leaned close, his head in his hands. “The thing you forget is that it works both ways. I care about you, too, and the thought of you going into a fight without me at your side is like… hell, like you going in without one of your best weapons. It would kill me if something managed to hit you in the heart and I wasn’t there like a shield.”
“Sam, if somebody hit you, they’ve already hit me in the heart.”
Sam reached out and curled his fingers around the nape of Rhett’s neck, pulling him in so their foreheads were touching. A shiver went down Rhett’s spine, and it felt right intimate, for all that he couldn’t see Sam’s eyes, only the tops of their knees touching.
“Is it always gonna feel like this when the Shadow calls?” Sam asked. “I’m worried and angry and scared and ready to kill anything that looks at you wrong.”
“I don’t know, Sam. I never done this before. I just know it’s got to be done so I can get to the other side of it. I don’t know if I’ll succeed. I don’t give it a good chance of Meimei coming out of this alive, and Cora will most likely roast me where I stand if the child is gone, no matter what she says now. I just know that I’ll fight better knowing I have you to come home to.”
“And where is home, Rhett? We burned our home.”
Rhett’s fingers curled around Sam’s neck, and they held each other there. “My home is where you are, and that’s all that really matters.”
“Then take me with you.”
“Sam, don’t you get it? You nearly died the last time we tangled with Trevisan’s magic. Do you know how many nights I lay by your side, terrified you were gonna quit drawing breath? You shot me, and it didn’t hurt half as much as watching you suffer. I can’t have that happen again.”
“But I pulled through it. I always do. You need me there, Rhett. At least let me be nearby, watching. Just in case. And I won’t interfere unless it’s down to your life.”
Rhett bit his lip and rubbed his forehead hard against Sam’s. The man spoke some truth. Thing was, Sam had to live with Rhett being the Shadow, but Rhett couldn’t expect Sam to stay home and make soup. Sam was a man, just like he was, and his business was to do what he thought right. And clearly, this time, Sam wanted to be part of Rhett’s destiny. Rhett couldn’t deny him without making Sam seem less a man.
“All right, Sam. All right.”
He lifted his head, and Sam did the same, and they looked at each other, searching and finding and being amazed with what was there, and Rhett slid his lips across Sam’s, and then it was a goddamn good thing that Dan had left the room.
So it was that Rhett set out the next morning with a small posse and a mouthful of magical mumbo jumbo to memorize. Sam just about had to grab Winifred around the middle to keep her at the boardinghouse with him, but considering every damn person was against her, she ended up slamming the door to her room with a shriek of rage and staying put. Cora would come get Sam if they needed him, but nobody was telling Winifred that. Inés and Cora were coming, and Rhett felt mighty fine with a dragon and a gorgon on his side. Inés carried a big bag full of magic shit, not to mention her book knowledge and the constant threat of her eyes. Cora just brought herself, but that was enough. Dan was his usual stolid self; for all that he could be vexful, he was damn handy in a fight.
As they walked the streets of San Anton, Inés murmured the spell to Rhett, over and over. As far as they were both concerned, he would’ve been a crappy necromancer at best. The words felt like old, lumpy gravy in his mouth, no matter how many times they went over it. It just didn’t make a lick of goddamn sense.
“If I am able, I will say the spell when the time comes,” Inés said, slamming the book shut. “You are hopeless.�
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“The Shadow’s meant to kill things, not yap.” He touched his guns and felt for the sack hanging off his gun belt that was packed full of bullets. The Henry was strung over one shoulder on its strap, his saddlebags over the other, and he had two pistols and a Bowie knife, and there were several handkerchiefs in various states of cleanliness planted about his person for gagging Trevisan so he couldn’t speak a spell of his own.
But something felt off. He was nervous, whereas he usually felt like a bear wading into a rabbit fight. Part of it was that they weren’t on horseback. But the rest of it was a mystery.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” he said.
“That’s as it should be,” Inés snapped. “There is nothing good about it.”
The city was just waking up, roosters crowing and folks yelling at the roosters to shut up and old women in ratty shawls already selling breakfast made of yesterday’s roosters from steaming kettles set along the road. Rhett walked in front, following the wobble in his belly, his three companions arrayed behind him. He keenly felt Sam’s absence, and he wouldn’t let himself think about the loss of Earl and how even if the donkey had mostly just caused trouble and complained, it was still nice to have another body on his side. He was glad to have Inés and Cora backing him up, though, and he knew he could count on Dan. They were solid folks, all of ’em.
“If something bad should happen today, I’m glad to know y’all,” he muttered, almost too low for them to hear.
“Did you just say something nice?” Dan sounded more amazed than he should have.
“I didn’t say nothing.” Rhett spat on the ground and stormed on.
The Shadow led him deeper into the city, down streets lined with the tallest buildings Rhett had ever seen and over bridges and rivers and past missions and down filthy alleys where he felt much more at home. The farther they went, the more certain he was they were going to find Trevisan waiting around every corner. His belly was flipping like crazy, and being at the end of his courses didn’t help a goddamn bit, just as it had not helped last night. He let his mind drift back to those stolen moments in the narrow room, all mouths and hands and Sam teaching him something new, since his betraying goddamn body was a mess at the time. One hand drifted up to the piss pan and bible under his binder, over his heart. It would be a goddamn shame if he died today, after he and Sam had finally said what they’d said the night before.
If things got bad, Cora was to run and fetch Sam. But Rhett knew he could end it before Sam had to get involved. No matter what had passed between them, he still wanted to keep Sam safe. For all his fights and wounds, he’d never given much thought to his own dying before. Now he did. Because now he had something to lose.
Rhett had to stop thinking about Sam, get out of the clouds, and be ready to head-butt anybody who gave him trouble. He said the words Inés had taught him under his breath, practicing, but he quit when she corrected him sharply from behind. How could she even hear him with her ears under that goddamn veil all the time? The wobble intensified as they crossed a street, and Rhett edged his pistols out of his holsters, jumpy as a cat on a stove, waiting for an ambush. He walked two more blocks and stopped, every part of him screaming for a fight.
When he looked up, he stood before a fancy two-story building with wrought iron and sparkling white paint. He longed to rush in through the door for the shoot-out he knew was coming, but he could tell it wasn’t that sort of place, so he just stood there, vexed as hell.
“He’s in there, somewhere,” Rhett said.
Dan put his hands on his hips and whistled. “Well, that’s a problem.”
Rhett bristled like he usually did when Dan said such things. “Why the hell’s that, Dan?”
“Because this is the nicest hotel in San Anton, and they’re not going to let you walk in the lobby bristling with weapons and start knocking on doors and tossing children around.”
“Because I’m brown?”
“Because you’re not rich. Or a guest. Or safe-looking.”
“Didn’t you just sell thirty fine horses? Don’t we have a shit ton of money? I reckon I’m rich enough to get a room and be a goddamn guest if I please.” He held out his hand, and Dan counted out a stack of worn cash, more than Rhett had ever seen, not that he was going to let on about that. Ten whole dollars, and there was more in the roll Dan returned to his pocket. “How much does a room cost, anyway?”
Dan pointed at a sign. “Two dollars a day, room and board. But I’d bet you two dollars that for you, the cost would be three, if they even have a room available, which they might say they don’t. I guarantee that if the four of us mosey in, there will be no vacancies.”
“Which of us is the most respectable, in their eyes? Besides Sam, because he ain’t here.”
Dan inspected them, and Rhett forced himself to try to look upright and harmless, standing up straight and taking his hand off his gun.
“Inés, I think. Especially with the habit and veil. Perhaps you can be her guard, escorting her to her convent. You’ll need two rooms, side by side.”
“But that’s a waste of —”
“Real nuns don’t share rooms with men,” Inés reminded him. “Come, let’s see if you can keep your mouth shut.” She held out her hand and wiggled her fingers, and Rhett pulled out six dollars and gave it to her.
“Should be enough for two rooms, even if they charge us extra. I’m keeping the other four. Just in case.”
He’d never held cash before, and it felt damn good in his pocket. It felt like an extra weapon, one he didn’t need yet but was glad to have on hand, just in case. Neither Dan nor Inés made any comment on it, and it felt, for a moment, like a well-earned reward.
“Let’s go, then.” Inés hid her hands in her sleeves, and Rhett could tell she was being very careful about her accent, and that she could almost sound white, if she wanted to.
“But how will they get in?” Rhett hooked a thumb at Dan and Cora.
“I can fly to the roof,” Cora said, and Rhett realized it was the first time he’d heard her voice in a while. She’d never responded to his apology, and he didn’t know if that meant she accepted or rejected it, but at least she hadn’t slapped him. “There is usually a door there. I can sneak inside.”
“And I can become a coyote.” Dan grinned his coyote smile. “Dart inside, and they’ll see some rich man’s yappy dog.”
“But won’t you both be nekkid after that?”
Dan flapped a hand at him. “We’ve got bigger problems than nudity. We’ll figure it out. Go in and get a room, and we’ll work from there.”
Inés started walking, and Rhett hurried past her to go first until he remembered he was supposed to be her guard. Slowing, he tried to relax his face and hands, make himself seem smaller and less murderous. It was a new kind of fear that he felt, holding the grand door open for Inés. The lobby was tall and imposing, and the ceiling seemed like it was made of glass rainbows, casting glittering colors all over the floor. Fine chairs waited everywhere like they were begging to be sat in, and there were paintings on the wall that looked so real Rhett mistook one for a window. A life-sized deer – an eight-point buck – was stuffed and posed by the hearth, where a merry fire crackled and two white men in bowler hats sat arguing in striped waistcoats.
“Close your mouth before a fly wanders in,” Inés murmured, and he did.
She walked to a desk, her tapping steps echoing. Rhett all but scurried behind her, feeling rough and raw and small in such a place. The white man behind the counter inspected the nun through his pince-nez, his head cocked to the side.
“I’d like two rooms, please,” Inés said, her accent barely detectable as she placed four dollars on the table, keeping her hand hidden by long sleeves. “My chaperone will need to be next door for my safety. Only one night’s room and board, each.”
“We don’t want any trouble,” the man said, all fussy, looking at Rhett like he figured being dangerous might be catching.
“Neither do I,” Inés said. “I’m carrying valuable relics.” She held up her bag, then slid a coin across the table. “For your trouble.”
The man had already slid the dollars into a little drawer, but the coin he slid into his pocket. His sneer suggested he’d noticed the color of Inés’s hands when she held up her bag. Right before he was about to say something, Inés drew a cross in the air and murmured, “And may our Lord guide and keep you, my son.”
The man frowned and fetched two keys from the wall behind him, where many such identical gold keys hung in orderly rows according to numbers.
“If you’ll sign in,” he said, indicating a book, pen, and inkwell. His face suggested he hoped Inés would fail at this test, but she simply smiled and nodded and wrote something very elegant and pretty.
“Supper’s at six and breakfast starts at dawn. Have a pleasant evening, ma’am.”
Inés nodded to him, nodded to Rhett, and palmed the keys. Rhett followed her through the lobby and up a carpeted set of stairs, and Rhett marveled at the strange, soft feeling under his boots and the lack of hobnails tapping. On the next floor, they went down several halls, passing a maid carrying a pan of ashes. She turned to the wall as they walked by, as if her looking away meant they couldn’t see her. Rhett felt right sorry for the girl, stuck cleaning up after a bunch of rich assholes on her hands and knees while wearing a starched uniform.
Finally, Inés stopped in front of a door like every other door, save for a number carved into a small brass plaque. “These are our rooms. Mine is one-oh-nine, and yours is one-ten. You can match the numbers, see? Line, line, circle.”