Kellen crouched beside the fire, hunched forward with a tin cup of coffee between her hands. She didn’t look up, not at Ger or at anyone else. In the early morning shade of the surrounding trees, the flickering light of the flames played with the lines and shadows of her face, twisting them into odd angles. Ger would have liked to talk to her alone, wanted to take her hand or put an arm around her. Or, hell, put both arms around her and pull her close. And not just to comfort her, but to comfort himself, too. But the two of them weren’t the only ones present, so even if she’d have let him, he couldn’t do any of those things.
For all that he’d spent the entire night wishing he could ask what it was he was afraid to ask, Ger found his tongue frozen. No one else seemed to know what to say, either. Ger felt like every man around the fire was holding his breath, waiting to see if someone else would speak up first.
“What did happen out there?” Kalvis, ever stalwart in the face of pretty much anything, sat on one edge of a split log beside Jennett. The coffee Kalvis swirled in a slow circle at the bottom of a tin cup was near as thick as his accent. Like Kellen—like pretty much everyone else—he didn’t look up.
“Voices.” Kellen’s reply was near as faint as those ghostly voices had been.
The bite of cornbread in Ger’s mouth suddenly dried out and became impossible to swallow. He swigged coffee to wash it down, ignoring the scalding it gave the roof of his mouth.
Ghost voices. Just like Em Jacobs had kept saying. Ghosts in the water. Ger had caught a hint of those voices from the shore, like murmurs from a nightmare he’d thought was over. He’d wanted to be wrong. Judging by the lines of Kellen’s face and the way she still wasn’t looking anywhere except into the fire, he’d been right.
Kalvis tilted his face up, like he planned to ask Kellen to go on. Before he could, though, Jan Bosch spoke up.
“It was like whispering, at first.” Planted on a log opposite Kalvis’s, Bosch was no small man, taller than the rest of them and broader than most. Despite his mountainous appearance, his voice trembled—actually trembled. “Only there weren’t any people to go with the whispers. Just the voices.”
“And then it wasn’t whispers anymore.” Jennett, seated beside Kalvis, scrubbed at his stubbled jaw with curled fingers, furrows across his forehead like he was puzzling out a riddle. “It was shouts. Chanting, like.”
Bosch nodded. On a stump beside him, Joseph Goodson nodded along.
“You were all on that same boat when it happened,” Kalvis said.
“Langston, too.” Ger’s tongue felt heavy and thick. He wasn’t sure he could have said more.
It didn’t matter, for the moment. All eyes turned toward Langston, who was standing across the circle of men from Ger. Langston’s pretty face scrunched, and he aimed a dark look at Ger. But after a long moment, he shrugged.
“Yeah,” he said, for once sounding like a normal human being. “I guess it was about like that.”
“I was on the first boat, with the wagons and Mr. Ellis,” Kalvis said. “I did not hear a thing.”
“What about the second boat?” Kellen asked. She nodded toward Ackermann. The burly, golden-bearded man stood away from the fire, out of earshot, staring into the walnut grove surrounding Grouseland with his arms crossed over his barrel chest. “Ackermann was on the second ferry. Since the crossing, he hasn’t talked much. Hasn’t even tried.”
“Neither has anyone else,” Ger said.
“This is Ackermann we’re talking about.” Kellen cut a quick glance toward Ger.
“He certainly acts as if something happened to him.” Turtle-like, Goodson turned his head and looked toward Ackermann. “Maybe we should go and talk to him.”
From the log beside where Ger stood, Brian Byrne chuckled. Beside him, Patrick Colley lifted his head and raised an eyebrow.
Most times, Byrne was easy-going and quick-witted to the point of annoyance. At the moment, the laugh lines around his eyes and mouth failed to crinkle. Far from his usual expression of amusement, he looked like he’d tasted something sour. “Now isn’t there a fine twist? Someone else doing the asking, and Ackermann on the receiving end.”
Jennett snorted, and most everyone else managed at least a smile. But Ger was bothered by Ackermann’s behavior. Kellen was right. Quiet was not something Ackermann typically did.
“What about the rest of you?” Kalvis asked. “You didn’t notice anything odd?”
Ger’s throat tightened, and his stomach along with it. If he was going to talk, now was the perfect opening to do so.
11
Ger knew he should speak up. All the Crowmakers were right here, standing or sitting around the morning’s fire, dawn glowing hazily along the horizon and spilling between the dripping trees. All Ger had to do was take a breath of the humid, morning-sweet air and use it to propel the words from his mouth. But even though Kellen had been brave enough to say it aloud, even though Bosch and Jennett and Goodson and hell, even Langston, had stated they’d heard those damned voices, Ger still struggled.
He’d heard these voices before. Kellen had, too. God, how to even begin telling that story in any way that would make sense to the rest of them?
“I thought it was the wind.” Colley’s voice, like his physical appearance, was soft and deceptively meek. Skinny and bespectacled as he was, he looked nearly frail, even wearing the tattoos and the uniform. “It was like a rising wind. Which made no sense, since the trees and the river’s surface didn’t blow any differently.”
Colley sat beside Byrne on a log and had kept his gaze turned mostly down. Now, he looked around at the others, his too-big eyes lending him a perpetually startled expression. Ger knew Colley well enough by now to recognize that appearances were deceiving. The spindly Irishman had a rock solid core. Colley sounded more dreamily-musing than truly alarmed.
Standing near Langston on the far side of the fire, Johnny Rawle’s gaze twitched from face to face. He hadn’t said anything yet, but in his round, boy-like face, his eyes were as wide as Colley’s. Ger also knew Rawle well enough by now to recognize that unlike Colley, Rawle was mostly alarmed. With a jerky nod, he affirmed Colley’s words.
Beside Colley, Byrne stared into the fire. Lingering shadows from the surrounding walnut grove flickered across his long face.
“Then I thought it might be water rushing,” Colley said. “Like a flood flashing up to overflow the banks. But I couldn’t see any cause for that, either. And then we were on the far bank, and the sound faded. And I thought it was just a trick of hearing, that the wind in the trees and on the river had just sounded different from out on the open water.”
“Yeah.” Rawle breathed the word.
Crouched to Ger’s left, Petras Juszkiewicz grunted quietly. His brow was furrowed, and his square jaw clenched—although the expression was nothing unusual for him. Petras was a blond-headed block of stone, with a temperament to match.
“For Christ’s sake, Patrick.” Byrne’s voice lilted, like it was sunshine attempting to break the morning’s haze. “You’re making us out to sound like a bunch o’ lunatics. As if the permanent war paint and metal pets weren’t enough to mark us out as such.”
Byrne spat out a laugh as he gestured with one hand, indicating the tattooed faces surrounding him and the tents with their Crows stowed in the backs. No one else laughed. Colley turned his head and looked Byrne straight in the eye. He didn’t say a word, just looked at Byrne.
After a second Byrne sighed and slumped again onto the log where he sat. “Aye. That’s a fair description of what I heard, as well.”
And then Colley shifted his gaze to Ger. The fire he stood beside abruptly seemed far too warm. For a long moment, Ger stared back into Colley’s startlingly blue eyes. Colley was sharp enough, maybe he’d just read Ger’s mind, and Ger wouldn’t have to say a word.
Just say it. Say what you need to say.
“Yes.” Ger nodded. Then he carefully added, “About like usual.”
“So we a
ll heard something that sounded like wind.” Across the fire from Ger, Langston cocked his hip and tipped up his chin. “So what? Probably was wind.”
But Colley’s too-blue eyes remained fixed on Ger. Byrne turned his head toward Ger, too, and from his stump, Goodson looked up with lazy slowness. Around Ger, men shifted in their seats and shuffled feet on tramped grass. Birds rampaged through branches overhead, shooting rapid-fire bursts of song at each other.
“‘Like usual.’” Kalvis leaned forward as he repeated the words with a heavy Dutch accent. “What does that mean?”
Ger glanced toward Kellen again. Both Byrne and Goodson swung their gazes toward her.
Finally, for the first time all morning, Kellen looked up and met Ger’s gaze. When she answered on Ger’s behalf, it was with a firm and calm voice—calmer than Ger felt, that was for certain.
“It means we’ve heard the sound before. Ger and I have,” Kellen said. “You remember Em Jacobs’s ghost stories?”
The question met with silence for a moment. Then Byrne chuckled, although it was a bittersweet sound. “Who could forget? The lad was enamored of those stories, he was.”
“Not just ghost stories.” Colley continued to look at Ger. So Ger nodded, and Colley continued. “Water ghosts. Whispers from the water.”
Rawle took a sudden step back, as if someone had shoved him. His mouth dropped open, and he blinked. “That is what it was like,” he said. “Ghosts whispering in the water.”
“Oh, for mercy’s sake.” Byrne turned a scowl on Colley, but Ger thought there was as much pleading as irritation in his voice. ““And you’re going to tell me now that you believe in ghosts?”
“We’re Irish,” Colley replied, mildly. “Of course we believe in ghosts.”
“Ghosts.” Kalvis appeared no better pleased than Byrne. “You’re saying this, what we heard, was ghosts?”
“There are no ghosts,” Petras said. His square face settled into even sterner lines.
“It sounded like ghosts,” Rawle said.
“I don’t know.” Ger fought the urge to take a step back himself. “I don’t really know what it is, just that we heard it before. In Philadelphia, before I ever even heard of Crowmakers or set foot in the Indiana Territory. Em might have been the one telling the stories, but he wasn’t the only one hearing things.”
Colley’s face remained turned toward Ger, but Ger could tell Colley wasn’t so much looking at him as through him, his brow furrowed and eyes glazed. Then the distance in Colley’s eyes cleared, and he was looking directly at Ger again.
“This has something to do with the way Em died?” Colley asked. Beside him, Byrne flinched.
“It has something to do with Ripley,” Kellen said.
“Ripley?” Kalvis turned his head to stare at Kellen. “What does that bastard have to do with any of this?”
“That’s when the whispers were strongest,” Kellen said. “When he was near. When he came after us in Widow Howland’s house, they were loudest then.”
Ger looked away from Colley and into Kellen’s eyes. In them, he saw reflected like flames the memory of Burke Ripley’s massive form and wild eyes, of blood staining the wharves and dripping into the water. He saw Em Jacobs’s naive face, framed by blond hair that had looked too much like Ger’s. That had been Em’s only sin—that he looked too much like Ger.
Ger’s stomach rose into his throat, blocking the words he wanted to say. It was my fault. It was me that Ripley, in his madness, thought he was killing when he knifed Alvie Fox and Em Jacobs. It was me he was following when he butchered Widow Howland and tried to kill Kellen. My fault.
Kellen gave her head a slight shake. Ger couldn’t tell if she understood what he was thinking, whether she was telling Ger it wasn’t his fault or only that this wasn’t the time for telling that part of the story.
“Lovely.” Byrne spat the words, all signs of his usual good humor vanished. “So we know that these voices, whatever they are, are fond of water and/or raving murderous madmen. That’s a helpful tip, it is.”
Kellen opened her mouth slightly, closed it again. Stared at Ger.
Ger stared back. Something new, he thought. She had a new thing, something she hadn’t told him. He was abruptly tired of hearing. Of talking. Of remembering.
“Maybe,” Kellen said. “But—”
“Oh, no.” Byrne threw his hands into the air and shook his head. “No more ‘but’s, love. I’ve had my fill, so I have.”
Kellen tilted her head at Byrne and flashed him a sympathetic look. Colley pressed an elbow against Byrne’s arm. Byrne grumbled but fell silent.
Kellen glanced toward Jennett. She sat up straighter and took a breath, like she’d decided something. “The day we were scouting, when we found that war party headed for John’s Creek… I lost control of my Crow. It got away from me, nearly crashed.”
Jennett unfolded his long legs and stretched them in front of him, sitting up a little straighter. “I remember.”
Kellen glanced toward Jennett again, but she kept going. “I heard them that day, too. The voices. They startled me. That’s why I almost lost the Crow.”
Jennett huffed a laugh, but it didn’t sound like amusement. “Well, doesn’t that explain a lot? Christ, Ward, you should’ve said something then. I’d probably have ditched my Crow too, I heard that.”
Ger frowned. Kellen had heard the voices days ago. Weeks. Thought she had, anyhow.
“Whatever it is, we weren’t the only ones who heard it.” On the stump where he sat, Goodson shifted his ample form around. All eyes turned toward him. He blinked, like he was surprised he’d spoken aloud. “It spooked the horses, too. And the Crows, even.”
For a few heartbeats, no one said anything. Ger drank the last swallow of coffee in his tin cup and let the warmth wash down his gullet. A breeze sighed through the trees along the clearing’s edge and shook water from the leaves, sent cold droplets spattering down onto Ger’s hair and face. Kellen was back to not looking at him again. He did his best to avoid looking toward her.
Weeks ago. But she hadn’t said a word to Ger about hearing anything.
“Well,” Jennett finally drawled. He followed it up with a resigned sigh.
“What do we do now?” Rawle’s wide eyes hadn’t gotten any smaller. Beside him, Langston continued to scowl prettily and glare at the ground. “The Indians’ll be here tomorrow. We’ve got to be Harrison’s guards. What if—”
“We do what we have to.”
Ackermann spoke from behind Ger, having finally come up closer to the gathered Crowmakers. His face remained pale and pinched beneath the golden shag of his beard, but he stood upright and spoke with his customary confidence that he had all the answers.
“We do as we have been ordered to do,” Ackermann went on. “When this Shawnee chief comes tomorrow to meet with our Governor Harrison, we forget our fears, and we behave as the peacekeepers we were made to be. What else is there to do?”
Ger darted a glance toward Kellen. He caught her looking at him, but when their eyes met, she turned her head.
“As long as—” Ger started.
Before he could finish, Bradley shouted. His voice cracked the morning stillness like a gunshot, calling the Crowmakers to attention. Ger watched as Kellen rose from her crouch beside the fire and walked with Byrne and Colley toward where their next orders—whatever they were—would be given.
As long as what happened yesterday doesn’t happen again. But there was no one left to say it to, so Ger followed the rest of them to where Bradley was waiting.
What else was there to do?
III: Monsters of Our Own Making
1
Vincent had pitched his tent at the edge of the Crowmakers’ camp nearest Grouseland’s steps. He was, after all, supposed to be keeping an eye on Annie James as well as on the Crowmakers themselves. Vincent hadn’t seen Annie since the night before. He assumed that between Harrison’s wife and a full staff of servants, Annie was being waited o
n and fussed over until her face turned red and steam poured out her ears. He huffed a little laugh to himself at the thought of it.
Not much of a laugh, though, because there was too much shit going on to be amused for long. Vincent stood just outside his tent flap and watched with loose vigilance over Ellis’s men as they scrubbed shirts and mended uniforms. The sharp stink of lye mingled with smoke from two camps of soldiers and watered Vincent’s eyes.
As close as he was to the camp of Army regulars on the mansion’s far side, Vincent caught snippets of clearly-stated words that now and then emerged from the overall drone of their conversations. Most of what Vincent made out had to do with the shaded clearing even further down from the knoll where the mansion stood, along the estate’s wide entry drive and right up under the trees where it’d be in shade for most of the day.
Tomorrow, that shaded clearing would host a large number of hostile Indians. Most of Harrison’s regulars sounded appropriately concerned about that fact. A few, though, had apparently picked up on the cocky overconfidence Ellis exuded. In Ellis’s mind, the regulars were merely backdrop for the Crowmakers. With twelve Crows circling the skies over the meeting, all else was pageantry and formalities.
“Got no fucking shit to worry about.” The words drifted around the mansion’s corner. Vincent turned his head so he could hear better.
“Like a day in the park.”
“Indians met their match now, boy.” The speakers must’ve been moving away, their words fading as they walked. Vincent caught the last of it, though. “Them Crowmakers, they ain’t taking no back talk.”
Crowmakers. That one fucking word, always spoken in awed voices, like those twelve barely-reformed dock monkeys were gods or something. And here Vincent stood. Same uniform. Same Ellis .36. No tattoos and no Crow, and that was the only difference, but he watched over them.
Seems like all I do anymore—watch from the outside.
Monsters of Our Own Making (Crowmakers: Book 2): A Science Fiction Western Adventure Page 11