Pieces of Sky

by Warner, Kaki

  “Let the other settle,” Hank advised.

  “It’s settled. Give me the pitcher.”

  “You’ll get sick if you take too much.”

  “Christ, man! I’m so dry my balls are rattling. Give me the damn pitcher.”

  Hank gave him the pitcher. Jack and Consuelo finished wrapping his feet, then Consuelo left, dragging Bullshot with her. Propping his feet on a folded blanket to ease the throbbing, Brady looked at his brothers. “Sancho’s out.”

  They didn’t seem surprised. “Sheriff Rikker told us,” Jack said.

  “Where’s your horse?”

  Leave it to Hank to worry more about the livestock than his older brother. Trapped in age between Brady and Jack, he was close to neither, preferring the predictability of a column of numbers or the quiet companionship of animals to the constant bickering of his brothers.

  Brady told them about Bob, and his hike to the stopover, and how the stage broke an axle and ended up in the canyon below French Pass. He didn’t go into any detail about the passengers except to say five people were waiting for him to bring help and three of them were injured.

  Consuelo returned with tortillas, a big bowl of frijoles, and another pitcher of water. Between mouthfuls, Brady related what he found at Jamison’s.

  His brothers came to the same conclusion he had. Sancho.

  Hank sighed. “So now it starts again.”

  Jack stared out the window. “Sometimes I hate this damn place.”

  No surprise there. But Brady didn’t have time to get into it with Jack. He could see the light was fading and knew he would have to leave soon. Her Ladyship expected him back over twelve hours ago.

  “Rikker thought Sancho might head for Mexico instead of coming up this way,” Hank said.

  “He’s already here.” Brady set aside the bowl of beans, his stomach suddenly queasy. He told them about the tracks on the south slope and the pinched-out smoke he’d found on the ledge. “We need to be ready.”

  “We are.” Jack listed their preparations. All hands were to ride in twos. In addition to the bunkhouse cook, Sandoval, two men would be at the house at all times. To protect against fire, water barrels and gunnysacks had been set throughout the house and brush had been cleared from around all the buildings. Extra ammunition, canteens, and a two-day ration kit had been issued to each rider.

  “Good.” Brady was relieved he didn’t have to worry about preparing the ranch in case Sancho showed up. He needed to get the stage passengers situated first.

  “Good? You approve?” Jack put on a show of surprise. “Hear that, Hank? He approves.”

  Ignoring him, Brady turned to Hank. “What about the Army herd?” Ever since snowmelt they’d been gathering cattle to meet the Indian Reservation beef contract the Army put out for bids every fall.

  “We’re bringing those in the tally closer in. Don’t worry, they’re under guard.”

  “Hell, he likes to worry,” Jack muttered. “That and nag.”

  This time Brady let his irritation show. “I’m not nagging. I’m asking. There’s a difference. Has anybody told Elena about Sancho?”

  Jack swung back to the window.

  Hank glanced from one brother to the other then shrugged. “She knows, but she won’t leave her cabin.”

  “She has to,” Brady said. “Tell her she won’t be safe out there alone.”

  Jack turned with a smile that didn’t reach his gunmetal blue eyes. “Why don’t you tell her, Big Brother? I’m sure she’ll come running when she hears you’re hurt.”

  “Damnit, Jack—”

  “We don’t have time for this,” Hank cut in with that edgy tone he used whenever Brady and Jack butted heads. On the rare occasions he allowed himself to be drawn into their arguments, he usually responded with a ferocious burst of impatience that left someone other than himself bruised, or bleeding, or both.

  Jack the hothead, Brady the hardhead, and Hank the reluctant peacekeeper caught between. It was a long-standing family joke, but Brady had stopped laughing years ago. “Somebody needs to tell her.”

  When Jack didn’t volunteer, Hank muttered something, then sighed. “I’ll tell her.”

  “She’ll take it hard, so be nice,” Brady warned.

  “I’m always nice, damnit.”

  Brady allowed that most of the time he was. Hank wasn’t mean-hearted; he just preferred being around creatures that didn’t feel the need to muddy a fine day with a lot of words or emotion.

  With a yawn, Brady slumped back. Fatigue hummed along his nerves. Hot bursts of pain jumped across his shoulders and into the back of his head. Maybe if he rested just a few minutes . . .

  But as soon as he closed his eyes, a face appeared—whiskey colored eyes, cinnamon freckles, wild chestnut hair. Christ.

  “I have to go. They’re waiting.” He started up.

  Hank pushed him back down. “We’ll take care of it. Tell us what you need.”

  Brady told him to load the hay wagon with a water barrel, blankets, food, lanterns, and Consuelo’s medicine basket. “And Hank,” he called as his brother started for the door. “I want Buck on shotgun and at least two, maybe three, riders with us. Whoever you can spare.”

  Hank nodded and left, his heavy footfalls sending vibrations through the plank floor.

  “You’re going back there tonight?” Jack asked, turning from the window.

  “They won’t make it another day.” Muscles twitched and jerked as Brady pressed the heels of his hands against his stinging eyes. “Besides, I gave her my word.”

  Damn. Realizing his mistake, he lowered his hands to find Jack watching him. Hoping to avoid more questions, he quickly added, “Send a rider for Doc and Rikker and tell the Overland office what happened.”

  “You’re bringing the passengers back here?”

  Brady yawned. His lids felt heavy as stone. “Val Rosa’s too far.” He felt like he was sinking under water. “Wake me . . . later.”

  HE AWOKE TO FULL DARK AND A GENTLE TOUCH ON HIS BROW.

  He started up, then the pain hit, and he flopped back with a curse.

  “Shh,” a soft voice said. “Rest.”

  Cracking open one eye, he saw the familiar face that was so stunningly beautiful it never failed to take his breath away. “Elena.” She had her rosary out. Did that mean he was dying?

  Her smile told him no. “What have you done to yourself this time, pobrecito?”

  Before he could answer, footsteps sounded in the hall.

  Jack came through the doorway. When he saw Elena, he stopped. “Hope I’m not interrupting,” he said in a cold voice.

  Elena’s smile faded. She rose. With a hand braced on the back of her chair for balance, she turned toward the doorway. “I will go.”

  “Stay,” Brady ordered, bringing her to a halt. He glared at his brother, but said nothing, knowing it would only upset Elena if he did. Despite his self-professed reputation as a backdoor Romeo and an expert on women, Jack could be dumber than cordwood sometimes. “Get me a fresh shirt,” he told his brother.

  Grabbing a shirt off a peg beside the door, he tossed it toward the bed. “Wagon’s loaded. Putnam’s gone for Doc and Sheriff Rikker. Everybody’s ready but you.”

  Biting back a groan, Brady pulled himself upright. Joints popped in protest. The rank aftertaste of frijoles bubbled in his throat. But when his feet touched the floor, any lingering numbness left his mind. “Jesus!” He stared down at his throbbing feet. Consuelo must have wrapped them in a dozen yards of cotton sacking. All that showed were the tips of his blistered toes, and they looked like venison sausages. It would be a month before he got boots on again.

  Moving gingerly, he removed one shirt and pulled on the other. “Elena, I want you to move into the house for a while,” he said as he buttoned. “And not just because of Sancho. I’m bringing the passengers back here. There’s a woman—three women.” As he tossed the dirty shirt into the corner beside his bloodstained boots, he saw Jack frowning at him.
“They might feel better having another female around.”

  “I will be glad to help.” Elena limped toward the door, then hesitated. “Be careful,” she said, glancing at Jack, then quickly away. “Both of you.”

  A FEW MINUTES LATER THE WAGON LUMBERED OUT THE gate, Brady resting against the side rails in back, Buck and Jack sitting up front. Three other men rode with them—Rufus on point, Abe on drag, and Rodriquez on the east ridge—all armed to the teeth. Luckily it was another cloudless night and the moon was up early. By Brady’s calculation, they should reach the canyon just before dawn.

  Hoping to get some rest, he stretched out and closed his eyes, but Jack started in before they cleared the first rise. “So who’s the woman?”

  Brady kept his eyes closed, pretending sleep.

  “What woman?” Ru asked, reining his sorrel beside the wagon.

  “The one my brother won’t talk about.”

  “Boss has a woman? The hell you say!”

  Brady wondered why he sounded so surprised. Just because he didn’t chase after everything in skirts didn’t mean he didn’t like women. He liked them fine. More than fine. But unlike these pudknockers, he had responsibilities and a ranch to run. He couldn’t afford to let his cock do his thinking for him.

  “Brady says three of the passengers are women,” One-Track-Jack said.

  “Three! The hell you say!”

  With a silent curse, Brady opened his eyes and sat up. Realizing where Jack was headed, he tried to head him off. “In El Paso I met a man from Australia. Sydney, I think it was.”

  Jack went for it like a bull trout after a mayfly. “Australia? Did he say anything about the Blue Mountains? I read they’re so misty it’s like riding through clouds.”

  Buck wasn’t as easy to fool. He turned and gave Brady a thoughtful look, although he didn’t say anything. He rarely did. His wife, Iantha, said the man was so tight-mouthed it was a wonder he didn’t starve to death. Mostly he let his eyes do the talking, and right now they were asking Brady why he would bring up such a sore subject when it was well known the two brothers couldn’t talk about Australia without squaring off. But Brady ignored Buck and let Jack ramble on about kookaburras, wallabies, and koalas—whatever the hell they were. He knew no matter how much Jack wanted to emigrate, he wouldn’t leave until this thing with Sancho was finished. So for now, he just let him talk.

  Buck faced forward again. Jack moved on to tales of sheep stations a hundred miles across, wild dingoes, and an animal named Joey that could perch on its tail and box like a man with its back feet. The kid would believe anything.

  Relieved to be out of his little brother’s sights for a while, Brady settled back again.

  Somewhere on the ridge a coyote yipped, was answered by another, then another. Brady hoped Her Ladyship had enough firewood for tonight and wished he’d shown her how to use his repeater. He didn’t want another death on his conscience. He had one too many as it was.

  He thought about all the lives that depended on him. Dozens of good people—a family. Ru, who’d been orphaned at the age of ten and had been with them ever since. Abe, who fancied himself a gunfighter until he saw up close the damage a bullet could do. Red, one of the many displaced children from the war. And Buck. Especially Buck.

  His gaze drifted toward the man who had been his mainstay ever since his father died. He noted the frailness of bony shoulder blades where muscle used to be, the kinky whiteness of hair that had once been coal black, and he wondered what he would do when Buck was gone, too. The thought awakened those same feelings of panic he’d felt a decade ago when he’d first taken up the reins of RosaRoja and realized how heavy that burden would be.

  Buck had been there through it all, ever since he and Iantha had fled the South. Rather than be sold apart, they had run west until they hooked up with Jacob in late ’48 and Buck started scouting for the Missouri Volunteers during the war with Mexico. He was there when Jacob found RosaRoja and paid the back taxes to get it—there when Jacob almost lost it over another man’s wife—and there when Jacob died. Through all those hard years, Buck had never faltered in his loyalty to Jacob.

  “A man don’ turn agin’ his own, nawsuh,” he would say, trying to get Brady to make his peace with his father before it was too late. “If he do, he only hurt hisself.”

  But Brady had been too overwhelmed by the responsibility of RosaRoja and his brothers to pay heed. He had been too angry, too afraid of what he might find if he dug too deep. Then Sam died. And when he laid his youngest brother’s body to rest, Brady buried with him any hope of reconciling with his father. There were some things a man could never forgive.

  It had been ten years since the night of the fire when Don Ramon and Maria died and Jacob suffered a fit that had left him mute and paralyzed. Ten years since Sancho went to prison. Ten years of wondering what really happened. Brady never spoke of that night, never told his brothers what he suspected their father had done—why burden them with that poisonous knowledge? And when he buried Jacob beside Sam and his mother and baby sister, he thought he was shutting that door forever.

  But now it was opening again.

  Who would he bury next?

  A voice broke through his dark thoughts and he looked over to see Ru grinning at him over the side rail. “Tell me about the women. I ain’t had my turnip tweaked in a month.”

  Brady sighed. “Just an old lady and her daughter, and a widow-lady.”

  “How old’s the daughter?”

  “You wouldn’t like her. She reads.”

  “What about the widow-lady?”

  Jack smirked at him from the driver’s box. “Yeah, Brady. Tell us about the widow-lady.”

  “I suspect she reads, too.” Where else would she learn to use so many words to say so little?

  Pulling his penknife from his pocket, Brady worked at a broken cactus spine in his thumb.

  “What else?” Abe asked, moving up alongside Ru.

  Brady felt cornered. “She’s got a lot of rules.” None of which made much sense. “And I think she might have weak lungs.”

  “You mean little tits?”

  The blade jerked, nicking his cuticle. Carefully he folded the knife and slipped it back into his pocket, then wiped the blood on his pants. “No, I mean weak lungs. Like asthma.”

  “So her tits are all right?” Abe persisted.

  Brady swung toward him. “Aren’t you supposed to be riding drag?”

  “Yessir.”

  Brady looked at him.

  Abe dropped back.

  Ru took his place. “Maybe she’s snaggle-toothed.”

  “And aren’t you supposed to ride point?”

  “Rodriquez is.”

  “Hope she’s not wall-eyed,” Jack mused. “A wall-eyed woman’s hard to lie to.”

  “You would know,” Brady muttered, wondering why he’d ever allowed this conversation to start in the first place.

  “What color’s her hair?” Ru asked.

  Oiled red oak, threaded with gold. “Red, I think.”

  “That’s trouble.” Ru straightened and shook his head. “Next to a whistler, a redheaded woman is the worse kind.”

  “I heard women with gold teeth were,” Jack argued.

  “You’re thinking of tattoos. They’re the worse worst.”

  Peckerheads. Brady closed his eyes and drifted to sleep.

  Five

  IT WAS ALMOST DAWN WHEN THEY ROLLED DOWN THE RUTTED track into the canyon. Brady noticed the stench of rotten meat first, then the absence of firelight. As they neared the half-eaten carcasses, low-slung shadows scattered through the brush and wide-winged birds took to the air. The teams sidestepped and snorted, forcing Jack to jump down and lead them past the overturned coach.

  The Kinderly girl ran to meet them, waving a sage branch like a sword until she spotted Brady in the back of the wagon. Then she burst into tears and ran back around the coach where they could hear her yelling to her mother.

  No sign of Her L
adyship.

  Brady lit a lantern. Ignoring the burning pain in his feet, he slid from the rear of the wagon and limped toward the two figures stretched on the ground beside the ashes of a cold campfire. As he drew closer, he could see it was three figures, not two, and none was moving. Cursing under his breath, he knelt. Reaching past Oran, he checked the Englishwoman’s neck for a pulse. Weak but steady. Her skin felt hot. Oran’s was cold.

  The railroader didn’t rouse when Brady checked his wound. Infected, but no red streaks. After smearing Consuelo’s salve on a fresh handkerchief, he rebandaged then had Jack and Ru carry the unconscious man to the wagon. Then he turned to Her Ladyship.

  She didn’t move or open her eyes, even when he dribbled water on her cracked lips or picked her up and carried her to the wagon. The extra weight on his raw feet hurt like a sonofabitch, but he preferred doing it himself rather than allow anyone else to handle her. He wasn’t sure why.

  After the passengers were settled in the back of the wagon, Jack and Buck loaded luggage while Ru and Abe laid Oran beside Bodine, covering him with rocks to keep scavengers at bay until Overland took both bodies to Val Rosa for proper burials. Just after dawn, with the rising sun backlighting the ridges like a distant fire, they turned toward home.

  It was a quiet trip. The old lady and her daughter huddled in one corner while Ashford tossed and muttered in the other. Her Ladyship slept straight through. With barely enough room to stretch out his legs and prop up his feet, Brady rode sandwiched between valises and Her Ladyship, who was radiating so much heat it was like lying next to a slow fire. In some ways, it reminded him of when he was a kid and a howling Missouri snowstorm would drive his little brothers into his bed—Jack, sharp knees and icy feet on one side, Hank, hot as banked coals on the other.