Revenge and the Wild

by Michelle Modesto

  “How much did you drink at the ball, man?” Alistair’s eyes were slivers, and he made gagging sounds under his mask.

  Westie didn’t recall James drinking anything but a flute of champagne at the party, but then again she’d had other distractions.

  James wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his sack coat, looking embarrassed.

  “Too much.”

  “Might want to get back inside the bubble if you’re not feeling well,” Westie said. “Creatures pick off the sick ones first. There’s nothing anyone can do if they carry you away.”

  James looked at her like a frightened child. “I thought creatures couldn’t take anyone against their will within the confines of the Indian ward.”

  “They can’t,” she said. “But we’re not inside the ward. See those blue trees over there?” She lifted her lamp to show him. “Those are the markers of magic. You need to stay inside those lines.”

  “Oh, I see. That’s good to know.”

  Westie and Alistair led James back to the safety of the Wintu ward. The color had started to come back to his cheeks. Westie was about to inquire further about his health when she heard hooves beating the ground, heading straight for them. A lamp swung in the distance, the light making it look as though the trees were dancing.

  Nigel burst from the gloom with Bena close behind him. “The wolves picked up her scent,” he said. His hand shook so violently, Westie was afraid he would drop the lamp and burn down the forest.

  “Where?” she said.

  “Follow me.”

  They rode hard. She hoped James and his clumsy horse could keep up or they would have to send out a second party to find him later.

  They followed the wolves toward the river, deep into the brush. Ahead, a spot of color on a low-hanging branch caught the light. Westie pulled her horse to the side to avoid a collision with other riders and grabbed the swatch, rubbing the fabric between her fingers. The patch was a red piece of silk chiffon like the dress Isabelle had been wearing. The scrap she’d found was riding height, meaning Isabelle had been on horseback. Westie juggled the scenarios. She wanted to keep an open mind, if only to make herself feel better about the situation. Maybe Isabelle had taken a horse and it had gotten away from her. The girl couldn’t ride anything wilder than a wheelchair. Westie didn’t want to believe the Fairfields would be so bold as to kill her friend. She couldn’t deny the possibility either.

  “Here!” someone shouted nearby. “She’s over here.”

  Westie dug her heels into her horse’s sides, hoping they would find Isabelle cold and scared but otherwise unharmed. When Westie neared the scene, she knew that was not the case. Her light caught slashes of red like cave paintings all around her, smears of blood against rocks and trees. A howl cut through the silent tension. She thought it had come from a werewolf at first, but it wasn’t the sound of any lycanthrope. Westie slid off Henry’s back, held the reins in a trembling hand. She could hear the preacher’s mumbled prayers under someone’s cries. When her tentative steps took her past the crowd that had gathered, she realized the howling sound had come from Isabelle’s father. He was hunched down on the ground with the preacher by his side, holding a mangled corpse, unrecognizable as human other than by the red dress it wore.

  Westie had stayed home while Alistair and Nigel did the autopsy. As she waited for their return, she jabbed and hacked at a dummy with her wooden practice sword. It was all she could do to battle her pain. Her friend was dead. The last thing she’d said to Isabelle was a lie.

  The armory had always been one of Westie’s favorite parts of the house. It was more like a museum, really. There were suits of armor and chain mail, polearms, lances, flails, and maces. In the middle of the floor was a pugilist’s ring and, beside it, a fencing mat. She stood on the mat, holding the sword with her machine. With a sweeping arc, she slashed down on a dummy with such force that it shattered into a thousand pieces. She was sweating and smelling none too fair when Nigel and Alistair walked in.

  Nigel scanned the mess she’d made. She had destroyed all but one of the wooden practice weapons and bent the metal ones into crude sculptures. There were spears broken in two scattered across the floor, and dummies (wood and cloth alike) had been slaughtered. Westie waited for the lecture on tidiness and tranquility. It never came.

  “Where’s Bena?” Westie asked.

  “She went home,” Nigel said. “With the confusion about the changes in the dome and now this, some people in town think it’s the Wintu’s doing.”

  Westie’s shoulders slumped. “What did you learn from Isabelle’s remains?” She held up the sword as if she could slash through any news she didn’t want to hear.

  Alistair and Nigel both looked ragged, their hair matted with sweat and filth, their clothes askew. There was horse shit caked on their boots and blood under their nails. Nigel pulled a crumpled handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the dried blood from his face.

  “The teeth marks we found on the bones were definitely human,” Alistair said.

  The wooden hilt crumbled beneath Westie’s machine. Tears blurred her vision. It felt as though someone were driving nails into her heart. If that were the case, she hoped it would be nailed shut and never opened again to such pain. She turned her back on her family before they could see her tears.

  Her jaw flexed. “I told you it was the Fairfields who killed my family, and now Isabelle’s dead too.”

  It wasn’t the time to be laying blame, she knew. If she had a better way to stop the pain and guilt she felt, she would’ve chosen it.

  Nigel hung his head. “I believe you now, Westie, and I’m sorry for ever doubting you. But we don’t have proof that it was the Fairfields themselves who killed Isabelle. You said there were cannibals on your travels in the valley. It’s possible they made their way to Rogue City and found easy prey with Isabelle,” Nigel said.

  Oh, now he believes me about the cannibals in the valley, she thought.

  “Again with the damn proof,” she mumbled just out of his hearing. “Who else knows about the human teeth marks on the body?”

  “Only Alistair and I. I ordered Isabelle’s body sent to my surgical rooms for examination. The sheriff was with us, but I didn’t tell him my findings so he wouldn’t immediately suspect the Wintu.”

  The Wintu were always blamed for everything. While she knew there were native tribes that consumed the flesh of their enemies in war rituals, it wasn’t the case with the Wintu. They were a peaceful tribe living on the river. As long as foreigners kept to themselves, they had no quarrels.

  “What happens to the Wintu?” she asked.

  “I told the sheriff the attack was most likely a bear,” Nigel said. “That takes the suspicion off the Wintu.”

  “That’s good.” She pretended to scratch her face while she wiped away a tear. “That also leaves the townspeople vulnerable to another attack by the Fairfields.”

  “There is a mandatory curfew in place until the bear is caught. Women and children are to be escorted at all times.”

  Westie threw the bits of shattered hilt across the room so hard, the splinters pierced the wooden dummy carcass as though they were arrows shot from a bow.

  “Everyone in Rogue City is a hostage now, and the no-good zealous hicks of this town will be crawling all over the woods killing innocent bears because the Fairfields are a bunch of flesh-hungry gluttons.” She wanted to scream but knew if she tried she might melt into tears instead. “We should just out them and be done with it. Let the town and Isabelle’s folks do what they will with them.”

  Alistair picked up a sword, inspecting the damage. He said, “There’s no evidence to prove the Fairfields killed Isabelle, and even if there was, no one would believe it. They are the wealthy kin of the Lovetts, not savages.”

  No one mentioned Emma or the need for the Fairfields’ money. It would’ve been in bad taste. But the worry of losing investors was not far from Nigel’s and Alistair’s minds; she could tell by the gui
lty way they lowered their gazes.

  “Nigel, you better get that money soon. I plan to take the Fairfields down before they get the chance to kill another one of my friends.”

  “It’s not that easy,” Nigel said. “Investors don’t toss their money around willy-nilly. It’s a process.”

  Westie’s lips tightened against her teeth. There was no time to sit around and wait for money. She needed to expedite the process.

  Twenty-Seven

  The next day Westie sat on her bed and filed the sharp metal edges of the key they had made. She tried to think about anything but Isabelle. It was impossible.

  Isabelle.

  It was hard for Westie to wrap her head around the fact that she was gone. Westie had already lost so many people she loved that somehow she thought she’d be used to the pain, but it hurt no less than before.

  Alistair knocked once and walked in. He sat beside her on the bed. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.

  Westie finished rounding the last edge and inspected her work. “Yes.”

  It was a lie. She wasn’t sure. There were so many things that could go wrong. But if she didn’t at least try, more lives would be lost at the hands of the Fairfields. She’d weighed the consequences, and decided it was worth the risk. If all went according to plan, the Fairfields would lose everything, and Nigel would get the money for his machine.

  The men’s riding trousers she wore gathered in places meant to accommodate parts she didn’t possess. She picked and pulled at them.

  “Leave them alone,” Alistair said, his eyes smiling. “No one will believe you’re a man if you’re always pulling at yourself.”

  She slid him an easy grin. “That’s exactly why they’ll believe I’m a man.”

  His laughter wrinkled the skin around his eyes, making the eyes themselves more beautiful. It was the only thing that brought her any comfort.

  She continued to fuss with herself. She wore full cowboy dress, with a long duster, angora chaps, and supple leather gloves to hide her machine. Her hair was pinned up, hidden beneath a flat-brimmed Stetson, and she wore a red kerchief to hide her long, slender neck and the Adam’s apple missing from her throat. Alistair wore a black kerchief over his mask and a blond, shaggy wig that made his skin look paler than usual.

  They housed their borrowed Wintu horses at the livery yard and asked for a room at the Roaming Inn. When the Fairfields had first arrived in Rogue City, Nigel had set up a demonstration of Emma for today in the old mining caves at the edge of the dome. It would’ve stirred up too many questions if he were to cancel last minute. Because of the demonstration, they didn’t have to worry about running into the family at the inn. Westie and Alistair told Nigel they were going to check on the Wintu and would be gone for the day, knowing he would never approve if they told him what they were really up to. After everything that had happened the day before, Nigel was too flustered to be suspicious.

  The Roaming Inn might have had the nicest rooms in Rogue City, but they were hardly nice. One could pick up a stubborn case of pant-rats without the coin to pay for the better rooms. Westie assumed the Fairfields had taken the best rooms, so she asked for the second best. In her deepest voice, she told the innkeeper she and Alistair were brothers just passing through.

  Alistair settled the bill while Westie waited in the lobby. The Roaming Inn was run by a family of werewolves. There were paintings of wolves on the walls. Clumps of shed fur covered the wood floors and were tangled in the rugs. The whole place smelled of wet dog.

  A young werewolf boy, naked as the day he was born, stood in the middle of the room aiming at a rose design on the rug before unleashing his bladder.

  Westie frowned. “Maybe you ought to housetrain your pup,” she said to the woman behind the counter. The woman snapped her jaws in reply.

  Westie jumped back. Alistair grabbed her arm and pulled her up the stairs toward their room.

  “It would be best not to draw attention,” Alistair said.

  Westie pulled out of his grip. “Fine.”

  The room was spacious, with a large bed and a mattress that stank of piss. If their room was second best, she would hate to see the worst. She tossed her satchel onto the quilt and was attacked by a cloud of dust and the lingering scent of mold.

  Alistair flushed crimson. “One bed?”

  Westie shrugged off her duster and continued to peel away the layers until she was rid of the heat.

  “Relax, Alley. We’re not sharing the bed. We’ll be out of here before you know it.”

  “Do you have the key to the Fairfields’ rooms?” Alistair had the red gingham curtains pulled to the side and was staring down at the main strip.

  Westie dug through her satchel until she found it. “Right here.” She lifted the key to show him.

  They had a plan. They were all set to go, and yet she had a horrible feeling all tangled up in her guts.

  “Don’t lose that. If anyone finds that key, it will lead them straight to the foundry. I had to pay for it on Nigel’s account,” Alistair said.

  She took a breath, shook it out, then gazed at Alistair. He looked sinister. There was a thrill in that dangerousness, but she knew better of the man beneath the mask, willing to risk his own life for the good of everyone. If Nigel lost everything because they were caught, Alistair would be completely on his own. He was no longer a young boy. No one would foster him without an allowance. No one would be there to fix his machine were it to break. And once he was out of jail, no one would hire a mute except outlaws and desperate ranchers.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t do this,” she said. “There’s too much at risk.”

  He dropped the curtain and stepped toward her until they were face-to-face. He took the hat from her head and pins from her hair so that it was an auburn waterfall around her shoulders. He used to love touching her hair when she was a child. He said it looked like copper wires. It was innocent the way he had touched her hair then, but now, in that rented room, it felt like more.

  She drank in his touch, lingered in it, remembering back when they were young and still close. She’d spent every waking hour with him after his wounds had healed, teaching him to read and developing a language of their own with their hands. She’d loved living in that blissfully silent world with him. Even after Nigel made the mask, Alistair hadn’t used it much at first. Westie had preferred it that way and liked how he’d always touch her to get her attention.

  She was so lost in the memory that she reached up and caressed his hand without even thinking. Alistair reeled back as if she had struck him.

  “I’m sorry!” she said, desperate to make it right. “I didn’t mean—”

  “We should get this done,” he said, flustered.

  We all know you’re in love with Alistair, but he won’t have you. Isabelle’s words stayed with Westie like a greasy meal in her belly.

  “Yeah, I suppose so.”

  She cleared her throat and chewed up her pride, then gathered her satchel and the key before they slipped into the empty hall.

  Alistair put the key in the door of the Fairfields’ rooms. With a click, they were in.

  “Let’s make this fast,” Westie said.

  The Fairfields’ rooms were the best she’d seen at any inn, even compared to the ones she’d stayed in during her travels in the valley. There was the one big room for the family to spend time in together and three attached sleeping rooms. The linens were soft green satin. On top of each bed was a fluffy quilt.

  While Alistair busied himself in the main room, Westie wandered into the sleeping rooms. One of the rooms was for the married couple. It looked like Cain and James shared another, judging by the different-sized starched and pressed clothes draped over wood hangers in the wardrobe. The last room belonged to Olive; clothes were strewn across the floor along with an army of dolls.

  “Found them,” Alistair called from the main room.

  Westie left Olive’s room to join Alistair. He stood in front of an
open cabinet. Westie saw the glow of the gold bars on Alistair’s mask before she saw the gold itself. It was there for the taking, almost too easy.

  “How’d you know it would be here and not in the bank?” Alistair asked.

  Westie was certain the Fairfields hadn’t always been the city dwellers they claimed to be.

  “Country folk don’t trust banks.”

  She knew from her time in Kansas with her parents that people like that preferred to keep their treasures close.

  She stared at the gold awhile before reaching out and touching a smooth, gleaming bar.

  “Looks heavy,” she said. “You think we ought to grab another satchel from one of the rooms?”

  She looked up when Alistair didn’t answer and found his head cocked, ear to the wind.

  “Did you hear that?” he said.

  “Hear what?”

  They stood together in silence.

  Westie heard it then. Voices.

  “Shit,” she said.

  Alistair shut the cabinet door. Westie’s heart felt like a stampede in her chest.

  The voices grew louder.

  “We need to run,” Alistair said.

  They piled beside the door, listening. The voices sounded as though they were still downstairs. If the two of them were swift, they might be able to make a good go of an escape. Westie cracked the door just enough to peek out. She saw the top of a hat by the stairs, a green suede hat with peacock feathers and beads, an expensive hat. A hat so hideous it could only be fashionable in the big city. A hat only Lavina Fairfield would wear.

  Westie shut the door, her mind racing.

  “They’re too close. If we run, she might see us. We have to hide,” Westie said.

  Alistair wasn’t one to dawdle when it came to tricky situations. He grabbed her by the machine and yanked her toward Olive’s room. It made the most sense. If the Fairfields came home and they were caught, they could snatch the little girl up and use her for leverage. Of course, their lives would be ruined for it, but there was no time to think about that.

  “Wait!” she said. “The key.”