Lightfall Two: Fox, Flight, Fire (Lightfall, Book 2)

by Jordan Taylor

She pulls off stockings, scrubs as much as is easily reached with the rough towel and water, then glances about in a stupor as Rosalía throws down the extra blankets.

  When she starts to stand, Rosalía pushes her back. “I’ll be up in another hour anyway. Get some sleep.”

  Ivy lies back in the rope bed, looser and softer than the stiff little mat she lies on in the boarding house, though the coarse sheets are threadbare and the blankets patched. She pulls them about her, head dropping on the thin pillow. She should give that to Rosalía on the floor. She doesn’t need it herself in this luxury.

  But she has only the energy to murmur, “Thank you,” before she is asleep.

  “Come along, Ivy. Hurry!” Kitty holds out her hand.

  Ivy grabs it as the two girls race down the street, skirts and petticoats flapping, dashing in and out of bustling foot traffic. They draw scandalized looks from ladies, chuckles or raised eyebrows from gentleman. Ivy does not care. Not today.

  “Quickly,” Kitty pants as they go. “You must see. It’s ... it’s—”

  They stop. The square is crammed with halted trollies and cabs, horses, men, women, and children. At the center of the crowd, an enormous creature, tall as two stories, looms. Steel, brass, and copper gleam with the blinding reflection of autumn sun. Two vast wings lift above the pointing, pushing throng.

  Kitty clutches Ivy’s arm. “Look.”

  Ivy moves closer, twisting through the crowd like any street urchin, eyes squinted as she gazes upward.

  “Does it really fly, sir?” a boy calls from the crowd.

  General laughter—yet, if a hulking dirigible can lift itself off the ground, what might this beast do? What might the makers invent next?

  “Come forward, jeune monsieur, and see for yourself.”

  A cheer goes up.

  Ivy can see the maker now, a bearded Frenchman holding court beside his Imperial Eagle on the city’s stage. A towheaded boy stumbles forward, eyes like plates.

  “Can I touch it, sir?”

  The maker bends to speak in the boy’s ear.

  Ivy pushes closer as the throng hushes, waiting, watching the lifting and falling wings of the enormous eagle, steam pouring from its open beak, heat from the fire within radiating on this crisp, bright day.

  The boy gasps. “Honest, sir?”

  The maker winks, then takes the boy by the hand and leads him around to the far side of the beast. A moment later, the child has climbed into view, up the eagle’s sloping back to the neck. The people gasp, then applaud as the boy lifts a tentative hand to wave.

  His hand comes to rest on the bird’s magnificent copper beak, but he withdraws it quickly at the heat of the metal. More laughter.

  “Don’t let it peck you, lad!”

  “These French birds bite!”

  “Do you think we could have a ride?” Ivy breathes to her friend.

  “See the photographers?” Kitty asks. “I bet we could pay for a ride. A maker is always selling something, my dad says.”

  “Do you think it really flies?”

  “What do you think?”

  Ivy and Kitty look up to find Dr. Jerinson standing over them, a grin on his spectacled and whiskered face.

  “Father! How did you get here?”

  “How did you get here? I watched them stage the whole show. But I thought you were at lessons, Ivy.”

  “It’s my fault, Dr. Jerinson,” Kitty says, flushed. “I called Ivy away to see the eagle.”

  “And did you kidnap her? Carry her here?” He reaches to take a hand of each girl, still smiling. “Fault lies with the one committing the action. Not the one suggesting it. We must take responsibility for our stumbles or we are no better than the tools of others.”

  Both girls look back as they follow the doctor through the eager crowd.

  “Come along. There will always be another maker’s device in the square, you two. Ivy must finish lessons, I’m sure. And, Kitty, will you take tea with us?”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Father, does it really fly?”

  Dr. Jerinson chuckles, guiding them to the cement sidewalk along the park where they can maneuver more easily away from the crush. “Ivy, what have I told you so many times?”

  Ivy thinks, glancing again back at the gleaming eagle’s head and billowing trail of steam as the wings lift far over the heads below. Her father has many sayings and phrases he trots out now and then. He does not approve of foreign makers coming to Boston to sell by exhibitionism to gullible Americans. He says people have grown used to makers and their trinkets in the Old World. Here, “We are babes in the woods. It feels so fresh, so new in this nation. This sort of technology will soon be commonplace. Now, a clockwork doorway which opens on its own is a wonder—a mechanical elephant something truly to dream about.”

  Yet, she does not suppose he is referring to an Old World maker quotation.

  She looks up at him as they start across a park path toward home. “Never believe everything you know. Never question everything you know.”

  Kitty laughs. “That makes no sense.”

  Ivy looks up at polished doorways, maker’s devices, golden leaves from a row of maples. For the first time in her young life, she wonders if it does make perfect sense after all.

  “Ivy?”

  Warmth and sunlight and a stiff bed. She smells something sweet. Dolly must have tea. Surely very late. Mother will scold. Father will smile, but tell her one cannot reclaim lost minutes once they are lost.

  “Your own time and efforts are your most precious commodities, Ivy.” Another favorite.

  “Ivy?”

  She opens her eyes.

  A pretty, dark young woman, slightly built, not much older than Ivy herself, is looking down at her.

  “So sorry to wake you. Your English friend was asking after you, according to my brother. We might want to present you before long.”

  Ivy sits up. She is in a tiny adobe room, one small window, a narrow door, bright red and yellow mats on walls and floor. Trunk, drawers, a tattered saddle. Why would anyone bring one of the hateful things into the house? They are horrid enough trying to fight with while on a horse.

  “How do you feel?”

  Scared, alone, homesick, defeated, starving, sore, embarrassed, lonely, thirsty, tired, stiff, hot, filthy, ashamed of her own shortcomings, which she is only beginning to realize expand to every corner of useful human industry....

  Ivy swallows. “Fine. Thank you for letting me stay.”

  Rosalía smiles, indicating the fresh basin on the chest. “Wash up and I’ll get you something to eat.”

  Ivy obeys as Rosalía leaves the room, thinking how much “washing up” rather than “bathing” goes on in this part of the world. Kitty would be dismayed.

  The eagle. She holds the wet cloth over her face for some moments. But that was many years ago. She has long since figured out the eagle never could fly.

  She dresses, hating to pull on her filthy stockings, wondering where saddlebags and all her possessions are. Since they did not keep a room at Mrs. Acker’s while out, Isaiah offered them the use of a trunk in the workshop to store town clothes and their few extra possessions. But what about her immediate needs packed on her fractious mare?

  Rosalía brings her a plate of a fried egg and toast with rich, cinnamon apple butter. More Eastern luxuries that make Ivy wonder.

  Her hostess solves the missing horse problem when she leads Ivy from the house, and, starting down the street, Ivy remembers the farrier’s. As they walk, Rosalía talks to her about normal things—her younger brother’s goat sneaking into the house to eat most of a rug the day before, her new saddle, Ivy’s own horse and is she doing any better?

  Ivy answers briefly as possible and only to be polite. She wants news of risers, of what, exactly, someone was thinking to start that fire only miles from the city. Is anything being done? Does anyone care yet?

  At the same time, she does not want to know. She does not want to care so
much. And, as Rosalía walks beside her in pretty white and green skirts, Ivy sees a woman in red, spinning on a dance floor.

  “Ivy?”

  Ivy looks at her.

  “Are you well? Have I done something to offend?”

  “Of course not. I am grateful for your assistance. Truly. Only tired.”

  They walk in silence as Rosalía’s question hammers in her ears. What has she done to offend? She was someone, then she was someone else. She was highly skilled at being both. But Ivy has to choose. She cannot be cowboy and lady. She cannot be elegant and strong. She cannot be self-reliant and friendly. All at once. She, Ivy, must choose. She must fight for who she is tooth and nail lest she become what this horrible place tries to make her. The woman beside her has somehow, miraculously, impossibly, been able to be two people, achieving both better than if Ivy tried to be either one.

  Never believe everything you know. Never question everything you know. Never waste a moment.

  Ivy looks at her now silent companion—long, beautiful black hair, high cheekbones, light, easy, comfortable walk. Not like women around here. Not like women in Boston. Not like anything Ivy has ever encountered before. And she is trying to be Ivy’s friend: something Ivy needs more than target practice, a better horse, a bath, or even ten thousand dollars and a steamcoach.

  “Rosalía?”

  The dark eyes look into hers.

  “I do beg your pardon. I have a dreadful time pronouncing your name properly. May I ... call you Rose?”

  The warm smile returns. “Of course you may.”

  Twentieth

  A Heap Too Much Thinking

  Both Grip and Sam are at the blacksmith’s stable when they arrive. Rosalía excuses herself, smiling as Ivy answers Sam’s inquiries as to her wellbeing. Ivy wants to know about the risers, have they spoken to Sheriff Thurman, what about that ludicrous fire, have any been into the city, was anyone infected? Which does not even get to questions of Oliver, expected freighters, and her own predicament.

  Sam forestalls her by assuring her Melchior will be all right, though the doctor recommended he keep the ankle immobilized for at least a week.

  Ivy feels bewildered, almost unable to recall what ails Melchior as she watches Sam in the shade of the stable row, holding a pail for Elsewhere. The gelding has been moved to a regular stall, facing outward, his halter rope lying on the ground, an enviable ease in his stance. Sam strokes Elsewhere’s forelock while the horse eats.

  “He did cut away the boot?” Ivy asks finally.

  “First thing.” Sam looks up. “How did he fall in the first place? I would not have thought it possible.”

  Ivy watches Yap-Rat amble along the open stable, pausing to listen at bales or sacks as mice move below.

  “Ivy?”

  “He was.... It was his own fault. What have you learned about the fire?”

  “Thurman had it set,” Grip says from his horse’s stall.

  “He what?” Ivy turns to face him.

  “Day before, a riser was seen by Eugene Brownlow, a settler out of town. Ran to the city to protect his family. Thurman said fire would dispatch it—so he’s heard. Brownlow returned with Jakes, lit the place at sundown, then shifted their own carcasses back to town. We come along hours later. Unfortunate for us.”

  “And no one,” Ivy says, her voice shaking, “involved in this brilliant plan, stopped to consider that they would be drawing risers out from all corners of the Territory to converge on this blaze only miles from Santa Fé?”

  Grip shrugs, stepping from the stall, swinging the half-door shut. “That, Miss Jerinson, is what happens when Cripes put their heads together. There’s been a heap too much thinking around here by incompetents.”

  “This is absurd. And he blames us, yes? Because we did not get to them first?”

  “Correct.”

  Ivy leans against a beam, palms pressed together, resisting the urge to cross her arms. “We have to fetch proof of ones we dispatched, I suppose.”

  “I can go,” Sam says. “I assured Melchior I would return his Colt.”

  Ivy faces him, mouth opening—then closing. She watches Sam rub Elsewhere’s crest, smiling in a vague way, like a little boy with his pony.

  She swallows, feeling unsaid words almost choke her. “I can accompany you.... There may still be some around.”

  Sam glances at her, about to speak when Grip interrupts. “Thurman will not pay you.”

  They both look at him.

  “You and Melchior must have shot at least a dozen last night,” Ivy says. “Besides the ones horses destroyed.”

  Grip smiles, but it is a grim, sarcastic expression. “Plan to tell him? We were doing our job? Not blundering into a trap he executed? In his story, those risers would have expired in the blaze anyway.”

  “Not true,” Ivy says, shoulders stiff once more. “They don’t all walk blindly in. They are capable of learning. The horde stops after they see numbers from their ranks consumed. If each would walk into the blaze and be destroyed, we should have had no more trouble with them in Boston years back after the Great Fire. The same of Chicago and New York.”

  Grip looks at her steadily until she looks away, glaring at his dog, now scratching its neck with a large and dirty paw, sending up a dust cloud around its face.

  Finally, Grip says, “Good luck.” He turns away.

  “You will not assist?” Ivy asks. “You’re in on this also, in case you forgot.”

  “How could I?”

  “I would not have suspected you gave up so easily.”

  “I have only so much tolerance for imbeciles in one day, Miss Jerinson.” He keeps walking down the short row of boxes to the end of the building. “Whether you are riding your horses or shifting them back to livery, remove them before Mr. Chanderton notices or they will be pardoned free board.” He disappears around the corner.

  Ivy looks at Sam, scratching his horse’s neck as Elsewhere cocks his head, eyes closed, leaning into the pressure.

  “We must hire horses,” Sam says, looking at his own. “These two need a break. We shall take them to the livery stable and see what we can borrow.”

  Something else to look forward to. On the other hand, a new mount could hardly be worse than Luck.

  They collect their belongings from saddle trees, drop them on their horses’ backs, then lead them across town.

  Sam negotiates for two horses for the afternoon from Mr. Quiles, the stable foreman, running into difficulty when the man tells him they have none on hand that have ever carried a lady.

  “A quiet, older horse then,” Sam says. “One unlikely to object to a sidesaddle for the first time.”

  Brows drawn, biting his lip, Quiles looks up and down rows of rental and boarding horses. Finally he nods, as if some point has been settled. From the center of a row, he leads out a swaybacked, dun gelding.

  “Not an easy animal to put out. You ride him, señorita. He will give no worries.” He ties the horse, then turns to fetch another while Ivy regards the walleyed thing with distaste. For some reason, the assurance makes her uneasy.

  The horse stares back, blue eyes seeming alarmed even as his head droops and he eases one hind leg in a lazy fashion.

  Sam saddles him with Ivy’s sidesaddle, though it is a poor fit, before accepting a second gelding from Mr. Quiles. This chestnut, with four white stockings, Quiles calls Socks, introducing the dun as Chapo. Sam pays, saddles Socks, and they are almost on their way.

  When Ivy mounts and nudges Chapo forward to follow Socks, the dun will not move. He has not shifted his resting position with one leg eased up, even to take her weight from mounting. His head droops as he chews his bit, swishing his tail against flies.

  “You may need a quirt, señorita.” Quiles hands her one.

  She squeezes with her heel on the left, taps with the quirt on the right. No change. She hits harder, but she is not going to flog the animal. What does one do if it will not budge?

  Sam reins back Soc
ks in the alley, eyebrows jumping as he realizes he must drag at the animal’s mouth to turn him. Elsewhere glides to a stop if one so much as thinks of reining in. Sam shortens his reins, looking back at her.

  Ivy flicks Chapo again. The dun horse yawns against his bit. At Quiles’s eager encouragement, Ivy kicks the dun’s ribs and strikes a sharp blow with the quirt. Ears flicking once, the gelding finally shuffles off.

  Quiles claps his hands together. “¡Cuidensen!”

  “What did he say?” Ivy whispers to Sam.

  “No idea,” he says from the corner of his mouth.

  They both call back, “Gracias!” at the same time and ride out of the stable.

  Ivy suppresses laughter until a glance at Sam’s grinning face in sunlight compromises her resistance. They both laugh as they ride out of town.

  Sam shakes his head, gazing at his saddle horn. “I would have said they were the difficult ones in our expeditions. Now I cannot say how we might manage today without Melchior and Grip. What shall we do?”

  Ivy grins at the road ahead, thrilled with the alien feeling of laughter, the knowledge that Sam finds Melchior “difficult,” and the nearness of him riding beside her.

  “I know—we can ride out very, very slowly.”

  “‘Powerful slow,’ you mean?” Sam glances at her.

  Still laughing, Ivy reaches to her hat for sungoggles. “We could stop for lunch.”

  “We could stop just for a drink.”

  “Stop every ten minutes for no reason at all.”

  “Kip under a tree.”

  “And no one would poke fun or shout or curse us.”

  “Or ride away, as if we cost them weeks of indolence.”

  Ivy beams skyward through her goggles. “The possibilities are endless.”

  They ride south out of town, chuckling as they go, even as they must keep pushing their horses forward with heels and quirts. Ivy’s mount seems to think every twenty paces deserves a breather and Sam’s strains to eat everything along the trail from thistle to tree branches.

  Ivy does not mind, does not care if it takes five hours to reach their destination, even as talk turns to the maker. Rosalía knew nothing of a freighter having arrived in their absence, which assures Ivy they still have time to earn something for Oliver.