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

by Jordan Taylor

  “We are in danger. Every sound we make increases it.”

  “You told me they’re of little consequence at night if one has no lights,” Kiedrid whispers.

  “There is a difference between ‘little’ and ‘none at all,’ sir.”

  They shift their mounts in a semicircle behind and to the sides of the coach as Cricks finishes harnessing. Ivy peers across the horizon for any sign of movement below stars, her breath making slight, silver vapor before her face. Luck tosses her head, stamping once, trying to turn.

  “Ivy.” A breath from Sam. Elsewhere stands to Ivy’s right, facing north at the tail of the coach. “Look this way.”

  Hands trembling, tight on gathered reins, Ivy squints into blackness, hardly breathing. Shapes of the night, like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, move. Black on black. One softer, smoother, endless. One detached, shifting, turning. She had not seen them on the horizon because they are not on the horizon. Not even close.

  Breath gone, heart filling her throat. “Cricks, Cricks.”

  He cannot hear her breathed word as he mounts the creaking driver’s box.

  God, he will start the horses, the coach, wheels, boards, springs, metal—creaks and groans, thumps and rasps, jangles and horses’ hooves.

  Turning Luck, who plunges, throwing her head straight up. “Cricks, no. Do not start.”

  “Miss Jerinson?” Kiedrid has heard her.

  “Stop him. Do not start the horses.”

  Kiedrid relays the message as Cricks takes up his whip. The horses start. Not by his hand or voice, but of their own volition, sensing the ready departure.

  Ivy gasps at the burst of sound from the coach, Luck half rearing, trying to rip reins from her numb fingers.

  Then Kiedrid is on the box beside Cricks. Both of them reining back the team. Two steps, a grind, a clatter, a clink, silence.

  Ivy breathes fast, scarcely taking in air at all. She turns Luck to find Sam, Melchior, and Grip now abreast at the rear of the coach, facing the moving shapes, each with revolver extended.

  One, two, three heartbeats pound in her ears, filling graveyard silence like prayer: let us live.

  No movement of black on black. No breath of wind. Not a horse moves, all listening, waiting.

  Too cold. Too dark. Let them be too cold for any fast action.

  Yet it is scarcely past sunset. They will have sunbathed all day. Not lethargic. Then run. They have surely heard—the reason all is still. They stopped, taking the company in, listening, turning their way. They heard the coach.

  So run.

  Do not run. It is dark, still. They may be missed. Overlooked. Never very active at night. Yet here they are, ambling around the countryside. A few? A dozen?

  Cannot see to shoot. The coach cannot outrun them. Accidents in the dark. Had they been on the horizon, just coming, had they still been far enough away that the sound of the coach was a sigh, then run.

  Not now.

  Black on black, puzzle pieces coming together again, sliding into place, audible steps on snapping sagebrush or buffalo grass.

  Crunch, shift, slide. Not a breath or gasp or groan or shout or cry, but slide of graceless feet. Many feet.

  Luck backs, bowing her chin to her chest, lashing her tail, ready to buck, fighting to turn. They could get away. Luck and her. Sam, Melchior, Grip. They could all flee in the dark. Not the coach.

  Right at them. Shuffling, reaching out. Close enough now to see gray arms, naked silver in starlight, trailing bits of tattered garments, one crawling on hands and knee, having lost a leg. The expanse of dark prairie surges like black ants swarming over a black mound.

  Close enough to shoot. Even in darkness. Yet the absurdity of it—madness. No one shoots. Luck puffs, rearing a few inches. Melchior whispers fast to Sam and Grip on either side, jamming his Colt back into its holster.

  Ivy clutches Luck’s mane and reins. Every nerve, every instinct screams at her to give the mare her head and fly away from this black tomb. Yet she cannot move. If they run, they will die. If they stay, they will die.

  Melchior rips something off the back of his saddle as Grip and Sam, also having slammed their revolvers back to their belts, wheel their horses. The next second, a brilliant, devastating blast of fire tears through darkness like a scream in a silent theater. The shock of heat washes over Ivy from twenty feet, the white light of it making her feel as if her eyeballs are exploding, smell of sulfur and oil smacking against her nose, whooshing rush of it mixing with sudden shrieks of horses.

  “Go!” Sam shouting to the driver.

  Grip whistles, charging El Cohete at team horses, spooking them as much as the sulfur blast and screams of Luck and Chucklehead.

  In that moment, as Luck rears in earnest, striking out with her forelegs as if reaching to knock away fire itself, Ivy sees a sea of motion. One hundred upturned faces, two hundred reaching arms, a surge of movement and energy as light rips over them like the Second Coming descending into a packed congregation. Except these reaching hands are cold, the gazing eyes black, unreflective, many bodies stained with blood, and not a gasp, not the tiniest exclamation escapes any throat.

  The coach leaps forward. Luck’s hooves thud to earth. She spins after Elsewhere and the team. With a shout from Melchior, Chucklehead explodes away, tearing across the prairie like a shooting star, running northeast in a trail of fire as the coach races south.

  Ivy sees no more—blind from darkness and wind rushing into her eyes and the flash of light still blasting across her vision.

  “He will get himself killed!” she shouts, feeling they should force their horses to stop, turn back, let the coach rush on.

  Her voice is drowned by the thunderous grind of the coach flying along behind galloping horses. She must stop or turn Luck. Can she? With the terrified mare in flight through darkness? She clutches reins and mane, cold wind slashing through her hair, stinging her eyes, and does not try.

  Thirty-Second

  Silver City

  A dozen American flags line the streets of Silver City above musicians and dancers, open fire pits with whole hogs, kegs of beer in stacks, long tables heaped with wares from leather goods to pocket watches to bread, and massive posts marking start and finish lines for races.

  For a bewildered second, as she reins back Luck, Ivy stares. How could they have known the day Kiedrid’s goods were arriving? How could this man be worth a celebration larger than the Santa Fé fandango?

  “Thunderation,” Melchior mutters beside her. “It’s Independence Day. Didn’t swagger we’d made such fine time.”

  Ivy shifts forward, her face hot.

  Grip pulls his hat low and slows El Cohete as if wishing to vanish. Sam also appears uncomfortable. Cricks chucks the team reins and turns the four horses at Kiedrid’s direction. Melchior grins, taking in the downtown scene as they approach.

  A bell rings, crowds cheer. Across town, a starting pistol fires. Luck balks. Ivy knees her on, glancing at her smirking cousin.

  She did not think she would see him again after he and Chucklehead led away the horde three nights ago. It had not really surprised her—what he did. Recklessness and bravery and quick thinking walk finer intersecting lines than she once imagined. What surprised her—with the team at a walk and Sam, Grip, and herself trying to wait while also not abandoning their coach through that awful night—was how distressing she found the idea of never seeing him again.

  All night she shivered in the saddle, a lump in her dry throat, moving Luck from checking the coach to finding Sam far down the trail in the dark. With Ivy’s reluctant agreement, Sam fired his MAS 1874 revolver three separate times into the air to sound off on their location.

  Many times, she rode hundreds of yards back from the coach just to find him, tense in the saddle, gazing north.

  At last they stopped in pre-dawn gloom to rest their mounts and wait. Sam would not eat and Ivy discovered she had no appetite for anything more than warm water as they built a fire with the first rays
of sun. Though they tried expanding the blaze for a high trail of smoke, there was insufficient fuel in buffalo grass and a stray Russian thistle to build the bonfire desired.

  With the sun high, Cricks harnessed the horses and Kiedrid informed them of their imminent departure. Ivy and Sam waited, watching, packing slowly, finally letting the coach move off with Grip before Ivy could mount Luck and follow. When she glanced back, Sam and Elsewhere had vanished from their heels. Ivy reined in, turning.

  Far north, perhaps two miles behind, a lone rider on a dark horse jogged after them. Elsewhere was already cantering toward him.

  Ivy just stopped herself from sending Luck after the bay gelding as a rushing, weightless sensation overwhelmed her. She could scarcely feel the saddle below her, reins in her trembling fingers, or her own aching muscles.

  Instead, she followed the coach, closing her burning eyes as she whispered, “Thank you.”

  “Look at that.” Melchior nods toward a start line as the company moves with the coach to a side street.

  Two horses pace to the line for a match race.

  “He is spent, Mel,” Sam says just behind them.

  “Can’t pass the buck on Independence Day: races, cards, shooting, bronc riding, fights—”

  “Lovely.”

  “Double our money in this burg before sunset.”

  “You might.”

  “Always putting a spoke in the wheel, Sam.” Noticing a long table and pointing, “Ever been in a pie-eating contest? Best way to get free food.”

  “Walking into any saloon gets us free food, old man.”

  Melchior chuckles as he watches hopeful pie eaters lining up at the table, many glancing up as the coach passes. “Look at those shave tails. Snails. Reckon it’s too late to enter?”

  With the desert sun scorching her for days, Ivy’s dress and chemise are drenched in both her and her horse’s sweat. Her hat is soaked and limp, hair plastered to her skin with dust turned to mud by sweat, stockings wet and reeking, lips chapped and bleeding. She used to honor Independence Day in Boston with her family. Before the ban due to noise and light, Dr. Frepson’s fireworks over the harbor presented a truly spectacular show. Now, she cannot feel worked up about any celebrations. Even free food.

  “Shall we settle with our employer before mixing among the locals?” Sam asks. “Now would be a poor time to desert.”

  Melchior reins back closer to Grip. “Playing?”

  Grip ignores him—a common response which does not seem to trouble Melchior.

  “We could take team shooting or relay if Sam won’t. I’ll get in whatever there’s time for.”

  “So I have discerned.” Grip glares between his horse’s ears.

  Ivy expects to deal with Kiedrid, who smiles in a self-satisfied manner as they move into town, before looking to a bath—preferably attached to accommodation and a good meal, but one must prioritize. Rather than stopping at the town’s single large livery however, Kiedrid takes them to the back of a prosperous general store facing a central street’s festivities.

  “I must meet with Mr. Ricksem, lady and gentlemen.” Kiedrid hops from the box, tipping his red hat to Ivy. “You will return this evening before sundown so we may settle. I shall also know at that time if I will be in need of return escort.” He turns his back on the four riders as Cricks jumps down to see to the horses.

  “Whoa, sir,” Melchior says as they all stiffen in their saddles. “Told us we’d be paid upon landing your team in Silver City.”

  “So you shall, Mr. L’Heureux.” Kiedrid pulls open the double doors as if he owns the place. “Return as I told you. Until then, I haven’t all your earnings.”

  “Then hold up what you’ve got. We’ll be on show for the balance,” Melchior says. “Hate to discover you’re nailed to the counter.”

  Kiedrid turns slowly to look at him. “Are you calling me a liar, Mr. L’Heureux?”

  Is he? Ivy wonders. She still finds much of what Melchior says as hard to decipher as Grip’s lapses into Spanish.

  Sam nudges Elsewhere around in front of Chucklehead. “We beg your pardon, Mr. Kiedrid. It is true we were promised payment upon reaching Silver City and we need some of that payment to find lodging and a meal for ourselves and our horses this evening. We can take a quarter now, if you have not the rest, and return once you complete your dealings with the merchants.”

  Kiedrid watches Sam with narrowed eyes. After a moment, his gaze shifts to Ivy, sitting still and silent on Luck. He steps to the coach, lifts a board on the coachman’s box, and withdraws a leather pouch. He hands this to Sam and once more walks away.

  “Return before sunset and we shall settle,” he repeats as he steps through the doorway.

  Though Ivy feels tremendous relief to know they have something to live on for the moment, the tiny bag of gold dust presents its own problem: none are sure how much it is worth. Grip sneers at it, saying the man has dodged and they will be lucky to get much more. One hundred dollars at most. Melchior is more optimistic, saying it’s high quality and might be as good as two hundred.

  There is no appraiser or post office with scales open in town today, leaving them to guess and take their chances with the honesty of locals—not something Ivy can feel much faith in.

  Through a crowd of children running with hoops and waving red, white, and blue ribbons, they lead their horses to the livery before Melchior hurries to see about the day’s events, Grip disappears, and Sam and Ivy check on hotels and boarding houses. Again and again they are turned away. Families are in town from outlying ranches and homesteads for Independence Day and not a bed is to be had.

  Finally, a man behind the bar of the only decent sized hotel advises them to knock on doors.

  “Bunch’a housewives put up and offer a supper for a few coins.” The man watches them from the corner of his eye as he pours shots for a packed house. Ivy knows he is wondering what the relation is. “Unless you aim to sleep out, you’d best ask about with townsfolk.”

  Back under blazing sun and dust of the animated street, Ivy does not mind. She is growing used to sleeping out. One more night hardly matters. It’s not even so cold at night down here. But she will not go to bed one more night, anywhere, without a bath first. Not if she has to use horse troughs.

  She glances forlornly at Sam, pulling down his hat beside her, squinting with sungoggles on his hat rather than his eyes. He seems to feel it is rude to wear them in town.

  He smiles at the look on her face. “I know.” He offers his arm.

  She follows him west, through crowds and competitions and games of all sorts—ax throwers and bread sellers, gunsmiths and bookbinders, arm wrestling, a tug-of-war over glowing coals with six men and a huge horsehair rope. She spots one man with blood dripping from his fingers, holding up a gleaming shaving kit with his good hand: “One dollar, mister, a steal.” A woman with no noticeable teeth peddles warm tamales with a little girl dashing ahead to hold them up to everyone she sees, kicking out as numerous curs follow.

  Beyond are rows of adobe houses. Farther still, Ivy can see the long, jagged lines of mining camps rippling like unset gelatin through a haze of heat and dust. Nearer, a throng presses on some sort of exhibit at the edge of town.

  They glance at one another and, rather than starting for the homes, turn off to see this crowd, made all of men and boys, packed about a rail fence. Hats are waved, boots stamped, cheers, jeers, and whistles fill the air. Over many heads, Ivy can see a man momentarily visible again and again, up, down, bobbing like a rag doll on a string being plucked by a restless child.

  Not bronco busting, she finally sees with alarm: a roan longhorn bull leaps and plunges through the ring, kicking behind, twisting in the air with terrifying agility for such a massive animal. Even through clouds of dust and cheering cowhands and vaqueros perched along the rails, Ivy sees crimson flecks fly from the beast’s sides and nose as he slashes horns and hooves in all directions. She stares, rigid, until Sam also gets a look between wavi
ng Stetsons and filthy bandanas. He pulls her away by her own hand gripping his arm, drawing his handkerchief from his breast pocket to wipe his face.

  On the right side of the enclosure, men stand above another lying flat on the ground. Ivy has just spotted the pool of blood blackening skin, clothes, and earth, when Sam drags her the other way.

  She looks back, pulling at his arm now. “Is that man—?”

  And another closer to the pen, also on the ground, yet sitting up, thrashing at men around him trying to hold him down, brow bloody, leg twisted to a horrifying angle. His mouth is open in a scream which remains inaudible behind the excited crowd. Besides the man looking at his leg and two others pushing him back, no one seems concerned. No one even seems to notice.

  “Ivy—” He will not drag her off her feet, but the pressure becomes harder to resist and she follows.

  “What is the purpose?” she asks, still looking over her shoulder from crowd to casualties.

  “I would not know.” Sam’s voice is as stiff as his arm feels against hers.

  As they start across this open end of the street, Ivy ashamed, wondering what to say, Sam looking away toward the mining camps, she feels earth vibrate beneath her boots.

  Before she has a chance to look up, Sam jerks her backward so hard she is thrown to the side of the road in scorched dirt and trampled weeds. Half a dozen horses blaze past in a blur of pounding limbs.

  Ivy stares after them, panting, sitting in dirt with her yellow skirt a tangle and her heart hammering. A fresh wave of dust fountains over her, clods and pebbles flying, along with a spatter of something hot and wet: horse saliva.

  Sam bends over her, reaching for her hand. “I am so sorry, Ivy. Are you—?” He coughs too much to get more out, but must turn away from her before helping her up.

  On her feet, Ivy brushes her dress, so dazed she cannot remember why they came out to the edge of town. She longs to spit dust and grit from her mouth as she longs for a bath. The idea of swallowing the mouthful is only slightly less disturbing than spitting in public. She swallows the dirt, chokes, coughs, and, knees shaking, follows Sam back toward the bull ring rather than taking another chance at the road.