A Stillness of the Sun (Crowmakers: Book 1): A Science Fiction Western Adventure

by L. E. Erickson

  Byrne smiled at Langton and shrugged. Then he lay back on his cot and put his hands behind his head again. Langston stared a second longer and finally picked up his boot and attacked the caked-on mud with new enthusiasm. Jennett prodded Vincent with his elbow and chuckled.

  Vincent only smiled without looking up and shook his head.

  "Grouseland?" Petras Juskiewicz sat on the bench on the far side of the table. He was cleaning his boots, too, with all the severity of a churchman exorcising demons.

  "The governor's estate in Vincennes," Colley replied.

  "But they don't listen, these Shawnee?" Joseph Goodson spoke the way he moved, slow and steady. "They won't talk peace with Governor Harrison?"

  "So far, they've declined."

  "Which brings us right back around to the part where we should go whoop their asses." Jennett gathered up his long legs and sat forward, as if he'd have liked to leave right then.

  "Do you suppose that's where we will go?" Petras asked.

  Colley folded his paper over to the next page. "Difficult to tell at this time, I suppose."

  But they would go. Somewhere, if not the Indiana Territory. They would go, and they would fight. If Vincent hadn't already been bent forward, leaning on his knees and watching the sun dance through the dirt and hay on the barracks floor, the impact of the understanding might have doubled him over.

  A second imagined punch landed a breath after the first: Someday, he would leave Philadelphia not just behind but far behind. What would happen to Kellen then?

  Jennett glanced out the open barracks doors and abruptly sat up straighter. "Noon break is over, boys. Here comes the Captain. Time for the special regiment to go learn how to be more special."

  In that moment, Vincent didn't feel all that special. Mostly, he felt lost. But what the hell else could he do? He got his feet under him and followed the rest of the men out to take more orders from Ellis.

  Chapter 14

  There were still a lot of things Vincent didn't know about Tucker Ellis's operation. He didn't know who the girl and man living up at the house with Ellis and his servants were or why they were there. Hell, maybe they didn't have anything at all to do with the militia, although Ellis didn't strike Vincent as the sort of man to take in family just from the kindness of his heart.

  Vincent also didn't know why Ellis was putting so much time and effort into training a dozen men to fight with sabres and muskets. Twelve men against even a single Indian war party were probably doomed from the outset, and they sure didn't stand a chance of defeating a British regiment or taking a fort. Vincent figured as long as he was getting paid, he didn't care much about making sense of the situation, but he wondered sometimes.

  But one thing Vincent had come to understand. Sooner or later Robert Langston was going to wind up dead, and unless Ellis's militia ran into some Indians or British sometime soon, it was probably going to be one of Langston's fellow soldiers who killed him.

  "I'm just saying, boys. Back in Philadelphia, this man's pecker was in business all the damn time. Captain Ellis, he's gonna need to give us some leave time soon."

  All twelve of the men were lined up along the edge of the field they used for firing practice, waiting for Ellis. It was dawn, but only barely, and the breeze that ruffled the hair against Vincent's neck was chilly.

  "I imagine one of Ellis's neighbors might have some sheep." William Jennett flashed a grin at Langston, but it didn't reach his ice-blue eyes.

  "Fuck off."

  "There's that, too."

  "Enough." Viktor Kalvis didn't raise his voice—Vincent had never heard Kalvis raise his voice. "Your coarse discussions are no credit to you. Or to the rest of us."

  Jennett aimed a frown at Kalvis, but he didn't argue.

  Langston, however, puffed out his scrawny chest and pointed his chin at Kalvis.

  "I don't see what business my pecker is of yours."

  "Aside from you shouting about it for the last five minutes?" Jennett muttered.

  "We all wear the same uniform now," Kalvis said. "Your behavior reflects on the rest of us."

  "You're just jealous." Langston smirked. "Old man with the same tired and probably ugly woman to screw. You wish you were me."

  Kalvis's expression didn't change, but Vincent swore the wind was suddenly colder and the light that had been trying to overtake the sky shrank back. Maybe it was just something in Kalvis's eyes that seemed different, but Vincent thought that if Kalvis ever looked at him like he was suddenly looking at Langston, Vincent would shut his trap and quit while he was ahead.

  "You do not speak of my wife." If Kalvis ever spoke to Vincent that way, his voice low and tight like it was, Vincent would definitely shut up.

  Langston, of course, wasn't bright enough to understand he'd stepped into dangerous territory.

  "You need to get around some, Kalvis." Langston copped a little swagger and wagged his chin from side to side. "Live a little, see a few more sights, if you know what I mean."

  "We all know what you mean, kid." Jennett glanced uneasily toward Kalvis. "If you were half as clever as you think you are—"

  Kalvis took one, single, unhurried step forward and put his face right into Langston's, so close their noses looked to be touching. Kalvis wasn't a big man, but Vincent bet he looked pretty big to Langston right about then.

  In the seconds of silence that followed, Vincent could hear branches scraping in the surrounding trees and the busy chatter of waking birds. He could hear the whisper of booted feet through dewed grass, coming down the hill behind him. What he could not hear was a single sound from any of the other men.

  "My wife was a God-fearing, hard-working woman." Kalvis's voice was like the sound of a flint striking against steel. "If she is to be spoken of, it will be with respect. But not by you—you will not speak of my wife again. Ever."

  Kalvis stared Langston down another second. Then he stepped back, turned around, and walked with careful dignity to the far end of the gathered men.

  Langston pulled himself up a little taller, like he had something more to say. Before he could add pure idiocy to simple stupid, those footsteps Vincent had heard behind him stopped, and someone cleared his throat.

  "Beg pardon." Mr. Lockton stepped past Vincent.

  Lockton, Ellis's only male servant, was roughly as big around as a fence post and not a lot taller. He carried a crate on his back that looked damned near big enough to outweigh him. Before anyone could make a move to help, he'd swung it around and deposited it on the ground near Jennett's feet. Without a word, Lockton took a crowbar to the crate, levering open the top but leaving it in place. Nails gave way with pops like distant gunfire.

  Then, with a nod, Lockton was gone again, and only the crate remained.

  "What do you suppose that is?" John Rawle's eyes were big in his round face. He reminded Vincent of a little boy. A particularly naive one.

  "We will find out when Captain Ellis shows us." The shortness of Petras Juszkiewicz's reply suggested he agreed with Vincent's opinion of Rawle.

  "Indeed you will."

  Vincent hadn't heard Ellis coming up behind him, although he wasn't surprised. Ellis strode into their midst, neat in his jacket and hunting pants but wearing no hat for once.

  "I see Mr. Lockton has been here already." The wind sifted through Ellis's hair, and Vincent thought for one odd moment how Ellis resembled a little boy right then, too. "Good."

  Ellis propped one foot on the crate and looked them over with a smug smile. His gaze flicked from face to face, as it often did. In those moments, Vincent always assumed they were each being weighed and judged. He often wondered how he measured up.

  "Mr. Ackermann has brought a few questions to my attention," Ellis said, "regarding how such a small regiment might be of any real use to advancing the interests of the United States."

  The son of a bitch. Vincent refused to look at Ackermann, but he could just about hear the bastard's gloating expression. Questioning Ellis behind
his back, and then going and trying to get in good with him. It wasn't like Ackermann was even all that smart—Vincent had wondered the very same thing, he just hadn't gone sucking up to Ellis and trying to find out.

  "I believe a small exhibition will serve to help answer that question, although I cannot share everything with you just yet. Mr. Ackermann, if you will?"

  Ellis beckoned, and Ackermann stepped forward. Like the rest of the men, Ackermann carried a musket and wore a cartridge pouch slung over his shoulder. His face was mostly hidden in the thicket of a beard he wore, but his movements were proud and full of confidence. Annoyance twinged in Vincent's gut.

  "Your firing and reloading speed is commendable," Ellis said to Ackermann. "Faster than the rest of this unit by a good margin. On my mark, you will fire into the trees. Show us all just how fast an excellent musketman can fire."

  Ackermann smiled. Vincent concentrated on keeping a scowl from his own face. He could fire as fast as Ackermann. Very nearly.

  Ackermann lifted the musket, braced it against his shoulder, and nodded to indicate his readiness.

  "You see the large oak in the center of the tree line?" Ellis said, as idly as if he were asking Ackermann to button his shirt or put on his hat. "You will attempt to hit it dead center with as many shots as you can, as fast as you can."

  Confused silence fell, matching the expression that flitted across Ackermann's bearded face.

  Ellis had spent the last several weeks teaching them that musket fire was about volleys in the general direction of the enemy. You couldn't hope to hit any small target on purpose with a musket, but the more men you had and the faster they could fire and reload and fire again, the more likely you were to hit a fair number of the enemy ranks. The idea was to convince those ranks to break and run, leaving them open to being run down with sabres. Ellis asking Ackermann to hit a specific tree was like asking him to hit a specific man. It ran counter to everything they'd been taught.

  But it was Ellis asking. Ackermann hesitated only briefly before nodding again. Ellis lifted one hand, allowed it to waver there for one moment, and dropped it again to his side like a man signaling a race's start.

  Ackermann raised the musket and fired. The musket boomed and kicked. Ackermann drew the musket down to his side, half-cocked it with his thumb, and reached into his cartridge pouch.

  Ellis reached inside his jacket, pulled out something resembling a pistol, and pointed it toward the same tree line. His shot cracked with a sweet-sounding metallic zing nothing at all like the clumsy boom of a musket.

  Ackermann started and fumbled. The paper cartridge packet dropped from his fingers.

  Ellis fired a second shot, right on top of the first. Without reloading. Without lowering the gun at all.

  And then a third shot on top of that. A fourth. Vincent held his breath.

  A fifth.

  Ackermann stopped fumbling with his cartridge pouch and lowered the butt of his musket to the ground. He and every other man stared at Ellis.

  Although his gaze was still fixed on the oak in the distance, Ellis smiled.

  "Let's go see what damage we've done to that tree, gentlemen."

  They followed him out through the field, trudging through knee-high damp grass without a word, not even from Langston or Rawle.

  Five holes clustered at eye level in the trunk of the oak. Vincent stared, struggling to understand all the things those five bullet holes meant.

  A gun that fired without reloading between shots. A gun that hit a specific mark instead of relying on luck and a volley of other shots fired at the same time. A gun that sang like an angel when fired. Vincent couldn't get that sweet sound out of his head.

  Ackermann's question of weeks ago, that afternoon they'd first arrived, had an answer. What would be a not-traditional weapon?

  "The Ellis .36." Ellis lifted the gun into the morning light, and it was as beautiful to look at as it had been to listen to.

  It was a pistol, but not like one Vincent had ever seen. The handle was simple and smooth, but of a glowing rich wood like the head of a gentleman's fine walking stick. Instead of a flintlock mechanism, it featured a rounded, cylindrical middle with a small lever behind. The barrel was of some black metal that seemed to soak up the sunlight instead of reflecting it.

  Maybe it was the outright beauty of the weapon. Maybe it was some gut-level appeal created by the stink of black powder and the memory of the bullets breathlessly zinging from its barrel. Maybe it was a deeper knowledge that Vincent didn't completely understand yet, that the .36 was more than just a thing, it was a thing that gave power to the man who held it. It was a thing that could make a man from a helpless nobody into somebody that no one dared to fuck with. Whatever caused it, just looking at the .36 made his pulse pound.

  Ellis placed the .36 into a holster belted around his waist, and they all tramped back across the field again. Some of the men talked this time, but Vincent didn't hear a word. He kept thinking about that sleek black barrel and that cluster of bullet holes.

  "This will be a more difficult sort of learning than what you have done so far." Ellis stopped beside the crate that Mr. Lockton had carried down. "You must be willing to work for this."

  Vincent looked into Ellis's face, wishing he'd just open the damned crate already.

  Ellis's gaze met Vincent's. That same smug smile as always quirked the corners of Ellis's mouth.

  Damn straight I'm willing to work, Vincent thought at him. I'll give up eating and sleeping if that's what it takes. I'd give up just about any damned thing.

  Ellis kicked the lid off the crate, revealing midnight-colored guns cradled in a nest of shaved wood.

  Vincent's fingers fairly ached in anticipation of holding one.

  Chapter 15

  Kellen sat on a bench in the Broken Barrel Tavern with a wooden tankard of cider in her hands, just like she was any normal docker. Just like this wasn't a place that had always, in the past, been just for glancing longingly into and not ever for stopping at.

  The Barrel stood right on the docks, but south of Market and so not as rough as the unlicensed drinking houses of Hell Town. Even so, it was packed wall to wall with dockers and sailors. The stink of sweat and salt mingled freely with aromas of roasting meat and stew and spilled cider. The din of laughter and half-shouted conversations bounced off the low ceiling and filled the tavern's single ground floor room.

  "'Drunkenness bears no resemblance to any virtue.'" Ger, seated beside Kellen, read from the square of folded newspaper he clutched in one hand. "I can think of a few men who'd disagree with that."

  He looked up at Kellen and flashed one of his quicksilver smiles, and Kellen caught herself thinking, not for the first time, about how his eyes were like a deer's, all deep brown and soft.

  Ger had already stayed longer than Kellen had thought he would. She'd expected him to heal up and then hit the streets again, tempting Ripley to actually kill him the next time. Ger had healed all right, and once he had, his face wasn't hard to look at, not at all. He'd been keeping his word about staying away from Ripley, too. It was hard not to develop a soft spot for a man who kept his word. And he hadn't left.

  Not yet. Kellen frowned. She could not afford to go all soft on another man who was bound to leave sooner or later.

  Ger's spark of a smile faded, and he leaned closer, bumping his shoulder against hers. "What? You were planning to take up drunkenness, and now you'll have to think of a new hobby?"

  His eyes stayed on Kellen's face, and the corners of his mouth twitched, as if his smile were just fluttering around and waiting to land as soon as Kellen gave it permission.

  Damn it.

  Kellen smiled. Immediately, she was rewarded with the return of Ger's smile.

  "What, then?" He still leaned close, and his shoulder still brushed hers.

  Kellen hadn’t ever wanted anyone but Vincent before. Other men were merely inhabitants of the same world Kellen lived and worked in, fellow beasts of burden who curs
ed and spat and sweated. Some, like Byrne and Colley or Em and Finch, Kellen called friend.

  It had been different altogether with Vincent. When his dark eyes had lit on her, she'd believed she was truly being seen. When his hands had cupped the back of her head, she'd thought she was protected. When he'd put his lips on her neck and pressed his body against and into hers, her blood had run hot and she'd felt like nothing would ever matter more.

  Ger was different, too. Kellen wanted him to touch her. She wanted to put her hands on him and taste his mouth and let him fill the empty places Vincent had left behind.

  The thought terrified her.

  The room felt too warm, and it was hard to breathe, so Kellen leaned a little away from Ger. She curled her fingers tighter around the tankard and lifted it, glancing around the crowded room as she did.

  The benches they sat on were pulled up close to the hearth, but the hearth was cold. Kellen wondered if the Barrel ever had need of a fire, even in the dead of winter. Between the cook fires in the kitchen and the heat from close bodies and more talking than Kellen usually heard in a month, the place was steamy even though a chilly spring evening had taken hold outside. The noise was as heady as the cider.

  "You sure we have enough coin for this?" Kellen asked.

  Ger sat upright again, still wearing a trace of a smile. "It was a good week. Why wouldn't we?"

  Kellen shrugged. "Never have before, between paying the Widow and maybe trying to put a little aside for winter."

  Ger lowered his paper and laid it across his thighs. He didn't exactly frown, but his expression seemed different. An uneasy feeling crawled across Kellen's shoulders.

  "How much were you paying, before?" Ger asked.

  A sudden swirl of laughter rose from the table behind them. Kellen used the ruckus as time to wonder if there was some trick to Ger's question.

  "Same as now," she finally said.