"This would be stupid," she said.
Ger opened his mouth to argue. Before he could put together a single word, though, reality gripped him by the shoulders and gave him a firm shake.
Sharing a barracks with ten other men. Working together—working together under Vincent's watchful eye. It would put both of them in an awkward and precarious position.
Kellen most of all, he realized. He'd never given it much thought, all her snarling and smart-mouthing and constant drive to show she could haul as much cargo, tie as many knots, throw as many cusses as the next docker. She was proving herself, he suddenly understood. Always proving herself. Being with him would only make that task a thousand times harder.
"It would be worth it," he said, before he realized he was going to say it aloud.
For one breathless second, he thought she'd agree with him. Then she shook her head and turned her face away.
Ger stumbled through the shadows and back to his own cot. He lay there, watching motes dance in the cracks of light above his head, listening between Petras's snore for the sound of Kellen's breathing, and wondering if he'd just been as close to her as he'd ever get.
~
On the day after Kellen became a Crowmaker, Viktor Kalvis and Jan Bosch stamped through new spring undergrowth into the trees that lay between the estate and the road back to Philadelphia. They went for firewood.
They came back with Tomas Poanski's body. Poanski had apparently gone only halfway along the lane leading to the turnpike. Then he'd veered off the lane into the forest until he found a sturdy oak, fashioned a noose, and hanged himself.
"It is because of Elena."
Petras spoke like a man who thinks he must only be dreaming and waits to wake, Kellen thought. Most of the men sat around the plank table at the front of the barracks, elbows on knees and shoulders slumped. A few of them paced. They'd put Poanski in the ground already. Now they just had to put his death behind them. Kellen hadn't known Poanski—of course, she didn't know most of the other men yet, either. But she understood something about their struggle.
"He always said he could not live without her," Petras said. "He always said that. The wharves would never be good enough to win her."
"Seems like a dumb thing to do for a girl," Langston muttered, but even he seemed subdued.
"Is not respectful," Ackermann said to Langston, "To speak ill of the dead."
"Maybe not," Jennett said. "But Langston ain't wrong."
Kalvis lifted his face from his hands and looked up toward the other men. Kellen sensed a fresh round of bickering was about to begin—as little as she knew these men, she'd already learned that they couldn't go more than minutes at a time before some argument about something broke out. Kellen sat on her cot in the back of the barracks and stayed quiet.
If she hadn't come back with Vincent. If she hadn't insisted that Ger come, too.
She wouldn't be alone in her guilt, she knew. Ger sat alone on his cot, too, and he'd be thinking the same thing she was. Jesus, when would death and guilt stop following them around? But she didn't look at Ger. She couldn't, not without remembering the taste and the feel of his mouth. That was so very much the wrong thing to be thinking about.
The door at the far end of the barracks opened. Vincent stepped inside.
The bickering that had been about to break out stopped before it started. Even the quietest of the talk along the table died away. As every pair of eyes in the barracks fixed on Vincent, a complete silence fell.
If Vincent felt anything at all about Poanski's death, it didn't show on his face. He stopped inside the door and stood there just long enough for the other men to all look at him.
"There will be no muster tomorrow," Vincent said. "You'll report to Mr. Lockton and help him load and ready the wagons. We leave the morning after."
No one said anything right away. Kalvis stood from the bench and stared, hard-eyed, at Vincent. Langston straightened and took a little half-step closer to Kalvis. Other men around the room shifted without a word, and Kellen noticed how their shoulders fell into identical lines, all of them facing Vincent.
"Yes, sir, Lieutenant Bradley," Jennett finally said. His voice was like cold steel.
Vincent didn't acknowledge Jennett's words. His gaze landed on Kellen.
Her heart rushed into her throat. She found herself sitting up straighter and squaring her shoulders, too.
Vincent didn't smile. His face remained in that perfectly expressionless mask that Kellen had already grown to hate. Without another word, he turned and left. The door to the barracks banged shut behind him.
Chapter 37
As Vincent adjusted the saddle on his bay's back, he watched Kellen. The wings etched across the faces and necks of the newly-made Crowmakers had turned each of them into strangers with vaguely familiar faces. But Kellen would have seemed like someone Vincent didn't know even if she hadn't worn the tattoos.
As she saddled her horse, Kellen talked with Brian Byrne. There was an easiness between them that Vincent had glimpsed—with extreme disapproval—when they all still worked the wharves in Philadelphia. Vincent had never been on the same crew as Kellen then, though, and he'd never understood just how well she knew some of those other men. A wicked knife twisted deeper into Vincent's heart every time he watched her like this, every time he realized he wasn't the center of her universe—and maybe never had been.
But he just couldn't look away.
"Lieutenant Bradley."
Vincent yanked his thoughts from Kellen and turned, fixing his eyes and attention on Ellis. Ellis's vague little smirk had yet to return, not since Vincent had screwed up by letting Kellen talk him into bringing Owen back with them from Philadelphia. Apparently, dismissing Poanski wasn't enough penance served to get Vincent back into Ellis's good graces.
Poanski. God, what a fucking mess that had turned into.
"Where are Mr. James and his daughter?" Ellis asked.
Vincent glanced around—horses and Crowmakers, wagons and servants. But no James, and no Annie.
"Find them," Ellis snapped, before Vincent could formulate a response. "They will be your responsibility from here on out. See to it that they are present and ready to move out by the time I've finished addressing the men."
Vincent blinked. Babysitting the scientist and the little girl? Guarding the door to James's study had been one thing. This, though, it felt like a punishment.
"You will be able to handle that task, will you not, Lieutenant?" Still no quirk of a smile, not even a hint of a lilting charm, however false it may have been.
Punishment, most definitely. Or maybe another test. Vincent resisted the sudden urge to punch Ellis, right in his smug jaw.
"Yes, sir," he said, instead. He thought he'd kept any trace of what he was really thinking off his face and out of his voice. He was getting pretty good at this lying business.
Ellis turned on his heel and walked toward the Crowmakers as they mounted up and moved into formation. He didn't spare Vincent a second glance, but Kellen was looking at him, Vincent abruptly realized. His gaze touched hers.
Vincent kept his expression carefully composed. She didn't need him? Fine. He didn't need her, either. He was Ellis's right hand man, and she was just another Crowmaker.
Vincent broke their shared gaze and turned toward the house.
~
"They'll be waiting for us, Father."
"Yes, yes. They'll just have to wait. These have to be secure."
The door was open, but when Vincent rounded the corner, father and daughter both looked up at him with furrowed brows, as though he'd barged in without knocking.
"Captain Ellis doesn't do waiting very well," Vincent said. He tried to take the edge off his voice by following up with a disarming smile.
Annie smiled back. James did not.
An open chest stood on one of James's work tables. The inside was lined with sawdust and straw. James glanced up at Vincent and quickly snapped the chest shut.
/> Vincent took another step closer. "Something I can help you with, Mr. James?"
Annie stepped closer, too, looking at the chest with an expression akin to pride.
"They're—" she began.
"None of his concern," James interrupted.
Annie dropped back a step and shot an apologetic smile at Vincent. She was likely the only person left in the world who didn't hate his guts. Vincent suppressed a sigh and smiled faintly in return. God, but he felt old and tired.
James turned a small brass key in the locking mechanism of the chest. Then he buckled a pair of leather straps around it. Vincent tried to wait patiently, but he could hear Ellis's voice rising and falling outside. The man could certainly talk, but Vincent had no idea how long he intended to talk this time.
"We really do need to go, sir," Vincent said. "Can I carry that for you?"
"No." James wrapped the crate in his arms as though it were made of solid gold. But he brushed past Vincent and left the study, so Vincent counted that as good enough.
Vincent looked to Annie. "What about you? You got anything you need me to carry?"
Annie smiled again. "Everything else was packed into the wagons last evening," she said. "Only those were left. They're too valuable to leave out in a wagon overnight."
Vincent motioned for her to precede him and then followed her out the door.
"But thank you," she said over her shoulder. "It was gentlemanly of you to ask."
"Yeah, that's me," Vincent muttered. "All gentlemanly."
Annie stopped and turned all the way around. "Cheer up, Mr. Bradley. With the threat of the Crowmakers at his disposal, General Harrison can surely reach a peaceful resolution with the Indians in no time.
Then she turned herself around and marched herself after her father, leaving Vincent not entirely convinced.
"Nothing's ever that easy," he muttered. But he followed Annie toward the waiting horses, just the same.
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A Stillness of the Sun (Crowmakers: Book 1): A Science Fiction Western Adventure Page 26