by Alex Bledsoe
“I’ll skewer you if you breathe wrong. Misunderstand that?”
I raised my hands. “No, ma’am. I’d just like to ask you if you’d seen a friend of mine, though.”
Her eyes narrowed in her weathered face. A strand of limp hair hung between her eyes. “What friend?”
“A girl named Laura. Would’ve been about ten days ago.”
“I don’t know any girl named Laura.”
“Do you know anyone who wears boots with dragons on them?”
Her brow creased with thought, and with her free hand she tugged at her uneven neckline as if it had suddenly grown tight. Then she motioned me forward. I was very cautious and stopped well out of arm’s reach. The spear stayed aimed at the center of my chest, but she held it wrong for such a close jab and I was pretty sure I could dodge it if I had to. Then again, I might end up on a spit over their dinner fire. “You know about the dragon people?” she asked.
I nodded. “Ran into three of them out on the road a while back.”
She looked me over carefully. “You’re not one, are you?”
“No, ma’am, not me.”
“Good. You wouldn’t walk out of this yard alive if you were.” She looked past me at the kids. “Go play!” she snapped, and they scurried off into the woods like upright squirrels. She returned her attention to me. “You swear you’re not one of them?”
“Do I look like one of them?”
“They’re sneaky. How do you feel about King Archibald?”
I raised my chin and put on my most sincere face. “I’ll leave Muscodia before I’ll submit to his tyranny,” I said, adding equal parts outrage, courage and the fear that comes from espousing a lost cause. And technically my words were true. Of course, since I wasn’t a citizen I felt no patriotic loyalty, and from what I’d heard King Archibald was far too disconnected and flighty to ever do well as a tyrant.
She didn’t answer for a long, tense moment. I crossed my arms, which put my sword hand close enough to the hilt that I could draw it quickly if needed. Women, I knew, could be just as vicious as men, and if she attacked me I had no compunction about defending myself.
Finally she said, “My husband will be home soon. He’s the one you should talk to. Come on inside and wait for him, why don’t you?”
I nodded at the spear. “You going to keep pointing that at me?”
She lowered the weapon until its butt end touched the ground. “No. But this isn’t the only sharp thing I’ve got handy, just so you know.”
I bit back every single snide comment and simply said, “Yes, ma’am.” Then I followed her inside.
chapter
FOUR
H
er name was Bella Lou, and her kids were Toy (the girl) and Stick (the boy). “We named them after the first thing my husband saw when he walked outside after they were born,” Bella Lou said. “The people who were native to Muscodia before we came along used to do the same thing.” I resisted the urge to say the choices could’ve been much worse. She was not as old as she first appeared, her rough-hewn lifestyle having aged her prematurely. Her husband she simply referred to as “Buddy.”
The shack’s inside was just like the outside. Everything had the look of being homemade or scavenged, then stuck together with no concern for style or safety. The table and chairs were big, square, solid creations that, because they were too large to go through the door, must have been built in the room. Animal skins, some with heads still attached, hung on the walls and covered the uneven floor. The place should have smelled atrocious, but flowers bloomed in window pots and various herbs dangled from hooks, making it actually rather homey. There was even a pleasant breeze through the windows to offset the summer warmth.
I sat at the crude table, drank tea that could tan leather and listened to Bella Lou tell me everything that was wrong with Muscodia and old King Archibald. She and Buddy were convinced Archibald was preparing a return to the old days of iron-fisted royal dominance in preparation for the eventual succession of his diffident son, Prince Frederick. And never mind that Muscodia’s capital, Sevlow, was about as geographically far from Neceda and the Black River Hills as it was possible to get: Bella Lou believed that people like her and Buddy, whose independence posed some vague sort of threat to this new royal order, would be rounded up and enslaved once the coup happened. So they’d retreated to the woods, where they lived basically in hiding from the outside world.
I’d met people like this before, and there was no convincing them with logic. So I just smiled, nodded and drank as much of the corrosive tea as I could manage despite my stomach’s increasing protests. I wondered how late Mother Bennings stayed at her office, and how extensive was her collection of antidotes.
“I’m sorry for the mess,” Bella Lou said as she put the kettle back on the hearth. I noticed she drank no tea herself.
“It’s still neater than my place,” I lied. “So tell me about these dragon people.”
She sat opposite me. “I thought you knew about them already,” she said suspiciously.
“I do; I’d just like to compare notes.”
She smiled. She had all her teeth, although a couple appeared destined for the dentist’s pliers. “You first.”
Well, no way around that; smoothly done, LaCrosse. So I gave her the sum total of what I knew. “There aren’t very many of them, they’ve got a place hidden around here somewhere and they aren’t afraid to hurt people to get what they want.”
She nodded. “That’s them, all right. When they first came here, we tried to be friendly and get to know them. In the woods, you always like to find out who you can trust, because you never know when you might need a hand. But whenever we’d run up on one of them, they’d get all crazy and chase us away.”
“How long ago did they come here?”
“About a month ago, I reckon. The first time I saw one, I was out gathering berries up near the tree line. The dirt’s all washed away there, and there’s places where it’s nothing but boulders. That’s where he was, at one of those rocky spots. He didn’t see me at first. He had a stick, like a fishing pole, about twice as tall as he was, with a rag tied on the end the way you’d make a torch. He even poured something that looked like lamp oil all over it. But he didn’t light it; he just started shoving it into the cracks between rocks, as far as it would go, real carefully, like he was . . . I don’t know, painting the insides of those crevices and things.”
“What did he look like?”
“He was a young guy. Had on nice clothes under a big camouflage cloak. The clothes made me think he was town trash—no offense—but he moved around like he was used to being outside.”
“Then what happened?”
“He kept painting cracks for a long time, very methodically, like it was his job or something. He didn’t notice me. Finally he stopped, and I decided to say hello. I thought maybe he’d lost something down in the rocks, and I could get Toy or Stick to wiggle down and get it for him. I asked if he needed any help.”
“What did he do?”
She chuckled. “He screamed at me and threw a knife. He called me a nosy whore and said he’d kill me if I ever told anyone I’d seen him.”
“He threw a knife at you?”
“Yeah. He just missed me. It stuck in a tree right by my head. I grabbed it and ran. Luckily I know these woods like I do this tabletop, because he came after me. But once I got out of sight, there was no way he could’ve found me. He looked for quite a while, though, screaming and cursing at me the whole time.”
“Do you still have the knife?”
“ ’Course. Want to see it?”
I nodded. She went to a trunk-sized box shoved up against the wall and opened it. Light glinted from the blades of a dozen knives clipped to the inside of the lid, ready for the day the king’s soldiers came to arrest them, I supposed. She picked one, pulled it loose and closed the box.
She handed it to me: five inches long, perfectly balanced and sharp on both edges. If y
ou didn’t know about knives you’d never pick this one, because it was about as visually impressive as a nice letter opener. But I did know, and it told me that if the screaming guy had wanted to hit her, he probably could have. This was a pro’s throwing knife.
But what it told me most was that I was on the right track: embossed into the black handle was a dragon emblem identical to the one I saw on the man’s boots.
I tapped the design. “Is this why you call them the dragon people?” I asked.
She nodded. “Why do you?”
“One of them has the same thing on his boots.” I put the knife on the table. “Can I buy this from you?”
She shook her head. “We don’t use money. Money feeds into King Archibald’s repression.”
Slowly so I wouldn’t spook her, I drew my own knife from its hiding place in my boot. It was almost exactly the same size and weight and, since I’d left the filigree along the blade, looked much more expensive. “Can I trade with you, then?”
She took both knives and held them side by side, scrutinizing them like two cucumbers at the market. Then she handed me the dragon knife. “Sure. It’s probably bad luck for me to keep it, anyway.”
I slipped the new weapon into my boot just as heavy steps thudded on the porch outside. “I got us a couple of wild pigs,” a rough male voice called. “Ought to be good for a week, at least. Got ’em strung up to drain.”
“Buddy, you know you don’t have to gut ’em; I’ll do that,” Bella Lou called through the door. She smiled and shook her head. “I’m a lucky woman, all right. He spends all day hunting and still has the energy to field-dress ’em and start the blood running out.”
The front door opened and Buddy stepped into the room. He was a short, round man with arms the size of my legs, dressed in ragged, homemade clothes patterned to blend with the light and shadow of the forest. He’d removed his boots on the porch, and his broad, pasty-white feet slapped the floor with each step. He wore a big knife on his belt and his hands were bloody. Intense little eyes peered from under the floppy brim of his cap and said he was not pleased to see a stranger. He looked me over for a long, tense moment. Finally he growled, “Who’s this, Bella Lou?”
“This is Mr. LaCrosse,” she said.
“And why is he in my favorite seat?”
She kept her eyes cast demurely down. “He was asking about the dragon people.”
“We don’t know any dragon people,” he said as he hung his hat on a peg. He had a wild tangle of thin, ginger-colored hair around a sizeable bald spot.
“Your wife just said you did,” I pointed out.
His hard little eyes flicked back to Bella Lou. “Yeah, well, she’s not too smart sometimes. Ain’t that right?”
Bella Lou, eyes still averted, nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Buddy asked, “That your gray mare out there?”
I nodded.
“Pitiful excuse for a horse.”
“I know.”
“Bella Lou, get me some water.” He wiped his hands across his belly, leaving red smears on the fabric. As she jumped to get water from a barrel, he stepped close to me and looked down. “You are in my favorite chair.”
“I’m a guest,” I said. Buddy had, in the time it took him to walk across the room, gone from annoying me to truly pissing me off, and I halfway welcomed the chance to make a big deal out of something. “Don’t they always get the best seat in the house?”
Buddy tried his best glare on me. “You and your pitiful horse better leave, mister.”
“Sure. Just as soon as one of you tells me where I can find the dragon people.”
“I said before, we don’t know any dragon people.”
I smiled my brightest smile. “Then your wife’s a liar. Or you are.”
His face turned red. “Mister, get on your way or next time I’ll just leave you out there for the coyotes,” he growled.
I frowned, puzzled at the comment. He looked startled as well, and embarrassed, like he’d blurted out more than he should. Then I got it. “Oho,” I said softly, “so you’re the fellow who found me and brought me into town.”
His tough veneer turned out to be as substantial as a sneeze; the fear in his eyes could probably be seen back in Neceda. “I think you better leave, mister,” he said with no juice.
I loved it when a tactical advantage just fell out of the sky like that. I nonchalantly tipped my chair back. “I’m not ready to give up my seat just yet. Yeah, my friend at the stable described you. He didn’t know your name, but he’s seen you at the market in town before. You tried to sell my saddle to him.”
Now Bella Lou froze in the act of handing him his mug of rainwater. Her eyes grew big and, as I watched, began to sizzle with fury. “You were at the market? In town?”
Buddy looked helplessly from me to her, unable to think of anything to say.
Bella did not have that problem. She tossed the water in his face, then threw the mug against the floor at his bare feet. It shattered, the noise sharp and loud. “Completely self-sufficient, you said. Never let anyone even know we’re here, you said. And now I find out you’ve been going to the market in town regularly?” By the end her voice had risen to a considerable shriek, and I was glad she wasn’t yelling at me.
Buddy took a step back toward the door. “Well, I had to—”
She was right up in his face now, hands on her hips. “You had to lie to me? To our children? You had to do that?” She smacked him across the back of the head. “We live knee-deep in goat shit and dead leaves, and you sneak off to town?”
He looked past Bella Lou at me, his expression desperate.
I stood and said, “Bella Lou, before you crack his head like a walnut, I’d sure like him to show me where the dragon people are.”
She turned that seething glare on me, and I responded with my blandest smile. She snapped, “Sure, might as well get some honest work out of him. I’m going for a walk.” She pushed past me and went out the back door. “Shut up!” she bellowed when the goats in the pen started bleating. Her muttering was so loud it carried back to us for several moments until she disappeared into the woods.
I turned back to Buddy, who looked like a convict granted a scaffold reprieve. “She’s got strong opinions,” I said.
“And a strong right arm,” he agreed, rubbing the back of his head.
“Maybe you shouldn’t lie to her next time,” I said.
“I don’t need your damn city advice,” he mumbled. Then he scooped his cap from the hook and, with as much dignity as he could muster, jammed it on his head. “Come on, then.”
I followed him outside. Two good-sized pig carcasses hung by their feet from a nearby tree, blood draining onto the ground; even I could spot them as plump, farm-raised livestock. Buddy pulled on big muddy boots, took the reins of a scraggly pony from the hitching post and mounted in a single leap. The pony visibly sank under his weight. The various tools and implements hanging from the saddle jingled. I mounted my horse and, after battling with her for a few moments, got her under control. “Buddy,” I said, “first I want you to show me where you found me. It’s close to where you’ve seen the dragon people, isn’t it?”
He nodded without looking at me.
I knew it had to be. They’d taken us from the road to their lair, tortured Laura until she died, then carried us to the cliff, all sometime between midnight and dawn. These woods were thick and would be slow to travel, especially for three men carrying two bodies and leading a recalcitrant horse. They couldn’t have taken us very far.
Buddy led me down trails I never would have spotted on my own. His pony had a much easier time of it than my horse, and more than once I thought of insisting we continue on foot. My nag tossed her head and fought any nudge to her flank as we descended an easy but perilously thin ledge to the bottom of a gully, then followed the dried creek bed. Above us the walls grew higher and steeper, until the place almost qualified as a canyon. I got queasy when it also began to look familiar.
“It’s just up here,” Buddy said, his pony unaffected by the odor.
“I know,” I said, swung off my saddle and released the reins. The horse backed up a step as if tensing to bolt, but I glared at her and she stopped. She lowered her head and began munching on the grass sprouting between the smooth rocks.
I tried really hard to get a grip on myself. After all, I’d seen plenty of dead horses, plenty of dead people, in my life. This was just another crime scene I needed to check for clues. So why did it feel like I was about to see the corpse of my best friend? I parted my lips and breathed through my clenched teeth as I approached the big object lying on the ground just ahead.
The flies were doing their job, and the rest of the forest disposal crew were no slackers, either. But most of her was still there. Huge slashes across Lola’s flanks showed where she’d been cut with a knife or a sword, most likely to drive her off the cliff. She was far too smart to just jump on her own. In the patches of bare dirt between the stones I saw prints from coyotes, raccoons, possums and other varmints, as well as the wagon tracks from where Buddy had picked up Laura and me.
Buddy, leading his pony, stopped beside me. He held a cloth over his face. “The fall might not’ve killed her right away,” he said clinically. “Coulda just broke her ribs. Then she’d suffocate, or drown in her own blood if her lungs got poked.”
I clenched my fists. “Say anything else, Buddy, and I’ll open a fresh jug of Bella Lou on you.”
He grumbled petulantly, “Hey, it’s just a horse; it’s not like it’s a person or anything.”
“Buddy,” I said with supreme self-control, “why’d you pick us up? You don’t strike me as the help-out-your-fellow-man type.”