Her Reaper's Arms

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  114

  Her Reaper’s Arms

  “Don’t you touch him!” Lea shouted, her eyes wild. She was trying to take Bevyn

  out of the Amazeen’s arms but the other woman shoved her back.

  “Someone take this fool out of here,” Penthe snarled.

  “Come on, lady,” someone said, and reached for Lea’s shoulder. She hissed,

  knocked the hand away but the man persisted.

  Lea fought the two men who reached down to drag her to her feet. She cursed them

  and twisted violently in their hold, but they pulled her away and out of the dining car

  despite her thunderous shrieks.

  “How can I help you?” the man beside Penthe asked.

  “Are you a healer?” Penthe demanded, eying him suspiciously.

  “No, ma’am. I make my living dealing cards so I’m no stranger to violence,” the

  gambler said.

  “I need a sharp knife,” Penthe said as she lay the Reaper flat on the floor and put

  her hands to his silk shirt, ripping it open to reveal the six puckered red holes where the

  leader’s bullets had entered.

  Snagging a hand into his coat, the gambler pulled out a dangerous-looking blade

  from a holster under his arm and extended it hilt first to Penthe. “You need it

  sterilized?’ he asked.

  “Won’t make much difference to him,” Penthe said. She looked up. “Somebody

  better check on that other robber.”

  “There were two more of them,” the young pregnant woman said. “I saw them

  jumping on their horses and hightailing it with the other guy.”

  “I’ll go check with the driver,” the conductor said, motioning the steward to come

  with him.

  As Lea was thrust into a seat and made to stay there, her hands over her face as she

  sobbed hysterically, she began doing something she hadn’t in years—she prayed.

  The Amazeen worked methodically and with sure hands as she dug into the

  Reaper’s chest to extract the bullets, one of which was lodged close to his heart. He lay

  still beneath her ministrations, barely breathing and his chest barely rising.

  “He’s gonna need to drink,” the gambler said. He shucked off his fancy coat and

  unbuttoned his sleeve. As he rolled it up, he met another man’s horrified look. “A lot of

  something to drink.”

  Everyone standing above the Reaper glanced down at the blood in which he lay

  and which soaked the knees of the strange attire the tall woman was wearing.

  “Can’t we just put it in a glass?” someone asked.

  “I imagine he’ll take it however we give it to him,” the gambler replied. “As much

  as these men do for us, this is the least we can do for them.”

  Penthe looked up and locked gazes with the gambler. “What’s your name?” she

  asked.

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  “Riley,” he answered. “Riley Butler.”

  She looked back down as she probed for the bullet that lay beside his heart. “You’re

  not afraid of him biting you, Butler?”

  “He’s not going to turn me into one like himself, ma’am,” Riley replied. “There’s a

  sight more to it I’ve heard than that.”

  “You have to have one of the worms what’s inside him,” another man spoke up.

  “That’s what makes him a Reaper.”

  “You a female Reaper?” someone else asked.

  “Going to be,” Penthe stated. “We are on our way to the Citadel for that very

  thing.”

  “More power to you, dear,” one of the elderly women said. “If’n I was a day or so

  younger, I’d do it myself.”

  Penthe smiled at the brag. She handed the knife to Riley then stuck her finger inside

  the Reaper’s chest. Her frown slipped away. “I can’t quite get to this last one and it’s too

  close to the heart for my liking.”

  “Can you just leave it?” the pregnant woman asked. “Won’t his creature maybe rid

  him of it somehow?”

  “I don’t know,” Penthe answered. She removed her finger and sat back on her

  haunches, wiping her arm across her brow.

  “Will you look at that?” a man asked in a voice filled with shock.

  Three of the wounds on the Reaper’s chest were already closing, the flesh sealing

  itself as though there had never been a hole there. The fourth had ceased to bleed and

  the red striations around it were fading.

  Riley glanced around at a couple of the men. “Find us something we can lay him on

  as a stretcher. We need to get him to bed.”

  “Right away,” one of the men agreed, and he and another passenger left in search

  of something on which to carry the Reaper.

  The gambler gave Penthe a hard look. “Are you gonna keep on trying to take out

  that last slug?”

  Penthe shook her head. “I should but my fingers are too big. I can’t get…”

  “I got little hands,” the pregnant woman said, and shushed her husband when he

  tried to get her to be quiet. “If’n you tell me what to do, I’ll try it.”

  “Eloise!” her husband gasped. “Don’t—”

  “Come on down here, Eloise,” Penthe said, picking up on the name. “There’s no

  way you can hurt him any more than I already have.”

  Riley and Eloise’s husband helped the very pregnant woman to her knees. Penthe

  instructed her and without so much as a qualm, the young woman leaned forward and

  put her index finger into the wound.

  “Holy Merciful Alel!” Eloise exclaimed. “I can feel his heart beating!”

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  Her Reaper’s Arms

  “Can you feel the bullet?” Penthe asked to keep the girl on track.

  A thoughtful expression filtered over the young woman’s face and she pursed her

  lips as though in deep thought. “I think I feel it,” she said, and gently slipped her

  middle finger into the hole. “Aye, I feel it.”

  “If he were a normal man, we’d have sure as hell killed him by now,” one of the

  elderly women commented.

  Penthe looked up at the woman. “Lucky for us he isn’t normal.”

  “They are good men, those boys,” the woman said. “Hard men, I reckon, but good

  men. Don’t know what we’d do without them.”

  “Treat them a sight better so they’ll keep on being good men,” Riley said softly.

  “Too many’s the time I’ve seen how they are shunned. Got to be a lonely existence for

  them.”

  “This one’s got a woman,” Penthe said.

  “You’re a lucky girl,” the older lady said.

  Penthe didn’t correct the misconception.

  “Got it!” Eloise said, and gently, slowly and very carefully brought the slug up out

  of the wound. “Felt like one of his little critters was helping me push away from his

  ticker.” She grinned. “Little bugger was a’ticklin’ my fingers.”

  “You touched one of those things?” her husband gasped. “Dear lord, Eloise! Go

  wash your hand!”

  “Oh hush up, Earl!” Eloise snapped. “I ain’t gonna turn into a she-wolf and bite you

  on your scrawny ass tonight!”

  Everybody laughed at poor Earl’s expense, the young man’s lean face turning

  bright red.

  The men returned with a stretcher they’d found in the baggage car and lowered it

  down on the floor beside Bevyn.

  “Let’s get him up and to bed, men,” Riley said. He helped them lift the
unconscious

  Reaper onto the canvas sling, being careful to lay Bevyn’s hands over his belly and not

  his healing chest, the last bullet hole closing nicely.

  “Train’s about to move on out, folks,” the steward came back to tell the passengers.

  “Engineer wants to know how our Reaper is.”

  “He’ll be all right,” Penthe said.

  Lea jumped up from her seat. She was trembling, her face drawn and pale, and her

  eyes swollen from crying as the men carried Bevyn down the aisle. “Is he…? She

  couldn’t finish.

  “He’s okay,” Riley said. “Got all the bullets out.”

  “We need to put him to bed,” Penthe stated.

  Lea ignored the Amazeen. “Milord?” Lea questioned, twisting her hands in front of

  her, aching to touch him.

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  “Can you show us to your compartment, ma’am?” Riley asked. At Lea’s nod, he

  indicated with a sweep of his hand that she was to precede him down the corridor. The

  others followed them.

  Lea opened the door to the compartment and stepped aside. Her anxious eyes were

  locked on Bevyn’s still face and tears hovered in her eyes.

  “Ease him down, men,” Riley said, taking Bevyn’s feet and helping to swing him

  from the stretcher to the bed. “Ma’am, you need to take that shirt off him.”

  Lea moved around Riley and wedged herself in between the other two men. She

  was grateful the Amazeen hadn’t accompanied them into the compartment. Her eyes

  were on Bevyn’s chest and was stunned to see no wounds other than those that had

  already been there.

  “Looks to me like he’s had a right hard life,” Riley commented. “Somebody ran him

  through a gantlet of pain, I’d say.”

  “Could you get his boots, please?” Lea asked. “He hates wearing boots.”

  “It would be my honor, ma’am,” Riley said, and began tugging on Bevyn’s boots.

  “You need anything else, little lady?” one of the two other men in the compartment

  asked.

  “Some warm water and rags to bathe him and some cool water for him to drink,”

  Lea said.

  “Consider it done,” the man said, and eased past Riley to leave the room.

  “He’s going to need—”

  “We’ll give him what he needs,” Riley broke in, and when Lea looked at him, he

  smiled. “All he needs.”

  “Thank you,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.

  “It’s the least we can do, ma’am,” the gambler responded.

  For the next half-hour, Lea and Riley saw to the Reaper’s needs, cleaning the

  crusted black blood from his sides and back and undressing him so he could rest

  comfortably beneath the crisp sheets.

  Lea had asked for a chair to place beside the bed and Riley provided it for her,

  introducing himself at last as he set the chair down.

  “You call me when he wakes up,” the gambler told her then left her alone with

  Bevyn.

  “Hey, look here,” the man whose wife had fainted called out as Riley came back to

  the dining car. “My old lady wants to know if both them women are with the Reaper.”

  He grinned nastily. “Got himself a little harem going there?”

  Everyone seemed to be listening to the conversation, appeared keenly interested in

  the details, and Riley’s voice lowered.

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  “Reapers have only one mate,” Riley replied with a hard stare. “His lordship is with

  the pretty young one.

  “Well, the way that there warrior woman was putting her hands all over him, we

  couldn’t help but wonder if something wasn’t going on there,” the man said with a

  wink.

  “Could be she’s his partner,” the man’s wife spoke up.

  “Reapers don’t have partners,” Riley decreed, “but I reckon she could be working

  with him.”

  “What I am to him is none of your business.”

  Gasps and averted eyes accompanied Riley’s flinch as he turned to see the tall

  woman glaring at him. He put a finger to his temple.

  “No, ma’am, it surely ain’t,” he agreed, and righted a chair to sit down.

  The Reaper’s body temperature seemed higher than normal to Lea but she

  supposed that was because of the gunshots. He was sweating lightly and she kept

  rinsing out a cloth, wiping his face and across his shoulders, down his arms—being

  very careful of his chest although not one sign of a bullet wound could be seen—as she

  tried to cool him. She smoothed his hair back and hummed quietly to him as she held

  his hand and stroked his long fingers. From time to time he would stir as though trying

  to wake but would lie still again, his chest moving gently up and down, his lips parted.

  Lea didn’t need to turn around to know who had come to stand at the compartment

  door. “He is still sleeping,” she said.

  “I don’t like that,” Penthe declared as she came on into the compartment.

  “Thank you for killing the bastard who did this to him,” Lea said. “I only wish I

  could have had the son of a bitch to myself for a few days.”

  “And done what exactly?” Penthe said with a snort.

  “I’d have made him rue the day he ever hurt Bevyn Coure,” Lea said, and met the

  Amazeen’s eyes directly. “If I had your ancestor here, I would tear her to shreds for

  what she did to him.”

  Penthe arched a thick brown brow. “I believe you mean that, wench.”

  “You can take it to the bank, Amazeen. I’m not what you think I am,” Lea said.

  “And when it comes to this man, I can be a cold-hearted bitch.”

  The Blackwind leaned against the wall and crossed her arms over her impressive

  bosom. “And here I thought Terran women were sissies.”

  “Aye, well, the female of my species is meaner and deadlier than the male when it

  comes to protecting our loved ones,” Lea remarked. “Ask any Native Terran

  warrioress.”

  “He’s a man well worth protecting,” Penthe said.

  “And he is mine.”

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  Penthe inclined her head. “Aye, wench, I know that.” She stared hard at Lea. “I

  might not like it, might wish it were otherwise, but I will respect it.”

  “Then we understand one another,” Lea said, not giving an inch.

  “It would seem so,” Penthe said. She straightened up. “Be sure to call me when he

  wakes so I may help feed him. He will need it.”

  “I told Riley I’d call him and I will,” Lea said, and she turned her head away.

  “You would not allow me to feed him from my veins?” Penthe asked quietly.

  “Not in a million fucking years,” Lea stated.

  “It would be an honor for me,” Penthe said.

  “Not going to happen.”

  “I protected his back today. I—”

  “And you have my thanks,” Lea said, and looked around, her face hard. “You have

  his thanks.”

  The Blackwind narrowed her eyes. “You are a liability to him,” she said. “Had you

  not been there today, he would never have given his gun to the thief.” She went to the

  door then turned to give Lea one last hateful look. “You think on that, bitch.”

  When the Amazeen left, Lea continued to sit beside Bevyn, gently stroking his

  hand. She bathed his fa
ce and arms and chest again, growing more concerned at the

  heat radiating from his body. He stirred now and again, his head thrashing slowly on

  the pillow as though he were striving to wake from whatever hellish place in which he

  dwelt. He mumbled but as day moved into night, he had still not awakened.

  Riley stopped by the compartment not long after the sun had set. He rapped gently

  on the open door for Lea had her head down on the edge of the mattress. When she

  lifted her head and looked around at him, he smiled.

  “How ’bout letting me watch him for a while?” the gambler asked. “You need to

  take a rest and eat something. They’ve got fried chicken in the dining car.”

  Lea shook her head. “I want to be here when he wakes up.”

  “Okay,” Riley said. “Can I bring you a tray then?”

  Her stomach growled at the suggestion. “That would be nice, Riley. Thank you.”

  “I’ll be right back then.”

  Lea sighed and looked back around, stunned to see Bevyn’s eyes open and looking

  into hers.

  “Another conquest, milady?” he asked.

  She got out of the chair and sat down gingerly on the mattress beside him. “How do

  you feel?” she asked, stroking his hair back from his forehead.

  “Like I got kicked in the chest by a mule,” he said. “What happened?”

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  “You don’t remember?” she asked, her brows drawing together. She didn’t like

  how hot his flesh had become and reached over to take the cloth out of the water to

  wash his face again.

  “Was there a robbery?” he asked. He put a hand to his head.

  “There was an attempted robbery,” she reminded him. “You and the woman giant

  stopped it.”

  “Was anyone hurt?” he asked as he rubbed his forehead.

  “You and the warrioress killed the five in the dining car but three got away,” she

  said. She pushed his hand aside and ran the rag over his face and down his neck.

  Bevyn’s hand fell to his side as though it had been a real effort to hold it up.

  “They’ll have to be found and brought to justice,” he said.

  “That will have to wait,” she said.

  “Is Penthe all right?” He shifted on the bed, sweat pouring out of his pores.

  “The walking mountain is doing just fine,” Lea said from between clenched teeth.

  “Go get her for me,” he asked. He was breathing heavily.

  “Bevyn—”