Ransacker

by Emmy Laybourne

  The sun beamed down from a bright blue sky. She shouted to her brother, but she couldn’t make out her voice or his response. Her hearing was gone but she didn’t panic. She knew it would return a few minutes after they were done.

  After Stieg had stepped back another ten paces, and they had run the drill again, Sissel realized she could hear something else. A new vibration. An uncomfortable one.

  She held up her hand for Stieg to stop and breathed in long and slow. She passed her mind’s eye over the land, searching.

  She took a few steps to the east. She felt Stieg approach and touch her arm, a question in his eyes.

  “There,” she said, waving her hand in a loose circle. “There’s something out there.”

  She strode toward it, the hem of her skirt gathering dirt.

  Yes, there. On the ground near a sagebrush.

  Sissel felt prickles go up the back of her neck. The feeling was cold and oily.

  “I don’t like it,” she said. “Whatever it is.”

  Stieg put a hand on her arm to restrain her, but Sissel pushed it away.

  Louder and louder, the sound crashed in her head, a twister of noise.

  There, half buried in the dirt, lay a ruined and discarded shotgun, the barrels bent.

  Gunmetal and steel.

  This was the first rifle she had come across when using her Nytte, and there was something abominable about the touch of it on her senses. Gunmetal was a fusion of metals that felt all wrong. Steel, too, was a mixture. Heavy, sluggish iron was there, but burned together with something charred and noxious.

  Sissel’s knees gave out. The world spun, and the grassy prairie rushed up to meet her.

  * * *

  SISSEL WOKE UP to Stieg’s anxious face hovering near hers. He was shading her from the last of the afternoon sun with his hat.

  Sissel glanced toward the sagebrush where she’d located the shotgun. It was gone. Stieg must have taken it and thrown it over the hill.

  Stieg gently helped her to sit up. He gave her a sip of water from his canteen.

  “Can you hear me?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “I don’t know what happened.”

  Unsteadily she got to her feet. Stieg brushed dirt and twigs off her clothing, and they made their way back down to the road.

  “How is your head? How is your body? Any aches and pains?”

  “I feel all right,” she said. “A bit embarrassed. To faint over an old gun.”

  Stieg pressed her to explain what had happened, and she told him about how wrong the metal had felt to her.

  “I believe steel and gunmetal are both alloys,” Stieg said. “I know that steel is different from other metals. I will look into it, and try to find out why it would have this effect on you.”

  “Never mind,” she said. “Perhaps we could work with a small amount, and I could learn to close my mind to it—”

  Her leg ached now, and she remembered her boasting earlier that she was so much stronger.

  “Sissel,” Stieg said. “I’m afraid we must be more careful from now on. Your powers are coming in, they are stronger than we know, we don’t understand what they do … or how dear a price you will pay for using them. I think it would be best if we stopped your lessons for a while.”

  “What? No!” Sissel protested. “We’ve only just begun!”

  “You have your whole life to master your Nytte,” Stieg said. “But there are forces at work here we do not understand. Why would steel affect you this way? Perhaps it is poisonous to you!”

  “We’ll go slow, then,” she said. “We’ll be careful.”

  “And there is the matter of your hearing. What if you unwittingly pull on a metal too hard and damage your hearing for life? No.” Stieg had his eyes fixed ahead on the road. He spoke carefully and slowly, the way he did when he was teaching. “Best to wait for Rolf to tell us what he knows. We never discussed the powers of a Ransacker. Not in any detail. Maybe he can recommend exercises, like the ones he gave me—”

  “No!” Sissel said. “I like using my Nytte. It makes me feel alive, Stieg. I don’t want to stop.”

  “Come now, Sissel. Show some restraint. I’m only asking you to hold off for a month or two.”

  “It’s improving my health, you know it is!”

  “You just went deaf and blacked out for a half hour,” Stieg said. His eyes were snapping now; he was angry.

  Sissel had her arms crossed over her chest, and Stieg had his hands on his hips. Suddenly he took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “Let’s take a few days for the effects of this great exertion to wear off. Then we can discuss it again.”

  “Very well,” she said.

  But he can’t keep me from my gift, she thought. She could practice on her own. She didn’t need his approval, and she didn’t need his help.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Peavy was not pleased with James. He showed this in a hundred irritating ways. He made only enough coffee for one in the morning. He used more water than necessary when shaving so James would have to go to the well twice in the morning instead of once. He even set James’s composition on the Magna Carta too close to the cookstove on purpose. It was singed, and James had had to stay up into the night to recopy it.

  They fought over it, as James placed the new copy carefully into his satchel the next day. He looked over at Peavy, who had his feet up on their rough wooden table. He was reading a month-old issue of the Bozeman Weekly Herald and eating his way through a plate of fried back bacon, washing it down with whiskeyed coffee.

  “Don’t glare at me, Casanova. You’re not on the payroll to be an A student,” Peavy said. “You’re on the payroll to know what the girl and her brother are up to.”

  “If I pester her with too many questions, she gets irritated,” James said. His voice sounded too close to a whine. He tried to beef it up. “I have to remain somewhat aloof.”

  “You’re busy being aloof while they go off panning for gold?” Peavy ranted. “You think I like to hear of these things from Clements? Clements is supposed to be my last line of defense!”

  “Perhaps I’m not as good at surveillance as the others, but I’m—”

  “You’re nothing at surveillance!”

  “I’m learning best I can.”

  James took a fork and reached for a couple of pieces of bacon to make a sandwich for his lunch. Peavy moved the plate out of his reach.

  “What kind of training they give you in Chicago, anyway?” Peavy groused.

  “Why don’t you call for more men, if you don’t like the way I’m doing it?”

  This was a dangerous subject to broach, as James suspected Peavy had not asked for backup because he didn’t want to lose authority over the job.

  Peavy leaned over and grabbed James’s wrist. James dropped the fork. Peavy tightened his grip as James tried to pull away.

  “How about you romance the girl and leave the strategy to me?” Peavy said.

  He released James, and James stumbled back, rubbing his wrist.

  “Go on along now, afore the school bell rings,” Peavy said, returning to his paper.

  * * *

  NOW JAMES CUSSED SILENTLY. He was trailing Sissel and Stieg, walking a good, long distance behind them.

  He’d spent the afternoon flat on his belly on the top of a hill looking down over a frustratingly strange scene. How the hell was he going to write this up? “Sissel and her brother spent an hour walking to an empty field, traipsed around a bit; then Sissel found an old gun and fainted dead away.”

  How else to describe what he’d seen?

  James had trailed Sissel and Stieg on a couple of their apparent artistic outings. The siblings carried an easel and a painting board, but they never used them. At first, he thought they were secretly tracking game. It might explain why Stieg stood back, watching Sissel as she scouted over the terrain. Perhaps they’d felt it was unladylike for Sissel to hunt?

  That theory, however, was now sm
ashed to bits.

  What was this with the gun?

  Why had she fallen that way?

  He must report these strange goings-on, but he knew Peavy would rip into him for being uncertain about what he’d seen. He could hear Peavy mocking him already. How could he describe this? None of it made any sense!

  James strode toward town. He kicked a small rock, startling a hare from the grasses. It bounded away, off toward the hills.

  It wouldn’t hurt to wait a day or two to make the report, he decided. He needed more information. Whatever it was they were doing, it was the reason Sissel had seemed so changed recently.

  She was happier, that was easy to see, and her limp didn’t seem to be bothering her as much. But how and why was she improving so? Surely it wasn’t just from taking rambling walks with her brother in the countryside.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Hanne and Owen had no trouble finding the Bar S drive the next day. The trail was trampled and littered with dung for miles behind. They smelled and heard the cattle well before they saw them. Daisy ran back and forth, sniffing the trail, then racing back to Owen with such joy it made Hanne feel bad Daisy had been kept from her true vocation for so long. She was a cattle dog through and through.

  Coming over the hill and gazing down onto the massive spread of longhorns on the valley floor beneath, Hanne couldn’t believe how vast the herd was.

  “They’ve stopped to let the cattle graze,” Owen explained.

  Owen was more like himself again. Hanne had decided to let the matter of his family go. When he was ready, she reasoned, he’d tell her about it.

  For now, he talked about longhorns, how both steers and cows had the long, sharp horns. How they were good foragers, and could eat more kinds of grasses than Angus or Herefords or other types of cattle, but that their horns meant more danger to the cowboys.

  He pointed out the cowboys riding at intervals around the edges of the herd. He also showed Hanne the remuda—the small herd of extra horses that the cowboys needed. He said a cowboy might change mounts as many as three times in a day, depending on how difficult the terrain was and what their tasks were.

  “See that?” Owen asked, pointing out a short, stout covered wagon with a team of four horses riding out a distance to the left of the herd and somewhat faster.

  “That’s the chuck wagon. The man driving it is the cook. He’s sort of like the second boss of the drive. It’s him we need to convince.”

  * * *

  OWEN LED HANNE in a wide circle around the grazing cattle, downwind of the chuck wagon. He told Daisy to stay near and she did, trotting nearly parallel to Brandy in a perfect heel.

  They came upon the chuck wagon and its driver, a fat fellow with a clean-shaven face. His cheeks were terribly sunburned, as was the top of his mostly bald head.

  “Howdy!” he said. “I don’t guess you folks happened to see my hat, did you?”

  “No, sir,” Owen said.

  “I got rope. I got bandages. I have a sewing kit. I have a keg of pickles and two tins of cinnamon, but I didn’t bring an extra hat!”

  “If we had one, we’d give it to you,” Owen said.

  “What’s a handsome young couple like the two of you doing out riding along the pastureland?”

  “Well, sir, I’m Owen Bennett, Howard Bennett’s son, from over in Bullhook Bottoms. I’m looking to hire on as a hand, if you need one. My wife, Hanne, is an excellent cook and a hard worker.”

  “My name’s Witri,” said the man. “We are a bit shorthanded, I guess someone told you. A bunch of our cowhands took off down to Texas.”

  “I had a letter from a friend a way back, telling me he’d had to leave the drive and did I want his space.”

  “Which one?”

  “Oliver Hoakes, sir.”

  “He was the best one we lost. Has a voice like an angel! I used to love to hear him singing to the beefs. You a good singer?” he asked Owen. Witri had a smile on his face. It was clear he was ribbing Owen.

  “No, sir. I’m afraid not.”

  “What about you, young lady, you a good singer?”

  “No, sir. But I’m good at making pies,” she answered.

  He gave a laugh. “Well, the boys like pie and I got two sacks of dried apples.”

  He clucked at the horses and snapped the reins to keep them moving. They rode for a few moments while the man considered it.

  “I’m a bit concerned over your gal’s pretty face. Don’t mind me saying, missus. Sometimes a pretty gal will get the boys to fighting.”

  Hanne was going to speak up, but Witri continued on, “Then again, sometimes having a lady in the camp gentles the men. They tend to get a bit more respectful.”

  He seemed to have talked himself into it.

  “All right! I’m for it if the boss signs on. You should ride on up and tell him so. His name’s Lorry Tincher. Negotiate your pay, and don’t let him skimp you, either.”

  Owen rode ahead to speak with the trail boss, and Hanne stayed behind, walking Jigsaw next to the wagon.

  Witri began to ask her about her family, about Norway, about her horse. He was starved for conversation, it seemed, and Hanne wondered if he’d hired them on for company as much as for the help.

  * * *

  HANNE HAD NOT seen Owen again that day. Witri assured her that this meant that they’d been hired on.

  With the team of four horses, the chuck wagon easily got ahead of the drive. It seemed Witri and the trail boss had already agreed where Witri should make the evening camp. He identified the place and pulled the wagon off until it was close to a stand of ponderosa pines.

  Then he heaved himself up and started showing Hanne around the chuck wagon.

  The wagon held everything the cowboys might need on the drive, from blacksmithing equipment to spare parts for the wagon to doctoring supplies. Toward the driver, the personal gear of the cowboys was stored—bedrolls and toiletry items. In the bed of the wagon were two giant barrels of water, to be refilled at any convenient watering hole. A buffalo hide was stretched under the wagon, making a pouch for firewood. Several times during the day, cowboys had ridden up with bits of wood collected along the trail and chucked them under the wagon. Witri said this was called a possum belly.

  One man had been so surprised to see Hanne riding along with Witri he’d dropped the branches he carried. Witri had teased him, and the poor young man went away red behind the ears.

  The back of the chuck wagon was ingeniously devised. It folded down and a wooden leg supported it, making a table. Once the table was stowed away, Hanne was presented with a cabinet, better stocked than most pantries. Wooden drawers offered flour, cornmeal, oats, spices, coffee, and three types of beans: pinto, red, and black.

  When Hanne marveled—everything was right at hand—Witri grinned. He was clearly proud of his chuck wagon.

  Witri showed Hanne the coffeepot, claiming it was the most important piece of equipment on the whole drive.

  “Cowboys run on coffee,” he told her, “the thicker and blacker the better.”

  He showed her how to make it—to toss generous handfuls of the roasted, hand-milled beans into boiling water in the pot. When they wanted to serve it, he told her, they’d throw some cold water to bring the grounds down to the bottom and that was that.

  Witri said to celebrate her and Owen’s joining the team, they’d have a pie. He let her prepare the filling and the dough for the crust, watching her, commenting on her work. He liked it. When she asked for pie tins, he laughed.

  They cooked the pie in a Dutch oven, nestling it into the coals, then shoveling hot coals onto the iron lid. Then they set to preparing the evening’s meal. It was bean stew. Witri told her to get used to beans. They were the main staple. He took a piece of bacon from a drawer and hacked off a good hunk.

  “Little bacon in the beans and the boys are happy,” he said.

  He set her to dicing the bacon into small pieces and got to work himself on making bread. His prize poss
ession was a jar of sourdough starter he said he’d kept alive for twenty-three years. He’d named it Alice.

  This got Hanne chatting about the Alice she knew, Alice Oswald, back in Carter. Together, the two passed the afternoon happily, trading stories and preparing the evening meal.

  The cowboys rode in, keeping upwind of the camp so as not to send dust into the food. Most of them were quite young, some as young as fourteen or fifteen. All of them were covered in dust.

  They all came, rowdy and joking, into the camp, and when they saw her, they stopped. It was comical, the way they swept off their hats. They looked as surprised to see her at the chuck wagon as they would have if a snowman were there, serving beans.

  All the men stood back a bit, shy to come forward. Owen came riding in, Daisy at a heel.

  “Fellas, this is young Mrs. Bennett,” Witri said. Hanne was surprised to hear herself called so. “We hired her on, along with her husband, Owen, who was riding drag today, I believe. Don’t worry. Young Mrs. Bennett is nice, and she makes a good pie. You all treat her like your own grandma, you hear.”

  There was a chorus of “Yes, sirs.” The cowboys ambled up and took shallow, dented tin bowls out of a box that got stored under the wagon.

  Owen took his place in line, and the cowboys processed in an orderly fashion, holding out their bowls. Hanne gave each a dollop of beans.

  “You can give them a bit more,” Witri said, overseeing. “We got plenty.”

  Hanne began to dish out more vigorous portions. Owen winked at her as she served him. Then she heard a voice, “Son of a bitch. Don’t that look like Bennett’s dog?”

  Owen had been eating, sitting on a tree stump.

  Now he stood as two older cowboys swaggered into camp.

  “Whistler, Mandry, you missed my announcement. Owen Bennett and his wife have joined our company. I take it you’re formerly acquainted?” Witri asked.