Ransacker

by Emmy Laybourne

  But on the rock, Hanne and Owen said little. It seemed they could not get a conversation started past a few mundane sentences.

  “We should have mail tomorrow,” he said.

  “Mmm-hmm. Not from home, though. They wouldn’t know where to send it.”

  “I suppose not.”

  Then, a few moments later, she said, “These cookies are a bit hard, aren’t they?”

  “They’re fine. Better than what the men are used to, I figure.”

  “Yes.”

  Fat fluffy clouds drifted overhead. Flowers dotted the field, yellow owl’s clover and asters in pink and white. Hanne knew she should feel happy, overjoyed to be in such a beautiful place, doing work she enjoyed alongside the man she loved. But she could not help but feel sad at the distance between her and Owen.

  Owen lay on his side, propped up on his elbow.

  He sighed. “It’s a pretty sight.”

  “Yes,” Hanne said. Then she exhaled suddenly. “For heaven’s sake, I wish you’d tell me what’s wrong.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ever since we saw your brother, you’ve been closed off to me.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. He sat up, turning slightly away from her.

  Hanne sighed. “Are we going to be married?” she asked.

  “Well, yes, of course.” Owen said.

  “Then you must tell me when something troubles you. Otherwise, it’s … It hurts me.”

  “You gotta know everything?” he asked with a tinge of meanness. “Every little thing about me, for us to love each other?”

  “It’s not like you to be cruel, Owen Bennett.”

  “That’s just it!” he said, and he cussed.

  Daisy whined. She had come back to the rock, and now she nosed her muzzle into Owen’s hand. He crossed his arms over his chest, denying Daisy’s offer of affection. “Owen Bennett. It’s hardly my name. My name is a godforsaken punishment!”

  She reached for him. “Owen—”

  “I’m a bastard, Hanne.”

  Hanne drew back.

  “I didn’t want you to know. I don’t know why.”

  Owen rubbed his temples as if he had a headache.

  “My mother was an Irish girl. My father found her in Chicago on one of his trips to the slaughterhouses, and he brought her back to the ranch, to give his wife some company and to cook…”

  “Oh, Owen,” Hanne said.

  “And then he got her with child. Me. She died giving birth to me.

  “I guess they could have sent me back to her folks, or given me to an orphanage, but instead I was raised there, along with the natural sons of my father. It was a kind of punishment for him, you see?”

  There was pain and bitterness in his voice. Hanne moved forward to him over the stone. She took his hands into her own. He allowed her to do this, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  “That’s why Mandry and Whistler make all those jokes about Irish cooks, you see? They learned about me. I never told you, and I’m ashamed of that, too,” he said.

  Hanne thought how to best answer this confession.

  She put her hands on either side of his face and drew him toward her, kissing him deeply. When she sat back, he finally met her gaze.

  “I’m so glad you told me,” she said. “It doesn’t matter one bit to me that your parents weren’t married to each other when you were born. What does matter is how you were treated. And for that I am so sorry. I’m angry at them, and I’m sorry for you.”

  “They never wanted me around,” Owen said.

  “They’re fools.”

  “That’s why Matthew acted the way he did when we saw him in Fitch,” Owen said.

  “It all makes sense to me now,” Hanne said. “And now I see, of course, why you never wanted to take me there to meet them.”

  “I hope it didn’t hurt your feelings.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Because now I know the truth and I wouldn’t care to meet them.”

  They sat there, watching the cattle. Daisy settled down at the edge of the rock. A butterfly fluttered too close to it, and she snapped at it, sitting up to snap again when it drifted just out of reach.

  Hanne snuggled into Owen’s arms.

  “Secrets weigh heavy, don’t they?” Owen said. He gave a laugh. “I feel like I just lost about eighty pounds.”

  “Yes,” Hanne said. “I know.”

  “Well,” Owen said after a moment. “Do you think we’d better get you back to Witri?”

  Daisy sprang up and barked.

  “Oh, heaven’s sake, Daisy,” Owen said.

  Then Hanne heard it, felt it—a rumble.

  She and Owen sat up at the same time. He put his hat on.

  There was dust coming from the drive behind, and a sound that grew by the second. The cattle near to Owen and Hanne began to mill. They bawled and snorted.

  “Stampede,” Owen said, jumping down from the rock. “Dear God! Get on Jigsaw! You’ve got to ride!”

  Tons of bellowing cattle—meat and muscle and horn—thundered toward them like a tidal wave.

  Owen made a snatch for Jigsaw’s bridle, but she was panicking along with the cattle. The two horses ran and the cattle nearby went with them.

  The force of the stampede was headed right for them.

  “Ásáheill!” Hanne shouted. “Odin! Hear me!” Then she felt a tremendous gathering within her body, and a burst of light. The Gods and the Nytte possessed Hanne entirely.

  Owen took off his hat and began to wave it at the cattle. “Hey! Hey!” he yelled.

  Hanne looked around with new eyes. There was the dog, standing on the rock, barking. There was her mate, standing in front of her, waving his hat at the cattle.

  She grabbed her mate by the back of the shirt and hauled him up onto the rock.

  “Hold the dog!” she commanded. The dog was beloved to her and must be protected, as well as the man.

  Then she stood in front of that rock and waited for the herd to crash down.

  The cattle tossed their heads in terror, clashing horns. Running all as one. The ground shook with their hooves.

  Time slowed for Hanne, every detail clear to her eye.

  A great source of illumination shone from her own heart, making all movements clear to see.

  She had no worry or care. She felt the terror of the poor dumb beasts and pitied them, but that would not keep her from slaying every last one if need be.

  A huge black steer came at them. A dun brown heifer at his left. Hanne launched herself into the air. She gripped the heifer’s shaggy ears and jerked its head sharply to the right, using its long, sharp horn to slice through the cordage of the black steer’s throat.

  Dark red blood sprayed, the drops slow to Hanne’s all-seeing eye.

  Hanne had snapped the heifer’s neck. The beast fell. The steer crashed into it. The bulk of cow flesh slid up the rock toward her man and his dog. Gravity slowed it.

  The man stood at the top of the rock, holding the dog.

  Hanne climbed up onto the beast’s heaving sides. She stood in a crouch, waiting.

  Blood from the steer sprayed down the rock. The longhorns veered, eyes rolling, snorting with terror, around the gruesome island made of rock and fallen cattle.

  She and her man stood watching as the stampede flowed around them. The dust was blinding. The hooves deafening. But the cattle veered around the rock and they were safe.

  A great light was behind her, illuminating the cattle. Split into two streams by the obstruction in their path, the animals eddied into slower, churning masses.

  She looked down and saw the light was emanating from her own body. Her limbs, her chest, her skin—glowing like a lantern.

  “Dear God, you’re shining,” her beloved said.

  Some cattle broke out from the milling masses. As more followed, they gradually stopped running. Some ran on but many stood, sides heaving.

  As this happened, Hann
e’s breathing sped up. The scene before her sped up. Hanne felt herself released by the Gods and stumbled forward. She landed on her hands and knees, onto the back of the giant steer.

  “You did it, didn’t you?” Owen said. “Like back in Wolf Creek? The Gods were in you. What did Rolf call it—divine possession?”

  Hanne couldn’t quite speak. She could only beam at him. Such a beauty of a man.

  “Look at yourself, Hanne.”

  She looked down. As had happened at Wolf Creek, she was clean. Her dress, her skin, all blown free of any dirt or debris or blood.

  Owen, on the other hand, had blood plastered to his face and neck and hands. Daisy, too, was spattered with it.

  Owen took his hat off and rubbed his hand through his hair.

  “I’m not hungry,” Hanne said.

  “You gotta write to Rolf. Tell him what happened,” Owen said.

  “What now?” she asked. “What about the herd?”

  “It’ll be bad,” Owen said. They looked out at the flattened meadow. The two dead cattle lay at the base of the rock. There were other fallen beefs here and there. Some bawled pitifully.

  Owen exhaled.

  “We make our way back to the chuck wagon. See who made it. Hopefully Lester kept the remuda together. I’ll get another horse and go looking for Jigsaw and Brutus. Then we start gathering the herd back up.

  “It’s bad, a stampede.” Owen glanced at her. “But it’s not as bad as it could have been.”

  He extended an arm to her, and she slid under it. Blood and dust from his wet shirt made a streak along her shoulder.

  That’s fine, she thought. She’d have to dirty her dress and face and hair, anyway. There was no way to explain her appearance otherwise.

  There was no way to explain it at all.

  But she was glad for it, her Nytte, her magic. Perhaps for the first time, Hanne was truly glad to be a Nyttesdotter.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Hanne and Owen walked on foot back to the chuck wagon. Daisy followed close by. It was spooky terrain, the ground pounded flat.

  The cattle hadn’t come near the camp. The chuck wagon had made it through completely unscathed. In fact, there was still a swath of green grass surrounding it. Witri stood there directing the cowboys as they staggered in from one place or another. Three men were seated at the campfire, drinking coffee. Others were preparing to go out.

  “Thank God you two are all right,” Witri said, as Hanne and Owen approached. “I kept thinking if only I hadn’t sent you on a danged picnic you’d be safe!”

  He pulled Hanne into a dusty embrace.

  “We got up on a rock,” Owen said. “The cattle broke around us.”

  “So far, we’ve got no casualties,” Witri said. “We got lucky. Riley there has a broken arm, but I think that’s the worst of it far as I know.”

  The cowboy named Riley was off sitting near a cottonwood. He was one of the older cowboys, face tanned and lined from years out in the sun. He sat cradling his arm and pulling slugs off a bottle of whiskey. There was a terrible lump halfway up his forearm—a break.

  “Will you help me set his arm?” Witri asked Owen, nodding toward the cowboy.

  “Let me,” Hanne said. “It is something I’m good at.”

  “You sure? Takes a lot of strength.”

  “She’s got a knack for it,” Owen said. “I’ll help her. We’ve done it before.”

  Hanne knew he was remembering the man they’d met on the trail, who’d been crushed under a wagon. They’d set his leg.

  “All right,” Witri said. “If you’re good at it.”

  “We are,” Owen said.

  Witri moved off to bandage a young cowboy bleeding from a wicked gash on his forehead.

  Owen sat down on the ground and scooted up behind Riley. He held him tight around the torso and pinned down the upper part of the injured arm.

  “That right?” Owen asked.

  Hanne nodded. “I’ll pull hard so be ready,” she said.

  Riley sought her eyes as she crouched in front of him.

  “Be as still as you can,” she said.

  He nodded somberly and took one last swig of whiskey.

  Hanne took hold of the cowboy’s arm just above his wrist, under the break.

  Then Hanne dug her feet in and pulled. Her sense of anatomy was keen; she supposed it was a benefit of being a Berserker. Even without her Nytte flooding through her, she had a sense of the bones and the shape of the break. The bones came apart. Riley gasped. Then she moved the bones back into place.

  She released her hands, and the tall, tough cowboy fainted dead away into Owen’s arms.

  Owen gently edged back until the cowboy was flat on his back. He took Riley’s coat, which lay curled in the dirt, and wadded it into a pillow that he placed carefully under Riley’s head.

  “Clean break?” Owen asked.

  “Yes, I think it will heal well,” Hanne said.

  “Want my help bandaging it?” he asked.

  “No, thank you.”

  “I’m needed out there,” Owen said.

  “Yes, you should go.”

  Owen drew her close and planted a kiss on her forehead, a rare public display.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “For ever keeping anything from you. You’re … you’re a wonder and I love you.”

  Hanne let go and allowed herself to be comforted by his embrace.

  At this moment, Whistler rode up. His face was white with fury.

  “Whistler, glad to see you,” Witri called.

  Whistler bounded off his horse and stomped toward Hanne and Owen.

  The Nytte flickered suddenly in Hanne’s chest, mild, but strong enough to heighten her sense and make her stand tall. Get ready.

  Whistler’s eyes were red and crazed. He grabbed Owen by the shirt and shook him.

  “You shot Mandry,” he said. “You son of a bitch, you shot him right through the heart!”

  Owen pushed Whistler off. “Are you crazy?” Owen said. “I wasn’t anywhere near Mandry! Mandry was at the back, riding drag. I was up front.”

  Hanne soothed the Nytte away with slow breaths.

  Whistler extended a hand that was shaking, pointing back from where the stampede had started.

  “I found his body, shot through the heart!” he said, talking to Witri and the wounded men. “I found him back there. Someone tried to make it look like an accident, but he was shot before the stampede even started.

  “Hell,” Whistler continued, “I bet that shot is what started the stampede in the first place!”

  There was sharp interest around the camp now.

  Hanne saw a few of the faces look at her and toward Owen with something like suspicion. After all, she realized, everyone knew about the fight between Mandry and Owen. Everyone knew something had happened, but no one knew exactly what.

  She could almost see them thinking it—Mandry had done something to Hanne that got him shot. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine what it was.

  “Bennett started the whole stampede!” Whistler shouted.

  “Now, now,” said Witri. “You’re way ahead of yourself there, Whistler. No way to know how a stampede got started.”

  “Mandry’s shot dead! What else could it have been?!” Whistler’s voice was strained to breaking.

  He wiped at his mouth, and Hanne could see he was truly upset, truly believed that Owen had shot his friend.

  Now Tincher came riding back shouting orders. He hadn’t heard a bit of it.

  “What are you all doing lazing around? Everyone get on a horse. I don’t care if you got a busted head!” he said.

  Tincher swung off his horse and headed for the coffeepot. “The cattle are spread out for miles! Get off your asses and go get ’em!”

  The cowboys near the fire set down their coffee cups and wearily rose to their feet.

  Whistler strode over to the trail boss.

  “If you’re looking for the person who started the stampede,” he said
, pointing at Owen, “there’s your man.”

  Tincher looked at Owen, then looked back at Whistler. “Are you kidding me?” he said. “We’ve got enough things to worry about without the petty feud you got with Bennett. That nonsense is over. Where’s Mandry?”

  “Dead! Shot dead!”

  Witri walked over to stand between Whistler and Tincher.

  “Whistler here says he found Mandry’s body, and he’s been shot,” Witri said.

  “Owen Bennett shot him,” Whistler said.

  “For God’s sake, I was up at the front,” Owen said.

  “Mandry’s been shot? You sure?” Tincher said.

  “A hole in the center of his chest.”

  Tincher turned to Owen. “And where were you?”

  “I was having dinner, sir. Hanne was with me,” Owen said.

  Tincher leveled a flat look at Hanne. “That true, missus?”

  “Yes, sir. Witri told me I could take a lunch to him, and that is what I did.”

  “All true,” Witri confirmed.

  “You gotta send for the sheriff!” Whistler said.

  Tincher rubbed at his eyes. “Look, I got fifteen hundred headaches right now. They are beefs. They are the profit from this drive, spread all across this damned valley.”

  “I demand justice for the murdered body of Harold Mandry!” Whistler spat.

  “Go haul in that body, and we’ll take a look. Everyone else, back to work.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  James stared at the history book, but there was nothing in the War of 1812 that could catch his attention. At the blackboard, the youngest students were writing out sentences about pigs, wigs, and jigs.

  Sissel sat one row ahead of him, on the girls’ side of the classroom. The back of her head revealed no answers to any of the mysteries that surrounded her.

  Something had happened to Sissel at the dance, James was sure of it. The music and the dancing had worked beautifully on her. She’d been ready to trust him, or at least to kiss him. Things had been about to progress, in one way or another, and then Alice’s combs disappeared and it all went to hell.

  One minute she had been warmed up and laughing, growing careless as the reels gained speed, and then for the rest of the night she was a different girl. Closed off and distant.