by R. Kent
“And the pup,” I said, more to myself. I plucked the one and only bullet left in my belt and slipped it into the cylinder. My thoughts were on the raging fire. It was probably like an oven inside. Could they still be alive?
Horses screamed. The fire roared.
TwoFeathers ran in. I was at his heels.
The smoke was thicker than the shaggy winter coat on a bull elk. I waved my hands to try to move it aside. More smoke filled the momentary gap. I coughed, lurching my way deep into the inferno. Charlie Horse’s white rump with its bright egg spots pierced the smog like a beacon. He was tied in a standing stall.
I climbed toward him, waving at the smoke again in another futile hope of clearing my sight. My eyes watered. My lungs burned. I’d never appreciated the crisp, clear autumn air over the wide-open land as much as I did at this very minute.
My toe caught. I tripped and fell forward with my hands out. There was a whole lot of hairy white in front of me. I slapped Charlie Horse’s rump, leaving sooty prints smearing downward as I fell. It was his sparse tail that rescued me from hitting the ground.
Sahara was huddled beneath Charlie Horse, tugging at his knotted rope. I clawed my way to her in the close confines of the standing stall. The horse’s back was singed. A spittle of smoke wafted from his winter coat. And though his eyes were wide with fear, he stood stock-still.
I twisted the back of Sahara’s coat in a fist and yanked her from beneath Charlie Horse. She let go of the tug-o-war to hug onto me.
The butt of a big Bowie knife jammed into my palm. Its pommel felt cool from November’s sharp air, though the inferno was intent on baking that welcome chill out of it.
TwoFeathers tore off his pale yellow skirt, ripped a piece from the hem, and tied the bulk around Charlie Horse’s head. The quill design weighted the flimsy cloth to hanging over the animal’s nostrils. TwoFeathers handled Sahara like he had Charlie Horse, firmly, taking control to tie a mask over her face. He stripped off her coat, throwing it over the horse’s blistered back, then tossed her on top.
The Bowie knife sawed through the thick rope. Charlie Horse snapped backward. TwoFeathers grabbed the dangling end of the cut lead. They bolted for the door.
The pup whined, or I wouldn’t have found her. She was huddled in a front corner of the standing stall, burrowed deep within dry straw. Her scorched, black nose poked from the deadly shelter. With Charlie Horse’s absence, falling embers glowed around her. When straw burst into flames, she cried. Her screeching was horrible.
I lunged to the floor, slapping her in extinguishing the flames. The pup’s shaking body became a puddle in my hands. I ran from the barn with the terrified little dog in my arms.
TwoFeathers held Charlie Horse at a safe distance, out of sight. Townsfolk formed a line on the street side, futilely passing buckets to battle the inferno. They might as well have spit at the fire. The splash of their buckets made no difference.
Molasses Pond Livery was a total loss. Justice—Justice!
I looked at Sahara crumpled astride Charlie Horse, attempting to avoid sitting on his wounds. Her face, blackened from the fire’s filth, was wet with sweat. She shivered in the cold November air. Her store-bought boys’ coat was over the horse’s burns. She said nothing. Her eyes were red and swollen. I didn’t know if that was from smoke irritation or tears.
I slid the scared, singed pup in front of her. “Go,” I said to TwoFeathers.
I charged back into hell-fire.
Horses bugled in terror. They thumped and kicked in their stalls, attempting to escape. I threw open their doors while searching for Justice McKade. But the animals frenzied in circles inside their boxes, slamming against the outside wall in trying to bust through. I doubled back with a torch of twisted straw, spooking each from their trap. Horses bolted into the smoke-filled aisle, milling until one animal spied a way out. The sorrel. He looked at me and beckoned. I waved my hands to flag him away. He ran. Taking the horror-filled herd with him.
A stout bay blundered by, dodging sideways to avoid hitting me. His rush blew the air clear for brief seconds. In that clarity, I saw Justice pinned by the flames walling the mouth of the disintegrating barn. He struggled to cut the harness off of his old buggy horse. A slice across his brow dripped blood into his eyes. He staggered, but his deft hands sped over the harness releasing buckles and unsnapping lines.
“Sahara?” he hollered over the inferno’s roar when he saw me.
“Safe.” I climbed a fallen timber that pinned the harnessed horse. “It’s no good. We’ve got to get out of here.” A loud crack sounded above my head. A shower of embers fell. The buggy horse’s thick hair began to fester in flames. The old gelding screamed the likes that would haunt me for ages.
A rafter split from the roof and collapsed. Justice was struck with debris. He lumped, unconscious, across the frantic animal.
I whipped my revolver from its holster and—hesitated. I hesitated with grief. I hesitated over my decision. I hesitated with too much weight of responsibility. I hesitated, not wanting to do what must be done. I hesitated.
The trapped horse kicked and thumped, wallowing in his web of leather. His flailing hooves sliced the thick air too close to Justice while I stood numbed with indecision.
I shot the animal.
Tears dried to salt instantly on my cheeks. The struggling buggy horse went limp.
My lungs burned from hiccupped breaths of searing smoke and heat. I climbed over the sizzling carcass, and struggled to haul Justice from the burning barn. He was too big. Too heavy. But I wouldn’t leave him.
TwoFeathers burst through a wall of flames, dousing us in buckets of trough water. He jerked me to my feet then shouldered Justice. The big blacksmith’s head lolled sideways. Arms hung the length of TwoFeathers’s back. We lumbered from the disintegrating livery.
Gray skies opened with a torrential downpour. Burnt wood sizzled. Steam rose to mingle with smoke. Townsfolk scattered as if they would melt in the rain.
TwoFeathers left Justice on the ground and spirited Sahara away.
Men collected Justice, hustling him down the street.
I limped slowly home.
At the homestead, the three of us silently washed black grime off our faces and hands. I was too tired and sore to peel off my filthy clothes and too wet to care. I dipped a bucket into the well, sharing a cold, clean drink of water.
Sahara scurried into the hogan with the pup.
I straggled to the overhang with Charlie Horse in tow. Thank goodness TwoFeathers had never been a talker. Silence felt more comforting than struggling with glib banter.
He slathered Charlie Horse’s burns with a thick salve then tossed me the pouch of goo. I used a generous amount on my wrists, fearing they would become a patch of gnarly, scarred skin if unattended. The copper band slipped from beneath my sleeve, sticking in the salve. Its turquoise eye glared at me. I smoothed the pad of my thumb over the oval stone.
“Look into my eyes,” TwoFeathers demanded, jerking my chin toward him. He wanted me to know about my future by staring into his eyes. A man could see his own death if he stared too long into the eyes of a shaman.
“No.” Maybe I should have cared about a foretelling, but I was scared. Scared of what I’d see. Scared I was soon to be taken from this world when I wasn’t finished here. Scared I’d leave Sahara before I could tell her… I sighed. “I’m going to kill McKade.” And I didn’t know if I stated that to distract TwoFeathers or to distract me.
There was a lot I had to do yet in life. There was more I wanted to become. There was so much I wanted to say to Sahara. And then there was McKade.
“Look.” TwoFeathers held up his hand, pointing fingers at his eyes.
“No.” I didn’t want to see my own death. When he pointed those fingers at me, I crushed them in my hand, shoving them away. “No.”
TwoFeathers jerked the front of my sopping buckskin tunic in his fist and grabbed my chin. “What does Os-ten see?”
; “Nothing.” I struggled against his firm hold.
Wait. What? I peered again into his deep, dark brown eyes. They were like endless, mesmerizing pools. For a second, I thought I saw something. I shook my head. Nothing. “I see nothing.”
He thrust me from him. “Not Os-ten’s time.” He squatted to stir the tired coals to life. “Os-ten is not-woman woman. Man-woman. Like TwoFeathers woman-man man.” He waved in front of his face as if clearing the air, then fluttered his hand upward. Of nothing. Means nothing. “Os-ten is a good man. Strong man.”
I dropped dry, twisted mesquite branches onto the coals and prodded them with a green stick. Flames erupted. Their wicked tongues licked at the brush.
TwoFeathers jabbed my shoulder. When I looked at him, he pointed to the fire then grabbed a fist of his hair. Sahara. “Woman wants Os-ten man.”
“You must be hungry.” Sahara carried a steaming cook pot. She plunked it inside the stone ring of the firepit. Her cheeks were rosy. She had scrubbed the soot and dirt from her entire being no doubt. If nothing else, she was fastidious.
And she wore her green dress under the heavy boys’ coat. “I hope you eat stew, Mr. TwoFeathers.” She stuffed her hands into large coat pockets. “Well, I didn’t mean that you don’t have stew. I’m sure you eat anything.” She procured tin plates and spoons from her pockets. “Well, I didn’t mean you’d eat anything.” Her rosy cheeks turned scarlet red. “For all I know, Indians have discerning appetites. Not that you wouldn’t. I didn’t mean that either.”
“Sahara?” She was absolutely adorable squirming under TwoFeathers’s benign stare. But I couldn’t take her discomfort for much longer. “Can I have a spoon?” I had trouble suppressing a grin.
She was pale and feminine and all things beautiful. She hid her strength, but it was no less powerful for being subdued. Sahara was everything I wasn’t and never could be. I wasn’t girlie. I couldn’t forgive easily. And I wouldn’t change.
“It’s gorgeous.” Sahara blurted. She stared at a copper band in TwoFeathers’s outstretched hand. A smaller, similar turquoise stone to mine stared back at her. “Where did this come from?” she asked.
He pointed to the crevice between the shifted stone walls. His belongings sat at the base. I hoped she thought he was pointing to those. I toed his deerskin-covered leg and shook my head.
“TwoFeathers makes the hammered bands after smelting copper ore.” I tried to draw her attention. Sahara was too smart for that. And too curious.
She moved toward the back of the overhang and placed her hand flat to the cold stone. TwoFeathers went with her, shimmying into the crack. He brought out two bagfuls of raw copper and several large chunks of turquoise.
Sahara clasped her hands over her mouth. Her eyes opened wider than a night owl’s.
“Oh my God.”
Chapter Twelve
Thunder rolled, echoing off the distant butte. Lightning illuminated the barren, rocky landscape in a quick flash.
It was difficult to discern the time of day except to say it was morning.
Sahara brought me a pot of freshly brewed coffee.
TwoFeathers had quietly left, per usual. He took one of the sacks of copper. The other sack leaned against the base of the wall, apparently taunting Sahara.
“This isn’t going to go the way you’re thinking,” I said. My aches had settled into complaints through the night. If I didn’t move, they didn’t register…much. My chest binding had slipped down around my waist yesterday from sweat. It had tightened as it dried. I could feel its gagging grip over my pained ribs.
Sahara set a bucket under the cow. She hunkered down to milk. It was a chore I did each morning, but I wasn’t jumping up to knock her out of the way. My ribs hurt. The sh-sh-sh-sh from warm streams of milk hitting the wooden bucket might have been soothing if Sahara hadn’t had ulterior motives for doing my work.
She sloshed the bucket next to me and went to turn the heifer calf loose with her dam. I dipped my cupped hand into the fresh milk and scooped a splash for my black coffee. It was rude. I was feeling fractious.
“All of your talk of not having enough and you’re sitting on a copper strain.”
“You know nothing, Sahara Miller.” The skin over my ribs complained as I grunted at her. “That strain is played out before you even start pecking at it. Then what? The attention it will attract on a small hope that there might be more underground? It would get us killed.”
Sahara was a pretty girl, without the scheming. Last night, I almost thought I liked her. That was before she found out about the copper strain. Before she went instantly money mad. Before she stuffed thoughts of riches ahead of my own dreams, my own welfare, the life I had already started to build here, on my land before her.
Absolute wealth corrupts absolutely. Pa had said that.
“You could buy them off.” She tossed feed in front of the cow. “Pay them to leave you alone.”
I wasn’t about to answer her absurdity. I propped my back against a stack of cut wood and flipped an errant branch into the ring of fire with the toe of my moccasin. The slight movement sent stabbing pains throughout my side.
Sleep hadn’t offered me any company, so I had brooded all night. The moaning and groaning as I shifted must have kept TwoFeathers awake. But he never let on.
I raised my tunic to pull off the binding coiled around my waist. Even in the low light of the fire, I saw the dark purple bruising leaking throughout my left side. Deep breaths were impossible. I wrestled out of my wet hide clothing and into my Sunday-go-to-meetin’ shirt. The cotton shirt was dry but scratchy to my irritated skin. It certainly couldn’t hold a candle to the comfort of my buckskins. But dry was warmer than wet. And in the coldest part of the night, just before dawn, I had pulled the worn, woven blanket over me. Warmth seemed to ease my screaming soreness.
That first hot, creamy coffee of the day went down in a few gulps. Its heat surged through my body. I came instantly awake. There was something I had to do.
I struggled to my feet by clawing the pile of firewood.
“What are you doing?” Sahara rushed over. “I can get you what you need.”
“I need to get up,” I snapped. Then, I felt bad for being gruff. I pointed to the small stash of untanned pelts with a smaller pile of cured rabbit skins. “I need that wrapped bundle. Please?” The Whites always needed their niceties—please and thank you.
On top of the stiff pelts sat the crush of exquisitely soft rabbit furs. It was the six-shooter wrapped inside that I wanted. I hobbled a few steps closer. My feet tingled. They were numb and clumsy. I gently stamped. Gently didn’t wake either one up. Stomping set my bruised side to screaming.
“Ooh.” Sahara crooned as she caressed the fluffy skins. “Oh,” she startled from the gun. Sahara picked the heavy revolver up by its trigger guard with her thumb and forefinger and walked it over. She carried the gun at arm’s length, as if it would bite.
I rescued the dangling weapon. “The holster is beneath the furs. Please.” She went in search of it.
There was a question in her eyes when she returned with the matching leather holster. Since she didn’t ask, I didn’t say. “Thank you.” I took the holster and went about my business.
Two guns once again hung from the fat belt slung low beneath my hip bones. I’d have to leave the cross draw behind. I needed speed, not convenience or disguise. I needed complete accuracy. And I needed both guns.
Gingerly, I prodded the cuts and contusions on my face with my fingertips. A flock of hens must have used my head for a laying box. There was an egg above the cut on my lip, an egg over my crooked nose, and another egg swelling my eyelid near to closed. I winced.
My hands were damp with sweat. I rubbed my palms down my thighs, they scraped the leather holsters alongside my upper legs. I had missed them. The guns, that is. They ran heavy and solid at my sides. They felt like family. They felt like home. Dependable. Reassuring. Safe.
I had adopted lazy habits when the sec
ond revolver came off. First and foremost, I totally quit shooting left-handed. Lefties stood out.
Second, two guns was a sure sign of a lucrative business. I wasn’t in the business of killing. So I learned to affect a frontiersman’s coarseness and fumbling with a single weapon.
Third, I had adopted a cross draw of late, seating the holster on the front of my thigh. That made it easier to employ the handgun to pound nails or crack nuts, using it as a ranch tool, not a weapon.
Lastly, I hadn’t practiced with my left. Bullets cost money. Not to mention that I’d rather not drag my past around, especially on a fresh start homesteading.
I popped the right-hand gun from its holster and twirled it around my trigger finger. The friendly familiarity boosted my confidence. I flipped it into the air, caught it, then thumped the gun home. Excellent.
When I jerked it again, I blasted three thin branches from a stilled tumbleweed lodged against a distant boulder. My shots were clean and precise. The brush never moved a whisker. Arrogance was swelling my head. I puffed my chest, though the movement hurt. I’ve got this.
Like all gunslingers, I had a tell—that little behavior just before squeezing the trigger. A tell was every fighter’s Achilles’ heel. My tell? I held my breath. Simple. Small. Actually, very minuscule. But it was totally wrong for shootists.
The best gunmen breathed through their shots, letting the air steady their hand.
It didn’t always matter what the best did. What worked for me was most important.
Best? I wasn’t the fastest. I wasn’t the deadliest. I was accurate. My aim had always been true. I’d hold my breath on purpose, as if suspending my breathing would give all my life force to that one single moment in time. A beautiful thing if it weren’t so lethal. And I was good at it. Too good.
Riding that confidence in my craft, I slapped leather to draw with my left hand.
I didn’t find the revolver’s handle without an exhaustive search. When I did grab hold, I tipped the barrel up as if to fire from my hip, too soon. It caught. The gun hadn’t cleared the holster.