Silver on the Road (The Devil's West Book 1) (15 page)

Or . . . “Someone died?”

“Entire family, plus an indentured boy.”

“Oh.” Izzy didn’t shiver; she had no fear of haints, and they’d no reason to be angry at her. Still, the grounds were tinged with a melancholy knowing. She touched the silver of her ring and thought of the wardings on Flood’s boneyard that kept the dead at rest.

Gabriel didn’t tell her anything more, just sang a few more lines of those chant-sounding words under his breath, and then asked, “You see anything useful?”

This was a test, then. Izzy looked around again, trying to see it in a purely practical manner. “Berries are only just starting to ripen. Probably serviceberries growing now, though, if you want to hunt for them. That’s elderbow; it’s edible if you’re real hungry. Coneflower for illness, and the stems make a useable dye. There’s . . .” Her gaze was caught on something and she brightened. “There’s the remains of an old chimney over there if we needed to make a fire, cook dinner.” She was sure there were things she was missing, a hundred and ten things her mentor must see without half trying. It was just experience, she told herself. She could learn to do that, too. Every new rider had to, right?

“And the path we’re on?” His voice came over his shoulder; she couldn’t see his face but he sounded amused, and her cheeks flamed at the thought that she’d missed something obvious. Izzy looked down
past Uvnee’s neck at the dirt churned up by the mare’s hooves, and then looked behind her.

“It’s . . .” It was narrow—she had already noted that—and barely visible through the wild profusion of grasses, but there was something else there too. Something she hadn’t seen before. She looked, and listened, and licked her lips before she finished the sentence. “It’s maintained.”

Once she saw that, it was painfully obvious, same as reading a person. She’d never thought about reading a place before; how could she, when she’d been in the same place near her entire life?

“Maintained?” Gabriel’s voice didn’t tell her if she was right or wrong, but she knew she was right.

She held the reins in her left hand and gestured with her right. “Everything else is growing back, but the brush and the taller grasses, they don’t cross it. This was a road once.”

“Still is, only not much in use now that the farm’s gone. That’s a thing to remember, Isobel. No true road ever disappears entirely. You just have to know how to find them.”

Her curiosity flared at the idea of a true road versus what—a false road? A temporary one? “How?”
How did you find them
, she meant, but more
how did you know true from false?

He was laughing at her now, or perhaps only laughing. “The same way you do anything.”

“Experience,” she muttered, pulling her hat down more firmly on her head and glaring at the spot between his shoulder blades. He sounded like the boss just then, all hint and nothing solid, and the frustration was a real thing, hot under her breastbone. “I—

Whatever she meant to say was cut off by a harsh scream overhead, and they both looked up into the sky, Gabriel pushing his hat back to see better. Izzy’s breath caught in her throat, somewhere between fear and awe at the outline of a massive bird floating overhead, wings coming between them and the sun, all other birds suddenly gone from sight. She couldn’t see distinctive markings, but she didn’t need to: only one thing could be that size.

“Reaper hawk,” Gabriel told her, reining in his horse to take a better look. “They don’t usually call unless they’re hunting. I wonder what brought them out here.” He cast a glance at her, as though to gauge her reaction, then looked back at the sky. “Gorgeous, aren’t they?”

That was one word for it, although not the one she might have chosen. Izzy had never seen a Reaper before, but she’d heard about them. People said they were large enough to take a human the way a regular hawk would catch a rabbit. Looking up at the creature soaring overhead, she could believe it. Like the buffalo herd, there was something powerful in the creature, powerful and disturbing.

“Some of the native tribes claim they’re strong medicine, that a feather from one in the fletching leads an arrow straight to prey.”

She could believe that, too; it seemed impossible to think the creature could ever miss once it stooped.

“Only some tribes?”

He shrugged, that one-shoulder rise that told her to take it or leave it as she saw fit. “And some tribes think they’re ill omens. Deathbringers, like owls.”

Despite the narrowness of the path, the mule had sidled up closer to Uvnee again, seeking comfort against the predator overhead. “It’s not hunting us, is it?” She felt a fool for asking, but anything that worried the mule worried her.

He cast another look overhead. “They generally know better than to go after people, particularly on horseback.” Before she could breathe a sigh of relief, he added, “But be careful when you’re alone, especially if you’re knelt down. You look smaller to them then, and they might take a dive before they realize their mistake.”

He might have been joking with her, but she couldn’t tell. Another hawk joined the first one. She could see that this one was slightly smaller, circling just below the first. “Its mate?”

“That’s the male. Prettier but less fierce.”

He was mocking her then, she was certain, but she bit her lip and
nodded. “Is there a nest nearby? Are we threatening their chicks?” It was spring; they’d have chicks somewhere. But looking around, she couldn’t see anywhere that might have hosted a nest for a scrub jay, much less a creature that size.

“They nest higher up in the hills, come down to hunt. Bit far to see ’em here,” he said thoughtfully, looking up at the sky again. “Probably looking for a pronghorn that wandered off, maybe tracking something injured. I’ve been told they’ll sometimes take on a bear, but I’m not sure as I’d believe it.”

Izzy had seen the trophy belts some marshals wore, bear claws hanging from them like polished bone daggers, each twice as long as a man’s finger. She looked into the sky again, trying to imagine the clash between the two, and shuddered. She had always thought of Flood as being protected from attack from the ground—winter-hungry wolves, or a would-be bandit new to the Territory who didn’t know yet who lived there and thought it would be easy pickings. Not death from the sky.

The two birds circled again, then, finding nothing of interest, wheeled again and disappeared into the sun’s rays. When they emerged, much farther away, Izzy found she could breathe easily again, like a rabbit when the shadow passed.

Ill omen? The boss didn’t believe in any such, said man made their own fate, sometimes good, sometimes ill, but always their own decision. But Iktan always carried a jet carving of a cat, what he said was a jaguar, to ward off ill-wishings, and Molly would rub her rosary when she was worried something would go wrong. . . .

She shook herself, even as Uvnee shuddered under the saddle, and shifted her gaze from the sky back to her surroundings. The tall grasses, scattered with tiny flowers as far as her eye could see, the grit of the dust on her skin and in her mouth, the stink of warm horseflesh and leather, the flat, warm taste of the water she’d been drinking; it reconnected her to herself, shook off the unease the birds had left behind. She reached her right hand to touch the silver band on her
left, rubbing the shining metal gently. Like the buffalo, she didn’t think it could do much if a creature like that turned its attention to her. Hopefully, she would never find out.

“Seeing them’s a good reminder,” Gabriel said, urging Steady forward along the path, forcing both Uvnee and the mule to follow or be left behind. “What other than a Reaper do you need to worry about on the road?”

“Bears,” she said promptly, relieved to be on more familiar ground. Every child knew about bears: the grizzly could knock you dead with one blow, and the black was smaller but still fierce. “Wolf packs. And cougars.” There were none near Flood, the plains too open and low for the big cats’ liking, but she’d heard stories from men passing through the saloon, about the solitary hunters called ghosts, who were heard but rarely seen save for glowing eyes in the dark and the blood they left behind.

“And how do you fend them off?”

She knew that, too. “By not being where they’re hunting.”

That time, Gabriel was laughing
with
her, she was pretty sure.

“Wise, but not always enough. Your boss said you were a fair shot with a blunderbuss, and fair enough’s likely all you’ll ever need for the big cats or bears. They don’t like loud noises and they don’t like the smell of powder; most times, they’ll scatter in favor of something that won’t fight back. When we stop tonight, if there’s light, we’ll see how you handle the carbine.” He looked back at her, his face shadowed once again by the brim of his hat. “And your knife,” he said. She touched the blade sheathed against the side of her saddle, then nodded. Ree had taught them all how to use smaller knives, both for cooking and defense, but she’d never thought of it as a weapon, not truly.

It was, Marie would say, time for that to change.

They made camp soon after that, Gabriel simply reining his gelding to a stop and sliding from the saddle without warning. He stood still
for a moment, his eyes closed, then nodded once and set off, walking about ten paces before stopping again, his head tilted to the side as though he were listening for something. Izzy, uncertain, waited for direction.

“Not much water, but enough for the night,” he said, and she edged closer to see that there was a tiny creek running at his feet where he’d stopped, barely a handspan wide and mostly hidden by the grasses. Her eyes went wide; she’d heard of water-finders before but never knew one. Like April’s plant-sense, it wasn’t a thing you could learn, only came on some folk, some medicine born in ’em.

She’d never had a use for it, never felt jealous of it, when April coaxed up the herbs. But water-finding . . . She pushed the feeling away. Useless to envy; she wasn’t, she couldn’t.

She was the boss’s Left Hand. She’d find her own use soon enough.

“Get your mare settled,” Gabriel told her, “then find a flattish place without too many rocks, and settle it down for sleeping. Check for holes, too. Nothing quite like waking up and discovering you’ve got a gopher in your bedroll.”

It was easier dismounting this time: her legs didn’t shake or tremble when she tried to move, and lifting her pack didn’t make her spine cry in agony.

Uvnee seemed delighted to have the saddle off, leaning into Izzy while she brushed away the worst of the sweat from her hide, then meandering away to dip her muzzle into the creek alongside the mule.

Suddenly craving cooler water, too, Izzy moved slightly upstream of them and refilled her own canteen and the tin flask Gabriel had given her earlier.

Gabriel came around after they’d all finished with the creek, and wrapped a series of ropes around Uvnee’s left legs, leaving just enough slack between that it didn’t tangle. “Hobbles,” he said, before she could even ask. “She can walk just fine, see?” And he patted Uvnee on the haunch; the mare ignored him, placidly pulling at the grass. “Just means she can’t run off if they get spooked. I trust Steady, he’s
well-named, that one, and the mule knows better than to wander off, but your girl’s still got to prove herself. And having to track down your horse in the morning might be one way to gain experience, but it’s not one I recommend.”

Izzy studied the way Uvnee moved, making sure that the mare wasn’t bothered by the hobbles, then nodded reluctant agreement. Lacking a stall or corral, it seemed reasonable and still gave the mare room to defend herself against snakes or predators if need be.

“There’s enough grass here, but we won’t always have good forage. Once they’re rested, give ’em some grain, too,” he said. “I’ll show you how much.”

The grain was in one of the packs slung over the mule’s backside. It looked at her curiously as she unloaded it but, other than an eye-twitch, didn’t seem overly worried about when it would be fed. The pack was heavy but no larger than her saddlebag, and she frowned at it, wondering how it could contain enough grain for the entire trip. Maybe they would refill it when they reached the next town? But Gabriel had said . . .

She reached a hand in and felt the soft, scratchy pellets against her skin. The bag seemed deeper inside than it did out, and she pulled her hand out again and frowned at it, as though something might have changed while it was out of her sight.

If Gabriel wasn’t worried about running out of grain, she decided, then neither would she.

Once she’d chosen a reasonably flat patch of ground and laid her bedroll down, Izzy gave the animals a handful of the feed each, then wandered over to see what Gabriel was doing. He had cleared a small space of grasses, baring the soil underneath, and was knelt down next to it, laying fist-sized rocks in a small circle. “Has to be a small fire tonight,” he said. “These grasses won’t burn quick, but they’ll smoke so badly, we wouldn’t get any sleep after that.” He placed a small brown object the size of his fist at the center of the circle.

“Is that . . .” Izzy reached out to touch it, then drew her hand back, hesitating.