Authors: Elizabeth Bear
Then he grinned and said, “I imagine they’ll get out eventually. Wet rawhide stretches, and I used my second-best knots.”
The Marshal’s posture eased a little; in the dark, I couldn’t see his face. But he sounded relieved when he said, “Counting coup on Bantle’s men is a dangerous pastime, Sky.”
“That’s the point of coup,” Tomoatooah said. “Killing is easy. There’s no face in it. Any sign yet of our friends?”
The men exchanged another look I couldn’t read—couldn’t barely
detect,
in the rain and the gloom. Then—I thought for my benefit—the Marshal said, “Five more minutes and we leave the ponies with Miss Memery and go in after them.”
I might of protested. But somebody did have to stay with the ponies. And having just seen Tomoatooah move down the alley like a panther on greased ice, I couldn’t justify any argument I came up with to me, let alone the Marshal. Besides, I
knowed
I could handle the horses. I’d be a help here, and not an impediment.
The Marshal checked his revolvers—careful to keep them dry under the shelter of his hat—and I swear I heard him singing under his breath: “Two herring boxes without the tops on / Just made the sandals of Clementine.…”
Damnedest thing I ever witnessed, but I supposit we all got our ways of keeping the wolves amused if we can’t keep ’em at bay.
It didn’t take five minutes, though. I was counting one-Mississippi two-Mississippi for the third time and Marshal Reeves had just finished up with Clementine and was moving on to, “Fare thee well, Fare thee well, Fare thee well, my fairy fay,” when that shouting I’d been afraid of broke out. It was a ruckus that should of invited the squeal of police whistles except there weren’t nothing legal about the way Bantle kept his girls. The constables weren’t going to cross him and go in after any Indian or Chinese whore, I mean—but they weren’t going to help him get one back, neither.
Some of them constables had used to be slaves before the war, too, I heard tell.
Before I really knowed what was happening, Tomoatooah was up in Adobe’s saddle. He leaned way out, so one knee hooked the saddle bow, and lifted the reins off Scout’s pommel before I did more than start reaching to loose ’em.
The Marshal was already pushing Dusty into a canter. He tossed me Pongo’s reins as they passed—as if to make up in a weird sort of way for me losing Adobe. I grabbed those reins and held on: the gelding wanted to follow his stablemates, and Scout had to turn in a circle a time or two to convince him otherwise.
By the time me and the horses was sorted, the Marshal and his posseman had about vanished into the rain. They were just big, bulky black shapes in the gas lamps of Commercial Street, and as I nudged Scout up to the edge of the alley I could make out the grim dull lights of Bantle’s cribhouse at the end of the block.
A cribhouse, if you ain’t seen one, is sort of a stable for people. It’s one or more long buildings, a single story tall, not built to keep the weather out. And rather than having stalls that open on to a central corridor, it has cells that open out to the outside, built side by side and back to back.
Well, one of those cells was open and grimy lamplight spilled out on to the street. A tall figure, strangely lumpy on thin legs, was half-running and half-staggering toward Marshal Reeves and Tomoatooah, booted feet stomping big splashes out of puddles. Behind him, a hue and cry was swirling out into the street—half a dozen men at least, though some of them seemed the worse for drink from how they was staggering.
The horses’ hooves rang or thudded, as the state of their farriering dictated, and the foremost running figure hurled itself toward them. They charged past, and I realized suddenly that if that was Miss Francina, then the plan was changing and I needed to get Pongo up there
tout suite,
as Beatrice would say.
I gave Scout my heels—just a touch—and she responded like an angel. Like an avenging angel, jumping forward through suddenly heavy palls of rain. I hoped Merry Lee could hear the commotion, and had sense enough to take herself off.
And then we had other problems and I lost the leisure to worry about any of ’em.
Scout had the build of a good cutting horse, and it turned out she had the wits of one, too. She seemed to know what we were after better than I did, and shouldered the bigger Pongo to a halt just steps from running over Miss Francina. And it
was
Miss Francina—hat blown off, hair draggled and lank, rain dripping off the tip of her long nose. The strangely bulky appearance was on account of she had a girl bundled up in her arms.
A girl she hoisted up to me, straight armed. Now, I knowed Miss Francina was strong as hell, but seeing that I wasn’t surprised that the person I pulled onto Scout’s saddle behind me wasn’t much more than twine and broomstraws wrapped up in a wet cotton nightshirt and Miss Francina’s Alias Murphy coat.
Miss Francina thrashed up into Pongo’s saddle and I tossed her the reins, then stole a glance back at Tomoatooah and Marshal Reeves.
They’d reined in and now sat their horses two abreast across Commercial Street, blocking the way. The Marshal had his Winchester rifle out and his head bent over it. Tomoatooah had put a shotgun to his shoulder.
The Marshal called something to the men swarming out of the cribhouse. I couldn’t make the words, but the tone echoed with command. The men coming up on him and Tomoatooah stopped. One reached for a hip holster but then danced back, sparks flying from the wet stones by his feet. A split second later the sound of the gunshot reached my little party. Pongo and Scout both took it with equanimity, but the girl against my back, who was probably Aashini Swati, made up for it by startling enough for all of us.
“Aashini,” I said over my shoulder to the shivering girl, “hold on tight. Your sister Priya sent us.”
Not exactly true. But close enough, and I needed to save on explanations. And from the way she clutched at me, she wanted to believe it.
“Karen honey,” Miss Francina said, “not to needle you, but we should be going.”
As we turned the horses, I called out to Miss Francina, “Why didn’t you use the gadget?”
She was wrestling the reins. Fortunately, Pongo knowed what he was doing. She yelled back, “I tried! It didn’t work, now, did it? And they must of twigged right off that something was up, because there were two men right outside the door. I knocked ’em down on the way out. But they seem to have got up again.”
We couldn’t run the horses on these wet cobbles—not and expect them
and
us to live. But Tomoatooah and the Marshal were buying us time. I let Scout have her head, trusting her to pick her own pace. She settled into a lope that was less pell-mell than I would of liked but inexpressibly safer.
I glanced back over my shoulder. I had a confused glimpse of somebody pulling some strange sort of helmet on—big goggles on it—and then crying out and pointing after Miss Francina on Pongo. “He can see in the dark!” I yelled. I got a sense that he was gesturing for the benefit of unseen watchers, and felt a great relief at Tomoatooah’s removal of those same.
The Winchester cracked again. I missed seeing it—I’d glanced back forward. But I felt a sudden, shocking tug as a bullet touched my collar. I gasped. Aashini huddled tighter under my oilcloth, making herself tiny against my back. I heard cursing behind me—the Marshal’s voice—and then the shotgun roared once. I hunched down as close to Scout’s neck as I could manage and urged her to pick up the pace, if she felt able.
When I glanced back again—under my armpit this time to keep from lifting my head—I saw something that chilled me. Peter Bantle was out in the street, standing under the gas lamp by his office door. I knowed him by his stature and his coat and because … because he had that glove on, and it snapped and sparked blue in the rain, but that didn’t seem to trouble him. He was making a beckoning gesture to the Marshal, and the Marshal reined toward him—
I should turn back. I should turn back and help Marshal Reeves. What kind of a pissant coward was I, riding off when that brave man needed me—
That brave man who had just shot at me?
My hands lifted the reins as if moving of their own volition. My seat bones shifted in the saddle. Willing, generous, Scout slowed and turned.
“Dammit, Karen!” Miss Francina yelled back at me. But I didn’t register it. Her words didn’t mean any more than the heavy plop of the rain. Nor did it mean anything to me that Aashini yelped and twisted, seeming to try to figure out if she could slide down out of the saddle without breaking a leg.
Marshal Reeves rocked back and forth in his saddle, first urging Dusty forward, then clutching at the reins. The mare was getting mad at him, too. She skittered and hopped and thought about a buck. Her manners held though, for now. He pushed her a step forward. I could see he’d dropped his rifle—
He was five steps from Bantle now, in among Bantle’s men. One—not the one with the bug-eyed helmet—stepped in to take his reins—
There was a bloodcurdling whoop, and in a flurry of hooves and streaming tail Adobe charged through the middle of the gang of men. I didn’t even see Tomoatooah on his back, stuck as he was like a bit of sticking plaster in her mane, but I saw the result. The gang of men scattered, shattered. Dusty reared, kicking out at the one who had been about to grab her rein. And Tomoatooah must of leaned out of the saddle and grabbed Peter Bantle by the coat collar, because suddenly he was flailing along beside the running dun—running! On these roads!—with his boot heels bouncing off the stones and his arms flailing this way and that.
Tomoatooah had grabbed him on the off side—with his right hand—facing the other way. So Bantle’s evil electric glove was on the side of his body away from Tomoatooah and Adobe, sending its sparks harmlessly into the air.
What am I doing?
I thought suddenly—just as Tomoatooah let go of Bantle’s collar and Bantle fell heavily on the stones.
What the hell am I doing here?
The Marshal, sitting in his saddle with his head shaking back and forth as if dazed, seemed to be wondering a similar thing. I saw him reach for his Winchester and look down in surprise to find it not in its saddle holster.
“Marshal!” I yelled back at him.
“Run!”
I didn’t stick around to see if he was listening but turned Scout back after Pongo and gave her a bounce to let her know I had returned to my senses and wanted to get gone.
What the hell were you waiting for?
her ears said with a saucy flip.
I wished I had some kind of reasonable answer.
It took us an hour and a half to get to where Merry Lee was supposed to be waiting if we needed our backup plan, because we rode in circles looking to befuddle any pursuit.
Tomoatooah and the Marshal caught up with us about a quarter hour after we all left the dockside, though. Tomoatooah had picked up the Winchester, but he didn’t give it back to the Marshal straight off. He must of leaned out of the saddle and snatched it up off the stones. There was a chip out of the hardwood stock, but it was otherwise serviceable. A deal of what they say about Indians is goose grease, but I’m here to tell you—there’s no goose grease in the stories of how Comanche ride.
And the Marshal couldn’t stop apologizing for having taken that shot at me. “I had no intention of it. But my hand just came around—I just managed to jerk the gun up before the trigger pulled. You must believe me—I could not be more sorry. I have no idea what possessed me. It was as if someone else had control of my hands.”
“I believe you,” I said at last. “I don’t think you miss unless you aim to. And—”
He shot me a sharp look. Miss Francina, off on my left, shot me a sharper one.
“I might know something about it,” I allowed. “Let’s talk later, when we’re dry and not looking for killers on every corner.”
Aashini might of fallen asleep against my back. Or she might just be huddled up like a mouse in the faint warmth of the oilcloth. Miss Francina’s shirt was plastered to her body, transparent as a jellyfish. Even the horses was grumbling with the wet and cold, and half the time we was picking down the darkest alleys imaginable and they was practically feeling their footing out with their whiskers as they went. The lit streets wasn’t any better, seeing as I kept expecting Bantle’s bullies to jump out and confound us.
Me, my shivering was half on account of I couldn’t stop thinking of the shame and horror I’d felt after Peter Bantle broke down Madame’s door. I could see that reflected in the stricken look Marshal Reeves kept shooting me.
And I also couldn’t stop thinking about how sure Priya’d been that all sorts of people might vote for Bantle, whether he seemed like the right choice for the job or not.
I reined back beside the Marshal and reached out between horses—and way up, given the relative heights of Scout and Dusty—to put a hand on his arm. Wet wool rubbed my fingers, and his startled glance rubbed my face.
“I think maybe I got an idea what’s going on,” I said. “But let’s talk about it back at Madame’s.”
He nodded. I could tell that much by the bobbing of his hat against the lesser dark of the walls behind him. When I let Scout head forward again—she was pretty obviously the lead mare in this bunch, for all Dusty was a sight bigger—I caught the speculative look Tomoatooah was giving me under Dusty’s neck. Maybe he thought I had designs on his partner.
Maybe he was just wondering how much I knowed.
* * *
When we got to where Merry Lee was supposed to be waiting if things went cattywumpus, she was nowhere in sight. We rode up under an awning, though, glad for a bit of shelter from the constant drip drip of the rain. It didn’t have the decency to really belly up and piss down on us. I missed the thunderstorms back in Hay Camp something awful. Here in Rapid, it just rained. There weren’t no romance nor suspense to it.
We paused there, and it was quiet just long enough for Aashini to start to uncoil against my spine. I could feel her back there, all bones and elbows. Skinny enough to take a bath in a shotgun barrel. She straightened and poked her head up but didn’t otherwise move. All of the rest of us just started exchanging unsettled looks. We had no way of knowing, see, if Merry Lee had gotten clear, or if she had fallen off a rooftop, or been gobbled up by a hidebehind or a gumberoo, for that matter. (Though I didn’t rightly know if such critters of the lumberwoods ventured this far into town, not having grown up local. I’d heard the polar bears in Anchorage would walk right up to front doors, so people laid nail strips across their porches to prevent it. But our own native hodags back in Hay Camp are shy and won’t come out where people can see ’em.)