Malice of Crows: The Shadow, Book Three Read online

  “What I do is none of his goddamn business.”

  In response, Rhett just tipped his hat to her and Dan, who was tight-lipped and stringing his bow. Rhett and Winifred dismounted and walked toward the camp side by side. It was right peculiar, how small and fragile Rhett felt on his own two feet. Something about a horse gave a man size and weight and speed, as if they became one while he was in the saddle. In the air, he felt the freedom and recklessness of a creature without laws or gods to hold his soul hostage. But here, putting one foot in front of the other in the endless sand, he felt like a tiny, easily squashed creature moving slowly through eternity.

  A click behind him told him Sam had his back, gun at the ready. There was no sound to tell him that Dan had an arrow ready, but he could feel the tension of the bow, anyway. Although Cora hadn’t argued with him when he’d asked her to stay back – hell, told her; he had to work on that – he knew that she wouldn’t hesitate to turn into a dragon and raze the tent to the ground, if she thought it would help. Even Earl would probably give someone a donkey kick, if it wasn’t too much trouble. They were a right solid bunch, for all that they bickered constantly when times were good and allowed them time for bickering. He only remembered such things when life and death were on the line, another thing he needed to work on.

  The tent sat lonely on the prairie, nothing but the fussing coydog betraying any life nearby. The ugly critter was the dusty brown of the ground, hair going every which-a-way and teeth bared like a goddamn Lobo. It stood rigid in front of the door flap, hackles raised and growling.

  “Nice dog,” Rhett murmured. “Anyone to home?”

  The leather tent flap opened, and a feller emerged and stood to plant his moccasined feet firmly in front of the door. Seeing him, Rhett was speechless.

  It was like looking in a mirror.

  A slightly warped mirror that showed him exactly who he wanted to be, and maybe two years younger than he currently was. Around fifteen and lanky as a strip of hardwood, his skin the same color as Rhett’s and his bared teeth white under eyes so brown they were nearly black. His hair, like Rhett’s had once been, was in two long braids that wouldn’t quite sit, greased with a white stripe painted down his part. He had a knife in each hand, and he looked like he knew how to use them.

  “Well, howdy there, feller,” Rhett said, hands up in the universal how ’bout you don’t stick me? gesture.

  The boy – man? – said something in the same guttural language the woman had spoken.

  “You got any English?”

  The boy just barked harder at that, pointing the knife repeatedly at Rhett’s chest.

  Winifred tried a few different words, and finally one struck home. She said it repeatedly, and the boy said it once, questioningly, before snorting.

  “Rhett, they’re Comanche. Do you remember… anything? Any words?” She said it gently, her eyes all full-up with feeling.

  “Beans might,” he muttered. Holding up a finger to the feller to indicate he shouldn’t get stabby just yet, Rhett turned around, cupped his hands around his mouth, and hollered, “Beans, you speak Comanche?”

  It was a long, painful moment as the three of them stood there waiting for Beans to trundle across the prairie. The coydog didn’t let up growling, although the boy did run a fond, proud hand over the flat of the dog’s head and murmur something sweet to it. The woman didn’t show, and every time Rhett acted like he wanted to look in the flap, the boy nearly prodded him with the tip of his knife. Winifred showed an unusual kind of patience, and Rhett for the first time wondered what her life had been like up until they’d met, how many places she’d felt like she didn’t quite fit in but had to play nice anyway.

  When Beans arrived, Rhett wished he’d made the feller bathe, as he looked like last year’s long johns. As soon as he saw the boy, though, his entire demeanor changed. His chin went up, his spine went straight, his lips set in a firm line, and he gave a curt nod and muttered the longest string of sounds Rhett had ever heard him put together. The boy’s face lit up, although he struggled to maintain his proud composure. They gabbled excitedly for a bit, and Rhett and Winifred stared at each other and the tent and the increasingly confused dog and tried to figure out what the hell was being said.

  “His name is Revenge for the Stolen,” Beans said. “He’s traveling with his mother. He asks if you’re the same creature who attacked him, and if so, he wishes to kill you now.”

  Rhett considered the younger feller. “Please tell him my name is Rhett Walker, I’m the creature he tried to attack that nearly whooped his ass, and I’d rather talk than fight, as I’ve never met anybody like me before and I think we might be kin.” In punctuation, he pointed to his arm, then the boy’s arm, and the boy gasped and threatened a slash at Rhett’s arm with his knife. “And please let him know that there’s a rifle and a bow pointed at him right now, and also that my other friend’s a dragon, so he can settle the hell down.”

  Beans added that on in an apologetic type fashion, and the boy settled into an angry silence.

  A woman’s voice came from the tent, soft and tentative and ending in a question. The boy barked at her, and her voice rose firmly to answer.

  “She asks why you think you might be family, and who your people are,” Beans said.

  “I was found out here somewhere by white folk with no love for me,” Rhett said, voice husky. “I don’t know who my people are, but I got memories of a paint horse’s rump and being carried away by the Cannibal Owl. Other than that, I know what I look like now and what I can turn into, and both of those things are rare enough.”

  “Pia Mupitsi?” The woman’s voice broke as she pushed out of the tent flap.

  The younger boy spun and tried to hustle her back inside, but she disentangled from him and stood, stepping forward, eyes wet, to touch Rhett’s face with her hand. It was dry and lined; she’d had a hard life, as everyone did here.

  “I killed it,” Rhett said, his voice breaking, too. “It can’t steal no more babies.”

  Beans translated, and the woman broke into bright tears, her smile wobbling as she spoke.

  “You are a brave warrior, and you have the look. But my child was a daughter,” Beans said.

  Rhett’s eye slashed sideways, his jaw hard. “I was maybe born a girl, but that’s not how I live. Not who I am. Don’t make me show you.”

  Beans had some trouble translating that, and the woman’s eyes narrowed as she looked Rhett up and down, searching perhaps for signs of the child she’d once known. Reaching into a pouch identical to the one Rhett wore around his neck, she pulled out a tiny beaded moccasin and held it out on her palm. Rhett marveled at it, remembering a similar one he’d found in the Cannibal Owl’s lair. He tentatively touched the cracked old leather, amazed that anything but his thumb had ever fit in something so small. She smiled and tucked it back in its pouch.

  Rhett pulled out his own pouch, and she exclaimed and ran a thumb over it. Her smile told him everything he needed to know.

  When his mother spoke, it was low and slow and with the feeling one reserves for babies.

  “We called you Fierce Rabbit,” Beans translated. “Forehead always furrowed, so serious. You’d only been out of the cradleboard for two years when you were taken. Told your papa you could kill a buffalo, if he’d just give you a bow. Did not like the women’s work. I was heavy with this one when the Cannibal Owl came.” She gestured to the boy. “But I never got over it. I grew angry. Your papa was like a cat – I always knew he would wander away. His name was Stars Against Midnight, for the white of his smile against the dark of his face. He came from the Seminole, and before that, over the ocean. He became the great bird, like you, like your brother. Lambkiller, he called it.”

  She smiled like she wanted to hug him but didn’t know how. He looked down at himself briefly and wished he’d taken off his goddamn Rangers badge. No wonder the boy didn’t trust him. He’d been right to leave Sam out of it.

  She said something else
, and Beans asked for her, “Is this your woman?”

  The woman looked at Winifred hopefully, and Rhett chuckled. “She’s her own damn woman, and that ain’t my child, if you’re asking. I’m not that magic. She’s my friend, Winifred.”

  “You are a Ranger?” the woman asked next.

  Rhett held out his badge, proud and a little sheepish. “I’m a Scout for the Durango Rangers, Las Moras Company. But I only kill what needs to die. No… innocents. No tribes.”

  At that, the boy nearly exploded, his knife in his fist. “He says Rangers are evil and deserve to die. That Rangers…” Beans listened carefully and turned to Rhett looking somber. “Rangers killed what was left of their band. Only they two escaped, and only because he shielded her. He was shot three times.”

  “Haskell?” Rhett asked, fury building.

  The woman nodded once. “Haskell,” she repeated, making it a guttural curse.

  “You tell her Eugene Haskell is a devil and I’ll kill him myself. You tell her, Beans! Him, too.”

  Beans did, and they both relaxed. Rhett added, “Tell her my Captain ain’t like that. That there are good Rangers in the world, and that I’m one of ’em, and that we don’t go killing folks for fun.”

  Winifred murmured, “You know that’s not true, don’t you? Your Captain is only a man, and he has soaked the prairie in blood. Less now that he’s older. The Rangers were created to wipe out the Comanche, to destroy anyone who opposed the white man’s interests.”

  “Don’t you go speaking ill of the Captain around me,” Rhett said, deadly.

  “Ask them. Ask Dan. Ask yourself. I will always speak the truth when it must be heard.”

  A dark silence settled over them, despite the white-hot sun.

  Rhett shook his head and turned back to the woman. “I reckon those dues can be tallied later against another man’s soul than mine. Are you saying… this feller’s my brother?”

  After Beans translated, the woman smiled. “I think so. You are very alike. Angry, fierce, strong. There are no other lambkillers in Durango, unless Stars is still warming beds.” She stepped forward and put her hands on his shoulders. He was a little taller than her, a little lankier, but the lines of her face were so familiar that it made his chest ache. “What happened to your eye?”

  He ran a thumb over the kerchief hiding the ugly hole. “Pia Mupitsi. But I took both of his before I killed him and I’m still here, so I figure I win. When did you-all lose your band?”

  She smudged a hand through the air. “Years ago. We do fine together. Our old horse died recently, though, and traveling is harder now. We need to move south before the weather turns.”

  “We’ll give you a horse,” Rhett said without thinking. “Whatever you need.”

  She – the woman – his mother – smiled fondly. “We will take it. Life without horses is not really life.”

  “I feel the same way.”

  Rhett had forgotten now that Beans was translating between them. He was lost in her eyes, in the curve of her smile. Memories were tumbling back, half-formed things. Misty feelings, mostly. He knew, deep in his heart of hearts, that this really was his mother. He wanted to hug her tight, to be held by her, but he’d become aloof as a wild cat and didn’t know how such sentiments were approached among her people. Not to mention the fact that his newfound brother was glaring at him with the hate of a thousand suns.

  “Why’s this feller so mad?” he asked, flipping a thumb at the angry boy.

  His mother – their mother – turned to the boy, muttered what sounded like a good scolding, and said, “He has grown up with only one goal: to become a man and kill the Cannibal Owl for stealing his sister. Now you are here, and you are not what he expected. And you have stolen his destiny.”

  Rhett struggled to hold in a chuckle. “Brother, if it’s a destiny you want, you can have mine. I’d be glad to have a nice lie-in for a while out of the elements.” Then, more seriously, “Is that something he wants me to apologize for? Will that set him right? Because I ain’t sorry I killed Pia Mupitsi and got that baby-eating monster the hell out of our world, but I am sorry that I accidentally stole something he held dear. I got a destiny myself.” He looked to Winifred, and she nodded her encouragement. “You ever heard of the Shadow?”

  Beans translated, and Rhett’s mother shook her head.

  “It means Rhett has a calling,” Winifred said. “That he is here to fight for us.”

  The woman’s eyes searched Rhett’s face, and she said something that sounded worried. “Then you won’t stay with us? You will move on?” Beans said.

  Rhett hung his head. “Yeah, that’s what it means. I can’t stay in one place. Things call to me, things that need killing, and I got to go. I’m on my way to kill something bad right now.”

  Beans translated, and the woman and the boy argued, which Beans didn’t translate. Finally, the woman spoke emphatically to Beans, moving her arms with conviction.

  “She says she understands, but you should take your brother with you. Two great birds together, as it should be. You can train him. He’s smart and strong.”

  Tears pricked at Rhett’s eyes. “I ain’t taking a child into this battle. I already got enough people to worry about. And I can’t train anybody. I’m barely trained myself. But you tell him to learn English and come find me when he’s a man.”

  After Beans translated, the boy barked at Rhett, nearly pressing his chest against Rhett’s like he wanted to start a fight. Rhett wanted to shove him away, hard, but he knew pretty well that hotheadedness was one trait they shared, and he didn’t need to stoke this feller’s fire and start a real fight. “Look here now, Revenge. You want to be a good man, you take care of your mama. You can’t just leave her out here on the prairie alone.”

  “That’s what you’re doing,” the boy said back, with Beans’s help.

  “I’m giving you a horse. I’m giving you the truth. You-all stay safe, and when you’re ready, you come to the Las Moras Outpost of the Durango Rangers and ask for Rhett Walker. Then I’ll do what I can, and you can come fight monsters with me. But from what I can tell, our mama ain’t a monster, and that means you got to protect her with your life. Like you been doing.”

  Because sure enough, Rhett didn’t feel that familiar wobble when he stood near his mama, just that old familiar terror he felt around Sam, like just about anything could kill that fragile mortal body. And even if the boy was a pushy little snot just now, he wouldn’t risk his brother in his hunt for Trevisan. No, the best way to care for the family he’d just found was to push them as far away from the Shadow as possible, as much as it hurt to do so.

  That’s what a hero did, he reckoned: what had to be done, even when it hurt, even when it was hard.

  Rhett’s mother listened to this speech, then reached up and touched Rhett’s face with calloused fingers. She’d looked soft up until then, motherly and a little sad. But now she went over sharp and fierce, and Rhett saw maybe where he’d got some of his backbone from. “You do what you must, and we will do as you ask. You honor me with the gift of a horse. You are a good son. My only regret is that you were taken from me, but I am proud to see you now. I tell you this: You will see us again, and your brother will fight by your side one day.”

  “Well, hell. At least let’s make camp together tonight. We got plenty of meat.” He glanced back at the rest of his posse, waiting and worrying, the sun flashing off Sam’s silver gun. He could almost feel Cora’s judgment and worry, her need to press on toward finding her sister, but he reckoned that if she could have just one more day with her sister or her grandfather, she’d take it, and she couldn’t keep him from his own such reunion. Feeling kinship with folks was a strange new feeling for Rhett, and he wanted to roll around in it like a dog in stink while he had the chance.

  “With your permission, I’m gonna bring my friends over, and we’ll get a fire going and tell some stories,” he said. “That suit everybody?”

  “It won’t suit Cora,”
Winifred added with her usual smirk.

  “Then she can fly the hell away,” Rhett shot back. “This is for me. I don’t reckon I’ve ever asked for anything for myself, so don’t you try to stop me.”

  Winifred dipped her head. “You’re right. I’d give anything for another day with my mother. And it’ll be good for you to see what it’s like.”

  “What what is like?”

  She grinned. “Dealing with an annoying brother.”

  Everyone settled in quick, and they ate well that night. Only Earl and Cora kept themselves separate, out of stubbornness and frustration, respectively, Rhett knew. It didn’t trouble him. The Shadow wasn’t bugging him to move on, and so he reckoned that if his own goddamn destiny could give him a night’s break, so could the friends he’d dedicated his life to saving and helping. He felt just about as relaxed as he’d ever been, sitting there next to his mother with Beans nearby to translate. Beans was even coming out of his shell a bit, having conversations of his own with her and the boy both. Notch got along well with Dan and Winifred, being some sort of distant cousin, as tribes went, and Sam was just his usual sunny self and seemed pleased to see Rhett so happy.

  Rhett’s mother told stories of him as a baby, about the time he found a fledgling hawk on the ground and brought it to his mama to save it and ended up in a fight with the hawk’s mother instead. She confirmed his memories of his father, known for his good stories and laughter and ferocity in a fight, as well as his predilection for roaming. She had loved them, Rhett knew, his father and himself, and he could read the lines of worry across her face, understand that her life had been one of loss and that she’d continually stood up against her tears and kept on moving.

  His brother was quiet at first but then began asking questions, mostly about Rhett’s travels and fights and what the Rangers were like when they weren’t trying to kill your whole family in a night raid. Rhett told him of his time with the Rangers, of the siren of Reveille and the fight with the Lobos and what it was like to gentle a unicorn. His brother’s eyes went from suspicion to something a little like awe, which made Rhett feel right proud.