Bladestay, p.1
Bladestay, page 1
BLADESTAY
JACKIE JOHNSON
CONTENTS
I. Youngblood
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
II. Sycophant
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
III. Proxy
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
IV. Allegiance
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
V. Referendum
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
About the Author
Acknowledgments
More from CamCat Books
Dust Spells
More Heart-pounding Reads from CamCat Books
CamCat Books
Content Warning: This novel touches upon sexual assault and domestic violence and may be disturbing to some readers.
CamCat Publishing, LLC
Ft. Collins, Colorado 80524
camcatpublishing.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
© 2023 by Jackie Johnson
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address CamCat Publishing, LLC, 1281 E. Magnolia St., #D1032 Ft. Collins, CO 80524.
Hardcover ISBN 9780744306941
Paperback ISBN 9780744306958
Large-Print Paperback ISBN 9780744306972
eBook ISBN 9780744306989
Audiobook ISBN 9780744307122
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023936037
Cover and book design by Maryann Appel
5 3 1 2 4
To all the kids who have ever felt powerless.
CHAPTER ONE
It was two in the morning when the coyotes started hollering at each other, but by then Brody Boone had already slipped into wool trousers, a matching vest, and a buckskin jacket with copper rivets down the sleeve hems. The coyotes were a common nuisance; the crack of gunfire was not.
Relying on the silvery light of a fat moon, Brody strapped a ream of ammo over his hips and shoved pistols into the holsters hanging at his thighs. He thumbed shells into a wide-barreled shotgun as he quietly heeled the door shut on his way out.
Both his parents were heavy sleepers, but his little brother, Billy, was not. Brody’s feet had hardly left the porch when he heard padding footsteps behind him. He wheeled around, shotgun snug in the hollow of his shoulder, finger off the trigger. He dropped his aim to the ground as soon as he saw his little brother at the end of the barrel.
Brody smiled calmly as he reached out and tapped a finger against Billy’s narrow chest, and when Billy looked down, Brody lightly flicked Billy’s nose. Billy swatted at him, but Brody danced away from the slower reflexes, grinning.
“Cabron,” Billy said.
“If you’re gonna curse, do it in English.”
Billy looked past Brody, hugging himself. “Adónde vas?”
“English, Bill.”
Billy crossed his arms. “No estoy usando grocerias.”
“Just you wait till your stubbornness costs your life.”
Billy repeated the question in exaggerated aristocratic English.
“Burro,” Brody said with a chuckle. “Hear the cows?”
They were lowing mournfully, and Billy nodded. “Wolves?”
“Coyotes,” Brody said. “I’m just gonna go give them a scare, okay?”
“Be careful.”
“Careful is for city folk and dandelions.” Brody winked. “Go back to bed.”
Billy began to protest, but Brody said, “How does coyote stew sound for breakfast?”
Billy wrinkled his nose. “Can’t be worse than the rattler Pa insisted would taste like chicken.”
Brody grinned again. “Go on now.”
Brody made his way to the southern gate, ducked between the wood panels, and crossed a large, vacant prairie. At the edge of the patch of grassland, the terrain grew jagged with granite as the slope steeped to the west, a conglomerate of ponderosa tightening together the higher he climbed. Rays of pearl seeped through the branches, guiding Brody’s steps to the plateau, hillsides he could likely hike blindfolded.
He stilled.
A breeze whispered from the east, tinged with the indication of campfire. Their homestead was too far from Ruidoso for this to come from town—this was coming from somewhere on their property.
Catching his breath from the quick ascent, Brody scanned the valley and the accompanying hillsides for the glow of fire. Finding nothing, he continued eastbound and up, maintaining the advantage of high ground. He followed a familiar deer trail, stopping again about a mile down the path. He lowered himself beside a pair of boulders pressed closely together, a landmark he called dicelegs—dice, because of how oddly square the outcropping had shaped and eroded; legs, because of how the bottom portion stretched almost like pillars down the steep slope of the hillside.
Swallowing, Brody found his mouth uncomfortably dry. He cursed himself for not bringing a canteen. He should know better, being a product of both the desert and the mountains, a child of survival and lawlessness.
Around and below the bend of the widely berthed outcropping was the orange glow he’d been after.
The thing about Brody was that he was fiercely protective, unflinchingly loyal, and above all, an ego safely in check by his wits. At nineteen years old, he was already acutely discerning when it came to battles he could win and battles he could not.
Crouching, he stepped around the dicelegs and crept toward the glow, shotgun held steady at the orange as he kept a constant eye for movement. Brody spotted the chestnut mare before he saw the tips of flame, yellow and orange flicking into his vantage above the lip of the outcropping like the forked tongue of a diamondback tasting the air for prey.
The lip of the outcropping stood about six feet from the firepit below, and as Brody went flat on his belly to crawl to the edge, he noticed a pair of boots crossed at the ankle lounged stolidly.
Heart pounding, Brody appraised the wilderness for others. The noises of night chirped and howled and echoed a familiar cacophony, both distant and near. Mentally bouncing two ideas—of going back or confronting the lone stranger—he weighed the level of threat against his options. Plenty of travelers had seen themselves through these hills, a common connecting route between Texas and California, but rarely did anyone come this close to home. The Boone ranch was several hundred acres of staked land from his father’s father, a hold that precariously survived the Mexican-American War. The validity of the family’s claim to the land wasn’t so much tolerated as it was overlooked in a time when thousands of other Mexican families were displaced in America’s ubiquitous annexation of southern territories, a destiny of manifest proportions that would soon segue into a far bloodier conflict.
After long observation, Brody concluded the man by the fire was sleeping, and better still, that he was alone. Pushing off his stomach, he held the shotgun in one hand, a groove in the rough stone with the other, and gracefully lowered himself to the mild slope of the clearing below. He landed with a soft thud and immediately set the butt of the shotgun against his shoulder.
The boots belonged to an imposing figure with a barrel chest and a frontier-hardened girth to his limbs. The duster of the slumbering man encased him, his hands interlocked behind his head, hat purposefully askew across his forehead to darken his eyes from the blaze.
Without a twitch or stir, the slumbering man spoke. His voice was as callous as his skin, the same way a thundercloud commands respect when it rumbles, not because it is cruel, but because one does not negotiate with forces of nature. One endures them.
“You belong to these parts?” the man drawled, shadows dancing menacingly across the exposed, lower half of his face in the firelight.
“These parts belong to me. Family by right,” Brody said, a defense in the statement that was as much genetic as it was tangible. “Who are you?”
“August Gaines.”
Brody waited for the man to expand, but after a few moments of nothing but the sound of wood popping and hissing, he presumed—correctly—the man lacked verbosity.
Brody took a step closer, finger now on the trigger. “Don’t you want to know my name?”
August poked a finger on the underside of the brim and lifted the hat from his face, showing the deep lines of many miles and long years. He gave the young man a slow appraisal as if considering a piece of livestock, then said, “I ain’t decided yet if that’s pertinent.”
A bead of sweat fell down
the back of Brody’s neck, making him feel feverishly cold for a moment regardless of the waves of heat he stood next to.
“What’s your business on my land, mister?”
“Yours,” August echoed.
Brody stole a glance around. Somehow, the trees felt closer. The horse seemed larger. The fire, hotter. Swallowing past the feeling of cotton in his throat, Brody regripped his weapon.
Before Brody could respond, August spoke again. “Sit down, boy.”
Brody was itching to do the opposite, felt the mistake of his choices before the vaporous reasons turned solid. From the corner of his eye, he thought he saw movement. He swept the shotgun in that direction, took a step back to angle himself better between a possible threat in the woods and the potential one on the ground.
“Good Lord, boy. You’re making me nervous.” August sat up and leaned his back against a propped saddle. He pulled out a pipe. “Sit down a beat, would you? I gather I’m not going back to sleep anytime soon, so I’d like to talk at you for a minute.” He reached into the saddle pack, paused to make purposeful eye contact with the boy as to convey his nonnefarious intents, and once he received a single nod of consent from Brody, he pulled out a moccasin water bag. Without taking so much as a sip for himself, August lifted the water in the boy’s direction.
Brody glanced at it but made no move for it.
August tossed it at Brody’s feet.
Brody had every intention of hightailing it back home, but soon he found himself sitting fireside. Lulled by the stranger’s pervasive calm, compelled by the dull ache in the man’s deep voice, Brody never felt himself being coaxed out of his armor until he was no longer wearing any. The more August spoke, the heavier felt the weight in Brody’s body. Soon, the shotgun lay forgotten beside him. A glass bottle surreptitiously replaced the moccasin. Furrows were traded for laugh lines. Brody had never met a man like August. A man who smiled only when it was earned, a man whose convictions seemed to blanket surrounding ones, a man who was a force of nature in every availing sense.
In the span of a few hours, Brody had developed a fondness for the patriarch, and although it never occurred to him why, the base reason was blatant: August seemed to buck society at every turn, but it didn’t seem that society had punished him one bit for it.
CHAPTER TWO
Patrick Holmes had been picking on Theo Creed since she turned thirteen, which, she was told, meant that he had feelings for her. As the years progressed, the teasing was beginning to border on harassment, so when Theo saw Patrick sulking down the street, head cocked toward the dirt road, hands shoved in his pockets, Theo pulled her bonnet down, curled her shoulders, and cut across Main Street. They, like everyone else in the small town of Bladestay, Colorado, had known each other since they were infants, and Theo was intimately aware of Patrick’s mannerisms and moods, so as soon as she recognized the scowl on his face, the way it contorted even at inanimate objects as if everything was a burden or annoyance, the way he kicked at anything in the vicinity of his toes, Theo knew to keep her distance.
“Theodora!”
Theo cringed but didn’t slow.
“Theodora Creed!” Patrick called.
She heard his trot catch up to her, his well-worn boots creating dull thuds in the clay.
“Morning, Mr. Holmes,” Theo said as his shoulder bumped into her, an overeager attempt to match her stride.
“Why you always needlin’ me, girl?” Patrick said, jutting his elbow toward her as if he actually expected her to take hold.
She actively ignored the gesture. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mr. Holmes.” Theo found out that the only way to truly get under his skin was to affront formality. She hadn’t called him by his first name in over a year; she hadn’t looked him in the eye since last week.
Patrick jogged a few steps ahead and blocked her path, leaning downward into her line of sight as to coax her into looking at him.
Like a creek around a stone, Theo slipped indifferently by him.
He snatched her arm, his fingers digging in the tender flesh just beneath her armpit. His palm was damp with sweat, and the way it moved against her skin made her stomach turn.
Sweetly, she said, “Aren’t you strong.” It was another thing Theo had discovered about Patrick: offer him compliments in such a way that he could never tell whether they’re jocular or genuine. She tried to continue walking and Patrick squeezed harder. Patrick didn’t used to get physical, but as he got older, taller, and stronger, he began to see the benefit of the bully’s currency.
Finally, Theo lifted her face to look Patrick in the eye. She could smell the sour trace of stale whiskey that saturated his tongue, his clothes, his household. Her stomach did another turn. Clenching her own fist, her voice changed from airy and innocent to heady and menacing. “Get your hands off me or I swear to God, I will give you a scar that will follow you six feet under.”
Patrick’s eyes toggled between hers, revealing an internal recoil at the harsh side that Theo never showed to anybody, much less Patrick.
“Hey, Patty,” a voice called from atop the raised deck of the general store.
Immediately, Patrick’s grip loosened as his head darted over his shoulder. “Hiya, Mr. Blacksmith.” He angled himself to be at Theo’s side, quickly looping his arm so Theo’s hand was forced into the crook of his elbow.
Bram Blacksmith was a towering, immaculately dressed man with many brightly colored waistcoats and an impeccably clean jaw. Pushing fifty, the man looked ten years his junior with tenaciously brown hair and limber athleticism. He wore a boastful gold ring on his left pinky finger, two wedding bands on a chain around his neck, and an equally polished gold chain at his breast. All the eligible women (and some not so eligible) in Bladestay would marry him in a heartbeat, but Blacksmith hadn’t had eyes for anyone but a woman named Maureen, and that didn’t change even after she’d moved to the cemetery.
Blacksmith leaned casually against the support pillar, arms crossed, a lump of chew in his lip and a six-shooter on his hip. “What’re you up to, young man?”
Theo subtly tried to pull away, but Patrick grabbed her hand and kept hers in place.
At that time, a boy with auburn hair came out of the general store holding a broom in both his hands like he was wielding a sword.
“Cool it, Elliot,” Blacksmith said to the boy without a glance in his son’s direction.
Elliot was fifteen, two years Theo’s junior and small for his age, but he was scrappy and stronger than he looked and as protective of Theo, if not more so, than her own siblings.
“Just escorting my girlfriend, sir.” Patrick could be a mean kid, but rarely was he an idiot. He knew when to play nice and when he could get away with not doing so, and with Bram Blacksmith, nobody got away with anything. Patrick didn’t much like to do things that he couldn’t get away with.
“I have your things for your mother set aside, Theo,” Blacksmith said without taking his glare from Patrick. Jamming a thumb over his shoulder to the entrance, he added, “Go on, hon. Elliot’ll help you. I need a word with . . .” His eyes scanned the street lazily as he spat into it. Letting his eyes land back on Patrick, he added, “. . . your boyfriend.”
She tried again to pull her hand free, but Patrick wasn’t yet ready to give, even with the ice-blue gaze of Blacksmith falling upon him.
