Bladestay, p.7
Bladestay, page 7
“I’m overjoyed we’ve come to that understanding,” she deadpanned. “But listen. Locked up here, locked up there . . .” Theo nodded in the general vicinity of the church, then lifted her shoulders. “Collateral either way.”
Patrick’s eyes went shifty before asking, “Do you know what they want?”
Theo blew off the question. “I’ll be back for you tonight,” she lied. Whichever way this went, she definitely would not be coming back for Patrick Holmes. “I’ll get you out, and we’ll go get help.” But she did have a reputation to uphold, and she didn’t need Patrick saying anything that contradicted Teddy Pine. “Lie low, can you do that for me?”
“I thought you hated me. Why would you bother?”
“I do hate you, Patrick. But you kept your mouth shut when you didn’t have to. You keep my secret, and I’ll use it to help you. Deal?”
Patrick blinked. “Have you always been so cold, Theo?”
“I don’t rightly know, Patrick. I reckon it don’t rightly matter either though, do it?”
“You’re telling me you’d rather be fair than kind?”
She hated the way he always tried to bait her. “Lie low, Patrick,” Theo said again, doing her best not to slam the door on her way out.
“Theo,” he called lightly after her. “Wait! I need to tell you something.”
Moron, she thought, hoping nobody else heard him call her that name. She stepped down the stairs and headed back down Main, the sound of clopping hooves jogging her way. She stopped at the intersecting alley, stuck her hands in her pockets, and looked up at the thinning smoke from the embers of her home. She made a silent prayer for all the things they’d lost, followed up by one for all the things they hadn’t.
Brody had his hat pulled low and a horse in tow. He trotted over, sat deeply, and whoa’d his gelding. Looking down at her, he dropped the lead line of the ponied horse at her feet.
Numbly, Theo took hold of her horse.
“Reckon we get to see just how tough you really are,” Brody said. Then he reigned his horse into Main Street and trotted away.
Dread slammed into her.
August Gaines means for me to accompany him.
She put her foot in the stirrup.
You can do this, she told herself.
She reached for the reins with a handful of mane and hauled herself up.
You can do this. She pushed down fear and drew the rage. Already, the exchange was getting easier.
She was going to survive this day. Then she was going to survive the next day, and then the one after that.
She put her other foot in the stirrup, adjusted the reins to be congruent and flat, checked the security of her pack and the capacity of the waterskins.
She was going to survive as many days as it took to dig a grave for August Gaines, with bare hands and broken fingernails if she had to, because she refused to let her family be the collateral in someone else’s revenge plot.
Over and over, she told herself she could do this.
She could camp out for an undetermined about of time with a gang of bandits without revealing herself.
She could track down her own flesh and blood, knowing what the end entailed.
She could keep her cool.
She could make it through a menstrual cycle without supplies.
She could cut a throat with the straight razor harbored against her ribs.
She could outthink a seasoned brigade.
She could find a way to derail a plan that has been years in the making.
And then Theo remembered she was supposed to have testicles, so she made the proper adjustments. Down the street, a bandit wearing fingerless gloves was watching her.
Theo dipped her chin away from him and dug her heel into the horse’s ribs, making the horse pivot easterly. As soon as the horse’s nose pointed toward the church, she squeezed the horse forward.
“Ey, kid,” a voice called. She found the bandit with the fingerless gloves walking toward her. She slowed her horse to a standstill, resisting the urge to take off. In that moment, she thought this was the end. She’d been made. She’d been caught. And now he was going to tear her off this horse and say, Look everyone, look what I found. This little boy ain’t a boy but—
The bandit took off his faded black hat, smoothed his matted hair, and extended it to her.
Theo looked down at the hat, at the man, then slowly reached for it, still unconvinced this wasn’t the end of everything.
“You’ll get ruddy as a radish out there, young’un.”
She took the hat tentatively, and before she could find her voice that was buried somewhere beneath the panic in her chest, the bandit spat the brown of chew, gave her a smile as he wiped his chin, and stepped back.
She pressed the man’s hat atop her head, tipped it at him, then loped the horse down the street. Theo felt the panic start to melt. She needed to keep moving forward. Nights, she knew, would be the hardest. She tried to focus on the things she could control, which narrowed things considerably. She would focus on the art of machismo. She would seek and find the soft spots of August Gaines’s soul. She would outsmart her own fear.
She didn’t focus on the fact that she had just burned down her own house in the name of control. She didn’t think about how striking the match didn’t make her any more in control of events because, if she did, she would be reminded that cutting off the rest of her hair didn’t mean that she had wanted it gone.
CHAPTER TWELVE
August was in a foul mood when he announced their place for camp. The ten men who comprised their search party kept a wide berth, including Theo and Brody. Brody took August’s horse as soon as the man dismounted.
“You stay with me,” Brody Boone instructed Theo.
The outfit carried out their tasks with sharp precision. Theo imagined their fluidity and cohesion akin to an orchestra, each with their own place with their own talent, playing in time with the other.
As Theo played groom’s assistant with Brody, she observed the group.
Flea, Jester, and Pathfinder handed their horses to Brody and walked straight out of camp in different directions.
Shiner, a white man with a purple birthmark below his left eye, tied his horse to a tree and immediately began to gather firewood.
Rook, a man with a massive beard and closely cropped head, had the job of unpacking the saddle bags as Brody and Theo untacked. He brought the blankets, canvases, furs, and cans of food to where August stood, apparently designating the center of camp. August had chosen a flat area lush with ferns but clear of trees.
Spartan, a heavily muscled man with long dreadlocks, was in charge of weapons.
John, a man who’d earned no nickname, hadn’t uttered a single word since Theo knew him. Theo didn’t know if he couldn’t, or if it was just that he didn’t. John helped Rook set up camp as Shiner brought back armfuls of stones, then armfuls of kindling. Shiner had a pit dug, established a rock perimeter, and was working on ignition by the time Spartan had a pot of beans ready to be heated.
Even with the new members of the gang, camp sprang together flawlessly. The horses were grazing on dinner. Everyone had a bed laid. The fire was roaring. When Flea, Jester, and Pathfinder returned, Spartan was ready to spoon hot beans back in cans for them.
“I’ll take first shift,” Flea said, nodding his thanks to Spartan when he handed him an open can filled with hot pintos. “I spotted a perfect little lookout thataway,” he added. Then he walked out into the direction in which he’d pointed, off to his task.
“I’ll take second,” Shiner said, mouth full.
They went around the oval shape of their camp, each taking responsibility without complaint or argument. When it got to August, he said, “I’ll take last post. Pine Needle—you’ll accompany me.”
Her stomach lurched; she nodded calmly.
“Where’s the river?” August asked, pulling out his pipe. The moving water gurgled in the distance, but the acoustics of the small valley it ran through made it difficult to pinpoint where it was.
“Right down there,” Pathfinder said as Flea pointed north.
“Clean yourself up, Sixer,” August said grumpily as if he was tired of looking at the kid in his current state.
“Sir,” Brody Boone said.
As they began to scrape the bottom of their cans, August pulled out a bottle of whiskey. He uncorked it, and everyone stilled, wiping their mouths and finishing the food that was in their mouth.
When August held the bottle out in front of him, toward the fire in a gesture meant to be all-inclusive, Theo knew she was witnessing tradition.
“We honor the past so it does not dictate us. We remember the fallen so they do not haunt us. We never underestimate the enemy so they do not surprise us.” August got to his feet and walked over to Theo. Her body wanted to curl up and cower, but she simply looked up at him. “We welcome new friends . . .” August looked over at Brody, whose designated spot wasn’t six feet from Theo’s.
Brody finished the sentence: “For they become family.”
August smiled. It was genuine and kind and it made Theo’s insides uncoil and relax. He stretched his arm somewhat behind him, toward the fire, and tipped the mouth of the bottle until he’d emptied the approximate amount of a shot glass. “For the past.” Then he extended the bottle down to Theo. “And to the future.”
Theo reached for the bottle, and August released it to her grip.
She placed the bottle on her lips and took a deep swig. It burned and raged down her throat, but it turned her stomach into a furnace, spreading outward through her limbs and leaving her head feeling like it was filled with something effervescent.
August smiled again, nodded toward Brody, then went back to his spot.
Theo took the cue as Brody being next in line, so she handed it to him.
It was the first time she saw Brody Boone show his teeth in a kind or peaceful way, and yet, it was somehow more menacing through the dark maroon of his crimes.
He took a drink, coughed once, took another drink, then got up and passed it along on his way out of camp.
As the bottle made its rounds, the men settled into conversation with the kind of ease forged by shared struggles, successes, goals, battles, losses, gains, and the countless confides and mini alliances that encompass a family. August was grinning, enraptured by a private dialogue with Spartan, who was telling an animated story as he leaned on an elbow toward August. Packing his pipe, August laughed at something Spartan, who was mildly loose with liquor and laughter himself, said.
It was an unnerving scene for Theo to take in, but she also supposed that when you sleep with the enemy, you’re bound to discover something redeemable about them. She scooted to the edge of her bed, stretching toward the flames and a blanket loose on her shoulders. She watched and listened to conversation, but she didn’t know how to speak in the nostalgic grooves that the group’s intimacy had slowly engraved in all the years prior. Often, she found herself grinning at stories she could follow, enraptured by others, flat-out horrified by few.
When Brody walked back into camp, Theo did a double take.
He was wearing nothing but his drawers and boots, his shirt and trousers slung over an otherwise bare shoulder. His presence felt invasive, obtrusive, and utterly disrupting. Theo wanted to know why nobody else felt completely rocked by his return. It set her on edge as momentously as if a wolf wandered into their camp, but the men hardly gave him a glance as he crouched next to the fire to lay out his wet clothes. She tried not to watch the way the muscles on his back moved under his brown skin. She definitely would not watch the rivulets that hurried down his neck and shimmied the slope of his shoulders. And when he swept a hand through his wet hair, Theo absolutely didn’t notice how graceful even his most mundane movements were.
She scooted back, suddenly no longer needing the heat of the fire. Theo lay down in her bed, cocooned herself in her blankets, and flipped over to put her back to Brody.
That boy was dangerous.
CHAPTER 13
“Do you know why I brought you with me, Pine Needle?” August asked. He sat propped against a tree, one knee drawn up, hat tipped back off his forehead, loading his pipe with tobacco.
“Presently,” Theo leaned against a nearby trunk of her own, “or previously?” Her chest ached deeply, the razor digging into her ribs. She peered back at camp, slices of orange glowing through the thick forest. August had posted their first night watch about fifty yards from the sleeping men.
“Sure,” he said.
She crossed her arms over her chest and squinted at the glow through the darkness. Theo had to be insidiously careful here.
“Because you think you know me,” she said. She resisted the urge to spill her constructed story, one she’d crafted in her head on the trail, but she knew she had to make August work for it, to make him feel like he’d pried something from her, but she was struggling to concentrate. Every inhale deepened the bruising ache on her side. Her breathing turned shallow. It did little to relieve the pressure.
August folded the tobacco back into its leather satchel. He tucked it into a pocket at his breast, exchanging it for matches. “Let me make something very clear to you, Youngblood.” He struck flame. The breeze threatened it, so he cupped his hand.
He sighed as he flicked the spent match into the shadows and got another.
She pushed her fingers against the razor, trying to slide it out of its bruised indent.
His eyes dropped to her chest, noticing her discomfort. “I’m rather particular about new blood I bring into the fold.”
She inched the razor back. The relief was great.
When he struck the fresh match, Theo saw the way his eyes narrowed at her. “Catch me, Youngblood?”
She nodded, but she was starting to wonder if she actually did.
He stood, and somehow he seemed bigger than the last time she saw him on his feet.
Theo regulated her flight response. On her next inhale, sharper and deeper than she could control, she felt a gentle pop, followed by a horrible loosening. The razor slipped out and tumbled down her torso. Completely reactionary, Theo’s hand darted to catch it, but it tumbled past her fingers. She felt it land next to her foot.
He stepped close to her. “You got bugs in your britches, Youngblood?” He dragged his eyes up and down her.
Run, run, run—but he was too close and she couldn’t even breathe.
“I’m just—” Her voice was small. “Cold.” It had an audible tremble.
“Hm.” He placed the pipe in his mouth. He leaned down so their faces were level, examining her closely.
He held out his box of matches.
She took it cautiously, sliding her foot over the razor.
“You think I don’t know you.” He kept his eyes steady on hers when he cupped his hands around the end of his pipe.
She swallowed.
“I do know you.”
The world slanted, tilted off-kilter. There’s no way he knows. Theo felt like she might be sick.
“I know who you are. I know what you are.”
This isn’t happening. She considered going for the razor. Wondered if she could be fast enough. She doubted it. Unable to think of what to do or what to say, she simply did what was expected of her.
Her hands shook when she struck the match.
“What do you have to say about that?” He drawled, coaxing the embers with gentle puffs as she stoked the pipe with the flame.
She held his gaze, refusing to cry. If she wasn’t leaning against the tree for support, her legs would surely have given out by now.
“Mr. Gaines . . .” Sweat prickled the back of her neck. Her nervous system was revolting.
“It’s not a bad thing, kid. To be seen.” Smoke swirled around his words. “Because I can see that you’re missing something.”
The sweet spice stung her eyes.
“And maybe,” he said, “I could give it to you.”
Theo’s forehead creased into a frown.
He didn’t step out of her space. “Maybe,” August stuck the pipe between his teeth and took off his coat, “I could show you a thing or two about the world you could have.”
He held it out for her.
She looked at it, stifling disbelief. She looked up at him. Pull yourself together. She took the coat. He doesn’t know.
“Why do grown-ups do that?” She was lightheaded with adrenaline and her voice was still weak with panic. “Always pretending you understand me. Get me.”
He gave her a small, knowing smile and turned.
Theo doubled over, clutching his coat to her stomach as she took a silent, devouring breath behind his back, her mouth stretched open in a silent scream.
She clamped her mouth shut.
She snatched the razor and sneaked it up her sleeve.
By the time August had returned to his spot, Theo was upright, pulling the coat across the evidence of hyperventilation.
As he sat back down, he answered her. “People think ’cause they lived an age before that they lived your life before.”
She slowly gathered her confidence back. “But not you.”
“Imagine that.” A hint of a smile crossed his lips as he puffed.
“Yeah.” She felt her insides relax. “Imagine.” Just a little sarcasm. Her hands started to go steady. She unfastened a button under the protection of his coat and slipped a hand into her shirt.
“So, Youngblood. If I can sum you up, I’d like something from you in return.”
You can do this. “What’s that?” she asked with as much conviction as she could muster.
“I want you to rid your shoulder of that chip.”
She lifted her chin slightly, bluffing contemplation. She found the wayward end of the chemise and pulled tight. The ache in her torso resumed.
“Whatever you say, Mr. Gaines,” she said, a little flippantly.
“None of that.”
“Fine.” She tucked the end of the binding back in place.
