Blood of Mystery (31 page)

As usual, it was beef and potatoes—the former every bit as overdone as the latter were undercooked. Durge dragged a bench forward so they could sit close and share food, and it might have been like a meal at the boardinghouse save for the bars between them. Sareth picked at one of the potatoes but ate none of the beef. Durge ate what Sareth did not—although his jaw ached by the time he finished chewing the beef—then rose to take away the tray.

“I’m not going to make it, am I, Durge?” Sareth said.

Durge stopped in the doorway, turning around. Sareth sat on the edge of the cot, hands clasped. His face was lost in shadow, although Durge could see the glint of his coppery eyes.

“Lady Lirith is a capable healer,” Durge said. “I am certain you will not perish under her care.”

Durge had meant the words to comfort. However, Sareth winced as if he had been stung.

“That’s not what I meant.” The Mournish man’s voice was low and hoarse. “They’re going to come for me soon. Gentry and Ellis and their gang. Promise me you won’t let yourself get hurt trying to protect me. Lirith needs you, and so does Travis.” Sareth stood, gripping the bars of the cell. “Don’t fight for my sake. Promise me.”

Durge’s voice was stern. “I will promise you no such thing. I am a knight and lord of Embarr. It is not your place to say how I shall employ my sword.”

Without further words, Durge left the jail, locking the door behind him.

The horned moon rose outside the window. Midnight came and went like a ghost. Durge sat at the desk, back rigid, eyes forward. It was no burden for him to keep watch all night; he had done it countless times over the years. Sometimes younger knights would ask him what his trick was, how he stayed awake as the hours passed. It was simple, Durge told them. The will to do one’s duty had to be stronger than the desire to sleep. Durge’s will always was.

Or always had been.

There came the crystalline sound of shattering glass. Durge snapped his head up, and only as he did this did he realize it had been resting against the desk.

You are getting old, Durge of Stonebreak. Old and feeble. It
is time to spend your years wrapped in a blanket by the fire,
drinking soup from a wooden bowl held in trembling hands. If
you don’t get killed first.

Despite his lapse, he was up and moving before the shards of glass finished tinkling to the floor. He made out the scene in the lamplight. One of the panes of glass in the front windows was broken. Lying on the floor was the stone that had done the deed, and tied to the stone was a small piece of paper.

Durge moved to the window and peered outside, but the street was deserted. He bent, knees creaking, and retrieved the stone. The message on the paper was printed in a neat hand:
Release the gypsy or prepare for all Hell to break loose.

Durge set the paper on the desk, then opened the front door and stepped outside. He knew he would be silhouetted against the light inside, making him an easy target. However, he also knew he would not be harmed. Not tonight. They wanted to send a message, that was all.

The sound of far-off laughter and the tinny music of a piano floated on the air. And there was something else. A low whuffling sound. Then, out of the corner of his eye, Durge caught motion. He turned his head in time to see a shadow dart toward the mouth of an alley. At first he thought it was some kind of large animal, for it seemed to run on all fours. Only then the shadow rose onto hind legs, moving with a loping cadence, and he realized that the figure was a man’s.

Or mostly that of a man.

Just before the shadow reached the mouth of the alley, it passed through a stray square of light that fell from a secondfloor window. The man wore ragged, filthy clothes, and his feet were bare. Encircling his left wrist was a bloody line, and below the wound, instead of a hand, his arm ended in a large paw, its curved talons extended.

Durge let out a low oath. The figure turned its head, and for a heartbeat Durge glimpsed its face. Green eyes gazed at him beneath a shock of red hair, but where a human mouth should have been, instead there jutted a long snout filled with sharp teeth. Black lips pulled back in a rictus. Then the thing moved out of the light, vanishing into the alley.

Durge staggered back, his blood cold water in his veins. Only it wasn’t because of the figure’s claws and teeth that he gripped the rail of the boardwalk for support. It was because, despite the horrible deformities, he had recognized the man behind the face of a wolf.

And that man was Calvin Murray.

36.

Travis lay in bed, letting the sunlight that fell through the attic window warm his face. As long as he stayed there, as long as he kept his eyes shut, he could pretend he was still dreaming.

It had been a wonderful dream. In it, Jack Graystone had finally come to town, gray-haired and professorial just as Travis remembered him. Travis had shaken Jack’s hand, and with a sound like the crackle of lightning, all the power in Travis had coursed out of him, streaming back into Jack. When Travis lifted his right hand, there was no trace of the silvery rune embedded in his palm. He was just Travis again. Harmless.

The bedsprings squeaked, and Travis felt a weight on his chest. He opened his eyes and found himself gazing at a delicate, feline face.

“I suppose you’re trying to tell me that it’s time to stop dreaming and wake up?”

Miss Guenivere only licked a paw. Travis sighed and sat up. He cradled the little cat against his chest and rolled out of bed, then set her back down in the square of sunlight. She curled up next to his pillow and promptly went to sleep.

“So that was your plan all along, you charlatan.”

Travis dressed in his daytime clothes—denim jeans and a calico shirt—and splashed some of last night’s wash water from the basin on his face. As he moved to the door, he noticed that Durge’s bed was still neatly made; the Embarran hadn’t come back to the Bluebell last night. Travis swallowed the lump of worry in his throat and headed downstairs.

He was too late for breakfast. The miners who stayed at the Bluebell had all headed off to the silver fields. He could hear Maudie humming in the kitchen as she washed dishes, and Lirith was just folding up the tablecloth. To Travis’s relief, Durge sat at the table, hands gripping a cup of coffee.

“Good morning,” Travis said.

Durge looked up. The knight’s face was haggard and careworn. Travis’s relief evaporated. He glanced at Lirith; the witch wore a tight-lipped expression.

“What’s happened?” he said.

“You’d better sit down,” Durge said in his somber voice.

Travis did so. He listened as Durge told what had happened at the sheriff’s office last night. A wave of sickness crashed through him, so strong he feared he would vomit, and he was glad he had been too late to get anything to eat.

“You’re sure it was really Calvin Murray?” Travis said when the knight finished. He didn’t doubt Durge’s words; they were just so hard to comprehend.

“It was.” Travis had seldom seen the knight shaken, but there was a haunted look on his face as he spoke. “I recognized him despite...what had been done to him.”

Travis shook his head. “But Calvin Murray died at the Mine Shaft. You checked, Lirith. You said he was dead.”

“He was,” the witch said. “And I would warrant, despite what Durge saw, that he still is.”

Travis shuddered. How could a dead man throw a rock through a window? Better yet, how could that dead man have the paw of a mountain lion and the jaws of a wolf? One thing was certain at least: Now they knew what—or who—had been mauling livestock around town.

The kitchen door swung open, and Maudie came through, leaning on her cane, spurs jingling. “There you are, you layabout,” she said to Travis. “I saved back a couple of biscuits for you. I’ll bring them out with some gooseberry jam. Was it a long night at the saloon?”

Travis nodded, even though it hadn’t been. The Mine Shaft had been nearly deserted. After what had happened at the paigow parlor on Aspen Street, folk seemed reluctant to visit any business establishment. Travis couldn’t blame them. There was no telling who the Crusade’s next target would be.

Maudie brought the biscuits and jam, then returned to the kitchen. Through the door, they heard a long fit of coughing.

Travis asked Durge more questions about what he had seen the night before, but there was nothing that explained what had been done to Calvin Murray. Or how. The only thing they did know was that, in death, young Mr. Murray was still working for the vigilance committee.

“Can I see the message that was on the rock?” Travis said.

Durge pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket and handed it to Travis. Travis smoothed it out on the table and sorted the letters out.
Release the gypsy or prepare for all Hell to break
loose.

“My lady,” Durge said to Lirith, “there was something I wished to show you, but after what happened last night it escaped my mind until just now.”

Along with the piece of paper, the knight had drawn a small glass bottle out of his pocket. He handed it to Lirith.

“What is it?” the witch said.

“I’m not certain. Some kind of medicine, I think. There is a drop or two left at the bottom. I thought you might be able to tell me what it was.”

Lirith unstopped the bottle and held it beneath her nose. She ran her finger around the mouth of the bottle, then touched it to the tip of her tongue. Her eyebrows rose.

“This is a powerful and dangerous potion,” Lirith said, setting the bottle on the table. “A small amount can dull pain and bring pleasant dreams. Too much can bring dark visions, or even death. And the more one takes of this drug, the more one’s body will crave it.”

“What is it?” Travis said.

“It’s a tincture of poppy.”

Durge’s brow furrowed. “Tincture of poppy?”

“Laudanum,” said Maudie from the kitchen doorway. “You mean laudanum.”

They looked up as Maudie stepped into the dining room. Next to her was Sheriff Tanner, his expression thoughtful behind his handlebar mustache.

“That’s a devil’s brew,” Maudie said, her voice hard. “It did in too many of my girls. A customer would give them their first drop, and once they had a taste for it they couldn’t stop. At least not until they set aside the camellia for the lily and were laid in the cold ground. Where did you get it?”

Tanner stepped forward and picked up the bottle. “I believe Mr. Dirk found it in my office.”

The others stared at Tanner, all except Lirith, who nodded. She rose and moved to the sheriff, her dark eyes intent.

“How long have you been taking it?” the witch said.

Tanner stared past them at the wall. Then his watery blue eyes focused on Lirith, and he sighed.

“Five years. I’ve been taking laudanum for five years now, Miss Lily. Every day I wake up and tell myself I’m going to stop. Sometimes I even try. But by noon I’m wet and shaking like a newborn foal, and it feels like there’s blasting going on in my head, digging a mine deep into my brain. And then it’s all I can do to get the cork out.”

All of them stared at the sheriff. He sat at the table, placing the bottle before him. Lirith hesitated, then rested a hand on his shoulder.

“How?” she said simply.

“It was in San Francisco. I was a deputy US Marshal then. A doctor prescribed the laudanum when my old shoulder wound got to troubling me, the wound I took in the war.”

“What war was this?”

“Why, the war to free the slaves, Miss Lily,” he said, looking up at her, and she nodded. “I never should have fought, I suppose. I wasn’t of age—I was just sixteen when I ran off and joined the Union Army. But I saw my share of battles before taking a bayonet on the field of Gettysburg. The wound never bothered me much, not until I got older. That’s when I saw the doctor, and he gave me the laudanum. Only long after the pain was gone, I kept on taking it. It was the only thing that kept me from remembering the...that is to say, it was the only thing that kept my gun hand steady. But soon it took more and more to stop the shakes, and I knew it was only a matter of time before the Marshals found out and took my badge. So I gave it back to them before they could, and I took a train here, to Castle City, when I heard they needed a sheriff.” He hung his head. “Only it looks like I’ll be turning in this badge, too.”

Maudie’s eyes were bright with tears. She sat at the table. “Oh, Bart, why didn’t you tell me?”

He didn’t look at her. “And what would you have thought of me, Maude?”

“I would have thought, Maudie, here’s someone who needs your help. So you’d better see to it you take care of him. Because there isn’t a finer man you could find, not for all the gold in the ground from here to California.” She took his hand in hers, holding it tightly so it couldn’t possibly tremble. “That’s what I think, Bart.”

He looked up and met her eyes, and only in that moment did Travis realize that Tanner and Maudie loved one another. He wondered why it had taken him so long to see. But then, no doubt they had made an effort to keep it hidden, even from each other. After all, he was the sheriff, and until only recently she had been the madam of a brothel. What would Castle City’s society ladies whisper to their husbands if Tanner married Maudie? Travis doubted Tanner would have stayed sheriff long.

“Mr. Dirk,” Tanner said, standing, “I’ve got to turn in my badge and gun to you now. You’ll be sheriff in Castle City until the county board can hire a new one. And when they do, I hope they have the sense to give you the job.”

The knight shook his head. “I swore an oath to serve you, Sir Tanner, and I do not break my word. Yet it is more than that. If ever this village needed you, it is now. Like me, you are a man of war, and that means you can feel it in the air even as I do. There is a battle coming.”

For a moment, Travis was struck by how much Tanner looked like a knight of Embarr, with his drooping mustache and somber eyes. No wonder Durge called him
Sir
.

“If you’re right, Mr. Dirk, and if there’s a battle coming, then I’m not going to be any use in fighting it.” Tanner lifted his right hand; his fingers vibrated like the wings of a hummingbird. “If I take the laudanum, or if I don’t, either way I’m no use with a gun anymore.”

“There are other ways to fight.”

“Not men like these. Even you’d be hard-pressed to stop them, Mr. Dirk, and not just because you won’t put bullets in that revolver you wear. I don’t think there’s anything a sheriff can do.”

“But you’re the law in this town,” Maudie said, indignant now. “You can throw the lot of them in jail!”

“And then more men would come and break them out.” Tanner shook his head wearily. “Laws only matter when they’re the strongest authority around, Maudie. But there’s another authority in Castle City, and that’s the Crusade. People might respect the law, but they fear the vigilance committee more. Only someone outside the law himself can stop men like these.”

Maudie glanced over her shoulder, then looked back. “You mean like the stories I’ve been hearing about town? They say he’s going to come. The civilizer, Tyler Caine.”

A jolt of energy coursed through Travis. Was it fear? Or something else?

“I’ve heard those stories, too,” Tanner said. “And I wish I could believe they were true. He’s wanted for killing men in five states and territories. All the same, I’d welcome the sight of him. But they say Tyler Caine is dead.”

Travis wanted to ask why everyone seemed to believe this Tyler Caine had the power to stop men like Lionel Gentry. Only before he could speak, a strangled sound escaped Lirith. The witch went rigid, her spine arching. She clutched the back of a chair and threw her head back, her eyes shut.

Maudie rushed to her. “Miss Lily, are you well? What’s the matter?”

Lirith went limp, and Durge rushed forward before Travis could move, gripping her shoulders, holding her upright. Her eyes fluttered open.

“I saw it,” she whispered. “It was so clear.”

Maudie wrung her hands. “What are you talking about, sweetheart? Are you ill?”

Travis moved closer. Lirith wasn’t ill. He knew the witch had the power to sometimes glimpse the future. She had just done it—she had seen something with the Sight.

“What is it, Lirith?” Travis said. “What did you see?”

“It was him. He will come.”

Tanner shook his head. “Who do you mean, Miss Lily? Who’s coming?”

“Tyler Caine.” She looked not at Tanner, but at Travis. “He’s going to come and fight the men of the Crusade. And there’s someone else he’s going to fight, but I couldn’t see who.”

Travis clenched his right hand into a fist. Tyler Caine was dead; all the stories said he was. There was no way he could come there to Castle City, and even if he did, what could he really do? Lirith had once said the power of her Sight was far from perfect; her vision had to be mistaken.

Travis didn’t want to talk about laudanum or Tyler Caine or the Crusade for Purity anymore. He glanced at Tanner. “Sheriff, was there a reason you came by?”

Tanner nodded. “I wanted to give you the news before you heard it somewhere else. I know you were a sort of friend of his, Mr. Wilder. As good a friend as he had, at least.”

Travis shook his head, confused. “What are you talking about?”

“He was found by Edward Strange Owl this morning, in his teepee up on Signal Ridge,” Tanner said. “Ezekial Frost. From the looks of it, he was mauled to death.”