Peacemaker (9780698140820) (10 page)

She appeared at the end of the walkway, tilting her head to the side.

“You can't do this. You have no right.” Caleb sat up in his hospital bed. He was, after all, injured only in memory. “I don't know what you're looking for, but you can't just do this. These are my memories. You've no right to them.”

Perhaps she understood him. Her eyes grew sad, and she offered him her hand, inviting him to take it.

“No. I'm not going anywhere with you. Go away now. Leave me in peace.”

She stood with her hand out for a long moment before finally deciding he meant it, and then she dropped it with a sigh. She pointed to herself, then out the door, and Caleb nodded.

“Yes. Go. Please.”

A look of frustration crossed her face, and she actually stamped her leather-clad foot. Stubborn as a mule himself, when he felt the need, Caleb crossed his arms over his chest and glared back at her. For one moment, he thought she would relent, but instead of leaving, she took a few quick strides toward him, reaching out to touch his face. Though he flinched back, somehow she caught him, resting her warm palm against his cheek.

He blinked. . . .

The wind blew through his long hair as he rode on horseback through the tall prairie. The sharp grass slipped past his leather leggings without hurting him, but it would have cut his bare chest to ribbons at this speed. His horse's legs were already flayed and bleeding, and still the loyal animal raced toward the column of black greasy smoke that rose on the horizon. Sick dread settled in his stomach; he already knew what he would find.

The village was gone, the teepees reduced to smoldering heaps. Cookfires were scattered, drying racks lying in jumbled messes, the precious meat on them ground into the dust. Everywhere the bodies of men, women, and children lay where they'd fallen. Black hair was dull with thick clotted blood. Dark eyes were glazed and cloudy, their spirits long fled.

“No . . . Oh, please, no . . .” He slipped from the horse's back before it had even stopped, falling to his knees next to the body of a young woman. Her head lolled on a broken neck. “Oh, no . . . Little Raven, oh, no . . .”

Tears burned his eyes as he gathered her into his arms, rocking her gently. His little sister, his beautiful beloved Little Raven . . .

In the churned mud, the perfect circle tracks of the skyfire horses were visible. How many had come, with their skyfire guns and mechanical monsters? How many of his people had been cut down trying to flee, shot in the back or trampled into the earth?

A roar of rage built in his chest, rising from his throat as a scream of primal agony. Why!? They'd been peaceful! They had refused the Dog Soldiers; they had avoided the white towns and homesteads. Why would the white men do this?

Hot tears streamed down his face as he laid his sister down, arranging her body peacefully. He was no medicine man, but he would perform the rites for them. Then he would find his weapons in the ruins of his home, and he would go join the Dog Soldiers. The white men would pay.

Soft humming caught his ear, and he snatched his knife from his belt, turning with full intent to fight to the death if need be.

A young woman stepped from the trees, her eyes full of sorrow as she gazed over the carnage. And though he knew he had never seen her before, he felt he should know her. “Will you . . . help me? I cannot do this alone.”

She nodded with a sad smile, and made a sweeping gesture with her right hand.

Caleb woke. For a few brief moments, he was uncomfortable in his own skin. He ran his hands over his bare chest, finding it unchanged. His trousers were still the same cloth they'd always been, no leather or beads to be found. His hair was still shorn close to his head, and the thick scar still graced the right side of his face. The thin thread of power that tied him to Ernst told him that his familiar was still downstairs, so he couldn't have been asleep very long.

His body could still feel the sensation of the horse moving beneath him, though, its sensitive hide responding to every pressure from his knees, something he'd never done in his life. The hot tears of grief and rage still lingered at the back of his throat, threatening to choke him until he swallowed them down. He could still recall the weight of the dead woman in his arms, the grayish pallor that had taken over her dark skin, and the stench of charred leather and ozone lingered in his nostrils.

“Dear God, what is happening to me?” he asked the darkened room.

Chapter 7

Sleep after that was obviously not an option. Caleb felt decidedly unclean, like all the events of his life had been rifled through. And the last dream . . . that had not been his, and that disturbed him, too. He had no right to walk through other people's thoughts, either.

A small voice inside chided him for superstitious nonsense. Dreams were dreams, and nothing more. No doubt the plight of the Indian family had plagued his mind as he drifted off, resulting in the strangeness of his dreams. “That'll teach me to eat haggis an hour before bed.”

“Haggis isn't actually food, you know.” Ernst hopped from the windowsill to the bed in one graceful bound. “It's what you eat when there isn't any food.”

“How would you know? You don't eat.” Caleb buttoned his shirt and carefully pinned his badge over his heart. “Besides, it was kind of Teddy to make us one of his traditional dishes. He was being hospitable.”

The jackalope snorted and scratched furiously at one ear with his hind foot. “He fed it to you because no one else in this town will eat it.”

Caleb went about the mundane business of gathering his belongings for the day, letting the silence drag out as he sorted through his own thoughts. “Ernst? Can I ask you a question?”

“You can ask anything you want. But you know I don't always know the answer.”

“Can you walk into people's dreams?”

The little creature seemed a bit taken aback by the question, and it took a long time for him to formulate an answer. “No. I could see yours, if I wanted, but that's because you're mine. But I couldn't see anyone else's, and I couldn't walk into them.”

“Do you know of anyone who can?”

Again, it took a long time for him to answer. A familiar's origin was often shrouded in mystery, even to the creature itself, and sometimes it took a while for Ernst to sort through the myriad of knowledge he held in his furry little head. Finally, he sighed. “I have met no one, personally, who has that ability. But that does not mean it doesn't exist.” He shrugged his furry shoulders. “I am part of you. My powers are limited to the breadth and scope of yours. Other cultures, other peoples . . . who knows?”

Caleb nodded. It was no less than he'd expected. He holstered his gun and gathered up his staff, leaving his heavy coat behind in deference to the already sweltering heat.

“Caleb?” He stopped at the door and looked back. Ernst hadn't budged from the bed. “They're your dreams. If you don't like them, you have the power to change them.”

“I'll keep that in mind.” He put his hat on, pulling it low over his eyes. “You coming?”

Ernst hopped off the bed and followed him out into the hallway.

Teddy had made good on his word, and packed several meals' worth of food up for Caleb's excursion, along with a small flask that was clearly meant for Ernst. “Watch yerself in the sun, Agent Marcus. Ye'll get heat sick before ye realize.”

“Thank you, Teddy.”

His next stop before actually leaving town was the smithy, where he was informed in no uncertain terms that he was early.

“I tell you come back in one week! Not four days! You count, ja? All fingers and toes?” Sven glowered at him, not even bothering to come out from behind the forge to berate the Peacemaker.

Caleb eyed his transport. The rear end was in some chaotic state of disassembly, with gears and wires and bearings all hanging out for the world to see. The thing had been reduced to simple hunks of metal held together with hopeful thoughts. The transparent windows were dark and still. He couldn't help but wonder how the scoured man had managed to safely bleed off all the energy so he could open the casing to make repairs.

“Hi, Agent Marcus!” On the far side of the transport, Jimmy's head popped up, a smudge of grease near his hairline (and probably in his hair, too, judging by how it stuck up at erratic angles). “I found the problem!”

He flipped something silver to Caleb, who caught it by reflex. The Peacemaker examined the tiny gear, finding two teeth chewed to mangled nubs, and smirked. “This one tiny thing caused all that trouble. Figures.”

Jimmy came out of the shop wiping his grubby hands on a rag. “It was way down in there. Mr. Isby needed me ta get it, 'cause my hands are smaller.” He took the broken gear back, rolling it over the backs of his knuckles with a grin.

“Do you help Mr. Isby often?”

The boy nodded. “Yup. I got the spark, he's got the know-how.”

Caleb raised his head at the smith, who just shrugged and said, “Boy has gift. Should learn honest trade with it.”

Eyeing the disabled transport, Caleb suddenly had a chilling thought. “You don't let him . . . I mean, that's a lot of power to be grounded. You didn't let this boy . . .”

Sven snorted, his white-blond brows furrowing over his eyes. “I look stupid? Boy risk being scoured like that. No, that I leave to others who help now and then. Adults.” He muttered to himself in Swedish, no doubt saying some very uncomplimentary things about Caleb, and returned to his work.

Jimmy snickered. “Mr. Isby's a grump, but he treats me good, and he pays me.” Fishing in his pocket, he displayed two shiny quarters. “He says I could be a good arcanosmith someday.”

Caleb nodded his agreement. “He's right, if you get the right education. You should tell Miss Sinclair; she could guide your studies in that direction.”

The boy shrugged, blushing faintly. “I might keep goin' ta see her. Might not. Depends on how busy I am.”

Caleb managed to hide his amusement. “Of course.”

Jimmy eyed the hauler, laden with Caleb's staff and the packs of food. “You going somewhere, Agent Marcus?”

“Just out for a ride.” He winked at the boy. “But if anyone asks, you didn't see me today, all right?”

“All right!” That seemed to perk the kid up, and Caleb could see visions of a vast and secret conspiracy whirling in his eyes.

With Ernst perched on the hauler's rump, Caleb lit out at a choppy canter to the south, intent on investigating the first two places on his haphazard map.

The first was a few miles outside of town, just off what passed for a main road between Hope and the A-bar-W. Perhaps it had once been part of an army of towering oaks marching across the plains, but now it was merely a solitary dead tree adrift in a sea of tall grass. The old roots had long since given way on one side, causing it to list until the branches themselves touched the ground. The floor of the resulting cave had been trampled free of grass years ago by many tiny feet as they clambered in and around the half-fallen giant. How many wars and battles had been fought there, with all the combatants cheerfully going home for dinner at the end of the day?

Caleb crawled in, through, and over every surface he could find, seeking any trace of nullstone with tiny pulses of his own power. After two of those resulted in small fires in the deadwood, he stopped. “Ernst?”

The familiar was higher in the tangled branches, where an adult's weight would be a liability. “Nothing. There's no nullstone here. None within at least five hundred yards.”

“Then we move on.”

The next stop was little more than a mud hole, where little Emily had insisted there was water during all but the hottest of summers. Caleb crouched at the edge of the cracked, dry pond while Ernst made slow progress out to the vaguely damp center. “Anything?”

Ernst sniffed at the remnants of the once-vibrant spring, his furry nose twitching for a long moment before he shook his head. “No. And this spring's been broken. It'll never hold water again after this summer.” He thumped the crust of hard-baked mud with one hind foot. “Been cracked all the way down to the bedrock.”

“Was that from the heat or the earthquakes?”

“Both.” Ernst hopped back up on the hauler, getting comfortable again. “North then?”

For a moment, Caleb hesitated. They were close to Warner's, and he truly wanted to search the ranch proper, but he was certain the rancher wasn't going to sit idly by and let that happen. Best to eliminate all other possibilities, he finally decided, before he kicked that particular hornet's nest. “Yes. North.”

They rode wide around Hope on their way back north, so it was just past noon before they located the trail from the morning before. It was easy then to follow the bent and broken grasses to the site of the abandoned teepee.

The two horses still lay where they'd been felled, the carcasses swollen with gases, a noisy cloud of black flies going about their gruesome but necessary work. Caleb walked around the small camp, but nothing appeared to be disturbed. Everything was just where it had been left when the family disappeared. He crouched to pick up the little girl's doll, forgotten in the dirt. “Someone is missing you, I'll wager.” He dusted it off and absently tucked it into his pocket, eyeing the rest of the waste grimly. “Why didn't they come back for their things once we were gone? Or to butcher the horses, at least? They were nearly starving; that could have been a lot of meat for them.”

“Perhaps they were too frightened.”

“Maybe.”

It was impossible to tell from the scribbles on the map just where the town's children liked to take their picnics, but the camp seemed as good a place as any to start. Caleb placed his bare hand flat on the ground and whispered,
“Zoek.”
His power went seeking through the parched soil, finding dry roots that shriveled away from his touch, scuttling bugs taking shelter deep within the earth and a small warren of hardy prairie rabbits that had denned up against the heat of the day.

He followed the pulse outward as far as he could, until it dissipated into nothing. Nowhere did he detect the nullifying effects of the white chalky stone. “Ernst, I'm going to try another one. Be on the lookout for fires, all right?”

“Will do.”

Caleb took a deep breath, gathering up as much power as he dared use in such a tinder-dry clime. It pulsed out through his palm and into the soil, an ever-widening circle of sensation, the obstacles in its path reflecting back to Caleb in blue afterimages behind his eyelids. Rocks, plants, animals, insects at varying distances. A small stream, deep within the earth to the north, burbling its way from somewhere even farther without ever breaking the surface. And almost directly to the west of his position, a large circle of nothingness, a void that his power found and spread around but could not touch or read.

His eyes sprang open. That hadn't been nullstone, which would have absorbed and swallowed the seeking pulse. Something—or someone—was trying to hide their presence from him. “Ernst, three hundred yards to the west. It might be the family that belongs here, so go gentle.”

The jackalope blinked out without being asked, and Caleb ran to catch up. The tall grasses sliced at the backs of his bare hands, and he was disturbingly reminded of his dream, riding a horse through this very same prairie.

They obviously heard him coming. By the time he was even close, he could hear the mother calling out in their language, frantically herding her children away. “Wait! Wait! I won't hurt you!” Where the hell was Ernst when he needed him?

The woman was trying to run with her daughter on her hip, pulling her son along by one hand as fast as they could go in the tall grass. With his long strides, Caleb caught up easily, but when he reached to stop her, the boy whirled with a knife in his small hand, swiping at the Peacemaker.

“Whoa!” He jumped back, just in time to avoid the rough blade, and held his hands up to show they were empty. “Easy, son. I'm not going to hurt you. Please, you don't have to run from me.”

The child obviously did not believe him, and still facing down the man twice his size, he said something to his mother.
He told her to take the girl and run. He's going to slow me down so they can get away.
Caleb knew it from the look in the boy's eyes, a grim determination that should never be on the face of one so young. “Ernst . . . I could use some help here. . . .”

The little jackalope popped into view, grumbling to himself. “I'm coming, I'm coming. Tell me to go somewhere, then take off running. . . It's hard to keep up!” The Indian boy's dark eyes grew very wide, and he called something to his mother. The woman returned warily, torn between watching the jackalope and keeping her eyes on the large man her son was menacing. She finally settled on looking at Ernst, asking him something in her own language.

“Can you understand them, Ernst?”

The familiar took a few cautious steps forward and seemed relieved that the Indian family didn't bolt. “Not so much. I may know a way, but it's going to be very taxing.”

The Indian woman looked at Caleb this time, asking the same question as before. He held up one hand, imploring her to wait. “This better work, Ernst.”

“Hold on to your hat,” the familiar mumbled, and hunkered down into a little brown ball of fur on the ground.

For a long moment, nothing visible happened. The humans present exchanged puzzled glances, all of them uncomfortable, but none yet willing to flee the scene entirely. Caleb tried to offer the woman a small smile, but she only watched him, her body tensed to bolt at the first untoward move on his part.

The boy exclaimed suddenly, pointing at Ernst.

The furry little form was growing transparent as Caleb watched, the dry grass behind him visible right through his body. “Ernst? Is this supposed to happen?”

Suddenly, the Indian woman pointed with a gasp to their right. There, huddled in the grass, was Ernst. Or, at least it was another jackalope, as transparent as Caleb's familiar. Both the creatures shivered in unison, and raised their heads to speak.

“I can't keep this up for long. Being in two places at once is difficult,” the leftmost jackalope informed them in English, while the one on the right parroted the words in the other language.